Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call to order this meeting of the Commission on August 25th, 2026. Ken, could I have a roll call, please?

Commissioner Bugbeiner? Present. Commissioner Alney? Present. Commissioner Kamkar? Present. Commissioner Scherzer? Present. Vice Chair Aquilina?

Present. Chair Fields? Present. Next item, the minutes. Has everyone had a chance to review the minutes and are there corrections? I have two myself. The first one, I always refer to myself as Alan Zisser for catching the really specific ones, but on the vote, it flips Olney, who was not absent, and Aquilina, who was absent on the vote for the Second item, so just flip that. And then under the recommended actions on the third item, it notes that we said we would prioritize two policy recommendations, permit streamlining and reduction in parks fees. I think the two that we prioritized were permit streamlining and the in lieu fee investigation. We said we would look at all four of them, but those were the two I had said we would start with. Agreed. Cool. Anybody else? I'M CAN I MOVE TO DO MY OWN MINUTES ALL RIGHT I WILL I MOVE TO APPROVE THE AMENDED MINUTES COULD I HAVE A SECOND SECOND KEN DO WE HAVE A ROLL CALL YES COMMISSIONER BUCKLINDER AYE COMMISSIONER ELLEN AYE COMMISSIONER KAMKAR AYE COMMISSIONER SCISSORS AYE VICE CHAIR ACQUINO AYE CHAIR FIELDS AYE All right, the minutes passed. Communications and agenda modifications, Director Eastwood, do we have either?

Chair Fields, honorable commissioners, we do not have any agenda modifications in your packet distributed, and I believe you had hard copies of correspondence from Campbell Yimby that came in. That's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. The next part of the meeting is oral requests is the part of our meeting where every member of the public may address the commission on items that are not on the agenda. You can speak for up to five minutes, but please be aware state law prohibits the commission from acting on non-agendized items. So the planning commission will not take any action today, but we could refer the matter to staff to research and possibly place on a future agenda. Is there anyone in the chamber who'd like to speak? Please, if you can go up there, if you don't mind identifying yourself up top, and then there's a big, there's only one button on there, and you have up to five minutes. Can you hear me? Yes, we can.

Hi, so I'm Chris Lindsey. I wrote the letter in from Chapman's chapter lead for Campbell Yimby, Campbell resident. Campbell Yimby is a pro-housing advocacy organization. So I have a couple comments on the discussion from the last meeting about the ad hoc subcommittees for housing. First, there's some skepticism voiced about if Campbell will meet its arena targets. I guess I'd like to ask that the commission reaffirm its commitment to meeting them, because it is a central goal of the housing element, which is a major planning document of the city. And I also ask that just... be proactive about doing what we can to solve the housing crisis. I know there's concerns about just the impacts of the various proposals. I think it's the right choice to look into what those are. But just continue, wherever we may come, just continue to iterate and work out if we can figure this out in terms of trying to make housing more productive in Campbell. One example I can bring up is park impact fees. Last meeting, and I think in previous meetings as well, there has been a lot of developers have come and been unanimous in that park fees have been an impediment to building housing. At the same time, no one wants to reduce park fees, including myself. You can add my voice to that chorus. I use parks all the time. And so may I suggest that the council escalate to, sorry, the commission escalate to city council of, that we need to look into explore options for alternate funding for parks. I don't think we need to choose between housing and parks, and we should look at other funding sources. And I think one example I can bring up, I was at the community pool meeting yesterday about the new pool. Right now, the Parks Department is looking at a grant to basically help fund the new pool because park fees themselves and charitable donations are not enough. AND SO ALONG WITH THE DISCUSSION, THIS WAS ALSO DISCUSSED AND EXPLORED, TALKING ABOUT EXPLORING IT, I THINK IT WAS A MAY 26 MEETING WHERE YOU GUYS WENT KIND OF A DEEP DIVE INTO PARK FEES. AND SO I GUESS SOME COURAGE TO GET TO EXPLORE THAT AND THAT'S PROBABLY, I'LL GUESS THAT'S SOMETHING THAT'S KIND OF MAYBE OUTSIDE THE SCOPE OF THE COMMISSION AND SO MAYBE SOMETHING NEED TO BE ESCALATED TO CITY COUNCIL TO LOOK INTO FURTHER. and uh then one last comment about just uh there's concerns about uh comments made last meeting about the research done for the report um i guess from my standpoint i would encourage that we look at what the local municipalities are doing around the bay area because i think they're all under similar dealing with similar problems um and uh and so offer as those are potential solutions for the problems we have here in campbell um Second, in the last meeting, all the developers were in strong agreement, at least with the direction of the proposals. They all had their own opinions about, you know, priorities and impact of each one. But they all thought it was directly correct. And if anything, they probably should go further. That was at least what they thought. No one disagreed with the proposal. So I think that was a vote in that the proposals were, I think, well-researched and were not pulled up in error. And then lastly, there was some questions about inclusionary zoning. Looking for more data on that. There was one right here, if you'd like. large paper written up about inclusionary zoning in california that looks at a pretty extensive review of how inclusionary zoning has been impacted housing brush across the state and largely they found that it restricts housing supply and is an inferior method of producing affordable housing so i have to leave that here discuss it more if you'd like but if you're looking for data there's there's gobs of data in this report so i encourage you to look up that paper that's all great so

I have a question for him if it's okay.

Remember the little preamble I gave here that we're not going to debate on the issue. So. But it's a question, you know, I think, I think I can ask questions, you know, you can ask a question if I may shut it down just to be clear. Cause it's a. You know, this is, this is not an agenda item. Go ahead and ask your question. I'm saying there's like, this is the reason I give the clarification relative to what he said.

Sure. Yeah.

So I understand that we cannot act on it, but I mean, you know, Looking back and forth, I don't think that should be preempted. But anyway, I do want to say my battery is running down on my thing, just so you know. So I really appreciate you coming out, and I appreciate that you're so knowledgeable about the subject. Are you a developer? Yeah. Okay. So a question I have is, Other ways of funding, you know, for parks or for other city things so that money becomes free for the developers. I mean, money becomes available for the developers to do what they do best, develop homes. Are you aware of the property taxes for seniors who would sell their house, Santa Clara County, they can port it with themselves to the next property that's of lower value? Property 3, I think it was.

