Jan. 15, 2025 Environmental Planning Commission

Video

Transcript

Segment 1

[00:02:06] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Good evening everyone. Welcome to the Environmental Planning Commission meeting of January 15th, 2025. I will call the meeting to order at 7:01 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. 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 date.

[00:02:29] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: 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. Please complete one yellow speaker card for each item on which you wish to speak and turn them in to the EPC Clerk over there as soon as possible, but no later than the call for public comment on the item you're speaking on.

[00:02:58] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Instructions for addressing the Commission virtually may be found on the posted agenda.

[00:03:04] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Recently, regional and local elected and appointed bodies have been subjected to disruptive, racist, verbal attacks by anonymous callers during virtual public comments. The City of Mountain View is fully committed to racial, religious, and cultural equity and justice as we strive to create a welcoming, safe, and inclusive community for all. This commission welcomes respectful and non-threatening public comments regarding matters over which the Commission has jurisdiction. Comments deemed otherwise pursuant to the Council Code of Conduct and the Government Code may be grounds for immediate termination of a speaker's comment period.

[00:03:38] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: I will now ask the EPC Clerk to proceed with roll call.

[00:03:43] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Everybody's here. So we're good with that.

[00:03:53] City Clerk Heather Glaser: The virtual roll call is concluded. All Commissioners are present.

[00:03:58] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you very much. Item 3, Minutes Approval, there are none. Item 4, Oral Communications. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the EPC on any matter not on 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. 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 comment on non-agenda items, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press *9 on your phone. Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with a *6.

[00:04:40] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Let's see. Madam Clerk, do we have any takers?

[00:04:43] City Clerk Heather Glaser: No comments at this time.

[00:04:46] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you. So, onto Item 5, New Business. Just a moment of privilege for the Commission. The Public Works Director, we would like to just briefly introduce her to all and sundry before we dive into the new business items on the agenda. Our new Public Works Director, Jennifer Ing. Jennifer has a wealth of experience here in the Bay Area. Luckily we managed to get her from Sunnyvale, and I'm told she's quite the knowledgeable expert on infrastructure and transformation. So she has come to the right place at the right time. So welcome, Jennifer, we're really glad you're here.

[00:05:32] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Item 5.1. Housing Element Program 1.1G - Zoning and General Plan Consistency with Site Inventory. So on this item, we'll first have a staff presentation, then public comment. At the closure of public comment, the commission will then discuss the item and handle questions. We're going to begin with a staff presentation from our Senior Planner, Krisha Penollar, and Advanced Planning Manager, Eric Anderson.

[00:05:59] Senior Planner Krisha Penollar: Great, thank you, Chair. Good evening, Commissioners. My name's Krisha Penollar, Senior Planner, and I'll be presenting this item. At today's meeting, we'll be reviewing Housing Element Program 1.1G, which is to ensure the zoning and general plan are consistent with the housing element site inventory and other housing opportunity sites. These sites are listed here and shown on the map to the right. Please note Moffett Boulevard will be completed as a separate project under the Moffett Precise Plan. And this program has a housing element deadline of December 31st, 2025. Please note this is a new business item as the housing element is more prescriptive for this program. The purpose of this meeting is to receive feedback on the recommended approach for this program and for EPC to provide a recommendation to Council on that proposed approach. A subsequent meeting will be held at the end of the year regarding the zoning and general plan amendments for adoption.

[00:07:03] Senior Planner Krisha Penollar: Here are some of staff's key considerations when evaluating zoning and general plan approach for each of the listed sites in the program. The first is ensuring the target densities and commercial components as identified in the housing element are being met for each of the sites. Secondly, any zoning and general plan amendments evaluated would not result in an existing business becoming non-conforming. For example, if there are existing medical office uses on site, we wouldn't want to rezone the site to a residential-only zoning district, thus making the existing medical office non-conforming. Making existing businesses non-conforming impacts operations down the line and limits what that non-conforming use can do in the future. And lastly, there are a few sites that are immediately adjacent to single-family residential zones. Therefore, staff analyzed existing zoning districts or uses that would require neighborhood transitions.

[00:08:03] Senior Planner Krisha Penollar: Now moving on to existing conditions of each of the sites. So the housing element site inventory target density and commercial component are shown here. The Leong Drive properties have a target density of 43 dwelling units per acre and identifies requiring neighborhood commercial. The Leong Drive and Fairchild Drive properties are shown in the orange boundaries. These sites are adjacent to Ameswell Hotel and the 101 Southbound exit. The subarea currently consists of a hotel, gas stations, and small one-story buildings. One of the Leong Drive properties is immediately adjacent to single-family residential, as shown in the whitish-gray hatches here. The Leong Fairchild Drive properties are located in the Evandale Precise Plan Subarea A and has a general plan land use designation of Neighborhood Commercial. The Precise Plan and General Plan do not currently allow residential, and there are five opportunity sites in the housing element site inventory within Subarea A, and that's shown in the purple hatch lines.

[00:09:14] Senior Planner Krisha Penollar: The next is 1702 Miramonte and 777 Cuesta Drive, which are located near Blossom Valley Shopping Center and Cuesta Park. Both sites include medical office buildings and both sites are adjacent to single-family residential. The properties are currently zoned as Commercial Office with a general plan designation of Office. The zoning and general plan currently do not permit residential, and 1702 Miramonte is an opportunity site in the housing element site inventory.

[00:09:47] Senior Planner Krisha Penollar: 1949 Grant Road is located west of Amy Imai Elementary School Park. The site is made of two parcels that currently includes a convalescent hospital. The site is immediately adjacent some single-family residential. The zoning is Grant-Martens Precise Plan Area B and the General Plan designation is Low-Density Residential. The current zoning and general plan does not currently allow densities consistent with the housing element densities of 30 dwelling units per acre.

[00:10:18] Senior Planner Krisha Penollar: Next is 677 to 699 Calderon Avenue, which is located on the east side of Calderon Avenue between Dalma Drive and Church Street. To the south of the site, across Church Street, is a future park and a historic structure. The site currently includes a strip mall which contains a restaurant, laundromat, convenience store, and other commercial businesses and is surrounded by residential land uses. The property is currently zoned Commercial Neighborhood and has a general plan designation of Neighborhood Commercial. And the general plan designation does not currently allow residential.

[00:10:55] Senior Planner Krisha Penollar: And lastly, we have the Mountain View Transit Station located in our downtown. It's near a mix of commercial and residential uses. The site itself consists of five parcels that includes the transit station, public plaza, the Savvy Cellar building, and some surface parking. The primary ownership of the Mountain View Transit Station is Caltrain, although the City of Mountain View does own the plaza property located at the far west end of the site. The zoning for the site is Evelyn Avenue Corridor Precise Plan, Transit Services Area, and the General Plan designation is Downtown Mixed-Use. The zoning currently does not permit residential uses.

[00:11:36] Senior Planner Krisha Penollar: So moving on to staff's approach. Three of the housing element sites, Leong Drive, Miramonte and Cuesta, and Calderon Avenue have existing commercial businesses. Therefore, staff recommends the General Plan Mixed-Use Village Center land use approach to ensure existing uses do not become non-conforming. The General Plan designations would also be modified to align with the identified target densities in the housing element. This would mean that Leong Drive would be amended to General Mixed-Use, which allows 1.35 FAR, which is equivalent to 43 dwelling units per acre consistent with the housing element target densities. And the Miramonte, Cuesta and Calderon would be amended to a Neighborhood Mixed-Use, which would allow 1.05 FAR, equivalent to 30 dwelling units per acre.

[00:12:28] Senior Planner Krisha Penollar: 1949 Grant Road has a more residential characteristic than the other three sites. So staff recommends an R3 Multiple-Family Zoning District approach. Therefore, staff recommends amending the precise plan to reference the R3 zoning district and allow multi-family housing up to 30 dwelling units per acre. Since this is a precise plan, there is existing verbiage that identifies the existing convalescent hospital as an allowed use. So this policy language would be retained to continue supporting that use.

[00:13:03] Senior Planner Krisha Penollar: The final approach is a specific precise plan approach and this is for the Mountain View Transit Center. Staff proposes a limited approach that increases the allowed density but leaves the consideration of specific standards to future discussions with Caltrain. This would mean amending the Evelyn Avenue Corridor Precise Plan and General Plan to allow residential uses up to 75 dwelling units per acre. As Caltrain is the primary owner, any future joint development depends on ongoing discussions with Caltrain. As further coordination is needed, minimal amendments are proposed at this time. Any additional details on appropriate land uses and other development standards will be developed alongside Caltrain.

[00:13:50] Senior Planner Krisha Penollar: As for next steps, once EPC provides a recommendation on staff's zoning and general approach for each site, the proposed approach will be reviewed at the February Council hearing. Staff will then draft the proposed zoning and general plan amendments and conduct the CEQA analysis. The amendments will then return to EPC and City Council at the end of 2025 for final adoption. Um, this would meet the housing element deadline of December 31st of this year. And thank you for your time. Staff is available for any questions you may have, and this concludes staff presentation.

[00:14:32] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Alright, thank you very much. So, public comment. If anyone in attendance would like to provide comments on this item, please fill out a yellow speaker card and provide it to the EPC Clerk. If anyone on Zoom would like to provide comment on this item, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press *9 on your phone. Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with *6. Madam Clerk, do we have any takers?

[00:14:57] City Clerk Heather Glaser: We do have at least one in-person speaker, Max Bozel.

[00:15:10] Max Bozel: Can you hear me? Thank you. Good evening. The feasibility or even desire to build transit-oriented development in the Evelyn Avenue Corridor Precise Plan could be impacted by Section I.1 of the EACPP, that same plan, which are guidelines related to noise, in particular from train noise. At the three grade crossings in the plan area. As you may be aware, the General Plan's outdoor noise environment guidelines could categorize new residential development in that area as normally unacceptable or even clearly unacceptable. The City of Menlo Park faces similar issues with train noise and has acknowledged that 104 weekday Caltrain and additional freight train movements 'force residents to hear train horns at all hours of the day and night, disrupting daily life and acting as more than a simple nuisance,' unquote. For this reason, the cities of Menlo Park and Palo Alto have undergone a study to determine the feasibility of implementing a quiet zone along the stretch of corridor adjacent to the Menlo Park train station. So in consideration of the amendment to the EACPP, I would respectfully request your consideration to have the environmental impact foresight with respect to mitigation of noise and suggest to the Council that the City proactively begin to assess the feasibility of implementing a quiet zone as part of the recommendations in amending the EACPP, thereby encouraging much-needed transit-oriented development within the acceptable noise exposure guidelines. Thank you.

[00:16:53] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you.

[00:16:57] City Clerk Heather Glaser: I do believe we have one more speaker. Tejas, are you for 5.1? The current item, 5.1? Okay.

[00:17:11] Tejas Mistry: Hi, good evening, Commissioners. My name is Tejas Mistry. I'm representing 55 Fairchild Drive, which is the Ramada by Wyndham, which is part of the Evandale Precise Plan Area A. We submitted written comments that you may have received, I'm not sure if they actually came through, but I can basically read what I wrote. Okay, so basically, in 2022 we requested that our site, 55 Fairchild Drive, be included in the Housing Element, noting that we are actively looking at opportunities to redevelop the site. We were happy to see that our site was included in the final draft. But after a brief conversation with one of the senior planners at the City of Mountain View yesterday, we were quite surprised to learn that the City is considering General Plan Mixed-Use Village Center for residential development, leaving in place our extremely highly restrictive commercial neighborhood zoning for that entire area. We'd like to take this opportunity to request that the EPC and City Council review the commercial zoning for the Evandale Precise Plan Area A in conjunction with the change in residential zoning. Now, while we understand that the purpose of this, of these amendments that we're discussing today, are to increase residential densities, the City should strive to balance residential and commercial growth in this part of the city, considering that every single property in this area is commercial currently. There are hotels that have been in place for over 50 years in this neighborhood. So to give some insight on how different the two zoning uses are, the General Plan Mixed-Use Village Center would allow us to do 55 stories, a floor area ratio of 1.35, and you compare that to commercial neighborhood, 35 feet with two stories max, and an FAR of 0.35. So the reason I'm bringing this up is we've tried to redevelop this site over many years. And considering that it's a hotel, the best use of that space considering its frontage on 101, it's all commercial, we support Google, essentially, since the day Google started. If we were to redevelop our 45,000 square foot lot right now, we would be able to build at most 15,750 square feet of a building on two stories. What that means is, for a normal hotel, let's say a Marriott, a Hilton, that would account for 35 hotel rooms. This is so restrictive that essentially nobody is building in our area. The County Inn, the Ramada by Wyndham, the site that was the former Denny's, the Wagon Wheel barbecue strip mall, and the King of Clubs strip mall, have all stayed exactly the same for over 20 years for one reason: the commercial neighborhood zoning does not allow us to build anything that's efficient or actually profitable. So while the City does need to get residential housing in this area, it's not realistic that we are going to have five new apartment buildings built there. We...

