Feb. 19, 2025 Environmental Planning Commission

Video

Transcript

Segment 1

[00:02:18] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay, good evening everyone. Welcome to the Environmental Planning Commission meeting of February 19th, 2025. I will call the meeting to order at 7:02 p.m. 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. Request to show an audio or video presentation during a meeting should be directed to EPC@mountainview.gov by 4:30 p.m. on the meeting date.

[00:02:43] Chair José Gutiérrez: 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 as soon as possible, but no later than the call for public comment on the item you are speaking on. Instructions for addressing the commission virtually may be found on the posted agenda.

[00:03:14] Chair José Gutiérrez: 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 advisory body commission welcomes respectful and non-threatening public comments regarding matters over which the advisory body commission has jurisdiction. Comments deemed otherwise pursuant to the council code of conduct and the government code may be grounds for immediately determining the speaker's comment period. Now I will ask the EPC clerk to proceed with roll call.

[00:03:52] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Commissioner Dempsey?

[00:03:55] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Here.

[00:03:57] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Commissioner Donahue?

[00:03:59] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Here.

[00:04:01] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Commissioner Yin?

[00:04:02] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Here.

[00:04:04] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Commissioner Cranston?

[00:04:05] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Here.

[00:04:06] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Vice Chair Nunez?

[00:04:08] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Here.

[00:04:09] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Chair Gutierrez?

[00:04:11] Chair José Gutiérrez: Here.

[00:04:12] City Clerk Heather Glaser: All commissioners are present.

[00:04:16] Chair José Gutiérrez: Great. Before continuing on in the agenda, I propose that we call for a motion to modify tonight's agenda. Having spoken to Diana beforehand though, I think we spoke that we were going to not do that and instead we're going to go on with what we had initially posted on the agenda. So for those of you who are waiting to speak to 6.1 and 6.2, we're going to do our study session first. Minutes approval. We have none.

[00:04:41] Chair José Gutiérrez: 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 star nine on your phone. Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with star six.

[00:05:15] City Clerk Heather Glaser: There's no speaker on this.

[00:05:19] Chair José Gutiérrez: Great. So, having said that, or having listened to this, I believe that we're moving on now to the study session. 5.1 R3 Zoning District Update - Increased Densities.

[00:05:31] Chair José Gutiérrez: Please note that we do have a Spanish and Chinese interpretation for 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 including any questions. Let's begin with a staff presentation from Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson and Community Development Director Christian Murdock.

[00:06:22] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Thank you very much commissioners. This item is regarding increased densities in the R3 zoning district. My name is Eric Anderson and I'm joined by Amber Blizinski, the Assistant Community Development Director. Also available for questions are Wayne Chen, the Housing Director, Christian Murdock, the Community Development Director, Cecilia Kim with Opticos, our consultant, and David Bergman, Lisa Wise Consulting, our economic consultant.

[00:06:57] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: This project started back in 2020. Since then it has gone through several rounds of outreach and study sessions. In addition, the project has been put on hold several times to address other city's priorities such as the displacement response strategy and the housing element. The displacement response strategy is a related project led by the housing department because rent stabilized units are a key focus of the strategy and the R3 district contains the majority of rent stabilized units. In October 2023, Council directed staff to prepare an ordinance requiring replacement of rent stabilized units with affordable units in new development, that would go into effect when SB 330 sunsets.

[00:07:39] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Last April, the city council provided direction on the project, including support for these key goals: supporting diverse unit types, creating better design through form-based standards that are pedestrian friendly, include transitions to lower density neighborhoods, and supporting trees and landscaping; support for neighborhood serving commercial, complying with state and housing element requirements, density change in targeted areas to increase housing supply with a focus on large parcels, and creating incentives more attractive than state density bonus, and encouraging parcel aggregation.

[00:08:22] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: In addition to the goals, the city council provided other direction on the project. They expressed support for a framework of density sub-districts that went up to six stories and they also provided feedback on a range of criteria to use to locate higher densities. The EPC also added one of the criteria on this slide through their recommendation.

[00:08:45] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: This slide is a reminder of the obligations that the city must consider in this project. Housing element programs include prototype analyses, updating definitions, lowering development costs through the reduction of standards, addressing state laws, and allowing for live-work units, and incorporating some R2 areas. Relevant state laws include the state density bonus, which is frequently updated, SB 478, which sets limits on the city's FAR standards for smaller projects, SB 684 and 1123, which create a ministerial pathway for projects on small sites, SB 330, which includes a replacement requirement for rent stabilized units and prohibition on downzoning through 2030, and SB 1211, which expands the allowance for ADUs on multifamily sites. Regarding the state density bonus, most projects that use it will be eligible for waivers and concessions of development standards that the city has little control over. Therefore the R3 project cannot realistically anticipate everything that can be built.

[00:09:57] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: One of the council goals for the project is to support density change in targeted areas, especially large parcel areas to increase housing supply. They also indicated support for the creation of parks and open space. To implement these goals, the team has identified 14 draft change areas that meet these goals. These are shown on the screen. A strict adherence to the utilization of all council location criteria would have eliminated every site in the R3 zoning district. Therefore, rather than using these criteria to eliminate areas, this report presents a different change area methodology that adheres closer to the project goals, then evaluates those change areas based on the criteria. This process allows EPC and city council to use their own judgment to determine which criteria are the most important.

[00:10:46] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The following slides will describe how we got to the proposed change areas from the council goals. This is a hypothetical neighborhood, four blocks along Street A and B, which includes a mix of R3 sites along with adjacent R1 neighborhood.

[00:11:02] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The first step is to remove small and less likely to develop sites. These are now shown in gray. This is based on council direction to focus on large parcels that can support increased density.

[00:11:16] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The second step is to remove parcels with significant R1, R2, and mobile home adjacencies. When less than 20% of a site is adjacent, the site is left in. The site on the upper left is removed, but the site below where it says Street A is still under consideration.

[00:11:35] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The remaining contiguous areas of at least 90,000 square feet are the change areas. This allows us to focus on a reasonable number of areas and to support future neighborhood planning. For example, 90,000 square feet is a reasonable size site to expect a public park and other neighborhood amenities.

[00:11:53] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Exhibit three includes detailed maps of each change area and Exhibit four includes an evaluation of the change areas relative to the council endorsed criteria.

[00:12:08] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The first question for EPC consideration tonight is do the identified areas reflect council's goals and criteria and should any areas be reconsidered based on those criteria.

[00:12:25] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The next question is regarding future densities in these areas. To support that decision, Exhibit 5 to the staff report includes a feasibility and prototype analysis of medium and large lots in the R3 zone, studying potential for for-sale and rental projects. This analysis also assumes the provision of public paths and open space and replacement of rent stabilized units with permanently affordable units pursuant to SB 330 and the city's forthcoming local replacement ordinance. The analysis found that 6 to 7 story buildings at 75 to 135 units per acre would be necessary for feasible development.

[00:13:07] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The staff report presents three options for new densities based on the prototype analysis and the density framework presented to council last April. In Option 1, the base density is likely feasible. It would apply the six story R3-D2 sub-zone to the change areas. In the latter two options, a bonus would be necessary to meet feasible densities. Option 2A would apply the four story R3-D1 sub-zone to the change areas and applicants could use the state density bonus to meet the densities in the prototype analysis. Option 2B would not increase base densities; a local bonus would be created that would allow projects to meet the densities in the prototype analysis. Note that there are some risks and challenges associated with the local bonus approach. Higher densities may be necessary to create the right incentives. State law may change how local bonuses apply, and Mountain View's history with local bonuses is focused on precise plans, not a general ordinance like R3.

[00:14:09] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The second question for EPC consideration tonight is for the change areas selected, what density option should the city study as the R3 zoning district update is carried out. The question may require extensive discussion since there are many change areas. In order to focus the discussion, staff recommends the approach here: first, to determine the overall preferred density option, and then determine if there are any areas where a different option should apply.

[00:14:39] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The next key question for the EPC to consider relates to a program in the housing element. The housing element includes program 1.3, which directs the city to identify areas of the R2 zone to include in R3. The housing element has a strong focus on affirmatively furthering fair housing, and several programs are specifically targeted to increasing the supply of housing in the city's highest opportunity neighborhoods. There's no specific area that the housing element defines as highest opportunity, but the areas south of El Camino and around downtown are the focus of other programs that are intended to support affirmatively furthering fair housing. These areas also have good access to transit and services, especially downtown and areas near El Camino Real, and are served by the city's highest performing schools. In addition, the council and community have expressed interest in maintaining neighborhood transitions to lower density neighborhoods. Based on these considerations, the report proposes R2 areas to include in R3 based on two criteria: sites within the area south of El Camino Real and in the vicinity of downtown, and sites that do not border on the rear or side yards of R1 properties. These sites can be integrated into the R3 zone at the density illustrated here. The R3-A density was presented to the city council back in April 2024. It is a lower density than the rest of the existing R3 zoning district, but would allow multifamily housing without a use permit and would allow greater density than the R2 zone.

[00:16:06] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The third question for EPC consideration tonight is does the EPC support or recommend modifications to the proposed criteria and density for upzoning R2 properties. The map here shows the parcels that meet the criteria in orange.

[00:16:26] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Here are the next steps for the project. The city council will provide direction on these questions on March 25th. And after council provides direction on these questions, the project will continue with environmental review and drafting the standards. In addition, we will conduct additional outreach to the affected neighborhoods and properties.

[00:16:47] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: This concludes our presentation and we're available for any questions. Thank you.

[00:17:00] Chair José Gutiérrez: So at this point in time we'll go on to 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, excuse me, 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.

[00:17:22] City Clerk Heather Glaser: We have an in-person speaker, Glenn Bates.

[00:17:25] Chair José Gutiérrez: Welcome Glenn.

[00:17:31] Glenn Bates: Hi, I'm Glenn Bates. I've been a resident of either Mountain View or Palo Alto my entire life. So I love both cities. And I'm here kind of representing a few people from the Monroe Park area of Palo Alto, which is adjacent to the developments being looked at around Del Medio. And there's some concerns there because the existing growth that's happened has increased the traffic along Del Medio. It's made it even more dangerous than it was before. But we also get a lot of side traffic that cuts through the neighborhood and goes through Miller Ave and trying to avoid the San Antonio El Camino traffic lights. So adding more density to that area is going to add more traffic to that area and that street is already, parking is another issue. That street is already full. The developments that are there do not have enough parking for the residents that are there. And so they have moved into the Palo Alto neighborhood. So we often have cars that are parking in the neighborhood. Many of them are very responsible and respectful, and we know these cars, we know these residents. There are some people who come and they park and they pee on the property or they leave trash. We've had abandoned cars. It's going to create more problems once the daylighting is enforced because there's a lot of little intersections there with crossings, and there's a lot of people parking right along those intersections and those 20 feet away you got to be. So those people are going to move into our neighborhood even more. And it's becoming increasingly difficult sometimes to park if somebody throws a party and there's a ton of cars just littering the street. We may have to institute residential permit parking in that area, which would push all of that traffic, all of those cars back onto Del Medio and into the surrounding areas. So a request that I have is that when you guys design these properties, however you do it, and I'm for increasing density, but let's be honest about what parking requirements are today, not what we hope they will be in 10 years or 5 years. The reality is today the streets are full and there is no way to widen the street. You're not going to increase parking, daylighting will reduce it. So when you have a lot of people moving in to this little tiny area which has only so many inlets and outlets: California Street, Miller Ave, Fayette, Del Medio and Monroe. It's the only ways in and out of that neighborhood. You're going to be increasing the amount of traffic, the amount of parking pressure on the neighbors, and our area in Monroe Park is largely R1. One of the things I noticed in the criteria was that it was not adjacent to any R1 or R2 zones. But that was, there's an, on the northwestern side of Del Medio, that's R3. So it's a one property strip of R3. Right beyond that is R1. So please remember when you're designing, design for the whole area, not just for the Mountain View Del Medio area. Thank you sir, I appreciate it.

[00:20:53] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you sir. Appreciate it.

[00:20:57] City Clerk Heather Glaser: All right, we have speakers on Zoom. First one is Anne Paulson. Anne you should be able to talk and the next one will be Robert Cox. Please get ready. So Anne you can start talking now.

[00:21:16] Anne Paulson: Good evening. I'm Anne Paulson from Los Altos and I just have a question, and I hope that the Opticos consultant can comment on this. I'm quite interested in your prototypes. You're saying that you can build dense condos, for example, let's say 75 dwelling units an acre, for $600 a square foot. And as it happens, my city of Los Altos also commissioned such a study just over a year ago, and determined that it would cost for the same building $900 a square foot, not including the price of land, which as you know is quite expensive in Los Altos. And I just would like the Opticos consultant to perhaps comment on why this huge difference exists because it seems like if you were a builder who could do that in Mountain View, you could just pick up your crew, drive them over to your neighbor Los Altos and put up a building for the same $600 a square foot and make a killing. So what's the difference here? It's not the land value because that $900 doesn't include the land value. So anyway, I hope that you can comment on this because it's a mystery I'm trying to understand. Thank you very much.

[00:22:48] City Clerk Heather Glaser: All right. Next speaker is Robert Cox, followed by Tony Rath.

[00:23:05] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Sorry Robert, you can talk now.

[00:23:08] Robert Cox: Okay, can you hear me?

[00:23:09] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Yes we can hear you.

[00:23:11] Robert Cox: Okay, thank you. Chair Gutierrez, Vice Chair Nunez, and members of the EPC. I'm Robert Cox speaking for the steering committee of Livable Mountain View. We've already sent in a letter, so let me just repeat the main points. For the selection of high-intensity areas, we concur with the staff recommendation. It balances the desire for new housing production with the consideration of transition to existing residential neighborhoods. We also generally support the R3-D1 for all but the Del Medio south areas. This would permit up to eight stories with the state density bonus. As the staff report notes, buildings of up to seven stories are those which can be developed without resorting to overly expensive building materials and construction techniques. Finally, we support R2 to R3 conversion when it is not adjacent to single-family homes. We in Mountain View are proud of calling ourselves a community for all. Part of actually being that means balancing the concerns of all residents, including those who have worked hard to buy a home in our city, support it with our property taxes, and volunteer our free time to help build this inclusive environment we all enjoy. Please adopt a program tonight that will balance the concerns of renters and homeowners alike. Thank you for listening to our concerns. I yield the rest of my time.

[00:24:38] City Clerk Heather Glaser: All right. Thank you. Next person is Tony Rath and followed by Alexander Brown. Tony, you should be able to speak now.

[00:24:50] Tony Rath: Dear EPC members, I'm Tony Rath, a long-time resident of Cuesta Park. I would like to thank the staff for their sensible approach to the R3 rezoning and their site selection process. It balances the needs for increasing the availability of housing stock with the concerns of homeowners in nearby homes. I support the selection criteria and the 14 sites identified in the staff report. And uh, thank you for your consideration.

[00:25:20] City Clerk Heather Glaser: All right. Next speaker is Alexander Brown. Alexander, you should be able to speak now.

[00:25:28] Alexander Brown: All right. Hey friends, been a while, no it hasn't. I just wanted to agree with the first speaker Glenn, I think that there are too many cars and that we should find a way to get rid of them. I think that cars polluting the streets is a problem. And also that we should have more public accommodations so that people have options when they have to pee, because that is a problem that our community has faced. So I think that adding density and giving people more places to live and creating areas that are more rich with a community where they could walk to the places they need to go, because there is a greater density of people to open shops, coffee places, bookstores, you know, things that don't involve getting into a car. I think that this is a good direction and I'm very happy to hear support for increasing density so that we can fit more people, because we need to house them. That's what a community is. All right, thanks.

[00:26:50] City Clerk Heather Glaser: All right, there's one more speaker, David Watson. David you should be able to speak now.

[00:26:58] David Watson: Hi, I'm David Watson. I am a member of Mountain View YIMBY. We sent you a letter and I'm going to read some highlights from it. We generally favor Option 1 with the higher base density. We agree with the R2 to R3 rezoning that prioritizes parcels with good access to public transit, schools, and essential services. We would also request R2 parcels that are substantially surrounded by higher density zones be upgraded to R3 as well. With regard to R2/R3A densities, when the housing element was drafted SB 9 made R1 allow functionally four units, such that R2 could be considered the least dense residential zoning district. As such, we see a real opportunity for the city to correct this and ensure that whatever remains R2 fits logically in the continuum between R1 and R3. Regarding the R3A approach, we do reiterate that SB 684 has functionally set a new baseline where non-rental properties are allowed to build at 30 units per acre in order to get 10 units. As such we would like to see a bit more density allowed so that our local rules are more attractive to develop under. The staff report is also silent on how economically viable the R3-A is. Also with regard to parking, this is in response to comments that I've heard during this meeting. We would say that it would be a good idea for the city to establish parking programs. I believe they already are working on them. So the ideal solution here is performance-paid parking and whatever the city can do to move towards a Donald Shoup style parking regime in areas that are becoming overly hooked with parking, what's the right word, in parts of the city where there are no longer enough parking spaces. It would be a good idea to move towards performance-paid parking, and as I said, I believe the city is already working on that. So it should not be a serious concern with regard to R3, as long as the city continues that work on performance-paid parking. Thank you.

[00:29:43] City Clerk Heather Glaser: All right. That's all the speakers we have.

[00:29:47] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you Clerk. Thanks everyone for chiming in as well, whether in person or through Zoom. We'll move on to EPC questions and discussion. The discussion topic related to including R2 sites into the R3 zoning district requires several commissioners to recuse themselves due to conflicts of interest. Therefore we will take questions and discussion regarding the third question and then return to questions one and two afterwards.

[00:30:20] Chair José Gutiérrez: Question 3 is does the EPC support or recommend modifications to the proposed criteria and density for upzoning R2 properties. First, we will discuss this question as it pertains to properties along Hans Avenue, 249 to 269 Pamela Drive, and 1147 to 1271 Phyllis Avenue. Commissioner Donahue, can you please make your recusal statement?

[00:30:48] Commissioner Paul Donahue: I am recusing myself from discussion on this agenda item due to proximity of my personal residence to R2 properties along Hans Avenue, 249 to 269 Pamela Drive, and 1147 to 1271 Phyllis Avenue.

[00:31:22] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioners, does anyone have any questions?

[00:31:42] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Nunez.

[00:31:43] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you Chair. Why did those yellow ones not meet the criteria, just for a little bit of clarity in terms of what is different between those properties?

[00:32:13] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah thank you for the question. Eric Anderson, Advanced Planning Manager. The yellow properties didn't meet the criteria because they directly abut R1 properties. And yes, to orient the commission and the public to this image, the kind of pink area on the lower right-hand side of the image is the Grant Park Plaza shopping center, El Camino Real kind of goes along the top right corner of the image, and Graham Middle School is on the upper left of the image in kind of a teal.

[00:32:59] Chair José Gutiérrez: Any follow-up question Commissioner Nunez?

[00:33:02] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: I guess it just does feel a little bit constraining, I guess, and maybe I wouldn't have known this until we got into the motion or the discussion, to to kind of think about this as a like a piece by piece discussion versus like the whole thing right. I mean cause the the concern I'm having here is that this is in a prime area as we like to think about it or discuss it which is, you know, closeness to retail, closeness to transit, that's a I think Phyllis Avenue is a very well connected if not arterial road, like sub-arterial or whatever the tone is there. And so having a discussion from a like piece by piece R2 area is is less, the concern that I have with regard to these, you know, five yellow blocks and more just looking at this as this is ostensibly very much in line with the kind of areas that we often discuss as a commission around where we want to see more development. So I don't know how to I don't know how to kind of like tackle that within this one image as of yet. So I'll just kind of throw that out there as my thinking.

[00:34:41] Chair José Gutiérrez: Any other commissioners with questions?

[00:34:52] Commissioner Bill Cranston: A process question. Are we just asking questions and then we're going to discuss all of it together, or are they going to have to recuse themselves again and we go back and...

[00:35:01] Chair José Gutiérrez: I think that's the process right. So we'll discuss all this as far as I know, Eric can provide clarification. And then afterwards, as we discuss the issues, then I understand others will also recuse themselves from the conversation.

[00:35:14] Commissioner Bill Cranston: But then are we voting on each of these one by one as well? Or taking... This is... I would agree this I'm getting...

