Planning & Transportation Commission - Regular Meeting

and in a plan uh looking at potential components for alternatives that would then um go to city council to provide direction um first discussion in April and then um direction in June so that we can then dig into the details on that. Um and then we also are expecting to bring to you a retail ordinance based on your discussion um last year and the connection with the retail committee. I also noted here that um on the San Antonio Road area plan, we do have a few opportunities for engagement from the public. We have a community survey that's now online through the end of March, March 29th. And uh we have a community workshop scheduled on March 5th at starting at 6:00 p.m. at the JCC Peloalto on Fabian Way. Next slide. For city council, we've got a few items of interest in the March meetings. We have a discussion scheduled for March 9th on the implementation of Senate Bill 79. consideration of the dimminimous exception um a zoning code amendment that PTC recommended approval of in January and then a pre-screening for a zoning code amendment related to transfer of development rights u particularly applicable to the property at 51 and Cena Avenue. Um if a formal application is submitted on that that would then come to planning commission for consideration on March 16th. City Council will be considering the project at 2100 Gang Road, the builder's remedy project that the PTC recommended approval of on December 10th of last year. And they are

scheduled to also consider the project at 4075 El Camino Way, the PC amendment um that was considered by the PTC last September. And with that is the end of my report but we do also have representative from office of transportation to provide some updates from them. So senior trans transportation planner RSA good to have you here.

Thank you chair members of the planning and transportation commission. My name is Azie Arce, a senior transportation planner with the Office of Transportation, providing the office's updates for February 25th, 2026. Uh, next slide, please. Staff is aware of three pedestrian fatalities throughout the city and one nonfatal collision involving a vehicle on the tracks just this year. transportation and other city staff are deeply committed to supporting our youth and creating a safer environment for everyone. Working closely with PAUSD, Cal Train and other partners, the city is currently exploring several ways to increase safety, building on meaningful steps we have already taken. Uh the city council created a rail safety and youth mental health ad hoc committee and as of late February uh the city has successfully deployed 24-hour human presence by professional track safety monitors at all four rail crossings in Palo Alto. This effort is a cost sharing partnership between the city and the school district and the city approving the contract at their February 23rd meeting just a couple days ago. staff is initiating the necessary analysis to evaluate what we what would be required to implement a temporary closure at the train crossing at Churchill and Alma with possible city council consideration and action anticipated within 60 days or by midappril. This effort would include community engagement, assessment of potential impacts such as emergency response including police, fire, and ambulance, rerouting and safety of pedestrian and bicyclists, vehicle traffic circulation, and the definition of and definition of

potential closure elements including signage, signal changes, fencing, and closing materials uh for uh diagnostic review by the CPU staff. Um, I also want to take this opportunity to announce that the city and the Palo Alto Unified School District will host a community listening session on Thursday, March 12th at 6:00 p.m. to share feedback on the temporary rail closure of Churchill Avenue. The community feedback received through the listening session and website feedback form will be shared with the city council as they consider next steps in April. And there is more information on the city's calendar uh events page um and a web page set up for this um Churchill Avenue temporary closure um uh analysis. In addition, uh the city is also moving forward with the quiet zones uh to eliminate uh routine train horn no noise. I reported on the PaloAlto Avenue quiet zone implementation a few weeks back. Uh work is finished like I mentioned at the Palo Alto Avenue crossing and we expect that zone to go into effect next month. For our other crossings, we are identifying funding to start the design of required gate upgrades later this year. Moving over to some technological enhancements in partnership with Cal Train, we have installed the rail sentry system at several locations. This system uses AI and cameras to detect if people or vehicles are on the tracks. We are also installing anti-transpassing panels and high security fencing to prevent unauthorized access to the rail corridor

and that's by Cal Train. Um and then finally, as many of us are aware of the uh city's continued advancements of the long-term goal of grade separation, um uh in December 2025, council reaffirmed the partial undercrossing for motor vehicles at Churchill with a pedestrian bike undercrossing at Seal. Um, so just wanted to highlight a few of the of the of the elements that we've uh more recently advanced and also have been advancing more recently. Um, and again, just wanted to highlight that community session on March 12th. Next slide, please. Uh, just a couple more items here. Uh late last month on January 22nd, the city staff attended a ribbon cutting for a new Hoover Elementary School campus um staff helped play a role in engaging the community in relation to the design of the campus access circulation and new bike parking. Uh the event was very well attended by community members. Uh next slide, please. Uh a quick update on an event I announced a few weeks ago. the Lunar New Year event. It was hosted at Mitchell Park Community Center. Uh very well attended. Uh this was on February 22nd. Uh uh multilingualformational flyers were provided from the city as well as uh dancing dragons and drums. Thank you to the community for joining us. Uh and then I think to wrap up my last slide here more for those tracking regional policy. Santa Clara County is currently undergoing its first comprehensive update to the circulation and mobility element in nearly 30 years to align county policy with current travel trends. This element is a part of the county's general plan. Uh the project is

currently in the initial public engagement phase and the county launched a resident survey to identify specific transportation related pain points across the region. The survey link is on the slide as well as project webpage information uh from the county. So this is a good opportunity for Palo Alto residents who commute through county roads to provide their input on future mobility of the region. And next slide that concludes my updates for February 25th, 2026. Thank you.

Thank you Mr. RC. Uh, commissioners, any questions for Miss Armor or Mr. Arce here? I'm just c just queuing up everyone. Uh, I have Commissioner Templeton and then Commissioner G. Thank you so much, Chair. Um, thank you, Mr. RSA, for being here tonight. Um, we we desperately missed you and we just want to send some love and appreciation for you being here. Um, we hope we can have a chance to interact more regularly with your office. Um, also thank you for uh being there at the Lunar New Year celebration. I think that was a wonderful event and I'm glad you were there. Um, so I wanted to ask uh about the um rail crossings. Thank you so much for the update about Church Hill. Um, you mentioned that there's a study being done about um, alternate routes and I had a couple of questions about that that I just wanted to throw out there and, uh, perhaps if this is not the venue to discuss it, you can tell me where people that are interested can go because several people have reached out.

So, um, bikes, I think there are alternate routes for safe routes to school if someone wants to avoid Churchill. Is that correct? I think that's part of what we're going to look into are what are the existing safe routes and I think they're already existing though, right? Like through Churchill, one can bypass Churchill. Correct. If they wanted to. Correct. Already. So if they wanted to look for safe routes to school um and see what the other options are, they would find that on the city website. the the correct the public can go to the suggested walk and roll maps that the city has and in particular for example for PI uh they can look at the routes one of which is Churchill but there are other suggested routes

you have to feel like you could if you're south of of Churchill you could use California Avenue if you're north you could use Homer underpass and things like that um okay that's great so they that information exists you also said you're going to study um emergency alternate routes for the emergency uh travel. And I was just wondering um and I really I don't know the answer to this, but when there's a collision that has um an a crossing shut down, I mean, we don't stop fire and police like they have alternate routes. Is that correct? Or do we just say too bad to

I I I will invite the director uh uh Rio Lo to speak on emergency routing. Thanks. Sorry for the the call. Yeah, that may actually be a question for another department um or for the discussions at the council level. Go ahead. Um, so we we don't have information on what the implications are in terms of response times yet and that would be part of the initial analysis. Oh lo, sorry, I was asking a very different question. I was just asking when there's a collision that closes down the Churchill intersection like we had in the presentation.

Fire and police still are functioning. I assume that that's the case. I'm going to assume that's the case. If you don't have an answer, please feel free to they they have alternate routes that affect response time. Yes, it does affect response time. Um so do collisions, right? Like we know that. Um okay, so uh thank you for answering that and um I will be sharing the information about your information session with the the parents group that's been working on this. So thank you so much. Thank you, Commissioner Commissioner G.

Thank you, Chair. My first question goes to Assistant Director Armor. I was wondering for the city council items, which of them are um are on the consent calendar and which of the items are not? That is a good question. So um the Do you mind pulling up the slide again?

Yeah, sure. We can pull up the slide. It's the third one in my presentation. for March 9th. There aren't any items that came to PTC that are discussion items, action items. Um, so you are welcome to review the the staff reports, but there's no need to attend uh if you're the liaison for March. For the discussion on March 16th, uh 2100 Gang Road, that will be a discussion item. Um and 4075 El Camino Way that is also a discussion item though we may need an alternate um to represent on that ID that project.

Thank you. Maybe a piece of feedback it could be helpful to just list which ones are Yeah. And I and I often do I don't seem to have noted that here but I will in the I just want to say you normally do so thank you for that.

Um and then my second question goes to Mr. Arce maybe less of a question but more of a comment. Um, I find that since we have moved the sensors for triggering the traffic light at Meadow and Alma to behind the train tracks, I guess on the El Camino side, about one in 10 times it doesn't seem to trigger and so the traffic will back up for multiple cycles all the way to El Camino Way. I don't know if um, Commissioner Templeton has noticed that as well. I'm seeing a thumbs up. So just curious um are you seeing this also at Charleston or I Okay, so there might be something finicky about the sensor at Meadow um just curious um about that.

Um can you describe a little bit more? So basically uh right now if I'm trying to go from the El Camino side of the tracks across the tracks across Alma on Meadow um about one in 10 times one in 15 times I'm doing that crossing and I'm waiting on the El Camino side of the tracks the sensor doesn't go off for that direction and so it'll skip that entire cycle. Um and so the cars back up all the way through to Wilkey to El Camino Way and it causes pretty bad congestion for that area. Oh interesting. Um, I'll convey that to our signals team so they can look at Thank you. Um, just wanted to call that out since I've noticed it a couple times now. And second from Commissioner Templeton.

Commissioner Templeton. Uh, sorry, I realized I had one more question about the um, you said that there was a December meeting uh, where council reaffirmed the underpass at Church Hill. Um, and that was sort of in the same slide with the other stuff that's been happening since the um, uh, tragedy at Halley and um, which happened after that meeting. So, has anything changed about the plans for how council wants to deal with that crossing? the long-term plans for uh the grade separation are as you know the latest direction that we have is from that December 15th meeting.

Okay. So they haven't had a chance to decide if they want to change anything. So you have to kind of carry along on that course. Correct. For unless they do change and in fact it's built into some of our grants at at the moment. So any change would require various changes in agreements and except closure. So the temp the the thing that's being contemplated is a temporary closure. It would not affect the long-term. And what does temporary mean in terms of city planning? Because we've had a temporary thing at uh at Crescent Drive for a long time. Um we're still exploring what it means ourselves.

That's fine. It's it's fair. It's a fair answer. I just wanted to make sure that we understand like what are the durations that we do know. Um and do we we don't anticipate any uh changes to that that nothing is scheduled to talk about change making changes to that crossing the the grade crossing plan currently? Uh no we have a schedule that we've been working on with the rail comm uh committee

and is the seal under uh bike ped crossing still um it's a separate project. the the Seal Avenue pedestrian bicycle under crossing is considered to be part of the Churchill Great Separation. Yeah. Okay. And there's no way to All right. I'm going to phrase this differently and then I'm going to take it offline because we could go all night on this, but um any of that can that begin first in any way? Can we have that bike pedestrian crossing construction begin before the other part? Um, so the I mean I think that that would be part of the details. We we we're still at 15%. So that would be like part of the implementation plan after you got to 100%.

Fair enough. Thank you for answering these questions. I appreciate it. Thank you, Commissioner Peterson.

All right. So, thank you to staff for all your good work with the rail crossing. uh you know my son walks that route every day and as a parent I definitely feel much more comfortable knowing that there's a crossing you know a lifeguard essentially there to keep an eye on that um not just for my son but for his friends as well. So it's I think all parents in Palo Alto knowing that there's somebody there um it makes a big difference when you're not sitting at home all day wondering is somebody you know keeping a an eye on that on that crossing. So one of the questions is the guard there around the is it 24 hours?

Correct. 24 hours. And then does the guard have uh shelter? Is there a guard shack of some kind or is the guard simply standing out in the weather? I know the guards, you know, they can stand in the weather, but I'm am curious what's the facilities for the longer term plan? I am not aware of what facilities are set up for the the individual. I do know that they are professional track safety monitors. So, there's a specialty to the trade. So,

but it also, you know, it just maybe plant the idea there that if there's an ability to maybe dive into that a little bit and look at some resources cuz the guards stay more alert when they're not having to literally stand there essentially at attention for a full 8 hour shift and often times becomes a 16- hour shift. Um, so just something to think about on that. I would recommend trying to look at how to make their job as resourced as we can to make sure they have what they need to do their job. Um, so the other question I have is on California Avenue. Um, thank you for the for the ballards out there and the landscaping. California Avenue is beautiful. Uh, so one of the issues with California Avenue, and I know we've we've gone over it, so I'm looking maybe more for an update, is down by the railroad tracks where the where the Cal Train Station is. It's I don't want to say it looks like the street is not complete, but definitely when you get to the end of the street at the roundabout, it it does look incomplete. Is there anything on the road map to finish out the end of California Avenue down by the fountain? And then I did see some planning for the overpass by Oregon Expressway on the back side of the California Avenue train station.

So this may or may not actually be a question for Office of Transportation. Okay, that was my next question. Yeah, the public works public. It's a street but it's What I'd recommend um if you'd like to send these questions to me via email, I can connect you with the correct people, okay, to get you some information. Maybe that's the the question is it's a so it's a it's not a street issue then for California Avenue for the transportation, right? Public works has taken point on the in conjunction with CMO and in conversation with OOT around the ballards, the landscaping that you see, but it is a public works initiative. Okay. Well, I want to give you commendations and congratulations for doing good work on that

with the city manager's office. I don't want to take all the credit for it. Say yes, we did it. We took care of it. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Seeing no other lights, uh, quick question, Mr. RSE, for the county CME update, how do they interact with OOT? The effort just just started. So I think that's part of the trying to understand the engagement plan, but typically staff is involved in a technical advisory group of sorts and material is shared for us to review uh internally before it hits uh the public. So there is that internal coordination that happens.

Okay, good. Um no operational question there. I was just curious since we do have important commute routes that are controlled by the county. Commissioner Templeton, um I'm just thinking back to the last meeting. Um when we're doing planning things that require street changes, is that the Department of Transportation or is that um public works? Um we do have a staff member who does a review of the transportation access and circulation. Um and then the implementation can be varied. Well, um is my specific question is we have seen a couple of projects that are adjacent to each other using the same street and we did not um while deliberating it have access to a transportation um person. Is that something we can ask for or do you review it before planning brings it or how do we get access to your expertise for that kind of deliberation?

Um, typically we're you know that I think the planning coordinates u the planning reviews and so we're pulled in as needed. I'm not sure I totally understand the scenario, but if you know when we're analyzing a project, we would certainly analyze access to the site and whether that is

but if there's two abuing projects, each of them are going to have the old throughput model for the street and there's no way to talk about the combined impact of so is that a like area plan conversation or what? Well, if I guess if they were both happening at the exact same time, we would be looking at them. But if they happen one and then the other, then the second project that came in would need to be approved separately. Yeah.

So when we do have transportation studies, they are um including looking at pending other pending projects in the area. So um that is something that's looked at. We do have review from the other departments as required depending on the scope of the project. Is that happening on the the kind of project that we saw that was um the builder's remedy project

development projects have review by um the other relevant departments including public works, utilities, transportation. Um this I think is a really great example of if you know that you're going to have questions on certain topics, please email staff ahead of time. Well, I told you two weeks ago. That's why we we asked I I assume that's why people came tonight. We asked those questions during deliberation.

Right. Right. And so as you were looking at that staff report um for last the last meeting, if you um identified some areas where you were going to have questions um and were able to send those questions or um at least some kind of highle topics that you know you're going to want to discuss during the meeting, if you can send that on Monday or Tuesday, um staff is happy to try and arrange for additional expertise. It's a lot easier when we have transportation here re regularly. So just going to throw that out there. You don't have to respond. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Commissioner G. Then Peterson.

Um, just to kind of maybe put a a concrete example on what Commissioner Templeton's saying, this project actually has an adjacent PHZ project. Um, I believe at 788 that staff reviewed during at the same time at council. So, I think that might be an example. for example, uh when we're thinking about what kinds of projects we might want to do in the special setback, I think that's something we're like having OOT's uh perspective. Yes, this summer. I just want to step in and and caution. We're getting into a little bit of a back and forth in discussion. Um I I want to be careful about how far we're going into discussion since this was

Sure. But I will use a different example. I thought that um uh Raphael Reyes's comment at 660 University I thought was really insightful about the the depth of the um the traffic light signal and how we thought about the usage of the garage. So I just wanted to site an example of a previous project in which I thought OT's expertise during our deliberations I think really helped um with the decision-m. Thank you. Thank you Commissioner G. Commissioner Peterson.

