Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Charles Cantrell, and I am the chair of the Planning Commission. Welcome. Please silence your phones. Double check myself. Okay, cool. Parking validation for the City Hall garage that is beneath us is Validation machine is in the back of the chamber. Okay. There's one at the entrance, but only the back entrance. Okay, great. Well, let's salute the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands,

All right.

Thank you. Let's do a roll call. We're going to call this meeting to order. Vice Chair Young.

Here.

Commissioner Arguello.

Present.

Commissioner Bondal. Commissioner Bickford.

Here.

Commissioner Daniel Kao?

Here.

Commissioner Casey? Commissioner Escobar? Here. Commissioner Yuen?

Here.

Commissioner Oliverio, are you online? Okay. He may be joining us later. And Commissioner Rosario?

Here.

Excellent so yes, we do have quorum and myself. I am here all right The full procedure procedures are printed on the agenda For this meeting are printed on the agenda which are available at the back of the chamber. I think up at the table and on the side in summary To speak in person, fill out a speaker card and place it in the basket or the fiberglass box near the bottom of the stairs. Cards are also at the back of the chamber and at the side entrance. To speak on Zoom, use the raise hand feature and press star nine on your phone. Please raise your hand only when the item or project you wish to address is being discussed. Staff will call your name and unmute you. These instructions apply to every item tonight. Public speakers typically have two minutes to speak. Speakers using a translator have four minutes. The chair may reduce the time to one if a large number of speakers wish to speak on an item. If you challenge these land use decisions in court, you may be limited to issues raised at this hearing or in writing delivered to the city at or before the hearing. The commission's actions on rezonings, prezonings, general plan amendments, and code amendments is advisory to the city council, which will hold its own hearings, excuse me, Protest procedures are in the municipal code section 20.120.400. Conditional use permit actions are appealable to the city council under section 20.100.220. All right, I'm gonna call this meeting to order. Okay, as a reminder to the commissioners and the public, Comments only on the agenda items address the full body and refrain from abusive language. Repeated disruption may result in removal. This meeting of the Planning Commissioner is now called to order. Once again, Commissioner Oliverio, are you on line yet? Okay, moving on. Members of the public are invited to speak on any item that does not appear on today's agenda. Speakers have up to two minutes to speak. The Commission cannot take formal action without it being properly noticed and placed on an agenda, but may respond, request staff to report back on a matter, or direct that item to be agendized. Staff, do we have anyone who wants to speak? WE DO NOT. HOW ABOUT ONLINE? NO. EXCELLENT. OKAY. CONSENT CALENDAR. CONSENT ITEMS ARE CONSIDERED ROUTINE AND WILL BE APPROVED BY ONE MOTION. ANY ITEM MAY BE REMOVED FROM THE CONSENT CALENDAR AND HEARD UNDER PUBLIC HEARING. ANY SPEAKERS ON ANY CONSENT ITEMS? NOT BEING HEARD. AND ONLINE? Not being heard.

No, we do not.

Okay. Commissioners, any items you'd like to pull to review or any recusals from any items on the consent calendar?

Motion to accept the consent calendar.

Okay. Motion from Commissioner Bixler. Second. Second from Commissioner Aguero. Aguero. Excellent. Okay. Then let's go ahead and let's take a vote on the consent calendar. Starting with Vice Chair Young.

Yes.

Commissioner Aguel.

Yes.

Commissioner Bondal. Commissioner Bickford.

Yes.

Commissioner Cowell. Yes. Commissioner Casey. Commissioner Escobar.

Yes.

Commissioner Nguyen.

Yes.

Commissioner Oliverio, still not online? No? No. Commissioner Rosario?

Yes.

