Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay. They took care of the technical issues, so we'll go ahead and get started. You know? Welcome to the 12/16/2025 regular meeting of the San Ramon Planning Commission. We'll call the order of the meeting at 06:06PM tonight. May the recording secretary please conduct roll.

Commissioner Kuznick? Here. Commissioner Kunjula?

Here.

Commissioner Zeng?

Here.

Vice chair Avila? Here. And chair Albert?

Here. If you could all rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance. Item four is public comment or written communications. At this time, members of the public may address the planning commission on any item not already on tonight's agenda. If you would like to speak, please fill out a speaker card located in the back of the room and submit it to the recording secretary.

And as practice, we will not be taking any public comment via Zoom. And did we receive any written comment on this idea item?

No written public comment or speaker cards for this item.

Okay. Then we'll go ahead and close the public comment. Item five, addition and revisions, there are none. You know? Item six is the consent calendar, and item 6.1 are the minutes of the planning commission meeting from 11/18/2025. Are there any public comments on this or comments from the commissioners, corrections, additions, changes?

I I move that we accept the consent calendar for the minutes of the planning commission, November 18.

Second act. Okay.

Okay. The item 6.1 was approved five zero zero zero. Moving on. Item seven, continued items after close of the public hearing. There are none. And item eight, continued items. There are none. And then in the okay. Item nine nine point one, this is a public hearing for a vested vesting tentative map extension request for the marketplace mixed use project. And the role of the commission for this item is to approve a stay of the time period of the project's vesting tentative map approval.

To the vesting tenant map that was approved for the marketplace mixed use project development project. That map is set to expire on 03/14/2026. That's three years after the city council conditionally approved the project. The applicant submitted a best in tenant map extension request due to project delays attributed to a a legal challenge that's still currently under review by the California Court of Appeal. It's notable that the vesting tenant extension request does not consider any changes to the development project itself or findings or conditions of approval to the project.

Rather, it's a it's a time extension request for the vesting 10 mAF and and development project. So staff recommends the commission open the public hearing, take public testimony, close the public hearing, discuss and deliberate, and adopt Planning Commission resolution number 18 dash 25, approving the stay of time, for the project VTM from the filing date of the pending legal challenge through the resolution date of the pending legal challenge up to maximum five years. So I'll turn

it back over to the commission.

Great. Thank you. So as Ryan said, this is is routine and very automatic, but if there are any questions for Ryan at this time? Seeing none, do we have any written comments or speaker cards on this item?

We do not.

Okay. I'll go ahead.

Sorry. I'm sorry. We do have a speaker card from Greg Carr.

Oh, okay. Thank you. Great. Come on.

You sure you couldn't say anything about it?

Say it about you? No. Oh.

This is the extent of the information being provided today?

Yes. Tonight it is.

That's unfortunate. I this project has been wrong in so many ways for so long. It's wrong place, wrong time, wrong product to put there. And what would happen if you just said, no. We're not gonna extend it? Have you ever done that because it's just wrong? Is there any push from anybody like the governor or somebody that say, you gotta do this? So think about that. Three years? Yes.

I think you should just tell them no. Sorry. You didn't get your stuff together, and the clock's up. Thank you.

Thank you. Do Do we have other speaker cards at this time?

No other speaker cards.

Okay. Then we'll go ahead and close the public comment. The the ask of us is to extend the approved project as it works its way through the legal system. And so with that, are there any comments or from the commission? Okay.

So as many of you know, this is already a approved project. And based on the on legal basis, after consulting the city attorney, It's advised that it's recommended to go ahead and extend it during the period of the case resolution. So for that, I I'm in agreement with that.

Okay. At this time, if there's no further discussion, if I could ask for a motion.

I'd like to move that we approve the staff recommendation. This is resolution 18 dash 22.

I second that.

Okay. Moved and seconded.

18 dash 25 is what I'm on page 14.

Yep. Tag tag at page 14. Okay. Okay. So the resolution has been passed. It is very straightforward. There's really no discussion, I think, necessary on the resolution. So I think we can go ahead and move forward on this one. Thank you all, and we'll move on to Through

the chair. And just to note, decisions of the planning commission may be appealed within ten calendar days of the decision by filing a letter with the city clerk and along with the appropriate filing fees. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Cindy. So we're going to move on to tonight's next item, which is Yeah. All my notes together here. Okay.

So at this time, we are gonna do a public hearing on the Orchards development project at located at 6001 Bollinger Canyon Road. And tonight, we are this is the first look that we've had of this project once it's been deemed complete, and no decision we made tonight. This is an opportunity for us to and the applicant to receive public comment, and staff is requesting that any outstanding questions we may have, we direct staff for future discussion. And we will continue this public hearing to a subsequent meeting, but, again, no decision tonight will be asked for of us. So with that, Cindy is ready to go.

K. Well, thank you very much, and I appreciate the opportunity to provide this presentation this evening. It's going to be a tag team effort this evening. I will provide the overview of the project. The city's consultant, First Carbon Solutions, will come up to provide the CEQUA, overview, and then the applicant and their team does also have a presentation if you'd like to take their presentation after staffs.

So just a quick overview of where the site is located. We're talking about one parcel that's approximately 92 acres at the intersection of Bollinger And Sunset Drive. The general plan destination is downtown mixed use with South, and then the zoning destination is also downtown mixed use. So going back to the 2022, the applicant purchases the 92 acre, project site. And throughout 2022 through 2023, there were a series of public study sessions on the potential redevelopment of the site.

Those public study sessions were held with the city council, planning commission, economic development advisory committee, as well as housing and advisory committee. In 2023, applicant took that feedback and refined their proposed land use plan and requested that it be incorporated into the general plan 2040 update. And so as part of the adoption of the general plan 2040 in December 2023, that plan does include the redesignation and rezoning of the Chevron Park site from administrative office to DMU South, along with the adoption of the General Plan 2040 EIR, and creates a framework for the programming of the orchard's development. That framework that we refer to is in policy 4.7, implementation policy five, and it directs how the ORCHODS project area should be programmed. And there's a list of programming that should be included as part of the Orchards project area, including a variety of housing types, a component of retail uses, and a variety of community amenities that should be incorporated as part of the project.

Along with that policy includes a map that shows how the Orchard's land use plan should be laid out. You'll see in the darker colors closer to Bollinger Canyon Road that's on the left hand side of the page, you have a taller multifamily and mixed use development. And then as you get further south to the right of the page, you're going to see that stepping down of the buildings to single family homes and townhomes development as you get closer to the south. And so in response to the land use plan that had been designed through the general plan process, the applicant submitted applications in November 2024 and, subsequently updated their project, in June. When it was deemed complete in July, the following applications were were part of the overall formal applications that included a major subdivision to subdivide the 92 acre site into a 191 lots that would ultimately create the opportunity for vesting tentative map of the 2,500 units that would be on-site.

There's also a development plan application that would allow the construction of the neighborhood district specifically, that would consist of a total of three sixty eight units, along with 58 optional accessory dwelling units. And then there's a second development plan application that would propose to demolish the existing 1,300,000 square feet of office park and replace that with the Orchard's development master plan that consists of three districts, up to the 2,500 units, 125 square feet of new commercial area, and a variety of community amenities. There's also a development agreement application that's part of the project that would implement the twenty year vision for the master plan in exchange for additional community benefits. There's an architectural review application for the proposed neighborhood district's architecture design, layout, landscape improvements, as well as the orchard's design guidelines. There's a tree removal application for the removal of trees and then a replacement of those trees through a comprehensive landscape plan.

And then there's an environmental review application for compliance with CEQA. And so starting with the ORCHOODS master plan, as you saw in the staff report, there's three distinct districts that form the ORCHOODS master plan. You have the mixed use district, which is on the right hand side of the of Sunset Drive. That accounts for 619 dwelling units and 125,000 square feet of ground floor commercial uses. Then you have the multifamily district, which is West Of Sunset Drive and South Of Sunset Drive.

That would be comprised of 14 well over 1,400 dwelling units that would be configured in apartments, condominiums, senior housing, and and affordable housing buildings. And then you have the Neighborhoods District, which is in that green color on the southern portion of the property that is 300 and sorry, this should say three sixty eight units of lower density single family homes and 58 optional ADUs. And just to provide, again, an overview of where that how these districts are expected to lay out, this is just an illustrative plan of the programming that is proposed where the residential units would go in relation to the multifamily mixed use and single families. And then it's just probably important to note that future development plan applications will be filed for the multifamily and the mixed use districts. Those are not being approved as part of this project.

Similar to other projects in the past, with master plans, you create the framework of how that development will lay out for the next twenty years. And then each individual entitlement application would then come in with their own subsequent entitlement review. The exception to that is going to be the Neighborhoods District, which we'll cover this evening as well. So just to provide a side by side comparison of the General Plan 2040 expectations for land use and the Orchard's land use plan that is proposed, you can see the framework that was set up in General Plan 2040 identifies really, this speaks of buildings as taller buildings closer to Bullinger Canyon Road, and then slowly reducing in size and bulk as you get further south on the development. So in order to maintain continuity over the next twenty years in terms of the design and development of these three various neighborhoods or three various districts, the applicant has provided the orchard's design guidelines, which will implement the shared vision for the community throughout the build out period.

So in lieu of the city's objective design and development standards, we have the orchards guidelines that would provide some more specificity to how each development within the the districts would be developed. The guidelines are consistent with the general plan land use programming, as well as the general plan and zoning standards with the exception of the waivers that have been identified as part of the project. So moving into the Neighborhood District, which does have a development plan for entitlement that's being proposed. Again, three sixty eight total units, 58 optional ADUs. There's four different housing types associated with the Neighborhoods District, and this would be essentially the first phase of the project's development in advance of the mixed use in the multifamily.

The development standards are covered in the staff report in more detail, but essentially, the development standards that have been identified for the DW South in the zoning ordinance is in the center column. And then whether the project proposes to meet those standards is in the far right column. With the exception of, as I mentioned, the waivers that are being requested as part of their density bonus request, the project meets the development standards. And I'll go through those waivers in a slide further in this presentation. And this just gives a flavor of the types of architecture that's proposed in the Neighborhoods District.

You'll see some examples from the single family neighborhoods as well as from the townhomes. And then a table that shows that in terms of the development standards for setbacks, for height, for lot coverage, area, the applicant is proposing to meet all of the standards that are proposed for DMU South. Moving into affordable housing, the city has an inclusionary housing ordinance that requires a 15% must build requirement for any new residential development project. For this project at 2,452 total units, excluding ADUs, that requirement would be three sixty eight units. That should be deed restricted as affordable.

Orchards will provide three ninety seven affordable units as shown in this table. And what you'll notice is that there is going to be higher affordability in the very low and low income category, higher than what the inclusionary housing ordinance requires. The project is also proposing at least a minimum 5% to qualify for the density bonus. In this case, 6.6% or 163 units will be provided out of the total three ninety seven units as affordable to very low income households. And that would then qualify the project for use of state density bonus.

And then specifically, because the Neighborhoods District is the first phase that's being developed, What we wanted to highlight here is that as part of the Neighborhoods District's commitment to affordable housing, there will be a separate application that has been filed for the Orchard's affordable development. That project was presented to the planning commission at a study session last month. So you you did get a sense of how that project will get laid out. But effectively, it's a 100 units. One of the units will be set aside for on-site manager.

The remaining 99 units will be affordable to very low and low income households. The applicant will be donating the land and through the development agreement and a partnership with Eden Housing, Eden Housing would fulfill the obligation of constructing those units. So moving into state density bonus laws, I alluded to the project provides the minimum 5% required to qualify for at least one concession, unlimited waivers, and also limited parking standards. So with this particular project, the applicant is proposing to meet all of its parking requirements, and they are not electing to use a concession for this project. There are six waivers that are being requested that would include reducing the minimum site wide FAR requirement from 1.25 to 0.79.

