Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

All right, okay, we're on air. Good evening and welcome to the November 12th, 2025 Pleasanton Planning Commission meeting. I can't believe it's almost the end of the year already. It's gone quickly. And with that, I'll call the meeting to order. And Mr. Otterrug, would you please lead us in the pledge?

i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all and thank you acela could we go ahead and please have a roll call

Commissioners Jago? Here. Jane?

Here.

Mohon is absent. Pace?

Present.

Wedge? Present. And Chair Morgan?

Present.

Okay, we have a quorum.

All right, and do we have any agenda amendments by staff?

we have no amendments to the agenda tonight but chair if you would indulge me just for a second where i can introduce our new planning manager derek farmer to the commission first meeting second day on the job so i want to give him a formal welcome and uh glad to have him aboard and nice to meet all of you thank you welcome derek thank you it's nice to meet you too and do we have any agenda amendments by fellow planning commissioners all right seeing none

Okay. We'll pause just for a minute. If you could join us, please.

Yeah.

Thank you. I didn't see him there.

Sorry I'm late.

Estella, is there anything we need to do on the roll call?

No. Okay.

I'll mark him here.

Okay. Thank you, members of the public, for joining us tonight. The more we hear from you, the better understanding we have of what the issues are that people really care about in the community. And for members of the public, if you would like to speak on any topic tonight, please submit a yellow speaker card to Estella, our recording secretary. And speaker cards can be found in front of the council chambers here. and since we have a lot of people, speakers are encouraged to limit their comments to three minutes just to ensure that everybody gets a chance to speak. So moving to the consent calendar, consent calendar items are considered routine and will be enacted by one motion unless request for removal or discussion or explanation is received from the Planning Commission or a member of the public by submitting a speaker card for that item. We have three items on the consent calendar tonight. One is the actions of the zoning administrator, two actions of city council, which was a quite interesting meeting the last week regarding the tennis court lights, and then a third approval of the minutes from October 22nd. Do we have any speaker cards for consent items?

No speaker cards were received for the consent calendar.

all right and if anyone else would like to speak on the consent calendar you please approach the podium at this time not seeing anyone are there any comments from fellow planning commissioners for items on the consent calendar seeing none i'll invite a motion to approve the consent calendar i move to approve Second. I'm sorry, who seconded? Second. Commissioner Pace, thank you. Estella, can we go ahead and have a roll call, please?

For approval of the consent calendar?

Yes. Commissioners Jane? Aye. Mohan? Yes. Pace?

Aye.

Wedge? Aye. And Chair Morgan?

Aye.

Okay, motion passes unanimously.

Okay, moving to the next item, meeting open to the public. public comment is for items that are not on the agenda. If you would like to speak for an item that is on the agenda, please hold your comments until we get to that item. Do we have any speaker cards for items not on the agenda?

No speaker cards were received for items not listed on the agenda.

And if anyone else would like to speak for items not on the agenda, please approach the podium at this time. SEEING NO ONE THERE, WE'LL CLOSE THE PUBLIC COMMENT FOR ITEMS THAT ARE NOT ON THE AGENDA. AND WE'LL MOVE TO THE PUBLIC HEARING AND OTHER MATTERS WHICH I ASSUME EVERYBODY IS HERE FOR THIS ITEM TONIGHT WHICH IS ITEM 5 ON OUR AGENDA RELATED TO an application for a development that was included in the housing element three years ago to build and grow our housing capability in Pleasanton. And with that, let's go ahead and start with the staff presentation, please.

Good evening, Planning Commission. Before I use item five on the agenda, application for housing site compliance review P23-0563 pursuant to Senate Bill 330, also known and referred to as SB 330, for the property located at 4400 Black Avenue. THE APPLICATION INCLUDES DEMOLITION OF AN EXISTING COMMERCIAL BUILDING, CONSTRUCTION OF A RESIDENTIAL DEVELOPMENT CONSISTING OF 59 THREE-STORY TOWNHOME-STYLE CONDEMONIUMS, UNITS RANGING FROM APPROXIMATELY 1446 TO 2224 SQUARE FEET IN SIZE AND SEVEN ACCESSORY DWELLING UNITS, ALONG WITH RELATED ON-SITE AND OFF-SITE IMPROVEMENTS, APPROVAL OF VESTING TENTATIVE TRACK MAP 8749, INCLUDING THE DESIGNATION OF PRIVATE STREET NAMES AND APPROVAL OF AN AFFORDABLE HOUSING AGREEMENT CONSISTENT WITH THE CITY'S INCLUSIONARY HOUSING REQUIREMENTS. THE PROJECT SITE IS LOCATED ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF BLACK AVENUE. THE SURROUNDING USES INCLUDE AMADOR VALLEY COMMUNITY PARK, INCLUDING THE DELORES BANKSTON AQUATIC CENTER AND PLEASANTON CULTURAL ARTS CENTER, AMADOR VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS FIELDS, GENERAL COMMERCIAL OFFICES, AND LYNNWOOD UNITED METHODIST CHURCH. As illustrated in the agenda report, the project is submitted pursuant to SB 330. In summary, the state law freezes the policies, standards, and fees in effect when the preliminary application is submitted. The applicant submitted an SB 330 preliminary review application in April of 2023. PURSUANT TO STATE LAW, SPECIFICALLY THE HOUSING ACCOUNTABILITY ACT, THE SCOPE OF THE CITY'S REVIEW AND BASIS FOR PROJECT APPROVAL OR DENIAL IS LIMITED TO CONFORMANCE WITH THE STANDARDS OF THE ODS, PMC, AND OTHER RELEVANT REGULATIONS TO THE EXTENT THEY ARE OBJECTIVE IN NATURE. THE PROJECT SITE IS INCLUDED IN THE HOUSING ELEMENT AS AREA 19. AS SUCH, THE SITE HAS A GENERAL PLAN HOUSING ELEMENT SITE OVERLAY THAT ALLOWS FOR DENSITY BETWEEN 15 AND 25 DWELLING UNITS AN ACRE. the project proposes the density of 22.78 dwelling units an acre in conformance with the housing element furthermore the site requires conformance to the january 26 2023 objective design standards with the exception of the waivers requested summarizing exhibit f of the agenda report the project conforms to all applicable objective standards for the city's inclusionary zoning ordinance For all new four cell residential projects and where the project would include 10 residential units or more, at least 15% of the project's dwelling units shall be affordable. The project proposes nine affordable units which meet the 15% minimum requirement. In addition, the project qualifies for the CEQA statutory infill exemption established by AB 130 codified in section 21080.66 of the public resource code. the project is subject to the january 26 2023 objective design development standards for projects with densities greater than 14 and up to 29 dwelling units per acre the ods provide development standards relating to setbacks building height site layout parking architecture and design open space amenity and landscaping As illustrated in the agenda report, per state density bonus law, the project is eligible to request incentives and concessions, waivers, or reductions to development standards. The applicant has requested a total of 27 waivers, two of which pertain to site development standards, including lot width and building height from the ODS. THERE IS NO LIMIT ON THE NUMBER OF WAIVERS OR REDUCTIONS OF DEVELOPMENT STANDARDS THAT MAY BE REQUESTED. WITH THE UTILIZATION OF WAIVERS, THE PROJECT PROPOSES TEN THREE-STORY RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS ON A SITE CONSISTING OF ONE INTERNAL STREET AND FOUR ALLEYS. THE PROJECT ALSO INCLUDES THREE PASALES TOTALLY 6,155 SQUARE FEET. Each PASEL design includes synthetic turf, trees, bicycle parking, and seating areas. The project proposes 13,636 square feet of group usable open space and 2,135 square feet of private open space. Overall, the project proposes 13,636 square feet of group open space. FURTHER, THE PROJECT PROPOSES DESIGN ELEMENTS THAT INCLUDE A COMBINATION OF GABLE ENDS MIXED WITH HIP ROOFS TO BREAK UP THE MASSING AND ROOF PITCHES. THE ARCHITECTURAL DESIGNS ALSO PROVIDE VARIOUS FACADE BREAKS THROUGHOUT BY UTILIZING VARIOUS STEPS AND INCLUDING DECKS FOR EACH UNIT TYPE. THE MAXIMUM HEIGHT PROPOSED IS 42 FEET 10 INCHES. A WAIVER HAS BEEN REQUESTED TO EXCEED THE MAXIMUM 36 FEET HEIGHT PER THE ODS. PER THE SIXTH CYCLE HOUSING ELEMENT, THIS PROPERTY WOULD PROVIDE 52 MODERATE INCOME RESIDENTIAL UNITS. THE PROJECT WOULD PROVIDE 50 ABOVE MODERATE INCOME RESIDENTIAL UNITS AND NINE LOWER INCOME UNITS, WHICH IS 52 FEWER MODERATE INCOME UNITS THAN PROJECTED, 50 MORE ABOVE MODERATE UNITS AND NINE MORE LOWER INCOME UNITS. BASED ON AN ANALYSIS OF RECENT PROJECTS APPROVED AND TITLED, THE INVENTORY OF SITES PROVIDES A BUFFER OF 56 UNITS IN EXCESS OF THE CITY'S ASSIGNED 894-UNIT MODERATE INCOME REGIONAL HOUSING NEEDS ALLOCATION, ALSO REFERRED TO AS RENA. THE REMAINING BALANCE HIGHLIGHTED IN GREEN IN THE TABLE BEFORE YOU SHOWS A NET POSITIVE REMAINING BALANCE. AS A RESULT, THE APPROVAL WOULD NOT REQUIRE REZONING OF ADDITIONAL SITES TO MEET THE MODERATE INCOME RENA. As analyzed in Exhibit D, the project is located on less than 20 acres within the incorporated city. It's consistent with both the city's Pleasanton's general plan and zoning standards, meets the required density thresholds, and does not involve any disqualifying environmental conditions or involve the demolition of any listed historic resource. A phase one environmental site assessment has been completed and tribal consultation has been conducted in accordance with statutory requirements. The project qualifies for the CEQA exemption established by AB 130. Public notices and comments. Notices of this application were sent to surrounding property owners and tenants within a thousand foot radius of the site. Notification was posted onsite for the onsite project notification policy. Public comments related to scale, neighborhood compatibility, parking, traffic. Regarding traffic, apologies. With respects to parking, condominiums require a minimum of two parking spaces, one of which to be covered. All units provide two covered parking stalls. Additionally, visitor parking is not required by the ODS or PMC. However, the project includes nine visitor parking stalls. Regarding traffic, the project's traffic analysis prepared by TJKM approximates 145 more trips during the typical weekday. than the existing commercial uses considering peak periods. The project would have nine fewer trips during the a.m. commuter peak hours and four fewer trips during the p.m. commuter peak hour. Those figures are illustrated in the orange circles before you. The traffic analysis concluded that the trip generation results would not worsen the level of service as illustrated in the comparison table before you highlighted in blue. The housing element update final environmental impact report concluded that because the effectiveness of the VMT reduction measures in reducing an individual development project's VMT impact to a less than significant level, the impact would remain significant and unavoidable. The project's traffic analysis was reviewed by the city's traffic engineering division which determined the project's trip generation would not cause any significant or worsen operating conditions or delays at any nearby intersections. Status recommendation is outlined before you on this slide with a modification to remove the conditions of approval numbers 42 and 43 in exhibit A pertaining to universal design. After further review, the conditions are not applicable to the project for SB 330 provisions. Staff is available for questions and we do have the city's traffic engineer should questions arise.

