Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome, everyone. I will call the June 3rd, 2026 Planning Commission meeting to order. And let's do a roll call.

Commissioner Rob is absent. Commissioner Randolph?

Here.

Commissioner Lee?

Here.

Commissioner Aaron? Here. Vice Chair Sandoval? Here. And Chair Rank?

Here.

We have a quorum. Thank you.

Thank you, Pete. Okay. Let's go to Commission Business. Make sure this is working. Is there an agenda discussion? Director's report?

No director's report today.

Any informational reports?

No informational reports.

I don't think any committees met.

Yeah, I don't believe any have met since the last commission meeting.

Okay. Well, that gets us to the exciting part of our meeting today with Commission Matters, and we will be doing our Planning Commission Chair and Vice Chair elections. I will be rolling off, and Vice Chair Sandoval, unfortunately for us, is going to be moving on. So we'll do a goodbye to you when Catherine's here. But I am happy to entertain any motions for the new chair. Oh, sorry, Commissioner Randolph.

Thank you, Chair. I thank you for your service. As chair of the commission, you did a great job. Thank you. And with that, it's my great honor to nominate Commissioner Aarons to be the next chair.

Do we have a second?

I second.

Okay, let's call the vote.

Commissioner Rob is absent. Commissioner Randolph?

Aye.

Commissioner Lee?

Yes.

Commissioner Aaron? Yes. Vice Chair Sandoval? Yes. And Chair Rank? Yes.

That motion passes.

Congratulations. How about a motion for Vice Chair?

I would like to motion to nominate Commissioner Randolph for Vice Chair. I'll second.

Commissioner Robb is absent. Commissioner Randolph?

Yes.

Commissioner Lee? Yes.

Yes.

Commissioner Aaron? Yes. Vice Chair Sandoval? Yes. And Chair Rank?

Yes. That motion passes. I will look forward to handing over the ceremonial gavel to you in July. Okay, great. Well, thank you. Do we have any cards for open forum?

None for open forum.

Okay. Nothing on the consent calendar. So I believe that takes us to item number two.

all right item number two is for the temescal plaza at 5055 telegraph avenue it's a request for a major revision to the planned unit development previously approved in 1995 to modify conditional approval number 14 to allow for 15 parking spaces front in the building at 5055 telegraph avenue in the northeast corner of the project site to be reserved for the business within said building staff member alexia rotberg is here to give a staff presentation

Hello. Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Alexia Rotberg, here to present staff's report for PUDF 95166-R01, a revision to a previously approved plan unit development. Staff's presentation is brief, as the project applicant is here as well and has a presentation. But staff will be available after to answer any questions. The project includes a request for major revision. One moment.

Before you get into that, can we just have a motion to open the public hearing?

OK.

we haven't had an appeal for a while or a hearing for a while so this can be done by unanimous consent basically just move to open the public hearing and as long as I'll count all the commissioners are supportive then the public hearing opens and then we can have the presentation I feel like we've never done that before it's in our bylaws okay so do we have unanimous consent to open the public hearing

The project includes a request for a major revision to a planned unit development originally approved in 1995 to revise condition of approval number 14 regarding the provision of 155 two-hour public parking spaces on site. The project requests to convert 15 of these 155 spaces to half-hour stalls dedicated for use by the business to be operating at 5055 Telegraph Avenue, the former Walgreens site located in the northeast corner of the project site. The project site's commonly referred to as Temescal Plaza, which includes two parcels totaling a little over three acres in size. It's at the northwest corner of College Avenue and Chabot Road. It includes up to 43,250 square feet of commercial retail uses across four buildings, which were originally constructed in the early 2000s, and a total of 155 public parking spaces located in surface parking lots across the site. Condition of approval number 14 of the PUD requires 155 spaces to be made available to the public free of charge for at least two hours, and that 55 of these spaces be retained at contiguous spaces north and south of the Telegraph Avenue entrance, unless agreed upon by the owner, director of planning, and Temescal Merchant Association.

Second.

Consistent with condition 14, in 2008, staff approved a request by the owner to convert 15 of the two-hour stalls located at the northeast corner of the plaza to half-hour public spaces. While they were public, they were intended for use primarily by the Walgreens location that was previously there. The present request proposes taking the same 15 spaces and converting them formally to private spaces intended for that future tenant at 5055 Telegraph. Staff's analysis of the project determined that the request is consistent with the city's general plan, including the neighborhood center mixed use land use classification and land use and transportation and environmental justice element policies as outlined in staff's report. Staff's analysis of the project also determined the project is consistent with Oakland planning code, including the site's neighborhood center commercial zoning and minimum parking requirements for commercial land use activities. While Temescal Plaza does have site-specific conditions of approval regarding off-street parking, Section 17.116.80 of the Planning Code states that new development in the project location would typically require one space per 1,000 square feet of new commercial floor area. Further, when a site's located within half a mile of major transit, which is a definition by state law, which the Temescal Plaza site is, no minimum parking is required per the local code. Accordingly, staff believes the plaza and the larger Temescal commercial area would be sufficiently supported by the 135 two-hour public parking spaces to remain at the site and recommends approval of the project based on the required findings included in attachment A of staff's report and subject to the conditions of approval included as attachment B.

Thank you.

Oh, and I did want to add, staff did receive public comments in response to the request. Those were all forwarded to you all electronically, and there's also physical copies here if you'd like those as well. Thank you.

Great. Thanks, Alexia. I guess we'll have the applicant up before we ask questions, and do you need to get KTOP to put the presentation up?

KTOP, we're ready for the presentation.

Good afternoon, commissioners. Mark Loper, Ruben Junius, and Rose on behalf of Temescal Property Management. We're excited to be here today and present to you. Thanks to all of you for convening, and also thanks to your staff, and in particular, Ms. Rotberg for all of her efforts getting our request ready for you today. Our request is straightforward. Modify the decades old approval condition, allowing just 15 parking spaces in the plaza to be used by grocery outlet shoppers, but keeping the rest of the spaces open to the public. I'm going to start with some background, explain why the proposal makes sense for a host of reasons, and also walk through our outreach. I'm also going to see if this clicker works. Sorry about that. OK. Just for background, the Temescal Plaza Shopping Center at the southwest corner of 51st and Telegraph was originally approved in 1995. And that included, as you heard from staff, a standalone building that was to be occupied by Walgreens. Relevant here, when the commission approved the shopping center, it included an approval condition requiring all the parking spaces in the shopping center to be available to the public at no cost. The shopping center has operated under this condition to essentially have it function as a free public parking lot for about 30 years. As many of you know, shopping centers were hit particularly hard during the pandemic, and Temescal Plaza was no exception. In particular, finding tenants to fill medium and large scale retail spaces like this one has become increasingly difficult. The space for context is about 14,500 square feet. Walgreens left in February 2025, creating a vacancy in one of the more high profile retail buildings in this part of Oakland. Ownership diligently sought a tenant for this space, and we are really excited to have found one in Grocery Outlet. Grocery Outlet would bring a new supermarket to Temescal and North Oakland, providing a source of healthy and affordable food at a time when inflation and rising gas prices are testing families' checkbooks. But in order for Grocery Outlet to move into this space, it requires that 15 of the parking spaces be reserved for its customers. So that is why we are here today. I thought a picture could tell a thousand words. This is the site in 2025. You can see it's boarded up. I understand now that to prevent vandalism, there are now some metal bars that are covering the windows. You can imagine it with all the windows open and people coming in and out of a grocery store. This is the site plan. You can see in the bottom right, there are 15 spaces that are highlighted in red. Those are the only spaces that we're proposing to have dedicated to grocery outlet. And as you heard from staff, you can see here, those largely front the standalone retail pad on the corner. and the rest of the site all of the other parking would would remain free and available to the public i want to run through some project benefits this will allow a currently vacant retail store at a prominent corner along one of north oakland's biggest commercial corridors to be activated and not just with a new tenant but with an affordable grocery store Also, a requirement like the one we are asking to slightly modify in some ways reflects an outdated approach to mobility. In 1995, when this condition was imposed, auto transportation was still generally prioritized over alternative forms of travel, such as walking, biking, and public transit. And now we have rideshare. Temescal is now one of Oakland's most transit-rich environments outside of downtown, and Oaklanders can safely travel to and from the commercial district in many different ways other than a car. At the same time, grocery shopping is unique in that it can involve more than just one or two bags, many of which are heavy and hard to carry, requiring a car for some shoppers to comfortably get food from the store to home. And while we understand that some merchants might be worried about a loss of foot traffic, our request is actually pretty modest. We are asking for just 15 of the 150 spaces to be dedicated to a grocery store, leaving 135 spaces, which is 90% of the parking lot, open to the general public. So we are maintaining the overarching use of the shopping center's parking as a functional equivalent of a free parking lot for all shoppers and visitors to Temescal. And along that point, we are actually hopeful, if not confident, that a new grocery outlet store will drive a lot more people to surrounding businesses, which will enhance the overall health of the Temescal shopping corridor and its merchants. And finally, the property owner maintains this parking lot and keeps it clean and secure at no cost to any other property owner or merchant in Temescal. and does not charge any parking fees to shoppers thus it's providing a significant benefit to the commercial district that will remain even if our request to modify the approval condition is granted And I want to finish with outreach and community engagement. Our team has been hard at work talking with the other tenants in the property and Temescal merchants. Our team presented an overview of the parking modification at the May meeting of the Temescal Business Improvement District. And we have been engaged with the bids leadership both before and after the main meeting We are very proud to have their support which was documented in a letter that you received And you will hear from the bid during public comment. We also reached out to tenants The other tenants in the shopping center both in person on-site and with written notice to corporate offices the feedback was overwhelmingly positive and with a lot of enthusiasm for the increased customer activity and foot traffic that grocery outlet would generate. In fact, the most common question that we got from tenants was, when will the store open? So to wrap up, we're requesting your approval to slightly modify a 1990s-era condition to allow Grocery Outlet and Affordable Grocer to occupy a now-vacant retail space, activating this prominent retail building with an affordable grocery store while preserving 135 spots throughout the plaza for free public parking. Thank you for your time, and our whole team is here, and we're happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Loper.

