Economic Development, Communications, and Marketing Committee - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Now call to order the downtown community task force meeting of Wednesday, 03/04/2026. Leslie, please call roll.

Thank you, chair. Member Thompson?

Here.

Member Ondersec?

Here.

Member Mayor?

Here.

Member Von Hoon? Here. Member Vargas Smith?

Here.

Member Reid?

Here.

Member Coyne? Here. Member Collins? Here. And member Varginay did let me know that she's gonna be thirty minutes late. She's on her way coming from far away, so she should be here about 06:30.

K. Do we need to excuse that? Or

You you don't. If she doesn't show up, we can excuse her the end of the meeting.

Okay. Thank you. I would like to request that we get the staff reports pulled up to the beginning of the meeting just because I think we should have that information on what the updated status of the downtown infrastructure fee and RFP is so when we review the financial, we can have that understanding. Sure. Please.

Can I read the procedures first? Okay. Thanks. So declaration of procedures. Meetings are conducted by the chair in accordance with the following procedures. The chair of the DCTF directs all activity during the meeting. Any item on this agenda may be continued to a subsequent meeting. Special procedures time lets may be time limits may be applied to any items as prescribed by the chair. Copies of the current agenda and staff reports for each of the items on the agenda are available online on the Downtown Precise Plan website as well as the city clerk's website. And then you want me to move to staff report?

No. Yeah. We'll now move to the consent calendar. We can do the consent Consent calendar first. Yeah, please. Thank you.

The procedure for consent calendar items is as follows. The consent calendar may be enacted or approved by one motion unless requested to be removed by anyone for discussion or explanation. We have one item on the consent calendar for this evening, and that is the downtown community task force meeting minutes of the 10/16/2025 meeting.

Is there a motion to move to to approve the consent item? So move consent calendar.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

All opposed? It passes.

Alright.

So now we'll move on to staff report. I have two update items for the task force this evening. The first one under staff report is an update on the status of the downtown infrastructure fee. Our public works department is the lead on this project, and they've been working on it for quite a while. And the update they provided me was that they have hired the fee consultant to prepare the analysis of the public infrastructure costs necessary to build out the downtown precise plan.

Included in this scope of analysis is an option to create a proposed developer infrastructure impact fee to fund the public infrastructure costs, so such as the new streets and any utility infrastructure. Two of these goals are to provide an indication of the infrastructure cost responsibilities for project sites as well as equitably share the infrastructure costs among the project sites. The city's consultant has completed a draft of the fee analysis. Staff is currently reviewing that draft. It identifies approximately $42,000,000 in required public infrastructure improvements, so, again, including new streets, utilities, pavement, traffic signal modifications.

And let's see. The city is also looking at additional options to fund downtown precise plan public infrastructure in addition to the option of this developer fee. And so that's the update they've provided for me this evening. Do you have any questions or comments on that?

Do we know when we'd have the report back from the consultant?

They did not provide me a timeline with this update.

Any details on where else you're looking for those be?

On where else you're looking for

those fees.

Other than assigning them to the properties? No. They they just said developer fee. That's all they told me.

Can we get an update on when that fee, and can we get a timeline?

Yeah. I can email. I can I can ask and email the task force? Yeah. Thank you.

I did notice that that is missing in this financial report, so it's definitely something that's gonna have to be clicked in.

Okay.

And then the second update I have for you is on the status of the request for proposals for the city owned property on Blocks A And B in downtown. As most of you know, our chair, Adam, as well as member Rob Mayer, have been meeting and working on drafting the RFP with our economic development director, Rina Brio. She was here last time providing you an update in October, if you recall. And this RFP is to list solicit development that will deliver community amenities on the four point acre city owned property. So that's A And B again at Lafayette and Homestead.

They've had seven meetings to date. There's still more work to be done. And when they are ready, the draft of the RFP will be presented to the city council, at which time there'll be an opportunity for anyone to provide feedback. That is the update that was provided to me by Rena. Any other questions?

No. I'm a add a little bit. So we have been a part of it. We actually had a meeting with the, city manager, council member Jane, community development director, Avshon, and Rena Prio this morning to talk about this. Based on that meeting, I am gonna withdraw from participating in the RFP process moving forward.

I believe it would be better for me to stay outside of it, and I will continue to support the downtown in the way I have for many years, which is working with the people who want it completed. And I don't know if you guys wanna take on somebody else. I know it's not very far along. Well, it's partially along. We're still missing some components. I don't wanna say it's not far, but still a lot of work to do. I just don't think that it's right for me to participate at this point.

So those are all the updates. Any other comments, questions?

Is there any additional information on the RFP? No. Okay.

That's all I have at this time.

Okay. It just seems really relevant to this conversation, so I don't know if there's an opportunity to come back so that we could integrate some of that planning into to these discussions. I appreciate it needs to go to council. Difficult for us to, I think, have a real focused discussion on the next steps in the downtown plan with that.

Sorry. I

just asked if there was a way of getting additional detail on the RFP to this group just because it clearly affects this planning process. And I understand it needs to go to counsel, but it it it's pretty pretty central to the discussions that we're having here. And so I would just request an opportunity to bring that back to this space as well. Don't know if

that's possible. Yeah.

I But if you could indicate it as well.

I will inquire Great. And and get back to all of you on that. Oh, hold on. Sorry. I didn't introduce

No worries. City manager and chair.

Hi, everybody. Jevon Grogan, city manager. I think I know most, but not all of you. Wanted to attend tonight's meeting just because I know the community benefits program is is very important and highly anticipated, and so we'll be talking about that. With regard to the RFP, let me let me say a little bit about that.

Didn't know that Adam was gonna resign from the committee, and so we'll have further conversations about next steps with regard to that. We do have a city staff member who is leading that effort. Unfortunately, she is literally ill and needed to go home sick today or or she would be here. And so I will give a little bit of an update knowing that she has more details than me. We did, as Adam said, meet earlier today to talk about the status.

City staff does feel that the RFP is very, very close to being done and can be put out on the street in in short order. There are certainly differing opinions on things that should be added to the RFP. It was staff's desire to work those through with the committee members. I think we'll go back and think through how to do that. But the plan was to take it before the city council so that there could be public comment on the RFP and the goals for the RFP and then release the RFP.

It certainly is the city's goal to put an RFP out as soon as possible to gauge interest. I will say that the desires for everything that can go on the city's five acres is quite significant. It includes housing with at least 25% of those housing units to be affordable. It includes a public plaza, open space. It includes retail.

It includes the the vision of a theater. It also includes the vision of of a of a parking garage. That's a lot for five acres. And when you minus the streets that are needed, roughly an acre, and then when you minus the plaza open space, a little bit less than an acre, we're actually talking about three acres worth of space. And so we really need to grapple with what we actually think are priorities for for the RFP or we go to market with an RFP that does not provide priorities and see what the the development community comes back with and wrestle with that.

So there are a few threshold questions that that need to be addressed as well as the city is contemplating a number of incentives. And so we are having additional conversations around what those incentives are, and do they go into the RFP, or do you pick your development partner and have those conversations subsequently? And so at your next meeting, we can give more of an update, but I actually hope that we get the RFP out on the street sooner rather than later. We do know, and I know members of the community have been meeting with interested entities. And so we if we're to begin this process, first step is get a document out on the street and then pick our development partner and have all of the subsequent conversations that need to be held.

Thank you.

Anything else on these two updates?

No?

I'd like the record to reflect that member of Arjunae showed up at 06:11PM. Thank you. Welcome. Okay. Chair?

I will go on to public presentation and comments. Is there anyone who would like to address the task force that are on items that are not on the agenda? And I did get some cards. So I have Chad Viso is first. Mister Viso, welcome. I think are you are you getting more time?

I'm sorry?

Are you is this people who you wanted time because there's other names? Okay. Go ahead.

My name's Charles V, so I go by Chad. I have the distinction of having my father as the one who made the motion to destroy the downtown 1961. The biggest mistake he ever made. There, I have a lot. I'm I first of all, my background, did the San Jose Arena, most of the mechanical and everything, Luxor Hotel, Monterey Cannery Row, the Benton over here.

I know how to get things done. I have watched the city over the last sixty plus years reach for the stars, and that's why we're still sitting here sixty three years later. You need to come up with something that the neighbors and when I I say neighbors, I've taken liberty. I've met with Mary Grizzle, met with Dan. I've met with a lot of people here.

We go over to Sarah's. I've sat and listened. I've gotten together with a you need to get the major players involved in this thing. Major players are Santa Clara University, which I've already got involved with Santa Clara University. I've gotten ahold of the president, Julie Sullivan. John here is one of the representatives that's gonna talk with me at a meeting along with Wilson. I have gotten together with Prometheus. I know Jackie Safrier. I know Don Peterson. I know Pat Callahan.

I know Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Ponk. I know them all. I've dealt with them. I know what they're like to deal with. I worked with that. I hope we run outside of the fence on Benton. I could get along with anybody. I need to find out what they really want to do and then how we could turn around and get together and do it. I met also met today.

I was

on the phone about five hours with seven different people from the Swenson Company, and I finally got a contact, which is gonna meet one of the two people under Chase. I can't remember, Valkeni. Ryan Valkeni, I think, is his name. And he's gonna meet with myself and whoever Mary and her group wants to meet along with Santa Clara University group, along with the Prometheus group. And the whole reason for that other people have talked, but people talk at each other instead of to each other.

And what we need is it's basically a brainstorming to find out who what ideas do you have? Right? You may be wrong. Your idea may be right, but I wanna hear your idea. And I wanna when I when I say this, I'm not I don't want a thing from this. I don't want any financial thing, but I'm willing to help to bring things together to get things done, and I believe I could do that. Anyway, I'm gonna go back on just say some things.

Wrong one there.

People need to think out of the box. We need to we need bodies down there. We don't need to make it look like the Embarcadero where you got these huge tall buildings, and you don't get any sunshine down there. You need I could visualize connecting the tunnel at the railroad station down there with the Carmelite monastery down there. Carmelite monastery, chapel, beautiful gardens where the olives are down there.

You go down you got the you got the historic train station down over the over the thing. Santa Clara needs to make they gotta be different. How are you gonna be different? I got one idea. I don't know how many people have been to And, yeah, my my my brain is going maybe going to Seville, Madrid in Spain. One of the attractions in that city is a horse drawn carriage. They're nice carriages. They got gas lamps, and they go through the routes. You know, Campbell doesn't have it. Sunnyvale doesn't have it.

Nobody has it. But if we had something that had a connection there that would kinda round that area from, like you said, the if they were to be too expensive right now, but that tunnel that you got a bunch of homeless and stuff that sits there and people are afraid to go through. But if you go through that and go all the way down to where they're they've got those other hotels linking all the other people that could come into here, you're gonna really get something. One other thing I noticed, going down Benton, Fremont, Harrison, all those streets there. What have what have you noticed in the last two or three years that's different down there?

Anybody got any suggestions? It's real obvious to me. People are fixing up their houses. Yeah. They they wasn't always that way. They were terrible. You go look at the houses. I see 90% of them. They fixed them up. They've painted them. They look good. People are proud of what they've got there, and it's only gonna increase property values. But that's one thing I noticed. And I could go on to a lot of different things, and I'm not gonna be able to do it in ten minutes. But you've got I've watched the city fight.

They they battle. They're maybe with their you got Santa Clara University in the city. They want this. This wants that. And it seems like they never really get on the same page.

What does Santa Clara have and the city of Santa Clara have that both of them could get along? There's just three things. Both of get along really, really well. Santa Clara's got that fire station that was built back when the downtown was done back in the nineteen sixties when it used to be on Main Street. And over there and it needs a ton of work right over there right now. My son's in the fire department. He's an engine. I know what that building looks like in the inside. Santa Clara would love to have that. I don't even have to ask him, but Santa Clara would love to have that second half of that property over there. And where could you put the fire station?

That's where you

see it.

We got all this land here that we've got a Saint Clair statue out there, which would look great to put over in downtown. Same thing with the Benny Bufano. But the rest of it, what what what do we show over there? We entertain pigeons. That's pretty much what's entertained over there. And that is hugely profitable land that if we got a developer that would work on everything together, we could make this happen, and we could pay for a lot of it. Now you just take that one take the fire station. They're gonna have to put a new fire. They're gonna put a ton of money in that fire station, and they're gonna build a new one. Build a new one over here.