Excellent. All right, that item passes. Moving to the public hearing. I'm sorry, excuse me for one moment. Sorry, my apologies. Still allergy season for me. All right, public hearing. Items are generally heard in agenda order. The commission may reorder or defer items from time to manage time. After staff's presentation, the applicant or appellant has up to five minutes to speak. Following the applicant, public speakers have up to two minutes. Speakers using a translator have up to four minutes. Speaker time may be adjusted based on the number of items and speakers. Public speakers will not engage in a conversation with the commissioners or staff. The applicant or appellant then has up to five minutes to respond to public comment. Then the public comments are closed and the commission discusses action on the item. Okay, with all of that being said WE DO HAVE A GENERAL PLAN EARLY CONSIDERATION ITEM. ITEMS ARE GENERALLY HEARD IN AGENDA ORDER. THE COMMISSION MAY REORDER OR DEFER ITEMS. I THINK I SAID THAT AFTER STAFF'S PRESENTATION. I SAID ALL OF THAT. SO LET'S MOVE FORWARD TO THE PRIVATELY ITEM NUMBER IS 6.A, FILE NUMBER GP26-002, A PRIVATELY INITIATED GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENT located at 525 Race Street. Staff, do you have a presentation?

Yes. I just want to preface, sorry, I'm just on the tail end of recovering from being sick, so I'm a little hoarse today. So thank you, chair and commissioners. My name is Laura Maurer, planner two, working on the general plan team in the planning division. I will be presenting today for the early consideration hearing for the general plan amendment file number GP26002. I'm joined today also by Ruth Cueto, principal planner in the citywide team. Division San Jose 24 general plan policy allows general plan amendments to be heard at an early consideration hearing before full review of the proposal. General plan policy IP3.11 allows for applicants to request at their discretion to apply for an early consideration hearing for the proposed general plan amendment. The applicant for this general plan amendment, Basis Independent School, requested an early consideration hearing for the general plan amendment. The planning commission can recommend to city council to either deny the project or allow for continued processing of the general plan amendment. TO BE BROUGHT BACK TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION AND CITY COUNCIL AGAIN AT A REGULAR GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENT HEARING CYCLE AFTER FULL REVIEW OF THE ACQUIRED PERMITS AND ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW FOR FINAL APPROVAL OR DENIAL. IT IS ANTICIPATED THAT IF THE GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENT IS ALLOWED TO CONTINUE PROCESSING, IT WOULD POTENTIALLY BE HEARD FOR FINAL APPROVAL OR DENIAL AT THE GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENT HEARING CYCLE AT THE END OF The subject site for the general plan amendment is a 3.98 gross acre site comprised of three parcels located at 525 Ray Street, located in Council District 6. The site currently contains a two-story, 72,744 square foot office building that was constructed in 1998 and is currently vacant. The site is surrounded by multifamily residences and parks to the north, multifamily residences and offices to the east, industrial and offices to the south, and multifamily and commercial uses to the west. The site is located within the Ray Street light rail west of Sunol urban village area, which currently does not have an adopted urban village plan. The existing general plan land use designation of this site is industrial park. This designation allows for a floor area ratio of up to 10 and is intended for a wide variety of industrial users such as research and development, manufacturing, assembling, testing, and offices. The proposed general plan land use designation of this site is combined industrial commercial. This designation allows for a floor area ratio of up to 12 and allows a significant amount of flexibility for the development of a variety of compatible commercial, office, and industrial uses, including hospitals and private community gathering facilities like schools. The proposed combined industrial commercial designation would facilitate the proposed conversion of the existing office building into a private high school for up to 800 students and 10 staff members. It would also include an approximately 16,000 square foot gym addition and outdoor play area. The applicant will provide more detailed information about the proposed project during their presentation. The proposed general plan amendment is consistent with the general plan in two main policy areas. First, the general plan includes policies IP 1.2, FS 4.1, and FS 4.2 to expand the mix of employment uses and enhance building floor capacity and employment capacity because it supports a strategic mix of employment uses, which both promotes increased revenue to support fiscal sustainability and job generation for the city. The proposed combined industrial commercial designation allows for significantly more types of employment uses, like schools, and a larger floor area ratio than the existing industrial park designation. Additionally, the general plan includes policies VN 5.1, ES 1.7, and LU 10.8 to promote schools within urban villages and alternative urban school configurations to support community needs and contribute to a vibrant mixed-use walkable urban form. The proposed combined industrial commercial designation would allow for the adaptive reuse of a two-story office building for school uses, which utilizes an alternative more urban school configuration within an urban village that would otherwise not be allowed in the existing industrial park designation. THEREFORE, STAFF RECOMMENDS THAT THE PLANNING COMMISSION RECOMMEND TO CITY COUNCIL TO ALLOW FOR THE CONTINUED PROCESSING OF THE PROPOSED GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENT. THANK YOU. THAT CONCLUDES STAFF PRESENTATION.