[00:20:18] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: We hit three minutes, so. Thank you.

[00:20:20] Tejas Mistry: Sorry. Thank you.

[00:20:26] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Further speakers, Madam Clerk?

[00:20:28] City Clerk Heather Glaser: We have two speakers virtually, Mary DeTayo.

[00:20:55] Mary Dateo: Hello. This is Mary DeTayo. I'm a resident of the Cuesta Park neighborhood. And I wanted to thank staff for such a clearly worded staff report. Regarding the three locations that are traffic intersections with Cuesta Drive, so the Miramonte location, the Cuesta location, and the one on Grant. And also the site at Calderon. I favor the recommended zoning to allow buildings up to three stories with densities of roughly 30 residential units per acre and with neighborhood transitions to the R1 zones. I think this direction respects the nature of the adjacent R1 sites while greatly increasing the number of housing units possible on these sites. I don't know if there is a way to encourage future developments on sites such as this to include condos instead of apartments. But if there is, while maintaining the proposed zoning constraints, I would like to see more ownership opportunities in our city. With the high cost of single-family housing, condos represent a really good first ownership opportunity for, you know, people trying to buy their first residence. I also support the higher density units proposed at the Mountain View Transit Center. Thank you.

[00:22:18] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Next speaker is Chuck Muir.

[00:22:24] Chuck Muir: Yeah, good evening, everyone. Hopefully, you can hear me. I am, I live over on Evandale Drive, which is adjacent to the Evandale Precise Plan area. My comment is, there's a local market in that area that, that's kind of adjacent to the Wagon Wheel. It would be nice to have a market in this area. The market has a taqueria and it has a butcher, so for local people, it's a great way for them to shop and get groceries. I know that one of the goals in the city is to have these places available to citizens to go shopping in their residential areas. So all three types of stores provide for the local community rather than just providing housing and not allowing for other commercial uses. So that's just one comment that I had. The other comment I had is there are, like off of Whisman, there are a lot of empty office buildings since the pandemic. I'm wondering if any consideration has been done to utilize these areas for residential, potential residential rezoning, as a mixed-use for potential residential. I know it's outside these precise plans, but just something to consider. Thank you.

[00:23:46] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you. Madam Clerk, do we have anyone else?

[00:23:49] City Clerk Heather Glaser: No, no additional speakers at this time.

[00:23:54] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you. So, going forward, we're going to segment the discussion and deliberation tonight into two parts. Now we're going to begin the discussion about the site at 1702 Miramonte. I myself am going to be recusing from the discussion of from this portion due to the proximity of my personal residence to 1702 Miramonte. I am going to pass the management of the discussion to my Vice Chair, Mr. Gutierrez, and I will come back once that section is complete.

[00:24:43] Chair José Gutiérrez: Hi everyone. Happy New Year. Okay, so let's start with 1702 Miramonte. We'll do questions first and then we'll have deliberations. Do any members of the EPC have any questions for the team?

[00:25:21] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Yeah. So um, quick question. In terms of the proposed rezoning to Mixed-Use Village Center, um, I know that, I think I drive past that little office space every day if I'm thinking correctly, it's like a dentist's office. Right, yep. Um, is the, I guess like what's the desired vision there? Is it to retain some of these businesses? Um, is it to to kind of, um, maintain some of the commercial character regardless of whether new businesses come in and kind of fill that up? Um, would it be the same amount of commercial space as exists today? Um, and what would be like the, uh, the relationship with the Blossom Valley area? Is it like intended to be like a little commercial corner? Um, I guess like, yeah, just broad, you know, can you paint the character, the vision, the character of the vision for us with that corner?

[00:26:31] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Sure. Thank you, that's an excellent question. We are responding first and foremost to the language in the housing element, which is intended to provide opportunities for housing, especially in the city's highest opportunity neighborhoods. So, during the housing element process, we reviewed the areas south of El Camino Real and we identified several sites south of El Camino Real that could accommodate housing based on the fact that they're currently commercial. This was one of those sites that came up. There are some agglomeration benefits for the site, being close to the Blossom Valley Shopping Center, which is a very popular shopping center, very well-tenanted, and you know, lots of customers use that shopping center. And so those kind of agglomeration benefits can certainly result in some successful commercial uses continuing at that site, just as well as the benefit of having housing walking distance to key services and, like Safeway and things like that. So, those are the kind of performance concepts that we are thinking about in recommending the General Plan Mixed-Use Village Center approach. But then in addition, the desire, as Ms. Penollar mentioned at the beginning, there are only a few ways that we can actually implement new zoning in a commercial, on a commercial site, that allow that commercial use to continue, and it is not in our interest right now to kind of limit the opportunity of that, those existing businesses to do upgrades in the future or do modifications to the site. So really, it's that set of policies that's guiding our recommendation tonight. I don't know if it's a vision per se, you know, it's not, we haven't drafted a comprehensive vision for the shopping area, the way you might through a precise plan process. But there are a number of policy goals that we're trying to implement.

[00:29:05] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Got it. Yeah, I guess that word vision also has like some connotations to it. Not intended, but understood. Um, and then my second question then following up on that, um, I think that if I understood the staff report correctly, there's a call for some consideration or implementation actually, around kind of, what do they call it, a gradient approach from direct adjacencies to residential. Um, I guess I'm curious because that is a pretty compact little corner there. Um, right next to residential. So I mean, like how would that look like? Um, it doesn't seem like there's much gradient opportunity there.

[00:30:02] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Well, we haven't done a massing study for the site, if that's what your question is. But we have seen that when developers are interested in providing sensitive transitions to surrounding neighborhoods, they will put some of their more, like open space amenities along that property line, for example. They can do other strategies to reduce massing along that side by, you know, by configuring the shape of the building in a way that kind of reduces the amount of building area that's along that side of the property. Um, you're right, it's fairly small, uh, but it is, you know, the standards that we are recommending, the General Plan Mixed-Use Village Center standards, were crafted with a mind to a range of parcel sizes.

[00:31:04] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Cranston.

[00:31:13] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So just just on a similar note, the Mixed-Use Village Center already includes a transition component already built into it for things next to residential like single, so there's already it already has something in there that says you can't just immediately go to four stories or something like that, right?

[00:31:38] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: That's correct. Yeah, they're the specific standard is, I have it open here just a second. So adjacent to residential zoning districts, it's a 25-foot minimum setback, including at least 5 feet landscaping. Uh, and then the height limit, the wall plates at each floor of a building shall not be higher than the distance to an adjacent residentially zoned property. So if it's say a 35-foot high wall plate, that would need to be set back 35 feet.

[00:32:34] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. And just for my clarity, we're only discussing 1702 Miramonte, we're not discussing 777 Cuesta?

[00:32:44] Chair José Gutiérrez: Team, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the approach, right? Because of the recusal. Okay. Of Chair Dempsey. Any other EPC members that'd like to pose a question to the team? Okay, I have a couple questions. So, in presenting this to the team, to the commissioners, you factored in what had been done before with our analysis during the Housing Element plan, and points that were brought up tonight by members of the community weren't necessarily expressed at that time because we weren't here yet. So I'm intrigued about a question that former Chief Max Bozel suggested in terms of the noise assessment. How would we approach that?

[00:33:37] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Typically that's done on a project-by-project basis. It's difficult to, at a high level, you know, a zoning level or a general plan level, to anticipate the specific noise impacts on any given property. It can be affected by all kinds of kind of unpredictable factors. Um, so we do have building code standards about interior noise. Uh, and so developers are required to study the noise environment and identify windows and HVAC equipment and the like that would maintain the interior noise standard that we have.

[00:34:27] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay. So my follow-up question is, that would be the approach that you would have for any of these sites in general? Yes. And after we do this assessment here, and discussion, and then eventually it's reviewed by City Council and they do what they do, is it then at the point of City Council approval where the noise assessment would not still be addressed until an actual development proposal comes in, that it would be addressed?

[00:34:53] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yes, although, um, certainly we do have other policy documents that prescribe other measures that can help address noise, especially in open areas. Um, so we can look to, you know, kind of language that we might have in other precise plans, for example, that that may have those kind of noise mitigation policies. Uh, if that's something that Council is interested in us furthering looking into.

[00:35:23] Chair José Gutiérrez: Sure, so then my other question would then be, that's at Council's direction. So at this point, we can factor in the opinion and the concern, and at this point in time, City Council could do the same. However, this isn't the last stop for this concern. So this can also be brought up at that point in time with them and their further review, or at the time when a development proposal comes in where a concerned member of the community would bring this issue up?

[00:35:54] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yes, absolutely. Although the more advance notice we would have to study a potential noise policy the better. It might be difficult to propose something like that at the dais, you know, when we're bringing forward the ordinance to amend the precise plan.

[00:36:09] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay. So then in this case, because I like the idea of the noise assessment study, I mean that's a given for me, would we be in the proper space to then make this as an added-on suggestion for you to share with City Council? Or how would you best approach for us to speak about that?

[00:36:29] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, I will stop you right there because I think we're talking about 1702 Miramonte now. Ah. Uh, and so we should probably wait until the Chair comes back to kind of finish this conversation.

[00:36:39] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay. Sounds good. So I gave you heads up on that note. You bet. Sounds good. So for 1702, anyone have any other questions? Okay. Let's move on to deliberations. Who would like to start?

[00:37:06] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I'm comfortable with the staff report on this item, and would be supportive of bringing this recommendation for this location to council as presented by staff.

[00:37:21] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Uh, agree with Commissioner Cranston.

[00:37:29] Chair José Gutiérrez: Anyone else?

[00:37:34] Commissioner Joyce Yin: I was going to say, um, yes, I'm in agreement as well, mainly because I think, you know, we're trying to hit the housing element policy and also I understand very much the reason for not taking away the current use. I think that's important for the existing businesses. So.

[00:38:00] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Yeah, I agree with the staff recommendation. We did get public comment about some parking concerns at that site, and I have heard previously over years that there are parking problems at that site. But any development would go through an analysis at that time. So I think that the staff recommendation is appropriate.

[00:38:28] Chair José Gutiérrez: Staff, do you need anything else?

[00:38:34] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Oh, I'm fine. I'm fine. Yeah. No, I think that's it. Thank you.

Segment 2

[00:46:42] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, thank you for the clarifying question, that that's a great question. Um, no, we had not considered that transitions was a key policy for this site, uh, which is why our um our uh precise plan amendment approach really doesn't prescribe those standards. It really just says allow 75 units per acre uh and to allow the uh uh the process of working with Caltrain to establish uh the what the community is looking for in in terms of massing along Evelyn Avenue, for example, uh, which may be a concern, but, um, that's something that we would have to address through that process.

[00:47:23] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Cool. Thank you.

[00:47:26] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Commissioner Donahue.

[00:47:30] Commissioner Paul Donahue: So I have a couple questions related to the Leong Fairchild uh subarea A. The proposal is to incorporate the changes for all of subarea A, not just the uh the original parcels that were identified. Um, so one question is, why were only those parcels chosen and not the other adjacent parcels that are kind of similar or similar in in in some character?

[00:48:07] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Just to clarify your question, do you mean why were only um five of the maybe eight or nine sites there selected to be in the sites inventory?

[00:48:17] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Right, like why is the Ramada in there but not not the Holiday Inn?

[00:48:21] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Right, so we had um a a number of quantitative criteria that we used to uh fill out our sites inventory. Those criteria were based on what we have found to be um kind of characteristics of a site that could realistically lead to a developer wanting to build residential there. So existing buildings that are fairly new, uh fairly large relative to their parcel, um and uh and in in fairly good condition were uh considered not likely to be redeveloped over the next eight years, which is one of the requirements of the housing element that your sites inventory be sites that are viable for residential development. So our uh rezoning strategies um uh include more sites than our sites inventory, uh in part to provide additional opportunities, especially in the highest opportunity neighborhoods. Um, and and also just to uh, you know, towards the end of the housing element process, we uh were we uh uh were working with HCD to determine kind of what was going to get us over the the finish line for uh for certification. And um, you know, identifying additional rezoning actions was was one of those things that could help us get get us over the finish line.