[00:35:22] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: So yeah we would be looking for a a motion and straw vote for each of the three areas where commissioners will need to be recused. Uh and then we'll come back for the remainder of the areas and we'll look for a motion and a straw vote on on the remainder areas. Um and I, you know, acknowledging that the commission's conversation is guiding that, the chair is guiding this discussion and the commission's input is what we're seeking here. Um you know some some general comments about the types of sites, like like Commissioner Nunez said, uh the types of characteristics of sites that may um you may want to expand into or uh or uh kind of consider removing from this zoning uh action, uh those types of general comments we can move forward with as staff. Uh so you can make those motions with general comments rather than necessarily talking about this individual property here or that individual property there.

[00:36:36] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So just to ask questions. Go through all four, the three separate plus the... then have a discussion, and then we do the straw polls on each of them? Have to recuse themselves a second time or... are we voting... are we doing straw polls as we do each one?

[00:36:53] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yes.

[00:36:55] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay.

[00:36:57] Chair José Gutiérrez: So just to reiterate, we'll take a straw vote after each question. Okay. Commissioner Dempsey.

[00:37:07] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Just to point a clarification. So the what we're trying to decide is for the orange marked areas that we want to upzone to R3-3A, not because I noticed here where there's a couple places in the staff report where we mention there'll be some other options offered at a later date. Are we offering other options at a later date or are we doing 3A for these upzones or perhaps I'm misunderstanding the question?

[00:37:39] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Um we are looking for the EPC's recommendation on uh the the approach that we're presenting here today which is twofold. One, the sites and the criteria that we've selected, and the second is the zone or density or character that we are proposing to upzone R2 to. So uh if you think, as one of the speakers said, this R3A kind of 15 to 25 units per acre two and a half story character isn't dense enough, as one of the public speakers said, then that is good direction to us to move forward on. Um if you think it's too dense then that is also good direction for us to move forward on.

[00:38:37] Chair José Gutiérrez: Any other questions? Commissioner Nunez.

[00:38:42] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um I might end up asking this again, sorry to the public. Um just because of people recusing themselves and uh so forth. Um with regard to those yellow squares, are there, I guess like what was the the menu of uh like options that staff ran through for um answering the question of something to the effect of in what ways can these be incorporated into the update. So for example um maybe these are specified for maybe it's the same density as those orange squares but specified for middle income ownership, um or uh these abutting R1 will have different setback requirements and still like like what precisely were those like cascading options that staff ran through where the eventual decision was none of those will work, we are excluding them from the R3?

[00:40:01] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: So the housing element provides the guidance for this. And the housing element guidance says um that for R2 areas that are left as R2, we're going to allow uh you know SB9 type densities, with the addition of additional ADUs. Uh and then the for the properties that are zoned into R3, which is the question that we're focusing on now, we're going to come back later and talk about the the SB9 type zoning amendments that we need to do to the existing R2 areas. But right now we're focusing on where are we going to include R2 properties into R3. Um and uh really we we have already kind of floated this approach of the R3A zone to council back in April. Uh that was part of our framework of densities. Uh and so we're we're following through on on that process. I would say that it, um, we did not consider um kind of small changes in standards between different zoning districts. Uh that's usually not very effective. You want your zoning districts to have um kind of internally consistent standards that uh where the standards support the density that's envisioned. And so we're we're starting from a density approach and then we'll move into the standards later in the process.

[00:41:38] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I guess I have a new question now. Um is it possible that changing R2 to deal with the ADUs will mean that R2s could actually end up with a higher density than an R3A?

[00:41:58] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Well R3A is also going to be allowed a significant number of ADUs under AB 1211. Uh we have a table of the number of units that we expect uh will be on a range of different uh sites uh in the staff report. Um and so there there will also be additional opportunity on larger sites under under R3A uh for example through density bonus uh that wouldn't be available on R2. So um state law is getting really complicated and it's getting really hard to anticipate all of the different ways that um density standards are going to be affected by state law. It's not going to be a perfect um you know density increase between different uh zones, and um state law is going to come in like they did with SB 684 and allow certain development types to be higher density. Um and that's just something that we can't necessarily control either.

[00:43:20] Commissioner Bill Cranston: What I was hoping for was a no. Okay. That which was... if if the chances are that by doing this stuff on R2 we end up with somebody who stayed in R2 having a potentially higher density than something that's R3, then I would suggest we table this until we look at R2 and those changes to understand if if this is the right thing for these things. As it is right now, I'm... you know if we change it and then they're actually penalized because we changed it, that's not fair to them. And I'm so again what I was looking for was a no, if you're saying you're going to come back with something a package of things that will assure that R3A ends up being allowing a higher density than R2 with all these changes then I'm okay, but I'm not okay if there's a risk of it being the other way. So that's an important question to me.

[00:43:53] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah well I think that's um a uh if if the commission agrees, I think that's good general direction that we can work into um you know the the development of specific densities and standards as we're moving forward. Um the um so I think the that is something that we're going to be doing uh kind of concurrently with this or maybe in parallel with this, is that R2 zoning update, so you are going to see both of those in roughly the same timeline, um and you know we'll be able to bring back that analysis with with those ordinances together.

[00:44:43] Chair José Gutiérrez: So I also have a quick question following up on Commissioner Cranston's point. So if that's the case, Eric, and we're discussing this now, and we decide, for example, we who are here on the at the dais, to table this. We would still come back to this issue later on with more informed...

Segment 2

[00:45:00] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: perspectives. The critical path for this is us starting the CEQA process. And we need to make some reasonable assumptions in the CEQA process about the number of units that, uh, and the general areas where the units are going to be. Um, you know, the, the, uh, small density changes that come from, you know, an SB9 type approach in R2 are not going to significantly change the program level CEQA analysis that we're going to be doing. Uh, what we're looking for is general feedback on the character and densities that we're looking at. Um, you know, additional comments about, you know, Commissioner Cranston's concern about making sure that there's a clear hierarchy of zoning districts is a valid comment that we can address later in the process. But we need to know the rough locations and densities for, um, uh, for these areas to go, uh, through the, to really begin the next phase of this project.

[00:46:05] Chair José Gutiérrez: So I'm hearing that tabling it may not be an option.

[00:46:08] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Can I just add? Our intent is not, is that that would not happen, though in response to Commissioner Cranston's comment. So the intent is that you would have more density on the orange sites than you would on the yellow sites.

[00:46:26] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Are you going to assume that in your CEQA analysis? Are you going to assume it just based on what it is today? I mean, your CEQA analysis is going...

[00:46:34] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: No, the analysis would take into... So if let's say you answered the question, you guys all answered the question that you should, you know, um, have the orange properties be zoned R3A and that you would have the yellow properties be, you know, essentially upzoned to allow for SB9 plus ADUs. Let's say that's the angle we went. Then that is the number of units we would study in our CEQA analysis, is whatever that would derive on those parcels based on density or based on how large the parcels are. Our intent would be that the orange parcels are more dense than the yellow parcels because they are not directly adjacent to R1 properties. And I think it would be pretty rare that you would be, you would have more density on an SB9 property than you would on an R3A property. I'm not going to say that it can't happen because there's so many factors that I would need to wrap my brain around, but that's not our intent. Our intent is that it would be more dense on the orange properties.

[00:47:44] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Are we doing questions or discussion?

[00:47:46] Chair José Gutiérrez: We're doing questions first, and then we're doing discussion.

[00:47:48] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. Are there... Now I forgot my other question because that caught me so blind-sided. Um, I'll come back if any.

[00:47:56] Chair José Gutiérrez: Sure. On that note. Commissioner Nuñez.

[00:47:58] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Yeah, um, I guess to a similar, um, point, um, just because of the, um, those orange squares being there, um, Commissioner Cranston, uh, your point about the density consistency with R2 and R3 is well-noted, and just quick question. Um, I know it's not about that, like, parcel area, I'm sorry. Um, but I just want to make sure before moving forward and, and using more time here. Um, along those same lines, is it possible that we're going to be seeing R3 also become more dense than R4 even? Like, what's the status of R4 relative to those orange squares in the maps we're seeing?

[00:48:50] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Well, R4 is way, way, way denser than the orange squares you're seeing on the map. I mean, that's, you know, R4 is a totally different order of magnitude.

[00:48:58] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Perfect. Thank you.

[00:49:00] Chair José Gutiérrez: Great. Commissioner Yin.

[00:49:06] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Thanks. Um, I just had a quick question back to the CEQA, uh, analysis. Because we don't know whether or not SB9, you know, who's going to do SB9 and how many units we're going to have, there's so much unknown, um, isn't the unknown factor sort of equivalent to, like, how many of these units in R2 that we're looking at? Would you be able to just kind of figure out whether or not, you know, the CEQA sort of result, regardless, whether or not we table it today? Because the number of units is so in flux.

[00:49:42] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: A key part of the process in CEQA is defining what you call the project description. Right. And you need enough information in the project description to start the CEQA process. So that people know, there's a, there's a very early part called the Notice of Preparation and, uh, scoping. So you want people to know what the project is that you're studying so that they can give feedback during that scoping process. So they can tell you what kinds of impacts we should be looking out for. And so you need to define the project well enough during that stage that people are like, 'Okay, yeah, I get what they're trying to do here.' And so providing a range of densities and a parcel, set of parcels that are affected, is kind of the bare minimum there for, um, kind of being informative to the community about starting the CEQA process.

[00:50:36] Commissioner Joyce Yin: I see. So it's the official CEQA process you need to start. It's not just an analysis to know what the answer might be.

[00:50:41] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: That's right.

[00:50:42] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Okay. Thank you.

[00:50:44] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Cranston.

[00:50:46] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I remembered my other question. So, I am fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea of ending up with separate criteria for these three parcels and then a broader thing. Um, that just makes me really uncomfortable. So, I'm... I guess this is kind of a process question. I mean, if we go through these questions and then, I mean, can we, do we have to vote on them now, um, or can we say, 'You know what, I want to hear all the discussions, and if we... I don't know that we're going to have any changes to the overall criteria, but I don't know that we are or we aren't, and I'm, so I'm just... the idea of, okay, we do something here and then we do something for the next one, we do it for the next one, do the last one... that is, that I'm not comfortable with that at all. If we're going to make a change, it should be a change. And so I'm... can we not vote now and come back to the thing overall, or are we just... that's... you understand my discomfort?'

[00:51:52] Chair José Gutiérrez: I got your dilemma. Oh, I totally get it. Uh, thank you, Commissioner Cranston. Um, I think here at this point in time, the reason why we're going bit by bit, and Eric can correct me if I'm wrong, which is fine, it's no big deal, um, is because of the recusals. Uh, and because of that, it makes it difficult to look at it from the overall perspective of how we normally would. At least that's my best guess. Eric?

[00:52:16] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah. Um, I was just gonna, I was gonna let, uh, the Director and the, uh, Senior Assistant City Attorney finish conferring, and then I think we can probably answer that question.

[00:52:41] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay. Let's move forward with Commissioner Dempsey's question.

[00:52:46] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: It's going to be a long night. So, uh, just a quick question from me. Looking at the criteria here, um, I see two: near downtown and south of El Camino, and avoids parcels adjacent to R1. I note with curiosity that feasibility is not among them. Why was that?

[00:53:05] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, so the, uh, we will be going through a process later in the, um, in the, uh, process to kind of identify feasibility strategies for small parcels. Um, and that's going to be focused on kind of right-sizing our standards at the densities that, um, the Council directs us to pursue in this, this phase of the project. Um, the, uh, there probably would not be much difference in feasibility across R2 sites. It would probably not be much of a varying criterion for choosing R2 sites based on feasibility. And the reason why is because most R2 sites have duplexes on them, and the ones that don't have, like, these HOAs, you know, like these, these common interest developments, like little row house or small lot single family developments. And, um, those are kind of a whole different animal from a feasibility perspective. I mean, there's just, they're just so, so unlikely to redevelop. Um, so you're really just asking about duplexes and the viability of duplex redevelopment. Uh, so again, it wouldn't be a criterion for choosing different R2 sites. All the R2 sites would have the same outcome.

[00:54:39] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: If I may ask another question here. So looking at this map, I see there's orange and there's a bunch of yellow. The yellow, is that all the R2 in the city? Am I reading this right, or maybe I'm reading it wrong?

[00:54:53] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: The... So, I don't know which map exactly you're looking at.

[00:54:55] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: I was looking at the whole city. I'm asking a broader question.

[00:54:59] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Yeah. The citywide map, uh, and I can go back to that here. I think maybe if we, but if we take the context of the slide we were on, um... Sorry. I think it's a little hard to show on this map. It might be a little easier to take the context of the slide we were on.

[00:55:22] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Well, a lot of the R1 that you, or a lot of the yellow that you see on a big citywide map is R1.

[00:55:28] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Um, and then there is some R2 within that. I think it's hard to see on the big map.

[00:55:35] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah. So the, the sites that are actually split up into separate parcels are the R2 sites, and they're, they're colored yellow and orange on this map. There's the pale yellow that isn't split up into separate parcels, and those are R1.

[00:55:51] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Okay. Well, there's clearly some map confusion and whatever resulting confusion is on me for bringing it up. I guess I had just a broader question before the conference concludes. I think I know the answer, but correct me if I'm wrong, that the reason why you chose near downtown and south of El Camino as one of the criteria is because this is a housing element related piece, and the aim there is affirmatively furthering fair housing. And for that reason, you chose those areas and not, I assume, uh, R2 sections elsewhere in the city. Is that correct?

[00:56:29] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: That's correct.

[00:56:31] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Because if you upzoned any of those other areas in the city, HCD would not view that as affirmatively furthering, and so therefore it's sort of a wash, it doesn't get you what you want?

[00:56:46] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The, uh... The, the strategy was to... we could, consistent with the housing element, we could upzone all of R2 to R3. I think we could make the argument to HCD that that is in the, um, uh, in the same vein as the housing element program, and/or going further than the housing element program. This is really a decision point for the EPC and Council to, um, uh, to select a subset of R2 parcels to upzone into R3 focusing on areas of highest opportunity.

[00:57:32] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: And I think just to add and a reminder that all of the R2 sites would effectively be upzoned in some way. It's just these particular orange parcels are the ones selected through those two criteria points for additional upzoning.

[00:57:52] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Got it. Thank you.

[00:57:55] Chair José Gutiérrez: Vice Chair Nuñez.

[00:57:56] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, I figure maybe the conference might take the question, which is that I believe this would go to Council anyway, whereas us declining to give commentary would be like meta commentary that would still go to Council. Is that accurate? In terms of process, like if we decide to table that, is that in itself commentary and no matter what this would still, the next step is go to Council where they would do whatever they want?

[00:58:28] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Good evening commissioners, Christian Murdock, Community Development Director. Um, I think it's fair to say that this item will continue to Council and that there's not an option for the commission to table it, um, to use those terms. Um, what your recommendation could include is that the EPC feels like this item, in whatever form you want to describe it, is not ready to move forward and should be further studied or delayed until some other action is completed or done in parallel. Um, so I think I would recommend that you formulate it in a recommendation rather than an action tonight to suggest tabling the item. Um, as to the earlier question about how to handle the business in front of the commission this evening, um, after consulting with Ms. Chen, the Senior Assistant City Attorney, um, it's our recommendation, uh, and we think most consistent with the Fair Political Practices Commission guidelines on segmentation of items such as this tonight where there are conflicts of interest, to, uh, complete the business on each of these pieces, uh, in their totality before moving on to the next, rather than cycling through with discussion and then cycling through again. Um, admittedly the segmentation guidelines we have from the FPPC are not drafted for this multiple conflict, multiple segmentation scenario, but we think in reading the various provisions that it would be most consistent to take the final action as it is tonight, which is the recommendation on each of these pieces individually, before moving on to the next.

[00:59:58] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Sorry guys. Um, so if I'm hearing you correctly, you're saying the absolute best best way legally speaking from your guidance is that we vote as presented to us currently on the screen with plotch by plotch moving forward, and then if that is the case, when and how is the commission able to provide general commentary, or in what way will general commentary with regard to R2 be captured and transmitted to Council without being afoul of the FPPC regulations?

[01:00:35] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Right, it's my understanding that there's a discussion of the non-conflict of interest areas that will follow the three, uh, recusals as I understand need to be made tonight.

[01:00:49] Chair José Gutiérrez: I don't have any questions. So let's move on to discussion. Who would like to start?

[01:01:03] Commissioner Bill Cranston: No. I don't make any, I don't recommend any changes or modifications for this particular site.

[01:01:26] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, opposite, but similarly kind of I think I have a similar feeling. Uh, to Commissioner Cranston. Although I will say yes, um, I'll take the changes as proposed.

[01:01:53] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Commissioner Nuñez, can you clarify, are you suggesting that, um, you support the approaches identified on the slide?

[01:02:05] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Got it. So yeah, cause we're going plotch by plotch, right? So this is the Phyllis area and then we're going to cycle out. So I am saying specific to these plotches here, I do support the recommendation. Non-general with regard to R2, but to this, yes.

[01:02:25] Commissioner Bill Cranston: And for clarity, that was actually my answer is the same thing. But they said are you asking for changes and I'm saying no I don't want any changes, which is the opposite of yes I support what they're doing. So...

[01:02:37] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Right, so I understand both commissioners support the proposed criteria and density for upzoning these R2 properties.

[01:02:48] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay. Commissioner Nuñez, can you, uh, restate, please?

[01:02:53] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: So, I'm, I'm gonna let Commissioner Cranston speak for himself. My understanding is he does not support, right? My feeling is, I feel like a little bit kind of, notwithstanding the like frustration or the like lack of kind of clarity, um, with the process obviating that, I am in support of the proposed modifications for this specific change segment that is being displayed. I'm going to let Commissioner Cranston speak for his own, um, perspective.

[01:03:32] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I guess I misread it. I thought it was saying, do we want changes? And I'm saying, no, I don't want any changes. So I do support the recommendation. So I misspoke. My bad.

[01:03:50] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Uh, mild confusion notwithstanding, I, I'm fine with what's in the staff report. I do want to note I have a question. You don't have to answer it, but I would be curious if in the next round of the staff report if you could kind of address, to the extent that this is a housing element item, I would be curious to know is there a minimum amount that we have to do lest we run afoul of our promises in the housing element and then run afoul of HCD, which we cannot and should not do. And so I think there's a, to the extent that, I'm almost asking sort of a legal compliance question. And I just don't need an answer. I just think that we should address that when we get to it next so we know what sort of the floor is that we cannot go below.

[01:04:35] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you, Commissioner Dempsey. I, I appreciate that. That's, that's what I was thinking. Um, Commissioner Yin.

[01:04:42] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Thank you. Um, I actually have to recuse myself for a different part of this, um, but what my thoughts were that we should be, um, consistent. So personally I feel like, even though I'm recusing myself, that we're consistent for what we're looking at in this question. Um, initially I was going to say that yes, and I still, I still am. I'm for what we're showing here, what the staff is proposing. Um, when we were talking about the R2, I was thinking we should have it for all of R2 just to be consistent, but because... or I'm sorry, the other way around. That whatever we do for R2, that we would do everywhere. And it would have been for me not to do it, however, because it is affirmatively, sorry I just lost the whole acronym, but you know what I mean, furthering fair housing. Doing it in these places, I'm okay separating them out and moving forward as staff proposes, especially given that R2 might be upzoned anyways. So it all falls in line.

[01:06:09] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay, great. So, um, I'm hearing a consensus on the yes. From my two cents worth, I think one of the things I'd like to clarify here to the public and to the dais and to the team in general, is that I always assume intentions that when the intentions from the city staff when they present to us, that it's always an adherence to what we've agreed to already within the agreement to HCD's housing element proposal. So whatever suggestions are given to us in the presentations, it's to further that cause. The questions that come up sometimes is that we have this competing interest between R2, R3, modifications to one or the other based on special circumstances that we've agreed to or discussed in the past either at this body or at City Council's perspective. And so sometimes the deadline dates for those types of conversations don't always, they don't always meet. And so that's why we have some sort of perspectives like you've heard Commissioner Nuñez and Commissioner Cranston express. Um, having said that, um, discussions related here to Hans Avenue 249 to 269, Pamela Drive, and 1147 to 1221 Phyllis Avenue, I'm comfortable with what's been proposed. Um, I think we have a majority on that. And I think we should move on to bringing in Commissioner Donahue and moving on to the next topic.

[01:07:22] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Yes, thank you.

[01:07:25] Chair José Gutiérrez: Uh, having said that, next we will discuss this question as it pertains to properties on Rincon Street, Valencia Avenue, Creek Way 1130 to 1150, Miramonte Avenue, Starr Way, and 1404 to 1414 Miramonte Avenue. Commissioner Yin, can you please make your recusal statement?

