Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Up here? Yeah, you have to press it really hard. It depends.

You're at the right.

Chair, we are ready to start the meeting when you are.

All set.

Oh, OK. Thank you.

All right. I now call to order the Planning Commission meeting of May 20, 2026. We'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance and Statement of Values, so please stand.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Please remain standing while we read the Statement of Values.

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

Roll call, please.

Sure. Commissioner Botnagar has notified us you should be here shortly, in about five minutes. Commissioner Biagini?

Here.

Commissioner Chiaracuru? Here. Commissioner Wang?

Here.

Commissioner Boza?

Present.

Commissioner Slane?

Here.

Chair Crutchlow?

Here.

Very good. Thank you.

Let's go with the declaration of commission procedures.

Yes, chair. Public hearings are conducted by the chair in accordance with the following procedures. The chair of the commission directs all activity during the hearings. All comments shall be addressed to the commission. Any item on this agenda may be continued to subsequent hearing. Applicants will be allotted up to ten minutes to present and justify proposals. following staff presentation of the item. Other speakers will be given up to two minutes. The applicant is allotted up to five minutes for rebuttal or comments. No additional comments will be accepted upon the close of public hearing, although the Commission reserves the right to direct questions to any speaker on any matter. Special procedures and time limits may be applied to any items as prescribed by the Chair. Appeal of Commission actions must be filed in writing within seven calendar days.

Copies of the current agenda and staff report for each of the items on the agenda are available from the planning division office on the Friday afternoon preceding the meeting and available online. continuances and exceptions. This part of the meeting allows for applicants, members of the public, or other interested parties to request an item be one, continued without hearing, two, withdrawn, three, taken out of order. Are there any requests from applicants, the public, or the commission for continuance or exception for any item on tonight's agenda? Online?

No, we do not have any hands raised online.

All right. Thank you very much. So we do have one less than we should, but they'll be here in a few minutes. So I'm not going to go over the fact that we have less than a full commission until we have to actually vote. Consent calendar. There are two items on the consent calendar today. Secretary Chirikuru, would you please read the procedure for the consent? Yes.

Good.

I'll let it be noted that Commissioner Bumlingard showed up at 6.07.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair. Calling out to the two consent calendar items for approval. The procedure for the consent calendar is as follows. Consent calendar items may be enacted, approved or adopted by one motion unless requested to be removed by anyone for discussion or explanation. If any member of the Planning Commission staff, the applicant or a member of the public wishes to comment on a Consent Calendar item or would like the item to be heard on the regular agenda, please make your request now. Items listed on the Consent Calendar with associated file numbers do constitute public hearing items. 1a Planning Commission Meeting Minutes of April 8, 1B, review of the proposed fiscal year 26-27 and fiscal year 27-28 by biennial capital improvement program budget for conformity with the City of Santa Clara 2010-2035 general plan. Thank you.

Is there anybody, any members of the public that would like to briefly address the commission on any item not on the agenda?

We need to move the commission. CHAIR, THAT COMES AFTER THE CONSENT CALENDAR UNDER PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS. IT'S OKAY. SO WE'RE ON THE CONSENT CALENDAR AT THE MOMENT.

I MOVE TO APPROVE THE CONSENT CALENDAR ITEMS OR WOULD YOU LIKE TO? SECOND. OH, OKAY. THANKS. AND THANK YOU FOR BRINGING THE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT.

But the motion was made by Commissioner Chiaracuru, seconded by Commissioner Biagini to approve the consent calendar. Go ahead and cast your vote, please.

I don't see anybody else. Aye.

Thank you. The motion passed, thank you.

Okay, public presentations now? Any member of the public that would like to briefly address the Commission on any item not on the agenda? Anyone online?

We do not have any hands raised online and no one in the Council Chambers is requesting to speak.

Okay, public hearing items. Continuance of the third zoning code cleanup ordinance and rezoning of the property currently designated TN, transit neighborhood, to R6, transit neighborhood residential. We have a presentation.

Thank you, Chair. No presentation from staff. Staff is just simply recommending that you open the public hearing and immediately continue this item to the June 10th Planning Commission hearing.

Open it up to public hearing then.

Thank you.

Anybody would like to speak on this item? I see a lot of smiles, but nobody wants to speak, okay. Anybody online?

No.

Is everybody a student in the audience today? Awesome.

Look at that nod.

And you're sure you wanted to come to the planning commission, right? All right. Just want to make sure. All right. So do we have to close public hearing? No, no.

So it stays open.

It stays open.

OK. Move to continue it.

Second.

All right. What's the date certain?

We have to actually continue it to June certain.

We want to continue it to June to date certain. Date certain June 10.

Seconded.

So who plans to second it? Are you seconded? Commissioner Buza seconded.

The motion is being made by Commissioner Slame, seconded by Commissioner Buza to approve staff recommendation. Go ahead and cast your vote please.

Aye.

Very good. The motion passed. Thank you.

