Planning & Transportation Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. I'd like to call to order this regular meeting of the Planning and Transportation Commission on May 13, 2026. Um I am out. All right. Uh Mr. TA, could you please take the role? Uh Chair Chang here. Vice Chair G here. Commissioner Akin here. Commissioner Peterson here. Commissioner Hecman. Commissioner James here. Commissioner Templeton here. For the record, we have quorum noting that Commissioner Hecman is absent.

Okay. Um, Assistant Director Armor, do we have any agenda changes, additions, or deletions? No agenda changes uh or deletions. Okay, great. So, right now, it's then time for in-person public comment on items that are not on the agenda tonight. For uh those people who may wish to comment on items that are not on the agenda via Zoom, we'll be doing that towards the end of the meeting. Mr. Diver, are there any comment cards? Yeah, through the chair, I have not received any public comment cards for general public comment at this moment.

Perfect. Thank you. Okay, then we'll move on to city official reports. Great. Thank you. Good evening everyone. Um we'll just give you a brief update on upcoming planning and transportation commission meetings. We'll go to the next slide. At your next meeting scheduled for the 27th of May, we have three items. The annual review of the CIP projects. This is just checking to make sure that the planned CIP projects for next year are all consistent with the comprehensive plan. Then there will be consideration uh on of the pro housing designation that we are looking to submit to the state uh looking for your thoughts or input uh and discussion with the public on that followed by the parking programs update and downtown parking modernization initiatives. Both of those are those last two are going to be study session discussion items. Uh and then on June 10th, we currently have two items scheduled. One is a reszoning of the property at 470 Olive Avenue and the second is consideration of uh modification to the special setback on Hansen Way um at for the property that's right at El Camino Rial. Next slide. upcoming items or recent item for city council. On the 4th, uh there was scheduled to be a discussion of Senate Bill 79 in the downtown housing plan. Unfortunately, that was postponed. We are expecting to be able to have that discussion on June 1st. And then May 11th, there was consideration of a builder's remedy project at 3781 El Camino Rial. that project was

approved and uh upcoming on May 18th, we have a very full agenda. Uh we have the tenative map for the project at 4130 uh Old Trace Road. Uh one note that is listed on consent. However, we do have um we've advertised it so that if it were pulled by sufficient number of council members that it would be discussed that evening. So, uh, for the liaison to to join us, um, or at least watch when they do get to the consent calendar item, um, for, uh, whether that would be discussed that evening because, uh, decision is required that night. There's also going to be discussion of the Cberly project, uh, 156 California Avenue, which has not come to PTC, but, um, is, I know, of interest. And um if the project at Old Trace Road is not pulled, then we would also have discussion of the retail ordinance. If it is, that will likely get bumped.

So that is my update for this evening. I do want to um remind anyone who is here to speak on items that are on our agenda tonight, remind them to fill out a comment card and submit those as soon as possible um to um to Sam here, our clerk for the evening so that we can get those organized as we know there's going to be some interest. We can mention that again uh later in the meeting. Thank you. Uh, do any commissioners have questions for listen director armor regarding the staff report?

All right. Uh seeing no lights, we're going to move on to the first action item of tonight, which is a recommendation on an ordinance that amends the Palato Municipal Code chapters in title 1618, and 21 to address changes in state law and also um following up on direction from the city council regarding ADUs and JADUs. Yep, that's the item. Um, so can we start with the staff report, please?

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Gareth Sauls and I'm the one who has been working on the city's um can we just ask the members of the public to uh be cognizant of the fact that it's hard for us to hear if you are speaking uh hard for us to hear the proceedings of the commission.

Good evening commissioners. My name is Garrett Sals. I'm the principal planner who's working on the city's edu ordinance update. Next slide. The purpose of tonight's meeting is to go over the changes in the state law that have occurred at the beginning of this year as well as to consider and discuss the draft ordinance the city staff has put it together uh with the tenative council hearing date of September 14th later this year and to discuss uh staff's recommendation and the next steps from that council feedback. Next slide. To go over a couple of the more impactful changes at the state level, Assembly Bill 1154 uh highlighted a couple of items that uh now no longer allowed for junior ADUs to be uh rented for short-term rentals. Uh it also changed how owner occupancy rules apply and that owner occupancy now applies only when a junior ADU shares a bathroom with the primary home. if it has its own separate bathroom and there's no longer now a need for the owner to occupy one of those two units. Senate Bill Nine uh reinforced a couple of items around the the reporting timeline for the city when it came to adopting any new ordinance as well as the responsiveness that the city has to maintain uh when it comes to responding to any comments or feedback from HCD. And it again reiterated that any ordinance that uh misses either of these deadlines is actually considered now uh null and void. Uh if we miss uh sending that adopted ordinance to the state within 60 days or missponding to the state within 30 days when they give us comments, the city's ordinance would be null and void in either of those circumstances not uh both of those if both of those circumstances apply. Uh there were a number of other changes mostly with SB543 about changing how interior livable space uh changing account floor area and

lot coverage is calculated as well as impact fees are calculated for ADUs and junior ADUs. Uh required an appeal process for ADU and GDU applications changed the overall number of ADUs that are allowed now on on single family properties. Uh from previously there was an allowance for three units. Uh now there would be three ADUs and one junior ADU uh in addition to the primary home. Uh and then also lastly shorten the review time staff has from 30 days to 15 days uh for an initial review to determine completeness. Next slide. This slide represents an example of what the on the left side the current standard a previous standard of what the city had for measuring floor area and lot coverage for the structure. measuring that in essence for the second units to the exterior stud wall which was a similar measure we applied for we apply currently to the primary home. On the right hand side represents a uh measurement to the interior wall face uh for these units. Um and in the uh proposed ordinance, staff identifies that there are intent is to exclude the exterior walls of the ADU or junior ADU that are not shared with the primary home from counting towards uh floor area or lock coverage from the site in total. Next slide. The more important detail on this slide to sort of pay attention to is at the bottom of it which identifies that uh the distinguishing factor that's underlined for single family homes in that uh I just mentioned uh two slides before which is that there is now a no a new allowance for one additional ADU uh on the top end it just sort of identifies what was the the previous understanding and expectation for what ADUs and the single family and multif family setting could provide for uh but for multif family there has been no change to uh that standard. Next slide.

To go at a high level of an overview of the ADU and JDU appeal process that the city put in the draft ordinance that put in the draft ordinance. Uh generally what would occur is when the application is submitted to the city staff will provide an initial review of it identifying what's missing and what they can do to proceed to be able to continue processing that application. uh that's this uh this 15-day period that the city has now. Um and and or if it got to a point where the city was actually denying the application, that would be another integral step in this appeal process. When either if in either of those two scenarios, the applicant is interested in appealing that decision. Once they provide that uh for that written uh formal feedback to the city requesting that appeal, uh that starts the 60-day time CL time frame that we have to respond back and provide a final written determination. In the city's in the staff's draft ordinance, the staff is recommending to have that go to the city council consent calendar initially uh placed on that consent calendar within 45 days and pulled if it's pulled by three, you know, members of the council. Uh that's that decision that final written determination still needs to be provided within that 60-day time frame. Next slide. The next two slides are covering uh aspects of the uh motion that council provided last Mar last May when they adopted the previous ordinance that's in effect now. Uh this was to the first item you see here is to consider increasing the maximum size for ADUs from 1,000 ft² to 1200 ft². The next couple slides you'll see we'll be talking about uh allowing for separate sale of ADUs. Uh and to just give a brief overview, the init currently the city's regulations allow for up to 1,000 square feet is the maximum size for an ADU provided they uh provide a minimum of two bedrooms. Uh state law allows up to and a maximum 1,200 square ft again

with a minimum of two bedrooms. Uh the draft ordinance proposes that uh attachment C in the draft ordinance, which is again sort of a separate attachment that if the PTC recommends adopting could be easily incorporated into attachment uh B uh or A, which is the actual draft ordinance. Um that that increase could go from again 1,00 to,200. And looking through combing through a little bit of the data of what the city's received in the last five to six years, we've noticed that there hasn't been a substantial amount of applications that are uh in comparison to the rest of them that are looking to build a 1,000 ft structure or larger. In fact, only three applications have actually done so. And uh at least two of them uh all three of them, excuse me, uh were conversions of existing space where under city and state law now there is actually no maximum size for those conversions. Uh so there's no clear indication that uh 1,200 ft is a driving force for individuals building ADUs. Uh but as it's not an option now, people are not able to do that. So if there's an interest in pursuing that, it's something that could be incorporated into the draft ordinance. Next slide. This is the second item that council gave direction for staff to study and consider uh which is allowing for separate sale of ADUs. Back in 2024, the state allowed for cities to adopt uh certain regulations. They mandated that the city had to allow for uh ADUs developed by qualifying nonprofits. Uh if there was an interest, they could be sold separately. That is something that exists today. We have yet to receive any interest or an application to do that. Um, but there was an opt-in option for local jurisdictions to allow

members of the public could just please silence your phones now so that we aren't interrupted in the future. Thank you.

Cities could opt into allowing separate sale of ADUs. So far, there's been about 10 jurisdictions in California who have opted into doing that. And for my research trying to connect with them, the few that have been those early adopters haven't had many applications come through yet. uh but noted a couple of barriers uh as I was speaking with them that um I didn't that for them felt uh were reasons for why maybe maybe more applications weren't coming through and that was primarily that there's a requirement for lean owner consent uh so if your property is still owned by you know the bank and they're not interested in allowing this to happen until you pay off your loan that's you know a major hurdle that homeowners could face in pursuing this uh and separately was just generally the concept of you know application fees and process. How long or difficult or expensive is it for an applicant to go through that process uh from the city's standpoint once they've passed this first hurdle. Next slide. In the city's draft ordinance commensurate with this new change to state law allowing for up to three ADUs to be available built on the site. Uh the city's draft ordinance incorporates staff's draft ordinance, excuse me, uh incorporates the allowance for up to three ADUs to be sold separately from the primary structure. uh and the process would be managed in a similar manner to SP9 applications. Um generate one a couple things to note Junior ADUs uh cannot be sold separately from the primary home. They must still be a part of that uh or or connected to that structure. Um and then the second thing is that as this is an opt-in program, there are more uh ability for there's more ability for the city to uh have discretion with certain standards that they want to adopt. And a couple are highlighted here from the staff report about determining a different hearing a different application process requiring some units to be deed restricted uh to be you know s if they're sold sold at a certain AMI level um allow less ADUs to

be sold separately or potentially even restricting that the use if it's sold separately must be for residential purposes and and some of the context staff had provided in the presentation in the staff report was about um semi-commercial semi-residential uses like daycare. Uh those are some options to consider if there's an interest for that. If not, they certainly don't need to be incorporated. Next slide. And staff's recommendation would be to uh approve the draft ordinance provided within the packet. Uh this is attachment A and B. Um and consider incorporating attachment C into the draft ordinance for council's consideration. Uh and just as a reminder, staff is currently targeting September 14th for uh that council hearing date. And that concludes my presentation. Thank you. Uh commissioners, does anybody have any clarifying questions for staff right now in advance of public comment? Okay, I've got Commissioner G, then Commissioner Aken.

You want me to press the button? Oh, it doesn't work. Does it work? Yeah. Oh, it works. Okay. Okay. Um I just had one quick question which was on both slide seven and also packet page 14 you listed projects that exceed 1,000 square ft. Um but the ordinance as I thought that there you can't have more than a 1,000T ADU. So I was just I know you had mentioned that it's an existing conversion. So could you just elaborate a little bit more on that relative to the fact that the current ordinance as is limited to 1,000 square feet?

Yeah. So currently and this is has been in effect since 2020. State law allows for conversions of unlimited size in a sense uh where there's existing structures. So you could in theory uh multi-step a process where you may be able to build a structure that's certain properties of certain sizes are able to build uh very large uh amounts of square footage on their property and uh you could in theory build a 2,000 foot structure today, get it permitted, final uh and then like a like a a a large garage for example. Um, and once that's permitted and final, you could come back and convert it into an ADU, and that would go around the city's maximum size limits. Uh, but it's really only for existing structures and conversions of those existing structures without any other exterior modifications to it.

Okay, thank you. And I also think just curious on on bullet a of the slide, it's meant to be 690, not just 69 ft, right? Bullet A. No, sorry. That's a 69 is representing the number of applications. I see a Okay, perfect. I I got a little bit confused because I thought you meant like uh six. Okay. Anyway, thank you. Uh Commissioner Aken,

thank you, Chair. Uh a couple of easy ones here. Uh about the computation of interior livable space. Uh on packet page 11, the illustration includes closets in the interior livable space. Um but the proposed language uh for the ordinance says that separated storage areas are not included. So could you elaborate a little bit on what the rules are for that?

Thank you. Yeah. So one of the main distinguishing factors of that is whether or not that structure is actually uh accessible and intentionally designed to be a part of that second unit. when we talk about uh the intention behind what we were getting at there in the staff report was that when you have a um storage structure and actually uh Sam if you might be able to pull up the uh pocket slide the first pocket slide thank you that'll be able to help explain this a little bit. Um if you have a a a storage structure that's not directly you know linked internally to the ADU and can be used between the primary home or the ADU. You see this example here uh on the bottom left sort of corner of each of the struct of each of the diagrams. Uh that is what we're really speaking to as as something that's not included within the square footage of the struct of the ADU or the junior ADU. We've been treating those structures, this red box that you see on the right image as accessory structures and having those comply with the accessory structure standards. uh and they wouldn't also benefit from the um bonus square footages that we allow for for ADUs because they can be multi-purpose in that sense. Thank you. That makes perfect sense. I just wanted to make sure it was expressed uh clearly enough so that there were no surprises for uh applicants. Uh second question, packet page 30 mentions that parking is allowed in the for ADUs is allowed in the front and side setbacks. It does that represent a change or was that already allowed?

This is in reference to the junior ADU section. Um on packet page 30. I'll have to take a quick look.

I I believe it is uh that change was a a carry what we were trying to carry over. Thank you. uh was an allowance that is already in existence for ADUs and actually was previously allowed for junior ADUs as well except that the state required us to uh expunge every reference to junior adus last year in our table 2 section. Uh so we missed drawing that back and and so that's had some as you can imagine that's led to some confusion and headaches and we're trying to put that forward as a continuation of that uh incentive for people to use to be able to build junior radios where arguably right now um this eliminates a stu a two-step process requirement uh where they need to build it as a garage and then turn it into a junior ADU and go through that process which as you can imagine could be timely, not timely.

Thank you. That covers my questions. Commissioner Templeton, thank you. Um I'm just trying to process the um the splitting of the properties. You're saying that that this can be done now. It's just not been done. What happens to the property? Does it does it officially become two different deeds or like two different property tax bills or what is what is the reason that somebody would would want to do this?

Yeah. So, it's it's almost more like they're creating a condo air parcel. So, the the boundaries of the parcel don't necessarily change, but the ownership of the structures does. So more so uh in the context of council's thoughts at least at the time last year they were interested in studying whether they whether or not this might be some other drive or incentive for people to enter into the market so to speak the ownership market. Um it's its drive from the state I think is a similar approach in that way that it's really just trying to drive opportunity for ownership. But what happens to the designation of the structure? Does it remain an accessory dwelling unit?

Yes, it would still be an accessory dwelling unit to what to some to the neighboring property. It wouldn't be on its own part of the property. So, it's still on the same parcel. It's just a condo unit. So, yes, it's unusual. It's the the nomenclature is a little bit awkward, but because it is still on that same parcel and there's just the allowance for separ separate ownership of that structure.

So we still wouldn't start this factorial multiplication project where you change the ADU to a primary home and then they can build three more whatevers on it. It's not something like that. It's not a possibility. Correct. Okay. And then the property tax question, I'm sorry if if you answered it. Is that something that the county is capable of supporting? Yeah. Generally, my my assessment of that would be yes. Um if it's the same property parcel ID, how would they do that?

Well, so as with a condo, it would be handled. Um, and in addition, well, so I'm guessing that, um, Albert Yang has turned on his camera, but other agencies within the county have already implemented a similar code. So, the county is capable. Mr. Yang, would you like to chime in? That's right. the, you know, the county is is capable of setting up separate uh APNS uh that don't have to have a relationship to, you know, legal land lots. Um, in this case, it it'd be similar to having a a condo building. Um,

so so we can or what you're saying I'm going to interpret this back to you for correction. You're saying that through this mechanism, anybody can turn their property into condos? They can, if we adopt this change, uh, they could follow whatever procedure we set up to split off to sell separately an ADU as a condo unit. Um, but it would still be considered an ADU. It wouldn't be a new primary unit. Um, all the other rules would still apply. It's just that it can be sold separately. Thank you for uh clarifying. Thank you.

All right. I'm going to chime in with my questions. Thank you, Commissioner Templeton, for asking exactly what I wanted to ask about fractalization. Um, so I did have a couple other questions. Uh, Mr. Sauls, you mentioned that some other jurisdictions allow for this already and in your research, uh, those jurisdictions had hypothesized that perhaps the uptake wasn't as wasn't very high because of leans. Um do you and you had said you know if the lean holder is doesn't want to do this then it would not be they would not sign off on it. Do you know if that particular issue has actually been like is it a known barrier or is it just a hypothesis?

When I was speaking with a representative from the city of Santa Cruz that was specifically what they said to me when I asked them what do you think is the reason for why people are not interested in this? trying to drive to that, you know, central question. Is this going to be good? Is this not going to be really something that we will we create a process and no one takes advantage of it, right? And and that was specifically what she had referred me referred back to me when she had been speaking with their residents who were interested, you know, and ones who had been trying to go through that process once they had adopted it. They were saying that their lean holders were nixing it,

right? And so to that end, that's why we trying to incorporate because it's so new. We wanted to try to get some sense of understanding from other jurisdictions about the challenges they were facing to hopefully preface our understanding of what that experience might be for PaloAlto. Thank you. That's super helpful. And do you have any sense of um say how PaloAlto might compare to other dur jurisdictions in terms of how many in terms of the proportion of our parcels that are free and clear that they've there are no leans? No, I don't I don't have that information.

Okay. Thank you. Um related to this also uh condoization process. This might be a question for Mr. Yang, if you can't answer it, is there a decondoization process? Meaning, if I'm a owner of a property with all these J all these ADUs on it and I undergo this process and then I decide, oh wait, whoops, this is a big mistake, is it possible? Is it, you know, how burdensome is it to reverse that process? I think it's a you buy it back and then you merge the lots, but check to see if Mr. Yang has anything to add

for members of the public. We got a thumbs up from Mr. Yang. In other words, you do just buy back the parcels and then merge them. Okay. Um, and maybe just to clarify, it's not so much a merge as it's an elimination, I guess, of that APN because they're not they're not really like split, right, in the way that a traditional subdivision might actually physically create like a a new lot line in some manner. So, it's it's a maybe it's splitting hairs, but but they would have to go through the parcel map process and everything again, correct? Because it's a new parcel map. Yeah, it would be sim a similar process to in reverse

to reverse them. Yeah.

Thank you. Um okay, so I don't see any other clarifying questions. Oh, one more uh one from Commissioner James. Um, just following on that idea, and maybe this is more speculation than um than is helpful, but I'm thinking if the lean is kind of the speed bump here for sort of um I wonder if this incentivizes uh developers to buy a property like that, wholesale cash. And um then it's if we're if we're creating an incentive here, maybe not for residents to be doing this, but for developers to be sort of buying properties clearly um and then sort of parceling it up and and maximizing, you know, their return on that property. I wonder if you have any thoughts or about that.

