Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Past Vice Chair, we're all set for seven.

Good evening. Let's call to order the Planning Commission meeting of April 13th to 2026 at 7 p.m. The city doesn't tolerate disruptive behavior in our meetings. Sunnyvale prides itself on the rich diversity of our residents. We are committed to creating a culture of belonging where members of our diverse community feel included, safe, and respected. The Planning Commission meeting is considered limited public forum, which means the commission can regulate the time, place, and the manner of speech. Speaker's comment must be limited to the agenda item being considered by the commission for consent calendar or public hearing items. Speaker comments during oral communication must be limited to matters within the commission's authority, generally referred to as within the commission subject matter jurisdiction. If a speaker's comments are not repeated to an agenda item, the presiding officer will rule the speaker out of order. A speaker will not be ruled out of order because of a disagreement with the content of their speech. Location and online meeting details are available on the Planning Commission agenda. Use the show caption button to view caption on the Zoom. Comments on matters not on the agenda item must be submitted prior to the time I call the item for oral communications. Comments on agenda item must be submitted prior to the time I close the public hearing on the agenda item. Speakers are requested to keep their comments to the time period set for public comments for the agenda item, which will be strictly enforced. Guidelines are posted on the city's website and on the planning commission meeting agenda. Please join me in the salute to the flag.

RECORDING OFFICER, MAY WE PLEASE HAVE THE RULE CALL? COMMISSIONER DAVIS? PRESENT. VICE CHAIR SHUKLA? PRESENT. COMMISSIONER FUGONI? PRESENT.

Commissioner Cerrone?

Present.

Commissioner Pine?

Present.

Commissioner Segura? Present. We have six commissioners present. The absence of Chair Glacius is excused.

Thank you. Before we start oral communication, I have some announcements. This is the announcements by chair at board and commission meetings. There is a board and commission application deadline. Board and commission recruitment is underway for the following openings. Arts Commission, Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission, Board of Library Trustee, Heritage Preservation Commission, Housing and Human Service Commission, Human Relations Commissions, Park and Recreation Commission, Personal Board, Planning Commission, Sustainable Commission. Applications are due by 4 p.m. on Thursday, April 16th in order to be scheduled for an interview with Council on Monday, April 27th and Tuesday, April 28th. general eligibility requirement includes sunnyvale residency for more information visit sunnyvale.ca.gov and search boards and commissions or call the office of the city clerk at 408-730-7483 to request an application applications to serve on a board or commission are accepted on a continuous basis applications received after the deadline will be considered for future opening Um, we'll proceed to oral communications. This is now the public's opportunity to address the Commission on topics not listed on tonight's agenda. This section is limited to 15 minutes and may be extended or continued after the public hearing. or general business section of the meeting. Individuals may only speak once during oral communications. The planning commission meeting is a limited public forum, and the commission can regulate the time, place, and manner of speech. Speaker comments during oral communication must be limited to matters within the commission's authority, which is known as the commission's subject matter jurisdiction. If a speaker's comments are outside the commission's subject matter jurisdiction, the presiding officer will rule the speaker out of order. This allows the Commission to conduct its business in a reasonably efficient manner and protects the rights of other speakers. A speaker will not be ruled out of order because of disagreements with the content of their speech. Please submit a speaker card to the recording officer, raise your digital hand now, or dial star 9 on telephone to indicate you wish to speak. I will call on members of public participating in person first, followed by remote participants. speakers will have three minutes to speak uh does anyone one want to speak uh under oral communications before we hear from remote speakers so I will go ahead and close or uh no I um oh that's um because of the recording officer do we have any remote participants wishing to speak and oral communications no we do not thank you i'll go ahead and close oral communications I will go ahead and open public comment on consent calendar items, please submit a speaker card to the recording officer raise your digital hand now or dial star nine. On a telephone to indicate your ways to speak, I will call on call on members of the public participating in person first followed by remote participants. speakers will have three minutes to speak does anyone want to anyone else want to speak on a consent calendar item before we hear from remote speakers I see none uh recording officer do we have any remote participants wishing to speak on this on the consent calendar would you not vice chair thank you I will close the public comment and now I will ask for a motion from my colleagues Commissioner Pine.

Thank you, Chair. I move the consent calendar is submitted.

Commissioner Davies.

I second the motion.

Is there a discussion or advocacy on motion? Okay. We are moving on to our item.

oh and oh yes sorry sorry yes um i will now uh okay recording officer please conduct a vote i will conduct a roll call vote verbally since uh technology prevents me from doing it electronically uh commissioner davis yes commissioner sagara yes commissioner saroni yes Commissioner pine yes, commissioner for Tony.

Yes.

I sure should go. Yes, the motion passes with 6 yeses and chair glasses absent.

Thank you. Now I want to our next item 26 6 dash 0, 1, 5, 9, introduce an ordinance amending Chapter 19.71 of the Sunnyvale Municipal Code relating to the Residential Tenant Protection Program. Is there a staff report?

Yes, there is. Good evening, Commissioners. I'm Ryan Dyson, Housing Specialist, and I'm joined tonight with Samantha Luke, also Housing Specialist, and Amanda Stultz, our Housing Officer, is joining us remotely via Zoom. Excuse me tonight we'll be discussing potential updates to the city's tenant protections program specifically to relocation assistance for no fault just cause evictions under Chapter 19.7 one of the same municipal kept. And so we'll start off with a brief background on tenant protections, both in the state of California and in Sunnyvale. And we'll begin with AB 1482, which is California's Tenant Protection Act of 2019, which set a statewide tenant protections framework. And most relevant to tonight's discussion is that it established one month of relocation assistance for no fault, just cause evictions. Shortly thereafter in April 2023 as part of the city's 2020 housing strategy, the city adopted its tenant protections program building off of a be 1482. Notably, the city established a right to lease program and also increase the relocation assistance amount for no fault just cause evictions to two months rent. At the Council hearing when this was adopted in April 2023, Council also directed staff to study increasing relocation assistance to three months, providing further protections for vulnerable and elderly populations, and starting just cause eviction protections on day one of a lease. Normally they would start after 12 months of a lease. In February 2025, staff returned with the increased three-month relocation assistance ordinance for no-fault, just-cause evictions, but Council noted that there was low community input on the item and directed staff to return with an amended ordinance and additional outreach. So tonight we are back to introduce the ordinance along with the results of our expanded outreach and analysis. And also note that staff inadvertently left out the further protections for vulnerable and elderly populations. and day one eviction protections from this ordinance that was not studied as part of tonight's agenda or at the February 2025 hearing. So this slipped through the cracks and was not included in our most recent round of outreach as well. But we've picked it back up and we will be asking for direction from this body and from council on whether to continue the study of those items tonight. And just a brief bit of background on no-fault just-cause evictions themselves. No-fault just-cause evictions are not the fault of the tenant, but it's still considered a legal cause for eviction. These can be for reasons such as a unit is demolished or substantially remodeled, requiring the tenant to vacate the unit, or if an owner or family member occupies a unit. This is opposed to an at-fault eviction, which is most commonly from a nonpayment of rent or other lease violations. And the relocation assistance does not apply to at-fault evictions. Just the no-fault, just-cause evictions. There are also some exemptions to the relocation assistance requirement for no-fault just cause evictions. Those exemptions include properties that are single-family owner-occupied residences where they're renting a room or a junior ADU. A single family home that is not owned by a trust or LLC and a duplex where the owner occupies one of the units. And that would also apply to ADUs where the owner occupies a single family home and rents out an ADU. So those are exempt from the relocation assistance requirement. so for tonight we did expanded outreach for in response to council direction we completed a robust round of outreach where we targeted landlords and property managers who are registered as businesses with the city We sent out over 2,700 mailers to landlords and property managers. And with a link to a survey, we received 212 responses from that link. And last time, just for comparison, in 2025, we received 14 responses. So we did a lot better this time. We also had a tenant oriented survey that was advertised through social media primarily and 278 responses were received on that survey last time in 2025 we received 24 responses so a lot better there as well, these were heavily promoted at farmers markets on the housing division website and in city newsletters so we're pleased with those responses that we received. And we'll share with you tonight those results. Both the landlord and the tenant surveys have essentially the same questions. They're mirror images of one another basically. And we start off with just asking what the impact on landlords would be for increased relocation assistance. And you can see here in the graph, 75% of landlords said that it would be an unfair, undue burden for the property owner. Other common responses were that they would consider increasing rents to offset the expenses related to relocation assistance, and that would cause an economic hardship and restrict their ability to move into a unit. On the tenant side over half of the tenants, I guess, this is the same question, but for tenants now so how would increasing no fault just cause relocation assistance to three months impact them. tenants say that it would prevent unjust evictions and would make it easier to find comparable housing it's also interesting to note here that 43% of the tenants also said that they had concerns that landlords may raise rents in response to this. We also wanted to have an understanding of just how many tenants and landlords have been involved in a no-fault just cause eviction. And so we asked that question in the survey and received responses where 8% of the tenants and 11% of landlords report being involved in a no-fault just cause eviction. This is self-reported. And so it also shows that 5% of both tenant and landlords were not sure. But I think that it still indicates that approximately 10% of both landlords and tenants have been involved at some point in their lives in a no-fault, just cause eviction. So it's fairly specific and fairly infrequent. And then we also wanted to gauge just the public's general familiarity with the city's tenant protections program. So we asked landlords and tenants how familiar they are with the tenant protections program. And just under half of landlords reported that they were familiar with the city's requirements. But only 15% of tenants were familiar with the city's requirements. So it's clear that we need to do additional outreach and inform the public, both landlords and tenants about the city's requirements. So regardless of what direction the city takes with considering increased relocation assistance requirements, staff will still expand outreach to bridge this gap of awareness throughout the year. We'll be sending out more mailers to landlords and property managers, doing more in-person events and expanding resources on our webpage and on social media. And then finally, we looked at neighboring jurisdictions requirements for no-fault just cause relocation assistance and tenant protections in general. And so we have a larger chart in the attachments, but this is kind of the abbreviated version of it showing some of our peer cities in the county And essentially Sunnyvale is somewhere in the middle of these jurisdictions. Mountain View, Palo Alto, and San Jose consistently have adopted more robust requirements than what is part of AB 1482, or the state's tenant protections program. So Mountain View, for example, has a relocation assistance amount of three months of median market rent. Palo Alto has about a four-month requirement for relocation assistance, and San Jose has about a three-month requirement. They base that off of numerical figures that are adjusted with CPI, but it equates to about that much. And then we have Cupertino, who is considering an ordinance for expiring affordable housing units. And then other jurisdictions like the City of Santa Clara, Milpitas, Campbell, they do not have additional tenant protections beyond AB 1482. Similarly, for additional assistance for special circumstances, Mountain View, Palo Alto, San Jose all have additional requirements. For example, Mountain View has an $8,000 requirement for households that are lower income, have elderly household members, or children under the age of 18. And then we also looked at the minimum occupancy requirement in order for those tenant protections to take an effect to get an idea of how common the day one protections are. Again, Mountain View, Palo Alto, and San Jose all have additional requirements there. Mountain View's tenant protection requirements essentially began on day zero of a lease. Palo Alto had six months, and San Jose after seven days. So that gives us a comparison for day one protections as well. And so this leads us to our recommendation tonight, which we base on the outreach that we completed and on the research into neighboring jurisdictions programs. And essentially no fault just cause evictions are infrequent, but have a significant impact on both tenant and landlords. um for landlords these are financial and operational impacts to their businesses and if they're undergoing a substantial renovation or moving into a unit to cite some more common scenarios this could potentially cause an impact for them for tenants the impacts are much more personal and can cause housing instability which can greatly impact personal and professional lives and even lead to homelessness and it's no fault of the tenant the cost of relocation itself could easily exceed three months rent including first month's rent security deposit application fees moving expenses and potentially time off of work so we want to balance these interests both protecting the tenant but still maintaining a feasible program and we can see that mountain view palo alto and san jose have all managed this and the city can as well and this also aligns with city council direction So tonight we are recommending alternative one to introduce the ordinance for three months relocation assistance for no fault just cause evictions. And we're also recommending alternative three to direct staff to continue to study additional tenant protections including day one protections additional protections for vulnerable populations. and fair market rent as the basis for relocation assistance amount. And just to clarify, alternative three is not a part of the ordinance itself. This would just be directing staff to study. And if there are particular topics that you want us to study, we will consider those as well. Our next steps are Housing and Human Services Commission tomorrow. And we'll be at City Council on May 5. And that concludes our presentation. And we're here for questions. Thank you.

