Planning & Transportation Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call to order this regular meeting of the Planning and Transportation Commission for Wednesday, July 8th, 2026. Mr. Trevera, can you please call the roll?

Yes. Chair Chang? Here. Vice Chair Gee?

Present. I'm teleconferencing from 1469 28th Street, Apartment 3, Arlington, Virginia, 22206. and I am accompanied by one individual over the age of 18. They are my friend.

Thank you. Commissioner Akin? Here. Commissioner Peterson? Here. Commissioner Heckman? Here. Commissioner James? Commissioner Templeton?

Here.

For the record, we have quorum noting that Commissioner James is absent.

Thank you. Assistant Director Armour, do we have any agenda, excuse me, agenda changes, additions and deletions? no change to the items that are under review though we did publish a supplemental report for item number two in response to commissioner questions yesterday thank you uh okay our next agenda item is in person public comment on items that are not on the agenda tonight we will have time for virtual comments at the end of the meeting

Mr. DeVere, are there any comment cards or? Through the chair, we have not received any public comment cards for this period. Great, thank you.

Okay, onto our first scheduled agenda item, which is city official reports. Assistant Director Armour.

Yes, good evening and welcome back after a canceled meeting at the end of June. We are I'm going to share the presentation momentarily and then take a look at your upcoming meetings. It does look like we will have another canceled meeting tentative now, but we should be able to send you notification next week for the July 29th meeting. And currently scheduled for August 12th will be the initial review of a potential PHZ zoning for 332 Forest Avenue. Next slide. Report out on Council. They are now on their summer break, which started after their final meeting on June 15th and will run until August 9th. Their first meeting back will be August 10th. So at that June 15th meeting, as previously mentioned, There were multiple consent calendar items that were approved. They had a discussion of Senate Bill 79 ordinances and in that they approved three of the four draft ordinances that were provided to them. and so the second reading of one portion the 50 to briefly summarize the 50 of SB 79 urgency ordinance was not approved so there's a slight delay in the regular ordinance going into effect and which will be next week and then for the upcoming meetings for them at this point we have one project going to city council their first meeting in august august 10th that'll be 762 san antonio road we have a number of other items that are looking to be scheduled for the other august dates but i included those dates here since it's a little bit unusual for them to have one on the fourth monday of the month and with that that concludes my presentation i do have one update from transportation which is that the parking update item that was previously scheduled had to be postponed they are looking to return this fall they haven't selected a specific date as of yet thank you thank you does anybody have questions for staff i don't see any lights

OK. So we'll move on to the next item. This is our first action item, which is a public hearing that's quasi-judicial regarding 470 Olive. And it's a recommendation to city council on adopting an ordinance amending the zoning map to change the zoning district for 470 Olive from NVR1, which is single family residential, to NVMXM, which is medium density mixed use. and would also require us to recommend adopting a resolution to change the NVCAP land use designation and comprehensive plan from low density residential to medium density mixed use. And this is to align it with the NVMXM zoning of the adjacent and connected parcel at 2951 El Camino Real. OK, could we have a staff presentation, please?

Good evening. My name is Emily Callis. I'm a senior planner on the current planning team and here to present the 470 Olive Avenue project. Next slide. This project is before the PTC this evening. Based on direction from the City Council, there was a motion as a part of the El Camino Real focus area plan adoption in May of 2025 directing us to propose rezoning to transition this property from the adjacent single family neighborhood to the El Camino Real focus area housing. The staff recommendation is to change the zoning from North Ventura R1 to NVMXM as well as change the comprehensive plan land use designation from NVCAP single family residential to NVCAP medium density mixed use. And so this is the purpose of the project coming to the PTC and what is under consideration. There were additional questions regarding no net loss and potential housing capacity, which was included in the supplemental. However, that is a potential benefit and not the core consideration this evening.

Next slide.

This is the project site highlighted in red is 470 Olive Avenue. It currently has a commercial building which is contiguous with the adjacent lot at 2951 El Camino and under the same ownership. Excellent. This shows what the proposed rezoning would look like on our zoning map. The existing lot is within the NVR1 zone, but the boundaries of that zone would be changed to include this on the NVMXN side of that line. Next slide. This is a selection of the development standards for comparison. The height would increase with this zone change from 35 feet to 55 feet. The maximum site coverage would increase from 35% to 100%. The maximum floor area would increase from 45% to 2.0 or 200%. The setbacks adjacent to The R1 lot specifically would decrease from 6 feet to 5 feet on the side and 20 feet to 10 feet in the rear. And the daylight plane adjacent to R1 would remain the same because the requirement is to be the more restrictive R1 daylight plane when adjacent to R1. Next slide. We believe that this rezoning would be appropriate because the MXM zoning district includes development standards such as the daylight plane that provide an appropriate transition to the single family neighborhood and any proposed development on this or other adjacent lots would be subject to further review. Next slide. The next steps, staff recommends that the Planning Commission make a recommendation to Council to adopt the resolution to change the comprehensive plan land use designation and adopt the ordinance amending the zoning map. Next slide. Sorry. This concludes my presentation. I believe the property owners are attending via Zoom. I did not verify that. Sorry. Thank you.

Okay. Does the Commission have any clarifying questions for Ms. Callas at this point? Yeah. Okay. Commissioner Templeton.

Can you remind me, I feel like we have in recent years seen this property up before us. Can you just remind, I think it was this very same question.

Yes, so prior to the NVCAP adoption, there was a request to rezone at that time from R1 to CS, and then there have also been two pre-screenings brought to council for PHZ-like projects.

Okay, and what was the reason it wasn't included, like this couldn't be done when the NVCAP zone names were changed? It was just because we did it in bulk, right? Like this is an exception. Is that right?

Right. The zoning was modified when the NV cap got adopted to having NV in front of it, but the boundaries of those zones didn't change at that time.

And so that's why we're now we need to do this special process to catch this thing. Okay, great. Thank you for clarifying that.

Anybody else? I've got a quick one. So in the supplemental report, it mentioned that the addition of 470 olive to the housing element could conservatively add seven units of housing. Is that seven units of moderate income housing or just seven units of housing?

I'll jump in on this one. You know, we are still working on the justification. There are different ways of calculating that for different sites. The reason that we consider it potentially for moderate housing, income housing is because the adjacent site under the same ownership was listed for moderate income housing units as a housing element site. So to be consistent with that.

Understood. Okay. Thank you. Commissioner Templeton brought up the great point that we need to disclose if we have any conflicts of interest. So let's go do that. Let's start with Commissioner Templeton.

I have none.

Thank you. I have none. None.

None. None for me either.

And then Commissioner Gee?

Yeah, none for me.

Great.

Thank you. And with that out of the way, is there any applicant presentation or anything like that for this?

Yes, they are online on Zoom.

Okay, let's hear from them.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, you've got 15 minutes.

Great. Thank you for letting me talk to you guys today. My name is Thomas Agarmani, and I'm speaking on behalf of the Agarmani family. We're a four-generation Palo Alto family and owners of 470 Olive and 2951 El Camino. My dad ran his veterinary hospital out of this building. and today we're asking the commission to recommend rezoning 470 olive from nvr1 single family residential to nvmxm medium density mixed use and this is consistent with planning staff's recommendation and with prior city council direction and the zoning will allow the ability to build the urgently needed multi-family housing on this transit oriented site walking distance to caltrans and california avenue And I wanted to give you guys a little bit of background and context on this zoning issue and how we came to be sitting here today. To start, the 470 Olive Avenue and 2951 El Camino Real are one single building. It was built in 1968 for commercial use, sitting across two parcels. The first tenant was Karn's Piano and had customers walking through the entire building. And then in 1978, during a city comprehensive plan update, the 470-all portion of the building was rezoned R1, splitting the single structure into two different zones because it was done in a block orientation. And the prior owner got approval to keep it CS if they did some site improvement. However, they did not follow up on the site improvement or disclose this issue when we purchased the building in 1993. And we were never notified by the city of Palo Alto regarding this issue. The city council itself acknowledged back in 2017 that this 1978 split may have been done in error. And since discovering this error, our family immediately alerted the city and we worked closely and in good faith with city for years to try to resolve it. Again, is why we came to be here today. And approving this rezoning will, as spoke about before, will unlock housing opportunities that Palo Alto urgently needs in the exact location where it belongs. And on another note, I'm 30 years old and grew up in this community, and I do not have a single friend or teammate that still lives in Palo Alto itself. And so we need more housing to allow the people who work in this community We're up in this community and provide for this community a place to live in this community. And I thank you guys for your time and consideration. And we respectfully ask that you recommend the agenda item number two as proposed by staff and happy to answer any questions that you guys may have. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioners, do we have any questions that we want to ask Mr. Agamotti before we close this portion of the hearing? Great. Commissioner Huckman?

Yes. Thank you for the presentation and the application. I just had one question. Part of our staff packet was a letter that your family had written, I think, back in 2020. pursuing a really related issue at that time. And in the first paragraph, you mentioned, actually it was dated October 5th, and it referred to a pre-screening on October 5th, 2020 of your property on El Camino, this property on Olive, and you said in three adjacent, and I don't know actually that you wrote this, this is five years ago, a member of your family. Those two properties and three adjacent parcels were discussed in concept for a multifamily residential development. And so I was just curious that pre-screening back in october of 2020 what were those five parcels i was imagining that that uh two of them were the ones that uh uh flank your parcel on el camino but i um but i wasn't sure where the the third other parcel was and i'm wondering if you can provide that information yes of course so that third parcel um so it's

the the two ones next to us which i believe is two nine nine nine el camino and uh uh 2905 are the ones that are adopted in the housing focus area going in the uh discussions to development the other one was the r1 on olive that is no longer going to be in the proposed um development so that that property is the next parcel down all of away from el camino

Correct okay all right, thank you that clarifies it.

Because we're not looking at the map could be pull up the map and then, if we i'm not sure I understood what was being said.

We could bring up slide three yeah.

So if Commissioner Gee were here, he could actually somehow use a pointer to touch the three parcels. Well, Commissioner Gee, can you do this remotely?

I'm going to try. OK.

So it's the three parcels along El Camino, yeah, and the one up Olive behind 470. So he's perfect. I shouldn't have doubted you.

Okay, and so then my quick clarifying question for Mr. Agamonte is that the Agamonte family owns all three parcels on El Camino right now?

We do not currently own three parcels, but we are in discussions with them and a developer and ready to continue those. And this is a...

Okay, thank you. Does that complete your question, Commissioner Heckman?

I guess I can ask one more question. In your family's contemplation of building multifamily here, was there ever any discussion with the owners of the first residential lot on Pepper? I think it's 471 Pepper. that, yeah, that Commissioner, Vice Chair Gee just put a question mark on. I'm just curious if that was ever contemplated and possibly discussed with the owners of that parcel.

What in particular do you mean by discussed?

whether they might be interested in selling their parcel to you so that you could include it in a multi-family building that would, as it seems like you're contemplating, would front along all three of the El Camino parcels, and then you'd have a similar situation on that pepper parcel as you are seeking on your 470 olive parcel.

No, that was never discussed. Okay.

Thank you. Can I go to Commissioner Peters? Oh, yeah. A follow-up to this? Okay. Yeah. So I'm going to take a question from Commissioner Tuplen.

