City Council - Regular Meeting

Alright. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us for our closed session. City attorney Logue will make a closed session announcement, and then we will welcome public comment on the items listed for closed session.

Good Good evening, mayor and council members. There are three items on this evening's closed session agenda. Item 2.1 is a conference with legal counsel regarding potential litigation arising from the Cuesta Park water main incident pursuant to government code section five four nine five six point nine d two and d four. Item 2.2 is a conference with real property negotiators pursuant to government code section five four nine five six point eight. The address of the property under negotiation is 485 And 495 Clyde Avenue.

The agency negotiators are assistant city manager, Don Cameron, community services director, John Marchant, and real property program administrator, Angela LaMonica. The the negotiating party is Google Inc, and under negotiation are price and terms of lease. And item 2.3 is a conference with real property negotiators pursuant to government code section five four nine five six point eight. The address of the property under negotiation is 975 Terabella Avenue. The agency negotiators are Real Property Program administrator, Angela Lamonica, community services director, John Marchant, and public works director, Jennifer Ng.

The negotiating parties are Steve Nash and Ryan Dennis, and under negotiation are price and terms of purchase. Thank you.

Thank you. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on the closed session items listed on tonight's agenda? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or submit a speaker card to the city clerk. We will take in person speakers first. Each speaker will have three minutes.

Any speakers? Seeing none, we will now take virtual speakers. Seeing no virtual speakers, the council will now recess to the Plaza Conference Room for closed session and return to council chambers at the close to continue to regular session. Oh, do I read this all up? 2.1, conference with legal counsel pursuant to government code, 54956.9D two. Oh, I don't have to. Great. Okay. So we will we will see you in open session. Thank you all.

Okay, everyone. I'm gonna call the meeting to order. So okay. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the regular meeting of the Mountain View City Council of 05/12/2026. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance.

Okay.

So now the city clerk will take attendance by roll call.

Councilmember Hicks? Here. Councilmember Knei? Here. Council member McAllister? Here. Council member Ramirez?

Here.

Council member Showalter? Here. Vice mayor Clark?

Here.

Mayor Ramos? Here. You have a quorum?

Thank you. In recent weeks, the city along with a few of our neighboring elected decision making bodies have been subject ed to disruptive, racist verbal attacks by anonymous callers during virtual public comments. The city of Mountain View is fully committed to racial, religious, and cultural equity and justice as we strive to create a welcoming, safe, and inclusive community for all. The council welcomes respectful, nonthreatening public comments on matters within our jurisdictions. Comments deemed otherwise pursuant to the council code of conduct and government code may be grounds for terminating a speaker's comment period. City attorney Loeb, do you have a closed session report?

No final action was taken in closed session this evening. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now move on to item three, presentations. Please note that these are presentations only. The city council will not take any action. Public comment will occur after the presentation items. If you would like to speak on these items in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Alright. So now 3.1, the affordable housing month proclamation. We are happy to be joined this evening by Marble Ng, director of housing development and with Charities Housing to accept this proclamation. Marble, will you join me at the lectern?

Alright. So the proclamation reads, whereas each year, May is designated as affordable housing month, which is organized and led by SP Home, and the regional theme for the Santa Clara County for 2026 is hashtag all in for housing to reflect what is truly takes to build a community everyone can afford to live and beyond. And solving the housing crisis requires a commitment from many partners and organizations to produce affordable housing and whereas each year, thousands of Silicon Valley families and individuals struggle to find an affordable home in one of the most expensive housing markets in the nation. And affordable housing is an essential building block for stable families, resilient communities, and an opportunity for residents to thrive, making our community healthier, more inclusive, and prosperous. And whereas increasing the supply of affordable housing in Mountain View is a top priority and Charities Housing or Charities is an experienced nonprofit affordable housing developer and highly valued partner of the city, and whereas Charities operates San Antonio Place, which includes studio apartments at deeply affordable levels for households earning between 15% to 45% of area eat median income and its project at 1265 Montecito is anticipated to be completed construction in the 2026.

Whoo. Is a key project as part of the measure a funding memorandum of understanding between the city and the county and will add 85 units of new affordable housing included rapid rehousing units. And whereas Charities is undertaking a full affordable project at 5767 East Evelyn Avenue, which is a key project in the city's affordable housing pipeline, is in the process of assembling the financing for the project and will create up to 143 new affordable units once completed. Now, therefore, I, Emily Ann Ramos, mayor of the city of Mountain View, along with my colleagues in the city council, do hereby proclaim the month of May as affordable housing month in the city of Mountain View and call upon the members of our community and regional efforts led by SV at Home to continue supporting affordable housing and inclusive diverse communities to recognize the successful efforts of the city and its dedication to community partners in delivering innovative housing solutions and to present this proclamation to Charities Housing. Marvel, would you like to say a few words?

Thank you, mayor Ramos. So I'm Marvel. Am the director of housing development at Charities Housing. We are a mission driven nonprofit affordable housing developer, and we like to consider ourselves the local trusted partner. And the keyword there is partner.

You know, what we do requires a partner that is receptive and supportive affordable housing, and the city of Mountain View is just that. So I just wanna thank the city, the city council, the city staff for supporting affordable housing, supporting our work, especially on Montecito, which will be opening in, this summer, very soon. And we just you know, the city has been committed to providing, folks of all income levels an opportunity to live in what I've heard some people call the best city. And it's really just wonderful for their commitment, and we're really excited to push forward on our site on East Evelyn Avenue. So thank you.

We'll take a quick picture right over here. Alright. Our next proclamation is item 3.2, mental health awareness month proclamation. We are happy to be joined this evening by Eleanor Pace, chief officer of the residential programs and twenty four seven programs with Momentum for Health to accept this proclamation. Eleanor, will you join me at the lectern?

Hi. Alright. So the proclamation reads, whereas mental health is essential to the overall health and well-being of individuals, families, community, schools, and businesses, and whereas one in five adults and one in six youth in The United States will experience a mental health condition at any given time according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness and whereas it is vital to encourage relatives, friends, coworkers, and community members to recognize the signs of mental health conditions and guide those in need to appropriate services and support. And whereas, education and raising awareness are effective ways to enable early response to mental health conditions and refuse reduce the devastating impacts they can create on individuals and the community. And whereas the city of Mountain View, with the guidance of the council youth services committee, continues to strengthen mental health resiliency for teens through such programs as the teen wellness retreat, monthly wellness focused workshops, wellness events supported by the youth advisory committee.

Great job. And whereas the city of Mountain View is dedicated supporting the mental health, emotional well-being, and resilience of its workforce by providing employees with integrated wellness resources including seminars and events, challenges and incentives, break stations with cognitive enrichment activities, enhanced employee employee assistance programs, comprehensive financial tools and education to reduce financial stress and strengthen employee sense of stability and control, as well as behavioral health benefits and virtual tools, flexible works practices, and fostering a culture that prioritize mental, emotional, and overall well-being. And whereas staff in collaboration with the cities of Palo Alto and Los Altos worked with Momentum for Health to develop program enhancements to support trust effectiveness in North County using funding received as a federal earmark, and whereas the city of Mountain View continues to collaborate with and support community based organizations and providers of mental health care and health care to promote mental health wellness, raise awareness, and support prevention and treatment efforts, and whereas we call upon all residents, businesses, and schools in Mountain View to unite in support of a shared vision of improving access to high quality mental health services and creating a community where everyone feels comfortable reaching out for help.

Now, therefore, I, Emily Ann Ramos, mayor of the city Of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the city council, do hereby proclaim the month of May as Mental Health Awareness Month in the city of Mountain View. Eleanor, would you like to say a few words?

Thank you. On behalf of Momentum for Health, I'm deeply honored and grateful to accept this proclamation from the city of Mountain View. This recognition affirms the hard work and dedication of everyone involved in our trust program. Together, we have made impactful strides in the community. I want to extend thanks to city officials, stakeholders, and community members that have supported this initiative and the collaboration to make it a reality.

Momentum remains committed to helping communities thrive. We believe that responding in person during a crisis can help to keep people in the community while alleviating their current crisis and offering support and resources. Thank you again for this honor, and let's continue working together to make a positive difference.

Okay. Would any member of the council like to say a few words? Seeing none, we will now take public comment for the presentation items. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on the presentation items listed on the agenda? If so, please click the raise hand button on Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. We will take in person speakers first. We will have each speaker will have three minutes. No speakers. So now we will take virtual speakers. And I'm seeing no speakers.

So we will move on to our consent calendar item. Congratulations to all our proclamation peeps. Alright. We will now move on to item four, consent calendar. Items on the consent calendar will be approved by one motion unless any member of the council wishes to pull an item for individual consideration. If an item is pulled from the consent calendar, it will be considered separately following an approval of the balance of the consent calendar. If you would like to speak on these items or the next item, oral communications on non agenda items in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Would any member of the council like to pull an item? I see council member McAllister.

I like to comment on a four point four and four point six.

But no polling?

Nope. Four

point four and four point six. Thank you. Council member Scholwalter.

I would like to comment on 4.2, 4.4, and four point seven, but I don't wish to pull either one of them.

Okay. Alright. We'll take we'll take, public comments on the consent calendar, and then we'll go back to oh, give me a sec. Okay. If, there are no, we'll go into public comment now.

Did I already say we're going in public comment? Okay. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide public comment on these items? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. We will take in person speakers first. Each speaker will have three minutes. I see none in person. We will now take virtual speakers. So we will start with, Bruce England.

Thank you, mayor. I'll be very fast. Bruce England was from Station Drive speaking for Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning and Green Spaces Mountain View. We submitted a letter. Unfortunately, it was late because it takes us time to do what we need to do and the turnaround's fast, as you know.

But we did submit it. I hope you had a chance to read it or we'll look at it later if you need to. But one thing that I think the letter that particular letter and letters like it point out or illustrate is that sometimes the details in an agenda item or on the consent calendar is very specific for you. But we see all the different relationships from a community perspective that we think are worth pointing out. And I think that the letter does a very good job of doing that. It doesn't just repeat the things that we like about street maintenance, but the things that the city ought to think about when they consider street maintenance. So just wanted to highlight that. Thank you.

Thank you. April Webster? Hi.

Hi. Thank you. I'd like to echo what, Bruce had to say about the letter that we submitted, and I just wanted to maybe point out a few things from it. First of all,

I want to

emphasize that pavement maintenance is not just a resurfacing program. It's also a it's a recurring opportunity that we can use in parallel to make our streets safer, more comfortable, and more climate resilient. When the city repays and restripes a street, it's deciding, while they're doing that, what street designs get carried forward, for another pavement cycle. So that means it's a really good moment to look for quick, low cost safety improvements. This could be narrowing lanes.

This is done just through striping, through paint where appropriate. Buffered bike lanes and wider buffers could be decided and added in during that cycle. Daylighting at intersections, painted curb extensions to help things make safer, high visibility crosswalks, and then other sorts of paint and plastic treatments. These don't involve digging up the street. It's not reconstruction.

These are easy, quick, cheap things that could be done as they're going as our city is going through our staff is going through the pay repayment project or process. I wanted to point I I worked with Caltrans on their district four bicycle advisory committee for several years now. And as vice chair, I get to see a lot of the projects early on and what's going through their cycle. And they've got a really useful model that they've introduced, and this is it's evolved over the past several years, and to introduce outreach earlier and looking for opportunities earlier as well. And part of this was through SB nine sixty.