Does anyone have any questions?

I have a quick one. When do you intend for the store to hopefully open?

The second quarter of 2027. Cool.

Anyone else? Oh, Commissioner Ahrens.

Thank you. I have a number of clarifying questions. Thank you for the presentation. So what is the plan to ensure that the spots, if the condition is granted, are used only by grocery outlet shoppers?

There's an on-site security guard. And then through the on-site security guard and coordination between grocery outlet and the property owner, there will be parking enforcement.

So the on-site security would notify a towing company if someone is?

I don't know if we've gotten into specifics. But yeah, there will be some sort of parking. I mean, you never want to tow somebody. But figuring out a parking enforcement plan and coordinating that between the property owner and the tenant will occur.

Thank you. This was not in the staff report, but I'm curious if there's been any discussion about timing, about if after the grocery store closes, if those spots could be used for general parking. Assuming that the store would close at a certain time, but because there's nightlife on the street, that maybe those spots would then be available after the store is closed. Has that been a discussion?

That's not something that we have discussed.

And then just clarifying, I think in the original conditions of approval, it mentioned employee parking in the lot. And I wasn't following if there are currently designated employee spots or the whole thing is just open.

The whole thing is open. There's no dedicated employee parking.

um thank you and then just to confirm so the 15 spots that walgreens had been using that condition is now no longer valid because they are not the tenant so the spots have gone back to full two hours for all the spots in the lot is that correct

The Walgreens never had any dedicated spaces. I think what staff was mentioning is that because they were right in front of the Walgreens store, they typically were used by Walgreens shoppers, but there was no formal condition.

I see. Thank you. And then my last question is about finding C, which said that there would be no impact on traffic. Maybe this is a question for staff. Thank you. I was just wondering if you could expand on how you came to the conclusion that there would be no impact on traffic.

Yeah, I think this finding takes into account that the store, as recently as I think you said, February 25, was activated by a prior tenant. And so reactivating that wasn't going to result in increased congestion above what was already there prior, especially considering the site's location near major transit, which we revised a lot of our code in 2023 to reduce a lot of parking around those locations.

Thank you. So just from my own understanding in the code, the retail use between like a pharmacy, that use is not any different than a grocery store.

It's seen as far as parking requirements. Yeah, that's correct. In this zone, those uses are all lumped together in the table that you see in our code.

Okay.

Thank you. Those are my questions. Nope, no problem.

Vice Chair Sandoval.

Thank you. Just to clarify a little further about the spaces when Walgreens was there. I used to frequent that Walgreens. And I do believe that there were signs that said Walgreens only. And I was in this Temescal Plaza last night. And it does appear that all of those spaces fronting the stores in Temescal Plaza are marked as 30-minute parking spaces.

All of them, including not just those 15, but across the whole... Yeah.

Okay. So I guess I just could clarify how this would change...

yeah no so this is all tied to that condition of fort condition 14 that you guys have in the staff report and included as attachment b um and we can go back and look at city records but as part of the review of this project we did that and what we found was that this condition specifically section let me say Subsection D allows for the owner to limit some of the parking to less than two hours as long as they notify everybody within 300 feet and get approval from the Director of Planning, which can be appealed to the City Planning Commission. So in 2008, we have record of at least those 15 spots that we're referencing today being approved administratively to be 30-minute spaces. Sounds like you're saying there's potentially more than just those 15 spaces across the site that are... I didn't count.

Oh, okay. Based on the site plan in the staff report and then just visually seen, I do think it is maybe more than 15.

Okay. And that would have been done consistent with this condition just because that's how our records are holding up because a similar thing was tried to be done in 2012 and was denied. So we can definitely look into that more.

I mean, I don't know if they're necessarily being enforced.

And that's my taking is that decreasing these down but not dedicating them to a specific tenant just allowed them to have more turnover and tenant than users, I should say. Got it. Yeah.

And then another question this might be for the applicant is if grocery outlet chose not to move in Our other tenants willing to occupy the space has there been interest from other folks With the existing parking rules

I'll start by half answering that question, and then I'll get to it. So the grocery outlet and the property owner have a signed lease. So that lease is contingent on delivering grocery outlet 15 parking spaces that are limited to its shoppers. And then I'll answer your question by saying it's hard to find tenants. It's particularly hard to find tenants to fit into about a 14,500 square foot space. The days of big box retail are kind of over. And the property owner is thrilled to have a lease with Grocery Outlet. And yeah, I'll leave it at that. Thanks.

Thank you. And absolutely, I mean, there's so many spaces in Oakland who are suffering from no tenants right now. So thank you.

Commissioner Randolph?

Yeah, thank you. I do have a couple questions. I did go by the site yesterday and today just to see if there's a difference during the day. um so i do i do have a couple questions i mean i think what commissioner aaron's aaron said i mean around the operating hours of the grocery store what are what are the operating orders of the grocery store going to be do you know and then how does that fit with the operating hours of the parking lot are they different

The grocery store hours of operation we were just chatting, it will probably be 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., and I don't think that the parking lot is closed overnight. It's open.

So is there still two-hour parking overnight, or is it basically people can just stay there all night?

The time restrictions would still apply to people who are staying there overnight.

OK. Is there interest to limit the restrictive parking to just the operating hours of the grocery store and allow the public to use it for the rest of the time?

I think that's something that if the commission feels is appropriate, that that's something that we would be willing to live with, that during the operating hours of the grocery store, those 15 spots would be limited to customers of the grocery store. But when the store is not open, they could be open to the public. So if somebody wants to get to Poppy's Bagels at 6 AM and then they're out of there by 7, that would be OK. OK. Can you hear me?

Okay.

Or was that for the presenters, Mike?