Yeah, I think it's a good question. As you can imagine, you know, the the current state of state law and the city's draft ordinance doesn't anticipate that or doesn't create a a a limit to saying if you're a developer, whatever that means, you know, you can't do this. Um, I would imagine given that the city of San Jose, city of close to a million, has seen only two applications, four, excuse me, and only two have been approved. I would assume if that were something that was really happening, that we would, when I reached out to them earlier this year, they would have said, "Oh my goodness, we're seeing a lot of this and we're finding out that it's just somebody who's coming in and and doing just that." Uh, they didn't seem to convey that that sense of uh experience through their process. Thank you.

Any other commissioner questions, clarifying questions? All right, we're going to move to public comment. Mr. Chair, do we have any hands raised or comment cards? Um, at the moment, uh, we have one public comment request for this item. Um, and if there's any members on Zoom that would like to speak to this item, I'd like to ask you to raise your hand so I can add you the queue. and and through the chair. Just a reminder for the future item that's on the agenda, anyone who is interested in speaking, bringing up those comment cards at any point uh is helpful. Yes, please bring up any comment cards that you may have if you're in chambers right now to Mr. Tar so he can get organized. Thank you.

Um and so it is two speakers. Our first speaker and clarifying it will be three minutes. Okay. Our first speaker is uh John K. I'd like to invite you to the mic.

Thank you, Chair Chang. Commissioners, my name is John Kelly. Uh I've spoken on these issues before, several times. Uh sometimes before the council, sometimes before the PTC, and in the limited time that I have, I want to try to focus your attention on the big picture here. You know, why am I advocating for this um some of these changes at least? It's because ADUs have, I believe, the ability to really transform our community in very, very healthy ways. I regard them as 21st century starter homes. I don't know the exact size of the home that I grew up in, but I estimate it was probably 1,400,600 square ft. There were six of us living in that house uh until I left. I think we have lost that kind of housing in Palto with the small exception of what are usually referred to as courts. Courts are referred to in the housing element. We have a housing element plan or goal, whatever it is, that says we should try to do more things that are like courts. And I think that what you have before you tonight, especially in appendix C, is the opportunity to effectively build more courts in Palo Alto, which would be a good thing. Why is that a good thing? It all comes down to money. One way or another, that's what's driving real estate in Palo Alto. We have a median price which seems to vary and it seems to go up generally over time. I don't know what it is for an R1 house, but I think it's probably over $3.5 million. That excludes many many families from our community, many of whom are are children of people who, you know, families that have lived here, their offspring. Uh there are a lot of reasons why we should have family continuity in Palo Alto. What you need to understand about this, the the connection between increasing the size of ADUs and allowing for separate conveyance of them is that this

is a means of addressing a lot of the economic things that are forced on homeowners as a result of state tax laws, federal tax laws, and especially state attack estate laws. And the combination of those means that we have a number of units where there are older adults living in them and they want to stay in the property. They want to stay in the community. If you sell your house and you try to buy something new, you're going to basically pay a big tax bill and live in a smaller unit and that's it for you. If you are allowed to develop a separate ADU and separately convey it, you can realize some income whether it's as a capital gain or its rental income and you can continue to live in the community. And I can elaborate on all this. Uh the one thing I would uh say that I've tried to explain in my letter in more detail is I think that this process right now needs to respect the community a lot more and needs to respect homeowners a lot more particularly in the area of impact fees which is touched upon in the section of the report having to do with F. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jeremy L. Jeremy you may now speak. Good evening, planning commissioners, staff. Thank you for some really thoughtprovoking questions so far. Jeremy Lavine here speaking on behalf of PaloAlto Forward. We're really excited about this update to the ADU ordinance. And one of the reasons that we're excited beyond the reasons that John Kelly cited about creating opportunities for family housing and restoring uh chance for people to own smaller homes in PaloAlto that they can afford is that ADUs have been one of the most successful housing programs in PaloAlto. The city is producing well above its housing element projections for ADUs. Hundreds of homeowners in just the last few years have tried to add ADUs. Uh it's it's a program that has had success and there's still opportunity for the city to to build on that and to go further. The success thus far has largely been because of state laws that have by the city's own permitting uh record been pretty popular. People want to provide this kind of housing. They benefit from multi-generational homes. They benefit from the rental income and they could benefit from the sale of separate condoized ADUs as well as larger ADUs. I wrote a public comment a few hours ago. I know it's a little late, but I I hope some of you get the chance to read it. I don't want to rehash everything that's in that public comment, but I just want to emphasize one of the reasons that state ADU law has been successful is that it creates a really clear predictable process for ADUs and

it reduces some of the costs like fees that uh apply that don't apply to smaller ADUs and that's valuable to consider for larger ADUs. is it's something that the city may want to consider for the kinds of housing that it wants to see more broadly because ADU legislation has been more successful than any other kind of state legislation at creating housing. Uh the last thing that I can say in my 45 seconds is though San Jose has seen a small number of ADUs, uh ADU developers have sprung up all over the state and there's a lot of enthusiasm for how ADU condoization can help finance ADUs because the person who builds an ADU can recoup that investment much more quickly if they sell it than if they rent it. And so this is a a really powerful tool to make ADUs financable in a way that is sometimes a barrier to small home own uh property owners or or relatively newer homeowners. So thank you for your time. I'm looking forward to the rest of your discussion.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Scott O. Scott, you may now speak.

Hi. Thank you. I'm speaking for myself tonight. Um I want to strongly support Mr. Kelly's comments and thank him for his leadership on this issue. Um, and also second Jeremy's comments. Um, I want to explore a bit the implications of John's suggestions, especially for aging homeowners. He pointed out that we have a lot of older folks living in the community in single family homes. I I know this from my experience, you know, canvasing um during elections. Um, I I think there's some they think we have a sentinarian um living in my in my precinct. Um, these people might not be willing to downsize into an 800 square foot unit. Um, but they might be willing to downsize into a unit and rent out. They also might not be willing to move away because of Prop 13. A lot of people feel trapped in their homes by these very low property taxes that they that they enjoy. But taken together, condoization and an increase in square footage gives these gives these folks who might feel trapped a lot of flexibility to stay, you know, to to stay in the area uh to earn some additional money that also helps them stay in the area. Um and while while potentially selling their primary home or the condo, you know, whatever. Um just a ton of flexibility as their as they're in their golden years. Um, and it's it's also flexibility and again if they don't want to live in, you know, in a place that's square 800 ft² or less to let their kids and grandkids move into the main house. I know that's a popular option with some folks. And I finally want to make a point that while sometimes people criticize ADUs for not always becoming housing, and that's absolutely true, um, but that's not an argument that applies to condoized ADUs, is it? No one's going to condoize their rumpus room. No one's going to buy it. Uh the marginal ADUs you create with a condoization ordinance

will all be real housing and not, you know, offices and such. So anyway, uh thank you very much for your time and I look forward to hearing the discussion.

Thank you, Mr. O'Neal. Okay, so I think that's it for public comments. So now the uh discussion moves back to the PTC. And before we start in the interest, we have a lot of uh public commenters here or we have a lot of members of the public here who I assume um are commenting for the second item. And so to be respectful of their time, I thought I discussed with staff uh in advance of this meeting about how to kind of keep us on target. And so I wanted to focus our discussion by first focusing on the changes that are in appendix A and B which are essentially required by state law. So, if we could first have our discussion about what I believe is going to be a simpler uh a simpler thing for the commission to arrive at a motion and a vote on and then we can discuss uh the options that are presented in appendix C regarding the 1,200 square f foot uh maximum as well as the condoization. uh and then we can see how our discussion goes because if it starts going really long, we can decide as a commission if we want to continue it to a a different day. Does that sound good to everybody? I'm seeing nods. Okay. So, with that, let's start discussing um the draft ordinance as uh as as proposed in attachments A and B. And if anybody has comments or uh discussion, please light it up. We'll start with Commissioner Peterson. Thank you, Chair. So, the ADUs, I want to make a comment that in general, um, I'm not in favor of ADUs overall, and I'll I'll explain why, but I think John Kelly uh made the

argument, which I know we're going to possibly push off the condization uh discussion, but that the the fairness of allowing to separate the lots into smaller pieces and allowing people to continue to enjoy to live in Palo Alto was a was a a piece of the discussion that I had not uh had not realized. I want to thank Mr. Kelly for bringing that up. But as far as ADUs, um I think one of the concerns that I have, which I'm going to be supportive of ADUs, but is the energy analysis. When you have an individual detached structure, you have more exposed walls to it. And then a lot of times the ADUs are of course going to have probably lower quality construction, pre-fabrication, things like that, which usually is lower efficiency construction than maybe the main house. Where alternatively, if you focus on uh multi-use, multi-unit housing, you have shared walls, shared uh uh mechanical systems, and usually you can have a higher quality system in place. It's not going to be a prefab apartment complex, things like that. It's going to be actually purposely built. So, I wanted to just put that on the record that as far as from an engineering and almost like a physics standpoint, AADU is essentially an inefficient solution, but I think Mr. Kelly made the argument for why it's actually the efficient solution if you take a step back and look at it from a social economic standpoint. So, with that, I am supportive of the changes. Okay. Um, Commissioner Aken,

thank you, Chair. Um, thank you for all the painstaking work of making the code consistent with the state law. U, I appreciate the level of detail that went into that. Um, the, uh, proposed area computations look good to me. The appeals process, number of ADU changes, all of that looks good. So I am also in support of uh attachment A. Commissioner G.

Thank you, Chair. I had a kind of it's not going to prevent me from supporting attachment bay, but I just had a question about placing on the agenda for consent calendar within 45 days. How often do items that are u appealed to council actually get pulled off of the consent calendar? Sorry, we need clarification on the question. So your question was how often do items that get put on consent get pulled

that are uh appeals of the of the a director's decision or something like that? Pretty rarely. Um, but I also we don't get very many of them that actually make it to that point. Okay. Otherwise, I'm in support of attachment A. Thank you. I don't see any other lights right now. I'm also in support of attachment A. So, sounds like it's not a hot item. Would somebody like to make a motion? Vice Chair G. I'll move uh attachment A as um staff has provided it here.

Second. Any discussion? Oh no. Any discussion? Okay, then Mr. Divera, can you please call the vote? Yep. Uh Commissioner Aken, yes. Commissioner Peterson, yes. Commissioner James, yes. Commissioner Templeton, yes. Uh, Vice Chair G, yes. Chair Chang, yes. Motion carries 6. All

right, that may be the fastest vote that we have ever done. All right, now on to what I foresee to be a little bit stickier. So, now we're going to discuss the um draft ordinance that is in appendix C or in attachment C. And so, this is covering two areas. the proposal for um increasing the maximum ADU size to,200 square ft as well as the condoization allowing the condoization of ADUs. So if anybody has comments about that, please light it up. We'll start with Commissioner Aken. Uh thank you, Chair. So, I have no objection to uh increasing the maximum ADU size even though it looks likely that there won't be many applications for that. Uh I still see little or no downside. So, I I would like to support that. Um I also have no objection to allowing uh the condomization process, though I would like us to consider adding the requirement that they not be used for short-term rentals. um because even if that's not done by um an individual owner, it may be attractive to a corporate owner to take that approach. Um just an aside, uh responding to Chair Chang's comment, uh an article in PaloAlto online recently noted that 35% of single family home transactions in 2025 in PaloAlto were all cash. So I suggest that the lean holder barrier that may be a consideration in Santa Cruz may not be as much of a consideration here. So we may see more conversions as a result of that.

Thank you. Mr. Sauls had something that he wanted to say to thank you for your your comment. Uh to the question of whether or not ADUs can be rented for less than 30 days. State law is actually very clear that they cannot. They must be rented for 30 days or longer. in the state law from what I've seen doesn't change that aspect of it. If they're being used as if for whatever reason someone goes to that condoization process it I haven't seen it reflected as that nullifies the requirement if it is being rented to uh be able to be less than that. Okay. Perhaps I was confused. Let me see if I could find the reference. Um,

pack of page 15. Want to make sure I get the one that uh had concerned me. Um, unfortunately my notes I didn't know the packet page. Uh so just as long as um we are satisfied that that's not an issue then or if any other commissioners would like to follow up perhaps that's a better approach.

Chair Chang was noting it's on a packet page 15 and it was actually a reference that we included in the report as a bullet point item two. It speaks to I'll uh just restate it word for word require the units to only be used for residential purposes i.e. no short-term rental, commercial purpose, daycare. We should not have referred to that as a an option, short-term rental in the staff report. It was unfortunately sort of tied more so as I was writing, I was thinking more about this daycare component. Uh so I shouldn't have referred to that as an option. Good. Thank you for that clarification and uh I'm happy with that approach.

All right. Uh, Commissioner Templeton and then Commissioner G. Vice Chair G,

I appreciate you uh, clar clarifying that for uh, Commissioner Aken. I was also going to say that's should not be possible anyway, but um, good that we have that thoroughly discussed and documented because it always comes up. Um I also feel like um 1,200 square f feet sounds good to me. Um very moved by the public comments in general, but one in particular relevant to this part of the discussion is my first home here in Palo Alto in Ventura was 1192 ft. That was our whole home. Of course, we had the whole lot, but we also had a garage that if it hasn't yet been should be converted to an ADU. um and other uses of that property. So um you know that certainly would be a substantial size home for a starter family and that's what we need to add to PaloAlto. We're finding fewer and fewer um people in that situation uh financially are able to to enter into PaloAlto. So I think it would be good. Thank you

Vice Chair G.

Thank you chair. I'll join my fellow commissioners by saying that I'm also supportive of the increase to,200 square feet. I had a question about the ordinance as written in regards to bullet 2 on page 15 about the commercial uses i.e. daycare or something else. The one of the public comments said one of the reasons why condomization might be interesting is that people won't sell a rumpus room or whatever they said equivalently in the public comment. But hypothetically, is there in the language as is right now, could I sell it and then someone use it as like an office or something? Is that possible? I think to one end, if it's a home occupation, we have a very clear explanation of what that means in our code currently. So, that wouldn't change if they're using it as their personal sort of office space. They have a little area. The code defines sort of an area of how much that can occupy. Um, in theory, yes, that could happen, but it's limited again to the very instance of I own this ADU over here. I want to use it because I have my own little private uh, you know, firm that I'm running sort of through my house, through my ADU house. Now, um, that um, could capture, I guess, that example. Well, the point of raising bullet point 2 was to sort of highlight uh other semicommercial uses that this theoretically could be used for and if there's an interest in pursuing this as an option for homeowners. Uh it could be something that we include in the draft ordinance as well. A requirement that wherever this is created or made, it can't be used for some semi-residential, semi-commercial purpose, which a daycare often times tends to be. often times people are living there and using the home as a daycare and that can create tension with neighbors at times when there's this activity happening that's

not usually anticipated. So as a followup, hypothetically, let's suppose I decide to open, I don't know, an optometrist or something. Is that something that as written could if that was not I don't live there, but I operate an optometrist in this ADU, is that possible right now? If I bought this condo land, condo ADU, we we can look up the exact language in the code, but in general, um, a home occupation is supposed to be something that's similar activity level to somebody living in there. So having customers coming and going is generally not something that uh is incorporated into that type of use. Okay. So no,

thank you. Um and I think in general there's been a lot of changes with ADU law that we've seen from the state level. And right now I'm not totally certain how I feel about the condomization for the EDUs. mostly because I kind of want to wait and see about how all the laws that we've already passed or will have an impact because it does take a little bit of time before we see the impacts of what's already been passed. So, I'm not totally sure how I feel about the condomization as is and I'm more interested in a wait and see approach right now. Thank you.

Okay, since I don't see another lights, I will give my comments now. I too am supportive of the increase to,200 square feet for the minimum size. Um, as Mr. Sauls noted in his staff report, it's not likely to affect a lot of parcels, but aside from that, it doesn't change the F rules for the parcels. So in my mind, whether somebody decides to make their ADU larger or to make the primary house larger, it shouldn't make a difference to anybody else. So anything that you know to to allow a slightly larger ADU would then just increase flexibility for the property owner. And I think that makes a lot of sense in addition to providing uh starter potential starter homes for for folks. Regarding the condoization piece, I like the idea because to me, if you are already allowed to have these ADUs, it doesn't the ownership structure, the underlying ownership structure shouldn't make that much of a difference. However, my one concern would be that we then incentivize a lot of developer activity. I love the idea of allowing a homeowner flexibility with what to do with their assets. In other words, if they want to pull some money out of the property, this is a way to do it. I've heard numerous people say that they want to build an ADU, but they can't do that because they don't have that cash on hand. But knowing that they could sell it would allow them to do so. But I also worry then that it would make it very attractive for some of the properties in PaloAlto to be then bought up by developers and the last thing we need is

to have individual homeowners having to compete with developers to buy their houses. So, I continued thinking about this and um I do really like the second bullet that is suggested by staff on packet page 15 just to ensure that the units if we do allow the condoization um are really only used for residential purposes. I I think that we should if we do allow condomization, I am opposed to the third bullet point which is to require a hearing process for decision- making. In other words, to require a an owner to go through a hearing in order to decide if that particular parcel should be allowed to be conduitized. I don't think we need to add more administrative burden to something. Um, and then finally, the first bullet point I thought was particularly interesting that if we allow condoization to require units to be deed restricted to be affordable to a designated area median income. And I thought to myself, well, we are continually in PaloAlto really struggling to find a way to create affordable housing. And so I thought, wow, like this potentially makes a huge gives a huge incentive for people who own their house free and clear to be able to get some of the money back out of the property. Like if they're retirees living there, you know, they can build an ADU, maybe move into the ADU, sell their larger house, or vice versa, just sell the ADU. But how great would it be if we could in essentially changing our legislation to allow whoever the current property owner is to benefit quite a bit because you've increased the value of this property by allowing the sale. If we could also increase the public good a little bit.