Thank you Chair. Just want to return to the topic of the security guard real quick. For full disclosure, I'm pretty sure I'm probably the only one that that worked as a security guard. So, out of high school, I couldn't get a job in construction. And my first job was night guard on construction sites up in Sacramento. And so, that's where maybe I wanted to shine some light on why is it important to provide resources at the guard station. It's because if the guards don't like the station, you won't get good guards. They all get paid the same. And I guarantee you each guard station is very different. Now, I was always gunning for the one that had the guard shack with the heater and you didn't have to do anything. Um, so the better you can make that facility for the guards. And just think from that perspective, um, the better the guards you're going to get there and definitely the less fatigue they'll be. And I think that's going to do a lot of good service for our students.

Thank you. Uh, last call for questions from commissioners. All right, I think we're done. Thank you very much. Greatly appreciate it. Now we move on to agenda item number two. um reviewing the conceptual plan to reszone from PC5622 to a new planned home zone at 800 through 808 and 814 San Antonio Road. Uh for those of you following along, this begins on packet page 8. Commissioners, do we have any disclosures? Seeing none, may we have the staff presentation? Good evening, commissioners. Claire Raayold, uh manager of current planning. Um the project before you tonight is a um reszoning to a planned community, also referred to as planned home zoning, uh for uh properties at 800 to 808 San Antonio and 814 San Antonio filed under 808 San Antonio um in our system. Uh so the project location is um uh near uh East Charleston Road on San Antonio Road. Um there are some other nearby projects um that I did want to highlight. Uh 788 San Antonio is a new proposed plan community uh immediately adjacent to this property. Um there's also uh 824 San Antonio which is where this um uh boxing fitness studio is. Um it's a proposed uh or approved uh senior planning um or senior development. Um

and uh across Lake Horn at 762 San Antonio where um Henhold is uh there is in the Herz rent a car um a builder's remedy application um for an exclusively residential housing development. Um so just a quick overview of the proposed project. Um the project includes uh resoning of the site um to redevelop the site with a new residential um development uh that would be eight stories with 174 units um to be provided at four as for sale units. Um 20% of those units or 35 total units um would be provided as u below market rate um at varying affordability levels as detailed in the staff report. There would be two levels of underground parking with 203 total parking stalls. Um these are all designed in a lift system. Um some of the highlights uh in terms of exceptions to development standards include but are not limited to a height exception um a floor area exception and a retail um floor area requirement. uh a separate vesting tenative map to merge the two parcels and then reub sub subdivide for condominium purposes is uh would be required as a condition of approval of the project uh if they do not file it um prior to approval prior to a decision on this project. Um just to generally explain um the uh process um for a planned community reszoning. It starts with a pre-screening with council. Um I do want

to kind of highlight this was an interesting pre-screening as we noted in the staff report. They came forward with a pre-screening to council. Um but what was presented at the time was different than what is currently proposed. And so, um, we wanted to highlight, you know, the comments that council had at the time, um, and generally they were supportive of the project at the time with a fivestory development. Um, and I believe it was 120 units. Um, uh, they are proposing 174 units in an eight-story development. Now, um they're not required to go back to pre-screening. Uh but we just wanted to note, uh you know, for your reference some of the council's comments. We also noted in the staff report, uh we had the benefit of council's comments on the neighboring property at 788 San Antonio, which was proposing a similar eightstory project. And some of the uh key things that they highlighted that they were interested in for that project, which was making sure that there's sufficient parking and considering stepbacks from um the ride of way on upper levels. And um this project would it comes before you the first time um just to consider whether you know um you want to move this forward to the architecture review board. And so that's what we're asking tonight of you. Um this would then go to the architectural review board uh and then return for a recommendation and then return to the planning and transportation commission for a formal recommendation on the project uh for both the ordinance that's moving forward and approval of the um development plan um as well. and then it would go to

council for a final decision. Um as in terms of the SQA um this is uh planned as an addendum to the uh previously adopted uh environmental impact report um which evaluated the HIP expansion um uh EI uh program uh an application to the San Antonio Road corridor and that analyzed uh approximately 800 units along this corridor. Uh and so this project um we are anticipating would fall under that addendum. Um and we are doing um you know an additional addendum to just document um the project specific changes that that we would want to consider and uh just some basic site plans elevations. So, the project was previously has a previously approved PC that applies to the site and the zoning right now. Um, one thing I did want to highlight is that they're um they are making changes to the circulation um of some of the pieces of that. um based on staff's comments and and some concerns that were raised about the increase in the density and wanting to provide some of the facilities that were pro previously provided offsite on-site now. And so the applicant has made some modifications to the um plans that are before you tonight to provide for example trash pickup onsite instead of offsite. Um, and we are still exploring the um fire access to the site, but we anticipate that um that there would be an option that would

allow us to not have the curb cut um that was previously approved uh along San Antonio. and we we're looking to try and resolve that uh in coordination with the applicant uh to provide a solution that makes sure we preserve um that right away as much as possible for our forthcoming San Antonio Road area plan. Um this is just some basic u elevations and the proposed materials that they're um presenting. And uh as noted, some of the policy considerations that you may want to weigh in on is the proposed floor area. Right now, it's 4.7 floor area ratio proposed where 3.0 is currently allowed under the existing PC. The existing PC allows a 60 foot 8 in project. Uh they are proposing 92 feet 88 88.5 to the top of the parapit and 92 to the top of the mechanical equipment. And uh the project does not include groundf flooror retail which was previously included in their um uh PC that was approved. uh 1,078 square feet was proposed and approved as part of that existing PC and the um ordinance would amend the uses to remove commercial and allow 170 units 74 units where 75 units is allowed per the current PC zoning. So with that uh staff would recommend that planning and transportation commission take the following action. provide initial comments and feedback and recommend that staff forward the proposed project to the architecture review board um for further consideration. And with that, I'll turn it back to you

and recommend that you hear from the applicant. Very good. Do you want to do clarifying questions of staff before hearing the applicant's presentation or simply move on? All right. if we may have the uh presentation from the applicant then please.

Certainly. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time and u uh let me get hooked into the system here. I didn't want to butt in while someone else was talking so I waited. Um so give me one moment. Okay. And uh one thing I want to say, I don't uh have really a technically a presentation per se. Really just wanted to give you the opportunity to ask questions about specifics. We do have some kind of bigger, prettier pictures that I'll leaf through and also a little bit more detail on things like the sections. Um really anticipating some of the concerns that we heard the first time that we went through with the lower version and how we've addressed those in the new version. So, let me switch over to presentation mode. Okay. So, the new uh eightstory version u as you know our neighbors to the south are also proposing an eight-story building. Um, and so, uh, after the presentation, we looked at how that would fit in, how our project would fit in with the neighborhood. And that's why we're here today to propose to this new eight-story version. Uh, the previous version had 75 units. What we're

proposing here is 174. And I have prepared a slight comparison. So, this was the previously approved project. And uh take note of materials, style, generally the same. Uh 75 units, 60'8 uh ft tall as pointed out by uh the planning staff by Claire. And then um if we go back the other way, hopefully I can. Then this is the new version. So the visual language we've adopted is primarily the same in terms of the materiality. Uh the base of the building, as you'll see when we get into the plans, has changed significantly. And this is primarily in response to planning comments. So, while we're still on this image, I'll point out that over on the left, you'll see that at the base there are some louvered screens. That is because we have the trash pickup area behind rather than out on the street as we previously did. And so um it uh it will provide some relief in that area but also screen the activities the from the street. We do have units on the ground floor that address the street and uh you'll see those in the floor plan in just a moment. I'm going to skip over the data. Uh it's a little small to read but uh if we need to go back to it, it's there for us. Okay, this is the one we were just looking at. Um, we still maintain the twotory high entry element, this lobby that visually connects to the courtyard. And so that has not changed from the previous scheme. Uh, one other item, we are looking at doing a fully automated parking system and we found a manufacturer that does one that's actually ADA compliant. So

you can park vans and ADA sts within the the stack. If we go up to the next level, you'll see that the uh the drop off stations are designed to handle a van. So a van could open up into an 8ft zone uh adjacent and that uh with the any kind of obstructions on the ground are within the footprint of the car and therefore would not interfere with pedestrian travel. And uh we'll keep an eye on that. We know that's a concern. So, uh the ground floor, I think the primary difference uh here is that previously we had the trash pickup in uh pull out on the street. All of that is occurring internally here on the uh upper left corner. And what's happened is if we go up to the next floor, you'll see that we have a double height space that would allow the trucks to maneuver inside. Uh we do have one correction that we need to make on our section in terms of the opening there. It'll uh we're showing a 10-ft opening, but it'll actually be much taller for the trucks. Uh so the truck would then be able to perform turnaround, let's see, turn around within the footprint here. And you can see that we've got a trace a tracing of the how the truck would maneuver as it comes onto the site and comes off. Um the hatched zone here off to the left that is our proposed uh fire access uh would be aerial truck access needs to be 26t wide and our proposal would be to uh include a road curb just at the entry point where the trucks would come in and then they'd be able to exit through the regular driveway. Um, and obviously this would have to be in coordination with uh what whatever plans are made for the special setback. And I'll just quickly leap through, as you can see on the third level and the

fourth level, very similar. And then as we get higher in the building, one of the concerns we had before was light penetration into the courtyard. And so we've carved away the south portion of the building uh that to allow more sunlight in. Um and it's very clear in the sections as we go higher the uh decks out there get shallower and shallower and um I can show that. And then the other uh the other aspect of this is that we have a fairly extensive roof deck that's going to comprise the primary open space. Because of a change in the building code, this will now be considered a high-rise building. So we've already incorporated the high-rise requirements. There's extra fire protection, vestibules in the stairways, those kinds of things. Uh so we should be compliant codewise elevations. I think um just for reference, I think the question of the upper level setbacks is going to come up. Whoops. I've lost control of my All right. So, um I'm going to go back to the elevations. There you go. this on the front elevation which is you can see is with the entry with the blue glass here this dark area is what our proposed step back would be um and it's the top two floors sorry top two floors and I think in section it's clear uh it's a five foot step back and then of course it is also tied to balcony locations if we look at uh that front elevation So this is more apparent in the rendering, but that surface at the back of the balconies matches with the surface of the step back. So there's a a coherent design idea that is this portion of the building is pushed back and then the white portions of the

building would step forward. Uh so we welcome any feedback on that. There again section there's another section that shows it as uh as well. Oh, where I've even measured it. This is the section right over the opening and this is the opening in question that is incorrect. That needs to be quite a bit taller. Here uh we show the sections in the courtyard and the ones that I think are most important are um in the top section on the left hand side you can see the terraces. This is a little bit u this particular drawing is incorrect. The sun would never come from that direction. That's the north. Um, I'll I'll talk to my staff about that. Uh, I think the one on the bottom shows more clearly how we anticipate the shadows would operate. Um, this is also not entirely accurate because the uh building mass that would be behind us that's cut away in the section would actually create a horizontal shadow line right at the uh where the two angles meet there. But the uh the kind of terracing that you see was intended to allow light to come in from the south. And then the material pallet is actually the same from the uh smaller version of the building and with no modifications. So um that is our presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you, Mr. Dono. Um, commissioners, I know there will be I predict at least there will be a good bit of discussion uh later. So, do we have any questions to help uh enable public comment of either staff or Mr. Donahghue? Commissioner G.

Yeah, I had a a procedural question for staff. So on slide three, you mentioned that the process is uh PTC hearing parenthesis S followed by ARB hearings parenthesis S followed by PTC recommendation. Um is is it like if the PTC wanted to continue this item hypothetically, would it be required to like have multiple hearings at this stage before it goes to the ARB or would it like when it comes back from the ARB, could there still be multiple hearings? I was just curious because of the way that this slide is laid out. There could be multiple hearings at either stage. Yeah, there's only one required hearing.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I just was want to clarify that. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner G. Any others? Mr. Tveta, do we have any requests for uh comment from the public? um through the chair uh we have at the moment one request to speak and if there's any members on Zoom that would like to speak to this item I'd invite you to raise your hand then I would like to invite our first speaker her be to the mic thank you uh chair Sorry.

All right. Thank you, Miss Armor. Uh Jerry and and commissioners, uh there may be three issues, any one of which uh depending on its status would require a continuence. Uh the first is that the staff report says that the uh the public notice on postcards and uh newspaper ad but it doesn't indicate whether that public notice indicated this was a study session or an action item. It indicated a study session. Uh then uh the need to be continued. So the proper noticing was given to the public. Uh second issue is that they're scheduled and may have happened already or maybe it's not happening until tomorrow on uh the regional plan for the San Antonio area and if that's already happened that information you know in some written form should have been available to the commission before uh you make a decision on the concept conceptual plan and so we continue for that reason and and the alternative it is has hasn't happened yet. Uh this would be one project that's part of that regional plan. You should hear from that regional uh study session first. And uh there's another one that I tried to find this project on permit view and I found only the previous project that approval but I did not find it. And you know for people who are interested in it in the project they they should have that available to them before they have an opportunity to speak before you. In regard to the parkland I think uh this area is going to be needing it park more parkland because of the intense development and in terms of the cubby project uh I I believe you know the public will be willing to to pay for that. What they wouldn't pay for I don't think on a tax would be subsidizing regional organizations with exorbitant

salaries who want to use couy and want to be subsidized uh from from public taxes current environmental issues that may have been studied in the e but uh I haven't an opportunity to see that. The first is ground level. Uh groundwater level. Uh when you build a a garage, you have essentially walls which create a dam which makes that issue worse for neighboring properties. Another is a sea level rise. We've had an adaptation study, but I believe uh current events indicate that uh that's probably out of date and it'll probably be higher. Uh and finally uh earthquakes all across Polola maps would indicate uh you know liquefaction uh in in this area and also the need to protect against seismic problems. uh but until you see what at least that the current maps are and whether they need to be updated uh that's a final issue that would need to be considered before going on to the ARB and another continuation needed. Thank you.

Thank you Mr. Borock. Mr. Terra, do we have any other request to speak? Uh to the chair, we have not received any other comment request to speak. Okay. Uh, if I may, Miss Raold, um, can you respond to Mr. Burk's procedural procedural questions about uh, noticing and, uh, other um, yeah, projects underway. Yeah. So, um, the, um, regarding noticing, it was noticed properly, um, as a, um, a public hearing um, as far as I'm aware. Is that accurate? Uh it was noticed as a public hearing. Okay.

Yeah.

Just want to make sure. Um and then um with respect to availability of information, it should be available on the um portal. Um I'm trying to doublech check right now if there's any reason, but it's filed under 808 San Antonio and should all be available under the portal. Um and links were provided in the staff report. Um and uh with respect to San Antonio Road area plan, um that is moving forward for further discussion, but it's a ongoing project. Um do we know the anticipated timeline? I mean, I know it's coming forward soon to the planning commission again on March um 25th, I believe. Um correct. So the area plan um is in process but we don't expect that anything would be adopted before uh 2027. Um this phase right now is looking at alternatives but then um working into policy details and environmental review would all be completed prior to any adoption of the plan. And I would just note that, you know, we're we're not looking to stop projects that are currently on file. Um, but we are doing our best to make sure that we are preserving all of our options as part of that area plan. Um, to make sure that, you know, anything that we move forward will be a viable option um, you know, in the public right of way.

Thank you both. I'm sure during the discussion more on that subject will come up. All right. Uh commissioners, let's see. Technically, we have time for an applicant rebuttal if Mr. Donahghue would like to speak to anything that's been heard so far.

Let's see. Um, so I think uh we always appreciate good public comment. I think um the two that I can speak to are the earthquake danger. Of course, all buildings that are constructed in California have to meet the California building code and they have to meet the structural requirements based on uh exploration of the soils on the site. And so our structural engineer will take the soils data and will create an appropriate structure to resist earthquake uh including dangers of liquefaction in the area. Uh I'll point out that um we are proposing a secant wall under for the parking and this is partially due to concerns about the strength of the foundation but also to uh handle the uh water table underground water table. Um and uh I think as part of that we are required to provide hydrarology studies and so that will be part of the permitting process. I think that that's the only architectural items that I I heard.