We're also requesting to use the orchard's design guidelines in lieu of the city's objective design development standards. And so that includes standards related to planting trees and shrubs that would be larger rather than smaller in size at the onset of the project. So those would cover plant material trees as well as the plant material shrubs. They're actually requesting to plant trees that are and shrubs that are larger in size than what the standards currently call out. The next two are related to parking and circulation, and those are related to the proximity of driveways from the intersection, as well as the requirements to have a median separating the entry points within residential neighborhoods.

So beyond these waivers, the project does meet the the remainder of the DMU South zoning standards. And then moving into the review that's been conducted since the applications were filed. As we included in the staff report, there's a three public meetings that were where the project was presented to the architecture review board in May and in through June. The ARB did provide recommendations for the project in recommending approving the project with feedback that was provided and attached to your staff report. The applicant has provided a detailed response to the changes and revisions that were made based on the ARB's comments.

And then this brings us to the environmental review component. Maddie Dolan with First Carbon Solutions will be providing the presentation, and then I'll come up afterwards just to wrap up the summary and and recommendations. Thank you.

Hi there. Can you hear me okay with this mask on? Alright. So I'm gonna talk a bit through the CEQUA environmental review process. CEQUA applies to projects requiring discretionary approval by state or local agencies.

CEQA encourages streamlining by using analysis from certified EIRs instead of duplicating work in a complete new analysis. The city certified the San Ramon 2040 general plan EIR in December 2023, and this set development density standard citywide. This means that projects that are consistent with those standards set by the general plan can use CEQA streamlining provisions under section one five one eight three. CEQA guidelines section one five one eight three states that projects consistent with the development density established by a general plan or zoning for which an EIR were certified do not require additional environmental review. Exceptions apply only if there are project specific significant impact impacts peculiar to the project or the project site.

And this provision reduces repetitive environmental studies and focuses on impacts that are unique to the project or its site. So our analysis covered environmental effects that are peculiar to the project or project site, effects not analyzed as significant in the prior EIR, potentially significant off-site or cumulative impacts not discussed in the prior EIR, and previously identified significant effects that could be more severe due to new information. And in the case of the Orchards project, the consistency checklist confirmed that there were no new or more severe impacts beyond those that were already analyzed in the 2040 general plan FEIR. Our consistency checklist analyzed topics that you would generally see in an EIR or an MND, but it did a comparative analysis of those impacts for the project with the analysis in the general plan EIR. We did a program level and a project level analysis for several topics.

This is because the mixed use in the multifamily districts, as Cindy explained, are designations of those districts only, and there's not a specific site plan for those yet. And we did a project level analysis for the neighborhood district because that project will include actual construction of of units and the other features. And then we combined analysis where it was appropriate, for example, in topical sections that address project site conditions. And the conclusions of our consistency analysis were that the the Orchards project is consistent with the general plan FEIR that was certified in 2023. All impacts were previously analyzed and mitigated under that general plan FEIR, And there were no project specific impacts that were peculiar to the site, and no further CEQA review is required.

Thank you.

Thank you, Maddie. So in summary, the project proposes a twenty year master plan designed based on the general plan twenty forty land use policies for the development of up to 2,502,510 units, including ADUs, at a density of 46.3 rolling units per net acre. So the Ordrich design guidelines will be applied to all three districts and will create specificity and continuity throughout the build out period. For the first phase of the project, the neighborhoods district, that district will meet the design guidelines and the DMU South zoning, with the exception of the six requested state density bonus waivers. The project will provide 16.7% of its total units as affordable units through a combination of stand alone and integrated units within the mixed use and multifamily buildings.

And then a series of studies have been conducted to determine consistency with city as well as environmental requirements attached to your staff report includes the traffic operations memo, VMT analysis, fiscal impact study, and the the CEQA document includes additional within the appendices, any noise, environmental hazards, etcetera, as attachments as well. And so our recommendation this evening is to receive the staff board and presentation by the applicant, open the public hearing and take public testimony, close the public hearing, discuss and deliberate, and then staff will review questions and comments received tonight, draft responses to those comments, and provide follow-up material as needed at the next at a subsequent Planning Commission meeting. And so that concludes my presentation this evening. I know the applicant does also have a presentation that will cover a little bit more detail about the background and and their land use concept as well as a more comprehensive overview of the traffic analysis. So if you'd like, I can go ahead and have them come up first.

I think that would be best to go ahead and let the applicant speak. Okay? Thank you, Cindy. Thank you.

Good evening, Chair Alpert and Planning Commissioners. On behalf of Sunset Development, I'm Stephanie Hill. Thank you for the opportunity to present our proposed mixed use development at the former Chevron Park, now referred to as Orchards. Many of the images that you see within this presentation you have previously seen with Ms. C's presentation.

So hopefully, second time around, they'll be a little bit clearer. Before focusing on orchards specifically, I'd like to briefly set the broader context within Bishop Branch. Over the next twenty years, our residential plan will transform Bishop Branch into a downtown that complements the existing office uses and creates a cohesive, well designed community. The housing is intended to serve a wide range of lifestyles, singles, couples, families, and retirees, allowing people to choose how and where they want to live over time. This vision depends on a balanced mix of housing types, including market rate and affordable homes as well as multifamily and single family neighborhoods.

Our land plan is organized around four office districts, Orchards, formerly BR 1 Sycamore, formerly BR 3 Shepherd's Glen, formerly BR 15, and Lakeside, formerly 2600. CityWalk, our mid rise residential plan, includes approximately 4,500 homes across a 135 acres founded generally by Bollinger Canyon Road, Camino Ramon, and Executive Parkway. Belmont Village Senior Living was the first community to open under this plan, and Avalon Bay is scheduled to begin construction in January 2026. North of Executive Parkway, the DMU North Zone includes two to three story ownership homes developed by Summerhill, and TrueMark and KB Homes are both under construction over two on two residential developments. South of Bollinger Canyon Road, Orchard's within the DMU South zone is proposed to include approximately 2,500 homes, a 125,000 square feet of retail, and 15 acres of parks and open space.

Tonight's presentation focuses on the 92 acre Orchard site. Our first meeting regarding the Chevron Park redevelopment occurred in the 2022. And over the past three years, we've worked closely with city staff, the planning commission, city council, and the community to refine the development plan and to respond to feedback. Given Chevron Park is closed to the public, we've included photos to provide a site perspective of the existing conditions. Chevron Park has 14 office buildings totaling 1,400,000 square feet of office with tree lined parking lots and a perimeter greenway.

The city's 2040 general plan includes policy guidance for the future use of the site. This policy was shaped through a public process involving the planning commission, city council, and community members. When Sunset acquired the property, the planning commission encouraged a collaborative and incremental planning approach rather than starting with a fully formed proposal. In response, we engaged in ongoing dialogue with the planning commission, city council, Inverness Park residents, and the broader community, including hosting a public open house to listen to ideas and concerns. We believe through this process, we've resulted in a stronger plan that better reflects the community's priorities.

While Chair Alpert and Commissioner Kuznick were both on the planning commission when we started this in 2022, we thought that it would be helpful to just outline how the plan has evolved over time for anyone who may be new to looking at this project with us. Over a period of twenty four months, the site plan evolved from our initial concept through the application materials. We started by identifying the givens, which include keeping the existing Chevron Drive Road alignment, the heritage oak trees, which are on-site, a central park, and a perimeter greenway with connections to the Iron Horse Trail. We developed three density scenarios ranging from 2,000 to 2,900 homes. We generally had taller five to seven story communities along Bolinger Canyon similar to the CityWalk communities and transitioning to single family homes along the existing Inverness Park community.

In all three scenarios, retail was located at the Northeast corner of the site. The public and community feedback included a preference for higher density given the city's housing requirements while minimizing impacts on the Inverness Park residents, questions about ingress and egress to the site, and diversifying the types of retail from city center offerings as well as adding retail to the Central Park. In response to the planning commission and community feedback, we developed the fourth scenario, approximately 2,500 residential homes by extending the four to five story building typology along Interstate 680 and tightening the perimeter greenway. We reoriented the park, which shifts the emphasis to the retail along Poulanger Canyon and the entryway. We extended lower density two to three story residential homes along the entirety of the Inverness Park property line, and we added a preliminary street network to identify what we anticipated to have for circulation.

We continue to refine this plan as we transition from general areas to in jewel parcels to layout, which ultimately was submitted in November 2024. And so now as we shift to the actual application materials, I just want to note that we have reoriented the site plan. So we have Bollinger Canyon now on page north. We have the Inverness Park neighborhood on page south. To the West, we have Interstate 680, and then to the East, we have Bishop Branch 1.

As previously mentioned, Orchard's is comprised of three districts, the mixed use, the multifamily, and the neighborhood. Mixed use in the Northeast Corner has residential above ground floor commercial uses with heights of about five to seven stories. The multifamily district in the Northwest Corner may include apartments, condominiums, senior, or affordable housing, and this ranges from four to seven stories. The neighborhood includes townhomes, detached homes, ADUs, and pocket parks ranging from two to three stories. In total, just over 2,500 homes are proposed in orchards.

The mixed use shown in teal and located in the Northeast Corner includes 619 homes with a 125,000 square feet of ground floor retail. The multifamily shown in purple and located in the Northwest Corner includes just about 1,500 homes, and the neighborhood district in the South has 368 homes, and it's shown in four different colors, being townhomes in blue, row homes in green, single family in orange, and the courts in yellow. Due to the size and scale of 92 acres, we anticipate that we'll have a phased build out. The first phase would include demolition of all of the existing buildings and construction of the Orchard's neighborhood and a sort and associated affordable community. We propose to retain the Bollinger Canyon frontage and the existing surface parking lots to allow for interim community programming such as pop up events or seasonal attractions like the City Center ice rink.

In the interim area, any necessary grading would be completed and hydroseeded to maintain inside aesthetics, and it would be similar to what you see when you're at BR 1 A And BR 3 A where it's lightly grassed open area. For timing, we expect demolition of the existing buildings to take approximately a year. The site would require new infrastructure to support the development. This may overlap a little bit with demolition just depending on-site constraints. While subject to market conditions, which I know you hear me talk about frequently, we anticipate the first signs of vertical construction would take about two years from the start of demolition and would project that we would have first residential homes in 2028.

Eden Housing, who is a developer on the Affordable housing site, is similarly starting aiming to start construction in 2028. So both the affordable and the Orchard's neighborhood would be under construction simultaneously. As part of our application materials, we included design guidelines similar to what is in place for CityWalk. These provide the principles for architecture, parks and open space, and streetscape to the community being built out over a longer period of time. To give a perspective of the pedestrian realm and ground floor activation, we've included a slide of what we expect to have as the 1st Floor uses.

Yellow indicates residential, red indicates commercial, and light blue shows residential lobbies and entryways. The mixed use district has two retail lined streets, one north to south and one east west leading to Standard Park. The retail streets have wide sidewalks and are lined with active pedestrian oriented uses, including retail shops, restaurants, and outdoor seating. While the multifamily district does not include ground floor retail, the lobby and amenity areas shown in blue will create visual interest at the Ground Floor. Retail was a key focus throughout the design process and in our conversations with the community.

And what we've found from the retail at City Center is that retail must be concentrated to be viable because it depends on critical mass. Grouping shops together creates consistent foot foot traffic. It supports cross shopping and provides a convenient destination for residents and visitors. Concentration also allows retailers to share parking. It enhances visibility and infrastructure and improves long term success.

The retail is intended to be neighborhood serving with approximately 50% as food and beverage and the remainder as retail goods and services. Spaces are generally planned for about 1,000 to 5,000 square feet with the ability to accommodate a small grocer of approximately 20,000 square feet in Parcel A 1 North. Due to Orchard's multiphase and multiyear development, we have not advanced architecture for the entirety of the project. We have prepared several renderings informed by the design guidelines to give a sense of scale and massing for the multifamily mixed use districts. Each of these buildings will follow a design review process to ensure the design is consistent with the design guidelines.