So, you know, if we kept it at say 80% of area median income, that would really generate some very, very much, much needed affordable housing for people who want to live in our community. And so I thought that might be an interesting way to allow the condoization but then maybe be a little bit of a disincentive for like the outright um I just didn't want to create this environment where all of our properties then become bought up by by investors instead of homeowners. So that's my perspective on on that. Are there other uh we've got comments from Commissioner James and then Commissioner Tumbleton. Sorry, I think my uh button is is not working particularly well, but um uh I agree that the uh the larger um uh ADU uh size is uh seems to have benefits and and no drawbacks that I can see. Excuse me. I also um uh I I share feelings with some of the my fellow commissioners that um I don't know whether I feel like an urgency for this. I there were some good public comments that that made it seem potentially beneficial to the to the community. I do agree um that if we move forward with that that we should uh bullet two uh require the units only be used for residential purposes. Um, I do, as I suggested earlier, um, I have some concerns about this in terms of, um, are we creating a situation where like first-time uh, home buyers now are sort of competing with developers for a property, um, and and probably not able to compete uh, particularly well. um uh Chair Chang's uh uh point about if you uh compel some of those to be deed

restricted AMI, you might offset that. It seems to me um you know, we're we're kind of trying to predict what the what the um result of this would be. But if if it was a bit of a gold rush, uh let's say, um that that might the AMI uh deed restriction might kind of alleviate that a little bit. Like the first term home buyer that sort of loses to developer might be able to sort of then afford the the ADU, if that makes sense. Commissioner Templ,

thanks. Um I want to weigh in on this. Uh I'm glad you brought it up. It's certainly going to be part of the discussion longer term anyway, but um you know putting my property honer homer owner hat on um I I feel very strongly I would not want to tie the hands of the homeowners and take money out of their hands especially if we are talking about older folks who have built their put you know invested their whole um uh life in this property which is probably their primary asset if we think about that if we're targeting that group of people um to to then say you can only sell it to people who can't afford to pay you the most for your money is really um going to be unsettling for them. I I have heard this from from people. So if we're if we're talking about the gold rush, the the gold rush is what happens when they pass away and sell this property and somebody comes in and buys it up for cash and does whatever they want with it, right? That's that's not what we're discussing. and we're discussing while they stay on the property, can they have some kind of financial advantage from a portion of it that will help them stay in place and and and live there for the remainder of their lives. So, I just want to throw that out there um as as part of this discussion because as enticing it as as it is because we do need more affordable housing, I want that to be the corporate built housing and not the the mom and pop built, you know, ADUs and places for their grandkids to maybe start um developing their own portfolio of real estate ownership. So, that's my two cents. Thank you. Do

we have other comments? I'll just respond to Commissioner Templeton because it was in reaction to my idea. I don't think I have enough information on this, right? Because we've actually seen on this commission in the 5 years that I've been and I believe on the almost eight years that you've been on the commission very few um projects that are deed restricted but for ownership rather than rental. And so I don't and we've asked repeatedly like how does this work? How do you determine what is 80% of AMI? what the price is for something that's 80% AMI. And so, you know, as often happens on this commission, I'm not sure I have the information that I would need right now to understand if I would, you know, what the right area median income would be. But I would also say that given property values here, I mean, I hear you loud and clear that you want to make sure that we um you know that the current property owner benefits from it, but at the same time, I think that the benefit could still be quite substantial given that we are considering allowing um allowing the ADUs to be sold separately. But I hear you. So, yeah. Uh, thank you for for that response. I would suggest that if that's something the homeowner wants to do, it doesn't need to be written into the code, right? If if that is how they wish to do and they think it will be in their best interest, they can do it. What we're talking about here is what do we codify? Um so one of the so I think that we actually on the commission had agreement on um the 1,200 square ft I believe. Um so I would suggest again just to try and be expedient and document things quickly and in a readable fashion for for the future. Um if somebody would like to

make a motion regarding that then we can vote on that and then we can discuss the conduitization point. Uh, so moved. I I'm I guess we're talking about staff recommendation for square footage and attachment C. Um, so Commissioner Peterson had light had gone on. So I don't know if he wanted to speak. Feel free. He's fine. Okay. So do we have a second? Second. And is there any discussion? Go ahead.

Um I I will just make one small comment which is that the only small con I could potential see is that ADUs are allowed to be built with a 4ft setback and so that if you decide to allocate more of your house to the ADU, you could potentially get more of impacts against your neighbors relatively, but I think it's pretty minimal. Um and so I'm still in support of this. That's my only comment. Thank you. The motion was only about square footage. So not everything. No. So I was saying that if we were to extend to 12,200 square f feet, right, if you were like the,200 f feet would be allowed to be built with the ADU setback. Should we discuss that then? Are we premature for the motion?

No. No. I No, I'm still supporting it. I I just wanted to make that small comment. We're discussing the motion now. So, okay, if anybody would like to opine further on that on the motion on the table, which is to increase the maximum ADU size from 1,000 to,200, please light it up. I I guess I'm just trying to can staff clarify does 1,200 mean 4 foot setback. That's correct. It wouldn't change the setbacks for the structures that are already allowed currently. It would be, you know, potentially a 1,200 foot structure at a 4 foot side and rear setback.

Um, I'm sorry. I didn't understand what you said. Yeah. So, currently you could build a 1,000 foot ADU at a 4ft side and rear setback. Oh, so this doesn't change that. No, it doesn't change the setbacks at all in any manner. It just changes how large that structure could be. I misunderstood the vice chair. Okay. Well, that's fine. Commissioner Aken,

I think my uh question has been answered, but uh yeah, it would seem to me that the likelihood of having a 4-foot setback depend depended on the nature of the ADU, whether it was a conversion, for example. So, we can't just say categorically that it will be a 4ft setback, just that it may. Is that correct? We can't require it to be further than a 4ft setback if they want it to be at that point unless there's a utility easement. That's about the only reason. All right. I think that answers my question. Thank you. Further discussion? There is none. So, Mr. Traver, could you please take the vote? Uh, Commissioner Aken,

yes. Commissioner Templeton, yes. Commissioner Peterson, yes. Commissioner James, yes. Vice Chair G. Yes. Chair Chang. Yes. Motion carry 6.

Okay. Thank you all for bearing with this process. Um so now we should discuss the condoization. Um and Mr. Sols, did you want to provide some context for you know why this is before us? Just like I mentioned earlier last year, council had asked staff to consider studying this topic and including it within a future update to the city's ordinance. Um, so as a part of that effort, staff was re, you know, what you see in the staff report is sort of our research on, you know, what seems to be some of the uh maybe some of the challenges that you might see or that we might potentially see when it comes to, you know, these projects coming forward. And did you get a sense? So when you reviewed the minutes in preparation for this meeting, was it was council saying consider this because we want to do it or just consider it?

The latter just consider it and study it.

So I wanted to ask for that clarification because it opens up what we as a commission can decide to do. We could decide to punt on it. We could decide, you know, we could So it's wide open. We are being asked by council to cons literally just consider this the pros and the cons. And so that means we need to come up with whatever we think is best. So if you have additional comments, you know, I think eventually we're headed for a we're trying to aim for a motion regarding this idea of condoization. Yes. Go ahead, Commissioner Templeton. Uh yes, I I think for the PaloAlto community, we don't have enough information on that part yet because there's a very small sample size right now. You you said there's only two in the city of over a million. Um that doesn't give us a lot of information to base our recommendations on. Um, that said, I I hear from the community the appetite for us to to discuss it and consider it, but I'm I'm just not sure about the timing. I'd like to hear from the other commissioners about that. I I will say, you know, the the public comment was was moving. We do want to be able to um include more um lower income families, and this is a way to do it. So, I'm I'm sympathetic to that. I just want to make sure that we do it in a way that the community can get behind because I think that's really important.

Commissioner Peterson. Okay. So, I have a quick question for staff first, then I'll make my point. What's remind me what's the maximum number of ADUs you can put on a lot in or ADU condos? In the draft ordinance, it would be three ADU condos. Okay. And that includes the main structure. That's right. So it's this,

right? And in total, the total number of units that now can be built on a single family home is five. The primary home, three ADUs, and one junior ADU. The primary home and the junior ADU will always be linked together. If someone builds three ADUs and goes through this process, there are three ADUs that can be sold separate from that primary home.

Okay? And then so what I'd like to just understand is um I think a good example is uh Ventren the owner was here a few weeks back where they had assembled lots together to build one large project. So now we're introducing a new proposal which is say rather than building one large project they could assemble lots and create individual lots each one of them with five units on it. Correct.

I'm not sure that that's necessarily the case. What we're expecting would be an application is someone has a single family home today. They're not merging multiple lot properties together to then be able to do this condominium opportunity. It's that they have a single family home now. They can build one or up to three ADUs and then sold the sell those separately on that same again. It would be on the same parcel, but they'd be condo parcels. put it more actionable. There's a commercial lot somewhere in PaloAlto that currently has a condo type uh proposal. So, say if that commercial lot was divided into residential lots and they made the case to do that, each of those residential lots could have five units on it.

That is correct. If they were made into single family homes, right? Okay. which just I just suddenly you know saw that this is a an entirely different approach to development than uh it's almost the reverse of what we saw Ventrren do which was assembled say a dozen lots into one large lot and one large project but we also have the example of one large lot now being split into individual lots with Jedus which I think we had an example of on the uh in the horseand I think they called So what is the position of staff on that? Is that that's expected behavior?

Given the lack of information from other jurisdictions when talking about it, we're not certain that this is going to produce a a significant volume of applications. uh the context of Palo Alto being a city of 60 to 70,000 and San Jose being a city of closer to a million the in the inference there is that you know if they were seeing dozens hundreds of these applications we might see a similar volume but to a scale that's appropriate for Palo Alto because that data hasn't yet shown itself for the people who have the jurisdictions who have adopted it we're unable to really determine if that's really going to turn into anything for Palo Alto If we are more or less a city that has people owning their properties compared to San Jose, we don't have that information to be able to make that determination that that then just means that people are actually just going to do this instead. One last question which is let's take are you familiar with the out by Foothill Expressway we had the the horse property type place was divided up into a lot of ADUs.

I think this was a was it you speaking about the previous talking about old trace road. Is that right? Is that what it was called? So, um I am familiar with it. So, how was this separate from that? Cuz that was also a lot divided up into a large number of ADUs.

So, that was a lot split. So, it's a subdivision, not condos. And it wasn't a bunch of ADUs. Actually, you haven't seen the houses themselves. It was proposed as individual single family homes. Each one, almost every one of them also had an ADU. So each of the new parcels was proposed with a primary home and most of them also included in ADU. This is allowing by state law already allows somebody who has an existing single family home to build up to three or four if you're including junior ADUs uh in addition to the primary home. The question now before the PTC is whether those ADUs could be sold se allowed to be sold separately as a condo maintaining the existing parcel.

All right. Thank you. I have a much better understanding now. Appreciate it. Uh so we've got Vice Chair G and then Commissioner Templeton.

I'll be quick. I think that I agree at this time with Commissioner Templeton about the lack of data. I'm unconvinced at this time that this is something that we are urgently needed to go towards and I'm a little bit concerned about what Commissioner Jame has James James had mentioned in terms of potentially being a target for developers. I have a bunch of friends who are trying to buy uh place out in Pacifica and they're continuously being outbid by developers and that's a pretty big worry for me. So I think at this time I'm not interested in um sending this forward. Thank you, Commissioner Tomton.

Thanks. I just had some follow-ups to uh Commissioner Peterson. Um what makes this not a subdivision? You said this that was a subdivision. This is not. What makes these not a subdivision? So it that one was a the parcel divisions, right? It's different parcels of land. Whereas what we're talking about here is the condo map. So, and it's not parcels of land. Are we stacking these ADUs or are they sharing a building? What do you mean by that? So, um, another example is if you had town home development, we've seen that recently.

We can put free town homes on our property.

I'm I'm not speaking about single family property. I'm saying that is an example in many cases where those are air parcels. It's not a line on the map saying I own the earth beneath my structure. I just own the the building. And so it is a condo rather than the land. And so that's the distinction between the subdivision that was considered for Old Trace Road where it is dividing up the land versus a condo. I I don't know if um our at city attorney would like to add additional clarification that might help with this.

Um I think that's right. You know, they technically are both subdivisions. Um but one is a subdivision uh where you you technically still have just one lot and then you have air parcels that are created uh uh as condos. And as uh the assistant director said, when you have condos, you are just, you know, kind of marking out a part of a three-dimensional space um that is owned as opposed to when you own the land, you generally own kind of everything down below to the center of the earth and everything up above uh into the sky. So what would people own then if they bought ADU on somebody else's property?

So you're saying there not the earth down to the center but is it any air? Can they go up? So it depends on how that dimensional box is defined. It could be defined to extend, you know, 30, 50, 80 feet up into the air, or it could just be the uh the walls and the roof of the building. What would prevent someone from making their three ADUs stacked in PaloAlto if we went forward with this? Now,

well, the ADU law, right? Um, if you were making your three ADUs, at least one of them would need to be detached. Um, and at least one of them would need to be attached to the primary structure. So, okay. Um, you could have an attached ADU that's just on the second story, right? So, it could be stacked above the primary home, but the ADU law tells you how and where you can put your ADUs.

Yeah, that's really important. And I think it's one of the reasons, and I know there's going to be some people disappointed at this discussion because they're ready to go. But I think for PaloAlto, we really need to understand what we're recommending. Um or else when it gets to council, how will they say yes? So, um I'm I'm just imagining uh all the extreme cases. Um uh I know it's a little bit silly, but it is the kind of, you know, we we shouldn't be underestimating the ingenuity of people here who may want to find a way to make a buck. um and um want to make sure what we're allowing in any ordinances and uh whatnot that we recommend. So, um I it seems to me just from talking it through and I really appreciate Commissioner Peterson's questions because I that's what brought me here is is just um we need to see this play out and if it's not something that we're prepared um through staff to to dig into tonight. We can either continue it um and then we have a date certain and we you can hear the kind of questions we have but also questions from the public or um we could continue it indefinitely uh and see if we can get some information from other jurisdictions. So, I have a question for staff because one of my biggest concerns when I myself was reading the packet, I thought this would be a piece of cake item and that we'd be done for done with it in 10 minutes as we were with the the first part, the first motion. But then I saw this condroisation idea and I I don't I know that it has been properly agendaized, but I'm concerned that the way the agenda title was written for the the title for the item was written that the public is not aware that we were considering this. So if we were to

continue it, we wouldn't be opening up public comp uh public comment again. Is that correct? or is there a way to continue it and also allow public comment?

If there was additional information requested, then we could open the public comment again based on that additional information. Um, the other thought that I would share as you're considering what your motion on this particular component might be is that what I'm hearing at least from a few of the commissioners is there's concern that there isn't enough information right now to move forward with this. And so the recommendation to council could be that that not to move forward with this at this time, but to consider coming back at some point in the future once additional information is available. That that could be the recommendation to council and then council could determine when they wish to have the city bring it pull it up together for more discussion in the future.

Commissioner Peterson.

So I wanted to say I feel like I have enough information and I think uh Mr. Kelly was the speaker who made the the argument that really I think reached out to me of of understanding the the social equity of of people being able to remain in their home uh while also being able to I think uh maybe micro segment their their uh real estate assets while remaining on a piece of that. I think I see the the value of that um because you certainly don't want to be pushing people out of the community who are a part of the community and this allows people to stay. Um, but if we do happen to continue this, and again, I'm I'm happy to to be in support of it now, I would like to hear from staff, and I think the best way to put it is when you have a subdivision that then has condonization. Yeah. The the multiplier of that. So, we have say six individual, you know, IPN lots. Is that right? IPN uh from a single lot. APN. Thank you. You can see I don't own many of those. And uh and then within that you have conization on each lot with five. So you get that multiplier effect. And then say now if I'm a developer I have a choice. I can build one large unit or I can split things up and I can have ADUs which I wouldn't have thought was real until we actually saw it actually happen. Uh and then the next one is I have a choice of turning it into uh regular town homes like the the traditional. So I you know it gives you three different which might be exactly what we want is to give developers that flexibility which I think after the last one I actually looked it up and there are AI optimization softwares that you can now take a lot and it will just give you a range of like your top eight options you can do. So the creativity idea is beyond creativity. It's now almost uh exhaustive of all the possibilities that

we make out of every unit. So whatever we legislate is going to be certainly explored. Thank you, Commissioner James.

Yeah, I'm not sure I need to say this, but I think I I like the direction that this conversation is headed because we I think are acknowledging two things. one is that there's some potential here u to provide a different kind of housing than that's that's badly needed uh and that we also don't yet feel like we have a handle on this and want I mean I would think at least another year of data. So I don't know what procedurally how we get from here to there but I I think um and that's sort of how I'm feeling is that there is potential here. We don't uh it feels like it would be premature um to move it forward with a recommendation, but I I I certainly want to keep it alive and and try and get more data and and come back to it.

Motion specifying staff. Would you like to make a motion? Um I'm happy to make a motion that Please, we can help you, but go ahead. Um, I guess I would make a motion that this um uh uh staff report on on um on uh condosation um would uh come back to us in a year with more data and and and more insights. Do we have a second? I'll second that. Do we have further discussion?

Commissioner Tumble. Um, just just to play devil's advocate, I would love to have it come back sooner. Um, because I do think the world is moving quickly and we will see some projects sooner than that. So, if that's something anyone else is concerned about, speak up and we can ask uh, Commissioner James to modify the motion. If not, then leave it as is. Commissioner James. Well, can I just ask staff at this point in the middle of a motion that do you have a sense about

uh data from San Jose and other municipalities? Um when when you would feel comfortable that there's enough information to kind of make a a better informed decision. Do you I'm just curious what your comfort level is.

How far away is 2050? I'm kidding. you know, obviously, um, it's it's interesting because it's been almost two years since that's been adopted and, you know, you got one a year from San Jose, right? So, I think that's a bit of a challenge. And they have two on they have two others on file that they've process that they are processing and that was as of March this year. So, that's one benchmark, you know, and others have just had interest but not yet seen applications come in. I don't want to bench bench it off of San Jose alone to say, "Oh, we'll see you in two more years or 2050 obviously." Um, it's hard to base it off of that.

Uh, okay. Then we've got Commissioner G and then Commissioner Aken. So, one thing that I have a question for staff about is as I previously stated in my comments, state level ADU law is constantly changing. And I am wondering if, for example, we pass something like this and then state ADU law does something unexpected, we might end up with a lot of really unintended consequences with what we've passed. And that frightens me a little bit. And so and because we look at the state and we say hey based on what the state says we'll add XYZ but if we pass XYZ and then state is not looking at what we've done with this then we may be in a bit of a pickle if state decides to do something funky in relation to what we've already had. Um, so that's one of my concerns and I don't know if waiting well actually my specific question for staff is do we know if there's any ADU law changes that are coming down this legislative session?

Every year there's been changes at the state law state level for ADU since 2017. So it'd surprise me if all of a sudden we had something that wasn't right. Um, but that's kind of been the for the last 6 years I've been doing this, that's sort of been a yearly evaluation around the holidays is realizing, oh, okay, well, now I have some more things I need to take care of. Um, it is possible that there could be some changes that occur at the state level if we adopt this that somehow fudge this up in a way that makes it more complicated. Our ordinance already states that um any changes at the state law that supersede our rules have to apply and that's whether we have that in the in our ordinance anyway frankly that applies um how we could struggle along until we have an adopted ordinance that that demonstrates what that looks like in the future. You know we may come back at a future time in May or you know some other time in later in the year to do the same thing at that point.

Okay. So, for that reason, I don't know if I want to add on what we have for the condomization because I'm a little bit afraid of what the intersection might look like with state. Thank you. Yeah. Wait, we had somebody pop up. I I missed it. Did some Didn't Yeah, James Martin. All right. Uh, Commissioner Aken,

thank you. Yeah, based on what I've heard, I feel uncomfortable with any um designated time limit. So, I liked the u phrasing that assistant director Armor used um that perhaps we should say that we do not recommend this at the moment, but we do recommend that it be revisited at some time in the future when more data is available. So, that's my suggestion. Um I accept that. Yeah. as a and I'll accept a second. Wonderful. Okay. So, we have a motion and a second. Uh, is there further discussion? No. So, Mr. Diver, would you please take the vote? Yep.