And then the other question I have, so I know that there are some other big tenants, like USPS is there, Sutter Health is there. Is there any indication that they might want or other tenants might want restricted parking spaces in the future? Is this going to set a specific precedent potentially?

that that's a very good question commissioner none none to date nobody has made a formal request to have their own parking as i mentioned the most common response is grocery outlets coming in we you know we saw the articles thank you for coming around and talking to us that's great when when can they open they're going to help drive business to to us too great

And then what I noticed is that it was a little confusing to figure out kind of the different parking restrictions, because there are different signs indicating different things. And then some are striped, some are not striped. Some parking spots do say two-hour parking. Some parking spots say nothing. Is there any plans to potentially restripe or improve some of the signage in the parking lot to make it clear which parking spots are time-limited and which ones aren't? I mean, there were some cars that, especially on the side parking spots, that look like they've been there for months, if not years?

For a while, yeah. Yes, I think that we can work with staff to make sure that we're on the same page in terms of what's allowed where, and we will obviously be restriping, and that's something that we'll consider, just making sure that it's very clear, whether through signs or striping in front of individual stalls, what the parking time maximum is. Great, thank you.

And then I think this might be for staff, but it goes back to I think the question we had about the 15 parking spaces versus the others going back to the 2008 administrative decision, I think by staff. As I said, I did go by there, and I did notice that the entire almost north side of the plaza from Pete's Coffee to the former Walgreens location is curbstripe green with 30-minute limited parking. So it's definitely about 30 to 25 spots in addition to the 15, I think, that were mentioned in the Walgreens citation. Okay. It does, from the staff report, it says that in 2012, staff denied a similar request to add additional 25 30-minute parking spots. I assume those would be the 25 to the left of the 15 spots in front of Walgreens. That was denied. And then the Planning Commission, it seems like, upheld staff determination. But it looks like they were prescribed regardless into 30 minute. Into 30 minute spot is that maybe that might be a question for the property owner.

It sounds like after we denied it, maybe they didn't take it out and maybe there was no follow up or it was put back again after it was taken out. Really? Not sure.

And as far as the spaces fronting the north side, you mentioned how the north side of the property all the way down from Pete's to the Walgreens. I did want to point out that I believe there's subsection C of condition 14 talks about certain spaces fronting the store A. So I'm thinking that might be part of it. The owner of the shopping center shall have the right to limit the duration of parking by restricting parking to two hours or greater. If there is such a restriction on duration, that restriction shall apply to all the parking stalls except those 20 spaces north of store, okay, sorry, apologies. I was talking about different spaces.

So maybe the property owners, do you know what the status of those in front of Pete's and was it Round Table Pizza? Because the staff report made it sound like those were actually not approved.

My understanding is the 2012 request was for the middle stalls. So yeah, when you come in off of Telegraph, Yeah, so when you say you're coming in off of Telegraph and the former Walgreens and hopefully the grocery outlet is to your right, and we're asking for those spaces to the right, 15 spaces there to be limited to grocery outlet. And I believe the 2012 request was for the island, the two islands of spaces that are kind of in the middle. Yeah. to have those converted into 30-minute only limitations. And then the store A parking, I believe that there is an allowance in the condition 14 that does allow those to be 30 minutes. At the same time, we're more than happy to work with staff to make sure that we're properly identifying whatever time limit we can have on each and every space in the shopping center so that it's very clear. Because it's a good point, Commissioner, if some of those were done, we just need to make sure that we're accurately documenting how long people can park in there.

Yeah, because I did see a fair number of turnover at the 30-minute spots, which I think is a good thing for the plaza and for the surrounding businesses because it keeps parking spaces open. Yeah. Okay, perfect. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Those are all the questions I have.

Commissioner Lee?

Yeah, I think most of my questions have been answered, but so this, I mean, a lot of this is about how for a grocery store, there's a need for parking because people have to carry grocery bags. What would happen, though, if a grocery outlet were to leave and another tenant came with the parking spaces still be tied to the new tenant? Because the

change the text of the conditions doesn't really makes it seem like it's just a permanent change that that that location will always have those 15 dedicated spots at least from a planning perspective that would be the new condition of approval included in the PUD whether or not grocery outlets the tenant that serves that building that condition would remain in there unless they came back and edited again which would be another revision guys would

Can we make a revision right now though to say that if it's a grocery store that the 15 would be?

That would need to be part of a motion. I think what you're saying is that those 15 spaces would only be for like a general like the dedication would only exist as long as it's a general food sales. We wouldn't want to tie it to a specific tenant but for like a grocery store type use and then if there was like cease to be a grocery store use there then they would go back to being two hours. Right. Okay.

Okay, thanks.

Okay, anyone else? Commissioner Ahrens.

Sorry, just to clarify, how many spaces are currently 30 minutes in the lot?

According to what we have approved on our city records, it should just be those 15 fronting the former Walgreens location as well as 20 spaces north of Store A and the first 13 spaces on the east side of 49th Street from the 1995 plans, which I have to go over here. Those are excluded from the two-hour restriction. Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I have a quick question, Mark, can you come up? How long has this process taken to get here today?

I think three or four months, but part of that was that Alexia was waiting very patiently for records that were in a storage somewhere.

Okay I'm just asking because the potential of adding restriction or tying this to general foods or grocery stores I mean I follow the logic it would just mean that if for some reason hypothetically grocery outlet goes away and Walgreens wants to come back a future tenant would have to come back through a process and we don't necessarily want to make it harder to attract tenants today so I'm just sort of Throwing that out just because I was curious about how long this has taken. Because that would certainly add to sort of a future tenants sort of weighing the possibilities of locating here in Oakland. I think with that, no, oh, Commissioner Aarons.

You probably don't have this information, but just in case you do, which I know is not related to this project, but just as a point of comparison, the Whole Foods that is across the intersection, I wasn't able to find online the number of parking spaces in that Whole Foods in comparison to the square footage of that space. I'm sure it was based on whatever the code required.

Yeah, I don't have that, though. That's a great question.

Because I'm assuming it's still the CN zoning. It would be similar, yeah. And so I was just trying to understand kind of by comparison. But if you don't have the number, that's okay.

Okay. So I think we'll go to public comment. I'll open up the public hearing.

All right, we have eight speakers. I'll call you in groups of three. You'll each have two minutes to speak. And then please state your full name for the record prior to speaking. We have Joe, Moe, and Sarita.

Good afternoon, Commission. I appreciate everyone taking their time to hear this item. My name is Joe Tanner. I'm here representing Grocery Outlet. I'm the entitlement and permit manager for the company. We're excited about coming to Oakland and being in Oakland. This will be our third location within the city limits. Of course, we have one opening up near Lake Merritt coming up later this year in October. And a couple different things I wanted to point out to to the folks. I know enforcement was brought up, but I think just from a general community perspective, I think our our model. Is very unique in a lot of ways. We have what's called an independent operator model. So the store operator. is actually a partner with Grocery Outlet. So if you think about it on, it's like small business to scale. They have their own business, they run operations, they hire the employees, store hours, et cetera. And then Grocery Outlet corporate office has the building and the lease. And then at the end of the day, there's a profit split between the two. So in terms of parking enforcement, I think that goes a long way because the operator is going to be enforcing their own customers. So I know that they tend not to be heavy handed with a lot of the enforcement. 16 minutes, they're not going to call out a tow truck. And then also just from a community standpoint, local pd local uh business improvement districts they have things going on they can come in and actually talk to the person running the store rather than having to go up the chain for you know 10 different approvals in order to to do something uh within the neighborhood Another thing I wanted to point out as well, typically grocery outlets in most of our locations, there are a few exceptions, but we look at about 50 spaces total. And I'm happy to answer any questions that the commission has as well. Thank you.

Thank you.

Brian and Sarita, are you ready to speak?

Hello, everybody. My name is Brian. I am a 30-year resident of the neighborhood.

Your full name?

I'm sorry?

