March 19, 2025 Environmental Planning Commission

Video

Transcript

Segment 1

[00:08:08] Chair José Gutiérrez: Oh, no worries. I'm here.

[00:08:11] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Uh, Vice Chair Nunez.

[00:08:13] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Here.

[00:08:14] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Uh, Commissioner Pham.

[00:08:16] Commissioner Tina Pham: Here.

[00:08:18] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Commissioner Cranston.

[00:08:20] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Here.

[00:08:21] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Uh, Commissioner Yin.

[00:08:22] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Here.

[00:08:23] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Commissioner Donahue.

[00:08:24] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Here.

[00:08:26] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Uh, all commissioners are present with the exception of Commissioner Dempsey. Thank you.

[00:08:32] Chair José Gutiérrez: Awesome. And I heard you say Commissioner Pham. So, having heard that, I'd like to and before we move on to today's agenda, uh let's welcome our new commissioner, Tina Pham, to the EPC. Welcome, Tina. Would you like to give a couple words, maybe a speech, impromptu, you know, go for it if you'd like.

[00:08:52] Commissioner Tina Pham: Just happy to be here, um, with everyone. And, um, you know, have a great evening, I hope.

[00:09:00] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you, Tina. Appreciate it. All right, I think at this point we're moving on to the minute approval, 3.1 Environmental Planning Commission meeting minutes of August 21st, 2024. Do we have any EPC discussion on those minutes? Any public comment to those minutes? Do we have any on anyone on video?

[00:09:46] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Uh, no one at this time.

[00:09:49] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay, great. So then at this in this case, I need help with a motion to approve the minutes.

[00:10:07] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I, I move for approval of the minutes. The three minutes have been provided as, as presented.

[00:10:14] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay. Now here I have a note and I'll just call this out just because it's on my sheet. Uh, it says here a motion to approve the minutes should include reading reading the following item in blue: approve the Environmental Planning Commission minutes of August 21st, 2024 with changes as stated by... No one? Why do we have that? If there are no changes then to the minutes, we'll just approve them as presented.

[00:10:39] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So, so moved.

[00:10:41] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay. So on a motion by Commissioner Cranston and seconded by Commissioner Yin, let's have a vote.

[00:10:59] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Excuse me, Chair. Good evening, Commissioners. Community Development Director Christian Murdock. We seem to be having some technical issues with the uh live stream for those participating remotely, and so I would ask if it uh pleases the chair to just take a brief recess to allow us to troubleshoot that so that we can maximize public participation.

[00:11:18] Chair José Gutiérrez: Sure. Having said that and understood that to be the case, then we'll we will pause on the vote for now. And then once you're all ready, please let us know and we'll come back. Any guesstimate on time?

[00:11:27] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Not sure right now. Hopefully just a few minutes.

[00:11:29] Chair José Gutiérrez: Sounds good. So for now we will take a recess for... let's start with 5 minutes. 5 minutes. Thank you, everyone.

[00:11:38] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Thank you.

[00:13:34] Chair José Gutiérrez: Welcome back everyone, the time is 7:08 p.m. and we are back at session. We were in the middle to approve the motion, the motion to approve the minutes of August 21st, 2024. Moved by Commissioner Cranston, seconded by Commissioner Yin. Madam Clerk?

[00:14:05] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Okay, um, we can do a roll call vote. Um, sorry, Chair Gutierrez.

[00:14:14] Chair José Gutiérrez: Aye.

[00:14:15] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Uh, Vice Chair, um, Nunez.

[00:14:17] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Yes.

[00:14:19] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Uh, Commissioner Donahue.

[00:14:21] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Yes.

[00:14:22] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Commissioner Pham. Commissioner Yin.

[00:14:26] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Aye.

[00:14:27] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Uh, Commissioner, uh, Cranston.

[00:14:29] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Aye.

[00:14:31] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Uh, five commissioners yea, um, one commissioner abstains, and, um, Commissioner Dempsey is absent. Thank you.

[00:14:42] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay, we'll move forward to 3.2 moving for the Environmental Planning Commission meeting minutes of September 18th, 2024. Any EPC discussion on these? No, this is... The first one was for August 21st, 2024. We have three of 'em. Typically I've seen this done all in one swoop, but in this case it looks like they've divided them up into 3.1, 3.2, 3.3. So I'll just roll with it. Um, if we have no EP discussion then any public comments either here in person or online, Madam Clerk?

[00:15:16] City Clerk Heather Glaser: No one at this time.

[00:15:18] Commissioner Bill Cranston: My my motion was to approve all three. Was that invalid, Mr. Attorney?

[00:15:24] City Attorney Krishan Chopra: If the motion was for all three then, and the votes the same in with the same abstention, I think that's that carries.

[00:15:37] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay. So can we have the language be checked just to make sure that we covered all three? Because I thought I had only read for the first date. If that's the case, that's my mistake.

[00:15:48] City Clerk Heather Glaser: On the agenda it was for all three, um, minutes.

[00:15:51] Chair José Gutiérrez: Great. So then we'll move forward with that and we'll just skip over 3.2, 3.3 since it's already encompassed within 3.1. And then the motion provided by Commissioner Cranston and seconded by Commissioner Yin. We'll go to 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. Clerk, do we have any comments?

[00:16:40] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Uh, no one at this time.

[00:16:42] Chair José Gutiérrez: Great. Having said that, let's move on to our study session, item 5.1: Moffett Boulevard Precise Plan Land Use Alternatives. 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 Senior Planner Aki Snelling and Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson.

[00:26:29] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Uh, yes, we do have a hand raised. Um, April Webster. You should be able to unmute now.

[00:26:42] Public Speaker: Can you hear me?

[00:26:45] Chair José Gutiérrez: We can, can.

[00:26:46] Public Speaker: Hello. Hi, um, yes, April Webster. I'm a resident. I have lived in the area of Moffett for, I think 13 years now. I love the area. Um, I have attended both of the, um, outreach meetings and I just wanted to summarize what I, I noticed. There is overwhelming support, um, across all, uh, community groups that we were split up into for, um, walkability, bikeability, um, paseos, green, shade, trees, um, and while, um, parking was brought up, it was only about 38 out of the 58, um, attendees who responded to the online survey, um, or 38 out of 58, uh, didn't like it or weren't interested in it. And, um, similarly a vast majority weren't, um, happy with four lanes of traffic. And so I wanted to make a push tonight for a road diet. Um, the street is underutilized. Recent counts for the Castro, uh, Transit Center showed it continued to be underutilized and under the, um, uh, under the FHWA, uh, guidelines for, um, warranting a, a road diet. So, um, I think that would fit a lot of the criteria and how people want to see our neighborhood grow, and, um, it's also come up, um, similarly for the other side of Moffett for the, um, Moffett Complete Streets Plan. So I'd really like, um, uh, the EPC, um, to consider that as, as one of the options. Thank you so much for letting me, um, share my thoughts.

[00:28:22] Chair José Gutiérrez: Madam Clerk, anyone else?

[00:28:30] City Clerk Heather Glaser: Uh, not at this time.

[00:28:33] Chair José Gutiérrez: Great. Thank you. We'll move on to EPC questions and discussion. Um, we'll go first with the questions. Um, EPC question number one: which land use alternative does the EPC recommend as a preferred land use alternative? Does the EPC recommend any modifications to that alternative? Let's start with that one. Which commissioner would like to start?

[00:29:21] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you, Commissioner Yin. Commissioner Cranston.

[00:29:25] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Um, I guess a question on the, the alternative C. Um, the removal of the... not including the highest density on the northeast side of or northwest side of the of Moffett surprised me a little bit. Is there a reason that that was... he chose not to include that in the... is that because of the mobile home park right behind it? Um, and they're larger lots, so I was surprised that those were removed.

[00:30:08] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, I can start with this one if that's okay. Can you hear me? Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Cranston. Eric Anderson, Advanced Planning Manager. Um, so the intent of alternative 3 is really to show an option with, uh, nodes of activity. And the nodes of activity were selected based on access to, um, roads that connect to surrounding neighborhoods, as well as adjacency to, um, R3 and other higher density properties. So those were the criteria for the nodes, and, uh, um, and of course access to the Transit Center as well. So that's why the 400 Moffett site wasn't included as a node.

[00:31:05] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Right, and then, um, second question, the section on the East side of Moffett from Central to... Central I guess. Uh, that first block is very narrow. Um, and I, I was interested in Staff's view on... that seemed... that kind of narrow shape made me think that it would probably be more likely to get a density bonus request specifically to remove open space, because the limited amount of space in that area. Does staff have any thoughts on that? It, it's, it's so shallow it seemed un- it seemed like an area that, I question whether it might, how well it could support any open space under our normal design guidelines.

[00:31:58] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, that's a great question. Um, so typically in multifamily developments, uh, open area requirements can be satisfied through above-grade open space. So it wouldn't be public open space, right, it would be common open space for the development. And so, uh, it can be satisfied through podium open space, or through rooftop open space, uh, or through balconies. Uh, so, not necessarily the case that they would need to, uh, get a waiver for open space. Although, depending on the standards that we adopt, uh, we, uh, it is possible that, uh, developers may have an incentive to still request waivers from that standard.

[00:32:48] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So it sounds like you think it can occur, but it's going to be upper floors, balconies, that kind of thing, not ground floor. Is that fair?

[00:32:55] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, if we continue with the open space standard that we, uh, the open space, open area definition that we use across other zoning districts, then that would be the case, yes. But I would say it's a little premature, uh, to be talking about specific standards right now because we, uh, just simply haven't gotten to that point in the process.

[00:33:23] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay, thanks.

[00:33:25] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you, Commissioner Cranston. Commissioner Yin.

[00:33:29] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Yes, um, I had one question ah regarding retail, or non... sorry, it's a two-part question. One is the ground floor non-residential use, I believe it was called. Can you explain a little bit more about what that is? Does it encompass anything just not residential?

[00:33:52] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, well we can receive additional Council and EPC direction to help, kind of, put, uh, guardrails on that. Uh, certainly the community's input was uh support for uh a neighborhood serving commercial, that was really part of the vision for the community, and so, uh, that would be the focus, um, if we move forward just based on the language from the vision.

[00:34:19] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Okay, thank you. And uh, part two of the question, um, was I noticed in the various alternatives there is encouraged and then there is required. And I was wondering, you know, after seeing a lot of the projects that have come forward, if if a project does utilize the state bonus, if you require it, can they still waive or concede that requirement?

[00:34:46] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Um, uh, yes, in our findings, uh, the, we, you know, with current, you know, density bonuses currently interpreted by judges and, and uh, state law language, it is very likely that developers will be able to waive, uh, commercial requirements, uh, or request, uh, incentives or concessions for commercial requirements. Um, so we're, we're going to continue to look into this to see how we can, um, address that opportunity that developers have. Uh, one, uh, opportunity that that I like to focus on is really, kind of a, um, a shared vision for the community and really, uh, run the community and and developers that buy into that shared vision for the community. Uh, and I think a, uh, a strong commercial node can really, kind of, promote, uh, that shared vision especially if the city, uh, has also promised to do public improvements that would support that activity and, um, support those ground floor uses.

[00:36:08] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Okay, thank you. Um, is it okay if I ask another one? It's related. Then, um, I was curious because I didn't follow the the project, the 100, the one closest to the train station, Central, um, Expressway. Um, did that one have encouraged or required commercial in the ground floor when it came forward? Or when it was proposed? Or maybe not proposed, did Staff, um, encourage or require...?

[00:36:45] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, so I don't believe anybody is, uh, at the meeting now that has a- a lot of intimate knowledge about the process for that development, so I'm not sure that we can give you, um, you know, the full story for that that development's process. What I can say is that, uh, it was a rezoning, uh, process that they went through, so there wasn't any standards or, uh, you know, zoning language that was, uh, that that project was was built according to or consistent with. They, they, you know, the the P district that they're in now is really the zoning that applies to that site. Uh, there was also a council process, including study sessions, uh, that informed the design of that project. I don't have all the details about what happened at each of those study sessions or public comment going into those study sessions, but certainly the Council, uh, would have had an opportunity through the rezoning process to require some retail and, uh, you know, obviously that didn't end up happening.

[00:37:57] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Okay, thank you.

[00:38:00] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Nuñez.

[00:38:03] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: I guess, um, I have a bit of a follow up to, um, Commissioner Yin's line of thinking there. Um, with regard to the state density bonus. Um, my understanding, I'm gonna phrase this, I'm not phrasing this in a, you know, totally, um, precise way here, so I'm hoping staff can help me out. Um, my understanding is that, um, the city standards, if they're crafted in such a way where they enable more than what the density bonus might be, then in a way, like, it, it's still possible to supersede the state density bonus by doing more than what that standard would be or allow for. Um, can someone help me out, just to confirm that or if I'm completely left field, that would also be helpful to know. Um, looking for some help.

[00:39:04] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Sure. I, I can start and then, um, maybe, uh, Director Murdock can, uh, also weigh in. Uh, this is something that we're studying with the R3 project. Um, you know, the, uh, City Council has directed us to study, um, local bonuses that may supersede that, may be more, uh, appealing to developers than the state density bonus by presumably providing more density, uh, than the state density bonus. Is that what you're asking about?

[00:39:40] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Yeah, whether it's like, um, you know, enforceable legal mechanism or through just an incentive that, um, would be a no-brainer to take. Um, basically I'm just trying to understand, um, what levers, and I hear that you're kind of working on it right now, but, um, you know, if there is such a manner in which the city can implement levers into the standards such that, you know, we are able to retain, like, the maximum amount maximum amount of local control, whether, you know, we do say something like, 'hey, we want to, um, you know, have businesses on the ground floor' -- without commenting on that for myself yet, but you know to the extent that we say something like that, that, um, either, um, we retain the right to be able to condition that or, um, you know, we just provide the kind of framework that almost all developers would actually pursue.

[00:40:32] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Sure. Yeah. So that is something that we, uh, have as a framework in North Bayshore and East Whisman, um, and uh, you know, we use it, uh, somewhat effectively to, uh, maintain some local discretion. Uh, what I will say is that, uh, you know, state density bonus law is, is changing all the time, and there's, uh, new, uh, um, you know, language in state density bonus law that may complicate, uh, implementation of, uh, such a program. Uh, we don't really know how that language is, uh, is, uh, should be interpreted at this point, and so we need to continue to study that. Uh, there are also some challenges from the perspective, uh, in Moffett where the existing allowed zoning is already, uh, you know, 60 plus dwelling units per acre, and so to, uh, provide a, um, a more appealing density bonus than that, would be a very high density. So, you know, as a frame of reference, the base density in East Whisman and North Bayshore is closer to 30 units per acre, so about half as much, and in order to, uh, have that carrot in East Whisman and North Bayshore, you know, two and a half to three and a half times the density to the bonus is probably what's necessary. So that just gives you an idea, a frame of reference for, what would be necessary to include in the, um, a local bonus in Moffett. Uh, if that's something that, uh, Council is interested in, it's certainly something that we can study, uh, but there are definitely some, uh, there are other challenges with implementing a local bonus. And I'll just see if, you know, if Assistant Director Blizinski or Director Murdock want to add anything.

[00:42:36] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Yeah I think that Eric said it pretty well, uh... Amber Blizinski, Assistant Community Development Director. I think the only thing I'd add is, you know, we are continuously looking into this to try to navigate the slightly murky waters of the new updates to the density bonus law and so, I think we'll have a clearer picture when this comes back, um, but for now, you know, we're still looking at it as an option, potentially.

[00:43:02] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Great, so, um, so then, uh, as of right now, uh, and without kind of commenting on, um, my opinion on this matter yet, um, just in the realm where, um, we would, for example, want to, um, have as much discretion as possible with regard to, um, requiring something like ground floor retail. Um, which of any, which, if any of these plans, um, as currently put forward, um, does staff have, um, you know, kind of relative confidence, um, would kind of most enable us to be able to, um, sustain that discretion? Knowing I'm not gonna hold anyone to anything, but I'm just trying to get a directional sense of things. So, yeah, uh, that would be great to hear Staff's take on that.

