Planning & Transportation Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. Recording in progress. I call to order this September 24th regular meeting of the planning and transportation commission. Mr. Teta, would you call the role, please? Yes. Uh, Chair Aken here. Vice Chair Chang here. Commissioner Hecman here. Commissioner James here. Commissioner G here. Commissioner Peterson here. Commissioner Templeton here. For the record, we have quorum. Thank you. Do we have any public comment requests for items that are not on the agenda tonight?

Yes. Uh through the chair, we do have one request to speak. Um this is going to be um Christine N. Um, I would invite Christine and to uh come to the mic.

Hi, commissioners. Um, I'm a resident of Ventura and I'm speaking for my neighbor, next door neighbor Christine Wyn. And this is in regards to a set of proposals released um about a bike and pedestal uh pedestrian route. I'm looking at the clock here. Okay. And I'll just proceed and then I'll say that I agree with what she's saying and we'll add as much as time allows. I'll read quickly. She's sent this so it's public um record at this point. I'm Christine Wyn and I've lived in my house in Palo Alto for 26 years. This is more than just a house to me. It's where I brought my only child into the world. Where I raised her, where every milestone of her life was unfolded. It is the only home she has ever known. And I raised her to be a caring adult through community service. Over the past 10 years, my daughter and I have each contributed hundreds of volunteer hours, working with food banks, distributing food for low-income families and seniors, serving food at women homeless shelters, and helping students by volunteering at the public libraries and at the school district. We are not just residents. We are active contributors who have given back to this community. I want to be clear. I fully support safe biking and sustainability, but tearing down long-standing homes is not the right path forward. Under California Constitution Article 1, Section 19 and the US Constitution's Fifth Amendment, private property cannot be taken or damaged for public use without clear necessity and just compensation. That necessity has not been demonstrated here. And beyond the law, this proposal contradicts PaloAlto's own adopted plans. The comprehensive plan and the 2023 2031 housing element both commit to preserving existing housing and protecting neighborhood character. If the city destroys homes for this project, it undermines those commitments and the trust residents place in you. There are other options. For instance, using existing rights of way, rerouting

through underutilized land, or reallocating roadway space that can achieve your transportation goals without displacing families. Progress should not mean erasing the very community you are meant to serve. I urge you, please protect our homes. Thank you. And that was Christine Witt. Okay. And I have 40 seconds for myself. I am her neighbor and one my home is also stated as one of the eight homes um one of the four homes that may be taken by public domain under the eight proposals um I think created by the consultants hired by the city for potential new pedestrian routes and bike routes. And while I too also um am a daily biker for my commute, I wanted to express that I found it with dismay that they were not um uh f first polling local residents on that very street. And I urge you as council members to please um rethink the proposal and come to our neighborhood to see how crammed our streets are. I don't think it's a safe bike route for children, two of which I have in the public schools here. Thank you.

Thank Thank you. And thank you to Christine as well. Uh our next public commenter is Wart T.

Hi everybody. My name is Ward Thomas. Um I'm a neighbor of Ellen and and Christine and everybody in that area. So um and I talked to you Alan the other day. So thanks for your time on that. Um basically there are other ways to make this happen without taking people's houses. We just need to find those ways to make that happen. Right. We we've had to give back money in our budget because we don't have enough money. So, we've had to claw back some some personnel. So, the city is not flushed with cash right this second. If you try to buy people's houses for 10 15 20 million plus the project cost, it's a pretty big expense. So, um that's all I'm saying is there's a way to get around this to make this happen to I agree. I love bikes and and want to make sure it's safe for people to cross back and forth underneath the train tracks. Um but let's do it without taking our neighbors houses at the end of the day. And it sounds like um there are different ways to make that happen. Uh I haven't read the full consulting report of all the different variations, but I did read the one about the eight and I think that um a viable. It doesn't just takes a parking lot. Not a big deal. And then if you go all the way down to G and H, you know, there's some complications with those, but it doesn't take people's houses. But B and C takes people's houses. D and E takes people's houses. F takes people's houses. Those alternates are just it stinks, right? You live here all your life. You just want to live your life. And if somebody buys your house through eminent domain, you can't really afford to go buy another house in PaloAlto. It just doesn't work that way. Once you're out, you're out. So, please continue doing your due diligence. Let's make sure that our people can get safely back and forth, but also let's not take our neighbors houses. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Thomas. Do we have any other comments? Uh to the chair, I have no other public comments. Very good. Um, Assistant Director Armor, do we have any agenda changes, additions, or deletions? No changes. Pardon me. Was there a Yes. Sorry I missed your light. Commissioner Heckman. Yeah. Thank you. Just a question to Miss Arner. The the plans that were discussed in the public comment are those going to be coming to the planning commission and if so um do we know you know what season we might see them?

Hello Ria Barrett chief transportation official. this I think that the project that they're referring to is the South PaloAlto connectivity project and that we plan to bring that to PTC in November. Thank you. And just to clarify, we did have we did view that while you were out as well. Right. Picking back up again. Assistant Director Armor, do we have any agenda changes, additions, or deletions? No, we do not. All right, it's time for the official reports. Uh, and we'll begin with you, Miss Arber.

Thank you. As usual, just a brief presentation about your upcoming meetings. So, the next slide, your next two meetings will be on October 8th and October 29th. On the 8th, we are scheduled to bring back to you the proposed project at 660 University Avenue as well as consideration of a zoning code amendment request in regards to grandfathered uses uh sometimes referenced as the shrink wrap rule. Uh will be an interesting discussion. Then on the 29th, we have the potential of having three items um though some of them will be uh relatively short presentations. The first being a presentation by Samras about the Grand Boulevard uh project and effort. This is something that has been along El Camino Riale more broadly but at this time is just in San Mato but includes because there is the SAM trans connection to PaloAlto um includes that also an update about PaloAlto link and uh bringing back to you for initial discussion the retail revitalization as we work towards a permanent ordinance on that. On the next slide, we then have some of the items that are going to council or recently went. The conditional use permit recommended by the PTC for 400 Mitchell Lane was approved on consent by council and they held their pre-screening for 414 California Avenue on September 15th. And on Monday, September 29th, they are scheduled to have a couple of consent calendar items that are relevant to your work. Um, no attendance by the liaison is needed at that meeting. And then on October 6th, city council is scheduled to have their first look at the San

Antonio Road area plan, a follow-up to all of the commission and uh board and committee meetings that we've been having on that effort. And that concludes my presentation, but I'm available for questions. And we do have the chief transportation official here as well.

So in terms of transportation updates, uh we have a couple of things that are going to council in the near future. Quarry road extension. This is a project that was related to a ballot measure. Um there will be anou with Stanford going to city council on September 29th. Uh grade separation project. This is scheduled for a community meeting for uh Church Hill uh/SAL in addition to Meadow and Charleston. Um and those are scheduled for September 30th. Um there's one at 4 p.m. and then one at 6 p.m. for the different locations. And then the bicycle and pedestrian transportation plan, we plan to bring that in um in November. Um also we're in safe routes to school back to school season. There's a lot of road bike rodeos and other safety activities happening at the moment. Thank you, Miss Low. So, questions for from commissioners for our staff. Uh, beginning with Commissioner Templeton. Um, I have a couple of questions for you, but first you just mentioned bike rodeos, and I heard from a certain um, Girl Scout gold project graduate that the bike uh, project that she initiated with PaloAlto has just opened. Do you want to say anything about that?

Yes, thank you. Sorry, I should have added that to my list. So uh we have the city has opened the um the bike uh traffic garden at Ventura Community Center. Uh this was a project that was initiated by a student Nara Kamak I think that's how you pronounce her name. And u she'll be receiving a proclamation from city council and I think that is also is that the 29th as well? I'm not sure what the date is but sometime the next couple of council meetings.

That's pretty amazing. And I don't know if the commissioners that were here at the time remember when she came to present it to us and try to find some support and she found it with with the transportation department and the bike team. Uh and it's really wonderful that that has happened. Thank you for um mentioning the the commendation. Um, the other thing I wanted to mention is um something I haven't seen before, but the way it played out today felt like maybe it happens more often that I wanted to just mention to you and we can follow up with it. Um, I was at the Churchill intersection and most times I'm I'm uh with Alma, most times I go through that uh there's a train and so I understand what the traffic situation is, but this was a time in which no train was involved. Um, and there was a backlog of people trying to go forward. So the whole street was backed from El Camino all the way to Alma and the people trying to proceed across Alma uh towards El Camino were unable to get through and so they were sitting through the light and the people behind them who wanted to turn left didn't want to wait. So three or four cars went around them in the lane for traffic going the other direction to bypass them. And it was a little scary to watch because the people that were going straight were trying not to be stuck on the train tracks unable to move, but there was a lot of pressure from behind them to get out of the way so people could turn left. So, I just wanted to mention that since that's a use case um that is pretty dangerous for the people that were on bikes, the pedestrians. It was a very busy intersection this time of day, especially now that school's back in session. So, I don't know if that's something that you'd like us to talk about with the community or you would just want to proceed with, you know, looking at recommendations to make it safer, but I thought I'd bring it up. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Templeton. Commissioner G.

Thank you, Chair. Um, speaking of being blocked between Elman, El Camino, I also had that experience today, but at a different intersection and at the Meadow intersection, which um, as the commissioners know, I live over there. Um, and I previously have mentioned and I believe Commissioner Templeton also had this experience where uh, if we now that the signal is on the I guess the El Camino side of the train tracks, it doesn't necessarily always trigger the signal. And so on my way here today, I waited through multiple signals where there was no movement until we had a pedestrian hit the signal button at the bottom and that triggered the greens for the like going from the El Camino side across onto Alma. So that's something to to look into. Um and then I had another question about uh this is more of a general question. We can take it offline as well about um kind of the different routes that we're selecting for safe routes to school in terms of I in a previous version of the bike ped plan we identified certain intersections at of level of transit stress 4. Um but some of those are still on the safe routes to school. So just kind of a general comment, one that comes particularly to mind is the intersection at uh El Camino Way and El Camino at the Los Robas side. Um currently that is identified as a level of transit stress 4. But uh I personally used to bike through El Camino Way and I'm worried about um potential increased congestion or if we're still labeling that as a safe route to school and any changes we um have there. So just since that's you mentioned that as a topic, I just also want to bring up my concern about that. But happy to chat more about my experience offline as well.

Commissioner Templeton,

thank you. I just want to uh support those comments. I would really like to work on safety improvement. This is the intersection. I used to walk every day to get my son from Baron Park to school and I witnessed a collision with two girls that were biking to gun. um it really needs to be dealt with, but I I understand it requires inter agency cooperation. So, um trust that Senator Becker's office is ready when you are to talk about these things. So, if there's any things that we want to um to work on there, you know, that's that's the connection that the council has or that the staff has to be able to work those out. I'm not speaking on his behalf. I do no longer work on his staff, but I do know that they uh would like us to share any needs we have with them. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner G. Sorry, one other comment on that. Um since the addition of the key school also on that corner, it's become exceptionally busy kind of on El Camino way onto El Camino. Um, and I really appreciate the no right turn on red, although it's like a little bit more frustrating as a driver, but there just are so many kids there that I think it's important to have that. Um, just want to say those things. Um, thank you, Office of Transportation.

Any other questions for MRO? Seeing none, uh I believe it is time to proceed to our first agenda item. Uh study session to review the final conceptual design for the portion of the Crescent Park traffic calming project at Southwood and East Crescent.

Um so I'll be presenting this item and providing also a bit of context for the work as well. You can move to the next one,

yes. Um, we will have uh the staff presentation first and then clarifying questions if anyone on the commission has them and then it will be time for public comment. So, I'll uh give you a heads up when we're getting close. We can move to the There we go. Actually, you can move to the next one as well. You can move to Okay. Um so the goal of this item is to provide an opportunity for PTC to review the final um concept plans for the permanent installation of the Crescent Park traffic calming project and also to close the loop from a prior um PTC meeting in April when PTC had asked uh staff to meet with residents and then return with an update. So to provide some context um on this issue, traffic calming um in general and traffic uh and PaloAlto's traffic calming program in uh specifically um aims to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety and neighborhood livability by reducing traffic speeds, crashes and cut through traffic on particularly local streets but also collectors as well. So there's some foundational concepts. One of them is um the the public ride ofway needs to serve multiple functions and so it needs to work for a diverse range of users including pedestrians, bicyclists and drivers and um also provide clear cues uh for how to use the space, where to where to travel, uh where to look um and how fast to move. And so the design speed is also um a foundational concept as well. and the concept of risk homeostasis. So these concepts kind go hand in hand. So for example, instead of um having a very wide roadway and corners with a very large turning radius

which you could safely travel on as a driver at very high speed. Um the concept of design speed and risk homeostasis is to kind of narrow things up uh square things up a bit so that um the cues for drivers are to approach the space a little bit more slowly, bit more cautiously and be looking out for um for other types of users and also to um to have points where you really slow down and kind of observe where people are coming from and going to. We can go to the next slide. In terms of Crescent Park, um the project was initiated in 2018 and I so I apologize this is probably recap for most of you. Um and then there was um pilot implementation in 2021 after going to both to to the community um to PTC and to council and also of course the analysis and design that goes into that. In 2022, there was an evaluation and community engagement um which uh uh resulted in more than 70% support for the improvements to be made permanent. Um in 2023 June um the item came to PTC and was recommended to uh for to council uh to proceed with permanent with the design for the permanent installation. and it went to council in November of that year and council provided approval for the concept designs to proceed um to engineering design for permanent installation. So staff will be moving on to the engineering design and in the interim uh we've come back a a couple of times and done some uh supplementary community engagement and refined the designs a little bit and we can refine them a little bit more as we go into the engineering design. Um

and so that happened in in April of 2024 and actually also April of 2025. Uh I understand that there's some constonnation about um you know this is a study session today and the reason why this is labeled as a study session is because we already received council approval to proceed to the next steps and so no action is required from PTC or or from the council. Um but that that doesn't mean that we don't have leeway to you know to refine some of the design details as we move into the engineering design. And so within the framework of council direction you know staff can can make some of those you know design detail improvements. Um so in terms of the actual pilot this is uh there's a couple of locations. The first one is a Southwood and Crescent intersection. So you can see before the pilot on the left, uh it's a very very wide intersection. This corner on the right has a corner radius of seems like more than 100 ft. Um and typically what is recommended is between 10 and 20 in order to help motorists to slow down. So it's a really you can you can take this corner at a very high speed or could take it back in the day. Um also very long crossing distance for pedestrians crossing from one side to the other. And um so on the right hand side we have with the pilot installation you have a a new stop sign and then the bulb outs. It's quite a large bulb out at the moment. Um and um it's it squares up what the goal there is to square up the intersection so that motorists know that you can't just uh take that corner very quickly because there's also uh motorists coming from southward. Um so that could be a collision point as well and also um there's the stop signs as well to in to help

pardon me to help motorists to understand that the ride of way should be on the southward side. Um for the other location at center southwood and Hamilton um the before condition is shown on the left. It's a vast intersection with a lot of uh streets converging a lot of different conflict points and unclear right ofways. And then on the right hand side is the pilot condition uh with a roundabout and there's some temporary materials for kind of helping to channelize the um motorists as they're approaching the intersection. And roundabouts are um are proven safety actually both of these things are proven safety counter measures. Um they function to reduce speeds and to help to um you know inform drivers and provide the cues of where things are coming from and where things are going to. Um so next slide. Uh so just to recap, I understand that some of you are on PTC at this time, but um in terms of the pilot evaluation, uh the design uh successfully incorporated a number of proven safety counter measures um including the narrower um crossing distances, uh the the corner radi, squaring up the intersection and and roundabouts. Um there was also substantial reduction in vehicle volumes. Um and also that was an in absolute turns as well as uh comparing to controls. Uh there was a small reduction in vehicle speeds. Um and also that was a larger reduction than uh comparing to the controls and also a super majority of community support uh for for the for making these improvements permanent. Transportation projects always involve a balance of competing um interests and different uh users of the right of way

and um so typically for traffic calming uh staff would be very happy with a 60% support rate. So these levels of support uh you know we would consider these to be very high levels of support given all the different interests and perspectives in the community. Next slide. Um in terms of the um the uh permanent installation the concept design for the permanent installation um so the the idea is actually this should be number two that's fine so number two at Hamilton Center and Southwood um it's basically converting the temporary materials into permanent materials so they would be you know concrete um channelizers at each of those locations and then the roundabout with the with the concrete around it and plus landscaping for the other location which is location number one south southward drive and east crescent similar concept to convert the oh next slide to convert the um materials from temporary to permanent uh and to provide also landscaping materials and um there are four key design refinements that have been made since this design as well. So first of all, one of them is um reducing the size of the curb extension so it's a smoother turn for motorists. So you can see on the left here is what we have as the pilot installation and it actually kind of juts out into the street and um so kind of p pulling that back about 5 ft on on the right hand side is what is proposed um to provide a little bit more space but but while still achieving the project's goals of improving safety. Um secondly adding a pedestrian platform. So you can see near the what's the the the vehicle shown in this um image there's a pedestrian platform. This is similar to uh other neighborhoods throughout the

city um where pedestrians can access vehicles um from from the sidewalk. Um thirdly adjusting the curb alignment to accommodate on street parking and passenger loading uh post AB413. So AB413 um does not allow vehicles to be parked within 20 feet of the approach of an intersection. Um and if there's a curb uh a bulb out then it's a 15 ft distance. And so um if the curb ramp was in the former position then you actually couldn't park in that location based on AB413. And then fourthly also um the the uh project incorporates some drought tolerant and low height landscaping to improve visibility and aesthetics and align with neighborhood character. This also has potential to increase the permeable surfaces as well which has storm water um benefits. Uh we understand there's some anxiety and that not 100% of people are in favor of these improvements. Um and that's very normal for transportation projects. Um we're trying to you know to balance different different issues and it's an infill city so we don't have all the space you know in the world to um to to make improvements. So it's kind of working within what we have the space that we have and um project also involves change which is always always there's an adjustment period for the community as well. uh staff does recommend moving forward to the engineering design. Um and because the project has demonstrated success in achieving its goals, further delays to the project will increase construction costs. Um and also there are diminishing returns in terms of the

potential refinement of the design details. we can incorporate some more design detail refinements as we as we move into engineering design but I think there are diminishing returns in term and there's also some opportunity costs um because staff would like to move on to other other projects as well so um we're very understaffed at the moment so I think that that's also something worth considering so in terms of the next steps um they would include um preparing 100% um engineering drawings to incorporate uh those design refinements that referred to um initiating a construction phase for permanent installation and returning to council for review of the construction contract. Um I'll note that PaloAlto has really been a pioneer in the area of of traffic calming and has really kind of led the way nationally in terms of traffic calming improvements. And um this is also those improvements are part of what makes PaloAlto such a great place to walk and and to bike and kind of the the good balance of of all the modes here. And so um we're confident that this traffic calming um work in Crescent Park can help to continue that tradition, can balance the needs of different users and um can improve safety and reduce cut through traffic and and speed. Continue to do that in this neighborhood. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Lo. Uh, that was very useful. All right, clarifying questions from the commission. I have Commissioner Templeton, Commissioner James, and Commissioner Hecman in that order.

Thank you, Chair. Uh, thank you for a lovely presentation, and I appreciate all of the um guidance on on how to interpret this project. Um I've been here since the very beginning and um I think the conver all the conversations we've had have been productive. So um at first I want to just clarify uh what do you mean pilot? Um what I mean by pilot is that it's an interim we're using interim materials um and trying out the you know the treatments in this location. Is it like a proof of concept?

Um I think that's what pilot typically means. Yes. Okay. We'll come back to that letter. I'm just clarifying what you mean by that. Um, also can we go back to the chart that you showed about um neighborhood support? Yes, this one. Uh, what is the in in these? How many people were involved in providing this feedback?

Oh, I'm not sure. Um, let me see. Uh, I think there's a couple of people online who may be able to. So, it looks like for the Southwood Crescent, it could be four people with one disagreeing and three agreeing. So, we we'd need to know um since it's not exactly 25 and 75, it's unlikely that that's the number, but it would be helpful to know and we can also come back to that later. It'd be a question I would love to have an answer to later. Um, and did you do any um filtering at all on the type of people that you received responses from? for example, people whose access to their home was being affected versus people who were not being affected in I assume it's people who use the intersection, not people that would be filterable uh in any other way.

So the the traffic calming program has um has guidance on who to incorporate. So it's not it's not everybody who's using the intersection. It's just I don't need an explanation. I just want to know who it is. Okay. like if if you don't know, we can come back to that when you have the information. But I want to know what neighborhood support means. Um because that will um very likely come into play in our discussion. So if we could get a a clear answer of what neighborhood support means, that would be super helpful for the rest of our conversation. Thank you very much. Thank you, Commissioner James.

Um yes, thank you. Um, you know, you know, my man on the street sort of view of this is that um, you know, everybody wants the the same outcome and largely what um, the sticking point is um, or one of them anyway is frankly just the appearance and how sort of big the bulb out is compared to to what it was before. And I guess um I know there's just an awful lot of sort of uh guidance and standards and restrictions on ramps and whether they need to be straight or where they need to be and and and and so forth, but I actually brought my I brought my French curve from drafting.

And I know there's a whole lot of ways that you can can can connect two points. Um, and I guess uh my question is are we sure or or is there how could we get to the the result we need with the minimum amount of bulb out? Is there is there you know h have h have we looked at that you know it seems to follow you you know the the street line uh from Southwood Drive but is that essential? Is there is there some other way to connect that outer point and that stop sign to the curb that would just slim it down even more? I know you've slimmed it down already, but I just wonder if there's some kind of radical um solution that would still have it functioning

and just I I feel like maybe we've looked at engineering from strictly from a function standpoint and is there anything more we can do from an aesthetic design standpoint that would achieve the same goal

uh but um maybe be more respectful to to the front yard where of the gentleman who whose whose house is right here at this ball. So that's really my question. I mean I would I would love to get some, you know, insight into whether is that is that doable? Is that naive? Is it is there some other more graceful line that would that would still, you know, past the point of of of slowing the traffic that would make that u more aesthetically pleasing?

I think that's possible. I I I think we can take another look at at the size of the bulb out. Yeah. And also on the N it was 114. Thank you very much. Anything about the filters? Uh not yet. Okay. Anything else? Commissioner James? No, thank you. I have Commissioner Hexman, Vice Chair Chang, Commissioner Peterson, and then Commissioner G. So, Commissioner Hecman, you're up.

Thank you. the design that the council has authorized the transportation department to move forward with, is that the same design that we saw um the last time it was at the PTC or were there modifications after it left us? So, the modifications would be incorporated into the engineering design, but what was planned in terms of additional modifications is to straighten that curb slightly um uh where the uh platform is. Actually, can you go slide 10, I think.

