Apr. 15, 2026 Meeting of the Environmental Planning Commission

Video

Transcript

Segment 1

[00:01:51] Chair Alex Nuñez: All right, good evening everyone and happy tax day to all watching. I hope you have had time to file. Welcome to the Environmental Planning Commission meeting of April 15th, 2026. I will now call the order—the meeting to order at 7:00 PM. For those joining us in person, please note that due to our hybrid environment, audio and video presentations can no longer be shared from the lectern.

[00:02:13] Chair Alex Nuñez: Requests to show an audio or video presentation during a meeting should be directed to EPC@mountainview.gov by 4:30 PM on the meeting day. Additionally, due to our hybrid environment, we will no longer have speakers line up to speak on an item. Anyone wishing to address the EPC in person must complete a yellow speaker card. Please indicate the name you would like to be called by when it is your turn to speak and the item number on which you wish to speak.

[00:02:38] Chair Alex Nuñez: Please complete one yellow speaker card for each item on which you wish to speak and turn them in to the EPC clerk as soon as possible, but no later than the call for public comment on the item you are speaking on. Instructions for addressing the commission virtually may be found on the posted agenda. Now, I will ask the EPC clerk to proceed with the roll call. Ms. Clerk.

[00:02:59] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Commissioner Subramanian?

[00:03:00] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Here.

[00:03:01] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Commissioner Pham?

[00:03:02] Commissioner Tina Pham: Here.

[00:03:03] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Commissioner Gutierrez?

[00:03:04] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Here.

[00:03:05] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Commissioner Dempsey? Commissioner Cranston?

[00:03:09] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Here.

[00:03:10] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Chair Donahue?

[00:03:12] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Here.

[00:03:13] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Chair Nunez?

[00:03:14] Chair Alex Nuñez: Uh, here.

[00:03:15] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Six commissioners are present. Commissioner Dempsey is absent.

[00:03:20] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay, thank you very much. Uh, I will now, uh, move us to item number three, minutes approval. Uh, 3.1, item 3.1, the Environmental Planning Commission meeting minutes of January 7th, 2026. Is there any discussion from the EPC on the minutes on 3.1? No, seeing none, I will move this to public comment.

[00:03:45] Chair Alex Nuñez: If anyone in attendance would like to provide comments to the minutes, please fill out a yellow speaker card and provide it to the EPC clerk. If anyone on Zoom would like to provide comment on the minutes, please click the raise hand button on Zoom—in Zoom or press star nine on your phone. Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with star six.

[00:04:03] Chair Alex Nuñez: Uh, Ms. Clerk, do we have anyone on the Zoom line or having submitted a yellow speaker card?

[00:04:10] City Clerk Heather Glaser: No speakers on this item.

[00:04:14] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay, then in that case, uh, I'll go ahead and looks like Commissioner Gutierrez, do you have a comment or would you like to make a motion or...

[00:04:21] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: I'd like to make a motion, so moved.

[00:04:23] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay, uh, we have a motion. Anyone would like to second the motion to approve the Environmental Planning Commission minutes of January 7th, 2026?

[00:04:30] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: I'll second.

[00:04:32] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay, we have a second from Vice Chair Donahue. Ms. Clerk, can we take this to vote?

[00:05:14] City Clerk Heather Glaser: The motion passes six, all in favor.

[00:05:18] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you. All right. Uh, we will now proceed to item number four, oral communications. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the EPC on any matter not in the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for up to three minutes during this section. State law prohibits the commission from acting on non-agenda items.

[00:05:39] Chair Alex Nuñez: If anyone in attendance would like to provide comments on non-agenda items, please fill out a yellow speaker card and provide it to the EPC clerk. If anyone on Zoom would like to provide a comment on non-agenda items, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone. Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with star six. Ms. Clerk, do we have any yellow speaker cards or, uh, raised hands in the queue on Zoom?

[00:06:06] City Clerk Heather Glaser: No speakers for this item.

[00:06:09] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. Sounds good. Perfect. We will, uh, proceed then to our public hearing, uh, item 5.1, amendments to chapter 36, zoning of the city code to allow streamlined administrative approval for housing development projects utilizing Assembly Bill 130 and other minor updates.

[00:06:26] Chair Alex Nuñez: We will first have a staff presentation, then questions by the EPC, followed by public comment. At the closure of public comment, the commission will then deliberate and take action. So we'll begin with a staff presentation from our principal planner, Ms. Diana Pancholi and planning manager, Mr. Eric Anderson. Thank you.

[00:06:44] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Good evening Chair and members of the commission. My name is Diana Pancholi, principal planner with the city's planning division, and I'm joined here tonight by planning manager Eric Anderson. Tonight, staff is presenting code amendments to chapter 36 zoning of the city code to allow streamlined approval process for qualifying housing development projects utilizing Assembly Bill AB 130 and other minor updates.

[00:07:10] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: AB 130, which became effective in June of 2025, creates a new statutory exemption from California Environmental Quality Act, CEQA, for qualifying housing projects and significantly changes the city's review timelines. In light of these stringent timelines and the limitation on city's discretion, council at their January 27 study session earlier this year directed staff to prepare amendments to the chapter 36 zoning to allow staff-level approval of projects eligible of the AB 130 streamlined CEQA review without requiring a public hearing.

[00:07:49] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Such streamlined approval process also recognizes the city's obligation under state law to comply with accelerated project approval timelines and ensures the city can meet its timing obligation in all cases. Under city's current review process, several projects require administrative zoning or Environmental Planning Commission, EPC, and city council hearings.

[00:08:14] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Reliance on any public hearing processes, especially an EPC or a city council hearing, could jeopardize the city's ability to act on qualifying—qualifying projects within the timelines required under AB 130. The proposed amendments additionally also support implementation of the city's housing element, specifically program 1.1, which ensures consistency with the state law and program 4.1b, which streamlines housing development review processes.

[00:08:45] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: To qualify for a AB 130 statutory exemption from CEQA, projects must satisfy certain criteria, including maximum acreage, consistency with applicable zoning and general plan standards, and minimum density. Table one in the staff report attached here presents a detailed list of these criterias. In the past six month, city has approved four projects utilizing this statutory CEQA exemption, and several projects are currently under review going through the CEQA process where applicant has expressed interest in utilizing this exemption.

[00:09:25] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: At the January 27th study session, uh, council directed staff to develop a ministerial process. While staff continues to work on a ministerial approval process for projects subject to the statutory exemption provided in AB 130, at this time, staff recommends adopting an administrative approval process due to several challenges associated with adopting a ministerial approval procedures within the time constraints of the current ordinance amendment process.

[00:09:59] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: An administrative approval process involves no public hearing, but it still includes the exercise of discretion where objective standards are not in place to enable a ministerial approval process. As per the proposed amendments, the projects will also have to meet the courtesy noticing requirement as directed by council at the January study session.

[00:10:20] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Once the project is deemed complete, staff will send a courtesy notice to neighbors within 750 foot informing them about the project under review and the public will have 10 days to provide input. Further amendments to update the alternate mitigation approval process to allow administrative approval for non-residential housing impact fees are proposed as part of the current code updates.

[00:10:45] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Additionally, city's current affordable housing program requires city council approval for an alternative mitigation BMR program. Changes to this requirement are proposed as part of separate code amendments and those were reviewed by EPC at the March 4th meeting. There are other minor code amendments which are also proposed, uh, tonight. These are in response to the council input and questions associated with the February 24th council hearing.

[00:11:11] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: These minor updates are specifically for city code compliance with several state legislation including Assembly Bill 752, State Bill 234, Assembly Bill 2162, and Assembly Bill 101. These minor code amendments include updating the residential and commercial zone land use table to add a residential accessory use category and rearranging relevant uses under it.

[00:11:43] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Adding a child-care center co-located with multi-family residential as an allowed use by right subject to the same development standards. Allow low-barrier navigation centers by right in commercial office zoning districts. Update standards for child-care facilities for consistency with the state law. Updating general plan mixed-use village center to reduce redundancy and update the definition of supportive and transitional housing to align with state regulations.

[00:12:10] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: After tonight's EPC review, staff will present EPC's recommendation on the proposed amendments along with other code amendments to other chapters of the city code to the city council at a public hearing tentatively scheduled for May 26th. This will be followed by a second reading in early June. If approved, it is anticipated the new updates would be effective in early July.

[00:12:37] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Additionally, these changes, if adopted, may precipitate text changes to various precise plans to ensure consistency with the zoning code. Staff will undertake this effort as resources and workload allows. So in conclusion, staff recommends that the EPC recommend to the city council to adopt an ordinance amending the city code chapter 36 and finds that these amendments are not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act. Thank you for your time.

[00:13:06] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Staff, including the community development director Murdock and assistant director Blezinski, are present here tonight to answer any questions.

[00:13:21] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. Thank you very much, Ms. Pancholi. We're going to take it to the commission for questions. So if anyone would like to, uh, ask any questions of staff, you can drop your name in the queue. Commissioner Cranston.

[00:13:42] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Staff is recommending this administrative process as opposed to a ministerial process. Does AB 130 require a ministerial process?

[00:13:54] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Planning manager Eric Anderson. Thanks for the question. Uh, AB 130 does not require any particular process. AB 130 is, uh, or the the part of AB 130 that we're we're, uh, working towards right now, uh, prescribes, uh, a CEQA process, and CEQA is is, uh, doesn't have any, uh, relationship to the approval process that a project goes through.

[00:14:30] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, yeah, so in fact we've we've taken several projects already through the process, uh, that have not been ministerial and they've been consistent with these provisions of AB 130.

[00:14:41] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. So so your belief is that this this proposal would be compliant with AB 130 when as soon as it's passed.

[00:14:52] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yes, we are bringing forward an ordinance that is in alignment with state law.

[00:14:59] Commissioner Bill Cranston: And then you there I think Ms. Pancholi said that changes for in precise plans and other areas would happen at some point, so there's no specific timeline for reviewing those to address the objective standards component of these?

[00:15:21] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: So there's, uh, kind of two—two issues going on here. The question is whether or not we're updating precise plans to address the need for objective standards. Uh, this particular ordinance is not related to the city's ongoing work to make our standards more objective.

[00:15:43] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: That is something that we're working on continuously, uh, to provide more clarity and more objectivity to our standards for all housing projects. Uh, that is an ongoing process. This is a procedural ordinance that's really just about who makes the call for approval of certain projects. Uh, and so, uh, yes, uh, the precise—the precise plans which do, uh, contain their own procedural sections, uh, will not address this circumstance.

[00:16:20] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: However, the zoning ordinance will, uh, the draft zoning ordinance language that you're reviewing does, uh, by its own language supersede the precise plans. Uh, we can add clarity and, uh, and ease of use to the precise plans on a case-by-case basis when we open them up for other, uh, amendments by, uh, adding references to this provision in the ordinance so that anybody reviewing the procedural requirements in precise plans will, uh, more easily know what their procedural, uh, process is.

[00:16:59] Commissioner Bill Cranston: And then one last related question. If I read the staff report right, the—the applicant would have the ability to say this one, whether it's general plan or zoning or precise plan, is less stringent and so I'm allowed to use that, is that am I read—did I understand that correctly? So the least stringent of any zoning requirement would be something that the developer could choose to use and that and they would that would be something that could be brought in front of the administrator person making the decision and they would have to accept that.

[00:17:38] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, general plan requirements tend to be much higher level in nature. Uh, the general plan requirements tend to be things like, uh, the floor area ratio and the dwelling units per acre. Uh, those are, uh, the—the zoning or precise plan standards tend to be the bulk of the standards that are actually reviewed, so there's very limited opportunity for inconsistency between the general plan standards and the zoning or precise plan standards.

[00:18:12] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, that is not to say that that doesn't exist in some cases in the city and that is another ongoing process that we have to clean those up and—and, uh, kind of make sure that there's perfect alignment between the general plan and—and our zoning documents.

[00:18:26] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, the—uh, I—I am not aware of and maybe, uh, the principal planner or the assistant director or director can weigh in on this, but, uh, I'm not aware of anything specifically in AB 130 that says under which cases the general plan or zoning would control. Uh, go ahead, Director Murdock.

[00:18:55] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Yeah, good evening Chair, Vice Chair, commissioners. Christian Murdock, community development director. Uh, Commissioner Cranston, I think you are probably referring to, uh, language on page three of the staff report in table one, where it describes, uh, the various requirements to qualify for AB 130.

[00:19:17] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: And in the, uh, section, uh, entitled plan/zoning consistency, there's the second bullet that reads as follows: if the zoning and general plan are not consistent with one another, a project shall be deemed consistent with both if the project is consistent with one.

[00:19:37] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: And so I don't know if it's exactly the case where we can read into that, you know, comply with the least stringent requirement. Uh, there could be instances where one is not necessarily more or less stringent but they're different. And so, uh, to not obstruct the ability of a project to proceed relying on the city's standards, if an applicant hits a point where there's an inconsistency, the applicant can choose one and continue to proceed and be found compliant for purposes of AB 130.

[00:20:10] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: So it's not exactly a more or less stringent, it's a—if there's a conflict, the applicant can choose one or the other and keep moving forward. Um, and to be clear, an important clarification in my mind is we're not proposing to put language in the ordinance about more or less stringent, it's language in the statute in state law related to AB 130 eligibility.

[00:20:41] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. Thank you and I wasn't suggesting you were. I—I put myself in that mind of a developer and say what can I get away with and so I look for the easiest thing. How does a precise plan tie to a zoning? Is it—is it precise plan zoning ordinance? Or—so which is—is it three categories if it's something that's in San Antonio and—or El Camino or East Whisman or is it just two?

[00:21:30] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Right. I think that's a great question and one, uh, that's a subject of discussion from time to time inside the community development department. Um, the precise plan is probably, uh, best to think of in terms of a specific plan as that term's used in—in state law, in state planning and zoning law. And it can have characteristics of both a general plan and a zoning standard.

[00:21:52] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: I'd say more often than not our precise plans in Mountain View are more like zoning in that they have prescriptive standards, they regulate uses in a very detailed way, and we most commonly think of them, um, along the lines of a zoning plan or set of zoning standards. And so in either case, whichever, um, might apply in a given circumstance, the language in AB 130 addresses those situations by talking about a general plan or zoning standard. And so whichever bucket it's in, uh, a conflict would be resolved, um, in accordance with those provisions.

