Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

We will be starting the meeting shortly.

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, liberty,

and justice

for all.

Please remain standing. Go ahead. Secretary, will you read the statement of values?

Acting secretary. We gather, we humbly seek blessings upon this meeting. May we act with strength, courage, and will to perform our obligations and and duties to to our to our people and 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 of this we ask so that we may serve our community with fairness and respect putting their needs before all.

Thank you. Please be seated. So Elizabeth please call the roll.

Commissioner Bottegaar has notified that he will not be attending tonight. Commissioner Bijini? Present. Commissioner Chair Kuru has notified us she's unable to attend. Commissioner Wang?

Here.

Commissioner Buza?

Present.

Commissioner Salame?

Here.

Chair Kretchlow?

Here.

Thank you.

Motion to excuse Commissioners Chair Kuru and Botnikar would be in order.

Do you want me to make one? Yes. Okay, I move to excuse Commissioner Bhatnagar and Commissioner Chirikuru.

Second.

Go ahead and cast your vote, please.

No.

Commissioner Boussa, your your is photos not showing? Want me to go ahead and

Just do it by hand, please.

It's a yes. Yeah, okay. Thank you, the motion passed. Thank you.

Okay.

Public hearings are conducted by the chair in accordance with the following procedure. The chair of the commission directs all activities during the hearing. All comments shall be addressed to the commission. Any items on this agenda may be continued to a subsequent hearing. Applicants will be allotted up to ten minutes to present and justify proposals following staff presentation of of the items.

Other speakers will be given up to two minutes. The applicant is allotted up to five minutes for rebuttal of such comments. No additional comments will be accepted upon the close of the public hearing, although the commission reserves the right to direct questions to any speaker on any matter. Special procedures 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. Thank you.

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

No, we don't have anyone in the council chambers nor online requesting a continuance.

Thank you. The Planning Commission has seven members. Whenever the full commission is not present, applicants have the option to continue their items to another meeting. Does anybody want to continue to another meeting?

All items are brought by the city tonight. There are no private developer items. So, sort of move.

Thank Consent calendar. There are two items on the consent calendar days. No.

There's only one item. It's the minutes of October 8.

Okay. So would you read the procedure?

The procedure of the consent calendar is as follows. Consent calendar's items may be enacted, approved, or adopted by one motion unless requested to be removed by anyone for discussions or explanations. If any member of the planning commission staff or 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, make this this request now. Items listed on the consent calendar with associated file numbers constitute public hearing items.

The first one's the one a, the Planning Commission meeting minutes of 10/08/2025.

Do we

have a vote to approve it.

Motion to approve.

Second.

The motion is made by commissioner Biaghini, seconded by commissioner Krutchlow to approve the consent item. Please go ahead and cast your vote.

Yes.

And the motion passed. Thank you.

Thank you. Public presentations. Elizabeth, are there any members of the public that would like to briefly address the commission on an any item not on the agenda?

Do we have anyone who wanted to speak under public presentations? No. Okay. No, we don't.

Alright. Moving on to public hearing items. Item two, public hearing recommendation on a general plan amendment to the city's open space element to add policies that to address climate resilience using general plan and other co benefits of open space. That to help to increase access to open space for everyone and to preserve, enhance, and expand a network of open spaces. CEQA status addendum to the EIR. And this item is RTC twenty five dash one one zero nine. Staff?

Thank you, chair. Members of the commission, John Davidson with the planning division. And tonight I'm gonna be talking about a general plan amendment to the city's open space element as required by Senate Bill SB SB1425. So SB1425 requires local jurisdictions to amend their open space element to include policies addressing climate resilience, to require jurisdictions to address issues of access to open space for everyone, and to preserve, enhance, and expand a network of open spaces. I think one of the important things here to talk about at first blush is what open space is.

Open space is undeveloped land, and the the purpose of the open space element is generally to inventory the open space land that exists in the city and to explain what the prospects are for its development over the course of the life of the general plan. Santa Clara is like a lot of or like some suburban jurisdictions in that it's fully it and its neighbors are fully built out. It has no real open space at its edges to speak of within city limits at least. So the the city's open space inventory is relatively limited. There are only three parcels on the open space inventory.

Agnews Park and the Civic Center Park, which are the city city hall grounds that we're on right now, are in this sort of netherworld of not really being traditional open space, unimproved land, but they're just not defined or they're not considered parkland by the parks department. The only real bit of open space that the city has is the Eulestack Open space in the Northeast corner of the city.

But

this SB fourteen twenty five comes at a pretty opportune time in that other departments in the city are working on efforts to create a network of open spaces and also to rethink what's in the parks inventory. So the Department of Public Works is working on their Creek Trail Network expansion master plan and that's something that our open space element which includes parks and recreation facilities should recognize. It was interesting to look at what's on tap in the parks and recreation master plan because our parks recreation and open space diagram includes parkland but it also includes locations of potential parkland. And then the third bullet is that we do we did or are proposing to import a couple of policies from our climate action plan and make them more prominent by being in the general plan proper. So, on the screen you can see our parks recreation and open space diagram that's been amended to recognize proposed trails that are in the Creek trail master plan expansion that's that the Department of Public Works processing right now.

And those are shown in the light blue and include Calabasas Creek, the Hetch Hetchy right of way, and Saratoga Saratoga

Creek. One thing that you have to

have very good eyes to see is that this diagram has been modified to also recognize the the fact that the San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail has been expanded by the county in the last five years or so to extend now from Cabrillo down to Homestead Road. That's new different. So that's just recognizing a facility that the county built in the last few years. But the proposed changes are these changes to recognize future proposed creek trail alignments. Alignments that were shown in the 2010 general plan as a proposed trail are still there and are still a possibility.

So there are two sets of proposed trails. One from the 2010 general plan and one that's being proposed to be included tonight. One thing that's also interesting that's a little difficult to see is that there's this preferred location for new community park that's generally North Santa Clara. If we get additional information before this goes to council from the parks department on where proposed parks might be located, clarify that on a revised diagram. We haven't seen anything so far.