[00:49:59] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Okay. Okay, um, that makes sense. What uh a related question is, you mentioned environmental analysis and as part of the housing element there was some analysis done for CEQA purposes. Uh, does that analysis, is that analysis still valid if additional sites are are done through through this action that we're, you know, talking about now?

[00:50:28] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, so the the program level EIR that we conducted through the housing element was really, it it was about the programs. So it was about these rezoning actions. Uh, it wasn't specifically about residential development on the sites inventory. So it uh, you know, there may still be some additional analysis that we need to conduct for this this process just because we're at kind of a a um finer grained focus now in this project. Uh, but we don't expect there to be any new impacts because we've already analyzed the kind of big picture impacts for all of the programs and all of the rezoning actions that we have in the housing element. As long as the uh the actions that the council directs us to take implementing this housing element program stay fairly close to what the housing element prescribes.

[00:51:31] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Okay, and this is fairly close so.

[00:51:33] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, it is I it is basically identical.

[00:51:36] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Okay. Okay, that makes sense. Thank you.

[00:51:43] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you, Commissioner. uh Commissioner Yin.

[00:51:46] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Just a few general questions if you don't mind. Um, sort of near the area and I I do a lot of walking, uh I actually visited all the sites except for one and so that's why I'm gonna ask about this one at Cuesta, 777. What what is the density out of curiosity for the adjacent site next door? I haven't seen the final product. I only saw that there was construction and I haven't gone by in a long time. So I don't know what that is, just curious what that was.

[00:52:14] Senior Planner Krisha Penollar: Yeah, so that's six dwelling units per acre. So it's a total of four units on that site.

[00:52:20] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Okay, thanks. Um, for the Evandale area, um, it seemed like there's some construction going on across the Wagon Wheel. Is there is there anything proposed for that site?

[00:52:37] Senior Planner Krisha Penollar: So there's no current there's no active development proposal right now, but the site is being used as a construction staging area for some CIP projects.

[00:52:47] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Got it. Okay, that's why, alright. Um, and I had another question for that zone also. I noticed that if we change from the commercial neighborhood to the CRA, um, which is the mixed-use village center, um, there was something in the the development standards that kind of caught my attention and maybe I just don't understand, so I just want clarification on whether or not the storefront could face Leong for that area that's between Moffett and Leong. It's sort of the skinny, um, skinny portion right as you turn into Leong off of Moffett, um, and so it's between those two streets because Leong is only, it's less than 70 feet. So I know that after reading the precise plan all that area is actually supposed to be targeted towards the neighborhood serving um commercial. So I I was just curious if it was doable.

[00:53:49] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, sure, thank you so much for the question. That's very astute. Um, just to clarify, the mixed-use village center approach is not the same as the CRA approach. The CRA is a separate zoning district which doesn't require commercial, uh, and is specifically 43 units per acre, uh, that doesn't have the flexibility for the range of densities. Um, the, um, the you're correct that there is a standard in the general plan mixed-use village center land use standards that says that, um, if you're across from R1 and the street is less than 70 feet wide, it's not intended to provide storefront in that location. Um, so for example, uh, Blossom Valley Shopping Center has a residential street right behind it that's lined by some duplexes and single-family homes, uh, while the shopping center itself faces Cuesta and Miramonte. And so the intent of that language is to ensure that any development that comes in those types of locations, uh, orients towards the major streets rather than, you know, some other random street that might just happen to border on the site. Um, this is a precise plan and so we can be a little bit more targeted with our standards in this location, provide more clarity about what uh the um uh the standards are intended to do in this location. And so that is something that as we further craft uh the what we actually bring forward, we'll look at more closely and see if we need any additional language to better clarify what can be done there and what should be done in that location.

[00:55:37] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Thank you much for clarifying that. So then I was completely wrong to assume that CRA is the same as general plan mixed-use village center.

[00:55:47] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Those are those are two separate approaches, yeah.

[00:55:49] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Okay. So we just didn't get that in the exhibits. Right, okay, that's all. Okay, um, I think I got all of them, thank you.

[00:56:04] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Commissioner Cranston.

[00:56:08] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I have a few. Um, the convalescent home is not considered residential? Which zone? Um, um, the one on Grant Road. A convalescent home is not considered residential?

[00:56:27] Senior Planner Krisha Penollar: Uh, it is not in our residential land uses list. Yeah, that one is defined as a medical office.

[00:56:37] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Huh. My mom was in a convalescent home for a very long time and I certainly considered it her residence, so that came as a surprise to me. Um, that's one question. Um, the staff report focuses on the residential component of Leong and and Fairchild. Can you contrast the commercial, kind of what's permitted under the the precise plan for commercial versus the general plan mixed-use village center? What would be, how does that change for the commercial space?

[00:57:12] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, so it it the the general plan language uh is broad enough that it wouldn't affect the allowed commercial uses. Um, I can bring up the language in the general plan and and, you know, we can we can show it on the screen.

[00:57:30] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Is it more dense? As far as the commercial uses?

[00:57:34] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: No, no, it's not more dense for the commercial uses.

[00:57:37] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So it's the same, doesn't change the commercial.

[00:57:39] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: You know, I would have to look that up and double check that. Um, what I will say is that for residential uses, there are lots of considerations like state laws about how the general plan and zoning intersect. Um, for commercial uses, in general the more restrictive would apply. So even if the uh even if the general plan allowed more FAR for example than uh than the zoning did, the the more restrictive zoning um dense um FAR for commercial would apply. We would need to specifically upzone the zoning in order to uh allow the the higher density commercial.

[00:58:33] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. Um, next question, and I don't know whether the the uh folks from our next topic are here yet or not, but uh I was, my my reaction to the site on Leong Drive was quite frankly a little bit the opposite of yours, Alex. Um, I'm gonna I'm gonna tell a story first so you understand my context, okay. Um, when I first moved to California, uh, a friend of mine took me to a little local restaurant and exposed me to a wonder of cuisine called the carnitas burrito. Okay, I couldn't have told you what a carnitas burrito was or what even carnitas was until I moved out here because they don't have them in Boston, okay. Um, the location was a small little hole-in-the-wall place at the corner of Rengstorff and in Old Middlefield. It was always busy, very, very active, um, and you know, what happened was they they turned the property into, um, a below-market-rate housing development. And the people that were there, who were in what I would call a um naturally affordable commercial space, okay, which is an older space that actually allows a business that has been around for a while, maybe they're not as as, you know, as profitable as Google, okay, but it allows naturally affordable commercial space and they were very successful there. When the the new building was put put in, um, they struggled to find a location and I think they eventually went to a a food truck and I'm not even sure if it still exists. But I still remember those burritos, it was they were wonderful. Okay. When Safeway moved from the corner of California Street and and San Antonio to the other site, um, there was a this wonderful you know older couple, a Korean couple that had a a little dry cleaner there. They were wonderful, they were the nicest people, get things done for you, would help things out, and when the space was changed over to Greystar, um, they looked and looked for another location and never found one and eventually decided to retire. Next door to it was a hair salon that back when I had hair and had to get my haircuts occasionally, um, I would go to, but she was always busy doing perms for people and stuff and she ultimately ended up moving to to Sunnyvale. I am, con- I guess I have my my question ultimately is, we have and the state is going after these things that say we need to have naturally affordable housing for people, low income housing. What happens when redeveloping a site means that somebody who has a small business who only can exist because they have a relatively low-cost location, a naturally affordable business, now can't go there? Is there anything in any of our programs or any of these things that would say, you know, we've said, okay, we're allowing neighborhood commercial, but that doesn't mean that it's the kind of thing that, you know, that little burrito place could ever survive in in the future. And I I am, when I look at the Calderon location, and quite frankly the ones on Leong Drive, okay, there is a little bar there, there's a little grocery store there, it it feels very neighborhood serving. And I'm not sure is there anything in this that says that there would be a provision that would help to keep some kind of viability, because I don't want to do is, okay, so I have a house for somebody, but the person who is making a living in that location, paying for their rent, now can't have a house there because the place where they had their business and the people that were working there can't there. So I'm I'm worried about some of these changes that would effectively lock out these people in these, again, what I call making up my new term, naturally affordable commercial space. And that's that's a concern that it has and when I looked at it saying, can you is there anything in what we've got in policies in place already? Is there anything in these program these plans that would help to address that issue?

[01:02:48] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, I'll just start by saying that's that is a uh great story. I think a lot of us remember La Costeña fairly well. I think uh there is a La Costeña on on uh Middlefield and Whisman, I don't know if it's the same business, but um, anyway, uh so thank you for the story and that's that is a very uh astute observation as well. Um, I will say these proposed zoning actions do not include that. Um, now if that is a concern of the EPC and you want to forward that concern up to council, that's certainly a a a good recommendation to make. I would also say that a program like this um may not be the appropriate place for something which is fundamentally a citywide issue. Um, and so I'll tee it over to our director, who is also the director of economic development, who may have something to say also about um more citywide approaches to this issue.

[01:03:56] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Thank you. Good evening, Commissioners. Community Development Director Christian Murdock. Um, I think the the concern that you expressed is uh widely held uh in terms of concerns about displacement of businesses. And I think really what I have to add uh to the discussion is just that that's why care is being taken with the zoning approach to ensure that we're not creating non-conformities, so that for whatever period of time the existing businesses remain in place, they're not constrained by non-conforming zoning provisions that might limit their ongoing operations. Beyond that, um, I think cities across the state really struggle with this. There are occasionally opportunities depending on the scale of a new development to encourage the developer to provide um affordable rents or a right of a first uh return for existing businesses, but to be fair it's a a continual challenge and it's often unsuccessful just due to the time of uh displacement and and and the need to wind down the operation and all the time that can transpire before they may even be provided an opportunity to come back. I don't think it's something that um many communities, if any, have really figured out with a a comprehensive and systematic approach. But it's something that we continue to think about, um, opportunities to leverage directly or indirectly with uh particular projects.

[01:05:19] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So is there any is there anything about what's being proposed that would actually make it easier to get rid of those locations, or is it the same? I I I I'm worried that some of some of these would actually make it easier to to wipe out these places where people are making a living today.

[01:05:37] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, from the perspective that one of the goals of the housing element is to make it easier to build housing, then yes. It is, it is an action that, you know, redeveloping these sites is easier under these uh rezoning proposals.

[01:05:58] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. Um, next question. Um, given all of the constraints with the transit center site and the Caltrain ownership, why are we doing this? It it doesn't it this feels premature to look at the the the transit center, quite frankly. Um, I I don't disagree that it's available for more density, but it's like okay here's I'm putting a one little Band-Aid on a a big pig and and I just it felt like okay what's the point was my first reaction when I saw it. Is there, I mean, do we have to do this because it's it's part of the housing element that we have to to rezone it, or can we just say that we're going to work with Caltrain on this and figure something out? I just I it couldn't couldn't get my arms around why this is why we have to do this now.

[01:07:01] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, it is part of the housing element process that we identify opportunity sites, uh, both kind of known and potential. At the time that we were adopting the housing element, uh, this was a known opportunity site. Caltrain had already expressed interest in developing on this site. Uh, they had not been specific and continue to not be specific about the uses that they are proposing at this site, but an action like this may help facilitate residential as a use that they might consider.

[01:07:47] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. And then kind of a related question, it's not necessarily a an existing neighborhood serving business but a hell of a lot of people go to the farmers market on Sundays. And I was like okay what does this mean for that? It's a I go I don't know it's it's so how does how was this, I guess when I didn't remember this was in the sites inventory until I saw this and I'm like oh shoot where's the house where's the farmers market going? Oh it's backup sites already being designated as another development site in a parking lot. So how would this how would this is there nothing in here that takes into account the farmers market? If we change this it just makes it easier for the farmers market to go away?

[01:08:36] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, the transit center master plan process has been going on for quite a while. I don't know the details of um, you know, what the considerations are for the farmers market as part of the transit center master plan discussions that are happening in Public Works and um with Caltrain, but um I'm sure that it is definitely a valuable resource and and I'm sure this is being considered.

[01:09:12] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay, I have no questions, I'm done for now.

[01:09:15] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Commissioner Yin.