All right, item number three, continuance of a rezoning to remove the historic combined district from 1341 Homestead Road, which is 970 Monroe Street, to remain in historic combining district, and a tentative subdivision map to subdivide the property into two parcels, each containing one of the existing residences. So anybody have any public things they wanna say about it?

So again, thank you chair Staff is recommending that the Planning Commission open this the public hearing on this item and immediately continue to the June 10th Planning Commission hearing I move that we continue this item to date certain to June 10th Planning Commission meeting The motion was made by Commissioner Kourou seconded by

Commissioner Biagini.

This is to approve staff recommendation. Go ahead and cast your vote, please. Very good, the motion passed, thank you.

Okay, number four, Planning Commission Work Plan Fiscal Year 2026-2027.

Thank you, Chair. I do have some slides for you on this item this evening. All right. So, as you recall, last year the city clerk and the city manager instituted a new schedule for work plans for boards and commissions, and those are due to the city council by June of this year to be implemented in August of this year, but it does align with the fiscal year, so hence Council in June starting in August. I've got the Planning Commission work plan here for your discussion today. As the Planning Commission is quasi-judicial body, there is no work plan that's technically needed, but we do have a broad-based list of types of items Planning Commission can use to conduct business, and that includes relevant trainings, conferences, study sessions, and then the Commission's identified list of land use priorities for Council to consider during their priority setting session. so thank you to the one commissioner who provided comments on the work plan and all of you do have a hard copy in front of you because i did make some edits from what was attached to the agenda so what you see in red we previously just had the three items stated and i thought the explanation of each of those items was quite good so i added those in but that's up for your discussion whether you want those to remain or not but i thought those were good uh good explanations as to why those three items are important to the Planning Commission. And then we have three, these three items for you to discuss today and I'm just going to quickly go over them and then we'll go back and touch each one. We have your conferences and trainings. We have your list of study session topics. The items in red are ones that I added based on the feedback that I received. and then we have the land use priorities for council consideration. So we can go ahead and start discussion on any conferences and trainings. The ones that are listed up here are ones that the planning commission has attended in the past. I've put in dates where I could find them that are for the next fiscal year. But if there are any that you would like to add to this list, please do let me know. I do have one note here on the side. The Silicon Valley Business Journal is having an event on June 18th of this year. It's on the future of Fremont. It's approximately $145 per ticket. That would be spent in this fiscal year, but it was the only sort of item of interest I thought the planning commission, sorry, Council stuck in my head Plenty Commission might be interested in but again, this is a note on the side Just cuz I want to bring it to your attention for this current fiscal year. This wouldn't go for next year Any comments questions thoughts on What we have up here Looks very good.

Is that how they're being successful by charging? 144 $45 per person to come I don't know Like that like a bake sale

We have the Chamber of Commerce State of the Valley address I have the very first one is joint venture Valley, but is there one the chamber does too?

I mean or it just was okay I Think these are good.

Thank you. Okay.

I Next are your study sessions. So the top four your yearly housing legislation with the city attorney assistant city attorney infrastructure planning to support future growth, VTA transit planning and code enforcement. Those were four from last fiscal year that we have not gotten to. And then I've added the three suggested by the commissioner, real estate and development market conditions, CEQA updates and then the capital improvement program and environmental and general planning consistency review.

And I just want to declare that one commissioner that sent it was me. Thank you all. But I did recognize that we had in the past discussed the data center as a study session, and then also the public outreach. I believe they are currently in the framework, you'll see in the next, of a policy level. But you could keep me honest, and this commission's feedback will also drive Do we still have the interest on the data centers to land with study sessions, knowing that it's always an evolving technology? I know a lot more than I ever need to at this point in time, but it's always a good validation to have the data centers as a study session. That's just my thought process and its infrastructure needs.

I think it's very interesting to have some other discussions regarding around it. I just listened to NPR on Sunday. And one of the things that they came up with in Virginia was the fact that people contracted to sell their house at a very high price. And then what went up happening is in the contract that says, legally, if somebody comes after us on this whole agreement, we have to put her off until that's all settled. It's been four years, and during that four years, the state of Virginia decided to tax them based on that new value. And so that really has hurt the people and stuff. So I think what might be interesting is to see what other possible things could affect it. Now in Virginia, it's a very different situation. Because it's a huge amount of land. There's no way you're going to grab that much land in Santa Clara. But I want to make sure that we're thinking beyond just You know.

Yes, agreed. And I heard, yeah.

Eric mentioned that is that the company is starting to build module data centers to accommodate just certain industries.

So that instead of having to build a monstrosity, you can just put one in sight.

They can just put one in sight to accommodate just that one facility. So there may be a turnaround on that. But since you folks, since we're talking about this, one of the things that I really would like to see move to the top of the line is the vacant and blighted building ordinance because there's a lot of community that it really is an uproar. It's getting really out of control. We want to start seeing if we can make some money or get things going or completely knocked out, the ones that are completely in the plight area. So I want to see that.