It was a proposition. There's been few.

If I'm not mistaken, it's a law in Santa Clara County that if you over... age of 55 or a senior citizen, you can take your property tax valuation with you basis when you go to a lower priced house than what you sell your current price at. Your basis would be far lower. So how about if we did that with mortgage?

How about if Can I Can I interrupt here? I think I defer to either Rob or the city attorney whether this is appropriate in this in this particular at this particular public communication. Because it doesn't seem like we're it's relevant. It's a question where it's appropriate at this in this particular segment.

So yes, this is not an agendas item. It might be more appropriate if this were some conversation that was had after the meeting.

Can you clarify that, please? So you're saying it's not an appropriate question to ask?

Yes, so this item is not on the agenda today, so there's not been notice that this is a discussion. It might be a more appropriate conversation either for the subcommittee to have with Yim Vy or this individual themselves, or a conversation between you and the individual after this meeting.

Okay, I guess I take that to be it's not an appropriate question to just surprises me, but, you know, but okay. Thank you. Thank you for your comment.

Okay, moving to the public hearing portion of the agenda before we start with a regular agenda. Want to provide an overview for how we conduct these meetings. For each item, I will announce the item and then ask staff for presentation, after which the commissioners will ask questions to staff. Then we open the public hearing. We'll ask if the applicant wishes to speak. You can speak for up to two minutes. Then we'll have any public speakers in the room who want to speak on it. Anybody who's on the Zoom can then speak on it. And then we'll close the public hearing and we'll debate as a commission. Disclosures. Before we start on the item, commissioners, does anyone have any disclosures regarding the item on our agenda tonight?

I measured the distance from my house to the corner of the prune yard and I got 510 feet. Just by a whisker. Just by a whisker. I live pretty close to there, just FYI. And I walk there all the time, I guess.

Anybody else?

Yeah, I live there too.

Not on the prune yard. But I'm here all the time. I was there for lunch. And I visit that location. Yeah, same.

Yeah, I've been visiting the prune yard for 40 years. There we go.

All right. Okay. Well, with that, I turn it over again to our main person every time, Senior Planner Daniel Fava.

All right. Thank you. Good evening. Before you this evening is an application for an amendment to a master use permit and extension of time for the Prune Yard Shopping Center and offices. So you're aware the Prune Yard Shopping Center is a 27-acre shopping center that incorporates multiple buildings, including several office buildings that is split across three parcels. You have one parcel that's predominantly retail, one that's predominantly office, and one that is occupied by a hotel. The property is bounded by Highway 17, South Bascom, and East Campbell Avenues, and under the current general plan actually has three separate land use designations now, and is also within the general plan's Pruneyard Creekside Commercial District, and is governed by the Pruneyard Master Use Permit. just by ways of background, adopted about 10 years ago. The master use permit is basically the blueprint for the long-term development of the prune yard. It includes a multi-phase development program, and it allowed for subdivision of the prune yard into those three separate parcels. Before that, it was under a singular ownership. In May 2021, the City Council approved the First Amendment to the Master Use Permit that allowed for a change to the phasing and related deadlines. It allowed for creation of a fourth parcel to accommodate a future office building and also made related office and garage parking design changes. So just at a high level, just for context, the prune yard master use permit is kind of a consolidated regulatory document. It has multiple components. It has internal administrative controls, land use controls. And so, for example, the graphic on the right is actually the land use table for the prune yard. You can almost think of it as a mini zoning code. And then it has development controls that speak to the allowed feature development within the prune yard and also talks about the mechanisms in which that development may occur. There's related design guidelines that cover changes to existing buildings and various operational standards that govern the actual day-to-day operation of the prune yard, particularly from a land use perspective. So in terms of approved development, the Pre-Ground Mastery Permit as it exists today has four phases. The first two phases were completed relatively soon after the original approval in 2016. So that includes the reconstruction of the main plaza, construction of the new Peets Building, the new AT&T Building along Campbell Avenue, multiple façade and storefront improvements throughout the shopping center, as well as parking lot and landscaping improvements. Yet to be completed, however, are phases three and four. So that includes a new office building at the southwest corner of the property adjacent to the portals, expansions to the parking garage, construction of a new fitness building, construction of two new retail buildings, and a complete reconstruction of the interior drive aisle and elimination of the turning circle. So the request before you is to extend the phases for three and four, which are currently set to expire on December 31st of this year, as well as the tentative map for the creation of the fourth parcel around the office building that's also set to expire on December 31st for a period of five years, extending those approvals out to December 31st, 2031, which would be about 15 years from the Prune Yards original 2016 approval. Outside the scope, but just in terms of acknowledgement, we are also reviewing and working on a broader amendment to the master use permit that would be brought to the Planning Commission early next year. So that's seeking to really legalize a lot of the expanded seating that's found throughout the pruning yard with the restaurants that came out during the COVID period. It's also necessary to update the master use permit to reconcile it with the current general plan and revised zoning code. There's some pretty substantial changes, particularly around housing. Back in 2016, Preneur was not a housing site. Now it is, and it's also contemplated not just in general plan, but also SB 79. So there's a lot of internal mechanics that need to be worked out there. And then just various updates to the land use program to reflect changes to the zoning code and current market conditions and just other various process refinements. And in terms of review considerations for the extension, the zoning code requires the planning commission to kind of consider two main points. The first is that the applicant has demonstrated a good faith effort to implement the approval. So in context of the master use permit at large, of course they have completed phases one and two, so they've got through about halfway. they made numerous financial contributions that were required by the original approval including a hundred thousand dollars towards the low scottish creek trail connection which was recently completed uh they did obtain approval of that 2021 amendment to adapt the mvp to changing postcode market conditions and of course they've also submitted the broader mvp amendment that's currently under review clearly showing a commitment to fulfill the project And in terms of justification for the permit extension, of course, there's been a lot of elevated construction costs, interest rates, tighter lending standards coming out of the inflationary period of the pandemic made it very difficult for the office and retail markets. That's pretty self-evident. And in terms of the city's position as well, it's important to have this entitlement still on the books so that if things do improve, that we do have that approved development capacity that allows the prune yard to quickly come in and actually pursue physical development of those outstanding components of the project. And then just lastly, recognizing that while five years is a long time, it's not without precedent. As noted in the staff report, the 8x8 building that was originally approved, that was finally constructed in 2015, basically did have about a 15-year approval period that would be commensurate with the total horizon of approval period that's being contemplated with the pruning yard. So with that, based on an affirmative determination of the required findings, staff does recommend that the Compliance Commission adopt resolutions recommending to the City Council that they grant an extension for five years until December 31st, 2031. With that, I'll take any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you, Daniel. Why don't we start on this side with Commissioner Bookbinder.