As part of the application materials, we have advanced the design of the Orchard's neighborhood to include a vesting tentative parcel map and architecture for the 368 homes. Orchard's Neighborhood district located in the southern portion of the community is the first phase to be developed and includes a variety of homes, townhomes, row homes, single family detached homes, and single family courts. Three story townhomes transition the architecture from higher density residential communities to the lower density single family homes. Two story alley loaded row homes line Setset Drive, the key North South connector throughout the site. Single family detached homes are located to the east and the west of the row homes between the townhomes and the single family courts.

And the single family courts are located along the Inverness Park neighborhood to the south and are buffered from the existing neighborhood by the greenway with a minimum width of 60 feet and an average width of 75 feet. And this slide highlights the architecture of the four different home typologies. The color scheme and materials are used across all four of the housing types to create a cohesive neighborhood, but no two homes are intended to match each other. The open space network connects the districts and provides key social nodes throughout the community. The perimeter greenway wraps around orchards, offering rest areas, gathering nodes, nature play, and art features.

At key points, the perimeter greenway expands into heritage oak tree parks and protect and celebrate the existing oak trees that are on-site. Standard Park, a two and a half acre park, is a gathering place for residents and visitors. It is activated by the retail district on two sides and offers playground amenities for children and a flexible lawn allowing for a variety of uses. Each district contains unique paseos, parks, or courtyards offering additional outdoor recreational opportunities. Two wide multiuse pathways are incorporated into the street network, one being along Sunset Drive connecting the mixed use multifamily districts to the neighborhood district, and one East West connection to the Heritage Oak Tree Park.

The city's inclusionary housing ordinance requires 15% of the Orchard's homes, 368 homes in total, to be set aside as affordable housing. Because Orchard's includes a mix of housing typologies, we propose meeting this requirement in two ways. One is building affordable homes on-site integrated within the multifamily mixed use districts, and the second being a standalone affordable community for The Orchard's neighborhood. The Orchard's neighborhood's affordable obligation is proposed to be met by a 100 home affordable community developed by Eden Housing. This was presented at last month's planning commission.

It includes 99 affordable homes and one on-site manager's home. And these homes will serve at a range of income levels with most affordable families earning about 60% of the area median income. And finally, we will cover transportation, which has been one of the items that has come up in a lot of the conversations that we've had both with the planning commission and with the community. Orchards is infill mixed use development where residential homes have direct access to stores, parks, and regional trails. Increasing housing density provides a customer base for retail and amenities and a workforce within a fifteen minute walk to jobs.

And I'm joined by Andy Kaczynski from Farr and Piers who prepared the transportation analysis and will discuss the studies.

Good evening.

Good evening. My name is Andy Kaczynski. I'm a senior associate with Fair and Piers Transportation Consulting, and I have been leading the transportation studies for the Orchards development. So tonight, I'm here to just give an overview of our analysis, our methodology, our findings, our recommendations, and mitigation measures. And you have the opportunity to dive deeper.

I could return for a future meeting to dive deeper into specific topics, and I'm also available to take questions later today. So for the Orchids project, we performed a comprehensive transportation analysis that's been thoroughly vetted by city staff. It revolves around two areas. We've evaluated the project's vehicle miles traveled impacts as well as automobile level of service impacts. We analyze the effects of the project's full build out, all phases together in the existing scenario, but also in a future cumulative scenario looking fifteen years out into the future.

Our level of service analysis generally focuses on the AM and the PM rush hours during the weekday, average it averaged across the hour. The queuing analysis, which is part of that, focuses really on the worst, the peak of the peak, the ninety fifth percentile within that peak hour. So it's not the typical experience, but it's really looking at the very worst case that could occur. And a reminder that the build out of the projects will take place over an extended period of time, many years. And so the analysis results that I'm presenting reflect the end of that period and not what would be expected to happen in the near term after the construction of just an early phase.

The first thing we look at is the travel demand. How many trips will the project generate? And compared with a fully occupied corporate headquarters, which is what the current yet vacated use is, the Orchard's development the first notable thing about it is that the traffic flows will be largely reversed, whereas the corporate headquarters has workers arriving in the morning and leaving in the evening and generally coming to and from the freeway. The mixed use development will largely be reversed. So you'll have mainly residents tending to leave the development in the morning, largely heading well, all around, but many of them to the freeway and returning in the evening.

So that's an important distinction because that overlays onto the prevailing traffic flows in the in the area. And secondly, overall, the project would generate far fewer trips in the weekday AM period and far fewer trips in the weekday PM period. It would it would generate more trips throughout the day taken as a whole, and it would generate more on the weekend. So it's in some in some times of the week, there's less general activity, and sometimes of the week, there's more. Taking our conclusions for vehicle miles traveled, the projects would have a vehicle miles traveled impact.

It would be what we call less insignificant, which means that it's less than the the applicable threshold for a project so long as the following measures are applied. So that would be the inclusion of the planned affordable housing units would need to be done because those generate fewer vehicle miles traveled than a typical residential unit. And the project would need to provide measures that would generally reduce automobile trips. We call those travel transportation demand management. These are measures that are required that the project has to provide some of them as to be compliant with the general plan in any case, but these might include things like providing better bike options, enhanced pedestrian options, and distributing information to residents about some of these options and programs.

Separately, we looked at traffic operations in the area with the project. And when we study a scenario where the project is fully built out and layered on top of existing conditions, this would generate additional traffic and lead to some longer wait times for drivers along Bonger Canyon Road. Notably, all of the intersections within the vicinity of the project would be within the city standard for operations, but, ultimately, drivers that would be going along Bolinger Canyon Road would experience additional delay in traffic at at some of the signalized intersections as they go. We identified three mitigation measures that would serve to improve operations in this scenario. The first one is a restriping of the main project driveway, which is Sunset Drive northbound onto Bonjour Canyon Road.

You would increase the capacity by adding really making sure there are two left turn lanes. The sec second mitigation measure is related to improving the the flow of the traffic signals. And the entire corridor has what's called an adaptive signal system, which the signals are the cycle is being updated in real time based on how not only that intersection is operating, but the entire corridor as a whole. They're all talking to each other, and it's a really good technology that improves flow. However, the two ramp intersections are not built into that system currently.

So we found through our analysis that you could improve traffic flow by incorporating those two locations into the system. And third and finally, there is a tweak that can be made at the southbound ramp intersection. By adjusting the detector settings, we can better facilitate traffic flows through there and generally reduce delays at that location. So these are the three mitigation measures that we identified. We also looked at a cumulative scenario, which is looking forward to the year 2040.

And, essentially, what this is is that we assumed full build out of the city's general plan, converted that into traffic, and that is essentially is adding a 1.3% annualized growth rate for the next fifteen years, which is a pretty big amount of growth. But in some ways, this is a stress test scenario. And that would result in three intersections experiencing what's called LOSF, level of service f, which is yeah. It's a significant congestion where drivers would be backed up quite a bit at many of the intersections at three locations, three intersections in the network. However, that condition is really solely due to that background growth that would occur not not uniquely due to the project itself.

So overall, taking these findings together, our recommendations and considerations are, first, the project's gonna be phased in over many years. And so with a project of this scale, the city should be continuously monitoring how traffic conditions are evolving at each phase and adapting signal timings in response. Secondly, the project should design and program and invest in walking, biking, and transit. That would increase the appeal of those ways of moving around. And when to entice some people to travel using those modes instead of driving, that would reduce congestion.

And then thirdly, there are some significant limitations to especially the cumulative scenario. It's based on this fixed growth assumption. And what the model is not really set up to capture are a few factors such as working from home and how that might evolve over the next fifteen years. And we know that working from home tends to reduce trip making. The model assumes that all the drivers still are making all their journeys in that peak one hour.

Whereas in reality, when areas experience pretty high congestion, people tend to change their travel patterns. They either take a different route. Maybe they'll travel a little later, a little earlier in the day. Our model does not take that into account. Or emerging technologies such as automated vehicles, which are poised to have some pretty big effects on the transportation network.

And we can speculate as to what those may be, but our model isn't set up to directly account for those either. So just to say that the cumulative scenario is very much one possible future, but there's a large degree of uncertainty of as to how it will actually play out. The studies are have been posted on the the public website for the projects, and they've been up there for a little bit of time. So this concludes my presentation.

Thank you.

David's conclusion. We have one concluding slide to just wrap it all together. So in in closing, Orchards represents the evolution of Bishop Ranch and is an important step towards realizing the city's vision for a downtown in San Ramon. This plan transforms an inward focused private office campus into an integrated community that opens the site to residents and to the public, introduces new housing opportunities across a wide range of income levels and life stages, and connects people to parks, retail, and regional trails. The land use program reflects years of collaboration with the planning commission, city council, city staff, and nearby residents.

Orchard's is intentionally organized so that taller buildings are located along Bolinger Canyon Road, while lower scale neighborhood homes transition to Inverness Park. Retail is concentrated and designed to be neighborhood serving. Orchard Silver is a connected open space network, including Standard Park, a perimeter greenway with heritage oak trees, and walkable streets that tie the community together. Affordable housing is integrated as a core component of the plan with on-site units and a dedicated affordable neighborhood developed in partnership with an experienced nonprofit. Taken together, Orchard's completes the next chapter of Bishop Ranch by strengthening the relationship between housing, jobs, retail, and open space.

It supports a vibrant downtown and creates distinct but complementary neighborhoods that will serve San Ramon for generations. Given the context and the extent of the application materials, we've tried our best tonight to provide a high level summary and description of multiple key components of the Orchard's community. So I may not have covered everything that you would like to discuss, but more than happy to answer any questions. And I'm joined by various members of the design team who can get into architecture, civil, transportation, whatever you'd like to discuss this evening. Thank you.

Great. Thank you all for your presentations. We're gonna get to questions in a bit, but I think I'd like to ask staff to help frame the process that we're gonna be going through with this because it is it is quite big, and there's a lot of material here and a lot of information on the web page. And the commission, for example, is, you know, also struggling a little bit to get through everything. But with that, that's our job, so I can't really take make that an excuse.

But if I could ask staff to comment, first of all, this and you mentioned in your staff report. Could you explain what it means when we have an s b three thirty project in front of us, and what does that require the city to do?

Sure. So s b three thirty or or senate bill three thirty that was passed a number of years ago requires that any development application has to meet some very specific Housing Accountability Act requirements for a project that has filed a preliminary housing development application, which this project did. It limits the city's review to up to five public meetings, so whether that's hearings or study sessions after the project was deemed complete, you're limited to five total. There's also a set of findings that are associated with SB three thirty applications that need to be made, and there's some limitations in terms of what the city can and cannot request and deny in terms of project. There's also the obligation that if the city has our objective design standards that projects are limited to being evaluated based on those objective standards.

So there are limitations in terms of the number of meetings that the Planning Commission can have on this project. Tonight will be the first meeting that would count towards the five total. And because we're asking that the project is continued to a subsequent Planning Commission meeting, whenever that next meeting happens, we want to make sure that we provide as much information as you need for us to return with so that hopefully sets you up to then be able to make a decision on this application. With hopefully one meeting remaining, we typically try to hold the fifth meeting available should there be an appeal or a call for review for applications that are limited to the five public hearings five public meetings.

Well, thank you. And so with that, I think we need to stay focused and on task, you know, for the project and the approvals before us. And you did mention it, but if I could ask you to repeat it again, the approvals that are before us as part of the current five meeting sequence of which one or more need to be reserved for the city council. And then subsequent, there will be additional approvals and opportunities to look at additional things that are not part of tonight. If you could chat a little bit about tonight's scope or this this this sequence's scope in contrast to, and then what will be coming attractions, if you will, just

so that

we can stay make sure that while it's all critical that we address, some of it is will be addressed in much more detail at a subsequent phase of this approval process.

