Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, and welcome to the September 14th meeting of the Menlo Park Planning Commission. I am Chair Ross Silverstein, and I thank you for joining us this evening. Established by state law, our city's planning commission is composed of seven volunteer residents of Menlo Park, appointed to four-year terms by the City Council. According to California state law, the planning commission shall do all of the following. Prepare, periodically review and revise as necessary the general plan. Implement the general plan through actions including but not limited to the administration of specific plans and zoning and subdivision ordinances. Annually review the capital improvement program of our city or county and the local public works projects of other local agencies for their consistency with the general plan, endeavor to promote public interest in, comment on, and understanding of the general plan and regulations relating to it, consult and advise with public officials, agencies, public utility companies, civic, educational, professional, and other organizations and citizens generally concerning the implementation of our general plan, promote the coordination of local plans and programs with the plans and programs of other public agencies, and perform other functions as the legislative body provides. In addition, the Commission reviews development proposals requiring a use permit, architectural control, a variance, minor subdivision, as well as the environmental reviews associated with these projects. When applicable, the Planning Commission reviews below market rate housing agreements associated with these applications. The Commission is the final decision-making body for these applications unless appealed to the City Council. The Commission also serves as a recommending body to the City Council for major subdivisions, rezoning, conditional development permits, zoning ordinance amendments, general plan amendments, and environmental reviews associated with those projects. If applicable, the Planning Commission also reviews and makes recommendations on BMR agreements associated with those projects. We encourage your active participation, whether you're an applicant or interested member of the public, and there will be an opportunity to speak publicly for each specific agenda item, as well as for general public comment. With that, I will call the roll. And just a heads up for folks in the audience and or listening in, Vice Chair Beruzzi today will be joining remotely. Vice Chair Beruzzi.

Yes, present. And I wanted to specify that I'm participating remotely to avoid sharing a communicable illness with my colleagues and planning.

Commissioner Eric here. Oh, Eric, sorry. I'm also here. Commissioner Farrick is also here. Commissioner Headley present Commissioner Schindler. Commissioner Sillin. Present. And I am present. So we have six commissioners in chambers, which is a quorum and one commissioner remote. The next item on our agenda is reports and announcements. Ms. Sandmeier, are there any staff reports or announcements this evening?

Good evening, Chair Silverstein and commissioners. So at its meeting tomorrow night, the City Council will consider a resolution to make the Coleman Avenue pilot project permanent. And that concludes my updates, but I'm happy to answer questions. Thank you.

Do any commissioners have either questions about those announcements or reports or announcements of their own? Seeing none, we can move to item D, the public comment portion of our agenda. Under public comment, the public may address the commission on any subject not listed on the agenda. Each speaker may address the commission once under public comment for a limit of three minutes. You are not required to provide your name, district or city of residence, but it is helpful. The commission cannot act on items not listed on the agenda and therefore the commission cannot respond to non-agenda issues brought up under public comment other than to provide general information. Please know that if you're here tonight to comment on one of our agended items, you will have the chance to speak when we get to that item in the agenda. To learn how to participate, I'm going to turn it over to our clerk this evening, Matthew Ball, and begin our public comment period.

Thank you, Chair Silverstein. Matthew Ball, Assistant Planner, if any member of the public in the council chambers wishes to provide a public comment, please provide me with a comment card from the back table. If you're joining via Zoom, please press the hand icon, or if calling in, please press star nine on your keypad, and staff will be notified of your desire to speak. If multiple people are speaking from the same account, please let us know, at the beginning of your time and we will make sure each person gets a chance to speak. We don't have any comments for item D. So chair, please continue. Thank you.

The next item in our agenda is the consent calendar. Tonight there are two items on the consent calendar. E1 is the approval of minutes from the August 24th Planning Commission meeting. And E2 is an architectural control permit at 1100 Sharon Park Drive, Unit 20. Mr. Ball, can you please provide instructions for public comment on this item?

We are now taking public comment for item D. As a reminder, for those participating in person, please provide me with the speaker card located at the back table. And for those attending virtually, please press the hand icon. For those calling into tonight's meeting, please click star nine on your keypad to notify staff you have a comment. This will now be the final call. And we have no comments for this item.

Thank you. Do any commissioners wish to pull either of these items from the consent calendar? Seeing none, I will call for a vote on the consent calendar. Please note that because we do have a commissioner participating remotely, I need to call a roll call vote as opposed to a show of hands. Vice Chair Baruti.

Yes.

Commissioner Eric. Yes. Commissioner Farrick.

Yes.

Commissioner Headley. Yes. Commissioner Schindler. Yes. Commissioner Sillin. Yes. And I vote yes. The consent calendar passes unanimously. We will now move to item F1, public hearing regarding 800 Oak Grove Avenue. At this hearing, the commission may consider and adopt two resolutions related to a project at 800 Oak Grove Avenue in the S-P-E-C-R, El Camino Real Downtown Specific Plan Zoning District to one, approve an architectural control permit to demolish an existing surface-level parking lot, construct a new six-story, approximately 72-foot-tall, multifamily residential building with 15 units, and convert and expand an existing two-story bank building into a two-story non-medical office building with a roof deck. approve a below market rate housing agreement for the proposed project to ensure that one unit is designated as affordable to very low income households, and that the project applicant pays a BMR in lieu fee to satisfy the remaining inclusionary housing requirement. And we may determine this action is exempt from CEQA under the provisions of the Assembly Bill 130, And two, we may recommend to city council approval of a tentative subdivision map to subdivide the project site into 15 condominium residential units and one commercial unit. The ground floor of the new residential building would contain parking for the new units and the adjacent existing commercial building on the site. And the five stories above the parking area would contain the residential units. In addition to the one BMR unit, approximately 6.7% of the total number of units, the remaining fractional below market rate unit value would be provided via an in lieu fee payment. The proposed change of use and expansion of the existing non-residential building also requires a BMR commercial linkage in lieu fee. The application is being submitted subject to the state density bonus law government code section 65915 and relevant amendments which permits concessions and waivers to the city zoning ordinance requirements. The applicant is requesting concessions and waivers as specified in the application materials. The proposed project also includes the removal of three heritage size coast live oak trees. Mr. Pruder, I believe you're the staff lead on this project. Are there any updates to the staff report?

Thank you and good evening Chair Silverstein and Planning Commissioners, members of the public, Matt Pruder, Associate Planner. I have a couple of quick announcements and then following that we will have two presentations, a staff presentation by myself and following that, a presentation from the applicant team presented by applicant member Rob Zirkle. And so first with my two staff updates, we received two public comment letters quite shortly before this meeting started I have printed out some copies that are available at the back table. These were also emailed to the commissioners a little earlier this afternoon. The first of which is an email that was provided that expressed concern with how effectively the state laws are being reviewed and processed and just emphasizing that the review process is effective and And then the second letter that was received was a little more detailed on a few different categories of issues with state law, AB 130, state density bonus law, the heritage tree removal permit processing, and the overall development kind of proposal as a whole. And so with that, I'm happy to, I'm available for any questions. Following my presentation, I'd also be available for questions if preferred. And then following the applicant's presentation, we can also complete questions at that time. Thank you.

Let's do the presentations first, and then we can go to Commissioner clarifying questions.

That sounds great. Thank you very much. So as noted earlier, thank you for the introduction. This is a project at 800 Oak Grove Avenue. And I just want to quickly go to the next slide to point out some of the locational details. This is located at the northwest corner of Oak Grove Avenue and Crane Street in the downtown area. It's on an L-shaped lot. And there is a surface parking lot that currently exists behind an existing bank building. And formerly Comerica, I think, was the last company that was there. And this L-shaped lot is proposed to have two buildings, ultimately. We'll move on to the next slide. for additional information on the proposed project. So we have a few components here that are under review this evening. First is to renovate the existing two-story bank building that I've mentioned and convert that into a non-medical office building. So the use type would change in the building itself. They would also create roof deck access. So there would be components on the roof in terms of an elevator and stair system to allow for access on the roof. The parking lot that I'd mentioned earlier that currently exists would be removed and in its place, a 15 unit residential building would be constructed with a kind of podium parking on the ground floor itself. So we're sort of in the same area where the parking spaces are now generally with fewer spaces ultimately than the current configuration. There is a below market rate or BMR housing agreement that is proposed that consists of three components that was reviewed at the September 2nd Housing Commission meeting. The first is to provide one very low income or VLI household unit. And that would be their onsite affordable unit they're providing in the building, in the residential building. And the other two items are in lieu fee payments, one of which is to account for the remaining residential requirement. 1.5 units is required for the 15. The one unit that I've mentioned before would result in a 0.5 remaining requirement for residential BMR provision. And so they're providing, proposing an in lieu fee payment for that 0.5. And then there's a commercial in lieu fee payment for the changing of the use from the bank building square footage to the square footage of the proposed non-medical office building. And then lastly, a couple of things that are also occurring here at different timelines. There is a heritage tree removal permit application that was approved to remove three coast live oak trees. And that was already approved previously had its appeal period and no appeal was filed. There are replacement trees proposed on site, but there's also an in lieu fee based on the difference of the remaining value that's needing to be accounted for. And then lastly, something that you'll be recommending a decision on tonight is the vesting tentative subdivision map, which is for 15 residential units, each of the 15 units in the proposed building, and one commercial unit for the commercial building, which is that non-medical office building. We can move to the next slide, please. As mentioned in the earlier introduction description, we have two other unique categories of proposal details to go over quickly. There's state density bonus law, which allows for concessions and waivers. We also say incentive for concessions. In the case of this project, one incentive is possible. So they're proposing the one incentive, which is to allow for that non-medical office building, which is in the rendering here to the left, currently a bank building, but to be reconfigured and redeveloped. to be allowed to have a square footage or GFA gross floor area larger, greater than what is allowed based on the zoning. There are also 12 waivers that are proposed to summarize in great detail in the staff report to allow for 12 different development regulations to have exceedance or slight variation from what's required to be modified. And the other item here is that this is a project that is subject to Assembly Bill 130 or AB 130. This is a newer regulation that is required based on state law. And it is geared towards promoting additional incentives for applications to promote denser housing development and more of a fast track kind of approach so that there is a much speedier entitlement process. This also requires some unique tribal notification requirements for tribal consultation, which we had completed earlier this year. We did indeed reach out to several tribes and we did have a consultation meeting with one of the tribes, which we summarized in the staff report, but it did require a more expedited process. We can move to the next slide, please. And sorry, one other thing I failed to mention was that the AB 130 provisions allow for the project to be exempt from CEQA. So this is its CEQA path as well. It does not require initial study, EIR, any of those things because it qualifies under AB 130. Moving on to development standards, just getting a little more into the details here. The specific plan, as you may be aware, has a variety of unique development standards as well as guidelines. Excuse me. And the standards are required by law to be applied in this case if they are objective standards. We do have guidelines as well that are in the specific plan that are not applicable. But in good faith, the applicant team has tried to achieve several of those guidelines to accompany their development. And we also have, as I noted earlier, based on the provisions in state density bonus law, a series of waivers and an incentive as well as requested. And they're generally, I mentioned earlier, just a number of different things, 12 total, but their focus is mainly regarding the floor area ratio or FAR, height limitations, which we have a few different height requirements, like the actual overall building height, The amount of height exceedances for different components of a building. And facade height, which is also different. There are different types of height exceedances that are all being accounted for as unique waivers. And that's why we only have a few listed here, but ends up being a few more for each of these. Setback requirements are in different places being modified. Massing and modulation requirements, as well as the ground floor detail requirements. We can move on to the next slide. And so for tonight we have our staff recommendation and it's to approve the following actions. First is we have two resolutions on the table. The first being that it's a resolution to grant approval for the architectural control permit, as well as the BMR housing agreement, which was reviewed at the housing commission, the latter of which. And then the second resolution is a recommendation, which would go to the city council to approve the proposed vesting tentative map that I'd mentioned earlier. And if we can move on to the next slide, please. So the next steps, not too many left for the entitlement process. Tonight is our planning commission meeting. You'll be making these actions I just mentioned. And following that in eight days, we have the city council meeting, which would be for the final action on the vesting tentative subdivision map. And with that, we can go to the next slide. And that concludes my presentation. I'm happy to take questions now for staff questions, or if you'd like, we can continue with the applicant presentation first and then do questions for both of us. Thank you.

Do any commissioners have any initial questions before we hear the applicant? Great, let's do it.

My name is Rob Zirkle. I lead planning and development for Prince Street Partners, our real estate investment and development firm headquartered here in Menlo Park. We currently actually office in 800 O Growth while we await final steps of the approval and billing permits for our project. So really excited to be here tonight. So I want to first extend a big note of thanks for Matt specifically, but also the rest of the staff. The framework that state law provides makes everyone move swiftly, and in a time when everyone is incredibly busy we're very, we acknowledge it and might very much appreciate the partnership we've gotten from Matt and staff and also their razor sharp attention to detail to it's kept us all on it so I really thank Matt and the rest of the team for that. I have my partners here too, Chase Rapp, Brady First, who are the founders of the company. On the Zoom call, we have our civil engineer, Ryan Hansen from CBG, as well as Todd Lansing, who's our landscape architect from Creo. So if there's any specific design questions that come up, we're happy to respond either here in person or on the Zoom call as well. So with that, let's go to the next slide. As Matt, it doesn't look quite as easy to see on the screen so far away, but there's a little L-shaped maroon designation of our site there right in the downtown adjacent zoning area. So this is, we think, a perfect site for this project. I mean, the zone encourages commercial and residential development, just like we're proposing here. Next. It also has the distinct advantage of being adjacent to the many amenities that we have here in the downtown, particularly along Santa Cruz Avenue. I'll highlight that Prince Street Partners owns and operates 11 assets here in Menlo Park. So the success of all of our neighbors is part of the ecosystem success for us too. So we very much like to contribute quality projects to the downtown. Next. Just a basic site aerial here of the existing condition just to get your bearings straight. As Matt pointed out, the surface parking lot is where the new residential building is proposed to be constructed. There are some large trees along Crane Street that create some interesting problems to solve with fire access because the site is quite narrow and kind of deep. So there has been a lot of discussion with Menlo Park Fire to address those issues. And then, of course, the existing bank building, which was originally built in the mid-60s, is due for a refresh and enjoys a prominent corner, as Matt said, on Crane and Oak Grove. So it's a... It's a great site to be able to dig in and do some fun things. Next slide. This is just sort of highlighting a few things about the residential building. As Matt said, there are 15 units proposed here, a variety of ones, twos, and three bedrooms. I mentioned before how we're addressing our concerns from Menlo Park Fire about addressing emergency vehicle access, which creates that need for that setback along Crane Street. and in the ground level of that, as Matt pointed out, there's a parking structure of one level at grade with a total of 34 stalls. Next. Here is a view of the residential building from Crane Street. You see the foreground with the space for access to the garage, some landscaping and water treatment areas in there as well. And the building is nicely shaped modulated I think in a way that helps break down some of the massing and the fact that it sets back from the street I think is also an asset in this location. Next. A quick view of the aerial just to help emphasize some of the variety of the way that the building steps back and stacks and articulates itself at the top of the building which we think is actually quite handsome and you'll see a nice mix of really quality materials, stone, plaster, some metal and wood accents. Next. We held a community meeting at our office at 800 Oak Grove on July 29th, earlier this summer, had some attendees come and offer some of their feedback and counsel. We have responded to some of the chief concerns that we heard there about privacy for the neighbors across the property lines, particularly at that sort of second story level. So the design team at PPA has done a great job of coming up with some landscape treatments to help sort of buffer those windows at that edge just to help respect what some of the neighbors' concerns were. Next. Also highlighting the location of the BMR unit, which is proposed to be a very low-income unit. This is a very unique unit on the third story of the building, second level of housing, so right in the middle of the building. And it's just shy of 2,000 square feet. So for a very low-income housing unit in the mix that the city has to offer, this is a pretty unique and special unit for a family for many years. Next. highlighting the residential, I'm sorry, the commercial building here on the corner. You'll see that there's the small roof deck that we're placing on top of the building. Next. It's time for a refresh here. So this is a seismic upgrade. This is an energy upgrade. This is also a chance for us to put some Lighter fresher materials on the building as well, so new window systems new seismic system some stone some cement plaster. Some wood treatment under the existing soffit and just bringing it into a cleaner kind of more thoughtful contributing asset here in in this part of the downtown you start to see some of the elements on the roof that matt was talking about next. This is showing that the buildings themselves are more like fraternal twins rather than identical twins. There are certain things about the buildings that tie them together, but each of them are unique. They behave in their own unique fashion, but they want to hold together in this corner as part of a family, but still contribute individually to the context. Next. And then lastly, just an overall view of the project here. You can see the roof deck added to the 800 Oak Grove building. You can see the substantial redwood trees both on Crane and between 800 and our neighbor that helps sort of nestle the building back in off of Crane Street, we think, in a pretty nice way. And hope that you'll agree with us that it's a good contributor in downtown and something beautiful to look at and a chance to build. 15 units of housing in the downtown is also pretty special too. So next, I think that's the last slide. So thank you very much. Happy to answer any questions of me if you have any. And like I said, our consultant team is available online or here too. Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation. Do any commissioners have any clarifying questions for either the applicant or staff? Commissioner Schindler.

Thank you, Chair. That's loud. Before we move to public comment, I wanted to ask staff or perhaps the city attorney to please expand on the nature of how waivers and incentives are treated under state density bonus law, specifically how they are used earned essentially, and what the city has the ability or does not have the ability to do in terms of evaluating those waivers and incentives. I think it's valuable to refresh the memory of attendees, particularly members of the public for whom this may be a less familiar condition. Thank you.

This is from city attorney's office. Good evening, commissioners. Thank you for your question. So under the state density bonus law, if a project, a housing development project provides certain number of minimum density, low income units, they're entitled to certain amount of incentives based on the percentage of the low-income units provided out of the total units proposed. And they're allowed unlimited waivers based on the fact that if the reductions of certain development standards would otherwise physically preclude the construction of development at the permitted density or with the approved consent concessions the waiver has to be granted the incentive is basically um just a concession and again of development standard that they're entitled to based on the density that's proposed as matt mentioned in his presentation here the project is proposing one unit for a very low income out of 15 units so they were entitled to one incentive which is what they used for the far the city's um Ability to reject those incentives or waivers is sort of limited to public health and safety reasons. And there are certain findings that staff makes for incentives, whether it could result in certain economic benefits to the developer, which is the case here. And that's why staff is recommending you to approve the incentive and the waivers here. Are there any specific questions you want me to answer?

I did not have any specific questions. Thank you for recapping the guardrails that guide our conversation, both for this agenda item and for the next. Thank you.

And I have a clarifying question regarding height limits of this specific zoning district and how it relates to SB 79 which recently passed. In the agenda packet, it notes that the maximum height allowable is 40 feet, and then obviously there are density bonuses and there are various elements that allow for this development to go above that. And my question is whether or not, if this application originally started in a post-SB79 world, would they need any of those BMR units or... density considerations, or would this project have been able to be built at will given the current height?