All right. Well, starting on my right, Commissioner Jane, do you have any clarifying questions? Or go ahead, we'll come back to Okay, sorry. For the staff?

Yeah, I think I saw there's a oil spill report in one of the packets. Is there any health and safety concern related to the site?

There are no health and safety concerns related to the site.

Okay. And this was one of the sites on our housing element list? Correct. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Jago, do you have any clarifying questions?

Not at this time.

Okay. Mr. Mohan?

I'm good, thanks.

Mr. Pace.

Yep. Thanks. Um, so maybe just a couple, um, not everyone, uh, might be as familiar with the process that, um, we on the, on the DSR. So maybe, uh, to start with a little bit. So, um, a couple of years ago, we were obligated as we are by the state to identify a certain number of locations in the city where we, um, if a developer were to approach us about one of those locations, higher density would be required to be put under that location. And that was an obligation we were under as directed by the state. So this location that's been identified here was one of the locations that was identified in that work that was done a couple years ago. Is that correct? Correct. Okay. And so under the requirements that are put forth by the state for us as a result of having to generate that list that was mandated by the state, there are certain requirements around what we're able to look at or not and what we're able to consider or not. In other words, some of the discretion that this body would have, that the city would have, was taken away from us because of the state mandated law. Is that correct?

Correct.

And so the work that was done here, I noticed there were 900 plus pages put into this report that we had the fortune of getting to review. That work reflects the work that was done by you and by, you know, the staff to make sure that we were complying with state law and what we were able to review as a result of the limited review power that we as a city have over this project, right? Correct. And so as you looked at kind of the list of things we were able to review, were there any – things in there that you looked through or that were reviewed by you and by your peers at the city at the city staff that would somehow you know knock us out of the of the limited uh room the limited conditions that we had to to review this um to review this project said differently Was there anything in there that created an exception to the fast track approval that would be received for this type of project?

There was not.

Okay. And so the kinds of things that you looked at, for example, would have been the environmental impact, the traffic impact, and these were some of the things that you touched on in your presentation, which I know didn't try to review all 900 pages, but was a summary of it, right? Correct. Okay. I'll stop there for now. Thank you.

ALL RIGHT. WELL, THANK YOU FOR PROVIDING THE BACKGROUND INFORMATION THAT MIGHT BE USEFUL FOR PEOPLE IN THE GENERAL PUBLIC TO JUST UNDERSTAND THAT WE HAVE SOME CONSTRAINTS ON HOW MUCH AUTHORITY WE HAVE FOR REVIEW OF THESE TYPES OF PROJECTS. COMMISSIONER WEDGE, ANY CLARIFYING QUESTIONS?

NO QUESTIONS. THANK YOU.

And the only very, very small question I have is in the packet, I believe it says that the density for this project is 22 point something units per acre. And then there was another section in the package which I believe it was talking about the ADUs, how they could eventually become independent units. So I remember seeing one spot where it said it could be as high as 25.5 units per acre. And the only question I have regarding that is in our housing element, the range is 15 to 25. So in theory it could exceed just slightly the upper limit of the range in the housing element. And I'm not concerned about there being a little higher density there than what we were approving. My only concern is if we created some technicality condition where someone could challenge the project later because it exceeded the limits in the housing element. So it might be MORE OF AN ATTORNEY QUESTION. AND AGAIN, IT'S NOT A CONCERN THAT I HAVE ABOUT THE PROJECT ITSELF. I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE WE'RE DOTTING ALL THE I'S AND T'S AND THAT WE'RE NOT CREATING A SITUATION WHERE WE MIGHT BE CHALLENGED LATER.

So when we're discussing density and the question of ADUs, the ADUs not count towards density from a land use perspective, but they may count towards that RHNA number. And so I just want to make that clear that there could be some confusion there, but those are exclusive of one another in the interpretation.

So for the housing element, it's 22 point something units per acre, regardless of whether the ADUs are conveyed separately in the future, correct?

Correct. So for this, I'd be 15 dwelling units an acre to 25.

Okay. All right. This sounds solid to me.

I have one more. Yeah. Okay. So in the presentation you talked about there were a couple of exceptions. I don't remember which page it was. It was towards the end. Can we just walk through what the importance of those exceptions that you noted were there? Go back to like maybe the third slide from the back. The waivers or something else? I think you said the word exception. That's why I want to make sure we have this covered. A little bit more. Yeah, go one, maybe it was, yeah, okay, with waivers. So maybe let's talk a bit about what waivers means here so we can have a clear understanding as we're having this discussion with our city tonight about what it means to have a waiver.

And please take as long as you'd like just so that we can make sure that the general public understands this part.

So a waiver would act similar to earlier in the presentation mentioning a reduction of a development standard. A waiver is taking it to the extreme where it's not a reduction, meaning there's some existence of that development standard still in the project. A waiver is exactly what is intended. It is waived. You do not have to abide by any element of that standard.

Could be the standard or municipal code, either one, correct?

Correct. It's an objective standard. SO THAT'S WHAT A WAIVER ESSENTIALLY IS TO ELIMINATE A STANDARD IF WE'RE BEING BLACK AND WHITE.

COULD YOU GIVE JUST A COUPLE OF EXAMPLES I KNOW YOU HAVE IN THE PACKET BUT JUST AGAIN TO HELP ENLIGHTEN PEOPLE ON WHAT TYPES OF THINGS ARE BEING ASKED FOR WAIVERS HERE WHERE WE HAVE LIMITED AUTHORITY NOT TO GRANT THOSE WAIVERS.

sure so i one of the most common ones that we tend to see in most recent submittals would be the height waiver so 36 feet in maximum height is the ods that is the standard it's objective it's measurable a reduction would be to go instead of 36 37 something less than an optimal so when you're doing a waiver is to eliminate that standard and essentially ACCEPTING, IF YOU WILL, THE NEW PROPOSAL, WHICH IN THIS CASE WOULD BE 42 FEET. SO IT'S ALMOST AS IF THE EXISTING STANDARD IS NONEXISTENT IN A WAY. IT'S WAIVED. IT'S NOT THERE ANYMORE. ANOTHER ONE WOULD BE PARKING. SO EACH UNIT HAS COVERED PARKING, AS MENTIONED, TWO COVERED STALLS. YOU WILL SEE THAT IN SOME OF THE UNITS ON THE FLOOR PLAN, THERE IS TANDEM PARKING. RPMC discourages, does not allow tandem parking. However, a waiver was requested to have tandem parking. So that's another example of those. And more with the site layout and circulation, we have ODS standards such as the width of sidewalks. They're proposing five foot wide sidewalks. A waiver has been requested, or apologies for six foot sidewalks, a waiver has been requested and they're proposing five foot sidewalks. And a lot of these tend to be spatial to allow for development to meet the density per the housing element. That's generally the justification for a lot of these waivers.

So so just to make sure we have this on the record that when someone when a developer is requesting a waiver whether it's a width of a sidewalk or or something else one of the things that would be considered would be are we creating some sort of safety hazard or something else because we're granting something that was that was different than what what the standard would be health standards health standard safety standard whatever so so so when you were good clarification thank you so when you were considering the waiver uh for these things you were still whoever the city was doing you're sitting here so i'm saying saying you but please interpret that broadly that the city staff was considering broadly the health and safety issues among other things as considering whether or not to grant these waivers correct? That is correct.

Okay. And would it also be fair to say just in a general sense that these standards you're referring to are from a high level perspective zoning standards to assure that the buildings that are constructed in different areas of the city conform to what we would expect there and they're not too big, not too tall, not too all of those types of things. They're not like state standards or laws but they're city municipal standards and code to assure that development is done in the way that conforms with the city's wishes. Is that correct?

In summary, correct.

OKAY. AND YOU WENT THROUGH THE SUMMARY RELATIVELY FAST BECAUSE THERE'S A LOT OF ITEMS TO COVER AND THAT'S ALL EXPECTED AND IT WAS DONE WELL. NO ISSUES WITH THAT. I JUST KNOW THAT WHEN WE SAW THE COMMENTS FROM THE GENERAL PUBLIC THAT ONE OF THE CONCERNS THAT WAS RAISED WAS REGARDING TRAFFIC AND SPECIFICALLY WITH BLACK AVENUE AND SO THAT WAS AN AREA WHERE I UNDERSTOOD WHAT YOU WERE SAYING BUT IT WAS ONE OF TEN POINTS WE WERE GOING THROUGH HERE. AND I GUESS I WOULD JUST LIKE TO ASK OUR TRAFFIC ENGINEER WHETHER YOU HAVE ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD LIKE TO ADD ABOUT THE TRAFFIC STUDY JUST TO GIVE THE GENERAL PUBLIC A LITTLE BIT MORE INSIGHT ABOUT HOW MUCH OF A TRAFFIC ISSUE THIS IS. DOES IT REPRESENT 1% OF THE TRAFFIC ON BLACK AVENUE, 20%? is it actually increasing or reducing traffic? It might be helpful for people to hear this twice, even though we've already gone through it on the slide.