And so their pavement project is called the SHOP. And what happens is their Complete Streets team, reviews those projects in what's called the initiation and scoping, phase of it before even detailed design begins. And so they go through and they look for opportunities in there to add in bike lanes, different sorts of crosswalks, even green infrastructure now. I was very surprised in this current cycle to see several of the Caltrans projects introducing GSI. And so I feel like, you know, we don't need to copy Caltrans exactly, but those same sorts of principles of thinking about when we're doing this sort of work, there's so many things that we could tag onto it as well.

And we should start to think about maybe putting together some sort of program like this for ourselves where we look at the active transportation plan, the biodiversity, etcetera, and look for opportunities to piggyback on resurfacing. It takes up a good chunk of our city. Thank you so much.

Thank you. That seems to have ended our virtual public comment. I will now bring this back to council action and a note that a motion to approve the consent calendar should also include reading the title of the ordinances and resolutions attached to consent calendar items 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, and 4.7. Good luck whoever does that. So but before that, I'll let council member McAllister speak on item four point four and four point six.

Thank you, mayor. So Moorpark, when they came up, the Kennison Places is called, there was a lot of concern about people having one entry and then going on to Sylvan, which has always been a area of concern for the neighbors because there's a lot of traffic there. And to have that second opening availability to the residents there is really gonna reduce the stress on Sylvan. And I do wanna give a shout out to Debbie and Monty Kennison because they from what I understand, they were working also behind the scenes to try to get that second entry in there. And I, from the neighborhood, I appreciate their effort to get that done and staff working on to get that second entry.

It made it a much better project and, gonna make a lot of people feel a little more relaxed about going in there. So that was a good outcome with the the developer, the McKennison's, and staff to get that second entry. And four point six, I'm just, glad that we are starting to get take care of the streets. A lot of one of the big concerns that we've I've heard over the last year was our streets are poor, and anything that we can do to improve our streets and incorporate all the improvements that, the residents wants, ATP, etcetera, is a great step going forward. And I just hope someday we can get to, Mariamani and get that done sooner than later.

Thank you, councilmember McAllister. Councilmember Bershow Walter.

Well, yeah, I would like to follow-up on what, councilmember McAllister said about, 4.4. I remember discussing this when we, were approving this project, and, I was very upset with the fact that there was only one point of egress. I didn't think it was safe or livable, and we asked the developer and the staff to work together and members of the community as well to to change that, and I'm I'm really pleased to see that they did that. I think it will make for a, a much a far superior project. I also wanted to mention 4.2 renewal of the downtown parking maintenance and operation assessment district fiscal year 2026.

I'm, hoping that the additional janitorial services will clean up the stairways of the parking garages and keep them clean. Parking in the parking garages, is the first thing, you you you kind of store and and restaurant patrons see when they make a trip to downtown. And so it makes a good impression if the stairways are clean. So I'm glad we're moving forward on this, and and thank you for that. And then, 4.7, authorization to convey a portion of city owned property adjacent to 236 Castro Street.

This is an instance where, it turned out that a building was built on top of, city land, just a little bit of it. And I, and we're now that they're redoing this building, we're just going to and that's been discovered. We're we're going to, sell a little bit of that land back to them as it should have been. And I just wanna say in my career, I ran into numerous examples where the lot lines and the placement of buildings obviously were not understood by the owners. And it wasn't necessarily anybody's fault.

It was just one of those things that happened. So I think that selling this small portion of the parking lot that is already covered by the building to the building's owner is a great solution. Thanks for working this out, and I appreciate the creativity and, hopefully and the flexibility that this demonstrates. So with that, I will make a motion to I tried to make a motion, and it wouldn't let me.

You you can do it verbally anyway.

So Okay. I I move the, consent calendar?

Yes. But you do also have to

You want me to go ahead and read it before it's seconded? Oh,

yeah. Actually, yeah, technically.

Okay. Alright. I gotta take a be breath. It's very long. We're gonna adopt the consent calendar, and we need to read item 4.1, adopt an ordinance of the city of Mountain View, amending article five of chapter 29 of the Mountain View City Code to line it with state law, clarify real property conveyance tax exemptions, and make other clarifying amendments to be read and title only further reading waived.

Item 4.2, adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View approving the annual engineers report for the Downtown Parking Maintenance And Operation Assessment District Number 2 and approving the levying of assessment for fiscal year twenty twenty six twenty seven to be read in title only, further reading waived. Item 4.3, adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View appropriating $8,000,000 in state funds received pursuant to senate bill one twenty nine for the Lot 12 affordable housing project to be read and title only, Further reading waived. Item 4.4, adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View approving a final map for track number 10677309 Moore Parkway accepting dedications, making findings as required, by chapter 28 of the Mountain View City Code and authorizing execution of an improvement agreement as a condition to final map approval to be read in title only, further reading waived. Item 4.5, adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View authorizing temporary closure from public access of five parking spaces within Parking Lot Number 2 for thirty one consecutive weeks and authorizing temporary closure from public access of eight parking spaces within Parking Lot Number 2 for twelve consecutive days to incur prior to 05/25/2029 to be read in title only.

Further reading waived. Item 4.7, adopt a resolution of the city council of the City of Mountain View, finding that a portion of city owned property within the Bryant Street parking lot is excess to the city's needs, declaring the property to be exempt surplus land pursuant to the surplus land act and authorizing its conveyance to be read and title only. Further reading waived.

Thank you, council member Schowalter. Do we have a second? You can say it verbally. I second. Seconded by council member Hicks. City clerk, would you mind doing the roll call vote?

Council member Schwalter? Yes. Council member Hicks? Yes. Council member Kamay? Yes. Council member McAllister?

Yes.

Council member Ramirez?

Yes.

Vice mayor Clark?

Yes.

Mayor Ramos? Yes. Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you. Now we will move on to Item five, this is oral communications up for public comment. This portion of this the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the council on any matter not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic within the city's council subject matter jurisdiction for up to three minutes during this section. State law prohibits council from acting on nonagendi items.

If you would like to speak on this item or the next item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on this item? If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk. We will take in person speakers first. Each speaker will have three minutes. Alright. So our first speaker is Jack Powers.

Good evening, mayor Ramos and city council members.

If you could move the microphone to you.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Jack Powers. I've lived in the Mountain View community now for approximately five years, and, I wanted to make a statement, for the record about oversized vehicle parking and disability. So under the California vehicle code section two two five one one point five, vehicles that properly display a valid disabled person placard or license plate are exempt from most local parking time limits in designated spaces. This same subject matter was a basis for Navarro versus city of Mountain View.

That is parking accommodations for disadvantaged or disabled peoples. The terms of that settlement, far as I know, are still enforceable. My wife and I are both disabled. We have requested reasonable accommodation from the MVPD. We should not be selectively or excessively ticketed under Mountain View code one nine point seven two for parking in excess of seventy two hours.

As you know, there are limited parking places, especially now, for people who are forced to live in their vehicles. It is both dangerous and laborious to keep shuffling large vehicles around the streets, especially if you're disabled and trying to do it. I believe the mayor's office and the council should look into the possibility of licensing certain types of parking for the disabled some corresponding reasonable accommodations language consistent with Navarro versus city of Mountview could be included. Also within certain places, city control lots and other designated areas such as leased land or other available parking areas maybe to license LLCs and or nonprofits to lease empty lots, city control lots, and other parking space usage and to manage those parking areas accordingly and for this purpose while paying fees to the city instead of requiring grant funding. In any case, the disability placard exception can easily be incorporated into an amended section of MB ordinance one nine point seven two that is consistent with the federal ADA provisions as well as the terms of the consent agreement.

Thank you.

Thank you. Alright. Our next speaker is Akemi Flynn. And I am seeing no other open public comment speakers, so turn on your blue card now if you wanna speak. Alright. Go ahead.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Akemi. I have been a twenty over twenty year member of the Mountain View Buddhist, Mountain View community as a member of the Mountain View Buddhist Temple, so I'm glad to be here with you this evening. And I'm also with the Immigrant Protection and Empowerment Network, which is a countywide collaborative cross sector, and we are urging you to develop and adopt a policy to protect city property for city purposes, to prohibit civil immigration enforcement on city property. Join the many cities and counties that have done so that offer a strong model for you.

But I'm actually here, also to, read a message from, Maria Marroquin from the Mountain View Day Worker Center and Ruth Silvertoeb, from the board of the Mountain View Day Worker Center, both who could not be here but wish to be here today. So here's the message from them. A growing number of jurisdictions are responding to out of control and brutal immigration enforcement by adopting ICE free zones. These policies signal to immigrant communities that local government is on their side. Cities and counties have long exercised authority over their own property. We urge the city council to use its power to protect immigrant communities like other cities and counties have done. Thank you.

Thank you, Okemi. I see no other in person public comment. We will now take virtual speakers, and we have Tim McKenzie.

Greetings all. Tim McKenzie, he, him, Montaloma resident for a dozen years or so, something like that at at this point. I just I wanted to thank the the city for, for having removed flock cameras. I a couple weeks ago, I commented that there was still a flock camera just directly across the street from my house, and it is gone now. That's great.

I hope that all of them are gone, and there wasn't just the one that was near me after I commented in public. And my understanding was that the city was going to release a press release after having taken down the the cameras. Maybe that already did happen and I missed it. Or maybe there are still some cameras up, but I would love to see that, the actions Mountain View took, the integrity the city had to sever ties with a company that completely, flouted our contractual agreements is a degree of, bravery, boldness, and correct action that neighboring cities could learn from, and putting out a a press release after taking the cameras down could help contribute to that. So thank you for having at least some of them come down.

I hope that they're all down, and, we should be shouting that from the mountaintops. And I also I would like to, echo the previous speaker. I would love to see the city pass an ordinance as an ice free zone to prohibit federal immigration enforcement from using city land, city property, anything that the city has the jurisdiction over, prohibit ICE from terrorizing our neighbors. They're they have already murdered US citizens earlier this year. They've murdered lots of people, and the the the agency shouldn't exist.

It was created that we should abolish ICE, but while it still exists, Mountain View should do everything it can to remain a community for all and protect our neighbors. And setting up ice free zones seems like a great way to do that. So I would like to add my voice to to that.

Thank you. Next, we have Bruce England.

Thank you, mayor. Bruce England again, Wizman Station Drive. Really quick this time. Just wanna echo the comment also about establishing Mountain View as an ice free zone. I think that's a great idea that was put forward. Thanks.

Thank you. I am seeing no other public comment. We will now move on to item six, public hearings. So we'll have 6.1, repeal and reenact article 10, transportation demand management of chapter 19, motor vehicles and traffic of the Mountain View City Code to establish a citywide TDM program. Transportation planner, Ben Pacho? Did I do it right? It's Pacho or Paco? Pacho. Yay. And assistant public works director, Alison Boyer, will present the item. If you would like to speak on this item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Alright. And I guess we'll now have the staff presentation. Great.

Thank you. Good evening. My name is Allison Boyer. I am the assistant public works director, and with me tonight is Ben Pacho, senior transportation planner. We also have our consultant team, Steer, joining us remotely.