Thank you for your question, Chair Silverstein. There are other items that need waivers here in addition to the incentive or concession that's required, and I believe that while SB 79 may have allowing, it may allow for I think more intensity and potentially an increased height limit. I'm not sure what those values are. I'm unfortunately not quite sure of that. And I know that with the path chosen by the applicant team, it kind of rendered the discussion less not so relevant because we had certain things in the zoning that I believe are still precluding the project, even if SB 79 were to be factored in. I think we could check in with the applicant team if preferred, if there was any research on SB 79 being a factor here. But I think the desire was with state density bonus law and with AB 130, the applicant team had identified a path toward a more streamlined process that would achieve the density, intensity, and height that they were desiring.

Thank you. Can I provide a clarifying detail? for planning commission's consideration. SB 79 only went in effect on July 1st, and the application under SB 330 was submitted, I believe, in December 2025, and SB 79 was not in effect. So the laws are vested as of the date of the application, preliminary application.

Yes, that's my understanding. I guess my thought process is if there is something that the commission finds tonight to be unappealing to the applicant, in theory, they would then be able to turn it around and submit a project that is in compliance with SB 79, which might be substantially similar to this. And so it was trying to figure out when we're talking about this specific item, to what extent SB 79 would essentially allow it to happen anyway. or at least for the most part.

I think briefly, there are certain standards that are outside of the realm of SB 79. And I don't know the exact answer number, but I think we would still need some waivers at a minimum. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Sillin.

Thank you. This is a question for staff or the city attorney. So the resolution we're considering tonight that's under the purview of the planning commission is architectural control. But I also heard, I believe, during the staff presentation that we can only be looking at objective standards tonight and all the findings for architectural control seem subjective, like the appearance of structures is in keeping with the character of the neighborhood or not detrimental to the harmonious and orderly growth of the city, et cetera. So I just would appreciate a clarification on what discretion The Planning Commission has tonight and what findings. I guess beyond just agreeing with staff on all the items that meet the objective criteria. Are there any other items that we have? Discretion and are sought feedback on.

I'll defer to the city attorney.

Thank you. You can. You can review for design as well and provide comments for sure. You cannot reject a project for non-objective standards. You can certainly provide comments and some kind of input on the design and other standards as well, but the applicant may or may not object to those. But you certainly have some discretion.

So just to be clear, it sounds like feedback is welcome, but in terms of what we're voting on, I guess the architectural control findings essentially don't apply here because they're not objective. Is that correct?

I believe the city does have some objective standards in their design review and architectural control. For consistency finding and Not consistency finding. You can provide certain design input. There's no restriction on that. You are, however, you cannot reject a project based on the project not being consistent with non-objective standards.

Okay, that's clear. Thank you.

Seeing no further, oh, Commissioner Schindler, while clarifying.

Sorry, excuse me, not a clarifying question, a request that while we move to public comment, if staff could turn the air circulation in the room back on, please. Thank you.

After we do that, we'll move to public comment. Mr. Ball, can you please open public comment for item F1?

Thank you, Chair. We are now taking public comment for item F1. As a reminder, for those participating in person, please provide me with the speaker card at the back table. For those attending virtually, please press the hand icon. And for those calling into tonight's meeting, please click star nine on your keypad to notify staff you have a comment. And this will now be the final call for item F1. I'm getting a looks like I have two comments for in person speakers. And we'll start with Brian Schmidt, followed by Anna. Give me one moment while I turn on your microphone.

Thank you. Good evening, Brian Schmidt from Endless Park. I have a comment on this item that's similar to the one I'll have on the next item. It's regarding electrification of the project, and I'm hoping we're going to see 100% electrification of the project. That is what is indicated in the next item. I did not see that in the staff report in this item. I apologize if I missed it during the presentation by the developer, but I believe it is in the the developer's own economic interest to include that, especially for multifamily housing, and that there's plenty of reasons why the city would like to see that as well. I understand that public health concerns could be grounds for not allowing certain waivers, and using natural gas, methane gas, provides a lot of pollution. To the city, and it is not in the long run interest of the city, which needs to gradually phase out natural gas, putting in gas infrastructure in these buildings is just going to add to the cost and be something that's that's going to be a problem when the city finally gets around to getting her natural gas. I'd also briefly add that on landscaping, hoping to see native plants, did see that the plan is to remove three coast live oaks and only put in one coast live oak. The remaining trees that are proposed are not native. So maybe there could be some work done on that as well. Not commenting overall on the project, just in those specific environmental issues. Thank you.

Thank you for your comment. As a reminder, you'll have three minutes to speak.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Anna Chase. I am also Menlo Park downtown based business owner and resident.

Sorry, for the benefit of the commissioner who's online, can you make sure to speak into the microphone? Thank you.

I did submit, I'm not going to repeat, I did submit written comments today and I'm requesting that they're going to be entered into the record. Now, I do understand that The only issue I wanna face tonight, and I think the most practical issue with this project is the proposed shared valet parking system. I do understand that AB 2097 limits the city ability to impose a minimum parking requirement here, And I'm not asking you to impose a parking minimum prohibited by the state law. But no parking minimum does not mean no operational analysis. The existing property has 52 spaces. The project proposes 41 shared valet-operated spaces with additional 15 condominiums and retaining and expanding the office use. The applicant has voluntarily designed the project around a shared valet system. So before approving it, I think the commission should be able to answer one very basic question. How does this system actually work? How are those 41 spaces allocated between the residents and the office users? Who operates the valet and during what hours? What happens when a resident needs a car after valet hours? Where do the cars queue up when there are several people arrive or retrieve the vehicle at once? Where do residential guests and office clients park? What about deliveries, loading, rideshare, vehicles? Most importantly, what happens when all 41 spaces are fully occupied? The last question matters because the city's own downtown parking analysis shows that nearby parking lots are already heavily utilized and effectively are at capacity. Now, public parking should not become the understated overflow parking plan for private development. So my primary request tonight is very simple. If you approve this project based on a shared valet system, require actual operating plan, determine that it is workable, and make its material terms enforceable conditions on approval. I do support responsible housing development in downtown Menlo Park. I'm not asking you to reject this project. I'm merely asking that you do the due diligence and determine the viability of the proposed valet parking system. And that is it. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And we have no further comments.

Seeing no further comments, we will move to commission discussion. Do any commissioners have anything they'd like to opine regarding this project?

Commissioner Eric. Thank you, Chair Silverstein. Through the chair, I have a question for the applicant, if you wouldn't mind.

Yes, sir.

Yeah, I was just understanding if you could provide any brief comments that would summarize your experience with the timeline of this project. I'm not a real estate developer, but it seems to me based on my experience that submitting an application in December and then we're here in September is not bad in terms of our project timeline. But I would be curious if this is faster or slower than you imagined when you started.

I guess the most direct and kind thing I could say is this has been very fast. In recent experience and i've had a wide range and as a practicing architects for a long time i've done several buildings in menlo park and i've had experiences where we have staff approval it ends up the planning commissions consent calendar for minor reskins or. You know kind of facade upgrades i've had projects that were in the system for two and a half years and never made it out of completeness response after multiple submissions and sort of some stuff in between this is on the more favorable end of time.

That's helpful. And then, as a follow up to that, can you. again, provide any comments on the extent to which not having to go through a CEQA process was meaningful in your decision to go forward with this project?

There are many tools available to developers of housing in the current development climate in California. I would say that AB 130 was one of the layers that helped make the project make sense it wasn't there wasn't a single component of our development approach that was the one thing it was a combination of all of these things but it was materially significant not to have to go through a standard secret process yes okay that is very helpful I might have more questions later but I'll just say I'm very excited for this project I think it

gives downtown a start towards what we need to make downtown more vibrant and a place where people could live. And so I appreciate the work that's gone into it and hope it continues to move very fast.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Commissioner Sillin. Thank you.

Also a question for the applicant, the chair. I was curious about the housing component. I noticed that, according to the staff report, are allowed density on this And the zoning district is 20 to 40 dwelling units per acre. On top of that, there's a lot of incentives, it seems, through the state laws. And this project is coming at a 20 dwelling units per acre. I realize there's another building on the lot, but I'm just wondering if you had considered more housing and if you have any feedback on what it would look what would need to happen for you to, you know, in a different universe, propose a project here with more housing?

Um, yeah, it's fascinating question. Uh, so we studied multiple scenarios, um, to try to land on the one that made the most sense. Um, it was expensive to buy this property. Um, so we have to live with that reality as investors. Um, There are some competitive strengths in terms of location and some competitive disadvantages of the size of this particular site that helps get to that answer. A traditional like apartment typology here to get more density would have been a little challenging for us in terms of the amount that it takes to make it make sense at scale. It's what partly what led us towards a condominium approach here, a for sale product in downtown versus a rental apartment in downtown was, you know, really kind of about like what made sense to fit. and what kinds of units would make sense on this site. Now, something that had a little bit more dimensionality to it, maybe a little more width and maybe a little bit easier site access could have changed the amount of unit dynamic on a property. But on this one, because of those constraints and because of also what's making sense in the marketplace, condominiums here made sense. And at that scale, apartments wouldn't have gotten us there. You know what I mean? So it was a combination of sort of physical factors and some market factors that led us to that, but would have been challenging to get many more units on this and make it economically viable.

Thank you. Thank you for your response. I've been informed that there was a public comment online that was missed in the public comment period. So I'd like to open that back up and give the individual a chance to give their public comment before we bring it back to commission discussion. Thank you, Mr. Ball.

Okay. John McKenna, I'll allow you to speak now. As a reminder, you have three minutes.

Okay, great. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay, yeah, thanks. I'm juggling a few things this evening, so I appreciate the opportunity to make a somewhat unprepared comment, but I just wanted to say that I think this is a really attractive project. I love that they are repurposing a parking lot for a higher and better use. I appreciate that they are keeping an existing office building and refurbishing it. And most of my comments are supportive. I did want to echo the first commenter's comments around electrification. I wanted to encourage the development team to consider, if they aren't already, to build the new building all electric and to convert the existing office building to all electric the city does have a priority on electrification. And the easiest and least expensive time to electrify a building is when you're constructing it or when you're doing a major renovation, which is the case with both of these buildings. And I think ultimately you'll find that it would be a higher valued property being all electric. We know from many studies, the health harms of gas, both to our local air quality and our indoor air quality. And the efficiency of heat pumps is three to four times that of gas equipment. Induction ranges are a joy to cook on. And ultimately, again, I think there would be a much higher value to the property were it all electric. It would be a safer property, a healthier property, and a more efficient property. As well, you wouldn't have to bring the gas infrastructure to the site that isn't there already. And the state doesn't provide line extension allowances anymore. So you can't recoup that cost. I'm sure the developer's aware of this. They're a great team. But yeah, I just really wanted to encourage them if it isn't already to be all electric, So thank you very much for the opportunity to speak.

Thank you.

With that, we will reclose public comment and bring it back to commission discussion. Commissioner Farrick.

Thank you. I just had a couple of questions. One, which was asked and answered by Commissioner Sillin about how you landed on the number of residential units. The others, I know there had been some privacy concerns expressed and you'd showed a rendering in your presentation that was labeled sheet 13 with the big tree heights. And I'm curious if those are accurate. I know renderings can be future state and very aspirational. So I'm just curious about how accurate the trees' heights are in that rendering.

Thank you. Well, you're right. I mean, renderings are interpretive, but the trees that stand out the most and are the hardest to miss on that, especially the aerial, are the redwoods on site that remain. And those are as accurate as we can make it without having scanned the actual tree and put it in. So it's the closest thing we could get to into the computer rendering. So, yes, those are definitely accurate. Now, the lower lying trees around. Those are a little bit more environmental, admittedly, but the large redwoods are pretty legit.

Great. And the redwoods, those center ones, were the ones I was trying to figure out if that's today or if that's 10 years from now.

Yeah, no, it's now. Actually, it's a real benefit for the roof deck in the summer months. As the sun comes around, that's kind of the best shade you could ask for. So it's pretty nice, the privacy that it creates, the shade that it creates. So yeah, those trees are real. You should walk by the site sometime and look between the two buildings. Those trunks are massive.

Yeah, from the pictures in the packet, it was pretty evident too. Thank you. And then before you go, given the concern expressed too, I'm curious if you could just talk a little bit more about the valet parking plan.

Yeah, sure. As has been noted, this is an AB 2097 eligible project. So we're starting conversation on parking zero parking spaces on site, which doesn't help anybody to have zero parking spaces on site in some respects. I mean, obviously we're also really close to Caltrain. So you could argue the other way just as easily, but it doesn't seem sensible to have a site that provides condominiums and an office use that doesn't have any parking. So if you look carefully at the way that that ground level is designed, we've maximized every square inch that we can in the garage to provide as many parking spaces as we can in that one level. The conversation about the number of units and that kind of stuff is also wrapped up in the incredible cost to provide structured parking. Less painful above grade, very, very painful below grade. So we're trying to seek a balance. So the garage is designed so that there's a double loaded aisle. with a single load on one side and tandem spaces on the other side. Each condominium unit, of which there are 15, will have a deeded parking space so they have a guaranteed place to put a car. And the benefit to the valet system and the benefit of the way that garage is designed, as people arrive, they can self-park. until it gets to the point where a valet operator might need to jump in and assist. One can also pull up and enjoy the concierge benefit of having somebody take your keys and park your car, and you can just go straight up to your condominium or go into the office. But it's a benefit to be able to allow more parking to happen on site. So this is particularly vital during working hours, obviously. So we've got it currently planned to be staffed from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. We do this at one of our assets over on Santa Cruz and Merrill. Some of you are familiar with where the Pete's is. That's a valet operated structure, too, that uses surface spaces and mechanical stackers. It's never full. People like having the valet there. We maybe only need it sometimes during the week. In this particular instance, we've got access to a reservoir of parking spaces to protect against the use of public spaces as well. Some of our other properties, I guess, to that point. So I think what we're trying to do is be as rational and reasonable as possible and make it as easy as possible for people. people to use the system and one that we kind of know how to operate. Everybody will get an app. So you don't have to think ahead a few minutes to be able to get your car. There's somebody there to help you deal with it. And the off hours, the residents have full usage of the garage. So anybody that comes and visits them, family members, friends, they won't necessarily have to park on the street. They can use the spaces in the garage, which helps everybody else out in that point. So does that help add some clarity?

Yeah, for me it does, thank you. Another kind of talk us through it question is the electrification plans for the building for residential.

Yeah. So in the residential. So we're compliant with the city's mandates around electrification. Of course, the reach codes as they existed a while ago have been sort of put on hold while the courts figure out the kind of end game of those requirements. We have the biggest energy hogs in the building where the mechanical systems are all electric. heat pumps, right? But there are features in the units that while we are building the infrastructure to install an induction cooktop, we prefer in the marketing of these condominiums to have a gas cooktop and then also a gas fireplace in the units themselves. So it's a mix. So all of the units are electric ready, as we are certainly required to provide. But the biggest energy users, which are the mechanical systems, are all electric appliances, if that makes sense.

So would the potential homeowner have the option to select electric appliances or gas? Is that the idea?

That's true.

And then the main mechanical for the building is all electric. Got it. Thank you.

Can I ask a follow-up question on that? If every owner of those 15 units went all electric, would that

pose a strain on the overall system or are you set up for success in in that regard yeah so making the infrastructure ready to receive means that the transformer that we're sizing and the service to the building that we're bringing in be able to support that which is also true with all of the electric vehicle charging stations that are in the garage as well of which i think there are 23 if i remember correctly so yeah the service at the building is there to support it and there is agency of choice among individual buyers about whether or not they would prefer to have a gas co-top versus an electric co-top, but the building is for sure there to support it at a certain stage in the future, for sure.

Commissioner Headley.

Yeah, I have a question related to that. So you said that there are heat pumps for the HVAC. Are you also doing heat pumps for the water heaters?

Correct.

Okay. All right. I had a question on another topic. Should we go there?

Go for it.

Okay. I was curious about the roof deck. There was one rendering where it looked like it would be a green roof. And I was wondering if you could say more about that and if that is true, what led you to that decision? Because I love the idea and I would love to see more of this. And I would love to learn how we can support more architects in doing that kind of a design.

sure your question is about the office building correct yes yeah yeah uh so it's a mix um so roughly half of the area of the existing roof is being fashioned to support use right so we can have tables and chairs and those could be for small employee meetings and so forth for the folks that work inside 800 grove Part of the rationale for the size is just the size of the stairs and the number of occupants that the building code sort of looks at those spaces as being. So it's like a little bit of a sliding scale of relationships. It would not have been practical to make the entire roof inhabitable just because I would have had to have way more space. stair width and way bigger exits, which doesn't make sense for a small building. So then the question is, what do we do with what we're not using, right? If we're only using 50%, roughly for the size of the roof deck. So what we're proposing is actually a pretty slick system. If you have any detailed questions, our landscape architect is online can answer as well. But It's essentially a pre-grown sedum tray, right? So it's a pre-grown grass tray. It's grown in perforated plastic trays that literally set right on top of the membrane roof. So like when you see a new roof, like a new flat roof on a commercial building, it's kind of like glistening in white. It's a polyurethane coating about 60 millimeters thick. the system sits right on top of that so that as water moves through, it goes out the weep holes at the bottom and just runs down the membrane roof too. So it's lightweight, which is super helpful sometimes when you see like the green roof out at the Facebook campus, that's several feet of soil to be able to accomplish that. We can't do that with our small building. But what we can do is give something for people to look at when they're on the roof deck, but anybody that's got height and purview to look through that also can see it as well. At that thickness, there's, I mean, just to be candid, it's really there for an aesthetic purpose. It's not really there for a performative purpose. You actually need more depth of soil to actually make it a meaningful stormwater solution. And again, those are very heavy and costly. So this is really aesthetic in its nature, but it's because it's light and thin that allows us to really do that. And it's not as burdensome from a cost standpoint.

Thank you, I appreciate that. I actually have one more question about electrification. Can you speak to the plans for powering the commercial building?

Yeah, the commercial building exists with the transformer and service that it has now. I mean, it was, I mean, I know it was a bank, but it was essentially a branch with back office support. So it functioned exactly like an office building. Those uses are still the same that we need today. So we don't anticipate at all a new service upgrade or more power coming to that building. So the existing service, that serves the building will continue to serve it. There is gas service that comes to that building, but it serves none of our mechanical systems that we'll use, which are all electric in nature. We're using a VRF system with a dedicated outside air unit. and electric powered exhaust fans for air recirculation and so forth. All of the hot water at the restrooms are all insta-hot, electric insta-hots within the millwork. So there is gas there, but it's not serving anything for us. It will effectively be all electric as a result, if that helps answer the question there.

Very much. Thank you. Sure.

Commissioner Schindler.

