Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the January 22nd meeting of the Brisbane Planning Commission. Uh let's begin please with uh roll call. Yes. Commissioner Funka here. Commissioner Gooding here. Commissioner Laauo here. Commissioner Wadziaak here. And let the record reflect Commissioner Sasan is absent. Thank you. We would like to welcome and introduce our new commissioner Darius Wodzak. Uh Darius has been a resident of Brisbane for uh over nine years and has served on the complete streets uh committee and we welcome his uh his efforts to come and join us and help out and we hope you'll you'll enjoy stay.

Welcome. Um the adoption of the agenda. Um may I have a motion please to adopt the agenda? All in favor? I I

the motion passes with four eyes. Moving on to the consent calendar. Uh our first we ask if any members of the public would like to pull any item from the consent calendar and our staff will post the Zoom call number on the screen. And we ask any members of the public watching remotely who wish to do so uh may would raise their hand or press star 9 on their phones if they're calling in. And staff please start a timer for 30 seconds for that. Um, while waiting for that, are there any commissioners who would like to remove any item from the consent calendar? [clears throat]

All right, 30 seconds has elapsed. No one's raised their hand. Thank you. Uh may I then have a motion to adopt the consent calendar as presented? I move to adopt the calendar as presented. Second. All in favor? I. Motion passes with four eyes. Um moving on to oral communications. Uh if there is anyone who wishes to address the commission regarding items not on tonight's agenda, um again please raise your hand to indicate or press star 9 on your phone. Uh, and the staff will display the call-in number on the screen and set a timer for one minute, please.

While we're letting that timer run, uh, I don't Are there any red communications? I didn't see any. No.

Thank you. 15 seconds. All right, 60 seconds has passed and no one's raised your hand.

Thank you. Um, we now see that that Sunday Patel has joined us this evening and so we'll rewind the agenda slightly. Um we want to take a moment to to uh thank um Sandy Patel for his many years of service on the commission. Um he was a a terrific member of this commission and we will miss your contributions. Um and uh I think um Julia has a little something for you. So, thank you again. Thank you.

All right. Um, moving on to old business, there is none. And moving on to new business, there is none. Um I believe we have uh items initiated by staff. It includes a presentation from the economic vitality office. Now we have a speaker tonight in that regard. That's right. I'd love to introduce Mitch Bull. Um and he is going to give a presentation on the economic vitality office.

Good evening commissioners. Can you hear me? Is this one? I'm Mitch B. I am the director of economic vitality for the city of Brisbane. And you go, you know what is economic vitality? We our acronym is EVO, EVO. And it is a new branding um option that we have adopted uh in the last quarter of last year. And in 2016 um we set up a economic development department in the city part-time myself and the council because in 2016 we were in the end of a very bad recession and uh Crocker Park was about 60% empty and our job was to try to revitalize the park and bring people to Brisbane and to start jumpst start the economy Well, since that happened, we went through COVID and another recession and um we decided last year to rethink how we are trying to do things. So, we've rebranded as economic vitality and you know what does that mean and why is it important? It's a concept that goes beyond signing leases and filling buildings, but it's a collaboration between all city staff, community members, and business partners to enhance the economic stability of the city and improve the quality of life. It's more of a holistic concept that encompasses the integration of economics, environmental stewardship, sustainability, planning, and communication as a total package. Too often all of our city staff mean well, but we work in silos. So, one group doesn't know what the other group is doing. Um, and it sometimes it can cause communication issues and it can cause problems with businesses that are trying

to do business here or move here or work with the city. So the goal of the economic vitality plan is to have a resilient economy that can try to weather ups and downs in the national economy or the state economy. We're focusing on creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and of course, like I said, sustainability. We're also promoting workforce development and being an advocate for economic opportunity options available at a state, local, and federal level. We want to be a one-stop starting point for when people want to come and set up a business in Brisbane, expand a Bris business in Brisbane, or try to get help for a business in Brisbane that may need funding uh or other involvement from the city staff. Business development has long had connotations, especially here, of filling buildings or doing something to the land. And when one says the word development, it's that a developer is going to do something, change something. And the connotations usually negative no matter where you live. The goal of the rebranding is to launch the initiative as less a filling of spaces, but more holistic. We're trying to kind of educate the citizens and the businesses and the people that just come here one off that it takes everyone in this city to make the economy whole and resilient and vibrant. Because if if the citizens don't understand what businesses are doing, if the businesses don't understand what the citizens want or need, and if they just kind of ignore each other, just come in,