We're here tonight to discuss the draft citywide transportation demand management ordinance or TDM. For background, city council identified the development of a transportation demand management ordinance as a strategic priority for fiscal years 2023 to 2025. It was identified as a priority as a result of the city's 2030 general plan, greenhouse gas reduction programs, sustainability action plan, SAP four, precise plans, as well as regional and state laws. To date, the city's approach to TDM spans a mix of project size and land uses. Over 27 entitled development projects in Mountain View have TDM requirements as part of their conditions of approvals.

These current TDM requirements include different targets and measures. The proposed ordinance aligns with the existing policies and standardizes TDM standards and monitoring requirements. It ensures consistency with the MTA handbook, VMT screening, and the city's greenhouse gas reduction program while also standardizing trip reduction targets, the TDM planning process, and monitoring and enforcement provisions. Reviewing the project's workflow, staff is currently in the project phase focus on ordinance language seen here in blue. Over the course of the project, staff has engaged key stakeholders and advisory bodies to gain a broad understanding of current practice with TDM as well as how requirements can be further streamlined and made more effective under the ordinance.

Key insights were gathered from the Downtown Business Association and the TMA. One on one interviews were held with developers, employers, property managers, and community members. Collectively, the input gathered has been used to guide the direction of the project, including its vision and goals in the TDM framework. Staff presented the project vision and goals to BPAC, EPC, and CTC in 2023 where members voiced their support for the project's objectives. In 2025, staff returned to BPAC and EPC to present the TDM policy framework and included trip reduction standards, reporting elements, and enforcement provisions.

CTC and city council reviewed and supported the proposed framework in quarter two and 2025. Staff presented the TDM ordinance to EPC and CTC in 2026. Comments from EPC and CTC included allowing residential projects to qualify for both unbundled and limited parking core strategies, which has been updated, and tiering the limited parking credit, which staff is working on and will be updated in the toolkit prior to the ordinance implementation. On May 5, CTC voted unanimously to support the TDM ordinance and expressed support of its of exemptions for patron driven uses and asked staff to continue to explore ways to incentivize TMA membership. The vision statement, which went to CTC on 01/30/2024, states that the TDM ordinance will seek to reduce single occupancy vehicle trips for new development and increase use of multimodal transportation alternatives that are sustainable, equitable, effective, and respond to changing demands.

The goal of the project is to increase the predictability and effectiveness of the city TDM requirements while improving sustainable mobility and equity. Tonight, staff is recommending the city council adopt an ordinance of the city council repealing and reenacting chapter 19 motor vehicles and traffic of article 10 transportation demand management of the city code to establish a citywide TDM program with modifications to section one twenty one definition 11 and sections one twenty four I and finding the amendments to be exempt from CEQA pursuant to CEQA guidelines section fifteen three zero eight. So a quick overview of the TDM. At a high level, the TDM seeks to streamline and implement TDM requirements across a project's lifespan from the entitlement phase to the post occupancy phase. The new TDM ordinance will apply to all new development, modifications, change of use, and expansions of existing sites that generate 200 or more net new average daily trips or ADT.

This will apply across all land uses, residential, commercial, and mixed use. There are, however, a couple exemptions for a 100% affordable units, very small projects, which are single family developments of 12 units or fewer, multifamily residential developments of 20 units or fewer, or any office development that is 10,000 square feet or less, as well as patron driven projects that are less than a 100,000 square feet. Projects will have to demonstrate a plan to reduce projected ADT by 20 to 50% through the use of approved TDM strategies and maintain program management and annual reporting post occupancy. The city will maintain records of annual project reports, and any noncompliance may result in corrective action and or fines assessed by the city. Trip production targets will be determined based by project size.

Projects are divided into three categories, small projects, which is 200 to 499 ADT, medium projects, which is 500 to 999 ADT, and large projects, which is 1,000 ADT. Standard projects will be required to implement TDM strategies that reduce ADT to the following levels, thirty, forty, and 50% respectively. TOD or transit oriented design projects and residential projects will have reduced target levels of twenty, thirty, and forty percent, respectively. These thresholds were informed by the city's existing precise plan targets as well as case studies of similar TDM programs in San Francisco, San Mateo County, Redwood City, Sunnyvale, and the city of San Jose. Prior to entitlement, prospective applicants will be required to submit a TDM plan for city review.

Specifics of the plan will then be included in the conditions of approval preceding adoption by council. TDM plans will be comprised of two types of strategies. Core strategies offer an array of flexible, proven trip production strategies that applicants may select from to develop the project's TDM plan and auxiliary measures, which when paired with core strategies are complementary and more effective at reducing trips. Applicants will have access to the TDM toolkit, which is designed to offer a menu of strategies that vary in scale and cost, allowing projects to create site specific TDM plans fit for their purpose. Moving into the monitoring elements of the framework, this slide illustrates the various reporting activities that projects will be responsible for, which are, again, organized by project size.

Small projects report out annually for three years, medium projects for ten, and large projects for twenty. Additionally, residential and patron driven uses are exempt from additional project performance monitoring conducted through annual travel surveys and traffic counts. I will now pass it off to Ben to walk us through some more of the updates details.

Thanks, Allison. Good evening, council. So staff would like to note a few key updates which have been incorporated into the TDM policy framework since last June study session with council based on feedback we've received. Proposed changes include exemptions such as pick for patron driven uses, implementation of housing element action items, exemptions from site specific trip caps for residential and patron driven uses, updates to enforcement provisions, and optional TMA membership. For the first update, proposed patron driven uses that are less than net new 100,000 square feet will be exempted from the TDM program.

These uses are categorized as nonresidential and typically generate trips that are primarily by patrons or customers rather than employees. Examples of such projects would include childcare centers, restaurants, entertainment, medical, retail, including general merchandise and grocery, as well as other personal services. This exemption was incorporated into the framework recognizing the value of such uses that our neighborhood serving and that patron end uses also support economic vitality by attracting attracting and retaining high quality retail and other service oriented mixed uses. The next update relates to the city's housing element program, which went into effect in 2023. Provisions of the housing element required the city to adopt a tedium ordinance to help identify lower cost options for developers to meet TDM requirements.

And to support this effort, the ordinance will allow residential parking reductions and exemptions for projects that enhance features of a TDM plan, which would achieve a higher level of trip reduction than the minimum requirement. To satisfy the enhanced TDM criteria, residential projects shall either, one, exceed its ADT reduction target by at least 5% or two, adopt one additional core strategy and two additional auxiliary strategies over the minimum required number from the toolkit. The enhanced CDM criteria presented here are really intended to incentivize higher levels of trip reduction and reduce parking demand while also increasing mobility options for residential projects. The next update to the framework includes exemptions from monitoring and reporting requirements for residential and patron driven uses. Specifically, all residential and patron end uses will be exempted from meeting site specific trip caps and associated ADT reduction targets.

The exemption also extends the requirements to provide travel surveys and conduct traffic counts. The noted exemptions here reflect existing conditions and local and state regulations, which collectively seek to reduce financial costs and administrative burdens related to delivering more affordable housing and neighborhood serving uses. However, still required of these projects would be the requirement to adopt and implement a TDM plan and provide ongoing annual TDM reporting in accordance with project size. Moving ahead, the proposed ordinance seeks to align the enforcement provisions under code enforcement violations and administrative penalties of the city code. This approach aligns with neighboring jurisdictions on enforcement of TDM requirements, which codify violations and our muni code as the basis for assessing administrative citations for noncompliance.

Some examples of noncompliance might include failure of a project to submit an annual TDM report or maintain an ongoing TDM plan as required. Additionally, updated enforcement provisions will consistently apply to all projects subject to the ordinance rather than by specific project conditions of approval. For the next framework update, the proposed ordinance will not require projects of any size to join the TMA. For context, the TMA is a private nonprofit membership organization, which is governed by a board of 10 members. Under the ordinance, membership in the TMA will be optional and included in the TDM toolkit as a way for projects to satisfy their TDM requirements and trip reduction goals by becoming a member.

Some examples of services provided by the TMA that are included in the TDM toolkit include the Amigo shuttle, which is a first last mile service, guaranteed last mile incentive, midday mobility subsidies, and shuttle service expansion. While teammate membership will not be required, staff with the teammate will explore the process of establishing a property based assessment district or PBID following adoption of the ordinance. Similar to other jurisdictions, including city of Emeryville, the goal of establishing the PBIT would be to provide a long term and scalable approach to funding the TMA provided services. Most notably, a PBIT would support growing growing membership in the DMA over time by clearly defining its governance structure and assessment of membership fees. Currently, staff is working with the project team to develop a cost estimation and implementation planning study as part of this work.

The study will evaluate the range of city staff time and administrative resources required to administer the ordinance, including TDM plan review and ongoing monitoring reporting activities. The findings of this report will inform the basis of an annual TDM fee, which would be intended to recover a portion of the city's ongoing costs associated with implementing the ordinance. Following completion of this fee study, staff will draft a resolution for the city council to review and adopt as part of the master fee schedule. Once the TDM ordinance is in effect, its provisions, including trip reduction standards and monitoring requirements, will be codified in the city code. Additionally, the TDM program standards will be a key guiding document to implement the citywide TDM program.

The TDM program standards will be an appendix to the MTA handbook, which may be updated periodically to reflect changes in travel patterns, technological innovation, and TDM best practices. As for our next steps, I'll pass it back to Allison.

Thank you. We're here at city council tonight for the first reading of this ordinance. The second reading is scheduled for May 26. The ordinance will go into effect thirty days after adoption. Once adopted, implementation steps will include refinement of the TDM program standards in toolkit kit, updating precise plans and city code to implement housing element action items and ordinance provisions, present annual TDM fee resolution to counsel for review and adoption, explore the feasibility of establishing a property based assessment district or PBID citywide, integration with the city's permitting and entitlement processes, establishment of ongoing monitoring and reporting systems, including identifying technology solutions and providers, and continued coordination with stakeholders and regional partners.

And to confirm, staff is recommending the city council adopt an ordinance of the city council repealing and reenacting chapter 19 motor vehicles and traffic of article 10 transportation demand management of the city code to establish a citywide TDM program with modifications to section one twenty one definition 11 and section one twenty four I and finding the amendments to be exempt from CEQA pursuant to CEQA guidance sections fifteen three zero eight. The staff recommend recommended modifications to the ordinance can be seen on the slide here and include clarification for residential projects under the 200 ADT or smaller project threshold that would that would like to opt in to obtain the benefit for of residential parking reductions or exemptions from parking requirements in accordance with the city's housing element. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you. Does any member of the council have questions?

Oh.

It's not as day session. There's we're introducing an ordinance. Alright.

But does anyone have a question? Council member Showalter.

Thank you. Okay. Well, I'd like to, thank the staff for all the work involved in this. And, but I do still have some questions. It's a it's a complicated thing. First, could you explain the status of the TMA at the moment? You talked about that a little bit, but one of the things that you didn't say, or if you did, I didn't understand it, is essentially what does it cost for somebody to join? And I know there's gonna be a study, but you must have a range. I mean, is it a dollar a unit? Is it a $100 a unit?

Is it a thousand I mean, I don't know. And, also, what services would a, a project get for being a member?

Thank you for the question, council member. So the TMA being a nonprofit, organization, the, costs are really determined on a project by project basis. So it depends on the project size, the land use. And there are different tiers for the cost structure based on for resident project residential project as you'd suggested. It's based on number of units.