Thank you, Chair. As other commissioners and members of the public have highlighted, I think this project has a lot going for it in that it's specifically renovating existing commercial space, which is great, that it is taking an at-grade surface parking lot and turning it into housing, which is great. I also am excited for seeing some incremental height DOWNTOWN AND TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE STATE BONUS LAWS THAT ALLOW FOR SUCH THINGS. IN RESPONSE TO COMMISSIONER SILLIN'S QUESTION ABOUT POSSIBLE OTHER LAYOUTS AND NUMBER OF UNITS, YOU KIND OF ALLUDED TO SOME THINGS THAT THERE HAD BEEN A COUPLE THINGS LOOKED AT, EVALUATED, CONDOS VERSUS APARTMENTS, DIFFERENT SIZES. Because this commission is asked to weigh in on a number of different possible permutations, whether it's this site or other sites, I wanted to ask if you could possibly expand on some of those other scenarios that were looked at, and help us understand the trade-offs between more units of a smaller size versus the plan that is proposed today. Not because we're advocating for a change, but because having that context is helpful to us, but also helpful to other members of the public.

Yeah, sure. Generally speaking, so what's interesting about unit sizes in the DA is that there is a range called for in the zoning code between 1,000 and 2,000 square feet as a baseline. So what's actually interesting there, the reason why I think that's written into the oh, the way that it is, is to encourage larger units, right? So more kind of family size units is my guess. Normally, a multifamily apartment developer is shooting for averages generally that are less than that on aggregate, right? And that's usually a lot more ones than there are twos or threes and larger units. And that drives down what that unit average is. So the there's a competitive limitation in some ways in that range just because like in our side specifically which is i think kind of what you know sort of you're asking is is that it sort of puts us in a little bit of a box that the scale of the site can't help quite make up for um on our on our site you know to look at on a more of a multi-family apartment sort of development mindset, you know, so let's say five floors above that parking that are stacked and let's say they're super efficient, all the same. You know, you might be getting somewhere in the neighborhood of eight to 10 units per floor. Across those five floors, you might be somewhere between 40 and 50 units. So the difficult thing about that number of just as a general operating procedure is that it's the cost to build versus the sort of incremental income you get from rents. Those are a little imbalanced because you just don't have the scale to buy down unit cost of construction or increase the amount of proceeds you get through rent to help sort of balance out that equation, right? So at our site, it's a little bit of a critical mass issue for an apartment development in that sense. And so even at that number, you might say, well, if you're renting or 40 or 50 units, that must be pretty good for you in terms of rent. I mean, you are generating more rent per unit. That's true. But it doesn't ever outrun the unit cost of construction until you get to a certain scale. And generally speaking. a more, let's say, institutional apartment developer, would be thinking something at a minimum of around 100 to 150 units per phase or per block, if not more. That's the kind of scale that it starts to make sense in terms of the cost of capital it takes to invest in building these things and also the unit cost of construction it takes to construct these things, which is substantial in an area that has... you know, it draws from a wide area for the trades, right? So just that's, those costs are outpacing until you get to a certain scale of development, right? And so when we're looking at it, and this is a kind of carry on to Commissioner Sillin's question about like, how do we get to where we got to? So we had to throw that out reasonably early because the returns just could never, keep up, right? And so we had to think of a different way to sort of build a mousetrap to make that make sense. Is that helpful in understanding?

Yes, it's helpful to sort of flesh out the details and the criteria that go into thinking about the cost side of things and the different levels that levers that can be pulled when making a decision about size or number of units. And it's, I think, directionally helpful when thinking about apartments, which are rent, monthly rent, right, rather than for sale, larger condo type units.

So I inferred this from your answer, but wanted to ask it specifically. Was the implication of your statement that it is significantly more expensive to construct two 750 square feet, one bedroom units than it would be to construct one 1500 square foot, two bedroom unit, for example?

No, it's actually surprising a little bit to reverse because the real cost on an apartment unit is in the kitchens and bathrooms, right? And also walls and doors. So when you think about larger units with, let's say, more sort of spaces but with fewer bathrooms and fewer kitchens, you actually get a slightly more favorable, depending on how you design it, unit cost of construction on that. But where I think you're... where I think you're really asking, it's not really like a pro rata one unit at this size is worth the same when it's 2x. It actually doesn't spread that way unless the components literally double, but you're not going to be building two kitchens. You're going to be building one kitchen, that kind of thing. So it scales in a somewhat different way. But they're both incredibly expensive is the point. You know what I mean? And that's where the question of scale comes in, you know what I mean? And the infill nature of a site like this and many other sites in the downtown have to confront the, let's say that we're looking at it as an opportunity to create a certain kind of scale because of the infill nature of this development, whereas, you know, It can be a burden to have a small site and try to figure out how to make sense of what an apartment might mean in terms of the development and investment and just how you operate it as well. On a small site, it's a little more challenging.

So to follow up on the same theme in terms of the art of the possible, we talk a lot on the commission around zoning ordinance amendments and zoning and height restrictions and various things there. And one of the questions that often comes up is, if you could have done anything, then to what extent would this project have looked differently, right? If we didn't have any restrictions on unit sizes or even heights or parking or any other restrictions. And oftentimes, we'll get an answer that is akin to, well, as soon as you go above the 5 over 1 model, then construction costs escalate exponentially and you need to do below-grade parking. And as you mentioned earlier, parking is not going to go away by choice, not necessarily by law. And then there are economies of scale that potentially come into play. But I guess what I'm getting to is it often comes down to The answer to the commission who asks if there were no restrictions whatsoever Would we get significantly more housing in Menlo Park on these various projects?

It sounds like the answer is no because of those various economic factors Well, I would offer that This the state laws that are at play here that is creating the development cooperation You know context that we're all operating in allowed us to actually sort of answer your question in a pretty direct way, if you were able to build what you wanted to build what would that look like. that's what we did right and it took and it took the the construct of the state laws to make that possible, you see what I mean so. We did build what we wanted. So I think if you just sort of extrapolated blue sky and just said, if everyone that owned infill sites like we did in downtown did exactly that, you'd get a heck of a lot more housing. You know what I mean?

I think that answers my exact question. And so we often wonder whether or not there's anything beyond these types of proposals. We've seen a number of projects that basically cap out at this dwelling unit per acre limits and these height limits. And it sounds like that is the sweet spot. And so I guess I was asking for validation that this is what you want, this is what we're able to build, and this is what we should strive for as a commission. When we think about kind of the capacity of various sites across the city, that this is generally the... the preferred design from a developer standpoint, obviously we can't mandate that anyone builds anything, but, but when it comes to incentives that just by upzoning this specific lot to allow for any more density, that wouldn't necessarily magically make that happen. And so we should kind of see this as what is possible on these types of lots. And therefore we should anchor towards that. And I guess I'm asking for validation on that statement.

Validate.

Thank you.

That's no pun on our parking up.

Are there any other commissioner comments? Commissioner Sillin.

Since we're going down this path, I'm like very surprised by that because I just have to imagine that, let's just say in San Francisco, a lot of the size parking There are developers building taller buildings. I'm just wondering, is there anything about the context of being in Menlo Park versus somewhere like San Francisco? And then you also mentioned the cost of acquisition. If this wasn't a bank building, but a residential building for sale, would that have... made a difference and also i'm wondering um i know some of the waivers and refer to needing to do certain things with the commercial side to sort of effectively subsidize the residential side is what it says so then does this not work at all without the commercial

The concession being used in the commercial building is effectively to help achieve the area that it takes to serve the roof deck by the stairs. Bottom line, right? And that roof deck becomes a competitive asset for the viability of the commercial piece of this development without asking for more land use intensity. It just makes it a nicer place to work. And that's going to help drive the economic performance of that particular part of the project, which over the long haul is... know worth a lot of money um you know by comparison and so it's helpful for us in that context to be able to help do the most we can with what we can that we have to work with on the building so that's where that concession is sort of geared to is just giving us the ability to make a roof deck that's really what this comes down to um in terms of your other question about san francisco i mean I'm a contextualist at heart, you know, and I've been in front of this commission and different versions over many years. And when I've talked about the projects I design here and anywhere that I work, I think a lot about the neighborhoods that we're in and what we're next to and how it looks and how it feels. It's important. It doesn't mean everybody necessarily agrees with that viewpoint, but I wouldn't be one for putting a type one building on 800 Oak Grove just because we just because we could you know what I mean like I think there's other notable projects going on in the city right now that have that attitude so you know for what it's worth that's not sensible for us on this site and there's not enough scale there's not enough urban density to make that familiar to people who are used to being here and live here and work here so that matters to us that being said we also got to make it make sense too so I think there are some you know, reasons to have built five levels of housing, even though we might've been able to get more by going with more density, but it just didn't seem right to us to do that.

Thank you. I think Commissioner Baruzzi has a question or comment.

Yes, thank you. I think my fellow commissioners have covered a lot of what I wanted to say. I will comment on the parking downtown and just remind my colleagues that we haven't really been managing our downtown parking since the pandemic. We haven't had any kind of parking enforcement of any of our existing restrictions around time-limited spots that are designated for customers. And so I think that... getting that going again will probably help with some of the anxiety about where customers can park. So that was just a side note. But I generally think this is the kind of project that we need for downtown. It's nice to think that there will be people who are downsizing or just like a more walkable lifestyle and who are able to purchase downtown and I am excited about the new use case for the commercial building as well and hope that will add some vibrancy to our city. I'm glad that we're going to get both a very low income housing unit and funding for our BMR fund, which is in short supply at the moment and ever in demand. And I support my colleagues' thoughtful comments about electrification. Having recently electrified our own house, I can speak to the benefits of it and my enjoyment of the induction cooktop. And I found myself when I was looking at the staff report, mostly thinking quizzically about things like Columbia, London plane trees and whether those were the kind of trees that dropped spiky little balls on the street or whether they were pretty. But I think that's a sign that this for me was mostly a solid project. So I thank you for bringing it to us.

Seeing commission discussion having slowed down, I would like to move to both approve the architectural control permit as well as recommend to city council to approve the tentative subdivision map for this project on item F1.

Second.

With a motion and a second and no further commission discussion, I will call a vote. Vice Chair Beruzzi.

Yes.

Commissioner Erick. Yes. Commissioner Farrick.

Yes.

Commissioner Headley.

Yes.

Commissioner Schindler.

Yes.

Commissioner Sillin. Yes. And I vote yes. So the motions pass unanimously. With that, we can move to item G1, a study session regarding the Parkline Phase 2 master plan revisions. This is a request for a study session for revisions to the previously approved park line master plan development agreement located at 201, 301 and 333 Ravenswood Avenue and 555 and 565 Middlefield Road. The proposed revisions would increase the number of housing units from 800 to 1,082 units, consolidate the office slash research and development footprint, Reduce the non-residential square footage to approximately 902,000 square feet of office and R&D uses, and add approximately 40,000 square feet of retail uses. Increase the office and R&D building heights, modify the design standards and guidelines, and redesign the site layout. The proposed revised project also includes modifications to the BMR guidelines to locate all for sale BMR units in the attached townhome component. The definition of gross floor area as applied to the project and number and type of emergency diesel backup generators. The proposed revised project would require revisions to the approved conditional development permit, the CDP, BMR housing agreement, vesting tentative map and heritage tree removal permits. Review of the project will include analysis of the revised project's potential impacts under the California Environmental Quality Act to determine if the revised project is consistent with the findings of the certified EIR for the approved project. Separate architectural control permits would also be required for the building design and site improvements. Ms. Sandmeier, as the project lead here, the staff have any updates or should we continue with the staff presentation on this?

Thank you. No updates at the moment. I will pull up my presentation now. All right, so I'm Karina Sandmeier, principal planner. I'll give a short introductory presentation on the parkline phase two study session. So the agenda for the study session is the staff introduction, then an applicant presentation, and clarifying questions, then public comments, and then commissioner discussion. So this shows the project site and vicinity. The project site is the SRI campus and 201 Ravenswood Avenue. This site is zoned C1SX and it's generally bounded by Ravenswood Avenue. to the north Middlefield Road to the east and Burgess Drive and the former USGS campus to the south. And that's using Ravenswood Avenue in an east to west orientation. Presidio Bay Ventures proposes to comprehensively redevelop the former USGS site. And that project was before the planning commission at the last meeting for a study session as well. That proposal includes a mix of uses consisting primarily of residential and office uses with child care and neighborhood serving retail and restaurant components. As you can see on this slide, across Middlefield from the project site is Menlo Atherton High School, and then the Menlo Park Civic Center campus and Burgess Park are located across Laurel Street from the project site. uh so the parkland project was approved by city council on september 30th and october 7th 2025 as part of the approval the city council certified the final eir amended the general plan land use element and land use map amended the zoning ordinance and zoning map adopted a conditional development permit to develop the project through a master plan approved a below market rate housing agreement, approved a vesting tentative map, and approved the development agreement between the city and the project applicant. And this slide shows the approved site plan that includes 800 dwelling units, including 251 below market rate. So on this site plan, the orange shows the residential located along Laurel and Ravenswood mainly. And then with some located along Ravenswood and Middlefield in that corner, including the 100% affordable buildings and townhomes. So this site plan included up to 1 million square feet of non-residential development, including three existing buildings to remain. So the darker blue on this slide are the existing buildings and the proposed new would be the lighter ones. The site plan included publicly accessible open space and bicycle and pedestrian connections. So to provide a short overview of the proposed project, so that's park line phase two. That includes an increase in the number of housing units, consolidation of the office R&D footprint, addition of community serving retail space, an increase in the office building heights, modification of various project development regulations, revisions to the approved CDP, BMR housing agreement, heritage tree removal permits, and vesting tentative map. The applicant is also requesting architectural control review for building design and site improvements. And this slide shows the proposed site plan. So it would be a total of 1,082 dwelling units, including 294 below market rate. This site plan, again, shows the residential in the orange and orange and yellow, the office in the blue color. And then the site plan includes a retail village and that's shown in the pink color. The site plan also includes publicly accessible open space and bicycle and pedestrian connections. So the applicant is seeking revisions to the approved CDP. The revisions include reduced setbacks, decreased minimum lot sizes, increased height, increased maximum parking rates, modification to modulation requirements, and modifications to the definition of gross floor area applicable to the project to accommodate larger columns for the office building balconies. And this is a list of suggested topics for Planning Commission discussion. Of course, other topics may be discussed as well. This is just a guide. And we've listed here land uses and site density and intensity, the application of the gross floor area definition, site layout, site access, linkages to other sites within the project site, including bike and pedestrian access, conceptual architectural styles, design, layout, and modifications to open space, the treatment of the property edge between the project site and the former USGS site, parking locations and ratios, and sustainability measures. Since publication of the staff report, we received 13 additional items of correspondence. Those included a variety of topics, including traffic, circulation and safety, housing and below market rate housing units, building heights, setbacks and privacy, and open space, heritage trees, planting plans and artificial turf. Thank you. That concludes my presentation. We'll now turn it over to the applicant. So we have Mark Murray from the applicant team to provide the their presentation.

Good evening, Chair Silverstein, Vice Chair Beruzzi, and members of the Commission. I'm Mark Murray with Lane Partners. We are a Menlo Park-based firm who's been here since we were founded 21 years ago. Very excited to be back in front of you this evening to share the latest iteration of ParkLine. I think it's been almost... Per Karina's presentation, been almost a year since we received our approvals on the last iteration. And as you'll recall, during those approvals, we ultimately agreed to reduce the commercial office area by nearly half a million square feet. And at the same time, we committed to coming back with a revised proposal in the future and coming back and adding more housing, both market rate and BMR. And that's what we've spent the last year doing. We also heard from, I think, Council Commission and the greater community that they'd like to see more organic retail. So one of the big changes you'll see in this project versus the previously approved project is we replaced what was kind of a commercial amenity building with you know, true blue organic retail that we think will create an amenity base, both for parkland residents, but also for the greater community. And something I also want to assure you of is we worked really hard for these positive changes just to be additive. And I want to assure you that all the community benefit commitments we made in phase one we have worked hard to maintain. So this is not a trade-off. It is hopefully all additive in terms of providing more things we heard the community wanted to see. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mark Swetman with SOM, but I look forward to talking to you further.

