City Council and Authorities Concurrent - Special Meeting

City Clerk, you can tell me when we're ready.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, we're ready when you are.

All right. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Santa Clara City Council Stadium Authority concurrent meeting. It's actually a special council meeting tonight, so you're here at a special time. I'd like to call the meeting to order. Confirmation of a quorum, Assistant City Clerk?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, confirming quorum. And also like to note for the record that Council Member Chauhal is via remote this evening.

Yes, I'm here.

Okay, very good, very good. So we have one item for our session here before we start our regular meeting at 7 p.m. and that is action to conduct applicant interviews and appoint two applicants to the Civil Service Commission to serve one partial term ending June 30th, 2028 and one full term ending June 30th, 2030. So just for everyone's information, the partial term is potentially the longer term than the full term because you serve a partial and then be eligible for two four-year terms after that. So it could be a potential of ten years and then the other would be two potential four-year appointments. So City Clerk, you had some information. We originally had Four applicants.

That's correct, Madam Mayor. We had four applicants initially and one withdrew from the process. So tonight you'll proceed with three. And one of them is in person tonight, your first applicant, Barbara Estrada. And the other two applicants are online via Zoom.

Can you tell us, Assistant City Clerk, about the process in terms of timing for their presentations?

Yes, so they each, and they've all been informed of this, they each will have three minutes of an introduction followed by council questions and then followed by one hour, I mean one hour, one minute closing remarks. Okay. And then you'll vote for the, you'll do your nomination for those after.

All right, thank you so much. So our first candidate is Barbara Estrada. If you'd like to come forward, please, since you're here in person. Welcome, and when you're ready, you can begin. Barbara, can you please speak in, let's pull the microphone right over to your mouth so all the folks at home can hear you as well. Yeah, go ahead, go ahead. You can rearrange down there, it's okay.

I wrote a couple notes since it's been a long time since I've had to do an interview so Good evening mayor and council. I appreciate your time this evening. I Assume that you have my application in front of you, which I tried to give you as much detailed information Regarding me. I've been a resident in the city of Santa Clara for 48 years I've served on two commissions eight plus years on the senior commission and two plus years as the chair of that commission. I also sat on the redistricting commission to determine those districts. So, okay, let me go forward with my notes here. Okay. What kind of experience do I bring to this position? I have a 40-year career in civil service as a state employee. A big portion of my employment during that time was 11 years at Ag News. I was an HR manager and the last 17 years of my career I was a claims adjuster handling large claims in the system and the last period of time I was an audit manager at State Compensation Insurance Fund. So with that, I'm gonna talk a little bit about my personnel experience. I worked with pay scales, I worked with benefits, I worked with hiring above minimums, budgets, classifications, payroll, all phases of that position. So I'm exposed to what you're here tonight talking about the civil service department. And as a workers' comp manager, I co-managed a group of 50 people, staff, during that period of time. And I retired in 2009, only I really never retired. So I believe that I bring good communication skills. I believe that I'm able to work with different people that have different opinions and hope to bring that forward to this commission. You might ask me a question at some point about what am I currently doing now. So I just, currently I oversee a multi-million dollar, three RV parks for a Greek family that's in the area. And none of these parks are in the city of Santa Clara. One's in Sunnyvale, one's in San Jose, and one's in our large parks in Gilroy. So I oversee that process. And you can ask me anything you want about that, but I don't see any conflict. Okay, that's it. Thank you.

Thank you, Barbara. So as you've probably been made aware, we have some questions for you. Hopefully, you've been- I am now. No, I haven't.

I'm sure they sent them to me, but- Were they provided ahead of time?

I think they were. City Clerk, right.

No, I got them this evening. Not because they didn't send them to me. It's just I probably didn't see the email.

Oh, okay. I'm good. Okay, very good. We're going to start with Vice Mayor Gonzalez to take us with your first question for Barbara.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, Barbara, for applying.

Thank you.

The first question is, civil service commissioners may be asked to make decisions involving employees, management, labor organizations, and city policies. How would you ensure that your decisions are fair, impartial, and based on the facts rather than personal relationships or outside pressures?

Since I had to think about this on my feet, I've kind of explained to you how Workers' Comp worked. So as a claims adjuster, you have the role of many facets in that picture. And the best way I can describe it is that I have a responsibility to the employer, I have a responsibility to the doctor, I have a responsibility to the injured worker, and all the providers that come along with that. And then I have responsibility to my job. So if you take all that facets together, you have to figure out how to manage that. And I think that applies to this question. I'm a black and white person. I don't work in the gray. So I gather all the facts. I gather the information and make the best assessment that I can make and then go from there. So I hope that answers your question.

Thank you. Does Councilmember Chahal have the questions? Councilmember Chahal, question number two.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Thank you for applying, Barbara. Thank you. What do you believe is the most important role of a civil service commissioner? And how would you balance protecting the rights of city employees with the city's responsibility to maintain accountability, high performance and public trust?

I think it pretty much goes back to my answer in the first question. You have to understand what your role is in each one of those capacities. And I think that If you stay true to what you know and believe and learn what the protocol is and what the facts are, I think you'll always stay true to yourself and I think you'll represent the commission as best you can. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Hardy?

Thank you, Barbara. Do you have any thoughts about the high vacancy rate of our staff?

Actually, I'm surprised, actually. How would I answer that? Since I was in civil service and I love my job and maybe I made a decision at that point that I would stick with it and I'm grateful that I did because the benefits at the end really paid off. And so I'm not sure why the city would have that difficulty. And it depends on what areas are you hiring for. Are you hiring for maintenance? Are you hiring for clerical? Are you hiring for high tech? And depending on what departments you have the high vacancies. But there's many things out there with social media and just how you run business here that it shouldn't be that way, in my opinion. Thank you.

Thank you. So my question is, do you have any thoughts about why it takes so long to hire someone in Santa Clara after a position has been approved and budgeted?

Do I have any thoughts? Your questions are interesting. Since I was a personnel manager, there shouldn't be any delays. Once you have your funding, once you have your position, once you have your announcement that details all the positions, I don't know if it's how you're marketing. I'm not sure. But I would be happy to look into that for you. If I'm appointed to the commission and ask questions, I'm good at asking questions.

in my opinion it should not be happening but for some reason i guess it is thank you thank you barbara and then um councilmember park uh you have the final question yes thank you very much for for applying and coming in person thank you do you have any suggestions to improve recruitment of new employees

Well, I think first of all, you have to look at what the city is doing to recruit and see if there's more avenues and more exposure. Sometimes the bulletins are, I don't want to say they're confusing, but they're so... legally written that they don't present the position and the advantages of working for a city or a government agency. And since I came out of a government agency, I think, you know, that they should be utilizing Talking to high schools, some of these kids don't want to go to college, but they could have a great career in city government. I think social media, many other facets that maybe aren't being looked at at this point, but I can't tell you why because I don't know what you're currently doing.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Now it's time for your closing statement. When you're ready. Thank you.

I appreciate coming before you this evening. I believe that I'm committed to do my best work for the commission and would be very proud to represent the City of Santa Clara.

Thank you so much, Barbara. And again, thank you for coming and participating in this. If you just want to hold tight after we finish our next... Do I go outside? No, you can stay here. Our next two interviews, yeah, the other candidates just listened to you online. So yeah, it's okay. We'll be making a decision this evening. So just stay with us. Thank you. City Clerk?

Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. So Terrell Nelson is online and she's ready to go. Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, we can. Yes, we can. Go ahead, please. I think you know our process here. So whenever I hope you you have the questions that were given to you. I do. Okay, very good. So whenever you're ready to start, we'll be ready to hear you. So welcome.

Thank you so much. Good evening, Mayor and Council, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you. I'm Terrell Nelson. I've lived here in Santa Clara for over eight years. I started my career as a molecular biologist and later moved into field applications, technical support, and leadership roles across industries. Since then, I've built and led teams, coached employees, managed performance, made difficult staffing and resource decisions. One experience that I think translates particularly well to the Commission was my time at Roche, where I led the global case investigation and resolution group supporting regulated diagnostic products. Why this is relevant? When something serious was escalated, it was my job to understand what happened. That meant gathering the relevant data, hearing different perspectives, separating facts from assumptions, and reaching conclusions that were supported by the evidence, not just the loudest voice in the room. That same discipline and scientific rigor of gathering facts before forming an opinion is something I've also had to apply on the people side of my career. I know what it's like to hire someone, coach them, help them improve, and sometimes deal with difficult performance issues. I've also dealt with operational side of that, with vacancies sitting open too long, hiring timelines dragging out, and the real cost that has is on employees who are left covering the gap. I've had to build strategies to move faster without cutting corners and by disregarding process. And those experiences have made me appreciate how important it is to have a process that is fair to employees while still allowing managers to hold people accountable. That's a big part of what draws me to the Civil Service Commission. At its core, this commission exists to protect a merit-based system, so making sure city employment decisions are based on qualifications, process, and rules, not favoritism or politics. I like that it requires independent judgment. You must understand the rules, listen carefully, ask good questions, and make a decision based on what actually is in front of you, the data. Outside of work, I've lived in Santa Clara for many years and have looked for ways to give back locally. I'm volunteering with Second Harvest, supporting STEM and outreach within my company and with my community. Also serving on this commission feels like a natural way to bring both that commitment and my professional experience back to the community. I understand that serving effectively means knowing the city council service rules, processes and applying them consistently. What I bring from day one is years of experience leading people, building and following processes, evaluating difficult situations and making decisions thoughtfully and independently. Thanks for the opportunity to consider me.

Thank you, Terrell. We appreciate that. So we're going to start now with the questions. We'll start with Council Member Jane.

Thank you, Terrell. You've heard this before. Civil service commissioners may be asked to make decisions involving employees, management, labor organizations, and city policies. How would you ensure that your decisions are fair, impartial, and based on the facts rather than personal relationships or outside pressure?

Yeah, thank you. I think fair and partial decisions come down to discipline and how you approach them and not just good intentions. I'd start with the process rule or policy that applies. Look carefully at the facts. I want to hear both sides and ask questions if something didn't make sense rather than filling in gaps with assumptions. That discipline is something I relied on consistently in investigations at Roche. Different groups could have very different views of the same problem, and part of my job was separating that opinion out with what the evidence actually showed, regardless of who was making the argument or how senior they were. I bring that same approach to the Commission decisions. If I knew someone involved or had any potential conflict, I disclose it and step away when appropriate. And if I ever felt pressure from any direction, a department, labor group, or public opinion, the answer would be the same. The decision has to be based on the record in front of me and not who's applying the pressure. Even if someone disagrees with the outcome, they should be able to look at the process and understand how we got there to that decision.

Thank you. Vice Mayor Gonzales.

Thank you, Terrell, for applying. The question that I have for you is, what do you believe is the most important role of a civil service commissioner? And how would you balance protecting the rights of city employees with the city's responsibility to maintain accountability, high performance and public trust?

Yeah, thanks for that question. I think the Commission's most important job is making sure the civil service system is applied fairly and consistently. So decisions hold up regardless of who's involved or who's asking. I understand why the question kind of frames employee rights and accountability as being an intention, but in the moment, A manager or a leader trying to hold someone accountable and an employee asserting their rights can feel like opposing sides. But at the commission level, I don't think it has to be a balancing act between two competing interests. I've been a manager and director for years. I've hired people, coached them, dealt with performance issues and made decisions that affect people's careers. Employees deserve a fair process and a real opportunity to be heard. Managers, leaders also need to be able to set expectations and act when those expectations aren't met. Those aren't opposing goals. They both depend on the same thing, a defined process that that's followed correctly and applied the same way each and every time. So when something like a discipline appeal comes before the commission, I'm not there to take the employee side or the department side. I'm there to look at whether or not the rules were followed, whether the person was treated fairly and whether the decision is supported by the facts.

Thanks. Thank you, Councilmember Chauhal.

Thank you, Mayor. Thanks for applying. Do you have any thoughts about the high vacancy rates of our staff in the city?

Yeah, I don't have visibility into Santa Clara's specific numbers, but based on what I've seen managing through periods of high vacancy with my team and organization, it's rarely one cause. My instinct is that it's some combination of three things, compensation that isn't competitive with nearby employers, many times burnout-driven attrition, so people leaving, and how long it takes to hire once a position opens. opens up that last one the how long it takes to hire once a position open up can really make that vacancy rate look worse than it is since people may already be in the pipeline, but just haven't started yet. I've been responsible for staffing and capacity planning understaffed teams myself. So I take this very seriously regardless of the cause the work doesn't disappear when the position is empty gets absorbed by the people still there. And over time, it shows up in morale, burnout, and the quality of work. From the Commission's perspective, I'd want to know which of those factors, compensation, attrition, hiring speed, is actually driving the numbers here. Because retention, recruitment, and process improvements are three different fixes, and it really matters which one we're actually trying to solve for. Thank you.

Thank you, Amar. Thank you, Councilmember Hardy.

This is kind of a follow-up to something you mentioned. Do you have any thoughts about why it takes so long to hire someone in Santa Clara after a position has been approved and budgeted?

Yeah, again, I don't have the specifics of Santa Clara's process well enough to point to one cause, but my experience is really long hiring timelines after approval usually come from a few commonplaces, and I can guess that at least one of them may apply here. Often it's the steps tend to run sequentially that don't need to. So instead of running in parallel, they happen one after another. Things like testing, eligible list creation, interview scheduling, background checks happen one after another after another versus overlapping. Sometimes it's handoffs, so a candidate moves from HR to the hiring department to final approval, and each of those handoffs can add a few days, sometimes weeks, of waiting, even when everyone involved is responsive. And sometimes it's simply scheduling. Getting a panel of interviewers or a background check or start date approval all coordinated takes longer than the actual evaluation work itself. I also understand city hiring can't work exactly like private sector hiring. Testing eligible lists and other civil service protections, they're in place for a good reason. And the end goal isn't to shortcut those. But there is a real cost to the current pace, you can find exactly the right candidate and still use them because another employer move faster, so I want to confirm which cause or causes are actually driving that. that Santa Clara timeline specifically by looking at time and stage data, if it exists, or talking to the people managing each step rather than guessing. Once you know where the time is going, you can ask whether or not there's a legitimate reason for it or whether it could move faster without cutting corners.

Thank you. Thank you. Terrell, your last question and I know you've answered parts of this already. Do you have any suggestions to improve recruitment of new employees?

Yeah, one thing that I've learned from hiring technical and scientific teams is that you have to understand both what makes someone want the job and what might cause a good candidate to step away and walk away. I look at whether or not the posting really reflects the work, whether every requirement is actually necessary, and whether qualified candidates are sitting too long between those steps. Public sector hiring often has more steps than private industries. So communication matters even more. Even if the process takes time, more time, candidates should always know where they stand and what's the next step in that recruitment process. I've seen absolutely strong candidates walk away, not because of the weight itself, because they had no idea where they were in the hiring process and even if they were still being considered. I wouldn't lower standards just to fill positions faster, but I do think it's worth periodically asking whether requirements or steps we've always used are still helpful and help us find and hire the best people, or are they just adding time?

Thank you so much, Terrell. Now it's time for your closing statement.

Great, thank you. Thank you, Mayor and Council, again, for the opportunity to speak with you tonight. The more I've learned about this commission, the more it's interested me in becoming, it interests me in serving. These aren't abstract decisions that are made on this council. They affect someone's career, a manager's ability to lead a department, and ultimately how well the city serves the community. And based on tonight's questions, I feel you're asking, you know, also thinking hard about vacancies and hiring timelines. So those same stakes apply there too. I spent a lot of my career leading people, leading investigations, and it's slowing down, looking carefully at evidence, listening to different perspectives, making decisions that I could stand behind. I believe that combination, people leadership, evidence-based decision making is directly relevant to the work of this commission i've lived in santa clara for many years and want to give back more directly i bring a thoughtful independent practical perspective to the role and i would be proud to serve thank you for your consideration thank you and thank you for applying and we have one more candidate and then we'll be making a decision thank you so much thank you all right assistant city clerk

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So your next candidate and last one is Timothy Sy, and he is online.

Timothy, can you hear us? Timothy, are you there?

Unmute yourself, Timothy.

Okay, I think I did it. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can. So whenever you're ready, thank you so much for applying and welcome. And when you're ready, we're ready for your opening statement.

Sure. So thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you today. I have to apologize. I'm actually standing outdoors in a parking lot because I just came from San Francisco watch the Odyssey movie at the big screen IMAX there. So I jumped off of the cattle train to speak with you in this parking lot. So please excuse the background here. Just introduce myself. My name is Timothy Tsai. I've lived in Santa Clara for 14 years with my wife and two kids. I'm recently retired. For the last 11 years before I retired, I worked for NVIDIA in their architecture research group. And I had the opportunity to join NVIDIA right as the AI revolution was getting started in NVIDIA. So I had a great front seat to the things that were going on there. Very exciting. I love retired life. I play a lot of pickleball, especially at Central Park. I take walks around the neighborhood and have conversations with AI and learn about all sorts of things, science, music, sports, everything. And I'm enjoying that. I also have a little project at home. trying to build a robot with AI that has the goal of wandering around the house trying to find my teenage son. And then when he finds him, the goal is to tell him a really good dad joke. In terms of what I think my qualifications are with respect to the Civil Service Commission position, as I mentioned, I've worked for many years in research organizations in various companies. And I think that helps me to look at things from an analytical perspective, as well as looking at things with details in mind. I also like to document and write down things that I do in the process that I take to arrive at various projects and decisions that I work on. And I also have a preference for trying to work with people and trying to build consensus. So just to give you a little background on my professional experience, I have a PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, and I've worked for various research labs and projects at Bell Labs and Sun Microsystems, Western Digital and NVIDIA, again, doing research across various high tech domains. And I think that's given me a lot of good experience in terms of trying to understand how people and groups and organizations in the corporate environment work and what has worked and has not worked from my perspective. So that's my quick introduction. Thank you.

Oh, perfectly timed. Thank you, Timothy. We appreciate that. So we have some questions for you, and I assume that you received them ahead of time as well.

Yes.

Okay, very good. So we're going to start with Council Member Park.

Yes, thank you very much for applying. Civil service commissioners may be asked to make decisions involving employees, management, labour organizations and city policies. How would you ensure that your decisions are fair, impartial and based on the facts rather than personal relationships or outside pressure?

So, I think that's a good question and as a public commission, I think that's about most important. I think it really comes down to letting people know about things and that focuses on documentation. Both in terms of data that is considered in terms of the steps in deciding and making certain decisions. But it also has to do with making sure people understand what the process and the criteria are. in advance of making a decision. I think when a decision is made and then there are sort of justifications for decision after the fact, that's not really good for trust. So I think being able to lay out the criteria and the processes ahead of time is not only good for public trust, but is actually just a good process of um doing things in in a ordered fashion and along with that there needs to be full disclosure of anything that might even be considered to be a conflict of interest thank you very much sir thank you councilmember jane

Thank you, Timothy. What do you believe is the most important role of a civics civil service commissioner? And how would you balance protecting the rights of city employees with the city's responsibility to maintain accountability, high performance and public trust?

So I've tried to Excuse me, I tried to find out a little bit about the specific specifics of what the commission does. Um, and so I don't know all the details, but I believe, um, a big part of. What the commission does is, um, providing oversight for, you know, the. The public employees in the city, um. Uh, in in terms of, uh. Being able to hire these employees, making sure they have the, uh, the human resources that they need, um, and that they're happy doing what they're doing. So that, um, we have a well functioning full staffs. Um, you know, city set of employees. Um, sometimes appeals and petitions need to be resolved and I think the commission also has. a role in hearing those appeals and petitions. I think in terms of being able to take a look at the entire system, there's a lot of work that is being done by the human resources department in the city. But there are strategic goals, there are you know, long range things that the city really wants to do. Perhaps what also the council has set as strategic goals that where the commission would take a look at those goals and then see how well the current system is functioning within those goals. I believe also that the commission has a role in selecting members of the salary setting commission. And in terms of trying to maintain fairness and trust between employees and the city and managers, I think a lot of this has to do with, the word I'll use is culture. So coming from Nvidia, this was a huge thing that was front and center at the company. And that's probably more than anything else, help to produce a very high retention rate, very high, very long tenure rate at the company, because people felt that they could sort of work within the system and they felt comfortable within the system. And that's sort of what we would call culture there. And so hopefully that is something that we can help to foster within the city.

Thank you. Vice Mayor Gonzales.

Thank you, Timothy, for applying. My question is, do you have any thoughts about the high vacancy rate of our city staff?

So that's an interesting question. I would go back. So there are obviously many different Considerations for different individuals, different organizations, but going back to something I just mentioned with this idea of culture. Um, I think it's interesting when we take a look at, like. And I'll go back and video since that's that's where my experiences I joined in 2013 when video was a small company, and we would compete with. You know, Google and Facebook for employees, and we would always get out. They would always offer way more than you could offer and we would always lose. Um, you know, so these high sought after employees. But at the very same time, even though in videos of much smaller company. The retention rate was far better than at those other companies and the average length of tenure was far better. And why is that? Well, I think it comes down to two things. One is the compensation was good enough. It didn't have to actually be better, but it was good enough where people felt comfortable and the culture where people felt like, okay, I can work with my manager. I can work within the system. I feel like people at the company trust me. I think that's huge. At NVIDIA, there's no, I hear at some other companies, they have these sort of NDAs between groups and making sure that secret stays secret. So at NVIDIA, people were just trusted. I think that was very empowering and helped to you know, help people to feel like they wanted to stay there. So perhaps that is something that can be promoted within, you know, City of Santa Clara. Obviously, it depends on the organization and the people, but maybe that's something to look at.

Thank you. Council Member Chauhal.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for applying, Timothy. My question is, do you have any thoughts about why it takes so long to hire someone in Santa Clara after a position has been approved and budgeted?

Yeah, I think so. There are two main obstacles or two main big steps in hiring, whether it's for government organizations or for corporations. First, you have to find the people and then you have to sort of go through the process of interviewing and then approving people. A lot of times, finding people can be very challenging. People may not know that these positions exist. And the city, probably since the city has been around for a long time, has a certain path to find certain people, maybe certain media, certain forums that they look at. And so maybe the world is changing. AI and the Internet and things like that, maybe there are different forms and different media that can be used to to improve finding people. Also, the interview process sometimes can take a long time. Some of these things are necessary, some of those steps in terms of considering people and reaching out to people and making sure we connect with them and get the information we need. But other things are sometimes not as efficient as they could be. You know, sometimes that can be a little bit daunting for applicants. So I think if we can focus on, you know, finding people, marketing as part of that, and trying to improve the, you know, the process of interviewing and improving people, I think that might go a long ways to helping with that. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Hardy.

Yes. Last question. You've touched on this a little bit, but I'll give you some more opportunity. Do you have any suggestions to improve recruitment of new employees?

Yes, so I'll just sort of taking off from the last question. So in terms of finding people, a lot of times we go to the same universities, we go to the same organizations to try to find people, but there are good people in a lot of different places. There may be certain requirements that we put in our job postings that know they've been there for a long time and they may or may not be appropriate for today's and you know qualifications for that specific position in terms of you know having a specific degree or a certain number of years of experience if someone you know has slightly less than that number of years of experience they may decide you know they won't even bother applying so I think trying to find people I'm trying to think outside of the traditional paths and boxes that we normally use to find people is a good thing. The city itself offers things that a lot of corporations and other organizations don't offer. There's job stability, healthcare, pensions. some people know about this but not everyone does so this is part of that marketing again making sure that people are well aware of the benefits of working for the city there may be specific positions within the city or specific organizations that deal with more turnover for various reasons and so it it might make sense to focus on those organizations building sort of a longer pipeline or you know broader pipeline um to to build up candidates that are good for those those high turnover jobs um and then um as i mentioned before you know i i'm a big believer in culture so and and that means and i speak in terms of of culture in terms of really um interpersonal relationships. That's what really I mean by culture and having that be something that is fostered and that potential job candidates can know is a great thing within the city. That I think is a huge thing. I'll tell you that a lot of times people quit jobs, not because of the compensation, but because maybe some friction with with either the manager or some coworkers. And so that that culture can be fostered and people know that it's there that can also attract good job candidates. Thank you.