[00:22:20] Commissioner Bill Cranston: And who is the decision maker on which one applies? Is that—I mean—is it—I didn't catch who is the administrative person the ZA or is it the staff member who's reviewing it? I mean—who decides which one applies in their case?

[00:22:34] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Right. I think there's a couple different contexts in which I have to answer that question. Generally, uh, the city code empowers the zoning administrator, which is currently Assistant Director Blezinski, um, who's designated to serve as the zoning administrator, to interpret the—the provisions of the zoning code.

[00:23:03] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Um, in the context of this ordinance that we're proposing tonight and the administrative approvals, I as the community development director would be empowered to make that determination for a specific project. And so I would very likely inquire with the zoning administrator sitting next to me here, uh, what's your interpretation, what's your practice, um, how best should I interpret this standard to apply it to this particular set of circumstances for this project. And so it's a combined effort, but ultimately for a project that would be my responsibility.

[00:23:45] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So if the person getting sued is likely to be you if they don't like the answer.

[00:23:52] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Well, I defer to the, uh, senior assistant city attorney about that question, but in general the city is sued, um, not necessarily the individual making this decision.

[00:24:05] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. I'm questioned out.

[00:25:12] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. Commissioner Pham.

[00:25:13] Commissioner Tina Pham: So my first question I think Commissioner Cranston asked about objective standards and the approval framework, so thanks for asking that one. Um, I had a question about the courtesy public notice that, uh, city council requested, um, and I generally think it's a great idea and I had questions about how it was to be implemented.

[00:25:35] Commissioner Tina Pham: I know some of the text says that comments could be received and could lead to project modifications, um, but I wanted to understand in practice or the process of how the applicant may receive those comments and what they may be required to do with them.

[00:25:51] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, we expect that in the vast majority of cases, comments will simply be advisory to an applicant. Uh, you know, we—we think you should do this or, uh, you know, consider this and if they don't want to they don't have to in the vast majority of cases.

[00:26:15] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, we are, uh, presenting this option, this courtesy notice, uh, as a—as a part of the proposed process in order to, uh, uh, take account of those occasional instances where staff not being perfect may not have caught everything that, uh, may come up.

[00:26:35] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: And in those instances, we wanted to make sure that this courtesy notice was in, uh, alignment with the, uh, consistency review period, uh, as required under AB 130, so that if there are any issues that are identified by the public that impinge on their, uh, compliance with standards or the code, that, uh, we could, uh, be aware of that and—and inform the applicant in a timely fashion.

[00:27:10] Commissioner Tina Pham: Got it. Um, follow-up question to that then. Um, is the applicant required to—or could the city require the applicant to—at least give a formal response to each comment saying that they received it or any sort of response to each comment?

[00:27:30] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Um, we would not be able to require that, uh, under our kind of codes and and submittal requirements. Uh, you know, that's, um, the staff can absolutely inform the—the applicant, uh, but requiring them to provide some kind of message that they would come up with is not, uh, a standard that would, um, kind of be objective or or meet the other requirements of state law.

[00:28:03] Commissioner Tina Pham: Got it. Okay. Um, next question I had was related to tribal notifications. Um, just curious about that process and in general how many tribes are notified, uh, what's that practice generally like for staff, do we get responses, um, just to understand more about what's done there.

[00:28:23] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Sure. Uh, so typically we do need to reach out to a state agency in order to get the latest list of, uh, tribes that we do need to notify. Uh, that list I think has 10 or 12 different tribes on it at this time. Uh, so we have, uh, contacts with those 10 or 12 different tribes roughly. Uh, uh, don't quote me on the exact number but that's about the number.

[00:28:53] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, and then, uh, we send them both emails and, uh, certified letters. Uh, typically we get responses from, um, one to three or four of them on any given project. Uh, so, um, they do request meetings and so at those meetings we discuss the characteristics of the projects, any concerns that they might have about, uh, the project or, uh, what might be found on the site if—with any excavation, um, and any request that they might have for kind of special, uh, processes that the developer might need to go through to ensure that the, uh, the work is done sensitively for anything that they might potentially find.

[00:29:43] Commissioner Tina Pham: Okay. Uh, in a related question, I noticed that some of the response periods for the tribes, I think it says within 60 days, the consultation must conclude within 45 days and could be extended 15 days. It seems to me not to jibe with the 30-day review period. Um, so in an instance—if it—in certain instances if the tribes get back to the city after the 30 days, how would that work with the approval of the project?

[00:30:54] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, so there is a—after completeness, we have either 30 or 60 days to determine compliance depending on the size of the project. That is the, uh, same time period as the tribal notification, and then the 30-day approval is after the later of the conclusion of the tribal consultation or consistency review.

[00:31:25] Commissioner Tina Pham: Got it. Okay. Thanks. That was helpful to understand. Um, that's all my questions.

[00:31:31] Chair Alex Nuñez: Vice Chair Donahue.

[00:31:32] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: So following up on that, the—after 30 days after consistency review, so if it's found to be inconsistent and then they make some tweaks to—to make it consistent, then the 30-day clock begins?

[00:31:45] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, no, the 30-day clock is after the consistency review. If they—if we find the project to be inconsistent, we would need to either approve the project with conditions or deny within those 30 days.

[00:32:05] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: And then the—I mean the applicant would presumably make some changes and come back and then how does the clock work in that situation?

[00:32:15] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Well, they would have to address any conditions, uh, through the building permit process, uh, rather than through a new planning permit process. Uh, if the project is denied, they'd have to submit a new application.

[00:32:31] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Okay. But if—if you say it's—it's inconsistent because the—the setback needs to be one foot further back or some—something like that and they just say, oh, okay, no problem, I don't know, um, and they submit new plans with the building moved, um, it starts the entire clock from the very beginning again?

[00:32:59] Assistant Community Development Director Amber Blezinski: No. So, I'll take on that part. So, um, Amber Blezinski, assistant community development director. Um, the—so the way that we handle these projects is that we're really proactive with the consistency analysis from the very beginning. So the very first 30 day cycle, um, completeness cycle, we're, um, already highlighting anything that could be inconsistent early.

[00:33:28] Assistant Community Development Director Amber Blezinski: So by the time we get to the completeness and then that actual consistency period, the applicant has had a lot or, you know, time to absorb what we've said is inconsistent, they've hope they've hopefully already updated their plans or updated their density bonus letter. It's very—it's pretty rare that we get to a point where we have to condition a project to be consistent.

[00:33:55] Assistant Community Development Director Amber Blezinski: Uh, we did have to do that on a few conditions on one of the AB 130 projects, and I honestly just can't remember which one, there's been so many lately. Um, but it's pretty rare that we get into that situation. But it doesn't restart the clock, we only ever have like that last 30 days.

[00:34:15] Assistant Community Development Director Amber Blezinski: It's kind of—you know—it's pretty—this is why it's hard to get to the hearings because we really only have that time period and if things are changing, if somebody did have something that was still inconsistent and they wanted to fix it, I think this more administrative process would allow us to maybe do that and work with them before getting here, but when we're preparing all the documents to bring a project to a hearing that act—you know—we—we have to be finished a lot earlier than—than the hearing.

[00:34:48] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Okay. Yeah. That—that makes sense. I mean—practically speaking is different than, you know, technically something might happen but practically it wouldn't happen. Okay. Um, also AB 130, uh, says that the site can't be located on a hazardous waste site pursuant to some code. Um, is that like a superfund site like MEW or something like that?

[00:35:30] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: It's very prescriptive. So it prescribes exactly what list of sites the—the property can't be on. Sometimes that includes superfund sites, sometimes superfund sites are not on that list. Uh, but it—it it's very prescriptive.

[00:35:49] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Okay. I think we talked about that a couple meetings ago. Okay. Sounds familiar. Um, and as far as—so the council said, uh, to use a ministerial process and you're proposing an administrative one. Um, at the council meeting, I was at the council meeting but I don't remember specifically what was said.

[00:36:11] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: The—I assume that the—you didn't say we could have it ministerial or administrative and then the council said we choose that, so you're not kind of overriding the council intent? This is really following what they—you believe—that they intended.

[00:36:31] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Uh, that's correct. I don't recall us offering an either-or option. Um, what we put forward was a ministerial recommendation, a proposal for ministerial process, which for the public means a process that's—involves no discretion and is either the project complies or doesn't with the various standards and there's, you know, no judgment required or no discretion in—in interpreting the regulation.

[00:37:06] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Um, that is very much where we want to end up, uh, for a variety of reasons. Um, the key issue that this ordinance is intended to address was I think clearly communicated to the council, which is that a process that involved public hearings at a decision-making body like the Environmental Planning Commission and city council in the cases of many projects, uh, is not tenable within the compressed timelines.

[00:37:41] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: So, um, I don't feel like we're—we're bringing something that's inconsistent with what the council directed. We cannot at this time carry out their direction, we ultimately will, um, and for now we're achieving the vast majority of the sort of critical policy need here, which is addressing the process and the timelines because, as a reminder, failure to act within that 30-day determination period, excuse me, results in the project being deemed approved with no further action from the developer, no do-overs, no mulligans, no anything for the city other than the project as the applicant proposed it is now deemed approved. And so there's a lot of risk to the city and that's why this ordinance would address that risk, um, which is paramount.

[00:38:21] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Okay. That's basically my recollection but I didn't remember specifically what was said so. Um, good. Thank you.

[00:38:29] Chair Alex Nuñez: Commissioner Subramanian.

[00:38:31] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you Chair. Um, so following on the lines of the question that Commissioner Donahue posed, uh, what I took away from the staff report is that, um, you're working out a lot of the discretionary standards to get to this path of a fully ministerial process.

[00:38:51] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Um, could you talk a little bit about what that work involves and what your anticipation of timeline is to get to a full ministerial process? And can I just add on to that? So the dates that you described, Ms. Pancholi, that is to enact the changes to, um, to enact the ordinance so the changes to the zoning chapter are in place, right?

[00:39:21] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Is that also to put in place the administrative process that you're proposing as sort of the interim to get to the full ministerial? Or is the administrative process already underway which seems to be the case for some AB 130?

[00:39:41] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: So when this ordinance is brought to the council for adoption in May and June, uh, that will, uh, when it becomes in effect in July, at that point staff can start to approve projects through this—through this ordinance process. We can't do it until the ordinance is in effect, uh, in—in early July tentatively.

[00:40:08] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Um, so you ask what's the timeline, uh, for kind of creating an all ministerial process. Uh, I don't think that we can know the answer to that right now. Uh, every time we open the code, it seems like there's something else that we find that was written under the assumption that staff or some decision-making body will have discretion.

[00:40:34] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: So that process will ultimately be like finding objective standards, it's going to be an ongoing process. Uh, and so, uh, at some point I think we need to kind of get an understanding of what the—the most of those—that language is that needs to be changed before we can give a—an idea of how long it would take to actually make those changes.

[00:40:51] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: And I would just add, um, amplifying the work that's already underway and that's being talked about more and more, the council work plan item to develop objective design standards. It's part of this broader effort to put in place the full range of objective standards for development review.

[00:41:11] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Um, that work will be aided significantly by the completion of the R3 multi-family zoning update, uh, later this year. And that will be a critical launch point to then fill in the remainder of the standards, but the R3 zoning for the vast majority of project types that are relevant in this context, um, will do very much to help us have a—a deep bench or a long list of objective standards that will further this effort towards a ministerial process.

[00:41:51] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you for the—for those clarifications. So does that mean that under the administrative process until such time we get to a full ministerial process, uh, that there will be a lot of approval discretionary approval of, um, non-objective standards that are being addressed through projects and who's the authority that's sort of deciding that?

[00:42:31] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: So state law does say that we cannot enforce non-objective standards. Um, but I think the—the real opportunity that still exists that we would need to work out a—kind of an alternative to—is the flexibility that exists in certain circumstances for staff to actually be able to waive certain standards.

[00:42:57] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, and in that case, staff isn't actually acting, um, completely without, uh, a rudder, right? Staff is acting based on the stated goals and objectives of whatever planning document that they're working out of.

[00:43:13] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: That's why precise plans are the primary place where staff is empowered or the approval body is empowered to make exceptions to development standards because there's so much additional language in precise plans to kind of guide the vision and goals and policies. So we have more information about under what circumstances waiving a standard would be appropriate.

[00:43:37] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, so, uh, finding those opportunities for, uh, for, uh, kind of reducing those standards, um, is, uh, a process that's undertaken between the staff and the developer and ultimately needs to be justified by language in whatever planning document we are working out of.

[00:44:00] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: And I would just add, uh, understandably the commissioners are thinking a lot about zoning type standards that relate to the built form of these projects. There are some other, if you will, peripheral elements that just don't have an objective path for approval of certain exceptions like the below market rate ordinance, the privately owned publicly accessible open space and certain others.

[00:44:28] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: And so until we are able to do further work on those to have some sort of objectivity designed in in the primary and the alternate or exceptions mechanisms, some discretion will continue to be required even though it's not essentially the core project in terms of built-form development standards.

[00:44:53] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: But ultimately in the spirit of what the state law is trying to push towards, uh, does it mean that the applicant still has the flexibility to either go with the recommendations of staff in adherence to the larger goals or ignore it all and kind of, um, you know, fall back on what works best for their design?

Segment 2

[00:45:00] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: the development process. So that's one way, another way would be to sign up for notifications about particular development projects, that is a process that we have available on our website. And then lastly we have a noticing process in the ordinance itself, so if you live within 750 feet of these properties you will be notified about the impending decision.

Segment 1

[00:45:26] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Um, I think when we are talking about what—what is likely to happen under these, uh, ordinance amendments, there's really kind of three different ways that you might think about how an applicant is going to comply or not with development standards.

Segment 2

[00:45:31] Assistant Community Development Director Amber Blezinski: And then just to add on the development update, so we are eventually, hopefully in the very near future, going to be turning that development update document into a map. So that will live on the same page, but instead of publishing this document which is pretty time-consuming we will, the map will pull data from like our systems. So we're working on that, it's... we had hoped to get it out this month, we ran into a few holdups but hopefully by the summer.