So with that, staff's recommendation is to find that the addendum to the 20 to the general plan EIR complies with CEQA and that adoption of the open space element update would be covered under that. And then the second part of the recommendation is to adopt the general plan text amendment and find that it satisfies SB fourteen twenty five and that the necessary text edit edits are consistent with the goals and policies of the general plan. I'm available for questions and happy to to run through general plan language if you want. Thank you.

Thank you. Any questions for staff?

Is there any plan around changing how we do the in lieu of fees and decisions to kind of encourage developers to actually put green space into their properties and their developments?

I think you're referring to the in lieu fees and the parkland dedication ordinance and the decision of whether to actually dedicate land or to provide the fee. Right. Actually, know, our current ordinance does vest in the director of parks and recreation the the authority to dictate which they do. In theory developer can come in with a proposal and the parks director can say we need more parkland but the reality is there are a number of constraints on that. The most obvious one just being that developers complain they can't get in the number of units if they provide all the amount of land.

And then the second one being housing developments are now able to skirt that with some of the affordable housing laws and may be able to force us to collect fees only. But as John said early on, this is really more focused on undeveloped space not designated as parks. The focus of tonight's decision is just addressing the open space element which is scattered over several chapters of our general plan. We're not modifying the parkland dedication ordinance at all tonight.

Well, think I was searching for ways to create undeveloped or open space in the form of new developments being required to designate a piece to be donated to that effort. Because as it was presented, we're in a borderlock situation and there's no place else to put them. So if you're going to have a big development like related or something, it would be nice to have a chunk of that space understood to be relegated to the city's efforts to create green and open space. That's all. Thank you.

Well, yeah. We're certainly not weakening our parkland dedication ordinance but there are a number of examples where it certainly hasn't been used to its maximum capability.

Any other questions from? Oh,

I missed something. Okay, so there are numerous future open space areas. Can you tell me what that means in real terms? Is this just like some place that stuff's gonna get torn down?

So the future open spaces that were shown on this diagram were related in the general plan to our future focus areas. And a lot of these future focus areas did end up creating new bits of parkland in Tasman East for instance or in which is up in the northern corner here or in Lawrence Station, in Patrick Henry Drive. So some of those future open spaces did end up or will end up in eventual park lands. A lot of them were potential open spaces and might not. The ones along El Camino are still to be resolved as part of the El Camino specific plan and future implementation.

And so, yeah, some of them could come to fruition, but they were basically just conceptual locations based on the idea that there would be planning efforts in the future.

Yeah, I was particularly interested in the sites on El Camino because there's stuff where they're at. I'm looking at like Scott and El Camino and so.

Yeah and so that might be one of the things that gets further clarified as part of the specific plan process.

For El Camino Real?

Yes.

Okay. Any other questions for staff? No? Go ahead.

All right, Liz. Has any investigation gone into the idea of elevated green space? Repurposing roofs on large facilities to have them designated as green space by adding gardening, grass, trees, etcetera. It's done in other cities and other countries. I don't understand. Maybe it's just outside of the norm for us, but it's not an impossible approach to adding space for people.

Yeah. Leslie's indicating that that might be something that could be considered in the parks master plan. And I was kinda thinking that I should take a look back at our climate action plan and see if anything like that was included. And we have a a open space policy that we're including into the general plan that talks about carbon farming, and that might be exactly the right thing to to highlight through through what you're talking about.

It also reduces the pressure on the common park spaces because if you're in an apartment complex or something and they provide their own residents with green space private to them even, it takes them out of being overloading the park spaces that may be nearby. That's all. Thank you.

Alright. So, I assume there is no applicants that's going to public presentation.

Okay. City project.

Just asking. So, public comments anybody would like to come up and

we do not have any hands raised nor anyone in the council chambers asking to speak

doing close public debate Motion to close public debate.

Second. Who

seconded that?

Here. Aria.

Excuse me.

Oh, shoot. I just Motion

was made by Commissioner Bia Genie, seconded by Commissioner Buza to close public hearing. Go ahead and record your vote, please.

I have to get back in Thank you Okay

The motion passed thank you.

Do I hear a motion for the recommendations?

Request two motions please. Go ahead.

Go you're gonna do it, I was gonna do it.

I'm the motion maiden tonight.

Yeah, go ahead.

Alright. I move that the Planning Commission on number one recommends to the City Council that they find that the addendum to the twenty ten two thousand thirty five general plan environmental impact report EIR prepared for the project complies with CEQA and that the adoption of the open space element update would not result in environmental impacts beyond those described in the general plan EIR and no further analysis is required.

Second on that. And for clarification your motion includes adoption of the resolution that does exactly what you described. Is that correct?

Yes. Thank you. Thank you. How do I get back in? Oops.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Motion is made by commissioner Bijini seconded by commissioner Boussa to approve staff recommendation one to adopt resolution. Go ahead and cast your vote please.

I'm a yes until I get this figured out.

Okay, very good. Thank you. The motion passed.

I'm good now. Okay. Motion. Second motion. Planning Commission recommends that the city council adopt the general plan text amendment and find that it satisfies the SB fourteen twenty five requirements to update open space programs to include policies addressing climate resilience and other co benefits of open space, and that the necessary text edits are consistent with the parks open space and recreation goals and policies in the general plan.

Second on that one too.

Commissioner Buza. I'm sorry who seconded it?

Commissioner Buza.

Thank you.

And again for clarification you'll be adopting a resolution that does exactly what you just described. Is that correct? Yes. Thank you for that clarification.

Thank you for fixing me.

The motion was made by Commissioner Biaghini, seconded by Commissioner Boussa to approve staff recommendation two adopting a resolution. Go ahead and cast your vote please.

There it is, I'm on. Okay.

Very good, thank you. The motion passed.

Thank you. Now for the item number three, RTC 25 dash nine nine six.

Thank you.

Study session on draft citywide objective design standards. Staff. Thank

you Chair. We have Assistant Planner Alex Tellez here for you to give you a presentation on the objective standards for this evening. Just give him a second.

Right. Perfect. Good evening, chair. Good evening, commissioners. So tonight, we just have a study session on objective design standards like, Leslie has mentioned. My name is Alexis, assistant planner. Alrighty. For tonight's study session, here's the agenda for tonight. So I'm gonna give the commission a little background on the definition of the objective design standards based on California state law. Why should jurisdictions like us have objective design standards or like how staff calls it, the applicability of these standards.