You you could redo the city. I mean, I don't have all the answers. I got ideas. But you could put this redo this section here rather than spend money on an Agnew thing where we're gonna pay rents over a long time twenty, thirty years, and then not have anything after twenty or thirty years. Build something that they it doesn't have to be a Taj Mahal. They could put part of city hall down there for the council things and stuff. Again, I don't have all the answers. But that one thing with Santa Clara, what does Santa Clara have? Santa Clara has the the old Chase Bank, which is supposed to be across the street from the Wells Fargo Bank, which is now gonna be Sutter Health. Sure.

They like to make up some kind of thing there. And if we wanna turn around and do those horses and stuff, I'm I I'm one of the benefactors that with the with the with the Carmelite monastery and sister Irene. I've yeah. I don't know how much fixing everything over there in the lab. The wall was the latest one, but it's been a ton of stuff.

They got the old horse corrals over there. I could turn

around and get something over there, and we could turn around and have you're not gonna need a whole lot, but we could turn around and get it to to do that special attraction that we wanna have. There and, again, these are just ideas. Throw water on them. It's not gonna make any difference to me. I'm not perfect.

I don't know everything. But a lot of talking to a lot of people and a lot of people coming up, they can. Now you take the, get that piece that's on the corner where the Crocker is, get get Santa Clara, have the other one come now we've got a bigger section in there that we could work with. What could we work with there? Well, in listening with Mary, her group over the years, they like to have a theater.

They like to have a bakery. They like to have a cheese shop, cheese wine shop. They like to have a shop that maybe have bake you know, like in Europe, you go over and get your your milk, eggs eggs or whatever you have on there, maybe possibly a pharmacy. I talked to one of my friends, Bedovich, who's in a hotel. He said, what do you think of a hotel there? Nah. Hotel won't work. What do you think would work there? Well, maybe in a nice little inn. You know, these these are things that need to be talked about. I don't even know how they go with the what you guys have planned right now, but there's they're all things that make a lot of sense.

I think the main point you're trying to make is that, you know, coming together and collaborating and coming together with all the all all the parties that may have a an a similar interest getting together in a room and starting to throw out different ideas and looking at a bigger picture, looking through the trees to the actual forest to solve the problem is the key. I mean, that's how I met you. Right? I mean, had Irvine that came in. They wanted to do a project. They got told no. Then a couple days you know? I don't even think it was a couple weeks later. I think it was a couple days later. Prometheus starts calling and and right on the heels.

And they're like, hey. We need a few more units, but we can make it work. And, you know, we threw out that idea of, hey. Let's do a street swap, and it took a couple years. But we ended up in a creative solution where now we have the Benton, which is providing housing.

It's a good project. It the it's starting to fill its retail, and it also got the city really engaged in moving forward with revitalizing downtown and putting a precise plan in a form based code together. So I think the thing is is when you have even at the beginning where we might have not agreed, once we actually came together and started talking and we started throwing ideas out, we realized that we were more aligned with the success of Santa Clara in downtown than we were with our parcel by parcel development that has been transpiring in Santa Clara for the last sixty years. I think that's the summary that I got from you.

Well, one point for the audience too is that that deal got us Franklin Street all

the way through

and Washington Street from Prometheus.

I think what because of these my opinion. And that $3, you could buy a cup of coffee. But you I could see Franklin Street going through. I'm not going through. Not going through as a traffic thing, but going through basically for pedestrian traffic, for, that kind of stuff. I could see those things that that they wanna have, the small restaurants, somewhat like you have in Europe where they have the you could sit outside and and

Well, thank you, Chad. Appreciate it. Is there anything else?

Yeah. Well, if you if you want me to stop at the shop.

Well, we do we do have the consultants, and I I wanna respect their time as well. And I still have about five more jobs. That's who's gonna throw us

Yeah.

There's another thing that came to me when I was speaking to the the the powers to be at Swenson today. And I said, what do you guys see there? I said, I remember talking to Mike Black eight years ago, and he wanted to put a hotel over where the old Chase Bank building was and swap his property out over there. I said, you guys still looking at a hotel? No. We don't want a hotel. What would you like to have? He says, we'd like to have student housing building there. Now that's not really such a bad idea when you think you've got the you got the

It's it's a moot point now because you can build whatever you want inside the envelope. With the form based code, we've taken away the inside use. And so that's the beauty of the plan is as long as they build the envelope and the form, they can do student housing, workforce housing. They can make office space.

But the thing

is is

the thing is is if I could get somebody if I could turn around and put together the partners that they say, yeah. This we could do this. We could do this. We could do this. Year, year and a half, I could have the architect engineer have them have the architect and engineering done, and we could have we could have a downtown there in six years five, six years. You you and now now think think outside the box. You have a you have a high rise, and to me, it could be in the wrong spot. You got these senior standard thing that's high rise there. Stick it over in that by that area there. Okay?

Now what are you gonna what what would complement the downtown with what the people wanna see there with that with the the the the student housing?

What do they want? They want we want the I I I walkability and vibrant. We'll give

them the space.

Theater underneath there on the Bottom Floor. Okay? Now you've got you've you've got you're not it it it's something that would and I could be wrong, but I believe it would definitely work.

Yeah. Go ahead. Here's the beauty of this. I appreciate, one, that you're speaking and acknowledging, you know, what your dad did and and that you're trying to put people together. Keep doing it. The beauty of this is it's an RFP process. It's gonna be coming in front of the city. Anybody can put a proposal in. So if you right? I mean, so that's the beauty. You you you're you can compile a group of people.

Anybody could put a building there, but you know what killed urban renewal? Yeah. What killed urban renewal, there was originally more than one urban renewal. There was several of them.

Mhmm.

When urban renewal was torn down, it became so un so un sad. Everybody hated it. They killed the rest of it. When you killed the rest of it, you killed the downtown as long as you've

killed it.

Understood. That's why we're here.

That's why we're here.

That's it. You get somebody who want who want I'll give you another idea just off the top of my head. You've got Frank. You got Olmsted and Jackson. You got Benton and Jackson. What do you have on those two corners there?

Olmsted and Jackson, Benton and Jack

Parking. Parking. You got an asphalt jungle. It doesn't hold many parking. Doesn't do any good for basically anybody, and I believe that's probably owned by the city.

And and that is the land that Okay. And that is the land that will be. So

But you've put three or four story, five story parking things on both sides. Now you've serviced the parking for everything that you've got down there without touching anything else that you're doing. It would be a very successful project.

And that's hopefully, we will get one of those out there. So thank you, Chad. Appreciate it. Okay. Really well. I wanna

can I say

one thing? Absolutely.

I mean, this is we're talking about blocks a and b, a and b, a and b. And this is what we've been looking for for ten years where we have the the major landowners sitting down. We were trying to get the city to do this for years to get those three sitting down and not asking a closed ended question, opening up a dialogue. What is it gonna take? And so we really appreciate your your efforts in doing that. Thank you.

Alright, Mary. I'm gonna see I I see you have two cards. So will you try to keep it to about four or five minutes, please?

That Connie is from home, and and Joan Packard is here.

Just let's try to keep it about five, six minutes, please. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening. My name is Mary Grizzle. I'm the co chair of Reclaiming Our Downtown and the grandmother of the group. I want to raise one serious concern.

The financial analysis repeatedly references the downtown as a whole. Full build out, full infrastructure load, full parking demand, but the RFP that will be presented before you is not for the entire downtown. It is for blocks a and b only. When you analyze the economics of an entire district and then apply that narrative to just two blocks, you risk setting those two blocks up for failure before they even begin. Blocks a and b do not carry the cost of building the entire downtown.

They do not require full district build out on day one. They are standalone publicly owned parcels with adopted zoning approved uses and complete completed environmental clearance. If there are financial challenges, they should be analyzed specifically and precisely for blocks a and b, not generalized from a broader downtown scenario. Because when the framing starts with, quote, the whole downtown is difficult, end of quote, it creates hesitation, and hesitation kills momentum. The report also assumes that the next two blocks will never get built because the current property owners are satisfied where they are.

That should not be as an assumption. We cannot base long term planning decisions on speculation about what private property owners may or may not do in the future. There is also another issue that needs to be acknowledged. Millions of dollars have already been set aside by the city to relocate city hall. If the city truly wants to demonstrate that it is serious about moving downtown toward forward, some of those funds should be used as real skin in the game to support the development of blocks a and b.

And let's be clear. If this city can set aside millions to move city hall, it can certainly invest some of that money to finally build the downtown this community has waited for. Developers pay very close attention to the signals a city sends. And when the city own the city's own analysis highlights obstacles instead of opportunity, that signal can discourage investment before the process even begins. Do not handicap blocks A and B with assumptions that don't belong to them.

Do not bury two viable blocks under the weight of a full district analysis. And do not tell this community after more than ten years of waiting that two ready to go blocks cannot move forward because of problems tied to something else. Evaluate what is in front of you, blocks a and b. No excuses. No deflection. Just move it forward. And let me say this clearly. This is an election year. This community knows the reluctance to build the downtown. It is obvious from the these latest this latest document.

They know the reluctance to build the downtown. We have lived through the roadblocks and delays for more than ten years. We are not ungrateful for what for the fights we have won, the precise plan, the form based code, and other and other items. But people are paying attention. They know what has been going on.

And let me say this clearly. Oh, no. So the the question before this body tonight is very simple. Are we finally going to build downtown Santa Clara, or are we going to study it some more? The choice is yours, and the public is listening very closely. Thank you.

Thank you, Mary. I apologize. I see now that the cards are for the item on hand, so we are going to wait. I if there's anybody who wants to speak on an item that is not on tonight's agenda, that's what the public comment section is for. So if it's not on the agenda, anyone left? Otherwise, every card I have here is for the agenda item. Go ahead, Sudds. Councilmember Sudds, welcome.

I believe what's on the agenda is just the economic analysis, so I'm gonna speak. Know, I sense a lot of frustration by the community about how long this process is taking. The issue that I have, and I can't get my head wrapped around it, is how do we get the right RFP? Now, a lot of people say the minimum thing we need is the theater. We look at Prune Ridge.

We look at other things. So I guess my question is, to me, it seems like the key things that people want, they want ground floor floor retail, and they want a parking structure. Because of surplus land act, we have to do a certain number of housing units that are affordable, so that forces us to do the housing. But if we wanna get started, my my question is how do we get the RFP that's flexible enough that developers wanna come in? And there's other models that we could use like an RFQ.

We find people that have the qualifications to build, and then we go into a negotiation with them to say, you know, does a theater make sense? Does this many this much ground floor retail make sense? Does a supermarket make sense? So what the city can do to accelerate this is to, you know, change the lease rate. They can reduce impact fees.

They can help pay for the infrastructure costs. You know, the issue is we don't really wanna waste taxpayer money, but we are in a hurry to get this done. And so at some point, we have to sweeten the pot, but we don't wanna sort of give away the store. Now I'll just say that, you know, staff is a little frustrated, and they're like, well, let's just do an RFP for what the community wants. That's the theater and everything else.

And it's possible that that would fail. So I don't want the RFP to fail. I want us to come up with the right model so that when we go out, we get a handful of people that bid on this or come to the table and want to discuss how to how to make this happen. But everyone's in a hurry to get this done, and I just wanna make sure that we're putting out the right request to developers and that we there's enough flexibility in there. And that could mean dropping the theater. It could mean dropping some other things. Thank you.

Thank thank you.

Yeah. I just wanted to add some knowledge here. You know? And I heard from the city manager. I heard from you, Suds. When we prepared this downtown plan,

we have to set

the bar high. Okay? You set the bar low, it's going to get even lower probably, right? So you set a high bar. And in our small group, Rina, Adam, and I, we've had discussions, real discussions about this, about what's practical right now and what's not. That hasn't been discussed

in front of this committee,

but we've had real discussions, Okay, addressing that. So to say that we're all that's going to be attainable in the present day, we're not sure. So this is a process we're going to go through. If time if it's not working out and we're not getting enough right now, right, interest rates are up. They're still high. They come down 1%, 2%, it changes the equation. Okay? But we have to be involved and active with the process. That's where the RFP comes in. If we don't do it now, when are we gonna do it?

We're gonna wait five year we'll we'll always be behind. You know? So that's just a little shedding some light, Suds, and everybody else on this. So we've had real discussions, and it's just been Rina and us. You guys haven't been in there, city manager. So I don't know what Rina has been discussing with you. And, again, that's part of what we were having today is it it's there's, like, a screen between us and and other parts of the city. And so this is a classic example. So we have no idea, and I'm bummed that Adam has, you know, withdrawn. But that's part of the problem. So, anyway, I'll set enough on that. Yeah.