Okay, that sounds good. Um, so that you can pull up, you know, flush with the curb and make sure that you can, you know, stop right there on on the on the side. Yeah. Right where that vehicle is, uh, to make sure that you can get the car all the way to the curb and like like at a bus stop, for example. Okay. All right. Um, that's helpful. Um, next question. the the staff report at packet page 10 describes and and we're looking at the image now the this extension from the curb to the I'm sorry from the sidewalk to the blue car um is referred to as a concrete pad

and I just wanted to make sure I understand the term. So that's B it's a it's a flat piece of concrete that that connects the sidewalk uh and basically terminates at the curb which is a I suspect a standard curb. Is that right? Yes. Could you go to slide 19? We have a lot of these throughout the city. So here are a couple of examples. Okay.

Yeah. All right. So and so I do understand the term correctly. All right. And then the the last sort of clarifying question um you know it's clear from the staff report that that um engineering department is one of their constraints or or guidelines is if you will is this needs to be ADA compliant. Yes.

And the staff report uh declares that it is and I believe it is. But I'm I'm wondering I think it might be helpful to the commission if you can help us understand you know how it's ADA compliant and and so that so the question I had is how does a mobility impaired person at this location get from the sidewalk into a car at this location using presumably that concrete ramp. So maybe just kind of walk us through those steps. Um, so they would pull up to the vehicle and and be able to step on as if they were stepping onto a bus.

Okay. Can we go back to slide 10? Right. So, this may just be the scale or the drawing is inexact, but but to to me it looks like this concrete ramp will meet the car kind of in the middle of the front passenger side fender. Mhm.

So, that if if I open the door at that location, the the the door is basically going to be blocking the concrete ramp. And and so again, it could be just the way this drawing is done, but to be consistent with what your intention is, is a car could pull up like this blue car is, it could open the front door and the disabled person could move from the concrete ramp into the passenger seat. Is that the idea? Uh that is the idea. the the location of the the pad is based on the current location of the ramp. Um so perhaps that could be tweaked slightly. Okay. So

the angle is slightly different but um so I would um that perhaps should be looked at because again that was my impression is this was the intent of the design and so we want to make sure that the intent meets the reality. Yeah, those are my questions clarifying questions. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Professor Ch.

Uh, so my first question is about AB413. Um, so let's say that there were no bulbout and the current sidewalk were maintained. Does AB413 then require us to still update the ramp if no additional work is being done? Yeah, we would need to update the ramp because we would be removing like the stop sign that's there at the moment. And so the current ramp is not consistent with current ADA standards. I think it was probably consistent with the standards at the time. But don't we have ramps all over the city that are not consistent? And so what is it about this?

Because we're doing because when you do work then you need to bring things up to standard up to code, right? If we weren't doing any work because there were no berm there or no bull bout then do we still need to bring it up to standard? My understanding is that like removing the stop sign or that sort of thing would still be considered work. That's that's my understanding of of the requirement.

But if we kept the stop sign because that's the whole point. We want to slow the traffic down then there would be no work. Is is that correct? So we would be move I mean if you're removing the the bulb out the stop sign is actually in the street if if we're going back to the original design of the street. Okay. So because the stop sign would need to be moved then that would be considered be doing work on the entire intersection in which case any ramp leading to the intersection would need to be updated. That's my understanding.

Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. Um my second question is could you go to the data slide with the two bar charts and I want to ask is that the same data that the PTC saw on June 14th 20? Yes, that is the same. And then it was collected in fall of 2022. Is that correct?

Yes. So at the time um both the report fair the fair and peers report said that we can't separate the pandemic and project effects and that was confirmed um by Mr. the engineer Mr. AIA who presented to us at the time saying that we can't say with great certainty that the effects of the reduction in vehicle volumes and the potential reduction in vehicle speed were due to um the were actually due to the project. Is this the only data that we have demonstrating the success of the pilot? Uh, I believe so. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Peterson. So, I have a quick question. Uh, I looked through here and I thought I saw it. Um, where's the table with the number of vehicle trips per day broken down into morning and evening? Um that would be from the report in 2023 and it was in the fair and pierce um attachment to that report. Um do we have that in the packet? It would be referenced in the packet. It wasn't um an attachment to this clickable referenced or right that's what I was getting at is do I have it access I wasn't here in 2023. So,

so on packet page 10, um there are links to where you can find those previous reports um including the November 6th, 2023 council report online page 10 page. Yeah, okay. Correct. There are links on packet page nine and packet page 10. Can you Okay. Can you give me give me the number? It's in the footnote, right? Are we talking about footnote three, four, five, or six? Just so I don't have to click on all of them.

Footnotes uh one and two on the first page of the staff report. One and two. And footnotes looks like they're labeled five and six on the second page of the staff report. Do we know which one of those has the report or should I just look through?

Actually, can we I think it was the June 14th, 2023. When we come back for discussion on it, can we just put it up on the screen? Maybe maybe that's the easier way. Okay. Um we can try and locate it. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner G. Thank you, Chair. Um, my question is similar to Vice Chair Changs. Do you mind pulling up the slide with the blue car that we keep talking about?

Um, I'm just going to start asking my question so we can be prepared. Um, uh, do you mind kind of telling us a little bit more about what the so kind of in line with Vice Chair Chang's question, what if we didn't do any work look like here and like how which sections are impacted by the state bill or impacted by Say that again and which so uh you I think you mentioned 15 ft with the bulb out. Can you just uh help me understand if we did no work on this section what the kind of current state would be?

So to go back to something which is kind of resembling the original you would um eliminate the stop signs and you would eliminate the bulb out and that pad that is near where the car is. That would become the um the curb ramp. So you would need to make that ADA compliant and then that becomes the crosswalk. So that that would be there would be a crosswalk from there to the other side and so then you would need a 20ft section for the approach of that where you couldn't park.

Um and also so okay here um so I'm just going to hopefully draw really quickly. Um sorry folks the the drawing workshop will happen soon. Um okay uh let me undo that. Okay. So, what you're saying here is that then this would become uh is that visible? Yes. Okay. So, this would become the crosswalk. Is that correct? Yes. And then we would basically have a a no parking zone over here. Let's wait for it to show up. Yeah. So, of 20 ft because there's no wall.

Correct. At in the previous Okay. And then also in front in front of this section would there be any impact as well? Like is there no parking in front of the intersection? Correct. Because that would be considered inside the box of the intersection. Okay. And that would also be 20 ft. No, you can't park inside an intersection.

I guess yes, even though it's Yes, because I understand. Okay. So with that and then um Okay. So is with is is there a world in which for example we actually don't have a bulbout but then we just put a crosswalk say over here and then the crossing is like this and then the blue car is now outside the intersection and this this distance here is like more than 20 and so then we can keep whatever's there. Is that a possibility?

Um, I think anything is a possibility, but this might not achieve the project goals because you have that initial issue of the very wide turning radius and the Okay. So, so it would still have the impact of the radius, but if we were to put a stop sign there, hypothetically, people would stop at the stop sign. Yeah, that's possible.

So, okay. So I guess I'm just wondering if this I if all the math worked out here that such that you could put a ramp at whatever the original the spot I've identified over here then you could hypo then would the ramp that's now being filled in would that have to have work be done to it because vice chair Chang's comment is that the work is being done on the intersection but if we put the a ramp on the far side would that ramp still need to get filled in because it's now outside the intersection. Yeah, but the city doesn't provide ramps where we don't recommend that pedestrians cross because it sends the wrong cues in terms of where you cross the street.

But right now there already exists a ramp. So we so even if we decide to like that this now ramp is outside of the intersection, we would still need to oh fill fill it in. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. That's all. Right. I will uh jump in here with my uh one uh clarifying question and then we'll move on to Commissioner Templeton. Um so so uh at some point I would like to understand the regulatory context a little better because what I'm hearing I think is that now that the pilot project has been built there is no possible way forward that doesn't involve eliminating the ramp that Mr. Guran currently uses. Is that correct? Yeah, I think that's my understanding.

Okay, I don't need this immediately, but for future reference, it will be nice to know uh the regulatory basis for that so that we can apply it to projects in the future. Okay. Yeah, it's it's to do with ADA. So, this was the direction that we got in relation to ADA,

right? But I just I find it difficult to believe that a case like this is actually covered explicitly by ADA. So there must be some um train of reasoning that justifies it and I'm just curious as to what that is. So I can address that briefly and um I think it's what um the director mentioned earlier which is uh you know we don't have an obligation to immediately uh bring all of our intersections up to code uh up to current ADA standards but when we are doing some capital work on an intersection at that point we do have to bring everything up. So in this intersection um you know there were temporary uh changes installed um and in some way we are going to have to convert those temporary measures into a permanent um configuration. And so that work, whatever it is, whatever the permanent configuration looks like, is going to be work that triggers bringing everything in that intersection up to the current ADA standard.

Right? That's the easy case. The question that I'm driving at there is if it's returned to its original configuration so that there is in effect no work done is it still the case that we need to upgrade the ramps uh to meet ADA requirements? Yes, because returning it to its original configuration is in itself work. Okay. And uh at some point in the future I could use a reference just so I can get educated about the the uh consequences of that. No need for it at the moment. All right, Commissioner Templeton.

Um yeah, I had originally pressed that button because I wanted to speak after public comment, but now that you asked those questions, I have another clarifying question. I'm going to go back to my first question. What do you mean by pilot? Because now it sounds like you mean permanent from the beginning. Any alterations at all to the intersection now start a whole cascade of changes that are now required to be you can't stay or revert back to their original state. Is that now what you mean by pilot? Well, I think that they're interim. Um, but it is trying out the proof of concept with a with minimal cost.

Right. But you but with the understanding that the commitment has not yet been made and what you're saying is any work at all was an implied commitment that the intersection will be brought up to code and I just want to make sure that we're all on the same page because I think that is the source of the confusion and I would love for you to clarify that and then we can go to public comment and I would have my rest of my comments at that time.

I I would love for you to clarify that. Okay. So, um so the pilot is it it provides interim improvements um to to try out a concept with minimal cost. Um but we do need to comply with ADA. So that's kind of been I think the tricky thing for this project is that then reverting we still need to comply with ADA because that is when you say try out

it's one of the features of the ADA jumping in that you can't you know that I guess what you're pointing out is one of the features of the of the ADA is that you can't uh in you can't retain [Music] a non-compliant uh you can't try something out and also keep a non-compliant feature. Thank you for clarifying that. I think that is definitely something we should talk more about when we get to the discussion phase. Thank you. Any further clarifying questions?

All right. If not, then it is time for public comment. Uh we have three minutes per speaker or 15 minutes for a group of five or more if there are any groups tonight. So Mr. Divera, do we have public speakers?

Yes. Um through the chair, we have uh at the moment uh four public speakers uh one in person and three via Zoom. I'll invite our first public speaker to the mic. It is James G. James G, you may now speak. My name is Jim Sherand and I'm the corner coowner of the home at 590 East Crest Drive. East Crest is a narrow treeine street shaded by Magnolia's one of the most beautiful streets in Palo Alto. My wife David and I moved here after excuse me after leaving the Air Force. I was an early employee here at Packard. After nearly two decades of hard work, we were able finally to purchase this home, Nita's Dreamhouse. She lovingly restored and expanded it and we raised three daughters here. For many years, it was the heart of our happy family. Need and I were active at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Palo Alto where I still attend. Nita passed away after a brave battle with cancer. Since then, I faced my own health issues. I can no longer drive and I rely on caregivers, but I still make make it to the pallet of Y to stay active and connected. I only learned about the burn project the day the temporary structure went up in front of my house. No one from the city, the office of transportation or Greg Welch, who calls himself the neighborhood representative, contacted me. That's hard to believe, especially since I've since learned two that two similar projects in Processor Park were withdrawn after presidents raised questions. I was never given that opportunity. The Burm immediately disrupted access to my house. Getting in and out of cars is now difficult and even dangerous, especially for someone my age. Parking in the driveway means walking twice the distance or navigating stairs without a handrail. These things

matter when mobility is limited. After it went up, I spoke with neighbors who live closest to it. Most of us have been at this intersection for decades, and many are seniors. Nearly everyone disliked the BM and felt it didn't add value. I submitted a letter of objection signed by 10 of these neighbors to the OT. It was ignored. Later, I learned the Burm would be subject to a Crescent Park neighborhoodwide vote, not one reflecting the sentiments of those most affected. Once again, this feels like a deliberate effort to silence our voices. I ask this commission to take meaningful action. Please remove the merm and install three stop signs instead. You'll likely hear from Greg Welch. Well, I gonna keep it in front of my house. I wonder how strongly he'd feel if it were in front of his own. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Any questions? Uh we typically don't uh take questions from commenters, but thank you. um to ask questions. I'll have commenters, pardon me, to the chair. Our next speaker is Lori G. Uh Lori G, you may now speak.

My name is Lori Gerand and I am a part owner of 590 East Crescent Drive. I only learned of this meeting this morning and I have previously received nothing from the city notifying me of actions in this matter. I suspect other owners of properties on East Crest and Southwood have similarly not been informed. And the Office of Transportation's repeated citations quoting neighborhood quote supermajorities unquote or quote all those responding unquote represent feeble efforts on the part of staff to reach neighboring homeowners, some of whom are bedridden or dying, most of whom who have lived in the neighborhood for decades. Who are these 114 people who supposedly use this intersection? OT's efforts regarding this intersection are founded on sand based on complaints, including perhaps those of pedestrians who cross Southwood wherever, this intersection was swept up into the traffic calming exercise for all of Crescent Park. Evidence collected in the earliest studies showed the 85th percentile speed on East Crescent within 1.3 miles of 25 miles per hour, which is the legal speed limit through most Palo Alto neighborhoods. There was zero evidence of unusual accidents in the area. Basically, the only problem was complaints. Unless the complaints come from a billionaire on Edgewood, his employees, guests who attend his parties, and the staff and families of students of his school, the people who just happen to care about how wide the turning radius is at that intersection. If the problem were in fact one of calming traffic, the city should have first introduced missing crosswalks and speed humps. The city also has the option of making East Crescent a one-way street. Instead, prejudiciously, OT has attacked a single property supposedly on behalf of many, but actually on behalf of those on Edgewood. OT claims that people responding to its inquiries like this abomination. Yet, its own data shows that there hasn't been much change in the speed on East Crescent. In fact, the percentiles hide other important data such as wind speeds are high, but

OT isn't sharing any of that data, even under P requests. Let's face it, from the start, the bulb out at this intersection was a bad idea. For over seven years, OT has ignored all other less expensive and easier to maintain options. It has ignored a hundred years of history at this intersection. It has made excuses for declining traffic during the pandemic. It doesn't acknowledge that all other bulboutouts in Palo Alto do not obliterate the front yards of houses. City staff are trying to evade bringing ADA ramps up to standards. Really, I respectfully suggest that undue influence and bias have played a role in this process and that by allowing this plan to move forward, no matter how tired you are of hearing about it, you would be setting a dangerous and ugly precedent of targeting specific homes based on anonymous complaints, not facts. OT staff made this decision in 2018. In 2025, those who represent the citizens and homeowners of Palo Alto should demand city staff provide sensible solutions to complaints of distant homeowners unsubstantiated by any data.

Um, our next speaker is Lisa W. Lisa, you may now I'm Lisa L. Lisa, you may now speak.

Thank you. I would like to point out that my sister Wanita Gogggins is also trying to get into the Zoom and has been unable to do so and I would like her to have the opportunity to speak. I want to start off by saying that we received the uh uh transportation department's uh staff memo one hour before this meeting was to start and I have to say that appears that the commission was prompted by the commission raising questions of of the OT staff and in response the OT has now said that they don't need your vote to move forward with the project. I have to say for the record how outrageous it is that is as a citizen that once the commission presents with the OT with questions about the the burm the OT decides that the commission no longer has authority to vote on this measure. Who does the OT answer to? They do they have plenary power to implement whatever measures they want without responding to input of the PTC and neighbors impacted by their costly and unnecessary projects. I also want to address some of the questions that the commission has raised before they open it up for your session. One question that you raised was Commissioner James was how can we get to a result with a minimum amount of bulb out and in response the head of the OT said something like well I think it's possible I would like to note for the record that twice before the commission has asked them to change the bulb out to make it smaller to come up with redesigns both in June 2023 and again in April 2025 and each time they never did in fact they've only doubled down on their existing design and now it stripped you from your authority to pro provide any input. I also would like to point out, as one of the commissioners noted with the image with the car, that there is no way that my father, who not only relies on caregivers, but relies on Uber drivers, will be able to get out of his car from the backseat of a of that car. In addition, you all have pointed out the ADA issues with this project. I find it implausible that the installation of temporary measures, which have now been in front of the House for four years, did not trigger the ADA requirements, a law that's been in effect since 1990. I do not understand how suddenly taking out those

measures would trigger the ADA, but installing them, leaving them there for four years did not. Last, I'd like to point out that there is a solution that would allow my father to still access his house and that cement walkway. They could simply, as they've said they're willing to do with the Burm, make the ramp a concrete pad. That will then eliminate any notion of it being a quote crosswalk, which everybody is concerned about. We need a solution here that allows my father to have access to his house. um we have submitted a letter that has detailed um statements about why we are against this process. The first point and unfortunately I don't have time to respond to all those things because of the last minute 11th hour memo that the transportation department submitted but the first point is that the the whole purpose of this measure was to calm traffic and as you have noted the data that they have submitted which was measured at the end of or the fall of 2022 is marred. Their own consultants state that the data is inconclusive that there is no way of showing that this ridiculous bulbout that it's been called bizarre and unsightly and unacceptable and they've told been told to redo there's no way that that is responsible for the decreased traffic on East Crescent. It is simply a matter of COVID and the ma the fact that very few people are now traveling to work and no longer are using the street as a cutthrough. The third second point I want to point out is that we were not ever asked for our opinion.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Daniel H.

Hi there. Daniel Hansen live on edge with drive have for 24 years. Um uh I drive or we drive these intersections all the time. have we do virtually every day and I can tell you that East Crescent the way it was worked fine. I never saw an issue with it. It has a natural calming to it. Uh the way it is originally designed because it's very narrow tends to be cars parked along it. So one way kind of makes sense to me but u the way it was uh I didn't see any issue with it. So uh maybe just keep it the way it was. Um so I'm here to support my neighbor. I think uh we should do everything we can to make sure he has access to his house. And also in terms of the survey, I wasn't asked about this. Um maybe you, you know, broaden this out, include the whole Crescent Park neighborhood, Green Meadow, everybody within reach of these intersections. The fiveway intersection, that one makes some sense to me. It's always been clumsy. Uh it's always been hard to navigate. So having the um I guess it's a roundabout now or however it is seems to work the way it's currently done and I think the design seems to work there. So that's my two cents. Thank you

um to the chair. I have no more raise hands on Zoom and no more speaker cards for this item. Okay. We had one person trying to get in and I take it that was not successful. Um through the chair um that individual has her hand raised now. Um what do you accept? Then I think in this case we should take that comment. You may um Nita G you may now speak.

Hi thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak. I we had a plan but it sounds like it's sort of gone out of order. Um so my apologies. Um I'll try to go through what was a six minute speech split split between two of us to a three minute split speech covered by one of us. Um the fir we're basically what our we're here to urge you to reject the proposed permanent burm. Um the first point is the data does not support the burm. The intersection at East Crest and Southwood has always been safe. According to the city, the intersection has no record of accidents or citations. Speeds are and have always been low. Despite this record of safety, the OT determined that it would install a burm at the intersection as part of its sweeping plan to reduce the volume and speed of vehicles in Crescent Park. The OT study comparing pre and post pilot data at the intersection was flawed for two reasons. First, pre-pilot data uh measured pre-COVID data. Postpilot data measured postcoid data when traffic volume had declined across Palo Alto. Um there's a lot more details go uh that I I'm going to just gloss over because I think you all are aware of of of them. Um the findings from fair and pier show a slight increase in speed post pilot volume changes higher in the morning lower in the afternoon were attributed to COVID. The efficacy of the pilot was deemed inconclusive. These facts are all contained in the faren peers uh post-pilot study. But in in contrast to the conclusion of its own consultants, the OT falsely and repeatedly claimed that the burm improved safety, reduced volume, and reduced speeds in its presentations to the city council and the planning and transportation commission. We believe that these misrepresentations played a critical role in convincing certain members of the city council and the commi commission to support the burm. The second important point is that the

burm makes life more dangerous for our father. He no one can safely drop him off at the curb from the OT's own drawing slide 10. Our father can only safely exit a vehicle by sitting in the if the car is sitting in exact spot in the and he is sitting in the front seat of that car. Our f further our father's path to his front door from his driveway is now twice as long is twice as long and unsafe. The burm creates a tripping hazard when entering and exiting cars. The narrowed roadway causes unnecessary traffic conflict. Um third point that as I think you're beginning to realize is that we were left out of the process. My father canvased the neighborhood as soon as he learned. He got 10 people to sign his petition and the OT ignored the petition and instead put it out to a a Crescent Parkwide vote where where hundreds of people were solicited for input, not just the people who were stakeholders in that neighborhood. So the 10 people close to the Burm, they rejected it, but when you put it out to such a wide vote, all sorts of people say, "Yeah." Anyway, I' I've got a lot more to say, but I appreciate your listening to me today. And uh thank you so much for your time and thank you for your your concern and your attention to this matter.

Thank you. And through the chair uh while she spoke, there was one more hand raised. So, I did want to let you know um I think maybe it's time to cut off the public comment so we can proceed with discussion. Okay, no worries. Thank you. Right. So before we uh start the the uh commission discussion, I just wanted to make a a framework setting comment. Um when this project last came before us back in April, it was classified as an action item and we didn't complete it. We continued it eventually to a date uncertain. Tonight, as has been commented, it's been reclassified as a study session. So, we will not be making a formal motion and taking a formal vote. Um, I am told. However, however, I really want to see us take a poll informally if necessary when this is done, when our discussion is done, so that we can give council a very clear statement of our intent. So that's the the target that I'd like us to aim for. In the meantime, let's begin the discussion. Commissioner Templeton,

thank you very much, Chair. Um, I like that idea and I would love a little bit more clarity if you have about did council take an action in between when we continue and today that has resulted in us not having this as an action item or is that a staff question?

Over to you, Miss Armor. No, it was a clarification. Um the previous direction from council actually should have led to a study session at the previous um discussion with PTC is my understanding. Yeah. Um so it was more that it was a correction from how this should have previously been scheduled. Seems like we're going to be talking a lot about how things should have been done tonight. Thank you for that. Um, all right. So, I've got a few things on my list and I appreciate the indulgence of my peers. Um, so we did talk about the proof of concept and how this uh initial project was buil to the community. Um, and as a pilot, uh, with the implication, uh, whether I don't know if it was explicitly stated or just understood in terms of using that word that it could be undone. Um, I take I I'm very concerned that that's not the case because one of the things that we love to do with our transportation partners is to try things. And if we're not able to try things and admit that some of them don't work, we're gonna spend a lot of your time, as you were mentioning earlier, all the extra time you have to spend is is just going to get much much more because then we're going to feel like it has to be perfect before we can buy in. And I think that is very counterproductive in terms of being responsive as a um as a governing body. So, you know, that's something that we would love to pass along uh through you uh to to the council that um we need to make sure we understand that and of

course that's in partnership with our um legal council as well. Um, okay. So, we it looks like we had a large number of people that live in the neighborhood participate in the survey who might be using the roads, but um we are unable to determine which um of those how that response table looks with people who are personally affected by the construction. Is that right?