And for a nonresidential, it's based on square footage. There are discounts provided for a 100% affordable housing projects. They get a 75% discount for joining. And then for nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations or governmental organizations rather for the city, we also get discounts for membership. So, essentially, how it works now is a project would be required under our precise plan to join the TMA.

They would then, enter into a discussion with the TMA to discuss what the cost implications are based on the project size and the land use. And afterwards, would be required to sign an NDA or nondisclosure agreement not to share their their fees because it is based on the specific project. And then the board, on a fiscal basis, approves the fee structure on an on an, ongoing basis.

So we're not gonna know what the range of this cost is for people before we pass this. We're just that's not information that's available to us.

So just to clarify, the TMA is not a requirement of the TDM. So right now, it is, identified as a strategy, and there are benefits of the TMA membership such as the last, first and last mile, the shuttle service, guaranteed last, guaranteed ride home that will help you achieve core strategies, but membership in the TMA is not a requirement.

Okay.

It's difficult to say, council member, what the specific cost would be associated for a project. It's not a general cost structure. It's based on the specific projects. So

Alright. Okay. So, another question is, what do transit passes cost? I understand I I remember in past times, I've seen numbers about this, and and they they've actually been pretty expensive. And there have been substantial discounts that you could get, if you bought them in bulk. And I wondered if you had any inform that is a you know, that is something that a lot of, residential, apartment buildings might want to use. Do have any idea what what they cost, and would the TMA assist in this?

Thank you for the question, councilmember. So, certainly, after adopting the ordinance, we would work with the TMA to understand what level of support they would provide in implementing the ordinance, and the provisions with potential to support distribution of transit passes. Certainly, there are discounts to be realized at scale that once you buy at an institutional level, there are just more discounts. But we work with projects to understand what the level of burden would be for for paying for transit subsidy, and we adjust that according to what they'd be able to provide. So there are certain instances with projects, existing projects that have recently gained occupancy where we've developed a modified approach providing transit level subsidy that was viable for the project that otherwise wouldn't have been if it weren't modified.

So I don't know if that answers your question.

So you don't have a figure. Just

So in the toolkit, each, strategy has a rough dollar amount associated with it. So, if we're looking at the toolkit that there is an estimated value for how much it would cost to implement that, and they range for for low, medium, and high. Again, it's gonna be based on the size of the project being developed, but there are dollar thresholds included in the toolkit of expected cost.

Okay. And and what would it be for transit pass? Is is that in the toolkit?

We suggest certain types of transit passes in the toolkit. One of them we'd previously required was the VTA Smart Pass. I don't believe that's in existence. It's kind of taken on a new form. So rather than being prescriptive on the type of transit passes that we're requiring, we're providing flexibility for the developer applicants to provide which passes they might wanna do. So for example, they might want to buy Clipper passes with a certain set subsidy, not specific to any one agency, but that they could use across various agencies. So these the idea is to provide flexibility for the type of transit pass.

Right. It seems like there's a lot of flex there's a lot of change going on in the in the past.

And that's been a a request from Yeah. Developers.

Yeah. Okay. Alright. Then what is what are you gonna do with the monitoring data that you collect?

Thank you for the question. So thoughts. Currently, it's quite difficult. With TDM version one point o, we're just not gathering a lot of data because there hasn't been a lot of compliance. So certainly when we implement the ordinance, we'd have the kind of recourse to develop a more systematized approach to collect the data.

So the idea is we'd be able to see kind of zoom out at a citywide level how programs are performing, not just one off on a site by site basis, but collectively, what TDM strategies are working for different types of projects, what types of, you know, data they're collecting. So that's the idea is to kind of gain performance, see what's working, see what kinds of iterations need to be made to the TDM toolkit, whether certain strategies need to be phased out, some introduced, whether some of the language in the TDM program standards needs to be amended based on, you know, changing conditions. So the idea is that it's an evergreen toolkit, and the data would allow us to kind of iterate on a

Okay. So so the data we might we would monitor would change on over time depending on what we found was useful.

Absolutely.

Okay. And, also, I wondered about you know, there's some land use, just basic land use things that are really important for, we know, for reducing traffic. Right? Like, getting getting residential near transit is is a big and that's on the list, right, of things that they've done. So, one one one thing, though, that I didn't see, or if I did, I missed it, was remote work.

And we, you know, we we saw in the pandemic how, just in you know, kind of overnight, we the traffic changed because there was this need to go to remote work. Well, everybody isn't working remotely anymore, but I think some remote work is here to stay. So I wondered, is there anything included in this about things that incentivize remote work? Like, for instance, if an apartment building had, conference rooms that you could use as an office or things like that. Is is is any of that included?

Thank for the question. We've looked at this a lot, and we've had existing data to draw on, especially in North Bay Shore. We've seen traffic volumes decrease, especially with the advent of of an adoption of remote work. So to that extent, the toolkit does include a hybrid work option. So if a a nonresidential project were to adopt and implement it, they would, see a potential decrease in average daily trips around 10%. So it's included in the TDM toolkit as a a hybrid work model that, projects can implement at a low cost option.

Great. And I guess mixed use is sort of in the same category.

Certainly. And that's the feedback that we received since EPC two is some of these kind of urban design characteristics is how can we incentivize certain developments to to deliver certain mixed use elements, and how could they achieve credit for that reduction trips by implementing those types of mixed use projects. And that's something we're also looking at incorporating in the the teaching toolkit. I think the toolkit as it's now was really primarily based on what we've implemented and what we've required in existing projects, which are more programmatic in nature. But with the feedback that we received over the the course of the public hearings, we certainly have taken the feedback to receive more kind of design based, more land use characteristic type of structure.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, council member Schorwalter. Council member Hicks.

Thank you. Well, it was, I'm on the council transportation committee, so it was a a pleasure to read the staff report a second time, very similar to two weeks ago or whatever it was. You know, one of the things I appreciated about it was that these are questions, comments. Don't worry. I was the history of TDM kind of first, I guess it says, in the nineties.

It was kind of very congestion reduction related, and then decades later, incorporating also greenhouse gas reduction. What I'm thinking looking over the toolkit and the rest of the reading I've done on this is that it it's originally applied to offices. Correct me if I'm wrong. And so it's very commuter based. And now that we're applying it to, other developments, including mostly housing.

I'm thinking I'm wondering what additional tools you might think of adding to the tool kit. Because when I think of, because the tools because of the history of the program, the tools do seem very commuter based. And when I think of who lives in apartments, the last time I lived in one, for example, you know, it's a lot of families with children, a lot who have very different kind take very different kinds of trips than the ones that commuters take to day care, to ball games, and also seniors who take different kinds of trips to, say, recreation, family, hospital. And so I'm wondering whether in communication with other the other model TB TDM programs you've been looking at in other cities, whether there are more for a diverse set of different kinds of users. Oh, also people who travel a lot for work, you know, maybe handyman, gardener, etcetera, like, how you can meet their needs as well, not just the needs of commuters with the toolkit.

Thank you for the question, council member. We've given this a lot of thought, and I think, yeah, you're definitely onto something. It's an indictment of our transportation system that was certainly built around peak demand. And now that with hybrid work, we're just seeing trip generation happening outside of the peak a lot more, so for different types of trips happening throughout the day. And so to the extent that we can service the gap, the midday gap, and provide service kind of at a higher frequency to meet people's needs beyond just going to work, I think, is an important note.

So to the extent that the teammate provides a midday mobility incentive, so when the MVGO shuttle stops working after the morning peak and the between the morning peak and the afternoon peak, There is an incentive that Mountain View residents or employees can use to get to where they need to go absent of the the Ambigo shuttle working. But for residential projects, what we've seen is how to offset demand for a single occupancy vehicle by providing alternatives like on-site car share service has been really successful providing first last mile connections to transit. So whether that's, like, what we discussed, micromobility, bike share, or scooter share, which we're hoping to launch soon. It's also providing, you know, closures on our active transportation system for people to walk and bike to where they need to go. And it's includes and it's also increasing residential density.

Right? So internalizing the trips that people would have otherwise made by not needing to go as far because they live close to their destination. So it's it's things like that. It's both the programmatic and the design kind of features of a of a development. But, the idea is the toolkit will kind of incorporate the best of all strategies, that would be mutually supportive.

Yeah. And that's something we heard from EPC as well. So we've started, adding that to the toolkit. We included things like a school carpool program as one of our strategies, residential transportation information, encouraging on-site amenities such as childcare. So we'll continue to explore those and and add those as they as we have more data.

Thank you. I'm glad you've been thinking about that. All good answers. Can you also it seems like the housing tools, like the big one is parking reduction, it seems like. And can you explain a little more about how you see that working?

Because I guess the the the thing that I see is when parking at apartments is reduced, there's I guess in the literature, they call it spill spillover effect. Am I getting it right? Thank you. So how do you make sure that people don't just park on the street? And then you count that as trip reduction when that hasn't really happened at all? So that's one question.

Thank you for the question. So we kind of touched on this a little bit in CTC, but I think maybe using kind of a case study local case study would be a little bit illustrative. So we've had two affordable housing projects that have gained occupancy. And one or or I I I should actually say both had provided reduced parking or limited parking below what the minimums require. And one had proved successful in mitigating any spillover effects because they've had robust TDM programs.

So the demand that would have came for additional parking was then offset by the alternatives that were provided by the developer, right, by providing transit passes or rideshare subsidies or connections to the Mountain View Community Shuttle or Ambigo Shuttle. So it helped mitigate the demand for parking that just wasn't built out. And then you had another affordable housing project that did indeed have spillover effects. And, unfortunately, at that time, it was an earlier iteration of TDM requirements. So we didn't catch that project in requiring TDM.

And so they kind of had to retrofit a TDM program after the fact to kind of mitigate that impact. And what they'd seen after implementing some TDM measures was a mitigation of those spillover effects. So the idea is, like, we can certainly implement kind of these parking strategies and see how they work. And certainly with the data, we could understand what effects would happen, you know, with curb utilization studies, on-site parking, occupancy counts, and to see kind of where the demands happen and and shift people accordingly. But absent of that, I think it's it's an important strategy, but it's overall what we're doing at a citywide level to address parking.

And I think there's other strategies that are kind of in the offing as well that we're considering at a city level that are kind of beyond what we're working on here, which is, I think, a residential parking program. We also have the downtown parking strategy. So it's kind of seeing how all of those will kind of complement each other.

I also want to add

to that.

Sorry. Very quickly that, that's one of the benefits of the current framework with the core and the auxiliary. When we pair the auxiliary with those core, they're more effective. So the advertisement and the way finding of these strategies will help us in that, reduction.

And then I don't know if so I have two related questions. The next one, you may not have an answer, but it's kind of the but I'll throw it out there anyway. It's kind of the intersection of the last two questions. I I asked how the auxiliary strategies when there's parking reduction, how well do they work for, I feel like we're very focused on on childless people, people with children. You know, do do those programs tend to work? Because that's when people, frankly, really need cars or really that's when I bought my first car when I had kids. So how how do they address those concerns, and do they well?

We have added some strategies. Again, after going to EPC, we heard we got some good feedback there. We added strategies specifically for the childcare, things like additional storage for strollers and car seats and things to kind of help incentivize rideshare, availability. Again, the carpooling for the schools, it's not quite childcare, but it's that same age group. So we're trying to help think about everybody using.