[01:09:18] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Thanks, uh I forgot I had another question here written down. Um, and it was regarding the transit station. Thank you for reminding me. I was just curious. So for that area I understand why we're taking a very minimal approach and I I understand your concern too. Um, my question was really regarding next steps. We're being considerate of the of Caltrain because they own the property, obviously. But are they equally concerned with what we feel? So are we working together for a vision for that area or is it going to be project by project?

[01:09:58] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: I think what I can say is that um we have had recent conversations with um staff at Caltrain uh and expressed our interest in working together when they're ready to move forward to that next stage. Um, they are going through an internal process right now as an organization looking at a variety of opportunities to enhance revenue for the uh for the train system operation. And so once that process concludes sometime this year as it's expected, um I anticipate they'll reach out to the city and want to begin a series of conversations about what development might look like on this site. And so um I don't know that it's premature in that sense, if you think of the time scale over which projects like this take place. I think it's expressing the city's interest and intent in development here and it's probably a helpful message to send to Caltrain uh to ensure that they know that we're we're looking to be a partner in that process.

[01:10:53] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Okay, thanks. But because they own it, they don't really have to, they can have their own ideas and just let us know this is what they're thinking of doing and there's not much that we can do, or is there? I know ideally we work together, but just legally can they just say this is what we're thinking, this is what we're doing?

[01:11:10] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Yeah, I think that's a question I'm not prepared to answer tonight. Um, I mean the city has property interests in a portion of the transit center, uh and so we may have influence uh in that way. Um, in addition it's a more complicated legal analysis as to uh inter-jurisdictional development opportunities and and which jurisdiction sort of has primary land use authority. And so um I'm not prepared to offer an answer to that specific question tonight, um, but I do expect and certainly hope that Caltrain will want to be a a cooperative partner in this process.

[01:11:47] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Okay thanks, and part B to that was as far as you know, then are they going to maintain some public open space or is that something that just hasn't come up yet?

[01:11:58] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: I certainly haven't been involved in any any conversations to that level of detail.

[01:12:02] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Thank you.

[01:12:04] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Can I just... wanted to add to the farmers market conversation that our economic development staff is already working with the farmers market to find some alternate locations, just as back pocket sites in case the Caltrain location is not available.

[01:12:25] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Okay. Well this feels anticlimactic but I did have a small point of clarification for staff, I just wanted to understand something about the mixed-use village and it's what is the delineation between the acceptable types of commercial you can have under a generic mixed-use village and what you couldn't have. Because what I'm thinking of is it's, you know, the bodega or the coffee shop, that's what we always think of in mixed-use. What prevents there from just being a uh non-commercial or excuse me non-public facing commercial entity, like you know software developer or something like that. No no knock on them. But that isn't sort of public serving. So what's what is the delineation that is the default for these mixed-use villages?

[01:13:08] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, so the the general plan mixed-use village center land use standards refer to the CN zone, which allows a range of neighborhood serving commercial uses. Um, small offices are allowed, for example, like an insurance office or a bank. Uh, but the intent is that they are neighborhood serving. Uh, small medical offices are allowed. Um, and you know, think about the types of uses that you might see in a typical strip mall, it's it's those types of uses.

[01:13:38] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Okay. And is what sort of influence does the city have in terms of what types of public facing commercial uses might go into a place? So I'll give you a grocery store is a great example right, places need grocery stores, people really like to walk to grocery stores. Say there's a new mixed use development coming in. Does the city really have, is the city just hands off, they just say well the landowner will decide who they want to put in as a tenant, it's not our call. Or does the city have some sort of say or influence in that beyond just asking nicely?

[01:14:12] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, for zoning compliant projects we have very little influence. Uh, the general plan mixed-use village center uh standards try to get at that, that desire for a grocery store by saying that if you're demolishing a space that's 15,000 square feet or more, then you have to replace it with a space that's 15,000 square feet or more. Um, ideally a 15,000 square foot space is good enough for a grocery store to want to locate in. A lot of Trader Joe's are about 15,000 square feet. So that is the intent of that standard, and that's the extent of the control that we can have over individual uses as long as they're permitted under the zoning.

[01:14:59] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Okay, thank you, that's very helpful. Uh, if there are no further questions we're going to move to deliberations. I'm just going to provide a time check, it is 8:15 and we do have two more items left to cover tonight, so. Uh, comments from the commission. Commissioner Nuñez.

[01:15:16] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, I feel pretty supportive um of the staff recommendation. Um, I mean there's things that I don't particularly philosophically, you know, think about or or, you know, consider much, kind of like transitions or or um yeah, like I mean maybe maybe I should become a homeowner and then that will become more apparent to me. But at the same time I'm not going to like you know fall on some sword on on that because I trust I trust that staff has has really done a good job at at considering these. Um, with regard to the Caltrain, you know, uh site, I guess like my thought on that is I don't have a reason to believe, and maybe staff can clarify as well or or or support or or say hey we can't confirm that either way. Like um, I I also don't see a reason why things like the farmers market won't be able to continue. Um, you know, when we have the uh Niners games, I think uh they they they just move it over over here, right? There's like where there's a will there's a way. Um, and if Caltrain wants to become a landlord because they need revenue, then, you know, we should allow them to be able to continue to find a way to be able to provide a critical service and um, you know, for us to give them that flexibility as well. Um, I don't, again, like I also don't have a reason to believe they're coming at things with bad faith or trying to like throw their weight around or whatever. Um, you know, we have very capable staff uh negotiating and and and managing that relationship as well and it's in everyone's interest to to be collaborative and not um, you know, uh kind of at odds with each other. So um, I'm not really concerned with the uh Caltrain site. Um, I'm glad to hear transitions weren't a part of that. Um, so yeah, I mean I'm I'm gonna be supporting uh staff's uh recommendation.

[01:17:29] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you sir. Further comments. Vice Chair Gutierrez.

[01:17:33] Chair José Gutiérrez: I'm more philosophical tonight. I'm not as optimistic as Alex. I've seen what happens here in the last three years and sometimes you have lows and you have highs. But I think what I realize in this process is that one, we don't really have that much of a say over certain things for the most part in general. We have a vision, or a strategy. That's about it. So this whole thing about Caltrain relationship and potential opportunity, that's great. That's nice, let's see if it works out. Because it didn't with Google. When we lost all that inclusionary housing, we were all a part of that process here. So I take things with a grain of salt. I appreciate that the teams have been able to say hey we have some ideas with these sites, they'll be added onto our standards of what we expect to hopefully achieve with the housing element plan. But like with what Commissioner Cranston said before, I had brought this up earlier which was when we discussed the issue of oh guess what, we also have these sites that are religious sites, they may not be around, because if we rezone them well there's an opportunity for housing to be developed there. And I kid you not, I got grief over that one way or another. Either because some people thought it was funny or some people were really upset because they thought hey wait a minute, we didn't know you were a fundamental Christian. I'm like I'm not, man. I'm not a fundamental Christian. I'm just Catholic, I'm just myself. But I think about these plans because once we say yes to that, there's a potential for that area to be sold. So when I looked at your issue too Bill, I thought the same thing. How could this be just a medical center that takes care of people when it's more than that? And if you put that up for potential sale, redevelopment, you lose out on those types of folks that are calling this place a community. And that's the potential that I think we sometimes oversee. Which we're struggling with right now as a group to be able to live with, which is when there comes an opportunity to have potential housing opportunities, there also comes a risk of affecting the community one way or another, intentionally or not, with what's going to be lost. Whether that be a small business like the milk pail, a mechanic over by 7-Eleven, or potentially all these other issues that we just brought up right now. So I take your suggestions with a grain of salt and I appreciate you taking the time to recommend these things as best as you can according to what your limitations are. And I'm hoping that the community understands that as we try and wrestle with these recommendations, we look at them for just what they are and we hope for the best because sometimes we don't really have a say. We just have a hope, a vision, a strategy. Which is why I brought up the issue of what Chief Max Bozel had mentioned before about how does this noise assessment work. Because sooner or later it's going to be brought up again, and again, and again. And I'd like for our team as we move forward to take all those issues also into account, so that when we do have a presentation we can address that issue ahead of time as opposed to after the fact. I'll be supporting this because why not, right? Let's see what the future has in store for us and hopefully it'll be a positive one I hope. So thank you.

[01:20:40] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Commissioner Cranston.

[01:20:44] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So in in general I'm supportive of the the staff report, I do have a couple of thoughts. Um, on the Grant Road site, um, I would absolutely want the option that if they chose to redevelop the the care facility on that site that that would be something that's permitted, okay. At the at the same density as the residential could be. I know we're not calling it, we're not calling it residential, but you know, people want to be able to go visit mom in the care facility, they shouldn't have to go to Tracy, okay. We've got something in the area right now, and so I'm okay with changing the density in there, but it should be also be permitted for the the care facility as well, okay. And however you're working that, I don't wanna automatically push people who who wanna be able to go visit mom or dad into some place else. Um, I have a suggestion on on how to deal with the um with the small businesses, okay. Um, update our zoning code to say when you're looking at a small business that's got, you know, it's a little salon or a a burrito place or whatever, it's a thousand square feet. That's one unit. Allow someone to replace, to accommodate their BMR requirements, by offering a a below market rent commercial space to the people in those areas. Okay, they can get a credit for one space for one space. Okay, that's within our control, not the state's control, we have our BMR codes. If it's 20 units and they would in the past they would have to be all BMR units, give them the option to say okay I'm going to offer a a 50% rent location here in perpetuity for that same thing, because that keeps the person employed, keeps the people that work there employed, and somebody in the community is contributing to it. So I would like to see, particularly when I look at these sites that are where there's some commercial space, I want a way to help keep those people here. And I'd love to see something like that considered and maybe our economic development folks can can think about that. But it's just, it was like a thousand square feet, it's a thousand square feet. If I can help somebody keep their job and keep their home, that's that's a good thing. Okay. So I'd like to see something in there that might incorporate something like that. Um, those are my main concerns, my main things. Um, other things, the element of it, um, I thought staff's overall analysis was was good and fair. Um, I do think that if there's people who are concerned about the office space along Leong Drive, that's not within really the scope of what we've been talking about here, but maybe something that you guys can talk to people about um as it goes forward. But uh in general I thought it was well thought out. The transit center, um, I used to live right across the street from the railroad tracks. Sorry, Max. Literally across the street from the San Antonio train station. And the city standards that permit, you know, that keep the sound inside there, worked. I didn't notice the diesel engines stopping and starting, I didn't notice the the the conductors honking their horns at night. So I'm less concerned about that we have to do something different there. I'm not saying we should ignore it, but I think this my I'm not as worried about the sound element of it because I lived there and I was pretty comfortable with it. I probably didn't get as much money when I sold my house afterwards, but that's my choice. So um I'm not as worried about the sound issue as maybe my peers are. Okay.

[01:22:57] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Commissioner Donahue.

[01:22:58] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Yeah I'm I'm generally supportive of the staff recommendation and and I do, I mean you mentioned the farmers market and I go there every week and I I think that's one of the things that makes Mountain View Mountain View. It's it's it's fantastic. Um, and I think that this change isn't going to get redeveloped tomorrow, this is this is just kind of one step along the way for enabling that. Just like um around 10 years ago I was on the downtown committee and when the stadium was being built and they needed the alternate site, and staff proposed to have some other parking lot downtown but it was smaller and they said they could only accommodate a subset of the vendors. And I was like, no, we need a bigger parking lot. And they said, well, that one's going to get redeveloped so we can't use that one. And, you know, whatever, eventually the downtown committee and the council uh agreed to use that and and 10 years later it still hasn't been redeveloped, so it it takes a long time to get get these things through, so, you know, 10 years from now this farmers market will probably be exactly the same as it is today. Um, and as for small businesses, I think that is a good point. The, I think it's like 801 West El Camino on the corner right here, uh Rose Market and the the Alterations Place and some other small businesses were able to be accommodated in the the new space. So there there is hope, but that's just hope, so. Um, but overall, you know, the housing element says that we need to to uh make these changes, uh these changes seem like the the appropriate way to do that, so I I support the staff report.

[01:23:21] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Vice Chair Gutierrez.

[01:23:23] Chair José Gutiérrez: Hey Commissioner Cranston, I like your idea about the BMR suggestion for businesses for small businesses. So if that's if that's not something that we can do here now in general, as a whole I'd like to see if we can be able to work to bring that up as a topic of discussion later on and present that to the rest of the committee in a different formalized uh process to to explore possibly. Just wanted to share that with you, thank you.

[01:23:41] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Commissioner Yin.