DO YOU HAVE A PRESENTATION FROM THE APPLICANT? YES. YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES. And you will have an additional five minutes later, too, if you wanted to split it up. It's up to you.

I always forget to do that. Commissioners, thank you for your time tonight. I'm Trish Aust with BASIS Independent Schools. We are excited to look at the possibility of bringing another one of our schools to the San Jose area. We started in the 1980s as part of a network of charter schools in Arizona. And BASIS curriculum schools has now grown to encompass both domestic US schools as well as some overseas. We'll let you look at that history later if you care to. We are 12 campuses across the country, four in New York, four currently here in Silicon Valley, McLean, Virginia, and in the Pacific Northwest. We are looking to expand. here in Silicon Valley because the campuses we have here are full with waiting lists and we'd like to be able to serve all the families who are interested in coming to join us. The results that we achieve are great, but really we believe that kids can do more than we've asked them to. The students can achieve more than they can imagine. We hope to continue to provide that education in this space if you'll allow us to use the land for that purpose. And again, you can look at some of our results. Our kids get into great schools. We have admirable AP scores and SAT scores. But it really is about providing that opportunity for students to come join our community and learn that they too can become fearless thinkers.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Letha Clark and I'm the vice president of development with the Morley brothers. We're serving as a real estate advisors for basis independent. Um, I do want to say that, uh, we are registered lobbyists with the city of San Jose. So I wanted to disclose that first. Um, Although the action before you tonight is limited to the general plan land use, we did want to just briefly give you an overview of what the project proposed will actually be on the site so you have a little bit more context. So this site is, it's ideally located for BASIS. It's just down the street from their existing Parkmore campus, which is highlighted there on the bottom, your left, I guess, on Parkmore and Ray Street. And that campus today is, it's sixth through 12th grade, right? and the new campus will be just up the street, and it's outlined in red there. This campus is also really close to the Ray Street light rail station, and also a couple of bus stops there, so it'll provide public transportation for those students who would like to transport that way. Go to the next slide. So this is a existing office building, 72,000 square feet, a little bit over, and they're proposing to do a reuse of this existing building so they won't be tearing it down. They'll be reusing this building, which is exactly what they did at the Parkmore site. So they know that that works for them, and they've been at the Parkmore site for many years and working well there. And they'll do significant renovations in the building, including new classrooms, theaters, science lab, pottery, kill rooms. If you've been to their Parkmore campus, it's absolutely beautiful inside. Some of the outdoor improvements that they will be doing is building a new gym, and it'll go on the left side of your screen where the open parking lot area is there. They're actually gonna be building a new gym. And the site will include 141 parking spaces. And this is the proposed site plan. So you can see the new gym there and there's a turf play area on the backside of the building. We also spent a lot of time, we did a pre-app for this project and we spent a lot of time discussing what public works, how the queuing on the site would happen and what we've done is we have the the drop off coming in from Harmon Court. So that'll be the only way to access the site when kids are being dropped off or picked up. And so this allows for all of the queuing to really take place on the site rather than on the streets on Saddle Rack or Ray Street. And there'll be one exit out of the site. And you can read these details. I'm not going to go into too much detail. But as part of their process for drop off and pick up, they have staggered pick up and drop off times for the kids. So you're not having everyone getting there at one time. They also have parent and student agreements on driving. And there is also TDM measures that we'll look at as part of the transportation analysis, which could include shuttle program, transit for students, employee transit incentives, and ride sharing. Oh, your time is up. Okay. Well, we'll answer any questions you have, thank you.

Thank you for that. Excuse me. Do we have any comments from the public? And online? Okay. No comments. Excellent. Okay. You have five minutes to rebut. It's up to you.

Just .

Knowing some of the things that my colleague was talking about are often what everyone worries about, traffic, parking, will we be able to manage that? And if we just go back to some of the things that were on a previous slide, we recently opened a campus this year. We opened a campus two years ago. It's always what we're focused on, making sure that we are queuing on our property and that we are holding our community accountable for our impact on the community. I don't know if that gets out in front of future questions, but that's usually what people want to know about.