Thank you, Timothy. And now it's time for you to give us your closing statement when you're ready.

okay thank you um thank you very much for this opportunity to speak uh to the council um this evening um i've been a member of excuse me i've been a resident of uh the city of santa clara for over a decade now and i've uh i've tried to seek for opportunities to try to give back to the city and try to provide some service and um i think this opportunity with this particular civil service commission is something that I can make some contributions toward and that I think I would be a good fit for. So I thank you for your consideration and your time.

Thank you so much, Timothy. All right, City Clerk, now we have heard from our three applicants and I don't even know how we're going to do this because they're all so qualified, wonderful. Yeah, all well suited for the job. So we have two positions and then we also carry what we call an eligibility list. Would you like to explain, Assistant City Clerk, what it means to be on the eligibility list?

So if it is the council's decision to establish an eligibility list, that means from today's date it would be open for six months should a vacancy occur. So if somebody resigned, then we have that person that's there. We would reach out and see if there was still an interest to serve. And if there was, then this evening then you would be voting on appointing that person if that vacancy was to occur.

if a vacancy occurs in the in the next six months from today they would automatically fill that vacancy if it is the council's decision okay because i wish we had three openings but even with an eligibility list that'll help a little bit so i think um our process then is for each of us to pick two two applicants if the council chooses to i don't know what other way we would do it we only have three applicants so uh and if we each uh give the city clerk when she calls us two names and then we'll see how that pans out and it would be If it works, we're missing a council member tonight, so we have six. It could be a tie. Let's see if it works. The top two would then, top vote getter would get the longer appointment, the partial term, and then the second vote getter would get the regular term, and then the third would be placed on the eligibility list. Does anybody need a moment to think about this? Are we all okay? I'll tell you, my head is spinning, so. All right, Assistant City Clerk, when you're ready.

I'll start with Council Member Jane, if you'd like to cast your votes.

Sure, Terrell and Barbara.

Council Member Park.

Timothy and Terrell.

Mayor. Barbara and Timothy. Council Member Hardy. This is Hardwin.

Barbara and Terrell. Council Member Chahal.

Terrell and Timothy.

And Council Member Gonzales.

Terrell and Barbara So according to let's see if I'm correct Terrell highest vote highest vote getter Barbara number two and Timothy eligibility. Yes. All right May I have a council motion? Councilmember Hardy?

I'd like to move that we give the partial term to Terrell, the full term to Barbara, and we put Timothy on our eligibility list.

Second. Okay, we have a motion by Councilmember Hardy, second by Vice Mayor Gonzales.

Just give me a quick second to add that here.

That was a tough decision, I'll tell you. Everyone's so extremely qualified. have great faith now and hope for our Civil Service Commission. Well, let's see if it passes first.

I'll just read the motion back. Appoint Terrell Nelson to the Civil Service Commission to serve a partial term ending June 30th, 2028. And appoint Barbara Estrada to the Civil Service Commission to serve a full term ending June 30th, 2030. Establish an eligibility list with Timothy Sy should a vacancy occur within six months from August 25th, 2026.

All right. Are we doing all roll call votes tonight? Yes. Okay.

Council Member Chauhal.

Yes.

Councillor Hardy. Yes. Councillor Park.

Yes.

Councillor Jane.

Yes.

Councillor Cox is absent. And Vice Mayor Gonzales? Yes. And Mayor Gilmour?

Yes. And that passes unanimously of those present. So congratulations to the two appointees. And hang in there, Timothy, in the eligibility list because things happen around here occasionally. So again, thank you all for applying this evening. So it's 6.53. We're going to take a 10-minute break and then start our regular council meeting. Thank you. Good evening everyone and welcome to the Santa Clara City Council Stadium Authority Concurrent Meeting. Could you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and remain standing for our Statement of Values. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

As we gather, we humbly seek blessings upon this meeting. May we act with strength, courage, and will to perform our obligations and duties to our people with justice to all. Let us seek wisdom so that we may act in the best interest of our people, our neighbours, and our country. All this we ask so that we may serve our community with fairness and respect, putting their needs before all.

Thank you. Please be seated. Roll call, City Clerk.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Before I take roll, I'd like to note for the record that in accordance with the Brown Act, Government Code Section 54953B, Councilmember Chahal is attending tonight's meeting via audio-only teleconference. The location from where Councilmember Chahal is attending was included on the agenda for this meeting. Councilmember Shahal, at this time, can you please confirm that the agenda for this meeting is posted at your teleconference location and that this location is accessible to the public? Let me move them over real quick.

Thank you, Nora. I just joined as a panelist. Yes, I'm sorry, I missed your question. I am joining remotely from my location and the agenda was posted.

Thank you. And this location is accessible to the public?

That is correct.

Thank you. Please also state whether any members of the public are in attendance at your teleconference location.

Nobody's in the room right now. If anybody, I'll let you know proactively.

Thank you so much. Moving forward this evening, all votes taken during the teleconference meeting shall be by roll call vote. With that, I shall proceed. Council Member, Board Member Shahal.

Present remotely.

Council Member, Board Member Hardy. Present. Council Member, Board Member Park.

Here.

Council Member, Board Member Jain. Here. I'll note for the record that Council Member, Board Member Cox is absent this evening. Vice Mayor Gonzales.

Here.

Mayor and Chair Gilmore.

Here.

Thank you.

Could I have a motion to excuse Council Member Cox?

Motion to excuse Council Member Cox. Second.

Motion by Council Member Clark, second by Council Member James. Excuse Council Member Cox.

Council Member Gonzalez. Yes. Sorry, Vice Mayor Gonzalez. Council Member Shahal.

Yes.

Council Member Hardy. Yes. Council Member Park.

Yes.

Council Member Jane. Yes. Mayor Gilmour.

Yes. And that's approved unanimously present. Thank you.

The AB23 announcement, members of the Santa Clara Stadium Authority, sports and open space authority and housing authority are entitled to receive $30 for each attended meeting. Statement of behavioral standards, the City of Santa Clara has adopted a code of ethics and values and behavioral standards for public meetings to promote and maintain the highest levels of conduct. This includes mutual respect, robust discussion and allowing city business to be done in an efficient and consistent manner. Please note that as a presiding officer, the Mayor and Chair's direction in matters of process and decorum shall be followed and that use of the gavel indicates all conversations must conclude and everyone in attendance should come to order and attention. Welcome and thank you for your participation. For those joining us in the capacity of a registered lobbyist, we ask you to please identify yourself as such and disclose the clients and or organizations that you represent. This is pursuant to City Code Section 2.155.110. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. So welcome, everyone. Good evening. For today's meeting, the council's back in person and is conducting its meeting in a hybrid manner. The public is welcome to attend in person, and the city continues to use a Zoom feature to allow participation from your home or office. Members of the public can still join via the link and or call into the Zoom meeting phone number shown on the screen now. If you would like to speak on an agenda item or during public presentations, please raise your hand on the Zoom application or press star nine on your phone. Please only raise your hand while the item you're seeking to speak on is presented. Staff will enter your name or the last four digits of your phone number and I will call on you to speak. As a friendly reminder, members of the public have two minutes to speak on an agenda item and three minutes on a public presentation item, and those are reserved for topics that are not on the agenda. Prior to each agenda item, staff will lower your hand to ensure that members of the public are seeking to speak on the appropriate agenda item. So now we'll move on to the council agenda.

Madam Mayor? Yes. Council Member Jane has his hand up. Councillor Jane.

Yes, I would. I'm requesting that we move item number 10. That's my 030 on the sustainability manager.

Let's wait till we get to that. Okay. We'll get to that in a second. Report out from closed session 818 city attorney.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, on August 18th, following the end of the regular meeting, the council adjourned to close session to take up item 1B, which was conference with labor negotiators with respect to all city labor groups. And at the end of that meeting, I reported out to the chambers that there was no reportable action. Since chambers were empty, consistent with our practice, I'm reporting out again at this meeting live that there's no reportable action as a result of the August 18th closed sessions. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

All right. And we didn't have one today. So thank you very much. All right. Continuances, exceptions, reconsideration. Council Member Jane, go ahead.

Yeah, I'm requesting that we move item number 10. That's my 030 for the sustainability manager to after consent. We have a number of high school students here in the audience and we have some online that need to go to school early in the morning. So we don't want them to wait till 11 o'clock to hear that item.

I'd like to hear that after our appeal. We have a lot of people here for the appeal and maybe they will learn something about the appeal process.

It's not going to take very much time as our previous 030.

Okay. Council, are you okay with that, moving it after consent? All right. All right. We will do that. Okay. Any other continuances, exceptions, reconsiderations? Okay, seeing none, we have two very special orders of business this evening. For our first special order of business this evening, the City of Santa Clara is honored to recognize our outgoing commissioners for their dedication and service to Santa Clara. So before the commissioners present come to the front, I would like to acknowledge all seven outgoing commissioners. And we'll call you up one at a time and then ask you to take a group photo with the City Council. But from our Library Board of Trustees, we have Debbie Triforos. I see her there. From our Civil Service Commission, we have Franklin K. Felizardo. From the Cultural Commission, we have Louis Samara. From the Historical and Landmarks Commission, we have Michael Celso and Anna Varga Smith. And from our Parks and Recreation Commission, we have Brittany Ricketts. And from our Senior Advisory Commission, we have Srini Vasan, Manny Vaughnan. and so first of all we're so grateful for your work thank you all for your dedicated service and so i will again call you up individually um to give you your plaques and then if you'd come up here and council uh how many commissioners uh amy do we have this evening five okay i think we'll all fit because there's if the council would like to come down here now that would be great and we'll call you up individually Okay, first we have Debbie Triforos. We have from the Civil Service Commission, Franklin Filizardo. Please come forward. From the Cultural Commission, Louis Samara. From the Historical and Landmarks Commission, Michael Kelso. Is Michael here? Oh, there he is. Also from the Historical Landmarks Commission, Anna Vargas Smith. We're also grateful for all of your work and thank you for your dedicated service. And so now we'll take a group photo and I've already had requests for copies of the photos after sent to the commissioners, please.

Okay.

Okay. So for our next special order of business is the recognition of our 2026 Mission Meets the Moment campaign sponsors. So I'm just going to say a few words and then turn it over to our staff to give a presentation about what we did during 2026 because it was a lot, it was a lot. But good evening and thank you all for being here. There's a saying in our community that a community's greatness isn't measured by what it dreams, but by who steps up to make those dreams real. Tonight, we get to honor the people and the businesses who did exactly that for Santa Clara. When we set out to make 2026 a year our residents would never forget, a year that would bring Super Bowl and FIFA World Cup home to Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, we knew that we couldn't do it alone. We needed partners who believed in this community as much as we do. And that's exactly what each of you gave us. Your generosity didn't just fund an event calendar. It funded memories. It made it possible for a family to enjoy a night market together, for a child to stand in our STEM zone and imagine their future in Silicon Valley, for neighbors to gather at Levi's Stadium, some for the very first time, and feel, if only for a moment, like the whole world was watching their hometown. every banner that lined the street every celebration that filled our parks every where the mission meets the moment moment carries a piece of your generosity in it what gave us more What you gave us was more than just donations. It was a vote of confidence in Santa Clara, in our staff, in our volunteers, in our residents. And because of that confidence, our city didn't just host history in 2026, we shared it together with everyone who calls this community home. So tonight, we want to recognize the organizations that invested in our community and help make these experiences possible. But first, Alicia Knight, Assistant to the City Manager, will provide us with a brief presentation regarding our Where the Mission Meets the Moment campaign. Have you recovered yet, Alicia? She works so hard along with staff to put this together. Welcome.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Mayor and Council. As the Mayor said, my name is Alicia Knight, Assistant to the City Manager, and I have the pleasure and honor of working with the community to showcase the local pride through the community events that showcased Santa Clara on the global stage during Super Bowl and World Cup. Thank you. So over the last year, our community built a beautiful campaign with the support of the City Council, Economic Development and Marketing Committee, and most importantly, the support of our community sponsors, which we're here to recognize this evening. Tonight I'd like to share just a little bit about the campaign, and I'll try to do it fairly quickly, Where the Mission Meets the Moment, which is presented in this roadmap, which is gonna walk us through the journey of the campaign. So Where the Mission Meets the Moment is Santa Clara's community-centered campaign that launched in June of 2025 and recently concluded in August of 2026. The campaign celebrates the people, the places, the shared experiences, the shared pride that makes Santa Clara so unique. And it also highlights our city as we prepared to host the major global sporting events, Super Bowl and World Cup. So what you see here on the screen are five little circles up at the top. And they really showcase the making of the campaign's identity. Within each of those circles represents an image of the logo and tells the story of Santa Clara. So when you see the green circle here, that's the Central Park Pavilion that represents community and connection. You see the orange circle, which is the microchip, that represents innovation and enterprise. You see the blue circle here, which has an image of Levi's Stadium, represents the global stage that we were all on. The pink represents history and heritage. So you'll see the image here is the Peace Rose, a nod to Santa Clara's history. And the purple circle represents youth sports, youth soccer, legacy and pride. Additionally, at the bottom of the slide, what you'll see is the campaign goals, the five campaign goals that were identified at the onset of the campaign. Fostering local pride, building connections, generating global visibility, promoting inclusivity, and supporting the local economy. So during the summer months, the community engaged in five workshops that resulted in 160 hours of community expertise, which co-created our campaign. We also launched two citywide surveys, one that identified the preferred events and the other to understand the community's values. So if you see here, the most popular events that were identified early on were watch parties, concerts, night markets, kids' sporting events, and NFL player events, all of which I can say we achieved and implemented through the campaign. But to fully understand all that was achieved this year, this slide shows a bulleted list of the campaign events across 25 and 26. Wow, it's incredible. But what's not fully pulled out here, and to break it down a little bit further, are the campaign milestones and showcasing of how those goals were achieved. So goal one, fostering local pride. The city hosted 16 public events, which represents more than one per month. And of those 16, five were directly supported by our campaign sponsors, which were A Day on the Field, the stadium event, which had more than 10,000 residents and visitors that attended Levi's Stadium. We also had free entry into the 49ers Museum, free kids meals, discounted food and beverage. That's just some of the impact from that event. We also had the STEM Zone, which had more than 8,000 residents attend, and they participated in hands-on interactive activities showcasing tech, robotics, and sciences. We also had three weekends of night markets, so six total night markets, with over 25,000 attendees across each weekend, and over 120 vendors at each one. And finally, we also hosted six watch parties, which is incredible. And I think the important thing to note about the watch parties is that we had them at three different events, Alamo Drafthouse, the convention center. But I think my favorite one was the night market where we closed down Homestead and took over the streets. If you also see here, campaign goal two, building connections. We had 1,300 residents and visitors share their feedback and insights with us. Goal number three, generating global visibility. We had 16,000 times our residents, sorry, 16,000 times that we, Santa Clara, were mentioned in local media. That's incredible. And we also had 16,000 new people follow us on social media. Campaign goal number four, promoting inclusivity. We had 200,000 people attend our Free City events. I don't even know what to say. And for campaign goal number five, supporting local economy, we had the sponsorship commitment invested of $820,000 directly into the community. Thank you. So now I just want to showcase exactly what those numbers and milestones mean by playing a little video recapping each of those five major community events before we say thank you to our sponsors. Thank you.

Thank you, Alicia.

So what you see here is the Celebrate Santa Clara Day on the Field at Levi's Stadium. with a small community concert. This is the STEM zone at the convention center where we had tech and robotics, interactive skills. This is our night market. So we hosted three weekends of night markets with 25,000 residents and visitors. This is one of our watch parties at the convention center. And this is where we shut down Homestead and took over the streets to showcase the final match for FIFA World Cup. And thank you, thank you everyone for your support.

Thank you, Alicia. And now on behalf of the Santa Clara City Council and our entire community, we want to thank each of our sponsors for your generosity, your partnership and your commitment to Santa Clara. Your support allowed us to create opportunities for the community to celebrate together, experience something really special right here in Santa Clara. and make lasting memories during what has become truly a historic year for us here in the city. So that's why your partnership is so important to us. And we were able to make the most of these historic events. So at this time, I'm gonna call each of you up. And if you'd like to say a few words, that would be great. I'm gonna hand you just a small gift for on behalf of the city. And then at the end, we'll take a full picture with the full council. So if I could call up trans tech engineers, you were our exhibitor sponsor, Raffaella Diaz, executive director. Please come forward, Raffaella.

Good evening. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, members of the city council, city manager, and staff. My name is Rafaela Diaz. I'm an engineer and one of the directors at Transtech Engineers. We are a full service municipal engineering consulting firm. And at Transtech, we truly do believe in the value of supporting events that bring communities together. And I think that's exactly what this campaign did, where the mission meets the moment. So we are truly honored to be able to be a part of that. And actually we want to thank you for allowing us and giving us the opportunity to be part of the community in that way. So we look forward to future years of still supporting and bringing that partnership together. So thank you and to the City of Santa Clara. Thank you.

I can't figure it out, I've only been here 30 years, okay. Our second sponsor, we have Sutter Health, who is our exhibitor sponsor. We have Jenniger Elman, Vice President of Clinical Planning for Sutter Health. If you'd like to come forward and say a few words.

Good evening. On behalf of Sutter Health, I want to thank you for this recognition and for the opportunity to be part of such an amazing year for the City of Santa Clara. We're honored to support initiatives like the Night Markets, the STEM Zone, and the Where the Mission Meets the Moment campaign because they celebrate what truly makes Santa Clara special. Innovation, diversity, community pride, and a shared vision for the future. This year, Santa Clara welcomed the world through Super Bowl 60 and the FIFA World Cup. And as the city stepped onto the global stage, it showcased not only its accomplishments, but also its character. Sutter Health was proud to stand alongside the city of Santa Clara in supporting that success. Our partnership is built on a shared belief that strong communities are created when organizations work together toward a common purpose. Sutter Health is committed to investing in Santa Clara's future. We're expanding healthcare access through our new ambulatory and specialty clinics, as well as advancing plans for the new Sutter Santa Clara Medical Center. Together, these investments will bring care closer to home and enhance services for residents throughout the region. But investing in the future means more than just building facilities. It means investing in its people. Through the Mark and Mary Stevens School of Medicine, which is the first one in the last century to be coming to California, created in partnership with Santa Clara University, we will help train the next generation of physicians who will serve communities across California for generations to come. We also recognize that health begins in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and communities. That is why we continue to partner with local government, educational institutions, and nonprofit organizations to advance food security, behavioral health services, workforce development, illness prevention, and equitable access to care. Together, these efforts reflect our commitment to Santa Clara as a long-term community stakeholder and partner. They represent a shared investment in the health, vitality and success of the community. As we look ahead, we see tremendous opportunity. By working together, we continue to build a healthier, stronger and more resilient Santa Clara for future generations. Thank you to the City Council for this honour and thank you for your partnership, collaboration and shared future for the future of our community.

So next is a familiar name in Santa Clara, the Morley Brothers Premium Exhibitor. Eric Morley, co-founder, principal, if you'd like to come forward and say a few words.

Thank you, Mayor Gilmour, Vice Mayor and Council. On behalf of my brother and business partner, Sean, and the entire Morley Brothers team, it's an honor to be recognized here tonight, this evening. Where the mission meets the moment was built on a simple idea that a community campaign is only as good as the people that it actually reaches. When Santa Clara was on the global stage this year, it became very clear and evident that this campaign became and always was and fulfilled a resident first vision and that was wonderful to see. neighbors showing up for and with neighbors, and it truly defines Santa Clara, its sense of community, and also its sense of place. The credit for all that belongs to this city council for its vision, but also your professional staff and the volunteers who implemented that effort. Our partnership has spanned more than 25 years now with the City of Santa Clara. We're grateful for that partnership, and we're looking forward to the next chapter to that, more investment in the community, more celebration, and more moments like this one. After seeing the roll-up and the overview, I can only say one more thing, and that is mission accomplished. Thank you.

All right, next we have Intel Silver. Intel, which was our silver sponsor, and they sponsored our STEM Zone. So we have Margarita Lay, Director of Facilities, Engineering, and Operations with us today. So Margarita, please come forward.

Mayor Gilmour, Council Members, on behalf of Intel, thank you to the City of Santa Clara for the opportunity to be part of the Where the Mission Meets the Moment campaign. Intel and Santa Clara have grown together for almost 60 years. From our earliest days, this city has been more than the place that we call home. It has been a true partner in innovation, growth, and community. We're proud of the role that Intel has played in helping shape Silicon Valley, and we know that none of this happens alone. It happens because of strong partnerships and a shared commitment to a better future. That's why this campaign is so meaningful. It celebrates the people, organizations, and partnerships that help move our community forward. We are grateful to the city for this recognition and for the relationship that we've built together over the years. Thank you for including Intel in this important campaign, bringing neighbors together to support connection and community. We are honored to be part of Santa Clara's story and excited for what we will continue to accomplish together. Thank you.

All right, and next we have Prologis, which was our silver sponsor for our Celebrate Santa Clara Day, a day on the field event. And we have Ben Yu, SVP Investment Officer. Please come forward.

Good evening, Mayor Gilmour, members of city council, city manager Grogan, city staff, and members of the Santa Clara community. On behalf of Prologis, thank you for the recognition. We are honored to support the city's Where the Mission Meets the Moment campaign and celebrate Santa Clara as a world-class city. This has been truly a historic year for Santa Clara. Hosting the Super Bowl and the World Cup brought the attention of the world to this community. But what made this campaign really meaningful was that it really also created opportunities for the Santa Clara residents and families to be a part of this excitement. The day on the field was a wonderful example. More than 15,000 people came together at Levi's Stadium, not simply as spectators, but as a community. We were particularly proud that our support helped the city provide free meals for the kids and make the celebration more accessible to the families throughout Santa Clara. At Prologis, we believe our responsibility extends beyond the properties that we build, own, and operate. We want to be an active and constructive partners in the communities that we do business. That means listening, participating and supporting programs that bring people together, creating lasting value and building a closer community. We're grateful to Mayor Gilmore, the City Council, City Manager Grogan and the entire city staff for giving this this opportunity to contribute. We value our relationship with Santa Clara and look forward to continuing working together in the years ahead. What really brought me to kind of excitement about this particular program is seeing everyone on the field. I think before it was 10,000, I count 15,000. So it was great to see all those smiling faces, whether it's 15 or let's just say 30,000. Thank you again for this recognition and congrats to everyone who helped to make this campaign a success. Hopefully the staff gets some rest because that was a lot of work, thank you.

