Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

August 19th, 2026. We will call the meeting to order at 7 p.m. For those joining us in person, please note that due to our hybrid environment, audio and video presentations can no longer be shared from the lectern. Requests to show an audio or video presentation during the meeting should be directed to epc at mountainview.gov by 4.30 p.m. on the meeting date. Additionally, due to our hybrid environment, we will no longer have speakers line up to speak on an item. Anyone wishing to address the EPC in person must complete a yellow speaker card. Please indicate the name you would like to be called by when it is your turn to speak and the item number on which you wish to speak. Please complete one yellow speaker card for each item on which you wish to speak and turn them in to the EPC clerk as soon as possible, but no later than the call for public comment on the item you are speaking on. Instructions for addressing the commission virtually may be found on the posted agenda. And now I will ask the EPC clerk to proceed with the roll call, please.

Commissioner Subramanian?

Here.

Commissioner Gutierrez? Commissioner Pham?

Here.

Commissioner Demson?

Here.

Commissioner Kernstein? Here. Vice Chair Donahue? Here. Chair Nunez? Here.

What's the final roll, Mr. Clerk?

All commissioners are present with the exceptions of Commissioner Gutierrez.

Thank you very much. Okay. Having concluded item number two, we'll move on to number three, which is the minutes approval. So item 3.1 is the Environmental Planning Commission meeting minutes of March 4th, 2026 and April 15th, 2026. unless there's any Commission discussion on the minutes. If anyone would like to make a public comment, then please provide, if you'd like to provide comments on the minutes, please fill out a yellow speaker card and provide it to the EPC clerk. If anyone on Zoom would like to provide comment on the minutes, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone. Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with star six. Mr. Clerk, do we have any yellow speaker cards or speakers queued on Zoom for the minutes?

No speakers on this item.

Okay. No speakers being present, I would entertain a motion. We've got one from our Vice Chair and we've got a second from, I believe, Commissioner Dempsey. We may proceed to the vote.

Can you please repeat who moved it and who seconded it?

It was moved by our Vice Chair, Paul Donahue, and seconded by Commissioner Dempsey.

Excuse me, Mr. Clerk, my screen does not show the ability to vote.

I'll do a roll call. Commissioner Supermanian?

Yes.

Commissioner Pham?

Yes.

Commissioner Gutierrez? Commissioner Kernstein? Yes. Is it on? Yes. Commissioner Dempsey? Yes. Vice Chair Donahue? Yes. Chair Nunes? Yes. The vote carries with all in favor except Commissioner Gutierrez absent.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Okay, having concluded that, we'll move on to item number four, the oral communications. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the EPC on any matter not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for up to three minutes during this section. State law prohibits the commission from acting on non-agenda items. If anyone in attendance would like to provide comments on non-agenda items, please fill out a yellow speaker card and provide it to the EPC clerk. If anyone on Zoom would like to provide a comment on agenda items, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone. Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with star six. And we'll go back to our commission clerk. Mr. Clerk, any speakers on Zoom or the yellow speaker card?

No speaker online or in person.

Okay, all right, all right. Looks like we'll have no speakers for item number four, so we'll proceed to our public hearing. We'll start with item 5.1, the Historic Preservation Ordinance and Historic Register Update. We'll first have a staff presentation, then questions by the EPC, followed by public comment. At the closure of public comment, the Commission will then deliberate and take action. We'll begin with a staff presentation from Senior Planner Elah Karachian and Planning Manager Eric Anderson. Excuse me, Elah. Yep, thank you.

Good evening, Chair Nunes and Commission. This public hearing is regarding the adoption of the Historic Preservation Ordinance Update. My name is Elah Karachian, and I'm here with our Planning Manager, Eric Anderson. The city has had a historic preservation ordinance and register since 2004. Together, these tools help the city preserve historically and culturally significant buildings, as well as character defining features. There are several reasons to update the ordinance and register at this time, which are shown on the screen. The bottom of the slide shows an overview of the project process. This project started in 2022 and has three major deliverables, a historic context statement, intensive survey, and update to the ordinance. The project has had a robust outreach process, including four virtual and in-person workshops, a virtual question and answer session, meetings with individual stakeholders, EPC and council meetings and letters. Most recently in July, a survey was prepared for property owners of properties included on the draft MV register to solicit owner sentiment and feedback on the proposed designation. The City Council has way on this project at three previous meetings summarized here. There are three recommended actions for EPC tonight. We will walk you through them in this presentation. The first staff recommendation is for the EPC to recommend to the City Council to accept the historic context statement. This is a critical document that establishes the framework to identify historic resources in the city. It is the basis for the citywide survey that informed the current draft register and will continue to help support the identification of historic properties in the future. The EPC and City Council previously reviewed this document late last year and did not have any comments. It has been updated for consistency with the draft city code updates. The second recommendation tonight is regarding the ordinance. It has been drafted to respond to city council direction from last December, which was largely taken from EPC's recommendation in October. This slide shows key elements of that council direction. This slide summarizes the overall organization of the updated code, which includes introductory sections, designation procedures, special case delisting procedures, permits for non-impactful modifications, demolition and impactful modifications, incentives and benefits, enforcement, SB 79 exemption, and unlisted property HP permit requirements. Key changes are provided in the following slides. Just a second. We are back, sorry. One major new element of the ordinance is the allowance for the historic districts. Districts are made up of primary and limited contributors. Primary contributors are those that directly support the district's significance. Limited contributors have the potential to impact the district if altered, but do not support the district's history. IN DECEMBER, CITY COUNCIL REQUESTED ANALYSIS SUPPORTING THE DELINEATION OF COUNCIL DISCRETION VERSUS TECHNICAL EXPERT RECOMMENDATIONS ESPECIALLY FOR OWNER INITIATED DISTRICTS. ALL HISTORIC DISTRICTS REQUIRE EVALUATION BY A QUALIFIED PROFESSIONAL WITH POSSIBLE CITY PRE-REVIEW TO SHOW THAT DISTRICT MEETS THE REQUIRED FINDINGS OF SIGNIFICANCE AND CONCENTRATION OF PRIMARY CONTRIBUTORS. The draft ordinance includes detailed examples of the types of projects requiring four different levels of development review. Exempt alterations are those that are presumed no impact to the historic resource. Minor HP permits are required for improvements that are not exempt but do not affect visible character defining features. Major HP permits are required for improvements that do affect visible character defining features, but do not cause substantial adverse changes to the resource. And finally, demolition or substantial adverse change requires city council approval and overriding considerations. This slide summarizes the key changes proposed for the incentives and benefits. Key new benefits includes a historic plaque program, conditional use permits for historic uses, reduction in minimum parking, and new reductions to impact feeds. Staff recommends using a council policy to identify specifics such as fee reductions, contract procedures, and other details within the broad language of acceptable incentives categories to be included in the ordinance update. This will coordinate incentives across different departments and sections of the code and may reduce the effort required to update the policy as compared to updating an ordinance. The draft ordinance includes enforcement measures applicable specifically to historic resources, in addition to the standard criminal penalties applicable to unlawful work. These include the requirement to reconstruct as feasible, requirements for City Council to remove the property from the register, otherwise no reconstruction for a penalty period, and the requirement to repay any property tax-intensive resistance. The ordinance also includes a provision related to the recent state law, SB 79. This law overrides the city's density, height, and FAR standards for qualifying housing projects near major transit stops. It also allows the city to adopt a local temporary ordinance that would exclude historic resources if they were registered by the beginning of 2025. Attachments two and three implement this provision. It would expire one year after the adoption of the next housing element, likely in 2031. The project also includes in temporary provision related to HP permit review of a state and national eligible single family homes and duplexes. The previous code required these permits, whether listed or not. These requirements should be removed because it is not transparent. However, this could be an impact to historic resources under CEQA because single family homes and duplexes have no other discretionary permit that triggers CEQA. Staff recommends this language temporarily until the City Council can weigh in on the listing or CEQA path for such sites. In summary, recommendations two and three would update the city code zoning map with the new historic preservation ordinance and SB 79 exclusion. These actions are consistent with CEQA because the ordinance assures the maintenance, restoration, enhancement, and protection of the environment through a regulatory process that includes procedures for environmental protection. The SB 79 amendment is consistent with CEQA because of the common sense exemption, which provides the CEQA applies only to projects that have potential for causing a significant effect on the environment. The staff report included some updates regarding the draft register, but the EPC is not required to provide a recommendation related to this information. The draft register currently includes 99 resources. This include the list of 101 resources the EPC reviewed last fall, minus seven religious properties that the City Council directed the staff to exclude from further listing, plus five city-owned properties that have been deemed eligible for the register. In addition to the three city-owned resources already listed, including the Adobe Building, Ringstorf Building, and Immigrant House at Heritage Park, two new resources have been identified. The Steel Star Windmill in the Heritage Park and Cuesta Park. This table shows select data requested by the City Council regarding the sites. Following the recommendation from the EPC at this public hearing, the EPC recommendation will be forwarded to City Council at a public hearing tentatively scheduled for September 22nd, 2026. The City Council will also consider review the draft register at that time to provide direction informing the final adopted register. If adopted by the City Council, a second reading will be scheduled for October 13, 2026, and the amendments will be effective in November. The City Council will hold another public hearing likely in December to adopt the new and re-register. Here's a list of the staff recommendations. We are happy to answer any questions that you might have tonight. Also in the attendance tonight, we have Christian Murdoch, the Community Development Director, Amber Bleszinski, Assistant Community Development Director, and our team members from Page and Turnbull. Thank you for listening to this presentation.

Thank you, Elia. Okay, I guess we will, we don't have another present from Mr. Eric Anderson, oh, okay, cool. Then we will proceed to commissioner questions. I'll open up the queue and open the floor for questions from the commission. Commissioner, we got, all right, it's coming in hot. All right, we got Vice Chair Donahue first, I believe, and then Commissioner Ceron, my name.

Okay, thank you. The last time that we heard this in October, I believe it was, the staff report said that CEQA already has requirements that buildings over 50 years old and that have historical significance have to go through a CEQA review process and that property owners might not be aware of that, properties that are not on a historic register might not be aware of that. Can you compare the process under CEQA versus the process through this proposed ordinance?

So yeah, we have modeled our ordinance closely with the CEQA requirements and process. So the findings and criteria under CEQA are similar to the findings and criteria under our ordinance. An applicant would still be required to prepare plans and conduct a historic resource evaluation under CEQA. And the city would need to provide independent review of those materials to ensure the project preserves the integrity of the resource under CEQA. So that's basically the fundamental framework of both the ordinance and CEQA, and they largely match each other. For projects that impact the resource, where there's a negative impact on the integrity of the resource, that would be an impact to the environment under CEQA. And under CEQA, you are required to do a statement of overriding considerations for that. And that was a close model for our ordinance process, which requires a statement of benefits and general plan consistency for demolition or other impacting proposed modifications. CEQA doesn't prescribe an approval process, but in general city staff can refer approvals to the city council if it wouldn't otherwise be a city council action, if there is an impact to the historic resource. So typically statements of overriding considerations are policy decisions that are subject to, where the council is best suited to make those calls. Now some applications might not be subject to CEQA and so in that case there would be a difference between being on the register and subject to the ordinance and not being on the register. One example of that is a residential development project that's not listed on the register may be eligible for the new CEQA exemption under AB 130. Okay.

Okay. On the rear addition and ADU streamlining process, there are permits and reviews for that and of course then there's also the normal building permit process that you would have. Would those be an integrated process or would they be serialized and kind of take longer to get through the process with this ordinance?