Thank you very much. It is time for us to move on to uh commissioner discussion. Before we do that, I would like to set a little bit of context. Um so, as Miss Rayold noted, we have a fairly simple decision to make tonight uh whether or not to forward the design to the ARB. However, this is also our opportunity to give both the applicant and the ARB a preview of the questions we might have when the project comes back to us. So, this is uh a great opportunity for us to provide that feedback so that they have as much time as possible to work on uh potential issues. Um staff has asked us to provide feedback on quite a few things. Um, I think there are six that are particularly important and I'll list them in just a second. Um, but I just wanted to ask that commissioners consider commenting on those specifically as well as making uh the other observations that you already have in mind. Uh, so these items are mentioned in the staff report starting on page back at page 13. Um, number one, ground floor commercial. Number two, physical development standards. That's setbacks, stepbacks, daylight planes. Um, number three, parking. Number four, the TDM plan. Number five, the San Antonio Road special setback. And finally, number six, unit size and affordability mix. So, uh, I would, uh, respectfully request as much input as we can get on those things to help inform the ARB's deliberations and, uh, assist in, uh, getting answers from the applicant. Finally,

it's a little hard to see where to work this in. Commissioner G is our representative on the San Antonio Community Advisory Group. Uh so commissioner, is there anything uh in the public record from the KAG's deliberations so far that we should keep in mind before we begin general discussion? So specific to the KAG?

Yes, I can start and then staff specifically Jennifer who's also there can also jump in as well. Um so as public comment has previously mentioned we do the KAG does have an additional meeting tomorrow um to go over some of the transportation items. Uh so I will kind of start by talking about the housing portion. And so in the last KAG meeting we um we talked about different levels of density that we thought might be appropriate for the area. Um the public was given uh provided ability to comment on approximately six floors, approximately nine floors, approximately 18 floors. Um something in that ballpark. Um, I think that the main comment that came out of this that I thought is interesting for folks here and also mentioned in the KAG information is that traffic is really congested on San Antonio. Um, and in addition uh there's a lot of interest in having some kind of uh m mixeduse presence on San Antonio to eventually make it into a walking corridor. Uh there are beloved businesses that are currently on San Antonio that uh people would like to keep. Although we have no control over that, I think it's um interesting to think about what potentially mixed use um could be involved uh here in this project as well as the zone uh as a whole. Um we also were able to take a walk through the San Antonio area. And one thing that I might note in particular is that on the side of San Antonio of which this project is on, there are many utility boxes that are right against the side of the c the road where the road is currently which may impact the ability to um have

certain transportation projects that occur in the special setback. Um, the most recent, uh, email that I got from staff about the transportation options does include a potentially using that space as a buffer. Um, I don't know if Miss Armor, you have a copy of that slide deck that we could maybe pull up at a later point. Um, don't worry, I have it. I can send it to you after um, when we go through the rounds. But I think it could be interesting to show uh what staff has looked at as potential alternatives for usage of the special setback. Um especially for transportation means as we consider the usage for PHZs such as this which may or this project in particular does not encroach on um a special setback but it may be interesting to think about um for transportation congestion management. Um I will stop there for now. Thank you. That's exactly the sort of thing I'd hoped we'd have to help inform the rest of our discussion. All right. It's now open for commissioners. And I see Oh,

um, pardon me, Mr. Yang. I was not being observant.

That's all right. I I just raised my hand a moment ago. Um, so I just wanted to clarify. Uh, we went back and looked and apparently the noticed cards that were mailed out did say study session. Um and so uh the the uh commission may if it wants to uh continue this uh for renoticing, but I don't believe that is required uh for a couple of reasons. Uh one, there actually isn't a requirement that we send out that kind of notice for this hearing. Uh it's not provided for in our code. Um the only legal requirement is that we uh publish the agenda 72 hours in advance uh under the Brown Act which we did and which uh had the correct information. Um the second is that even when our code does require notices um we do state in the code that uh typographical errors uh aren't a basis for um you know requiring the hearing to be held again. Um so uh if the commission uh as a body thinks that this was a you know a significant error that may have affected um you know this hearing they they could continue it but I don't believe it's necessary

and I presume you would need a formal action from us in order to do that uh to continue. Yes. Can I chair? Could I ask a follow-up question? Please do.

Just curious uh to to Mr. Yang because of the sort of posture, it's not often that things come to us with, you know, uh staff recommendation to recommend that it go to the ARB and and I'm wondering in our in our ordinance processes, is our recommendation that it go to the ARB necessary? Do we have to formally take that action or can we have our discussion, provide our input in a study session context and it will naturally under our code go to ARB with with all of that uh commentary. Yeah, you know, our code isn't perfectly clear on this point and um it I do think you you raise an a good point which is that this is a fairly unique process in our code where the PTC has an initial review, but it's not actually making a recommendation on the project. Um it's just having the initial review before the project is uh sent to the ARB. Um the code does say that if that the PTC must act favorably. Um which you know you could interpret to mean that it it is uh should be an action item on the agenda which is how we do uh treat these uh hearings. Um but it is unusual in that this is a preliminary step uh and the item will be heard by the PTC again. Interesting. I'm not sure how to resolve the process question now. May we have some uh guidance? um if I mean there can be some discussion if there's uncertainty but I think what we've heard um from our city

attorney is that uh it is acceptable for the PTC to make a recommendation that this be forwarded on to ARB that continuence to another meeting and renoticing is not required. Um and so you know discussion providing feedback identifying the things you'd like to know more about. Um you will on the uh San Antonio road area plan have more information the next time you see this because it will be further in the process. Um all of those kinds of things that that you'd like to hear more about. Um, it could then move forward.

Commissioner Temple, you have something to contribute on this? Yes. I wanted to say that I think the chair was right that the most important part of what we're doing tonight is discussion and um as far as making sure that the public has an opportunity to engage on this project. Um not only do they have it tonight, but they will also have it at the ARB and when it comes back to the PTC and when it goes to council and with the San Antonio um project. I feel that the spirit of the law um is is satisfied. Um and I would really hope we can have a good discussion tonight. Thank you.

All right. I'll request any further comments on the procedural issue at hand before moving on to discussion of the project. Anyone else have anything more to say? All right. My inclination is to proceed um both for the timeliness of the process and because I think we can um we can deal with the um implications of the code in reasonable ways. Any objections? All right, then let's proceed to general discussion. I have Commissioner Hecman and then Commissioner Templeton. Uh this was left over from the previous. All right, let's begin with Commissioner Hackman then.

All right, thank you. So I I I do have some sort of uh minor questions. Um um I do ultimately uh want to um point this in the direction of the ARB one way or another. Um and so I'm sort of looking at it through that lens and what we want them to know particularly on these six items. Um I I did have a few sort of related clarifying questions. Um packet page 21 um in 23. This is one of those rare instances where the the the auto labeling of the agenda item has covered important information. Um it's it's surprising how infrequently this happens. Um but in in this instance uh on 21 it's covering max building height and on uh 23 it's bicycle parking uh proposed. So can you just uh tell me what the max building height is? I probably could have figured out on the plans.

Uh max building height I know is 92 feet to the top of the mechanical equipment. And let me just look back at my presentation briefly. It was um done. Sorry. Uh 88t 6 in to the top of the parapit.

All right. Thank you. And then on uh 23, the number of long-term bike spaces proposed. Yeah, let me find that. Give me a minute. My recollection was it complies with the code, but I just want to double check. Yeah, I believe the easy place to find that was on the plans. Um what' you find? Yeah, I can find it for you again, but u uh there are 88. Oh, yeah. Sorry. I guess I say eight short-term bike racks.

Yeah, 18 shortterm. I can see that peeking out from under the label. It's the long-term. All right. It's on page A0.1 and the bicycle parking uh uh 184 spaces 184 and 174 are required. Yeah. Okay. All right. Um

thank you. So I probably could have asked the applicant. I am going to have a question for the applicant in a minute. Um if that's okay. Um u let's see. Uh, page 10 says that packet page 10 says this is uh not a housing inventory site. 13 says it is in 27 spaces. I suspect p uh packet page 13 is correct, but I'm not sure. Whichever it is, um I think you're going to recycle this report to some extent as it goes to ARB. So, uh clean that up. Uh either way, we're the the proposed development is substantially uh more than either zero or 27. So it's in the sort of same realm of magnitude. and a a similar um issue regarding ground floor retail. On packet page 21 at the bottom of table one on packet page 21 it seems to say that 2294 of ground floor retail are uh maybe I'm misunderstanding it are being proposed where I think that number is zero. That was the previous proposal.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I I should have updated that. They they were proposing retail in the initial submitt in the 120 to council or the one that went to council in the 120 to council, but even in the initial submitt on this project. However, when they made the modifications to provide the trash pickup on site, that modified from 175 units down to 174 and also removed the retail, but that was an error. So, thank you for catching that. And

again, these things are just a clean up when you redo the report. And then the third uh item of this nature uh packet page 22 table two doesn't seem to be for this project. Uh 32 foot 6 in height existing and to be maintained. So take a look at that and um it just seems like it's a different project. Yeah, I think you're right. Okay.

All right. So we don't need to uh dwell on that. Um I do have a question for the applicant if I may. Chair, are we Please. I was hoping we'd have a few.

Yeah. Thank you. Uh yes. So so thank you for uh bringing this project forward uh reinvisioning it. I think that can be a challenge when you you know you start the wheels in one motion and do a fairly significant uh pivot. Um and I like a lot of what I see. I'm interested to hear what the commissioners have to say. Uh one of the things that caught my eye was the the parking spaces. uh 203 proposed uh I think I think it's 275 is the uh the standard. So it'll be a 27% reduction TDM um and you know this part of San Antonio it's commented on in the um in the staff report. You know there's there's not a lot of public transportation along this corridor now. Um if there is in the future, I think it's quite a ways off and and it would be well after I would hope you get your project built. Um and so and so, you know, you've got 1.15 um parking spaces per unit. You have a number uh a u a number that I appreciate of two and threebedroom units which logically would tend to um invite more two twocar families. And so I understand obviously that there's a there's a significant cost issue in building parking, but I'd like I think we would benefit from hearing your thoughts on on you know why you have to sell these units, why you think you can sell these units with 1.15 parking spaces. Um,

right. Why will the market embrace that? Well, I think uh specifically that's probably question for the project sponsor, but I can tell you that uh part of what as architects we're grappling with is the burgeoning of automatic cars and the fact that actually this area of the country is at the center of what is looking to be a revolution in the way people get around. Uh there's generation that doesn't really care for car ownership and they have the ability to go out the door with their phone and have something come and pick them up. Um it's hard to anticipate how successful that will be but uh I will say that indications are that will continue to burgeon and so in that case the desire to or the need to have uh the burden of an additional car starts to become more limited. Now all that being said whether that's true on day one uh in terms of selling I would have to defer Thank you, Commissioner. Um, yeah, my name is Yorkley. I'm the owner of the project. Um, so basically this idea come out and our original plan or the this is being approved before uh we match the requirement of the code for the parking requirement. But this new application submitt uh we got idea initially it is from a pre-screening pre-screening meeting with the council member uh at the time our neighbor project a present at the same meeting they propose um eight story uh underground parking it's very very short probably less than half require as a standard and and a

discussion session. We sit there on the meeting. Um uh council member recommend our neighbor project to provide more parking. But in general they mention city is planned to have some kind of transportation management program meaning try not they prefer to reductions to somewhat required to make less congestion less needed whatever study from a from a city point of view and we heard from that meeting. So and then we discussed with the staff uh Emily was um uh uh planner for our project. So we got idea probably get 20 25% reduction is a reasonable from city point of view uh about total new transportation management plan on that area that that's on overall idea we got and second about the sales. Um so we as you can see we have four different type of unit studio onebedroom twobedroom and threebedroom so I didn't do detailed calculation in general sense is from a twobedroom above may make sense for two parking garage and the studio we don't have to uh and uh one bedroom if if uh possible we provide one parking whatever I didn't do detail calculation we haven't got that detail but that's the two so that's why we we think for current situation as a uh Mark mentioned those 200 plus parking in generally uh it's decent from a city point of view once we get from a pre-screen meeting and also from a uh feasibility sales

point of view but for several parking adjustment is not hard may be able to but uh that's the idea we come out. Yeah. Thank you. That was really helpful. Thank you. And and chair, those are my um questions. I'll come back in a second round and uh discuss the items you had identified. Great. Thank you. Um I'm sure there'll be followup on a lot of that. Commissioner G.

Thank you, Chair. I will follow the same format as Commissioner Hecman and ask my questions first and then provide comments later. Uh I think the first question I had is for the applicant. Um I think the very first question I had when reading the packet was can you explain a little bit more in detail why uh this project differs so much from the one that came at pre-screen? Is it just that I think you mentioned in your initial presentation that it was just that your neighboring project is eight floors. Can you provide some more detail here?

Uh I think it really it part of it is that um uh just by its nature for a market rate project in this neighborhood um the perception of the importance of the project is affected by its surroundings. So, I mean, it seems simplistic, but a five or six story building next to an eight-story building would be diminished. Um, and uh the roof the roof deck would be uh shaded. There was just a perception that if the neighborhood is going in that direction and if this is a desire of the city to have that kind of density, then we should respond. Um, and you know, I think the other thing is that there are certain costs that are just set from the beginning. If you're going to dig a 30-ft pit in the ground, that cost is going to exist whether you have 20 units or whether you have 174. And so, some of it is probably just the financial calculus of if you're going to go in for a dime, you might as well go in for a dollar. And then some of it too is just that we we heard a lot of feedback from the council that um they expressed disappointment on the smaller project that they we weren't providing enough. They wanted to see more and so uh in a very simple way we've provided it.

So I I also watched that council meeting yesterday in preparation for today's meeting. And just to clarify, my understanding of what council said at that meeting was that they appreciate the project that the size that was there, but um would have liked to see a more composite of two and three bedrooms because that's what you reduced between the original project and the current project at the time. Is that correct?

That's that sounds like a good recollection. I did not review the meeting but um the from our perspective the issue at hand is that if you are doing two and threebedroom units you're occupying more square footage of the building to produce that unit and so there has to be some kind of compensatory mechanism that I understand. Um, so just to be clear here, uh, the are you saying that the original project would have pencileled out for you, the one that came to council pre-screen?

Can can you say it again? What's your question?

So like the the original project that came to council pre-screen, would that have pencled out for you or is this also that you needed you need more units in the current proposal in order for the numbers to pencil out? Yeah, because um just this is I I think is it related to your your previous question. you say you listen to the council meet a pre pre-screen council meeting right uh has a comments to provide a more two-bedroom and also three bedroom uh unit and then so once we change the idea uh Mark just explained uh about the reason we change at that time we tried to respond to council's comments and we add uh more threebedroom I I remember 120 unit we have only like 10 plus uh threebedroom now we have uh 25 threebedroom so

I I understand that I was just wondering from a financial perspective would the project have pencled out in the proposal that you had at council pre-screen you so the the main challenge it is a uh financial uh challenge I think that's so what you're saying is the project that came to you at council pre-screen is no longer financially feasible. Is that correct? I see. I think so. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

So, my next question is about the uh the ground floor retail. So, as you may recall from the the council pre-screen for your neighboring project, one of the things that council was disappointed about about the neighboring project was the removal of the ground floor retail that is that was originally provided for that project. So, I was wondering why um can you explain a little bit more about your choice to remove the ground floor retail here?

Uh sure. Um so we uh originally we have uh uh first floor uh retail space. Um during staff review process um and we also engaged uh all the departments like ch uh waste control uh fire department all those department comments about original design. we have a they have a concern about trash pickup delivery and and those kind of design at the original version. So in order to incorporate this comments to to make this work to make this acceptable and for the trash pickup delivery. So we actually cancelled first floor several unit and especially second floor we removed several unit to make as just presented uh by mark. Uh so we we cut almost 3,000 square feet. So then financially once we did some calculation that's why we are not 100% uh trade back from then we just use original proposed uh retail space become residential space but still short by after this change uh trash pickout pickup area redesign we we lost about uh 2,000 plus square feet that's the financial consideration yeah that's the Yeah.

Okay. Um, thank you for that. Um, and then I was also wondering if you could talk a little bit about the the floor area ratio that you have provided here is 4.7. And talking about kind of neighboring projects, right, your floor area ratio provided here is 41% higher than the average floor area ratio um for all the neighboring projects. uh and also higher than what we provided for the El Camino focus area which is 4.0. So I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about how your project like what what you think is driving this

uh that that so once you given the number that's u good information actually my personally didn't do this uh kind of analysis basically this change it is from footprint we we haven't changed any footprint it is uh just direct from five story raised the three other stories. Yeah, that that maybe eventually calculation become four 4.7 something. We we I I personally didn't notice this ratio but it's we didn't change a footprint basically this is just add story. Yeah, that's what we did. Yeah.

