Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening my name is Carlos Rosario and I'm the chair of the Planning Commission welcome to this Planning Commission meeting please remember to turn off your cell phones the parking validation machine for the garage underneath City Hall is in located in the back at the top of the stairs first we'll start off with a salute to the flag if you are able to please stand Next we'll move to the roll call Vice chair Bickford here Commissioner Barroso here Commissioner bundle here Commissioner Cantrell Here Commissioner cow here Commissioner Casey here Commissioner Escobar here Commissioner win. Yeah, Commissioner Oliverio Commissioner young here Myself is here and we have a full house. All right, summary of hearing procedures. If you want to address the commission, please fill out a speaker card located on the table near the audio-visual technician and deposit the completed card in the basket. There are also speaker cards in the back of the chambers and at the side entrance. The procedure for the hearing is as follows. After staff's presentations, applicants or appellants may make up to a five-minute presentation. During the public comment period, the chair will call out names on the submitted speaker cards and the order received. As your name is called, line up in the front of the microphone at the front of the chamber. Generally, each speaker will be given two minutes for public testimony and speakers using a translator will have up to four minutes. At the discretion of the chair, the time allotted to each speaker may be changed depending on the number of items on the agenda, the number of speakers, and other factors. Speakers using a translator will have double the time allotted. After the public testimony the applicant or appellant may make closing remarks for up to an additional five minutes planning commissioners may ask questions of the speakers. Response to commissioner questions will not reduce the speaker's time allowance. The public hearing will then be closed and the planning commission will take action on the item. The planning commission may request staff to respond to public testimony, ask staff questions, and discuss them. If you challenge these land use decisions in court, you may be limited to raising only those issues that you or someone else raised at this public hearing or in written correspondence delivered to the city at or prior to the public hearing. The Planning Commission's action on rezonings, prezonings, general plan amendments, and code amendments is only advisory to the City Council. The City Council will hold public hearings on these items. Section 20-120-400 of the Municipal Code provides that the procedures for legal protests to the City Council on rezonings and prezonings. The Planning Commission's action on conditional use permits is appealable to the City Council in accordance with Section 20.100.220 of the Municipal Code. Agendas and all staff reports for this meeting may be accessed at the City's website. call to order now before I begin I want to remind the Planning Commission and members of the public to follow our code of conduct at meetings this includes commenting on the specific agenda items only and addressing the full body public speakers will not engage in a conversation directly with commissioners or staff All members of the Planning Commission, staff, and public are expected to refrain from abusive language. Repeated failure to comply with the code of conduct, which will disturb, disrupt, or impede the orderly conduct of this meeting may result in removal from the meeting. This meeting of the Planning Commission will now come to order. If I could add one thing, I saw a comment that we received that said, some planning commissioners have made demeaning comments about folks may or may not want housing if we could make sure that we're respectful here uh that'd be great okay Public comment time. Public comments to the Planning Commission on non-agendized items. Please fill out a speaker card and give it to the technician for any non-agendized item. Each member of the public may address the Commission for up to two minutes. The Commission cannot take any formal action without the item being properly noticed and placed on the agenda. In response to public comment, the Planning Commission is limited to the following options. Responding to statements made or questions posed by members of the public. Requesting staff to report back at a matter at a subsequent meeting. or directing staff to place the item on a future agenda. Do we have any speakers for public comment for items that are not on the agenda tonight? Do not. Okay, onto deferrals and removals from the calendar. Any items scheduled for hearing this evening for which deferral is being requested will be taken out of order to be heard first on the matter of deferral or removal. Staff will provide an update on the items for which deferral and removal is being requested. If you want to change any of the deferral dates recommended or speak to the question of deferring or removing these or any other items, you should say so at this time. Staff, do we have any items to defer today?

We do not.

Okay. We'll move on to the Consent Calendar, Agenda Item 4. There will be no separate discussion of individual Consent Calendar items as they are considered to be routine and will be adopted by one motion. If a member of the Commission requests debate, separate vote or recusal of a particular item, then that item may be removed from the Consent Calendar by the Chair and considered separately. The public may comment on the entire consent calendar and any items removed from the consent calendar by the chair. Staff will provide an update on the consent calendar. If you wish to speak on one of these items individually, please come down to the podium at this time. Do we have any speakers on the consent calendar, staff?

We do not.

Motion to approve the consent calendar. Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar, which solely consists of the minutes. So we'll go to roll call vote. Vice Chair Bickford?

Yes.

Commissioner Barrosio? Yes. Commissioner Bondal? Yes. Commissioner Cantrell?

Yes.

Commissioner Cowell? Yes. Commissioner Casey?

Yes.

Commissioner Escobar?

Yes.

Commissioner Nguyen?

Yes.

Commissioner Oliverio?

Yes.

Commissioner Young yes and myself is yes and the consent calendar passes unanimously okay on the public hearing generally the public hearing items are considered by the Planning Commission in the order on which they appear on the agenda however please be advised that the Commission may take items out of order to facilitate the agenda such as to accommodate significant public testimony or may defer discussion items to later agendas for public hearing time management purposes we have no items on public hearing tonight that is correct okay next we will open the general plan hearing so first we start out with the general plan consent calendar for which there are no items that's correct no items okay and then on to the public hearing Generally, the public hearing items are considered by the Planning Commission in the order in which they appear on the agenda. However, please be advised that the Commission may take items out of order to facilitate the agenda, such as to accommodate significant public testimony, or may defer discussion of items to later agendas for public hearing time management purposes. We'll start with agenda item 8A, General Plan Four-Year Review Policy Framework. We have a staff presentation.

Thank you, Chair. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Ruth Gueto, principal planner. We're here to present on the four year review policy framework, the culmination of a nine month effort with the general plan for your review task force. With me tonight is Manera Sandeer, Jared Ferguson, Michelle Flores, Sanjita Gosal and Cora McNaughton.

There we go, thank you.

So the general plan four year review is required per goal IP-2 and provides an opportunity for the city to evaluate its progress toward key goals and make any necessary adjustments to the general plan. Two other major drivers of the current four year review are to maintain legal compliance with the city's current housing element and to lay the groundwork for the next housing element to begin in 2031. This review focused on four topics, which were to increase residential capacity, looking at our jobs and employed residence balance, small multifamily housing, and the urban village strategy. Per IP 2.11, the four-year review begins with the initiation of the task force process. This year, the planning commission served as a task force, which allowed an opportunity to engage with the public, provide staff's analysis, and help us achieve the general plan's goals. at these task force meetings staff presented reports with data and analysis the task force provided feedback and questions to help guide that work it was an iterative process and the resulting outcome was the policy framework which is what we will present to you today The four year policy framework is a set of recommendations on policy and land use changes across all the four topic areas. The framework will guide the next phase of work which will consist of general plan and general plan text amendments ordinance change and ordinance changes. The final recommendations presented to the Planning Commission and City Council will be in December 2027. With this I will hand it over to Michelle.

Good evening, Commissars. Michelle Flores and I will be covering outreach. So outreach for the four-year review began at the end of 2025. Staff held a virtual community meeting and created short videos describing the general plan and four-year review topics. The videos were posted on the general plan four-year review project web page and YouTube and were shared across social media platforms. Outreach for the four-year review consisted of five community meetings, including four open houses, 16 stakeholder meetings, six neighborhood meetings, three focus group meetings, one with the San Jose For All Advisory Group, and two facilitated in partnership with a disability advocacy consultant, eight task force meetings, and five intergovernmental meetings. More than 800 community members participated in the in-person open houses and over 422 comments were received. A virtual version of the open houses was also offered and included the same information and activities. Approximately 400 community members participated and 610 comments were received. We received comments in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Chinese. We also had 272 community members sign up for the email list and had over 350 members and leadership groups receiving project updates. Planning staff worked with the Office of Racial and Social Equity throughout the project. Community engagement opportunities were promoted through various platforms including PBC landing page and email list, PBC and ORSC social media and external community partner newsletters. Flyers for the open houses were also distributed at 11 community centers and all libraries throughout the city. staff prepared an outreach summary memo that summarizes comments received throughout the project across the various feedback formats. The summary was posted on the project webpage and includes a list of all the meetings held. Overall, the feedback received throughout this process reflected the community's recognition of the need for more housing, including more affordable housing. There was support for mixed-use and transit-oriented development to reduce the dependence on automobiles and create walkable neighborhoods. We heard concerns about how the increase in housing would impact neighborhoods. There were concerns about infrastructure capacity, traffic, and parking. A recurring theme throughout all topics was the need to create complete communities rather than simply adding housing units. Participants asked us to consider including community spaces, neighborhood serving retail, public gathering spaces, parks, and improved transit when implementing these four-year topics.

Thank you, Michelle. Sanita Ghoshal, Supervising Planner. I'm going to walk you through two topics of tonight. The first one is jobs to employed resident ratio. Jobs to employed resident, or JER ratio, is an indicator of how well a city balances employment opportunities with its residential base. A higher ratio indicates that more residents can work locally, while a lower ratio suggests that many residents commute elsewhere for jobs. San Jose historically developed as a largely residential city, resulting in many residents commuting elsewhere for work. This jobs housing imbalance contributes to traffic and greenhouse gas emissions. More importantly, a lower number of jobs in the city reduces the fiscal benefits derived from local employment. So improving the balance between jobs and employed residents has been a long-standing objective of the city's general plans for many decades because it improves both economic sustainability and quality of life. The current target JER ratio in the general plan is 1.1 jobs per employed resident. The observed JER ratio since the adoption of the general plan since 2011 has averaged to be 0.82. The GER ratio depends on multiple demographic and economic factors. Adding housing capacity, as we are proposing in this four year review, does not automatically result in proportional growth in employed residents or the resulting GER ratio. And based on projections from multiple agencies, San Jose is not expected to experience population growth significantly beyond what was assumed in the 2015 analysis when the current GER ratio was adopted or updated. For these reasons, staff is recommending maintaining the current GER ratio target of 1.1. Maintaining the current ratio also supports key general plan goals, including fiscal sustainability and environmental performance, while ensuring that the city remains prepared for future job generating projects. The next topic we are going to discuss is residential capacity. The scope of work for residential capacity was adding residential capacity to the general plan's current capacity of 120,000 units. The current housing growth capacity of the general plan has been consumed by the sixth cycle housing element, and in anticipation of the seventh cycle housing element, the residential growth capacity needs to be increased. The recommended strategies to achieve the outcome is are modifications to the density ranges of specific general plan designations, targeted general plan amendments, and developing a framework for PQP lands. As part of the small multifamily strategy, as we will discuss later tonight, the residential neighborhood designation is proposed to be updated to allow a maximum density of 32 dwelling units per acre. The general plan has multiple residential or mixed-use designations, and there is a specific progression in the densities and development standards so each can allow different types of residential development. So to maintain this clear and logical hierarchy across designations, staff is proposing a corresponding increase in the minimum and maximum densities of some of these other designations and related height increases. The table on the slide shows current and proposed density and heights of the land use designations staff is proposing, recommending the changes to. The maximum density of residential neighborhood is proposed to change from eight units to 32 units per acre. Now without adjustment, this residential neighborhood density would exceed current mixed use neighborhood density, which is 20 units per acre. The mixed-use designation is proposed, therefore, to change from the current density, sorry, 30, I spoke, 30 units per acre. And this 30 units per acre current max density is proposed to change to a range of 20 to 50 units per acre for mixed-use neighborhood. This adjustment re-stabilizes mixed use as a higher density designation related to residential neighborhood and provides a transition between higher and lower density. Because the revised mixed use neighborhood designation is intended to function as a mid density residential designation. This minimum density would allow this added minimum density would allow for townhome projects in much needed housing type that is currently financially feasible and in demand citywide. And lastly, urban residential or you are is proposed to change from the current range of 30 to 95 units per acre to 50 to 95 units per acre. The next topic for discussion is on potential land use designation changes along the Winchester Boulevard and the Alameda corridors. For the Winchester Boulevard corridor between Newhall and Forest Avenue, staff conducted a site-by-site analysis of 20 parcels and is proposing the following changes. Certain sites with existing residential uses proposed to change to residential neighborhood or mixed-use neighborhood designation to reflect current conditions or allow the modest increase in residential density. I forgot to say the left side is the current general plan designations, the map on the right side shows the proposed designations. Sites with commercial or office uses located closer to Valleyfair and Stevens Creek Boulevard and 826 North Winchester Boulevard are proposed to change to urban residential designation a higher density designation due to their proximity to commercial amenities and transit access. The staff proposes to limit heights for these parcels to 85 feet, consistent with height limitations in the adjacent Santana Road Valley Fair urban village plan area. One site at North Winchester Boulevard and Woodland Road is proposed to change to a mixed-use neighborhood. which will support the continuation of commercial uses on the site, but adds potential for residential or mixed use development in the future. These two currently the two areas that are bordered with red on the map on the right hand side map shown on the slide are where the UR or urban residential is proposed. The map that was attached as exhibit A to the staff report showed the parcel at 850 North Winchester Boulevard at Korea Avenue. and 825 North Winchester Boulevard at West Heading also as changing to urban residential. That was an oversight. No changes proposed to these two sites. Some task force members at the previous meeting questioned whether mixed-use neighborhood or mixed-use commercial would be more appropriate than urban residential for these sites. One goal of the four-year review process is to identify housing opportunity sites needed to help meet the city's seven-cycle regional housing needs allocation, or RHNA, obligations. Accordingly, staff's recommendation was guided by the goal of maximizing housing yield with urban residential proposed for sites near transit jobs and amenities that are better suited for higher density residential development. By comparison, mixed use neighborhood would more likely result in lower density townhomes or condominium projects. The table here on the slide illustrates the unit yield comparison of these sites under different land use designations. This slide shows recently approved projects under construction with mixed-use neighborhood, mixed-use commercial, or UR designations. Mixed-use commercial or mixed-use neighborhood projects generally produce half of the units that we see compared to urban residential sites. This reinforces staff's recommendation that urban residential is better suited on these limited infill opportunity sites. For the Alameda corridor between I-80 and Pershing Avenue, staff conducted a side-by-side analysis of 73 sub-parcels with the neighborhood community commercial designation. Outline in the black on the map and one site with the public quasi-public land use along the same corridor. The analysis showed that the Alameda corridor consists primarily of older office uses with low vacancy and significant historic resources limiting residential infill opportunities. Staff is proposing change to two sites. For 1860 the Alameda, The two sites are shown with red borders here on the right-hand side map. For 1860, the Alameda, which is the Rose Garden Inn, has an attached restaurant at the front proposed to change to urban residential designation. And for $1541, which is YMCA with a large surface parking lot and a public quasi-public land use designation, staff is recommending changing the land use designation of only the parking lot portion of the site to urban residential. For targeted general plan amendments, staff also evaluated sites with the mixed-use commercial designation as candidates for redesignation, as well as some sites initially reviewed as part of SB 1333 rezoning process. The mixed-use commercial designation was originally intended to support mixed-use development with a strong commercial component. Since then, market conditions and housing policies have made those projects less feasible, so staff evaluated whether some MEC sites are better suited for residential or more flexible mixed-use designations. After evaluating these sites, Staff identified that many MUC sites continue to provide important neighborhood serving commercial functions with inactive commercial corridors, and they also exhibit low retail vacancies and strong commercial demand. Staff is recommending a site-specific analysis using a proposed set of criteria to identify sites with varying levels of opportunity or constraint for residential conversion or stronger commercial preservation. And lastly, as part of SB 1333 mandated rezoning efforts, staff identified a list of sites for potential general plan designation changes to better align with the existing conditions. Staff proposes to evaluate these parcels based on surrounding land uses, current and historic uses, parcel size, redevelopment potential, and broader policy context, and to recommend general plan changes to selected sites as appropriate. So these slides, the next two slides, they showed a complete list of recommendations for residential capacity section A1 and 2 here. They are recommendations regarding overall density and or height changes in mixed-use neighborhood and urban residential designations. A3 is a recommendation for the Winchester Boulevard sites. A4 is recommendations about the Alameda sites, A5 is about the MUC sites, and A6 is about the SB1333 parcels. That concludes this portion, and I'm going to hand over to Gerard for the next portion.

