Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

We do have promoted parking. Please come to the front to get the code number for the promoted parking. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, good afternoon, everybody. This is the April 1st Planning Commission, and I will call the meeting to order. Should we take a roll call?

We have Commissioner Alex Randolph, E-Chair Jennifer Rank are absent today. Commissioner Owen Lee? Here. Commissioner Maurice Robb?

Here.

Commissioner Zozi Ahrens? Here. Vice Chair Natalie Sandoval? Here.

You have a quorum.

Thank you, and do we have a director's report today?

No director's report today. an informational report no informational reports today i don't think any committees have met since the last meeting so no committee reports that's correct i will note only because i heard some questions amongst our citizens about what's happening on april 15th so if you don't mind i'll take a moment to explain there will not be a planning commission meeting on april 15th we had no item signed up However, the Residential Appeals Committee meeting will occur on that date. So there will be a meeting that happens under the Planning Commission's auspices as a committee meeting on the 15th, but no Planning Commission per se. Thank you.

On to Commission Matters.

Yeah, I just wanted to know if we get an update about, there was a request for data related to rents and vacancies for deed restricted units by income, in particular moderate income deed restricted units.

Right, my understanding is that will be reported out as part of the APR, and it's terrible to use the acronym, the Annual Progress Report, which I believe is coming to this body in May.

Okay, so it's definitely scheduled to come before the body, that information?

It's been requested of the division who would bring that forward, the strategic planning division, and my understanding is they're going to bring responses to those questions and data in May when they bring the APR report to you.

Okay, thanks.

Any other commission matters?

There's one from the secretary, but if nobody, I'll wait and see if any of your colleagues have additional items.

OK, I have one. I'm just curious. There was a question about SB 79 and the motion that the planning commission made to planning staff that was then taken to city council. If you could just clarify what went to city council and just speak to the fact that it was different than what planning commission had suggested.

Right. I will answer part of your question. Unfortunately, not all of it. So I won't be able to speak to what specifically was brought to council. I'm not on that item. That isn't something I'm deeply familiar with. But I do understand that the recommendation from staff was different from the recommendation from the Planning Commission. And that does happen occasionally. We don't have data on how frequently that happens. The Planning Commission may disagree with staff's recommendation and provide a motion different from what staff recommends. And staff might have a different recommendation to Planning Commission than what Planning Commission might recommend via motion. The critical aspect of this is that the staff carries forward the Planning Commission's recommendation. one way or another, whether staff agrees with it or not. And that was, my understanding is that Planning Commission's recommendation was communicated to City Council. And unfortunately, that's about the best answer I can give you. I can come back with, in the future if you like, with the recommendation made by staff to City Council that said, my understanding is Council didn't agree with staff's recommendation either. and made a decision and provided direction that is different from staff's recommendation. So if it would be more helpful, I can come back in the future. I know the decision and direction from council was reported out to this body at your last meeting on March 18th, but if you would like that reiterated, I would be happy to come back with that.

I recall what was approved by council, so I don't feel that that needs to be reiterated, but does any of the fellow commissioners have any questions there?

Okay, thank you very much. And then I have an item. At your last meeting, Council Member Houston visited us at Planning Commission and asked about a site. Let me pull up the address here. What's happening at 1428 105th Avenue. It really wasn't a question about what's happening. The Council Member reiterated some comments received from community members about this property, again, at 1428 105th. 105th avenue uh the historically just to give you some background so and then explain um the situation today and and why the project or the the i shouldn't say it's a project it's a development has been converted to family housing i can i can explain why that's happened and the city's authority there This is a project, it was a project approved in 2017 and it was approved as an administrative case. So it did not come to the planning commission. It was subject to a senior housing density bonus and it was funded by state tax credit. So it also was not subject to the city's deed restrictions because it was benefiting from a completely different stream of financing. AND THEY WERE PROVIDING 100% AFFORDABLE HOUSING AS PART OF THAT PROJECT. AND I'M JUST LOOKING AT THE NOTES. I APOLOGIZE FOR THE PAUSES HERE. AND THEN THE OWNER, MANAGER OF THE PROJECT ONCE IT WAS BUILT CAME BACK TO THE CITY IN 2024 TO REQUEST CONVERTING FROM SENIOR HOUSING TO STILL AFFORDABLE HOUSING BUT OPEN TO ALL AGES. And the city did communicate with the state about this to see if this would be permitted or not. And the state said it is allowed that kind of conversion from senior affordable housing to family affordable housing is permitted by right. Therefore, the city did permit the revision again as a density bonus project for affordable housing. That does trigger the standard condition that the city has for the regulatory agreement and deed restriction via housing and community development. There was public notice about this change. We did receive concerns from tenants and neighbors about ongoing maintenance issues and other concerns at the property. And the city opened an enforcement case to address a number of identified code violations. And our understanding is those have all been addressed at this point. And the project is operational without any active code violations on the property at this time. Thank you. Thank you.

