Planning Commission - Special Meeting

Test. Vice chair, we're all set for 6PM.

Good evening. Let's call to order the special planning commission meeting study session of 04/27 '20 '26 at 6PM. The city doesn't tolerate disruptive behavior in our meetings. This planning commission meeting is considered a limited public forum, which means the commission can regulate the time, place, and manner of speech. Speaker comments must be limited to the agenda item being considered by the commission.

If a speaker's comments are not related 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 disagreement with the content of the speech. Location and online meeting details are available on the planning commission agenda. Use the show captions button to view captions on Zoom. Following this study session, the regular planning commission meeting will begin approximately at seven or different timing. We will encourage the people to stay tuned and participate in the regular meeting. Recording officer, may we please have the roll call?

Commissioner Davis.

Present.

Chair Iglesias?

Present.

Commissioner Segura? Present. Commissioner Ceroni?

Present.

Vice chair Shukla?

Present.

Commissioner Pine?

Present.

We have six commissioners present and commissioner Fagoni absent.

Thank you. Moving on to our first item. File number 26Dash0488. Proposed project related applications on a 4.22 acre site, special development permit to construct a mixed use project consisting of 67 residential unit, 55 townhomes, and 12 flats, and eighteen thousand five thirty five square feet of retail, maintain twin 2,900 2,900 square feet Speedy Stacos building and construct new fifteen thousand six thirty five square feet two story retail building for a total of 10% commercial, FAR. Tentative map to subdivide one parcel into 17 lots and two common lots.

Location is 911 Duane Avenue. APN number is 205Dash12001205Dash12002205Dash12003, and 205Dash12004. Is there a staff report?

Yes. There is. Hi. Good evening, planning commission. My name is Noren Kaliva Lepe.

As you probably know, I'm a principal planner, and I'm presenting on behalf of Margaret Neto, who is out sick today. To my left is director Trudy Ryan and our new assistant director, Matt Van Hoa. This slide provides a project overview. The project, as was described by Commissioner Shukla, consists of a mixed use project with 67 residential units and just over 18,500 square feet of commercial. And that includes the existing Speedy's Taco building right at the corner that will be maintained as well as a new two store retail building along Duane Avenue.

The project also includes a tentative map. This slide includes the neighborhood context. As you know, the property is on the corner of East Duane Avenue and San Rafael. It's on the Northwest corner. It is 4.22 acres in size.

And the surrounding uses include residential and a neighborhood park to the south, which is Weiser Park. Just some background information. The project site is designated as a village mixed use site in the general plan, as well as being rezoned to village mixed use. So that's a typo on the slides. A maximum of 18 dwelling units is permitted on the site, while the applicant is proposing approximately 15.9 dwellings per acre.

The proposed project also includes demolition of the existing 58,000 square feet of commercial square footage, which currently includes retail, restaurants, and grocery stores. As previously noted, the standalone Speedy's Taco building at the corner will be maintained and included as part of the project. The following is a site plan that's proposed. The proposal includes four driveway accesses through the site, two along East Wayne and two along San Rafael. A total of two sixteen parking spaces will be distributed throughout the site.

Each residential unit will include a two car garage. Surface parking spaces for guests will be distributed as well throughout the site. Vehicle parking for the existing and proposed commercial uses will be near the corner, And it's going to be a newly reconfigured parking lot. The following three slides that I will show are the applicant's architectural drawings. The applicant is here tonight and will go over the architecture in more detail.

This view is from oops, let me go back. This view is from East Wayne. This is the two story commercial building, kind of in the middle of your screen. The building that you see to the left is a portion of the townhome building. These are elevations of the townhomes.

There are two architectural styles that are shown. Here's one, and here's the second. The applicant is utilizing the retail preservation incentive program adopted by the city council in 2025, which exempts the project from below market rate housing requirements in exchange for a 10% floor area of retail space. Under the retail preservation incentive program, the developer would be entitled to one concession and unlimited waivers. Recently, was discovered that staff missed a deadline to send the developer the required notice of items that are inconsistent with the city's objective development standards.

As a result, pursuant to SB or State Bill three thirty, the project is deemed to be consistent with the city's development standards. Staff believes that all of the inconsistencies previously defined as waivers and concessions would have been waived under the density bonus law or equivalent provisions of the city's retail preservation ordinance. In tonight's presentation, we have labeled these deviations to the development standards. The next seven slides includes a list of deviations from the zoning requirements and objective standards. These deviations are primarily related to undergrounding of utilities, setbacks, open space, landscaping, building height, daylight plane, solar shading, parking, and private amenities.

The project planner is online and can help answers about specific deviations. The developer hosted a community outreach meeting on April 9, where about 80 residents participated. The following is a summary of the comments that were received, which were primarily focused on the demolition of the existing commercial businesses, lack of grocery store in the neighborhood, and project impacts such as privacy and traffic. Staff is requesting feedback tonight on the project design and site planning, design details and deviations. After tonight's study session, staff will review comments that we've received with the applicant.

A public hearing date has not yet been set for the project. Once a hearing date has been identified, staff will prepare notices for the hearing. This concludes my presentation. The applicant is here tonight as well. And I'm available for questions.

Thank you. We have questions from my commissioners to the staff. We have first to commissioner Payne, please.

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. I very much need staff to clarify what they're talking about with this deadline because I had a number of questions regarding regarding the requested concessions and waivers. And I frankly, at this point, I'd like to know whether it's even a productive use of my time to ask these questions. Because if you're just saying these are not we now have to rubber stamp due to something that the commission had no control over, then honestly, don't even know why we're here.

Commissioner Pine, I'll answer that question. The The nature of state law is that there are a number of different steps that are associated with the development application. One of those steps is after an application is determined to be complete, we have a timeframe in which to advise the applicant of inconsistencies with our regulations. The applicant can choose to waive all of those regardless of us identifying them. So, we missed this deadline, the result is likely pretty similar in that they could have all been waived anyway.

The purpose tonight is for the Planning Commission to say, you know, essentially, while we understand that you can get this waiver, or deviation is what I think is a more appropriate title for tonight, we just want to understand it and explore whether or not you would be willing to make some modifications. It's very similar to other applications that you reviewed where we point out the waivers and concessions. And then the applicant can choose to address them or not.

Well, my issue is that I what if the commission is the commission is there are required is that there are required reasons for concessions and waivers under state law. What if the commission determines that what if what if like, I'm looking at this document, and that says page 12 attachment one, and it says objective design standards 3.7 pitched roof eave projection two required. Or applicant is requesting deviation pitched roof eave projection one foot required. The just of state justification is that the one foot eave is more in keeping with the architectural style for this project. Now the requirement for a concession for a waiver under state law preclude the doc is that it would physically preclude the document the the the project to be built at the required density and at the at the at the provided density and would require a reduction in units.

It doesn't fit the architectural style is not a reduction in units. So I'm unclear why the commission should stamp this should feel be compelled to grant that waiver if if it's not for the purpose as defined in state law slash the municipal code.

That that's certainly the commission's prerogative if you choose not to provide comments. I I think it's helpful to the applicant to hear concerns that the commission may have about have they explored alternatives? Is it really something that's physically precluded? So I do invite you to have that conversation.

I'm just I was just taken aback when I heard that because I I'm not saying that I'm not saying we should be like, I'm not saying we should be freelancing. I'm not saying we should be ignoring state law. But like, I the there are requirements for the waivers are not just a comp as much as it feels like it sometimes, the waivers are not a complete blank check. Like, I'm and, like, if there's some if something happened at staff level that requires us to grant a blank check, then I really question what we're doing here. So I would just like to know that, no, the check is not blank. No. There actually needs to be a justification.

Well, and I would like to add as well. You're right that staff's discretion and your discretion would have been limited with the waivers and concessions anyway. It's limited now as well. So what is helpful to us is if we receive specific comments from the Planning Commission to see if there's any wiggle room to improve the project. That's the environment that existed even before a lot of these projects started using the state density bonus But

I I had a number of questions prepared to applicant about their stated justifications for these waivers, which in in my which I will just give a heads up to the applicant. In most in many cases, I found them to be to be inadequate as provided. And in some cases, I found them to be actively and I and some cases, found what what I would view as as potentially as potentially erroneous. So I would just I would just like to flag that because, hopefully, these will be revised when it comes back to the public hearing, but I am very much not inclined. But, like, I'm very much not inclined to be granting something when it's based on clearly, when it's not based on the actual rules.

Like, if you're gonna say it precludes like, if it precludes units, yeah, that's obviously, that's required under s p three thirty. But I would I have a big problem if it's not precluding units or it's not articulated cost concept in terms of for the concession, and we're just kind of doing it for some reason.

If I I don't want to belabor it. But I do want to add that we have learned that the objective standards for multifamily are not well suited for a townhouse style product. And some of the standards, some of the deviations, if you will, are related to those standards. So, know, kind of we learned the hard way that it's a little more awkward for this product type. We do have before all these state laws, we do have the program called deviations with special development permits where you in that era, you had discretion.

But staff feels a lot of these would have either qualified as deviations or waivers anyway because they made sense from a design standpoint. Again, we do invite planning commission comment.

Right. Like, are some waivers here that, like, we see, I think, every time we get townhome developments. But there are also a number of waivers that we're here that, frankly, we do not see every time we get ones. And those are the ones that I was going to focus on. Again, those are, I think, properly more for the applicant. But the other question I had to staff is this is also attachment one, but there was a on pages three and four that said they were requesting an amendment to the c one zoning regulations. Is that something we should expect to come to us?

The site was rezoned previously, so I I believe that's an old note.

The the C 1 zoning district was is essentially what applies because that's what the zoning was when they made their application. So they've they kept that in place. The c one zoning wasn't intended for residential, but because the general plan included the residential, the state law said you can you developer around the state can apply with either the zoning or the general plan designation. So they even though the zoning has changed, it's it's really falls into that grandfather clause.

Right. I was just making sure we weren't going to have like an ordinance on top of this.

No applications for changes to zoning district.

Okay. Because just if we were getting one, I would also have thoughts on that. So thank you. Next

one is commissioner Davis, please.

Yeah. It's the same topic. Missing a deadline is a very is very disappointing. I'd like some more detail on the like, what was the deadline? When did we get it? When do we get back to the applicant? So we can have all that in the record. I echo all of commissioner Pine's concerns. We're fully aware of of what our discretion is as planning as the planning commission, and how our objective design standards have been interacting with townhomes. But, yes. I guess I'm asking for receipts.

Yes. We did send a letter. It missed the thirty day deadline. But we did send a letter that listed all of the items that staff had identified as waivers associated with the project. There are some items that we need to see whether or not those actually are waivers or if there's those really conditions of approval for the project. So working with our colleagues in other departments. But but we did we did send them the letter that has the entire list.

Okay. And, maybe this is a question for the city attorney. Is is there any ambiguity in the phrasing of the state law where it could you know, a difference between a business day and a calendar day, or or is it straightforward and unambiguous?

Well, staff can provide kind of a timeline. But I think given the timeline, there's no ambiguity that the deadline was missed. And so in short, under the Permit Streamlining Act, the city has thirty days to provide a determination with respect to the completeness of the application, and that can go for several cycles. But once the city has made a determination that the application is complete, then the city has thirty days for projects of a certain size to make a determination of consistency of the proposed project with the city's standards, rules, policies, etcetera. And that latter deadline is what was missed.

K. And so the consequences then are that barring something especially egregious that perhaps threatens health or safety, we will end up having to accept things as proposed largely?

You're on the right track, commissioner. So if the city misses the deadline, then the project is deemed consistent. With the applicable rules, there is a carve out under the Housing Accountability Act for building code requirements, And we would believe that by implication also other requirements, for example, public works requirements that are also safety focused.

Okay. Thank you. So the things that we find, hopefully, we can be very persuasive and congenial with the applicant then. Thank you.

Thank you. And commissioner Ceroni, please.

Thank you, vice chair. So I have a few questions. But as a general comment, while this project might be fine in any other location, we cannot ignore the fact that it is replacing a long time shopping center that provides fresh food and other amenities to that neighborhood. This part of Sunnyvale will feel the impact for decades. Forty years ago, a decision was made to close Sunnyvale High, and we're still struggling with the consequences of that decision.