So the planning review is required for the rear back additions, but currently there is no separate planning permit for ADUs. So there will be not, in future also we don't have a planning permit for ADUs. It's going to be approved through the building permit process. And planning will look at it.

That's for ADUs, but the rear additions also are?

They would require a planning permit.

They require a planning permit, and would that be serialized? Yeah. Okay, so that adds some delays. Okay, interesting. And the police and fire administration building in 1000 Villa would have been on, I think it says that it would have been on this list, except that it's already been approved to be torn down. If it had been on this list and then the city council decided to tear it down, what would have been the process? Would the council have had to take it off the list before doing that or something?

Yeah, the only difference is the council would need to adopt an additional resolution removing it from the register and then it can be demolished and there is not going to be any significant difference.

Yeah, just to clarify, the council went through a CEQA process. They certified an EIR with a statement of overriding considerations for that project and so, like I said before, that closely mirrors the process that they would have otherwise had to go through by removing it from the register.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense. You also said that Cuesta Park is on the proposed list and I know we're not weighing in on individual sites but that is different than a house or an office building. It does have some structures, the tennis buildings and bathrooms. Does that mean that if somebody wants to make substantial modifications to the tennis building, that that would have to go through some extra process? What is really covered when we say Cuesta Park?

I'll start, and then maybe I'll defer to our consultant who drafted the historic resource evaluation for that site. There are a number of structures at Cuesta Park that are considered character-defining features for the park, things like the bandstand and benches and lighting fixtures and things like that. Those are laid out in the historic resource evaluation. So significant modifications to those features would need to go through an environmental review process. Now the city itself doesn't really go through the same permit process that a private property owner would go through, but ultimately the city council would need to review the findings of those evaluations of any modifications to the resource, and they would have to make findings about whether there are significant enough changes to those resources that it would be an impact to the historic resource or not.

Okay. Okay. And I think probably the last one. If looking through the ordinance, if there's an economic hardship, it looks like the property owner can apply to have the property removed from the register. But an economic hardship is not a reason to not have been included to start with. And there are fees associated with being removed because you have to pay for the peer review process. So What is the reason for not allowing economic hardship to be a reason to not be included to start with?

Well, we don't have enough information about the individual properties to evaluate every one of them from an economic hardship perspective. The economic hardship threshold or findings are actually pretty high. Like, every regulation... you know, has some economic effect on every property. And so it's not simply a statement that this regulation is affecting the value of my property or affecting the outcome of my property. It really is an equation that the regulation is depriving the property of value. In other words, in order to maintain the resource, I would need to expend more money than I would ever get in value or rent out of the property. That's a fairly unlikely scenario and certainly wouldn't be the case for the vast majority of resources that we've looked at, given the fact that they tend to be of fairly high quality, fairly good maintenance. They haven't been deteriorated extensively over time. They've been maintained. um now the opportunity is there for a property owner to submit that analysis uh to meet that criteria and we would have to review that um you know the the the permit cost or the review cost of of such an application would probably be very very small relative to the value that would come out of having a developable piece of land in mountain view So we expect the property owners would be willing to pay that permit review cost.

Okay, thank you. Commissioner Subramanian.

Thank you, Chair. So following on the heels of my colleagues' questions regarding the properties, I just wanted to walk through the timeline of the addition of the new properties to the register and understand just the sequence of how that's coming together. Because I understand we're not, as a commission, making any recommendations on the properties list, but please correct me if my understanding is correct here. In terms of staff going through and adding or proposing the additional list of properties to be added to the register, it seems pretty significant, right? There were 41 properties previously, including city properties, and that's now almost getting doubled. And if I understand correctly, was the noticing to the property owners done this year in July?

So we sent letters to property owners in two different sets of letters late last year. and one of them was sent by certified mail, which kind of made sure that they signed for it and recognized that they received it and recognized that it was important. The notice that we sent in July was a follow-up request for information from them regarding their goals for the project. We still have the opportunity to send out additional notices for the council meeting in December, which would be the final action date. And so we will evaluate that as we get closer, that opportunity as we get closer to that date.

Because looking at the list, I see that there's a large number of properties which don't have responses in either way from the owners. And so what you're saying is there's still time for the owners to be notified and for them to respond regarding their decision to be included or not. And that goes all the way till December.

Yes, absolutely. There will be an opportunity until December for them to comment to the city council about this. Our goal for the meeting in September is for the council to give us direction about what properties they want ultimately to vote on in December. Obviously, that doesn't mean that people can't come forward at the hearing in December and sway council on that issue.

So in looking through the materials, you know, there's a lot of information in sort of the detailed registered the historic evaluation analysis that supports the listing in the register. But what would be helpful is to actually see it noted on a map because one of the things that struck me was maybe the intent behind adding these significant number of properties to the register is to enable the creation of a historic district based on a certain density of properties being identified in this go around, right?

I would say that the intent of a historic district is to create a historic designation for properties whose significance comes from their relationship to their neighborhood and not necessarily from their individual significance. So I wouldn't look to a map of historic resources to identify areas where we might be able to make findings for a historic district because there may be individual properties that only meet that significance in the context of their neighborhood or district.

Okay, then moving on to a slightly different topic with regards to the SB 79 and delisting the properties from the area so they don't get included in the SB 79. I noticed that the map identified properties just around the downtown transit center. Is there a reason that there weren't others noted around other transit stops in Mountain View?

We didn't have any listed properties around any other stops as of 2025. Got it.

So then my next set of questions is around notes in the ordinance. There's a couple of places where there's reference to enforcement measures, and particularly regarding enforcement measures around the duty to maintain the property. And I was curious to understand how that's being envisioned.

Yeah, so the duty to maintain is a typical part of historic ordinances. Maybe I'll ask our consultant, Page and Turnbull, who's seen a lot more of these ordinances, Christina Dykus, if she can weigh in. Maybe I'll ask a follow-up question, which is maybe if you can provide a little more detail in your question about what you're looking for. Are you looking for kind of how it might be implemented? Are you looking for how the ordinance itself functions? Like maybe a little more.

So I am looking to understand how it will be implemented.

Okay, well maybe I'll start with that and if there's anything you can add, that's fine. So we do have code enforcement procedures that are regulated through the other chapters of the city code. A case of not maintaining a property would have to be quite egregious for a code enforcement action to be taken on it. It would have to be something that's considered a public nuisance. And so I haven't seen... Any of those happen in my experience here in the city of Mountain View, but there are certainly other examples of how they've happened in other communities where the city has attempted to require a property owner to conduct basic maintenance on a building.

So let me ask with a specific example in mind. There is a lot of ground settlement happening in and around Mountain View, and I'm sure that older properties are more impacted as a result of that. it could present a reason for an owner to take more preventative measures to sort of bolster up older properties that have cracking and damage to walls and foundations as a result of settlement. So you could see that potentially that over time leads to a state that requires demolition of the property. And so it could start off as a pretty insignificant action that has built up over time resulting in a situation where it warrants demolition. So in that type of situation, is the city capable of actually enforcing oversight on the duty to maintain or is it sort of required for the owner to demonstrate that they have taken more than the normal measures to bolster up the property?

Yeah, I think in most cases it would depend on the specific, facts of the case. So it's a little hard to make general statements. Certainly, we would want to make sure in any enforcement that there's a... a reasonable knowledge that the property owner has that they are required to maintain. Otherwise, it's difficult to enforce criminally on that action. I think it would also probably be associated potentially with if if a property is showing signs of deterioration that are considered a public nuisance, there are steps that the city would take before kind of taking it to a full enforcement, criminal or otherwise enforcement measure. So I think it would really depend on the specific facts of the case, what steps have been taken by the city ahead of time, perhaps maybe some of the specifics around the resource itself. And so it's a little hard to anticipate a general answer to that question.

And then my last question is around the section on incentives and benefits. So there is language in the proposed ordinance, but the staff report also talks about other language that could be part of council policy in sort of adding more detail to those incentives and benefits. In looking through the language that is proposed to be part of council policy, it seems like many of those sections could could use more definition. So for instance, in terms of reduced fees and in lieu fees, there's talk about Reduce permit fees, sorry. So there's talk about small buildings getting a certain percentage of reduction versus large buildings. And I wondered if there was going to be more definition added to what defines a small versus large and similar other points in the council policy sections.

Yeah, absolutely. We plan on making all of those criteria completely objective. to provide clarity and transparency and certainty to property owners.

Okay, and that would be done before it goes to Council in September?

So in order to adopt a Council policy, the Council does have to refer it to one of their policy subcommittees. And so that process may be in the new year. although we haven't put a specific timeline on it.

That's it. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner Subramanian. We'll move to Commissioner Pham.

Thank you, Chair. So my first question has to do with discussion back last October. I recall that there were a few properties that did not pass the integrity test. These are properties already on the list And we spoke at length about the timeframe we would allow them to remain on the list. We talked about potentially four years to submit a plan and then three years to complete the work. What's been done, and I know council may have chimed in on this as well, where did we land on that?

So council's direction was to closely follow the EPC's recommendation on that, which was to provide property owners with, like you said, up to, I believe it was four years, or maybe it was three, then four, I don't remember the exact numbers, but a total of seven years, but kind of a check-in point at which if they haven't submitted an application, then they're removed from the register. Those provisions we are planning on bringing with the register itself rather than as part of the ordinance because we don't want those types of temporary provisions to be in the ordinance you know forever you know it's something that that is really very property specific and temporary and and so we will bring an update on those when we take the register in december

Okay, thanks. So my next question has to do with historic districts. There's more than two pages of that in the staff report, which is good, and I remember back last October hearing from staff that there were some interested residents, kind of asking for a process to designate a historic district. I appreciate the staff's outreach to all these properties as listed in the staff report. There's a table showing who's responded, but not really anything related to of a historic district? Are you hearing similar feedback? And are you planning to do any specific outreach to potential historic districts?

We are not planning on doing any direct outreach to potential historic districts unless council identifies a historic district that they want to initiate. So under the ordinance, they're allowed to initiate a historic district. In that case, we would do outreach to that district. But as you say, we have been hearing from interested stakeholders who are interested in designating their neighborhoods. We have not yet heard from them regarding our draft ordinance, but I know that they are closely watching this process are on our email lists and the like. So they certainly have the opportunity to weigh in on the ordinance at this point with any input on how it works with their goals for district designation.

Okay, great. My next question has to do with the modification framework for historic resources. For example, there are some exempt alterations, some minor alterations, major alterations, and then major changes would require councils input in a public hearing. So that's great that it's, in my eyes, a tiered approach. My question is that can you describe at those levels what's the involvement of historical experts that you guys may have access to to kind of advise those bodies, whether it's your staff level or whether it's council. Is a peer review required at all those steps? Can you just kind of walk me through the different levels and how you guys will use experts in that decision making process?

Yeah, that's a great question. So for the exempt, there really isn't a study required. That's kind of the threshold at which we think studies should be required for modifications to resources. an applicant will submit their own study and we will in all likelihood have a list of consultants that we can have on call to do peer review that we know are reputable consultants and in many cases if you know if a If an applicant uses one of those consultants we may not need to do a peer review because we already know that they you know, they're they're one of our on-call consultants to to address the to do the peer review in other cases a peer review may still be warranted if for example the analysis questions you know findings in our historic resource evaluation for the property um so uh again it's going to be a fairly case-by-case process where we will identify that any necessary information that we need to acquire as staff based on the application.