And then before we go into talking about the draft document, we'll just discuss the staff's work plan and how it's gonna be broken into two phases. Then we'll have a discussion pretty much. And then lastly, we'll talk about next steps with the commission. Alrighty. So a big thing here in front of you is the official definition on their government code section of the California land use state law, pretty much stating what objective designers standards mean.

So these are standards that involve no personal or subjective judgment by public official and are uniformly verifiable by reference to an external and uniform benchmark or criteria available and knowledgeable by both the development applicant or proponent, the public official before submittal. So big takeaway of this is that is the idea of objective versus subjective. And as you may have known, as you've seen developments come through in the past, a lot of times because of discretionary processes, either, you know, the commission or staff is able to have some subjective standards based on, you know, case by case. Right? And as I will be mentioning in the next future slides, certain state project certain state laws pretty much streamline development and require certain standards that are being used for review.

So based on that, the Santa Clara housing element does have a policy to ensure that the city has objective design standards when we're reviewing the streamlined housing developments. Alrighty. Just like I mentioned just right now, why do jurisdictions need to have objective design standards? And it goes back to state laws. As you can mention with this diagram, these are some of the state laws that have been implemented since 2017 that state that these projects start review under these laws need to be reviewed with objective design standards.

The latest one is s p four twenty three, which extended s p 35, which was the first one that came around in 2017. The big takeaway of this is the intent with the state to pass these losses to create predictable user friendly enforceable standards. It's pretty much for local jurisdictions to adopt and is to ensure that the agencies have a toolkit to preserve local control and provide standards that can implement the city's urban design vision under the general plan. So you probably have seen many of these laws come around at your time as commissioners. So the intent for staff is to make these projects in front of you to be applicable for these objective design standards.

So you've probably seen Santa Clara has been getting a lot of townhouses. And, also, like, you've seen, like, in Tasmanese, we have seen some podium style and some wrap style multi family developments, either purely residential or also mixed use. So the standards in the working document will be only applicable to these type of project types or housing types to ensure that, like mentioned, that the city still has the maximum allowed of, like, its control over design. Right. Just like I mentioned, due to all these increasing state laws and how they have inquire streamline review by only viewing objective design standards, staff decided to notice the deficiency and started working on a work plan.

So the working document in front of you in the agenda tonight is part of their phase one. So staff use existing standards found in all the other specific plans in are in the city. Pretty much, these standards have already been embedded by the community decision makers. And we looked at standards that can work cohesively across citywide. And we also have identified gaps.

So standards that weren't able to comply with the government code definition of objective design standards were admitted from this working document. And the document that you will see once it's we bring it back for a recommendation of adoption. We'll probably have also an additional standards that will be admitted, you know, after our the city attorney reviewed the the working document. The intent for this for phase one is to incorporate this working document into our zoning code as a zoning code update and to allow projects that are located outside of these specific plans to actually have, you know, objective standards that can be reviewed when it comes to these streamline applications like s p three thirty or any other future state law that may come up, you know, how they come up every year. So so that's why staff wanted to do this approach to have something already in the books as more state laws are coming in effect and pretty much allow the maximum amount of control for, like, local design.

So as you probably see and you probably will discuss tonight, there probably will be gaps in our standards that are in front of you. And this is where we would like to, I guess, you commissioners to pretty much discuss if you after viewing this document, what type of gaps and staff will write it down. So because we'll be doing a RFP to hire a consultant to help us pretty much fill in those gaps and do more outreach and to get to see what the community sees as other gaps other than the standard that will be eventually adopted for phase one. And, again, this the working document in front of you is just the baseline. And so everything that is missing or there is any gaps, there's also, you know, phase two, there will be room for changes.

Again, the intent is to keep these standards as, I guess, I would like to say pure as they were originally adopted with the specific plan and precise plans. So because those were the ones that were already vetted by the community and decision makers. Cool. So now talking about the draft document or that's I've been mentioning the working document. These objective design centers will do the following that's on the screen.

Just as I emphasize some words on this presentation, the intent is to provide clear objective and measurable standards. Pretty much think of like a checklist for developers. A lot of times developers may come from different jurisdictions. They may use to something that's done in like Ventura County and they come up to work on adherence Santa Clara and, you know, things could be different. So this will provide some more clear, direction for developers.

Again, like I mentioned previously, it will streamline project review of housing in accordance with state law. As probably mentioned, there's a lot of laws that are requiring development of multifamily to be conducted ministerially without any discretionary process. So this is something to give the city some tools like mentioned previously. This also just because it's been vetted by the community, at least with the phase one standards, they're gonna be appropriate to the surrounding and environment. We wouldn't wanna look to see any projects that look kinda like they fit in LA to fit here in Santa Clara.

And then a lot of times, if we don't have design standards, you know, I think it will make the city makes it put in a harder place to, you know, kinda regulate. So that's why we have this in front of you. And lastly, it's just because they've been vetted by the community. These phase one and future phase two will be standards that will promote context thoughtful context sensitive site design, you know, because, you know, Santa Clara is unique and then, you know, the architecture in Santa Clara should be unique too. And lastly, just to promote more pedestrian scale urban environment.

So that's the intent for this working document and also the standards that will come in in for after phase two. Just wanted to show you the table of contents you can see here on the screen. So for this working document, this is how it's organized. Eventually, when it comes back to you for recommendation of adoption, it won't have one to five. It will have actual zoning code sections under, you know, title 18 of the of the zoning code.

But this will be the intent. Staff's intent is to incorporate this after the downtown precise informed base code that's on our zoning code. So this will go after that section. And as you can see here on the diagram, this is pretty much just how the working document looks like to you in front of tonight. Pretty much we have graphics on the right and standards on the left.

And for the context of this study session, we did include the specific plan or precise plan where the standard came from to show that it's not something that staff came up, something that's already been adopted. And then we're just, you know, trying to make this citywide just to make sure there's, you know, I've mentioned previously, more control for these streamlined projects. And so once it's adopted, when it comes back to for adoption or a recommendation of adoption, those references will be removed. And the reference of three, for example, would say the actual section of the code that it is or subsection in this case. Alrighty.