Any questions on that? Okay. Moving on, any city attorney's report?

No city attorney's report, thanks.

Thank you. And now we'll move on to open forum. I believe we have a couple speakers.

Yes, we have four speakers. We have Layla Goh, Kerry Goh, Paul Lorie, Mary Biagini, You have two minutes, and please state your full name for record. Thank you.

Hi. My name is Layla Goff. I am a Rockridge resident, have been so for 26 years, and I serve on the steering committee for Rockridge Neighbors for Sensible Housing. Despite the rain last night, over 60 residents gathered to discuss the proposed project at 6230 Claremont. To date, over 1,100 neighbors have signed our petition stating this building's height and mass are fundamentally out of scale with the neighborhood. At our meeting, architect Javier Arzmendi presented the developer's plan, and there was audible gasps from the audience when the actual scale of the project was visualized against the existing neighborhood fabric. The community is not just concerned, they are shocked by the lack of compatibility. According to Acela, the submittal for the plan 26025 was deemed complete on March 30th. While we've requested a meeting with the director and staff, we're receiving conflicting information regarding next steps. Really what this means is we just don't understand what happens next. So there's mentions of a CEQA evaluation. There's also suggestions that this body will only see it on appeal. So we would like some clarity. Since the plan was deemed complete on March 30, we understand there's a 60-day window for formal zoning consistency determination. Does that clock start on the 30th, making the deadline May 29? Does it start after the CEQA review? How long does CEQA take? When will the mandatory notice go to the neighbors? Is there a complete application? How does that all work? So given the unprecedented neighborhood interest, we ask the commission to ensure the proposal receives scrutiny it deserves and that the public is granted a meaningful opportunity to be heard before the termination is finalized. That's all I have.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Good afternoon. My name is Kerry Goff. I've also lived at the resident for 26 years. This application for the project at 6230 raises serious legal questions that haven't yet been resolved by the courts. First, the constitutionality of the state density bonus law, insofar as it overrides our city charters, authority to enforce its zoning policies which balance growth infrastructure environmental impact community character and land use second the unconstitutionality of placing the burden upon the city to defend its charter authority ordinarily the burden is upon the party seeking an exception to the law to sustain the burden of proof. However, under the current law, the burden is passed to the city. There are exceptions to his policies which would cause a specific adverse impact upon health or safety. These are things that this plan will do. The need to override local regulations must be clear, compelling, and narrowly applied. The project guts are zoning, height limits, and public safety elements. It will create the following specific adverse impacts upon the ability to evacuate residents the mobility impaired seniors from the upper levels of the building upon evacuation from the area on its narrow congested streets upon ingress and egress of emergency vehicles such as fire trucks on narrow constrained streets upon firefighters who must enter the building and climb smoke-filled stairwells because the ladders will not extend to the upper levels. Upon traffic safety, because of congestion created by delivery trucks servicing the facility, food, maintenance, and garbage removal, and other services, not only during emergencies, but every day. Upon pedestrian safety, as they navigate the narrow streets and sidewalks in the face of delivery trucks servicing the facility. I urge this commission and the city attorney to consider carefully the legal issues raised by this project. You may complete your last statement. Hopefully, litigation will not be required by the city or anyone else. Thank you.

good afternoon my name is paul lori and i live on rockwell street about two blocks from the proposed senior housing development at 6230 claremont avenue to begin i would like to point out that my wife and i have one car a 2016 hyundai sonata a pretty average sized car unfortunately we are not able to park our car in our garage because the entryway is too narrow our house was constructed in 1927. I call this to your attention because it reflects on the condition of the neighborhood, and my house is not unusual. These houses were constructed in streets laid out in the 1920s, a time when cars were fewer and smaller, street trolleys were popular, and people walked and rode bikes more frequently. While much has changed through the years, more vehicles, motor vehicles are more abundant and larger, the trolley system is gone, and people tend to walk and bike less than they used to. The layout of the streets in this neighborhood have not. The triangle right in front of the proposed development, including Claremont Avenue, College Avenue, and Alcatraz, is an area of significant traffic congestion for much of the day and early evening. There is hardly any parking available for the workers and patrons of local restaurants, clothing stores, gyms, and salons. Crosswalks in the area are confusing to drivers and unsafe to pedestrians. Just last month a 72-year-old man was killed while crossing Claremont near a college only a few yards away from 6230 Claremont after being struck by a car. The developer's proposal designates Florio Street for deliveries, trash collection, and the like. Similar to other streets in the neighborhood, Florio is only 25 feet wide. I find it inconceivable that Florio could accommodate the flow of traffic and the size of vehicles needed to service a 200 plus unit high end luxury senior living facility without severely impacting the streets and sidewalks nearby. As a consequence, I strongly urge the Commission to conduct a thorough and independent and impartial analysis of the impact of the development on traffic and pedestrian safety before acting on the proposal, and to include the City of Berkeley as necessary where the very dangerous Claremont-Alcatraz intersection is situated.