Okay. Um thank you. And then finally, I have a question for uh the architect to help me understand the shadow provided on uh page A4.4. This was also in your slide deck. Um I I just like feel like I might be misinterpreting it, but for the diagram up top to me, this looks like the entire bottom is like the entire courtyard is shady. Even though you said that the purpose was to provide more sunlight, help me understand what I'm looking at here.

So, it is accurate to say that the bottom of the courtyard would be in shade most of the year. The the u if it were just the direct sunlight that was in consideration, then u we agree that uh the amount of direct cast sunlight on the bottom of the the courtyard would be limited. But, uh, part of what we're trying to do is bring light into the courtyard in general. So, reflecting off of surfaces and giving it a feel of being lighter and airier. Um, and we've done that through a couple of means. One is by the connection to the western portal of the entry, two stories high. If you're sitting in the courtyard during the afternoon, the sun will be coming through there. You'll perceive it. But, uh, you're absolutely correct. And these uh sections should not be taken as being uh meant to be accurate because when you cut that part of the building away and you ask it to do a shadow, it just does the part that's still left. Um we what we did in the past is that we provided renderings of that experience in the courtyard and we're assuming that we would do the same.

Uh that's all for me. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Commissioner Templeton.

Thank you, Chair. Um, I want to thank you, the applicant, for bringing us this project and, uh, being ready with so many answers. I I know you've had to work on it and improve it and take feedback, and we're really happy to be part of the process toward getting um, something wonderful built here. Um, I just want to say that I uh echo uh Commissioner Hecman and saying that I'm excited to to recommend uh that I'll be recommending this project go forward to ARB. Um, and I also want to take the opportunity, as the chair said, to um talk about things that you can anticipate will be possibly under more intense discussion when you come back to us. So, um, personally, I'm pretty excited about the idea that that you were going to go higher on this building because I think, um, this is an area that, um, where density feels appropriate as you mentioned from the neighboring properties. Um, I am concerned about the transportation and really glad that Commissioner G is going to be talking about that in his role um, on on the committee. Um, but I want to stress to staff this is this is a big deal and it's kind of outside the scope of this project, but that corridor is really built up and it is kind of backed up and the city just mowed it and redid it just a few years ago. So, like I don't know why we didn't expand it or think about dealing with the traffic. Um but it's connecting El Camino and 101 as you know and um that's a really important through fair for people that are not necessarily living there but that are going through there and blocking the roads. So to that end I also want to um appreciate that the applicant made an adjustment that

would get the trash collection off the street. Um, and I recognize that that is at the at the cost at the expense of the ground floor retail. Um, which is a good question now that we understand why, but I do think the better betterment for the whole neighborhood to not have that truck blocking traffic um on a regular basis. Um, and then, uh, I also appreciate Commissioner G's questions about the sunlight, and I think it's interesting, um, that you, you know, the applicant brought it up, um, that you're putting some attention to this, and how do you make this space really pleasant, um, throughout the year with the height? Um, how do you provide the access? I also I I want to share my perspective on this. And I think in addition to the comfort of the people who reside there and um that we all do occasionally, we are going to need the sunlight. Um, there is also a factor of it can get hot and there is a little bit of a environmental trade-off that that could benefit um this property in terms of um some of that shade may reduce utility usage uh over time. So whereas I do want people to be able to to have access to that light, I'm hoping that they can um get it uh outside either on uh um top of the building or in the neighboring parks uh as well. So I hope that the whole community design plays into that, not just the one building because we do hope people get in and out. Lastly, um I was just checking the distances to um public transit regarding the the parking. Um

and the Mountain View shuttle is about a mile away. The Cal Train's about 1.2 miles away, about a 20-minute walk, but not a bad bike ride. Um but also um uh I went down this path well pretty close to this path when I was working at Google and I imagine that people um who work there would find this a pretty convenient location. Uh all this does though come back to the city making sure that bike paths are available from there which they currently are not. It's extremely dangerous to bike from this property to Google which is very very close um because we just we haven't provided them uh those kind of paths for this part of town because right now there's not a lot of residences there. You can kind of go around um to the um meadow um overpass. So I guess that's my my feedback. um to staff is to see what we can get in the pipeline from um either our department of transportation or whoever their partners are that provide the crossing. I do we own the bridge or I I would guess Highway 101 owns the bridge over Highway 101. Do we know?

I don't know off the top of my head. I don't either. So anyway, if we could find that out um before it comes back and maybe have some thoughts on that because honestly once we start putting hundreds and of more people in that location, we're going to see more biking and currently San Antonio Road's lack of bike facilities is pretty much the number one comment that we give up here. Yeah. And and as mentioned, you will have an opportunity to talk through it in depth um at your meeting at the

ask for for a warning. Here you go. Thank you very much. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, but it it might be a train. I don't know. Like, we're just trying to understand what kind of questions we're going to get and anticipate that. So, part of it the applicants need of of anticipating the questions, but also um staff's need. And we really, I got to tell you, are hopeful that the how many projects do we need here for adding residences before we get those facilities, right? Like it's it's pretty urgent. Um, so that's my comments for now. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um, Commissioner James and Commissioner Peterson, do you have anything on this round?

Commissioner James.

Um, yes. Um, I just want to echo that, you know, I think there are so many uh this this checks so many terrific boxes in terms of like providing housing that is at a at a certain feels attainable uh in an area where we're looking for growth and what it's replacing. And I think the list is pretty long of of virtues. I will be completely honest, I got very used to the five-story building and kind of fell in love with the portions of it. you know, you show me something beautiful and then you change it and I might I might have a little hard time getting used to that. I uh I have a slightly different perception when I look at the rendering in perspective than when I look at a straight side elevation. One seems uh like much more like a big edifice, a big wall um uh in a way that that concerns me a little bit. And I feel like, you know, this is mostly the ARB's uh sort of mandate, but I feel like there's when you just, you know, add stories, you're you still now you have a a big mass, right? And sometimes the features that worked best at five stories are starting to look a little small to me. This is just a personal impression, but I I I kind of hope that my sense was I wasn't here the first time this came by, but my sense was from talking to my colleagues that uh this was, you know, kind of a shining example of how iterative design and responsiveness of both the design and this and the owner uh to to feedback had had gave us the five story. and and I'm I'm hopeful that maybe some of that same uh process can sort of render some some

further refinements. Uh and I just I just uh I I I understand the all of the reasons why it's eight stories. The one next to it is eight stories. It's financially more viable. you don't want to seem uh uh sort of inferior, you know, but I still feel like particularly when I look at in elevation, it's still a pretty big wall. And and you know, I think we all worry about that sort of canyon effect. uh and uh I I don't mean to I don't I don't mean to suggest this is uh uh is not doing a lot of work, but I but I I do have some concerns about the features that are trying to create the illusion of of not a flat surface of a of of a giant eight story rectangle, if that makes sense. U and and I I I respect all the decisions and and what you've done. I just hope hope that maybe um that could sort of get a little bit better. I I too was concerned with the uh the the light in the in the well. I can think of examples where that architectural examples where that has worked well. Um uh I I take your point about if if there are light colored surfaces and the light bounces around uh that might be some very nice light at the bottom. Uh um I um I wanted to ask you brought up the um the access for um fire emergency equipment. Um this is a peculiar question, but uh if you were to have a fire and a EV battery inside the parking area, how is the how how can fire equipment get into that area?

So that that's a great question. We are working through that with fire because of course these days that's top on their mind. We will have I don't think that is shown properly in the plan, but we will have two access stairs and so they won't be able to get a truck or anything down there, but they will be within standpipe and hose pill uh pull dimensions from those uh staircases. And the staircases will allow them to get to the bottom of it and to fight the fire from the bottom or the top. Um, it's about a 30 foot deep pit and so it would be akin to them fighting a fire on a three-story building.

I just I I guess I worry about the heat of of a battery that is is is is getting rid of all its energy stacked on cars that are full of gasoline. And and and I I seen a few of these fires. There was one at the dealership here and it was it was they're spectacular. Quite

spectacular. Yeah. the there is um so this automated system does have the required fire sprinkler per bay um and the hope is that that will at least keep the the kind of thermal transfer down until it can really be uh addressed but I've actually heard that the fire department's method for dealing with electric car batteries is to let them burn. So, uh, we we'll just have to, you know, talk to them about what kind of sprinkler concentration, uh, whether it's a deluge type or just sprinkler head per bay that, uh, we'll need to install cuz, uh, that would be a disaster.

Yeah. And I sort I certainly don't know about that sort of output of heat and energy and so forth, but I I don't know if it's hot enough to start to worry about steel encased in concrete. Yeah, the basement will You're talking about the reinforcing? Yeah, just yeah, I'll I'll be referring that to our structural engineer. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to follow Commissioner Hecman's lead and have a quick question and then have a little more depth in the next round. And the segue is perfect because I wanted to ask about the parking system. So, as I read the plans, it looks like you drive in onto a pallet and then the pallet is uh moved into place in a storage uh cubby. Is that correct or

That's correct. Uh the the provider that we've been working with for this particular system, um Automotion, they have some great videos. They're uh based in uh New York. Um and so they have some YouTube video showing how the system works in their facilities in Manhattan where, as you can imagine, we're talking about 20 stories high and uh 40 ft wide. Um it's pretty fascinating. The the other thing that's great is that uh when the car gets delivered back to you, it's facing out, so there's no need to do any reversing. You pull in, you say goodbye to your car, uh you do a card reader, um and it brings it back facing out.

That's perfect because the next question I was going to ask you was about videos so we could see that operate. Auto motion. I'll do that. Okay. Um and uh it it's just occurred to me to ask whether once uh a vehicle has been stored whether its location is fixed or whether you can repack.

So um I think the the way that I understand the system to work but I would really want to get their expert opinion is that uh it shuffles the deck however is most efficient. um they have criteria that they use for delivery and so there are things that they record like how often is that particular car brought out and if it is not very frequently it gets stacked in the back 40 and um uh because I think they they have a target time of 90 seconds to get the car there. Yeah, perfect. It's the least recently used cache. Yeah.

So, all right. Thank you. That's it for me for this round. Uh shall we begin the next with Commissioner Hecman? All right. So, so the chair had laid out six items uh from the staff report and if you could describe again item number two, which was the setback, step back, pardon me, physical development standards, which which includes setbacks, stepbacks, daylight planes. if he had such a thing height including that. I'm trying to figure out where to put my comments. Sure. Okay. Okay. Great.

All right. Well, I'm going to uh run through sort of my feedback on these six items. Try to stay in the order uh that uh that the chair described them. So, starting with the the ground floor commercial. Um I'm really not um troubled um by the absence of uh groundf flooror commercial. I you know I I have u I have seen uh a number of residential uh uh projects that were saddled with groundf flooror commercial and that's really what it is. This it is not a situation where if you build it the the buyers will come. um it has to be right placed and there has to be uh synergy to it and and San Antonio is not um and and I don't I don't we haven't seen the vision yet for the San Antonio uh plan but it's hard for me to imagine that it's going to be the grand walking boulevard of PaloAlto and and I just I just don't see it. And so here there are um uh and and the last thing you want is empty storefront. um that does no one any good. Um and so here it was it was dimminimous anyway. I don't have a real problem and I understand why its space was needed. Uh so I'm okay with that. Um, in terms of the physical uh development, um, I I just gonna it's a big building and and I think we're going to be bigger on San Antonio, but um, as this goes and and I'm I'm not going to um I'm just going to throw out an idea for you to coitate as you move forward. Um, it occurred to me that if this project were seven floors with a rooftop garden instead of eight, it

addresses some of the impacts. Um, uh, for example, it would reduce the overall F down to something, I didn't do the calculation, pretty close to four. Um, it changes the parking ratio, right? You've got, uh, well, I noticed in your sheet A2.8, uh, there are 20 units on the eighth floor. So, uh, 20 fewer units means you've got 155 units. Uh, it doesn't change the parking. You still got 203. So, your ratio is a little better. Takes a little pressure off the TDM. Um, um, uh, by dropping it down, it uh, a floor. Uh, I I think you reduce some of the costs that the architect mentioned when you hit that eighth floor. Um, um, so those might be reduced. I'm mindful of course that that the the distribution of units on the eighth floor is listed on that sheet A2 and I'm I'm uh wiping out roughly $31 million of sale product. Um and so so it's I can't say that the numbers work. Um but it's it's worth some investigation. I think it also has an impact on the the upper level setback because again it's a lower profile. Also, it it I don't think at seven floors with eight next to you, you're going to get significant shading from the taller building. But what it does is as you're coming down San Antonio from 101, you're rising to density, right? Your seven leads to their eight. Maybe there's something shorter than you on the on the freeway side. So, we're like climbing announcing the density. And so, I think there could be a a synergy there. Um, in any event, it's it's um it's just uh something to think about.

It may involve a remix of the distribution of units, right? If you're going to because you know, you've got 15, seven, and eight uh 15 two and threebedroom units on that eighth floor. And if you don't have those um you know there there could be some recalculations. So I'll I'll I'll leave that. Um let's see the the uh parking um assuming 175 units 203 spaces. I I I do think that is a concern. I'm I'm concerned that there will be the owners of these units will have more than 203 cars and I don't know where they'll park them. Um and so I think that that's uh some thought and related to that is item four, the TDM. I that's all just going hand in hand. So, sort of I think the TDM is sort of the the the last piece of the puzzle because it's going to be based on where you ultimately land with the number of units versus the number of parking spaces. Um uh San Antonio Road setback. Um um I I'm just not a big fan, and I've I've said this on other projects on El Camino. I'm not a big fan of giving up housing to have buildings have a little more of a V-shape at the top. Um, San Antonio is a very wide boulevard and and we have a special, you know, 24 foot setback. So, to me, that's kind of enough. Um, other commissioners u may feel different and in the past have on that issue. Um, but I I I like the fact that that you have sort of made a nod in that direction with the 5-ft uh step back, I think, on the seventh and eighth floor. Um, if that's right. Um, so I I I don't think that that there's much

benefit to losing more housing space to gain a little more of an aesthetic, you know, light and air up that high. Um, unit size and affordability. I said it before, I you know, it's a tremendous it's a it's, you know, just I'm salivating at the number of two and threebedroom units um that that this project could bring. And so I'm hoping as this goes forward, you know, we we still have uh predominance of those. Um and item seven, which was not on your list, but it's in the staff report about parks. I deliberately left that off to save time because I thought there would be little controversy over it.

Yeah. Yeah. Am I wrong?

A short comment um that that I mean first of all you you've met the the open space requirement with I think it's 150 uh square feet per unit. So that's excellent. you know, park having an actual park to to serve this stretch of San Antonio is going to be a challenge if you ignore the phenomenal amazing hundreds of acre park that is a mile away down San Antonio, right? It's the Baylands, right? And that is it's just a phenomenal resource that that you know people who live who move in this area are going to learn to love. I don't know how far we're supposed to have our parks from our units, but you know, that's that's a it's almost exactly a mile. And but in terms of putting another park somewhere on San Antonio, I mean, you couldn't do it on this, even if we have took this whole property, it's I think 38,000 square feet, just under an acre. That's not a big park. That's a little park. And so, so I I think in our San Antonio planning, we're really going to have to think through this and and because there's not going to be a development bigger enough that they're going to say, "Okay, we're going to build all these units and we're going to give you a 3acre park here." It's just there there's no land mass like that. And so, I think the the city's at some point going to have to decide, do we really need to park right on San Antonio? And if so, are we going to take all these parking lies that we collect from this corridor and buy a piece of property to make that a park? Um but I I so um for now I think parkland lofies are the the right um approach for this project that's in front of us. So uh thanks for listening.

Thank you, Commissioner Templeton.

