Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

The July 23rd, 2026 meeting of the Brisbane Planning Commission will now come to order. May we have a roll call, please?

Yes, Commissioner Funke?

Here.

Commissioner Lau?

Present.

Commissioner Sayasan? Here. Commissioner Wadziak?

Here.

And Chair Gooding?

Here. Thank you. May I have a motion to adopt the agenda, please? I'll make a motion.

I'll second that.

All in favor? Aye. Motion passes with five ayes. Is there any commissioner who would like to remove any item from the consent calendar? Hearing none. The consent calendar, as I understand it, includes adoption of the meeting minutes for the last three meetings of the commission. And we have a motion to adopt the consent calendar. I so move.

I'll second.

All in favor? Aye. Motion passes with five ayes. We have time now for any oral communications from anyone who wishes to speak to the commission on items not on tonight's agenda. Repeat, not on tonight's agenda. Is there anyone who would like to address the commission in that manner, either in the room or online? Seeing none in the room and none online, we'll move on. Thank you. Moving on to written communications. We will acknowledge that we have received written communications from at least the following, Anthony Walker regarding greenhouse gases, the Bayshore Sanitary District regarding compliance and agreement between our proposed plan and their protocols, from Kim Tholian, generally in support of the specific plan, from Clara Johnson regarding numerous items in the EIR, from BDI in response to questions from the last meeting, and from Chris Florkowski regarding the Geneva extension. And are there any other written communications that we've received since then?

He acknowledged Clara Johnson. None. None additional.

Thank you very much. All right, going on to new business. We will be hearing tonight's item D. There's a continued public hearing regarding the Baylands subarea, environmental review 2021-ER1, specific plan 2021-SP1, zoning amendment 2021-RZ-3, general plan amendment 2021-GPA-2. Does that include the mobility plan?

Yes.

Yes, thank you. I thought I did. Thank you.

Okay.

So first up, do we have any staff presentations for this?

Yes, thank you. Good evening, Chair and Commission. So at last... Oops. Thank you. Okay. At the last meeting on June 30th, staff brought some information to the commission for the commission's request on five topics. So those are summarized in the report. I won't revisit them here. Tonight, we will also address additional topics brought up by the commission. At that meeting, we'll also go over some proposed modification staff recommended modifications to the specific plan to clarify average minimum densities provisions related to hospitality uses and building types and clarifying state regulated remediation and the monitoring process relative to city issued permits and development procedures. And we'll also revisit staff's recommendation on the commission's actions related to this project. I want to acknowledge the city team here tonight. So in addition to myself, we have Jeremiah Robbins, Senior Planner, the city's new City Engineer and Deputy Public Works Director, Roland Yip. He's been here for about a month. Eric Phillips, Special Counsel with the City Attorney's Office. On the consultant team, we have a mix of in-person and virtual attendees from... ESA Environmental Science Associates, including Terry Avila, as well as team members specializing in air quality, energy, GHG, noise, cultural resources, hazards, and water. ESA team members specializing in land use and planning. And sub-consultants Farron Peers regarding transportation and site lab recruiting urban design. And finally, we're also joined by our business consultants with EKI. So we have Michelle King here in person from EKI, and I believe John Montgomery Brown online. And again, they're the city's consultant team reviewing the Baylands remediation planning documents for us. Okay, I'm going to hand it now over to Jeremiah.

Thank you. Staff included four attachments to tonight's report to respond to topics raised by the Commission on June 30th, which included clarifying information on the topics on the screen here. Staff has summarized them here. The first one is on the Bayshore Mobility Plan. It was a request for expanded discussion of how the BMP integrates with regional transportation plans and the feasibility of constructing right-of-way improvements proposed within the BMP without implementing a road diet. Regional and state transportation plans recognize Bayshore Boulevard as an important corridor, but none of them require it to stay a four-lane regional route. Instead, they emphasize safety, multimodal access, and operational improvements. This ultimately provides the city with flexibility in how it redesigns the corridor. As for right-of-way improvements, the feasibility of implementing a continuous Class 1 bike path while maintaining the existing four-lane roadway configuration varies throughout the corridor, potentially requiring reducing the width of the bike path, additional right-of-way acquisition, retaining walls, utility relocation, and or removal of other transportation features, meaning additional engineering evaluation would be necessary. The second one was to provide examples of development projects in California with required or voluntary net zero greenhouse gas emissions. The projects included on that table in the attachment to staff's report are either required by local or regional regulations or voluntarily pursued for streamlining project approvals and judicial review of CEQA lawsuits. Neither of these scenarios apply to the Baylands specific plan. The third one was to get more information on the remediation requirements of the Schlage Lock site in San Francisco and whether it impacts development and remediation of the Brisbane Baylands. So development in the Brisbane Baylands will be required to prevent exposure to chlorinated volatile organic compounds, CVOCs, by either demonstrating through a site-specific risk assessment that no significant risk is present, or by blocking or minimizing the vapor intrusion pathway from those CVOCs in soil vapor that originate from the Schlage operating unit. That's the one in San Francisco, groundwater plume. These requirements are included in the approved remedial action plan and accompanying human health risk assessment prepared for the operable unit SM. That's the one in Brisbane on the northern portion of the Bayland site. And then the last one here is to get some more information on the role of site-specific environmental management associations, SSEMAs. and how they might be used for large contaminated sites. So both the DTSC and the Water Board will utilize SSEMAs to manage site-wise contamination and regulatory compliance on sites that will be subdivided in the future. A local example is SPEMA, that's the Southern Pacific Environmental Management Association, And it's a mandatory association of property owners created in 1999 by order of the Water Board to handle the joint environmental affairs of all current and future landowners on the former Zero Point Landfill for both cleanup and ongoing abatement actions.

All right. Thanks, Jeremiah. Okay. We also provided information in the staff report on recommended clarifications to the specific plan. And this is building on topics we've already introduced at prior hearings. But at this point, staff is making a recommendation on them. So for Chapter 3, we are recommending that the plan be clarified regarding how minimum density and intensities are averaged throughout the specific plan area. including within the station area around the Caltrain station. We're also suggesting some changes to modify how hospitality uses are permitted in the plan to essentially permit them in both high density commercial and mid density commercial designations and to allow those building types to similarly be permitted in mid density districts. We We're also recommending some clarifications to chapter nine of the plan, which addresses implementation. So these changes are really geared toward clarifying and spelling out in a little more detail how the remediation process, which is overseen by state regulatory agencies, interacts with or relates to city control processes like permits and other development review procedures. We did have some detailed information in the attachment. We won't go over it tonight, but we're available to answer questions on it. But again, it's just to emphasize existing processes and procedures, how they relate to each other when it comes to the state, the city, property owner obligations. Okay, so just revisiting for everyone's benefit tonight, staff's recommendation to the Commission is that the Commission recommend certification of the final EIR for the specific plan and approval of the project entitlements, including general plan land use and circulation amendments. And adoption of the specific plan itself, as recommended by staff, with additional clarifications that we've presented tonight, as well as amendments to Title 17 of the Municipal Code to implement the specific plan in the zoning ordinance. And finally, also to approve the Bayshore Mobility Plan, which calls for enhancing mobility along Bayshore in compliance with circulation element policies in the general plan. So this is, we'll keep our presentation short tonight and leave lots of room for questions. Procedurally tonight after questions of staff and consultants, the commission should accept additional public comment, including from the applicant team, ask clarifying questions related to testimony provided, and then afterwards the commission can close the public hearing and commence deliberations. And that is it for our presentation. We're happy to answer questions.

Thank you. Are there any presentations from the consultants or should we just ask them questions?

Not this evening. Yeah, you can ask questions.

Thank you. I have a few, but I'll wait my turn until the end. Darius, any questions? Commissioner Saison?

Yes, I have questions concerning...

Through the chairs, your mic on. Sorry.

Thank you. Yes, I have questions concerning what was submitted following our last meeting. Let me see. The first concerns, I had asked about whether the city should have independent testing done, and you submitted, I thought, was a good response as to what the plan is, that the owners would put a fund together and that they would see to it that, you know, the the area is monitored for any issues and that any maintenance be done. So my question with that is, so the owners are responsible for that. I guess there's an association that manages it. How are those people selected and who are those individuals? Like what are their qualifications? Does anybody know?

For environmental management associations. So, for example, how the actual management is determined. I don't know if we. Yeah, the applicant may be able to address that question.

If you feel.

Yeah, if the applicant has an answer, they're welcome to provide it.

Good evening, commissioners and commissioners. Yeah, the way that the Sarah Point Environmental Management Association works is it is comprised of all of the landowners out there. So they make up the association. So everybody who and it's and they pay quarterly dues. to the association, which has a trustee, which hires an environmental management consultant the case is here point it's jacobs engineering who does all of their monitoring quarterly reports reports that are sent to the water board and the county department of health and that is all in a recorded association that it takes is in perpetuity so once a land owner is in the association even when they sell the if they sell the property the next owner is now in the um is required to be part of the association and pay the dues but it is managed by an environmental consulting firm and okay okay yeah and they also have to carry uh environmental insurance i see so in case of any emergencies and they submit a report to the water board and then the water board exams it so the water board doesn't do any of their own testing correct No, the testing is done by the groundwater testing out at Sarah Point is done by the consultant, Jacobson Engineering, on a quarterly basis and on behalf of the association. And those reports are sent to the water board. The water board reviews them if there's questions and, you know, they come back and ask for more information if there's issues with that. But it's it's. The county Department of Health also has oversight over all former, both current landfills and former landfills. So the county does do a quarterly inspection of Sierra Point, as well as the Baylands landfill right now. And for that matter, all the landfills, both active and closed, that ring the bay.

Okay, so let's say after you are done with your entire project. Yes. So my question is, how regularly will testing be done after everything is completed?

Well, at the landfill... And I'm not sure on the rail yard side, but there will be for groundwater quarterly testing and then a regular inspection of the landfill cap that is done regularly. Actually, that is usually done by the regulators, that inspection, but it's a quarterly groundwater monitoring.

That's in perpetuity?

In perpetuity, that's the way it's written, or until, you know, there's... I mean, the cap will be in perpetuity.

Okay.

But the groundwater monitoring, if there's nothing, if it's not showing any, you know, concerns in the groundwater, those could be, you know, either not monitored anymore or monitored less frequently. So, in fact, at the Schlage Lockside in San Francisco, we were doing quarterly monitoring, and now because the levels are so low, we are into, am I not misspeaking, we are into semi-annual monitoring. On the Schlage lock side.

Yeah. So in terms of this fund that's being set up by the owners, how regularly will that, you know, monitoring be done from that fund?

Yeah, that's the quarterly monitoring. That's quarterly. Yes.

Okay.

Yes. Wow. Okay. Great. Yeah. And it's worked very well out at Zero Point. Okay. Efficiently. Yeah.

Just to stay on topic and... I'll bring you up here two or three times. A couple of questions. These may be for you or it might be for staff or maybe for legal. I'm not sure. But my question is, this envisioned SSEMA, to add to my acronym list, How is that mandated and where is it in the documents? Is it embedded in covenants that run with the land? Is it going to be statutory? What mandates it and what teeth are behind it? Anybody? Anybody?

Michelle of EKI, are you able to answer that? I can try to take a stab at it. Michelle King with EKI, the city's environmental consultant that's been doing peer review. I will go closer to the mic. Thank you. So typically the regulatory agencies, whether it's the DTSC or the Water Board, will require some type of financial assurance mechanism as part of the remedy. And that financial assurance mechanism can pass from owner to owner as required. parcels are sold. But in terms of where such a management organization comes in, it will be linked in some ways to this idea of financial assurance. So once the property is developed, that whether it is an SSEMA or even if you had individual, let's say, homeowners associations or other entities that are doing it it would come through the financial assurance mechanism because that's a big thing that the agencies when there is long-term management of waste if you will that's left in place that they want to make sure that there's money available to do it and a viable entity and not left to like individual homeowners and things like that

thank you. That starts to answer it. Let me add on to the questions. I'm trying to address what I perceive are concerns in the community of what happens if People stop reporting, annual reports stop being done, testing just slips by the wayside. What entity has what power to enforce this with remedies?