Can you state your full name, please?

My name is Brian Charles Brooks. OK. I haven't owned a car. been able to live here and walk and uh i'm here because i feel it's as a long-term resident it's my duty to protect what makes uh the uh neighborhood good and that's all the businesses and um to take something of such high value and give it to one one entity seems unfair when we all have to give up something of that and uh Six years ago, the city redesigned our road. We lost 40 parking spaces out of 101. We are left with 61 on-street parking spaces. So the parking lot is kind of important to us. I question why they just need 15. It seems like they're going to be a lot more customers coming in and at that point, and it might just overwhelm this parking lot. I know there's excitement about this tenant, but it sounds like they already decided they could do it without the dedicated spots or they wouldn't have signed the lease. It's a loss for the collective public. We're giving something up that we have and we will no longer have. It should be tied to this tenant if we need to do that. It seems like it should not just go over to the developer and they have prime parking spaces for the rest of humanity. So that's that. I'm there. I want the neighborhood to thrive and I want people to be able to come and visit all the other smaller shops and

that's it thank you thank you thank you we have mo and sarita and um i owned um with other people um property across the street almost most of the block i've done so for 40 years i came when i was 40. um it's a marvelous marvelous neighborhood We have to be very careful not to change it, drastically at least. The small shops that are my tenants are concerned about parking. We have a block of small businesses and residents, and we have only four parking spaces. One of them is mine. So it hurts their business if people can't come in automobiles to the Temescal and to this block. to buy and to eat with them. We've got marvelous restaurants. We've got small, exciting shops. I developed something called Temescal Alley, which is on 49th Street, and we have 16 small, first-time businesses occupying that alley. I think it will be very harmful to our block across the street if 15 parking spaces that are now used by everyone belong to belong actually, but we're here to what we're here is a purchase of 15 spaces on that lot if you if you have exclusive rights Park, maybe you own it When I don't want us to give away 15 of those public spaces to one business That doesn't make any sense That's not how that neighborhood is. That's how that neighborhood needs to remain small businesses. The businesses we have are successful. Some of them are pretty big. But they don't exercise their power and their might to take away parking for the customers of small businesses. And I'm going here to not protect myself because I've got other interests. But I'm here to protect the people that run their small businesses in my property. You will be not intentionally, but you will be accidentally harming them if you give away the right to park to one entity, to one big business. That's really all I have to say. I hope you won't do that.

Thank you.

I'm the security that they're speaking about.

Mo, can you give us your full name?

Morris Holmes. I've been patrolling at Temescal Plaza for maybe 18 years. Love the place. Beautiful. I personally really don't see... that there's any major problem with 15 parking spaces. You have 150 parking spaces. And there's really no, how can I say it? I'm not pushing the envelope. When the people come and walk through or come to the plaza, come to the area. I don't push no one out. I don't tow cars. I don't do anything like that. But don't get me wrong. There's a lot of people that take advantage of the two-hour parking. And it's really not fair. But because I don't push the envelope, because it's for the public, it's for the Timber Scout Business District. And I let it be. But the little, the 15 in the front, I don't see it as a, would be a big issue. Because if you really look at it, there's a hundred and some odd parking spaces. You're going to have people on foot patrol or just walking to the store. You don't necessarily need to drive. And if you do, you have that 15 spaces, and I'm more concerned about the elderly needing that space when they want to come shop. Because ever since it came up, everyone comes to me every day and asks me, Moe, and that's my name at the plaza, Moe, when is it going to open up? When is it going to open up? And I'm just excited as the community. Because that's something that's needful for the community, especially in that area. Because everyone can't afford whole foods. They can't. And Grocery Outlet will be, as long as, I guess, I'll be there. I'm going to do my best to make sure to accommodate everyone, like I've been doing. Because at the end of the day, it's business. You want business. So it's, you know, at the end of the day, you just want what's best for the whole community, not just part of the community. Because there's a lot of people that come to me daily, young and old. Mo, when is this opening up? Mo, when is it opening? And I want to have something to tell them with a smile on my face.

Thanks, Mo. Appreciate it. Next we have Sean.

Good afternoon, Sean Granberry. I'm the president of the board of the Tim Scow. BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT, AND THERE'S SOME REALITY THAT NEEDS TO BE PLACED HERE BECAUSE I'VE LIVED IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD FOR OVER 30 YEARS. I WAS THERE WHEN THE WHOLE PROPERTY OPENED UP, AND I WAS JUST THERE THIS MORNING AT PETE'S TO GET ME A BAGEL. SO I'M A DAILY PERSON THERE. My responsibility is to represent the business owners as well as the building owners in the district. And the reality is the parking has never been enforced the last 30 years. Walgreens is actually anti-enforcement. They didn't like any enforcement on those 30-minute spots. But the important thing is that those spots aren't enforced. So Grocery Outlet coming to the area, knowing how it's operated for the last 30 years, that it helps everyone. It really helps the business that's around it because Grocery Outlet brings a lot of people to our district, what we need. And we were very fortunate as a district to have Walgreens. Most of these Walgreens that closed down stay closed. No tenant comes in. We were blessed to have a tenant come and fill that spot. So we're very happy with it. But the reality is those spots are not going to be enforced. That's the reality. And people are going to be able to park the way they park. And it's really a public parking space. Many of our business owners were upset over the bike lane, the parking spaces that took up the bike lane. But when we asked that question, they showed the death rates. of how many people's lives those bike lanes have saved. And that's all the answer we need. If they're making the community safer, that's all we need. But in all honesty, that parking lot is a blessing to all those businesses there. Those 15 spots have been 30 minutes forever And people park as long as they want to there, honestly. That's the honest truth. I'm guilty of it myself. So this is a blessing for us, and I hope to see this thing go through because we need Grocery Outlet in our community. And the reality is people are going to be able to park the way they park.

It has always been since 1995, 6, whenever it opened.

So I don't think anything is going to change. Thank you.

Thank you. We have Kasite or Kasete, apologies if I pronounced it incorrectly.

My name is Kasete Yohannes. I own Asmara Restaurant since 1985. And I own with my partner half of the block across the street from former Walgreens. To give you a little bit of history, I was one of the negotiators in 1995 between City of Oakland, Berkeley Land Farms, and Temescal Merchant Association to have this 1985 PEDU resolution. I just want to read one paragraph. There shall be no dedication or designation of any particular parking space for any particular individual tenant as all spaces shall be available to all customers except for required disabled parking spaces. After that, we have modification. Your question, Mr. Alex, there are 28 half an hour spaces. The rest are two. Solution. Not only solution. The problem on this parking is they're not enforced by security guards because all employees of these tenants shall not park over there. The parking space is only for customers. So if they've been enforced, we have more than enough parking in the space. At the end, there's no any preference for any Big company, small company to be allowed on this one. This parking lot belongs to all of us. 365 days perpetual forever according to this. I am just to make one more point. We fought hard with the city of Oakland and Berkeley Land Company to get this because at that time, 55 parking spot was belong to the public. Thanks so much. I hope you reject this proposal. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. We have two more speakers, Jonathan and Ben.

How are you? My name is Jonathan Johannes. That's my father right there. We've owned a smart restaurant since 1985. Me and my brother reopened a cocktail bar as well right across the street. Keep it straightforward. Walgreens was there before that, and there's really no issues. So I'm gonna keep it the same thing that my dad said. I oppose the parking situation. That's about it. Thank you.

Thank you. Oops, sorry.

Hello, Benyam Yohannes. I want to a post. And reason why is we are business owners across the street. We have a lot of customers that do come to our businesses and we would like to keep that open for them.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. You can do that when you're done. Okay.