Thank you. I will now ask for questions from my colleagues. The first is Commissioner Davis.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the presentation. So one really technical question. You said there are exemptions unless single-family homes, condos, or townhomes are owned by trusts. um trust is a pretty broad term um and it's a pretty common feature for families to to have trust that they hold their real estate in um is there a more precise definition in the in the laws uh we can check on that but generally speaking uh the exemption would fall if you own the property under your own name

There, there may be some nuances there to the actual language around the trust, but I can we can look into that okay.

And then. Actually have three things but i'll save one for after public comment do we have any data as the city collected any data on how often these protections have actually been used.

That's a good question. And we've looked into well, we have the city doesn't enforce the ordinance, I think, as was discussed before. So we generally rely on Project Sentinel to mediate in the event that there is a question about a no fault, just cause eviction. We don't have any records from Project Sentinel saying that there was any no fault, just cause eviction that has taken place within the last fiscal year. So no one sought that advice from or mediation from Project Sentinel where they actually opened up a case about it. We don't have any data in terms of if this was handled without the help of Project Sentinel. So we're unable to say. We do receive approximately 20 to 30 calls a year about this. I received one just last week asking about whether tenant relocation assistance would apply to their unit. It was a single family home. We had to defer them to Project Sentinel, and I haven't heard anything more about that one. But it does happen occasionally, but we don't have data on whether this has taken place.

Okay, so it seems like something of a blind spot.

It is, and that's part of the reason why we asked the question in the survey was to hear it from tenants and landlords how often this happens.

Okay, that's all my questions for now. Thank you.

Thank you. Next one is Commissioner Figone, please.

Thanks for your presentation. I have a couple of questions. One is on slide seven. I'm just kind of curious, why is the city pursuing this when, like my fellow commissioners kind of alluded to, there's really not many, it seems like there's not many occurrences of this. so i'm just trying to understand what is driving this right now that we need to the city wants to push going to three months and then follow up to that is there other agencies or or groups that are supporting this within the city that's giving you input onto that yeah the question to that is you said that the sample size was small uh what would you have liked it to be so um

The no fault just cause eviction relocation assistance originally originated for the city as part of the housing strategy in 2020. And we brought it to council along with a right to lease as part of a two month relocation assistance amount. So we've been pursuing it since 2020. And then we were advised directed by council to return with three months eviction or relocation assistance amount. So that's what's what's driving this. There's also the fact that tenants are not at fault for these evictions. And so it's seen as a way to provide some stability to housing for cases of eviction that are not the fault of a tenant, even though they may be rare. You may have to remind me or the questions.

I mean, I think when I was looking at some of the analytics that you presented, which were very good, the owners or the property owners said they would increase the cost. They're going to pass that back on to the tenants. And I think we're trying to get the rents down, right? That's the long-term goals, too. We don't want Mayor Mrakas, So I were building a lot we're trying to do these things, so it doesn't kind of a little bit counterproductive i'm not sure if i'm really understanding what's driving the city council to do this when the data seems. Mayor Mrakas, Not very strong at the moment, I mean if there's a specific use cases, you have a really good stories that you have that really drive this or that can help us understand better.

Well, I think the idea is to increase housing security. We have people in these rare cases where no fault, just cause eviction occurs, people would be out and searching for an apartment at no fault of their own. So the assistance is intended to help them out, make sure that they have the ability, the financial ability to be able to put down a first month's rent, security deposit, be able to afford to move to a new place. So it's directly benefiting the folks that are involved in a no fault, just cause eviction and helping them stay housed. So it's really part of an anti-displacement and tenant protections side of things. We look at housing in various different ways in the housing division and protection is part of that and making sure that people can stay housed is a huge part of that.

Okay, thank you. Next one is Commissioner Payne, please.

Thank you. Just a couple questions. Do we have any empirical data on like the whether or not the We've whether or not like we've seen like one other jurisdictions have added more generous. tenant protection 10 protections along these lines, whether that whether that has actually empirically led to a rent increase or not, because I feel like i'm just. curious if we've actually tried to because I know what the survey says but i'm just curious if we've tried to like actually track that.

Yeah, that's something that would be very difficult to study just because rents typically increase in general. And it would be difficult to say that the increased relocation assistance would be leading to that amongst a bunch of other factors.

Yeah, I did... very quickly to try to do a little cross checking. And I found the very unhelpful information that Mountain View rents are on average higher than Sunnyvale rents, but San Jose rents are on average lower than Sunnyvale rents, which to me honestly tells us more about land values and their perspective cities than anything else. But that was all I could come up with, 30 seconds of googling I was wondering if there was just anything more in depth no we don't have anything more in depth than that okay uh the other question I had is uh does staff have any kind of estimate on how long it and I recognize that this might be a question for like the city manager people that are other People that aren't necessarily here tonight. But does staff have any kind of estimate on how long it might take for to come back with the additional 10 protections as per alternative three

Well, we would want to do another round of outreach, and we could structure that with another round of promotion and just getting the information out about the city's tenant protections program. And then we would want to time that with, of course, the calendar of the city, too. So I would say within a year, optimistically.

Okay. I know I'm just Yeah, I think that's reasonable. I might have a couple more comments on that when we get after the public hearing, but that's all I had for now. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Cerrone, please.

Thanks. And thanks for the presentation. So it was, as you pointed out, it's a little alarming that most tenants and landlords don't seem to be aware of this policy at all. I was wondering, for example, for many state and federal programs, they require to post flyers in the common areas, break rooms or whatever, you know, this is the law. And most of these places, probably all of them, have an office that tenants get into. So requiring somebody to be posted there would both inform that, landlord who has to post it and the tenants who come in there for various reasons do we require that or could we could we require that we do have posting requirements and we have um requirements to include in a lease packet so they are required to post something in the office yeah oh good um Is there anything about this proposal that makes it harder for landlords to evict tenants for bad behavior or, in other words, a for-cause type of eviction?

no and the city is really building just on ab1482 we incorporate 1482 as part of the code so we don't um there's nothing to do with the actual technical aspect of evictions it's really the relocation assistance portion of it okay and uh so as we've mentioned it sounds like these just cause

evictions are relatively rare, so it doesn't seem like they would be an ongoing big financial burden to a landlord, although there is some economic impact. I guess looking at the public comments, especially from landlords, it seems like the end tenants, it seems like they mostly do not understand the law. So like they think it applies to any eviction or. Is that your sense or didn't seem like the comments reflected the actual law. As proposed here.

Well, I think that their comments do reflect a concern of this encroaching on their ability to run the property the way that they want to. So I think that there is real concern from landlords and property owners about that. And that's what's reflected in the responses that we received. But yes, no fault, just cause evictions are quite rare. I mean, we've within the same survey, landlords are reporting that it only occurs in 11% of landlords. So it is a rare occurrence.

Right, right. For the, I guess it's alternative three, but for the day one tenant protections, just some feedback, 12 months does seem like too long a requirement. So maybe something in between to make sense. But you're also recommending looking at, like right now, you give three months of rent based on the rent the tenant is currently paying, right? Correct. But you're suggesting looking at fair market. Does that mean like median rent for the area? What does fair market mean here?

Yeah, fair market is calculated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Um, at the federal level and it's calculated both for small zip code areas within the county, and then also for the county itself. So, uh, it's, you know, supposed to reflect the median rent of, uh, a unit on the marketplace.

So then this, so then everybody who's who encounters this sort of a eviction would get the same compensation regardless of what they were paying for rent.

Yep.

okay well i think i noticed uh mountain view does that i guess i'm not entirely sure what makes that a good idea but that's something i guess we'd look at later um the city contracts with project sentinel right that's correct do they but they do not re uh provide any reports on what they're doing back to the city they do they do provide reports um

They may not be specific about every call that they receive. They often highlight cases that they take on. And just in reviewing their last reports for the last fiscal year of cases there was nothing involving a no fault just cause eviction so it's possible that they've received a call about it I know that the city receives calls and we send them to Project Sentinel so they they likely have but it hasn't made it to the point where it's become a case that they've taken on it it could be that they've been able to mediate it or clarify something with either the tenant or the landlord whoever was asking about it in my experience when members of the public call in about this it's usually to clarify whether they're whether this would apply to their unit and in many cases it it doesn't so just so do you think this is a blind spot in or uh that the fact that they aren't reporting it reflects the fact that it's not happening I think it could be happening, but it's not getting to the stage where it becomes a serious case where they have to do ongoing mediation or anything like that. They're able to settle it fairly quickly if it does occur, but we don't have that fine grain data from them.

I see. If a landlord moves a tenant to another unit, say in the complex or something, does that avoid this situation? requirement uh that's a good question and we can we can double check on that as well and could the landlord give instead of giving them three months rent in cash effectively upon eviction could they give them the last three months of rent free

The way it's phrased in the ordinance right now is that the landlord could give two months of cash and then the last month rent for free. So the last three months, waiving the last three months rent would not fit into that narrow definition. So I have- I see, okay.

All right, thank you.

Thank you. We have Commissioner Segura, please.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the presentation. When you guys did all the survey, did you check what age group was the people that answered to the survey?

We did not have a question about age or anything personal.

It's a really nice thing what's trying to be done here. But another question, what other measures did you guys suggest to protect the landlord from frivolous accusations, etc. When somebody says, oh, they did not give me the three months or they did not offer me this or did not offer me that. Is there anything that you have in the law to protect the landlord as well?

There are some nuances to the law. There are those exemptions to specific types of properties, but in general, if a property, if the just cause relocation assistance requirement applies to a property, then it's pretty cut and dry that the landlord would be required to pay the relocation assistance. We haven't had any. I haven't heard any calls about falsely claiming relocation assistance.

okay no that you know maybe people said hey the landlord did not offer us when in fact they did you know uh that's what I'm trying to figure out if there's anything um that has to be done in writing or not uh on both ends um some correspondence between the two parties

well aside from the posting and and uh lease requirements uh that that is included as part of the ordinance as well so that has to be right yeah yeah okay thank you thank you um I have a couple of questions too uh when you said that it fell through the cracks it was the the detailing about the survey question

yes this was in reference to the additional protections that are part of alternative three so looking at additional protections for vulnerable and elderly populations day one tenant protections and and this was simply left off of the 2025 report So it was not studied as part of that. And we didn't pick it up when we took over this and later on in 2025. We then rediscovered that direction from Council and are now asking for additional guidance as to whether we want to continue to pursue that as a study direction.