All right thanks Sanhita. Jared Ferguson. Good evening commissioners. So I will be discussing public quasi public lands. So first some background and context. During the task force process we discussed the importance of preserving PQP land as a distinct land use category that supports public uses such as schools colleges utilities and faith based uses among others. To that end, the general plan includes land use policy 1.9, or LU-1.9, and the purpose is to preserve existing PQP land to maintain an inventory of suitable sites for private community gathering facilities within neighborhoods, urban villages, and commercial areas. We also discussed the importance of third spaces. that are separate from home and work and that maintaining an inventory of these types of sites is important for a livable, walkable community. We also covered the composition of PQP land. PQP land makes up about 15% of developable land within the city. There are just over 6,700 acres of it across the city. About 45% is public schools, 2.4% is university or college lands, 7% are faith-based uses, 40% are government, and then 4.5% make up the other categories there. Then we also provided some specific examples of PQP throughout the city, including the Kaiser Hospital in South San Jose, the YMCA in District 8, and then some other utility serving lands in District 1. The way in which PQP fills in open space and park deficient gaps is another aspect we highlighted to show how PQP land further serves the community. Public access and utilization of school sites varies greatly throughout the city depending on the school district. But the city does have joint use agreements for public access to at least 44 school pay school spaces throughout the city. this is just one example in West San Jose along Saratoga Avenue this shows the areas outside of sorry the area the areas outside of the green bubbles are those that are not within a quarter mile of a park or public space and then the purple are those PQP sites that are outside of those green areas We also covered the effect of SB 79 on PQP lands. About 30% of all PQP land is within SB 79 covered areas and could develop as residential after July 1st. Given the uncertainty around SB 79 and the amount of land effectively converted through this new law, staff had initially recommended a cautious approach and did not recommend changes until seeing the impacts of SB 79. That being said, staff acknowledges the rapidly changing demographics impacting schools throughout the city. Given these shifts, there is likely a surplus of PQP land. However, in order to preserve a suitable inventory of public and private community serving uses, we recommend a nuanced approach rather than a wholesale change to the PQP land use designation. blanket allowance of additional residential uses especially given the current state law landscape will fundamentally undermine the purpose of maintaining a distinct and separate land use designation for public uses staff recommends developing a framework in which the city could consider certain land use changes as as on pqp sites while maintaining consistency with general plan policy lu-1.9 The PQP framework approach would define and consider the following developing criteria to determine the appropriate amount and distribution of PQP land and or sites throughout the city based on demographic, economic and other data. and to evaluate those requests and changes in land use based on the framework criteria to unlock potential housing potential on certain sites while ensuring that adequate community space exists throughout the city. Additionally, I wanted to add that as a part of this work, staff is also open to evaluating if there are any other public uses not already allowed in the PQP zoning district that we could modify in the zoning ordinance. Okay, so now shifting to urban village planning. Focusing on jobs and housing growth in urban villages is a major strategy of the general plan, but for many reasons, including funding and staff capacity, the pace of urban village planning has been slow. For this reason, our housing element contains strategy P-40 to evaluate the urban village planning process for potential streamlining. This includes looking at whether to maintain all of the urban villages, whether new approaches to planning should be used ways to consolidate the planning process and also evaluating the effectiveness of the various urban village plan components. The most significant changes staff is recommending are to the local transit urban villages, which are located along light rail corridors. First, in order to reduce the number of plans required, we're recommending consolidating the 12 local transit villages into four plans. Each plan would encompass those urban villages along a specific transit corridor. Then because SB 79 will allow high density housing on commercial properties in these urban villages, which is one of the primary purposes of the urban village plans, we recommend deferring development of those plans for these villages, at least until we can see how the impacts of SB 79 play out. And finally, we recommend applying a commercial overlay in these villages, The commercial overlay would create more capacity for jobs in the local transit urban villages to complement the new housing capacity brought by SP 79. The overlay could include higher floor area ratios and heightened and currently allowed by the general plan and zoning district in these urban villages. And while the initial focus of the overlay would be these unplanned local transit villages, the city could consider applying it more broadly to other urban villages in the future as well. With planning for local transit villages deferred, the priority would be developing urban village plans for the commercial corridor and center urban villages. In addition to the four existing urban villages, staff recommends moving four villages into this category because we believe they merit a comprehensive plan. This includes two Oak Ridge Mall urban villages, which are partly affected by SB 79. Finally, for the remaining unplanned neighborhood urban villages, the recommendation is to utilize a single planning process to make targeted land use and zoning changes rather than developing full comprehensive plans for each of these urban villages. City Council Chambers, So to summarize, here are the recommendations for urban village planning. City Council Chambers, remove the last unplanned regional transit urban village, since it is largely built out and has a plan development zoning. City Council Chambers, consolidate the local transit urban villages into four plans defer plan development for these and draft a commercial overlay to provide incentives for job growth to complement the SP 79 changes. The eight commercial corridor and center urban villages would be the top priority in terms of urban village planning in the coming years. We're also recommending the elimination of individual plans for the neighborhood urban villages and instead using a single process for land use and zoning changes to encourage growth. To standardize the outreach strategy for the urban villages that will undergo a traditional planning process, minimize the unique development and design standards in future urban village plans to cut down on the time needed to create those standards and draft plans. And finally, we're also recommending removing the three mobile home parks from unplanned urban villages to be consistent with the city's other preservation policy policies around mobile home parks. You know, spanned over to there, so I will pass it over to Cora now.

Thanks Jared good evening Commissioners core mcnaughton here to present on the recommendations for small multifamily housing as part of our general plan for your review recommendations. So, to provide some context for the work on small multifamily housing, which we also have referred to as missing middle housing, we go back to strategy P 35 of the housing element. Through this strategy, the city has committed to allowing small multifamily projects in single family neighborhoods, either as a buffer around urban villages or more broadly throughout the city. And as we have discussed with the task force, staff's recommendation is to go broader than the urban villages by allowing up to 32 units per acre on most properties within the residential neighborhood land use designation. Residential neighborhood encompasses more than 80% of all land designated for residential development in the city. And this designation currently allows up to eight dwelling units per acre. So this table, which you've seen before, shows the breakdown of residential neighborhood parcels by area. 84% of all residential neighborhood parcels are between 3,000 and 8,000 square feet in area. And within this range and counting both primary units and potential ADUs, a total of 4 to 12 units would be permitted. This is without taking into consideration any potential development standards which the city could use to control the scale and massing of small multifamily projects. So there are a number of these different types of standards that the city could use for that purpose, these include maximum height minimum setbacks from property lines. Maximum floor area maximum parcel coverage by buildings, as well as maximum parcel size and others, in addition, the city could implement design standards for things like window placement or other aspects of buildings appearance. In terms of permitting for small multifamily projects, staff is recommending a ministerial process that would apply to most projects and would not require a public hearing. Projects that are proposed on certain categories of sites would need discretionary review. That would include properties in higher risk flood zones, riparian areas, as well as historic properties. Just to name a few Finally some properties would be deemed ineligible for greater density Those include properties in high and very high fire severity zones airport safety zones environmentally sensitive areas as well as sites with either rent stabilized or rent regulated units or with units occupied by low-income tenants and So again, here's a summary of our recommendations. The general or base recommendation is to increase the density in the residential neighborhood land use designation to 32 units per acre. Staff would develop a set of standards for these projects for consideration by the Planning Commission and City Council. At this time, staff is supporting a height maximum of 35 feet and three stories, but more work is needed to determine the impact of other development standards on project feasibility as well as on surrounding properties. Additional standards could also be implemented for projects located on historic properties. So as mentioned, some properties would not be eligible for the increased density due to health and safety concerns on these sites. I've listed those before. And then finally, approval of small multifamily projects would be ministerial in most cases, but discretionary for specific types of properties. And I'm going to hand it back over.

Thank you. So I will quickly walk us through next steps. One of staff's next steps will be to begin environmental review this summer with support from an environmental consultant. Following tonight's action, staff will present Planning Commission's recommendation to the City Council on August 18th, 2026. City Council will then vote on how staff should proceed with this policy framework. staff will continue topic specific outreach like, for example, missing middle development standards throughout the year throughout next year 2027 and lastly staffs final recommendations will be presented to the planning Commission and city council in December 2027 this concludes staffs presentation.

All right, staff, thank you for that presentation. Okay, I guess next is public comment. All right, here we go. All right, so if I call your name, please come down. We'll try to do three or four at a time. Come down to the microphone, state your name, and you have two minutes. So we will start out with Michelle Liana. Olif and Ken Hiddleman.

Hello, I'm Michelle. Kori residents are not all homeowners and in the 50 plus age range, although that may be true of the faces that you saw at the June 3rd meeting and tonight. Quarry neighborhood includes apartment dwellers, young adults living with their parents, multi-generational families, renters of houses, renters of ADUs, we have many ADUs, renters of rooms, inside houses, and more. We have children of all ages. Corrie neighborhood has frequent older adult and disabled pedestrians at the intersections of Heading and Winchester and Forest and Winchester from adjacent neighborhoods, including from Valley Village Retirement Community, from apartments behind the Walgreens, and from apartments in the AgriHood. Pedestrian safety for these individuals would be negatively impacted by the increased traffic congestions this proposal would cause. Original houses in Corey neighborhood were built modestly, with many of the homes still small and many multi-generational families in Corey. There are often more than two cars per household and residents using their garages for purposes other than their cars. Plus, the preponderance of ADUs brings additional cars that need to park in the neighborhood. My point here is that many Cory neighborhood residents use street parking and already have difficulty doing so in the zone between Heading and Forest, which has been terribly impacted by overflow parking from Valley Fair since they began charging for parking. This proposal will have an outcome of converting successful businesses to pure residential, which contradicts San Jose's goal of preserving the business tax base and employment opportunities. Cori residents value and patronize these businesses. I care about the current and future residents of Cori And I care about the businesses along Forest and Winchester, how they contribute to the quality of life and the tax revenue and jobs they bring to the city. Rezoning to anything other than mixed-use neighborhood would have serious negative consequences for the neighborhood. It is not smart planning and cannot be justified with the arguments that have been presented. Thank you.

My name is Leanna Olive and I'm speaking tonight on behalf of Lindy Hayes and the Concerned Quarry Neighborhood Group. We are deeply worried about the latest proposed rezoning map of the Winchester Corridor as recently published by the Planning Department staff. The urban residential zones are now extended from Beechwood to Woodland-Corey Avenues, promising destruction to a host of small businesses that keep our neighborhood vibrant and provide needed tax revenue to the city. This is a scattershot approach and not a plan. The idea is that individual landowners may decide to convert to housing or not decide. And this will all take place over a number of decades. This is hardly the way to meet the state deadlines for housing. Our greatest objection is that once this rezoning is done, it cannot be undone. Urban residential is the most extreme of the three options available. The city cannot rezone down afterwards. We accept the idea that the city needs housing, that the parcels at 600 North Winchester and 826 North Winchester are vacant and cry out for the land to be well used. We advocate for mixed-use neighborhood in our area. Thank you.