Thank you, Chair, and good evening, Commission. Mike Tosano, the traffic engineer for the city. I'll just kind of give you a brief overview of how we looked at each housing site and just some kind of general from the public in concepts, and then what we look at as traffic engineers, kind of blend those together. When we started our housing element update, back in 2020 and then it was approved in 2022. We looked at every different site and most of the sites that we have are infill sites or tearing one building down to put in housing. We don't have a lot of just free standing space to put in. So we have a lot of conversions. And so one of the things that we look at as traffic engineers is what that existing use is and how much traffic that generates. And then we compare it to how much density we would put on that site for residential. And we compare the two. So a brand new empty site is just new trips. This one has existing commercial, an office building, which doesn't currently generate that much traffic. It's just there's not a lot of vehicles that come in and out of there. it could, there's a standard level of traffic generation. So, you know, I think it's AT&T, if they had left and then came back in when someone else came in, we would see more trips, and that's what was shown that Diego had put up on the slide, was what that, standard office would generate and then what's also shown on the slide is what the general condominium thank you diego would generate so those two when you compare those when i compare those and what we do is we look at the peak hour we look at both the am and pm but really in the city of Pleasanton, the busiest hour is the p.m. peak hour. So when we evaluate an impact to our roadway network, we look at the p.m. peak hour because if we can handle that worst hour, then we can handle the other hours, right? So in this example, throughout the day, there's more traffic. It shows that the multifamily housing has 500 trips, whereas the office building has 350. But those extra trips are a little more distributed through the day. And so we can handle those. We just want to make sure that we can address the peak hour. And so that's what the traffic study ends up looking at. I think in general, there's a thought that high density residential generates more traffic, right? So in general, the public has a hard time and most people have a hard time feeling it's accurate that we can take that office building out and put in residential and the trips, the number of vehicles is gonna be the same, right, for our peak hour. And there's not gonna be a noticeable difference. And so that's essentially what the traffic report says. I know the feeling that the public has is that that's not the case. It's gonna be much worse. I think I did receive, we all received an email about the school traffic. Black Avenue at Santa Rita and Black Avenue in general, its busiest hour is actually 3 p.m. But we evaluated 3 p.m. even though it's not in this report. We looked at that as well. The signal operates pretty well, Santa Rita at Black. It actually operates a little bit worse than it used to mostly because we made some improvements for the pedestrian safety to the detriment of the vehicle throughput. So that way we, that intersection now has protected crossings, so that way the left turns don't go at the same time. And I think the residents that are here had driven the before condition as well as the after condition and know that making a left turn when the pedestrians are crossing wasn't the best choice. And so there's a little extra delay there, but still, as the report shows, it's still an acceptable level of service according to our general plan.

Could you put the slide back up, please? Yeah. And so overall, there's a little more traffic, but traffic during the peak times is actually less than with the commercial space because I assume that's because the commercial space has people coming into work early in the morning and then they're leaving in the later afternoon, whereas the people that will be living in the condominiums, their trips will be more spread out during the day. Is that the way to think about it?

I think the way that I look at it is when you have an office complex, you have you and 30 of your colleagues or 40 of your colleagues going to this one little space and you get there at the same time and you leave at the same time. It's very directional, that distribution. And then if you have single family homes, that's just one person, right? So that same area, you'd only have six houses, right? There wouldn't be a lot of single family homes there. So that would seem like what exists through most of the rest of Black Avenue when you have the courts and there's 10 courts, right? But the vision that you end up seeing is, well, this is now, you know, So now you feel like there's just a whole bunch of people stacked up on there. And I don't think that the vision is really there that the office had you and 35 of your colleagues working. So I think that's where the kind of the loss comes or the misunderstanding.

So the minus 9 and the minus 4 that represents that there will be slightly fewer trips during peak hours and the 145 that's circled here indicates that throughout the day there will be roughly 145 more trips than for the condominiums than there would have been with the commercial space. And so could you give us an idea of whether 145 is a large number, a small number relative to how much traffic there is existing, that type of thing? Do you have any sense?

Sure. So I think an easier way to look at that 145 is if you just try and, you know, separate it out through the busiest 14 hours of the day, right? So that's an extra. you know, 10 cars an hour. Okay. Right. So that's what, 10 cars every six minutes?

One every five or six minutes extra on average.

So that driveway that you drive by, you'll see now one more car per five minutes than you did before. So maybe there's two cars there, and the next time there's one. Yeah. So when you look at it at that scale, it's... The number's not as, you know, 145 sounds a lot bigger than I think it really seems when you get out there.

A couple of questions. Yeah, please.

So I think the left turn on black going into this property could be a concern with the backup of traffic. Do we have any tools in our toolkit if it were to become an issue to not allow that left turn or we are required to have a left turn into the property? Or is there another tool if this were to become an issue in future?

Well, I don't think this driveways dissimilar from the existing use right so that the number of left turns that would go in and out of there if the Houston change would be exactly the same but to answer your question. Because Black Avenue is wider it provides the opportunity that if there's a vehicle waiting to make that left turn you can go around them into what would be the shoulder. If there was excessive parking, you could potentially remove that parking to allow the left turn to occur easily and the vehicles to pass them. It's not something that we see and really would prohibit left turns. That's usually, to prohibit a left turn is more of an enforcement issue, right? Because then people are still gonna make that left turn. They're just gonna try not to do it when a police officer is there. So we try to look for solutions that will facilitate that movement in a safe manner, and so maybe a wider area. That's why you have left turn pockets. as opposed to left-turn restrictions.

Thank you. One more, if I may. If we were to compare with something else in the city, what would be a good comparison of a similar situation? I know there's not exact match, but let's say on the busy street on Valley, we have the condominium, and that is kind of similar size. I think it probably has even more units.

On the new section of Valley?

on Valley, just at the intersection of Santa Rita and Valley, where you have the Safeway and behind Safeway, there is a complex. So that, like, is that a comparable?

I don't, yeah, I don't think I would be able to just give you a good, I didn't go to look for comparable sites. So I don't know how many are back there.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU FOR ATTENDING OUR MEETING TONIGHT. I CAN'T GUARANTEE THIS WILL BE YOUR LAST TRIP TO THE PODIUM SINCE A LOT OF THE QUESTIONS SEEM TO BE AROUND TRAFFIC. AT THIS POINT WE'D LIKE TO INVITE THE APPLICANT PRESENTATION.

Are we good? Oh, we're hot. Okay. Good evening. My name is Kelly Ruchina, and I'm with the True Life Companies representing the applicant for the Black Avenue project. I'm going to refer to my notes a lot because otherwise I'll forget something and have to go back later. But we are excited to be here tonight and to offer this new neighborhood that, as you all mentioned, was included in your housing element site and is identified by the city as the place that they desire to have housing. Thank you, next slide. As Diego said, this is a housing element site. General plan is a public institutional with the housing element site overlay. It's site number 19. And it meets the city's RHNA commitments to providing homes and also includes nine affordable units. The zoning, sorry, next slide. Yep. It's also a housing opportunity zone, and as we've discussed, it has a commercial space right now usage. Our proposal will transition this to much-needed housing for the city and kind of revitalize that neighborhood, that street, and that community. Next slide. Thank you. As Diego's mentioned, it's 2.59 acres with the density of 22.78. This will be a 59 unit townhome community that are three story homes, seven of which will have ADU units. with private roof decks. There's over 13,000 square feet of public open space and 127 total parking spaces including the private and the public. Let's see. Next slide. Just wanted to show an image of what it looks like right now. It's just mostly parking at the front with the commercial building towards the back and then I think AT&T stores some of their vehicles back there. Go to the next one. So this is an example of a five unit building elevation, designed multiple floor plans. ranging from 1,450 square feet to just over 2,200 square feet. So we had a goal of serving wide ranges of households, from young professionals to growing families to the multi-generational family. There's a mix of side-by-side and tandem garages, as we discussed. That helps balance the site efficiency and gets us to our density that we are looking for on this site. Next slide. So this is just an example of the unit that has the ADU unit and the roof deck. You know, these homes are ideal for multi-generational families, caregivers, or as a rental income to offset mortgages. Kind of be really helpful with these times. This flexibility offers supports for family and helps provide affordability within the community. You can go to the next slide. This slide indicates our nine affordable units that will be dispersed throughout the site. Seven of them will be deed restricted to low income families and two will be deed restricted to very low income families. So these are integrated throughout the site and helps to contribute directly to Pleasanton's arena goals while promoting an inclusive mixed income neighborhood. Go to the next one. This is our exhibit of our open space. We have private open space, which is basically the decks, and then the pink and the green are as the public usable open space. So as Diego said, we've got about 13,000 square feet in total. There we go. The community amenities. include landscape gathering areas with seating nodes, bicycle racks, gathering areas with tables and chairs, and safe pedestrian circulation. Go to the next slide. Yeah. All of these features will help to create a walkable, family-friendly environment and will complement the neighborhood. Our focus is livability, safety, and social connection. and go to the next slide. So ideal infill site, right, it's located conveniently to schools, right to downtown, close to BART. So the design really supports Pleasanton sustainability goals by promoting walkability and transit use. And that's it. So I'm here for any questions that you have about this project. And I thank you so much for your time.

OK, if you could stay at the podium for just a bit in case there are questions. Commissioner Wedge, any questions for the applicant?

I do.

I have a few.

The height of the buildings on 8, 9, and 10, what are those heights?

I'm going to invite up my architect.

He would have better answers for architecture and building heights.

Good evening, Jeff Potts, SDG Architects. I will have to look those up. They are indicated on the elevations in your packages. So are you talking about building numbers or building types?

Yes, buildings 8, 9, and 10.

If I, if I may, um, if the eight unit buildings that you're referring to, and those are shown here in the PowerPoint, building eight, some extra slides that I prepared.

Yeah. And the building eight, the, uh, maximum height is, uh, 38 foot 11 at, um, just one of the shed roof areas. The top floor plate height is, uh, 31 foot, um, which would be your, your main Eve around the, uh, main part of the building.

So what I'd like to know is the three buildings that back up to the residences on the west side. Those are the building heights I would like. And are there any roof decks on those buildings?

No, the roof decks are on buildings one through seven. Sorry. Can you hear me? Uh, sorry. Those are the, the 80 units have the roof decks and those are on buildings one through seven. They're the, um, end units on each of those.

Okay. Closest to the interior of the site.

Okay. Um, what is the distance between your building eight, nine, and 10, the building distance from that and the fence of the neighbors on the west?

the dimensions are there on the screen it's it's difficult to read them from here but I can look them up yes between the the building and the fence that would go to the neighbors to the west

10 feet. Okay.

Can I interject a quick question? Isn't on the west, it's the church.

That's what I thought too.

So then the east, I'm turned around. The opposite side. No, the church would be on the east side. Church is on the west. West. I'm turned around. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah, we were looking at the right ones.

I was looking at the residential. Yes. Same answer. Okay. 10 feet. The closest ones at some points it gets to 15 feet just depends on the variation in the building depth.

Okay. And these are built for multi-generational?

Not in 8, 9, or 10. Those are in the buildings 1 through 7 that has the ADU unit at the end.

And none of these have elevators from what I can see?

Correct. They're all independently owned and operated.

Thank you. Those are my questions.

Mr. Pace?

I don't have any questions right now. Thank you.

Mr. Mohan? Questions? None?

Mr. Jain? I'm always curious, why not go higher density? Where are the limitations?

yeah i mean the maximum density would be 25 for the acre we're at 22 so i think the maximum density is about six more units um i mean we'd have to push out closer to the neighbor and and have more waivers in order to get the additional units onto the site so with this type of product a three-story townhome you know you're really typically in that 18 to 22 range Otherwise, you're doing a full-on apartment building or podium building or something like that. And there's not that much extra density there to make that a worthwhile endeavor.