Thank you. And thank you for starting it off, Commissioner Hecman. Um my goodness. All right. Um, I've already said how I feel about the ground floor retail. I support your decision to move the traffic, the regular um, trash pickup traffic off of San Antonio. And if that's the price we pay, I support that. We'll see. Um, it sounds like that was feedback you got from staff and from council as well. So, it's very likely they'll um, be excited about that change. Um, I also, by the way, just really liked the little wheels tracks that you added in in red. I thought that was very helpful to visualize. Um anyway, moving on to physical development standards. Um I'm not too excited about losing 20 units from a floor because those as you not you noted this would be a trade-off. 20 units if it's the large units, but we don't want to lose those. They added those in at council's request. So, I'm not um I don't see the point in making or asking this developer um to lose out on the opportunity to provide housing in our city and this location. And also thinking about the property, you know, value. That's a lot of value um that doesn't make sense for for them to lose or the city to lose in terms of of housing. So, I'm not interested in asking him to uh make it smaller. Frankly, I just think this is a good project in the right place. Um I do think to make it better, we're going to have to get some um changes from the city. But, um anyway, uh next um Oh, you mentioned something you mentioned something about like going from 101 gently into the density. No, I want to go gently into the density from from the neighborhoods

like from 101. I mean, look at what's happening at that intersection. There's no gentle nothing. I mean, there's a JCC right there. There's other gigantic apartment buildings. So, I that that does not work for me. I think it's fine where the way it is there. I just want to make sure that we understand um that there's an area being developed at those heights and there's areas that are not being developed at those heights. And um that's where I want the gentle transition. And maybe I misunderstood. I don't know. Um okay, parking. Uh when I lived in Germany, we had a parking structure like this. It was super cool. I loved it. Felt so high-tech. This was 20 years ago, so I'm sure it's even more hightech now. Um, but I it worked fine. Uh, very rarely did we have problems, but when we did, boy is that a big problem. So, make sure you have backup repair people nearby uh for emergencies. Um, okay. Um, the setback or step back or whatever um on the upper floors, it seems fine as it is. I could imagine um you know if people wanted to have a little bit more um dynamism to the front of it that you'll hear that from the ARB. I don't feel like really we are um we're we're we're artists in our hearts but when we sit up here I think we've got to do the do the thing that we do here. Um, so I would um I'm very interested to see what advice they have you and uh give feedback on on the presentation part once the ARB has spoken with you. Um, but I do like that you have started to differentiate as it gets up to a certain level. You want to show some differences and and make it um not one giant wall. So I already

appreciate what you've done there and I think we'll we'll like what we see next even more. Um, the unit size and affordability. Yay, two to threebedroom units. Thank you for adding that. I realize that, you know, it's going to make the conversations with us a lot longer because it means that you're adding height, but I appreciate because I think this is the right place to have this conversation. I can imagine some of the other buildings we've seen would absolutely be a no-go. I think here um given the surrounding neighborhoods, you you read the room so to speak on San Antonio Road and to me it feels appropriate. You're going to hear mixed mixed feedback here. Um my advice is obviously you're going to continue to iterate on it, but the deciders are council, right? We recommend, we analyze, we think it through, we make sure they have a nice package um when they review your your proposal. Um, I don't have any comments other than appreciation that we have more family units. That said, cuz I promised you drama for parks. Um, and uh, Vice Chair Chang is not here tonight. So, I'm going to channel my inner Vice Chair Chang and say um, now that we're adding so many family units to this property, we have to talk about families crossing San Antonio Road. And that is not on the developer. that is on the city and it's up to us to make sure they have safe ways to get across and um safe access to Cubberly uh which is another you know more traditional park that's very close by um and then for the bays we need to get those bike lanes going. So, um, so you know, that's challenging because we've got 101 right in the way and you have to go pretty significantly out of the way, I think, Commissioner

Hecman, to get to that bike bridge. Um, and I don't Is that is the one under 101 closed permanently now? Sorry. Yeah, I I think so. So, you're doing you're doing the um Fabian, right? We used to be able to just boop boop and that would work, but now because we have a new fancier bike bridge, we have a more of a detour. So, we have to think about um

the the lanes or some other option. And I I know it's terrifying. I accidentally rode that my first trip to work and I mean I'm still scarred from it. like we have to we'd have to fix it if if we wanted people to bike uh to the bay lands or walk to the bayands from this property. Um but I love the idea. So maybe that's something we can talk about um either on your CAP group or in other conversations with the developer. All right, that's my I think I got everything. Thank you. Thank you very much, Commissioner Commissioner G.

Thank you, Chair. Um, I too just want to want to take a moment to talk about the great things about this project. I tried to reserve my first section for mostly questions, but I do want to highlight that um like Commissioner Templeton said, removing the trash pickup and putting that on site, I think, is a huge plus. People talk about traffic congestion on San Antonio. Well, if you have a big garbage truck that's taking up one of the lanes, that is the definition of traffic congestion, right? So, I think that that's incredibly exciting. Um, the other thing that I want to talk about is um although uh slightly inaccurate on packet page 22, um the commissioners may know that I've spent a lot of time with the PC ordinance. Um and so I am pretty excited to say that uh there is no encroachment on any of the the setbacks. And so that's exciting. But just for staff, I also want to jump on what Commissioner Hecman said on packet page 21 where there's the ground floor retail identified as 22.94. There's another instance of it above. Um on the maximum floor area for HIP, there is a percentage that's listed for commercial. So just um noting that for the record.

Um and then uh I also had a quick question because we're talking about encroachment. I I do see that there is some uh below grade parking encroachment on the back by 10 ft, but the entire rear yard is 10 ft on packet page 20. Um I know the back is a little bit slanted. So does this just mean that it's not fully encroached? Can you like kind of tell me a little bit more about this here? Sorry, give me one second. You're just asking if the project encroaches um at 10 ft or or more than 10.

Is there actually no rear yard setback on the backside because it's 10 10 ft and then you're encroaching 10 ft.

I'll have the applicant respond to uh their plan sets. Okay. So, uh the most encroachment is on parking level one and uh there's the 10-ft setback and in this uh iteration we're encroaching about 5T. Um but you know I was looking at this when uh we were looking at the packet and I actually think that we can reduce that further.

Okay. Um maybe work with staff to make sure this table's updated for the airb. And then also a question on the row below where it says below grade parking encroaches up to 3 ft into rear setback but this is for the row that's the interior sideyard. So I guess for staff is this accurate? Sorry, say that one more time. Um, in this diagram on packet page 20 on the interior sideyard forth from top, it says below grade parking encroaches 3 ft into the rear setback, but this is for the interior sideyard. So, is is there a mismatch here?

Hold on. The setback on the side yard and then the description says low grade, right? Yeah. The description says 3 ft into the rear setback. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, that's I think there's a Okay, just just channeling my inner Commissioner Hecman since we're we're talking about uh different folks here.

Um Okay. Uh I also just want to say that like council and the many of the commissioners here, I'm pretty excited about the two to three bedrooms. Um just want to echo that sentiment. Um I do have quite a few comments about some of the different items that the chair has mentioned, but also uh kind of going in line from where I started the loading zone. um which we now expect the the trash pickup to be um on I think it's on one of these pages maybe a 2.1 for the rear loading garbage truck. So, I'm wondering if the applicant can talk about is this expected to also be like a pedestrian pickup drop off area?

Yes, it can function for drop offs, for Uber, for uh like uh temporary um like food delivery, that kind of thing as well. Yes.

Okay, thank you. Um, okay. So now, uh, I'm going to go through my comments against what, uh, what the chair has said. Uh, so I think for me one of the the things that I would recommend is go back and rewatch the council pre-screen on the neighboring project because I think that while this project has improved the number of two to three units, I'm afraid that it might have created a series of problems that the council um would like to see changed about your neighboring project. For example, the council explicitly was disappointed to see that there was no ground flooror retail preserved in 788. Um, and I I'll defer to the recording to kind of comment more specifically on that. Um, I think that uh unlike what Commissioner Hecman said about the kind of failing ground floor of retail, I think it's very easy to look literally down the street in San Antonio on the Mountain View side and you'll see seven store buildings with ground floor retail of which none of them are empty. And so I I'm pretty um I think it's pretty clear to me at least that if it can survive one mile down the street that it can probably survive here, especially as we continue to build higher density around here. Um so I understand that the the loading zone is very important, but I also would like to like ideally see the ground floor retail come back um in some shape or form. So then my next comment is about height and density. So I feel like one of the ways in which we

look at PCs is to look at other parts of the code in which that help guide the the dis the kind of realm of discussion that we have for PCs. And one area that I feel like is pretty pertinent to do a comparison against is the El Camino focus area of which we have provided some kind of design guidelines. And for those uh who are interested, the El Camino width is about 100 ft across from one side to the other while San Antonio is about 75 ft. And one public comment that we've gotten pretty often about El Camino is we don't want to see it look like a canyon. And if at 100 at 100 feet wide we're saying that at 55 ft we're asking for an upper level setback of 10 ft. Then I think it should we should have potentially an equal or more uh setback for a narrow street which is San Antonio at 75 ft. And the the the height limit for the El Camino focus area is also 85 ft of which this bu this project goes above that at 92 ft. Um in addition I also want to call out that many of the neighboring projects also don't hit this limit. So for example, a larger project that we saw on El Camino at 366 has a floor area ratio of 3.3 and a height of 83.5 which is kind of the height is higher because it's on a podium but the the floor area ratio is approximately similar to what you provided previously. Um similarly for other projects on San Antonio at 788 their floor error ratio is 3.31 at 762

San Antonio their ratio is 3.33 at 7 3997 Fabian it's 3.19 and you can see that many of the sister projects have a have a lower floor area ratio than the one that you've provided here which is 41% higher than the average and 18% higher than the next highest um floor area ratio and I that for certain areas such as El Camino where we have more mass transit, it may be helpful to have a higher density, but as mentioned during the the council meeting, this is a bit of a transit desert. And as Commissioner Templeton mentioned, it's over one mile from any reasonable highfrequency transit. Um, and I kind of want to talk a little bit about uh the item about parking, which is kind of related here, which is that as uh council member Bert mentioned during the city council meeting, there really is no street parking. San Antonio, you really cannot street park. And on Lyhorn, which is where there's potentially other street parking, it's completely covered with RVs. Like, there is no place for you to street park there. And I feel like that is that makes me a little bit more concerned about the the parking issues here. Um so I would like to echo that I think the TDM is essential if you continue to be in a parking deficit. Uh also mentioned in the city council meeting is the fact that your project is providing significantly more parking than your neighbor and the council actually really appreciated that. So I think that is something to to keep in consideration there. Um, regarding the special setback, Sam, I was wondering if you could just pull up the the presentation I sent you um to slide uh 52.

While he's doing that, I I will say that I think that for the setbacks and stepbacks and daylight planes, I think using something that's pretty similar to the El Camino Focus Air is probably my recommendation um on on that front. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Um, so anyway, this is just a quick representation for what staff is uh presenting to us for as part of the San Anton Community Advisory Group. So these are a couple different options for what the special setback may look like. It's shown on the right here. you might want to like zoom pinch and zoom in if you would like on on the right side which kind of shows that uh in this option there's like a buffer and then a sidewalk and then kind of a a walking space. Um I think that's kind of the the plan for that. And in the in the next slide, uh you'll you'll see uh that's not impacting this property, but on the on the far left, the difference is that there's a shared use path on the other side of the street. And then on the next slide, um you'll see that there's a proposed uh both bike lanes on both sides. So, I think that there's some pretty exciting transportation projects that looks like staff is going to be providing for the special setback. So, I I just want to say again that the I'm pretty excited about the special setback being maintained because I think that the city has a lot of plans for the the usage here. Um and then for the unit affordability, I am channeling my inner vice chair

Chang when saying maybe it could be helpful for staff to provide the distribution on packet page 15 of the below market rate unit calculation also by unit type. So you're you're you're saying here like that 14 units are very low income which is great. It's awesome, but are they all studios? Right? Like, in order for me to I know that's not true. I looked at the plans and and showed that's not true, but I think that the ARB and council would be really appreciative to to demonstrate this is actually quite a plus that your distribution of the below market rates aren't all of a single type. And then I know that the chair purposefully tried to avoid the parkland discussion, but I will provide a one-s sentence comment, which is that uh I think that staff identified either this area or the area right next to it as but definitely in the San Antonio focus area as a parkland desert. There aren't very many parks that are within 15-minute walking distance. um which is unfortunate for this area, but our resident bay lands expert, Commissioner Hecman, will note that there the baylands are pretty close by and I do hope that the Inloo fees can help promote some kind of parkland, although there is an ample amount pretty close by. Um so that will end my comments.

Thank you. Very comprehensive. Uh Commissioner Peterson or Commissioner James, anything to follow on? My switch is not working here. Or maybe I'm not. It worked that time. Okay. Got it. So, okay. Commission.

Um, let me just uh run down the list that you've uh uh suggested. Um, in terms of limiting uh ground floor retail, uh, every time someone spoke on that, I agreed with them and they all didn't agree with each other. So, I think it probably suggests I don't have a lot of conviction there. I mean, I would love it if this was sort of a a walking area and you could have a coffee shop there and uh I I I don't know whether to expect that to be reasonable or not, but certainly if if it was a trade-off between the off- streetet garbage and if in fact that is the trade-off, uh I I think that's the right the right decision. Um the uh in terms of like setbacks uh stepbacks and daylight planes um you know I uh I I'm I'm very wishy-washy tonight, but I I sort of um uh I liked uh Commissioner Hecman's idea about dropping down a floor. I felt like the building would look uh better. It would solve some parking issues. It would solve F. Uh and then uh when Commissioner Templeton pointed out it would eliminate a lot of uh much needed housing uh I agreed with her. So I think this is I think this is the I think this is the real difficult tradeoff. I I also uh you know feel like aesthetically uh you know it it would be probably more appealing to me as a uh as a sevenstory 5 with two twotory setback. Uh, but that feels kind of piggy and selfish and and and aesthetically uh uh annoying that that would matter more than uh than uh two and threebedroom uh uh housing. So, um I'm hopeful that uh some design considerations can be uh considered that would that would give the the the large facade some slightly different massing,

you know, a little a little more relief uh uh with color or maybe depth or maybe it is a 10-ft uh step back. Um but anyway, I'm hope hopefully that can kind of uh get get refined. Um the uh uh I'm I'm in favor I'm in favor of uh uh setbacks. I like setbacks on on on big big uh thorough affairs. Um and um as far as parking is concerned uh I was less concerned about this than I think some of my colleagues and I think that is because I you know and it's it's not it's a it's a intuitive sense that like a lot of people in the the life of this building who have studio apartments may choose not to have cars. Uh but but that's profoundly unscientific, but it's my my sense. Uh the TDM uh I'm not sure what my comments on that would be. Um I talked about the special special uh special setback. Um I think just like El Camino Rial, I think San Antonio would benefit from that and maybe it can even take a a bike lane on the other side of the uh the utility boxes. Um, love the unit affordability and the size differentiation. Uh, echo uh what Commissioner G said about please on the on that table put the size uh not just the uh the numbers of units that are uh horrible. And that's it for me. Thank you. Commissioner Peterson, anything to add?

Okay. Thank you. Then uh I will run through my list. um concerning eliminating the ground floor commercial uh retail, whatever it turned out to be. Uh I regret that, but I agree that eliminating it in order to get the trash pickup um intrusion into San Antonio eliminated is the right decision. um physical development standards. Uh I would like to see um stepbacks of some kind to improve daylight definitely on the San Antonio roadside. daylight and massing definitely on the San Antonio roadside and preferably uh also next to 788 which may well build another huge attempt to build another huge vertical wall. Um however I feel completely comfortable deferring that decision to the ARB. So this is just um my uh registering my preference for their use. um parking. So, is anyone else watching the saga of the Fay in San Jose? So, the FA is a 330 plus unit, 23story project in San Jose in an absolutely stellar location downtown that was um highly touted and uh a beautiful piece of work foreclosed a couple of weeks ago. And the reports from the analysts are that this happened because occupancy is

poor due to a lack of parking spaces. Um so this uh prompted me to do a deep dive into the San Jose permit system. Um I was unable to get a set of plans uh for the garage floor areas but I was able to get the area from the permits and derived uh from that area it works out to be about 0.9 spaces per unit. Uh now the proposal we're looking at today has about 1.17 spaces per unit and for me that's uncomfortably close. Um so I suspect you may have to be very cautious about um what turns out to be marketable based on what we're hearing from this other project. Um unlike some of the other projects we've looked at, this one does not have the uh option to overflow into adjacent streets. So that safety valve is not available. And finally, since we uh we mentioned um autonomous vehicles, it's worth remembering that using an autonomous vehicle for transportation rather than a vehicle you park at your destination adds vehicle miles traveled. So you have to um you have to pick pick up the rider, deliver the rider, and then move to the next ride. So the effect is going to be increased traffic on San Antonio if we're relying on that as a primary transportation mode. So be careful about that uh as a solution to the parking problem.