All right, next we'll have Kelly McDonough, Lisa Miller, and Robert Wood.

Hi, I'm Kelly McDonough. San Jose has a long history of very thoughtful planning, infilling rather than sprawl, densifying at transit hubs. I have a house in the Quarry neighborhood. I've tried using public transportation in and out of the neighborhood. It's almost nonexistent. You'd be better off walking in most cases than you would be trying to get a bus, which is really the only public transportation you're going to find in the neighborhood. I'd invite any of you to come to the neighborhood and try the bus system. You're just not going to get anywhere very fast. Because of this, changing the zoning in the Winchester Boulevard corridor will lead to traffic and pedestrian dangers. It's contrary to San Jose's Vision Zero, which is a vision to make pedestrian use safer. Please let's stick to densifying near transit hubs like light rail, BART, and Caltrain. Thank you.

Kori residents are not against additional housing. We are just advocating for additional housing that fits with the character of the neighborhood and does not destroy it. Mixed use neighborhood zoning would provide additional units while preserving livability for both the additional and existing residents. The proposed changes to MUN would allow four to five stories and a base density of 50 dwelling units per acre. Under the state density bonus law, densities could be doubled to 100 dwelling units per acre. This is plenty of growth opportunity in the Winchester corridor and could be increased later. Once it's increased, it can't be decreased, as has been mentioned. So urban residential will allow a base density of 95 dwelling units per acre, which could be doubled to 190. This is way too much density for this area, and the increased traffic would be overwhelming and exacerbate the already existing parking problems, as it is right next to Valley Fair. The new slides that were presented comparing MUN and urban residential showed examples with only 45 to 55 dwelling units. That's not the 95 to 190. The 45 to 55 is actually within the MUN. Cars will be required by the hundreds of new residents per building of added density in the zone. The claims that cars will not be needed for these new residents is ludicrous. There are no grocery stores in walkable distance. The Safeway closed in 2023 when cannot go grocery shopping at a reasonable budget in Valley Fair or in Santana Row. And the claimed Valley Fair Transit Center on Forest closed in 2021. The new residents will also need cars to commute to their jobs. Buildings with inadequate parking just do not work. Look at the Fay and other struggling sites. recently in the news. Rejecting UR zoning does not mean no growth. It is not a binary decision between outrageous growth or no growth. Please support reasonable growth, MUN zoning. No other neighborhood has been targeted with these continued attacks on their ability to maintain their character and to survive as a livable community. It is not fair and should be reined in. Thank you very much.

I'm Robert Wood. I'm chair of the Housing Committee of the California Faculty Association San Jose State Chapter. And as you know, we are in favor of a serious re-evaluation of the general plan to make it possible to build more housing than the current proposals will include. We think that the general plan itself calls for a major revision every four years. That's the word in the plan. It feels like several steps that are really needed have not been adequately considered in this review. The first would be proper rethinking of the growth areas, which were supposed to produce 170,000 units and are producing very few. Secondly, some housing in the 100 square miles plus where all housing is prohibited. City planning said it was gonna work on that, but nothing has happened. And third, allowing appropriate amounts of housing in the PQP areas. These seem not to have been included in the plan so far, and we hope that you'll find a way to enable these things to happen. I was deeply impressed by Commissioner Cao's comments on June 3rd, and teachers are in the same situation as his friends. We need housing, and not enough has been done in this plan to make space for it. Thank you.

All right. Coming up, we'll have Greg Carlson, Allison Siglione, and Theresa Doe.

My name is Lisa Miller. I've lived in the Cory neighborhood for 24 years and hope to live there another 24. I support more housing and more density, but I want to limit buildings on the Winchester corridor to 45 stories, just like the current structures that are there. Please don't maximize density on the backs of people, of we the people of the Cory neighborhood. Thank you.

Good evening Allison Singalani Director of Policy with SV at Home. We submitted a letter earlier today signed by leaders from school districts faith congregations housing and community based organizations expressing our strong support for expanding the allowable permitted uses on school and faith lands designated PQP as part of the general plan for your review. We oppose an approach that would limit the expansion of allowable community serving uses to some sites but not others, as we believe this could unintentionally interfere with the difficult decisions school districts and faith congregations must make in close partnership with their communities. It would also create equity impacts, as options available to one school district community or faith congregation may not be available to another. Finally, an uneven approach is likely to accelerate the loss of PQP sites to non-community uses, as school districts and faith congregate communities that lack the resources to navigate a lengthy and uncertain approval process may be forced to sell their land outright rather than retain ownership and redevelop it in ways that both strengthen their long-term financial sustainability and continue to serve the community. Some of the desired community serving uses not allowed at all under current PQP include but are not limited to 100% affordable housing, public workforce housing, a commercial kitchen to support small home-based food entrepreneurs, and small neighborhood serving retail. Desired uses that require a special use permit, currently adding 591 days to the permitting process, include but are not limited to a daycare center, social services agency, medical clinics, certified farmer's market, vocational school, gym, or community theater. Housing for school districts own workforce is permitted only because state law now overrides our general plan. San Jose's average school site at nearly 10 acres is large enough to hold a school, housing, and additional community serving uses. That very configuration is winding its way through negotiations right now in Alamrock Union School District. Citywide expansion of allowable permitted uses.

And Lori Androste also. Not yet. Wait till the light turns red. Hello? Yeah.

Good evening, commissioners. On behalf of my name is Teresa Doe. I speak on behalf of San Jose Yimby. On behalf of over 1000 members of San Jose Yimby, we appreciate the analysis led by the planning department tax force to unlock more housing capacity in the city. We know San Jose is a wonderful place to live, but housing has become increasingly unaffordable and it's unsustainable to continue this way. Reassessing our public quasi public lands and increasing density and mixed use in residential neighborhoods are necessary steps the city must take to support its existing population and build new homes for new families. We urge the commission to adopt staff's recommendation to increase density in the identified neighborhoods as it'll permit new families to live in these areas, such as teachers, healthcare workers, and young families. Let's build more housing for more families.

Thank you.

I'm Greg Carlson with Concerned Quarry Neighbors and I appreciate the difficulty that you're all going through and the decisions you have to make. I did submit a proposal for a development along the Winchester corridor that I thought would provide not only for housing but improve the neighborhoods and create neighborhoods and allow for greater safety for senior facilities churches etc I guess there's a now a greater percentage of urban residential now that's showing up on the map and I'm not sure why but there's great consideration appears given for the Alameda corridor which is closer to downtown San Jose and their businesses but I just want to put in my pitch again for a mixed use neighborhood for the Winchester Corridor and 826 North Winchester. Thank you.

Good evening chair and commissioners. My name is Lori Droste. I'm the housing and planning director at SPUR. My comments are focused on missing middle housing. I first want to thank you as the task force and staff for your thoughtful work establishing a more ambitious missing middle housing framework through the general plan is a major step towards addressing San Jose's housing shortage. San Jose's affordability crisis is pushing families, teachers, nurses, and young professionals out of the city. We strongly support making this a citywide strategy, including in high opportunity neighborhoods that have historically seen little growth. The neighborhood where a child grows up should not determine the opportunities available to them. At the last meeting, Commissioner Cow looked at his wife and child in the audience and said, I have no shot at affording a home here. That moment really stayed with me because that's exactly what this discussion is about. Missing middle housing creates homes that are more attainable than the increasingly common $2 million single family home, while requiring far less public subsidy. It gives more families the opportunity to build a future in San Jose. We appreciate staff's recommendation of 32 dwelling units per acre. It's a significant improvement over today's zoning and we encourage the city to continue exploring opportunities for additional density where appropriate to improve project feasibility. We also strongly support allowing the market, not artificial parking mandates, to determine parking needs. Allowing the market to determine doesn't mean no parking. It simply means not requiring parking where it is not needed or wanted. Unnecessary parking requirements increase housing costs, consume valuable land, and make projects harder to build. Thank you for your leadership and we respectfully ask for your support.

Thank you. Anybody else like to speak, please come down this time. Please state your name also.

Hello, my name is Benjamin White. I live in the Winchester Corridor area. And I am mindful of the fact that San Jose needs to bring 30,000 new housing units online in the not too distant future. But I'm also concerned about the character of our neighborhood and the quality of life there. and too many high-rise buildings showing up in our neighborhood. And that's why I'm reiterating previous comments calling for mixed-use neighborhood as the best compromise in our neighborhood. Thank you.

Good evening and thank you for allowing me to have a brief word here. My name is Hartti Suomela. I live in Santa Clara just next door to Kori neighborhood and I have to echo the concerns raised by many of the Kori neighborhood residents in this meeting about the parking problems which these plans will be creating the non-existing local transportation. I've tried to use the local transportation for my daily commute It doesn't work reliably enough for me to be able to do it so that doesn't support the amount of new people which the plans presented here will bring. And also the lack of grocery options in the neighborhood means that people are driving more than plans are really counting for so there will be more cars in the residence because of these plans so i urge you to come up with a little bit less dramatic expansion of the housing and housing amounts in the winchester area sorry i've been talking about the winchester corridor and i understand that there is more need for housing but it cannot come with the cost of all these existing residents in the corey neighborhood and the close by neighborhood thank you

All right, any other public comment? Nothing from VTA? OK. All right, then we'll move on to the commissioners. Let's see. Commissioner Casey, did you have something to say about the process or a general comment or questions? Go ahead.

thank you chair uh so a couple things um first uh i guess more of a statement where i stand on the pqp portion of it hearing all the different opinions and from staff as well just want to go on record i support the proposal from city planning to look at it in a methodical way i think it's important that the pqp land across the city is evenly distributed so all communities maintain an appropriate level of pqp lands understand that certain school districts and faith-based organizations and others are in dire straits but I think the greater good of the community because the city I think overrides the individual organizations in that case I do believe we should open them up I do believe we probably do have an excess of it definitely because of school populations declining church attendance etc but I think it should be done in a methodical manner i had a question for staff about the winchester corridor and i have i have walked it a couple times and going through i understand the urban residential from forest over to fernwood but the addition of 826 north winchester it's discontinuous with the other urban residential properties And around it we have neighborhood, community, commercial, and others. If we could touch a little bit more on that particular property, why that was included when it's not connected to the other group that is closer to Valley Fair and on the corner there.

Sure, Commissioner. So one of the reasons that this 826 was selected as a proposed for urban residential is the fact that it is currently underutilized and vacant. While staff was not supportive of their general plan amendment initially, um going to early consideration and hearing um i think planning commission and also city council having us take another look at the site and consider possibly a less a lesser dense designation i believe they were going for transit residential and so the other two options would have been urban residential and mixed-use neighborhood and we've sort of explained why we're not supportive of mixed-use neighborhood But again, this one is underutilized. It's currently a building. There is a building on site, but there are no tenants on there. So and there's interest in redeveloping it.

thank you um and i guess just a note after visiting the site a couple times or walking the area i mean when it comes down to however we're doing the proposals or saying yay or nay i'm comfortable with the rest being urban residential but not 826 i think it should be pulled out if there's some way at least for that when we get to the voting on proposals etc a question for staff as well in terms of parking Obviously, we've heard that extensively. I'm familiar with the FAY, and hopefully developers take a look at FAY and understand not having the parking is not going to work. San Jose hasn't had a parking requirement for years now, but most developments still have parking, and certainly, if, not if, we know the parking is challenging there already, so developers are not going to be able to build, you know, an eight-story building without having at least some adequate parking. And in your own records, you mentioned 1.6 is typically how many parking spaces they're adding for units at this point. But getting to that, is there a reason we cannot do permit parking in the Quarry neighborhood? Is that something that we don't do any longer, the neighbors are not in favor of, or is there ways to manage that? Because certainly even Valley Fair parking should not be consuming the neighborhood.

Yeah, thanks, Commissioner. We could probably spend a lot of time talking about residential permit parking, but I do know a little bit of background about it. We've looked at it in other areas, something along Winchester further south that was looked at up through a pilot program. It's typically not something the city's looking to expand right now, just on a practical sense because of the increased costs that it is to in terms of enforcement and other things. There are also other policy considerations as well. It's, you know, typically for something like a Valley fare use, that is something we could, you know, would potentially be considered for a parking permit program where you have this kind of use case where there's a large regional generator of, you know, traffic. So like a stadium is a good example of where you might have permit parking around that. So like around our SAP center, there are permit parking programs. now when it comes to Increased demand based upon new residents. That's not usually somewhere where we're looking to utilize a parking permit program Typically the residents would also be eligible to park on the streets around where they live So it doesn't necessarily manage the parking in that way so it's so there's different reasons as to why you'd look at parking permit programs if it were something that we were looking to expand upon through our dot but in terms of how it applies to residential that can be complicated just because those are also you know residents in the community as well so thank you that's all i had thank you

thank you Commissioner Casey okay I think we're gonna have to have a little bit of structure to how we're going to discuss all these items because we have four sections and each section has something like four or five subsections within it and each subsection has about some of them have four or five subsections within those so how about we start with residential capacity section one and we can that contains two sections so we have resident increasing residential capacity this includes the winchester boulevard corridor and the next part of section one is public quasi public lands how about we just start with comments or questions related to residential the first part of that so 1a

And if I could, too, we have slides with the recommendations we could put up while you're talking about each section, too, to make it a little bit easier. And if there are pieces that we want to talk about, we have that set up. So if you just give me one second, I can pull that up, if that makes sense.