And you mentioned, is it for sale? And deed-restricted ones, those are also for sale, or they will be for rent? All for sale. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Jago, any questions for the applicant?

No questions for the applicant, thank you.

All right, and I don't have any questions either. So thank you for your presentation. Thank you. And at this point, I'd like to open the public hearing. And Cella, I'm sure we've got some speaker cards if you'd like to take it from here.

Yes, we got eight speaker cards tonight. So we can get Jennifer Bilsey and then it's going to be Linda DeVito.

And we'd like to request the speakers limit their time to three minutes if possible to make sure that everybody has a chance to speak. So I don't know if you can show the clock or want to show that so people can see how much time they have left. Thank you. Yeah, thank you for joining us.

Thank you.

Hello, everyone.

I'm speaking today on behalf of the residents of Loganbury Way. Our street is the closest neighborhood to the proposed development at 4400 Black Avenue. And we'd like to share our concerns about the plan for the 59 three-story townhomes and seven ADUs. As many of you know, our area already faces heavy traffic from nearby schools and facilities. Alisal, Walnut Grove, Quarry Lane, Gingerbread Preschool, Harvest Park, and Amador High, along with the Post Office and the Dolores Bankston Aquatic Center. During swim meets and school events, the congestion is already significant. The turn from Safeway onto Santa Rita funnels even more cars from Birdland and Pleasanton Valley onto Black Avenue, creating daily gridlock. Recent traffic analyses predict over 145 additional weekday trips from this project. We believe the impact on intersections, especially at Black Avenue and Santa Rita, has been underestimated. Residents already experience long delays and it's becoming dangerous. After a recent tragic accident on Main Street and our own close calls, We are deeply concerned about safety. Adding more vehicles without a comprehensive traffic plan would only make things worse. Pleasanton is loved for its small-town charm and community spirit. We worry that introducing three-story townhomes in this area would disrupt that character. We are not opposed to new housing. but we believe higher density projects should be placed in areas better equipped to handle them, such as near the business park or Stone Ridge Mall, where infrastructure and freeway access can support more growth. Another key issue is our schools. Where will the children from these new homes attend? In my 52 years of living in Pleasanton, I've only seen two new schools built, PMS and Hart Middle. With current budget cuts and overcrowding, the district is already struggling to meet the students' needs. Without proper planning, this project could strain our schools and resources even further. We will all want to see Pleasanton thrive, but growth should be thoughtful and sustainable, protecting our neighborhoods, ensuring safety, and supporting quality education. We ask the city to take these concerns seriously as it considers the proposal. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next we have Anthony DeVito followed by Christine Batchelor.

Good evening. My name is Anthony DeVito. I live at 4642 Black Avenue. That is East of Black and Greenwood, four houses. It's on the same side of Black Avenue as the 4400 complex is going to be, and the post office. I want to talk to you this evening about two topics. One is traffic, and the other is parking. The traffic conditions, let me describe what goes on. I don't know how many kids are at Walnut Grove and Harvest Park and Alice L. But most of those kids are dropped off by their parents or someone else driving a car, and those cars come and go down Black Avenue a lot. Early in the morning when school is, before school has started, There's a huge line of stop and go traffic on Black Avenue going to Walnut Grove where the kids are dropped off, coming down Black towards Walnut Grove. The Black and Greenwood intersection is stop and go and the cars are lined up all the way down past the aquatic center. So it's extremely difficult for someone like me who lives, near Greenwood to get out of my driveway when school is starting and when school is ending. The other concern I have is parking. and that concern developed a few months ago. My senior men's club had a lady from the city, I don't recall her name and I don't recall her title, but she came to our group and she shared with us this development that's going on, potential development that's going to go in down by the library. There's an old home and some land, apparently they're going to knock the old home down She started out saying that the developer had come in with a plan and had all of the nice bells and whistles like parking. And then because the state laws allowed waivers, they ended up approving a complex that is 64 units and no public parking areas, no parking for the people that live there. I don't know what the status is today, but this talk was probably in August. I can't believe that we would approve a complex with 64 units for people to live in and not have parking that's close to the library. You're not going to have any parking in here for the workers that work for the city. The police are going to have trouble finding a place to park. What I've heard here today is not that issue, but if these people that are proposing this project can add a number of low-income housing, can they do away with the two-car parking per unit? And if so, that's gonna be a hazard. You might as well just shut down the pool complex. bulldoze it and put multi-unit on it. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

I'm sorry, I skipped one. So it'll be Linda DeVito followed by Christine Batchelor.

Hello, my name is Linda DeVito and I live at 4642 Black Avenue. I have lived at the corner of Ridgewood and Black for 54 years. When Morrison built Pleasanton Valley, which was previously a dairy and orchards, Black Avenue was not supposed to be a through street at all. There was the Aquatic Park Public Library and many schools within walking distance. Today, we have seven schools, a church, an aquatic park, soccer fields, and a federal post office, as well as many medical offices in two different complexes. Black Avenue is impacted with too much traffic. already without putting additional cars on the street, driving and parking as a result of this project. I walked this property in question, hoping to find a solution to dumping the traffic through one street onto Black from the project. Since the high school backs this property, I don't think there is a solution for another exit. This is very unfortunate and points to the possibility that this is a poorly planned project. The Federal Post Office was put in under our noses. Later, DelVal Parkway, which is a two-lane divided road south of Black, was supposed to go through to Livermore and would have relieved some congestion off of Black. This never happened. Later, our neighborhood worked to calm the traffic and got two lumps placed on Black. But when they resurfaced the road, they made the lumps smaller which are not anything like the three lumps on Via Espada. We have less stop signs than Valley Avenue and only four crosswalks from Santa Rita to Hop Yard. Black Avenue is an accident waiting to happen. And this project, sadly, only adds to the congestion and impact of too many cars driving and parking on a two-way residential street. Thank you.

Christine Batchelor, followed by Joanna Yoder.

Hello, good evening. I'm Christine Batchelor. My husband Eric and I own business property at 1387 Santa Rita Road, the corner of Santa Rita Road and Cedarwood Lane. Cedarwood Lane does not have any sidewalks, painted lane dividers, or a bike lane. It is a natural shortcut going north or south to avoid the intersection of Black and Santa Rita Road. No school drop off or pickup signs and red painted fire lane no parking curbs are often ignored. I've witnessed three cars abreast all facing the same direction simultaneously trying to turn right from Cedarwood onto Santa Rita Road. I've seen bicyclists race around cars and students cutting through a parking lot and then almost being hit by a car coming around the bend on Cedarwood Lane. Most drivers drive at an appropriate speed for Cedarwood Lane. The school traffic already makes it difficult for our clientele, employees, service companies, and deliveries. With the addition of the 59 condominiums and 780Us next to our small medical park, the automobile and foot traffic will produce a heavier impact on Cedarwood Lane. I support proposed housing units needed and request from the developer to make our streets safe. I'm proposing to the city of Pleasanton make Cedarwood Lane a city maintained street with signage, center lines, a bike path, and whatever else is recommended for the safety of our medical community and the students and the parents who are using it as a thoroughfare. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Joanna Yoder followed by Kathy Gaber.

Hello, I'm Joanna Yoder and my family and I live at 4656 Black Avenue. And I'm here with my neighbors talking about concern about the congestion and the traffic again. I've raised my family, children having gone to school and walked to school in that neighborhood. And I have been here speaking before at the city council before about traffic concerns. and about the dangerous situations on Black Avenue. And at that point, there was a lot of concern. And we were told that because Black works for the fire department, we couldn't do the circle things in the street. We couldn't do anything more than a lump. We couldn't do a bump because the fire department needed to go through. again I'm so questioning all of these schools seven schools the Aquatic Center the post office we have all these pedestrians on the street we have a thoroughfare for emergency vehicles and we're talking about adding high density housing and although I understand the traffic reports say one car per five minutes or I don't remember your calculations, but again, as we've seen, they come at school hours, at preschool hours, at school hours, at afternoon pickups. These are the crazy times and they weren't even on the list. The schools don't have spaces for children. People are going to have to be driving more to drive their children to other schools. It is going to increase traffic. the gentleman suggested turning left would be okay because the streets were wider and cars could just drive around the whole reason the intersections at greenwood and others have been widened that the crosswalks have been projected into the intersection is to keep cars from doing that because cars were almost hitting children so his solution to the increased traffic is at odds with what you have told us is what you can do to keep the children safe. And I have walked groups of children repeatedly trying to get people to stop down, to slow down, to stop at the crosswalks. They do not. Once you changed everything around Safeway, all of the traffic is along Black Avenue. There are seven schools. I don't understand how this site was picked to begin with for high density. Looks like it was done in 2020 during COVID, but there was lockdown and people were looking at traffic patterns at that time. I don't understand how a site right in the middle of seven schools with traffic and safety problems was picked for high density housing and how the solution is you swerve right. and you go around them into the bike lanes, which don't exist, around the crosswalks that don't exist, over the speed lumps that have decreased in height. It is not a solution. And as my neighbor said, it is an accident waiting to happen, a tragedy waiting to happen. And we're saying we're doing it for high density housing. I understand there are nine low income units. The rest they said are not even middle, they're upper. So how is this helping? This is not meeting the goals of including like increasing affordable housing in the city, nine out of 56. So we're putting our children in danger and our community at risk for a high density upper income housing development and i don't think that's what pleasanton's about and i don't think it's what we voted for so i'd ask you to consider that please and when we went for our own lot to have to get waivers it requires that it does not pose a safety risk and this development poses a safety risk to our neighborhood thank you

Kathy Gaber followed by Dowie Syed.

Good evening. I see a lot of my neighbors and friends here and I'm offering a different perspective with all due respect to those of you that live right down the street from me. I live close to the site on Loganberry Way. I live in the house that I grew up in in the 1970s and the 1980s. And I am speaking in favor of this project. I do want more housing in town for our teachers. I would love for my daughter and son-in-law to be able to move back into Pleasanton, but there's really just no place for them to move to. And I do get a little bit nervous when people talk about new housing kind of changing the character of Pleasanton. That feels to me just a little bit classist and it makes me a little bit uncomfortable. You know, I didn't say there's no more room when lots of you folks moved in in the 1990s and the 2000s. I feel like I welcomed you and I would like to welcome new neighbors in this site. Yeah, there's traffic on Black Avenue. That's undisputable. I guess I just say traffic is a fact of life. When I'm coming home from BART each evening, I always get caught at the aquatic center, right? Swim practice is ending, and right around the time I'm coming to my home on Loganbury Way, there are lots of families doing drop-off and pick-up at that pool. And I really check myself from getting frustrated and I go, here's some people enjoying the amenities of Pleasanton just like I do. And so that's what I think about this housing project. I'd like to welcome some more people into my neighborhood to enjoy Pleasanton as much as I do. Thank you for listening to my perspective.