Okay, for our final sponsor, we have our platinum sponsor, which is DEVCON. We have Gary Filizzetti here, but before you come up, I'm gonna take some personal privilege and say a few words about you, Gary, because this isn't your first sponsorship of major events. in the city of Santa Clara. You sponsored a huge event for us for Super Bowl 50. It was the Huey Lewis concert at Santa Clara University, if any of you remember 10 years ago. So you were so generous and your company and you personally to sponsor that event. And you really stepped up this time and became our platinum sponsor. And I just want to take a few moments to recognize someone whose generosity is truly remarkable, and his generosity is both from his company and personally donating to our city. Gary Filizzetti is the owner of DEVCON and is our top platinum sponsor. Gary, your story is Santa Clara's story. You were raised here, you went to school here, and you have never forgotten where you came from. When you stepped up to fund all of our World Cup watch parties this year, and it was so fun, I hugged and kissed people I've never seen before, because I love soccer. Anyways, you didn't just write a check, you gave your hometown a place to gather, to cheer, and to celebrate together as one community. Because of you, families who couldn't get through the gates at Levi's Stadium still got to feel the roar of the crowd, still got to share the excitement of the World Cup right here at home. And that is what it means to invest in the place that raised you. Gary, on behalf of the entire city, Thank you for your generosity, both for your company and personally. And thank you for your hometown pride and for making sure that this moment belonged to every resident of Santa Clara, not just the ones with a ticket in hand. So I know you love to make big political speeches, but if you like to come forward and say a few words, we would be honored. Thank you, Gary.

Thank you very much, Mayor. I don't think I have too much more to say, but thank you, Council, for the appreciation you've shown to us tonight, us and the other people here with me. Santa Clara, obviously, DevCon is a pretty big company, and we do a lot of work in Santa Clara. What really wanted me to give a donation to this cause was I went to St. Clair's, went to Santa Clara High School, and went to Santa Clara University. So my heart and my spirit is really with this city, even though DevCon has done some pretty iconic projects here. We built the stadium. We're doing a bunch of work for NVIDIA, which have got some iconic buildings. We're doing Arista. That's another big, huge project for us. But also, we've also done all the buildings at Santa Clara University forever. I was just happy to be able to give back to the community that I was raised in, and the fact that I was gonna be able to make it a fun night and a fun week, actually, for all the residents of Santa Clara. I mean, I grew up here and it helped formulate me as a man and I wanted to get something back and I was glad to be able to do that. So thank you for the recognition.

And Gary, I know you donated to San Jose as well, but make sure you tell Mayor Matt that Santa Clara is your favorite city, okay? I want to make sure you do that. Also, on behalf of the city of Santa Clara, we received a donation from FIFA Johnny Infantino, when I went to the mayor's conference in January, sent us 200 soccer balls. And so they're sitting in my office, but we blew them up today. And we're gonna give you each, you're the first to receive soccer balls on behalf of the city. So do we have those? And then I'm gonna invite you forward to take a photo with our entire city council, but you have to hold your ball, okay?

Leah, anybody else?

Make sure everyone can see me okay. Yep, look over here ready in three, two, one. One more.

Last one.

Got it. Thank you.

Okay, I guess we have to go on with the rest of the meeting. Fun's over, everyone. No, we always have a good time here. All right. The next item we have on the agenda is our consent calendar. All items are approved with one motion unless you, council member or a member of the public, would like to pull an item from the consent calendar. I am going to be abstaining on item 3B, which is action on historical preservation agreement, a Mills Act contract for 1261 Jackson Street. My office is very close to that, so I will be recusing myself on that item. And I want to pull item 3E, because when the city staff prepared this report, they didn't know I was going to the League of California Cities Conference. I had a comment on on number four Which is the Stadium Authority minutes? I'm not pulling it my comment is their regular meeting minutes But they they have like a three-word sentence for each meeting that tells us absolutely nothing I think we can do better in the future for the Stadium Authority manager meeting minutes counts vice mayor Gonzales I Can you turn on your microphone? Sorry about that. Yes.

Make a motion for the rest of the consent calendar.

Balance of the consent calendar? Yes. All right. Second. Councillor Hardy. I was going to make the motion, so I'll second that. Okay. So we have a motion and a second for the consent calendar. City Clerk noting the items that I recused on and the item that I pulled. Is there anybody from the audience? Okay. Go ahead, City Clerk.

This includes the stadium minutes, correct?

That includes the stadium minutes, correct. So Council Member, Board Member Chahal?

Yes. Council Member, Board Member Hardy? Yes. Council Member, Board Member Park? Yes. Council Member, Board Member Jane? Yes. And Vice Mayor, Vice Chair Gonzales?

Yes.

Mayor and Chair Gilmour?

Yes. Noting my abstentions. Yes. Okay, and that passes unanimously of those present. Okay, moving on. Hold on a second. Okay, that brings us to public presentations. Do we have any public presentations?

We have one.

Howard, please come forward. But Howard was here. Where is he?

We just got another speaker card, so let me.

Kristen. Here he is. Howard, you're up. I'm sorry. That's OK. We'll forgive you.

Most other health people are really cool. need doctoring, sign up and go. Anyway, oh, I blew off some of my time. I guess it's not part of it, but I was part of the economic development. I guess everything's over. It's kind of neat to watch how the sausage is made, as they say. And I'd like to see more people really get involved with the the city and different things that went on. So many people lucked out on seeing some of the stuff and voting for what's gonna happen. That group is what decided what's gonna happen. It was cool to be part of that. And it was really nice to see the guys who put up the big money and made that really come to be. That's really cool too. I don't know much. I'm not complaining about much tonight, except I'm still asking for our buddy there up there in the first district to get some parking for our commuters. They keep getting cut out and losing parking. And I make my money off them people. So when it's down, I'm down. Hopefully we can get that Reliant parking lot open back up for the commuters since they're not utilizing the land, so maybe the city can start utilizing it again for themself. But anyway, Albert, wake up. District one. Anyway, I don't have nothing much more to say. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Howard. All right, next we have Chris. Chris, come forward.

Welcome. Hi. Thank you, Mayor Gilmore and Council. This is a follow-up for what I brought to you last week. Of course, it's only three minutes, so I guess it's kind of a two-part portion of the presentation. I think we all know that when candidates run for office, it's optional whether they choose to have a ballot designation on the ballot or not. So the only purpose that there's a ballot designation there, it's a political choice made by the candidate. And there's restrictions on what they can put on and what they can't. It's their choice. If they don't want a ballot designation, they don't have to have one. As I shared last week, and I'm going to share it again, but then the pass out I gave to you, which Assistant Clerk Nora was very kind in helping me surface last Friday, just to remind that under California Code of Regulations 20716, unacceptable ballot designations. A candidate may not use the word retired in his or her ballot designation if that candidate possesses another more recent intervening principal profession, vocation, or occupation. So why is that relevant? It's relevant because in this race, one of the candidates for mayor, Gary Ferraris, He did submit his request for a ballot designation. I've gotten copies of it now out to you so you can look at it directly. And, you know, there'd been some question kind of brought up, you know, last week, even in terms of the city clerk himself trying to kind of talk to me after I presented and saying, well, nobody knows exactly what he does do or Gary does or doesn't do. And frankly, I really feel gaslit. And I would hope that the council does and that the city residents do as well, because the actual form itself that Gary signed, it's not illegal what he did. I'm not accusing of what he wrote down here is somehow wrong. But you can see he put down his three choices in order. His first choice, putting down his labor president supervisor. Second choice, retired city employee. And then his third choice, which is his current full-time position, which he has had for more than two years, is labor representative. Now, if you flip over to the second page and you look at the very bottom, there's red ink that's there. And again, this is the city's document. It's not mine. Again, there had been question last week about whether or not the California Code of Regulations is applicable at all to the city of santa clara well the city of santa clara city clerk's office obviously considers that it is because if you read there it's for your reference attached our elections code sections and it lists some of those and and california code of regulations ccr title ii section two zero seven one one which is part of the section between twenty seven ten and twenty seven nineteen and then you go on it says You also may wish to consult CCR Title II sections, and it lists right there, 20712 to 20719. So obviously, 20716, which I provided to you now for the second week in the attachment, is obviously the city clerk's office is saying, of course this is relevant. So the argument that it's not relevant, well, I consider that a concern. But the deeper concern, and the reason why I'm here really talking to you, because I know the city clerk is not your employee. You don't have any direct oversight for him. But the city attorney is your employee, and the city manager is your employee. and i was told by the city manager he knew nothing about any of this very difficult to make that conclusion because the rest of city clerk's staff reports to the city manager and again i want to thank you know assistant city clerk nora was extremely honest very direct and she told me that yes when this came in they went and they talked to the city attorney And after having that discussion, they took that information in and then the city clerk obviously made his decision. But I think for me, I'm bringing it forward because this whole sense that, oh, the city manager knew nothing and he's telling members of the public that he knew nothing. city attorney is just kind of you know hiding over here not saying anything but obviously was involved it's impossible for me to believe that the city attorney could have a question about a mayoral candidate and not at least chat about it with the city manager or that the city manager had no concept that this discussion was going on so i'm bringing it to you for your consideration just to at least follow up at least because you know honor i think is important so thank you thank you chris uh next we have anthony becker

Mr. Becker will have nine minutes, yes, time given to him. Welcome.

So I would have been here on another topic tonight. Frankly, I have to change ideas and shift what I was going to talk about. But at the last meeting, something was said at the end of the meeting that was not on the agenda. I was told consistently, I was told that, since I was not there, that I could not refute what the city manager said at the end of the meeting. So I'm here to refute what the city manager said. The city manager took a moment out of the meeting under the city manager reports to respond to my comments I made during public presentations about data centers and big data. The City Manager took the time and had said it was patently false what I had said about him saying to me about Big Data. It is his right to deny saying so. However, it is patently true because you, Mr. City Manager, are the one who introduced me to the word Big Data. I know this because my response to you was like, Big Pharma? With a question mark. I know you were concerned about making waves with big data and that they will try to stop us from creating any regulations and moratoriums even though we were not going to the ballot. So I am truly confused. Is it that you never introduced me to the word big data or the concerns are not regulate data centers and makes waves for big data? Just curious. I'm sorry to say that to the city manager, I feel that you're wrong. I have remembered this term of big data since that first meeting we had about it. In fact, I mentioned all this in my letter to Aaron Brockovich's crusade on data centers. including the quote on big data. But this denial of what you said also brings me to what I was pushing for before my 030 request to investigate the leak of the fee for information to the Chronicle. When I first mentioned this in February, shortly after the city manager and I would have small exchanges and pleasantries, and he would speak to me about what I had said about the investigation and the lack thereof into the mayor and council, and the investigation how I quoted him saying, you know, she's going to lie, referring to the mayor. The city manager kept speaking to me as if I was misremembering and if I could stop saying it. However, when I asked someone in staff here about it, they said you were being gaslit by the city manager into misremembering. However, when I was asked, however, we all know we were here and we know what the concerns to investigate where the mayor were because her ability to be honest and transparent, yet everything pointed to her. There were so many questions. When the city manager said to me, you know she's just going to lie, and denied his response, including his discussion with me on data centers and big data, I have grave concerns about the quality of the investigation into the FIFA leak. I also have grave concerns about how the investigation was handled, how we managed it, when we can't even have management or anyone in the city take responsibility for words that they said or had and won't investigate it. Is there going to be any responsibility and accountability for that investigation's results? This makes me ask, what else would you deny? From what I have heard when I was a council member, I know that the city manager was yelling at a council member on the phone. I should say that this is true, only because I heard it. That made me really concerned. However, and this makes me feel more for a need, and to be blunt, for all elected officials to be wearing body-worn cameras so we could see who says what. I learned that city managers will deny things. I'm not surprised. I learned that in 2022 when I was first on council. Deanna Santana, when she was city manager, told me and others and another to delete text messages, which again, she will probably deny. However, Council Member Jane was there to witness that. City Manager additionally said that, about my comments, that there was a joint dinner on this issue of data centers. However, note that was not primarily the issue. I pushed for sole meeting between the two bodies, not a joint dinner. where there were distractions of food and time constraints, I think we only had an hour, I was talking about hands-on meeting with only the subject matter being about data centers and possible regulation. Ask any of those commissioners if they ever got a chance to have a sole meeting with the council on just data centers, and if there was enough time, the answer will be a big no. The Planning Commission was the biggest voice on this data center issue, and they were well-informed. I listened and I pushed for it so therefore there was never a big conversation between the two bodies about the future of data centers in Santa Clara. So what's going to stop you all from doing that now? FYI, San Jose just regulated data centers like many other communities in this city, in this nation. But with the city manager and the mayor's response to the city manager by saying nothing mattered as if anything I said is true, that goes against the stupid grand jury report from 2024 that said Kevin, me, Karen, Raj, and even Sedge, which is still a head scratcher, used city meetings to harass, air grievances, and attack members of the community. Yet here we are, the city manager and the mayor, doing the same. So what is this? Hypocrisy or democracy? Can't be both. But then again, it's all double standards as I've noticed, like no concerns about statements that were made. She knows she's gonna lie or even bad big data statement. I have mentioned in the past these comments to council members. But also it's a silence on other things like a former assembly member telling me and my husband about his ketamine use in a way of getting his boyfriend pharmacist to get us anything we wanted. And a current assembly member who witnessed the whole thing that currently praises the mayor's leadership. What kind of leadership is that, I asked that council member, I mean assembly member. I know you all reached out to others with concerns about what I may have said. That's a concern I have there too. But again, it's also the same science and the double standard of the mayor's ethics guy injecting meth or mayor candidate Kathy Watanabe breaking the law as a council member with her husband and avoiding all consequences, and even the mayor avoiding any consequences as well from past situations and the current one about who leaked it to the Chronicle on the FIFA information. But again, nothing is ever done about it. All double standards. Everyone's above the rules, I guess, or the law. I don't know. No one has denied anything, though, except for Sir James Rowan, Mayor Gilmore's close friend and buddy, calling in and denying any allegations from all of them. Nobody else has denied it. So will he be right on schedule to speak tonight, right after me? Is Mayor Gilmore texting him to do it tonight? We never know, because they're never telling us what their texts are. But based on the city manager's decision to speak out against a member of the public at the end of the meeting, and they were not there to defend themselves like myself, nor on the agenda, and the mayor additionally saying what I said was plenty not true and does not earn a response. However, she is saying the exact same thing on unethical basic standards that she pushes for and complains to the grand jury about. The mayor, I often see you crack remarks afterwards abusing your role as the chair. Ask any of your colleagues if you do that, and ask any viewer. So any public servant, no matter what the role they're in, whether it be the city manager, the mayor, or all the way across, every position should be focused on what's best for the community and not their self-serving needs. And it's disappointing that I have to come back here and have to defend myself for comments that were made in the past meeting. And I was going to be here about another issue, which is about the ethics consultant, where it's going to be. Why are we not taking care of that, even though the election has just started? And there's a lot going on that's happened since the start of this election, as you know, in the news recently. My question is that I hope that there is an apology at hand somewhere down the road. I totally understand the city manager's position and I understand people in the city's position and staff. But again, one person does not run this city. Two, people should not be intimidated by that one person. And three, people should be transparent, right? This is what government's all about and the ethics and what we all talk about for the last three to four years is just really, really exhausting. But again, my question was, was why did somebody take the time out of a meeting, just like the mayor, when we were all just told we couldn't do the same thing in the past, especially by specifically grand juries? So again, I think we're living in hypocrisy and we're not living in a democracy. But I think the cards prove that already. So thank you.

Thank you very much. Next, we have Brian. Brian online. Go ahead, Brian.

Thank you. I hope this is within the purview. Dolly Parton died today. And 80. Well, I got a ways to go, but hopefully I make it. We'll see. Another, I debated if I was going to say this person's name, so I'm not, but he's politically active and he's a representative of a large part of what the City Council has to deal with. and something happened and he was caught in a perplexed situation. And I just want to say to his family, there is healing and I hope healing for you, especially the kids. And I don't ever rejoice when someone I might be a political opponent of, oh, look, let's get even. I think that has caused enough damage in our country. So to that family, I hope the best for you. Going through what you're going through, especially in the public, is not easy. I don't condone what was done. Apparently, the gentleman took responsibility or some people may not say. I'm just saying that there's young people that are involved and any family that's hurting. Just like the gentleman that spoke before, I never rejoice in what happened. and that there is healing and take that for what I'm not making any statement about what was said. There is healing for people. Thank you Madam Mayor.

Thank you Brian. Next we have number zero one eight three. Go ahead.

Good evening my name is James Rowland and I just heard a remarkable fantastic tale from convicted felon and perjurer Anthony Becker, who enlisted the city manager, former state legislators, current state legislators, talking about body cameras on elected officials and Mayor Gilmore and ethics consultants are taking the mess. This sort of sounds not like a tale written by Homer or Virgil or even Brandon Sanderson. It sounds like more like an episode of Gumby and the Blockheads. And in this case, the blockhead doesn't have a square head. It's sort of oval and bald. Former council member, that is. Anyway, there was only another blockhead. But in this case, there's two blockheads more. It is just sad and pathetic that Mr. Becker, again, continues his endless. Now he's gone after Mr. Grogan. I've never met Mr. Grogan. But let me just say for the record, I think he's a wonderful person. And my dog thinks so too. And as far as Mr. Jed York is concerned, all I can say is it's not like Gilgamesh who traveled to find the spirit of youth. In Jed York's case, he traveled to a trailer park. It's rather disappointing and rather not something to look at for young people to see as a role model. And of course, we could have a role model of Mr. Becker in terms of his fantastical journey, which is once again lacking the truth. Thank you.

Thank you. City Clerk, do we have assistance? City Clerk, do we have any other public speakers? Is there anyone else here that would like to make a public statement? All right, we're gonna move on then. We moved item, I'll take it before the consent item I pulled. Council Member Jane, you wanted your item heard. item number 10 action on a council written request submitted by councilmember jane to place an item on a future agenda regarding a dedicated manager responsible for sustainability activities such as increasing recycling reducing water usage increasing composting and reducing carbon emissions and tracking related metrics and this is just a recommendation to put it on a future council meeting for discussion so councilmember jane

Thank you, Mayor. I've actually been advocating for this for 15 years now, before I was on Planning Commission, before I was on City Council, and I'm just going to read for the 030, which is a request to have this agendized for a future Council meeting. The City used to have a sustainability manager who reported to the City Manager. That person ended up working on other issues, like public relations, while still being in the role of the sustainability manager. We now have a management analyst who is supposedly dedicated for sustainability but is working on a number of issues like supporting the Neighborhood University Relations Committee. With a $1.7 billion overall city budget that eclipses cities that are larger in population than Santa Clara, we deserve to have a full-time sustainability manager. Fremont, Mountain View, and Palo Alto all have full-time sustainability managers. Santa Clara is a very aggressive climate action plan in terms of carbon emissions, but we don't seem to be tracking our emissions and how we're doing relative to our stated goals. Silicon Valley has a fiscal year 2024 operating budget of $909 million with electricity sales of $723 million. The total carbon emissions from electricity sales is immense. We need a dedicated manager who is responsible for all kinds of activities like increasing recycling, reducing water use, increasing composting, reducing carbon emissions, decarbonization, and then tracking all those numbers. Individually, our departments have sustainability activities, but there doesn't seem to be anyone to coordinate those activities and to aggregate the impacts. We also need to update our climate action plan, which was last updated in 2022. In our climate action plan, we have a target of 80% carbon reduction citywide by 2035, which is not as aggressive as Palo Alto, which is trying to achieve that by 2030. But that is a very aggressive goal and we need somebody dedicated to making sure that we meet that target. And so I'm advocating that we, with our immense budget, set aside a position dedicated to reducing our carbon footprint. Thank you.

Is that a motion to put it on a future agenda?

That is a motion, but I believe we have some members of the public. I understand. Thank you.

I will second that motion. It's going to be a quick item, right? I will second that motion. So Councilmember Jane made a motion to place this on a future agenda, seconded by Councilmember Park. All right. Councilmember Hardy?

I was going to make the motion, so that's fine. It's been made. All right. Very good. Councilmember Park?

I second the motion.

Okay. All right, so knowing that it's going on a future agenda and our discussion should be related to putting it on a future agenda and your thoughts on that. We have a few...

I will not have a headphones.

Okay, somebody needs to mute themself. That's on, okay. City Clerk or is, well, is anyone here in the audience that would like to speak on this, please come forward.

Madam Mayor, we have cards.

Oh, the people here first. So go ahead, City Clerk.

So we have Sruthi.

Sruthi, followed by Abhi. Are they here in the audience?

The cards are received, yes.

All right, please come forward, and please direct your comments on whether or not we should put it on a future agenda. Thank you. Welcome.

Good evening. My name is Sruti Manoj. I'm a high school junior, and I'm also a Santa Clara resident, and a member of Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action. Climate change, you know, it's not a future problem. It is here, and it really does impact our lives in ways that we don't always recognize. For example, you know that heat wave we had in March? Scientists have said that that would have been considered impossible if it weren't for climate change. And whether it be issues like air pollution, environmental justice, food insecurity, and even relevantly data centers, their long-term environmental and social impacts are more widespread, and often far more widespread than they seem on the surface. That's why having a sustainability manager on city staff would really instill in me the confidence that this environmental perspective is truly being represented and considered thoroughly in the city staff today. Therefore, I urge you to vote yes on item 10 so that we have started beginning this process to hiring a sustainable manager, even if it is simply putting that on a future agenda. Um, you know, neighboring cities have already hired full time stimulating managers and I really do believe this is crucial to effectively implementing our climate action plan and to overall be better prepared to build a more sustainable, healthier, greener future in Santa Clara. Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Thank you very much. And I would ask the audience to just keep focused on whether or not we should put this on the agenda. Abhi, please come forward, followed by Bruce. Welcome.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Abi Monica Voskian. I'm a junior attending Kathleen McDonald High School, a resident of Santa Clara, and a member of Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action. And I am here to support item 10. As a resident and a youth climate activist, I care about the future of our city, and I believe that Santa Clara should be taking more significant steps towards being sustainable. Santa Clara has a $1.7 billion budget, which is larger than most cities that have already employed full-time sustainability managers. For a city of our size and of our resources, sustainability should be a priority. A climate action plan is only as effective as our ability to implement it. Having a full-time sustainability manager would offer the expertise and accountability needed to monitor emissions and create plans to decarbonize our city. As a young resident of the city, I will be reaping the long-term consequences of the decisions made today. I urge you to vote yes on item 10 and begin the process of hiring a sustainability manager so that Santa Clara is better equipped to meet climate action plan commitments and build a more sustainable future. Thank you.

Thank you. Bruce, followed by Elaine.

Welcome. Good evening honorable mayor and council members. My name is Bruce Carney I'm a resident of Mountain View for the last 20 years I have strove or is it striven or just tried really hard to make Mountain View a Zero-emission city stealing a little bit of the wording from your your city logo your city motto Here's why I think you should hire a sustainability director, and increase the sustainability staff. For the first 10 years that I worked in Mountain View to make progress on greenhouse gas reduction, we had one staff member. A great staff member, but a one-man army doesn't win any wars. In 2018, I led a task force of citizens, and our top three recommendations out of 36 recommendations were hire a chief sustainability officer, give that person a staff, and give that person a substantial budget. The Mountain View City Council agreed to do all those things. And over the last three and a half years, our sustainability manager, Danielle Lee, has grown her staff to include herself and four full-time direct reports and two fellows. So a seven-person department working on reducing emissions. What's been accomplished over the last 20 years in Mountain View is a 50% reduction on a per capita basis in greenhouse gas emissions. A great deal of that is due to the electricity that we get from Silicon Valley Clean Energy. And as you know, Santa Clara is proud of its very low cost, highly reliable electricity system. but it's also one of the most highly polluting electricity systems in California. And so to reduce your emissions, you'll need to reduce the emissions from electricity. I urge you to support the motion.