Thank you, Mark. Thank you, commissioners and staff. If you could advance the slide, and I'm going to go pretty quickly, so feel free to just keep clicking. It seems like I'm getting ahead of you. I think Mark summarized this, that the current version of the project is really based in significant part on community feedback. Next, please. This shows the previous plan, which was just shared. And if we go to the next one, you'll see the overall land use diagram here. The red is commercial and the yellow is residential. Next. The primary change, of course, is we're really densifying and compressing the area of the commercial use to make room, not just for more housing, but actually for housing of several different types. Next, please. So the new plan on the right shows the commercial core at the northern end of the site with the retail village and the office buildings and their parking. We haven't changed the multifamily apartments at the northwest and northeast corner, but the southern and eastern part of the sites now have a range of single-family homes, small and single-family homes, and townhomes. Next, please. In summary, we're reducing the commercial footprint from 37 to 14 acres and then adding 282 more units. Next, please. But more important than the metrics, or at least as important of the metrics we think are the quality of this place. And we've worked very hard with this mix of uses, multiple types of housing, office, retail, and open space to create a distinctive place. The one we think is woven into the character of Menlo Park as it is today, but also looks to the character of Menlo Park in the future. Next, please. And that includes a robust network of open spaces, which are anchored by community serving and city serving retail. Next please. Open spaces are multiple scales that can be programmed for different types of uses from relaxation on an individual scale to community events. Next please. Lots and lots of pedestrian and cyclist connectivity at a scale that is comfortable and safe. Next. And buildings which have state-of-the-art, highly sustainable, highly desirable architectural character in today's market, one that is really defined by what they are rather than decoration or ornament. Next, please. And this applies to the entire range of building types across the project from the office to the retail to the multiple types of housing. Next. So I'll walk through a few elements of the plan in more detail. Here's the plan again. Go next, please. And the plan is highly connective, but especially for pedestrian and cyclists. We have taken advantage of the many axes, both visually and literally, that connect through the site. We have not changed or increased the vehicular access at any of the predetermined points. Next, please. Here's a view into the project from Ravenswood. And what you'll see here is that the edge of the site, the character of the edge of the site, is really defined by the existing open space, the existing trees that surround that parking lot. And that grove of trees along Ravenswood is space number seven there. We're calling that the Ravenswood Grove next. And this is a space that has a mixed use path in it. It has many, many mature trees, which we're preserving, as well as a small series of retail pavilions to create indoor outdoor spaces that can be used by businesses and community. Next. The heart of the retail village is a more than one acre shared lawn. One of the comments that we heard about the previous plan for the project is while there was a lot of open space, it didn't necessarily feel public in that it was between office buildings. By placing this appropriately scaled open space between retail buildings, these are places that will feel inherently public. And those retail tenants, whoever they may be, they can activate and animate those spaces, but it also will feel welcoming internally. for many kinds of public activities. Next. And some of the images here show all kinds of different things that could happen in that space. Next. At the southern end of the site is a more than three acre park, which is surrounded on most of its sides by housing of different types. And within this park, there are paths, there is a playground, there are open areas, there are open lawns. Next, please. And really, you know, the eyes on this park come from all of these residents, as well as from the commercial users, as well as from just people in the city circulating through it. Next. Along the western edge of the site, we still have pedestrian and cycle connectivity between the multifamily buildings. And those paseos, in one case, are adjacent to a dog park. Next. Next. And all of this is knitted together by a bike network, which ranges from on-street lanes nearly everywhere to all the way up to a class four cycle track, which cuts from the southwest of the site up to the northeast. And hopefully someday we'll connect to the enhanced crossing at the Caltrain station. Next. The architectural elements are, we'll talk about them in kind of four categories here. First, the retail, next. This is a series of nine single-story buildings. They are varied in size and footprint, which will allow a variety of tenants to take the buildings from sort of small to medium. They're up to 40 feet in height, next. And their architectural character is, we think, appropriate to buildings of this scale, but they share some of the high-quality materials that the larger buildings will use, like stone and timber and metal cladding. Next. Obviously, lots of glass, which will allow lots of indoor-outdoor use of spaces. The scale of the spaces between these buildings are appropriate for dining and strolling. These are not the grand spaces of the lawn or the park. Next, please. The office development, the four buildings shown in blue and their two parking garages are immediately adjacent to the retail. That gives this retail a great chance of surviving because you have thousands of new residents and those two commercial uses go up very well together. Next, please. The buildings are arranged so that none of their long sides are facing each other. So typically it's short side to long side. This creates kind of as much light and air between the buildings as possible. They range in height from five to 10 stories with the tallest building located at the very center of the site as far away from the edges as possible. You see a lot of office campuses where all the buildings are the same height. There's nothing that screams office campus like all the buildings being the same height. This is a much more organic approach that feels more like a city, more like a city in which the spaces between the buildings are actually public. Next, please. Which they are. So here's a view of two of those buildings. Next. These are heavy timber buildings. So the structural system of these buildings is timber. And you'll see in the architecture that they have a lot of horizontal lines and one thing that we like even a building is this scale is. The ability of horizontal architectural elements like roofs and eaves and windows to actually encourage connection between the inside and outside next. that's something that's evident in the traditional architecture of this part of California in the Bay area. And it helps break the buildings down from being an object like the box at the bottom of the left to being a series of spaces that you can see in and out of next. And in addition to that, we think these buildings will be very desirable. They will attract the kind of tenants that Menlo Park wants to keep in Menlo Park. They will be highly sustainable, all electric, high levels of environmental certification, very high performing, certainly sustainable. better or equal to anything on the market. Next, please. Here are two of them shown together adjacent to the retail village in the foreground. You can see there are outdoor spaces of several different sizes. Almost every floor of the building has outdoor spaces. And those outdoor spaces are the reason for the revision to the GFA definition. The columns, the timber columns you need to hold up a 10-story building are more than 12 inches square. So we've located them on one side, but technically the planning definition of GFA would consider those enclosed spaces. So it's a very minor change to the code. Next, please. The parking garages are, again, located towards the center of the site. We've moved one of them much further from the edge of the site, which I think is a real benefit for the neighborhood. They share the same high quality materials and simple articulation of scale, rusticated concrete base, metal or wood louvers, and a simple rhythm that, again, reflects what they are, which is parking garages, but in an elegant and simple way. Next slide. And here's a view of the southern end of the office complex from the park at the south. Next, please. As I mentioned, the multifamily residential we have not changed, either in location or footprint. The affordable dedication parcel at the northeast is a slightly different shape than it was before. And that's to accommodate the size soccer field that we heard was desired on the open space parcel. Next, please. So the housing consists of three types. There are 45 by 70 single family lots. There's 32 by 60 small single family lots. And then there are 108 townhomes, townhomes generally at the Northeast. We've designed these neighborhoods to have a highly porous pedestrian scale with rear load dwellings. We're collaborating with KTGY, who's the design architect for the residential buildings themselves. Next, please. And there's a couple images here of the different types. You can just click through the next two or three, ending with the townhouses on the next one. So in summary, we think that this takes what was, you can go to the next, already a really great project and turns it into a greater one that has more usable public open space, more publicly spirited public open spaces, a more sustainable mix with more housing and more retail in addition to the world-class office, which we think is an appropriate mix for a site, you know, just minutes from Menlo Park's heavy rail station. Next. And with that, I'll conclude the presentation. We have lots more information. If you have any questions, happy to answer them. And thank you so much for your time.

Thank you very much. Before moving to public comment, do any commissioners have any clarifying questions for staff or the applicant? Commissioner Sillin.

Thank you for the presentation. I had a question about the... I believe it's 50 townhomes that are going to be below market rate. And I was wondering if on the map, Attachment L, there's the conceptual master plan. And there's a section says townhomes one, townhomes two, they are next to each other. But I was just wondering, it sounds like there's 108 townhomes total, 50 of them below market rate. Will the 50 be interspersed among townhomes one and two? Or is it one set is the 50 BMR and the other set is the market rate?

No, they will be dispersed among all the buildings in the attached townhomes. And we can share if it's not in the package tonight, but we can share a diagram of where we anticipate those being, like specifically.

Okay, great. Thank you. I had another question about the maps. The cycling circulation map still shows access from Burgess Drive for cyclists going from potentially the Middle Avenue undercrossing or just Alma. through Burgess traveling to Middlefield, potentially Menlo-Atherton High School. So I just wanted to confirm, because some of the maps don't seem to show access there, but the cycling circulation map does. So I just want to double check that there will be access there for bikes. And will there be access for cars?

This is particularly for the entrance to Burgess Drive? Yes. So, no, great question because I saw a lot of this coming up it has over the years. I saw some of the correspondence tonight. There are not going to be vehicles going through there except for emergency vehicles. So probably have like a pylon system that goes down when a fire truck needs to get in there or an ambulance, but no other vehicles will ever be allowed in that area. Bike and pedestrian Yes, so I want to be very clear we've never proposed that being open to normal vehicles. We are not doing that now. We have no intention of doing that in the future.

Thank you. And I had... One other question about SRI. I was wondering because we've seen a number of reports over the years in terms of traffic studies, housing needs, etc. And a lot of them are based on how many people are currently working at SRI. Are you able to Share any numbers or estimates as to how many employees are currently, let's say, on a monthly or weekly basis, average per day coming to SRI for work currently.

So if you're asking in this very moment, I mean, they're already in process of moving people off site. So it's hard to say. I think the. you know, where we were kind of when the first approval came through, I think it's about 700 people. And it's hard to say who's coming every day. I think even at that time, SRI had acquired a group called Park and Stanford Research Park. So there were folks kind of working over there, but I think 700 is the right number in terms of where were they kind of during most of this process.

Cool. Thank you. I don't have any other clarifying questions. Commissioner Eric.

Thank you. Through the chair, I have a question for staff. Um, my question is, if you could remind us, does this project qualify for the five meeting limit? And it does this, if so, does this count for one of the five meetings?

Um, so the project requires legislative actions, um, you know, for example, the amendments to the CDP. So it's a little different in that sense. I think the approved development agreement sets a limit of five public hearings, although I don't believe this study session would count under that limit.

Sorry, if I can ask a follow up, which is why not? What distinguishes the study session from another public hearing?

I believe that's how the development agreement was structured. So a study session, it's in a different agenda, part of the Planning Commission agenda. Does that help?

um i'm still a bit confused i guess i would appreciate a follow-up from the city's attorney it's at the city attorney's office at a later date thank you we can provide that it's it's a little bit it's really a reading of the terminology used in the development agreement versus what statutory language is in in the state law okay thank you and i would um A prior question was about the location of the BMR units and the townhome section. And if you look at page 343 of the agenda packet, there is a site map that shows the BMR units highlighted in a reddish pinkish color. So that'll identify the location of those units.

Thank you. And for the record, would you mind introducing yourself?

Sure. I'm sorry. I'm Mike Biddle. I'm with the firm of Burke Williams and Sorenson. And we provide services as the city attorney for the city of Menlo Park.

Thank you very much. Commissioner Sillin with more clarifying questions.

Just a quick follow up on that last one for the map. Could you mention like a drawing number or any other page number for people that don't have the full agenda file?

uh boy i'm sorry i can't all i have is just the online uh access to the online um agenda packet and it shows page 343 so i have that there's a u15 at the bottom left hand corner of the page as well it's u15 in attachment to you thank you you're welcome commissioner headley

Thank you, I have a question about solar so i'm hearing that solar is going to be included, and I was wondering exactly where it would be and how the benefits would flow to residents, if applicable.

So each of the buildings has a different portion of its roof identified for solar panels. And that ranges from relatively small areas up to, I think, almost 60,000 square feet for each of the multifamily buildings. California utility system is quite specific about how that energy is used and the way in which it is connected to the grid. So there's nothing unusual about the way that we're doing it here. We're following PG&E's rules for customer-provided solar. But essentially, all of the buildings have accommodation for solar.

Sorry, out of curiosity and a follow-up question, do those rules depend on the solar for the building in which you reside, or is it for the entire development as one collective solar array?

The project will eventually consist of multiple parcels. And so the utility would look at each parcel independently, but the rules are basically PG&E and PUC rules. They're really nothing to do with the project. And those rules relate to whether you can just use the power yourself. And basically you can't, you have to give it back to the grid.

Thank you. Seeing no further, oh, Commissioner Headley has more questions.

yeah I have a question regarding the. The fact that this project is going to be all electric and I understand that that is has been agreed to as part of the development agreement with the city, I also saw that the development agreement expires after 20 years, so I guess, I was wondering. if it takes, I hope it gets developed way sooner than that, but I'm wondering how do we kind of lock in and all electric development, even if the development agreement expires at some point in the future. So I think this is maybe more of a question for staff, like, should we recommend an update to the development agreement to city council or consider a condition of development? What do you recommend there?

If I may, I believe there's provisions within the conditional development permit governing the development of the site that requires it to be all electric. And so that conditional development permit are the conditions that run with the land for development of the site. So those would continue in effect even once the development agreement expires.

Thank you. That's very helpful.

Thank you. At this time, Mr. Ball, let's open up public comment for item G1.

Thank you, Chair. As a reminder for those participating in person, please provide me with the speaker card located at the back table. For those attending virtually, please press the hand icon. And for those calling into tonight's meeting, please click star nine on your keypad to notify me that you have a comment. This will now be the final call. Okay, so we'll start with in-person comments. Let me just, just give me one moment while I take this last comment. Okay, so we will start with.

Sorry, one second, Mr. Ball. Before we continue with public comments, can we get a rough estimate of how many total comments there are just for time's sake to see if we would need to reduce the allotment of time from three down to two minutes?

Looks like we have about nine in-person comments and I see three hands raised online.

That seems totally reasonable. Let's stay with three. Okay.

So our first public commenter is Peter Lazak. And as a reminder, you will have three minutes for your comment. Just give me one moment while I set up the timer. Okay, please begin.

Good evening, Planning Commissioners, Chair. My name is Peter Lezak. I represent the McCandless Triad office buildings at 525, 535, 545 Middlefield Road. We are the property adjacent to the Parkline project and also adjacent to the former USGS site. I want to thank Lane Partners and Mark Murray for doing such a great job with the revisions to the plan. We really like the new project. We really appreciate the process that they went through, the feedback that they've received from us, and their willingness to work with us to the degree that they could. community process that they went through. We really appreciate and think that their process and hard work has paid off. This project is much better than it was before. We're still fairly concerned about traffic along Middlefield Road, and you've heard my comments related to the USGS project. In particular, I have the same comments on this project tonight, and that is Seminary Drive, which is the access to all three of our projects, is a real concern of ours, and we feel like this is a public street, and it's got some real geometry problems that we need to work out with the city staff. You would find in the plan set that Parkland has developed, which is a great plants at the very last page, which is page C 10.6, is an exhibit that really shows and demonstrates to you the challenge that I'm talking about. Now that their traffic for their residential neighborhood is going to come down to that end and enter Seminary Drive, and it does so at an angle right next to the egress from our project. If you knew our project location, you would know that there's no ingress or egress to our project from Middlefield Road. The only access that we have is from Seminary Drive or on the north end from what's called D Street. Our biggest concern is that when you look at the park line traffic studies, you would see the queuing of traffic from both ends is so great that it will be impossible to get in and out of our parking lot. Now, when you look at Seminary Drive and then you add the traffic that we haven't seen a traffic study for USGS yet, you're going to have a larger problem. Now, our biggest concern is that you have, in this case, almost like a fork. We have three projects entering and exiting from almost the same location, but without having a clear way for people to get in and out. We hope that city staff would work with us to try to come up with a better configuration. The USGS folks have indicated that it's really not their problem, that it's Parkland's improvements that are going to take precedent here. This sheet that is Parkland's proposed improvements, we don't think are safe. And we look forward to working with city staff and the project proponents from both Parkline and USGS. But in particular, particular city staff because it is a city street. Thank you for seeing my comments.

Thank you for your comment. The next four speakers are Irakli Nadarashvili, followed by Anna Melikshivli, followed by Sue Connolly, and Gail Gorton. Give me one moment. Okay, you may begin.

Good evening. My name is Rockley. I'm a local resident in Menlo Park, and we live very close to this proposed development. Parkland is only one piece of much larger question before you tonight. And that question is what kind of city Menlo Park will be?

We're sorry.

Parkline is only one piece of much larger question before you tonight, and that question is what kind of city Menlo Park will be. We're generally supportive of Parkline. Our neighbors have already offered specific requests of the developer, and we hope this will be taken seriously. Our deeper concern is not this project alone. It is the cumulative effect of every major development now on the table. You cannot devaluate Park Line in isolation from the towers proposed on the former Sunset Magazine site, a short distance away. Taken together, these projects would transform this part of the city. None of our existing infrastructure was built for growth of that scale. We are talking about a population increase that could approach 50% in a small city. How will police, fire, water, sanitation, and our roads absorb that? Do we have the school capacity? Those are not secondary questions. They are the questions that must be answered before we celebrate the benefits of more development. Menlo Park has been the jewel of this peninsula for 172 years. The decisions you make will determine whether it remains a livable city for the next 100 years, or whether it is overwhelmed by growth it cannot support. That is a solemn responsibility each and every one of you have. We urge you to demand a realistic plan, not a slogan, for public safety, water, sanitation, traffic, and schools before adding still more intensity. The most critical issue is height of the proposed buildings. There is a reason buildings of this scale were never built here. Attorney General Bonta is wrong to treat local height limits as it is possible. Fighting Sacramento is hard, but it is not the same as being powerless. David beat Goliath by being smart and righteous. Menlo Park can do the same. If the state... Voids our height rules. The city still has tools. One option is local tax on buildings taller than five stories so that super tall towers become economically unattractive. There are other tools as well at your disposal. We ask you to use every one of them. Please protect this city, its history, its character, and the people who will live here far beyond when you're serving on this council. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comment.

Hi, good evening. My name is Ana and I live in Merrill Park with my husband and two young boys. I wanted to start by saying that I'm not against any development. I understand that Merrill Park needs more housing and I believe thoughtful growth can be very positive for our community. My concern with the parkland development is not that they are building housing. It's the scale and the concentration of what is now being proposed. Our city that we all love so very much has a character that is increasingly rare in the Bay Area. We have beautiful neighborhoods, trees, lots of green spaces, excellent schools, and a community that still feels human scale. Growth can strengthen us, but too much density in one location can fundamentally change it. We need to seriously consider what this concentration will mean for our schools, infrastructure, environment, and surrounding neighborhoods, not only today, but 20 and 30 years from now. Because we all know once this level of density is built, we cannot take it back. I'm asking the commission to support growth, but to keep it thoughtful and proportional. We can create more housing and welcome new residents without sacrificing the character and quality of life that makes Menlo Park such a special place to live. Thank you.

Thank you. The next two commenters are Sue Connolly and Gail Gorton.

Thank you, Planning Commission. And it's nice to see some of the new ones I haven't met before. And sorry for the hoarse voice. Supposedly it's better, but it doesn't sound that way. I grew up here. I rode my bike to school. I can't ride my bike now. I don't feel safe as an adult. So when we talk about safety, walking and biking for people trying to shop or go to school, it's already at a threat. So let's really look at this realistically, and I really entreat you all to walk the streets, look at the backup on Laurel already, the terrible gridlock on Ravenswood. It's bad already. Sorry about that. I'm in Burgess Classics. I love our neighborhood, and we've worked closely with Mark over the years, and we've really made a lot of progress together, and we really appreciate his concessions, but we've made concessions as well. We do support more housing. However, there have been major changes of this plan that the new houses are right smack up against our private homes. The buildings are actually taller. If you look at the roof lines, the two story roofs are taller and those rooms are gonna be looking right into Our private bedrooms, our kitchens, our family rooms, everything is on the back. We have living spaces. And there is a screen that SRI built. It was part of the developer agreement. And it's been a spore on hedges. And they're okay, but it's all we've got. And it's taken 25 years to get to a fairly decent margin. We are asking that there's a buffer that Mark was promising for us between our homes and the new homes. Keep the roof line lower. There's actually in the plan a second story plan with only two narrow windows on there. and to use those plans with the ones that are facing us, the sides, and then actually make the windows taller than eye height. So that would really help with worrying about who's got a camera or even looking into our bedrooms. The buffer zone was also promised to be fenced in so that and maintained by park lines so that those trees which do need maintenance and care are maintained and that there is not free access to the area right behind our homes. And we, instead of a developer agreement, we now know that we need to ask them to be third party beneficiary rights in case Mark does parcel out parts of the development, which now seemingly the apartments and the offices are being done. And then also, if we want to make sure that the third-party beneficiary right of keeping the cars off of Burgess Drive for the sake of everyone biking and walking on it, and also anyone trying to use Laurel, especially the kids going to and from school. I also would propose that we, whoops, sorry, reduce the office height. 10 stories is too big. We need fewer employees so we don't hit that negative deficit that it's creating for the housing imbalance. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comment. Our next three speakers are Molly Naber, followed by Sally Cole and Brian Schmidt.

Good evening. As a Menlo Park resident, I would like to thank you for your dedication.

Sorry, could you please talk into the microphone and make sure everyone can hear you? Thank you.

As a Menlo Park resident, I would like to thank you for your dedication to the city. and to both its current and future residents as a resident of burgess classics i also want to express my support for the parkland project while respectfully noting my concerns these concerns are outlined in detail in the letter you received from jeff lanford on behalf of the burgess classics hoa Our primary concerns have to do with limiting Laurel Street traffic and keeping Burgess Drive closed. Proposed building height and scale of project. Creating enhanced buffers adjacent to all Burgess classic homes. As the homeowners most directly affected by this significant development, it is important that our community have a meaningful seat at the table and that our concerns be heard, discussed, and understood. Thank you for taking the time to review Jeff's letter in detail. We look forward to working together with all parties to help ensure that this project is successful for everyone involved. Thank you.

Good evening, Planning Commissioners. My name is Molly Naber, and I'm Vice President of Housing Development Strategy at Midpen Housing. Midpen Housing is a 50-plus-year-old nonprofit affordable housing developer based here on the peninsula. We are excited to be the developer and operator of the dedicated 100% affordable parcel at Parkline. Our partnership with Lane on this development reflects our organization's shared values, including community engagement, high quality development that lasts, and local roots with a long-term view. Mid-Penn has deep roots of our own here in Menlo Park. We have four existing affordable communities in Menlo Park, with a total of 332 rental homes. The dedicated affordable parcel at Parkline will add a fifth community with approximately 154 affordable homes. Through Mid-Penn's work here in Menlo Park, we know that the demand for affordable housing is enormous. There's over 2000 households on the waitlist for those existing for properties with large family units which are two and three bedroom apartments particularly oversubscribed. Anecdotally we hear from applicants that they've been looking for affordable housing for more than five years. This will also make a meaningful contribution toward the city's arena goals by offering a large number of extremely low income and very low income homes. In closing, mid pen is excited to continue the parkland culture of collaboration in our work with the city and community on our next step of affordable housing design review, thank you.