That would be wonderful. And this way we can sort of focus on the parts that are important to folks and segregate them.

Great chair, can I ask just a really quick question? Go ahead. For Commissioner Casey, you mentioned that there was one project that you didn't want to see go urban residential. Which one was that again, just real quick?

826 Winchester. It's disjointed from the others.

Thank you.

It's 1A3, if I'm not wrong, Commissioner Casey.

That's 1A3?

That's right.

Are you talking in the agenda? Oh, here? Yes. And it's 1A3, but a specific portion of 1A3.

Yes.

There were two parcels or two sets of parcels.

Well, yeah, there's like 10, but yes.

Make sure you're speaking into the microphone.

Sorry, could we have the diagram for the Winchester, the side-by-side?

Yeah, let me pull that up. All right.

We can start with just one A. All right, Commissioner Young.

Thank you, Chair. I'd like to discuss one B, but if we just need to get to that, that's fine. But I would like to have some discussion about public quasi public lands.

Let's start with 1A first, and then we'll come back. Sounds good. Anybody for 1A? Cal? Cantrell? Cantrell?

Thank you, actually. So on the issue of urban residential in Winchester community, I think the opposition is quite honestly fair. I think we're moving in the right direction. And with this small, these very small couple of parcels really, it would help a little bit. But I don't think with density bonus it changes enough that it matters to be completely honest with you. I think when the community came forward and were more than willing to adjust to compensate more housing in their community, it's a far cry more than most. And I think we should maybe respect that. I think also that the impact that we get from just going with mixed use is a sufficient first step. Maybe we don't have to boil the ocean. I will, however, make one recommendation to the community, a marketing term probably. I would not use character of my community. That is kind of a dog whistle from someone else just saying. But otherwise, I would support the community's interest on that one. Thanks.

MUN. What's that? MUN. MUN. MUN.

yes yes mixed-use neighborhood yeah uh commissioner oliverio did you have something about 1a yes uh overall i just would like a systematic way that we do this that we have the powerpoint up and we as much as someone wants to talk about something else got to stay on the one in front of us so that we're all on the same page and whoever's watching the meetings on the same page i just think that'd be nice and clean

Would you like the way we're doing it or?

Well, I'm just saying, if we're going to go with the staff presentation or follow this agenda, then I want to start specifically with 1A and not go to 1A3. I mean, I just want, I want, I don't mind if we have 32 votes. I'd rather be very specific in what we're doing rather than, you know, large encompassing motions where there's disagreement which end up being longer discussions.

OK, so we can go to 1A1, 1A2, 1A3?

Yeah, like for example, I would say let's just vote on 1Ai, 1Aiii, and just go down that. And let's limit everyone speaking to one or two minutes so there's no major speeches, and we just keep going down the list. I'm happy to do it any other way. That's just my suggestion.

I mean, that works fine. Does anybody have anything to say about one AI or?

Possibly. Could we do, if we do it by one, well, lowercase I's as opposed to lowercase ABC's in the spirit of what was just said, perhaps. we can just do by letter a b a b c a b c d as opposed to small i small small double i so and so forth but again maybe we do need to go down to the details

I think to the extent that there's an opportunity to consolidate, then it would behoove the commission to do so. So if there are, I think the opportunity to have the conversation by letter, so going 1A, and if there are specific items within that that need to be pulled, then that could be bifurcated out, but I think it'll take a fair amount of time if you're gonna go through every single individual item.

Okay.

May I make a proposal? Sure. 1A, I think we can, if we remove item three for comment, I believe that we can then vote on everything else in 1A. Is everybody good with that?

I believe so. All right. So let's vote on 1A and one, or sorry,

1a romanette i and run it 1a romanette i i i think you'll need a motion first yeah we'll have a motion can you repeat that because i will i can't hear you commissioner you need to speak more into the mic i can't hear i will make a motion that we vote on 1a item i

two aye, four aye, five aye, and six aye, that we remove item three for additional discussion and a separate vote.

So the motion would be to adopt staff's recommended actions for those? Yes, thank you. Okay.

All right, do we have a second?

Second.

A second, okay. Let's roll call vote. Vice Chair Bickford.

Yes.

Commissioner Berrosio? Yes. Commissioner Bondal? Yes. Commissioner Cantrell?

Yes.

Commissioner Cowell? Yes. Commissioner Casey? Yes. Commissioner Escobar?

Yes.

Commissioner Nguyen? Yes. Commissioner Oliverio?

No, and I'd love an opportunity to share why I'm voting that way, maybe having a comment after or before the vote.

Comment after works. Commissioner Young?

Yes.

Myself is a yes. And the motion passes. So that is for 1A, everything but 1A, aye, aye, aye. Commissioner Oliverio?

Yeah. My main reason for the no vote is having to do with the 32 units to the acre in residential neighborhoods. Overall, this is something that the feedback from actual neighborhood residents, not interest groups, is not in favor of such, am I talking about the wrong item, Jared? You're looking like there's internal discussion. Yes.

It's actually, it's not part of this motion. It would be under small multifamily.

Yeah, 32 is section two. That's why I like the PowerPoint. All right, so then with this being said, this is just the densifications of the existing zonings. I can support that.

Yes, this is only for MUN and UR.

I'm going to reconsider my no vote and vote yes.

All right.

All right. Passes unanimously. All right. On to 1A3, the Winchester Corridor. Comments from, comments, questions from? Who's the second on that last one? Second was Cal. Okay. 1A3, comments, questions from commissioners on the Winchester Corridor. Already Commissioner Cantrell suggested MUN. Commissioner Bickler. Second.

I'd just like to know first if Commissioner Cantrell is going to make a motion about what to do with number three.

OK. Yes, that works now. OK. I motion that we actually approve MUN instead of urban residential in this area.

Second.

Wait, now I'm confused because you earlier said you wanted to remove, well, I guess it was Commissioner Casey that wanted to remove. i wanted to remove 826 but i thought you wanted it to mun the same that parcel would be impacted by the same decision to move it to but you just proposed that the motion that we approve it as urban residential sorry you're looking for the lower density one yeah okay so so it's mixed use neighborhood could could you actually make the motion though for mixed use

I misfired on that, I guess. I recommend that it all be zoned as neighborhood mixed use.

They're trying to help you. They're trying to help you.

All right. Okay. Do we have a second?

Okay, so this is, so we have already voted on everything under 1A. other than 1A Romanette 3. So Romanette 3 is Winchester Boulevard corridor. So we're voting on that separately from the things under 1A.

I understand that, but I'm not . Is there a motion on the floor?

Commissioner Cantrell just made a motion. Did somebody second it? Commissioner Oliverio made a seconded it. And it was to not modify. The general plan is already .

Yeah, could we clarify is it to modify everything we're proposing to you are to emu n urban residential emu n or just on the specific side of 826 Winchester. Okay, everything that's proposed to be urban residential would be mixed use neighbor Okay, thank you.

To modify it to mix emu and mixed use neighbor.

Okay.

um i'm going to just make a substitute motion that we approve the staff recommendation on 1 a 3. okay do we have a second for the substitute motion second do you have a second okay commissioner bondal

Yeah, thank you. First of all, thank you for navigating this chair as a good job. This is one of our first general plan meetings is my first general plan. summary meeting in the last meeting so it is kind of complicated but uh i'm following along as best as i could so just want to give a quick shout out to uh staff for doing an amazing job thus far we've started this process back in october and you guys have done a phenomenal job and thank you to all the residents that's been showing up not just today but since october and i appreciate you guys coming out and spending your time with us just want to quickly uh not take too much time but quickly bring up 826 winchester i do think that urban residential is a little bit too much density for that area this was something that came up for early consideration uh in the past am i correct staff yes that's correct okay at that time i think it was evaluation was about for 17 floors yes they were coming in with transit residential Yeah, so I thought that was a little bit too high. I've done my research for this specific site in the past, and I don't support it too much. I think there will be a lot of spillover for the residents, and I appreciate the Cory Neighborhood group coming out to our events. But for all the other sites I I would support Urban Residential I think there's one right next to Valley Fair I think that one makes a little bit more sense but the 826 one specifically I don't support I would go with the MUN so I'll make a motion to say well can I just can you make a friendly amendment to that to Commissioner Young's moment motion to see if he approves of that friendly amendment and the seconder also approves first before you make another substitute

commissioner young would you accept a felony amendment for just 826 being mun and the rest being urban residential okay okay any other anyone else before we take a vote on the substitute motion i was going to say if commissioner vandal wants to make a a third you can make maybe one more substitute motion before we get too attenuated and then we'll we'll call it So if you want to make a substitute motion, another, then after that.

So I'll make a substitute motion for staff's recommendation for 1A3 excluding 826 Winchester and having that instead of being urban residential being MUN.

Second.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Okay, so.

I just want to clarify that we have, the original motion, which was Commissioner Cantrell's motion, and then we had a substitute motion, which was Commissioner Young's motion to adopt the staff recommendation, and now we have another substitute motion, which is to adopt staff recommendation except for 826 Winchester. We're gonna take a vote on that. If that fails, we go to Commissioner Young's motion for a vote, and if that fails, we go to Commissioner Cantrell's motion. Everybody understand? Okay.

Can we have discussion? Yeah, of course.

Commissioner Yell.

Thank you, Chair, for navigating this process. It's really challenging, I understand. So, first of all, I wanted to say thank you to the core neighbors in your participation throughout this process. I think you have been far and beyond the neighborhood that's most participated in the process, and we appreciate that. and I understand your heartfelt feelings. On the other hand, the Winchester Boulevard corridor is a corridor which is very conducive to adding more housing. And because of the housing crisis situation that we're in, I think we need to expand that housing as much as possible. Our planning staff has spent hours and hours and probably days and days looking at each of these parcels and using their best professional judgment as to what should be done on each parcel. And I respect that. I I don't think it's our place as commissioners to start piecemealing this process I think that um you know our recommendations are going to go to the city council and ultimately they're going to decide but I really would rather avoid piecemealing things here I'd like to uh just respect our staff so that's that's why I uh I would support the staff recommendation thank you

Vice Chair Bickford.

I have a slightly different perspective with all due respect, Mike. I think that our responsibility is to look at the streets and the neighborhoods and to understand both what's good for the residents and what's good for the city. And I think that there is a balance to be had here. I thank the residents for coming out and for being reasonable. I haven't heard anybody say, not in my backyard or I don't want it here, and I very much appreciate that because it helps us make a more logical decision. This is a hard one because the city does need housing and because Winchester is a corridor where normally I would expect to see, frankly, taller buildings. but i also have respect for the neighborhood and um so i have a slightly different opinion i just i i want to get to the vote okay commissioner cantrell can i ask staff to bring up the map again one more time yeah just give me one second

okay um so we're really talking about the two the rectangle and the square we're taking the square out um in this um in the third one correct and we're leaving the the rectangle with all this um right near right across the street from the mall then and we're actually um when you look at and i need staff's opinion on this if this is neighborhood mixed use what's the maximum capacity likely with density bonuses sorry just pulling up the table um if um

We assume that we go with the new densities for mixed-use neighborhood, 20 to 50 dwelling units per acre. There's different circumstances and situations for density bonus. You can get unlimited density. You can get 50%, 100%, depending on it. If it was 50%, then it could go up to 100 units per acre on a particular site. I'm not sure what that site size is. Do you remember? No. Maybe just under an acre.

Okay. And if it's urban residential, what would be the maximum capacity?

Urban residential with the new changes from 50 to 95 dwelling units per acre. Assuming it's a one-acre site, you can get up to 95 units. And again, if you're doubling that density, it would be 200 units, depending on the type of density bonus they get.

Okay. Okay. so i i just don't think 100 units is worse worth destroying public will um i just don't i don't i think the value is high enough um i think we we get far more out of the community and i think this is just a bridge too far but i respectfully say that i i 100 units is not going to change the world thank you commissioner morosio

question for commissioner bandeau curious on why 826 stands out and it's something that you want to make an exception for

yeah so looking at your mind which which for the people watching i believe is the the box right the small red square on the right yes yeah so for um so for my thinking um the rectangle is a little bit closer to the main street and pretty close to valley fair so that there i could compromise and and take staff recommendations but i feel like the square is a little bit more into uh the the residential site so a little bit more in the it's i think it's it'll be more if we were to pick and to carve and compensate i would take the square being less density and the rectangle being more density just so everybody kind of wins staff gets what they want the community feels like they got something from what they wanted so i just want to be the middleman and kind of it's my idea so that's the thought process behind it thank you is that the piece of land that vci was talking about developing last year yes that's correct okay

Anyone else? Commissioner Oliveira.