Only two more questions. My next question has to do with enforcement, and what caught my eye was the requirement to reconstruct. I was wondering how that would be carried forth, and kind of similar to my first question, knowing that construction is complicated, takes a lot of resources and time, would there be any timeframe on the requirement to reconstruct, and how would that be enforced?

So similar to the Commissioner Subramanian's question, it's very difficult to kind of anticipate the specific cases of a future code enforcement case, the specifics. The requirement to reconstruct is, you know, if feasible. And so there would need to be some analysis at the time to determine the feasibility of such a reconstruction. This could be economic feasibility, it could be structural feasibility, availability of materials, timeline, whatever. All those could go into the analysis of what makes reconstruction feasible. From there, the applicant would have an opportunity to go through the right permit process, right? And so if that involves going to council and providing additional benefits for whatever the modification was that they did, then that's what that process might entail. And from there, there would be additional hearings that would be constrained by the reasonableness and constitutionality of what we can do as a city to enforce on these measures.

Follow up to that, who's on the hook to prove what's feasible? Would it be the property owner or would that be determined in conjunction with the city? I could see an instance where the property owner just may not have the economic feasibility or the funds to do so. How could they prove that or to what extent would they need to submit documentation if they wanted to make that case?

Yeah, again, it's difficult to know for all the possible cases out there. Ultimately, there would be some officer or hearing officer that ultimately judges the reasonableness of a proposal or analysis, and that would have to be done in a public process with the ability for the applicant to voice their due process perspective.

Okay, one last question. Incentives and benefits, I saw that the existing ordinance allows for opportunity for a loan fund, but the staff report said it had never been implemented. Any thoughts on that, or is that an area where you'll be seeking additional input from council going forth?

Yeah, so there are probably a dozen implementation items coming out of this ordinance update. Everything from creating brochures and public information documents to implementing some of these benefits programs. including a plaque program or all these other benefits programs. So that would be one item where we would be asking council, do you want to implement this benefit program along with all the other programs and implementation items that are coming out of this project?

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Fram, Commissioner Cranston.

One question is kind of a follow-up to Mr. Silvermanian's question and your answer to it. Code enforcement is focused on the skin of the building, it sounds like. So if it's possible that the failure to maintain is in the interior portion of the building that's not visible from the street, water damage whatever you wouldn't know that something was going to happen until literally the roof collapsed is that am i hearing that correctly so it's code enforcement's only looking at the skin our ability to know anything about the building would be what we can see All right, and then next question is, I know we're not reviewing the list, but is there, You talk as though there's a process. Is there something that's out there visible for the people that are on the register that have questions to know clearly what they need to do before September 22nd and then after the 22nd up until the time in December that if they have questions on how to proceed? Is there something clear that says step one, step two, step three, this is what you need to do? I mean, we're not reviewing it, but it's kind of this is just, If there's an answer at the end, which kind of doesn't make me feel comfortable. So is there something that says this is how you get from August 19th to being on or not on the list in December that people can that these 99 units can clearly look at and say, I know what I need to do.

So the process of going to the council on these dates was laid out in the letter that we sent in July. And so if anybody has any questions about that process, we also provided our contact information.

That's clearly what they need to do in that process?

It says that the well, I don't have the text of the letter in front of me, but it certainly said that the The decision-making process does include the ability to provide comments on the register and this information that we're providing, the historic resource evaluation and everything else.

And it points to where they would go to know what those items are? Yeah. Okay, Chloe?

It is also noted on our website, and it has been referenced in the notice as well, that you can, like all these dates of the meetings and how you can contact us if you have questions and how you can give us your feedback.

I guess my experience has generally been that knowing that the meetings on this date doesn't mean you know how to get to the point where you're actually ready to be able to speak at those meetings. And that's my worry is that it's just like, oh, show up on the 22nd and object, but they don't know what they need to do. So you think the website could list those for people and we'll have additional information on that from the 22nd to the December list? I just wanna make sure it's clear for people that if they have a question, they know what they need to do to go through to get to, so they're not surprised in December or somebody comes and says, well, you're putting my name on a list and I don't know why I'm being put on the list. So I'm just, is it clear out there someplace that someone can go to that's on the register right now that says, here's what you need to go look at, step one, step two, step three. And if you have questions, here's what you do on those items, like a Q&A. They know who to go back to. Because, again, I've seen more than one meeting in this commission where people come in and say, you're making a decision, and I didn't know anything about it. And I'm like, well, that's not a good thing. So I just want to make sure that there's some place that people can find these things. And that would be a recommendation to me to council is make sure that you tell staff there needs to be something that they can go to reference on that because we're not voting on what's on the list or not, but they will be, and they're going to get calls from people saying, whoa. So I just want to make sure it's clear for people, that it's a resource for people.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's FAQs, the list of properties, the dates, the expected items on those dates. The letter does include information about the process that we are going through here, and I think that is... sufficiently clear for a property owner to know that at the very least something is happening and that if they don't understand everything that they're reading, they should reach out to us and we can answer those questions.

Okay. Commissioner Dempsey, would you like to?

Happy to I saw commission or the vice chair is above me.

So I think All's fair.

Yeah, I think you should I think you should definitely all right Thank you chairman. So, uh three questions and they're mostly gonna Follow up on questions that some of my colleagues have already asked so I've got three of them and these are treat these as relatively high high-level questions for staff so on the the expansion of the number of sites. I know we're not gonna talk about any individual ones, but the increase from, I think it was like 40 something to about 100, that's over 100% increase. That's a big jump in the number of houses that would be included in this program. Why? And I'm not disagreeing. I just wanna know what the thinking was. Are we required to use a broader set of criteria so that we have to capture 100? Or was that a policy decision that we made at the staff level that we want to capture more? And I know it's eligible, not actually properly listed, so I get that distinction. But I'm noting that we made the circle a lot bigger, and I would like to know the thinking why.

So the biggest reason why the circle is bigger, well, I won't say which one's bigger, but I'd say there are two main reasons why the circle is bigger. One is to correct the opt-off provision that we had in the previous ordinance.

So there are lots of properties that were eligible where the property owner had opted off under the previous ordinance.

That has, as we've said, inconsistency with CEQA issues. It has issues around kind of the predictability and transparency of what are the historic resources in the community. And it also doesn't reflect the city's and the council's policy level role in identifying historic resources for preservation of the community. The other major effect that increases the number of resources is the age eligibility. So the last time we did an ordinance update was back in 2004, so that's over 20 years. And when you think about the time period between 50 years before 2004, which was the early 50s and the 50 years before now, which was basically the late 60s, early 70s, a lot of buildings were built and there's a lot, a lot, a lot of opportunity for historically important things to have happened, like the founding of Intel, or major architectural styles to be developed and built. So a lot of properties are properties that we, that had opted off before, and a lot of properties are just newly eligible.

Okay, that makes sense. So shifting to a different topic, the question of incentives. Help me understand why staff chose to do the council policy, which is a, sort of a, I've not run into that before. I'm not familiar with that choice. So if you could help me understand why you made that choice because it makes it difficult for us to discuss the details of that choice if the choice does not come before us. And I think it's highly material to being able to judge whether or not we think the overall policy makes sense. But that's, I'll save that for the comment period, but what was behind the decision to take incentives and sort of drop them in the Council policy box so that we don't see them, or so that we don't get to discuss them tonight?

Well, it wasn't so that the EPC doesn't get to discuss them. That wasn't the goal. The, what, What initially prompted the conversation was the finding that there are actually historic incentives in Chapter 8 and Chapter 20, I don't know, Chapter 40 and Chapter 36, you know, all throughout the zoning code. And it took us quite a bit of time to go through the whole, not all throughout the city code, to go through the whole city code to find all the places where there are historic incentives, where some department has plopped in, other than community development, has plopped in a historic incentive for their particular process. One example of this is green building exceptions in our buildings code. Another example is the parkland dedication exemption, which is in the parkland dedication code. So a big reason behind having a council policy is to just put all of that information in one place. So there's one resource for a property owner to go to, council, staff, to understand the whole range of historic incentives. The other aspect of it is that there are potentially procedural instructions that may be more appropriate in the context of a council policy rather than an ordinance so you can get more into the procedural details around submittal requirements for contracts or other incentives you know what what the potential outcomes of those contracts should include like some of the terms of those contracts and then ultimately it reduces the It has the potential to lower the kind of burden of review in amending the Council policy. So rather than going through a whole revised ordinance, which needs EPC and Council and second reading and has other elements of review, This is something that is really just reviewed at different levels of the city council.

And just for the sake of clarity, the contents of that council policy would never come before the EPC. Is that correct?

It would not, no, yeah.

So we'd never see them?

No. Good evening, Chair, Vice Chair, and Commissioners. Christian Murdock, Community Development Director. One additional compelling reason from my perspective related to the policy and the incentives is that while some of them, as described in the ordinance, are land use and zoning related, and those are reasonably well articulated in the ordinance, a good number, if not potentially a majority, are financially related, which are not traditionally within the purview of the Environmental Planning Commission. Trying to consolidate them given the subject matter that spans land use building and fiscal for example aligning those in a way that the council could singularly act on without piecemealing some of the changes the rezoning ordinance through the APC and then public hearing and putting them in a way where the financial role and the fiscal management role that the council plays is is carried out more efficiently through establishing those policy parameters outside of the zoning ordinance to me is a compelling reason as well.

I have thoughts on that but I'll save them for the end. So the last question just has to do with permitting. So if you could help me understand if I'm a, say I got a Victorian, I live downtown and I'm gonna be put on this list and I was not previously. Say I want to, or actually two different scenarios. I'm the guy that has this Victorian and I want to remodel my kitchen. How does my permitting burden change? And I would ask the same question for if I own a building that's down on Castro, the first block of Castro Street, and I run a restaurant and I want to remodel my kitchen. How does my permitting burden change?

So... Interior only improvements are not affected by this ordinance at all. They are exempt 100%.

No difference.

No difference. Now, that's not to say that some necessary interior improvements get a little harder if you can't touch the outside. We do have the tiered permitting requirements so that For example improvements on the back of a building that aren't visible from the public right-of-way Those you get a lot more flexibility on right if you're not changing character defining features So if you're remodeling a kitchen on a single-family house and the kitchens on the back of the building probably probably pretty easy probably not a big difference between the Between the Being on the register or not But the more that you need to do to the outside of the building, the more potential there is for impacting character defining features.

No more questions, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Commissioner Dempsey. Commissioner, Vice Chair Donahue.

Okay, I have another question. In looking through the ordinance itself, the proposed ordinance, to get on the register, the definition says a resource is significant under one of these criteria. It embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, region, method of construction, et cetera, et cetera, or represents the work of an architect, design professional, or builder of merit. There's actually an extra of there, so you might wanna remove that, but anyway, An Eichler is associated with the work of an architect, design professional, or builder of merit. So does that mean that every Eichler in Mauna Loma is eligible for, or yeah, is eligible to be put on the register even though it's not individually distinctive?

So we haven't evaluated Eichler's. When we started this process, we went to the city council to ask what is the scope of properties that you want us to look at? And the council said don't look at single family homes zoned in our districts that haven't already been identified. And so we have not evaluated Eichler's in this process.

Okay, but under this definition, it's possible at least that they would be, that all the Eichlers and maybe a large number of other homes in Mountain View would be.