Sorry to go out of order. I just want to ask the same question a different way, even though I think we have the answer. Those other prop, this is for you, staff, those other properties that are not being discussed tonight are currently residences, right? Whereas the one that is being discussed tonight has a

legacy building on it that is not residential that is correct okay thank you okay uh thanks for that clarification commissioner tuppleton uh commissioner peterson has a question

Thank you. So for the applicant, I just wanted to ask you if you could elaborate on the soil contamination there and then maybe touch on my understanding is that as multi-use commercial residential, it's probably a better use for this site as given the contamination than it would be as a single family residence.

David Ensign, Yes, it would be wouldn't be due to the the testing wells, the family residents wouldn't be able to. David Ensign, Right, but it would be able to fit because you could keep the well and parking lot and all the developer analysis has said that that would be completely fine.

And then a quick follow-up question. If there is excavation for underground parking garages, has there been any discussion about remediation of being able to excavate whatever it is that's causing the contamination?

Yes. And I believe that the proposed development would, there's a few options, but they seem to think that you wouldn't have to dig down deep enough. But I think I can follow up with that if that is a question with the developers and their analysis.

All right. Thank you. That's all I have.

Thank you. I've got a quick question for Mr. Agramonte. So my understanding is that when this came before the PTC in 2019, there was an offer of a way to conformity by bringing forward the big housing project. But there that didn't quite happen. Can you elaborate on that more? um can you specify what big housing project so i think that there's multiple times where like what was city council's reaction in 2020 to the housing project to the housing because there was a pre-screen yeah it was a positive so why didn't it go through

It was a positive. The requirements for the building, it made a much smaller building. And so the building that was presented in the past does not end up not being financially suitable.

Okay. And why hasn't the family brought in a prescreen to the city council now?

This is an integral part to get this rezoning for developers wanting to take the next step in moving forward with this project.

OK. Thanks. All right. I think we're going to close that section of the meeting. Are there any more clarifying questions of staff now that we've had a little bit more? OK. Any public comments?

To the chair, we have one request to speak and if there's any members of the public that would like to speak on Zoom, please raise your hand. Okay, great. Yep, our first speaker is Matthew B. Hi Matthew, you have three minutes.

Hi everybody, distinguished commissioners. My name is Dr. Matthew Bryant. I live at 471 Pepper Avenue, right behind 470 Olive. I welcome you to come visit the neighborhood and stop by my house for drinks anytime if you want to kind of get an idea of what it's like living there. I've lived there for seven years now. I've raised two of my daughters. They went to Fletcher and Gunn. I'm a small business owner in Palo Alto. I had moved here originally to work in Palo Alto as well for a local drug company. And just wanted to state that not everything is 100% accurate that's been presented today. So I'm more than happy to clarify any of the questions that you've asked already. But I just do want to say that housing is indeed needed, and this is not about the need for housing. We have a lot going on, as you know, in South Palo Alto, just going down El Camino now within a stone's throw of my home and 470 Olive. There's dozens or hundreds of housing units going up across El Camino and on this side. We don't have to get into that. In addition, there is an NV cap that shows R1 zoning on Pepper and on Olive, which probably includes at least 30 parcels. In the NV cap that was first adopted in 2017 and again ratified in 2024, it states in there on page 31, please respect the R1 housing that exists today. So that was agreed upon in the NV cap. And with that, this particular building at 470 is kind of a mixed use building. It was a brick building that was built and we have multiple brick buildings throughout the neighborhood. In addition, we still have some of the original HP housing when this was the sunny side tract of Mayfield and the original HP plant was there and these were homes for the manager. So we've got a very diverse neighborhood and the neighborhood is also responding to the housing needs. We have multiple ADUs that have been built just in the few years that I've lived there, seven years now. One next door to me, there's a brand new property, a brand new R1 single family residence being built next door to this place at 460 that is being built as a single family home with an ADU. Further down Olive, you have multiple ADUs three unit buildings that were built. I can kind of go on and on about all of the different arguments I'd say for and against this. This was in fact turned down in the past and it's not true to say that this is connected to 2951. They are in fact two separate buildings. There's just a zero property line between them. Just like in San Francisco, the way the houses are side by side, that's how their two properties are today. I don't know why they don't go in and just build a single family home there and could easily make $2.5 million on that alone. But that's not my case here. So please ask me any questions if you have them about the neighborhood. I'm more than happy to speak up on behalf of myself and my neighbors. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your public comment. Unfortunately, we tend not to or it's our rules, actually, that we can't interact with the public in this way. But thank you so much for coming.

And to the chair, I have no other request to speak on this item.

OK, great commissioners. This moves us to discussion.

So if I may, through the chair, the applicant does get an opportunity to respond.

Thank you so much, Rusty, on the

process here so um yes the applicant mr agramonte uh this is your chance for a rebuttal now if you have anything that you would like to say uh i just completely respect coming up in the community in the neighborhood we've been a part of it being that building for since 1993 like i said i just clarify that it is one single building thank you

OK, now it's the Commission's turn. So if you have comments, please light it up. OK, we'll start with Commissioner Heckman.

Thank you. Actually, I just I want to ask a question of staff and try to understand the how the daylight plane is going to work in a multi if If this rezoning is approved and a multifamily building rises on partially on 470 Olive, I wanna understand how the daylight plane will have that building interact both with the property behind it on Olive and the property adjacent to it on Pepper, which I referred to earlier, not realizing that its owner, Dr. Bryant, was here in the audience. So perhaps you could explain that to us because one of the things that the staff report points out, and I think it's very good, is that while the structure to be built can change with the different zoning, the daylight plane rule is actually gonna stay the same. So if you could help me understand that interaction between whatever building shows up and how it's going to relate to those two R1 properties on two sides of it.

Yes, let me double check something really quick though.

Yes.

The daylight plane for the, oh wait, no, that's for NVR3, sorry. In the Development Standards Table 18.29060, Table 3, the daylight plane is referential as being the daylight plane height and slope shall be identical to those of the most restrictive residential zoning district abutting the lot line. And so in the case for this property, it is the R1 and the R1 zone, which has the daylight planes that were included in the presentation. In terms of the applicability, it does potentially matter which lots are acquired as a part of a future project because it can change if a property is a rear lot line or a side lot line. Could you please elaborate on that a little bit?

Because we've seen it with other projects where that side versus rear lot line is material for the neighbors.

Sam, do you think it would be helpful if we pulled up the same slide we had up earlier, please? so as it currently is for the individual lot the long side is the side and the short side is the rear meaning that on the long side is the 10 feet and 45 degree angle on the short side it is the 16 feet and measured at the 20 foot rear setback but if this were appended to the

El Camino parcel, how does that change?

Our zoning code defines the front as being the shortest of the street facing segments basically and so if it were to include all three properties on El Camino then Pepper Avenue would actually be the shortest of those three and for development standard purposes be considered the front although because it's in the El Camino focus area there's other development standards that also treat El Camino as the primary frontage

Sorry to interrupt you, but you said pepper would be considered as the?

Because by having olive, then that becomes longer than the pepper side out of the lots that have been previously considered.

I see what you're saying. If I may interrupt, that's assuming the lots would be merged though, correctly?

Right. And so that's the thing is there's lots of possible outcomes. It's also possible that because the current owners don't have all of those properties if they were to acquire if they weren't to acquire it and it or if it was some other combination where it was only $29.51 and the one to the right which is $29.99 then the long side of $40.70 all of would actually become the rear.

So the short answer is it's going to depend on whether a lot merger is involved and which parcels are included in that.

Thank you, that's helpful.

Okay, so let me, the reason I was asking the question is the three El Camino real parcels have a zoning designation that will allow a building of up to 55 feet. But because, for example, the El Camino parcel on the corner of El Camino and Pepper, because it has 471 Pepper behind it, the daylight plane requirement will affect sort of how far away from 471 Pepper that 55 foot elevation has to be. It'll, right, it'll have to. Right, behind it, at the back of a building on that parcel. And so that daylight plane protects the R1 of the parcel behind it, which happens to be 471. Correct, thank you, Vice Chair. And that's a good thing, that's a good thing. And that's really how council and planning staff devised this to, because there is going to be this interaction between 55 foot buildings and adjacent R1. And that will also apply, in a rezoning of 470, that even though it's going to be adjacent to residential on two sides, the prospect of having a 55-foot elevation on any part of 470 is going to be tempered by the need to meet daylight, what I'll call behind it, to the next parcel on Olive, and what I'll call to the side of it, to 471 Pepper. and which is really, and I think that without modeling that, I think it's gonna be a significant constraint on trying to get 55 feet on any part of 470 olive, which is really why I was asking the question about 471 pepper. and I wasn't suggesting we do it, and we've got a very happy owner and resident of 471 Pepper, but that would free up more height while still protecting the R1 behind it, if that was in the cards, obviously it's not. But that was my question. But, But my observation is that I think that the two daylight planes, the one affecting the Olive lot behind 470 and the one affecting 471 Pepper are the same protection for those R1 lots that every other R1 lot that is behind this MXM zoning up and down El Camino will enjoy. And so I think that's important. that we not be disadvantaging these particular R1 parcels that will remain R1 and my view from, my understanding is this will not, that they'll basically be the same, they'll have the same rights and protections as all the other R1 lots behind any part of MXM zone land. So those are, that's my initial round of comments, thanks.

Next, we're gonna have Commissioner Akin, then Commissioner Templeton.

Thank you, Chair. So if I understand the history here from both NVCAP and council comments, the intent in this area is to keep the R1 neighborhood fairly stable, but allow for housing increase along with a high transition from El Camino. Now, my first reaction to this proposal was similar to Commissioner Heckman's. Rezoning to MXM would be great. We'd clear up non-conforming use. We'd add it to site inventory. A new structure based on the MXM development standards would definitely be an improvement over what's there today, which is built all the way up to the lot line and looks pretty tall to me, 15, 16 feet maybe. Unfortunately, the real, as we're seeing with other projects that are coming to us, the real zoning standards are not ours. They're ours with all the applicable state overrides. So even though MXM seems attractive to me, MXM as affected by SB 79 or state density bonus law is less so. In particular because I think eliminating the setbacks, the daylight planes and perhaps increasing height limits, which would be allowable in some cases, though not all, definitely would impact the R1s that are nearby. So given that, I think the best way to respect the intent that's been expressed for this area is to leave this parcel in NVR1. Now, that doesn't eliminate the possibility of adding housing because the state overrides are still available. You could certainly use SB 9. If I'm correct, and I may need to be corrected on this, state density bonus law still applies. So you could have a minimum five unit development on 470 Olive. But even with those overrides, it looks like there are enough protections that the high transition from El Camino would be less drastic under R1 than it would be under MXN. Now, if we were reviewing a specific project application, then I think we'd have the flexibility we need to make things work. We know which lots are involved, what the status of the lot lines were, and which zoning and which overrides apply. But right now, we don't have any confidence about what's going to be built. So with regret, that leads me to lean against the rezoning to MXM at this point. Thank you.

Commissioner Templeton.