Thank you. And as a reminder, if we can keep our comments to whether or not we should put this on the agenda. I know it's hard, but if we can focus on that. We have Elaine followed by Chanel. When it does come back to the agenda, we will have full discussion about this. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor Gilmour and city council members. My name is Elaine Lee. The city's 2022 Climate Action Plan, or CAP, requires, quote, reporting on CAP progress through a community dashboard, as well as, quote, annual progress reports and frequent updates of the city's greenhouse gas emission inventory. In November 2023, I contacted Nimisha Agrawal to ask about the dashboard. I got no response. So in February 2024, I contacted her again and then learned that there was no dashboard. In January 2025, I made a public comment at a city council meeting, just like I'm standing here before you, requesting annual updates on the city's cap progress. As a result, I was introduced to Rena Rio, And in March 2025, she emailed me that the dashboard, quote, should take six months from beginning to end to complete. Now it's August 2026, more than four years after the CAP was approved. There's still no dashboard and no other reports on CAP progress. Per California Senate Bill number 32, we need a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 to meet our state's goals. Now, if we don't track our progress, we can't see where we're lagging and what activities need more focus and more support. a full-time dedicated sustainability manager will help us get there. This issue is within the city's jurisdiction and doesn't appear to be addressed elsewhere, so it merits the city council's consideration at a future meeting. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Elaine. Next, we have Chanel, followed by Betsy, followed by Brian. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor Gilmore and council members. I am Chanel, a 16-year-old resident of Santa Clara County and a current student at Lindbergh High School. I'm here not only on the behalf of Lindbergh High School, but also the entire FUHSD district and Silicon Valley youth program. We are here because we don't want Santa Clara to be behind. California has already been making substantial progress towards sustainability, for example, achieving more than 2 thirds of renewable energy, accounting for California's total power grid as of 2025. And according to San Jose council member David Cohen, that number is about 90% as of August 2026. I don't see such progress in Santa Clara, especially with the prevalence of AI data centers that are extremely damaging to the environment with at least 55 data centers in our city. I do not want to see a Puerto Rico water shortage 2.0 just because of your incompetence in environmental affairs. Moreover, many other adjacent cities have a sustainability manager, so I don't see why we can't. But we can change that, especially with our affluent budget of $1.7 billion. And that starts with getting a sustainability manager. Only then will we be able to start catching up with state sustainability progress. So it's only natural that you put this on a future agenda and hire a sustainability manager. Thank you.

Thank you very much. All right, next we have Betsy. Is Betsy online? Yeah, go ahead, Betsy. Unmute yourself.

Go ahead. Betsy Magus speaking for myself. I don't think I need to reiterate what our young people especially are saying about this topic. Please put this on the future agenda, and we'll see you again soon. Thank you.

Thank you, Betsy. Next, we have Brian. Go ahead, Brian.

Thank you. Um, yes, I'd like to see it on a future agenda and as well, I don't know as quickly as possible because, um. I hope I'm saying that says has asked for this since and I totally agree with him on it. Um, and before you put it on the agenda, or why you put it on the agenda. have a, I don't know if portal's the right way or just, because a lot of us really wanna do research to not only show you why you should have a sustainability manager, but to form, because part of the discussion of when you put it on the agenda should be, what does it mean? What are gonna be the qualifications? You know, cause that's gonna come up when you actually discuss it on the agenda. But please put it on the future agenda. And if there's some way to get other groups, like the other groups that meet with the city, where they, I forget the name of the one, where they meet to also give in to when it gets on the agenda. You know what I'm trying to say. Sorry, Madam Mayor.

No, it's okay. All right, is that it, Brian?

Yeah, it is. I'm tongue-tied today.

All right, thank you so much. Is there anyone else that would like to speak on this issue? Because we have a motion and a second to place this on a future agenda. Assistant City Clerk, when you're ready. Council Member Schahab. I was going to say register your vote. Sorry, I forgot you're doing.

Council member Shahal.

Yes.

Council member Hardy. Yes. Council member Park.

Yes.

Council member Jane. Yes. Vice mayor Gonzalez. Yes. Mayor Gilmour.

And I vote yes as well. So that passes unanimously of those present. All right. Thank you. And thank you all who participated in that. Next item is consent item, polls for discussion. I would normally put this at the end of the agenda, but the conference is coming up soon. So I pulled item 3E, which is action to designate a voting delegate and alternate delegate for the 2026 League of California Cities Annual Conference. The staff did not know that I was going to be attending. So I'd like the council to appoint me as the voting delegate and Council Member Park as the alternate.

I'd like to make that motion.

All right. We have a motion by Councilmember Hardy, second by Vice Mayor Gonzalez. Any public comment on that? Any discussion?

City Clerk?

Council Member Shahal?

Yes.

Council Member Hardy? Yes. Council Member Park?

Off the dais.

Council Member Jain?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Gonzales? Yes. And Mayor Gilmour?

Yes. And that passes with those on the dais, I guess, and Council Member Shahal. Thank you very much. All right. Next item we have is a public hearing, item number 5, public hearing action on appeal PLN 26-00318 of a project located at 860 and 858 Civic Center Drive and 1526 Alviso Street of an approval of an architectural review permit PLN plant 24-00533 for the demolition of existing buildings and construction of three separate multi-family buildings resulting in 14 townhomes and a duplex building with commercial space and determination of statutory exemption from CEQA near per public resource code section 21080.66 AB 130 2025. I will be recusing myself from this item. Unfortunately, I feel like it's nowhere near the apartment that I own, but it's within 900 feet of that, even though it's on the other side of the El Camino. So out of an abundance of caution, I will be recusing and asking Vice Mayor Gonzalez to come and conduct the hearing. Thank you.

We're just going to take a pause to get our fourth member on the dais.

Vice Mayor Gonzales, Council Member Jane has his hand up. I'm not sure if he wants to say something. I mean, not Jane, Shahal.

Should I wait for Council Member Park to be back?

Let's wait for her to come back.

Sure, thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Did you want to mention something on this item before we go to the process, Councillor Schahal?

That's correct, yes, Vice Mayor. Go ahead. I just want to declare that.

Hold on. There's a few, Member Chauhal, there's a few steps that lead up to, I think, the disclosure that you're going to make. So if you could hold on that, and we can take that in the course of the conduct of the public hearing the presiding officer has a process to go through first if if i if i'm guessing right on what you were intending to say yes yeah very good yeah and i'll follow your instructions yeah very good thank you thanks

Thank you, Councillor Marshall-Hall. So at number five, the mayor went through the item itself here, but basically we're going to review the townhouse project to be located at 860 and 858 Civic Center Drive and 1526 Alviso Street. The item comes to the City Council on an appeal brought by neighboring residents Michael and Cheryl Fisher following approval of the architecture review at the development review hearing on June 17th. With that, I will open up the public hearing, and we'll declare that open now. Before we have any member, actually, now we can have Councilmember Disclosures. Is that what you wanted to address, Councilmember Shaw?

That is correct.

All right, so go ahead.

So this is the right time, City Attorney, right?

Yes, it is a member to help for city council member X party disclosures, if any.

Thank you. So, I just want to disclose that on 22nd of June as a council member for district 2, where the project is an appeal process is going on. I met the appeal and Mr Michael Fisher at the. project site basically and he did talk to me whatever basically disclose whatever he exchanged emails with the staff all the reasons why he want to appeal and I did look at the project site at that visit. Thank you.

Thank you. Does anybody else from the Council of Washoe have an ex parte disclosure? Seeing none, we'll continue. So at this time, I'll ask staff presentation. So if our city manager.

Sure. Thank you, Vice Mayor Gonzalez, members of the council, and members of the public. This item is before you. It's important to note that under the city zoning code, a project of this type would only typically require architectural review. However, there is an appeal process and the city's appeal process, unlike our process for single family homes, comes directly to the city council. And so the project is before you tonight to hear an appeal by neighbors of the architectural review permit approval. You're hearing this manner in a quasi-judicial setting. This means that this is an official court-like proceeding where you will weigh the evidence presented in making your decision. It's also important to note that this is a de novo hearing, meaning that you are not bound by the information that was known and presented during the prior architectural review permit process, and you may consider new evidence presented here tonight both written and verbal. Many factors are at play in this appeal. They include the California Housing Accountability Act, the California Density Bonus Law, and the California Environmental Quality Act. Also, our local general plan and zoning code apply additionally the appellant has raised concerns with regard to the el camino real specific plan neighborhood compatibility and they request design changes related to height and setbacks in considering this appeal the city council will be asked to make findings based on applicable objective standards And tonight's staff presentation will be presented by Community Development Director Afshar Hamid, and I will now invite her to the podium.

Vice Mayor Gonzalez, can I also make another disclosure? I did receive a couple of emails from the appellant, Michael Fisher, during this process when he was requesting a meeting, and I forwarded those to city attorney, and those emails can be a public record as such and maybe attached to the post-meeting agenda item to this agenda. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, vice mayor, council members, and members of the public. My name is Afshar Hamid, and I am the community development director. And let me just figure out the technology first. Okay, here we go. Tonight is an appeal of a project which is located at 860 and 858 Civic Center Drive and 1526 El Beso Street. And it's for an approval of an architectural review permit which will allow the demolition of existing buildings and the construction of three separate multi-family buildings yielding 14 townhomes and a duplex building with commercial space, two ADUs. And it is statutorily exempt from CEQA per AB 130. Pursuant to the provisions of the city code, the city council serves as the final review authority for appeals for architecture review for non-single family projects. And as the city manager just explained, In our procedures, in our code, single family appeals first go to the Planning Commission and then they come to City Council. In this case, this is a multi-family project, and a multi-family project which is reviewed at the design review hearing, the appeal comes to the City Council.

The second bullet here, in accordance with 18.144030E,

The council is also will hear the appeal as a de novo for this project, but within the applicable constraints of the state housing laws, including the Housing Accountability Act and the State Density Bonus Law, as well as CEQA AB 130. As the city manager already explained, what this means is the council will make its own determination based on the record presented. The city council can consider new evidence or evidence not previously considered. The decision tonight is subject to the state laws, including HAA and the state density bonus laws, and those laws prevail over any local requirements. This is a timeline of the project the project was first filed in October of 2024 in July of 2025 a tribal consulting Consultation was initiated and it was completed that same year in September in September of 2025 an online and in-person community meeting was held on April 14th of 2026 We have a project clearance committee, and the project clearance committee deemed the project complete and cleared. On May 19th of 2026, the El Camino Real specific plan was adopted by the city council, and it became effective as of June 18, 2026. On June 17, the application was reviewed and approved by the development review officer. And on July 24, 2026, an appeal was filed by the adjacent neighbors. August 13, 2026, staff did meet with Mr. and Mrs. Fisher, they are the appellants, to discuss their concerns and also staff explained the recent changes in state law since their own application was filed. Some points of clarification here, although the project was submitted in October 2024, the project was deemed and substantially complete on April 14 of 2026, and then it was scheduled for design review hearing through a public notice process. And overall, as this project is going forward, the project will have had three opportunities to be heard before the public. The first was a community meeting, the second was a publicly noticed design review hearing, and then the third is the appeal that is being heard tonight before the council. In regards to the last bullet here, Council, as you are aware, since 2017, numerous state laws were passed or amended, including the Housing Accountability Act and state density bonus laws to address the statewide shortage of housing, which limits the ability of local governments to restrict the development of new housing. I will walk you through the existing site. So first of all, this is the existing site, which is graphically shown bound by red. So this is the site that is proposed for development. To the north is Civic Center Drive. To the south is El Camino Real. and to the east is Alviso Street, and to the west is Lafayette Street. To the north, the surrounding uses, there are commercial auto-oriented office and gym. To the south is a commercial two-story hotel, which is here. To the east, there are already existing two-story townhomes, And then across elviso street, there are three story townhomes and then to the West, there is a one one story residences, as well as commercial office uses. The general plan designation is community mixed use, and the zoning is mixed use community commercial. Under the general plan CMU and the MUCC zoning, the proposed multifamily project is a permitted use. The only entitlement required for this project is a design review hearing for the architecture, which is the land use approval at issue in this appeal. I just want to point out one other thing. The existing site is three parcels. They will do a lot merger through a vesting tentative map, and that will come before the council as a separate action pending the status of this appeal. A little bit more about the project site and the project itself. The site is an unusual and constrained project site, and it has a narrow leg which fronts onto Alviso Street, and there is a much wider portion that fronts onto Civic Center Drive. I'm just making sure that this is working. So Civic Center Drive, again, is to the north. Alviso Street is to the east. There are three buildings proposed on the site. Building one is townhomes and it's eight townhomes and it is four stories tall. Building two is six townhomes, and it is also four stories tall. Building three is this separate building here. It has a commercial front that faces Alviso Street. It has a duplex unit on the second floor, and on the ground floor is actually two separate ADUs. City Council Chambers, A little bit about the. City Council Chambers, The parking the project is within a half mile of transit so ab 2097, which is a state law applies, and there are no parking requirements for this site, however. The applicant in each of the townhome units is providing two tandem parking spaces per unit. So you can see those. So each of the townhome units has parking. In addition, there is also parking for the duplex units here, and these are assigned to the duplex units. There's also a guest parking space here. And there is also a unassigned space here, which is ADA compliant. This is an enlarged view of Building 3. And the focus here is that there is a perimeter wall that goes along the entire project site. And that perimeter wall is identified here. And it's also identified here. But that perimeter wall goes along the entire project site. The appellant for this project is just to the north, and they do have three single family, or three town homes that are already. Okay, they're single family homes. Thank you for the correction. Thank you for the correction. There is one home, two-story home, that was built in 1935. And it's important to note that project is not listed on the historic inventory or on the National Historic Registrar. Just go back. And thank you for that correction. There are two, there are three, single-family homes, there are two-story in height, and then there is a home that was built in 1935. So there are a total of 16 units, which include the duplex and the townhomes, and there will be two ADUs. As stated, building one is eight townhomes, and it is four stories tall. It is a for-sale attached townhome product. Building two is six townhomes. It is four stories. as well, and it is also for sale, and it is an attached townhome. Building three is a duplex with two ADUs at the ground floor, and there is 715 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor. I just want to explain the elevations a little bit here. So for the townhome buildings, what you're seeing here is the eight-story townhome. Product and this elevation here faces the neighbors and this elevation will face the interior courtyard or the parking. The do and it's the same elevation for the eight townhome product, as well as for the six townhome product same elevations. For the duplex commercial and the ADU building, the front elevation faces El Viso Street. This is the commercial. And here you can see the duplex. And the ADU is actually at the ground floor in the back. This is the rear elevation of the project. And here you can see the ADUs on the ground floor. And then the commercial is towards the front. A little bit about the affordable housing. There are two affordable units and the payment of an in lieu fee for the .4 remaining fractional unit, and that is consistent with 15% requirement. The applicant is meeting the city's requirement for affordable housing, which is 15%, and they are providing the affordable units. As the applicant is meeting the city's affordable housing criteria, they're entitled to the state density bonus law. The density bonus law allows the applicant to an unlimited number of waivers as they are proposing four for this project, four waivers for this project. So a waiver, and I'll just give you a brief explanation, is applied to the physical attribute of the project. In this case, it is to reduce setbacks and to increase the height. And a waiver allows a developer to modify the zoning code provision. The applicant is also entitled to one concession, and that concession is to reduce the floor area ratio, and that will apply to the commercial portion and reduce the commercial space from 2,665 square feet to 715 square feet. So a concession actually lowers a project cost. This is the elevation. The rendering provided you a little bit of the perspective, but this is an elevation of the townhome building type. And over here, what i wanted to clarify is this is the front elevation that is facing the neighbors again it is four stories and this is the elevation that's facing the rear this space is the interior parking court and as you can see these are the garages that are facing the interior parking court there are juliet style balconies that are facing the interior parking court um the elevation that is the front elevation or facing the neighbors at the third floor there is a terrace and you can see the terrace here and that terrace is actually set back 15 feet and that provides the new owners of the town homes to have a place to sit outside And then here is the right elevation. And again, you can see the terrace and it also helps to articulate the building. There was a community meeting that was held. It was held online and in person, seven members of the public, and there were no members present online. Overall, the public comments were about the lack of on-street parking, the existing width of Civic Center Drive, and concerns over park privacy. The applicant did provide responses, and the applicant addressed the comments in that each townhome unit will provide a two-car garage, the two duplex units will have assigned parking, and ADUs are exempt from parking requirements, and that is a state law regarding the exemption from parking for ADUs. There will be a six-foot masonry wall and landscaping along the perimeter to provide additional privacy. I do want to talk about the waivers and concessions here and explain a little bit more detail. Because the project includes the affordable housing units, the applicant is utilizing the state density bonus law to request four waivers and one concession from certain Santa Clara City Code development standards. The two affordable housing units, one will be in the townhome and the other will be in the duplex. And it meets our affordable housing ordinance as well. The four waivers are first, the reduction in the rear setback. 10 feet is required and they are proposing four feet 11 inches for the first building, which is the eight unit townhome. Waiver of the front setback requirement along Civic Center Drive to 2 feet 9 inches, where between 5 to 10 feet is required. Waiver of the multi-story step-back requirements. and waiver of the height limit to allow an increase in building height. And so the limit is 40 feet and the applicant is proposing 44 feet. And then the concession is to reduce the commercial FAR to 715 square feet where 2,665 square feet is required in the MUCC zoning code. I do want to explain a few things here under the Housing Accountability Act. If a housing development complies with the applicable objective standards in effect, then the application was determined to be complete. The city may not disapprove the project or require a lower density project unless the project would result in a specific impact on public health or safety. In this case, the project would be required to meet all the codes for building and fire and comply with the building permit requirements. Staff does find that the project is consistent with the applicable development standards for the mixed-use community commercial zoning district as modified by the requested state density bonus law for waivers and concessions, and there are no identified or specific public health or safety impacts meeting the Housing Accountability Act standard. A development review hearing was conducted on June 17, 2026, per the city code, and the project was heard by the development review officer. At the hearing, four members of the public spoke in opposition to the project. The comments included concerns that the project design is inconsistent with the surrounding neighborhood, specifically the adjoining town homes. Speakers also raised concerns regarding the proposed building height, lack of multi-story step backs, and potential privacy impacts from the proposed balconies. After considering all the comments and the applicability of the state laws, the development review officer approved the project. There are some project features that I would like to share with you tonight. There is landscaping, which includes a mixture of plant species and trees for the planting along both frontages, pedestrian walkways, common open space, and landscaping along the entire project perimeter. For the screening, they are proposing a six foot tall masonry wall with stucco along the perimeter of the entire site. The project is within a half mile of transit and under AB 2097, no parking is required for the site. And the parking that is provided is a total of 32 spaces. So the town homes, each town home will have two spaces in the attached garage, so that's 28 spaces. For the duplex, there will be one assigned and covered space for each duplex, so that's two spaces total. For the commercial, there is 188 parking from Alviso Street, that's unassigned. And there will be one assigned guest parking lot. And as stated, the ADUs under state law are exempt from parking requirements. There is a private open space on the project and it's about 2000 square feet well. Let me explain this one there's private open space which consists of terraces and they allow the interior space on the upper floor to be set back by approximately 15 feet. and also to allow for the articulation of the upper floors. Additionally, there is 2,000 square feet of amenity space on the project site at the ground floor, and that will include seating, table, barbecue, and a usable lawn with landscaping. On August 13, the notice of public hearing for this item was mailed to 160 property owners and tenants within 500 feet of the site. The same notice was also sent for the design review hearing that was held in June of 2026. uh four public comments um were received after the agenda was posted for tonight's meeting a letter from the adjacent property which states concerns regarding the additional height reduced setbacks and waiver of the step back requirements an additional letter from the appellant raising additional points in support of the appeal a letter from the california housing defense fund in support of the project and its compliance with state laws. And then there is also a letter from the applicant or the property owner responding to the appeal letter. Previously written comments were submitted for the June 17, 2026, and those were included as part of the DRH staff report. The action considered tonight is statutorily exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act under AB 130. AB 130 exempts qualifying infill projects from formal environmental review. And there is a criteria in order to meet this. And I will briefly go through that criteria. The project site is less than 20 acres. This project site is 0.61 acres. The project site is incorporated in the municipality of the city of Santa Clara. It was previously developed as an urban use, and it joins other urban uses. It is consistent with the zoning code and the general plan. The project density here that is proposed is 26.2 dwelling units per acre, which is above the minimum density of 15 dwelling units per acre. The project is not located in a coastal zone, farmland, wetland, hazmat site, earthquake fault zone, or within a special flood area, or on a conservation plan, or within habitat for special species, or under a conservation easement. The project will not demolish historic structures on the national, state, or local registrar. The project is not designated as a hotel, motel, or a transient lodging. The project will be required to prepare an environmental assessment phase one, and that is a condition of approval for this project, and that is following the city's process. And the project has completed a tribal consultation process. The city met with Tamiya Nation and the Muwekama Ohlone Tribe of San Francisco Bay Area, and that was completed in September of 2025. So on June 24, 2026, the applicant's attorney submitted an appeal letter included as attachment five, and they raised five grounds for the appeal. And I will walk you through those five points. The project is ineligible to use the CEQA exemption under AB 130. they allege that it is inconsistent with the May 2026 El Camino Real specific plan that was adopted by council, that the city needs to provide more evidence supporting requested waivers and concessions. Four, that the architectural review findings related to the neighborhood compatibility and harmonious development. And five, that the appellants are requesting design changes to reduce the height and the setback. Over the next few slides I will address each of these points in more detail. The first is the CEQA exemption under AB 130. The appellants allege that the project is ineligible to use the statutory exemption as amended for AB 130 based on the general plan inconsistency, and they cite the general plan transition policies that require a qualitative judgment. The city's response is that the project relies on the AB 130 statutory exemption as it is a qualifying infill residential project on a site generally not more than 20 acres. The proposed project is consistent with the surrounding character of the neighborhood. because they include compatible building color, contemporary Spanish architecture design, double pane windows, metal railings. The architectural features of the proposed design are true to the architectural form and they are appropriate for the neighborhood. AB 130 provides that a housing development project shall be deemed consistent with the applicable general plan in the zoning ordinance based on substantial evidence. Here substantial evidence supports that the community mixed use designation authorize the proposed residential and commercial uses. They are permitted under our zoning code. in addition approval of the state density bonus law for concessions and waivers may not be used as grounds of finding that a project is inconsistent with the general plan so to the extent that the appellant's objections are related to the height the step back or the setbacks those factors cannot be considered the appellants allege that the Project is inconsistent with the El Camino Real specific plan that was adopted on May 19, 2026. And remember, it went into effect in June 18 of 2026. the city's response is that the proposed project was submitted in october of 2024 and it was deemed complete and cleared in april of 2026 prior to the adoption of the el camino real specific plan so it cannot be retroactively applied under the housing accountability act the project is evaluated under the applicable objective general plan zoning subdivision design review standards in effect when the application was deemed complete City may not evaluate this project for the purposes of the housing accountability act disapproval or reduce the density against the development standards adopted in May 2026 after the project was deemed complete. The appeal applicants allege that the city should have required additional evidence from the applicant for economic necessity and cite constraints to justify the granting of the waivers and concessions. The city's response on the concessions is that legally for a concession, an applicant does not have to prove economic infeasibility or submit a pro forma or any similar evidence. The city bears the burden to prove a concession would not be economically feasible, and this is state law. Here, the project site has an unusual L-shaped configuration with limited street frontage, and the larger part of the site is situated behind that frontage. Only a limited portion of the site has street exposure and visibility and direct pedestrian access associated with the viable commercial space. And then in regards to the waiver, the developer does need to show a factual basis for the waiver, but the city cannot require the removal of amenities or redesign the project merely to eliminate the need for the waivers. The setbacks, the step backs, and the height waivers are necessary due to the constrained lot configuration, which limits the horizontal area available for development. Building envelopes were further constrained by the physical space for vehicular, emergency, and pedestrian access, parking, landscaping, stormwater facilities, utility access, common and private open space. Under the architectural review findings, the appellants state that the city cannot make two of the architectural review findings related to the neighborhood compatibility and harmonious development. The city's response is that the law does not authorize subjective compatibility criteria to serve as additional development standards for disproving or reducing the density of an otherwise objectively compliant housing development project. The city may still make locally required architectural review findings where the record supports them, and the evidence supporting those findings is in the staff report. In regards to the requested design changes, the appellants ask that the project be redesigned to reduce the height and increase the setbacks, which are the waivers that the applicant has requested the state density bonus law for. The city's response is first, that the strict application of the development standards would preclude the construction of the project at the allowable density. The applicant proposed the required affordable units as they are entitled to those waivers. Secondly, staff believes that the current architectural design is of a high caliber and compatible with the surrounding developments. And finally, the appellants wanted to constrain the uses allowed at the commercial space. However, this is not one of the relevant topics for architectural review. Tonight, staff's recommendation is to determine that the project be exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act for AB 130. And second, that the council adopt the resolution overruling the appeal and uphold the decision to approve the architecture review permit for the demolition of existing buildings construction of three separate multi-family buildings including an eight unit town home building a six unit town home building and a two unit residential building with two accessory dwelling units and a 715 square feet of commercial space located at 860 and 850 civic center drive and 1526 elviso street which is subject to findings and conditions of approval and staff is here for any questions that you may have thank you

Thank you for the presentation. We'll go to council to see if there's any questions. Again, questions for the director or staff? We'll start with Councilwoman Hardy.