Uh, Commissioner Peterson, yes. Uh, Commissioner James, yes. Uh, Commissioner Aken, yes. Commissioner Templeton, no. Uh, Vice Chair G, yes. Uh, Chair Chang. Yes. Motion carries. 51. Would you like to speak to your no vote?

Yes. Um, I I was originally hoping we would just come back in a month or two and be able to talk about this and and make a um more detailed recommendation. I understand our desire is to have more information and that may not be ready at that time. Um but uh not having any kind of um accountability to have to make sure it comes back to us uh is why I voted no. Thank you.

Thank you. Um commissioners, I think because it's only 7:30 because we were so efficient. Good job everyone. I was thinking that we would do the staff presentation for the next item and take public comment and then maybe take our break. Does that sound good to everybody? Okay, great. So, we're going to move on to our second action item of the day. This is another legislative item. So, it's a for us to make a recommendation on an ordinance amending the PaloAlto municipal code section 18.40.140, which is stream corridor protection. Could we have the staff report, please? And before we get started with that,

thank you. Go ahead. Uh before we get started with the staff of report, I just wanted to encourage anybody who is in chambers right now and has a comment card to please get that comment card to Mr. Tivera as soon as possible. Thank you. And raise your hand online. I'd appreciate that, too. Thank you. Go ahead, Miss Chaw.

Yes. Good evening, chair, vice chair, and commissioners. My name is Kelly Cha. I'm here to present the stream corridor protection ordinance update. Um it's agenda item three for tonight. Um as everybody has been reminded, please submit your comment card if you haven't done so and also raise your hand if you're joining us um remotely. And um we have actually um we will have our consultants um Kevin Gardner from Good City Company as well as James Martin our um consultant biologist as well as we have um Michelle Jeremiah from public uh works engineering um they're joining us tonight remotely um to facilitate our discussion later. Next please. Um just as a quick reminder, this ordinance um update effort um is part of the comprehensive plan and has been a city council priority for several years now. Next, please. We started this effort um back in 2024. Um and we've had a continuous uh community engagement including info session and a workshop and um we've been uh we've brought this item to the PTC um twice uh for recommendation hearing and in addition to a study session. So tonight would be our third time um to our attempt to receive a recommendation from planning and transportation commission and if we do receive a comm uh recommendation we will uh schedule a city council hearing sometime in the quarter uh third quarter. Next please. And um to expand our um community engagement effort, we have um conducted uh engage with the community and um engage the community and stakeholders

through workshop and neighborhood meetings as well as um individual meetings upon request. Uh next please. And we recently uh conducted a neighborhood specific meeting with especially um with Esther Clark as well as Palo Alto Hills. Next please. And we received um extensive feedback from the the commission last time in August and also from the public since and so we tried to incorporate those comments as much as possible in the draft ordinance we have presented today. Um that's in attachment A. Um one of the key changes is the streamside setback. Uh for the urbanized area which is the um area in between 101 and west um uh foothill expressway. We have um changed the stream size setback from 30 ft to 25 ft. Um that's going to be measured from top of the bank. Um bay lands and open space and rural area. Uh the stream size setback remains at um 150 ft but we have um added additional condition to allow for the urbanized um area streamside subbeck which is currently 25 ft um for those properties that have ephemeral streams or in close proximity to the um to the ephemeral streams. Uh we have decided this um instead of the the previous uh recommendation of using the lot size because this is a streamside um I mean stream corridor protection ordinance. So u using the location of uh a stream and ephemeral stream was more prevalent in the open space and rural area. So we have decided to use this particular threshold instead of the lot size. Next please. But we did um include multiple alternatives approach approaches to um for the commission to consider. They are uh they are

summarized here as well as in the report. Um I'm going to skip it for now, but we can come back um since we have a lot of people who would like to speak about this item. Next, please. Um although the commission previously directed staff uh to exempt a specific neighborhood from the slope stability protection area requirements um staff retain these requirements in the draft ordinance. Actually this is critical to preserve stream bank integrity and protect properties from erosion and landslides as well and it guarantees maintenance access. So um and additionally maintaining these um standards align with the regional um guidelines as well as ensures um the inter agency coordination. Um next please. So additional um so the existing requirements for slope stability um continues with the draft ordinance. So the exception process for the slip stability also re um is going to be carried over. And for the general exception process for the streamside setback area, we have provided um two different findings for the commission to consider. Um as you can see, we're asking um environmental document um environmental analysis to ensure that um it's not um impacting the riparian vegetation. And if so, um providing mitigation measures and also um to ensure that there's no physical or legal there's no there's no physically or legally feasible alternatives for the proposed project and um to to avoid and minimize the encroachment into the setback area. Next, please. And uh we also have a list of exemptions in the draft ordinance. Um, as you can

see, we have the ones that carried over from the existing ordinance as well as the new ones that have been added since uh last since 2024. And the new one um from the last ordinance is the the valley water flood wall exemption. And also we have um removed the distance or um width of the the trails and public streets um and added a service road there as well. We wanted to just make sure that this is the right approach with the commission and um if there's any modifications you would like to make we would like to know as well. So we have presented it here. Next please. And to address frequently asked questions um we have added this fences slide here. Um just to summarize the urbanized area and bays area fences are allowed within the streamside setback and they're subject to the fences chapter um in the municipal code. Um for the open space and rural area only wildlife friendly fences are allowed within the streamside setback but they can have regular fences that are outside of the streamside setback. So that it we're not just prohibiting all fences altogether within their within the open space and rural area. And um while city doesn't require separate fence permits separately um fences are checked for compliances when they submit for development application and um for those that appro that that received approval from the public works director for um the fences that are located within the slope stability area will pro we'll have the record to for any future um references. Next please. I have mentioned that because um there's some questions about repair and maintenance as well. So we do have uh chapter 1870 that talks about non non-conforming uses and

non-complying facilities and for repair and maintenance we do allow normal normal and routine maintenance and some incidental alterations as long as it's not structural alteration or enlargement I think we do allow repair and maintenance. Next, please. And for replacement and enlargement, um we generally do not allow enlargement or um improvements that increases non-compliance. Um but we do um have some specific uh ways to allow a portion of or the entirety of the those um non-complying facilities depending on the conditions. Next, please. Um tonight staff is asking for the PTC to um recommend to the city council adoption of the draft ordinance. Um but also there are other options to consider which is with the modification or another option is to deny the draft ordinance and ask the city council to retain the existing regulations as well. Next please. This concludes um the staff presentation and um staff and consultants are available for any questions.

Thank you very much Miss Chaw for your hard work in incorporating PTC feedback and incorporating public comment and the public outreach that you've done. Um, so at this juncture I want to make sure that commissioners have a chance to ask questions and please ask questions keeping in mind that you want to ask questions that might be informative for the public. So, I did want to ask one really quick question, which is if I'm interested in ensuring that we minimize impact on the Yester Clark neighborhood, is there one of the alternatives that you have presented, the four alternatives that you've presented in the packet that staff thinks would be kind of most compatible with existing code? Well, the staff recommendation um is using the ephemeral streams. That would be most um our our recommendation just because we have staff visited the neighborhood and we have been informed that most of the streams they have are ephemeral streams. So that if we were to use that particular condition, then it will probably benefit that particular neighborhood as well as potentially PaloAlto Hills. Um it's just that one um disadvantage or something um to consider is that just using the ephemeral um might have unintended conse consequences because there are other parts of the um foothills or hillside that have ephemeral streams as well. Um and they are larger lots like open space zoned um or p public facility zones. Those are like Los Trunkos. Maybe you might have um been informed about certain projects. Those are quite big lots and um it may not need that smaller setback. We are

only um proposing this because um the Esther Clark Park and um Palo Alto Hills have a smaller lots compared to the relative area. I will um add to that that if uh the commission wished to just be very specific and not require the biological report that is currently in the draft ordinance and just wanted to state that this neighborhood can use the reduced setback for the urbanized area. that that could be part of the motion just specifying that that area would uh use the urbanized area and we would put an exception in um we we would find appropriate wording similar to the exception that is for the Edgewood um neighbors um along that along that creek um how exactly we would put it in there. But I think you could just say we wish to have this neighborhood use the reduced setback if that was uh what you were getting at.

Thank you. All right. Uh I saw that Commissioner Templeton had clarifying questions.

Thank you very much. Um uh Assistant Director Armor is reading my mind at this moment. Um so I appreciate those uh suggestions. Um, do we have a definition of urbanized area other than a geography? At this time, we just use those roadways. That is what I was thinking. Um, thank you for confirming. So, um, one thing we heard at a previous meeting was that some areas were considered urban enough to be subject to certain types of zoning and lot designations and whatnot like at the previous meeting. Um, is that another way that we could look at defining urban areas, areas that are subject to some of these other things like the lot splits? And

are you referencing different like zoning designations that allow smaller lot sizes? Well, I I'm trying to get you to tell me what you said at our previous meeting that applied to Esther Clark that required us to consider um significantly denser housing there on that uh property under consideration because it was also kind of urbanike. So, I'm just trying to remember what was the terminology you used and would that be suitable for the purposes of uh including these two neighborhoods into the exclusion without getting very weird about it. the the part of the previous discussion that I'm remembering that may tie into what what you're thinking is that uh when we look at the comprehensive plan and the density of residential that is allowed on um on lowdensity residential rather than in the open space district for example it it's a range and so because that designation extends farther you know I think The intent of the comp plan at the time was that you'd use the lower end of the range for some areas and the higher end of the range for others and it was implemented by zoning. But that the way the state law works because the whole range is in the comprehensive plan, it results in um an allowance for housing developers to use the higher density, but it it's applying because this area has already once been previously developed, right? of these two neighborhoods, Esther Clark Park and PaloAlto Hills or whatever.

If I remember correctly, it had to do with what the comprehensive plan designation was. Uh it may be that uh Attorney Yang may have something more to add to that. Let's put it this way. If Attorney Yang does have something to chime in, he'll have a few minutes to to research it if he doesn't if he needs them. So, it's either now or we can come back to you. Okay. Thank you. All right. Uh, Commissioner Aken.

Thank you, Chair. I have a number of technical questions that I'll postpone until after public comment. Uh, the only one I want to ask about now is, uh, to revisit the question that was raised previously about the properties along San Francisco Creek uh, between Marlo and Southwood. So, that question was prompted by the observation that the banks there aren't all hardened. Um, but there are already structures in the slope stability protection area. Uh, so does that raise the concern that we might need to consider another neighborhoodspecific modification to the ordinance to cover that area. Um, the question is whether this has been um examined. Um so in terms of um the already there are some structures within the slope stability protection area. Um as we have mentioned as staff has mentioned in the presentation the the fences do not require any permits whether it's building or or planning but

they're not just fences they're whole buildings. They're structures.

Yes. And then also there are certain structures that we don't um require permits especially like those um accessory structures um that are smaller than 120 square ft. Um they don't really require any building permits either. So it those are um we're unaware of it. Um but we do um we do get informed once the development application is submitted for that particular uh property and we do check for compliance entirely when those kind of permits are submitted and also we don't do proactive code um violation enforcement but if there is any um complaints received we will probably find out that those um there are structures and we will check whether they are in compliance or in compliance and then move forward. with whatever the remedy um action or violation. Um

so this is essentially applying 18.70 for non-conforming uses non most likely non-complying facilities because the uses are usually single family homes along in San Francisco. Yeah.

All right. Um, I won't pursue this any further at the moment, but um, you should take a look at a good topographic map of the area, there are big structures there in the stability area. So, um, to the extent that we view existing structures along Edgewood as something worthy of special notice, we might have to view these structures as something worthy of special notice as well. Um and then there may be um especially along the creeks there are certain properties that have um easements from other regulatory agencies like Valley Water that those structures might be from them not uh like the private structures. We we were unaware of it but um that might be one of the condition.

Okay. Thank you. That's all I have on that for now. Commissioner Peterson. Uh so a couple quick questions. One is what is a wildlife friendly fence? How do you define that?

We have a definition in our um draft ordinance. Uh let me find the packet page for you. And while she's looking for the exact language, um, just generally, it's a fence that could delineate a property line, but and would generally discourage people from coming through, but it is far enough off the ground and low enough and it has openings in between that wildlife, you know, rabbits, deer could jump under or over um, walk through, not be trapped within that space. so it doesn't get in the way of them traveling through their migratory areas or other wildlife areas. Okay, that was exactly where I was going.

Yeah. And the reason that we do allow for some regular fencing on those properties, that is that for example, if you had a pet dog and you wanted to have a space where they were safe and separate from that wildlife um and contained rather than getting out, there might be some portion of the yard that was enclosed by a regular fence. So, just to help me just visualize it, I don't need the exact words, is basically uh say a deer, take a large animal, uh that does not have antlers, would be able to walk through the fence almost always. An antlers would have to jump over

it. It Yeah, if it was a large uh animal like a deer, they would more likely be jumping over. If you're thinking of a fence that has a couple of horizontal bars going across, but otherwise mostly open, you've got the the fence posts, but it's um not too tall. It looked like you've got the code. I believe it's 40 in. We have at least um 18 in uh from the ground. That's the minimum. So, it can be taller even.

Okay. Or less. And then the next question is um we have follow up with two extra questions here. One is the um the sections of the creek that doesn't have an embankment. Were we were you able to identify where that is or not an embankment but a

bank? Yeah. Bank. So top of bank is very difficult to obtain in general because uh the streams they meander and changes its locations over time. Um so generally we do ask the property owner or applicant to provide that information for us. We do have the um how to identify and where to measure um in our draft ordinance um but we don't have a data of the location of bank.

Okay. So we're still just right now we're thinking through it. We know San Franco Creek there's um there's a large bend in the creek over there. Uh and that one I think was one we identified before that doesn't have a top of bank. It's just it it when it floods it kind of goes a large area. So we we have a definition for a stream with defined bank which is easy and then undefined or un without defined bank. we um in our draft ordinance that we're going to consider 100year water surface as as the measurement or point of the measurement. So that would be something we will ask the applicant to provide.

But right now today we don't necessarily know where that is the 100ear flood plane. We would have to actually look at the map and other um like FEMA map or flood maps to identify them. If we have that available we might want to bring that up later what the the flood map looks like because I didn't see it in the packet. it it wouldn't be showing you um at the detail I think that you're looking for. Um each parcel has a designation as to which flood zone it's in, but I don't think it's getting at the detail in terms of the flood level.

Okay. And then the the last question is uh if I recall last time uh one of our final pieces of the discussion was about a single lot that's on the other side of Highway 101 along the uh the balance that was within the 150 ft uh flood uh set or setback. Is that still I saw on the on the map it's still showing that's recommended to keep that lot within the 150 foot setback. Is that correct? Uh now I'm remembering that discussion. It might have been oversight. Uh we'll definitely include or exclude that parcel.

Okay. And then uh one last clarifying. Thank you. I got a this is my fourth one. Is um is our is our main focus here on setback to provide space for flood for water flow or is it more for animal flow? It it is a multi-pronged right we are balancing multiple priorities. There's um an interest in um the wildlife in in the hills right the wildlife fencing. there is um an interest in having space for the riparian vegetation. Uh and then there is an interest in slope stability and capacity for flooding.

Okay. And so it's it's all four of those things. Um and the fact that the they intersect in that area around these creeks. Uh and then recognizing that as city government, we're looking to try and find a balance between that and appropriate requirements for individual private property. Um, in addition to that, going back to your previous question about a map in terms of, um, the flood zone, uh, we have somebody from public works who's online, and I believe she is working to pull up a map that may be helpful to that, um, either now or during the future conversation.

Okay. Thank you. That gives me the the the ground rules. Uh, Councelor Yang has raised his hand.

Yes. Uh, thank you. Just to get back to Commissioner Templeton's question, I believe it was basically along the lines of um when we were discussing Old Trace, one of the things uh staff uh stated was that this was within an urbanized area um and you know why is that considered urban in that context u but perhaps not in this context. Um so the answer is uh for um state density bonus law and for uh the AB130 SQA exemption uh there is a definition of urbanized area that's uh set forth in this in the state law and it's based on the US census districts uh you know whether this US census bureau considers this area urban or not um and almost all of Palo Alto even the areas that we would consider colloquially to be more rural are considered urban by the US Census District.

Thank you very much. And would you say uh because we're clarifying questions, I'm going to ask it this way. Would you say that using the term urbanized area in this context is ambiguous at best and perhaps we should specify something more clear? Um yeah and you know we are in this this uh ordinance is using those terms urban and rural more colloquially. Uh but since they do have they are terms of art in land use um it might be a good idea to if we could use arthosaurus there. Thank you very much. We'll get back to that after public comment. Thank you.

Thank you Commissioner Templeton. Um all right. I don't see other lights for clarifying questions. So I have one. I would love it if so my recollection is that and I think it was listed in the packet as well or perhaps several public comment letters in it draw poll the last time this item was brought to the PTC the PTC was um sympathetic to the concerns of Edgewood neighbors regarding fencing for security purposes and the PTC voted in a straw poll that we should allow those fences um even if they're in stoop slope stability area because those fences for the most part already exist. And so yet staff has made the recommendation or as as currently drafted, the ordinance continues to disallow fences unless um homeowners go through a process um within the slope stability area. So could you just elaborate a little bit more on staff's rationale for that? So in addition to what the intent of the ordinance update is to um um protect and preserve the riparian habitat, but we also would like to continue protect the the stream um bank integrity and um from erosion and flood as well. So um the slope stability protection area requirement is consistent with the the regional document um from the valley water as well. They do have this requirement. the distance may be a little bit different. Um but and and they might have multiple distances depending on the type of um streams. But they do have this particular requirements because they know that that the streams actually change its locations and it also that particular um area provides um for them to actually provide uh do um maintenance as well

when there's a flood events or something um natural disaster related to water. Um so this is something that we're kind of saving um in order for us to prepare for that that particular event. And also this allows um for the city staff, the public works engineering staff to coordinate with other regional um agencies to ensure that there wouldn't be um a lot of issues um with their regulations as well as our local requirements to find that middle ground um to provide options for the applicants. So it's it's more of a flexibility when we're looking at it because we're not prohibiting altogether. We're not saying that you can't have it, but you can have it as long as you get um you go through the process and as well as um it's just that we are not allowing as close as like on top of the bank. So that was our our intent because there's some safety concerns with the structures that are built close to the creeks and streams. So we wanted to ensure um that we continue that requirements so we prevent those um natural disasters or unintended consequences. So, um, having visited the Edgewood neighborhood essentially has a like every single house has fences and so we're not preventing anything and those would all be grandfathered in presumably. Um, so is I understand that if somebody were to develop, you know, let's say they're remodeling and then they apply for a building permit, that's when we would notice, we the city would notice if somebody had a fence there that had not gone through an exceptions process to be specifically approved. And so I want to understand how burdensome that

exceptions process is like what fees are required in what time frame would people uh you know what what is that? I I was going to invite um Michelle Jeremias if you are available to join us um via Zoom to talk to public works concerns on this issue for slope stability.