Segment 1

[00:45:48] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The first way is they're just going to comply with the standard. Straightforward, it's an objective standard, they're going to meet the standard. The second way is through, uh, they might receive exceptions or waivers through state density bonus.

Segment 2

[00:46:05] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Great. See, this is why we ask questions because this is good to know, right? And then the final question, to the city attorney. Legally I assume that we're fine, I want to hear that from the city attorney, and I also want to hear whether or not you think this places us in any legal jeopardy at all, which I don't think it will but I want to hear it from you.

Segment 1

[00:46:08] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: And that gives them a lot of latitude to say this standard isn't working for my project, I am going to request a waiver of this standard. There's some limitations to that under state law and elsewhere. Um, and under that scenario, uh, giving staff the discretion to say, well, this is how this objective standard is written, but you're proposing something that furthers the goals of the planning document that we're implementing and so it actually makes more sense to do it the way the developer wants to do it than to adhere strictly to the objective standard in the planning document.

Segment 2

[00:46:25] Senior Assistant City Attorney Celena Chen: So we've worked closely with planning staff and we believe that this direction from council and staff's implementation of the direction is in compliance with AB 130.

[00:46:39] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Thank you very much. Those are my questions.

[00:46:41] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you, Commissioner. We're going to go to Vice Chair Donahue.

Segment 1

[00:46:46] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: So those are three kind of likely scenarios that may result. Uh, the last case really does require that staff discretion to weigh the goals of the planning document against what the developer is proposing.

Segment 2

[00:46:46] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: I had a follow-up to Commissioner Subramanian's question. The goal is to move from an administrative process to a ministerial process, but then you said that if it furthers something further the goals of the plan, like a precise plan or something like that, that staff under the administrative process is empowered to waive certain requirements. Even if we had 100% objective standards, would that ever change? Would we ever not be in a position where we might want to waive things?

Segment 1

[00:47:04] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you. That was very helpful.

Segment 2

[00:47:34] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: It's an important point. I think, you know, some entities put out there the ministerial process as the be-all-end-all of development review, and there are many advantages particularly for the developers, but also for staff where you comply or you don't and it takes out some of the judgment and some of the criticism of the process. However, ministerial processes and standards can have the effect of limiting flexibility and discretion, and it's... it's challenging, I won't say impossible, but it's more challenging in a ministerial regulatory framework to provide flexibility and to provide alternatives and options of meeting unique circumstances and contexts. It's binary in many respects, you comply with what we've told you to do or you don't. There's not often a third way of figuring out something that might make more sense in that unique circumstance, but it's hard to write that into a code in a one-size-fits-all way. So you'll see sometimes in ministerial standards where we don't just say, you know, your lot coverage is X percentage, we might say for a lot size of, you know, this many square feet it's this percentage, in a larger one it's a different percentage, trying to provide some adaptation and context sensitivity to an otherwise objective standard, but it's very hard to account for all of those potential circumstances and that is very likely one of the trade-offs of getting to a fully ministerial process.

[00:49:03] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: And the administrative process is to the developer's advantage it sounds like because the flexibility is more of waiving things as opposed to adding additional constraints, which it sounds like state law wouldn't allow us to do anyway.

[00:49:14] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: I think it's an interesting perspective. I think there are many benefits to the applicant from an administrative process. You sort of get the time savings of not having a public hearing process with some of the flexibility that can come from a discretionary process, but that cuts both ways, it can result in the city and the community getting a better project as well when some discretion can be used to achieve a preferable outcome. So I wouldn't say it's universally a developer advantage, but there are certainly many benefits that accrue to the applicant or the developer.

[00:49:49] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: That's what I meant. I didn't mean that it's only the developer's advantage, but in general being able to waive things because the developer might or applicant might choose not to waive things and they wouldn't be forced to do that or whatever.

[00:50:05] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Yeah, I think I would characterize it as offering flexibility or alternatives. In some cases, you know, it might be relieving a standard, but in other cases again, like I said earlier, doing it differently, right? And so it's not as though we're making it easier or cutting the standards or cutting corners, we're doing something in a different way that achieves the spirit and intent, but maybe not with the strict, you know, by the letter of the law requirement in the first instance.

[00:50:31] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Okay, but always keeping the community in mind as really kind of...

[00:50:34] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Absolutely, it's one of the very important, you know, factors that, you know, if I'm imagining me in this role if the ordinance is passed by the City Council, certainly thinking about what's in the best interests of the community and where discretion can be used to achieve that while remaining mindful of the many limitations in state law and the legal framework on acting on these kinds of housing projects, which the Commission, you know, has confronted in many instances where you want to do something but you simply cannot because of the legal limitations on discretion, compliance with objective standards and the like.

[00:51:06] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Great. Thanks.

[00:51:08] Chair Alex Nuñez: Commissioner Cranston.

[00:51:09] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So I want to clarify something that I thought I heard the Director say. In the Council meeting, they, you guys proposed developing this process and the term ministerial was used at the time. Through evaluation, you've come back and said this process would be what we'd recommend. You are not recommending through this document or in any other way that a ministerial process would be put in place separately or beyond this, and that the method of improving the, reducing the discretion in the administrative process is not related to this document but would be through the addressing the standards in the precise plans and other areas. That there is no... my read of this is that there's nothing in this that says we will work towards a 100% ministerial process if we adopt this. That's what I thought I heard, but a couple Commissioners have said the goal is still a ministerial process. I did not hear that. Is that the case?

[00:52:11] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Well, the Council's direction was to prepare an ordinance and a process that was ministerial in nature. Our work has concluded we cannot do that, at least in a way that we would recommend as staff. I think the only way we would be able to bring forward a ministerial process at this time would be to peel back many elements of our standards and certainly the exceptions processes that are in various places in precise plans and in the below-market-rate housing and in other requirements. So I think in theory we probably could prepare an ordinance that would allow ministerial review, I don't think anybody would want that at this time and we would want to take the opportunity to do further work and fill in that framework of objective standards that allows us to have much better outcomes when we get to a ministerial process.

[00:52:59] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay, so Council could say we don't agree, come back with that, but you're not proposing that in this document.

[00:53:06] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: That's correct, we've proposed what we think we can put in place and would recommend moving forward with at this time.

[00:53:12] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Right, because I'm hearing something different from the Commissioners.

[00:53:17] Chair Alex Nuñez: Any other questions from the Commission? I guess I... my only question, I can understand pragmatically like why the administrative proposal is being put forward and I appreciate Mr. Anderson's commentary around the yarn ball nature of the code and finding new threads to pull on can be maddening. I guess I am definitely just kind of curious as to like, you know, given some of the commentary here, you know what comes to my mind is is it really that difficult, and I'm not trying to be... I'm genuinely asking because I'm of the less informed you know from relative to staff's side, but is it really that difficult to attempt to provide some sort of time frame or even like a time frame for a time frame of just kind of like assurance around what that ministerial target would look like? That's my main question because I'm also concerned around the Council direction and the lack... like I can appreciate why the administrative is where staff is coming from but I'm also very concerned about the lack of like more formal acknowledgment in the current proposal. So I guess I don't know who would probably take that on but...

[00:54:55] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Sure, I think, you know, I share your concern that we have not been able to fully carry out the Council's direction in the way that they directed staff. That is the reality of doing policy work that sometimes when you get into the work you find other aspects that you hadn't anticipated and you have to find how to work through or beyond or around those issues. I think the best timeline I can give is is not in the near term but probably, you know, sometime beyond 2026 at this point. As I mentioned earlier, completion of the R3 zoning update will go a long way to filling in a broader framework of objective standards that allow high-quality development review outcomes, but that won't address everything that needs to be done to I think have a really durable and rigorous ministerial review process with an appropriate range of standards. But that's a critical and a very major step that will move this process forward. Beyond that, as we mentioned, there are other non-zoning type ordinances, or at least non-traditional development standard ordinances that also need thoughtful treatment and we have not yet programmed or put a timeline in place to amend those ordinances to achieve a ministerial process.

[00:56:13] Chair Alex Nuñez: Yeah, I appreciate that, and especially just because as noted pragmatically speaking I understand the proposal of being administrative in nature, I think on the other end pragmatically speaking having even if it's like kind of as you mentioned right now, 'Hey, it's beyond 2026, here's events or milestones that will add clarity to that such as the R3 project being completed, etc., etc.,' and earliest projection we can give is as noted right now beyond 2026, even that felt a little more clear than in the staff report. So for whatever that's worth I'll just kind of toss that out as a consideration and maybe you know in terms of like my fellow Commissioners just kind of having that in mind as well. But that is a comment and I've veered into commentary. And speaking of comments we will... oh, do we have a question or no? Okay. Do you want to wait for the comments? Because I'm totally flubbed on that. We'll go to public comment, speaking of comment. So if anyone in attendance would like to provide comments on this item, please do fill out a yellow speaker card and provide it to the EPC Clerk. If anyone on Zoom would like to provide comment on this item, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone. Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with star six. I'll ask our Commission Clerk if there's any yellow speaker cards or attendees with raised hands in Zoom.

[00:57:44] City Clerk Heather Glaser: No speakers at this time.

[00:57:48] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. Commissioner Gutiérrez, you are first in line for EPC deliberation action in that case, so we'll take your comments now.

[00:57:56] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Great. So I get why this is being presented to the EPC. I appreciate the work behind all this. Totally get and understand why it is that this was brought up by the City Council, and in terms from a policy perspective I'm happy that there was some initiation and proactiveness to try and get this or these items moved along. When you look at efficiency and productivity this is something that you have to address one way or another so that you can speed up the process, especially when you know that a project is already in compliance or is basically 90% already there. And if they're not going to meet the timelines because it just doesn't fit their needs to come to us or to other bodies for XYZ types of approval then why not have this type of process? Makes total sense. Why it wasn't done before, I don't know, I don't really care, all I know is that you brought it forward now and I appreciate that type of mentality and hopefully that's the same mindset you'll have for other issues that come up that affect the EPC and to deliver the process to further along just the process of development as a whole. We all know that up to a point developers have a large say of what they want to do and they have a lot of leeway of what they can do, and whatever we have that are suggestions they're very limited, but as long as we can get this process moving forward with actual development that gives us a chance to meet our housing element goals that we've established with the State of California and we're not losing sight of that either, right? So when we look at it from that vantage point, that totality of perspective, I get what you're saying, so I'll be voting in favor of that. Thank you.

[00:59:23] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you, Commissioner Gutiérrez. Commissioner Subramanian.

[00:59:26] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you, Chair. I have a few comments on just edits to text in the ordinance and clarification. So on page nine under the commercial district land uses where it talks about clarifying childcare center not co-located with multifamily developments, and in the later table on page 12 allows for childcare centers co-located with multifamily developments by right. I think it... so if you go into the first section where it mentions it on page nine, it would probably help just to clarify that those are... that's the category where it's not co-located because later on it talks about ones that are co-located, so just a clarification to make it explicitly clear. That was one comment. And then the second one is sort of question-comment. There is small animal keeping which appears both under agricultural uses as well as accessory uses in the residential district. Is there a distinction and do we need both?

[01:01:00] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: We can look into that but I believe that was part of the previous round of code amendments which came forward as part of the small business updates, but that might... we will look into that. Thank you for pointing it out.

[01:01:17] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: And then the last question is on under the... in the footnote on page 14 under other uses, what is the reference to supportive housing that doesn't meet the requirements of Government Code Section 65650? So there's one piece where it talks about meets the code and then there's the category that doesn't meet it. Could you clarify what that is?

[01:01:49] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, so the... that provision of state law sets more specific operational requirements for supportive housing that has to be by right if this... if those supportive housing developments comply with those very specific operational requirements. There's a more general definition of supportive housing which we are maintaining the current review process as applicable for residential for residential uses. So under state law there's kind of this this layering of provisions, right? We have to consider it a residential use and we can't apply any different resident... different permitting processes. But if residential is typically a conditional use permit then that supportive housing would typically be a conditional use permit. Um, but this very specific provision of state law says that if a supportive housing development has these very specific criteria then that has to be by right.

[01:02:59] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Understood.

[01:03:01] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Chair, if we could just have a moment as staff to address the comment about small animal keeping. Just from my assessment of Commissioner Subramanian's comment, it looks like it was originally listed in agricultural category within the R- the residential zoning table but is also now shown as added into the accessory uses table without deleting from the agricultural listed use. So I just want to confirm with staff, we might recommend deleting the small animal keeping from the agricultural category given Section 36.12.55G lists it in an accessory use capacity and that would be an amendment that the Commission could recommend if there's a majority and if that is confirmed by staff.

[01:03:51] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: I believe that was the original intent and and we may have just as a typo forgotten to strike it through on this version in that in that part of the table.

[01:04:04] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you for clarifying that.

[01:04:07] Chair Alex Nuñez: Quick question, would a typo require that to be in the motion or is that kind of like just de minimis?

[01:04:15] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: I think on balance it'd be better for that to be part of the recommendation to complete the strikethrough of small animal keeping to carry it into the accessory use category as intended.

[01:04:26] Chair Alex Nuñez: Perfect. All right. The more we can say small animal keeping I think will liven things up. Okay. Was that all your questions or do you have more? Do you have commentary on the item?

[01:04:35] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Yeah. I'll make a quick statement apart from those clarifications. Thank you for providing those answers. I generally want to state that I'm in agreement with the approach that staff has taken, I think it is a... it's a neat solution to sort of fit into the process we need at the moment to address projects that are coming through the AB 130 application. So I commend staff for the very quick response to Council's directive and I think this is a good solution and a good way to proceed. Thank you.

[01:05:10] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you, Commissioner Subramanian. Vice Chair Donahue.

[01:05:14] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: So my previous line of questioning was based on a different Commissioner also raising this administrative to ministerial kind of eventuality, but I'm comfortable with having the administrative process, I'm comfortable with allowing staff discretion understanding the the intent of of what's precise plans or whatever the the controlling document is, and I think that as I pointed out earlier I think that it's usually going to be to the development of the to the benefit of the developer anyway and the important thing is the staff will be keeping the community in mind, which is what we're concerned about. So in general I think that this is great. I'm also very happy to clean up small animal keeping, yeah, very important. So yeah, I'll be supporting it.