It's certainly possible that a large number of single family homes in the city of Mountain View are eligible under these criteria. That haven't been identified yet.

And it would be up to the city council to. to decide whether to put them on the register or not. Exactly. And would those single-family homes, would all those Eichlers be subject to this CEQA process already?

No, because Mountain View's single-family development process is a non-discretionary, it's a ministerial non-discretionary process. So there is no discretionary planning permit to demolish a single-family home and build a new single-family home in its place. And so under that process, CEQA does not happen. There is no evaluation under CEQA.

OK. Thanks.

All right, Commissioner Subramanian.

A quick follow-up question to the incentives and benefits. So I understand that the list of possible potential incentives and benefits are going to be included in the ordinance, but the details of the different levels of being administered will be a part of council policy. Is that council policy then visible to all? How is that accessed and do people know the objective standards under which they can? APPROACH THE INCENTIVES?

YEAH, ULTIMATELY EVERY COUNCIL POLICY IS PUBLISHED ON THE CITY'S WEBSITE. I WILL ADMIT THAT IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR A PARTICULAR COUNCIL POLICY, IT CAN BE A LITTLE BIT OF A SEARCH. BUT AS I SAID, THERE ARE A LOT OF IMPLEMENTATION ACTIONS THAT COME OUT OF THIS, AND ONE IMPLEMENTATION ACTION WOULD BE TO CREATE A WEBSITE THAT INCLUDES AND CONSOLIDATES ALL OF THAT INFORMATION IN ONE PLACE.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU, CHAIR.

Any other questions? I'm going to ask a few then. Just kind of like broadly speaking, this timeline is pretty helpful. I think this obviously has legs going back to 2022 in terms of when we started thinking about this. I guess I'm trying to characterize in my mind if staff might be willing to help with this. you know, going back to 2018, there's been some version of like a Scott Wiener bill for transit development, right? Like the conversation, it's all kind of been up in the air, but I think that obviously picked up a lot of steam, what was it, like last year with SB 79 and all of that. So obviously this project kind of starting three years before that, nonetheless, I'm still just kind of curious if, Staff can just kind of characterize for us in what ways did the SB 79 legislation impact the trajectory of this proposal, or of this project, if at all?

Sure, yeah. I mean, the obvious is the addition of a paragraph regarding the historic exclusion that we are entitled to under SB 79. That was council direction back at the beginning of the year that they wanted us to adopt such an ordinance. So we're bringing that back for their direction. Other than that, the direction that we received to draft this ordinance was received from Council before anybody really knew that SB 79 was going to happen. I mean, we had an idea that it was happening, but we developed this staff report for EPC in October, and based on tons of work that we had been developing before then, which was before SB 79 was actually adopted, and then we brought the same information to EPC in October that we did to Council in December. I would say other than the SB 79 specific paragraph, and SB 79 has not affected the development of this ordinance.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, just because at least from, just to contextualize the question, it kind of feels to me a little bit like, maybe just in the zeitgeist, some urgency kinda like to pick up around this, especially in relation to the downtown. But I guess like, kinda shifting gears here, When it comes to some of the protections for natural disaster or, you know, kind of like, I don't know what you might call it, like force majeure or what have you, I just wanted to check, is there any kind of, like, provision in there? I think disaster and accident are covered, but let's say there's, like, non-conspiratorial vandalism or something, right, that does, like, Is that part of the protection, do you know what I mean? Like some random person comes and says I hate this house for no other reason than Queen Anne's are the worst and they burn it down, right? Like that's neither a natural disaster nor an accident but I guess I'm just curious like if the current proposal addresses that, obviously like non-conspiratorial.

Oh, okay, go ahead.

I think I would just say at a high level, provided the property owner restored the property and maintained it in a reasonable amount of time, if that was possible, it's not likely, it's hard for me to imagine the city taking some sort of punitive action against the property owner, particularly given there's no culpability in that case that they contributed to that damage to the historic resource, which is one of the key characteristics in the enforcement provisions, knowing violation, culpability, and so forth.

Okay, cool, and then last question since most of my colleagues took the good ones. The Cuesta Park designation, does that include, I'm just wanting to confirm, does that include the Cuesta Park Annex?

No, it doesn't. It's just the improvements at Cuesta Park, so Cuesta Annex doesn't have any improvements.

Okay, cool, thank you. Then in that case, I see Commissioner Cranston's got a question actually.

So you said that this doesn't affect single family homes, but I thought there were single family homes on the register when you're answering this question. So I'm, what is, wait, I thought this, single family homes are part of this.

So the single family homes that are- Eric, can you repeat the question? Oh, sure. So the question was, there are single family homes zoned in our districts that are on the proposed draft register. And so how does that align with the previous answer that we didn't study new single family homes as part of this process? Well, the single family homes that we did study were either previously on the register previously opted off or had been included in a previous council study of a citywide survey of state and national eligible properties. So those were known historic resources of single family homes that council directed us to continue to study and evaluate through this process. Any previously unidentified single family home was not included in this process.

Okay. It's not that something couldn't be later, it's just it wasn't part of that initial process.

Certainly any property owner that wants to come forward and initiate a designation process for their property, and if they are eligible, they are absolutely able to designate their own, their property.

And I think maybe to provide a little more context, I think what you're getting at is it was a policy decision of the council not to expand the scope of the survey. So to the extent that there is a mechanism in the proposed ordinance to have the city initiate a survey, that could be a decision of a future council to broaden the scope and include these properties and potentially bring more of them into the fold. But that was not the direction given by council at the outset of this process, which is why Only that subset of R1 or R zone single family residences were included in this process and advancing to the register phase potentially.

So if an army of Eichler owners came in and said we wanna be designated as historic, we could still do that?

Yes, that process is available.

Sorry, I might actually jump on the question. So you're saying that process currently exists today, the army of Eichlers?

No, it doesn't exist today. The draft ordinance would make that process available to a district interested in initiating that process subject to council approval.

Okay, then just one more quick question. And maybe I missed this. Is there like some projection of expected like areas where, like, because the Monteloma one is a pretty, i mean when i think about the history of like eichler i think there's a case there not giving anyone any ideas here but um there's a case to be made um so that's one i can think of off the top of my head but uh was a projection of potential districts that could arise from um the hcs and then the changes to the code, was some projection of expected or potential districts a part of that, or did I miss that?

The HCS does have some discussion around identifying criteria for districts at different ages and land uses, right? So that's how it's organized and it actually has some discussion around districts in that context. There's no analysis about specific districts in the HCS. It's really just saying here's how you would evaluate the significance of those districts. I will say that the City Council has, in public meetings, said that they are interested in looking at a potential historic district for Area H of downtown. And so that is an example of not having done the analysis to know whether it is actually eligible, but that is an example of something that we've used to identify appropriate processes and criteria that could accommodate such an initiation and approval process.

Okay, thank you, because that's actually kind of why I brought up that point earlier around the downtown and the kind of District H. urgency kind of thing going on. I did see some discussion in the staff report, and this is not the word I think was in the report, just on the top of my head for like a better remembrance. It's like protections against frivolous district claims or something like that. And then there was, I think, some analysis around, you know, what, like Palmdale, Palm, other cities have actually like the bars they have to go through. So given that they're, to the best of what I'm hearing, isn't like a projection of expected, almost like opportunity sites or opportunity areas for like historical district, like how confident are we in the kind of like frivolous district claim protection? Does that, am I making sense?

Yeah, I think there's two things going on here with respect to districts. There is a council initiated process which gives broad latitude to council, provided the evidence is there to substantiate a legitimate historic district. So that's the broader tool that's available. The second approach is property owner initiated district, where there are the safeguards that you're describing to really ensure that whatever might be brought forward by the community is not meant to be misusing the tools, right, for exclusion or in a punitive way. And that's where there is a property owner test in terms of number of parcels and area. covered within the proposed district. And then an additional component of ensuring that there's, I think, at least a two to one ratio of contributing versus non-contributing properties. so that between those two, there is broad interest and also broad richness, if you will, in whatever proposed district is being initiated by the community. So I think those are the safeguards that you're describing to make sure that hopefully not a sort of small minority of residents is able to misuse this to the detriment of other property owners.

Okay, then last question for me. Outside of a... majority or consensus vote, like four to three vote or what have you on the city council. Are there any safeguards? Let's say like seven historical society people get elected to council or what have you. Is there any protections against the council just like declaring everything historic?

You know, I'll see if Senior Assistant Attorney Selina Chen has anything to add. I would say, in general, there still needs to be the facts to support that action by the council, and so substantial evidence and those kinds of decisions of the council, if they lack evidence, can be challenged in court. And so the city has to do a good job and make sure there are facts and evidence to support that action. The other part is typically actions like ordinances and resolutions are subject to referendum. So if somehow seven council members that have been elected have gotten the will of the people so wrong, California does provide that mechanism for the community to potentially overturn that through a referendum.

Often at high amounts of attrition from all involved and time and expense.

Right, and not to mention recall as well if they were so often affecting so many people in that decision. So those are, of course, extreme examples. I think the more common and useful example is the reasonableness and the substantial evidence component here.

Thank you, and unless our sedentary wants to chime in, I'll recall myself from more questions.

I have nothing to add.

Sweet, all right, cool. Any other questions? No, okay, cool. Then in that case, Public comment. If anyone in attendance would like to provide comments on this item, please fill out a yellow speaker card and provide it to the EPC clerk. If anyone on Zoom would like to provide comment on this item, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone. Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with star six. Mr. Clerk.

We have one online speaker and three in-person speakers.

Do you want to start? Who do you want to start with? Online? Still online? Sure.

The next speaker will be Jonathan Davis. Mr. Chair, how many minutes would you like me to set up?

Let's do three.

Three.

Great. Chair Nunez, members of the Environmental Planning Commission, thanks very much. As a commissioner and another advisory body, I truly appreciate the time that you spend and the thoughtful way that you balance community values in your deliberations. My name is Jonathan Davis, and we own a historic property, a house that we live in at Mariposa Avenue in Mercy. Regarding historic preservation, I would like to request that the Commission add to your resolution tonight a recommendation that Council consider directing staff to evaluate a supplemental historic preservation fund for extraordinary situations. You know, the Mills Act is great, but is insufficient in some situations. Historic preservation succeeds because private property owners agree to become stewards of assets valued by the community. Property owners accept restrictions that do not apply to comparable non-historic properties. In some instances, this can be a very significant forfeited economic opportunity. Nonetheless, many owners, such as us, willingly accept this responsibility because we value preservation and appreciate the city's commitment to protecting its historic resources. That historic preservation partnership between homeowners and the community functions well so long as the responsibilities remain proportional. The Mills Act provides property tax relief that helps offset many of the higher costs associated with maintaining historic properties. However, the Mills Act was never intended to address every consequence of preserving older structures. Furthermore, the Mills Act doesn't differentiate between very old properties, say 100 years old or more, from the much newer structures of the 50s, 60s, and 70s that reflect a very different construction standards, technology, and structural integrity. Historic homes that have stood for a century or more potentially face issues that newer homes seldom encounter. And these are not cosmetic improvements, nor are they discretionary upgrades. They may be essential investments necessary to preserve the structure itself. At some point, owners of designated historic properties may face repair costs that substantially exceed the tax reduction benefits provided through the Mills Act or the other fee reduction benefits. A preservation program should not place owners in a difficult position of choosing between preserving resources for others to enjoy and making prudent financial decisions for their families. Nor should preservation policies unintentionally discourage future owners from purchasing or maintaining historic homes because of concerns about unpredictable structural liabilities. Therefore, we respectfully ask the Commission to add to your resolution.