That would be the Environmental Regulatory Agency, whether it's the DTSC or the Water Board. And just in terms of the DTSC, And I think there was a question about who does inspections. The DTSC actually does do annual, more like drive-by inspections. Like once a site's been developed, they want to make sure, is the land use the same? Do I see the building there that was built there? It's not like it's a thorough, oh, let me look and see if there's cracks in the pavement, but they're at least looking to make sure that the remedy's intact and somehow big changes haven't been made. So DTSC does do that type of drive-by as well.

and to add a little bit more on onto that too some of the the remedies would um change depending on where in the development process we are so for example if there were a lack of testing or failure to complete to a certain level before building permits were issued the city would have the ability to withhold building permits so there's um mechanisms built in throughout the remediation process to ensure that the standards that have been established by the appropriate regulatory agencies are being met before the project continues through to the next phase.

Thank you. I sort of get that during building process, there's all kinds of hammers that we would have to make sure it's done before you can build. I guess I think, as I read it, the community concern is for the long, long haul. And I'm hearing the answer that is the two regulatory agencies have joint or overlapping jurisdiction or conjunctive jurisdiction over these two pieces of the site.

I'm sure the applicant will elaborate on this. If there were to be an incident that happened down the line during operations, in part that's what the environmental insurance is there to help provide for funds and resources to do additional remediation or take steps that might be necessary to respond should there be an unanticipated incident. That's part of the

protection mechanism that's built in but um i'm sure bd i might want to elaborate on that yes the sites will also be deed restricted through something called in land use covenant an luc and that does run with the property um so the next owner is now that is their They are bound by the agency orders and by the land use covenant deed restrictions, recorded deed restrictions, as well as the financial mechanisms that Michelle discussed. So there's many, many, many, many. belts and suspenders that keep the owners on the hook for regular environmental inspections, reviews, and financial instruments in the case, you know, of an earthquake and, you know, something needs to be repaired.

So is that where the funding mandates are, is in the covenants? Funding for the association to...

They often are, but they're also written into the Water Board and DTSC's rules and regulations. Yeah.

Okay.

All right. And they often show up in the LUCs as well. Thank you. I step in your question a lot. Oh, no. No, no, no.

I... I guess I'm not 100% clear, so bear with me in asking this again. So my concern is once you're done, and it could be years, decades from now, my concern is a child is playing outside on the dirt, on the grass, and whatever, and Something could have happened, something leaked, and now that child is playing on perhaps contaminated soil. So my question is, how regularly? So I'm hearing quarterly, I'm hearing annually.

No, quarterly, yeah. No, quarterly inspections are done by, and that are paid for by these associations, and they're done on a quarterly basis that inspect the caps, inspect to make sure that everything is, you know, in place. The groundwater is the one I was talking about that is quarterly, can go to semi-annually, and can be discontinued if there's no longer any groundwater. The thing you're talking, I'm sorry, the issue you're referring to is the cap, in place and are people being protected. And that is inspected on a quarterly basis by the environmental consultant that is hired by the association, whether it be an HOA, or a association like SPEMA, the Sierra Point Environmental Management Association, which is made up of all of the property owners out on Sierra Point.

And then whenever there's testing done, that report is given to a state agency? Yes.

Yeah, it's, yeah, I'm sorry. It's, it's, it's, yeah, it is all part of the regulatory process. Okay. And those reports are given to, you know, the water board and or the DTSC and the county. And I believe those can even be made available to the city as well.

Yeah, that's that was my next question. So could something like that automatically be given to the city?

Yes, of course.

Okay. I'm not sure if I... Do we need to put that in?

Well, I have a question for Michelle. Would those reports also be available on the website that DTSC and the water boards maintain?

Yeah, yeah. So there's the GeoTracker website, which is the water board's website that typically, you know, often the responsible party is the one who uploads those reports. DTSC controls EnviroStore. So, yeah, typically they're uploaded and available to the public.

Yeah.

The other report I want to bring up just so everyone's aware that happens as well is five year reviews. So there's not only are these routine inspections happening, but mandated again in the regulations by the state are that every five years and more thorough inspections. assessment is done to look at the overall protectiveness of the remedy. So if there's been any changes in, let's say, the toxicity of some chemical, there's some new concern that every five years there's this protectiveness evaluation that's performed.

And again, those are performed by the environmental consultant that is hired and paid for by the association, and those are available on the DTSD's or the Water Board's website, but those also could be made available directly to the city.

And I guess my follow up is probably to staff. Do we need to make a specific request that any report of that nature that is generated be automatically sent and upload into the city's website so that if anybody wants to know what's going on, that they would have those reports available?

Yeah, there's two ways that that could be handled in attachment seven in the packet. There were some suggested additions to section nine on implementation that were more focused on the city's approval processes and the steps during that. But you could. direct staff to make another addition there to have a requirement to just have the city receive a copy of each one of these other reports. The other place that that could live is in the development agreement where that will be coming back to you in a few more weeks. And that could be a contractual obligation to provide courtesy copies of each one of these reports that the city then publishes on its website and makes more easily accessible for members of the public so they don't have to use those the geo tracker and the different state resources to find to find them so um either either of those places are ways that you could capture that okay thank you

I guess I'm a little confused now. So in this case, FEMA is an example of a unit like this. Is there one that will be set for sure? Or is it sort of at the end of the project, we'll see sort of how it breaks down? Or what's the sort of the HOAs and SSMAs and all the different possibilities there?

We don't have. We're not that far down the road yet. But, yeah, I mean, what we have discussed with the city and amongst our development team is that, yeah, we would take the association approach for the long-term management of the environmental concerns. Yeah.

Anyone else? Isra?

Questions for answers? No questions right now.

Oh, actually, I did remember something. At the last meeting, the Sierra Club and other environmental groups had brought up wanting conservation easements put in the specific plan. And I didn't see in your response if you had a position on that, if we were to recommend that, would that be an issue at all for the developer?

Yes, again, I think what we discussed is there are sizable portions of our open space and park land, like Visitation Creek, which has a wetlands restoration. Those are in perpetuity, so there would be no need for a conservation easement. I think the rest of it is, it's a lot of park, so we'd want to very carefully discuss, yeah. Wouldn't close the door on it, but I think we need to have more discussion about, yeah, how that would actually work.

One more before you go. I also brought up San Bruno Mountain Watch had requested that their Mission Blue Nursery stay where they're at and be part of the community fields that you plan to develop there. So do you have a position on that?

We don't have a position on it at this time. I mean, we're, as you all may know, Mission Blue Nursery has been a rent-free tenant of ours for over 20 years, I believe. And they're very much a part of our fabric. And we had incorporated them on another site to accommodate the community fields. They have sent us sort of a conceptual sketch. We have... we have yet to send that to our landscape architect to make sure that that actually fits because it does, what they have is they've taken out kind of a chunk of the field and a chunk of the picnic area that had been planned for them. And I think the answer is we want to work with Michigan Blue Nursery. We're big fans of theirs and yeah, so we're happy to work with them, but we just have not done the analysis yet on the,

can and have done the community outreach with uh soccer proponents in town to make sure that that they work that it works together thank you but we will okay i do have a few questions also um drag us back to your attachment three the mobility plan um we had a response from um the firm that was doing the traffic study. I've forgotten the name. I apologize. Do we have the ability plan folks here tonight?

Yes. Matt Goyne is here from Fair and Pure Center.

And thank you very much. What you provided, as I understand it, was a template, if you will, for how this commission could, if it were inclined, include in its recommendations or suggestions to council that we omit the road diet portion of the plan and you provided a template for what remaining pieces were part of the general Baylands circulation plan that would be important to leave in there to accommodate those street issues. Did I get that right very generally? Thank you, Chair. Yes, that's correct. My question is, and I think Jeremiah began to address it. I'm not sure I understood it. Is there... I know folks in town generally would have a would love to have a real sidewalk on Bayshore for areas south of and outside of the boundaries of this project for pedestrians, for kids going to and from school, for the RV park to residents to access the rest of town and so forth. Is there a way I'm not sure how to use the right language here for traffic engineering. Is there a way to create a sidewalk, a decent one that matches up with what you guys usually do for bikes and pedestrians and so forth, without reducing the lanes from four to two in areas south of the project?

Yeah, so the right of way on Bayshore is variable. And so it's anything from just under 80 feet to over 100 plus feet. And so for a lot of those kind of wider segments or in between intersections, you could pretty easily fit a class one path or a sidewalk on there. There are some constrained locations, I think, at the Brisbane Technology Park driveways, for example, where there are what we call deceleration lanes and additional lanes so cars can decelerate from 45 miles an hour to turn in and then kind of accelerate out as well. There's just that constrains the right of way. So the answer is that what Jeremiah said, it would require a little bit more engineering studies to determine kind of how to approach those constrained locations and what sort of features, you know, are you sacrificing kind of pathway or sidewalk width or are you sacrificing other components? that would have to be completed.

So thank you for the answer. That's clear. So would it be feasible, I take it, for this commission to recommend to the city council, hypothetically, to retain the four-lane structure but to pursue engineering feasibilities for a class one sidewalk area on the west side of Bayshore?

That is correct. Okay.

Thank you very much. I actually had a question. I thought I was going to reserve this for our deliberation time, but it's on topic here. For the road diet, I think one of the concerns that has been expressed is the fact that it, you know, Bayshore is one of the few, like, there's not many ways to get up and down, say, in case of emergency. So let's say you did do the road diet. would it be reversible in an emergency? Like, are the medians going to be, like, could you just open it up in case they're, is that a consideration or would it be just inoperable that way?

Yes, and that's a critical part of any road diet facility these days, particularly for something similar to Bayshore. What you can use is emergency vehicle preemption, and your emergency service providers will have control over the safety how the traffic signals work at either end and you can go out and use them for example to say like let's say you needed to have two outbound lanes on on bay shore um you can close uh you know the intersection this would only be in that you know, very rare circumstance where you need to get people out of Brisbane for whatever reason. And you could have two outbound lanes and then repurpose the multi-use path, which is going to be wide enough for emergency vehicle service providers to come inbound. And so that's kind of under the philosophy of making sure that there's flexibility for providing everyday safety for the 99.9% of the time when, you know, traffic and people are moving normally and giving emergency service providers the keys to being able to, as a part of their planning efforts, you know, reverse traffic directions or do things that would allow them to continue to serve the community as they need to. Okay.

Thank you.

OK, my next set of questions is about the greenhouse gas issue. And you folks attached to the agenda a helpful listing of exemplar projects with net zero greenhouse gas emissions. And I noted that most of them had, as part of the proposal and the process, regular, I think, annual reporting of analyses of greenhouse gas emissions as the projects move on and become built and inhabited and used and occupied. I'm not sure this might be a staff question. I'm not really sure. Whoever wants it can have it. Does our specific plan provide having taken out one of the greenhouse gas criteria or measures, metrics, does it still provide for regular tracking of greenhouse gas emissions?

ESA team, do you want to? I don't know if you have Brian or Brian.

Sure, I can respond to that.

Okay.