Hi, my name is Emmanuel Singh born and raised right here in the Bay Area. And if you've eaten at any restaurant in Oakland, I've probably served you been your bartender, been your host. I've worked at all the restaurants and about six years I started my own six years ago. I started my own project. Um. Currently, I am one of Cassette and Sarita's tenants across the street. My very small business that operates at 350 square feet, we get 4,000 unique visitors every year. I have people coming from Sacramento, San Jose, when people are visiting from New York, LA, these people aren't really using public transportation, they're parking, and I feel like what we all want is Temescal to be a destination, and that requires parking being available for everyone. I'm actually really confused about how The lease is already signed with 15 spots given away when actually the Temescal Merchants Associations is one of the owners of that property right there. It's really interesting that this is positioned as grocery outlets going to come here. They're only going to come here with this 15 spots. On average, grocery outlets make $8 million a year. Grocery Outlet is owned by Berkshire Partners and Hellman and Friedman LLC. Berkshire has a portfolio worth $1.5 billion. Hellman is the 13th largest private equity firm in the world. So you have our international major corporate interests. And then you have the Temescal businesses. We want grocery outlay here. We're fine with it. It's all good. They just don't get to take 15 spots that we all share, and we all share them together, right?

That's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Thank you. And if you could drop off the card, thank you. I think that's it stuff. Oh, okay, great. Thank you. Okay, so I'll close the public hearing. I have a just a quick follow up and we can go around the horn again. But Mark, can you come back up? I I used to live right up the street on 51st many years ago. And what is the so the the parking for the shopping center? Who does that legally? serve? I mean, so in other words, there's sort of the practical reality of people along Temescal parking in the shopping center, but is it for the surrounding neighborhood, or is it technically for customers of the shops in the center?

The approval condition is that it is free of charge to all of the customers of the Temescal Merchants and the Temescal Shopping District.

Okay, so it's everyone in that neighborhood. In the entire district. Yeah, it's not just limited to the site. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Commissioner Randolph?

Yeah, thank you. I do have a couple more questions. Who actually owns the parking spaces? Is it the property owner? Is this at the Merchants Association?

No, this is a privately owned... There are two parcels. The bigger one is the one that has all 150 parking spaces. It's privately owned. It's privately maintained. It costs nothing to the public. It costs nothing to any of the merchants. So it's owned by my client, the landlord.

Okay. And then can you clarify one more time? So the 30-minute Green Stry parking spaces, was it north of Stores A or south of Stores A that was approved in addition to the 15 in front of Walgreens?

I think it's north of Store A, which is the store where the pizza and the roundtable is. But again, we're more than happy to work with staff to confirm that we're all on the same page.

And then I know the original Merchants Association opposed it back in the day, but they're no longer active and they were replaced by the bid. Is that correct, or are they still around?

I think that's my understanding, but I'm not sure, to be perfectly honest.

That's all the questions I have.

Okay, thank you very much.

Okay, does anyone have any other questions? Commissioner Ahrens?

Thank you. So just confirming that the conditions of the lease are that there will be 15 dedicated spaces and the lease has already been signed.

There is a signed lease and a condition to the lease is that there will be 15 spaces for grocery outlet so to say that differently If grocery outlet doesn't get 15 spaces Then they don't have to move into and might not come to the store So it's my client's obligation to be here to secure these 15 spaces in order for Grocery Outlet to move in and open and provide fresh and affordable groceries for the entire community.

The public hearing is closed, so unless someone wants to call anyone up, we're going to keep it. Sorry, the public hearing is closed, sir. Thank you.

Any other questions?

Okay, we can go on to deliberations.

I guess I can start. Yeah, I'm a frequent grocery outlet shopper, so I definitely appreciate the different stores that are popping up. I'm glad to hear that there's coming one in Lake Merritt. I used the one closer to me in West Oakland and downtown. um and you know they all have dedicated large parking parking spaces and lots next to this so this one is kind of a very unique uh situation um what i do struggle with a little bit is is that i'm still very confused about the different time limits in the parking lot and how many of the spots are striped that might not have to be striped. I do feel like there's additional 30-minute spots in front of Store A on the south side that probably don't need to be or should be 30-minute spots. I do appreciate the comment that grocery outlet shoppers will be in the area and hopefully frequent the other businesses. But if they only have 30 minutes, they're not going to do that. They're going to run into the store. They're going to shop and then hopefully make it out in time. to not go above the 30-minute limit. So there's not really enough time for cross-pollination. I think that's why I assume the two-hour limit was created back in the day so that people actually had time to go to the restaurants and the bakeries and the shops so that they can walk around the neighborhood that 30 minutes don't really allow. So I would actually hope that some of the other 30-minute spots that are maybe not currently zoned will actually be removed to allow additional two-hour spaces. And then the other thing I'm struggling with, if everybody says there's no enforcement and nobody cares, then why are we here to make restrictions for something that's not going to be enforced or nobody cares about? So that's another thing that I'm struggling a little, why are we approving a change, a conditional zoning change for business that might come or might not come? I want them to come, but then it's not gonna be enforced. Why are we going through this entire process? So that's where I am right now. I'm not really sure what I'm gonna do yet. So I would love to hear thoughts from the other commissioners.

No, we're the public hearing is closed, ma'am. Okay. Anyone want to add anything? Commissioner Lee.

So, I mean, a few things I want to say right off the bat. I mean, I think in general, you know, I'm reluctant to change conditions of approval. i mean it really it doesn't matter that the the parking lot is currently privately owned and maintained it was um it was a public amenity that was created as a condition of um being able to develop what was it developed there like if if if a developer you know gets to you know build a high rise and as a condition that approval they have to create a public park They can't come back 30 years later and say, well, you know, we own this park. We're going to take back some of it. Like that's not, I don't particularly, that argument doesn't feel particularly compelling to me. I think conditions of approval, there's a reason why they were negotiated. There were a lot of people that were involved in those negotiations. It was a carefully created balance at that time. when something was given away to a private company for profit and they promised something that all the people that were involved in that process expected to always be there. So I don't know, like I don't particularly like changing those kinds of conditions. Having said that, obviously it's a big eyesore to have that vacant building there. and you know it is filling a large space like that post pandemic is difficult um i uh you know i think it is you know potentially a compromise to um limit it to the operating hours of the grocery store although it's it's going to be open from 7 a.m to 10 p.m so that's pretty pretty much all the time um and but i don't see why we wouldn't um restrict it to um whatever the the use category is for grocery stores um i don't think that's burdensome i mean they could open you know like if groceries grocery outlet was to leave um and they were to open say a businesses that directly competed with the existing businesses there, and then they would have dedicated parking while these others wouldn't. That would be a whole different equation. I mean, they could open a bookstore and a jewelry store, compete with, you know, Esquilito and that bookstore in Temescal Ali. They could open, you know, Barnes & Noble could open there. I mean, you know, so I don't think that's a burdensome condition to add. uh yeah i think i think we have to think about um you know this is a loss of a public amenity um and you know we have to think about how it impacts other other stores as well commissioner erentz

Thank you, yes. I have a few comments sort of building off what my fellow commissioners have shared. I think I'm trying to understand the 28 spots or so that are already 30 minutes. And I think that that is probably achieving some level of turnover that we want. And that is wanted by the dedicated 15 positions is to have turnover so people in the grocery store can have those positions available. I used to get my hair cut in the shopping center, and I've driven there, parked there, walked, biked, take transit there. I live somewhat nearby and familiar with the area. I was at Asmara and 51st and Tell last week, so I love this commercial area, and I'm excited for Grocery Outlet to come next. I think for me, you know, looking at the zoning and that, you know, a similar project constructed today near major transit within a half mile major transit would not have any required parking minimums is... I'm trying to understand, you know, the... Original conditions of approval in the mid 90s that were approved They were approved in that planning context and in the transportation context of that time You know if we're looking at updating it now to the planning context of the time today You know this if it were a new project would not have any required parking minimums and so that's what is kind of the sticking point for me is that there is already parking available there and There's some level of turnover with the 30-minute spaces that are available, and the two-hour provides some level of turnover as well. And that 150 spaces is a lot of spaces that is used by the whole neighborhood. And so, you know, even though 15 of 150 is quite a small percentage, I'm thinking of it more from the perspective that, you know, this project shouldn't have any dedicated parking required if it was approved today. I feel it's not sitting quite well with me that the landlord preemptively promised 15 parking spaces without coming to the planning commission first to get a revised condition of approval. I understand maybe why that happened, but I, you know, If we need to approve the changes to the conditions of approval, I don't know why that was made to the tenant before it was brought to this body. And so that seems to be their prerogative. They did it, now we're having to consider it. But from my perspective overall, it seems that there's enough parking with enough turnover happening in the lot already. that it can be used by grocery outlet shoppers and customers who, you know, I'm very excited that can come to the neighborhood. So that's kind of where I am right now, but I'm also curious to hear other commissioners' thoughts on this because I do understand that, you know, grocery retail is a use that does, you know, if people have access to a car and they're going to drive from further away. But this is also a very dense, walkable, bikeable, transit-oriented neighborhood that looks a lot different than it did in 1995 when there were major roads without protected bike lanes and without frequent bus service on it.

