Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the July 15 regular meeting of the San Ramon Planning Commission. Call to the order at 06:00, right in time. Item number two, roll call. Please conduct roll call.

Commissioner Kuznick? Here. Commissioner Kunjula?

Here.

Vice chair Avila? Here. And chair Albert?

Here. Please rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty, and justice for all.

Item four is pub

Item four is public comments or written communications. At this time, members of the public may address the planning commission on any item not already included in tonight's agenda. If you'd like to speak, please fill out a speaker card located in the back and, provide it to the recording secretary, and we will not be taking public comment via Zoom. Do we have any public comments for this item?

No written public comment, but I do have speaker cards. Ramon Amaral.

Okay.

Good evening, chair, commissioners. My name is Ramon Amaral. I'm a field represent a field representative for the North Cal Carpenters Union, local one fifty two, which covers, San Ramon, Contra Costa County. I just wanted to touch a little bit on area standards. We at the Carpenters feel that area standards is, very important.

It's like prevailing wage, which the state recognizes as, union carpenter wages, which ultimately help our workers or any worker, working under the scope of carpentry, providing fair wages and health and benefits, and a skilled quality workforce, which the state recognizes, certified apprenticeship program, and giving the workers a chance to live in the communities they helped built, which ultimately will uplift the community where the workers don't have to travel, long, commute miles to get to work, and they'll be spending most of their time in the community and spending their money there.

That's all I

have. Thank you. Okay.

Hello, all planning commissioners, and congratulations to Santosh for joining the being a new member. Yep. So I was one of the most concerning item from today's meeting was I wanted to basically do it on eight point two. But right now, I have little urgency, so I have to leave in some time. And the main problem here is, like, we have a zoning administrator, basically, will be taking up decision and basically making the relevance of planning commission almost, negligible.

And this will if you set this precedent, it will carry on to all the other planning commission's meeting because zoning administrator would be undermining the planning commission. And here, we are having a enormous good team of planning commissioners, especially all the team members, Gary, Betty, Jeanal, Santosh, and, hopefully, one more person will join soon. I really appreciate that planning commission basically declined this 8.2, the sunset proposal, and make sure that zoning administrator won't have that rights. Planning commission keeps their power. Thank you. Thank you.

I have no other speaker cards for this item.

Okay. If we go ahead and close the public comment at this point, item five, additions and revisions. There has been a request to move item 11.1, the orchard supplies study session prior to eight point one. If I can get a motion to adjust the agenda at this point.

I will move to make that change.

We will need a second.

I'll second that motion.

Okay. Okay. Motion did pass four zero zero zero. Okay. Moving on to item six, the consent calendar. The first item is minutes of the planning commission meeting from 07/01/2025. Are there any public comments on this item?

I haven't received written public comment or speaker cards for this item.

We'll go ahead and close the public comment. May I get a motion, please, to accept the minutes as written? I can Go ahead. Go ahead.

I can move Okay. To accept the meeting minutes from the last July 1 meeting.

And I will second that. Okay. Thank you.

Mister for Joy, you need to press the green to go there. Right. Thank you. Great. Okay. The motion passes four zero zero zero. Okay. Item seven, continued items after the close of the public hearing. There are none. Item 11.1, the Orchard study session.

As a reminder to the commission, this is a study session item for us to provide initial feedback to the project and the to the staff and the applicant. The applications have not been deemed complete. And as such, no detailed analysis has been completed, and the project may be amended to address completeness and review comments that staff is currently working on. So the purpose again tonight is to receive the, input and then provide any combat con any comments, and then we will continue to review the application for completeness, staff will. Okay. So we have a there she is.

Thank you very much, and good evening, commissioners. I'm here to present this evening just a brief staff report for the Orchard's development project study session. As you saw in the staff report, the applications, for a preliminary housing development application was filed in June. And so, as customary with any PhD applications, we typically will provide a study session related to that application so that the commission and the community can provide some early feedback on the project before we do our formal finalizing of the completeness review as well as providing project comments. So this evening, my report is brief.

I will, actually turn it over to the applicant who has a presentation of their project, and they can run through the scope of their project. And then, certainly, if there's any questions about the project, I I'll be available to answer those questions after. Thank you. I'm gonna welcome up Stephanie Hill with Sunset Development.

Good evening, chair Alpert and planning commissioners. On behalf of Sunset Development, I'm Stephanie Hill. Thank you for the opportunity to present our proposed mixed use development at the former Chevron Park, now referred to as Orchards. Before discussing Orchards in particular, we want to provide an overview of Bishop Ranch. Over the next twenty five years, our residential plan will introduce an inclusive, walkable suburban downtown that complements the existing commercial environment and creates a unified, well designed community.

The proposed housing is intended to serve a wide range of lifestyles, singles, couples, families, and retirees, so residents can choose how and where they want to live. This vision depends on a balanced mix of housing types, including affordable and market rate options, as well as multifamily and single family homes. Our land plan is centered around four premier offices, Orchard's, formerly BR1 Sycamore, formerly BR3 Shepherd's Glen, formerly BR15 and Lakeside, formerly 2600. CityWalk, our plan for 4,500 mid rise residential units, spans 135 acres between Bollinger Canyon Road, Camino Ramon, and Executive Parkway. Belmont Village Senior Living was the first community to open under this plan.

The DMU North zone, north of Executive Parkway, features two to three story single family homes. To the south of Bollinger Canyon Road, Orchards, within the DMU South zone, is proposed to include 2,500 homes, 125,000 square feet of retail, and 15 acres of parks and open space. At full build out, Bishop Branch is planned to include approximately 8,000 homes distributed across DMU North, CityWalk, and Orchards. Residential construction will occur through 02/1945. For context, 8,000 homes over twenty years is approximately 400 homes being delivered annually.

To date, over 300 homes have been completed, 158 at Summerhill City Village at former BR 6, 177 at Belmont Senior Living. While our recent communities at Planning Commission have focused on townhomes and single family residents, it's important to clarify over 80% of Bishop Ranch planned housing is multifamily, elevator served buildings. The 15% affordable housing requirement will be met through a mix of on-site affordable and stand alone affordable communities. Approved in 2020, CityWalk has informed our land planning approach at Orchard's. CityWalk includes 4,500 residential units in five to seven story buildings, a 169 key hotel, 166,000 square feet of commercial space, three structured parking garages, and 40 acres of parks and open space.

Belmont Village Senior Living was the first community to open under this plan. Related at BR1A and Avalon at BR3A are both approved. Each residential block features a pedestrian scaled street grid and a neighborhood park. Comprehensive design guidelines inform how buildings and open spaces are developed with individual projects reviewed through the city's entitlement process. Open space is a cornerstone of both CityWalk and the broader Bishop Ranch plan.

Each of CityWalk's five neighborhoods include a dedicated park designed for both active and passive use. These smaller scale parks complement larger community spaces like Central Park. Heritage Park, the first neighborhood park, begins construction this month and includes a central lawn, a play structure, a picnic grove, and a public art installation. These parks are privately owned but publicly accessible, providing community amenities without public maintenance costs. Significant investments are also planned for parkways and Annabel Lake and Lake Cecilia, as well as enhancements at Woodlot, Henry Ranch, and Iron Horse Middle School turf.

Tonight's presentation will focus on the 92 acre Orchard site and its associated land use program. As Ms. Yi mentioned, future meetings will explore specific topics in more detail. Tonight is solely an overview of what we've planned for the site. For context, we've included photos of the current site.

Chevron Park includes 14 buildings surrounded by tree lined surface parking. The city's 2040 general plan includes a policy policy statement describing future uses for this site. This policy was developed through a series of public meetings with the planning commission, city council, and community members. What we've done here is we've shown how the site plans have evolved from January 2023 to the application materials that are in front of you this evening. We began with a program summary that emphasized residential, retail and open space, guided by several key site givens.

Those included preserving the Chevron Drive alignment, preserving the heritage oak trees on-site, including a central park, and including a perimeter greenway. We developed three initial scenarios for community input with a variety of residential densities and the type of retail. The low density scenario included 2,000 homes with six to seven story multifamily buildings shown in orange, a surface parked retail development in red, and then two to three story homes along Inverness Park to the south. The medium density scenario included 2,300 homes with 125,000 square feet of retail. That retail is included in mixed use buildings, which means retail is on the ground floor with residential units above.

For the high density, we increased to just under 2,900 homes and included higher density homes along the six eighty frontage. The Planning Commission feedback on these three different scenarios included support for higher densities to meet housing goals, the desire to protect Inverness Park's character, questions on access and circulation, as well as interest in retail variety and activation of the Central Park. We also presented these three plans to the Inverness Park residents, and their feedback included maintaining sound and visual privacy, single family homes along the shared boundary to the south, no through streets from orchards into Inverness Park, and more family friendly retail than what's currently offered at City Center. In response, we developed two additional refined plans, one in March and one in April 2023. We settled with around 2,500 homes, extending the four to five story buildings along Interstate 680.

We relocated the central park so that it's adjacent to the retail to activate the park with the retail. We included lower density housing along Inverness Park. We added a defined street network, and we expanded the greenway and really ensured that we could preserve the heritage oak trees which are on-site. We developed these land plans into a site plan, which was shared at a May 2024 open house before we submitted our formal application materials in November. The submission included a development agreement given the multiphase, multiyear buildout, which will include terms such as fiscal neutrality and community benefits, design guidelines for the full 92 acre site, architectural concepts for the First District, the neighborhood district, and a vesting tentative parcel map for the Orchard's neighborhood.

And then just to help reorient everyone, we've shifted the site plan 90 degrees. So Bollinger Canyon is to the north, and we'll keep this orientation for the balance of the presentation. We anticipate a phased build out. The first phase will likely include demolition of all of the existing buildings on-site. However, we propose to retain the Bollinger frontage and parking to allow for interim community programming, such as pop up events or seasonal attractions, like the ice rink that we currently have at City Center, just to to give a frame of reference.

Any necessary grading would be completed and hydro seated to maintain site aesthetics similar to what we've done at BR1A and BR3A. As with the best as with the rest of Bishop Branch, the Orchard's plan will meet the city's 15% affordable housing requirement through a mix of standalone affordable housing and on-site affordable integrated with market rate units. With that, I will turn the presentation over to our design team and welcome up BA architects.

This one? Yeah. K.

Good evening, commissioners. Thank you very much for taking the time to be here with us tonight. Very excited to be representing BAR and here with Sunset and the design team to talk about this important project. And so we'll gonna walk you through. Again, this is meant to be an initial meeting and an overview, so we'll go through some things relatively quickly.

So we will not be going in-depth with the design guidelines tonight, but just as a reminder, there will be design guidelines that have been that are part of the project and will help guide the the the land plan, the streets, open space, landscaping, the the mixed use multifamily buildings, and the lower density housing. Big picture, the the project is divided into three districts. The along Bollinger and towards the Freeway is a multifamily district in the upper left hand corner, and then a mixed use district that includes retail in the upper right hand corner near Bollinger, and then what we're calling the neighborhood district, the lower density housing only in the to the south. The the summary of the program, I'm not gonna go through each of these line by line, but as Stephanie noted, big picture, the the mixed use district and multifamily include a little over 2,000 units of housing. And the neighborhood district, which includes attached townhomes and single family homes and ADUs, is about 426 units.

And then there is approximately a 125,000 feet of retail in the district. This is a ground floor plan, so everything you see in in yellow is representing some sort of residential housing. The it's a little hard to see, but the the the big gray areas in the center of the building towards Bollinger Canyon are envisioned to be parking structures for the multifamily housing. And then the salmon color, red color is denoting the the commercial retail area, and then you can see our our Central Park in the the the middle of the site. The the building heights are laid out to go from taller heights along Bowlinger Canyon and stepping down as you head to the south towards the the neighborhood.

So in the upper left hand corner towards Bollinger and the freeway intersection are envisioned to be seven story buildings. To the right of that, the mixed use district would be five to seven stories. There's a designated affordable parcel. Parcel h is the yellow, which is thought to be a five story parcel. The center of the project were the green parcels at four to five stories, the orange at three stories, and then two stories for the residential units, and then going down to even one story on the there's some small ADU units at the very south edge of the site.

Some initial concept imagery. So on the left hand side are photographs and renderings of the three BAR projects, some built projects, some some non built projects that began to help us think about the look and feel of the project. On the right hand side are are renderings of this actual project. They're they're hypothetical. They're not the exact buildings that will be built, but they they they represent the the scale, the character that we in Sunset envisioned for the for the site.

Within that mixed use district, just to zoom in a little bit on that on that retail, so, again, everything you see in the the the red salmon color is retail. So as you come in off of Bollinger Canyon onto Sunset Drive, you'll come into a new roundabout. You'll turn to the left, and the retail is comprised really of two main streets. So more of a traditional town drive down Main Street, retail on either side, and then you can make a loop around the the the large parcel in the center, parcel one excuse me, a one, and back out of the of the side if you want, or you can go straight through to the parcels to the to the east. But the retail is purposely consolidated.

It's it's aggregated together, creates more energy, better leasing opportunities for the retail. The building that's on the far left is envisioned to be a small one story building that faces the park. And then in parcel d, you'll see also retail that faces directly towards the park. But the balance of the retail would all be on these these streets. So just think of it as a traditional main street retail with smaller neighborhood serving stores.

And then at the top of the parcel towards Bollinger is is laid out the potential for a small grocer, which is a hypothetical, but we have tried to lay out the loading and how a store like that could could fit into the site plan. And then the parking for the retail is is generally consolidated into the the a one parcel on a multilevel deck. You can get in and out of it in a couple different places. And then there will also be street parking, parallel parking along the street. So we'll give some kind of short term teaser parking for the retail.

And then the multifamily, again, the left hand side, you'll see some some built projects that are envision the sort of scale, the look, and feel that we were thinking about and that are represented in the guidelines for the multifamily district. And on the right hand side are renderings from from the project. Again, they're not meant to represent exact buildings, but the the scale, the look and feel, the size of the street, the sidewalks, parking, and really the the character of of the spaces that we that we envision. I'm gonna turn it over to the WHA team to talk about the neighborhood district. Thank you.

Hi, commissioners. My name is Robert Lee with the VHA Architects and Planning. The neighborhood district will encompass about 426 dwelling units made up of 364 cell homes and 58 ATUs. The this will be in phase one, what we see here. This represents about two thirds of the project area.

Starting from the southern half, we have a Evenness linear park that wraps around the the project. It has a 65 to 70 foot buffer zone and then transition to a low density the luxury courts. We have about 42 of those units with 10 ADU units that are one story. And then as we transition further north, we have the row homes that are in the green. And then the orange are the single family, which is represented with little floor plans here on the diagram that shows more of a conventional single family with full driveway, two car garage, and a private backyards.

As we move further north, we have in blue are the three story road townhouses. And there are about 338 of those units plus 48 j a d units. And then we have the affordable apartments as in Building H on the upper left hand corner. So this will kinda be the phase one development and design in the urban grid with north and south access and east and west connections that will lead you up to the mixed use development in the future. And also traveling east will be for the connectivity to the Iron Horse Trail.

The four different housing typologies, we have the townhomes, single family homes, and the rowhomes, and the courthomes. Three out of four are all two stories, and only the townhomes are three stories. With that, I just can hand it over to our landscape team to kinda talk about the amenities. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Reina Dinord. I'm with CMG Landscape Architects in San Francisco. So the open space strategy we've developed with the team has a goal to really create a healthy climate adapted and resilient landscape. It will use low water and fire adapted plants.

It will enhance regional habitat connections and support community well-being in future generations. Every home within the project is within 600 feet of open space. And as Stephanie has mentioned, there's over 15 acres of open space throughout the project that is realized throughout a network of parks, plazas, and green streets that connect all districts. We wanted to just zoom out and talk a little bit about overall kind of Bishop Branch program, really, as we were considering how to develop the site for orchards, recognizing that there has been a lot of development that's gone on and, thoughts around, really where program starts to land within Bishop Ranch overall and how are we within orchards connecting to that. So we looked at where's education, where are the arts and culture, thinking about transportation or health and recreation as it relates to what we were developing on-site.