Yeah, hi, I'm Brian Schuster with ESA. I led the greenhouse gas energy and air quality analysis in the EIR. The removal of impact GHG-1 also removed any mandate to achieve a specific greenhouse gas target for the project and any tracking that goes along with that the specific plan also does not have any requirements to track greenhouse gas emissions so these projects in the table all have either opted into legislative streamlining benefits through bills like AB 900 now SB 7 environmental leadership projects that among other things to gain the judicial streamlining benefits of those of those bills had to achieve net zero GHG emissions and those document EIRs used net zero as a greenhouse gas threshold in addition to that legislative requirement and in order to achieve that um the threshold of GHG, zero GHG, they had mitigation measures to buy offsets and track emissions over time. So the hook there was a combination of the CEQA threshold requiring mitigation and the legislative requirement, which the California Air Resources Board manages and tracks. Because the Baylands no longer has that net zero threshold through GHG-1, which was removed in the final EIR, there is not a CEQA requirement to achieve or track the project's greenhouse gas emissions. That does not mean that you couldn't track commissions as part of the specific plan or as part of city policy matter or development agreement. And I can, you know, if the city wants to speak to that, they're welcome to. Or if you have any follow-up questions, I'm happy to respond to those as well.

I had just one follow up question to that. I think in some of the correspondence we received, one of the responses was, I think it basically said it's like technically you can't really measure greenhouse gases directly. So is it like an indirect measure, like the kind of vehicles that are being used, number of trips, that kind of thing?

Yeah, absolutely. It's similar to how we estimated greenhouse gas emissions for the project before it's being built. Although measurement in the future, measurement in quotes would be more accurate because you would actually be tracking activity. What you're tracking is you're measuring activity which produces greenhouse gas emissions. So similar to the way you do your greenhouse gas inventory for the city. You're tracking energy use, you're tracking VMT, vehicle miles traveled, you're tracking water, wastewater generation, landfilling, all of the actual activities that produce either direct or indirect emissions from power plants or landfills or vehicle tailpipes. you're not actually putting a tracker on people's cars. You're not asking them to submit their gas bills, but you're estimating the amount of greenhouse gases coming from vehicles based on district-wide, project-wide activity metrics. And as the project builds out and you have actual estimated energy use and you can You can more accurately predict VMT based on the number of land uses and the number of occupants and the square footage of commercial development and the number of employees commuting and commute surveys and all of that. You can reasonably accurately predict greenhouse gas emissions.

Brian, you had spoken a little bit about the modification to GHG-1, the removal of some of the tracking, but I think it also would be helpful to highlight then the things that both the EIR and the specific plan still affirmatively do require in with regard to both energy efficiency and GHG reduction measures, because I don't want the response to leave people confused as to that, oh, we're not doing anything to address project energy use or emissions. I know there's a very robust program, so maybe you could speak a little bit about that as well.

Yeah, the only thing that was removed really was the net zero requirement and the offsets measure, the measure to buy carbon offsets or a combination of funding local programs that generate registry offsets and buying offsets from the carbon market to achieve net zero. Everything else is still required. So the four other greenhouse gas mitigation measures things like the renewable fuel shuttles and the renewable fuels for the wastewater water reclamation facility and low global warming potential refrigerants. Those are all part of the specific plan. So they migrated from being CEQA mitigation measures into basically design standards and specific plan requirements. The project also retains all of its solar, the solar field, all the building battery, which the specific plant allows up to 500 megawatts of battery, including the 250 megawatt utility-scale solar. The LEED gold standards in Greenpoint rated design for residential and non-residential, the TDM program, which reduces VMT regionally by a substantial margin, and all of the other project design features that reduce project emissions. Those are all still in place.

And I think as a result, the EIR concludes that we would see a regional reduction in GHG emissions. Is that still correct?

Yeah, so it's, you know, the traditional CEQA lens is what's happening at the site now, you know, draw a boundary around the site, and then what would the project put there? And what are the emissions coming from that project within that geographic boundary compared to what's there now? It's, you know, existing conditions versus project. The EIR does evaluate the project in isolation using the Bay Area Air District's greenhouse gas thresholds, which is standard CEQA practice. So that's already still there, that analysis, but it also looks at the regional effect of the project. Basically, what would the Bay Area region look like without the Baylands and what would it look like with the Baylands with all the Baylands development located within the city and all of the benefits of jobs, you know, transit oriented development and infill housing. and the TDM program and the renewable energy program and the all electric development and a hundred percent renewable electricity for all electricity used onsite combination of onsite and grid supplied renewable electricity. What would the regional picture look like with the project built here? And the conclusion in the EIR was that the project would reduce regional emissions through that lens. So it is a beneficial project from this, like the lens, the scope of looking at development patterns within the region at large.

Thank you. Staying on the general field of energy and pollutants and energy and pollutants, I know that one of the major features of this project that has been described by BDI as an intent to do is the very large battery park. Is that a decent term? battery field, which is my understanding that it is not, technically speaking, a requirement of the project in the typical sense where it might be a condition of approval for a simple permit to build a house. So perhaps to legal Eric, is there a mechanism by which if the commission chose to recommend this to council to make the construction of that battery park, which I think is at this point sort of anticipated 10-ish years out to make it in some way mandatory or a condition or to have some enforcement, enforceability, I guess.

Yeah. At this point, that sort of specific project element and phasing goes beyond the bounds of what's included in the specific plan and EIR. We will be revisiting phasing and different triggers and trade-offs in the context of the development agreement. So I think we can explore the feasibility of that and have a have the opportunity to get some feedback from the applicant about what and when might be feasible, and I think the development agreement is the best vehicle to address that particular concern.

That's what I thought you might say. Thank you. I think what I'm trying to address is I think a perception that some of these very laudable aspects of the project are may appear aspirational rather than promised or enforceable. So anyway, I take it then what this commission might be able to do is simply recommend to the council to pursue that issue as part of the development agreement.

Yes, and the commission will also have the opportunity to see a version of the development agreement and make a recommendation on that before that goes to council as well. Right, right.

Oh, okay. We see it before council acts on it?

Yes, that's correct.

Okay. Thank you. All right, that's helpful. Lastly, I think, our staff put together a very helpful presentation sheet about their impending recommendations to revise Section 9 for implementation to provide for more specific descriptions of the monitoring process that I encourage folks to look at. And my understanding is that you folks intend to clarify, among other things, the fact that there will be reporting on an annual basis following building construction that will be monitored by the city in coordination with the public agencies. Is that generally correct?

The intent behind the suggested revisions to Chapter 9 is, I just want to be really clear, it's not to impose any new or different regulatory procedures or processes beyond what the state mandates us through DTSCs and the water boards process. So just to be clear, we're not proposing the city take additional action. So yeah, the intent behind those changes are really to, like I said earlier, clarify and provide more information on what those state overseen and mandated procedures would look like, including for monitoring, and then make it more clear how that activity relates to and impacts city control processes like permitting. We do have ESA team members, I think, on the call online who might be able to speak a little more to what those clarifications are going to address when it comes to those relationships.

I don't know if Eric is on.

Somebody joined us? Okay. Thank you. Oh, okay.

Thanks. Eric Calloway, Principal Planner at PSA. I think to, just to specify, particularly related to the annual question that you had, there are reporting, there are things that the city would report on that the specific planner already speaks to that would be annual reporting. And then that's related to the things that the city has oversight over. And then the reporting that is related to remediation, the timing of that would be determined by the regulating agencies. So, you know, as the applicant was just speaking to, you know, that could be related to the quarterly testing and whatever the agency requires. And so the As Julia was just saying, the intention behind the revisions is to explicitly state that the reporting and the timing of the reporting and the perpetuity of the reporting, what needs to be reported, that would be as required by the regulating agency, but then also to explicitly state which, since the type of testing that you would be doing and when, you would have to do some testing and then put together a report that has to, for example, be related to the installation of the cap versus when development occurs versus after there are buildings. and how that different kinds of testing and reporting relates to the city's oversight over approvals of building and occupancy permits.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Any other questions about those issues? I have one last question, but I just want to let folks have a chance to chime in. Okay. Sort of lastly, maybe this is I apologize for the breadth of this question potentially, but what staff is recommending is a modified alternative one to the original 2026 specific plan. And when I read the EIR analysis of it, it highlighted the major issues being reduction of the building heights, relocation of some of the buildings, the larger buildings, and then analyze the impact of those environmentally. Would you be able to synopsize any other major changes and modified alternative one from the previous specific plan?

From the developer's proposal? Yeah. Yeah. ESA team, did you want to talk about that?

Yeah, I can handle that one. Modified alternative one basically reduces the number of towers in the Caltrain right of way or in proximity within a quarter mile of the Caltrain right of way. And what it does then is it reduces the number of high density dwelling units as a result. And then it increases low density and medium density dwelling units, you know, further to the east. And then those, excuse me, building heights increase, you know, somewhat nominally. So it really is the same number of dwelling units, but it reduces building heights significantly. near in proximity to transit uses and decreases high density and increases low and medium density. So that's really the foundational difference.

Any other changes that aren't about building sites?

And thank you, Director Ayers. Yes, and it accommodates the LMF. So it's, you know, it accommodates the LMF.

Right, which is the light maintenance facility.

Yes, light maintenance facility. Yeah, high speed, yeah, light maintenance facility.

All right. Thank you very much. Anybody else have any questions? Going once, going twice? All right. In that case, we are going to revisit the continued public hearing. And I have several slips here. Do we have anybody online yet? None with hands raised. Okay. I'll just begin calling these folks. And if you can give me a high sign, if you get any onlines, I'll get to them. The first slip I have is from Ali Zeperman. Zeperman?

Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Allie Saperman. I'm speaking again tonight on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition and the Bay Area Council. We are here to urge you to take action and vote tonight on the Bayland Specific Plan and final EIR. As predicted based on my previous comments, on June 30th, the California Department of Housing and Community Development revoked its finding that Brisbane's housing element is compliant with state law. The consequences of delaying the Baylands are no longer hypothetical. Brisbane is now subject to the builder's remedy, loss of state funding, court-imposed penalties, and referral to the Attorney General. There is a clear and simple path back to compliance. Brisbane must adopt the Bayland-specific plan and zoning. We recognize that this is a complicated project and that the City has devoted substantial effort to get to this point. But this is the fifth meeting of this body. After two comprehensive informational workshops and now three public hearings, it's time to move forward. There have already been countless meetings like this and extensive analysis over the 20 years since this project was first introduced. All the while, the housing crisis worsens and the Baylands remains vacant. This city or region and the state can no longer afford further delays. We need an approved plan of the Baylands that is economically feasible and capable of being built. State law prohibits a local agency from conditioning their approval in a manner that renders housing development infeasible. We therefore ask you to focus your remaining deliberations on the decisions necessary to deliver housing, restore Brisbane's compliance, and preserve the city's ability to guide its own future. Please act with the urgency of the moment requires and recommend approval of the Bayland specific plan and final EIR. Thank you.

Thank you. Next is Darren Clark, please.

Good evening, chair, commissioners, staff. My name is Darren Clark. I'm a field representative for North Coast States Carpenters Union, currently working out of Carpenters Local 217, representing San Mateo County. Before becoming a representative, I worked as a carpenter for 39 years. I've seen firsthand how projects like this can transform communities. The Brisbane Baylands Project represents a tremendous opportunity for the residents of Brisbane and all of San Mateo County. A project of this scale will generate economic activity, support local businesses, and create good-paying jobs for working families. Just as important, it will provide opportunities for the next generation to enter into the construction industry and build lasting careers through apprenticeships and journeyman upgrade training programs. From the carpenter's perspective, as this project moves forward, it is critical that it is built by a responsible general contractor. One committed to paying area standard wages, utilizing state-accredited apprenticeship programs, and providing benefits such as healthcare. These standards help ensure that workers can support their families, stay healthy throughout their careers, and retire with dignity. This is a multi-generational project. Let's make sure it's built by a workforce that reflects the highest standards of skill, safety, and responsibility so its benefits are felt for generations to come. Thank you.

