Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Thank you. So, . . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you ¶¶ ¶¶ Thank you. Thank you. Hi. Thank you.

Good evening and welcome to the August 27 Planning Commission hearing. Would the Secretary please call the roll?

Yes, of course. Commissioner Anderson, let me know he would not be in attendance this evening. Commissioner Moran?

Here.

Commissioner Count? Here. Commissioner Strongman?

Here.

Commissioner Kwok also let me know he wouldn't be able to attend this evening. Vice Chair Klopp? Here. And Chair Needing?

Here. There are I don't see anything here, but just in case you have anything on the consent calendar. No, we do not perfect There are two opportunities to provide public comment The first is right now for items that are not on the agenda that are the purview of the Planning Commission So I do want to ask do we have any public speakers that would like to discuss? None I'm seeing none. Okay, perfect. I Absolutely. What I was going to say is there are two opportunities to provide public comment. Is this better, sir?

Okay.

Is this better? No? Okay. You know what? And this is a good challenge. I do need to always speak up. My husband tells me the exact same thing. Absolutely. Okay, so there are two opportunities to provide public comments. The first is right now for items that are not on the agenda that are within the purview of the Planning Commission. So is there anybody out there that would like to provide public comment on items not on today's agenda? Seeing none, I will go ahead and ask my fellow commissioners if they have had any ex parte communications. Oh, yes, go ahead.

I had a conversation with a gentleman in the third row about the Taylor 4B. 4B, okay.

Okay, so now let's move on to public hearing. The first is the Green Oasis Day Spa conditional use permit application number Y25040 located at 1830 Mount Diablo Boulevard. Does staff have a presentation?

Can you hear me?

Good, okay.

Good evening, Planning Commissioners. My name is Gerardo Victoria, Associate Planner, Community Development Department. The project before you today is the Green Oasis Day Spa Conditional Use Permit at 1830 Mount Diablo Boulevard. Some site context, the day spa will be occupying about 1,400 square feet of an existing 2,200 square feet vacant building outlined here with the star on the aerial map. And this map is just a closer view of that building. It is surrounded by a mix of commercial uses and personal services and professional offices located at the adjacent shopping center and west and east of the 1830 Mount Diablo building. The general plan designation is office. The zoning designation is office commercial. Personal service users are permitted with the approval of a conditional use permit. The business plan calls for the operation of 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Saturday, closed on Sunday. Two to three employees will be anticipated to be hired. The day spa will have four treatment rooms by appointment only with clients. Services that they're gonna be offering are professional massage, cosmetology, and a hair salon. So the existing building located on the left-hand side used to be a medical office located here. The adjacent tenant space is also vacant. We'll get into that in the next presentation. The new floor plan calls for two massage rooms, a skin care room, a hair salon, and a reception area, along with bathrooms and a supply room. The existing site plan currently has 10 stalls. located at the rear here. A restriping of the parking area will occur that will provide 13 stalls. There is a shared parking agreement with the adjacent tenant located here at 1822 Mount Diablo. There was a parking study completed that five stalls would meet the demand for the entire building, not just for this business, but for the entire building. So the standard conditional use permit findings apply to this project as outlined in your draft resolution. There is an additional finding that the proposed use is located in the single story core area building and shall find that the proposed ground floor use is compatible with the existing character and uses of the area. Staff found that the ground floor use is consistent with the existing commercial character as similar personal service uses operate on the ground floor of the adjacent shopping center. As this business is an appointment base that generates lower walking activity than the professional offices that surround it, it fits well within the established commercial use of the area. So staff recommends move to adopt a CEQA exemption 15301 for existing facilities and to approve the conditional use permit based on the findings outlined in the draft resolution to allow the Green Oasis Day Spa. Staff is available for questions. The applicant, Mr. Eddie Salem, is also here for questions.

Perfect. Thank you so much. Do we have any questions for staff?

Thank you for the presentation. How long has the building been vacant?

I believe four years, 80. Is it four years?

Four and a half years, yes. And what was there before?

It was a medical building.

Okay. And is there any other vacant buildings on that site?

On the site, yes. The 1822 right now is vacant. That business is going through the building permit process.

Okay.

Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Any other questions? Just out of curiosity, was it just efficiency of the striping that they were able to get more?

Correct, yes.

It was just prior. not efficiently striped.

It was an old parking lot that was used. There's a shared parking agreement between there. And I think the adjacent business was a pool business. So yeah, they just re-striped it to get additional parking stalls.

OK. Perfect. Thank you. Okay, so if there's no more questions for staff, what I would like to do is now open up the public hearing item, and if the applicant would like to talk, you have the opportunity of 15 minutes. If you wouldn't mind, because then we can't hear you. We're in the same boat.

The property's been vacant for quite a long time. And so we were approached by Mr. Nicolini and his client to have a day spa there, which is cosmetology here. and massage, also facials, et cetera. So at that time, we said, OK. But the small one was also approached by Reza, who wants to do a tailor shop. So we decided to put things together and talk to everybody else. And I brought everything to Gerardo and also commend Walnut Creek for guiding us through the process, because it takes a long time to understand everything. So basically right now on the parking situation, it goes way, way, way, way back when the people next door had 1822 and the brokers, it's funny about real estate brokers, some people don't explain things to everybody. I'm a little different. I like to explain the whole thing. So they had an agreement before the people bought the property. and they had a shared parking agreement. So the new owners gave us a shared parking, so we could work together as a team here, which is nice to do that in today's age, to work together. Plus we did a parking study, which Gerardo explained about. So these people are gonna remodel the place, so it'll be a cosmetology, facials, eyebrows, hair, whatever they need to do, a full salon, like changes in San Francisco, like downtown Walnut Creek, something like that, in that area. So I'm here to answer any questions you like.

OK. Does anybody have any questions for the applicant? I'm seeing, oh, yes.

Hi. Thank you for coming. What was your name? Eddie Salem. Eddie Salem. Nice to meet you. So a quick question. Once this process is completed, then there's the process of setting up the business. And I know for massage services in particular, there are additional permits or Licenses that are required.

So you have a plan for all of those who is licensed by the police department already all that stuff has been completed Because they had a place in Sacramento. So everything by the police department done Licensing will be taken care of by the city. They have no problem is doing all that So you have a plan for all there's a plan for everything. There's also construction plans gonna be in enhancing the property value property also the area there because a lot of vacancies you know commercial vacancies are very prominent nowadays yeah i represent a few in walnut creek so i know you know so so i don't think there's gonna be a problem there great because it's just the the the bad stories you hear are about somebody who didn't go through that process yes that's why when we talked about this with um they're representing the Bob that we just I told him I said he's just not gonna be a straight mess it's gonna be cosmetology people live in one a facial might do an eyebrow they want to do whatever the women like to do or the men like to do but it's something that's more complete as a day spa and then she's all ready for that and they're all ready to go thank you and then the place has a spaces and has 288 bathrooms in there already

Perfect, thank you so much. Are there any more questions for the applicant?

Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you, Eddie. Are there any other public speakers that would like to speak on this particular item on the agenda? Seeing none, I'm gonna go ahead and close the public hearing portion of this agenda item and bring it back to the commission for any discussions, questions, It sounds like, I actually had a question. We've had a lot of these items where we need to be able to find consistency with compatibility of character and uses in commercial. Are these one of the items that would be

think you know where I'm leading yeah yes this is something through our general plan update process we would explore what I will offer to the Commission to consider is the general plan process is not super fast you typically are looking at two or three years if the Commission wants to entertain I don't want to whatever is the opposite of a moratorium I suppose sorry I'm looking over at legal here but if you wanted to do a study session let's say on on the item or on the idea of use permits for these types of land uses that's something that we could discuss further I can't make any promises at the dice here that we would be making amendments because again we want to make sure we go through that general plan update process thoroughly But if it's something that you at least want to, you know, just scratch that itch or explore a little bit, it definitely wouldn't hurt, and it could probably help influence our general plan update process.

That would not impact our decision tonight on this project?

No. Yeah, I wouldn't. I'm not advocating for anything specific. No particular project, yes. But if you just wanted to look at compatibility uses as a whole.

Because my standard complaint is I don't see why we should be having to deal with this at all. It's a building permit, maybe a sign permit process personally.

Yeah, and so in some future, what could happen is it would be a zoning ordinance amendment. And again, our hope is through the general plan update, we would identify the types of uses that we want to make permitted by right, the types of uses that we would like to have administrative use permits or conditional use permits. So if it's something that you wanted to explore earlier than the general plan update, again, I can't entirely say that that is something that we would

fully act upon but it's something that we could at least have the study session on and that would feed into the general plan update i feel like we can discuss that i don't i like that idea under um commission member commission considerations um so what we're being asked here is to make the findings to um that it's compatible with existing character and uses, and that it would activate an existing vacant commercial tenant space with neighborhoods serving personal use compatible with its surrounding uses.

So I'd like to make a motion to approve the resolution for personal service use screen Oasis Day Spa, conditional use permit application number Y25-040, 1830 Mount Diablo Boulevard. Making me read a whole lot of numbers. So I'd like to make that motion.

Second.

And I will do the roll call. Commissioner Moran?

Yes.

Commissioner Cowan? Yes. Commissioner Strongman? Yes. Vice Chair Klopp? Yes. And Chair Needy? Yes.

It passes. Oh, I'm sorry. So now moving on, thank you so much for being here. Now moving on to public hearing item B, the project is res. alterations tailor CUP application number Y2541, location 1828 Mount Diablo Boulevard.

So good evening planning commissioners. My name is Gerardo Victoria, associate planner community development. The project before you today is the res alterations tailor conditional use permit at 1828 Mount Diablo Boulevard. Some site context. The aerial view or the building with the star located here is where the res alterations tailor will be located. They're going to be occupying about 800 square feet of the existing 2200 vacant building. It is surrounded by a mix of commercial uses personal service uses the general plan designation is office the zoning designation is office commercial personal service uses permitted with approval of a conditional use permit. The hours of operation for this business will occur between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, closed on Sunday and Monday. It is an employee-operated business with just two employees, which is the business owner and his spouse. They will have a cutting table, fitting rooms, and a clothing rack, by appointment only as well. The services that they are offering are custom tailoring and alterations and clothing repair services. So on the left hand side is the floor plan for the, will be occupied by the Green Oasis Spa. They will occupy the front facing tenant space facing Mount Diablo Boulevard. It will have a fitting room, a clothing rack, a reception area, and a cutting table with a bathroom inside the tenant space. The existing site plan calls for 10 parking stalls. They will be re-striped to provide 13 stalls. As stated in the previous presentation, they do have a shared parking agreement with the adjacent business. The parking study provided stated that five stalls would meet the demand for this building. These are the standard conditioner use permits findings as well as the additional finding that the proposed use is located in the single story core area building and shall find that the proposed ground floor use is compatible with the existing character and uses of the area as stated previously. This ground floor use is consistent with the existing commercial character as similar personal service uses operate on the ground floor of the adjacent shopping center. Staff recommends move to adopt a CEQA exemption, 15301, existing facilities and approve the conditional use permit based on the findings outlined in the draft resolutions to allow the res alterations tailor. Staff is available for questions. The applicant, Mr. Eddie Salem, is also available to answer any questions.

Thank you so much. Does anybody have any questions for staff for this 800 square feet? No? OK. Now, thank you so much. I would like to now open the public hearing. Mr. Salem, I know you just spoke. So I do want to offer you the 15 minutes that you are allowed as part of the public. Pardon me? Absolutely. You have the 15 minutes. I'm not a filibuster, so.

Reza has been here. He's a great tailor. He still works for Nordstrom. He doesn't work for Nordstrom anymore. He works for also the Men's Warehouse. So him and his family, him and his wife would like to open up a custom tailor shop for themselves to continue their future doing tailoring. And I think custom tailoring nowadays is a very wanted idea. People almost go in there, you know, I lost 57 pounds. I don't know where to go. You can't go to a dry cleaner. So anyway, so he liked this place. It also has an ADA bathroom in there and it's very, located right on the main street of Mount Dabba Boulevard. 800 square feet, the design was done so it has closets and changing rooms, et cetera, with a bathroom, et cetera. So it's a family operated business, two people. And basically, they only open five days a week. And nowadays, in America, we grew up working on independent small businesses. I grew up in San Francisco. My father had a grocery store. So we grew up as a family-operated business. So I like to take care of people who like to do family-operated business. It's the essence of America, in my opinion. And nowadays, not everything is Whole Foods. So if there's any questions about that, it's very simple, easy, just a tailor shop by permits only, and the parking is there, the easements are there, and it's in a great location, thanks to all these high rise buildings. I'm sure he's gonna get a lot of people to come in with their suits and stuff and do some work there. Even Gerardo can have a suit there done.

Is there any more questions?

Are there any questions for the applicant? Yes, Commissioner Moran.

Thank you, Mr. Salem. So how many extra spaces are going to be there after the Taylor and the previous business?

Do you know? Parking spaces?

No, I mean vacant spaces. That's it. There's only two spaces in the building. So you're two for two? That's it. Two for two. We're not going to see you again.

No, no. You won't see me again. Darn.

I know.

Unless you want to see me. You want to buy something? I'll sell you something.

No, I'm just making the point that I think it's great that we've filled what looks like three or four years vacant. Over four years vacant, yeah. With local small businesses.

I like to see small businesses prosper. You ever been to Milky Flakes in San Francisco? I did that. That was my property. So I leased that out to Milky Flakes. And it took us, with your help, it took us almost one year to get that done. And he's a custom ice cream place with a shell. Have you ever eaten there, had ice cream there? I haven't taken the kids yet. Oh, the line's out the door. Huh?

Yeah, the line's out the door. I just wanted to make the point. Thank you. I think for my fellow commissioners.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration. I appreciate it. OK.

Thank you. Are there, I have to ask if there's any other public speakers Seeing none, then I will close the public hearing portion of this item and bring it back to my fellow commissioners for this 800 feet of now activated.

Are we ready for a motion? Yes, please. Well, in honor of this wonderful local business being located here in our city, thank you so much for everyone's efforts. I would like to move to determine this project is exempt from CEQA and adopt the draft resolution approving the conditional use permit for personal service use res alterations tailor at 1828 Mount Diablo Boulevard. including the supplemental finding that the proposed use is compatible with the existing character and uses in the area.

Second.