Yes. And just for resource, as part of AICP credits, APA has an amazing discussion about data centers and planners. And it's an educational module. just for context, there's evolving technology, there's anticipation, and that has also paused several VC investments in this arena. But it is a structure that we need to get, a construct that we need to actually align towards. Also, 17 cities, I think, or states probably, one of the numbers, has put a moratorium. So interesting to bring back. I would, with the Planning Commission, I'd like to make that as a recommendation to have an ongoing. Also, Bloom Energy released an article last week about the growing cost of electricity. Ooh, I read it. Because of data centers. So it's a fascinating world, but just giving ourselves an education. I'm using my youth community here to actually become the champions. OK, thank you.

I will add one thing to that. I think given the exponential explosion of how fast the chips are evolving, maybe the size of the data centers aren't going to increase nearly as much as the fact that now they're going to say, I have one rack, and it only needs 800 kilowatts. So electricity is going to be probably the biggest one.

But there's evolving technology and the sales tax and the actual tax benefit is real. So I will acknowledge the city's economic viability stands still on that possibility. Okay. So that was one add to the study session request. And I do want to make sure that I did not see and I know we have public notification in this process. So those are two that I missed, but I want to make sure. So it's there. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments about that so far?

Okay, I do. The other thing that I would love to see from staff in regards to talking about data centers is also the fact that if you add up Every data center, if they had to turn on their diesel generators because of an outage of some type, how much pollution that would bring and how safe would it be with 500 feet of the areas that we have, 1,000 feet. When I look at it and do some rough calculations, I'm not very happy with it because the way CEQA works, as I've mentioned before, and you know better than I because you guys do this every day, they only look at the one individual data center and how much output it does. And if we had an emergency like an earthquake and they all had to turn it on, that is not calculated into it. And the simulation for it is also based on not using it in a valley. So I'd love to see that. I would love to see CEQA updates given how much the state has decided to cut CEQA out. And then there My favorite bill, since Xander's not here, you're gonna have to play Xander for the moment. AB 2097, which says we can't dictate parking for developers. I would like to see the criteria upon which staff is using to determine that it's meeting the requirements. There's three reasons to say we don't have to follow it. The one that's the most important is there isn't sufficient mass transit or it would all of a sudden be such a large amount of people trying to use mass transit in that area. that it would impact it. And then we could say, okay, look, we don't have to be under this because we have an exemption. So I would love to know what the way that that gets measured so that we can look at that and say, okay, this is the guidelines that we wanna use. So I would ask staff just to give us those guidelines at some point.

I see a lot of, now that you mentioned that, one of the things that I've always been thinking about is the VTA, for instance, they could just cut routes up completely, or they could be cutting the amount of time and reroute the thing. So a project that we actually approved because it was close to transit, all of a sudden it's not there anymore. So meanwhile, there's no parking. So things could change. So this is a very gray area, and I 100% am in agreement with you on this.

Yeah, I mean, one of my thoughts, my crazy thoughts was like, hey, if all of a sudden everybody started parking on the street because of this kind of construction and you don't have enough parking space, the developer would be held to... paying for a system that people had to actually buy stickers saying that, yeah, they can park in this area or not. Something that's happened in other cities where parking is restricted to the local residents because there isn't sufficient parking for the residents. And I really would not want to see Santa Clara have to go down that route, but just a thought. All right, that's everything I had. Anybody else have any comments and questions about this part of it?

Oh, the data centers? Yeah, I was just most concerned to find out if we could require the data centers to fund our emergency responders with the equipment and training necessary to battle battery fires, which is a specialized case that those buildings would create.

Have you seen the diamonds on the outside?

Yeah.

And do you know what happens if it says four? It means you're done, basically. You don't go there.

It means you can't go in.

That's right. No, I'm serious. Some of them I looked at, and it had a four in one of the areas, and it was like, yeah, you can't go in there. So I think that makes sense. I would be surprised if the fire department hasn't already done something, so it would be nice to know what has been done.

I would be surprised, too, but you and I have both been surprised many times.

Yeah, well, the point where I went into a fab and they started telling me about the shots you might have to get if you wind up having a problem with some of the chemicals, I thought, I'm never going in one of these things. All right.

Keeping us on track.

Keeping us on track so we can get going here.

One more quick not topic add. I do want to encourage that these study sessions, now that I see the bright and beautiful in front of me, is to have it with the youth commission as partners in our study. If you're actually doing study sessions, there's an education component. This is their city as well as their future. I would love to encourage a study session be at the very minimum combined with the commission, if not city council. I'll be fine.

Let's be careful here, who you ask.

I'm not sure I heard all of what you said, but one of my concerns on study sessions, they overlap. I know calendar coordination is the stuff of nightmares, but it would seem to me that some of these study sessions would be better served if they were joint sessions with the appropriate commissions. When it overlaps with perhaps historical landmark, when it overlaps with, God, I'm There's a number that can overlap, put it that way, with other commissions. And it wouldn't be a bad idea, again, due respect to calendar coordination, that some of these study sessions also include the City Council. We all hear the same thing. We can talk about it in a more cohesive manner. That's it.