Um so, I received more information. So there was 114 in the whole neighborhood and um the 78% was from that whole area. There was 25 in the immediate neighborhood who responded to the second question and that was the 74% support rate. Um so we're not able to filter out uh the people who are person whose properties are personally affected by the construction. I think the 25 would be personally affected. That would be the immediate Does the chart look like for those 25? What do you mean by chart?

The balance. Are you saying that all the people who said no represent that 26%. The um hang on, let me just look at that. So there were there were two uh questions and the first one was for the 114 respondents and the second question was for the 26 respondents. who both of those both of those responses were in the 7525 range. Who are I'm sorry I Is there a visual for that or can you are you saying if Could you please put the slide up? That would be great. Slide eight.

So you're saying 26 of the 114 were people that live in close proximity to the intersection and are affected by the construction? No. So the uh in this diagram and Ripen feel free to chime in if I'm if I'm not getting this correct. So um in this diagram actually maybe is he a panelist? Okay. Um did you want to chime in Ripen?

Good afternoon. Um good evening uh commissioners uh Batia senior engineer with office of transportation. So these two surveys shows two different um um uh the the two different locations. But within the south uh southward and crescent uh we also looked into a a a filtered out the residents which is within the immediate vicinity of the neighbor uh within of this intersection. And that results of the 25 um residents who live in that neighborhood who responded to those uh comments uh to those surveys uh 75 74% of those also were in favor of the to proceed forward with these improvements. Um

so the subset of item one which was to be looking filtering out only the ones who live within the immediate vicinity which is maybe going 50 or 100 ft on both all sides and looking into that uh direction and looking at those would be the 25 homes maybe three four homes on southward three four homes on the southward and this side and then on the east crescent and so all of them were surveyed Mr. Bontia, um I think what I'm asking is people whose properties are adjacent to the construction and I'm pretty sure that's one people and in this room saying that he did not get surveyed.

No, the survey was sent out. I I don't want to It's okay. You don't have to respond to that. I'm asking No, that one person that that one person you're already seeing that that person is not in favor, right? So I'm not sure if that survey results needs to be uh to that that for one person you already know what that is. Thank you.

Thank you. Um so I I think we have circled back to what the real problem is is that there's a person whose property and access to that property is directly affected. And at our last meeting, our direction to you was, "Please come back when you have come to an agreement with him." And it sounds like you have a revision, but no agreement. So, I'm trying to figure out how how it's back here yet if they're not satisfied. And I wonder if you have an answer to that before I go into my next point. Um, so staff did reach out and have a conversation, but we were not able to come to agreement.

Okay. Thank you. That's really important to know because that is the essence of what we're dealing with is a very sad and frustrating situation of um person that's been a part of this community for a very long time and has given to this community and been instrumental in you know living in this neighborhood and forming this neighborhood and seeing it through many decades. Um he's also you know served our country. He mentioned like these are these are things that that we are benefiting from and that we have created what it looks like was meant as a pilot to try something out as you said and now we're unable to go back and what one of the the arguments I'm hearing here from the city is um kind of the sunk cost fallacy which I'm sure you guys have heard of but if you haven't that's throwing good money after bad. Well, we've already spent all this money designing this. We've had this pilot. We've gotten data, but we found out unfortunately that this has a critical flaw. And no, none of the charts are showing that that the there's a critical flaw that one of the homeowners is prevented from accessing his home. And that is that is an overriding concern that I'm guessing when council approved this. They were not advised of this. Um it sounds like even the homeowner was not advised of this project early on. So we have a communication issue. We'll put that to the side for now. But my concern is can what can we do about this person who is personally affected in his ability to use his own property in a way that doesn't leave this city

at risk. If we continue forward on a path that we know is going to prevent a person from using their property or put them in risk of harm, that puts the city in a dangerous financial situation and we don't want to do that. None of us are here to put people in harm's way. We are all here to work with you to make things safer and I know that's the intention. So, I'm not trying to say it's not the intention, but the reality is we tried something and it's not working and we've been unable to reach agreement um on how to move forward. So, there's a couple of thoughts that I have on uh attempted approaches that might work. Uh however, we'll see what other people have. It sounds like there's a lot of good ideas here that we can share with you, but in in the end, um, we need Mr. Duran to be able to access his home safely and our project needs to cooperate uh with him as u a condition of approval that we would recommend to the council. Okay. Um, a couple of the ideas. One is uh I drive uh my daughter down to a voice lesson in San Jose and they have this separate lane where you can kind of pull out of the intersection and the flow of traffic to access the little stripe of road in front of the homes. This prevents people turning in and out of their driveways from entering the roadway. Um, I'm wondering if we can do something like that. One of the things we have not uh looked at in terms of designs would be um making that lane in front of the houses not part of the box

if and I it looks you're giving me a look like maybe that's not clear enough. Um another oops another example of that is on Alma at Meadow right in front of the apartments there right by the grocery outlet. Um there's a little lane that is separate from Alma because nobody wants people coming in and out of uh driveways uh at that part of Alma due to the big intersection. So if you were looking for a solution to allow someone to continue using the curve as it is without any changes, that might be a way to do it. It would narrow the intersection. it would provide a physical barrier between that drive path and the road quote unquote. Um, that's something to look at. And then the other thing to look at is that we heard um uh from Mr. Yang that we are required to comply with ADA regulations if we do anything even a pilot. And I'm wondering what is the consequence if we return it to normal? Is that a fine? Is that fine lower than the cost of re-engineering this thing over and over and over again? Um, and the third option is what if we delay? What if we take this project and put it on a shelf for a decade? like remove the temporary situation, put it back to normal, have a project ready that would comply that could be built 10 years from now instead of tomorrow.

So, those are all my suggestions. Um, I'd love to hear other people's ideas. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Peterson. I think Commissioner uh Templeton made a great idea there that you know whatever we do propose to do we put it on the stack and I don't know how long it takes to get projects done but last time I checked it's usually quite a while once they're uh designed put out for bid and all the rest. Um, so the point I wanted to make is that in the data set, if you go all the way back to I think I'm in 20 22 here, somewhere in there, it actually increased traffic by peak.

It went from uh uh if you look at the Can we put the map up real quick? Just Google map or something. Yeah, doesn't have to be a good map. this Google Maps and I think I know why maybe it did that but it ends up if you split it because it ends up being a northbound southbound problem. It's not the same street you're going northbound and southbound on it. So I think Commissioner Peterson was asking if we could pull up a Google map. Yeah, we're good. Yes, we're working on that.

We'll take a break. And then just to to do a spoiler what I'm going to get is, you know, there's a major major employer that probably is where people are driving to and from if we start looking at where are people going. So let's zoom out. Let's just take a big view of Palo Alto. And let's see what's on the north side of Palo Alto. Kind of to the left of all this. Keep going out. Oops. Keep trying to use my hands. Peter's going slow. There it goes. Now we're going to zoom out to the whole world. And so all this is zooming. So north is the right side of the street and southbound is the left side of the street. Correct. Okay. Because I wasn't sure, you know, the which way is actually north here. I can never figure out. Because all the cars, as best I could tell, they were heading northbound. Seems to be the big problem in the afternoon, which means they're coming from someplace on the left.

Do you want me to move anywhere else? We're getting there. They're trying to get around, right? And maybe on university they're trying to get around Willow Road, which I understand Willow Road is a little bit of a gridlock. Let's see. You going to zoom out some more? It looks like people are driving down Hamilton. They're trying to get from university. And where are they coming from? What's at the other end of university? I think a spoiler is in order here just to move things along.

All right. So, it's Stanford University. There's a big employer there. They got like 10,000 employees down on the other to the left there. So, it turns out they're also trying to figure out their own traffic because they've got 10,000 employees leaving every day in the afternoon earlier and earlier trying to beat traffic. They're on Willow. They're everywhere. Apparently, they're going front of our applicant's house. Uh about 90 cars at at peak are driving by there and they're going northbound, but the the the what do we call this thing? The bulbous. Bulby. Sounds like it sounds like we're talking like a dolphin or something. It's it's uh is on the on the south side of the street, southbound. The cars going northbound aren't even affected by it. And I think that's why it showed your the number of vehicles increased from uh let's see 52 pre-pilot to 70 depends on how you look at it. Northbound 37 to 34. It didn't really seem like it it made a difference there. And then in the afternoon it changed it from 157 cars to 91. But in that same time frame, Stanford moved all their campus staff up to Redwood City as well to solve the traffic problems they were causing in Palo Alto. So that could be why if we went out there and did a study right now, we would probably find there's still no problem because thousands of employees have been moved to Redwood City.

So just want to put that out for discussion. Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Peterson. Commissioner G. followed by vice chair Chang button. Um, thank you, Chair, and apologies to the commission for jumping a little bit ahead of the curve during clarifying questions. I think um, as Commissioner Templeton mentioned, we all have some interesting ideas to put forward. Um, I did have a question um, about the the slide deck presented by staff specifically. I don't remember which slide you referred to it on, but you said that there were changes in the control like you said that there were speed reductions. What was the control?

That was referring to university because because of the concerns about pandemic travel changes, there was also a comparison to university. So for speed as well, is that also looking at university? Yes. Well, that's so we're not looking at the speed at this intersection that we're discussing in particular. Right. So, so, so right. So, we're I guess maybe can you clarify exactly what that the studies were that for the numbers that you presented so I can make sure I'm

um so there were there was speed was analyzed at I think 11 intersections and some of them related to specific areas um within the study area and then some of them were for university. So those were used more like controls. Okay. Um, and then just to clarify, no new data was collected about the intersection because I know uh, Commissioner Peterson just mentioned that there was some changes between 20 like during the pandemic period, but since that 2022 data collection, there still has been no new data collected. Is that correct? Yeah, that's correct.

Okay. Um, and then, uh, I'll kind of hold off on my let everyone else go for a first round first. Thank you. Thank you, Vice Chair Chang and then Commissioner Hecman. So, I know that no vote is required of us for her study session, but oftentimes in study sessions, we have made motions or so is there a I mean is there is that a hard and fast rule? I will defer to the attorney.

Yeah. So uh in a study session the commission is not able to make a formal motion um but it can certainly provide guidance uh you know through a straw poll. Okay. And so when this came to us last time then it should it was erroneously marked as an action item. Is that correct? Because this is continued from last time. So if it was an action item before, I really want to understand why it's not an action item now. Yes, that's correct. Because and and what are the legal implications of that, Mr. Yang?

Um I can't really say. Uh, you know, I think it technically, you know, perhaps, uh, if it were continued as an action item, um, it it would come back on action. Um but practically uh I I don't know that there is a um major difference from the way that I understand what staff was seeking at the previous uh hearing and and what uh staff is asking for now.

Okay. Thanks. Because what we're being told is that because council voted on this already, there's not much that the PTC can do in terms or that there's no motion that is needed from the PTC because it's already been approved by council.

I think maybe a a a better way of putting it is that um that the the council action on this item uh didn't require further action by the PTC. Um, but that doesn't that didn't preclude staff from coming back to the PTC to uh seek input from the PTC and and that's what staff did and what staff is continuing to do.

Okay. Thanks. So, I have to say that this is probably partially due to staff changes in the office of transportation. Um, but I've been really disappointed about how this project has been handled overall. So, first off, what we're being told is that the circle for which the PTC actually approved uh on June 14th of 2023, so more than two years ago now. Um that has not been able to move forward because it's been bundled together uh in the uh consultant like the engineering consultant contract. And so because we haven't made a come to a resolution on this piece uh no motion has gone occurred uh no design no additional design has occurred for the circle which is really disappointing because uh in more than two years ago there was unanimous agreement that that circle was approved. There were actually three pieces. I went back and read the minutes. There were three pieces. There was um one piece which I escaped my mind. The third piece was the circle. The second is this bulb out. The PTC was very explicit that it approved one and three in other words one which I can't remember three the uh circle and that two needed more work. So we were very clear about that and in fact I had asked do we need to make a specific motion to have that number two come back to the PTC and we were assured by Mr. Bia that actually no all three would be coming back to us. So if at that time it was so we didn't approve asis. We said two with more work and then um we were kind of led to believe that when two came back to us that there would be

a yay or nay. I mean that's kind of the spirit of the conversation that we had. So then this was presented to council on consent and council I don't think realized that the PTC voted unanimously that number two needed more work. Number two meaning the bold out. And in fact, it says here that the planning the PDC members unanimously endorsed the project and recommended to the city council that the staff be authorized to proceed with the design of permanent improvements. However, in response to concerns raised by the fronting property owners, the PTC further recommended that staff work with adjacent property owners to gather their input. that it wasn't clear that the PTC was really gung-ho about two of the three improvements and that there was one remaining that did not actually receive our approval. It received our approval to do more work on it. So, I think that that staff report to council was, you know, glossed over a pretty critical piece of information and that's why we find ourselves here still. And in the meantime, it's been seven years since like a very real problem of cut through traffic and speeds um that kind of were stimulated the initial request for traffic calming. You know, that circle seems to have broad nobody's come to speak up against the circle. So, that still hasn't moved forward. So somehow we I really wish that we had been able to move forward with one piece and not move forward with the other. Um but it is what it is. Uh second I wanted to ask it there nothing has changed in the staff. So again that's partially to f to focus our conversation because you um director

low you showed us many slides of the circle. Like we're all good on the circle. I think we just want to focus on the bold out. Okay. Um second I wanted to to ask is was there any is there any difference between the last time we saw the bulb out and today? has I know that there was a conversation that was had with miss with the with the homeowner but is there any difference being proposed to us?

So the difference is to make sure that that um curb is straight so that you can fit the car in that location 15 ft from the crosswalk. Okay. So the the bulbout has been further reduced since last time. Yeah. It's well it's more it's the design that you see hasn't changed but it would be direction to the you know to the next step to kind of make sure that you can come straight to the curb.

Okay. Um, so we had asked in more than two years ago to please take a really good look at this bulb out and see if there were any other options uh including and in particular the size of the bulbout was one of the big questions. Um, was there anything done about that? Yes, that's reflected in the design that you see.

Okay, but that was just shrinking it up a tiny bit because what I mean again, I disclosed this last time this came to us. I also stood at that intersection and saw because East Crescent is so narrow, I saw people making a left from South um from Southwood onto East Crescent and veering over into the opposing lane of traffic because it was so narrow. And so my understanding is that's why the bulbout has been shrunken up. But that was already done even before I mean that was already proposed before it came to us last time. Has there been any aside from you know kind of correcting a a a um something that made it more dangerous? Was there anything looked at about the overall size of the bulb out? Um I think that that would be it would it would shrink slightly with the straightening of the curb right at the other end. So

five feet I think was okay. Um I am disappointed that we haven't tried more innovative approaches because um the like where I think we might need to head with this is that the stop signs clearly slow traffic down. There were no stop signs in two of the three locations where there currently are stop signs and in fact there will be a stop sign added so that people can't whiz around the the wide corner. Um so I wonder if it might not be more appropriate given the disruption that the bulbout causes to just remove the bulbout, keep the stop signs. the stop signs by definition have to slow down traffic. And unfortunately, the data that's being um cited as a something that demonstrates success has not convinced me. It didn't convince me two years ago. It still doesn't convince me because it's the same data. And so I think that that might be an option that I would put forward to my colleagues.

Thank you, Commissioner Hecman. So the the last time that this was in front of us, uh Mr. Gurand was represented by John Paul Hannah who spoke on his behalf and championed him as he had many many PaloAlto residents in front of the PTC and city council. Uh John passed away uh a little more than a month ago and I want to just take a a moment uh to remember him um because uh like Mr. Durant, he was um a long long time uh PaloAlton who contributed immeasurably to our community. Um he uh was on the Crescent Park Neighborhood Association board for years and years. In fact, that's how I really got to know him about 20 years ago as a fellow member of that board. Uh he was passionate about uh uh ameliorating the flood uh issues in in that part of PaloAlto having been flooded in the I think it was the 1998 flood. uh and he was passionate about uh traffic issues and and um making uh University Avenue, you know, a sane uh drivable entrance into our downtown. Um and he had a a statewide reputation as a lawyer. He was um well, not probably definitely uh the the most prominent condominium lawyer um in uh California. So, we'll miss him in this chamber and I'll miss uh seeing him putt around in his old Ferrari on the streets. Uh he was a charming guy and um so I wanted to take this moment uh to to thank you Mr. Duran for actually uh bringing him to us um on your behalf that one last time. Um, in terms of this project,

you know, it it's it's odd that we find ourselves sort of resisting bringing something into ADA compliance because in this particular instance, it adversely affects a disabled person. And so, it's almost counterintuitive that it should do that. Um, I I'm hearing from my fellow commissioners, you know, a lot of push back on having the bulb, but I wonder how much of that push back would be there if the design were acceptable to Mr. Durant. Um and and so that's really what sort of my focus is on is is you know I I've I've at the last training and this one I've listened to hear what the problems were with the access and you know one of them obviously is it's different and and that in itself is a problem. Um the other aspect that I perceive is um one thing that's different is today and for however long there's been a ramp that meets the street at street level and these designs all propose a concrete pad that meets the street at curb level. Um I do think that there is u one improvement that can be made and it was uh uh discussed during the technical questions. Um staff in their design of the concrete pad as I understand it has simply replaced the current ramp with a flat pad in the location of the ramp. um that's not necessarily um it doesn't necessarily have to be done that way. Uh and I think um staff

acknowledged that that this is something that they could look at. um if they're not constrained to just go right where the ramp is today, if they could swing it to the left and I think one of the daughters u mentioned that that a frequent form of transportation here um is an Uber and you get in the backseat of an Uber and so where my question earlier was about getting in the front seat because that's where that ramp looked like it was coming closest to seems like with a little more of a turn we can have it directed to the back and even sort of flare out so that there are options and then then the only to to my thinking the only issue is is the step down of the curb. Um right rather than having a ramp down to a flat street uh uh and and you know one and I guess I have to admit I'm a little curious about this because we're talking about only one end of the journey. This is where uh Mr. Guran gets picked up or dropped off. But there's the other end. And does does every place he ever goes only have a ramp that he gets dropped in front of? Does he never get dropped in front of a curb? I I wouldn't think that would be the case. And so I'm I'm wanting to believe he can navigate from a car to um you know, a concrete pad on a curb. And if so, then I think by swinging this around um that we can although it's different, we can retain its accessibility to him um in the context of this improvement that has uh benefits to um a segment of the community by reducing speeds if not um um modestly reducing cut through traffic. And and the other thing I want to comment on is in my experience it is

highly highly unusual in a public works project to focus on accommodating you know one property owner the particular needs of a particular property owner and and um I I think we've you know engaged in um some critical review here of the history of how this has been uh come out. Um and and some of that is there there have been some communication gaps uh for sure. But but I I want to say I at least recognize that that staff in my view has been trying to thread this needle to address the neighborhood traffic flow, speed concerns while making this special effort to see if they could come up with a solution uh that would work for this one particular neighbor. Um, and I think by relocating that sidewalk, it sliding it over that pad, it's only an additional couple of steps in that location. So, it's not uh and it's certainly better than having to walk down the driveway, which was has been explained to us as a problem. So, um, you know, that would be, um, given the council has given some direction on this and we're we're informally offering input, that would be my input is that should be, uh, something that is fixable and and um, you know, I would encourage staff again when they come up with if they pursue this and come up with that design to to show it to Mr. Gerand and his family to to see if they can see what I think staff sees and that what staff has been seeing is this is a solution

and and I I think we need Mr. Duran to be able to see that. So those are um those are my thoughts. Thanks.

Thank you, Commissioner James. Um, I'm pretty sure you don't want to do a live design exercise here, but I I just wonder if I can ask kind of an open-ending question about whether, you know, given what you've heard here tonight. Um, you know, there were ideas raised and I'm not really qualified to evaluate them. One person mentioned turning the street into one way. Um, someone else mentioned speed bumps. um you know um I'm just wondering and maybe you don't want to um sort of do express an opinion you know right here um on the spur of the moment but do you see or imagine that there might be some um some other design solution that would kind of meet these goals and address sort of the concerns. They're all most of the concerns are kind of running in the same direction. Um, you know, and I don't I don't pretend to have the expertise to know what they are, but I mean, could the could the stop sign be on a much smaller island and then the whole other part of the bulbout be, you know, striped on the pavement, you know, indicating that you you don't drive there? um or I'm just you know I'm just trying to figure out like how uh if there is a design solution that would um that might uh solve this problem uh in a different way. Um so I think my response is so staff has received council direction to proceed with design within that I think that we can entertain sort of some

changes. I I think moving the concrete pad is is a minor change that could easily be entertained with that. um if it's if the direction is something that's a dramatic change um I have some concerns because the process went through a community outreach process and so some of that would you know if if we receive council direction to completely rethink that intersection we would want to do like more engagement and and kind of redo some of that process for that for that intersection. Thank you.

Most of my concerns have been addressed, but I'll throw in just a few short comments. Um, back on April 9th, I expressed my confidence that OOT would be able to come to a uh design compromise that would uh solve the safety and speed issues that we're talking about and also be acceptable to Mr. Dire. And I was particularly interested in seeing um OT staff watch Mr. Durant get into and out of representative vehicles. And my understanding from reading the uh staff report is that that didn't happen. Um and that is the the visit to to see Mr. and didn't result in that information being gathered is perhaps a better way to put it. Um, but I would still hope that something like that can be done and that the outcome of that will be relatively small changes that can fit into the paradigm you've already developed. Um, if Commissioner Hecman had not brought it up, I would also have raised the issue of changing the size and shape of the concrete pad. Uh, I would also mention if there are appropriate ADA standards for doing so that a railing or support post at that point might be worth looking into. Um, given some changes of that kind, I think a ballout design can be made to work in all the other respects that we're concerned about. Uh, I don't want to dissuade you from looking into other options, and I've heard several creative ones that I liked, but uh, that's not my call. Um,

but I would hope that there will be room for you to look into some of these possibilities in the design phase, the final design phase. All right. Um, I think that's it for me, Commissioner Peterson.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I'm going to attempt to share my screen. This is always a bit of a hazard. Share screen start. Perfect. Lost my Okay, one second here. Okay, I had a drawing, but I suppose I will draw it again. Hold on. Where? Someone help me on where do I find where's the art? Would you like us to share that diagram and then you can mark up the screen? I think that has worked better in the past.