[00:43:54] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Well, I think, um, you know, it's the the approach that we've put forward of the higher density being associated with commercial to kind of help the commercial pencil out, is more likely. You are more likely to get commercial in that scenario. Uh, and of course that's part of Alternative C, uh, and it's all of Alternative B. Um, I think also, uh, to the extent that, um, you know, encourage would not, uh, would not be fully enforceable and we would take all of the measures that the the encourage language from Alternative A, uh, wouldn't be fully enforceable, we could take all of those measures and also apply them to Alternative B. So, does that answer your question? I, I think Alternative B would be more likely to result in commercial.

[00:44:48] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you. And then, um, Alternative C is seeking to ensure that discretion by, um, applying, like, specific, um, you know, parts in this where the higher intensity mixed uses like...

Segment 2

[00:45:00] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: like uh, the designated land use versus um, the rest of the plan, is that, is that correct?

[00:45:06] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Alternative C is really a mix of A and B, uh, for different properties. So it, it's the Alternative A, uh, policies for, uh, most of the corridor and the Alternative B policies for, uh, two nodes along the corridor.

[00:45:24] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. And then last question here. Um, I did notice, um, that, you know, we are breaking this into two questions, one, you know, the second one being around the kind of streetscape. Um, but I'm, uh, just in terms of like the activation of, of this, um, with regard to the first question, um, you know, independent of the kind of streetscape decisions, um, to the extent that's possible for now, now. Um, you know, how much like inherent activation, um, are we looking at with regard to, um, you know, each alternative in terms of the most kind of like lively ground floor, um, yeah, like just inherent to that like increase in density if, if you can kind of just give me a sense of which of these plans might kind of produce that, you know, greatest or greatest sense of kind of like active ground floor.

[00:46:13] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Well, I think there's a couple of ways that you could look at that. Um, I think the, one way that you could look at it is the, the overall level of activity along the corridor, which would probably be maximized through Alternative B. Another way you could look at it is this focused approach where you are, uh, really trying to concentrate activity because, you know, being able to see other people, being able to see a mix of businesses, um, being able to have a, you know, event or something like that that works well with the public improvements and the businesses in the area can really foster, uh, a higher degree of activity in a smaller space than if that same amount of commercial activity was spread along the corridor. So it really, really depends on if, you know, if, on your, um, uh, on, on kind of what metric of area you're looking at, right? Total amount of activity or kind of density of activity.

[00:47:20] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Thank you.

[00:47:21] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Chair if I may just offer another perspective and bounce a question off of, um, Advance Planning Manager, uh, Anderson. Eric, do you think another way to think about this would be, you know, to your remark about Alternative B having a higher level of activity if the plan was fully implemented holds true, but conversely Alternative C might give a greater probability of high intensity commercial activation if a fewer number of properties, uh, developed, particularly the nodal, uh, components of Alternative C. So I think that might be an important distinction.

[00:47:56] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, so to clarify, you're, you're saying that if, um, uh, if, if demand for commercial space is focused, it's more likely that that commercial space will be developed in that area. Is that what you're saying?

[00:48:12] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Uh, in part, but I think just recognizing some of the, the focus areas in the, the nodal component of Alternative C, that you could get some sort of improved activation if fewer properties developed, particularly the most intensive parts. Um, sometimes we know that not all of the properties in a planning area will redevelop consistent with the plan in a reasonable period of time. But perhaps a fewer number of key properties in the nodes, the, uh, node centers, um, if they developed consistent with the plan, that you might achieve that level of activation, um, in a way that would require more of the corridor in Alternative B.

[00:48:48] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Yeah, I mean, I think that, that is definitely a possibility.

[00:48:57] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay, great. Thank you, Vice Chair Nuñez. Um, I will take presidential privilege and I will ask questions now. I'm intrigued. I saw the report. I read it. Uh, it's, oh, there's a lot to re- read. Uh, but here's my question. I've got two that are pretty much simple, right? Uh, my, my reading of what you had written about community input, I, I appreciated that for what it was. And there was more details involved this time around, which I appreciated as well. Uh, because you get a good sense of what happened, who said what, why, and when. Um, so my question, though, I didn't get as much of that with the business side to it. So I'm intrigued with, what did the business community members say about these alternatives A, B, and C? When you all did the walkthroughs in February and you had input also from community members at the farmers market, I get that, but for the business side of the, the community in that side of the, uh, in that neighborhood, what was the feedback from them? Did they have a preference for one of these three? And did they also opine about, um, anything else that came to mind that might be in relationship to that? Those are my two questions that I have.

[00:50:07] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Thank you, uh, Chair Gutiérrez. Um, you know, my, my understanding of that, uh, business walk is that, uh, the, most of the conversation was really focused on, on opportunities for input. Uh, I think the questions were asked, but maybe the businesses weren't fully prepared at that time to, uh, provide input, uh, you know, at that time. And, and so we offered these other opportunities to provide, provide input. Um, I will, uh, see if our consultant, consultant, um, uh, from MIG might, might have any, uh, thing to add about what was found during that process?

[00:50:50] Dan Amsden: Good evening Chair and Commission Members, Dan Amsden with MIG. Um, and to, to build off of, uh, Assistant Director Anderson's comments, we did the direct walks, the door-to-door walks to business owners. It was actually before the workshop, so before the alternatives were fully public. But we did hear a lot of concerns about less foot traffic, rising vacancies, maybe competition with, with Castro Street as well. Um, but as part of both the workshop and also the online survey, we asked the question of whether you own businesses or property in the Moffett Boulevard area as well. So as we start to summarize this data, as, as the survey is still open right now, um, I think it's a great point. We can also summarize based on people who responded that they own property and businesses as well as sort of a subset of feedback.

[00:51:42] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay, great. So I have a follow-up question, and this, you may or may not have a response to this, but because it's just a question. Uh, and then I'm done. So if we're seeing businesses struggling right now to open up shop on Castro, what's the reality of them being able to open up on the other side of Central Expressway? Even though you'll have new development, hopefully, one way or another. What, what makes you envision that we'll have takers to fill those ground level floor units when in the majority of the city those same types of options aren't really filled?

[00:52:20] Dan Amsden: Sure. I'll start and then maybe pass it to, to Eric and others on staff. Um, so we do have a, a retail and office, uh, consultants as part of this process as well. And they've also been reaching out to business owners and stakeholders. There's a lot of challenges, there's a lot of vacancies, and one of the concerns is as new property or new projects redevelop, most, most likely their, uh, leases would be higher because it's new development. So that's another, another concern. One of the positives, though, from just a market area standpoint is more residents and more people, and especially if it's community-serving uses. Um, those can be seen as, as very positive along the corridor. So it, it really would be a, a discussion as we go more detail into the planning process on how to sort of do business retention or also staging as those new uses come in. I think that's partially why there was that flexibility but also intentional question to the community about encourage versus require and what's the right balance.

[00:53:18] Chair José Gutiérrez: Understood. Thank you so much for that. And, and I just dawned on me. I'm so sorry, Commissioners. One last, one last question. If I'm understanding the process correctly, as we delve into these issues and try to answer these questions 1 and 2, these are what we would think right now would be the best approaches to move forward. And then eventually City Council has the right to either yea or nay it and they can modify it as well. So what we move on with here may not necessarily be in the end what's going to come back or what's going to be voted on. Is, am my understanding the process correctly?

[00:53:48] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, yes, Chair Gutiérrez. Uh, that's correct. So there's, there's multiple more touchpoints throughout this process. And ultimately it is, it is up to Council. So Council will, uh, provide feedback on these questions, uh, and provide their direction to staff on these questions, based in large part, I think, on the deliberation that happens tonight. They, they, they do, uh, listen to and watch the EPC meeting and read our summaries to the EPC meetings. Uh, and then, uh, but they will provide the ultimate direction to staff that will start the, uh, drafting process and the EIR process and all the other processes that we need to go through in order to draft the, the precise plan. But even that isn't final direction, right? The, the final direction comes from the adoption of the plan. So, uh, there will be multiple touchpoints with both EPC and Council getting to that point.

[00:54:40] Chair José Gutiérrez: Great. Thank you for the clarification. And I wanted to bring that up intentionally so that everyone understands here. This is the first step of a long journey. So, thank you. Um, I'm done. Commissioner Pham.

[00:54:52] Commissioner Tina Pham: Thank you. The, uh, the questions from other Commissioners were re- really helpful. Um, I, uh, wanted to follow up on what Chair Gutiérrez was saying with regard, um, with his questions, and that was thinking about the existing businesses, and I remember reading that a lot of people were really hopeful, a lot of people in the community were hopeful to retain the existing businesses. And I was just curious, um, if in any of the alternatives, is there a high likelihood that we can retain the existing businesses for each of the alternatives? Um, is it, can we do that? Is it possible?

[00:55:41] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: So, um, I, I think certainly Alternative B gives the highest opportunity for business retention. Uh, right now we don't have any policies in the, uh, alternatives that specify, are specifically about encouraging small business retention. Although, uh, Council has directed us to study this along with, a, uh, one of the Housing Element programs. Uh, and so as we study this, uh, we can, um, uh, we may be able to apply the outcome of that to, uh, this, this process as well. Um, I will, uh, defer to either Planner Snelling or our MIG consultant to see kind of what the current scope of work has to say about, uh, small business displacement and, um, uh, that similar issue.

[00:56:44] Dan Amsden: Uh, I'll, I'll quickly add the topic has come up quite a bit through this process from the community, the business, I think our, our last EPC meeting as well as Council. Um, so it is part of our scope to study and analyze as part of the policy development in the next phase. So that policy would apply to whichever land use alternative, uh, Council ultimately, uh, directs us on.

[00:57:06] Commissioner Tina Pham: Okay. So there's at this point, there's no, um, thinking as to which one would be more likely other than what Mr. Anderson had already stated.

[00:57:17] Dan Amsden: Correct. Because B has more retail ground floor use, so that larger volume would allow.

[00:57:23] Commissioner Tina Pham: Okay. So then in, in that respect, just going back a little bit to what Commissioner Nuñez had, uh, asked also, um, regarding the ability to have the city retain a little bit more control. And I, I what I heard was the answer in past experience was that the density would have to go two to three times higher than what we're proposing in order to retain that control. So then it seems to me it's a little bit less likely that, I don't know, maybe, you know, it would have to go back to the community and more studies and more input to see whether or not that is something that they'd be interested in. But, um, I was curious because in the past we've learned that building types, there are certain building types and there's one that is very common that sort of maxes out at seven to eight stories. Beyond that, it jumps considerably in cost. So I was wondering if in the alternatives, we are saying four to seven or seven to nine, I feel like we're sort of losing control, or how do I word this? Four to seven, developers are going to want to maximize. They're going to want to get up to the maximum of that building type. And in that case, it seems more likely they're going to choose the State Density Bonus over ours because ours is not two to three times. If we're going for Alternative B, then it's seven to nine stories. We're hitting that maximum, and I was thinking that there was the chance that that would help encourage our local control and our levers. But what I, from what I heard earlier, it doesn't cut it, so it would still be the State Density Bonus in that case too. Okay, thank you. I just wanted to be clear.

[00:59:38] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Donahue.

[00:59:40] Commissioner Paul Donahue: So, Alternative C, and I know that Alternative C you said is, is just kind of a stake in the ground and that there can be tweaks and things like that. But as, as, um, shown here, uh, 100 Moffett is part of the, um, the higher density. And as far as, in, in the R3 discussion that we had, uh, previously, and I know this is a different process with different rules, but, um, one of the criteria in that process was to, uh, kind of not maximize the, the density in areas that are unlikely to be redeveloped. And since 100 Moffett was, is a fairly recent project, it, it was interesting to me that, that that's shown as being something that, that's of the higher density. Um, I mean, it, it does, you know, if, if that hadn't been redeveloped recently that, that might be a, a reasonable, um, place to, to increase the density, but, um, what is the probability of, of that actually, of, of them tearing down a four-story building to build a six-story building, um, and, and why was that kind of chosen, uh, as part of Alternative C?

[01:01:00] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, really just to acknowledge the, uh, you know, access to the transit center. Uh, the likelihood of redevelopment, as you say, is very low. Uh, that building currently has a very high value, uh, given how new it is, um, and, uh, we certainly don't see it redeveloping for quite a long time. Uh, I would say that, uh, you know, building, uh, construction costs can change over a quite a long period of time, uh, new construction technologies can come out, uh, certainly the State Density Bonus can affect standards over a long period of time. Uh, and so, uh, providing a little bit of policy nudge in that location, uh, through a higher, um, allowed density, um, may, may have an effect over the long period of time.

[01:01:56] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Okay. So, so, yeah, long-term thinking, okay, that, that makes sense. Thank you.

[01:02:05] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Pham.

[01:02:07] Commissioner Tina Pham: Um, I had a few questions. So I noticed in the staff report, um, mentioned of the Adobe House as a historical resource. Um, are there any other properties in this area that could be considered a significant historical resource? And also, um, how would each of the three alternatives, A, B, and C, differ in how they may preserve or treat such properties?

[01:02:36] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, so, uh, there aren't any other buildings that are on any official, you know, historic register, state, local or national. Uh, I do want to remind the Commission that we're also working on an update to our historic, uh, historic preservation ordinance and our historic register, and that's something that is currently underway. Uh, we expect to complete it, uh, you know, in the next year, year and a half or so. And we're currently doing a, uh, comprehensive assessment of properties in the city, uh, to determine their eligibility for, uh, historic, um, listing. Uh, one other property, 243 Moffett, the auto body shop there, has been shortlisted in that study. Uh, I don't have any more information at this time about, you know, whether that, uh, is going to result in listing or eligibility, but I will say that it's been shortlisted. Um, the, uh, and the final determination likely won't happen until like, like I said, you know, the next year, year and a half from now. Um, what, how does it affect, uh, how do the standards here affect, uh, the preservation of those buildings, was that your follow-up question? Um, so, uh, likely not. Um, there's always, uh, there are, um, uh, the, the historic preservation ordinance will apply to, uh, uh, any building on the local, state or national register. And so that, any developer will need to comply with that process if they, uh, are trying to redevelop a property that has a historic resource on it. And that means additional environmental review, it means, uh, additional discretion by the City Council to approve or deny a project. Um, and so that likely won't change, uh, given the level of density that's allowed on the property. Uh, that's not to say that developers that have, are allowed more density might be more motivated to bring forward projects, which could mean, you know, more work for the city to review those projects and bring them forward to the City Council. Um, and so this is all, uh, just dependent on the fact of us, you know, completing and identifying those properties on our register.

[01:05:26] Commissioner Tina Pham: Thank you. I, I did have another separate question. Um, are there any special considerations for the Hetch Hetchy right-of-way in this area?

[01:05:37] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Um, I believe, uh, uh, Assistant Public Works Director City Engineer Ed Orrego is in the audience and may have a response to this.

[01:05:51] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Orrego: Good evening. Um, thank you for the question, Commissioner. Uh, Ed Orrego, Assistant Public Works Director and City Engineer. Um, there are special considerations for the Hetch Hetchy right-of-way, um, and the considerations are, um, really around restrictions. Uh, the Hetch Hetchy right-of-way is, um, land owned and maintained by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. Um, and any proposed improvements or changes on their land require special written authorization from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, we, we say SFPUC pretty consistently for that, for short. Um, in addition there's a 20, uh, 2019 memorandum of agreement between the SFPUC and the City on, um, existing uses, sort of legacy uses that, um, the City had. Um, so the MOA, the memorandum of agreement, provides for sort of seven specific site, um, licenses for use of city, on, uh, city uses on the, um, Hetch Hetchy or the SFPUC's right-of-way. Again, this is their land, um, and property proper. So some examples are, um, uh, parks, trails, gardens, um, again, with, um, specific identified conditions. Um, generally the SFPUC, um, doesn't allow any improvements, um, again, these are legacies except for one of them from the 2019, we knew we were going to do a new park, um, so it was Fayette Park, and so we included that with the MOA. Um, but all the other sites are legacy. Um, SFPUC has, um, pretty consistently and clearly communicated to the city that maintaining their, um, right-of-way in respect to their ability to maintain their, um, water infrastructure because that's what the, um, right-of-way is there for, their land, is, uh, to, um, the, um, Hetch Hetchy or the water aqueducts that serve many agencies throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. So their interest is really protecting that, um, and ensuring that they can maintain it at any time and not disrupt or, um, disrupt any community amenities that are on their property. So they're, theyre, again, pretty restrictive. Um, and lastly, I know they had a question about, thank you in advance for submitting the questions. It helps us kind of gather the information. Um, there's no plans for, uh, a linear park currently, um, adjacent to the Moffett, uh, corridor.