[01:23:44] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Um I'm generally in support, I think the staff report was uh thoughtful and I think it took measured approaches, a a measured approach for each to be able to try to hit the housing element requirements and also to um be balanced with what is already there, as I said before. So it does allow for the potential of something to happen in the future, it's probably not going to be tomorrow for sure. Um, but, you know, the concern stands, I I agree with um Commissioner Cranston, um that beloved neighborhood serving commercial is something worth trying to protect. And for the Greystar example, the neighborhood around there got together really quickly because they did not want to see them go and sort of worked with the developer to really push, so if anyone's listening, anyone in the neighborhood if you have a beloved commercial space, I think making your voice heard helps tremendously. Um, what if the project ever comes to be, that's definitely the time to take action. Um, that's it, thank you.

Segment 3

[01:30:32] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh no, I think that's it. I think we have... Oh, go ahead.

[01:30:36] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Well we just wanted to make sure I think we heard a couple of folks say about uh Commissioner Cranston's idea do we wanna take some kind of a was there uh majority on that?

[01:30:50] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh you mean the one specifically about the BMR? Um sure I mean yeah we can we can see if there's interest in continuing to study uh that. Uh but it's it's something obviously that council would need to uh prioritize as something to to work on as part of the BMR and it's um it is a different department now that that manages that as well.

[01:31:15] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Um we can straw poll that, but I want to give Commissioner Nuez a chance to a chance to talk.

[01:31:21] Vice Chair Alex Nuez: Yes if we're gonna go down that road I just wanna uh say that instead of uh removing a BMR unit you could also give a density bonus. So you bring more people, maintain BMRs, developers ostensibly would wanna do it because they make more money and you can incentivize keeping commercial that is loved. Uh so yes um I don't necessarily support that within the context of we have to do that now especially because it does sound like a city city council priority item uh or they would have to prioritize it as a work item. I'm happy to say um you know we are very concerned, I know I'm very concerned about these these commercial spaces. Um so that's definitely something that you know I care about. Um but yeah like I that's a very council it has like I'm aware that's a very council thing that has to come from them. Um and I'd be happy to say that I am concerned about commercial. Um but I wouldn't go so far as to at least for myself say I would want it to impact BMR allowances or anything of that nature.

[01:32:39] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Commissioner Donahue.

[01:32:42] Commissioner Paul Donahue: So the BMR ordinance is its own thing, but the housing element says that I believe that the state requires a a mixture of different um income levels or affordability uh for for for the new housing. Would that if we take if we go with that proposal and take away a BMR unit then would that you know be compliant with what the state wants us to do or requires us to do?

[01:33:15] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Right, I think we would have significant research to do in terms of how a commercial unit in a BMR framework could count in place of a residential unit. I think I understood Commissioner Cranston to offer that as a thought exercise as one approach and really what I took away was the intent and desire very strongly to think of ways to incentivize the return of the same business into the space not just to preserve commercial space, which I think generally speaking there are you know zoning tools to do, but it was really that that key business with a a fabric and a history you know unique to a neighborhood and to Mountain View that we wanted to try to think of some way to provide an opportunity to return to the redeveloped site, which is a related but I think unique and distinct challenge. And so um you know if that's the broad sort of policy direction in the recommendation I think that's helpful for us um rather than perhaps prescribing a specific approach which we might you know research and dismiss because of legal complications and and sort of not go further to find other ways to achieve the intent of the outcome.

[01:34:23] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Okay, yeah I guess oh then I was I was focusing too much on the details or something. Um yeah I I I support the the the the principle. So yeah.

[01:34:36] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Commissioner Yin.

[01:34:39] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Uh thank you. I was just gonna say that um I I appreciate you thinking out the box, trying to find solutions, and I do like the idea of just putting it towards council to you know just to let them know that we're interested in something to investigate. And so I agree with uh Commissioner Nuez that maybe you know no specifics and we just put it out there that this is something that whoever votes for this um strongly agrees that we should just look into it. As an idea.

[01:35:07] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Commissioner Cranston.

[01:35:10] Commissioner Bill Cranston: It it was a thought exercise but I I guess part of what has also been sticking in my head since it's been a while since we talked R3, but the idea of hav having neighborhood serving retail in the R3s areas came up every time it was discussed. And so if there was some way I mean to me this was whatever whatever we would look at there, it'd also become can become a framework not only for this kind of thing, but for if we're as were looking at R3 for trying to encourage little neighborhood serving things, is there some way to to provide that trade-off that would encourage somebody to actually say ok I'm gonna put my dry cleaner at the corner of these two splits and people can walk there or they can walk to my little convenience store or walk to my coffee shop. So that's so I'm it is more broader than just this in my thinking and I fully expect there's gonna have to be things the state's not gonna say oh you can take your BMR away, that's like bad boy, bad boy, but uh you know so so. And uh I don't know did you the other thing that I brought up was the was the Grant Road property in the is that something that needs to be discussed or is that are you okay with.

[01:36:25] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: I guess I didn't specifically raise it because I only I think heard your your mention of it. Um and I heard multiple commissioners refer to the commercial use uh return component. But certainly if if you would like that to be part of the majority recommendation I think we would need more commission discussion to see if there's majority support for that.

[01:36:51] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Vice Chair Gutirrez.

[01:36:53] Chair Jos Gutirrez: Yeah so in principle I agree with uh Commissioner Cranston's perspective uh as a thought exercise in terms of trying to look at commercial entities differently moving forward. Now I'm not too sure when you had mentioned that that falls under our auspices, I'm not sure what you meant by that, but I I appreciate that Christian understood the gist of the point because you I thought explained it accurately. And I think that's the main uh issue that we're looking at into how we look at these things moving forward, taking that into consideration. So if that's something that we can initiate here for those above us to converse about and figure out if that's what they want to uh help us to I don't know achieve uh that's great. If it starts here and we have to initiate something um I'm looking forward to see if that's a possibility. If not, then we'll we'll see what options there are. But I but I think you explained it perfectly well.

[01:37:43] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Thank you. And Chair if I may, I just um in listening to Commissioner Cranston's uh articulation of the convalescent home concern um I thought I heard the concern being that it would be allowed to develop to redevelop at a similar intensity to a residential product or development uh under this framework. Um as noted in the staff report and in the staff presentation, um there is a provision in the precise plan for the area to allow the use to remain. And so that's not an issue uh with this approach. I think it may be more particular that this type of use might be able to uh to redevelop at a greater density or intensity um than maybe currently envisioned.

[01:38:25] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Okay. So let me let me make maybe perhaps my own comment and then let's see if we can wrap this up. So um I'm very much with my colleagues that I I think um you know if there was some sort of you know lock costania provision that said you know we're trying to protect the uh the really really I loved that place uh the the valuable existing businesses um I'm 100% I'm 100% down with that. I think and and I think we all were, that's that's pretty resounding. Um I will say that part of what I don't want to do is give contradictory direction more broadly to the city because there's always going to be this trade-off. In fact Eric you you mentioned you alluded to this yourself, there's always going to be a trade-off if you want to find property that you can redevelop and densify and put BMR units in, where are you going to get that property because we're mostly built out and so that infill is going to come where? Less expensive commercial usually. Uh and so there's there is an inevitable trade-off and I think I myself was a little uh ever so slightly uncomfortable with the idea of providing some sort of one-for-one and I know we're not making that pitch tonight we're just signaling interest in the concept. Um but I do think it's important just to say one more time that there is a trade-off here and we're not going to be able to perfectly preserve every naturally affordable commercial space and every and then create as much you know as many BMR units as we possibly can we're going to just have to do trade-offs so um anyway that's pretty unanimous. The question of uh what to do with Grant Road Bill do you feel like the existing plan covers what you're interested in or is there...

[01:40:12] Commissioner Bill Cranston: What Christian said is what my what I was my concern is if we allow if we allow residential density in that area to a certain level then a a convalescent home should be allowed to be at a similar density. Ok, not higher doesn't doesn't preclude it but it's cause it to me it's it is residential whether we call it that or not. And so um I if that was my reason for raising it I'm not looking for more or less or whatever just if you allow a four-story apartment building there or condo then could they develop it into a four-story convalescent home that to me would be equivalent in my mind. I don't know if others agree or not but it's that's what I was getting at. I think you've captured that. So I don't know if that do you need a straw poll on that or is that?

[01:41:05] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Shall we just straw poll whether that's a concern that people would like to plan a flag in?

[01:41:10] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: I think it would help, you know it's it's important to me that we clearly convey what the majority recommendation is and then to note any significant minority um or less than majority uh opinions uh and thoughts as well. And so it just really helps us put it in the right category for purposes of how we write this up for city council.

[01:41:28] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Got it. Commissioner Donahue.

[01:41:29] Commissioner Paul Donahue: So I have a question about a convalescent uh home or whatever it's called versus assisted living and memory care facilities and what the zoning would be on those things. and um we're we're only talking about the convalescent level which is like a nursing home which I think is more skilled nursing facility. Uh but but uh assisted living is less or memory care is also less skilled, are what what would the zoning be, would this the zoning allow those kinds of uses under the proposed zoning?

[01:42:08] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah residential zoning broadly includes uh you know senior housing uh of various kinds. Um and uh you know I'm I'm certainly no expert on the gradiation of those. Uh but you know as uh Miss Penollar said, you know the these types of convalescent facilities uh based on the nature of the kind of intensive medical care that that happens there are considered medical uses.

[01:42:41] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Okay. Yeah I just as a comment I have some doubts that there's a need for a more dense skilled nursing facility. It's possible that there is but I see more need for things like memory care like they built at the Frankie Johnny and Luigi site and uh and that kind of thing.

[01:43:08] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Commissioner Yin.

[01:43:10] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Uh it's just a question. So if we do propose this as a group up to council does that mean then zoning wise all of medical offices would be allowed at, would you have to do it by the actual zoning. So if this is a medical office because it's a convalescent home, if we say we want convalescent homes to be able to rebuild at equal density then does that mean all medical offices can then be on that site at that density?

[01:43:40] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Well this is the benefit of it being in a precise plan already is that we can target some specific language uh in this document to this particular site.

[01:43:50] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Okay. Thank you.

[01:43:53] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: All right, there being no further questions or comments. It being 8:45, I would like to see if we can put this one to bed. So uh Mr. Murdock, if you could say one more time your understanding of the essentially the the question before the commission, uh we'll straw poll it quick and then we will uh we will call this measure done.

[01:44:12] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Uh so I heard broad support for the staff's recommendation with the following um additions. Uh there was majority support as I heard it for um expressing a desire for figuring out some way to incentivize the return of existing uh business operators into the commercial spaces uh on the sites that are redeveloped. Uh I did not hear abroad uh majority support for the approach related to the convalescent um densification or intensification approach.

[01:44:42] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Okay. So for that that second approach, the densification approach that uh Mr. Cranston raised, do we need to straw poll that real quick to see if people want that flagged, hands up if you want to see that um underscored in the report to council? I see one, I see two, I see three, that's three of six. Um Mr. Nuez.

[01:45:05] Vice Chair Alex Nuez: Not to beat this horse, um I just want to make sure I'm understanding 'cause um I know Commissioner Yin's uh or I heard Commissioner Yin's question and that felt very like um spot on to me so like if we said yes then I just want to confirm we would staff would be able to leverage the existing precise plan in a way that crafted or manufactured a convalescent home use case if it's if it's not residential. So it could either be convalescent homes or residential development. Is that am I understanding that correctly?

[01:45:44] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: That's correct.

[01:45:46] Vice Chair Alex Nuez: Okay. Then I'll support that.

[01:45:48] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Okay, put your hands up again for support. One, two, three, four. That's four. Anything further Mr. Murdock?

[01:45:56] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Not from my end. Anyone else on the team? Thank you, Commissioners.

[01:46:02] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Wonderful. Thank you everyone. Uh and Commissioner Nuez, no questions from you? All right. Thank you everyone. Let's move on to item 5.2, Economic Vitality Strategy Overview. Uh which will begin with a brief introduction by our liaison Diana Pancholi. No? Yeah? Oh, take it away.

[01:46:51] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: So we just wanted to thank our economic development uh team and specially our economic development uh specialist Amanda Rotella who's here and who's gonna provide give us a brief overview of the economic vitality strategy that was actually adopted in April of 2024 after I think it was a two-year process. And um we received a lot of input from various sections of the community and interested parties. Uh and today's presentation is going to be you know overall what the strategy was but also a key focus on you know from EPC's perspective what are some of the things in the strategy which is going to be important.