Uh and of course that that leads directly to the TDM plan. uh whatever is done for uh parking given the location and the amount of parking the TDM plan really is essential and I keep harping on this um but it has to be enforcable not just aspirational and we've taken baby steps towards that uh on some other projects but we need to do at least as well here and perhaps quite a bit better if we have many other projects on San Antonio with similar characteristics. Um, thank you for maintaining the San Antonio special setback and also avoiding encroachment below grade. I hope that will give us options of the kind that uh, Commissioner G described to uh, bring multimodal transportation um, up to par in this area. on unit size and affordability. Uh well, you know, we always want more affordability, but this proposal seems acceptable to me. Given the financial constraints, we can't do everything. Um the unit mix seems heavy on studios for an ownership project to me. So I have a question as to whether you anticipate some of those will be leased uh because that could change the demand characteristic.

Yeah. studios versus

so um we look at the um trend for condo uh development basically become smaller and smaller the reason being is affordability affordability big challenge so that's why every uh space of unit is is smaller for this version and we add some um um uh studio uh could be uh somebody who because we only have a I think a 30 plus unit or like this type and somebody who purchased this can render this out for for whoever need it. So percentage wise it is not a lot the the studio. Yeah. So that's why uh we think it should be okay. So

yeah, I'm not objecting. I'm just curious to understand how the how the financials work out and that makes sense. Yeah. Thank you.

All right. So I'll wrap with the overall comments um which are just that there are many many things I like about the project. I hope we can work out the details. Um, and just a quick comment, thank you for your development program statement. I understand that's required, but this one was much more useful than many we see. So, uh, I appreciated that. Uh, that's all for me, Commissioner G, and then Commissioner Templeton. Thank you, Chair. Um, I had two quick comments. One of which is uh I actually want to comment on your comment about the autonomous vehicles. So I actually work at an autonomous vehicle company and I asked um some of our experts about the loading zone that you have provided for autonomous vehicles and the answer is basically it's unusable at this time and in the near future for autonomous vehicles because they really can't back up by themselves. So they can't do so in the diagram you've provided kind of a a both like an a kind of a dead end and also a T-shape. Uh there is basically like no real feasibility for autonomous vehicles to be able to do that maneuver anytime in the near future including Whimo which is currently the leading in autonomous vehicles. So I just want to call that out as I it's totally doable for an Uber or a lift, right? Human driver can do this maneuver, but autonomous vehicle will not be able to do this maneuver in the near future. So I want to comment on that. And number two, I kind of want to talk about a little bit about the false dichotomy for the upper floor units. We're saying like, oh, if we remove the eighth floor, we might lose two or three store units due to to like the whole floor removal. But one thing that we've seen with kind of angled um stepbacks and daylight

planes is that you can just reshuffle the units, right? You can make it so that oh, previously on a eighth floor it was the two or threebedroom unit, but you shuffle that down to the bottom floor and now you put a studio up at the top and now it's kind of set back a little bit more from from whichever side that you're looking at. And you're still able to keep the same the unit composition in a in an in a way that we can still keep some of those two or threebedroom units. And I also want to um echo uh the chair's comments about uh setbacks against the um the neighboring developments. As previously noted, there's a development at 824. There's development at 788. And I think that the way we should think about our uh daylight plane standards is similar to like as if the projects are already being built because they are already in the pipeline. So we should think about them as they will also be there not whatever is there right now which is like a commercial something or other. So I think we should be using like we want to make sure that we're developing in a way that is cohesive for an area not just for each project in a silo. Thank you.

Thank you commissioner commissioner Templeton. Thank you. Um I really appreciated your comments about the autonomous vehicles. Thank you for sharing that. I had my first ride in one this weekend.

It was terrifying. I can only tell you that I prefer humans at this point, but I know you're working to make it better. So, um yeah, we had a right turn across four lanes. It's like, "Oh, okay. I'll just hold on really tight." Um anyway, uh um yeah, I I uh appreciate the uh conversation we're having about the upper floor, and you're right, we could um mix and match and and uh lose some other floor, which would be even more units of of uh reduction in the project size. So, one of the things I'm thinking about is, you know, we have targets in the city and if we don't build them here, where are we going to build them? And you're like, well, we're not building on El Camino. Well, you're right. Like, you're right. We have limits there um that we don't have here. So, I'm just thinking about like what are some ways that we can make this project work and we can hit our numbers or get closer to our numbers because um you know we can read the writing on the wall if we continue to fail. We're going to have less and less autonomy as a city and that terrifies me. So, I just want to think about what are the ways that um we can support like the developers taking a lot of good feedback from the city council and that helps us. So, for me, I'm I'm okay with it. Um I I remember being very jarred when some of those developments went up on the Mountain View side. They were they were they felt pretty tall. Um but then again I I felt the same way when some of the other larger developments went up here in PaloAlto, right? Um, so, uh, but I love the JCC and I love the the the adjacent

buildings and we can find a way. Um, I hope, uh, and I do think your your point I appreciate you sharing those slides because seeing that the city's already working on this and has some, um, progress means that probably before I die, we might have some. Um, you laugh, but I've been around here a long time. It will take a while. So, I'm really um I really do hope that we can get that working out. Um, I did press the button because I wanted to make the staff motion, but if we have more discussion, we can do that. In fact, there are no other lights, and if you hadn't suggested that, my next move would have been to request a motion.

I'm clued in. I I got your number, chair. Um, so I I move that we forward this proposed project application to the architectural review board for review of the development plan. Second. Thank you, Mr. Dodder. Yes. Um, Commissioner G. Yes. Uh, Commissioner Peterson. Yes. Uh, Commissioner James, yes. Uh, Commissioner Templeton, yes. Commissioner Hecman, yes. Uh, Chair Aken, yes. Motion carry 6.

Thank you very much. Before we move on to the next item, I believe it's time for a break. So, uh, let us, uh, resume at 8:45. Thank you. Really appreciate it.

Let's begin agenda item number three. Request to amend 18.18.120 to allow existing floor area to be replaced in new buildings provided the degree of existing non-compliance is not increased. This begins on packet page 27. May we have the uh staff presentation?

Good evening. Bear with me while I share my screen. All right. Well, let's take a trip around downtown. So, this is a request for a text amendment uh for the commercial downtown non-complying uses and facilities and that would allow the existing non-complying floor area to be replaced without restricting the existing building envelope of those said structures. Uh we call it the shrink wreck rule. So just a little bit of background, this did go before uh or come before the PTC should I say of last year in October on the 8th. Um just kind of structuring the conversation here with a little bit of that legislative history. So if we go back in time to the 1980s, 1986 when that uh commercial downtown district was formed. Um, following that, there was aformational report sent to council in 1988, uh, concluding that those non-compliant buildings, uh, the buildings that were affected by the new zoning district standards could be remodeled and replaced, uh, if there's no increase in non-compliance. Um and staff ran with that interpretation for roughly 27 years until in 2013 there was a proposal to relocate approximately 6,000 square ft from below grade a basement uh across the street at 261 Hamilton to a new proposed rear edition. So following that um in 2014 council clarified that that section of code u up for discussion this evening uh prohibits the shifting of non-compliant building area in downtown including from below grade to above

grade. Following that in 2015 council further directed staff to prepare some code amendments to reinforce and clarify that provision. And that came in 2017 where an ordinance 5373 clarified the definition of a building envelope as well as uh explicitly stated the prohibition of replacing um that non-compliant floor area beyond that building envelope definition. So, in 2022, there was a pre-screening for 616 Ramona Street uh to kind of revisit this and perhaps go back to an earlier version of that code interpretation from the 1980s. And at that pre-screening and just highlighted on the screen here and detailed in the staff report, council noted a number of items to consider when a text amendment would be brought forth. So here we are with the text amendment. All right. So the project description is to simply remove the A2C as well as the B2C sections uh what's detailed on the screen here as well as an attachment A with the red line struck through as well as the references to grandfathered in the ordinance due to negative connotations with the term. Um, this would effectively allow existing non-compliant floor area to be demolished and replaced with new structures that could have differing heights, footprints, or building envelopes so long as they complied with the governing zoning district. Uh, I do want to note here that um we just are advancing the applicants proposed text

amendment. If we recall from the October 8th meeting at the PTC last year, uh there was an additional staff proposed amendment with some considerations for um retail as well as housing. And that leads me into my next few slides here for some considerations where staff felt it was more appropriate for the discussion rather than providing that suggested language to the PTC. So from that previous discussion, there was a general support for reducing barriers to development downtown and several commissioners also prefer the simplicity of that applicant's proposal. Uh staff is noting that there are a number of ongoing efforts in the downtown area as well as policies um that are underway and currently being reviewed. So notably the downtown housing plan uh Senate bill 79 with a tenative uh council date in March, housing element 3.9 with a tenative date in March as well with the policy and services commission and keeping in mind the council priorities of housing and retail and the number of properties that would be affected by this set ordinance. And with that, if we look on the screen as well as in that attachment, uh C is the number of properties affected. Um there's 302 parcels uh currently zoned in that commercial downtown district. And out of those um there's been 87 parcels with remodels and additions between 2011 to 2025 which are unlikely to rebuild soon with just recent remodels or additions. Uh 19

of those uh 87 parcels have a 1:1 floor area ratio or above that which would place them in the non-compliant category. So that leaves us with 47 parcels that would be likely affected um of that uh code amendment should it move forward. So, for tonight's recommendation, uh staff is um recommending to consider the applicant's request to modify the code section and recommend to city council to not pursue the amendment at this time due to the ongoing efforts of these other uh policy considerations in the downtown area. And with that, I wanted to also provide some alternatives uh as listed in the staff report. Um the PTC may also continue to a date certain and the PTC may also forward a recommendation of adoption of the modification or text amendment with or without uh modifications to uh city council. And with that I can entertain any questions and the applicant is available in chambers.

So uh will Mr. Dr. Hayesby giving us a presentation or simply available for a Q&A. I have a presentation very similar to the last one that you saw but a little bit shorter. Right. Let's uh if we may then let's have the presentation and then we can ask questions both of staff uh and of yourself. Okay. Let me share.

Okay, great. Good evening, Chair Aken, fellow commissioners. My name is Ken Hayes with Hayes Group Architects. Um, I want to before I start thank uh staff for helping us bring this item forward tonight um as a uh action item um and a hopefully a recommendation to uh city council. So when I was here in October, I said the downtown is paralyzed because of the shrink wrap rule, which is what we're talking about. I advanced proposed tax amendment at that time um that would remove the shrink wrap rule and I I think I had your attention and I I believe I had pretty good support um for what I was proposing. Um however uh staff at that time asked for no recommendation to council. Um, and tonight I'm looking for your recommendation to council and specifically um the alternative um recommendation which is action item number two on page 33 which is the addition or the adoption rather without any modifications or with or without modifications. So adoption with or without modifications. So at that hearing I showed and staff confirmed that not one new building subject to the shrink wrap rule had been built in the last 10 years um in the downtown. However, there was one one lucky building um 355 university which is the design within reach building now that actually we did um and uh this was done in 2017 and this renovation was actually done by design within reach and I believe they had signed leases before the shrink wrap rule became effective in 2016. So they were kind of forced to continue with their plan. Um but this project was um uh was restricted by the shrink wrap rule and it all started in ' 86. Council adopted ordinance 3696 that

staff um mentioned which reduced the F in the CD zone from 3 to 1. Um it went on to say non-complying facilities if when built were complying shall be uh deemed to be complying and such facilities shall be permitted to remodel replace site improvements and they can expand um only with exceptions to floor area. So TDRs bonus floor area things like that um and it led to a little bit of confusion. Um, in 1988, the city's manager's office issued this clarifying language to the ordinance, and it says, "Where existing floor area at or above grade is eliminated, the whole building or portion of the building, such buildings would be permitted to be remodeled and replaced provided there be no increase in the building's uh non-compliance in floor area or in height. However, in that remodeling or replacing, such buildings would be permitted to be reconfigured in terms of length, width, and height so long as the existing floor area was not increased except for those permitted exceptions I just mentioned. Also, in no event would a building's height be allowed to exceed the 50 ft. And it went on to provide examples um to interpret that language. And they said essentially um a 10,000 ft building on the left, let's say an existing building on the left, two stories, could become a 10,000 square ft three-story building so long as other site development restrictions um were not exceeded. And they went on to say that this would lead to improved building design and enhancement of the downtown. Development in the CD district went on for 30 years with that interpretation. And I can remember climbing around buildings measuring mezzanines and things like that to try to justify um existing existing floor area. Um and these are a number of our projects.

There's been plenty by others um in the last 30 or the 30 years preceding 2016. In January 2016, council adopted ordinance 5373. I know staff keeps saying 2017. I'm pretty sure it was 2016. Um and uh basically the shrink wrap rule was born. Um it is suffocating legislation for the downtown. Um the shrink wrap rule uh added two sentences for non-complying buildings which I've highlighted in red here. Everything else is the same. Every all the text there in black, but it added these sections that I have highlighted in red. And it says, "For the purpose of this section, quote, "Building envelope shall mean the three-dimensional shape and size occupied by an existing building. It is not the maximum buildable potential of the site." And at that hearing, it was described by a staff member as picture shrink wrap over your building. Thus, it became colloally known as the shrink wrap rule. The shrink wrap rule uh renders non-complying facilities frozen in time unless an owner wants to eliminate existing floor area that exceeds the one to one requirement um for a new or in the downtown to build a new better building. So if you want to change your building, you need to remove um any non-complying floor area. Um, in a class B commercial building in the downtown, that floor area is worth at least 1,200 bucks a foot, probably more. So, if you have a twostory 10,000 ft building on a 5,000 ft lot, you have to eliminate 5,000 square ft. If you want to replace that building or redevelop that building with some other use, that's $6 million, right? Nobody is going to tear their building down to lose $6 million before they even start um the project. It gets worse if the

building's a 15,000t building on a 5,000t lot. Now you're talking about um even more real money. Um so uh no owner as we as I've said is going to tear their building down to lose value. And the facts kind of prove it. Um, since the adoption of the shrink wrap rule in 2016, um, the development's been dead in the downtown. For the last 10 years, there's been one building in the downtown that was remodeled under the shrink wrap rule, and that was the design within reach building that I showed you. What I'm showing here is that there was one new building built in the downtown, 620 Emerson, the Nou Garden building, but it wasn't subject to the shrink wrap rule. There was there was a complying building there that they tore down and then they built that. There's also uh was 429 University that everyone knows about, but that was approved prior to the shrink wrap rule. So, it was never subject to the shrink wrap rule. And then 585 Hamilton on the corner of uh Hamilton and uh Webster um mixeduse project there also was not subject to the shrink wrap rule um when when it was built or approved and then built. There have been two buildings that have been remodeled. One 480 Linton um and that was not subject to the shrink wrap rule because it was a complying building and then 355 university. So, it kind of boils down to if you look at new buildings built or remodeled in the downtown in the last 10 years that are subject to the shrink wrap rule, one um and before that it, you know, dozens probably in a 10-year um in a 10-year period. The color-coded plan uh here basically is the downtown housing group study area um that I had put together showing the disposition of each parcel um according to this plan area. And our numbers are a little bit different than

staff's because they're using the CD zone and we're using the downtown housing group study area basically, but it's still it's still relevant. Um, so subtract oop, sorry, subtracting the parcels that have been redeveloped in blue, all the blue parcels. Um, the historic parcels are all in yellow. A lot of historic parcels in the downtown. public facilities are brown and those are primarily city hall and parking lots um and residential parcels in green leaves 98 properties available for redevelopment. Now this is the legend. I can go back and we can talk about it more if we if you need to. But basically the point here is 98 um buildings have been um are available properties available for redevelopment according so of those 42 are subject to the shrink wrap rule according to my map 43% basically of the available properties are subject to the shrink rate. If you look at staff's numbers, um it's even higher. Uh 47 out of 66 properties. And so that's 71% of the properties are subject to the shrink wrap rule. Um now, this text amendment does nothing to increase floor area. This is all existing floor area. um what it if it's if it's not if the shrink wrap rule is not repealed, what it means is that this building is going to be there for until it falls down by itself because no one's going to have an incentive to do anything with it. Um here's what would happen if the shrink wrap rule was was appeal or repealed. This building has very um uh insufficient floor to floor heights. 9'6 on the first to second floor, 9'6 to the second. very below standard um in terms of uh what we build today for commercial properties. If this building were torn down and just the floor area was replaced at more current

floor to floor heights, you might have that. All right, not not not a big deal, but a much better building design if one undertook that project. Here's a property on University Avenue. Ironically, it has the same travertine on it. I don't know. Um, and same thing, these are, you know, it's maybe just over 10 ft floor to floor. That's terrible retail space, and we're in competition with other cities for retailers. Um, you've got to offer product that wants them to come here. Um, as long as the shrink wrap rule um is is enforced, um, it's they're going to be prevented from remodeling these buildings. In addition, I'm on the seismic advisory committee. you know, some of these buildings are unsafe, but there's no incentive for that building owner to tear the building down um if they can't put the floor area back in a better building, even though they'd be doing the seismic upgrade. So, um it has u many um many impacts um across the the city. So, the benefit and that's how that would be redeveloped potentially if with reasonable heights and that's just with commercial with the existing commercial floor area. So it's not a big visual impact. The benefits to the downtown and the building owners by eliminating the shrrap rule are many. We have better buildings responding to contemporary needs. Healthier buildings and workplaces. Energy efficient all electric buildings with solar arrays offsetting embodied carbon. Greener buildings with daylighting. Safer code compliant buildings. Accessible buildings. I just said seismically safe buildings because now there's an incentive. um more desirable retail spaces with higher ceilings and storefronts. Um encourage owners to build mixed shoes housing projects by allowing them to replace their commercial floor area which helps make the project that much more f financially feasible to add housing on upper floors. Um we all benefit from an increased tax base.