Thank you very much. All righty. Next, Arturo Sainz.

Good evening, commissioners, staff. I'm Arturo Saenz. I am a business rep for the La Lluna Laborers, Local 261. And we understand and respect the concerns of the Brisbane residents regarding the remediation of the Baylands site. City staff, representatives of the Baylands Inc. have provided extensive information about the safety measures that will be implemented and monitored throughout the remediation and construction process, as well as the protections that will remain in place for decades after the development is completed. I would like also to offer the perspective of the workers who will be performing this important work. Their safety and the safety of the surrounding community must remain the top priority. Latino laborers are highly skilled professionals who receive extensive training, industry recognition, certification, hazardous material handling, and environmental remediation, construction safety, and the proper use of personal protective equipment. They are trained to recognize potential hazards, follow established safety procedures, and respond appropriately to changing conditions on the job site. These skilled laborers strictly follow all applicable federal, state, and local safety regulations. Their training and expertise help protect not only the workers performing the remediation work, but also nearby residents, the surrounding environment, and the long-term safety and integrity of the completed development. So if... This work is awarded to a responsible union contractor employing trained and certified La Una laborers. The city and the community can be confident that the remediation will be formed by workers who have the skills, the expertise, the commitment necessary to complete a project safely and responsibly. We therefore request the Planning Commission approve the Baywatch specific plan. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. Next, Erin Becker, please.

Hello, I'm Erin Becker. Thank you for taking public comment, and for demonstrating that you guys are really paying attention to the public comments. I submitted two letters about a month ago. A lot of that has actually been addressed in the meeting since. But one thing I want to make sure to remind you about before you get close to approving this is our existing ordinances. The Bayland Specific Plan, as written, is kind of inconsistent and noncompliant with both the Dark Skies Ordinance and the Invasives Regulation. I assume that our ordinances Trump, whatever they write in the specific plan. So instead I'm going to remind you guys that when the dark skies ordinance was written, the Bayland Zoning District did not exist. So I'm asking you to include in your recommendations that we also update the Dark Skies Ordinance to include the Baylands District in the same lighting category as R2, R3, MHP, other districts of similar size. And that would determine their lighting levels, the number of lumens per square foot of developer. area. Second, I really hope you guys consider alternative number seven, which is the reduced density, reduced height alternative. It reduces four of the significant project impacts. And in the EIR, it's kind of glossed over because of the state mandated housing increase. But it's 1,800 units is still 13% more than is being pushed down our throat. And there are other projects in Brisbane that will even add to that. We can always change zoning in five years, 10 years, whatever, if we need to. There's no reason now we have to commit to 2,200 units. Measure JJ only says we have to do 1,800. Thank you.

Thank you. Storrs Holm, please.

Thank you for taking into consideration the complexity of this project. I have two comments that I'd like to make. First, again, concerning pile driving and noise. I would like to see that drilled shaft and rectangular barrettes are also called out as options. These have been used successfully in San Francisco, notably to retrofit the Millennia Tower, and then the barrettes were used for our gigantic Salesforce tower. uh... and uh... and then on a different topic uh... that i did tunnel road is currently used as a major thoroughfare for cycling for cyclists commuting both up into San Francisco and from San Francisco down to the South Bay or southern regions. And there have been some wonderful bike paths proposed in the specific plan, but I would like to make sure that there is at least one path which is fast in the sense that there aren't a lot of intersections and stops. So cyclists can still commute quickly from San Francisco to Sierra Point or Oyster Point and vice versa. Thank you.

Thank you.

Through the chair, we do have three online if you want to switch. Let me take one of those, please. Okay. We're going to start with Melissa. Go ahead, Melissa, you can address the commission.

Good evening chair and commissioners. My name is Melissa Foley and I'm a science director at the San Francisco Estuary Institute or SFEI. SFEI reviewed the Bayland specific plan and provided independent ecological planning and design guidance that aligned feedback from local environmental organizations with the best available science and provided that guidance to BDI. The commitment to a high proportion of native plants throughout the project area and 100% native in the habitat restoration, enhancement, and other sensitive areas is commendable. Diverse assemblage of native vegetation will support local wildlife by providing higher quality food and habitat than non-natives, expand populations of locally adapted plants, and reduce maintenance needs, particularly irrigation once plants are established. By recognizing the importance of the Baylands for supporting regional habitat connectivity, wildlife movement, and human access to green space, the specific plan takes a landscape scale view that is needed to make our urban areas healthier for people and wildlife and more resilient to climate change. The wildlife safe design features included in the plan, particularly for lighting and building design, ensure that the developed areas introduce as few hazards as possible for wildlife while ensuring residents' safety. Adopting guidance from the American Bird Conservancy and consulting experienced biologists as part of the planning process will help to ensure the latest advances in wildlife safe design are being implemented. The balance will be a first of its kind development in the Bay area that brings together people in nature by employing a range of nature based solutions to provide benefits ranging from access to nature to heat mitigation to biodiversity support. That will support healthy and resilient outcomes for people in wildlife the balance can serve as an example to cities throughout the Bay area to show how communities and nature can thrive together.

Thanks, Melissa. We have Jordan next. Go ahead, Jordan. You may address the commission.

Thank you so much. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Jordan Grimes, and I'm the legislative director for Green Belt Alliance. We are an environmental organization working throughout the Bay Area focused on conservation, climate resilience, and sustainable land use policy. For the last 68 years, we've championed conservation and infill housing solutions that protect open spaces, reduce GHGs, and create vibrant communities where people can live close to jobs, schools, and public transportation. In both our June 30th letter from this year and our comment letter from last September on the draft EIR, we raised concerns with IHG-1E, the proposed mitigation measure that would require the Baylands to purchase offset credits. We're very happy to have seen that removed. I was preparing to make a longer comment, but I think Mr. Schuster of ESA actually did a really great job explaining the regional benefits of GHG emission reduction that this project will provide over time. And I'll just say, this project is not Tejon Ranch. It is not a subdivision in Lathrop or Tracy or Manteca, which is what that program was designed for. This is a large-scale TOD project that will have huge GHG reduction benefits for the region when completed. I would also note that per the UC Berkeley local government climate policy tool, the policy that offers the single greatest potential for greenhouse gas reduction in Brisbane specifically is the creation of infill housing. So to that end, I actually really hope you won't pursue Alternative 7, the reduced titan density regulations. It really runs counter to our regional housing and climate goals at the same time. And then just finally, I'll say Greenbelt has been supporting this project since 2011. I think that's a really unfortunate indictment of our response to the housing and climate crises. And we do really need to do better. So I would urge the planning commission to advance the plan tonight. Thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it.

Thank you very much. All right. We have Eileen. Eileen, you may address the commission.

Good evening, commissioners. It's Eileen McLaughlin from Citizens Committee to complete the refuge and co-signer of a letter with Sarah Club and others. I thank you for continuing to deliberate on this. I appreciate the questions you bring forward. And I just wanted to, on the greenhouse gas emissions, we are glad and I am glad that you've been very thorough in trying to make sure these greenhouse gas emission plans that you have are going to be continuous and monitored over time. So thank you for that. But I also wanted to speak to the point raised about the conservation easement, which was in our letter. Although some of the lands were marked in perpetuity, the question that I bring up is, Does that actually go with land conservation easement goes with the land so once it's put on there, it will stay and as Melissa was talking about on as well as habitat we're building we want that is to stay once it's established once it's encouraged to grow. We want Brisbane to have this area that remains is conserved area and and habitat that serves. both the species and all the people who would come to enjoy it. So I hope that you can consider that or if perhaps it needs to be included as a recommendation for the development agreement. But I hope you get that into the plan some way. Thank you.

Before we go to the next one, is that a question we can answer quickly and get it off the table, whether that conservation easements run with the land? It's a longer answer. We can do it in some other form.

Yeah, easements do run with the land. They show up in the deed to the property.

Yeah, and I think this was implicit in the director's answer, but other forms of easements also run with the lake. An easement that's granted to the city in perpetuity also would run with the land, even if it's not a dedicated and statutory conservation easement. That was my assumption. Thanks.

Any other Okay, from inside the room, next up is Linda Salmon, please.

Good evening again, commissioners.

I don't envy your position. I have a lot of comments, but one of the main problems I have is with the idea of putting single family dwellings on clay caps. I know they show nice pictures of trees growing out of them in gardens for kids to play in, but it's not really possible on a five foot clay cap, which are subject to problems with sea level rising and earthquakes in a big way. And I had suggested ages ago, one of the reasons I put the FARs as they were in the 1994 general plan is that we could have dwelling units like rental properties on top of homes. you know, commercial enterprises in this area so that you actually can house far more people and with less danger to children running around playing on toxic soil. And a lot more housing for people who are working in the area and so on and so forth. And I really feel that this is what we have to do. We can do a lot more for the people who don't have houses, who can't afford to buy houses, but who can rent with caps on the rent based on all kinds of other things that go on. Anyway, So that's one of my main points. The other one is when we kept talking about the road diet and stuff like that, one of the solutions is to have the connection with the light rail that goes to San Francisco going all the way through to past Brisbane to South City, you know, with a turnaround back and forth. Just a single lane doesn't have to be the double thing that they have right now with the city. And it's possible. And that way... save on greenhouse gases and make transportation easier for everyone. So those are two major things that I don't think still haven't happened in terms of looking at all the possibilities of the general plan. You really can't build a house on a clay cap and have it be stable in an earthquake and with flooding. And when the electricity goes out, your pumps are not going to work. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up is Anthony. I think it's Anthony Walker. Am I right?

good evening commissioners i yes my handwriting is terrible i apologize um my name is anthony walker i'm uh chair of osec uh but speaking tonight in my individual capacity as a brisbane resident um i submitted a second letter that i believe was uh shared with you last night and i apologize for the length i know it's a lot um but i hope you'll take the time to read it carefully um Because it focuses on two major questions, greenhouse gas accountability and Measure JJ's energy neutrality requirement. There's a lot in there, but I want to highlight just one thing in the letter here in the room, and that is that Measures Asia does not simply say that the Baylands should be energy neutral without any context as to what that means. It says the specific plan must be consistent with the principles of the sustainability framework, a named and dated document, and that that development shall be designed so as to be energy neutral on an ongoing basis. My letter examines what those words mean in further detail. I think there is actually a lot in there to dissect. But the sustainability framework, I want to call out one thing, establishes a clear order of operations. A, maximize local onsite generation first. B, evaluate additional community scale renewable generation within Brisbane, so that's offsite. And then C, only then consider community choice aggregation procurement. which would be our Eco 100 solution. So my concern there is that we're sort of giving up on a half-completed step A on-site generation. We're only getting to 53%. And then skipping over B entirely, I haven't been able to turn up anything at all about off-site generation. and then going straight to step C as the main solutions. And I want to be clear, you know, both of my requests in the letter are not new. They're prioritizing on-site generation is consistent with the sustainability framework and where on-site energy neutrality cannot be achieved, requiring additional community scale renewable generation within Brisbane is simply step B in the frameworks order of operations um so i just want to highlight those ideas did not come from me they're from brisbane's own documents um and uh yeah i realize i'm over time so i i hope that um you'll take a few minutes to read the the letter um carefully because i think there there's a lot in there a lot of context that will be helpful thank you very much thank you

Okay, next up is Nicole Westerkamp, please.