All right. Commissioner Moran?

Yes.

Commissioner Count?

Yes.

Commissioner Strongman?

Yes.

Vice Chair Klopp? Yes. Chair Needing? Yes. And the motion passes. It passed. Thank you so much.

Okay, moving on to item C. It's project located at 1532 Mount Diablo, mixed use development, conditional use permit and design review application Y2550. And I already said the location and staff has a report. Thank you.

Okay, good evening Chair and members of the Planning Commission. My name is Stephen Cook, Assistant Planner with the City's Community Development Department. Before you this evening is a request of a conditional use permit and design review to establish a mixed-use building located at 1532 Mount Diablo Boulevard. The associated project's application number is Y25050. To orient you at the site, the project is located within the downtown core area along Mount Diablo Boulevard and directly at Butts Commercial Lane. The approximately 0.41-acre site is surrounded by a variety of retail, restaurant, and other commercial uses, including the Broadway Plaza Shopping Center nearby. The site is currently developed with a vacant auto body shop, a surface parking lot, and an outdoor dining structure. The proposed development would replace these existing improvements with an eight-story mixed-use building totaling approximately 111,000 square feet and reaching approximately 89 feet in height. The project includes 104 rental residential units, 14 of which would be affordable, as well as ground floor retail space, a publicly accessible outdoor area, two levels of underground parking, and various residential amenities. Turning now to the floor plan, this slide illustrates the proposed ground floor and underground parking levels. The ground floor includes approximately 8,483 square feet of commercial retail space with direct access from Mount Diablo Boulevard. Along the western portion of the site is a pedestrian walkway that provides access to the residential lobby. This walkway also functions as a publicly accessible outdoor space and includes seating and other public amenities. At the rear of the site along Commercial Lane, the project provides a loading area as well as vehicle access to the underground parking garage. The two underground parking levels provide a total of 49 parking stalls dedicated to residential use only. Moving up through the building, this slide illustrates the upper level residential floor plan. Because of the taller ground floor commercial space, a portion of the second floor is occupied by the upper volume of that retail space, while the remainder of the floor contains residential units. The upper floors are primarily dedicated to residential units. The eighth floor also includes residential amenities, including a fitness center and an outdoor terrace with seating, a fireplace, and an outdoor kitchen area. Turning to the building's design the project was evaluated against the applicable standards and guidelines contained in the city's design review standards and guidelines handbook. Overall the building incorporates a variety of materials and architectural treatments intended to provide articulation and modulation across the building elevations and reduce the appearance of the overall building mass as recommended previously by the city's design review commission. On the screen is a sample of the proposed color material palette. And in front of you is the physical material samples, which have also been provided for the commission's review. Before discussing the project's density, staff would like to briefly provide some context regarding the state housing laws that apply to this project. First, the Housing Accountability Act limits the city's ability to deny or reduce the density of a qualifying housing development that complies with the applicable objective standards. Second, Senate Bill 330 establishes the applicable development standards based on the project's preliminary application. And finally, state density bonus allows qualifying housing developments that provide affordable units to receive additional density, as well as concessions and waivers from certain local development standards. Under state density bonus law, the first step is to determine the project's base density. State law directs the city to look at the maximum residential density permitted under the general plan's land use element, specific plan, or zoning ordinance. Staff reviewed each of these applicable documents. In this case, neither the general plan's land use element, the Locust Street, Mount Diablo specific plan, or the pedestrian retail zoning district establishes a residential density expressed in dwelling units per acre. Because there's no applicable residential density standard expressed in dwelling units per anchor, state density bonus law requires the applicant to establish the base density based on the realistic development capacity of the site. To demonstrate that capacity, the applicant has prepared a base density study, which is included within the project plans. Essentially, the study creates a hypothetical development that complies with the otherwise applicable development standards for the site, including standards related to height, setbacks, floor area ratio, building design, and parking. The study then evaluates the number of residential units that could realistically be accommodated within that code compliant building envelope. And based on that analysis, the applicant's base density study identifies a realistic capacity of 60 residential units. Therefore 60 units serves as the base density for purposes of calculating the project's density bonus. Starting with the base density of 60 units the project proposes two levels of affordability. First nine units would be restricted to very low income households. This represents 15 percent of the project's base density and qualifies the project for 50% density bonus. The project also provides five units for the moderate income households, representing approximately 8% of the base density and qualifying for an additional 27.5% density bonus. Together, these affordability levels result in a total density bonus of 77.5%. Applying that bonus to the 60 unit base density results in approximately 47 additional units for a maximum permitted density of 107 units at the site. The applicant is proposing 104 units, which is three below the maximum. State density bonus law also allows projects to request waivers from development standards that would physically preclude construction of the project at the permitted density. There's no limit on the number of waivers that may be requested. For this project, the applicant is requesting six waivers. First is for the building height, with approximately 89 feet proposed, where 50 feet would otherwise be permitted. The second is for the sidewalk depth along Mount Diablo Boulevard, with approximately 10 feet 7 inches proposed, where 15 feet is required. The third relates to the setback along commercial lane to accommodate vehicle turning movements and access to the parking garage. The fourth allows a portion of the ground floor to have a reduced height of approximately 10 feet 7 inches, where an 18-foot floor-to-floor height would otherwise be required. The fifth eliminates the requirement for a passenger loading zone. And finally, the sixth allows a reduction in the width of the publicly accessible outdoor space from 15 feet to approximately 10 feet. Separate from the waivers, state density bonus allows qualifying projects to receive concessions from certain development standards. And based on the project's affordability levels, the project is entitled to three concessions, and the applicant is requesting all three. The first concession allows a reduction in the required amount of private outdoor space. The second allows a reduction in the required number of parking space. And third allows the modification to the city's parking aisle and parking space dimensional requirements. The project requires the approval of a conditional use permit and design review. Staff has evaluated the project against the required findings for each entitlement and has provided the supporting analysis within the staff report and draft resolution included as attachment one. Based on that analysis, staff believes the required findings can be made. In regards to an environmental review, the project qualifies for the class 32 categorical exemption for infill development under CEQA. The project is consistent with the applicable general plan and zoning requirements, occurs on a site of less than five acres within an urbanized area, does not contain significant biological resources, and would not result in significant effects related to traffic, noise, air quality, or water quality, and can adequately be serviced by utilities and public services. And the supporting technical analysis is included with the project materials. Based on the analysis presented this evening and contained within the staff report, staff recommends that the Planning Commission adopt the draft resolution determining the project exempt from CEQA and approving the conditional use permit and design review subject to the conditions of approval contained therein. That concludes staff's presentation for tonight. The applicant and their project team are also available this evening to answer any questions that the commission may have. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Does anybody have any questions for staff? Commissioner Strongman.

I'll start out. Thank you for the presentation. First of all, for the parking, how are they going to be divvied up? There is only 49 parking spaces, and you have 104 units.

That's correct. 49 parking spaces dedicated to residential, zero dedicated for commercial. In regards to operating characteristics, I'd like to defer that response to the applicant team.

Next question. The commercial space, are you envisioning more than one commercial space or breaking it up?

So as proposed, it's one commercial area, but I defer the response to the applicant.