Thank you. Yeah, I have a very different perspective, possibly because of the times I've seen this before, so let me share that with the Commission. This was a mistake that it was included in R1 to begin with, and that's something we heard the applicant discuss. They've been trying to correct it. It's definitely not a residence, and nor has it been for decades. So the idea was to try and get it fixed before the NVCAP stuff was happening. They weren't successful in doing that because we were in the middle of NVCAP. And then NVCAP made its changes and said, you know, come back and do this exception. So that's the history as I know it. And, you know, when I think about the opportunity cost here, is more what happens if we don't, if we don't allow this parcel to be included in the future development project that will be brought to us. They're trying to make a deal and they're saying that this is necessary in order to make that deal. You have to think what happens if those three properties on El Camino are developed and this other one's sort of left to rot. And I think it's very generous to imagine somebody's gonna come in and build a five unit building there, but we don't know. I mean, it has not been sellable by itself so far. And it's been many years that these deals have been attempted. What we don't want is to have this beautiful new building built on El Camino and these lovely residences surrounding and leave this formerly used industrial site there for blight. As a former resident of Ventura for many years, I can tell you that was a huge problem in Ventura in the past. And it was a hard problem. It devalued the properties around it, caused more crime. And this is something the neighborhood's been working really hard to improve upon. So I think if we look at it from that perspective of what happens if we do it, yeah, we can't really control it at this point. We don't have a serious project. But we have to also think what happens if we don't do it and nothing happens. So that's also a possibility and that risk is to me a little bit more frightening than let's have them come back with a proposal of a project that includes this with the restrictions that we've been able to impose. So Ms. Armour, I'm wondering if you can tell me any more about the idea that state would override our daylight plane and other restrictions on that property.

I'm actually going to defer to our city attorney to speak on that a little bit and how that might apply with the R1 zoning.

Versus the MXM or whatever it's called. Correct.

Yeah.

Right. So one, just I guess assuming that these parcels are merged, we apply the development standards for each portion of the new merged parcel. So whether it's R1 or MXM, those are the standards that would apply to

know that the what's currently 470 olive um it's sort of hard to speculate about how the state laws could apply here um i think the the underlying question here um because none of us is uh well except except for you um is a legal expert the the underlying question are are there edge cases we haven't thought about in which case um neighbors might lose value in terms of the protections uh by state overrides on these two zonings are there any deltas that you're aware of with regards to how state law is currently applied yeah so um with state density bonus law uh our various um development standards uh height daylight plan etc those

can be waived, but you can't waive the density that's allowed. So that's ultimately what's going to control how many units are built on that portion of that part of land.

But would it affect the daylight plane?

It could.

It could. Can you specify it? Listen, this all is going to decide how to answer this. So let's figure it out together.

Right. So, you know, if the project is proposed in a manner that uses state density bonus law and there are, you know, the zoning allows a number of units on that

on that site that would uh where you would want to exceed the daylight plane that daylight plan could be waived okay so um speculating here do you imagine that that is the value of getting the zoning on this parcel changed before proposing a project

I can't really speak to that. It might be a question for the applicant.

Let me try and rephrase it in such a way that you can answer instead of the applicant, because that's a very unfair question to put on the applicant. But I'm trying to understand what order things need to happen in, and is there any reason that someone couldn't come with a proposal for these lots and change the zoning later if that were required to make a project go through?

Right. So I think doing that, looking to change the zoning with a project fleshed out, that would be basically the PHC process. And as we've experienced, that is long and costly.

a trip to the ptc and then to the arb and back to the ptc before going to the council right i imagine that that's you know very unattractive okay thank you and i'm going to go back to miss armor and then i will give it up for other people to have their next round of questions um did do you have any thoughts on the order is this Do you have any, in your conversations with the applicant, have you any insights to share us about the timing and why we're doing this first that are appropriate to share?

So no, I don't have any additional information beyond what was shared by the applicant in terms of their intentions and the difference that this rezoning would make for their potential expansion onto and consolidation of lots, which is something that the city is interested in encouraging the consolidation.

Is this required in order to consolidate the lots?

No.

Okay, so that's probably not it.

It makes it a lot cleaner, and so as a planner, I always prefer consistent zoning across parcels through mid-March, but it would not be required.

Well, and we've tried this for many years, and we, the applicant has come to us, we've debated this, and because it was in the middle of the ND-CAP process, we didn't do it. But, like, this has, it was a surprise to the property owner, this was zoned residential

accidentally they tried to trace it back in the past and it was it appeared to be an error when they presented it to us and and this is coming forward now at this point because as part of the focus area discussion this was one of the things that we asked council for direction on and while noting that they were interested in making sure we had a transition between these zones and the adjacent r1 they did um ask that that staff take a look at what an appropriate rezoning might be and I think as we've discussed tonight there is a case to be made that even with it being the same zone there are some transitions because of the

So from the previous conversations that were kind of a pin was put in it, this is council's saying to us, now go back. We've got all this other stuff in place, deal with this inconsistency.

So council did ask us to come forward considering a different zoning for this site.

That's helpful to remember. Okay, thank you.

We're going to go to Commissioner Gee, then Commissioner Peterson. Vice Chair Gee.

No worries, sure. Yeah, I guess I was wondering if we could talk kind of jump back onto what Commissioner Templeton said about the process. So I think reading the staff report, I guess I didn't quite understand how the applicant has been applying for changes to make this not R1. So in the past, maybe Commissioner Templeton or staff, can you comment on what they were trying to change it to and what kind of like how that fits into the timeline across the different items that we're looking at here? Because I think it's It's a little bit hard for me to wrap my head around the 1978 and then also kind of MVCAP process. So just having kind of a cohesive understanding of the different steps in the process would be helpful.

I'll start by just giving a general process overview that when there is a rezoning proposed that a prescreening with council is required. And so that is something that's occurred a few times with different potential projects, but with this particular request, it was based on the fact that we had this direction from council, that that qualified for the process to be the pre-screening and give this direction. But then I think your question also was talking about what the previous discussions with council were over the last few years.

Yes.

Yes, so in terms of the previous discussions, it was a council pre-screening to consider rezoning from R1 to CS. It was not a formal application, it was a pre-screening application. This is the first time that it has been a formal request for a zone change.

And so the applicant had mentioned that they had made, when they found out that this was zoned incorrectly, that they had made attempts to make this change. But you're telling, is staff telling us that this is actually the first time that they're actually requesting this change formally?

so there was a pre-screening for rezoning from r1 to cs there was also a application in 2018 that was withdrawn for a text amendment to allow an exception to allow the non-conforming use to remain but that is not a rezoning application it's a different process and did it go on for years before that like do you have anything before that time um I don't specifically have anything prior to 2017, but that is almost a decade of information.

Okay, thank you. I'm just trying to clarify what the applicant had said, right, because they had said that they've been trying to work on this for a while, but I'm starting to get a little bit of mixed signals about kind of what exactly the timeline looks like there. And then in terms of my general comments, I think for me, what I think about a lot is that this kind of lives at the intersection between a kind of a higher density zoning and kind of the residential R1 neighborhood. And that's something that, as the commission knows, I'm pretty sensitive about. And I am worried, like Commissioner Aitken, about what the potential repercussions are with the intersection with state bills across the different levers. For example, density bonus. If we were to increase the density due to MXM, what kind of trickle-down effects that might end up having if we were to upzone with the density bonuses. So I think that's kind of where I'm leaning towards right now, but open to hearing. I want to make sure everyone else gets a first round before I kind of have additional comments.

All right, Commissioner Peterson.

So can we put the street all up on the screen?

The rezoning or the map that was in the presentation or a different?

Yeah, a little bit larger review. I don't know if we have one of the whole street.

Are you thinking of what's on packet page 17 or something else?

I'm looking at Google Maps because the packet image is just kind of cropped a little tight.

We'll bring that up in a moment.

Yeah. Yeah.

So my understanding is that Commissioner Peterson actually wants like an extension beyond what's on back of page 17. like the same map, but it goes off the page.

So yeah, we'll do Google Maps since we don't have that other map extended beyond that space.

The magic of the modern world. So Olive is an interesting street. Pepper is a beautiful neighborhood. I mean, I think it's one of the hidden gems in Palo Alto. If you scroll into Olive, one of the questions I have about this street, if we're talking about what type of, zoning is this. Can we zoom in on that large building? It looks like it goes lot to lot. Kind of right in the middle there. It's got a trapezoidal opening in it. Yeah, I get the exact number here is

Is it the one that we're showing on the screen in the center? I think it's 440 to the south.

Closer to El Camino, I believe. This one forest. Yeah. This one?

That one there.

There we go. Is that compliant with the zoning, the way R1 works?

We have not reviewed that site. I will say it caught my eye when I was working on this project as well, but I do not have that answer right now.

Pretend like we didn't see it. Just looking at the corner of the map that we have, it looks like there's a section that's zoned NVR1, and then on packet page 17, you can see an M, which tells me that this is still part of Ventura, so it's probably an MXM or M something. So it would be compliant with the zoning because that parcel is not part of the R1. Right, like the way R1's drawn. Mr. Tavera, I don't know if you can pull up the... Okay, I understand now. Great, thanks.

And then where I'm going with this is the next lot over I'm pretty sure is subdivided into three units. It has three, you know, it's an ABC type building. It's no longer a single family unit and the next one next to that is demolished and then we're at the unit we're talking about. So we've got four lots in a row that are somewhat interesting. which basically is the whole side of the street.

So Commissioner Peterson, thanks for pointing that out.

So I'm wondering, is it all zoned R1? Because yeah, that's the question I'm having is it doesn't look like it's R1. And it's saying it is here, but that doesn't look compliant to R1 having multi-unit and lot to lot walls So the fabric of the street is already somewhat absurd to the intent of it. And I think there's a question here, if you zoom out even more, I mean, this is a fairly commercial street. I think it has one of the largest parking lots that's open in the city still. If you zoom out a little bit more, I'm not sure what the... yeah it's further if you zoom out just a little bit more there's a massive parking lot at the end of the on the other yeah is that what it's called it's actually my walk route when i'm on a phone call yeah i mean there's a i mean this looks like this could be an area that gets redeveloped and we've got the the cannery here which has been redeveloped that is getting redeveloped i believe right so this whole section i mean there's one thing about to look at the individual lot and we're talking about which is the frontage and which is the side but if we take just a little bit more of a bird's eye view of this neighborhood um the entire neighborhood looks like it's probably going to change so that parking lot i believe is part of the big

Fry's Development and Housing is already slated for there. So that, no?

No, that's a long page, Mel. The parking lot on the right. It's a Cloudera building. Yeah, over here.

Okay, yeah.

So I'd like to say I'm favorable to seeing the lot being zoned for mixed use simply because it looks like a very mixed use street and the other units on it are mixed used. It's also a lot that has contamination on it, which makes me question, could it be developed as a single lot on its own? And it sounds like it already has environmental requirements for wells for dewatering, I guess it is, to whatever it is on that lot. I remember the one next door came before us before and we read about the contamination. And then the other issue is that whatever is done on this lot is definitely going to improve the situation for the neighbors simply because right now it's a wall the way I understand it that butts up to the to the residential, which is not exactly a nice, you know, interaction with a residential area. Now we're, you know, we're imposing daylighting rules on it so that it's a nicer commercial urban type interface. So for those reasons, I'm fairly favorable to seeing it rezoned.