Thank you.

Hi my name is Mary Biagini and I'm a resident in Rockridge and I've lived there for over 60 years. And I was at the meeting last night and was informed about the parking situation that will has been proposed for this project. And I believe it's 99 parking spots for such a building. And I work at St. Paul's Towers in Oakland. I've been there for 13 years. The parking there, what they need there, that's a much larger building, of course, but the parking needs to include all types of service employees from kitchen staff, cleaning staff, administrative staff, Services in terms of I know that isn't a skilled nursing, but there will be some sort of nursing and medical emergency sort of care there Also, I wanted to say that in this type of luxury living in Oakland as is at st Paul's which this new project sounds very similar to a Most every person in that facility has a private caregiver. So you're adding to the parking, besides just the staff that formerly works for St. Paul's, there's a multitude of people that are coming and going all day long. Parking is not adequate there for those people. There are over parking in the streets, doing the two hour parking here and there. I just wanted to bring this up as I didn't think the 99 parking spots for such a business would be adequate. It's much larger than one would think. So that's my comment. Thank you.

She's our final speaker.

Okay, thank you very much, and that will close public comment. And I'd like to ask Planning Commission Secretary Payne if you could provide an update on this project for us, which to note is not in front of Planning Commission at this time.

That's right, it's not in front of the Planning Commission. And I'll start, but I will hand it over to Mike in just a moment. So there is a status change since we had speakers during the open forum on this item at the last meeting, a few of the last meetings. And at the last time that we had public speakers and staff was asked about this, excuse me, At that time, the case was still in what we call intake, meaning we had not started reviewing it. We didn't have a case file for it yet. Someone was trying to submit. So now at this time, the case has made it through intake. We've actually assigned a case file number. And just for reference, the case file number is PLN 26025. The applicant has not yet paid, I believe they were just invoiced within the last two or three days, business days. And there will be a 30 day completeness review before we start conducting any substantive zoning review or analysis. And before we confirm what the path forward for this case in terms of moving through decision making might look like. So a 30-day completeness review at which point it will either the case will be deemed complete and staff will start to conduct that review and determine a path forward for decision making or the case will be incomplete. Applicant will need to resubmit new items, items that were missing or items that were incorrect and we will have another 30 days to review that once those additional materials are submitted. So that's where we are now. But before I can see some of you look like you may want to ask me some questions, I'm going to let Mike speak as well to this because I believe he has some additional thoughts to share.

Thanks, Catherine. I think I'm mostly repeating what Catherine added. We're still in completeness review. They've gone through several rounds of completeness review. So the list of things that need to be addressed, it's a funnel. It gets narrower each time. So I can't say with certainty what the outcome of that completeness review is, but it's certainly, we're moving towards a complete application. Once a completeness letter goes out or a 30-day period runs, then we're in the phase where staff has 60 days to make zoning consistency findings. So we're not in that 60-day period right now. We're still in a completeness review. There is a PLN number, I think, to get a planner assigned to it and for the convenience of the public to actually be able to access that PLN number and see the plans on Accella.

And in your understanding now, will this project come to Planning Commission?

As submitted, it's a regular design review that's eligible for staff review that is appealable to Planning Commission.

thank you okay moving on to our agenda the uh consent calendar no consent calendar today okay then moving on to our public hearing and agenda item number one yes so this is regarding the general plan update specifically the land use and transportation element or loot as we call it

um, affectionately in the city of Oakland. And today the team, the general plan update loot team is bringing to you, uh, the options for how I'm sorry, I'm going to get this probably wrong. Uh, they're going to, it's the opposite, the options for how we stabilize and grow, uh, I'm saying the wrong thing. I'm going to let, what I'm going to do is I'm going to invite staff up from the team to both announce, say who they are and announce the title of what they're bringing forward. But this is not, these are options for how to MOVE FORWARD DEVELOPING THE LOOT. THIS IS NOT A FINAL PRESENTATION ON WHAT'S BEING PROPOSED AT THIS TIME. THAT PART I BELIEVE IS CORRECT, BUT I WILL ALLOW OUR TWO PLANNERS ON THIS TO INTRODUCE THEMSELVES AND MAKE THEIR PRESENTATION.

Hello, everyone. I'm Kalila Haynes. Just wanted to clarify that we're presenting on the draft land use framework, which is the next step from the options for how we stabilize and grow that we presented to you guys last fall. So I'm going to turn it over to Daniel.

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Daniel Finley, planner in the strategic planning division, planning and building department. So I'm here with Kalila Haynes.

We can start the... We do have a...