So now I would like to open up to, I guess, the commission just a little discussion. If you have any questions of the, I guess, the staff report that staff prepare, any general questions on the working document, and then our after if you have to identify any gaps, so can staff, I guess, write it down. But yeah, thank you.

Thank you, that's very good. Commissioner Biedegini.

So if you could go back to page seven on your PowerPoint. Oh, there you are, okay. So there's clear objective, not subjective. But I'm looking at through quality architectural design. How do you define quality architectural design or is this gonna be the point where we have arguments?

With as many numbers as possible. What you're seeing are the adjectives for the goal of these standards that these will result in what is generally considered quality architectural design. But words like quality will not appear in the final version of this document.

I mean because okay now I'm going beyond residential mixed use but I think of all these glass boxes out there and that's not what I would call quality architectural design so that's where I'm having a bit of a struggle here on how we're going to mine our way through this without getting At

least for the phase one standards because they're being pulled from the specific plans, None of the specific plans are defined in a subjective way architectural styles. As mentioned by a technical report by the MCC, the metropolitan transportation committee, if I said the correct name, and the APAG which is the association of area governments. Technically under this state laws, we could for phase two define objectively architectural styles and that could be something that we can study for phase two. I know some form based codes other jurisdictions actually. My previous jurisdiction in Oxnard for their downtown code actually define objectively architectural styles that are like like they want on that downtown code.

And that they find it like not so they can like it's black and white like you know it's clear what it is so that's something that we can you know write it down as something.

Yeah and I just see struggles happening over this because I'm imagining that some developer is going to say, well again I'm going to use the glass boxes as an example. Well look at all these other glass boxes, that's quality. So I just see this as a point where we're going have some problems. I guess that's the only thing I can say. Make me feel better?

I guess the nice thing about a glass box is that is something you can fix with objective standards. A glass box is a flat base made of glass. So we can say, you shall not have any flat faces of more than x number feet in width. You shall have a recessed area every x yards. You must have a different articulation, you know, going up each store. You must have a step back. There are standards that will stop that. We can limit how many windows in a row. Can limit the sizes of windows. Those are all objective standards. So we can kill the black box if that's your goal.

Okay, Thank you, I think. Sounds complicated. Thank you.

It's a good example of Zander brought up. It's the actual example that we have here. He did mention all those standards and this is something at least in phase one that we are we'll we'll come back to you, you know, for phase one recommendation of adoption. This is a page that's actually on the working document talking about the Massey, talking about, you know, as you can see with the second diagram, it's just like trying to make it separate buildings. That's something that was originally adopted for our downtown form base code. So with this, it would just try to instead of creating one frontage with this, it would kind of make it seem like these buildings. So even though it's one building, it would look like two.

That's helpful. Thank you.

Okay. You

know Nancy's bringing up that point with the glass box. Something came to mind which I argue when it came in front of us was the apartment building that was being constructed was set for approval on the corner of Park And The Alameda right across from the University of Santa Clara. One of the things that I brought up that I would just didn't make any sense at all why don't construct this so it kind of matches the style of the university that building so it kind of blends in because everything else around there has the same even the shopping center has slightly looked like the university and eventually the university will probably end up taking that over. And that's one of the things that I just couldn't get a pass you folks or anybody else to kind of approve them that because it's really if you look at it now it just doesn't match at all in there. And this is one of the things that's kind of a shame because university is one of the most beautiful thing that we have right now in our city.

So that just you put this thing that it's just like little Lego blocks built in there. Just doesn't doesn't match. And I was really disappointed that it got to that point. I hope in the future we can actually have some say with things like that and stuff.

Okay? As long as we establish those standards in advance, you can apply them. You can designate an area of the city as having a particular style. But what we can't do anymore is approve or disapprove based on architectural compatibility. So we can't without the standards in place say well it's not consistent with the architectural style of the buildings in that area. But for something like the downtown form base code where we've already put in, these are the standards for downtown. This is what downtown must look like going forward. We actually can limit what goes in as long as it, I mean, complies with our new objective standards.

Yeah. Actually, yeah, you just mentioned the compatibility rather style. Yeah. Actually, that's my question, you know. Since a different architect They have a different design. When I look at the townhouse at the Lawrence And El Camino, so it looks really ugly. How can we have a standard to avoid? But I think it's very difficult. Thank you.

The one question I have is kind of like, if you look at the standards that you outline, you can go to very great lengths to try and define what should be. But it's kinda like you say it's quality architectural design, define it. I can't quite define it, but I know when it's bad. And so what I'm curious is there anything where if somebody said, I am going to kind of just thread that needle in such a way and it really comes out being very different, what ability do we have to say, hey look, you went in an area that yeah we didn't define, but it's really away from what the intent was. And I think that's the key word is how do you define intent so that if somebody does figure out some ways to skirt what we're trying to do that we can say, hey, hold on.

Because you can't define everything.

The more standards you have, the tighter it'll be. Every developer has a lawyer who is skilled at jumping through loopholes. So I guess it's just the more thorough we can be, lesser the chance they can find loopholes. But if they, I mean, you know, I've seen in many a jurisdiction the ugly ugly project that complies with all the standards come through and our hands are tied. It's very frustrating, but this is sort of the opportunity to force all that.

Let me say it in this way. Okay, not being a lawyer, I've had to do a lot of contracts anyway. And one of the things that I realized that was very important in writing contracts was stating what my intent was. Like, when we write this paragraph, this is this was our intention. Because other if you don't do it, the courts then get to decide what your intention was. And it's helped me a lot. And so I'm just hoping that as we do the standards, if we can have something that says, hey, this is our intent and if it winds up there's a disagreement with what our intent was and the standards that we have, we need to arbitrate it in some way. So again I'm gonna leave that to the experts here. I'm just gonna

A statement of intent is frequently useful in legal disputes for figuring out what the heck we meant when we wrote something. Interpreting a contract, interpreting an ordinance. But in all cases we're talking about subjective terms. If it's objective, there's nothing to interpret. It's a number. So I fear that going forward there's going to be relatively few circumstance where we're going to have the leeway to interpret a subjective term because a subjective term simply won't be enforceable. So I know where you're coming from. I don't think there's going to be a of room for that going forward.