Great. Thanks. Okay. I don't see any other lights right now, so I will go for my first round. So I was actually initially just like Commissioner Heckman thinking, okay, this sounds really good for exactly the reasons that Commissioner Aiken had suggested. But then I took a big step back and I kind of did a deep dive on history. And this is my understanding. So in 1978, council zoned this as R1. I was reading an old PTC packet, in fact. Council zoned it as R1 to achieve zoning consistency with R1. And so it was allowed to have a non-conforming use grandfathered in, but then the hope was that this would become R1 over time. And then in 1998, Council actually, after the applicant contacted Council. Council offered a path to making what was there conforming but then the owner never followed up on that. Oh okay yeah the previous owner so 1988 sorry. In 2017 Council turned away a request to rezone it commercial and then in 2019 again the PTC offered a way towards conformity with a housing project application, but the owner, again, as he described, didn't deliver. But I don't think, based on what I've read, in the staff presentation that this is a pattern of the city thinking it was a mistake. There were some council members who suggested it may have been, but according to the staff reports, this was done to achieve zoning consistency. What is clear, though, is that there's been really lack enforcement, and this is apparently either on different things. I read different amounts, but either penalties of $1,000 a day or $2,000 a day, and the city hasn't been enforcing that because the nonconforming use was not extended. Then, in the middle of all of this, we've got the NVCAP process going. and i think those nvcap lines i mean it was a long process and a long and careful process that started in 2017 and was finally approved in 2024. those there's as the public speaker a public commenter mentioned there's something explicitly stated in the nvcap about honoring the r1 zones as drawn and so not so long ago, I remember voting on the NV cap here and voted to approve it. And so very clearly the line was, I mean, if you pull up the map again, Mr. Tavera. Like regardless of whether the use is there right now or conforming or nonconforming, there was a really long public process with a lot of neighbors, a lot of stakeholders involved that drew, sorry, not the Google map, but the actual zoning map on page 17 of the packet. Like the lines were drawn this way thoughtfully. I don't think it was random. No, but there's also something specifically in the NVCAP that says that we want to honor the R1s. And so I am thinking that we should allow the NVCAP to go forward. Right. If you look at how this line was drawn, you have a jog in the line very specifically that goes to that lot. And repeatedly over time, Council and PTC has opted not to do this. In fact, When I reviewed the council minutes and when they were talking about extending the El Camino Real focus area, there was an option that this, the same option was offered to council as was offered to the PTC, which was, should we include 470 Olive in this rezoning? And council said, i think it was one council member who said that they suggested that we look at a way to sort of zone it for housing which it is zoned for but respecting with it with a step back for the lower density areas and what i don't think happened in that meeting was a mention of the nvcap zoning which already does precisely that so the nvmxm So the question to council was, did you want to add the El Camino parcel as well as Olive to the El Camino Real focus area? And council said, let's look at that. What I don't think was mentioned was that council wasn't informed that it's already NVMXN, and that already includes a transition to lower density housing. because this was an examination of the El Camino Real focus area. And I want to remind us all that for the El Camino Real focus area, and I think Commissioner Templeton and I were both on a housing element ad hoc with Director Leight, and I remember very clearly going through the areas along this area when we were discussing the El Camino, this is like in the, the the nascent days of the El Camino Real focus area and we were discussing the heights and we said we want to make sure that the areas that we include in the El Camino Real focus area don't back on to lower density housing and we suggested some really high heights and um both commissioner late and templeton looked at me and said are you sure that the public will go for that and i said yes and it did which is great but i think that where we are here is this is exactly the area where we didn't want that increased height and so people are going to say that this is a result of the palo alto process that this has been going on for years and years and years and we keep not doing anything about it, but what I would say is it is the Palo Alto process, and it's working. In other words, somebody has come to us repeatedly, and then we say no, and they come back, and we say no again, and we come back and we say, well, here's a way that you can correct it, and that's not done exactly, and so that does cause a lot of time and no action if the repeated answer is no so i think there's a different narrative that can be offered here and that's the narrative that i just put forth and what i would really like to see is us honor the commitments that we've made to the neighbors through a public process through A document that documents that we want to respect our one. And so I think that because initially I thought, okay, this is great. But what I have seen is that we end up with development that we do not want. And that extra parcel there of 470 olive provides the buffer. for when things like daylight playing and setbacks are waived due to state density bonus law, which I think in order to, and I understand why state density bonus law is there for these small parcels, that's what they're gonna need to do, but we need that buffer for the R1s or NVR1s. So that's kind of my initial stance. And my understanding also is that the owner has not attempted to sell this lot as an R1.

okay thank you round two we've got commissioner templeton and then commissioner hackman and then commissioner peterson uh thank you for recounting that history that's what i was asking staff for just fyi so maybe add that to your history packet for this property because it keeps coming back as the chair said um i do not uh agree with the characterization of we keep saying no and they keep coming back. I think this is a problematic parcel and that this is a bureaucratic error and that we have to deal with a property owner who is caught in the middle of our housing issues. I think when we were discussing what parcels we wanted to have that transition be smooth, we were talking about El Camino and Lambert. This is far north. It's a few blocks north of that. And so this is a different kind of situation because, as Commissioner Peterson said, there's already been a natural, I don't know if a natural, a organic change along that area, which does have more businesses and there's a little bit of an industrial stuff going on. It is here and there. It's not consistent. And that is what they meant when they were trying to zone it better because they realized that they had gotten a little bit out of control. The question is, did they do it correctly? I think there's a tendency and we heard it here on our commission discussion is, can we get one more lot in there? Why is this a dogleg? There's a tendency to want things to be square in zoning. And in this case, when that line was drawn, I don't believe that people were aware that there was this building that spanned the two properties. And that is the thing they have been trying to correct. Did it come to the Planning Commission? I believe that the initial conversations, once they realized what was going on, were with the Planning Department and you did capture the things that were on the public meetings, but there was definitely some frustration and confusion that they were trying to sort out behind the scenes before it came to us. As far as they have disclosed, I have not researched this myself and I'm hoping, it sounds like we don't have a good continuity of service report from the planning department, but we have what we have. That said, I want this property to move forward. The property as developed is useless. Demolishing half of the building is useless. I am troubled by the idea that we can experience unintended consequences from these bills that are happening in Sacramento. It's very frustrating and I leave it to Council to figure out how to protect us from that. The thing that Chair Chang mentioned that I want to clarify with staff is Did council ask us to do this? Because when I asked you earlier, you said yes. And when she was recounting what council said, she had a different interpretation. So can we get into that?

Sure, I can give some additional expansion on that. Thank you. They did direct staff to look into potential rezoning for this site, but because it wasn't a part of the noticed item that was under consideration that evening, they didn't get into a lot of detail and the staff report didn't have extensive information about the context, the possible alternative zonings that could be considered, et cetera. And so it was a direction that they would be supportive of considering something, but that they didn't have enough information at that time as to what the options were or what would work in this location. And so when we then had this application come in, that supported it moving forward to get the recommendation from the PTC that we could then bring to council for their full consideration.

Thank you. Do you have the language about respecting the R1 zoning from the NVCAP available? In my discussions and my observations of the discussions once I moved off the NVCAP, my understanding was respecting single-family residences, and that's different than respecting the R1 zoning. However, if it is captured as zoning that we're respecting, I'd like to know.

So the language that I've found here on page 17 of the plan, as labeled in the PDF of it, develop human-scaled urban design strategies and design guidelines that strengthen and support the neighborhood fabric. Infill development will respect the scale and character of the surrounding residential neighborhood.

So I thought that the public commenter mentioned page 30-something of the NVCAP, but I don't know which page.

That was the first instance of this, so I'll see what else I can find.

Yeah, thanks for looking it up. And just so you guys know, like, for those of you who weren't lucky enough to be a part of that conversation, it was lengthy and intense and passionate. And I think what she just read captures the spirit of it. And it will be useful to know if there is a distinction made. I will say that the spirit here is we want single family residences to thrive and be together and to have access to sunlight. And I think looking over at you, Commissioner Gee, that's something that we talk a lot about with the people in this part of town. The bottom line is this street is different. There are other streets. Pepper is very, very different. It is adjacent, right? Like we have to think about that and we have done our best to put protections in, but I would hate to see us treat this property owner as a line on a map that needs to be straight when we know that this is a property that was put across two, well, a building put across two properties. So any luck? You can come back to us later. We can go to the next person if you don't have it.

I'm finding mentions of respecting existing single-family homes, not R1 zoning. Well, we'll let that last for now.

Thank you very much for that.

Okay, and then I believe it was Commissioner Hackman.

So I agree with Commissioner Akin that ideally it would be nice to have the rezoning being presented to us in the context of specific development, but we don't have that. And we have an active and valid application pending before us. And I don't think it's appropriate here to deny rezoning because we're afraid of what might get built. And really related to that, I don't think it's wise to plan or zone based on fear. fear of state law. And we had a variant of this conversation, I think, in our dialogue about the San Antonio plan, and I don't remember the specific location, but it was something like there was a part of the area that staff was suggesting 85 feet might be appropriate, but there was a discussion, well, maybe we should only make it 55 feet because app developers are gonna use state law to make it 85 feet, and if we start with 85 feet, they're gonna make it 11 stories. And I just don't think, we don't know what state laws tomorrow will bring. And they are changing almost daily. At this point, in ways that more and more limit local control, but that pendulum can swing and we just don't know. We also don't know what denying the rezoning here might do to the development of the properties along El Camino. It might be easy to think, oh, well, if we just say no here, we've got this protection of the houses behind it because they can't build up with waivers on 470. But the reality might be that if we don't rezone here, that puts more pressure on development of the front. And whereas the front might have been 55 feet, with the use of 470 olive, now because they don't have that extra space, they are gonna go with some state law that pushes it up to 85 feet and we can't do anything about it. And so this is why I don't think it's wise to plan based on fear. I think we need to plan based on what we want, and what we believe is appropriate within our rules as our rules exist and work with people and follow state law if it's different. But I don't think we can, I think that is the course of action. And the other thing I fear is I don't know, I do think that this property owner has the middle piece on el camino and it's hard for me to imagine redevelopment happening without an assemblage here and so so i don't know what happens if we say no here does this block just stay the same you know i don't know if the economics work without assemblage we need more housing there is a an applicant here before us who is seeking this rezoning as part of an effort to develop more housing and so So I think we don't want nothing to happen and we need to describe in our planning documents the rules we want. I think that while a waiver is possible, I think that a year ago, the city council did not say no. The city council said to staff, bring forward a rezoning proposal that, as I understand it, with an appropriate transition for housing. And I think that staff has done that with this particular zoning because it retains the daylight planes. And so I think staff has followed council's direction. I think council is interested. in hearing rezoning, because that's how I interpret the direction they gave staff. And I haven't heard staff or anyone else suggest a different zoning designation that would be more appropriate for that 470 Olive location. So I'm going to... I think this has been a great dialogue. And I think it's important that however this motion goes forward to council, this dialogue get captured. Because ultimately, council asked us for what's the best possible other rezoning? And I believe staff has come up with it, but council's ultimately gonna have to decide based on the things that we're talking about, whether it's a good idea for this particular parcel. So I'm gonna support the staff recommendation. I understand why some of the commissioners may not want to, but however it comes out, the most important thing is for council to understand the dynamic that we've wrestled with tonight. Thank you.

well said commissioner i don't think i saw any other lights although man i missed one okay they've all of a sudden lit up um let's go to commissioner peterson then commissioner aiken

So I also favor the staff recommendation and my reasoning is not the detailed, I appreciate the detailed argument from the legal standpoint, but more from the stand back of looking at the neighborhood, you know, my interest is to protect Pepper. because I live in the same community. I live just as far on the other side of Page Mill as Pepper is on their side of Page Mill and walk in that neighborhood frequently because we're connected by a bridge just on the other side of by the Caltrain station. It makes the the two neighborhoods are a lot more interconnected than it seems and so that's I think it's called North Ventura and I think PEPPER is better served, and I'm going to use Vice Chair Gee's principle that was introduced. When we see a question in front of us to look at the adjacent questions as well, which is that I think the entire street should be rezoned, that we already have a row of four or five residences, most of them are non-compliant in some way, and they're already effectively acting as a different zoning. And I think PEPPER is better served rather than looking over the fence at backyards full of weeds and dust and dirt because they're neglected housing units by a well-manicured multi-unit residence that has walkways and swimming pools and landscaping and sprinklers that come on. And I live in that neighborhood, and I like it. And we do have houses interspersed. And we're friends with the homeowners. And I think Pepper is unique because it's a coherent block of houses, which is there's no other coherent block of houses in that entire area. like that and it makes a nice street and I think it makes a nice interaction between Pepper as part of a larger multi-unit family housing zone with a nice commercial area that's been revitalized because I think that little stretch there is not exactly the the pinnacle of Palo Alto commercial stretch it's not a bad stretch but I think it has a auto shop and there's a couple vacant places in there um and this could be what's needed to bring that that street and that that neighborhood up to the level that that pepper deserves so that's my opinion being in the community is i think walking around through that neighborhood with a multi-unit uh street there would accentuate pepper into a better neighborhood

Commissioner Aiken and then Gee, Vice Chair Gee.