Thank you, Mr. Davis. Your time is up, but we appreciate the commentary. Thank you very much. All right, Mr. Clerk, I think we will proceed with our, unless there's more, there's no more digital.

No more online speaker. We can proceed with in-person speakers. The next speaker will be Maisomi Pretty.

Chairman Nunes, commissioners, good evening. My name is Massimo Prati. I own 537 Bush Street, which has been identified for placement on this story. Sorry, excuse me, I'm sorry. Yes, sir.

I'm not sure that the clock is... Oh, yeah. Apologies. It's okay. I got a few bonus seconds.

Thank you. As you consider these amendments in support of the historic preservation ordinance, I would like to provide you with an owner's point of view. As you all know, the major change in this update of the ordinance is the identified properties will be forced to be placed on the register without owner's consent, thereby restricting the development potential of said properties, which under SB 79 could be worth millions of dollars. By forcing us and other properties onto the register, the city, in my opinion, will be basically exercising eminent domain without offering proper compensation. The presumed benefits that are being offered to us property owners are still sketchy and, frankly, paltry vis-a-vis the value of the property. In addition to foregoing any potential development proceeds, upkeeping a historic property is an expensive proposition. How do the benefits, incentives translate into dollars? Is the city ready to sit down with individual owners and go over the details? I don't know the answer to that. a side note all outreach to us by city staff has been via bulk mail when we attempted to reach city staff in the past regarding the ordinance we never received the return phone call or email we have given up also city staff did conduct an online survey last month which we responded to along with 26 other property owners Preliminary poll results are included in the attachments. There was one question on the survey, which I recall, which asked if the property owner would opt out of the register is still given a choice. I do not see the responses to that question were included in the city staff report that was received tonight. Moreover, based on our experience from about 10 years back, the city is ill-equipped to manage a historic register. The planning department at the time lacked specific expertise on historic properties. When we started a permit application process, the planner initially understood that our house was on the historic register. It never was. We had to explain. We opted off in 2004. and initially waved this at us as a limitation and impairment to our project until he realized that we were not on this register. I hope that is not what lies ahead. Finally, the city does not have an architectural code supporting historic preservation. Just look at the shoe boxes that are popping up around Old Mountain View. In summary, eminent domain by another name is not a solution to historic preservation. A city that truly believes in historic preservation should build a system from the ground up that supports that. This ordinance would only strip away property rights from their owners and cause serious financial harm. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much.

The next speaker will be John Martinez.

sorry i think we've started the clock do you mind resetting it please thank you all right thank you for this time uh my name is john martinez my wife julie and i own a 252 monroe drive and we were have been put on the possibility of the registry We are on the registry because of the age of the property and a partial building that looks like it used to be a tank house. There's no function on, it's no longer any functioning as a tank house, there's no tank. And so now because of The council being able to consider putting us on a registry without any input for us, am I going to have to put a tank back up on the tank house? I mean, that's asking a lot. That's going back to what that gentleman was talking about also. I misunderstood what this meeting was going to be about, and I thought you guys actually had a choice of what goes on and what doesn't go on the registry. So that's basically all them and the council then is how that is. So I have to deal with the council on September. So, okay, but anyway, that's my concern also is that now I might have to put a tank on it if I get stuck on the registry and that's an expense that's ridiculous for a homeowner that, I mean, so anyway, that's my two cents worth, thanks. Thank you very much.

Next speaker is James.

James Kuzma speaking for myself. Sorry, thank you. James Guzman, speaking for myself, I'm largely going to echo points that I made at the City Council meeting in November when I authored a letter on behalf of Mount VME, although I'm only speaking for myself right now. The historic preservation is important to this city. However, as written, it is my impression that the ordinance will focus a lot of the burden on basically, Mark, calling historic a large number of properties that happen to be well-maintained 60 to 70-year-old properties. And we are not in a situation where we only have one or two buildings from 70 years ago that happened to be well-maintained. If the Loma Prieta earthquake had taken out 99% of the city, I might be saying, yes, the city should impose strong historic preservation ordinances on the remaining buildings, but we aren't. And as it's been called out, a lot of these buildings and properties are in the SB 79 area, are near our existing services and transit services. And so if we impose significant historic preservation constraints on them, we are making it so that hundreds, if not thousands of people for the next decade or two will not be able to live in the city. And we are focusing a lot of our city resources and the resources of private citizens as a couple of the commenters have called out our focus on historic preservation of buildings that we do not need to be applying effort to preserve when we can instead be trying to put resources towards more actively educating people about and preserving our actually historically significant buildings. I do appreciate some of the updates to the plan since December. It seems good to me that we are including more city-owned buildings that are historically significant in this and planning to work with them. it is good that for property owners that want to opt in we are making some of the processes easier because if someone does have a building they want to be maintaining and they want to take advantage of the mills act great um but this seems too onerous as is this seems like this imposed too much cost on the cities and its residents And ultimately to me, the history of the city is important insofar as the people who used to live here and will live here and the stories that they tell. And if we prevent ourselves from building history for the future, we are not serving the city and its current and future residents. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Mr. Clerk, any other speakers?

No additional in-person speakers or online speakers.

Okay, all right. Then no more speakers. Okay, cool. Then we will go ahead and close the public comment and proceed to the deliberation portion of this. But before I do, I just want to make sure I just kind of get staff to confirm. That is correct, right, we are not discussing any of the specific sites to be included, correct? And therefore, is there a recommendation for anyone who's in the public right now, either viewing online or here in person around the next or most meaningful opportunity for them to have that discussion with the city?

I'm sorry, I missed the first part of your question.

The scope of this meeting is not to look at specific sites to be added or included or potentially, and so to that extent, for anyone who has made the time to come out or is watching online, what's the next or the best meaningful opportunity that staff can recommend to them for engaging on this matter?

Sure, I would suggest anybody that's interested and has a property where they have a concern about potential inclusion in the historic register is to reach out to our staff. We have tried to make ourselves available to anybody that wants to engage to ask questions. to get informed about the process. We can meet in person, over the phone, via Zoom. So I would encourage them to reach out to the Community Development Department. Beyond that, they can submit written comments to us via email or by US mail or hand delivery to the Community Development Department if they want to express their support or opposition to potential listing on the register. And then lastly, we've also been encouraging those that we have engaged with that maybe differ in their opinion about their property being included in the register, to submit whatever information or evidence they have that might support a different conclusion. And so we have not finished the analysis, if you will, so we are willing and still have the opportunity to consider any evidence that someone might submit from an expert in historic preservation that might support a different conclusion. So that opportunity remains available.

Thank you very much, and sorry, did I hear you say walk-in opportunities are available? Did I hear that correctly, or?

Sure, so we have the public counter. I would encourage them to call ahead and make an appointment, but we do have planners that staff the counter that can provide general information, and if our project team is available at that time, they can come to the counter and engage in a discussion as well.

All right, thank you, and public comment time is closed, so we will proceed with the EPC deliberation. Any commissioners wanna open up the discussion for action. It's not gonna be me.

All right, Commissioner Cranston. In general, I'm pleased with the changes that were made since we saw this the last time. It seems that the overall approach is largely consistent with what I was hoping to see. If I have a concern, it's this next three, four months on getting the list done. That's not something we're gonna look at, but it doesn't seem as though, at least certain members of the community are not necessarily satisfied with the process they've had access to, and so this doesn't affect the recommendation in this. Like my colleagues, I would rather see some of the details of like the incentives called out a little more, but I do understand that incentives can cross a lot of boundaries. So I get that, and it's also then easier to make updates later than going through that process. So in general, I think the changes that I was most concerned about have been incorporated in and addressed the issues that I had early on, and I don't necessarily see anything that's screaming it to me, well, we can't do this, other than a part of the process that's not on the table here, getting to the final list. I will admit that I'm not comfortable, I'm not coming away with as comfortable that if I were somebody on the outside that I would know what I need to do to go through that process. That's my reservation, but it's not something we're voting on here necessarily. But it's a question to staff and also the council that we need to make sure that that's very clear for people on what they need to do. And the phone calls are getting answered and emails are getting answered so that people do have the opportunity to do that. But there's nothing in here that I saw that was like, oh, we have to change this in what I saw and the way the ordinance has been written right now.

All right, thank you, Commissioner Cranston. And just to be clear, we are looking at three recommendations, right? It's the acceptance of the historical context statement, the adoption of the ordinance itself in terms of the update to standards and procedures, and then the zoning map. So three different matters or recommendations. Commissioner Subramanian.

I, too, second Commissioner Cranston's statements about the thoroughness of the updates to the historic ordinance and just completing a years-long process to bring it to the stage. I think it's going to be a much improved clarification on the various code sections as it pertains to historic properties and the and processes required around that. So I commend staff for bringing the process to the conclusion stages at this point. I do also express concerns around specific properties being listed on the register. particularly with the large number of blanks that we see in terms of responses either in favor of being listed or against being listed. And I strongly recommend to both staff and council that we go through a very deliberate process in terms of making contact with property owners. and putting in the extra effort to really refine the list instead of making it a reactive process and a very tedious and maybe cumbersome process of delisting properties once that list is finalized. So I do think that more time is needed to get to that final list, but apart from that, I'm in support of the three actions that we are recommending to council tonight.

Thank you, Commissioner Subramanian. Commissioner Dempsey.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I am perhaps a little bit surprised where I'm landing on this. I'm very much in general support of historic preservation. I grew up in an old farmhouse, and I very much support Mountain View having an ordinance and an updated ordinance. I'm also very cognizant how long and how hard staff has been working on trying to get something this complex right. As the finish line comes into view, however, I am feeling nervous. And I feel nervous on essentially two things. It's the size of the list and sort of the scale and scope of the incentives. And I feel and I recognize that both of those topics have sort of taken off of any sort of detailed discussion tonight. But what I care about and what I do think is sort of incumbent upon at least me is balance. How does the policy overall land on property owners, commercial and residential here in Mountain View? That matters to me a lot and I do think that is germane. And what I find in reading through staff report and talking about it, that the burdens of being listed are pretty clear. And they're pretty significant, as I can tell. It's lost economic value, potentially additional permitting. There's constraints on use. There's the threat of enforcement, which I didn't know this, but includes criminal penalties. That was a surprise to me.

The opt-out was taken away.

If I was an owner of an eligible property downtown, I wouldn't want to be put on this list. I would not want to, and I would take very good care of my house. I understand why the city has a process, and I understand why they would even take the op-out away. because otherwise everybody would bail out and what would happen to like really, what if the owner of the, you know, the Locke Museum down on Castro was like, nah, I want to build a six-story, you know, apartment tower. I'd be like, no, that's a beautiful old building. Like that's why we have these things. But the burden is pretty clear to me on the property owners. The benefits are not at all clear to me. And I can't assess whether it's relatively in balance or not. And that's really sticking in my craw about trying to say that I support this and this should go to the council. I'm actually gonna abstain on it tonight because I don't feel like I can make a fully informed decision. What I will say though is I wanna offer my general principle on how I wish it worked out. And the way I wish it worked out is to the extent that we are going to have a broader, more inclusive list at the end, larger numbers of properties listed, then the benefits, the incentives ought to be larger. The more inclusive we are for edge cases, the more I think we owe it to the property owners to kind of make it worth their while to put up with the hassle. That is what I think. I wish I could measure that, but I can't because of what I have in front of me. So, yeah, for that reason I'm going to cheerfully abstain, but I definitely appreciate all the work staff put into this, and I hope that this sort of balancing question, and if we're gonna impose this new burden on property owners, that we find a way to sort of take some of the sting out of it in a significant way. I really do hope that that is something that Council considers strongly.