[01:08:35] Commissioner Tina Pham: Thank you.

[01:08:38] Chair José Gutiérrez: Vice Chair Nuñez.

[01:08:40] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Right, uh, I have three follow-up questions. Um, with regard to the alternatives, an- like any of them individually or as a whole. Um, and the viability of ground floor retail. Um, did the results, um, or ongoing progress of the economic vitality study or the, um, kind of, um, economic development plan, uh, that we've been working on, um, in any way inform, uh, this kind of, um, the development of, of these proposals here? Um, uh, if so, in what ways, or if, um, there's some kind of like commentary that we might have, uh, at hand with regard to, um, yeah, the viability, um, longer term versus kind of like more shorter term, if we have any insight there?

[01:09:35] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, I do think that there is opportunity for us to look to the Economic Vitality Strategy as we get into the details, uh, of this plan. But I think the, the kind of scale of, of information in the Economic Vitality Strategy versus, uh, these kind of big picture land use alternatives is, is, is kind of a different scale. Uh, so I'm, I'll, I'll see if, uh, um, uh, Assistant Director or, or Director Murdock, uh, can, uh, think of anything from the Economic Vitality Strategy that might, uh, overlap with this project. Um, but, uh...

[01:10:17] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Good evening. Good evening, Commissioners. Uh, Christian Murdock, Community Development Director. I know, I think, um, Mr. Anderson, um, said it well. Um, that the scale of analysis is different. But we can look, uh, for inspiration and guidance from the Economic Vitality Strategy when crafting subsequent components of the Moffett Boulevard Precise Plan.

[01:10:35] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Okay. Thank you very much for that. Um, second question. With regard to, um, the activation. Um, sometimes it's not, um, in terms of like encouraging versus requiring. If there's a scenario where, at the end of the day, we go forward with the encourage versus, um, you know, require, what have you. Um, is it still possible or does, uh, any of these alternatives, um, and is it possible for us to require, um, that the ground floor be used for things, um, in residential, uh, uh, development that would give the kind of like, I don't know, if it's the veneer of activation or what, but like actual activity? Um, like gyms or pools or recreation areas. Um, you know, like little courtyard seating, whatever that kind looks like. Um, is, is that part or requirable through any of these, um, you know, in terms of our discretion? And, um, would state density bonus, um, if, if we were ever to require something like that, um, also still allow for the kind of like, um, preclusion of that or, or developers to, to kind of like avoid that requirement for recreation at ground floor in place of retail?

[01:11:50] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: I think the same would apply. I think whatever would apply to commercial would also apply to any standards around, uh, residential amenity areas on the ground floor. What I will say is that, uh, we have seen a lot of residential developments push forward those residential amenity areas intentionally because they, they want their residents to have a little bit more privacy. Uh, so that's something that, um, they, unless the site is very constrained, uh, is, is already popular with, uh, residential developers.

[01:12:28] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Awesome, thanks. And then the last question here. Um, is there anything in our city code, in this plan, as proposed, alternatives, or even in state law, um, that would, uh, either preclude, um, you know, require, or, um, you know, disallow the use of any kind of specific or, or any building materials, construction methods, um, anything regarding how a building is constructed and what it's constructed of in the Moffett area?

[01:13:06] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Um, building codes apply, you know, universally, and building codes do set strict requirements for, you know, materials, construction. Um, do you mean like aesthetic or...

[01:13:22] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Do we, um, is there anything, I'll, I'll just ask specifically then, um, given, given that. Um, is there anything that would preclude the use of newer materials, like such as mass timber or I think like laminate, um, in terms of buildings in this plan? Does, does our current city code countervail the use of that, currently?

[01:13:45] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Uh, I'm afraid I don't know enough about the building code to, to answer that question. Maybe, uh, Director Murdock or Assistant Director Blisinski might be able to weigh in.

[01:13:55] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Not to my knowledge in the city's building code. Um, and we haven't gotten anywhere near that stage where we might suggest standards in the Moffett Boulevard Precise Plan that could, uh, run contrary to the ability to use those kinds of construction materials. Um, ultimately some of them may influence the size of structure depending on the engineering, um, methods and techniques and suitability of the different materials. Um, so it's, it's hard to say whether a particular material would enable a six or seven-story building to be constructed, but those are typically, as Mr. Anderson noted, details in the building permit place, um, subject to building code, uh, requirements.

[01:14:33] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: So it sounds like we're not even, we're not even there yet.

[01:14:36] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: We're certainly not there yet, and I'm not sure we will venture there. Um, it's really not the nature of of a precise plan typically to regulate those kinds of issues.

[01:14:46] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Perfect, thank you.

[01:14:51] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioners, any other questions regarding EPC question number one? Which land use alternative does the EPC recommend? Is a preferred land use alternative... does the EPC recommend any modifications to that alternative? If not, we'll move on to discussion of said questions. I'll start. So, I think this is very noble. I think we're trying to do the best we can under the circumstances. Uh, I try to be an optimist in all these proceedings in general, um, but when I look at current conditions, I'm glad we didn't put a timeline to this specifically saying this has to be done by a set time frame. I'm thinking the next four years because of what we have right now at the national level, uh, there's a lot of economic uncertainty. And if costs to items for construction are expensive now, with tariffs, they'll be more expensive. Which means developers will second guess themselves with trying to do something in the foreseeable short-term future. Um, once a lot of this stuff is cleared up, I would think possibly there may be an opportunity then to jump on that in case there is correction. Uh, whether because those items that are happening now will then not be on the books and they'll be revised. So that we can go back to what we had before with a more sound economic situation at the national level, uh, where interest rates may not be affected. The feds just said, well, we're not going to increase the rates, we're going to leave it now as is. And that's great, but there's still uncertainty. And with that, there's expense and cost. So I'm not seeing anything, I'm, I don't think anything in the short term future is going to happen. I'm, I'm hoping I'm wrong. Uh, and, and if it does, hey, more power to them. But right now, as it is, um, development in California and in our area is pretty limited right now. Um, so I, I am intrigued by both B and C. They both have plus and minuses. Um, and, uh, I know for density sake and for housing, um, fans, B is the ideal because you'll get a little bit more of everything. Um, but I like the concept of the nodes. In C, it struck my, caught my attention. Because I look at that as more of holding on to some sort of local control, what we want things to look like. Because it's a mix between A and B. And so we would have a little bit more of a say in terms of what will look like in certain areas within that neighborhood. And I like having that sense of empowerment there because it seems like whenever there are proposals that come to us for development, such as business and housing, there's always give and takes, and we always give, give, give. We don't really get anything in return. It's the rare one that happens. Um, even when we've had, um, developers come to the EPC in recent years, I can't remember one time where we made a suggestion, they actually understood it, ran with it, came back, and said, hey, City Council, we have revised our plan based on EPC recommendations and suggestions. This is what we think we can do. I don't remember that. Uh, and I hate to say it because, uh, you would think that in this period of time that would have happened a couple times, you know, a handful of times, um, but I can't speak to that right now. And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Um, but, uh, I'm leaning towards C or B, uh, I like the idea of the nodes. Um, and I'll leave it at that. Now, in terms of, um, priorities for, or recommendations for modifications of the alternatives, I'm fine with all of the alternatives in general. If other Commissioners want to mix and match, um, that's fine. Just let me know so I can be clear with taking these notes down, because in the end I've got to give a summary to the, to the team of what we all think. Um, so there you go. Vice Chair Nuñez.

[01:24:21] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. Um, so I'll walk through my thoughts. Um, the while the area that's called the future study area between Central Avenue and Central Expressway is listed there, that's pretty much all exclusively single family homes right now. Um, the shallow depth of the, of the area along Moffett, um, concerns me about the ability to actually get something that's that has the kind of openness and, and attractiveness of the, of the residents. It's also right next to the Adobe House. Um, so I, and, and the, um, Commissioner Donahue mentioned the, the question about the node on the other side. So I'm, I'm, I'm questioning going higher there. I'm also questioning even including the ground floor. Um, my, my business in San Francisco is an area that's in one of those fringes, okay? And it's always kind of interested me to watch how the other business, other mixed-use build buildings across the street hide the fact that they actually have space for rent on the other side of the, their, their, they disguise it. They actually have to show something that it's for lease, okay? Um, I didn't know what they were charging and I don't know if City Council is looking at it, but it turns out that it's like $6,000 a year if they're not getting these things, the landlords are getting, leasing these things, and they're paying it because they don't think they can lease the space on the ground floor. Um, so I'm, I'm skeptical of, of retail, commercial serving that is spread out. I like the idea of concentrating it. So I like the node between Central Avenue and Cypress Point. I, if I were going to modify this, I would actually do B from Central Avenue to Central Expressway, and C from, and, and, and, I guess it's A from Central Expressway to Central Avenue, and B from Central Avenue to Cypress Point, on both sides. Okay. I don't, I don't know why, I, I would not have removed the high density from the west side of, of Moffett. Um, I would have let that whole area, it's gotten, some restaurants in it today. It's got a liquor store in it, um, and a little convenience stores. The places across the street, there's a level of activity around those that it would be great to keep. Um, so my, my, my C would, would be different than your C. It would be A from Central Avenue south, and B from Central Avenue up to Cypress Point. I don't have a strong opinion about the gas station where the Valero is. I just, it's too darn small to do anything with, so I don't have a strong opinion about that. Um, but I, I would like to see, if we're gonna encourage more density and, and get the requirement, let's make that whole area that and, and remove the requirement for the, the ground floor retail in the Central to, to Central Expressway area. And I understand the theory of the node at Central Expressway, but in all the things you have to do to put together this plan, if you have to spend a lot of time figuring out how to make that node work, that's a waste of time in my opinion. Because it's not going to redevelop and, you know, Prometheus has said on multiple occasions they keep their properties for 50 years. And that's a Prometheus building. And so they're not going to redevelop that corner. So, spend staff's time looking at the other parts of it would be my, would be my recommendation. So, I'm looking at a, my, I would prefer a modified C. Is that clear?

[01:28:16] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Cranston, yes, I get that. So in terms of the modified C though, you going for the...

[01:28:26] Commissioner Bill Cranston: What you see in, in Alternative B from Central up to Cypress Point. But, but in terms of like the required and encouraged and...

[01:28:35] Chair José Gutiérrez: Required.

[01:28:36] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Required there. But then on the area between Central Avenue and Central Expressway, you see nothing required or even encouraged. I mean, well, it's encouraged, but that's fine, but it's, it's not necessarily...

[01:28:48] Chair José Gutiérrez: Understood. And with respect to the density bonus...

[01:28:51] Commissioner Bill Cranston: There was a project that went before Council recently that was, that didn't actually need the density bonus to meet its numbers but used the density bonus to get waivers anyway. So developers are using the density bonus even when it doesn't need to be used to get density. They're doing it to get waivers. So it's, in my opinion, a misuse of the intention of the law, but it's something they're allowed to do at this point until Scott Wiener and friends change it. That's what's gonna happen, okay. So, uh, I don't think we have to assume that every project is gonna have a density bonus, whether it's a townhome or a seven-story building. Okay. I'm, it's just, they're gonna be waivers. Period. So I'm not as worried about that as maybe others are.

[01:29:44] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you, Commissioner Cranston. Commissioner Donahue.

[01:29:47] Commissioner Paul Donahue: So I am also attracted by option C. Um, I do like as, as Commissioner Cranston said, kind of concentrating the, um...

Segment 3

[01:30:00] Commissioner Paul Donahue: The the retail in in certain areas makes sense I mean that's why we have a downtown instead of just having well we I mean we do have things through of course throughout the city. But but but having kind of a a focal point uh I think really really does make sense. Um I think that the focal point between Central and Central Avenue and Cypress Point uh does make sense especially considering the um size of the of the parcels there and and the depth um as uh Commissioner Cranston pointed out. The one concern I have at least about part of of of of what he said um on the other side of Moffett is that some of those parcels are actually no deeper than than the parcels um between Central Expressway and Central Avenue um like where the um St. James Infirmary used to be and uh the the those first few ones. The the larger parcels are are uh potentially uh deep enough to to be able to support something that's that's larger without um being um unreasonable I guess. Um the I do have some concerns about the 100 Moffett as um as you might have guessed from my earlier question. Um I think that it's unlikely to to be developed. I understand the long-term thinking that that makes sense I guess. But um also if there's required retail there, um it doesn't seem like a good location. I mean it's it's right on this prominent corner, you think boy this is really a great place everybody's going to see it but nobody's going to really be able to kind of get to it. Um so it it it seems less like a a good place to to to focus retail. Whereas something that's more in the middle of the neighborhood such as between uh Central Avenue and Cypress Point does seem like a place that um uh is in the middle of the neighborhood people can come from from uh you know the block south the block north etc. um and it's just more accessible. So um I am leaning towards option C uh not not keen on 100 Moffett. Um maybe consider uh some of the things on the other side the two larger parcels. I haven't had a lot of time to digest that yet but uh that's what I'm thinking right now.

[01:32:54] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you Commissioner Donahue. Commissioner Yin.

[01:33:00] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Okay, lots of thoughts while you guys are talking. Thank you for your comments because it helps me think. Um... alright, where am I? I'm just gonna go through a little bit uh my process here. Um I also recall a lot of uh retail consultants have said they prefer retail to be connected or in nodes clustered. It helps people shops tend to like that better. And um I believe that to be true. I also think the depth of certain sites does lend itself to being able to support that a little bit more. Um my questions earlier I I'm concerned that we're going to you know boost up the FAR and then not get any of what we want. But um I'm willing to take a little bit of a risk in in the hope that the possibility of doing kind of a version of C um will will pan out in time. And what I'm looking to do to alter it um is I I it's unlikely that the little bit at 100 Moffett is going to happen anytime soon. So but I I'm okay with the concept. So it's going to be unlikely the concept is there that's for the future alright it's close to transit. There are a lot of people who will live on that side if they're coming to transit then maybe they'll pass by. Right. Um I am really hoping that the existing businesses can stay. I kind of feel like the first block on the opposite side it is very shallow I'm thinking it'll just stay as is. It would be nice to just retain the businesses. Once you redevelop it becomes expensive they're probably going to have to go and I don't want to see that. So I'm thinking just that it would be likely with that depth that it remains small little neighborhood serving retail and services. And that would be great I think. Um maybe with the future study when that kicks in behind it that little piece... I don't know more could be done when you look at them together I don't know. But um I think for for now keeping it the way it is is fine but maintaining the existing businesses is a priority there. That would connect then to the node of the wider chunk that's highlighted in red which you guys are calling out to be the required. And this is where I'm I'm taking the risk and in the hopes that we get something I believe um people were hoping for a cafe I don't even know if a little grocery store could fit in there. That is my hope. Um and then the little yeah I think I'll leave it there. I think that is probably uh what I'm thinking is sort of the best for now.

[01:36:22] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Yin, so C nodes with required...

[01:36:25] Commissioner Joyce Yin: C nodes with required.

[01:36:27] Chair José Gutiérrez: That sounds good. Commissioner Pham.

[01:36:30] Commissioner Tina Pham: So I also thank my colleagues here for their discussion a lot of things um to think about and um learn from. So I appreciate that. Um for me a lot of alternative B and C make sense. Um especially with this area with its proximity to downtown and proximity to Caltrain and VTA. I think um having like a focused um mixed use um is important. And so I I think C is calling to me, although both B and C do um allow for more density. Um I uh agree with a lot of my colleagues that the deeper parcels probably have more opportunity for successful ground floor retail. And so I would like to you know agree or propose that um you know those parcels between um Central and Cypress Point um be required uh ground floor retail and then um potentially more like alternative A between Central and um Willowgate.