Generations of children have found it difficult to participate in after school programs or even get to school on time, which affected their ability to get into a good college, lowering their potentially lowering their income for life. And this is still the case today for some extent. So I think it is very important that we take more than a cursory look at this project. Our Planning Commission and staff and City Council should take a very close look at this project and fully understand all of its impacts. I don't want anyone to think that we just waved it through the process without giving it the proper attention.

So I want to point to a specific request. If this was an empty lot and we talked about this before, but if this was an empty lot and the developer proposed putting in the same retail that exists now, the city would surely look at the impact on vehicle miles traveled. But when the reverse happens, we do not look at it. Yet it's obvious that everyone who is currently using the shopping center on a daily or weekly basis will need to get those same services like fresh food, restaurants or whatever, someplace else, someplace further away. I think it's critical to quantify this as part of our due diligence.

And can we even meet the findings without this analysis? I don't think it's sufficient to say that it probably falls within some general EIR and climate change is still a real thing. So vehicle miles traveled is an important metric. So is it possible for the city to just kind of reverse their normal analysis and do this before this comes back to us?

Yes. This project was reviewed by our Transportation Division. I don't have the details for the threshold for a VMT analysis or how much, how many trips this project would produce. But it was determined by the Department of Public Works that a VMT analysis is not required. But I hear your concern about the larger VMT for the neighborhood and not just for the site, if that's what I heard correctly.

Right. I think you're saying that they looked at the VMT from again, as if it was a greenfield site, as if it was a in other words, this new development going into a a empty field. But I don't think they looked at the impact of removing this much existing retail.

Yeah. We'll get that information. I do know that an environmental analysis is being conducted as well, and there's a section of that analysis. It's it's not completed yet. But there's a section of that analysis on traffic and transportation. So we will make sure to see what in that analysis talks about VMT.

Okay. Good.

I'll make a note of your concern. Thank you. Good.

So so as was already brought up, there are a lot of waivers on this project. And I with the applicant, I'll be requesting more detail. But can staff identify for these waivers which would be considered subjective versus objective standards? I think it's kind of referred of off and on in different places. But if the next time we see this, if that's possible.

Yeah. So the note that you see in the table differentiates between deviations that are being requested from the zoning standards. So those tend to start with SMC 19 and then some numbers. Where you see ODS, that's the objective design standard. So that's the difference between those two notations in the table.

Okay. And I fully concur with Commissioner Pine that that particular eave requirement is obviously a design choice, not something that should require a waiver without saying whether it's necessarily a good idea or a bad idea, but it just doesn't it isn't appropriate in that spot. So the intent of the Village Center retail preservation incentive program is intended to kind of mimic the state density program, but substitute to retail for BMR housing, which is an excellent idea and I commend staff for coming up with a creative approach here. But do we legally have exactly the same constraints with respect to granting waivers that we have under you know, the state density bonus law.

Yes. The way the resolution was phrased is essentially mimicking the information in the state law. That was the intent.

And city so another subject. City documents including the loot in 2017, and recently the village center Master Plan and the urgency ordinance adopted in July 2025 made it clear that one of our key objectives is creating healthy, walkable, livable neighborhoods and retaining neighborhood retail. The urgency ordinance in particular states that there is an immediate threat to public welfare and health if applications are filed to redevelop village center sites without the required retail commercial prior to the effective date of the regular ordinance that implements the village master plan. Can we although we understood at the time that because the master plan passed after these were applied, it didn't directly apply. But still the threat to public welfare and health is just as real for this village center as any other.

So in the future, we expect a staff report that addresses that concern that addresses the immediate threat to public health and welfare and either says it's a real thing or not a real thing or whatever, but addresses it? It just seems like like all these things I'm bringing up that to go through the process and and not acknowledge these things is that there will be a hole in the process and this decision making.

Yes. This is going to be the first project that likely will come before you for a decision that's utilizing that new program. But yes, it's typical for us to speak on the program that is being utilized. And if there's specific findings or an intent for the program, we will speak to that as well. So I've noted that for the staff report.

Okay, great. And I think it came up a couple of times, but what date was the application deemed complete?

I will rely on Margaret Neto's help. Margaret, do you have that date? Sorry. The letter was deemed complete 01/15/2026.

Okay. Thank you. That's all I have now.

Thank you.

Thank you. We have commissioner chair, Clasius, please.

Yeah. Vice chair. First, I wanted to thank the staff for the very thoughtful presentation. And I wanted to have some questions around some of the comments we received from the public. I feel that the staff's probably best positioned to answer them.

And some of the questions that are coming up, and we've seen this before as well, is what is the staff and city's response to when there is an introduction of a project like this that conflicts, if not contradicts, our long term policies in plans such as enabling fresh food in communities, providing quality neighborhood communities, residents' needs, providing neighborhood serving community centers, and then also, providing a way for a reduction in folks needing to use automobile to serve their daily needs. So, like, that that is a a principle and policy that that drives the city versus a project like this. They're at conflict. How does the city respond?

Like any decision, there are many policies and requirements that come into play. Sometimes there are policies that are consistent. Right? They they all align, and we recommend approval based on that. Sometimes it's kind of a a plus and a minus game that we have to play.

Right? Does the project generally comply with all of the policies? That's something that we have to consider in our decision making. A part of what makes it, I guess, more of a complicated decision is the state laws and the understanding and the common knowledge that that also impacts staff's discretion and your discretion as well. So it's all part of what we need to consider in a project evaluation.

In the staff report that will be prepared, we will have a recommendation. We will also outline deviations, whatever we call it, waivers, concessions, deviations, we'll outline that. Also, we have an analysis of the project's conformance with general plan and zoning standards and policies. That's typically in the findings as an attachment, and so you'll see staff's analysis there as well.

All right. Thank you. And then also just wanted to say that I don't think, while it's unfortunate that we missed the deadline, for the waivers and concession, I don't think that's at all why people are here today, and I don't think that's the voices that we're hearing. I think it simply just really has to do with the way that the space is being reused, not what the next project would look like. Thank you.

Thank you, chair. I have a question. I I would like to know the history of the project because when was the first time when applicant applied for this development? And how many designs they submitted or I mean, we didn't get anything in presentation. It would have been nice to know that what happened, who was responsible, like, who was guiding them in the from the staff because we knew that this project has certain demands. And I was just would like to know that information for me and for public too.

Great. That's a great segue. The planning the sorry. The applicant has prepared a presentation that shows the evolution of the project. And so you'll you'll see how the project has evolved then. And there are some dates that we'll be able to share there as well.

But that is more from the like, that is just the one change of design. But, like, is it many, many designs?

Yes. Yeah. The the project as originally submitted to staff was all residential. And that

was two years ago, three years ago?

Yes. And I would rely on Margaret to to provide some of the dates for this, but that was one of the original designs that we saw.

Because I I

would think that it somehow it has come to this point. This is at the last minute. We have such a big public. So many people have these questions. And so I just don't know whether we did whether we didn't do a good job to answer them, whoever was guiding the applicant, with them.

So, like, making them clear what's going to happen because we are not making them successful here the way we are conducting business. That's what I feel because I don't know the guide the the whole timeline and would like to know more in detail. And in the next time, please, like, submit there should be a slide where where the I would like to know that in future, you know, because this is I'm just guessing that, like, okay.

I'll just generally summarize that the original application did not include the corner parcel. Staff had a conversation with the developer who then bought the corner parcel to assure that that could stay commercial. And then added another building for commercial. And then after the retail incentive program, modified the application yet again to increase the amount of commercial retail space. So, essentially three different applications over a period of several years. But they can they can give you those dates.

Yeah. I I understand. Thank you for explaining. But I I think for certain projects like that, I wish that that day, even applicant has to come three times and they modify a little. And then they, again, have to be modified again a little bit extra addition instead of, like, telling them upfront what may happen. But, anyway, this is just Yeah.

I know we say this a lot, and it pains me to have to say it. But there are state laws that preclude us from doing certain things.

Yes. I I completely understand that it's a private property, and they have all rights to do what they want to do. And but city has some our policies. And as my commissioner member said that I think anyway, I think I'm just going to like to know it's more information, in fact, can support the project. So I would next time, please. Thank you so much.

And we could include a background section of the staff report as well to summarize what Trudy just mentioned about the evolution of the project.

Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay. So the I don't see any hands from anybody has a question from colleagues? No. Okay. So now, is there an applicant report?

Yeah.

Please, you have ten minutes to present your and then you will have another five minutes to for the questions when people ask.

Okay. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Paul Muser. I'm a principal planner with Wood Rogers. I've been working with Nicholas Guerra, who's the property owner for the past four years on this project. I don't know. Do I have control of the PowerPoint, or do I

thanks.

I don't know which button to push.

Lauren, do you know which one to You can? Okay.

Point of order. On a point of order, can we refund the applicant the time spent? We did. Thank

you. Yes. We'll start now.

I do have a couple of slides. It might be information that people already know, but I I wanted everyone to know at least our story of how did we get here. As everyone's probably aware, the shopping center was built in 1959. It's located along a two lane collector street with not a lot of traffic. As the center stands right now, it's 43% vacant with six of the 14 storefronts empty.

Next, please. It also has a lot of local competition. The slide up on the screen shows the project site in the middle with, two circles, a one mile radius and a two mile radius, which show that within two miles, there are 11, grocery stores. And within one mile, there are three, smaller kind of local grocery stores. So that's another thing that the site is contending with.

Next slide, please. And so that situation or the the way that the shopping center is performing right now really informed our first proposal and or submittal number one that didn't have retail because the the site has a lot of things, a lot of challenges. And, you know, our team decided that that was the best approach. Now we soon learned next slide, please. How important retail was.

Spent a lot of time with city staff. They urged him to, you know, consider retail seriously with this development, which is why Nick went out and bought the Speedy's Taco parcel. It's a successful business. They have a lease, and they wanna stay, and and that was the intent from the beginning. Next, please.

And those discussions continued. And as a team, our team with the Citi's team kept trying to make the the the blend or the balance of retail to residential as good as we could. And as good as we could given Nick's experience with the site over the past ten years. And so we added a 2,400 square foot building next to Speedy's Tacos. It's a mixed use building.

It had two affordable one no. Studios up top with a cafe or coffee shop on the 1st Floor. Next, please. And then this is the submittal that we're talking about tonight with the 15,635 square foot building next to Speedy's Tacos. And so I think it does show an evolution of the project, from not believing in retail to, you know, really stretching ourselves and trying to figure out how we can make as many people happy with this project as possible.

Next, please. And this is just the site plan again, but this is the version the version that was submitted to the city. Next, please. The rest I mean, there there are 14 residential buildings proposed, four different building types, three different color schemes. Next, please.

And then the townhome buildings are composed of both flats and townhomes. The flats are units one and two, and the townhomes are units three and four. Next, please. This is the floor plan of the 1500, 635 square foot building. Next, please.

And here are the elevations. The north elevation faces into the project. The east elevation faces towards Speedy's Tacos, south elevation, toward Duane Avenue, and the west elevation toward the townhomes that are proposed. Next, please. And then here are renderings. Both of them are the large retail building facing East Wayne Avenue. Next, please. And this is a rendering of the entire frontage of East Wayne Avenue. The our the entirety of our project as it sits along that street. Next, please.

And then the landscape plan shows the system of Paseos that are all connected through pathways with dining area, barbecue, benches, seating, and landscaping. Next. I wanted to keep it short and sweet. We don't have a lot of time. But if I didn't hit on anything, I'm here to answer questions. And Nick and Chris Anderson are both here, and they could answer questions as well.

Okay. Thank you. I'll now ask for questions from my colleagues. Commission.

Thank you. Thank you to the applicant. Could we go back to the just the slide that had the Duane rendering, just the full rendering? Thank you. Just to just for my own sanity because this is very, very kind of at a very head on level.

Am I I'm seeing the the building that's, like, second from the right. That's the townhouse building. Right? Like, there's there's a because on the plans, there's a street that there's, like, an internal little street that goes there in between the commercial buildings, but you can't really see it on this rendering.