We've also included the design element changes, so helping close some of our gaps for biking, walking, and those elements that might not have been, looked at as part of the design, but now will help with the whole transit element.

And then my last question is how does this intersect with the cities wanting to incentivize, electric cars and, you know, char car charging and putting more car charging in. Like, I don't even know if I if there was unbundled parking, but I wanted but there was also car charging. Do I have to pay for I pay for a space to charge my car? How does all that work? Because I can't conceptualize it.

So I'll try to tackle this question. I don't know if I have a direct answer, but I think you know, EVs are an important strategy. They're not the panacea that I think it's expected to be in terms of, like, reducing, you know, average daily trips or vehicle miles traveled. But we do have the city has adopted an EV strategy in which I think we're implementing, you know, in the places where we have control over our domain. And we've installed chargers, I think, citywide.

And, you know, the sustainability team has done great work in their EV strategy by incentivizing adoption of, ebikes. But to the point of I mean, we're not focused on EVs specifically. We're focused on reducing average daily trips. And even though conversion to an EV would be more sustainable, they are still generating trips in and of themselves. So it's it's kind of a a a balance. So I don't know if that goes to your question.

Yeah. So there's nothing specific to incentivize EVs as part of this plan because an EV is still part of our congestion. And the idea with the congestion management is is the the mode shift to something else. Right? So it's still classified as a vehicle and a vehicle trip. So there's no specific strategy for for the EV charging, but we can continue to explore. Again, it's an evergreen toolkit. So if there's something that comes up that may you know, we can definitely explore it.

Yeah. I know that it's not a part of the TDM, but I'm I would imagine that the two interact, and I'm trying to figure out how they interact.

If I might add too, I think, again, in services that the city has immediate domain over, you know, the community shuttle is a really wildly popular and successful service. You know, it averages almost a thousand passengers during the weekday. And so what we've been trying to do is electrify the service to zero emissions so that the miles that it it does do in service are zero emissions. So we've kinda made strides over that. At Inigo Way, we're installing four electric chargers, which would then help charge the four battery electric vehicles that we've recently come into possession.

So the idea is to provide alternative modes of transportation and have those modes of transportation be electric or full of zero emissions.

If I could jump in a second. So, really, the common thread between the EVs and the TDM is the reduction in greenhouse gases. Right? So the TDM, really, while we're focused on elimination, not or reduction of single occupancy vehicles, one of the side benefits is a reduction in greenhouse gases. Similarly, our policy with respect to EVs is focused on greenhouse gases. So that's where they they kind of, to use your word, to intersect.

Right. I'm trying to see how our various policies intersect and and but I think the rest of it will be for comments. So thank you very much.

Thank you, council member Hicks. Do we have any other questions from council? No other questions from my colleagues. We will now move on to public comment. Would any member of the public on the line or in person like to provide public comment on this item? If so, please turn in a blue speaker card or click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone. A timer will be displayed on your screen. Each speaker will have three minutes. So we have first up, Robert Cox.

Can you hear me? You can. Okay. Thank you, mayor Ramos, vice mayor Clark, and members of the city council for being able to comment on this. I think transportation demand management, the policy that we have before us, is great because it will help expand things citywide and also it will help streamline the approval of projects because we'll already have something in place rather than having to do this every time something comes up.

So that's really good. The one concern that I do have is over the course strategies. Most of them look really good. On the other hand, there was a few of them. In particular, the market rate residential parking pricing, unbundled parking costs, and limited parking supply strategies. That would be great if it actually reduced the number of cars that people own who live, say, like in a residential project. But what I'm concerned about is the case, like, for instance, let's take where I live in the downtown. Right? We have basically free parking almost everywhere throughout the downtown, and so then what happens is that somebody could just decide, Well, I don't want to pay for an expensive parking space inside my development. I'm just gonna park it on the street.

So it hasn't done anything to reduce greenhouse gases, but it has had a negative side effect when that happens and that is that we have less parking available for people who need to patronize our businesses, which we studied at livable Mountain View when we found out that about 75% of the people end up coming from outside of Mountain View to patronize our downtown. They're usually coming in cars. And if they don't have a place to park, that's not good. We're seeing a lot of challenges lately with projects that are happening now or will happen hopefully soon in the future. Good projects like the Lot 12 project for affordable housing or the hotel project on Lot 4.

And, you know, we're not immediately replacing the parking when these projects are happening, so parking supply is decreasing. And that's leading to things like double parking because people can't find an easy spot or parking too close to an intersection or a crosswalk now that we have the daylighting law or just parking in the red areas because people get frustrated. They just can't find a place to park. So, you know, I really want us to look hard at this. I appreciate the answers back from staff on the affordable housing projects.

On the other hand, I would say that, you know, affordable housing projects aren't typical of market rate projects where often people in affordable housing have a more flexible or reduced work schedule, and so it's easier for them to take advantage of these alternate methods. And as councilmember Hicks mentioned, I mean, when two when two adults in the household are working and then you add kids on top of that, that's a lot that's really where you get in the the place where, you know, I mean, people just don't have the extra time to use those extra methods. So please look carefully at those other things. Thank you.

Thank you. Next is Alexander Amoroso followed by James Kuzma followed by Kevin Ma.

Evening, counsel. Thank you. I'll be as brief as possible with this. Just to kind of echo what has been said before, I also am in total support of this, measure as well. I just have a couple of thoughts and questions for consideration for the council and the staff to put in mind.

So there was a lot of discussion. And, also, I'll open this up with my biggest concern is traffic because I live over there on El Camino Real, but in the Americana, and I feel that the traffic over there has just gotten worse. So and I'm also a big, public transportation guy. So if there could be options or strategy to expand, public transportation, for example, there's a lot of talk about the, community shuttle. So with the new housing projects coming into play, maybe we could borrow strategy that other cities have used where they build more bus stops closer to where these, new projects have been built.

So folks who can't drive or do not own a car can utilize that public transportation there, That could also reduce the effects of more motorists driving personal vehicles. So that's just one consideration as well. Also, like, you know, there's conversation about the rideshare. And the encouraging rideshare is great, but I was also kind of asking the question, is there possibly a city managed rideshare project in mind that could be utilized? Because I know San Francisco had tried to prototype that, something to consider as well.

And I will end with, the environmental consideration because we're talking about greenhouse gas reductions. And I would say that the best form of greenhouse gas reductions and preventions of environmental disaster is to not forget what makes, Mountain View great is our greenery and our protections on our natural habitat. So while we are pursuing these public transportation and, motor projects, we need to also make sure that we are protecting landscape. We are protecting the green spots on our roads. And, also, even if it leads to expansion of those green spots, that will also help with managing the greenhouse effect. So that's all. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next, we have James Kussmaul followed by Kevin Ma, and then we'll go on to virtual public comment.

Alright. Thank you. I am James Kuzma. I'm speaking on behalf of Mountain View Yimbey today. We do support the TDM ordinance, and we wanna emphasize that, like, the goal of this TDM ordinance is to do good planning.

We need to provide more housing. We're in a housing crisis. We have arena goals, and this is how we make sure that when we do this new housing, when we build more office space, more retail space, that people are able to travel in a sustainable way. And but that also means we need to make sure the TDM ordinance does not substantially disincentivize new housing given that very housing crisis, especially since new density, to a point that was mentioned, I can't remember by staff or by counsel, that more density means it's easier for more people to have destinations near where they live, so that is itself a reduction in vehicle miles traveled. We do appreciate the incorporation of feedback from the EPC, and which included some of the comments we made in our letters, including some reductions in the necessary ADT targets, as well as some additional core strategies for residential projects since historically residential projects have not been part of this, and the original toolkit was much more office focused.

We do want to be careful going forwards about the exact required ADT thresholds because we are concerned that they will end up being unrealistic for a residential project to meet while given the toolkit and given the budgets they have, but that is something we would hope to monitor and see how that works out. With that said, the low cost programs like parking reduction are outstanding. They are very well supported by, existing evidence from places that have done this and have seen reduced car ownership rates and reduced trip rates. So it's great to see that. We do hope as the toolkit calls out, it will be great if the city can also work on better managing the curb space when these projects happen so that those programs are even more effective.

But even without that, they will help, and we do see that even when there's not parking reduction, there is spillover onto streets. And as to to one of the questions that council member Hicks mentioned about, children, I do hope to see that some of the TMA funding helps to improve the community shuttle that has been so well used by some of our middle and high school students. And oh, one one comment we did have in our letter was it'd be great if the parking reductions can be made available to small projects that don't even have to comply with the TDM ordinance since there is that enhanced TDM threshold. If a small project can opt in and potentially get that option for parking reduction, that would be outstanding for our future sustainability and for the viability of, small projects, and we look forward to seeing how this program evolves. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we have Kevin Ma followed by Katie Patrick.

Evening, counsel. Speaking individual capacity, I support many things that James just mentioned. I'll just emphasize emphasize a few points. In the housing element specified, you should be looking at the cost of these regulations on the impact of housing. As of right now, it's not really there.

Right now, we specify, you know, rough ranges of how costly there is. But as Pat's question mentioned, you know, some of these details are under NDA, which basically means no one knows until they actually happen. So I would wish that as the regulations get administratively approved, I would do look into further impact modeling about how much do these actually cost to an actual development we can imagine because, it's in the housing and in part because parking is expensive. And we do we do wanna make sure that housing can be made more affordable, especially given the economic climate we're in, and that does require that the regulations be reasonable and with methodology. Methodology also matters because there's some fuzziness with the numbers that will be impactful because as mentioned also, we're facing a time of ministerial approvals, which means they have to be reasonable to the average person.

For making active grant use, you know, just a 2% ADT reduction is a little bit arbitrary, and there's just not a lot of data inside the materials that demonstrate why 2% was chosen and which seems kind of arbitrary to a lot of people. And that does need to be made upfront for a developer

who has to

look through these new regulations to see how they can match to the twenty, thirty, forty percent, which I do agree with staff was a good idea to reduce it for all residential. To answer a point from council member Hicks, under unbundled parking doesn't mean they don't have parking. It just means that when you have the unit, you have to

get the

parking separately. So that means if there is an EV charging spot, you do have to, you know, separately rent that out. So that is an option. Though, as mentioned from SAP, EVs are separate from the TDM goals because it's still a trip by car. And I I do I do wish that, we do monitor the outcome of this so that we can determine, you know, how impactful these strategies really are in reality and to a bigger, broader point, how much parking demand do developments really have? Because the only official answer is the IT trip generation manual, which for a lot of people is an abomination of statistics, And I do wish that we do have some local data we can rely on. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we have Katie Patrick before we go on to virtual comments.

Hi. I am here, to represent one of these rare breeds of people who does not own a car, and I also live in an older multifamily building. I have a child, and I have a dog. And I managed to survive putting my small child and my dog on my bike, and it is remarkably difficult to get my bike down the stairs, down the elevator, and out the door. It's so hard, in fact, that I despite probably not being the best parent getting my child my small child to do it as well, we have to carry the bike, pull this heavy door open, hold it open with one foot, then get the bike out and then kick it again before it closes on us, and then do that again when you get in and then when you get out.