Sure. Thank you. Um and I can answer uh needed questions related to FEMA as well um in part. So the slope stability is basically a measure that over time um the creek in particular SS Creek has migrated. It has shifted several feet over the last hundreds of years. So we are looking to provide a stability along the channel banks and it's maybe some of the um walls that was mentioned earlier that are in the creek today. Uh what we're trying to do is allow the conveyance of flow over time. Um, having the slope stability allows us for the flexibility in a later date as the creek migrates and shifts so that we can protect human life and um, uh, housing. So that we are able to at certain point at a later date if a key continues to migrate and the creek erodess that we have the means to not only uh provide some stability at a later date if necessary like another project uh a larger regional project or also to prevent anybody from building something that could potentially be flooded out during a significant storm event. We're we're seeing a lot of these storms in recent years that are meeting the creek's capacity. The creek cannot convey a 100redyear uh storm. It it has a limited capacity and the slope stability allows us to provide means for uh safety um um life and property in the course of as a creek uh changes over time.

Okay. Thank you. Not quite sure that answered my question, but at this point I think it's best to move on to public comment. Uh so Mr. Tivera, could you tell me how many public comments we have? Um yes, through the chair, uh we have uh 14 requests to speak. Uh two of those are groups representing five or more individuals. Okay. So I think we will continue to allow the groups the standard is it 10 minutes 15 minutes I think 10 minutes is what we've used

I think it's 10 minutes yeah so I'm going to continue to allow the groups 10 minutes but I'm going to ask that the individual speakers limit their comments to two minutes so that uh we can do this in a timely fashion and if somebody has already shared the same sentiments before you um feel free to just say you share those sentiments and uh seed your time. Thank you. All right. Um our first speaker is Daniel H representing a group of 10. We have a slide, right? Yep.

Okay. You can switch to the first. Can you all hear me?

Y there we go. Um commissioners, chair, thank you. Uh, this feels like dja vu. Um, my name is Daniel Hansen. I'm here on behalf of the Edgewood Neighborhood Alliance. We support this ordinance in general. We have four requests for changes. I'll cover three. My colleague will cover one. Basically, um, we've demonstrated at Nauseium and over time and to the city council about the unique nature of our neighborhood and the requirement for security uh, for us in terms of safety. Speaking of safety, um the three things we ask for in this in this discussion are new fencing should not require approval. Um the 5- foot fence setback should not apply and ornamental plantings should be allowed within backyards. Um, we're actually kind of frustrated and shocked that we're sitting here because these all went through uh approvals before, including straw polls and u and the staff did not follow the clear direction of the commission. Uh, next slide. Edgewood is a unique area as we've explained. The property lines run to the middle of the creek. So, half the creek is privately owned. Um, on the other side is East PaloAlto, which has no barriers to enter the creek. This is the the problem that we face. So, anybody can just walk into the creek. The creek is dry most of the time of the year. It only has flowing water once one or two months. Um and this has resulted in increased burglary, theft, trespass, other crimes. Um in addition, in the last few years, encampments have arisen. Uh these bring trash, human waste, prop stolen property, fire, noise, and nuisance. The city council earlier this year recognized our concerns and our security issues and granted an exemption for our neighborhood with respect to the lighting ordinance. We ask you to do the

same. Next slide. Access to the creek. These are pictures from the east PaloAlto side. Most of it you can just walk right in. Next slide. Or there's a short wall to jump over. Next slide. Same with this wall. Next slide. What results is people walking in the creek. So this is a trespasser that's private property is on. Next slide. These are images of encampments that we've uh run across. In front of you right here on the in the foreground is the uh top of the concrete uh embankment that uh runs along the back of our yards. Next slide. More pictures of encampments. Next slide. More pictures of encampments. Next slide. This picture was taken a week ago. These encampments are not going away. Next slide. Uh, this is what happens when it rains. All that pollution, garbage, everything comes down from these areas and flows its way right down into the bay. It's terrible. Next slide. Fire is one of the issues that we worry about. These encampments have fires. Uh, obviously the creek is surrounded by a lot of brush and trees. Uh, one lost ember could really cause a disaster. something that we have to pay a lot of vigilance to in the neighborhood. Next slide. Uh some recent uh problems that we've faced. There's a burglary. You may have seen this in the newspaper. This was a uh burglary on um Edgewood Drive on the Creek Side. Someone broke the lock on the back of the fence. Came in, stole tools, not once but twice. Next slide. This was a month ago. This is what a burglary looks like on Edgewood from the back of the creek. break your window. In this case, they stole jewelry. Next slide. There's been violence in the crime or violence in the creek. This was a a golf club attack where one person attacked another and got arrested for attempted

murder. Next slide. Trespass. This is one of the issues that we face. These are these are pictures taken from a security camera at a home along Edgewood. Uh, this individual hopped over the back of the fence, walked through the backyard, jumped over the front fence like he owned the place. I ask you, how many of you have to deal with strangers walking from your backyard through your front yard? I hope I hope you don't. Next slide. This is a heat map of crime in PaloAlto. Um, this concept that crime and nuisance is the same everywhere in Palo Alto just simply isn't true. So, this indicates that the yard we're talking about is rated a D. Um, and if you want to want to learn more about nuisances, talk about our friends and neighbors that have RVs in their front of their yard. Next slide. Out Edgewood itself is disadvantaged because of the current ordinance. It was passed in 2007 um as part of a large package of zoning changes. No notices were given out. There was no community meetings. This thing did two main things. is one, it took away lot area for purposes of calculating the size of buildings, a material change. It also added this 5-ft gap which nobody knows where it came from. Uh this gap which is now turned into a corridor. So if you put up a fence between our house and the uh and the top of the bank, people walk down it. This is a taking this is putting in a public easement on private property. We should be compensated for it. Um, and it's reduced the market value. Yet, we're still required to pay property taxes on the entirety of the property, right? We're also liable for all of it. If somebody slips in that area and hits their head on the bank, guess who's responsible, right? So, if you're going to create a corridor, you have to give us the ability to prevent other people from coming into it. Next slide. This is what

happens when you have a gap between your uh between the bank and your back fence. People fill it. In this case, uh, encampments. Next slide. More encampments, more garbage. Next slide. Fence tres, uh, gap trespassers. These are kids walking in the gap. Here they're uh, taking oranges. Next slide. Another trespasser walking through the gap. This picture was taken two days ago. This is not going away. Next slide. So, what do you do? You put fences up. This is a fence that's literally on the bank. Prevents people from coming in. This is what you do. This fence has been here for decades. This is on top of the bank. You can see what you're seeing here. What looks like concrete, what looks like sandbags are actually concrete. This entire embankment is all concrete. It's been that way for 70 years. This is not a stability issue. There is no movement. It hasn't moved in 70 years along our area at least. Next slide. more concrete banks along San Francisco Creek. Uh this is not a natural pristine environment that deserves some sort of environmental huge uh ordinance on top of it. Just doesn't deserve it. Next slide. So what we're asking uh new fencing should not require director public works approval or a slope stability study. The straw poll already approved this last time. Security is our is the number one issue here is security. It is the city's number one duty to its residents to protect their security. Uh Creek banks are solid been there forever. The 5- foot setback from the bank should also not apply. That was also agreed last time. This gap allows trespass and encampments. It's also a taking of private property. We should not have to have to deal with people walking through that regardless of who they are.

Next slide. staff has commented that uh new fencing could be coordinated with other with other authorities like Valley Water to Flood JPA. That's naive and it's unfair. Valley Water has a private easement. It's contractual. It cannot be enforced by the city. The city has no authority to enforce the Valley Water easement. It's private. And in 2025, Valley Water uh passed an ordinance banning uh encampments based on violent threats against their employees. I was at that meeting. The stories that those uh poor folks told the employees were scary. It was awful. Um they get it. They understand what we're dealing with. Um the JPA's authority is likewise limited by contract. It only has authority to do what are called capital projects. They have to be agreed and they have to be funded. There's one now, the the Reach 2 project, the funding of which is in serious doubt. Has nothing to do with fences. Um, our security issue, it's immediate. It's right now we're talking about a fence. This is not an ADU. This is not a building, you know, this is not a swimming pool. It's a fence. It's security fence. If Valley Water or the JPA or anybody else has an issue with a fence, they can come talk to us. Come deal with it. Whether it's existing or a new fence, the ability to exclude others is the number one property right. Next slide. There's the ask. Follow the city council and make these exceptions like were previously approved. Next slide. Terms of ornamental plantings. This one should be easy. Um within backyards, people should be able to plant what they want. The existing ordinance does not prevent that. Existing ordinance says the only thing you can't do is non-native invasive plant species. Next slide. This is a screenshot of backyards along Edgewood portion of Edgewood. You can see that

the uh backyards are all the same. I mean, this is urban area. People's backyards are the same. They should be treated the same. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hansen. Next speaker, please. Our next speaker is uh Jeff W representing group of five. All right. Um good evening uh Chair Chang and commissioners. I'm Jeff Watt. Um I'm a resident and a property owner in the Esther Clark Park neighborhood. So, I'd like to start first by um thanking the the planning staff um for the hard work on the ordinance. And I especially like to thank Miss Ch Miss Cha. Um she visited our neighborhood multiple times. Uh she listened to all the the resident neighbor concerns and actually saw the on the ground conditions of our our creek, which I think was very important to understanding uh what kind of protection we need. Uh so we really appreciate that effort. Um, please go to the next slide. So, um, before I, um, get into the specifics of our creek, I wanted to step back for a moment and talk about how our creek compares to other creeks in South Powaltto. Um, there's, I think, somewhat misleading information that was in the existing conditions report. I think that was unintentional, but it does leave the impression that all streams west of Foothill, which is where our neighborhood is, are natural streams, large natural streams in a kind of like a wildland area that require large setbacks. And that's really not the case. So, these photographs um I took um a couple of months ago. This was in the middle of or late February. This was after a pretty major rainstorm that we had in the middle of February where we had a total of 4.6 6 ines of rain over a 5-day period. So, I went out one week after that rain ended and I took these pictures. So, this is the the creeks in in South Powaltto. The one on the left is the one in our neighborhood. It's a tributary of the Baron Creek. It

actually does not have a name, so I named it myself. I called it the Esther Clark Park Creek. The one in the middle is the Madero Creek. Um, that one I took um on the bike path, the Bullpark bike path, uh, looking down into the creek. And the one on the right is the Adobe Creek and I took that on the bike path that goes to Los Altos. That's taken from the bridge over the creek right by the Ultima Cemetery. So, um you know, this shows that there's really significant differences between these creek creeks. The one on on the left, which is our creek, I'm showing this right near the intersection of Mesa Avenue and Oakill Avenue. Um this is actually showing a basin that's been created artificially there. This creek is highly modified. 60% of it flows through underground pipes both in Los Altos Hills and in our neighborhood. The source is a storm sewer discharge out of Los Altos Hills which comes out of a pipe in the Esther Clark Park. Um so this this basin here is created artificially to allow the water to go into an underground drainage pipe which goes underneath Mesa Avenue there and through part of the neighborhood and it steps down there. Those are concrete steps that are about 2 ft tall each so that it doesn't create erosion as the stream goes down into the pipe. Um so this you know this creek is is quite modified um not natural. It's dry almost all the time. The lots that we have along this creek are typically around 1 acre but up to about 1.3 acres. So in the middle we have Madero Creek. This is a very significant creek that it's greater than 10 ft deep where I took that picture. It's flowing. There's significant flow um in this area. This is in Baron Park. There's fairly large lots along the creek. Actually, they're bigger lots than in our neighborhood, up to 2 acres. Um and then on the right, the Adobe Creek. Again, this is a very deep creek. It's over 10 ft deep at that point. You can see it's flowing. There's a lot of water. Uh it's natural. And

there's also pretty large lots along this creek in the Miranda neighborhood and the Green Acres neighborhoods. Uh lots up to 6 acres along the creek. So, um, our creek is actually less natural, more modified, uh, much drier than these other creeks that are flowing on the other side of Foothill Expressway. And yet, we're being asked um to have larger setback, larger slope stability area um, in the original ordinance. I know it's been modified now with a new proposal, which we appreciate. Um, so the next slide um, demonstrates the ephemeral nature of our creek. So you heard Miss Chaw speak to this. So the definition of ephemeral which is pretty widely accepted is down on the bottom there. So it's a creek that flows only during and for a short time after rain events. And that short time you it can range from few hours to a few days. It kind of depends on the the um the amount of rain and the duration of the rain. So this is exactly how our creek behaves. So I I took the sequence of photos. This is in December. There was a fairly large rain event back then. It was a total of 3 days. Um the amount of rain that fell in that event was 3.4 in. So before the rain event, that's the image on the left. The creek was completely dry and you can actually see there's leaf litter completely covering the bottom of the creek because there had never been water flowing in there for weeks and weeks. Um during the rain event, it actually fills up in that basin because all of the debris flows down the creek when it starts raining and backs up at the grate that goes into the underground pipe. Um it doesn't stop the flow into the pipe. It just kind of dams it there a little bit. Um the the one that's second to the right, this is one day after the rain have ended. The rain ended. So you can see that that um damned water's all gone away. There's a little trickle of water flowing there. You can't tell. And then the one on the far right is 2 days after the rain ended and it's completely stopped flowing. It's drying out at that point. So this

is the textbook definition of an ephemeral creek. Um next slide. Um this speaks to um the fact that ephemeral creeks need smaller or don't need big setbacks. So they they can uh they deserve smaller setbacks. This uh table here is actually a snapshot taking out taken out of the Santa Clara um valley water protection uh collaborative guidelines. They have a a chapter chapter 3 on the guidelines and standards. And this defines the recommended protection areas for different types of streams. Um, so you can see on the the right here is what's recommended for an ephemeral stream, it's 10 to 15 ft. Uh, for a stream that's natural with little or no hardening, it would be 20 to 25 ft. And then if it's an engineered system, which means it's in a usually in a concrete channel, it would be 15 ft. So feal streams according to the collaborative guidelines need this the, you know, the smallest setback, the least protection. Now, just to be fair, there is a provision in here that says if you have a large lot, you may want to add 5T. And that large lot definition is a lot that exceeds 10,000 square ft. So, you know, you may add 5 ft there for a large lot. So, our neighbors in Santa Clara County, Lostos Hills, Los Altos, Mountain View, they've all adopted these guidelines. This is what they use. And PaloAlto uses this as well. This is on the PaloAlto website. That's where I got this. Um there are no other guidelines for riparian buffer or you know any kind of additional setback besides this. That's the only guideline and standard which is recommended uh by this collaborative. So the current 20ft slope stability area we have which is the only setback we have is actually at the high end of the recommended range when you add the additional 5 ft for the large lot. But, you know, we we do believe in general, I would I think I speak for many neighbors, not all, but we believe that

it would be a reasonable compromise to go to 25 ft um to um increase the protection of the stream. But in doing that, we would really like to see objective language. The way that the ordinance is written now, it's rather vague. It it says we can use the urbanized setback for an ephemeral stream. It doesn't explicitly say that our stream is ephemeral. And then it also says that we may use the urbanized setback. It doesn't say we can use it. So we would like to see objective language that guarantees that for our neighborhood. And I know that staff has included four alternatives. Um the first two are not really objective. So alternative three and four are objective. That that would be fine. Or just designating us as an urbanized area is also fine. I think we've heard the discussion about that earlier. Um, as you know, 4103 Old Trace qualified for a secret exemption under AB130 precisely because it was considered an urban infill in an urbanized area. So, I think that's fair and we can go to the theorus and pick out a different word if we don't like that urbanized word, but I think that that's it would be fair to um define our neighborhood as qualifying as being part of the urbanized area of the city. Um, next slide. Um so just to wrap up um you know the reality is that the creek in the Esther Clark Park neighborhood is ephemeral. It deserves small setbacks. Really it deserves the smallest setback in the in the entire city. Um, so we request um objective language to guarantee the 25- ft setback for the Esther Clark Park neighborhood and as I said preferring alternative three or four which are really the only objective alternatives or just designating Esther Clark Park neighborhood as part of the urbanized area. And then finally I just want to mention that I think we need to be careful about unintended consequences here. I don't think that going to 25 ft is going to create any unintended consequences, but just in general,

applying uh or imposing these large setbacks and applying more regulations on neighborhoods like ours just make it more attractive for developers to come in under something like the density bonus law. And these are really, really prime targets. 1acre lot that you can chop up into 10 pieces. You can put on 16 units. You can exceed 50% of the mullen density, qualify for SEO exemption under AB130, wave all the rules, and you would certainly be able to wave this 25 ft setback rule because there's no safe um health and safety issue there. So, I just want to put that out there as a caution. Um yeah, thank you for your attention. Thank you, Mr. Watt. Next speaker, please.

Our next speaker is Jeff S, followed by Robert C. Good afternoon. Um, my name is Robert Cesy. I reside at 4167 Old Adobe Road. I split a lot up from my parents which is now 4179 and it was originally 940 Old Trace Road. I moved to this area in 1956 when I was 6 years old when it was Santa Clara County and Losas Hills was still semi-ural. We had two horses, a well, and a and a drain drain field. I watched the area change from an orchards and open land into a fully developed urban neighborhood with utilities, roads, sewers, infrastructure, and 1 acre residential parcels. I understand and support reasonable environmental protection, but opposed to expanding the Creek SE back from 25 ft to 150 ft because it ignores the actual history and reality of the creek system. This creek is not a pristine natural waterway. The city itself altered it decades ago when old adobe road was constructed. The co the culvert was lowered substantially which accelerated erosion through Esther Clark Park. My father who worked for the US Geological Survey warned the city at the time that would happen. His concerns were ignored. The city later tried to rep tried rip raff and eventually had to build a check dam to stop the erosion. A sewer was also placed directly down the creek corridor. My neighbor opposite my placed the creek into a culvert. An additional runoff patterns changed drastically after orchards and loss hills were removed and the drainage was reduced into a channel. Much of the flow today is storm drainage and the urban runoff.

In many periods, the creek is dry. The the runoff on my roof goes into Adobe Road into a storm drain that empties into the creek. So, my concern is this. Why why impose a blanket 150 ft restriction now in a longstanding residential properties in the already urbanized area? This could significantly reduce property rights, property value, and prevent homeowners from making reasonable improvements to their home. Please leave the 30-foot restriction rather than 150 broad restrictions designed for undeveloped natural habitat. Please consider the historical content, the infrastructure already placed in this corridor and the impacts on residents being being adopting such a large expansion. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please. Our next speaker is Jeff S.

Go ahead. Uh, first slide.

Oh, could we stop the timer while we're pulling up the slides? Thank you, Chair Chang, members of the commission. Uh, two points. Uh, first point is something left over uh, from my c next slide. Sorry. Uh, from my colleague Daniel Hansen. So, this is in regard to the exception to the streamside setback requirements on packet page 70 H1B. U, the no feasible alternative finding. Uh we think that a more straightforward finding asking whether a project does not unreasonably impair the streamside environment would better serve our urban creeks. Uh the problem with the no feasible alternatives findings is that it evaluates design process rather than environmental outcomes. So a project that substantially encroaches into the setback but successfully documents the infeasibility of alternatives gets approved. a project that barely grazes the setback that that faces a plausible redesign option gets denied. So the no feasible alternative finding measures an applicant's ability to document infeasibility more than it measures uh environmental impact. Uh, one more point with respect to the 5- foot uh, fence setback. Some uh, confusion or ambiguity about where that comes from. And it arose in 2006 2007 with the existing ordinance. And there's speculation that it comes from the water district. But a data point that may be of interest is that in 2002 2003, a flood wall was built behind our house. That is the first 1,000 line feet from West Bayshore. And the water district said, "We are going to own this facility and therefore we need to be able to maintain it and you homeowners, the first 15 homes, you guys need to give us a

permanent easement for a maintenance corridor which they required to be 3 ft. So just as a data point, I wanted to bring that up. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please." Our next speaker is Ellen S. followed by Mark N.