[01:06:32] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you. Any other commentary? Commissioner Pham, Commissioner Cranston? Do you have any small animals? No. All right, well in that case then I also support this. I won't belabor the timeline piece, I'll leave that to staff to consider the merits.

[01:07:04] Chair Alex Nuñez: But Commissioner Subramanian, would you like to make the motion and include the small animal keeping strikethrough? I'm down to second it, or unless Commissioner Gutiérrez do you have any commentary?

[01:07:05] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: No, I'll get the second then.

[01:07:08] Chair Alex Nuñez: All right, we got a second from Vice Chair- Commissioner Gutiérrez. Um, if staff has guidance or if on the strikethrough or otherwise, we can just let Commissioner Subramanian take a crack at it.

[01:07:36] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: That the Environmental Planning Commission recommend the City Council adopt an ordinance of the City of Mountain View amending Chapter 36 Zoning of the Mountain View City Code to authorize streamlined administrative approval of housing development projects that are statutorily exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to Public Resources Code Section 21080.66, and to make other minor modifications to Chapter 36 to align land uses in the residential and commercial zones with state laws, including the strike through to small animal keeping land use in residential use table under the agricultural use category, 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, Attachment 1 to the staff report.

[01:09:19] City Clerk Heather Glaser: The motion carries unanimously.

[01:09:25] Chair Alex Nuñez: Wonderful. Thank you very much. We will now proceed to item number 6.1, amend and add new sections to Article 10, transportation demand management of Chapter 19, motor vehicles and traffic of the Mountain View municipal code. We'll first have a staff presentation, then public comment, at the closure of public comment the Commission will then discuss the item including any questions. We'll begin with a staff presentation from transportation planner Ben Pacho and Assistant Public Works Director Allison Boyer. So yeah, we will go ahead and view that. Thank you.

[01:10:39] Assistant Public Works Director Allison Boyer: Good evening, my name is Allison Boyer, I'm the Assistant Public Works Director and with me I have Ben Pacho, our senior transportation planner. We're here to discuss the draft citywide transportation demand management or TDM ordinance. City Council identified the development of a transportation demand management ordinance as a strategic priority for fiscal years 2023 to 2025. It was identified as a priority as a result of the city's 2030 general plan, greenhouse gas reduction program, GGRP, sustainability action plan, SAP 4, and precise plans as well as the regional and state laws. To date, the city's approach to TDM spans a mix of project size and land use types. Over 27 entitled development projects in Mountain View have TDM requirements as part of their conditions of approval. These current TDM requirements include different targets and measures. The proposed ordinance aligns with existing policies, strategies and TDM standards and monitoring requirements. It ensures consistency with the MTA handbook, VMT screening and the city's greenhouse gas reduction program, while also standardizing trip reduction targets, the TDM planning process and monitoring and enforcement provisions. Reviewing the project's workflow, staff is currently in the project phase focused on developing the ordinance language, seen here in blue. Staff presented the project vision and goals to both BPAC and EPC in quarter four of 2023 where members voiced their support for the project's objectives. In quarter one of 2025 staff returned to BPAC and EPC to present the TDM policy framework that included trip reduction standards, reporting elements and enforcement provisions. CTC and City Council reviewed and supported the proposed framework in quarter two and three of 2025. Next steps will include finalizing the draft TDM program standards, TDM toolkit and staff will be presenting the TDM ordinance to Council for first and second readings in quarter two of 2026. Over the course of the project, staff has engaged key stakeholders and advisory bodies to gain a broad understanding of current practice with the TDM as well as how requirements can be further streamlined and made more effective under the ordinance. Key insights were gathered from Downtown Business Association and the TMA and one-on-one interviews were held with developers, employers, property managers and community members. Collectively the input gathered has been used to guide the direction of the project including its vision and goals and the TDM framework. So just to remind everyone, staff presented the project's vision to EPC in quarter four of 2023. The vision states that the TDM ordinance will seek to reduce single occupancy vehicle trips for new development and increase use of multimodal transportation alternatives that are sustainable, equitable, effective and respond to changing demands. The goal of this project as outlined at the bottom of the slide were informed by existing conditions analysis and stakeholder input. Tonight staff is here with the recommendation asking for the Environmental Planning Commission review and provide comments on the draft citywide transportation demand management TDM ordinance, Attachment 1 to the staff report, and draft TDM program standards, Attachment 2 to the staff report. Quick overview of the TDM. The new TDM ordinance will apply to all projects generating 200 or more net new average daily trips or ADT, including residential, commercial and mixed-use developments. Projects will have to demonstrate a plan to reduce projected ADT by 20 to 50 percent through the use of approved TDM strategies and maintain program management and annual reporting post-occupancy. The city will maintain records of annual project reports and any non-compliance may result in corrective action and or fines assessed by the city. At a high level, the TDM framework seeks to streamline and implement TDM requirements across the project's lifespan, from the entitlement phase to the post-occupancy phase. Moving from left to right, projects will be analyzed based on trip generation assumptions and estimated ADT using the city's VMT analysis, transportation impact studies and the multimodal analysis handbook. If proposed projects generate more than 200 average daily trips, they will be required to mitigate vehicle trips by adopting a TDM plan. Following one year post-occupancy, property owners will be required to submit annual TDM reports that show their compliance with ADT targets or face potential penalties assessed by the city. So who will be required to comply? All new development, modifications, change of use and expansions of existing sites generating 200 or more net new average daily trips will be required to comply. This will apply across all land uses: residential, commercial and mixed-use. There are however a couple exemptions: 100% affordable projects, very small projects or patron-driven projects with less than 100,000 square feet. Trip reduction targets will be determined by size. Projects are divided into three categories: small projects, 200 to 499 ADTs; medium projects, 500 to 999 ADTs; and large projects, anything over 1,000 ADT. Projects will be required to implement TDM strategies that reduce ADT to the following levels: 30 percent for small, 40 for medium and 50 for large projects. TOD or transit-oriented design projects will have reduction target levels of 20, 30 and 40 percent respectively. These thresholds were informed by city's existing precise plan targets as well as case studies to similar TDM programs in San Francisco, San Mateo County, Redwood City and the City of San Jose. Prior to entitlement, prospective applicants will be required to submit a TDM plan for city review. Specifics of the TDM plan will then be included in the conditions of approval precedent adoption by council. TDM plans will be comprised of two types of strategies: core strategies offer an array of flexible, proven trip reduction strategies that applicants may select from to develop the project's TDM plan. Some examples of core strategies include transportation subsidies and vanpool incentives. And auxiliary measures which, when paired with core strategies, are complementary and more effective at reducing trips. Some examples of auxiliary strategies are wayfinding improvements and transportation-related marketing events. Applicants will have access to the TDM toolkit which is designed to offer a menu of strategies that vary in scale and cost, allowing projects to create site-specific TDM plans fit for their purpose. Moving into monitoring elements of the framework, this slide illustrates the various reporting activities that projects will be responsible for and which again are based on project size. Small projects must report annually for three years, medium projects for 10 and large for 20. Additionally, residential and patron-driven uses are exempt from additional project performance monitoring conducted through the annual travel surveys and traffic counts. I will now pass it off to Ben to walk through some updates in details.

[01:14:13] Senior Transportation Planner Ben Pacho: Thanks, Allison. Good evening, Commissioners. So staff would like to note a few key updates which have been incorporated into the TDM policy framework based on feedback we've received since last June's study session with Council. The proposed changes include exemptions for patron-driven uses less than 100,000 square feet, implementation of housing element action items, exemptions from site-specific trip caps for residential and patron-driven uses, including requirements to provide traffic counts and travel surveys, updates to enforcement provisions and optional TMA membership. For the first update, proposed patron-driven uses less than net new 100,000 square feet will be exempted from the TDM program. Categorized as non-residential, these project types typically generate trips that are primarily by patrons or customers rather than employees. Examples of such projects would include childcare centers, restaurants, entertainment, medical, retail including general merchandise and grocery as well as other personal services. This exemption was incorporated into the framework recognizing the value of such uses that are neighborhood serving. They also support economic vitality by attracting and retaining high-quality retail and other service-oriented mixed uses. The next update relates to the city's housing element program which went into effect in 2023. Provisions of the housing element required the city to adopt a TDM ordinance as well as study the costs of TDM requirements on residential developments and to identify lower cost options for developers. To support this effort, the ordinance will allow residential parking reductions and exemptions from parking requirements for projects that enhance features of a TDM plan which would achieve a higher level of trip reduction than the minimum requirement. To satisfy the enhanced TDM criteria, a residential project must either exceed its ADT reduction target by at least 5% or adopt one additional core strategy and two additional auxiliary strategies over the minimum required number. The enhanced TDM criteria presented are really intended to incentivize higher levels of trip reduction and reduce parking demand while increasing mobility options for residential projects, ultimately with the goal of supporting the city's broader goals related to expanding delivery of affordable housing. The next update to the framework includes exemptions from monitoring and reporting requirements for residential and patron-driven uses. Specifically, all residential and patron-driven uses will be exempted from meeting site-specific trip caps and associated ADT reduction targets. The exemption also extends to the requirements to provide travel surveys and conduct traffic counts. The noted exemptions here reflect existing conditions and local and state regulations. Combined, these seek to reduce financial costs and administrative burdens related to delivering more affordable housing and neighborhood-serving uses. However, still required of these projects will be the requirements to adopt and implement a TDM plan and provide ongoing annual TDM reporting in accordance with project size. Moving ahead, the proposed ordinance seeks to align the enforcement provisions under code enforcement violations and administrative penalties of the City Code. This approach is consistent with neighboring jurisdictions which codify violations of TDM non-compliance under municipal code sections in accordance with administrative citations. Examples of non-compliance might include failure of a project to submit annual TDM monitoring reports or maintain ongoing approved strategies of a TDM plan following occupancy. Additionally, updated enforcement provisions will consistently apply to all projects subject to the ordinance rather than by specific project conditions of approval. For the next framework update, the proposed ordinance will not require projects of any size to join the TMA. Membership in the TMA will be optional and included in the TDM toolkit, particularly to incentivize new projects to join as a way to satisfy their TDM requirements and trip reduction goals. While TMA membership will not be required, staff with the TMA will explore the process of establishing a property-based assessment district or PBID following adoption of the ordinance. Similar to other jurisdictions such as City of Emeryville, the goal of establishing the PBID will be to provide a long-term scalable approach to funding TMA-provided services including the MVgo shuttle. Most notably, a PBID would support growing membership in the TMA over time by clearly defining its governance structure and assessment of membership fees. Currently, staff is working with the project team to develop a cost estimation and implementation planning study as part of this work. This study will evaluate the range of city staff time and administrative resources required to administer the ordinance, including TDM plan review and ongoing monitoring and reporting activities. The findings of this report will inform the basis of an annual TDM fee which would be intended to recover a portion of the city's ongoing costs associated with implementing the ordinance. Following completion of this fee study, staff will draft a resolution for the City Council to review and adopt. Once the ordinance is in effect, its provisions including trip reduction standards and monitoring requirements will be codified in the City Code. Additionally, the TDM program standards will be a key guiding document to implement the citywide TDM program. This document will be an appendix to the MTA handbook which may be updated periodically to reflect changes in travel patterns, technological innovation and TDM best practices.

[01:25:04] Assistant Public Works Director Allison Boyer: Thanks. Following the EPC review, the proposed ordinance and the EPC comments will be forwarded to the City Transportation Commission for consideration on May 5th. Subsequently, the ordinance will go before Council at a public hearing prior to the end of this fiscal year. Once adopted, implementation steps would include development and refinement of the TDM program standards and the TDM toolkit, updating the precise plans and city codes to implement housing element action items and ordinance provisions, present annual TDM fee resolution to Council for review and adoption, explore feasibility of establishing a property-based assessment or PBID district citywide, integration with the city's permitting and entitlement process, establishment of ongoing monitoring and reporting systems including identifying technology solution providers and coordination with stakeholders and regional partners. And again, staff is here for asking that the Environmental Planning Commission review and provide comments on the draft citywide transportation demand management TDM ordinance and draft TDM program standards.

[01:26:26] Chair Alex Nuñez: All right. Thank you very much. It looks like we will go to public comment first for this item. So if anyone in attendance would like to provide comments on this item, please fill out a yellow speaker card and provide it to the EPC Clerk. If anyone on Zoom would like to provide a comment on this item, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone. Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with star six. I'll ask our Commission Clerk if there's any yellow speaker cards or attendees with raised hands in Zoom.

[01:26:40] City Clerk Heather Glaser: There are no speakers on this item.

[01:26:45] Chair Alex Nuñez: We'll proceed to EPC questions and discussion.

[01:27:15] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: So the TDM ordinance seeks to reduce single-occupancy vehicle trips, but the ordinance defines a single-occupancy vehicle as a motor vehicle occupied by only the driver during a commute or trip. But that might have worked 25 years ago, but nowadays there are single-occupancy vehicles that don't have a driver at all. So and I think that the intention would be that a Waymo would count as a single-occupancy vehicle, is that correct?

[01:28:00] Senior Transportation Planner Ben Pacho: Thanks for the question, Commissioner. Yes, I think it's a question of terminology that doesn't... isn't reflective of Waymos or autonomous vehicles, but it does extend to those as a trip is in a trip itself. So the ordinance seeks to increase high-occupancy vehicle trips, so maximizing each trip with the number of occupants beyond just one or zero-occupant vehicles. So it does extend to that.

[01:28:38] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Right, yeah, zero-occupant vehicles too, I didn't even think about that, which obviously is the same thing. So I suggest somehow or is there a way to define single-occupancy vehicle to be a vehicle that contains fewer than two people, or something like that?

[01:28:59] Assistant Public Works Director Allison Boyer: We can look at adjusting the definition in the ordinance, yes.

[01:29:03] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Okay, because right, as you said even even zero. Okay. The other thing is somewhere you said that basically a a new project or a a modification would would trigger this. I don't know where that went, but if there's a modification to a building or something like that, what counts as a modification to a building? Like if somebody, you know, we have this facade improvement program that just got renewed or approved, you know, if somebody just puts a new sign up, is that a modification? Does it mean like increasing the square footage only or like what counts?