Well, I will just say, yeah, I am withdrawing because I do not believe we are putting in the full effort and energy and the detail that is required for this parcel. It's unfortunate. It is a very complex situation. I mean, you know, Chad was talking about how it goes back over sixty years. It's not something that can be easily solved. That's why it hasn't been solved. If it was, we would have already been there. We would have already been drinking down in the you know, or partying in the downtown. Right? And I think we can get there.

I just think that sometimes the process is, you know, of all the new laws and everything are very challenging. It's challenging for the city to adapt them and, you know, keep changing. It's it's hard for us to to do it. I mean, it has been a very challenging ten years. I mean, the the landscape is very different now than it was when we started this effort. And I think we all change. And, I mean, I hate to say it. I've aged. I mean, I'm getting grays and everything. I'm getting old now, but I do think it's challenging.

I mean, I think also the city has a lot of priorities, and I don't believe downtown is even on the list anymore even though it is on this the the the goal setting priority list for March. But I don't feel it. I feel like the city's eye is on other things, relocating using the information and the discussions that we've had here about relocating down City Hall, and they've, you know, found a a potential suit, and they're going after that. And they've all already allocated as of December 9. The council has allocated over $20,000,000 to acquire that piece of parcel.

So we're sitting here talking about how we don't have money to do the infrastructure. We don't have the resources to move forward with, you know, seeing this vision and this plan come to fruition. We're just gonna go after the next thing and probably fail at that, to Chad's point, and we'll go after the next thing. And it'll just keep going forever and ever and ever. And I do think this is it.

If we've talked about it, we don't want this thing to be on the shelf. This is the year. It is an election year. I think you have to make sure that your voices are heard, that this is a priority for the residents and the community. And, hopefully, the our leadership will will listen, and we can right the ship and get it going.

But, otherwise, I mean, maybe I need to move back to town and and run for mayor myself. I mean, it's a serious, serious consideration of mine lately of saying if nobody else can do it, then let's pick up the pieces and get it done. I mean, I've I've waited my whole life, and I left this city because I don't believe it sees the same vision that I see for the city. I think Santa Clara is better than it thinks it is. And I've lived here my whole life, and these people are great.

And it's just sad to see us flounder and squabble about, you know, small pieces. Nothing gets done when we're squabbling over the p the the the insignificant things that don't actually matter. So that's what I have to say. It's it's unfortunate, but I like I said, I'll continue to support this effort. And if if there's anyone else from the community that has anything else that is not on the agenda Not on the agenda. I'll let I'll I'll sorry. I just yeah. I'll probably Okay. Thanks.

Thanks, Abisa. I'm gonna hold my comment later for something that is on the agenda, but something you said now I thought I wanted to just address. Chris Stampolis, past historical landmark commissioner and past planning commissioner, was kind of involved in this effort, but now it's actually literally decades ago when I was younger, so I was kind of on that front line. What I wanted to comment on, and I heard it from several members of the task force, this reference to what's called, quote, the city. And I guess I would just ask for each of you who's a formal representative here to attempt to be slightly more precise, I think, when you say that.

Because just my own sense and my memory of having been an HLC commissioner or planning commissioner is that when we say the city, nobody has a common definition of what that means. Does that mean city staff? Does that mean some city council members? Does it mean the entire city council? Does it mean all of the residents?

Does it mean the folks who happen to live in the old quad? So just my request would be that as the the meeting goes forth and you, you know, review this very important document before, and then when city staff has a chance later to talk about the RFP, which is what I really wanna talk about later, that's just my general request to not not kind of allow the people who need to be held accountable to be off the hook by using this broad sense of the city, call people out by name. It's okay. Or call them out by title because otherwise, we can't move forward. Thank you.

Just to clarify and so I'm transparent, I would say city city leadership. So it would be Jovan Grosven only because he is the leader. It's not on point pinpointing you, just so you know. But but he's getting direction from city leadership council, and I have to believe that the there's not a majority there anymore that's directing the city manager to do the those items. Right? He's been redirected to do other things.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Which is acquire I'm

not is acquire another parcel.

Thank you.

We have we have a hand online.

Those are the the financial, so we need to not on the agenda. Sorry.

Jane, you should be able to unmute and speak.

Thank you so much. I was just, wanting a little piece of clarification. There's been a lot of talk about a theater being included, and I'm wondering if you mean a movie theater that will show, like, popular movies or a theater where performances would be had. Because it occurs to me that in both Santana Row and in Valleyfair, there are large theater complexes. So it would surprise me if we had a a movie theater for showing popular releases. It seems redundant because they're all so close.

So the movie theater was it was originally planned to reestablish a movie theater in downtown. Obviously, it's been a very long process in this planning phase. And as you just mentioned, there are have been other theaters that have materialized in, you know, close proximity. So how that materializes in downtown, that's part of the RFP, right, is now that we have this challenge, we would still say maybe it's a performing, you know, stage theater or something else, but that's where that creativity will come. It's not defined specifically, though. Yeah. I get a comment.

Okay. And, yeah, a comment on that as well, just to follow-up on the theater, is that we our group, Reclaiming Our Downtown, got Alamo interested in Santa Clara. There was a theater that went out of business in Valleyfair. They moved into Valleyfair, which is three about 3.2 miles away, and they are now back in touch with us because the cutoff point is three miles. So they feel that it is viable, especially with 9,000 students sitting across the street, that a movie theater would be viable.

It wouldn't be a 10 screen. It would probably be a six to eight screen, but I've been called several times on that. So but it could also be a hybrid. You know, it could be live, you know, live music and theater. So just to clarify that.

Have one more hand

in mind. Thank you, Leslie.

Wanda, you should be able to unmute and speak.

Hello. This is general, not about finances. I hope I'm in the right place. My name is Wanda Buck. I appreciate all your work on this. You know, I've been on the senior advisory commission where we made an age friendly city, and we had to fight really hard to get it through, and it took a couple years. So I realized that it's difficult time wise, but I'm a senior, and I'm an advocate for seniors. This isn't gonna happen in my lifetime. And all of you are gonna get older as everybody else. And so seniors are would like a downtown for the logistics of having things together so it's easier to get around.

I'm also a realtor. The real estate industry, walking cities, because people are getting older, are a really big draw for where people live. When I go to the charter meeting, the last meeting that I heard, and I believe our attorney Glenn, I don't wanna quote him wrong, but they're going to be going to check with the city council on what they're addressing because there's no point in addressing things that won't be accepted by the city council. So I hear this political situation here as well, and it's rather discouraging. I do know that in November with the election, there will be a different group in and that that might make a difference, so time may save it.

I'm also an advocate for ethics, and ethics is doing the right thing. And this delay is not the right thing. So thank you for working on it. And as a citizen, yes, I will be looking to support this very, very much. And I'm glad it's gonna get out to the public. I'm sorry for the bot the bureaucracy that stops it. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. Those are all the hands I have online.

So I'm gonna try and be brief because I want us to get to the community benefits portion of this agenda. But I think it's important to say that what's going on right now is a travesty. I look around the room, and

I see

everyone cares deeply about their city on the staff side, on the community side, on the university side, and we're tripping over ourselves. We're we're tripping over ourselves. We are in many ways, there's not one vision for downtown. Right? Many people want various aspects in downtown, and how we get there will be rocky, but we can only get there if we are together and everyone is laser focused on the mission, which is a better Santa Clara and correcting the travesty that happened in the sixties.

What it looks like on the on the other side, I have no idea. I know some people want x, some people want y. The reality is there's one key person that's not at the table that frankly hasn't been at the table, and that's our development partner. The city and the community do not have the funds to rebuild the downtown, and much of the downtown is actually owned by private partners. So there are a lot of visions of what can go where, what should go where, what should rebuild what should be rebuilt that was demolished, we need to get to a point where we pick our development partner and have those conversations with them.

And what will be built will be informed based on the market, based on what the city can bring to bear with regard to to to money, reducing fees, and any other tools that we have at our disposal. We talked a little bit about staff and be very specific. I'm

gonna

ask that we're not very specific. And if people feel that the city is not a appropriate partner and the city is not doing what they're supposed to do, on the staff side, you blame me. One of the things that I want to do is protect our staff. What I've seen in this community is that we oftentimes play politics of the individual. Right? We don't like something, and we say it's that person's fault. Right? We like to name people. I wanna make sure that we protect our staff. And so I will ask if you feel that the city isn't doing what they're supposed to do as the person hired by the council to oversee the organization on a day to day basis, that's my problem.

Right? And if the council is unhappy with what I'm doing, that's their problem. That that's not their problem, but, you know, you get what I'm saying. They they they address that and direct me as a body. I know that our staff is committed to this effort.

I know that our staff is wanting to support the community. And we have to figure out a way to get there and get there together. And I know individuals have had and will have and will continue to have meetings with developers and property owners. I understand that. But I will also say that at some point, we will be sitting down negotiating with these partners.

And as someone that has held a lot of these negotiations, I don't want my legs cut from under me because the developer is partnered with the community tighter than they're partnered with us. And they feel that they don't have to cave because the community is gonna convince the council to give them what they want. And so I know people want to have conversations and want to go talk to developers and property owners. I think we need a true systematic process because there's lots of money at stake. And I want to make sure the city gets the best deal possible.

And certainly, the city is committed to to the downtown. There are a myriad of things that we have to work on and that come before the city. Absolutely, everyone knows that there is a proposal that is being vetted with regard to the Agnews and the Warburden site. No final decisions have been made to do that. I've said that publicly. I've said it privately. I've said it in writing. But an opportunity has presented ourself, and we need to vet it. I'm sitting here today. I can't tell you if it's a viable option or not.

Right? But it need it it deserves to be fully vetted. And so we're undertaking that process while simultaneously, we are working on this process. I was very transparent with members of of of the task force and representatives of the downtown even before we received the proposal and let them know, hey. This has dropped in our lap. We're talking about it. More info will come later. We're at a point now where the council has said, hey, take a look at it. Right? Get information so we can have that public dialogue.

And so we're doing that. That in and of itself doesn't mean that we're not committed to downtown. Coming on May, I've been here for I've I've I've been the city manager here for three years. I own whatever progress we have or haven't made, and I know that this is a city that has a lot going on. Right?

I mean, you know, as wonderful as Super Bowl and FIFA are, has it taken away time? Absolutely. Right? We are the only city in the world to ever host a Super Bowl and the World Cup in the same year. And we needed to, frankly, I started, dedicate time to negotiating agreements, making sure this city isn't in financial ruin based on agreements that were signed up that the council didn't see and and the community didn't vet.

And, frankly, we had to fight to get the documents to have the to to have the negotiations. And then we negotiated for an assignment and assumption agreement and a league of an agreement, and I think we've substantially protected the city financially. We had a wonderful Super Bowl where everyone was safe and this city shined. Right? Frankly, helped our developmental opportunities by the the the sort of public image that was able to be projected for the world for Santa Clara.

Us in fighting actually hurts that. Right? We have to come together. And I'm I'm committed to that. I think that whatever the final document, RFP, RFQ, whatever is in it, it will not be perfect.

Right? I don't think that we can actually come to a point where we say we want x, y, and z because I don't think the community is there, right? I think we need a document that articulates the broad vision, that has some strategic goals, and then we need to pick the development partner that we think can accomplish that and sit down and and work out a plan with them. That frankly everybody won't agree to, but hopefully it will be the start and the catalyst to get a revitalized downtown. I also want to say that what's gonna be required in that no matter what the process is is flexibility.

Form based codes are great. Downtown precise plans are great. The reality is many of those blocks will not develop for several years. It requires, I've said it before, sort of magic for development to happen. You have to have a willing property owner.

You have to have a willing developer that can get approval to build what somebody will occupy in a market cycle where you can get financing and build it. Right? And I think the reality is that we all need to be flexible because the community's vision that was set in the precise plan at this point two years ago with ideas and concepts that were generated over, I think, at least a five year period. To say that in when Parcel X is ready to be developed because the owner is ready to do something, that what this community envisioned at that point probably eight years ago is exactly what the property owner, the developer wants to build and what can be financed. It it's not gonna hit exactly.

And so we're gonna need to be flexible. And so I just encourage us all as we walk through this prop process to be flexible. Certainly, we have the greatest opportunity with blocks a and b because the city owns them. That's why so much time and attention is going into them. I know that's why Adamus Point has poured a lot of his heart and soul and expertise into them.