Um, okay, so that's kind of makes a lot of, I mean, there's a large difference in that 1, but other other question I have is, um, when you get when you did the survey, the landlord, did you ask them the landlords that how many units they were renting? Or, like, did they have that specific to because that answers does. I mean, it'll be nice to know whether these landlords, their response have some relevance with units they're renting. Because I think the survey now, it shows that they are concerned about it. So I'm just curious about it, that what are we going to do? So do we have more details on that one?

Yes, we asked a similar question. asking landlords to describe the types of units that they rent or manage and own, and they could respond with multiple responses there. So 37% of the respondents are managing or owning a single family home and renting that. uh 30 of the respondents have small complexes of three to nine units and so we were largely hitting the the smaller landlord uh portfolios um but they're also just a larger number of folks that are running out their their homes and uh smaller apartment complexes so so we we have a lot of rental um apartments and we so we don't know exactly that what are the

all those respondents might be from the lower, like they are the one who are not breaking the laws. They kind of, they are the good citizens, but we don't know the big companies who are renting. I mean, it's kind of nice to know.

We heard from them as well. 13% of the respondents had larger complexes of more than 20 or 25 or more units.

Okay. I'm going to wait for the people to say that. Okay. Thank you. Okay, so.

So.

Okay. So there is some. we have okay so i will go ahead and open the public hearing on this specific item please submit a speaker card to the recording officer raise your digital hand now or dial star 9 on a telephone to indicate you wish to speak i will call on members of the public participating in person first followed followed by remote participants speaker will have three minutes to speak and we have a person one person from the from the hall wishing to speak. So, uh, please speaker Ruel parent, please come forward. You have three minutes to speak.

Thank you commission. Um, my name is Ruel parent, um, lifelong member, uh, resident of Sunnyvale, except for college and a few other years. Um, uh, my family, my dad moved here in 1965. He bought the apartment he was living in at the time. Married my mom. They lived in that apartment until they were able to afford a home. He continued to invest in the community. We now own 23 units. And... I actually love the city. I didn't hear about this in all the outreach until the email last week. I was like, oh, this looks interesting. And I looked into it a little bit and I appreciate all the questions from the commissioners. There were a lot of questions that I had too. There was one experience I had where actually we had planned to remodel our house. A tenant had moved out of one of our fourplex units. And so I arranged to do a short-term lease for, Some people live in it until I was planning to move into it. I was managing the property myself. I mischecked something on the contract or managed the payment a little bit wrong. It was the end. I gave them notice, like, just a reminder, you're supposed to move out the first of this month. And they said, oh, I went to this, you know, lawyer someplace that the county offered or something, and they said that this gives me another two weeks to stay in the unit. I'd already... told the demo people to come tear down my house. So I ended up handling that myself. But if this type of law is in effect, then I'm legally obligated to pay three months of at-market rent, right? Now, my dad bought properties from 1965. I hate to say he was a slumlord, but he didn't invest a lot into the properties. We're actually working to do that now. But we rent to the lower end of the market. Our properties are up off Duane and Fair Oaks. And paying at market is above what our rents are. Three months then would become four and a half, five months of income from a unit. I don't think we've ever actually had, besides that one incident, and I don't even know if it would have been qualified as just cause, because I screwed up, right? If we went to court or something, they would have said, no, you made a mistake. You can't actually kick him out. So I paid them. I gave them back their money to go away, and they were happy to take the money and leave. So I wonder... A, is this a solution to a problem that doesn't actually exist? But perception's important, right? As a landlord, we're gonna have this perception that this could be a problem. We're gonna cause concern from landlords and maybe expectations from tenants that aren't really justified. I heard a lot of comments about how it was just cause, but they use the other term. What's the other term? no fault they emphasize the no fault but not the just causes like it's not the inexcusable evictions that are being limited thank you thank you um so does anyone else want to speak on this item before we hear from the remote speakers

I do not see any other card or any other person sorry most speakers are want to limit their comments to the agenda item being considered it speakers who are ruled out of order will not be given another chance to speak on this item and the title of this item is um. Yes, got it it's introduced an ordinance amending Chapter 19.71 of the Sunnyvale municipal code relating to the residential tenant protection Program. Recording officer, do we have any remote participant wishing to speak on this item?

Yes, we do we'll hear first from Anil Babar.

Thank you, Chair and Planning Commission members. Anil Babar with the California Apartment Association. We're an organization that represents rental property housing providers in the City of Sunnyvale and the State of California. I like to talk about this recommendation tonight. Specifically, regarding AB 1482, it struck that balance of providing reasonable protections, including the one month of relocation payments without negatively impacting housing production and maintenance. That assertion was recently supported by an academic paper by UCLA that found that AB 1482 did not encourage the conversion of existing rental to another use, and it did not push property owners to enter the rental market. These basic and reasonable protections provide the necessary protections for the city, yet maintaining an environment where both developers can continue expanding housing availability in Sunnyvale and property owners can have the resources to maintain their existing homes and provide habitable housing for Sunnyvale residents. By staff's own admission through the survey that was produced, there isn't an issue. I mean, 85% to 80% of respondents claim they've not received a no-fault eviction. So I want to ask, what is the problem we're solving, as was suggested by the previous speaker? Furthermore, I think a better use of time would be to educate property owners and tenants of the existing laws rather than provide new laws that I would imagine the tenants and property owners would still not be aware of. I believe that we need to enforce existing laws instead of enacting new ones. When the council adopted this recommendation a couple of years ago, they did so without the benefit of the survey results. And I think that survey results would demonstrate that there isn't a need for expanding the relocation to three months. It would just provide more of a burden to property owners We haven't seen the evidence that two months isn't adequate. So in closing, I would recommend that the Planning Commission reject the recommendation before you and maintain the existing protections as it is. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll hear from Agnes Veith. Agnes, if you're speaking, you might be on mute. We can't hear you.

I just unmuted, but I'm not seeing the clock starting.

Okay, we can hear you now. As soon as you start, I can start the timer. Okay, thank you.

Good evening, commissioners, city staff, and members of the public. I am Agnes Veith, a member of Livable Sunnyvale, and tonight I'm speaking on my own behalf. In 2025, Santa Clara County conducted their point in time count commonly referred to as the pit count, to determine the number of our unhoused residents. In Sunnyvale, the total number of individuals counted was 421. Of this number, 328 were unsheltered, which means individuals sleeping outdoors or in places not designated for habitation, such as vehicles, streets, parks, or abandoned buildings. 93 were sheltered, which includes individuals sleeping in an emergency shelter, transitional housing or safe havens. When the pick count is taken, it is understood it is an undercount because it is impossible to locate all places within our city where an individual may be sleeping. Tonight, you have the opportunity to prevent more of our residents from ending up homeless by supporting both alternatives one and three, and I urge you to do so. i was speaking with rose gregorio today who many of you may know works with our unhoused community she shared with me that in the month of april five of our community members living on sunnyvale streets died It is completely unacceptable and morally wrong for us to fail to support programs that will keep our residents housed. Supporting Alternatives 1 and 3 is a step to help keep our residents off the streets. Thank you for listening to my opinion.

Thank you. And Vice Chair, we have no further hands raised.

Thank you. Now I'll have questions or motion from my colleagues.

Vice Chair, if I may. Can I add the tourist sorry to respond to Commissioner davis's question earlier.

Oh, you have okay I think us as an applicant, you can you have another five minutes to.

Oh.

that's true, so I know I i'm just i'm just rushing Okay, thank you i'll close the public hearing, and then I will ask my. uh colleagues for discussion questions and motions uh on a point of privilege I believe I'd like to hear staff's response oh so oh that's true because we I I the applicant yes generally we have a response another five minutes for the response to the staff isn't an applicant staff is just okay they can't they yeah please go ahead yeah

Okay, yes, we have some clarification on Commissioner Davis's question about the what types of trust. And so, if a home or condo is owned by a revocable trust, which is the common way for most folks to hold property that would be exempt from this ordinance and it would only be the real estate investment trust or rate that would would trigger it.

Thank you.

Thank you. Now, now is them. Okay, so we have a question. So, Commissioner Davis.

Thank you, Sharon. Thank you to the public for for your comments. First, I had just a little bit of feedback to give about the outreach. I thought we might hear something from the public on that. So I held that back. Um, so it's i think something like 55 percent of the city is are renters right and um they're the people who really need to hear about this program and so on so um i suggest that we consider a mailer to every address we should definitely be hitting all the newsletters um maybe utility inserts and so on, letting people know about this. Even when you put it in front of everybody, most of the people still aren't going to read it, but you still have to do it, right? That's my feedback on that. Let's see, I don't see anybody else's hands up, so I'll just move to... General commentary before we make a motion. So this is a really small change to the ordinance, right? I think there are three red lines in the document. Having said that, we don't have very concrete circumstances put before us where this occurs, right? Or examples of it. So it's really hard to say that there's a lot of harm going on right now because we just don't have numbers on how often it's being used right now so we're looking at this kind of circumstantial. hypothetical circumstantial. case. So I looked up AB 1482, right? And they're really 1482 lists four circumstances that this no fault, just cause, or is it just cause no fault? The order doesn't matter, right? So if an owner or family member moves into a unit, that would qualify withdrawal from the rental market, which is also governed by the Ellis Act. I know that doesn't, that's not a It's not used a lot in the Sunnyvale. I know it's used a lot in San Francisco. Substantial renovation or demolition. I'll come back to that one. That one's a pretty big deal. And compliance with the government order. So substantial renovation or demolition. I keep thinking of scenarios where this would occur. And this comes in when we're updating older housing or redeveloping properties. And so I feel like this is going to occur well um it gets more complicated the larger the property is right because you can you can a smaller property you can manage it with the timing of your leases you move people when their lease expires move them to month to month and so you you avoid all of this but obviously that gets more complicated the more tenants you have right so if you have a four if you have a four unit building and you need to update it which uh i don't know maybe you have asbestos in it or something right or something some and you just need to get people out so you can do this um then you could probably manage that with just the timing of your leases and good planning, essentially. If you have a couple of hundred units, you're going to... I'm seeing the linear program in my head, but you're going to end up having to pay some people relocation. So I'm thinking, where's the public interest in this? We obviously want our housing to be updated. The city is not young anymore. Right. My house was built in 62. I can tell you it costs a lot to an upkeep. Right. So I'm disinclined to discourage property owners from updating their buildings. Having said that, I don't think that's too much of an issue because you can manage through this, right? I don't think it's... too big of a burden to ask landlords to be, I don't know, smart. So that's kind of a moot point. For the larger units, we're talking about more people affected. So in my mind, there's a public interest in making sure the people who are impacted are uh made as whole as possible right so that seems pretty compelling um from from the other thing uh the government orders is where it gets interesting uh because government orders are usually some kind of condemnation the building's being condemned or it's redlined for some reason or uh perhaps um Now, this isn't the tenants not complying with something, right? And if you get a government order because your tenant, let's say, put too many people in the unit and you got redlined and you had to evict them, that's an at-fault eviction. So this doesn't apply. This is more along the lines of... if you're a classic slumlord, right? And you're not taking care of your buildings and we redline you. And you have to, and to correct it, you have to move people out so you can actually correct it. And I think there's a very compelling interest for the city to discourage that situation. And really the only lever you have is to make it more expensive, right? If you don't maintain your built, the cost of not maintaining your building will be more than the cost of maintaining your building, right? So I see a compelling interest there. But this is something, these are all hypotheticals. I really wish we had data on it. And I understand that we're really not gonna get data unless we have a rent registry, and that's way out of scope for this discussion. So that's my commentary. and i'll yield the floor maybe someone else will make a motion.