[01:07:44] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Yes, absolutely. Um, I am recusing myself from the discussion on this agenda item due to proximity of my personal residence to R2 properties along Rincon Street, Valencia Avenue, Creek Way, 1130 to 1150 Miramonte, Starr Way, and 1404 to 1414 Miramonte.

[01:08:13] Chair José Gutiérrez: Welcome back, Paul. Next we will discuss the question... Well, actually, no. Let's just start with questions. Do we have any questions from the commissioners?

[01:08:27] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So we're just looking at the orange ones, right?

[01:08:35] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: And the yellow ones up there at the top of the screen.

[01:08:39] Commissioner Bill Cranston: The orange would potentially go to R3 but the yellow would not.

[01:08:42] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Right.

[01:08:44] Commissioner Bill Cranston: The orange ones are kind of surrounded by R1. That confused me.

[01:08:50] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: They don't, uh, immediately abut. They don't, they're not adjacent on any side or rear yards.

[01:08:57] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Across the street doesn't count as being adjacent.

[01:09:01] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Correct.

[01:09:03] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Although you, you could consider it adjacent. In our criteria we did not do that.

[01:09:17] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, with regard to that top of the, um, orange, so like the very top of it, uh, on north of, what is that, like Hudson or something like that, um, like Rincon, Rincon Street. Um, and then the parcels immediately up to another, uh, city. Um, I guess like, why would we consider parcels up against another jurisdiction, um, abutting? And then also, what is up above that, is that a school? Um, is it, is, are there other criteria for, um, abutting that isn't a single-family house? And I guess also with regard to other, other jurisdictions.

[01:10:17] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, again, you know, the commission is free to, uh, make recommendations on this, uh, property and, you know, for, um, the criteria. Uh, north of the property is the St. Joseph School. Um, the, uh, on the, uh, left side of the property, uh, sorry, west of the property is Los Altos and there are single-family homes there. Uh, this is an interesting area, sight, because it is, you know, all kind of one HOA development. Um, and so, again, there are limitations on how individual actors can, uh, move forward within this development. So we did see it as kind of all, all adjacent to single family.

[01:11:04] Chair José Gutiérrez: Vice Chair Nuñez.

[01:11:06] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: So, um, I'm seeing a lot of yellow, uh, in the areas right up on the Mountain View Transit Center, uh, particularly, uh, within even like walking distance, um, of the, of the Caltrain. Um, so I guess I'm just wondering, uh, can staff kind of walk us through that status as proposed?

[01:11:37] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, so the, the AFFH defined areas in the housing element are focused, um, between El Camino and Central, and kind of between the 85, 237 freeways and like Mariposa. So that area has, um, you know, feeds to, um, Landels School, which is, uh, higher performing. It also, uh, has a higher proportion of, um, you know, higher income households than, than other parts of the city. And so it does meet those AFFH criteria that aren't met on the north side of Central Expressway. But, of course, we are looking for feedback from the EPC and so if you think that there are other criteria that we should look at, uh, such as access to the Downtown Transit Center, we can, uh, forward that recommendation to Council.

[01:12:25] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: So then does that mean that the, um... I guess like, was there a ranking of criteria where AFFH was the most, like, salient in terms of how, um, the map was proposed? And or is it not, I guess the case, or in what ways was that ranking determined because my understanding is that, um, other goals in the housing element do kind of like touch on transit notwithstanding, um, Council's own priorities that we just in last meeting, you know, had quite an extensive, um, discussion on. Um, and so I guess I'm wondering, you know, why are, in what's the reasoning in terms of elevating one, um, requirement and or goal, and, and kind of like, I don't want to say leaving others behind, but kind of not doing the same with the others, in particular to that area, which is, I mean like, it's, it's right there within walking distance.

[01:13:42] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Um, so I, I guess I'll just say that we are, we are presenting an interpretation of the housing element and we are looking for feedback on that interpretation.

[01:13:54] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. That is awesome. Thank you so much. Um, I strongly support, um, transit-oriented development and in that vein I believe that the yellow squares in proximity to, uh, the Mountain View Transit Center, uh, especially as they abut, uh, Central Expressway, uh, ought to be included, uh, in the R3A designation.

[01:14:28] Chair José Gutiérrez: Is that appropriate feedback?

[01:14:37] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Chair, I think pertinent to Vice Chair Nuñez's question it may just help to spend a moment to read the housing element policy language. I think it's on page 18 in the staff report. So we've spoken a lot about affirmatively furthering fair housing, but there are other considerations that are described in that. Um, Program 1.3H in the housing element reads, 'Conduct a review of R2 zoned properties. For all properties, upzone to either allow density greater than typical R1 properties under SB9 (at least four units per typical parcel, plus ADUs) or integrate the sites into the R3 zone. Sites selected to integrate into the R3 zone should be based on affirmatively furthering fair housing, access to transit, schools and services and other policy goals.' So there are several criteria enumerated in the policy. We're thinking a lot about affirmatively furthering fair housing. It's very important for our community. It's not the only consideration, um, or guideline if you will that's in the policy and proximity to transit, schools, and other services and other policy goals are relevant considerations.

[01:15:53] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you for chiming in, Christian. Much appreciated. That helps out a lot. Especially with this discussion and in this area of just questions. Commissioner Cranston.

[01:16:03] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So, questions on two lots, the one in Saint Francis Acres that borders the single family homes, and then there's one, I think it's kind of across from, it's on the north side of El Camino, across from like Pioneer Park it looks like, but they're surrounded by single family... Are the reason for the inclusion of those two, they seem like they're more single family surrounded than many of the others are?

[01:16:32] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, I apologize for how unclear the map is. I think if you were to zoom in on that, you would see that there's like an R2 buffer parcel or something like that for those properties.

[01:16:45] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. Okay. Thanks.

[01:16:50] Commissioner Tina Pham: I'm so sorry. This is questions, right? Yes. I will withdraw.

[01:17:04] Chair José Gutiérrez: Alright. Any other questions on this? Vice Chair Nuñez.

[01:17:12] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, for the R2 next to Sylvan Park, um, that top end on Dana, um, north of that, um, that's a mobile home park, am I correct on that? Current mobile home park?

[01:17:33] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, north of that chunk of, of yellow next to Sylvan Park, those are all mobile home parks.

[01:17:39] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay, and um, what's the like thinking there in terms of um, is that considered like equivalent to R1 and in staff's thinking or what's the kind of like current thinking there?

[01:17:55] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: It just wasnt in the area immediately around downtown.

[01:17:59] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Got it.

[01:18:06] Chair José Gutiérrez: If no other commissioners have questions, I don't have any questions. So let's move on to discussion. Which commissioner would like to opine?

[01:18:27] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So I guess I'm, I understand why the criteria was chosen. Um, I didn't specifically drive around that area that Commissioner Nuñez was talking about, but I've been through there before and it seems like one that actually could make sense to be looked at. So the rest I'm comfortable with the staff report, but the ones along that are just kind of off the where the Moffett Precise Plan will be and along Central, it seems like they might be candidates to consider as well.

[01:19:17] Chair José Gutiérrez: So you'd like to include them then as possible modifications to the...

[01:19:21] Commissioner Bill Cranston: If there's majority support, I would, I would be open to that.

[01:19:25] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay. Commissioner Pham.

[01:19:32] Commissioner Tina Pham: I was going to say that I think staff did a pretty good job trying to balance out all the all the needs and and wants and I don't know from prior discussions on different agenda items regarding R3. I think you guys all know that when it comes to big chunks of area I prefer it to be looked at a little in a little bit more detail with more information before we start upzoning huge chunks um to ensure like good urban design. So I I would be in favor of what staff is proposing um if we had more information perhaps later and we we understood that we're going to do SB9 on all the R2 properties and and it would be better for certain ones to upzone a little bit more I don't... I think that given sort of where we are right now today in the information we have I am comfortable with what staff is proposing.

[01:20:29] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you Commissioner Pham. Vice Chair Nuñez.

[01:20:33] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um there are two uh areas where I would uh submit uh to the commission and an alignment um to the extent I understand um I'll let Commissioner Cranston um confirm or or retract or modify um based on my commentary. Uh I would support the rest of the uh proposed um while noting that uh in terms of just the kind of approach for whatever it's worth uh to to my colleagues here um that I'm using and determining hey that's that's fine or or or you know maybe should be included in R3 or not is um we're not generally in the habit of changing our zoning uh in the City of Mountain View um and we're not necessarily to my understanding um just kind of thinking about the next five or ten or even twenty years. I mean this could be zoning that's going to be in place for you know 40, 50 however many years in place. Um and while obviously I don't wish for this you know to the extent that you know tragedies like earthquakes uh you know things of that nature happen um you know it might be very lucrative for some of the people who would otherwise lose everything to to to be able to you know have something underlying there to to be able to pivot to if that makes sense. Um so yeah I know that staff um said hey let's look at criteria around you know feasibility of development um and also I would propose that you know we also think about over what timeframe are are we talking about here and how often are we actually updating our zoning. So um I support this...

[01:21:59] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Cranston.

[01:22:02] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I support the staff recommendation.

[01:22:07] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Pham.

[01:22:08] Commissioner Tina Pham: As do I.

[01:22:10] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Donahue.

[01:22:12] Commissioner Paul Donahue: I support the staff recommendation.

[01:22:15] Chair José Gutiérrez: As do I. That was good. That was fast. We're getting better at this. This is, this is good. Okay. So at this point in time, Commissioner Dempsey should be able to return and now we will discuss question three as it pertains to all other R2 zone properties.

[01:22:32] Chair José Gutiérrez: Questions and discussions of question three. Actually, we should just do this now. Okay, so question three, discussion. Do we have any commissioners who would like to have a question at this now?

[01:23:05] Chair José Gutiérrez: So again, this will be a discussion revolving around question three as it pertains to all other R2 zone properties.

[01:23:20] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Do you want a little help? So all of the R2 are in black outline. Okay, and the orange are the ones that fit our criteria to upzone to the R3A. Sorry, too many numbers and letters. And the yellow are the ones that would, you know, have the potential upzoning to the SB9 kind of density plus ADUs.

[01:23:49] Chair José Gutiérrez: So for future presentations, maybe if that could be pointed out to specifically in some sort of call out, that'd be awesome as we move to discuss these issues. I know that involves more time to to add layers to the presentation, but heck, we did it in the school board, we can do it here. So hey, so whenever, oh, Commissioner Cranston, sir, by all means, the floor is yours.

[01:24:14] Commissioner Bill Cranston: What's behind that orange block on Springer? The green thing in the lower corner.

[01:24:23] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, that is Springer School. The green blob adjacent to the orange, uh, properties along Springer is Springer Elementary School.

[01:24:39] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So the ones along that that are adjacent to single family would not be changed, but the ones that overlook the school would be changed.

[01:24:47] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Exactly.

[01:25:04] Chair José Gutiérrez: Next we will discuss this question as it pertains to properties on Plaza Court and 814 to 844 Cuesta Drive. Commissioner Dempsey, can you please make your recusal statement?

[01:25:12] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you Mr. Chair. I am recusing myself from discussion on this agenda item due to the proximity of my personal residence to R2 properties along Plaza Court and 814 and 844 Cuesta Drive.

[01:25:24] Chair José Gutiérrez: It's like Groundhog Day, man. Okay. Commissioners, any questions?

[01:25:56] Chair José Gutiérrez: For the record, I do not have any questions.

[01:26:46] Chair José Gutiérrez: I am not seeing any commissioners wishing to have the opportunity to ask questions. So I think we don't have any questions. Let's move on to discussion. Vice Chair Nuñez.

[01:26:58] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: I will, uh, support the current staff recommendation for this. Um, while noting that, uh, in terms of just the kind of approach, for whatever it's worth, uh, to my colleagues here, um, that I'm using in determining, hey, that's, that's fine or, or, or, you know, maybe should be included in R3 or not, is, um, we're not generally in the habit of changing our zoning, uh, in the City of Mountain View. Um, and we're not necessarily, to my understanding, um, just kind of thinking about the next five or ten or even twenty years. I mean, this could be zoning that's going to be in place for, you know, 40, 50, however many years in place. Um, and while obviously I don't wish for this, you know, to the extent that, you know, tragedies like earthquakes, uh, you know, things of that nature happen, um, you know, it might be very lucrative for some of the people who would otherwise lose everything to, to, to be able to, you know, have something underlying there to, to be able to pivot to, if that makes sense. Um, so yeah, I know that staff, um, said, hey, let's look at criteria around, you know, feasibility of development. Um, and also I would propose that, you know, we also think about over what timeframe are, are we talking about here and how often are we actually updating our zoning. So, um, I support this.

[01:29:01] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Cranston.

[01:29:03] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I support the staff recommendation.

[01:29:09] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Pham.

[01:29:10] Commissioner Tina Pham: As do I.

[01:29:12] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Donahue.

[01:29:13] Commissioner Paul Donahue: I support the staff recommendation.

[01:29:16] Chair José Gutiérrez: As do I.

Segment 3

[01:30:00] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: posed R2 uh map as submitted by staff with um the modification that the areas that are near the Mountain View transit center uh so and especially as they abut to Central Expressway be incorporated into the R3A and then to the extent that any of um you know my friends in the uh mobile home alliance are watching as well um I happen to know that they are very supportive of uh housing development and supply uh and welcome new neighbors uh to that extent uh given that Sylvan Avenue is a pretty large uh thoroughfare and that uh there is already R3 abutting R1 in that area um I would say that there is a very strong opportunity for including those yellow parcels close to uh Sunnyvale near El Camino uh in the R3A as well uh given that a again um it is near uh some of those key transit corridors right there it's near to health care facilities businesses um a park uh and uh a mobile home uh park or a couple of them actually um and the R1 there is already abutting uh R3. So those are the two modifications I would uh propose.

[01:31:46] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you. uh with the chair's forbearance can I ask a quick question of staff?

[01:31:51] Chair José Gutiérrez: Of course.

[01:31:53] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you. Um just very roughly how much of our R2 housing stock is uh rent controlled?

[01:32:02] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Probably very little. The rent stabilization um threshold is more than two units. There may be some multifamily in in uh uh the um in the R2 zone but it it'd be very very very small amount.

[01:32:20] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Interesting. Okay. Uh the reason why I ask I think as we as we think about upzoning and and as the conversation moves from upzoning not just what we've got here but potentially other pieces as well and by the way I I I actually think looking at adding the properties that are right around the transit center that actually is a that's that's actually kind of a good idea and it's even indicated in the housing element that that's one of the reasons you could do it. And so it's totally on point here. The uh the only moment of pause I had is if we make if we put a lot more of those spaces open for larger redevelopment what's that going to mean for the folks that live there? And I know that's a conversation that we have a lot with R3 but I just wanted to take a moment to think about how it's going to impact those are the folks that live in R2 if we start start making it uh have a little R3 land boom there. Um but otherwise I support what we have in the staff recommendation and I would even support um adding a few more parcels to it uh right around transit. Thank you Mr. Chair.

[01:33:20] Commissioner Paul Donahue: I agree with the staff recommendation. I also think that the the language in the housing element does talk about transit and I would be amenable to including I think the parcels between Central Expressway and the next street up Cypress Cypress Point or uh

[01:33:52] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah so the next main street up uh on the west side of Moffett Boulevard is well there there are a number of small blocks there um including uh Jackson Street and um Washington Washington Jackson and Washington. Right. Uh so those are those are the streets on the west side of Moffett Boulevard and then on the east side of Moffett Boulevard it's uh the next street up is Central Avenue.

[01:34:21] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Central Avenue okay. Oh Cypress Point is the next one up after that I think. Okay. Um yeah so I guess basically the ones that that abut Central um because of the proximity to the to the to transit which is one of the the important things. Um as for the the things over on Sylvan they they don't really have that transit oriented uh nature they are not close to schools um they are close to some some amenities uh but I think overall uh it doesn't quite meet the uh the threshold in the um in the language in the housing element. So so I would just go with the staff recommendation plus those uh the transit center ones.

[01:35:19] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: I'm good. I'm with Paul.

[01:35:25] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Just clarifying what I was just suggesting is the area between Central Expressway and Central Avenue um was what I was thinking there. Um and this is an off off off subject commentary but you can't really see it but there's a really tiny pocket of R1 buried between that cluster of stuff on the west side of Moffett. That should be made R2.

[01:35:59] Chair José Gutiérrez: Oh Bill. Oh man. Okay. Well I know Eric's taking notes too so hey. Uh so any any other okay. Vice Chair Nuñez.

[01:36:13] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Sorry to interrupt. Um Commissioner Cranston can you um repeat the last bit of what you said?

[01:36:22] Chair José Gutiérrez: About R2 right right?

[01:36:25] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Yeah I think I heard through I could understand through there's a pocket of R1 that should be and I could not hear what you said. Yeah as you it's on the east side of of Moffett kind of north of the north of the the Prometheus property and it's surrounded by yellow yellow yellow yellow there's a tiny really light yellow area in the middle there. It's R1. It's just teeny tiny little pocket and it just it seems odd to me that it's not consistent with its neighboring properties to me. So it's beyond what we're doing here. Is that help? Okay.

[01:37:06] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um so quick question uh my understanding is that the 22 the the VTA bus line the 22 makes a stop on El Camino and Sylvan. Which the 22 you can get that to the airport. Um so to the extent what's the like the feet gradient or or the per feet like radius for yeah quarter mile. Commissioner Yin was that right or?

[01:37:48] Commissioner Joyce Yin: For for what?

[01:37:49] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: For a major transit stop.

[01:37:51] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: So officially El Camino Real is not a major transit stop in Mountain View nothing on El Camino Real is. Uh it's there's a different definition in state law that's uh like a major transit corridor that El Camino applies to uh but that's that's a lot more limited um kind of um it doesn't it doesn't affect things like parking or density bonus things like that.

[01:38:15] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. Um the reason why I bring that up is because uh to the extent that we are concerned about parking um and I actually you know don't discount that I know a lot of the public comment that was submitted in the packet etcetera and made tonight relates to uh the increasing demand for parking. Um as much as a parking permit program makes sense I think we want to do everything we can I mean I you know yeah that's very unsavory um even if it makes sense um I wouldn't want to ever have to go that route if I can avoid it and whether you know we can get caught up in kind of like the technicalities of what El Camino kind of like is defined as I mean you could literally walk to the if you if you live there you get on the 22 on Sylvan and El Camino you can take it to the airport you can fly to Mexico you can fly to Japan like you can like that's two stops so I personally would consider that transit oriented development. Um so I just wanted to throw that out there because um you know to the extent that we the commission have the ability to also apply our own expertise I heard Commissioner Yin and I know um it's not you know um you know official quarter mile. Hey you know I used to do a 400 sprint um and I was last every time. Um but we don't have to be last. There was one time when I was seventh. Um but we don't have to be the last here with making sense around development. Um I would appeal to my uh colleagues here um that we do think about including that Sylvan that Sylvan area um as as part of the R3A. It would make a lot of people happy there I think.

[01:40:19] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay so it's my turn. Um I'm in support of what the staff is proposing. I I wouldn't mind I'd be open to just like everyone else here and including the area by the Transit Center over by uh Central Expressway. In terms of the specifics of that we've had several opinions on what that would be like. What I'm trying to figure out here is what can we get consensus on within that area. Is it possible is I can't see behind me but is the map up for that area for uh the Transit Center? It's the same map? Okay so there's nothing more that we can zoom into? Okay no no problem. Commissioner Dempsey.

[01:41:03] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you Mr. Chair. Um I I worry about getting too far into the weeds of picking individual pieces of property. Um I think that that could be a bit of a a bit of a quagmire for us and we're an hour and 45 minutes through the first third of three items we have to cover tonight. Um my query to the to the EPC would be would it be and perhaps more importantly to staff would it be sufficient to say that there is a lot of support in fact probably unanimous support from all of us what? Oh but um um majority support for increasing the properties that we think we you should look at and we can even give you you know transit oriented development is clearly a very important one to us. Um would that be sufficient guidance for you to go back figure out which are the right ones that apply throw them back into the hopper and come back and or you know take that take a larger map and show it to the council but like do you actually need us to go through plot by plot by plot and vote on them? Because that seems like that would be a poor use of time.