Dowie Syed followed by Elizabeth Endershaw. I think I will say it for both of us.

Yeah.

My name is and I live at 4645 Black Avenue. The traffic and parking issues have been covered by my neighbors. And even without this development, getting in and out of our houses is a dangerous challenge, and especially for most part of the rush hours. And it's unfortunately going to be extremely challenging and dangerous with this development. But I think this plan did not also take into account the safety of the new residents who will be living in this house since in the weekend when the aquatic center has events they will be faced with an extremely dangerous road, extremely congested road, with just one way to go in and out. As mentioned before, there are schools with kids who hardly make it safely now, and this dense development will put their safety at risk as well. This development did not seem to have considered the safety of the residents who live currently there. Thank you.

And lastly, we have Aaron Jensen.

Thank you.

My name's Aaron Jensen. I've lived in Pleasanton for 33 years between Beachwood Way and Loganberry, and I'm fortunate enough to be now a homeowner in the area. and raising my two daughters which hello Sophia, hello Olivia, I think you're watching this from home. I did have a few concerns on this and maybe some oversights on it too. Neighbors have spoken at length about other issues and concerns around traffic As a toy designer and engineer, often I think that sometimes we get locked down into statistics data, which can unfortunately often mislead us. Sometimes there's a question like, as a toy designer, is it fun? You know, it's hard to quantify that. We can look at data for traffic and, you know, X number of cars added onto that, but if you haven't, invite you to come to the area between 7 30 a.m 9 30 a.m take a look yourself come look at it between 2 and 4 p.m just look at the area take it in i see it day in day out i am fortunate enough to work in town as well and commute home for lunch and i know the area a couple of questions that still were on my mind on this we're talking about a three-story building And where is the closest three-story condo in Pleasanton to this? Three-story building. The closest I could find from looking around is the hospital. and maybe the condos behind that in Walmart. And we're looking at on these pictures, which will become a defining building of the neighborhood that goes against the aesthetic of the neighborhood. You're looking at something that will define it and frankly will be an eyesore. I'm also a member of the church that's right next door to this. And those buildings that have facing the church in the preschool there, I'm curious, are there windows on that side? Is this a children's safety issue? Could someone be setting up cameras on there? With having daughters and the ever present threat of what could be on the internet, this is a genuine concern of mine. I'm also curious if there was other solutions that were checked out on this. What if this was two story? Has underground parking been considered? These are all more costs. but are these solutions that could still allow the community to grow but potentially address some of those issues? Also, I don't know, and I would hope that you have looked into this, if that lock gets restricted down to a single entrance, is that a fire issue? If there's a fire or a blockage and you have 66 homes, can they easily escape? So with that, I hope that you take into consideration a few more. of this and see where this project goes or whatever the future is and consider the community's concerns. Thank you.

If there's anyone else that would like to speak, please approach the podium at this time.

Good evening, everyone. Good evening. Just a couple of comments that I, just so we missed. I want to challenge the city a little bit.

I'm sorry, sir. Can you please state your name for the record?

Oh, yeah, thank you. Gary Morris. I live at Loganbury, 1518. 36 years, six kids, and 17 grandkids. They're all somewhere. So anyway, I would try to challenge the city. When they did me the, we saw the slides. They kept, the traffic is not going to get worse. I kind of laugh because... It's already worse. So you can't get any better. So I challenge them like we've all pointed out that it isn't very, nice here during the commune hours. And that happens all day long. I walk the dog, the park, you know. I had surgery the other day. It's better to go across the street in a cane. Everybody stops. By myself? No. I'd like to see the city come up with a traffic control plan before this even gets down the line, how they expect to control the traffic after the project's done. because I think that's our biggest concerns. Do we add some more flashing lights? Do we add that left turn lane? Do we put the no parking signs in? Let's look at that before we make a mess and see if that's something that we can all buy into. I know there's a cost here, but that's fine. The other thing that I wanted to point out, as this project gets going, if it ever gets going, there's a construction that's going to go on, deliveries, more carpenters, everybody's working there. That to me is a very big, that's one of the biggest things that happens. I work on the freeway all the time. I'm retired right now but at the same time, that's when most accidents happen is the construction guys coming in. There's nothing, they're in a hurry. They're supposed to get there. They're gonna drive out. There's deliveries. There's a whole bunch of things. I don't think the city and I haven't, I looked through that 800 pages for a traffic control plan and hours of work on the project. Yes, I know everything starts at eight and goes for whatever. but do we really want them starting at eight with all the kids going there? I mean, I don't know enough to know that you can't start until 9.30 because of the kids. You can't do anything for the Aquatic Center, but they come on Friday, you take their schedule and do you in effect say you can't work on a Friday because they're going to be there? You can't keep adding more to more to more and build this thing and not think about the future. That to me, we're gonna get it right off, all these problems we're gonna get when it starts. And I just sit here going, huh. And I just want to say something to maybe spark some other thoughts in a direction that I'm not opposed to more housing. I'm just opposed to how we're going to get there without supplying my kids with a way to get across the street. I want to thank you for your time, guys. It's cool. Thanks.

Thank you. If there's no one else that wishes to speak, we'd like to invite the applicant to the opportunity to respond to the comments that we've heard tonight.

If you wish.

And like to ask that you try to limit yourself to five minutes if possible.

My middle name is brief, so that's fine. Thank you, everybody, for coming out tonight. I appreciate you being here and for sharing your comments and your concerns. I don't have the solution. We've worked with the city and the traffic engineering department, and we are providing the best project that we can based on what the city is looking for on the site. So I know that going forward we will continue to collaborate with the city and try to incorporate your feedback. terms of I just most of them were traffic related but your engineering question I think you kind of hit the nail on the head we can't do underground parking it's cost prohibitive and so when a city has parameters on density on how many units have to go on a site and There's only so many ways to make everything fit, and you go up, and a two-story won't get you to the density that the city wants, so you gotta go up to three-story, and so that's just kind of how all of this works. It's just kind of basic math fitting all the puzzle pieces. It's Tetris. So we hope that we can work together with you guys on this project. We're excited about it. It's what the city is asking for. And so we will continue to work with the city and you guys on trying to make this as painless as possible. And we thank you again for coming out tonight.

With that, we'll close the public hearing and move to the commission discussion and deliberation part of the meeting. Commissioner Wedge, would you like to start? Do you have thoughts about this project?

I do. I'm concerned about the three levels and the height going up to 42 feet in this area with mostly one stories nearby. I'm also concerned about the traffic and what Commissioner Chain brought up with turning left off black. I know a lot of the people that use the aquatic center during the weekends park on black when they have a big event or a soccer, you know, soccer games. And with those cars parking on black, I think it's going to be difficult. to turn left and try and go around the car you won't be able to. So that will obviously block traffic. I also think that if this project does move forward there needs to be a crosswalk and somehow if a crosswalk is placed there across the street from the crosswalk should not have parking so people can see with all the trees. It's a very dark area when you hit Greenwood and go north up to the post office. It's not lit up very well, which brings me to their lighting. I think it's going to possibly be too bright once you get into the complex. I just don't think it fits well into the neighborhood. That's kind of what I'm thinking about right now.

Mr. Pace.

Yeah. Thank you. It might be useful to we had we did have a number of comments about traffic and it might be useful. I know, Mike, you kind of run through some of this before, but you know that the the framework that the city uses for how it thinks about and incorporates additional uses and obviously we are in the midst of a of a neighborhood but there's also existing buildings that are there so it might be useful just to kind of walk through how the city as it's addressing or considering these various different components when it's thinking about what the impact to the communities would be it would be useful maybe to just kind of lay out how it thinks about the proximity of the schools and things like that, since that seems to be kind of one of the key issues here.

Sure. So I will start by saying I do know the DeVitos, they were on my steering committee when I did the traffic calming in 2012, so it was quite a while ago. And I also know that the speed lumps are half an inch shorter than they're supposed to be. It's just one of those design things Once they put the street board across, sometimes it doesn't go as well. Anyway, so I'm familiar with the street. All the residents get to say how long they've lived here. I've worked here 27 years, so very familiar with the volumes that it was, what it looked like, what it looks like now. And I agree with the residents that say, you know, the traffic, there's a lot of congestion. It did get busier when we made the modifications to Safeway. Their account of the traffic is accurate, right? That's the same thing I would express to you about the volume, the congestion that you see, the difficulty with the aquatic center. There's no left turn pocket for the aquatic center. We don't have crashes at the aquatic center, so this won't generate more traffic than the aquatic center. So I think things like removing parking that would then push the people that park there further into the neighborhood would be something i would wait on same with the left turn you know that and and that would go together with the left turn if it becomes an issue putting in a left turn is relatively easy but then affects these same residents because they already know that when there's an event at the aquatic center it's parked well beyond loganberry all the way down the side streets you know all the way to greenwood and beyond and so if i take away 14 parking spaces to put in a left turn pocket then that's 14 more homes that are impacted further down. So anyway, it's kind of a balance between things. With respect to this project and what I can do and require of them, we have in our general plan an evaluation of the PM peak hour that says you can't make it worse in the PM peak hour. If you do, then you have to put in mitigations. So my restriction and my difficulty is that on paper, they're not adding more to the peak hour. I have no ability to say, you should put in traffic calming. They're also, because they have the SB 330, we could ask that and they could waive it, right? There's just some restrictions that it becomes a difficult project. They, as a developer, could offer to, Black Avenue to do traffic calming and put in extra speed bumps and make other modifications. But it's not something that we as the city can impose on the developer. So there's just some limitations with respect to what we look at when a development comes in. property owners have the right to develop so I can't I can't tell them yes you can do this here no you can't do this here we we zoned it as a housing site so the city has limitate well you can't say well not this housing site or you you have to do less we we said in our housing element, you have to be between 15 and 25 units to the acre. You can't do 40, right, 15 to 25. And that's what they brought us. So it's, we don't really have that opportunity as a city to say what we said we want you to do, you did, but we now don't want that. It just becomes a very difficult thing for us.

Thank you. Yep. Yep. So just, I do want to make something else clear on the record. The city has designated this spot as one that is Density between 15 and 25, which would be medium density. It's not high density. The developer that is here doing this has made a decision to go up to that density level. They could do a smaller amount of density, but they couldn't do something greater under the state law that we're working with here, SB 330, right? Okay.

Correct, there is some provisions if the project were to be made 100% affordable, that's a different avenue, but that's not what the project's proposing.