Yes. Okay. If you would stop sharing and then we can share the image with the the little car.

Okay, that's perfect. If you need help drawing, I can also help as well. There we go. We'll make it through this. Did I stop sharing? I did. All right. And so now I have a drawing tool here. I do. I do. Okay. So if I understand correctly, our goal is we want vehicles to do that more or less because it's a northbound problem. I understand that now I'm looking at the data set. And we want the cars to come up this street, Southwood Drive, make a lefthand turn, and continue up towards University uh Avenue and continue on their way to wherever they're going across the bay, I suppose, uh in the afternoon. Is that reasonably correct looking at the data? That's kind of the challenge we have.

Um sorry, can can you say the question again? Yes. Is the challenge that we're the traffic flow that we're having a difficult time with that we're trying to uh calm is the northbound traffic. Correct. Um I think it could be both directions. It could also be coming. When I looked at the southbound traffic, it actually increased with the bulb. So it's and all the traffic was pretty much northbound. There's not a lot of southbound traffic it looked like on this street. Yeah. Well, that would make sense because it's turning right onto University. So yeah.

Okay. So knowing that that's the challenge we have, it looks like how do we make vehicles make a shallow lefthand turn because that's what I understand that's the bulb is to keep people from cutting the corner. And so one of the solutions that potentially our consultant could look at and I'll put it here in a different color. We'll go with red, I guess, is if they simply put say like ballards here or something that's safe, a curb that um splits the street so that you're forced to go further before you make that lefthand turn. So then you're not cut in the corner. Yeah.

Usually they're like those flexible things like what they have for the bike lane now. So if you hit them, they just knock over. But in general, it just forces traffic to make that slower lefthand turn. And then the other one, I remember last meeting what we talked about was potentially doing what's called a u a flat gutter, which means it's just a very shallow pan, so to speak. And if we put that shallow pan uh I'll use orange. It's almost Halloween through here. Then that removes the curb completely because essentially it's just a transition from the street into the the landscaping, which then if there's a a concrete pad, well, the concrete pad is actually at street level now. And it's just a slight dip to to push a wheelchair through a shallow curb. I think it's called a flat pan curb, something like that. And and the gradient here for water we last time we discovered is very shallow. It's like a 1% greater less. So in that situation, a a flat pan gutter usually works okay because the water is moving very slow anyways.

Can you do mine? You want me to draw for you? Thank you, chair. Hey, since we have this up, can I draw what I was talking about in case since it's up? Okay.

I I think that's appropriate. This green is what I was talking about. So you could you could still have this bulb out, but you'd have a little alley there where people could like right where it currently is where people so the car would go down here. Oh, I just thought I'd draw it since we had the drawing. Wait, sorry. Can you explain again? didn't quite understand.

So, uh, imagine that this green part is filled in and this is the bulb out, but that there's an alley here right between the existing curve and the bulb out where a car could go.

All right. I I like these ideas and I'm glad we've expressed them. Uh we need to try and bring this item to a close. So what is the message that we would like to craft um by straw poll or other mechanism uh to send along with uh staff to council? Commissioner Templeton,

I think we have a couple of things we should talk about. I think process is important. um very very concerned about the potential in congruities between what we decided here to recommend as a PTC body between that and what ended up being put on consent calendar for council and that you're now coming back saying well council already approved what you already recommended and we didn't do that so I'm concerned about that and I'd love to talk about process process as part of our recommendations. Um, I know there's other things we need to talk about as well, but I just want to make sure that's on the list, too. Thank you, Chair.

Commissioner, thank you, Chair. Um, sorry, I know we're trying to move into the next phase, but I just want to make one last comment about uh some potential alternatives at the site. So I I read in the addendum that the staff provided about the speed humps about managing vehicle speed within roadway segments. I guess if you put speed humps closeish to the intersection, wouldn't you also get a reduction in speed that you're looking for at this corner?

Uh yes, that's a possibility. Or um one of the treatments they sometimes do is a a raised crossing. Um but again I think that these would be things where we would need to like I think that's a substantial change that we would need to kind of back up in the process. Yeah. So um what exactly is kind of the staff's interpretation of within the scope of I guess not large changes? Is it just like keeping some kind of bulb? I'd love to hear kind of what the scope potential scope is.

Yes. So I think the description of the design was that it had a bulb out. The bulb out would be refined. Um and then so that was that was kind of the key to that. So piece is having no bulb out technically considered making changes to the bulb out or there has to be a bulb out in this design. I think if we're moving forward with um the council direction, I think that there it would need to involve a bulb out. So if you have direction to change from that then I think we need to rethink the process and

yeah thank you just one of those clarifications. Thank you. eyes. Oh, press your chain. So, this is where I don't know how we this is a bit of a pro. This alludes to the process issue that Commissioner Templeton was bringing up, but it was very clear that we wanted another look at the bullout, right? We weren't approving any bulbout when this came two years ago. Um, so I don't I I'm disappointed to hear that a no bulb out option would not be on the table. Um, but because I would love a straw pole on a like why don't we just try stop signs because there were there's only one stop sign there before. That seems like a really simple solution uh to and I understand that there's there still may be ADA uh we may have to fill in that ramp but at least you know the homeowner has also been objecting to sort of losing the entire front yard. It at least solves that issue. And so I would love to hear what my colleagues think of a just stop sign option. So, one way to approach this is since we have a number of suggestions for staff is to run through them one at a time and simply take a straw poll on whether the rest of us find them acceptable or not rather than trying to drill down to one option out of many by just say um here are some things that we think are worth pursuing. So, an acceptance vote rather than rather than a first.

To clarify, it's not that we would be picking one. We would just go through them one by one and say you could vote for multiple ones.

Yes, that's what I had in mind. I um would suggest that staff read back the list and we could pull if I didn't hear any bad ideas tonight. So, I'm not really sure we need to vote on them one by one, but if staff wants to read back and if we had one that was not fully formed or they had questions about, we could clarify it. But really, the ball is in their court. They should that we've given a lot of hopefully very useful feedback. Um, I'm probably receptive to that, but first I need to hear what Commissioner James has to say.

Well, I was basically just going to echo that. I feel like we might be able to accomplish the same thing by saying not one item for because I'm I'm certainly not qualified to say it's this one, but I think I think the general consensus is that we really wish that there was exploration of other alternatives besides this bulb design. I'm I'm I'm not the procedural expert here either, but I that's just kind of my sense of that we maybe could get to the same place.

So, um the chair did call on me just by pointing. Um I think if we do that I would like to be you know say in including these including ideas such as these because it appear apparently we were not specific enough last time and somehow our views were misre represented to council. So, I would want to be very clear, Commissioner James.

I mean, this is but I I assume we could do including but not limited to or something just to kind of um make room for an idea that was better than any of the ones that we brought up. Sure. Commissioner Peterson, I just wanted to re reiterate uh Vice Chair Chang's comment that whatever we do, we want to make sure that we are not misunderstood. Commissioner Templeton,

I also want to talk about the issue that um Commissioner Hecman uh and I brought up and and maybe we landed on different sides of about whether or not the agreement of the property that is affected is required, important, a priority. already a deal breaker. Um, so maybe that's a separate issue than the design. So that's a probably a third vote. Thank you, Commissioner G.

At this time, are we presenting ideas that we we discussed are within the scope of this or are we discussing kind of also more broadly? I thought staff was going to read back what I mean sure they took really good notes about all our ideas but like I guess my question is is staff

yeah if I could jump in I don't have a concise list put together there have been a lot of ideas um thrown out so I'm not going to be able to jump in uh as I often try to um to give you I think we've got a list of five things that we could list and then if there were ones that were missed it you know we could add to that Um however I think that I mean we're not designing things tonight need to go through like the engineering process as well and um not all of these might achieve the goals but what I what I wrote down was relocating the concrete pad smaller bulb out a slip lane and channelizes to the intersection and the three stop signs. We also discussed

removing the pilot and we also discussed delaying okay the uh permanent installation okay to a future date in which it would be less inconvenient.

Okay. All right. So if the if the first goal is to determine whether there are any of those options that we to which we would object uh I'll finish the thought and then and then follow up. Commissioner Peterson. Um so the first goal is simply to say uh do we accept all of these possibilities as things we would recommend that you consider then I think that can be fairly straightforward. We simply list them and if there are no um if there are no significant objections from u commissioners then that concludes that straw poll. All right. And uh now I turn it over to Commissioner Peterson.

Thank you, Chair. uh the flat pan uh curb because I actually suspect possibly in the latest design we have that is representing a flat pan because the representation of it if I was building it I would actually interpret that as a flat pan which it makes a lot of sense on that kind of a bulbous term to to have a to not have a hard right angle curve on that. Commissioner G. Um, I was wondering if one of the things I talked about at the very beginning with having the ramp all the way at the front was included in this list. Can you explain it?

Oh, yeah. Like, uh, because some of the discussions around the ADA issue was because of the intersection like moving the like the crosswalk section to a different component. Again, I'm not an expert in ADA law, but just trying to throw some ideas out there.

Okay. Given that we've all that we've reviewed all of the options within the last couple of minutes, do we need them read back or can we simply express um our interest in all of these as potential options? A straw poll. All right. Then I will request a show of hands. Um do we support um investigation of all of the options that have been listed as potential um alternatives or u modifications to the current proposal. Raise hand if the answer is yes. Okay. So that's straightforward um process. What can we say about this that we would like to carry forward? Commissioner Templeton,

I'll start. Um, we we recognize that we've had a lot of staffing changes and that staff's always intentional is to represent us faithfully. I think um I I would be interested maybe not tonight, I'm not going to put you on the spot, but I would be interested in hearing how we can do better. Um maybe what reflections the staff might have to suggest because we do save hours by not excruciatingly pouring over every single thing here in this meeting. I have many times said, "I entrust you guys to represent us faithfully to counsel." And um it is concerning to hear that there may have been times where that process fell apart or things slipped through and and everybody's human, so it's not like there's no expectation of perfection. But if if we are to be able to say, "Have you got it?" and you say, "Yes, and trust that process, we do need to be able to circle back." Um, and I I know you're doing your best working with the staff and that's a level of trust we've been talking about even at the retreat. We're trying to develop that. Um but this is definitely um an area to flag. So um do you think it would be reasonable to circle back with us on suggestions or we just leave it at that? Like how do we what's what's the me best most transparent way with the community

to be clear that we're going to do better going forward? Thank you for that question and yes, this is something that we have discussed. It was part of our discussion at our retreat earlier this month about um staff efforts to ensure that the representation in the staff report is clear as to what the complete recommendation from the planning and transportation commission was. particularly if it's a split vote or something unique like this where there are different components and um and we we have committed to to work on that. We also discussed things like including the liaison in attending those meetings or taking a look at those reports so that if there is um clarification that's needed, we're identifying those and um we appreciate the the efforts of the liaison when when assigned to to work in support and and help make sure that we are catching those moving forward.

We have also in the past had a liaison from council attend planning commission meetings. Does that still occur? It does not. It's something that council has chosen not to um move forward with. Do you think that if they were advised of potential issues like this that that would change things? I'm I'm not going to make a judgment call on that. Um it was rhetorical anyway. That's fine. At this point, the decision was not to have a um a liaison from council attending either planning and transportation commission or the architectural review boards.

So, in order to save that time, it really hinges on faithful representation of our work. Um, so I who who is who is you said we don't need to go to the next one because it's on consent calendar. So, but we would welcome you taking a look at the reports.

Well, I was just wondering who's who's up next. I can't remember. God help me if it's me. Um, for the month of September, uh, Kevin G is the primary. For October, Todd James is primary. All right. In November, Forest Peterson and December, Bert Hecman. Plus, we've got the backups that is listed in every packet that you receive for planning and transportation.

I am looking right at it. Thank you. Um, so, Commissioner G, are you planning to go to the next one? Um, I wasn't originally, but now that given this situation that we've seen today, I think it would be important. I I'll happily look at the packet ahead of time and take a look to see that.

If you wish or, you know, we could always write a letter together perhaps the chair could write a letter and vice chair and we could all sign on uh just bringing this to their attention uh if that's a better alternative. But I think in conjunction with Miss Armor's suggestions on um process internally, being able to transparently communicate that the process is not perfect um and that they should read closer may be useful to them. Thank you,

Commissioner Peters.

Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to take a moment to thank the homeowner. Uh thank you for your time being here and uh I hopefully you enjoy the meeting somewhat. It's not completely terrible to be here. We do appreciate you being here. You're a role model for all of us that you're keeping the process honest. You're keeping the process responsive to the community. And I can tell you at least for myself through the experience of working with you that you know going forward other residents maybe that don't have as strong of a voice from you. I can tell that in your career you probably achieved a lot and you were not somebody to to oppose that uh you know we'll do better for other residents as well because of you. So thank you.

Commissioner G. Apologies if this has already been addressed. Um staff, do you mind just reiterating what the next steps in the process given our comments have been that goes to council? I know that because it changed from an action item to a study session, I just want to be crisp about where this is headed next.

Um I think given the feedback that I've heard today, I think I need to get some advice on how we should proceed. So, uh, the original intention was to go to council with the design of of these um options here, but it it it seems that the wires have been crossed at some point, and I apologize for that. Um, that was not our intention, and so I want to get some advice on how we should proceed from this point. All right. Thank you.

All right. I believe that's sufficient on process. So if there are no other issues to be brought up, perhaps this item is concluded. Seeing no other lights. Um I expect the next item to involve a good bit of comments. So I think we should

Sorry, chair. I don't think we talked about whether or not the homeowners um agreement to what's happening like what to what level are we planning to talk about that? We brought that up as a third item. We've only addressed two.

Yeah, we did bring that up. Although I don't know that we can I don't know that we can approach a solution tonight. Did you have something in mind? I thought we would discuss it and staff can take it into consideration. That was all. It was a it's a study session. So, we wanted to have a since we had differing opinions up here. You know, uh, Commissioner Hackman and I both have had our voices express, but I'm not sure how anyone else feels about it.

All right, I will open it up for that, but I want to put a time limit on it because we do need to get moving on other things. So, um it is about 8:24. So, by 8:30, let's wrap up this u this item. Commissioner Peterson,

I guess I get the opening talk on this. So, I just want to say that I think talking with the homeowner is important. Um just, you know, we're putting value thoughts out here. you know, I was raised, you know, with a strong tradition of of in California, um, you know, family land ownership and stuff like that. And I was taught that the land owner has to at some point agree. Now, you always have imminent domain that can come in and and take the land. And we all hear stories about that. There's westerns and stuff about it, but at the end of the day, the homeowner, the land owner, the homeowner should be in agreement. And you know the old one was if you want to take my land good. Go buy some other land. Give me the keys for it. I'll go move over there and then you can have my land. Which resident? One of the residents mentioned that if I if you just give me money, where am I going to buy a house from? Go buy me a house. Give me that house.

If I may jump in I sorry commissioner for interrupting, but I did want to make it clear that there is not any use of private land proposed on this. So there isn't any eminent. There is the prevention of the existing level of use of the current land. I I understand that there is concern about the access and the change in that to the existing property, but none of the improvements would be on private land and I just want to make sure

Commissioner Hecman, you had some thoughts about this earlier. Would you like to follow up?

U and I I think at the conclusion of the last time this was here, I said the same thing. Um um private property owners do not get to veto public works projects. That's that's the bottom line. Um um if if if that were true, you know, virtually every public works project would would be stopped in its tracks. Um here what I have encouraged is u as I did last time and that is um for for staff to to meet with this property owner and help the property owner see what staff sees because I believe what staff sees is this can work for their particular situation. And so ideally that would result in uh the property owner saying yeah I could work with that but but that is not a prerequisite to moving forward with the project in in my view.

All right I have Commissioner Templeton and Commissioner G and let's make it fast.

Thank you Chair. I know you keep telling us that but it's really important to people to be able to feel they can be heard at this commission. That is the whole point we're here. So, I'll take my time. Thank you. Um, but the the idea of suggesting that this person is vetoing a public works project is not a fa faithful representation of what I said or what I think. I think that is a straw man that is easily torn down because no one would look at it like that. But this project was brought forth to help the neighbors in this community and it's not working. It hasn't met any of its goals. The data doesn't say that this pilot should be moved forward. It was put in front of council in a way that they approved it without thoughtful consideration based on the presentation and we're hearing from the homeowner and other people who've lived at this property that this is a problem. So to what extent do we want to listen when there's a problem? When a public works project is affecting one property and preventing access and use thereof, it does feel like an overstretch of the city. So, I do want to be able to incorporate that feedback and to encourage counsel to listen to that feedback because I imagine if somebody were to do something that would prevent me from easily getting in and out of my own home, I would be just as frustrated. I would not want to have to climb something dangerous to get in and out of my home. I would not want it to be difficult for my children to visit me or for me to get out and go to a movie or go to the store or anything like that. So, I feel uh empathy for that. And if that is not part of the conversation, that hasn't been represented to council, um

that concerns me. So, that's where I'm coming from and saying it should be part of the story. It doesn't have to be the whole story, but that's not the same as a veto. However, our direction to the Department of Transportation at our last meeting was to please work with the homeowner and try and come up with a solution that works for them and that hasn't happened. So, for me, it hasn't met the bar yet. Thank you, Commissioner G. and then Vice Chair Ch.

Thank you, Chair. Um, I want to echo Commissioner Tumbleton's comments. The reason why I applied for the PTC was to hopefully provide a voice for the community. So, I wanted to say that. Um, on a more tactical level, one thing I just want to elevate is I'm hoping that the Office of Transportation um listens to some of the suggestions from Chair Iken about going and just watching Mr. Duran get in and out of his car. I think that could provide some valuable insight. Would you like a response? We cannot force him to demonstrate how he gets in and out of his car. It was requested,

vice ch.

So I think what I think we the thing about this process that bothers me isn't so much that we didn't hear the public comment and I don't think we were I don't think anybody thinks that one home or owner gets to veto a public works project. I think the challenge is that the PTC's direction which incorporated our hearing all the public comments was ignored and as a that doesn't seem like what we want to do for sure. um kind of regardless of an individual uh homeowner or not, what the PTC's direction is should be faithfully reported. Further comments? All right, I think we are concluded with this item. Uh it is currently 8:30. I suggest given that we are likely to have a long session coming up that we take a 10-minute break and return

All right, if I can get everyone's attention, I believe it's time to resume.

Welcome back everyone. Um, this is a quasi judicial hearing on an applicant's request to amend a planned community ordinance uh PC 5116 to modify an existing assisted living and memory care facility at 4075 El Camino way. Um, we have a recusal tonight and I will ask for disclosures after that.

Yep. Um, I would like to recuse myself from this item uh formally on the record here given that I have previously advocated um about this project um and now prior to serving on the PTC and now I do. And uh uh the Mi Mr. Yang has said that I may participate if I'd like as a member of the public. Thank you, Commissioner G. Do I have disclosures from any other commissioners on this item? No disclosures. No disclosures. Uh, I did a site visit again.

No disclosures for me. Commissioner James? Yes. Thank you. I also did a site visit. And Commissioner Hegman? No disclosures. I did a site visit. Are site visits disclosures? That's right. I don't think they are. I don't think so either, but it's there's no harm. Um so actually you know just doing a site visit is not necessarily disposable but if you observed anything there that uh influences your your thought process then that's what needs to be disclosed or if you communicate with anyone about the project while you're there.

I if I understood correctly that was uh if you receive any information that's not in the public record. That's right. And sometimes, you know, people will make a site visit and then later they'll say, "Well, when I was there, I noticed X, Y, and Z." Um, and so if if there's anything like that, that that's what needs to get disclosed at this time. Oh, no disclosure. Very good. Thank you for the clarification. It's always good to be reminded from time to time. All right. I believe we are

Oh, Commissioner James. Well, I just wanted to add that I did a walk around all sides, but I did talk to some neighbors and uh was uh sorry and I did uh when I did my walk around, I did visit with some neighbors and was invited into a backyard. So, um if that if that is useful. All right. Thank you. That should be sufficient for disclosures. I believe we're ready for the staff presentation now.

Hi, good evening. My name is Emily Kawis. I am uh the project planner and I am pulling up my presentation. There we go. There we go. This evening, the PTC is considering an amendment to an existing planned community PC zone to allow for the construction of 13 additional assisted living units and 172 square ft of support space to an existing 121 unit assisted living and memory care facility as well as site improvements including exterior color changes and landscaping. Uh the PCs that this is modifying is the 5116 approval for the Avant and 3775 for PaloAlto Commons. Those are ordinance numbers. This shows the project location on El Camino Way adjacent to the uh neighborhood single family residential neighborhood on Wilky Way. [Music] This slide summarizes the many uh public hearings that have occurred up to this point. Most recently, um the city council reviewed the project in May and reminded the project back to the PTC as I will discuss on the next slide. After um the PTC makes a recommendation, it will return to council for a final decision. [Music] As a reminder, the planning commission voted 322 in December of last year to recommend approval for only seven of the at that point proposed 16 units that do not face Wilky Way. And then in May, the

city council voted 43 to bring the project back to the PTC this evening for a review of a project between 11 and 13 units that would eliminate thirdf flooror units adjacent to Wilky Way Boulevard. uh backyards. And so this is the site plan as um the PTC had um reviewed in December. The green highlighted are the areas where the additions to the building are twostory and the yellow were the threetory. Um it was for 16 uh new assisted living units and the revised site plan removes three of those thirdstory units for a total of 13 units proposed. This decreased the floor area by approximately 1,850 square ft. It also increased the third story setback for the uh new proposed units to 25 ft 10 in. One of the units um is also about 27 feet away and then the other yellow area faces towards the avant. This um elevation, the top one also shows what the PTC uh previously reviewed with the bottom one being the new revised one. There were um at least one council member and a handful of neighbor comments commenting that they preferred the existing green uh color scheme and so um the green has been reinccorporated. That was not discussed in the PTC report since it's not in the PTC purview. A transportation demand management plan and parking plan have been prepared and incorporated into the conditions of

approval. The provided parking does meet the zoning minimum requirements. The parking plan uh includes dedicating spaces for visitors, staff, and residents. And the uh belowrade garage has key card access for employees. The applicant additionally prepared a revised daylight plane revision to assist in the PTC discussion this evening. This was attachment G. I included three of the um uh sections here on this slide to demonstrate that the 45 degree daylight plane um which is the one that was adopted as a part of the original PC 3775 um is what complies with both the existing building and the proposed uh the 36 daylight plane which is included for non-residential projects as a PC special requirement in PaloAlto Municipal Code um 1838150. Um does not um the original building was not designed to meet that standard as shown by the sections that show the existing building protruding into that setback. [Music] As I'm sure we will continue to hear tonight, there have been many neighbor comments for this project, including two uh neighborhood petitions that I'm summarizing here. Concerns include privacy towards the single family neighborhood, reduced natural sunlight, and uh discussion regarding the daylight plane calculations, staff and visitor parking in the neighborhood and the impacts uh for that neighborhood for parking. A desire for the addition to not request any exceptions from the zoning code. Concern

that Wellquest is a for-profit uh company. potential for this um additions to this building to lower uh local property value and quality of life for the neighbors and concern that the original PC ordinance conditions of approval have not been enforced. This project was reviewed under the California Environmental Quality Act and a categorical exemption under uh section 15301 for existing facilities has been prepared. A categorical exemption uh states that there are no ex anticipated environmental impacts of this project. Uh staff recommends that the PTC take the following action to recommend approval of an ordinance amending uh PC5116 to allow the proposed increase in units and associated modifications to the development plan and recommend approval of the record of land use to council based on findings and subject to conditions of approval. Um but again, we recognize that the PTC made the recommendation to only approve a portion of the units and the PTC may continue to um have that be their recommendation moving forward. Uh this concludes my presentation. The applicant is also present and has an a presentation prepared. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Kas. Um, if I understand the uh process correctly, we ask our clarifying questions of staff before the applicant's presentation. You may. Yes. So, uh, commissioners, any clarifying questions for Miss Callus? Commissioner Peterson? Thank you, Chair. So, the first question I have is I'd like to better understand the SQA exemption on this one. I'm not a completely experienced with SQA. It's California environmental Quality Act and um just not sure what what does an exemption mean? What's the criteria for an exemption?