go to work in Valley, go home, don't stop at a restaurant, don't get involved with concerts in the park, we lose as a city as a whole. And the goal is to try to change that focus. So what we've been doing, we've been meeting with our businesses with city manager Jeremy Dennis and I have been going to businesses within Valley and in the shopping center, etc. and asking them what they think about Brisbane, what can we do to help them? Where can we make their lives easier and what what they can do to help us? So, we're trying to focus on volunteerism within the business community to get involved in some of the projects that we're doing in the city. We want to try to increase our sponsorship at city events like concerts in the park, some of the public art events, school system, etc. Uh we've we have a longstanding um work with the chamber working with students in business and government and raising money from our businesses for scholarships. We've been doing that for close to 40 years. Well, that's that's all well and good, but we want to expand it. And we want businesses come and go, and we want to highlight the businesses that are contributing to the city, and we want to have the ones that are not have an opportunity to get involved. And a lot of this is just outreach. It's knocking on doors, making uh connections with people, meeting people, and making sure that the people here know that we're just not nameless, faceless people at the end of a phone. They if they know who we are, when they need a problem solve, they can call us and we can try to direct them in the right direction. So, that's really in a nutshell what we're trying to do. So we are uh eventually going to highlight business of the year programs for large

businesses, small businesses, new businesses, homebased businesses. Our homebased businesses don't get much attention and we think they should as more and more people especially since the pandemic are working out of their house or doing you know multiple jobs. So we're trying to see how the city can help that group as well. We're also trying to revitalize visitation. It's a hard lift. Um it's a it's a tough street to bring traffic to, but we're trying to do we're going to start with a business summit where we're going to get sit down with the business owners on visitation and say, "Okay, where are your challenges? Is it parking? Is it people not knowing you're here? Is it marketing? You know, is it what what is it that we can do as a city to help? And then what can you do to kind of band together to create some lively events for the citizens to go to. So this is the first time we've tried this and and you know we're going to have some successes and we're going to have some swing and misses I'm sure. But um so far the the initial responses we're getting from businesses and citizens has been very good. Um I've spoken to the public art commission. I've spoken to IDEA. I've spoken to uh couple other ones and uh they've all been very very open to what we're trying to do. And as as I've done with them, I'm going to give you business cards that we had made. So if you have ideas, something you want to ask, you know, tonight's not writing, please give us a call. Like I said, get every involved that works in the city, lives in the city, comes to work in the city because it

takes everybody. Um, you know, we're trying to highlight um the upcoming World Cup. How can we get our hotels involved? How can we get transportation involved? You know, can we do shuttles? Can we have a World Cup watch party at Sierra Point? We're working on all kinds of things like that. Um, of course we can't call it World Cup because you have to license it from FIFA and we can call it a big soccer party, but we can't call it the World Cup. [clears throat] So, those are the kinds of things we're doing. Um, we're involved with Go Biz from Sacramento, the state uh government agency that works on small business, Sam in Redwood City, and the San Francisco Peninsula. If you don't know who they are, it's that's the new name. They've rebranded the San Monteo County Convention and Visitors Authority. So it has 23 cities involved in it, but nobody outside of the Bay Area knows what the Sam Sanonteo County is. Well, if you call it the San Francisco Peninsula, we're all the space between San Francisco and San Jose. So they're trying to market our businesses, market our hotels, market here we are to get more tourism. So we're trying to reach out to all of those groups. And I thought about this a little more. I would have uh we we produced a new video that says welcome to Brisbane. If you go to our website uh city city city of Brisbane, go to economic development, you'll see a click for the website in the movie. And uh it's embarrassing, but it's fun. And we think it paints a really good picture of the city. And uh we're getting good responses from people that have seen it outside the city. So that's basically in a nutshell what we're doing. So when you see EVO written or talked about you say what is that? It's economic vitality

organization. We're trying to spin a new story and uh we're not the same old Brisbane so to speak and uh we're having good early results. For instance, our Crocker Park, did you know Crocker Park's 93% full? And uh Prolonges just bought 8 million square feet. So, they are now the largest land holder in Parker Park and they're going to do some improvements as well. So, any questions?