Sure. So the project has filed two development plan applications, which means that the first development plan application focuses on the master plan for the entire 92 acres. And that creates the framework of the land use pattern that will be established for orchards and the design guidelines that would be in place to review future phases of this project within the master plan. The second development plan application that was filed is specifically to what we call entitle the neighborhood district, which is that three sixty unit development that's in the green areas South Of Sunset Drive. And because they have provided entitlement level details, meaning setbacks, site design, lot, you know, lot configurations of each individual unit that is within the Neighborhoods District, that entitlement would essentially, if that particular application is approved, would then allow for the applicant to then file a final map that would then allow them the ability to move into construction of those specific units.

Beyond the three sixty eight units outside of the Neighborhoods District, there will be subsequent development plan applications similar to what's being done with Neighborhoods District filed for future review, because we do not have that level of detail that has been provided as part of these applications for the multifamily and the mixed use districts. So, for example, the Planning Commission saw one component that will be part of the entitlement review in future phases at at your November meeting for the Eden Housing Development, the 100 units. That would essentially be the same pathway for fee the remainder of the 2,452 units outside of Neighborhoods District that would be filed subsequent to the approval of the master plan.

Just to maybe add to that, for example, tonight will not be this phase does not include the park, does not include the mixed use, which includes retail. So those will also be at subsequent hearings. So tonight, we're not approving, for instance, the layout of the retail or specifics around the retail because that's not part of this current application. Is that right?

That's correct. So the master plan lays out where those elements would be proposed in the future within the Orchard's development area, but it doesn't include specific enough details for this commission to be able to approve units and square footage and building approvals to allow for that development to go into construction. I would also say that the development agreement, although it's been filed as part of the overall project applications, the development agreement will trail the review of this larger master plan and development plan application. Because the development agreement does require legislative approval of an ordinance to adopt that development agreement. And so there will be a recommendation ultimately from this Planning Commission at a later date on the specifics of the development agreement that would then be forwarded to the City Council.

We've provided a preview of what the development agreement in terms of its twenty year projection would include. But the details of that will come at a future Planning Commission meeting.

Great. Thank you. Okay. So with that overview from Cindy, I think the process tonight and one of the goals tonight is to not be here until two in the morning, although it probably could take that. But we do have future meetings that we could actually use to die dive do a much deeper dive on specific topics.

So the goal, I think, for tonight would be to ask our questions, certainly ask for the public input, and then as we wrap up to identify specifics that we think warrant or we would like or we hear the public would like much more time dedicated than the few slides we got tonight. And that would be at a next meeting so that, you know, both staff and as well as the applicant have time to prepare. And us and the community have time to read the you know, read further read the thousands of pages that have been already posted on the city's web page. So let me turn to the commission and see if there are clarifying questions at this time. But, again, these are clarifying questions to that were not clear in the discussion.

And then we'll open public comment and certainly expect we'll have comments, questions from the public that we'll wanna listen to. And then we'll close public comment and then have an opportunity to give direction to staff for subsequent commission meetings, if that makes sense. So let me look around and see if there are some clarifying questions. Commissioner Kuznick?

I I have a couple of them. First of all, I apologize. There was a statement in the packet that the waiver included the change to the FAR, and what was cited here was that it was site wide. And so the question is, are we talking about the totality of the orchards or just the neighborhood?

0.79 that's proposed is site wide. Okay. So it would include the

The other

The other parcels. Correct.

Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to be clear. Okay. And then I have a technical question about the CEQA that statement that we have on this packet.

It's on page 21 where it says, quote, CEQA mandates that projects which are consistent with the development density established by, dot dot dot, general plan policies for which an EIR was certified. Okay. The fact that we are getting design guidelines that are not our city guidelines, does that impact that statement of time in which the the conditions by which an ER does not need additional review?

So the design guidelines do not extend any waivers for development standards other than FAR and the other waivers that were identified for parking and trees Okay. Etcetera. The project continues to maintain maximum height limits, landscape requirements, all of the typical development standards that are associated with the DMU South. The design guidelines does continue to maintain those same standards within the design guidelines. Where it deviates will be places where, for example, the design guidelines talk about different types of community amenities that may be included as part of a project.

So for example, the Neighbor's District does not include an interior amenity, but it includes a number of exterior amenities. And so the design guidelines will identify what type of amenities are generally going to be provided, but they may not necessarily align with the city's adopted objective design standards, which is why they have their own.

Okay. That's that's fine. And then the the last question, which I think I heard answered towards the end, which is as we are working on the city's objective design, will the parks commission still play play a role in how the park will be designed as this evolves?

Yes. So Okay. With city city parks, they and in this case, it's going to be publicly accessible, correct, but privately owned. And so similarly, we're just next, across the street here at at Heritage Park in in Bishop Ranch, a similar process took place where the developer provides a design concept that then gets evaluated by both the park staff as well as the parks commission. And

then I have I have one more question. This is on page nine of the what what are we calling, the design standards, and it references an architectural control committee. I don't know who is that and who owns that. And can someone add some content? Sure.

Excuse me. Sorry. Excuse me. The architectural control committee is a function of Sunset Development Company. They currently own and manage the property, but over time, potentially, the properties may be sold to other entities. And an opportunity for Sunset to continue to maintain architectural control is through the architectural control committee.

Okay. Thank you. I'm done. Those are my call.

I had a question regarding the total square feet of retail development for the mixed use development. In the staff report, I see it's minimum of a 125,000 square feet. And then in the CEQA document, it references 388,097 square feet of mixed use development. I'm not sure where that number came from or if I was yeah. I don't know where that's from.

And then I also see, you know, other references to the 125,000 square feet. So I'm not sure how much square footage is actually being proposed. If it's a minimum, are you trying to meet that? Is the maximum one twenty five thousand square feet? Why does the CEQA document say 388,097 square feet?

I will speak to the 125,000, and I'll defer to First Carbon on the 368,000. The what has been discussed collectively over the past three years is that there will be a 125,000 square feet of ground floor retail within the mixed use district. And so that will be contained in that quadrant, which is right across the street from city center. So it's a 125,000 square feet. I I believe the let's go back to the general plan description.

A minute so the general plan description is a minimum of a 125,000 square feet, so that's the minimum that we will hit as part of the Orchard's development, and our site planning includes that 125,000 square feet based off of the the current massing study.

So does that mean that you are also proposing, like, in addition to ground floor or some other above ground retail uses as well that would surpass that 125 square feet, and that's why the CEQUA document says 388.

Hi. Yeah. I can answer that. So that that 388,000 number is for the total development within that district. It's not just for the commercial development. It's for the mixed use development in total. Does that answer your question?

Yeah. So but that still leaves me to, like, are you guys potentially going to do more above ground retail?

So our site planning with the red that's shown in the the quadrant, that is 125,000 square feet of ground floor retail. The larger number just under 400,000, that includes the square footage of the residential that's on top of that ground floor retail.

Yeah. I I think it you know, when I was looking over at the materials, I think there's a little bit more specifics in regard to, like, the multifamily district and you guys wanting to pursue six to seven stories for most, but aside from the affordable housing. But for the mixed use development, it's still a little bit more hazy, and that's something that I kinda struggled with, especially since you were you did the one five one eight three, and it was a programmatic level. So I'd like to see, like, I guess, more like, a a breakdown of what the potential buildings would look like and, you know, just a little bit more detail.

We can we can provide additional detail on the massing. We we do have massings for a one, a two, and d from BAR, the architect, which outlines a number of floors, average unit size, corridors associated with the retail. So we we do have that information, and we can provide that in a subsequent memo or email.

Okay. My other question was in regard to the interim conditions, and I think sure Albert went ahead and touched on it. But for the 2.5 acre park, I'm assuming that would just be hydroseated. Yep. But but even though it shows, like, a park that's being

built out Yes. So it it it would be hydroseated.

Okay.

And then my other clarifying question was regarding the greenway and the multiuse trail pathway. Would that be completely built out during the neighborhood district?

So it would be built incrementally with the different phases just to ensure that it is not kind of destroyed or impacted as part of the future development. We will rough grade the entire 92 acre site. And so within the neighborhood district and within the affordable I'm gonna just draw generally. That did not work. This is not working very well for me. But it it would cover kind of the the the highlighted green area that's contained within the perimeter greenway that would be developed as part of the neighborhood district and as part of the affordable development.

Okay. And and it wouldn't be connected all the way to go on the east and the west to the multifamily and the mixed use areas yet until those phases are in development?

That that's correct.

Would it at least be, like, an area that people could potentially use to connect? Would it be, like, clear, or what would that look like?

So what we're proposing to do if you look at the black and white portion of this, the site plan, is we're proposing to keep that intact, at least temporarily, so that we can activate those spaces. So they would be able to access them. They'd be able to walk through them, but they wouldn't be fully improved with the 14 foot pathway and the EVA access, which is contemplated as part of the multifamily and mixed use districts from the fire review.

Does that mean that there would not be, like, fencing around so then people couldn't access those parking lots?

So it's it's envisioned that the parking lots will remain in place with the trees and the landscaping along Blunders Canyon. So people would have access to go through those areas very similar to with B R 1 A and B R 3 A. Those are currently not fenced outside of Heritage Park, which is under construction. So the intention is that we're not building fences as part of the multiphase development. So if something's not actively under construction, our intention is to keep it open.

Okay. And then in terms of the Eden affordable site, you know, once you do get through the project level, specific review of getting these entitlements granted, would we then go ahead and see the affordable site with that development agreement come forward at the same time, or would that be, like, a two step process?

As I may have mentioned before, the Eden standalone 100 units is being provided as the commitment to the Neighborhoods District. And so without an approval of the Neighborhoods Districts, one would not be able to approve the Eden housing stand alone project. And so the expectation is that once this project goes through its review process and if it is approved, Eden within Trail Behind after the approval of this project, there will be a development agreement associated with that project that would would be considered as part of that application.

I guess my concern is if we do approve it, you know, it's it's like you need one in order to get the other. Would there be some sort of conflict if planning commission would move forward with approving this and not having any of affordable site, like, any affordable homes, I mean, to satisfy to satisfy our I h a IHO?

The conditions of approval will require the affordable housing commitment and the numbers that are associated with the Neighborhoods District, specifically what has been proposed as part of the affordable housing plan. So the affordable housing plan will be an attachment to the approval. And as a condition of approval, the numbers associated with the Neighborhoods district in one of the tables that is attached to the staff report will be a condition of the project.

Okay. And would we just be I know that it's mentioned about the, you know, multifamily and the mixed use and what those affordable requirements would be. Would that also be part of this even though we're not looking at the project specific details yet? So the commitment that the applicant has made is that as part of their affordable housing plan, those are the the minimum numbers that are going

to be provided for Orchard's master plan. And those are numbers that they're committing to as part of the approval of the project. We will have the way that we anticipate structuring the conditions will be conditions specific to the master plan, which will be the overall total unit count and the affordable associated with that. And then there will be a separate set of conditions that will be specific to the Neighborhoods District. Then those will be added as as separate obligations to Neighborhoods District as that gets entitled the obligations for that particular entitlement.

Okay. And then my last question is regarding traffic. Since the traffic analysis and the VMT analysis were both completed for the project, And we do know the programmatic levels of which to what that square footage would be developed. Would we when those project specific, you know, mixed use and the multifamily come, would the applicant again have to do a new VMT and another traffic study, or would they just fall under the scope of what has been done for the one five one eight three at this time?

The way that we've approached VMT specifically because that is an obligation of CEQUA to evaluate VMT is that with each new additional application that's filed, we have required, a additional VMT analysis specific to that project. We do know from a program level that the expected unit count within the master plan does address VMT and a reduction of VMT through measures that are in will be made conditions of the master plan. But we do anticipate with each entitlement similar to how we've been doing each project, you you would have an additional VMT memo that that trails that. From a CEQUA standpoint, level of service and traffic operations is is no longer considered part of the CEQUA checklist review. And so traffic operations is typically handled differently depending on peak trips and and how many those generate.

So we would have to look at it that on a project by project basis as they come along.