Hi, my name is Ellen Chay and I live on um Mockingbird Lane. I'm the PAN representative for Aster Clark Park. Um, I was going to say some other things, but I forgot to uh make sure someone's cards go out again. So, I'm going to say what they were going to say instead. Um, which is about the huge impact on um property value for these people in Esther Clark Park. Um, in fact, the the man that was wanted to speak, his uh family has several lots, but they would be consumed um 75%. and they would have to and you know the props also they were thinking of trying to divide up thing that it makes it basically so they uh they can't see a way to be able to sell them and um figure out you know what they're going to do. Uh they had an a realtor was going to come and also talk about the um property value loss which um I went through and added up approximately for all the people affected how much their percentage and an approximate value of all that real estate um assuming you can't sell it easily um which you wouldn't be able to. and we came up with well over $und00 million of value, which is a pretty significant uh taking. So, it'd be lovely if that doesn't happen. And um I think otherwise you're there would be uh consequences in the future of people trying to uh take some sort of legal recourse about that. My house is not affected, but I would I would probably do that if I wasn't able to use my property in a way or maybe find a developer to buy my property instead if if that was easier. If that was easier for me, okay, which I'd rather not do, but anyway. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Our next speaker is Mark N. Good evening. Uh my name is Mark Nadim. I live in the Palo Alto Hills neighborhood. Some call it the uh the forgotten neighborhood. Uh about uh a couple months ago actually I heard about the u planning department working on the ordinance for protecting the streams in Palo Alto. Uh I wasn't aware of uh all the work that has been done the prior two years. Um the ordinance affects properties west of Foothill Expressway which describes the area west of I280 as rural. Um current zoning of Palo Alto Hills is uh RE which is a residential estate. A lot sizes in Palo Alto Hills are about an acre give and take little you know a little bit higher a little bit smaller most of it. uh unbuildable actually. Uh such setback will make it uh almost impossible to rebuild homes when a new buyer wants to tear down an existing one. The these homes are some of them are 60 years old or 50 years old. So um uh having a you know a setback of uh 150 feet is not going to work. I mean some of the loss has are less than 150 ft as their widest location. So this will negatively impact home sales in in the in this neighborhood. Uh as for the description of rural and if anyone hears uh the word rural they will immediately think a neighborhood which has where the homes have septic tanks narrow streets that are sloped to for so for rainwater to drain to ditches. U Palo Alto Hills

actually as a matter of fact is connected to the city sewer system. We have street curbs and rain drain system that's just like any other uh neighborhood in Palo Alto. We also have street lights like any other neighborhood in Palo Alto. Uh reading the staff report uh it seemed that alternate alternative 4 is the most reasonable option to consider for this ordinance. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker please.

Our next speaker is Cindy O followed by Shaunie K. Thank you. Um my name is Cindio Gorman and I'm u grew up in PaloAlto and I'm a real estate agent in the area. I recently sold three homes in the um PaloAlto Hills and Esther Park Clark neighborhood. Um, I think the 150 ft setback seems unreasonable to accomplish the objectives as they're outlined in 25 ft seems adequate. And I don't understand how it would be reasonable to have a six times the setback in an area just blocks away uh from a neighborhood with 25 ft setbacks. Um, I spoke recently to today to an appraiser who less than a year ago did an appraisal on one of the properties affected um by this draft ordinance and um he appraised it at $5 million. it'll be affected by 75% um the building envelope and he said easily it would drop the value to 3 million or less and it would also greatly limit um on all these properties what people could do with ADUs which is a state given opportunity you know in 2020 that as um Commissioner Templeton was talking about is very highly valued and your whole conversation is right you'd be taking those opportunities away from homeowners in uh these neighborhoods. Also, I have seen the importance of the value of these properties to homeowners. Some people have lived here 30, 40, 50 years. It's their most prized um asset and it's what they can leave to their children or it's what they use to for their retirement and to pay for their aging health care. Um and you're basically taking that from them. It's I don't understand how it can even be considered. Um, also I see young

people who stretch to buy properties in order to live in very 60-year-old homes, as the other gentleman said, just to secure the land because they know in three, four, five, seven years they'll be able to build a nice home on that property. And you're taking that opportunity opportunity away from them, too. And they'll pay the full property taxes. They don't really have a means of even reducing their property taxes. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker. Our next speaker is Shaunie K, followed by Raymond G.

Thank you. My name is Shaunie Klein House. I'm a resident and I am um the environmental advocate for the Santa Clair Valley Bird Alliance and I am not speaking as part of the U Parks and Recreation Commission. I'm a commissioner, but I don't speak for the commission. I did my PhD on ecos bioysics of stream ecosystems. This is close to my heart and I am acutely aware of the impacts of development on what happens downstream and sometimes upstream when you don't develop with nature in mind. Having said that, that's already happened. So I would like to say a few words about the alternative that stuff proposes. alternative one which is um is unacceptable I think to the people here that came to speak about this their um need for smaller setbacks and ne neither is alternative two. Alternative one regarding the ephemeral streams that would be extremely harmful to to exactly the places we want to protect up in the open space. So please don't go with uh one um three is problematic because moving the delineation from uh foothills to 280 uh would expose some parts of Matadero Creek which are pretty natural right now and really are important to potential future changes that are not going to be good for that creek. Alternative four, uh, if you're looking for a compromise that will have the residents who spoke here, that's the most reasonable one if it applied cautiously. I'm not sure how you would trigger that narrower uh um setback and how that would be uh created, but this

would help establish Esther Clark and Palatoto Hills as a place that can use uh shorter or smaller setbacks. So if you are going to go that way, I think four is probably the most appropriate. Thank you. Next speaker. Our next speaker is Raymond G.

Uh, good afternoon commissioners. My name is Raymond Gones and I'm a resident in Palo Alto. Um, I just ask the commission take in the nature of nature and preserve nature at its finest course. Um, protecting money in the interest of homeowners. I understand what their interest is. I understand your concerns with neighboring Palatoto. But um, reaching out to the community by Edgewood and seeing how you can help your neighbor, I think is a key principle. If you're religious in the Bible, then love thy neighbor and we shouldn't discriminate against our neighbor because our neighbor happens to be east Palato. So they did adopt our name this east of us. Um I think nature preserving nature preserving the creeks preserving our waterways is first and foremost and should be at the foremost of this commission. I'm saying mines not with the interest of the of property owners. I'm saying it is nature that we built the property on. We're we're nature's I'm saying um renters. We're borrowing from nature. We got to preserve it for much as I can. so our kids kids could enjoy the same nature that we see. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker. Our next speaker is Lawrence F on Zoom. Lawrence, you may now speak.

All right. My name is Lawrence Fong. I'm a resident of uh Esther Clark. uh uh and I just wanted to speak as a a homeowner whose house actually would know actually sits within the 150 ft uh setback. So when we talk about these abstractions um our property is actually the reality in that we would not be able to rebuild a house on our on our property and so this 150 ft setback would have you know significant impacts has been discussed you know I think a couple of points other points that haven't been um touched upon is you know there's been a lot of discussion about how burdensome some of the um um processes may be like in the discussions with regard regards to the ADUs. I think um you know as we go went through the discussion for this there was a description about an exception process including getting a biologist to review um a stream. If you're um looking to make something incredibly burdensome, you'd really want to formulate um these types of um processes because they are extremely arbitrary. And so um you know first of all I think um you know we all are are understanding how this is an urbanized area but I think the other component is really not to make it so burdensome that um uh it's it's impossible for us to actually um uh use our properties and I'll stop there. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next speaker please. Our next speaker is Vyro M. Vyro you may now speak. Bro, are you there? You may now speak. Yes, we can hear you.

Hi, good evening. Veryl Metha. I'm a partner at Manat Phelps and Phillips. I represent Tom and Kristen Fountain who are Palo Alto residents and home owners residing in Crescent Park along Edgewood Drive. Uh we're we're happy to see that the uh exemption uh is for single family residents on Edgewood is still in the ordinance. We object however to any slope stability protection area requirement for new fencing. As noted in the agenda packet, the PTC supported residents requests for the Edgewood neighborhood to be exempted from the entire stream corridor protection ordinance regulations including the stoopes slopes ability protection area requirements. Now, uh the PTC's prior support uh and recommendation has been ignored. This should be a non-starter for the reasons that Mr. Hansen and others uh outlined earlier. Uh this should this is also a health, safety, and security risk uh for the residents as previously outlined. But I also want to emphasize that you know the exemptions that were just discussed only apply to fences and only seek to avoid a burdensome approval process. Uh we submitted letters uh in support of this. So these comments are written as well, but Commissioner Chang asked the right question uh earlier this evening and I don't think the reasons provided by staff outweigh the serious concerns of my clients and their neighbors. The PTC's prior straw pull should hold here. Again, uh I won't repeat uh some of the prior comments as to the uh 5-ft setback and and ornamental plings, but I agree with the uh comments of Mr. Hansen. And I do want to uh emphasize that, you know, if this gets passed, if this gets passed as it's constructed, it would effectuate a taking and the city can't effectually effectively excise a taking in this way. Uh and especially when homeowners merely seek to protect their

properties or their families through the ask being made here this evening. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker. Our next speaker is Janet L. Janet, you may now speak.

Good evening. This is Janet Lee calling. I live on Edgewood Drive and um mainly want to um express my agreement with my neighbors who've spoken before me and u Mr. Meta as well on behalf of my neighbors. Um, I I'm I must say I'm shocked that we're here again after the straw polls and the commission has already expressed their support of this. And so, um, I think there's a procedural issue there, but the reality is that this is something that affects our homes and our neighborhood very deeply. Um, I often can hear voices from the back of my house of people hanging out on the back of the creek. I can't see them because I do have a fence, which is a very important um protection for, you know, having people coming over the fence and coming into my yard. So um there's a certain sense of security there but uh certainly um having the setback and the slope you know protection there um having an exemption for those of us who live directly along um the creek I think is has been shown to be supported already both by the neighbors and by the commission as well. So, thank you for your good work and hopefully um we'll get this done this time and not be back here again. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please. Our next speaker is Joan W. Joan, you may now speak.

Joan, are you there? I'm going to suggest that we move on to our last speaker and then after um that speaker we can circle back and see if Joan reappears. Our next speaker is Dash Lash. You may now speak.

Hello, my name is Dasha Leeds. I'm the conservation coordinator for the Sierra Club LMA Pria chapter. This ordinance has been reviewed by the planning and transportation commission since 2024 and each time it's been reviewed the requirements have become less and less strong. At this time, in most of the city's urban area, only a 25 ft setback is proposed. For natural streams, a 25 ft setback is narrower than the minimum setback that is mandatory in the city of San Jose for comparison, which is 30 ft from top of bank, even in downtown, and 100 ft elsewhere in the city. Palo Alto staff acknowledges setbacks larger than 25 ft would better protect riparian habitat, stream stability, and flood resilience. And this is how we lose our creeks. This is how we lose our riparian corridors piece by piece over time. So the ordinance before you tonight represents the absolute bare minimum 25 ft for most of the city's urban area, but the ordinance still includes some protections that are meaningful in the hillsides and bays where the larger 150 ft setback is sometimes applied. So we hope you vote to move this ordinance forward to the city council for their consideration with the recommendation to adopt. If you do wish to make any changes to the ordinance tonight, please select alternative 4 and add the re residential estate zoning district as the trigger for a reduced setback. Thanks for your time and consideration.

Thank you. Can we move back to Joan to see if Joan is available? Joan, are you there? Okay. Uh Jones does not seem to be there. So, at this time, I'm going to close public comment. Thank you very much to every member of the public for coming during this, you know, coming and waiting for us to go through the last item. We really value your comments. Um, there's somebody else who's coming up, but I'm not quite sure what's going on here. I don't know if this is Joan is my sister, and I would like to speak on behalf of our family.

Sure, let's go ahead and do that. Good evening. My name is Lewis Wakland. My family has owned three parcels on Manuela Court for more than 50 years and I currently live on the property. Two of our parcels are directly affected by the proposed 150 ft streamside setback ordinance. I am speaking tonight because I do not believe that the very serious financial and emotional impact on affected property owners has been adequately considered. The parcel that my family owns at 4243 Manuela Court is undeveloped and approximately 1 acre in size. Based on my review of the proposed setback maps, roughly 75% or more of that parcel would effectively become unbuildable under the proposed 150 ft setback. When combined with the existing city and county restrictions, very little practical building area would remain. This property was professionally appraised less than a year ago at a fair market value estimate of 5 million. I have since been informed that the value loss, if the setback is imposed, would be several million dollars, perhaps more. And other real estate experts have told me that they believe that the loss value would amount to significantly more than several million dollars. It is worth noting that there are other land owners in the Esther Clark area with undeveloped parcels that would be affected as much or more than mine, including some whose land would be nearly or completely covered by the proposed setback, which would render any development impossible as a result. At the same time, the actual environmental benefit in my particular situation appears extremely limited. The water course adjacent to my property is by any objective standard an ephemeral stream that flows only in direct response to rainfall and does not maintain continuous flow during dry

periods. In addition, approximately 80% of the relevant boundary between the water course and my property line already contains an existing house, swimming pool, fencing, and mature landscaping between the parcel and the water course. Thank you. This concludes your time. I cannot finish. No, we have a twominut limit. But thank you. Okay. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much to everybody. And you know, in the interest of maintaining fairness, that's why we cut it off at the stated time limit. Um, okay. So, at this time, we're closing public comment. And, uh, commissioners, it's 8:54. I think we're going to take a break, a brief break. So let's come back at 9:05. Five.

Okay, welcome back everyone. I think everyone's back. Commissioners, are we ready? Okay, so um again, thank you to the members of p of the public for coming. And at this time, we're going to have commission discussion. So, please uh light it up if you guys have comments. Okay, first Commissioner Templeton, then Commissioner Peterson.

Thank you, Chair. Um, I really appreciate all the people from the public who came out to share their thoughts, especially those who came again. Um, I want to just echo the sentiment that some of these things we have already discussed and agreed upon. If we all still agree upon, perhaps we can move on. Um, As far as the alternatives, um I really wish we could find a coherent strategy that would incorporate all of these developed areas without incorporating areas of exception that are wild still. Um and I am hoping that uh staff may have a suggestion on that now that we've had chance to reflect on uh the kind of grouping. I think geographic grouping is is possibly not helpful um because it can get out of hand and we can we can overmatch um as as we've heard from our community members as well. So, uh, did you guys, uh, to staff have any thoughts on ways to group the developed areas other than zoning? And zoning may not be appropriate because that can change. Like, do we just say the developed areas?

Developed area might be too broad to use that particular term. I agree. That's why I'm looking to you. Do you have a better suggestion? Um, I think I I understand that. Um if we were to use alternative 4, it might leave out a few um properties in the PaloAlto Hills which are zoned um open space, but that might be the most inclusive option um if you're considering that, you know, trying to minimize. Um

thank you for weighing in on that. Um yeah, so I want to emphasize how important it is to remember property um property owners rights to safety and to use and enjoy their properties. Um in addition to protecting the impacted areas of having developed parts of the open space. So for that I want to say well all the stuff we've already talked about I mean in Edgewood is it's just not even worth rehashing right that develop being able to plant tulips in your backyard if you want being able to have fencing and safety if you want. not allowing an a complete gap of uh property that you own between a fence and the the the wall. Um, and you know, the liability thing also was something I hadn't thought about before, but my goodness, if somebody could easily get injured in that creek, and I would hate to be the insurance insured person uh, if that does happen in PaloAlto. So, um, I really hope we can find a way to make sure these things are included in whatever we recommend today that will hopefully be I thought we already recommended it, right? And I was surprised when Miss Chaw said this is going to be the third attempt. So, I don't know what that means. Maybe that's the last thing. I'll get some clarification from you about that. So nothing that we have talked about, voted on, discussed is it seems to be in conflict because we

thought some of these things were part of it. So did the community, but you're saying some of these things are not. So I'll I'll start. Thanks for clarifying.

I might be able to. Absolutely. So um at the previous discussion with the planning and transportation commission, we got really close to moving some portions of it forward and there was a concern um with the the primary discussion of separating the urban areas from the areas in the hillsides. Uh and so in the end it was continued um so that we could come back and respond to the concerns that were discussed as described in the staff report. You know there were a number of things where there was general consensus among the planning commission. Uh the work that staff has done since that last meeting included a number of different things, including extensive meetings with neighbors to hear and better understand their concerns and think through what is another way to provide options to address those concerns, but also keeping a close tie to the primary reason for this effort to begin with, right? the environmental protection and coordination with the technical experts that we have here in the city and other agencies. So I recognize that the planning commission had some consensus on some items. Staff will take your recommendation forward to council in whatever form it is. Uh we just wanted to make sure that it was really clear that you had clarity from the technical staff that you have here to support you in your discussion about the concerns and the recommendation particularly with things like the slope stability where it's maintaining an existing regulation. This isn't something that's new. Uh the only modification to that I believe is the additional 5 foot to 25 ft for the slope stability in those hillside areas. Otherwise, it's the same. Um, I believe so.

And and the nature of the reason we have to redo some of retread some of this territory is because of the way we continued it such that you had to come back with a new report. Correct. Okay. So, chair, if you have any suggestions about how to expedite some of the things we already agreed on, that might be a way to start. Thank you. So, in the interest of time, um I would ask the commissioners when we comment to just quickly say, you know, I I support the straw pole if that is in case if that is actually uh how you feel about it. Um okay, we've got Commissioner Peterson, then Aken.

Thank you, Chair. Uh, I'll start off with yes, I do support the straw poll. Uh, but I would like to reuse some of that material just to refresh my memory. Unfortunately for the audience, uh, each time it comes in front of us, we do have to kind of bring ourselves back up to speed. But the point I want to bring up is, uh, for the Esther uh, is it Esther Clark Park crowd? I think I'm going to be your champion a little bit here. So, I've I've learned the term ephemeral creek. Is that correct? And um so it was one of a couple of the speakers talked about ephemeral creeks and I and I want to commend them for educating me on an ephemeral creek. I didn't know what that's what they were called. In the process, I realized I spent every summer next to an ephemeral creek at my grandmother's and realized that she had built her cabin essentially on top of it and it was never a problem. which made me realize that while I was a huge fan of the 150 ft setback uh the last time we talked about this uh west of Foothill, I am no longer that fan of 150 foot setback when I realized it applies to all the ephemeral creeks. Is that if I could ask staff real quick, we are talking about ephemeral creeks with 150 foot setback.

Yes. Um we don't have any differentiation of types of streams at this point. Got it. So I want to bring some sanity to that that if we're talking about the difference even seasonal creeks there's a difference between an ephemeral creek and a seasonal creek I think is there a technical term between seasonal creek like a seasonal creek might be like a wide creek bed with rocks like uh San Francisco scrutal creek is seasonal correct I think um the the different types we generally see in these kind of guidelines and documents we see um per perennial in and channelized um those are used and as well as ephemeral.