Additionally, we looked at overall connections and really thinking about how people are getting to and from these places as destinations. And then zooming in to the Orchard site, really spending a lot of time thinking about the bike and pedestrian connectivity and flow and how people are moving through orchards. The blue is all walkable, rollable areas, so sidewalks, plazas, parks, crossings. And the green with a blue dash are all multiuse paths that are designated for walking, biking, or rolling. There's a 12 foot wide perimeter greenway, loop that wraps the site, and there are two main cross, site routes.

There's a North south access from the Bollinger Gateway that will bring people down into the neighborhood district, And there is an East west access that crosses from the high to low density areas connecting Iron Horse Trail and Bollinger Bridge. There are two raised crossings in the site that enhance walkability and district transitions. And there are sidewalks, alleys, and street trees that support intuitive movement and wayfinding throughout the site. Overall site wide connectivity. Again, that East West flow is anticipated to three key links that you see here, to the Iron Horse Trail, to Heritage Park, and to the Bollinger Bridge and up to the Central Park.

Again, the open space network is really meant to complement all these nearby public amenities. So in addition to how people are moving, there's a question of where are they going to. And so this diagram is showing an overlay of how the bike and pedestrian circulation overlays on top of social nodes and programs. So there are six primary open space areas with the retail plaza core. Just to name a few, the key kind of central flexible open space that has a dedicated children's play area is the Orchards Park, number two here on the screen.

There's the Heritage Oak Parks, which are really meant to preserve the existing Heritage Oaks on-site. And then we're also introducing some new parks that will be have dedicated, Heritage Oaks or soon that one day will grow into be Heritage Oaks. But, again, the intention to, really kind of root and ground, the project, around this idea. There are the neighborhood parks that have flex use and gatherings, and those are number five that you see on here. And then there's the retail plazas, again, the events and arts.

There's also a series of smaller courtyards and paseos, bulb outs that add intimacy. And then throughout the streetscape design, we've worked closely with the team to really develop safe crossings, wider sidewalks, landscape buffers, and parklets with the intention to support social life within the project. And lastly, just touching on landscape character and experience, really intending to evoke the local valley ecology with regional plant communities. The intention is to prioritize safety, comfort, and delight in everyday movement, encourage all ages connection with nature and neighbors, and lastly, really inviting these details to be explored further in upcoming meetings. Thank you.

Thank you all for that. Before we go to public comment, are there any clarifying questions for the applicant or staff? And, again, at this point, it's clarifying questions, and we'll have a chance to make comments for staff after public comment. Mister Huseby?

I I don't know if

it's a clarifying question, but I just I've I've since the landscaping was the last one we saw, I'm looking at this picture, and I would just wonder if we have thought about opportunities to include some community gardening areas. It's a lot of people that that have very limited personal yards and and sought. So I'm just thinking I'm gonna toss that out there. I guess it's really more of a comment than a question. Sorry.

Any questions at Scripts? I

just have a couple of questions for staff and also the applicant. Which one first? Okay, Steph. I just wanted to clarify whether this counts towards one of the hearings under SB three thirty.

So yes. Great question. So under SB three thirty, there's a limit for projects that file a preliminary housing application to be subject to maximum five public meetings. But that doesn't that count doesn't start until after the application has been deemed complete. And so we this meeting in particular does not count towards the, one of the five.

Perfect. Thank you. And then my other question would be for this sort of development. Would we require both a Park and Luffy and dedication or one over the other? So ultimately,

with development applications, the parkland dedication ordinance provides options. And it can be a combination of the two or one or the other. Ultimately, that's dictated through the Parkland dedication ordinance and the the needs of the city, what the long term planning may be for, how much parkland is necessary for the population growth. And so all of that is in combination, you know, will determine whether or not it'll be just fees or just parkland or a combination of both.

Okay. So it sounds like varies

It it can from project to project. And some for example, some projects may be on a smaller scale and may be more it may be more desirable to the city to create a take the fees and create a larger park somewhere else. Larger projects, oftentimes, we will see a dedication of parkland as part of their project similar to this one.

Okay.

Sounds good. And then I have questions for that. Great. Thank you.

Ask a follow-up. I'm gonna ask a follow-up question based on what you just asked. Do we given the number of units that this is planned and whatever is the current number for average population, do we have an estimate of how many people we think will be moving into this area? What is the current guesstimate?

Yes. So there will be a calculation that's going to be part of the formal public hearing review. But the Parkland indication has an estimate of how much Parkland per unit type, and that will be provided at a at a as we get into the public hearings. Thanks.

No. Let's hear the public comments, and then I have some questions.

Sorry. How

do we get questions?

In the packet that we received, you're going ahead and moving forward with a 125,000 square feet of retail space. Do you have an estimate for how many tenants that would include?

That is a great question. I'm gonna turn that over to Jeff Dodd, who's our SVP of retail.

Hi. It's a good question. There it consists of two kinda categories of size. There's a sort of anchor space where we've planned enough room with a loading dock, and it could serve a grocery or a larger box. That space is around 18,000 feet, I believe.

The rest of the spaces are very shallow, much more shallower much more shallow than those, like, at city center, for example, except our smallest shops. So it it results in the possibility for a very high number of stores with average unit sizes, maybe 1,200 feet. So, but what will happen is there'll be a range of of sizes from, say, the smallest being five or 600 feet up to 3,004. So the the likely average depends on the end merchandising mix. At city center, we have about 70 spaces and 291,000 feet here.

We'll probably have in the thirties of total storefronts between food and beverage services and like.

I guess what kind of businesses would you be expect would be occupying? I know that you mentioned the big boxer with with the loading dock, but what about the smaller spaces?

Yeah. Services for the local population, where they can get things done. The the I would say the differentiating point here at at, this project will be more neighborhood serving and low a little more localized merchandising mix versus city center, which is a very sort of regional large drawing trade area focus. So there'll be a great lineup of food and beverage. There'll be flower shop and, you know, things, gift cards, educational support, place to perhaps get your dry cleaning done, some of those surfaces to complement the the retail and food and beverage mix.

Some, at City Center, we have Equinox, so we don't have anything else in the athletic sort of, you know, Pilates or yoga, and and there are a whole host of those kinds of concepts that we could have two or three of those in different specialties that would warm up a place to go get a workout.

Okay. Thank you.

Yep.

Oh, yeah. I do. You mentioned, Stephanie, that the overall build out of the site seems to be twenty five years. Can you go over you've gone ahead and divided it up into three different districts, one being the neighborhood, one being the mixed use, and and then the multifamily. Would when would you expect, like, the estimated deliverance for each one of those phases?

Once again, another great question, and a large factor of that is contingent on the economic conditions and the financial markets. We anticipate that the Orchard's neighborhood and the standalone affordable community will be the first phase of development that occurs at Orchard's. So that's the 368 homes plus the ADUs, as well as right now, we've planned for a 100 homes within the stand alone affordable community. That's currently being studied. It may have more units, but we're currently planning for a 100 homes there.

We would expect that that's really the first phase. So I'd I'd say roughly within the first five to seven years that that portion of the community would be built. And then if we look at the larger multifamily five to seven story buildings, we look at absorption and how quickly you can deliver those and not wanting to deliver multiple of those at the same time because they range from really 200 to 400 homes. And so we would expect that those would be phased so that they're delivered every twelve to eighteen months to allow a building to be completed, to it to become fully occupied before another residential community comes online. Within the mixed use section, as was highlighted by Chris at BAR, a key piece of it is making sure that you have both sides of the street for the retail because your retailer wants to be across from retail.

So that phasing likely comes together as opposed to a a sequential delivery, which would happen in the multifamily. All of that really is informed by the financial markets because those are bigger, more expensive buildings to build within the retail section because it provides parking for the retail as well as the parking for the residential. Those are just bigger buildings, and so we need to deliver multiple pieces at the same time so that you deliver the retail and the associated parking with it. But I would expect that that's happening really kind of years seven through 20 that that would be phased in over time.

Okay. Thank you. I have a couple other questions. In terms of, like, the signage and marketing for the project, do you have, like, any concepts for how you would brand this?

Another great question. So we've currently named it Orchard's, but we would work very closely with our marketing team and with the retail tenants on how we would do signage. One of the things that we are focused on is we do have that main entryway off of Bollinger Canyon Road. We're not able to put in additional street cuts. And so that's really the main access point for the community.

And then we do have the two East West connections through former BR one office campus. And so that's those are things that we are thinking about with the retail. If you currently drive along Bollinger Canyon, there's a a berm. That berm will be removed as part of the development, so there will be improved visibility for the retail. And within the retail district, we've oriented it so that there's one one main spot for entering into the parking garage, but signage will be key to successful retail and and how to navigate the site.

Okay. Thank you. I think that yeah. That was all my questions.

K. Do you have qualifying questions? Questions at this point. Yeah.

Yeah. There are a few questions, but as you said, we will have the public come in first, and then I'll follow-up with.

That's fine. I had a couple of questions just to clarify. The first one would be set for staff. So this is really to clarify for all of us. This is being filed as an s p three thirty project, and that comes with specific guidelines and rules about, you know, what we do and how we do it.

My question is we're looking at a certain phase of the project as part of tonight, and then at some point, we'll it will come back and it'll start our official, you know, authorized hearings. Subsequent phases that we're not looking at tonight, will that also be tied to the current five hearings, or will we get five more once those come forward?

The way that SB three thirty typically works is the number of units that are proposed as part of the preliminary housing development application. So in this case, the neighborhood district is specifically 368. The and the entitlement is, that's being asked for as part of that project through the development plan, that will be subject to the the five public hearings. The there's a second development plan that has been filed as part of this application for the broader total capacity of twenty five ten in total units for the entire project site, which would include not only the neighborhood district, but also the multifamily district as well as the mixed use district. The way that SB three thirty is is written is that there's a certain percentage of units that you can, there there's a certain percentage of of units, that you can, when you file your formal application that you that you there there's a difference in in, like, maybe 20% of plus or minus of the overall total.

And so with each new development application specific for entitlement, we would be checking the project against that upper limit of 2,500 and making sure that they're not exceeding that cap by more than 20% or or below that 20%. If so, they would have to refile a primary housing application for to change the overall total number of units. As far as the actual entitlement, meaning a development plan that would allow you to actually go out after you've gotten approval and build it, those will have its own separate five public hearings associated with those projects.

Okay. That that's helpful. The second question, I think I heard, and I'm not sure I heard it correctly, phase one, which is part of tonight's comment, also includes the all affordable project. Is that correct? I thought I heard the architect mention that it was part of phase one. Okay. It it is. Miss Hill has said yes. And so when we're when asked to provide comments, we did get an entire design package and guidelines that has been, you know, thoroughly researched by the ARB. Did they also look at the affordable project architecture design, all of that? Not

on the higher density multifamily affordable building. So only as it relates to the location and the the the relationship to the single family and and townhome units in the neighborhood district.

Okay. Will the all affordable project go through ARB similar to the other neighborhoods so that by the time it comes to us for official, we will have the okay. Okay. That's the answer I was hoping to hear. Thank you. Thank you for that. Get that. Get that one. And then one of the questions we always hear, and I'll just ask this question, how does CEQUA traffic studies, traffic mitigation, if any, play into a project like this?

So with any development application, there's always a responsibility to prepare an analysis for CEQA and determine the project's impacts and whether or not the project is a project and then what type of project and what type of analysis that triggers. In this particular instance, we've been evaluating the the application, and we are still a bit early in the review process. And so I'm not gonna necessarily commit us to want an ultimate analysis that'll be dependent on some of the feedback that we received this evening. But, you know, there there are different types of documents that are available through CEQUA.

Okay. So just to make sure I I heard correctly for the public as well, traffic will be studied as part of the overall submittal tonight and or that's part of what still needs to be done. Traffic will be analyzed, and the analysis will be done as part of the review process by the city, you know, prior to us coming forward to start the approval. Yeah.

Right. With any projects, especially at the scale, we will have automatic needs for technical studies, which would include things like, vehicle miles traveled, traffic associated with the project, and other other types of, air quality and etcetera types of technical studies that would be required as part of CEQA.

Perfect. Perfect. Thank you. A couple of questions for, I will say, generically the applicant, but I think their architecture, you know, or maybe their building style. I don't know. So my question specifically is, are these projects and these buildings, do they include things such as solar and EV charging and all of those things that people think about nowadays? You know?

Yes.

Stephie said yes. You said yes. Good. Good. Okay. The the last question I have heard questions about, and this is an architect a landscape architect question. There is a tree removal permit eventually as part of this. The question that I've heard and wanted to you know, for the public, is the intent to preserve as many or all of the healthy heritage hoax as possible, or is the intent to remove them and then replant? That's my question, I guess.

Our intention is to keep the existing heritage oak trees in place through construction and to develop parks around those heritage oak trees in the future. And we've had an arborist study and look at the heritage oak trees and what we need to do in terms of tree canopy and preservation of roots. And, actually, those heritage oak trees were on-site when Chevron built their campus, and so they've put in the root wells. And so we're our intention is that we'll be preserving those heritage oak trees.

Thank you. Thank you for that. That's it for my questions. Do we have any clarifying before we open? Okay. Why don't we go ahead and open public comment at this time?

K. We received written public comment from Jim Plickenstaff, and I have two speaker cards. Brian Swanson.

Hello, planning commissioners. My name is Brian Swanson. I'm a long time Twin Creek South resident. Rode my bike as a junior high schooler between Twin Creek South behind Bollinger to Central Park almost every day. That said, I am a certified planner, and I'm pretty disgruntled just the amount of influence Sunset has and the lack of public process is just abominable, especially being a planner with lots of Washington DC experience, policy planning, all that.

So very eye opening coming back and seeing my hometown just decimated. Today, I'm just gonna keep my comments pretty high level. One, it's contextual. Just to remind you, we are at the corner of a highway and the superhighway that is Bullhunter Canyon, and that all this effort is focused closest to city center, an effort to prop up city center, a distinct difference from what was being promised with all the development along Camino Ramon. We are switching the development access from Camino Ramon to Bollinger along a highway bifurcated by a highway with a on ramp lane, not just a ramp.

So

any characterization now my comments are mostly from what I heard today, and I've been looking at it for a long time. But any characterization of this neighborhood, this development, this precinct, as mixed use is highly subjective. Again, it's all the prop up city center. The only retail, fortunately, is closest to the senior development. Hopefully, that retail is going to be senior serving.

Not high end boutiques, not any of that garbage. Senior serving so they can walk out. Mobility impeded. Mobility handicapped and at least enjoy their neighborhood, the sun. The comments from Sunset's architectural controls regarding pedestrian flow and or bicycle flow, It's a flophouse district.

The only infrequent walking or bicycling is gonna be from existing residents visiting new potential residents. Finally, and I know I'm over, but I would be wary of the claims or the slow dripping or phasing. CEQA doesn't allow for piecemealing. SEQA requires cumulative impact analysis. The whole kit and caboodle, every development, not tearing off environmental documents that are three, two and a half years old.

Current expected analysis in the CEPA document, not tearing off two two and a half year old documents. Okay. I'll end it there. Thank you.

And thank you for your

comments. Pamela Wallace?

I'm Pamela Wallace, and I represent an organization called Citizens of San Ramon, a growing group of people who are concerned about our future development. Commissioner Alpert, I appreciate your question about traffic. I'm still here requesting again as I'm going to continue coming to these meetings and request that you share with the public the accumulative traffic studies to show us the impact of the 16 projects that I've been counting because I take pictures every time I come to these meetings. 16, and now this is 17. And I may be off by one or two.

I'm not sure, but it's close to that number of housing developments that I've seen be approved at these commission meetings. I want to see the accumulative impact because it seems like maybe it's being done for one project at a time, but are we looking at the total impact? Because I'm telling you now, I avoid Bollinger and Sunset on Saturdays because of the farmer's market. Coming out of Pete's coffee for my latte, it may take me two lights to get through. So I I want to make sure that we are considering the bottleneck that's going to be created, adding 2,500 units now to the chef former Chevron property.