My request doesn't stay requesting. So, yeah, per Commissioner Cantrell's ending comments there, I think when you have a community group that comes out to every single meeting and you're like, no, I just don't think it's a good faith thing. And I'm not saying anyone that has an opinion is being cruel or mean. I just think it's a lack of, you know, Openness to other ideas and an organ and a neighborhood that is adjacent already to the overflow of a very you know one of the most successful shopping centers in the United States and You know the urban residential. I think it's just a bridge too far and I think these this community has consistently engaged and I think the only fair thing to do is that Reality is you're gonna get more density But it's not going to be the maximum density. It's going to be something more reasonable. And as has been pointed out, that the state laws allow them to go far and wide much larger. And so a different general plan can revisit this. Or I'm sure maybe a state law might decide something else next week. But I'm going to stay with Cantrell's motion, because I think it's all those things I stated. And I think anything else is not ideal. Thank you. CHRIS RODGERS, Commissioner Cowe.

Let's talk about a complicated situation here. First of all, I want to say thank you to administration for all of your memos and presentations for the task force review and leading up to this whopping maybe 32 i don't know the exact number of recommendations to be made to city council but it's a lot of work and echoing what commissioner young said yeah definitely appreciate the immense amount of work that's gone into this i want to ask administration a couple questions and be responsive to the core neighbors concerns and just like numerous commissioners have mentioned thank you so much for coming out virtually every single task force meeting um various planning Commission meetings too so I hear you loud and clear and want to be responsive to some of those concerns so let's get to it but many of the quarry neighbors bring up the issue about this transit hub and they argue the lack of a transit hub Can can staff share some information on where we stand with that transit hub because clearly there's a difference of opinion between what the neighbors in in corey feel relative to. What staff has proposed with urban residential and claiming that it's a transit hub area some clarification there, I think, would be very helpful for the entire Commission.

Thank you, Commissioner. So the transit hub, as folks mentioned, was closed, I think, several years ago. And while it's not on the VTA, I'm sorry, near Valley Fair anymore, there are still bus lines that operate close enough to the site. There's, I think it's a 60, 61 bus line. You have two other bus lines along Stevens Creek. So while there isn't a transit hub, there is transit in the surrounding area and along Winchester and Stevens Creek.

got it thank you very much for that the second question i want to ask is a broader question about the state's mandate and request of the city of san jose for housing there's explicit reference um well actually in the presentation to the arena goals and in the memo on page seven you referenced that too specifically regarding the winchester corridor so can staff just i know you have your position but can staff just take a moment to further explain that because that is in contrast to what the corey neighbors have been requesting here in terms of you know mun instead of urban residential so i think it's i think it's worth making sure that we understand collectively what um the planning department's recommending and why

Sure, thank you. So one of the major drivers, as we said before, of this general plan for your review process was to lay the groundwork for the next housing element, the seven cycle housing element. The six cycle housing element was a tremendous lift for San Jose and I think cities all across the state where our arena goals were close, almost nearly doubled from the previous year. We anticipate that we're going to have to do a very similar exercise for the seventh cycle. And what that means is identifying sites that have sufficient capacity to meet those goals, whether it's going to be 62,000, 90,000, 35,000, whatever the state sort of hands down to us. And we don't know that number, but we're operating under what we've recently experienced. And so given that that's sort of what's driving this effort, we are trying our best to identify places where we can grow and where we can grow, really take advantage of the opportunities because we do not have new land in San Jose. We're not going to build on our hillsides. There's limited inbuilt opportunities. And for us, it... the best sort of scenario for Winchester, the Alameda, and possibly some of these other mixed-use commercial or SB 1333 sites that we're going to continue analysis for is to go to urban residential. Mixed-use neighborhood, in our opinion, will likely give us townhomes, and townhomes along Winchester next to a major growth area, next to an area that has services and jobs and transit doesn't seem to sort of meet that goal that we are trying to sort of bring forward and eventually bring to Council and Planning Commission in 2027. And so we understand the hesitation. You know, there is, you know, folks, they're supportive of housing and there's this sort of back and forth with mixed-use neighborhood people can use density bonus we don't see folks using mixed density bonus for mixed-use neighborhood projects townhomes will sell and townhomes will be built so in our opinion it's that or dense housing to achieve those those goals

Thank you very much. And that actually anticipated my next question, which would I think be responsive to Commissioner Cantrell's motion on the floor. Because you had brought up that state density bonus was going to play a factor in this. And I remember you calling that out I think at the last task force meeting too. And because if we do, if a developer does the state density bonus, then that could blow whatever dwelling units per acre through the roof. But what I just heard you say, Ruth, was that it's unlikely, you said, that MUN would have state density bonus? What was that that you just said?

Yes, we typically don't see sites with MUN using density bonus to go above the existing 30 dwelling units to the acre.

Got it. Thank you very much for that explanation. There's obviously a lot of differing opinions on the commission right now with three motions on the floor. I'll just say that Going back to some of the comments I've made in the last couple of task force meetings, I know being a younger person here who cannot afford Essentially live in San Jose barely getting by That we do need to do what we can to increase our housing Capacity here, and so I appreciate administration's Recommendations and we'll be supportive of them All right, I think Commissioner bundles motion is on the floor did anybody second it I

Casey seconded it. So the other ones are still in limbo and pending. Commissioner Casey first and then Commissioner Escobar.

Thank you. I just had one follow-up. Again, thank you for the Corey neighborhood. I mean, showing up, I went out there and walked the neighborhood for an hour and a half last week to get a better sense of it. Yes, I've been going to Valley Fair since I was a little kid, but it's changed dramatically in those years to get a better sense of it. And I think part of the compromise, and thank you to the planning staff at least, The proposal will limit it to 85 feet or essentially eight stories. I see those are asterisks. Is that binding or is that a recommendation? Because I think part of urban residential is 12 stories. I wouldn't necessarily support in that location. I looked there, I went down Bascom and stopped at the large one they did down by Southwest Expressway. I know there's some differences there in terms of what's exactly right behind it. 12 stories is difficult, but the 85, 85 is difficult as well. Is the 85 something that's binding or that's a recommendation?

so urban residential currently goes um higher than 85 feet i'm sorry i'm trying to see if we want it goes up to 135. so the asterisks are to show that we for these specific sites we will modify the height so that it's limited to 85 and not what's currently in the zoning code and that's binding that's not just a recommendation well that's our recommendation to you and if it went all the way through that's something that would be enforceable against development that is our proposal okay thank you

Commissioner Escobar.

I'm more inclined to support Commissioner Cantrell's motion simply because recalling the previous project in the area that failed, knowing that Santa Clara Mayor Gilmore and the council member adjoining in Santa Clara Cox were not in favor of that project, and it is literally across the street. That's being a good neighboring city in that particular way and seeking a compromise. I advocate for as much housing as possible, but I also advocate for a quality of life. um to say that well yes you've lived there for 40 years and and things will change yes they will change however I don't think that things should change in a way that forces somebody who's been there 40 years to move away um because now their quality of life has deteriorated at the benefit of somebody else um and with all due respect to Commissioner cow and his family looking To purchase a home, I am a single person who cannot purchase a home, I think the problem of housing that it being affordable is universal it's not limited to a family. it's not limited to a single person it's it's everybody's issue, and I think that doing the best that we can to increase the amount of housing. While somehow trying to maintain a version of a quality of life. for existing residents is really where I fall on this particular issue, but also the ability to work with our neighboring cities when it is literally across the street is important to me because at some point we may seek support from them or we may not, but they do factor in and it is relevant in this particular case. So from that perspective, I will be supporting Commissioner Cantrell's motion.

Okay, are we ready to go to a vote? All right, we will. Commissioner Barrosio.

Would you be able to restate the one that we're voting on? Absolutely.

Please, thank you. The motion that we're going to vote on first is Commissioner Bundahl's, which is changing the designation to MUN other than 826.

the square um let me let me see if i got i think it's staff's recommendation except for 826 which will be to mun and not urban residential i think it's opposite of that 826 would be urban residential and the rest would be mun is that right no that's incorrect yeah what daniel said the city attorney said so we'll take on staff's recommendation mine is 826. mine is yeah okay all right

all right sorry just to clarify in your motion is for 826 to go to mixed-use neighborhood or stay neighborhood community commercial uh mu and yeah if you don't mind could you please just restate Commissioner Cantrell's motion as well Commissioner Cantrell's was convert everything to mun which is not staff's recommendation

And if staff could bring up the table one of the proposed general plan and zoning changes, I think that'd be extremely helpful. Shows all of the addresses, not this, but just the addresses. Is that possible?

Yeah, we'll just need a little bit to pull that up though. I don't have it right in front of me, but I can.

Because looking at the current designation of each property and then the proposed designation would be helpful just as a visual for everyone. until we bring that up it's just a quick question for commissioner kentrell you wanted all mun even the parcel that's across the street from valley fair which is the rectangle in this case yes my understanding of your motion was that all urban residential would be mun so if you look at the table and you see all the proposed designations that are listed as you are My understanding of your motion was that you wanted all of those UR designations to be MUN instead. Is that incorrect? You want all the proposed designation to be MUN? Even the residential neighborhood, the RN?

Looking at the map, the residential neighborhood units, are they on Winchester also?

Fernwood Avenue.

So up the street, not Winchester specifically, because I thought we were only speaking of Winchester here.

They are on Winchester. These are currently neighborhood community commercial, but they've been single family homes for decades. And so we're just suggesting to flip it to be residential neighborhood.

Yeah. Okay. I thought it was different. I'm glad you pointed that out. I think that that should be, I assumed you were saying that that would be neighborhood mixed use as well. I would suggest that all be neighborhood mixed use, quite frankly. Yes.

So I'm still confused as to what you're saying. So are you saying that you want the two proposals for RN on Fernwood Avenue to also be MUN, or you want them to remain RN? MUN.

Yes, MUN.

Or Commissioner Cantrell, another way, I think what you're saying is just remove all urban residential.

Yeah, in that area. And then. Just be consistent.

That's what I've been asking, but you're saying the opposite.

Oh, I am? I believe I'm asking, I'm saying it should all be the same.

So for Fernwood Avenue, look at the table. The two, the top two.

Yeah.

Those are residential properties that staff is recommending turn to residential neighborhood, R18 zoning. you want to make those MUN or not, or just the urban residential proposed designations into MUN?

Okay, all right. To be quite honest, I hadn't considered those two. I'd only considered those facing Winchester Avenue for the most part and those going up Forest Avenue. So you can leave those as RN and the rest can be MUN.

Okay, so that was my question, was all of the proposed urban residential you want to be MUN? Correct. And Commissioner Oliverio is the seconder. Is that what you understood? That's what I understood. Okay. So that is Commissioner Cantrell's motion, but the motion on the table currently to be voted on is staff's recommendation except for 826 North Winchester, which instead of UR is going to be MUN, correct?

Okay.

Are we good? Okay. Okay. Let's take that to a vote. Vice Chair Bickford?

No.

Okay. Commissioner Barrosio?

No.

Commissioner Bondal?

Yes.

Commissioner Cantrell?

No.

Commissioner Casey?

Yes.

Commissioner Escobar?

No.

Commissioner Nguyen?

Yes.

Commissioner Oliverio? No. Commissioner Young?

No.

I am a no as well. That's five votes out of 11. The motion fails. Moving on to Commissioner Young's motion.

Just wanted to say I wasn't.

I apologize. You missed me.

I'm a no.

No?

No.

Okay. That's five out of 11. Chair, can I make one comment briefly? Feel free, Commissioner Young.

Thank you, Chair. Ruth, I want to go back to something you said in response to Commissioner Cal's question. So you're saying if that 826 North Winchester was MUN, more than likely townhomes would be built there? That's what the city's experience has been?

That is our experience. For MUN designations, it would support townhomes or condominiums, not dense housing.

Okay, thank you. So I want the commissioners to understand that if you're okay building $1,500,000 townhomes in an area that could accommodate an affordable housing mid-rise, you just need to think seriously about that. I'm not in favor of that. I don't think it's a good idea to build townhomes on Winchester Boulevard.

Commissioner Borossio correct me if I'm wrong but we just voted on one and then we're gonna entertain another one what was the third one I don't think we talked about the third one so the third one would be MUN that's the one that Commissioner Cantrell was just discussing this one is to accept staff's recommendation and change the designation to urban residential And then what's the other one. Got it. OK. And you went with a 26 p.m. residential and that one. Sorry opposite. And that one was just voted. There was no pass.

Thank you for the clarity.

OK. All right. Let's go ahead and take a vote on Commissioner Young's proposal to accept the staff's recommendation. Commissioner Bickford.

No.

Commissioner Borossio? Yes. Commissioner Bondal?

No.

Commissioner Cantrell?

No.

Commissioner Cowell?

Yes.

Commissioner Casey? Yes. Commissioner Escobar?

No.

Commissioner Nguyen?

No.

Commissioner Oliverio? No. Commissioner Young?

Yes.

I am a yes. That is still 5, and the motion does not pass. So now we are on to the original motion on the floor, Commissioner Cantrell's, which would be to change everything to MUN.

Is that right? Everything that's proposed to be urban residential.

Everything that's proposed to be urban residential to MUN. So not the partials on Firmwood?

Correct.

Not the partials on Firmwood. All right. Are we ready to go to a vote? Let's go. Vice Chair Bigford?

Yes.

Commissioner Barrosio?

No.

Commissioner Cantrell?

Yes. And thank you for the spirit of conversation.

Commissioner Cowell?

No.

Commissioner Bundle?

No.

Commissioner Casey?

No.

Commissioner Escobar?

Yes.

Commissioner Nguyen? Yes. Commissioner Oliverio? Yes. Commissioner Young?

No.

I am also a no. Commissioner Cowell? He was a no. You were a no? All right, so that's five out of 11. So that motion did not pass either.