[01:47:43] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Wonderful. Thank you and we're grateful to have this before us. We're we're always glad to be involved in the uh economic vitality work of the city. Um Ms. Rotella, whenever you're ready we'd love to hear from you.

[01:56:06] Vice Chair Alex Nuez: Um thank you. This this feels good. Um in terms of um my question um I think this started based on timeline it looks like uh 2021. Um I guess I'm wondering in your guys's opinion um how uh flexible the current plan either is or um how much flexibility is built into the plan um with regard to some of the kind of like macro level like trends. So for example um it feels like since October 2021 or even since May 2022 there have been like simultaneous um kind of like um accelerators with some large companies really wanting to reinforce uh some uh return to office policies, uh more younger companies if you will um in the startup phase um being proudly you know work from anywhere. Um you even have companies that are relocating out of California um to other states. And so I guess I'm wondering um you know to what extent um is that contextualized within the plan as far as it pertains to I think that goal number three around um you know the the proven an advanced industry.

[01:57:30] Economic Development Specialist Amanda Rotella: Yeah, I mean I I will say you know the return to work trends have had sort of effects sort of across all of our goals I would say you know downtown being another goal that's been dramatically impacted by the office vacancy and sort of the return to work trends. So in terms of flexibility um there there is sort of a balance with these strategies. On the one hand we have 160 pretty specific action items that we're working towards. Um but I will say sort of the nature of economic development is to be responsive to the trends. And so a lot of the language that we're using is is you know provide flexibility you know and and trying to be responsive. Um so I would say it's something we're we're hyper aware of and working on and it's a lens with which we view the action items that we've been assigned to.

[01:58:19] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: And I'll just add um you know across the various work that the community development department does and the rest of the city organization, we continually hear from the business community as well as decision makers the need to be more flexible and more nimble in our land use regulations. And so um the recent amendments that were brought to EPC and council and the downtown precise plan is one example, making it easier to open certain types of businesses, providing greater flexibility so that the market and landlords uh can open these businesses with less process, uh less time, less expense because we can't predict the future as to which specific businesses will predominate in a given location, but we can provide guardrails right, and let the experts that know um make those decisions uh more quickly. And so we think that's a way to benefit the community in the long term.

[01:59:08] Vice Chair Alex Nuez: Got it. Thank you so much.

[01:59:10] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: And I'll just add that you know there are different sections of the strategy which are actually coming together to provide that kind of flexibility. Um like you know as Amanda said you know there is a section which which focuses on downtown, you will see that with the downtown precise plan coming forward that a key focus is how can we be more flexible to entertain more type of uses and type of businesses.

[01:59:34] Vice Chair Alex Nuez: Got it. Thank you so much. Um and then uh my next question um in in what ways uh or or to what extent does the current uh like transit infrastructure that we have um support um this plan's ability to you know if it were to be come fully implemented for for the plan's benefits to be like maximally like accrued if you will. Um is is was there like a concurrent like transit development plan that you know we have going on that was looked at with this or um is transit not important like what's the relationship of transit to this plan?

[02:00:17] Economic Development Specialist Amanda Rotella: Yeah it's a great question and there are quite a few of our action items that speak specifically to TDM strategies, that speak to um the the parking uh the parking strategy that we have downtown and calls out specific implementation items from that. You know looking at um our down our downtown valet program I think is called out in there. Um you know paid parking so it it does specifically refer to specific plans and there is quite a bit of discussion around connectivity between both residents um and residents and employers to our commercial hubs. So there's there is a lot of conversation and action in here that is talking about how we get that connectivity both into Mountain View and then within it. So I would say transit was very heavily a um very heavily considered in this plan and it it is a key piece of you know achieving our economic vitality goals. Um and I will say you know we're currently working on a TDM plan um and that we're we have business we're engaging the business community we're we're serving as sort of a partner for our public works team and making those connections to employers to have those conversations.

[02:01:26] Vice Chair Alex Nuez: Thank you. Yeah cause I noticed it said in there um what I think one of the downtown ones was connect the downtown to our other like you know facilitate those connections. And so um yeah I mean that that feels um that feels like a like a good thing.

[02:01:41] Economic Development Specialist Amanda Rotella: Yeah and I absolutely to your office question, I mean you know not all employers are coming back, you know how can we make sure that there's connections from the employers that do have um employees in the offices to our commercial hubs.

[02:01:53] Vice Chair Alex Nuez: Cool. Thank you, those are my questions.

[02:01:55] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Commissioner Yin.

[02:01:58] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Thank you for all the information. We've been eagerly anticipating it. Um and this could be just showing my ignorance, I'm gonna ask this question. I know that you guys are doing a high-level um plan and then it gets into action items which are very specific. How do you guys work together with planning staff because if we're doing land use um sometimes your input might be useful for determining how much retail slash neighborhood serving commercial there is. Uh and I only think about this in with the example um in the past I've understood that sometimes there's a minimum you need to hit for it to work or sometimes you need to cluster them together in order for a certain business to work or two businesses to work and so does that information kind of get transferred over to planning as you are planning, I guess. Does that make sense?

[02:03:04] Economic Development Specialist Amanda Rotella: Yeah, it's a it's a really great question. I would say it's one of the benefits of how Mountain View has structured where economic development lives. Um sometimes it lives in the city manager's office, it can live in its own division, um we're we're embedded into the community development department which really helps so there's a lot of cross-pollination. Um I can say you know Diana is is working on the update to the precise plan. We have economic development team members who are sitting on that you know staff team you know same with the Moffett precise plan you know we have economic development team members who are part of that process at the ground level able to provide that feedback and perspective.

[02:03:39] Commissioner Joyce Yin: That's great. Yeah. Love that answer. Okay. Thanks.

[02:03:42] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Commissioner Cranston.

[02:03:46] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Um the so several questions. The on the first one it says throughout the Mountain View as commercial hubs. Do you have a list of the places that are the commercial hubs that you're targeting?

[02:03:59] Economic Development Specialist Amanda Rotella: So we are looking at sort of those you know our primary commercial corridors so we're looking at El Camino um we're looking at the San Antonio shopping center. Um so we we have a sense of you know sort of the corridors that we're looking at and then you know some of the shopping centers that we would designate as more neighborhood serving versus more you know city serving. Um so they're they're on our radar. We we certainly could put together a list if you'd be interested in seeing those sort of spelled out.

[02:04:24] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Because to me it'd be helpful to kind of know okay this you know this project is near one of these centers and how it how might it touch it. Um the listed kind of dollar signs on these things, do you actually have the budget to do all these dollar signs?

[02:04:38] Economic Development Specialist Amanda Rotella: It's a brilliant question. Um and I might kick it over to our our our department head for to answer that one.

[02:04:46] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: I see a lot of dollar signs. Um we put together a request each budget to try to um accomplish the work that's projected in the coming fiscal year. And so uh given that the economic vitality strategy was adopted in April of 2024 uh it really didn't lend itself to being integrated fully into the um fiscal year budget that immediately followed. But we are looking at a work program upcoming for implementation uh of some of these key items, focusing on a number of the the short-term items uh from implementation for example as well as uh trying to resource implementation of the parking strategy for the downtown as another example of an interrelated activity with the economic vitality strategy. So it's part of the annual budgeting process and work planning process for staff to factor that into our budget requests and that process will uh transpire over the next several months um at the city council level.

[02:05:46] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Um next question is kind of a disturbing question to me. um somewhere along the line somebody decided that diversity, equity, inclusion is no longer a national priority and um companies are beginning to look at pulling that out of their programs. They still, Mount View has always been very focused on that. Are we are you getting any pushback on the inclusion of those items in in your work plans? Um is this a is Mountain View going to continue to be one that says you know this is actually important to us um or are you getting you know pushback on it, are you getting you know pushback from Google and you know and others about those kind of things or is that not an issue at this point?

[02:06:31] Economic Development Specialist Amanda Rotella: Yeah, we're we're not seeing the pushback. Um in in some ways it might be it might manifest not so much as pushback but in term but in terms of a willingness to work with a government agency with some of the you know um diverse populations that we work with. Um you know for example we have the Spanish Leadership Academy and every for the last couple years we've done a presentation to them about opening a small business and that's translated into Spanish language. Um and Nancy Ducos who's the organizer of that on the city side has said you know I have 30 people signed up I don't know how many will show up when you know the new administration comes in because again there might be a level of hesitancy in working with um and working in interacting with a government agency. Um but that being said we aren't seeing pushback in terms of you know from our business community, from the residents, there's there we are a community that really embraces, celebrates, and prioritizes equity inclusion the diversity, equity, inclusion. Um and so you know we're really lucky to be operating in that environment where there is a lot of support. Um so we will continue to prioritize in terms of getting resources out, in terms of translating materials, um that's actually one of the success metrics that we have is how many how much of our economic development materials are available in other languages. Um and that will still continue to be a priority and something that we focus on and a way that we measure success. Um so long way of answering still a priority from us we're still hearing from the community that it's a priority for them.

[02:08:04] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: And I'll just add um in the forthcoming downtown precise plan update process, cultural and ethnic diversity is one of the key focus areas for our analysis in the downtown context to really ensure that uh the history and the diversity and the different um racial experiences for folks in the community over time are identified and reflected appropriately in that planning process as well.

[02:08:28] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Um next question. Three is mentions existing advanced industries. A lot of Mountain View is startups that became the big established industries. It wasn't clear to me that how how is is that embedded in the in the small business thing you know encouraging startups? Um you know Google wasn't a big company at one point, okay? Um you know while Waymo is uh is is part of Google, there it has spawned I don't know how many different companies are in Mountain View now that have self-driving vehicle technologies and stuff. It it wasn't clear to me where bringing in the next Google or helping the next Google or Intel or whoever was, you know Fairchild was the was the was the one that spawned on the semiconductors. Where how do we encourage the next of those? Is that embedded in here someplace?

[02:09:27] Economic Development Specialist Amanda Rotella: Yeah absolutely I'd say it's sort of cuts across you know both of our advanced industry goals but also our small businesses. So if they're starting off as a small business we're providing support to them. But um you know sort of support and facilitation of new AI businesses for example there is is called out in in that goal number three. So we do there is uh sort of the up and coming you know industries is is part of the plan and how we can support you know incubators that are incubating these new businesses that may you know grow into our our Googles our larger businesses. So in it is called out in here and we do have action items specifically related to sort of up and coming.

[02:10:06] Commissioner Bill Cranston: It is action item 3c.4.

[02:10:09] Economic Development Specialist Amanda Rotella: Thank you.

[02:10:12] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Um and then the last question was so it mentions housing is an issue but they're also looking for more flexibility on their own land use. You know are they you know are they saying okay no longer link North Bayshore to housing requirements? Are they looking to separate the housing needs from business developments land use? Um are you not hearing that at this point?

[02:10:42] Economic Development Specialist Amanda Rotella: I'm not sure if I understand the question.

[02:10:45] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Land office space has been the currency for residential. Okay? And we've got increasingly policies that say if you're gonna build something here you're going to have to build housing around with it. Okay, we saw um you know as part of the redevelopment of the of the Prometheus property it it had residential in it. So I'm just what I'm are you getting any pushback from business and saying well what I mean by give me flexible in my in my land use means don't make me put in residential in my locations anymore, um just let me build what I want there. Are you, because we've linked them. Are we getting any resistance for that?

[02:11:27] Economic Development Specialist Amanda Rotella: Uh, not so far. Um in terms of all the new projects or discussions that we have with development proposals coming in that is not a push back that we have heard so far.

[02:11:38] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. That's good to know.

[02:11:42] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: No other questions comments? Uh so just for myself I'm going to say that I love what you're doing and it makes me happy every time we talk about this stuff. Um and I think that the economic development um folks you've already made a big difference. Uh downtown looks so much better, those lights make me happy every time I go out to dinner down there. Um people down there having a great time. So you really are doing a great job. I know there's a lot to do, there's literally hundreds of things you have to do. Um uh but you're already you're doing the right thing and I think being fast and flexible and innovative about it is exactly the way to go about it. So the one question I have for you is what's getting in your way? Like what what are the blockers, what are you behind on, what's not working? Do you feel comfortable calling that out?

[02:12:31] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Hopefully it's not us.