Thank you. I was taking copious notes. I'm going to see if I can read my own handwriting. I was surprised. 715 square feet for commercial is very small. I was wondering if that is set up so that it could be coffee house or something like that because that does require more infrastructure. I was a little surprised about the setback. I understood fire needed at least five feet. Now I do know in historic situations where we have zero lot line garages that if it's historic we've allowed that but to to remain but I thought and it was just less than five feet so that was a question When I looked at the renderings, I wasn't really clear the terrace where it says the 15-foot setback, is that the top of the buildings at 44 feet? I wanted to make certain I understood that. I was a little confused when I think of an ADU, I think of something separate from main buildings. So I was, because you're saying the ADU does not have to have parking and has different requirements, so I was wondering what are the What is the criteria to call it an ADU when it is part of that building? Because above it you were saying is duplex. And I want to also understand from a legal point of view, this may be for the city attorney, we'll see. So you're suggesting a resolution overruling the appeal, but if there is no action taken, doesn't the doesn't the approval stand? That's what I want to understand because if I understand this right, this is approved and there we have an appeal and for the appeal to stand you would have to pass that and if we don't pass anything, isn't that just mean what was before stands? but yet staff turned around and said you wanted a resolution overruling the appeal. So from a legal point of view, I want to understand that. Thank you.

Councilmember Jane.

Yeah, I believe you said that the density bonus law provides an unlimited number of waivers and one concession. And I guess wouldn't that concession allow for them to have zero commercial? And the other thing is I'm It seems like they could just reduce the setbacks to zero for the front setback and get more space. Is that allowable? I think Council Member Hardy was correct that certain setbacks are required for fire safety. So the space between the building and the masonry wall needs to allow firefighters to get in there. Is that the only constraint? Otherwise it could go to zero setbacks. And then I didn't quite understand the private open space. That's a 15-foot terrace. Is that available to all the residents or just the two residents that are where that terrace is? and then the 2000 square feet of amenity space you said there's going to be barbecues there and tables can you explain that again what's in that amenity space and then finally how does that impact their parks impact fee thank you councilmember shahal

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thanks for the report, Director. I have a question. First question is, how do we differentiate between architectural design guidelines for a single family neighborhood and community design guidelines, as mentioned in the report, versus the objective design standard? Because this was an architectural review. And I know we are talking about objective design standard as well as the design guidelines, how we distinguish between those two, basically. And my other question, I had the same question about the fire safety. how the setbacks reduction will make this development fire safe development. Basically, you know, we had pretty big issues when there was a fire next to Chick-fil-A and there were very small setbacks on that El Camino development. So I just want to confirm if fire department has approved it and what was the basis for that. And my other request is, I know you showed the elevations all by themselves within these for the new document. And the report has some elevations, partial elevations. Along with the existing developments with that I would like that you elaborate on that, like show the elevations along with the existing single family houses on the both the sides, thank you.

Council Member Park.

Yes, thank you very much for the report and thank you very much for the other Council questions. I think that their questions are my questions as well. I did have a note about side-by-side elevation map. I mean, it looks to me like there is no sunlight from the south at all. And that, or from the West after 1 p.m., and especially during winter hours. In England, they used to have daylight laws to prevent exactly this kind of thing, but I don't know that people remember what those are. I'm looking at four stories less than 20 feet away. I mean, even though you say it's the three-story side, there's a three stories plus a wall, which makes it more than three stories. Less than 20 feet away, and I thought about that. That's from the back of this wall to the gate over here. away from two-story residential, and you've got windows on every elevation, so there is It looks like there are privacy concerns from every aspect. This is a concern for me. I'm looking at the waivers. I think the waivers are like holy cow. I appreciate Council Member Jayne's question of could they just reduce everything to zero and get the biggest, largest thing? What would prevent them from doing that? Because even the concessions, like reducing from 10 feet to 4 feet, from 5 to 10 feet to 2.2 feet 9 inches, reducing the commercial from almost 27,000, 2,700 square feet down to 715. What do you intend to do with that commercial space? At some point I feel that this is just trying to inflate whatever's there to the maximum allowable size. I think that at some point it's unfortunate that everything that staff has stated is a state law or something. I mean, this is a big problem where the state is taking over local control, and it means that any designs that the city has, any vision for the way the city should look, any city standards, any city style just goes out the window because, well, the state says, well, you're just like every other city next to you and really care about finding details. I mean, we understand that you can tell how your neighborhood differs from every other neighborhood, and people who live in cities can tell how your city differs from every other city, but we don't care. We're the state and we're going to treat everyone the same. And we don't care about your neighborhoods. We don't care about your cities. We don't care about the differences in style or differences. We don't care. And I think that this is a big problem. I mean, we're supposed to be the mission city, mission city center of what's possible, and it looks like what's possible is we can fit a lot more where things wouldn't normally fit. Mr.

Chair, if I might just remind council members, this is important that it just be questions at this time because we still have public testimony to receive. So if council can be focused on questions as opposed to thoughts, which are certainly reasonable and appropriate thoughts, but not at this time.

so i'll also ask about the um affordable housing ordinance that the city has because it seems to me and i think council member jane brought this up uh earlier before um can you tell us more about the affordable housing ordinance that that essentially requires that developers put in affordable housing in the amount that immediately automatically grants them a state you know, bonus density law bonus. I'd like to know a little bit more about that and how we counter something like that. I'd also like to know a little bit about the timelines for why our El Camino specific plan was so late that it could have prevented something like this. Why we, you know, talk about our housing element. I did talk to people in Orinda yesterday and today. I did talk to some of the developers, some of the planning people that I talked to previously. I know that staff has also talked to these people, but I'd like to know a little bit about all the city deadlines that were missed that allowed these kinds of projects to come before us. I'd like some questions. I'd like some answers there. Thank you.

Councillor Jane, do you have another question?

In the timeline, you said that this project was deemed complete a month before the El Camino Real plan was approved. I believe part of the reason is that before the El Camino Real plan, we didn't have objective design standards. Is that why there's no requirement for articulation had this been approved after, would that have forced it to have some articulation of the building facade? I just want to make sure that to understand better what is different between this project and maybe some future projects.

I just have a couple of questions. Some of the questions were already taken, but as far as the terrace, are those on the third? For some reason, it looked like they were on the fourth story from the picture. And the commercial, is it going to be a warm show or is it just going to be a commercial building? And with that, I don't know if you are able to answer the questions now.

Vice Chair Gonzales, Council Member Chauhal has his hand up.

Sorry about that. Council Member Chauhal?

Ah, thank you. Thank you. Thanks Nora. I appreciate that. Uh, I have a follow up question. Like, I know council member Jane test on that. Uh, we did pass objective design standard, uh, for the El Camino real specific area plan happened past this project got deemed complete basically, but we did pass some objective design standard for. In under our zoning code was that also post that, uh. When the project was deemed complete or was it passed before that that's my question, thank you.

All right, it looks like those are all the questions from Council.

Thank you so much okay um. Council Member Hardy, I will begin with your questions. You asked that 715 square feet is small. Will it be a coffee house, and what kind of infrastructure will be required? The developer is here tonight, and so is the architect. We can ask them on that one. So I'm just going to make a little note. Fire needs five feet. Why less than five feet? California building code regulates buildings based on fire separation distance. This is related to a zoning setback but isn't the same thing depending on the distance between an exterior wall and the relevant property line or assumed imaginary line between the buildings on the same lot the california building code imposes progressively more stringent requirements so what the waiver is for is from the zoning regulations not from the california building code and i also want to say that when projects come before and they're apply for an application, they go through what is called a project review committee, PCC. In that project review committee, there are multiple departments that all meet on a regular basis, planning, building, SVP, water, fire, police, public works, and then multiple divisions from public works, including transportation. And they all review it against the code to ensure that the project can move forward. Thus, the CBC in this case can allow construction quite close to or sometimes essentially at a property line provided that the construction meets the applicable fire resistance opening requirements and there isn't a general CBC rule saying, for example, that every residential building must be five feet from the property line. The code instead adjusts the required construction based upon the fire separation. I wanted to comment about the terrace at the top of the buildings. And this came up from a couple different council members. Can we just go back to the elevation drawing so I can show that? So the townhomes are four story tall. The terrace is at the fourth floor, but essentially sets back 15 feet. So at the fourth floor is where the terrace occurs, and it's a 15 foot deep setback. You asked about the ADUs and generally that we think that ADUs should be separate from the main buildings. ADUs can be attached. ADUs can come in multiple forms. And what is the criteria to call this an ADU? Essentially a bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen. And it can be called an ADU. It can be a minimum of, a JADU I think can be like a minimum of 500, a little bit less, and an ADU can be a minimum of 700. There's a question regarding the reso to overrule the appeal, and should we save that for the end, or would you like to respond to that now, Xander? And Alexander Abbey is here, he's our assistant attorney.

Alexander Abbey, Assistant City Attorney. I think it was your question, Councilmember Hardy. Why are we having a resolution? Why are we taking any action? Well, when you have an appeal, it says that the City Council must schedule a hearing within 60 to 120 days at the outset. It doesn't specify what happens if we fail to do that. It doesn't say then there's automatically an approval or automatically a disapproval. But it does say that all appeal hearings are de novo, which you heard the director mention before. It means you're basically starting anew. It also says you can consider evidence that wasn't already in the record, new evidence that's been added. So the resolution that you have before you It took into account the prior architectural approval, but it also incorporates additional information that's been received since then, additional analysis by staff. You have a very thick memo in your packet. I think it's memo attachment number six that contains a lot of the facts behind the staff's decision. So that's why you have a new resolution today. It's basically looking at those findings again for the council with additional evidence that's been considered. I also wanted to respond to Councilmember Jane and Councilmember Park. Councilmember Jane, I believe you asked about commercial space. This is going down to about 20% of the requirement. Could this go to zero? We have developers ask for that all the time. We have never said yes. except in one circumstance as you know we're working on the station area plan right now we don't have a stationary plan although we do have a chart in the general general plan that says there has to be commercial squares footage in the stationary plan but it doesn't have a number next to it it could be one square foot So in that one circumstance, for a project that was in the stationary plan, we let them go from one square foot down to zero square foot. We've never granted a concession for commercial space to go all the way down to zero yet. In fact, at first we didn't even grant reductions in commercial square footage. Unfortunately, HCD has since issued a series of advice letters saying that commercial square footage is subject to concessions. They can request reductions in square footage of commercial space. And so begrudgingly, we've started allowing reductions in commercial square footage. But again, except for that one limited circumstance, we've never allowed it to go to zero. Can they ask for anything, Council Member Park? Well, they do ask for anything. But again, we negotiate with every developer. We sit down when they have these requests. We make them show us diagrams. We've had many meetings with developers. I've sat in many of those meetings where we've looked at, hey, if you have this 45-degree step back, How many units are going to be eliminated? How much of the project will be reduced by this? And we have a lot of back and forth. And in many cases, we tell developers we are denying those waivers. And in many more cases, we say we are granting them. We have limited ability to say no, as the director was mentioning. And in every case, we do our best to hang on to as much of the standards we can. But we all feel your frustration at the erosion of local control because that's something we're dealing with every day. And the state continues to pull it back. And all I can tell you is we are putting up as much of a fight as we can. And that's basically the position we're in now. So we've got some commercial. It's a site with a limited frontage. So we thought it was reasonable in this case because the commercial viability wouldn't be that great given how much of the Lot area is behind the frontage, but that's where we're at on that.

Mr. Chair, if I might follow up on one other legal aspect of Council Member Hardy's question and response. Member Hardy, you had asked for clarification on if no action is taken, does the underlying action taken by the design review officer stand, and that in fact is correct. Our our administrative appeal, you know process contemplates the council as the final decision-maker as part of the administrative appeal process You will typically if not always get a recommendation for staff as to what staff thinks, you know, your decision should be and so per attorney Abby's comments. That's why you've got a full recommendation for staff with additional information to support what that action might be tonight. If the council is unable to reach any agreement on what that appropriate action should be, in effect, that's no action taken by you, and the legal effect of that would be that the administrative determination by the design review officer with respect to this project, which was an approval, would stand and stay in place.

Thank you to our attorneys. Council Member Jain, you asked again about the state density bonus law and the unlimited waivers, and if there's a concession, I believe that was responded to. Yes, they can go down to zero commercial if they wanted to, that's a concession. You also asked about the setbacks. I think I've responded to the setback question through Council Member Hardy's response. You asked about the amenity space and you wanted to know a little bit more about what's included in that amenity space. Can you please pull up the PowerPoint so I can show that?

Let me see.

So this is the amenity space right here. This is the building three. This is Alviso Street right here. The townhomes, the six-story townhomes are here. This is the amenity space and it's 2,000 square feet. It will have a seating area with table chairs and a barbecue and a little lawn area as well. You asked about if a park fee is applicable. This will go through our park ordinance and they will evaluate. It will most likely not be a public park. It'll just be a privately maintained space. You asked that.

I guess I'm saying will they get the half credit for that amenity space?

They will have to pay an in lieu fee. I know that much.

Yes, but we give them a half credit if it meets certain requirements.

I'm looking to my friends on the right for that assistance about the half credit. Yeah, we'll get back to you on that one. And I know that they're busy researching it too, so. You asked a question that if this project was deemed complete, like if the ECR was like, was adopted maybe a month before this project, Would there be more articulation on this project? In other words, would the ECR apply to this project? So this project was deemed complete. And concurrently, we were running the ECR. It was going through the multiple reviews, including a new environmental review. I think what's important to note is that this project, because they're meeting our affordable housing ordinance and providing the number of affordable units that are required for this project, they can do unlimited waivers and still apply and get those waivers and concessions.

So you're saying it doesn't matter whether the El Camino Real.

They can ask for waivers and concessions if they do affordable units. It's a state law.

I'll just pipe in. It's always dangerous to have your lawyer next to you. Again, we negotiate with every developer. So I wouldn't put it quite as blanket as the director, where she's being a little pessimistic. I would say they would have the ability to request additional waivers, and we would hopefully push back on that. And likewise, I'm afraid the commercial statement you made a little earlier, I will disagree with. We will not agree to a zero.

square footage commercial but they could ask under the affordable housing ordinance when they submit the required number which is 15 under our affordable housing ordinance they can request unlimited waivers and then the required concessions and then we evaluate it according to the state law i'm still trying to understand what is the point of objective design standards if they can get all the waivers they want

Sure, why don't I take that one? We totally understand the point you're making. I think the reality of the situation not just for Santa Clara but other cities is there has been a myriad of state laws that has taken away local control with the express benefit to have more housing. It is quite possible that we will have more housing, but communities built that don't reflect the intent of what our local rules say. The state knew that when they adopted a number of their laws. Right? And the reasons for that are many. But we sit here with the legislative context that we do with a number of state laws, and we're only talking about a few here today. We haven't even talked about Senate Bill 330, which is, in effect, your very next item. State law has removed a lot of your control and provided developers with the ability to ask for waivers for things that we would adopt like like a specific plan and so Absolutely, this community went through a very long gated process to arrive at a vision for El Camino Real but this project for various reasons has ways to Get waivers from things that the community and the council adopted Unfortunately, that's where we are

Okay, Council Member Shahal, you asked what is the difference between design guidelines versus objective design standards and how do we distinguish? Design guidelines are just that, they're guidelines. We cannot hold them, they're suggestions and they are visions, but objective design standards are under the state law, and if a community adopts objective design standards, then we can work with a developer to hold the developer to those standards. So there is a lot of benefit when we talk about local control. Local control comes through adopting objective design standards, which is why the staff has been bringing those to you in specific plans or from multifamily, and we're continuing to pursue those to keep some community character.

Have a follow up on that. I know I just listened to the conversation regarding objective design standard and the state laws. Uh, I do remember we were always as city manager also mentioned something to that context. We were always told that if we do have objective design standard. That is the only way the cities can maintain their control. on land use zoning decisions, basically. And I'm hearing today that state laws can override even the objective design standards. I want a clarification on that because we were always told that if you have an objective design standard, yes, you can override the state laws with those premises, basically. I know it's not applying over here, but I want to have that clarification.

right so objective design standards do give us help us to set a certain vision for community character and we did that for example in the el camino real specific plan and the objective design standards kind of help for example if you have 100 blank wall you cannot if you have a street frontage we don't want a hundred percent blank wall we want a facade that is pedestrian friendly transparent open and creates a dialogue with the street right and we put down uh standards such as every um let me explain like every um 25 feet there needs to be an opening right or some kind of articulation when a developer submits a waiver they could reduce that And again, this is something that we, as we're going and we're working with developers, we have a baseline and that is what they ask us for a waiver for or a concession for. But again, we're working with the vision that the council has adopted and the vision and the input that the community has given to us.

So, my point is the city has a right to strictly adhere to objective design standards and not to wave them off. Is that correct?

Well. So this is a very nuanced conversation. And yes, we should adopt objective design standards because what will hold is objective design standards. And that is where we are all going, all the cities are going. but there can be waivers and there can be concessions. But like we said and like the city attorney said, when a project comes in, we kind of like, it's a negotiating point. We talk and we go back and forth so that we still retain a certain amount of control for the city.

but those will be discretionary. If city doesn't want to negotiate.

Council Member Chauhal, if you have questions, just reiterate those questions. We're not gonna go back and forth here. So if you have any questions right now.

Vice Mayor, this is pertaining to the discussion we have ahead. It's pertaining to the same question. That's why I'm discussing, otherwise I will not.

So go ahead and ask your question.

So my question is, if objective design standards are there, it's the city's discretion whether to give that waiver or not.

So I know my city attorney's coming, but there is not a discretion to grant these waivers. Again, this is called the state density bonus law, and we are, if they meet the criteria through the 15% affordable housing compliance, we have to grant those waivers or concessions.

Let me just finish the sentence. I think she teed it up for me very well. We have to grant those waivers if the waiver is necessary to achieve the density allowable under the density bonus law. So it's about fitting the project on the site. If the developer says, hey, look at the density with this density bonus. This is not the biggest site. I can't really fit the project I want on this site unless you waive some of these development standards. If it's necessary for them to achieve the allowable density, including the bonus on the site, then we have to grant the waiver unless there's public health and safety findings. And, you know, You could say, well, can't you just redesign it some, get rid of a courtyard maybe? Well, that's where the courts have said, well, actually, we're not allowed to make them get rid of amenities in the process. That's why it turns into a negotiation, because we always push back. And they always say, well, yeah, but we've got to have this beautiful fountain in the middle. It's too high. So there's a push and pull. City Manager? Yeah, did we get to?

I think we covered, Council Member, we also covered your setback reduction for the fire space. We've already covered that question. Council member Shahal, you also asked about the objective design standards for the El Camino Real specific plan and under the zoning code, do they apply? In this case, the El Camino Real specific plan was adopted by council in May of 2026. This project was deemed complete in April of 2026. So we cannot retroactively apply.

My question was different. My question was, We did have objective design standard approved under the regular zoning code. When were those passed and do they apply on this?

Let me take that.

Yeah.

So, Council Member Jahal, at a high level, what I hear you saying is, hey, we were told that if we have objective design standards, that is a buttress and a protection for our community and the development community will have to meet our objective design standards. Not sure when you were told that, but let me just say at a high level, I know that that was the case in the past. Cities thought that. I remember working with council members in a different city on that very topic, and everybody was moving to have objective design standards. What has happened is the landscape of laws in California has constantly changed. And so the density bonus law was amended in 2025, October 10th, 2025, to adjust this very point. And so the new changes took effect January 1, 2026, and it allows for waivers even when you have objective design standards. and so there's just a constant changing landscape that the legislature is doing to essentially provide tools so that cities have less and less discretion so that we will have more housing and so there are still benefits to having objective design standards absolutely and and we are we've done them in the el camino real specific plan we will keep doing them but we also have state law that constrains us and we are here with with one of those very discussions

Thank you. Just one final thought. Yeah, go ahead. The other side of it is we have objective design standards because we can no longer impose subjective design standards. Subjective design standards cannot be applied to multifamily residential developments anymore. Things like neighborhood compatibility, architectural design, just subjectively. So we have objective standards because that's the only thing we can apply. they can request waivers to some of those objective standards. And that's where we push back. I hear your frustration, but I just wanted to highlight that's why we need the objective standards, because the subjective ones are no longer

Council Member Shahal, you also asked that we adopted objective design standards for multifamily as part of our zoning code and do they apply. So the objective design standards for multifamily were in effect in April and there is a provision that applications submitted prior to the adoption are not subjected to those objective design standards for multifamily. So this is separate from the ones that were adopted in the El Camino Real specific plan.

Okay, thanks.

Yeah. And then you asked about the elevations and partial elevations with existing development and single family homes on both sides. Leslie, I don't know if we can bring those up. I don't have those in, let me see if I have them.

They're in the staff report, right.

I know I have some images of the actual project site. The one on the bottom is the collision center where the proposed project will go. These are the commercial and the duplex. And then I have the townhome floor plans. I don't have that context, the contextual ones. Let me work on Council Member Park's questions. Council Member Park, you commented that there's no sunlight from south and west. A shadow study is not required for this project. Council Member Park, you also asked about four stories less than 20 feet away and that there's windows on every elevation and privacy concerns. You know, the only thing I would comment is that, yes, there are windows on all the elevations, but they're also building code requirements for life safety. So there's a reason that there's windows on elevations. And then you asked about the waivers. We've covered that question. You asked about reducing it from 2,700, the commercial space, down to 715 square feet. We covered that. You made a couple statements, and those were statements, not questions. You also asked about the affordable housing ordinance and that If there's affordable housing that is provided in the amount required by the ordinance, is the state density bonus law granted? And I think we've kind of talked about this a few times and your question is how do we counter?

I can respond. So we have all of our density bonus provisions are in Chapter 18.64 of our code. And just suffice it to say, there are a lot of tables in this section. And we have to amend it every couple of years when the state law changes. But basically, it goes through a formula. And if you provide this many units at this level of affordability, here's the percentage density bonus you get. But more relevant for tonight's discussion, it says exactly how many concessions slash incentives you get. For moderate income housing, which is what's being provided here, if you provide 10% of the units at moderate income, you get one incentive or concession. If you provide 20% of the units moderate, you get two incentives or concessions. So they're providing exactly 15%, actually 14.2 because it's the in lieu. So they get one concession or incentive. A concession, remember, is something that reduces the cost of the project overall, and that's what they're using for their commercial square footage. Waivers, again, are about fitting on the site, and if they are subject to the density bonus law, they get unlimited waivers, as you've heard.