Good evening. Thank you to the commission, the staff, the experts, all the people who've been joining to lift this very large process. My name is Nicole Westerkamp. I've been in Brisbane as a resident for a little over a decade. Um, I'm also a mom, but even before kids, this project has, um, I've wanted to join in and it feels like drinking from a fire hose. So, um, I just want to recognize the effort and focus and information that you all are digesting. And I appreciate the thoughtful questions. Um, the elementary school logo I believe is something like building thoughtful citizens and that takes time and labor. So thank you. I don't know who, again, in this long, detailed conversation might have already pointed out to consider the stakeholders who do not have a voice in this process. And I'd ask the Commission to just spend a moment thinking of that. The stakeholders who don't have a voice and are not included in conversation often have the least power and privilege. This is a remarkable, unique piece of living land. And as I was thinking of what to say as I drove in, I really wonder what the original inhabitants and stewards of this land would be thinking of and advising us as we consider this generational project. I've heard a lot of voices just in the last meeting and this one with lots of needs, lots of people, lots of interests for housing, for jobs, for, you know, just an unimaginable number of things to balance. And one concern I'd like to bring is just that the residents who will be most directly impacted and who will impact this process might be having difficulty joining in the conversation. So thank you for those continued efforts and my ask Two are, one, how do we keep informed, thoughtful citizens able to participate in this process and lend their expertise? And second, to just voice again that the land is does not bring their voice here and needs our strongest protections from the outset. I appreciated learning about the conservation easement that can slip away very easily and just ask you to ensure that from the onset now that the process continues to include concrete actions in the process that keep us thoughtful. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Next up is Michelle Salmon.

Michelle Salmon. Tonight I'm speaking as a second-generation, lifelong Brisbane resident. I've read the draft EIR. I read all of it. But I'm still very concerned about how toxic this site is. In 2018, when Measure JJ failed, I mean, won by 10%. The then head of the company representing the owner of the property said that he would get right on getting the specific plan, and that was in 2018. They did not submit a specific plan until 2023, and it was inadequate and was returned to them. And then they did not submit it until 2025, almost 2026, which is why we're in the position we are now, where... the state is holding a gun to our head about housing. But what most people don't realize when they talk about infeasibility of housing here is how toxic this land really is. And I don't think a drive-by or a five-year drive-by or whatever is really adequate because in five years, a child's nervous system can be completely destroyed by lead deposition. in the area where they live. And I think it's unfortunate that Stephanie keeps comparing the Baylands to Sierra Point Marina and Park Sierra Point. Sierra Point was a very different landfill. It was diked, it was lined, it was manifested and layered and adequately closed over 40 years ago. It's starting to show definite signs of wear. It is very different than the Baylands, which was undiked, unregulated, landfill that had from 1936 on that god knows what's in there and no one really knows because it's never been thoroughly tested the way it should be and that's what we're dealing with and so when people are all housing housing housing at any cost do you want another love canal in brisbane I think that we really need to look very carefully at, you know, you talk about sea level rise, et cetera. And I know that the owners of the property are very anxious to get their entitlements and yet they haven't built with the entitlements they already have. And I, I urge you not to, um, approve the mobility plan. I think that it's really very negative for the people who already live in Brisbane and the Northeast Ridge and people coming over Crocker Park. And basically it would kind of strand people in Brisbane. But I think you really do need to look at every protection measure. uh for the future of this area and the people that will live there and conservation easements oh and yes greenbelt alliance has been on this since 2011 when jonathan scharfman started donating to them heavily who was the prior executor of this estate so please do i so appreciate the work you've done and the questions you've answered tonight and sitting through this for three times And I can't tell you enough of that. But please make the right choices and please make the conservative choices in terms of the environment and protect the future, future of the children, the future of the people who don't have a voice here yet. Thank you.

Thank you. Next is Cynthia Gomez, please.

Good evening, Commissioners. Cynthia Gomez, United Here Local 2 at the Hotel Workers Union. And again, we have roughly 6,000 members who live in the communities immediately surrounding the project area. I will reference but not repeat the comments that I've made earlier about our various critiques of the project. You've heard them. We've sent letters. The only thing I will repeat tonight is the simple reality that there is no state law that requires Brisbane to accept 7 million square feet of commercial development. That is the kind of jobs housing imbalance at 19,000 jobs versus 2,200 housing units that has the potential to make the housing crisis precisely the opposite of the way it's being promoted. That has the potential to make the housing crisis worse, not better. And there is no state law that requires that you accept that kind of ratio. So that is what I would like to leave you with. Thank you. Thank you.

Do we have anybody else on? Last slip I have currently is Elena Schott, please.

Good evening. I speed read, but that's probably nothing compared to how much you guys have to weigh through over the course of your average month. I had just a few comments on this. One quickie on the mobility. Currently, I can get from home in central Brisbane to the top of Tunnel Avenue as I'm going onto Highway 101 in 10 minutes, 15 minutes on a bad day. My understanding, or rather expectation, is that the construction that's going to be done as a part of producing the Baylands is... is going to shut down Tunnel Avenue, at which point that transportation route is out. If we then force everybody who currently zips along Tunnel Avenue to take Bayshore, the immobility plan is going to destroy that too, and we'll all be spending 25 or 30 minutes just to make it to 101. That strikes me as an unreasonable non-compromise. I see a lot of language in the report about how we can all switch to scooters, but I'm not taking a trunk full of groceries home from San Francisco downtown on a scooter. So, you know, bus and then scooter is not a better option. So that was transportation. Noise. My understanding is from the meeting that I participated in on June 30th, they made no promise whatsoever not to pile drive all through the night. They considered that as an option and it hadn't been closed out. So does Brisbane have the noise ordinances and will Brisbane enforce the noise ordinances to make sure that residents in our parabolic bowl get eight hours of sleep every night. My understanding so far is not necessarily, and I'd actually like to get to work coherent and competent rather than destroyed by listening to pile dryers and tell 6 a.m. That was number two. And then I think one of the big issues for city resistance overall is and we're stuck with it now because of the whole California state laws. When you have a town of only a thousand homes and they're saying, whoops, we need to add two thousand more. Our local votes are gone. So in five years, you know, I won't be seeing any of you and you won't be seeing any of us because we'll have been replaced. That's a silly fear in terms of national and immigration, but I think a real and sensible fear to some extent here within our small local voting district. I'd have much loved it if we'd started in 2015 and added 100 units a year so that the new arrivals would have become Brisbaneians.

Thank you.

Thank you. Through the chair, we do have one more online.

Okay.

Christina, you may address the commission.

Thank you. I really deeply appreciate the care the commission's taking with this project and the questions you're asking and not allowing yourself to be bullied by outside forces. Listening to the comments of labor representatives, I'm sympathetic to those comments, but I do wonder how many of the housing units that you'll be building will be within the reach of the incomes of your membership. The slam the community is going to take with this development, I don't think people from outside of the housing advocates, again, I'm deeply sympathetic, don't understand what's going on here. It's a 684-acre development. Brisbane's got 2,000 acres of land. Even if we subtract the lagoon, about 135 acres, that's 28% of the city in a single swoop is going to get transformed. As the previous speaker mentioned, that totally changes the city of Brisbane, even if that takes place over say, five, seven years. What other community has been expected to undergo that level of transformation in a single development and do it in a manner that leaves the community healthy, ensures that the community is healthy? And when you take into account the commercial impacts, as were described, That just complicates the situation even further. So again, deep appreciation to the commission. This is a very difficult project and we're being asked to accept it in total rather than incrementally. And I just don't see a healthy way of embracing this. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Thanks. All right. We also are going to have one more presentation from the applicant at this time.

Good evening again, Chair Gooding, honorable commissioners. Once again, my name is Stephanie Schakowsky. I am the environmental lead for the Baylands Development Team. Commissioners, before you tonight are documents that reflect 20 years of planning, environmental review, community engagement, and a voter initiative. Recommending approval of this specific plan and the final EIR is an affirmative act by this commission proving that Brisbane is a community that confronts this housing shortage. restores its ecological assets, builds around transit to reduce GHGs, and holds itself to the highest standard of sustainable development. We because we continue to have questions from the commission and from the public regarding the environmental cleanup, we did bring with us tonight our environmental consultants and our engineer of record. And I'd like for him to if we just take a few minutes for him to walk the commissioners through the actual cleanup process. And I also encourage you to please. interrupt him, ask him questions. He's quite used to being interrupted working with me, but I do would like to ask Jay Morani, our senior engineer at GeoSyntac, to come up and answer the questions for, or give us your short presentation and answer any questions from the commissioners. And please feel free to interrupt his presentation.

Thanks. My name is Jay Marani. I'm the engineer on the remedy for the rail yard area. I just want to talk through the implementation approach and what we'll be doing at the site. So there's a few slides there. I don't know if you can see them in front of you. Okay, awesome. Okay. So as you know, the site's pretty flat between Bayshore and the Caltrain tracks. And so that's what I'm showing here, just a flat area where there's the existing soil. The first step in the project is actually going to be removing any contamination that could present future issues. So there's some chlorinated solvents in soil that were encountered during the investigations, and those will be removed and disposed of offsite before any future action. So following the removal of that area, fill would be imported that's been approved by the water board for use on the site. We'll excavate also corridors for future utility installations. That's what's shown on the side there. And those may penetrate the imported fill or they may go a little bit deeper into the existing soil, but those are going to be used and filled with clean fill so that in the future when utilities are installed or maintenance is needed, that It's a simpler process. Following the imported fill, the next step is to install the cover system. That consists of a demarcation layer and a clean soil cap layer. The demarcation layer is an orange, just really brightly colored fabric that's put over the entire site as a marker so that if anyone's digging, they can see that as a very obvious marker change, that there is something different. And it'll just make sure that if a contractor is out there, that they go back and reassess their approach. Following that is the placement of the clean soil cap, which is the five-foot layer. You see on here, there's a surcharge pile in many portions of the site. We'll be adding additional clean soil fill, and that's to drive settlement in the material below the existing soil. There's bay mud, so very soft clays throughout the site. And what that does is drive more of the settlement in advance so that when it is removed and any construction of roads or shallow building foundations are put in, that there's less differential settlement, less potential for cracking, less potential for potholes. So then... The next step is to remove the surcharge pile and create this development grade. So just basically a clean site for future developers. And one thing I want to note is that throughout this entire process, there's many checks. So there would be a construction quality assurance consultant that's onsite continuously with the contractor, making sure that everything the contractor does is done in line with the design and the approved design. In addition to that, the construction manager and the construction quality assurance team will be making sure that the agencies are also aware of what's going on throughout the process. So weekly, they're going to provide construction reports that are providing updates to the agencies about what's happening and how it's been going, if there's been any changes, if there's been any issues, that report will be in there. Yes.

When you say agencies, are we talking DTSC and the water board? Yes. Okay.

I say agencies because it is multiple. Additionally, the construction quality assurance team would prepare a report at the very end of the project. That could be at the end of phases or at the very end, depending on what the phasing structure is, that would describe all of the work that was done, any potential changes, the discussions that went with the agencies, a survey that shows that any excavated areas were excavated to the elevations that were required by the design. And all that will be packaged up into a construction completion report for the agency water border or DTSC. They would have to approve that construction completion report before any future development activities can occur. So moving forward, so another thing that is, so that would remove the potential exposure pathways to the contamination. However, the only remaining exposure pathway is soil vapor. So prior to any buildings that would have occupancy, we would do soil vapor sampling at two times during the year. So the soil vapor sampling occurs between the groundwater table and the surface. And because the groundwater table fluctuates in the wet season and the dry season, we would do two instances of the sampling to get a range of the concentrations that may be present. And using that data, we would evaluate whether a vapor intrusion mitigation system is necessary for any of the buildings that are going to be constructed at the site. If it's found that a vapor intrusion mitigation system is necessary, then it could consist of the components shown on this drawing. So the main component is really the vapor-proof membrane that would go under a foundation. But additionally, if needed, there could be a capture and conveyance system, like a gravel bedding or perforated pipe, to collect any potential gases and vent them. prior so that it prevents any of that from getting into the structure.