Thank you. We have a Commission ceremony, please.

Thanks vice chair so yeah, this is, I agree with Commissioner Davis. This is something of a close call and without some more data, I mean my sense is that. that the requirement that exists, whether it's two months or three months, it encourages the landlord and the tenant to make another accommodation of some kind, which kind of sounds like what's happening with the Project Sentinel cases. mean people don't really want to be looking for three months for a place to live if if they could move to another place within the complex or even another place owned by the the landlord or or what you know whatever you know that's what they would want so it seems like even the 10 percent may be overstated and making it three months instead of two months does kind of encourage that kind of resolution to to happen and definitely so the problem we're trying to solve is that i think we we believe probably the council believes that it's harder to find housing now than it was 10 years ago or whatever or even five years ago so that's why it may take nominally three months instead of two months. So I think there is a real problem. And homelessness is an issue which starts in many cases with an eviction. And for the community, the most cost-effective way to address that is preventing it by with things like this with basically relocation assistance so in that sense I think that there is a problem we're trying to solve and And, and this would address and there's a reason why neighboring a lot of neighboring cities are also doing this. Of course, if we again if we had some more substantial data that would show. something different you know that would be very persuasive but given what we have here it seems like it's something that would be relatively relatively low impact to most landlords and provide some level of security to what is kind of half the population. So I think it's worth doing. As far as notification, it seems like The notification that would count is when someone is notified of the eviction, that then they are told in that same document, this is the law, these are the requirements. It's like if you get laid off or something, they tell you about COBRA, right? If you send a mailer to somebody and then five years later they're evicted, they're probably not going to have that mailer sitting around. And so You know that I think that's kind of the problem. So if there's any way to get that information and and their tenant packet when they move in. Maybe people keep that around and care of carefully file it and they go to it if they're evicted, but it just, again, it seems like the proper place to have that notification is um with the uh eviction notification when that's provided to them if there's a way to do that is uh for staff is there a legal restriction that would prevent that from happening or for for noticing as part of the lease packet When someone's notified of an eviction.

Right. Yes. When they're notified of the eviction, they need to also be notified of their right to relocation assistance as well.

So they already get that now.

Yeah.

That's interesting. All right. Well, that sounds like the best thing you can do. That's when they need that information. All right. Thanks.

Thank you. I have a... I can... You Commissioner pain, please.

yeah Thank you, I. Did Joe shukla have questions. Yes, okay. I will defer.

I was already with the most meldifer Thank you yeah I have a question that. I do believe that like you did the whole survey, and we got response, and I feel that we need to have extra information for the survey, because I think if we are going to take any action based on the survey, then it doesn't make sense because it's more like landlords. all the landlords have complained about what can happen to them. So that can be extra burden. And also the thing is, I'm kind of surprised that the surrounding cities have a different problem. Like we have Mountain View has a housing shortage while San Jose people don't want to live there. So, you know, that's like two cities and both have this this program. uh canon protection more than the 1948 so while santa clara doesn't have it and so i don't know i'm just kind of curious about that um but why i mean um we have other problems it's more more like unhoused people they are um if they are renting they get assistant and they are they generally paid somehow they managed to pay the rent and not get evicted I'm not sure but I think we need some more I feel that with ours the result is not somehow it's confused me more of what the results we have got so I feel kind of that we need to do a little bit more thorough survey or research based on the like how many you said that how many cases were in Sunnyvale which were eviction happened and what were the situations and where did they go I think we need some more data before we put the burdens because the economy is changing and a lot of people it's that one of the way they make money they survive is uh the to rent the apartment so i think it's kind of extra burden that's what even i feel even though when we had the last time meetings i was more like wanted to really pursue further protection for the tenants but i question based on the survey and it's it's not completely gives me clear idea so that's where i met so just i don't know wherever the council takes us and if you are going to do further studies so please include uh include some more nuances surrounding cities and like some cases to support it so i think it's very necessary thank you that's just my guidance thank you okay commissioner payne please yeah uh thank you i'm still ready with the motion i saw commissioner sigur put his hand off so if he has a question i'd be happy to

Yes, I have another question. In a sense, when they get the 60 days notice, that gives enough time for people to go and look for a new place, right? And then they get one month's worth of rent. When they get actually three months' worth of rent, that's giving them kind of beyond just the expenses to move. It's not that the people are going to be homeless if they get the notice of 60 days and they get one month rent, which should cover their expenses to move out. I'm trying to understand what is triggering the three months.

I think the three months is considered an adequate amount for if you're searching for a new rental unit, it can cover the first month's rent for that unit, security deposit, which is now limited to one month's rent due to state law, and then covers moving expenses.

So don't they get their deposit back when they move out? They do. So they get one month's rent. That's two that's so that should cover it. Just, it doesn't make sense what you guys are saying. I mean, everything you say, I understand, but when a tenant moves out to get back his deposit, especially if the guy has to remodel the house or do any major remodeling. And obviously they do have to give documentations that they have permits, et cetera, et cetera. Right. Correct. You have to send me documentation to your tenant showing that you have a permit. You cannot just come and say, hey, I'm remodeling the house. Get out.

That's correct. Yes.

So they will get all the deposit back and they're getting a first month. Again, I'm not trying to be not nice to people or want to take advantage of people, but I'm trying to understand what makes it logically okay to make the landlord pay three months versus okay they have expense to move i understand that should be covered because there are no fault i do understand that they they're getting enough time 60 days is sufficient time to look for a new place again we're not talking about people that have problems renting a house right because it's not that we're talking about homeless people we're talking about any normal person who rents a house for $3,000, $4,000, $7,000 in Sunnyvale and $9,000 in Sunnyvale. There are neighborhoods that that's what the house is being rented for, right? So it's not poor people that I agree that if somebody is poor, we should come and help 100% and help them to get ahead in life. However, we're not talking about most of the time about these kinds of people. Yes, there are people that it's more difficult for them to rent, I agree. But if we look at Sunnyvale and most of the population, the rent, the average rent will be at least $3,000 a month in Sunnyvale for a house, okay? So if the landlord show the paperwork that he's remodeling the house and he gives back the deposit and he gives one month rent, why does he need to pay three months rent in addition to the deposit back?

It doesn't sound fair, I'm honest.

Do you want me to respond to that? Yeah, please. I mean, I can say from personal experience too, that moving costs can exceed a month of rent. So the total cost of one month rent, if you get your security deposit back, then you can put that towards the next security deposit. And then you would need additional funds for moving expenses, which can exceed a month's rent, depending on the size of your unit and the complications there.

I'm a little bit in the industry from both perspectives. I'm doing real estate and I'm a general contractor. And I do see, I have clients that moving houses due to landlords selling their homes and they get compensation for that. And moving can be expensive and can be not expensive. It depends really who's your mover like anybody else. I understand why we kind of tried to protect the tenants, which is great and good and I'm all for it. But I feel that it has to be with just and I feel that the data that we have is not big enough to support something like that, in my opinion. And I wish, if possible, to do another inquiry and to come back maybe with more data because the city is pretty big and I think there are a few more people that could give more input for such a big decision that will impose on landlords such a tariff or expense.

just go ahead thank you madam chair um i think sometimes when the data is not robust then we kind of resort to anecdotal discussion and so i just want to add to what mr dyson had said so I think it depends on one's perspective, what's fair or not fair. But in terms of a security deposit, I too can say from experience that you don't always get the entire security deposit back. Sometimes when you have resided at a place for an extended period of time, the security deposit doesn't always keep up with what the landlord could require of a new tenant and so sometimes the amount that you get back is much less than what you would need for to pay first month's rent also moving costs can be significant especially if you are being evicted from a unit in Sunnyvale you may not be able to find another unit in Sunnyvale and so it could be more than just driving a mile away so i mean there are many many potential costs um that's not to say that you know that there it's it's a fair or unfair to any party but i just wanted to note that you know all of all of our experiences can inform this discussion um and i think that's why it is a benefit to have more information if the commission desires it

I would, sorry, thank you. I would be highly supporting to have more data. And again, I think if we had more data, which is better, and also, you know, if possible checking demographic of people or certain ages, because for example, people that are younger can have certain perspective than people that are a little bit older. and many other factors that can come in. So I would definitely urge to get more data and maybe to come back to it. I'm not 100% opposing it. It's just that I would love to see, at least on my end, more data supportive of that. I can be fair towards both parties, both ends of the spectrum and support and give the right decision that I can with educated data or educational information that I have. Thank you.

Before we make motion, Mr. Commissioner Figoni, please.

yeah I think where i'm struggling is disney we've gone over with I think all the Commissioners is for me personally the data just doesn't support the proposal at the moment, so I think there's room for you know getting better data which, if that was brought back to this Commission, I think we would be able to make a better informed decision. The only thing I want to say is that. I would caution the city with putting too many restrictions on landlords because. like the gentleman that presented and i appreciate his input he seemed very willing to work with his tenants in the past and i think that's what we want that type of behavior if you put too many controls too many constraints on landlords they're going to go by the book and i i think that can be detrimental to tenants and so i think that we need to be a little bit aware of that that You know, the state has mandated two months. There must've been a reason for that. They did some analysis on that, I would assume. The city of Sunnyvale is proposing to go above and beyond that, but I just don't see the data supporting the reasoning behind that. So, and I think we want to promote good behavior from our landlords. And so not all of them are, I hate to use the word someone, they're not all like that. So some are very good people and really do try to work with their tenants. And I'm just concerned if we put too many constraints on them, they might go the opposite direction. And I don't think we want that. So and the other thing I will say is, you know, if I got three months when I got if I if I was like over my job, and I got three months, that's pretty good. So it's not very common to get that many months nowadays, especially in in the workforce. So that's something to think about. But I do appreciate the presentation and the inputs and from the audience and from everybody else. Thank you.

Thank you. Now Commissioner Fain.

Thank you. I move. I'm not going to yield at this point. I'm sorry. I'm not yielding. I, I would at this time, I would like to move alternatives one and three in recommend a city council to introduce the the ordinance in attachment. The ordinance in attachment for amending municipal code chapter 19.71 residential time protections and programmed increase relocation assistance required during no fault just cause evictions to three months and to direct staff to study all additional time protections for day one just cause of actions for the protections for vulnerable populations and fair market rent for relocation assistance.

Commissioner Davies.

I second.