I did just want to add that doing this general plan early consideration process did also allow us to, well, we could have done it anyhow, but it helped us with, we went out to the community early. We did host a community meeting. Let me go to that slide here. It was back in July and we sent notices out to over 1,200 residences within 1,000 feet of the site and we got four attendees there. Council member Mulcahy was there along with some of his staff and also staff members from the mayor's office and so it was a good opportunity and like Trish mentioned, most of the concerns were based on traffic and parking And when those folks did see that we were having the traffic come in on Harmon and circulating on site, I think that that made people feel a lot better about what was planned there.

That's it? You got anything? Thank you for your time.

Okay, thank you. All right, commissioners.

I just want to note, Commissioner Oliverio is online now, and Commissioner Bondal did join us during the presentation, I think.

Thank you. Okay. All right, commissioners, any questions, thoughts, comments?

Sure, thank you for letting me speak. I am on the Board of Regents of Bellarmine College Preparatory and I'm very familiar with the private schools in the area and where they send their kids to college and what the parents of students that want to attend these types of schools desire and BASIS is second to none. People, the community loves BASIS. It's the type of thing that attracts families to the community, which is the type of thing that attracts businesses to the community. BASIS has a great mock trial team already for such a young school. And I couldn't be happier that they're planning on expanding in San Jose. And for those reasons, I will move to accept staff's recommendation. Second. Second.

So we have a first from Commissioner Rosario and a second from Commissioner Oliverio. All right. Any other comments I see? I'm not sure who went first. Okay. Vice Chair, go ahead.

thank you chair uh... thank you for staff laura thank you hope you feel better uh... thank you to the applicant also i just want to share a couple couple things uh... because i know one of the reasons you brought this early was to get input from us and uh... I definitely second what Commissioner Rosario was saying. It sounds like you folks are a very high quality school, and we definitely have a need for that. I'm glad to see that you're addressing the traffic issue there. I'm really familiar with this property. I drive by it all the time. If I was a resident of that neighborhood, I would definitely be very concerned about traffic. I'm glad that you have set up a queuing system on the property itself. That's great. Reservation I guess or something to think about is all the traffic exiting onto race Street that could be problematic and I'm sure you'll be working with our Department of Transportation on possibly signalizing that intersection the only other thing I wanted to say is I You know, I love schools, and schools are a great thing, but to say that a school is fiscally beneficial to the city, I don't think is actually correct, because that's a prime location for retail or commercial property that would generate sales tax revenue for the city. I wish our state tax system was different. I wish that you folks at a school could generate sales tax or property tax similar to commercial, but the honest truth is you don't. So I'm just putting that out there. I realize this is a rezoning at this point and not a project, but that would be a concern I would have. I think... you know, as much as we are working hard as a commission to get as much housing as we can, it's equally important to retain our employment lands, and especially lands like this that could go for R&D or manufacturing that would generate, you know, sales tax for the city. So I'll definitely be supporting the motion, but just wanna express those concerns, thank you.

Thank you, Vice Chair. Commissioner Bickford.

I actually have a question about the timing here. I know because we've discussed it previously that our next opportunity for these general plan amendments is the end of 2027. But I wonder what this project team could do if they had the ability to have the rezoning imminently instead of more than a year from now. And I don't know that there's any opportunity for that, but I'm curious about whether there is anything we can do to expedite the change and whether or not, if we did that, they could take advantage of it or if it's a moot point.

Thank you, Commissioner Bickford, Ruth Goethe, principal planner, and also here as the secretary. We are currently working at council's direction to add a second general plan hearing cycle in the spring for privately initiated general plan amendments. So if that were to be the case, that would be another opportunity for this project to not have to wait until the fall, but possibly spring. I do want to clarify before you, it is an early consideration for general plan amendment. And when they come in with their, you know, the whole project, it will be the general plan amendment, the rezoning application, and then either a conditional use permit or site development permit and any tentative maps or maps that they may need. So it will be the whole package. But it is sort of a moot point now, but we are working towards adding a new cycle per council direction.