Segment 3

[01:30:01] Senior Transportation Planner Ben Pacho: Thanks for the question. Modification is in this context proportional to the extent that it would generate 200 net new average daily trips, so that it would warrant additional or subsequent transportation analysis, but would mitigate against potential, you know, marginal tenant improvements.

[01:30:23] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Okay, so so if yeah, if there's an increase to the square footage that would be substantial, maybe?

[01:30:28] Assistant Public Works Director Allison Boyer: Yes, it's it's not the aesthetic changes to a building, it's something that is either changing a use or changing the square footage is the modification in the transportation world.

[01:30:40] Vice Chair Paul Donahue: Okay, I see. Yeah, I mean I'm sure that a business would put a new sign up and would hope that they would get 200 new customers a day or something like that, but but yeah, I see that wouldn't wouldn't trigger. Okay, those are my questions.

[01:30:54] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Pham?

[01:30:56] Commissioner Tina Pham: I had a few questions. The first one has to do with the administrative penalties and enforcement actions. Non-compliance was referenced to two different sections of the code, 1.7 and 1.17, and I hadn't had a chance to look those up. Could you just in general describe the nature of penalties and enforcement and describe whether these activities had happened in the past and to what extent?

[01:31:30] Assistant Public Works Director Allison Boyer: To date we have not enforced any penalty or collected any penalty on any of our TDM ordinances in place. That being said, we are tying it to the administrative code rather than new trips generated, which I think is what you guys saw last time. Just with all of the changes that have come in current AB world, which I'm sure you guys are very familiar with, it has changed what we can and can't, how easy it is to enforce some of these things, so and who has the authority. So what we're looking at is using the administrative code. We are enforcing them differently between residential and non-residential. So the residential side is based on implementation of the strategies, whereas the non-residential has it based on success of hitting their target.

[01:32:22] Commissioner Tina Pham: I see. Thanks for that context. In general have you seen good compliance even though administrative penalties have not been, you know, used in the past?

[01:32:34] Senior Transportation Planner Ben Pacho: Thanks for the question. So I think compliance ranges between 40 to 50 percent, and prior to me assuming this this position, there largely hasn't been any monitoring to that effect. Um and so I think right now enforcement lies in specific conditions of approval, which have been inconsistent project by project, and so it's been hard to enforce these TDM requirements as such without having a clear, uh, letter and, you know, black letter that you can point to in the code that can be applied consistently. And so this is standard across other jurisdictions that kind of house non-compliance with TDM requirements in the city code, um and gives us a discretion in the sense that we can be more proportional with I think the level of non-compliance, because as of right now it's a fairly stick approach, so projects that exceed their peak hour trip targets could potentially be levied a $100,000 fine and each subsequent percent after above their trip target would be $50,000. So you can tell kind of how this escalates quickly and to Allison's point, this is kind of why we haven't used, you know, our enforcement process to date. We want to make it much more transparent and consistent.

[01:34:03] Commissioner Tina Pham: I see. Thanks for that context. I also imagine that going through the process of enforcement would be very impactful on staff resources, which is why I think I was happy to see slide 20 which showed that you're doing a fee study to try to recover costs for enforcement and monitoring. And so I just wanted clarification that that those annual TDM fees would be different than administrative penalties and meant to cover cost and would be applied equally whether someone was in compliance or not.

[01:34:42] Senior Transportation Planner Ben Pacho: Right, thanks for the question. So right, there's going to be an administrative fee essentially that captures staff's time for, you know, the entitlement phase of kind of working with applicants to develop their TDM plan and then to stand up programs post-occupancy for the monitoring and enforcement side. And then we're going to yeah continue to work with the City Attorney's office at their advice and consent to kind of schedule the the penalty schedule for non-compliance as part of the fee study.

[01:35:17] Commissioner Tina Pham: Okay, okay. So the fee study will cover like annual fees but also the fines. Okay. Um so my next question is related to the patron-driven uses. And you've listed in the slide and in the staff report examples. Um what or who would be the ultimate decision maker whether certain uses would qualify as exceptions under this definition?

[01:35:46] Senior Transportation Planner Ben Pacho: Uh, thanks for this question. So the need to call out patron-driven uses specifically was to identify the nature and characteristics of travel and demand. So a lot of our precise plans set TDM requirements that target specifically employment or employer-generated trips. And so this exemption kind of adds a little bit context sensitivity around, you know, not targeting specifically all trips, but exempting patron-driven uses. And I think to use an example of the Nob Hill grocery store of about 62,000 square feet, I think the city wants to support these dynamic uses and would kind of hesitate placing onerous requirements on these kinds of development when the mark of success for these projects would be trip generation of a, you know, characteristic of customer uses rather than employer uses. And so it kind of aligns with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District's regulations where they set required commuter benefits for employers that have 50 or more employees and so that's typically in line with, you know, our threshold for 100,000k uses and typically what you'd see for the number of employees for of that size and nature. So we just wanted to create that use and we've worked really closely with planning to identify the types of uses where the trip generation would be customer or patron-driven in nature.

[01:37:38] Commissioner Tina Pham: Okay. Um last question has to do with, I think it's page 11 talking about prop 218 I believe, although it says prop 18. I wanted to understand more about the property-based improvement district and how assessing of the membership fees in that approach would be in compliance and how it would be different from the existing practice.

[01:38:11] Senior Transportation Planner Ben Pacho: Okay, so I'm not a legal scholar on prop 118 so I might need to phone a senior attorney city attorney, but I will speak to kind of the complex or context that kind of precipitated that discussion. So the current practice is the TMA is a nonprofit organization that's composed of employers, developers, property owners across the city and collectively they pool resources to solve transportation problems. So the way that the fees are currently assessed, the TMA board adopts them on an annual basis and it takes into account new members who might be joining based on our developer pipeline. And so it changes on an annual basis based on who the existing board is and incoming members, but it's also based on the services that the TMA provides, specifically the MVGo shuttle. So if a project is about a half mile distance from a stop that they are required to pay into a shuttle fee. And so I think the issues raised from a legal perspective is that potentially the TMA could run into an illegal franchise where there isn't a kind of a transparency issue in how these fees are set for for members, and so a PBID would provide more clarity on how those fees are established and how new members are assessed. So, I'll...

[01:39:51] Assistant Public Works Director Allison Boyer: And I think we have our city attorney Mitesh with a comment on this. I don't know if we can promote him.

[01:39:59] Chair José Gutiérrez: He's allowed to speak. He doesn't want to be promoted.

[01:40:02] Assistant Public Works Director Allison Boyer: Oh, okay. Go for it.

[01:40:05] Senior Assistant City Attorney Mitesh Bakhta: Thank you Allison and and good evening commissioners, Senior Assistant City Attorney Mitesh Bakhta. Just to address the commissioner's question regarding both the TMA and a property-based improvement district. This is a broad-brush overview of how state law functions, but essentially the combination of props 218 and 26 requires any kind of property-based assessment that funds a particular benefit, such as in this instance a transportation program or shuttle, to be levied in proportion to the benefit received by a particular parcel. Therefore most other jurisdictions that operate a shuttle program such as the Mountain View community shuttle tend to over time transition towards a property-based assessment district that levies according to the benefit received by each individual parcel within the operational zone of the proposed shuttle. So for Mountain View, this would mean that a proposed shuttle route would be overlaid with the parcels that are served by the shuttle and they would pay a property-based levy in proportion to the amount of service that they receive. This would also take into account the types of property, the level of service frequency, and so on. And this is in compliance with propositions 26 and 218. The City of Emeryville, as Ben mentioned, is a good example of how this can work very well for a community shuttle. And under a separate provision of state law, the city does not have legal authority to compel property developers to pay property taxes to a third-party organization. Therefore the TMA cannot be funded by a permanent ordinance, even if individual properties have agreed to pay the TMA as part of their development agreement. That is a contractual relationship as opposed to an ordinance that compels payment to a third party. The third-party compelled payment would be an example of an illegal franchise arrangement.

[01:42:28] Commissioner Tina Pham: I see, thanks for that context. Um I did have a follow-up question though. Um so would that mean that if a PBID was enacted, it could be the case that many factors for individual properties would be considered in calculating the membership fees, such as proximity to the route or size of the parcel, etc.? Am I understanding correctly?

[01:43:00] Senior Assistant City Attorney Mitesh Bakhta: That is generally correct. Before an assessment district can be formed, an engineer must calculate the actual proportionate benefit received by a parcel and that includes depending on the type of service being provided, but for a shuttle it would probably include things like is the parcel a single-family home or is it a high-rise building, is it commercial, is it retail, is it residential and so on. What is the expected number of passengers per parcel and so on. All of these factors would be taken into account and then it would be fed into a formula to determine the fair ratio of compensation.

[01:43:38] Commissioner Tina Pham: I see. And how does that differ to how fees are assessed now to members currently?

[01:43:46] Senior Assistant City Attorney Mitesh Bakhta: My understanding and I will defer to the transportation team that might have more particular information, but the TMA has currently been funded by voluntary contractual arrangements that have been made with developers up until this point. So individual developers have agreed to fund the TMA as part of their development agreement.

[01:44:14] Commissioner Tina Pham: Okay. I think that's all my questions. Thanks.

[01:44:19] Chair José Gutiérrez: Alright. Commissioner Cranston.

[01:44:22] Commissioner Bill Cranston: A few questions. Um so I don't have a frame of reference, a project that is 200 average daily trips and it's residential. On average how many units would that be? I mean I'm a single family unit and there's one of me and I drive maybe less than two a day, so is it 100 units? Is it what does it mean?

[01:44:52] Senior Transportation Planner Ben Pacho: So it's not an exact science and based on the travel modeling that was provided by our consultants, which are on the call and can provide additional support, but averages to about 30 between 30 to 40 units.

[01:45:16] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. Um second question. Has any cost analysis of these core and auxiliary strategies been done?

[01:45:25] Senior Transportation Planner Ben Pacho: Thanks commissioner, yes. As part of putting together the TDM toolkit, there's been a study put together that looks at the cost implications for implementing these strategies and it's tiered based on low, medium and high. And so the low would be anything up to $5,000 and the medium I believe is 5 to $25,000. I might need to get the consultant to speak to their analysis, their cost analysis. So we have Julia Wynn and Natalie Makharbel on the call.

[01:46:07] Assistant Public Works Director Allison Boyer: Yeah, I'll just add quickly that it is part of your Attachment 3 to the staff report has the transportation demand toolkit and in it it gives you all of those core and auxiliary and the associated cost and who can apply them, residential, non-residential. And so that's all in the toolkit as these developers come in. Our again our goal is to make this easy and very streamlined so they know what they're they're getting when they come into the counter.

[01:46:35] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. For planning staff under density bonus, can anybody just waive participation period from the TDM?

[01:46:49] Assistant Public Works Director Allison Boyer: Can you repeat the question one more time?

[01:46:51] Commissioner Bill Cranston: If someone's using the density bonus, can they choose as one of their and I can never get them straight, the one that basically says I'm not going to do it. Um, basically say I'm not going to do the TDM period, end of story.

[01:47:11] Senior Assistant City Attorney Celena Chen: Commissioner, I could respond, this is Celena Chen on behalf of the city attorney's office. Um, if I don't believe it would be appropriate for a developer to request a waiver of TDM measures because to request a waiver it would have to physically preclude development at the proposed density. But it is possible for a developer to request waiver of the developments the TDM measures as a concession or an incentive under density bonus law. So if they qualify for incentives or concessions and they can demonstrate that um there are identifiable and actual costs um that impact the development of affordable housing, then that is an appropriate standard that can be reduced or waived under density bonus law.

[01:48:09] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So if we've identified the costs, why wouldn't they be able to say I can identify the costs?

[01:48:15] Senior Assistant City Attorney Celena Chen: Um so under if I understand your question correctly, the developer just needs to assert that the development standard has an identifiable and actual cost. Um so for example providing um transit passes or you know whatever measures that have costs. If those if there's an statement from the developer that the costs impact the the affordable housing, then it is an appropriate use of the concession or incentive.

[01:48:57] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. Um the I'm in VMT is mentioned only in kind of in passing and I don't know whether somebody in staff can help me with this. One of the reasons that in my mind that that the biggest arguments for allowing more density locally was to reduce VMT. Somebody's not driving all the way from Gilroy to come here, okay. But that there was evidence that in actual the the individual trips, these ones that we're trying to get rid of, in fact increase when people live closer to their work. So that there's a reverse correlation between distance and the amount of time they're driving by themselves. If you're local, you're more likely to drive to work than if you if you're driving all from Gilroy you're more likely to take the shuttle bus. So my recollection over time was that that they're actually kind of fighting each other, they're going in the opposite direction, that if we want to bring more residential into the city we risk in fact increasing the single occupancy trips. Am I not remembering prior discussions correctly? I it was very it was I came away thinking okay the closer they are, if I live less than a mile away I'm more likely to take drive the car because it's quick than if I'm driving 20 miles from Gilroy. So I what I'm struggling what I'm trying to understand is we're talking about making the penalty higher when we have a bigger development that's reducing VMT, but we are making it harder for them to actually they're more likely to come back in these VMT thing you know these these density bonus waivers because we're setting these thresholds so high. I I'm struggling with the they appear to be competing objectives to me. We want more density locally and therefore people are more likely the local people are going to drive but they're not going to drive as far, but we're making it very expensive for them to build those high density units because we're putting all these additional requirements that are outlined in these costs. Am I am I wrong in the recollection that single occupancy trips in fact increase when people live closer to their jobs?

[01:51:28] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: I don't recollect that we have provided such a study or a conclusion in any of our recent research or reports. Um I'm looking at um planning manager Eric Anderson and we both have been here for at least over 10 years and we haven't heard that yet.

[01:51:42] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I've been around for eight years so it may not be recent.