That's why Rob is doing the exact same because we can we have some control in that, not all. There are state laws that are layered on on top of layer. And the reality is in California, in order to give preference to housing, California law has essentially given developers a formulaic model where the city has very little discretion. So we have the most discretion on our property that the city owns, and we need to make sure that that is the catalyst for the future. And so I'll stop there, and I'll say, absolutely, the city is committed.

Absolutely, I think we all need to look through the windshield versus the rear the rearview mirror and march toward finding that partner

that that that that that will that that will develop.

Thank you.

I get it. If I could I'm sorry. So I agree with much of what you said. And in the beginning when we talked, we came to you as a partner, reclaiming our downtown DCTF, etcetera. When the universe presents a vacuum, it's filled.

Since April 2024, you've been working on Agnews. At the point where we felt, reclaiming our downtown felt, that there was an even remote threat that you're gonna have to trade land to get that that thing going. I don't wanna say too much, and I know you can't. But when blocks a and b came up as a possible of trading that that part of downtown for for you know, to move into the ex state of Saint in Saint Asylum, we lost our minds. I mean, we were we were panicked, and that was a no go.

So at that point, we we went like this. I'd love to come back together like that, but I still see this city you know, you have a you you have a skilled staff. You have a great staff, you have a limited staff. And you've got a lot of projects going on, and now we got another one. We got a big 130 seven year old building, with a bunch of offices and a lot of detail, there is no way you can look me in the eye and say, downtown's number one.

That's number one. So, again, we have taken a back seat. After five years, these people have put in, which should have taken Leslie, what was it? The original. 16? 16 meetings? 52 meetings. We had 52 meetings. Five four thousand hours, I've I've calculated. And I'm worth about what you're worth.

So that's a ton of money that I put into this. And now we're in the backseat again. So I don't wanna get upset, but you know, I I don't think you're being disingenuous. I think that you have to focus on, you know, the prize. You've you've been working hard on it. But we have got if we don't have the staff power to do this and downtown is truly a a focal point for Jovan or city manager Grogon, we gotta hire a consultant. You know, we gotta hire somebody who's brought back a downtown, not just one, but two, and we've introduced them to you.

Let me say this. The statement that I, in this organization, is more focused on vetting the Oracle site proposal than downtown, you may not believe me believe me, but I'm telling you it's patently false. Where I spend my time, it has not been more on Oracle than downtown. In fact, I've spent very little of my time on that. I could probably rattle off everything this city has going on.

Right? $450,000,000 power power expansion projects. Right? An organization that needs to take leaps and bound steps up in just internal processes, IT. I think I and my city my entire city leadership team could spend three years just making this a more well honed, smooth organization. Right? Not to talk about all of the policy options and and and just normal business issues that that that come before the city. This is a 1,700,000,000 enterprise with 1,500 staff people. Right? Downtown is absolutely a priority.

But because you see other things coming forward to council, that doesn't mean that our our our focus is lost on downtown. And so I and I can tell you the organization is absolutely committed to the downtown. When we first met, I mean, and you showed me the videos. It is a travesty what happened. Hell, my I have two degrees in planning. Right? A mass a master's from an Ivy League degree to a university in planning. I get it. And I get community act community action planning. We have to come together, and we have to do whatever we can to get our development partner on board.

What I will say is there are many ways to solve problems. Right? I know one of the things that's amazing about Santa Clara and and members of this community, you guys think long and hard about problems. You come up with a potential solution, and you drive it forward. Right?

I would say give city staff the opportunity to give professional input and insight. Also, know that Santa Clara has some of the best employees I've ever worked with. Their dedication, commitment, professionalism is unmatched. And so I think the same thing about the Santa Clara public. Together, we're one awesome force. Just have to come together.

The point I'm making, and and I totally, you know, sympathize with what you're going through. You had Super Bowl. You had, you know, security contingencies, all that. I'm representing the public. Get Super Bowl fifty before you. All this money comes in, we get 7%. You guys are striping dirt. You're you're figuring out how not to a bomb to go out at at Levi's. You're doing all the hard work, heavy lifting. You get 7%.

Ten years goes by. They bought they built Nagasaki in '11. They rebuilt Nagasaki in eleven years. So Super Bowl sixty comes along. We're back striping dirt. You know? That to me is unex that to me is a city that is not focused on that issue. You're not you. I'm not you know, I'm saying that your predecessor, etcetera. So, I mean, that's where we're at.

I'm perfectly willing to come back together and and hear that. I think blocks a and b are the the perfect catalyst to doing that, but there has to be, to Chad's point, what Chad just got through doing is what we have to do together is to bring these these property owners I'm I'm getting bitched at by some, you know, rock thrower sorry, Decorman. Yeah. You know, some some rock thrower about I didn't bring back the you know, I I haven't pulled together the property owners. Dan Ondersack hasn't. I sell semiconductors. You know? That's it. You guys have the power. You have the land.

You have the money Or you you know, not the money, but you have the land. You have the the skill set, all of that to bring that together. We've met with Prometheus how many times? We've met with the courts how many times. You know, we were gonna meet every month. We haven't. So if we can get back to that, I'm I'm I'm in, you know, a 100%. But we have to get there. I've said enough. Sorry.

Thanks, Dan. Yeah. Jovan, respectfully, I I want to disagree with you that there isn't a single vision for the downtown because, actually, everyone on this task force and the people who are sitting out here in the audience have all come together over the last six years to articulate a very specific vision. And it's not just about having buildings in downtown. It's about creating a community and a neighborhood and a destination where we can all go and feel proud that that's part of our city.

And I'm also on the economic development committee that's been talking about doing some of these events surrounding the Super Bowl and the World Cup. And, unfortunately, the only place that we have that's a destination to activate is a very ugly parking lot. And although, you know, the Lunar New Year was very successful there, it was really unfortunate that that's the only place we have. And the rest of the year, it looks like a weed infested parking lot. We've got to do better than that as a community.

We wanna have a place to activate. We wanna have a place that we can invite people to come see and proudly say this is what Santa Clara is. And that's why these people want a downtown. That's why people who know what the downtown used to be want to see something like that again. Whether it specifically has a donut shop, you know, that's not the priority.

And whether it specifically has affordable housing, that's not the priority. We kind of asked for all of it, absolutely, in the precise plan because we would like to see as much as possible. But we really want a heart to the city. We want a place where we can go and be with our neighbors and feel part of the community. And that's what I came here to say, actually, today.

I don't feel like RSG addressed that either in their response to to our precise plan. I think people need to understand that people feel very emotional about this subject, that we really care. We wanna see it happen, and we want you know, we understand there might have to be some compromises. But to us, this is not about building. This is about having a place that's our home.

First of all, I'm sorry for missing the first meeting. There was some confusions in January with my email address. But thanks, Leslie, for getting me on the docket, and definitely respect all the work Citi staff is doing because I have been talking to Leslie as a consultant on this project since 2017 and then came on DCTF. So it has been a lot of work. I understand state laws. A lot of it has changed. Like, when I was flipping through the precise plan myself preparing for this meeting, the amount of state laws that have changed is incredible, especially with a lot of things that is just gonna come on us on July 1. You know? Like, there is a lot of that. And we just I wanna speak up because I'm a land use person.

I work with developers, and I work with cities. I just wanna bring the transparency. Like, everything is not in our control. As much as we want, We are losing the chips to negotiate for housing, which we all know is very important. But, like, for Citi to take the time, the staff to really figure out the nitty gritties, is it an RFQ, is it an RFP, And how to be on the upper hand of that negotiation, it just cannot be a rush job because I negotiate RFPs being on developer side and also negotiate RFPs representing cities very actively right now.

I literally walk into a very similar process Napa, spending four hours with city staff, how to get RFP for a downtown site city owned downtown site to market. And same issues, like, we will not be able to get the park we want. Right? Like, we are looking at the same issues. So just breathing back would be important.

And I'm actually looking forward to hearing what, you know, the financial analysts because they did mention all the new state laws that kind of impacts on negotiation chips will be important. I do and also mention, because I do so much of this work day in, day out, RFQ is a good starting point. Bot has done it successfully to do an RFQ, bring the eligible developers on board, and then do a design competition within the developers that is also gives them the developers the ability to directly work with the community. So there has been a process that that for Not bot that recently picked up a developer using that process. And as you would know, not Berkeley Bot is also really, you know, vocal and active and educated community who wants to see the right thing in their neighborhood.

So just opening it to it, but I understand why city staff is taking some of the vetting time. Things have just changed so much in the last six months or since we are, like, twenty twenty three December when we exist. Thank

you.

We anything else? I'd just like to wrap up with one little bit. I mean, it it you know, trust. Comes down to trust. I mean, that's why I withdrew tonight because I don't trust that everybody is putting in the same energy effort and, you know, good faith, I think.

And that's fine. The city has other priorities and whatnot, but I don't have to attach my name to it. I don't have to be a part of something I don't believe in. I sometimes, you know, over the last ten years, I can definitely be stubborn. I can definitely you know, I definitely like to talk, and I definitely, know, think I have a vision for what Santa Clara downtown can be revitalized to. I have never lied to anybody. I have never, you know, misguided anyone, and that's not how, unfortunately, like, you know, Deborah, we wait we waited for for forever. We waited a long time. Long time. And it's it's it's just time.

If you want a partnership, it it it takes both parties, and you have to come together. And trust is probably the most important thing. And, unfortunately, at this point, I mean, you know, I'll I'll say the first time we met you I met you was Lam. And you were aligned 100% with the developer who was going against the plan, who was being nefarious. And in those meetings, you even said that you don't believe in urban a precise plan, and it's too cumbersome for the developers in form based code.

And that that's just set the tone. And at this point now moving forward, it's hard to take you at your value when you're telling me that you're you're putting your effort in and you're you're trying to do these things when I don't get the information. We still don't have the impact infrastructure fee. This plan was approved in December 2023. It was clearly noted that we did not have a nexus study for a community benefits program.

At that point, we locked the density so that we could protect the city until we had the nexus study and the community benefits program. It's two years and all almost two and a half years, and we have yet to even get most of any numbers, really. I mean, we heard one today, and that's hard. And so it's hard to trust that you guys are working on it when you're not progressing in a reasonable pace. And it's sad. And, again, I'm gonna say to everybody, this is an election year. This is it. If you want downtown, start talking about it. Start rallying community members.

Start talking about it.

And and just get it out there. I mean, the city deserves it, and I think it will be a huge benefit. So, I mean, we're gonna have to move on. And the last thing I'd like to say is this is really scary to talk about all this financial stuff. Like you said, you you said you don't wanna you don't wanna cut your knee you know, cap your knees before you start negotiating.

I think this is a horrible idea to be talking about this financial report. I mean, this financial report basically just said the city doesn't think it has a position to negotiate, that it's not economically viable, that there's not enough money in the land to get the the benefits. But as we're gonna see here, maybe not enough creativity, not enough forethought, not enough understanding of the complexity of the issues that we face to rebuild this downtown were taken into consideration when they developed this financial plan. I think it's really bad to go into this discussion next, but this is what the city wants to do. And it is part of the process, so we are going to have to talk about it.

And, hopefully, we can maybe negotiate something, but it will probably end up like the stadium where it's you know, it brings us down, and it costs us more in opportunity cost of what we didn't go do because we're spending time focused on these big anomalies like the stadium or related project for twelve years that just kills our golf course, starts a lawsuit with a restaurant owner, and ultimately changes their entitlements multiple times and doesn't do never never gets there. It's gonna be the next downtown in Santa Clara. It's the North Side. They're not gonna build it.

I think

we should move on because I think that the consultants have waited for quite some time.

I think somebody had a birthday, in fact.

Quickly, Mary, please. Come up the dais quick quickly, please.

I am very, very upset at what's been said here to the tonight. And I almost walked out when Jovan was talking. I think it's really ingenuous to think that a company like this company that wrote this analysis on its own would have such negative thoughts about building a downtown unless some of the city interjected information to them to make it negative. Like

Mary, we we could talk about this when we go through the report. Yeah. Let's Let's let's get to the consultant report, please. Thank you. Go ahead.