[01:42:16] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: I think I have heard a pretty clear indication of the properties that the commission is interested in adding. I think we can do a little more staff analysis to confirm the walkability for example of some of the outer areas um while they're approximate you know as the crow flies they may not be particularly accessible as you come down to Moffett and then across to get to the transit center. But I think we will do what we can liberally to construe those areas as accessible to the transit center and unless we have a strong reason to exclude them would include them in the EPC's recommendation.

[01:42:49] Chair José Gutiérrez: Great. Thank you. Uh Commissioner Dempsey I appreciate that and Christian. So at this point in time it looks like we have consensus on this question as well for the remaining properties regarding this question three and we have a majority perspective of what you can share then with City Council folks and for further study. Um now at this point in time

[01:43:12] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Would it be possible to take a straw poll on the areas close to Sylvan? I just want to make sure I get some clarity on that.

[01:43:23] Chair José Gutiérrez: So if you'd like to phrase your motion so that we can vote on a straw

[01:43:28] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um exactly as um Commissioner uh Dempsey noted for the areas you know totally fine there and then appending um incorporating the yellow plotches or I would say directing staff to go look at the yellow plotches um for around the Sylvan Park area proximity to freeway and uh major bus stop and park um not generally abutting R1 um into the R3A area.

[01:44:06] Chair José Gutiérrez: All those in favor? All those against? I think we have a majority there. Thank you. Thank you Commissioner Nuñez. Well Vice Chair Nuñez. I'm sorry.

[01:44:22] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay so I think we Eric team I think we're we're good with the perspectives that you've heard so far with the summaries and majority perspective of the EPC on that question okay.

[01:44:35] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yes so it's uh generally the staff recommendation with the addition of some properties just north of Central Expressway around Moffett Boulevard.

[01:44:42] Chair José Gutiérrez: Yes. Great. So now we'll move on to the first question uh of the three which is do the identified areas reflect council's goals and criteria? Should any areas be reconsidered based on the criteria? Any questions from the commissioners on that front?

[01:45:16] Commissioner Joyce Yin: I think Commissioner Cranston requested just a moment to get reset and shifting of agenda items. I'm willing to wait.

[01:45:55] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Um you know R3 sorted uh one of the goals is form-based uh code and I guess I haven't heard a lot about the form and what those are necessarily and how you know how it might look other than sort of these generalities which is fine I understand we're sort of still in the midst of it but since it is such a a large priority goal I was curious um when we would see more information on that. Um I ask also because um oh it's okay part B will save for later but just generally um when will we see more information on the on the forms?

[01:46:35] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: I don't have a specific timeline but we will come back for you know at least one additional round of study sessions before adoption and we'll be checking in on kind of uh design strategy and other strategies that are part of the scope for this project.

[01:46:52] Commissioner Paul Donahue: And would that include also the green spaces and step backs and open spaces? Sites as a whole right? Not just the form of the structure.

[01:47:00] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yep.

[01:47:01] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Okay thank you.

[01:47:05] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you. So for staff I have a bit of a historical question. So I recall that early on in the R3 process there was a lot of concern there there was a practical concern that naturally affordable apartment blocks were getting razed and redeveloped and they were sticking row houses in and the row houses were not naturally affordable and they weren't starter homes. Um and that was that was a part of the impetus for why we we began an R3 re-examination it was to stop that. With SB 330 and some of the other state laws that have been passed since that time, how much is that particular uh that particular concern is that a is that still a real concern or is that sort of is that sort of been solved?

[01:47:59] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh it's important to note that SB 330 has a uh sunset date at least those aspects of SB 330 the the requirement that projects uh that they can't reduce the number of units that they're replacing those types of requirements um are sunset in 2030. So this is an opportunity for the city to get out ahead of that uh and to provide opportunities uh when a property owner wants to redevelop provide other viable opportunities that might increase housing supply.

[01:48:37] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: So and we separately have a an SB 330 replacement in the works do we not?

[01:48:41] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: We do have that in the works yes.

[01:48:43] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Okay so assuming that between now and 2030 and assuming that we get that replacement put into the books which is a separate conversation than the one we're having today. Is that sort of uh naturally affordable knockdown and replaced with a row house um problem is that still a real problem? Like is that is that still a very feasible uh outcome? Like say next year. Is it still happening?

[01:49:11] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh we are not seeing projects that are demolishing naturally affordable housing to build row houses because the replacement requirements would require all of those row houses to be um to be to be affordable at the uh you know at affordable rents uh or affordable sales prices and that is uh just not part uh it's just not feasible for a row house project.

[01:49:37] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Okay thank you.

[01:49:40] Commissioner Bill Cranston: One of the other um things that came up and part of the reason this is even in the housing element was staff's assessment that there were areas where the general plan density was actually higher than the R3 density would permit. I did finally figure out why the Del Medio South is there I still kind of perplexed how that became R4 but uh are all of the other areas that are were identified as zoning not being sufficient to permit that included in the items that are in that you've proposed or the areas that are missing?

[01:50:25] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: No. The the fundamental issue uh with that um you know the difference between the way the zoning ordinance in R3 uh sets density limits and the way the general plan sets density limits is citywide and it's based on um a different method of setting density limits. In the R3 zone we have what's called a graduated density zoning so on small parcels you get significantly less density than on large parcels not just fewer units but lower density. Um so for example if you are a narrow parcel or a parcel less than 12,000 square feet you're limited to two units and that is you know 8 to 10 units per acre it's it's a very low density even if you're in a general plan designation that allows 25 units per acre or 35 units per acre. So that's the the the the difference between zoning and general plan the the primary difference um and so that is citywide and not necessarily addressed by these change areas. It is something that we are it is in the housing element for us to uh create better alignment between the general plan and the zoning through this process. So there will be um you know for small parcels there will be additional density opportunities uh coming out of this process because we're going to be changing how density is regulated in the R3 zone in general to better align with the general plan. Um but it's not going to be a density increase in the general plan going up to um you know the the four-story or six-story heights which which is not broadly applicable today.

[01:52:15] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So so the gaps will be will ultimately be addressed but they're not they don't all have to be addressed by this specific thing that we're studying correct?

[01:52:26] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: That's right exactly. Yep.

[01:52:28] Commissioner Bill Cranston: And then I guess it's kind of a question for the chair um I'm assuming we're going to talk about the feasibility separately so I shouldn't be asking my feasibility questions now?

[01:52:40] Chair José Gutiérrez: I wouldn't think that I don't know that I would look at it that way but if you have a question

[01:52:44] Commissioner Bill Cranston: They're on question two.

[01:52:46] Chair José Gutiérrez: I mean they would be they would be more applicable for question two.

[01:52:48] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay so then let's wait that way I wasn't looking at that way but okay well we'll go with it. Okay. Um and then the last question um in the current zoning there are these R3 things that have that require certain step ups okay I know there's one in in my neighborhood that is an R3 apartment complex that directly abuts single family home and it says in the zoning you can't do that. Um you can't go directly above it. Does density bonus effectively wipe that out? So if we actually want if we want transitions do we have to have some kind of intermediary zoning in between what we want and the R3 in order to actually ensure you know some kind of step up?

[01:53:38] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: I think that's how we're kind of looking at this is still creating some of those transition areas in between the higher density and the lower density because with State Density Bonus Law you can ask for waivers and and sometimes they're unlimited and they can you know affect certain things like setbacks or um step backs on buildings and so you lose you potentially lose some of your ability to be able to transition within like on a property and so I think our intent was to have some transition with the not as high density R3s like that abut the R2s or the R1s and then you're gradually building up and it kind of does a natural transition versus being able to use all of those development standards.

[01:54:32] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So if we if we go with these you would also be looking you you you'd still look at that as with those transition even when we get into the prototype things you know there might be a the 1.5 or something you mean like a step back? Yeah I just some of these they're they most of them don't directly abut single family homes but some of them do and so I just as I'm looking at these is there something that would are they automatically you know and we haven't decided on density at this point but could you end up with something that's an R1 next to a 12-story building unless unless we do something that are you going to look at that kind of thing?

[01:55:15] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: So uh you'll see on the map on the screen there are some pink areas it's a little hard to see um all of them but there's one at San Veron Park apartments there's the um Dale Avenue frontage of the Continental Dale area and and a little part of the Solano apartments and a little part of the California Ortega apartments and those are all kind of near R1 or adjacent to R1 uh or or other you know lower density properties and so um those transition areas you know we haven't fully fleshed out the policy for those areas uh but we do imagine or foresee that those areas would be subject to different density standards and that would be the transition uh rather than um kind of having development standards uh that could be waived under density bonus like step back or height standards that could be waived under density bonus.

[01:56:11] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay and then last question um it wasn't entirely clear to me whether uh you're kind of presenting it as when we get into the the the options are we supposed to pick one and only or can we pick mult could we pick both and just say these areas have this because that could affect my recommendation on the on the same thing.

[01:56:35] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah you can definitely pick uh pick option one in one area option two in another area option three in another area you can definitely make that recommendation.

[01:56:44] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Thank you.

[01:56:47] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um what percent of the total units or or best estimate um what percent of the total units in R3 zoning today are incorporated in the proposed change areas?

[01:57:08] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: I think about a third. Roughly.

[01:57:14] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. Um can it seems like few. Um can staff kind of like I guess kind of walk us through like what the kind of profile is of the um units that were chosen for being included into uh the proposed change areas?

[01:57:39] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah the the vast majority of the sites that are in the change areas are apartments. Um and they are uh older apartment buildings. Uh the uh there are a few sites between uh you know kind of substantially surrounded by those apartment buildings that are um either more recent development or ownership properties or single family homes or other um other smaller properties uh row house or condo properties but they would need to be kind of substantially surrounded by the apartments in order to be included in these proposed change areas. Uh but as uh a reminder we are here to look for your feedback about other properties that we might uh we might include in these change areas or expand to other change areas. So uh if there are properties that you think we've missed we're we're here to listen.

[01:58:31] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Sure. Um I guess like without wanting to kind of get into the thicket of the per property kind of um discussion um that we just kind of like emerged from. Um I guess like I'm what I'm trying to understand is either why kind of like apartments were what appear to be kind of like a guiding criteria versus even like ownership um and or to what extent like why R3 isn't being like like it would feel to me like the map should be or the criteria would have been as much R3 as possible with very extenuating criteria for exclusion like I don't know like an HOA or or or extreme abutment like total abutment to R1 so I guess I'm just like um I'm gonna frame I know you're here for our feedback and I appreciate that I'm just trying to understand like um why why ownership apartments appear to have been excluded as as a starting point for that feedback.

[01:59:43] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah so like condominiums and row houses and other properties um you know I'll start with the council direction you know the council goals which were you know large uh you know large properties was a key part of that and that would tend to exclude single-family properties and other smaller properties. Um but then fundamentally I think this is a uh a set of policies and standards that and and this is something that's best practices in in zoning projects in general is that you you want this to not be a paper project and the um uh the realistic viable redevelopment opportunities of uh of those kind of multiple ownership properties is is very slim especially the larger sites with lots and lots and lots of owners and interests uh that gets even more uh unlikely the more the more people are involved in that decision. Uh so that was really um you know our uh our interest in in creating an actionable plan uh as well as the council working from the council goals.

[02:00:52] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Got it. And and then last question here what what was the specific time frame that staff used with regard to that viability determination? Is it like viable over the next two years, three years, 20, 40 like what's the timeframe?

[02:01:09] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh we don't have a specific timeframe uh that we're looking at I will say that um you know historically it's not um there isn't a time frame for you know common ownership developments to become more likely to redevelop right it even um even over long periods of time they they tend to be um uh you know maintained and and uh kept under those multiple ownership situations for a very long time. So it's not a time scale question it it really is just a um you know a likelihood of development question.

[02:01:54] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Um I didn't quite understand the the answer to Commissioner Cranston's question about the the buffer zones and so for instance the Solano apartments I assume is a single parcel or let's let's just imagine it is. There's a um transition area on the south side of that. But I thought I heard that the state the density bonus you you can't uh have kind of a setback requirement uh that can basically get waived only if there's a a separate parcel could you have a lower density or or lower height or something like that on that parcel is...

[02:02:46] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: We we still have to look into this and this is something that we can't provide any final answers on at this time. This is a a set of policies that we're going to continue to study and bring back options uh that are vetted by you know by um you know experts in the state law and precedent and and um development projects that have gone through using state density bonus. What I will say is that um under state density bonus you cannot waive density right that is the um that is the standard upon which the bonus itself is applied and there's very strict rules about how much density you get given the um given the the uh number of affordable units that you are including and and other factors. Um so I'll leave it there but um again this is something that we still need to study more and the um the map shows areas where we are going to be doing that analysis.

[02:03:51] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: And I I think I'll just add to that that what Eric was talking about in those transition zones is not necessarily those types of development standards that would that we would require um that potentially could get waived like the setbacks but maybe more of like and again we have to you know this is still to be continued but maybe something like like an overlay that doesn't allow as high of density that you know bridges that you know that creates some sort of transition or a lower density area along you know right along that property so that it pushes the density back away from the lower density. So maybe potentially not development standards that can be waived but an alternate to that.

[02:04:38] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Okay and you can I'm not the expert on this but you can have a an overlay on a portion of a parcel?

[02:04:48] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Yeah I don't know if that's the right wording so I don't want to pretend that we've got it all figured out but um you know there could be a transition requirement a step back you know effect on like portions of parcels or portions of areas. So we're still exploring that I think and if you know if the direction is well we don't want you to include those parcels because they're adjacent to single family and we don't think youll be able to to do that because of state density bonus we're all ears to that. Um but what we're trying to do is maintain you know keep those large parcels in you know and think of a solution that still provides that transition.

[02:05:26] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Okay. Okay so still TBD to some extent okay.

[02:05:32] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you just two quick follow-ups. Is there a particular precise plan that contains a large chunk of these draft change areas?

[02:05:46] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: The precise plans are zoning. So the precise plans in R3 don't really overlap. Um there are I'll I'll take that back sorry. There are some precise plans that reference R3 and those are included in this map just because there's the the effect of changing R3 will change those precise plans. Um one of the precise plans that in includes some R3 is uh like the El Camino Precise Plan includes these properties along here uh and there are a few other precise plans that reference R3.

[02:06:24] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Okay but there's no one particular precise plan that just happens to contain a whole bunch of these particular plots that you've identified?

[02:06:31] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: No no precise plans are smaller than that they're not they're not this kind of citywide. Right no I.

[02:06:38] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Yeah I'm with you. Um and just finally on average like how how long does it take staff to figure out if a a project is let's feasible? We we use that a lot we ask that question a lot. Is that the kind of thing you can eyeball it and do it in half an hour is it take hours and hours and hours like how easy is it actually for staff to determine if a a particular parcel or a plan for a particular parcel is actually feasible for development?

[02:07:05] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: So we spent several months on the feasibility analysis um and it does require quite a bit of back and forth with our consultants. You know the the consultants have models and I'm uh we have our uh consultant from Lisa Wise Consulting Dave David Bergman from Lisa Wise Consulting who can maybe provide more insight into the process of determining feasibility. Uh but from staff's side you know we we work with the consultant to kind of set parameters around what they're analyzing and then they have models uh that take into account um you know their conversations with developers about costs and uh and incomes and um hurdle rates of of uh how much profit they need to make and things like that uh then there's an iterative process with staff where we review the findings and maybe provide some comments and that can go on for for weeks or months. So this this took several months to prepare.

[02:08:03] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Okay.

[02:08:04] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Um I'll throw it to um David Bergman with Lisa Wise Consulting on the um Zoom if he is available uh who might be able to provide more insight in the process.

[02:08:18] Consultant David Bergman: Yes hello this is Dave Bergman from Lisa Wise Consulting joining you via Zoom. So uh the work that was done at this level was um done on typical sites. So we had some uh um larger scale uh parcels and medium scale uh parcels and we used um comparable developments to determine the land values, development costs, and worked out a development pro forma uh assuming market rate housing plus replacement of existing units at current densities um to add um below market rate units. So this is a very say abstract uh way of determining feasibility. There's a couple of assumptions here. One, conventional bank financing. Um so if your cost of money is lower uh for a variety of reasons you're doing this in all cash, you're not financing it, you'll have a slightly different feasibility as a matter of practice. Another factor that you could encounter is a long-term landowner who has a very low cost basis on the land rather than a market rate on the land. So in this work what's informing the uh the analysis is an abstraction because it has to be abstract at this level um to determine it on a parcel by parcel basis. It's something that could be done but it's would be a significant amount of work.

[02:09:57] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Okay. That that's helpful and and actually I I meant to bring this up in the next question so I apologize for bringing it up now maybe I was a little premature. Um suffice it to say it sounds like feasibility analysis is neither easy nor inexpensive.

[02:10:10] Consultant David Bergman: Well you know we we this is a lot of moving parts like I like I mentioned. So we can say well what does it look like on a uh 100 by 30 foot lot in the abstract but on a specific parcel um with its specific size uh with its specific uh requirements um and there are simple things that can make a huge difference in the cost of development like decisions about uh parking. Uh whether a project is in a high quality transportation area and um I don't know if that would be an effect but that's something that we encounter very often now that influences uh parking decisions that you want to make about uh whether that parking can be accommodated on site in surface parking or whether it's a podium or whether it's subterranean every one of those conditions would need to be addressed on a specific parcel. So the work that we did for this analysis was really at an abstract level assuming common assumptions uh parking rates uh one and a half per dwelling unit on the for sale units, one per dwelling unit on the uh rentals, and that it was parked uh partially podium and uh partially subterranean. That but if you were able to surface park a particular lot that would change the pro forma entirely. I hope I'm not being too evasive but at this level of planning you have to keep it abstract.

[02:11:45] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: That's wonderful thank you.

[02:11:49] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So there's at least one parcel in these that's already being developed um and I can't really tell Eric if the uh if there may be two builder's remedy projects that are in this um the parcel at the corner of Latham and Rengstorff is already underway and I again I can't tell whether the the one on Fayette or the El Camino Way touches if they touch this how would these how would the one that's already in process and the and the builder's remedy projects be affected by their inclusion in this?

[02:12:29] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh builder's remedy projects are on their own path um you know to the extent that they uh are continue to be vested under the builder's remedy law they would not be affected by this rezoning at all.

[02:12:45] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. What about Latham, Rengstorff?

[02:12:47] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: That development has already started construction and so they are also vested under any previous standards and so they would not be affected by these either.

[02:12:56] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay thanks.

[02:13:04] Chair José Gutiérrez: Any other questions? Nope. Okay let's go on to discussion. Who would like to uh repine first? Actually no let's go on to the second... well let me see... Yeah I think we right yeah. Don't do that Bill. So I have a I have a question here in terms of just procedure so since we addressed the first question to one and there's two parts um I'm thinking that we should just go ahead and do the discussion on that first unless you believe that we should do the second question and then do discussion for both at the same time. Should we separate them or should we just combine them?

[02:14:01] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh so the approach that we suggested in the staff report is to do question one which is really two questions here but question one which is about selecting the areas and have that discussion and then come back and have a discussion around the densities that you uh you want us to study in those areas. Um however if uh the commission thinks that there's a more streamlined or effective way to have that conversation um that uh you know that's the commission's prerogative.

[02:14:35] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay no I get it the question is more specific right now we did the do the identified areas reflect council's goals and criteria the second part is should any areas be reconsidered based on the criteria what I'm going to do then is have discussion based on the first question to that and then we're going to ask questions about should any areas be considered based on criteria and then discussion on that.

Segment 4

[02:15:00] Chair José Gutiérrez: questions of do the identified areas reflect Council's goals and criteria? I'd like to go into the discussion of that same question. Does that make sense?

[02:15:11] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: I have a question for clarification. Um, earlier when Commissioner Cranston asked a question about question 2 what was the question like was the question 2 or the...

[02:15:24] Chair José Gutiérrez: Well yeah, exactly. So I'm not sure that's why I was wondering what he was referring to. Got it. Yeah. Because I know when I look at question 1, there's two questions. Right. So naturally, the first question and then questions for that and then discussion for that.

[02:15:38] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: So I guess Commissioner Cranston was...

[02:15:40] Chair José Gutiérrez: So feasibility on this front, Commissioner Cranston, were you referencing question 2 which is for the change areas selected what density options should the city study as the R3 zoning district update is carried out or were you referencing the second part to question 1 which is question 2, should any areas be reconsidered based on the criteria?