Yeah. So you're asking if they're

Yeah. Just a sanity check on my

Yeah. Well and I understand the confusion. This rendering does leave out some detail that would help orient someone to what's going on here. For example, the windows along the sides of the townhomes along Duane, a distinction between Speedy's, Tacos, and the townhomes behind it. So it kind of all blurs together a little bit.

Yeah. I was gonna say if we could get an when this comes back, if we get an could get an elevation where it's a little with the angles, it's just angled a little. Because I will say one of my frustrations when I was reviewing this over the weekend was that in the materials that were provided to us, we did not get elevations either from Duane or just from the and really anything detailed on the new commercial building. So I'm kind of reacting to that on the fly here. But am I correct in understanding that that essentially the inch the pedestrian and entry for the commercial building would be from Duane, it would not be from the parking lot, or am I misunderstanding that?

The way I'm reading the two elevations is that there's access from both sides.

Okay. That that's actually a better answer, but, probably in my personal opinion. But, my quest but my follow-up to that would also be have what would be kind of the anticipated, commercial use for this build commercial use or uses for this building? Like, what kind of tenant do you kind of and I know this I know this is a very speculative question, but kind of what kind of tenant or kinds of tenants would you envision in being interested in the space?

Well, I can speak to what we've talked about so far as being one potential. And then I think what you're alluding to is that you really have to test the market and see who's interested in locating at this location. But for this building at this moment, we've talked about a day care.

Thank you. Okay. So some other questions I had, and these are gonna be all over the place. But, I talked about, the the vacancy rate at this end end of step. I don't need the elevations up for this, but to step up to you talked about the vacancy rate. Do you have any information about, like, the timing of these vacancies? Like, is it recently the case that these that that there's been a relatively high rate vacancy rate at this property, or is or is it more long standing?

I I think Nicholas Guerra should address that. He's very familiar with the center and kind of the unfolding of

From our from the commission perspective, this is shared applicant time. So any of you can Yeah. Speak to it.

Hi. Good evening. My name's Nick Garrett. As far as the retail goes, what what the intent is is to try to relocate the existing tenants that are there. So some of the restaurants and we had, Western Grocery which was on the, is in the site presently. They've mentioned that they would like 3,000 square feet on the Bottom Floor and on the upstairs we would try to get the dental person that's that's on the premises presently. We'd like to relocate there also, we'd like to put them on the 2nd Floor.

Okay. That is actually really helpful. So thank you for that answer.

Yeah. And and as far as the vacancies, they've been ongoing. Unfortunately, we just heard from Metro that they're not there's just not enough business there to to and as far as the rent structure, I've kept the same rent, not the triple nets over the ten year period. However, it's just very difficult for them to survive. Thank you.

My next question of just so this is just some stuff I had with the stuff I saw going through the design. First of all, this I'll start with attachment two, page a 11, the solar study, the solar access study we got on that's on page a 11 in of attachment two appears to be with the older design with the smaller commercial building. Is there doesn't have to be tonight, but is there a solar study with the updated design?

There isn't at the moment, but there will be. What what we were looking at, we are moving quickly to try and get this site plan updated with the larger building, get it into city staff, and that was something that was overlooked. So we were looking mostly around the edges to see what the solar impact was gonna be to existing homes, and we will change it to show the new configuration

Okay. For retail. Thank you. Yeah. I don't anticipate that that will really have an impact on the neighboring on the neighboring homes given the locations, but it just it is something that stood out to me when I was this. Also, this is on attachment three page c eight, the preliminary parking plan. There are a bunch of spaces that are listed as EV capable. What does that mean precisely?

I I would be guessing at that. Our engineers set that up. I don't know if someone else has a a I imagine they're wired to be able to be a EV charging parking spot, but they aren't they aren't built that way.

Right. Because my follow-up question to that would be my concern with the parking around the retail building is that I'm seeing one accessible space. I'm seeing two van accessible space. So that's not really relevant to, I think, most and and I'm seeing 18 compact spaces. I'm seeing 15 EV charging stations, and I'm seeing 14 EV capable spaces. I don't drive a compact vehicle. I don't drive an EV. So my question is basically, where do I park?

Oh, I could get the parking plan and take a look. Yeah. Have it with me.

Yeah. Just because my the way I'm reading this, I'm just concerned because there's just all these compact parking spots, and I'm like and then, like, it feels like almost the rest of them are EV are EV spots, and I'm just like, okay. But I I would like to be able to park here. And if it's all compact or EV, then I'm just gonna have to try to squish into a compact space, and that feels that feels like a good way to ding somebody's door. So other stuff I some other technical questions.

Regarding the I'm just gonna call them concessions and waivers because that's what I'm used to, Steph. And I think from the previous discussion, we can deal with the precise technical term for this project at a later date. I had a few things. When I was looking at what we got an attachment one, there are a few things I wanted to flag on the justifications. First of all, for, first of all, just generally, I am not happy when I see a lot of justifications that are cut paced.

I generally, when I'm seeing requests for concessions and wafers, what we're looking for is an actual justification that would preclude the site from being developed and not just kind of an assertion that it would happen. Like, I you can look at on any number of previous staff reports on the planning commission on previous planning case and agenda. So we usually get some actual this would preclude and here's how. Like, that's just something I would generally be expecting to see in an application. The three I wanted to flag as of specific concern that I saw was, first of all, utility undergrounding.

It got the copy paste would physically preclude, etcetera, etcetera. My understanding was that it was being proposed as a concession, which would normally be about costs. Is that am I am I right track here?

Yeah. It will be a concession. Okay. Was not shown correctly.

I would again, when this I would want it to be stated correctly. The other one is for the solar shading, there's language here saying the deviation does not create adverse impacts to adjacent property circulation or site operations. I haven't I'm not now I'm not saying it's a particularized health and safety risk, which is stick denial standard, but I have concern about seeing it there because if there's a solar shading exceedance in the neighboring property, I would consider that to be an adverse impact. It might not be to the effect where we could deny the waiver, but I I think it's fairly inarguably an adverse impact. Yeah.

I'm I'm just going to say we feel the same way. And between now and the next time we all get together, we're gonna see if there's something we can do about that.

Okay. Yeah. It's just when I see it saying does not create an adverse impact in my in the documents I'm getting, it makes me concerned that it was not reviewed or proofread as closely as as I would have hoped it to have been. So that was just the other one I've and I flagged this already. Objective would be the one on page 12, which is about the eve projection.

It's supposed to have architectural style, which is something we could consider as a deviation, but I don't think it would be considered to be a waivable. But if it and, I mean, you can make it a you're free to make a case that is. But, like, if that's the state of justification, I wouldn't understand it as something that we would be required to waive under. Technically, it's not state law. Technically, it's the state it's city ordinance, but it's basically mirroring state law because it's if it doesn't physically preclude the construction, blah blah blah.

Yeah. I I I don't disagree with that.

Okay.

I think

And again, I'm not, like, I'm not we're talking about we're talking about pitched eve of projection. Like, that's it's not something I'm morally opposed to granting a deviation for. It's just I just, like, kept trying to get I just try like, being clear about this is a waiver required by state law. This is a deviation that we're granting because it makes the project better.

Yeah. I understand.

The other so I'll just the other thing is I had a a the other thing I would like I I was frustrated that we didn't get for the submission, honestly, was, was the landscaping was the landscaping plan. First of all, because I always like trying to convince or convince applicants that they should be that they should be maximizing their use of drought of drought tolerant and native species. And a lot of times, we get applications that don't have that many of them. I always like to try to convince the applicant to do more. So please do as many drought tolerant native species as possible.

But the other one is that there are some waivers requested require requiring the what's that? The the lens about the about solar shading requirements about that well, sorry. Not salt. Is shading requirements, but it's about, like, parking area shading requirement, mutual code 19Dot46Dot120. Land landscaping frontage, 193107OO4 bleh.

040Charlie. That kind of thing. And I'm and my my concern with my concern with all of those is basically just urban heat heat island effect, which is always just when you've got that exposed concrete, it's makes the entire it's not eco friendly. It makes the air entire area warmer, etcetera. So I it's hard for me to comment on this that project in detail because we didn't get a landscaping sheet, so it's hard for me to kinda look at it. But I would just encourage you to, if pass to the extent possible, find ways to decrease that heat island effect as much as possible.

Okay.

That's oh, that's all I had for now. But, again, I would really stress that when we do when this does come back for public hearing, I do really, really want specific justifications for the concessions and waivers instead of just kind of the generic this this merits a waiver kind of thing because that doesn't that doesn't really tell me whether I whether or not it should it it does pre physically preclude the things. So that's and, again, I'm, again, I'm open to granting I'm open to deviations for architect for architectural improvement. I'm just trying to make sure everything's off of all the i's are dotted, the t's are crossed. That is that's all I had.

But I would just close by saying by also just say just encouraging the developer, the applicant to listen to community feedback. And, before I turn off my mic, I just wanna say that I do appreciate all of the concerns you've heard from members of the public on this project, and I have been reviewing that fairly closely. I I've been I'm I'm focusing my time tonight on kind of the more technical aspects, but in the interest of not having it, what's supposed to be a one hour study session, take too long. But I it that the greater policy concerns are definitely something we will be, I I I'll be looking at it. The entire commission will be looking at the public hearing.

So thank you. Stick around. You'll have your moment to speak. You'll have you'll have your time to speak as well. Thank you. Thank

you. Commissioner, please.

Thank you. So I just want a second, commissioner Bind's comments about the waivers. Normally, what we expect to see is for waivers project specific justification showing that compliance will result in loss of housing units or some similar claim, not just a cut and paste of a generic statement that just, you know, without explanation claims that it somehow does that. So, and I guess that was my understanding of the law too, but at least I I would certainly like to see that in in there as actual specific justifications. Some of the buildings, like especially buildings 10 to 14 and maybe some of the others that fly outside or no.

Seems like it could have been designed with an extra story and potentially could increase the density or at least might command a higher price. Are there constraints like anything the city is doing that prevent prevented that, or is it just a question of what pencils out?

Right. It's there aren't any city standards or policies that prevent the four story townhome. I I think the reason why we didn't consider it is that it's just not that common in the market right now. But what we chose was the townhome flats combination that has been successful in a lot of different cities in the Bay Area.

Okay. On the Commercial Building, how do you get to the 2nd Floor? Is there an elevator?

I don't think that's been worked out yet. The the Commercial Building, in an effort to get this submitted to the city as quickly as possible, there are details that are left out of that building right now. And so, yeah, we haven't determined. And I I think whether or not there's an elevator would depend on who the end user is.

I guess I was wondering if, for example, could a, let's say, a two story grocery store go into that space, you would definitely have to have an elevator for Definitely. Yeah. Or any any sort of two story, you know, business or whatever would need an elevator, I think. Perhaps. Yeah. So that has not been determined, I guess.

Not yet.

Okay. And there was some discussion we heard from the owner about letting existing existing tenants move into the new commercial building, but the rents would be much higher in that building. Is that right?

Yeah. Yes. The rents would be closer to market rents, but they're aware of that. So it'll be the the tenants that are actually looking to relocate are the stronger ones in the group. That's why they're still there would be Tijuana and California Momo and we're hoping the dental knows rents so they're well aware that we can't give them the existing rents, and hopefully, it'll it'll work out.

Alright. Thank you.

Thank you, commissioner Cerny. Next one is commissioner Sigura, please.

Thank you. So, obviously, I have the same concern as my colleagues. However, I have a few other concerns as well. When you guys going with overhead power and there are so many units, that can affect the way that the neighborhood looks. Because for such a large amount of units, normally, you go with underground transformers, and that's gonna take a big impact on the look of the neighborhood.

My question is is also for staff. Did we take that in consideration that when we have a commercial building and so many units, we're gonna need a lot of power. And to take the power lines and overhead, gonna reflect and affect the way that the neighborhood looks.

You're correct. The city does have a requirement to underground and the the purpose of that is to reduce the visual clutter of a street. So on a typical project, we would notify the applicant that that's a requirement. With state law. You've seen some projects where they have requested a concession for it based on the cost to underground, and that was something that the applicant identified early on.

Okay. So I just want to make sure that we're all aware of it.