[01:37:51] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay, so on that I guess that's different from Commissioner Cranston's perspective. So yeah we have all like a lot of unique perspectives with uh the consensus being focusing on combo between B and C. Commissioner Cranston.

[01:38:06] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I just wanted to add to Commissioner Donahue's comment. The small parcels between right at Central and and Moffett on the west on the east side I thought about the fact that they're smaller. The fact that they're next to a larger property one of the things that's been talked about is encouraging consolidation and so it seemed having it right next to a big lot that those would be more likely to be pulled into the bigger lots. So that's why I in my head I had them in there but I'm not I understand your concern but I don't I'm not set on them being there but it was that was my thinking was that they might get pulled in in the future.

[01:38:48] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Yin?

[01:38:50] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Thanks, I forgot to add a couple things. I don't know if we're there yet or not or if you want to take the comments down but um given that there are some taller buildings I was hoping that we could step back when we're get closer to the the existing homes. And also encouraging the paseos and through ways to start to break up the grid a little bit more. These are long blocks. Um if we can get the parking tucked towards the back, shared access ways for service. Um there was one more... I just it just left my brain. It's okay, I'm going to let it go for now.

[01:39:47] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you Commissioner Yin. So okay so I think I'm gonna ask staff here for for uh mutual understanding. But what I'm still hearing is a combo of B and C with a lot of variety in terms of requirement or non-requirement. I don't see like a consensus on that end. Correct? Yeah. Okay.

[01:40:10] Commissioner Paul Donahue: I I think what I'm hearing Chair is a combo of A and B to make a different C uh is what I'm hearing. And so I think generally there's a coalescing around uh between Central Expressway and Central Avenue um the lower density option in option A. And then from Central Avenue to Cypress Point um the higher density option B approach to create that reformulated option B or option C rather. Um what I I didn't capture clearly from Commissioner Yin's comments was the thinking about the area between Central Expressway and Central Avenue. Heard you talk about trying to preserve the businesses and focus new development and commercial opportunities north of Central Avenue. But it wasn't clear to me if the implication of that was you were recommending perhaps a commercial only designation between Central Expressway and Central Avenue because we would need to have some discussion about our housing element obligations and minimum density objectives if that's if that was an implication of what you were describing.

[01:41:15] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Uh maybe I should clarify. Um I meant that it seemed the likelihood was that it would remain given that it is such a small parcel. I don't mind that it could go to housing with the requirement that the ground floor still be retail or neighborhood serving because it would then connect the node all the way to the train station which is I would think given what we're envisioning for this area would be a very kind of no-brainer of retail connection. If possible. Like you know it would be awesome if it would be the existing businesses that could return. But this is just my my thought. Um and also yes there is a future development behind it later and if we'll just leave it at that yeah. There's something maybe you could do.

[01:42:09] Commissioner Paul Donahue: And so I think there were maybe kind of three subcomponents that were remaining in my mind. Um what to do with 100 Moffett, I think generally folks were commissioners were preferring um maybe the lower density approach recognizing that the site may not redevelop, but any number of things could happen including calamities that cause the building to be uninhabitable and rebuilt or um otherwise destroyed heaven forbid, but long-term thinking here um it's a possibility. And then um what to do with those smaller parcels on the west side of Moffett that Commissioners Donahue and Cranston were discussing, sort of the different philosophies about the depth of the parcels, um whether to keep them at the lower or higher um densities. And then the gas station parcel there was some discussion I think about that being somewhat disconnected um in a certain perspective and whether a lower or higher density um was appropriate there. But I think if we can sort of quickly move through those pieces I think that's generally what I had heard in terms of closest thing to a majority opinion so far.

[01:43:11] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay, cool, because I didn't hear that. I heard like three and three. So I'm glad you chimed in because I I still don't get consensus either way. Um but if we can start with that that'd be great. Um look I'll I'll I wanna move things faster because it's 8:40. Um I don't want to be here till 10. Um 100 uh lower density is fine with me. Smaller parcels lower higher I'd go with um lower. Uh gas station lower or higher I'd go with lower. That's what I'm starting off with for those topics. Who would like to chime in next?

[01:43:45] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Or Chair potentially if there's a straw poll you might be able to gauge the level of support and if there's a specific piece...

[01:43:52] Chair José Gutiérrez: Yeah I was trying to avoid that. Okay. I'm not a big fan of straw polls but let's do it. Let's go with a straw poll. Who is in favor uh 100 for that 100 uh are we in favor of lower density? All those in favor raise your hands. One, two, three. So we're half. Uh the one on the corner to the west?

[01:44:14] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Yes.

[01:44:18] Chair José Gutiérrez: Are you still higher or lower?

[01:44:20] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Oh I'm fine leaving it the way it is in version C, alternative C.

[01:44:25] Chair José Gutiérrez: Lower. So then we have four. Because that that's moved along. Okay great. Yes.

[01:44:30] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Version C is that little bit is higher, right? In version C?

[01:44:32] Chair José Gutiérrez: Yes, in alternative C the 100 Moffett parcel is higher density.

[01:44:39] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Okay, so you're not lower. You're higher.

[01:44:42] Chair José Gutiérrez: Correct.

[01:44:44] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Okay, so we're still at three and three.

[01:44:49] Commissioner Paul Donahue: I... because it I I don't think it's gonna get redeveloped anyway and because of some comments that uh I heard earlier about how people may pass going to the train station, I'm okay with the higher. So I'm okay with what's shown in version C. I think that might break the log jam there.

[01:45:12] Chair José Gutiérrez: I don't know. It doesn't. I think we're still three and three.

[01:45:16] Commissioner Paul Donahue: No, I thought...

[01:45:18] Chair José Gutiérrez: Three, four... Oh, wait, so it let's do this again. For lower, raise your hand. One, two... just two. Higher? Okay. The highers have it.

[01:45:33] Chair José Gutiérrez: I'm in C spot run mode. So let's just go. Um okay, for the smaller parcels uh that would have been pointed out, all those in favor of higher. Raise your hand.

[01:45:46] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Christian, for clarity.

[01:45:49] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Thank you, Chair. Uh I think we were talking about the three parcels sort of on the northwest quadrant of Central Avenue and Moffett.

[01:46:00] Chair José Gutiérrez: So there was the discussion and I thought the closest thing to a majority to use my words um of the areas north of Central um to Cypress Point having the higher density right as the commissions reformulated alternative C. And then there was the dialogue between Commissioners Cranston and Donahue about whether those three parcels on the west side of Moffett closest to Central Avenue should be in the higher or lower density given the concern about parcel size and depth that lent itself to lower density being preferred between Central Avenue and Central Expressway.

[01:46:33] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um I guess like um one of the things I'm kind of concerned over is getting into kind of like a parcel by parcel discussion. Um I was thinking you know in terms of like aside from that corner um on the um of that Prometheus one because I fully agree I don't think it's going to get redeveloped anytime soon. So aside literally from that one corner um and having nodes go elsewhere um at least I'll just kind of throw it out there the speaking for myself version of this is almost like just pitching it back to staff with high level guidance being like hey like um this is my version of my opinion but um similarly with high level guidance as applicable to everyone else's opinion like hey go find a way to blend B and implement the node concept of C in a manner befitting this new blended version. At least that's the way I was thinking about it. Not specific on a parcel by parcel basis. If everyone else wants to go on a parcel by parcel basis I'm then obviously outvoted but I was just yeah thinking I'd throw that out there for starting higher and then going more granular.

[01:47:51] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Donahue.

[01:47:53] Commissioner Paul Donahue: And I I wasn't necessarily even agreeing with Commissioner Cranston on the other two large parcels. I I'm I'm still trying to uh come to some thoughts on that. I my inclination is actually to go with with plan C as as proposed actually at this point probably literally including 100 Moffett and the the other uh between Central and and Cypress Point and and then everything else kind of the lower density.

[01:48:25] Chair José Gutiérrez: So plan C, as proposed?

[01:48:27] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Yeah, kind of.

[01:48:29] Chair José Gutiérrez: Okay. Alright well you and me are on an agreement on that front. So okay, so Christian having heard that, what's your take now? Because I had understood also that the difference of opinion between Bill and Paul with how they looked at the sites was still evident. Um I still don't think that we have consensus on that front, but I still hear something different between Commissioner Donahue and Commissioner Cranston. Um with a little bit of overlap in general with what everyone else has mentioned. The two clear cuts that are pretty distinguishable are Commissioner Donahue's and me with C nodes in general as proposed. Commissioner Yin.

[01:49:08] Commissioner Joyce Yin: I will just third that then. C.

[01:49:12] Chair José Gutiérrez: So we have three for C nodes as proposed. Okay. Is there a fourth? And if not, can we still move forward with that perspective at least for now? I think so, but I'd like to give an opportunity uh to the team to weigh in if we're clear on what we're proceeding with.

[01:49:34] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: I think so, but I'd like to give an opportunity to the team to weigh in if we're clear on what we're proceeding with.

[01:49:44] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: Um, we can certainly describe the deliberation process and the major issues that arose. Uh if there isn't uh you know if if the commission is deadlocked and can't find a um a majority uh recommendation, uh so we're not going to we're not going to hold up this process because uh you know the commission can't can't reach a majority. Um but uh we would need to kind of provide a little bit more detail about some of the issues that arose and and why the commission wasn't able to come to a majority.

[01:50:28] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Cranston.

[01:50:31] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So if I can ask the three who prefer C as is, what's your concern about including the west side of Moffett? In that Cypress to Central section.

[01:50:48] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Oh for me personally it's just the parcels are very small and then behind it you have very low density homes. So the way it is... No, and that one too. It's just not deep. It's very hard to I mean it's just as deep as the sort of first block on the East Side. Um so I'm I'm saying just keep with the four to eight or four to seven.

[01:51:18] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. And I when I visited the sites they seemed as deep, just as deep as the parcels at the corner of Moffett and Central where the Prometheus project is today and those are pretty large. So I I guess I wasn't concerned about the depth of that and I don't know whether staff is has the details on what Prometheus is proposing for the the plaza there but it's a pretty dense proposal right now um and could easily be in the range of the high density um after the density bonus is applied. So I think we're going to get that whether we zone it that way or not. Um but for the properties immediately to the left I mean north at least in the farthest northern parcel along there the one next to the the the uh mobile home park, the the hotel is fairly short you're correct um and that's so but it's a it's a fairly large site. And when you it's a little deceptive when you look at the 100 Moffett because it looks like one big parcel but it's actually three distinct buildings each pretty large in its form factor. So I wasn't they're they're nowhere near as shallow. I I could care I could go either way on the three smaller ones in my mind it was if we're going to do that let's do that block and be consistent so the block was there rather than and then see if there's an opportunity to you know maybe the whoever owns the hotel property could go in and say can I buy this, can I buy this and we get a bigger bigger thing there. So that was I don't but I don't feel super strongly about those three smaller parcels. It just in my mind it was I like do the whole thing in one way and not split blocks apart in different different ways. So that's in my mind why it was there. So I was not worried about the depth of the larger lots on the west side of Moffett because they were fairly similar to the to the lots at 100 Moffett uh that are already pretty large and could be larger buildings in the future. So.

[01:52:00] Chair José Gutiérrez: So, having heard what Commissioner Cranston just shared, does that sway either Commissioner Yin or Donahue?

[01:52:06] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Nope. Okay.

[01:52:08] Chair José Gutiérrez: So we're still at three and three. What say you staff? Because I know right now that... see here's the thing. I like to go at the higher level. So when you give me options A, B, or C with requirement or no requirement, I'm going to go that route. I'm not going to get into specifics and parcel things out because we're not at that stage. And this is going to be modified later on anyway. So it's straightforward. A, B, C, required, not required. Boom, next. Uh, but we're not at that level here. Not right now.

[01:52:47] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Yeah, thank you Chair. I'm not sure I have more to offer the commission at this point. I think there's been an extensive dialogue that can inform our description of the debate or deliberation uh for City Council so they can hopefully glean from that um some relevant factors to to use in their own deliberation.

[01:53:05] Chair José Gutiérrez: Great, so let's move on to EPC question number two. What are the EPC's priorities for streetscape improvements on Moffett Boulevard? Questions.

[01:53:13] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Did we settle on... oh, there was a question on the gas station. Did we answer that?

[01:53:23] Chair José Gutiérrez: I did think that was the third subject area. Right, so let's delve into that. Who would like to opine? Or did we want to do the straw poll on the gas station, the parcel... are we looking at that for higher density? Are we in favor of that?

[01:53:58] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Alternative C has that as the lower of the two and I'm fine with that. I'm fine with the staff recommendation on that parcel.

[01:54:08] Commissioner Joyce Yin: I'll go with that.

[01:54:11] Chair José Gutiérrez: As will I. And we see consensus? Okay great, thank you commissioners. Now we will move on to EPC question number two. What are the EPC priorities for the streetscape improvements on Moffett Boulevard? We'll go with questions. I'm going to make this fast. Hey, I didn't see in the staff report that you all had like a limitation on we can only do three or four. I'm fine with the way it's presented. That's where I'm starting at. I don't have any questions. Unless the question is, were there limitations, can we only do a certain number of these? That's the question.

[01:54:44] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Well I think the key part for staff to gain from the commission tonight is a priority order. Uh we believe it's likely that you cannot do all of them uh throughout the precise plan area and so we don't know yet because that technical level of analysis has not been performed how many of them we can uh include. But getting a priority order to uh strive to include when we do that level of analysis is the sort of high level policy feedback we're trying to get from the commission tonight.

[01:55:13] Chair José Gutiérrez: Great. So that's useful, very useful to have as information. So having said that, um I appreciate that. And um now I know where I'm leaning towards. Anyone else have... Oh here we go. Commissioner Nuñez. Vice Chair Nuñez. Sorry about that.

[01:55:27] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: No worries. Uh my priority would be my priority ranking... I'm only going to go three. Um wider sidewalks, protected bicycle lanes, and the landscape boulevard with medians.

[01:55:43] Chair José Gutiérrez: Commissioner Cranston.

[01:55:45] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Can I ask a question? I thought we were going to have some questions for the guy in the back.

[01:55:53] Chair José Gutiérrez: To follow up to Commissioner Pham's question about the right of way. Are there any restrictions on what we do in the streetscape across the right of way? Because the only place that the Hetch Hetchy right of way affects this is it where it crosses right there at the Middlefield Moffett intersection. Okay? So if we do a streetscape that, we say we want to do a particular streetscape in that area, do we have to go to SFPUC to say... are they going to say no you can't put a protected bike lane or no you can't put a landscape boulevard in there? How does that work on roads, not parks?

[01:56:35] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Orrego: Uh thank you for the question Commissioner. Uh again Ed Orrego, Assistant Public Works Director or otherwise known as the guy in the back. Um specific to the Hetch Hetchy right-of-way, the SFPUC right-of-way, we would need to get permission from the SFPUC in order to do installments across, um, yeah, across um Moffett Boulevard where the Hetch Hetchy crosses. Um because we do control the right of way for street purposes, um we have more um control into the types of improvements that are consistent with a typical roadway for that portion. So the restrictions such as um protected bike lanes, um we would have to discuss with the SFPUC on um whether those could be hardscape or it would have to be um some temporary improvements in the sense of um you know rubber plastic uh rubber curbs, plastic delineators or kind of that case. But we we're we're about to broach that topic with the um SFPUC with the Moffett Complete Streets project where we're proposing to put in some protected bike lanes with exactly that, the rubber curbs or plastic delineators. Um so we think we can we can do that. Again it's within our purview, it's consistent with other streetscape standards that we apply across the roadways.