And I also am still concerned about the affordable housing. 2,500 units should be 376 homes that are affordable homes. But unfortunately, we're approving apartments and not homes for sale. So still my children coming back from finishing college will find it difficult to buy a home here in San Ramon. So I want to implore that you do not approve this development agreement so that this project is approved en masse.

But let's look at each one of these buildings separately, as is and has been the normal practice to look at each project as it's going to, be submitted for approval. Those are my questions and concerns.

Thank you. Do we have any additional cards?

No other speaker cards.

Okay. Why don't we go ahead and close the public con And at this time, it's appropriate to provide comments for staff as well as the applicant that would be factored into their next steps in their analysis. So do you get how much you like to need?

So I have three questions that I wanted to ask the staff and the developers as well. So the first one, as mentioned by Stephanie, thank you very much for presenting this today. You have mentioned a very logical step of building out the entire Orchard District, starting with the neighborhood district that we are looking at today. So I I wanna clarify with the staff as well that the current, DA is clearly mentioning about 368 homes, the low density neighborhood district that we are looking at. Not necessarily everything for the mixed use district and the multifamily district, but that's a second one that they will come back with details.

I'm sorry. Can you clarify? Did you say DP, development plan, or development agreement, DA? DA. DA. So the development agreement that has been filed as part of the Orchard's application will be associated with the the long term build out of the overall 2,500 units. That DA will cover not only just the neighborhood districts, but also the future multifamily and mixed use districts as well.

And how long is the DA valid for?

So the application identifies a twenty year development agreement time frame. But, ultimately, until the project is is approved, the development agreement will have its own separate public hearings associated with the development agreement. And so at this time, until you have an entitled project, we typically do not move forward with the agreements of of the terms until until such time.

And are we looking at the DP for the Neighborhood District 368 today?

Yes.

In that case, as Stephanie has mentioned, probably that's all I wanted to clarify. Thank you very much, Sydney. So coming back to the low density neighborhood district. For the 368 homes, the logical step, as Stephanie has mentioned, would be to building out with their respective builders, whoever you guys choose with, work with single, multiple builders, whoever you work with, would that would that all has that been laid out yet, or is it still under negotiations? And

please go ahead. Yep. So do you have do you wanna make other comments? I think at this time, if there are comments to direct, I don't think it's really necessarily part of our responsibility tonight to talk about the developer selector if that's you know? So I think let's provide direction or comments for them to consider as part of the formal review and completion of the application. That would probably be the best use of the time sign.

Yep. And my next question was regarding the neighborhood district. There is a lot of concern for the traffic as well as the street rates within the individual within the neighborhood based on the parking allocations, whether it's on an average two units per home, what is the estimate for street parkings, and what would be their traffic study associated with that? And what would be the impact? Has it been covered yet?

Okay. So I think staff is taking the notes and the questions, and we'll be sure to address that as part of the formal submission. Yeah. So okay. Okay. Well, pause one sec. I'll get commissioner. Thank you. Did you wanna

Sorry. Cindy, I have a question for you. So for this application, would the highest review authority be planning commission, or would this also also go to city council once, it's ready to be approved?

So there are a number of applications that have been filed. We have a preliminary housing development application, a two development plans, a major subdivision, tree removal, architecture review, environmental review, and then and those applications are typically the decision making body would be the planning commission. There's a development agreement application that's been filed as well, and that typically is adopted by ordinance and so would start with the planning commission then move on to the city council for final adoption. So as far as the the development plan itself, where can the builder take the approval and then go out and and construct it, that that decision would be through the planning commission.

Just as a just a minor clarification. This is subject to our five public hearings. And once they start, we'll have hearing one up in possibly two, three, and four. Hearing five is always reserved for the city council for either a call for review or an appeal, but the decision will become ours, you know, when it comes forward as part of those four public hearings. Is that correct?

However many it will take for the planning committee

get to four. Two four. Our our because we're new for some of these projects like this, we typically you know, we'll get the we all know that once the once the application is deemed complete and consistent with all objective design standards, it then becomes the planning commission's decision to approve. And we're allocated up to four hearings. However, generally, we don't take all four public hearings. We generally, you know, take as many as necessary. But one hearing of the five, which is allowed by SB three thirty, is always always in San Ramon reserved for an appeal to the city council. So and.

One last question that I just thought of. Is there in terms of, like, the city of San Ramon, I haven't seen something that's a specific plan come for us yet. But would this, you know, project of this size be I don't know how staff feels about it. But since it is pretty large and sizable and over, you know, a big time frame of twenty five years, would staff consider having the applicant do a specific plan for the orchards?

I think that because the direction in the general plan 2040 has set the land use design for the DMU South neighborhood with a expectation of the maximum number of units, the layout of the housing types, and the retail components. Because all that direction has already been set in the in the general plan, the in that situation, we typically would not have an additional specific plan because the details have been identified in the general plan for at a at a pretty project level scale. Yep.

Do you have additional comments? I

just

Okay.

And and thank you for everybody who's contributed. I just, you know, have a concern as if we are going to start this very large project sort of at the back of the house that closest to to Inverness. I just wanna make sure that someone mentions that when when those get built and presumably occupied, that the construction that will be happening in front of all those working its way out towards Bollinger, I'd like to see, you know, a pretty healthy way of of making life not miserable for those folks during that time frame so that they're not forever looking at bulldozers. Although some families might really like that. Bulldozers and tractors and fencing and dust for twenty years.

So thank you. I just wanna say that that would be really disappointing if you are gonna buy a place, and that's what you have to look forward to for twenty years.

Thank you. Okay. Do you need my phone set? I I do not have additional comments. You know, I did have the pleasure and the privilege of sitting through three very long architecture review board meetings on this, and those are recorded. And so you can listen to them, and I do appreciate the comments. And I think the design that we're seeing tonight is a function of all the work that they did and then all of the good notes and response. So at this point, if there's no further comments oh, you have comments still? Okay. I'm sorry. Do you have oh, do you wanna go first?

Okay. You're gonna be waiting for a long time. Okay. As some of the public mentioned, I'm sure that staff will be going ahead and doing both a traffic study, analysis and looking at the project as a whole under CEQA and not piecemealing it together. Just kind of as a a side note.

And then one of the other things that was mentioned is during the public comment was that, you know, the public wants to see some form of those technical analyses, the traffic. And it would be good for when this does come before planning commission for our review that that be included, especially the LOS analysis, which seems to be kind of what, the public is pointing to. So we could see the intersections that were analyzed and the grades at what they were rated and then, you know, all that stuff with the distribution and what improvements would be necessary if there would be any. So sorry in advance. I had quite a number of comments.

One of the things that I thought about when I was looking at the proposal was about a shading analysis to be completed for some of those what what kinda triggered that was I was looking at some of those buildings that would be four to seven stories tall. So that was one of my concerns was especially since the park is pretty close by that, those larger buildings. I just wanna make sure that there would be adequate lighting for the park. When I'm talking about that, I came from working at a city where we would do a shading analysis for every two story that was added. So it was pretty, typical for us to go ahead and do that, request that from the architect.

So I think in this case, it would probably be deemed necessary given that there's quite a number of these large story buildings. Just wanna make sure that, there's adequate lighting that's still coming through. My second comment is that most of the housing, if you look at the packet that we went ahead and received, it breaks it down by, like, the plan type and the the unit count and the square footages. It's on sheet s p four. So I noticed that for the townhomes, they start at $17.55.

And for the court homes, which are the largest, they start, at $22,984, and that's not inclusive of the garage. So these are pretty big sizable homes. And I understand that the city of San Ramon, like, we we live in a very expensive place. Land is quite high. And so that kind of makes builders go ahead and necessarily have to get your best bang for your buck and having these sorts of homes.

But I did notice that for the optional ADUs that there are 10 of, those would be 496 square feet, one bedroom, one bathroom. So we we also have the possibility for an optional j a d u. J a d u, means 500 square feet or less. I didn't look at the square footage, necessarily, but I saw that there was a gap between, you know, the fee simple ownership of the townhome being $17.55 to the 500. So one of the things about the development and that kind of is going on is that I understand while the cost of land is very high and necessitates those bigger homes being built.

At the same time, we're having, like, this missile missing middle housing that keeps occurring throughout the state where younger people like me will not be able to afford these big these big homes that start at 2,000,000, or I'm not sure what the potential price point would be for a townhome at $17.55. So there's this square footage that we're not, like, quite meeting there, and it would be nice to go ahead and get a more varied mix, maybe add some more product types if that could be an option. I've seen some cities where the developers go ahead and have, like, tri triplexes or duplexes, and they look like single family homes. You just would not know that. So if that could work from a land acquisition point, I think that would be good to kinda look into, these cottage clusters, these, duplexes and triplexes, more of that housing product type because for this development, we have, you know, these single families that are fairly large in size and pretty expensive.

And then we have the apartments that are probably small. Right? I I don't know. I don't have the square footage for what those would look like in front of me. Like, that hasn't been part of our package, and that's not fee simple. So I'm looking at, like, would it be possible to go ahead and entertain some of those options? That would be great if we could go ahead and have more of those options that would be affordable by design just by the lower square footage if that is possible. So when I was looking at that yeah. Okay. So I just broke down.

Like, you know, 71% of the homes are in that range of nineteen seventy two square feet to 3,863. And then 15% of potential homes since it's the potential to have the j a d u, and it's a potential to have the accessory the standalone accessory dwelling unit That's 15% of the total that's being proposed here for this project. My other comment related to the usable open space. I think it was great that the landscape architect went ahead and included that, the kind of, like, connectivity between the open spaces, and I really enjoyed seeing that. I just kinda wish that it would have been part of our packet.

So that's the first time that I'm I'm seeing this today, but, I went ahead and it was kinda hard to run by some of the square footage numbers since I'd have to, like, measure things. I don't have the site plan, but, so for this one, Orchard Park is 2.5 acres, and I know that there's a Heritage Park that's being built to the east, which is pretty close to this development, which is 1.4 acres. So I was doing some research, before this hearing, and one of the things that I learned about was there's a National Recreation and Park Association that has, like, guidelines and resources for parks and recreational agencies. And they more or less can give, like, a sort of guide guideline frame for the amount of square footage per per the number of residents. And in terms of California, since the price of land is so high, it gave, like, a lower standard, like, oh, this is kind of, like, the recommendation for California.

And the recommendation in California for the baseline of parks was three acres per 1,000 residents. So according to that, I ran with the assumption of we have 2,510 units in total with this development, and I assume 2.5 residents per unit. So that results in a population of 6,250 residents. Based on that, I use the three acres per 1,000 residents, and that gave me roughly a park of 18.75 acres. And, again, the reminder that, you know, the the park that is being proposed here is 2.5, but then there's a lot of these other open spaces that I didn't account for, like, the the walking path, the the Heritage Oaks, and having that open space around.

So I wasn't able to add that within my calculation. I also looked at a couple other jurisdictions and what their requirements were for parkland. San Jose calculates parkland obligation on a standard of three acres per 1,000 residents, so the California standard. And then there's other cities that don't have, like, the fixed acreage per population per number of units. So Redwood City, for instance, has a single family area minimum of a 125 square feet of usable open space.

So according to the calculations, just for the multifamily units, that being two thousand a hundred and forty two, the conversion would be 6.14 acres. So just, again, to reiterate for multifamily, that would be 6.14 acres. And then the single family for that calculation would be one acre. So 7.14 acres according to the city the Redwood City's usable open space standards.

So this is I might. Just as a note, the city of San Ramon does have its own park standards, and so the project has to be measured against our standards. While it's good to look at other cities as a comparison, we can only enforce what's in our zoning ordinance and our general plan. And any standard that we enforce is that to be an objective design standard. So we just can't be making up guidelines and changing our our requirements for a project specifically. So we need to focus on what is in our zoning ordinance and what we can only implement on this project.

Okay. Sorry about that. So, I guess, what do you know what the usable open space requirement would be?

That'll be all things that we'll analyze as part of the project. So that's one of your questions. We certainly as we evaluate the project, which will be for compliance with the parkland dedication ordinance, which potentially could be a dedication and a fee payment such as we did for the Summerhill Village project. So but, you know, just, you know, at this point, as the chair has indicated, just providing what your questions might be or your comments, and we will be coming back with that at a later date.

Okay.

I would just add also that because there's a a vesting tentative map associated with this, it's also subject to the Quimby Act. So

Okay. Thank you. I guess to sum up those comments, they'll be looking at the park requirements. I just wanted to point out that, you know, the the 2.5 acre park, given I mean, I didn't see some of these, diagrams until right now. It looks like the courtyards for the multifamily I mean, the multifamily sites will be having courtyards within them.

So that makes up for some of that open space that I was not accounting for. So one of the things I just wanted to make sure, I guess, provide feedback on is regarding the heritage oaks. I just wanted to say that oaks are very sensitive species. If you guys are all aware, the Danville oak has taken quite a number of hits. It doesn't look that great.

And so I just ask that the applicant go ahead and just make sure that the arborist, you know, report is it sounds like Stephanie provided a good backdrop into that you guys have consulted an arborist, but one of my main concerns is that sometimes, like, when things are placed over the the roots that the tree, you know, fails over time. So that's pretty much what I wanted to go ahead and say. And then for the Heritage Oak Parks that you guys are proposing, there's some details that we were given as the commission, and it it's kinda hard to tell what sort of landscape elements would be around those heritage oaks trees. Like, it looked like potentially some, like, wood piling or some sort of thing. It was it was kinda hard to tell what that was.

But if there could be some other, like, uses too, so then that way, like, if someone's walking through that path that there's, like, you know, other things that they can go ahead and and do in terms of, like, amenities that would be available for them to go ahead and use. For I looked at the DMU South definition and felt the project was in line with what that use entails. And it seems like, yeah, like, is mixed use, and there is a component that is obviously mixed use, but it it also includes housing as well. So all these kind of land uses that you guys are proposing are in line with that definition. The other concern that I voiced was about the wanted to voice was about the LOS analysis, and I kinda touched on that briefly.

But my concern about the project would be on the corner, where we have Bollinger And Chevron Drive where the entrance would be located. I just wanna, make sure that I I know that there's this connectivity connectivity paths that are drawn to the East so that people can go ahead and access city center just more in a safe way through kind of going that way through the the bridge that will soon open here. And I just wanted to say, like, I I think that in studying human behavior, like, people just always take the path of least resistance. And it's kind of fair to assume that people are going to try to cross on city center even though it's not not that you know, I wouldn't necessarily wanna cross it right now. It's there's people are going pretty fast.

So I just wanted to point out that, like, for right now, I was looking at an aerial view, there's only a crosswalk in front of the project entrance and then across the street to city center. But, you know, if someone wanted to access Whole Foods, it's just something that has to be completed in the LOS analysis, so I just wanna make sure that you guys are looking into, like, safe pedestrian crossings, especially since there's there's gonna be a sizable number of residents for this development. Like, perhaps, I know that this was mentioned before, like, having a larger median where, you know, if someone can't make that crosswalk, but having that median contain, you know, shade trees or something that makes it more, I guess, pedestrian friendly or, like, just not the way it is right now with I don't know what's there, like, roses or maybe cobblestones. I'm not sure. So I just wanna make sure that people feel safe crossing that way.

And and I know that this is, sort of, like, a a thing that people don't like talking about is traffic, but I'm just concerned. Like, I just wanna make sure that of you know, for the health and safety of the people that there is a a good solution for what I think will be people trying to cross the way to access those retail uses. I think that city center is a thriving place, and a lot of people wanna be there. So I think it's pretty important that you guys make a good connection. So yeah.

I mean I mean, kind of the overall comment was a lot of people are are going really fast down Blortanger Canyon and then, you know, potentially looking at, different calming measures, like narrowing traffic lanes or reconfiguring those lanes, planting shade trees, like I mentioned. I know that you guys have, like, a roundabout that's proposed in in within the development, and I think that would be probably a far cry for something like this intersection. But just some sort of traffic calming measures, I think, would whether what you know, whatever that that be. And then my other comment was, I think I mentioned this for BR 11 that we saw. But, essentially, just I saw I looked at the landscaping plan, and there's you know, we have the single single family motor courts to the south, and it looks like there's, you know, trees that are pretty close to those driveways.