I think that, yeah, you're saying you want a joint session with City Council. Is that what you're saying?

I'm saying that some of these study sessions would be better served if they were joint sessions, whether it is with another commission, youth commission maybe, historical landmark commission, and or city council, even though I know that's really a calendar coordination nightmare. So it would be probably bigger subjects. But I think if commissions that touch on these issues hear the same joint session, the collaboration and the questions raised by everybody is also informative and educational for the different commissions. So we're not operating as five fingers but as one hand, you know?

Nice in theory. Well, let's see how well it works. But I like the idea.

Well, I realize calendar coordination.

You can always invite, right? There you go. All right. Please, go ahead.

I don't know whether it is visible to anybody, but there is a request to speak, which I did use this time.

Is the request to speak from someone?

You should see it. You should see it there, but his has been inactive for a while.

So there goes that test. Thank you. Could you put up the third page here, the land use priorities for council consideration?

Yeah. Are we done with study sessions? No. No? Lance still? Lance got something?

Yeah. But I was waiting until others had theirs.

Then maybe you go first. I have a different topic on land use priorities.

Yeah. Okay. I wanted to add one study or suggest a study session, but I needed the interaction of the Commission to make sure that we focus it appropriately. I would like us to have an opportunity to talk to some of the industry representatives on autonomous vehicle use and impact on our planning, mostly around how we are going to permit developments and will they be required to provide knockouts for drop-off pickup? Will they have special lanes for robot deliveries? How are we as a city going to absorb that next activity that's already happening in many cities. We joke about the Waymos and things but they're here now so we don't have time to think about it too long. That also I think we could invite people from like Tesla, Amazon, Waymo and just say could you come in and speak to us about what you believe your plans are for the future for city autonomous vehicles.

Also check out Zook.

Oh, yeah, there's many options for people that could contribute. I'm also kind of concerned that we are going to have issues around things like the e-bikes and the e-devices in general sharing the lanes with the bikes. There's already been multiple accidents. I was in Santa Cruz last week and watched e-bikes basically scaring people off the sidewalks. So it's there now, and we have to figure out how to deal with it and absorb it. If anybody has other ideas, I'm open to suggestions.

Thank you. Through the Chair, I think it's great that you guys are proposing study sessions. A couple of these items like the real estate and development market conditions and CEQA updates, I'm just kind of like thinking, would it be better, there are like ICSC or there's, I know MTC, ABAG just did a webinar on real estate trends, and they can bring industry experts, so it's like a webinar that you can watch, and sometimes it's just free because they're serving the wider audience. community, whether those can be provided versus getting a specific study session over to you because it's so important to have that broader knowledge from multiple industry experts that can come. and whether that might serve some of the requests that you're asking. Another example was the ULI presentation done in February of 2025 at the Convention Center, and there were several industry experts that came that can provide you that knowledge that you are seeking, and whether that would...

I think it would be good, like, In preparation?

Yeah.

I think the other part would be the discussion, right? We can't do the discussion outside of the meeting. But in terms of prepping for it, I think that's a great idea.

Yeah.

And also someone that somewhat relates to Santa Clara. You know, all the other conferences are very generic. Yeah, absolutely. So there's a generic knowledge, and then there's more specific knowledge. Because our real estate and actual market conditions are going to just go kaboom. meaning that there's so much live innovation, opportunity, anchor sectors that are coming into our land use that is much more unique and different than ever before. And so I am going to position, in fact, how our retail is going to look with just the new infusion of a hospital and a school of medicine happening. So I would challenge some of our prior assumptions around

Retail Okay, thank you.

Thank you for your input Yeah, the comment on the follow-up on that is if there's any way we can incorporate into the real estate how some cities have successfully integrated lower cost housing with the pressures of the residents to maintain high property value because these are two objectives that are actually completely at odds with each other in most cases. And if anybody has successfully managed that, we would love to hear how they've split it or how they've developed in a way that gets us both.

Do you follow that? Yes. APA, when we went there to Monterey, they had a lot of good talks about that and such. So I think one of them was the city of Pasadena, or it was a Culver City. One of those two did a presentation along those lines. So I think anything we can get to bring in from there would be great. Share it with the group, and then maybe we can have a talk about it and see if we can solve the world's problem. All right. Anything else? Or can we go on?

Chair, if I may just real quickly, I'm going to recap the slide before we move on. So I'm going to add to what we have up here on the screen, AB 2897, autonomous vehicles. I've got some additional detail on feedback on some of these items as well, and then data centers.

I'm not proposing an entire study session on AB 2097, no matter how much I love talking about it. We can keep it very short.

Informational item.

It would be nice to have guidance on how you're looking at it and then how we look at it because we want to be all in the same lane. Great. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Okay. So then your third item is land use priorities for council consideration. So these are the topics that you would bring up at your scheduled dinner with the city council. I'll just read them off for you really quickly. Data center development standards and location requirements, entertainment district, supportive housing solutions, sustainability and climate-related policies, vacant and blighted building ordinance, skilled labor policy, and a citizen commission overseeing SVP. Sorry, Silicon Valley Power.