So just to be clear, this is the same plan that we saw the last time this came to us. They're just asking for more time to implement it? Correct. Okay.

Commissioner. I have no questions. I read the report and I think it's consistent with what we want to do. It's a vital asset to the city of Campbell. I don't think we want to hinder them from future developments. I'm behind this. Commissioner Alney.

Yeah, when I read through it, I had a hard time connecting the threshold basement level for a finding of good faith with what would constitute a failure to find good faith. It seems like no matter what the macroeconomics were doing, you could say good faith exists. And all these things outside the control I just would like either the attorney or Daniel, whoever is speaking about this, to tell me what would a lack of good faith look like by way of example?

I mean, this example is a little challenging, but with a normal development application, if they never even made an attempt to apply for a building permit, so they got approval and then they just literally did nothing, that would be an example that there was no good faith effort to actually try to fulfill the project. versus they submitted a building permit, they got plan check comments, they've submitted revised plans, they paid fees, there was some progress, that's a good faith effort. Here, the good faith effort is that they've gone through the first phases and then other components of it. Now, if they never did anything at all, then that would be a different situation.

Commissioner Comgar. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think it was a great report, Daniel. And, you know, I think given the challenges we have economically and the environment we're in, you know, it's well, to me, it's well supported, you know, to grant them the extension. Thank you. Commissioner, is this your questions?

Yeah, I thought this was the questions. I knew you were going to say that. Yeah, I have a couple of questions, of course. So I just want clarification on this. It's no longer a single ownership. So this is all three different entities? Correct. Okay. One's for the offices, one's for the retail.

And one for the hotel.

And one's for the hotel. And they have an association? Yes. The Prune Yard Center Association is some kind of official group that the three are included in so that they can do redevelopment.

Correct. Redevelopment together. It's the equivalent of a homeowners association. A super homeowners association. Yes. They have their own version of CCNR documents as well.

All right. So, you know, one question I have is, if if they don't get the approval of the extension and of course we're just going to recommend to the council and the council makes this decision but if they don't get an approval of the extension what's the what are the implications

Well, if they don't get approval, phases three and four would expire by the end of the year. So that would mean that if they ever wanted to pursue construction of the office building or the retail pad buildings, they would have to come back and re-entitle that and request a brand new approval from the city. The MEP, the Master Use Permit, would still remain in force as the governing document for the prune yard and that wouldn't change. It just, those remaining phases would no longer be on the books. So re-entitling, is that a complex, costly process? Yes, I mean, it is. I mean, they would have to, it would be basically like they never received approval and they would have to do it all over again and we would have to evaluate it based on current standards and things do change and, you know, commissions change, councils change.

Okay. And... so uh uh there's there i think i saw something up there about something coming up in the next year um uh the broader mup amendment uh for q1 q2 2027. so that is assuming we give them an extension that would come up to the planning department to do whatever official changes are needed for outside dining or whatever else there is in that. Is that correct?

Correct. I mean, the idea was actually to include the extension request as part of that update. It's simply that just given our staffing constraints and other priorities, the clock ran out on us, so we had to separate it out.

Okay. The phase one and phase two, those were done in the first five years? They were, yes. So that was pre-pandemic? Pre-COVID, yes. And that was adding a couple of retail on the Campbell side?

changing the plaza and so back then the plaza was mostly a parking lot so they did a lot of physical changes to the plaza yeah and then there was a lot of also related uh tenant specific work that they did i mean the mvp allowed for a lot of work to start to occur outside of the original document the council provided broad authority to the director to approve subsequent approvals so the the pretty hard mvp is it's a living document because it As it gets updated, we actually publish new versions of it. And so it has allowed for a lot of changes over time, but particularly during the pre-COVID period.

Okay. And so, you know, I love the pruneyard and I want the pruneyard to be around and get better. But so so five years is another five years is, you know, I mean, it's not a long time in the world of development. But since this is the third time around, and you know, you could argue that the second time around, there was lots of reasons why to extend it because of the pandemic and everything. But You know, the idea is that this is, the reasoning is that there are economic issues associated with continuing the phase three and phase four, which we heard about, which when we reviewed this previously, we flip-flopped phase three and phase four, if I'm not mistaken, so that the retail would go before the office. And I think that's the way it is now. The way around, but yeah. The office would go first?

Correct. And then the timing for three and four then matched up, basically pushed three to match four, which is why both phases now expire at the same time.

I guess the question I'm getting to is, would there be a reason to consider something shorter than five years, say three years, to encourage the prune yard to, you know, move forward faster? assuming market conditions would be better at that time. And then after three years, I don't know if they'd ask for another extension or not, if three years doesn't work. But it would be reasonable for us to consider not giving the full five years, but giving a shorter period of time?

I mean, it's not unreasonable. I mean, five years is a long time. Okay.

Do I have anything else? I might have a couple of questions for the applicant.

Yeah. Commissioner Nathan Donato-Weinstein, Economic Development Manager for the city. I would just say, you know, five years is a good amount of time, but we are kind of, when we look at the real estate market, getting to the place where it needs to be for new, especially office construction to make sense, you know, we do look kind of five years out. And so we're starting to see green shoots in the commercial real estate market, but, you know, we do look... you know, beyond that kind of two to three year horizon. And, you know, I think, you know, as we look at what's happened in some other communities, the same could happen in Campbell as well. Right. And so I don't think five years is kind of unusually long the way we look at the market dynamics. Okay.