And then Council Member Shahal, going back to your question on the elevations, Leslie Xavier, our planning manager, has brought up the elevations on the screen.

Okay. I can't see the screen, but I think I'll do the same on page 17 of the development plans out of the 33.

Yeah, they do show the elevations in context, one on Civic Center Drive and the other one is Alviso Street.

Okay. The A4.5 page, I think.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you. Council Member Park, you asked about the El Camino Real specific plan and why it was delayed. There was a El Camino Real specific plan first brought to Council. The Council approved not to adopt it. Staff came back after council direction was provided to amend the El Camino Real specific plan that also entailed doing a new environmental review, doing public outreach. And this was all brought to you when we came back in May. And we also did a study session with council and walked council through the entire project. So was there a specific question on this, Council Member Park?

Yes. In fact, I asked specifically what were the timelines so that people can see what the times were. When you say that, well, we talked about this, we had work that needed to be done, I don't think that tells the full story. I'd ask other questions as well, which is, you know when you say there we it's not a shadow study is not required my question was can you tell us what the shadows would be if there were a shadow study like are my statements correct are there is there sunlight during winter is there sunlight you know after 1 p.m um at any time of the year uh when we talked about the windows i understand you said that well we've got some safety concerns well we don't seem to have any any fire safety concerns I mean, at some point you're saying this is a zoning requirement that we don't have these, but there's no fire requirement. You said that the fire did talk about this. Did we have a fire? What is the fire report? Can we hear what the report is? And again, all of the El Camino specific plan, all of the things that were brought before council always seem to be just this much too late. Like I have mentioned before, and this is a comment, but that's part of my question, which is the housing element came before council for approval on the night that it needed to be approved by the state there was no chance that the housing element would have been approved and not getting the housing element approved has opened us up for a lot of things like builders remedy coming in and what i'm hearing is and it's very disappointing that we are always this this late for something and now you're telling us even if we were in time well the state laws obviate our requirements, and this is very unfortunate, but can you tell us the timelines that were in effect for this project? Can you tell us the timelines that were there for housing element, for El Camino specific plan? Because I remember these came before council in 2021. You would tell me that we needed new studies, there was EIR, things like that. But again, this is the ECR. This is the El Camino Real specific plan. This is one of the most important streets in our city. And for us to kind of, you know, delay, I mean, four years later to have something like this seems out of character for something this important. I just want to know what those were.

I know we're dealing with this project today. I understand the frustration, and I wasn't here in 2021, but even so, I could tell you that there was some frustration as far as the timelines, why that it wasn't done sooner, right? But as far as this project, I think she's addressed the El Camino Real and specific plan.

Oh, no, no. But for this project, I still want the other questions about are we ‑‑ is my thought about shadow, is that correct? Do the privacy ‑‑ I understand you're saying, well, we have these things, but can you detail what those are and contrast them with the fire safety concerns that the council members have had? Because you've stated them. Some cases you said, well, we've talked about a lot and we don't have to talk about that more. That's fine. But in those cases, can you just reiterate the answer? Is it a yes or a no? Is it, you know, what it is? But just simply saying that we've talked about this a lot doesn't actually tell the story and doesn't give the public the answers that they're looking for. I can see them shaking their heads. I can see them nodding. I can see that at some point we are not trying to say we are stating everything in a checklist. At some point we're trying to make the communications clear. And if I'm repeating myself, it's because the communications are not clear. You may have answered them in the past. We may have discussed them quite a bit. But if you can just distill what the answer is, that would be better than telling us that we've discussed it in the past. Thank you.

The only thing I would say is as far as the shadow study, if that wasn't done, I don't think I'm going to ask our director to sit here and tell me exactly at 1 o'clock what the shadow is. If you could just kind of address the questions as best you can, and we'll move forward here.

Yeah, I'm not asking for a shadow study, but I am asking if my thoughts are correct.

Let's allow our director to answer the questions.

Why don't I take the one about fire and be as brief as I can? The question was, with the proposed setback, is there a fire risk? The answer that was provided was fire looked at it, fire has approved it, and there is no set require setback for fire risk in fact the california building code will allow buildings to abut each other if the construction type is sufficient to meet the required fire separation and so we see it all the time right you see buildings about each other there's no precise required setback but there's a construction methodology that would need to be met depending on how close the buildings are so it is it is allowed And your fire department has reviewed this application and has not objected.

Okay. Council Member Park, are there any other remaining questions that you would like me to respond to?

The ones that I just asked. I mean, are my thoughts correct about shade? We're not asking for a shadow study. I'm just asking if there's a general, was there a concern? I mean, we've got, again, four-story. units less than 20 feet away from two-story residential. I mean, my, you know, are there concerns there? I mean, we don't have, you know, we're looking for standards for objective design, which don't seem to matter, but we don't have standards for fire safety or privacy. I mean, there is, we talked about fire safety, but... I don't know if there was a study done on, you know, is it only on one side? As long as one side is built to certain fire safety standards, then everything's okay. But, I mean, what are the privacy concerns? What are the privacy concerns that staff considered when approving this project? I kind of want to know what those aspects of this project. Thank you.

So as stated, we can only consider those items that are in the development standards, and a shadow study is not a required part of that standard. So I wanna make it abundantly clear, that's not required, it's not objective, so we cannot include it plus. We did do a shadow study, if you'll recall, as part of the El Camino Real Specific Plan, where we looked at some of the properties. We didn't look at each and every property, and we demonstrated how it would apply. And Councilmember, that was shown and illustrated in diagrams, and it was shown to Council, both at the study session as well as the final approval for the El Camino Real Specific Plan. I'm just noting this specific project a shadow study was not required as stated It's not part of the development standards But we can ask if the developer or the architect conducted any fires to any any shadow studies

Okay, and again, with the privacy studies, it's funny to hear you say that shadow studies were not required. Shadow studies are not objective. There is nothing more objective than a shadow study at some point. I think at some point, if somebody does a shadow study and somebody wants to refute that, they can refute that. But at some point, et per se, move. I mean, the sun is there, the shadows are there.

Yeah, I'll just add, Councilmember Park. Yeah, our zoning code, our city standards don't require shadow studies generally. There is a requirement for them in Plan Bay area, which requires that if there is public open space nearby, in some circumstances, four-story buildings may need a shadow study. However, there is no public open space in the vicinity of this project. With respect to the privacy concerns, these were raised with the developer on a number of circumstances, including at the development review hearing. The developer, you know, did make certain adjustments to the project throughout the application process, but declined to make additional changes related to privacy in response to the comments at the development review hearing. So the developer can address that more specifically, but we've brought that issue up with the developer, and they are complying with the development standards that we have in effect.

Again, my questions were along the lines of, what is the city doing? What kinds of things are we doing? Even if they're not required, what kind of work is the city doing to ensure that the public is being protected, that the residents that are there are being you know, that we're considering them. We're not sacrificing existing residents because of, you know, what the state seems to allow for future developments. I mean, the question is, how are we—we're supposed to represent the residents, right? I mean, at some point we have a financial fiscal responsibility, but I think that comes after our responsibility to our residents. I just want to know how. our arguments, how our defense of the residents came to this conclusion.

Let me take that. Part of the concerns you have raised is privacy. I will say, At its core, privacy is subjective, and we've said why we're not allowed to have subjective standards. However, an objective standard is building heights, setbacks, stepbacks, we have those. In fact, when this city developed the El Camino Real specific plan, privacy, when those items were talked about, I know was forefront among many issues. Again, the challenge we have is our objective standards, that are in part driven because of privacy can be waived due to state law and the density bonus. And so I wouldn't say that the city did not consider privacy. We did not think about that. We did not have that as a criteria. We just sit here once again with the context of state law giving an applicant the ability to waive standards, objective standards that the city has put into its long-term plans.

OK, I just want to be clear that what I heard, because I think what you said earlier, and I'll check the video later, it says privacy can be waived due to state law. I think that this is a very important point, but I just want to verify that that's what was stated.

Go ahead, Director.

Objective standards related to privacy may be waived depending on the circumstances. Subjective standards related to privacy are likely unenforceable.

Do we have a few more questions or are we almost done answering them?

Let me just take a look. Council Member Gonzales, your questions were, are there terraces on the third floor or the fourth floor? I think I've clarified that they're actually on the fourth floor. And then you asked if there is warm shell commercial requirements. We can ask the developer and the architect that they're here tonight.

All right. Thank you. I think that answers the questions that the Council had of our staff. Next we're going to hear from the appellants. So we'll move on to the appellants, Michael and Cheryl Fisher, who will have up to 10 minutes and give their presentation. The public hearing has been open since the beginning. Yeah. Sorry.

Hello.

Oh OK. She's going to speak for you.

OK. Well good afternoon or good evening. Thank you council members. Andrea Lisi with Ramey Moose Manley I'm a senior partner who has focused on only environmental land use law for the past 26 years and then looking at this and hearing a lot about the state density bonus and how much the state has taken away discretion from the city. It's frustrating that not one person has addressed our letter from this morning um dated August 25th in looking more at these issues the main problem with this project is that the two accessory dwelling units which are a mere 520 square feet each one bedroom will not be able to be sold The conditions of approval for the project envision requiring an affordable housing agreement, a density bonus agreement, which would establish the affordable sales price under condition H3. And under the city's own density bonus agreement provisions in 18.64.100 of the city code, There are provisions requiring that there's a deed restriction that be recorded, that the initial purchasers be of low income. These are all the requirements in order to back into an affordable housing component. And part of the ability for the developer allegedly to be getting all the waivers and concessions under the State Density Bonus Law. No one's mentioned the separate accessory dwelling law, which is in Chapter 13 of the Planning and Zoning Law, which precludes ADUs from being sold or conveyed absent an ordinance pursuant to AB 1033 in Government Code Section 66342 that ADUs be allowed to be conveyed as condominium units. And there's a bunch of requirements as that. So the city does not have such an ordinance. It cannot those units cannot be conveyed in that manner. Also, the developer could be a nonprofit in order to allow for ADUs to be conveyed separately from the main unit. Again that's developer there's nothing in the record that shows that they're a nonprofit or the initial appeal letter was focused mainly on the scanty record and lack of evidence that was before. The administrative decision making body and and looking at this further and as your city manager noted, you know, this is an ever evolving constantly changing landscape and. Basically, it's unenforceable. HCD has also recommended against the use of deed-restricted ADUs to qualify for the state density bonus law if the proposed primary units as here are for sale and the deed-restricted ADUs would be only for rent. unless there's a robust adequately funded monitoring program put in its place, because otherwise you can't track who actually is occupying these units for rent in the city again lacks such a well funded monitoring program so. The Council reviewing this de novo has the discretion to deny the project and grant the appeal send it back to staff send it back to the developer make them look at a smaller. project, maybe make them do actual affordable units that are of average bedroom size, which is also required by the city code and which are dispersed throughout the project site. I don't think this site is so oddly shaped. Maybe that's why they've taken the approach they have to try and squeeze as much into it, but the council is not required to approve this. So unless you have any questions for me, I'd request that the council grant the appeal, remand the project to staff and the developer, and I'll cede the rest of my time to my client, Michael Fisher.

Thank you.

Thank you. I shouldn't have to use my 10 minutes correcting city errors, and there's a lot to them. First off, this is that neighborhood context that we're talking about here. I saw no images of this. In the January of 2020 council meeting, I presented a case that this is the most significant nod to the mission of Santa Clara. If you look at the lines, it's a clear nod to our emblem. And I shouldn't have to use my time for all this nonsense. This should be presented as the context of the neighborhood. This is the house, this is the neighborhood, the single family homes, this is the most significantly impacted, and it's not 20 feet away, it's I don't know, five or 10 or less than 10. The attorneys need to be educated. So my project was not, same zoning, my project was not allowed to have commercial. Development across the street, not allowed to have commercial. So yeah, lots of education needs to be occurring here. So in the Mission Estates project, it was previously, sorry, I mean, I have a full speech, but I got four minutes.

Let's see.

So just, I wanted to speak a little bit of staff. There's a lot of staff problems here. I don't know if I have time to speak of it. The overall problem we want to address is a modern high density development next to existing neighborhood, right? You create a seam. That seam needs to be addressed. Notice staff seems to give a damn. The attorneys don't seem to give a damn and the city manager don't seem to give a damn. There's a problem here. It's way bigger than my project. Goodness. This is all over the city, it's not just me. So my project was based on the concept of eligibility equals listed. That means a historical resource, if it's eligible, it's the same legal standing as listed. Now, of course, fast forward today, the whole development and the standards are in concrete and stucco and tile. I was originally proposing to build an eight-unit, three-story townhome, and city staff said, heck no, and I eventually got a four-unit development based on this concept, this legal determination from city staff that listed equals, Excuse me, eligible equals listed. My house, which is eligible to be historically listed, is the same legal standing as an actual listed resource. So my house is clearly a resource. Nobody's talked about it. It's a resource. Whether it's eligible or listed is the discrepancy here. I was, it was beaten into me so many times in these meetings with my planner who apparently lied to me and was inept, but this case, this eligibility equals listed. So much so that we were just bled dry. We spent over a quarter million dollars in 2017 dollars or whatever approving each of these units, just nothing to do with private property. This was city satisfaction dollars. And finally, at the end of our process, we had, after a much longer process than these folks are enduring, at the end, we had our approval set up for a meeting at the PCC meeting. We were due for a staff approval. Far more effort than these folks have put into it. And my planner comes to me in the hallway and says, hey, Michael, we need to postpone your meeting. This is after over two years of involvement, lots of dollars. And we need to give another developer this slot. I didn't come to learn until later that this was to make me the first guinea pig under the premise that eligible equals listed an eligible resource has the same legal standing as a listed resource they called my project complicated and then they made us the first guinea pig of the fifty thousand dollar parks fee when we it was a very simple and non-controversial project and we agreed to everything the city said So this erroneous legal counsel to the city, furthermore, we scheduled and paid for a fee to register our house as a historical resource, but because the city staff was so rude and beat this in and took so much money and time from us, We decided, well, since a historical eligible resource, which my house is a resource, is exactly the same legal standing as a listed resource, why bother with the fee and why bother with the listing? We would love to list our house. This is bonkers nuts. Staff needs to be educated. I got 47 seconds left and it's like two hours and 50 people against 10 minutes and a few people.

It's ridiculous.

Furthermore, I've dedicated my life to this. Originally, we were gonna tear down the house, build eight three-story townhomes. We were restricted, we weren't allowed commercial, we weren't allowed over two-story. The development across the street was also restricted due to the list, the eligible historic resource, which is my house. I don't know if you guys have seen it, other than the little picture I've sent here. And... Lots more to say, but you should refund my $150,000 parks fee. June 17 approved, full date for this project, and the June 18th specific plan was approved. I smell a rat.

Thank you, is there any questions for the appellant? Council? I don't see any hands up. So with that, we're going to move on to the applicant. So the applicant's gonna have 10 minutes, Mr. Damien Spino of Spino Enterprises. So we'll get that presentation here together.

Good evening, Damien Spino here, the family business, My mother and father bought this property in 1972 and operated as a machine shop for 30 years. Father's dream was, well, someday we'll develop the property. Well, this coming Friday, we're going to have a memorial for my father. We lost him a year ago this coming Friday. And I'd love to go back to my family and say, we're through. We're going through development. I've been working with my family for, This is my 60th year of working the real estate with my family. So I appreciate what you do for me. Thank you.

My name is Curt Anderson, I'm principal of Anderson Architects. Can you pull my, you got it up, okay. So we started this project in 24, and we've said that we've actually, if you could pull the next sheet. You can see right here, so we, initial submitted was February 1st, 2024. Formal, that was when we did the initial pre-op, okay? And then we did the formal submittal in October of 24. We had seven revisions we went through with staff. Staff held our feet to the grindstone. Part of that commercial space is that's what we agreed to on a concession. And that commercial space is strictly for a meeting room that's available to the community and for the HC. And that's all. It's just a meeting room. So that was part of that whole negotiation with staff. And they did a great job. I mean, they talked about architecture on the units. They really, really worked with us to get to where we're at right now. So then you can see the data here was 929. And then we had the development here at 617. The appellant was at our community meeting at 9.29, 9.25. We didn't hear from the appellant until the day of the director's hearing that they had issues. So the day of the director's hearing, they came and they had a letter by their attorney. So they didn't really have a chance to respond to either of their comments until that meeting. Let me talk about a couple of things. So we talked about commercial. Fire, we work with fire. They reviewed it. We're building these units to be a type 3A building as compared to type 5 normally, because we've agreed to increase the fire resistivity of these units to make the fire department happy. Those ADUs are actually part of the condo above. So it's basically a three-story unit. The ADU is part of that. They'll be sold as a stack. So those condos will have the ADUs part of them. The decks are at the fourth level. We've articulated the massing so you can see it. Can you go to the next slide, please? So next one, please. You can see how the building steps down on the outer edges. That was to the east and to the west. The building that's along this is only three stories. It's not four. So the first story's on the Civic Center side. We talked about tariffs, fees, we already talked about, talked about the fire review, we talked about the ADU. So basically, like I said, we worked very, very closely with staff, made a lot of revisions to get to this point. So now I'm gonna turn it over to our attorney, thank you.

Hi, how are you? Good evening, Vice Mayor and Council Members. Thank you for your time tonight. I don't want to belabor and tell you all the bad news of state laws that are at play here. I submitted a letter earlier today that I think lays out the state laws at play and that protect my client's project. Just in response to the attorney for the appellant that spoke Yeah, I do just want to make clear, the affordable units here will not be the ADUs that are proposed as part of the project. My understanding is that one of the affordable units which will be offered for sale separately is a townhome, and the other affordable unit will be one of the condominium units. So those affordable units will be distributed throughout the development. They will be offered for sale. and their bedroom count and bathroom count will be comparable to the market rate units in the project. So the ADUs will be sold as part of the condominium units and state housing law, the state ADU law is very clear. You can't use the presence of ADUs being sold with primary units as a basis to disapprove a project or find it inconsistent with zoning. I work on housing development projects throughout the state. I've worked on dozens, if not hundreds at this point. In every jurisdiction I go into, I hear similar concerns. I hear concerns about neighborhood character. I hear concerns from neighbors that would prefer different heights, different articulation, different colors. and the type of subjective concerns that were enforceable for decades upon decades, really up until the last seven years. Unfortunately, while I understand how passionate people are, people are very passionate about their neighborhoods and the way that their views look from their backyards, the state has recognized that we have a severe illness and that illness is a severe housing supply shortage and that housing supply shortage is worse in california than most states in the union and it's worse in santa clara county than most by far most counties in the state So the HAA and density bonus law have been described by various courts as strong medicine, which for you unfortunately means that where a project complies with the applicable objective general plan zoning subdivision and design standards adopted and in effect at the time housing development project application is deemed complete, You cannot disapprove that project unless very rare health and safety findings, which have to be based on objective and adopted health and safety standards, can be found. And those findings can't be made here. Also, the density bonus law comes into play because there's such a shortage of affordable housing. My client's project benefits from significant protections under the density bonus law, which staff did an amazing job of outlining, so I don't need to belabor every single aspect of that law. I will just say, The project is entitled to unlimited number of waivers. I've worked on multiple projects where 60 to 100 waivers are requested and those projects are approved. In my experience, I will say this design actually does a pretty darn good job comparatively with complying with the objective standards that were in effect when the application was deemed complete. And the only finding you can make to disapprove a waiver, which can be requested for any development standard that would physically preclude the development as designed so that the developer does get to choose their design and their configuration. And unfortunately, If we request a waiver to allow for that configuration or design, the courts have constrained cities significantly, and I can assure you that no findings are available here to disapprove the waivers that we've requested, the limited number of waivers. We talked about concessions. I can assure you that the concessions requested by my client would result in actual cost reductions. It would not result in health and safety impacts, which would justify denial. I have worked on multiple projects in multiple cities where we've requested both waivers and concessions to completely eliminate commercial fraud. footage requirements on the ground floor. So the fact that this project is actually providing a viable commercial space, I think sets it apart from others. Trying to think what else I wanna address here.

Yeah, go ahead. There's two points I wanted to make, Council, is that, so we keep talking about El Camino Real. So if we were under the El Camino-specific plan, using double density stacking, I could put 42 units on that, on this site, and I could go 70 feet tall, four stories plus, I get a 35 for State Tennessee Motor Site. So I could put 44 units on that, I could go 75 feet high. If we chose to go under SB 79, which has just got adopted July 1st, That base density in that parcel would be 101 units. That means I could put 61 units on this site and I could use state density double stacking. 122 units and I could go 100 feet tall. So this actually is under the density that would be allowed under the El Camino Real specific plan. Just want to share that with you because that's important to know because we keep talking about El Camino Real.

I'll just conclude. I understand the appellant's frustrated. He proposed a project when the world was completely different. That was in 2017. The critical factor there is that was before 2019 when the crescendo of strengthened housing laws began to be passed. We're really in a different world. For CEQA purposes, all we're concerned with under AB 130 are actually listed historical buildings. This obviously would not affect any listed resources. So we appreciate your time. We really appreciate staff's hard work. It is a really difficult place for staff to be in right now, but state law is what it is. State law is enforceable, and HCD is enforcing state law as are applicants. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any questions for the applicant? Council Member Jane?

Yeah, I think you had mentioned that it's viable commercial space, but then you had said that it would be only a community room, and I'm trying to understand what that means. If it's a community room, will it have a restroom? How will it be reserved by members of the public? And then if it's a viable commercial space, will it have grease straps and vents?

Yeah.

Any other council members? Council member, those are good questions. So what we've agreed with staff is that would be a community meeting room that's available by appointment. It's going to be fully furnished. I mean, finished. She rocked. It has a restroom in the space. that's available by rental through the HOA. And it's also be where the HOA has their monthly meetings or quarterly meetings. So it is available to community on a limited basis, but it's not gonna be a commercial, it's not gonna be an office for a business, it's not gonna be a restaurant, none of those things. So, and part of that was when we was working with staff on that was part of this whole thing was trash collection, everything else. And that was very important to determine how much trash bins that we were gonna have to supply for that space. So it's gonna be limited to a very limited use, like I said, community meetings by appointment only and then for the HOA itself.

A number of community meetings per month One a month, two a month, three a month?

No, we didn't. But I mean, we'd be happy to limit that. I mean, that'd be a problem if we'd limit it to once a month or whatever. I mean, it's not going to be every day, obviously. There's not that big of a need for community meetings on an ongoing basis. But for whatever's reasonable, that'd be fine with us. Can I propose a number? Yeah. Three a month? That's a word that I was thinking, but sure. Not to see three a month, that's fine.

OK. And will there be, I know you said there's a restroom in there. If it were to be converted to a coffee shop, does it have grease traps or vents?

We do not have the infrastructure for any type of restaurant. And it wouldn't be, it's not a viable location for that. It's tucked around the corner, got a narrow street, frontage on Alviso. I mean, I've been doing, I'm in my 50th year of doing architecture. I'm telling you, this is a crappy place for a commercial facility for any type of retail. It wouldn't make sense. It wouldn't last. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you. I don't see any other council members' questions, so thank you. We're going to go to the public at this time. So we'll move to the public testimony, and each member of the public will have two minutes to speak. I see a hand up, but is there anybody here from the public that wants to speak or address?

Vice Mayor, we have cards.

We have cards? Okay. Chester Shen? Yeah.