Yeah, for the data centers, I thought you might want to add a focus on a general plan, an overall plan, an effort to try and get ahead of future requests.

58 data centers are getting ahead of it, yeah.

I think that's what you all meant by location requirements, but an overall plan, like where should they be allowed.

Yeah, try and figure out. How to ration them? I don't want to use that word. That suggests too much. How to plan for them in the general case, which we haven't really done.

I think something like that, in my mind, would be somebody that understands the technology, understands where the electricity is going to come from. students like yourself that hopefully understand some of these things that can come advise us would be great as well because it's not just building it and we have number 59 it's there's a bunch of aspects so does the city even want to say hey look we're just not going to allow anymore we have a limit this is the amount of power we're going to allow and that's it and that's all you get and if you can figure out how to use it efficiently that's fine otherwise and then we have to see legally can we call it like that. So I would say, yeah, let's add a little bit more to it. And I think what we might want to do is all think about aspects that we can suggest to staff in areas of how do you, what are the things that you want to consider when thinking about future data centers?

Yeah, thank you. So just to let everybody know, after our last presentation or study session on data centers, some months after that, I think Elizabeth arranged, or maybe Leslie, it was you, arranged a meeting with me and our Rina. I forget her title now. She's been promoted. She said something very interesting, and that is that um we are out of power for new data centers in the city as we are and you will not see any more data centers come to the planning commission and here we are we have not seen one for the last few months her point was that until the revisions or upgrades to svp and the ones that are being funded by uh citizens of santa clara until they get done you you there's no more power to be shared right Gives us some breathing room to come up with some policies. Like you said, top it off at 65 or 58.5 will work for me. Something like that, right? So the study session that we had was a request from the Planning Commission, and thank you for actually doing that. The question is, and this I believe was a request from the council to develop some kind of a policy. On the data centers the kind of things that the chair is requesting here So is there some work going on and with regards to a policy regarding data centers?

Yes or no To my knowledge they haven't provided that direction to staff as a priority item for us to work on okay I know it came up in that study session, but there's been no formal direction provided that I'm aware of.

No, usually there has to be a council vote and a direction to staff with a motion in order for staff to incorporate it into the work plan. Okay.

At that point it was going to be the zoning ordinance revisions that were going to be like the cover.

Yeah, and I'll be very honest about it don't limit this to data centers in general from you know light industry and business There are companies who use Tens of megawatts and they are not considered a data center So technically I would say we may want to come up with a different term and you know, the big users of electricity. So, and I would say anybody that's over 500, I'll say just take it a megawatt, anybody over a megawatt would be, you know, could be in that category. So we should figure out tiers of kind of companies that are there. I guarantee it's not limited to data centers.

Yeah, and I can tell a new sector that will come will be which is heavy water usage.

Being in that okay, not to skip this will be brought it back or another time.

I was gonna say something Okay, just to quickly confirm one of the things that we did not see here is the infrastructure, you know, we were we had talked about Wi-Fi capabilities across versus a applicant based

Yeah, kind of looking at cell tower, I think, as well. Yeah, the cell tower, I would like to see that as a study session, mainly because the amount of controversy over a single cell tower is enormous. And I think a master plan of it and master policy considerations, we should be able to come up with something that will work for us. Being in Santa Clara and saying, my cell phone doesn't work, just seems very antiquated. So, all right.

Next? I'm sorry. Different topic. And actually, just a quick question. So vacant and blighted building ordinance, is that expected, from our perspective, to also include office space in Santa Clara? Or are we talking mostly smaller lots for private...

Vacant blighted buildings.

Yeah, well I'm glad you mentioned that but the thing that it brings it up is the blight more than anything else vacancies You're always gonna have vacancies around as you can see some of the vacants buildings that been bought out by a company and starting the new campuses and so on yeah, like we're sort of health is coming and so I Yeah, yeah, that's not and usually the bacon buildings are big office complex are well maintained even though there there's nobody there Yeah, they'll keep it out. They want to rent them out or so on but it's the other part mainly we're targeting if I probably have an agreement with everybody here It's like the El Camino down the El Camino and some of the other areas around there Sure. That's what we probably meant.

Agreed. But I'm thinking maybe we think a little bit about that because there's a lot of office space vacant for long times, right? Think about the Bowers and Central, the Sobrato place. It has had a board to construct that for at least 15 years, right? If you add that space of all these vacant large buildings, then there's a lot of unused space. I was just asking you a question. It does either include or does not include and I'm done for now.

It goes back to what I just said too. If you look at the Sobrato, just for an example, they maintain the property. You don't see weeds growing all over the place or anything like that in the area.

Unlike some other properties I know on El Camino. Thank you. Yes, understood. The fires and so on that you see.

Mike, I asked a question. As long as that's clear, we're good.

Lance, did you want to say something?