Before I forget my question, are the tests, the biannual tests, also provided to the agencies?

Yeah. So all of the stuff that anyone does on the site is going to have to be uploaded to GeoTracker or EnviroStore. So similar to the groundwater data that Stephanie was talking about, all that data is compiled and uploaded to those public networks. Okay. Additionally, if a vapor intrusion mitigation system is found to be necessary in these buildings, there would be additional indoor air sampling. So prior to the occupancy after construction, there would be additional indoor air sampling to make sure that the system is working. That would actually continue at regular frequencies during the life of the building.

Is there no concern about the vapor surrounding the building? Is it only sort of within the foundation of the building? What about the region next to the building?

It's only if it has a place to collect. So if it could have a place to pool. Otherwise, it vents the atmosphere and it's diluted.

And is there a minimum imported fill size there? Like a minimum depth for the imported fill? Or is it sort of variable across the property?

The clean soil fill above the imported fill is at least five feet everywhere. The imported fill ranges in thickness from zero at the edges where it's just the clean soil cap where we're tying into Bayshore Boulevard or the Caltrain tracks. And then it gets to 15 to 20 feet towards the middle of the site.

Is the demarcation fabric, that's never going to be penetrated? It doesn't look like it is for this building, but what if you're building a, you know, 200 feet residential towers? Is there a need for the anchors to be?

So, yeah, for piles, they would go through the demarcation layer in the exact location of the pile. We wouldn't put demarcation layer. It would go to the edge and then the clean soil cap would be maintained in those upper five feet. or restore it if needed, if there's an excavation.

Yeah.

Through the chair, is your mic on? Thanks.

When you guys take samples, isn't that the demarcation barrier penetrated?

If we need to do sampling below the demarcation layer, then the demarcation layer and the above soil would be replaced. And so in the remedial design plan, there's what's called a soil and groundwater management plan so that any soil disturbing activities, including sampling, there's a set of procedures that would need to be followed. And that would include reconstruction of the cap. And that's the end of my slides.

Any other questions from the commission?

No.

Thank you. All right. Any further staff presentation or are we done?

No additional staff presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. We have had, I think somebody said at least five meetings with public comments and we have really, really appreciated them. We've read the written communications and we thank you all for your input. It's been valuable. I hope some of our questions have reflected the fact that we have listened to your comments and applied them to the task at hand. With that being said, I think it is time for the chair to entertain a motion to close the public hearing.

I'll make a motion to close the public hearing.

I'll second that.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes with five ayes.

We are now entering the deliberation phase of this meeting and any other.

I'm not sure we're going to get through everything tonight, folks. It's a large thing to get our hands around, but we're going to get a start. My suggestion is that we start with the Baylands Mobility Plan or the Bayshore Mobility Plan, excuse me, for the simple reason that it is discrete and separable from the other aspects of the larger picture and sort of the easiest piece to grab and chew on first. So I'd like to entertain any thoughts, opinions, deliberations about that. Let's start with Darius.

Yeah, I mean, I have a hard time wrapping my head around how the road dieting would help, even though that's what everyone says would help. So I think I like the idea of sort of breaking it up into subcomponents there. I'm still chewing through it, so no additional sort of questions or comments from me other than I don't like the idea of a road diet or sort of restricting that there. So I'll kind of park it for that right now.

Well, I'm in favor of keeping two lanes each way. And I liked what Chair Gooding asked our expert there about if we can keep the two lanes each way, but enhance Bayshore in other ways. So, for example, with the sidewalks and things like that. Yeah, that would be my only objection to the Bayshore Mobility Plan is just the reduction in lanes.

Well, it may be the lone voice here. I'm actually very intrigued by the philosophy of the complete street thing. I think the road diet may be sort of pejorative. I like the idea behind it. I think that it is, I think, philosophically a different way of looking at how streets function and enabling more modes of transportation. In the end, you may be able to move more people. It's not just about moving more cars. And I think also part of it is looking to the future state, not so much what it is now. So I think it does... the road diet and the complete streets model represents kind of a change in the way we think about roads. So I'm actually maybe a little more open to it than maybe some other members of the commission. I think it needs further study. I'm a little bit worried about how, for example, you put a road diet just in a certain stretch of Bayshore, it could represent kind of a plug. in a way and maybe kind of a token, aspirational token to change in the way you think about roads that in the big picture may not make much difference. But I think we all want, you know, we want to be able to move around in ways that aren't completely dependent on cars. So I'm open to opening, keeping my mind open to do this model.

Great. Alex.

What concerns and i'd be opposed to the road diet and reduction and be opposed and concerned about reduction of lanes with the road diet and leave there's probably opportunities for alternative. ways to try to manage traffic and mobility without reducing lanes.

Yeah, my concerns for my two cents is as follows, is that as I understand the plan, the Bayshore would remain two lanes in each direction north of, I just blanked on the name of the street, the one north of Geneva. No, north.

The one north of Geneva. In San Francisco, Sunnydale?

Sunnydale, thank you. It's late. And then it siphons down to one lane all the way down to San Bernardino Avenue. So essentially, the area that is put at the area where the traffic is condensed and compressed is basically Brisbane and the Baylands. And that north and south of it, sort of business as usual. And I'm not a traffic engineer, but... I drive that street as much as anybody else in this room or listening on TV. I just don't have the faith that that's an answer to the problem. And I'm not even positive what the problem is that's being addressed, other than the perception perhaps that traffic along Bayshore tends to get fast. I haven't seen a lot of that, but even assuming that to be true, my opinion is that there are ways to deal with that. There are calming methods. There's narrowing of lanes. There's turning the lanes. Both Van Ness and Potrero are examples of where there's been lots of calming things done to make traffic flow better, and I take both of those streets a lot, and it does. It works. Anyway, so my... one opinion out of five is that I'm opposed to the road diet concept. However, listening to folks over the past five sessions tells at least me and I think all of us that there's a perception of a need for improving the pedestrian and multimodal safety of people using Bayshore bicycles and e-scooters and all that. So that's why I'd ask the question of staff and ESA about the feasibility of being able to continue. There are things being done to Bayshore under the mobility plan where it adjoins Baylands that make decent sense, that are kind of really sensible to allow new streets coming into it that I think the traffic folks document they submitted for this meeting was very helpful that we can leave in things that directly benefit and are important for the flow and the circulation for the Baylands without the road diet piece. And my suggestion would be to pass on to the Council a recommendation that those aspects be retained and that they pursue or inquire further of the traffic experts whether or not I think they term it a class one area adjacent to Bayshore. I guess it would be the west side probably would work for the entire stretch of Bayshore that is subject to the mobility plan. It might be trying to eat our cake and have it too or whatever the saying is. There may or may not be right-of-way room But I think, you know, getting a hard answer to that would be really beneficial, and that would be my suggestion as to what to pass along to the council.

And I just want to add, like, other reasons why I think we should keep Bayshore two lanes each way is, you know, a lot of the folks who spoke talked about potential emergencies, the need for more lanes, you know, coming and going, you know, and I think we need the additional resources links for for for those situations and and we also have to keep in mind i mean we have crocker park we have all the trucks and semis we have the quarry um whatever development that's gonna go there probably more more trucks and semis um you know and and i think if if the concern is we want to calm bidet shore down i think we could think about putting in um speeding cameras. San Francisco is in their trial period and there was a study that said that speed cameras not only brought in a lot of revenues for the city, but it changed behavior. I think it reduced speeding by about 80%. So that's definitely something I think that we can consider rather than taking away extra lanes. So

Along with that, instead of trying to reduce traffic speed, we installed a signal mast on Sierra Point and Bayshore that hasn't been activated. That was placed a couple of years ago. And certainly if a signal light was installed there and working, you know, that certainly I think would reduce a short traffic speed. So there's I think there's other alternatives that make that can be looked at.

So so how would you want it? Are we voting on each thing now or how are we going to?

I think that the. workable plan is to the extent it's these pieces are chunks that we can separate out is to discuss one vote on it discuss the other vote on it and on okay um there's a couple more coming up that i think we can maybe knock out as well and i'm i'm intentionally leaving for last the actual bayland specific plan because it's it's the elephant in the room um and you know 1030 at night might not be the time to start deliberating on that. But let's do what we can as we can. So dealing with this piece, one suggestion I have for a motion, and we can tweak it if people want to, is as follows, is that we We would recommend, remember, this body is recommending to the city council X, Y, and Z. We have no policymaking power. Our job here is to look at it, analyze it, listen to you folks, and then come up with our recommendations and or suggestions to the council as to how to proceed. They are the ultimate deciders. So in that light, my first take on this would be to recommend adoption of the Baylands Mobility Plan rewind to the beginning of the sentence, is to adopt. The one document I didn't print out was the track engineer's report of their suggestion as to how to handle it. And I should probably just punt to that. There is in the document submitted with this agenda, a document from, help me with the name of the firm.

Farron Pierce.

Thank you. That sets forth exactly what sections of the mobility plan as it pertains to Bayshore. are feasible to do that would benefit the circulation plan for the Baylands development that would not entail reducing it from two lanes to one. My motion would be to recommend to the council adoption of those portions of the mobility plan, but not the portions that provide the road diet. And then furthermore that we recommend to the council that they make further inquiries with the traffic experts as to the feasibility of a class one or comparable sidewalk improvements to the remainder of Bayshore that is not accomplished by the parts of mobility plan that are directly benefiting the core project. It's a long motion.

And yes, I will second that motion.

Before you vote, does that make enough sense for you folks to handle it?

The one clarification that we might ask is that there is a draft resolution in your packet as part of attachment one. It's draft planning commission resolution PC 0126, which has the recommendation to council to consider adoption of the mobility plan. If the commission agrees you could put your motion in the context of approving that resolution with the changes that the chair just described right that's what i think that's what you meant that's what i wish i'd said as well um but do that do the changes that i um

read out, are they clear enough that you folks can wordsmith that into the final process?

Yes, we can revise the resolution with those should it pass. Do we have a second?

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? None opposed? I'm just going to register a symbolic no, just because I've thought about it, and I think there's value in thinking about it some more.

Okay. Perfectly fine. Great. The motion passes with four ayes and one no.

Sorry, through the chair, you made the original motion. Sorry? Did you make the original motion or did Sia Song?

Doug did.

Okay.

Thank you. And Sia Song was the second.

Okay. Progress. I think, staff, that looking at this, that we can turn our attention to the general plan amendments and the Title 17 amendments that are probably not contingent upon a recommendation of the entirety of the specific plan.

Well, they are intended to ensure consistency between the general plan and the specific plan as proposed by staff. And I think we've talked before too about when the commission is ready to make a recommendation on those, there's a certain order of operations we would look to the commission to make. They're outlined in the resolution. the other resolution attached to the June 25th staff report.

Sorry, I didn't get that.

So I think, well, I guess what I'm trying to say is, is I do think that your action on in consideration of the general plan amendments do relate to how you ultimately, um, want to vote on the specific plan.

Okay. Um, Let me see if I can break it up this way. In your recommendation in attachment one, you had recommended approval of the project entitlements, which include amending the general plan land use element in accordance with several sections to realign the northern boundary to correspond to the boundary of the Bayland specific plan. And then to amend the general plan circulation element in accordance with government code, blah, blah, to realign Lagoon Road, extend Sierra Point, add Baylands Roadways, designate the Geneva Avenue extension, and add a new roadway type for green local streets. Is that the same thing as green shared streets? Oh, good catch. Terminology? I think it is.

Yeah, it is.

Okay. And I don't think we can discuss this, but my take is that these amendments to the general plan are probably not a little controversial in this body other than possibly the green shared streets issue. But this is the time for other folks to chime in.