[02:12:34] Economic Development Specialist Amanda Rotella: Um well I will say you know as Christian sort of spoke unto this purely timing affected you know the resources we were able to bring. Um I'd say staff capacity is something I'm concerned about, we're losing a staff member and so we're we're you know just in terms of hands that we have to do things. Um but you know I would say those are items that we've flagged and are working through I mean you know Christian's already working through a plan to bring more resources in the interim while we you know work through recruitment. Um you know we continue to hear from the business and development community you know issues around permitting and streamlining processes um you know this isn't new information and it's stuff that we're we're actively working on. Um so I I would say it's just it's all part of the puzzle and we're we're working on it but I would say you know we um you know economic development is in sort of a tricky place in some ways because on the one hand we're we're embedded in the city and we're trying to you know move things forward and on the other hand we're the ones who are supposed to maintain relationships with the business community and so it's it's a really it's a delicate balance of of trying to be an internal advocate and maintain relationships so you know it's just sort of the nature of economic development and it's not unique to Mountain View. Um so I don't know it wasn't a really clear answer. Christian from your perspective what are you what are you seeing?

[02:13:54] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Sure, I think for my perspective it's it's hard to have a clear direction and vision right now given so much um unsettling and uh tumult that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that really the dust hasn't settled from that right. We're I think all glad to be beyond the darkest days of the pandemic but really what it means for our society and our community is that there are many unknowns right. Is the return to work going to take hold, are people going to really stay in a you know predominantly hybrid or remote work scenario, because those mean very different things for our community and economic uh development and the vitality of different types of businesses and how we plan on our time scales for land use and putting planning processes in place to reflect and to respond to those. And so it all gets back to being more nimble and flexible and adaptive I think, but um that's a very different way of doing business than our city and many cities have historically uh managed these kinds of processes. And so uh it's an interesting learning opportunity, there's certainly a lot of interagency and regional collaboration as folks try to...

Segment 4

[02:15:00] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: work through these novel novel problems and figure out what does the other side look like or is there always going to be is the other side always going to be just a little bit farther away and so uh we're all working through these things right now and I think I appreciate the collaboration internally and our team as well as with other partner agencies as we we try to figure it out.

[02:15:19] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: So before we close the books on this particular item, uh we do need to do public comment. So allow me to say if anyone in attendance would like to provide comments on this item, please fill out a yellow speaker card and provide it to the EPC clerk. If anyone on Zoom would like to provide comment on this item, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone. Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with star six. Madam clerk, is there anyone who wishes to make a comment on this item?

[02:15:54] City Clerk Heather Glaser: There are no speakers at this time.

[02:15:57] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you Madam Clerk. Um and so with that uh we will simply say thank you. Uh you're doing great work.

[02:16:43] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Great, thank you for having me.

[02:16:45] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Alright. 5.3, EPC Chair and Vice Chair Elections. Uh as delightful as it has been to be the chair, my time is done. The chair therefore opens nominations for chair in 2025. Um I can think of one but would anyone like to make a nomination for the office of chair? I see Commissioner Nuñez.

[02:17:12] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: I guess first I want to say thank you for uh serving as chair. Uh one of the uh things that I've um I mean I haven't been chair but I've observed and can imagine that it is a sacrifice in terms of, you know, how you have to in a way in terms of the nature of the role put other people's voices before your own. Um and you've done that very very well. Um very craftily. And I very much appreciate um you know, how I've also seen you um effectuate your values around efficiency um and making sure that everyone is is heard. And and and in a way that actually, you know, I've really come to yeah like that makes a lot of sense to me, you know, it's kind to be um effective at helping people um participate. So I really appreciate um your time and service. Um as far as a nomination goes, um I would like to nominate Vice Chair uh Gutiérrez for chair. Um on a pragmatic level, he uh has the most recent experience chairing us having done so uh this very meeting today. Um and um one before. Um but also, you know, like the these summits that have happened where we've actually you know come together and created like shared values and mission, um that's like the hallmark of a great convener. Um and and kind of having that, you know, foresight, um you know, I I remember I was like, uh, what is this summit? Um but you know, having gone through those exercises twice, you know, again, I'm wrong on many things and that was one thing that I was definitely wrong on. Um and so I would love to see um how Commissioner Vice Chair Gutiérrez is able to kind of um carry those values forward um as as as a chair. Um and therefore I am nominating him for that position.

[02:18:29] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you Commissioner Nuñez. So uh a second is not necessary but if anyone would like to offer a second just to show him how much we love him. Uh Commissioner Yin.

[02:18:39] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Thank you. Yes, I was going to second it as well. Uh I know with this late hour, I'm gonna keep it super short. Um I have every faith that you will be a great chair. You've got lots of experience behind you, you do it well as you did today. So there's my second and since we are um gonna have to say goodbye to you, Chair Dempsey... I I want to thank you very much. I think you've done a great job, you've led us uh without us having to ever worry about what's going on, what's coming next, and you did it with heart and humor. So I am very grateful for that. Thank you, we appreciate your time and your year as chair.

[02:19:29] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you. And I'm gonna offer my uh unofficial third of the nomination to uh Vice Chair Gutiérrez. Uh Vice Chair Gutiérrez, would you be willing to serve in this capacity? I am required to ask you.

[02:19:43] Chair José Gutiérrez: Sure. Yes. Why not.

[02:19:47] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Alright. The uh the chair would like to request are there any further nominations for chair? Going once. Going twice. Um there are no further nominations, uh nominations are therefore closed. Public comment. Would any member of the I gotta ask, would any member of the public on the line or here like to provide comment on this item? If so, 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. The EPC clerk will start the timer and let you know when your time is up. Do we have a public comment there? I saw a thumbs up. You can come tell us about him. Okay, Madam clerk, anyone?

[02:20:29] City Clerk Heather Glaser: There are no speakers at this time.

[02:20:30] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: No public comment. So that means uh nominations are gonna be voted on in order taken. There is only one. Um Madam chair, do you want to call the roll on this one? Er, Madam Clerk.

[02:20:46] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Yes. Uh Commissioner Nuñez?

[02:20:48] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Aye.

[02:20:49] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Commissioner Donahue?

[02:20:50] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Yes.

[02:20:51] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Uh Vice Chair Gutiérrez?

[02:20:55] Chair José Gutiérrez: Aye.

[02:20:59] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Chair Dempsey?

[02:21:00] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Aye.

[02:21:01] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Commissioner Yin?

[02:21:02] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Aye.

[02:21:03] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Commissioner Cranston?

[02:21:04] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Aye.

[02:21:07] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Uh the motion passes all in favor.

[02:21:14] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Alright. So my my last act therefore is we must nominate a vice chair. Are there any nominations for the office of vice chair?

[02:21:27] Chair José Gutiérrez: I'd like to nominate Alex Nuñez as vice chair for the EPC.

[02:21:34] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Duly noted. Alright let's see what do I have to do here. Uh second is not necessary but it is not out of order for a second. Do we have a Mr. Cranston?

[02:21:44] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I was also going to nominate Mr. Nuñez, so uh that'll consider me my second.

[02:21:51] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: We have a second. Uh do we have a third? I will offer a third to Mr... Oh no, uh Commissioner Yin offers the third, I will offer the fourth uh to to Mr. Nuñez to become our new vice chair. Uh Commissioner Nuñez I am required to ask you, will you be willing to serve in that capacity?

[02:22:08] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Hell yeah.

[02:22:10] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Language, language. Uh duly noted. Uh are there any further nominations for the office of vice chair? Going once, going twice. Um I have to do public comment for that, right? I'm just looking at staff to make sure. Would any member of the public on the line or here in person like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click the raise hand button on Zoom, press star nine on your phone. Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with star six. The EPC clerk will start the timer and let you know when your time is up. Do we have anyone um here or at home that would like to make public comment about our vice chair election? Madam clerk?

[02:22:47] City Clerk Heather Glaser: There are no speakers at this time.

[02:22:50] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: There are no speakers. So uh any further nominations? I seeing none. I am closing the nominations. Uh we have done public comment, and uh Madam clerk, if you would be so kind as to take the roll or excuse me, to to call the vote.

[02:23:06] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Yes. Commissioner Nuñez?

[02:23:08] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Yes.

[02:23:09] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Commissioner Donahue?

[02:23:10] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Yes.

[02:23:11] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Chair Gutiérrez?

[02:23:13] Chair José Gutiérrez: Si.

[02:23:14] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Chair Dempsey?

[02:23:16] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Aye.

[02:23:17] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Commissioner Yin?

[02:23:18] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Aye.

[02:23:19] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Commissioner Cranston?

[02:23:20] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Aye.

[02:23:22] City Clerk Heather Glaser: The motion passes, all in favor.

[02:23:28] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Alright. So last last and least, commission staff announcements, updates, requests, and committee reports. Uh no actions will be taken on any questions raised by the commission at this time. Looking to staff, do we have any further comments or anything y'all wanna say?

[02:23:42] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Yes, uh first off I want to thank uh former Chair Dempsey and former Vice Chair, new Chair Gutiérrez for your service over the last year. Uh I know all of the staff and the the community I'm sure appreciates it. So thank you very much. I also want to announce uh last evening the city council held its uh annual reorganization and the council elected uh Councilmember Kamei to serve as mayor this year and uh Councilmember Ramos to serve as vice mayor. So uh congratulations to them as well.

[02:24:11] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Alright. Uh are there further?

[02:24:13] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: I was just going to say our next um EPC meeting is scheduled for February 5th. We do have a few items on that uh on that meeting agenda. So it is going to be uh interesting meeting.

[02:24:27] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: I'll bring a sleeping bag. Alright, uh with no further comments from staff and no further questions or comments from the commission, uh Item 7 Adjournment. This meeting is adjourned as of 9:23 PM. Thank you and good night.

Unknown

[00:39:05] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Now that everything's gotten settled by the Vice Chair, um, let's see what we have. So now I believe we're going to return, I'm looking over to staff to make sure that I'm getting this right. We're going to return to questions that pertain to everything else that's within scope for, for the memo and for the item tonight. And then we'll do questions again on, on that. So, question, uh, deliberations. So, questions from the commission about any of the other sites.

[00:39:37] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Uh, Vice Chair Gutierrez.

[00:39:39] Chair José Gutiérrez: So I have a quick question as a whole. Um, because you're bringing this up as a recommendation now, is this the only opportunity, will you do such a recommendation or should we also expect something to come in later on in the year if something were to come up?

[00:39:56] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, so we're, uh, providing a high-level recommendation at this point about an overall strategy. Once we get concurrence or direction or modifications to that strategy from Council, we will draft the ordinances and resolutions and bring those back at a later date. Uh, you will have an opportunity at that time to provide additional comments, uh, and in your capacity as EPC a recommendation on those items at that later date.

[00:40:25] Chair José Gutiérrez: So in question to the site locations, like this, this is it. There's no more sites that you plan to bring back to EPC and say, oh, by the way, we also have interest in these other locations.

[00:40:35] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Well, other than Moffett Boulevard, which is also in the program and is going through a separate process, these are the sites that are identified in the housing element.

[00:40:45] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay.

[00:40:45] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Um, you know, it's certainly Council's prerogative to add other sites, uh, but they, um, you know, they, uh, we would probably have to do more outreach if they wanted us to do that.

[00:40:55] Chair José Gutiérrez: Right. I just wanted that stated for the record. So that everyone knows that this isn't just something that we just made up and here you go. Okay. Thank you.

[00:41:06] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Uh, a couple questions. Um, so the first is relating to the Leong Drive, Leong, uh, I don't know how you pronounce that one, um, and Fairchild properties. Um, there was an eye-popping, uh, if I understood correctly, uh, statement that the gentleman representing that property made, which I think was that, um, there is a alternative, um, zoning designation, I believe, um, being requested that would allow, if I heard correctly, something to the effect of 55 stories?

[00:41:47] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: 55 feet.

[00:41:48] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay, 55 feet. Okay, cool. I just wanted to make sure I was like, um... But regardless, can you give us, um, yeah, uh, can, can you, can you share with us kind of like your perspective on, on that in terms of kind of like, um, what were the considerations going into the current proposal, um, in pursuit of determining this is the best designation being proposed? And any thoughts on his commentary? Just, just so I can get a sense of, um, kind of the back and forth.

[00:42:16] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Sure. Um, so, uh, if I understand his, his comment correctly, uh, he, uh, he was seeking, uh, more flexibility for commercial uses and specifically for hotels in that area, along with the zoning amendments to allow residential through, uh, through whatever mechanism the, the, um, the implementation of the housing element program takes, uh, to allow residential. Uh, and certainly it is a precise plan. We can make those kinds of, uh, amendments through this process, uh, although there may be CEQA implications. For example, in going that path, they wouldn't have, you know, environmental review wouldn't have already been done through the housing element on these actions for, uh, for, say, you know, increasing FAR for hotels, for example.