Okay, so I just want to make sure that we all understand that what we're dealing with is a private party that has, developing this piece of property, using the rights that they are given by the state government and the city, us, we are doing our best to try to make sure that we are able to impact that in a way that protects the city and helps the city as much as we can to preserve character, obviously to maintain safety and order health and so forth but there are limits about what this group is able to do because of the way the state legislature has passed laws and imposed these conditions upon us so whether we like it or not that's the reality of what has happened here and there's there's other sites within the city um where this exact same thing is happening um uh you know i i will pause for a minute and say I appreciate and note the fact that there is parking here. Some of these other sites, there weren't parking. The gentleman had mentioned the site over by the library. That's a different Those same kinds of things don't apply that would happen here. This does require parking and it is parked. So we should have some comfort that the way that this has been proposed will allow us to make sure that we keep parking here for this location that had to do with proximity to mass transit and things like that that aren't in scope here. So we don't need to worry about that type of development happening here. We could go on a lot more, but I don't think we wanna spend our time talking about a different project. So be assured that at least on some of these things, the conditions that may have been happening downtown aren't gonna be able to happen here. So I've been going for a minute, so I'll pause there and let others jump in.

All right, Commissioner Mohan, your thoughts on this project?

I think it's been covered well by Commissioner Pace and Veggie. I mean, I think all of us have to make this tough choice every time. State laws have become very restrictive, unfortunately, and I think some of you folks here would know that. I just joined the Planning Commission when we had this housing element conversation. And I distinctly remember these two opposing views. One side saying, let's put all the housing near Stone Ridge Mall, by the BART, by the freeway. And then folks who live there, in homes there, pushing back saying, hey guys, Come on, stop. We do deserve some thought. So how about we spread the pain, if you will, or the housing elements throughout the city instead of putting them just around our neighborhoods. I remember very vividly that conversation which went on for quite some time. So I think all of us try to do a balancing act there. This is one of those sites. And having approved this as a site, I don't think we have that much leeway to ask for more. But I do think traffic is an issue. Mike, our brilliant traffic engineer, I think he said that while we cannot impose at this point, I do think we need to put some thoughts on how do we monitor the traffic, and if we find that it gets significantly worse, then what are the remedial measures that we can take? But I think all of this, unfortunately, will be post facto. It will be after the development has been done and people have moved in. We cannot really plan for this stuff in advance because the planning has been done by the team.

So this is kind of where I'm going back.

I do think we do need to have some thoughts on a post facto monitoring.

Well, let's just let's talk about that. So if there were to be, let's assume that it gets approved and it goes for this is set forth, but something happens and the the the there's whatever, the traffic doesn't end up working well or whatever else. And so the neighbors go to all of you and say, we're having a problem. Can we just talk about what the mechanism there would be, the mechanism for review and the way in which these community members can express that things aren't working as proposed? What does that look like? Let's talk about that to make sure they all understand.

It goes back to that traffic control plan. There is a condition of approval in this project to provide a traffic control plan to be comprehensive, include best management practices. But whenever life safety is an issue, the appropriate measures take place. And the traffic engineer can correct me on this, but it has the ability to review on the case-by-case basis of what those impacts are being done.

FOR EXAMPLE, WHAT WOULD A RESIDENT DO, SOMEONE THAT'S HERE TONIGHT, IF IT WAS BUILT AND THEY FELT THAT TRAFFIC HAD GOTTEN WORSE AND IT MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN SPECIFICALLY BEEN FOR THIS PROJECT. IT COULD HAVE BEEN A VARIETY OF CAUSES. SO TRAFFIC'S GOTTEN WORSE AND THEY WANT TO BE ABLE TO HAVE A DIAGOGUE WITH THE CITY ABOUT WHETHER THERE ARE ANY OPTIONS TO to improve things, what are their options as a member of the public?

Sure, I'm gonna actually say two things. One, just to clarify that construction control plan is related to the period of construction. It's not a traffic control plan, end all, be all, forever. It's to control traffic and deliveries and staging areas on site during construction only, and that's condition 23 that's in your packet. In terms of, As Mike acknowledged, there's clearly already bad traffic in the area, right? It meets our level of service that's specified in the general plan. This project has run a specific traffic impact analysis based upon the impacts of this project. So knowing that there's already a known traffic issue in the area, the city would not go back on the developer at some point down the line and say, okay, well, now this project is in, traffic is significantly worse. I think it would be hard to quantify that that project solely is the reason for traffic issues in the area, the city knowing there's already issues in the area. AND I WILL LET MIKE JUMP IN AT SOME POINT, BUT MY UNDERSTANDING OF THE WAY THE MECHANISM WORKS AND HOW WE'VE DONE IT IN OTHER PARTS OF THE CITY IS IF THERE ARE IDENTIFIED ISSUES AND THOSE COME FORWARD TO MIKE'S GROUP OVER IN TRAFFIC ENGINEERING, THINGS LIKE TRAFFIC CALMING MAY GET IMPOSED, CHANGES TO SIDEWALK DESIGN, WHATEVER IT MAY BE TO PROTECT THE PEDESTRIANS OR WHATEVER THE ISSUES WE'RE TRYING TO there are design issues for that but in terms of the the funding mechanism and how that works i don't want to step on mike's toes and and misspeak in that capacity but um you know i again the the traffic analysis specific to this project show that they're reducing the number of pm peak hours which is what their legal obligation is to meet in order to satisfy the city's requirements thank you could we have you come to yeah one more time to the podium um

And so maybe first, did you hear anything tonight that's new to you or are you well aware of what the residents have expressed concerns about? And for example, you've probably done traffic studies in the area. I don't know if they were done during COVID or if you've got some baselines that are outside of the COVID area. And then as residents do have concerns down the road, one, two, three years from now, what can they do?

Sure. So the main tool that the residents can do, as Eric kind of pointed out already, we don't get the opportunity to go back and say, hey, developer, what you did isn't working. Please fix it, right? They're in, they build, they're kind of done. It's on the city at this point. And it's on the city, exactly, 100% correct. So we have a traffic calming program. We started it in 1998. Black Avenue's gone through it once. That's the narrowing that one of the residents talked about where we shrank the intersection to avoid people going around exactly as she stated. We put in the speed lumps, we put in the radar speed signs. That's a process that currently is on hold just because of our funding difficulties with the city. So traffic calming is currently on hold. But to that point, there's still other things that we do on a regular basis. As an example, we do an annual review of collisions throughout the city. We do monthly and quarterly, but on an annual basis, we go and identify locations where we can make improvements. The crosswalk that's right at the aquatic center, we put in several years ago. And then we had another collision there. So we now have flashing beacons that are at that location. So those sort of crossing things and smaller level, we still can do. It's just a full blown program of doing all of Black Avenue or doing you know, all of Greenwood Road, things like that is currently on hold. But I think the first step is to contact the city with, you know, because the program's resident-driven, so it's not me coming to tell you what you should do in your house, you know, on your street, right? Because that's very specific. So Speed Lumps worked on Black Avenue. I've gone to other neighborhoods, and they think Speed Lumps are the worst thing there is. So... What my point is to that is that the residents have to be the ones that come and ask for it because I'm not going to peddle improvements to neighbors that maybe they just don't want those. So that's the process is to contact me.

And the studies you have, are they reflective of COVID traffic or of normal traffic? When you think about traffic in this area and the traffic studies we've done,

Yeah, so we continually monitor traffic. So my traffic signals count traffic every minute of the day. I know how much traffic was there yesterday compared to the day before, compared to February 19th, 2020 and March 20th, 2020. So I think as traffic engineers, we look at traffic continually. What the city's seen just kind of in general is there was a huge drop from COVID that's slowly building back up. Black Avenue being an internal street that services a lot of schools had a, just like everyone else, a depression when there was the hybrid learning. That's returned. Just as many people drive their kids alone There's not groups. So the traffic's returned pretty much to pre-pandemic levels. Our traffic studies will look at both pre-pandemic and post-pandemic levels because sometimes there's locations that are different. We always just take the one that's worse.

Mr. Mohan, do you have other thoughts and comments?

Good summary, thanks. Thank you. But I do have one more question for you, sorry. We don't let you off that easy. Columboed me, thanks. I think you're always the tough spot in these meetings, so thank you for smiling through them. But there is always this small disconnect between us looking at the macro level and the neighborhood folks here who live there and go through it day in, day out. In this case, actually, I do agree with you that this might be a net reduction, or at least roughly the same, because you're taking out an office building. Some of the other areas, we didn't have that luxury. But from a neighborhood perspective, it's this concern that, okay, this traffic just keeps on building up. and are we being given a placebo or this is just something to keep us quiet now and get this thing done. I think there seem to be just a couple of emotional or not emotional, probably some very valid points which might not require a very extensive amount of work, but they're around health and safety of kids and kids' crossings. This is what I picked up from a couple of folks. I'm not sure if we have looked at them or we can have a or what the formal mechanism or the informal mechanism is to sort some of those out, whether it is through those flashing beacons being added to some of those sidewalks or the crossings. I don't think it might require a very, very heavy change. And I also want to say that, you know, it is not the city versus the developer. So, yes, we do not want to go back to the developer and say, you know, even though we promised you and we said something was okay in the past, hey, we're changing the rules on you midway. I don't think we want that as a city. But how can we do those small things which might make a big difference to the neighbors? Any thoughts on that? Again, it's predominantly around kids and health and safety around the crossings.

Yeah, one of the things that we evaluate every fall is the circulation patterns around schools because they constantly change. So we have preferred routes to schools where we identify each school has a map that shows what the traffic engineer thinks is the best route for you to go to and from the school, you know, using crosswalks, using stop signs as opposed to uncontrolled intersections, trying to, and you'll see it in our traffic engineering design where at uncontrolled intersections, we'll just stripe one crosswalk on one side, not both. You can cross it either side, but kids and seniors tend to cross where there's a crosswalk. And while the crosswalk isn't really that much more visible, it puts more pedestrians at that location, also kind of eliminates the idea of it being an all-way stop and cars stopping for no reason. And so it's actually a slight safety improvement. And those are the things that we evaluate every fall around all of our schools. I think one of the things that caught my attention was the concern of not having a crosswalk, right? You can legally cross in a residential street anywhere. That's why you see all the high school students do it just as they're walking to school whenever they look over their shoulder and like, oh, no cars, I'm just going to cross. And, you know, the police officers don't do anything. They can cross wherever they want. But... We could add crosswalks. It doesn't improve the safety. There's no safety benefit in having paint on the ground. It won't stop a car. It doesn't create any additional things. The one difficulty that we have in just doing something easy like just putting a crosswalk is that the American Disability Association requires us to put in ramps. I can't just put in the $100 crosswalk, you know, $50 this side and $50 that side, put in the crosswalk and be done. I now have to put in ramps, which are much more expensive. And so I don't know if there's very easy things we could put in. If the ramps are there, we can put in crosswalks. It provides a perception of an improvement for the residents, and I'm fine to do that, but there's not really... We don't have an identified safety issue, so the improvement would be something that would make the residents feel better as opposed to a safety improvement. Okay. Thank you.

Yep.