Okay, we do have a presentation. Thank you. So we'll be presenting on our draft language framework, and we hope it's informative. So as mentioned, my name is Dana Finley. I'm with my colleague, Kalila Haynes. We are co-project managers for the general plan updates. And we're presenting on the draft land use framework. So a bit on the agenda. I'll provide a brief overview of the general plan updates project and our timeline. And then we'll get into the meat of our presentation, which is on the draft land use framework. And we'll conclude with some next steps and discussion. So what is the local general plan? So some of you, I'm sure, are all familiar with the general plan. But just in case, I'll provide a bit of background. The general plan is essentially the guiding document for how the city grows and develops. You can kind of consider it like a constitution. It lays out a citywide vision with goals, policies, and implementation measures to guide long-term growth, preservation, and stabilization. The general plan reflects on past challenges and accomplishments to help ensuring consistent direction for future developments. And with this update, we are being very intentional on using this as an opportunity to address racial inequities and promote inclusivity. By ensuring meaningful engagement with communities that have been traditionally left out of the planning and decision making process. The general plan will advance racial equity by establishing more just policies related to land use parks, open space and transportation. The guiding principles up on the screen are to make sure people are housed healthy, safe. And foster community cohesion and connection and celebrate Oakland's rich cultural history and diversity. So, this is taking place over 2 phases in phase 1, you may recall that we came to the planning commission to discuss the housing safety. And environmental justice elements. Now in phase two, we're focusing on four elements, the land use and transportation element, or LUT, open space conservation and recreation element, or OSCR, the noise element, and a new infrastructure and capital facilities element. The LUT sets the rules for what gets built where and works to create an inclusive multimodal transportation system that balances mobility, safety, and connections. The OSCR builds an equitable accessible parks network while also protecting existing open spaces and improving access to each. The infrastructure and capital facilities elements will focus on keeping essential systems like water, sewage, electricity, internet reliable and resilient and ensures public facilities such as schools and libraries are well maintained and equitably distributed. Finally, the noise elements will work to reduce and mitigate noise pollution and its impact on health and our communities. So real quickly on the phase two timeline, last fall we came to the commission to discuss the options for how we stabilize and grow report, which had three big picture ideas for how Oakland could grow and develop over the next 20 years. We used the community feedback we received to craft one preferred option for growth, which is laid out before you in the draft land use framework. So what is it? So it's, at its core, a guidance document. It lays out key strategies and maps for achieving community priorities in the general plan. These strategies will serve as the basis for developing the detailed policies within each of the phase two elements. Again, the loot, Oscar, noise, and the capital facilities and infrastructure elements. So community engagement, we've done a tremendous amount of community engagement really over the last five years since the beginning of the general plan updates. In collaboration with our community partners from the DLP-rooted collaborative, reaching over 1,300 people directly through meetings, workshops, walking tours, and more. And we estimate we've reached approximately 1.6 million residents or views from our advertising over various media platforms. So, the 2 photos on the slides before you are just just 2 of our many community engagement events on the top is our walking tour with the mayor's committee commission on persons with disabilities. And the bottom 1 is our kickoff event for our phase 2 at the open museum of California. Really fun event had a lot of people come out and talk to us about about the neighborhoods and what they like and dislike. So some of the key community priorities that have surfaced from this outreach include creating equitable neighborhoods, improving infrastructure, meaning streets, parks, and community facilities, ensuring accessibility of streets and transit for all users, and supporting affordable housing and jobs. And so to achieve all this, I'm going to give just kind of a brief overall strategy on our city of neighborhoods, the preferred strategy for accomplishing the general plan updates. So the draft land use framework proposes an overall strategy, which draws largely from the city of neighborhoods concept originally proposed in the options report. It also includes preferred strategies from the other options presented in the options report as well. The framework focuses on fostering complete, walkable neighborhoods throughout the city where people have access to transit, green space, and neighborhood amenities. Downtown San Antonio, Fruitvale, and Coliseum will serve as major centers, with downtown being the largest and most dense. We're proposing to increase density and mixed uses along major corridors and near BART stations to create vibrant corridors and transit hubs. This is paired with improving walking, biking, and transit connections between neighborhoods. We've also created a new technology and research land use category to support in green industries, advanced manufacturing, and artisan production. So up on the screen now, this map kind of represents the overall strategy in map form. The neighborhood centers you see are the pink polygons. The technology and research areas in Upper West Oakland and west of the Coliseum are the purple circles. The major centers are the red polygons, downtown Fruitvale, San Antonio, near the Coliseum. And then the smaller green circles represent proposed locations for new parks. So I'm gonna turn it over to my colleague Kalila now, and she's gonna go a bit more into the strategies.