[01:58:03] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So of the items on here, I like the wider sidewalks and streets. I like the protected bike lanes. Um, since we're talking about the entire area here, I am not a fan of landscape boulevards with medians, okay? Quite frankly it's a waste of space. You lose space that could be used for the protected bike lanes is taken away by the by the median, okay? Um, there's some areas like Middlefield that have that are really wide further all the way through the city where that works, you might you might be able to get away with it on Moffett itself, but none of these side streets um would make sense to have a landscape boulevard or the median. So I'm not a I would rather have I would rather use that space for the protected bike lanes than to put it in the middle of the street where it's not going to be used. And then my only note on on-street parking is, so it came up when we looked at the the development at the corner of El Camino Real and San Antonio. Um, the the reason I have a new car is because some freaking Amazon driver was parked out in the street, okay? And if we allow if there's no space on any of these streets for people to for for trucks you know Amazon trucks, UPS trucks, or whatever to come in and short-term, that's going to be a problem because it's going to push them into the in traffic lanes which is dangerous. So I'm not interested in what you think of as on on on-street parking for everybody, but I do think we have to allow some spots particularly if it goes residential, a place for the Amazon truck or the UPS truck or the mailman, because since the Amitis opened in the Dean and San Antonio, driving along San Antonio going towards Los Altos is dangerous because there's always there, and there's um Uber drivers going into Amitis picking up their pizzas. So if we don don't allow something in that area for some you know for short-term commercial parking that's a problem. So I'm not I'm not advocating for big on on-street parking, but I do think as you're designing your streetscape you need to allow something for the fact that we're buying stuff online, it's being delivered by trucks and people that just park in the middle of pulling the middle of the street making it dangerous for the rest of it. Whether dangerous for a bike, dangerous for cars, as well. So that'd be my only caveat on that. I we don't need the four vehicle travel lanes at all, and I definitely like protected bike lanes better than than uh buffered bike lanes buffered bike lanes so that's my comments.

[01:59:00] Commissioner Paul Donahue: So yeah I walked up and down that area the other day and I initially was was wondering why it went all the way to um to the um Stevens Creek Trail instead of to just like 85 or something like that until I walked past there and went across and then realized oh there's there's no sidewalk. I can't walk back I have to and I I didn't know that but I had kind of just forgotten. Um so uh yes having wider sidewalks or maybe a sidewalk at all uh I think would be uh would be good. There were there were places where I felt that it was uh impinged by uh telephone poles uh a bench for a bus stop and things like that where having a little bit more space would would uh make it flow better uh be more pedestrian friendly. Um the uh protected uh bicycle lanes I agree are are are great um that is something that that's not a very it's not pedestrian friendly it's not bicycle friendly uh so much in that area uh that would uh be a great improvement. Um I I am a fan of landscaped boulevards with medians. uh I know there are there are portions of Middlefield that have like a 50 foot wide median or something like that I agree that would be excessive and certainly here there's not really enough space to do that. um but I think having some sort of a a landscaped median um breaks up the urban nature uh a bit and and softens the uh visually softens it and and makes it um more uh pleasing uh to to be there. Um you know if if it's a choice between protected bicycle lanes and landscaped boulevard I guess I would I would take the the bicycle lanes but um but I think that um that the two things can coexist. Uh I don't know if the four uh vehicle travel lanes are necessary I mean if you don't have four travel lanes I think you could have you could have both the median and the bike lanes. Um Castro Street used to be four lanes before before I lived here. Um but uh and I think that Moffett then is the continuation of that. Now Castro Street's well Castro Street's closed but uh it um Castro Street went down to to two and Moffett continued to be four. I I think that um uh I don't have the the traffic counts or things I'm sure Public Works would would uh you know study all of this stuff but assuming that that uh um it's not you know an a major highway kind of going through there uh that that the two lanes could be uh sufficient uh and then that would allow for the the protected bike lane and that the uh landscape median. So I would I think uh second the the one two four uh options.

[02:00:26] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you sir. Commissioner Pham.

[02:00:29] Commissioner Tina Pham: Um I had a few questions um some of which uh carry on from the discussion from my colleagues. Um my first question was to ask staff to provide more detail about the Moffett complete streets and Middlefield road complete streets capital projects. Um we've heard a lot about potential road diet or four lanes versus less. Um is any of that already considered in these projects and what's the timeline and scope of these projects?

[02:00:58] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Orrego: Uh thank you for the question Commissioner. Uh again Ed Orrego, Assistant Public Works Director and City Engineer. Um so we have um there's two complete street uh road projects um currently active right now. We have the Moffett Complete Streets as well as the Middlefield Complete Streets. Um each effectively are a resurfacing project um and they're both federally grant funded um through the uh MTC's uh One Bay Area grant program that we applied for and were successful to get the grants. Um but let me walk you through the each of the complete streets components and I can provide um details. Um so I'll start with the Moffett Boulevard Complete Streets. Again as I mentioned it's a resurfacing project. Effectively from uh Middlefield Road to the northerly city limits at the RT Jones intersection which is crossing over 101 um entering into the kind of Moffett NASA area. Um it's going to install class four protected bikeways and then with class two um bikeways at those pinch points. There's right of way restrictions and we can only fit so much. Um we are closing a sidewalk gap um on the east side um of Moffett between Stevens Creek Trail and Leong. There's currently a sort of a walked dirt pathway that we're gonna we're gonna improve with the sidewalk. Um we just recently completed the concept plans for um the Moffett Complete Streets and we're moving now into final design. We went to the Bicycle Advisory Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee and to the Council Transportation Committee and so now we have um direction to move forward. Um so we're expecting the design to complete by the end of 2025 um or early 26 and then that would go into construction in early 27. Um the both of again as I mentioned both are federally funded projects. Um changing the scope of the project would require us to go through the um federal review process again. Um considering the climate of federal grants right now we are very careful on just implementing what got approved. Um some community members have echoed their requests for a road diet along Moffett but again um we are uh it's considered a very high risk to go through the federal process again for the grant um to introduce new or change components. Um we are already hearing this last week about some new information about transportation grants and um they're gonna be scrutinized even further. So we're just looking again just to implement what we got the grant for. Um this

[02:03:15] Commissioner Tina Pham: I had a follow up question based on what you said. Um so would it be right to assume if we were to add landscape boulevards with medians and that's not already in the scope that that would be difficult to do?

[02:03:54] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Orrego: Yeah, again it'd be very high risk. So staff would not recommend um changing the scope of the either um complete street project because they're both federally funded and there's some pretty significant scrutiny on all federally funded projects and what gets implemented. So we want to just maintain the course with what got approved. Um introducing new scope elements is something that we would not recommend.

[02:04:19] Commissioner Tina Pham: That's great context. Okay.

[02:04:25] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Orrego: Yep, I have similar um information for Middlefield. Um again uh predominantly a resurfacing project. Um we're going from Moffett Boulevard to Ferguson Drive as the resurfacing component, but um we're going even further with that with the um bikeway component. We're um proposing to install class four protected bikeways from Moffett all the way to Bernardo. Um we have some protected intersection improvements at four intersections. So that includes Moffett, Easy Street, Tyrella, and Whisman Road. Um we're in the concept phase right now. Um we expect to move into the final design at the end of the summer. Um and then construction would start trailing the Moffett Complete Streets project in 2027.

[02:05:15] Commissioner Tina Pham: Thank you. Um I had a different question relating to the Stevens Creek trail. Um can I have a discussion from staff about the existing connections and then any potential future connections, um especially for bike and ped?

Segment 4

[02:15:38] Commissioner Tina Pham: Um, I'm not a fan of landscape boulevards with medians, um, just because I just don't think there's going to be enough space. I think it would be a luxury, maybe on bigger roads, um, but in this area, um, I don't really see it happening. Um, yeah, those are my thoughts.

[02:15:57] Chair Jos00e9 Guti00e9rrez: Thank you Commissioner Pham. Commissioner Yin.

[02:16:01] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Thank you. Um, I'm excited about streetscape stuff because I think it just allows us as a community to start connecting different places, and if we're connecting the greenways, that is exciting for me. Um, as far as priorities, for sure, pedestrians, wider sidewalks, trees, native plantings. If we have the protected bikeway already, let's just continue it. Um, if it can be broken up with more greenery, native plantings, or even another all00e9e of trees, even better.

[02:16:44] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Um, road diet is out, I guess, from Moffett, that is too bad, but maybe something can be done in the future. Um, and I am not that against having some parking, because if you go to the Castro downtown area, you'll see that a lot of people utilize the parking for whatever we want as retail. Constantly, people are getting into those spots. I don't think I've seen it empty on high times, for sure. It's convenient and it helps the retail. So, if it can be done in a way that looks like it is park-like, even better that's in the design. But um, I think some parking wouldn't hurt. Honestly, it would help with the economic vitality of the area. Now that's where I stand.

[02:17:32] Chair Jos00e9 Guti00e9rrez: I like your vision. So, I am for wider sidewalks, number one. Protected bicycle lanes, number two. And then parking in general. But this is for staff just to ponder. Quick story, I moved over to California from Latham and California, and I have to agree, the one thing I've been noticing over and over again, because I used to be at the towers off of, across the street from Jack in the Box. So there was no issue with service vehicles for deliveries, either Lyfts, DoorDash, Amazon, FedEx. There's plenty of space there. But when you go into the more congested area neighborhoods, streets like Latham, in between California and Escuela, and Rengstorff all the way up to over by Target, and the apartment communities or even condo communities, there is no space.

[02:17:40] Commissioner Joyce Yin: And just in general, anything to connect the greenery, the nodes of green. This whole area seems very, very much, um, it already has a sense of park-likeness in a sense. We're going to change it with the density, but I don't want to take it all the way so that it's just San Antonio, you know, another place in Mountain View. I want it to be and have its own identity, which I think is part of the vision. So, Stevens Creek Trail is running right along that. If we can maintain access, maintain the connections of green from Stevens Creek Trail onto Moffett, through Middlefield, all of it, and then get to maybe one day the transit center is also an urban park, that would be wonderful. Thank you.

[02:18:34] Chair Jos00e9 Guti00e9rrez: I've had a lot of issues with Amazon in particular, and their drivers being parked at the entryway of the driveways that we use to park and place our vehicles for where we live. And we're honking, or people are sometimes even yelling, telling them to move along. Right? And when they show up, it gets pretty ugly sometimes. Because the guys don't get it, right? And I don't know why, you would think. So anything we can do to alleviate that concern, that issue, because it's real for some neighborhoods, more so than others for obvious reasons, we need to work on how we look at parking and also assessing what we can have for that type of vehicle.

[02:19:15] Chair Jos00e9 Guti00e9rrez: If there's a way to do a double, where you would have, I've seen this in Mexico, in Mexico City, DF, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, same thing. In Guadalajara. Where they have parking for residents during the day for certain hours, or throughout, let's say 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., part of that is then reserved for business service vehicles, where they can also double park, or they can use that space specifically for that type of delivery. Now I don't want to add on to what you have to do. I'm just throwing that out there, take it or leave it, it's up to you. But it was brought up. So that's where we stand.

[02:19:51] Chair Jos00e9 Guti00e9rrez: Having said that, it looks like we have a majority in support of wider sidewalks with trees and pedestrian amenities, protected bicycle lanes, and it seems we have three people in support of parking in general. One with an emphasis on business delivery vehicle parking, actually two with an emphasis on business delivery vehicle parking. And then the others had one or two supporters, and that would be for the buffered bicycle lanes, which I only heard one person, and landscape boulevard with medians I heard two people. Let's see, you.

[02:20:29] Planning Manager Eric Anderson: That's exactly what I heard.

[02:20:32] Chair Jos00e9 Guti00e9rrez: Awesome. Great. So, I believe with that, we're done with question number one and question number two. We've just given the summary. And now I, if I understand things correctly, we will move on to new business items 6.1, Advisory Body Input on the Fiscal Years 2025-26 and 2026-27 Council Work Plan Potential Projects. So first we'll have a staff presentation, then questions by the EPC, followed by public comment. At the closure of public comment, the commission will then deliberate and take action. Staff presentation from Assistant Community Developer Director Lindsey Hagen, the floor is yours.

[02:21:15] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: My apologies. Good evening Commissioners. My name is Lindsey Hagen, Assistant Community Development Director. I'm here tonight on behalf of the City Manager's Office to talk to the commission about the upcoming Fiscal Years 2025 through 2027 Council Work Plan. Specifically tonight to get input on some of the preliminary project ideas to be included in the work plan. For some of the commissioners who may not be as familiar with our Council Work Plan, essentially our Council Work Plan is a two-year timeline document where Council selects a series of projects that are really related to these seven strategic priorities. These priorities have been in place since roughly 2021. And essentially every project that gets put into the work plan is advancing one or more of these strategic priorities.

[02:22:05] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: In terms of how we are approaching the work plan this year with the Council, the Council's been really clear about wanting to have a slightly different approach from what's been done in the past. Historically, the work plan has been a collaboration between staff and Council in selecting projects that go into the work plan. And so what that's meant historically is that we've had somewhere between 40 to 70 projects on these two-year work cycles. And our abilities to really achieve completion of those projects has been roughly around 50%. We've been very aggressive in our work plans and they've been quite robust. So this year, kind of looking at a bigger picture, Council's been really interested in narrowing down the work plan to a size that feels a lot more achievable utilizing the resources and capacity that we have in place and available now. And so really the emphasis in this work plan cycle is about quality over quantity of projects. And so really what that means is we're targeting sort of 10 to 14 projects to be on this list. And really again the emphasis on projects that are advancing and achieving the strategic priorities, and really trying to approach the work plan from a perspective of projects that help advance other city efforts that are already underway as well, which I'll speak to in a moment about how there are existing plans or projects on the work plan. And then really again, it's about right-sizing what we think we can achieve in a two-year cycle.

[02:23:55] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: And so just to kind of go over this graphic which is going to be part of the work plan, is this idea of an iceberg. So at the top you have the strategic priority, in this case Economic Vitality. And from there you know, there might be a project or two related to advancing Economic Vitality. So in this case I'll just pick the Economic Vitality Strategy which is a project that's on the work plan. And so from there to actually sort of implement that vitality strategy, it ends up with a bunch of initiatives that we work on. So whether that's a collection of zoning amendments or online permitting or other things that help us achieve Economic Vitality. Those are sort of a collection of initiatives. And then really everything below the waterline becomes sort of the ongoing services and programs that essentially become embedded in our city organization. And so this is really trying to show this idea that we start with a project, but it really does sort of enlarge into a series of other programs and operational factors that feed into how we operate as a city.

[02:25:31] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: So looking at the timeline of how this work plan is developed, it starts with a Council Subcommittee late last year. They essentially have provided sort of the framework of how we're developing this process or this plan. That process has been sort of accepted by all of Council at the meeting in January. And from there, Council actually proposed their project ideas. They were given up to a maximum of three ideas that they could come forward with. And those ideas could include either existing projects or new project ideas. And the idea behind this is really that the projects on the work plan are really ones that have the highest priority, the highest focus, the highest visibility, and oftentimes the greatest resources. So that's why sometimes you know, on the list you'll see existing projects where the idea being a council member is interested in having that still be an elevated project in terms of attention and resources. So that's why you're seeing some of these existing projects on the proposal list. So at that February meeting, Council discussed all the Council members' three ideas and then from there decided what would move on to the phase we're in now, which is essentially a two-part phase. A group of us, city staff, are going to different advisory bodies and getting input on the project ideas and again really trying to get sort of the top picks, top three picks from each commissioner. And we're tallying that information across all of the advisory bodies and that will feed into what is shared with Council in April. Additionally, at the same time, staff is undergoing our own analysis of these project ideas, sort of identifying what kind of resources, what kind of timing and other things, which I'll talk more about in a minute as well. So in April all of this will culminate into a study session where Council will actually select the final projects to include on their work plan. And then ultimately the work plan gets adopted with the budget in June. And then the bottom line here just shows that every six months we do provide a report to Council and they can provide any discussion on the progress of these projects.

[02:27:53] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: So I sort of touched on this about the staff analysis that's currently underway, but we are looking at for example, what kind of staff capacity might some of these projects require, what the duration or timing of when we could start or think we could end the project or complete the project. We're also looking at factors like cost of the project, revenue potentially from the project, or is it discretionary or non-discretionary. If there's some component of state law that relates to it, for example. Or another example is whether the project might be related to other city efforts underway. And so that's sort of the piece that staff right now, all city departments are really doing that piece right now. And as I mentioned, this will all come together in the April 22nd Council Study Session for them to decide. Just a note to kind of, again the effort here is just to ask each member to identify the top three projects and so I will tally them as we go.