And then the front door, to the building, we have to then do it again. So it's three times. It's impossibly difficult. The only reason I do it is because I'm a bicycle diehard, and there has to be a way to enforce multifamily buildings to build secure bike storage. So we don't need to go through this, and I'd love to see that incorporated into the plan.

I understand that we do have bike storage in for new developments. But why is it so hard to enforce existing multi buildings like where I live to just put in a shed so I can lock my bike in there and not have it stolen? So people like me who wanna go car free, well, we can do it. It's literally impossible to live a car free life if you live in a building like mine. Well, not literally impossible, but almost completely impossible to just get your bike in and out of the building unless we can get property developer or the property owners to just sacrifice just one parking space and put in a shed.

It's should hardly cost anything. It should not be any financial barrier at all. It's just a I don't know where exactly you fit it into the the the policy process to enforce these things on existing buildings, but through my lived experience, this would make a huge difference to my daily ability to live car free.

Thank you. Now we will go to virtual public comment. Karen Berkey.

Hi. So I'm going to echo a little bit of what others have said, but I'm going to come from someone who has to have a car. I have two young children. And I think any of these programs, you renew this TDM and and then add any of these new additional things, the constant problem I hear from other people that live in other neighborhoods or that live in other condo complexes or apartment complexes is that there's never enough parking. And the spillover into the street, as others have mentioned, happens a lot.

I think that it's a massive barrier to a lot of people, especially when you have below market rate housing, which, let's be frank, that really doesn't actually save people very much money when people still don't make enough money and the below market rate is still so incredibly high, and it's not really that affordable at all. To then force them to pay separately for parking is ridiculous. And so people are going to be pinching their pennies and figuring out how the heck do I not pay whatever the heck it is per month even if it's reduced. They're gonna park on the street where it's free. So then you get the complaints from all the people visiting the area or that are parking just to come to a business nearby, and then there's no parking.

And so then you have all these double parking and all these other problems. So if we're trying to consider families with children, which I'm sorry, you still need a car. Almost everyone needs a freaking car around here. You can't get around to doctor's appointments and all these other things without a car. So I think that any new builds of affordable housing and anything like that that's included in this, the parking in the building should be garage parking underneath the complex or on the site, and it should be free for one car each unit.

One car each unit should have a free spot included with their rent for any builds that the city does at all, and there should be incentivizing things for existing buildings that are gonna get converted or that are owned by private owners to provide one free spot and tell them they'll get I don't know. Do something to help incentivize them to do that as one car spot per unit so that we can try to mitigate how much parking problems we have because you can't make everyone be car free. Some people might, but not everyone can. So it's like we need to balance that with our green emissions problems we have, but also face the reality of what families like mine face every day, which is that parking is a huge massive factor. So if you could please consider that, when you're talking about parking reduction, that would be great.

Thank you.

Thank you. And that seems to end public comments. I will now bring this item back for council questions and deliberation. Please note that a motion to approve the recommendation should also include the reading, reading the title of the ordinance attached to the report. Council member Ramirez.

Thank you, mayor. That will only until we approve the charter modernization, which will mean we will no longer have to read, the ordinance, into the record. I'm going to, move to approve the staff recommendations, including introduce an ordinance of the city council of the city of Mountain View, repealing and reenacting article 10 of chapter 19 of the Mountain View City Code to establish a new transportation demand management program with modifications to section one twenty one, definition 11, and section one twenty four. Is that I or l? I.

Thank you. And finding the amendments to be exempt from CEQA, pursuant to CEQA guidelines section one five three zero eight to be read in title only, further reading waived, and set a second reading for May. I hope I integrated the the two, prompts here accurately. First, I wanna share my appreciation to to staff for working on on this ordinance. I know it was a long time coming.

I really appreciate the thoughtful deliberations from the EPC and the CTC and also, the comments from from the public. I've I've, spent a lot of time talking with staff, and I feel very comfortable in my understanding of, the ordinance and the program. I'm really grateful for the long list of thoughtful core strategies, which I think that this TDM ordinance is not going to solve all of the city's problems, but by including core strategies like active ground floor uses and amenities and active transportation gap closure improvements, we provide an incentive to developers to voluntarily to help them voluntarily, they could pick from these. Right? But to select from this menu options that help achieve community goals.

Right? We want mixed use development, which is increasingly hard to require because of the erosion of local control. And we want things like investment in transportation that we may not be able to require in certain circumstances, but some developers may voluntarily elect to do so to meet their TDM obligations, but also to provide a benefit to their future residents or, in some cases, right, to future employees. So I think there's there's a if anything, I would say, you know, for for each of those, a few percentage points higher higher would be great because it would more likely incentivize the selection of those particular strategies. But I think most importantly, staff has been very clear that this is a living document.

I'm really glad that these aren't hard coded into the ordinance, meaning that we have to, you know, go back to EPC and council every single time we need to amend the core strategy. The TDM toolkit will will be continuously up updated as you receive the data that we'll be collecting and monitoring. It it's it's just a much more robust program than what we've been able to deploy on a, you know, case by case or site by site circumstance. So this is, I think, a a very strong foundation for future work. I'm very happy with where it's landed.

It includes core strategies that I think will achieve other goals, that sometimes the council has struggled with in, land use review. And it allows, staff to update it with the flexibility that you need as you learn more, right, to adjust these numbers, to add new strategies, to to make sure that we're implementing a robust TDM program that achieves the goals that we've set out. So with that, I'm happy to, move to approve the the, staff recommendations, and I'm very eager eager to see how it plays out over the next, you know, ten, fifteen years. Thank you.

Thank you, council member Ramirez. Council member Shawwalter.

Yeah. I just like to follow-up on a few things that council member Ramirez said. First of all, I really was very pleased with your answer, mister Paco, about what you're gonna do with the monitoring. I think that monitoring for monitoring sake is a waste of everybody's time and money. But monitoring so that you learn how the system works and you improve the system is really valuable.

So that made me feel very good. It's it's, you know, it's just really a good practice. Following along with that, there is this big kind of open ended question here of what on earth is this going to cost? So I really think that as much as is possible, we should include the cost of running this program in the monitoring. And I, you know, certainly leave it to you to figure out how to do that.

But, we don't want this program to be a deterrent to anyone building housing. We wanted to make our housing better. And I think that this is, kinda part and parcel of the the sort of statewide push that we have to make objective standards for things. And, you know, that's we're writing down lots of ideas that people can go to and we can go to and to make you know, to be transparent. But it's really good that it's a living document because applying this so broadly is, is very different from what we've done before.

I mean, in the past, we've done it in the North Bayshore area primarily. And that is much in a sense, you know, those those companies and and their needs for transportation are much more standardized, and they're different than the residential needs. So, you know, we're going to have to, kind of work through that. It's not not gonna be a simple task. And another thing I wanted to bring up along with cost is that the cost to the city of Mountain View of evaluating this is not gonna be free.

We are going to have to make sure that that that staff time, both the skill and the money to do it is in the budget. And I just like to bring that up. I think it's, you know, it's been my experience. If it it's not somebody's job to do something, it doesn't get done. I think it's gonna be important that it's assigned to somebody.

So I just I just wanna mention that. And, I would also say that, you know, we collect data, typically on a annual basis because, that's that just works well. People think in calendar times. But in terms of really learning from data, it's often more episodic. And in this case, I think the episodes will be the development of some big projects that get finished and are utilizing it.

So it will be be interesting to see whether, you know, you think the first big evaluation of this should be after three years or five years or five projects or whatever. But but I think that, you know, there should be thought in in engineering thought into when that is the appropriate time, to and then when you do that, it'll also be time to say, okay. Well, maybe the monitoring, program that we have had to date isn't isn't quite right anymore, and we'll change it. So, with that, I I would, like to say thank you, and, I look forward to supporting this.

Thank you, council member Shewwalter. Council member Hicks?

Yes. So I wanna echo what council member Shewwalter said. I I this is a program that I will happily be I will happily be supporting the motion and the program, and I I thank you for all your work on it. I I guess the things that I wanna call attention to are, first, I'm really happy that it's evergreen, And just kind of the things that I mentioned in my line of questioning, I think the, elements of the toolkit that can that we can focus on because it has this commuter history is some of the the, some of the travel needs of, of people who are not commuters, people in their other aspects of their life, whether it's, you know, whether it's shuffling children around, or whether it's I have a young adult who's looking for their first job, you know, in a car can expand that search, you know, probably a hundredfold, to be honest with you. I take care of a senior parent, who lives in Walnut Creek.

I don't get to choose where she lives, and it's an I can't take the Ambigo shuttle to go visit her. And I've checked out how what it would take to take mass transit or a bike, and it would be five hours both ways, so a ten hour trip. And then once I get there, I would have to do her errands. So there are many people who, you know, who who still need to use cars. And so I wanna be mindful of the various needs and not too punitive.

I I, remember when I first moved from my the suburban neighborhood I grew up with in to the Bay Area and was thrilled at the abundance of transit options that I had without without a car. And that's kind of the flavor that I would like this the our TDM program to take on, that it's not punitive, that it understands the various needs that people have, and that it that it tries to address I know you can't address all of those needs, but that we have an ever expanding toolkit that, meets the needs of the diversity of people that we that we have living in our community. Let me see if I had any last notes after that. Oh, clipper cards. I would love it if you worked on I think council member Showalter brought this up, but also senior clipper cards, any which are very difficult to get and change people's habits once they get them.

And also any sort of discount programs for, I stopped using mass transit a lot when I had kids and were I was transporting their friends around because bring six kids on a, you know, on a on light rail and it costs you a lot of money. So anything that can reduce the price and incentivize those kinds of out of car trips, I would really appreciate. Thank you.

Thank you, council member Hicks. Are you wanting to speak, council member McAllister? Yeah. Okay. I'm just gonna let you go.

Update for you.

Go ahead, council member McAllister.

Yeah. So, mister council member Ramirez, I support your motion. Keep it simple, and we go forward. Thank you. I support TDM.

I support the project, but I always have that cautionary tale. And you're starting to grin, so you know where I'm going. But 2014, when the North Bayshore was booming and the cars were coming and traffic was going down 85, and we had to come up with solutions because people were taking the trains, and we had all these people trying to get from the train station to their area. We came up with a TDM for North Bayshore, and that was easy to, monitor because there was only three entrances into the area. And so we were able to check them and help them implement their one of the best transit systems that you could think of for businesses.

Google had their bus systems that went throughout the Bay Area. Intuit had their bus systems going throughout the area. And so they took over, private busing where the public couldn't do it. VTA didn't reach out to the areas. Light rail is, light rail, very slow.

Caltrain was coming along and doing pretty good. Now they had a shuttle to the North Bayshore. So we we got to the point where it was starting to work, then COVID came, and then jobs went to, isolated. So it was it took a hit, and it was interest and so I sorta call this a concept, not a a plan because a concept a plan means that you're actually gonna get something done. And you got a lot of great tools in this thing, and you got a lot of ideas.

But unless you have enforcement, you may have someone to do it, but unless you have somebody to enforce it and penalize them and make peep put some meat into this, plan, it's not gonna work. And when we had our CTC, I asked one of the city staff. It says, has anybody been fined? And they said no. So from '24 2014 to 2026, that's, like, twelve years, it's it's, I'm always concerned about we put in these regulations.