Good evening, Brian Schmidt for Menlo Spark. I just want to say I appreciate some of the changes that have been made in this proposal. It's moving the project in a good direction on jobs housing balance. I also assume it's in the best interest of the applicant to make these changes. So in that vein, I would like to invite the commission and the applicant to consider some other environmental improvements that could be made at this time. Glad to see the continuation of 100% electrification of the project. There's some other changes that might be considered, such as replacing diesel generators with batteries, so you're not making the pollution from diesel generators. If there are some concerns about compliance with current building code, maybe this could be worked in for planning for the future, because building codes are undergoing revisions, and the future revisions might allow replacement of diesel generators with batteries. Some other changes that might be considered would be pre-wiring all homes for residential batteries to facilitate the batteries that are increasingly likely to be part of our development here in California. And to consider the installation of residential batteries in all the multifamily housing. That could include some type of enrollment in what's called virtual power plants, which could actually save significant amount of money and be income generating for the people in the affordable housing units. Balcony solar is something that is happening across the country. It was passed by our legislature. They should make sure that the multifamily housing is balcony solar ready. And finally, I would like to point the commissioners to the comments from former Commissioner Lynn Dan Doe on landscaping changes that would be appropriate for this project. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And the last three in-person speakers will be Josephine Gallard, Maria Yip, and Susan Stinson.

Good evening. My name is Josie Gaylord and I'm wearing two hats. I'm a resident of District 3, so Linfield Oaks here. I'm also a member at Trinity Church, which is the Episcopal Church located just across the street from where Parkline will be located at Laurel and Ravenswood. So the church is excited and supportive of this project. We've been following it intensely. We've got over 100 members from all over the peninsula, and people are generally in favor of affordable housing. So that's great. We also are just excited about, so not just housing in general, but the affordable aspect. As a resident of the neighborhood, I just want to raise a couple concerns that have been brought up already, mostly around traffic. Maybe you all know, but the traffic in the neighborhood already is really, really bad. doesn't seem to be managed well, meaning it's been bad for a while and I'm not aware of city plans to address the way it is right now. So I guess the question I love, and there are so many things that are wonderful about the project that's being proposed, but my concern is about the city's plans. And if there are plans in the works, maybe they could be communicated to folks in the neighborhood about how traffic will be addressed. Thanks.

Hi, my name is Maria Yeh. I'm the original owner at the Burgess Closet. I live on Barron Street and right next to SRI building right there, Park Lane. I didn't prepare anything. I just want to tell you my experience of living there. It has been great for me. I'm the one of the first mover there. And looking at 25 years ago, a big parking lot, now it's being developed, very happy. The only major concern I have is the original plan will have a big buffer that's a walkway there from the my fence to the park lane. Now I see houses right next to it. It's so close and who's gonna maintain those trees PB, Lupita D Montoya, That I watch it to grow for 25 years from little baby to a big 2030 feet. I don't want any damage to it or what happened if the new owners come in and have this I don't want the tree. And my other question is, we have trellises on top of our fence to block our view. Who maintains that right now is on their side and they maintain it nicely. If I complain, they come and fix it up. And I don't know what it is they're going to be doing in those houses right next to me that they're so close by. The second point of it, I'm kind of concerned about 10 storage height. on Ravenwood, is there gonna be a light going, a light between the Ravenwood going inside those plaza? Because that's a lot of cars gonna going into the shopping area to buy things or to eat in the restaurant. I just heard that we only have 700 people going in and out SRI before the pandemic. That's gonna be more than 700 people going. through Raven would go to the plaza, whatever it is. And how are we going to manage all this traffic? I think that's my major concern, just behind my backyard, so I could watch nicely and no one look at my back. And right now, I don't have any curtain on the first floor because I don't need it. And now I need to have curtains and covering it up. I kind of, not too excited about it, but if I need to deal with it, I'd rather not deal with it. That's all I have to say, thank you.

Yes, the last two speakers are Susan Stinson followed by Sally Cole.

Hi, good evening. Thanks for spending your time with us tonight. My name is Susan Stimson. I've been a resident of Menlo Park for over 20 years, most of the time here in the Burgess Classics neighborhood. I also helped to found and build a company over by Meta that employed hundreds of people in Menlo Park. We manufactured. Many of our manufacturing staff traveled from as far as Tracy. So I completely understand the need and support the need for affordable housing. I've lived it. I've managed those employees. If you would ask me six months ago, through this process that you've probably all been on to, it's been, I'd say it was pretty collaborative. It was draining, but it was collaborative, and we were pretty pleased with the outcome. If you look at the recent plan, it throws years of collaboration with Lane, who we thought were good partners, out the window. We had, as Ben's mentioned here, by Maria, by Sue, we had City Council Chambers, design that kept our Community kind of akin to our current quality of life we've got this buffer my House borders Sri. City Council Chambers, They what I think is generously provided this nice green space, the closest structure that was going to be built. City Council Chambers, was similar to the distance of the structure that's going to be built that was going to be built on the new parking garage. Yes, the construction would have been ugly. It would have been noisy. But the end result would have been what we think pretty good quality of life, pretty decent compromises on both sides. This plan is egregious. It throws all of that out the window, again, throws everything we've talked about. They should make money great you should make money, but prior zero homes for sale now close to 400 homes for sale at market rate more affordable. there's plenty of homes to be to be built the prior spot space that was protected there's eight homes there I get their single family homes, they can sell them for a lot, they can make more money on those. But it diminishes not only the character, it diminishes our privacy as Marie was saying. I never close my shades on the backside. And I get it sounds like a trivial luxury, but it is something that I paid for on my purchase price. I paid for, we've all paid for in our home purchasing decisions. We bought those attributes. They're all being stripped away. Just the nature of this plan being filed has already decreased our property values. It's diminished the potential that I can even sell my home today if I wanted to. We're not asking for a lot. All I ask for is to keep the buffer. Just keep a little bit of our privacy. Keep what we purchased because Again, we thought we were collaborating, and this just is a complete slap in the face. So that's all I ask. Please consider maintaining some of the quality of life of what we currently have. And yes, please develop. Yes, it's great that there's more housing. Completely support it. Hope there's more jobs and people like those that worked for me in the past don't have to commute from Tracy. Thank you.

Hello, I'm Sally Cole. I'm the chair of the Complete Streets Commission. And my comments are addressed to the developers. I've attended previous presentations on Park Line to City Council, and I've always appreciated the priority that you've placed on bike and pedestrian access in your plans. Regarding this Phase 2 plan, with increased retail attracting more people to the site and hopefully positioning Park Line as a hub for the community, And with more homes being built on the site, I ask you to take a close look at your bike and ped plan to make sure it's being strengthened and expanded to support these changes to the plan. For example, with more single family homes planned for Parkline and more residents, look at the design of your bike and ped paths and ask if there need to be more of them and if they need to be widened to accommodate parents biking with kids, etc., Similarly, does the site have enough access points, egress and ingress for bikes and peds, separate and apart for how many they have for cars? In addition, with an expanded retail presence at Parkline, the Complete Streets Commission just recently did a study of the availability of bike racks in Menlo Park. and learned how important it is to the success of retail to attracting customers to provide an adequate number of bike racks and the right type of bike racks. To attract families to restaurants, for example, there need to be room for cargo bike parking and safe and protected locations for bike parking. These are just a few examples of how to make your bike and ped plan adapt and expand as the site plan is changing. In addition, we can all agree that making it as easy as possible for large numbers of people to bike and walk to and from Park Line is going to be critical to success and livability and critical to reducing the traffic impacts that the community is rightly concerned about. Whether that's people coming to shop and dine at Park Line, or whether that's Parkline residents commuting to and from work or their kids going to and from school, it would really be a lot better if a lot of those people could bike and walk instead of drive. Parkline can play a leadership role in reducing traffic impact by being exceptionally bike and pet friendly. Menlo Park needs your help and I hope you'll aspire to that and design and plan your site with the intent to greatly increase the number of residents and visitors who will be able to bike and walk safely to and from park line, not just to accommodate expected or estimated levels of bike and ped traffic. Thank you.

Thank you. And now we'll turn to the online speakers. We have three speakers and we will start with Chao P followed by John McKenna and iPhone Dad. Please unmute yourself.

Sure, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, I don't see a timer, but I'll proceed. Yes, my name is Peter. I'm a resident for many years of District 3, specifically the Burgess Classic. What I've noticed over the years is that, you know, District 3 has been under siege by a series of development projects, starting with the park line, then Sunset, and now You know the USGS site, I just want to let the Planning Commission understand and know that District 3 cannot be the savior of the regional housing needs assessment. We need a balanced approach to housing across the entire Menlo Park area from Sharon Heights to downtown to our neighborhood, as well as the Belle Haven districts. With respect to the park line project, I appreciate working with Mark and Lane Partners in getting to where we were a year ago. To my surprise, we've decided to make another revision. And so I echo the same issues and concerns we have with this project that some of my other fellow residents have. Number one, the Burgess Drive has to remain closed for access to cars. We cannot have more overflow traffic on Laurel Street. I'm going to say that again repeatedly. Number two, originally this plan had an inactive buffer zone between my backyard and the housing development. Since then, we've now had more residential development. I want to say that I'm a proponent of housing. But this came as a surprise. We went from 400 units to 1,082 units. Again, we cannot be the savior of the regional housing needs assessment, even though we support housing. It cannot all be concentrated in one area, all because of largely traffic congestion that, as you well know, impacts all of Menlo Park, down Willow, down Ravenswood. The third thing I'd like to request the Planning Commission is how do we make sure that future revisions are not going to change again. When lane partners decide to sell the land parcels to future developments, I want to ensure that the development agreement stays intact. That means no amendments to the development agreement. What I'm asking the commission to consider is the name Burgess Classic as a third party beneficiary to this development agreement, requiring further consent from our community, which is directly impacted by this development. I see Mark's cooperation and the planning commission's cooperation because I'm looking very carefully about how this is written going forward. Appreciate your time. I'm looking forward to being a longtime resident and seeing this development come through. I'm not looking to halt this project, but I'm looking for further cooperation so we can have a viable community for the future. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, go ahead, next speaker.

Hello. Thank you, John McKenna again. I do serve on the Environmental Quality Commission. I'm speaking as an individual. And I appreciate all the previous comments. There seem to be some valid concerns, which I hope the developer will address as best they can. I do really support this project. I appreciate the location to amenities, Caltrain, public transit, which hopefully will reduce some of the traffic impacts. Time will tell, I suppose. but it seems like an ideal site for this project. I appreciate all the community meetings the developers held. I had the chance to speak with both Marks and I appreciate their time and taking my questions. I appreciate that they've increased the amount of housing and reduce the commercial footprint. I think that's great for Menlo Park. I think the added retail will be another great amenity. I really appreciate the developer committing to building 100% all electric for all the buildings, retail, homes, commercial. I think that's excellent. Even just bringing gas to a building for a stove or a fireplace, is a massive investment in an infrastructure that we're trying to get off of. So I really appreciate the developer not digging us a deeper hole by putting gas in the project. I really appreciate some of the other sustainability aspects. The mass timber is the lowest carbon way to build. I appreciate that the buildings are gonna be, the office buildings are gonna be constructed that way. I didn't get a chance to ask this question, but I wonder if perhaps low carbon concrete could be considered for the parking structures. So just a thought there. And then lastly, this really isn't for the developer or the planning commission, but there is a piece of the property that will be a future athletic field. And ultimately, I understand that'll be the city's decision as to what is put there. But I strongly hope that we will not be putting any artificial turf on that field. Natural grass is a much better playing surface for the players, for the kids, for the environment. No risk of exposure to PFAS and microplastics and additional heat that comes from an artificial field. There are other reasons too, but I just wanted to make that point. And again, really appreciate this project and how the developer has worked with the community and hopefully can address those remaining concerns. Thank you.

Thank you. And our last speaker.

Yes, hi. Sorry about the name. My name is Steven Pang. I've lived in Menlo Park since 1999. So while I appreciate the architectural design and all the things that they've put into it, as mentioned by other people, we really need to put this park lane in context with the other areas. developments in the neighborhood. As Chao mentioned, this development went from 400 to 600 to 800, now to over 1100 units. And I think this is the one that really breaks the camel's back for the Linfield Oaks community. Between the USGS development and the Sunset development and this one, we're talking about 2,500 new units in Linfield Oaks area alone. And this type of additional things, residents in the single neighborhood really strains the infrastructure on several accounts. First of all, the gridlock traffic and pollution it's going to add, as mentioned by Rekli and Sue and Gail, there's going to be a lot more traffic. And just let's put some numbers to this. If we're looking at 2,500 units, new residential units, one and a half cars per unit, two trips a day, that's 7,500 trips extra, okay? If we're talking about... And that works out to 750 car trips per hour increase during the workday. And if we're looking just at... commuting traffic, we're talking about another 2,000 cars on the road each hour in Menlo Park. And I don't think the corridor between 101 and El Camino can absorb that without really increasing the pollution and livability, reducing the livability of the Linfield Soak area. The second point I want to say is there's been always talk about assumptions of people taking mass transit. And I just wonder out loud, has any survey been done on, for example, the Springline residents to see how many of those people actually take mass transit? Because if we're working on faulty data or unreal data, relying on such assumptions would really make, could really damage traffic if they don't take traffic. Yeah. Last point with regards to what one of the former speakers said about school capacity, Anna. Again, working through some numbers, 2,500 households, suppose there is average of one student per household. We're talking about 200 students per additional grade in Menlo Park, and that's Incinal, Laurel, Hillview, and M.A., And the lack of classroom capacity, where are we going to put these students? Are we going to build new schools? Furthermore, even if we say there's a non-even distribution of students, we're talking about 400 students per grade in the elementary levels. And that's something the schools really can't support. So you have to, the Planning Commission has to look at Park Lane in context of the USGS and 80 Willow Development Road for long-term livability of the Slimfield Soaks area. I've submitted some extra comments online, so I appreciate your time.

Thank you, and that concludes our public comments.

Thank you to all the members of the public for your comments and thank you to Lane Partners for having gone through this revision process. Before I ask for further commissioner comments, I want to quickly address two elements. One very quickly, there was a member of the public who mentioned that they felt like they used to be able to bike in Menlo Park and now don't feel safe because of too much traffic. I want to reiterate something that Corinna Sandmeier mentioned earlier on City Council's agenda for tomorrow night, which is discussion of a bike lane on Coleman Avenue. If you feel strongly about that, you can attend or give the City Council your comments. And then the other thing that I wanna just generally address before we talk about any specifics of this project is there's been discussion around the scale of these types of projects and whether or not we're consolidating too much housing in such a small area. And this is something that happened as a function of the housing element, which I wasn't on the commission during the revision process, but as I understand it, essentially Menlo Park in the process of adding necessary housing, and there's necessary from a standpoint of state rules and regulations, and there's also necessary from the viewpoint of a housing crisis and needing to add more housing density around our community. We essentially went through this process and through a series of many different meetings and compromises and meetings with the planning commission and ultimately city council approval and a vote. We kind of said that we wanted to leave our single family districts alone and build more density in specific projects. 80% of the land in Menlo Park that is residential is owned for single family residents. And we didn't really do anything to attempt to change that. I'm not saying that from a positive or negative standpoint, but when I think about what the community kind of decided when it comes to density, we said, well, if we're not going to touch those various neighborhoods, then we have to put it somewhere and that somewhere ended up being in specific projects like Parkline and Springline and USGS and other developments potentially downtown. We talked about one earlier today. And then there are a number of different projects on our Bayfront neighborhood that are essentially these large apartment buildings. And that's something that we all should think through the next time we're kind of talking about the implications and ramifications of going through a housing element process or thinking what the character of any given neighborhood is because when we make those decisions years ago, then we end up having these types of meetings today and those meetings end up, or those decisions in the past essentially end up forcing our hand to say, well, we need to have this density here because we don't have the opportunity to have it elsewhere, just as a mere function of what were legally able to do. And again, I'm not trying to make a value judgment on whether or not that's a good or bad thing or whether or not we should have changed any of our zoning process. And again, I wasn't on the commission at the time, but that's something that I was thinking through when I heard some of those comments. With that, Vice Chair Baruzzi has a comment.

Yes, thank you so much. I wanted to say that I really enjoyed seeing this presentation and have lots of thoughts. But unfortunately, I'm a little too unwell right now to continue participating. So I'm going to regretfully leave the meeting at this time. And I wanted to note that for the public record. And thank you all for picking up my slack.

Thank you and feel better.

Thank you.

Do any other commissioners have comments about this? And again, from a procedural standpoint, tonight is a study session. There is no formal resolution that we'll be making. We will be giving feedback in order to consolidate said feedback. if there are things that we would like to formalize in terms of any changes we'd like to see to this project and instruction to the developer, then we could take a straw poll to at least ensure that the commission is aligned on said instruction. But again, this is a study session. And so feel free to speak openly and freely. And then as we consolidate things, we can get to any kind of formal polls and formal instruction commissioner, Eric.

Thank you, Chair. Through the Chair, I have a question for the applicant. I'll use the word confused, but I think oftentimes there can be two truths that exist at one time. We're here tonight to review a major revision to a project that we had already gone through, and so I think the applicant touched on this a little bit, why we're hearing this revision, but then we also heard from some neighbors or potential neighbors that they felt like this revision was not warranted. And so I'm hoping that the applicant can just say a little bit more about why you spent the last year doing this, what you were reacting to, why you felt it was necessary, why the design that we had approved previously wasn't good enough.

So I appreciate the question. So we, again, as I mentioned in kind of my opening remarks, you know, what we heard ultimately from the community. If I had to sum up the five years preceding that approval was less commercial, more housing. So ultimately it was relatively late in that five-year process. The last couple of months of that summer before getting the approval and the fall of 2025, we decided, okay, we are willing to drastically reduce the commercial area. We're going to come back and put housing together. But another really important thing we heard from the community is we want to see this housing get built. And we want to see it get built by 2031. The program we had prior, even if a larger commercial area would have been approved, I think you'd be waiting, you'd need to wait on the commercial area to get leased and starting to be built. prior to having enough value to commence the project. So what we wanted to do with this project is obviously add housing, add more BMR for sale units, add the retail, but create a mix of uses and types of housing and types of commercial where we think on day one, if we can get to this approval, we can move to building permit and begin trying to deliver the housing we're proposing by 2031. So I want to make very clear that was a major thought on our end was feasibility. Again, we stand by everything we said before. We're not taking away community benefits, but we're adding housing, but we're trying to create a coherent mix of things where we can move to demolition. For example, there's, I think, just demolition and remediation of the existing buildings will be about $30 million. That's money you have to spend before you really start doing anything we call kind of typical construction. So it's really like, how do you get enough value where we can move forward? And our goal is to have, you know, all the housing products moving forward, you know, as soon as, as soon as possible. And there's still phasing involved in that too, right? We'll have, you know, two large apartment buildings, you know, why aren't we doing, you know, more density, for example, well, there's good reasons for that. Part of it is the feasibility having the mix of economics, but if you had, you know, a third 300 unit apartment building, they're going to get phased out. for a pretty long period of time because it would saturate the market with kind of the same same product type uh and i appreciate the comments from our burgess class neighbors i wanted to correct the record on one of the comments that there was no for sale housing before there were the 19 homes if you're looking at i guess the north fence line of Burgess classics. We had 19 for sale homes there. There were two story. Uh, we did agree to that. And that wasn't one of our commitments. We genuinely thought we had a lot of consternation about the other property line that we had a commercial parking deck there. That's now, uh, hundreds of feet further away and not out their back property line. And, you know, again, we generally thought, you know, two-story housing was the least offensive product that exists in real estate development. It's often not considered real estate development. It's considered home building. But we'll continue to engage with those neighbors and look forward to making the project better.