[00:43:11] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Um, so the considerations for what we're bringing forward to the commission tonight in the General Plan Mixed-Use Village Center land use recommendation is really based on several factors. One, uh, allowing the existing uses to, uh, to continue and not be made non-conforming. Um, a, uh, targeted density to 43 units per acre, which is possible through the General Plan Mixed-Use Village Center designation. Um, the, uh, uh, the, uh, neighborhood transition standards that exist in that designation, and as Ms. Peloni had said, there are some adjacent single-family homes. Uh, and the potential desire to, uh, maintain some commercial presence in this area, uh, given that that's a part of the city that has very limited, um, you know, neighborhood-serving commercial. Uh, um, so those factors led to that recommendation of the General Plan Mixed-Use Village Center approach. Um, and that, that is a very targeted approach to allow residential, uh, and does not include amend, you know, changing the allowed commercial uses or increasing the allowed commercial intensity, which as I said may have other procedural ramifications.

[00:44:34] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, and, and so then, was the, um, I guess there's no reason to have considered extraneous, uh, kind of beyond the, um, kind of like even more targeted or kind of like customized if you will, um, kind of standards for that area, um, with regard, with regard to some of that greater commercial flexibility? Um, I guess like...

Gap between 'Segment 2' and 'Segment 3'

[01:24:41] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Um, so I'm not as worried about the sound issue as maybe my peers are. Okay.

[01:24:53] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Yeah, I'm I'm generally supportive of the staff recommendation and and I do, I mean you mentioned the farmers market and I go there every week and I I think that's one of the things that makes Mountain View, Mountain View. It's, it's, it's fantastic.

[01:25:13] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Um, and I think that this change isn't, it's not going to get redeveloped tomorrow. This is this is just kind of one step along the way for for enabling that.

[01:25:23] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Just like um, around 10 years ago I was on the Downtown Committee and when the stadium was being built and they needed the alternate site and staff proposed to have some other parking lot downtown, but it was smaller and they said uh that they could only accommodate a subset of the vendors and I was like, no, we need we need a bigger parking lot.

[01:25:47] Commissioner Paul Donahue: And they said, well, that one's gonna get redeveloped, so we can't use that one. And whatever. They eventually, the Downtown Committee and the Council uh agreed to use that and 10 years later it still hasn't been redeveloped, so, you know, it takes a long time to get get these things through.

[01:26:08] Commissioner Paul Donahue: So, you know, 10 years from now this farmers market will probably be exactly the same as it is today.

[01:26:13] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Um, and as, yeah, as for small businesses, I think that is a good point. I mean the uh I think it's like 801 West El Camino on the corner right here. Uh Rose Market and the the alterations place and some other small businesses were able to to be accommodated in the new space, so there is hope but that's just hope.

[01:26:39] Commissioner Paul Donahue: So, um, but overall, yeah, the housing element uh says that we need to uh to make these changes. Uh these changes seem these seem like the appropriate way to do that, so I I support the staff report.

[01:27:22] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Um, I'm generally in support. I think the staff report uh was thoughtful and I think it took measured approaches, um a measured approach for each to be able to try to hit the housing element requirements and also to um be balanced with what is already there, as they said before.

[01:27:43] Commissioner Joyce Yin: So it it does allow for the potential of something to happen in the future, it's probably not going to be tomorrow, for sure. Um, but you know the concern stands, I I agree with um Commissioner Cranston, um that beloved neighborhood serving commercial is something worth trying to protect.

[01:28:05] Commissioner Joyce Yin: And for the Greystar example, the neighborhood around there got together really quickly because they did not want to see them go and sort of worked with the developer to really push.

[01:28:17] Commissioner Joyce Yin: So if anyone's listening, anyone in the neighborhood, if you have a beloved commercial space, I think um making your voice heard helps tremendously, um, when if the project ever comes to be. That's definitely the time to take action. Um, that's it, thank you.

[01:28:38] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: So I'll round this out just by saying I I liked the staff recommendation. I actually thought it was it was very even-handed. I liked that the different parcels that had different characteristics could be treated different ways.

[01:28:53] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Um, in general, what I what I liked in it, what I would support, I I liked giving the existing commercial in those spaces flexibility. Um, I would not want to see a process that prejudices um by turning them non-conforming or whatever.

[01:29:06] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Um as they're there, and I I'd note that staff was very careful about that and I really appreciated that. I don't think anybody um we don't want to drive anybody out um even while we are trying to find ways to get you know better utilization of space usually through housing.

[01:29:24] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Um I'm a big fan of transitions, especially if you're facing a uh neighborhood uh you're you're facing R1. Um you know densification is hard on people on on the people that live there.

[01:29:36] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: And and sometimes it's many times, most times, it's still necessary because the city needs it. But it's hard on the folks who live next door.

[01:29:45] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: And so I think anything you can we can do as a as a city to be sort of kind and considerate as it's happening, is is both the smart and the kind thing to do. So transitions wherever uh wherever you can fit them although I agree that at the transit center you probably don't need them. Um I'm appreciative that the that the...

Item 5.2

[01:47:55] Economic Development Strategist: Great, thank you. Um, it's great to be back with you again. I was here a couple months ago when we looked at updating downtown uses, and I think that was the impetus for our coming back and providing a little bit more of a broad understanding of our economic vitality strategy.

[01:48:11] Economic Development Strategist: So as Diana said, I am currently an economic development strategist, um, although I will be stepping into the acting economic vitality manager role come Monday. Um, so we do have a changeover in staffing happening, so you'll probably be seeing more of me.

[01:48:26] Economic Development Strategist: Um, okay, so just to orient you a little bit to the background here. As Diana said, uh, it was a two-year process. Um, and you can see on the screen here kind of how it laid out in terms of council process. It was identified as a strategic priority in our current, uh, two-year work plan.

[01:48:43] Economic Development Strategist: Um, but really alongside this process, we did quite a bit of community engagement and outreach, um, you know, met with business and community leaders, did a number of focus groups, um, with residents, developers, business owners, and heard pretty clearly, um, some themes.

[01:48:57] Economic Development Strategist: Um, you know, really a lot of interest in housing, um, really focused on the downtown and a desire for a thriving downtown, a lot of sharing around concerns around development processes and code, uh, retail vacancy was another big theme.

[01:49:14] Economic Development Strategist: Um, and really we were looking to make sure that this plan integrated with other plans that we had currently and were in progress. So making sure it aligns with the housing element, all of our precise plans, the downtown parking strategy. You know, so there are recommendations in our economic vitality strategy that, you know, come from other plans.

[01:49:34] Economic Development Strategist: So, um, I won't read this verbatim here, but you can see our vision statement. So really this sort of two-part around creating, you know, a thriving community where small businesses, you know, for all types of businesses. Um, and then also sort of this aspirational wanting to be a global leader, um, in in a number of spaces. So we're we're looking to kind of hit both in this plan.

[01:49:55] Economic Development Strategist: And, uh, the economic vitality strategy is organized into five goals, which are then broken down into strategies, which are then broken further down into action items. And we have over 160 action items that we are looking to address.

[01:50:11] Economic Development Strategist: So, um, we are very busy. Um, and but you can see our goals here, some that are really focused around, you know, you can see goal number two is, uh, entirely focused on the downtown. Um, and I'll get into a little bit more detail just for each of these, um, just as as we go through here.

[01:50:28] Economic Development Strategist: And just another layer on top of how the plan is organized. Um, so you can see, you know, you have goal, strategy, and then action items, and we do dive into timeline, cost, and then whether there's an equity lens being applied.

[01:50:44] Economic Development Strategist: So we have broken the plan into, you know, four categories here. We've got the immediate actions and then, you know, broken down from there. So as you can see, in the immediate and short term, we have quite a lot of work that we are work is currently underway.

[01:51:00] Economic Development Strategist: Um, so goal number one here you can see is really focused around, um, creating, you know, commercial hubs throughout Mountain View. Um, you know, so looking at, you know, the downtown, Moffett, uh, San Antonio, El Camino corridors, um, and really wanting to bring support and resources to those.

[01:51:19] Economic Development Strategist: Um, you know, some current projects that are underway in the downtown, we're working on a pedestrian-level wayfinding program. So looking at ways to kind of increase walkability and, um, and supporting pedestrian-level access.

[01:51:32] Economic Development Strategist: Uh, goal number two is focused, uh, again completely on, on, uh, really hyper-focused on downtown. Um, and a lot of it is around activation, implementation of our pedestrian mall, and so we're looking a lot at events, and our social zones, I know all of you saw that there are games and a lot of fun activities out there in the warmer months. Um, and then also looking at partnerships and ways that we can bring more cultural activation.

[01:51:58] Economic Development Strategist: Goal number three is really, um, again focused on some of our advanced industries. So, um, those more established businesses and focused on retention, um, and employer support. Um, you know, we we want to work with incubators like Hacker Dojo, you know, to kind of bring, to continue to grow some of our more established sectors. Um, so there's some strategies focused around that.

[01:52:22] Economic Development Strategist: Um, and then goal number four, you know, goal number three was focused on our more established industries. Goal four is really focused on our small businesses, which make up, you know, percentage-wise a huge percentage of our businesses here in Mountain View.

[01:52:35] Economic Development Strategist: Um, so we're looking at, you know, how we can support those businesses with, you know, one-on-one support, uh, really serving as sort of a hub, um, and then making referrals out to some of our strategic technical partners.

[01:52:47] Economic Development Strategist: Um, and then also doing a lot around storytelling. Um, since I've been here, we've we've really launched more of a communications arm, we have a number of newsletters, uh, we've we have, uh, expanded into some new social media platforms, um, and, you know, are just looking at ways that we can do more storytelling.

[01:53:03] Economic Development Strategist: I will say we just posted a video on our Instagram account about the new Nick the Greek business that opened up downtown. Um, and we posted that yesterday and we've seen over 1,300 views. So, you know, it's just how can we do little things to really do more storytelling.

[01:53:18] Economic Development Strategist: Um, and then lastly, goal number goal number five, um, so again, this is looking a lot at, you know, development policies, um, and both finding ways that we can get feedback in. So one of our action items is to work in collaboration with the Chamber to have ongoing conversations, uh, with business leaders on our current policies and getting that feedback.

[01:53:38] Economic Development Strategist: And a lot of action items here that are around how can we improve our processes. Um, and obviously, we've done a lot already with some of our online permitting systems, um, some of the changes that we have coming up around streamlining.

[01:53:52] Economic Development Strategist: We've also launched the business ambassador team, which was a specifically called-out action item. And this is a multi-departmental, multi-division team that comes together to support projects and helping to kind of identify early on what some key issues might be, um, and bring some sort of, you know, really big picture, every team on deck, um, feedback for projects that happen.

[01:54:16] Economic Development Strategist: And of course, um, you know, every good plan has a way of measuring success. So just some examples here, um, again, this is really grounded in best practice, and some of them, you know, as you can see is related to vacancy rates, and we have targets and where we currently are.

[01:54:32] Economic Development Strategist: Um, others are related to our team's interactions with businesses. So, you know, the number of businesses that we're providing certain support to. Um, and so this is just ways that we're we're able to track the work that we're doing.

[01:54:45] Economic Development Strategist: And I, and I know we're kind of limited on time so I'm not going to dive too much into it, but in the in the presentation, there are just some specific actions, um, that are pulled out of the of the 160 that we're working on that are related to the work, um, that you may see come across, um, your dais in terms of, um, things that we've heard from the community and projects that we've seen.

[01:55:08] Economic Development Strategist: Um, you know, a lot of it around streamlining regulations. Um, you know, I will say, you know, the work that we we we did, uh, earlier this year to to have get more flexible uses in the downtown, it's that kind of work that I think you'll see coming through coming through this commission.

[01:55:25] Economic Development Strategist: And, uh, yeah, and just this next one, this I'll just call out. You know, one of the things that we talked about was monitoring land capacity, um, and building inventory. So, you know, I think it was mentioned here, we're pretty built out, but it's important for us to know, you know, what opportunities are out there in terms of redevelopment, in terms of available sites.

[01:55:45] Economic Development Strategist: Both so that we can be responsive to opportunities that come to us, um, but also in our outreach and attraction efforts, really know what opportunities exist in Mountain View. And I'll just zoom it over to questions. Thank you.

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