Thank you, Chair. Commissioner Heckman is insightful as always. But I did want to take exception with one characterization, which is I don't think this is a case of zoning fear. This is a case of having a realistic understanding of what the zoning conditions are. Now, with our own rules, we might be able to say the MXM height limit is 55 feet. With the incorporation of state overrides that might apply, and there are a number of them that might apply in this area, we might be able to say, well, the range of maximum heights is say 55 to 95. But that's a thing that I believe it's partly our responsibility to take into account. So that's not, I think it's a mistake to characterize it as a fear. But it does lead me to ask Councilor Yang whether, he feels that it is within our charter to take into account the effects of the state overrides on our local zoning rules.

Yeah, I mean, that's certainly something that you could take into consideration. You know, as I said earlier, the development on this site is going to be limited by, you know, the number of units that can be placed there. Um, and I think the staff analysis was that as an MXM site, we would expect seven units. Um, and so, um, you know, the, the development standards are, um, I guess I would say I don't think significantly higher than 55 is likely, even if those standards are waived, right? Because there is a limit on the number of units that you can fit.

Yeah, I reached the same conclusion. In fact, mine was that likely lower than 55 if we were talking about a development on that parcel alone. Not only the density, but access is a problem to those units. I guess partly why I'm, why I'm considering this is that I have read and we have seen in some of the proposals that have come to us a standardization of layering state overrides in order to gain a desired outcome and This is certainly a situation in which I think that is a likely process. Now, that's a judgment call. We've, thinking further about Commissioner Heckman's comments about the effects on the El Camino lots, we are stuck speculating here. There's a huge range of potential outcomes. So, If we can't come to a single conclusion, then yes, perhaps the best that we can do is simply convey these issues to Council so that perhaps they'll have an insight that we've missed.

Thank you. Commissioner G, Vice Chair G. Thank you, Chair.

And as Commissioner Templeton previously mentioned, I feel like I have a lot of sympathy for the neighborhood here, both because I live in the Ventura neighborhood, but also because I have spent the better part of the last three years thinking about daylight planes and daylight for our one houses in the Ventura neighborhood. And I want to also reflect on what Commissioner Peterson had said, which is, oh, wouldn't it be great to have all this area redeveloped and the daylight plane would really be beneficial as opposed to the wall that we have up right now. And I think the way to think about this is instead, since we've been seeing all these projects that are stacking the state bills, that we might end up seeing a 55-foot structure with no daylight plane that is against the R1, right? And I... would feel really uncomfortable saying, oh, well, yes, we zoned this to be MXM so that we could make the lives and increase the daylight here. But actually what we've done is to significantly reduce the daylight and the quality of life for the people who live on the street. And I think something else to consider as well is that these streets that are in Ventura, Olive, Pepper, many of the neighboring streets, they're very narrow, right? If you've ever driven through one of them, you basically only can fit one car if there are two cars parked on the side. And so I am a little bit worried about having additional congestion there. And I think part of what... I appreciate about the NV-CAP is that a lot of these R1 areas are preserved because of the specific natures of the streets that are there. And I think for those reasons, my preference is to keep it as the NV-R1 at this time.

So I think that we've heard from everybody. I don't see additional lights. Would somebody like to make a motion? Commissioner Heckman.

Yeah, I think Commissioner Aiken has teed up how this is likely to play out. And so let's see if that is so. I will move the staff recommendation.

Second. Okay. Do we have further discussion from the commission? All right.

I will add one comment, sorry. One of the things we need to think about, we think a lot about the neighboring property owner's rights, and we're not thinking a lot about the person who is the applicant property owner's rights. And I just feel really sympathetic to that case as well. And the fact that this property with this building that is spanning across two buildings parcels is is really something I don't want to lose sight of like how how will this go forward what does that mean what are the implications to them as well and I'm not saying we should not think about the the neighbors definitely saying we should continue thinking about the neighbors that's all we've talked about I just want to say we should also think about the property owners and what they're going to do with this property should we encourage development on those adjacent three on El Camino and not that one. What does that mean for them? So that's the reason I think we should move forward with the staff recommendation in addition to the other reasons we've all outlined. Thank you.

Any additional discussion for the motion that's on the table? Okay. With that, Mr. Chavera, can you take the vote, please?

Commissioner Aiken. No. Commissioner Templeton?

Yes.

Commissioner Peterson? Yes. Commissioner Heckman? Yes. Vice Chair Gee? No. Chair Chang? No. Motion does not pass. 3-3.

From staff, what do we need? Just a minute, and then.

So with a split vote, we would need a follow-up motion to move the split recommendation forward to council.

Okay, so before we do that, does anybody want to speak to their no votes? So I'm not seeing lights, but I will quickly speak to my new vote, which is I am basing this decision based on the fact that careful thought went into the NV cap area plan. And I think that that that that that plan does take into consideration zoning this property for housing with a high transition. and further i am taking into account the comments from the public and i do have sympathy for the property owner but i think i encourage the property owner to bring this up in conjunction with a housing application so that we know what we will be approving because I really would like to see some housing there. So with that, then, Commissioner Gee, did you have something that you wanted to add? Vice Chair Gee?

I also want to add that part of my no vote is in addition to the feedback from the public comment. Thank you.

Councillor Yang, I saw you come up on screen.

Yeah. So I just want to clarify that we generally only have commissioners speak to no votes when when the motion passes uh because it because then it's it's the affirmative motion that's going forward to the council and you want the council to have that additional context of the no votes but since this motion didn't pass uh that's not being sent forward to the council right okay thank you for that um tonight is clearly not my night for process

Okay, so we do need a motion as Assistant Director Armour specified. So would somebody like to make that motion?

Can I ask a procedural question before we do that? So what we've just had is a deadlock motion to recommend rezoning. Before we, I think we know what the outcome would be, but procedurally before we can vote to move a split vote, do we need to have and vote on a motion to not rezone, to retain the R1 zoning? So that's really a question for Mr. Yang.

It's up to the commission whether it wants to take that vote as well.

I'm not seeing, I'm seeing head shakes from everybody. So it sounds like that we know what the outcome of that flipped motion would be. So let's just go ahead and have a motion to move the split vote on to council.

I'll take that as a motion that I second.

Great, okay. So that's the motion on the table. Do we have discussion on this? Yes, Commissioner Templeton.

I think it's very important for us to document our the thing we are agreeing upon and is the frustration about the uncertainty that the state bills have introduced to this conversation and that we feel like our hands are tied and this is important to document because hopefully the Council's legal team is working with the lobbyists and the representatives in Sacramento to improve this process. If we don't document it, how are they going to understand the nuances? I think everybody agrees that we need to improve the housing situation in the state, but if we're not, if we're just passing bills that cause a problem.

Are you suggesting that we make a

Our motion needs to have something in it, because we don't provide minutes anymore. We have to have something in our motion that captures this frustration. So I'm encouraging that to the motion maker, which I believe is yourself.

So I just have a quick question for Councillor Yang. That is not something that's agendized, much as I would like to document it. So what's the proper process here?

I think it's fine to include that in the motion if you would like.

okay so i'm going to include so the motion is to move the split vote onto city council and also um

Capture that the thing that we agreed on was that we are frustrated with the uncertainty introduced by the state bill rodeo that's going on, perhaps not using the word rodeo. so that we had different solutions to it, but this is what.

Right, so to capture the agreement from the PTC that there is quite a bit of ambiguity about the type of development that we will actually see because of the layering of various state laws, including state density bonus law and SB 79.

And what, well, one specific thing that we're trying, and I don't know which law this is, but we're talking about we can't protect, we have no other way to protect our daylight plane from our understanding. Even though we have zoning options that include protecting it, we don't know which ones would be overridden. Like specifically that is the problem.

Sure, so make it, to add to the motion, something specific about concern about erosion of daylight plain. Thank you. Okay, now I think we are ready to take a vote. Mr. Tavera? Before we do.

Oh, one more? Just, yeah, so as the seconder, to the extent that was any kind of amendment, as the seconder, I agree. But to really build on it a bit, it appears to me that This needs to get to council by, I think it's September 12th is the, we've got related to this, right? We have to designate some additional housing. And so if this is to be part of that, I think it's a September 12th deadline. So what I was gonna suggest is that that this be scheduled for council late enough so that they can have available the draft summary minutes of this meeting. There's not time to wait until those come back to us and we approve them, but they could review a draft understanding that they are unedited. And that I think will give them a flavor of the breadth of the dialogue that's happened tonight. And so is that something that staff can manage?

We can make an effort to do so. We also have an intention, particularly with this type of conversation and the split vote, it's going to be very important for us to summarize in the staff report the discussion and the concerns that were identified by planning commissioners.

Yeah, and I appreciate staff has really stepped up its efforts to do that now that we've lost our verbatim minutes. And I'm aware of that effort, but here I think this is a good augment to that is you've got the trans, I don't even know how it's done, but it, reasonably comprehensive it's not a replacement I'm not happy about it but it is what it is and it's it's a good augmentation to whatever you might write in the staff report to give them additional color yes so we will make an effort to time it such that it complies with both constraints

Okay, so Commissioner Heckman, did you want that to be part of the motion? No. Okay, great. Perfect. I mean, completely agree with you. All right. Now I think we're ready to take the vote, please.

Commissioner Templeton? Yes. Commissioner Aiken? Yes. Commissioner Heckman? Yes. Commissioner Peterson? Yes. Vice Chair Gee? Yes. Chair Chang? Yes. Motion carries 6-0. Thank you.

Okay. um on to our next item so question for commissioners do we need a bio break all right we're going to take a 10 minute break and we'll be back it is 7 46 right now OK, welcome back, everyone. We're going to move on to our second action item, which is to review and submit the Planning Transportation Commission 26-27 work plan. And I don't know, is there a staff presentation for this one?

Not much to add, but I did put together just a couple of slides just to set the situation up. So we'll move on to the second slide. Just laying out that the work plan has several components. It's got a description of the Planning Transportation Commission. Then it has information about the prior year, both the work plan linked to where that is available online and accomplishments that the P2C had through that year. And then ends and really the focus is the projects and goals for this next fiscal year. In this case that is almost exactly what we had last year except the removal of the retail ordinance which was completed and the recommendation on the updates to the bicycle and pedestrian transportation plan. And then a few edits just to the wording, but the goals in there otherwise were the same. So I do have in this on the following pages of this PowerPoint the wording of those goals. So we can go to here. one two and three area planning housing program implementation and state laws and then on the next page we've got goals four five six and seven the parking programs comprehensive plan policy implementation title 18 zoning code updates and project review Some of those were added last year to reflect the work that the PTC does. So with that, that is the end of the staff presentation for this evening, but happy to answer questions, discuss if there are modifications that PTC would like to make before recommending for council consideration.