It

is important for us as a community

to

not attack individuals. I'm sitting here, and I want to, in many ways, correct some things that have been said about me, but I actually don't think that that's the focus. Right? I actually think what is the focus is hearing a consultant's report so that we can discuss the findings and the assumption now that staff has provided instructions to sway the consultant's report, so far from the truth that I find I I find it hard to sit here and not just address it and just say to you, Mary, with all due respect, the community, we may disagree with their work, but I think they're they're they are professionals that have independently made the assessment. I think we, globally, both the staff and the community, asked for a community benefit report.

And we now and we hired a consultant through a competitive process, and they have returned a result. Now people may feel that that portrays that it doesn't portray positively on the development options, but on some level, their work is their work. And, Mary, you you'll remember the first thing I told you when it was, hey. We need to do a community benefit report. I said, Mary, the market given where the market is now, it may not be pretty.

It may actually show that there's no residual land value given the cost of construction right now. We are in a very tough market cycle. Now neither I nor staff instructed the consultant on what their findings are. If their findings show a depressed market, let's deal with that. Let's talk about it. And and honestly, it's nothing that the development community doesn't already know.

The accusation that I made was specifically because they put down that blocks I think it's C and D. The courthouse and Prometheus have no intention whatsoever. It'll never get dealt out.

Since we're we're both already talking about the report, can we just move to the report? Yeah. That way I mean, we're gonna be talking about it, so let's just do it. I mean, even though I really wish we weren't gonna talk about the financials of our land, but let's do it. Alright. Leslie, thank you, everybody. Sorry. I know that was a little bit, but let's get to general business. So we'll go to item number two. Right?

Correct.

Yep. Item number two, downtown community task force review of the economic financial analysis report provided by RSG.

Thank you. So our consultants are here with us this evening to present their findings in the economic and financial analysis report. Just as a reminder, this is the first deliverable of the community benefits program. After after this report, the next step is to go back and develop concepts and a framework for the community benefits program. So this is our our first deliverable, and they are here this evening to present it to you. With that, my name Jim or Ram? Yeah. I'll Jim?

I'll start it off. I'm wearing a mask because I'm fighting a cold, so I try not to talk too much tonight. But I wanted to kind of introduce what we're about to talk about because there's been a lot of conversation about what this is that we're talking about, and I wanna make clear what it is and how it fits in because I

think that may that framing's important.

First of all, yes, the the the purpose of the financial analysis was to answer the simple question that was posed to us through the RFP process, which was, if the city were to grant additional height or density to projects, how much additional community benefits can we get from that additional density? This analysis answers that question in the aggregate. It does not answer that question with regard to the city owned properties because, one, the city being the owner of those properties has far more discretion as to what it does with the land, the timing note it releases it, the price that it sells the land for, and numerous of other factors. Many of the things that the city would be held to under state law for lots that would be are not things that private developers are held to. Those things that the city is held to under lots a and b actually are community benefits that are in the precise plan.

So this is a macro view, not a an analysis that should be extrapolated down to specific projects or specific blocks. It simply is answering the question, again, that was posed to us through the RFP. If we were to increase density in the downtown, how much more community what what would be the amount of that community benefit that we're able to generate? And that's what we're here to talk about today. The next step in this process will be to develop the community benefits program in whatever form that emerges after discussion tonight, which would outline how the city would go about negotiating community benefits.

That would still likely differ from how it handles its own properties, which is customary in any any time the city is selling properties. They often will deviate from what might be down in in code or in policy program documents and the like. That discretion is important. It's been alluded to in the earlier discussion. So I just wanna make sure we understand kind of what we're talking about tonight and why we're we're talking about it and what was the goal of this report to begin with. So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to to my colleagues, Jenny and Aram, and they're gonna walk us through the presentation, and we'll be happy to answer questions.

Real quick before we start. Would you guys like to have questions per slide? Do you wanna wait? Do wanna do a couple couple slides? I just wanna make sure we're kind of efficient.

I wanna move through this presentation because we've talked about it a lot, and then we can maybe save questions for

Take questions at the end? Okay. So, DCTF, please write your questions down so you don't forget. Thank you.

Good evening good evening, everyone. I'll kick off the slide deck. My name is Jenny Benitez. I'm a senior analyst with RSG. It's nice to see you tonight. I know you've met Jim and Aram. So we're going to walk through the financial and economic analysis for the community benefits program in this area. Next slide, please. Here's an overview of the order of the presentation just so it's easy to know where we're at. I'll start with the introduction and context.

We'll get into the methodology and analysis. Those that will cover very specific assumptions and details, interpretations of the data and those takeaways. And the appendix has more detail and gets more nitty gritty on what is involved. Next slide, please. So our aim was to take a close look at the market conditions and the policy environment of this area so that any program here is capable of delivering those desired results and community benefits.

Of course, starting with the precise plan area and the form based code. So the downtown precise plan establishes the form based code, which is rather agnostic to land use and instead focuses on the the building, the physical form of the building itself. I'm sure you know. The downtown precise plan envisions up to a 71 residential units, 532 square feet of office space, a 198 square feet of retail space, and about 44 public space at full build out. And I bring this up because this influences our model.

Next slide, please. And touching on the framework for community benefits, of course, community benefits stem from that extra value that comes from discretionary approvals, density. So the Downtown Precise Plan anticipated that those discretionary approvals would be that vehicle to deliver the community benefits. Some context we found and some context in this area, the state density bonus law grants those multifamily developers density bonuses, so up to a 100% increase in density in exchange for larger affordable housing dedications. This also impacts the the that vehicle that was anticipated to deliver those community benefits, which is the additional density.

And most mixed use development across California fall short of the density maximums anyways because of current development economics. So we're looking at community benefit program feasibility. Those community benefits to be delivered, they must be financially feasible. So we are looking at not just the real estate market conditions. We're looking at the local requirements that exist already, the impact fees, inclusionary housing requirements, the surplus land act, those state density bonus incentives that already exist.

And so we're going to touch on how, you know, that all is integrated into community benefits and what does it mean for a developer to have that additional cost of providing community benefits. Next slide, please. So specific legal and market considerations in this area. There are already requirements for developers. Those development impact fees that exist in the area already.

The surplus land act, which requires affordable housing already, the state density bonus law that provides developers by right concessions and incentives and inclusionary housing. So these are the this is the regulatory environment, right, that developers are coming to and some market considerations. And in the state, residential developers can already access multiple incentives to facilitate the development. As touched on, the state density bonus law allows certain incentives and waivers. So in regards to parking, in regards to getting more density for providing more affordable housing, student housing projects get a density bonus.

There are state level considerations here in this area and across the state, of course, that residential developers can access. So, typically, community benefit requirements are calculated based on what a project can reasonably deliver while still earning a return on investment. You don't want to interfere with the feasibility of a project. They need to have that additional profitability to deliver those community benefits. So we performed a market scan and feasibility analysis across the different uses expected in downtown.

Again, there's no specific land use expectations, so we're estimating based on probable development. So that being said, I'll pass it to Aram to get more into the details and the financial methodology and the analysis.

Thank you, Jenny. Good evening, everyone. Aram Kamali, associate with RSG. I'll be reporting out the results of our analysis. Next slide.

So starting off with methodology at a high level, we approached this work pretty sequentially in in three steps. The first step was to perform a market scan, like Jenny said. In in that step, we evaluated existing performance of a few different key land uses, namely multifamily office and resale uses in and around Downtown Santa Clara. Following the market scan, we performed a financial feasibility analysis in which we analyzed current development economics across different uses and expected product types. And then the third step, which will be, you know, the focus of our work with the city moving forward, is to identify potential actions the city can take to catalyze development in light of our feasibility finding.

So sort of as a second part to our analysis, we performed what I would call a a capacity analysis. And in that, we modeled total expected build out in downtown based on three illustrative scenarios that we had constructed. And through that analysis, we quantified the total housing units that could be produced as well as impact fee revenues that could be generated. And you can see those displayed on the table on the right hand side. We have build out metrics showing housing units, both for market rate and affordable as well as gross square footage of office space.

So you can see that scenario one, for example, is the most conservative build out with about 440 residential units, whereas scenario three is the most perhaps optimistic or aggressive in excess of a thousand residential units. So diving into our market scan findings starting with multifamily. So in the aftermath of the pandemic, we did see significant multifamily development activity occurring in the city with the majority of that occurring in North Santa Clara, which, as everyone knows, has been subject of significant planning efforts and is poised for significant densification. Citywide, there have been over 5,000 units delivered since 2020. Recently, we are seeing some indications that development activity could be slowing down.

The chart on the right hand side the top right hand side shows that as of q four twenty twenty five, there are only two two projects in the city actively under construction. In addition to market rate development, we're also seeing that permitting of affordable housing has also slowed down in recent years. So in 2022, as you can see on the chart, there were over 500 affordable housing units permitted that decreased significantly to just 57 units permitted in 2024. And although, as I said, you know, a couple slides ago, there are just two multifamily projects currently under construction, we are seeing a a a pretty robust development pipeline with 27 projects somewhere in their planning process that would add close to 5,000 units to the city. That said, it is unclear when or whether those projects will be delivered.

Next slide.

So in terms of density and form for recent projects, we're seeing most developers opt for mid rise buildings. Of the 18 multifamily projects that have been delivered in the city since 2023. Only a third of those were high rises. And in this case, we are defining high rises as buildings with eight or more stories. So we are seeing a trend for, you know, projects clustering sort of in this four to seven story range.

Next slide. So this is this is a pretty important slide. More likely than not, developers are are avoiding high higher density, high rise buildings due to certain economic realities that have been alluded to this evening. Development above seven stories in general will will will typically trigger a change to steel construction, which is often significantly more expensive than wood frame or podium construction. The chart on the right hand side on the on the slide shows development feasibility by the number of floors in a building.

So on the y axis, we're showing residual land value per square foot, which is our our primary metric for evaluating feasibility. And the x axis is showing a number of stories going from three to the to the shortest, up to nine stories. You can see, we've we've, illustrated that at eight stories is the point where steel construction is required. So you'll note that particularly from seven stories to eight stories, the residual land value takes quite a significant dip, and it dips even a bit more once you go from eight to nine stories. So this is a problem because going back to what what Jim said when he was kicking off our segment tonight, the original intent of the community benefits program was to a grant was to grant additional density in exchange for the provision of community benefits.

But if additional density is not always actually improving development economics, a developer may not want to opt into that framework at all. So this is this is pretty critical for us to to understand and discuss. Next slide. Pivoting now just briefly to nonresidential uses. We have seen that class a office performance has improved considerably in Santa Clara, which may be attributed to the ongoing AI and tech boom across the region.

There have been over or approximately 1,200,000 square feet of office space delivered to the city since 2020, and we're pretty seeing, you know, quite healthy and rapid absorption of that space in in the in the time after after delivery. Unsurprisingly, most of that new development is also occurring in in North Santa Clara. Slide. So just quickly on the office development pipeline. There are over 11,000,000 square feet of office space currently at some point in at somewhere in the planning process.

And, again, most of that is in North Santa Clara. Finally, just a quick slide on retail. Retail is a is a bit of a mixed bag. Citywide, the vacancy rate is is exceptionally low. It's under 3% at just about 2.8%.

That's much lower than the county at four and a half percent. But when you are looking at some ground floor spaces that have been delivered in newer mixed use buildings, it's a it's a bit of a different story. So on the the chart on the right, we're showing retail occupancy levels for about four mixed use recently built mixed use projects. In some cases, I think at three of the four examples here, almost half the space or, in some cases, over half the space still sits vacant. So based on our examination of market trends, we are saying that multifamily development is the most likely most likely type of development to occur in downtown.

That said, we also can't rule out some amount of office development given the recent uptick in performance that we're seeing as well as significant recent development activity. So as I mentioned earlier, the next step in our process was to analyze financial feasibility of potential development types in in downtown. In particular, we looked at six prototypical developments that are not specific to any specific block or parcel or location in downtown. These are just conceptual prototypical developments that could occur based on, you know, lock configuration and on NDA end uses as well. So prototype one is an office product.

Prototypes two a and two b are mid rise residential. They only differ in terms of two a, I'll call it, is a a condo product, so for sale, whereas prototype two b is a rental product. Same thing with three a and three b. Their their difference is based on for sale rental products, but these are high rise high rise developments. And then prototype four is a for sale townhome product.