[02:15:59] Commissioner Bill Cranston: What I was asking about is the items in question 2. The feasibility of the, the feasibility analysis and everything in the way the staff reports presented is after question 1. And so looking at what's feasible is it is it calculated the right way, do we agree with that, what should be where, to me is a separate question and that's why I was I was wanna make sure we're not currently discussing that now. What we're talking about is essentially the you got your your bubble table. Can you put that back up? I wish we had this chart earlier by the way. That thing. That's what I'm I think we're talking about is those are the criteria that were identified to us and to Council and that the staff used in evaluating these properties. And like I said I wish we had this earlier but this is great because it actually that's what I think we're talking about not then what is the actual density within one of these areas. Okay. That's that's the next question.

[02:17:04] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay. So, so that right, so then the feasibility question will go to the second part of first, of the first question, should any areas be reconsidered based on the criteria?

[02:17:13] Commissioner Bill Cranston: To me they're part of the same.

[02:17:16] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay. Fine. So then let's just go ahead and uh uh open up discussion. Um, having factored in this question of do the identified areas reflect Council's goals and criteria, should any areas be reconsidered based on the criteria? I don't have any questions in general for either one. Um, the only thing I wanted to reiterate was when you look at, when you mentioned before that when projects have already been established because of develop- a remedy, developers, the remedy that they, they sought out, none of what we do here affects those projects in general. I understood that that was always the case because there are exceptions to the norm.

[02:18:11] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, I mean as long as they stay vested, right, there there may be some circumstances under that they may lose their, their vesting, that they they may lose the rights that they have to their current application. Uh, and so as long as they stay uh with that um, uh with as long as they stay vested then uh this would not apply to them.

[02:18:38] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay, so builder remedies have been taken care of that way. The one random question I had, and I'm going to ask it because why not, there was a project that was uh accepted I think and brought to the EPC close to uh Castro, Mistral, I think it was I think it's Gemello, that street that's there, or the one... and then I think that stopped. So so what's, how is that affected by by all this?

[02:19:02] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: So that is now a builder's remedy project. So it's same as same as the other.

[02:19:08] Chair José Gutiérrez: Got it. Okay. Thank you. Commissioners, uh who would like to start the discussion.

[02:19:26] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Cranston.

[02:19:28] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So I, to me the cur the as um as staff said, none of these, none of these properties meet all the the criteria that were kind of outlined by by Council. Um, and there was no kind of weighting of one being higher than the other. And the one thing when, when we saw this the last time it was, um, we actually were not necessarily endorsing density, but Council said, nope we want more density. And this these are, this these criteria were used to say okay where where are we going to focus on extra density. We're going to get more density already because as Eric said for um just fixing R3 in in different areas. Uh but these were for extra focus. Um, I actually thought staff did a reasonable job of trying to balance the pieces. Um, as to what would you include and not include. Um, so I and I'm we saw some emails, oh don't include this one property. I'm I'm in favor of picking a criteria that we're comfortable with and and applying it consistently. Um, otherwise you get into very personal um discussions. So I I think in general the approach that was taken um, kind of made sense to me. Other things like okay you know kind of pushed that one a little bit more or that one a little less, but all in all it's like, yeah it's probably okay. And so I don't know that I would add any more, I thought it was a fairly thoughtful and reasonable approach overall. Um, so I'm I am comfortable with the areas identified and that they reflect as much as possible the the Council goals and balancing the various criteria that were uh approved by Council uh to to have you go off and do this evaluation.

[02:21:28] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Dempsey.

[02:21:30] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: I'll just simply say uh this was not an easy puzzle to try to solve. Um, I actually did find sort of the the way the moon graphs um to be pretty helpful. And I really do appreciate how methodical you were um and careful in trying to figure out how to do this. So, that's a long way of saying I think I'm fine with the way staff did it.

[02:21:56] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Donahue.

[02:21:58] Commissioner Paul Donahue: So I mean to answer the question, do they reflect Council's goals and criteria, I think the answer is no, as the staff report said, because there are no parcels that did that. So, um, but I think that it reflects the the a lot of the spirit of of what the council was was seeking. Uh, I think it um may you know there's there's some compromises and things but I think that it uh that these criteria are um are good. Uh they I think that the outcome I I drove all over town and and checked out all these all these different places and um uh yeah I I can I can I can get behind that. So, um I am in favor of of the recommendation.

[02:22:56] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you Commissioner Donahue. Commissioner Yin.

[02:23:00] Commissioner Joyce Yin: I'll keep it short. I, I'm in favor of how staff has approached it. It seems balanced and fair. Nothing's perfect. Um, probably should have asked this question earlier, and maybe it's okay to go ahead and ask a quick one. I, I noticed in the bubble chart and um, that a couple of them only hit a few things. Um, and I was wondering what kept it in play. For instance, Middlefield and Independence. So I'm seeing most of them hit at least half of the bubbles filled. And I'm like, okay, that's good. But I was just curious why then with only two and a half bubbles filled out of the seven, it was still in. I'm not asking to remove it. I'm just curious.

[02:23:55] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, uh, per the methodology, we didn't um make any judgment about the relative ranking of criteria, maybe for some stakeholders or for some council members uh those criteria that Middlefield Independence uh meets, uh like the, you know, the fact that they're you know the existing parcels may be slightly lower density, so there may be a more realistic density increase in the future, uh it met that criterion um and uh you know being along a major corridor, you know. So we didn't want to presume that those were unimportant and it just wasn't part of our methodology to go through that kind of subsequent culling.

[02:24:36] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Thank you. Um, I'm in favor of what staff has presented. Yep.

[02:24:42] Chair José Gutiérrez: Vice Chair Nuñez.

[02:24:45] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, I guess, reading the wall and the writing... um I just wanna say um I don't necessarily... I mean should should any areas be reconsidered? I mean I think all of them should. I think all of them should be included. I don't think that's um the recommendation that's gonna come out of this tonight. Um so while everyone's awake I'm just gonna say, you know, like there was a headline in the Houston Chronicle two days ago saying like Texas to become most populous state by 2045. We're like bleeding population for the first time ever in our history we lost a congressional seat. Um, and so I just I'm just going to point that out because I would hate for you know our sensitivities around housing to enable reactionism. Um and so do I support? Um I think all the areas should be um reconsidered and included in the change area.

[02:25:56] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you Vice Chair. I have a different perspective. Um, I'm in support of what the staff is proposing and look, I understand there's limitations to what we have in general, but I'm going back to the spirit of the housing element plan that we worked on in the last year, year and a half, and what the goals are. So when you present to us the perspective that you have on how we should move forward and what that looks like, I'm open to that. Um, I know that there's other bigger questions at play but I'm on the EPC man. I'm not in Congress. I'm not the governor. I'm just a guy trying to make it in Mountain View. And I appreciate you're helping me out tonight. So when I looked at the proposal I thought this makes sense to me because it seemed to me at least it was balanced and it was fair and you took a little bit from here and there and you tried to make the best that you could with what you were going to present. And and this chart behind me that that Commissioner Cranston pointed out to was very helpful um because it gave me some perspective on things. Um and and so I appreciate that. Thank you.

[02:26:52] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Chair, uh if I may. Uh perhaps we can give the advanced planning manager an opportunity to talk about the broader work across the full range of R3 that is forthcoming and how that uh may enable those areas to build um more feasibly at the densities that are intended that has a more broad base of effect um may help address some of Vice Chair Nuñez's concerns.

[02:27:16] Chair José Gutiérrez: Sure.

[02:27:18] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, thank you uh Director Murdock. Um, so there are a number of different uh aspects of the R3 zoning project that that will provide additional opportunities. Uh one I brought up earlier uh based on a question I think from Commissioner Cranston around uh better aligning densities and uh general plan and zoning densities. Uh that could create additional capacity. There are probably a lot of parcels out there that are underutilized because they are subject to these kind of fairly arbitrary smaller site smaller density rules. And so that could be an opportunity for um uh feasible redevelopment. Uh another opportunity is alignment with state laws, so SB 684 and 1123 create new opportunities for uh new development um even at uh uh densities slightly above the um 25 units per acre that covers most of the um R3 zone today. And then um lastly per the housing element we are undertaking a study of uh our development standards and will look at for opportunities where we can address uh development standards that are standing in the way of feasible development um at the densities that they're allowed to build. So those all of those prongs are going to create additional housing opportunities outside of the change areas.

[02:28:46] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you Christian. Thank you Eric. I'm glad you brought that up because then that gives me the chance to say I also thought I had remembered the staff saying that this year you all were going to have the ability to also converse with developers to see what would make them tick to build here in Mountain View, what that would look like and you would present to us your results on that. Any estimate in terms of when that's planned and when we would get that information?

[02:29:20] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Um, well there are a lot of different initiatives that we uh talk to developers around. Uh you know, for example our precise plan work uh we talk to developers and uh these types of uh uh rezoning projects we do talk to developers uh to kind of vet and and um kind of fool-proof uh the standards and and kind of what is going to kind of move the needle for them. Um you know they're one group of stakeholders that we talk to, we talk to a lot of different stakeholders. Um and so uh there there are we we also have a number of initiatives uh that are outside of zoning process projects where we talk to developers, for example around process. Um and so um these uh those are all opportunities for uh us to hear from uh those stakeholders around um kind of the how we can um better uh um meet the the development needs of the community.

[02:30:39] Chair José Gutiérrez: Cool. So it sounds like it's a work in progress. Okay so I think with question one we have satisfied the the questions and you've heard the responses from the from the dais here in terms of what we think about the proposal. Commissioner Dempsey?

[02:30:51] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Yin, I missed you. I am so sorry Commissioner Yin. I apologize, by all means, the floor is yours.

[02:30:56] Commissioner Joyce Yin: It's my second time. That's why I just wanted everyone to go through first. Um, I wanted to add, there was an earlier comment about the pink areas on the map. And that instead of using development standards you would potentially look at density sort of overlay or subzone or something like that. And we didn't discuss that and I just wanted to put forward that um I would be in favor of looking at that uh for transition purposes. Um personally you know I got to redesign and not think of any residents in Mountain View. We'd have a very different Mountain View with very different zoning, different street grid, all of it. But considering there are people who live here um transitions is is something that I do care about. Obviously we're not going to be perfect everywhere. I do believe in consistency but if everyone's if the majority of people are willing to look at allowing for that where we're hitting significantly like R1 let's say, um I would be for it uh especially since we have the state density bonus where you could easily jump in number of stories and to be a a little single family or two story single family and to have an eight-story building next to you I think is is a significant sort of impact. So I'm just putting it out there for discussion.

[02:32:33] Chair José Gutiérrez: Any takers? Would someone like to chime in on that or would we... Oh, Commissioner Cranston.

[02:32:42] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I guess I saw that kind of in the context of question number 2 as we go through that because it it what are we gonna what are we gonna allow and how are we gonna allow it. So to me that are we moving into question number 2? Is I'm I have some thoughts on that but it felt to me it's more in the context of the broader.

[02:33:01] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay. Having heard what you said, Commissioner Cranston, Commissioner Yin?

[02:33:06] Commissioner Joyce Yin: I'm happy to wait till question 2.

[02:33:09] Chair José Gutiérrez: Great, let's do that. Okay, so let's uh Eric and team we're good with question 1, so now we're going to move over to question 2. Okay. Uh let's see here. For the change area selected what density options should the city study as the R3 zoning district update is carried out.

[02:33:33] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Questions first?

[02:33:38] Chair José Gutiérrez: Yes, always, please.

[02:33:41] Commissioner Bill Cranston: We have heard on multiple occasions, and this is maybe a question for the consultant, we've heard on multiple occasions that underground parking is really expensive. And I was to some extent, I was surprised that the model in exhibit 5 assumed below-grade parking for everything, two stories of underground parking, which is inconsistent with what we've heard in the feasibility of of projects. Uh number one, so that seemed like we may be overestimating, which would essentially drive the cost of the projects up by requiring that kind of thing. Um, the second element of that was it seemed like the lot, the unit sizes were on the larger side to me. Um, a little history, my first condo was an 850 square foot two bedroom one bath condo in Boston. Okay? And I was very comfortable in it because there were no wasteful things like hallways or stairs, okay, which take up space. Um, and I was very happy. I live now in Monta Loma where I have a 1,200 square foot house that originally was four bedrooms and two baths. I made it into three bedrooms, two baths, but it's only 1,200 square feet. And in your numbers you're using pretty high numbers here. And so I, so I was concerned that the analysis was overestimating the cost that the developers would incur on the underground parking and on the space, and the flip side is I think we penalize when they move the parking above ground by requiring that that is considered to be part of FAR, which means that they can't go as high and therefore may reduce the feasibility. So I was like why why was the assumption based on underground parking how I mean as we as we densify, my my sense is units are going to get smaller, and why do we continue to require FAR of anything above grade to be considered to be applied to parking. Were my three feasibility questions.

[02:35:50] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, yeah, thank you Commissioner Cranston. Um, so let me start with the parking. Um, I think that uh approach was based on a a kind of a conservative uh assumption to get to the feasibility. So, uh we have not set any standards at this point. We have not set any assumptions or any uh requirements around um uh you know, it's very difficult to require underground parking. Um in general it's one of that's one of those things that can be waived under density bonus. Uh you know FAR can be waived under density bonus. So they can build above-ground parking um usually under density bonus anyway. Uh but our approach here was to make some conservative assumptions around um the uh the cost of development given that there are some advantages to the city of building underground parking. You get more uh land available for open space potentially, you get more land uh um less uh aesthetic and visual impacts of the parking, you get potentially more pedestrian interest at the ground floor and pedestrian access. Uh you uh can sometimes get more um uh uh opportunities for landscaping and open space at the at the ground level. Uh so those those are all goals that the community has had and we wanted to try to integrate as many of those goals as we could into what we studied, knowing of course that this can potentially be uh waived by developers. Um so that was the uh the parking. On the unit sizes, um you know we're seeing a broad range of unit sizes in the community and these unit sizes for the condos were actually consistent with several condo projects that we looked at. Um we do want to make sure that we are building units for a broad range of household sizes. And so this range of unit sizes from, you know a fairly small average for apartments and a fairly large average for condos does encompass that broad range of unit sizes that the com that the Council and community have expressed interest for. Um, and again we're we're we're working at a very general level here. Uh we can't possibly predict what future markets are going to want in terms of unit uh um characteristics or what uh is going to be feasible in future markets. So we're just taking some broad assumptions from developments that we're seeing in the community and um and uh kind of what we what we think are the community's goals and what we've heard from the community and council are are goals for the projects.

[02:39:01] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: So again we haven't set any standards yet. Um what I will say is that what you're seeing as feasible in these uh developments uh in these prototypes are very close to what can be physically built in the building type that is most commonly um selected by developers today. So building types um you know that right now a a very popular building type for these kind of mid-rise kind of higher density developments that we're seeing in Mountain View um are kind of a wood over concrete uh uh construction and that really maxes out at seven stories. Very, very rare occasions can you see eight-story projects. Uh but um generally that maxes out at seven stories. And you'll see that that that's that's kind of where our feasibility is. And so once you start to put the parking above grade, the developer has to start making decisions around, you know, are they getting income from that buildable space because they can't really build much more, um or are they giving it away to, you know, are they making it for parking which they're not getting income from. And those kinds of decisions we can't really predict in these feasibility uh uh analyses. We we can't get into that micro level of uh how a developer decides to to build their buildable area. So what we found is uh feasible based on some conservative assumptions of what the community uh what we think the community's been looking for, and that was that was our approach. We have no um I think I said this before but I'll reiterate it now. We have not adopted standards at this point. We have not crafted FAR standards. We have not crafted how parking applies to FAR or any of those other kind of detailed standards. And so right now the purpose of this analysis is to provide a broad frame of reference for the densities that that should pencil out. And again, it's a broad range. 75 to 135 units per acre is a very broad range. And um and so uh it's a uh it's a data point that uh we we think that you'll want to use, but it it shouldn't uh be considered a uh an active precision or a a very precise uh data point.

[02:41:46] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. Can I... I'm going to try to say this back in what I hear... you're saying that the costs you attempted to use are you want it to be on the high side to make sure you're not underestimating the cost. Is that the short version?

[02:42:01] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh yes, although it's a lot more complicated than that because there's there's so many decisions that might raise costs or lower costs and we can't possibly predict all of those decisions. So really we we wanted to focus on some things in the feasibility analysis that we thought the community was going to support. Public open space, public paths, underground parking, flexibility for landscaping. Um, you know, these these things that are part of the Council goals, you know, in the design, and uh that's what we wanted to study.

[02:42:37] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. So... What I'm... one of the reasons that I long ago supported the idea of looking at R3 was because the only financially viable option for the redevelopment of existing R3 um practically after the passage of CSFRA was townhomes. If we head down this path it needs to be something that the options available to the developer allow them to overcome the SP 330 and hopefully whatever is going to be after SP 330 a a financially viable model that preserves those units for the people that are living in those below market rate units. And so I'm I'm looking for reassurance that the models that are being proposed in fact can accomplish that. Because if we don't have something, I mean the it's the language in the housing element is financially feasible, okay, or financially viable. To me that says if they tear it down they need to be able to replace all those units that are rent controlled today. I I don't like the idea that all these people are going to get kicked out of their houses but it needs to be something where we end up with at least the same number of units when we're done. Are you I I guess I'm I'm feeling a little bit better, but I'm not feeling super confident that that you're saying that we can do that today, because that's that's to me the ultimate assessment that I'm going to make is if it's not if we're not going to preserve those units then there's a problem, okay? And that you know so help me out here.

[02:44:09] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, absolutely. Our goal was to show financial feasibility for a typical project that replaces uh existing CSFRA units with affordable units. And then provides market-rate units in addition to that. That is what we were uh trying to show feasibility for. That was kind of a guiding light for this. And we have found that those projects with at these densities meet those feasibility hurdles. Uh now is it going to be true in all markets? Is it going to be true for all sites, for all properties? No, you know, we can't possibly predict all of that, but we have found that for typical sites uh this range of densities does result in feasible projects with the replacement of CSFRA units with 100% with with affordable units.

[02:45:22] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Did you apply this criteria... I don't remember the address... property that was right on the Sunnyvale line between El Camino and Sunnyvale... because I understood that they had actually backed away because they no longer felt it was feasible. And that was one the first one we saw that was trying to overcome the the SP 330 requirement. And they walked away from it.

[02:45:42] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: We don't know developers' pro formas. We we can't possibly see inside their decision-making process. Um you know they uh they are making their decisions based on their data and uh you know our our data and our analysis you know meets the bar of a feasibility analysis that's rigorous and meets industry standards. Uh is it exactly consistent with what a developer might have in for their portfolio? Probably not.

[02:46:22] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. You should test your model against that location. Um... This local bonus, I'm going to shift subjects. Local bonus. I read through this and thought why the hell would we do this. So, why the hell would we do this. Nothing in what you said in there made said like oh there's anything compelling about this. So I I didn't maybe I missed it but it it was like okay why?

[02:46:46] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Yeah, I think you know it's been brought up multiple times um by the council and I think we want to, you know, we want to try to formulate that if that's really the desire of the community. I think we've listed several, you know, things that are problematic with doing local bonuses, like it's hard to think of what would make that local bonus more en- enticing than the state density bonus law. We've seen most of the um you know projects that we've seen are are taking advantage of state density bonus law. Um there's you know so many waivers and concessions that can be, you know, added to a project that maybe, you know, they just make potentially that avenue more um in you know, interesting to a developer. I think the other piece is we haven't really explored that outside of precise plans. Um and then also, you know, Eric has had a couple, you know, seen a couple examples um you know, in cities that are in general ordinances, um I'll let him talk a little bit about that.

[02:48:02] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, I mean we know of examples. I think one of the challenges with local bonuses is that we're it's not super clear how state law... how evolving state law is and state law is rapidly evolving, you know, it changes all the time. Uh and it's not super clear how that evolving state law can affect local bonuses. And we're not getting much information about that even from existing local bonuses elsewhere in the state. Um you know that's something that we'll continue to study if Council uh continues to be interested in this approach. Um but the um but this is a this is a rapidly evolving issue uh and it's very hard to keep up with the legislature on it.

[02:48:53] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. Um... And then the uh I have one last question and then I'll let somebody else get a chance. Um... that proximity to transit. You mentioned El Camino earlier as being transit but not being transit and some of these parcels are not directly on El Camino but they're only one block back which kind of feels transity to me. So I'm what's... how does... Latham parallel to El Camino for a really long distance. Okay? So it feels like it's kind of transity to me. And I but it's not and you listed it here in your bubble chart you didn't necessarily list it as as good transit wise. So I'm...