Okay. Thank you. That's all my questions.

So, Cindy, I'm gonna keep you on spotlight here. So just from from the commission's perspective, I would like to understand the entire project timings and what would be the dependencies. Some of the questions that have been earlier earlier alluded to by chair as well as other commissioners. I wanna say we are looking at total seven pieces of it, MJ two twenty twenty four all the way to ENVR twenty twenty five zero zero three. So total seven pieces that would encompass the entire Orchard's development project.

But here, we are looking at two things, the overall aspect as well as an individual component of it. Right? So I want to understand what would be the dependencies and what would be the how would the timing look like? Say, for example, as Stephanie has mentioned, after the demolition, it would take two years to build. What would be the other dependencies that we have to consider as planning commission?

So we've mentioned that the master plan and the development agreement that will follow is sets a twenty year development agreement for the build out of this project. The development plan application that's is has been filed sets up the maximum number of units within each of the neighborhoods and the program details associated with within those neighborhoods. So within the design guidelines, you have things related to architecture and parking and setbacks. And so the master plan creates that framework where it would allow the development to progress over a twenty year period. What's in front of the the commission this evening is the, again, specific entitlements for the Neighborhoods District, the three sixty eight units plus the 58 ADUs.

If the commission approves the entitlements and it's not called up for review or appealed to the city council, the applicant can then begin construction of to of the development to improve it so that, ultimately, a final map that allows for the sale of those units can then commence. So the the expectation is that the neighborhood's districts has will be fully entitled if if the planning commission approves this project. That allows them to move forward with construction of the project. The master plan, if if the commission chooses to approve that, then creates the framework for the future phases, but it doesn't provide enough detail right now to show how what how many floors are gonna be in the building. You only know there's a general expectation of how many floors based on the design guidelines, but you won't have that project level detail until the entitlements are actually filed for each of those buildings as well as for the park.

Can I just ask, is your question trying to get a sense of when we might see the mixed use or when we might see, you know, the next phase of something after we get through this piece, I think? And I I think the applicant can probably address sort of what they're thinking is. I know probably the very first words are gonna be depending on market conditions. Absolutely. But is that is that the nature of your question?

No. My nature of question, from timing perspective, especially, there are total seven project applications that are that have been put forward, right, that we are looking at. But one specific neighborhood district that we have information that we would be moving forward along with the components that we will look at to see, okay, do they satisfy the 15% affordable housing? So where should the timing be? We have, as commissioners I'm only looking from a timing perspective, perspective, and they will look individually.

If we approve this, what are the timings or the conditions that we can provide in this approval? Do we see this affordable housing by this time? By the time can we do anything of that kind?

I understand. So there is there are seven applications that the applicant has filed, so formal applications. Of those seven, six of those are going to be requested for determination by this planning commission before we get to our five maximum public meetings. Those six applications will approve a vesting tentative map that will create the 191 lots that will then allow for the entitlement of the neighborhood's district and then future parcels that would then be created within the multifamily and the mixed use. There are those two development plans that I've mentioned for the master planning and for the for the neighborhoods district.

The tree removal, the environmental review, as well as the architecture review are all part of the commission's purview for approval when we hit our our maximum five public meetings. As part of that review, we would be looking for any comments or conditions associated with the affordable housing plan, the layout of the development, all the architecture related to the neighborhood's districts, the design guidelines, the comprehensive, you know, program programming of the the master plan. And so the decision before the commission is going to be everything that's been included except for final details associated with multifamily and mixed use. And and the timing would be typically, you know, however many meetings, it would take the planning commission to feel comfortable with with rendering a decision, but no more than five. And, hopefully, again, maintaining one for the city council at a minimum.

K. I think I'll have the subsequent question later. Follow-up, please go ahead. But

Sure. Thank you, chair. And I wanna thank staff and the consultants and the applicant for their very comprehensive presentation so far. I have a few questions, I guess, more related to outcomes, let's say. I have been listening to over this past week, I've been listening to all of the study sessions and workshops, you know, as this project has been before the planning commission, the council, various committees, etcetera.

And one thing that I wanted to ask is, has there sort of been a satisfactory, quote, unquote, resolution to concerns about single story or single floor homes? There were some members of the public, I believe, who really wanted to see single story homes in the neighborhood's district. And from my understand, those are really not economically feasible, which makes total sense. And I believe commissioner former commissioner Wallace discussed that. Well, the stacked flats in the I assume that would be the multifamily and possibly the mixed use portion of the district.

Those could be a suitable alternative. Could you could you make some comments about that if you regard that as a does that address the concerns of the public around single floor homes for households who are looking for that kind of product?

So great question, and I did omit that from my presentation. So thank you for bringing it up. As it relates to the concept of the single story homes, we had discussed the concept of stacked flats, elevator served flats, really serve the same need as a single story home where you can go in at the Ground Floor, you can take your elevator to whichever respective unit you live in, and those are generally single stories. So you have your kitchen, your living room, your bedrooms, your bathrooms on one floor. And so that offers an opportunity for people who are looking for homes that don't require stairs.

Now for people who still wanna own that single family home, the majority of the homes within the Neighborhoods District, although they are two to three stories, the predominant layout includes a bedroom bathroom on that Ground Floor, which would allow for single floor living to the extent that stairs ultimately do become a a problem. What we did discuss was to look at single story homes within the neighborhood district. It pretty substantially changes, one, the density of what we're proposing to build, and it also changes the street network. And one of the things that we heard pretty loud and clear was there's an emphasis on including a pretty high level of residential density given the city's requirements from the state to provide housing. And so we did our best to balance how do we have accommodation for people who are looking for that single floor living while also meeting the city's requirements and the zoning's requirements for minimum density thresholds.

Okay. Thank you. That's very helpful. My other question. So in the fiscal analysis, catchment l, I believe Sorry.

Buried within the analysis, there appear to be some estimates, let's say, of eventually what the homes in neighborhood district are going to sell for. I believe the lowest prices are for the, I wanna say, the attached row homes, and that's starting that's, like, 1,250,000.00, and you get up to around 2 and a half million for the the largest homes, which would be the court homes. Well, I guess, could you say a little bit more about, you know, about those prices? I guess, more specifically, like, who you expect these who you expect to move into these homes? What kind of households and people will these homes serve at given those prices?

So part of the fiscal impact study was informed by existing housing prices within the city of San Ramon. And if you look at the existing housing stock carving out, I'll speak to City Village separately, the median house purchase price in San Ramon ranges from 1.4 to $1,800,000. And so we also looked at what are the home sales prices for City Village. And City Village is a different type of housing type that has been built throughout San Ramon. It's the most dense product that Summerhill has built within the Bay Area.

And so it's much denser. You have smaller lot sizes. And so although it is a pretty big purchase price and sticker shock, it is a different type of housing than what has predominantly been built within San Ramon. And when we look at who's buying the townhomes, you're looking at young families. You're also looking at people who are downsizing from large homes with large yards that no longer serve the household. You may have empty nesters. You may have people who are downsizing. So within Orchards, we have a variety of different housing typologies where we have three bedroom homes. We have five bedroom homes. We also have a number of ADUs within the courts.

We have one story as detached ADUs. That's an opportunity for either an in law unit, or it could be a home for a college student or a recent college grad, or it can be an opportunity to generate rental income. Within the townhomes, we also have ADU opportunities. And so, similarly, it offers multigenerational housing and also offers incomes income opportunities for rental.

Okay. So then to just summarize, the intention, which I believe you say it from the beginning, is because we have such a diverse typology. You know? You can really add a lot of flexibility and diversity to our housing stock so that, know, you like you said, people who are in a larger home on a larger lot could downsize into one of these homes here and free up their just allow them to be a little bit more mobile, let's say, in their housing choices. That that's the that's been the intention from the beginning.

And that has been the intention within the housing that we're building within the larger

Okay.

Bishop Branch District is to make sure that everyone has the ability to move in. And that's one of the things that we look at with Eden's affordable housing where we have people who have lower incomes, are able to access the really great resources within San Ramon, offering housing for families, offering housing for recent college grads, creating that studio unit that hasn't been built within San Ramon for the past several decades.

Okay. Great. Thank you so much.

Just a clarification. This was to clarify the questions with the city staff so that we could ask the

Yeah.

It's far. Is this

Either either Okay. The US.

I have some questions for both Maddie and mister McKenzie as well. Okay. So to begin with, can I go ahead for Maddie's question? Where on page 22 of the deck that was presented by the city staff, the environmental effects that are peculiar to the project or its site. So what are the effects environmental effects that are peculiar to the site that have been identified?

What can you list them out, and what are the impacts that need to be or what are the adjustments that need to be made regarding the EIR reports that pertains only to this site, not in general everywhere?

Mhmm. So the the consistency checklist that we prepared, it did not identify impacts that are peculiar to the site. It did identify areas where mitigation from the general plan EIR needed to be applied, but we don't consider those peculiar to the site since they were already

So just understanding. So being next to freeway is not considered peculiar for this site. The noise would not be considered peculiar. So what do you consider peculiar? Could you kindly elaborate on that? Because I'm trying to understand the situation, how 92 acres that is sitting right next to Inverness Park Parkway in the back and freeway to its And if you can elaborate a little bit more, you have provided a checklist, but how did you look at it? Those are the things that I

would want

to do. For clarifying. So when I say we didn't identify anything peculiar to the site, I mean, we didn't identify a more significant impact. The analysis that we prepared in the consistency checklist looked at all of those individual features of the site. So, for example, noise, which you brought up, there was a a project specific noise analysis prepared per the mitigation measures of the general plan EIR, and it was determined that the noise levels wouldn't exceed any thresholds.

Okay. May maybe if I could help. So the general plan included a full EIR, and what we did for this was a checklist against this project as it relates or compares to the already adopted full sequel analysis that was done as part of the general plan. And when you talk about was there something exceptional, it's was it exceptional over what's previously been studied by the general plan? Is that right?

So you are comparing all the numbers to the general plan 2040?

Mhmm. We're comparing we're preparing an analysis specific to the project site and looking at if the significance level was higher than what was predicted in the

What would be that percentage? Or how far off the standard deviation does

it need to be?

It depends on the threshold for the topical area. And so in the general plan EIR, impacts were evaluated significant and unavoidable, less than significant with mitigation incorporated, less than significant or no impact. We did an individual analysis of this project and made sure that there were no topical areas where the impact was considered higher than what was evaluated for that topical section in the in the environmental impact report for the general plan.

Okay. There are there are some numbers somewhere that does a comparison in the EIR report that you guys have provided?

Okay.

They didn't further. Could you could you kindly expand on the comparisons that you did? Are there tables or numbers that you would be providing?

So in this in this consistency checklist, it goes through each topical section. So air quality, aesthetics, noise, all of those.

Page 23. That Yeah. General public. I want to see how how was the comparison made to general plan. Are there numbers somewhere that you guys can help provide?

Through through the chair. Attachment e to the staff report has the 194 pages of the checklist. The checklist includes a specific analysis of each of the topics that Maddie's referring to. So they go from aesthetics in alphabetical order down, and they do it at both project level and program level. And a comparison to the general plan EIR is provided within that checklist document.

So each topic is evaluated. There's a summary at the start of each topic that is yes or no, and then details that follow within each topic within those sections.

Okay. And the percentages would be there. Thank you very much. Thank you. That's all I was looking for.

Okay.

And my next question for mister McKenzie regarding the traffic study. So thank you very much for providing the overview. So I'm gonna ask you two questions. Probably, the second one might be very easy. The first one, when you took into consideration the overall noise and traffic considerations, did you look at just the Orchard's development, say, in the next twenty year period where it would be a peak 95 percentile where you were looking at?

Or would it also consider all of the traffic that would be created because of the other developments within the San Ramon?