Um, thank you. Um, couple questions. I What's the Do you know the percent occupancy, you know, citywide for businesses here?

Well, we we try to break it down. Um, Sierra Point's about 30%. 30 to 35%. Now again, part of that is we've built eight new buildings in the last 10 years. Um, and biotech is notoriously fickle. Uh, you have winners and then you have guys where their their tests don't do well and they have to retrench, which uh has happened with Sangamo. Sorry to say, they're still around. They're in Richmond, but they have closed this office. Uh, Johnson and Johnson, of course, left, but we have uh NerS, which is a brand new one that has moved in. So, they come and go. Um, we were hoping for more of the new buildings to be filled faster, but we have Freom, who has about 300 people in the newest building. Um, but you know, policies in Washington have affected biotech, etc. Um, Crocker Park, like I said, is about 93%. um about five years ago was 100% full and that's not good either because now I then I have places I can't put people in because I have no space for people. So we like to have a little bit of flexibility for bringing new companies in. Um the Brisbane Village is a long-term problem that we're trying to do something with. We've been in contact with the the managers who are currently doing it. Unfortunately, it's owned offshore. The person who bought it from the uh previous owners is in China and he doesn't come here very often. We're hoping to see him in April. And uh they have they have some serious problems. Uh it's it's long in the tooth. It needs roofing. It needs paint. It needs more tenants. And uh they're not reacting like they have a need to do anything. So, we're looking at, you know, possible

what else can we do? Can we find another buyer for them to try to buy them out of it? Can we do blight ordinances? We're we're looking at everything on the books to try to improve the shopping center because it is an economic engine when it's full. And uh several of the restaurants are doing very well there. We just need to fill more of them up. What um what is there a strategy in terms of targeting certain industries or businesses for a resilient economy.

Well, there there is [clears throat] um you know we have traditionally had a lot of warehousing, freight forwarding, etc. At one time we had 11 freight forwarders in Crocker Park. Now we have three. So that that whole economy has changed too. The freight forwarding business has changed. Well, we're looking more towards uh light industrial and uh advanced manufacturing is what we'd like to get. Um we had we had a most recent ample battery. They uh were building batteries for electric cars where you would drive into a quonet looking station. A robot would come out, drop the battery from your car, put in a new battery and it would be like getting a gas refill and it would take about five minutes. Unfortunately, they did not get capital to continue their operations. So, they're on hiatus right now. They're looking for more capital. Uh but but we're looking for, you know, light industrial manufacturing, advanced manufacturing, but you know, we can't always dictate who comes in. So, you know, we're always going to have some warehousing. Uh but we we have a a very good niche market in in the food service industry.

You know, between catering and buy and pitco foods, we have always had a very good uh portion of the park in the food service industry. So, you know, obviously as the bay lands develops in the future, there's going to be other opportunities there, but that's that's quite a while off. Can you tell us what um some examples perhaps of what advanced manufacturing means? Advanced manufacturing ample was a part of it. They they had they were building their own battery packs and they had proprietary [clears throat]

um machinery that one engineer built sitting on Park Lane putting these battery packs together and and so that type of thing. We have a a group called Mitra and Mitra is kind of like a Rubik's cube or Tetris for logistical storage. So they have robots that will take a pallet of something and and it basically works in 3D up this way this way and you're not doing it by hand and it's all computer controlled. So they're they're launching and they have several uh iterations of it going now. They're past their first phase and we are hoping that they will expand into full compliance where they are selling this worldwide. One of the other uh businesses we have you see on 125 valley we have heirloom carbon. Heirloom Carbon is a company that basically cooks limestone rocks and draws carbon out of the air and pumps it into the ground. it could be a very on a large scale basis it is much better that way and faster than trees absorbing CO2. So they are that's kind of what we're trying to look at it for advanced manufacturing. Um you know we're looking at all kinds of things that not just storage.