There are over 30 something exemptions. Um and essentially it is a list that is incorporated into that state law that says certain projects that meet certain characteristics are not required to prepare a more intensive document such as an IND um environmental impact report EIR. And so um in the case of this project because the square footage being added is under a certain threshold um it is considered exempt and um the proper documentation has been prepared based on that. So it's a dimminimous exemption

so to speak. I that's the right term. I don't believe so. This is so um section 15301 the 300s all are that list of categorical exemptions and so 301 number one existing facilities additions to existing facilities it continues 302 303 exempted as an existing facility exemption yes it's a minor addition to an existing facility uh Mr. Yang, did you want to add?

Um, I guess just the broader context is that there are, you know, as Miss Call said, approximately 30 categories of projects that uh the state has determined are going to almost always uh not have enough effects to to require additional documentation. And there there are exceptions to the exemptions uh when you have unusual circumstances. Um but uh those staff determined that those do not exist here. Mang, which which exemption are we are we under? So we're using the existing facilities exemption.

Existing facilities. All right. Thank you. That answers my question, Commissioner Heman.

Uh thank you. So, a clarifying question of the staff. Um, Miss Callus, the staff report indicates that the uh direction from the city council, and I have not uh watched that meeting, um uh was to send this back to the PTC um to look at a range of 11 to 13 units, none of which are on the third floor facing Wilkkey. Um, so when I look at the plan that the applicant has prepared, and they'll be speaking momentarily, um, it appears to be that two of the proposed new units are third floor facing, uh, Wilkkey. And so I'm wanting to know from staff whether staff views the plan that's come forward since the council meeting as consistent with the council direction in that regard as to the third floor units. I'm going to jump in and in the end that determination is going to be up to council to decide whether this is consistent. Um but I think as you pointed out the direction did include um removal of the third floor that the concerns um as I'm sure the applicant will discuss um they attempted to address the concerns from council by having those face a different way. Um and sorry for jumping in, but if you had anything to add to that.

I think the only thing I would add is that um council did have discussions um with the applicant during the meeting regarding project feasibility. Um the applicant will certainly speak more to that um I'm assuming but uh that is part of the reason why uh we wanted to um allow the applicant to bring this version of the project forward.

Sure. and and I'm looking forward to hearing their presentation, but again, having not watched the council meeting, so not really knowing the flavor. It doesn't sound like um the direction that the applicant was given was under no circumstances that period nothing on the third floor. It seems like at least there was some dialogue with the council about the concerns they were having about third floor units. So that it was maybe short of a there's no way we're ever going to approve this kind of sentiment from the council. Is that fair?

It is. Um it it was a 4-3 vote. It certainly wasn't unanimous. Um there was a lot of um variation in council's opinion on this project.

Okay. Thank you. Other clarifying questions I have just one I'll pursue at the moment and this is related to the TDM. Um page 28 of the TDM plan uh discusses data verification and I was curious as to what entity performs the data verification for the TDM. TDMs are required to provide annual reports to the city. Those will go through the office of transportation.

I just meant the uh the physical process of doing the verification. So OOT would be responsible for that.

I think that's the response we've got at this time. We can take a look at that specific language and respond further if we've got anything more. Okay. That's certainly fine for now. Further clar further clarifying questions. All right then. I believe we are ready for the presentation from the applicant. Good evening.

I'm Steve Sandholtz of Wellquest. Should clarify, Wellquest is not the owner of the community. WellQquest is the manager of the community. Um, so we're a fee manager that provides senior living services to a number of communities in California, including Palo Alto Commons. Um, but we work closely with the owners uh on trying to achieve their objectives. Um, I'll keep this pretty short. This this project's been discussed a lot with this commission and um want to be respectful of everybody's time. Know the neighbors want want their time and we'll be happy to respond to questions. Um but what we the discussion at the last council meeting as we heard it was first they were looking at your recommendation this c this commission's recommendation to limit the project to seven units where no units were built on the Wilky Way side of the property. that project. They asked us is that feasible economically. We said no. Um we don't find that project to be economically feasible. That the fixed cost of doing any renovation for that limited number of units just didn't make sense. Didn't work for us. So then the the discussion turned to what could work. And the the the reason there was a discussion between 11 and 13 units is because 11 is if you remove all thirdf flooror units from the Wilky Way side. 11 is if we just remove the units that were closest to the property line. And so that the decision to kind of go to 13 versus 11 was really our decision that that we felt like that was uh following the spirit of the recommendation to remove the most objectional units that were closer to the property and and back away from the property line, but it also helped with the project feasibility. Um so we we have continued to make

changes um to the project to address the neighbors concerns. um don't think we'll ever address all of them. I think we've tried to address the privacy issues by pulling back from the property line on the units that are highest up by orienting windows to where they're not looking directly into the Wilky Way neighbors backyards. Uh we've we've talked about planting and we're willing to kind of put whatever trees they're interested in. again balancing their concerns of too much shade with not enough privacy. And so that one kind of cuts both ways, but we're we're really prepared to put, you know, trees that they find acceptable in into the landscaping plan. We've addressed the paint color. Um they they didn't like some of the colors that we've used as we've redone the building and wanted something that was more, I guess, muted on on their side. And so we've we've proposed to change that to a green that we hope everybody finds acceptable. Um in the end we're the direction we got from council was that they did see public benefit in this project. Would like to find a way to kind of thread the needle and address neighbors concerns but still have something that's feasible to provide additional senior housing units to the Palo Alto community. Um, so, so that's kind of what's brought us to this point and and back to the conversation with you. Um, our architect is here and could walk through the changes that were made on the three units that were removed and and how that is changed the plan. I think staff covered that pretty well. So, we're happy to have them take time if you'd like to hear from them, but we're also happy to

finish our presentation with with just these comments. Thank you. We'll have an opportunity to ask questions of you after public comment. So, if there are uh then hopefully they can be addressed then. Great. Thank you very much. All right. The next step is public comment. Mr. Teta, could you u remind everyone of the rules for a length of time for comments?

Yes. Uh the chair and board policies. Um I want to just share that we have um two uh group speakers. Um and per policy we have um groups representing five or more are allowed to have up to 10 minutes to speak uh per the chair's discretion. and then individual um um speakers can have per the discussion of the chair up to three minutes. So um with that being said, at the moment uh I do have those two group presentations representing those groups and then um besides that I do have 17 individuals requesting to speak including on Zoom. So we may we may have to cut down the uh individual time a bit as that's 51 minutes worth of individual speakers plus 20 minutes for the groups. Um, let's see if we can do two minutes per individual speaker and we'll retain the 10 minutes for the groups. Yeah. And then just give me a moment as the group speakers do have presentations. Um, I'm going to pull up I'm going to invite Lily L speaking on behalf of five uh to come up to the public mic. Give me one second.

Okay.

All right. Good evening, members of the PTC. Thank you so much for giving a chance for us to share our perspective. My name is Lily Lee. I live I've lived at 4080 Wilky Way since 2003 and in this neighborhood since 1997. Uh, next slide. So historically my family and I have supported senior services and we feel that um historically Palo Alto Commons was a good neighbor and that's why uh we had supported adding the seven interior units which the PTC has already approved. Um, however, I want to start with some historical context to explain why we support the PTC's prior vote to approve only these seven interior units and not the proposed additional construction in the back of six housing units and two offices. And I'll explain how things have changed and um that the current proposal violates both commercial and residential setback and daylight plane requirements. Um, next slide. Um, so first I believe everybody agrees that Palo Alto Commons is a commercial development, not residential. Um, you'll see from the record uh from 1987 that in 1978 the PTC and city council specified that this lot be downsized to protect neighbors from over intrusion and to create a transition between the residential and commercial areas. Next slide. And um, the owner, Mr. Reeller, committed to maintain comparable density and mass, which is great. Next um slide please. And at that time the architect agreed to reduce third floor impacts and to have a 123 step up close to the property line. Um next slide. Uh and the architect also addressed the you know the feeling of the wall of the building. So in 1987 even though the commercial zoning may have been 10-ft setback and a 36 daylight plane um maybe given all the efforts of Mr. Eller and the architect

to reduce impacts. The PC zoning requirement of the 10-ft setback and 45 degree daylight plane might have been not unreasonable. However, it's been a long time since 1987 and things have changed. So, um one is that the new plans for expansion are no longer consistent with um what you see in the record from the original agreement. They increase density massing and remove stepups. And second, the neighborhood context has changed. There's now more people and more parking and traffic pressure. Um so next slide. Um and next slide after that. So here's a reminder that for any new commercial construction um that would be required to follow a 10-ft setback and a 36 daylight plane. Um so the next slide please. Um and even if the new construction were residential then it would be allowed a 45 degree daylight plane. Um but this is not residential construction and it would be required to have a 20- foot setback. Next slide please. So for the cycle six plans um this if this expansion were to follow the appropriate commercial requirements it would have to use a 36 daylight plane. So you'll see on the left that this would make some units non-compliant. And even if the project were considered residential, which it's not, then on the right you'll see that some units would also be non-compliant because they would be closer than the 20 foot setback. So you might say, oh, the PTC and the city council could disregard disregard these normal standards because this project is special, so it can make exceptions for PCs. Um, I believe the city already has something like 98 PCs. And so that's a lot of exceptions. And maybe you think, oh, this is okay because of the benefits of senior services. However, you already created a PC for this project that already had certain documented understandings to minimize density, mass, and the wall effect. And so, is it really right to

take advantage of this kind of like a loophole to make it worse now? Um, so let me show you some pictures to remind you of what the project already looks like. Next slide. Um, so this is the impacts in real life. now before the expansion. Next slide. Um and this is a place where one floor will be added in under the new proposal. Next slide. Um so this is currently a 20ft setback but now the with the new additions it will come closer. Uh even though the new plans show fewer residential units, which is what people keep talking about. Um, if you look closely at the plans, you'll see that it keeps the two offices that it wants to add, and those are 10 to 11 ft behind the back fences of myself and another neighbor. Uh, so next slide, please. And so this is the place that it's furthest uh the building is furthest from somebody's back fence. Um, so next slide, please. Um so the reason why it might have been in the past 10- foot setback and 45 degree daylight plane because was because it was within the requirement for RM2 that served as guidance assuming comparable density and mass. However, this new proposal even with three unit three fewer units will not give comparable density and mass. Next slide. And you might say, well, it was okay back then, it's okay now. But things change. So, one example, smoking on airplanes was banned in 1989, and nobody wants to go back to that. Um, and in the past, people used outouses. So, if someone wanted to build a new home now using the old standards, they might not be required to include a bathroom. And this city has no PC amendment process. So, if we allow this grandfathering here, should we also allow the old

requirements to apply for 98 PCs all over town? Um, so finally, there's some other things that have changed since 1987. Um, the management is now Wellquest Living, which is owned by Flying J Management, a 7 billion corporation that started as an oil company. And FJM has not been following the rules. You'll hear from other speakers that this corporation has violated city requirements for fire safety and for access by people with disabilities and other codes. And in spite of bringing this to the attention of the PTC and the city council over many months, they're still not compliant. Um, and in fact, in May, the FJM did not follow the city council procedure when it made a new proposal out of order. Um so given all these changes since 1987 a 10-ft setback uh with a 36 daylight plane the is an appropriate uh requirement. It is consistent with today's municipal code for new construction. Uh so in conclusion I believe that good governance by the PTC and the city council means setting clear and consistent communitywide requirements for good reasons and holding all parties accountable to follow those. that sets predictable expectations, fairness, and an even playing field among um anyone who wants to do new construction. And so tonight, you have the opportunity to uphold these values here. And I urge you to stay with the previous PTC uh recommendation that you sent to city council for the seven additional interior units and not to add the six units in the back of residential and two offices. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, Miss Lee.

Our next speaker is Janice I representing a group of five. Hi everyone. My name is Janice. Um I live a few blocks away and I've been living in Pala my entire life. Um and I'll be talking about uh some of the parking issues that the neighborhood has been experiencing um with Palto Commons. Next slide, please. Uh following slide. So, we know that parking has been an ongoing issue all the way from 1987. And I know we all have been hearing about this every time that we meet in chat. So, I'll go through uh more of those details in the coming slides as well. Next slide, please. Uh so, the original PC agreement requires that parking is reported to the city. Um and this is something that uh we have not seen compliance for in the last 38 years. Next slide. So over the last um 38 years um the PC has not been compliant with reporting any of these issues with parking. Um and even when at city council the commons admitted that they have never submitted this information. Uh we still have not seen um any of this required information. Um so per uh staff since the city council meeting five months ago uh they still have not submitted the required information. So this is an ongoing issue and ongoing uh compliance issues as well. Next slide please. So let's jump to current day today. So some of the current conditions around parking. Um next slide. So I've got a few images that demonstrate the already congested parking in the neighborhood. Um as you

can see Wilky is already congested with uh parking from these areas. Next slide. Here is another photo where we can see um the parking challenges on Wilky with many cars lining both sides of the street. Um I'll pause here and um talk through some of the challenges that we have heard about parking from Palo Alto Commons. So Palto Commons claimed that parking congestion was due to Goodwill customers, but neighbors talked to many people parking who said that they are from Palto Commons and that they're Palo Alto Commons employees. um in conversations with uh a half dozen people that have parked on Wilky um who have said that they are Pallet Commons employees um and that they fear retribution from um the commons. Um you can check on indeed.org uh on the job profile for this organization um that there are many comments of frustrated mistreated workers there. Um, additionally, um, uh, people have also started to park on Second Street, um, in addition to Wilky. Um, hearing from a nurse, um, she did not want to raise her concerns because she was afraid of retributions, uh, from Palo Alto Commons. Um, a nurse told a neighbor that the employees that the employees have been told not to park on Wilky Way for a few months until after the final decision about planning decisions and to park on Second Street instead. Um neighbors on Second Street have reported higher amount of parking afterwards. Um there are also many folks who are visibly in scrubs um who are believed to be working for Pala Commons as this is the only employer in the area um that would require employees to wear scrubs. So going on to the next slides um we'll talk about the bus on Wilky. So in this photo we can see that the bus

um later in the night is parked on Wilky. Um there's uh these photos can be found on page 83 of your packets. So maybe a coincidence that maybe this is just a one-time thing that the bus was parked there. Let's move on to the next slide. Still maybe even more coincidences. Uh just three photos of the bus being parked on Wilky. Next slide, please. No, clearly this is not a coincidence that we keep seeing the bus on Wilky. This is repeated um repeated parking of the bus um from Pala Commons on Wilky. Now let's dive into some other parking violations um in the Pala Commons area. So here we can see uh construction material is taking up other parking spaces. Um, Commissioner Suma had called this out in the June 2024 PTC meeting as being unacceptable. Charlene from the comments promised ARB in both meetings that they have already fixed this. This is back in 2024 and this is continue to be ongoing issues as well. So, next slide. Uh on this slide you can see that the um bus um and construction parking um is taking up space within the Palto Commons. So on the slide on the photo on the left um the bus is taking up multiple parking spots and then there's uh construction material taking up more of the parking spots within Palto Commons. Next slide. Construction equipment is also taking up parking spaces in the underground parking lot. Um the parking study found that three of the underground spots are unusable uh due to construction equipment obstructing spots. Next slide. Another thing blocking uh some of the parking spots are traffic cones.

So here we can see that they have cones blocking off um ad an ADA spot. Um, many visitors have reported trying to park there but cannot due to the cones that are placed there blocking that spot. Even as recent as last week, they still have cones blocking the parking spot. Um, so this was still very recent, still an ongoing issue um of cones blocking that spot. Next, we'll talk about inconsistent valet parking. Um, so Commons claims that they do have valet. Um, there is not always a person who's there. So oftentimes, um, when neighbors have gone by, there's no valet person, um, to support in in the in these operations. There's often no valet at all. So in these photos we can see uh on the left that um middle of the day that they don't have a valet booth out and then on the right we can see that there are a lot of people visiting at this time um and yet there's still no valet present. Next we'll go through fire lane blockages. Um this is also a big issue impacting uh both Commons and the community. Here we can see vehicles in the fire lane. This is from April of 2025. Uh here are more photos of the fire line being blocked um in June 2025. These photos were taken after the city council meetings and after the PTC meetings. So these are again ongoing um violations. Next slide. Here again we see that a vehicle is blocking the fire lane. This is August of 2025. Again continued ongoing issue. Next slide. Continuing uh in September of this year,

we continue to see this issue. Um and lastly, next slide. Um we also see the bus blocking these uh fire access road um in this month. Next slide. And this actually became an issue um when a fire truck was blocked from um the fire access roads. So, a fire truck had come, but a fire truck could not go into the commons area because a fire lane was blocked. So, to wrap this up, uh we recommend trust but verify. We recommend that existing parking issues be resolved before the project continues in the process as we continue to see them not adhering um and violating um actions that they say that they will take both with reporting um providing parking for employees as well as um adding more challenges to the community. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is SP. Um SP, you may now come to the mic. Uh I have a card here for either SP or JP. All right, then I will move to uh Jenny C.

Um, just for clear, it just says JP or SP just just initials. No full name.

Yeah. Yeah. Give me Yeah. Um, next, uh, our next speaker will be Jenny C. Uh, good evening. Um, I'm an resident. Uh, I'm here to oppose Palato Common's new 13 unit expansion project. I echo my labor's concerns on daylight plane, parking, and violation of current building code. Thank you.

Our next speaker is James C. Good evening, commissioners. I'm James Cham, a resident on Wilky Way. One of the unexpected blessings of the Commons proposal is that I've had a chance to meet many of my neighbors, extending my understanding of our neighborhood and its history. And one of the disappointments has been how the Commons has negotiated in bad faith with no visibility into their actual economics, hoping that we'll forget their past commitments and paper over our legitimate concerns. As I learned from my neighbors, the Commons hopes to break their promise in 1987 that they would not expand towards our neighborhood. And from my own experience, they continue to use parking spaces for construction and cause overflow on our streets. I thought we'd be able to come to some sort of compromise, but their concessions have been minimal and ignored our actual concerns and in many ways they've not actually followed up. So, I'd request the PDC approve the previously recommended seven internal units without the two additional offices they're trying to sneak in or alternatively expand an El Camino way rather than encroach into our neighborhood. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Michael J. Good evening commissioners. I stand with my neighbors in opposing the 13 unit plan. The common country design rely on all dated 1987 data plan rule. All new project must meet with today's code or the city risk setting the dangerous precedents. In fact, back to back to 1987, the common promised not to expand toward the neighborhood and this plan break the their uh commitment. They're shifting claim from 16 unit to 13 saying the seven is in feasible that undermine their credibility and with 15,000 monthly joint and national corporate owner they can clearly afford to limit the expansion to seven unit or build the unit toward air commun today's code and their past commitment recommend seven unit only. Thank you.

Our next speaker is LNH.