Thank you for taking my question. So thank you, council members. I got two minutes, and I'm actually the one right next to the building which is blocking all the windows. So I'm on the two story single family homes. So I'm pretty frustrated listening to this whole conversation. I understand the developer have their laws and the city approves it, but it seems like the city never consider the residents already live there. So, you know, privacy laws are waived, you know, blocking the windows. You're not talking about the 20 feet. They're talking three feet, less than three feet. We each, we send a letter to the city. City says, the setback could be zero. That's in the letter to us. Basically they say they can build it all the way to the wall. So there's no sunlight, and all the windows will be blocked. And on top of that, the parking, pretty much right now, the Alviso and the Civic Center parking is very limited, and then people parking frankly illegally next to my driveway in order to find the parking. Now with these additional many, many townhomes and commercial spaces up there, I'm sure not everybody can park on their cars, on their parking garage right every day and their guests and all that stuff. They all came to park. There's no way to park. So all these things, it's just really impacting us. Frankly, one of the neighbors already moved. And we are literally thinking, are we going to stay here? We have moved somewhere else. So so really really the city didn't really consider any of the existing Existing people live there. They couldn't even figure out that's a townhome a single-family home. So I'm so frustrated on that So so I know these there's a city laws and you know, you know, there's county laws and frankly I don't I don't follow all the differences but it seems like All the decision makings, of course, the developer, they have their rights. But the city, the person who try to approve this project or not, really have to consider the people who live there overall. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Now we have Ji Yao.

Yes.

So my name is Ji Yao, and I'm the next door, which is 1530 of ESO. I'm the owner of that. So I have just three questions. So what is the cumulative impact for all of those waiver together for the residents of that? We are in the single family home. So now, all of a sudden, it's blocking all our windows. So we really respectfully request the city and provide a shadow analysis showing the impacts on the adjacent home and then privacy analysis, identify upper story, windows, balcony, and other area facing the neighborhood residents. And also like a building cross sections and visual simulations showing the proposed project in relation to the adjacent home. And we also need that exact dimension of the proposed four story setback, step back. And also we need the explanation of whether alternative design could achieve for the project housing objective with less impact on this existing neighborhood residents. So thank you so much for your consideration.

Thank you, Cheryl Fisher.

Thank you for having I mean letting me talk Michael is my Michael is my husband and we built that development for 2017 At the request of basically the city and they asked us to make two-story homes they asked us to to have setbacks. They asked us to maintain the character. They said, oh, no, you can't have commercial. You have to have a setback. And we had to do several redesigns, even move our whole Chester's house back. We had to move it back because they decided to implement a setback. We widened the street. We did so much for that. So I am saying I think you guys have more authority than you think you have. Do not be bullied by somebody saying, oh, the state says this and we have no discretion. That's not true. You do have discretion. In this particular case, those particular ADU units and all that kind of stuff for affordable housing, it doesn't fit. That is not true. The affordable housing units that they said that they have there are not the way they're supposed to be. It should be two town homes, not just one ADU and one town home. It's not that way. So you should not be bullied by them. If we have to be the test case to go to court and have the state ferret out this issue, we can. But it would be the issue where the state sits there and says, how much control does a local government have over its own city? the El Camino-specific plan, how much control do you have, all of these objective standards. I mean, are you going to sit there and spin your wheels forever and ever and ever and get nothing accomplished because we're afraid of this state thing that hasn't even been tested in the courts yet? And maybe it needs to. That's what happened with the ADUs to begin with.

Thank you. Now we'll go to Catherine Romano.

This is Kathleen Romano. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can please.

Thank you for your time and I apologize that I'm not there in person. I am a historic landmarks commissioner. I would have been there in person if I had realized this was coming up today. There seems to be confusion around the fact of whether 820 Civic Center is historical or not. I did a simple Google search and found the minutes from the HLC Commission from 11-01-2018, where HLC recognized 820 Civic Center Drive as a historic landmark. I cannot find any records of this development coming in front of HLC for approval. And I believe I heard the developers say that only one of the reasons that this could be denied was because of a historical property, and it's not. It is a historical property. I'm a bit confused as to why this was missed. You can't go strictly off the HRI PDF document that is on the website. That is a stale document. You have to go through the minutes and look for supplemental additions. So I would like to recommend that this needs to come in front of HLC first before anything else can be decided. Thank you. I yield the rest of my time.

Thank you. With that, are there any speakers here in the audience? And we have no one else on the line, correct?

Okay.

Hold on. So now we'll have the applicant rebuttal. So the applicant will have five minutes. So Damian Spano and Spano enterprises has the opportunity to make a rebuttal. And you have up to five minutes to do that. The applicant, yourselves, yeah. Yeah, if you have any rebuttal statements that you want to address us. So you have five minutes.

Yeah, I mean, just to clarify, my understanding is that 820 is not part of this project. Yeah, I mean, I don't have any rebuttals at this point. Typically, I think the appellant would speak. But yeah, I think we've made our discussion pretty clear and laid out the state laws at play. This project would not impact and would not demolish any historic structures listed in the state or local registry. So that's not a basis to disapprove the project under state housing law.

Thank you. With that, we're going to go to the appellant. So the appellant will have five minutes. Michael and Cheryl Fisher.

Thank you. I don't know if Andy wants to speak. Well, let's see. First off, 820 Civic is within 150 feet of which I believe is the number of the development. So it is relevant. The 42 townhomes across the street were also brought into that historical requirement. As far as, yeah, I was just blown away by city, not state laws, I'm okay with state laws. I'm blown away by city staff's, you know, a horrible and awful treatment of myself, and then switching the totally opposite direction and horrible, awful treatment on the other flip side of myself. I mean, we got both ends in this one. So his staff's behavior was abhorrent in general. And I can get specific. Give me 5,000 minutes. I wanted to say a couple things about the public meeting process, which is one of the specific things that I was appalled at. First public meeting was voluntary, so I didn't even think it counted, so I didn't really take it seriously. I thought, okay, here comes the robust Meeting process after this never came so I was shocked and disgusted the first public meeting was the the planning had already made up their mind they're they're horrible staff the the planning what's the word, the planning captain or whatever the guy's name, I can say his name, but whatever the position is, the guy in charge of approval, he was sitting, try to be brief, they presented the project. When the citizens of Santa Clara spoke, he became physically uncomfortable and awkward. When I personally spoke, I had a, I think, you know, maybe it's recorded, I think I was very reasonable and brief, but I ended with, excuse me, I lost my train of thought, that was my quote. This person became giddy like a school child. it was disgusting and he's quoted and said no problem we'll just move on and he used that to cut me off it was disgusting and not acceptable in the city of santa clara staff did you have something to add um

Also, one of the things they say is that one of the things they say is CEQA is not required and there's no public health and all that other kind of stuff. And in all honesty, it's an auto body repair place that's right next to us. And there is no environmental study. So it's an auto body shop. I mean, the logic will tell you, hey, you might need to do that. But they're saying, no, we don't need to do an environmental study. And that is a health risk. And that is in the law. So there are lots of things that we're trying to put this development as this great ADU kind of affordable housing thing project. But it's not. It's like putting a square peg in a round hole. You guys are doing well when it comes to trying to meet your government, your state, quotas for building these houses and developments, you wanna do it right. I mean, you remember the development agency back in California? They had this great idea to make it all wonderful and partner with developers and all this other kind of stuff and it turned out just to be that it got banished because it basically was a scam and a lot of people took advantage of it. I don't want that to happen here with all these ADU things going on, with all the objective evidence, or with all the objective standards, with the CEQA, with all of these things. Everyone is kind of jumping into it, and I don't want it to end up as a scam, which is what the redevelopment agency turned out to be. You guys have the opportunity to thoroughly look at this, to thoroughly examine the law, and to thoroughly examine what was said and how you're doing it. You don't have to turn over a project like that just because they say, oh yeah, you have to because that's what the state says. The state doesn't necessarily say that. If you look into the state law, it doesn't say that. You have to make sure there's health and safety, so it's a auto body thing, they should do a CEQA. You wanna make sure that the affordable housing units are actually affordable and can be sold separately, and it's not just an ADU, which isn't the same as a townhome that's three bedrooms and two baths and all that other kind of stuff, and that's what they're using as their affordable housing thing. Because because you can't even sell that separately, right? You can't sell ladies you separately it comes in the same thing so those townhomes and have to be You know, they have to be There's a lot there, thank you Okay, now we're gonna go back to staff Up here so city manager, yeah, we'll come for it.

There are a couple items that we would like to correct for the record I and respond to one of the public comments.

Thank you. Just to briefly correct the record, You already heard in the applicant's response, the accessory dwelling units are not the affordable units for this development. You heard a lot of testimony from the appellant's attorney about concern over the transferability of the accessory dwelling units because She mistakenly thought that those were the affordable units. And just to be crystal clear, one of the affordable units is one of the townhouses and another one of the affordable units is one of the two condos in the duplex building. The ADUs are not part of that analysis. Another speaker mentioned that, well, you know, maybe it's time to test these density bonus laws. Why don't we just go to court and test them? Just to be clear, there actually is a rather robust body of laws upholding the density bonus statutes. Now, they change year to year, but there is a robust body of cases and, unfortunately, a lot of HCD enforcement letters governing the density bonus statutes and how they apply to cities, and they're frequently updated. Most of the time, not favorable to city discretion. There was a lot of discussion about historic eligibility, historic nature of an adjoining property. Just to be crystal clear, there is no property that is on the city's historic resource inventory. If there were, it would have affected whether we could have used the CEQA exemption. It would have required a referral HLC. The applicant, I understood, filed an application for designation years ago, and that application was withdrawn. It is not on the registry, and therefore it's not relevant. Finally, somebody mentioned, you know, there's an auto body shop here. Shouldn't this be a case where we do some sort of hazmat analysis? The project is conditioned by the fire department to do both a phase one and actually even a phase two environmental assessment if the fire department determines it's warranted. The letter that the appellant submitted today said there wasn't enough of a condition requiring a phase one environmental assessment. And they were concerned that it wouldn't be enforceable And that's one of the requirements to use the CEQA exemption, that there be a phase one environmental assessment of the property. And they were saying, well, this condition we put in here, it says for smaller projects that are not moving soil, a phase one environmental assessment may be adequate. And they're saying, no, you should have been more overt in your condition and required the phase one. To be clear, the condition says do a phase two, and then the second part says, It's possible only a phase one would be required. And they're worried we won't even do the phase one. Here's the thing. The phase one is already done. The phase one was completed in August of 2025. It's already been submitted to the city. So there's no risk that the phase one is not going to be done. It has already been completed. And I believe, did the director have anything to add?

No. I just, I had some, just as background, there was no historic preservation ordinance back in 2014 when the appellants project was coming through the historic preservation ordinance was adopted in 2017 and If they would submit an application today for a Designation staff would look at that application and most likely go through the steps in the process for a designation

Sorry, one more correction for the record. This is an architectural review approval. The city code identifies what we can and cannot include as conditions of approval in an architectural review approval. It's typically things like the way parking is laid out. Regrettably, we cannot condition the way commercial space is used as part of an architectural review approval. It's just not germane to the jurisdiction you have tonight.

All right, thank you. So with that, we're going to close public hearing. If we can get a motion to close up, actually, hold on.

Motion to close public hearing.

Second.

So we have a motion and a second. Mrs. City Clerk, can we take that vote?

Council Member Shahal? Yes. Council Member Hardy? Yes. Council Member Park? Yes. Council Member Jain?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Gonzales?

Yes. All right. So now we're going to go to deliberations. I see Council Member Jain.

Yeah. I had a question for staff. HLC Commissioner Kathleen Romano mentioned that there were minutes from the HLC designating 820 as a historic property, but apparently it didn't show up in the registry.

The applicant withdrew the application and it never made it to Council.

I see. Okay. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Twice.

All right. Any other deliberations, comments, debate? Councillor Jane?

Yeah. I learned a lot today. I learned that our hands are really tied here based on these new state laws that have gone in. These automatic waivers, unlimited waivers, the concession, I don't see any room to wiggle here. And so I'll make a motion to overrule the appeal.

I'll second that, and I will say my state senator and my state assembly member are going to get an earful.

Is that for staff recommendation or just to overrule the appeal? I know there was also the determination for the CEQA exemption?

Correct, yes. Staff recommendation? Staff recommendation.

And it might be worth reading that into the record, member chair. Member chair, that's a new title for you. Staff's recommendation is to determine the project be exempt from CEQA pursuant to public resources code section 21080.66. and then conduct the public hearing, consider all evidence presented, and unless you determine that the CEQA exemption is inapplicable or that the project would result in a specific adverse public health or safety impact, as you've heard about your discretion, staff's recommending that the resolution be adopted, which would overrule the appeal and uphold the decision to approve the architectural review permit for the project as described, subject to the conditions of approval.

Thank you. We have Councillor Shahal.

Go ahead, Councillor Shahal. Thank you, Vice Mayor. So I will not be supporting the motion, and I'll give you multiple reasons for that. uh if you look at the resolution let's go point by point resolution clause 3b it states that the design and the location of the proposed development and its relation to neighboring developments and traffic is such that it will not impact the desirability of investment or occupation in the neighborhood will not the unreasonably interfere with the use and enjoyment of the neighboring development. That is completely wrong. Like, it is impacting the neighborhood. It is impacting the residents who are existing residents on that development, basically. And so I don't think that's a reasonable true statement. Let me go to clause 3c, that the design and the location of the proposed development is such that it is in keeping with the character of the neighborhood and is such that not to be determined to the harmonious development contemplating by the zoning code. That's again, that's not right. This is impacting the neighborhood. This is impacting the harmony. This is creating a couple of neighbors have come forward. It is stressful for them to have living in a shaded houses where stressful because they own that property in a context that they had a different view when they owned it. And if I have that property in that location right now, it will be stressful. It will be health and safety risk for me as a resident over there. So I don't agree with that 3C. Let's go to 3D, that the granting of such approval will not, under the circumstances of the particular case, materially affect adversely the health, comfort, and general welfare of persons residing or working in the neighborhood. Again, that's wrong. Residents have come forward that it will impact their comfort, it will impact their general welfare, it will impact them mentally, basically. Let's go to 3e, that the proposed development as set forth in the plans and drawings are consistent with the set of more detailed policies and criteria for architectural review as approved and updated from time to time by the Council. If you go further on that, the last sentence of that para says, incorporate a design compatible with the surrounding development pattern, goal 2A, and would facilitate efficient and convenient layout of the parking. It is not compatible with the existing surrounding development. So for those reasons, I will not be supporting the motion. Thank you.

Council Member Mark.

Yeah, so I have a couple of questions about the historic preservation resource inventory, which is I've been told that it's not up to date, that things are that the website is not accurate. I kind of want to know if that's true and why that's true. I've been told that the that there is a meeting on November 1, 2018, or recognized 820 Civic Center Drive. I'm being told that the applicant withdrew the historic application twice. So I kind of want to understand that. I want to know We kind of clarified this. I had a question about what the affordable units would be. I mean, I know that there was a lot of confusion around the ADUs, but I've been told that the affordable units are basically one townhouse and one condo. I am also aware that they don't meet the 15% affordable units. with that number. I want to know how much below the 15% affordable units can developers build and before, you know, and augment with fees before we don't allow this. I kind of want to know. It's important. I also think, and this is my comment, that legally required or not, the city needs to consider the welfare of its residents. At some point, and I've said this, every development comes in, every big developer comes in and says, we're your friends. We're going to be your future neighbors. I'm going to say, you are not our friends. You are not our future neighbors. You are a developer. And at some point, there needs to be some consideration of the actual friends, the actual neighbors. Nobody likes this, but I'm going to tell a story. It's about a farmer that had 50 sheep, and he saw another 50 sheep, and he said, well, I'd like to add that 50 sheep to my flock. And so he treated those 50 sheep very well, and he gave them the food from the original 50 sheep. And after a week, he said, well, what do you think? Do you want to join my flock? They said, you've treated us very well. But in treating us well, we've seen how you treated your original flock, and we feel that when a new flock comes, we joined your flock and another flock, another 50 sheep came along. We are worried about how you would treat us since we've seen how you treated your original flock. And so, no, we will not be joining your flock. And I think that this kind of story was made exactly for for things like this. And if staff is not going to look out for the welfare of the residents, I mean, at some point, it looks like Mr. Fisher was not treated well, but I can't talk to that. So I'm not going to talk to that. But at some point, I can talk to the residents. When we're saying, well, we've got no sunlight, we're trying to avoid saying that there's no sunlight by saying there is no requirement for a shadow study. There shouldn't need to be a shadow study to see how the light would be affected. I think that it's kind of a shame that staff won't come out and just say that. When we look at privacy, I think it's a shame that staff will not come out and just say, well, privacy will be affected. I think it's a shame that we don't have any kinds of considerations for privacy. We go back to state law, and we go back to the waivers, the minimum requirements, and I think that it's a shame that we are looking at so many waivers and ignoring the feedback, but I think it's justified. And the argument that's coming against it is a legal argument. I mean, I've said this many times, that the legal argument is the lowest bar, and at some point, legal requirements don't guarantee that people are served. In fact, I'd say that in some cases, when the legal requirement goes against people's welfare, then the legal requirement is not a good requirement. Legal does not mean good, good does not mean legal. I have stated this many times, even to the city attorney, that even the worst attorney, you know, in the worst city attorney would still be legal. This is not a bar that we should be touting as we're doing well. I think it is something that we need to look at as, well, this is a baseline, but even though it's theoretically good, What is the actual effect? And I feel like that the actual effect on the people has been ignored, and I think that's a shame. But I would like my other questions answered. Historic preservation, if the applicant submitted an application for historic to be on the historic inventory list it was it seems like they were told that they didn't need to because eligibility was the same as as being on the list that's not exactly true how would that change the the calculus of of this and how much below 15% affordable can developers build and still augment with fees because it seems like that's just a that's just a trick which is I can build whatever I want and I can augment it with fees because as long as I hit that 15% I'm going to get my density bonus and then we're going to have discussions about what the state law requires us to do. And I appreciate Councilmember Chauhal's comments. I was looking at that as well. I know that when we look at Planning commission, planning commissioners are supposed to make findings. And I think that it's really difficult to make findings in this case. But the findings don't matter because, well, we've got this state law legal requirement. But I'll leave the answers for staff now. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Park. First, we just checked regarding the historic resources inventory, and the inventory is up to date. In fact, we updated it back in February, 2026 at the city council meeting that did come to council and the website should also be up to date. So just wanted to make a note. You also asked why did the applicant withdraw twice? We don't know. They put in an application. It's really up to an applicant to proceed forward. In that case, they withdrew. I think we've already responded to the question about the affordable units. One is in the townhome, and the other one is a duplex. And regarding the comment about how much affordable are they proposing, they are actually proposing, and I have that written down, Ah, the two moderate income units comprise 14.2% of the units, and the fee represents the other 0.8%, and that is per our affordable housing ordinance. So they are meeting it, and they can do it as a combination.

When the 15% would result in a fractional unit, we allow them to take care of that fractional unit by paying an in lieu fee. And just with regards to the architectural findings, I understand the frustration that some of the council members have voiced. We still have a code that has some robust, subjective architectural findings, and they are very important for our non-commercial developments. but we haven't really caught up to state law in revising them for multifamily residential developments. So we have this awkward resolution here where staff believes you can make these findings, we can make them in the affirmative, but we've heard from two council members who believe they can't make the subjective findings. Regrettably, that's not consistent with the Housing Accountability Act. You need to make your decision based on objective standards. And tonight, I've heard two of you say you're not going to support the motion because of the subjective standards. So that's attention related to the fact that our code hasn't quite caught up with state law, and we're asking you to make subjective findings, which you now disagree with.

I don't think I don't believe I heard to council members state that they were going to vote against this I don't believe I heard that at all.

I apologize if I jumped the gun, I should not have made an assumption I heard one council members that he wasn't going to support the motion and then I heard another one express reservations.

Thank you. Is—Council Member Park, do you have anything else that you wanted to mention?

Yeah. I mean, I do want to have comments for that, which is, again, I think that staff is jumping the gun, making a number of assumptions which should not be made. I mean, at some point, I think that council members do understand that whether they agree or disagree with something, that there are findings There are decisions that need to be made. I think that this is very true. I voted for or against things that I don't agree with because, well, it seems like it was necessary. I think it's actually bad practice to make that kind of assumption and make that kind of a statement in a response to a council member question. These are questions.

I'll go back and listen to the recording.

Oh, yes, I suggest you do. I take notes, and I'm going to say that usually the reason why I speak even as clearly as I do is because I write down almost every single thing I'm going to say so that when people misquote me, I can.

Public hearing is over. I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Congressman Park. So that when people accuse me of saying something that I didn't say, I can go back and say that's not likely.

Okay. I apologize, Councilmember.

I shouldn't have made that assumption. Oh, I mean, by all means, go back and take a look at the video.

I trust you on this. I shouldn't have made that assumption.

So the other thing I wanna say is that I know that you're saying that the code has subjective findings, and I think that there are some objective findings that we say are not required, but I almost feel like they should be done because there's nothing more objective than a shadow study. There is nothing more objective than the sun in the sky being able to go into windows or not going to windows. And when you say that that is the basis of a subjective finding that is not allowed, that doesn't make any sense to me. And when you tell me that, well, we don't have to do that, and that's the reason we're not going to do that, and we don't have to do that, and that's why we're not going to consider it, I feel that that is, again, ignoring the welfare of our residents. I mean, throughout history, sunlight, the availability to have sunlight, has been an issue, not just here, but throughout civilizations. And for us to throw it out because of, well, state law, seems like a very bad use of a very big stick. Again, I have to think about this. I feel that when we say affordability, when the 15 percent would be a fractional unit to not require that that unit be full, I think that it should be a minimum 15 percent maybe we need to revise the housing ordinance. Because stuff like this, I feel like when you've got projects this small, It is possible that you will lose units because they're just gonna pay for this in fees. And I'd like that fee, I mean, if they're gonna have to pay a fee, I would like that fee to be commensurate with being able to, you know, having a unit for an affordable unit, meaning you would have to subtract out a market rate unit and then add in a affordable unit and take more than the difference in order to make up for this, because this is an affordable unit you're never going to get. Anyways, I don't have more to say. Thank you.

Thank you. City Manager Groban?

With that, I was just going to remind Council that it is now 11-12, and we are on the first of five regular business items, and so certainly robust discussion, but if we can proceed to a vote on this item, that would be helpful.

I think we're going to move to that. I just want to mention, I understand the frustration. I could tell you that my year and a half, almost two years on the council, we have lost local control from because of the state issues, and some of that is maybe right. The state wants to build more housing, and they're doing what they can to get that done. But I could unequivocally tell you that there's apartments, houses here in, apartments for sure, here in Santa Clara that have zero direct sunlight into their apartments, which are not much bigger than 500 square feet. It is what it is, right? Unfortunately, you know, we have laws today that are allowing this building, and I think that that's something that we can look forward to seeing how this is going to develop. I believe the applicant has made some level of Try to make it less high as far as three stories closer to those two-story houses. There's never gonna be a great, great way of doing multi-story versus areas that are less, you know, either single-story or two-stories. I can tell you that. I live on District 1. We have 20-story buildings right now, right? So we're looking at building more. Obviously, they're not directly next to a one- or two-story, but definitely it's a different environment that we're in today. And, you know, I think our residents, all our residents, are impacted. And for our landowner who's been there for, gosh, I think it was 50 years or something, 1970s, I mean, we care about all our residents and trying to make sure that we do what we can for the residents that are here in the city. And with that, I think we can take the vote.

I believe Council Member Park's hand is up still.