I'll just note before we switch slides switch slides that these are the same prototypes that were originally developed by the city's former consultant economic and planning systems during the original downtown precise plan process, I believe, back in 2020. So RSG has retained those prototypes for our analysis, which has allowed us to have an apples to apples comparison of how development conditions have changed over time in downtown. So now now some of the good stuff. With the exception of townhomes, development feasibility has unfortunately worsened for all prototypes between 2019 and 2025. During that time frame, rents grew by nearly 15% as you can see on this chart, but also construction hard construction costs increased by nearly 24, and that that divergent trend is primarily what's driving what's driving these results.

Next slide. So because development is already challenged as is implementing a community benefits program in the near term could, I'll say, could make development even more difficult. So in our capacity analysis that I described a few minutes ago, Archie did calculate what fee the city would have to impose in downtown in order to generate just some figure, $50,000,000 in dedicated community benefits funds. That fee turned out to be about $42 per building square foot. If you were to impose that on a standard mid rise residential building in downtown, that could increase hard cost by 8.3%.

Next slide. So, of course, if market conditions were to improve were to improve, more projects could potentially become feasible. So we did look at what would happen to development under a couple of, let's say, optimistic scenarios. We had a moderate upside scenario in which rents increased by 5% and a strong upside scenario in which rents increase by 10%. And under these scenarios, rents are the only variable that are changing.

We're keeping everything else constant. Interest rates, land values, hard costs, everything else is held constant. Next slide. So we found that under our strong upside scenario, five of the six prototypes could achieve feasibility. And while this is technically possible, you know, no one knows what the future holds, it may not be likely.

As I showed just a couple minutes ago, in recent years, rent growth has not been outpacing cost growth. In fact, the opposite has been true. So if that continues, development will continue to be challenged. Slide. And just finally for this section, we have a comparison of development feasibility under a few different scenarios.

And so this is, again, just for a prototypical mid rise rental project. We see a residual land value per square foot of about a $127 without the imposition of a community benefits fee that decreases to about $31 if that $42 per square foot fee were to be imposed that I that I mentioned a couple minutes ago, and then we have a under a moderate upside scenario without the community benefits fee, we have a residual land value per square foot of 215, which would clear this feasibility threshold that we've that we've shown horizontally. Slide. So now turning to what this means for us moving forward. Next slide.

There are three main conclusions here in this section that we wanna emphasize. First, perhaps unsurprisingly, development activity is likely to be slow to pick up in downtown given the results of our analysis. Second, the imposition of new requirements could further hinder development. And third, affordable housing should be viewed as a primary vehicle through which to deliver community benefits to downtown. Starting with the first point, in the near term, townhomes are the likeliest type of product to be built in downtown since that is the only only prototype that is currently feasible in the market.

Townhomes are obviously not a very dense prototype, which means that developers are not likely to seek, you know, high concessions in exchange for providing community benefits. It's also it also is showing that, you know, downtown is not likely to achieve its housing production goals until and unless denser housing becomes more feasible to be built. Next slide. Second point also echoes what I discussed earlier, which is that imposing additional requirements could make development even less likely to occur. Now there are existing fee programs that the city has in place that could still generate significant revenue, namely impact fees and park dedication in lieu fees.

Under our conservative or more conservative scenario one, the city could generate over 33,000,000 in in combined fee revenues. That could that could rise up to 80 plus million under the more aggressive scenario three. Again, this is based on our illustrative capacity analysis that is taking financial feasibility sort of out of temporarily out of consideration. This is mainly talking about what could theoretically be built from a purely capacity standpoint. Okay.

Next slide. Alright. And then finally, third point is that affordable housing would still deliver significant benefits. So so there's been a lot of discussion tonight about city owned sites and the opportunities that those present. Those sites, in addition to the city's inclusionary housing ordinance, can deliver a significant amount of affordable housing in downtown, which the downtown precise plan does, in fact, define as a community benefit. It may be intuitive to everyone, but we wanna stress that affordable housing creates significant cost savings for households

who, you

know, would other not otherwise need to pay market rate rents for where they live. So what we've done is create a chart here showing that the average moderate income household would save an estimated $863 per month renting an affordable unit instead of a market rate unit. So finally, just to summarize some takeaways, we can we can flip forward one more. So development at the scale envisioning the downtown precise plan is unlikely to occur until and unless market conditions change favorably. City owned sites, again, may be the likeliest sites to generate significant community benefits depending on what sort of approach the city takes in in disposing and or ground leasing those sites with a development partner.

The addition of a fee based community benefits program would reduce already slim development margins, which would further decrease the likelihood of development occurring in downtown. And then finally, a downtown specific impact fee, which could exempt developers from other citywide fees, could generate funding earmarked specifically for downtown, and that is a concept that we may be exploring further with the city in the coming months. And that is it.

So that was yeah. That that's a shot of our discussion and our presentation today. You know, I do wanna emphasize again that I think, you know, we're we're not we're not working on the RFP. That's not part of our scope of work. I do think that's by far the most exciting opportunity to focus on for this group because of the fact that the the opportunities that present yourself, the client control, and the flexibility that Citi will have when they go out and solicit for this.

This is a this is more of a longer term view on the current status of the the market. It could change in the future, as we said, that that we do expect it will improve and conditions will get better, particularly the privately owned properties where I think some of these impacts and things that we've estimated here will be up now. With that, we'll turn it over to Leslie. Then

Alright. We'll start with questions. You wanna just go down the just go around maybe? Nothing?

Questions.

Sorry. Not to put you on the spot. Sorry. I was just like, I they all start raising their hand. I'm like, we'll just go down the line.

Thank you so much for the presentation. I definitely agree much of this data is true and point in time. Our downtown is not a point in time matrix. You know, what we want, and I think all of you agree, Yes. We want some money for the initial capital improvement, which a lot of developers would want to deliver nice streets and sidewalks, and we have great form based code. But the second thing we really wanna deliver is continued beating of that heart. Like, we want the programming. We want the operations. We want it to continue to look beautiful and be clean and, you know, maintained in art programs to change and rotate and performing art programs. And I personally just I'm one of you guys.

Like, I that's exactly what I do. I'm starting to question my own practice where we deliver these reports point in time rather than more of a membership model, more of a joint venture model where we you know, right now, developers are not making money. It's not the right time to make the deal. Correct? But when they make money, why don't we get money then? Like, why are we looking at this so statically? Like, I've been pushing even, like, when we did the form based, when I was the first one, don't put density bonus in this document. You're never gonna go out get it. State laws are in the draft. You're never gonna get density bonus.

Can't do benefits ever near transit, not happening. And now we are talking about, again, like, impact fee, which is one in time. And then if we lose that impact fee to some other need in the city, that money is never coming back to the downtown. So why are we not talking about a PBIT or other membership based, operation based, sales tax based issues? And I'm I'm just, like, questioning, like, cities need to operate downtown.

They are like organizations. They are like malls. They need that level of care, and we cannot have them be at mercy of, like, a little bit of operation fee from the city. They need to be created those organizations. And I'm just questioning, like, generally, a lot of these studies are so fixated point in time.

Like, oh, today's interest rates are not that's the results are not good. So I would just push all of us to think beyond more of a creative business venture kind of a system where we continuously make money. And, yes, we'll be subject to ups and downs of the city, but that p bid as a business venture will work around that. It should be, you know, given the backbone to work around how it manages ups and down at that time, but shouldn't be the static. Oh, we are going into a deal with the developer today.

We're writing a development agreement today. We are doing an RFP today. It was a bad time. That's why we ended up with something not so great or forever. So that's just, like, something I would want to all of us should think more as an organization than, like, one in time and back to you.

I wanted to share oh, well, the stadium was an incredible moment for me to observe people in a new environment in Santa Clara. Sorry. I have a cold as well. In my travels, I go to their historic centers, and I immediately understand the DNA of where I'm at and where people gather. And for the first time ever at the stadium, people were in awe of the iconic nature of our stadium.

It was it's the biggest thing in Santa Clara. We don't have anything like that in Santa Clara because, well, the downtown's gone. So having an iconic storefront that promotes Santa Clara says this is who we are. This is our identity, our heritage. We are proud of this area, I think is what's missing and why we struggle with the identity of Santa Clara.

But, yes, it was very eye opening to be there. I was impressed with being at the stadium, and I felt pride at being at the stadium too. And you could see the joy in everyone's face there. And I wish there were other places that our people can go and feel that awe and even our visitors to say this is an impressive place. So I think we truly have this opportunity to do that in the downtown, to have something so that representative of us that is iconic, maybe for the first time in sixty years. You know, this is our moment, and it will bring us money. It will help. We're sitting pretty, I think, as a city. I think we're doing pretty well. Thank you, Jovan, for what's coming into the city.

We're getting noticed. We were definitely noticed by Super Bowl. We're gonna be noticed by World Cup. And, sadly, we're not ready for it, but that doesn't mean we can't prepare for it now. This is just like a blue moon opportunity that we should take advantage of.

So my question to you is, when you did the analysis, were you looking at other downtowns? Or, you know, it seems like we were looking at the Clara, which is more of a strip mall and that kind of thing to look at vacancies. We have a very robust small business community and mid sized community, not just tech in Santa Clara, that is dying to be part of something like a downtown. And our vision in the master plan is to create that space, and not just for Santa Clarins, but for everyone who wants to visit Santa Clara and wants to be impressed by Santa Clara. So our vision for that downtown isn't just a little village where we're gonna buy our bread and and a grocery store.

No. We're we're thinking bigger than that. We really want people to know who we are. So so when you did the analysis, did you look at any other downtowns? Or just

So this was not a problem solving exercise. Again, that that that's that's really comes after tonight. So the ideas of some of the things that are things that definitely on our mind, I think we talked about them at the last meeting. In fact, a few beds amongst some we I remember bringing up about as one example. So ours was simply focused on the community benefit fee question. What was that? So not specifically about if we can't generate the community benefit fee, which is essentially our takeaway, what can we do? And we have a lot of ideas about that, but we're not prepared to share them tonight, so just to be clear. And that does take into account other downtowns.

Good. And, also, the vacancy rate. I had a curiosity. Was it higher or better than other areas except for Santa Clara?

It was better than the county.

Oh, so our retail was better than the county. Well, that's a positive. And so our vacancy rate I know in our downtown, we've had vacancy rates, and that had a lot to do with the builder. You know, he just built the wrong space for what we needed. So but I'm glad to hear that the retail is better than the county. Those are just some of my concerns for now. Adam,

I'm just gonna pass along to the rest of the committee. You guys are the experts. I'm sure you'll answer some of my questions. If not, you can come back to me. But I know these questions are coming up.

Great. No pressure. I just had some questions. Maybe we could take them first, and then I just have a couple of comments. Page 43 is is the scenario descriptions, and I'm I'm trying to get my head around the the the percentages between market and affordable. I don't think that has an impact on the final Sure. Comment. I just was wondering if we could pull it back up because it shows us significantly more sorry if I'm taking somebody else's thunder.

No. I mean, it's a it's a fair question. So the production of affordable units is through a combination of inclusionary housing requirements on private sites, but we also did model potential build out on city owned sites as well. And in those cases, to the surplus land act, most, if not all, of those units have to be affordable at some level.

That is not true. 100% not true. Only 25% have to be affordable at 80% AMI.

You you will have to Sure.

Plus land act. We've already the city attorney's already ruled on that.

I mean

Yeah. You We can get

300 units on our land. So it we we will meet the exclusion in the SLA. So I just wanna say that was not a true statement because that that's thank you.

It's if you secure an exemption, then then what you said is correct. If you can't secure an exemption, then what you said is is false.

But So then we need to take that into account with this report because you had a 100% affordable housing on the sit city owned sites.

Yeah. I mean, we can do that. I'm I'm not sure it changes the the conclusions of the financial analysis, though.

Just to be clear, though, you're we're expecting, you know, like, scenario to over twice as many affordable units as market rate units?

Yeah. That's that's also due to the surplus land act

K.

Modeling. I'll let you take that one on. I won't get it. But I I do think that the point is important. I wanted to talk about assumptions in the model. Could you go to those appendices? Maybe maybe page 35 that comes up.

We can go Cost and revenue assumptions.

Yeah. So last, it's not made for that one. Yeah. I got it. The I'm not sure the numbers, the assumptions behind the value of those units is correct.

Which one are you referring to?

Condos in both cases, and I haven't been able to do the math on the rentals. So a condominium new construction in Santa Clara, there are lots of variables are running from between a million 3 and a million 5, and you have them at 950,000. So for for new construction, I think I'm not pushing back on the message you are giving us at all. But I think when we look at the kind of magnitude of the challenge, it's worth digging a little bit into the assumptions. And similarly for the townhouses, new townhouses in Santa Clara are very expensive.