I have good faith in you.

But I'll come up with an objective subjective term that we can somehow throw some interpretation into. Will Thank you very much. Any other questions before we continue?

That theme, I may be going a little wide here, but can we go with a list of preferred developers? Okay, well I tried, you know.

The preferred developers that always use union labor, right? Okay.

Appreciate out of the box thinking.

No. Well I tried, okay.

Lance. Before

I get to my questions I'll get on that as an option. It is reasonable for us to do a spotlight on exceptional work. As examples, we can, as a city, say, we really like this design. And that will raise its visibility. It will raise its credibility. That kind of a thing can give us visibility that other developers can try and reach and match. We did that with AgriHood. I think it's fair and reasonable for us to do that with other developments that meet our less objective but still city plan view of the future, right?

Yes, and toward that end, I mean there is a requirement which I believe we're still working on to put preapproved plans for ADUs on our website. My mistake, are already there. So certainly we can try something like that to highlight things we like.

Hey, look, we like that. You know, that kind of a simple

But we have to be a little bit more objective than just say we like it. Because then we get back to that very first comment about, you know.

Well, giving credit about something does not mean you've decided that's how you want it done. It just says, look, we like this. The mayor loves to give

out Okay.

We're getting I mean,

cutting really Yeah.

There's a fine line. We have a development projects page on our website. And certainly, we can highlight the things that are particularly appealing without being, you know, the best developer in the city is Acme Development Company. Everybody should hire him and only him. That's more problematic. But there's a way that we can accentuate the positive without crossing into promoting a private developer.

In a less exciting and interesting vein, is it reasonable for us to provide a list of exceptions to some of our hard rules like we have absolute roof heights and things like that, but we have other goals that may conflict with that. If we want them to adopt solar power or solar heating or rooftop landscaping, we may want to provide exceptions to those hard rules to allow for those facilities and those pieces of equipment and other things to exceed the normal hard roof heights. So they can build the building as high as they want. And if they want to throw solar panels on it, we won't make them shrink the building to do it. Do you see what I'm saying?

Yeah. And that's that's something we're gonna have to discuss internally to figure out. The fact that we can absolutely have, you know, if you provide extra solar panels, then you can have 10% more height, something like that where it's objective for objective. But our code already has the minor modification process where you can exceed just about any standard in the code by 25% if the community development director concludes that it meets certain subjective standards, which there we have a problem. That's why we need to discuss it.

Multifamily residential we may need to modify that so that it's objective because we've already had developers question the use of the minor mod. Well actually it's subjective still because you've got the minor mod process. So yes, there's definite situations where we can do that. Can we continue to have a subjective minor mod process? I don't know.

It may be worth to have some of those enumerated

objective Yes.

It's what's the difference with that and being a design, you know, it's already part of

the Then they could do other things that are minor modifications which aren't pushing the I,

I still think you're now trying to figure out how to access this.

Chair if I may, we do actually have exceptions in our code for height already for some of the things you're talking about. So antennas, chimneys, elevators, flag poles, radio towers, other mechanical apportuances, ventilators, water tanks, those are already all exceptions listed in the code. It is no more than 25 of the maximum structure height, which that should be fine for most of those things. That's kind of a lot.

Good. I didn't see that. Okay.

You. Solar panels is not on there, but

I think there

may be another law for solar panels.

Well, the new building code mandates them even for single family going forward. Solar panels are gonna be on everything going forward.

Is it already, this is a side question, is it already limited so that you can't have ADUs taller than your primary structure? Is that

Oh, I've forgotten my ADU ADUs

was like one and a half was the maximum.

It depends on where property is, whether it's

in Yeah, not a junior.

How close to the setback it is.

Wasn't a stump the lawyer question, just want

Actually

Lance, I see what you're asking and I'm just thinking about it. You're talking about it, they have a flat roof home, some of those older homes are flat roof and if you come with the ADUs that has a pitched roof, it's going to be higher than the main residence. That's where you're trying to ask.

Well that's a good example but yeah it's similar to that.

There's nothing that would preclude that.

I just found because there's yeah it would be subjective of staff to tell them, oh, like, match it to the existing kind of going back to, I guess, that example from the university. I know I've seen in other jurisdictions add more objective standards to SB nine. I know that's something also on the technical document from HACBAC that eventually, I guess, maybe in phase two, we can expand it to other product types too as long as they don't, I guess, violate state ADU law and their objective and measurable, like a checklist, that can something that we can probably explore as a gap too. But I think the priority for staff, at least my understanding from discussing from all the staff members is townhomes to higher density multifamily. Anything more than 10 units is where kind of our priority right now just because we've been seeing that a lot coming in using a lot of the streamline state laws where they can just build townhomes as where maybe they're not supposed to be there.

But we will, yeah.

So there's already limits for tower heights and other additions to the tops of buildings?

Correct. Yeah. Exceptions.

No exceptions, but there's also a limit, actual objective's height limit that prevents them from being a 60 foot tower on top

of For 20 each zoning district in our code has a height limit. So whether you're R5 or R6, height limit may differ and they're subject to that already.

Okay, thank you. Any other questions?

And I found the ADUs section and it is a fixed height. It's not tied to the height of the main dwelling unit. Even if it's a junior? Well, I'm looking at detached. Juniors are attached. I'll have to check that.

Two of us are trying to stump the lawyer.

Right. Sorry. How are you?

JDs are attached.

Right. But is there a height limitation?

The same as the

The main dwelling? Right. I

guess just other than the gaps that you have mentioned tonight, chairing commissioners, Just based on your experience from seeing all these projects come to you in the past maybe years or so, is there anything more specifically you'd like to see? I know the working document like I mentioned has standards on side access layout, materials, facade design, massing. But is there anything you have not liked to see? Like, for example, the townhouses. You've seen a lot of townhouses. So like anything you've seen that maybe we can try to look into objective standards to regulate that?

Things that you want to see or don't want to see.