Thank you for giving me the vocabulary. So seasonal creeks I would understand like 150 ft setback but ephemeral creeks with 150t setback. It doesn't make any sense. I think in my mind I can't I can't make sense of that. and the ephemeral creek also. Um I think one of the key points on that is which one of the speakers was was going to bring up which I will bring up for them is that that's a city requirement of 150 ft. It's not a state requirement, which means every lot that's within an ephemeral uh setback could be built as a subdivided and then um if we did the uh um condoized uh version could become a a split lot with condoized uh ADUs on it within our 150 ft setback. pretty much every single one of them would probably automatically go that route, which I don't think is what we're trying to do because at the end of the day, I think it what we what we want is the repairarian corridor is for wildlife. It's not, you know, because we already know the ephemeral creek, we're not talking about flood protection anymore. So now we're talking about a wildlife corridor along the ephemeral creek. But then if our goal, our end result is we're going to put high density housing within all of our repairarian corridors by state mandate. That's not exactly what we're trying to do because now it's not a repairing corridor at all. It's just a highdensity corridor along every ephemeral creek. If I understood things,

if I may provide one clarification, ephemeral creeks still are important for flood control. Um, just to make sure that that is true. In fact, that is one of their primary purposes. When there is a flood event, there's a lot of rain coming in, that's where the water goes. Yes, I understand. They spent every childhood, many every winter playing in the ephemeral creeks. It turns out they were a lot of fun. Um, so, and I did see a lot of the the the photographs showing that they stayed more or less within their banks. It's it's not the type of 100-year flood plane. In fact, maybe the 100-year flood plane would show the ephemeral creek, you know, spread versus, say, the seasonal creek flood plane. And maybe that's where I'll stop there is is when we bring up the flood plane map, I think we'll be more informed on ephemeral versus seasonal creek. Thank you.

Uh, Commissioner Aken and then James.

Thank you, Chair. Uh I want to touch on one technical issue before getting into the bigger issues and that is that the definition of a flood wall that's given on packet page 63 um is so general that it looks to me like even an artificial channel created for flood control um meets that definition. So, uh, I was concerned that we might have applicability in areas that we didn't intend. So, did you develop a map to show which areas are affected by the um exemption for being behind flood walls?

Um, the exemption on the the the language about behind the flood walls. So I think our suggestion to just clarify because um we don't have any distances indicated there. We would um revise it with your um u motion or um direction that uh we'll probably clarify that it should be directly abuing instead of behind um so that there's no questions about which properties actually have exemptions or not. And that's excellent and I would hope my fellow commissioners would be receptive to that clarification. Um, regarding the definition of the flood wall, uh, is there any change you would like to make there as well?

Um, I don't believe from what I understand about the um, flood walls and artificial channels. I think the the definition actually clearly describes what flood walls are supposed to be doing. Um I I can ask somebody else to kind of chime in, but my understanding of artificial channels are they're um kind of replaces and straightens the um waterways whereas flood wall actually creates a barrier so that there's no movement of wildlife from landside to the stream or vice versa. And also flood walls creates um I guess increases the capacity of the streams as well. So that's that I think they have a different sort of function.

Could we um Ms. Jeremiah is so maybe she can assist. I apologize if I butchered your name. No, that's okay. So the the flood walls are intended to basically represent sections of walls that are raised to contain flows within the creek. So that's usually most the the purpose for flood walls. Um I think the other aspect was the channelized and and that is usually inside the creek like Matadair Adobe Creek are channelized concrete channels versus San Francisco Creek being a natural. Thank you. What I'm pushing on here is the idea that perhaps a flood wall has to be defined as being above the top of bank.

Yes. Yes and no. Flood flood walls extend into the creek as well in order for st for stability. They not only are on the top of bank, but they're also protecting the the channels from erosion. Okay? But it could extend above the top of bank. Yeah. The you understand what I'm getting at here is just not to choose a definition that inadvertently covers the entire urbanized area because we're all behind something that is indistinguishable indistinguishable between a flood wall and a channel. So,

so can I just clarify? I think what m what commissioner Aken is asking Miss Jeremias is do flood walls always extend above the top of bank? Uh yes. Okay. So that would be something that we can add to the definition. Thank you.

Did you also just to clarify did you also ask about the drain if that counts as a flood wall or did I misunderstand? I didn't. But um yeah, I was just concerned about making sure that the the protected area was well defined. Uh thank you. That takes care of my concerns. On to more general issues. Yes, I do support the results from the previous straw polls. Um, and to emphasize, uh, that particularly means that it should be possible for the Edgewood neighborhood to build fences within the slope stability protection area and that the 5-ft um, distance. It's certainly inconsistent with what's already there and may well um not be feasible for future uh efforts as well. Um it might be worthwhile to consider creating fence design guidelines for Edgewood. It needn't be a part of this ordinance, but it could provide uh guidance to the residents um for the best possible practice. in that area. Um, regarding the areas west of foothills, I really like the proposal to reduce the setback near the ephemeral streams. So, I was happy to see that in the original text uh because it seems like a good compromise between property rights and the environmental concerns. Uh however, the points about focusing on objective standards are well taken. Um and while I think virtually all of the alternatives can be made to work, uh the

one which I think is probably easiest is alternative 4, the restricting to re zones. I tried very hard to find um plots in the OS zones that would be affected by a 150 foot setback and there may be none. Uh certainly the number is extremely small and over extremely small parts of their lots. So while I think the concern expressed by staff is absolutely legitimate, I think the the actual risk is manageably small. So uh on the whole alternative 4 looks like u to me like the best approach of those uh we've considered tonight. Thank you. That's it.

Commissioner James.

Well, I am in pretty close alignment here. I I you know, as we talked about, I mean, everybody's agreeing with the straw poll, but I I feel like I would Yeah, I I feel like we did delineate those things. I I believe that um those neighbors need to be able to plant what they want in their backyard, inside their fence. Um I find the five foot very problematic. the only problem I'm not sure I understand why the fence can't abut the uh flood wall and then that that solves every problem except the one that a neighbor um mentioned which was that it was to service the flood wall. I mean, that would that would seem to create a potential problem for servicing the flood wall, but I I feel like um I feel like that's a real safety issue and that that that g five foot gap should not be there.

Would you like to ask public works about that?

Um, sure. I yeah I I uh yeah I didn't really find um I didn't really find the initial explanation um very convincing. I'm sorry. You know uh it's it's hard. you know, maybe in the whole of San Francisco San Francisco Keto Creek. Um, it's moving uh, you know, a few feet over hundreds of years, but that's a that's like that creek is concrete with a with a with a a concrete wall on top of it. I mean, maybe it's a cinder block wall on top of it. I I I've I've looked at it pretty closely. It's been a while, but I just um I do I do take the point that the flood wall could could prevent erosion on the back side of the concrete channel. I I follow that. I just think, you know, if we if we are trying to take both the city's position, that perspective, and then the neighbors perspective, if I was that neighbor, I would I would not like a 5-ft uh space behind my fence and the flood wall where people were camping. I would go crazy. Um, so I think that's we have to find a way to make that fix that, you know. I I really do. Um, I think everybody's got to be able to plant their backyard. So, I think I think I'm in alignment with all of those things that we we decided on the straw pole, but I just kind of felt like I didn't want to just call it a straw pole.

Jeremiah, would you like to respond? Oh, sorry.

Uh, no. So, just I was going to say the Sack Creek walls that were built originally, and I think someone said 70 years ago aren't permanent over time. They have fallen. They do need replacement. Um, we've had trees that in both sides of the creek that have fallen and taken apart some of the sack creek walls. They're not necessarily stable. So, I I won't necessarily think that these are sound uh structures. Um, they could at times. Um, we've seen storms, especially some of the higherend storms that damage them. Um, I I do hear the uh request to consider residents comments and staff's comments. Uh but I also remind um everyone that this there is an easement back there um along that property. So even if we were to change the slope stability, there are easements that have um other jurisdictions have um control over and that may be not only Valley Water, Sanonteo County, but also regulatory agencies like the Army Corps U fish and wildlife or the water board. Um any work within the creek or the repairing area would trigger permits and reviews by them. um for uh any restoration that needs to be happen. I think that 5 foot allows that. Uh but does that mean that that a fence couldn't be removed or um some offense a structure that maybe through an encroachment permit? I I don't know the mechanism needed from an agency. Um but there are other agencies that would involved with review of anything in close proximity to the creek or the top of bank for that matter. Okay.

So, what I mean you've defined the problem pretty clearly. Do you have um so what would you be your suggestion for like sort of solving the fact that these people have people camping in the fence behind their their uh in their backyards between that and the flood wall. I mean that's a problem. That's a real problem. And I you know but I would just like to know what your recommendation is for fixing that. Yeah. I don't have one. I mean, I'm here to answer any of the engineering related questions, but and provide some feedback on some of the creeks. Um, but I don't have a solution or I haven't formulated a thought as far as what would be the process for that.

Um, but do you do you see a fundamental problem with sort of abuing the the backyard fence to the flood wall and with the notion that it would have to you you said it was an easement issue and there were many agencies involved In some cases there are easements, in some cases there is no easements. I'm just identifying trying to um provide you with u additional information that may be of use as you make a decision.

Right. Okay. Thank you. Um so anyway, I think my my views are pretty clear on that. Um I've been out to Esther Creek. Um you know, that's the 150 foot uh setback is is unreasonable. Um but I think we've we've already sort of moved on to that beyond that too. Um you know trying to include it at at 20 foot or 25 foot sorry. Um so I think that's that's um the the right direction. Um, and I had some thoughts about the 150 foot um um in the open space areas, the proposed 150 foot in in bay lands and open space areas. Um, and that originally seemed like a very very um it's it's the width of a football field and I thought that was rather a lot for the rip riparian corridor protection. Um, but I looked at uh conservation easements in many places and they fall right in that sort of 100 150 50 foot. Uh, so I think we're kind of on on sort of firm footing there in my view in terms of like what we're recommending for preservation of report repairing corridor in that area.

Okay. Thank you. So for this first round of comments, I don't see any additional lights right now. So I will make my comments. Um, I feel strongly about trying to meet the needs of the Esther Clark and Edgewood neighbors as I did the last time this was here. So, yes, I agree with the straw polls. I also think that I mean if we the these neighbors need the security. So should somebody need access to that area um that they can that can currently be accessed through the 5 ft that is why the neighbors have gates so that the access easements are allowed and I mean it's a little inconsistent for us to require the 5T in some places but allow no five feet in other places. the security concerns are the same. And so I think that we should probably I I think we should eliminate the five- foot gap for the Edgewood neighbors. Um with respect to I think as I was looking at the alternatives that were proposed by staff as a way for us to address the needs of the Esther Clark and Palo Alto Hills neighborhoods. The alternative that I thought made the most sense was also alternative 4. And I was glad to hear that that was corroborated by both the environmental organiz organizations that came to speak as well as the neighbors who came to speak. So I think that is the most reasonable thing to do. I worry about the ephemeral stream definition because then there are going to be arguments about what's ephemeral and what's not ephemeral and the and it will trigger the need to hire somebody to tell us if it is in ephemeral or not. The very first time we saw this

ordinance, we asked about we saw two maps presented by staff that showed creeks in two different locations. And so again, it's just going to be really difficult, you know, so the creeks themselves are defined to be in different locations, whether they're ephemeral or not is adding yet another layer. And it's expensive for homeowners to hire a wildlife biologist. So I think the cleanest way to do this is to use existing areas uh of the code that have already been really well thought out, I think. Um so the definition of residential estate the RE definition is a very distinct definition from the open space definition and in our code also open space development in open space is discretionary. Um, and so it really aligns well, I think, to have one set of rules for the re zone and a different set of rules for the OS zone that doesn't require the introduction of hiring biologists um or consulting conflicting maps. And I think that that is the cleanest way to address that. I also really appreciate the due diligence that Commissioner Aken did to try and find an OS property that would be negatively affected in the same way as the Esther Clark and Palo Alto Hills neighborhoods. And it sounds like he tried really hard to find that and couldn't. So that gives me even greater comfort that we move forward with the alternative for. So, um, my I would be in favor of the staff ordinance with the, uh, adjustment of alternative 4 plus, um, the adjustments that the Edgewood neighbors had, um, outlined that we have already done straw polls on. Uh, now I see an additional light

first round from Commissioner G. And then we have Templeton and Peterson. All right. Thank you, chair. I will save everyone time by saying I agree with the straw poll. And I had a question for staff. There was a public comment about impacts on ADUs, but I know um can we just confirm that they're not impacted because I did see there's an exemption for them on packet page 67 under section D5. That's correct. They're they're exempt the same way. Yep.

Thank you. And I also had a question for staff about the distinction between non-native invasive species and the ornamental landscaping that one of the public commenters provided. Can can staff just comment on that quickly?

Um I think if the the planning commission would like to make a motion or direction to um allow the ornamental landscaping behind the the fences, I think that is um something that the commission can decide. Um I think if um Jim or James Martin is available to elaborate a little bit more about those um landscaping and vegetation um I would like him to chime in.

And before he does, I'll point out that if you look at packet page 68, that is where we've got the details of the landscaping requirements. Um and at this point in the streamside setback requirements, non-riparian or non-native vegetation um shall be allowed as long as such species are non-invasive and they're located on the structure side of an existing or future fence that's away from the stream. So it it does um endeavor to address a lot of the concerns.

Okay. Um, thank you. Uh, and then I have another question about slide four. Yeah. So, um I just want to quickly appreciate what Miss Chaw said about the courtesy mail notices. I think that was really important. I just wanted to make sure to highlight that because I think that there were a lot of neighbors that are getting impacted that by this and we didn't send mailers out the first time. So, I just want to spec specifically appreciate what staff has done um here for that and also specifically appreciate Miss Chs for going out and meeting with the neighbors. I know that the neighbors have mentioned both in Esther Clark Park and at Edgewood that um staff was very receptive and listening. And I also want to appreciate her attachment B which listed out all of the different comments that the PTC did at the last meeting and go go through all of them. So I I just want to take a moment to appreciate all the work that's gone through to um comment about this. And so right now I would I also want to just echo what the chair has said in her comments about what she's supporting. Uh I would also support option four. And I also want to talk a little bit about packet page 67 subse D section D subsection 6 about the projects located on the properties. I believe we did not have a straw poll on this particular item and I think that the inclusion of the pave public trails and service road

was referring to a building in the bailance. Is that correct? Um that was also correct and we received a public comment letter um from one of the property owners in the urbanized area and so that was um kind of addressing that comment as well.

So it's right now as is it would impact more than just the property in the Baylands or it would only impact or did you get a comment letter from that particular property owner? that particular property owner. But we do know that about um that there are easements available and flood wall locations sort of um more than just baylands as well. So it would impact more than just the bay lands area.

So is that for the addition of the paved public trail and service road attachment or the whole section six are you referring to that's being impacted here? So So let me let me be crisp with my question. So in section six in a previous iteration we had projects located on properties separated from the stream by a public or private street or alley period like that was the end of the section and then since the last iteration we have since included or paved public trail or service or so that's that's my understanding is that correct

that's correct the public trail was added last time because we were looking at the bay lens area and then I believe we had a width also um included so we have removed moved after the discussion and the service road was added after the the discussion of the comments and the big area. So I just want my question is is the paved public trail or service road portion that we just added only currently impacting the one property at the bays or is it impacting many properties? It impacts more than one property but but along the bays or also in the urban area? Also in the urban area as well. Can you refer me to some where in the urban area are we looking at here?

I um the Matadora Creek um has some service road along the north side of it's the the the creek. So that was actually the related to the public comment letter we received last time. So we do have um on Metadora Creek and I believe there's some portions along Adobe and Baron as well, but it's it's probably not the entire section. So just to reiterate what you said there is the the paved public trail or service road intention originally came from a comment about the bayands but now also upon further inspection staff has identified that it also refers to other areas in the urban area.

Sorry just to clarify public trail came from the bayands discussion and then the service road came from the public comment of the the homeowner who own uh who's who has a home within the urbanized area. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And so let's say for the specifically for the paved public trail, do we know of any other public paved public trails that are in the urban area?

I am unaware. Um but I can definitely check um and get back to you on it if that's important. But the intent was that we already had um exemption basically um anything that's separated by the public street which are usually paved. So if they were the trails were already paved it probably serves the same function. So that's why we decided to Yeah. And that's what we heard at your previous discussion that if there was a street or well actually we should include service roads as well. And what about a 10-ft wide paved path? um was the indication staff heard at the last one. So we were just trying to be consistent with that.

Thank you. Uh I think for me the distinction I understand the intent here but for me I think that part of the reason why we are doing this ordinance is to protect areas in the Bayland and in the outer areas in the quote unquote rural areas. And so I would modify section six potentially to only the the exemption would only be for urban areas and that uh section six would not like the exemption for section six would not apply for the bayand. kind of said in a plain English, the property the the properties on in the Baylands that are separated by a public trail, I think should still be uh have the 150 ft setback. Um uh yeah. And okay, so those are my comments for now. Thank you.

All right, second round of comments. Commissioner Templeton and then Peterson.

Thank you. Um, I would caution all of us staff and the commissioners to just re uh consistently use our new preferred terminology because we now know that urbanized area is a definition of a a reserve term and um I I would just be careful about that. Um so I think we had talked about open space instead of rural. Um, so the the the thing I wanted to ask about is just to follow up on Commissioner James' questions of of how do we how do we form our recommendation about getting rid of that 5-ft wall or whatever space between the backyard fence and the retaining wall or water wall. What? I can't remember the word. Huh? Flood wall. Thank you.

So, can we just say don't do it?

That could be one option. Um I if I remember correctly, um the straw polls included exempting slope stability requirements and also um had specific one related to the 5-ft buffer or minimum distance from the top of bank for the fences. Um, one clear way would be just exempting the slope stability requirements because that includes the five foot and exception process as well. But also our suggestion if I can suggest because the I think the concerns about the edgewood and the slope stability area is related to fences. It could be that we only exempt the fences only from from the whole

exemption. Yeah. stability regulations. I'm going to the concern is safety. Okay. Right. But the exception that we're hearing requested is to allow fences within the slope stability area and including not having to have that 5 foot set back from top of bank. Okay. And the reason I'm following up on this, thank you for for clarifying the suggestion, is that I thought we heard Miss Jeremiah say no, you can't do that. Yes, our public works staff is still very concerned about that suggestion.

So, and then I heard and I'm not going to tell you how to address this issue. I'm just going to tell you can't do it. And so, what I want is how do we shape this discussion because that's what we're going to do. We're going to make a recommendation tonight and we want the support and cooperation of the agencies that are involved in this conversation. So, what do you suggest? I'll take a a stab at it. I I also am not an expert on um addressing encampments. None of us is. Right. Um

and yet here we are. And so uh it it seems that that is kind of the primary core of the concerns that we've heard from the neighbors. And so if for a slope stability and other you know stream maintenance issues that our public works colleagues have um described that 5 foot is is still critical um as it is in their uh professional opinion. Then it comes to us to talk about what are the other options that the city could do. What about it makes it critical? Is it access? So is there another way to access that space?

I I will invite uh public works staff to to restate what are the particular components. I know that there were mention of a number of things including repair. Yeah, we heard actions. We heard actions, but those actions are not happening in the five foot. So, what is it about the five foot that is critical so that we can help brainstorm? Thank you so much for jumping back on. Yeah, no worries. Um the the easements are within those five foot. So, ask

are you patrolling those easements um right now to make sure they're safe? Okay. And do you intend or imagine any scenario in which that would happen?