There's no increase in the commercial floor area. So there's and there's no increase in parking impacts. These buildings already pay in l these owners pay in l fees for their parking in most cases and it restores the natural process of renewal that was interrupted by the shrink wrap rule in 2016 and I believe it is fair to building owners who have paid property taxes and parky assessment in lu fees for years on the existing floor area. So I propose and ask for your support to remove the shrink wrap rule sections that are noted there. Um, removing these two sections will allow existing building floor area above grade to be replaced in new buildings that better respond to the natural and built environments. These new buildings will have different footprints, heights, and envelopes, and they will be able to maintain their existing floor area without increasing the degree of non-compliance while complying with all other site development requirements. So, thank you for your time. I'm happy to answer questions.

Thank you, Mr. Hayes. Uh, commissioners clarifying questions of staff for Mr. Hayes. I have Commissioner Peterson and then Commissioner Hackman. So, I have a quick question for for staff. What's your um primary concern with uh removing this shrink wrap rule? I saw your presentation, but I didn't come across.

Right. So, I mean, I think to just structure the conversation here, I mean, I I think it's definitely staff's opinion that the proposed amendments are, you know, would effectively restore redevelopment flexibility that existed prior to 2016. Um I I think considering the timing of making the changes in the context of these other downtown initiatives is um something that we have a little bit of pause on just because there's a lot of uncertainty with some of these other initiatives that council haven't hasn't acted upon. Um you know the the applicant did file and paid a fee, right? Uh and we're advancing this application forward. So, um, not wanting to stand in in that way, staff does support revisiting the shrink wrap rule, but just wanting to provide some, um, context that there's ongoing initiatives that perhaps should be evaluated first before this is. So,

so if I clarified, you would you say staff is trying to maintain this current downtown and its current state? Is that the objective? I I want to put it in those words. Um I I think if we want to package it a little bit more in a concise statement, um staff is in support of revisiting the shrink prep rule and revisions to it. Um it's just a matter of when um and having that consideration go before council to make that determination.

Thank you. Appreciate it. I could add to that as well, just the fact that revisiting the shrink wrap rule was one of the components that was being discussed as part of promoting housing downtown as part of the downtown housing plan. And so by just removing it completely um without any tie to specific uses, that takes away one of the tools that was under consideration. I have Commissioner Hexman, then G, then Templeton. I'll hold till after opportunity for public comment. Thank you, Commissioner G.

Yeah. Um, staff, do you mind helping me understand the difference between recommending the council not pursue versus uh continuing to a date uncertain? Was it is it that like we we would recommend if we recommended that we do not pursue then it would just not come back and then it's just a negative recommendation.

No. So it would be a recommendation to council to effectively say stay the um the motion. So, um this would be paused um at council's discretion until um these other initiatives were moved forward and then continue to a date uncertain would be that the item would come back to the PTC rather than advancing to council.

So that so the staff's recommendation would allow the application to go to council for discussion and then council could make the determination based on your recommendation. um any additional input that you would want to share with them in terms of considerations. Uh and then they can make the determination as to whether it to send it back to planning commission for consideration once certain things have been accomplished or to grant the application.

Thank you. And I was wondering if you could also elaborate a little bit more on I I understand that staff supports revisiting the current shrink wrap rule and the timing. So I guess how long of a delay are we like thinking here? I I'm trying to just understand is this like days, weeks, months, years like I I don't have a sense of time about like how these other items are unfolding. I know you've provided that there's like a March timeline, but is it like we would want this to immediately happen after the March or is it like at any point? Like I'm just trying to get a better sense of timing here. I feel like uh that's something I'm trying to understand. So I don't think we would be moving forward on this immediately after March. So the short answer is it'd be later in the year most likely. Um because once we get direction for example on SB79 uh there would be additional work that would likely be done on that. The downtown housing plan has made it a significant way through their effort but we are waiting for that direction on the SB79 um efforts before restarting the work on the downtown housing plan. So that's I think there's still a reasonable chance that that could be completed before the end of the year and so we would have a better sense at that point um what components of this might be able to move forward.

Thank you. And one thing I'm just trying to understand here is I feel like the applicant has talked a lot about the impacts on commercial developments. Um does this only apply to commercial developments at this time? So the the zoning text amendment would be for the commercial downtown district. Um there's varying uses that are either permitted by right or with um conditional say conditional use permit. Um when we're thinking about the non-complying uses ground floor office space um being one of those um so majority of the development that would be affected by this would be commercial or retail spaces.

Okay. I see. So like you could hypothetically have a residential on a commercial district space and that's why the intersection with SP79 is pertinent to the discussion. Is that my understanding? Correct. Okay. Thank you, Commissioner Templeton. Thank you. I'm going to rephrase what I think I heard you say and then you're gonna rephrase it better.

All right. I think you said it's fine. We can have all these buildings be completely unsafe for many years until we decide to make some changes to this shrink wrap rule. But until then, good luck. Don't die in those buildings. That would be a hard no. Well, I I I So, what I really want um is is a honest feedback because like what do you actually mean? That's what that's what we heard the developer say.

So, I think there's a few things that should be noted. I I I would say that they um Mr. Hayes was correct that it is um that this rule has effectively stopped development in our downtown. I think that is a correct statement. Okay.

Um however there are options um so um there are options to redevelop sites with um transferred development rights right now which some projects are pursuing. Um and that has been an option and if you do seismic upgrades you can get TDRs and you can apply them to your property as well. Um, and so that is an incentive for doing TDRs. Um, I think that's really why, but what Mr. Hayes is saying too is that the there is still kind of a shrink wrap on the ground floor space that's not with TDRs. And um and so if you want to do like higher ceiling heights and stuff to make it more viable that is currently restricted um under the current um design and that's why when we had moved this forward the first time to PTC we were saying maybe we don't change the whole thing and get rid of it all together but we give some flexibility for projects that want to do those redevelop velments and add something with TDRs or maybe add certain uses that we want to incentivize and be able to have some flexibility in providing some nicer spaces. Um but uh but right now yeah you you would need to do use like seismic upgrades or things like that if you wanted to redevelop. And so there are some options for developers right now.

And one additional piece of information uh is that the policy and services committee on February 10th did have a discussion item on u progress and direction for seismic hazards identification and risk management ordinance update. And so there actually is a separate parallel effort that's going forward to identify those buildings that are a seismic risk and potentially require upgrades um to ensure that safety of buildings is a priority. So, we could make them we could force them to make it safe or not lease it out, but we can't let them completely refurbish the building in modern standards unless we remove the shrink wrap rule. Depends on what you mean by bonder standards. If you're talking about floor heights, yes, that change in floor heights would not be allowed under the current rule. But that is why we are here for this discussion with the PTC tonight.

And what would the applicant do if we um follow staff's recommendation? Would they just sit and total their thumbs for the unknown amount of time or how does this how does their right thing go forward? They would make their case. They would the case would be made to council on a per exception B per project exception basis or they would have to continue with this making the change to the entire law. Staff's recommendation, should the PTC move that forward, would advance this to council and the discussion would be at council to determine whether to modify the code text amendment.

And can you clarify what harm this as I understand and I I'm trying to interact so that I can understand because we're in a clarifying round. Um, can you clarify what harm this will do on the housing process? As far as I understood what you said, it was well, we have to wait around for the Senate to figure out what they're doing and everything's in stasis until then. Is that right? No.

No, that that's not correct. It's it's a question of what the C city council wishes to do in terms of implementation of Senate Bill 79. Um, and so this was ident, this portion of the code was identified as an opportunity to encourage housing by doing some loosening up of this constraint to allow that floor area to expand beyond the existing building shape. So, you want to coers developers to add housing to their commercial projects by using this hanging over their head? I know I rephrased that wrong, so why don't you do it better, but

the housing element directs us to find ways to encourage housing, particularly near transit. And so, this was I I don't I seriously what what you guys are saying is so in contrast to what we're hearing from the applicant, we're really trying to narrow it down. So what what is the problem? What is what is the problem with changing this? Our staff's recommendation is that this move forward. Our recommendation is to not make the complete change at this time because we see benefits to other options, but we are open to whatever the planning and transportation commission's recommend.

I understand. I'm just trying to understand what what the position of staff is because it's unclear here. It's unclear in the presentation. is unclear on the responses and it's we're we're going to be making a recommendation on stuff you're working on. So we just want to understand it better.

I mean again we have three initiatives that are all moving forward in respectively supposed to be happening in March, July and you know by end of year for all these ongoing initiatives. So will this be resolved for them by the end of year? I mean presumably we are looking at resolving you know how we want to make changes at the end of the year. It may be that the changes occur as part of something like the downtown housing plan without the need for a developer to you know uh make changes through their own pathway. Um but ultimately in all the documents and information that we are reviewing as we go through this effort and talk to council about what they want to see what's been very much highlighted to us is that in the downtown area in particular it is very difficult to provide housing. But that is an area where we want to have housing. And the only way that we are going to get housing there is if we provide incentives to do that. And if we are not looking for ways to provide incentives to do that and making code modifications accordingly, then developers are not going to be incentivized and they are not going to develop housing in the downtown area.

But they're they're currently not do they they why would they change? I mean what the presentation we heard was why would they change anything? They're getting money hand over fist with what they have. Exactly. And so the you know what we would be interested in doing is allowing them to continue to have their non-complying floor area and to improve that non-complying floor area, but allowing them to do that as an incentive. Got it. Okay, thank you guys for indulging in this conversation. I think I have a better understanding.

Uh, Mr. Hang, were you seeking to weigh in there? Uh, I was just uh hoping to clarify, but it it seems like the commissioner got the answer she was looking for. I got an answer. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. My concern um or my assessment of my guess about your concern uh and please uh as part of the clarification here tell me where this is incorrect uh was that the downtown housing plan and uh our implementations for SB79 offered us opportunities particularly for more housing which was direct directly relevant to the housing element. But if we removed the shrink wrap rule unilaterally early, sites might redevelop on with smaller projects and therefore be unavailable for these um potentially more valuable projects under the new rules being developed. So is that accurate?

I'll I'll take a stab at this. Uh so I I think that's that's part of the answer. Um it's that if we remove the shrink wrap rule um kind of in a vacuum then uh there's there won't be an incentive for these non-complying commercial properties to redevelop with mixed use. they would just be able to redevelop with their, you know, non-complying commercial floor area and leave it at that. And we are looking for ways to convert this commercial uh area into a mixeduse area.

Thank you. That's a more um that's a a more accurate and clear way of expressing what I was attempting. Uh, any other clarifying questions, Commissioners? Um, Commissioner James.

So, yeah, I'm trying to kind of do this in my head and I I forget how many potential sites there were, but it feels like there were like 44 or something. I don't know. Now, I guess what I'm trying to uh puzzle out in my head is we're assuming I think that some of these um some of these sites are we're going to we're going to potentially lose some some housing development, but it's not clear to me if all of the sites are are suitable to that. you know, I mean, it seems like we might be talking about I think we're just assuming all of those sites are the same, like have the same potential, and I'm that feels wrong to me. Um Um So, I'm not sure. Can we go back to the inventories a little bit to the where it sort of said how many how many sort of uh fell into those categories?

Right. So there's 66 parcels that would have above the 1:1 floor area ratio which would constitute a non-compliant building. So um there would be 66 properties that would be directly affected by this ordinance if it were to advance. And out of those 66, there's been 19 of those properties that have been redeveloped or had additions um since say in the the past like 10 15 years. So, um more contemporary, um you know, probably unlikely to redevelop soon.

Um so, that would reduce the number of potential properties to redevelop down to uh 47. So, out of those 47, um I I I think that's that's a great point to try to further parse out whether those uh properties could be developed with housing, what feasibility could be, whether it's 1, two, 15, perhaps 30 units, whatever that would look like. Yeah, I I'm just sort of uh don't think I want to jump to the conclusion that all 47 of those would be suitable for housing. I I would say that that's a reasonable conclusion. I our general feeling from a staff level is that it's there's not a huge number of units that we'd be talking about in terms of loss, but it's a question of whether we want to incentivize and get even those small number of units I guess for the downtown area. Mhm.

If there might not be a lot of opportunities, do we want to take advantage of the minimal opportunities that there are? And and I should probably know this, but like have we identified I'm sure we have like sites that have potential for uh housing and like where do the where do these where do these overlap? I mean, presumably there are like I'm just trying to understand these sets, right? And if they're the same, if they're overlapping, it's it's it's kind of I'm trying to figure what the trade-off is. Are we are we holding back? I mean, a lot of the downtown looks a little long on tooth, you know, and it would be it would be really nice to have I mean, I every time I think about our downtown, I kind of use uh St. Abyspo as one of my benchmarks and Stanford Shopping Mall. Uh, and we don't come close on either one. Um, so I um, and I felt that since I moved here in 2019, you know, like what what is going on here? And I I know there's some competition and and some uh some sort of um, you know, various uh limits here, but I just I find it very tempting to want to release the hounds. you know, let's uh let's, you know, get the forces of the free market to to improve the downtown. And I just I can't sort of sort out for myself, are we really, if we do that, how many sites are we and and housing units are we really talking about? I mean, I feel like we should be able to to to do this math somehow. I'm sorry. I'm not sure I can do it, but I feel like it's doable.

All right. I think um we should uh determine if there is any public comment because we have certainly gone into clarifying questions in considerable detail. Mr. Dvetto.

Yes. Uh to the chair, uh I've received one request to speak um and no raise hands on Zoom. So, I'll invite uh John S to the mic. Thank you for all of that. Um, good evening, chair and members of the PTC. My name is John Shank. I represent the Thoitz family. The Thoitz family opened their first shoe store in 1893. In 1899, they moved to 174 University Avenue. After doing some great business, by 1913 they redeveloped the property with the building that exists today, a 2.0 F building retail on the ground floor, office above that building today. If we wanted to if something happened, a fire, an earthquake, damage, and it we can't build it back. The city has taken away that square footage. And in the downtown, the upper floors typically are office. The office space commands higher rents. There's more value. So in not having that floor, not only is it half the value in a in this two-story building example, it's more than half of the value. It's a huge taking in a lot of ways. It's hampering. We're not redeveloping. We're not reinvesting. To think of, hey, I want to put solar on the roof and do the electric and I would do I if something happens, I can't get it back. We're mummified. I appreciate that. We're all focused. I'm on the housing committee. I'm on the retail vibrancy committee. I'm on the seismic committee. We want all these great things to happen. This issue is teeny. It's correcting a wrong from 10 years ago that took away it takes away what people did. The thits in 1913 built

a building. compliance with codes was long st all these memos that when they changed the thing 40 years ago were to protect the rights of the people who already had built those buildings. All we're saying is you don't lose it if you rebuild it and it's a little bit different shape. You can't violate the site development guidelines and all of that, but you're not going to lose it. And the idea that well, we're going to leverage this to get housing. Sadly, the city's housing committees and the the consultants who've done all of this have concluded nothing pencils financially in the downtown sites are too small. It it it just doesn't. That that's a function of today's world. Hopefully, it pencils tomorrow, but it doesn't. So, here the idea that oh well, we'll let you have what's really yours if you you do something else. It seems crazy. I'm very focused with with the community and the city to come up with how do we incentivize housing? How do we do these things? There's other mechanisms, but I I I I boil inside it. Well, we want to keep on the table this one. This is so focused and small. It's a couple fixes to the text to give people back the rights to own. If you all had a two-story house and we said, "Anything happens, you can't put the second story back." What? Why it complies with zone?