Yes. Both in two separate scenarios. So we looked at exit what is called existing plus projects, where it is just orchards layered on top of present day conditions. So that's documented in the traffic operations report. Separately, we looked at a cumulative plus project scenario, which looks at all the background growth within the city over the next fifteen years, assuming it all built, and we layer orchards on top of that. So both scenarios are presented separately in the report.

Okay. And in some of the considerations that you have I'm trying to look at the the considerations that you have given. You had 680 South Ramp in the conclusions page. I I don't see the page number, but it's a conclusions traffic operations project. So you have considered three items.

These delays can be reduced. One at Sunset Drive, the other traffic flow westbound, but 180 South. Have you considered 180 North oh, sorry. 680 Northbound, which in the current scenario backs up all the way to the City Hall just in the regular times?

Yes. We did consider that location. So you're talking about the westbound direction on Bolinger Canyon Road. You're going towards the freeway. You're going towards 680 North Correct. And it backs towards City Hall. Yeah. We're aware that, especially in the morning, there's backup there. And then sometimes in the evening, there's there's traffic also. What we found was that the only thing that would improve conditions in that direction is really expanding the road, and that's not really something that's within the remit here.

So striping changes and signal changes wouldn't really they'd be tinkering around the edges. They wouldn't really have much of an effect because you already have a really advanced signal system already in place that's squeezing as much capacity out of that road as it as it can generally in that direction.

That would be my next leading question that you have said. Are there any options either from a city perspective or from your perspective that you have recommendations of additional links to the northbound or southbound? In the at least in the current scenario that we are seeing, it's already at its peak, the 95 percentile that you're mentioning, but I don't know.

In my estimation, the current right of way cannot accommodate any additional lanes. It's maxed out. So

It's gonna Yeah. It's only gonna get worse. Okay. So just a generic question. As I mentioned, in your expertise level, how would you consider the current traffic in Downtown San Ramon on a scale of one to ten, ten being going smooth as butter, with one being having difficulty getting onto the freeway, getting onto the anywhere within San Ramon.

I mean, just name a few streets that you're thinking of.

Just getting in and out of freeway onto Bollinger.

Yeah. I mean, in this area, the current conditions is what we observed. In the spectrum, it's kind of in the middle because what we're seeing was pretty good progression of cars onto the freeway off of Bollinger and in the opposite direction in the peak. I think it's better than it was in the past when the corporate headquarters was fully occupied, and there was more traffic levels at that time.

So would you rate that with a number on a one to 10 scale? Five, six, seven?

Well, I would I would characterize, like, we have this scale level of service, which intends to characterize what you're looking for, a through f. And generally, it's kinda c with occasional d. So that kinda gives you a sense it's in the midpoint.

Thank you very much for all your honest opinion. Sure.

Through the chair, if if I could just point out so attachment l is the traffic operations analysis. If you're looking for, based on the way that we generally grade level of service operations at intersections, there is an existing without project analysis that's provided in the operations memo. And then as as Andy has mentioned, there's a scenario that includes the existing with the project layered on top and then the cumulative plus project. So if you're interested in in the performance of the streets and how they are currently performing in comparison to the project, you would be looking for for the scenarios within attachment l.

Absolutely. Thank you. Thanks, Cindy.

Just a couple of questions. I'll stick on traffic for just a sec. Some of the recommendations were for things like striping or adjusting signals. It's probably a question for Cindy. My understanding is that's a city responsibility to implement things like changing the signals on San Ramon Boulevard in Bollinger or Bollinger and Sunset or Bollinger and Bishop Ranch 1. Is is that is that correct understanding? The

traffic operations report was prepared by the applicant and then peer reviewed by city engineering staff, traffic engineers. And, ultimately, the traffic engineer agreed with the recommendations that it have been proposed as part of the operations memo. So the three very specific measures that were identified that would be made conditions of project approval would be incorporated into help alleviate some of that level of surface at specific intersections. We did also evaluate opportunities of of improvements that could be done within the city's right of way. And as the report details that making some changes within these intersections do have downstream impacts as well.

And so there are some unintended consequences when you're improving one area that could lead to delays in in other areas. And so looking comprehensively at the summary of of the suggestions, the city came to an agreement that the measures that have been provided are the measures that would be applicable and and conditioned as part of this project. There are limitations to what can be done within the city of right of way, again, because of geometry and and availability of land. And but there are other opportunities, as Andy had mentioned, in the future that has not been modeled in these scenarios that can improve traffic. And those are things that the city will continue to work with, you know, both traffic and our our engineering department on on alleviating

Right.

Those issues and and utilizing those solutions as they become available.

That makes sense. Great. Okay. Is there still a plan for a mobility center at Bishop Ranch one with a bus stop and a bus station? Like, would you yeah.

So within the CityWalk approval, there are three mobility hubs that are planned for and dispersed throughout CityWalk, one being at B R 1 A, another one at B R 3 A, and then a third at, the Lakeside development. So those are planned and proposed within that development.

And that feeds into the because it wasn't mentioned in the traffic report, but that does feed into the ability to implement TDM policies. Okay. Okay. The other question I had really was for staff, I think. There was a fairly thorough fiscal impact analysis attached to the staff report, and it did talk about, you know, revenue that would be expected as well as, I think, some analysis of how it came to be. We haven't talked about whether that's part of the approval or what, if anything, this commission as part of what the task in front of us, we should consider as part of that that that that analysis?

You can look at the fiscal impact analysis that's been attached more as a for your information. Ultimately, the city has a policy that requires that any development project pays its fair share of any impacts it may have to city services and facilities. Projects are conditioned to provide a fiscal impact analysis to demonstrate that they will not have an impact to services and facilities. We typically require that at the time that an application is filed, and then the condition will require that prior to final map that a new fiscal impact analysis be updated because, potentially, tax revenues, sale prices, all of those things could potentially change depending on when the final map is actually secured. Okay.

And so the analysis currently identifies that the project will be fiscally positive for the city, and the condition will essentially require that the impact analysis continue to demonstrate that. Otherwise, it would have to provide some other funding mechanism to support city services and facilities.

And and my understanding is that process takes place with all developments, And the the commission really isn't involved in that other than the initial approval of the project that includes a condition to do exactly what you said.

That's correct. And and it's reviewed with our finance department.

City manager. Great. Thank you. Okay. K. With that, we've been going two hours. I think we probably have some public comment. How do you all feel about continuing, or do you that's okay. Continue is okay. Okay. Why don't we do that? At this time, I'd like to open the public comment and looking to see if we've received any written comments in advance. And do we have speaker cards? And I know we do.

We received written public comment from Sue Wilde, Marissa Wilson, Brian Swanson, and James Lloyd with CalHDF, and I do have speaker cards. Susan Johnson.

Alright.

Greg Carr.

Greg Carr, Shannon Mum resident. I wanna thank Alex Marin Junior through the television for sending two people who know something down here to give brief presentation on what's being done. His representative Jennifer and the traffic excuse me, transportation consultant, handy. You know, people do look, and I look. Thank you.

And there was a breath of fresh air to see in the transportation assessment how out 2040, at a time where either I'm dead or in an old folks home sucking water on a straw, that the consultant tells us the obvious. It's transportation level of service f. And it's hard to answer that question. I was surprised he tried to make a stab at it. I wouldn't.

K. But that's what's coming at you. Those of you who will still be here, perhaps the two on the starboard side over here. Anyway, some things to check. Make sure that the park requirement park space requirement is met. I noticed that there's a lot of green space around the outside. It's kinda like a sound barrier visual barrier. See how they count the space. Just make sure this project on this site is doing what is supposed to per hour requirements. That's all.

Then it would be interesting to have staff oh, no. I I want to, you know, back up. It would have been clarifying if staff had instead of, you know, I'm presenting numbers and pictures, had showed us what the general plan requirement calls for for that site. All the requirements. What is this? That can be done there. And then show that through pictures, and then show how how the proposal from the applicant overlays and what has to be done, if anything. That's the first step. And people who come down here would perhaps like to know that. At least one would or maybe two or three.

Anyway, so the other thing that staff could do is to compare how much sales tax revenue, property tax, which is, you know, in a small pittance from the from the county is was at the high peak of Chevron paid versus an approximation of what the Northwest corner is going to contribute. Because as you all know in my ten seconds, we're gonna have a budget shortfall again. Adding 1% just didn't cut it. So don't be surprised if the powers that be come back. Oh, well, you can pay another percent.

Something's wrong with that. The problem with the project is it's taking out potentially too much commercial and the tax paid by it, and it's implanting a bunch of, you know, residential. And, oh, by the way, don't forget about the county. All that tax money, property tax, we're gonna get a lot of that. Sales tax, we're gonna get a lot of that. Who's gonna pay for the updated patrol cars, police services, road maintenance, etcetera, and the new development? So those are things the city has to take care of. Thank you.

Rob Motall.

We've lived here in San in Venice Park nearly forty years, and I want to get to two of the questions. One of them, both Chevron and Sunset have been great neighbors for us so for all that time. And I would hope and expect Sunset and The Orchards will continue with that vision of San Ramon. It's a beautiful city and to work not only in a transactional way, which is what we're doing here, but in the vision for what we want going forward. There's many people here who are building up significant home equity, and the price of 2 and a half million that you throw out may sound daunting, but that'd be trading in homes almost the same prices.

So I don't think that the cost is as big of an issue as it should be. And if we would go to single family, single story homes as Max already questioned and was thrown out as being uneconomic, if those homes could sell for 3,000,000 or whatever, there may be people who want it. Now I'm not proposing we throw this whole thing into saray and go back to step one, but I think as a minimum, we should give the developer of those court homes at the ADUs the option of considering some portion of that going to single story homes. And that can be worked out over years, but at least at this point, get it in everyone's minds that this is not open and shut and completely over with. The other one is transportation.

We it almost sounds like we are designing a car wreck. We hear we can't do handle the right of ways. We can't expand this. We can't expand that. But that to me is not a vision of a beautiful city.

We want a city where people enjoy living here. And I think in some way, while even though we're only addressing this on transactional single project basis, we need to develop into an overall plan. If that means financial compensation or something to build more in the future as we need it, we don't know what we need in twenty years. I agree with that. I mean, cars may going to different directions. We may all be working here in in town, but at least consider that in what you're doing. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for coming out tonight.

Jim Lichtenstaff.

Good evening, Gary and commissioners. Always have a comment or two on projects this huge and this, impacting, and there are a lot of moving parts, so we can't cover them all tonight. And in fact, the traffic, there's a 500 pound gorilla in the room when it comes to traffic. That's limitations on six eighty. We're not the only one building thousands of homes.

The whole corridor has projects in the works, and it's not an instrumental problem. You can't solve it here in the city, but you can address it through league of California cities to the county and the state. And because it doesn't do much good if you have flow trap traffic flowing nicely in the city, and you just get to a ramp and and you stop. So we have a bigger issue there that is not too big to take a look at. I wanna comment on landscaping, basically.

I appreciate little extra landscaping going on in the buffer zone. That's important. That that green aspect of the Bishop Ranch Park is a very important aspect of making this visually attractive. And and architecture is another part of the visual attraction. I white is a hard color.

Black is a hard color. Gray is a hard color. So the more you put housing into certain kind of hard colors, the generally less attractive it is, and also you need textures. So I recommend on as an example, North North Canyon, just before El Costa on the North Northwest Side side of it. There there's condos that are yellow, beige, browns, and and maybe even a little green, and it it fits nicely.

It it the eye likes to see stuff like that. I like to see it. But I think it's visually interesting, and that's another way of making this a more attractive thing. And the a key part for me always is parks. They get short shift most of the time from staff. It's an afterthought. The main thing is housing opportunity sites, certain retail compatibilities, and then, oh, by the way, we gotta deal with parks. But I'd like to see compliance with the general plan. It's not there as a suggestion. It's there whereas it's there with obvious standards that we need to observe.

All this relates to quality of life. So I'd say, let's look at parks and if you have to raise fees or whatever, that's only a small part of it. And I like to see dedicated a item on this project of parks. We we ignore parks. It's an afterthought.