And could you walk me around the pedestrian flow around the building? It wasn't clear on the diagrams I was looking at. The pedestrian yeah accessible outdoor area particularly down on the ground level Can they somebody walk around completely around the building or is there something in restriction there I

Oh, I see. So commercial lane is going to be maintained as a roadway. In terms of pedestrian walkways, the only accessible route would be through Mount Diablo and through the western portion of the building that extends towards the residential lobby. But it wouldn't wrap around.

So there's no way to actually walk around it then? Okay.

Yeah, that's correct.

And for also driving traffic, they would enter through Locust Street only?

or they could access a commercial lane directly. So that's a one-way northbound. So they could go northbound, turn left, and then proceed into the parking garage. And also southbound.

It will be a one-way street then?

That's correct.

And thank you.

Any more questions for staff? Commissioner Moran.

Thank you, Stephen. This is well put. I kind of want to just I want to make sure I understand the way that we're coming up with the numbers, uh, just from my own understanding and for maybe people watching this and people in the future who, uh, are wondering how we came up with the numbers. So indulge me a little bit, if you would, the correct me if I'm wrong, but there's no real base that we have because it's zoned pedestrian residential, right? And if it wasn't, then according to the general plan or zoning, there would be this number that we could use, but we don't have that number because of the zoning. Am I good so far? Yeah. And because we don't have the number, we need to use the volumetric study, and that looks at setbacks and what you could reasonably put in a spot like that. And the applicant is the one that did the volumetric study. And we looked at that from the city's perspective and said that we agree with it after you kicked it down to HCD. Am I still going to the right spot here? Yeah? Yeah.

Yeah, and I can just clarify that further. So the statute, it does provide that the maximum residential density is based on zoning, general plan, land use element, or a specific plan. So as you stated, there's no density number in there. And then the statute provides, if that's the case, you have to do a volumetric study factoring all of the objective standards before density bars, waivers, concessions are applied to see how many units you could fit on site. the statue provides that the applicant can produce that based on city study and if it incorporates all the objective standards are applicable to that site the city has to accept it and so in this case that is that is a crime by statute oops and so in this case the applicant prepared that the city looked at it saying you know we have all the objective standards applicable and therefore the statute would require the city to accept it

Got you. A couple more. You good? Thank you. So now we've got 60 units, right, based on the base. And from there, and this, again, this is just so, I mean, the math is confusing. I'm not asking you to go over it again because I think it was really thorough. We get to 104 based on the bonus density numbers, based on how many affordable units there are, right, and compounded and so forth.

That's correct. So the maximum residential density allowed is 107, but based off the feedback and redesign from the previous design review commission, the applicant voluntarily reduced the unit count by three. So the proposed residential units is 104. Okay. Yeah. I think that's all I have for now.

Thanks.

Commissioner account I think this is a question in this direction perhaps as well just wanted to clarify because we have an attachment that's the communication with HCD between staff and HCD but then there was a public communication that said we want to commend staff for seeking formal guidance from HCD on this question my understanding from the attachment is that formal guidance was not requested

Yeah, so we did reach out to HCD in writing via email. We did not go through what could be referred to as a formal technical assistance or technical advisory assistance where you submit through their website. And the reason we did not go through that is because through the different email exchanges, HCD made it very clear that this is the proper method. We confirmed that with Claire and our legal counsel. And in addition, HCD also provided letters that they have put formally to other jurisdictions that really reaffirms that statute. And so, you know, in consideration of timing and really wanting to be effective, we went ahead and accepted the volumetric study and moved the project forward.

Any other questions for staff?

Oh, yes, Commissioner McCown. I did just have one more question on a different topic than that. Just looking at the parking, do we as a city have requirements about amount of electric car charging stations that need to be

included sure and I'll be very upfront I can't speak in depth about this but the California building code does have requirements for certain EV charging stalls for the number of EV charging stalls that you must have as well as ADA EV charging as well green building code reach codes all and I'm sure the applicant's technical team could probably speak to that a little more as well so I have a question

You might be able to answer it. For the sidewalk, the objective standard was 15. They took it down to 10. Would that have required a land dedication if they would have had to provide the full 15 feet?

Is that why? Oh, for the reasoning for the request. I believe the request outlined that the reduction of the required setback was to accommodate housing development. So I think there would have been a reduction in the number of units if that 15-foot setback was met. So that was incorporated as a waiver to accommodate residential units.

So I know that waivers are... intended to allow the development otherwise it would physically preclude it but i guess i'm when i looked at the site i i almost feel like this is like san francisco where it's literally right at the property line so i was trying to figure out was a land dedication required of the applicant in order so that sidewalk did not fit in the setbacks that were a part of the objective standards which very very long and i can also ask the applicant yeah i may defer that question to the applicant another question i had and this is for not just you stephen you're doing great but also for staff it's interesting because the housing element contemplated a certain density which i get because that that would have only yielded 20 and 65915 very specifically said that we're not using housing element to define density. But what's interesting is that it does allow a specific plan. And when you look at the specific plan on page 46, it contemplated development on that site. Granted, it was just an illustrative, and it wasn't an objective density standard. But I'm just curious, was there some sort of objective standard that created that mixed use concept, which I counted something like 30-ish units? Just out of curiosity.

You know, for the specific plan, there's a couple of factors there. The specific plan was also looking at consolidating parcels. So it's not quite the same site and it's not quite the same vision either. Really what specific plans, you know, the intent and purpose is to envision what could be, but not necessarily to set the standards of what should be, if that makes sense. So it's not setting a density standard. Rather, it is giving you an idea of what possibly could be developed there, and it's setting the intention for the land use. Is that the answer? Sorry.

Yeah. And intent is a really big thing about making findings. But I agree that the density wasn't written clear as like PAM. wasn't written i hear you just to just to add to that the statute does specify the density isn't dwelling units breaker so that's what the city would be looking for if they were to right not an illustrative correct i just thought it was big i i know how much the city spends on updating specific plans and then it comes to us granted this one i think was updated in 2010 so i know there was there must have been something an idea behind it because i even saw the amount of one, two, and three bedrooms. That's why I just asked. And then last question before I open up the public hearing is regarding parking, it states that the overflow parking lot on the west would provide parking for the commercial. When LSA did their CAT 32 exemption, Was there any studies on the vacancy of that parking lot for it to be able to withstand the additional traffic from the commercial?

So for the traffic component, I defer that question to the city's traffic engineer, Matt Redman, for a response.

And Matt, I saw the VMT, and I saw that it had the screening. So I saw that, and I saw the TDM measures, which were very, very helpful. That was just like my one question about the parking, since it was a concession that was asked.

Yeah. Hi, Matt Redman, traffic engineer for City of Walnut Creek. So can you just repeat the question, just because I want to be clear on the parking?

Absolutely. In LSA's report for parking, it says for the commercial that they would park at the overflow parking lot on the west, that that would be the commercial parking, since they weren't providing commercial parking. On-site and then that was kind of everything that I saw because obviously the transportation was analyzed Like it should write per law VMT and then the subsequent TDM measures and I was just wondering was there a Review that fair. I think it was fair appears that that they Analyze whether that parking lot actually had a bit you had capacity to handle the additional commercial and

Yeah, from my review of the documents, I also did not see any review of that commercial lot in terms of the occupancy and the usage of that lot. So I think it's, you know, it's a public lot. We have many in the downtown. And so I think it may have been overlooked or assumed that there's capacity there.