[02:49:46] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: So I think it's mainly due to state law definitions I think. So these major transit stops are an intersection of two bus lines that meet certain time thresholds. And on El Camino you have the line that runs along El Camino that meets that time threshold. But we don't have anything that runs, I don't know if you change the map a little bit, north south essentially that then intersects that line to make it a major transit stop. So because of that, none of the line and Eric can correct me if I'm wrong but you know most of El Camino is not going to be considered in that like transit zone or the major transit stops and that's why there's no intersecting north-south line. Is the the transportation on El Camino itself decent transportation? Sure. It's a decent bus line. It meets that threshold um of the 20 minute headways. But it doesn't have that connection and so that's what makes those you know the other areas in the city that have those major transit stops more viable as transit areas.

[02:51:00] Chair José Gutiérrez: No more questions, Bill? Okay. Vice Chair Nuñez.

[02:51:13] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, with regard to feasibility... was construction method uh assessed as part of that? So like modular for example. Um, to what extent was that explored?

[02:51:37] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh thanks for the question. I'm going to have to defer to uh David Bergman with Lisa Wise Consulting on that question.

[02:52:03] Chair José Gutiérrez: David you should be able to speak. Can we restate the question? Just in case he didn't hear it.

[02:52:11] Chair José Gutiérrez: David are you with us?

[02:52:15] City Clerk Heather Glaser: David can you speak? You should be able to talk.

[02:52:23] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Okay, well maybe I can see if our consultant from Opticos, Cecilia Kim, can uh respond to that question.

[02:52:34] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: And if you don't mind me appending a little bit. So not just um in what ways was modular housing uh considered as part of the feasibility um and in addition to that in what ways would such uh approach impact feasibility if it wasn't part of the study.

[02:52:52] Consultant Cecilia Kim: Great. Thank you for that question. Good evening Commissioners. Um so again I am Cecilia Kim with Opticos Consulting and I am a planner and urban designer. Um David Bergman who is the economist on our team can better answer that because he is the one that actually ran the model. But um from our understanding and based on our conversations on how to make the assumptions for that analysis um certain specifics like modular construction methods don't necessarily go into that type of modeling because it is very particular. Um not everybody going to is going to do modular construction and so for the planning level that we are at we need to use basic assumptions um for the construction type. So for example as Eric mentioned the um concrete podium with the wood construction on top is the most generic and basic for these types of um buildings that we're looking at. So I would with 90% confidence say that that's probably the model that he used and not a modular construction.

[02:53:54] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay that sounds great. Um and then for one more question sorry, I know that hopefully David can uh kind of chime in if he ever um or if they ever get to fix the connection issue. Um failing that, obviously stalling David. Um, I guess um because a further question along those lines um you know we are kind of seeing um cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and even San Mateo County um kind of incentivizing uh that construction method. Um and so I guess to to the best of your awareness uh failing David kind of chiming in as well, um are you seeing or you know are there examples where you've experienced where we do have that kind of like base level assumption um to work with uh yet where cities are able to create an additional incentivization on top of the base assumption um as a way of increasing the feasibility. Um and the reason why I ask is because I am hearing um you know concern from some of my colleagues on the commission around um the displacement issue and ensuring that you know redevelopment is able to kind of you know support the intended goal of um you know making sure that people are able to be and remain housed right. Um and so I guess I'm just along those lines you know if there is a need for um both bringing costs down for increased feasibility on that front while also um finding a way to get more units that would you know create the space for people to remain housed in our city. Um that's kind of the direction that I'm trying to like you know piece through. Um but again given some examples of of of this being explored in other cities um is that an approach that you've seen or are seeing kind of increasing in the state of California today? Um and or would that work um to some extent or or how have you seen that work if so I guess. Eric would you like me to take that question?

[02:57:09] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah Vice Chair Nuñez, if I'm understanding the thinking and the rationale behind your question, I think you're fundamentally concerned about the feasibility of these projects being able to be carried out and would modular construction aid in achieving feasibility. I think as I understand the modeling that was done, it used likely a more expensive construction type and still demonstrated feasibility. So to the extent we think that modular construction might uh provide an opportunity to lower the construction costs, my thinking would be that it would increase the feasibility of the projects being able to be carried out. I think it's a reasonable assumption. At the end of the day right these are those are very site level and project level determinations and while usually modular construction may be less expensive, there could be site specific constraints that may not make that the case. I think we've demonstrated with the modeling that the typically more expensive construction type is feasible under these scenarios and so um I feel confident that modular construction would be better in terms of feasibility.

[02:59:12] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Yeah, that exactly right. Because I think the goal here isn't to have like a paper plan, right? Um and so then if there is already a base level of feasibility uh that we're pretty confident in, I guess my question is um you know given that you know this is something that we are even seeing kind of like our neighboring counties take on um like to what extent does that an additional level of like hey you know we're going to say um all of the base assumptions apply everywhere but also if developer A over here happens to come up on a parcel of land and circumstance where it would be feasible to have a a modular construction, are there incentives or are there other kind of like ways to stimulate and or support uh the ability of to like specifically elevate that as an option for developers to have another tool in the toolkit to increase the feasibility overall and bring construction costs down while keeping people in their in their homes. That's ultimately what I'm after.

Segment 5

[03:00:00] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Is this the work item to do it or is there another one you know coming up before us or the council where people who support that might be better placed to advocate for that right that's that's the the directional thinking here.

[03:00:12] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Thank you. Yeah, I think um again I don't think this process is is really geared to addressing that. I'd say that we have a open-minded orientation in the Community Development Department to innovative development techniques and we will entertain those as long as they meet the California Building Code and other applicable codes. Thanks.

Segment 4

[03:00:29] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: So I think that option already exists. I don't know that there's anything we need to do to incentivize it. Um we would maybe have an opportunity in this process to ensure that whatever other standards arise wouldn't prevent modular construction. Sometimes there are concerns about architectural detailing and so forth that are less and less um standards that the city can impose on these kinds of housing projects. But that's the only example I can think of that potentially could be a barrier to modular construction. Otherwise it's largely a developer decision and it's often cost driven um to use modular construction and then it shifts to the building code and building permit review phase and the structural design and structural engineering of these kinds of projects to make sure that you know at 6 or 7 or 8 stories that modular construction is suitable, which I've seen examples that it can be. So um the potential's there and I don't think there's anything that this process necessarily needs to directly address related to modular.

Segment 5

[03:00:37] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you Christian.

[03:00:40] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Cranston.

[03:00:42] Commissioner Bill Cranston: If I may just add one thing to that. So um the Carpenters Union I know is looking at this and I I actually raised this question in a in a discussion with a below market rate developer and I it was he raised something that I had never thought about. 2x4s, sheetrock, paint, can be very flat, takes up very little space. It's not specific to any location in the building, so it doesn't it doesn't take a lot of space for the construction. When you do modular housing, you actually need a place to put module 1, module 2, module 3. So staging areas are a problem and for smaller lots that there they don't have space. So if the city were going to look at something like this, offering something that had staging areas would need to be something that was considered. Um and just in time. So what you need is the ones on the first floor. If you get something that's for the fourth floor, it's just kind of useless and in the way. So the the queuing process is and the construction process becomes much more complicated, which is why many non-profit developers are not using because that that that um flow of of materials, the timeframe, the physical space has not been solved yet. Uh but if over time we could solve that, if Mountain View we wanted to what's the location over on Whisman, we wanted to offer that as a place for people to put their modules, maybe we could help with something like that. But it's it's not as simple as hey it's kind of cool you got to have it's a it's a very different building process. So.

[03:02:22] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Dempsey.

[03:02:25] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you Mr. Chair. I just a question uh a practical question about about feasibility um because uh I hadn't previously been aware that there's a height at which you just stop building with wood anymore because it falls over I guess right and you got to go to steel. And I get the I guess what I'm interested in is, and I'm looking at option one option two now about whether we do D1 D2, goes to 4 stories goes to 6, I'm mindful of how the state density bonus then interacts with it. And I don't want to presume that in most... what I want to know is in practice, what kind of buildings are we actually going to see? Like would you expect that for most of those buildings they're just going to go give me that density bonus right and that we should expect not 4 and 6 but 8 or 12. I don't know and so I'm curious to know what you think the in practice the actual distribution would be because it sounds like there's sort of this 9, 10, 11 story space that maybe we wouldn't see as many buildings and everybody would just shoot to 12. In practice what do you think the distribution of story sizes would be?

[03:03:34] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Uh so I I wouldn't consider myself an expert on that and it's definitely difficult to predict what individual developers may choose to do. Uh what we have heard is that 7 stories is comfortable for a lot of developers and and a lot of them do come in at that uh at that height to kind of take the most advantage of the density at that building type. Um and you know technology, building technology is evolving. Um you know we are seeing new new building materials um being uh proposed and studied. Uh and so it's it's really hard to predict uh what what people might choose to do under density bonus. What I will say is that uh density bonus has a lot of other carrots in it besides just density. Right? The waivers are a very powerful mechanism to get what you want in a development if you're a developer. The concessions are a powerful mechanism. So I don't think you should assume that people won't be asking for density bonus at all. Uh I think that is that is just too uh too uh attractive an opportunity at least the way density bonus is currently being interpreted by the courts. Um I think the um if you want to take a a greatest density assumption you know um perspective, you can say six stories is going to double to 12 stories. You could say that 4 stories is going to double to 8 stories. That's kind of a conservative highest density, highest height assumption. Um and beyond that I don't really have a tool to help you predict what the actual outcome might be and what individual developers might choose to do.

[03:05:44] Chair José Gutiérrez: Any other questions? Nope. Okay. I don't have any questions. Let's move on to discussion. Who would like to start.

[03:06:03] Chair José Gutiérrez: Vice Chair Nuñez.

[03:06:04] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um I think now is appropriate time to um I notice hit this. Um now is appropriate time to support the the those the gradients that Commissioner Yin had recommended. Is that the case? Yeah? Okay so uh yeah I'll support that. Um and then in terms of the the density option I'll come back to that.

[03:06:30] Chair José Gutiérrez: Just for the clarity so that everybody who is watching is also clear, can you just clarify what we just supported?

[03:06:42] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Sure, thank you. For the prompt um the pink areas right? Commissioner Yin would you actually would you like to restate that? I'm not gonna try to...

[03:06:52] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Yin.

[03:06:55] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Thank you. I was uh suggesting earlier that on this map there are some pink areas to consider as transition zones and since staff had already mentioned that we're not it's not effective to do development standard that it is probably more effective to use density standards and they're still looking at that and I am in favor of continuing that exploration and suggesting to council that they move forward with that.

[03:07:36] Chair José Gutiérrez: Anyone else would you like to chime in? Commissioner Dempsey.

[03:07:42] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: I'm good with that.

[03:07:48] Chair José Gutiérrez: In terms of adding the pink areas too? Yeah I see.

[03:07:54] Chair José Gutiérrez: Well I have the floor. Oh go ahead. Commissioner Cranston also approves?

[03:08:00] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Yep.

[03:08:01] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Yeah I approve.

[03:08:03] Chair José Gutiérrez: And as do I.

[03:08:11] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Yin.

[03:08:12] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Okay I'll try to go first then um see if I got my thoughts together. Sorry if it's a little bit hodgepodgey. Um my inclination is to support the option let's see which one is this here that allows for four stories. I think it's consistent with the general plan if not even more. I think feasibility studies and I'm glad um it was clarified it is generally feasible to get the underground parking to get larger units. That means in reality we may not see that with every parcel but I would love to see that in some of the parcels. Um regardless we know that there's the state density bonus. We're aware that developers will use them and so it's very very possible likely even that the four stories will go much higher. And if we're starting out with form-based code I am already a little concerned that with concessions and waivers we're gonna lose the goal of getting the open space ratio that we want, the sort of form that we want. So given that the the parcels will have the density if not more potentially we lose. I would rather lose less than more if that makes any sense. So I am in favor of that. I do see the note in the staff report thank you for adding that there is a downzoning potential for Del Medio South which I don't want. So if um if there's a chance to have more than one zone throughout the map here um then I would suggest that Del Medio South be zoned to where they would have the equivalent amount of density that they're legally allowed right now and knowing that it would be actually more um than what they even have now. Um that's it for now.

[03:10:44] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Yin, point of clarification but the four stories option, is that the R3D1 or which one was it?

[03:10:51] Commissioner Joyce Yin: It is option 2A, R3D1 base.

[03:10:55] Chair José Gutiérrez: Base, okay.

[03:10:56] Commissioner Joyce Yin: With a combo for Del Medio South area R3D2.

[03:11:01] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you. Yes. That is. Thank you Commissioner Yin.

[03:11:08] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Dempsey.

[03:11:10] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you Chair. Uh I am generally in agreement with with my colleague Commissioner Yin. I think um you know as for density I think the middle way here is to provide a little bit of a mix so that the the city can use D1 and D2 depending on sort of the demands of the particular parcel. In general I think I would default to D1 um generally because I expect a lot of these sites are going to end up um larger and higher because of the density bonus. But I I can see a world where in some cases including Del Medio but there might be a couple others where D2 and potentially even the high rise that could come with it might actually make sense and not completely overwhelm the infrastructure around it. Um you know I would defer very much to the to the expertise of of staff about where you could do that safely. But I think being able to do one or the other depending on you know because not all R3 is made the same. I don't think it should be made the same. Um and just last point I guess is I am someone uh I I love the idea of doing a local bonus because I love the things that maybe we could get with it. I am pessimistic about it because I fear that density bonus and other changes to state changes made by state law is just taking away our bargaining power as a municipality and the only way to get some of that back is to give up so much more density so much more height that I'm not sure that that ends up being a good trade. And so anyway for that reason I would uh I would take option 2A as the default um but reserve the reserve discretion for staff to to maybe do D2 in a in a couple of places where they thought it was really called for.

[03:12:53] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you Commissioner Dempsey. Commissioner Donahue.

[03:12:56] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Um I agree with the previous two commissioners. The uh the staff report says if replacement requirements apply which they they do under SB 330 and any subsequent ordinance that we have, uh it is reasonable to assume that most projects will be eligible for the maximum 100% density bonus. So but even doing the R3D1 at four stories is giving us eight stories or if eight stories is not actually feasible then then seven stories. Um so I think that that in general is um is is appropriate. The uh of course and then I agree with the Del Medio South that um yeah we don't we don't want to downzone that. Um so yeah I'm I'm in agreement.

[03:13:51] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you Commissioner Donahue. Vice Chair Nuñez.

[03:13:54] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um yep so agree with the Del Medio South piece. Um I guess one thing I'm wondering is why why would we want to give away so much local control by forcing developers to take the state density bonus route uh instead of adopting uh standards that we could enforce? Um if it's reasonable to expect that most will will take the state density bonus route, um then then we lose a lot of control there. Um I not really able to frame that um as not a contradiction in my mind. Um so I mean to the extent that you know the R4 is making sense you know to to most of my colleagues um I can trust that greater wisdom um and and and support that too.

[03:14:58] Chair José Gutiérrez: Point of clarification, so you're in support of also R3D1 as the base and then R3D2 for Del Medio?

[03:15:04] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Not downzoning Del Medio as was suggested by Commissioner Yin. As was noted I'm sure and then R3D1 base. Okay got it. Thank you.

[03:15:18] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Yin.

[03:15:21] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Um I just wanted to add to the discussion that part of the reason as well uh for that choice was that I think the state density bonus um if if you offered six they they would still want to maximize because they're already using that money to construct that kind of style and you typically they just want to max it out until there's a jump where you need another construction style which increases the cost. Um so I think that that's why state density bonus would be in play regardless. And in addition I think um state density bonus allows for more affordable housing I think if they take it that way instead of us stating that they can have so much more I think you you'll get more units but I think you get more affordable units with the other way around and in a better mix.

[03:16:31] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Donahue.

[03:16:34] Commissioner Paul Donahue: So I noticed a slight difference in terminology that some of us have been using. So on the Del Medio South I heard some people say don't downzone it and then I heard some people say R3 not R2D2 R3D2. Um and are those are those different? I I mean it's not clear to me how it's currently zoned and how and if it is and and don't downzone it could mean actually just remove it from this thing altogether and not make it one of the sites and just leave it as is uh versus making it R2... making it option 1.

[03:17:30] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Cranston.

[03:17:33] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Um so I'm generally in favor of the four story option. I'm not going to try to get into robots and star wars and things. Um my suggestion on Del Medio South would be make it R4. We have an existing it's it's zoned as high density. All the other properties that we have are in the high density are R4. So just make Del Medio South R4. Um with the standpoint of the density bonus um there are I don't think anybody's being forced to use it. If you go out there and and search on density bonus every real every real estate law firm in the state says developers should use the density bonus. It's a good thing. It allows you to to wave all these things and so I don't think anybody's being forced. They're looking at this as oh goody this is and and they actually helped to write this thing in the in the legislature. So I don't I don't think that anybody's being forced to. And I do agree with Commissioner Yin that the the use of the density bonus at least requires a level of of below market rate units as as part of those concessions. Um sometimes we've seen cases where it's similar to our own BMR, sometimes it's it's higher. Um but having that as an additional additional hook is a good thing. Um that'd be... so I'm I'm supportive of the whichever one is the the four story robot. Okay and I'd suggest make Del Medio South R4.

[03:19:17] Chair José Gutiérrez: Vice Chair Nuñez.

[03:19:18] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Uh I will support the make Del Medio R4.

[03:19:30] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Yin.

[03:19:31] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Are we doing any changes to R4?

[03:19:40] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh that is not necessarily part of the project scope. There are a few R4 sites around the city um definitely a lot fewer than R3 sites. Um many of them have recent developments on them. Um there was an acknowledgement back in April in the staff report that if you want to go down the R3D2 path, that may overlap with R4 and there may need to be some other adjustments to the city code to kind of clarify the difference between them or to incorporate R4 into R3D2. Um I think there's a fundamental question is if you want to apply the form-based code which is going to be kind of a separate stand-alone document with a separate set of standards and definitions and everything, if you want to apply that to the Del Medio South area then I I'd say don't do R4 um and and do the R3D2 approach and we can uh have a later conversation about whether we should phase out R4 into R3D2 if that is is better serving the community.

[03:21:04] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Thank you for that extra information um that's helpful. Uh in that case I'm just going to stand with uh the original assertion of R R3D2... you know what I'm talking about. The higher density one that was in the option um yes, just for the potential of having form-based design um even though with state density bonus some of that will be eroded but um if there's the potential for it I would prefer that.

[03:21:40] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: So Chair in light of that discussion it would help uh to have Commissioners Cranston and Nuñez confirm if they want to stay with R4 or an R3D2 recommendation.

[03:21:51] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um I'm just gonna yeah I mean I'm cool with the R3D2. Um there was a a point in that table where it said incorporating R4 into project that kind of made it I'm sure there's an explanation to that that isn't what I'm thinking. Um that kind of made it appear that to some extent R4 was being called in to an opportunity. Um but to the extent that it will result in no fewer units than currently exist on those sites today for the Del Medio ones in discussion then I would support the R3D2 for that in line with Commissioner Yin's um kind of points made.

[03:22:34] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you Vice Chair Nuñez. Commissioner Cranston.

[03:22:37] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I guess I can go along with it. I do think we should reconcile them as we go through this so whether it's explicitly part of it or not I the idea of having two zonings that are virtually identical density makes no sense whatsoever to me. So if it's if it makes more sense to make R4 form-based or call R3D2 the new R4 that's fine but it shouldn't have two that are stepping on each other.

[03:23:12] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay I'll chime in. Thank you Commissioner Cranston. So I've heard the majority uh support the four stories R3D1 base plus R3D2 for Del Medio. Um I like the approach. I I think it makes sense. I appreciate the persons who have been able to submit their opinions online. I know this was also brought up by Livable Mountain View. Um and it looks like uh not only that but when we look at this as a commission or the EPC um it's it's good to bounce these potential hypotheticals and look at these problem-solving options. So I appreciate uh the ability for you all to problem-solve quickly on your feet as best as you can while we're here at the dais. Uh so having said that I think we have a majority opinion here. Um I think that's pretty clear Christian, we got clarification from Commissioner Nuñez and from Commissioner Cranston his his perspective was stated already. Um and I appreciate uh everyone's uh input on this. Having said that I believe we're done with this issue Adam? And um I'm looking forward to the next two.