No, thank you for that. I mean, this is, I think, a struggle for all of us. the world changes and conditions of approval can change with it. And I think that's what we're dealing with here. I want Oakland to be open for business, but also sort of appreciate the comments that we've had so far. I guess, and I'll let the vice chair speak first, but I'm thinking that we may have some Changes to the condition that we might be able to make to get people a little bit more comfortable and I know we've sort of thrown out the idea of allowing a Public parking during the off hours. I mean just really just overnight You know limiting it to the grocery use and then I think to address a Commissioner Randolph's concerns may be working on some of the signage and you know the the timing and striping and and all that kind of stuff and So those are sort of the notes that I've been taking, and I will just, with that comment, just hand it over if you have any other comments, Vice Chair.

Yeah, thank you. My comments echo a lot of what has already been said. As I mentioned, this used to be my old neighborhood. I was there last night. I parked in the plaza. I waited quite a bit, drove around, but then there was turnover, and I got a spot. And I worry a little bit about the precedent that this would set to allocate the 15 parking space to a single tenant for either future tenants of the plaza. I understand that if, say, Pete's moved and another tenant came in and they wanted dedicated spots because, hey, they heard Grocery Outlet got dedicated spots, they would have to come back to the Planning Commission. We would do this all over again. And it might be the same commission, it might be a different commission, but the precedent is being set today. So I worry a bit about that to some of the other commissioners' points of businesses having the luxury a bit of having their own dedicated parking spaces. So I'm a little torn as well also just to Commissioner Randolph's point of the reality of that lot and its... enforcement or lack of enforcement and the kind of confusion about what is actually 30 minute and what actually is two hour and what was what is supposed to be two hour that's marked as 30 minute I just yeah I have questions and about all that so I agree I'm hoping maybe we can find something in the middle thank you for that um

Does anyone want to say more or throw out a motion?

I just haven't made my question or thoughts. I mean, I maybe the staff, are there other Grocery stores or places in the city that have an exception like this where there's a public plaza and then all of a sudden the location gets dedicated parking. Because I know that, for example, the Trader Joe's in Emoryville shares a parking lot with other businesses, but they don't have dedicated spaces specifically for their grocery store, right? So, I mean, it is an interesting.

I don't know any off the top of my head, but.

yeah i don't know that we could speak to the conditions of approval on every single commercial building in the city i could speak to some of the safeway projects that i'd been involved in and my recollection is that that was susan would probably correct me if i'm wrong but that that parking was made available for two two hour parking for the entire neighborhood as well And I don't think they have as many other tenants as that does. This is the Safeway on College Avenue at Claremont, and it's the rooftop parking area. And there was a two-hour limitation on that, and it was open to the entire community. There's no dedicated spaces, but I think for the most part, it's probably Safeway customers parking there.

Yeah, I mean, I just have a concern that Sutter Health, for example, is going to be like, oh, well, you know, we have patients coming into our healthcare center. We should get some dedicated spots. You know, they seem to have some of the confusional green striping for 30 minutes right now, and, you know, USPS and others, and You know, I think there are many grocery stores. There's Trader Joe's in San Francisco that are highly focused on non-car shoppers that, you know, take public transportation there. And I think you're familiar with the downtown Trader Joe's there and 4th Street. So maybe this could be one of those locations where people prefer not to drive because I have no idea how people are even going to park there even with the 15 spots. There seems to be a limited amount of parking in that lot for just one grocery store. So I don't know. I'm very concerned about the precedent this sets as well.

Yeah, I did want to clarify, to your point, regardless of if it's setting precedent and they coming back, Planning Commission would have to vote on any future dedication of parking to a tenant, like you're saying. I want to reiterate that staff, like the applicant said, will work to make sure that the current striping in the field today is compliant with the PUD as it stands today. As you were mentioning earlier, it appears to be there might be some mis-striping somewhere that we'll definitely want to go back and make sure it's compliant with everything in here. But I just did want to clarify that those existing 15 spaces there technically on the city's records are 30-minute spaces today. So the change today would be just taking them and designating them for a tenant formally. I just want to reiterate that.

Ma'am, I'm sorry. We closed the public hearing, so we're up here deliberating now, and we can interact with staff. Is there anything, I mean, the enforcement seems to be an issue. I mean, if we're admitting that it hasn't been enforced forever and it nor will it ever be, that's kind of a problem. Is there anything we could do to add language to a condition to make sure that there are more enforceable enforcement rules? I mean, that just seems to be a missing piece here. And I don't know how that would work practically, but it just seems like it has to be sort of memorialized somewhere. So if there is a problem that there's a condition to point to that is not being met.

My concern would be with regard to staff resources and we would then be in a position of patrolling a private properties parking lot. We've put certain restrictions on before about, you know, employees need to get like easy pass or something like that and they shouldn't be parking on the site or maybe limiting number of spaces to employees where that's like very tied to, you know, the operator. But if it's open to the general public, how would we know if a car has been parked in that spot for more than two hours? So I have concerns with the city getting involved in that kind of enforcement.

And to Pete's point, if we got a code complaint or if someone from the public filed a 311 complaint today about parking at the site and being misstriped or used in some manner, what would happen is it would come to planning staff and then we would reach out to the owner and let them know and encourage them to correct it and rectify it. So that's... How enforcement's handled now.

That's the existing system. Yeah. Exactly. Right.

And that enforcement would be more of like the claim right now that there's more than 15 spaces within that inner parking lot to the south of the buildings labeled as 30-minute parking. So if that enforcement came in, we would go out and look at that for compliance with the conditions. And it does look that from what I've seen, although it may be outdated street view, it looks like they may not be in compliance. So we'll work to make sure that the striping is in compliance if this goes forward.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah, so I'm just trying to think about someone who would choose to drive to this location of Grocery Outlet versus the one on Broadway, which has a massive parking lot that I've never seen full. There's now a recycling facility in the parking lot, I think, because it has excess space, which is great to have another business there. But it's a 10-minute drive between the proposed location and the one on Broadway. Broadway, and that's on surface streets. It's faster if you go on 24. And so I'm thinking about, you know, someone who is going to choose to drive may choose to drive to the location on Broadway to go to grocery outlet where they know they're going to get a parking space where there's a huge parking lot already. So And you know someone may may take a gamble and want to park and go to grocery outlet at 51st and Telegraph That's great. But you know, I there's already near a nearby location of grocery outlet That someone could drive to and they could know that they could get a parking space there. So I know that these are different locations, but This is such a walkable, bikeable, transit-rich area that we are going to have a lot of people walking and biking and taking transit to get their groceries. I do that. You know, I do have to limit how many groceries I get so that I can make sure they fit on my bike or that I can carry them on the bus. But, you know, people make those choices. So, yeah, I'm just kind of thinking about the user experience. And they may just choose to go to the grocery outlet that has a giant parking lot in front of it.

Commissioner Randolph?