OK, so I'll get into some of the specific land use and transportation strategies. We're presenting these together because they support each other. So creating mixed-use walkable neighborhood hubs requires things like improving walking and biking connections, making it easier to use transit and get between neighborhoods, as well as making sure to locate parks and open spaces close to homes, reducing vehicle speeds, and creating more public spaces and plazas. Creating mixed use centers and high density housing near transit ensures people are closer to the things that they need and can make more trips without a car. It's really about giving people more choices. So part of it is in the framework we highlight optimizing bus service to meet Oaklanders needs and improving service along key routes to support higher densities along major corridors and in the core of neighborhood centers. We're also creating a new transit-oriented mixed-use land use designation and also laying the foundation for a future infill BART station in San Antonio neighborhood. The strategy also talks about minimizing conflicts between homes and industry, protecting tribal cultural resources, embedding disability inclusion and accessibility in our design and construction processes, as well as continuing to collaborate with communities to develop more detailed policies within the elements. Okay, so the Hagenberger quarter is an important part of our city. It's anchored by the Oakland international airport. Um, I, 80, the Coliseum. Uh, the general mix of businesses in the area are related to visitor services, transportation, logistics and warehousing. And these strategies in the section focus on fostering Hagenberger's thriving hub with a variety of businesses, creating organizations to support the development of the quarter and supporting creative industries. So I'll go into a little bit of the technology and research areas. We proposed those, like we saw on the map, in those purple circles in East and West Oakland. And those aim to attract green, forward-thinking jobs, support the creative economy, and focus infrastructure improvements to support more flexible industrial uses. These land use changes would be supported by workforce development programs to ensure that we build a career pipeline of residents to get into these jobs. So this map shows how land uses are laid out across the city. I'll just go over some of the key colors so that you can get a sense of what's going on. So the dark yellow, gold, and brown areas, those are where we are proposing increased densities along the corridors and in neighborhood hubs. The dark purple are the technology and research areas. The light purple shows the areas around the BART stations that are transit-oriented mixed use. And then light gray is a new category that we propose called green low impact industry, which you'll see primarily in East Oakland and a little bit in West. Okay, so one of the key parks and open space strategies is creating a greenway network that connects communities, promotes active transportation, and also supports our natural habitats and increase access to green space. Investments will be prioritized in EJ communities, and we will set standards for increasing maintenance and programming to meet the needs of different communities. We also want to protect our natural resources like our creeks, fund opportunities to use open spaces for protection of tribal cultural resources, as well as support our Hotton House residents to use parks as places of refuge. This map just shows the overall parks and open space strategies that I just went through. You'll see the thick green lines represent the greenway network. The dashed green lines represent park connectors, and the green circles are proposed new areas for parks. It's kind of a little bit hard to see, obviously, but the light green areas are resource conservation areas, and the darker green ones are existing parks. Okay, so there are some other key topics that came up in community feedback related to housing, economic development, arts and culture. And so some of the strategies we are proposing in these areas include developing affordable housing near transit, continuing to implement our housing element and building on it, supporting small business development and ensuring community-serving businesses have access to commercial space, as well as integrating arts, culture, and history into neighborhood centers through placemaking and strengthening our cultural districts program. OK, where to infrastructure in the environment, the draft and his framework proposes exploring new strategies to address illegal dumping, prioritizing funding for resilience hubs, finding other sources of funding for infrastructure projects planned for sea level rise and supporting our urban greening projects. So we'll go into some discussion questions now. So I want you to think about, does this overall strategy represent, does it help achieve the guiding principles and vision that we've laid out? Does it help achieve your commission's priorities? Are there specific ideas or policies that these strategies raise for us to consider for each element? Is there anything that's missing? And then for next steps, we'll be in a public engagement period until April 23. There's a QR code there if you want to scan the public and look at the framework. It's a really interactive system. You can comment on any part of the plan. It's very easy to use. You don't have to sign up. You don't have to log in. We'll be doing a bunch of different community meetings, but you can find the whole schedule on our website. Of note, we'll be having a bunch of workshops next week, District 1 on Thursday, April 9th at Chapel of the Chimes, District 6 on Friday at Rainbow Rec Center, and District 3 on Saturday at the Fermi Rec Center. All the information is online. Yep, and that's the end of our presentation. Love to hear your thoughts.

Thank you very much. And do we have any speakers for this item?

Yes, we do.

Okay. So before we go to speakers, any clarifying questions for staff?

I mean, there's references in the draft plan to using public land for, you know, to support affordable housing. And, you know, this is something that's come up at the commission several times, the need for a public lands policy, a public land disposition policy. that includes sort of equity and inclusion as its guideposts. And I wonder, is there some way to lift up the need for public lands policy? Because I think, you know, I think it's good to include, to have that in the draft plan, but it's hard to imagine how that gets implemented without a public lands policy. Is there some way for us as a commission to sort of ask that the creation of public lands policies is needed to effectuate some of these goals?

So Laura Kaminski, Strategic Planning Manager. I will say in our housing element, there actually is an action item. I don't have it in front of me, but there is an action item that talks about how to use public lands when it relates to housing and going through that process. And it commits to, I think, the city going through the requirements of the state where you first offer something for affordable housing. And then obviously if nobody responds to that request for proposals, then you can open up for other uses. It also talks about a commitment to the city releasing a certain number of sites for housing per year over the eight-year cycle of the housing element. So that is something that speaks not, I think, exactly to what you're saying, but it does talk about how we use public lands as relates to housing.