And so, you know, my just my scan is that a new townhouse is likely to go for well over 1,000,001 half dollars. And the average I've been able to find for new and existing new sales is over 1,300,000.0. I, up until recently, worked in a city that builds thousand square foot townhouses that go for 2 and a half million bucks, and it's, you know, less than nine miles up the road. So that would change a little bit, the feasibility assumptions.

Yeah. It's a it's a factor of square footage, I think, because we really drove it. So we'd have to look at, you know, obviously, fewer units, bigger square footage, or or fewer units, bigger square footage, yields challenges, the product cost per square foot up. But, you know All I'm necessarily yeah.

I would assume at least thousand. At least that's what we are seeing here. One one thousand eighty.

Sorry. Townhomes are 1,080 square feet each is what's in the model.

Square foot. And so, you know, even if

you take the mid right. Right?

The the Minrite, it just from what I found in the model, it's all 720 square feet for all the condos. So just just so you I'm just letting you know.

Yeah. But I'm I'm I'm gonna point out that it's not $900,000.

But it's 1,080, so that's why he's he got to that number. So

My point is actually that that there's probably a little bit better market scenario potentially if if we we looked at it differently. So I'd I'm sure those are, like

We're happy to update the numbers. So I'll just just start adding I

mean, I'm sure they're CoStar numbers or something, and so it's it's tough to figure out what happens with with new sales in the market. But I I think it we're in a little better shape. So in terms of the distance between something being feasible and or not, I know there are an awful lot of condominium developments that are entitled and not being built all up and down in Eclair County, we get it. I just I think it we're closer than we think maybe. I had a question about the the context for the high rise costs.

There's a construction sort of material thing that's been a truth for a long time. And I'm wondering if there are any other sort of barriers that the city imposes on high rise construction that have or have not been integrated into the model. I think there was

when Andrew and I were like, elevator requirements or something, or what what are you referring to specifically?

No. Let's we can come back. I think they're smarter people than me.

Foot I'm high rise requirement that's gonna require generator, fire sprinkler system, AC grass, all that. So once you hit 75 feet at the floor plate, you end up going into high rise. It's actually something I didn't even think of during all this. So it, you know, it's it's gonna be a challenge because the cost barrier to hit that high rise requirement is a much bigger number to where you have to get a couple extra floors. So I'll I'll go over some stuff, but that's what I think you're talking about. 75 feet.

I just remember that when Andrew Krebschie, who was the former director of planning and development I'm sorry. Every city has different structures. When we were when we were talking about how he was putting together the Tasman East, it was just trying to find the magic thread. And I know that that whatever it's being built, I didn't think it was gonna be built. And so figuring out what some of the additional cost barriers are.

I happen to think that we're there are technologies that are gonna make eight stories easier, and so figuring out what what the other barriers are. I'm also concerned that we have an assumption of an impact fee, but we also have an assumption of building the units. And so the surplus land act and the density bonus, if they want any kind of concessions or waivers at all, require on-site affordable housing of some kind. And so when they do that, they won't pay the fee.

Yeah. There are other impact fees, like the parks impact fees, I think, among other fees.

So it it you know, all

we have is 4,000,000,000 loop fee. Yeah. That

Yeah. All we have is the assumption of fees because we don't know. But in this case, we actually have structural constraints, and so we do know, and so they won't be paying that fee.

Yeah. I I don't think I don't think that was I don't think we included it as an Inblue fee. I think it's actually impact fees on development.

Yes. Impact fees and parkland dedication in lieu fees.

So the No. It's not affordable housing.

The table may have referred to the affordable housing fee, I think, or some of it. Look. Maybe it looked like that, but I think that was maybe not accurate. No.

We we put impact fees and then parkland dedication in the fees, I believe.

Okay. And the impact fee doesn't include the affordable housing.

That was development. Yeah. Development fee, actually.

I don't wanna undersell the expectations, but I also think that 50,000,000 may be a reach as you've shown. And so I think I'm just trying to bring us to a little more confidence that the model is very conservative.

Yeah. The original analysis that was done for the precise plan estimated a cost of 76,000,000, so we ran with 50. Yeah. But we did bring

it down by a third.

So does that include the infrastructure

fee that you're I'm just I'm just referring to what the consultant's analysis was for the cost of community benefits. Another precise plan that was adopted, and it was $76,000,000. I mean, you saw that item.

In the plan? I have no

It is in it's not in the we had There's a lot of documents. So then it's a dental document, I think that's Okay. Associated with the plan. We're happy to share it with with us.

Anyways, it may be possible that over time, there is a fee that can be collected, as Atisha said, because people are making money.

Yeah. I think what we're thinking is, like, you know, you got a there's been a lot of discussion on public parking garage. I could Got it. I would

And I know appreciate the fact that you're gonna work on how to translate this into something that Yeah. Not just a no. Right. But I just think it's important to contextualize that there's probably a lot of the kind of benefits we've been talking about that can be supported with less than $50,000,000 in the in the near term, and who knows? Yeah. And there we

haven't gotten to problem solving yet. Got it. We have ideas on that too. So

I just think there's a lot of concern and frustration, and so I I think I'm I'm seeing places where it's just we've made very conservative assumptions, and we've put them in graphs and charts. And so I'm just trying to draw attention to the fact that there may be some some room that we're not seeing immediately. So I I agree. It's a miserable time to do this, and everybody, unfortunately, is taking this time post housing element to reassess all kinds of it's not looking

Well, as someone who works for a 120 cities, our firm works for a 120 cities throughout California. Developers come in. You worked, I think, in the housing or planning department in in Mountain View or something. I remember you told me. Right? Yeah. You know, we we do see developers coming in even today. In fact, actually, there's more entitlement activity in a lot of cities right now than there has been in the last few years. So the market hasn't changed yet, but the optimism is. Yeah. So we can't really illustrate optimism based on data, but you can No. Illustrate optimism is based upon just what Leslie is seeing coming in the door and if she's seeing more activity and and what's happening, and we are seeing that in parts of the Peninsula.

Yeah. I think to Atisha's point that, you know, you guys don't wanna come here and say you have a silver ball. This is what's gonna happen. That's not what they asked you to do. So the point in time is what it is. But I think just for context, I think this is a tough time, but, actually, Santa Clara is relatively well positioned in the the county to to be

We agree with that assessment.

I think that was that was primarily it. I I I think the the fact that we do want ground floor retail, my mantra is what do we have to do to get what we want? So this isn't for me, this isn't a question of, oh, no. It's okay. How do we how do we make this work so that we we get the substance of what we've been talking about for I signed up for seven meetings.

And it it was a a tremendously rewarding experience because folks were committed, and they were working hard. And I I do this, and I'm not usually in spaces where people are committed and working hard. So it was an honor to be a part of that, but it it was a long process working through that. And so I think I have a sense of what some of that vision is, and the challenge going forward is still what do we need to do to get what we want. The vacancy rate on sort of new built mix, those are kinda stand alone residential buildings, and we put a ground floor commercial requirement in the zoning.

Hopefully, the downtown is different because it has a a kind of an aggregation of uses that doesn't exist in those those developments on the street. So, again, I don't wanna this is what you found. This is the data. But to put it in context for folks, I think we're we have more opportunity by bringing more people into a mixed use space already and getting the the aggregation effects as opposed to a building on on El Camino. So we shouldn't be too too pessimistic about retail even though we're seeing challenges with pulling spots and other new development. Okay.

I just have a few questions. And mostly, it's just I wanna understand what some of these arguments had in terms of your assumptions. And the first one was the decrease in permitting of affordable housing. Is that because of the economic environment, or is it just a decrease in demand? Because everything I read in general is that there's an in intense need for affordable housing. So I'm not I'm not sure I understand how that relates to your analysis of how much affordable housing would be available in in this development.

Would yeah. That that is a it's just a symptom. It's it's more just reporting out on the actual actual level of act his recent historical activity, which is a symptom of

Okay.

The cost market that we're in.

Okay. K.

And you also made a point about most high rise projects being in Tasman East, And we are specifically intent on making sure that some of the new development, while it might not be high-tech fabs or something like that, we wanna make sure that some of that is directed in the downtown for the economic feasibility of the downtown. And then I I see the general conclusion is that development will be slow and townhomes are most likely to be built. Is that only in blocks a and b or in the entire downtown? Is that your conclusion?

So one of the things that I thought would be helpful to this group and the public would be to understand if we could just open up the floodgates and get people to build today, what would they build? The answer is probably gonna be townhomes. Now I will be the first one to tell you, I already know that's not what you want. So it's an important to characterize that because I feel like, you know, when you issue the RFP, if you see a lot of townhomes in that project, we all probably have a guess of what the attitude will be of this group at least around that development proposal. You need more intensity.

So that's just to simply say of just what's going on with the market and feasibility right now. Not to suggest that we recommend that's certainly we didn't use the word recommend anywhere in this document. We didn't did certainly would not recommend that path at all. It would not manifest anything close to what you want, but it it does you know, again, it was framed in the analysis that was done five years ago and the original work that was done that led to this price. And so we thought it'd be helpful to see everything again for that those same lands. Not suggesting

Okay. As an illustration then?

Yes. Yeah.

And then I would not be a downtown.

Right. And when you refer to deed restricted housing, is that ownership like townhouse?

Deed restricted is just a of another term for affordable housing.

Oh, for okay. Okay.

Affordable. Yeah. Okay.

So I think those are basically all my questions. But, again, understanding that blocks a and b are the ones most likely to be be developed, I think that we do wanna see some place making historical respect, form based code, etcetera, in those first blocks because we've talked often about them being a catalyst development. Right? The success of those blocks is going to demonstrate that the rest of the downtown is possible. So that's why Swing for

the fences in the RFP. That's my

Exactly. Exactly. That's why we would wanna see some of the, like, on the ground community benefits, not just the affordable housing, but maybe a green or a place to gather or some place making or, you know, some ground floor retail, something where it does become a destination, at least for the people who live in Santa Clara. Thank you.

Yep.

Thank you for this,

Page seven. I wanna go to that for a couple of things. Good. So on government code sixty five nine one four point nine one prohibits local agencies from requiring ground floor commercial uses in projects, can you hear me, that encourage residential development. I give Mary credit on this.

Because the city owns blocks a and b, they are not just a regulator. They are a seller. The city can choose developers who voluntarily agree to retail.

Okay. Yeah. Again, this is not talking about what you can do with a and b is different than what you can do in the entirety of downtown. This is about

And does Formbase code prohibit this objective design standards? That does that over overrule I government code section?

I don't know what the city attorney would have to say. I'm looking at the planning folks.

They did in many California laws. Right? So

hi. Good good evening. My name is Akshay Hamid, community development director. So the form based code objective design standards, those are part of what the state is now requiring for cities to adopt. So I think if it is done correctly, it goes hand in hand. It depends on how you implement this. One doesn't necessarily negate the other.

Great. Thank you. And then government code sixty five nine one two point five one five five, affordable projects within a half a mile of transit. There is a sliver of block a and b within you. So you saw it. It's tiny. Does that include the whole development or just that part?

We didn't take in that into we didn't do, like, a density bonus assumption on a 100% affordable. We didn't we didn't apply that option, but it is a but if you the question is is, like, if and maybe that's again, I'm gonna look at planning here. The question is, if a sliver of something is part of that block, do they are they entitled to the entire to the entire

I don't I can't answer. No worries. You can.

Chair, if I may, the as it notes in here that only a portion of downtown is located within a half mile of transit, it is the property owned by the city off of Lafayette A And B, and maybe a tiny bit of the piece of the property owned by the the university. But yeah. So the rest of downtown is outside of that half mile.

I'll go quick. Alright. 10 through 25 pages. Yeah. City and does what was my question?

Pages 10 through 25, methodology. So are you you're just studying the city of Santa Clara at this point, Santa Clara proper, And we're making a and I just wanna set the record straight. We're trying to determine what's best for a downtown, but we're studying the only city in California without a downtown and making assumptions about retail, commercial, and and We're

we're I'm trying to understand your question.

In other words, so okay. You you guys I I read your resume. Redwood City, San Carlos, etcetera. They have downtowns. This city does not. And you're saying things about retail, about office, residential that aren't in a downtown. So So, like that apples to oranges?

That's a fair question. No. I mean, to to build today in this market, you would need to charge much higher. I probably have business owners in here in this room right now that aren't gonna wanna hear this, but you're gonna have to charge a lot higher rent.