[02:29:06] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: And then last thing I wanted to mention here, so this is the 16 projects that are currently proposed on the work plan. I did receive a series of questions from some commissioners. I do want to just mention that we're at a pretty preliminary stage, so there's not any scoping that's really been done. We're doing that sort of now on these projects. So unfortunately, like detailed questions about the specific elements of these projects, we haven't really gotten to that stage yet. So I may not be able to answer that. However, if it does help the commission, I do have maybe a sentence or two about each one if that would help or benefit the commission in any way. But with that, I will pass it on to the Chair. Thank you.

[02:29:49] Chair Jos00e9 Guti00e9rrez: Thank you, Lindsey. Much appreciate your help and time. Um, at this point in time, I believe... no, I always get this confused. I don't know why, but I'm thinking at this point in time we're taking public comment on the item. The sheet doesn't have that, just FYI. So if anyone in attendance would like to provide comments on this item, please fill out a yellow speaker card and provide it to the EPC clerk. If anyone on Zoom would like to provide a comment on this item, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone. Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with star six. Madam Clerk?

[02:30:44] City Clerk Heather Glaser: No speakers at this time.

[02:30:47] Chair Jos00e9 Guti00e9rrez: Are you sure? Yes. Okay. And there's no one here that's willing to opine on that. Board Member Lambert, would you like to opine? Questions? No? Okay, great. Thank you for being here by the way, Mr. President. Okay, let's go off, go on then with EPC questions. Who would like to start? Thank you. Commissioner Donahue.

[02:31:19] Commissioner Paul Donahue: So the Stevens Creek trail extension, is that from Dale Heatherstone to the high school, or is what's the extent of that?

[02:31:32] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: You might already stump me on question one. Um, it does definitely start there. I apologize, I don't know the end point, but it is that particular area.

[02:31:45] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Past Dale Heatherstone. Okay. Okay, what's a smart water meter?

[02:31:54] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Another great question. It's essentially meters that, um, you can, um, it doesn't require somebody to go up physically and read the meter. Okay. You can, uh, it has other devices you can kind of gather data electronically.

[02:32:08] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Right. Okay. I already have such a water meter actually I think. I don't think anybody comes to my, they installed a new meter like 10 years ago or something, so maybe, but maybe that's not citywide, I don't know. Um, maybe I'm the guinea pig, I don't know. Um...

[02:32:25] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Just if I could add, it is not currently citywide.

[02:32:29] Commissioner Paul Donahue: It's not, okay, it's not citywide. But it is in some areas apparently.

[02:32:32] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: And it is a project that, um, staff, it's actually already starting, um, in terms of preparing an RFP to get a vendor to look at options for it. So this is an example of a project where staff is already sort of starting it.

[02:32:47] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Okay. Um, and I think I know what the other things are. Thanks.

[02:32:57] Chair Jos00e9 Guti00e9rrez: Thank you sir. Commissioner Cranston. Actually, I apologize. Vice Chair Nu00f1ez.

[02:33:02] Vice Chair Alex Nu00f1ez: My priorities would be two, three and four.

[02:33:08] Chair Jos00e9 Guti00e9rrez: So no questions? No? Okay. Commissioner Cranston.

[02:33:16] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So one of the things I was confused by is stuff that's in progress but not yet done, does that go away?

[02:33:25] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Um, great question. I meant to cover it in my presentation, so I appreciate it. Um, so no. So things that are um, either on the work plan or even let's say existing projects that don't make the cut, they will still be projects that staff are working on. The key difference is the pace at which we work on it, and may get deprioritized so it won't be worked on as quickly. Um, so that's essentially the difference.

[02:33:54] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So the fact that items two and three are already on the work plan, if we don't support those it doesn't mean they go away. They're still there. Because I mean they're part of the housing element and we have to do them anyway. So I guess that's why I was confused. It's like why would I vote for something that's already in the plan, is what I was trying to rationalize.

[02:34:13] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Sure, it's essentially that it will get done, you know, more commitment and resources are being put behind it for it to get done within ideally this two-year timespan, a two-year cycle.

[02:34:26] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. And if there's already requirements in the housing element that it has to get done in that two-year time period, how does putting more resources to get it done in that two-year time period change the fact that it has to be done in that two-year time period? Why is it, why would it be done, any more likely to be done, because it's already a housing element priority? That's what I'm confused with.

[02:34:47] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: It allows us to deprioritize other work. If it's in the Council work plan, that means we're deprioritizing other things that may be um on the existing work plan or other work that may be underway, it would be deprioritized to allow for staffing and resources and funding to go towards this.

[02:35:06] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So if we don't want to deprioritize things on the list, can we vote for negative numbers on this to say no, to vote against what other people are advocating on this new list?

[02:35:15] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: I will take the feedback that you provide and pass it along.

[02:35:19] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I'm asking because there's a lot of really good projects on the existing project list and I'm, I don't think I have a smart water meter but would I put it ahead of the parks and rec strategic plan? I don't know that I would, and that's why I'm trying to rationalize this list against this list, and I don't, it's not, I'm not sure how to do that quite frankly. Help me.

[02:35:48] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: I think another way to think about this is we only have so many, so much staff capacity to do the work that we're trying to do. Um, and so the projects that get placed into this council work plan are ones that will be highly publicized, will have measurable performance tracking done publicly. Um, and will be uh likely to get more resources whether that's funding, you know, for consultant help or other things to ensure that it happens um to the greatest effort it can within this two-year cycle, versus um some of the other work that we do where it may just happen at a slower pace. It may take longer um to you know, complete that work. And it just may not get the priority or um high visibility as as those items on the work plan.

[02:36:42] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: Chair, if I may add some additional context. Good evening again, Christian Murdock, Community Development Director. Um, I think the feedback I want to offer at this point is this is more of an art than a science. I think that's one way to think about this. It's not a formulaic approach, right, to priorities, to this will get done and something else won't get done.

[02:37:02] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: The other part like to your concern or inquiry about like project three, update to R3 zoning standards. There are components of that project that are called for in the housing element and there are components that are not. And if we didn't prioritize that for example as a city, we may deprioritize aspects of that that are not required to be done in the housing element. And then the third piece is even those items that have deadlines in the housing element, by and large those are not mandated deadlines where there's a particular consequence for not meeting the deadline. So while we strive to do that and we want to prioritize and resource those programs to complete them on the specified deadlines in the housing element, there is an ability to deprioritize those programs uh in the interest of pursuing other work that is higher priority. And the consequences you know may be determined later, but there's not a strict consequence in most cases. And so prioritizing something like the R3 does have value even though aspects of the R3 update are also in the housing element. So I hope that helps frame the issue a little bit more.

[02:38:27] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. Um, next question. Um, several of these are under the organizational strength and good governance categories. It kind of gives me the impression like, man, are we messed up? Because none of these, all of these are like housekeeping things. And I'm just like, okay, is this, the fact that it's listed as a priority, do they know something that we don't? I don't know how that I would prioritize you know, um amending the city charter over some of these other things, because I don't, I don't have any context around it, and I mean unless you're going to go through those four items, but it's like update to council policies and contracts. It's, I guess I don't perceive that those are really messed up, but the fact that there are four of them on here makes me wonder maybe they are really messed up and I just don't know that they're really messed up and I should be voting for those. So can you help me out on those?

[02:39:25] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Yeah, I appreciate the question Commissioner. I think an important aspect that Mountain View really strives for is what I would label continuous improvement, and I think these are kind of getting at some of that. Um, some of them are housekeeping-like items in terms of cleaning up the code for example. Um, a lot of that stuff, you know, I think the example used by the council member whose project idea this was is it's like cleaning out your attic, no one wants to take the time to clean out their attic. Um, but it's something eventually that has to get done. And so you know, some of this is a bit of that.

[02:40:05] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: But I think the other element here too, in terms of like the revenue measure or the charter uh city charter amendment, is really about um modernizing language that's in the charter, um removing outdated provisions and sort of just generally cleaning it up. Um, for example there's like a lot of gendered pronouns and other things like that in the charter. Um, and the revenue measure is one, um again really looking at trying to find other revenue streams for the city to provide um you know the services that we're trying to provide here. So um, so those are kind of just a little more context around the items that have been identified for the work plan.

[02:40:53] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I have an Eichler, I don't have an attic, so I don't have to worry about that. Next. Um, what the heck is Pavement Condition Index 71? What the heck does that mean?

[02:41:04] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Um, so it's related to essentially a roadway maintenance kind of standard or threshold of how they speak about roadway maintenance. Um, right now we're at a pavement index of 67. So to get to 71, it provides more funding opportunities for the city that we could receive funding for um other transportation improvements. Um, and so um that's kind of the interest that's driving that project idea is if we were to increase our pavement index, then it gives us more funding opportunities.

[02:41:38] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. I have to think about this before I give you my rankings.

[02:41:43] Chair Jos00e9 Guti00e9rrez: Great. Commissioner Pham.

[02:41:45] Commissioner Tina Pham: Um, I had a few questions, some of which I submitted earlier. So continuing on about uh PCI, um, what is the approximate annual paving budget like millions per year and what portion of that is funded by the general fund?

[02:42:00] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: So I appreciate that question. I think at the end of the day, I won't be able to answer it other than to say I think it would definitely cost tens of millions of dollars for us to get to this 71 um number. Um, and you know, it would also cost money therefore to maintain it at that level. We're talking, you know, tens of millions.

[02:42:24] Commissioner Tina Pham: Okay. Um, and then I had a question about city charter amendment and revenue measure. Um, what amendments are being proposed and are amendments needed for the revenue measure, I'm not sure if those two items are connected, and then what revenue, what would the purpose be for new revenue?

[02:42:46] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Um, those are great questions. Um, in terms of the charter amendments, like I said, a lot of it is really about cleanup. Um, in terms of the revenue measure, so the two are not linked inherently. Um, I will say there are some types of revenue measures where they require charter amendments, but um at this point there aren't there isn't specific scope in terms of what the revenue measure would include or not include. Um, so those details haven't been fleshed out, it's really about whether the city wants to put resources behind pursuing a revenue measure which is quite resource intense to do.

[02:43:28] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: And I think there there may be some economies in many cases to having more than one local measure on a particular ballot, and so if the city were to consider one and not the other there may be a missed opportunity to lower the overall cost of having two items together.

[02:43:46] Commissioner Tina Pham: Okay, thanks. A few more questions. Um, related to the smart meters, do you happen to know the percentage of water meters already converted to smart meters?

[02:43:55] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Unfortunately that would be a question I wouldn't know the answer to.

[02:43:58] Commissioner Tina Pham: No worries. Um, what about number of meter readers employed by the city?

[02:44:03] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Um, again, I'm sorry. I don't know the answer to that question.

[02:44:07] Commissioner Tina Pham: No worries. Last question, um, would this item include water smart software like a smart aspect of using the meters, um, that uh residents or businesses could kind of see how their uses compare to others?

[02:44:26] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Um, yes. So it would include the software aspect where people can track data um and also detect leaking.

[02:44:35] Commissioner Tina Pham: Okay. Um, next question is about the Stevens Creek trail, um funding. Uh, what are the agreements being proposed, like who are they with and what are the terms? Um...

[02:44:49] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Um, so the terms uh the agreements haven't been you know started yet, so the terms haven't been identified. But um, in terms of the parties, it would be with um the city of Sunnyvale primarily, um and then I believe there may be a component of grant funding from I believe the VTA.

[02:45:18] Commissioner Tina Pham: Um, last question is related to the natural gas phase out. Um, what's been done with that item so far, and um, are there known regulatory hurdles, and um, what are some other neighboring cities doing on that?

[02:45:36] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Um, it's a great question. I think with the lawsuit that came out of the city of Berkeley, um, the city did have to suspend our prohibition on natural gas appliances and new construction. Um, and uh so there is definitely a legal framework here in terms of um, things that we have to consider uh with this type of project. Um, in terms of other cities, um, there isn't really other cities that have formally taken action on something to this scale. Um, but I would say cities like the city of Berkeley are looking at this area as well. Um, but we don't really have any kind of prototype to point to for example.

[02:46:22] Commissioner Tina Pham: Alright, thanks for humoring my questions.

[02:46:25] Chair Jos00e9 Guti00e9rrez: Commissioner Yin.

[02:46:28] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Yes, a couple of questions have already been answered, so I think I only have one more, and that was um, there are several organizational strength and good governance items. I was curious if by doing these, this would then make other tasks much easier. And if staff had like one in mind, I don't want you to, I don't mean to push, put you on the spot to speak for all of staff, but if there was one that stood out as this one would make everyone's life easier and things would just go smoother for all the projects across the board, let me know. Which one would that be?

[02:47:10] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: I appreciate the question. I think, um, I'll be honest, staff's really trying not to be involved in providing, you know, in this work plan in the way we have been in the past. But I would say really any of the measures you see on there in terms of the code cleanup or or um you know, the other example uh the design standards or other things, I mean really at the end of the day a lot of those things can streamline and can improve things for city staff and and the community. Um, so I think you know...

[02:47:46] Commissioner Joyce Yin: And um in your analogy I'm going to just continue with it for the attic cleaning. The things in the charter are those things that are going to, that need to be cleaned up, these are things that are just like slightly in the way and annoying or is it something that's going to be transformational?

[02:48:08] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Great question, I think... again, not having dived deep into what that scope might entail, I will say some of the examples that have been highlighted, um particularly from the council member who proposed the project, are things that um you could categorize as maybe annoying in your in your description. Like the gendered pronouns and just things like that. But um or maybe just not in modern day spirit. Um, uh but there are things that I think you could also classify as um just being unnecessary. A great example is our city charter requires the council members to read the entire um resolution or ordinance title into the record. So sometimes with these really big projects it takes a council member I don't know three minutes to read all those resolution titles and all those ordinances into the record. Um, so um you know, that would just be an example of maybe streamlining things or maybe you know, modernizing something. But um, but yeah I wouldn't say anything identified as part of that project so far has necessarily been earth shatteringly different.

[02:49:00] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Okay. That would help other projects go faster, anything. Okay, thank you. I appreciate that.

[02:49:08] Chair Jos00e9 Guti00e9rrez: Commissioner Donahue.

[02:49:10] Commissioner Paul Donahue: I noticed that a lot of the things actually fit into multiple strategic priorities, like the Stevens Creek trail thing is mobility and connectivity but it's also uh livability and quality of life because it is more of a recreational uh amenity. Um, and things like the the the city charter thing or the or the municipal code is is good governance but it's also maybe community for all in if it removes the the you know, is more gender inclusive. Um, so, but I I appreciate that you have to choose, you know, if you have one category you just kind of pick one.

[02:49:47] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Um, from my perspective, I guess now I'll get into more of my opinion here. Um, I think that I I appreciate things like like cleaning up the municipal code, that's kind of not a um really exciting thing that people are really going to say, oh boy, we we finished that project. Um, but it is uh a good thing to to get done. Um, but it's not going to make my top three. Um, and I feel that way about actually a lot of these things, they're they're they're really great ideas and um I would hope that if because there are ten projects that are are ten to fourteen I think that are actually going to get through, um, I hope that more than just the three that I choose will will get through.

[02:50:35] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Um, that being said, uh, things that that pop out to me actually are the Stevens Creek trail extension. I I guess I cut my teeth on the Parks and Recreation Commission, which in the city charter is called the Recreation and Parks Commission, so maybe that would be one of the things we could clean up, but um. The um uh I think as I said it's it's a recreational thing, it's it's a mobility thing, it it connects the city, um, it um it makes it more more more livable. Um, so that would be one of my three things. I think that uh facilitating low and moderate income homeownership uh including addressing the the the second thing I think is uh is another important thing. It's it's often brought up uh and I think that addressing it would be important.

[02:51:40] Commissioner Paul Donahue: Um, as for my third thing, um, I think I'm probably going to go with updating the R3 zoning standards. Uh, it is kind of already required. So to Commissioner Cranston's point, um, but I I think that that's an important thing to to get over the finish line.