And just making sure that, you know, the vision triangles aren't blocked. You know, kids are probably gonna be biking, going quick just like I saw on my site visit to City Village. So I just wanna make sure that there's, like, proper red curve and those vision triangles are maintained. The other thing I noticed was for the row homes on sheet d R H 2, it seemed like those were pretty narrow lots for the row homes. So I guess my ask was it looked like potentially there would be, like, reciprocal side yard easements.

Would it be possible to have, you know, a zero lot line and have larger side yards? It seems like for this zoning designation that there's not set standards on side yards. I think it's just the front setback. So potentially doing something like that and foregoing the side yard easements because that's what

it looked like on that sheet.

Sorry. Again, I think when Ryan, the planner here, went ahead and gave his, list of projects that we had approved as a planning commission, some of the color schemes were, like, the browns, the tans. So we and I think we even made a comment afterward. Oh, there's a lot of browns and tans. And I think for this development as well, it would be nice to kinda mix it up a little bit and propose something that's not so stark.

I did look at the typical street sections that were prepared by the engineer, and that was on sheet c five point o. And I I noticed that there was a bike lane on Section A And B, which would be the project entrance, and I think it was, like, near the cul de sac. But then it disappeared as I I went down south where Section E and c were. I think in that diagram with the landscape architectured with the connectivity of the bike lanes, she was mentioning that there was, a bike lane down that road. So I just wanna make sure that there's, some sort of, you know that the plans are aligned with one another and that we're actually showing on the street sections that there will be, like, those bike lanes that are proposed.

And then also from the diagram that she showed, I don't see why we wouldn't have, like, a bike path that would go to the retail. I think it just kind of goes along the I can't think of the name now. So I think it it should go toward the retail as well. I think that would be a great benefit to have people be able to bike all the way over there, you know, safely. I think they would have to kinda cut across things.

And then I also noticed, you know, in in her diagram that we have, like, a meandering sidewalk that's on the the front of Bollinger Canyon, and it'd be great to go ahead and continue that in front of the retail as well. I think that would be really great, especially for people that would be walking toward the retail instead of coming that whole way down and going about that roundabout. The other one was thinking about showing sections of the walkway. I think in our packet, it we weren't able to see that, but it seems like there's gonna be, like, a multiuse path. I think when it comes to the Iron Horse Trail, I've been on it a couple of times, but there's a lot of kind of, like, havoc that's going on with people in the bike lane and then people and kind of all over the place, you're always almost crashing into someone on a bike.

So if we could just have, like, something that's clearly delineated within that multiuse path that meanders throughout the site in order to, like, avoid collisions. Again, I appreciate that walking path and creating that connectivity. It was really nice to go ahead and see that diagram from the landscape architect to show kind of the social nodes and how they would go ahead and meander throughout the site and connect. One of my concerns was for the homes that are toward the south. We have, like, a really we have, like, a straightaway there.

We don't have, like potentially, we have, like, crosswalks. It's kinda hard to note here. But if there could be some sort of, like, traffic calming measures, whether that would be, like, bump outs, like, with landscaping. I think that would be really great, especially I I know that's a frequent ask of other cities that I've worked with, development projects with. So I think it would be really great to go ahead and have traffic calming just because, that's a a lar large straightaway, and people could pick up a lot of speed there.

The other thing that I noticed was that, you know, as I mentioned, there's three different districts, and I see that the city I mean, the Orchard's Park is within the multifamily district. I think it would be beneficial for that to be part of the neighborhood district. So when that gets built out, they can have the park instead of waiting for the future application for the multifamily to move forward. I don't know what that deliverance looks like for Summerhill, but I know that that park hasn't been constructed yet, at City Village. So I'm just kind of making sure that the park is in place for the residents when the single family homes are built.

And just wanna go ahead and make sure that the technical studies that are part of the application are just, again, attached to the staff report so that the public has access to it since I know how much this project means to them, and means for our city. That's all. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further comments from anybody? Do you have more do you have additional comments? No. Okay. With that, I don't believe we need a motion for this. We just need to look to staff and the applicant if you have any if you've gotten sufficient comments for us tonight. Okay. Well, then great. Thank you so much, and thank you all for coming.

And we'll see you sometime maybe in the fall. There's been a request to take a a quick five minute break, so we'll go ahead and do that then. Okay. Back at five minutes, ma'am. And next item is item eight.

That is 8.1, the public hearing for the Bishop Branch affordable housing site development agreement. And as a reminder for the commission, you know, we have a very specific role as part of a review of a development agreement like this. And our role in this process is to open the public hearing, to solicit public comment, and then we're tasked with and this is all documented in our zoning ordinance and municipal code, is to, at the end of the day, recommend approval as is, recommend modification or disapproval of the proposed development agreement based on the information record. And it does go to city council, so it is not the purview or the role of the city of this commission actually negotiate the business terms agreement, but review the proposal before us and, if necessary, recommend changes. And, of course, the city council will be responsible for final adoption of any any development agreement.

So with that, mister Barr, you have a staff report of sorts.

Yeah. I'm just gonna do a brief recap, and then I'll turn it over to the applicant to respond. But the applicants proposed a development agreement for related to affordable housing provisions associated with the Bishop Ranch affordable housing site and the pre and several previously approved projects within Bishop Ranch. As you're aware, we had a public hearing on July 1. It was continued to tonight.

During that particular meeting, there was discussions related to a series of topics. The the applicant had, prepared a response memo that was included in your staff report. The response is primarily related to the long term housing vision for Bishop Ranch, the benefits of standalone affordable community, the purpose of land dedication in this particular situation, pros and cons of rental versus ownership, affordable housing, the benefits of development agreement to the city, as well as the project assurances. Then just again, as we touched on last meeting, the development agreement is a voluntary contractual arrangement between a develop a developer and a municipality. As part of the review process, staff looks at the the the agreement with consultation of the city attorney's office, and we provide feedbacks on the draft agreement.

And then, ultimately, the proposal's been refined to what you have before you tonight. And, again, part of the city's goal is to make sure the city's housing goals and objectives are being addressed and also that the agreement is responsible responsive to both the applicants and the city's needs. And then as was mentioned, we are looking for feedback on the agreement itself based on either a recommendation to approve as is modifications or disapprove, and then the city council will make a determination regarding whether the this agreement's in the best this agreement or a modified agreement's in the best of of the city. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to the applicants to walk through brief presentation. Stephanie Hill with Sunset Development.

Good evening, chair Albert, members of the planning commission. I'm Stephanie Hill here on behalf of Sunset Development, and I'm joined by Alex Marin junior. Thank you for the opportunity to present our Bishop Ranch affordable housing proposal.

Okay.

We'll try this again. Over the past year, we've been working with the city to advance Bishop Brand's vision for meeting the 15% inclusionary housing requirement. Our approach includes both standalone affordable communities and on-site affordable housing. Sunset is proposing three standalone affordable rental communities, the first being located at Camino Ramon, the second at Canopy at Bishop Branch 8, and the third within Orchards, which we previously discussed this evening. We have received feedback about affordable housing being located throughout Bishop Branch and the need for affordable ownership opportunities.

Affordable for sale homes are included at Bishop Branch 6 within Summerhill City Village and are proposed at Bishop Branch 12. We also expect to include for sale condominiums in CityWalk and Orchards, which would provide additional affordable ownership opportunities and would meet the missing middle that Commissioner Avilla had spoken on with the previous agenda item. Camino Ramon has proposed to fulfill the inclusionary housing requirements for Bishop Branch 7, Bishop Branch 11, and a portion of CityWalk. By consolidating these obligations, Sunset can donate the land at no cost to Eden Housing, a critical step in enabling them to secure affordable housing financing. Without this structure, we would not be able to provide the land, which is an essential component of Eden's ability to deliver their project.

Unlike market rate developers, affordable housing nonprofits like Eden Housing can apply for competitive tax credit financing, which requires deeper levels of affordability. Eden's proposal will serve households earning between 3080% of the area median income with an average of 60%, which is aligned with tax credit standards. To ensure delivery, Eden will provide a completion guarantee to both its lender and investor before construction. If Eden defaults, the investor can replace them. If the investor also defaults, the lender can step in to complete the project.

Under any of these scenarios, the development agreement and a regulatory housing agreement ensure the site remains as affordable housing. Under the development agreement, Eden has five years to secure financing with a possible five year extension at the city's discretion. If financing is not secured, the graded site with impact fees paid may be transferred to the city. The city's inclusionary housing ordinance allows flexibility in meeting the 15% affordable requirement, including land dedication. However, it doesn't define specific thresholds for what constitutes equivalency to on-site inclusionary delivery.

The city's RINA obligations require more homes and deeper affordability than what the city's inclusionary housing ordinance generates. Over the past year, Sunset has worked closely with city staff to refine our proposal, balancing RINA goals with the financial realities of new housing construction. Since our February 2025 memo, we've increased the percentage of affordable units and added a financial contribution. The proposal adds 64 affordable homes beyond what is currently approved. To achieve the same number of affordable homes, the increase of 64 under the city's inclusionary housing ordinance, a four twenty six home community would need to be submitted, a challenging prospect in the current high interest rate environment.

Related and Avalon, which are similar in scale, have not yet begun construction. We've increased the ratio of affordable homes to overall units, raising for sale to 1.76 and rental to 1.25. For context, San Francisco's off-site ownership affordable ratio is 1.2. Our proposal exceeds that by nearly half a unit. The city's RENA obligation places particular emphasis on very low income housing.

Under the city's ordinance, for sale projects provide 3.5% very low income units, and rental projects provide 7.5%. The RINA allocation by comparison requires 30% very low income. Our proposal increases the total number of very low income homes by over 95, which is currently approved. To deliver that many very low income homes under the city's 15% on-site inclusionary ordinance, a 1,900 unit development would need to be submitted and approved. This proposal helps San Ramon meet its deepest affordability goals in a more effective and realistic way.

Standalone affordable housing is thoughtfully designed, professionally managed, and includes high quality amenities and on-site services that support residents' well-being. Standalone affordable communities are typically built in nexus with market rate residential or when a city owns the underlying property. This execution has been done hundreds of times in the Bay Area. Eden Housing, a highly respected nonprofit, has a long track record of building and managing high quality affordable communities. For Camino Ramon, Eden has retained an award winning architect and refined their design in response to the Planning Commission and ARB feedback with the intent of seamlessly integrating their community within San Ramon.

Sunset has owned and invested in Bishop Branch for more than forty years and takes pride in maintaining its high quality environment. Our Bishop Branch CC and Rs ensure continued oversight of property standards, including landscaping and improvements, which apply to Eden's project as well. As an example, Eden delivered a 100% very low and low income stand alone community for the Waterfront Master Plan in Alameda. Their community is essentially located between rental and ownership communities. The City of Alameda did not require increased unit counts, affordableunaffordable, or deeper affordability in consideration for stand alone housing, which are all included in our proposal.

Housing is both a basic need and a path to economic mobility. These dual roles guide policy choices about tenure and affordability. Homeownership can offer stability and equity but includes added costs HOAs, insurance, repairs that pose risks to low income households. Some affordable homeowners in San Ramon have lost homes due to these unexpected expenses. Rental affordable housing, by contrast, provides cost predictability and requires annual income certification, ensuring units continue serving qualified households.

These units also serve more families over time due to higher turnover. San Ramon's below market rate homeownership program preserves affordability but restricts resale, caps appreciation, and limits generational transfer unless heirs qualify. The proposal for Bishop Branch includes a $3,000 per home contribution from Bishop Branch seven and Bishop Branch eleven, totaling just over $1,000,000 for the city's housing fund. This contribution offsets the moderate income units which are no longer being delivered and equates to about $40,000 per moderate income unit or a 5% down payment on an 800,000 home. The city retains full discretion over how to allocate these funds.

The city's inclusionary ordinance permits land dedication as an alternative compliance method, especially useful in delivering larger scale affordable housing communities. One of the questions we heard on July 1 was, is this a good deal for the city? Under current approvals, the city would receive 58 for sale affordable homes and 78 rental homes. This proposal delivers 198 affordable rental homes with a much higher share of very low income homes and a 1,185,000 contribution towards the city's housing fund. For comparison, meeting the same level of affordability in unit count under the ordinance would require applications for hundreds to thousands of new homes.

This proposal exceeds the typical standards for standalone affordable and other Bay Area jurisdictions. While some cities may require a fee, an increased number of affordable units, or deeper affordability levels, it is uncommon to achieve all three of these things. The Bishop Ranch proposal delivers on all fronts. It increases the number of total affordable homes. It provides deeper affordability, particularly for very low income households, and it includes a financial contribution to the city's housing fund.

If the Planning Commission approves the proposal this evening, the development agreement will move forward to the city council for approval. If the city council approves it, the Planning Commission would then review the amended conditions of approval and findings for the covered sites. This proposal provides an opportunity to deliver more affordable housing at a deeper level of affordability in a shorter period of time and represents a significant benefit to the community. We appreciate your consideration of this proposal and are available to respond to any questions or comments.

Anything else from staff at this point? No. Okay. So why don't we go ahead and do you have any questions on the development agreement for either staff or the applicant's point, mister?

Thank you,

So

this is for the developer. The so we talked about these numbers, and I was just trying to understand better. And first of all, the what you are proposing is a good way of moving forward, which I agree, instead of having lot of homeownership that would stick around with a single family for over a period of time, and then it's not a generational wealth that could be transferred. And with the rent with the more rental units availability, it becomes more affordable for a lot of residents, low income residents within the within the city, and it really helps a lot. So that being said, so just looking at the various different combinations and the comparisons that are being done.

And one of the slide here mentions that there are 64 additional affordable homes that are being built. I understand the math that you are coming from. And if it wasn't the case, it was 134 units. But with these additional units that are being placed, the entire Eden housing, which is 200 units, remove two units for the for the managers and who are managing the property property managers, that would be 198, and you came up with a number. But if you are building a home or any new construction for 200 homes, 15% would be the inclusionary housing.

That means 30 of them will anyway be built. Right? I completely understand where you're coming from, but this number should be more like 34. So

the city's inclusionary housing policy, which is unusual from other Bay Area inclusionary housing policies requires 15% on 15%. So Eden Housing is required to provide its own affordable housing for an affordable housing community. Without the standalone affordable community, those 30 units would not be provided. And so to there there's different ways to calculate. And what we're saying is those 30 units are incrementally provided through the stand alone affordable community because they otherwise would not be provided under the city's on-site 15%.

Yep. So that makes sense, but let's take a step back. In fact, if you are just going with the inclusionary housing, which would be 15%, that would be 76 units out of which 58 units will be individual homes. Right?

Yes. That's correct. 58 would be on-site ownership, and 76 would be rental.

Absolutely. And I shouldn't be which we talked with which I talked with the staff. The comparison is not apples to apples. The reason is you are moving the home into a unit within the Eden housing, which could be a studio, which could be a one bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom apartment. Right?

So what what's happening is we are comparing the number of units, which is 76 moving to 134 because of moving to Eden Housing. The comparison is not straightforward because you could have you are comparing a studio to a house that is being built in a BR 7 or BR 11, which could be a affordable housing unit.

And do we acknowledge that there's not a clear ratio? There's not a clear standard which is included within the city's inclusionary housing ordinance that says, this is how to determine equivalency. And we acknowledge that where what what is equivalent for for sale to rental. And within our proposal, what we've formulated is we're increasing the number of affordable homes which are being provided as consideration to go from for sale to rental. And if you include the 15% on the 15%, that ratio is one ownership affordable home to 1.76 rental affordable homes.

So it's a 76% increase. In San Francisco, that same ratio goes from one to 1.2. So we looked at that and said this is an additional half unit than what is required in a comparable Bay Area jurisdiction to take an ownership unit and essentially put it off-site. The other consideration is when we look at the affordability levels for for sale ownership versus what's currently being proposed within Eden's community, there's a much deeper level of affordability. And so there are more homes, very low income, which are supported, and there is a benefit to creating homes for people who are of lower income.