Thank you. I am in the somewhat odd position of making the motion after almost all of my colleagues have substantially opined on the merits, which is kind of upside down from a procedural perspective. But I substantially agree with what, in particular, with what commissioners Davis and Cerrone said. I just wanted to add in particular that I don't think we have a whole lot of empirical data on on this i can throw in anecdotally that my security deposit back when i moved into my apartment which is at this point over a decade ago was was 1500 and getting that back which honestly i doubt i would get all of it back but if i did get all of it back it would not cover I do not know if there is a single unit in Sunnyvale that it would cover a month's rent for. It wasn't even a month's rent when I moved in. But if there's a unit for rent in Sunnyvale for $1,500, please write into the planning commission because I would be curious. But again, that is just one anecdote. It doesn't really mean a whole lot. uh I I that's but yeah one of the reasons I asked whether we had any information about the the effects of the the effects of this in like Mountain View or San Jose is that like for me if we had in from like from like when I'm looking at this it applies to somewhere around again 10 was the number being cited of which is not that which is it's not nothing but it's also not huge like it's And so I don't know that this makes a huge difference overall. If there was evidence telling me that this had a substantial upward, honestly, even much of any upward pressure on rents, that would, I think, be a substantial argument to the contrary. I just, again, I don't have that evidence. And I will say that there was a member of the public who cited a study relating to the statewide protections. I would highly encourage them to send that study to city council. I don't, and I'd also would highly encourage any member of the public. If they have a study, they want to cite in public comment, please send it to the planning commission in advance of the public hearing. I know I would personally love to read it. So, so the one thing I have seen a lot of studies on is that, is that making, is that 10 protections and especially relocation prevention protections do a really are the single best thing you can do to to prevent homelessness and lower and lower homelessness outcomes and to me that's that is such a big deal that it that absent significant evidence that there will be other harmful effects to me that's a that's a strong argument for Christopher McConkey- Adding for adding more generous protections here I Christopher McConkey- I think avoiding homelessness is one of the single biggest things we should be doing as a city. Uh, regarding alternative three, since it actually hasn't been discussed much. I, and I think that's more mostly continuing previous direction on this. I would say that I'm not going to do it here, but I would say that if I was on city council, I would actually be asking some pretty pointed questions about how a direction from three years ago fell through the cracks. So I would just suggest to staff that they'd be ready to do that because I've had, I know I have had conversations with city council members, not on this topic, but other topics that they felt were taking inordinately long to get staff reports that they weren't happy about it, so that is just something I would suggest to be prepared to answer pointed questions from from City Council, because it it's the kind of thing I would expect to come up. Thank you, I don't think we're getting a unanimous vote on this motion, but please vote yes, thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Davis for your second.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the motion, Commissioner Pyne. So I'm largely seconding the motion because when I look at the data itself, and for those who don't know me, I work with data for a living. So I feel pretty confident in looking at these bar charts. I see a big disparity in the population of the respondents. The landlords 37% of the respondents are single family home landlords 13% are. townhomes or condominiums so that's 50% those two categories are exempted from a be 1482 so that doesn't apply so we already have to reduce the data set by half duplex. If the owner lives in one of the units in a duplex, it's exempt, right? So maybe it's not 100% of 16%, but it's more than zero, right? And then ADUs is another 5%, and ADUs are a little bit complicated, but most of them are going to be exempt, right? So we're looking at probably 60% of the respondents are exempt from this ordinance in the first place, right? Then when I look at the tenant responses, we see that most of the tenants actually live in units that would be covered by this ordinance. Looking at the data, you have to factor out some of the more heated, more impassioned comments that came in because they're likely not covered by the ordinance in the first place right and and surveys are a very um they're kind of a crude instrument because you can't qualify people for the situation before you you get their input right and we just have to make us try to make sense of it afterwards when I go through the situations where this would actually apply They're usually going to apply because of landlord discretion and the landlords have other tools. To to manage their leases to manage the timing if they plan around this, they can avoid the relocation assistance there's nothing that says, you have to sign another lease there's nothing that says you can't take someone to a month to month lease once their lease expires. you're just going to have to plan and and do that well. um the larger landlords who have larger properties um well this is gonna be a significant doing any kind of renovation um replacement new redevelopment and so on uh is is gonna bring in is gonna require a lot of capital um this relocation assistance is going to be so far down the list in terms of the budget, that it's going to be immaterial for whether or not it pencils out, right? So I'm supporting this because, yes, it would be great to have more data. I love data. I always want more of it. But I think we have enough here to act. And I don't think it's going to... We hear all we hear all the applications for new rental housing in the city. At ab 1482 has not been mentioned by a single applicant if this was a factor in housing production. rental housing production, they would tell us. If it was even remotely close to being a factor, if it worked out anywhere in their spreadsheets, they would have told us, right? So I think this is a reasonable measure that is customizing AB 1482 to Sunnyvale's unique circumstances, being in the heart of Silicon Valley, which means you are in the heart of the worst housing crisis in the country. So I think it's a reasonable and that's why I'm supporting the motion. I hope everyone else does as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Cerrone, please.

Thanks. So I will also be supporting the motion. Now, you know, we say two months or three months and then we can say, well, what are they doing for two or three months? But really, this is just a a way to scale the amount of relocation expense. Just looking at Google AI summary, which as we know is never wrong. The initial payments to rent an apartment in Sunnyvale, California include first month's rent a security deposit often ranging from one month's rent to two months rent plus application fees so they say the total move-in costs often equal three to four months of rent um frequently exceeding eight thousand to ten thousand dollars for one two bedroom unit so it's really know equating it to time is is not exactly the point it's it's a way to scale the amount of relocation assistant and these are people who are presumably good tenants living somewhere and for no fault of their own they are evicted and have to find a new place and this this amount that uh which uh I think has increased over the years, the amount of security deposit and so on. So I really feel like we're just, it's not that they're sitting around for three months, right? It's a way to scale the amount of relocation assistance. As far as the complexity of implementing this, The complexity is exactly the same as it is under current law, except that it costs more. There's no additional, you know, requirements beyond it it costing more right so i don't think we're adding complexity that isn't there already under the current law so i'll be supporting the motion um i think it's a good uh and based on the uh you know the average costs of of relocating to another apartment It seems appropriate for where we are at this point in time. So thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Segura, please.

Thank you. So based on the information and some of the arguments that my colleagues made here, kind of making me wonder in kind of uncertainty of what is the right thing, to be honest. I am not a person that reads data all day, so I don't have the experience that my colleagues have here. I'm listening and hearing what everybody say, and I personally don't feel that there is enough for me. So I will not be able to support it. And I'm still debating whether just to vote abstain versus opposing it. So I understand that the intentions at the end of the day are really good and to help the weak. And I hope I'll make a decision by the end of this run and we'll vote one way or the other. Thanks.

Thank you. I think it's my turn. Oh, it's Commissioner Figaro.

Just to add, the only thing I'm concerned about is adding this? Yes, it seems what some of the data is proposing, it's small, but I think it could be confusing to tenants. Because there's going to be tenants out there that think, oh, I'm going to get three months and you don't because of the particular property you're in. So here it is that we're trying to do something like that. And I think it could cause a lot of confusion. So that's still why I won't be supporting this.

Thank you. Ah, so OK, so for me, if I can add one exemption, I would support. Otherwise I won't support it because the exemption I would like to have is the exemptions of the rental units with more six or seven like you can have because they are still small. Small family running the. rental business they are not this large corporation so it's on but that's a big burden on them if they have to do it um to give you know extra more than one month's money they may have tenants for years and they they may not have updated their places so people won't even you know like all these new technologies and the new i.t people or other people would not be They would not like to move in, and it will be difficult for them to rent their place. It will be burden financial burden to them. So I would not completely. I like I I was part of it when it came to the Council and Planning Commission last couple of years in 2025, and i really think that there should be the i i saw one the presentation which you had centers at home where you had the exemptions of mountain view and now i don't see it so they have updated the presentation so there were exemptions of family of less than uh six i mean family rental units more than six seven or eight or something like that do you remember sending that

Was this from the 2025 presentation?

Yeah.

I know that Mountain View has an exemption for certain income levels, but I'm not aware of an exemption for particular units sizes.

So it's based on the income levels of the tenants. So then they were exempt from. they were that the landlords were exempt to pay more than a month or something.

That's right. Any household that is over 120% of the area median income plus $5,000 is exempt.

Oh, okay. I think, so, I mean, why staff didn't add some other exemptions? I mean, I wish we have some more exemptions. Uh, because, uh, we have our, uh, we have, uh, a unique community in our city and I think that we need to take care of them too. And I think, um, I, so I won't be supporting what the way it's, um, presented, um, even though I'm favor of, um, uh, like I do care for the ordinance one, but I would like to have some more exemptions, but that's where I stand. Thank you.

I have a question for staff.

Oh, now, sorry. So if we vote, it will be 3-3. So what happens?

Can I staff a question first? Sure. Okay. Thank you, Vice Chair. The exemptions from AB 1482, they apply based on the characteristics of the property, not the number of properties a landlord owns, right?

That's correct, yes.

Okay. So, for example... let's just throw it out there if someone owned eight different condos and they rented them out all of those would be exempt as long as it meets the uh ownership requirements uh if it's owned under uh oh as long as it's not a read it's not real estate investment trust okay and they would notify the tenants as well okay that's how i thought it was thank you

so so i think um staff i have a question for staff what happens if um we have like split um can we um can we like because the council is going to decide so we just um give the uh we take the vote and that's it that can be and it will be forwarded to council

So there are a couple options you can, if, if the vote is tied, then you can keep discussing it to see if someone will be convinced to vote in the majority. Um, if you feel that you are, um, unable to reach a point where, um, there's a majority on one side, then you could, someone could make a motion to move the item forward to council with no recommendation. And you can vote on that.

okay so uh so i i i think um let me uh let me ask the motion maker to add the exemption of um of limit of rental units into the ordinance

I am not entirely okay. So I'm not entirely clear which exemption you're specifically asking for. And also I would actually be inclined to ask for a clean vote on this motion. And then as I would expect the motion to fail, and then I would suggest that vice chair Shukla return with return with her own motion that incorporated that and then we could vote on that okay i would prefer to have a clean vote on the staff recommendation okay thank you uh okay so here i'm going to make motion to point of order that unless it's a motion unless it's a subsidiary motion that would not be in order at this time You could move a formal amendment to my motion if you wanted to, but also I will signal that I am disinclined to support any formal amendment, but it would be permissible to make it.

OK, I got it. Thank you so much. So I just want to say something to my colleagues first before I even make a formal amendment or motion that for Commissioner. commissioner my other commissioner members commissioner figoni and sigura that you guys were not part of our discussion before we had this this item came into our our planning commission and it was sent it was it went to council and council made Council, everybody was worried about what's happening in the city. A lot of unhoused people, a lot of eviction. I think as Commissioner Payne mentioned that the unhoused people, the situation comes because they are evicted and then they become homeless. That is the major reason or the drugs. I mean, there are two reasons major, but the one major reason is that they get evicted and they have no other help or no other you know like financial support so they get homeless and that's very common almost I mean I can't I don't have the survey or studies or data but I most of the time like as I as my understanding that many of the homeless that's a major cause of it if there there is no drug addiction so i think it's a so council were concerned and they wanted to study further and make it happen so there is a lot of exemptions are there the exemption for single family home people who run adu they don't need to they have the basics 14 um for 1482 which covers state exemptions of one month and they are exempted from three months so a lot of people are taken care uh out of this so what your concern was i it can make sense but it is they're all exempted from The landlords, the people who single own family or they have a side income, they will not be affected by that. The major reason is that the larger corporations who have the many, many buildings and they rent and they make tons of money because they charge, you know, four thousand, three thousand, four thousand. The tech people are ready to pay. People want to live in Sunnyvale. So this is a good thing. only i'm concerned about that we had heard from some people local residents one this time, and I remember from the last meeting we had two or three local residents were complaining that they run a very. uh not dilapidated but like not very upscale rental facilities and they have a smaller number of rentals and they take care of their tenants so there are a lot of people who take care of their tenants and it will be really burdensome for them um if we have this blanket ordinance across the city for everybody so i would like to make uh making a formal amendment as adding exemption um in the in the ordinance one there are already exemptions are there if you see it in the in the things like um if you look at it um I'm just trying to find it. It's in the presentation. The slides, if you can take it out. If you have the slides, can you just put it up so everybody can see the exemptions for the alternative one? I think the slides are... I'm trying to find the slide number. Oh, we don't have the slides. Okay. So I think So if you see the slide number is the third or fourth. Not not the not fault just cause eviction and exemptions the slide page three. Yeah. So yeah, so if you see the slides, so all your concerns you had the single family owner occupied residence, single family homes not owned by trust, duplexes in which the owner occupies one of the units and is restricted. So these are the exemptions from the no fault tenants. So I would like to add the Rental units with like eight or maybe 10 or more than 10 rental units of less than 10 rental units they are exempted exempted because they I would consider them as a small business owner. So that's my so my my. um sorry i'm going to i know this is the first time i'm like kind of trying to put my i'm trying to say so i would recommend that the formally uh approving um one second i don't know why it's not working okay there you go uh recommendation to council approving alternative one and alternative three and providing formal amendments in alternative one in the no-fault just cause eviction, the rental apartments owning rental apartment renting less than 10 units. Can we, is that the, am I saying correct?