Is um the rent from Prolis competitive? It is here compared to surrounding neighbor.

It is. It is. Um, Proages [clears throat] has some advantages in that they are the largest industrial warehouse company in the world. I I had a meeting with them today. 3% of the world's GDP goes through a progress warehouse. That was kind of shocking to hear. 3%. So, I mean, they're large, but they're also based in San Francisco and they have been invested in Brisbane for really 30 years. um not through themselves but they were part of the partnership with DCT and the state teachers retirement fund which owned between them about 50% of Crocker Park. Prologus has over the years bought them out as they've wanted to sell and now they are the the sole owner of 26 buildings in Crocker Park and two out on Beayshore the former VWR buildings. So we we we we we are looking forward to working with them as a partner. We think they can bring some things to the buildings. They generally fix them up, take care of them, landscaping, um new roofs. We're talking to them about a solar initiative we're trying to do in Crocker Park for warehousing. Remains to be seen what they can do, but in other locations, they've generated up to a gigawatt of power on their warehouse roofs. That's that's encouraging. Um, so we we we'll see. I mean, it's again, a lot of the things is we have with a 93% filled park, they don't change very often. A lot of people that want to be here or stay here and uh we like that, but uh you know, we're also looking at new technology too.

Thank you. May I also ask like is there a position or What's been like the communication with the you know Corey proposal project?

Um well the quarry proposal they you know they've pivoted several times from a very very large warehouse to a two building solution to a data center to now advanced manufacturing. Um I'm I'm like everyone else. I'm I'm sitting and seeing what they're going to come up with and whether they can get, you know, through permits and planning and and all of that. Uh, you know, they also have a lot to do with, you know, partnerships and and and getting this thing launched. It's it's still a long way to go.

Through the chair, I can speak a little bit to that. The quarry developer resubmitted a revised design permit at the end of last year. So, and as Mitch referenced, the revised design permit is for just under 900,000 square feet of advanced manufacturing. Um, so there's information on the city's website, basic information about the revised proposal. It's currently under review uh by staff.

Um, just like what kind of strategies or proposals? You talked about um home business support like ideas or ideas. I I think we're we're ultimately we're not there yet, but we're ultimately looking at maybe micro grants that if we can get council approval to I mean to try to launch because we would like to see home businesses grow enough where they're now not a home business where they're in the park at Sierra Point or wherever. Our goal is to grow those businesses whether it be someone that makes cookies or cakes who goes into catering and they're not just out of their home kitchen anymore. So those are the types of things we're trying to do. But really what we want to do is bring the attention to the city that these businesses exist and how can we help them, you know, be successful, but it's we're starting out.

Are there a lot of those kind of businesses in Brisbane? The home there's probably 30 to 40. What about the um businesses that are going to be displaced, you know, from bay lands? you know, um, have you discussed, you know, with those tenants like

We have we have and, um, it's still pretty far out. I mean, we don't have an approved specific plan yet. I mean, we we have general blocks. We know what's going to happen 20 years down the road or 10 years down the road. And if you can tell me when that's going to happen, I'd like to know because I don't know when that's going to happen. But yes, we've been working with, you know, the PNF distributors and of course recal is right next to them and, you know, uh, Golden State Lumber and so we're aware that there are businesses and then you have all the ones with industrial and you know that that remains to be seen what happens there.

Well, it's even like the small businesses you know from those like car workshops car. Yeah.