Excellent. Okay. Commissioner Cowell.

Thank you very much for the presentation. I have a question for Laura. Maybe I'm a little bit fuzzy with what the recommendation exactly means. I understand after reading the report that this is for allowing continued processing. And since I believe this is my first time coming across this, i just would like a little bit of a little bit more context as to what that means because it almost sounds like the vote today is just so this thing can continue for review which to me i kind of wonder why we need that vote if you can help me understand that that'd be great

Sure, no problem. Yes, so the two options are to either deny or allow for continued processing. Typically, we usually only bring these when they are recommended for denial. However, in this instance, in our general plan policy does allow this that if the applicant wants to come to Planning Commission and City Council for early consideration to be heard before they do the full review of all the stuff that's included. Like Ruth said, it has to have a rezoning, it has to have a development permit, it has to do CEQA. If they're worried that that might not get approved, they might want to come early so they can get some assurance. Now, this is not an approval, so this doesn't guarantee it, but at least they know right off the bat it's not a hard no, a denial. IT CAN GIVE A SMALL AMOUNT OF ASSURANCE, ALTHOUGH IT'S NOT IN ANY WAY AN ACTUAL SIGN THAT IT WILL BE APPROVED AT THE END, BUT IT PROVIDES A LITTLE BIT MORE ASSURANCE ON THAT. WE DID ADVISE THE APPLICANT THAT STAFF SUPPORTS THIS, THEY DON'T NECESSARILY NEED TO DO THIS, USUALLY IT'S FOR DENIALS, BUT THEY SAID THEY WOULD LIKE TO BRING THIS IN FRONT OF PLANNING COMMISSION AND COUNCIL. Our policy does allow that so we did say sure we'll take this for you so that you can present your case and get some feedback Got it.

Okay, so maybe just one more follow-up question just to make sure I understand this properly here The Based on what you said the point of doing this early consideration process is to really just have an indication that hey We're in the right space or we're completely not. Is that fair? I

basically yeah either like because we don't want to spend staff time and effort or the applicant's time and effort and money if it's going to be a no right off the bat like if we know right away it's fundamentally inconsistent or you know it's easier to get that out of the way first and so we're not wasting staff time applicants time money But in this case, it's more that even though we're supportive of it, they just want a little bit more feedback from planning commission and council to see where this might go before they invest all the time and money into moving forward.

got it okay thank you very much for that and i will also be supportive of this motion as a former instructor at san jose state myself i'm happy to support anything education related especially if you know this is a an education system that will be a benefit to the area as a couple a couple of the commissioners have already brought up thank you very much for those comments and Thank you for looking into this area.

Okay, Commissioner Bickford.

Thank you, Chair. And thanks for your presentation today. Don't take this the wrong way, but Commissioner Young and Commissioner Cao's comments led me to some thoughts around schools that are closed in San Jose. that exist and are purpose-built. They may not be high schools at this point, but I wonder if you guys looked at existing school facilities and if there was a reason you chose a commercial building as opposed to an existing vacant school building.

Yes, we've actually had this question come up before and BASIS does look at existing campuses because we know there are schools that are closing in the area because of demographics and birth rates and whatnot. So yeah, that is something they do. In this case, the location was a big part of that decision and also cost of just, you know, reuse of the site was a part of that decision as well. But that is something that they have done in the past and do do.

We have regularly taken office buildings that have been empty and turned them into beautiful schools. So it's also just something we enjoy bringing to a community. Definitely the proximity to our other location was part of that decision as well.

Okay. Actually, you don't have to leave. I have a couple questions. I'm sorry. So just so I understand, will there be any additional public benefit you'll be providing? You just, yeah, there you go. I think you turned it off again. There you go.

This is why my husband doesn't let me touch the computers at home. Can you clarify what are you?

I don't know. For example, are you providing any scholarships for students? Are you providing access to the community, to facilities? Are you benefiting the general public in any way at all?