So I just want to, Make sure I was clear on this, Daniel. I could have sworn that when we last talked about this and they changed the phasing, that they were going to hold on the office because of the vacancy problems with offices and move forward with more retail sooner. And you're saying that's not the case?

Phase three is the office building. Double check.

Does that make sense to me?

Yeah, currently phase three is the office building. Okay, okay. I guess I remembered it wrong.

Okay, I'm done. I may have something for the applicant.

uh i have no questions myself uh so thank you staff for the answers uh let's go ahead and open up the public hearing uh we follow the campbell city council's guidance on time applicants can speak for up to five minutes members of public can speak for up to two would the applicant like to speak wonderful uh up there if you could tap the button introduce yourself and then uh take up to five minutes and i'm sure we'll have some questions for you thank you for coming

Planning Commission, honorable commissioners. My name is Eric Foraker. I am the representative for the Pruneyard Center Association designated title president. I assumed that role in February of 2025 when my group acquired the office component from Ellis Partners. uh since we purchased the office building which when we purchased it was right around 67 occupied we've been very very busy um improving the assets two of the buildings were in early 70s and they were old or old they need a lot of back of house systems installed i don't know if you've noticed there were a lot of swing stages over the last 10 months or so putting new um a wet seal on the building so that we had a good waterproof barrier on those buildings. Old buildings, they need work. We've been doing that and we've also been investing in taking the spaces, which were actually very outdated, outmoded, and improving those. As we've improved those, the demand has started to really come our way. We think by the end of this year, we will have that project, all approximately 70,000 feet at around 80% occupancy. And as we get into 27, we feel pretty darn confident that we'll be pushing up toward 90%. All of this is really good because we are seeing the demand and that gets us closer to the consideration for developing the office, the site. Now we don't speak to the, so there's the three owners. There's the Regency Centers who owns the retail and they have the pads and they're working on that, but we are dedicated to the office. But I speak for all three groups. And I think that the five year extension is very reasonable given cost of construction. We're moving in the right direction, but we just need to go grow quite a bit before the project becomes economically viable to justify the significant investment to make that improvement. And I think that's probably true for the retail pads as well. So I pretty much all I wanted to cover, but I did want to be available to any of the commissioners for any questions that they may have with respect to this request. Commissioner Zisser, you want to take us? Thank you.

Commissioner Zisser, you want to start? Sure.

I have some personal things, but I'll talk to you later. you know, the road and all that. So let me ask you about, so in one of the phases, you're building more garage.

I think in both the office building and for the retail paths, I think there's garage expansion required, yes.

Yeah, and does that fall into one of the,

in your in in the office building or does it is part of the cost of construction we need to maintain the parking ratios and i'll let daniel daniel by the way did an amazing job kind of covering the history here um and he probably has the specific answer at hand uh but yes the parking ratios i believe need to be maintained to accommodate in another hundred thousand foot office building and that's done by expansion of the garage okay and that's shared by the three under these I think if we are building an office building, Daniel, do you recall, do you know the answer to that question? And again, I don't have as much history as Daniel does here, but I think that the cost of the garage as it relates to 100,000 foot incremental increase in square footage would be borne by the office developer.

Well, I mean, well, the cost consideration is really a separate issue. But yes, the parking expansion is part of the office building, though today, really with AB 2097, to what extent they actually really have to construct parking is really no longer a city requirement moving forward. If they wanted to come back and substantially reduce the parking, if they felt that they didn't need that many parking spaces, they very well could do that.

Yeah, I understand that that If you build another office building, you're gonna need more parking, but you need more parking for the retail is what I'm getting to. And so the question I have is, has there been consideration to, put in parking sooner to accommodate what you're experiencing.

We have not had that problem. We have not had that conversation with Regency Centers. I suspect that as an association, if they were ready to build on their pad, parking would be a consideration and it would force the issue for us to come to an agreement amongst ourselves how that parking requirement got built.

Okay.

All right. That's all I have.

Commissioner Comcar. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So speaking of parking, are you planning any electric car superchargers?

Yes. In fact, Regency Centers has taken the lead on that with a bank of Tesla chargers. And I'm not quite sure where they are in finalizing that agreement with Tesla. But there's an area that's been designated near the existing parking garage for that. And I think it's up to 20 or maybe even 30 chargers.

Perfect. I know in other garages and other structures, they usually put that on higher floors so that they don't take away from people who want to park near retail. And because not every Tesla or electric car driver wants would want to utilize the services every time they come and charge sometimes they just come there to charge and leave you know and so my understanding is that you know usually they put it off a little bit out of the way not necessarily the best spots you know that that was one question the question was um uh would you then be building

over the garage would you be expanding the expansion it would be sorry um moving the garage probably the same number of floors to the east nice nice not no i think that's designated in the plan right daniel it's a horizontal expansion of the garage not a vertical okay that was my questions thank you commissioner only yeah uh

so it's interesting that you're representing the the or lack of a better word the hoa of your association yes and just for purposes so um with that introduction of that well let me start my first question is do you do you work on site or or not i do you do you you do work i've done not on a full-time basis so i've got a partner who lives in willow glen

We have an office in the prune yard. Our company has an office and he is there 100% of the time. We also have an office in San Francisco and I split my time between San Francisco and the prune yard. Okay.

So that's great to hear because I think it's going to make it easier for me to describe what I'm going to talk about. Since your vacancy rate went down, which is great, the parking situation has gotten significantly worse. And the... i've read the entirety of your parking plan slash enforcement document and it is not adhered to in many significant ways uh the employees park right in front of the retail front doors you can see this by walking around in the morning before the shops open and i have tons of pictures where they just fill them up and the cars are there at lunchtime and in the afternoon So that places a lot of burden on all the people coming and going, you know, just doing what you want them to do, go to the retail shops. The second thing is the security that's supposed to be enforcing this to a person says they do not do parking enforcement whatsoever. So the security document that talks about their ability to manage this thing is complete abandonment. The last one is the structure, or I want structures the wrong word, the layout of the parking makes a difficult situation even worse in how people come and go about the particular shops that they do. And so the last thing I'd say is, It is the reason I'm going to vote no for the extension. The stewardship that's been shown in this particular thing, to me, in my opinion, has risen from poor business decision that's completely within your purview to a health and safety thing where I watch on a daily basis, because I live down the street from the place, the hazards that I personally experienced, I have personally almost been hit myself twice, like jumped out of the way glad I was paying attention, because I have to walk around the place with my head on a swivel. And I've seen other people, you know, get get hit by the cars. I mean, we're not talking big deals. But you know, it hits the shopping carts, big crisis, you know, people are scared, Matt. And so I just want to take this moment to tell you, to use your own eyes. You know, I can tell you're a smart guy. Do you have a question for him in this?