We put in this good intent, but there's no meat to it, no enforcement, and nothing really gets accomplished. And so I know staff time is very precious to us now, and so I hope with all these strategies, everybody says this is good, duh duh. Unless there's enforcement, you gotta hold somebody's feet

to the

fire. And I mentioned the last time we were talking about a great plan, and we don't want it in the someone said, oh, we gotta have someone to be in charge of this. Well, that's good, but those people that are in charge got about five other plans that they're working on. And I believe in public transit. I believe that the city should really develop its internal transit system. I've always been pushing our well, we can't rely on VTA. They have no money. They're hurting like the dickens. And so once we oh, we can take out the cars. People will rely on cars as you say.

There's not a lot of the big jobs around here if you put it in there. So we can't rely on VTA. We can't rely on people not parking their cars, and that's another concern I have is, you know, they need their cars. And so and I also believe in the quality of life. And if you don't take the car, you say, oh, you don't need a car, then they're parking on the street.

So bottom line, see what you can do. Start with the first person you get is the enforcement, and figure out who's gonna do it. And don't if you go to the public works and say, you're gonna be doing it, great, but follow through on it. And so I hope it becomes from a concept to a implementation to a working model because it does have a lot of great things for it. And so that's my, word to the wise.

Thank you, council member McAllister. Thank you, staff, for your work on this. I have been recently attempting since I live alone and a single Pringle with no spawn of my own to try to take more public transit and not be as reliant on my car. I understand that it is more difficult than I anticipated, and, I love that we are taking steps, one, to to to find ways to make that easier for people structurally. That's kind of like the hope with, some of these TDMs.

Some some of my colleagues know that I've been complaining about them when I trade like, recently, I tried to do a Costco trip by taking public transit only. That's that's an adventure. But thank you for your work on this, and I hope that it will help bring our car trips down as a community and, in return, give us a better clean air and a better environment, moving forward. So thank you so much, and we are ready for the roll call vote. City clerk?

Councilmember Ramirez?

Yes.

Vice mayor Clark?

Yes.

Councilmember Hicks? Yes. Councilmember Camay? Yes. Councilmember McAllister? Yes. Councilmember Schwalter? Yes. Mayor Ramos? Yes. Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you. With that, I am going to do a ten minute break. It is currently 08:38. We'll, reconvene at 08:48.

And

Alright, you guys. We're gonna start to get started. Alright. We're gonna move on to item 6.2, code amendment to chapter 36, zoning below market rate housing program. First reading. Housing specialist two, Anna Reynoso, and affordable housing manager, Julie Barnard, will present the item. If you would like to speak on this item in person, please submit the blue speaker card to the city clerk now. Go ahead.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and council members. My name is Anna Reynoso, housing specialist two. And this evening, I'm joined by affordable housing manager Julie Barnard, housing director Wayne Chen, and joining us virtually is Darren Smith with Economic Planning Systems. This evening, we will be presenting ordinance amendments to the below market rate, also referred to as BMR program. This evening, we will be reviewing some background, the amendments, and sharing an updated recommendation.

The BMR program refers to inclusionary units that are integrated within market rate developments, not projects that are a 100% affordable housing. The city has a 15% BMR requirement for rental and ownership projects and a 25% requirement for townhome and rowhome projects. Residential projects that create more than seven units provide on-site integrated BMR units at different AMI levels. Developers may pursued an alternative compliance in place of providing on-site BMR units. Currently, this is achieved through land dedication, off-site unit delivery, and in lieu fees.

The city's housing element program 1.9 requires two reviews of the BMR program in the eight year cycle under five criteria as presented to council in December 2023 and November 2025. We have approached the BMR ordinance modifications in two phases. In phase one, completed in February 2025, council approved the initial set of cleanup items. Council's review of phase two follow-up items occurred this past November. Council approved staff recommendations and made two friendly amendments.

The first related to the graduated fee exemption, which will be discussed later. The second amendment directed staff to evaluate the feasibility of including in the administrative guidelines staff discretion to grant an extension of delivery for alternative compliance options of up to six months if the developer is working in good faith. As part as part of the phase two on 03/04/2026, staff presented to EPC the BMR amendments approved by council in November 2025. EPC supported staff's recommendation with two modifications to the alternative means of compliance. The first modification adds a provision to endure to ensure development partners with alternative compliance proposals meet appropriate qualifications and standards.

These will be discussed in a few moments. The second modification asks staff to conduct additional evaluation to ensure off alternative compliance proposals do not contribute to the geographic concentration of lower income households. After the EPC meeting, staff further evaluated the HCD opportunity maps and other maps and determined the recommended map would address EPC concerns about overconcentration. Therefore, staff recommends keeping the recommended map. In December 2023, council directed staff to study options to improve the physical accessibility of BMR units.

In November 2025, based on the analysis completed, council approved the staff recommendation to regard require 15% of BMR units or a minimum of one unit to be accessible. Since then, there have been no changes to this amendment. Amendment two establishes updated requirements for an applicant proposing alternative means of compliance. Since November, there have been no changes to the general requirements applicable to all alternative means of compliance proposals. The requirements shown were approved by council in November 2025.

As such, we will address new items which are indicated in red boxes. The housing element opportunity site has been added to the location requirements. All other requirements for land dedication remain up unchanged since November. To align the location requirements for land dedication, the addition of a housing element opportunity site has been added to the location requirement for off-site development. EPC provided in input to ensure that partner qualifications do not undermine the delivery or quality of affordable housing.

Based on staff analysis, staff is recommending minimum threshold requirements if an applicant chooses to work with a partner to deliver alternative compliance via off-site unit delivery. Alternative compliance for acquisition and preservation has no changes except the addition of a partner threshold requirement in the event the applicant proposes to partner with a third party for this option. And now I will hand it over to affordable housing manager Julie Barnard for the remaining portion.

Good evening. For the third amendment, staff recommend using, the California construction cost index as the appropriate escalator index, and some other revisions to the fees as discussed in November 2025. The fourth amendment addresses the remaining cleanup items that were not incorporated into the February 2025 update. These include clarifying the weighted average for the AMI limits and updating the administering department from CVD to housing. Staff recommends no changes to the November 2025 council direction for this, fifth amendment, which includes removing the HOA reserve fund.

Amendment number six relates to the graduated fee reduction. Staff initially introduced a graduated fee reduction schedule, which was presented in November 2025. To recap, projects up to six units currently pay the in lieu fee. Once a project reaches seven units, a full unit must be BMR unit must be delivered. During the prior council review, staff recommended incorporating a graduated fee reduction for small projects, meaning that the more units a developer builds up to a maximum of six, the lower the per unit fee.

The intent of this initiative is to incentivize developers of small projects to maximize the development potential of their sites and also to further housing element goal 2.2 pilot ADU and SB nine financial incentives programs. At the November 2025 city council meeting, council passed a motion to recommend that staff analyze two actions. The first action was to analyze adjusting the graduated fee reduction to work proportionally with the maximum number of units physically possible for a project. In order to determine how to calculate this, staff recommends using the base densities under the general plan and zoning designations as well as the provisions in s p six eighty four to establish the maximum legally allowed density. The graduated fee reduction would then be scaled proportional to the number of units that are legally allowed.

This approach retains the original intent of the greater the density, the lesser the fee, but also customizes the approach to site specific densities. The table compares two scenarios, the first being a project with a legally allowable maximum density of six units and the second with four. As you see here, the graduated fee reduction scales accordingly with the number of units that could have been built. To illustrate, if the developer has a site with a maximum density of six units and opts to develop only four units, they would get a 60% reduction, versus paying no fees if they were to maximize the density. So, therefore, staff recommends using the legally allowed development density to calculate the number of units that are physically possible for a project and then scaling the fee reduction schedule accordingly.

The second action was to evaluate the feasibility of incorporating the graduated fee reduction with maximizing the development potential of small sites up to 10 units and return to council with options. Council directed staff to review projects of up to 10 units because there are state laws that allow by rights subdivisions of up to 10 units under s b six eighty four. Staff conducted a preliminary evaluation and have determined that additional analysis is needed. We propose doing this through the low and middle income homeownership strategy since projects of up to 10 units are often oriented towards ownership models and then returning to council with options also in the 2028 BMR review. The final amendment amends the ordinance to allow BMR updates to the BMR program guidelines to occur administratively rather than requiring a council resolution as currently written.

Staff recommends no changes to the November 2025 council direction for this amendment. In November 2025, council directed staff to evaluate relocating the BMR ordinance from the zoning code to the housing chapter of the municipal code. The intent is to better align the ordinance with the housing department's administration of the program and consolidated with other housing related ordinances such as the Trejo and the MHRESO. Staff initially recommended retaining the ordinance in chapter 36 as we could not determine how the change would impact the BMR program. Since the EPC hearing in March, staff has conducted that the relocation is feasible and would help streamline future updates.

Staff, therefore, recommends relocation with the amendment anticipated to return to council before the 2026. As a reminder, these are the several seven general topics of modifications to the ordinance that council are considering this evening. If the recommendation is approved, the ordinance second reading will occur on consent on June 9 with the ordinance becoming effective thirty days thereafter. So finally, staff recommends that city council introduce an ordinance amending chapter 36 as it relates to the BMR program and the proposed amendments presented tonight and to set a second reading for 06/09/2026 and also to approve relocating the BMR pro program provision from chapter 36 to 46. With that concludes staff's presentation.

We're available for questions, and we can turn it back to the mayor.

Thank you. Does any member of the council have questions? Going once, going twice. Alright. We will now go oh, wait. Council member Showalter.

I was having trouble getting the screen to change here. Yeah. I I asked this question, and you answered it a little bit in your presentation. But I'm gonna ask it again just to make sure that I understand it. And that is, can you please explain the timing of the delivery of the alternative site affordable housing and the possible flexibility and who determines it?

Right. I may also ask director Chen just to verify my understanding of where we, what we've discussed. But, currently, the what we presented to you in November was that the certificates of occupancy needed to occur concurrently. Exactly. You requested a six month, extension.

Staff did their due diligence. We've all decided that, yes, we agree. Six month isn't enough. As written, it would allow, rather than the certificates of occupancy, occurring concurrently, providing the off-site, project was under construction or about to be, under construction, like, that would that would meet the requirements. There would also there's another provision that, the approval body at the at the time would have the discretion to extend the timing.

Like, we're in concurrence that we wouldn't want to hold back a project that's about to be constructed or about to be delivered because they're just a few months or even, you know, a year from construction commencing. But we do want some kind of accountability to make sure that the units are delivered.

Okay. And and so the approval body would be the housing staff? Right. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Well, thank you. That's clear.

Any other questions from my colleagues? Seeing none, we're gonna move on to public comment. Would any member of the public on the line or in person like to provide comment on this item? If so, please turn in a blue speaker card or click the raise hand button in Zoom or press 9 on your phone. A timer will be displayed on the screen. Each speaker will have three minutes. I see no in person public oh. Oh, okay. So they just popped up magically. Alright. Robert Cox, followed by Alexander Amoroso, followed by Kevin Ma.

Alright. Mayor Ramos, vice mayor Clark, and members of city council, I'm here to say make a comment and not say anything negative, believe it or not. In particular, I just wanted to call out, you know, as I wrote in the letter about amendment two, add requirements for alternative means of compliance. I think this is really great. And the reason I do is I remember when I was on the EPC and we talked about the idea that, okay, we have these BMR requirements, but we're gonna need to have an alternative because who knows?