Correct.

And that higher rent is not present in downtown today, and so we modeled that in our in our analysis. It wasn't based upon current rents within the downtown.

But it would be and that that was a question back there that the goes back to Matt's question. The increase in activity in other areas, are they that you had mentioned, they're around downtowns. The increase in You you mentioned that in other cities, there was, yeah, market conditions were up. Oh. You know, those were cities with downtowns.

Well, not necessarily. I don't know. But I don't think Belmont has a downtown.

Little I I I

work for them. I don't I wouldn't call it a downtown.

It's it's a strip. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a safe way. Dan Dan, if I I think the reason why actually, not that I think I know. The reason why this study didn't do a compare and contrast to other cities is that the entire focus of this study was to examine what community benefit package could we charge, what fee or structure could we develop based on the market conditions in Santa Clara based on the downtown precise plan. Right?

And, essentially, what it it has come back with is based on where the market is today and all the factors, it is not possible to charge a robust community benefits fee. And so it's not saying that our downtown is not viable. It's not saying that we should never charge a community benefits fee. It's literally answering the question that was developed at the end of the Downtown Precise Plan because part of that model was to unlock unlock additional development potential if a development paid a community benefits fee. And so this study analyzed that and, right, potentially, are some changes in the model that could occur.

But the basic conclusion is not at this time. Now that does not mean and it it was not focused on blocks a and b. Right? What we decide to do and negotiate for blocks a and b, our goal is to try and get development despite the market conditions as fast as possible.

Okay. And that answers that. Like, click here. Was student housing considered? No. It wasn't. That's page 21. Okay. That answers that. There's as you know, there's 9,728 students right across the street.

Noah over there picked this one up. I hope I'm not stepping on you. This was in the addendum page 43. RGS assumed that neither's block c or d would redevelop due to existing uses that are unlikely to change. There's members of our group who've spoken that's Prometheus.

Members of our group who've spoken with representatives of that group that this is simply not the case, and I, for one, want that stricken. If given enough units, they would be more than willing to play if the city were on board. City has to be here, you know, in in those we're we're gonna have initial additional discussions, and then, you know, I'm I'm sure they're gonna need to know if city's on board. And I think that's it. I'm gonna cut it there. But, Leslie, I won't show the slide.

I don't know what it about student housing had Workforce for stroke housing. My daughter goes to University of Arizona, I know what I'm paying for. For housing that's right next to the campus, I'm shocked, to be honest, what they're getting. So that's sort of piggybacking on what he said. Yeah.

We we didn't look at any other prototypes that weren't considered before. I I would imagine when you guys issue the RFP, you'll mention things like you should consider student housing. We could certainly look at it and see how much better the model gets with with that. We we haven't even scratched that surface that was that's, you know but it but I would probably say if that's something that, you know, the city and folks are interested in, then you should mention that in the RFP and mention that as an opportunity. Okay. Yeah.

And I I see what the challenge is right now because as Atisha said, now that it's sort of a static look right now. With the two city parcels, the hope is it catalyzes things and then builds value. You know, a lot of developers wanna see commitment by the city to invest first sometimes to believe that it's the moment you know, that it's gonna happen. Right? So that's one thing.

I'm also curious about well, so getting to that, that's that's where, like, it seems that I wish we could and this is the first time me reviewing something like this in terms of this this process, but that it was more whatever and I know you still have work to do. Whatever is proposed will take into consideration the growing value, because the value will increase if we get momentum. Okay? And so that's my hope. The other thing in terms of this current analysis, I'm just curious, at what point percentage wise when you're looking at interest rates, because that's really the issue right now, if interest rates were half a percent lower, because, you know, we don't know what's going be in three months or six months or a year, a percentage point lower, is there some sort of, but how that impacts your numbers, right?

Because that's what's hard to look at it. I wish I could say, well, if it went down 1%, lo and behold, you're going to be in a much better position. So that's what I would have hoped. Again Yeah. Maybe we didn't know what to ask for here because it's not what I do on a daily basis, but but that would have been and and maybe that's something with the next step. Yeah. It's very easy just to change that percentage point. I know it

We I mean, we we have I mean, these guys love Excel.

So we

have definitely thought about different ways to model it. You can kinda drive yourself a little crazy, to be honest. No. I what I would suggest is any like, when you when the city adopts any kind of development impact fee or if we were to come go forward with a community benefit fee, which right now we're suggesting should not necessarily be a fee today, you would always say, we're gonna revisit this at some point in the future. And we would probably recommend a relatively short window for when they would revisit, when the city should revisit that, the economics.

So I'll be candid. I could project things to make them brazier, to make them better. But, honestly, does that really matter? So I think what's better would be an agile program that you can start with now that you guys can focus on things that I don't wanna keep talking about a and b, but a and b, but also other things that you can do in the interim. There's lots of parts of downtown where there could be things done, things we've talked we talked about at the last meeting about PBIDS and things like that, explore the interest in the community and the businesses to join something.

That could be done. You know? So programming of downtown, I I've heard that brought I mean, I I was I was constrained because of what I have to talk about tonight when I can't talk about everything tonight, but there's definitely going to be more coming around these ideas, which so I'm I'm begging. I know you've had to be patient, not just tonight, but but just in general. You know, begging for some patience here because this was answering a specific question that we were asked to answer, and it was based on a point in time. It is not to suggest that we're weighing in on whether or not downtown is ever viable. We definitely do not believe that. We believe downtown is viable. You're in an excellent real estate region. That's not going to change.

And so I think the prospects are good. I think the question now is a little bit different from maybe where we started the job where it was like, well, we're gonna create a fee, we're gonna implement it. We're gonna go. Okay. We're not gonna create a fee. So what's the interim plan look like, and when do we revisit it? That's, to me, is the big takeaway here for you guys.

And then there was just thank you for that. There was a reference to the Tasman East about, you know, they build high rises, and there was some defrayed they paid development fees that defrayed the cost. I I I'm just what mechanism was done there? Was there was anything different done again in that situation to get those was more or was it just really the timing of when those were in the pipeline? Probably more more likely that. But was there anything else done there? Because there's a reference to Tasman East. And was there anything done

sort of?

I can't I can't speak to the off the top of my head. I don't know, RM or Leslie, if you know what the deal was on that project.

I was also

Feldman fees changed over time, certainly. So

Isn't the developer fee only for the affordable housing components?

It it let me just say what it said. It's a Tasman East SP, such a specific plan. Most high rise projects where where developer pays an infrastructure impact fee to help defray development costs. Can you explain this?

It's an it's an infrastructure fee that's going to be somewhat like the one we're doing for downtown as well. So it's for for the, you know, the streets and the utilities.

It sounded like something special was done Yeah. To get those high rises built the way it was written.

Yeah.

No. Because I was like, okay. Well, then what are they trying

to tell me?

They're not telling me. Okay. So and that's not a slide, but it's

I wanna point one thing out while this slide is up. When Jasmine East was approved, the interest rates back in 2018 and 2019.

Yeah.

So there's market conditions that really help that specific plan to move forward and to get those units into place.

Yeah. And I've never been delusional about the reality of interest rates right now. So it's just yeah. You wanna plan.

So that's

all I had. Thank you.

And one more on page page 17. DPP area is not a technology hub. There's been very little build out on on Coleman. There's, you know, a couple buildings, and then you've got this stationary plan that we're all working on. You know, it's several years off that will develop the east part of this.

But of the buildings that are there now, they're all tech. You got ByteDance, TikTok, Royku, Quantum, yeah, on on Coleman. So I'd I'd We can take

Yeah. I just repeat that. I think

Can I just I think there were two there's one question? If we allow for an increase in density, can we capture value as a community benefit?

Think we have to we have to look at that, and we'll have to consider it. Yeah. Because I don't know Question. If you'll be different.

I think you kind of addressed it. You said a bunch of things that let folks go at least as high as the point at which the cost increased significantly. And so there's not a ton of incentive for the the increased density that were put in the plan. And I think that's what you were that was kind of the question. So I think that's pretty clear.

There's a lot of master plan areas that depend on trade off of increased office density for tons and tons of money, and that it's just not gonna be the future. So I I appreciate that. Part of what you're getting is this is now public document. So and it's it's basically says development's not gonna happen. And if it happens, there's gonna be no money, extra money anywhere in that system to address some of the other community needs even if it's not tied to I know that's not the intent.

I think what you're hearing is anxiety about the the sort of representation of of how that is answered.

I I I think that's a fair that's a fair point, and we'll take a look at how we've addressed that.

I think that's my main point is there's there's sort of a can I just finish my thought?

Oh, no. Of course.

I think the the main point is just, know, this is answering a bunch of questions indirectly, and I think,

you know Oh, it might be perceived.

The point in time, we all know kinda how that works, and we know you're gonna go think about other approaches. But it you know, if this is going to be the sort of public document to address the broad question of how do we get some of the stuff that we want, what do we need to do, it's gonna be read very, very negatively.

Hopefully not because we'll have

a community benefits program that's gonna follow. Right. I mean, don't forget. This is not the end all. This is this is a step to the next step, which is that's the real thing you're here for.

I get it. I'm just letting you know that that the reaction is not so much about the general point, but about the way that it's presented and I understand. So the questions you're getting are to open up Yeah. Space and a sense of possibility given the fact that we have a point in time analysis. So it's it's it's more emotional than substantive. Yeah. But the content and the the presentation has a big impact on the motion.

Matthew. Right? I I think I wanna respond to what Matthew said, and it's sort of been said here a couple times that this document hurts us, or it's unfortunate that we are talking about this today. I think it's important to go back to go forward because part of how that was said earlier was sort of almost an indictment on the city. Right? I remember a little bit over two years ago, it was, hey. We finished our downtown precise plan. Let's get going on a community benefit study, get the community benefit study, get the community benefit study going. What staff said at that time is, hey. The market is a little depressed.

I'm not sure that those results would actually come out in our favor, but there was a push. Do it. Do it. Do it. So now we did it. We don't like the results, and we're concerned about it being public. I will say I'm not concerned about that at all. I don't think this report tells us anything that professionals in the industry, many of you up here, already know. And, frankly, any developer that we sit down with will know as well. Of course, there are tweaks around the margins.

Right? Potentially, look at student housing, do x, do y. I think the basic conclusion is the market doesn't support a robust community development fee based on market conditions now for various reasons, economics as well as state law. Right? And so I I do think it answers that But quest

but the question was based on the presumption that we can trade increased density for that. That was the question.

Exactly.

So we could we might have a different conversation if it was focused on, is there any flexibility to get more money out of developers? That is kind of answered in here, but that that wasn't actually the task. And I think that's a more that's a much broader discussion in which the the anyways, that that's the point I was making. There.

Okay. And and and exactly where I was just about to go, I do think that showing the report and having this discussion transparently answers a part of the question that was embedded in the Downtown Precise Plan because in many ways, it was embedded off having a community benefit structure to unlock additional density. Right? And so we need to rethink that. Right?

How can we provide incentives for, at the end of the day, a redeveloped downtown in the market we're in today and hopefully for a more a improved market in the future? And so I I really wanted to speak to I'm not that concerned about this study and these results being public at all. I don't think it it hurts us. And then in fact, anytime we're sitting down with the developer, we ask for their pro form a. We look at current conditions. We hire a consultant to truly vet the proposal that's in front of us. And so we would we would, of course, do that in the future.

Thank you. Actually, yep, thanks for clarifying that. And I would just suggest if you're putting such comparisons that may not reflect that well, I would just say maybe maybe if you would have done a series of saying assuming interest rate was this, this, this, and this. And in three years, the if the interest rate goes down, this is what it looks like than doing a point in time. That's where I'm, like, so much against doing a point in time financial studies because it's like and that I just want to learn a little bit from all of you a factual question.

Our transfer taxes, property taxes, everything is percentage based. Why is impact fee set per square foot or per unit set in time? Why is impact fee not a percentage based? Is there a state law that stops cities to do it? Because this is just kind of, like, listening to conversation. Like, there's so many other taxes, which is all percentage based.

I it basically points to state law. And so Which one? Yeah. It's it's per square footage. I don't remember.

Okay. So it's a per square footage.

Yeah. It is. But, yeah, it's state law. Same for the infrastructure fee. So when we do the analysis and we do the nexus studies, basically, state law is guiding us on these.

So we just need to go and lobby in Sacramento? Next changes to our housing, like, focus on financing then zoning now.