Do I understand? Vice chair, do I understand your amendment to be?

Yeah.

At the end of alternative one insert, Mayor Mrakas, A mental turn of one to read introduce northern spending blah blah blah requiring require during no fault justice because of actions to three months for properties with with fewer than 10 units is that. Mayor Mrakas, How I would understand it is what we're saying. Mayor Mrakas, staff was my phrasing of that clear.

thank you that to be clear that's not a second that's just clarification so let's see is there uh is there anybody for second for that one i'll second that okay um so so uh i already i already said that what i want to point of order um so we have an active motion um so are you proposing this as an amendment

friend yeah as a friendly Amendment yes a formal Amendment okay so I I don't quite know what the process is once we're doing a formal Amendment could staff help us out so um if there's a motion to amend the the main motion um that motion to amend needs a second and then sorry okay

which he has, which he has.

Okay, okay, Commissioner Segura. And then you vote the commission votes on the motion to amend. And if it passes, then the main motion is amended. And then you vote on the main motion as amended.

Okay. All right.

Thank you. Thank you. So, so, okay, we have a second. So I know I just, I was, this is the first time I'm doing it. Like I just, uh, so I think my wordings may not be correct the way I expressed it, but I, I wanted to take care of, uh, of a residents of it. Um, I hear both sides. I'm just, I'm talking about my motion. So, uh, I do. i do agree with council's motives and as staff's research and all the survey has been done so we do want to be forward thinking and help our our city to be a model but at the same time we need to take care of what we have and we have to have a good faith on the tenants uh the the the uh the renters the our um you know our son sunnyville they are renting properties because they they do good business we had some we also heard comment from one of the public comment that they are They are doing what they need to do they are aware of the laws. They are the one who responded the maximum survey. So hopefully they, I mean, we have to believe that they will take care of them and we should have other system to. to if something like if they are evicted we should have a system to take them in the net rather than punishing all the people so some few are taken care so that's my goal of like um that's why i'm i'm thinking from that perspective and that's why i made this um motion so hopefully people can and my colleagues can understand from which side i'm talking and maybe support it i would really appreciate it

Can I ask a question, a clarifying question about, so if a particular property owner owns, let's say, 10 nine-unit complexes, all those are exempt. Is that what you're saying?

That means they will follow 1482. That means they would have no, they are going to follow still the state law. They are going to be exempted why give not they don't have to pay three months rent when somebody is evicted somebody is you know evicted from the property but they will pay whatever the legal required one month a question for the maker of the

uh the way i phrased it i know was that it would be so the current ordinance is two months for everybody i unders and the way i rephrased it was that it would be was that you were asking for three months for ten or over but status quo for ten or under were you actually trying to

decrease from the status quo for under 10 because i think that would need to be worded differently no i i i'm pardoned i'm i'm excused for that because i what i meant was the uh don't want to decrease it's the status quo okay so sorry about it because if we were proposing to move it to no definitely okay okay

Okay, may just quickly clarify. So basically, the motion is to rather than phrase it as an exemption, it's to increase the tenant relocation payments to three months of rent for apartments containing 10 or more units.

Exactly.

Okay, can we say units instead of apartments? Can we say units instead of apartments? Does it have to be apartments?

Units, yeah. I mean, not apartments. Sorry, the units.

But it basically is apartments because the rental units.

and there are those so that's what I mean rental units a development with 10 or more rental units yes okay not the buildings I mean he is asking about the because you can have apartment buildings with many in the one building having 30 so units or rental units rental units yeah

Because you can have, the point that she's trying to make is that you can have a building that has apartments and apartment is kind of the distinction of what the house is. It's a condo or an apartment versus unit that it can be maybe somebody has nine condos that he rents or 11 condos that he rents, then the exemption will work based on that.

so that's why I think the the wording should be units and not apartments I I completely I understand what that's what she's saying he understood what I meant when I didn't mean that apartment or condo or townhomes I'm talking about the number of rental units it can be apartment or it can be condo or it can be you know the I mean, you can because what I'm just okay. So I don't know the wordings, but what I'm trying to come up with that when you rent less than ten units, they are making money off it. The whole family. There are a lot of older family, Italian family. They have the buildings where they have seven, six units. They are rented. They take care of their tenants. uh and they are they don't have that much money to update the whole apartments and make the rent higher so we have a lot of apartment the tenants apartment or building doesn't matter apartments or condominiums but basically they make the income from their seven or eight rental units okay if i may so this would just apply to the number of units that a particular

entity owns, because there are some complications here. Units may be owned by multiple entities, LLCs, corporations, but that are potentially managed by a single person or individuals. So there are some serious complications in terms of monitoring this. If it is just a particular building with less than 10 apartment units. That is potentially easier to monitor. However, that does introduce different levels of relocation assistance that would be required for different types of properties with the exemptions that you saw on slide three not requiring any relocation assistance. Apartment units with 10 or less units requiring two months and then everything else requiring three months.

Thank you, I know you I select see so many nuances yeah you're right there, so now it's a more complicated than so that's like not easy to to add the wordings. Because it is I. I mean if you can help me out i'm talking about the not the entities, so they are not there still will be included into if they are the REIT. i'm not i mean they're exempt if they are like the charitable foundations or something but they can be corporation too what's the use case we're trying to finish i don't understand because what are we trying to solve with this so i'm just trying that's already in the exemption isn't it

I at this point I'd like to make a point of order that a motion has been made and seconded and that we should be discussing and voting on it and the motion was unclear that would be I would like to I think that is a matter for the commission to and at this point if is staff unclear of what the motion is as I is what I would ask as part of my point of order is staffed unclear about the motion I'm not obviously clear not the effects of the not like whether it's a good or bad idea just is the motion before the properly before the commission uh I think there might still be some confusion um as to whether it applies to an owner's and an owner versus a particular property and that's what we're trying to determine the point of order could staff please read back the motion as it is as it is before the commission can you i i apologize but i would actually like but the amendment has been made and seconded and therefore and i would actually like to have it read back because i okay i would like to actually debate and vote on this and not spend

got it okay so vice chair um there was a motion from commissioner pine to do alternative one and three seconded by davis then vice chair shukla had a formal amendment and it was worded to increase the relocation assistance to three months for properties that have 10 or more units and that was seconded by sagara thank you you're welcome i have

Is this something the Commission can debate and vote on or just Stephanie for the clarification on the motion?

I think the only clarification that Ryan may have concern with is just the complexity of proper ownership.

There's the complexity there. I think the motion itself is clear.

I get that staff may have concerns of the effect of the motion, but I believe this is properly something that we can debate.

Okay. The motion is understood then.

Thank you. I call for the regular order.

Thank you. Uh, you know, you know, I'm just going to add that. So I really want to make this as a part of the motion because the it will go to council. This our words are not final right now, but that way they can hear the concern I have and I'm sure there will be public there to talk about it and they will make the decisions. But I I really appreciate if you if it can make sense and we can just put it into the minutes and add into it. OK. Okay. Okay. Thank you. So now can we have the vote for that?

I would like to debate the motion. I would also note that Commissioner Segura, if he wishes to speak to the amendment, would have the next right to speak.

So Commissioner Davis, yeah, and then Payne, yeah.

I think Commissioner Segura has the right to speak to his second.

Yes. I'll second it.

Okay, so no commentary on it.

No, I understand. You know, I have a concern. The idea is to protect small businesses that own not a lot of units because for them it will be harder to come up with the cash if needed. So I do get it and I do think it makes sense. So that's what I'm supportive of.

motion okay so now it's me okay I do not support the motion to amend the motion um for practical purposes I think I think it will confuse the hell out of city council when they look at this, first of all. It's confused the hell out of us. And that's not what we're here for. Next, I just categorically don't support exempting. I think the exemptions in AB 1482 are already strong enough If you have a 10-unit property, you're pulling in, even if you're charging below market rates, you're pulling in 25 grand a month. So the arguments that you can't fund, this is going to be a burden. You've likely owned the property for a very long time. You're sitting on millions of dollars worth of equity. I'm sorry, this is welfare for the rich. And I... yeah i i just don't support it um and it's confusing so i'll be voting no against the measure to the motion to amend thank you uh commissioner payne please

thank you yeah i'll not be supporting the amendment i agree that i think this adds significant complexity to what is as was stated earlier the proposed ordinance amendment is a change of literally three red lines this would add a significant degree of complexity to create as as steph was pointing out this would add a significant degree of complexity to both the actual actual implementation of the ordinance and frankly to the text of the ordinance i I think as a rent, it would be very confusing to renters to find that they had significantly different tenant protections based on where they lived in a nine-unit apartment complex or an 11-unit apartment complex. While I'm sympathetic to what Commissioner Schuchul is attempting to do here, Vice Chair Schuchul is attempting to do here, I think it would make things much more complicated And what is, and I, as already stated, this is 10% of total evictions that we're looking at. This is, this would be an edge case of an edge case. I think the, I do not think the juice, I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze at all. And I don't like, I don't even think, I just, I don't think we get really anything out of adopting this. Please vote no. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Cerny, please.

um so i uh yeah i'll be opposing this for the reasons uh already stated that uh uh it does add complexity i think in those small units as well the landlord does have the opportunity as people naturally move out there's a opportunity to upgrade or remodel without evicting people. But I think it does add complexity. And well, just based on what the other commissioners have said, I won't repeat that.

thank you I know I'm not going to speak again about my motion uh but that's what that's what we do complex things because we have different types of people different types of housing different types of things and we need to have a complexity can't just make it blanket simple but anyway it doesn't passes uh looks like so but um we will have again the same problem so okay so maybe we can we have a vote please yeah

The motion fails with four nos and Commissioner Shukla and Segura voting yes. Commissioner Chair Glases is absent.

Thank you.

Before the Commission continues, may I make just one clarification about the process? And that is, so if, so now we're moving to the main motion, and if the main motion, the Commission is tied three to three, then the options are actually to continue discussing the item to see if you can reach a majority. and vote again, or if the commission at some point believes that they are deadlocked and cannot reach a majority vote and the vote remains 3-3, then it automatically will be sent to council with a recommendation for denial. So that is the default under the Sunnyvale Municipal Code.

Thank you. So here I'm going to ask the main motion maker if they want to convert any one of us to change it. Please go ahead.

I actually put my hand up. I don't know that, and I think we've laid out all the arguments here. Christopher McConkey- I was this was a question to staff, I would it be in order to make a motion at the appropriate time that's just recommend alternative three, which is to continue outreach on the other items and just omit. Christopher McConkey- alter and just omit one and two just just a straight out move alternative three. Because I feel I and I'm saying this because, based on the tenor of the discussion, unless somebody's flipped their vote. I don't know that we are actually going to be able to reach consensus on on anything regarding alternatives one or two, but I think we might be able to get alternative three across the finish line.