Oh, no, I will request a speaking after this, which is my point that I want to make is we have a lot of issues ahead of us. We're at 1115, and this is not a failure of council or robust discussion. I think this is a failure of meeting management. There was no way that all of these items were going to make it through this night. And when we look at all the The meetings that have gone long, the one that occurred at the end of July, there was no way that these meetings were going to end before midnight. If you just did a simple meeting analysis of the agenda items, And I think that at this point, to try to hurry the votes, I mean, I agree that we should hurry the votes, but at some point, if this meeting goes long, it's not because of robust discussion. This meeting is for robust discussion. This meeting is the first and only time that a lot of residents, a lot of the council members get to hear and address an issue that will affect people for the rest of their lives. And at that point, that robust discussion is not just valid, but it's justified. And I think at some point, an acknowledgement of the late time I mean, that's kind of due to we really need to look at how we agendize items and how we estimate how long items will take because we've got a number of really big and pretty big, pretty controversial items on this agenda, and we tend to.

Thank you. Council Member Park, we're going to take the vote now.

Council Member Chauhal. No. Council Member Hardy. Yes. Council Member Park.

Abstain.

Councilmember Jane.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Gonzalez.

Yes. So the motion fails. So the development review officer's decision stands, and so the architectural review is approved. With that, we will take a... What time is it?

Actually, if the motion, this motion failed and the motion was for the recommendation, there could be an alternate motion made rather than simply saying that this is over. This literally happened with the Peregrine. And I think that this is one of the things why we need, you know, better input from executive staff to tell us what our options are, because the fact that this vote failed does not mean anything. I mean, there's still a lot more to this item. I mean, there's still possibility of a lot more to this item.

Mr. Chair and Council Member Park, I was just about to speak. Okay. And so just to clarify the legal effect of this item and to confirm Member Park's statements that potentially there are other options, if in fact any one of you want to make a different motion, you could. So the legal effect of this action is generally as the chair described, still don't know what to call you, vice mayor and chair and presiding officer described, that because there was not four affirmative votes for the motion, in effect, no action was taken. And the legal effect of that is that the underlying decision to approve the project stands. And so if another council member at this point wanted to make a different motion for council's consideration, that would be in order. And Presiding Officer Gonzales, you could certainly solicit that as part of your handling of this matter.

Yeah. Is there any other council member that wants to make a motion?

I have a couple of questions. First of all, if we go back and we ask staff to relook at some of the issues, some of the items that have come up, for example, if we had the appellant look into historical, you know, being added to the historical landmarks list, if we looked into the welfare issues, like what is our ability to ask for additional information? Meaning when I'm told things such as this is not legally required, that's fine. But if we're asking for it, at what point can we get, can we make, can we ask for additional information? Like I would like a fire report. I would like to know what the privacy concerns. I would like to know what the setbacks are. I would like a height. I would like a you know, study. I would like those things. And if we can get additional information, then I would like to push this back to staff and bring this back with this additional information, give the appellant time to consider if their property is historic to put that an application for historic recognition, but I'd like to know more about what's here, because again, this is a project, like many projects that the Spinos, Mr. Spino has put in, but this is where people, these are people's homes. Right. Not just houses. These are people's homes. And at some point, if we don't have respect for the residents that are already here, if we're just going to bend over and say, well, we can't do anything because of law, state law, then at some point, what do any residents in this city, what allegiance, what hope does any resident in this city have, you know, because we can build anything now. It doesn't make any sense. I think at some point we need to make a stand and say these are the things that are required and these are the things that we're going to do that are not required because we believe in and we support the welfare of our residents. What can we do here?

Sure. I will address that in a few parts and then turn to the city attorney. One, I think it's important to note that we cannot condition new studies, analysis or research on this project at this time. With regard to pausing and allowing the appellant to potentially apply for historic resource designation, I would turn to legal, but my gut is that would not be valid after the time of application. nor would it be appropriate for us to pause a decision allowing the appellant to go through a historic resource designation for their property. And so with regard to any specific information that you feel that you need, I would ask for additional clarity on that. But if it's a new study or condition of the project, that is not possible. I'll turn it over to legal.

Yeah, and I'm going to ask for Attorney Abbey to assist me with this and supplement or redirect me if I get it wrong, that the things that And I think the city manager had a right for some clarification on what you're looking for. A number of things that you're looking for are things that you've been told aren't required and can't be used as part of your decision. And so to direct that would be inconsistent with the parameters of the decision and we wouldn't recommend it. If there was some new information that you had received here tonight that potentially hadn't been considered at the lower level, you could remand the matter for further consideration and direction. But I think you've heard from staff there's you know, the information that you've received is consistent with the underlying, you know, decision, and you have limited discretion based on the applicability of state law, you know, in which to act. And so while what Member Park is recommending is theoretically possible a remand based on new information and a request for additional information. I don't think there's new information, and the request for additional information asks for things that aren't, we believe, a legal basis for you to change your decision. And if member, if attorney Abby thinks I got that wrong or wants to add anything to that, I would invite that readily. I got a thought.

All right. I don't see any hands as far as anybody wants to make a motion. And with that, we're going to take a six-minute break, and then we'll bring the mayor back to address item six. Thank you. Submission stands.

All right. Thank you, everyone, and thank you for your patience. We're going to move. Oh, before we move on to item number six, I want to tell the council item number seven, the consideration of a historic resource designation for the Tabercio Vasquez gravesite located in Santa Clara Mission Cemetery. His family was here. they had to leave. So I'm going to ask the council to consider a continuation. May I have it? Yeah. Sorry, I can't even talk.

I'd like to make the motion to continue item number seven for the historic designation for the gravesite.

Second. All right, we have a motion by Council Member Hardy, second by Council Member Park to continue that. They're okay with either the 15th or the 22nd, whatever is more appropriate, would like to be heard towards the beginning of the meeting. They don't like to drive at night. Okay, so we have a motion and a second on that continuance. Assistant City Clerk, when you're ready. Council Member Chauhal.

Yes. Council Member Hardy. Yes. Council Member Park.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Gonzales?

Yes.

Mayor Gilmour?

Yes. And that passes unanimously by those present. All right. We're going to move now to item number six, public hearing, action on a vesting tentative subdivision map. PLN 24-00665 for 147 units and one commercial building located at 3521 and 3591 Homestead Road, subject to Senate Bill 330-2019. CEQA determined that the vesting tentative map application is within the scope of the adopted MMD. And this is a public hearing, so it is open. City Manager.

Thank you, Mayor. In the interest of time, you've said a good introduction. So the staff presentation will be provided by Lakshmi Rajagopalan, our Assistant Director of Community Development. I will invite her to the podium.

Thank you. Welcome and thank you for your patience staying this late. We appreciate it.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the Council, and members of the public. Lakshmi Rajagopalan, Assistant Director of Community Development. Before you today, Before you today is a request to find that this proposed subdivision is within the scope of the Adopted Mitigated Negative Declaration, or the MND, prepared for the project and no further environmental analysis is required, and adopt a resolution approving the besting tentative subdivision map to reconfigure Existing adjacent parcels and to create a subdivision for condominium purposes for 147 units and for one commercial building and this project is subject to Senate bill or SB 313 and City Council review and final approval of the vesting tentative subdivision map is required So moving on to the existing site, the existing approximately 5.5 acre site is located at 3521 and 3591 Homestead Road at the intersection of Lawrence Expressway and Homestead Road. This site is designated neighborhood mixed use in the general plan and is zoned mixed use neighborhood commercial and is surrounded by multifamily residential and commercial uses. As I mentioned previously, the Westing tentative subdivision map includes the reconfiguration of two existing adjacent parcels to create a subdivision for condominium purposes. And this project was cleared by the project PCC committee and the subdivision committee on October 7, 2025. So this slide shows the existing parcels that are proposed to be reconfigured through this map. And this slide shows the approved, the project that was subject to the architectural review process through the DRH or the development review hearing. And the approved project includes 94-story stacked condominium units and 57 three-story townhome units. And the development also includes an approximately 4,900 square feet commercial building, parking, driveways, common and private open space areas. So in terms of project timeline, I just want to draw your attention to key milestones in this project timeline. The project application for both the architectural review and the subdivision map was submitted in December 2024, and the applicant filed an SB 330 preliminary application to make sure that the applicable fees and development standards at that time apply. In October 7th, 2025, the PCC and the subdivision committee deemed the SB 330 preliminary application and the subdivision BTM complete and clear. There were two community meetings held, one in November 2025 and February 2026. The development review hearing for the architectural review permit was approved in June, and a planning commission reviewed and recommended approval 6-0 in August of 2026. In the further slides, I'll go over feedback that we received from the community and how the applicant worked with the community to address their concerns. So at the development review meeting on June 17, 2026, seven community members attended the meeting. In addition, six public comment letters were received in opposition and five comment letters were received in support of the project. Neighbor Commons focused on privacy impacts due to height, balcony placement, lack of multi-story step-backs, off-site parking concerns, and lack of transitional development. The project was approved by the Development Review Officer with additional conditions. The conditions include, requiring additional landscape between the property and the adjacent property. The garages should be only used for parking, and this is included as part of the conditions of approval in the architectural review, condition P7, and all the garage doors should include windows to address any kind of off-site parking concerns. At the Planning Commission meeting on August 12, 2026, the Planning Commission discussed the project and emphasized that the applicant should work with the city to make sure that the demolition is carried in a way to prevent vandalization or deterioration of the site. And they also encouraged the applicant to work with VTA to possibly increase service at the Homestead and Bing Drive bus stop. Finally, the Planning Commission recommended approval of the map. A quick overview of SB 330 and the requirements of our affordable housing ordinance. So as I mentioned previously, the applicant did use SB 330 pre-application, and it allows for streamlined review if it complies with objective standards. In effect, at the time, the application was deemed complete. In addition, the project proposes 22 affordable units and will also pay an in lieu fee for the 0.05 remaining fraction that's consistent with the city's affordable housing ordinance requirement. So pursuant to state density bonus law, the project requests or included four waivers and one concession, and the waivers were for waiving the multi-story step-back requirements, waiver of the 45 degree daylight plane requirement, increase in the number of stories, increase in building height, and the concession was to reduce the commercial floor area ratio requirement. The subdivision map, our staff do find that the subdivision map complies with all the applicable zoning code standards and also has been processed consistent with the Subdivision Map Act and the city code requirements. The subdivision map is also consistent with the general plan because it supports the general plan's neighborhood mixed use designation by providing additional housing near jobs and services, and also advances the city's mixed use and housing goals by delivering new residential opportunities, including affordable homes within an established mixed use area. Moving on to public outreach, public notice included standard agenda posting, newspaper notice, and mailing the public hearing notice to 1,331 property owners and tenants within half a mile radius of the project site. And moving on to community meetings. The first community meeting was held on November 13th, 2025, which was held in a hybrid format. 38 members of the public attended in person and 11 online. And at that meeting, the community members raised several concerns related to the loss of retail of existing commercial space, displacement of small businesses, traffic concerns. And they also had questions about who initiated the redevelopment process. And the applicant, since the first meeting, actually worked with the property owner and the management company to address tenant concerns regarding relocation of these small businesses, which included free rent, extension of leases, broker assistance. Of the 16 businesses, approximately nine have relocated within Santa Clara, three of them have relocated out of Santa Clara, and three of them retired or went out of business. So moving on to CEQA evaluation, initial study and MND mitigated negative declaration was prepared for this project and it did not find any substantial evidence that the project will have significant effect of the environment and the proposed tentative subdivision map is consistent with the approved MND and would not result in any new environmental impacts or increase the severity of any previously identified impact. So therefore, no additional environmental analysis is required. So in conclusion, staff recommend that the city council find the proposed subdivision is within the scope, subdivision map is within the scope of the adopted MND and determine that no further environmental review is required and adopt the resolution approving the map. This concludes my presentation and I'm available to answer any questions.

Thank you. Thank you. So before we go to the applicant, I'm going to ask the council if they have questions. Council Member Hardy.

Thank you. Just very quickly, you said something very fast that I did not truly understand. You said you needed to have windows in the garage doors because of offsite parking concerns. That didn't make sense to me.

I had a question about demolition because, hold on, the applicant, we don't, I know you raised your hand. Jim, we don't call on you yet. Okay, I got that. All right. One of the concerns I have is about demolition because when we have vacant shopping centers and we see that on the El Camino now with the project that we approve, it feels like eight years ago with the vacant buildings, can demolition occur early? Can we require that or does that interfere with SB 330? So I want to know what our, what our, what our, what we can do in terms of requiring the developer to demolish because that's going to be an attractive nuisance if it isn't already. So, so that's my question on the demolition. Does anybody else have questions only? Councilmember Park.

Yeah, I have questions about

I have a question about demolition as well. I mean, we've seen, at least in my district, that any time that we have a demolition of a large project, whether it's remodeling of a apartment complex or a shopping site, that usually pushes a lot of rats into the neighborhoods. Is there anything that can be done to ensure that demolition, that remodel, these kinds of things do not have this kind of effect on the neighborhoods? Which is, it's very clear, and you can see, I can show you the bite marks on the trash cans. I just want to make sure that when we do things, maybe we fumigate, maybe we do something in advance of a demolition because we have seen this time and time again. Thank you.

Anyone else on the council? All right, those are the questions. You're getting off easy right now. Thank you.

So to Council Member Hardy's questions. So based on the feedback that we heard from the community meetings and also feedback that we heard at the DRH hearing that residents were concerned about parking off-site and that garages should be used only to park their cars and not for storage, the development review officer added a condition that Windows be added to the garage door to alleviate off-street parking concerns.

So you can see in the windows? Is that the purpose? You can see if the car is in the window? Yes. Through the window? Window in the car.

Yeah, to make sure that a car is parked inside the garage, not used for storage. So the garage door will have some kind of windows so that they can see that a car is indeed parked inside the garage and not used for storage. So Mayor, you had a question about when we can require demolition to occur and what we can require. The applicant has to apply for a demolition permit with the building division. And as part of that, we could include conditions on how soon, on how it would be faced. And then Council Member Park's question was about pests. Did I get the question right, Councilman Park?

Yes. So can we require... How do we prevent pests, rats, things going into the neighborhoods from demolition, especially for buildings, including a market that have been abandoned for a long time? I mean, even a month. How can we mitigate that?

Maybe the question can go also to the applicant, because one of the questions would be, is there still material inside the market? And how are they going to plan to deal with it? I would punt that to the applicant for now.

And if I can, if I could circle back to Council Member Hardy's question also on the parking garage, the garage requiring windows, we also have a condition of approval in the architectural review standards that it's operational conditions P7 that the garage should be used only for vehicle parking use and it cannot be used for storage. And following up on Council Member Park's question, the Environmental Services Division oversees this, and they would also include this as a condition in the demo permit for fumigation.

Very good. Thank you. All right. Now we will hear from the applicant, and you have, I think, sorry, Council Member Jain.

Yeah. I just wanted to ask, in the commercial space, are we requiring vents and grease traps? I didn't see that in the conditions.

Yes, it would be.

OK. Now the applicant, 10 minutes. Please come forward. Assistant city clerk, do you have that?

Yes. Is this Jim Sullivan?

Yes. Jim Sullivan, yes.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council. And I had actually a PowerPoint slideshow, but staff did such a great job. Before I begin, I just want to say that my project planner, Mayha, Steve Lee, her supervisor, Leslie, and Afshan were great to work with throughout this entire process. And I know that council member Jane was actually at the November 13th, I think, community meeting. I think it was the second hybrid meeting that we had. Director Hamid was there as well. And the 38 people, it was chaotic. The vast majority of them were the tenants. And going to some of the earlier comments that were made, even though there wasn't a legal obligation, I mean, all the tenants were given the knowledge of, okay, you have a year to vacate. I pushed in in Pulte push for the property owner who complied with hiring relocation specialists extending terms helping out with with assistance and so 13 as you know of the tenants were relocated nine of them here in the city of Santa Clara I think two others in Sunnyvale one in San Mateo one in Fremont and The other thing, and it came up during the, more in the DRH meeting, were four homeowners on Bing Drive that actually cited to our site, and they had some privacy concerns, and so I thought that Pulte Homes did a great job going out of their way, again, not a legal obligation, but saying, let's see if we can provide more screening trees either within your backyards or if we can do it on our site. We were able to do it on our site. We worked with them on the species of trees, and they were very happy with this moving forward. So all in all, the four-story product we have primarily along Lawrence Expressway. The three-story product we have along our western edge, which is a school, the four homeowners, as well as McDonald's. uh... touching on some of the the questions that came up the the two things that were added the windows in the garage yet mainly for number one staff planning staff likes them because they look better and i agree with them polti didn't want to do it but we agreed to do it just to make sure people didn't use uh... their two garage space as storage, which they're not allowed to do under the CC&Rs that we'll put in effect. With regard to the demolition permit, Pulte will close escrow 30 days after or so, assuming that this project is approved. They're in for a demo permit. They've been in for some time. I know that we're also trying to work with the police and fire department. They like to use it before we demo it for their breaching activities. um to council member park's concern on the rats yeah i know that all of that stuff if we if we foresee a problem we have in the past had traps along the outside but it sounds like the building department is going to work on a fumigation request if necessary with that i'm open to any questions I'm very happy, by the way, that after DRH there was no appeal to this. I think we did a great job with the tenants that were on the site and with the homeowners that were nearby.

Okay. Thank you. Council, do you have any questions for the applicant? We've got six and a half minutes left. Are you sure? We're not forcing you to take it all. Okay. All right. He's done.

Thank you.

Very good. All right. Now it is a public hearing, so I'm going to the public. Is there any member of the public that would like to speak on this issue? Anyone here in the audience? Anyone online? No one online? May I have a motion from the council to close the public hearing? Councilmember Hardy. Motion to close public hearing.

Second.

So we have a motion by Council Member Hardy, second by Vice Mayor Gonzales to close the public hearing. City Clerk, when you're ready.

Council Member Schahal? Yes. Council Member Hardy? Yes. Council Member Park?

Yes.

Council Member Jain?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Gonzales? Yes. Mayor Gilmour?

Yes, and that passes unanimously of those present. All right. Council Member Hardy.

I'll make a motion for the recommendation from staff to determine the proposed subdivision as within the scope of the adopted mitigated negative declaration and adopt a resolution approving the vesting tentative subdivision map. I will say when a developer does their work, it really, really helps. and makes us a little more superfluous which is nice and i was thrilled to hear that kaipo market will go closer to my house in my district we didn't lose them all right we have a motion by councilmember hardy second by vice mayor gonzalez councilmember park on the motion yeah i mean my question for staff is what actually can we do here i mean this is just an approval of the uh

I mean, I feel like there isn't really anything that we can do. Everything's been done. This is just a ministerial approval. That's the first question. Second thing, I have a couple of comments, which is I remember a time when in order to add high density residential, we had to justify that residential with supportive retail. I mean, we used a lot of tricky things like horizontal zoning and things like that to show that the people that we were bringing in were being served by the retail. And now we've got—we're adding high-density residential while removing the support of retail, including a market. And we used to have requirements. That said, you have to justify how the retail supports the people that you're bringing in, not just open space, but we had a retail requirement. I don't know when that went away. I mean, in this area, we lost Safe Mart, which is going to come up a little bit later in our year. We lost the Galleria. We lost Cosentino's, and Kyopo moved from El Camino and took over Cosentino's space, and now we've kind of lost that too. I mean, it's moving. But the area here, I'm kind of worried about even the grocery outlet across the street because it looks like the landowners in that area are letting the stores kind of go go to pot because, like, you go there and the floors are breaking, things aren't working, electrical things aren't working. It just looks like it's ripe for removal and replacement with another high-density project. When I look at the general plan, that was supposed to be a mixed-use area. I believe that was. I mean, that's what the zoning was as well. I mean, one of the reasons I'm on council is because Almost 20 years ago, 15 years ago, I was on the General Plan Steering Committee, so I know intimately a lot of the high density and mixed-use places and all the places that we used to have. The biggest regional mixed-use hub that was supposed to also support San Jose went to single story retail with no housing whatsoever there was no mixed use there and i think that unfortunately that pushed a lot of housing into places where housing wasn't the only consideration and we're losing a lot of retail my concern is that by approving this project and projects like this and by not having a supportive retail plan that we're going to lose retail. I mean, a lot of council members have already expressed their opinion that retail is dead. And I'm going to say that is only true in this city. I mean, we look at Sunnyvale, you look at Cupertino. I mean, Sunnyvale, if you look at their latest budget, they've got their number two budget priority is residential supportive retail. And I think they've done a tremendous job. But then again, they have a downtown. I mean, these are the things that I worry about when we're just bringing in homes. And the fact that we are bringing in homes and getting rid of the retail that was there, I mean, I don't know why, but I've talked to the stores, the store owners, and they've told me about increasing. We lost Baskin Robbins. That was like, oh, my goodness. We lost Laundry. We lost the pizza place. We lost restaurants. How is this even possible? And the short answer is, I feel... that we're not doing enough to make sure that the people that we're bringing in are supported by services and retail. And this attitude of, well, people don't want retail. People want to shop at Amazon. Nobody wants to eat at Amazon. I guarantee you that's the case. When we say that, well, we can put more density here because it's being served by transportation, I looked at the Clara District, and they use the fact that there's a train station there to justify, and I'm thinking nobody, very few people take the train station, take the train to work, and like nobody takes the train to the market. These are the kinds of things that I worry about. I really wish that staff would do a little bit more to preserve the retail because you can't just bring people in and then give them nowhere to shop, nowhere to go. We talk about walkable neighborhoods and we don't have places for them to walk. Nobody wants to walk to housing places where they do not live. I mean, at some point we worry about the rats going into the neighborhoods, but I mean, we're not giving the neighbors and we're not giving the residents any place to go. I think it's unfortunate that all we can do at this point, and I talked to Mr. Sullivan, I met him outside. We talked about this a little bit. We didn't go into these issues because, well, wasn't the time and place for that. I talked about this a couple of years ago as well, but these are my concerns. And at some point, we have the applicants here. I think that the applicants have done what they can with the project that they proposed. But I really am talking to staff. I'm really talking to the city and asking, how do we make the residents' lives better? Like at some point, we are supposed to have a planning department, not an approval department. Through the years, I feel, and with state law and with all these other things, that's what we've become.

Okay. I'm going to stop it right there because I think that someone needs to explain to Councilmember Park what Senate Bill 330 means. Can someone from the planning departments talk about that? Because our authority over this development is significantly limited. No, I understand that. That was my first comment. It doesn't sound like you understand, Councilmember Park. It's significantly limited and the developer has chosen to use this state housing law that allows waivers and concessions from our local development standards. That is not something that our planning department or community development department invented. It's a state of California. So it doesn't sound like you understand that. Can someone clearly explain to him? If you understand that, then we can move on. But what you're doing is blaming other people, our department and our staff for something that the state has passed. It's Senate Bill 330. None of us, our hands are tied. So all this pontificating about commercial and we're doing a terrible job and everything else, tell that to the state of California that severely limits what we can do for these properties. So I'm going to move on unless there was a question in there somewhere in the beginning, but we need to move on. And I don't want to hear any repeats because actually it's 12.03. So I'm going to stop right now and ask the council how long you want to continue going on. this evening. We won't stop the meeting now, honestly, and make you come back. Councilmember Hardy, can you make a motion or Vice Mayor Gonzales?

Motion to continue the meeting only until 1230. All right.

Is there a second?

Madam Mayor, we might want to amend that. The next couple of items that are in front of you actually require action by you in order to be timely back to the grand jury. We may need more time than that.

What do they do back to the grand jury? We're not staying past that. There's no way we're going to get through those items. I can tell you right now.

They're pretty straightforward, Madam Mayor.

Nothing is straightforward with this council. I'm sorry to argue with you. There is nothing straightforward.

Do we have a special meeting on September 1st?

I'll amend my motion for we will not go past 1 a.m.

But even if we don't finish those, we're done at 1 a.m. Whether we finished or not, I would ask to send a notice to the grand jury that ours is going to be delayed. We can hear it on the 15th.