I don't know if this is gonna be germane to this necessarily, but I think one of my concerns is the height of bump. If you go to certain sections of the city and you start seeing people wanting to put up six stories on less than an acre of land and everything else is single family homes. I'm already running into that problem myself because on El Camino we built on Calabasas, there's Toll House next door. I can't remember the name of that development, but there I wanna say four stories. And their setbacks and stuff are such that they literally butt up against residential.

And I would say one nice thing about it is the developers have been very good about working with people living there who said, wait a minute, you said that this was going to be one way and now we're going do it another way and they're going to put in trees and stuff and help them out. But yet my problem is you live in a house, you have it in a certain way, and all of a sudden you have a six story building next to you. I would love to see some guidelines on how the privacy can be maintained.

Thank you, Chair. I know maybe Leslie can correct me, but we did adopt like a daylight plane, And that should help by creating more, I guess, step backs for multi storey buildings, especially they're close to like R1, which is what I guess we've a lot of developers trying to create those flat walls next to the single family. So that's I mean, I wrote it down and that's something we can definitely explore too just

to see if Yeah. Think the controversy on the on the one building proposal was that the windows facing into the R1s were gonna be opaque. And that was not in writing. So there was confusions about that. And the builder was good and stepped in and worked with the people living around there to put in some trees and stuff to help mitigate that.

So Chair Alex is correct. Our current adopted zoning code does include transition standards which weren't previously there prior to this code being adopted and it is the 45 degree daylight plane. I can say the specific plan on the North Side Of El Camino for the El Camino Rail specific plan is now proposing a 30 degree daylight plane on that North Side because of shadows. Maybe that's something else we can look at based on if you're proximity to what's like the sun is on that maybe we want to add a second standard for transitions for those folks that are on the shadier side.

That'd be great.

But yeah that standard when those two projects are talking about when that standard didn't exist when those were approved.

Yeah the only part of the standard that I don't like is I have to listen to construction for now four years.

Yeah.

So I don't know what you can do about that but I'm just saying.

I don't know.

Well thank you for volunteering for buying headphones for everybody in the neighborhood. I appreciate that Chairman Gooza. Okay. Any questions? Put your microphone on hold on, wait, wait, wait. Could you please turn on your microphone?

Can you hear me? Okay. One of the things that you were mentioning too that just came to that I think they're doing a good job out of it and having the same problem similar to you is the development in Prune Ridge. Elizabeth, right on Prune Ridge by the Cedar Tree Plaza right next door, the townhomes. Now that they're starting to build the ones right behind, have some friends that live right back there and they you know when they had the concept they didn't know there was going to be that you know they couldn't picture it the height it's going to be it's almost like three stories you know the town halls they're huge and their setbacks not that that far as regular.

So they're looking at that but they're working with the building. I think they're going to be putting some trees in there too and actually that builder is been in contact with the people constantly and trying to appease all their needs of their you know they're actually pretty good. We just had them here last meeting that we had to that we're trying to get the gas into the thing. I'm really kind of pleased with that but I see exactly what he's talking about. That's very important because all of a sudden you used to having nothing there and you're looking out of your backyard and you go, oh my god what is that? Just kind of just destroys your home.

Thank Thank you commissioner. So I just wrote down maybe like looking into more like objective landscape standards that can be added into phase two that weren't maybe not on phase one. Just something that we can look at the gap.

Let's do a way that we can do mature trees because if you're going to plant a tree that's going to take twenty years to grow, it's not going to do any good. So our lifespan is not going to be there. Let's do something. Guess you guys know where the founding of youth is I guess let them draw me a

map. You. Commissioner Biangini.

I don't know if I'm going to be much help here because quite frankly identifying the gaps right now as I sit here I would have to substitute my brain with that of a develop well a developer's attorney to figure out where the gaps are But I appreciate my fellow commissioners with their comments.

I assume that once you take all this back that you're going to analyze it, think about it and then let us know. This will be an iterative process or no?

Yeah, can I throw one more thing in?

This will be the baseline with phase one.

I'm going to assume staff has already and or Abby have already looked at other cities similarly situated and or lawsuits that have come about with this process?

Staff at least myself has reviewed other objectives I stand from other jurisdictions outside of just Santa Clara County. Lawsuits, I did not myself because I guess that wasn't my purview. But I know we have like a download about maybe 60 documents or so of different, like, across the the state of kind and they're they're all for go from, like, really detailed to really, like, vague still, you know, just basic objective standards of going from, like, just single family, like Los Altos sales to Concord having you know more related to form base just because of their downtown and apply that. But yeah definitely that's something that we can really review with this city attorneys just any lawsuits.

That's Sanders' ballpark. I know

if he

has time in his work plan.

Are we good on the questions? Yes.

Go ahead. Well, bring up conversation and topics that raise the questions. Are we as a planning division cooperating and communicating with other border cities that may different standards or creating some kind of a blending strategy because I I know that the Winchester and Prune Ridge development is going to raise a lot of controversy and it is on our border and it does affect our

What do you mean raise it? They already said no, I thought.

Well, mean that is the example of something that would raise a lot of controversy.

I'm sorry.

I don't think we should

felt like it was gonna be done. No. No.

God forbid. But the idea of it that it was directly on the border, we really didn't have a say other than a friendly handshake that we shouldn't really do that. So if we have an agreement in place with the bordering cities to at least give a quick review to make sure we're not violating each other's standards, that would surely save a lot of lawsuits.

Good neighbor policy.

Actually, I I can input something in there. A lot of the residents got together in the Santa Clara side and they had meetings and so on and they were quite successful in to getting the ear of the planning commission for the city of San Jose and also I believe the mayor too was involved from the city of San Jose listened to that. So they kind of brought the whole thing down. Now they're talking maybe seven stories or perhaps we're gonna be even less. So this is another thing. Because that's there'll be a travesty for the it's right across the street from Santa Clara. So that's impact a lot of the people in the residents in that area.

I guess I just I guess for staff's perspective to answer that question commissioner. At least for phase one we were trying to look at standards that were already vetted. When I first looked at standards from other cities, it was just to get a good gauge, like, just like what other cities are doing just in general before I develop the work plan with the development review officer. But definitely something we can look into for phase two, especially if our nearby cities, I guess, like Sunnyvale. That's something that we can probably consider, especially when we bring in a consultant too.