LNH. Uh after LNH will be Andy R. Honorable members of the planning and transportation commission, I'm a longtime resident of this neighborhood and I recall when the commons was developed and designed to maximize its capacity. We had huge debates how the how the three-story complex would impact the neighborhood and how it would impact adjacent properties. It took much compromising to agree on the building mass, giving up the 20-oot setback for open air space and staggered stories and a 10-ft setback, assuring the adjacent neighbors this is the extent of the building massing. This project is affecting the community who have already put their put in their dues, making great sacrifices to light and air, giving up the 20oot setback for senior housing, and now again asked to give up more light and air. The daylight plane ensures no buildings inside the the setback. I agree. But this compromise we agreed upon is not the standard. It's a compromised setback. And the setback is and was 20 ft. This neighborhood has already lost property value in this project will further erode the value. Doing this any further type expansion would need to be outside the original 20ft setback as originally zoned. I'm completely opposed to this project expansion in the rear. All the work we did in the past was to ensure property owners their legal right to light and air. This project affects the adjacent 10 family property values, the entire street visibility, acoustically and environmentally, not to mention the emotional emotional well-being for losing so much and with the constru construction affecting everyone,

especially seniors. This has to be further studied with an EIS or EIR and ought to have benefits to the public such as units for lowincome seniors or and provide solar power to the adjacent affected neighbors. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Andy R followed by Shiki H. Good evening, Chair Aken and commissioners. My name is Andy Reid and I live in Old PaloAlto, not a direct neighbor of the project, but we share the plight. I will address the transportation demand management plan. My question is, who is the TDM addressing? This document encourages employees to walk, ride bikes, car pool, and take buses, which is certainly a good plan, but speaks to a specific portion of the car trips arriving at PaloAlto Commons. I supported a close relative in a similar place for 10 years, and I can attest to how many contractors, outside services, and deliveries come and go daily, not to mention guests and medical support personnel who visit res residents. These folks aren't going to be taking bikes and walking and taking buses. I remind you that only 15 of the 90some parking spaces that Avant and Palatoto Commons share are ungated. Most In-N-Out services aren't going to call the front desk to access the spaces behind locked gates. Where does the TDM address this most important parking issue? My neighborhood experience with TDMs is that the applicant produced their TDM without input from neighbors and the city cast it in stone. The problem is during meetings like this sometimes everyone agrees to well we can see how it goes and make adjustments along the way but that's not how it works out. Please make clear that the neighbors get input into the TDM before it becomes finalized. The TDM is only good if there are specific rules and consequences for non-compliance. For example, PaloAlto Commons could require employees to park underground. They could leave the underground parking area open during the day and direct

visitors into it. They could acquire off-site parking for the employees. They could require identifying stickers. The TDM should give specific direction that improves the impacts on Wilky Way. Thank you very much for your hard work and I recommend going to your uh seven units originally recommended. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Shiki H followed by Daniel P. Dear fellow Alto Council members, I'm speaking on behalf of a senior in the community. I would like to express my support for the decision the PTC made on December 2024 and that is not approving the units to be built against the backyard of Wilky Way residents. The current tiered structure was a result of a compromise made 38 years ago between the commons and the residents. The tier structure has already caused some loss of sunlights and loss of privacy for those residents. Back then, the residents agreed to this sacrifice because the commons had committed to build this way. The same residents could not have imagined 38 years later the commons would withdraw their promise and commitments. The new proposed units would cause the residents to lose most of their sunlights and privacy. This is totally unethical and unacceptable and maybe even illegal given that this commitment was documented. In addition, the commas has been in coviolation for the past 38 years. Also, they have not provided adequate parking causing many cars overflowing to the neighborhood. On paper, it may appear that they have sufficient numbers of parking spaces, but in reality, those parking spaces are either blocked or difficult to reach. Therefore, the number of parking spaces is very misleading and grossly overstated. They claim to have implemented programs to solve the parking issue, but when talking to some staff there, they have not heard of such programs. In addition, the comments claim to have implemented valet parking, but many times we didn't see a valet person on site. The comments is showing signs of offering solution but not only temporarily as a meth method to gain approval for their project and only to withdraw later once

they have achieved their goals. They cannot be trusted. They need to be held responsible for their proposed solutions on a permanent basis and there should be some kind of monitoring and material punishment if they are caught in violation. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Daniel P. Good evening everybody. Uh my name is Daniel and I live on 46 Milky Way and I'm here to respectfully oppose the expansion as currently proposed. Earlier tonight, I remember Commission Templeton expressed empathy towards the home homeowner losing their safe driveway access and she didn't want people's voice to go unheard. And for me, I really appreciate that because that's exactly how many of us on Wilkkey are feeling right now. Like our voices and the real impacts on our homes are being overlooked. This proposal still violates the daylight plane under today's code. The applicant is relying on our outdated 1987 standards which opens the city to legal and president savings risk. Meanwhile, the common is already out of compliance, using parking for construction equipments, blocking fire lines, and causing spillover on Wilkey. And even currently, I have a video uh showing the rooftop operation running in early morning and throughout the day, producing constant noise that directly impacts the nearby homes. This isn't a small operator struggling to make an ends meet. The Commons is owned by FJ Management, a $7 billion revenue national company. They initially claimed that 16 units were essential, but just before the council concluded in opposition their plans, the pivoted to 13 trying to bring the proposal back into play. And even though the core issue remained, so that last minute move doesn't reflect, you know, a real compromise, it reflects a strategy. and we are asking you to uphold the recommendation to approve only the seven internal units. No external units, no new offices. And please help us feel like our voice is mattered just as we heard you say others should. Thank you for your time and for listening.

Our next speaker is James P followed by Nia P. Uh, good evening, commissioners. I've lived at 480 Wookie Way in the back paj Commons for the last 22 years. We brought our house with the understanding of the commons building was fully mature. Um, I've supported more services for seniors. Our neighborhood was uh recently absorbed the significant impacts of the Avant project which added another 40 units to serve uh seniors. However, um I'm opposed the proposed 13 unit plus uh two office expansion of the of the commons. In 1987, the commission uh sorry, the commons promised not to expand toward the neighborhood. This proposal breaks that commitment. Um I'd urged the PTC to approve the recommendation that was recommended last time. went to PTC at the seven internal units uh without the additional external units facing Loki or the two offices. The current uh consideration to PA Commons even today is pretty massive as you saw in the pictures in previous presentations. It's leading significant shading, cooling and loss of privacy in backyards for most uh for most residents on that side of Wilky. Um we're really uh fear the expansion with the abandonment of stepback design would result in even greater loss of value, privacy and home utility. So the current expansion um proposes a new uh a near solid wall of construction that fills in the entire stepback area and this is a clear violation of past assurances. The proposed WIKY way facing units would also uh violate current daylight plane standards which would further devalue property um along Wilki. So in closing, I urge you to vote no on

the project at 13 units unless modifications can be made to shift the project back to seven interior units and focus any external expansion if needed on the Uncle Camino Way side of the uh the property and lessen the community impact of the project. Thanks. Our next speaker is Nia P.

Hello and thank you guys so much for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Nia Porter and I've lived on Wilky Way my entire life for the past 18 years. I don't support the expansion is proposed. As my neighbors have already said, even before the additional units with what we have right now, Wilky Way and El Camino Way are already very congested with both traffic and parking. This isn't to say that I don't support your housing. I actually think it's a great thing. I would just prefer for the additional units to be built on the interior or front instead of in the back. I understand that the developer's cost for building in the front may be higher, but that difference in cost does fall into us as Wilky Way residents. Even now without the additional units, there's an invasion of privacy. We can clearly see the residents and the residents have an even better view into our backyards because they're higher up. The buildings also block the sun and the sky. It is adding additional units to the back would only further diminish the utility of our own backyards. It's also worth mentioning that these units are around $180,000 per year. That's well above what most households make in an entire year. I'm all for helping the community and our seniors, but I think we do need to recognize that these additional units are only able to benefit a very small privileged group of seniors, and these people aren't even necessarily pled to residents. At the end of the day, FJ Management is also a $7 billion for-profit company. The owner's daughter, who runs the company, even said herself, "Do what's best for the company, not what's best for the family." This doesn't sound like values that would align with what I personally think Palato stands for. Palo Alto Commons has also been inconsistent in their story. Initially, they stated that this project was only financially worth it if they built all 16 units and now they're suggesting a lower number, hinting at the fact that they might actually have a little bit more flexibility than than they were building. It's possible for them to

decrease the number of units overall and for them to shift more of these units to the front. I recommend that you guys only approve the seven units. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Our next speaker is Daniel H.

Hello. My name is Daniel Hansen. Um I live on Edgewood Drive. I'm here on behalf of Jeffrey Shore and myself. Um we share the concerns of our Wilky Way neighbors. We uh appreciate it and understand it when uh proposed land use changes are trying to take away value from your property. Um FJ management um is a large corporation. It's wellquest is owned by it. The FJ stands for Flying J. You may remember those gas stations from the 60s. They've grown over time. Uh according to Forbes, last year FJ management had 7 billion in revenue. It was number 89 on the list of the largest private corporations in uh the US. The bottom line here is they can afford to put the project somewhere other than PaloAlto Commons. There's lots of space out there to purchase. Um they can also afford designs that meet the Wilky Way neighbors concerns and council's direction of no thirdtory units. Palo Alto or um Palo Alto Commons is described on its website as luxury senior living. Uh these units rent for an astonishing 7,000 to 15,000 per month. Um it's hard to imagine the addition of even one unit isn't profitable. Our other concern is that senior living and nursing homes are ripe for exploitation by private equity given the high cash flow. So we suggest that in addition to addressing the neighbors concerns, the city take steps to ensure that high levels of care uh remain at Palo Alto Commons. For example, specified nurse to tenant ratios, requirements to justify pricing increases, living wage salaries for staff, and preference for PaloAlto

residents. Thank you. Our next speaker is Penny B.

I join with preceding speakers who oppose the most recent proposal for a 13 unit expansion of the PaloAlto Commons. I have two comments to add. First, I'd like to note the increasing traffic and parking problems occurring along Wilky Way behind the PaloAlto Commons. Wilky Way continues to be packed with cars. Recently, some drivers have begun parking their cars on either side of the curve on Wilky Way, where it curves around to meet Second Street. For drivers and bicyclists approaching it, this is a blind curve. The view of oncoming traffic is blocked by parked cars. Furthermore, it is almost impossible to negotiate the curve without ending up in the lane of oncoming traffic. It is a head-on collision waiting to happen if it not has not already. I'm mentioning this to underscore the ongoing and worsening traffic and parking situation along Wilky Way attributable in large part to PaloAlto Commons. The situation will only get worse with expansion of PaloAlto Commons. Yet developers of the expansion proposals have offered no viable plans for preventing or mitigating the very negative traffic and parking impacts of Palo Alto Commons expansion on the people who live on Wilky Way. Second, I note that proponents of PaloAlto Commons expansion often claim that it provides quote public benefit unquote to PaloAlto because it adds more housing for health challenge elders in our community. I note that by virtue of its price point, which is very high and quite in line with its web page branding as quote luxury luxury senior living in PaloAlto, California, and its lack of financial accommodations for low-income elders, such as the HUD assisted housing program at Linton Gardens. PaloAlto Commons is a housing

alternative only for underscored wealthy health challenged elders. much of Palo Alto Commons. Oh, thank you. That concludes your time. Our next speaker is Minami S. [Music] Minami. Yes, you may now speak.

Hi, my name is Benami. I grew up in Palo Alto going to K to2 schools in PA USD and I'm reading a letter on behalf of an individual who would like to remain anonymous for uh as the patient uh is concerned this letter could affect how they are treated by the staff at the facility. All right. Only once can I ever remember finding a place to park in the visitor lot for Paul Alto Commons. Sometimes a van belonging to the Palto Commons is parked in one or more of those spaces. Another visitor space is reserved for future residents and thus not intended for those visiting current patients. Construction materials or other obstructions sometimes to occupy other spaces. And then there are always cars I presume belong to other visitors in what few spaces remain. Not finding a spot in the visitor lot, I then have to exit back into El Camino Way. There are never any other free places to park anywhere along El Camino Way because you can't park in many stretches and the rest are already filled with cars probably belonging to customers of Goodwill. The same is true for West Meadow. So I ended up parking on Wilky Way. I heard the neighbors on Wilkkey are protesting being used as the effective extension parking lot for Palto Commons and I'm sorry that I contribute to their problem. I reached out to them and I'm grateful they will submit the letter. Please note that there are no handicap parking spaces in the Palto Commons visitor lot and this adds a further problem. When I brought with me a visitor who is mobility impaired, I had to drop that person off, park on Wilkey, and then literally run back to attend to them. There are a couple signs in the Palto common visitors lot indicating one can call for parking assistance. However, to place this call safely requires me to park first somewhere. Since there's no place to park in the visitor lot, this means I have to park first on Wilkey. Once I've done that, there's no point in calling. So, the signs don't help at all. I'm sure the staff at Polo Commons want their patients to receive visitors, but by having seriously inadequate visitor parking and no handicap spaces, they're making it much harder for me and others to visit. Fewer visits is detrimental to the health and well-being of those living at the facility. I urge the city to insist that Paulto common visitors

parking be expanded to meet its present needs so that I and others no longer need to uh park on Wilkey. Furthermore, if the number of rooms at Paulto Commons is to increase, so should the visitor parking accordingly. Sincerely, name withheld. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Nile Z. Nile Z may now speak. Hello, dear Chair Aken, Vice Chair Chang, and members of the planning commission. I speak today on behalf of a senior neighbor, and I appreciate you taking the time, as Commissioner Templeton noted in the prior item, to listen to their perspective, even at this late hour. I have been following the development and expansion of the Palo Alto Commons ever since it was first built many years ago. For 45 years, I've lived at 360 MLAN Street, just three houses from where Wilky Way dead ends. Our daughter's best friend, from first through 12th grades, lived on Wilky Way, with her backyard now totally obscured from sunlight by the Paloto Commons. This facility's continuous expansion, including now wishing to build out and fill in their stacked units, breaks the agreement they made when they first built it. This blatant disregard of their previous agreement demonstrates their indifference for the impact they have on their neighbors. We cannot have faith that they will adhere to any further agreements. For that reason, you cannot approve the ex expansion plan. In addition, the impact they have on not providing sufficient parking for their staff and visitors has caused overflow to occur up and down Wilky Way and even onto MLAN Street where I live. Especially since they built the Avant Independent Building, staff and visitors park on my street and sometimes even cut through Jacob's Court as a shortcut to the building. This overflow parking on our street has caused parking issues with tradesmen and workers trying to provide services to our home. We recently had tree service and roofing repairs done as a condition of continuing our homeowners insurance. The workers had difficulty finding adequate

parking for their trucks near our home. In the past, my neighbors and I would know to move any cars on Sunday evening, but now cars parked from workers are preventing street cleaning. Please do not approve the current proposal to build out the building. Thank you for your consideration on this issue. Our next speaker is JP. JP, you may now speak.

Good evening, Chair Akin, Vice Chair Chang, and commissioners. My name is JP and I've been a lifelong resident of PaloAlto. I want to echo comments made by neighbors and more than 100 residents who have signed the petition opposing the project. The quintessential issue here is simple. Palo Alto Commons has been a poor neighbor for nearly four decades. They have failed to comply with their original agreements, ignoring parking requirements, skipping mandatory reports, and crowding our streets with staff, cars, buses, and overflow traffic. They promised stepbacks and density limits that respect the R1 neighborhood. But instead, we've been expansion attempts that disregard those commitments. Even today, they block visitors park parking with equipment, misuse handicap spaces, and direct therapists and visitors to park on Wilky Way. That is not corporation that's shifting their burden onto the neighborhood. A neighbor recently pointed out that the only reason this project continues is that it relies on the zoning code from when it was originally built. I have a friend who who lives nearby who says that if they rebuild their house to the original zoning code, they wouldn't even need a proper bathroom. Just an outhouse would suffice. This shows how outdated the rules are being used to justify expansion rather than promoting responsible development. I grew up here and I hope to settle down here in the future, but I would not want developers like this as my neighbors. Developers who break promises, push problems onto the community, and put profit over respect for residents. That's why I respectfully urge you to recommend the only the seven internal units and reject the additional external units and offices. Palo Alto deserves responsible development, not more of the same broken promises. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Peter. Peter, may you may now speak.

Hi, I'm reading this statement on behalf of a neighbor who wishes to remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation. Dear planning and transportation commissioner members, at the May 27th, 2025 city council session on the Powat Commons proposal, council member Pat Bert did not assume that removing three units will address the problem if there are five units against the Wookie fences per the minutes. And when he said this, he was right. The latest plans still show second floor units in the daylight plane and based on the current rules for commercial and residential PCs in our code. Staff's insistence that this one project gets to use a more relaxed daylight plane blatantly violates the equal protection rights of Wilhy residents. In countless other matters, city staff requires projects to follow our current laws, and they should in this case, too. We've heard many different stories from Palo Alto Commons. They've said that fewer than 16 units could not pencil out. Now they're eager to have 13 approved, but they could move some of those units to the front of the building. For example, the plans show a new office on the second floor, room 262 at the front. That area could instead lead to a new corridor serving several new residential rooms over the front parking lot. These units would have no impact on Wilky residents. The latest proposal also fails to address the parking problems. There's strong evidence that Palto Commons is underparked, including photographs showing their vehicles parking on Wilky Way in their fire lane. Um, and yeah, and the the council listened closely to past PTC recommendations on this matter. So, your best efforts in

this round could give Palo Alto Commons the units it wants by relocating some to the front, protect privacy and daylight for neighbors, and end the current flagrant parking violations. Thank you, dear Aal Sincerely A Palatoto resident.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Shashank. Shashank, you may now speak. Shashank, are you there? Right, I will move on. Um, our next speaker is Kai P. Uh, Kai, you may now speak. Kai, are you there? Right. Hello. Let me see.

Kai, uh, are you there? Hello. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you.

Hi. Thank you to the PTC for giving um us residents the opportunity to weigh in on this issue. Um while housing creating more housing and specifically senior housing is incredibly important, Palto Commons as uh the the as as an entity, I don't know if they are the best uh best organization to to to do that. They have consistently demonstrated their total disregard for the well-being of us neighbors, the residents of Woki WG. They first they claim to follow the current parking requirements uh set by the PC while in reality they just completely disregard it as as shown by many of the other neighbors. The much of the parking that is on site is inaccessible to visitors or employees and their own bus has parked either in the fire lane or in on Wilky Way. they have when when they've said that they wanted to listen to the neighbors um concerns they told us that we shouldn't care about our property values because we have a goodwill next to us and therefore any any sort of impact that Palo Alto Commons could have is completely dwarfed and that that should not be a concern for us whatsoever. When asked if they would be able to relocate those uh rear exterior units to the front of the building, they just said that it was too too arduous a task. It was too hard to move the stairwells on the front where even though they market themselves as a luxury senior living facility that charges prices to match. I do not believe that Palto Commons should be allowed to build uh on the ex rear exterior facing Milky Way, but I I do still see the importance of creating

senior housing. So, I urge the PTC to still uh go with the the plan of seven interior units and units on the front uh as agreed to before. Thank you. And through the chair, I just want to um confirm that I do not see Shashank on the call anymore. Um and that concludes public comment. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Tutor. So, um the applicant can speak for up to three minutes if you wish. Okay, I'll try to go quickly. Um, when we were last in front of the city council, it was for the 16 unit plan. We never said nothing under 16 would wasn't viable. We said seven didn't work. Um, the daylight plane, we're following the rules that were kind of validated by staff in the ARB. Um, we've shown that there is no real impact to the sunlight. We recognize it's a big building. Um, and I think that all these residents bought their homes after the building was already there. We realize it's a big building and that there's trees, but what we're proposing we don't think actually changes the sunlight. It's it's fairly comparable on the massing side. There's been a lot of comments about FJ Management. Um FJ Management is a partner of Wellquest in three other communities um in the real estate ownership of those communities. FJ Management does not own any of Wellquest living and well and FJ Management is not the owner of Palo Alto Comets. Palto Com is owned by a local family, the Railers that have been longtime PaloAlto residents and have done a lot of good

for the senior community here. So understand the comments. Um maybe there's some misunderstanding about who owns Wellquest, but Wellquest is owned by me and my partner. We're couple of small entrepreneurs. Um the reporting requirements, we're talking about that with the staff and asking who do we report to? Let's get that going. We're supportive of that. Parking, I think, is the ongoing biggest issue. And you know, if if we're the sole cause of trouble parking on Wilky, I don't know that that could be demonstrated, but we'd be completely supportive of making Wilky Way permit parking only. Give the residents of Wilky Way permits and let that put the window and anyone that doesn't have a permit, ticket them. We're we're doing everything we can to encourage and support not parking on Wilky Way. Um, we've put permanent incentives in place for our employees to to park on site or to use alternative means of getting there. We do employ valet if there's not somebody standing in front of the building 24/7. It's because we only staff during the day and if they're off doing something else, then someone can come take their keys to the front desk and and then valet will park their car. The bus now has a permanent parking location at the Avant. If you've driven by recently, you will see it parked in front of the Avant. Um I know one of the recent times last year when it was parked on Wilky Way had a broken window and there wasn't enough space for them to do it in sight. They did park on Wilky Way, not at our encouragement. It was the window replacement. Um construction has ended. That was a temporary condition that did take up some parking uh both in front temporarily and in the garage there, you know, that's that is ended. Um,

we always try to maintain emergency vehicle access and um, this doesn't change traffic a lot. So, thanks for your time.

All right, commissioners. There is an opportunity to ask questions of the applicant at this point. Would anyone like to uh would anyone like to ask a question? Commissioner Hecman. Thank you. The last time you were um in front of us, uh the plan had five third floor units facing uh Wilkkey. Uh the new plan that we're seeing has two. And uh I'd like you to help me understand what if any changes have been made to those two from those two when we last saw them. Uh for example, I think Miss Callus might have mentioned that that they have been set farther back, but I'm not sure. So I'm asking you or your architect.

Yeah, I'm going to have Daniel Bowman, our architect, come address that. So, those two units um they are not facing the Wookiway property line. They are at a 45° um windows facing you know at a 45. Does that answer the question? Okay. And so, but the last version they were directly facing. No. No. So those units have not been changed um simply because they were already um 25 ft away from the property line. Okay. So those those two particular units still shown on your plans are identical to the two that we saw last time you were here.

Yes. Okay.

All right. So then uh my other question for the applicant um and I mentioned before I I didn't watch the council meeting but when I read the staff report it looks like one of one of the council me so it was a 4-3 vote to send this back with this uh 11 to13 recommendation. One of the council members who voted no wanted seven that the two other who voted no seem to want a lower number. It's not entirely clear. And so the four who sent it to us said 11 to 13 but nothing on the third floor facing Wilkkey. Um, you've got a plan that you're asking us to recommend and you're going to go back to council and I'd like to know uh I'd like you to tell us what you intend to tell council to convince those four that these two third unit um um these two third floor units um should be approved.

Yeah. Our our our reasoning on that is that they are 25 ft back from the property line and they're not directly fronting the Wilky Way neighbors because of the angled approach. Correct. Correct. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Anyone else? If not, okay, I have one. Um, so this is uh with regard to a couple documents that are included in the TDM plan. Um those are the u uh staff participation agreement and staff parking policy and procedure. Um one thing that I expected to find there uh was something very simple. Uh staff may not park on Wilky Way, Mlan Street or Second Street as part of the official policy. Is this something you are willing to add to any policy document that's distributed to your staff?

Yes.

Okay. Um if necessary, we can uh we the BTC can add a condition of approval requiring that. But um I wanted to know whether that was something that you would find acceptable regardless. All right. Any other questions of the applicant? If not, thank you very much. Thank you to all the uh public speakers as well. We very much appreciate getting as much information from everyone as we can. All right, time to bring the discussion back to the commission. Start with Commissioner Peterson.

Thank you, Chair. I'm going to come back to SQA. So very quickly I was looking at the definition of the exemption for existing facilities and you know when does an existing facility cease to be an existing facility? I assume there's some stretch there. Uh but unfortunately uh AI these days tends to hallucinate. So I need to ask quickly. So, it says here it's 2500 square ft, but in the packet it says 5,000 square ft. And the project, if I understand it, is over 5,000 square ft. Is that correct? And I just want to double check what is the square footage for a SQA exemption under existing facility. Uh yes, I'm uh I pulled up the categorical exemption so I can look for the answer to that.

I think Mr. Yang is also Yeah. Yes. Um so it's 10,000 square feet. Uh in general,

the Pekka said five. It can be up to 10,000 square feet. There are a couple different categories that do fall under that. If it applied to this one, wouldn't it say 10,000 in the packet? Then I I'm not sure why the packet says 5,000, but uh the exemption allows if you're in an area that's well served by utilities as this is, um it's allows up to 10,000 square feet. Can we pull up the SQL exemption and actually see what it says in there? Is that case law or is that actually written in the organ? It's written in the exemption.

Can we see the exemption and see what it says? Because I I don't want to rely on I shouldn't be sitting here googling because I don't know what I'm looking at. There we go. I see 2500. I've highlighted the 10,000, right? But usually the way I was taught to read this stuff is you read the first one and that's usually what's ruling. That's not correct. I'll take your word on that actually. So why is the second one why does it why why does it say 2500 and then 10,000?