Commissioner Jane, what are your thoughts on this project?

Thank you, first of all, all the residents to come here and speak. I have a house on Tanglewood Way. I'm just far enough outside of the zone that I can participate in this discussion. I probably added five trips on Black Avenue this day, today. I'm very familiar with the traffic. it without a doubt it gets worse during the school hours sometimes in the morning it takes at least 20 minutes for me to get from central rita to tanglewood and it's less than a mile it's not even a mile I think there are stop signs, but then kids cross and then they don't stop like one kid after another. So cars always stop. So it takes longer if you're driving a car, walking is probably faster. So I experienced the same issues which a lot of residents have.

mentioned here.

I think I also have a project going on and we put together a construction management plan. It's not perfect, so I would expect it will disrupt somewhat the rhythm on that street for a period of time. I don't know if the construction work can actually start earlier than 8 AM or 9 AM, like whatever the city requirement is. Because school traffic starts at a certain point if somehow the construction workers are allowed to get in there sooner as an exception. I don't know if that's a possibility because the city rules are very strict on hours of construction. a request can be made to the director of community development community and economic development for earlier start times and later stop times so it's on a case-by-case for certain construction activities yeah so that's something which if applicant wishes to pursue could elevate some of the peak school traffic i think One thing which I do want to call out is, and I was part of the approval process when we picked various sites, and Black Avenue, the site, was on the list. And the idea in my mind at that time, and I still believe in it, This location is close to many schools. I really believe there's an aquatic center on the other side. So, it brings in so much near to these residents in a walking distance that they would tend to use less car or they will probably use less of cars versus if we put the same site somewhere else in the city, they'll most likely have to go and go in a car, probably on Black Avenue, to get to the school. There's a chance, some percentage chance, that people will actually walk or bike to schools. But that's not guaranteed. It does add housing. That's a great plus. it backs off to a high school. So, I'm a little less concerned with the height in this particular location, especially given the location of this lot. I have not heard concerns or no one has really commented, IN OUR PACKET, SPECIFICALLY ANY RESIDENTS WHO LIVE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PROPERTY? HAS THERE BEEN ANY OUTREACH FROM THE APPLICANT ON TO THE RESIDENTS WHO HAS THE BOUNDARY WITH THE PROJECT? HAS THERE BEEN ANY FEEDBACK FROM THEM?

I WOULD DEFER TO THE APPLICANT REGARDING THOSE COMMUNITY EFFORTS. IT'S ENCOURAGED, ALTHOUGH NOT REQUIRED BY CITY POLICY. but have you but they did receive the letter which you sent to all the residents within a thousand foot radius correct and you didn't receive any uh objections from the adjacent residents right uh difficult to say exactly which uh residents in general they're all public comments received were with concern about the project impacts primarily related to traffic and office and street parking

So it wasn't like some of the other projects we have seen where people were just concerned about someone overlooking their backyard. At least I haven't seen any complaints of that sort in this packet.

Correct. Correct.

Yeah, so I think I tend to be a little positive on this project compared to many of my fellow residents for many reasons I stated, including allowing people an option to walk. This is a location where people can walk to and from. I think Black Avenue traffic is unsustainable, like something need to happen there. And irrespective of whether this project is there or not, I think we need to do something. I do not know what the solution is. I'm not very convinced that this project would not cause any impact. I think it will cause impact during construction. It will cause some impact once the whole thing is built. So I think I'll need some more time to process. In a perfect world, we might have some micro-mobility solutions, like everyone bikes on a scooter or takes an e-bike. There's a self-driving car which just pulls up your driveway. I think we are probably four or five years from that. Until then, we'll have to deal with the situations we have. But I'll stop there. Thank you.

commissioner jago do you have thoughts you'd like to share with fellow commissioners about this project and

Yes, I could speak an hour on this one, but I will not. I have a lot of comments on it, mainly because I do live on Black Avenue, just outside of the zone. I'm to the east of Walnut Grove and brought up two girls who I dropped off at Walnut Grove at Harvest Park, went through Amador. I currently work with Amador School, so I drive Black Avenue around. multiple times a day and outbound of a small chunk in the morning when everybody's dropping off and the chunk when everybody's picking up, which I tend to try and alleviate going down black avenue at those two hour zones when i drive black any other part of the day there's nobody on the road i mean it's void of cars if i go down and drop off something at the post office i'm i'm a free pass all the way down black avenue and there's nobody there so i think i think we're talking about two very specific times in the morning and at night obviously the aquatic park when there is a swim meet i realize but that's not going to go away that's going to be a problematic no matter what um so i see this this site is actually a perfect site i i know people have brought up i don't know where there is residential adjacent to this site am i missing something i was struggling with that too i i it's it's the it's the church to the west it's the um medical office complex to the east it's the aquatic park across and it's the high school on the back so there's no residential abutting this site and so to me this is a perfect place for our infill projects to go when you're speaking of heights for example correct yeah so yeah i the height doesn't bother me only because i know we need the density and that's just how it's going to work we have multiple projects going on through the city where you have one coming in on santa rita that's going to be the same scenario we have one coming in fairly close to me on hop yard that's under construction. Both of those are doing site work right now, and I'm looking forward to those getting framed up. I think the comment by Commissioner Mohan about when this was all getting started, not putting all of this required uh development into one area and you know salting it through the city that's the whole point in working with what i did i worked with um affordable housing apartment projects all over the state of california for 30 years and so our scenario was we had to deal with a lot of groups that saying why here why here why here why next to me The problem is everybody says that, so eventually you can't put it anywhere because nobody thinks this street or this area is where it should go. But there's no offer of, well, if it doesn't go here, where does it go? And so I think Pleasanton did a very smart thing in picking sites dotted throughout the city to bring so not everybody's grouped into one little area, I think. And this is a perfect site where you're not dumping it in the middle and literally in the middle of a residential one story residential area. I think where it's going to go, architecture is very subjective. It looks fine to me. I will be honest and say architecturally, looking at it, it's a little off from the rest of that area. It's a little more modern, a little more contemporary, but everything moves in certain directions and that's that is the style of the day um right now i think it fits in very well with with other new architecture projects that are coming in the other thing i i com want to comment is i think everybody's been very um that site has very little traffic currently right now that could have been a commercial zone that had a ton of traffic going on and hustle bustle all the time it's just been a very a site that has not had a lot of traffic over the years. And I think our retail is a little lax right now, still having trouble coming back from COVID. So those areas could be a lot busier. They're just not, and they haven't been for a while. And I think everybody's kind of gotten used to that. So I think when we're speaking and we're listening to the traffic group, data is you're basing it on what that commercial probably would be in normal and and i think that's where you're not seeing as as dramatic a shift although you really will see a little bit more of a shift because there's not a lot hardly at all going on there But in general, I think it's a perfect location for it. I think it may add a little bit of sporadic traffic overall throughout the day. But I, living on Black, I'm fine with that because I think the benefits completely outweigh what traffic is going to come in there. But I do appreciate the fact that if it does ever become a problem that isn't seen now, that there are ways to kind of combat it when that problem maybe arises or comes up. I think that will be something to be adjusted in the future if that's a problem. But I support the project. I'm not going to be voting on it tonight. But I think from a resident that's close to that, I think it's a very positive.

And you say not voting just because you're an alternate tonight, so you don't have the right to vote.

I get to give my opinion, but I'm not a voting member tonight. But I think it's something where I think our community needs to realize that this housing is required and it is necessary. And I think when it comes in and it's done well, we should applaud it and not try and kick it somewhere else. Thank you.

AND I GUESS I'D LIKE TO REINFORCE SOME OF THE THINGS THAT YOU SAID COMMISSIONER JAGO AND PARTLY JUST REINFORCE WITH THE PLANNING COMMISSION BUT ALSO THE GENERAL PUBLIC AND THAT IS THAT THE STATE, THE GOVERNOR AND THE LEGISLATURE PASSED A NUMBER OF LAWS THE LAST FIVE OR TEN YEARS TO MAKE IT EASIER FOR DEVELOPERS TO BUILD HOUSING. and the governor and the legislature are very concerned about homelessness, about not having enough housing in California, and that if we can figure out a way to build more housing, that perhaps the cost of housing will go down and and So it's just been one law after another. Every year there have been laws and laws and laws, passed upon laws. And so several years ago when we were working on this issue in 2022, and this has been referred to as the housing element, the requirement was that over the next seven years, I believe, from 2023 to the end of the decade, we in pleasanton are required to rezone to allow for this building of 6 000 housing units in pleasanton and as other people have talked about there was an effort made to try and spread the pain out a little bit across the city to the extent that it made sense we spent a lot of time agonizing over ALL OF IT. AND THERE WERE SOME SITES, FOR EXAMPLE, LIKE NEAR THE MALL WHERE WE DID APPROVE, IT'S UP TO 1500 OR EVEN MORE HOUSING SITES IN THAT AREA. AND AS OUR TRAFFIC ENGINEER TOLD US AT THE TIME, THAT'S GOING TO CREATE TRAFFIC PROBLEMS IN THAT AREA. SO EVERYTHING THAT WE'VE DONE TO TO MEET THE STATE LAWS WILL CREATE TRAFFIC CHALLENGES IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE CITY. THERE IS NO AREA THAT WILL PROBABLY BE IMMUNE TO THAT. AND DURING THE LAST YEAR OR YEAR AND A HALF, WE'VE HAD THREE OTHER HIGH DENSITY PROJECTS COME BEFORE US HERE. AND THAT ONE THEY REQUESTED WAIVERS AND FOR THAT ONE ONE OF THE CHALLENGES WAS THERE WERE NEIGHBORS RIGHT BEHIND IT WHICH HAPPENS WITH IN-FIELD PROJECTS. WE DON'T HAVE THAT HERE. AND FOR THAT PROJECT THEY ONLY HAD TWO GUEST PARKING SPOTS BECAUSE THEY COULD REQUEST WAIVERS. THE CITY DIDN'T HAVE A REQUIREMENT. AND WHAT REALLY MADE THAT ONE TOUGH FOR ME WAS THERE'S NO PARKING WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE FOR THAT PROJECT. SO IT'S JUST GOING TO BE A REAL CHALLENGE, A PROBLEM WHEN THEY BUILD THAT PROJECT AND PEOPLE EVEN LIVING THERE ARE GOING TO HAVE A TOUGH TIME FINDING PARKING PLACES. AND THEN THERE WAS ANOTHER ONE SIMILAR SIZE THAT WAS OVER ON A HOP YARD AND IT WAS ALSO BUILT NEXT TO A RESIDENTIAL AREA AS AN INFIELD PROJECT SO ALSO A FEW NEIGHBORS THAT DIDN'T HAVE PEOPLE OVERLOOKING IN THE PAST AND NOW THEY DID HAVE AN ISSUE. it's also going to be built very close to hop yard within 10 feet or so and so people will notice that a lot because that's not how the rest the properties are set up hop yard we had one other on the east side called the key whip project out not too far from the transfer station and for that one um you know a couple things that i struggled with there one was that the driveways were short they won't fit a full-size car ANOTHER ISSUE IS THAT ALL OF THE AFFORDABLE UNITS ARE ALL CLUSTERED IN ONE SPACE, WHEREAS HERE THEY SPREAD THEM OUT THROUGHOUT THE COMPLEX, WHICH I THINK IS A BETTER IDEA AND MORE DESIRABLE JUST TO INTEGRATE PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNITY. SO I LIKE THE WAY THE DESIGN HAS BEEN HERE. SO IF I JUST THINK ABOUT JUST THE PROJECT ITSELF, i i support it from the standpoint that i think it it was developed in a way that fit with what the city was asking folks to do and the only regret i have is that we do have more traffic and we'll have more traffic in the city as required to build more housing to satisfy the state laws And that's something that I'm sorry to say that we just have limited control over because if we hadn't approved this housing element, we would have been sued by the state. If we hadn't submitted the housing element in time in early 2023, Another provision of the law would have kicked in that's called the builder's remedy, which allows a builder to essentially build anything they want anywhere they want within limits. I'm probably not saying that quite right, but we had to get this housing element in place, otherwise we had even less control. AND SO I HOPE THAT AS THERE ARE TRAFFIC ISSUES IN THIS AREA AND AS THEY GROW WORSE, NOT FROM THIS PROJECT PER SE BUT JUST BECAUSE OUR CITY IS GROWING AND TRAFFIC IN GENERAL HAS BEEN INCREASING, I HOPE THAT PEOPLE FEEL THAT THEY HAVE AN AVENUE TO TALK TO OUR TRAFFIC ENGINEER AND TO BRAINSTORM AND TRY AND DEVELOP IDEAS TO IMPROVE TRAFFIC FLOW. AGAIN, NOT SPECIFICALLY RELATED TO THIS PROJECT. THIS IS JUST A VERY SMALL PERCENTAGE OF THE TRAFFIC IN THAT AREA, BUT WE'RE ALREADY FACING TRAFFIC ISSUES AND I HOPE, AGAIN, PEOPLE FEEL THAT THEY ARE RECEPTIVELY RECEIVED WHEN THEY WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK TO THE CITY EMPLOYEES.