Well, that sounds like a reasonable suggestion. However, I have to go to our code, which says that following a public hearing, the Commission shall make a recommendation on the zoning amendment. A recommendation for approval shall be by the affirmative vote of a majority. Um, in the event the vote is tied or lacks the majority required to recommend approval or denial and can't be resolved by subsequent motions, the vote shall be deemed a recommendation for denial. So that is particular to the city of Sunnyvale.

Can I ask, would it be in order to move a division of the court to request a division of the question on the pending motion? John Potter, On the ground set alternatives one and three are divisible are are divisible are divisible proposals are divisible motions.

Karen Grove- Yes, they may be divided.

John Potter, Okay, I requested division of the question I at this point, I would request to divide the question on alter on the pending motion before us. I'm a little, my mind is blinking between Robert and Sturgis here, so I'm not sure if we can just do that or whether we have to vote on it. I think we can just do it. If the chair exceeds.

Okay, so.

So I just, so I'm being, so what I'm asking for is a separate vote on alternatives one and alternatives three. i i think that will be if we can do that that i know that then will be have some solution for that one yes um and can the commissioner state the motion of part one uh yes part one is alternative one and part two is alternative three i can read alternatives one and three if that's necessary

So the chair can divide the question by general consent of the members.

So general consent, meaning I should ask the other commissioners?

Well, and it can be by just, you know.

They should say so. Okay, fine. Thanks. We can do that. Go ahead.

Okay, and so, then the first part that the Commission will be voting on is a motion to to prove alternative one is that correct. So we will be doing two motions separately, yes, the Commission will be voting first on the motion as alternative one okay so.

all right i'm going to go ahead and i'm going to conduct it verbally once again um my system's down apologies so this is the vote on alternative one yes alternative one commissioner for those take the votes commissioner fagoni oh you're detecting i'm conducting it thank you yeah it's okay commissioner fagoni i'm staying Okay. Vice Chair Shukla? No. Commissioner Pine?

Yes.

Commissioner Cerrone?

Yes.

Commissioner Segura? No. Commissioner Davis?

Yes.

Okay. We have three yeses, two nos, and Commissioner Fagoni abstaining.

Can we have a vote on alternative three now?

Oh yeah, does that pass or fail?

It doesn't.

It's yeah, it's unfortunately it's not very clear. I mean no. because it says a recommendation for approval shall be by the affirmative vote of a majority of its members and it's usually helpful when it says members i would think yeah i would think members would be four if it was present in voting and it would be right yes i agree it was just kind of unusual i think

for planning commission but that is so yeah are you going to make the alternative three motion please uh take the conduct the vote please on uh alternative three the motion as to alternative three commissioner pine yes

Commissioner Segura? Yes. Commissioner Cerrone?

Yes.

Vice Chair Shukla? Yes. Commissioner Davis?

Yes.

Commissioner Fagoni?

Yes.

The motion passes with six yeses and Chair Iglesias absent.

Thank you for putting up with my procedural weirdness.

Thank you, thank you, our previous commissioner, our chair, Commissioner Payne kind of helped us, and you know, our staff, thank you so much. Okay, so now.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, sorry, may I? So I do think that now we need a vote to not recommend alternative one. Although, let me just double check.

I mean, I would ask what happens when that vote fails, because it probably would. I

I do think that if it is going to well, actually, it was three to two. Was it three to two on that one?

It was three to two. It was three s to no one abstention.

Okay. I think it's a deemed denial.

I'm not contesting that. I would suggest to my colleagues that I do not believe there is a motion on alternatives one or two that is likely to pass. If we are required to take additional votes, we can take them, but I don't think we're getting to four votes.

okay thank you thank you so i would also with the vice chairs i i i think this um i i i hope council gets uh what what uh the other half of the commissioner's intentions or what their things are but anyway okay so we are going to So, moving on to our next item. Okay, before we move on to our next item, five minutes recess and we meet at 9.20. Thank you. to the next item. Item number 26-0354. It's consider approval of draft 2026 housing plan and urban development HUD action plan. And

is there a staff report I'm not sure if this is Andy Minor I'm on the uh can you hear me okay yes we can hear you right I wasn't sure if I heard the correct item being called was it

Can you just wait till I read the whole subject? Absolutely. Thank you so much. Let me just read the whole subject. The Introduce and Ordinance of the City of Sunnyvale Mending Chapter 19.96, Heritage Preservation of Title 19 of the Sunnyvale Municipal Code temporary temporarily excluding the murphy station heritage landmark district located at the 100 block of south murphy avenue and surrounding parcels that make up the heritage landmark district a historic resource on the local historic register from applicably applic applicability of sp79 provisions and amending the zoning map to add a note including this exclusion thank you so much for the

Thank you. Yeah, that I can talk to. I don't, on the other one, not so much. So my name is Andy Minor. I'm assistant director temporarily for planning. I used to be the assistant director in the past, retired, came back for a short time here, helping out. And if you could put up the maps, that would be great, especially since I didn't blur my screen and you guys can see my background.

Andy, I'm wondering if you could share the PDFs on your end. We're running into an issue.

don't think i can well i'll just i'll just speak to this it's going to be fairly quick um so sb 79 is a bill that was passed last year signed by the governor in uh october um it's been a pretty uh a pretty well attended well looked upon bill lots of people have had lots of conversations about it and um tonight i'm only going to cover a small part of sb 79 as it relates to sunnyvale We're going to be coming back at a later date to talk about it in a much larger scale and how how that can affect uh sundayville, but tonight the only thing we're really taking action on thank you very much is um how uh sp79 affects the downtown murphy street heritage district because There's an interest, let me just really quickly show you, this is how, these are all the stations that the city of Sunnyvale would be, are affected by for SB 79. We have 15 stations. They're all class one stations in the city of Sunnyvale. They're all at the light rail along North Sunnyvale into Moffett Park and along the woods and in the mobile home parks, and then along Kyle Train Lawrence Station in downtown. We have more to tell you about the other areas, but we are under a time crunch to get an ordinance in place. If you can go to the next map, Kia, if it's possible. Thank you. Thank you, Peter. Okay. So this is the Murphy station. They call it actually called the Murphy station heritage landmark district. And it really is the 100 block of Murphy Avenue, South Murphy Avenue and some of the properties that extended down along Washington. These are the properties that are in the landmark district and according to SB 79. If you have an area that is recognized a local landmark, you can have those exempt from SB 79 provided you do an ordinance that puts them the zoning code that codifies that. So the only action we're taking today is we're not adding any properties to the heritage landmark district we're not taking any out all we're doing is codifying that this heritage landmark district uh in the zoning code does exist so it's a pretty straightforward action again We can talk a lot more about the rest of SB 79. But tonight, the only thing we're really focused on is this one aspect. So I'm going to keep it really short and say that you have an attached ordinance. It does exactly what I just mentioned. And we hope you take action on that and move it forward. And I'm available for any questions.

Thank you. I will ask for my colleagues for questions. Commissioner Cerrone, please.

Thanks, Vice Chair. And thanks for the presentation, Mr. Minor.

Nice to see you in this spot.

So my first question, this is temporary, right? John Potter, And if I read it correctly it it it lasts until the one year after the next housing element adoption, so what we need to do this again after the next housing element or they imply that if we need to come up with some sort of. John Potter, To D. uh but between now and then or um i guess i'm saying can we uh worst case can we just do another exemption after the next housing element or is the clock ticking there

so i'm going to answer one part and then i'm going to hand you off to sandy for the other part just to make sure we're clear it's not temporary we're obviously we'll be doing a long-term commitment to maintaining uh the murphy district as a heritage district as far as how it works next cat sandy can you explain i you know that better than i do about the next step after this

Yes, so SP 79 because it's going to become effective so soon carved out these few areas where cities can very quickly exempt certain sites that includes these historic landmark sites so long as they were on the register prior to 2025. I think what the legislature had in mind was that as part of the next housing elements or before that cities would adopt an alternative to the plan and in that plan. cities can continue to exempt these historic landmarks so long as it doesn't encompass more than 10% of that TOD area. So it's anticipated that jurisdictions who are gonna adopt this temporary exemption would continue to include that in their alternative TOD plan, which would be a whole separate effort.

All right, thank you. Thank you. Maybe you're giving legislature a little more credit than they deserve, assuming they had something in mind at all for this fabulous bill. We're in familiar territory here trying to mitigate the damage of a bill that doesn't seem like anybody was reading at the time so if we don't act downtown as potentially impacted and there's a separate effort going on to exempt the mobile homes along the light rail are there any other parts of sunnyvale that are potentially impacted for example uh moffett park specific plans

So right now, my understanding is there are two other bills besides the mobile home bill, kind of cleanup bills to what is maybe your favorite bill to try to even clarify some of these things that are a little hard to understand. A lot of cities are struggling with this. I don't exactly know what all of those are, and it doesn't matter because they're just being introduced. I'm not sure if they've even been introduced, maybe they were just recently. But that's why we're going to come back. We'll probably want to present an alternative plan possibly. Moffett Park is included in that. I don't think there would be an issue. The one thing that we'd probably want to do is look to see if we can protect the commercial aspect to some of the mixed use areas so you don't just get all residential when the whole intent of Moffett Park was to have that mix of use. So that's something that we're going to look at. yeah that's a conversation uh later just just so we don't uh complicate this one relatively straightforward uh process and uh has this ordinance been submitted to HCD and approved no not yet after it's after it's passed and uh is that right Sandy

So there's two submittal requirements. One is 14 days before the ordinance is adopted. And so that's before the council action. And, and then I think within 60 to 90 days after adoption, it needs to be provided to HCD as well. So we don't need to get a CDs pre approval. Some cities I think may have are trying to do that, but since HCD has a substantial period to act, um, we probably are not going to be able to get any preapproval.

Okay. I guess I misunderstood the wording in SB 79. Okay. All right. Thanks.

Um, okay. Nobody has questions. I have a question. Oh, Commissioner Segura, please.

I have a quick question just to understand. The people who owns the restaurant on the street are private owned or eventually it's going to be owned by the city?

No, this doesn't change ownership. All it's doing is codifying what already exists, which is that they're in the heritage district.

Okay, thanks. I have a question. So when you, are you making it, so there is a parking lot behind. I'm trying to read the number. Does it own, is it a separate property owner?

It's owned by the city.

It's owned by the city?

Correct.

can we um so i just was wondering that to make this successful like this we want to preserve this part so to make that successful is it possible to like add that lot into uh into uh because into the murphy street uh historic district part because then the the that way it can become successful in a way that like in the future all the housing development happens that that street to make that successful people need to still come and park or their service road so i was just wondering that if that otherwise there can be a housing project though it's owned by city so it there is not it's not possible correct i mean just curious about it

right so first of all there's obviously no heritage value to the parking lots so they aren't included in the heritage district um just the buildings on on along murphy and then kind of going around the corner to washington so we want we can't take action today to add anything to the district we're only only taking advantage of this to include the ones that are already designated as a heritage in the heritage district

okay that makes sense okay thank you welcome if i share if you could I'll go ahead and open the public hearing on this specific item. Please submit speaker card to the recording officer. Raise your digital hand now or dial star nine on a telephone to indicate you wish to speak. I will call on members of the public participating in person first, followed by remote participants. Speaker will have three minutes to speak. And we have, the first one is Triana Krenot.

Close enough.

Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners. I'm Trana Kryan. I'm a planner with the VTA in the Land Use and Development Review Department. It's my first time at this beautiful city hall, and what an honor to see it both in the day and the nighttime. It's really beautiful in both. So just to make my formal comment, so VTA has been following SB 9 very closely and is very interested in continuing dialogue with our jurisdiction on its implementation. VTA staff has been very involved with countywide meetings, as well as some regional meetings with MTC in regards to mapping and things like that on the technical side of its implementation for the past several months, ever since we heard about it incoming. So we believe that SB 79 can play an important role in creating more vibrant, complete communities around the rail stations in Sunnyvale. generating transit ridership and reducing vehicle amounts traveled and reducing greenhouse gas emissions a lot of the concerns that we've even heard tonight we've heard around other jurisdictions as well affected by sp79 and we recognize that the implementation is complex as we noted here there's a lot of nuance and things not defined sp79 as well as cleanup bills incoming And with that, we're all just collectively still awaiting for additional guidance on various things such as definitions, mapping, et cetera. And VTA staff stands ready to serve as a resource for our jurisdictions, including Sunnyvale, to assist with SB 79 implementation. So again, we're doing a lot of work with NTC on the mapping, which we've looped in city staff on. And we are just open to continuing to be a resource to our jurisdictions. And we're also following it very closely. Thank you. Thank you.

We have next one is Gabriel.

Hello, some of you folks really need to read up on your Robert's roles. There's some kind of procedural incompetence for the first in item, but moving on to this. Hi, I'm Gabriel. I live in downtown Sunnyvale. I live there precisely because it's a dense walkable mixed use development right next to Caltrain. I'm concerned about the proposal to exempt parts of downtown from SB 79's up zoning requirements. Sunnyvale has a severe housing shortage, in part because you folks in the city government in general have made it illegal to build cost-efficient dense housing in the vast majority of the city. SB 79 is a vitally important bill that corrects some of those faults by legalizing housing development around transit stops. I understand the desire to maintain the character of Murphy Avenue. I personally love the walkable, car-free block of great restaurants. However, if I'm reading the discussion that's attached to the online agenda correctly, and I hope I'm not misinterpreting it, staff proposed to exempt Murphy Avenue or at least the 100 block of Murphy Avenue from upzoning while punting the question of where to make up the missing housing units to future consideration. I think that that's a mistake. It jeopardizes potentially hundreds of otherwise permitted units. There's plenty of space in the downtown district, including multiple massive perpetually empty parking lots and garages where we could be building more apartments. We should be removing useless parking lots like the ones that are always empty near Murphy Avenue, not pretending that they have any heritage value. If those parcels are already zoned for dense development and are merely awaiting developer interest, then we should consider that there's plenty of artificially sparse space on the north side of the Caltrain tracks. And that area would be a great candidate for upzoning. I urge that any action to exempt parcels from upzoning on Murphy Avenue be immediately contemporaneously paired with corresponding action to permit equivalent or greater additional density on other parcels in the area. If that can't happen now, then we should let the upzoning take place automatically for the 100 block of Murphy Avenue and not do any action today. Otherwise, we'll be harmfully postponing urgently needed housing relief and rent competition for thousands of Sunnyvale residents like myself. Thank you.

Thank you. So this is just applicant staff report, so we don't have five extra minutes, correct?

unless you have questions for Andy, but you're good to go.

I'll go ahead and.

That's what I'm doing. I'm sorry. Madam Chair, is there anything any public online?

Okay. Yeah. So I'm going to go with that one. Thank you. Sorry. I'll go ahead and open the public hearing on this. Sorry about it. Does anyone else want to speak on this item before we hear from remote speakers? Remote speakers are allowed to limit their comments to the agenda item being considered. Speakers who are ruled out of order will not be given another chance to speak on this item. Um, so recording officer, do we have any remote participant wishing to speak on this item?

We do not vice chair.

Okay. So I will close the public hearing and now I will have go ahead and, um, ask for the motion from my colleague commissioner Payne.

Martin Joh Hershock, Yeah, thank you. I'm ready with emotion to Commissioner Davis have a question or Martin Joh Hershock, Okay, cool. Thank you. I move alternative one introduced in order to the city of Sunnyvale and attachment five amending chapter 19.96 of Title 19 of the municipal coded temporarily exclude the Murphy Station Heritage Landmark District located at the 100 block of South Murphy and surrounding parcels that make up Heritage Landmark District Historic Resource and Local Historic Registered Publicly of Senate Bill 79 provisions and amending the zoning map to indicate this exclusion.

Thank you. Now we have a second or we have comments or questions? Okay, so Commissioner Davies, yeah.

I second the motion.

Thank you for your...

Thank you. Okay, a couple comments. First of all, my inner pedant has to note that in Sunnyvale we use the standard code of parliamentary procedure and not Robert's Rules of Order. So... Honestly, some of my confusion ends up with the fact that they actually use Robert's Rules of Order more in day-to-day life. But yeah, a couple... Yeah. I'm, first of all, to Assistant Director Minor, it is great to see you here.

Thank you.

But just to other comments, I actually broadly agree with the sentiments expressed. I remember the public that we should be looking to do compensatory upzoning elsewhere in the city, honestly, and in particular, that area of Sunnyvale north of this tracks that's all low density residential, some public use that frankly, it is embarrassing that that area of Sunnyvale north of the tracks is so low density when frankly should honestly have as frankly it should have as high density as south of the tracks but that is that would honestly I honestly first of all that will take a long time even if we up zoned it tonight it would take a long time to develop out just because you need all the individual homeowners to sell and it all to redevelop and it would it would not be fast uh the other I think that but more broadly i think this is something we all we're going to have a very comprehensive discussion on when we get to the full sb 79 proposal that staff is going to bring back and i think it's worth discussing in a more holistic fashion when we get there i don't think we do any good trying to i i think trying to just in spot zone tonight would be would be counterproductive. Especially given that there are a lot of considerations that I don't think anyone wants to hear me go through tonight. area that we're protecting is very limited. I don't anticipate any trouble with HCD given that it's way, way less than 10% of that area. It's like our one historic block in the city. I'm all for up zoning. I'm all for I'm all for increasing our housing supply. I think I think we can live with one block of one kind of historic block that honestly is still higher density than significant parts of the city. So please vote yes. And I very much look forward to our fuller SB 79. I very much hope that both the members of the public in attendance tonight show up for that. I think it'll be a good discussion. And I would also note to our VTA representative, i'm a little sad that there aren't any bus that there aren't any bus sites that are eligible for that are eligible for sb79 because we don't have the bus frequency in sunnyvale to support an sb to support sb79 i think i was going to say memory serves i think it also required designated bus lane wait or bus rapid transit, which it would also be nice to have somewhere in Sunnyvale. So I would highly encourage VTA to look at increasing the frequency, particularly on the 55 and 56 to at least 15 minutes. So the intersection of those routes is right by my apartment, and I would not cry if my apartment was suddenly in the SB 79 zone.

Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Davies, please.

Yes, I agree with Commissioner Pine wholeheartedly. I would love to pair this with some spot upzoning. The complexities of that, I don't think staff would have been able to bring this before us this quickly. So it's just impractical. I supported a stronger version of SB 79 than what the final version was. I was actually calculating how much I could build on my own property. yeah i look forward to the sb 79 future sb 79 discussion as well i think it's a great opportunity for us to extend more opportunity within sunnyvale we're really constrained by our current housing situation those of us who managed to get here earlier are living somewhat luxuriously off of that. But yeah, I'm getting off point. I support the motion. It's simple. It's tightly constrained. And I think it will be hard to challenge. And Murphy Street carries huge emotional pull within Sunnyvale. effectively rezoning it for housing would require a large public debate. I'm open to having that, but not this quickly. Thank you. Please vote yes for the motion.

Thank you. Commissioner Cerny, please.

Thanks. So for me, this bill essentially creates a kind of a builder's remedy around transit. even for cities with an approved housing element. As usual, the intent is to remove control over land use from the residents and local officials. Now, I want to be clear, this county, this country, this region has a long history of some local laws, zoning, and other land use regulations being used to block housing and being motivated by racism and other things and it's well documented the color of law and in many many uh books articles and so on but that doesn't mean that everything the community wants or that every action our elected officials have ever taken or will ever take is malevolent and should be stopped so it also does not mean that developers are always acting in the public interest and that giving them free reign to do whatever they want will give good results So we've had hundreds of housing bills and very little housing as a result. We did complete a housing element that makes it possible to meet our arena housing numbers if the economy will permit that. I don't think because of this bill, we need to find alternative places for housing to replace what could have been accomplished by tearing down murphy murphy street but not that there aren't plenty of other reasons to we need as much housing as we can get and there's plenty of reasons to up zone different places which we continue to do but i don't think we need to tear down every you know every inch of the city in order to do that some level of urban planning is not necessarily a bad idea. And so, I mean, I think SB 979 is just a bad bill. Any bill that immediately after passing triggers a flurry of fixed bills to mitigate the unintended consequences is a bad bill. Some of these things should have been thought of. Anybody who's taking the train from San Jose to San Francisco can just look out the window and see that most of the train stations are located in historic downtowns. And again, I don't think we need to tear down those historic blocks. It's not that much real estate. And they do serve a purpose. So I'll be supporting the motion. I'm glad we're able to do this and do it in a timely manner. And I'll leave it at that. Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Segura, please.

Thank you, Mr. Minor, for the short and to the point presentation. And I will try to be just like you. I do support 100%. this motion. I do think we should even try to invest and do more to preserve this uh block and to make it even more with more livelihood um and to maintain the beauty and the charm that this street has and uh part of the the city we gonna see new buildings coming up but we especially when this street is so much alive um it will be beautiful to preserve it and and maintain it so i will be 100 supportive of that thank you thank you uh commissioner figoni please

Yes, I'll be supporting the measure too. Um, I agree with. Fellow commissioners is very important to protect the, uh. History of Sunnyvale and I think there's a lot of it in that Murphy district. So, um, no, thank you.

And, um, and I'll be supporting this motion as, uh, we have crisis of housing. I understand it. We need to take care of it. But if you remove the heart. the whole body doesn't function. So sometimes I feel that every city has a special city which makes the city thrive. And I feel that Murphy City is the one which is for Sunnyvale. So I would definitely be supporting and we can preserve and it's a very small area. So I would, um, and I think we should be proactive and make sure that even though, uh, so the support system of that for that street also is still preserved. So anyway, like parking lot behind, but that's good. So thank you. So, I mean, I really will be supporting. Thank you. So can we just a second, can we conduct, recording officer can please conduct a vote.

The motion passes with six yeses and Chair Iglesias absent.

Thank you. So any standing item? Motion passes. So standing item or consideration of potential study issues from anybody?

That should this might be a Commissioner comment, but I would actually suggest note that that should be dropped from the chair script given that study issues have been held.

Okay. Oh, okay. Thank you. It's I asked the knowledge and items or comments. No. Okay. Commissioner, okay.

Madam Vice Chair? Yes, I had a Commissioner comment.

Any Commissioner comments?

Thank you, Vice Chair. Just for the record, since I don't think we heard it, what are the items we discussed tonight going to Council?

Commissioner Davis.

I'll speak up on the last item. It's going to go to them on May 5th. Thank you.

You're welcome. And the previous agenda item? When will that go to council?

That's a good question. Give me a couple minutes. I can find out for you. May 5th also?

I think housing staff said it's going to another commission tomorrow and then to city council on May 5th. Yes.

Okay.

Thank you. And my commissioner question, I guess, is I know city council picked up one of our approvals. It was in the minutes. Do we know how that was, what the final outcome of that was?

Ruben Duran- Is that the guy in project, yes yeah they heard that they heard the project and they denied the appeal request, so the project was approved okay. Thank you.

Thank you yeah so the meeting is adjourned at 955.