Maybe the property owner. I mean, I didn't see it, but are there any bike racks or bike lockers there? And if not, is that something that you'd be interested in putting there so that people who actually do want a bike there and shop are able to lock their bikes or store their bike while they're shopping?

Yeah, I think if the Commission would like to see more bike racks, I think that's something that we would be open to. If I may, can I also address a couple other questions or comments?

I'll leave that up to the current chair.

Oh, I just said that we're happy to agree to more bike parking if that's something that the commission might want to see. And then there were also a couple questions or comments that I was hoping I might be able to address.

Sure, go for it.

OK. So first off, private enforcement, we're happy to agree to a condition that this enforcement would be private and that the property owner and the grocery outlet would work together to privately enforce, wouldn't involve the city, wouldn't involve city resources, privately enforce all of the parking limits within the site. We are just asking for 15 spaces. I hear the point that there's a different grocery outlet that might be close by that does have parking. But again, grocery outlet normally looks for 50 at least and significantly compromised to come to 15. And the lease, just to be super clear, the lease is contingent on us getting these 15 spaces. Otherwise, grocery outlet can walk away. So it wasn't that we presumed that we could come here. In fact, it was the exact opposite. If we had come here without a tenant, that would have made this a lot more difficult, because we're talking about a very unique kind of tenant, which is a grocer. And we're trying to be very focused about the absolute minimum that we need for those shoppers who are going to drive and who need to bring their groceries home by car. And again, this is about a grocery store use. We're happy to have a condition that this trails just to a new grocery store if grocery outlet leaves. But I just want to reemphasize that without this, the space is likely going to remain vacant for who knows how long. So we're really happy to work on reasonable conditions. Thank you.

Thanks, Mark. Commissioner Randolph?

Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you. That's the thing that answers some of my concerns around other tenants jumping on board and trying to get parking spaces if we find a way to limit it to just grocery stores, limit the hours that the parking is restricted for just that one tenant, and one, increase the visibility and striping. I think the parking lot needs to be restriped. Do I hear the makings of a motion? Potentially. And I do think that we do need to figure out better bike parking or bike availability there because I didn't see anything walking around the plaza. And if someone wants to shop there on a bike and they can't lock the bike anywhere, they're not going to come back. You can't just leave the bike front. So I'm not a design person, so I don't know where the bike racks need to be or the bike lockers. But I don't even know how to put that in a condition of approval, because I don't know what the locations would be.

Well, we don't think we have to dictate the locations. It's just a condition that would ensure that the property owner works with staff to figure out the best place.

And the best ratio of the number of bike racks. So.

um ma'am i'm we he was called up as the applicant we the public has time to speak during public comment and the public comment is now closed so i i apologize i know it's it's unfortunate but that's the way that we hold our hearings and i don't know if mr branson wants to add anything we but everyone had a chance to speak during public comment If I allow you to speak, if I open up the public comment, then everyone else has another chance to speak. Well, that but then we can't do our business, frankly.

I want to reiterate the rules that this body operates under, which is that after speakers are called, the chair closes its public testimony, and no new evidence is allowed to be submitted unless recognized by the chair, which is typical to do for applicants when there's follow-up questions needed on the project.

Thanks, Mike. That means that we're going to hopefully make a motion here.

I'll just be transparent. I'm leaning towards not approving the request and probably not with modifications either. I think it appears that there's enough turnover, there's plenty of available parking, and there's not really an enforcement plan presented today. So that's the way that I'm leaning, although I'm open to hearing the motion and the details of that. I mean, I would like for there to be more bike parking. But it's just I kind of feel like we're being told you don't support business in Oakland if you don't allow these 15 spots. And that's just not really sitting well with me because we do have to be considering the context of all the businesses in the area and the available grocers in the area as well. Yeah, so I'll just say that, although I'm looking forward to the motion and discussing some of the details of that.

I agree with everything you said, except that these spots are 30 minutes already. So there's not a lot of ability for someone to park for 30 minutes and frequent the entire corridor. If it was a two-hour parking spot, I would agree that it would have a huge impact on the neighborhood. But since 30 minutes is really just enough to run into Pete's or into one of the stores that is existing in the plaza and then basically leave the parking lot. um i feel comfortable about that little piece i i do think that there is a lot of conditions of approval that would have to be added to a motion and i guess i might have to do the motion for me to be comfortable with it um but i'm not sure if course we outlet or the property owner would be amenable to that um and i guess the question is you know are we able to require an enforcement plan or an actual private enforcement piece to the conditions of approval and how would that be audited I mean, I know there's parking enforcement conditions of approval we've added to other projects before where there has to be parking enforcement or traffic plan, right? Right.

So for them to enforce their own parking, that's fine. What I'm saying is when the city gets involved in verifying that they aren't enforcing somebody that's parked there for two hours, How do we go out there to verify that? That's the concern. So just noting that if that condition is added and people bring it up as they're not in compliance, there may be limited capability for staff to go sit out there and count parked cars. I mean, there's really more of their responsibility to do it in towing a vehicle if they exceed the two hour limit versus the city going out and actually marking cars and ensuring that the enforcement's in place. I'm just pointing out that there's limitations on staff availability, most likely to be able to appropriately do that.

Okay, would Vice, Commissioner Lee or Vice Chair Sandoval, do you have anything to add?

I just had another question. I was wondering, is there some, is there something, is this grocery outlet at this location going to be adapted for the space in some way? Because it just seems like a small, on the small side for a grocery outlet or for a grocery store in general, and given that it's, you know, normally there's these huge parking lots for grocery stores and for grocery outlet in particular, but then This has a parking lot that currently is basically full all the time. Is there some kind of modification that will make it more viable for this location? Or is it just a regular? And given that there's another one just two miles down the street, is this going to be a unique grocery outlet?

Every grocery outlet is unique. That's the answer. You heard Joe Tanner from Grocery Outlet talk about how they have independent operators who are in charge of deciding all of the food and the merchandise that are offered at each and every grocery outlet. So they're not told from above what they have to stock and where. They get to make all of those decisions for themselves. So the answer is yes, it would be unique. To the other question about size, this would be on the smaller size for grocery outlet stores, but it's certainly within the realm of the size of stores that grocery outlet has. And again, our parking request, I know I sound like a broken record, reflects that. We're not asking for 50 spaces. We're not asking for 30. We're not asking for 25. We're asking for 50. Did that? Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair.

Just I appreciate all the comments of the commissioners. And one thing that I just keep thinking about, I'm a little less concerned about the enforcement and more concerned that this might remain empty. Just thinking about how empty retail spaces really impact neighborhoods and just how hard it is for these larger spaces to be occupied. We see this even in like the most dense parts of downtown San Francisco and downtown Oakland. When we see so many retailers closing, I just want that to be part of the consideration here. I think it would be a real shame. As soon as that Walgreens closed, it was like, oh, man. And several others and other pharmacies all around Oakland. How are these going to be filled in the future as the future of retail has changed so much? post-pandemic so I just I I do I hope we can come to some kind of Emotion that you know Makes sense for at least the majority of us on the Commission with some condition so Sure, Randolph. It seems like you have some ideas here Hopefully

I think I would like to make a motion to approve the staff recommendation with the following.

Commissioner Randolph, do you know, we'll have to do the environmental determination too. Make sure you cover it all and then we can add to the.

Let me pull up the thing.

While you're working on that, too, I do want to note that the conditions of approval as are already require them to enforce the parking limitations.

Okay. Well, I guess that's one thing that needs to be enforced. 311, here we come. Yeah. So I make a motion to affirm the staff's environmental determination, approve the revision to the final plant unit development PUDF95-166, COA number 14, subject to the attached findings and conditions. And then I would add to the attached finding and conditions the following conditions. restricted parking be limited to the operating hours of the tenant, have the conditions of approval be specifically attached to a grocery establishment, require the tenant and property owner to enforce the parking restrictions on-site or continue to enforce the parking restrictions on-site, install and make bike parking available based on staff determination and recommendations, and increase and improve signage and renew or update the striping of the current 150 parking spots on the lot.