Will you do better so that when... I certainly will raise all these questions. On the first point, I can't attribute the... control of the parking to incremental increase in in occupancy because we don't know where that's coming from we do have a the association has uh full-time officers dedicated to the retail center into the office and probably touch base with the hotel as well uh we will certainly bring that up to them as it relates to enforcing the parking so it's more fluid and more viable and beneficial to the those who go to the prune yard, who work at the prune yard, who shop and enjoy the prune yard.

So I'm going to throw you a bone too, because I feel like I beat you up pretty good, is I think you're getting taken advantage of by the apartment building next door. They routinely park next to the hotel room all through there. And I don't think that's fair to you. And the employees that I talked to say they park, they're not particularly out of laziness, but because of the vandalism concerns they have in your parking structure, because we've got homeless people living. Can I interrupt this? I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

But this is supposed to be questions for the applicant at this point. You have an opportunity later to make any comments you want. Phil, but this is this is this is where we ask the applicant questions that are relevant. And he'll answer them if you have some beefs with him and you want to include them in your comments at the end. You can do that, but but for you to go on and on about all your beefs about the prune yard seems inappropriate to me. Okay, well, if you were the chairman, I'd take it a little more seriously. I've been on the council for six years. How's that work?

Why don't you, any other questions? Go ahead. Thank you, Alan. Any other questions in this section? You can respond briefly, and then we're asking the applicant questions. I want to keep them standing up there indefinitely.

I didn't know that.

But I have questions.

I asked a question. You're interrupting the question. Let me know when I can speak. Well, you've been speaking for like five minutes.

Go ahead. You going to let me get it out? Yeah. Okay. I spend a lot of time listening to you when you speak and I never do this to you. And I just want you to hear that. Now, the question at the end of all this was, um, Vandalism, you should be aware about vandalism concerns that they're having there. I don't think that's totally.

It's not been brought to my attention, but all these points that you are raising. Oh, and the reason I did it this way. Will be discussed with our, well, with the other members of the association and the managers of the association who deal with the project on a day-to-day basis.

And the reason I did this now for you is so that you would have the opportunity to respond, where if I did it at the end, you just have to sit there and listen to me. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's why I did it that way. Okay.

Thank you. Vice Chair. Thank you, Davis. Thank you, Eric, for your presentation and your answering of questions. The only question I have is within the five-year extension, if we grant it to you, what's the likelihood based on economic conditions, we can't foresee it, but that this master plan might change or might be amended And I know there's probably a process for that if something were to say they'd have to come back.

Right. Correct. So any substantial changes would require another amendment review by the commission and city council. Right.

So then you foresee that this plan that you have in place now, we are much.

How do I answer this? So we have we have a general bias because we basically own office buildings. Right. At the Bay Area. And so that is our bias. I know that there have been discussions planning department regarding that site is for housing. And those conversations, I don't think have progressed to a point that would let me say, share with you that, oh, no, we are thinking about making this change. so we have one at the bias and whether we're aware we are aware of the fact that housing is important it's important to the bear it's important to communities it could be very interesting at the prune yard i mean it's it's almost kind of a natural right to bring the live part into the the the work and the play um but we have not advanced that thought or that goal at this stage In either case, the economic viability is really tough to overcome right now given the cost of construction. Right. And it's only going to be when demand kind of shows its level at a – It develops to a point where the economics justify the investment in capital to create that structure, whether it's for residential or for office.

And I guess my question, I should have prefaced it by saying for the HOA, for all three of the groups, you know, the office component.

Yeah, I specifically work for the office component.

Right. So I'm talking about, you know, the triumvirate of retail, hospitality and office. You foresee within your group. Have you talked about that? Maybe there's a chance that housing might.

It's been shared amongst the group that this is something that the city would encourage. But nothing definitively has come from those conversations at this point.

Okay. Thank you. That's all I had. Thank you. Commissioner Brookbinder.

Just to make sure that I understand, the thing that's blocking the construction of the new section of the prune yard is both the income stream, which is why you're excited that you're heading for better occupancy, and also the high construction costs, which you're hoping will abate? Are those the things that are blocking you right now?

So we respond to market demands, fundamental economic demands. If the demand is such that the price that can be paid for use of that facility justifies the investment, then we get very close to moving forward with it. We are not there yet. When I made the comments about the existing 370,000 feet, we are really moving the needle as it relates to that project. Internally, we think that in the next 24 months, we could be approaching 95%, which would be wonderful. And that speaks to, one, what the prune yard can do when you bring those factors together, and the fact that folks want to be here, and it gets us that much closer. I don't think... two years is reasonable i mean we'll be doing this again in two years if it was a shorter period of time five years gives us a chance and as i was sharing with these two earlier today we live in a in this eco ecosystem uh that that is very dynamic and can change very quickly and to be ready for that when it does arrive would be beneficial for all concerned thank you that makes sense

I have no questions. Thank you for taking all of ours. I will open it up if there are any other members of the public that would like to speak. You're here. You good? All right, he's good. Anybody on Zoom? Okay. Well, I will close public hearing. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And we will discuss as a commission. I always like to flip the directions. Commissioner Bookminder, take it away.

I understand some folks having a negative opinion of them not having built or how the place is run right now, but I guess I don't see any point in not extending it in that we would like them to build more office space here. That would be like we approved the development in the first place. We've talked a lot about the macroeconomic conditions involved, and we would still like them to build it. So I don't see any reason not to approve this for the ensuing time. Commissioner Olney.

I got my licks in, but thanks.