Okay. Thank you for that. yeah I just wonder what maybe this is not the mechanism but I wonder if there's a way that we can sort of stay on the record that we we should we need to create a public lands policy and maybe this is not the item to to discuss that but I think it would be important to do to effectuate some of these goals I also so some of the public feedback we gotten has been around around the collaboration with transit agencies between the city and different transit operators and sort of desire for better sort of master planning that's similar to some previous plans around bike lanes for example I did see that there's been coordination with AC Transit in developing the loot, and I was wondering if you could just give some color or some detail about what kind of that planning has looked like between AC Transit and in this general plan drafting process.

yeah sure good question so we have a general plan advisory committee which includes two subcommittees a technical advisory subcommittee and a community advisory subcommittee ac transit along with bart along with alameda county transportation commission are both are all part of the technical advisory subcommittee we have regular meetings with them we also had um working with the nc transit to go through the land use framework and the proposals that we had in there and so i think some of the comments that we've received you know from east bay for everyone and from the d6 resident um are about how we can strengthen the language in the framework and the elements going forward to be to have a more sort of um a more progressive more sort of uh stronger transportation vision and that's something that we're definitely um wanting to work through with our transit providers okay

That's it for me.

Thank you. I have a question about the noise element, which I know hasn't gotten a lot of attention. Understandably, the other sections are bigger. But I'm wondering how you're working with enforcement staff and other staff in building as the representatives from the city that go out to investigate noise complaints. How are you taking their input into updating the noise element?

Yeah, so we have been having conversations already with our code enforcement staff in particular, because they're the ones who often are the ones going out responding to noise complaints. And there's two different things. There's the noise element itself, and the city also has in the planning code noise standards as well. And so I think the noise element itself will kind of set more the higher policy perspective, whereas then I think there will still be a need in addition to also make amendments to the planning code, which has more specific standards in it. And I think that would be the intent to have the noise element still be more higher level so that if you want to make a change to like a certain decibel reading or something, you wouldn't have to make an amendment to the general plan as opposed to amendment to the planning code.

Thank you. Thank you. I first want to say kudos to staff who've done a tremendous job on Phase 2. So much work has gone into this, I know, and a lot of workshops, impressive to see all of the engagement that's been done. So thank you for that and great job. I just have a couple of questions. One being, ultimately, when we saw this last, there were the three separate options. If you could just speak a little bit to the trade-offs in the approach that was chosen, the city of neighborhoods, and just curious what was maybe not carried forward as part of this new option and direction.

Yeah, so if you remember, we had three options. Option A was a city of neighborhoods concept that this framework is quite based off of. That was the most popular option. There's option B, which was connected corridors, which really focused on development and transportation improvements on the corridors. A lot of the strategies under that option are reflected in the framework. The third one was the waterfront district. And so that's probably where we see the biggest trade-offs that really focus development um in the waterfront area creating a new neighborhood neighborhood center in that area um and really intense development standards and so the framework before you does have a new neighborhood center identified along the waterfront but in terms of the investments proposed throughout the framework specifically focused on that area we don't see that in the framework where we saw that in the options so i would say that's probably the biggest thing that people um who maybe liked option c don't see here

OK, thank you for that. And then as we move into this next phase, what are the biggest policy decisions still ahead versus those that are being set by this framework? Like, what are we looking for in the next iteration? What should we expect in the next iteration?

Oh, okay.

Got it.

So what will come out this fall will be a draft of each of the four elements. So a draft of the land use and transportation element, a draft of the open space conservation recreation element, a draft of the noise element, a draft of our new infrastructure and public facilities element. And so the type of feedback that we're gathering now from communities, from commissioners, from... Residents and our agency partners is, uh, you know, this is framework setting a good precedent for how we should develop the strategies that are going to be reflected in those 4 documents. And so, um, you know, part of the question before you is, do you have ideas for specific, um, policy considerations that these former should should flush out heard from commissioner. Lee about you know public lands policy we can see how that ties into you know the lewd or the oscar um as appropriate but yeah if there are other things that you want us to be thinking about as we go you know at the end of may start developing these elements definitely want to hear that um today

I think to add to that also is that we're showing a land use map itself with different land uses and different densities. So that's another thing we're trying to get comments on from the public. Where we've designated the land uses, do people agree with that? Do they agree with the densities? Should some of the densities be high? higher or lower in certain areas? Should there be maybe some larger commercial areas than what we've shown or some areas that maybe should be commercial that we haven't shown at all? So those, what is decided really in the comments we get from the land use framework will then go into as we're actually, as Kalila mentioned, doing the actual land use and transportation element as one of the elements that we're looking at. And so then we would be making any changes that we heard from the public to some of those areas that we've designated as a certain land use or a certain density. Thank you very much.