There are conditions to getting to the 10,000. Basically if you're in an area that is urbanized then you can have the 10,000. If you're not in an urbanized area then you don't. Can we see it real quick again? you took it back down just so I can read it additionally through the chair if I may. Um the 5,000 in the packet is referring to when something is considered minor architectural review in our zoning code. It's not referring to SQA.

Oh, okay. So we're Okay. So here we additions to existing structures provided. Okay, let me try to read the legal ease here. A and B. So if the area is not environmentally sensitive. So is this not an environmentally sensitive area? It is not. That would refer to like a wetlands or something like that. It is pretty close to a creek. I don't know what the distance is.

Right. we're within the already been built exemption, but there's subcategories and then uh to allow for maximum development possible in the general plan. So, is that in the general plan? I'm assuming that's what you're saying. Yeah, there's sufficiently sufficient public utilities to allow development of this site essentially.

Okay. Thank you. That was the discrepancy I wanted to to look into. I appreciate it. That's all my questions. Vice Chair Ch. Um, so I did watch the city council meeting and also review the minutes and I think that's why I asked for staff to um add a clarification in our addendum packet addendum um that basically the so I want to make clear that city council's motion wasn't that we approve 11 to 13 units. It was that we review 11 to 13 units because the maker of the motion didn't understand that we had already attempted to compromise. In other words, that we had suggested other um like I I clearly remember at one of our first two meetings, possibly the first meeting that we consider um a certain daylight plane and perhaps you can have these units and shave off some of the side the some of the you know make it a tiny bit smaller to adhere to a daylight plane. Um, and so council didn't realize that we had already explored a whole bunch of options. Um, and so they said, "Well, look at something that takes off this third story." Um, because that seemed to be something that that they, you know, they they were worried about the backyard neighbors. So, that's just a point of clarification that it wasn't that they were expecting us to approve 11 to 13. is just consider something that might be more than seven, less than 13. There must be a way to compromise was sort of the the spirit of that motion. So, I just wanted to provide that additional color.

Um, so then onto my personal comments. I'm a little bit disappointed with the applicant because they've seemed a bit tonedeaf to what council has requested. So, in the pre-screening, council was very clear about um being concerned about the backyard neighbors. They were very excited about um more senior housing. And we've also heard that the neighbors are excited about more senior housing, but they just don't want the impact to their light and air and their honestly the property value for their house houses. um unfortunate. And so then between the pre-screening and the time the applicant came to the PTC, they actually found additional units. If I remember correctly, the pre-screening was for 14 units. And so the applicant found a way to do additional units that were internal or didn't face onto Wilky. And rather than shrinking the number of units that faced Wilkey by the number of units that they found internally, they actually added two more units that they requested. So they the pre-screen was 14. Then the first time they came to us was with 16. The PTC then asked the applicant, "Okay, we're you know the PTC said, we're very concerned about these wy neighbors. Consider this daylight plane or can we do fewer than 16 units?" And it wasn't I don't know if it was to council that the applicant said that 16 anything less than 16 wasn't feasible but we were told here in the PT PTC that it was infeasible. And so it bothers me that at the last second not even the 11th hour but the very last second when it appeared that council was not going to approve the project that the applicant spoke out of turn and said oh

but we could compromise potentially we could we could maybe do 13. And so that's you know we could have saved a lot of time if we just started with that in our second meeting after we had asked the applicant could you reduce the number of units in any way. So now I'm left wondering what is actually financially feasible because we've been we at the PTC have been told multiple things. Secondly, um I in the very first prior to the very first time this project came to the PTC because of the public comment regarding parking, I went and did a visit myself and I noted um that the gates were closed, that there were employee only signs for visitor for visitor parking that was in front of the gate, the garage, and thankfully that has been corrected now. But prior to the second meeting, because the packet said that new signs have been added and you can call, visitors can call the front desk and be directed to parking. I did that. I visited called the front desk and was told that no, there's no I can't get access to the garage, you know, in in direct contradiction to what was in the packet. Nope, you can't access the garage. and I was told to park in Goodwill. In those first two visits, I had also noted that there were construction materials in parking spots um and also storage of other furniture in parking spots because I could see it through the gate. And at the third time, prior to the time, the third time this came to the PTC, I again visited and thankfully this time I was allowed to enter the garage, but I counted 14 spaces occupied

by construction materials and furniture. And so it bothers me that not only has this uh management company violated the PC for or and whoever knows who knows what the prior management company did but for 38 years there's been no report and then even while this project was being scrutinized before the PTC and even when I asked that these issues be remedied they were not remedyed. And so I understand there is a TDM now, but it's hard to imagine that I I don't I don't see the T the TD TDM that would avoid these issues. And so that's something that would need to be fixed. Um, regarding the TDM specifically, it really addresses only employee cars and yet there are many visitor cars and private caregiver cars and traffic counts. It doesn't the TDM doesn't address anything about uh traffic or parking counts that are offsite. So, I don't know how we would monitor that. Um, and I know that, you know, the initial PC had attempted to address some of that with the annual report, which we haven't seen. So, that's my first round of comments.

Commissioner Heck.

Thank you. And, um, I also thank um the neighborhood for again coming out and and providing um, written comments in advance, too. Those are really helpful because that when you do that, it gives us an opportunity to digest a little bit more rather than um sort of on the fly. A lot of information that comes to us in the in the public comment. Um um and I also appreciate the applicant is is still at it and wanting to um add housing to PaloAlto and and I I I think that's very important. Um, in in this first round, I actually want to talk about a couple of things that that I think should not be controversial. Um, and these are items that um I raised the last time it was here. They didn't make it into the motion uh which was ultimately approved because and I was a a no vote on that motion. So, um I want to try again because I don't think there was objection last time. I just think it got lost in the in the motion. So uh and these address really a couple of uh concerns I had back then and still do. Um uh so the first one very simple and that is what kind of trees are being planted uh are going to be planted um um you know I I read before the last meeting and again before this meeting but it's hard to tell if sometimes um people will take a letter and just refresh the date and resubmit it. But uh a concern that that deciduous trees were planned. We want evergreens. So, you know, they we we get screening year round rather than just during the leafy periods of the year. Um I I heard the applicant tonight uh state that they're willing to uh put trees in that the neighborhood uh that the neighbors find acceptable into the landscape plan. So,

I want to ask staff, how do we lock that down so that since the applicant is good with the kind of trees that the neighbors want, assuming the neighbors all agree, and they may not, how how do we make that a condition that that results in the neighbors having the trees they want planted back there?

As you noted, uh different neighbors do want different things. Certain neighbors do want deciduous trees and certain neighbors do want evergreen. The plans um have the landscape plans have not been modified um in the last rounds and no one has directly reached out to say that the tree on their property line is not um what they want. Uh so the current um implementation is that the uh condition of approval to um for the building permit plans to match the planning plans and for that to be what gets built um covers the landscaping as well. Um and so that would be checked both at the time of the building permit and at the time of final inspection. Um, and so, you know, certainly if there is anyone who doesn't have the right tree species, we do need to hear from them. Um, but I'm not currently aware of any issues with the current landscape plan.

Okay. All right. So, so to the neighborhood, this it appears that this plan is going to go forward in some some form. How many units remains to be seen, but it's going to go forward and there's going to be a landscape plan. So, if you're one of the neighbors on Wilky um who backs up to the PaloAlto Commons, I would encourage you to look at the landscape plan and if it's if the tree behind your house is not the kind you want, communicate that to staff. We've already heard from the applicant that they're flexible. So, so let's not have that be a problem. Um the second item uh which is a bigger issue um is the parking and and so this relates to the TDM. Um I did look at the TDM again. It's a revised TDM but it's a 55page document and it's it's not a red line so I couldn't tell what was different. But what I was and um at our last meeting, Miss Callus and I both kind of remarked it's a TDM, but really here it's kind of functioning as a parking management plan to some extent. Um um uh because it's managing the existing parking to respond to the neighbors concerns. Uh that was the language and I agree with that or that's what it should do. But but when I looked at this revised TDM, I didn't I I didn't see how it was doing that. It references parking a bunch of times, but I didn't see how it was going to stop the problems that we've been hearing about. So, for example, um I don't I couldn't find in the revised TDM a reference to valet. Um, and I think we need to have uh either it's in the TDM as an as an

initial condition like a baseline um the requirement of valet and the hours um for it um uh because I couldn't find those anywhere and so did I miss them in the TDM or they not there yet? Uh some of those details are in a separate document. There is a secondary document titled parking plan. Um it was included in the attachment that had the link to the project web page and all of those documents, but it was not individually printed as an attachment to this particular staff report. Um

okay. So, I may have missed it because I I I followed that link to find the revised TDM on the project page on our website, but that parking plan I guess I don't think was an attachment to that. Maybe it was something separate. So, so and so I couldn't find that either and I looked as well.

Okay. All right. So, so um but what I think there there needs to be a clear condition, a requirement of this project that um that they have a valet and establishing the hours and I leave it to staff to figure out with the applicant what appropriate hours are when there's more demand. Um uh second um it it concerned me last time and it continues to concern me. Uh first of all, according to the parking study, there are 98 parking spaces here and that should be more than sufficient. This is a community that that very few of its residents drive, right? It's it's employee parking. Um it's visitor parking. It's some um you know um additional care parking. Um but there should be enough parking spaces there, but but we hear uh historically there weren't. It's really hard to tell if things are getting better or not. It's hard to know the dates of some of the photographs that we're seeing, but um um there are parking spaces that people can't park in um because um they've got furniture in them and you know in the garage they've got furniture in them and they've got construction materials or construction trucks and and there was construction material outside. Um, and we're talking about a renovation of u, you know, expansion of this facility that's going to have a lot of construction. And so we need this TDM to have a plan that there should be there should be 98 spaces available for staff, residents, um, and visitors and those who care for them because that's what this is. And so if there are going to be times where those spaces aren't available, I think that uh this applicant needs to secure

off-site parking and a shuttle for its employees. So if it needs to take up 14 spaces in the parking garage for construction related um materials and and whatnot, fine. it can do it because it's going to shuttle 14 of its employees from a remote spot um to to eliminate the need for those employees to have those 14 spots. So that's the concept I have um to make sure that the number of parking spaces there are available or the equivalent of them offsite. Um, so, um, those were the those were the two things I wanted to tackle in this round. And I'm I'm hoping that whatever motion goes forward, these will be incorporated as some form of condition of approval.

Thank you. And even though we haven't had a complete round, I see a light, so I'll jump in because I have some related comments um, regarding the TDM. So, I see the references in the TEDM plan to driveway tube counts for verification and that always concerns me because of course anyone who's parking outside the site is not counted. So that affects um not only our assessment of how well the plan is being um the plan is being supported but also it affects our baseline counts u from which everything else flows. So whatever entity as I asked earlier is responsible for doing verification needs to have um some process in place for at least estimating uh the impact on off-site areas for parking. Um, I don't think I can boil that down to a condition of approval. It's something that's technically complex enough that it's it should be part of the responsibility of the verification entity. But um, but that does need to be addressed. And um somewhat related, we also depend heavily on the annual commute survey to determine what the behavior of um parking users and transportation users more generally uh is. Um if that's a thing that happens during a period that's known in advance, then behavior will change during that period. So that also has to be managed fairly

carefully. Uh and whatever entity is responsible for um validating the results of that survey needs to have a plan in place for um dealing with that uncertainty. Okay, I think that's my uh I think that's my set of comments on the TDM. Um, see, I'm not sure which of you was first. So, Vice Chair Chang and then Commissioner Peterson.

Um, so I was able to dig up an old appendix from one of our former packets that talks about like it's a parking policy or something like that. Um but unfortunately it specifically says that visitors and guests of residents oh sorry visitors and guests of residents are permitted to use our parking facilities but private caregivers can only park at nearby public parking. And so I'm concerned because uh they're con there needs to be a place for those folks too. Like if they're not permitted to use the same parking then they're by definition going somewhere else which could easily be bulky. So I just wanted to flag that as an example of something that we need to correct in the that needs to be corrected in any parking plan. Um, so my broad comment about this is that I don't think that much has changed um since the last time this project came to the PTC for me. In other words, the the the plans themselves haven't changed um short of removing three units that were on the third floor. Otherwise, I I believe according to staff when I asked it premeating, maybe you could verify this again and say it for the entire commission, Miss Callas, the plans are identical other than removing the three units. Is that correct?

Yes. Consistent with what the architect um said a few minutes ago,

right? So since they're identical, um I still can't make finding number three, uh that we have to make that the site development regulations are compatible with the comp plan and compatible with existing and potential uses on adjoining sites. Um the reason is because the comp plan specifically states that in policy L 6.8 eight that were supposed to support existing regulations that preserve exposure to natural light for single family residences. Um and then furthermore, we our own code says that sites sharing any lot line with one or more sites in an R R1 or any residential PC district need to be subject to a maximum height established by a daylight plane beginning at a height of 10 ft um with a 36 slope. And so I don't think that changes. Um so I just like we're required PCs are required to do this. Um so I don't see how we skirt that. Um and this is a new PC. We can't use the old PC guidelines because this is a new PC. We've been told before that any um any amendment to PC is essentially has to go through the whole PC process. That's why it started with the pre-screen and then came to the PTC and then had to go to council. So, um I think my logic still holds, which then leads me to say we would only I mean I understand that the council wanted us to review an option with a few

fewer units. Um but I don't think that they understood, at least listening to the meeting, they didn't understand all the considerations that had already been taken into place. So, I think I would stick with the recommendation that we made in December, but I would like to add a bunch of things that have to do with the the parking and TDM because um to be clear, even seven units is a compromise already because the residents have already expressed that today things are not working for them. Um so, they said, "Yep, makes sense that we need senior housing. So, let's let's let's do some of those units. Um, but then we still need to mitigate the existing parking issues as well as the additional burden that will come from a few more units. Thank you,

Commissioner Hackman. I think Commissioner Peterson was next. Oh, I apologize. Uh, yes, you were.

Thank you, Chair. So, I agree with Vice Chair Chang. Uh, I think everything was actually explained pretty well. I'm not favorable with the project, but my logic is uh not so detailed. I think for for me, this project is is wanting for a SQA. And I keep seeing it and I keep coming back that when we're done, we've essentially almost done a SQA here. We've looked at all the documents. We've discussed it. It's gone back and forth enough times. I think there's been SQL processes that probably took less effort than what we've just gone through. And I think that's why SQA is important is because you get all this done ahead of time. Everything comes in. We don't have to keep asking all the questions. We have to keep going back and forth. At the end of the day, we're literally talking about the same mitigations. Let's throw some trees in there. Uh there's some traffic. There's some parking. There's some daylighting. It all sounds like mitigations to me that would have came out through the SEC process. uh probably a lot cleaner and more linear and probably would have taken, you know, less time and less effort for the community because now they're using this process here essentially to come out and air their issues that would have been aired through a squa town hall. Um so that this was given an exemption I understand but I don't really fully follow the exemption. And I see the 10,000 square foot, which is a special condition over the normal 2500 foot, but the 10,000 foot exemption only comes into effect. There's no environmental impacts. But then we've just sat here and all the commissioners have talked about all the environmental impacts of uh daylight and traffic and parking, which are like pretty bread and butter of the SQA process, especially when it comes to traffic. Um, you know, I've seen some squas be completely derailed just based on traffic alone. And I think one of the other mitigations here is that they should look at, you

know, vouchers for uh ride share or something like that. There's going to have to be something that's more um creative to cut down on the traffic that's coming in and out of the facility. And then on the daylight plane, it seems pretty clear that all their construction really needs to happen on the El Camino side to keep that daylight uh triangle in place. Uh but the I haven't seen anything suggesting that the very large open area at the front of the lot is used for expanded underground parking. We had a proposal not that long ago where they took the parking all the way to the middle of the street underground. um there's not a limitation on the applicant on their lot. I mean, obviously, it's a lot that's it's just, you know, it's it's bulging at the seams to try to fit the facility that they want, but I think the existing facility just isn't configured to do what needs to be done there. But the lot size is certainly there and it's not an unsolvable problem. It just becomes more expensive to be more creative at building out towards the front of the facility. Also, I do have a concern. I haven't seen anything about fire uh on this facility, but there's not a lot of access to this building, and if there's ever a fire, and I'm not sure what the fire plan is to evacuate the residents out of the building because it seems like they all have to come out through the front of the building. Um, so I I have questions that I think would have been resolved, but that's why I agree with Vice Chair Chang. Slightly different reasons, but at the end of the day, probably the exact same. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Peterson. Commissioner Hecman, back to you.

So, as I mentioned in my earlier remarks, to me, this is this is a a housing project. you may not qualify as Reena housing, but that's not the test that is uh that we have to apply here. Um this this is a place where people live. My my dad lives in assisted living facility, right? It's where he sleeps. It's where he eats. That's where his mail comes. It's the place he calls home. Uh and he's there long term. and and uh the residents of this facility and all of our other um assisted living facilities. it it it's residential even though it doesn't meet the Rena qualification and we need housing of all types um here in PaloAlto and it includes housing for uh uh affluent people um in our community with their families in our community who are aging out of independent living in their homes and need a place to go where their families are nearby because I can tell you having just moved my dad out here from Florida a year ago. It is so much better when your family is nearby. So, so this is to me it's a kind of housing and we need it. And so, um uh I think as I did last time this project was here, uh that we need to to find a way uh to to make um at least part of it work. Um, and really I guess where I come down on this is um if it if a a three-person majority of the planning commission um approved a recommendation for seven units that went to the council and if the council if that's ultimately what they wanted to do, they would have taken it and we

would be done. We wouldn't be here tonight. But they sent it back to us because and and the way I read that just naturally is is um they thought more could more could occur on on that site. And where I come down on this is um uh I think that uh I'm supportive of um an 11 unit total uh which would be the seven not facing Wilkey plus the four second floor units. Uh I'm I feel uh even though the third floor units may meet the um the daylight plane specified in the PC and that is the law of the land as to that parcel and so I I respect that and I agree with staff's recommendation that it's compliant. Um but that's not to me that's that uh it it is a further um um bulk and massing. Um and um to me that's that's uh inconsistent with um what we're hearing from the council um and inconsistent well um to me not the best compromise. And and I I do want to spend a second on this word compromise. Um because in in in my experience in practice, a compromise is where you where two parties meet somewhere in the middle on an item of dispute and neither party is particularly happy about that result. That's what a compromise is. Um what this uh commission uh did last time uh to my thinking um but the majority did was was not a compromise because the seven units not facing Wilky Way are really not in dispute. Uh there is no dispute that they have uh no impact on

the air or light or bulk or massing uh from Wilky Way. So so and I think perhaps this is might have struck some of the council members the same way. So, what is in dispute is the the nine units that we're facing will and and so where I come down on on what I think is a true compromise that the neighbors aren't going to love and the applicant isn't going to love is that those four second floor units which comply with um uh the law that's applicable to this parcel. Um, I would mention um and and you know the the general plan policy about protecting natural light that's that's a a good general guide but but you know how many uh you know if if you applied that literally I think very little could be built up in uh PaloAlto and and so um that's what the daylight plane is for generally and the specific one applicable to to this parcel. Um, uh, on the SQA issue, um, you know, I do a fair amount of that work and our city attorney has opined and I and I respect and agree with it, but just to add a little color to it. Um, you know, what you're really looking at when you're talking about environmental impacts, the the primary ones that that you see mostly are are sort of traffic and biology. And so with this partic another way to think about this is you know with with traffic we're talking about somewhere between seven and 13 units where people who don't drive are going to live. So uh uh in at past meetings I think we heard from the applicant that there's going to be a small increase in staff. So so a really nominal increase in traffic in the scope of PaloAlto

traffic is almost nothing right. And similarly, biology, this whole property is concreted over except for a little bit in the backyard. You know, there there's no wildlife corridor here. And so I think that's the flavor behind why the state um identified some of these urban infill projects as we really don't need to spend the public time and money to study it because the chances are um it's not going to have any impact except as u Miss Callus mentioned there are exceptions where where if there's some something unusual like if there were a spring gurgling up on this property that's kind of unusual and there might be some biology ology associated with that but but nothing like that uh uh exists here and so I think that that um but the one of the things that's attracting uh you commissioner Peterson to the sequence the mitigation measures in and uh in in the suggestions I've made about the TDM and plants I'm trying to accomplish the same thing through conditions of approval and so that's a good right they're of equal weight uh both work and so that's what I'm trying to do here. Um the the last comment I would make is um as to the the two third floor units that again I'm not supportive of because my impression is the council's not. I if if you're of a mind um if you're inclined to take those units back to council despite whatever recommendation because I'm pretty sure you're not going to get a recommendation support of of those third floor units. you should at least consider pulling those third floor units back so that they meet the 3 to six daylight plane. Um that may make them small. You may actually have to to reduce a unit next to them on I think it's 13 um to make it

fit and it may not work at all but but at least to go back to council with the same two third floor units that that they have apparently already indicated some displeasure. I just don't think it's a recipe for success. So if you're interested in success, you might consider something like that. Those are my comments. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner James. Then Commissioner Templeton.

Um, yes. I'd just like to make some um general uh comments. Uh my impressions about this. I was not uh on the commission when this came to us previously. Um um I feel like whether whether or not you see this project is compat compatible with adjoining sites um is quite quite literally depends on where you stand. If you're standing on the El Camino way side um this appears to be a well-maintained senior living facility uh that offers a public good to the community. Um if you walk around as I did to the other side and um and have the opportunity as I did to sort of visit one of the backyards um you come away with a very very different impression. Um, and it's it's um I did that at dusk and uh uh when the lights are on in the commons, it's uh uh you see right into the building and there's a there's a very uh profound presence of of this uh rather large uh project uh in the backyards of the people who who who join it. Um and it seems to me um uh that you know the original uh PaloAlto Commons in my view was incompatible. Um so um you know would I like to see 13 or 16 more uh units? I'd rather see even more than that. But I buil I believe that this site is already overbuilt. Um, and I believe uh it is invasive uh as it as it is today um on the Wilky Way side in the backyards of those neighbors. Um, you

know, and so I have a very hard time as much as, you know, I would I would love if the if the owners uh believed it was a good business uh to expand uh this project into, you know, adjacent properties and they could make a good business of that, I would readily support that. Um, but I have a have a hard time um supporting u additional units built on the on the Wilkies Wilky Way side of this project. Commissioner Templeton then Vice Chair Ch.