Okay. Any more questions? Oh, yes. Vice Chair Kolb.

Thank you. Just a quick question for you, Steven, and maybe actually it's a question for the developer, but I was really pleased to see in the write-up about all the different changes that were made as a result of the design review committee's feedback. Is there a way to sort of summarize what those changes were, or will the applicant tell us what changes they made?

Oh, yes. The applicant has a presentation and would go for those changes that they move to the building.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any more questions for Stephen? Did great. Thank you so much. Okay. Now I would like to open up the public hearing portion of this item. And so if the applicant would like to come up, you have 15 minutes. Kindly state your name, who you're with.

Actually, I'll just do a brief introduction while Stephen's pulling up. Good evening, commissioners. My name is Mark Loper. I'm with Ruben Junius and Rose on behalf of the applicant. We're very excited to be here today. Before I introduce the architect to do a design presentation, I just want to take a moment to say thank you to your staff for all of their hard work. Over the last year or so on this project and in particular Stephen cook who has worked closely and tirelessly to get this project before you today So with that I am going to introduce Steve Perry from Steve Perry architects to walk you through the project and then I'll be back at the end and I can also answer I think all of the questions that you all had to Good evening

It's Perry Architects, not Steve Perry Architects, but thank you. Thanks for having me tonight. I'm hoping this is simple. Oh, okay, okay. So there it goes. Sorry about that. I just wanted to see if it changed. Can we go to the first slide, please? So as we mentioned, this is a mixed-use development, a residential development that addresses the critical housing needs of Walnut Creek. It also provides a strong retail presence and a presence for the residents also. I'm going to change it. And I think, Steven, you had some slides showing this, so we can go to the next one. This slide shows some of our inspiration and just basically the neighborhood character. And you can see on the bottom left starting to pull from some of the architectural, simple architectural forms. The upper left is more pervasive brick patterns throughout the neighborhood and then the upper right there's kind of interesting infills and some of these simpler buildings and we're pulling from that and then on the bottom right not so much covered dining but just a really activated ground floor so next slide please So this is looking from Mount Diablo. Starting with the massing, we've created a strong vertical presence for the residents on the right with warm accents. And then to the left, we push back the massing. And this allows for an infill element on the ground floor. And this gives a really strong identity to the retail and distinguishes against the residential. And then as you turn the corner, we have the courtyard and this is also something that's been developed with staff part of part of our process with staff and then on the courtyard itself we have a glowing wall with light coming through and also vistas from the storefront and through to the courtyard and then one other thing here we did reduce the building by one floor and i'll get into that a little bit more here in a second but next slide please this is looking on the east side next to the alleyway we are somewhat buffering the dumpsters on this side and the quality of the alleyway but we are still allowing for some large windows that allow vistas into the retail as you walk down the street. Next slide, please. This is our ground floor, and this is a much more highly detailed, kind of rich, layered, detailed storefront here. This has a slat wall on the top that allows for some interesting light coming through And it's more of a skeletal form that plays against the strong brick. And then you'll see later, we do have some interlayered glass that gives it more of this layered feel to it. Next slide, please. This talks about the changes we made to the height. You can see on the left where we had an additional floor on Mount Diablo and then pulling it down and creating a amenity space, an outdoor space on the top level to the right. Next slide. This is looking from the east and you can see on the right where we've taken a floor down also just at Mount Diablo. Next slide.

And I think we can go to the next slide.

And so these are the plans once again. The two left plans are the parking below. To the right, that's the ground floor. We have the retail, the volume retail up front at 20 feet. And then at the back we have it at about 10 foot 6, 10 foot 7. And then the courtyard next to the retail has planters at the rear. It has a water station, water filling station. And then to the right at the commercial lane, we're also looking at maybe doing some planting there. So next slide, please. Our upper floors showing the volume space on the left and then a terrace on the third floor in the middle plan. Then we have just those four stacking above and then we have an amenity space on the top that's set back from the Mount Diablo frontage with a outdoor space wrapping around. Next please. And this is a diagram that shows really the ideas of original city planners on boulevards. Boulevards typically allow for taller buildings and a lot of times you'll see a one to one ratio and with a 90 foot width we still are below that one to one ratio with our height right now. Next slide please. and our elevations, which are a little dense on these small sheets, but I think we can go to the next. This here shows more of the detail of the storefront for the retail. And you can see the green glass where we have interlayered glass that falls behind the slats and then that's going to give us more of a layered feel. Next slide please. And our material palette. So you can see on the bottom right, this is a perforated brick wall. This is going to be on the courtyard. This will allow light to come through and vistas to come through. You can see on the left our primary pallet, which is a light brick and a darker brick.

Next, please.

And this just gives it in a little more detail on the courtyard here where we have a draped sunshade creating a shade over some seating in this area. And then we have to the upper, on the left in the middle, we show where we have We have the exit coming out of this side and also our textured brick. Next. And so I think that's it for our presentation and we're happy to answer questions. We're not.

Just a few other things, commissioners. Just a few project benefits. I think the biggest one, this project would create 104 new housing units, including 14 that are affordable, which would help Walnut Creek meet its regional housing needs allocation, housing production goals across a range of income levels. The project will also be appealing to individuals, roommates and couples, and families alike. 41% of its units will have two or three bedrooms, which ensure that a range of people looking to move to downtown Walnut Creek have attractive housing options. And again, the project adds housing in the heart of Walnut Creek's downtown. the city's most walkable location. New residents will shop at nearby stores, eat at restaurants, and activate this part of the city at times of the day when there are relatively few shoppers. They may even walk down the street and go to the newly approved day spa or tailor. Um, speaking of retail on the ground floor, the project replaces a parking lot in an unused auto repair shop with about 8,500 square feet of retail. Um, and it's intended that that will just be one retail space. Um, this retail will further cement Walnut Creek status as the East Bay's preeminent shopping destination. The project also improves the pedestrian realm. It includes paving and street trees, as well as that 10-foot public paseo. And I'm also happy to answer follow-up questions about the 10 feet. For context, the 10 feet that's on our property line is one half of a 20-foot wide paseo that was called out for in the Locust Street specific plan. So it's our hope that if the other property to the west has ever redeveloped, that that full Paseo would be built and they could kind of be merged together and treated as one pedestrian amenity. Finally, the project will create both temporary construction jobs and permanent retail jobs, creating employment opportunities for Walnut Creek residents across a range of education and skill levels. In terms of the design modifications, the primary design modification, and you heard Steve talk about this, was reducing the size of the top floor, and that's the eighth floor, and replacing that with an open-air terrace. This terrace is set back at least 20 feet from the property line moving back from Mount Diablo, and then on each corner, and I think it's important that each corner goes back about twice as deep, to 40 feet. So that really influences the way that the building is read for people that are walking down or driving down Mount Diablo. As staff mentioned, this voluntary setback did require the project to eliminate two units, which is something that you never want to do, but we think that this trade-off results in a better overall design that's more compatible with both current and future development along Mount Diablo. A quick note on density bonus. And I think this goes, Commissioner, to your comment. Under state law, state law now allows what's called a double density, which means that if with the right amount of affordable housing, you could go from 60 here to 120. We're not doing that. We're sticking at 104. 120 would probably mean a full eighth story and then at least a half ninth, if not a full ninth. And we're not... going after that. I'm happy to walk through any of our waivers or concessions in detail. We have images that I think we might be able to show for each of them. Okay, so to wrap up, we think this project is a great opportunity to replace a surface parking lot with a vibrant mixed-use, mixed-income residential project, helping the city meet its arena housing requirement while also adding retail, all in the heart of Walnut Creek's walkable and pedestrian-friendly downtown. Thanks for your time. Our whole team is here, and we're happy to answer any questions. I can also stay up here and answer some of the original questions or I could sit down.