[01:51:55] Senior Transportation Planner Ben Pacho: So I just wanted to tease out a few things that you've raised. So I think increased residential in and of itself is a TDM strategy. Um so that, you know, with increased residential we're going to see less VMT generated. Um I think the goal of requiring TDM strategies implemented for residential is that even if you might see an increase in average daily trips proportional to the project size, is that you're also providing them alternatives for them to make those short trips. So whether you're providing the end of trip facilities for bicyclists that would incentivize them to switch modes for other types of trips, whether that's not just employer not just to work but to to daycare, to um you know other types of recreational activities. And so and then aside from that, I think there's studies that show when you increase density particularly, you increase create the environment that transit use is actually a much more viable because you have the demand that's there to support service and increasing service, um which you know we've seen from our community shuttle. So ultimately even though with residential you're going to see an increase in net new average daily trips, it's about providing them with the array of multi-modal strategies for them to shift modes um and make it easy for them to take transit, to bike, to walk, um rather than kind of incentivizing increasing um demand for more parking or or more drive-alone trips, things like that. So it's all about it's ultimately about choices, um a matter of design and programmatic measures. I don't know if that speaks to your question.

[01:53:51] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Take a second for the microphone to turn on. Um I understand what you're saying, I guess I'm I'd have to go back back through all my history to find this discussion around single single occupancy vehicle trips are actually more likely when people are close, but I'll I'll defer that for the experts.

[01:54:11] Public Works Director Jennifer Ing: Hi, good evening, I'm Jennifer Ng, I'm the Public Works Director and I thought I would try to take a slice at your question in a slightly different way. Um have been around for a little while, I remember when it was Level of Service versus VMT. So kind of to tease apart your question, um I think the first thing I heard is, you know, by adding residential is that going to, you know, increase the number of trips by bringing them into our city. Really if you think about to when I started my career um several decades ago, um there were huge employment centers and those were certain parts of town. And there were residential areas and those were certain parts of town. And they were they were segregated, right? They weren't intermixed. Nowadays what we're trying to do is we're trying to bring those two uses together so that residential and where you want to go, whether it's an employment center or whether it's your neighborhood conveniences, are all within a quick distance, right? All of that is sort of interspersed and by doing that you have the ability to use other modes of travel. You can easily ride your bike. You could take a scooter, you could you could walk, right, in some in some instances. Um you know, you could adopt the European model of going and walking to the grocery store every day and picking up your fresh baguette um so that you have fresh bread every day, right? That's basically the model that we're trying to get to now. When we switched from level of service to VMT, Level of Service was really about how we are looking at the functionality of intersections at any one particular intersection location. VMT is a totally different strategy that looks at how we're looking at the transportation impacts across a region, so as the name implies, vehicle miles traveled, it's really more about, you know, where you're going and how you're getting there rather than how you're going to impact every single intersection along your route. Um the TDM um ordinance that we're looking at doing now really looks to um kind of push people outside of the comfort zone of being car reliant um and provide other alternatives for how to get around and go um to the places you need to go. So whether it's a transit pass, um whether you own a bike and your apartment complex, you know, has a workout room in it and um and adjacent maybe not apartment complex, maybe your place of work um has a workout room in it and um and a bathroom where you can shower off, you know, and encourage the use of you to use your bike. Those are the kinds of um things that are going to be in the TDM toolbox that would um be incentives for those to not be a a single occupancy vehicle or car reliant um in just going about their day-to-day lives.

[01:57:08] Assistant Public Works Director Allison Boyer: And sorry, just to add one more thing here, Allison Boyer, Assistant Public Works Director. Um I just the TDM is not being done by itself, the city is looking at other things to make this easier. You know we have sorry I have to do my own plug for for the transportation side here, but we have our active transportation um plan which will be going to BPAC and council and that looks at our walking, rolling and paths and how we can connect to the city and where the gaps are and what projects we can implement. We are going after grants to get complete streets, which includes bike path I'm sorry bike and pedestrian paths as we look to reconstruct some of our roads, improving the pavement. So there is a holistic city approach to some of this and this is just one component to it, and if you make those things more desirable, more people are likely to choose that. Um you know, you see the scooters, I don't want to say electric bikes because I know that's a pain point, but there you know there are other options to get around the city and trying to make those easier for those around.

[01:58:18] Chair José Gutiérrez: Alright. Commissioner Subramanian.

[01:58:22] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you, Chair. I have a few questions. Um starting with the reduction targets that were assigned to standard as well as TOD projects under the different sort of classifications. Um I heard the uh reference to looking at peer cities and other projects that had implemented that, but more specifically could you talk about the reduction from the standpoint of studies that have been undertaken on how um successful such implementations were? Because the some of the reductions are pretty steep when you look at small projects or medium projects and you're talking about a 20 or 30 or 40 percent reduction, that's a pretty steep requirement.

[01:59:19] Assistant Public Works Director Allison Boyer: Yeah, so those are in line with some of the other TDMs we have for current and precise plan you know plans, but the idea is that there are multiple core and then the auxiliary strategies that help when you put those all together, that's how you get those percentage. So it's not the idea is you're not doing one thing, right? There's multiple things that that get you there. As far as the studies and the um other jurisdictions that we're doing you want to talk to that?

[01:59:43] Senior Transportation Planner Ben Pacho: Right, so just to give you an example of how we apply that locally for the North Bayshore Master Plan, the city has required a 50 percent um single occupancy or SOV reduction target and so that was really kind of a model that we looked to build off of and how we could implement city citywide. Um to refer back to how we'd set those, we referred to the greenhouse gas emissions reduction program and that was adopted in 2012 and that study looked at what the city needed to do to achieve um compliance with state regulations for carbon neutrality. So what it did is it looked at growth areas across the city at East Whisman, downtown, North Bayshore and based on that horizon I think it's a 30-year outlook, they based they kind of required an 8 percent trip reduction target in East Whisman, etc. So we realized that study had been completed in in quite a while and so we looked to neighboring jurisdictions and Redwood City had kind of required a 50 percent SOV or non-SOV rate for new development. Um the San Mateo County um TDM program requires a similar breakdown of thresholds for similar sized projects between 30 and 50 percent. And so these TDM programs are fairly novel in their approach but they're fairly consistent with their climate plans to achieve the targets of carbon neutrality based on kind of their own local specific targets. So in kind of triangulating where we should land we kind of looked at the ambitions of of San Jose, Redwood City, of San Mateo County that kind of use climate targets as the basis for their targets, but also looked at our own targets locally of what we required under precise plans to kind of find a middle ground. Um we found that it could potentially be shaky ground if we based the targets specifically in um reduced in achieving our climate targets because um we needed a solid basis um beyond just you know our climate targets and base that more so on transportation analysis and proportional impact based on project size and and land use and base those rates on ITE or the Institute of Transportation Engineers' standards um which kind of looks across the industry and and what land use are what transportation characteristics and travel planning you see kind of across various land uses and project sizes. So it was kind of a that kind of analysis and then if our consultants on the call have anything to add on kind of the the studies and travel demand modeling anything that I might have missed I'll elevate our consultants um if you have any follow-up questions to that. Thanks.

[02:02:51] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: So to refer back to a clarification you had made to Commissioner Pham's question around the same topic, you stated that compliance on existing projects is about 50 percent, which I think kind of goes to prove that the thresholds might be quite high to begin with, I don't know if the same thresholds are being applied, but I also question if there needs to be a distinction between commercial and residential projects, specifically in looking at some of the core and auxiliary strategies that are being proposed. There's clearly a number of strategies in both those columns that only really apply to commercial and can't really be extended to a residential project and so it further sort of creates a subset of strategies that really can apply to residential and with thresholds that feel very high to achieve and if that's what you're observing in some of the projects, it feels counterproductive again to sort of set very high goals and then to be chasing our tails on compliance and penalties.

[02:04:04] Senior Transportation Planner Ben Pacho: Thanks commissioner for the question. Um so we set the ambition of the targets really based on transportation's contributions to greenhouse gas emissions, we recognize that a majority up to 60 percent of carbon emissions are attributed transportation and these are often the stickiest emissions to mitigate. And so in recognizing that we do set those targets but also based on what we require locally again in our precise plans in North Bayshore. So um we do provide a degree of flexibility in our toolkit for developers to propose their own user strategies and also modify TDM plans on an annual basis based on what's working. And so the TDM toolkit itself is not a fixed toolkit, it will change and adapt based on the data that we collect on on programs that we require this of.

[02:04:54] Assistant Public Works Director Allison Boyer: And I just want to add the enforcement for residential is a little different, remember it is not based on trip reduction, it is based on have they implemented what they said they were going to implement. So if they if the residents don't if the residential developers don't hit those reduction targets, it's more of a conversation of making sure they've implemented all of the all of the strategies they told us they were going to, that's the enforcement piece for residential. It's the non-residential the commercial um that have the trip reduction target enforcement piece to it.

[02:05:33] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: So then going back to the point about offering flexibility within the toolkit, I see that the toolkit offers both a calculation of the associated reduction along with an estimated cost to the measure. So if it is a user proposed reduction approach, how would you calculate the resultant reduction that comes with that?

[02:06:02] Assistant Public Works Director Allison Boyer: I think we'd look we'd ask them first if they've been implemented in other places and to look for that, you know we're not the only city with a TDM ordinance so I'm sure there's lots of other cases out there that we can look towards. Um but we would be asking the applicant to to prove that and then we would also verify it in their annual reporting that that's what that it is truly doing what they intended it to do.

[02:06:27] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: And then going back to the point about having residential projects adopt different measures from the toolkit or beyond, I do feel some of the strategies proposed there are not really enforceable within a residential setting, for instance some of like the carpooling measures, the transit subsidies, providing the free door-to-door transit, a lot of them seem to be uh more associated with costs and not necessarily guaranteeing outcomes the way you might in a commercial context. Um so then I want to talk about maybe looking at measures that do have measurable impact on reducing trips generated from housing projects and that goes to the two things that you say can't be combined to go after the enhanced compliance which is the unbundled parking as well as um limited parking supply. And I think in many instances particularly when you look at TOD projects that are close to TODs um transit and you look at dense uh urban infill type of projects, it seems like unbundling parking as well as limiting parking is a prompt to get residents to use alternate modes of transport. So what is the rationale behind using two of these like really good carrots and not including them in achieving the enhanced compliance?

[02:08:09] Senior Transportation Planner Ben Pacho: Thanks commissioner for the question. Um so I just want to address kind of the efficacy of the specific core strategies that you called out in the top of your question which is, you know, kind of questioning the effectiveness of transit subsidies or car share. So these are in practice right now for existing projects and we see them working. Um I believe the 7s project at Middlefield and Shoreline we worked with them to implement a required transit subsidy which is to the benefit of all new residents now that they can utilize and in combination we kind of set a threshold of that subsidy that is viable for that specific project and that works in tandem with free door-to-door transit that's provided by the TMA. So that's something that they've leveraged both a regional transit service provider in VTA but also a local one in the TMA um which has stops um on the frontage. Um so we right size TDM requirements based on project needs. It's not a one-size-fits-all and it's very again the toolkit is not we wanted to move away from being overly prescriptive in our TDM requirements which I think we've gotten into that problem with existing projects. So we want to be more flexible. Um and so in implementing the housing el housing element action items and determining what the criteria would be for enhancement, we were very cognizant of of or aware of the fact that potentially projects might want to double count to the extent that they would benefit from strategies that they would have done anyways and that could be more successful had they had supplemented reduced parking with other strategies. So with their reduced parking there's going to be a need for non-drive-alone modes, so we've seen transit subsidies work really well hand-in-hand with reduced parking, unbundled parking or reduced parking minimums. Um so that's kind of what the basis of the rationale was, but I'll defer to our colleagues in planning to kind of talk through a little bit more of the considerations for that criteria.

[02:10:33] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Thank you very much, Eric Anderson, Planning Manager still. Um so um first want to acknowledge that the um the minimum parking requirements don't apply within our transit-oriented precise plans like downtown, El Camino Real, East Whisman. Um they also are um don't apply in general within a half mile of major transit like um the downtown transit center. Uh so this incentive really only applies in those areas that have limited transit access. Um there are a couple of reasons to uh continue to have minimum parking standards in these areas. One reason you might want to consider continuing to have minimum parking standards is to um kind of avoid bad actor developers who may want to build a less expensive development and force people to park on the street, the kind of um classic tragedy of the commons scenario where everybody's putting their costs on the public space. Uh another reason might be to just ensure that whoever is moving into those spaces has access to basic transportation needs of having a car. You know, not every neighborhood can live without a car. Um so there there are reasons to continue to require minimum parking in these areas. Uh now that's not to say that there are also policy reasons to eliminate minimum parking requirements, but I'll get to that in a second. Um given the uh policy reason to continue to require minimum parking, the rationale for this enhanced TDM is to say, are you providing enough TDM to your residents that um they can reasonably live without a car in these areas that aren't well served by other modes? Um and so to say the kind of circular argument of I'm not providing parking and therefore I shouldn't have to require parking kind of sidesteps that argument for the enhanced TDM. Um now if as I'm sure many people believe that reduced parking is a good unto itself to to encourage people to to not drive, uh that is a strong rationale to eliminate parking standards and we continue to do so, we have done so in a number of areas and cities like San Jose have done it citywide. Um and if that's your perspective, then uh I would encourage you to do that through the zoning code rather than through a TDM enhanced TDM measures.

[02:13:48] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you. Um more questions for staff here. So um going back to the TMA membership, I understand that it's not um it's an optional and it's not enforced, but is so to the extent that developers enroll into the TMA, it sort of helps the overall membership and it helps the service of the shuttle, right? So why is that not targeted as a core strategy and instead as an auxiliary strategy? Because it seems to have a pretty big impact in creating an alternate mode of transportation that can service parts of town that are not proximate to transit.

[02:14:48] Senior Transportation Planner Ben Pacho: Thanks for the question, commissioner. So the idea of including TMA membership as an auxiliary strategy as opposed to a core strategy was more so on the basis for the requirement because essentially if we set it as a core strategy that would require mandatory membership into a nonprofit organization that doesn't provide transparency on their fee setting on a regularized basis. And this is typically seen as unconstitutional across various, you know, Supreme Court rulings, for example, like um Koontz or Nollan or Dolan. And so we set it as an auxiliary strategy because that makes it voluntary. But in acknowledging the benefits of the TMA membership, we provided kind of an outsized amount of trip reduction as associated with the TMA membership.