Thank you. Okay, so let's just roll all our questions and comments into one. I've got... Do we want to check for public comment? Oh, right, public comment. I will just continue my trend of failing on process tonight. Mr. Travere, do we have any comments?

To the chair, we do not have any requests to speak on this item.

Wonderful. I knew that. That's why I skipped it. Okay. So, Commissioner Peterson.

Thank you. Can we bring the list back up? I think it was, let's see. There we go. And we go to the next page. I guess it was number four. Parking programs. I am a huge fan of parking programs. And because we have, what's it, 350 Hamilton by California Avenue. It is just a beautiful parking garage. And I think from living next to the parking garage, I'm becoming more understanding of the public service that parking garages provide as a community service within an area of high density multi-unit housing because it pulls the parking off the street to such a degree and it provides such a service to the local businesses. And then I've heard some of the discussions we've had that some of the parking garages are full and people can't find parking. So I would have been the last person in the world to say that number four, goal number four, public parking is my favorite topic, but it has become, as a planning commissioner, Probably one of the, to me, the single most important urban topic we have in the commercial districts is understanding the parking programs and making sure we have adequate parking, both for the businesses, but also to look at that parking as a service for the community, the residents. And I don't know if that works into suggesting a rewording there. But I think everything that's written there already covers it. if I want to get on the record.

Thank you. We'll have Commissioner Aiken, then Commissioner Heckman.

Thank you, Chair. This looks great to me. I found nothing that I would change in what you've proposed. I did want to bring up something for Commission's consideration as an addition. And Chair, should we discuss that now or do you want everyone to have a first round and then come back?

I think, why don't you just tee it up now and then we can look back to that. That way, you know, everybody at least knows that it's coming.

Sounds good.

Did you want to be a little bit more specific about what?

Oh, sure. Some of us have been thinking about how we could increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the commission. So what I have in mind is, would it be worthwhile to formalize this as a goal? And there's some specifics we could talk about a little later, but the gist of it is, There is thinking going on, should we take advantage of that for our own use and for council?

Okay. Commissioner Hackman?

Yeah.

That's the button I have to push now. Okay. I'm interested in hearing more about that potential goal. And then related to Commissioner Peterson's comment, it really, I need to be reminded, is this order of project goals have no priority, right? That it's just.

Correct. That's what we confirmed last year. Okay. It's not priority. It's just a list of goals.

Okay. So, so. Commissioner Peterson and Commissioner James, when he watches this video, which I'm sure he'll do, you can know that the numbering is for convenience only, not reference to any priority. So this is one of our many iterative documents that comes to us annually. And as with other iterative documents, I would find it a great service if we could have a red line from last year's because that makes, that would allow me to more easily determine that there were a few edits. to the wording as our assistant director said. I located those by comparing this year's to last year's word for word to see what the changes were. And they aren't worth reporting in detail in a staff report because they're minor. But if we had that red line in addition to the clean version, then I think that would, let us know whether they were, you know, what they were and we could decide whether they were minor and I want to talk about why did you make that change or not. So that's my only suggestion. A question I have is related to project goal six, which was eight last year, and that is in the resources needed There's a repeated sentence from last year, wireless ordinance update is currently unsourced. So that's, again, it's in project goal six, third column. And just help me understand what that means, what that sentence means.

Unresourced?

Yeah. Oh, unsourced, unsourced. It says currently unsourced.

It means that we don't have the resources to proceed with that full effort at this time.

No staff. So could we say unresourced instead of unsourced?

And in fact, there are some preliminary conversations on that topic. given that the temporary ordinance only goes until next June, so it may be that we will be able to proceed with it. Okay. But at this time it's still unresourced.

All right. That's it. Otherwise, happy with the product again this year. Looking forward to hearing more from Commissioner Aiken and if there are other commissioners who have other ideas for possible goals, added goals, I'm interested in hearing those too.

Commissioner Gee, Vice Chair Gee.

I want to plus one that I'm pretty interested in what Commissioner Aiken said about efficiency. And then my other question for staff is the timeline on the work plan. We have a new commission hypothetically in April and then we work on this work plan. And then I think I saw somewhere that it doesn't come to council until September. So just kind of curious how effective it is for a work plan to get approved by council six months later, potentially from when the commission began for that year.

Thank you. The timeline for a work plan is generally for the fiscal year. So that's July 1st through June of the following year. We develop this and generally come to the Planning Commission for consideration in July for the coming year. As previously discussed, it doesn't change significantly from year to year unless there's direction that there's a new project that's been initiated by Council and so it was unusual that it didn't actually get approved this last year until January or February and so we were more than halfway through the year before it proceeded but one of the things when it was continued to that date by Council that they did want to confirm is that staff and the commission would continue to move forward on this work, even though their discussion of it was postponed. But as a result, there have been discussions recently about making sure that it is considered in the fall because there's been over the recent years a little bit of back and forth as to whether it just goes to council on consent for approval or whether it goes to them as a discussion item and there is currently an interest for it to go the first time as a discussion item rather than assuming it'll just go through on consent and then get pulled and cause the delay like we saw this last year so it it seems to work fine too because of the small amounts of change from one year to the next to have the council approval in September, but we'd like to avoid the consideration in January or February in future years. Did that answer the question?

Yes. And then I have a second question, which is, or it's a comment and then a question. So for For example, the PTC tends to have a series of rolling projects of which we must execute against, and the ARB does as well. For other commissions that may not have a series of timeline items, how do they decide what goes on their work plan? So a different way to ask this question is, if the PTC is learning about what Council seems to be interested in, but Council is not given specific direction for the PDs to consider things, how would we potentially work towards some of these kinds of items?

Well so I guess I would start with the council does generally set their priorities for the work of the city at the beginning of the year and so and then they work to develop a budget to support those priorities that gets adopted in June and so staff works to identify any items that get added to that those priorities at the beginning of the year that would involve review by the Planning and Transportation Commission to be added either as a note under an existing priority, for example, the work to address state laws or the work to update the zoning code on some topic or implement the comprehensive plan, that we would reference any specific items that were directed by council as their priorities and work effort for us to move forward. so that is one of the ways that that their direction does move forward now having this discussion in July gives an opportunity for the planning and transportation commission to identify things from the work that you have done or other things that you have heard to recommend to suggest additional items be added and then we will have that discussion in September with the council to identify whether they accept that addition or whether they make some modifications to the work plan before approval.

Thank you. Those are my comments for now.

Commissioner Tomlinson.

Thanks. Just gonna provide a little context and history for this. Before this process, this bureaucratic process was introduced, this was the outgoing chair's letter to council about what we did and what we planned to do. It used to be pretty basic, very straightforward. Here's the kinds of things we worked on this year. Here's the kinds of things we know about. It simply is a record of what we do and to underscore the importance of our work and the value we're adding to council. So now we do this, but for our commission, it's not the same as some of the other commissions that are a little bit more self-directed. So I'm not sure that we really need to overthink this I think what we have is great and I want to acknowledge Commissioner Aiken and Vice Chair Gee's interest in improving our internal processes but I'm not sure this is where that needs to happen we should definitely talk about it and do whatever and we mentioned this at the retreat as well like We wanna make things more efficient, make things more efficient. Like let's just do it. That's something we can decide as a group together and it doesn't have to even be agendas necessarily depending on what kind of changes we're making. If it's our internal process, it just happens if we agree to do it. So for the sake of brevity tonight, I would say this additions don't need to occur. Thank you.

Okay, so I do have one additional goal that is probably a smart idea for us to include we'll see if the rest of the commission agrees so my goal was around initiating the update of the next comp plan because it's coming and so I think we need to tell kind of in the vein of telling council like this is what's coming down the pike that's a good one to put on especially um i was talking to counselor yang about this so we have to up zone for sb 79 and if we wanted to make any land use changes that might decrease things a little bit it needs to be because of um state law we need to balance it with any changes to like so we reduce density for some reason like wildfire risk which came up right there's places in the city where it really makes sense to increase density and places where I think we've seen the this commission did have a lot of concerns about and also when that one wildfire risk area item went to council council was also similarly concerned about it so broadly i think we need to because the comp plan is through 2030 this is probably the time to start at least outlining the process um and staff will have to take the lead on that so good for us to let council know that that is something that's coming obviously it's a long process so it would just be just starting it and then it's a good time to potentially mention some of the specifics that we as a planning commission have noticed so I won't go into more specifics than that right now, because I think we want to talk about Commissioner Aiken's goal first, but at the highest level, I think it would be good if we have a goal that just says we want to initiate planning for the new comp plan.

Yeah. Staff, is that something that we need council direction to add, or is that just something you guys are going to add? Like, is this okay? Can we do this? This is okay.

Okay, great.

Okay, so with that, I don't see other lights. Why don't we just go back to Commissioner Aiken's suggestion and we can discuss that first.

Sure. This is half baked at this point, so please take it as such. I don't want to preempt things that I know other commissioners have been working on. So I don't want to talk too much about specifics. But in general, I'm thinking about two classes of things we might work on. One is the efficiency class, and that relates to perhaps how we run meetings, how we run hearings, how we work with staff. Things like, at the finest grain, how do we make motions? Can we submit written text for those things? We are touching time and again on display of information. So things at that low level are essentially discussions between us and staff, but they need to be between the commission as a whole and staff. So these are not things that we would it would be fair or effective to do individually. So there needs to be some framework in which we can tackle that sort of thing. The second class of things that might be of interest involve our responsibilities as a commission. And those could be well beyond PTC and staff's purview to determine. So council could be involved. Certainly, city attorney could be involved. And I'm deliberately not going into any detail to avoid mischaracterizing what could be done there. But in private conversations, I know there's some interest in this. So within the next year, some of that might bear fruit. But that's a case where it not only involves us and staff, but also council. So there needs to be a framework in which that kind of discussion can take place, and perhaps even a forcing function to encourage us to make some progress, like a deadline.

This is so intriguing.

Yeah. That's why I hesitated to bring this up, because it's difficult to express this without commenting on things that are private conversations. But I think there are opportunities for the commission to take on slightly different responsibilities, which could result in faster progress for project reviews and reduce load on council. So I would, without having to specify all of those tonight, which would be A, tedious, and B, wrong, because I don't know them all, What I'm suggesting is that we might want to consider putting a framework into place that would allow us to discuss that sort of thing in the coming year.

Commissioner Templeton.

What is currently preventing us from discussing it? Why does it need to be part of this framework conversation?

lack of expertise in the particular subjects at hand on my part is the big problem. So that's that's largely why I don't want to try and get too specific tonight.

Okay, I'm not asking you specific on what you want to change. I'm asking you, why can't we just agendize things? Isn't that something that the chair can do working with staff to add something, a discussion to the agenda? Like do we need to have this, so I'm trying to separate the very difficult thing that's hard to talk about right now and what's in front of us.

Yeah, the short answer is I don't know. Okay. For the things that involve potential code changes and council involvement.

Yeah, I think we can't direct council as a PTC. So I would not support adding something that would involve us directing council.

No, no, this is not directing council.

Well, you may have to be more specific then, because that's what it sounded like.

Well, it sounds to me like a recommendation that council consider.