So, I mean, we're still hoping to have an industrial sector like that. Now, whether it's whether they get redone last, I I don't know yet there, but there's a lot more discussion that's going to happen, but we don't want to lose any businesses, you know. I mean, that's one of the things that we benefit from are cities like Berlin, San Carlos, San Francisco getting rid of their industrial sectors and building housing. Well, where do those people go? Now they're coming here and uh they they do benefit us and you know we would like to keep that kind we believe in a diverse economy and u you know we need as as citizens we need those kinds of services whether it be home repair, car repair, you know and and so I mean that's part of working with uh BDI is you know are they going to have spaces for that? That's the plan is to continue to have spaces for that. But whether it's whether they get displaced temporarily or whether they're the last they move from an older space to a newer space, we don't know yet. That's way far in the future.

What businesses are usually the most stable? You know, not retail, food, you know what?

Um, well, stability. I mean, Byite's been here for 30 plus years and they've expanded several times and, you know, they've done they've done enough solar projects at their place where they're running their own freezers and stuff on their own solar. So, I mean, that's you know, they're a family-owned business that's like three generations in, they're the most stable. That that's kind of what you want. You know, outside of that, you know, um, high-tech is stable until it isn't. I worked for Hitachi for almost 20 years out of Sierra Point and then they were gone and you know things change. Um we used to have a toy manufacturer in Sierra Point originally. Bacon was in the big white building out there that's now Sangal. So I mean businesses come and go. So I mean stability the food service industry seems to be very stable. We don't we haven't seen them come and go. Pacific Gourmet, Pitco, they've been long long-term tenants in the park as you know, as has latiieri and fresca Italia. So, I mean, they they've been here a long time.

They looked into like medical, you know, clinics, you know, medical centers.

We haven't yet. I mean, [clears throat] my problem is I don't have a lot of for a medical center. Now, at the point, I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen with with the new lab space. That's that's something we we should look at. And uh I'll write that down. But uh we we've had several medical supply companies, you know, there there was one of supply company called Joslin, J O L I N, and they make the premier arm sling. Every NFL team uses their arm slings and they were in Crocker Park for many years. So, I mean, we we've had we still have a few like that, but you wouldn't know that they're like tucked away in one of the little, you know, small individual like 200 the little suites. So,

I had one more question. I guess you commented that visitation would be sort of a challenge. Can you just maybe comment a little bit about what the strategy is there for sort of revitalizing part of that?

Well, what we're what we're trying to do, we're going to have a summit. We're going to sit with the owners and say, "Okay, where are your challenges?" We know parking is part of the problem. We know uh exposure is a lot of the problem when people don't know they're there. Now, can they afford to do marketing? Can the city help them with marketing? Can we market the city better to the outside world? Probably. Now, understand there's a double-edged sword there. If we market the city too well and we have lots of people from outside the city coming to the city, I'm sure we have residents that probably aren't going to like that increased traffic and and people from out of town. Uh the problem is, as you know, you know, retail is suffering everywhere and restaurants, the pandemic killed a lot of restaurants off. We lost a few here. Um the other problem is most of the buildings on visitation were built in the 30s and 40s. So to bring anything up to modern code is hugely expensive. So you know we're trying to work with the the business not the business owners but the land owners the people that own the buildings at least to the businesses you know they have to have a hand in improving through paint and maintenance etc. And then that's what that's what we're saying. We're trying to get everyone involved. Um it's it's visitation is tough and part of it zoning. We're working with planning on uh you know people that are on visitation that have a business should be customer focused to the community not just like catering or you know we've lost several businesses that used to be open for commercial work and now they're private residences and you know that's unfortunate but you know every small business-like visitation that those business sectors they're they're difficult in every now and uh you know I think we can do things

like an art fair. I think we can do things like more maybe public art on visitation to get more interest. I think we can do things with lighting. Uh we have to do something to make it more of a fun place to go because we have good restaurants but and you know if you don't live here you don't know about them. So that's we're it we're again we're just we're trying. Is there a lot of interest from major big developers you know purchasing or you know accumulating [clears throat]