I'm sorry, Commissioner Stein, I don't think any of the things that you listed have really surfaced in the public comments or have come up as a concern even in my evaluations. Go ahead.

Yeah, no, I was just concerned if staff was saying that we couldn't vote on that yet because maybe other individual things we will be discussing impacts that. Was that a concern?

Yeah, and to clarify, there is at the The staff packet included two total resolutions, one you already voted on. So the second resolution encompasses the recommendation to the city council for the remaining suite of documents recommending certification of the EIR, adoption of the general plan and zoning modifications that Chair Gooding just outlined, and adoption of the specific plan. So at the... Ultimately, we'd look for one vote from the commission on that resolution. But if you want to go through and see if there's consensus on those individual elements before you vote, you can keep a pin in that and then be aware at the end of your deliberations if there's any changes you want to direct staff to make in connection with your motion, then you can make that decision. for each of the elements that might need to change, but we won't need a vote until you've reached your deliberations on that package.

There's no point in voting until we vote on the whole tamale, but we can talk about the pieces we might want to parse out and go with or make suggestions otherwise.

Yeah, so if the commission had decided that you were comfortable with the recommendations for the general plan amendments, you could... have that understanding amongst yourselves, move on to the next topic, but you wouldn't need to vote until you were ready to move that entire package.

That makes sense. Thank you. So sticking with the general plan land use element amendments for the moment, does anybody have any issues, concerns, or any understandings of concerns out there about anything that street and circulation-wise other than what I raised about the green shared streets.

Well, for example, my question about conservation easements, would that not impact the vote that you were requesting we make for voting on the other stuff? No? No.

No. My understanding of our conversation previously is that if the commission were to make that recommendation, that would likely be something discussed as part of potentially a DA rather than a revision to this.

I'm not sure I understand your question or concern about the conservation easements.

Okay.

As it pertains to the street issues here.

Okay. So, I mean... I was just concerned that making that recommendation might impact all those other things that you were listing. And if I'm wrong, and it doesn't, so we, I mean, I'm fine with moving forward on that then.

I wonder if also, like it's been suggested, we put a pin in it. We're not committing to it. If we discover later during our discussion of conservation easements that, hey, we have to go back, then I think it's fine. But for now, as a general principle, I think I agree we can kind of say, well, this is like probably in general seems okay. We might have to revisit it, but we can move on to the meaty things, which might be, for example... You know, things we won't have, you know, whatever, the EIR, the specific plan as a whole. I know we're going to talk about many details about each of those, and in particular, the specific plan. I'm sure we have a lot of comments and deliberation there. Okay.

I'm going to try to stick to this one bullet point that's obviously a bee in my bonnet about the green shared streets. Does anybody else have any opinions? What's the bee?

I like green streets, green shared streets.

The green shared streets that are in the specific plan that are envisioned by it are the streets that run east-west between the sort of North-South arterials in the residential district that carry traffic that is pedestrian traffic or bicycle traffic or motor vehicle traffic from the North-South street you come in from through the residential neighborhood, either into a garage or the park, whatever, or to the next arterial over the French North-South.

I had initially brought up my concerns regarding safety because I didn't think PARs, e-bikes, scooters, pedestrians, dogs... should all be mixed together because I think that's a recipe for disaster. But, you know, unless someone else, I mean, you know, we've heard from staff and some of the experts that they felt that that wouldn't be an issue. But it's just I've experienced San Francisco and parts where they have that and didn't make me feel comfortable. So having it here wasn't something, you know, I thought, you know, at least I have a concern about.

Yeah, I think for some of those, like what I did when I was looking at the road diet thing, it's like, well, are there other examples? I think Valencia in the city is an example. You think, well, what's the objective of a road diet? Well, one of it is safety. So regardless of your impressions of a place like Valencia, I think by that metric... the road diet there has been successful. And I know we're not talking about road diet. Now we're talking about green shared streets, but you could do, just do the same thing there. Look, what are the, what are the stated goals of these green shared streets and have they met their, those objectives in the areas where they have been built? And I haven't actually looked at that, but I suspect they probably do. Um, you know, in, in neighborhoods, I think we saw a lot of them that come up in San Francisco over the last few years, right. During COVID, um, just to, but something we clearly need to look at a little bit more, but I actually did not appreciate Commissioner Gooding that it was a concern of yours, you know, or of yours.

Any other takes on this one? Okay. Well, I'll just put a pin on that then. Okay. Never know what happens to those pins. All right, so I'm not carrying the commission on the shared streets thing, so I'll let that slide. It appears to me that without being able to do a separate resolution just about amending the general plan, that nobody here has any significant concerns with the pieces of the amendments that are discussed. OK, no motion yet. Jumping down to amending Title 17 zoning of the Brisbane Municipal Code to implement the Bayland specific plan in accordance with the government code. This involves changing the zoning designations of land within the plan area from commercial mixed use Marshall Lagoon Bayfront and Manufacturing to Bayland Specific Plan BSP designation. It involves establishing the land use regulations and development standards set forth in the specific plan as the regulatory authority governing it and amending the city zoning map to reflect those zoning changes. This all seems rather administrative and ministerial. I don't think there's any particular policy things buried in this. It's simply calling them things that are then make the implementation plan make sense almost grammatically. So any other takes on that?

And this would suggest something like the noise ordinance or other parts from town would already apply to this regardless of what we call it. So whether we call it BSP or that, it's sort of the same policy still apply to that region. It's just sort of renaming what we call it. I think so.

But that's a good question to one of the callers or speakers had a question about whether pile driving could occur at night outside of what are generally otherwise the noise ordinances that are currently in place. Any comment on that one?

Well, first the city's noise ordinance applies citywide. So regardless of what designation applies, applies right now, it would apply if the area were rezoned BSP, just to make that clear. We do have ESA team members who can probably speak in more detail to this, but the The EIR's discussion of noise impacts related to pile driving is not related to that activity occurring at night. Obviously, the noise ordinance does limit construction activity to certain hours. The only activity that the EIR discusses as occurring potentially during nighttime hours, which would need to go through a noise exception permit process, would be other activities like pouring concrete or non-pile driving activity. That's the only thing addressed in the EIR that I could see. I don't know if anyone on ESA's team might have a little more information on its analysis of noise impacts related to pile driving specifically.

We can also look at mitigation measure NOI-1 and pile driving is expressly limited there between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and prohibited on weekends and holidays. So again, those standard noise restrictions from the noise ordinance and the mitigation program apply for those limitations.

Thank you. While we're on topic of existing Brisbane laws applying to the Baylands. Can anybody clarify the dark sky issue? Like my understanding is that the project is subject to building project and the completed project are both subject to the dark sky laws. Am I correct?

You're correct. So the dark sky ordinance does have standards applicable to construction activity and those are referenced in the EIR as well. The existing dark sky ordinance obviously does not reference the BSP as a district because it didn't exist at the time, or still doesn't exist, when the ordinance was drafted. What it does address, though, in Section... 1588050, which sets lighting standards by zoning district. The last row of that table with the standard says that any other zoning district or uses that aren't explicitly named, so like future districts that might not have existed at the time we wrote the ordinance, uh would be determined at the time of the application involved um so the director essentially the community development director would make a interpretation of what's the closest applicable district so that's how the noise ordinance addresses it this kind of situation now um you know should the commission want to make a recommendation to council that standards be specified and that ordinance be amended to specifically call out the bsp which obviously would have a lot of different neighborhoods and land use types, right? You'd want to look very carefully at that. That's something you could add to your recommendation to council.

So the recommendation would sound something like consider amending the ordinance to specify the newly created districts. Okay.

Yeah, to develop lighting levels for the BSP district.

Just one minor clarification on that, because at this point, that section of the ordinance isn't something that has been noticed or is being considered for amendment right now, though the specific plan in Section 3.3 does have lighting design standards that are intended to promote dark sky preservation. And then a subdivision of that, the performance standards does specify that all lighting shall comply with the city's dark sky ordinance. So the specific plan already kind of incorporates those standards through reference as well.

And may I chime in as well, Councillor and Director Ayers? We also have a mitigation measure in the EIR apart from identifying compliance with Municipal Code Chapter 15.88. It does identify Lumen requirements for site-specific development projects within the specific plan. And it's quite detailed. And I will spare you the recitation of all the lumens.

Thank you. Yeah, it's in. Sorry. Thanks for pointing that out, Terry. It's in section S.3.3.1.4.

And also mitigation measure AES aesthetics 4B sky glow prevention.

So, Eric, if it does say that the specific plan works, implementation must comply with the Dark Sky Ordinance, that seems to settle it. Yeah, I would agree with that. Okay, thank you. All right, next. The issue of certifying the final EIR would appear to be separable from recommending the specific plan itself, would it not?

It would be a separate item to deliberate on, correct?

Yeah, they're included in the same resolution, though, and at this point, staff recommends recommendation to certify, recommendation to adopt, though commission's deliberations can modify the staff recommendations. So yeah, you could... in, I guess, more direct response to your question, you could end up after deliberation with a recommendation to certify the EIR, but for some reason not adopt the specific plan or adopt the specific plan with changes so that you don't have to accept both staff recommendations on both of those items.

Okay. Is anybody on... appear have any issue with the commission certifying the EIR as a standalone issue just before we get to the plan?

I do not. My understanding is that often commissions aren't specifically asked to recommend approving the EIR. It's just a document. I think most of the substantive deliberations are going to be about the specific plan itself. So I think it would be a great time saver if we could say, yeah, let's certify the EIR and move on to the plan itself.

My understanding is that the City Council must certify that the EIR has been completed in accordance with CEQA as a predicate to adopting a special plan.

Yep, that is correct. So before the City Council takes any final actions, they will need to make a determination and if they were going to approve anything, they would need to first certify the EIR. Here for Planning Commission, incumbent as part of your recommendation would be that council certify the eir okay so i'll make a motion that we recommend that the city council certify the eir I'll second. Well, and just sorry to interject one more time. It is part of the same resolution. So just like the same conversation you had with the general plan land use and circulation elements, you don't need a separate vote on it. But if there's consensus among the planning commission, you can move on to your deliberations on the specific plan and just I've written down, we can all remember, when you're making your motion, you don't need to change that aspect of the resolution because that's consistent with staff's recommendation.

You know, one general, one question I had, some of the discussions we've had, like about the dark sky ordinance, I think that addresses a very specific concern that was raised by the public, and I'm sure it'll be minuted. But I think that would be helpful, I think, because it made me worried that we were missing something. But if the specific plan makes sure that it's at least as restrictive as described in the existing ordinance, I think we can all be satisfied with that.

Yeah. I was pretty sure that I'd read language saying that it is subject to the Dark Sky ordinance, but I appreciate the clarification. In the staff recommendations, there's also stuff in here about land use designations and development standards for, among other things, a middle school. Is that something that this commission has any jurisdiction over, or are we just talking about a designation without any actual inclusion in the plan of anything about a middle school? Are you looking at the wording of... That was a 10.15 p.m. question.

Are you looking at the wording of adoption of the staff-recommended specific plan, which would include land use designations and standards, etc.? I mean, that's, again, part and parcel of what the specific plan is proposing, right? That's what is called out for in the specific plan. So...

to the extent that commission well i'm not sure where you're going with it so i won't try to uh comment on it if you want we can we can try and tease it apart really nebulous question where i'm going with it is it somewhere in mass papers we were told that we did not have any governance over the issue of middle school directly but that was going to be the school districts

Yeah, so the specific plan, as the director was just explaining, as before you, has land that would be able to be dedicated for middle school. Whether that is accepted and established is under the control of the school district. So the land use decision... and the designation within the plan is within your purview though planning for it is not the same as actually establishing it that's a separate decision that the school that the school district will make we're just creating slots that they can fill up with the middle school if they choose to correct okay

All right, I think we have no choice but to move on to discussing the Bayland specific plan. Maybe the best way to handle this massive issue is to go around the table and elicit any comments about things you want to change or things you want to recommend the council consider changing or looking into further. And then seeing if we can roll those up into an amended resolution.