It's more difficult to build. There is an increased percentage of deeper affordability in addition to the number of units, and there's a monetary contribution.

So we are coming back again to the comparison. So what would be a good comparison? Not comparing the units itself. What do you think would be a good comparison? Is it a dollar amount somewhere that would be a good comparison?

For example, a home that is being built in B R 7 as a affordable housing unit, that would be sold for, say, around 700 k instead of 1.1 k 1,100,000.0. So that would be approximately 400 to $500,000 of difference, right, for a unit that is being sold at B R 7 compared to a rental unit that is being moved to a Eden housing project. How do you think we should do from our perspective? What way is a good comparison unit? Is it the units itself, or should we put some dollar amounts anywhere that could help us?

So if we look to a a dollar amount threshold and the cost of what it takes to build a unit within Eden's community, the estimate is roughly $600,000. So from a cost perspective, the dollar amount of a $500,000 differential versus building a $600,000 unit within Eden Housing and expanding that $600,000 unit to now be 1.75. So that that cost says there's more investment that's happening within Eden than the cost differential of the market rate versus the affordable price differential.

Okay. So I I just wanted to better understand so the public could also understand, like, we are not moving a a house that is a three bedroom or a four bedroom house to a studio within the Eden housing, and that would be compared equivalent or maybe two studios compared to one house just to provide that context. And the next piece that I would like to ask is, if you are doing that comparison from a dollar perspective, would there be a better way to have that not just 1.76 unit ratio and a contribution of what you are doing is $1,185,000 additional contribution to the city of San Ramon affordable housing. Is there a is there any other better option to do that same transfer or do it in a bit do it in a better way that would ensure both benefit for the city as well as for you guys?

So respectfully, the benefits that we see for the city, independent of Eden being an extremely talented, award winning affordable housing developer. Within their community, they provide resident services. Those resident services include financial literacy. They include computer skills. They include help with child care.

That does not happen with the affordable home which is provided within City Village. So there are resident resources that are provided within the standalone community. In addition to the nature of that community that's being developed and the annual recertification that happens. So if you're living in Eden every year, they are checking to ensure that very low income households are living in very low income household units. That doesn't happen with a a for sale community where you're income certified once.

If you win the lottery the next day, you still get to stay in your home. So there is that piece as well. And what we've highlighted are we do have deeper affordability, which is being provided and being met through the Eden Housing proposal. The city's RENO requirements are 30% of the homes are very low income, which are required to be developed by 02/1931. This proposal meets over 10% of what's required by the city to develop for very low income households.

That's a very key piece. The second piece is the increase in the total number of affordable units which are being created. And then there's also the contribution towards the city's housing fund. And with that contribution, we've outlined it could be used to assist moderate income households with down payments. It could be used for housing preservation. It's at the discretion of the city on how those funds are being used.

I agree with all the points that you have mentioned, and it is beneficial for the city. What my proposal is, would there be any chance that city staff and you guys can take a look at it? And if there is a improvement that can be done on not just per unit 1.76, or is there any in lieu fee in lieu that can be that can be paid to the city? Or maybe a higher ratio because what we are doing is not comparing apples to apples, but transferring the units to a different location. Is there a scope for, say, that I I'm gonna put that number out, say, 2.2 or maybe 2.3?

Or maybe it is two instead of 1.76. That would give a little bit more equality to this entire negotiation of DA that you guys are looking for. That was my

Okay. So just to jump in real quick. So it sounds like you're going to perhaps make a recommendation that we consider when it goes to the city council. So let's hold that until we finish the questions for clarification, and then we take public comment. And then then it'd be appropriate to all of us bring up, you know, potential thoughts about what might be passed along to the city council, and then we can kinda work through that at that point. Does that make sense? Okay.

Sure. And I I do thank you guys for bringing this up. This makes lot of Rina members for the city and which is awesome. Okay. I'm in total agreement there. Okay. Okay. Would commissioner

okay. Commissioner Kuznick.

Thank you so much. And I wanna just acknowledge that I've spent a fair amount of time crunching numbers to try to get to the same spot. So if you

will

kindly, if we can look at the page where it says land dedication affordability, I think that's the one that's up on the screen. This one? The one that says plus 95. Yes. I'm sorry. That's the one I'm seeing. Can can you explain to me how the number 40 for both Bishop Branch seven and eleven, how you came to that number? Because and just the logic of it. So you went from what was, I think, proposed. The the upper graph, it says 10.

It says 10 in the very low for Bishop Branch seven. So it's ten, five, and 14. That would be the 15. And then you come to the proposal, and it's forty, eleven, and zero. I understand the zero. I just want to know how how you landed on the 40 number.

Yeah. So the I'm gonna it's a little bit of reverse calculation. Okay. That's fine. If you'll

I'll work with you.

Thank you. So within EADEN's proposal, in order to achieve tax credits, they have a blended AMI of 60% AMI.

Okay.

And the math behind that is there's a range between 30% AMI and 80% AMI, which they blend to 60% from a tax credit perspective. So within their proposal for Camino Ramon, they have 153 homes, which would be classified as very low income. Mhmm. And they have 45 that we reclassified as low income. And those blended together achieve the 60% AMI. Dick from Eden is here, so she can correct me if I'm making any sort of misstatements. No. So far, I'm good. But she's behind me, so hopefully she'll shout

up yet.

So ultimately, the exact unit mix between very low income and low income is going to be contingent on their final tax financing that they have approved. But this is generally how they're thinking about the mix between very low income and low income. And so we allocate it based off of what they're proposing within Camino Ramon.

Okay. That thank you. That's that was very clear. Appreciate that. And I have just one more quick question. And I when I had this discussion with staff a little bit ago, and again, on the same page, that I argued that if you look at the total on the upper portion of the grid where it says 134, and my response is but if you add the 198 of Eden, then you get more more affordable units. But if I'm understanding this correctly, I will say parenthetically, finally, there is no Eden, and it's 198 without this switchover.

That's correct. The ability to switch over from Bishop Branch 7, Bishop Branch 11, and CityWalk allows for Sunset to be able to give the land for Camino Ramon to Eden for free at no cost. Mhmm. And Eden is able to leverage the free land within their equity and lending to gain access, one, to tax credits and to capitalize the development of their affordable housing community.

Okay. Thank you. Appreciate that. That was very clear. I'm done.

I just have two straightforward questions. For the land dedication remedy section 8.1 packet page 38, it states developer immediately dedicate and convey the BR affordable housing site to the city or to another city designated nonprofit developer with the BR affordable housing site having been rough graded and all affordable all affordable project development impact fees have been paid, etcetera. I just wanted to ask if in the rough grading, would that also mean that there'd be utilities stubbed to the site?

So there currently are utilities on-site, including sewer, water, and electricity. So utilities are currently on-site. What we would need to do is to demolish the existing building and then to pay impact fees. That dollar amount would depend on the timing. Impact fees change on an annual basis. And then also, it would be contingent on the the number of units which were being developed on the site.

Okay. Thank you. And then, just have a second question for Dixie. Thank you, Stephanie. Great presentation, and I appreciated that letter. That was really clear in, outlining what the benefits were to the city. I appreciate that. Hi. Hey, Dixie. Hi. Oh, so Stephanie, she mentioned, the resident services. I was just curious to what those would that's the first time I've heard of that. I didn't know that you guys also offered resident services. So Yeah. Know what those are.

It's cool. It's kind of one of our we try and, you know, explain what we do to our residents in a way to where it's not required. We go over and above, and that is we believe that the success of a family is more, it depends more just on having a roof. It really does. There's food insecurity. There's financial oopsies. There's, you know, some some people might have a safety net. Some people don't have a safety net. And, we are that company that stands between preventing homelessness on one emergency. Right?

That's what our mission is. Our mission is to provide housing and keep our residents housed. In doing so, what we found over fifty seven years is that peoples struggles are not unlike market rate households. Childcare is extremely expensive and very difficult to find. So is food scarcity.

And I mean, let's talk about it. Food's expensive. So if you can stretch those dollars on those things that are basic needs for people to have a decent, comfortable living and augment that into people who strive to go to a higher education and have access to some of our alumni who come in and teach our kids how to code. I mean, that's just amazing. It's like we grow these generations of volunteers who got what they got when they were little kids and then come and bring it back to the little kids or the parents.

Some of the parents go into retraining or another career. So that's the whole package of what we bring from Eden. A lot of our cohorts out there don't provide the services to the level that we do and some do, both for profit and non profit. So we just overachieve and we are up at that high level. We have found what it does when we do this holistically is that people have a more stable household.

They stay with us longer. Our average length of stay for our seniors is about six and a half years. Our average length of stay for our families is about three and a half years. And so that stability can help a family finish school, finish college, finish trade school, any number of things or just restabilize if they become unstabilized with a safety net. And that's not what you find out there in the community with market rate housing. That answer the question? You you gave me the microphone.

No. Yeah. Would you just briefly, like I mean, you kinda mentioned it seems like you guys provide, like, food is what it sounds like. And then if something takes an economic downturn Yeah. It sounds like you could step in.

We partner we partner with, with agencies already in the community, and, and we help augment that. We have deep, deep partnerships with food pantries. We do fundraising for those food pantries. We facilitate distribution of food for both our residents and the community at large in our community facilities. And so we help facilitate what's already out there in the communities. And where we find a void in the community, if there is a need that we don't have, then we go find it or we create it or we bring it ourselves.

Can you talk a little

bit about like the daycare that you guys provide? Is that for a certain age? I know that's I'm just curious. Sorry. Is really exciting.

It is. Daycare is not in every project that we provide. We do have some daycare centers in our Dublin communities where we and I'm actually building a daycare center in Downtown Santa Cruz in our downtown library project right now. And so what we're able to do is we're able to actually pay for that space and then get in a provider who does it, because we are not licensed to provide childcare. And the fee that we charge that daycare provider is nothing.

We're able to pay for the TIs and other things with the tax credits and just leverage. And so that helps that provider keep their cost low, if you will. The day care is provided to the community, so it's not specifically for the residents. It's like a licensed business that any community would have. We don't have that plan for Camino Ramon, and it's too soon to tell if we're going to include some type of daycare in our other two projects right now.

Thank you, Dixie. That was us. That was it. Thank you. I appreciate you sharing all that information.

You're so welcome. Sorry if I overshare.

No. Do I go away?

I want want Dixie to

Okay.

Be like so that's the reason. Mhmm. I jumped ahead of chair. But do you wanna go ahead? Do you have okay. Thank you very much. I heard about your company. I went through online that what you guys are doing is amazing. So I have couple of questions. One, what is the average wait time for someone to get into the Eden housing?

And, probably, I don't know if this is the right place or time, but what I want to ask is what is the criteria or any preference for the first responders or somebody for the local employees for who work within San Ramon area? Any preference for those people?

This might be a question that's slightly off topic, and staff might be better prepared to, you know, just discuss the whole process in place in our housing element and our affordable housing policies. You know? Yeah.

Yeah. As best as that's really not part of this application. We're really just focused on what the proposed development agreement is. We're happy to sit and educate you on our our

Need an

priority preference system and everything else. Yeah.

Okay. I I do have just just one clarifying question.

Do I go away now?

No. No. No. My actually, my question is actually for you. You you sort of left me a little bit nervous when you talked about how diligent Eden is of getting funding when you said twenty two years. So I knew I would

you know, would outlier. That that Remember the nine month one, though.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. I'm the free month. Yes. But just to clarify, the next milestone that we are and you are aiming for, I think you mentioned was April 26 sometime in that time frame or something.

Yeah. We are we are I am diligently working on the finance plan now. And with the latest volume of things coming out of Washington D. C, our industry is still digesting what that means and so we are hoping to have a better indication in the fourth quarter of this year what broader impact the big beautiful bill will bring to the national equity and interest markets. So it's definitely an interesting time to be in finance.

I'm I'm sure it is. Yeah. Thank you. And then I did have one question for Sunset, I think, or maybe it's for Eaton. The tables that you put up there, very helpful. Should the takeaway be on the very low and the low the second half of that? There's no math behind it that is based on things that we deal with. It's just a number that gets comes out of your process and the back end of the numbers. Like, if I were to try and say point something times something equals 40, that probably wouldn't be a productive exercise at this point. Okay.

Probably not. It it's a it's not a weighted average by unit. It's a it's an average by unit size. Mhmm. And we just need to make sure that by one twos and three breakdown that the rents charged across the whole thing averages. So I just spit the little numbers in my Excel chart, and it it it shoots out a little answer for me that says I'm on target.

Got it. Okay. I just wanted to confirm. We because I spent, like, commissioner Kuznick, significant amount of time trying to come up with the number of 95, you know, and there was no based on what we've worked on so far, I couldn't get the 95. So I'm very happy to just say the number's 40, and it's not there's no math behind it that we're privy to. You know? No. Thank you for your spreadsheet because

You're

so significantly messier than mine. I can only I can assure you. Okay. That was that was my question. So at this point, we will open public comment. And do we have any, written public comments or speaker cards?

I don't have any written public comment for this item, but I do have speaker cards. Brian Swanson.

So I'm back and, kinda gonna take the same approach, I did earlier. I might be a little over, so I apologize. But, I think it's important you do read commissioner Wallace's comments, his written comments, and it's, again, highly concerning that just the departed, commissioner is making process related comments Process related comments that are geared towards excluding most of public comment. It's hard to get up here and talk disparagingly about affordable housing. It's a huge issue.

We are the concerned

Yes. If I could actually just stay at the microphone for the purpose of the video being pitched in New York.

The concerned citizens. All the detail, certainly, the existing commissioners have been at this in a while. But for the new guy and for a holistic view, one that commissioner Kuznick sort of implied last meeting that she was a little confused, It is not out of the realm of possibility to have a third party facilitated, not developer led, but should be staff led analysis, holistic analysis, not piecemealed. It's a hugely important issue, and we have no one in the crowd. That's a big deal.

Apples to apples is a big deal. Tree to tree is a big deal. Piece of pie only? No. The whole pie.

Not development agreement level yet even though we've been working hard. Now granted, I haven't read the new detailed vision or grand vision or whatever, but we're at this level now. We we're not there yet. There's no people in the audience. Please rethink your process.

Please do your best to invite community comment on an issue that is so important. The whole property ownership residential dynamic has been flipped on its head, not only in California, not only in the Bay Area, everywhere. That dynamic has changed. You need to reevaluate everything. Frameworks need to be dismantled.

So I can get into the weeds, but, again, I haven't read the the new vision, the complete vision. But I urge you to hear that again in detail. So we do have apples to apples. So we don't get caught up in who the developer is, who the affordable developing housing. We're not there yet.

Yes. We are procedurally here at this agenda item, but we're not there yet mentally to figure out the development agreement. Not me. Certainly not no one in this in this auditorium. Their eyes roll so they don't show up.

Okay. Thank thank you for your comments, Wigan. Okay. Thank you for your comments. Okay. Next speaker.

Pamela Wallace.

Hi. I'm Pamela Wallace. I'm here representing CAWS Citizens of San Ramon. And I object to this development agreement mainly because it is not an adherence to, I believe, it's ordinance one forty that says the 15% affordable housing should be like for like. We should be building and I know commissioner Wallace, who is has just left this position, mentioned this the last time we had the canopy discussion.

And it's, again, with this project, not adhering to building like for like homes in the development of which they are being built. So these homes should be built in these specific development developments not put into a separate unit. And I I just think fundamentally, we're we're not meeting the objective that we have set in our city ordinance. So that aside, I would also, as a second question, like the commission to answer just to educate, I guess, the public. What is the motivation, I guess, for the land to be given to Eden Housing?

I know this is a capitalist society, so when something like this takes place, I'm really wanting to understand the motivation behind it. And I guess my my other concern is that, you know, this is a segmented community not being incorporated into the mainstream housing. So the the optics for that to me is is a little bit troubling. One other comment I want to make as a an observation of staff, it seems like some of the questions coming from commissioners are being shut down. The question about, for example, the police or the teachers, you know, will they be able to have a priority in this Eden housing development because they live here or because they work here and they would like to live here?