Um so the uh during flood events um we need access to the sites and the easements are not city-owned easements. They're not citymained easements. They're Santa Clara Valley Water District easements um on one end. Um those are features. It could be Calrans as well. I don't know. Um for example up on by Alma. Um, so those are easements that other a agencies have jurisdiction on. It's not something that public works engineering monitors and maintains. And easement is not owned by those agencies. They just demand access. Is that correct?

Access and for maintenance of any of their infrastructure improvements that may be in the area. Access in order to perform maintenance. Right. Correct. So if for some way they didn't have the access they have now, but they had access through another means that would still be satisfying the easement. Could we have uh councelor Yang opine on this in terms of the legality of of it?

I'm sorry. I don't I don't entirely understand the question. What we're trying to figure out is where is this no? There's a hypothetical no coming from um the operations team that is on behalf of some other people who have access to easements through this property that is part of this discussion somehow uh because of how the walls the the banks are maintained. So if we wanted to address through the work that's in front of us tonight the safety concern that is part of the bank maintenance. How do we do that? What we'd like to do is be able to say if you want access to your easements, we'll provide another mechanism such as going through the front yard. And that way we don't have to have safety concerns immediately behind our house on a property that we own and can't access.

Right. So, you know, I I can't speak for another agency that holds the easement. Um, but my understanding is that it's it's an easement held by the water district. Um,

and and what I'm I'm trying to split a hair here, but easements, as I understand it, and I'm really looking for your expertise here because I don't have what you have uh in terms of background, but an easement means the person who's the property owner of the home still owns the property, pays the property tax, is responsible for the upkeep of the property, and ensures themselves on that property. But the agency has the right to access that land involved in the easement. Is that your understanding of what it means to have an easement?

It it really depends. Um so the easement can also grant the agency like the right to uh exclude others or to um you know to need to be consulted on anything that happens in that easement's area. So, an easement is basically you're giving up some of your property rights over a portion of your property um but not but not all of your property rights. And how many property rights and which ones depend on kind of the specific nature of the easement?

Well, great news. Um you and we get to um stand by whatever we're recommending tonight. So, what limitations or not limitations do you think we have in our discussion tonight concerning the five-foot gap that was preserved by the city on some properties that is now a health and safety hazard? Um,

can we eliminate it? So, so, so we can eliminate it from our perspective, right? There's there's layers of control and regulation here. So, we can eliminate the 5- foot uh setback. Uh but that won't necessarily mean that this gap will disappear. Um because if another agency holds an easement that gives them the authority to, you know, have some say over what what happens in that area, they could still say no,

right? you. Do they say no to the encampments, though? So, I mean, that's not happening. They're not exerting any control right now. So, I think it's safe for us to give it a try and see what happens. But, I'm asking you because you're the person representing the city's interest here. So, if we're going to cross a line, I need you to tell us. So there's there's nothing about our you know no longer requiring a setback that would kind of violate any other cool agency's you know rights right whatever they rights they want to thank you and Mr. Jeremias, do you have any additional things to chime in before we move on? No. No, thank you.

All right. Thanks. All right. Uh, Commissioner Peterson. Thank you, MG. Thank you, Chair. So, we're going to switch gears back over to the foothills. I'm going to make an argument for alternative two uh rather than alternative four. And so just to remind everybody, alternative four is that we simply use uh residential zoning uh for reduced uh setback. And alternative two uh uses a uh geotechnical or it says and

page 56 for those of us still trying to find it. Perfect. So it says geotechnical and hydraological engineers. Is that geotechnical or hydraological? Cuz my understanding is these are equally qualified.

I think the intention was um probably both um because we would have to look at the lock condition anyways. It's similar to the open space zoned properties. So you want both engineers to sign off? Yes, they would have to actually look at it and evaluate and provide some mitigations if they were to support the building close to uh creeks. And

so the reason why I bring this up, I'm a earthwork engineer, which is quentially a butcher to a geotechnical engineer being a surgeon. Um so I know somewhat about it and I do a lot of the uh structural engineering inspections all across the area. So I'm pretty familiar with the process of an engineer and this is why option two gets my attention because when in my mindset it's always the customer has their own engineer one as the engineer you can explain to the customer uh sometimes you can kind of help them understand the situation whereas if you just have a blanket rule you don't have the opportunity to try to you know fit each each situation to you know get an optimal solution for the customer. Um where option two allows that one to help explain the customer what reality is and that they don't want to do things but also to help the customer um provide the documentation that's necessary to the city to you know do what makes sense for what they are uh trying to achieve which can only be done under option two. I mean, essentially option two, you could have a Frank Lloyd Wright house with a waterfall in your living room if you had an engineer sign off on it in theory. And so that's what gets my attention there that these are all incredibly important lots, right? I mean, I don't important the right words, the they're going to get a lot of attention when they when there's something constructed. I don't think any of these lots are going to have work done without a geotechnical engineer. I don't think there's any chance a geotechnical engineer is not going to be involved in any of these houses. So, they're already have an engineer

for a fence though. No, we're talking about uh the foothill the ephemeral creeks. Sorry. But like what I'm trying to say is it's not always just building a brand new property um built out from scratch. Sometimes it's like a fence. Well, we've covered that I think pretty much okay

with the creek with the fencing. I think it's I think we're done. We're just thinking building because that's what I understand most of the community is talking about is they can't build a structure within the the 150 ft setback and unless in option two they have a a geotechnical engineer sign off which they're already going to have a geotechnical engineer involved. So we the hydraological engineer that's that's did surprise me a little bit because that is a little bit different. Um but we have the flood map. Can we bring up the flood map now and just take a look because it might be it's not even an issue and pretty much every hydraological engineer is simply going to take one look and say I don't see a problem here and I think option two gives much more flexibility to the community with what they do than option four which is the blanket solution and if nothing else we've at least give option two some some time and I think staff for putting the time and putting option two together.

So, so I think he's asking to see the flood map, but I would just like to remind uh Commissioner Peterson that we did hear from the members of the community and they did not see that option as additional flexibility. And uh Oh, yes. Uh um I was going to say I think we have a couple maps available. We have one for the Esther Park neighborhood and we have one for the San Francisco Creek. So, not sure which of those maps you want to see. Uh, let's take a look at both of them, but the Esther Park one for sure and San Francisco Creek. We'll throw it up and just quickly glance

and I'll have to find one of the other ones for Foothills if we want somewhere else. Um, and somebody put up a map for

Santo Creek, please. And bear with me. I'll hope to define and give you a little bit of background because this is a lot of it's a big map and has a lot of information here. But for the benefit of others, um what you see before you on the bottom of the screen is basically the image below reflects San Mosquito Creek. the uh area hatched in blue or teal color that reflects where water over tops the banks during a 100year storm event. So San Mosquito Creek does not have the capacity to contain flows during a over 70-year event or in this case 100year. FEMA only creates maps for 100 years. So I think in some of the conversation we had earlier as far as Top of Bank, we pulled this map to show that actual flood plane, the area subject to flooding extends in the urbanized area part of of um PaloAlto. Um and we do have on this basically uh a a licensed engineer would be required to locate where this elevation is in any of these properties. and focusing primarily in the San Francisco Creek section and top of banks. We would use this sort of as a start as a base to determine what the elevation is subject to flooding. Um, so this helps a little bit. Any questions on this?

I don't have any questions. It's a fascinating map. And the other map, if you can bring up the one for Esther Park as well, I'm just going to give you a difference of a what FEMA creates these maps. These maps are currently in use. was built in 2009. Um, we have not had any replace maps since, but currently I don't see FEMA making any changes in the next during this time. So,

I think the water district I heard that they're um looking at increasing their high performance computing um resources so they can produce more of these localized maps on top of the FEMA map, but they haven't yet. So, so this is another area shows the Estster Park neighborhood. Again, the same blue, those blue uh lines reflect the hatched area where the creeks could over top the banks and drain onto adjacent property, whatever that is. It could be roads, it could be backyards. Um, we don't know. This is what FEMA has gathered.

That's what I was going to say. This is what I expected. we would see this this massive difference between a seasonal creek and ephemeral creeks. Can we zoom in? This is pretty high resolution. And thank you. So it may be hard to see what we don't most of that is even showing Los uh Altos Hills. So if you pan down, you can see where the city limits are. The dark black line.

Yeah. Just just as a caution, I see limit of study marks in the Aster Clark area. So, we may not have data there. This is where yeah, the water district needs to come in and start working on these. But essentially, as we know now, I would say, you know, hydraological engineer would pretty be much be open to interpret what they want in that region being there's nothing there. So I think this is why option two to me stands out because it gives the discretion to the engineers to take one look at this and from the geotechnical and engineers I've worked with they would take one look at that and I think the the land owners would be pretty happy with the outcome of that and then it would be submitted to the city to approve and I think the process would be a fairly smooth uh process and give more flexibility. some of the some of the land owners did talk about something like option two. So, I'll leave it there. Thank you. I appreciate bringing up the maps and um giving some time to option two.

Commissioner G. So, I don't actually have additional discussion points, but I'm wondering if folks are ready to maybe move towards a motion if that's okay.

Okay. So, I'm seeing some nods, so I will go ahead. I move the staff recommendation with the following um amendments. So, one is to find a new name for the urban and rural area. Number two is to define change the definition of flood wall on packet page 63 under definitions B5 to potentially use a verbiage extend to or extend above the top of um as discussed with public works. So I'll defer to staff about the specifics there. Um uh three is to uh use alternative four instead of the ephemeral definitions and as needed potentially clean up the definition of ephemeral that is now in the definition section on item 14 and or clean up other definitions that may or may not be used. So for example, I don't know if stream channelize is still used. So I'll defer to staff about the cleanup there. Number four is to on packet page 67 under exemptions D6, what I previously mentioned for the this this I would like to not exempt the what is going to no longer be called the rural area but like the area not in the urbanized core. Um

um just to clarify that um element um I believe you mentioned that you want to keep the public trail portion in the bay lands but others are oh the one yeah so I want I want the one the intention is for the 150 limit to apply to the baylands as well um and or other areas that are in the rural area. I don't want those those are areas that we're trying to protect. Okay. Thank you. So that so that exemption would only apply to the urbanized area.

Yeah. Um is that clear staff? Okay. Thank you. And then uh as necessary get rid of additional references to ephemeral stream on packet page 68 etc. Um then I will move on to the three items discussed in the straw poll. Number one is for uh in section G2 for the a carveout for the ornamental landscaping to be permitted for edgewood. Um number two for the fences to not to to have an exemption for fences for edgewood. Um, and three, I think specifically around item B1, the new fences shall be constructed with a minimum of 5 ft. I would like to remove that to but only for Edgewood.

Um, I if they are exempt from the stream stabil if No, I don't want to exempt them completely from the slope stability protection. I would only like to exempt the fences. Right. So if the fences are exempt from the the slope stability requirements then that includes that 5 foot. Okay. So then I would like to exempt fences in the slope stability protection area only for edgewood as defined at Edgewood. So maybe it'll be fun to throw in an Edgewood definition in the definition section instead. Fancy.

Um okay. So, I tried to capture what all the commissioners have said during the discussion. Um, does anyone Okay. Well, well, I'll I'll I'll first wait to see if I get I'll second that. And then and then maybe we need to make some additions or discussion. I just want to clarify because I I I misunderstood I think what staff said about the five- foot thing. So, what you proposed was something that would fix the problem with the gap, the 5-ft gap. And what you're saying is this would address that.

Correct. My understanding is the 5-ft concern has to do with the slope stability area. If fences in for the Edgewood neighbors are no longer subject to the slope stability area, then that 5-ft requirement would not apply either. Okay. Um, we here so they could build it right up to the here here's the problem. The problem is when those other agencies come through checking to see if they have their five foot thing. I don't know if there's anything the city needs to do or the property owners need to do. I'm going to just not worry about it. We we will continue to work with our colleagues to um to look into this. It looks like maybe we've got somebody available to add.

Don't don't stir up trouble if we don't have to, but I just want to make sure you guys are thinking about it. Mr. Yang, did you want to add something? Uh, no. I had a thought and then I realized it was wrong. Okay, great. Thank you. Appreciate you nonetheless, but yes, I

So, we've got a motion on the table and a second. Um, at this point, yes, go ahead, Miss Armor. One other thing that I did here as part of the discussion of the modifications to the flood wall definition was also to the exception so that it would be directly abudding uh I believe was a another part of commissioner Akin's recommendation not just the definition but also the exception. Yeah, I accepted that because Miss Chaw uh suggested it and it seemed reasonable. And I will add that to my motion. And I agree as a seconder.

Do we have further discussion or things that we, you know, Commissioner Vice Chair G tried to capture everybody's comments? Is there anything that we're missing? I don't think there's anything from my list that's missing. Okay. So, I don't see any lights for additional discussion. Um, do we need to recap the motion at all or does stuff? We have it. Great. Thank you. All right. Mr. Tivera, can you please call the vote? Uh, Commissioner Templeton, yes. Uh, Commissioner Aken, yes. Commissioner Peterson, yes. Commissioner James, yes. Vice Chair G, yes.

Uh, Chair Chang, yes. Motion carry 6.

All right. Thank you everyone. It's been a long night with a lot of technical detail. Thank you to all the members of the public. Thank you very much to staff for try for doing such a good job documenting the conversations even if staff disagreed. So appreciate everybody's very hard work on this. Excited to have it move on to city council finally. All right. Next agenda item I believe is approval of minutes. So, we need to approve the planning and transportation draft minutes. Draft and summary, sorry, the draft summary and verbatim minutes for April 8th. Um, I guess I need to see if there's any public comment

and uh through the chair, I've not received any request to speak on this item. Okay, I'll move it. And I for the record I just wanted to note that uh Commissioner James and Commissioner Templeton were absent. Um so when we do the call if they could just abstain. So okay we still have a quorum. Great. Thanks. I will move it. As revised. As revised. Apologies. Um as revised potentially by Commissioner Aken and or Commissioner Hecman and or others. Do we have a second? Second. Any discussion? Mr. Da, can you please take the vote? Yeah. Um, Commissioner James, abstain.

Commissioner Templeton, abstain. Uh, Commissioner Aken, yes. Commissioner Peterson, yes. Vice Chair G, yes. Chair Chang, yes. Motion carries 402. All right. On to Commissioner questions, comments, announcements, or future meetings and agendas. I uh Commissioner Well, no, we've got I just want to be respectful. We've got Commissioner Peterson, then Templeton, then G.

Thank you, Chair. Uh, keeping with my theme on the California Avenue. Uh, so I don't know if everybody remembers, but a while back there was a question on signage for California Avenue from uh, El Camino, and one of the businesses had offered to purchase signage to direct uh, to parking. And if anybody doesn't remember, that's let that be a reminder that, you know, it's come up. So, I went out and I took a look at the signage. No one's going to be able to see this. Uh but the sign isn't exactly I think what people had in mind. Uh it's it's not even on the on the uh the light pole correctly. It's it's kind of angled. So I went to a couple of the businesses on California Avenue. I like to go there and uh I joke about checking the wells and seeing the water level. And so, uh, I showed this to people were kind of surprised that that's the sign to their business on California Avenue saying, uh, park here on Sherman Avenue, which it's actually on Sherman Avenue, so it's pretty clear the arrow means Sherman Avenue. And I heard, you know, maybe we could put flowers on it, flashing lights, a flag, something. So, I'll I'll forward the photo, but I just want to bring attention that I think California Avenue still needs uh some signage. We closed the street, which I personally I enjoy that street and I've seen the bike traffic on the street. Uh we had questions about speed limit and and lane delineation. It seems to be working fine. Uh the the bike cyclists are absolutely respectful. The the community the community seems to be just fine with that street, but I think the the businesses there deserve some better signage. There's probably signage from the other direction on El Camino, but um and then again, I just want to also say if we could have signage or some kind of a uh like a banner at

California Avenue train station letting people know that we now have uh you know, essentially street drinking uh with red solo clubs on California Avenue. Uh yes. And so I think people from Cal Train would stop on California Avenue and bring more business in if you could have some sense. I I get off the train at Mountain View Station because there is a a beer garden right there. I can see it from the train and I for years I'll jump off the train and take an hour and catch the next one out. So with that um that's my report back as the Calav Commissioner.

Thank you. Can I just suggest so there is a retail ad hoc on council. Um I mean how do we make sure like council may not ever watch this meeting read the minutes. So might I suggest that you send that comment directly to the retail ad hoc? So it uh just to provide a little information on that um it is now called economic development committee. Okay. economic development committee

broadening their uh interest beyond just the retail. Um also that um in response to the email and the additional information you provided to staff that was uh shared with public works and they were looking into a number of the things you brought up last time. So work is uh proceeding as it was on the transportation issues that were brought up a few months ago as well. So thank you. If I add an extra voice, I'd be glad to come talk to the committee and if not, it's I'm happy just to provide the information. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um, and thank you staff for all your hard work. All right, we've got Now I lost track. Commissioner Templeton.

Uh, it's now that time of year when you can smell summer right around the corner and we still have no breaks on our calendar. So, I thought I'd bring that up. Um, traditionally I, uh, make a carve out for the back to school week, but I now have two different back to school weeks. So, um, August is looking less and less likely. I don't know how the rest of you feel, but, uh, I thought I would suggest maybe we could talk about that next time or something. I don't know, unless you already have plans. I'm glad you brought it up because I wanted to bring this up, too. We could talk about it now if you would like to. If we would like to or let's do it. Let's do it. Okay. Do you have a proposal?

Uh I think 812 and 8:26 are less and less likely for me. I have a move in date across the country on 828. Um 812 is possible, but I don't think 8:26 is possible for me. That said, no, let's see what else other other folks have because I know that at dinner another commissioner was talking about a dream of maybe getting away. So, let's see if other people have

perspective. If I may jump in just for um one additional point of context at this point, we've got um agendas for your next two meetings, but there aren't any items scheduled for the second meeting in June. So there is a reasonable possibility that June 24th will be a canceled meeting in case you need a little bit of time. Does anybody have any other perspective about these August dates? I mean maybe we do a little bit of research between now and next time and then um take you know with extra research on 812 and 826. Okay, sounds good.

Okay. And then uh Commissioner G or Vice Chair G. Um, I was just going to say I might I might be out on the 8th of July because it's attached to the 4th of July, which is a Friday this year. So, thoughts there. Um,

so many possibilities. Oh, it's Saturday, but it but a lot of But I'm getting Friday off, right? So, yeah. So, so we'll get Friday off. Um, I also just want to share that tomorrow morning is I think it's called like bike to wherever day. Um, so there'll be fun stuff if you're biking somewhere in the morning at a various locations around the city. Um, so just wanted to share that. And then also wanted to share that um, Commissioner James and I are have just finished writing a report from our Cal's conference that we'll be sending over to staff to distribute to everyone. So um, look forward to seeing that shortly.

Okay. And now because there's a new requirement we that the council has dictated um we've got virtual public comment at this time any com anybody raised hands uh to the chair I see no raise hands on zooms if there's any members on zoom that would like to uh now is the moment to raise and I see none great we are adjourned then thank you everyone