[02:51:57] Chair Jos00e9 Guti00e9rrez: Commissioner Cranston.

[02:51:59] Commissioner Bill Cranston: So um, question for staff on number 12. Um, is it more than just a pretty storefront thing or is it also programs that would actually encourage the owners to actually get them leased and and um not just, not just flowers in the window. Because I, if it was something that was not just you know while it's vacant it's pretty, but also you know earlier I mentioned there's a $6,000 a year penalty that is being paid by uh by uh landlords in San Francisco, it helped me get, to add more space. Okay, it actually it was a contributing factor in the landlord allowing me to add space. So if it was, if this went beyond just a a pretty display that would mean more to me than just you know, purely pretty windows. Can you talk about that?

[02:52:43] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: Yeah, so um, this project idea is around not just uh a pretty window display but um also pop-up um opportunities for pop-up events or pop-up um you know retail or other uses. That's a big component of that idea.

[02:53:03] Commissioner Bill Cranston: But is is there a component of that would help encourage landlords to actually lease the spaces as well or is that not part of this project?

[02:53:10] Assistant Community Development Director Lindsey Hagen: I mean again I think part of what we're sort of scoping right now is the details of it. Um, but um really the idea was to try and um activate these spaces, you know, not just leaving them vacant.

[02:53:27] Community Development Director Christian Murdock: I'll add on and I'll just say um there are different ways to conceive of this and we need to work with council to shape out the scope and level of effort that they want to see. But there's very much a uh landlord incentive component that needs to complement this storefront beautification and activation component because ultimately we're requirers landlord consent to do that. And so we don't have a program if we don't have landlords willing to participate. For the most part, and so um it it could and perhaps should, but we don't know yet because we haven't taken this to council to get their full views on the prioritization and extent of the work.

[02:54:03] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay. So my three will be that one, number 12, because I think downtown is very important. Um, I am not convinced that we're doing enough with even within the housing element on streamlining design standards, so I think number 10 um would be something that would be very beneficial for the city to to help people get through the process and free up staff's time to focus on the next project. Um, and um sorry guys, I I live about as far from Stevens Creek as anybody can possibly live in the city of Mountain View so it's not getting my vote, okay. Uh um sorry about that. Um but I would do R3 as as my third one. So uh number three, number 10, and number 12.

[02:55:00] Chair Jos00e9 Guti00e9rrez: Commissioner Yin.

[02:55:02] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Okay. These are all worthy, and it was tough. But for connectivity that I've been pushing for so long, I'm going with number 1. Counter. Um, and I think there's also a funding element there too, that uh a timing thing. So I'm gonna push for that.

[02:55:19] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Number 10, I think that benefits everyone, the city, developers, land owners, staff, us, all the way around. I think design standards, I know it would be a new project and you'd have to flesh it out, but I don't know any other city, well I take that back. Every city I've worked with in my profession has design standards for some aspect of their city. And I don't know that we have it, so it would help. And I I know developers who also would agree, if we know more ahead it would help us tremendously. So, yay on all parts.

[02:55:52] Commissioner Joyce Yin: Um and then number 12, I'm going to also add that in, because downtown is the heart of the city, and I hear a lot of complaints as active as it is like why do we have so many vacancies, why is it like blacked out or whatever. I just think that that would be a simple thing potentially, if we have the resources and the ability to get the um owners to to get on board. Um it would be fairly simple I think and quick. Uh and if it can't be done, you find out it can't be done, then it's gone.

[02:56:35] Chair Jos00e9 Guti00e9rrez: Commissioner Pham.

[02:56:37] Commissioner Tina Pham: Um, so I want to start with a comment on the process. I think it's great that staff are going to all the commissions. Um that's not um something I've seen in other cities I've worked on, so that's humbling that council would trust in us and staff would trust in us to give comments on these priorities, which is great. Um also I want to say that being a staff member in other agencies working on council priorities um it was a joy, it feels great to be able to work on a council priority but it's almost like a double-edged sword with additional resources...

Segment 5

[03:00:00] Commissioner Tina Pham: visibility, there's also um I don't want to say scrutiny but um additional focus to make sure things move forward. So there's good and bad in that and so I overall appreciate the approach that has been taken to prioritize quality over quantity. Having more than 70 or so council priorities is really hard on staff. So um it's great that we have a a small focused list. That being said, it's so hard to choose three because I have worked on similar council priorities and I know of colleagues who have worked on a lot of these and a lot of these have merit.

[03:00:41] Commissioner Tina Pham: Um so I'll get to the three that I feel like I want to point out. Um I'm in support of number one, funding agreements and engineering for Stevens Creek Trail Extension. I think that this is great for um you know the trail, for mobility and connectivity. Also I know that Sunnyvale is, at least their council is in support of this project and having worked on engineering projects I know that um you know some visibility could help moving things forward especially with so many partners um having to work together on such a huge project through planning, engineering, design, and construction.

[03:02:04] Commissioner Tina Pham: So I think I I hope that a lot can be done in two years, um but I understand that such a project may take longer, so I I want to have it on the priority list so it moves forward. Um, the second one I want to highlight, I I really want to just highlight two, four, and ten at the same time, especially being part of this commission. I feel like they're all somewhat related but I won't be able to because we're limited to three, but all of them are so important and they um all support you know Mountain View to be able to densify in a smart way.

[03:03:16] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you Commissioner.

[03:03:18] Commissioner Tina Pham: Hey Alex, quick question, what were your three? Two, three, and four?

[03:03:23] Commissioner Tina Pham: Um so I want to choose them all but I can't. So I guess if I had to choose one of the three I would want to highlight the design standards, so that's number ten. Um as it will help um you know improve development but provide also clarity to developers. So that was really hard. Since all three are really um really great ones. Um the last one I want to highlight is um number eight, placing an amendment to the city charter and revenue measure.

[03:03:24] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you Vice Chair Nuñez. I appreciate that very much. So um we're close. Um questions I have. Do you think it would be possible for us to in the future, whether we're here or another set of people are here, when we have potential projects, it'd be nice to have something that goes with it that was spoken about beforehand which was where are we at with this particular idea? So that we then could have a frame of reference for where things stand and then maybe we can have better clarification of what type of questions we can submit ahead of time based on that so that then we can have a discussion with more informed knowledge as best as you can provide so that we can then move forward with the discussion more deliberately. Um what say you?

[03:03:51] Commissioner Tina Pham: I like um that it's exploring, may not result in a revenue measure but I think a lot of the other projects on here, um not all of them or a lot of them are planned and I think about the iceberg figure that you showed, plans are great but if they result in 80 recommendations that city never have the money to implement all of them that's a shame. So we end up with plans on the shelf that don't go anywhere. And so I think revenue measure may or exploring revenue sources may be a good way to get some of those smaller recommendations from previous plans um actually completed. So those are my three.

[03:04:10] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Uh, that's definitely feedback I can carry back.

[03:04:13] Chair José Gutiérrez: Great. So thank you very much for that. And I appreciate your help and time with all this. I also appreciate the Council asking us for our opinion. We're not uh into policy. We're not at that level. We're EPC. We deal with land use and other things that relate to zoning. So just to get this perspective from us is appreciated. Um so I'll just be quick. Um I like 8, 10, and then 2. The reason is for 8, we can't count on the Feds. It's too uncertain. We need to count on ourselves.

[03:04:51] Chair José Gutiérrez: And if we can help each other out to raise money to do things that we need for the city, this is the time that we do it. The less we rely on them for now, the better we'll be in the future. We can figure out our own budgets, we can figure out our own priorities, and we can get things done. We've done it in the past and we can do it forward as well. Simple. 10, it's about time. We need this to move forward with our plans and for the outside community with the developers to understand what are the goals.

[03:05:17] Chair José Gutiérrez: If you don't have this, then things sometimes fall to the wayside, and then you have developer remedy projects that are in limbo for like two to three years, and then they come to the city, and then they don't get the answer that they want, and then they're eligible for a developer remedy project, and then that happens. And in the meantime, we lost opportunity there. So let's establish the design standards so that we can have improved project developments. Um and then uh number two, we always talk about this opportunity to have a more inclusive, socio-economic diverse group of people living in Mountain View.

[03:05:49] Chair José Gutiérrez: We all know that a lot of these places for the most part are socially and racially segregated for whatever reason because of bad planning in general. Back then we didn't have the perspective that we have now. We looked at the constitution from a different perspective and therefore city governance was affected by that. There's a lot of studies that have come through uh via Cal Berkeley and the Ethnic Studies program that have laid uh the foundation for what type of policies were developed back then that affect us now. We all know those things to be true.

[03:06:17] Chair José Gutiérrez: But to develop a strategy to facilitate low and moderate income homeownership, I like us to be able to stand tall and move forward with that type of idea, because it's those ideas that are often mentioned on the campaign trail and they're hardly ever followed up on. So I want us to be held accountable at that level and here in general to make these things happen. So if we're gonna look for revenue and we're gonna look for the design improvement for uh development, and if we're gonna do this uh facilitation of low and moderate income homeownership, we cover a lot of bases for our quality of life, equity, inclusion, and the type of community that we all want to feel a part of, to be proud and also to be humble about it.

[03:06:55] Chair José Gutiérrez: So that's my two cents worth on that front. I think with that, you've got the majority perspective on what we all opted for. I don't know that there's an actual like majority, but you have a pretty clear sense of what our top three priorities are. Um I saw uh two get three votes, uh ten get three votes, yes?

[03:07:21] Commissioner Tina Pham: I'm not sure if staff can jump in, I don't know that we need a majority for this particular activity.

[03:07:26] Chair José Gutiérrez: Right. Yeah, no and I'm just confirming because based on here it says chair to provide or ask staff for a summary of EPC direction received for the record. So I was just gonna say what I had mentioned up to this point and and if you have any difference of opinion or what have you by all means chime in.

[03:07:44] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: The track you were on and reading, so I got three votes for number one, three for number two, three for number three, one for number four, two for number eight, four for number ten, and two for number twelve.

[03:07:57] Chair José Gutiérrez: Great. So I think at this point in time, yep. Awesome. Appreciate it. Let's move on to number seven, um Commission, staff announcements, updates, requests, and committee reports. Uh and as a reminder, no action will be taken on any questions raised by the Commission at this time. Okay. Uh well...

[03:08:21] Principal Planner Diana Pancholi: Yeah. Thank you. Diana Pancholi, Principal Planner with the City's Planning Division. The only announcement I had is we are going to cancel the April 2nd uh EPC meeting because we don't have any item on the agenda.

[03:08:34] Chair José Gutiérrez: Can you make one?

[03:08:39] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you for that. Um and so having said that, uh it is my pleasure to announce that the meeting is adjourned at 10:04 p.m. Thank you all.

Gap between 'Segment 1' and 'Segment 1'

[00:00:42] Commissioner: Which is between that and the... this is like the voting screens. And then, well yeah. And then if you want to speak, say press to speak.

[00:01:04] Commissioner: It's not very complicated.

[00:01:06] Commissioner: Does this automatically go on or...

[00:01:08] Commissioner: No, you have to press it. And then when you do that, this little light comes on here. Which if you're here, you can't see it, but you can see this one, so. That's kind of a nice feature.

[00:01:24] Commissioner: We have something special for you today, Bill.

[00:01:27] Commissioner Bill Cranston: Okay, cool.

[00:01:28] Commissioner: So get ready to have fun.

[00:01:31] Commissioner Bill Cranston: I appreciate that.

[00:01:33] Commissioner: But like doing the presentation, hit this and it'll toggle the presentation.

[00:01:43] Commissioner: I'm waiting for Alex. So then, we'll have to find some other time then to wrap it up.

[00:01:48] Commissioner: Yeah, well let's see. Yeah, I won't be able to chat.

[00:02:00] Commissioner: Can I see the presentation?

[00:02:03] Commissioner: Yeah, that shows like some computer screen. So right now it's showing seeing what it would show the presentation. So then you don't have to do that. But then sometimes I find when I'm on this screen, it's faster if there's just a quick thing to just turn around and look there.

[00:02:57] Commissioner: So you're more than me.

[00:02:58] Commissioner: Not yeah, not super long.

[00:03:03] Commissioner: Yeah, if you have any questions, I'm glad to point you in the right direction to ask folks. I've never been a commissioner, so I don't know exactly, but I know general...

[00:03:15] Commissioner: And then I'll just ask him, we'll just... yeah, we can just reply directly. And then Amber from there.

[00:03:20] Commissioner: Diana, what are you doing?

[00:03:30] Commissioner: And yeah, and I, Alex at the last meeting was doing something up here and I learned that you can see the staff reports and stuff in here. I didn't actually have any idea that it could do that.

[00:03:45] Commissioner: And then they say documents. Yeah, right, and you can do that.

[00:03:56] Commissioner: I got that two weeks ago.

[00:04:05] Commissioner: I just looked over and he's looking at a PDF on there. I'm like, how did you... you were doing something here and I was like what the heck is going on? And then I discovered this whole other dimension. Because I had only looked at the screen before.

[00:04:22] Commissioner: Yeah, what's this? I was wondering what that happens with the previous votes.

[00:04:42] Commissioner: Setting this... not started... didn't you guys have YouTube just a minute ago?

[00:04:51] Commissioner: Okay.

[00:04:54] Commissioner: Good thing to leave the mics on.

[00:04:58] Commissioner: Good thing what?

[00:04:59] Commissioner: Good thing to leave the mics on.

[00:05:01] Commissioner: Oh, there is no video. Sorry.

[00:05:06] Commissioner: I love public service.

[00:05:09] Commissioner: All the charity work you do at the orphanage.

[00:05:12] Commissioner: Yes, I just rescued three orphans from a tree this week.

[00:06:50] Chair Jos009 Guti009rrez: Are we good? Okay, great. Okay, at 7:01 p.m. we will call to order the Environmental Planning Commission meeting of March 19th, 2025. For those joining us in person, please note that due to our hybrid environment, audio and video presentations can no longer be shared from the lectern.

[00:07:08] Chair Jos009 Guti009rrez: Requests to show an audio or video presentation during a meeting should be directed to EPC at mountainview.gov by 4:30 p.m. on the meeting date. Additionally, due to our hybrid environment, we will no longer have speakers line up to speak on an item.

[00:07:21] Chair Jos009 Guti009rrez: Anyone wishing to address the EPC in person must complete a yellow speaker card. Please indicate the name you would like to be called by when it is your turn to speak, and the item number on which you wish to speak.

[00:07:32] Chair Jos009 Guti009rrez: Please complete one yellow speaker card for each item on which you wish to speak, and then turn them into the EPC clerk as soon as possible, but no later than the call for public comment on the item you are speaking on. Instructions for addressing the commission virtually may be found on the posted agenda. Now I will ask the EPC clerk to proceed with roll call.

Segment 1

[00:17:04] Aki Snelling, Senior Planner: Good evening Chair Gutiérrez and members of the Commission. My name is Aki Snelling, senior planner and uh project planner for the Moffett Boulevard Precise Plan project. And I'm also joined here by Amber Blizinski, who is our Assistant Community Development Director, and also by Eric Anderson, who is joined by us by Zoom.

[00:17:26] Aki Snelling, Senior Planner: The Moffett Boulevard Precise Plan will be a new Precise Plan that will serve as a zoning regulations for the area shown here. Similar to other precise plans in the city, it will include development and streetscape standards for the precise plan area and will implement guidance from the General Plan, the Housing Element, and also the latest council work plan. The most recent council direction on this project was on November 19th of last year, when the council provided direction on the visioning framework and potential strategies for the Moffett Boulevard area. Um, they also designated four adjacent neighborhoods as future study areas, which are shown as tan on the maps maps before you. For these future study areas, new development standards would be limited and no change in allowed land uses or densities would occur at this time.