Thank you so much. Um really interested in uh Commissioner Hecman's comment if you're interested in success. Uh I think that's the the theme of this project. Um, and what does that mean? And what what are we expecting of businesses um and property owners who are interested in success? And um we spent hours, the community members have spent hours telling us about these unforced errors one after the other that are not being remedied. And the question is why? I mean, these are easy things to address. Like, this is the lowest of lowhanging fruit to give this project the credibility that it needs to move forward. And I I'm very frustrated to learn that some of these things are still going on. Uh it is good to hear from the applicant that some have been addressed, but um the presentation's pretty compelling and in the opportunities you've had to respond, you have not responded to things like fire safety access being blocked and people not being able to park and handicap spaces and all these other things we've heard from uh the community members in their presentations. So, I'm I'm really struggling because I want and I have wanted this project to go forward. It has come to us I what three times at least. Um and every time we've tried to make it work and we've tried to to make the case and we have encouraged the applicant to

do better on these issues that are affecting our neighbors. So, it just makes the case so difficult because now we're conflating all of these things, right? The need to uh provide uh more of these types of services to this community. What with the the facts that it's being those services are being provided at a cost that exceeds the agreement when the program started. So, I'm trying to say that there were some boundaries and they're not being respected. There's not reporting. There's not enforcement on the city's side. We're we're just seeing so many frustrations that are happening and it's it's hard to reconcile that because the fact is, you know, we do want to expand these services, but we don't want to do it at a a cost of, you know, the enjoyment of one's property, the sunlight, the quiet um in in the backyard where one lives. Last night in my home uh across on the other side of El Camino in Barrett Park, I had the the back door open listening to the crickets and frogs and I could hear them and enjoy them. And I'm not sure based on what I'm hearing is personal firsthand reports, but also standing in some of those backyards years ago, I'm not sure that people in this community are getting that experience. To what extent are they owed that experience, we don't know, right? Some of people are saying, well, they already bought the house. They knew that was

there when they bought it. Um, so how do we move forward? And I understand that is the practical question in front of us. Um, there's another question that we haven't heard from staff and I just want to for a minute indulge in this exploration. Um, I know it's not your project, but I'm talking about it because it is a city project. Um there is a project to change the entire nature of the intersection of Meadow and the railroad. It will change that whole stretch from Wilky Way down to Alma in ways that are unless you're exploring those diagrams intimately in ways that are hard to imagine. They will remove some of the driveways. They will possibly interfere with people being able to get into those homes that they may, you know, they're they're trying to determine whether it will cause takings. We don't know. That whole block is looking at a massive transformation. And now we're talking about what are we doing in this moment with the relationship between Wilky Way and the Commons whereas within 10 years we're going to be talking about something far more disruptive. And so if I'm looking at the future, if I if if we're we're thinking Mr. Reer is uh you know a visionary. He wants to

expand this property and um you know maybe sometime in the future when those property when this property has been updated maybe some changes will be happening in that part of the neighborhood. Who knows? I don't know. I I don't see the future. But let's imagine there's some vision going on where someday this would be acceptable. How do we get there? What do we what are we examining from our purview? Right? how is this area going to change and how would it fit in there? And so, um, I'm thinking things like if we lose half of the houses that we're talking about tonight, is this still a problem? Personally, I think losing those houses is a problem. So, I'm not trying to say it's not. I've argued against this many times, but that's not the direction the city's going. So, if if that's the case, what does that mean? And the conclusion I come to is while the residents own these properties, adjacent properties and property owners should do a better job of interacting with them. And if they don't want to do that, there are ways around changing ownership. If that's the problem, the problem is the neighbors who are enjoying where they live, who grew up here, who like living there, who love their community, who've just met each other and bonded over this experience, right? if they want to stay and the pro property owners adjacent to them want to expand

like we have to find a way like we can't keep butting heads. So what do we do? We have to be better neighbors. And this is every single time this is coming to this commission. That is what we say. We encourage this. we ask this and every single time we're hearing of course we've done all that but that's not what the neighbors are experiencing. So how do we reconcile that if we pull it apart and say the building is the building and all these other things that we have added on to the zoning to make sure that the building's expansion is not affecting the neighbors. If none of that matters, then we can't approve and we can't recommend these expansions because none of the stuff that we're trying to put in place is being enforced. So, that's a question to staff. To what extent do we take that stuff seriously? If we're putting these mitigations and it's not no one's being held to those mitigations, then what what do we to do with that? How do we operate if we recommend well yeah you could do this if you do that but then nobody's making sure that the second part is happening what is what is what do we what can we have faith in that's going to happen and I think the only response I can provide to that at this point is similar to what we've discussed earlier is that that is something that that we are working on improving um from best practice.

Is there a mechanism right now with the city in which violations can be enforced of current agreements? Yes, it could be done through code enforcement or other techniques. Yes. And can we though there is limited capacity?

Has have those been reported and just not handled then? Is that what you're saying that the capacity issue is on our side? So, we don't have any open code cases on this particular project at this time. Um, that surprises me given the complaints. So, I will then turn it back on to the community members to suggest file the complaints, call code enforcement, and get it documented because this is just going to keep going around and around until we are able to have some data to look at other than he said, he said, she said. That is my comment at this point. Thank you very much.

And thank you, Commissioner Templeton. Vice Chair Ch.

Oh, I just wanted to address something that Commissioner Hecman said about a compromise being something that both parties are not happy with. And I remember that when this project first came before us, the neighbors said, "Don't approve the project at all because of this because of the parking because of the parking." I mean, there was a light and air issue, but also don't approve it at all. And I saw the neighbors move. And now we see tonight that the neighbors have said, "Okay, we can see that the cost of, you know, that we bear with the parking problems and that we have been bearing with the parking problems is worth an additional seven units, but not these other ones because that detracts from our property value in a very material way." And I think it was documented in at least I think $211 in one of the public comments that the appraiser came to the uh neighbor's house and said oh and reduce the value of their property by $50,000 because they saw the neighboring that was $21. So, but yet from the applicant side, we didn't see any movement until the last second. Even though we had asked, can we, you know, hey, if this is the right daylight plane, can you shave a little bit off of this this corner? Can you shave a little bit off of this corner? And the answer was like no. So, I think that the seven units is a compromise already because I've seen the movement. Um, so that's just that's I mean we can debate forever as to whether they're happy or not and whether who you know, but I just wanted to point out that I did see the movement from the neighbors and I really appreciate I mean this is costly coming

to four different PTC meetings and two different council meetings and there's at least one more council meeting and you know we had what 20 public commenters but and several of them represented five. So 30 people um coming for 3 to four hours each time. I mean that's many many many hours. I think if you count just one person they spent like you know more than half a work week on that and that's just in these meetings not all the research that they've done. So thank you for your public comment. Thank you for sticking with us uh applicant. And that's all I wanted to say. All right, I'll add to this round since we're uh gradually running out of new things to say. Um I also uh cannot make PC finding number three. Um because I believe the site development regulations within within the district are not compatible uh with the existing uses on adjoining sites. Now, you can certainly argue about whether this has been true for a much longer period of time. Um, but I think I have to argue that it's certainly true now. And my reasoning there is that um we use the current code as our objective standards for deciding whether expansion projects are compatible. Um we don't go back to a code that existed 40 years ago. Now, as has been explained, um we are free to set whatever

development standards for the PC that we wish, but that doesn't mean that that changes the basis for our analysis of the situation. That just means we have the freedom to um to modify it after our analysis is done. um using that as a basis. Um then the proposed unit all the proposed units on the Wilky Way side according to the uh packet supplement uh violate the plain language of the code 1838150e and 181240. Uh so the going in position is that uh for the objective basis that we have today yes the proposed project is incompatible with the adjoining uses. Oh um do we have a request to pull up the code language which I believe you had in one of the uh presentation slides. And my analysis of the code is slightly different from the one that I've seen in some of the other presentations because the it it hinges on the assumption of whether this is residential or non-residential. But um but in the end that difference doesn't matter. Uh no matter which set of um daylight plane and setback requirements you choose the proposed project doesn't fit.

So where does that leave us as a basis for compromise? Well, I will repeat what I heard from council, which is I really, really wish that there would be a lot of attention paid to purchasing the Goodwill site and building there. And the reason for that is that buys you physically separate buildings for memory care and assisted living if you want it. Um, it gives you significantly more space, significantly less impact on the Milky Way neighbors, and you have the potential to solve all the parking problems. So, if you're looking for a longer term solution, um, please push that as far as it seems possible to push. Uh, that's a superior solution in every respect that I can see. So that's uh everything I have to say for this round. Uh Commissioner Templeton,

thank you. Um I would I would say uh both of us have talked about kinds of options that are outside of the scope, right? We can't recommend people to buy things, but we could say buying things is another alternative for how to get things done. And that is um important uh distinction but it's it's also really important to encourage the applicant to defang this argument by doing the things that you have already agreed. agreed to do with the city. And this is it's always going to cause the conflation. it's always going to cause the problems and distract from the argument um that the applicant is is is making because it undermines credibility required for us to make the findings. We have to believe you're going to do the things you say you're going to do. And right now there's not a basis for that. There's not a basis to believe that the agreements we would enter in would be honored. That is what you're hearing from the community. You're hearing frustration and reluctance to go into another agreement. And I realize that is not your

intention. I realize that your intention is to run these services and do a good job and provide places for people to get the care that they need and you're interfering with your own success. So, please, I hope you can take the feedback that you're getting from this commission tonight as well-intentioned and supportive because if seriously, I mean, I don't know how many times we can encourage you to do these things that are required and it not happen. You can't be surprised that we are struggling to grant the request, right? To put it in that those terms. I'm sure that's not the right terms, but to make the recommendations that you're asking of us, um requires good faith. So, some of the changes, if you're struggling with them, let's figure out why. Let's work with staff. Let's figure out um from the community, right? Is this something that needs a parking permit? Take a good look internally to figure out why aren't you complying with the the the uh TDM? Why are you encouraging your own staff to park in front of your angry neighbors to exacerbate the frustration that's preventing you from expanding? It's in your power. And I I I understand. I re I reading your faces and your facial reactions. You're frustrated. But we're not hearing any other explanation. You have the parking. You're telling us we have the parking. We should be able

to expand. And yet you're not using it. You're not protecting your neighbors from having your staff park on their space or not even their space, city space, when you have your own parking. Why are you something silly like this interfering with your plans to expand? And you may be looking at us and asking us why are we fixating on this? But the question is really why are you not? Thank you. Commissioner Peterson, then Vice Chair Chang, then Commissioner Hegman.

Thank you, Chair. So, I guess I'll put some closing comments on my uh my SQA thread. Um, you know, I think it was eight years ago, SQA was essentially environmental. It was trees and birds and some waterways. Uh, somewhere in there, you know, SQA uh expanded to include uh non-environmental. And now you can have SQL triggered by no environmental entirely you know non what we think about the environment green environment but uh entirely by traffic and uh impacts on the community which is changing I think the way that uh the process works because a lot of people still aren't thinking that what is a community impact um you know so I think that's why this is a good test case because I think this would have been like the smallest sequa ever, you know, like we can see we we're doing just fine without it. We don't need a squa. Uh but I think it would have streamlined everything and I don't think it would have added any cost significantly on top of everything. And I think we would have had uh what we needed to make the decision if we had everything in a you know a full document and we're not digging around and kicking over stones ourselves trying to find stuff that it's already laid out for us beforehand. And I'm a big fan of SQA because I think it also protects the applicant because you can put these things out ahead of time and you have some control because you're paying for the studies and everything else um ahead of time and it gives you a chance to uh work with the community because that's the whole process. I don't know how SEA actually works in a city like this because I don't know if we would be called in as part of that process or it happens completely away from the commission and then comes to the commission, you know, the town halls or whatever is held for the um the community uh input. But I would

encourage staff to look forward as we have more complicated projects like this which are simple on the surface but very quickly you know turn into a little bit of spaghetti and maybe offer the SQA process or you know push applicants maybe on their own choice to pick a SQA process versus trying to avoid it. I don't see it as a process to avoid. I think it's a process to use. So, thank you, Vice Chair Chang. I was going to make a motion, but I think Commissioner Hecman may have something to say, so I'll let him go ahead. All right, Commissioner Heman.

Yeah, thank you. I think this will work well because I've been anticipating what your motion will be and so u might as well just make this point in in advance of that and that's really to respond to both the chair and vice chair and they're sort of looking at the findings and deciding whether or not they can make them and just wanting to point out that that the three findings that we have are on packet page 29. Of course, you know, staff has has found in their staff report that you can make them all. And part of the reason is because the these findings were created to approve um a a new PC development, right? You got a vacant piece of land and you're going to you're shaping the beauty of the PC is you can you don't have to follow the rules that apply to the base district or next door. You get to make your own rules up. And that's what happened back in 1987 with this property. And so the sort of with finding three, this ship has already sailed, you know, 40 years ago. So, so it's asking you to look at, you know, are the uses permitted compatible? That's the first thing. Well, it was already decided that having an assisted living facility was compat compatible with these Wilky uh way neighbors as well as, you know, Goodwill on the other side and the restaurant in front of it. Um and and then um when you look at the site development regulations applicable within the district, which means on the PC, um are they consistent with the comp plan and with the existing and potential uses? Well, again, that was answered 40 years ago. um with a an envelope, a building envelope that included setbacks and a daylight plane that defined where you could and couldn't build. And so I I really think that the comments that I've heard from the chair and the

vice chair really resonate more with ARB finding number one, which appears on the next page. the design is consistent with applicable provisions of the comp plan, zoning code, area plans, and relevant design guidelines. I when I hear you, that's what I feel like you're speaking to. Um, so it it here it may be a distinction without a difference. Um but but what's within our purview I I feel they do comply with um even with the even with the well um I I felt they they complied with it with the 16 and so with the 13 even though I wasn't supportive of any of the third floor third floor units this time around. So, uh, with that, I will gracefully listen to your motion and and we'll have, uh, I anticipate very short comments, if any, on my no vote.

Second, I see a light from Commissioner Tippleton. Do you need to speak before a motion is made?

Yes. I was just going to say that is the essence of my struggle. Um, what Commissioner Hecnes said is that the problems that are being brought up by the community are not PTC problems, but they are council problems. And so whatever we do send to council would need to include that. Like even if we were to find that they had made these findings and I hear that maybe we're not going to but even if we do like that's not the point. The point is the compatibility point and the good neighbor point and the mitigations point and the enforcement point. Right? So, it's it's a very frustrating space to sit in right now because we recognize the the larger picture, but I think we, you know, I hear Commissioner Hecman saying we kind of have to stay in our lane. So, I hope that the motion you make stays in our lane. Um, but also, uh, addresses the rest of the situation. Thank you. Well, hopefully you can help me edit if it doesn't. All right. So, council's motion to us was to review an 11 to13 unit um proposal, which we have done, and I've come to the same conclusion after that review as I did the last time. Um, so I would like to move the staff recommendation with the following modifications to allow the addition of only seven units and specifically those units would be 1 2 3 4 9 10 and 11 rather than the 13 and not the two

ground floor office spaces facing the Milky Way backyards. Um second to require annual monitoring of conditions and public benefits. Um specifically including section 3D of the original PC ordinance 3775. So that's on packet page 65 to 66. But for the rest of the commission, that is an annual report that includes occupancy, vacancy status, number and age of occupants, number of employees, number of residents and employees who use parking spaces, and a copy of renewal license for residential care facility. So, if it was in the original PC, I think it makes sense for it to continue and I think the specificity is helpful. So, that wasn't included in the current iteration. Um, also this incorporates a point that Commissioner Hecman asked for in the last PTC meeting, which is to strike the language in um, section three, finding number two, which is on packet page 29, that refers to the old benefits from the original PC because those benefits are not part of the new PC. it's an existing that you know whatever benefits have happened have already happened. So those would be the second and third benefits and there's already some typos in that because benefit number two isn't actually numbered but it would be the second benefit which is roadway, pedestrian and bus stop improvements because there will be none of those um in the current project and three a contribution of I think it was a 100,000 to Avenus not a million to Aanitus. So, we would strike those two because they're not really relevant anymore.

Um, fourth, that the condition of approval that staff must park either on site or offsite as and then, you know, come in by shuttle. Um, and then finally that there's a revised TDM that includes a parking plan as an appendix that might also include specific mitigations like a valet with uh operating hours as well as a plan for providing 98 spaces of parking at all times. either on site or offsite. So that would be my motion.

I'll second provided the uh other comments that I made earlier about the TDM are just captured for um forwarding to council. Um but so I don't think that needs to be part of the motion. Commissioner Templeton.

Thank you. Um I like what you have outlined so far. My question is or what? Right. We've asked them to promise these things. We've asked them before. What's the or what? I don't know how to do the teeth in a TDM because I haven't quite seen that. And so that's why I want a revised TDM that maybe has some teeth, but I I don't know how to propose that. So maybe I could have modified with a revised TDM and parking plan that includes consequences. Um

consequences for non-compliance. Correct. consequences for non-compliance

that we believe will be sufficient to encourage compliance. Um, and I I you know we I this is not a usual conversation that we have and it's a tough one because of our relationship with um the commons and how beloved this project is. um and how we need to restore good faith in the community for this project. If I may clarify one point, uh you spoke about um that all staff must park on site or I think you were saying at an alternative alternative off-site location and come in by shuttle. Is that

right? Because I think if some of the spaces weren't available during construction or for other reason for other reasons. The reason I I I mean the alternative would have been to list all these streets in the area, but the idea is that this, you know, they really are supposed to provide adequate parking for their own staff. That's how our parking numbers are determined. And so if they can't park them on site, if they need those spaces for something else, then you're arranging an offsite location. they shouldn't be using public parking.

We have to be specific because without having been specific, a lot of the public parking spaces are being consumed by this business and not by residents. So maybe maybe that's a good that's a good um amendment or qualification, which is staff must park on-site or on offsite private parking. Or we could specify paid if they wanted to pay the city for parking probably at a parking garage or something that could be acceptable as well. So I don't know that we need to specify private we could say paid

paid parking. Yes, that that doesn't sounds good. And we've made we've made some changes to the motion. So does the seconder agree to those? Can I make a friendly amendment on that first or addition? Let me cover this part first and then I just wanted to make sure u I understood all of the changes that have been made. You'd like me to state the changes as we understand them?

Yes. Perhaps that's good for all of us. the the changes that I understand based on uh the question that I just posed was that the staff must uh park either on-site or offsite at a private or paid parking location and come in by shuttle. Was there another change? I think that was the one change that we just Oh, and the TDM Go ahead. Oh, TDM enforcement, right? revise the TDM to include consequences for non-compliance. I support both of those changes as seconder. Um, Commissioner Peterson,

this is relating to Vice Chair Chang's U language there. Can you uh consider adding a waiver for uh vouchers for um ride share because that's in lie of a parking space and it encourages the use of public transportation or ride share something like that. I believe that's already in the TDM. Is it in there? And it's and also if they're using ride share if they're still staff I would hope that they still park in on site or Well, there be no parking. They' just be dropped off at Well, that's fine. Then there's no need for parking because this was about saying that all staff must park.

Well, I'm saying but rather than the number of parking spaces, if they can show they're pay they're giving out vouchers to their staff that's coming in and paying for their ride share, then that's in lie of a having a parking space. So as I understand it with respect to those 98 parking spaces they're required to provide I mean when it that's what a TDM does is it it um accounts for you know how much of a parking reduction is made by each component of the TDM and that's in the TDM already.

Okay. And by the way I think it's a pretty good program too. I think that part is well designed. All right. Any further suggestions for change? If not, or discussion. I have a question. Why Why are you you removed the offices? I thought you were for them last time. Can you just tell me what

No, I wasn't for the offices last time. I mean, we're trying to create senior housing here and that doesn't add to the housing and does add to the burden on the neighbors because um as one of the public con managers mentioned like the standard setback would have been 20 ft but they agreed to do 10 and these offices would be in the 20. You know, it doesn't worsen the 10 but it's worth getting that written down. So, thanks for explaining. Okay. All right. Going once. Going twice. I think we're ready for a vote. All right. Um, Commissioner Peterson. Hi.

Uh, Commissioner James, yes. Uh, Commissioner Templeton, yes. Uh, Commissioner Hecman, no. Uh, Commissioner Chain, yes. Uh uh Chair Aken. Yes. Um [Music] the vote 51. It passes with Commissioner Hecman voting no. Yep. 511. Uh Commissioner G accused. Yeah. Yes.

Very good. Thank you everyone. That was challenging. challenging but um but I think carefully and thoughtfully done. Oh, would you like to speak to your no vote?

Yeah, thank you. Just very briefly, um I I mean I think I explained my reasoning during the hearing, but I I did want to uh just acknowledge that it's not every time that the maker of the motion will adopt into the motion ideas from a member of this commission whom they know is not going to support the motion. So that happened here tonight and I appreciate uh the vice chair doing that. I think that that those TDM uh additions I think it makes a better project. So, but I wanted to acknowledge that it didn't have to be done that way and I appreciate it. Was also nice that you mentioned you weren't going to support the motion when you made those recommendations. I think that clarity is very nice.

All right. I think that item is now concluded. Since we have no minutes to approve this time, we're on to commissioner questions, comments, and announcements. Anyone? Sure. I'll go. Oh, Commissioner Reckon's light came on. So, I'll I'll set you up next.

Uh just wanted to let the commission and and uh public know that uh last week uh the chair and I had an informal meeting with um some members of our planning staff. um they wanted to talk to us about um sort of where they were moving forward with the downtown h housing plan and and just solicit some informal feedback on what we thought of their approaches what you know kind of different ideas what we uh might we have lasted I don't know about 45 50 minutes um and I don't um I don't know if the cherry has more to add uh the color but but that's not it.

Yeah, I can add an answer to just um it's a challenging process uh dealing with economic feasibility questions and possible effects of SB79. So it it has some influence on how the uh downtown housing plan will proceed. So there was a good brainstorming session to cover some of those issues. All right, that's all for me, Commissioner Templeton.

Um, just public service announcement. Uh, ballots will be arriving in people's mailboxes um round about October 6. So, that's before our next meeting. Keep an eye out. If you don't want people calling and uh bothering you to vote, turn that sucker in because the county will tell the people not to call anymore once your ballot's submitted. Thank you. Good advice, Commissioner G.

Thank you, Chair. Um I got a chance as a part of the San Antonio coordinated I always forget the KAG U to do a walkthrough of the site. Um, to be honest, it was pretty scary as a pedestrian. I encourage folks who don't normally walk through San Antonio to do so if they get a chance. Um, it's we as a large group almost got hit multiple times. So, want to comment that. And also one thing to think about as we think about transportation issues along San Antonio is that the Mountain View side of the San Antonio road is full of utility boxes. So, that's one thing I noticed. So it's very difficult to do any transportation even if there's a special setback on that side. So something to think about um regarding that. And at some point unknown they uh Sylvia Starlac from transportation has more information but they plan on potentially closing down the 101 southbound entrance by Costco on Ringtof. So yeah so um just I don't know exactly the timeline. reach out to Sylvia specifically on that, but she mentioned that on our walk that may include making changes to the San Antonio site, which is currently only a northbound 101 entrance over there. Um, changes to come around 101 that may impact this project as we continue to see it. So, um, and also for us South Pole Alton that use San Antonio pretty frequently are probably thinking a lot about the transportation over there.

Thank you. That was very useful. All right. Any any others then we are