Thank you, Commissioner Dempsey. Vice Chair Donahue.

I'm also actually thinking about the costs and benefits of this proposed ordinance. And the answer to the Eichler question was interesting. I can see how people might want to put their Eichlers on the registry I've been speaking to some people who are concerned about SB 79 and its impact on monoloma. But if you weren't on a registry at the beginning of last year, then that doesn't really have any impact. But then there's economic downsides as we just heard on the property owners as well. And the fact that we have this expanded list, but the list could be vastly larger than this in the end. And we've heard from some property owners who are concerned about being on the list at all. We've received emails over the last few days that there were emails in the packet also. I really... want to preserve historic resources. Going through some of the resources in that very large attachment, it was kind of fun to go through and say, oh, I know that house. That's a great house. I love that house. And then actually some others I said, what's that doing there? Like the kind of the gas station thing that's a Hertz over in El Camino now. So I'm It's interesting, I hadn't considered abstaining. I'm really torn on this and I am interested in hearing more perspectives from my fellow commissioners to get me one way or the other because I think historic preservation is very important but property rights are important too.

Thank you. Commissioner Pham.

So I thank staff for doing all this work over multiple years to be able to get to this point. We are near the finish line, and I appreciate the effort, the outreach, the working with consultants, identifying the properties, modifying the ordinance. It was all a lot of work. There are things I like here. I like the tiered approach to approving of modifications. I thought that was very nicely put together. I also like that for properties or neighbors who want to band together to create a historic district, there is now a process for that. or would be if this goes to council and passed. I am concerned about incentives and benefits. I actually had thought that that was discussed a lot in October and that I was hoping council would, when they saw it in December, give more thought to that. And I thought that that section would be more defined here. And I do understand the general approach that we don't want everything in the ordinance. Some of this may come later. It could be a council policy, which is a little bit more flexible. I understand that, but I still wanna see more specifics. I'm wondering if that could be brought forth to council as suggestions or in council deliberation in the next couple months, that'd be a huge focus. Because I do think that there's a lot of work here updates the existing ordinance well defines a lot of things and gets rid of a lot of issues that have been described in multiple staff reports but um it is something that the city is asking a lot more owners to be a part of and contribute to in terms of historic resources and preserving them i'm wondering if the incentives are proportional to what they may have to live with by being on this list. So that's one of my concerns is there's a lot of good work here. There's a lot of work that I'm supportive of. And I do understand that getting to just the ordinance being adopted is a huge win. But how do we make sure that once we reach there that the work that still needs to be done is still a big focus and that the policy will be, the policies will contain enough specifics where the incentives and benefits will be worth it.

All right, I guess I'll make some commentary as well, but unfortunately I will start with a question because the public comment kind of did, raise one potential thing in my mind. One of the gentlemen who spoke online did mention the ability or the potential, I don't know, like individual improvement of the experience of being on the register as a property owner. if and or to the extent that there is some accompanying city support, whether through some fund or some other avenue for additional support, whether due to some like Basically, I guess, and I'm hearing this from several of the commissioners as well in terms of concern around, it's a lot more clear what the burden is of landing on this list than the benefits and or the support. I guess like in terms of our discretion here, are we able to, for example, say, hey, we would support the recommendations and in addition to that, we would want to recommend to the city council as well that greater avenues for support and, I don't know, making it more clear what the benefits are, right? And kind of like having that be actually materially substantive in terms of, additional avenues for helping people who land on the registry so they don't have to, you know, if they do have to put tanks on the roof or whatever that situation was that, you know, like maybe it is a big burden on them, right? What can staff kind of like speak to in terms of that train of thought?

Sure, so I think it's absolutely fair game for the Commission's recommendation. Incentives are addressed in section 36.55.60 of the draft ordinance. That's beginning on page 24 of attachment two. You know, specific to the public comment that suggested a supplemental historic preservation fund, which I think may be the one that you're referring to, I do wanna call out that already listed as a historic building rehabilitation loan fund. And so that's very similar to at least my understanding of what the commenter was describing. The key question always is what level of budgetary support can the council provide, given the many needs of the city and the fiscal constraints, right, of our revenues? It may be part of the commission's recommendation to maybe expand that to historic building rehabilitation loan fund and or grants or something along those lines where at least it's showing an indication where legal allowances, you know, regulating gifts of public funds, for example, you know, if we can derive a program that is consistent with those legal limitations that if council can find the funding for that, that that would be a grant in addition to a loan opportunity. That's perhaps one avenue the Commission could explore.

Okay, all right. Thank you, Ian. Yeah, my apologies. My read on table three, I think if we're talking about the same one, was more about changes to incentives and benefits rather than an actual listing of, hey, here's the cool stuff you get. But we don't have to get. I run to documentation versus clarity issues at work all the time. Okay, then I guess in terms of my commentary, it might deviate into another question. I hope it doesn't. But I guess I am concerned as well. And I guess this is a question from a... If there are two abstentions, given we actually have one absent commissioner, if there's two abstentions and a no vote, is that functionally, would that still count as a majority of yes? Assuming there's three yeses, or how would that break apart, just in terms of how I'm hearing this?

Right, so any abstention's effectively going to serve as a no vote, because affirmative votes are needed for there to be a majority action. So what could happen in that scenario you described is there's no recommendation from the commission. And so we won't have any majority opinion to share. And so our summary perhaps will be very limited of what occurred tonight.

Okay, cool. I guess I'm concerned a little bit with this proposal, not in terms of like, I understand it started quite a few years back. And as someone who, loves history um personally speaking for myself um i do understand and cherish and value um having tangible representations of you know how the past got us to present moment and carries forward, you know, ancestors and events and stories, all that kind of stuff. But I guess for me, I can't put that forward at the expense of the future and the resources that we steward. as a community today for the community of tomorrow, and possibly one of, if not the greatest resource we have right now is the land that we have. As Yogi Berra said, they are not making more of it. I mean, well, the Earth does, but very slowly, but not here, not right now. And so I'm very reticent around some of the... historical district stuff. I guess like one thing I would like to see, and just to spare Steph another question, I'm gonna frame this as an affirmative statement, and then if you guys want to chime in on that, then okay. I guess one thing I'd like to see and maybe would kind of like temper that concern is if there was some additional I don't know if it's like a criteria or means of assessing a property based on some factors that people obviously care about, like for example, the area H in the downtown. when I was asking about the, hey, did SB 79 kind of like add urgency to this because of the historic core? I mean, like, I don't know. I'm sure if you ask select people who are very influential in our community, it definitely added urgency to this item. And I would agree with them because I really like those buildings. It just adds something to the experience of being in Mountain View. And the reason why is because it's in a central place. It's a public space. But I can't really say that's the same for, you know, a really historically architecturally valuable place in the outskirts of town out in the periphery where, you know, like only the mailman visits it. Right. And so I guess like I'm just. I know there's a legal definition around, like, what constitutes deemed historical, right? But I guess, like, maybe I missed it. I just want to make sure I'm not missing it. Was there some incorporation of criteria for, like, I don't know, like foot traffic, prominence on a public fair, or like contribution to the public sense of being in Mountain View versus just like being a really cool architectural building or something like that. Or being a single family home or a pocket, a pool of 50 single family homes, you know what I mean? Like, was there some incorporation of that into the current proposal?

Sorry for asking another question.

I'll try to make it the last one.

So the criteria that we have include the design, persons, events. In some cases, for example, you can qualify for being associated with Downtown Mountain View and being an important building to Downtown Mountain View because Downtown Mountain View is an important essentially, event, right? The development of downtown Mountain View is an important event. One of the reasons why we have these criteria is, these different criteria, is because the city may want to make different decisions regarding listing based on these criteria. And so council has asked that we separate out the design only properties for special scrutiny, for whether they really should be listed or not. So that is kind of an example of one of the points that you brought up, you know, is it just, you know, is it an important part of the city's, the events of the city's history, or is it just a historic-looking building? And so that is one of the criteria that council will be looking at in the next couple of months.

Yeah, pardon me, Chair. I'd just like to invite our consultant, Christina Dykus-Pelps, to maybe describe in the scope of her practice as a historic preservation expert what it means to convey significance. To me, that terminology is maybe the closest thing that I can relate to as far as what you're describing, you know, a historic resource that's in a very publicly accessible well trafficked place does conveying significance have any relevance in that sense as compared to a very isolated private private property that maybe very few people the owner and the mailman i think as you put it you know are the only ones regularly accessing that i'm not sure there's relevance in typical historic preservation practice but i'd like to get the expert to just inform the commission on that point

Definitely, thank you. And just to add additional context here in terms of like, another kind of like way of thinking about it too is like, for example, from what I know about Eichler, you know, and how progressive minded he was, you know, today, if he were around, he might say, hey, you know, instead of having 50 of my buildings, yeah, like tear them down, make 500 homes, right? Like, I don't know, like how did, and I'm very much welcome and thank you for the HCS. It was very, it was, delightful and so I know I'm now entering middle age because I found that document quite delightful but I'd love to just I hope I'm being clear around kind of like you know how I'm presenting like this concern around how we contextualize like the value to avoid some of these kind of like negative externalities.

Yeah, so the local criteria that are outlined in the ordinance reflect and parallel the National Register of Historic Places criteria and the California Register. So these are well-established frameworks for identifying potential significance. And any property that is eligible for one of these registers, there's always two aspects that we're looking at. It's the significance within both the context of the individual property and its history and people involved and how it evolved and was developed over time. and then within the broader context, which is outlined in the historic context statement. So any of these individual properties that have the individual historic evaluation forms, it's always important to kind of refer back to the context statement for that broader information that helps kind of situate it relative to others within the city. So in terms of public view or something like that, it isn't typically part of the considerations because historic value as established by the National Park Service federally is really about that historic context and the information related to that and being able to identify significance. So there could be other types of values that city council wants to consider in terms of intangible aspects of what is valuable to the individual community. But in terms of the historic preservation framework, that's not necessarily a key item. I will say, though, that in terms of the ordinance and the different types of projects with the major and the minor, there is an emphasis on what can be seen from the public right of way. So typically those physical character defining features are focused more on the sides of what people can see, and there's more flexibility towards the back of the property for change, which is understood may happen on these properties.

Thank you. Yeah, that was really helpful. I think your explanation helped me. Understand that and contextualize for myself, I guess that what I'm really kind of trying to speak to is historical preservation and the historical registry from the perspective of historical preservation as a resource for. and future use by, and future appreciation by our community, rather than historical preservation as a registry for preservation itself. And I'm not saying, I'm not trying to cast judgment on the work or the report in that manner yet, but it did help contextualize that for me in that manner. Thank you. Vice Chair Donahue.

There's one of the public comments was concerned about being forced to put a tank on the tank house. And my understanding is that no one would be required to restore a property to its condition that it was in when it was historically significant. Is that correct? You have to maintain it in the current condition. but you don't have to make it look like it did 100 years ago.

No, that's correct.