Thank you.

I'll pause there for now.

Can I ask a follow-up question on the use of the term we genuinely thought? It sounds like there had been a dialogue between your firm and neighbors on those adjacent properties in Burgess Classics. And then it also sounds like The plans today, or at least the more recent submitted plans were a surprise. And so what were their conversations leading up to that when you knew you were going to make the plans before you submitted, then is there a specific representative that you were kind of talking to, or is there a newsletter?

That's a fair question. So again, on one of the property lines, we have the exact product type that we thought was approved by the community. So we did the same product on the other property line, which was previously. So no, we did not like totally go through that. I did meet with several of these folks at our open house. They were nice enough to come. We talked about it. Mainly, I thought the screening issue with privacy and things like that were the prior major concern. That's absolutely something we can address.

thank you do that yeah commissioner ferrick um just to kind of tag into this topic uh not start a new one at this moment but i actually remember last year's hearing there was a lot of concern about the parking garage views and so i can see why that would be confusing to you um thinking you're trying to address those concerns in a way that made sense for the other frontage um So later, I have a few more detailed comments. I see I was trying to look at the planting plans as they are so far, and it does look like there's a, I don't know if it's existing today, the one they were describing is growing ever so slowly over 25 years, or if it's a new kind of the non-heritage tree row that is marked on the, some of the plan sheets in that section, many, many pages down. So anyway, I think just as you'd said, there sounds like there's ways to address screening may already be there. Oh, may I just one quick, what are the plans for the heights of those two story single family homes that are in that part of the project?

As I mentioned, KTGY is the design architect for their homes. We're the master plan architect for the whole site, but I'll speak on their behalf. So those are two story homes with approximately 10 foot floor to floor height. So when you take out the wood joist construction, you get roughly a nine foot ceiling, which is very typical. The ground floor is set approximately one foot above the adjacent grade, which is necessary for water and construction. So it gives you an eave line of around 20 to 21 feet. And then the roofs slope up from there to 30 to 45 degrees. So I mean, essentially, they're the same as the buildings at the Burgess Classics. They're just on the other side of the property line. There's about 33 to 35 feet between them, which is actually about the same as the distance between the houses within the Burgess Classics on their rear yards. The side yards there are much tighter and our side condition is actually 15 to 20 feet.

Thank you. That sounds consistent with our current single family requirements.

Commissioner Schindler.

Thank you, Chair. I'm gonna try and cluster my first set of questions in light of the fact that in our last meeting, we looked at the neighboring property and what's potentially the study session looking at the proposals for the USGS property. So I have a couple of things related to the intersection of those two projects and a question that we also brought up for the Presidio Bay team. And I guess I'll even just take a step back for a moment and acknowledge that or support and thank Lane Partners and SGI for responding to what the city was asking for, which was more housing at each step in the process with this project. That's been the refrain and was the refrain when we finalized the approvals. And that is what's been delivered here. So my first question is, in light of the goal of more housing, the city also has a goal of more affordable housing. And there has been a number of venues, not specific to this project, but within the broader Menlo Park community and discussion of housing that has talked about the possibility of the city helping to um incent or even finance um additional units as being affordable rather than market rate and this is a question posed to our usgs friends as well if the city were to engage with this project and say look we would like to actually increase the number of units that are affordable and to take a financial stake in bridging the gap between the economics of a market rate unit and an affordable unit. What would that look like in light of this, with this project as a specific example? Could you help us understand with broad brushstrokes what the economics of that might look like?

Very much appreciate the question. And I think, you know, one of our goals throughout this process is to create as much BMR as possible. Like, if you look at R1 and R2, the market rate buildings, we're doing, you know, the code required 15% at averaging low income. And, you know, what we'd heard from the community is how do you... you know, how do you get those numbers up, right? And for us, we decided to ultimately, you know, buy the adjacent church at the corner of Ravenswood and Middlefield and dedicate that land to Midpen Housing, who obviously you heard from this evening, to develop 154 units, which was, you know, close to tripling, you know, what we had in the two buildings. So we've thought about that creativity. We've generally tried to avoid, you know, looking to the city for money. So I really appreciate the idea as another potential tool. Uh, to help in that, you know, I think your, your question was more related to adding quantity. So I'll, I'll try to answer that too. Um, but as it relates to the BMR within the townhome product, which again, we're doing the, the code, uh, suggested 15% of modern income, um, We have had discussions with a different nonprofit developer who focuses in for sale housing over the years. And there's a potential to partner with them and get some of those moderates, if not all of them down to low income, if that's helpful to the city and generating more of those types of units. In terms of quantities, I would have to, it's hard to say a number offhand. I think it's easier with the for sale product with the townhomes. I would say in very rough numbers, it's probably in terms of the Delta between the BMR townhome, this is just land value. But BMR versus for sale, it's probably 100 grand for one and 1.1 million for the other. So that's roughly a million dollars to change the entitlement of a BMR unit to a... Sorry, a market rate unit to a BMR unit. On apartments, it's a little different.

And sorry, that's in the context of the attached townhomes that we're talking about here.

That's correct. In the apartments, I'd have to... do some math and think about that. The reason being they're not looked at kind of unit by unit. An apartment building is kind of the pro forma is the overall building, so it's the mix of BMR and market rate together. So I'm not as familiar with what that kind of transition cost would be, but in terms of going 15% to 20%, it's certainly something we can look into and kind of give you some more feedback. I think another idea would be, which may be cheaper for the city, is subsidizing the rents. So you can... you know, pay the Delta between a moderate income and a, you know, market rate income for that potential tenant, as opposed to, you know, making one big check to a developer, you could kind of pay it over time that way. That's just kind of an idea.

Thank you. I mean, I think that's the paying the Delta is in the context of the rental units is certainly something that's been part of a public dialogue. We also discussed with developers in their last meeting, you know, the, the, cost differential bridging that gap in terms of a purchase as well. So it's helpful just to get some broad brushstroke understanding because we're always trying to think creatively about how to hit those affordable housing goals that we have as a city in addition to the necessity of all forms of housing units. Going back to sort of the premise that I started with, which was I'll try to ask the intersection points between USGS and this project. There are a question of amenities and retail. So I'm curious as to what you see as synergies between the two projects. in terms of retail strategy and amenities, commercial amenities for the two properties. For example, there was a larger amenities allocation in the prior approved project that has sort of been migrated, whereas USGS has a set of amenities at least proposed in the first version of their project. For example, a gym. What are the possible synergies that you could imagine whether or not they're nailed down? I'm just curious about what's being considered.

Yeah, sure. We've had several meetings with the Presidio Bay folks. A lot of it has been focused more on, I think, access. I noticed some comments earlier about because they didn't exist when we were finalizing the process before, so this is all relatively new. But I think both parties are very interested in coordinating on terms of how do you make that border the best, how do you make that shared access road the best, and I think we'll be able to improve on kind of what you see now, but that will take some coordination, some work. As far as office amenities, it's a pretty decent distance between the two projects, and tenants in general don't want to – share with, you know, more groups than they have to. Like for the gym, for example, we usually right size it to your project and, you know, you're not having, you know, more people than it can take coming in. Retail, I think we're trying to, you know, have... self-sustaining retail in which like, hey, you have enough critical mass, you have enough synergies within our own retail. I think for that to work, you kind of have to have those clusters that have enough going on. So again, I think that distance is a little far, but we can definitely talk to them and make sure we're not So I think it's making sure we're not cannibalizing the other, right? Like you're going to have the best ice cream place and I shouldn't have the same thing either, right? Like be thoughtful in terms of what those mixes are, but we also independently, and I think they will as well, have a mix for yourself that's going to make that a workable retail environment.

So what I think I'm hearing is just an intentional set of strategies, like, in other words, with intentionally not duplicating or cannibalizing each other. I have more questions just about the retail strategy, but I'll hold those for just a second. You briefly mentioned the point of access and the boundaries between the two projects. I'm glad to hear that there's active discussion about the road and the entry point in many of the questions that were discussed about seminary. I wanted to just flag the four points single family homes that are right along the border that I think if I'm remembering my USGS map correctly, they're literally right behind the big commercial building and the big multifamily building. And it struck me that that is unlikely to be a place, I don't know, I think those four homes are going to feel very isolated and potentially stand in the way of a more porous or creative boundary between the two projects. So I circled those on my map with a big old question mark. So those are my intersection between the project's questions. I'll hand it back to other commissioners, but I do have other questions for later.

Just to comment on the Forbes thing, totally understand. Those were proposed, I think, before we saw the USGS project. So we are, I think we've shared it with staff. It's not really ready for public consumption because we want to talk to Presidio Bay. But in terms of, it fixes that while we're fixing kind of that seminary drive ingress, egress point. So- Yeah, I appreciate the question. We've actually been working on it, but not ready for public consumption just yet.

Got it.

Commissioner Farrick.

Thanks. I just have a couple things, so if you wouldn't mind sticking around. Sure. We received, and I'm sure you hopefully saw as well, a letter from Menlo Park City School District Superintendent Gracia, who just wanted to inquire. And so my question is really her question. Have you considered, or has Midpen, are they considering having school district teachers and staff be kind of first in the eligibility pool for the affordable units?

I actually met with superintendent grassy like two weeks ago and we actually talked about this and we're very supportive I believe it's more. it's more feasible. Just in the way mid pen finances their project that adds complexities to that, but I will certainly look into it and come with. You know, again, not my expertise. As it relates to the for sale housing where we have moderate units, absolutely. We are completely, I'm a parent in the school district. I love our teachers. I think having, you know, public employee housing in general is great, certainly teachers. So we're very supportive of that. I'm not as familiar with, is the code allow that? I know there's, you know, we focused on how much, BMR generate, we haven't kind of got to that next level of detail. But we're very open to that. And again, I think Kristen's letter mentions moderate and low income. But again, we think we can find a partnership with a nonprofit, we can make some of those moderate for sale homes, low income eligible as well.

Thank you. And then the other comment slash question or encouragement is the office amenity, if there may be an opportunity to look at feasibility for use that's kind of in conjunction with school district uses like an early learning center kind of use is the one she suggested. But I guess as a study session, it's like, Is that something that you could foresee being compatible with an office amenity or a space that may be available for outside groups to use?

Yeah, we can look into that. I mean, we don't in our plan or in the plan that was approved having like a a community building for like third parties to use. That wasn't, we had something like that space for one, land space for one in the park dedication. I mean, this may have been three years ago, but one of those earlier iterations where we had space where in the future, you know, the city or the school district could build a building there. Ultimately, the direction that area was to really focus on open space. We got a lot of community feedback about taking the sports field that was shown in that area and then making it full regulation size, which now you'll see we actually do have that in this recent middle. So that was the feedback we received. Financially, it'd be pretty challenging to build part of an office building and give it away. If there's space where we can, you know, where it could be shared or something like that.

Like we may have, you know, kind of like a community room or some sort of thing.

We'll look into that, but it's, it's pretty hard to commit to saying, Hey, I'm going to create commercial space and you know, it's not going to be something you get around.

Sure. No, I just wanted to make sure to pass along those comments because I thought it was nice. She, you know, engaged in it and was excited that there may be an opportunity for districts. Yeah.

We're supportive of it.

Yeah. And then along those same lines, speaking of field, is just to add my voice to the chorus that you've already heard tonight of encouragement for non-artificial turf, you know, to have it be natural. And as a comment, I would say I really like the direction this has gone in terms of the open spaces. I totally agree with that. architect's comments about how now this does feel like public open space and could be activated rather than just between landscaping and so you know really a lot of improvements and i also really thought that the um kind of addition of all of the housing in such a consistent with Menlo Park existing communities made a lot of sense. So I thought that was a really great progression. That's all I have for now. Thanks.

Commissioner Headley.

Thank you. Um, I'm really enthusiastic about this project update and, um, including the additional residential units, the nice mix of rental and for sale units, and including the way more BMR units and all the electric, or sorry, the, um, the environmental pieces, the sustainable building materials, the more open publicly accessible space, love the retail, um, Yeah, there's just a lot I love about this. I am beginning to formulate, though, in my mind, a list of things I would like to see on our straw poll. So I don't know if this is a good time to lay those out.

Feel free to mention them. I'll write them down and then we can just compile and discuss.

So what I would like to see in terms of power generation, I really liked the comment about balcony solar ready. So figuring out how to wire electrically, especially the affordable housing units and, sorry, mostly the rental units, but especially the affordable development, making sure those are balcony solar ready. I love the idea of the virtual power plant. So those are two. The third one is I would love to see the city get specific about how to move beyond the diesel backup generators, including a plan for who will evaluate market readiness on what timeframe and how will feasibility be determined Number four, I also do not want to see any artificial turf in the development, whether it's for the athletic fields or the various parklets or the paseos or the dog parks. Natural grass is much better for people, pets, and the planet. And then... Okay, so I think number five is something about the buffer zone like, how can we build in the development and the maintenance of those trees and the vines that are providing some necessary space between these two developments and the purchase classic Community and then the last piece is around. traffic that we've heard so many times. So I'd love to hear from staff on the plan for traffic and looking at the pedestrian and bicycle paths and making sure that they're sufficient given the increase in density of this development. That's it.

Thank you. Commissioner Sloan.

Thanks. I had just a couple more questions, and then I did want to make some comments about the project. This might be a question for staff. I know originally when this project was first approved last year, um, there was a lot of, uh, there was a negotiated development agreement and there was a schedule of impact fees going to the school, the city, all these different things. And, um, I was just wondering if any of that is changing with this resubmission. Um, are any of those things based on like how much squares footage is being built or, or anything like that? Or is it all just locked in place?

Yeah, I believe, um, a lot of those fees are based on square footage. So those, those would change. Um,

Okay, and then what about the more like, I guess, subjective things that were negotiated by city council for the development agreement? I'm not even sure what what they are. But like, you know, my understanding is developers typically offer some sort of payments or other like amenities as part of their application.

Yeah, I think the revised project was contemplated when the development agreement negotiations were finishing up. So the development agreement is structured to be flexible and accommodate this project. So I don't think potentially minor updates are needed, but the development agreement was structured to accommodate this type of project.

Okay, thank you. And then my second question, I think, is for Mr. Murray, which is the three amendments to the BMR guidelines for the 50 townhomes My sense is that the reason those are being requested is because there's like a top level need or desire to have all the for sale BMR units be town homes. And as a result of that, you have to ask for these waivers because amongst the town homes, the square footage and bedrooms is comparable. But when it compared to all the for sale, it's not comparable. Am I understanding that correctly? yes i think that that's generally true okay thanks yeah i think uh we saw a public comment and myself as well it seems i don't know if the very word is scary but uh something worth looking at if someone's requesting a change to our overall city guidelines but in this case um I personally am okay with that, and the rationale makes sense to me. So, yeah, I don't have any more questions. My comments on the project are, yes, I think I'm struck by, you know, a city of our size and the architect's presentation especially, just the scope and... Yeah, the scope of a project like this being proposed in a city of our size is pretty astounding. And I'm looking at this as compared to what was already approved. So I don't think we're at a spot now. I know some community members wish that was the case, but realistically we're not at a spot now where we just like scrap the whole thing, you know, and go back to zero. So really we're just talking about the version that was submitted a year ago that was approved by council, not something that planning commission has any authority over versus this new proposal. And I definitely am appreciative of incorporating a lot of the community feedback for more housing. And, you know, Mr. Murray has been very, in my view, collaborative with the city. And so when he said last year, that he's going to come back with more housing, I think most of us expected that lane partners would do that and they have. I was one of the commissioners who mentioned that, yeah, it would be odd to me for people to go like, let's go hang out at the open space at the local office building. So moving the open space to the residential side makes a lot of sense to me and nice to see a playground, things like that. On the flip side, I do want to mention the same concern I mentioned with USGS, which is jobs housing. With this particular project, by the time I joined the commissioners already through kind of the EIR process. So I didn't feel like it was fair to just oppose the whole thing. And there's always the consideration of, well, what if we said no to the whole thing? we would just be left with SRI and their office project. And they had already a conditional development agreement to have a certain number of office workers, which is quite a lot. But what I just want to point out is the housing needs assessment last year, and I mentioned this last year, kind of said, okay, this is going to generate this many housing units. So number one, that assessment looked at net new housing units based on how many people were working on SRI at the time, and the number used for that was 1,100. Mr. Murr is saying a year ago it was maybe 700. So it really – we don't know how many people – have been working sri more recently and of course we don't know how much how many of them were living in menlo park but since we're saying they're vacating essentially what we're getting is a whole brand new set of employees um we should not be counting the you know previous sri employees in any sort of housing needs or traffic considerations um because yeah with the traffic it's much lower than it would have been if sri was fully occupied and residents are still saying and i'm noticing still plenty of traffic in that area so with the housing needs assessment the conclusion was that this is going to create a lot of housing need but the housing built on the site will serve all the housing need for menlo park and that's because i think only five percent of the people working at this project would be living in menlo park just based on historical trends which, you know, in the 90s, I believe it was like 20% of people that work in Menlo Park live in Menlo Park, but now it's at 5%. So it's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. We've sort of made it so that people can't work and live in Menlo Park, and as a result of that, we conclude that we don't need to build as much housing for people in Menlo Park, but I think that's flawed. I do think that this project brings us a lot closer to providing more housing for the people that work here, but it's not... close to meeting all of it. By my calculation, it's roughly maybe 30%. So that's still a lot of workers that are going to be working at these office projects that are going to need new housing that's not being provided here. We just heard from a developer downtown who thinks that 15 units is quite a lot to build in downtown Menlo Park. So I'm not anticipating a huge flood of You know, thousands of apartments anytime soon. And USGS, as I mentioned at the last meeting, is also building more jobs and housing. So I don't want to say here that... this is perfect, but it's certainly better than it was before. And it's certainly better than having no housing SRI. So I appreciate that. And I realized we can't just magically turn back the clock or, and I don't think it would be a good idea to scrap the whole thing. So I'm certainly supportive of these changes. Um, and yeah, for traffic, I would say the same thing as USGS. I mean, I don't think any traffic study you show me, um, is not going to convince me that this isn't going to cause a lot of traffic. I definitely think it is. Again, as someone that lived in Los Angeles next to roads that were one lane each way during rush hour, it's not great. I don't see how we can widen Willow Road, nor would we want to, for example. So I think the city really needs to come together and figure out what we can do. Um, but at the end of the day, I think folks are just need to be prepared for more traffic and also alternate means of transportation. I mean, the more we can do for people to take Caltrain, um, and like other commenters have said to provide more bike access and infrastructure, pedestrian access and infrastructure. Um, I would certainly support that. Um, And I think that covers, oh yeah, I wanted to make one more comment about the school district conversation. And I'm also a parent at the Menlo Park School District. I mean, I think as Ms. Sandmeier said, this project will generate impact fees for the school. It's gonna generate more impact fees for the school as a result of adding square footage of housing. I think that having discussions about providing space, I believe years ago Council Member Muller was talking about space for middle school at USGS. I really would like to see some sort of plan presented rather than kind of last minute requests being sent because I'm worried that if this is what it takes to get our school what they need, it's just not, it doesn't seem like a great way to do it. I would much rather see a plan. Do the impact fees cover what the school needs? If not, let's change the structure of the impact fees. Does the school have the space it needs? If not, let's have a plan for how much space the school needs and where, and then when projects come forward, they can anticipate that space. I really think that would be more ideal And I definitely wanna support the school district and do what we can even now at this point to get them what they need. But based on Mr. Murray's comments, it seems like it's gonna be hard. So as the planning commission, I would love to see more plans put forward for whatever the city's needs are for, you know, utilities, schools, et cetera. So that it's not done piecemeal where as a project comes forward, we're trying to negotiate things as they come up behind closed doors. It should be kind of planned ahead of time. I would love to see that. So yeah, coming back to this project, I support the changes. I do think we have things we should be talking about as a city in terms of jobs, housing balance and traffic.