Segment 4

[02:15:00] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: ...as core strategies are required and to reduce potential liabilities for the city of requiring that as a core strategy would open up I think further questions since we are moving in the direction of a PBID, but we are working to incentivize TM membership because there are a lot of benefits that come with it. It's not just, you know, the guaranteed last mile service, it's not MVgo shuttle service, but it's also the support of even small to medium sized projects of helping them put their TDM plan together to support them with monitoring and reporting over time that these projects might not have the capacity to do that on their own. And so the idea is to kind of sweeten the pot with TM membership to make it very beneficial to them and to foreground that when they are going through the entitlement process.

[02:16:00] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: And so last question is do to in order to establish a PBID, does it have to go to ballot and get voted on?

[02:16:10] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: That's correct Commissioner. So there is a question of process which we're working with the City Attorney's Office to kind of figure out next steps based on what City of Emeryville has has done. So I think there's a number of pathways to getting it approved. It might be city-led, it might be community-led and there's different thresholds on...

[02:16:31] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: ...different thresholds. I might be able to help finish answering this question for you if you don't mind. Commissioner, just to answer your question, there is more than one way to create a property-based assessment district for this purpose, and the city will evaluate the best options and proceed accordingly to what makes the most practical sense after the technical aspects have been worked out.

[02:17:01] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Okay, thank you.

[02:17:11] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: I've been acknowledged by the chair to speak, so just so you know. I have just one basic simple question. When you look at the ordinance and you're trying to promote what you're incentivizing, whether it's residential, commercial developments, I understand why this is being brought up. I think we've been here since the inception to this all. We've been through so many questions like this throughout these sessions and sometimes we get to the end point and then there's even more questions from folks who are new to the team, and it's totally understandable. Um, but for me, the one question I have which is pretty simple is based on what's happened with COVID and after that, and where we're at with business as a whole, uh, and a lot of job losses, I'm sure that you've also taken into account with commercial developments all that. So my question is, would the percentages change knowing now that you also have remote work as an option or has that not influenced the numbers on that side? That's the only question I have.

[02:18:26] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Thanks Commissioner for the question. Yes, I think it's a very valid question. It's very top of mind. So if you look at North Bayshore as an important case study, what we saw was traffic volumes precipitously drop, um, and since we restarted monitoring in the district, we've seen traffic return to about 80% of pre-COVID traffic volumes. So I believe we've reached somewhat of a stasis, but we are seeing the SOV rate around 60 to 70% and that is nearly unprecedented since monitoring has begun and that's typically because you have maybe free-flowing traffic and conditions that are kind of more permissible to people driving and you're not seeing as much queuing into and out of the district. And we've seen use of transit fall from about 30% to about 15%, so it's been halved. And so what we're really trying to do with the TDM ordinance within the district citywide is really kind of use this transition period to get back to shift people to using more sustainable modes of transportation. And to the extent that the toolkit provides flexibility and accounts for remote work, certainly applicants and developers can leverage that as a strategy. I think it's about five to 10% level of effectiveness of ADT reduction for projects that do implement that as part of their strategy. So it's one of many and it's been also noted by Council, but I'll let Allison...

[02:20:08] Assistant Community Development Director Amber Blezinski: Yeah, so as been mentioned, there is a strategy for work from home, so there that is accounted for, but there is also if you look in the ordinance under the enforcement, there is that the fees might be waived if if conditions changed. So there is that if there's vacancies or certain things, there is a caveat for those situations.

[02:20:28] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Great and as a follow-up I just wanted to bring that up because again I'm really into transparency and asking these questions that are just to the point so that we can get clarity and understanding on how this looks like as a whole, all the hypotheticals because at this end stage of the situation we want to get moving as fast as we can and get this done. And with your help we're getting there, so thank you.

[02:20:49] Assistant Community Development Director Amber Blezinski: Can I sorry just add one thing here. Both the toolkit and the standards are meant to be evergreen and we can change them. The ordinance is what is you know the law. Um, so as conditions change, we can continually update the toolbox if we see things are having a better impact or they're not working the way we thought they would. They're all things that can change as we work through this.

[02:21:15] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Wonderful, so that's an added bonus. In other words, it's a living document that's not set in stone, open to interpretation and flexibility and amendment suggestions, all that.

[02:21:22] Assistant Community Development Director Amber Blezinski: Correct, and that's why we have these monitoring periods for the times we prescribe there, it helps us create the history so we can keep this moving in the right direction.

[02:21:30] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Again thank you very much.

[02:21:35] Chair Alex Nuñez: All right, and um just confirming with staff this is a study session right so we're not gonna there's no vote or anything so we don't have to necessarily disagree. Um we can only aggregate feedback and agreement. Is that...

[02:21:51] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Yeah, this is a new business item more like study session, so there will not be a formal...

[02:21:57] Chair Alex Nuñez: Perfect. So then cause all my questions have been asked I think one thing we can probably do is to extent it suits the commission as well, um you know as you're kind of like giving your commentary, um you know like feel free obviously discourse as you like, um to the extent there are things that you'd like to change, modify, um see different etc feel free obviously to comment on those and we'll be like trying to aggregate um commissioner sentiment on on those discrete um kind of like thoughts. And then you know if we do a successive round um if any commissioner comments uh from your colleagues kind of pique your interest or feel like you also support or didn't kind of think of that then you know we have an opportunity to again kind of like aggregate positive sentiment toward modification and change etc, but by no means in any way um is this commentary meant to um kind of like hamper any commentary you might wish to give, just a thought in terms of how we proceed here. So, um yeah anyone would like to start with their commentary, thoughts, objections? Shoes on tables. Commissioner Gutiérrez.

[02:23:14] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Yeah, so just to reiterate I like the way the process is going, it's taken some time to get there, it's an imperfect process, this is an imperfect life. You're doing the best you can to just try and mitigate the circumstances that you have with traffic. But ideally in a perfect world we would like to be in, what was the name of that movie? Pleasantville or something way back in the day? Everything was perfect, right? Oh my god. Dude, I work in the city. I can't bike there because my job's not here. My what I do isn't here, it's over there. But on the weekends even though I live in an apartment complex on California I'll pick up my bike, I'll ride over to the store at Trader Joe's get my backpack do my shopping. Not everyone's gonna do that, right? For whatever reason. But it's nice to try and have these goals set up so that you can work with developers whether it's residential, commercial to get things going, to try and revitalize the way you look and define what a city is, a neighborhood, and what job work-life balances may or may not look like within your own community, just to ease the burden of traffic. So to be at this point at this stage I really appreciate your time because it's taken effort to get to this spot. And it's not easy to do. You need a lot of patience, you need a lot of diligence and you have to be resilient. So you've listened to our opinions and to our commentary and to our questions all these years and city council's chimed in with the policy aspect to it because we don't do that. Um and all that's appreciated, so I want to thank you for this and I'll be um very supportive with where we go next with this project, so thank you for your time.

[02:24:59] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you Commissioner Gutiérrez. Commissioner Subramanian.

[02:25:04] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you Chair. I also would like to thank staff and all the efforts over a multi-year process. Um I appreciate some of the comments and the feedback that you shared. It gives a lot more nuance um as I understand this is a pretty nuanced approach to providing a TDM framework. Um so I wanted to just make a few points. In the ordinance under um the applicability and where you outline the exempt projects, I think the office under 10,000 square feet was left out because I noticed that it was mentioned earlier on probably in the staff report but I don't think the ordinance had it so just a little cleanup there. Um and then also there's mention of an annual TDM fee and the ordinance refers to details of the administration in the standards, which I didn't see anything included there. So if you can clarify where that's addressed and if it was left out. So two type of cleanup items in the ordinance. And outside of that, I I would like to sort of propose adding a couple more strategies for consideration to include within the core or auxiliary strategies, particularly around sort of um incentivizing uh good actors whereby they reduce parking requirements and sort of tie in to other transit subsidies and to allow that to be recognized within the core strategies. And I don't know if it helps to have a tiered approach where, you know, it really sort of pushes the incentivization away from cars to other modes of transit. And to also recognize sort of physical strategies within buildings as as a strategy to um make pedestrian connections easier to approach, um making sort of arrangements for with third party bike providers. So sort of physical design um changes within projects and to sort of hold space within the auxiliary strategies uh for that would be another suggestion. Um and then the last one I think would also merit inclusion and it goes to what Commissioner Cranston had clarified earlier which is this idea of incentivizing mixed use. So if a project has mixed use within it whereby it cuts down some trips, if there's particular, you know, specific recognition for that as well. So I think these are all strategies which might go well with residential projects which don't have some of the other strategies available to commercial projects. Thank you.

[02:28:16] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you Commissioner. Um Commissioner Cranston.

[02:28:21] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So I guess the thing that I'm and I asked the question earlier about have you done a cost analysis and part of the reason that I asked that is I didn't believe what I saw in there and the relative cost when it applied to the scale of the project. Your scale of medium cost for something being $5,000 to $50,000 on something that was potentially adding a thousand, you know, a thousand trips a day seems unrealistic to me. And my we are seeing and the reason I raise this on the on the zoning side and the in the density bonus and it is concessions not waivers. Um you see a project with that number of that size, it's going to be a density bonus project and I if if we're talking about reducing park fees and all these other fees in order to try to address things to make them competitive, I am very concerned that by using the scale where the the implementation has to be even more stringent, more severe the bigger the project, it creates a situation where the the concession request being I'm not doing this at all. Okay. And that would be a problem in my mind. So I I like the idea of a TDM program. I don't like the program something this is this is actually regressive. It's actually increasing the cost to a developer on a large project on a residential side to the point where it's actually contrary to what we're trying to do on everything else in the zoning and in the and in the housing element. And so I'm I don't know what the answer is but this going from 20 to 30 to 40 to 50% to me says we're going to not we're not going to get these at all on the projects where we probably need them the most quite frankly. If we've got a large number of people there then then we want as many of these things as we possibly can. And so it feels like there's a disconnect in my mind between the goal of making housing more affordable and and getting people out there on the street and I just it doesn't I couldn't reconcile that as I looked through this. The relative cost you listed doesn't scale based on the size of the project. So I think you're underestimating particularly the cost on larger projects. So that's my in general I like the toolkit idea, um, you know, giving people flexibility on it, the idea that developers could change what they were using in the future I kind of liked, um but we have another goal altogether in the city which is adding housing and it should not be something at the expense of getting transit at the same time. So I think I'd ask that staff look at that and say okay how do you reconcile lowering costs for housing with increasing costs on this on this program. That's my my worry in in what I read.

[02:31:29] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you Commissioner Cranston. Commissioner Pham.

[02:31:34] Commissioner Tina Pham: I want to thank staff as this topic has been brought up several times over multiple years so it shows all the work that staff has put in to bring this forth to us again. Um I agree with a lot of what my fellow commissioners have said um with how you guys have structured this with the ordinance and the toolkit. I like that the toolkit um gives a lot of options for developers to pick and choose core and auxiliary strategies um that may work for them. Um one of the things I'm concerned about is um kind of staff resources to implement and review TDM plans and ongoing like compliance and enforcement activities, which is why I guess you guys are putting together the fee schedule. So, you know, that's really important in my eyes to get the amounts right to match um, you000 square feet. And then the second place where the ordinance was missing or it's not the ordinance was missing it, the ordinance refers to the details of administration of the TDM fee in the standards which wasn't included in the standards.

[02:42:37] Chair Alex Nuñez: All right. So then we've got and that sounds like it's a cleanup request, okay. And then there was also call for additional incentives around the uh core and auxiliary or just generally...

[02:42:52] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Core and auxiliary for residential projects.

[02:42:56] Chair Alex Nuñez: For for residential and was that like a general kind of call to like explore more or is that like a you have specific incentives in mind?

[02:43:03] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Both the call to explore more as well as to include incentives to um recognize tiered lowered parking um to recognize mixed use on site which could hopefully reduce some trip generation as well as to maybe do the other way which is to penalize excess parking that's provided.

[02:43:29] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. And then um from Commissioner Cranston I think he has a concern around more like concession proofing um the TDM ordinance. Um Commissioner Pham likes the compliance piece. I didn't hear any kind of was there like a request to that or further exploration to that that you were commenting on or...

[02:43:52] Commissioner Tina Pham: I think that covers it.

[02:43:54] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. Um and then Commissioner Donahue has a concern around the the non-linear scaling of the ADT, which I like things to make sense, so I'm inclined to agree with that and like in the sense of like I don't if staff has a problem with that or finds that to be problematic. Um so then if I'm seeing about like four things here that are a little bit more around like specific calls. Um I'm going to say them in order of well three actually. Um in probable decreasing order of complexity, um it'd probably be Commissioner Donahue's around um the scale...

[02:44:34] Assistant Community Development Director Amber Blezinski: Can I just add quickly that that was what was approved by CTC and Council were those threshold limits, so I'd like to stick to those for this first round of the ordinance. Um we've been sprayed with the water but I have your note and we'll keep that as as we continue to evaluate these projects and as as we get data points, we'll keep that on the on the radar. It's just a thought, yeah.

[02:44:57] Chair Alex Nuñez: Cool. So then calling Council. Um then in probable order of decreasing complexity, um we've got a general call from Commissioner Cranston to please explore ways or a general concern to um take another crack at just making sure that the TDM isn't just like a concession magnet or waiver magnet basically. Um and then also um Commissioner Subramanian's um call for additional incentives around the um the the strategies with um the tiered parking being a specific call out. Um do we have other support for that like I mean to staff like does going back and looking at the concession proofing like what's your general like sense of that? You know we don't want to like recommend go do more work if you're like feeling it's ironclad as much as things can be if that makes sense, but can we get like a sense from you guys?

[02:45:27] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: I think there are a lot of possibilities. What we have right now in in our ordinance is more about what we have learned from other jurisdictions of the ordinance which are already in place. We have also seen examples of development projects where somebody has asked for a concession to be subject to a lower TDM requirement rather than saying we're not going to do anything at all based on whatever is their feasibility. So I'm not sure um I think there further discussions going on here um which might result in other um additional information, but that's what our experience is.

[02:46:15] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Right. I would add to that we in absence of an ordinance we've still have implemented TDM based on our precise plan requirements. And for the state density bonus requirement projects have requested a number of exemptions as Diana mentioned from TDM. Um they have acted in good faith and had tried to meet the spirit of the requirement although it might have impacted their viability so we have had found a middle ground to determine what is feasible for them and have kind of modified the transit subsidy level or the certain kind of design requirements of the site um to kind of adapt it based on what was achievable for them while still maintaining uh some uh, you know, contents of a TDM plan.