Thank you. This concludes your time. Happy to answer any questions or participate if that's welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Shank. And to the chair, I have uh no other request to speak. Thank you, Mr. Teter. All right. Um I think we're open for discussion. I believe yes technically we could have a rebuttal if Mr. Hayes wishes to rebut Mr. Shank's comment, I guess. But, uh, go for it.

Um, if you have anything to add, you're welcome to do so.

I think I have something. I can you hopefully it's uh thoughtful. Um, you know, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Yes, we need housing, but we need better commercial spaces as well. like you know, Commissioner James said, and he was not impressed with PaloAlto's commercial, you know, stock, especially in the downtown. Um, and and think about the effort that's gone into trying to make the streetscape, which is the necklace that kind of ties everything together better. If it's still just tying um, you know, uh, rocks as opposed to diamonds together in terms of what the buildings might look like on the street, you are in competition with Berling game. Maybe not St. Louis Bispo, but it is beautiful. I love St. Louis Bispo, Berling Games, San Monteo, Mountain View, all these Redwood City, all these communities are attracting tenants, retailers, restaurants, new office space. Now, in this case with the shrink wrap rule, it's not new office space. It's existing floor area that was mistakenly, let's say, taken away from commercial building owners. Um, so that that's that's one. And I just want to say, you know, cities are living organisms. They they need to like renew and subdivide and be relevant and vital. And this is one way to take, I think, a step in the right direction. And I I I honestly think that if council is considering SB79, get this on their agenda, too, because they maybe they need to talk about them together. They want to hear your recommendation. This should not be serial, right? This should be parallel in process. Um so I I would still ask for a recommendation um to council to adopt this change. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hayes. All right. Uh clearly we have interest in discussion. I have Commissioner Peterson, then Hecman, then Templeton. I'm favorable to sending this to council. And we like staff. I don't know. I assume everybody likes staff, but I really like the staff here. I'm partial to the staff in Palo Alto. I think because Palo Alto attracts some of the best and the brightest and so it's always hard to kind of look past the staff and and look at the local businesses and the the the you know the the people of Palo are they Pow Alton? Is that what we are? Yeah.

The Palo Alons kind of like Whoville, right? And uh to have them say, "Look, you know, we just got to we got to push this one forward." And um and staff is awesome. you do great jobs and you're all I mean staff the passion you have is always always awesome right and so that's I think council and I think the key is council would like to see all of this together and I think council is brilliant obviously council could put all these pieces together they're not you know it's just a recommendation they can repackage everything however they want and they will I don't think there's any doubt about that and that's why I'm confident to just say yeah let's push it across the line let council take hit and um you know the general use permit for Stanford is coming up and I think that's where the housing is. You know they own all the property along the railroad tracks or something like that and they they have like a 25 year deficit of community impact mitigations and I think that's where that's where you're going to find the housing at.

Thank you. Thank you Commissioner Peterson. Commissioner Hecman. And thank you. I'd like to start actually with a question for Mr. Hayes. You want to come up?

Yes. Um so the um when you started this process of trying to seek this amendment, you uh written a letter November of 2024 um which you know emphasizes that one of the benefits of eliminating the shrink crack wrap rule is that you get new buildings that could include housing. And without it, if if you can't replace the commercial floor area, you're not going to get that potential housing.

Correct. So, in in your analysis, your color-coded map, 42 sites, do you have a and you know, how many are

Well, I I have a sense that that you really know our downtown area, and I'm wondering if you have a a rough sense of whether, you know, many if any of those are legitimate candidates for housing, you know, given the couple examples you showed were were you know university storefront commercial office over right and so if again if and the sort of the hypothetical I'd like to pose to you is assume we remove the shrink wrap rule only for those projects that are willing to add housing units okay of the 42 do you think we'll see any in play do you think we'll see half of in play a few what's your sense

if you remove the shrink wrap rule but then burden the project with to do that you have to provide housing. Correct.

Yeah. Um I mean I you know not not every so it's not just the property it's the owner of the property right. many of these properties um the Floyd's brothers has they have many properties but there's others that are you know smaller owners that are mom and pops that own the property or the business might own the property and the last thing they want is the the hassle of of managing a mixeduse project right so you have to kind of strip those sorts of properties out just because the disposition of the owner is not you know amendable to a mixeduse project anything along along University Avenue that doesn't have an alley behind it, I would probably scratch off the list because you just have one way, you know, you've just got one way out to University Avenue and University Avenue doesn't allow any kind of driveway cuts or anything like that. So, you'd have a project that would have no parking at all, which can work, right? But like the discussion we had earlier or you had earlier, it may not be the best thing to do, especially if you're trying to sell something. So, I I I would say if I was to guess, I'd say probably 25%.

Okay. Would would be viable, but they're also very small lots. Yeah.

I I mean, it's rare that you even get 10,000 ft as a lot. Um and so, you know, to really make housing work, you need to assemble parcels. And that's difficult I think in the downtown with the histories of these parcels ownership going back so far. There are maybe four that are 7500 square ft and then the rest are 5,000 and 2500. I mean it's it it's it's not the best. I mean we've we've done three mixeduse projects in the downtown. Um but uh you know they're they're not providing you know lots of housing. Now another impediment to housing if I can just add this in the downtown is the uh requirement in the zoning code that it has to be mixed I'm sorry it has to be multif family. So, we used to do projects in the downtown, in fact, all of our mixed juice projects in the downtown are technically um non-compliant now um because to do a mixeduse project in the downtown, it's a requirement that it be multif family, which is defined as three units or more. Um these smaller properties are great for one and two, you know, units that you can add, you know, on the second and third or third and fourth floor. But so so it's it's it's not a a heyday of housing.

Yeah. Right. Okay. Or an abundance of housing.

All right. That's very helpful. Thank you. So um I'm just going to I'm just going to give my comments. So, so you know when this was here in October, um as staff has described, um staff had uh proposed an alternative. What if we focused the release of this shrink wrap on these things? We want to incentivize retail and housing. Um and at that point, I uh my position and I think I was part of majority there thought uh it should be broader. we should we should just be, you know, getting rid of it. That that's what that's what um but we were concerned what are what what's our blind spot. So we sent staff away to look for are there unintended consequences if we just get rid of the shrink wrap rule. Um I did not anticipate that uh it would come back in this posture where not only are we not looking at any of staff recommendation not only staff recommendation not hey there are no unintended consequences you know that's the question you asked that's the answer or uh no there are some and so we still like the retail uh housing limitation instead it's there there's so much going on that and and we do have direction from from council that they're looking for ways to incentivize retail and incentivize housing. And so staff's now recommendation is really just let's just sit and and um that's not very satisfying. I understand where it's coming from. It's not very satisfying. It feels a little bit like analysis paralysis. Um and and

I think two things are going to council I think in March, one in July. And my thinking is is we should be recommending getting rid of the shrink rack rule. And when we send that to council, they can fold it in as Commissioner Peterson said with all of their other discussions and they can figure out how all these things work together because we're not even seeing all those pieces. So I don't think we have that opportunity to to make the nuanced call. Um but they can if they get a clear message from us and I don't really have a sense for what my fellow commissioners are thinking. um that that this is not this is not good. Whatever you know, fix it in a way that serves the other purposes that you want, but fix it. I think that's the message rather than table it. Um and again, I understand my staff's perspective on that, but I think we we do better by by sending it to council to make them wrestle with it. So those are so um so I I'd be supportive of um moving the version of the shrink wrap rule to council uh the version in our staff report which I believe was provided by the applicant. Um, pardon me. I I think there's only one version now. I think um in October we had two.

We didn't present two options. Now, just the Yeah, it's appearing on packet pages 34 and 35 and the line or two on 36. Yeah. So, that's where I'm coming down tonight.

Thank you, Commissioner Templeton. Then, Commissioner G. Thank you, Chair. Uh, I agree with Commissioner Hecman. Um, the analogy that was coming to mind for me was, you know, when two people have been dating for a long time and one says to the other, "Should we get married now?" And they're like, "Well, I don't want to marry you right now, but just hang on the line a little bit longer." And we're going to get I want to marry you at some point. And like this in uncertainty creates so much tension and frustration. And I think that's kind of where my empathy is lying uh with the applicant. It's not that I I don't believe there is a grand plan. I I know you're working on it and it's hard. You don't have all the staff you need and it's a lot of projects that are in this space right now. It's a lot to coordinate. So, I understand um the desire to have more time. And I I really like Commissioner Hecman's suggestion and Commissioner Peterson about um working with council to try and um have them sort of navigate uh the order in which they do this. But from our perspective that we can go ahead and give you that discretion to move it when it's appropriate. Um and you know uh I understand there may be time constraints because we have an applicant. So yeah, unfortunately that it is what it is. Um but uh I have worked in many of these buildings that are very old and very non-compliant and very unpleasant to work in. I have also worked in new buildings in PaloAlto that are a godsend. It was a delight to be moved to one of these newer buildings when I was working. So, I I don't just offer that the property owner has their rights and they should be able to

improve their property and I also argue that it's for the benefit um of the workers as well. Um and of course the improvement of the neighborhood. Um, I think it's the most compelling thing I heard tonight was, um, that many of these lots are small and not suitable for the kind of housing constraints that we're hoping could go there. I remember working on the ad hoc for the downtown area and, you know, it was not rife with opportunity the way that perhaps we hope and are holding out hope for. So, um I uh would like to to go ahead and uh recommend this without adoption. I recommend this adoption um without modification to the council whenever the time comes. But that's where I'm leaning at this point. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner G.

Thank you, Chair. Um, not to harp on this a little bit more, um, can staff provide a timeline suppose we recommend this either the staff recommendation not to pursue the amendment or to for the recommendation of adoption with or without modification to council. When would it get to council do we think? So, a tenative date based on kind of our projections, uh, it would be in May, potentially early May. So, the reason I asked this, right, is because we've been talking about how council will have to wrestle with SB79 and these other items, but even if we were to forward this to council, it looks like it would come after the SP79 discussion anyway. So, I'm wondering from staff, does that impact the way you're thinking about this? Because you had said that we want to hold on based on all these other things in the air, but it looks like this will come out afterwards, even if we were to make the recommendation without modifications.

I can take a first stab at that. So, a lot of these are ongoing efforts. Um the writing of this staff report uh occurred at the same time as uh some of these other staff reports going to council. Um so uh effectively this was the first published report um kind of dealing with the downtown as we're viewing some of these other ongoing efforts. So wanting to just voice that concern, but as the cookie crumbled with this uh it turned out that this probably would be ending at following those other items even though this report was published first. If I could just add that the first discussion on SB79 is moving forward soon, but that that is just an initial discussion presenting some alternatives and unless they direct us to do nothing, presumably we'd be coming back to them um ideally very in very short order given that SB79 is effective July 1st. Um, and I think that the downtown housing plan is where a lot of the discussion is happening and that's an ongoing effort that's supposed to be um, finished by the end of this year and if it's still on track. Um, so

yeah. Um, thank you for that. And then I had a really random question on packet page 32 about the stakeholder engagement. It says that notice of this public hearing was published in a local paper and occupants of a prop of property within 600 ft of the subject property. Is there still a subject property for this? No, I'm sorry that I there was I was removing language because it wasn't noticed to a radius given that there is no specific property. Um but it was noticed on the paper.

Thank you. Um, and then for the applicant, I was wondering a little bit more about how the timing impacts you, right? Because you had you had proposed this back in 2022 and you sent this letter in 2024 and now it's 2026, right? Like, well, the building's been sold. Okay.

So, uh, just trying to understand here, uh, help me understand like how does the the time delay impact you so I can get a better sense here. How does the time delay? Well, there is there is no project right now um that that you know that is tied to this application, but there are potential, you know, projects of others that are that are out there and ongoing that are probably interested in the outcome of this. Um so it is timely in that, you know, in that regard. I mean, we had proposed a project in 2022 and went to council as a pre-screening. Um, and it's taken us kind of we delayed for a little bit, but it's been a process. Yeah. So, um, not directly affecting anything that I'm working on, but there are others that probably would be affected if this drags out.

Yeah. So, thank you. Um, that's all my questions for now. So, I think I'm probably the last one to chime in here, but it sounds like from my perspective that the majority of the commission is interested in moving this to council. And I would like to agree with that sentiment. Um, specifically uh like commissioners uh Templeton, Peterson, and Hecman mentioned, I think council is the right place to have the discussion. a one paragraph discussion about SB79 I think does not do justice about the tremendous impact that is coming through and I simply feel like we're not the right body at the right time to be making these judgment calls around this area at this time. Um so yeah, I would also be supportive of of item uh alternative action to without modifications at this time. Thank you. Any further comments, commissioners? I will Oh, Commissioner Hecman. Yeah, I I I I honestly feel like like the direction we're given isn't really too far from staff's ultimate intention here, uh, which is to to not let this um tail leave the donkey and and I I think we can tee it up that way so it won't um I think it is important for I think it sends a better message to do it this way because when they have their next I can't remember what the March meeting is but as part of the staff report either the written report or the or oral report you can mention and you probably will this is going to be coming back to you maybe in May depending upon what you the council tell us when you want to hear it

but you know the uh the PTC is recommending that you get rid of the shrink wrap rule and so that can form part of their thought process as they go through these other things and it may be that they want you to not bring it this to them in May. Maybe they want it in you know some other time to dovetail with something else and that's fine but again and so I think their timing will address your uh the concern expressed in the staff report that this that this shouldn't advance prematurely. Um, so, um, I'm prepared to to, uh, make a motion if others don't have comments.

I have nothing to add to the articulate summaries I've already heard. So, may I have a motion? Um, I move that the uh PTC recommend to council uh a modification of the uh PAMC section 18.18.120 to u u as reflected in the applicant proposed text amendment appearing on pages 34 through 36 of our staff report for February 25th.

Do I have a second? So moved. Second, Mr. Deta. Um, yes. Uh, Commissioner G. Yes. Commissioner Peterson. Yes. Commissioner James. Yes. Commissioner Templeton. Yes. Commissioner Hecman. Yes. Chair Aken. Yes. Motion carry 6. Thank you all.

Next we have approval of the uh draft summary and verbatima minutes of January 14th, 2026. Mr. Diver, do we have any public comment? Um through the chair uh I have received no public comment cards for this item and I did want to make a note that everyone was here for that meeting. May I chair chair may I move please do I'd like to move approval of the PTC draft summary and verbatim minutes uh as revised probably by Commissioner Hecman and others. Um, yeah.

Seconded if if Commissioner Hegman doesn't want to do it. We're just sharing the love tonight. People are getting punchy up here. Uh, Commissioner Hecman, yes. Commissioner James, yes. Commissioner Peterson, yes. Commissioner G, yes. Commissioner Templeton, yes. Commissioner uh Chair Aken. Yes. Motion carries 6. Thank you very much. Do we have any commissioner questions, comments, or announcements tonight? Commissioner G. I'll let Commissioner Tleton go first.

Oh, thank you. Um, I just wanted to echo the sentiments uh people said earlier about appreciating the city council and the staff for getting the guards at the train tracks. Um, I've heard a lot of very positive size of relief from the community. Uh, in response to that, um, I'm hearing people are emailing and texting me left and right about like how exciting this is for them. Um, and uh, to echo the kind of relief that uh, Commissioner Peterson mentioned. So, I just thought I would share a little appreciation for staff since we've had a lots of discussions this evening. Thank you,

Commissioner G. I want to express specific appreciation for OOT's presentation today. I really enjoyed that. Um, I know they're not here to hear it, but um, I think I would like to say the sentiment of the commission is that we really appreciate the update there. Um, and this is, uh, my bad for not announcing this earlier, but I believe that Commissioner James and I will be hopefully attending the next meeting from the I always forget the name. Is it the California Cities Planning? I know Cities is good enough.

Yeah, League of California Cities. the League of California Cities Conference. Um, and we will hopefully have an update to provide y'all. Um, next time I think you'll really I'm I'm hoping to attend remotely, but we'll finalize that once I look at the agenda for the conference. And you might talk with some of the other members who have attended this training, planning commissioners training, uh, in the past. There may be other activities that you'll want to attend at that time. Yeah, I think you'll really appreciate it and you will be busier than you expect. Okay. Um, duly noted chair. Thank you. Any others? Thank you all. We are adjourned.