Commissioner Kamkar.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, I wholeheartedly agree the construction cost and the environment is just not suitable right now. Whether it's three or five years, I'm sure they would do it the sooner they can. You know, five years is just a... you know, a little bit of a leeway. Otherwise, if they could do it in three years, they will do it in three years. You know, they're not going to wait the next two years. So I'm comfortable with the proposal. Commissioner Zister.

Yeah. I think it's Eric has convinced me that a five years is a reasonable number. You know, it's a business decision. They have to look at when's the right time for them, assuming they want to expand, which the M.U.P. suggests that they want to expand. That's a decision they have to make when it seems appropriate. And if they decide that more office buildings are a good business decision and, of course, more retail, then that's what they're going to do. Personally, I'd like to see the parking problem solved. I'd like to know if the retail people think there's a parking problem. Anecdotally, I think there's a parking problem. I've been going to Prune Yard weekly for the last 25 years, and I've never seen it like this at certain times of the day. And I think it turns off a lot of people who like to go to the Prune Yard. They're trolling around the parking lot looking for parking spaces. I love them as an aside. You know, I'd love them to consider doing some kind of research on who their customer base is, whether they're You know, we have at least one, maybe two commissioners who probably don't think they would like to have another garage because that puts more cars out. But I won't speak for anybody else. But, you know, obviously, I personally think that the prune yard needs more parking and that, you know, the issue to me, you know, I believe we get people coming to the prune yard from, Fair amount distance. I think it's a destination where people are coming from miles away in some cases. It's not just the locals and certainly not just the folks that walk over from Union Avenue. or a hotel guests. So I'm an ex-marketing guy and it's like, I like research. So I would love to see some research on whether they think it's valuable or not to who your customer base is and where they're coming from. Because I think that would enlighten, I think that would enlighten the group in terms of, you know, who they would appeal to, but that's just an aside. Otherwise I support the extension. Thank you, Vice Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner Fields. I think that this is something that is an asset, obviously, to our city. And having done work with developers or people with long-term goals, I know what it takes to get revenue streams going and get things built. It seems pretty reasonable to me. I guess in two years we'll know, three years we'll know. if there's a change in administration, which way things might go. So that may speed up your process. So by giving you the five years, I think it's reasonable. And I'm in support of continuing on with this master use plan. So that's all I have to say. Thank you.

I'm also supportive, and I think comments have sort of covered it. The only thing I plug, the new trailhead, the $100,000 investment in that, like I blocked that the other day. That's like nice. I always went south from Campbell Park. You go north on Los Gatos Creek Trail from there, that's nice. And I think that was a great investment in the community. And I think part of the, the good faith gesture. So I will plug people walking on that. And I think this is part of a lot of great work. The city's doing to kind of fill in between the prune yard and downtown and make it a little bit more vibrant and, and nice and livable. So very supportive with that. Could I get a motion for this item?

I'll move. Okay. Move. Let's see. I move to consider the application of Prune Yard Center for amendment to the Prune Yard Master Use Permit to extend approved phasing deadlines for phases three and four, which provide construction of five-story office building, expansion of existing parking structure, additional commercial buildings and related site improvements, and for an extension of time for the related tentative parcel map, allowing creation of a fourth parcel for the office building approved as part of phase three, so that the phasing deadlines and map expiration date would extend to December 31, 2031, on property located at 1875, 1887, 1901, 1919, 1995, and 1999, South Bascom and 770 East Campbell Avenue. File number PLN 2026-82. Can I have a second? Second. Ken, can we get a roll call?

Commissioner Bookbinder. Aye.

Commissioner Euling. Nay. Commissioner Kamkar.

Aye.

Commissioner Scherzer.

Aye.

Vice Chair Aquino.

Aye. Chair Fields. Aye. The motion passes 5-1. Planning Commission action is final as appealed in writing the city clerk within 10 calendar days.

Could we take like two minutes for me to pass out cookies?

Take a two minute cookie break.

Okay, thank you.

With a short nap afterwards.

Hey, you know, if you'd like a little help, if you'd like help on your campaign in any way, knocking on doors, putting up I could do some of that. He's going to go knock on all the doors.

I'll come back.

Item three, we have staff and committee reports. I was not expecting any reports in the two subcommittees, but...

I did email you about this ahead of time.

You sent me an email? I did. I couldn't tell what you wanted.

Oh, I was just like... sorry i didn't know whether that was just for me or that was something you were presenting here not formally presenting but i wanted to a a short thing from the streamlining committee so being aware that of two things one that staff does not have the time or in some aspects much inclination to look into this and given that you chair were uh concerned about lack of quantitative research on this um i had the opportunity to look more into the paper by um i'm gonna mispronounce his name but um professor kuchikinya at the university of irvine i think it's irvine um so i can explain so the the short short headline number is that With reasonable certainty, I've actually sent him an email. I'm going to try and get this a little more quantitative, but it's plausible that we could go from producing 100 units of which 15 are affordable to 158 units, 16 of which are affordable, given the stringency of our current IZ policy. So you're saying earlier, how do we know what the change would be? It turns out there was a natural experiment from 2009 to 2017. Rental inclusionary zoning was actually judged in violation of Costa Hawkins until the assembly passed a fix for it. So a bunch of jurisdictions did not have inclusionary zoning and then one day later did. So you can do what's called a difference in differences design, which is where you can compare the jurisdictions that did not have IZ to the ones that did before and after the state and see what the effect of the various types of IZ regimes are. He and a team of people coded housing element codes. about the exact nature of the IZ regimes and came up with a measure of what he called stringency, which is the percentage of expected rent, which is removed, figured out the welfare differences to people at various income levels and what the effects were and so forth. Basically, there's sort of a cliff effect when the stringency number goes above about 7.5%. we're likely around eight percent i'm i'm trying to squint at a map at this point but looking if we go between those two buckets like that's the that's the general gist of this i'm going to try and run this by him get saying a little more specific the thing i figure that staff won't really have time to do this and there is research which is i think what you were looking for great is that do you have any particular questions before i go dig into this uh That seems reasonable. I can read your email more closely, too. Okay. The reason why I'm iffy on the numbers is just I don't know exactly what our stringency is in the pre-case and the post-case. Can you explain stringency? Stringency is a measure invented in the paper, which turns a variety of knobs, which you can put on an inclusionary zoning policy into a question of what percentage of the expected rent is taken for this. Like what value of the building is taken to go into inclusionary zoning. And that wound up being a useful measure. So trying to figure out what that measure is under our current policy and would be under the revised policy.