Yes, you made it right on time. Okay. So now if you want to hang tight.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I'm going to ask my fellow commissioners if they have, I have questions, but I'm going to let you guys go first. Who would like to go first? Commissioner Moran and then Commissioner Stone.

Let's just let your mic sound.

OK. Commissioner Strongman, then Moran.

Please answer those questions.

Yes. So the first question was about parking and who gets to park. With a lot of these buildings, the way that it works is that you charge to rent a unit. And then if you want a parking space, then you can pay to have an additional parking space. It's called unbundled parking in planner speak. And that way, folks, this is a walkable, the most walkable part of Walnut Creek. A lot of people might not want a car. And so they don't have to worry about being forced to pay to have a spot. And then the second question, Commissioner Strongman, was about the commercial space. The intent is that it would be one large commercial space. And then EV parking, it's 10%. That's what the rules require. And so I think that rounds up to five of the spaces here.

I have a question on the retail. How will they utilize the lower ceiling?

So that's a very good question. So for context, the majority of the retail space moving back from Mount Diablo is the 18 feet. But we requested a waiver to have the portion in the rear be 10 feet, because if it was 18 feet, it would eliminate four residential units. I think that it would either be back of house space, if it's a more traditional retailer, perhaps your service and prep space if there's some sort of a restaurant. But the idea is that the retail is laid out in a way to recognize the realities of how retailers work. So it's in the back. Pedestrians walking by on the street wouldn't even know that it's shorter in the back.

Thank you. And Chair, could I offer one more? Yes. answer to a question. There was a question earlier about right away dedication. I did want to clarify that the waiver is not requesting for to reduce the sidewalk. It's requesting to reduce the setback from the sidewalk. So hopefully that clarifies your initial right away. Yes, it did. I thought it was that the sidewalk wanted to be 15 feet. So it's just the distance of the building to the sidewalk. It's typically 15 feet and they are requesting to reduce that down. Okay, that makes sense.

Yeah.

Commissioner Moran.

Commissioner Strongman stole a lot of my questions, but I just have a, just maybe a philosophical, so we approved a project a couple months ago here, which kind of had the same parking to people ratio, give or take. I'm curious, is there any, literature or studies or whatever because i what what i would wonder is okay i want to run a unit there but now all the parking is they've already been bought right is there is this is the the philosophy that's okay because we're still going to find enough people that are going to want to live downtown and and just simply not have a parking space or It just seems like a bit of a leap of faith to me because we're still in the suburbs and people still have cars. I think it's good that we're entering the area of having more dense housing where there just simply isn't the parking spaces for it. But I'm just wondering, can you speak to that at all?

Sure, I'm happy to. I can say that, and I'll speak sort of broadly for a lot of my developer clients who built... who built projects back when cities had relatively higher minimum parking requirements. Most cities, and I'm not sure Walnut Creek is the same, at least in their more dense urban cores, have reduced, if not eliminated, minimum parking requirements altogether. My clients who got their projects entitled and then had to build a certain amount, a lot of that parking sits empty. And so I think that there's a... an understanding that maybe it's an inconvenience for somebody initially when they don't have a car. Maybe they don't even have cars. Maybe they take public transit. I know I happen to, not to get too anecdotal, but I happen to walk from Walnut Creek BART right past this site last year. and it took 20 minutes. It's a very pleasant walk. I think the idea is that there's a little bit of a stick and a little bit of a carrot when it comes to parking. Thank you. Thanks.

Can we share a calendar?

Thank you. I want to think a little bit about what this looks like from the perspective of people who may decide to live there. So you talked about how there are two and three bedroom units that could be families. So what would it look like for the family who then is trying to get their young child to the elementary school? Have you thought about what that path looks like? Do they all need cars?

Um, there's public transit, there's bus, my wife drives our elementary school age kids on the back of her e bike, up and up and down the Oakland Hills getting to two different schools. They can walk, they can they can do a ride share. They could drive, they could drive their own car. I think that there are plenty of ways. And again, I think that when people are presented with a situation that isn't typical of the way that you know, suburban land use planning has gone, they can adapt.

Okay, thank you. And then in terms of the affordable units, how are those dispersed throughout the building? Are they a range of studio through three-bedroom?

I defer to staff. I don't know the exact rules. Most cities require equal distribution, and then they also require an equal unit mix. So a range of... one-bedroom two-bedroom three-bedroom spread kind of throughout the the project so that they're not isolated in one area and they're not all the smallest studio Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I can confirm that there is a condition of approval that the applicant team complete a inclusionary housing and density bonus agreement with our housing division and it's through that agreement that we ensure that there is proper even dispersal of the floor plans

Great, thank you. And I think I had one more. Just back to the sidewalk, or the setback, the 15 feet to the 10 feet 7 inches. If you are walking from the corner of Mount Diablo and Main past Slice House, Will you notice that you suddenly have less space because this building is gonna be really tight between the building and the street?

I actually think that it matches the current sidewalk width. So it will feel no different. It'll just feel like the sidewalk is continuing once you pass Commercial Lane and you're walking past the project site.

So the sidewalk width is the same, but then the distance that the building is back from the sidewalk, is that different?

No. Well, sorry. Go ahead.

Sorry. Yes. So the sidewalk itself will be the same width all the way through. This building will be a little closer to the sidewalk than the other buildings near it that are meeting the 15-foot setback requirement, because this will be set 10 feet and 7 inches.

Okay, and then I know what i'm walking from mean down so like right in front of slice house they've done a really good job of trying to protect protect pedestrian safety by having like landscaping. right between the cars and the sidewalk? Are we gonna, is that what the trees are there? Is that gonna be something like that?

I can address that. As part of a project being processed and as was mentioned by the chair, We had a transportation study done and part of what the transportation team did was along commercial recommend that the ground floor be set back so that vehicles could get by including emergency vehicles. And then they also have directed a number of safety measures which include a no right turn lane so that no cars inadvertently try to head south down commercial speed bump a curb that cars can can drive over and then the design of the building itself is not pedestrian friendly so nobody's gonna get confused if they're walking down commercial

They won't try to walk down commercially, probably. Yeah, no, I was just thinking about if you're just walking down the sidewalk of Mount Diablo. Yeah.

Part of the reason why we located the parking and loading at the rear of the building is exactly that. I think that it would be not great urban design principles to have a parking garage entrance right smack dab on Mount Diablo, but more importantly, that creates a safety issue with cars coming in and out. In this way that minimizes that and forces cars to make a right hand turn and then to continue up away from the site.

Thank you. Any other questions for the applicant? I have some questions.