It's always a challenge with a school to just have the grounds open to the public. It's a safety and security concern. What we do is try to engage with our community, like the community meeting we just had, and at other campuses, invite them to activities that we have. We will have facilities that will be rentable, and in some spaces we have had arrangements with the community for that to be gratis for various organizations. The other thing that we offer is we have after school programs, and so responding to some of the concerns about other income We do provide an area for providers of those kinds of services to come and have a place to provide those and have another source of revenue there. I don't know if that answers your question at all.

If that's your answer, it does. I don't know if you've gotten as far as what you're thinking, but are you expecting to use union labor for this project at all?

That would be outside of my understanding, but. Sorry.

I know the answer.

I'm Sean Morley with the Morley Brothers, and we're involved in the construction of it. BASIS works with a number of contractors and has on their other projects, including dome construction, which has a longstanding agreement with all, if not most, of the building traits. So we would expect that that would be the case in this instance, although we have not gotten that far along. because we're so early in the design and entitlement process.

Thank you, I appreciate that. So I'm just gonna make a statement, and this is not an admonishment. This is a recognition that it appears that this school benefits in large part a community that appears to be fairly affluent and able to handle the cost of tuition. I understand that that's your business and how you manage it, and you're entitled absolutely to that perspective. My perspective is a bit different. I'd love you to consider that since this school does provide an academic reality that most people outside of those income brackets would seldom achieve, that you would consider making scholarships available to the greater community and provide more community benefit for their presence in the community. I would just hope that would be something you would consider and maybe do at some time in the very near future. Like I said, it's not an admonishment. Your business model is your business model and I respect that. I just would like to see that opportunity extended to others as well.

Thank you for your comment.

All right. Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay. That's all I have. Thanks a lot. Okay, and with that, we have a motion on the floor to approve and second it. I will take a vote. Vice Chair Young?

Yes.

Commissioner Aguirre?

Yes.

Commissioner Bondal?

Yes.

Commissioner Bickford?

Yes.

Commissioner Cowell?

Yes.

Commissioner Casey is absent. Commissioner Escobar? Yes. Commissioner Nguyen?

Yes.

Commissioner Oliverio?

Yes.

Commissioner Rosario?

Yes.

And I am a yes myself. um that is near that's everyone so yeah that passes so thank you very much for coming and presenting your project to us today i i do want to say one last thing to commissioner kyle this process is basically putting insurance on a what was probably a pretty safe bet but to avoid additional higher cost without being able to get this thing moved forward, though it was not inexpensive. So we should understand that this process is costly. So they don't come here without a desire to complete the project. Just so you know that. Okay, excellent. Thank you so much. Oh, okay. Okay, all right. And we have a little bit of housekeeping from our legal...

Apologies. Commissioner Oliverio, just for compliance with state law, can we just confirm your location and that there are no minors in the room with you?

There's, I don't see any minors. And I can give you the address or the name of the hotel. What do you prefer?

The address is fine. I know it's listed on the agenda. We just need to have a verbal disclosure for compliance with state law. Thank you.

Yeah, no sweat. Hang on a sec. It is... I know I'm on B Street, hang on a sec.

If I could read it to you, what we have here is 421 West B Street in San Diego, is that correct?

That is correct.

All right, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay, great. And with that, do we have any referrals from council?

No, no referrals.

Okay, any reports?

Yes, Chair. So just a few items to report on. August 25th, City Council approved two items. One was an amendment to an amended and restated agreement for the abatement of weeds by the County of Santa Clara for the City of San Jose. Then there was a denial of a conditional use permit to allow a nightclub slash bar use with late night hours until 2 AM in existing space on 163 West Santa Clara Street. Additionally, on September 1st, city council reviewed an amendment to city council policy 6-14 guidelines for childcare and directed staff to consider in their work plan prioritization item going to council on October 6th if staff has the capacity and resources to repeal this item and make modifications to the zoning ordinance to encourage childcare uses. Also, in terms of updates for the commission under item C, commission calendar and study sessions, we have no study sessions scheduled, and the planning commission meeting for September 23rd is canceled. I do wanna mention also, I'm sorry, for council on September 15th, there will be a few items that you have already heard here, including the glider school, Sprouts daycare project, and then the reasonable accommodation ordinance amendments.

Okay, great. Do we, commissioners, do we have anything for public record? Great. All right. With that, this meeting is adjourned.