I think that we can't direct council, but by putting something on our work plan, What I'm hearing, without knowing the specifics, is it sounds like there may need to be some amount of staff time put towards something like this. And as a result, it would need Council's blessing. It would need Council's direction.

Correct, but we can ask for that.

As a part of our work plan process, we could ask for that.

Okay, so there's the different, you nailed it. That's the difference in the interpretation of what the work plan is. What the work plan, in my mind, is what council's asked us to do. If we're asking something of council, we're either gonna do it through staff, in my perspective, and it's just, I understand you're proposing something different, but from my perspective, you can talk to council. You can talk to council members. You can get them, lobby them to work on your idea. But if you want us to do work as a commission, generally, Council has asked us to do the work they've asked us to do, and just that. Whereas if we have internal processes we want to improve, we are already empowered to do that, so that's what we can do in that section at the end, or we can add an agenda item through the chair, so that we can discuss something if it needed to be agendized specifically. So all I'm saying is I think all of the ideas that you want to talk about are worth talking about and we should do it. I don't know if they belong in this document or elsewhere, and that's my feedback.

Yeah, and that's perfectly reasonable. I suspect we could be fairly aligned as to goal, but uncertain as to mechanism. But that's why I wanted to bring it up.

Do we have additional comments on this? Because I know that Commissioner Heckman was interested in hearing about this. So I didn't know if you had a comment. I'm not seeing lights. That's why I'm asking.

I was I'm not I'm not disliking anything that I'm hearing, I'm interested, I was actually looking at how our other existing goals and sections are written and I was trying to figure out how we go from this idea to a new set of, yeah, to a set of documents on a page and does that happen tonight or Or, cause we do have a little bit of time, not till January, but a little bit of time. Are we going to possibly direct staff to sort of take what we've done and come back to us with sort of their thoughts in this project goal format for our refinement?

so that's four so in conversation with staff in our pre-meeting about process um staff shared with commissioner g and me that we do have time so depending on how far we get on something like this is not one where it sounds like commissioner aiken has necessarily put into words what you're proposing yeah i drafted what would go into the work plan okay um but um So staff had suggested that we could go one of two paths. We could get far enough on a proposed goal tonight if there's enough agreement where we're okay with it and the commission trusts staff and Commissioner G and I to continue working on it. or if we don't get far enough to that point. Vice Chair. Vice Chair. Vice Chair. But if we don't get to that point that we could certain that there's time in the agenda for us to add a little bit more discussion to a future meeting, assuming that some work could be done, you know, in between to get us a little bit further down the path.

And I kind of like that approach because I'd like for staff to have some time to noodle this once they hear it. But I would not like for this to be the reason that we don't cancel July 29th. If we're going to, I mean, if I'm coming on the 29th, I'm available, I'm ready to make a desert.

Staff has indicated that it would not cause that.

Okay, yeah, so if there's still time.

Yeah, we could combine it with the agenda currently planned for the first meeting in August with the project on forest and thereby not creating an additional planning commission just to do the follow up on this. And we do expect that should allow us to bring it forward for council consideration when they request it, likely in September. Cuts it a little close, but it should be doable.

Okay, so I really like that approach. You can put your draft language on the table tonight. We can hear it. We can think about it till the meeting when this comes back to help, you know, to add comments or, you know, refine it. If that seemed like a good process on your issue, you have a goal too.

Yeah, I'm content with that because this was a speculative effort in the first place. And Commissioner Templeton's observation that it may be the wrong mechanism.

Seemed like a good process. On your issue, you have a goal too.

Yeah, I'm content with that because this was a speculative effort in the first place. And Commissioner Templeton's observation that it may be the wrong mechanism anyway needs to be considered as well. Yeah, so I can talk you through this. It's brief. But if there are other comments, we should hear those first.

Commissioner Templeton.

I was under the impression that you weren't ready to talk about it and it was, so if you're ready, go ahead, go ahead. But if you're not, like there shouldn't be any pressure because we can edit this next time.

Yeah, no, I think this is a, what I'm talking about is a fairly general statement that fits within the work plan framework. It does not identify individual tasks.

You're being so coy, I don't know what to make of it, so go forth.

Yeah, I'm just trying to be respectful of other people's work that I don't want to interfere with. What I would suggest as a start, under benefits, faster progress through PTC reviews and reduced load on council. For timeline, I suggest one year and then sunset. For resources needed, I suggest we will definitely need staff resources and we will possibly need council directions. Do you want me to finish this part?

I'm sorry, I'm so confused. It sounds to me like you're doing all the details underneath, but we still don't know what the headline is.

Oh, the action item would be to, as I thought I maybe didn't express concisely before, to provide a framework to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the commission.

Compared to what? On what basis, like on what measure?

That's what I'm getting at with the details that go in the work plan.

Okay, let me take a step back. Of course you will continue with this, I understand, but I want to explain my confusion because maybe you'll be able to address it and I can understand. But I don't, I hear a solution, I don't know what problem we're trying to solve. There's so many different meanings of the word efficiency.

Can we just continue on?

You absolutely can. Just so you know, I'm not following because I don't know what we're talking about yet.

That way, when he says measure of success, then we can hear, and I think he might be trying to answer that. So maybe we can continue on.

Guys, hold on just a second. It's fine. I already said I'd be happy to listen to it. I'm giving him a clue that I don't know what problem we're solving so that when we hit this goals of success, you have to know what... Go ahead.

Got it. You don't understand the problem, so how could you measure success? Okay.

Yeah. That may be going a little too far. I think successful organizations do self-improvement as a matter of course, and there are probably opportunities for us to do some of those things. Some of those are what I've characterized as efficiency changes, so less time for ourselves, for staff, for council. Some of those are effectiveness changes, which could include change in scope of what PTC reviews, and those are the things that I'm not prepared to talk about tonight. But continuing in that vein, the measure of success, I suggest a good one would be reduction in average amount of time per project review for PTC and council for items that have been reviewed by PTC. Is this mandated? Of course not. Is this council directed? No, although clearly implementation could involve council direction for implementation. So those are the basic headings. We've talked a lot about efficiency improvement, so I hope there's at least some intuition about that. No. So, I'm sorry, Commissioner, maybe you should use the mic.

So, I mean, I have not identified anything that is severely off with this commission compared to the last seven. So, I mean, I don't, in other words, I don't know what specific, you sound like you might have something in mind. I would love to hear more about it.

Well, we've talked about specifics many times. The ability to display information freely under the control of commissioners.

Technological is a great suggestion. That's absolutely not what I had in mind, so I appreciate you clarifying that.

That is one option. Another is how motions are constructed, whether they are displayed and reviewed before votes are taken.

public comments being received immediately and at the same time as the public?

Yeah, I'm trying hard not to take over this entire task, but to suggest that there are commissioners who have suggestions that I believe should be considered and merely to provide a framework in which that work can be done.

So if we were to put it in here, it would be an ask for staff resources to implement our efficiency requests as a commission. and I think we would definitely need staff resources to so framed like that I would be very supportive because I you know I agree with you there's some huge technology issues I don't know what other things could be included in that but if the question is if it's the thing that we need as a commission and we support it to be able to ask for staff resources I think that is a council ask and it might be useful to have it included in this for that reason um and we should also be prepared for them to say no of course yeah yeah but for framed like that and and it's very that is a very measurable and direct ask that i think makes sense to include i think some of the other things and how we might use it those are specific details that might change from year to year but if we have it in here then at least every year we're going to be asking council for that staff time and i think it'd be fantastic that's a good characterization i think i can support that okay so with respect to this then again oh now i'm seeing all sorts of lights commissioner heckman and commissioner peterson

Yeah, I was gonna say, there certainly is a path to do this, as Commissioner Templeton said, without including it on our work plan. I like the idea of including it on our work plan for two reasons. One, It'll have the tendency to make us a little more accountable to ourselves to actually make progress on this on our own initiative during the year, but also it will signal to council that this is something on our radar that we think bears improvement. And we're telling them that rather than someday them telling us that. And so for those reasons, I like the idea of including it here, as I suspect I'm going to like Chair Chang's when we get to talk about that.

Commissioner Peterson.

So I have a quick question. Ms. Armour, can I ask about the staff resources you have for education and certification?

So we do have some financial resources set aside as with the new commissioner training that we had a couple of commissioners attend at the beginning of the year. So we do have some resources for trainings for commissioners. It is limited as to what capacity that budget has, but there is some.

So the reason why I'm asking is, having been a staff member at the county, the first thing that usually happened when there was any new process came with new education and certification, which is always great as staff. If somebody suggested that, I was always the first to raise my hand and be like, I would love to go get a new certification. I just wanted to make the point that anything we discuss here, especially if we're talking about new tools, that we try to include staff with, you know, advocating for budget, for staff education and certification, which is always good for staff because that gives them mobility in the roles that they can carry as they advance through as staff at the, as public servants. I think I'm favorable of technology. I mean, I've been advocating for building information modeling, geographical information system. I still don't know if it's GIS or it's the geese, depending on whether you're in Europe or U.S., but I think it would be great, yeah. I mean, if we were advocating for budget for staff to increase their certification and send everybody to a GIS training program, I mean, I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Do we have any other comments on this item? We don't. So what I was gonna suggest, and it sounded like we were amenable to before, is that staff could take this, see if you could word it. Maybe if you have any questions, could work with Commissioner Aiken on it, and then we can bring back to that first meeting in April August. August. August. The wording so that we can all react to that.

Yes, if Commissioner Aiken would send in the language that you have so far, we could incorporate that into a staff report for that meeting. What I would recommend is once we've done with this discussion that we get a motion to continue to the August 12th date with a request for an additional of two, if there is support for that, additional goals. one on the comp plan and one on efficiency, just so that we have that clear direction.

Great, thanks. Okay. Then I sent in language to Mr. Tavera that it'd be helpful if you could put up his draft draft language. And of course I want to make sure that staff is okay with this. but perhaps if it needs to be refined, then we could just lump it in with the motion to continue. So yeah, take a read. maybe i'll help the public read it so the possible new goal is to initiate the process to update the palo alto comp plan for its next update beyond 2030. first bullets to determine the extent to which the plan needs to be updated the timeline of activities for completion and then a second bullet is that it may include small updates that have been surfaced by the pcc such as potentially modifying land use to reflect increased fire risk in the urban wildland interface, and more closely associating utility and other infrastructure maintenance and modernization with relevant comp plan elements. There may be other things too, but those were the two things that were very small that I could think of, and there's probably a lot larger effort that needs to happen. Comment from Commissioner Templeton, then Heckman.

Yes, how is this process usually initiated?

Usually it is direction from Council to initiate a new comp plan. It is something that we have been discussing and have identified as something given the we're getting close to 2030, given the length of time that these processes progress. And so this is actually something that it phrased as initiating the update to the comp plan. That is something that's likely to occur in this next year.

The distinction I'm trying to determine is does staff initiate that process or do you need us to include it in our work plan so that you do what you're supposed to do?

I do not have a concern with it being added to the work plan similar to the area plans is one of the items in the work plan. So I have no objection to that.

Is there anything in this phrasing that would in any way contribute to stress between PTC and staff that we should revise? Because it seems fine to me, but if it's not to you, then you need to tell us.

Because the current discussion seems to indicate we would have another opportunity to discuss, I would defer a response to that until I've had a chance to take a look at the language and consider it.