I I I want to mention that all of the on-site connections will be underground. So all of the connections to the new buildings will be underground. So It's only the existing boundary line that has connections to the adjacent single family homes on north that that would not be undergrounded.

So how many power lines are we looking at that will not be

able run? It's along that north boundary. I'm I'm I'm guessing. I don't know.

All the poles that you see existing today, the applicant is proposing to keep them above ground. What Trudy is referring to is some of the connection lines that you often see feeding from those poles. Some of those will be undergrounded. But the poles themselves will still be there as proposed by the applicant.

And those will be on the neighborhood, right, on the street side?

No. It's at the rear of the property. It did so at the rear of the property, there is existing boundary line that provides service to the residents to the north.

Gotcha. Now also building one and two, obviously, the buildings are taller than the the requirements. How is that affecting the neighbor the neighbors that are close to those buildings as far as shade and whatnot. If these people would want to put solar on their house, would the height of these buildings going to affect that or not? Did there was any study done?

Yeah. So as acknowledged by the applicant, there was an old solar study that was provided. That is wrong. That is based on a previous design. The applicant has not provided a complete solar shading analysis yet, so we have yet to see that. The applicant did express that they may be requesting a waiver from that requirement. You see that in their project description letter. But that's why we're not ready to take the project to a public hearing for a decision yet. So we want to see all of that before a decision is made.

Because they're they're working on that. On other people's lives as well and and actually impact their investments. I think as far as the balconies goes, I understand that they're gonna be smaller than the standard allowed.

That's right.

How big are they?

I'd have to get my plan set and take a look.

Okay. You might Yeah. Yeah, please. While

the applicant is getting more information from you, I wanna correct what I said. I was aware of the rear boundary lines, Norrin just pulled up the street view, and there are some along the Duane frontage as well.

So the powers will be on the pole going down and then go underground?

Correct.

I'm gonna have to get back to you on that. There aren't dimensions on the balconies in the plan set.

Okay. The reason I was asking because there is some real estate impact on that, and it's, I think, an important information. So if we can get that in the future, that will be great.

Yep. Will do.

And my last question is, I know you guys are asking to be about almost five feet higher or taller than the requirements. And I was wondering if there is any way without impacting the cost, obviously, because I understand that everything has to do and or associated with cost. If there is if you guys thought about alternatives of actually getting lower alternative different alternative of of construction.

We have. And especially along the edge of the property where, as you mentioned, you know, we don't wanna cast any big any bigger of shadows than necessary onto the neighbors. And so one of the first things that we would look at is the the roof design, the building height, and see what we can do. But also to revisit why why our buildings are 39 feet tall instead of the 35 that's required. And come back and if if it needs to stay, if we believe that architecturally needs to stay stay the same height, we'd like to be able to come back and explain to you why.

Mhmm. But then where we're able to lower the the height and the roofline, especially around the perimeter where people's houses are, we're we'll get back to you on that too and and show where we're able to make those modifications.

And I assume you are going with wood construction. Right?

Yes.

Yep. Just a suggestion. I know it's kind of gonna bring up the cost. Maybe to think that at least building one and two on some of the areas like to go to use steel construction, you should do the old trade offs because maybe on those, you would be able to lower the height. Well, those have impact actually on the neighbors.

Okay.

I'll take a look. That's all.

Sorry. Thank you. We have commissioner Davis, please.

Thank you, vice chair. To the applicants, thank you for your patience tonight. I know this is taking a bit longer than scheduled, and we're not close to the end yet. So so following up on my fellow commissioners, I guess what we've called out is best practice for when there are deviations or waivers and and concessions. When they're justified, we usually see it in the form of of doing this would result in us having to reduce this number of units or something like that.

Or we have to get this concession because it applies it applies to these two units these two units. And and so if we complied, we couldn't build those two units. So just hopefully, that'll make it a little bit easier going forward on on the form so you don't have just a complete blank slate. I'm gonna save some of the aesthetic feedback until after we hear all the rest of the public comment. But I had some questions, as much as the applicants are willing to share, I guess, about the economic life of this, of this shopping center.

It really stood out to me when you said, I believe, six of the 14 units are currently vacant. I I don't live in the neighborhood, but there used to be an Armenian restaurant I would go every now and then, Tijuana and so on. I don't actually recall the the center being full. And then I believe he said that he's frozen triple net for ten years. I grew up with small businesses, grocery stores, convenience stores, gas stations, snack distribution. To hear that triple net has been frozen for ten years,

what what woah.

That's a that's a big deal. So if if you could share some color on on, like, what the financials have been like as much as you're as much as you're comfortable sharing.

I'm hoping what I said was the rents have been frozen for ten years. Oh, okay. Not not the triple net. So, because the taxes have gone up and insurance. However, the rents have remained the same.

Okay. So you kept them frozen and and we still have a a high vacancy rate even with the

Well, yeah, that did like, some of them are due to retirement also. Okay. The hair hair studio just closed up and, previously, the barber was there. He closed up. The liquor store couldn't make it there.

The the I should say the Mexicans the the names escaping me, but I did not renew their lease. The there was nightclub, basically a nightclub.

Oh, okay.

So that we and we didn't re refill that spot. That's been a few years, actually probably three to four years that they've been gone. So it's it has been over time, but just the rep we and to be quite honest, we haven't done of to try to reposition. We've had some new tenants come in. I brought some tenants from Murphy Avenue, to try to fill some spots, but we we haven't been successful.

Okay. And you have been trying to fill the

Yeah. In in in this last little stretch, we we have not been trying to fill. We we haven't had a demand, but the when once we chose to try to develop the property, we didn't refill the spots.

Yeah. You wouldn't want to a long lease to Right. Impinge upon your plans. Do you have any idea of of what your rents are compared to other areas in the city

right now? I would say on that on the main spots is probably I'm not sure on the grocery store on what big grocery stores pay

Mhmm.

But on the main spots, I would say we're less than half, maybe leaning towards a third of what they're paying.

Okay. Thank you. But, yeah, I just I'd like you to get, like, I guess, a full hearing, get everything you want into the public record. Obviously, this is getting a lot of scrutiny from the public, which we we welcome. I like the creativity. But I wanna make sure that everybody has the applicants as well has a has a fair opportunity to get all of the information they like into the into the public record. Yeah. I'll have you you get five minutes at the end. I'll have, I guess, some aesthetic questions at that point. But thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. We have a commissioner chair, Iglesias, please.

Thank you, vice chair. So first, to the applicant, I wanted to say thank you for being here. Thank you for wanting to invest in Sunnyvale. I think that that's very important, and it's how the community grows and evolves. Also, I wanna remind everyone that's here, that when an applicant shows up at a study session, it's them demonstrating a desire for partnership.

It's them lending an ear, and it's probably going to feel there's competing interests that become very evident, and that's kind of the intention of this. So I think that even if it doesn't feel great, it's actually achieving its purpose. My first question is actually for the city staff. And given that it's zoned commercial, what is the minimum floor area ratio required when building in a commercial zone?

The city doesn't have a minimum floor area ratio for all square footage on a lot. We have we have a minimum commercial floor area in order to utilize the incentive program, which is a 10%, but we don't have an overall FAR.

Okay. So the I guess the 10% is actually what I was what I was thinking for, so thank you for that. But the reason why I say that is earlier in the applicant's presentation, there was a discussion about how this has evolved. But as I understand right now, what what it has evolved to is that the current proposed commercial area ratio or floor area ratio is is 10%. So it's actually the very bare minimum of what would be required to qualify for the incentive that is being used. And some of the commissioners, fellow commissioners have asked, you know, why not build more residential? If you build more residential, then you'll also have to build more commercial as well. So something to consider.

Of your options I'm sorry to interrupt you. The the commercial incentive program offers an incentive if you have a 5% FAR that it reduces your below market rate obligation to 50% of what it would otherwise be. And at 10%, then it removes that obligation.

Alright. Thank you. The 10 the app can also mention the fact that there's a a 43% vacancy rate in on-site, and that is it's unfortunate to hear that. I mean, it probably speaks to some of the economic viability. However, what what I'm seeing is it looks like that we're we're probably cutting out too much by if you have 57% that's viable, and that's in the the ballpark of 30,000 square feet.

And now what we're gonna be ultimately left within that space is 18,000 square feet. So it's like it's it's effectively a reduction, almost to 50% of what's of what per your own numbers would be currently considered viable. So that's something that that I think is partially why what we're seeing here is that we have a room that's quite frankly more full than I've probably seen in multiple years. We have a a community that's more engaged in this pro project because it's not necessarily feeling balanced. And that's you know, I I I appreciate you being here, but I I do wanna be clear that that's part of the message that that's coming back is the sense that this is not feeling balanced, and it's not necessarily feeling fair.

The other question I had was when asked who or what type of tenants you imagined being there, you said, originally, I heard it was day care, and that was the the one answer. But I heard that there's also two other tenants you currently have that would be considering to occupy a new space in the commercial. Is that is that correct?

Correct.

Okay. So then so then there's, at this point, potentially a day care, potentially some grocery aspect as well and potentially a a restaurant?

I would think multiple

restaurants. If you could speak at the the mic so that folks online can hear. Yeah.

Presently, it it would be multiple restaurants. In other words, the stronger California Momo's expected desire to lease space and so has Tijuana and the Thai basil's gonna retire. So that's basically it. There's one other one, the kebab restaurant, he's expressed a desire. The problem is, is on the Ground Floor which I envisioned the grocery and the restaurants, we have a little over our basically 8,000 square feet.

So the more restaurants I put there, it limits the grocery store. So I'm trying to work something out with with the existing restaurants to pull everyone over there. I'm even gonna talk to the karate person. I think he could go upstairs. We're we're we're just trying to balance but presently we don't have a project. We can't do leases because we're you know, we don't have a a building to lease presently. So

Understood. It it sounds optimistic though that there is quite a bit of interest in that space. So that that it does sound like there's economic viability, which is which is good to hear.

What if if if there's economic viability, if they could pay the rent. I mean, there's a big risk involved there. I mean, and and you may not think so, but on our side, we we think we took a big risk doing a 10% commercial space.

Understood. Thank you. And so kind of my closing comment was earlier, I I had asked the city staff how they respond to when we have projects that seem to conflict with overarching guidance and policy. And they their their response was that they try and look at the pros and cons and balance it. And what I would say, first off, I wanna reiterate my appreciation for the applicant being willing to proactively bring this before the community to receive feedback and to be willing to to respond to feedback.

I would say that feedback overwhelmingly I know that my colleagues had mentioned discussion of wanting more detail around the waivers and concessions. Quite frankly, they care about that. I don't. What I care about is if you are willing to reengage more with respect to on the commercial side, listening to the neighbors' input, I think that that's that that's what would get me in more support and would feel like the compromise is being met a little bit more in the middle. Thank you.

Thank you, chair. We have commissioner Payne, please.

Thank you. Just a quick procedural question for the vice chair. Does the applicant have five minutes at the end here, or is that just for public hearings because there's a study session?

Yes. The applicant

My After

the public comments, applicant will have five minutes.

Okay. I just wanted to be clear on that because I think

we've done it No.

I think at various points over the years. Not not not saying recently, just at various points over the years. Thank you.

Thank you. I have I have a few questions. First of all, thank you for the presentation and working with the community and working with the staff for so many years. So I kind of applaud for that one. I have a question about the BMR units you have. You have, like, four units as a below market rate.

Commissioner Shukla, the commercial retail incentive program removes the requirement for BMR units. So there are none.

Okay. So I see it on the plan. That's their earlier plans.

Yes.

So that is their earlier so it's mixed up. Okay. So that makes sense. They don't need to provide it. I get it. So oh, okay. I have another question too. It's about when you made this retail, is that, like, you it's finalized that you have a separate spaces, and you are going to because you are going to sell the houses, and you are going to own the retail space and manage them. Is that correct?

Yeah. I think I heard you right. Yeah. We're our intent is to sell the residential component, and, we would keep the commercial component and lease that out and manage it.

Why am I I'm saying that? Because on, there were commercial stores like that on El Camino, and it was not functioning well. Actually, they are empty, the so upstairs offices and all, because I think people just don't like to go. But I have a suggestions that is that possible that, like, you, the whole thing can be just one grocery store? Like, for example, is that, like, too late, or is that still in possibility to and, like, have a anchor, like, some kind of grocery outlet or some smaller that they can function the whole building as a retail?