Great.

before I ask the questions I do want to say that not a lot of people use provision B you know to do the the piggyback so I'm just saying that because I under I know that it costs money right in order to provide that additional because you have to meet the first metric before you even hit provision B in six five nine one five yep so I am gonna just state that that that's that's important and the city really cares about affordable housing. So what I want, a couple questions is for the, I saw this was a CAT 32 exemption for the water, because this is a lot of units. It says that the urban water management plan accounts for regional growth consistent with projections 2040. I get that. And it says because a project is consistent with applicable general plan use designation. It has already been accounted for East Bay MUD's water supply and demand analysis and adequate water supplies are available. But there was no density contemplated in the land use. So I'm just curious how that finding was met.

Respectfully, there was. It says that residential is allowed and it says that multifamily residential is allowed. And then it set the Massing of the building which were then allowed by state law to use the density bonus to increase as long as we do affordable housing and and then I'd also say that Water Usage is is viewed not necessarily in in urban settings on a project by project basis but it's based on overall site capacity and so East Bay mud doesn't evaluate each and every single development in terms of a class 32 exemption?

I mean, the way I've always, I'm just curious. I've read a lot of urban water management plans, and there usually is a contemplated density, and I wholeheartedly agree with you that bonus units don't kick you out. I was just curious, because when I read that, I was like,

Yeah, I think it's one of those areas where when there's a general plan, specific plan zoning that doesn't have dwelling units per acre, that density is assumed based on other characteristics of the zoning, which would be things like height and massing and setback, and you fit your units within that.

And then another question that I had, I've never had the need for a volumetric study to be done, and I understand it's a provision in 65915, so I totally get it. I saw that you had studios ones, twos, threes, and there was certain percentage breakdown. When the original volumetric study was completed, that same amount of unit sizes or average unit size and unit variety, that was kept?

Yes. Yeah, that was carried over.

It was carried. Yes. Okay. And you're a land use attorney. When I saw that, I was thinking to myself, there's no objective standard to set the minimum size of a unit. So in theory, when you did the volumetric study, you could have literally just did a bunch of studios and be like, the base density pursuant to state law is. So I just, but I want, and I couldn't tell, but I'm glad that that was the case, that what you presented, and I trust staff so much. And I kind of figured that that was the case.

Yeah. And we tried to perhaps over-explain that. We showed both the number of units and the density bonus percentage, and then also the square footage and the density bonus percentage. So the idea is that we carried everything through. And in fact, I can tell you that there are some places that don't check that issue in much detail, but we made a point of designing the building to comply with those.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

If there's no more questions from Mark, it was Mark? Yes. I'm going to now open it to any public speakers. If there'd be no public speakers, you would have two minutes. I believe we have two, three. And if you would kindly. And just so we're aware, public speakers do not get 15 minutes. You get two. Otherwise, we'd be here all night, although my husband's probably bringing my kids down. Mr. William Smith, please.

Good evening, Planning Board. I'm a relatively new resident Walnut Creek. I moved here about four years ago. But I'm familiar with the seat you sit in because before I moved here, I was the chair of the Alameda County Planning Commission. So I support what you're doing through. This project is a great one. I've been a big supporter of affordable housing and transportation, and so I love the way it's masked near public transit, it's in a city center, so it's exactly all that we want. You've got parking cut back, So I'm very pleased with that. And I did have a question. I think that volumetric study you keep referring to is what was referred to as the form-based design that the HCD said was a little difficult to get through. Well, it looks like the form-based design is going pretty well so far. So maybe you'll have to give them a response on that. The other thing I enjoyed was your picture showing the street. That was the shiniest street I've ever seen. It looked like you polished it in that. So you're an AI image, AI image probably. Also, with regard to your question, somebody asked about parking and parking and EV parking. Well, I'm a big bicyclist, so is there secure bike parking? There is secure bike parking. It's in the parking garage, not in the units. Is that correct? All right, all right, good. So many thanks for that. So I wish you all the best. Oh, and then the most important thing. It's not your fault. It's just the whole way the whole system works. But don't think that you're making progress with this building and solving the affordable housing problem. Because we have to build probably more than one affordable unit for every market rate unit to even keep it from getting worse. So this is going to actually contribute and make it worse. We have a lot of work to do on that, and I hope that in the next few years, I'll be able to work with you to make things better, working at the state level now. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Craig Lazaretti? No, no, no.

Thank you. I'm here tonight representing the Housing Action Coalition and other YIMBY, Yes In My Backyard organizations throughout the region that are very interested in seeing affordable housing and all housing built in communities such as Walnut Creek. I don't live in Walnut Creek but I work in Walnut Creek and I spend a lot of time in Walnut Creek. And it's great to see the leadership in this city of a project of that scale that's really gonna make a dent in the housing shortage we're facing regionally. And, you know, 10 years ago, a project of this scale at a Planning Commission meeting, and you would say that the only people showing up are YIMBYs, Y-I-M-B-Y-S, who would have guessed? We're all the NIMBYs. I think things are changing politically, aren't they? I think it's the affordability issue, the housing issue is hitting home. in communities such as Walnut Creek and throughout the Bay Area and through California and better late than never. I think that we need to, we have a lot of ground to make up for. I'm actually a resident of Martinez. I've been working hard to get housing progress there and I'd love to see a project like this at Martinez and I have very good relationships with the planning officials and mayor We're turning over a new leaf there. We used to be one of the biggest NIMBY towns in the Bay Area, and that's not true anymore. At least that's what the public officials tell me there. So they better not be lying to me or they'll be hearing about it. So I'd love to see something like this and forever love underutilized properties in our downtown area. So great to see this project moving forward. Great to see the public support. Thank you.

Thank you, Craig. And then the last speaker card I have is Miss Brianna Morales. Sorry. Might as well use my accent.

Good evening, commissioners. My name is Brianna Morales, and I am with the Housing Action Coalition. We're here tonight in support of the project. We're really excited and encouraged to see the commission consider a project that will help tackle our severe housing shortage in California when residents are being pushed out of the Bay Area and not able to continue living in the communities that they grew up in. this project turns a vacant underused piece of land into 100 new 104 new homes 14 of them being affordable that would belong to the residents of walnut creek the ground for retail is also something we're encouraged by we want to see more activity and homes in retail in transit and job adjacent in phil OPPORTUNITY STACES. WE'RE ALSO, YOU KNOW, ASKING FOR THE HOUSING CRISIS TO BE ADDRESSED WITH THE SORT OF URGENCY IT DESERVES HERE. WE SPOKE ABOUT THEM EARLIER, BUT IT BEARS REPEATING THAT THE PROJECT TEAM HAS SHOWED FLEXIBILITY IN THEIR DESIGNS AND HAVE BEEN RESPONSIVE TO THE DESIGN REVIEW COMMISSION'S CONCERNS. WE ALSO ARE ENCOURAGED TO SEE COOPERATIVE POSITIVE PARTNERSHIPS WITH STATE ENTITIES LIKE HCD. When it comes to, you know, asking good faith questions and getting clear responses in return. As somebody that works at a housing organization, this will be really helpful for other cities. And we hope to see more housing projects come in different cities that echo that type of working relationship. If we want to see young families settling down here, we need to provide them housing. I actually have a friend who, in the past couple of months, moved out of Walnut Creek. Funny enough, he had a car, but he did not have a home, and he did not have the variety of housing that he needed. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Oh, come on up. Hello.