I see other housing projects in Santa Clara, San Jose, Walnut Creek that are for homes to be purchased, and they give priority to people working in the community. I don't understand why we can't benchmark some of these other successful programs that are helping communities create affordable housing for sale to their residents. That's what's lacking here.

Thank you for your comments.

I I want to echo what Brian and Pamela spoke, especially the affordable housing units that are supposed to be in the same zone. They're not going to be in the same zone. They're more into ones from for sale to rental. That itself, in my previous arguments, I've mentioned that this is giving a much bigger benefit to the developers, whereas this is not in the interest of our community. And we need to ask one simple question.

What if the commission rejects this development? Does the does the development stop all over in San Ramon? And I think this was something where I look at lot of post in next door. If you see most of the resident are concerned about, like, an wrong development. It's not about development is which is the big issue.

It's a wrong development. We, as a community, are losing the number of residents. Our population is declining, as well as our schools are having a law loss in enrollment because when we have a much higher ticket value of any sale unit, we don't we are not really creating any affordable units for sale. These are only rental. We have to understand this is only rental, and there's no priority given to workforce. Where does our workforce or somebody else comes and lives here for a short period of time doesn't give security to the community. So I strongly object to this proposal. Thank you.

Great. Thank you very much. Any more comments?

No other speaker cards.

Okay. So at this point, we'll go ahead and close public comment. And, again, our our ask is and our our task is to provide either notice to the city council that we approve the agreement or that we recommend rejecting the agreement or that we recommend sending it to the city council with suggestions slash requests for them to consider. You know, we're not negotiating the business terms at this point. That's not part of our our responsibilities via municipal code. So with that preface, does somebody like to get started? You like that?

So I I as I mentioned before, I met with staff yesterday to go through some of my concerns, and I'm going to briefly go through them because this is part of the public record. So one of the things I wanna also acknowledge is that commissioner Alpert and I represent people who've sat on this dais through most of the development proposals in the last well, I've been here six years. So we have sat through many, many of these proposals and have reckoned with what works for the city, the affordable housing. So this is not new to us. And I wanna, hope that we indulge in our, a little bit of of I don't wanna say expertise is too grand, but let's just say experience.

So when I sat down to decide on this project or think about how to frame my understanding, it it occurred to me that we have sat through the approval of bishop branch seven, bishop branch eleven, the related project, and AvalonBay. We had these very dynamic discussions. We they made their proposals. We gave feedback. They made adjustments, and we ended up approving their projects. So I thought we all walked away knowing what we were getting.

Okay?

And they agreed to affordable housing concerns. Okay? That was a done deal. We've actually also sat through the Eden Housing proposal, which we just recently approved. And we were thinking, like, this was pretty good, that you were good to go with your, you know, your 200 units, a 198 affordable, and that that you were abiding by the rules of the game.

When I first saw this, this struck me as coming in and changing the rules, asking us to change the rules after the game was over, which I found, unpleasing and not in in a forthcoming light of how we wanna do business in in the city. I also sat down with the affordable housing or, yeah, the the municipal code, the 15 pages of of the affordable housing line by line over the weekend, again, trying to see if my understanding of that law meshed with what you were asking us to think about. There are still some elements of this that I agree I'm not that happy with. But I wanna say that because, initially, I thought if we kept the affordable units in the projects we already developed and got Eden housing, we'd actually end up with more. I now understand today's and thank you for the clarity tonight that that's not that's not how this is gonna work because you can't get the units and the numbers that you need for Eden to work for for lots of reasons.

And thank you for that clarity tonight. So that leaves us with what should we do. I will say that late this afternoon, and again, going through this in my head, I did finally get to a point where if we were clear in what we are sending to the city council, even though I would actually prefer to modify this, saying for sale units have to stay for sale units. That would be my preference. But we have this proposal, and in a few minutes, we're gonna decide as a body what we want to do.

We have three choices. Actually, four, but accept it the way it's written, modify it, disapprove, and I'll throw in in the the real wing nut here. We could vote to postpone this until we have a fifth member, but that's that's really an outlier at this point. So given the fact that I've sat through all of these along with, both commissioner Wallace, who has now retired, and commissioner Alpert, I feel like I I have earned some gravitas on this. So I am prepared to recommend, at least from my seat, that given our comments and that we should be forthcoming in our comments that that is part of the record that goes to the city council, that they should read thoroughly what we're saying to them tonight, that that the that I can support the approving of this and sending it to the city council.

Now I say that because I'm a former teacher, and I can also tell you when you can see that somebody has not done their homework. So, with with love and affection to the members of the city council, I expect them to do their homework as thoroughly as we have done our homework, and I'm asking these planning staff to hold their feet to the fire that they really pour through this. And I'll give you my notebook for those of you who want. And mister and commissioner Alpert, his his spreadsheets, that they pour through this as diligently as you have to present it to us and as we have to make sure that what you're doing works for for the city, for the residents, and the future of San Ramon. This is not a small change.

We are at the precipice of developing and seeing housing in this core part of our town that will be here. I know forever is a long time, but long past my lifespan. And when you build housing, you don't tear it down. So we're gonna live with whatever this body and the city council decide on in working with our our development community. So we wanna get it right.

So I feel tonight, and I know I shouldn't say I feel. I should think. I think tonight that I can support sending this to the city council as you have asked us to to send it, because I do believe it does hit the marks that we need to hit, for this portion of how we've we've developed it. I will go on record that I also acknowledge that both City Village and Iron Horse Village have have agreed to meet their affordable housing units. So we do have developers who have abided by that.

This is a different tactic. We'll see how it plays out. I am slightly concerned. I know you have three of the standalones on paper, so thank you for being forthcoming with that. But I'm very concerned with this idea that we agree to something, and then we come back a year later going like, hey. Look. We we have a different plan. So I you get to do this according to the law. You get to do this, but it is a little unsettling for someone who sat up here well, I only sat here five years because it was COVID, but it's been sitting on this this commission for six years. So thank you very much. That will be my recommendation to members of the commission.

Thank you for that, commissioner. Because, Nick, that was super insightful, and I appreciated that comprehensive look at you know, with your history here and walking through other development agreements. At at first, when this came before commission, in our last meeting, I wanted to just pour over and just make sure that there were benefits to the city that would align with, you know, converting that for sale affordable to the rental, just making sure that, okay, or is the city still benefiting in the long run? And through the sunset develop development letter that was provided within our packet, I think that they did a a good job in delineating the benefits and, how there is a two to one ratio of, from for sale to the rental. We also have increased affordability levels.

There's an increase in units. Eden Housing is has a long track record of delivering affordable housing in all sorts of communities. And, you know, even with the twenty two years, they were able to go ahead and then still stay with it and see it through. I I really appreciate that, Sunset has taken Eden Housing under their wing for this project and given them that opportunity. Also, the residential services that Eden Housing provides, I think that's a really big benefit that would not be applicable if this were for sale homes.

We wouldn't have residential services available. And there's that always that one year mark where a resident has to renew and and prove that they still qualify to be within this affordable housing. And it's not just a fifty five year term limit like the for sale products would be. I think that's a key component as well. It's not apples to apples, but they're still affordable units.

They're still going to be families and singles and seniors that are housed within this affordable unit. So I think it's important to well, it's not a equals a, it's still a living space, and it's still really important to our community, especially I think it's a little bit harder for the community to, like, see it because it hasn't been done within the city to have a 100% affordable developer come in. As Dixie has mentioned in previous commissions, there was that, you know, like, since we're in, I think Dixie mentioned, some sort of, like, higher services site that you would qualify for housing more readily for light tech credits and so forth. I I understand that it's it's hard, like, in order for these affordable house like, apartments to work. It's it's really hard to get the pro form a to execute unless you have the 100% affordability all all done through, you know, a very competitive process.

But I think that's what I think that related and Avalon projects are struggling with now just because they did have that affordability component. So I I really do appreciate everything that Eden Housing has brought forward to the commission as well as Sunset Development. And although I do see, like, it's not a like for like, it's still affordability. It's still housing. Even though it's not fee simple ownership, there's still that continued, you know, person that can always come through the door, and it it won't meet that fifty five year term limit.

You'll requalify for more financing, and that financing will, you know, continue to turn over into more than the fifty five years that the typical for sale unit does. So I I appreciate this, and I can say that I also would vote to go ahead and recommend this for approval for city council. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, chair Albert. Thank you very much. The commissioners before me spoke elegantly. Thank you, commissioner Kostnyk, with all your experience. So I am pretty new to the PC, and I I appreciate all the guidance the city staff have provided, and we had huge discussions yesterday, sat down, and tried to understand a lot of things.

So one point I do like is I'm more a numbers guy. So what commissioner Kuznick mentioned, like, do we accept it the way it is? Do we modify it, react it, or wait for the fifth member, which could be a long period of time? We don't know when. And it might not meet all the standards, s p three thirty standards.

And there are many my point of view, I was sitting on the other side of this table, and my point of view was, hey. Why aren't these commissioners doing something? And and the developers know the commissioners can only do so much because we are our hands are tied based on the rules and regulations of the state that are being new laws that are being passed. And if the developers meet that, we will have to move it forward. But what we are trying to do is best what is best for the city as DA is a amicable solution.

And I I am very thankful that Sunset has come forward with this proposal and providing 1,185,000.000 and the homes they are providing. But what I see is I'm requesting couple of modifications as commissioner Kuznick has mentioned. One, I do not want to accept as it is. I do want this to move forward, and I am very thankful that they are bringing in extremely low income housing and for the people who are working in San Ramon or staying in San Ramon. And they are also providing the numbers that Citi have to meet on a long term basis for the RENA perspective.

And what I would say is there are two things. Is there any way Citi staff and the Sunset developers can think of better understanding of the DEA rather than the current numbers, what we saw one one to 1.76 as many of them have concerns, apples to oranges comparison, and and the amount that you guys are providing on an average of about 3,000 that amounts to 1,185,000. There should be a better number. That's my strong opinion just looking at the numbers. And and I strongly support what Sunset is doing.

They are giving it to somebody who is more proficient in this particular. And they are end of the day, they are looking at their profitability to make the other projects feasible, and I completely understand. And I am with them on this and trying to help them, but the city needs to get more out of this. And two things I would like to propose. One, renegotiation of this. Two, there were concerns regarding if there are any modifications. Can the zoning administrator alone make those decisions? That's that's

the next item.

That's next item. So so with that being said, I I would say, one, holding the city council feet on fire, not just putting all the work onto the PC members. Really appreciate what commissioner Kuzniga said. They have to do their due diligence. If they are if we are recommending something and we are putting in these recommendations, they have to go through and see what is right, and they have to make those final decisions.

For me, modify would be a good solution. I would propose to either look through this and modify and send it to send the city council with all the recommendations that we are providing, and they can make the decision.

Okay. Thank you. And make sure I understood what your rec your recommendations were to suggest to city council that the conversion ratio be adjusted as well as the the contribution to the affordable housing. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Because this may become a precedence for any future developments, and I really worry this this ratio. They might just look it as a benchmark, and this might not be a feasible thing.

Okay. Great. Thank you. I think the my fellow commissioners have have kind of captured, in essence, where I'm coming from in terms of the agreement. There are some recommendations I do have for staff and the development team to consider presenting to the city council.

First of all, as it relates to the numbers, you know, incredibly complicated and hard to follow. I wanna thank Sunset for the two slides tonight. They're so simple. My recommendation is that something like that, perhaps with the assumptions that went into those numbers, replace exhibit d of the development agreement, that one page that talks about how the numbers come together because it is extremely difficult to follow. So you for doing such a nice job tonight, and I think that's a good a good start.

The second item I'd like them to consider slightly different than what commissioner Kanjula said regarding the voluntary contribution to the affordable housing obligation. Given the long lead times on projects such as this, and I don't think it's unprecedented, is that that number be indexed somehow for when the permits are actually pulled so that the $3,000 per unit or the one dot one eight five continues to accomplish the same roughly purchasing power over time. So that would be my recommendation. And I think in the city, there are appropriate indexes that have been used in similar fees in the past. Regarding the development agreement, and this kind of falls into section six six and eight dot one, this is the what happens if clause.

I believe and this is not really a development agreement item, I think, but I think a business practice that would make sense is after every funding attempt successful or failed, that the development team, including Eden, come before the city council and give an update on where we are in securing funding. And I think that will provide them and the public a a better sense of what's going on. And I would hate for you know, not that I believe this would ever happen. You know, I just don't see that with this team in place, staff and developers and commissions that we would wait and ten years would happen and say, oh gosh. The time expired.

Now congratulations. You now own the land. You know? Nobody in San Ramon wants the land, I don't believe. So it's a soft ask.

I don't think it's a development agreement item. It's just really a standard business practice item. I do also have an ask of Sunset to consider working with the city. One of our issues with Eden Housing was parking, you know, specifically around the senior parking that has zero dot five. With that said, an all affordable housing project with the state density bonus law and everything that goes with it requires zero parking, and Sunset is providing Eden is providing 40 parking spots for the for the senior project.

I would like to consider if it can be developed dealt with in addition to the dedication of the land or the donation of the land or whatever the right legal term is that Sunset consider also providing, in addition to the land itself, access to 40 spots of affordable 40 parking spots at one of the surface parking lots, you know, in the in the business park. And then the terms can be worked out as appropriate, and my concept is that it would be a shared parking arrangement. You wouldn't be donating the parking. It'd be the off hours parking, but at a nearby business park so that we could at least bring the senior community up to a ratio of one dot zero. And this would kick in if slash if issues are raised where the project is under parked as part of the development.

My my last ask, and this is, you know, slightly tongue in cheek. You know? This is very complicated and very hard to digest. My request would be that we only do this one more time, you know, that we somehow figure out a way to capture a development agreement that that will contemplate and manage the other two affordable projects. Because I think in in the spirit of permit streamlining and removing barriers to housing in general, I don't think it's a good move to do these kind of hearings twice, two more times for the two projects that we know there.

You know? Sunset has already outlined the overall vision. It's all consistent, but we're we're kind of memorializing agreements in in parts. And I think that we can we should try and get creative so that we do not have to look at this two more times. One is we'll be playing. You know, I think if if we can figure out a way to get there. And there might be different ways to do it and not to design it tonight. But those are my requests for tonight is and I'll just capture them real quick. The the agreement and the numbers, because at some point, what I'm going to ask the commission is it can't be one person asking for something. We need to have some consensus with the commission that what we want to send forward.

So if I could just if you just indulge me for one minute just to come up with a little scorecard here, and then I will look to you all. You know? You know? Yes. You

know? Jada from dad is working.

Oh, good. Okay. Okay. One and done. Okay. Okay. So the ones that I so does anybody have any additional suggestions to carry forward to the city council? I did take away there's general consensus that we will be making a resolution to send the development agreement to the city council with suggestions for their consideration. So with that said

One quick So I I did speak to the city staff and talked about the biking bike lane and the bike racks that are associated with that. And I I hope those are include I haven't seen anywhere in the document, but mister Barr has assured me that he's going through all of them. I just wanted to put it on record that we want to ensure all the bike bike lane or the and the corresponding bike parking associated, that should be one of the considerations because I don't expect, as you guys know, everybody having multiple cars, but there are people who will be using a

lot of bikes, and there should be a safe bike parking space somewhere accommodated. Just for the the record, bike parking isn't necessarily a condition of a development agreement. However, it is a a standard of our zoning ordinance and is incorporated in the project approvals for the Eden project. And so there's a bike as well as Avalon as well as related they have storage facilities related to bicycles.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So this this part of it, I'm we're kinda making this up as we go because I don't think I've experienced exactly this before. So we're gonna try and keep it organized slightly so that staff can have clear direction from us. The first one I came forward with is I'm not sure how we put this forward in a in any kind of resolution, but the ask was that the city council read the staff report and really understand things. I think that we're going to just assume that staff will take that upon themselves to ensure that they make do their job.

We will write a staff report for them.