No, but I will.

No. Okay, no, I have a quick one.

On that note, abandoned vehicles along just our El Camino, oh, my God. Those vehicles I know have not been removed for years. And I don't know why we haven't. There has been a citizen who came at our planning commission meeting two meetings ago complaining that we are not taking care of that Calabasas. area by the motel, somebody please go look at it through court enforcement lens. It is quite blighted in that.

I believe it's only two officers that handle for the whole city, that part.

I know, but I'm officially requesting.

Yeah, I agree, 100% I agree with you. I'm constantly calling in and stuff.

Yeah.

Okay, the topic, what's skilled labor policy? Look at the person who I you know, I'm doing it because I don't know and How does skilled labor policy come under Planning Commission, please?

Is your mic on There you go, thank you It comes up all the time Should it be handled by City Council?

Probably, but as long as it's not it will come up when I see it on the Planning Commission we always have the Honorable Nancy Biagini Amendment that we always add and that's about hiring Because we can't require it. I know and then City Council decided not to So what is this that you would like to talk about in here? What different just bring it up again and

Well, maybe this is a good idea that we do something joint with City Council. I'd like to know why. Okay, because we wouldn't be the first city, not even the second or third city. I would like to see it at a city council level as opposed to constant recommendations at the Planning Commission. If that's what it has to be, that's what it has to be. But this idea of skilled labor and wage that allows somebody to actually live in Santa Clara, which is getting further and further more difficult. So that's where I see it fitting in. It might be a bit of a stretch but for lack of any other way of doing it and it dying on the vine That's what I see.

Okay, just want to check Very important because there's a lot of construction that's being done not by skilled workers and you get really bad products if you take it in consideration at Z&L construction there's a project in San Jose they built some towers and they The people that were using they were housing him in warehouses and it was yeah, it was really It's like pay me now or pay me later All right Any more you want to talk about this

So the only thing I got from that discussion was to add cell tower policy or master planning to this list Otherwise we look good.

I'm sorry. Did you read the different topics over there? Uh-huh. Okay So I'll add that one Anything else I like then open it for public Okay, students, you're here. I'm opening it up to the public if you have any comments. You don't have to live in the city of Santa Clara, but if you have an opinion about something, we would love to hear it from you or if there's anybody online. So would any of you like to come up and make a comment about anything we've said?

So, Chair, I got a question, if you don't mind. Sure. Addressing the public. How many of you, when you finish school, will want to stay in Santa Clara, this area? Or how many of you actually live in Santa Clara?

Well, that's a big fat no, huh?

Nobody.

I'd be happy to share the copies of our addendum and the notes with the students because it might give them a better understanding of what we're talking about.

Yeah.

All right. So no comments. Let me get it. Yeah, please. Come on up to the podium, please. That would be OK. And then just, if you would, state your name, and that's all you really have to give. You can just give your first name if you want to.

Can you hear me? Is it working? Yes. Hi, my name is Nora, and I just have a question about the cell towers and why that's such a controversial decision to make.

There's, let me give you the real skinny here and the staff help me out on this. So number one, the first thing that always comes up is everybody says, hey, it's too close to my house. It's gonna be causing health issues. And number one, when an applicant like, with the last one we had, it was AT&T, right? Came in and they were gonna have this put on a church property. People nearby said, well, it's gonna cause health problems for us. And the first thing was we're limited by other laws on what we can and cannot do. And the number one thing is the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, has to talk about that. You know, if you have a problem with it, you've got to go to the FCC. We can't do it. And even though, you know, we repeated it over and over, people kept on coming to us. So, number one, they're concerned about health, right? That's kind of put to the side. There isn't too many other major issues that come in. The thing again is where's the best place to put it? Does it make sense with other towers that are there? Because what you're trying to do is there's a map of here where all the cell towers are and what kind of coverage you have and which vendor owns that tower and what they can and can't do with it. How does it look? So we wound up having the AT&T come back, I want to say almost like five times. How many years did that take? a year to just settle on one tower. And so the thought was, look, we know we need more towers. It's going to come. So why not master plan that to begin with so that we can have that discussion with everybody and saying, here's where we think we can put it. And one of the thoughts was, let's put it in one of our parks, because there's a central park. It seemed like a nice thing. But there was definitely laws and other things about the use of that that we couldn't do it. So that's a couple that I had, but like staff, did you want to add to some of the other challenges?

No, you've covered it. That was a good synopsis.

So people don't want it in their backyard. They want to use their phone all the time. They don't have a problem putting it to the ear, but they don't want the big tower there. So that's probably the number one problem.

You could add to a lot of folks have concerns about the visual nature of a tall pole and how that might impact what they look at every day. That's another concern that comes up.

People were worried about their home value.

Have you guys ever looked into the hidden cell towers where you disguise it as a tree?

Yeah. That definitely came up. Let's hide it like a tree, and I've seen those as well. It's okay. I can still tell it's not a tree, but... Yeah, in other words, what it looks like, right?