Yeah. I mean,

I think the bottom floor, it I mean, we're we're open. I just we presently with our plan. We've been at this a long time, and to be quite honest with you, I'm tired. We've been at it with the city's been pushing us for retail. We keep coming back. We gave in, and then we we keep changing our plan that costs considerable amount of money to to change all this. We could, potentially make a larger store if there was a demand. It's just difficult because I have the other tenants that if they wanna stay there, either I need to relocate them to another spot in Sunnyvale or, you know, try to work it out. So

Yeah. Because I'm I'm saying that because what I what I gather all the discussions and your meetings, I feel that most of the residents are upset about losing the grocery store, like, not the cheaper, but little more reasonable label grocery store. That's the major, I think, yeah, I hear. And it would be because you are dividing it and making it two stories, and I think it may work. And you are trying to bring the tenants back, but only two are, like, suggest may have confirmed to come back, but rest of them are not.

So I just think that sometimes, you know, sometimes the one big grocery store could just work and you have less management and because it's a large area, large space, and maybe if somebody, and then they can just do their remodel. They do according to them, you can do the construction. And I don't know. I'm just suggesting if it's not late and if you this may pass and maybe you want to because I feel that most of the residents have problem because they are losing the their grocery stores. They don't they come directly walking and driving there, and then they go to so that's what that's the major thing.

Because otherwise, the building is very old. It's mailed made in 1959 or '50. So it definitely needs upgrade and redevelopment. And I'm I'm glad you are working with the residents. But just wanted to comment this. If you I know you haven't thought about it, but we have a one of the place where the small grocery outlet on the on the Matilda and the I think the new development with apartments, and it's works very good. The actual parking is you know what I'm talking about near the train track? It's a grocery outlet. Right?

Grocery outlet is at Fair Oaks and Tasman?

Yes. Fair Oaks and all. So it's a very small store. I would say it's similar size probably. Maybe it's a that that is a little bit bigger. But if you can make a deal with them or something, that would solve a lot of problems with residents. But that's my general feeling. But I thank you for working with the city, with all the neighbors, and, you know, and hopefully, we'll get to it somewhere.

Alright. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I don't have any other question. Oh, we have a question. Yes?

Vice chair, I just wanted to note that it's not normally our practice during study sessions to provide applicants with an opportunity for closing comments during study sessions. Normally, after we hear from in person and remote speakers, that's when the special meeting would be adjourned. I just wanted to note that.

So so so it's, like, just, it's not?

So you would open it up for public comment at this point if there's no further, questions or comments from commissioners. And then once that concludes, normally, the study session would be adjourned.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. So so I think we have no questions.

Do

we need do we need any recess or something? Sure. Sure. Go ahead.

Okay. Thank you, vice chair. So just a a few things. The rendering you had of the of Duane, the retail looked pretty nice, pretty inviting. But the other buildings that were facing Duane, the faces of them were were rather stark and kind of bruneless. Perhaps it's perhaps it's just the lack of detail in the rendering, but no windows. And, yeah, if we could make that somehow a little more inviting and warm, that that would be much appreciated.

Absolutely. K. On

the heat island impact, parking is obviously especially with blacktop is always a heat island. Our a lot of our schools have solar panels in their parking lots that makes it much nicer. Also, it's a good place to put chargers and and so on. I know that it does carry some cost, but it it does generally pay for itself. Or, also, just a choice of payment that's that's reflective also helps with that as well.

And then my own little personal thing is that houses are never, even new homes, are never adequately wired for networking, for for reasonable networking. This is Silicon Valley. We invented networking and so on. So, if you could find a way to to to wire all of the units, at least for high grade copper, something like cat seven, which is the same cost as cat five, or preferably, like, a dual fiber and and copper. That's my my own little thing.

And, normally, commissioner Fragoni brings this up or commissioner Cerrone. But, with the demographics of Sunnyvale in the country as a whole, it's really important that the stairways can be retrofitted with lifts. We're we're not as mobile we're as a society, we're not as young as we were and not nearly as mobile either. I was just getting scoped yesterday myself. So so so that's just some aesthetic feedback.

If you could keep those things in mind, I think well, there's probably small investments that will probably bring a return as well, make things sell faster. Okay.

Alright. Thank you.

Thank you. I will go ahead and open the public comment on the specific item. Please submit a speaker card to the recording officer, raise your hand now, or dial 9 on telephone to indicate you wish to speak. I will call on members on the public participating in person first followed by remote participant. Speakers will have two minutes to speak.

Sorry. We have many, many speakers, and we have also a lot of people on virtual. So I'm trying to cut down, because we have a regular meeting. So going to restrict the comments, your speech to two minutes, I would appreciate it. Thank you.

So we'll so we'll start with

Agnes.

I grew up in San Francisco. Each neighborhood was defined by their stores and restaurants. This is what I expected the village centers would do for Sunnyvale when I read about them almost four years ago. Retail stores would create gathering places for each village center representing the ethnic diversity of its neighborhood. The transformation I expected is not coming to fruition as evidenced by the suggested changes to Village Center 5, currently known as the Fair Oaks Plaza.

I attended a community meeting with the property owner on April 9. I do appreciate Nick Yara's interest in participating in this meeting because he must have known the community did not support his proposal and were not shy when expressing their opinions. I'm concerned the proposed development will result in a loss of approximately 70% of the current retail space. These family run businesses will lose their income and their employees their jobs. The gentrification of this site will result in neighbors no longer having a variety of restaurants or a grocery store within walking distance of their home, and the current community feel and numerous gathering spaces will be permanently wiped out.

Why can't Nick revise the plans to put housing on top of retail along with separate retail buildings to preserve more of the space? I know changing the existing plans will cost Nick more money, but the cost to the community and future generations far exceeds the cost to Nick. Please suggest that before this project returns to you that the owner includes more retail in his final plans regardless of state law and municipal code. Thank you.

Thank you. We have, Himansuas, please.

Okay. Hi.

So, sorry. I'm gonna back up a little bit. This is not about opposing housing. It is about whether North Sunnyvale should lose essential grocery access in an area that already has limited retail options. And many lower income residents, seniors, disabled, residents, renters, workers, and families. So staff's presentation shows a proposal would lose approximately 70%. That's way too much. The total retail allocation needs to be increased, and the grocery space needs to be more meaningful, needs to be ground floor and workable. I also wanna address the applicant's claim that the plaza is now 30% vacant. That should not be used to suggest the plaza is no longer needed.

Much of that vacancy is recent and tied to redevelopment uncertainty. The city the city should not allow uncertainty created by redevelopment to become the justification for eliminating the retail the residents rely on. A two store retail building should not be treated as equivalent to today's ground floor grocery serving retail. Grocery stores need four usable floor area, loading storage, refrigeration, parking, clear customer access. There's also no clear confirmation information on how the second story would function.

The street side rendering also appears misleading because the retail component looks much larger and more prominent than it actually is. In reality, the proposed retail is far smaller than the rendering suggests. Sunnyvale's village master center plan is based on walkability, neighborhood serving retail and reducing car dependency. But walkability only matters if there are places to walk to. North Sunnyvale does not need to walk doesn't need walkability in nowhere.

I asked the commission to push for real alternatives, and, I think we also I also asked, that we direct the staff and the applicant to increase the retail allocation and provide a specific grocery replacement and design alternatives before the project advances. Thank you.

Thank you. We have a Deanna Gonzales, please. Thank you.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Deanna Gonzales. I am the chair of the San Miguel Neighborhood Association. I'm here, as a lifelong resident of, the neighborhood. Let me clearly state that I understand the California crisis of housing.

I'm not against that. I support thoughtful housing developments, meaning that people have a place to go to shop, be in a livable, viable, area that they can, actually, achieve what the the villages were designed to do. This is not this is not achieving that, and I'm I'm disappointed in the the applicant missing or excuse me, the city missing the deadline. It just is not fair to the neighborhood. And now we're they can't make any changes to this plan because of state law.

And and I'm really as someone was saying, I'm tired. We're the residents are tired of these back and forth and blaming the state for everything. I do wanna say that the, loss of Fair Oaks Plaza is a a a big loss to the neighborhood and the surrounding neighborhood that has grown in the last ten years. There are multiple, housing projects there that people have moved in. The traffic is in is increased, and we have evidence of that as well.

This is not just about development. It's about equity and access and preserving the health and welfare of our neighbors and our communities. I strongly urge the planning commission to reevaluate this project and work with the city and staff here as well as the developer to ensure additional retail space is prioritized and maintained for our neighborhood. Thank you.

Thank you. We have the next one. Is Linaura Abilke?

Thank you very much. In 1962, the reason my mother bought in this neighborhood was because there was a market around the corner from our home. My grandmother could walk there. It gave my grandmother independence. Soon there won't be, as Diana put, no place to walk to. And taking that away is a disservice to the whole neighborhood. As she also noted, it has grown so much. We're going to have more townhouses built over on DeGine from what I understand it. That's going to be that many more people that are going to ask for and need a grocery store. And I will be one of the first ones to admit the bar was never the best thing that was ever put in there all these years.

But it still is a place for gathering. And this is what we need. Everybody talks about community. By doing what's happening now, it's taking away a lot of our community. People go there and meet. They're walking to and fro. They meet a neighbor. They chat. They get things you know, they accomplish such wonderful things. And from the meeting we had earlier in the month, there was also an issue about some contamination that's been around in the area for quite a while. And I think that should be revisited as well. Thank you.

Thank you. We have Joseph.

You're trying to pronounce it.

Yes. Sorry. Thank you.

Well, the current proposed project is it's completely inappropriate for the site. I think everyone knows there are major issues here that really need to be addressed. There's significant traffic impacts to an already extremely congested commute area. But obviously, the top of the list here is neighborhood retail. And the site is currently 32% ground level retail.

By my count, in my two decades living in the neighborhood, more than two decades, it's been about 90% occupied and of of viable retail space with grocery, restaurants, legacy small businesses serving our community. And the surrounding community has undergone a complete transformation over a course of about a decade. We've quadrupled our housing units, almost no opposition from rec from residents. So you need be perfectly clear. This isn't some, you know, NIMBY versus YMBY political argument about opposing or supporting housing.

What this is really about is a proposal that would reduce retail space on the site to only 10% with really only 5% of that being ground floor and severely impacting neighborhood livability. So the recent outreach meeting, the owner flatly stated, I'm in this for the money. It got a big row from the crowd. People were obviously upset, but personally, I appreciate the honesty, because it really allows us to frame this discussion around the competing wants and needs here. As a commission and city leadership, you have an obligation you don't have an obligation to ensure the most lucrative development for the owner, but you definitely have an obligation to make decisions based on the long term well-being of the community and the city overall.

Thank you.

Thank you. We have, Mohit.

Good evening. My name is Mohi, and I have been living in this neighborhood for thirty years. We have been shopping in this neighborhood, in this Fair Oaks Plaza. With this, we are never against this new development. No. This is we want this to have a new development. So this area would look much nicer, but it should be sensible. It should be sustainable. What we are seeing is they are building the houses more than retail. That will make it a food desert.

We have disabled. We have seniors who actually walk to this plaza and they do the shopping. That would not be there. Plus the traffic. If you will add 67 houses, homes, if in our neighborhood, at least we have three, four cars easily.

Some have five, some have six. If you multiply, it would be about 300 cars would be added. Before, we used to have on Duen two lanes on each side. Because of the bike lanes, we have only one lane this way and one lane that way. My wife, when she goes to the to her job in the morning, especially in front of the King's Academy, it becomes like a bottleneck.

If she does not leave my home if she does not leave my home by 06:45 or seven, she would not be able to make it on time. She has to detour it. So our request and when the property is not maintained and marketed, no one would come to rent it. I have seen so many properties. If you take Tasman and Fair Oaks, the new construction, all full. So why it's not possible to fill this? But when we don't have intention to fill it, we will not. And we'll present it that, you know, we need to tear it down and build it. I'm sorry.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next one is Phil Harvey, please.