So the yay votes were. All right. Talk about it some more.

So does anybody feel like changing their vote on any of those? They all seem to go down five to. I'm not sure how that works.

Well, we could also pass it on if, I mean, ultimately, if there's no consensus, then it's just noted as no consensus.

No recommendation. Okay.

Or a mixed recommendation.

I would support that we pass it on with the record of what we discussed, shortened obviously, with the three different versions and just maybe a sentence of logic of why, just so they can understand where we're coming from. Because I don't think that any one of us by one is going to change that vote. We all seem pretty steadfast. I could be wrong, but I think we're all pretty steadfast where we're at.

So I would support that. Commissioner Cowell?

maybe in an effort to see if i could ask one question uh to see if we can get to six votes commissioner bondo i hear you on the substitute motion that you actually agreed with everything being urban residential except for a26 that I just want to point out that that is a heck of a lot closer to the motion for accepting staff recommendation than the original motion on the floor to change all urban residential to MUN. I just wanted to share with you and really to the whole commission that your decision tonight to help recommend to city council to do MUN as opposed to urban residential, where I see that as being problematic is that does not get us anywhere near close enough to closing the gap that not only the city of San Jose sees with housing, that the state of California sees for, yes, the entire state, but also for San Jose. And bringing this back to my family once again, not only am i struggling my wife and i struggling to find housing and yes families and single individuals as commissioner escobar brought up but also then the future generations aka my son my 10 month old it's it's only going to get worse unless we stop the bleeding somewhere so i just want to bring that up to your attention and for the commission to consider And if we ultimately can't figure it out, then yes, let's put it in the record as a vote, whatever that we voted on. And I don't know if that's a no recommendation or I don't know how that works, but I just wanted to share that for the sake of argument.

Okay, so you're saying that Commissioner Bondal's suggestion was to go with staff's recommendation except for 826? Yeah. And you're asking them to reconsider? Yes. I'll go to Commissioner Bondal.

i appreciate the conversations and the everybody's feedback i just think that some people want very high density and some people want low density and i think my motion fits the middle let's reconsider it let's take it on another vote if it doesn't let's take it as no consensus planning commission task force had no recommendation and city council can then make a decision on it so i'll make a re-motion for my past motion which is to take staff's recommendation minus 826. second any comments Commissioner Oliverio nope okay Commissioner Cantrell I think I want to examine a a um no we're we're going to the vote already

we can have chair it's up to you are you calling a roll call vote on the motion to reconsider commissioner vandal's motion or are we having a further discussion well i'd suggest you allow me to ask a question first very just a suggestion chair okay um so i just want to examine the whether or not that would be townhouses or not because i think that kind of dictates the density there and what will happen I understand you have certainly way more experience than I do looking at these properties. It seems to me that this is a unique area that a developer would like to maximize their profitability. That's generally what corporations do. It just seems to me that this may be a unique area where more density will be sought to me. Is my logic off? I don't know. I'm asking.

Right now what we typically see is that the lower density townhome product is more profitable and more sought after in terms of how the economics are working out.

so townhouses are printing cash basically so they're going to print cash and leave with envelopes of money i think that's why we see them next to the barry essa bar station What's the, so Commissioner Young mentioned there would be more likelihood that if it were urban residential that you might actually get more affordable housing. And I just want to understand what affordable means. If affordable actually means below 80 AMI or what affordable are we talking about? What would that likely become?

Yeah, so I think what the commissioner was referring to would be below 80% AMI. So it would be deed-restricted affordable housing, and that is typically at higher densities, and they receive subsidies or tax credits for financing.

So actual affordable, not essentially a little bit less than market rate.

That's right. Okay, Commissioner Borossio and then Commissioner Bondall, and then we'll go to a roll call vote.

question for our city attorney could we do as what has been suggested in terms of if it's still 5-4 and it doesn't pass could we just put in the notes 1A3 didn't have a vote is that something that can legitimately move forward

Yes, so there's a motion to reconsider on the table. If that fails, I suggest we just move on, and that will be there's no recommendation on A3 from the Planning Commission.

Perfect, thank you.

Commissioner Bondell?

Okay. Commissioner Alvaro, can you make it quick?

so staff would it be unheard of then of someone using the state density bonus in the mun if they got up they were able to purchase the land it seems like you're saying that a affordable housing developer wouldn't use state density bonus that instead it would be a you feel a townhouse project

Someone could, if they had a mixed-use neighborhood site, use density bonus. You can use it on mixed-use neighborhood, urban residential designations. Our experience is that what is profitable, as what Jared said, are townhomes, and that's the development that would be attracted to these sites. They don't have to produce anything sort of less dense, and that's what's marketable.

And the townhomes next to Barry S. of BART, were those MUN? we'd have to look at what what specific designation those had okay because i don't think i think the i mean listen no one really knows the future no one really knows how a piece of land is going to be utilized in what year what they're going to do did they get the land for a deal therefore they're going to get that or I mean it's but I totally am with staff that this is your experience and I'm not going to take away from that but I just think it's we don't know and I'll stop talking so we can have a vote thank you all right further in my experience when I see split votes usually City Council will make up their own mind anyhow so what's the motion on the ground or what's the motion on the floor now

motion on the ground is to to go with the staffs recommendation minus 826 going to MUN and second by Commissioner Young okay Vice Chair Bickford no Commissioner Barroso no Commissioner Cantrell no Commissioner Cowell yes Commissioner Casey yes Commissioner Escobar no

Commissioner Oliverio?

No.

I'm sorry. Commissioner Nguyen? Yes. Commissioner Young?

Yes.

Commissioner Vandal?

Yes.

And I will stay with my no vote. So we stayed with no consensus on that one. The votes went the same.

Do you want me to change it? All right.

no consensus so please talk to your city council member definitely give uh commissioner mulcahy our love all right our councilman yes would you like to take a break okay keep going if you are okay so now we're on to one b quasi public quasi land so Item number one under B. Does anybody want to vote on that separately from item number two? So quasi-public, quasi-land.

Oh, we're talking about one B now? I have a question.

Commissioner Alvaro. staff on the PQP it would seem to me there's a difference between K through 12 properties and church properties the impact of a particular church property closing and not being available is different than an elementary school closing and then population growth returns and then there's nowhere for them to go to school do you see a difference between those uses

There's there's a difference. I think in the higher level conversation there's still a demand for both of those public types of uses in those types of lands. So I think there I think we're primarily focused on schools but but there's still a demand for those other faith based use type sites as well. So it's a similar consideration across those users although like I said I think the primary thing we're worried about is public schools but. Okay.

And then the criteria is to allow more uses potentially by right enabling more opportunities to retain the land as a PQP and that's going to be under the, as you develop the criteria, correct?

The criteria would be more around maintaining an adequate amount of PQP if we do change to residential. And then secondarily, we mentioned we're open to considering other uses within the PQP zoning district that would be public type uses that are not residential that we could modify as part of this that would be separate from this framework. The framework is really about the conversion to residential. Sure.

And then in your evaluation of requests, since these are larger parcels, Are you thinking that staff's going to say, well, we don't get a parcel this size every day, so we should really try to do something, you call it the word, unique, special, different, something that sort of maximizes the opportunity? And I see the playing director might want to chat.

I'll start and then he can add something if he wants to. Yeah, I think the site size and location would be part of the context that we would evaluate when considering whether or not we would recommend a change. We would develop the framework for how we would look at it, but that could include things like site size and location and context. You could have a large site that has a lot of opportunity, maybe it's in a high resource area versus maybe a smaller site in a lower resource area, there's not as much opportunity or housing isn't as good of a fit there. So all those are pieces that we would add to this framework to consider because there's a lot of different, if you look, a lot of variation across PQP and especially school sites in terms of where they're positioned, what their characteristics are, what the existing facilities are like on the site and all those sorts of things.

so just to add a little bit of context to that really what we're looking at from a general plan perspective is the the distribution and availability of these sort of unique lands from a land use perspective not the individual user that occurs so the way that the general plan is currently written is it sets out that we should preserve the opportunity for schools for churches for these other public uses within our communities distributed appropriately It doesn't give you what's the appropriate amount. We never sort of consider it in that context. So whenever somebody comes forward with a general plan amendment, which is the appropriate process to consider changes, whether it's a large site or a small site, you know, we could carve off pieces of a larger site to allow for a housing project. The appropriate method is through that general plan amendment. But right now, the general plan just says preserve it. So I think the intent of staff's recommendation is to really sort of create a framework that says this is the right amount to serve a population or a community of a certain size so that when we get to those decisions, we have a basis to make them rather than it just being preserve as much as you can. And it sort of becomes this, you know, question of the individual user. Really what we're trying to get at is the fundamentals of the use of land and the balance.

And final question, when this finally comes forward for a final vote, like 18 months from now, some more of that criteria will be fleshed out?

Yeah, that's right. I think we still would need to scope this more, but we would actually start developing the criteria and then start working on making recommendations as we go through the process of developing that criteria. So we would look to have both the framework as well as looking to recommend certain sites as well, you know, depending upon our capacity. But we would try to streamline to do things as quickly as possible.

okay and i'll just make a simple motion to approve the staff recommendation for bi and bii second second second who seconded that okay commissioner cantrell did you have okay commissioner commissioner young

um okay um commissioner oliverio i'm going to ask if you would be willing to withdraw that motion i i actually had a an approach and a proposal i wanted to present would would that be okay feel free to flush out the id and if you want to make a substitute you're more than welcome okay okay great thank you um so this is the one area of the um recommendations that i i actually don't agree with i think every everything else that this staff has done i'm very supportive of i've done a lot of soul searching on this issue because it's it's difficult on the one hand we want to preserve our public quasi-public land for community uses, whether it be recreation or community gatherings. On the other hand, you know, we hate to be a broken record, but we have a severe housing crisis and the need for housing. And there was quite a bit of PQP land in the city. So I just wanted to talk about a couple of problems I have with the recommendation and then I'll make a, Mayor Mrakas, A substitute motion. Mayor Mrakas, That the approach of staff is taking I appreciate what you're trying to do as far as coming up with a framework where you can evaluate. Mayor Mrakas, A change in land use case by case, but the problem with that approach is that. let's say, for example, a school district that wants to convert a school. So they have no certainty whether the time, the money, the consultants they hire to make a proposal is going to be approved or not. This approach adds a lot of uncertainty. It lengthens the approval process. And the other thing I'm concerned about is it could really result in unequal treatment of a PQP parcel in one part of the city versus another. So I'm gonna be proposing something that's a little more forward, but I wanna address a couple of things that I've heard. One is we've had quite a few discussions on the commission level about changing demographics you know and i think there's been concerns expressed that you know that there's less kids going into school now so the school districts are consolidating but what if that changes in the future well we're not experts on demographics the superintendent of schools are right they're the ones that know And there's the ones that have to talk to their school board and make a proposal. So I don't really think that's a valid criteria for being concerned about converting these lands. And, you know, but the other one that I think is a more valid concern is that it's important to retain our PQP parcels as community recreation and gathering places. But I was really struck by the letter that we got from SV at Home. Not so much the letter, because we'd seen this before, but the people who signed the letter. And I just want to read these into the record. So we have Regina Celestin Williams, who's the executive director at SV at Home. We also have Victor Vasquez, co-executive director of Somos Mayfair. Samantha Bluess, the pastor at St. Paul's Methodist Church. Maimouna Afalberta, a trustee with the Santa Clara County Office of Education. I might also point out that we had a representative from the County Office of Education at our last meeting advocating for a more broad application. I won't go on, but we have several community organizations. I think there's about 10 or 12 people that have signed this letter. So my point is that if we're concerned about you know, if we convert PQP lands that it'll reduce community involvement or community resources. I'm not sure that's a valid concern based on the people who signed this letter. I think what they're looking at is there's more urgent need for housing for the people in their community than necessarily another gathering place. So, with all that in mind, and this kind of goes along with what Commissioner Alveria was saying, I'll make a motion in a minute, but I just kind of want to explain the direction I'm going, which is I think we should pull out the public education and the faith-based parcels, because that's just a part of the PQP lands, and the other PQP lands, I think should stay with the current designation. So I'm just gonna suggest, let me go ahead and make a motion. I'll make a motion that we, do one of two things. One, option one would be to remove educational and faith-based institutions from the PQP land use category. That's one approach. The other would be to expand allowable uses of education and faith-based parcels to allow public serving uses such as affordable housing, senior housing, educator and workforce housing, childcare centers, community health centers, recreational facilities, cultural spaces and other community serving uses sorry that that motion is so long but i but i think you get the gist and i'd love to hear you know comments from other commissioners on that substitute motion if i get a second can we remove certain types of land from a pqp designation like schools and faith-based

It would require sort of creating another land use designation, essentially, you'd be splitting PQP. So we'd have to come up with something to consider it separately. And then we'd have to then go through and designate those lands as that separate designation.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Director. Okay, in that case, City Attorney, can I modify my motion? I know can I modify it in a fishing trip and see if I go okay I'm gonna make a motion that we that the staff develop a process to expand the uses of PQP parcels to allow the community facing organization that I mentioned

Okay, we have a second. Let's go.

So can I, actually, just clarifying that. So in addition to these two, that's what you want to do, or is it replacing that? So in addition to staff's recommendation, you're saying that you want to also have them.

Replace that.

So none of these.

So staff's recommendation is to develop a framework.

Yeah, that's right there.

Okay. which we will.