Okay, good. Yeah, that's good. A couple of other comments. on something I forgot to mention earlier. The historic district says that you can petition if you have at least 50% of the parcels and the area, the area of those parcels. Generally, in our democratic society, I would like to see a majority above 50% as opposed to 50% or larger. Because if there's eight parcels, I would like to see five instead of four. And the thing that really concerned me earlier, actually, I kept asking about the CEQA process and I asked about it in the previous meeting as well, that this is similar to the CEQA process and there's generally, it's not more burdensome. But then when I asked about the Eichlers, the answer that I heard was that it is more burdensome. And did I mishear that or was that correct?

So yes, for single family homes in our districts, there is more burden to being on the register if your interest is in redeveloping the property with a new single family home. However, the current ordinance also has a permit requirement for properties that have been identified as state or national eligible. So that ministerial or non-discretionary process has already been taken away from many of the properties that we have, that are already on the register, have been identified as, have opted off the register and were in that survey that was specifically focused on state and national eligible properties. So certainly there are some properties that are on the register and that opted off where they are not currently subject to, if they weren't on the register, they are not subject to, if they weren't on the register, they would not be subject to that CEQA process because they're not state or national eligible.

Say that again.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm confusing myself. So there are some properties that are currently on the register that are not state or national eligible. But because they are currently on the register, they are subject to an HP permit. And so they would be subject to CEQA for whatever they were doing because they're subject to that discretionary permit. There are some properties that opted off that are state or national eligible, so would still be subject to that HP permit process under our current code. And so we cannot, they would still be subject to CEQA under our current code, even though they opted off. There are some properties that opted off that would not be subject, that are not state or national eligible, and would not be subject to CEQA, are not currently subject to CEQA, and would not be, and this would be a new requirement on them, but because Council told us to study them, they're on our draft list of resources. So I would say it's that narrow group of properties that opted off that are single family homes that are not state or national eligible, where there may be a difference at this point in council designating them on the register. But again, Council has also asked for us to take a look at those properties that are not state or national eligible for them to look through and say whether or not to list them. It's a fairly small group of properties that opted off that are not state or national eligible and that are also single family homes. The attachment to the exhibit to the ordinance of single family homes that are state or national eligible, which I will say does include one of the properties of one of the public speakers tonight. That's an example of us needing to maintain that permit process because if we took away that permit process, because the permit process applies today, because CEQA applies today, if we took that away, that in itself would be a CEQA impact.

For this action?

For this action, exactly.

Okay, wow. Okay, the thing that I'm trying to do is think ahead, not just of what the current list, because we're not supposed to be worried about what the current list is, but just thinking of potential impacts for the future list and what is... generally eligible, and there's hundreds and hundreds of properties that I think, because there's, I don't remember how many houses are in Mauna Loma, but it's gotta be hundreds. And then there's Trophy and Eichler over here. And there's other builders, other architects, other people who are involved with these homes that would qualify them. So yeah, that's where I have my reservations, thanks.

Thank you, Chair. I just want to provide one update. We looked further at the regulations governing the commission's action tonight, and we do need an affirmative motion and recommendation, whether that's to support, to modify, or not to adopt the proposed ordinance in order for this to carry forward to the city council. So I would ask that whatever event the recommendation to support this fails due to abstentions and no votes and the like, that an alternative motion that can gain majority support be explored by the commission.

The plot thickens. Okay, thank you. Commissioner Cranston.

So how many properties are there in the city?

More than 20,000 parcels in Mountain View.

So I recognize that we're talking about going from 41 to 99, but we're talking about 0.01% of all the properties?

This may sound like a big number, but it's actually not.

And so I understand there's this argument of okay, we need to protect the future of the city. We're not talking about taking a swath of the city that's two, three, five, 10% of the city. This is a very small percentage of the city. I'm not saying that it's not important to the people that own those properties. but I wanna make sure we're putting in a context is this is not a major swath of the city that we're talking about here, number one. We keep joking about Eichler's, You know, we try to get a speed bump on a street and trying to get eight people on the block to agree to put in a speed bump to get a majority is like impossible. And so this historic district thing of trying to get 50% of the people of a district to go along with this, yeah, it's kind of cool, but it's not happening, okay? It's there, but you're talking, yeah, there's a thousand people in Monteloma, okay? Trying to get 500 of them to agree to one thing? I think the fear of this historic district being spread all over the place is quite frankly unrealistic. The place where there's some passion around it is downtown where you walk along and you find the lock shop and those kind of things. It has a different meaning to it than walking around a neighborhood in the other part of the city. The idea that a property is historic because you walk by it, I can't tell you how many times I've ever walked by the Ring Storehouse, but it's a cool house, okay? It's a cool building. If you had asked me, is there anything historic in Crystal Park, I'd be like, what are you talking about? So this idea that you have to be near something, I understand the consultant's comment. Being near it doesn't make any sense to me. There needs to be these criteria that are outside of that. So the kind of things that have been incorporated in this make sense to me. I am, if somebody wants to propose a language that we add on here that says, and oh, by the way, council, doing something and getting this policy in place for the incentives has to be a priority and needs to be part of the adoption of the final resolution, I am all for supporting that because I agree. It's weak right now. It doesn't articulate it very well. I don't know how... what we're allowed to incorporate into this. But I agree, it needs to be more specific, it needs to be more clear. And because we're all, we agree, you can see the downside, but the upside is like this fuzzy thing. So what I wouldn't want to happen is they agree to this and then nothing happens. It may say it's in there under section 36 or whatever it is, but the action needs to take place. And so I don't know that if it means incorporating something and it says that action needs to be taken by council within no more than six months from this to actually begin the process of putting in place a more detailed and explicit incentive process, I'm in because I agree with that. But in general, the thing that we have today, it reflects the concerns that we had We're not talking about a huge swath of the city. Yes, it's more than it is now, but it's a fraction of a small percent. And the reason I've highlighted the need to make sure it's clear for people to know how to bring it forward is that they can bring these issues ahead of time. they shouldn't be calling in and not getting an answer from people.

They should know how to do that.

So I appreciate that the assistant director went over and talked to the speaker in the audience and said, hey, this is my name, give me a call. That's what we should be doing. We need those kind of conversations. So I'm still supportive of this, but I would also support the idea of adding something that says specifically in the EPC, our part of our recommendation is that a very specific action plan be put in place to define more clearly the incentive programs, and including looking at something like this, I don't know what you want to call it, loan program, as an option and it's feasible, be done within a certain period of time after the approval of the ordinance. I would be all in favor of that.

Thank you, Commissioner Cranston. Commissioner Subramanian.

As we heard more comments from staff about the breakdown of the list and the granularity of how decisions are being made to have eligible candidates being suggested to the registry, it struck me that not everything is a design criteria related candidate. So I think what would be helpful to also understand is By being nominated to this register, does it suggest that there are alternate means of recording sort of historic resource without just having a whole bunch of dollhouses preserved across the city? Particularly if design is not the only criteria driving the nomination to the register. And again, to further what my colleagues have said, I think that further builds the case to really line up proportionate incentives and benefits that people can see in tandem with what is being called the extent of historic preservation that's being nominated to the register.

Thank you, Commissioner Subramanian. I added myself on the list. Yeah, for me the concern is not the new list, it's the historical district stuff. And just to be clear, just because we can't imagine something won't happen doesn't mean it won't. That's why it's an argumentative fallacy. But to that end, like real talk, it seems to me like the historical district thing is, like a lot of it to me feels like it's taking the problem of trying to solve preserving the historical downtown core and extrapolating it citywide. And we don't currently have this historical district process, so clearly we're not like dying as a city or withering on the vine because we don't have the ability for, we don't have yet another mechanism for the preservation of a resource, which in this case is land and housing. And people, to the best of my knowledge, aren't knocking down the doors of council outside of the historic downtown core looking to have the ability for the district. But hey, if we can't fathom or imagine that someone would want to do this anyway, then I don't think, for me personally, I don't really think it should be in this. Add all the resources, add the long list, that's fine with me, I don't care about the list. I think if we wanna preserve the downtown, then shouldn't council, maybe I'm just not as smart as a council person, shouldn't Council just solve that problem on its own merits. That's my big problem with this, it's the historical district piece, I love the HCS. But I don't know how to square the district thing, that's a big concern for me. Quick question on the process. Do we have to vote on this in like just one giant ticket item, like all three recommendations get voted on once or can we like do vote for the number one, the number two, the number three and then like a potential number four in terms of what Commissioner Crenson just mentioned around the recommendation, added recommendation to explore like more clear benefits and incentive structures, all of that kind of stuff. Is that, is it like an omnibus or is it like, are we able to like?

I think if it's easier for the EPC to navigate, we could separate out one, two, three based on staff's recommended recommendations. itemization of the items.

Okay, so that is possible. So then in that case, I'll put forward right now, my big hang up with this is, you know, like taking a shotgun to like a sniper, like, you know, like terrible analogies here, but I think you get what I'm getting at. I just don't appreciate this historical district thing, which we can't imagine anyone taking advantage of anyway. So I would probably, right now as it stands, probably... whatever part of it is the historical, number two I think is the one that contains the whole historical district thing. I don't think I could support that.

Commissioner Cranston.

There's two mechanisms on the historic district. One is council initiated, other is community initiated. Is that correct?

There's also a survey initiated process So if the council directs us to conduct another citywide survey, but this time with a focus on finding eligible districts, that's a process that we can do.

But that's still council-initiated?

It's separate because the council-initiated district process is focused on a specific set of properties. But the survey-initiated process needs to be different because it's not focused on a specific set of properties. It's a different process in the ordinance.

It's effectively initiating the exploration for qualifying areas rather than effectively knowing an area where you want to focus already. Tomato, tomato. They're initiated by the council and they're leading to the same end in my mind.

So I'm generally in favor of the idea of a historic district, but that needs to be initiated by council. And so I would be open to modify a recommendation from EPC that we remove the percent vote thing from any neighborhood from this list and I was trying to say okay it has to be something initiated by council but what you're talking about is identify that's there's two mechanisms for council to initiate it one is that they say go look at this area and the other is that they tell staff to go look at look at and do a survey to me those are both council initiated areas so I would be inclined to keep those but I'm okay with the idea of removing the a bunch of people in the neighborhood decide they want to get onto a list and remove that option from the ordinance. Mr. Chair, would that potentially address your concern?

I guess I don't trust council that much more than 50% of people wanting to preserve. I really hardly, barely do. Especially if it goes into districts. At some point in the future, what if district elections get implemented? There's just so much in the future where it's not something we have today. People are not... falling on the street, holding up signs demanding historical districts. And it's really about the area H. Just being real, it's about, and I support that, but I think this is too big of an umbrella to solve the rush to rightfully, in my view, save the Castro as a historical resource for the future. I would be open to hearing what others have to say in terms of how we modify that. Maybe there is a way where it's some combination, or maybe there's other models we don't know of where it's only council-initiated and 50% of people plus one have to agree or something. Maybe there's other ways to explore that, or our recommendation could be to staff to explore additional safeguards from this historical district. But we don't have it today. I don't hear the giant clamoring outside of Area H. And so I'm still just not in favor of the districts, but I'm open to other thoughts on that.

Chair, I just want to arm the Commission with one more fact given the importance of this district discussion to the deliberation and the relationship to what I hear housing development potential broadly.

So to the extent there's concern about districts as a tool that might circumvent SB 79, Senate Bill 79, transit-oriented development,

The law, SB 79 does limit the use of historic resources as an exclusion to 10% of the TOD area. So it's not as though a district could carve out the entirety of that SB 79 transit area and use that historic district as a mechanism to suppress housing development potential. There are no other limitations on area elsewhere in the city outside of those SB 79 areas, but there is a safeguard in SB 79 to limit to just 10% of that area.