Thank you, commissioners. Excuse me. I wanna add on to Mohit's concern about the traffic. In fact, I'm surprised that traffic study is not planned. I have actually measured personally measured the cars on Duane in front of or at the corner of San Pedro, which is about one block from Fair Oaks Plaza and about a quarter mile from Kings Academy.

And that Kings Academy does get very highly congested and create some pretty extreme bottlenecks on Duane, which really causes a lot of issues for all of our local residents. I currently only have one of the measurements that I can I can share today? On April 6, it's at the in the hour of 7AM, I recorded 864 cars on Duane during that hour, and that includes standstill traffic on both directions multiple times and cars illegally using the bike lane to to drive almost full speed or speed limit to make a double lane of of traffic. So, you know, really very unsafe for bikes as well as it's just not very safe for anyone walking as well. So I would like to hear actually from the traffic department on what they currently expect for peak trips as well as the current the total number of trips per day on Duane and how much they expect these values to increase with this development.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. We have Susan Miller, please.

Vice chair.

Oh, yes.

Thank you. Just to the previous commenter, could you please when you have a chance, could you share that should you, like, email the your findings to the commission? I think it would be helpful to have them writing before this comes back for a public hearing. Thank you.

Hi. First, I wanted to say thank you to the commissioners for your time and for the commissioner who brought up the school of closure. That was a question of equity for this neighborhood that still stands and brings history to this decision here. When I first heard about the village centers, I thought what a great idea, you know, little revitalization. And you showed us all pictures of, of eateries and grocery stores amongst all the other images.

But that's not what's happening here. With respect to the property owner and his years of work, this is not a good idea. It does not reflect nor respect the identity of our neighborhood nor the history that we've had to deal with in terms of inequity. The libraries over here, everything is over here or it's in Santa Clara. I have I question this idea about a daycare center when a grocery store is really needed.

I question because we have tons of housing that's going up and has gone up on Duane Avenue and beyond, and there's no place for people to shop. Actually, Camino Medical just bought a building over there, so there'll be traffic with that. And then in terms of the vacancy, I think part of that is due to the closure of La Ronde Bar. Thank God that was closed, But there were issues with that, space that were never have never been addressed. And that's why I think that vacancy rate is that way. And so I would really urge you to look closely at this and please listen to North Sunnyvale. We all had to come down all across town just to be here.

Thank you. Arthur Henry, please.

Let the games begin. Hi. I'm not against the project. I think it's an interesting idea. I like to see retail expanded a little bit more, but I understand his effort to make a profit. Right now, it's just a giant big parking lot and a very much neglected store that's nineteen fifty nine. It's very neglected. But what I'm more concerned about is I'm looking at the EPA map map, and there was a dry cleaning store there. And it's contaminated. It's a class site for cleaning.

And there's a huge plume. You can look on the website for EPA. Luckily, my house is not in the plume, but I wanna make sure that asbestos abatement is addressed because 1959, I have asbestos in my house, all my pipings. It's in good shape, but when they tear this thing down, there's going be a lot of asbestos released. And I like to also focus on the underground contamination because there's a hot spot right in the middle of the mall where there was a dry clear, where they just poured the waste on the ground. Thank you.

Thank you. We have Natasha Walker. I hope I I said right correctly. Thank you.

Sorry. It's a German spelling. My name. I've only lived in Sunnyvale and been here for about five years come this August. And we moved here because we have a daughter with autism, and California has a wonderful, robust support system for her that we did not have in Texas

where I'm from.

So by trade, I am a a teacher. And, I just wanna say there's also a problem with the ADA access that I kept repeatedly listening for and wasn't hearing a whole lot about. Currently, I am an IHSS provider for my daughter, and I'm also highly involved with the commute on that. I'm on the advisory board for the county for IHSS and, work with some of the board of supervisors with that. And I can tell you that ADA access has been ignored for a long time by many of us who live a really wonderful life.

You know? So we don't realize until the day comes where we are affected by that. And we do have an aging population. The tsunami, the silver tsunami as they call it, is coming. There's a care crisis.

But anyhow, that was one of the things that I really wanted to address here. Also, the neighborhood elementary school. I haven't heard anybody talk about the numbers and the impact from the housing that are going to happen for the elementary school as well, especially with a whole another housing development coming. So this is something else that really needs to be taken under consideration along with everything that they were talking about too, especially, you know, if you really do some things to a place, you know, to dress it up and make it look nice, you'll have renters, and it'll be great if you just maintain the property. And that's all I have to say. Thank you.

Thank you. Does anyone else want to speak on this item before we hear from remote speakers? I don't see any hands. So remote speakers are going to remake 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.

And the title of this, I would just want to remind you, it's, it's a, application on 4.22 acre site to construct a mixed use project consisting of 67 residential units and eighteen thousand five thirty five square feet of retail retail for a total of 10% commercial FAR, and the address is 911 Duane Avenue. Reco recording of this, do we have any remote speakers wish wishing to speak on?

Yes. We do. Courtney Jansen, we'll hear from you first.

Oh, goodness. I I wasn't expecting to go first. Okay. My name is Courtney Jansen, and I live in Lakewood, but I have been following this process along for quite some time. Tonight, I am speaking obviously on my own behalf. I'm hoping I have time to make two points. The first one is I know that the landowner is tired of this process. We, the residents, are tired too. The thing is that all of this resident pushback is 100% predictable. Reading off of the city's own village center master plan website, in 2017, the loot was updated to align with document.

The loot included the village centers. The intent is to encourage intensification of underutilized shopping centers near existing transit. It also strives to provide better neighborhood serving commercial uses and more housing opportunities, end quote. That was nine years ago, and I realized that state law has been a problem, but the intent of this property has been clear. And yet I remember when scenario one was presented, and it completely ignored this intent.

Residents raised concerns back then about lack of retail and how the property did not align with the village center concept. And yet rather than making a good faith effort to address these concerns, the landowner instead chose to purchase an existing retail space to, quote, unquote, count as retail. I love speedy toggos, mind you, but scenario two is not a good faith effort on behalf of the developer. And so when you hear complaints about how this process is being very long, I understand that, but please do not let that push you forward. It's super important that this be done correctly.

And then the second point that I will make is that I'm worried that these 67 housing units are insufficient for Sunnyvale to achieve our goals. I know our plan was, like, 12,000 units. I don't know where we are, but I don't think we're on track for that completely. But 67 units on a very prime parcel of land just feels like a complete waste of space and is gonna make us, even more unable to achieve the housing plans we need to do and address our unhoused residents. Thank you.

Thank you, Courtney. Next, we'll hear from Maria T. Buenrostro.

Thank you.

Good evening. Are you able to hear me now?

We can hear you.

Thank you. Maria Bundrostro, resident of Sunnyvale for more than thirty years. My neighbor is Tijuana. I'm actually behind Tijuana. The purpose of my contribution today is first to address and hope that everyone is listening who is city staff to basically say that I appreciate the commission commissioner's questions very specifically in relationship to failures to have reports presented, prepared.

In my forty five years in nonprofits, I know one of my responsibilities has always been to serve the people that I am working with and to make sure that everything that is necessary to serve the community is prepared. Otherwise, I would I would not be employed. My first focus is going to be on the individuals that are going to be going to be lacking the resources, which is primarily food. There's two things that people cannot live without, water and food. Working with Sunnyvale Community Services, the our populations have a lot of seniors and a lot of individuals who are not able to even come to our our business, so we have home deliveries.

How many individuals are gonna be impacted if we do not have a a large enough facility, a retail store to have the prices and the location to be able to purchase? In addition to that, we have services that need to be provided, and and it's it's ironic that we are calling this a village center. We you are we already have a village living in in North San Sunnyvale, and we need to be able to reach our have our voices heard, listen to the commissioner's questions, and be prepared to respond so that they can represent us. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll hear from Liza S.

Good evening. Good evening.

Good evening. Evening. Good year. Good year.

My name is Liza Smolin, and I am a fourteen year resident of Sunnyvale. And I actually live across the street from this proposed development. And when we grew our family, we actually actually moved into a bigger townhome in the exact same complex because right across the street, there's great places to go for dinner, a grocery store if we need it, lots of things on offer. Maybe if our kid wants to do Taekwondo later, that's right there. There's a whole lot on offer.

So, no, it doesn't look the best, but there are a lot of amenities there, and that's one of the reasons that we stayed here. I'd like to echo a lot of the, former speakers who have been reminding the city council of their own vision, the village center plan calls for a walkable neighborhood with service nodes with food access. So, again, I think a lot of our concerns are reduced access to food, particularly in North Sunnyvale, particularly in a walkable radius. So it's not that useful to say, hey, there's a grocery store if you just drive two miles away. Because first of all, it's a two mile radius.

That's not the way the car drives. And second of all, that's not necessarily accessible to everyone. Yep. And if we're looking at a village center, and we're turning it into townhomes, a private townhome sidewalk is not a welcoming community space. So it's taking an area that is currently very welcoming with a full frontage. There's a big parking lot. There's places to gather inside Metro City, outside on the sidewalk. It's more of a village centric now than the proposed plan has. The backs of townhomes are not gonna be that welcoming. I just like to mention there's a lot of housing that's already been added here and more housing coming.

And I would like to see this not repeat the thing of Redwood Place Apartments where they have a small exalted cafe with exorbitant pricing. That's not what we want. We need a real grocery store. Thank you for your time. Thank

you. Next, we'll hear from Nitesh.

Hello? Can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Yep. So thanks, everyone. I just want to add, you have here, a lot of people tonight saying traffic is bad. I just want to make two different points, which are very practical and the, I face every day. First is, retail and residential generate traffic at opposite time of the day. Right now, Fair Oaks Plaza produces near zero traffic at 7AM. The restaurants are not open. The parking lot is empty. It's a natural pressure relief value on Duan during peak commute. Replace that with housing, and you're adding hundreds of new vehicle trip during the single worst hour of the day, every morning, seven to eight or 9AM.

Anyone who drives during, no there is no room for that. Second is, this plaza works because everything is close together. My kid go to Taekwondo here. While they are in the class, I walk over and get my grocery shopping done. One trip, no extra driving. That's exactly how a neighborhood retail center should function. You take that away. Now I'm making two separate car trips to two different location, and so is every other family doing the same thing. Multiply that across the neighborhood, and you are generating more traffic, not less. We don't need less retail here. We need more of it. I I'll close with a direct question. We please reconsider all these neighbors' request to have more retail space, more grocery store, and I'll appreciate that. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Next, we'll hear from Zanab Memin. Hello? We can hear you. Okay.

Say So good evening.

I wanted to speak about the redevelopment of the

Faroq Plaza. I understand that housing is important and that our city needs more homes, but I'm also concerned that in the process, we're losing the retail spaces that our community highly depends on. Because everywhere we look, just more housing is being made. But where are those stores? Where, where are the grocery stores, the restaurants, the everyday services that families actually need? Farrell Plaza isn't just a shopping center. It's a large grocery store. It has produce, meat, like, diverse communities coming there. They support small family owned restaurants, businesses that people rely on regularly. Even if the new project includes some retail and it's on the Ground Floor Floor, it won't replace what we have now.

The place will be smaller. Rents will be higher, and many of those businesses won't be able to afford to come back. And, also, there'll be demolition and the construction, which will force them to close and leave the community without access. So what happens to the small businesses that we're supposed to support, and what happens to the families who rely on these, affordable groceries and affordable necessities? So instead of making all these changes, we should be creating a housing at the cost of making North Sunnyvale a food desert. So I really hope the council seriously considers this space development.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll hear from Kenita Watson.

Hello. Can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Okay. I was concerned about the retail as well. There's was a map drawn that said that, oh, well, there are this number of, stores within one or two miles. Well, that may be as the crow flies, but it doesn't take into account the fact that there's a freeway going almost through the middle of it. And there are lots of people who wouldn't be able to get to the other side of the freeway to go to these stores that are supposedly there.

And so I think that it's important to keep and maybe even to enlarge the grocery store that we have and the retail having the, restaurants and other amenities that are there are very important. I I don't think that having a townhome complex, even though residences are important, we should not put them in at the expense of having the services that we have come to rely on for so long. Thank you.

Thank you. Next we'll hear from Steven Meyer.