Oh, by the way, there'll be landscaping and we get two and a half acres for 6,000 people. I'm just saying there's a way to deal with it on an objective level and make sure our standards for quality of life include adequate parks. And if that that gets look into all the aspects of that, not just on the site itself, but that's the key part. And if you can make that item or just a subject matter, maybe almost as important as housing opportunity sites. It it relates to the people of San Ramon.

They don't wanna see, you know, just another city coming up. They wanna see something that makes Saint Rose special. Parks are a big deal. That's part of it. So to the extent you get staff to do that, I think that's a good idea. You have to mandate it, I think. It's not something they automatically wanna do, but that's essential. So I think those are the key things for now, and I'm glad you're doing one in January 6 because I might have something else to say.

Thank you.

Figure out the date before we go home tonight for sure. Yeah. Thank you, Jim. Okay.

I have no other speaker cards.

Great. Okay. Well, then we'll go ahead and close the public comment. Thank you all for coming out. At this time, it's our time to give give comments, but more importantly than comments is give direction to staff for what we feel we would like to spend additional time and energy on at a future meeting.

You know? And then we can discuss with staff, you know, when that meeting might be. But at this point, you know, are there specific comments that you'd like to direct either the applicant or staff? And keep in mind that, you know, that the focus for the next meeting will be, you know, two things. One, you know, I I will say I need more time for all all this just sort of percolate in my brain.

So I'm gonna I'm gonna need more time for another hearing with absolutely no new information, but there might be things that we need additional information on tonight. So with that sort of opening comments from me, are there specifics or comments you would like to share with either the applicant or staff, and if there are things that you think would be worthy of additional time on next our next agenda. Mhmm. I mean, who wants to go first? No. Start start right there. Please turn it

First of all, it's hard to say that we need more given the the volume that we we came home with. But, you know, one of the topics that I would like to see a little more content on is this issue of the bioswales and how we're dealing with stormwater mitigation. Yeah. We'll just leave it at that.

Can you put the left? Loop to the right?

Mister Zhang. Yeah. Sure. I was wondering in response to public comment. So regarding the park provision, it it's relatively it's been relatively under discussed.

Now I have had a conversation with staff about our general plan, Parkland acreage per thousand units, and how we're meeting those goals. Now I understand it's complicated, especially when you have the situation where these are privately owned but publicly accessible parks. Would it be possible if not tonight, that's okay. But just to to have a little bit more clarification on what the city is doing in order to, you know, achieve our overall goal of providing park space and how that how projects like this relate to the general plan obligations that we've laid out.

There are a couple different places where the city provides park guidance and how that relates to new development. So in the general plan parks element, there's a discussion in there about how many acres per thousand people that the city would like to have at long term build out. So there's a projection of how many people will be living in Saramone in the year 2040, and then a identification of how much additional parkland would be necessary to sustain our goal of having 6.5 acres per thousand residents. This project so so that's one one policy discussion within the general plan. How you actually then implement that is through the Parkland dedication ordinance.

And the ordinance goes hand in hand with this policy. So the ordinance sets up the requirement that any new development, and specifically like subdivision development. So single family units, for example, the townhound units have a specific commitment of how many how much park acreage per unit is going to be generated in terms of a demand per development. The obligation with any project is that it has to meet the Parkland dedication ordinance. That is then made a condition of project approval that through the Parkland dedication ordinance, the applicant will fulfill its obligation and commitment for Parkland to be able to then allow the city to get to achieving our 6.5 acre per 1,000 resident goal.

This project already contemplates 2.5 acres of the standard park that is within the center of the development. That park is proposed to be privately maintained, but publicly accessible. So ultimately, the project will have a number of parklands that's calculated through the parkland dedication. Two and a half acres of that park is going to already be made as a commitment towards the parkland dedication. And then there are additional park areas within the development that can also be counted towards parkland should the city determine that those are large enough in size, you know, provide amenities that are again considered publicly accessible but privately maintained.

And so the short answer is that the conditions of approval will dictate that the project provides meeting the Parkland dedication ordinance. The development agreement will secure those obligations that the applicant will contribute to Parkland dedication. And the negotiation of how much parkland will be done as part of the review of the parkland dedication through park staff and and plan parks commission.

So in short, we're well aware the state is well aware of its obligations and its goals. And in terms of this project, we're doing everything we should be doing.

That's a good summary.

Okay. Great.

I have one other comment. Well, this is some more big picture thinking, which I know have a little bit of a reputation of. Regarding traffic, so, you know, I first of all, I appreciate, Andy, the the analysis provided on the traffic. I think it's great to have this data driven and clear eyed perspective on what's going to happen on the area around Bollinger. Because, well, I'll be honest, I'm okay with the levels of traffic.

I wish it could be better, but I also recognize that, like, the more you know, if you just add one more lane, your traffic doesn't really get any better, like, induced demand and all that. So I guess I want to emphasize the fact that what Sunset is trying to do here in Bishop Ranch is help us sidestep the issue of traffic entirely because we want orchards and CityWalk and so on. You know, CityWalk is in the name. We want people to use alternative methods of transportation like walking. If we're going to have a mixed use retail cluster, then the people who are living in this neighborhood are not going to get in their car to drive, I don't know, a thousand feet to get to a grocery store or a coffee shop.

Right? Of course, the way that San Ramon is built out right now, there's a lot of need to you know, I can't get to City Hall without my car. It's totally impossible. But the people living in Orchard and the people that are going to be living in the downtown core are going to have a lot more options. And so, you know, given that how do you put this?

We can't not build. And if we chose to build less, we would just be building in a way that makes us more dependent on cars. So I think this is this is really the best solution that we have to to have this more forward focus or, I guess, technically, more past focused. Anyway, to have this more visionary approach, let's say, to changing how we live and reducing our dependence on the automobile and recognizing that there are other ways of building other cities so that, yes, traffic will will be an issue, but, you know, we people will adapt. We will adapt our our lifestyle patterns.

And and so I guess my you know, because we're doing such a big project like this, there's so much being changed. I'm not overall worried. I am actually quite I want to believe in this vision that we're going to to make Bishop Ranch a more walkable place. And I think the way that we're doing things, yes, there'll be some changes, but to to things like traffic, yes, there'll be some impacts, but this is us moving in the right direction because we can't go back in time. We can't kick everyone out in order to solve our traffic issues. The only way to to address traffic is to really address the way we live and the and the way that we build our cities. So those are my comments on traffic, and that's all I have for now. Thank you.

So there's several things that I would wanna see a little bit more information on. One of those things that I was thinking about was there's three connection points that would go onto the iron well, actually, four along Bollinger Canyon Road, along the mixed use district, and then, again, along the neighborhood district. And then we also have the multipath trail that would eventually connect to Bishop Ranch 1. The phasing, when you would anticipate to go ahead and get that work completed, what that would look like. Are there any off-site requirements, that would be needed?

I know that Bishop Ranch 1 were that, where John Muir Health is, that that parcel that's owned by them on the Northeast adjacent to the mixed use district. There's two stop signs and, you know, there's people that work in the office space, and people don't really abide by the stop signs. They just blaze through them. So what would Sunset do to go ahead and make that more pedestrian and bike friendly, to those that wanna go ahead and connect to the Iron Horse Trail. And then what that would look like for the multiuse path along Bishop Ranch 1.

I'm not sure if there's a path there already. I don't know if there's any intent to connect to something that would be down there, but I I thought I saw something. So, yeah, a little bit more about what those off-site improvements would be through Bishop Ranch 1 and what that would look like. I'm not even sure. I didn't realize that John Muir Health owned that parking lot that is pretty vacant and just sits there with maybe one car or security personnel person there.

So it's a pretty vacant piece of land, and I don't know what Sunset intends on doing with it. If well, it's not it's John Muir's. It's not your guys'. So is there kinda some talk about potentially developing that and what that would look like? I don't think I've heard anything about that parcel.

The other thing was so for the two and a half acre park, I'm not sure when that would be built out. I know it's part of the multifamily district, but when would that come into place? Would that be online before any of the buildings are built? What is your intention and how you would develop that? The other thing that I noticed was in the 15183 exception that was provided for this project.

There was a phase two, that was completed for the site, and it did have the removal of an underground storage tank. I didn't go into so far as to where that's located. And then there was also a mention of a soil management plan that was prepared by NGO dated 10/08/2025 and what that recommendation of handling soil and if there's any, wrecks on the site. I think my concern was I just wanna make sure that the parcel where the affordable housing would be clean and not have any wrecks or any soil remediation that would be needed since that would be a land transfer over to the city. I just wanna make sure.

The other thing was I know that in previous planning commissions related to the noise and also the air quality since we are close to the freeway, Having the condition of approval, I'm sure one of the mitigation measures was related to the STC rated windows and some sort of air ventilation system. So I just wanna make sure that gets in the conditions when we go ahead and do see the project move forward. Again, a little bit more about the timing for that multi path trail, especially related to the multifamily district and the mixed use district as well. And then I know, commissioner Candula also mentioned this, but when I was reviewing the CEQA document, it just overall says that orchards would be over a twenty year period, and it doesn't go as so far as breaking down when you would anticipate the mixed use in the multifamily district coming online, if we can just get a little bit more information. I know that it's market condition driven, and it's a little bit of a shot in the dark, but I think that we would want some a little bit more general guidance, especially as it relates to I know there's not a specific plan for this, but other cities and counties that do have specific plans, Even if it is a twenty year master plan, they they try to go ahead and and state what that year and that timeline would be.

Even if it is pushed out, it's something something is better than nothing, in my opinion. And then, it also goes too far as to state in the one five one eight three exemption that construction would be assumed to begin in June 2026 and conclude in April 2027, and that was on page 48. I don't know when at this point, it it seems like the demo permit would take a year to demolish everything that's existing there currently. So just a little bit of a breakdown so then we get an idea. And I know that you mentioned it in your presentation, Stephanie, but it would be nice to have a slide or a little bit more information, in a written way for the public as well.

And then my other question was, I'm not sure if the streets are public or private. If you could just touch upon that. And then I know that there's the park that's coming online to the east that's being constructed right now. So what are the amenities that are proposed there versus what the two and a half acre park would be? Are there some differences?

Could we go ahead and provide differences between the two parks just because they are really, really close to one another? So I'm not sure if it would be a little bit more repetitive to do the same thing over again. And I'm not sure what those amenities would be in that park that's to the east. And then the other thing that I noted in the traffic traffic study was there was pedestrian safety options that were outlined. I'm not sure what Sunset's goal or vision is or what they would like to go ahead and implement out of all those options.

It was just something that was mentioned as a recommendation, but I'm not sure if any of those, if any at all, would, move forward. My other question was for Chevron Drive. You're showing that as, you know, to be developed in a later phase. At what point will that be developed, or will that, like, drive be developed with the neighborhood district? Will that turn around?

Like, at what point will that come online? I'm not sure. And then my other, kind of question was whether or not, for Parcel A 1 and Parcel A 2 in the mixed use district, you do have a road that's going through there. And I guess my question was if Sunset had just thought about just making that, like, a pedestrian only space where there could be, like, outdoor dining similar to what we see, like, at San what what is that? Sand Sandhut.

Santana Row, something like that in San Jose. And then the other thing was in the where did I find this? So in the kinda, like, waivers that the project was asking for, One of those was parking and circulation, and the driveway distance from street corner does not meet a 150 foot standard. And then, also, it was another parking and circulation with the street design not including medians. I just wanna make sure that I mean, like, the traffic team has, I'm sure have you know, we we've looked at it, and it it makes sense that it's not gonna present any sort of safety concerns if we move forward with allowing for these requirements to not be met.

The other thing was in the one five one eight three. It mentioned three, potential mitigations for the VMT. And the third one on page one sixty eight was related to the city participating in a CCTA approved VMT impact fee program and or VMT mitigation exchange banking program once it is completed and published by CCTA. Not sure if, I know in the presentation that we had received from Andy that that was not mentioned. It was just the TDM.