Hi there.

Thank you, Mr. Oh, Ethan Ramirez.

Yes, thank you. I'm a longtime resident in Walnut Creek. I grew up in the Saranap. And I just wanted to comment that I'm not against the project, but it looks like just a very unesthetically pleasing building. very low effort, and it doesn't mix with the rest of the aesthetics of Walnut Creek in general, especially the buildings around it, which I think if you look at the buildings around it, they've done a wonderful job adding to the atmosphere of Walnut Creek. There's brick, there's pillars, there's just the surrounding area that it makes it, When you drive downtown, it looks like a luxury experience. This building, it looks plain, it looks cheap. It's kind of a monstrosity. And I think, I mean, again, not to be labeled as a NIMBY, but you look at it, it looks like, you know, just like a Lego. And I think as professionals, and for a place like Walnut Creek, you can do better. We've seen these units throughout the Bay Area, and the low effort on the design portion of it, I just would like to see better as a citizen. So thank you.

Thank you. Are there any other public speakers So now the applicant has five minutes if you would like. You don't have to, but I want to give you the opportunity. Five minutes to come up here and speak.

I don't think we need to say anything. We're happy to answer more questions, and I'm sure the architect, if people would like, would be happy to talk about what I think is a very thoughtful and appropriate design. Thank you.

Commissioner Moran.

I'll take you up on that, because I think that that's actually germane to what we're discussing. I know that it was discussed, and we're looking at the materials and so forth here. But if somebody can maybe just give us a 30,000 foot view of what the elements were chosen specifically to match the, you know,

think use the rooftop as a as a reference point and just a little bit of a chest today so first the building is brick and it will have a kind of a texture to it that will also be accentuated with a lot of the brick details on it if you can go back a couple slides That's that's fine. So the brick details here on the left those will be transparent. So you'll have a kind of a the The brick will be open in some respects where the light can come through the wall and then On the upper left in the middle, we do have a textured brick that creates a little trellis for different planting to come up. And if you go to the material board, You can see these types of brick textures here. And so the brick texture up in the upper kind of middle right, that's the textured brick. It won't be exactly like that. It'll have a texture to it. It'll allow for planting to crawl up on top of it and have seating below. And then to the right, it'll be similar to what you see in the upper right, where you have this light coming through this brick wall here. So it's not a cheap plaster. It's not a cheap product. It'll be a brick product. And so if you go back to one of the renderings, and then On the lower right, you can see the retail. We have a translucent glass where it'll have this kind of filigree in the glass. And it has an inner layer with a green sort of kind of seaweed feel to it. And then that's going to come up behind the glass. wood trellis up above the wood slats above and Once again, that's going to have light coming through in the evening. It's going to create interest. It's going to create a more dynamic retail there And then if you go back to the exterior again And so on the top we do have planting that's going to come around the edges and So you do get this kind of visual connection with the top of the building and this kind of pedestrian almost feel to the top of the building. And then on the right, that's where we have, that's just a vertical element there. And that's really to create more of a residential presence. And on the very corner, those will be balconies. So this might look a little flat, but it'll have balconies. It'll have a lot of ins and outs. So it'll have a lot of texture to it.

Can I just ask a follow up to that? Yes. When this was at Design Review, did they ask you to flip it basically so that the area on the right that's so close to where the rooftop restaurant is to have that happen on the left?

We had a discussion on that.

Yeah.

And our thoughts were, there's a couple ideas going on here. First, we wanted to engage The Paseo. And that's in the specific plan.

And the Paseo is the walkway on the far left, on the west side. On the far left, yes. Okay.

So that allows us to have spill out room for the retail. So if it is dining, it could spill out there, or it could just be for waiting. But it allows us to engage that outdoor space like that. Turning it to the other side, we do have the dumpsters there. And so it's not really high quality space there. And so we are trying to buffer that a little bit. But we do do that in a way where it's still interesting and it's not just a blank wall. So those are the thoughts about the massing of it.

Okay, and that was related to what you were saying before about trying to keep the pedestrians on this side away from where the cars are? Okay.

Yeah, and if you go back a few slides, go back, go back, go back. Keep going.

but then the upper floors are related. You couldn't just, you couldn't shift the upper floor without changing the ground floor.

And you can see we cantilever the building out at this element, and that allows for pedestrian safety. And it also keeps people exiting the building. They don't exit right onto Commercial Way. And so that allows us a lane for that. And then it also allows us for planting and some nice kind of more pedestrian touches there.

Since you're there, what are the amenity areas for this building?

It's on the top floor.

Is that that rooftop deck? Yes.

Yeah.

I was looking at C2's. They always have the best drawings.

Right here. So in yellow here?

Yeah.

That's the amenity space on the top floor.

And market rate and affordable have access?

Of course, yes.

Okay. Thank you so much. If there's no more questions, and I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing portion and bring it back to the commission for discussion questions.

I just want to thank everybody for their time and coming out and presenting and for responding to all the feedback that you've gotten and thank you for presenting us a very interesting plan Any other comments yes Commissioner Moran I'd second that there's a lot of thorough plans and I think that was nice to give Stephen Cook his due I'm sure you guys worked really hard on this

You know, I think that people rightly are going to say that this is big, and it might take some getting used to. But I believe that we can't let perfect be the enemy of good, especially when we have an opportunity to put housing downtown where it belongs. I think the waivers are something that we can grant but it certainly takes some thought in terms of reducing the sidewalk the height the parking you know and this is a this is a new thing for downtown walnut creek and we're constrained by the state and what we can and can't do as a body here but i don't believe that that's an excuse uh and that you know if we want to say we want housing downtown for seniors and young people and people are going to work downtown, then I think we need to approve this. And those are my thoughts.

Commissioner O'Connor, did you want to say something?

Just, you know, I agree. I think that it is crucial for us to be building housing downtown and infill housing is great. It is gonna be challenging for, I think, our city to get used to something this tall in this area. I remember when rooftop seemed like a super tall building in the area. The rooftop is no longer the rooftop anymore. Comparatively speaking, it will be, I think, shadowed by this building. But it is housing that we need. I appreciate that you did include the bike room, which I believe is not down in the basement with the cars. It's in the lobby area, correct, if I read that correctly? Yeah, exactly, yeah. And so people will be able to explore the different transportation options. And I appreciate that you included the guaranteed ride home program that our county has, because I think a lot of people are not aware of that program as well. So these types of things will have to be promoted more. And we'll need to come up with, we need to continue to work on our transportation options that are not cars to get people around our city. So yeah, I think it's a good project and a needed project and the direction that we need to go. Thanks.

So kind of paying off of that, that's why I always appreciate about any time I'm looking at a transportation report when I see TDM measures that have to do with behavior. Because when you have this type of product, there is a different type of concept, different type of thinking. I mean, I remember myself living in 500 square feet or 600 square feet with my now eight-year-old, right? And she lived in a beautiful closet. in San Francisco, and she's just fine. It had a window. And so what I would like to say about this, because I know the Housing Action Coalition is here. This commission is very well versed in law, and I'm just so proud to sit on this commission. And I know I probably asked some difficult questions, so thank you for bearing with me. I'm an engineer, so. What I would like to say is also the fact that, and we discussed this before,