That's awesome. I would be down to support it if we felt, and if we can't do this, then staff let me know. It'd be a miracle if we could do something. I would be down to support it if there was some mechanism that staff would explore where there would be some potential for higher scrutiny of opportunity areas as identified by our housing element. Does that make sense?

Meaning like some higher threshold for council action if the district?

Or the coalescence of a district that happens to be in opportunity areas that come about from the legitimate process of housing element that gets approved by the state of California.

Right.

Because that'd be like an official designation, right?

So I think maybe one mechanism is maybe adding some qualifying language to the district approval process where if a district includes a housing element opportunity site, maybe a super majority like five out of seven rather than just the simple majority four out of seven would need to take a vote given the heightened trade-offs that are being made of housing versus historic preservation in that sense.

I can get down with that. What do you think, Commissioner Crenson and or other commissioners? I would be down to support that.

I'm open to that. I'm open to that. I guess it was a clarifying question. We can't make downtown a historic district without incorporating this into the ordinance, right? don't have a mechanism for currently we there's no mechanism in the city's code to create a historic district so i i still like the idea that there's something here i i'm okay with strengthening it narrowing the scope of it um but i don't want to lose the ability to do that in that area so i'm i like the the super majority idea i'm again i'm open i said before the idea that you know a bunch of people in you know What's the park decide they wanna make a neighborhood and that doesn't work, okay? So to narrow that down. So I like the supermajority idea. However, we can incorporate that into this. I'm open to something like that.

Sounds good to me. Commissioner Subramanian.

And maybe in adding to that is putting in some restrictions around kind of the extents of it. So not too small and not too large.

I appreciate that. I think, yeah, I think we might end up staying here until, Commissioner, I mean, Mr. Anderson, bring out the maps. I think we'll, if it's okay with you, I think we could probably, if staff, yeah.

So it's just a recommendation without getting too into the details.

Right, okay, you mean the recommendation. I think.

The recommendation to council around further refining historic district language in addition to the 50% and tying it up with council recommendation to limit it in such a way to your earlier point about not interfering with potential opportunities within housing element sites.

I'm not sure I'm quite following. I think the approach that we're thinking right now is if there is the potential coalescence of a historical district, that if there is an inclusion or an opportunity area or site, on or within um that potential district that in those um cases it would require a super majority council vote um rather than a simple majority and so i think like i feel comfortable with that level of detail i think um you know, like, I don't know, like staff might be able to work the technicals around how that, otherwise I think we might be needing to go into a lot of detail we're not equipped for, but I don't wanna speak for staff, staff, like, you wanna help us out here to extent.

I think I'm not necessarily fully understanding Commissioner Subramanian's point. I think it's having language that says the district should not be more broad than it needs to be to communicate its historic essence. I think there's a natural limitation there given the factual analysis to support the district designation. If it's too diluted because too much non-historical area is included, it really diminishes the evidentiary basis for that action. So I don't know in my mind that there's necessarily more that needs to be done on that point.

Okay, that's right.

Thank you. Is that okay? Yeah. Okay, then in that case, I think we've got a couple additions, modifications to this, which would be largely... Right now, this is what we have on the floor, so still open for discussion, obviously, but we have... The recommendation, the three things with the additions or additional guidance, direction, recommendation, what have you, that the council in a final product, please make more clear what the incentives, benefit structure and potential improvement to that might look like. And then I'm not using motion read language here but and then the second one is the supermajority standard for any districts that would have the inclusion of an opportunity site those are the two things that I'm hearing as recommendations to be added or modified anything else or any objection concern support that from the commission.

The neighborhood initiated one, so it has to be from council and it has to take these additional criteria for the supermajority?

Is that what you're thinking? I don't mind. I don't mind just going with the staff recommendation, personally with the staff recommendation plus the supermajority for opportunity sites and leaving in the community thing. Sorry, were you gonna say something, Mr. Murdoch, no? Commissioner, yeah, Vice Chair.

If we have the community-initiated process, then it's still subject to Council approval. All of this is subject to Council approval, so okay.

Yeah, so in that case, if there was an opportunity site in a plebiscite origin district movement, then it would still be subject to the five out of seven supermajority. Yeah, condition, okay. Commissioner Pham.

So I have a question. So for a historic district that's community initiated, if it includes an opportunity site, then it would still need supermajority of council?

Okay.

Well, I mean, I'm down to make a motion here. Unless there's more discussion or deliberation.

Commissioner Cranston. I was also open to it. It was a question for how do you want me to word the incentive thing?

Okay.

I can say it, but I just, how do you want me to, how should I word that?

So here's what I captured and let me know if there's a different approach. I just kept it simple and said the EPC recommends that council add more clarity to incentives prior to adoption of the ordinance. Is that good?

I think introducing the word proportionate would be important to suggest that the incentives and benefits line up proportionately aligned with the historic designation and the economic impact of that.

Absolutely. Is there a Zoom speaker still?

I guess it would help staff to understand more about what that means in practice. So I think as we've envisioned and set up the ordinance, an individual property is eligible for all of the incentives subject to any limitations that might be in the future council policy that maybe prioritize smaller rather than larger projects or establish limits on the amount of incentive to a larger site compared to a smaller site. or whatever other policy approaches the Council wants to take. So maybe more specificity can be provided as to what this means about proportionality if already they're largely accessible, all the incentives are accessible to all the properties.

Yeah, I'll leave it to Commissioner Silverman and Cranston to help us understand a little bit more.

Yeah, where my thought was going with that is in there being a clear identification of what the size of this rehab loan fund bucket, whatever you call it, that is created to address the number of properties we're including in the register, which makes it clear that, you know, all the carrots are not equally applicable, like getting concessions on permit fees or in lieu fees only matters if there's going to be substantial reconstruction or rehabilitation of the property and may not be a resource to just homeowners just continuing to maintain their property and in the face of deterioration needing more access to funds in addition to their own capital to address those upkeep and maintenance costs. And so there being a clear identification of the pot of money that is being set aside by the city for individuals to be able to approach that and to utilize that in aiding their rehab and maintenance of their properties. So while I appreciate that there's a whole host of benefits, not are equally applicable to all properties.

Would you like to, unless Commissioner Cranston wants to say something about that, but would you like to take a stab at summarizing or?

Well, I think maybe to keep it succinct, so adding to what I said earlier of adding more clarity to incentives prior to adoption of the ordinance and urging council to resource the incentives, proportionate to the need of the properties on the adopted register.

That's what I'm hearing.

Add more clarity to the incentives prior to adoption of the ordinance and urging council to resource the incentives proportionately to the need of the properties of the adopted register.

I would have said the economic burden. Proportion of the economic burden.

So I think that's a broad term that could mean the economic burden of being denied significant development potential versus the cost burden of physical maintenance. So I would ask that the commission be specific.

I would limit it to just the physical maintenance needs.

I think need is the broad, like, without getting to, going to Lawyerville here is not necessarily what we want, but I think, like, if... our Community Development Director is saying I think need would suffice to meet the concern, then I think we can kinda like proceed with that. And then in terms of the additional language for the supermajority part of that, Mr. Murdoch, do you have recommended language for that, or State Attorney, do you have any? We can just add tech onto this.

So I would just maybe just to revisit the incentives piece. I think it may help for clarity to add something along the following lines. So add more clarity to the incentives prior to adoption of the ordinance and urge council to resource the incentives proportionate to the maintenance needs of properties on the adopted register.

To the maintenance needs of the properties on the register. And then for the final piece around the supermajority, is there any recommended, would that go into number two or three, or is that like a separate?

That would go into number two, as would the incentives language. So for the supermajority, I think something like, require a supermajority five votes if a proposed historic district includes a housing element opportunity site given the heightened trade-off of housing versus preservation?

The historical district contains a housing element opportunity site?

Yes.

A housing element opportunity site given the trade-off?

Heightened trade-off of housing versus preservation.

Okay. Okay, so then that would be for, I'm just gonna read it for everyone, so what the new number two would sound like. It would be adopt an ordinance of the City of Mountain View amending chapter 36 zoning of the Mountain View City Code to update standards and procedures related to the designation and preservation of historic resources, and finding that the amendments are exempt from the review under the California Environmental Quality Act, pursuant to guidelines section 15308, as recommended by the Environmental Planning Commission, attachment two to the EPC staff report, adding more clarity to incentives prior to adoption of the ordinance, and urge Council to resource the incentives proportionate to the maintenance needs of the property on the register, and to require a supermajority of five votes, or just five votes, parentheses five votes, if the historical district contains a housing element opportunity site given the heightened trade-off of housing versus preservation. And then we would read number three. So it would be number one, number two, with that added language, and then number three.

Does that work? That's right, Chair. Maybe it's worth taking a straw poll to see if taking them together would have sufficient majority support. That would efficiently allow us to conclude the item. If it's not clear, then we can take them one by one.

Okay. I think, yeah, let's do a straw poll. We'll do the straw poll. All right.

Count of three. Ready?

One, two, three, go. Sounds like we got support, all right. All right, so then I will make the motion and I'll read it and do we have a second? Commissioner Cranston, seconds. Excellent, all right. Let us proceed to the vote, please, Mr. Clerk. all right sweet i make a motion uh that the environmental planning commission recommend to the city council that number one uh to accept the city of mountain view historic context statement hcs attachment to the epc staff report to adopt an ordinance of the city of mountain view amending chapter 36 zoning of the mountain view city code to update standards and procedures related to the designation and preservation of historic resources and finding that the amendments are exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to CEQA guidelines section 15308, as recommended by the Environmental Planning Commission, attachment to the APC staff report, and adding more clarity to incentives prior to the adoption of the ordinance, and urge Council to resource these incentives proportionate to the maintenance needs of the properties on the register, and requiring a super majority of five votes if the historical district contains a historic element opportunity site, given the heightened trade-off of housing versus preservation, And three, adopt an ordinance of the City of Mountain View amending the zoning map to exclude properties designated on the Mountain View Register of Historic Resources prior to January 1st, 2025 from Government Code Section 65912.157, Senate Bill 79, and finding that the amendments are exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15061B3 as recommended by the Environmental Planning Commission, Attachment 3 to the EPC Staff Report. All right, let us take the vote.

Mr. Clerk, I'm not able to vote on the screen again.

We'll have to do the voting by roll call then.

Commissioner Kernstein? Aye. Commissioner Dempsey?

Abstain.

Commissioner Pham?

Yes.

Commissioner Subramanian?

Yes.

Vice Chair Donahue? Abstain. Chair Nunes? Yes. The motion passes with four yes, one absent, and two abstain.

Thank you, Mr. Clerk. All right, having concluded that portion, we will proceed to agenda item number six, commission staff announcements, updates, requests, and committee reports. No action will be taken on any questions raised by the commission at this time. Do we have any announcements, updates, requests, and or committee reports from either staff or the commissioners?

Okay, if nobody from the Commission, Diana Pancholi, Principal Planner with the Planning Division. Thank you for an interesting meeting tonight. Appreciate your participation. At this point of time, we don't have any agenda items on the September 2nd meeting, so that's going to be most probably canceled. The next time EPC is gonna reconvene is going to be September 16th meeting, when we'll have a few items on the agenda.

Thank you very much. So then we'll go ahead and proceed to adjournment. The meeting is hereby adjourned at 9.51 PM. Thank you, everyone.