Hello. Good evening, Planning Commissioners. I'm really impressed by the turnout. It's really great. These citizens are showing up and speaking out.

But the challenge is, planning commissions pretty much their your hands are tied by state housing rules. So you don't really have much, say on this matter, and it really goes back to city council. This whole village concept village center concept is a complete absolute failure, because any mixed use housing can be built up to a 100% residential. So, you guys, your hands are tied, but you can give feedback to city council. And the reality on the ground is that the city council needs to really move on retail.

They need to acquire properties just like they do with housing. You know, they acquire properties, and they fund housing. City council needs to acquire properties and fund retail. They also need to actually take real actions on transportation safety. Everyone thinks they're gonna drive around in their own single driver cars.

You know, that is just complete denial. We need transportation options, will actually allow housing growth, which means that everyone can't drive their own cars anymore. That's just in the past. So we need actual real action on transportation options, like shuttles, like cycling safety, like real cycling safety. None of these class three b Sheryl garbage stuff that puts cyclists at risk.

We need real cycling safety. We need people to get out of cars and into shuttles, and we need action on retail. We need real action on retail. We need you know? So there's a great turnout tonight. All you guys vote. So you need to actually vote for people that will build the retail that you need, and it needs to be something that you vote on. Thank you very much. Good night.

Thank you. Next, we'll hear from Rose Gregorio.

Hi. My name is Rose. I'm, an advocate for the in house, but I am speaking about the developers project. I'm concerned about the people who will lose their jobs because of this project. I just finished helping a family with a two year old daughter and an 11 year old son who are living in their small car. Dad just lost her job and got evicted.

If

this if this an organization was able to put them in a motel for a week, but tomorrow, they're gonna be going back on the street in the small car. If you continue, this developer will continue building this project they have in Fair Oaks Plaza. I'm sure employees will lose their jobs. And I hope these developers will not push them and will not push them like the way like this an house family, the four year old and the 11 year old boy on the street. The problem in this world, like I always say, the rich are getting richer and the poor is getting poorer.

I'm just, know, this I'm just hoping that this developer will think about the people that will be affected. And there are other places where they can put their project or they can build their build project aside from the Fair Oaks Plaza. And to me, it's I don't think they understand the the impact of what they're doing to the people who are working there and also have a business there. And and that's all I can say. I'm I'm just worried about this. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll hear from Lenore Lopez.

Hello? Can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Oh, hi. Yes. So my name is Lina Lopez, and I've been living here in the this area for twenty five years. And the reason why I bought this house was its accessibility to this, Fair Oaks Plaza. And I really like the market as well as the restaurant. And with that, I will not be able to access it. There's also had been an issue with the traffic ever since this two lane became one lane. And I there was an instance also that, you know, they it wasn't stated before that they had one car had to use the the bike lane, and I was like I was just there. It's like, where did this car car came from? So it was just very close.

Also, I'm an I'm older person, and this is gonna be a challenging issue for me if I have to travel. And I don't have the, probably, the means to do that. So I just wanted to let you know about these issues that everybody is talking about, and that's it. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And vice chair, we have no further hands raised.

Thank you. I will close, public comment, and I'll have a applicant to come and respond to all these comments. You have, like, five minutes.

Oh. I thought we said we weren't doing that.

Yeah. Yeah. Madam vice chair, so prior to the public comments, the the clerk

said that?

Yeah. Had in indicated after we review I mean, we further reviewed both the script and the council policy on study sessions, and there's no indication that there is a closing statement portion. So okay.

I know. I was just, I didn't hear it properly. Maybe, sorry. I'm just, like, focusing on it. So I I apologize, and so you have no five minutes. But, I think I'm going to just say that, we had a great, great public comments and high level applicant took notes, and that's about it. And so at this time, the meeting will recess until, oh, meeting okay. Meeting will adjourn, and the regular planning commission will start around 08:20.

Good evening. Let's call to order the planning commission meeting of April 27 at 08:20PM. The city does not tolerate disruptive behavior in our meetings. Sunnyvale prides itself on the rich diversity of our residents, and we are committed to creating a culture of belonging where members of a diverse community can feel included, safe, and respected. This planning commission meeting is considered a limited public forum, which means the Commission can regulate the time, place, and manner of speech.

Speaker comments must be limited to the agenda item being considered by the Commission for consent calendar or public hearing items. Speaker comments during oral communications must be limited to matters within the Commission's authority, generally referred to as within the commission's subject matter jurisdiction. If a speaker's comments are not related 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 captions button to view captions on Zoom. Comments on matters not on the agenda must be submitted prior to the time I call the item for oral communications. Comments on agenda items must be submitted prior to the time I close the public hearing on that 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 a salute to the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Recording officer, may we please have the roll call?

Commissioner Segura.

Present.

Vice chair Shukla? Present. Commissioner Cerrone?

Present.

Commissioner Pine?

Present.

Chair Glacias?

Present.

Commissioner Davis? Present. We have six commissioners present, and commissioner Fagoni's absence is excused.

Thank you very much. Alright. This brings us to oral communications. Oral communications is the public's opportunity to address the commission on topics not listed on tonight's agenda. This section is limited to fifteen minutes and may be extended or continued after the public hearing's general business section of meeting. Individuals may only speak once during oral communications. This planning commission meeting is a limited public forum, and the commission can regulate the time, place, and manner of speech. Speaker comments during oral communications must be limited to matters within the commission's authority to take action, again, the commission's subject matter jurisdiction. If the speaker's comments are outside the commission's subject matter jurisdiction, the presiding officer will rule the speaker as 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 a disagreement with the content of their speech. Please submit a speaker card to the recording officer, raise your digital hand now, or dial 9 on a telephone to indicate that you wish to speak. I will call members of the public participating in person first followed by remote participants. Speakers will be given three minutes for oral communications. Because of the nature of remote communications, speakers who are ruled out of order will be will not be given another chance to speak on this item. Therefore, speakers are warned to limit their comments to subjects that fall within the commission's authority to decide or take action. According officer, do you have any remote participants wishing to speak on oral communications?

We do not, chair.

Thank you. I will go ahead and close oral communications. This brings us to our consent calendar. I will go ahead and and open public comment on consent calendar items. Please submit a speaker card to the recording officer. Raise your digital hand now or dial 9 on your telephone to indicate you wish to speak. I will call on members of the public participating in person first followed by remote participants. Speakers will have three minutes to speak. Recording off, should we have any remote participants wishing to speak on this item?

No. We do not.

Okay. I will close public comment. I will now ask for a motion from my colleagues. Commissioner Pine.

Thank you, chair. I move the consent calendar with, modification as noted in the responses to commissioner questions attachment to it, that the formal amendment should state that it was to specify that developments with only 10 or more rental units would be subject to the proposed ordinance.

Thank you. I'm looking for a second. Commissioner Davis.

I second the motion.

Thank you. Recording officer, please connect a vote.

The motion passes with five yeses. Chair Glessis abstaining, and Commissioner Fagoni absent.

Alright. Thank you very much. This brings us to our general business, public hearing portion of the meeting. We have two items for this evening. The first item is item 26 dash 0451. It's a proposed project to recommend a city council to adopt an urgency interim ordinance pursuant to government code section six five eight five eight, adopting a temporary moratorium on the establishment and operation of smoke shops as defined within the city of Sunnyvale, and the location would be city while citywide. Is there a staff report?

Yes. There is. Cherry Glacias. Good evening, Chair and members of the Planning Commission. I'm Rebecca Moon. I'm the city attorney. And I'm here to present this item. I don't have a PowerPoint. This is a very straightforward item. This is an urgency interim or to recommend a city council to adopt an urgency interim moratorium on smoke shops in the city of Sunnyvale.

This initial moratorium will be good for forty five days, and then we can come back and we can extend it for up to a year or sorry, up to a total of a year, which is actually works out to ten months plus fifteen days plus the forty five days. And that will give us an opportunity to study the harms of smoke shops and to look at an appropriate regulatory scheme. We're one of the last cities in the County that doesn't specifically regulate retail tobacco shops and anecdotally there has been a growth in these shops really statewide over the past few years. These are shops that sell primarily tobacco and vaping, paraphernalia and products, and unfortunately many of these shops also sell a variety of other harmful and or illegal substances, including cannabis, which is not legal in Sunnyvale flavored tobacco, which is not legal in Sunnyvale Products that are illegal under state law, including some very dangerous products like Kratom or seven zero eight, which is highly addictive. It's an illegal opiate opiate like chemical, also magic mushroom products, and other things of that nature.

And because the city of Sunnyvale doesn't have any permit, local permit requirement, or any zoning restrictions on these shops, unlike many of our neighboring jurisdictions, there is a possibility that this is a more attractive area for these shops to locate. They can be very profitable if as you can imagine. So this moratorium would make it illegal for any new new shops to open in Sunnyvale. And so as I will quote councilmember Mallinger sometimes at council meetings where he says, please vote yes, as his comments. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Oh, there was a question about Mountain View. I apologize. They left Mountain View off the list of jurisdictions. Mountain View so there's there's some cities that have a a local city permit and some that have decided to participate in a county run permit program. Mountain View has opted for the permit the county permit program, but they haven't implemented it yet. So they're kind of in a transition period right now.

Alright. Thank you so much for the brief but direct presentation. At this point, I'll turn it over to the commission for questions. Commissioner Davis, you're up first.

Yeah. This is pretty straightforward. I was just reading through the ordinance, and perhaps I missed it,

but I

didn't see a definition for standalone smoke shop.

Yeah, it's at the very beginning of the ordinance, and it says that Let me find it here. A smoke shop means a retailer or person that primarily sells offers for sale or offers to exchange for any form of consideration, tobacco products, and or tobacco paraphernalia, in which the sale of other products is merely incidental. And then there are definitions of tobacco paraphernalia and tobacco products.

Page three. Okay.

I guess I I guess I skipped over that. I guess okay. That's that's okay. I'm good. That's pretty clear. Thank you.

Thank you, commissioner Davis. Next, we have commissioner Saroni.

Thank you, chair. Let's see. The council requires a four fifths vote for an urgency ordinance. What do we require here?

For a recommendation, you only need a majority.

Just a just a majority? Right. According to the staff report in October 2025, city inspectors found seven smoke shops in violation of the city's ordinance prohibiting flavored tobacco. And apparently, there were other illegal drugs being sold at these shops. So so what was the result of that? Were they shut down? Were they fined? What happens in that case?

So my understanding is they were cited for the flavored tobacco, and illegal products were seized. They those operations, I believe are usually done in conjunction with the County. So there is a state retail tobacco license that these businesses have to get and the County enforces those. They usually have operations once a year, twice a year, where they inspect all the shops and issue citations and seize illegal goods.

So why are we doing urgency ordinances? Are more smoke shops imminent or?

That's one of the concerns just as I mentioned that other cities in the county have stricter regulations than we do. Also, it's gonna take us some time I think to really study this issue and decide what type of regulatory program we want. Do we want to, you know, inter cooperatively with the county and use their program? Do we want to have our own program that involves deciding what type of permits we'll issue, who's going to enforce that, what the fees are going to be, and so on. So we could do that without doing a moratorium, but that means there would be more shops potentially opening that would then be grandfathered when we eventually regulate them.

Okay. I mean, just looking at this, it seems like the main problem is the shop selling illegal drugs, and that's a violation of law. So more so more than saying, they're all selling illegal drugs. We just don't want more of the illegal drugs, which is a valid point. But seems like stopping the illegal drugs would be the first step.

That, you know, that's a great point. And obviously, the fact that we're going to look at zoning regulations and permits for tobacco sales doesn't mean we condone the illegal products. That's a that's a law enforcement issue, potentially a civil litigation issue where we have to shut down shops. Having a permit requirement would mean that we have a permit we can enforce, so we would then have an administrative process we could use to shut down these businesses because we could revoke their tobacco permits. We don't currently have that tool.

Alright. Alright. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you, commissioner Sironi. Seeing no other commissioner hands, I just had one point of clarification. So, if if this passes as designed as requested, it's forty five day moratorium. And I know that there's the county's approach, and then there are some cities do their own. Is have have you already kind of determined? Are you gonna use this period to determine if accounting approach would make sense for us, or if we wanna do something more bespoke for Sunnyvale?