And bike parking? Yeah, I did that already. Did we say that? Yeah. OK, great.

Can I ask a follow-up question regarding the bike parking condition? 28 already talks about bike racks being provided. So I understand that there's some concern about existing conditions not having those racks.

I guess we should just work internally with staff to determine what additional parking is needed, given that this project site's already built out, according to the PUD.

Well, I think we heard from the applicant that they're willing to work with staff to either improve or add to the bike parking. Okay, so we'll just leave it.

Yeah, I mean, I think bike parking has changed in 30 years, the way that it looks and probably can be...

It would be helpful to have some kind of range, so, you know... Like, are we just going by what's in the code today for our 43,250 square feet of commercial space? Are we just talking about the grocery outlet space? Are we talking about...

I would say whatever is existing under current planning code, what is required under existing planning code.

Okay, got it.

I mean, I didn't see, I mean, I could be mistaken, but I didn't see any bike racks anywhere in front of that store.

Oh, no, I just want to know how to tie it into the existing.

Yeah, and I would say that it has to be next to the store rather than, I mean, in a corner, you know, somewhere in the plaza that's not connected to that building or that specific store. Yeah, our code has the locational requirements for the short term.

Yes, I would feel comfortable with whatever the current planning. We would need to make sure that it's still subject to ADA as like internal pathways, making sure that they're not blocking the pathways.

I just wanted to make sure you didn't have anything specific.

No.

Thank you.

So we would be doing installed bike parking to the amount that required under current code for the entire center or just for the grocery outlet use?

I think we should just do grocery outlet. I mean, that's really...

I mean, I'd be happy with the entire plaza because it would be good for all of the tenants, but I'm open to... I mean, is the property owner amenable to that or just... We'll need you to come up to the microphone. Because the applicant is not Grocery Outlet. The applicant is the property owner of the entire plaza, correct?

I think we would, just given that I'm not sure anybody knows the bike parking requirements off the top of their head, I'd want to be careful about requiring bike parking for the entire site rather than just the Grocery Outlet building. But We really don't, we want to make sure that we have as much consensus from the commission as possible, but I just want to say, you know, I'd be worried about something that we don't even know if it's physically possible given the current site layout.

Does the staff know what the current requirements are for a grocery or business with that size and what they require?

For the grocery outlet versus the whole center is a different thing. So let me... For a grocery outlet, what would be the additional? Yeah, so let me look that up for you real quick.

Whenever you're changing a use with an existing building, though, you do not have to increase the amount of parking. You just have to retain... The existing, for bike parking I'm talking about. So I'm not sure that would even change with the Walgreens to grocery outlet.

But they have not, I think what they're saying is- We don't want to require something that can't physically be accommodated, right?

Yeah, we'd have to see where we could actually locate the requirement is what you're getting at.

So the short-term parking is one per 2,000 square feet. One bike parking? One bike stall per 2,000 square feet. So if the space is 14,000, then that would be an additional, I think it's like 14,000 plus. It would probably round up to eight bike parking spaces. So it would be like four racks for the grocery outlet space. If I'm getting that square footage correctly. I think it was 14,000 plus.

Yeah, I'd be comfortable to make my motion just for that grocery outlet. Can I clarify? We're talking about short-term bike parking, specifically with this condition? Yeah, I mean, no storage locker for long-term bike parking. You know, it's just for short, but what is considered short-term? Like, not overnight? The racks. It would be the racks. Oh, not like the boxes at BART or something? No, it's long-term. Okay, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Okay, so I think my motion is put together. I don't know if there's any additions.

Could I ask for a restatement of the last one when you said there was something along the lines of increase in improved signage and renew striping?

Yes, so I think the existing signing is a little confusing, and it doesn't correlate with the actual parking stalls. There are some stalls in the plaza that have no time limitations. Either it's faded, or maybe it was never painted.

I will note that the prior conditions say that it'll be noted at the entry point that all parking is available for two hours. So would you want staff just to confirm that it's consistent with the prior PUD approval, that that signage is made clear, and then any limited spots are also made clear as approved?

I think the answer to that is yes, but it's also confirming that the, it appears that there are a lot more limited spots right now than is in the PUA.

Right, and that's like the direction would be to confirm that they have a striping plan that's consistent with the current approval plus the prior approvals.

Correct. Yeah, that was my understanding as well as confirmed striping and signage is consistent with the entitlement and make necessary revisions. You're not asking for a restriping of the entire parking lot if there weren't any issues.

Well, I mean, there are some parking spots that have no striping or no current time limit versus others that do. So that's, I think, the confusion. So it's just if the striping has faded, it should be striped to be in compliance with the conditions.

So the way that the prior conditions were, it's like nothing is marked except for at the entry. It lets you know that all parking is available for two hours. but then only those that are limited would have additional signage.

Correct, but the original conditions of approval was two hours for the entire parking lot. Now we're adding all these different layers and all these different spots. So there are some spots that are 30 minutes that are open for everyone. There are spots that are 30 minutes that are just for grocery outlet or whatever, grocery tenant. And then there are some that are two hours for the entire community. So there's three different types of parking spots. Right.

So I think it would just be confirming that those that are further limited would be marked. Or do you want to have all of the spots that are two-hour parking? Because I think some of them don't have curbside, so it might be hard to mark those. I guess they could put them in each stall.

They're on the pavement already. It's just that a lot of them are either faded or they don't have any markings.

Okay, so you would want them to restripe to call out specifically every stall that's two hours and every stall that's limited. So it would be like on the pavement, two hour.

That's what most of them have currently, except the ones that are faded or have not been striped. I think it's just when it comes to enforcement, it's very important to be very clear of what the actual limitations are for each specific spot. Otherwise, someone can say, well, this spot does not have two-hour limits on it. So how should I know that? No, understood.

I just wanted to make sure we needed a new condition and it wasn't just, you know, making consistent with the prior approvals. So it's saying, like, in each stall, mark what the time limits are on that stall. Correct. The designation. Got you.

Do we have a second? Second. Is everyone clear? Are we? I don't want to rush.

Yeah, do you want me to run through that again real quick? Okay. So I've got limit the restriction to the operating hours of the tenant. Make sure that the restricted spaces for that tenant are only attached to a grocery store or a general food sales activity use, and we can put it in a grocery store. Install bike parking. for that meets current code for short term parking for a grocery store for the grocery store use and update striping and signage to confirm that is consistent with the current approvals and update so that each stall has signage across the entire site based on the restrictions. And then I know that you had added about enforcing parking. Did you want to add that? I mean, it's already in the condition.

I would just say we affirm the existing conditions of approval in regards to enforcement.

Okay. I can offer specific language on that, which is the property owner shall enforce both parking duration limits and customer limitations.

Yes, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Pete. And Mike? Aye.

Commissioner Lee? Aye. Commissioner Aaron? No. Vice Chair Sandoval?

Yes.

And Chair Ray?

Yes.

Okay, that motion passes. The request for revision is approved. That decision is appealable within ten days.

Thank you. OK, we'll move along here. There are no appeals. So it'll bring us to commission business and the approval of minutes from May 20, 2026. Can I get a motion?

I move to approve the minutes from May 20, 2026. Second. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. That motion passes.

Thank you. Is there any correspondence?

No, no correspondence.

Any city council actions? Nothing to report recently.

Sorry, through the chair. I believe a while ago there was the mini storage item was appealed to the city council. Did we get an update on that? I can't remember.

Yeah, sorry. I'm pinch hitting here, so I'm not familiar with that. I can look into that, though.

And I can bring it up with Catherine. I think that might have been on her list to bring back. No worries.

Thank you.

And with that, we will adjourn the Planning Commission meeting of June 3rd, 2026 at 4.43.

Thank you. We have them in a box somewhere for a reason so.

Thanks for reminding me.

Corn shopping.

Thank you. Thank you.