Yes. Okay. So that's a okay. Yeah. Yes. Do your do your homework. Show your work. Okay. Yes. Commissioner commissioner suggested that we ask of staff and and the and the team to look at the conversion ratio with an eye a recommendation that it be increased. And I did not hear a specific number, but the the generic, it should be increased. Okay. And look to my left, look to my right. Do we have three heads nodding that k.

1.76 or higher?

Just higher. And so we'll not okay. So I think I see three that we

I don't want to a number and then go back and forth. I I want to give that because this is a agreement Right. And Sunset have been very, very cooperative. I I wanna give that leverage between the city staff and Right. And the Sunset. They can come to it.

Yeah. Our recommendation is that they they look at the number with the eye towards increasing is is is is sufficient. Okay. There are two items on the table related to the $3,000 per unit. One is to suggest to the city council that they look at that number with an eye also towards increasing that number per unit with no number.

Yeah. To index it.

And your point indexing. And then in the okay. So I think there's a for both of those, I think that we've we've saw there. Okay. This is just a mechanical thing. It was a recommendation to replace table d with something similar to what was presented tonight on the slides just to give city council a very clear picture of this of the units. It's packet page 58, and it's exhibit d allocation of units. Yeah. That looks similar to what, you asked.

The

The land dedication affordability page.

The allocation of units packet page 58 to make it look a little bit you know, not necessarily the pretty colors that was on the slide, but, you know, the information was great. So thank you for that. It was super clear. It was really the it was the clarity that I think those of us up here have been struggling forever. The shared parking item, I don't know if that's a nonstarter or not with Sunset for one of the business park surface parking lots.

I'll throw it out there. It still feels like an okay thing to me to try and take care of this the seniors there. And, again, the ask was to in addition to dedicating the land to work out an arrangement that if parking becomes a problem at Eden, that Sunset will be already beyond record to work with the developer in the city to create a shared parking agreement for up to 40 units. So there's I think there's language that the staff follows when they become aware of parking issues because it's happened in other projects throughout the city where cities had to step in. I don't know the details per se.

Well, I mean, it it can be based on code enforcement complaints that we get. It can be based on observation, but, typically, there's a needs to be some trigger that suggests that there is a problem. And oftentimes, it will be residents that will complain directly if if there's an issue. So it would be most likely be something that would get elevated through code enforcement to staff, and then we could discuss the issues and remedies.

Okay. And then you also mentioned the updating the city council with the funding cycle.

Yes. And this is not really a development agreement. I think it's just a practice that the city would generally do anyways, but just wanna go on record that, you know, the ask is of Eden that, you know, time you come up to play up to bat, you know, whether you get a hit or or strikeout that you come I hate to say strikeout. That's terrible sounding. But it's the all star game tonight that we're not watching, so that's baseball's on my mind. But with that said, but every time that you go through the the brutal exercise of this recurring funding that you give an update to our city council just so they kinda stay stay stay abreast of what's going on with this important project?

Through the chair, I just mentioned that we do annual reviews of development agreements, and so there would be an opportunity to provide updates with those annual reviews. Good.

Yeah. And I I guess my my sense was the timing of it would be the triggered by their, you know, success. If you take if you get three at bats next year, then you'll have to come to us three times, you know, kind of thing. But, anyways, it just it was just a a thought to try and, you know, consistent with commissioner Kuznick's, you know, suggestion that they, you know, become well informed that they stay stay abreast of what's going on because, you know, again, I don't think the city wants the land, you know, and we don't wanna wait twenty two years. You know?

So, anyways, with that said okay. And then the last one is really it's not part of the development agreement. Just a request of of staff and and Sunset to, you know, try attempt to come up with a mechanism to handle the next two or whatever, you know, affordable, you know, projects that will be similar to this that we only have to do go through this one more time. Yeah. Okay. With that, I we do have a resolution that we need to adopt. You know? So the resolution is on packet page 23. I'm gonna try something a little bit different tonight in that, you know, we typically like to go through page by page. I'm looking at these.

I'm just gonna say, are there any questions, comments, or suggestions on the resolution, which is pack of page 23, 24, 25, or 26? And then 26 will be amended to capture as you know, I'll leave it at the staff to come with the language. You know? We do recommend that the city council with the comments tonight evaluate, and you can deal with the language.

I would recommend that you include the as you make the motion to adopt the resolution with the comments as laid out on the dais.

Okay. That's good. That's good. So do we have any corrections on the resolution itself at this point? I don't think so. Attachments to it and, you know, you know, are not really something that we need to review tonight. That's the technical language of the development agreement, which, again, has been fully negotiated and approved, you know, by the city attorney's office. So it's not something we need to talk about tonight. So if I could ask for a motion.

I will make motion that we approve the resolution with the modifications as noted by commissioner Alpert and duly recorded by commissioner Kuznick as necessary that we send this off to the city council.

I can second that. Okay. So it moved and seconded, so we'll do the vote. Okay. The resolution passes four zero zero zero. Thank you, commission. Thank you, Eden and Sunset, for spending so much time explaining this to us. It's very productive discussion. I think we all understand it significantly better than we started.

And thank you guys to help Citi meet all its Reina members. Wait.

There's more tonight. So okay. Okay. Let's reset ourselves. We are now moving on to I would age 61.

61. Yeah. Okay. Agenda item 8.2. This is also a development agreement related to the other the the other part of this project, and it does include one additional item. So I believe that mister Barr has a, probably, a short staff report on this one.

I do. Alright. The proposed development agreement amendments allow for the consideration of the transfer of the affordable units to the or transfer of affordable units to an affordable housing projects both within the city walk boundaries as well as outside the area. And so and and so what that does is it builds on the approval or the recommendation you just made for the receiver site project, and so this would allow for the the transfer of the units considered under that. In addition to that, there's some clarification related to the development re review process for the implementation of housing policy, 22 for zoning administrator, streamlining of the, projects within the city walk, master plan area.

And, again, this is only for the two development agreements, two of the three, being considered tonight. So, the Planning Commission held their hearing last, on July 1 at the last meeting. The commission comments were generally, related to the zoning administrator authority, public hearing process, and current practice of public hearings. There was an acknowledgment that this is closely tied to the Bishop Ranch affordable housing site development agreement, and that the changes generally make sense if the other agreement goes forward. So as we discussed before, the role of the commission is to make a recommendation for approval, modification, or disapproval of the agreement amendments based on the information in the record.

So, ultimately, the city council will decide the merit of the proposal. So with that, I'm available for questions.

Thank you. Thank you. So just to summarize, there are two parts to this. It is the other half of the development agreement that we essentially have approved, you know, on the one a three a. But if there are any questions for staff on that portion of what we're talking about, let's close that off first. Okay. Okay. Okay. The second half, as as mister Bar said, is regarding the permit streamlining zoning clarifying zoning administrator authority in reviewing development applications as it relates to CityWalk. Let's first start with questions to make sure we understand what is being asked of us.

So do we have any clarifying questions at this point?

I have a couple questions. But so as we saw the development agreement where, that we just went ahead and voted on, I guess my question would be, like, for the other affordable housing that isn't, like, I guess, taken into account into the Eden site, where would the rest of the affordable units go? Is there would that go to B R 8 with that affordable site? Okay. Yes.

And and there's a separate review process related to those other approvals. So the B R Eight's under review right now and will come before the commission later this year.

Okay. Thank you. And then are there any things in the works for Sunset for future development plan applications for the site? I mean, would it have to go back, like I guess as it relates to your one a and three a.

So one a and three a well, one a with the completion of the related project will will be the last component of the 1 A neighborhood. 3 A has Avalon Bay. There's also an approved hotel at the corner of Bishop And Camino Ramon, and then there's a third housing site on B R 3 A adjacent to Bollinger And Camino, and there has not been a proposal made yet for that third site.

Okay. That's all my questions. Thank you.

Mister Hendula, do you have questions? Okay. I do have questions. So the staff report mentions this is to remain compliant or to meet this the the statement that the city put into the housing element of program 22. For the public record, what is program 22?

Program 22 specifically says that we will may take efforts to streamline the review process associated with the CityWalk approvals. And so part of the the issue with it is CityWalk as a larger project had an EIR done for it. It had the units approved for it, but it did not get into the specific level. So there's a level of improvement similar to what you're talking about with orchards, but there's supplemental steps that need to occur. And those supplemental steps are basically meeting the design guidelines of the already approved city walk master plan design guidelines, the objective design standards in the city, and then, moving forward.

So currently, under our our, zoning ordinance, the zoning administrator has the ability to improve development plans. It's been our practice in the past to kick them up to, to the planning commission, but it what we're suggesting is that because there's a development agreement that covers the approval process related to this, we need to also streamline the process through the development agreement. Because right now, the development agreement doesn't reference an alternative way of reviewing projects. And so this is an opportunity to address the issue that we we put into our housing element program that was adopted by as part of the general plan 2040 and the housing element. And so it's a way of, of being able to get back to the state and say that this is a way that we're going to be addressing, streamline.

It's not an obligation of of the zoning administrator to have hearings before each of these things. It just provides the option if if we think it's a good idea to streamline. If a project's complex and may have community issues, it's well within the ability of the zoning administrator to kick it up as has been packed past practice. K.

Thank you. Thank you for that. Being part of the housing element, it's my understanding that this actually was something program 22 came about as a result of our housing element review by HCD. It wasn't something that the city independently decided was important to add into our housing element. Is that true?

Yeah. I think I can tap Cindy to go into a little more details since she was highly involved in that that process.

I'm gonna stay at my seat today Yeah. For this question. So regarding program 22, as you may recall, we had an extensive review process with HCD on the review of our housing element. As part of our analysis of our existing city's housing goals and and standards, one of the things that was pointed out to us by HCD was potential barriers to development and needing to do double analysis when projects have already been approved. And one of the the projects that were identified was specifically CityWalk.

And in the initial draft that the city submitted to HCD through consultation with them, we, were we crafted, program 19 to address that. Program 19 became program 21, and then, ultimately, program 22 is we were continuously adding based on HCD's comments. The the the as the program acknowledges, the city walk project has been approved for the 4,500 units. But the the the mechanism as to how to approve individual entitlements after the initial approval had not been clarified in terms of the the that process. So what we put put into program 22 was two timelines that were set in that program.

The first time line was regarding at the by the 2023, the city would revisit the streamlined review of CityWalk and essentially create a methodology for the streamlined review of future entitlements. The second timeline was related to an annual review of the phasing of CityWalk in that we would continue to monitor the development of the approved units during the eight year cycle, and that by 2026, if the completion of units falls behind schedule, the city will then have to take additional action in considering how do we identify additional sites to make up for that shortfall. So there were we had made initial program recommendations. HCD then asked us to add on some additional assurances for for timing. But, effectively, the the request to remove governmental constraints was one that was part of our certification obligation.

In order to get certified by the state, that was one of the items that needed to be included as part of our housing element.

Great. Thank you. So it kinda led into my second question. If the city doesn't do anything with one of the programs that was part of our approved housing element, could something what what what could happen to the city of San Ramon if we just choose that we don't feel like doing any of the programs?

Well, we've made a commitment through the adoption of the housing element that the city will meet our program commitments. And on an annual basis, we provide annual progress reports to the state, which include how many units have been approved, denied, the timing in which we took to review projects. And included in that is is an update to the city's progress on implementing the the general plan policies. And while we are our own you know, keep we are keeping track of our commitments and reporting that to the state. There aren't necessarily penalties that the city faces on an annual basis if we're not meeting those targets.

But, ultimately, if the state finds or or the the state attorney finds that the city is out of compliance and have not made substantial progress towards our commitments, there have been situations and Tri Valley cities that have have can attest to this that they can decertify your housing element and until such time that you've made substantial progress. Old building cannot issue building permits until you come into compliance and create a a progress report of how you are actually achieving those goals to get recertified.

Okay. So if I can just summarize for ourselves. One, the state does care. HCD does pay attention. Two, if they find that we're out of compliance, they can decertify our housing element. And it has happened locally, and that triggers a lot of consequences of not being compliant, not having a certified housing element. So just keep that in mind that it is is a program that actually does matter. I didn't overstate. Correct, Cindy? That that here.

No. That's correct. And, you know, before you in August is yet another progress that the city is making towards implementing the the housing element, and that'll come in the form of tax amendments that we've committed to make changes to.

Yes. Last question. CityWalk consists of a lot of elements, parks, some retail, some parking structures, and housing, and a hotel. Is this amendment to the this development agreement, does that apply to all of the elements of CityWalk or only the housing portions of it? You know? That's

I'm sorry. Yeah. Could you repeat that?

Yeah. So CityWalk, the the master plan included parking garages, parks, streets, trails, hotel. And my question was, is the amendment that's attached to this development agreement, is that only I know I know that the zoning administrator fundamentally has the right to do all of this, but is the is the amendment that we're talking about today only truly contemplating to be compliant with program 22 applying to the housing portions or anything that takes place in the city walk boundaries? Well,

as you mentioned, the the there is discretion with the with the zoning administrator to make decisions related to this, but the primary reason is related to demonstrating compliance with the the housing program. Okay. And so that primarily relates to housing projects. But but, again, it's it's a process in which a decision gets made by the zoning administrator as to whether, it's something that's routine in nature or whether it is something that, warrants broader community dis discussion. I would also state that the the public hearing process is still required for any project with the development plan.

The mailing, the noticing is all the same. The time of the hearings can change. We can set them for whatever time people want. That was one of the comments that was made from the public. And, again, we provide notices, people can participate.

Okay. Thank you for that. That is it for my questions. Why don't we go oh, did you have a question? I did. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Just

go ahead. So

the the question that has occurred to me, we have this development agreement. It it is largely to create the switch of affordable units as we have just agreed to send to the city council. Is there anything that, why this has to be in this development? Could it be a separate item to be considered on its own merits or failure?

It could be. However, the development agreement is what governs these projects, these two projects. So to have it outside of development agreement would potentially create a conflict between the remember, a development agreement is adopted by ordinance. And so you need to have the the direction compatible with the approval of the project. And so, again, you have development agreements for both three and one three a and one a.

And so just to adopt a policy of it would not necessarily be enforceable, but it's still a preference at that point. I just again, it's a a a question of the authority and scale that goes into the project.

If if the city council does not agree to this part, what is the default?

We will have to come up with another program to streamline.

So is is your is your question just to jump in? Right now, we're looking at second amendment and third amendment. Is your question, should there be a second and third that are only on one a and three a and then a fourth amendment that takes care of the city walk streamlining?

Yes.

That's your question. Okay.

That is my question.

I just make sure we ask the question. Okay. Okay.

Well, that that would be a a could be a recommendation as well.

Okay. Good. Okay. Was that was that your question as well, or did you have another question?

So thank you. Thank you, chair Albert. So what are the thresholds of upper? So going through zoning administrator, which he does most of the approvals right now, if I if my understanding is correct, or some of the approvals right now. So what are the thresholds that he considers upper and lower bounds that it needs to go through PC versus what he approves, and what is routine in nature versus any impactful changes.

So that piece, I'm not clear because I I'm a bit new. That's the reason I'm not clear. But I I didn't get that clear differentiation where that power rests and who makes that decision.

K. So there are certain in the zoning code, there are certain, types of applications that trigger planning commission review, others that are subject to zoning administrator review. The discretion of the zoning administrator, she always has the ability to kick it up to the next level if she believes that it's in the public interest to do so or that there's issues that that she feels needs a broader debate. And so, again, it's a judgment call based on expertise and experience and understanding the the the values of the city and and the needs of the city, to go through a process. Again, we approve plenty of development applications at a z a level.

We also for typically, it's been our past practice for larger projects to kick them up to the planning commission because of community interest.

My final question. So without this, can there be no streamlining without the second amendment that has been outlined? As commissioner Koznick has mentioned, can this be separated out? And without this, can it not be streamlined?

No. There there can be a different process involved. It's just there there are some inconsistencies between the approval mechanisms that are in place because you have the master plan that was approved, through a planning commission action, a development agreement that that was approved by the planning commission, and, an ordinance adopted by council. And so to then go back and say, we're going to streamline a process that's not recognized in the development agreement can create inconsistencies. So, again, it's not to say we can't come up with another process or even entertain this as a separate issue.