So I I think we'll be able to get started, hopefully, but we wouldn't be able to complete any type of study within forty five days. So we'll be we'll have to come back and extend it for the remainder of the of the twelve month period. And if that's

the case, is there any reason why the Planning Commission couldn't like forty five days seems relatively short. Is there a reason why it couldn't be a longer morphine initially?

This is the statutory procedure for interim zoning moratoria.

Got it. Alright. Thank you very much. Okay. Seeing no other commissioner hands at this time, I will go ahead and open the public, hearing on this specific item. Please submit a speaker card to the recording officer or raise your digital hand now or dial 9 on a telephone to indicate that you wish to speak. Speakers are warned 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. Recording officer, do we have any remote participants wishing to speak on this item?

We do not, chair.

Alright. Thank you. Then I will go ahead and close public hearing and ask for discussion or motion for my colleagues. Commissioner Davis.

If my colleagues are, I'm ready with the motion if they're ready. I see nods. So, I move alternative one, recommend that city council adopt the urgency interim ordinance pursuant to government code six eight five I'm sorry. Six five eight five eight, adopting a temporary moratorium on the establishment and operation of smoke shops as defined within the city of Sunnyvale founded in attachment two. Far enough enough far enough away for me to read it.

Alright. Thank you, commissioner Davis. And commissioner Sugura?

I'll second that.

Alright. Thank you, commissioner Davis. To your motion?

Yeah. This seems pretty simple to me. It it's sounds like we're in a prickly situation where some we found some harm and so on, and this is buying us some time to to deal with it. So I'm fine with the with with the moratorium.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Davis. And Commissioner Sugura, to your second.

I absolutely agree that we should regulate it and try to prevent for illegal drugs coming into the city and get to our young kids and definitely to make sure that all the vapor products that are there, there are some that are very dangerous, and we need to regulate and make sure that our community is safe. Thank you.

Thank you, commissioner Segura. Commissioner Pine.

Yeah. Thank you. I we've said a lot of recently about the need for more retail in Sunnyvale, but I'd argue that making Sunnyvale the vice capital of Silicon Valley is not the right way to go about this. Thank you. Thank

you, Commissioner Pine. Alright. Seeing no other commissioner hands, recording officer, please connect a vote.

The motion passes with successes, and commissioner Fagoni absent.

Alright. Thank you. And what are the next steps for this, project?

This will go to the city council at the next council meeting.

Okay. Thank you. That brings us to our next, item for this evening. It's item two six dash zero three seven six. It's a proposed project forward, a recommendation to the city council to take the following actions.

Stay with me. It's gonna be a little bit. A, find the proposed actions are exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to CEQA guidelines section one five zero six one b three and one five three zero eight. B, adopt a resolution to establish low density residential objective design standards for single family dwellings, two family dwellings, and dual urban opportunity housing developments and repeal the single family home design techniques. C, introduce an ordinance to amend Sunnyvale Municipal Code title 19 zoning to amend chapter 19 dot three two building heights, lot coverages, and floor area ratios, and repeal and replace chapter 19 dot 80 design reviews to implement the lower density residential design standards and to amend chapter 19 dot seven nine accessory dwelling units to confirm with new state ADU laws.

D, adopt a resolution to update and adopt the green building tables for 2026. And e, repeal city council policy one dot one dot one two, maximum standards for small lot, single dwelling residential developments. The location is citywide. Is there a staff report?

Good evening, Commissioners. Yes. We have a staff report. So my name is Asthabashishta. I'm senior planner.

And today I'm going to walk you through the proposed lower density residential objective design standards and the related updates. And before we go into the presentation, I would like to make some corrections. So we'll start with the staff report. On page two, after the increased green building incentive program for residential projects, we would like to add repeal city council policy one point one point one two maximum standards for small lot single family home residential developments. Then on page four, which is under the environmental review, we would like to add also the sequel guidelines section one five three zero eight.

And then on page seven, which is under the ADUs, we would like to replace the x days, it's on the second line, with fifteen business days. And finally, in attachment three, which is the resolution, we just made a minor correction. We added the minimum roof slope for Prairie style architecture, and that's on page 42. Now moving on to the presentation. So a little bit background about this project, the proposed lower density residential objective design standards, they will replace the existing single family home design techniques.

These are the guidelines that are currently being used for evaluating single family and two family home projects. This was adopted back in January 2003. And at the same time, it included creation of floor area ratio thresholds for planning commission design review. In 2020, city council authorized update to these guidelines, and this was through city council study session paper, CDT 20 dash zero one. DALEN, which is planning an architectural form, they were selected as the project consultant in 2022.

Now looking at the timeline here, this effort started back in 2022 when we first held our community outreach meeting. And since then, we also held three study sessions, and we made revisions to the draft. The first public draft was released last year in December. And the final next step would be city council hearing on June 2. Now talking about the goals of these this update.

So the existing single family home design techniques, they have overall been very useful reference for both property owners and staff for guiding single family home and duplex projects. But those are mostly subjective in nature, which is now inconsistent with the state law, which requires local jurisdiction to review housing development projects based on objective standards that don't involve any personal discretion or subjective interpretation. So that's really the key goal of this update is to create those objective and measurable design standards consistent with state law. The other key goal for us was to streamline the permit review process to really minimize hurdles for development of these kind of projects. We also aimed at promoting architectural variation, modernizing the documents to address the current demands and trends, include sustainable design goals.

And finally, an important goal was also to provide more flexibility to homeowners while still having still balancing and addressing the needs of the neighbors. So with that in mind, we worked on the draft document, and this is generally the organization of that document. So it's divided into three chapters here. The first chapter is introduction, which explains the state law that prompted the update, talked about the applicability of this document, provision of exceptions, which we are gonna talk in next slide. It introduced the design principles that guided the design standards.

Now the second chapter, design standards, it's really the bulk of this document, and it's divided into two subsections. The first is architectural style sec standards, and that only applies to new dwellings and new second stories. And it include guidance on, like, roof form, slopes, materials, decorative elements, entry porches. And appendix a supplements this section, and it includes the design element for common architectural style within Sunnyvale. We also have a provision to allow architectural styles that are not included in the appendix.

The second subsection of chapter two is neighborhood scale and patent standard. The goal of this section is essentially to achieve compatibility of mass and scale among the neighborhood. And it includes several standards, including second floor massing, heights, roof forms, facade articulation, entries, privacy, covered parking, materials, landscaping, and lighting. The final chapter is glossary. It's a graphic and narrative description of all the terms used in the document.

And then the appendix b, it clarifies the design standards that are applicable by the project type and also clarifies the standards that would allow for deviation. Now as I mentioned before, one of our key goal really was to offer flexibility to the homeowners and also allow also really support the creative site and architectural solution. With that in mind, we included the provision for exceptions and alternative compliance. Now exceptions are allow a deviation of up to 25% from most numerical standards, And a maximum of two exceptions are granted for staff level permits and three for planning commission level permits. An example would be one of the standard states that the entry porch height should be within two feet of the 1st Floor area.

With this exception with an exception, it would allow for up to two feet three inches. The other provision was alternative compliance. We are we have proposed alternative compliance for a majority of design standards, and this was essentially to address projects that have a more unique context. An example would be side entry tours would be allowed for neighborhoods where 25 or more of the existing homes have the same pattern. Next, in conjunction with these standards, we are also proposing several updates, and we'll go through that in the next few slides.

So first is lot coverage. So over time, we have seen there is a demand for larger homes in Sunnyvale, and this is primarily to accommodate household needs, multigenerational living, and aging in place. And to address the demand, we are proposing to increase the maximum lot coverage allowance for the low density residential zoning district. Currently, it is 45% for one story and 40% for two story, and we are proposing a flat 50% irrespective of the number of stories. Next, consistent with our goal of streamlining the review process, we are proposing to increase the design review thresholds for all three level of design reviews.

So this would result in fewer permits at each level. So for staff level design review without noticing, the key difference would be we are increasing the threshold for from one story addition greater than 20% to one story addition greater than 50%. We are also clearly defining the exterior modifications that will trigger design review. For staff level design review with noticing, we are clearly defining the second story exterior modifications that would need a permit. Finally, for planning commission level design review, we are proposing to increase the threshold from 45% FAR or 3,600 square feet floor area to 60% FAR.

Any project that's below this threshold will only require a building permit. But irrespective of the permit type, all the projects will be subject to the design standards as well as the zoning standards. Next, we proposed some very minor updates to ADU ordinance, and this is in compliance with the recent state laws that went into effect. Next, we are also proposing a very minor update to the green building program. So green building program, it offers incentive for projects that exceed the minimum requirement for a single family or duplex project.

If they exceed the requirement, they can choose to increase lot coverage by 5% or qualify for staff level design review with up to 50% FAR or 4,000 square feet floor area. Consistent with the increased threshold, we we are recommending that this incentive would allow for staff level design review with up to 65% FER. Finally, the city council policy one point one point one two. So we are proposing to repeal this policy. So this policy was devised to allow flexibility for new single family home projects on small lots irrespective of the underlying zoning.

It's essentially consistent with our 1.5 and our 1.7 PD requirements that typically have these kind of projects, so small lots, single family homes. We are recommending repeal as with the proposed revised thresholds and lot coverage. This policy will be redundant. And additionally, this policy is also subjective in nature and therefore cannot be applied to housing development projects for the state law. Since our last study session on March 23, we have made some revisions to the documents.

So we have included the requested corrections. We updated the pictures in appendix a. We also added the minimum roof slope for prairie style architecture, and that's in appendix a as well. And the link to the recent document, it's in attachment two. So in conclusion, the proposed new standards, they will provide clear direction and guidance to the applicant and staff.

The related updates will further help in streamlining the process and also allow increased flexibility and meeting the changing demands. Therefore, staff is recommending planning commission to recommend to city council alternative one, which is to find that the proposed actions are exempt from CEQA, adopt a resolution to establish low density residential objective objective design standards and repeal the single family home design techniques introduce an ordinance to amend Chapter 19.32 repeal and replace Chapter 19.8 and to amend Chapter 19.79, adopt a resolution to update and adopt the green building tables, and finally repeal City Council policy 1.1.12. This concludes staff's presentation. The next step would be City Council hearing on June 2. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your presentation. To kick it off with commissioners, we've got commissioner Davis.

Just one point of clarification. Yes. Thank you for the presentation. This has been really good work getting to this point. On two story homes for new two story homes, you said there's a staff level design review that's that's mandatory. Are there any exceptions to this? Is this across the board, or is it only in predominantly single story neighborhoods?

It's across the board for all the projects.

Okay. Have we considered limiting it to only predominantly single story, or is it just not come up?

We we haven't. But, generally, there has been, an interest in the neighborhood to review the second story homes, so we just continued with our practice. So we thought we can just continue with that.

Okay. All right. That's fine. Thank you. That's my only question.

Thank you.

I have some commentary, but that should be held till after we open the public hearing. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Commissioner Davis. Next, have Commissioner Saroni.

Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. So in the case where a project comes to the Planning Commission, will we have the option of waiving or changing the requirements?

Not. So it's because it's a housing development project. So even a single family home is a housing development project. So it will be you'll be confined with the objective standards, which are the zoning code requirements and also the objective design standards. But with the planning commission level review, they can request a deviation from, or an exception from up to three, standards.

Okay. Alright. Something I I I mentioned I think I mentioned before when we looked at this, but for the purpose of this document, I thought that a neighborhood should be defined as a housing development that was, built at the same general time by developer in the same general style. And sometimes it's a large area and sometimes when like for example, sometimes a school was closed and homes were built and may only be a couple of city blocks. But and it's pretty easy to see if you just look at them.

Other areas, of course, like some previously unincorporated areas don't have a coherent style, which is fine. And using a circular distance might work in some cases. But why do that when you can either with historical records or just driving around, you can see where one housing development ends and another starts. And I'm just thinking of an example where you have, let's say, four or five blocks of Craftsman style housing built as a housing development next to, let's say, Eyclair development, for example. But a house close to the edge of the Craftsman development will be in a circle that is half Craftsman, half Eichler.