[00:18:18] Aki Snelling, Senior Planner: The project team did extensive community outreach since the last year's uh EPC and City City Council study sessions, including the March 3rd uh community outreach meeting um on the land use alternatives and streetscape improvement concepts which we'll talk about tonight. Approximately 85 people participated in group discussions at that community workshop on land use alternatives and a live survey to rank streetscape improvement concepts. A survey covering similar topics is available and will remain open and available until the beginning of April. City staff and consultants has also held a pop-up event at the Martin uh Mountain View Farmers Market and also visited businesses along Moffett to announce the March 3rd workshop. As a reminder, the city held its first community workshop in August of last year, and at that time, uh we heard from participants who had um talked about their vision for the Moffett Boulevard area.

[00:19:17] Aki Snelling, Senior Planner: At the previous study session, five vision themes and potential strategies were presented to the EPC. City Council provided direction to update them as shown on these slides. Vision one is a or vision theme one is a unique identity and community for residents, businesses, workers, and vis uh visitors. Vision theme two is a thriving hub of economic activity and uses for the neighborhood and surrounding areas. And vision theme three is a revitalized neighborhood that embraces a range of housing, business, and community amenities and uses for the neighborhood and surrounding areas. This highlighted language was modified based on EPC and council's input last year.

[00:20:01] Aki Snelling, Senior Planner: Vision theme four is an accessible, pedestrian and bicycle-friendly multi-modal corridor. Vision theme five is a unique place with engaging and unique activities, events, and opportunities. And these were changes based on council and EP's input as well that are highlighted.

[00:20:20] Aki Snelling, Senior Planner: The first question for EPC consideration tonight is about the land use alternatives. As a result of previous EPC, council, and community input, three land use alternatives are proposed. One, a medium-intensity mixed-use alternative. Two, a higher-intensity mixed-use alternative. And three, a focused mixed-use alternative. These alternatives are not meant to represent the only possible approach for land uses, character, heights, and densities. They are intended to offer various ways of looking at the corridor that can be mixed and matched uh to settle on the preferred alternative.

[00:20:59] Aki Snelling, Senior Planner: Alternative A is a medium-intensity mixed-use alternative. Applying applying ho housing density per the city's adopted housing ordinance um sorry housing element, and encouraging but not requiring ground-floor non-residential uses, with housing density up to approximately 75 dwelling units per acre and maximum building heights of four to five stories.

[00:21:22] Aki Snelling, Senior Planner: Alternative B is a higher-intensity mixed-use alternative. But this plan would require ground-floor non-residential uses along Moffett Boulevard, with housing density of up to approximately 100 dwel dwelling units per acre, and maximum building heights of five to seven stories.

[00:21:40] Aki Snelling, Senior Planner: Alternative C is a focused mixed-use alternative that includes two nodes for commercial activity along Moffett Boulevard at Central Expressway near the transit center, and between Central Avenue and Cypress Point Drive where walkable commercial activity is more likely. With housing density of up to 100 units per acre in the commercial nodes, while only 70 units 75 units per acre elsewhere. And the maximum building heights in this area would be four to seven stories with the taller buildings focused in the commercial nodes.

[00:22:14] Aki Snelling, Senior Planner: Tonight staff is seeking EPC input with two key questions. One, the first question is, which land use alternative does the EPC recommend as a preferred alternative, and does the EPC recommend any modifications to that alternative? Community input included a wide variety of responses during our workshop, particularly regarding density and maximum building heights. Opinions varied and span the range of densities shown. For non-residential uses, some said not enough commercial was being proposed, and also commercial should be required. Participants were also asked for more opportunities for walkability and bikeability, and highlighted parking as an issue, though state law limits our ability to require on-site parking.

[00:23:03] Aki Snelling, Senior Planner: The process to to determine final streetscape design will need further study to consider things such as the right-of-way street width, ability to accommodate near utilities, existing capital projects, a flexible approach to vary along the corridor, traffic modeling and vehicle trips, ability for pedestrian and bicycle continuity, the transit center master plan, and cost and funding. There are six options as listed on the next slides for how to use that limited space in the right-of-way. Uh we are seeking EPC and council input on their priorities among these six options presented tonight because they cannot all be accommodated in the limited right-of-way along Moffett.

[00:23:46] Aki Snelling, Senior Planner: These options include um one, a wider sidewalk with trees and pedestrian amenities. Um two and three are buffered or protected bike lanes. Buffered bike lanes are separated from the vehicle lane with markings, while protected bike lanes are separated from the vehicle lane with improvements such as curbs or landscaping.

[00:24:08] Aki Snelling, Senior Planner: Other options include a landscape boulevard with medians. Maintaining the current vehicle roadway capacity with four vehicle lanes um if this option is ranked lower, the team will study a road diet for Moffett Boulevard. And then lastly, on-street parking.

[00:24:28] Aki Snelling, Senior Planner: The second question tonight for EPC is, what are the EPC's priorities for streetscape improvement for Moffett Boulevard based upon this list? This slide shows how attendees at the community workshop ranked these improvements. Attendees felt wider sidewalks with trees and pedestrian amenities was the top priority, followed by bicycle improvements. Fol uh um parking and maintaining the existing travel lanes were at the bottom. Other comments expressed uh include the need for improved traffic calming measures, better landscaping and more lighting, improved bicycle facilities, and green spaces.

[00:25:08] Aki Snelling, Senior Planner: Following tonight's meeting, staff will take your responses to council at next month's tentative April 26th council study session. Based upon council's preferred alternative, the project team will begin the environmental review process and also begin drafting the precise plan. Staff will conduct additional focused outreach and hold additional EPC and council study sessions later this year.

[00:25:34] Aki Snelling, Senior Planner: So above are the summary of questions that staff would like EPC to provide responses to so that we can carry those forward to City Council. Um this concludes staff's report. Um I'd also like to mention that in attendance are also um Martin Alkire, who is our consulting um planner. Uh Christian Murdock, our Community Development Director. Um Ed Arengo, who is our Assistant Public Works Director, and also Dan Amstutz, who is from our consulting team MIG.

Segment 2

[01:18:46] Chair José Gutiérrez: Vice Chair Nuñez.

[01:18:47] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Yeah, um, thank you, uh, Chair Gutierrez. Um, I I largely agree, um, with uh, you know, appreciating different aspects of B and C.

[01:19:00] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, personally, um, and and also, um, in light of Mr. Murdock's kind of um, kind of elucidation, five-dollar word here. Um, in terms of the uh, probability of uh, activation versus like opportunity for activation. Um, I I do like this concept of nodes, um, while liking the increased housing opportunities of of alternative B.

[01:19:29] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, I would like to see what a more blended option of those um, would look like, um, and and how that might be kind of like structured in in in an optimal way, whether as informed by the economic vitality study, opportunities to keep small businesses here.

[01:19:47] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, and and as as much as I would like to also kind of um, you know, fall into the um, fall in alignment with some of the public commentary around requiring ground floor retail um, as as part of alternative B, I'm also um, just generally kind of um, concerned not just about the uh, current rate of vacancies, um, but then also, you know, when it comes to kind of that state bonus, um, kind of uh, supplanting and superseding some of that.

[01:20:19] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, and so that's why you know, with regard to some of the uncertainty that my uh, you know, colleague uh, Chair Gutierrez was noting here. You know, the way that um, yeah, at least to the best of my knowledge that you can kind of like countervail, or at least in my view, um, you know, countervail some of that uncertainty is um, not by constraining options, but by um, providing more, right?

[01:20:43] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, and so that's why this like, you you know, one of the key phrases that I kind of see in this document is like 'up to', right? And and like, I think staff report and and it it says like, it's 'up to' um, and and these are kind of like range ranges, right? Um, uh, in terms of like the density units. Yep, housing density up to around 75, up to around 100.

[01:21:00] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, so this is inherently im implying an option, right? Um, and so for me, um, when I'm thinking about this, um, I I do think that it is, you know, in terms of like discretion and control, I'm I'm not interested in local control right now as a as a means or manners around like what the state density bonus is going to preclude or not, or or kind of like sweep out from under our feet.

[01:21:24] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, because we always have discretion. We we always have local control to do more than what the state requires. Um, you know, un until and unless we want to kind of like, you know, either um, get the state legislature to do away with state density bonuses or if we just want to ignore what the state has as a floor for us, we always have the discretion to reach for our own ceilings.

[01:21:46] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, and so when I'm, you know, kind of like processing and thinking, how do we actually, um, to the extent that we want to have requirements like, um, you know, we require ground floor retail, which I'm not necessarily supporting, but just in that realm, we want to want to require ground floor retail, then the only way that we can do that or incentivize that and kind of deliver on what people are seeking, you know, as as far as the public comment goes, is to reach higher than the state density bonus.

[01:22:16] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, and if that does mean that it's, you know, like two or three times, um, that is along along the lines of, uh, Commissioner Yin's concerns, um, and is requiring, um, you know, kind of like, uh, more, um, you know, kind of like that higher level of density, then then that, I mean, personally, and I think, you know, the commission, my colleagues on the commission know where I stand on this, personally to me that's okay. That's fine.

[01:22:40] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, because we're all we're doing is giving options and and laying that as a, you know, possibility for people to um, to have more capability, more capacity, more options and less constraint.

[01:22:52] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, and to the extent that, you know, as as Mr. Murdock just kind of like, um, stated, we're not even at the point yet, and there's no like, um, im immediate kind of like discussion of what material or any or what construction methods, you know, aside from the kind of um, you know, fact that we are in a different kind of more innovative phase of materials, which I'm not going to get into right now, there's no need to nerd out on wood.

[01:23:17] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: Um, you know, to me it's it's it's less of a concern to say let's go higher and and yeah, maybe we do get like a 12-story building out of it. Um, maybe the way that things get built these days is is more efficient, more, you know, like lean or whatever. Um, then I'm open to that because we're not we're not constraining, we're just giving options as much as we can um to serve the community in light of all this uncertainty.

[01:23:45] Vice Chair Alex Nuñez: So um, if there is no blended option, I would go with option B, if I had to choose, um, and that's a hard choice 'cause again I do like the nodes, but I would be interested in a blend of um, C's nodes um and the density of B um, with the option to um, kind of go higher um, to be able to get more of what we want on the ground floor.

Gap between 'Segment 3' and 'Segment 4'

[02:05:30] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: I I I did know that but I had kind of just forgotten. Um, so, uh, yes, having wider sidewalks or maybe a sidewalk at all, uh, I think would be, uh, would be good. There were there were places where I felt that it was, uh, impinged by, uh, telephone poles, uh, a bench for a bus stop, and things like that where having a little bit more space would, would, uh, make it flow better. Uh, be more pedestrian friendly. Um, the, uh, protected, uh, bicycle lanes, I agree, are are are great. Um, that is something that, that's not a very, it's not pedestrian friendly, it's not bicycle friendly, uh, so much in that area. Uh, that would, uh, be a great improvement.

[02:06:21] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Um, I, I am a fan of landscaped boulevards with medians. Uh, I know there there are portions of Middlefield that have like a 50 foot wide median or something like that. I, I agree that would be excessive. And certainly here there's not really enough space to do that. Um, but I think having some sort of a, a, a landscape median, um, breaks up the urban nature, uh, a bit and, and softens the, visually softens it and and makes it um more pleasing to to be there.

[02:07:01] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Um, you know, if, if it's a choice between protected bicycle lanes and landscaped boulevard, I guess I would I would take the the bicycle lanes. But, um, but I think that, um, that the two things can coexist. Uh, I, I don't know if the, the four, uh, vehicle travel lanes are necessary. I mean, if you don't have four travel lanes I think you could have, you could have both the median and, and the bike lanes.

[02:07:29] Commissioner Hank Dempsey: Um, Castro Street used to be four lanes, before, before I lived here. Um, but, uh, and I think that Moffett then is the continuation of that. Now Castro Street, well Castro Street's closed, but it um, Castro Street went down to, to two, uh, but Moffett continued to be four. I, I think that um, uh, I don't have the, the traffic counts or things, I'm sure Public Works would, would uh, you know, study all of this stuff. But assuming that that, uh, um, it's not you know, a major highway kind of going through there, uh, that that the two lanes could be, uh, sufficient. Uh, and then that would allow for the protected bike lane and the the uh, landscape median. So I, I would I think uh, second the the one, two, four uh options. Oh that was you.

[02:08:26] Chair José Gutiérrez: Thank you, sir. Commissioner Pham.

[02:08:59] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: Thank you for the question. Again, Ed Arango, Assistant Public Works Director and City Engineer. Um, so we have um there's two Complete Street uh road projects um currently active right now. We have the Moffett Complete Streets as well as the Middlefield Complete Streets. Um, each effectively are a resurfacing project, um, and they're both federally grant-funded um through the uh MTC's um One Bay Area Grant Program that we applied for. And we were successful to get the grants. Um, but let me walk you through the each of the Complete Streets components and then um with the details.

[02:09:36] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: Um, so I'll start with the Moffett Boulevard Complete Streets. Again, as I mentioned, it's a resurfacing project. Effectively from um Middlefield Road to the northerly city limits at the RT Jones intersections, which is crossing over 101, um entering into the kind of Moffett, NASA area. Um, it's gonna install the class 4 protected bikeways, and then with class 2 um bikeways at those pinch points. There's right-of-way restrictions and we can only fit so much. Um, we are closing a sidewalk gap um on the east side um of Moffett between Stevens Creek Trail and Leong. There's currently a sort of a walked dirt pathway that we're going to, we're going to improve with the um sidewalk.

[02:10:20] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: Um, we just recently completed the concept plans for um the Moffett Complete Streets and we're moving now into final design. We went to the Bicycle Pedestrian Advisory Committee and to the Council Transportation Committee. And so now we have um direction to move forward. Um, so we're expecting the design to complete by the end of 2025 or early 26, and then that would go into construction in early 27.

[02:10:47] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: Um, the, both, again, as I mentioned, both are federally funded projects. Um, changing the scope of the project would require us to go through the um federal review process again. Um, considering the climate of federal grants right now, we are very careful on just implementing what got approved. Um, some community members have echoed their um request for a road diet along Moffett. But again, um, we are, uh, it's considered a very high risk to go through the federal process again for the grant um to introduce new or change components. Um, we're already hearing this last week about some new information about transportation grants and um, they're gonna be scrutinized even further. So we're just looking again just to implement what we got the grant for.

[02:12:18] Commissioner Tina Pham: Okay. That's great context. Okay. Yeah. And the second part of the question was for um the Middlefield Road project.

[02:12:25] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: Yep, I have similar um information for Middlefield. Um, again, uh predominantly a resurfacing project. Um, we're going from Moffett Boulevard to Ferguson Drive as the resurfacing component. But um we're going even further with that with the um bikeway component. We're uh proposing to install class 4 protected bikeways from Moffett all the way to Bernardo. Um, we have some protected intersection improvements at four intersections. So that includes Moffett, Easy Street, Tyrella, and Whisman Road. Um, we are just in the concept phase right now. Um, we expect to move into the final design at the end of the summer, um and then construction would start trailing the Moffett Complete Streets project in 2027.

[02:13:14] Commissioner Tina Pham: Thank you. Um, I had a different question relating to the Stevens Creek Trail. Um, can I have a discussion from staff about the existing connections and then any potential future connections, um, especially for bike and ped?

[02:13:29] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: I can help answer that question as well. Um, so there's actually several connections to the Stevens Creek Trail off of Moffett Boulevard. Um, I'll start from the south and work north. Um, so um east of Moffett Boulevard at the end of Central Avenue, there's a Stevens Creek Trail connection. Um, on Middlefield Road, um also east of Moffett Boulevard, adjacent to the Highway 85 overpass, there's also another Stevens Creek Trail connection. Immediately north of 85, um we have Stevens Creek Trail connections on both sides of the road.

[02:14:09] Assistant Public Works Director Ed Arango: Um, and then lastly, also kind of north of 85, um there's a future connection coming this fall at the 750 Moffett development. Um, this is located on the west side of Moffett, uh near the intersection with Moffett Boulevard and Leong Drive. Um, there's going to be a new pedestrian bridge um that we installed over Stevens Creek to allow access from Moffett Boulevard, through the 750 Moffett Boulevard development, across the new bridge to the west side of Stevens Creek to connect to the trail there.

[02:14:51] Commissioner Tina Pham: Thank you.

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