Thank you. Okay, I have a couple comments or questions. One last thing to respond to Commissioner Sillian on school districts as well as some other things. I read slash I'm aware that Menlo Park City School District had declining enrollment over the last two years. I mean, it was nominal at 2% year over year, so not necessarily significant, but I think there's a world in which someone says that we have declining enrollment and someone else says that I'm worried that we're going to have too much enrollment. And I agree with the overall perspective that we need to do more planning and reconcile those numbers. But on the surface, adding new residents to Menlo Park does not scare me when it comes to our school district. Also, I'll note that almost all of our schools are one story high, and you're allowed to build on the existing campuses and increase density there. Not that that wouldn't take time and money and everything, but that's something that we can clearly plan for. I do have a question for staff in this same theme, which is, does staff have the confidence that our local infrastructure, let's put traffic aside for now, but water, fire, schools, is either currently can or will eventually be able to support this and other developments that are coming down the pipeline.

Yeah, so for each development, that would be part of the environmental review and obviously reviewed by the fire district and so on. And for that type of review, we look at all the projects in the pipeline and the proposed project to make sure that the infrastructure is available.

So when residents are concerned about our ability to support these incremental developments, that is something that you would say that ought not to be a concern for residents of Menlo Park?

Well, I wouldn't say what someone should be concerned about, but it would be addressed in environmental documents and then staff reports.

You're confident that our ability to support it is sufficient?

As reviewed during the project review process obviously this project is just starting out so we'd have to see you know what feedback we get from. From the environmental or the environmental review and various service providers.

Thank you. And then I do want to stop for a little bit to talk about traffic. Obviously, that's a large theme when it comes to any development. There's a lot of traffic conversation. People hate traffic, and it's only going to get worse, and we all know that. And so I don't know if, and particularly around the Ravenswood and Middlefield corridor, we do have multiple developments coming online and potentially more in the future that we aren't even thinking about right now. And I know that we've reviewed these things on an individual project by project basis, but is there, other than let's just say our transportation master plan, which is a 10-year thing, is there a traffic mitigation comprehensive plan for this broad corridor that will think about the compounding effects of all of the upcoming projects comprehensively that would think about traffic patterns, potentially one-way streets, no left turns, mitigating things on a whole. And is that something that we would have, would ever come to the planning commission? Is that something complete streets is currently thinking about a city council thinking through this? Cause this is a very large concern of a lot of people. Whenever they hear a new development, the first thing they think about is what's going to happen with the traffic. And I want to make sure that we're getting ahead of that.

Yeah, certainly Transportation Division, Public Works Department is aware of these concerns. I'm not sure specific plans they're working on. I'd have to get back to you on that. But it is the same type of answer as I gave before. That is part of the environmental review, looking at circulation, traffic, And in that case, we also look at all the projects in the pipeline for kind of a cumulative analysis. And certainly things like the TDM plan, those requirements, help lessen traffic.

Thank you. And then a question for the applicant, specifically thinking through the retail component, which I know was significantly revised. It's my understanding that the total square footage of the retail did not change dramatically, but rather it's going to be a series of smaller locations clustered around a village as opposed to one large area. facility. Is that correct?

Sort of. Okay, go for it. This gets a little nuanced. Your question is relatively simple, but I'm going to complicate it with my response. The amenity building that we are no longer having was about 40,000 square feet. What's in front of you is about 40,000 square feet. What we got approved was a million square feet of total commercial, and there's a cap of 925,000 square feet of office. So kind of an implied cap of 75,000 square feet of retail. We are looking at schemes of potentially doing more retail. We're still kind of very much in flux in terms of what is the right quantity to create the right mix to make a thriving retail village. So again, 75,000 feet is the absolute maximum, but we do expect to be studying somewhere between the 41 or 42 that is in the middle right now and higher.

Thank you. And then in terms of vision for the retail, am I just thinking about it correctly, that the vision migrated from a, let's call it cafeteria style, one large building that would primarily serve the office space, employees to a series of shops, restaurants, stores that would be, again, clustered closer to the residential and would be more of what we consider to be everyday retail.

Yeah, it's much more community-facing retail. The amenity building had a fitness component, which would be reserved for the office occupants. But the food and beverage, after getting that community feedback, would have been open to the public. But yeah, it would be a little more... you know, be a cool cafeteria I'd like to think, but ultimately it's the kind of food service you'd expect to be serving an office building. This is going to be retail that standalone. We're really designing it as like, what if it was just by itself, right? How is that going to work? But also it's something that hopefully limits traffic because of the residents and the office users there, you know, obviously it'll, it'll create some traffic in terms of folks who don't live in Parkland or work at Parkland coming in. But that, that's kind of the idea.

Great. So that kind of established foundation. One of my comments is given that the retail is now more focused on community serving, and I imagine it will drive in more foot traffic from the residences and nearby neighborhoods and anyone who isn't necessarily working there. At the same time, you still will have hundreds of employees who potentially need to get a bite to eat and also leverage that. I guess my question is on overall capacity. Is the shift from primarily commercial serving to primarily community serving, going to necessitate more retail on aggregate because you're now essentially serving both of those constituents more holistically.

So again, we will certainly not go above 75,000 square feet for the retail component. That is one of the Again, I talked about the financial feasibility. There is no huge margin of error there. On a CEQA standpoint, our understanding is an addendum is what will be required, which is what we were relying on in doing this revision and not having this go to year seven, eight, nine in terms of the review process, because obviously we'll miss that window. So everything we're planning, if there's an issue with the CEQA level that requires it to be dropped to get into addendum territory, we will do that. That is just simply... you know, life or death to the project. But we do, again, we will never exceed that maximum. It's kind of in the approvals now of 75,000 square feet. And we'll lower that further if, you know, if it necessitates it or for speed or anything else.

Thank you. And I'm going to make this as a formal recommendation to other commissioners if they are interested in making this as a collective recommendation, but I'm happy to get your perspective on this as well. It is my opinion that having the bike path along raven's wood which essentially would be a shared pedestrian bike path that meanders through the grove is insufficient to serve the needs of bike commuters that would be traversing raven's wood on a daily basis the property tees into the high school and there are many many kids who are going to be doing that every day They're currently doing it on what I would consider to be a less than safe bike path, class two. There's not a lot of separation in between the cars. I know that you currently have plans to make a class four bike lane along Laurel. Is there a reason why Ravenswood was excluded from that same plan? plan and why you wouldn't in addition to the ped bike path on the property also intend to upgrade the ravenswood bike lane into a fully protected bike lane for all the people who are here so we actually didn't evaluate that we thought the paseo would would in fact be adequate the idea was

There's bike infrastructure in the road now for folks who are comfortable doing that or want to go as fast as possible. That's great. It remains. And then we'll have kind of the – it's a very wide path. It's meant to accommodate. It's much bigger than a bike path in the street. So we can look into that, but we thought it would be pretty – we sort of built that for kids going to MA, right? If you're a cyclist commuter, you're probably in the road. And so that's how we looked at it. I'm not sure if there's any issues with you know, public's work standpoint or transportation of why you don't put a class four on a road like that. Like, I just, I don't know because we, we thought we were doing something better than a class four with the inboard, uh, inboard path.

And I think the inboard path is absolutely great for people who don't have a specific destination that they have to go to. It'll be great for kids. It'll be great for mixed use. But, um, as we've, uh, gotten general feedback around the community of conflict points when teenagers are riding their bikes on the sidewalk, essentially a shared path is equivalent to that. And I'm worried with a lot of people walking and then people biking and you get those conflict areas. So I'm not saying that we should replace the path. And I think its intention is great. I would like to see an addition that what I would consider to be a proper bike lane on Ravenswood as well, especially for all those kids. Sure.

We'll look into that with staff.

Thank you.

Commissioner Schindler. Thank you, I have two questions for staff about reports that will be updated and then I have at least a couple of possible straw poll topics that I would like to add to Commissioner Headley's list and one potential clarification question for the applicant. So my question to staff is building on the EIR and the CEQA discussions that have been had. So could you please clarify for us what the path forward is for determining how much of an update will need to be made to the EIR and what the timeline for that is?

Yeah, so in August, the city council approved a contract with ICF International, who was the environmental consultant on the first phase. The contract currently is for an addendum to the EIR, but that requires ICF, obviously, to do the work and the analysis for them to determine if an addendum would work. for the project. So, so it's a process and that, that hasn't been started. Um, I believe once it is started, you know, the timeline they proposed was, um, maybe it was less than a year.

Thank you. And I heard Mr. Murray note that the variables in the project might be modified in order to ensure that an addendum continues to be the outcome of the analysis. Is that consistent with staff's approach?

Um, Yeah, that's certainly a possibility. We just can't know for sure what ICF's analysis will show.

Okay. Thank you. My next question about updating documentation is about the financial impact assessment. So there have been a couple of questions asked about impact on fees or impact on schools. For me, the financial impact analysis report that was done it's dated June of 2024, was very helpful in terms of understanding the incremental costs under a number of different categories. For example, fire department for the school, the two different school districts, et cetera, as well as the incremental revenue that can be generated by a project like this in terms of sales tax property tax license tax like all of those things and given the revisions in this iteration of the project i think both the the revenue and the costs are likely to based on my understanding of the report and my last read like likely to change will that be updated and again in what time frame

Yes, we've reached out to BAE just initially to let them know we're looking for an update, potentially some kind of supplemental memo or something like that to update the analysis. And we'll work with them to come up with a proposal for us to review and review. I think that likely would take less time than the environmental review that ICF is doing.

Okay. Good to know it will take less time and potentially less funding. Would it be delivered in conjunction before final discussions about changes to the development agreement are in place? Where does it fall in the sequencing?

Well, I think changes to the development agreement would likely be minor. As I mentioned, it contemplated this type of revision. Certainly, it would be available to the project would come to Planning Commission for recommendation to City Council and it would be available then. I don't know if it would be available earlier on a public basis. We'd have to look into that.

Okay, thank you. There are a couple of things that are mentioned in the staff report that could be added to our list of straw poll topics. One of those is whether or not the planning commissioners would support the proposed modifications to phasing. So there's a discussion in the staff report about decoupling, I think my notes are correct, decoupling the development of the 100% affordable from the single family homes. There's also a question about the BMR incentives and the proposed modifications around those. We could determine whether or not we are directionally supportive of what's proposed in here. And then there is a question about parking maximums. And I know that there's a question post in the staff report, so we could draw a poll on whether or not we're supportive of that. But before we did, I actually would have a clarifying question about what's been proposed for the parking maximums. There's some indication in the staff report about exactly what's been proposed for the town homes and sort of it's how much guest parking is being proposed. So whether it's, and if the answer is that it's still being discussed and finalized, then I don't think we should necessarily talk about it tonight. The staff report seems to indicate it's in flux.

Yeah, that's correct. But we, yeah, we're working on that, but yeah, it's still in flux.

Okay. So is there going to be a change in the amount of maximum parking allowed for in under the revised project?

Not for office, not for residential. I think the for sale residential guest parking would be the only item that would potentially change, proposed to be changed.

So that would be the townhomes because that's the only comparison. There weren't any single, oh wait, that covers the townhomes and both the single family types, the small lot and the regular sized. Yes, that's correct.

Okay.

clarify from a design standpoint the the small lot single families have a driveway basically yeah so they don't really trigger any additional guest parking outside of their parcel we do have a limited number of on street guest parking spaces for the next size down and then for the townhouses there's a mix of those as well as the intention to provide a number of spaces in the ground floor of one of the commercial garages, which would be separately accessed. So in, in some there is, you know, 40 or 50 or something between the building types. It's not a huge number, but that is in the plan and we can follow up with the precise numbers.

Okay. Um, given that it's in flux, I withdraw my recommendation that we talk about it as something we straw poll because it sounds like it's still being determined. Um, But since I'm talking about parking, I will briefly celebrate the reduction of number of parking places for offices by nearly 1,000. So, yay. Commissioner Silin.

Thanks. Regarding your comment, Chair Silverstein, about the Ravenswood-Paseo, yeah, I think... I want to say I raised this at some point, but another option, I believe you're considering a buffered bike lane on the road.

Is that correct? A protected bike lane.

Protected bike lane, yeah. Another option could potentially be to separate... the path into a pedestrian side and a cyclist side. Um, but yeah, I'm supportive of adding something in this category for the straw bowl. Um, I was just looking at the circulation plan and, um, I guess there's a question for Mr. Murray through the chair about, um, parking for the retail. So, um, I believe the parking for the retail buildings, there's a hundred spots, if I'm not mistaken, and they're all surface level. And it looks like basically right as you come on, come into the center from Ravenswood, there's sort of some turnoffs there to get to the surface level parking. And so to me, that raises a concern of like a, traffic snarl, I guess, between people trying to find surface level parking for the retail and people trying to get to the garages for residential or office use. And I'm wondering if that's my misunderstanding of what I'm seeing or something else or whether you have thoughts on that.

So I can speak to the general design of the retail parking, if maybe this helps answer the question. So we do have access in two places on Ravenswood. And the internal circulation of the project essentially functions as a loop. It's sort of a smaller loop than it was before. So if you came in on Ravenswood, you drive past a small surface lot, and as well as there's quite a few surface spaces on the street, If they're all full, you keep going. And frankly, eventually you could loop all the way around again. What really creates congestion in parking lots is when people are like trying to get in and out because there's no spots. So actually the majority of them being perpendicular street spots really encourages a reasonable flow around. We have a total of four access points plus the loop. So there's a fair amount of flexibility in people getting to garages and from one of the other points versus people who are entering for the retail circulation. We did try to cluster the surface parking for the retail around it at the far northern end of the site so that the likelihood is that a retail user would not have to drive past the parking garage, for example, and circle all the way around. So that's the general design. I think the studies that are being done by the traffic consultant will prove exactly how well that works.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, I guess to me, and regarding a drawing I'm looking at, I guess... I'm looking at the master plan and I don't have a specific page that has just parking on it, but you can kind of on any page, like the G pages, see outlines of where the parking spots are, I believe. It kind of reminds me of town and country, I guess, where you come right off of El Camino and there's a bunch of parking spots right there and you're often encountering backups of people waiting for someone to leave one of the parking spots so they can pull in and et cetera, et cetera. And yeah, and I know it's getting late, so I don't wanna like dive into the details here, but I guess I'll just raise a general concern of this being a choke point. But yeah, to zoom out a bit, I am a little bit, I guess, dissatisfied by the staff response of what we're doing about traffic. I mean, I understand that there's studies done by the consultants. My recollection, at least as of this moment, was that the traffic study for this project was like 2,000 pages of detail. I know there's like summary pages, but in general, every meeting I've gone to that involves the public, whether it be USGS or other ones, everyone is very concerned about parking, and I don't think the average resident is going to read the traffic study. So we really, I think... I'm not saying we shouldn't study it. I think what I'm saying is we need a better way to present a plan or a vision to the public that ideally incorporates all these different projects, maybe scenarios like, okay, if this gets approved and this, or just this but not that, or if, you know, because I realize USGS is also still in a study phase, so we don't exactly know what's going to happen. We don't know what's going to happen with Eddie Willow, but... I think the public really would love to see some sort of presentation or meeting that shows that the city is looking at this cohesively and is thinking about plans of what we can do. I did express earlier that I think At the end of the day, there's going to have to be a moment where we all say, yes, there's going to be more traffic, no matter how we orient the streets or the turns or whatever. And, you know, that's ultimately a city council decision, whether we want to live with that or not, but. i don't think we want a situation where we're just totally surprised years from now that these projects are built and there's traffic and nothing or seemingly nothing was done even though a lot was done with these studies and things like that um i would love to see just more focus on this aspect of the project and i guess for the straw poll it's hard to say what to put for this since it is being studied currently but I would just say something like. hmm well, I guess, I would put on the stroke Paul like some sort of comprehensive plan for that middle field court or incorporating the different projects being. considered right now there's also the new. Fire headquarters is like like construction going on as well. So something. I'm having trouble verbalizing it, but I would love to see some sort of comprehensive plan, at least what it's gonna look like or what it might look like.

I know it's getting late, but I have one more follow-up question for the applicant. On the interior road, what is the expected speed limit? And I'm asking, so our last meeting we saw the USGS proposed project and they have a similar interior loop and they plan on using raised crosswalks and essentially their perspective is that that interior is a space for people and cars need to traverse it, but fundamentally they want to allow for pedestrians to go back and forth and they plan on designing the crosswalks at sidewalk level so that cars can appreciate that they're entering a space for people to be going back and forth and their speed limits are intended to be relatively low and they're fundamentally making a choice that This is a place for people that cars will go through as opposed to the other way around where most of our crosswalks are a place for cars that people have to go through. And so I'm wondering if you have a perspective on the philosophy behind that interior loop and then more tactically whether or not you plan on having raised crosswalks as a potential solution.

Yeah, we definitely at the northern end are looking at raised crossings. And in fact, portions that kind of look like roads in the plans, the east-west portion that's just south of Ravensville, really will be constructed more like plazas or parking lots where you rise up to get into them. And the speeds in those areas, whether by that or by the paving design, would be very, very low, more like parking lots. The primary portion of the loop road south, which accesses the two garages, We can look into raised crossings there. There are relatively few crossings there. We don't want to create a lot of conflicts and unsafe crossings. I would be very surprised if the speed limit wasn't 25, but we can defer to the traffic consultant if they have a different recommendation.