And, but I I'm not sure if that's something that Sunset would potentially look at doing. That was part of the one five one eight three, but it didn't come up in the presentation. And then the other thing was it would be really nice to I know it was included in the LOS analysis, but what intersections were analyzed? I know that that's you know, one of the commissioners went ahead and asked, did you look at, you know, this off ramp? And I think it would be good to just make some sort of in one of the presentations, hey.

These are intersections that were analyzed. There's no off site improvements, I think, beside one striping one that you may have mentioned, but just kinda going over what was analyzed. And that's all. Thank you.

Through I'm gonna ask for privilege here. So, commissioner, I ask you a question? I mean, it's a very detailed list, and I appreciate your your thoroughness. But what about those questions that you haven't gotten answered that that relate to just this part of the project? Because I think now I've heard a couple of you mention issues about phasing in and timing, but what we're asked to do is to just consider this project.

And so I I think we're looking for forests when we're really actually only supposed to be looking at trees. So I don't know, you know, to what level is this phasing and the time part causing you anxiety?

So I'll I'll I'll start from my point of view. So when I really looked at it this is just my perspective, and probably I'll defer to Cindy to answer some of them. So, totally, there were seven different set of project applications that we would be approving based on this. And that would not only include the neighborhood, but it would overall give a template for all the project of Orchard. So that's where my questions arise, especially from a timing perspective.

So I understand there are seven total plus plus one specific. So are we when we are approving all of them, that's my understanding. Cindy, please help me out here. Is that the right way I'm looking at it? All seven of them belong to the Orchard project, and we are gonna approve it whenever it comes next or not approve, whatever the decision of the commissioners will be.

Yeah. Within the five. Within the five. These these are parts of essentially the same project. Tree removal and architecture, all of those are very common to be part of it. So we probably get words matter. So it's not seven projects. It's seven Applications. Really it's two projects. It's the master plan, and it's the neighborhoods.

Those are the two projects. But the approvals that are listed there are separate approvals, but all part of the same approval bunch at the moment. They're not seven projects. They're not seven projects that start all over. When we get to the mixed use, when we get to, you know, other subsequent, they will follow their own development process with their own hearings, and we'll discuss these. But it's very common that we'll see a tree removal application when we do a project, and that is we saw it with seven. We saw it with 11. We see these very, very common. So I think it's important to not call these seven projects because that, I think, gets us sidetracked on things. You know?

But to commissioner Kuznick's question, you know, I think it is it is important to make sure what we're asking for as a commission are necessary for us to make a decision, you know, especially when as it relates to what we're being asked to make a decision on. If there are things that we feel that would make sure that is important for us to know because it could influence the decision we're about to make in some way, shape, or form. Absolutely. We don't wanna stop that, and we don't wanna filter any of the questions out there. But let's just all keep in mind, that there's you know, if the answer doesn't matter, we're gonna make the same decision regardless, then it feels to me like it's a nice to know, you know, as opposed to just generating questions because they're interesting.

You know? So but they are they are all valid questions. I don't wanna I don't wanna stifle where people are concerned because, you know, sometimes it just means that it triggers something else. So there are are truly no bad questions, but, you know, we do need to make sure that we're asking the important questions because especially given that we have so few opportunities to have a public hearing on this topic. You know?

Please please go ahead, if you're not.

Yeah. I don't I mean, I don't think that I'm asking for too much. I just wanna know when the multifamily district will potentially start, when the mixed use district will potentially start, about the trail and the park. And just, you know, from a CEQA perspective, the applicant is required to tell us the timing and the phasing. I just mentioned the twenty years and the construction timeline, but I think for everyone's sake and for the public to know when things will be coming online, when things will be occurring, I think, would be very valuable.

K. I just have just a couple things that would be helpful, and I think it's consistent with some of the things that mister Vila asked for. And that had to do with the East West trap. This is part of the walking district, and there's some comments. So I think if we can get a little bit of a sense of the walking district and connectivity that this project's proposing as part of the project, I think that would be helpful.

I think the traffic at some point and it comes up a lot. You know? And I think I don't know, Steph. This is a generally, a city council or when we have nothing else better to do, it might be worth inviting the Innovate six eighty folks to one of our meetings to give us an overview of what's what's taking place because they are the people that are truly with city staff, and it's not the commission that generally sees us, but we ask about it all the time. If they could just give us an informational presentation on all of the things that CCTA in the county are in Caltrans are looking at for what they're doing about helping traffic move up and down the 680 Corridor.

It's not just as as you said, it's not just the building going on in San Ramon that's causing the traffic to flow slow down. It's much bigger than that. So whether it's already on the schedule for the city council and that we just all are known to go attend that meeting or if there's nothing scheduled and you find that we have a vacant night, then I think that would be very helpful for us to be more informed on. You know? And I think I need I don't have anything else to add to what I think we all would like to learn more about at a future meeting. And I'm gonna look to left, look to the right. Yeah. I don't yeah. You have more. Okay. Oh, you have questions? Oh, we're at the we're at the phase of comments at this point giving staff directions. So, you know, we had questions earlier. So do you have quest no. Comments.

Okay. Yeah. We do. Thank you, sir.

So thank you, chair. These are just the generic points, and it's a hard act to follow after commissioner went through such in-depth detail directions and things that she wants to see in the next meeting. Just at a high level, the timing came up multiple times, my earlier question. So I would really like to see the overall timings of the Orchard, all of the components that are coming in. That would be a clarifying thing.

And from a traffic perspective, one thing I complete I wanna thank the chair for bringing up the public transportation. And if there are if there will be any bus space, I I wrote it down, but I forgot to ask. Thank you for bringing that up if that is something of a concern. Second, third point, that walk pedestrian and bike safety stuff that was mentioned in the project itself for this where those components are. Sorry if I missed them.

That would be a good clarity point. Finally, from a traffic perspective, Andy presented, was there any study done? Because this is a long term project. The construction traffic itself that would spill over to Bollinger would be a major concern over a period of longer years. I don't know if those points were brought up anywhere.

Would be good to know how would it impact the Bollinger because it's like the main artery going to the heart. If there is any construction blockade even for a few hours, then San Ramon will scramble across various different draft claims. So that would be something that we'll be interested to see. Other than that, I think other commissioners and chair have already covered it. Thank you very much.

Great. Thank you. Okay. I'm gonna look to staff. First, I'd to get a long list, you know, of things that would be interesting.

I'm gonna go on a limb and say that we might not be ready to have a meeting the third second workday of the New Year, you know, given that it's the holidays. And so I'll look to Cindy and Lauren on when would make sense to come back for public hearing and official meeting number two with the intention being for us to have additional time to let all of this sink in and then, you know, do deeper deeper looks at some of the things that came were asked for tonight. You know? So I asked you to look at your calendar and see when that might make sense.

There are two meetings available in January, the regularly scheduled, January 6 meeting as well as January 20. Excuse me. Mhmm. And so those two meetings are available as the as subsequent meetings. There will be some effort necessary to address all of the questions and and comments that have been provided today.

Some of that will include some coordination with the applicant on responses that can then be incorporated into the staff report. I didn't hear any additional requests for additional studies beyond what has already been provided, and so there's not necessarily any new analysis that needs to be done. But just highlighting areas that may not have been identified this evening that are within the documents that are already provided. So with that being said, there's also certain conditions of approval that can address some of the comments that were made this evening associated with maintenance responsibilities, etcetera, part of the dedication obligations, and if it would be beneficial to provide a preview of those conditions with the next staff report so that you can see how some of these obligations could be addressed. And given timing between now and January 6, I don't think we would be able to produce that document.

But if we were to continue to January 20, we could provide that as an attachment to the staff report as well as like, a a q and a response within the staff report as well.

I think I think having a second meeting that includes continuing what we talked about tonight as well as it all truly comes together in the in the, actually, the conditions of approval. So having a draft of those a draft with underline and bold, it's not anything close to final at that point, and then using the meeting on the twentieth so we can actually have both of those, I think, makes a lot of sense, you know, so that we continue to move the project forward as well as give all of us the chance to really spend some quality time. And it's not really that we need new information, but, you know, a lot of the questions came up were in the environmental checklist and for the benefit of the public that just the checklist was a 194 pages. The attachments with all of the detailed engineering studies was over 6,000 pages. And all that's available on the city's web page.

And I, for one, can tell you that I did not read all 6,000 pages. I did download it to my computer and came back twenty minutes later when I got there. So I think most of our most of the information that we've been asking for is embedded in those documents, but having a little help getting to them would be helpful on the twentieth. But I also like the idea of looking at some conditions of approval that tie it all together would be useful. It would make that a very productive in another probably lengthy meeting, but on the twentieth.

And then we cannot think about it on New Year's Day or New Year's Eve. That would be I think that'd be my recommendation. You know, I'm not seeing anybody demanding a meeting on Tuesday, the sixth, so I think we'll move forward with that. So do we need a resolution to continue the public hearing to the twentieth?

Yes. We would need a motion and second to continue the meeting to date certain.

Okay. So

And and a continuation of the public hearing. Okay.

Mister Kuznicki,

you're good with the current meeting. So I I would recommend to have a continuation of this meeting with all the requests and suggestions that are brought by the commissioners and so that city staff also has enough time. Right.

And it's to dad just said the date certain of January 20.

Would would be 01/20/2026.

Do we have a second, please? Yeah. One second. Okay. I'll second that. Approval a motion by commissioner Kendall, second by commissioner Zhang. Okay. That motion was approved. Thank you, commission. Thank you, public.

On this, and thank you to the from Sunset and all the all the consultant teams for You're time with wanna thank the commission and the public for coming out as well as the as the applicant and the entire consultant team for being with us tonight. Thank you so much. And we're almost done. So item 11, study session, commissioner liaison reports, and interest item staff reports. Have any of the commissioners attended any of the have any liaison reports? You know? And as the consultants leave, I wish everybody a happy, safe holiday. You know? Okay. Any liaison reports?

Yes. I went ahead and attended the transportation advisory committee on 11/20. And some of the things that they discussed, one was the traffics JPA program and, you know, the school bus program and the kind of services that they offer. So it was pretty interesting to hear. The parents have to pay an annual fee of about $600.

And the schools are able to stagger their schedule and allow for other schools to use different bus services. The second one was they talked about the street smarts program and how they educate but don't enforce traffic laws, especially related to, the e bikes and e scooters. And then they also discussed traffic calming items, for three different locations, one on Furcrest Lane that was near a senior community and what traffic calming measures that they can go ahead and provide. The other was on a parking permit system near Dougherty Valley and how there's a lot of residents that are parking there due to an apartment complex and another one adjacent to it that go ahead and don't have enough guest parking. So they're using a lot of the residential parking, down below for the single family homes.

And then the third was Canyon Crest Drive Canyon Crest Drive West. Yeah. And some incident that occurred because I think someone just blew a stop sign. And then the other advisory committee that I attended was yesterday, for the open space advisory committee. So that was on 12:15.

And, essentially, what happened was that they didn't have a quorum at first. I know you were there, Gary, for the tail end of it just like I was. And they said that they would schedule another meeting to go ahead and publish their vision for what they would, you know, see it being as the open space advisory committee and what their charges would be per city council. And I think they're targeting the fourth Monday in January as a special meeting.

Thank you. Any other nope. Okay. Turn to Cindy.

So we were going to have a meeting on January 6, but as you are all aware, that that's been continued now to January 20 for Orchards. We don't have any other additional items scheduled for January 6, so it looks like we'll be going ahead and canceling that meeting, and then continuing on January 20. So far, just orchards for that particular meeting.

Great. Thank thank you so much. Okay. With that, wish everybody a safe holiday season. You know? And and if you're traveling holidays. The holiday starts. And we will go ahead.

Staff. City staff. Thank you.

Okay. Absolutely. So why don't we go ahead and adjourn at 08:46PM?