[03:24:12] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah just to summarize for uh the commission, um on question 1 uh there was just a general support for the staff recommendation. On question number 2 uh there was support for option 2A broadly with the exception of the Del Medio South area which uh would uh have option 1. Uh and you know some additional comments about overlap around R4. Um and then um for question 3 staff recommendation plus uh staff would look at some properties on the north side of transit center uh around Moffett Boulevard uh and some discussion around properties south of Central Avenue um kind of in that area.

[03:24:59] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Oh yeah and support for the transition area approach with a different density.

[03:25:04] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yes. Right. Which was Commissioner Yin's perspective yes. Thank you under question 2. Did you mean Central Expressway or...

[03:25:08] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Between Central Expressway and Central Avenue.

[03:25:10] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Got it thank you.

[03:25:13] Chair José Gutiérrez: Great thank you Eric. Thank you EPC. I believe we move on to new business items 6.1 Housing Element Annual Progress Report for 2023 through 2031. We'll first have a staff presentation then questions by the EPC followed by public comment. At the closure of public comment the commission will then deliberate and take action. Staff presentation from Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul and Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson.

[03:25:46] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Excuse me chair I think it's customary to take a vote on continuing items past 10 o'clock I think.

[03:25:56] Chair José Gutiérrez: Oh great. I haven't run into that one before. So maybe we should have brought this up before 10 o'clock. But okay. So who would like to make the I think we have to make a motion for that right? And then we have to have a second and then vote on that. So who would like to be...

[03:26:13] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: So moved.

[03:26:15] Chair José Gutiérrez: So moved. Do I have a second? Yes I do. Commissioner Yin thank you very much. All those in favor?

[03:26:20] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Aye.

[03:26:22] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Can we use the restroom first?

[03:26:24] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Oh we'll just adjourn.

[03:26:27] Chair José Gutiérrez: Go ahead.

[03:26:28] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Wait what was that Commissioner Cranston? Can we use the restroom first? Can we take a...

[03:26:31] Chair José Gutiérrez: Questions on the floor though right? So we do it... can we do it after the vote? Okay let's do that. All those in favor?

[03:26:41] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Aye.

[03:26:43] Chair José Gutiérrez: We have unanimous consent. Okay great. So we'll take a quick five minute recess at 10:27 and we'll be back in five minutes. Thank you all.

[03:32:11] Chair José Gutiérrez: Welcome everyone. The time is 10:31. We are now back from our five minute recess and we will move on to uh the Housing Element Annual Progress Report for 2023 through 2031. We'll first have a staff presentation and then questions by the EPC followed by public comment. At the closure of public comment the commission will then deliberate and take action. Uh once again staff presentation will be given by Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul and Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson.

[03:33:37] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: Good evening Chair and Commissioners. My name is Madelyn Faul, Assistant Planner, and I'm joined here today by Dave by Eric Anderson, Advanced Planning Manager. We're here to present the 2024 Housing Element Annual Progress Report. At today's meeting we'll provide a summary of the Housing Element Annual Progress Report or APR. This is required by the state's Department of Housing and Community Development and the APR form must be submitted by April 1st. The report tracks all phases of development of housing units from application submittal and entitlement to building permit issuance and certificate of occupancy. It also includes policy and program implementation for the 2024 for 2024, the second year of the Housing Element sixth cycle period. The Regional Housing Needs Allocation or RHNA for short, is a requirement by state law in which local jurisdictions must provide their share of new housing units through zoning of adequate land to build these units and to implement other housing element requirements to facilitate housing production across incomes. The table here shows the City of Mountain View's RHNA of 11,135 total units which is a substantial increase from the fifth cycle's requirement of 2,926 units. This table shows the second year progress towards meeting the RHNA goal with building permits issued from January 1st to December 31st of 2024 highlighted. Projects receiving building permits between June 30th 2022 and January 31st 2023 also contribute to the city's overall progress on the sixth cycle RHNA. The city's total units to date for this sixth cycle is 1,479. The housing element also includes several implementation programs to help promote more housing. The following programs listed here have been completed in 2024. These include program 1.1F and 1.2B, updates to the zoning ordinance and precise plans to allow emergency shelters and remove minimum parking standards for residential uses in transit oriented areas. Program 1.3G, acceptance and authorization of gatekeeper applications including one housing project. Program 1.7 A through C, the creation and distribution of an ADU monitoring survey. Program 2.3, online posting of an informational handout on reasonable accommodation. Program 2.5, ongoing outreach to tenants and property owners regarding tenant rights. Program 3.1, ongoing financial support to partner agencies for housing related services and outreach to individuals living in vehicles. Program 3.2, development of funding strategies for affordable housing preservation. And program 4.1A, improving technological efforts to help with streamlining development, such as launching an online submittal portal for building planning and public works. Additional housing element program successes in 2024 include the following items. The city has funded and delivered 148 interim and supportive housing units, with 163 units still in the pipeline. The city has also applied for several grants in 2024 to support subsidized housing. Additional funds have been provided to support other agencies, such as the Community Services Agency or CSA, with homelessness prevention and outreach. In terms of next steps, the Housing Element Annual Progress Report or APR will be presented as a consent item to City Council. After it is presented, the APR will be forwarded to the Department of Housing and Community Development and Office of Planning and Research before April 1, 2025. Staff recommends that EPC forward the APR to council for consideration. This concludes staff presentation. Staff will be available for any questions. Thank you.

[03:38:36] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Donahue.

[03:38:38] Commissioner Paul Donahue: 217 is a pretty low number. Um any I mean I guess interest rates are high or I mean why um why do we think that uh...

[03:38:56] Chair José Gutiérrez: Um sorry to interrupt we do need to do public comments.

[03:39:02] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Oh okay.

[03:39:03] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay great. You have that under after EPC questions. Um so we we will adjust that next time. Um so let's go to 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 star 9 on your phone. Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with star 6. EPC clerk?

[03:39:28] City Clerk Heather Glaser: There is no speaker on this.

[03:39:30] Chair José Gutiérrez: Are you sure?

[03:39:31] City Clerk Heather Glaser: No speaker.

[03:39:32] Chair José Gutiérrez: Alright. Let's move on to EPC questions. Commissioner Donahue.

[03:39:39] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Okay I I just I'm just curious if if we have any idea what's what's going on because 217 is not kind of getting us to the finish line you know.

[03:39:55] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah I think one explanation is that the the year is is development is lumpy right and the year is kind of an arbitrary time scale. Uh we might have years where there's over a thousand or more there we you know we might have years where it's you know in the low hundreds and it just it it's just kind of a a crapshoot and in any given year how many there's actually going to be. So I think that's kind of the biggest factor here. Um I think you can point to economic factors that uh seem to be having a chilling effect on people deciding to pull building permits right now. You mentioned one, interest rates, uh there's also some uncertainty in the market right now um for for a number of reasons and factors. But um the uh we are still continuing to see you know we're reviewing projects, we are approving projects, and so there does continue to be development interest in residential development in Mountain View and people are taking advantage of the zoning tools that uh you know the zoning that we've set. Uh and so um it you know it's those combination of factors uh that that can explain the the disappointing number that we have in this this cycle.

[03:41:25] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Okay I mean it's not your fault I'm just just wondering if we had any insights so uh sounds good thank you.

[03:41:35] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: For um under the policies and programs that we're making progress on for 4.1A the the streamlining I'm curious to know what are the preliminary results on that. How's that going? What what improvements have we seen?

[03:41:56] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Um I wonder if I can defer to the assistant director or the director on that. Um you know the streamlining is more of current planning um uh process.

[03:42:07] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: And just for the sake of time too I'm willing to I'm willing to just say I'm curious about that and maybe you want to throw it in the in the staff report for when it goes to council if you don't have an answer today, that'd be fine.

[03:42:17] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: Sorry I was also working on my phone. Streamlined projects how many we're seeing is that was that the...

[03:42:23] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Just how is it coming, is it improving your turnover rate, like are we getting stuff into people's hands faster.

[03:42:29] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: Um yeah I mean I think that we're seeing we are still seeing new applications um for new housing projects. So we're we're I've heard from other cities that they're really not seeing much of that so we are still seeing some new ones. We have a couple I think two SB 35 projects that are moving through right now. Um so some people are taking advantage of the streamline provisions but um you know we're we're still seeing them come through.

[03:42:57] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: But have you seen any changes in like the average amount of time that it takes to get a permit from the first date to the last or...

[03:43:03] Assistant Planner Madelyn Faul: Um I think that you know a lot of that is driven by like what level of environmental review has to happen for that project so I think we're doing our best to get everything through as quickly as as possible. Um and you know there's other factors obviously that come into play there you know how quickly developers resubmit to us and um just you know kind of various market issues that come up where people want to you know spend a little more time in between their resubmittals with us. But I mean when we get a project we're processing it as quickly as as we can.

[03:43:19] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: And um I'll just add, good evening commissioners, Christian Murdock, Community Development Director. Um if we were to talk about streamlining broadly across the range of permit types that the city has, um certainly Assistant Director Blosinski um is focusing on uh the entitlement stage right, the one that comes to the the Environmental Planning Commission. Um of course there are other permits including notably building permits. Um we have undertaken a broad range of uh process improvements and technology improvements, um evaluating and documenting processes. So we standardize review methodologies across different staff. We have a lot of new staff in the Community Development Department in the Building Division. Um permit technicians and others that are working through uh complex projects for the first time in some cases. So there is very much a learning curve uh and very much a lot of work that remains to be done even though we've done a lot of notable um improvements in our processes. Um the reason I say a lot of work remains to be done, um we will for the first time be reporting at the mid-year budget on February 25th on performance metrics uh that we've been tracking uh over the last six months of this fiscal year. Um those will reveal that there uh remains work to be done and so I don't want to preview that uh too extensively but we um are identifying those areas and we're continuing our work uh to improve and to streamline.

Segment 6

[03:45:00] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you, and I just want to say I love performance metrics and bravo for developing them and sharing them when once you get them.

[03:45:06] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Yeah, I think, you know, we're prepared to own them and identify, you know, the interventions that are needed to continue to get to our target performance levels.

[03:45:18] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Yin.

[03:45:21] Commissioner Joyce Yin: That's great to hear. Um, I also had a question about process and I remember a long ago we were thinking about for the 100% affordable housing aspect of the housing element. Do we have sort of like a sub-team that sort of understands that process really well? I think there was talk about that and therefore that process could be a little bit more streamlined as well. Am I misremembering?

[03:45:49] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: There is a housing element program that discusses that. I know the housing director was on the Zoom a while ago. Oh, here he is. He may be able to respond to that question.

[03:46:09] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Yeah, thanks so much Commissioners and Commissioner Yin for that question. One of the items that the housing department took last year to our Notice of Funding Availability committee was to actually review our NOFA process, which is the process that developers come in to request city contributions for a 100% affordable project. That item was held last June and it is one of our accomplishments that we are reporting on for this APR. And I don't have the full list of items that we discussed last year, but we discussed how the request for NOFA funding would be implemented in a more streamlined manner, how the coordination with our interdepartmental city staff review team would occur, and for example how it would be done through a streamlined sort of design process where we're not getting into all the details, but we are working with our interdepartmental city team to look at what is feasible for a project and just have a more focused level of review earlier on in the process. We are looking at updating our NOFA funding application. We want to be able to move templates online, clarify the requests for information. And we'll be also doing other things as part of implementation, for example doing internal training across our citywide teams to help inform folks about the nature of affordable housing projects, sort of the unique characteristics of such projects, etc. So we've already implemented a variety of steps. We still have a few more implementation steps to go, but in terms of the review of the NOFA process, that has been completed and now it's just about implementation.

[03:48:13] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Thanks. Oh, I'll just add just a couple more questions. Even though last year didn't seem so great in the chart, the paragraph right behind it though says that we have 1650 residential units under construction, 2360 units approved though not under construction. Is that for just what time period I guess would that fall under if we put it in the table?

[03:49:02] Housing Director Wayne Chen: So for this APR, and thank you for the question. For this APR it's just the year 2024, so we're checking the building permit issue date and then complete date. So the housing units that count for the count that you saw, 217, that's building permits issued. Construction for any individual housing project may take a number of years. There were a couple of projects that I was asked about specifically that are close to completion but not quite being counted in this APR. So hopefully that provides a little bit of insight.

[03:49:41] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Okay, so for the table you guys look at permits that have been approved. Then when you say then we've got 2360 residential units approved not yet under construction, what time period does that fall under? Like would it go into the table for last year or I mean because the numbers are very...

[03:50:02] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Yeah, those wouldn't be in the table yet.

[03:50:04] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Right, that's for this year?

[03:50:06] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: So the number of units that have been approved but have not started construction would not yet be in the table. They would not yet have been counted to our RHNA.

[03:50:17] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Okay. So it has to be finaled.

[03:50:21] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: The RHNA action is receiving your building permit, which typically happens right before you start construction.

[03:50:30] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Hmm. Okay. So they have to get to that point.

[03:50:33] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Yeah. We may want to be more specific when we're talking about tables. There are a number of tables in this housing element APR.

[03:50:39] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Oh, sorry. Yeah, I think the table right prior to it which is...

[03:50:43] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Yeah, I think the Advanced Planning Manager was referring locally to table B which is sort of the official status of where the city is in achieving its RHNA. Those units that are approved but not yet under construction are reflected in other tables that track the progress from essentially application and entitlement, building permit, CFO. And so they may be reflected somewhere but they're not really the number that everyone is focused on for achieving the RHNA.

[03:51:10] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Okay. Okay. Not yet. All right. Thank you.

[03:51:17] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Cranston.

[03:51:19] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So of those ones that are approved but don't have a permit, how many of them are 555 Middlefield, the one that I mentioned earlier, and the Sunnyvale border ones that have been quote approved but are now in jeopardy?

[03:51:39] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: I'm searching for the address for one of the projects but it may take a moment.

[03:51:50] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: We don't typically evaluate on our own whether a project is in jeopardy or not. Typically a developer will withdraw or won't withdraw their application. I think the number that we presented is the number of units that have been approved where the developer has not withdrawn or expired or the project hasn't expired. So we have a clear regulatory cut off of approved projects that haven't started construction yet. That is a, you know, a quantitative answer, you know, that we can give. We can't include in that information the varying degrees of certainty that a developer might be giving us about their intentions to proceed.

[03:52:54] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So how do you decide when to change the site inventory? Your site inventory had certain assumptions in it, like a boatload of residential on North Bayshore, your numbers now don't reflect that that's not there anymore. I don't know whether it's gone or not, but it's, I was surprised that the number that shows the site inventory for 2025 and the site inventory for 2024 was almost exactly the same thing. That doesn't pass the snicker test to me.

[03:53:28] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: So the housing element prescribes, and there's a program in the housing element that prescribes how we are maintaining our site inventory. In past years this hasn't been an issue because state law changed during the last cycle where you do have to maintain your site inventory to show that you are not, your site inventory isn't dropping below RHNA. There are kind of two main points that you alluded to there. One is for example the Google master plans and how are they considered in our site inventory. Based on a lot of discussion with HCD, we ended up not including the Google master plans in our site inventory as pipeline projects, we ended up including them as opportunity sites. That status doesn't change if Google takes longer or changes their approach. They are still sites that have that opportunity for housing intrinsic in their zoning and existing properties. So we are not required under state law to second guess those opportunity sites over time. Even if a development never comes in to the seventh year of the cycle, we don't need to second guess those. We have gone through the smell test of those opportunity sites with HCD when our housing element was adopted and unless a developer comes in and gets approval for a project at lower density or with fewer affordable units than what is in the site inventory, we don't have to change it for those sites. You're also talking about projects that may have proposed development and are included as pipeline projects in our site inventory. And then for whatever reason the project expires or the project isn't moving forward. The program prescribes that those numbers in the site inventory only change pursuant to state law, which as I said was if a developer actually comes in and proposes something less. So that condition where an applicant kind of leaves a site on the table also doesn't change our site inventory. HCD approved that methodology for maintaining our site inventory with the no net loss and that's how we are doing it ongoing. And until such time as, you know, HCD tells us that that's not consistent with state law, which I mean it should be, we've vetted it with them already, that's how we're going to continue to maintain our site inventory.

[03:56:55] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Did you say that it's when it drops below the RHNA numbers? So the fact that right now the site inventory is double the RHNA number, we don't have to do anything until we reach 4500 units?

[03:57:07] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: So the RHNA number is 11,135.

[03:57:13] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Yeah, and the one line items are...

[03:57:17] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Yeah, and so we have, we have to meet, we have to maintain the site inventory at every income level individually. And so we also have a system in the program for reassigning incomes consistent with state law. If we happen to drop below the RHNA for moderate incomes or above moderate incomes. If we drop below the RHNA for lower incomes, that means that we've already adjusted the incomes consistent with state law of opportunity sites, and so at that point we're going to need to rezone and find more opportunity sites through those rezonings. But the purpose of the provisional inventory which you'll see in the staff report is so that we have a big, big lead time before we have to start figuring that out. We'll have basically the whole review cycle of multiple development projects. So we will know when the provisional inventory starts to get below 5%, we will have potentially years to start looking for additional opportunity sites. And that's the purpose of the provisional inventory.

[03:58:42] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. So maybe it's a discussion for a future point, but if we don't hit the number by halfway through or thought there was something that said we had to do something. So does that mean we no longer have a compliant housing element or it just means that we have to go do something? Like it's been suggested by people who are terrified of Builder's Remedy that if we don't hit the number by midway through all of a sudden we go back into Builder's Remedy. And I'm trying to understand is that fear mongering or fact?

[03:59:19] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: I am not aware of that provision. There is SB 35. And SB 35 says that if by the mid cycle you have not met your lower income units, which nobody ever does, if you have not met your lower income units, then certain projects with certain criteria consistent with your zoning that have 50% or more affordable units can be approved without discretion, can be approved ministerially. But there's a lot of other criteria for those projects, they have to have prevailing wage and other criteria. The other part of SB 35 is that if you're not meeting your above moderate RHNA, then that BMR threshold drops to I think 10%. So if we're by the halfway point not meeting 50% of 4,880 above moderate units, then our typical BMR requirement would be a trigger, one of the criteria for projects being able to be approved ministerially without discretion. They would have to meet other criteria though. And it's not the same as Builder's Remedy where they don't need to comply with our zoning. These projects would still need to comply with our zoning.

[04:01:01] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Right. And then last question, and maybe this is for Mr. Chen. What percentage of our BMR housing is dependent on federal funding, either directly through grants that we've requested or grants that people who are applying for housing like Alta or charities or whomever are counting on federal funding to be able to complete their projects? What's the risk that we have right now?

[04:01:25] Housing Director Wayne Chen: Thank you for the question. We have, trying to think off the top of my head, we have about 11 projects in our pipeline. The most recent one that was completed was the Heartwood, the Crestview Hotel conversion and that was part of our project pipeline and that project opened its doors in the fall and that one had both federal CDBG, Community Development Block Grant funding and HOME funding, as well as project-based vouchers through the housing authority, so we consider that federal funding. I believe in our current pipeline we have probably three or four projects that are at some stage in the process that have some form of federal funding. Again, it's typically project-based vouchers. We've been using more of our CDBG and HOME funding to allocate to our pipeline projects. And those funds have already been allocated by the city. The federal funding is not really connected to meeting our Regional Housing Needs Allocation. We are using the pipeline to hopefully count towards meeting the RHNA goals, but we're not subject to potentially losing the federal funds if we're making slower progress in meeting our RHNA goals.

[04:02:15] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. Thanks.

[04:02:19] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you Commissioner Cranston. Excuse me. I have a quick question for the City Attorney. When we did the extension of the meeting, were we also supposed to note how long the meeting would be extended to or is it just open-ended?

[04:02:33] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: Um, I think there's no requirement or policy that you make that motion, but I understand it's a practice, so it's up to you chair whether you would like to put an outside limit to the meeting time or leave it open-ended.

[04:02:52] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay. For now, I will just leave it open because we already voted on it and for future reference we'll factor that in. That way we can move forward towards that goal and make it sooner rather than later because right now it's already 11:03. Thank you so much, appreciate it. Uh having said that, Vice Chair Nuñez.

[04:03:08] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Quick question, can be as close to a yes or no as contextualization allows for. What is the status of Builder's Remedy permits, not necessarily right now within what we're reporting I would imagine, but over time does that get included into meeting the RHNA, or is that like a separate count of units not in like a penalty count or what have you that never gets included into the progress?