[02:47:12] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. Um it sounds like there's a pretty intense golf conversation I'm super keen to wait for what has the jury ruled?

[02:47:28] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Thank you Chair. Um the sidebar that was just occurring, uh I very much uh recognize the concern about the um vulnerability of a city requirement to the use of a concession under state density bonus law. It's something that we think about all the time as staff. Um it's very difficult to make a requirement concession proof because most obligations come with costs and the fundamental basis of applying a concession is a cost reduction for the provision of affordable housing so um it's challenging to to safeguard um a local requirement against use of a concession. It's just the reality of of state law such as it is. What we were dialoguing about a moment ago is um something known as the Congestion Management Program or CMP. Um it's a state law requirement for uh counties to administer uh programs that reduce uh congestion on core roadways and intersections. And so it's not an apples to apples comparison with the city's TDM ordinance that we're discussing. Um many jurisdictions but not all implement local um ordinances that help to carry out congestion management program requirements under state law and they can in many cases uh take the place of county-level congestion management program requirements. But even in the instance of um a project applying a concession to the city's TDM ordinance, um those congestion management program requirements that are a part of state law are not in our opinion um subject to a use of a concession. So it's it's maybe um cold comfort but there's at least sort of a floor to what a larger project that affects the congestion management um network of key roadways and intersections, they will still need to achieve some measure of transportation demand management trip reduction to comply with that state law requirement.

[02:50:08] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I guess I the term making it concession proof is an overstatement of what I was asking for. The fact that today they go through this process and they look at these things and and there's a discussion around it I think is important that it stays there. I would rather have I'd like to do this and it's a little bit less than no I don't want to do it at all. And so what I'm asking is that you take a good hard look at what have they been asking for when have they when have those occurred when they've requested for it have they been actually likely to follow through with it or are they the ones that are complying or are they even if they say I'll do it and then they're walking away from it. To make sure that as we evaluate it we that we have some flexibility in the program to keep something in place. I'm not looking I don't expect it to be an all or nothing. That's just the message is take a good look at where it's working where it's not other jurisdictions are probably seeing something like that where are they seeing it and so just add that into your evaluation and if changes are needed great if it's perfect just tell me that and I'll vote for it okay.

[02:51:15] Chair Alex Nuñez: Sounds like that's a depth in defense request right just assess assess. Um so I mean I support that anyone else yep we're getting knowing nods here I think that sounds good to the commission and then with regard to the tiered parking and additional incentives it sounds like um yeah what's the what's the assessment or the the like I don't know like not burden but like the the status quo of that and the um kind of like the effort uh the elbow grease requirement around um Commissioner Subramanian's suggestion.

[02:51:37] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Can you state it one more time for the record? Sure. Um and again this is in the spirit of this being a living and evolving document to have consideration of measures that allow residential projects to sort of uh get their incentives through all these measures that are likely to have true impact. So anything around parking reduction that will obviously be uh, you know, tied in with lower trip generation, um so to the extent that there's kind of tiered reductions in parking to recognize that as maybe one or more auxiliary measures to count towards uh, you know, being in compliance.

[02:52:26] Chair Alex Nuñez: What say staff?

[02:52:30] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Commissioner I just want to make sure I'm understanding. So is your is your suggestion to allow tiered reductions in the required parking under zoning as various TDM measures are implemented or to allow uh tiered reductions in parking to yield some recognized TDM value that goes towards the TDM trip reduction requirement?

[02:52:57] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: The latter.

[02:53:01] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: And so the key issue here is it's not an all or nothing option as it's I guess currently provided, right? So I defer to my colleagues in public works who have been leading this work if that's something they could evaluate um as a policy option.

[02:53:18] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: We can evaluate it what the levels of effectiveness would be for reduced parking across a scale um and be able to provide that for for applicants as they're going through the process. We can certainly evaluate that.

[02:53:36] Chair Alex Nuñez: All right. Um does the commission feel good with that? Yes that's good.

[02:53:42] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Yep. Um one other suggestion was to also consider mixed use buildings to be able to apply a measure and hopefully that's straightforward enough to be accounted for.

[02:53:54] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Just to clarify. So would the idea be if a project proposes a shell use that could eventually be, you know, a commercial use in addition to another use?

[02:54:07] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Yeah and as I understand that some of these measures are based on like marketing strategies so the eventual outcome might be slightly different but if it's part of their marketing outreach towards that goal of fulfilling that kind of complementary use within the site then that be counted as a measure towards compliance.

[02:54:29] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: It's an interesting point. Um right now our MTA handbook provides an exemption for mixed use projects, so if a residential for example proposes uh a mixed use with I believe 50,000 square foot um commercial space that they would be exempted from VMT screening. Um so I think we could potentially look at where a project provides, you know, a similar use around the same size could potentially either be, you know, eligible for certain exemptions or incentives so we could look at how that could be applied.

[02:55:11] Chair Alex Nuñez: Commissioner Cranston.

[02:55:15] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I'm open to looking more options but I'm as Mr. Anderson mentioned I'm not interested in something that encourages people to push all the parking out into the neighborhood. So something that says you if you offer less parking that means there's less there's less travel every day is not an an outcome that I would view as a way to doing it. So if if evaluating if it's something they're putting a building right next to the downtown transit center and there's a lot of parking there and and they get more out of it that works if they're putting it in the middle of I don't know Whisman where there's not a lot around it then I'm not so I I get the I'm open to the idea of looking at it but it has to be it has to be within a context of the neighborhood and where it is and whether there's alternatives can actually absorb the less parking that's there so that's what...

[02:56:31] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: So currently we have the VMT or the VTA VMT screening tool which applicants can use and they submit a number of inputs uh related to the characteristic of their projects. And for a mixed use project uh there could be a anticipated difference in net ADT generated between a project of a single use versus a mixed use and potentially we can capture that delta as a potential uh ADT reduction and apply it that as a strategy that's kind of a way that I see it working which would because I think what you're getting to is that there's an internalization of trips that happen for mixed use right that wouldn't be otherwise generated because they could just walk to that use. So we could capture that delta we would have to look at the methodology and revisit the toolkit. Um that might require some time but I think certainly I understand kind of the mechanics of what you're proposing.

[02:57:30] Assistant Community Development Director Amber Blezinski: Yeah, I think right it's not a quick thing. Um I think it's definitely one of those if a developer were to come in and propose it we'd have conversations look at how they were implementing it look at if there other cities that had similar examples. Uh we'd have to spend some time to just put it in the toolkit right now but it's definitely something we can continue to explore.

[02:57:54] Chair Alex Nuñez: I I do like the internalization of it's like in kind of incentivizes the mixed use that we want to see. Is that feeling good for the commission the two yeah? Yep. Yeah I'll just say we understand the logic we just have to figure out the quantification how to quantify that and then put that in there so total recommendations and guidance you know so we'd leave to you the the total like how of it right? Um is that feeling good any objections strong objections from Commissioner Subramanian's? No. Any final thumbs up?

[02:59:12] Commissioner José Gutiérrez: Yeah no I abstain. I'd rather do straw votes so that we're clear on with who says what and why and where because the way I look it's like if you've already said that it may be time consuming I don't want to put more burden that on you. We have to look at what you can do now what's feasible in that front right? So let's take a straw. All right I'm not done. And and that's my perspective on that front right? So that's why I'm abstaining right now because I don't want to give you more work.

Segment 5

[03:00:00] Commissioner Bill Cranston: The reason why I am hesitant to just say yes, I am, I like the idea of something there, but it can't just be that you took off the parking and that's fine.

[03:00:12] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: I think that's a fair addition to clarify that because I believe in addition to that, there's a market reality too for the developer that if they completely cut out all the parking, they would have a hard time marketing it. So I think all in combination will go to sort of recognizing what that does at least from a TDM standpoint.

Segment 4

[03:00:22] Chair Alex Nuñez: All right let's take a straw vote then on the mixed use proposal from Commissioner Subramanian. Ready? All right. All right. And then for the additional incentives. Straw vote. Ready? Additional incentives for the tiered parking. Yep. All right. Ready? Yep. Yes. If we can have like a clear show of hands. Yeah sorry but do you want to restate it just to...

Segment 5

[03:00:33] Chair Alex Nuñez: How is that different than what's in here as an option? There's already a reduced parking option as one of the tools. How is what you're proposing different?

[03:00:42] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: So this is a broad brush, just you get one brownie point for reduced parking versus not recognizing deeper reductions in areas that are closer to other modes of transit and still providing parking. So this is kind of going the other way where developers do provide a lot more parking than perhaps is warranted by the location.

Segment 4

[03:00:57] Assistant Community Development Director Amber Blezinski: Can I just be clear what we're asking for is feedback, so we will take this to CTC and Council right now this is not a direction to staff because that does need to go through them but we will provide your feedback to them um and recommendations.

[03:01:19] Chair Alex Nuñez: Yeah the straw vote is just to um assess um majority feedback.

[03:01:29] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: So the direction was to um quantify the reductions in parking provided in terms of measurable sort of incentives as auxiliary strategies if you will so applicants could use that in their projects to the extent that they choose to go with reduced parking capacity. And to the extent that there's tiers of reduction that there's like more brownie points for the different tiers. Understanding that it requires some evaluation and effort, but also something that is much more applicable in a residential context as opposed to some of the measures that are in the toolkit that singularly apply to more of a commercial context.

Segment 5

[03:01:53] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: I was just going to add that, you know, I'm looking more towards my colleagues if they want to add the timeframe estimate. Like some kind of an estimate about it, like this can be achieved within a month or two because that's when we are tentatively scheduled to go to council.

[03:02:15] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yes. So what I'm hearing though are not necessarily changes to the ordinance, but changes to the toolkit, which we have already explained is evergreen. So where I was kind of going with this at the end is I'm hearing in general straw poll you guys are on board with the ordinance, but you would like us to continue exploring our toolkit. And I'm going to be honest, that's not a month. That's, you know, probably more like a year.

Segment 4

[03:02:24] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I'm open to looking more options but I'm as Mr. Anderson mentioned I'm not interested in something that encourages people to push all the parking out into the neighborhood. So something that says you if you offer less parking that means there's less there's less travel every day is not an an outcome that I would view as a way to doing it. So if if evaluating if it's something they're putting a building right next to the downtown transit center and there's a lot of parking there and and they get more out of it that works if they're putting it in the middle of I don't know Whisman where there's not a lot around it then I'm not so I I get the I'm open to the idea of looking at it but it has to be it has to be within a context of the neighborhood and where it is and whether there's alternatives can actually absorb the less parking that's there so that's why...

Segment 5

[03:03:24] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: I've got Ben and he's got some other projects. So and we have a consultant contract who helped us with all of this so that's expiring, so we'd have to bring a consultant back on board to kind of explore some of these things. So it's definitely doable, but I think we'd also like to see how some of the ones we've already have you know, cause we're not excluding developers from coming to us and saying, 'We'd like to do this. This is what we think the reduction would be.' There's nothing in there that won't let them take these strategies as we move forward.

[03:03:58] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: So what I'm hearing is there's a general acceptance of the ordinance, but you would like us to continue exploring what other agencies or just what's around the area for the toolbox and we can continue to update that as makes sense.

[03:04:18] Chair Alex Nuñez: Yep. I am in agreement.

[03:04:21] Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. Perfect. Um, and yeah, the mixed use piece, um, I think definitely, to the extent sounded good to everyone, I just want to make sure I'm confirming that. Yep. Alright. Sweet. So staff, do you feel like you have the feedback that you need?

[03:04:38] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yes. Thank you.

[03:04:39] Chair Alex Nuñez: Excellent. Yep. Perfect. Alright. Then in that case we will move on to item number seven, commission/staff announcements, updates, requests, and committee reports. No action will be taken on any questions raised by the commission at this time. Would anyone like to make any announcements, including potentially the next meeting date? Do we have a next meeting date?

[03:05:05] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: I think some of the commissioners might have an announcement. Maybe we can go through that first.

[03:05:11] Chair Alex Nuñez: Oh. Sorry, I didn't see that. Commissioner Subramanian.

[03:05:14] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to share with this group that Commissioner Pham and I had the good fortune of attending the Planning Commissioners Academy conference, God it feels like an age ago, and the only takeaways that were constantly repeated was the limited capacity of planning commissions in the age of state laws and many ways to commiserate around that, and was pretty much dinned into our heads about focusing on making sure that our cities put in place objective standards as soon as possible so we don't have to be entirely handcuffed in this process.

[03:05:55] Commissioner Shwetha Subramanian: But, um, I did want to say that it was a very valuable learning experience and the conference itself was set up in a very good format for us to have a lot of learnings and takeaways. Thank you.

[03:06:11] Commissioner Tina Pham: Thank you. Yeah, I completely agree. It was a great experience. Um, not only to attend and learn from the sessions, but to network with other commissioners, especially in the Bay Area, um, to share notes and to continue relationships. Thanks for the opportunity.

[03:06:27] Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you. Any other announcements? No. Um, do we have a next meeting date?

[03:06:33] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Thank you Diana Pancholi, Principal Planner. Um, we don't have any items on the agenda for the upcoming May 6th meeting, so that is tentatively going to be cancelled. Um, we do the one item which I know for sure is going to be on the agenda, um, but it's still tentative but it um, I'm preparing for that, is the EPC work plan, which is going to be on the June 17th date, so please make a note of that.

[03:07:07] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: We um, I don't have any announcement of what happens between May 6th and June 17th because if an item comes up we may have to schedule that. Um, the other thing that I wanted to bring to your attention is that I forwarded an email to the commission, but the draft of the, the design draft of the biodiversity and urban forest plan is now available and city staff is pretty very appreciative of all the input that um, we received from all the boards and commissions. This is tentatively scheduled to go to city council on April 28th. So the, feel free to share the link. I've included the link um, in the email, and let us know if you have any questions.

[03:07:53] Chair Alex Nuñez: Alrighty. Thank you very much. Um, having said that, I'm seeing no more other announcements, um, we'll adjourn the meeting at 10:04 PM. Thanks.

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