Any other questions? Commissioner Robb?

First of all, thank you all for your presentation. I have a question regarding one of the bullets that you all mentioned about minimizing conflicts between residential and industrial land. Just curious to hear a little more detail about maybe some of the strategies around that strategy. Just want to hear about it.

Yeah, good question. There's also some copies of the framework there. If anybody wants to take a look, we didn't have the map in the presentation, but there is a map in the document that talks about some of the industrial changes. And so basically, what we're really trying to do is make sure that where there's homes that are near sort of industrial businesses, that there is some consideration that those things should be separate. So part of that strategy looks like the new green low impact category that we've introduced. You'll see a lot of that in East Oakland where there is sort of heavy industry. Then there's that on the outside to sort of create that buffer between homes and industry so that there's not heavy pollution near where people live. And so that green low impact category is going to be specifically for uses that don't have pollution. negative adverse environmental or air quality impacts. So that would probably be the biggest change that you see, as well as the technology and research areas, which are really looking to also attract jobs within industrial land that don't also have those sort of adverse impacts on environmental health.

Kind of have a follow up to that. So are the so thanks for the answer. But is this like neighborhood specific or is this kind of a general strategy that is going to kind of apply to every neighborhood across the board with those where industrial land meets residential?

Yeah, it's a it's a citywide strategy. And so you'll see maybe we could pull the slides up.

I don't know if that's too hard to do to pull the to pull them back up.

Oh, yeah, I see them. OK, let me go back to the map. It's going to be a little hard to see, but it will be a little helpful, I think. So if we're looking, let's look at East Oakland by the Coliseum area. So you see there's like a dark gray area, right? Then there's a sort of whitish light gray area surrounding that. So that's all area that we've changed to this green low impact category. There's a little bit in West Oakland, not as much. you know we've seen we've made a lot of changes in west oakland through the west oakland specific plan east oakland hasn't had that work and so that's why most of the changes are concentrated in that area um but obviously open to you know feedback to see if that should be extended to other places in the city um or if this um these changes you know accurately uh separate not accurately adequately um separate uh industry and house houses um yeah thank you

Thank you.

Any additional comments or questions? Commissioner Ernst.

Thank you. Could you expand a little bit on some of the anti-displacement strategies you imagine falling into the plan?

Yes. So we want to build on like the housing and community development department just released an anti-displacement framework, I want to say.

Last month earlier this year, at the beginning of the year.

Um, and so we're looking at some of the stuff that they've outlined in that document to make sure. Our land use and transportation element is alignment with that. And we're also continuing to do some research and explore case studies from other cities about how they are using and to dismiss strategies when it comes to new developments with within our parks and open space systems. Because that's been a huge concern of sort of green gentrification. And so making sure that. We're looking to cities that are sort of leading in this effort. Some of the cities that we're looking at are sort of like Los Angeles. They have a huge working group that's sort of tackling this issue. So I don't think we have any specifics right now to share, but if there are other strategies that you've seen in other jurisdictions or other parts of the world that are working that you want us to consider, definitely open to that feedback.

Sorry, I would add to that. You know there are already in the housing element quite a few You know strategies already that are already in place and some of it also has to do with the Some of the state laws and the codes that we've already enacted in the state in this the city as far as you know, I have protection of tenants through the SB 330 so if you're gonna Demolish a unit that has a protected tenant in it. Then there are certain, you know parameters that you have to do That are required in order to be able to do that And provided, you know actually like deed restricted affordable housing for any of those types of units And so they're already there are a lot of things already in place But certainly we are always looking for to add more things as we're going through this process. I

Great. Thank you. And with that, I think we can go to public comment.

We have one speaker, Jules Brouillette. You may state your full name for the record, and you have two minutes.

Thanks. Can I be given a heads up when I have one minute left? Okay, so my name is Jules Brugier. I am a resident homeowner and public school teacher here in Oakland. And I rushed over here to give comment for my classroom. So I've been talking about the general plan update with over two dozen of my friends and neighbors in both in West Oakland where I live. I'm also a coordinator for the neighborhood association, South Prescott, uh, lower bottoms neighbors association, as well as people in other districts. So, uh, we're across five city council districts and, um, and looking at the land use of the general plan update, uh, I really like what I see with the emphasis on corridors and, um, neighborhood centers and I want to see that happen but there are many barriers to development of quality buildings and housing there we think that in order to do that we need to really lift zoning restrictions which is promised through this update process In our opinion, we would like to move Oakland to an opt-in zoning system so people can opt into zoning rather than have it mandatory because these plans just slightly reduce the restrictions of zoning. And SB 79 is one example of a state law that lifted the restrictions a little further. But if we are able to loosen up zoning a lot more, that should be able to encourage private developers. I'm sorry, your time is up.

You may complete your last statement.

That's all. Thank you.

He's our final speaker.