Yeah. I would most definitely be concerned about San Jose given the Winchester barrier? I mean, I think it's a big ask for any city to tie its own hands. I don't think you're gonna find city councils jumping at the option to say we won't approve any developments along our border unless Santa Clara says yes. But maybe there's some options for improved notification at least, you know get some sort of handshake agreement with cities where you know anything within x number of feet of the city limits in these areas there will be additional notifications that both cities will agree to undertake so that its residents can participate in the planning commission and city council meetings of those other jurisdictions, something like that, where, you know, transparency is one thing.

Giving up control is

Yeah. I I don't think it would ever release control. I think it would raise visibility because if we saw something going up in San Jose directly on the border, we could motivate the residents on our side of the border to chime in, not object or support, just at least be aware of it. That's something that San Jose doesn't have to do. They don't have to tell Santa Clara residents what they're doing.

And in theory, we don't have to tell San Jose what we're doing directly on the border, but a a fair communication seems to be a reasonable thing. I know we we don't live in a reasonable world, but it it just feels like it would be a good idea to at least have a communication open.

Yes. And keep in mind the agenda item tonight is objective residential standards. And so if that's what we're still talking about, neither city will have any ability to say no to project because most residential projects going forward are going be exempt from CEQA and they'll be all be subject to objective standards. Yes, let's notify each other but there won't be a planning commission or city council hearing jurisdiction because nobody will have any discretion to say no. Really we'll only get involved with ability to influence things for non residential projects.

Makes sense. Commissioner Wang?

Yeah. Yeah, Leslie reminds me actually, for the standard, let's say, El Camino or Stevens Creek, this kind of big street, right? If the building is on the South Side, maybe we can relax the height since the shadow is on the street. But on the north side, probably we need to have some limitation. So for this kind of standard, how can we put this kind of consideration inside the standard?

Since I think for appearance, like facade, these kind of things, maybe we can relax. But for physical, you know, the shadow, this kind thing, maybe we can put something there. That's just my $02 Yes. Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll look at that.

Good? Yes. Please.

Thank you chair and commissioners. Really appreciate all the feedback. Just to conclude this study session, just would like to let you know the next steps. Next step is intent ideally, if there was any feedback in the working document, any minor stuff that you noticed, we would, you know, incorporate it into the actual document that will return to you for recommendation. I see tonight that many of these items that were discussed were more for phase two.

The document that we'll return to you next time in December, will be a recommendation for adoption, and the document will have the actual zoning code sections instead of just the reference the numbers that were referred to, I guess, you see in the working document. So that will be the next step. You we are planning to bring this back to the planning commission in the next here in December. So December 17 for phase one. So existing standards that were found from specific plans and precise plans.

Once that has been recommended, the intent for staff is to take this to city council in January's city council meeting. I think for first here? Are listening? Second. Second. Yeah. But, yeah, that's the plan. And then once that, we will get started on phase two. And this is

something we've needed to do for a long time and the sooner we get it in place the sooner we can get it applicable to housing developments. Will just throw out a little word of caution that seems a little aggressive from a legal review standpoint, but we will do our best to come close to this timeline.

You got AI helping you, Ryan.

But we'll see what we can do.

Great. Is that it? That

is it. Thank you so much, sir.

Thank you. Very good. Appreciate it. All right. Next order of business.

Should we go on to announcements?

Yes, we're on the reports of commission, board liaison and committee.

Me, Mr. Dare, I apologize. Did we ask if there were any members of the public that wanted to speak on this item? My apologies. Could we just verify that?

Is there anybody in the public that would like to make a comment? Anybody online?

We do not have anyone online. We're in the chambers wanting to make a comment.

Thank you. Thank you. Alright. Shall I move on to reports of commission board liaison and committee? Any staff So have any of them?

Staff has no announcements.

Commissioner travel and training reports request to attend training.

Actually we have item two here. Board and commission dinner recognition event discussion. This was requested by commissioner Salame at the last meeting.

Okay. So

Do you want me to start with a recap of the council meeting?

Sure, go for it. Thank you.

So the city council approved all the commission and boards and commission work plans at their November 4 council meeting. This was a consent item. It was pulled for discussion by one of the council members, and the council did have a short discussion. All of them, almost all of them stating that they really appreciated the dinners and they didn't want to get rid of the individual dinners with each board and commission. So that part of the motion was not made and they continued that to a future hearing to be brought back for discussion on how to do the dinners with all the boards and commissions.

The only thing they did approve were the work plans. They did not approve getting rid of the dinners at this time. It's gonna come back at another meeting. I don't know the date of the meeting it's coming to yet. I know that was a concern.

Yeah. It's interesting to hear that it was a surprise to everybody it affected. And the decision was made completely outside of any communication of that decision to anyone at any point until it was discovered that it happened. So it might be helpful as a note for staff or for city manager and others is if you're going to make those decisions, maybe let somebody know. Well,

I will make one recommendation. There is a charter review committee that is ongoing. And the public is definitely welcome to attend and make any comments that they want.

So we should all pack up and move over to the other room.

I think

I don't think that they would have appreciated. That's actually a subcommittee meeting. But yes, I mean, there's definitely public meetings for the charter, and they have not been well attended by public. And I encourage anybody that has ideas that they would like to see incorporated to come and make it known. This could be one of them. Is

the discussion about bringing it back on the

Correct. That was their discussion. If go to the video for November 4, it's about an hour and five minutes in if you want to jump to it. But yeah, all of the council members did mention how they really appreciated the dinners and they felt like it was conversation and dialogue versus just looking at a work plan. One thing the city manager did say which hadn't really happened before is the council did approve all these individual work plans which you know didn't always didn't always happen. So that one that is one thing that's different that was a good outcome is the council has now looked at all of these work plans to kind of understand what the commissions are doing but they still appreciated the dinners and that's going be the discussion at the next meeting.

Any other comments about this? And I assume do we have to make this a public meeting? Okay. Then let's go on. Okay. Next item is commissioner travel and training reports request to attend training. Board and commissioner dinner recognition event. Director of Community Development Reports.

I would like to make a comment on number three about the travel and training requests. I sent an email earlier today to all of you with the master list of upcoming trainings, and I also put a copy of the dias for each of you. So this is an opportunity for you to review it and plan accordingly with your budget and look at other trainings if that's what you desire.