JUST A COUPLE, MAYBE A COUPLE MORE POINTS.

SO FROM AN OVERALL PERSPECTIVE, GIVEN THAT WE'RE TRYING TO SPREAD THIS OUT ACROSS THE CITY, I BELIEVE THAT THE DEVELOPER HAS DONE WHAT WE'VE REQUESTED AND THAT THEY'VE PROPOSED A PROJECT THAT'S ATTRACTIVE AND FITS INTO THE AREA AS WE'VE DEFINED IT. AND I'M SORRY THAT OUR TRAFFIC CONGESTED IN PLEASANTON HAS BEEN AND WILL PROBABLY CONTINUE OVER THE NEXT FIVE YEARS. COMMISSIONER PAYNE.

YEAH, THANK YOU. SO JUST MAYBE POINT OF CONTEXT FOR THE FOLKS THAT ARE THERE. IF YOU THINK ABOUT PLEASANTON RIGHT NOW AND WHAT'S BEEN DONE, YOU KNOW, 90,000 PEOPLE PLUS OR MINUS. THERE'S ABOUT 20,000 HOUSING UNITS IN THE CITY. So if you think about what the state has done by forcing us to put 6,000 new units in the city, they're forcing us to put in about 25%, 20, 20%, 25% new houses into the, into the city. The only thing that's going to do where you have limited space to do that, there's not big open fields where you can dump a bunch of housing units somewhere. The only thing that can happen then is you're going to have to put it in the middle of existing neighborhoods. So you're going to put traffic into existing neighborhoods. And then when you put density there, because you can't manufacture new land, when you make something more dense on an existing plot of land, the only way to get more dense is to go up. And so that's the dynamic that you're seeing. It's not just your neighborhood, it's across the city. It's in neighborhoods all over the place. We're dealing with it everywhere. Some places like, you know, we were talking about the BART station one meeting ago or two meetings ago, we're looking at a thousand units there. There's some neighborhoods and there's apartments that are across the street from that. Some neighborhoods are gonna be far more impacted than others. And it's unfair across the board for everybody because everyone's being impacted. So the best we can do here is try to preserve as much as we can of this community in light of the fact that the people in Sacramento have made decisions about taking away the rights of local control. So that's the reality of what's happened. And so the best we're going to do here is try to get this development to be as low impact as we possibly can, given the constraints we have, which means it's going to go in as long as they do the right things around health and safety. And then if things develop over time, where the traffic isn't right or whatever else. That's why we wanted, we were, you saw an effort tonight by the people on this DS to try to make sure that you all have ways you can go and talk to the city about trying to get it better. They review it all the time. If you don't like it, you can continue to have conversations, but it's, there's a balancing act because this is happening all over the city. As you put more people in, you're putting more people on the roads. So there's a balancing act everywhere we go. And that's the benefit of living where we do is we get lots of people that want to come and join us. And so those are some of the blessings of being in Pleasanton. And it is having an impact on your community tonight. It doesn't always feel good. Change is hard. But that's the reality of the situation we face. So I think we've heard it. I think the final question I have is just so we're reminded as this group is we're now going to have to vote here in just a minute. that we don't get to decide whether or not they can well rather than do a negative I'll do the positive can you just remind us as we're voting what we are actually able to vote on because we can't tell them to reduce for example the number of the number of units they're going to put on the the site or whatever else so just remind us as we're voting you know and make what we what we can actually vote on here and approve or not

Thank you for the question. So before you is actually the elements on which you will be voting on tonight as the final deciding body. This is not a recommendation to the City Council. The Planning Commission is the final deciding body per our objective design standards for the processes of projects subject to the ODS for providing more than 51 project units. SO ON THE SLIDE BEFORE YOU WOULD BE TO ACCEPT THE CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY ACT EXEMPTION PURSUANT TO ASSEMBLY BILL 130, APPROVE THE HOUSING SITE COMPLIANCE REVIEW AND THE TENETIVE MAP WITH THE STREET NAMES AND ALSO INCLUDING THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING AGREEMENT AS WELL.

Chair Morgan and Commissioner Paas. So I think I feel our hands are tied to some extent or to a large extent here. So if you just look at this list, the first assembly bill, you can keep it on if you don't mind. Please. The Assembly Bill 130 really waves CEQA, which is Environmental Study and Quality Act for such projects, and the developer is getting benefit of it. As a city, we are getting affordable housing agreements. So number four here is a net positive for the city and for affordability. There is a cost to build, and that cost comes from market rate units. But in this case, the developer is not going for an in lieu option, but they are actually providing on-site affordable units. So there is a positive there. I think as you can see on this list, our hands are pretty tight on what we are really voting on today. So we are not voting on whether this project can have this much density or not. That was settled many years ago. And then the state is imposing so many restrictions on us on what we can and cannot do. If you missed it earlier, the developer applied for a lot of waivers from our objective standards, and there's no limit. They can apply for as many waivers as they want. So it is the situation we are in. At least in this situation, this is a site which we, as this planning commission, has put on the list of one of the sites to be developed so I feel good in that way. It's not perfect but I just want everyone to know that that's the situation this commission is in.

Are there any other comments before we invite a motion? Commissioner Wedge you had some concerns too.

I think I expressed them but I do agree with Commissioner Jago about just the The architectural design, I don't feel that it fits very well with the neighborhood. I do understand that that's today's popularity, but I wish it was a little bit more traditional looking, just my opinion.

I'll move. Okay, you're moving to approve the motion as presented by staff?

Correct.

I'll second it.

If I may, through the chair, sorry to interrupt, but there was a verbal amendment to the conditions of approval that's pointed out in number two on the recommendation, so the motion should reflect the removal of conditions 42 and 43, just to clarify.

Okay, so I will move pursuant to what is recommended here on this screen. That's my motion. I'll second it.

All right. Could we please have a vote?

Yes, sir. Commissioners Jane?

Aye.

Mohan?

Yes.

Pace?

Aye.

Wedge? Aye. And Chair Morgan?

Aye.

Okay. Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you everyone for coming tonight and for expressing your comments and concerns and please continue to engage with the city regarding traffic and other issues as you have concerns. Thank you.

Good to see you. Do you wanna get it? Yeah, sometimes, sometimes it should be.

all right well let's let's go ahead and continue uh matters for commission review uh item six reports from meetings attended mr wedge nothing to report nothing mr pace nothing thank you mr mohan

Mr. Jain. I do have, so we, I'm part of bike and pedestrian committee and there is a plan in progress. So there is a general plan for bike and ped. which is happening at this moment so if anyone is interested please do participate there are various outreach events there is one later this month november 18th at 6 pm in library to outreach to outreach on this issue so it has a lot of good elements on how we can improve bike and pad the committee also accepted the grant money for some of improvements over bike and trails so that's the update from the bike and pad thank you I'm glad to hear we're still able to make improvements

I am a member of the committee that works with PUSD and I meet with the superintendent and all of the PUSD directors each month and they brought up something that he brought up and said that there's an online questionnaire that you can go on to and give your comments on safety of bike paths and all modes of travel throughout the city. And they said it's on their site and they would like as many people as possible to do that so they get a lot of feedback from everybody in the city, kind of what they've experienced with all modes of travel. And I think it's really important for everybody to be able to do that. So I think that's a wonderful scenario.

Okay, well thank you. And I don't have anything to report. Future planning calendar, either Eric or Derek or both of you.

I'm gonna give him a break one more time and then it's all his next meeting. So at your final meeting of the year, we do have four items that will be decided or discussed. I believe Emily will be bringing a study session item to you related to the East Pleasanton Policy Framework. And I think that's intended to be kind of a high level discussion on some of the global policies of helping shape the development in that area. So that will be probably, at least now, the only item I think that we have agendized. In addition though, because it is the end of the year, We'll be looking at selecting the new chair and vice chair for 2026 for the commission, as well as adoption of the planning commission schedule for 2026. And then lastly, looking at shaking up your subcommittee representatives should you decide to go that route for 2026 as well.

Is that in two weeks or in four weeks?

December 12th, I believe, or excuse me, December 10th is the next meeting. So no meeting in two weeks? Correct. Okay.

Matters initiated by commission members? Mr. Jago?

I have none.

Mr. Jain? None, thank you. Mr. Mohan?

Nothing from my side.

Mr. Pace? None, thank you. Nothing. Okay, and none for me. Meeting adjourned. Thank you, everybody, very much for listening to our public and for all your thoughtful comments.