Through the chair, if I may, your typical adjournment time is 1030. If you wanted to entertain a motion to extend the meeting, this might be the time to do it before. Just putting that out there before you go around to everyone.

Thoughts? Thoughts?

How late can we send it to?

I don't think there is a limitation in your procedures. I can verify that. We did start 20 minutes late tonight, so I would just put that out there for you to consider. Yeah, we can look real quick, but I don't believe there's an actual limit. You probably could meet as late as you wanted to, but we'll confirm.

Keep going. Do you think that is your goal to finish the deliberations tonight and vote?

I have no... I'm not wedded to that. I'm just going to get as much done as the time allowed.

I'm just wondering if we can... I've liked your approach so far of taking discrete things and knocking them off. I wonder if we should do this. Is there one more thing? Because... No. It's not a huge kind of worms, but it is a kind of worm. There will be a lot of topics that we have to go in depth on.

Yeah, I think that the issue about amending Title 17 to create designations and yada yada is administrative, ministerial about creating slots and labels and terminology. So I think that's going to slip in just fine once we... approve or not approve of the plan with or without recommendations. So the short answer is I think we've exhausted the chunks we can bite off without tackling the big one. But I'm not sure we can do justice to this thing by this time of night.

I wonder if, I mean, one thing we might do is go down the line and see what is like top of each of our minds. And then you can decide if any of those are worth potentially knocking off tonight.

Yep. Okay. So I guess the broad question is commissioner one, commissioner two, three, four, what, what issues do you have that you would, If you were the only say that you would want to change, recommend looking at, modify.

I guess for me, broadly, it's sort of the long-term accountability for testing and sort of looking at the remediation and cleanup efforts, so maybe some more accountability around that based on some of today's discussions. I think that would be top of my list.

And maybe we just haven't gotten to that point yet, but how would you formulate something to say to the city council about that?

Yeah, something about maybe some of the details from some of these plans pulling into sort of the longer-term testing and the details of who's responsible for those, sort of the formation of the organization that would look after land remediation, sort of clean up long-term, but yeah, still sort of not sure how that would come together in a recommendation. Okay, all right.

We can tweak the words later, but So about remediation and also the long-term monitoring?

Yeah, specifically around greenhouse gases as well. I think that comment around sort of monitoring those over time as well.

But are those questions or part of recommendations? Are those things about which we need more feedback? Because we've had a lot of feedback on those issues. I wonder if there's something more we need to learn from that.

Yeah, I don't know if there's any more feedback necessary. I'd like to have something in there that sort of holds accountability there longer term. I'm not sure. Maybe I just don't have it quite right, but I feel like there's a little bit of that. It's unclear to me still.

Yeah, I understand what you're saying. I'm just trying to understand some of what we heard tonight about the frequency of testing, the fact that it's going to be tested different times a year. If that's already documented somewhere, would that satisfy...

I want one thing to suggest as a vehicle for articulating that to the council. Excuse me. And that is that staff had provided tonight a document that described their intended recommendations to revise Section 9, which is where the hazardous stuff is, and to add some language and to clarify some activities and responsibilities and timelines. And perhaps we could couch this to the council as saying that we, you know, we don't object or disapprove of section nine, but we would recommend that they focus on whatever the staff has provided between now and the time it goes to the council implementing their suggested Recommended revisions. Recommended revisions. Is this making sense with your language? Thank you. Okay. That's one way to do it. So anyway, so that's one issue we have. Got it. Remediation monitoring. Anything else from you, Darius?

Well, I think related to that... I think we should recommend something to the city council to have some kind of like the city be a clearinghouse for whatever testing that's being done, the reports that's been prepared, whatever testing that's done quarterly, whatever that's being done annually, have the city automatically receive all of that so that the public can just go to one site in the city and know what's being done. And maybe at the very least, because we also heard something about some testing or some review being done every five years. So I'm confused as to that. So at minimum, I would want perpetuity annual testing done of the banelands of the of the water of the soil I just want to make sure that place is safe forever for whoever's living there for whoever's working there just to be for certain at minimum once a year so I would recommend some kind of language to recommend to the City Council that that be done

I think, and I totally agree with, with your sentiment and your goal. I think that's already in there, but I think staff's suggestion that they revise the language of section nine to, to make that clearer and, and, and, um, more, um, you know, categorically laid out would, would be a really good thing. Um,

You know, one of the, what we heard along the way, just to be a bit of a counterpoint, is that there are, you know, once something falls below a level of regulatory concern for a certain number of years, there may not be much point in testing at the same frequency. And I just, I'm kind of sympathetic to that point of view. If it's for 10 years in a row, it's just like undetectable. Right. then maybe you can at least change the frequency. And I think I would rely on experts to some extent to advise on the frequency of testing that's actually necessary.

What about if we had a period of rains or earthquakes and the ground shifts and things like that happen? I mean, don't you want to, you know, you want regular testing to make sure that something is happening in your environment that's impacting the safety of the land?

Yes, I'd imagine that that would be reflected in like, hey, something popped up. Now we're committed again for testing for 20 years. I just think the imperpetuity thing is like, let's say you go through a bunch of earthquakes and floods, and it turns out that the cap is completely robust through every single cataclysmic thing you've said. Are you going to keep testing in perpetuity? I think... I would tend to be more deferential to what the people who study these things recommend in situations like that.

Okay. And for me, I would weigh what is the cost of the testing versus the potential harm, even if it's the one in 1,000 chance.

The harm is potentially death.

serious illness, cancer or whatnot. And what is the cost? I haven't heard a number cited as to how much if we were to require at minimum a yearly test, how much that would be. And given the scale of this project and the costs, I would think that yearly testing would be minuscule in comparison. But I don't want to risk even one child potentially getting cancer because on the off chance, you know, something went wrong and we didn't test every year.

I concede. It's fine. I'm happy with that.

So I don't want to put words in the mouths of staff, but is it your intent? Was it your intent about this recommendation to revise certain things and mostly the wording and verbiage of it to make it more clear? Will it address things like what Commissioner Saison was talking about, about frequency of monitoring and testing?

Yeah, that's the intent behind the clarifications is to really clearly outline again, not change, but outline what know the cadence of testing inspections etc are as determined by the regulating agencies um because clearly i think we've learned through these meetings that it is kind of confusing to keep track of you know when are those five-year um inspections for example the ek i was was talking about So yeah, that's the intent of clarifying that is to have it be presented in one place so that it's not just disparate information. But again, we're not recommending any changes to what the regulatory agencies require.

No, just make it clear. And by the way, this is probably a worthwhile point to interject that I don't think the city of Brisbane has the legal jurisdiction to alter regulations. the testing requirements of DTSC or the Water Board regarding hazardous remediation.

I don't think we have the jurisdiction in terms of the state agency, but there's nothing to prevent us from supplementing what they're doing. I mean, is there?

I will try to answer part of this. Well, actually, no, I won't. I don't know the city attorney's office if you want to contribute anything related to, for example, liability concerns and financial risk and also the city's police power and authority to do certain things.

Yeah, I mean, that's part of the... the benefit to the city and relying on these other agencies is that that keeps the city out of the loop for being responsible. It's the property owners and the management agencies and the regulatory agencies that are responsible for monitoring, detecting, troubleshooting. We actually want to keep ourselves a little bit at arm's length from that process to defer to their expertise and their regulatory jurisdiction Just to keep the city a little bit at distance from that decision.

So, Erin, can I follow up with you on that? So there's discussions about management association, the SSEMA or an HOA. Having oversight over the monitoring and testing so could, though we recommend to the city council that they make that as a requirement that whatever entity is going to. Do that do that at least once a year.

To do, I'm sorry, do what?

To do annual testing of the water, of the soil, just make sure everything is safe, just yearly, every year.

I'm not sure what the actual cadence is.

If you would allow, I would like to, if possible, ask Michelle to clarify the cadence of testing. Because again, I think we're conflating like inspections, testing, testing.

Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, the plans lay out the monitoring that's required, but monitoring doesn't always mean collecting samples. So a lot of the monitoring of the cap is making sure the cap is intact and in place. It's not like you're collecting soil samples just to make sure that's clear. But it is the environmental regulatory agencies, DTSC and Water Board, that are approving the frequency of the monitoring.

So let me ask a broader question, and I'm sorry to spring this on you because it's kind of a... It might be a research item, but... The agencies, DTSC and Water Board, just agencies for short, they, I take it, have the statutory power to impose monitoring, testing, and reporting requirements on developers.

Absolutely.

Does their statutory jurisdiction preempt municipalities from imposing stricter requirements than those created by the agencies?

I don't think there's anything that I'm aware of. I'm not an attorney, but I'll defer to the city attorney.

Yeah, and we haven't... This isn't something that we've specifically researched yet, so I don't know. So, yeah, the question of whether you are fully preempted is not one that we've... researched, that hasn't been an issue that we've looked at here, but I guess I'd also question what actual basis the city has for additional testing if all of the established jurisdictional regulatory thresholds have already been met? For example, what then basis does the city have to impose a higher standard? And that question doesn't seem like it's been answered.

I'm not going to opine because it's not in my pay grade, but I can't help having the background that I have. And I think the answer is, I suspect the answer is we are preempted and we're arguing about something we have no power to do anything about. But if I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

Through the chair, it is 1031. Did you want to vote to extend the meeting? And if so, to what time?

I don't think we're going to get done today, so might as well.

I concede defeat.

I mean, again, you do not have to stop. You could vote to extend the meeting.

No one is leaving. I think the reality is that each and every one of us is going to have some issues. Obviously, toxicity is the elephant in the room, but I've got a list of about Five more here that discuss at some point. And we're not going to get to nine. Six more. And we've established, I think, that we have no open dates until the date of our next scheduled hearing, correct? Or meeting.

We did pull the commission to see if there were any availability prior to August 13th, and there was not.

I think we're all pretty interested in this being a vote of all five of us rather than some lower quorum or lower amount that is a quorum. Okay. Should we move on the agenda to other items and then adjourn until the 13th?

And through the chair, sorry, before you move on, if I could suggest, would we want, if you're continuing to the 13th, consider a special start time, an earlier start time, just for your consideration.

I would be in favor of that. Yeah. Thank you for that suggestion. And what I would also, before we move on to the rest of the agenda, which won't take long, if I could encourage everyone to make a list of, you know, focus down on whatever you, if you were in charge, would change about this so to plan or recommend, excuse me, whatever you'll recommend the city council consider changing. Um, so we can get right down to everybody's issues. One, two, three, four, five.

Makes sense. Uh, yes. Can I ask one more clarifying question? You're asking about changes that we might recommend. Are there any like supplements that you could recommend? Like for example, um,

more detail about certain things yeah yeah is that is that considered a change or is that an amendment or a supplement or something like that you know anything you want okay all right um through the chair if commissioners could individually they could provide that information to staff as well obviously compliance the brand act not with your fellow commissioners but That is something you can share individually with staff.

That's a good idea. Let's all shoot notes to staff. That way they're ready for blindside questions like I just asked. Okay. Moving on the agenda, if I can find it. Do we have any items initiated by staff?

Not this evening. Please don't.

Any others initiated by the commission? In that case, we're adjourned until our next regular meeting of...

Apologies. Did you want to adjust the time before you make your motion?

I have a motion to start at 6.30 on the 13th. I'll make a motion to start at 6.30 on the 13th.

Second. All in favor?

Aye.

All in favor?

Thank you. We're adjourned until August the 13th at 6.30 p.m. Thank you all for your patience.