And I'll provide feedback at that time. That sounds good. I mean, the cart horse thing is just sometimes, I'm not saying that I have any knowledge of this happening on our team, but sometimes that is a thing that we need to be aware of. if you have a chance to review it and everybody's cool? Appreciate the question. From my perspective, I think these are two nice things to have. I think we may want to think about if this is an ongoing task for us, is there a different way we might phrase it? In other words, you have in mind with the way it's proposed right now that it's 2030 related, but in four years the same item is going to be on there. Do we need to revise it or can we just say,

something that is higher level do the comp plan update things we got to do or whatever i don't know if if i made through the chair you you could remove the beyond 2030 um if if you wish to make it less specific but the update to the comprehensive plan is something that we do every 10 to 20 years And so I would see it as a task that gets updated for the particular activities each year through the process and then would be pulled off until we are ready to initiate the next one.

And we're always doing updates to it even if it's not the big thing.

No, I think this is the big, I'm referring to the big thing coming down the pike. I'm not necessarily referring to all the small things. It will, the big thing would of course include the small things but we're always doing small ones this is the reason why I think it's important to put this on here is our mission says specifically that our job is to make recommendations of the city council on the city's comp plan and it's going to be a much bigger task for beyond 2030 than it is up till 2030 because that's the whole next new one but it's a staff task It's not actually just a staff task. It's a community, and in our mission, it's very specifically us.

We provide a channel for the staff to work with the public, and it's one of many channels.

This came up because staff had suggested that I might want to put this in conjunction with some other ideas that I had. That's partially why I suggested this. It seemed like something that... I'm sorry. I'm not...

I've hit a nerve and that's not my intention. I fully intend to embrace this as a new task. I'm worried that it's really specific in the way we're being specific. We don't have anything to be specific about. We're being weirdly specific about something that hasn't been kicked off yet. And I'm just a little worried about it because we're going to get stuck with a bunch of mess that we have to clean up in April, that you have to clean up in April.

No, so that's why I wanted to bring this. Like I said, it's not... I threw something together and dictated it while I was driving over here. So I'm not married to the wording. I was just meant to show the Commission sort of some possibilities. And that's why I love that staff is going to edit this because and then we can look at it. So, yes, I'm not married in any way to the specificity of this, whatever we think is best. All right. No lights, Commissioner.

So right now we've got Complan 2030, correct? it's in a sense scheduled to undergo a somewhat major overhaul, which only happens every decade or two, right? Are we heading in that direction?

Correct. The extent of the update can depend on the direction from Planning Commission and Council as to whether it's a focused update or a comprehensive one.

But some, for example, San Jose had a, they call theirs a General Plan. General Plan 2020, when they updated it, it became 2040. And so they're setting their target out. And so I think that's what we are going to be doing in the years to come, is pushing our timeline out and asking ourselves, whereas the last time this question was asked, what are we going to do between now and 2030 to get us where we want to be then? Now we're going to be asking something like, what are we going to do between now and 2050, or 40 or 50, right? And so this is going to happen. adding it to our work plan that goes to council because I think it's a message to them that we want to be proactive on this. And I think that is the right message for the PTC to deliver to the council on what is essentially the primary planning document of the city. So I like it. And I'll be interested to see what staff comes back with. In terms of the language you crafted, I don't have objection to any of it. But I think what we want I think the language when it comes back should reflect really the whole of the task. We're talking about, because there are multiple elements other than the housing element, which is separately over eight years. And frankly, there's been so much change with the housing element. And there continues to be changes that a number of our other elements need to catch up to be made consistent. So I think it's going to be a huge task in the coming years. And so I only say that in that I think the language that staff chooses should really reflect the breadth of that task.

And I specifically said just initiate the process because in this next year, this is our fiscal 27. I always get confused. This is fiscal 27. This is our fiscal 27 work plan. Just starting, right? Right. there's no goal to do any more than start the process for this next bigger effort. I didn't wanna just, but I do agree with Commissioner Heckman that the wording needs to reflect that we're just starting the really big effort. And like you said, Ms. Armour, that we can change it slightly each year to reflect what the PTC would be doing in that next festival year with respect to this, much longer uh process yeah okay any other commissioner peterson so when i heard the idea of of

2030, 2040, I remember scope 2035, which was the Stanford, the Gup, which was 10 years ago. So it must be 2045 now is good. So I think everything, a lot of the issues that we have in Palo Alto here are driven by that word, the in-between point between a major employer and the infrastructure highway system. And that Willow Avenue is apparently a roadblock to get from the highway from the university and It doesn't seem like from our standpoint, we actually hear all that much of those issues, but I think they come up. Every time I read the comments in the paper, I hear someone talking about it takes 15 minutes to get from the freeway to their house. And I think it keeps coming up that people forget the reason why it takes 15 minutes is because we've got a major employer that's not part of the city, that's in the middle of the city more or less. And so I would suggest that we also include, if nothing else, maybe a study session for ourselves just so we can get updated on what's the current topic with Stanford. And maybe it just bypasses us, but I would like to at least be somewhat knowledgeable on it because I was knowledgeable at one time, which tells me I'm not knowledgeable now.

if i may through the chair provide a little more context i had to look it up to confirm but initiate process for development of the comprehensive plan update was actually a tier two um in the list of priorities from council so it was not in the they they divided their priorities recognizing how extensive the list was and that we weren't going to be able to do all of them into two groups And this is one of the ones that made it onto the list. It's a tier two. But what the reason to share that is to show the Planning Commission that that is actually something that Council is already identified as something that should be initiated. Again, they use that word as well in the next year or so.

Commissioner, Vice Chair Gee.

Thank you, Chair. And actually, Ms. Armour, if I can jump on that, are there any other Tier 1 or Tier 2 or other Tier goals that Council has mentioned that are not yet on our work plan that you think may be relevant for the PTC?

I don't believe so, but I can go do another scan before we meet again.

Okay, so that's something that I think could be helpful, just so that staff can take a look at this before we get again. And in general, I just support both the idea of the goals that Commissioner Aiken and Chair Chang have mentioned. Thank you.

All right, seeing no lights, sounds like we need a motion to continue this item till August 12. Would somebody like to make that motion?

I move we continue this item until August 12th.

And incorporate and have staff work to incorporate the two goals and possibly new ones as based on council priorities. Yes, based on council priorities.

I will assume that that's a friendly amendment. I haven't amended. I've accepted. Okay.

I will. Vice Chair Gee?

I'll second that.

Okay, great. Further discussion, colleagues? Okay, no lights. So Mr. Tavera, could you please take the vote?

Yep. Commissioner Peterson? Yes. Commissioner Heckman? Yes. Commissioner Templeton?

Yes.

Commissioner Aiken? Yes. Vice Chair Gee? Yes. Chair Chang? Yes. Motion carries 6-0.

Thank you. All right, now it's time to approve the PTC draft summary minutes of May 13th, 2026.

And through the Chair, I just want to, for the record, note that Commissioner Heckman was absent.

So yeah, I'll just ask that he abstains. Okay. Do we need a, we need a motion. Would somebody like to make a motion? Move approval as revised. I'll second. Discussion? All right, please call the vote.

Commissioner Templeton?

Yes.

Commissioner Aiken? Yes. Commissioner Heckman? Abstain. Commissioner Peterson? Yes. Vice Chair Gee?

Yes.

Chair Chang?

Yes.

Motion carries 5-0-1.

Okay, next item is the approval of the PTC draft summary minutes of May 27th, 2026. Any discussion or is somebody ready to make a motion?

I believe we forgot public comments as well. Oh, goodness.

Can we go back and do public comment now?

To the chair, there is no request to speak on this item.

Well, thank goodness. Was there any request to speak on the last item? No. Okay, great. All right, we have a motion.

Move approval as revised.

I'll second. Discussion?

All right, let's take a vote. Commissioner Peterson? Yes. Commissioner Templeton?

Yes.

Commissioner Heckman? Abstain. Commissioner Aiken? Yes. Vice Chair Gee? Yes. Chair Chang?

Yes.

Motion carries 5-0-1.

Okay, now we move on to commissioner questions, comments, announcements, or future meetings and agendas. Commissioner Heckman.

So I guess this is a commissioner comment. So during one of these meetings that I missed, I think there was some discussion about efficiency where it was suggested that it's beneficial to the process and its speed if the commissioners in reviewing the staff reports identify questions that they're going to have. and can forward those to staff in advance, which conceptually I agree with that. And so I tried to do that. When I read the staff report over the weekend, I sent an email to staff, which was the subject of the supplemental report. And while I was pleased to get the answers, I felt bad because our planner, Ms. Callas, had to actually put out a memo. to address my questions. And the nature of my questions, the way I had tried to ask them was, when you give us your oral report on Wednesday night, can you include this information? And so I think this is a good direction, but I think maybe we can refine this process. There can be questions where You know, I read something in the staff report, I have a question, the whole commission should hear the answer and it's the kind of thing we're going to need to cogitate on for a day. But a lot of the times, it's not that. It's just, I just need something, this information, I'm curious about it. If you tell me at the meeting, I'll be able to digest it right there. And so I'd like us to work toward, however staff wants to, to get to that point so that we don't have staff, I'm not making work for staff.

If I may provide some additional context to that I appreciate that, and I think having that included in your request for additional information was very helpful, because then it did give staff, the choice based on our. sense of whether it was something that was going to be helpful to the Commission as a whole in advance to think about, to help frame the discussion, or in the verbal presentation at the meeting. This was something that was my call that made the decision that it was the type of information and context that we believed would be helpful for the Commission to have, you know, a day in advance to be able to cogitate on and bring to kind of as as they you all focus the questions that you would have and the discussion of the item so thank you for that.

Any other comments? I agree with Commissioner Heckman. This one happened to be one that I could digest quickly and would have been able to but I appreciate staff's decision too.

But actually there's a message in there for all the commissioners, including Commissioner James, who could be brought up to speed on this, and that is, If you're gonna send advance questions, think about whether you think we all need to know the answer in advance or not and indicate that in asking your question in your email so that staff has basically a choice as the assistant director did here. So it's just something to, again, we wanna improve our efficiency by having better communication with staff and so these are some ways we can do that.

Thank you for that. Seeing no other lights, we're going to, oh, Commissioner Peterson.

So, Ms. Amar, a member of the public reached out to me on, is a resident in affordable housing over or off, behind town and country. And apparently they had some issues there with flooding, mold, various different normal facilities maintenance issues. And so when he reached out, he said that he had reached out to the city to look for, because it's a community housing, I guess. So to file a complaint, you can't necessarily withhold your rent because you might not be paying rent to start with. So there wasn't a lot of leverage. He was asking how do who what is the appropriate agency or person to elevate the concern if you feel like you're not getting addressed by the city with your complaint, with your with your landlord, that's a public quasi public agency. And so I didn't actually know the answer. And I didn't want to just go on the website. So I explained I would ask the question here when we had time for our questions. So where do I direct the public? To you?

so so they they absolutely could come through us we have a housing planner who works within the community development department but we also do have other things for example tenant and landlord resources on the city's housing webpage which has a number of different resources for use including there are some, we have an organization and I'm trying to click through to the page on the website so that I get it correctly, Project Sentinel that is available to assist individuals with housing problems. And so they are one who can then work to help connect with the correct people to potentially resolve those issues. So that's probably where I would have sent somebody with that type of inquiry.

initially and that information is online okay that's perfect i've had problems with my landlord too and use those same services so okay that gives me the direction thank you all right seeing no lights let's move on to virtual public comment mr javer are there any raised hands uh to the chair there are no raised hands okay great so uh with that this meeting is adjourned thank you