Do I want to look at the interesting futuristic tree or a big tower or something hanging off an existing light pole? It's all that kind of thing.

Thank you. You're welcome.

One of the less dramatic was the collapse zone. Where will the tower fall in an earthquake? That's right. How effective are the multiple shorter towers versus the one 60-foot tower?

And just to add a little color to this question about health, well, there is the rule and regulation in the law that FCC holds sway on that, right? But I can tell you having visited Shanghai so many times Every city block what we call block here is a set of apartment buildings about 5,000 each in that in that block and every block has their own tower and Everybody is very happy with it. Nobody's complaining about the towers Yes

And I think what's important for those of you in the, we already lost some, wow. Okay, is that when you talk about things like cell towers, she had some ideas. I can tell you that all of us up here, it's not like we think of everything all the time. It's participating that matters so much to all of us up here. So I would invite you all, especially if you're doing urban planning, to come to more meetings like this, because whether you know it or not right now, you probably have some ideas that we haven't thought of, and that's how we learn. Thank you.

All right. Shall we close public hearing?

One more.

I'm sorry. Please, come on up.

Your only audience, go for it. Okay, go girl.

Going for bonus points, I love it.

A plus. Yes, Nora again. We recently had another Santa Clara student get hit by a car while crossing the street, and I was wondering if you guys are taking that into consideration with future sidewalk and crossing plannings, and if you guys have discussed it.

Good point. Leslie, would you like to comment on that, or Director?

Sure. I can say for planning, we deal with that in terms of our general plan and our specific plans. We include standards for, I'll take El Camino Real, just because that's at the top of the mind. We just worked on a specific plan for El Camino Real where all new development moving forward, we'll have a new sidewalk section for wider sidewalks. tree wells adjacent to the sidewalk to provide sort of that landscape buffer and additional just buffer from cars. So we look at it in that regard. Our Public Works Department looks at an actual implementation, so wider bulb outs at the corners to shorten pedestrian crossings is an improvement that they are doing throughout the city, and you can actually see some on El Camino already that they've done. a combination of things, planning, public works.

And if I may lead you more in our agenda today, which we did as consent calendar item was the capital improvement plan adoption. It is CIP and it is a document that is presented as a five year expenditure to the city as to where we are actually investing. public dollars in and one of the key items there is actually the median crossing improvements so highly take a look I'm glad you're asking the question you should be on the lookout for your community students especially I know where the accident happened and I'm really sorry that was actually there were two fatalities and one was an accident and one was actual casualty I am actually Looking forward to more of the median crossing, especially along Lawrence Expressway, be regulated. Note that in the infrastructure for a city such as ours, expressways come under county jurisdiction. Highways come under state. There's, of course, coverage across. When you look at the city, then we are pretty much looking out only within our city's streets. Are you a student of urban planning?

I'm just taking one urban planning class right now.

Okay. It's all in the principles of urban planning. When you're looking at the city's infrastructure, they're like feeder streets, and then they go into the expressways, and then they go into the highways. We only have limited control within the city's regulatory framework, and then you have to connect with the county. Transportation by itself is a focused area. What you bring up is a transportation.

study Great question stay in Santa Clara and come on the planning committee I'm aware of the accident that oh some deal communities fatality was for another one recently.

Yeah, it was just a few days ago Over by the villas that's by the way A Cottey Way?

Cottey Way? Really? No, that's not Lawrence. One thing too, Nora, the students are not the only ones that are in danger. There's also senior citizens that are in danger by the senior center, I believe we're not on Monroe. There have been some fatalities there and a lot of accidents there and also by some retirement communities down Winchester too. They haven't been addressed. I could see them pulling lights and so on so that people can cross. It's a problem that we have to address and I think we're going to be doing that as part of the city development that we have going on. I agree with you.

I do want to caution. I was driving along El Camino Real and I will say the students are also at their own responsibility. I saw kids walking around with one tire up in peak traffic on El Camino Real and I actually off the bike pathway and it was just a fun thing for them. Not recognizing they were jeopardizing their traffic They were jeopardizing their own. And an accident put both lives at stake. So a call to the student community, be safe.

They were probably Stanford students. Santa Clara students are a lot smarter.

I know. I'm just telling this for an urban planner. All right. Thank you for a good question.

Through the chair, our public works department does have a zero vision plan and they also have a, in order to basically reduce or minimize or have no accidents, pedestrian accidents, and they also have an adopted bike and pet plan. And there's a lot of safety considerations Incorporated into all of these plans and phasing El Camino Real specific plan is as an example last night. There is a chapter on transportation and it includes a lot of safety features such as crosswalks Extended bike line extended bus Areas where pedestrians can safely access buses bike lanes, of course and additional safety features like Signals to actually cross so yeah, and of course trying to be inclusive Thank you again to staff for all of that work

Chair, if I may just close out this item for you with next steps. The work plan is going to be provided to the City Council for their approval. This is tentatively set for their June 23rd meeting. I'll make the edits that we talked about this evening and that is the one I'll be sending to the City Clerk for the City Council. I'll also copy you all on email.