Thank you. And yeah, from my perspective, I think there is a categorical difference between the roads that are potentially going to the garages and that interior area. And I'd love to see the interior roads, even though someone might be driving their car there, to be as slow and safe as possible. Okay, we're getting to that hour. Commissioner Headley mentioned a number of things that she would formally like the commission to recommend. So did Commissioner Schindler and Commissioner Sillin might have. regarding a traffic study. And then I also mentioned the class, the protected bike lane on Ravenswood. Before we talk about any of those individual elements, I want to make sure that all of the potential ideas of recommendations we may or may not want to formalize are on the table. Commissioner Farrick.

Thank you. One to add in information I found after I'd asked the question about the heights of the single family residential district. Our zoning code is that the maximum height would be 28 feet. There are examples of renderings of houses for this project that are 29, 31, and 32. I guess I would just like to be consistent so it's not... higher than other single family homes across the city just to maintain that since they are single family homes on small lots. So yeah, 28 feet, that's the code.

With that, do any other commissioners have any items they would like to put on the table? Great, let's go in chronological order. Yes, Commissioner Sullivan.

Sorry, could you just read through the laundry list one more time?

Yes, I will. So for procedural purposes, again, nothing that we're doing tonight is a formal resolution. None of it's binding. These are recommendations through the feedback that we've received from the feedback that we've read from our perspectives as commissioners that we are essentially putting out there to staff, to the applicant, to city council to read when eventually these plans get further revised and eventually voted on. And essentially that's the purpose of the study session, to give feedback. And so to formalize this feedback, Any given commissioner can just say whatever they want, and that's totally fine, but it's nice if we can coalesce around themes and specific requests that we as a body feel rise to the top. And so for that purpose, we have noted some that individual commissioners would like to see, and I intend on taking a straw poll among them to see if there's a majority of people commissioners here that would like to support that formal recommendation and then we would enumerate that as part of the meeting minutes. So the list I have right now are being balcony solar ready, implementing virtual power plants as a capability, to recommend moving beyond diesel backup generators and having a path toward removing diesel and being fully electric and battery as backups, ensuring that there's no turf both on the recreation field as well as in other open spaces to ensure that there's adequate buffer zone between the Burgess Classics and that could either be in space or in hedging or other means. It is a general consideration for traffic and pedestrian and bike paths, a protected bike lane on Ravenswood in addition to the bike path, which is on the property itself. And then from Commissioner Schindler, it is approving the modifications or I guess a stating our comfort with the modifications to the phasing, which specifically decouples the affordable housing sales to the standard single family homes. It's the BMR incentives. It's exploring the parking maximums that potentially increased from phase one to phase two. And then from Commissioner Silin, it is recommending that there is a comprehensive traffic plan regarding the middle field corridor. as opposed to the studies that we have commissioned so far. And then from Commissioner Farrick, it is ensuring that the height of single family homes does not exceed 28 feet, which is the current height of our single family zoning. Commissioner Schindler.

I wanted to correct my statement. The phasing relief is about the decoupling detached single family from the attached townhome.

Great. Do any commissioners have any questions or comments about this concept before we talk about any specific items?

Will we have a chance to talk about each specific item so we know what we're... We will go through each specific item.

I will ask for a hand raise. Hopefully we don't go through too much discussion for each of them. Hopefully people generally understand what any given recommendation entails. And then from there, if there are four or more commissioners who are in favor of that recommendation, then I'll make a note of it and we can formalize that to staff for the minutes. Commissioner Farag.

Could I make a potential, well, certainly intention to be friendly amendment, but is there a way on those first four or five that are all sustainability improvements that we bucket them as sustainability improvements, including boop, boop, boop, boop, rather than one at a time?

I'm fine by that, unless any commissioners would want to see, for example, a no turf, but don't particularly care about diesel backups. Does anyone feel strongly?

I mean, I want to see all of them. And if everyone agrees, we can bucket them and have some sub bullets. That works for me.

Let's go through things individually, because I want to give people the opportunity to. Hopefully they're quick, and then we can rapid fire. And if they're not, and someone doesn't raise their hand, then that's fine. And then they'd have that opportunity. OK. So for recommending that the, yes. Oh, yes, Mr. Biddle.

Chair and commissioners, I just wanted to make sure that you are all aware that the design aspects of the park, the public park, is really going to be within the sort of jurisdiction and discretion of Dave Kuntz, Of the City Council went in that project or development of that park, which is intended to be a city park would come forward so. Dave Kuntz, it's not intended or anticipated that the developer would be constructing it so just so you're aware that it would be the city and control of the design and construction of that city park.

Thank you for the clarification. And I'm sure we can't wait to give our recommendation to city council on what we think they should do. Yes, Commissioner Schindler.

Chair, I'd like to make a motion that we extend the meeting until 1115.

Second. All in favor? Motion passes. Um, okay. So, um, all in favor of recommending that. Yes.

Sorry. I would humbly request that. Like, okay. For me personally, I have no idea what it would take to make the building, these buildings, virtual power plant, you know, capable. Um, so. I would personally suggest that maybe we ask Mr. Murray for maybe a one-sentence summary of some of these things, or that would make me more comfortable voting on some of them, because I just have no idea if that's crazy or moving beyond diesel backup. I heard someone say that's not even something their code allows at this time. Yeah, that's my hesitation with bundling all the stuff together.

I can give you a quick overview of some of them.

So...

Balcony solar is about creating outlets and enough structural capacity and railings so that a resident, a renter, can basically buy a solar unit and plug it in safely. As it is currently in California, you can't just plug solar panels into your house. It's not allowed. It's not safe. So that's what balcony solar is. That would fall to the individual builder of every rental building on the parcel. The emergency generators for the commercial buildings, just to give you a sense of scale, the typical generator for a multi-story office building is in our project around 1,750 kilowatts. The project also includes small battery generators, which are about 60 kilowatts. That doesn't even power one fire pump in a high rise building. So where we are today is not feasible for large scale buildings. I hope it will be, but we're like so far away from that. Like that's a utility scale battery plant, basically. The question of turf, obviously it's available. The city agency that designs the park can make that decision. On-site power generation at utility scale, I think, again, is a question of, do we really want to study introducing huge quantities of batteries into the ground floors of these buildings, which will displace other uses? I think it's, again, frankly, not practical today, but that's what that concept is. What were the other sustainability ones?

Those were the main ones that I had.

All right. I'll just caveat that. I don't mean to sound negative. We've designed net zero lead platinum buildings. We did one in Redwood City. I've designed, I think, four lead platinum buildings, some that use no water at all. Some of these things are simply not feasible with today's technology for these projects.

Thank you. Did that answer your question? Yep. Beautiful. Okay, so i'm going to go through these and i'm just gonna ask for a show of hands and then we'll go through and if anyone wants to interrupt feel free to do so so to recommend that the residential units come balcony solar ready. To recommend that the development. become or enable a virtual power plant. To recommend that the development attempt to move beyond diesel backup generators into batteries.

I would add to that over time. I'm not saying it needs to happen now, but I want a plan for five, 10 years out.

To recommend that they have a path and a plan forward for that. Yes, I'm going to allow the- I don't know what a virtual power plant is. So- It's my understanding that essentially it would allow for battery storage as part of the building in order to then use that to dispense and receive power over the course of the day and not need to pull from the grid on a consistent basis. Okay.

Understood.

Okay. So to recommend that they put together a plan to move beyond diesel backup generators.

I saw three.

Oh, oh, sorry. No, I did not see commissioner Frank. Thank you. Um, okay. To recommend that they do not use artificial turf on any of the spaces, including dog run and otherwise. Great. To recommend that they ensure there is a sufficient buffer between the residences and Burdick's Classics neighborhood and houses.

Could I maybe amend that to say that not only ensure that it's there today, but ensure that it persists through whatever ownership changes may be?

That's fine by me. And from my perspective, a buffer to me does not necessitate solely space. It is also hedging or fencing or ensuring privacy in that regard. I wouldn't be comfortable recommending that they change the layout in order to shift things around at this point.

Thank you for that clarity because that was my question.

questions, buffer can mean a lot of things.

Yes.

So, I mean, to me, buffer would have, as intended in the discussion, would have been space today. I would have assumed that's what it meant. So buffer and or screening.

Buffer and or screening.

I think we're just referring to the existing screening that's there along the fence that the Berger classics folks wanted to keep to ensuring that we recommend that it ensures it maintains over a long period of time.

Six to recommend that they revisit the plans for protection pedestrian and bike paths as a function of increasing the residential capacity. to recommend that they build a protected bike lane on Ravenswood, similar to the current plans on Laurel Avenue.

Is that up?

To recommend that we are comfortable with the modifications to the phasing, which decouples the sales of single-family homes to the attached townhomes.

Just real quick to maybe say why I'm raising my hand. My understanding is that because Lane Partners is having different developers build different parts of the residential, that's why we're doing the phasing.

That's my understanding as well.

Well, Chair, if I may add.

Please do.

They are also entitled to, under state density bonus law, to certain concessions. They're entitled to two concessions under the law, and they are asking to utilize one of their concessions for this purpose. So in my view, a concession... in order for this city to disallow a request for utilization of concession, it's a very high bar by which the city would have to show that they're essentially under the law. They're not entitled to it. And it's a high bar that I do not think the city would be able to meet. So, yeah. Appreciate the city, the commission's input on this, but in many respects, I think they are able to request this and be granted.

Thank you for the clarification. It sounds like we're all okay with recommending this.

Fair enough.

Okay, a recommendation that we are comfortable with the proposed BMR incentives and as an extension don't have specific proposed changes to them. A recommendation, sorry, Commissioner Schindler, do you have anything specific on the parking maximums? I know that you noted it as a function of the update, but is there something that you would like to posit from the perspective of the commission about said parking maximums?

No, because the actual numbers are still something that is being discussed.

Okay, so we'll punt on that. And then a recommendation that the city put together a comprehensive traffic plan regarding the middle field corridor in addition to studying it on an individual case-by-case project basis.

I have an addendum maybe?

Go for it.

To not only have a plan, but to have a plan to communicate it and actually communicate it to the community?

To have a plan and communicate said plan and the results. And then... On this one, I would love to hear if the developer has a perspective on it, given the research that Commissioner Farrick identified regarding the proposed heights of those houses. But the recommendation would be that the maximum height for any single family home in the development have a maximum height of 28 feet to be consistent with our single family zoning across Menlo Park.

Or I suggest we could make it slightly more vague and just say match it to whatever is the most similar zoning district or something along those lines without specifying a number.

I mean, if we say that the most similar zoning district is R3, then those have very different heights.

So most similar zoning district, you know, if it's a single family home, then we'd be looking at single family home districts.

Fair. Are there other zones? I guess, are you trying to differentiate between the heights of different potential residences within this project?

No, no, more like is 28 feet the flat, like if we're not sure that 28 feet is the flat number across every single single family home district, we would just say make it similar to whatever.

We are sure. And secondly, this is, the intention is so that There was comments from some of the classics neighbors saying that they are taller than their single family homes. And as I dug into page 10,947 or so, found that yes, indeed, that's true. So if they can just be the height that single family homes are allowed here at max, which is 28, most of what we see is 25, 26, 27. Once in a while we see 28, but these were 29 to 32. and um kind of just that's how they were so i just been trying to be fair across the city if they're building single-family homes for single-family buyers then that's our zoning code

While I don't think that's unreasonable whatsoever, I'll just throw a little wrench into this. I just drew a half-mile radius circle around Caltrain, and with SB79, in theory, the max height for a single-family house could be 60 feet. And actually, SRI is with... SP 79 pertains to residential properties within a half mile radius of, well, technically it's a quarter mile today. And then eventually it'll be half mile of tier one transit. That being said, I'm comfortable recommending that we have the proposals cap out at 28 feet to be consistent with the adjacent neighborhood and other similar zoning districts.

I'd like to hear the counter arguments.

Yeah, Commissioner Schindler and Eric, do you think that we're wrong?

Well, I guess I have a clarifying question. So we have two types of single family homes. We have the traditional two story, And then we have what we call small single-family homes, which are three-story. So that is kind of a new product type. So I don't think it's a huge issue for us to drop to 28 feet in the two-story homes.

Yes. I think specifically the intention of this conversation was the homes that directly abut the Burgess Classics neighborhood as those two-story homes. That being said... Should we care?

So I am looking at Table 4, which is on page 264 of the entire document, which leads me to indicate that the CDP already allows for the single family, either the small lot or the regular size, to be 35 feet tall. That's what's written in the table. I don't remember the governing component of that. And so if we're going to go back and renegotiate terms of the CDP, I'd like there to be a more specific rationale for it.

fair i i didn't see that table but the um my rationale is that it's in that is inconsistent with menlo park zoning code for two-story single-family homes i do think that the small lot is a different product um it's a higher density probably if they were you know if that was a thing outside of this development, it would be in an R3 zone, whereas the single family homes would be R1, maybe R2.

I'm not opposed to having the conversation. Like, I think it would be fine for us to engage in a conversation about that. But I think as a blanket recommendation across all of the single family homes, I'm not ready to go there.

I just, cause we see it on day in and day out with all of the remodels that people get very sensitive about the heights and the highest height that we've had is 28. Like, cause that is the top of our zoning code for single family homes. And so I just don't think it's not only unnecessary, it's out of scale for like the lots are about 3000 square feet and that's fine, but it, doesn't necessitate an even taller two-story. And so I just think there's... And I don't disagree with the logic.

I just want to be sure that we're not piecemeal renegotiating the CDP.

I agree with that. However, I also don't want to be piecemeal. This R1 zone is 35 feet and everywhere else is 28, you know?

And also, like when the CDP was negotiated, single family homes are not part of the plan. So it kind of looks like we just did a blanket 35 feet for all residential. And I think it's fine to go back to the drawing board on that, especially since the developer said they're amenable.

Maybe we just clarify it is for that particular district, single family, not the smallest lots, but the ones that are in yellow on our plan sheets.

We're just doing a straw poll so that city council knows that we did or don't. I mean, we have more than four votes.

Yeah, I'm thinking. In theory, one person could be a swing vote. But I think that I... I'll just, sorry.

Do you mind? No, go for it. Okay, I'll try and be fast. My first reason was the same reason that Commissioner Schindler noted that I think that's a broader change that I would want to discuss. My second point is that this whole thing is a new product and it's a whole development agreement that we are making because we think it'll benefit our city. And I don't necessarily think there's a reason why we need to match it exactly. The whole thing doesn't match. And then I want to say this last part as kindly as I possibly can. And I'm not trying to be mean. But I do think it's relevant that when the Burgess Classics were built, they were considered out of scale and out of character with the surrounding neighborhood. And there was an enormous amount of concern that they would detract from Menlo Park. I don't live there. I think the Burgess classes are awesome and they add a ton of character to the neighborhood and that community is fantastic. And so I think we want to be really careful about making assertions about the character of a community and the people who will live in new housing that we haven't built yet. And that's why I'm against that particular provision.

Can I just cut in on this one yeah because I want to be clear we're talking about like three feet we're not talking about changing the product it's the same house it's just not a funky tall roof is the thing that's different it's not. we're not changing who gets to live there or anything. I agree with your comments on Burgess Classics. I'm thinking this is an opportunity to build more of these fantastic neighborhoods that are a little more dense, a little bit more together. And I think ultimately that's what it'll be, is a lot of neighborhoods just like they have now. And I just want to make sure that there's an equitability across any, like if you want to do something to, well, I don't know what you live in, but like if you live in a single family home, you can't go more than 28 feet. So I just don't think I want to be unfair to a similar situation.

Can I potentially... extrapolate on what your comment didn't say. And this is kind of me thinking out loud, but you mentioned that this isn't a neighborhood or a development that's gonna be a little more dense and a little more together and potentially a little more high. And as I think about it, the fact that it might be a little more high doesn't detract from the neighborhood. And I also wonder if the fact that Commissioner Eric can't build his single family house to 31 feet and has to stay at 28... means that we ought to, and I'm using air quotes here, punish future developments to not also be doing the same. And I don't think any of us were on the commission, let alone maybe even living in Menlo Park when the initial height limits of our zoning districts were put in place and the zoning code gets put together over decades. But I think I'm not comfortable recommending changing the height limit. just as a function of being okay with more density. And if that comes with a little more height, then that's fine, as long as we ensure that the neighbors have their privacy as well.

I don't disagree with the sentiment, but it isn't a density question. It's the same density. It's the same house. It's just not, it's 28 feet tall, not 31.

Sorry. I moved to lengthen the meeting to 1125 PM.

Second. All in favor? Passes. Yeah, no, it's not necessarily a function of density that we're restricting, but in theory, by making a formal recommendation, we are putting pen to paper on saying that we think that these houses should be limited in their height. And I think that to do so, to formally advocate for that, I would need more conviction that that height is unreasonable. And I appreciate consistency. And I don't think there's no place for consistency. But I also don't think that 31 feet is unreasonable for a single family house. And we're talking about the roof line, not actually the sight lines. And so to that end, I don't think the burden of proof has been met. And I recognize that I'm changing the way that I raised my hand previously. Okay, I'm going to ask the question again just to see if anyone has any other comments. So there is a recommendation that the height of the two-story single-family homes abutting the Burgess Classics neighborhood be limited to 28 feet to be consistent with the current height limit of our existing single-family zoning. Okay. Okay. Now that we've covered all of the different elements essentially there was a majority of Commissioners in chambers who supported all but virtual power plant and the single family height. Ms. Sandmeier, would you like me to repeat the recommendations from the commission as part of the study session? Or is this entire conversation expected to be captured in general minutes and therefore would be passed along to the relevant parties?

Yeah, the straw polls are informal and would be in the minutes. So I think that's sufficient.

Okay, does anyone have anything else to say before I close G1? Great, I will close item G1 and we can move to informational items. Ms. Sandmeier, does staff have any informational items they'd like to inform the commission about today?

Yes. So the next meeting will be September 28. It'll be at a different location that Belhaven Community Center at 100 terminal. It will still start at 7pm. And there are two single family homes, use permits for two single family homes on the agenda. And then the following meeting will be back in the council chambers on October 5. And that agenda hasn't been finalized.

Thank you. I would like to mention that I will not be present for the October 5th meeting. I will be out of town. Do any commissioners have any informational items or questions for staff? Commissioner Farrick.

Thank you. Ms. Vandenmeier, so I totally understand why we would want to have a meeting in the Belhaven Community Center. That's great. But typically there'd be an agenda item that would be you know, of great interest to the neighboring community. Um, is there a reason we're just having two single family homes on the agenda that evening?

Um, yeah, it just kind of turned out that way. It's, um, it takes a while to schedule. Um, and I, it requires some moving around of different activities within the community center. So we weren't able to schedule it before the agenda was finalized.

So we're displacing an activity for, I feel bad, rather than inclusive.

Sorry, was there an initial potential agenda item that we would have been discussing that isn't ready for September 28th meeting?

Yeah, we were looking at some potential items But it just the lead time to get be able to schedule to be at the community center doesn't always line up with the lead time to schedule projects.

Thank you. Okay, with that, I will adjourn this meeting at 1118.