You're talking about changing the ratios in the BMRs, right? Yes.

Sorry. Context. I've had my head in this for the last three days. Yes, this is talking about changing our inclusionary zoning rates.

Okay.

Okay.

So I'll try and, well, I'd like to schedule this and I'll talk with you about it. I just wanted to run this by the commission first to see if anybody had any particular questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I also want to finish the thought that I had started, you know, when we had the gentleman from Wimby, Mr. Chris, lindsay up there um and what i was getting at was that um in order to create additional funds that might be available or additional uh let's say construction dollars or additional sales dollars you know if if economic activity can be can be pushed a little bit. Additional funds will be received by the city, which then they can put towards affordable housing. And some of the ideas, I know they're not popular, but it's worth just putting out there. For example, a lot of the times the landowner gets the windfall profit of the, you know, the development because the developer has to buy the land. And if the landowner says, hey, I can put, you know, 50 houses on this land, the price will go up, you know, just because the land's at the right place at the right time.

And so maybe that also... And that's, again, a sensitivity the city has because we have not planned for residential development in industrial areas. And I think with good measure, mixing residential into an industrial zone presents a lot of land use conflicts in general. So that is an issue we're tracking.

I understand it. Producing one of those alternative plans would cost some six-year amount of money, and the city's incredibly strapped for cash. They're seriously going to do that? Let me continue.

So there is budget allocated for this up to a couple hundred thousand dollars. As Commissioner Buckbeiner mentioned, the city's fiscally thin at this point. There are no hard decisions yet on where the city is going to go. Our advice to council was to wait till the fall for a couple things. One, to see if the legislative, if there are new laws implementing SB 79 that would come into effect. This year's cycle does not have anything substantial. And to wait for guidance from HCD and MTCA bag on the specifics of implementing SB 79. And finally, to see what amount of developer interest has come in to these sites. So to date, there has not been a lot of development interest. As mentioned, that market for high-density residential is soft. But we will present to council in the fall options going forward. Should we wait or should we pursue a TOD alternative plan? And that potentially could be a big work plan item. Any other questions on that? I know it's a big, big item. Yeah, I can't see. I can't see why not. The TO transit oriented alternative plan itself would be something that would come before the planning commission. Yes. Yep. Last item is citywide multimodal plan. This started in our shop when we had our environmental program specialist, Tiffany Hudson. She sort of broadened from climate action plan to this. Project managed this for a bit, but once her tenure ended with the city, this is shifted to public works, which makes sense. in my professional opinion, a lot more sense as those who oversee the streets and the traffic and the active transportation in the city. So that continues to be under active preparation. I think at some point it might probably make sense for them to provide a progress update to the Planning Commission so at least you know where that's headed. Okay, other items. So this is technically in the current planning, but a bit more on code work. First one has a bit of a constant update, implemented code updates to comply with state laws. And as the commission knows, we are constantly reacting to new state laws and drafting interim ordinances, at least to align with state laws. And that work continues. We are looking at an opportunity at some point. We're hoping 2027 to bring an omnibus ordinance to the commission. Perhaps when there finally is a pause in new state laws that would bring all together all of the urgency ordinances together for review by the Planning Commission and Council. So that is on the work plan. Address new community issues. So we do have an interim wireless ordinance. We do intend to replace that with a permanent ordinance. And that likely will come to you later this year. With respect to tobacco, which I realize I might have misspelled, the city has a moratorium at this point. At one point, I think we had the highest number of tobacco shops, smoke shops out of all cities. And in reaction to that, the council adopted a moratorium. In other news, based on police investigation of a few of these smoke shops, actually five of the smoke shops had their business licenses revoked as a related matter. But we do intend to replace that moratorium with an ordinance that would restrict the number of tobacco shops in the city. And that would also come to you. And then finally, to highlight the bottom point, which aligns well with the work of your ad hoc subcommittee, conduct permits streamlined to support economic development. And that's been a top priority out of the economic development plan. So that is on the work plan. Finally, if you've been tracking past couple months, council meetings and the starter home ordinance, we do have direction from council to prepare a demolition control ordinance. And the intent of that is to prevent properties from becoming vacant in the city. Someone could propose a demo permit, render a property vacant, leave it vacant. So we are working on that ordinance to bring it back to council. That will come to the planning commission, and that's likely this fall. Finally, the housing, you likely will not see these items, but just want to socialize with you. A lot of things we're doing in housing, our housing manager is working on some improvements to our below market rate program, notably how it's managed and overseen. We are starting to grow the monies in our housing trust fund. So this comes from, as you know, in lieu fees, commercial linkage fees, grants and other sources so that that trust fund is starting to grow. And we'll have a decision on the procedures and policies on how we use that money to support housing. And those will come to the council soon. The Planning Commission will recognize the third item. It's been of interest, I think, to some commissioners. On our work plan is the plan to create a housing commission. There is one option within that to put a housing commission within the Planning Commission. It would be a Planning Commission Housing Commission. There are some other options that the council could consider. We did go to council. I'm trying to remember six months ago with some options. They gave preliminary feedback. I'd say we're probably not coming back to council until the spring just due to staffing issues. But as commission, I'd keep an eye on that. It's one that potentially could have some overlap with the planning commission. The fourth one down, Campbell took the lead in preparing a West Valley homeless service feasibility study that looked at how could a city in the West Valley, Los Gatos, Saratoga, Cupertino, Montessorino, and and Campbell worked together on implementing homeless services. Usually this is a sub-regional issue. A lot of our unhoused population moves between cities. All of our cities together don't have a lot of resources. The idea behind this is if we collaborate together, shared resources, we could have a sub-regional solution. The feasibility study was prepared. It was prepared and funded by Campbell. It's generally been accepted by the five cities. We're at the point of trying to move into implementation. And we're working with a potential service provider that could provide some outreach services, some other services working for us together. And the idea is we would share the costs with the county and perhaps grant funding to have some economy scale on that. So, some more to come. Finally, we do have an unhoused program. Happy report that the position itself has been vacant for some time. We actually have made an offer that's been accepted for a new unhoused specialist that's destined to start next week. That's great news for the city. We do have a motel voucher program where folks who are susceptible to the weather or just have health issues or more sensitive in general to being outside, we can give them temporary stays at right now is the Motel 6. And we have a couple other programs, but one of the priorities is to keep those programs going here in Campbell. Yes. So, I'm going to ask.