Thank you.

Then it's set to implement starting in August of 2026.

That's all I have for you on this item.

Shall we close public hearing, yes?

So moved.

So moved. OK. Commissioner Biagini made the motion to close public hearing. And Commissioner Baumgartner, second.

Go ahead and cast your vote, please, to approve closing the public hearing. Very good, the motion passed, thank you. Announcements.

God, this is gonna be a record-breaking short meeting.

You're lucky. Okay, so we're at announcements.

Can I just make one acknowledgement? Thank you. I am so proud of our city for the recent announcement between Santa Clara University and Sutter Health to make Santa Clara City their home for a new school of medicine, a teaching hospital with Sutter, full-on 380 bed with clinics, inpatient, outpatient. Thank you. Thank you. We are so, so grateful to City Council, to all members of the community and staff that made this happen, and definitely to Sutter and to Santa Clara University. I can't be more proud of our city. I am so pumped. by that. Just so glad that we have that.

And, of course, the donors.

And the donors that made it happen. Absolutely.

Absolutely. And I can vouch for the urgent care. We've already been there.

It is fabulous. And I do want to recognize that this commission has supported the healthcare sector, which is one of the things in our ordinance. If you recollect, we said you should be zoning for more than just MOBs. in our zoning ordinance that this is acute and medical zoning needs to happen. So along with all our districts, we now have a health district or actual sector that provides proud home of Kaiser and Sutter and all our other allied physicians and providers. Thank you.

Hear, hear.

Hear, hear. And Chair, if I may, just for your reference, the Sutter Hospital will be coming to the Commission for a recommendation on their general plan amendment and zoning code text amendment. So in the future.

First we'll decide at the time, but yeah, can't wait.

All right. Staff, is there any announcements?

Sure.

Well, I was going to update under City Council Actions. Yeah.

Okay, so no announcements?

No.

Elizabeth, we're good on announcements?

We are. We'll go on to Commissioner Travel and Training. I don't think we have any requests at this time or anything in the pipeline at the moment.

Sounds good.

When did you say was the next Planning Commission? June 10th. June 10th. Okay. Yeah.

I will go on to the director of community development reports. Planning Commission budget updates.

Yes. Let's see. This past month we've had a few expenses. One was our renewal for the Silicon Valley Business Journal online renewal, which all of you have access to. If you don't, send me an email and I'll help you get access. Planning Commission pays for that, so you have that. The APA membership renewal also took place, and your budget is at a balance of approximately $13,000. Great.

Thank you. Accoming agenda items.

So at your next meeting on June 10th, we'll have the two continuances from this evening, the tentative map and the zoning code cleanup. What else? Those are the only items I think right now. I think there's actually more of it.

Wasn't there a continuance from last meeting?

Yes, there was.

The question. The general plan?

Um, that was the zoning code cleanup ordinance. So you continued it one more time. Okay.

But we opened it last time. That's what I was remembering.

Yeah. And, and you continued it to this specific meeting. So then you just have to open it one more time.

You bumped it one more time for staff. Okay.

We appreciate it.

We appreciate it.

Is that it for upcoming items? Yes. Thank you. City Council actions?

Thank you so much, Chair. I just wanted to share with you that last night City Council adopted by a vote of 6-0 the El Camino Real specific plan. So this is a major milestone and first I wanted to recognize the contributions of the Planning Commission and all your input. It's valuable and what you are doing makes a big impact and difference for the city. So I wanted to first personally come here and congratulate all of you. I also wanted to recognize the CAC committee that provided input and they showed up for the outreach meetings and the engagements and the workshops. And finally, I just want to give a big shout out to staff, Leslie Xavier, Rebecca Bustos, the city attorney's office with Sander, as well as multiple other staff that supported this effort and consultants. There was a lot of effort to put this vision forward. It was adopted. It was a focus area that was defined by Council in 2010. And this took a nine-year effort. One of the consultants basically said that she birthed a baby and that baby is now nine years old. But I think because of all the public input and because of all the commission input, I think we have a much better plan and I think it will be more Santa Clara focused and tailored. So thank you for that.

We can't wait to celebrate. Toast to all of us. I have to tell this to the people who don't live in Santa Clara. We have NVIDIA. We have the tech boom here with all of the new entrepreneurial startups coming. We have, of course, our data center as the bane, but okay. It is still here. We have our health industry. We have our university. We have our entertainment. Oh my God, can't wait for the games, the FIFA games. I don't think we, I mean, Great America Parkway maybe, but yes, we need. There you go.

Thank you so much.

I do have one other item for you. Since your last meeting on April 8th, at that April 8th meeting staff brought to you a super graphic ordinance which the commission recommended denial of and the city staff actually withdrew that item from council considerations that did not move forward for council consideration.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right, move to adjourn to June 10th. Second. Okay, very good.

Thank you, everyone.

All right.

Thanks, guys.

Thank you for being here. You made our day.