That that's up to the discretion of of the city council ultimately.

My recommendation is to go with commissioner Kuznik, which would separate it out. So that would be my

One one do you have questions? Because then we're gonna go to public comment if you have questions.

Sorry. Just one quick clarifying question. Is the ZA hearing online, or is it in person?

It's in person.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. So why don't we go ahead and open public comment? Do we have any written comments or speaker cards?

Written public comment was received by Eric Wallace, and I do have speaker cards tonight. Pam Wallace.

Hi. I'm Pam Wallace. I would just like to read an excerpt from what former commissioner Eric Wallace had written as his objection to this amendment in a four page document, which I'll just exert the the following comments. The CityWalk is the largest housing project ever within the city of San Ramon, not including Dougherty Valley, which was actually a county project that was annexed to the city. So what does this say about the planning about what plan about what the planning staff thinks?

So little of the commission that it doesn't trust the commission even with all the restrictions imposed by the state housing laws and staff continually reminds us to not make a proper decision. Or I guess his question is that the the commission wouldn't make a proper decision. He says, has the commission ever rejected a housing application? Never in at least the 15 that I said on the commission. This is commissioner Eric Wallace speaking.

So his last couple of few comments here. If the staff is successful at transferring to the zoning administrator the authority to decide housing development applications in city walk through second through section two as proposed here, it is virtually certain that such a provision will, be proposed for every project involving Sunset, including the Chevron Park, the orchards, etcetera. In that case, what's the purpose of having a planning commission? If you believe the authority for deciding city walk development should remain with the commission and not be lateral to the zoning administrator, two things need to happen at this hearing. First, a verbal statement needs to be made that the commissioners do not support the council's adoption of section two of the amendment to the city walk development agreement.

And second, the viewpoint needs to be documented in writing in a portion of any resolution recommending council action so that it is literally before the council when the development agreement is presented. Those are his comments. He asked for this whole document to be presented at this meeting.

Okay. And we do all have those that document, and we did receive it. And I assure the public that we do read all public comments that are sent to us. So thank you for that. Do we have another speaker card?

I believe you already spoke on this topic in normal public comment. Is that still allowed to have a second comment to the city staff? Discretion of the chair? Okay. Go ahead.

Well, when I spoke, it was prior to the the discussion. So now I heard all the discussion. One of the key point that highlighted is, like, in one Bishop Branch 1 and Bishop Branch 3 A, there are number of projects. It's not just one project. In fact, when the planning division manager was talking about the project, he still doesn't have the entire list of project.

So how are we really making sense if if we don't have a list of project and we say we do not want the planning commissioner to even look into those projects? So this is purely, I would say, dismantling the planning commission altogether. And why would a planning commission or any other planning commissioner would would for a suicidal thing, basically, to end up their own role. Right? So I would highly recommend that we reject this number two amendment, especially because it's not in the interest.

And while you want to streamline the process, we need to give an examples of what are the projects which were stuck because of the planning commissioner's indecisions. And if planning commissioners are not coming in picture, even the public don't come in picture because we don't really have any more say. So it directly goes to the city council. So I believe so we should reject this strongly. Thank you.

Brian Swanson.

Hello. I'm here again talking about public process. We have to do this every item. We will do it every item from here until eternity. Perpetuity. It's all about public process. Deferring to zoning administrator for a 2PM meeting, you can get more people showing up to a 2PM meeting than you do here.

Stay at the microphone, please.

Two e. That's that's nonsense. So let's take a step back, though. Let's let's just take a step back. Right? Affordable housing is a huge issue. State legislators going mad. Lots and lots of momentum, lots and lots of financing programs being developed by the state. So much so that, like, housing and affordable housing is sort of being extracted from the general plan process. Right?

Like, receiving its own attention. There's all kinds of legislation. I think it's foolhardy with all that legislation to somehow agree to do some streamlining when you don't know the state context yet. That's just foolhardy. Now granted granted, we all know the sort of arguments with everything going on at the state level. Right? Cities wanna maintain their authority. They don't wanna be beholden to the state. But it's such a big issue that there it's gonna be crazy. I mean, we heard Dixie, big beautiful Beale.

Well, this is what we're out in the wild West, way wild West. This is even crazier. And and right? If we wanna talk politics, we're talking blue state on blue state. Blue state on on blue state people. And and they have to figure that out. It's not like it's totally black and white yet, and there's so much momentum. So let's take another step back. The statewide planning guidelines, guess what? Those are under development too.

In fact, just today, the kickoff meeting happened. The kickoff meeting for statewide planning guidelines revisions led by land use and climate innovation or OPR. That was today to somehow set up some streamlining cucamonga when all that external stuff and and right? That was it. What was that in the staff report?

All that state momentum? All the bills being presented? Again, whether you're pro against it, whether you wanna maintain the city's authority, That's a different question, but that's the context. The public process needs to be maintained. The public process the planning process needs integrity, more integrity than it has. Thanks.

Thank you. Any other speaker cards?

There are no other speaker cards.

Okay. So at this point, I'm gonna I'm gonna start speaking first here on this one. Program 22 is in our adopted housing element. Program 22 was directed to be included by the state's review of our housing element. The taking no action on it is not only irresponsible of us, it is risk exposes the city of San Ramon to HCD determining and or potentially decertifying our housing element.

So in my opinion, and furthermore, with the additional understanding that we should have, is that the zoning administrator currently has the authority that's captured in this this document. The city has a long history of sending the vast majority of projects to the planning commission for review. So despite what people may think, it does exist, and this is essentially memorializing our process in a way that satisfies HCD and the housing element requirement that we signed off on when we adopted the housing element several years ago. Secondly, as it relates to CityWalk, we do know what's in CityWalk. We do know all the projects.

We sat through the hearings for years before we adopted the development plan and the development agreement for what's included, including specific projects and specific timing of the projects. So I don't think it's I don't think it's a a fair characterization that we don't even know what city walk looks like. We definitely we do or we should know what's in it because we approved it, and we spent years working on it. You know? So I I am prepared with a couple of recommendations to move this to the city council for the configuration.

First of all, I would like to separate out the permit streamlining from the b r one a amendment and the b r three amendment and call it fourth amendment to the development agreement regarding the city walk approval process. You know, that's item one. Item two, I'd like to see changed is and I'll just pick packet page 71, the documentation about what it is, what approvals and subsequent actions that we add to the words on the second line, you know, consistent with city walk master plan streamlining all future housing development plan applications contemplated within and consistent with that they be reviewed by the zoning administrator to clarify clearly that we are talking about housing, not anything else that is included in the and my third my third recommendation is that we and I don't if it's the development. I don't think this is part of the development agreement. It's more a business practice that we do alter the time of the z a meeting to and staff can work out the time.

But similar to when the city had a GAD, and they had it just before either a planning commission meeting or a city council meeting in the evening. So it's more accessible to the public that would potentially find a afternoon meeting unavailable. So with those three recommendations, and I'm interested to hear two things, fellow commissioner comments, and then we will do the same, ensure that we have at least three of four that can pass along to staff with our recommendation to send this to the city council. Okay.

I'd like to also add a a recommendation going forward when this goes to the city council that there really wasn't anything in the staff packet as I recall here. Let me just double check before I get too far over my skis here. A little more reference to the HCD stuff that this kind of just sort of slipped in. And if we're not that familiar with it or recalling it, again, my much beloved city council probably won't remember it either. And that needs to be more in this the staff packet to to the city council.

I I so if that would be an additional ask at this time, a more robust pardon me. A more robust explanation of how we got to asking for this modification.

Okay. Okay?

I concur with both of your modifications, Gary. Sorry. Chair Albert, it's late.

It's very

it's very late.

Really late.

It's almost ten. And I also concur with Chair. I almost called you Chair Kundig. I'm like

Her. Just say her. Just say her. Whatever.

I think that, one of the big things that I would see here is just making sure that the z a hearing is, you know, sometime not at 3PM or 1PM or, whatever that previously was. I think that's a big one, in order to just make it make it sure that people are able to go ahead and attend those hearings if they would wish to, after normal business hours. I think beautifully said by chair Albert on, you know, why it's necessary and all the recommendations from both of the previous commissioners. Mhmm.

So where I am uncomfortable is the wording that says the streamlining provision shall prohibit the zoning administrator from nothing associated with this streamlining provision shall prohibit the z z a from referring future development applications to PC. So if in his or her opinion, PC review is warranted. So I'm trying to understand this is new. I I need a little bit more time to go through this. So if this is something that is happening today, why this needs a new amendment?

And I am not comfortable with the wording. So if it's already happening and if it comes to PC, why does this need to be explicitly mentioned that ZA would take care of it than PC? So that's where I'm stuck, and I'm not comfortable with this.

Okay. I'll let commission mister Barth.

So there there's a couple reasons. One is to have a a formal acknowledgment that we are addressing the the program 22. So by taking an action to put it in a development agreement, the development agreement only applies to CityWalk, so that's a natural mechanism to to have that relationship. In addition, the original approvals talked about revisiting supplemental approvals with commission. The idea was to make because, again, it's similar in the nature that we know the total number of units, we know the layout, but we don't have the details.

And so it's important that the next project that comes in gets reviewed against the development standards in the city walk specific plan, objective standards of the city, and are consistent with those underlying approvals. So whether it's the planning commission that does it or this or the zoning administrator that does it, it's still a a check and balance kind of thing. And the reason that the streamlining exists for CityWalk specifically is because there was an approval of a master plan of a set of development units over a period of time and design guidelines. And so what else what other discretionary actions requires planning commission review? Because it's already been the framework's already been set.

And so this provides the opportunity for the zoning administrator to take on implementation of that plan consistent with the prior approvals by the planning commission. Now in the event that there is a concern, and that's what the the quote you just read, nothing in this agreement prohibits the zoning administrator from kicking it up to planning commission if in his or her judgment it warrants a broader discussion or that maybe it's not quite aligned with the original approvals or there's a question if it's aligned with the original approvals.

I just want to know what those thresholds are. I'm It's I I'm fine if they are changing, okay, instead of five and a half feet setback, five feet setback. And if the house is instead of three floors with some changes, modifications to the facade, etcetera. But where I'm we are leaving this the other way. So we are looking at this problem, the reverse direction, asking ZA to do the work and push it rather than coming to PC, which has been the standard, and then going to ZA. So that's where I am getting a little bit trip. I I'm new, so I I take it. You guys went through all this entire city walk process for years, so you know better.

Yeah.

I I'll concede that, but just I don't see a

Sure. So let me just offer my experience. The vast majority of things that we get here could have been handled by the z a. You know? And that's that's currently in the municipal code. That's in the zoning ordinance. The zoning administrator is the primary I appreciate your ask for what is the rule where it must go. And it's spelled out in the in the primarily, it is in the zoning ordinance, you know, what things must require higher level review. But there's a whole lot of of gray that I think is the discretion of the z a. Now with that said, the only thing we can look to is the history of what we've seen here, you know.

And for the most part, they come to the planning division. The the ultimate power, if you wanna say it that way, the planning commission can can call for review anything that's made at the lower level if appropriate. You know, we can we have the same right to request a review of a decision at the lower level if we feel that it's not appropriate at that level for whatever reason and the ZA chose to handle it at that level, we still have the power to call review much as the city council can call one of our decisions for review. So with with that with those, that understanding is how I come to the place that says, you know, what's being done here may not be a material change. But even if it is, it's legal and it's already allowed.

And if it's just a just a wide abuse of authority for whatever reason, we still have the power or still have the right to ask for these to be brought to the planning commission as the city council can take our decisions to them. Yeah.

True. But what happens is that we have to pick and choose and bring it to public's notice. Right? Whatever we do we do is in public eye. So we have to pull it out and then put it on the public view rather than going the other way, like, going to PC.

But Have it yeah. The z a is public process, though. They're they're fully noticed meetings. They are public hearings. They're held in the chamber. You know, we've requested that they be moved to a more appropriate time for the public. You know, if there are other things that we can think of, you know, there might be some implementation details we can consider over time, you know, when the when this starts to materialize. You know? You know? Good.

Okay. Any other comments? Because at this point, you know, I think we'll probably all be in concurrence. Think I took that. The first one was my request to upgrade the language to specify housing development plan applications.

Don't need to write the words tonight. Pull out the permit streamlining process for all of CityWalk into a fourth amendment concentrating two and three on one a and three a, add to the staff report additional details and explanation and background of how we came to have program 22, and then the suggestion that the z eight meeting be moved to a different time. Okay. Any other comments? If not, then if we could ask for a motion to adopt the amendments as discussed tonight.

I will move that we forward this to the city council as we with the amendments that we have so noted. K.

I'll second that motion.

There we go.

Okay. We have three zero one abstain. So as we know, that is a majority and is can be passed to the city council with our comments. Thank you. Okay. Wait. There's more. Okay. I don't Oh, there we are. So we're gonna jump to eleven dot two planning commission liaison assignments.

You have a, you know, you have a draft. We do have some vacancies. What I think I'd like to try and do tonight is pencil in these and maybe perhaps revisit the assignments once we have a fifth, you know, fifth commissioner seated. But for tonight and this is new for both both of you two. And you can see the committees that we do have in the city that we are liaisons to.

Let me just say that the responsibility of the commission liaison is to attend the meetings, listen, not participate, And they structure them differently, but, you know, they generally will ask for a very brief update on what's going on at the commission. And when I say very brief, it's like public comment brief, less than three minutes. And then at this part of the meeting is part of our staff comment under item 11, staff studies, commission liaison reports. It is as well to give a very brief set of comments on what's taking place at the various committees. We have an I do appreciate that two of our commissioners may have trouble attending day meetings, but we have the architectural review board, which meets Thursdays at 2PM.

We have the parks and community services commission meeting, which meets Wednesdays at 7PM. We have transportation advisory committee, which is the third Thursday at 6PM, and then we have the open space advisory committee that meets at 4PM. So at this point, let me just try and figure out the best way here. Do I are are either of you available to attend either the transportation advisory committee meeting at six on Thursdays or open space on Mondays at 4PM?

You don't need anybody for parks and community?

So we're gonna have to we have to figure out an alternate.

So I can be the alternate Okay. For parks and community services commission. Okay. And for transportation advisory, I can be primary, second secondary, alternate. Doesn't matter. Okay. And how about you, Betty? Are you

because your reschedule's a little bit tight sometimes.

Yeah. But the open space primary is fine.

Okay. Okay.

And then I can do the alternate for transportation.

Okay. Okay. So that gives me primary for transportation.

Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And then on the open space advisory you know? Do you want me

to back up or do

I I can be the old person.

Okay. Okay. And then we will revisit this once we have a fifth sitting commissioner and do this. And, again, staff will update the document. They will let the the primary staff person know who our our liaison new liaisons are, and thank you all for that.

Mister Barr,

next next up. Alright. So the next meeting is August 5. We have a public art proposal for marketplace murals that'll come before you. And then we are also proceeding with zone text amendments. It's a series of things that we've been working over the last couple of years, the nonretail parking, beekeeping, and the like. So it's a laundry list of things that we've initiated, some of it in response to just need, other in response to housing element. And then the next meeting on August 19 would be the second meeting of the zone text amendments.

Okay. I did not have a architecture review board meeting in the last month, so there's nothing to report there. I've been going to transportation. They did not have a meeting either, so that was canceled. Anything from Parks that's worth sharing? I do

hang on. I don't remember if I've reported the the last meeting or if I'm a meeting behind, But I do know that there was a a very thorough report on the art and win festival.

But Yeah.

That's fine. I'll have to get back to you on that one. I apologize. No.

You did do that. Okay. You did do that. Okay. And then I don't have anything on the open space. Commissioner Wallace attended that meeting. Okay. So

Through the chair before you adjourn, there were no items for item nine and ten. I just wanted to make it clear for the

Oh, I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you for that. I apologize. Okay. I think I'm now allowed to go to item 12. Is that correct? Okay.