Can I clarify the later time. Yeah. Let me clarify. So I'm looking for something more expeditious than creating a framework. So I guess in in response to your question city attorney it would be replace B, I, and 2, I with the motion that I made. And we can work on, if there's support at all, we can work on clean up the language.

Okay. So just to clarify, B1 and B2 would go away and you would say, you want staff to develop not a framework or can you just reword this because this is staff's recommendation so if you're going to be clear directing staff and other folks are going to be voting on it we need clear direction of what this would look like and i'm not clear on that yet fair enough fair enough let me try this again um so i i would propose that we

I would propose that as a planning commission we recommend that we expand the allowable uses of education and faith-based parcels to allow sorry expand the allowable uses of PQP parcels to include community based organizations.

Let me see if I get this. From what I heard you talk about, it sounded like you want education-based PQP parcels and faith-based PQP parcels to be considered for housing development. Is that correct? Not all PQP parcels, but just those. Is that what you're asking?

That was my original idea, but the director seemed to say that would be unwieldy and cumbersome. So I'm struggling here. I'm trying to come up with maybe vice commissioner.

It's not that it can't be done, but it would be creating a different land use designation. Right. Would yeah, so are you asking staff to develop a new land use designation? That it's kind of a hybrid PQP Land use designation for only faith-based lands and education lands to allow them to develop residential Yes, that's correct Jive with the seconder

I mean, so, sorry, I had my hand up. Is it okay if I? So two pieces. I completely agree with Commissioner Young on immediately directing staff to expand the acceptable uses for PQP lands. I don't have a distinction between the types of lands. I think all lands should be expanded into those that you originally said. And I think that should be like, one be one and then i'm not opposed to the framework i think you do need a framework because all of this is going to happen in the same timeline right we're going to expand the uses and say we're recommending that that you expand all of these and develop the framework that can be applied equally across the city is that does that jive with what you were thinking commissioner young yes i'm fine with that

Okay. Would you like to change your motion to that?

He's going to clarify his motion. Okay. We'll go from there.

Yes.

Order.

Vice chair Bickford would you be able to help me and please state what you just said because I thought it was very well thought out.

So 1B1 would be recommend expanding acceptable uses of PQP property to include low income housing. You said five things I think. Can you you want to repeat those? It was low income housing it was

Sure, I had daycare, affordable housing, senior housing, educator and workforce housing, childcare, community health centers.

So those specific things, if we could put that in the first recommendation, that is a thing that we would like to see. They should develop a framework, because the framework does still need to be applied. So I think developing that framework is still a thing that we would ask for. And then the last piece was evaluating requests and changes in land use based on that framework to unlock housing potential. that framework including the expanded uses to help us get to land use faster than individual evaluations of land use.

So if I might just jump in on this, I think I understand the sort of perspective. I think as we look at this currently, if you expand the uses to include residential development, there isn't a discretionary sort of opportunity there. So we wouldn't need either of these two recommendations.

Even if it's just low income? Because we're not talking about general.

So I'll let staff jump in on sort of the impacts of opening the door on affordable housing and possibility for other types of housing to leverage that.

Yeah. So I just wanted to clarify too, the other uses you mentioned are, are already allowed in PQP. So daycare centers are allowed. So really when we're talking about our framework, it's really around which sites we would allow residential on either affordable or more market rate or other types. so our concern is when we we do allow that affordable housing use that it starts to erode the distinct land use of pqp as a separate public use so for me it's i i think both commissioner and young and i are on the same page about

Establishing the framework doesn't necessarily say that we're gonna do something different than what we're doing today. That's the thing I'm trying to get to.

I think we are saying we're gonna do something different from today and that we would work expeditiously to make changes to allow for certain sites to convert through that framework. And certain sites may be better suited for affordable housing other sites could be suited for market rate housing our concern again just to go back on allowing 100% affordable is with density bonus there's very little ability that we can do on those affordable projects like if we wanted to require daycare or community uses in those developments our ability to require that in the zoning is gone so it makes it very hard for us to continue those community uses on sites where there's affordable housing or even if we wanted to say maybe this part of the site could be affordable housing when we change that allowable use there's no ability to do that whereas if we make these kind of strategic changes we could say maybe part of you know the 10 acre site maybe four acres of that is appropriate for housing but the rest should stay community serving so all of that is only possible through the general plan land use changes versus trying to to expand the allowable uses or when we change the allowable use to allow for affordable housing

Thank you, I see, and I unfortunately withdraw my second.

I'll go ahead and second.

Are you seconding?

I'm seconding.

What are we seconding?

Commissioner Young's motion.

Which is what?

Commissioner Young's motion is to get rid of one and two.

Why don't we restate the motion?

Right, expansive use.

That was a dance, and I didn't get where it went. Yeah, I got lost in the dance, too.

So my motion based on the discussion I really appreciate discussion also would be to expand the allowable uses of PQP lands to include public serving uses such as affordable housing senior housing education and work workforce housing.

DIRECTOR DEWOLF. Still create the framework but add that.

No, it's to expand the allowed uses and expand.

I would actually defer to the director and staff. I'm fine leaving the framework in if that makes sense, if not.

Yeah, I think if you're looking to expand the uses allowed in PQP to allow for the types of housing you've just listed, that would be one motion. I don't know that the framework or the sort of evaluation to go through and do targeted general plan amendments is necessary if you're expanding the allowed uses in PQP.

Okay, then we would remove the language on the framework.

I'm going to refrain from seconding that. Commissioner Bondahl, do we have a second?

No, I don't have a second. But can we continue the conversation? Maybe we can come back.

Before we move on, we have to have a second to continue the conversation. And without a second, it will fail.

And then I think they were before me. Then I'll come back if that's OK. Let's add you first.

So there's no second.

No second.

Okay. So that the motion fails. There's no motion. There's no motion on the floor. There's the first motion if we can vote on that recommendation.

So the staff, I just want to get better understanding staff. So the recommendation right now is that you guys are going to build a framework and that's all.

We would so be one is to develop the criteria and the framework and then two is to evaluate requests for changes based upon that framework so that's what I was talking about in terms of how we would look to move expedition Lee to look to consider changes that would allow for residential on certain sites, but not throughout pqp. And the framework would would evaluate what's the amount of pqp land in an area and what's suitable now and in the future, as we look to grow for public uses.

Okay, so not all of PQP, but some of PQP, which is school districts and faith-based use is, right?

Some of those, not a blanket all of them, but we would look at areas of the city and look at requests from faith-based users or school districts to change their land, and then we would make individual changes to those sites to allow for residential.

Yeah, because this is my thought process is that, you know, when we talk about PQP in the past couple months, IT'S ALWAYS BEEN TOWARDS SCHOOL DISTRICTS, BECAUSE THAT'S THE HOTTEST TOPIC RIGHT NOW. AND WHAT THE CONFUSION WAS, WAS WHEN YOU GUYS HAD OUR LAST MEETING, YOU GUYS BROUGHT UP ALL THE PQP, WHICH BROUGHT UP HOSPITALS, AND WE WERE JUST LIKE, WAIT, HOLD A MINUTE, WAIT A MINUTE. SO SOME MEMBERS DIDN'T KNOW THAT EVEN HOSPITALS ARE PQP, AND WE'RE JUST KIND OF FINDING THAT OUT. i support that you guys look at the framework create a framework and the framework not be the same throughout the city it needs to be a case-by-case scenario which is something that you guys have suggested before because a school district closing in one area is it's totally different than closing in another area for example alum rock right now is has so many vacant schools evergreen does not So the same rules shouldn't be applied to those four versus the one that closed in evergreen I think it should be case-by-case scenario because what's gonna happen in the future is When if densities were to come back Young adults were to start having more kids The need for the school will be different in different areas. So I think it should be a case-by-case scenario and That's just my thought process.

Thank you Commissioner Borossio

perfect thank you um yes and exactly what commissioner bundell said not only will those dynamics happen if we go with a city-wide approach i think staff's recommendation of of there being an eye towards an appropriate amount of distribution makes sense because Looking at it along those lines, the schools that are closing, like Alum Rock closed six last year, are not in high-resourced areas. My wife is a principal in, well, in a district in San Jose that hasn't closed anything, and they only have one Title I school, and the majority are not Title I schools, which, for the folks who are wondering what Title I is, at least 40% of your students and families are would qualify for low income so again certain parts of the city will then be burdened well not burdened i don't know what the right word is depending on how you fall on this but they would be the ones to take on the affordable housing right and then there we go again where the affluent neighborhoods that aren't closing schools aren't closing their hospitals aren't doing away with their YMCAs and whatnot, they maintain that community benefit that you just explained. So I think I appreciate the slide, like not only the slides where you opened our eyes to what else qualifies as PQPs, but also the slides that kind of show those radar, of how vibrant a community could be with PQP scattered among the city and what happens when we just apply a broad brush and just paint everything one color, right? And have one approach for everything. Slippery, slippery slope. So I do, again, I stand by the motion on the floor and then I'll stop there for now. Thank you.

Mr. Cantrell.

One of the things I like most about this body is there are experts from kind of every industry here. I'm going to lean into Commissioner Parocio's perspective, because quite honestly, he's probably the most qualified in this room to talk about this. I do have questions about the process that you would create, because while I trust you individually, you're not always going to be here. And someone might start making decisions that are inconsistent with your intended formula or process or whatever it is. So that does concern me a little bit, because I'd like to see what that looks like. And I guess we're just deferring it to another day, but we will get a chance to review what that looks like, correct? Yes. Okay. And then second, this would also become a ministerial process, correct?

Not necessarily, no, because it still requires a general plan change. So I think we're saying that we would work closely and help facilitate it so it's maybe not a privately initiated general plan change but something the city would initiate. So we make it easier. Ideally, we could go to that easier process, but with the way the state laws work now, our discretion is really at that general plan level, unfortunately. So we would try to make it as expeditious as possible when we develop the framework, but it still can't be at that ministerial level now. sites where we did change it to allow for residential the individual project itself would likely be ministerial or a streamlined process but that initial change of going from PQP to another color or another use that would be not a ministerial process but a discretionary process okay so that would that might become very expensive also right for someone who wants to change things No, but normally, yes, if it were a privately initiated process, but I think what we're saying is we would take that on as a part of this framework so that it would not be that expensive process of going through a private general plan amendment.

Okay. I also respect what Commissioner Young was saying about those organizations that, to be honest, I think should have a stake in this conversation. I'm hoping that you will continue to engage those organizations as well

yeah absolutely i would envision this process as working very closely with school districts and other users of those sites as a part of this process which included more than just engagement right it would be a collaborative process in terms of how we will go about this okay okay so i think we'll all be watching this space very closely um thank you i appreciate it commissioner oliverio

a city initiated general plan is a huge process for the city to undertake and taking away a lot of the arguments that a school district wouldn't be able to go through that so I think that's part of the criteria I'd look forward to the final school districts already have the right to build a variety of housing on their properties and I think a real important thing as I said in the meeting last week We have a community center in District 6 and District 9 because the city had discretion on PQP land that would have just been another set of houses. But I think it's just important to note. And finally, as these school district property might come up, you know, the neighborhood relies on that for open space. Being able to make certain that a certain amount of that parcel is available for the public permanently is what discretion provides. Thank you.

Okay.

My personal view is just that I think the school districts have a pretty good idea of what they want to do with their own land and what they need to do to stay open. Of course, I want to see them able to use it expansively as suggested by folks from Mayfair, folks from SV at Home, et cetera. But I don't want to see something that prevents a school district from allowing something like Makla to be built on their land. But best of luck with developing the framework, and I agree with the motion. So if we're ready for a roll call vote. Vice Chair Bickford? Yes.

What is the motion?

The motion is to accept staff recommendation. Vice Chair Bickford?

Yes.

Commissioner... Commissioner Brosio?

Yes.

Commissioner Bundle? Yes. Commissioner Cantrell?

Yes.

Commissioner Cowell?

Yes.

Commissioner Casey? Yes. Commissioner Escobar?

Yes.

Commissioner Nguyen? Yes. Commissioner Alvaro? Yes. Commissioner Young?

Yes.

Myself Azias. That's unanimous 11. Okay, moving on to Section 2A.

Let's see.

Section 2, I don't even know if 2A is going to stick together. Okay.

Can we just move through all these as a lump?

We can move through. We can try to go through. You want to go through 2A together? Would you like to make a motion?

I motion that we approve Section 2 in its entirety.

Second. Can we move to aye?

We have a motion on the floor.

Do we have a second on the floor? Yeah.

We have a motion on the floor. Motion and a second. Go ahead, Commissioner Cowell. Feel free to make a substitute motion, whatever you would like.

Before the motion was going to be made, I just wanted to suggest that as a way to help move the agenda along, if there are specific items that commissioners want to talk about, to highlight which ones they are and ask those to be pulled for discussion. And if there aren't discussions on the majority of the rest of them, which i i mean i i guess i'm making an assumption here that there won't be discussion on literally every single item then we can make a big motion to pass those and then the ones that have discussion then we just discuss those few to help with time just be mindful of time okay well we only have 28 to go i'm happy to remove my motion and i'll take that suggestion and if there are individual items that someone wants to suggest let's let's do that

Okay. Is there anything from 2A that anybody would like to pull out before we vote on the remainder of 2A?

Thank you, Commissioner Cantrell. I appreciate that. I'll remove 2I, 2AI.

Okay. Any other ones?