Thank you. With that, I will close public comment and bring it back up for any comments or questions.

Thank you to staff for your incredible and thorough work on this. This is a Herculean task that you will probably remember for the rest of your career, so thank you for your attention to detail. It's very exciting to be able to review this, and thank you for... clarifying the changes that you made since the last time we saw this. I'm very excited about this option about the neighborhood centers and corridors. I think that Oakland is a city of neighborhoods and people often think about that but maybe not consciously and I think a lot of the strategies in this plan are gonna help us have even more neighborhood identity. I do think to the point about how we get between neighborhoods, you know, getting more people out of their cars and onto transit and bikes is a way to meet so many of our goals around equity, around livability, around climate change. And so I would just encourage as much collaboration with AC Transit as possible. you know the city is responsible for the infrastructure in the streets but ac transit runs the service on those streets and so we really do need close collaboration between um the city and and transit agencies but especially ac transit to get us to some of these goals so just wanted to plus one to um commissioner lee's comment and and implicit suggestion perhaps um I do also want to echo Commissioner Lee's request around a public lands policy. That's something that I have brought up as well on this body over the last three years. And this feels like the most tangible way to get the city to actually develop and implement a public lands policy. I know there is some work like laura shared that we're required to do from the state around the surplus lands act specifically around affordable housing but i think that a public lands policy is even broader than that it's about what we do with all of our public lands for housing or not and the practice of the city to sell its public lands is a horrible practice we are not printing any more land it will not continue to be available and i want to push for us to have a ground lease policy like other cities have Like Commissioner Lee shared it's really the basis quite physically and literally on which the rest of our Policies and infrastructure sit and I think it's been a detriment to the city to not have an explicit public lands policy I know there's been things over the years and conversations about that when OEWD came a few meetings ago to talk about business development i did press on some data about how many times the city has granted exemption um to the sort of de facto not using not selling the city land and i haven't gotten an answer on that and so i'm really hoping that loot can be the time where we focus on that so to you know to answer your discussion questions that's for me is the is the biggest missing piece here is is that public lands policy I was a little disappointed to see it only mentioned once in the draft framework on page 36. So I'm hoping in the fall that can be a stronger piece. And then my last comment, I'll just say and reiterate my thanks for a continued focus on equity, especially on racial equity. So many government institutions are moving away from using that language and that framework because of the change in the federal environment. And I hope that other cities and government agencies can look to Oakland as an example to continue to have a proactive approach and thoughtful focus on addressing historic and current racial disparities. And I just want to say thank you for not shying away from that, keeping that at the forefront. I'm sure that that feels potentially scary around federal funding. But just to say that I support that, and I recognize it, and thank you for your continued focus on racial equity. So I think those are my comments. Thank you again for your work.

Commissioner Lee?

Yeah, I just want to thank the staff for shepherding this process and creating this and all the work you've done so far. It's really impressive. And I appreciate in particular how racial equity has been lifted up and some of the things that are emphasized in this plan, like greenways and the importance of neighborhood centers and things like that. And, you know, when I look at these maps, I can't help but imagine, you know, there was a time in the city when, you know, I think for like 10 years or longer, there was a plan to have a park that would have extended from Lake Merritt all the way up through Trestle Glen to... And I'm just looking at this map and imagining a park that size sort of in the middle of the city. I think there's a lot of development that's happened and development planning that's happened in the city that didn't emphasize some of the things that we emphasize now. So I really appreciate some of the things that have been lifted up in this draft guidelines. Thanks.

Just echoing my fellow commissioners, congratulations. It's been great work. I also want to do a plus one to the land use policy.

No. What are we talking about?

Public land policy. We've talked about it a couple of times, as Commissioner Ahrens mentioned. And it does seem like this could be a good opportunity to implement that. So hopefully that's something that we can consider. But I really appreciate all the great work and just for the public's further engagement with the public, which sounds like they have the opportunities to do, especially this month, and look forward to seeing the next iteration of the plan. Thank you. Any other comments? OK. Well, thank you. Look forward to what's next. So moving on to our agenda, are there any appeals? No appeals. OK. And commission business, there's approval of the minutes for March 18.

I move to approve the minutes from March 18 meeting.

Second.

Motion by Commissioner Ahrens and second by Commissioner Robb.

Commissioner Lee? Yes. Commissioner Robb? Yes. Commissioner Ahrens? Yes. Vice Chair Sandoval?

Yes. Motion passes. Minutes will be posted to the website as approved.

Any correspondence?

No correspondence to the secretary.

Any city council actions?

I keep notes and I didn't think to look at them this morning. I apologize if you give me one moment. We'll see if there. I don't think we talked about SB 79. I don't believe there's been anything since your last meeting. That said, when we meet again, I will report everything since March 18th if that is a deal we can strike. Sounds good.

Thank you. And with that, I will adjourn the meeting at 4.04 p.m. Thank you.

I told you.