Somebody might be able to propose something better. Well, that's true, and yet I'm thinking in the back of my mind how easy is it gonna be to evaluate that it's actually of greater use than what the standard would be. And I've seen cases where, you know, proposals have come into the Council kind of like at the last minute and staff really hasn't had a chance to evaluate and then Council, I feel, sometimes ends up making decisions in the dark about whether it's really better or really not. But adding new requirements, particularly ones when you have an affordable housing developer that's partnering with the market rate developer and that affordable housing developer has to have real credibility like no bankruptcies, no outstanding criminal indictments, or whatever. You know, it really is gonna make it happen.

So thank you for making those changes, and I look forward to your voting yes.

Next, we have Alexander Amoroso followed by Kevin Ma.

Evening again, counsel. Much like the previous, note, this is all in support for this, measure. Just a couple of notes for consideration to, take in mind. So as much as I do support affordable housing, because in my opinion, in the one of the wealthiest areas, countries, states in the world, people who are not housed is a crime. So I very much support more affordable housing to be built.

However, there is something to be taken into consideration to not take our eye off the ball when it comes to just housing period because a lot of the problems we do see when it comes to building up more and more affordable housing is that I'm tracking that this is gonna be another one of those projects where people of a certain income are only gonna be allowed to apply as opposed to having more general housing where lower, middle, high class can apply to live here. So making sure that we don't, bottleneck that market of housing and make sure that we're still working on those projects. And, also, something of consideration for this housing project is an expansion on what I've seen here in the city, which is the profession housing. So much like what we see over on Shoreline where you have that housing for teachers and professionals, maybe we can also have some housing for trade tradesmen and, service based employees. So we're also bringing essential workers to the city, but also providing housing for that, which is a whole other separate market away from the general housing issue.

So, again, just something to consider, add to this project. I completely support it, and we the only thing we can do is make it better.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kevin Ma.

Evening again, counsel. I would like to comment regarding the letter that David sent for Mount UMB. We would like to echo I would like to echo the point about I do believe that we should consider doing the 10 unit fee exemption now rather than waiting one and a half years. There's an opportunity cost for delay, which is especially bad given there's basically no small unit development in the city at this point. You know?

The last condo project, 918 Rich, is probably not gonna move ahead at this point given it's been two years and it's probably near expiry. So I do believe that we should jump start the ability for small developers, like some that have come before you or before EPC to see if they can get some kind of fee exemption just because at this point, for those kind of projects, the affordable housing fee or the BMR in lieu is one of the biggest impediments the city itself has posed. And that may be a thing for to also consider for the 2028 BMI reviews just whether we do need to recalculate the inclusionary zoning requirements we do set. For example, San Francisco does their checks every three years, and they, at this point, probably look lower inclusionary zoning requirement than we do, which is interesting. So I I do wish to see these changes to go ahead because there are other changes that do impact developers such as the equal to a 100% AMI, but we do need to recalculate the fees and our regulations given economic conditions.

Thank you.

Thank you. We will move on to virtual speakers. Karen Berkey.

Hi. So I don't know as much about this very, very specifics of this BMR program, but what I will tell you is that there was a lot of discussion about new developments that would have BMR housing. I wanna know if we are ever going to make existing units in other apartment complexes or condo complexes, force them to start providing more BMR or affordable housing units. Because all these projects are gonna get marred in permits and the building and the all these things, and it's gonna take years. And we need housing right now.

I'm unfortunately in an apartment that, of course, we are at the six units or less. So not only are we not protected by the Rental Stabilization Act whatsoever that was passed shortly before we moved here in 2020 or 2018, I'd say. And we also did you know, even if they built something this that small that's new, it still looks like it's not like, there's a way for them to get around it. That's the part that I'm annoyed with. The California Apartment Association has a lot of influence probably now and also in the past over the housing developments that are approved in this city.

And I really would like to see a bigger push from our council with this measure and others like it to push for more higher percentages of below market rate and affordable housing. Because our apartment if our landlady who's just a random homeowner that owns this property, if she decided to raise the rent on us and jack it up, we would be screwed. We live in the Montaloma neighborhood. Other equivalent housing is 500 to 1,000 to $2,000 more a month, and we are a one income household with two children. There is no way that I we can do that.

So I urge you, counsel, to pass this measure and just try to think if there's a way to include it, if you can have staff look at it, of how can you get more BMR units added that aren't dependent on something having to be built. Why do people have to wait more time than we've already had to wait? We shouldn't have to. There are already existing units. And I know that now that the condos are exempt from that rent stabilization act, guess what was built on Middlefield And Rock Street all around me?

They tore down those really old con apartment complexes that were more affordable, and now they're all condos that are for sale. There's no BMR. There's no affordable. There's no nothing. So there has to be more done for the existing units. Thank you.

Thank you. I see no other public comment. I will now bring the item back for council questions and deliberation. Please note that a motion to approve the recommendation should also include reading the title of the ordinance attached to the report for now. Alright. Council member Ramirez.

Thank you, mayor. I I'm happy to move the staff recommendations including introducing ordinance of the city council of the city Of Mountain View amending chapter 36 zoning, article 14 division two residential development below market rate housing program of the Mountain View City code to modify the below market bay below market rate housing program and add section thirty six point forty point thirty two governing graduated fee reduction for small projects in finding that these code amendments are not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act to be read and title only for the reading waived and set a second reading for 06/09/2026. Ordinarily, I I you probably know me as a meddler. I like to make little changes. I'm not doing that tonight for either of these ordinances because staff did great work.

I do have a couple of quick comments. First, I have I had forgotten to say in the previous item, but, fortunately, council member Showalter mentioned it, the inclusion of objective standards is is a great improvement in a lot of the ordinances that we are now bringing to council for approval. I asked a question about, how, we would, approve projects under a ministerial or administrative approval process using an alternative compliance option, and staff provided very helpful response. And I think that's in part because of this, concerted effort to introduce objective standards in all of our regulations, which make our regulations more robust, more defensible, more in line with state law, and this is tremendous progress. I also, am very happy with the, staff recommendation to return, later, to take this program out of the zoning ordinance and, include it in the housing ordinance that, we're beginning to flesh out, to make it easier to amend in the future.

This is, you know, phase two of this work, but it's not the end of the work that we're doing on the BMR program update. So I'm very excited for additional work that I know staff will be doing over the next few years. And I want to acknowledge I should have done this also for the previous item, just as our transportation planning staff are heavily impacted, there's a lot of important work, and we don't have enough people. That's also true for housing. And I just wanna express my appreciation to the director, Wayne Chen, and also your team. I wish we could keep all of you forever. I know that's not gonna happen, but for as long as we're able to benefit from from your work, you're doing phenomenal work in the city of Mount View. And I just wanna express my gratitude and my support for for the work that you are doing. Thank you.

Thank you, council member Ramirez. Council member Scholwalter.

Well, ditto what council member Ramirez said, particularly about the objective standards. I think that that, this is also a way that, under, the the state laws that have been enacted that we we continue to exert local control. And one of the things that we do locally is, really create a community, a good community through our planning. And this is a way we're doing that. So I'm I'm I'm delighted to see it.

I've been working on BMR stuff since the nineties when I was on the planning commission. And I it's one of the things that I'm really proud of because there have been, there's been a lot of good done by the, the BMR funds that we, we, have collected over the years and utilized to make quite a bit of affordable housing. So I'm really proud of this program. But it's it's it's good too that it's not a static program. It needs to change with the times.

And so this is an opportunity for us to update it appropriately. And I, you know, I'm really supportive of that. At the same time, I think that, it's it's important to continue to monitor how this is, or to monitor how this is working. It's been going on for a long time, and we're making a an important change here. And I think that in the next three to five years, we should monitor this program and and see how it's, it's working and come back with an evaluation of, is it doing what we wanna do?

So that is the only suggestion that I would like to make to this is that we, you know, we include, monitoring of of the program so that we can, you know, we can, judge its effectiveness. And that would be things like, you know, how many people were helped by the programs, how much it costs, how many units we produce. I don't think it's necessarily information that we don't have, but I'm not sure we've ever, evaluated, you know, how who do we help and and how much do we help. So I would really like us to kind of plan to do that the next time we do an evaluation. And, and then the other thing is it seems like it's part of the program is it's it's really important to make clear guidelines.

And I understand that that's, you know, that's part of this. So that is excellent. Thank you very much.

Thank you, council member Schowalter. I believe we have a motion by council member Ramirez and a second by council member Schowalter. I believe council member Ramirez, you still have to read the items that, did you already read it? He did already read it. I must have blanked out on that. But we are ready for a vote. Council, city

clerk? Councilmember Ramirez?

Yes.

Councilmember Shelwalter? Yes. Councilmember Hicks? Yes. Councilmember Camay? Yes. Councilmember McAllister?

Yes.

Vice mayor Clark?

Yes.

Mayor Ramos? Yes. Motion carries unanimously. Yay.

Good votes today, you guys. Alright. We are now moving on to item seven, council staff and committee reports. Do we have any council staff and committee reports? I'm seeing none. Oh, sorry. Council member Showalter.

Just a quick one. I wanna share that I attended Stanford's sustainability forum, on April 29 and April, on May 1. And, it was the the first day of it was the, the sustainability summit of the DOOR School, and it was it was kind of as the DOOR School has been of sustainability was founded seven years ago, and this was kind of a celebration of that, founding and description of what it does. And I was just blown away. It it really is a a very comprehensive and and and powerful program on so many levels.

And I, I look forward to us. You know, I knew that we do have some fellows from Stanford, and we do some research from time to time. But, this, this was just really a wonderful thing to to be able to take part in and, one of the advantages of kind of living here. So and and the one on Friday was about, data centers and, and how what their impact will be and particularly on power. So that was in line with, my, representation of Mountain View on Silicon Valley clean energy. Thanks.

Thank you. Council member Scholwalter, vice mayor Clark.

Very briefly, I'm also required to report that I attended the data center summit at Stanford on May 1 Friday, May 1.

Oh, cool.

Alright. I'll just mention briefly, April 30, I we had CNC, a grant meeting reception. So those recommendations will be coming toward you all, very quickly. Then on May 1, there was the Cuesta neighborhood meeting, to talk about when we met with the residents about the water main incident. May 2, I did opening remarks for the multicultural festival and was joined by council member Kamay as well, with her lovely children running around, learning culture.

And then, May 6, we had a CPPC meeting. May 7, I was actually a judge for the Los Altos Mountain View Community Foundation event. They, awarded a, united effort, with a $25,000 check, for their work, and, their theme was live where you work and how do we, do that. And then, on May 8, I introduced, congressman Liccardo for the Leadership Mountain View graduation. I see a hand from council member Kameh.

Thanks, mayor. I I completely forgot that I need to report that I attended our council, transportation committee meeting last Tuesday, May 5. And then I attended one day of the two day making democracy work and welcoming cities convening at Stanford. It was great to see members of our staff that are talking about what we can do to be a welcoming city. Thank you.

Thank you, council member Kameh. And with that, the next city council meeting will be held on May 24. This meeting is adjourned at 09:29PM, which is the earliest I've ever adjourned the meeting. Whoo.