I think 30 years ago, there was subsidized housing buildings that were built where as a condition of those, they had to keep them at below market rents for 30 years. And this project is now coming up, it's expiring. So can you speak about, shouldn't that be in here?

It is. Thank you, Commissioner Ali. You're very astute. I didn't include it in here, so it shows you're well-researched. There is a work plan item. Thank you. We have an apartment building. These days, in below-market rate, they're usually 50 years or longer. But back in the days, this was the 90s, the term was 30 years. And I think this was when redevelopment was here. One of our apartment buildings was deed restricted for 30 years, and those terms are coming due. So we do have a number of units, I think it's up to 20, that will term out, for lack of a better term, in 2027. So folks that have deed restricted below market rate, those restrictions will be removed. We have talked to the landlord property owner. They are aware they're going through notifications. It is on the work plan to try and find a solution. The problem is we haven't found one, and it's very expensive. In effect, the city would have to buy down or subsidize for 20-plus units market rate to below market rates going forward, and the price points on that are very, very expensive. So we worked with the housing authority, some other agencies on options, but at this point, I'll be honest, we do not have a solution to that issue. Okay.

There's no county or state effort to deal with this issue.

Not specifically this issue, no.

The idea when it originated 30 years ago was you would flip the folks into a new development at 30 year timeframe so that they'd have to move, but they wouldn't be homeless. But it sounds like that's no chance of it.

Yeah, I mean, there are some, I mean, the first priority, of course, would be to keep the units stable. In our below market rate program today, so say, for example, a project comes in 15% below market rate affordable. So if it's 100 unit project, 15 units today developed to be below market rate, When we open those units up to the community, the first priority is someone who has been displaced from housing or four-wheel housing. So those folks who have been in those units do have the opportunity to come in. Often there's a time delay in a process, so it's not seamless. And I couldn't say 100% those folks would go into those, but that is an option. Yeah.

Are these places 100% affordable? Are these buildings that are

Which ones, Commissioner? No, no, they're not. That's correct.

Anybody else have questions on the work plan?

I just have one or two last slides. I'll close that for you. Almost done. To wrap up, to put it all together, how would this impact the planning commission? So looking ahead, I just anticipate in the fall, you will see the demolition controller come to you. The next one's a quasi-judicial item. I put it on the screen just because it's a big project and I think a lot of community members are aware of it. So the Campbell Tech Park will come to you for a recommendation sometime in the fall. One thing I'd advise, this is, it's a quasi-judicial item. So I just advise all folks, people ask you your opinion, what you think about it, I would hold off. It's not a legislative item, but I know it's gotten a fair amount of interest in the community. So just wanted to give a heads up to the commission that'll come to you soon. We do anticipate, yes. The Campbell Tech Park, it's just a large housing project. Yeah, yeah. I think you've seen it once or twice before. And my advice to commissioners, if you're asked by community members about it, I would not express opinions on it because it's quasi-judicial. You're like a jury. You have to wait and make a decision. Absolutely. We are preparing the final EIR that will be published soon. And once that's published, we'll schedule the item for you. I think we're looking at an October date at this point. And we'll try and get that packet out to you early in this case because you'll have a lot of reading behind it. Yeah. I want to listen to back oh we anticipate those ordinances come to you sometime in the fall and then in 2027 the hamilton avenue plan would likely come to you. Depending on the will of Council, you could see the SP nine alternative plan, and then we depending on the work of the ad hoc subcommittee or otherwise some some updates on economic development or housing. And some others on the updates so with that I am officially done and here for questions, if you have any.

Can I ask a quick question?

I haven't looked it up, so I really should have tried to figure it out on my own. But was there an emergency ordinance in the last month or so that was brought up as part of SB 79 response that the council approved?

Not in the last month, I'm aware. We did do updates on SB 450, the subdivision ordinance and design, objective design standards, but not SB 79.

I thought there was something maybe about the fact that, you know, carving out the mobile homes or the one mile thing, but that wasn't it.

No, the urgency ordinance, I'm trying to remember the date. april i believe i might have that off that the city adopted designated the one mile i'm sorry the half mile walking distance radians and excluded historic properties i do know at the state level to my knowledge there is a cleanup trailer bill being considered for sb 79 that excludes mobile home parks and from i've heard that that's getting support and is likely to pass

Thank you for the work plan. Now, another Rob Eastwood production.

No additional updates. So I'm done on all accounts. Thank you.

Well, you know, I have to ask one question. Which I will ask until. You have a missing seventh business unit, and we have a missing seventh member. So can we ask him? Yeah. Any update on that?

Yeah. So this is the part of the evening where I feel the most awkward. So, again, consider myself the messenger. And I know I need to come, when I come to these meetings, I'm to answer that the most, the latest intelligence I have from our city clerk's office is that they're working on it. That's all I can tell you. To my knowledge, so there's two seats in question. One is the open seat that's been open. To my knowledge, that's been posted and closed and candidates submitted their applications. We do have the seat that's currently occupied by by chair fields. That's also indisposed and I believe is turning out at the end of this month. So, but to my knowledge, the city attorney and city clerk are Working on on a solution to that.

Is eligible for reappointment.

Yes, yes.

Okay. Well, with that, that is the last item on our agenda. And so I would like to adjourn this meeting of the Campbell Planning Commission. And so our next meeting on September 8th, 2026, which will be here or will be back in the

Yeah, great question. Next meeting will be in the EOC room at the new police building. So in effect, for commissioners and those listening, as you enter the lobby to the police building, it's the large conference room to your left that will be publicly accessible.

We're torn the facilities. Perfect. Why isn't the chamber available?

Still undergoing renovations for ADA improvements. Great.

Have a good night.

We do now.