I think if you're going to do 2I, you might want to do 2AIII because those are kind of hand-in-hand.

Okay.

And 2a, 3, and 4, anyone?

Well, so is there a motion to amend the motion? Is that what you're saying, to remove 2ai?

then i heard something from commissioner oliveira said to a i i uh just like just two a i two a i yeah and then before we make a motion can we pull something off first before making the motion that's what commissioner cal was suggesting before we get to the motion so you said you'd like to remove two a i commissioner oliveira said two a i i also maybe just remove all of a i mean because then it's it's everything because everyone just started listing it off and that's about the majority has to deal with that topic

Because everything else, I mean, look down the list if anyone's got a big... Well, missing middle housing.

The rest is urban villages.

They're all pretty interconnected to 2 itself.

All right. Let's start with 2A. Let's start with 2Ai alone because that's been a big topic that we've been discussing for some time. 32, 40, what do we want to vote on?

So the motion to amend Commissioner Cantrell's motion would be to remove 2ai alone. There was some concern from Commissioner Oliverio that they're all related because if you're going to talk about increasing residential density to 32 dwelling units per acre, Does that also mean do you change the 35-foot height limit? Do you change the maximum FAR, et cetera, et cetera? So does that make sense to you?

So we're moving to A, right?

It could be just to A and do that separate.

Yeah.

Okay, so that's your motion to amend the original motion to take out 2A. Is there a second for that amended motion? Motion to amend. Okay, fine. Could be a friendly amendment then.

Yeah, it's a friendly amendment. One motion on the floor.

Okay.

Should be able to talk about it.

And that's okay with the seconder, Casey? Okay. no no okay so then so then we just have a motion to amend you want to second that motion commissioner Cantrell yes okay okay so we're going to be voting on everything minus 2a right now correct okay thank you uh city attorney okay all right we can do a roll call vote commissioner vice chair bigford yes

Commissioner Borossio. Yes. Commissioner Bondol.

Yes.

Commissioner Cantrell.

Yes.

Commissioner Cow.

Yes.

Commissioner Casey.

Yes.

Commissioner Escobar.

Yes.

Commissioner Nguyen. Yes. Commissioner Oliverio. Yes. Commissioner Young. Yes. Myself as yes, so it passes unanimously. So now we just have 2A.

all right all right we just knocked out we just knocked out 10 items okay 2i 2a okay thank you chair and thank you commissioner control for the friendly amendment i just want to quickly say that i i you know get that we've been here for a while this is longer than um our most meetings but today is the day to jump in when you need to jump in and let's not try to just jam past it we've been working on this since october it takes another 15 minutes it takes another 15 minutes if we need to take a break we'll take a break not just to clarify to clarify this is not a friendly amendment because the seconder said no so you made a motion to amend just want to make sure that you know that your motion seconded by commissioner kentrell okay what motion

Just clarifying that it was not a friendly amendment.

Okay.

Everybody's friends.

We've closed the door on the rest of that one. We're done. We're on two-way. Great. Okay.

City Attorney, thank you for the clarification. It's not a friendly amendment. It's my motion that passed. Thank you for the record. But yes, if it takes time, it takes time. But let's talk about two-way. And then do you want to take a break at some point? keep going keep going okay okay so uh so staff for the designation that we're moving from eight dwelling units to to 32 um the 32 is not a minimum right that's a concern that some of the residents are are having uh they're saying oh man what the heck we're jumping up 4x um could you just please clarify that for the record

It's up to 32 dwelling units per acre. So that's the maximum. There is no minimum.

And then also this is applied citywide, right? Not just one specific area.

It applies to all properties with the designation of RN, except for those ones that we're proposing to exclude in areas like high fire, very high fire zones. But otherwise, all properties designated residential neighborhood.

And then if there is an overlay, does the overlay take over or does this apply?

I'm not sure we have too many overlays that would apply in this case generally an overlay would would apply before the base but for the most part this would would apply so if there was a PD overlay what would with the PD dwelling units take into effect to the 32 would.

The PD is not an overlay it's the actual zoning district so in this case the. the general plan designation which allows this higher density would prevail so the 32 would prevail it would be applicable to pd zoning districts as well yes as long as they have the rn land use designation gotcha okay oh that's it for my questions for now thank you so much commissioner cantrell

Actually, I want to thank you for the clarifications. Materially, I don't think it changes any perspective here. Correct? So I motion that we approve 2A as it is from the recommendation from staff.

Second.

All right. Nobody else having this? Second. Second was Casey.

Motion by Commissioner Cantrell and a second by... Casey.

The one who didn't accept it.

Casey. Okay. This is to approve staff's recommendation for 2A.

Yes. Okay, Vice Chair Bickford.

Yes, but I'm confused why we pulled it out to begin with.

I just wanted some clarifications.

Okay, yes.

Okay, Commissioner Marozio. Yes. Commissioner Bondal.

Yes, I pulled it off because I thought right now would have been an appropriate time to ask my questions regarding this topic. Thank you.

Chair, I'm sorry. Could we clarify what we're voting on?

We're voting to accept staff's recommendation. On to it. On to it. Thank you. So Commissioner Bondal? Yes. Commissioner Cantrell?

Clear, resounding yes.

Commissioner Cow?

Yes.

Commissioner Casey.

Yes.

Commissioner Escobar. Oops. No changes.

Then yes.

Commissioner Nguyen.

Yes.

Commissioner Oliverio. No. Commissioner Young. Yes. Myself is a no. I would actually rather see 40. But the motion passes 9 to 2.

And, Chair, I didn't have a chance to comment prior to the vote. I just wanted to summarize that I think what's being proposed is once neighborhoods actually catch on, I think it's going to potentially generate a lot of mistrust of City Hall. Since this is not being done around the country, it's rare and infrequent. The results are not clear from Minnesota and Oregon that it actually provides affordability and other factors. If we were in a situation where the state was doing nothing and never passing a law on housing, that's a different story, but we have a state that is passing laws left and right and more coming and I think if we just simply implement state law we will generate more units and actually in a way that's better for transportation for the environment that's kind of goes with the basic precepts of the general plan 2040 where the planning and building of the city is intentional rather than haphazard thank you

all right on to urban village strategy number three okay is there anything that anybody would like to take out of number three that you'd like to discuss or vote on individually motion to approve okay Motion to approve, second by Oliverio. Second. Comments from anybody before we go to a vote? Seeing none, we'll move to a roll call vote. Commissioner Bickford?

Yes.

Commissioner Berrosio? Yes. Commissioner Bondal? Yes. Commissioner Cantrell?

Yes.

Commissioner Cowell? Yes. Commissioner Casey? Yes. Commissioner Escobar?

Yes.

Commissioner Nguyen. Yes. Commissioner Alvaro. Yes. Commissioner Young.

Yes.

And I am a yes, unanimous 11. And moving on to the very last item of the 37, jobs to employed residence ratio. Should we maintain the current target jobs to employed resident ratio of 1.1?

Motion to support the staff recommendation.

Second.

We have a motion on the floor. Commissioner Cantrell.

i'm curious if we've never reached this goal why we still are targeting it who's the second person permission to respond feel free commissioner i asked that question actually in another conversation commissioner cantrell and the answer was it's a number that we should aspire to regardless of whether today we can meet it because if we get there it is much better for our city and decreasing it creates a perception that we're not even trying to get there and we don't want to do that okay so my second question is give me the formula for this yeah what is what is this what's the math

I'm sorry, can you repeat that?

What is the math? How did we get to this number?

So the way that jobs to employed residents is calculated, I guess to get to the, I think what you're asking for is the methodology of how we're looking at the future, right? So, and I'll ask Sanjita or Ruth to also add to this if I get this wrong. But what we look at is we look at population projections, but then we specifically look at growth in, the employed population so over 16 and the growth in that segment and then look at what the unemployment rate is and what the changes to the unemployment rate are projected to be and that's sort of how the calculation is determined we did look at various projections from plan bay area and the department of finance as well in terms of population growth and projections What we found based upon those two, because they're kind of the two extremes in terms of conservative population growth and then more generous population growth, is that we're still around this target, you know, if we look at kind of those two gauges. And then I guess also to add on to what Commissioner Bickford said, if we were to adjust this ratio, it would mean lowering our overall jobs capacity that we've planned for in the general plan. And even though it is a very aspirational goal, we feel like we should still maintain that capacity for in the future if there was something that came through that was very beneficial to the city economically. you know, why lower that number that we've already sort of set as a maximum cap? So that's some of the thinking, and I don't know if you wanna add anything.

Okay, so my concern is that that number has been used for a long time to keep or create uses that haven't been absorbed into the marketplace. For example, retail, in commercial, in apartment buildings. I'm not sure that we're getting anywhere with this, so I'm concerned that it could actually stagnate growth and not actually create it.

I'm gonna jump in there for a second. So obviously as we think about the availability of employment lands, it is a policy discussion. It plays less into those conversations about mixed use and actually the council's taken sort of very direct or given us very sort of clear direction around reducing requirements or eliminating requirements for residential development around mixed use. I think the context and the importance of the jobs to employed resident ratio is really about the idea that as a city, throughout that period of extreme growth between 1950 and 1970, we became very much the bedroom community for the broader Silicon Valley and the area. As a result, and I don't have the latest number, but typically we would say something in the region of 60% of our employed residents leave the city every day to go work in surrounding communities. And so the general plan sets out a goal to say that we really value creating a complete community that offers employment to residents within our boundaries, because not only does it help us sort of meet our aspirations fiscally of the city and it also supports our climate goals by reducing people traveling in cars you know it creates vibrant spaces so it's broader than just saying we need just this land to support this many people it's about that sort of complete community vision okay so how does this play into land use and zoning So we use it as a baseline for that jobs number, right? But the jobs number doesn't necessarily equate to the amount of land that we have available. When you actually look at the total amount of land, I mean, the vast majority of jobs planned in the city, occur in our growth areas and our employment areas. So North San Jose, Edenvale in South San Jose, downtown, some amount in West San Jose. It would take a significant transformation of those areas to really intensify employment uses to actually meet some of these aspirational goals. So it's certainly, but yet we're not creating any more of those lands. So it's not pushing out residential development in any way. It's really just to help us maintain that goal and sort of think about how do we preserve the opportunity for the employment for the residents of this city as we continue to grow.

Okay. I'm making a religious argument here, I think. So I'll just move forward. Thank you.

Commissioner Bondell.

Does work from home apply to this, or no, to the jobs counted in the numerator?

No, it does not.

It would factor into the existing jobs to employed residents, yes.

So it's not in the numerator, right?

So again, the jobs and the employed residents aren't necessarily the same, right? It's not like an employed resident that has a job in the city. So if somebody is employed and a resident of the city, they occur in the employed resident number. We don't count work from home jobs unless it's a business that's registered in San Jose. So hybrid work, so somebody that's working out of a corporate office in a surrounding community that has the opportunity to spend a day or two at home, we don't get credit for those jobs in any way.

The city does not collect business taxes from folks that do remote work.

No, I understand that. When you think of the ratio, you think of who's employed in the city of San Jose not working. I'm just throwing that out there. I get it. That's why I asked the question. But, yeah, going along with Commissioner Brickfurst's comments, I think we need to chase the 1.1. I think having this 1.1 shows that our mindset, our trajectory is to kind of go there, and be of our surrounding cities that have 2.0, 1.8, 1.6. So I appreciate that, and I support the 4A. And is there a motion on the 4 at the moment? Yes.

Okay, support the motion.

Okay, let's go to a roll call vote. Vice Chair Bickford?

Yes.

Commissioner Brosio? Yes. Commissioner Bondol? Yes. Commissioner Cantrell?

My mom asked me to not have religious or political arguments in kind company, so I'll say yes.

Commissioner Cao? Yes. Commissioner Casey? Yes. Commissioner Escobar?

Yes.

Commissioner Nguyen? Yes. Commissioner Oliverio?

Yes.

Commissioner Young? Yes. I am a yes. Did I miss anyone? Okay, that's 11-0. The motion passes unanimously. All right, that's the end of the general plan public hearing. Thank you all. All right, moving on. Referrals from city council, boards, commissions, or other agencies.

um so just to uh give you an update the uh only item that's been seen before the uh city council that uh came before sorry i'm should be in good and welfare there are no referrals but moving on to report from city council the only item that city council seen that came before the planning commission is the general plan annual report which the commission previously saw so city council considered that and approved it as part of yesterday's consent calendar

Okay, subcommittee formation report and outstanding items. See none. Okay, moving on to item nine C, election of the chair and vice chair for fiscal year 2026. Does anybody wanna start? Commissioner Oliverio. Will the vice chair be willing to serve as chair?

Sure.

I nominate the vice chair as chair. Do we have a second?

A second. Second.

Any comments? Anything else?

So I just want to say, for those of you who are new and don't really know how this works, you can nominate as many people. It can be second or not second. I mean, just somebody put up a nomination, that person usually accepts the nomination and say, yes, I want to be that position. You can have several at once. If we get too many, then we'll probably just vote on them. But I think just if there's any questions about it, it's very informal. This is not... there's no rules of order here so just we got somebody who wants to do it looks like vice chair bickford is the candidate for chair and if there are any other recommendations or if you guys want to vote i think it's good to have to all nominate commissioner cantrell all right i would also like to see commissioner cantrell's name in for chair personally so anybody else yes

I'd like to nominate Commissioner Young as vice chair, if he's willing to serve. Second.

I accept. Thank you.