well I like I said Prol just bought 1.8 billion square feet. Uh I mean they they think enough to invest in the city. So I mean I think that's a good thing. Now we also have one developer that's running the bayance you know we'll see how that goes you know but they've been involved for I don't know 40 years now 40 years so I mean we we are still getting a lot of interest from companies that want to be here like when is this going to happen what do you know I think I think we've had some good kickoff at Sierra Point I mean when I came here in ' 89 Sierra Point had three buildings on and it was kind of a ghost town. There were more jack rabbits than employees. And now, you know, there there are some openings, but that that comes and goes, too. And I think the the architectural um things that have happened at Sierra Point, I'm glad we waited this long to build better looking buildings than just boxes, which would have been built in the 80s. So, I you know, I think we we've come a long way. Now, unfortunately, a lot of the peninsula thinks that's South City, not Brisbane. And that's part of our goal, too, is to reacquaint them with where the city lines are drawn. So, so we we get good interest, but unfortunately, you know, restaurants are tough. Uh getting someone to open a restaurant is tough. Everybody wants a supermarket. Everybody wants a Trader Joe's. I can't see that happening in the near future. Part of it is, you know, we don't have a huge customer base. However, if you go three miles and draw a line, there's several hundred thousand people. You know, the Geneva corridor is underserved. If we do the right restaurants in Brisbane, we would get we would get customers from Little Hollywood, from Geneva, you know, all

the way up that way. But you have to have a reason to come. And I mean, we're looking at that with the Bank of America building that we bought. We're looking at it with, you know, revitalized shopping. There's lots of things we're looking at, but there's a lot of work to be done, too. When you say we, like we is in the city. [clears throat] So, like who else like you know is brainstorming

um council members, planning members, city manager, um you know, we we assistant city, we have all hands on deck. We Nobody is left out of the process. Anybody that has a good idea, we want to hear it. If you if you send me an email says, "Have you looked at this this medical clinic?" Yeah, we're going to start looking at that. I mean, we we can't go out and basically recruit companies easily. We don't actually issue tax incentives or anything like you might think that's how it works, but we do work very closely with the brokerage community who's out there representing properties that are open and properties that may not be open yet. I mean, there's properties we've been working on for a year, a year and a half that are hopefully close to being a lease signed. So, as long as we work with the brokers and they have a good relationship and a good idea of what Brisbane's about, what Brisbane can and can't do as far as incentives and what Brisbane citizens want and don't want, they they have a better idea of who they can bring in here. And that's that's a real important part of it because we, you know, we we we can't go make companies move here, but we can make it easier for them once they're here. And our our job is to make it easier to go through who do you call to get a permit? Who do you call if you have a problem? PG& I had a company that wasn't getting a response from PG for their power. We worked it out and they got power in 60 days instead of six months. So sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. But if you have somebody you can go to to be a champion, that's what we're trying to do. [snorts] And we we want to be better than South City. We want to be better than Berling game. We're smaller. We're more nimble. And I think we have a better story to tell.

[snorts] So that's why I'm here for you tonight. Thank you very much, Mitch. Appreciate it. Thank you. Again, you have my card. If you have any ideas, let me know. Thank you. Thanks again. staff, are there other items initiated by you folks?

Um, just a few. Um, we wanted to announce, which you may have already seen by email, the planning commissioners academy this year will be in Anaheim. It's March 11th through 13th. Um, so please let Alberto know by um looks like February 17th if you want to attend. um especially any new commissioners. Um it's a good opportunity to get kind of lay of the land with not only the basics of planning commission responsibilities but new laws that impact your work. Um and of course networking with other commissioners throughout the state. So that's my plug for that. Um we are looking to schedule a SQA training coming up at one of your February meetings. Um, so we'll reach out probably to confirm attendance at whatever meeting that ends up being. Um, and then finally, I just wanted to say we're processing a building permit for um, 213 visitation, which those of you who are on the commission in 2020, I believe, um, may recall it's a fourunit uh, mixeduse building where that little yellow house is. And that was it for me.

Thank you. Uh are there any items initiated by any of the commissioners? Commissioner Funk. Thank you. Our next meeting uh will be on February 12th, 2026. Until then, we stand adjourned.