So what happened? What's the budget calendar? Like is there budget money that's like from this fiscal year? Like if somebody wants to go to something next year, does it

The fiscal year is July 1 through June 30.

I

have a question on that. Can you let us know on these conferences, god I hate to say this, which ones might also be zoomed online?

There was not a lot of information on some of these sites yet. I thought one of these That's

one in May that's online.

Yeah. The May one definitely they had that listed that there is an online conference as the APA National Conference.

Yeah.

Other than that, there was no information on the LCC planning commissioner. Thanks. But yeah, I will certainly let you know.

Thanks.

Anybody want to attend any or have any ideas? I

might be interested if it's online and online is done better this year. We'll see.

Since this is generic travel, could staff to provide what the expected scheduling is for meetings for the first half of next year, that would be really helpful. I don't know. I haven't seen them online yet.

I'm sorry, last,

the planning commission meetings?

Is May and June set because I didn't see it.

The the 2026 calendar of planning commission meetings? Approved. Well, you have the the calendar. We you all approved it.

Okay.

Good. And that was sent to you. Then as we did last year, I'll be doing an outlook on each of your calendars.

Okay.

And then in addition, on the planning planning commission web page in December, it'll be updated with

calendar.

I have to to compare it against I have a thirtieth wedding anniversary cruise in May and a trip to Chicago in June. I just wanna make sure that nothing is colliding.

May 20, June 10. Twentieth? I'm gone. June 10.

Okay. I may be gone for both. We'll see.

That's more important. Oh

yeah, wedding anniversary wins. I'm sorry.

How many years? Thirty years. Fantastic.

Alright. Shall we go on? Yes. So Elizabeth, what's next then?

Sorry, got stuck. I have

upcoming agenda items for you. So for your December meeting, we might possibly have the objective design standards back in front of you, but I have a feeling that might be January. And then possibly a general plan amendment to our historic resources inventory updating it with resources that have been approved since the general plan was adopted in 2010.

And the city attorney mentioned to me he may also do a drop in at the next meeting to give a little primer on the charter amendment process. Yes. That too. Just

FYI, you know that I'm on the charter committee, right?

I heard a rumor to that effect. Effect.

Really? It's public knowledge. It is on the website.

I was informed, yes, Mr. Chair. And we thank you for your service.

No, if there's something that comes up that somehow is like, whatever we do that's a conflict of some way.

An incompatible office conflict is perhaps what you're thinking of. But here you are serving one body which is the city of Santa Clara. An incompatible office conflict arises when you have somebody serving two Yeah,

that one I understand cause I made sure beforehand obviously I had to get that all clear up. Yes if something comes up whatever just you know.

Oh you mean scheduling is what you're talking about?

Not scheduling, just if something, nevermind.

You for bringing it to our attention. And we will keep it in mind.

Just like the wedding anniversary.

What wedding anniversary? I'll have talk to my wife about that one.

Right? You

did skip over the budget update, which was right before this. Your budget right now, started the approved budget with 17,365. As of today, we have approximately 16,793 in our that has the balance.

Okay. So that's the budget update. We're done with that one?

I'm sorry.

Was there

That was it for the budget.

Okay, upcoming agenda items. Didn't we already just do that? A little out of order but okay.

Sorry.

Good enough. Given how much I'm out of order not a problem. City Council actions.

There are no items to report since your last meeting in October. Items that the commission had acted on will be at their November 18 council meeting.

Okay. Anything else I missed? No? Anybody want to make a motion to address? Oh, no,

Mr. Chair. Just one question.

Hold on. Please, Commissioner Wong.

Yeah. Since I know the November election, it's over. Do you remember the AT and T base station? We have, I think, a measure of two or something prevent the put the base station in city park. I mean, is there a way we can, for the next election, be presenting on the ballot?

That's out of our purview to do anything like that. The city council can ask to put anything in. So what Are you asking about AT and T and their tower being

Yeah, do you remember that time we have the limitation we cannot put the tower in the city park. Oh, I

see what you're talking about. But that's still purview of the city council to put something on a ballot, right? I mean We can recommend

Anything But

that would still wind up being city council must approve it. So are you asking to have like an agenda item? Would that be the proper way to do it? Can we create something like that? I mean, is that within our purview to do so?

I don't know offhand. And the reason I don't know is because we tried to change the rules to make it easier for you to simply put things on an agenda and the rule kinda got slapped down at governance committee. I could I could look into that and get back to you on whether there's a mechanism for you to put something on agenda to recommend counsel submit something to the voters. Is that basically what the request is to

Yeah. I mean, is there a way to amend the, I think, measure two or something, cannot remember exactly, then in the future we can allow AT and T, Verizon, whatever, they can put the base station on the city park on the land?

Right. Right. We found that the charter section would not have allowed the use of the city park for the cell tower. So if there was a desire by the commission to ask the council to modify that, what is the process for doing that? I can find that out for you by the next meeting.

Don't Excuse goes to charter review.

Yep. That's exactly what I was gonna say. We have somebody here that just said he was in the charter review committee. Why doesn't he bring the proposal in his meeting just walk in the door.

I will go ask that gentleman at another at the charter if

you can comment on that

and just informally or you can ask him if you like.

All of the above would be great.

Knock on the door he's there.

But there it's an individual who happens to be on the Charter Review Committee asking for the committee to look into this. It's not the Planning Commission making

It's an

individual as opposed to commission. If you wanted to make a formal planning commission recommendation, that I still don't know what the process

would be. Well, I'll leave that one with you. As an individual, you can also do an o two o. Right?

O three o. O three o? I think actually those have been curtailed for individuals. You can appear as a member of the public at public presentations, but I don't think we allow individuals to file o three o's anymore.

Can you okay. I'll figure that one out. Interesting.

It was becoming a significant burden I think. Wasn't involved in that. It's not. Yes.

We're in the planning commission we stay with the planning commission. We're nice and happy here.

Let's say we are. All right.

So moved.

Okay, so motion was made by Commissioner Buzzo to adjourn. Seconded by Commissioner Bianchini. Yes.

You. Fantastic. Thank you, sir.