[04:03:41] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: The units will still count. There's no sort of you didn't do it you were supposed to you don't get to count the units kind of penalty.

[04:03:48] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you.

[04:03:51] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you Vice Chair. Commissioner Yin.

[04:03:54] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Oh, I feel a little bad asking this at this late hour but I'll do it fast. And maybe there's no complete answer and that's okay, just something to think about. Goal one, increasing the quantity and diversity of housing options focusing on active nodes, walkable neighborhoods with amenities and services. So if that's a housing element goal, I was just curious because I know that the city does a lot to try to get sort of the backend of the statement here, active nodes, walkable neighborhoods with amenities and services, but I don't know that it's in the housing element or I'm not aware that it comes up usually when we get housing element issues and I suppose what I'm saying is like a lot of projects that come forward we're discussing the housing element it seems that we are actually removing aspects of the ability to reach that goal. And I just found it a little bit, oh, how should I put this, interesting. So I'm just putting that out there as, you know, something to think about when you're talking to HCD that it's sort of noticeable to me that here's a goal and we're not hitting the back half through the housing element, in fact we're kind of doing the opposite. That's it.

[04:05:16] Chair José Gutiérrez: Any other questions? I don't have any questions. Okay cool. So we'll move on to discussion.

[04:05:28] Chair José Gutiérrez: I'll start. So, I don't like the loophole. I think that with HCD, I think if you're gonna set the standard and you're gonna impose your authority on local jurisdictions like ours, we lose our ability to negotiate and to try and barter to get what's in the best interest for what we think our citizens that we help and represent deserve here in the city. Um, and so then having said that, quickly and I'll be fast, I'm not gonna do a speech. But having said that, with Google's North Bayshore fiasco, and with all the layoffs that have been happening since then from their end and everyone close to us here in the tech community, to not factor that in and to leave that as an opportunity is a farce. I believe that if you have standards, you meet those standards. And this is the part where I criticize the state because they limit us with what we actually can do with negotiations and then we're left with this holding the bag. And it's still an opportunity. I don't see how they can justify that. That's my open-ended question and my discussion point. Other than that, we're not the only city that's in this type of situation. San Jose I think is worse. I don't think a lot of cities around here that are close to us are meeting their goals either. I think for what we have now, I see that as a stepping stone to hopefully a better future where we have more permits and actual constructions taking place. But I also understand that the cost to everything right now is a big challenge and financing is a big challenge. And with the way things are going at the federal level, it's not making anyone comfortable. Especially if you're a developer in this area because you just don't know what to expect. But you see the opportunity there and maybe that might coincide with an opportunity to build this year or the upcoming year. I think they're still trying to figure that out. So for us to try and figure out what the mindset is behind that approach from either entities like Sobrato or anyone that's out there in general that's not like them but for-profit, is a bit of a reach because right now, if you look around the Bay Area as a whole, we're not the only ones going through this low numbers phase. I think everyone's feeling it. And I'm sure Eric and Christian and the others can let me know if I'm wrong with that assessment or that perspective, but that's what I've been reading in the papers. So I appreciate the update that you've given us and Commissioner Dempsey, you're next.

[04:07:15] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you Mr. Chair. Um, I just want to make a general comment about in my mind what the purpose of a progress report is or maybe what the value of it is. I want to know what's going wrong. And I want that to me is like the main value of it. And one of the things I know I mean the discussion we've had around the numbers and whether we're tracking to make our numbers or not, that's really important. And I know it's uncomfortable and we never like to talk about the things that aren't going right, it's a pain. But I feel like that conversation got short shrift in the staff report and and then I would add when you get over to the kind of what is it that third section where we're talking about goals, policies and programs, like there's three entries in there where we're already past deadline. And there's no discussion of that. And I understand it's partly because there's more here than the humans we have could humanly do, but I feel like that there should be some discussion of it and if nothing else tell us why we don't need to worry about it. Tell us why HCD is going to be fine with it, they understand this or whatever. But because part of what we do here is oversight, these reports would be more valuable to me if we faced head-on the parts that aren't working well. And I would never blame city staff for that, I know y'all work really, really hard, God knows you're here at 11:15 at night. But I want to face the things that aren't working head-on directly. Thank you.

[04:08:14] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you Commissioner Dempsey. Commissioner Cranston.

[04:08:18] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I guess one of the things that I've become resigned to over the last several years is that these kind of reports, I went into them initially with the same kind of ideological view that Commissioner Dempsey has, but began to realize that I was just wasting my breath. So I would be, if Commissioner Nuñez is putting forth a motion that we recommend the City Council the acceptance of the annual progress report for the housing element, then I am willing to second that motion.

[04:08:51] Chair José Gutiérrez: Sure. And before we do that, Commissioner Donahue, do you have anything to chime in with or no?

[04:08:56] Commissioner Paul Donahue: No.

[04:08:57] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay. I just wanted to extend the opportunity. It looks like we have a motion. It's been seconded. Let's move on to the vote.

[04:09:03] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: I make a motion that the Environmental Planning Commission review and recommend the City Council accept the 2024 annual progress report on the 2023 to 2031 housing element exhibit 1 to the EPC staff report.

[04:09:24] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Motion passes unanimously.

[04:09:31] Chair José Gutiérrez: Great, thank you team. Moving on to 6.2 2024 General Plan Annual Report. Staff presentation from Associate Planner Vincent Quan and Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson.

[04:16:13] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Right, there's no speaker on Zoom also.

[04:16:15] Chair José Gutiérrez: I'm not surprised. Okay. So having said that, let's move on to EPC...

[04:16:19] Commissioner Joyce Yin: No, okay, really? Are you sure?

[04:16:24] Chair José Gutiérrez: Well right after I said that there's another speaker raised the hand.

[04:16:28] Commissioner Joyce Yin: All right, well let's, it's too late. I'm just kidding. Go ahead. Alright one second. So Alexander Brown, uh you can speak now.

[04:16:41] Alexander Brown: Uh I just wanted to comment so you know that I'm here and I care.

[04:16:47] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Hi.

[04:16:51] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you Alex. We appreciate your your dedication and loyalty and go Mountain View. All right. EPC questions?

[04:17:08] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Rhetorical question, so no need to answer unless you guys have insight on this, but has Council ever considered maybe shifting the work setting six months before a new term, that way there's like two whole years of like runway versus like a year and a half? I mean, like the first person or that first Council would I guess like incoming would get like quote unquote disenfranchised I guess from that process, but at the very least then you'd have two whole years of runway on on working on those so if anyone on Council is listening, just just have you considered that. All right. Thank you.

[04:17:58] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you Vice Chair Nuñez. That's a very good question. I'm sure City Council will have a response. Commissioner Cranston.

[04:18:09] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Got promoted now. Um, so just I I am confused kind of. There's a in table one, these are not started progress or recently completed, there's a bunch that say ongoing and then this this the status says this action item is effectively complete. Why aren't these, right, well these go away next year? All these ones that are, that say that they're effectively complete. Does that mean they're complete or not? I just I'm confused by the action item is effectively complete but it says the status is ongoing. So are they complete or not? Attachment A, page 10 for example, it's like 1 2 3 4, first three items say effectively complete. Page 9, 1 2 3 4 5 of them all say effectively complete, but they say ongoing. So are they done or not?

[04:19:05] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, can you give me an action number like is it...

[04:19:14] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I'm just going page nine of the staff report. Um, E1.5 Smart Grid says ongoing. This action is effectively complete.

[04:19:33] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Oh. I mean, there's a bunch of these that say... Yeah. Yeah, I see them now on sustainability. Yeah. Um, so, uh, these are programs that were, uh, carried out by our sustainability office. And I think, um, there is a, um, see I'm I think I'm gonna have to look into this a little bit more and get right back to you. Let me let me look something up real quickly and I'll I'll um I'll try to answer this question if the evening goes on a little longer.

[04:20:15] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. I just my my comment in general is if they're done, then we should mark them as done. If they're not, then we should be doing something about it, but this is...

[04:20:25] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: The comment is duly noted. Diana Pancholi, Principal Planner. This is something that we introduced and we changed the status of it that you can see in the comments last year. Um, when, um, our Associate Planner Vincent Quan actually presented it. What happened is that when we actually adopted the action item, the goal was something different. And now the the goal the sustainability goal has evolved over time. So it I see your point that it kind of creates that confusion of why is it effectively complete when it's ongoing, but then there are efforts which will we will continue to do that in order to, you know, meet our sustainability goals. But in terms of this item itself, we are not pursuing a particular uh action item that was that was decided at the time of General Plan adoption. I don't know if I'm making it clearer or more muddier, but...

[04:21:16] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Well I mean you have a table three that is ongoing items. And so just if they're ongoing, then move them to table three. Don't leave them in table one.

[04:21:25] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: We'll consider that with the next uh reporting. Yeah, thank you.

[04:21:30] Commissioner Bill Cranston: And then the other thing maybe aligned with Vice Chair Nuñez's comment, if there's, can we make sure can we give Council a list of here's the items that haven't started and there's no work on them. So when they go through the goal setting they can say just take this off the damn list, okay. Deprioritize it, because I keep I raised this last year there's items on here that have been here since the general plan was adopted, I don't even remember freaking when, okay. And if they're not still important, then maybe we should take them off and only Council can do that, so I just give them a a summary of here's the not started at all and they can say, you know, this will never be a priority, you know, things have changed. So we don't keep seeing those things. That'd be my just a request. I don't know how others feel about it, but I keep all these not started, not started, not started like okay.

[04:22:30] Chair José Gutiérrez: Any other comments or questions? No. Okay. Uh let's go on to uh discussion. Commissioner Dempsey.

[04:22:46] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Thank you Mr. Chair. So um somewhat in line with what Commissioner Cranston was saying, um I don't want to repeat everything I said about what I think um you know progress reports are for, but I do care a lot about performance metrics, so here's the two comments that I have. One, if we could just have basic stats in here that lists how many are completed, how many ongoing, how many not started. We don't have that. That would be a very basic performance metric that I think is important. Secondarily in exhibit one, there are there's a a number of items that don't have, it says not started, it doesn't have an estimated date that they're going to start, and there's no comment saying why. And there's just some stuff that just doesn't get done. And it's not clear how that got chosen. And so my suggestion would be if we're not going to provide even a long-term guess as to when we think we're going to do it, that means it was deprioritized. If it was deprioritized, then we should say who decided to make it deprioritized. If it was at the direction of the city manager, we say that. If it's at the direction of the CDD director, you say that. And that way we know that a decision was actually made rather than no one made any decision, which is kind of what it looks like when it's just left empty. Um, because um as Bill was saying I think this is a really good point, in many ways we end up with all these orphan items because we ask too much of staff I think. Um, we we we just keep loading on more and more and more things to go check out and do and whatever and now I'm talking too long. Um, I think if we start facing the things that we're not getting to, we're going to have to start facing maybe we should be a little bit more careful of what we ask for or maybe just recognizing the cost that comes with asking staff to study things because staff time is valuable and there's um there's a lot of things we want y'all to do. I'll stop there.

[04:24:37] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you Commissioner Dempsey. Commissioner Yin.

[04:24:40] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Actually uh Commissioner Cranston had the exact same question I had earlier, so that one's gone off my list, effectively complete. Um, I had an additional, you know, just thing to say is the charts are unwieldy to look at, just to go over. I think it's sort of to Commissioner Dempsey's point, which is maybe some of the basic stats for the summary and um I know you're trying to highlight some of the key key things that were accomplished which is great and uh they're worthy of noting, but somehow summarize that table. Um, and if we can, and I know sometimes it's it's a political thing, you know, the council members are deciding on what their workload is and what they want to keep an eye on, but if something is low priority and has been since whatever date, if if there's a date associated with it, then just remove that off the list of work plan, it's it's not going to get done in this cycle, then there's no need to even put it up anymore in in a sense. Um, and that way it's easier to take in the information of what's in the work plan.

[04:25:56] Chair José Gutiérrez: Vice Chair Nuñez.

[04:25:58] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Uh yeah to the extent that uh consensus can can uh support any kind of transmission or action or anything like that, I fully agree with uh Commissioner Dempsey's commentary there and to be clear I also do very much kind of think of it as a staff uh kind of supportive measure at least from the way I'm hearing it and interpreting in my own mind, because it would be good to know for example, whenever this next general plan ostensibly 2031 or something gets a new one comes forward, it would be good to know I can imagine from a council perspective, here's all the projects, 20 of them were in transit, 30 of them were in production whatever the categorization looks like. And you know, what percent didn't move forward kind of commentary on why and ideally that would either help council understand hey where are our unrealistic ambitions, where are the most realistic, what is satiated in terms of appetite versus needs left, just that broad kind of array. Because you know no one likes to have the hanging chaff of projects just kind of hanging there. And to be clear I do not think it is in any way like Commissioner Dempsey said you guys are here at 11 whatever time with us. So I really would hope that some surfacing of information like that assuming that we you know in the future have councils who are approaching things with a certain sense of like you know what's possible and how pragmatic reasoning of resources allows us to actually achieve those things, it would be good as well from a staff perspective like as a resident of Mountain View knowing that the staff that is kind of helping things happen in our city is being focused and trained on things that are achievable versus just kind of like a sporadic...

Segment 7

[04:30:00] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: ...set of items that take up time and never move forward. And again, in no way blaming staff.

[04:30:08] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Cranston.

[04:30:11] Commissioner Bill Cranston: It's entirely possible that something that was prioritized in 2012 isn't important anymore and so we should say that. And maybe one of the suggestions as they review this is 2030 is not that far away.

[04:30:24] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I think the last General Plan took like four years to put together, so maybe one of the goals should be the 2050 General Plan. And I would like to make a motion that the EPC recommend the City Council they consider the General Plan progress report attached Exhibit A to the staff report.

[04:30:47] Chair José Gutiérrez: Yeah, before we move on for a seconder, I'd like to chime in. So look, I'm not going to beat up on the staff or on anybody, but what I'm going to say is pretty simple. Um, we don't want to be here at 11:30.

[04:31:00] Chair José Gutiérrez: But we're here because we care. We want to make you as successful as possible, you need to help us to be successful as well. And one of those things is accountability.

[04:31:10] Chair José Gutiérrez: And so what we need to do is help you, help us, eventually help City Council realize that this type of reporting is not acceptable. We have higher standards, we hold ourselves to, whether we're appointed or not.

[04:31:23] Chair José Gutiérrez: Whether people are here seated or not doesn't matter, what counts is what we do here. This is how we get judged. And so if we present reports that are more realistic and honest with actual updates or an explanation of why this didn't happen or what have you, I would think eventually whether the council looks at this or not, I really don't care.

[04:31:42] Chair José Gutiérrez: What I care about is that while you and I and us are here together trying to make this happen, we present to them the most professional, up-to-date chart and progress report as possible. And everything that we do, we'd reach for that standard of excellence.

[04:31:57] Chair José Gutiérrez: Those folks out there may not be able to put that pressure on you or on us, but I like to put that on myself and on each other because we can. And whether or not we make it to the City Council, I don't care.

[04:32:07] Chair José Gutiérrez: What I care about is that we get the job done right so that we put the onus of accountability on them. So they know exactly what's going on and they can ask you and you can give them a direct answer and we move forward because if we don't do that, we're just wasting time. Thank you. Is there a second?

[04:32:24] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: I'll second.

[04:32:28] Chair José Gutiérrez: So yes, I have a mover as Bill Cranston and a seconder as Alex Nuñez.

[04:32:42] Chair José Gutiérrez: Motion approved unanimously. Awesome. Yay. Thank you, everyone.

[04:32:50] Chair José Gutiérrez: So, let's see here. We're moving on... Item 7. Yes, there's more. Oh, boots there. Commission/Staff Announcements, Updates, Requests, and Committee Reports. No action will be taken on any questions raised by the commission at this time. Or is that for Diana to say?

[04:33:13] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Yeah, but I think first we'll ask if any of the commissioners have any announcements. No? Okay.

[04:33:19] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: I'm going to be very brief. First, our next regularly scheduled EPC meeting will be on March 19th. There is no meeting on March 7th or anything, so please note that.

[04:33:32] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: And the second thing is last night, Council held a special session to select, interview the candidates for the vacant EPC seat, and we did get one. So Miss Tina Pham was selected as a new candidate recommendation, and yeah, so we'll see. Thank you. That's it.

[04:33:58] Chair José Gutiérrez: Great. So at 11:33 p.m. this meeting is officially ad- oh... Bill?

[04:34:06] Commissioner Bill Cranston: The reason it's canceled...

[04:34:10] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: It's not cancelled. We never had it in our EPC calendar.

[04:34:14] Commissioner Bill Cranston: The Planning Commissioner Academy is in two weeks. I heard that the new candidate, she may have some planning background, but maybe we want to let her know about it. I don't know if...

[04:34:26] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: The swearing in doesn't happen till February 25th.

[04:34:34] Commissioner Bill Cranston: If people want to go, you guys have paid for it. I simply wanted to raise it as if somebody wants to go, it's happening in two weeks. Maybe you should let people know and if they want to sign up, they could go.

[04:34:44] Commissioner Bill Cranston: That's the reason I'm raising it. It was never raised as, does anybody want to go to the Planning Commissioners Academy? That's all I'm raising it as. If anybody wants to go to the Planning Commissioners Academy.

[04:34:51] Chair José Gutiérrez: Well, now that you brought that up, let's talk about that. No, I'm just kidding. So the meeting is adjourned at 11:35 p.m.

6.1

[04:10:24] Commissioner Bill Cranston: into them initially with the same kind of ideal ideological view that Mr. Dempsey has, but began to realize that I was just wasting my breath. So I would be if uh if Mr. Commissioner Nuñez is is putting forth a motion that we recommend to the City Council the acceptance of the and or progress report housing element, then I'm willing to second that motion.

[04:10:52] Chair José Gutiérrez: Sure, and before we do that, Commissioner Donahue, do you have anything to chime in with or? No. Okay. I just wanted to extend the opportunity. It looks like we have a motion, it's been uh seconded. Let's move on to the vote.

6.2

[04:12:24] Associate Planner Vincent Kwan: Uh good evening Commissioners. Vincent Kwan, Associate Planner, and I'm joined by Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson. And tonight at 11:15 p.m. we are presenting the annual progress report for the city's General Plan Action Plan.

[04:12:47] Associate Planner Vincent Kwan: In 2012, the City Council adopted the 2030 General Plan and the related General Plan Action Plan. The 2030 General Plan Action Plan is a list of action items that carry out the General Plan's goals and policies. These action items include programs, plans, studies, ordinance updates, and other measures. The EPC is responsible for the annual review of the General Plan Action Plan in the form of an annual progress report, and for monitoring the progress the city is making in implementing the General Plan.

[04:13:19] Associate Planner Vincent Kwan: This year staff has provided three tables of General Plan Action items for the EPC's review. Table 1 includes items which have not started, are currently in progress, or were completed in 2024. Table 2 includes items which were completed in 2024. And Table 3 includes items which were achieved through day-to-day operations, practices, and policies.

[04:13:46] Associate Planner Vincent Kwan: Since the previous General Plan Action item update, two items have been completed in 2024. This includes the Economic Development Strategy report. In April 2024, the city adopted the Economic Vitality Strategy that recognizes the unique character of Mountain View's businesses and community, as well as identifies and addresses the opportunities and challenges for successful economic development. There are various ongoing actions from this strategy.

[04:14:21] Associate Planner Vincent Kwan: The next item is unbundled parking. In October 2023, the governor signed um AB 1317 which requires owners of qualifying residential properties to unbundle parking from the price of rent. The qualifying residential property being any dwelling unit that is issued a certificate of occupancy on or after January 2025 and consists of 16 or more residential units.

[04:14:48] Associate Planner Vincent Kwan: This bill only applies to projects located within the following counties: Alameda, Fresno, Los Angeles, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Shasta, and Ventura. This bill went into effect beginning on January 2024.

[04:15:08] Associate Planner Vincent Kwan: In addition to the mentioned completed items, there are ongoing efforts by staff to help implement action items. Some key efforts included are the Transportation Demand Management or TDM ordinance, and two uh precise plans and the R3 zoning district updates.

[04:15:25] Associate Planner Vincent Kwan: The TDM ordinance, staff continues to refine standard TDM conditions for development projects. Uh Public Works department continues to work with a consultant to uh develop a citywide TDM ordinance framework which includes identifying uh ordinance performances, um standards, and reporting requirements after the adoption of the citywide requirements.

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