City Council Meeting November 16, 2009

0:00:09council member Jones here council member Aon here council member Lyman here mayor Potter here and please rise and join uh Mr Lyman leading Us in the pledge our pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands

0:00:30one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all um we have one staff communication this evening thank you Madame mayor and councel I'm Jerry Bradshaw your Public Works director uh I just want to give you a real brief update on this ongoing Paving

0:01:03project um the we are sort of back on track with the schedule on this thing even though we're running a little late in the year uh we always knew all along this would run quite late into October or so but um they are on track to uh finish us up in the next couple of weeks

0:01:21we're hoping the first week of December for the paving and then the striping will'll be following on um shortly here so I just want to let you know that we still are plugging away at this and we actually made quite a bit of progress already there's been some complaints

0:01:35about a lot of loose rocks and git around town the contractors already started to make some Headway against that started cleaning up the streets but they have in their contract an obligation to clean up all the materials and we'll keep keep on them until they get that done so I just wanted to let

0:01:52you and everyone else know that that uh we're aware of those issues out there and we'll be working on it um the one of the other uh comments we hear from time to time is that there's no the stripes have gone away with the paving and uh we are working on those that the

0:02:09the contractors laid out a good chunk of those already we reviewed 30 streets today approved them and striping should begin uh in the next couple of weeks and that actually goes pretty quick once they move into town they'll be doing uh both the paving project as well as the

0:02:25chip seal Sur seal projects it's the same subcontractor in each case um on our overlay project we had um a few surprises on Ashbury Avenue instead of pulling out that asphalt and putting it back in and in two or three days like we planned we found some really soft

0:02:43subgrade underneath and we've had to do a lot of repairs so um the contractor been flexible and working with us on Creative repairs out there and I think we got it licked and they're supposed to be out tomorrow and finish that last chunk of Paving on ashbery um so that's a real brief update

0:03:01on on the paving project we're we're making some progress if you have any questions be happy to with thank you that's all good news I have a couple questions um with with the changes in Ashbury um any change orders that uh you want to alert us to uh as part of our

0:03:19original request on this contract no actually not we we actually had in the contract um some um allotment for some base repairs we hit hit none on Rock uh Buckingham and uh king or C or moer for that matter so we do have allowances in the contract we're going to have to go

0:03:39over that a little bit in contingency but nothing on the order of magnitude of the $75,000 uh threshold we're talking about we're talking maybe 20,000 thank you the question I had had to do with um the areas where you found things um to uh have some problems like you the one

0:03:57you were just talking about on ashb and what I was kind of wondering about about are these things pro for the most part that had you found them later they would have been some problem then that we're just kind of finding a little early so that uh in fact in the future um we'll

0:04:12have less of that sort of thing well no I the the type of U subgrade we found it's just very soft it probably always has been it's just that the street was holding together and bridging over that when we took out the 6 in and put the trucks down on that uh then it got real

0:04:30soft real fast and kind of got a little mushy so uh those were repairs that were failures that were bound to happen sooner or later we just smoked them out we're able to repair them um this time around okay thank you um are there any other staff Communications okay Mr Lyman yeah I'd like to uh report

0:04:56on two things or at least extend an imitation to the public uh to join the crime prevention uh committee we are still looking for members and hopefully you would be able to attend our meeting this Wednesday uh would be an opportunity for you to come and see what

0:05:12we do and and uh start participating in the crime prevention committee the second item that I'd like to report on is uh the mayor and I attended the mayor's conference in Moraga thank you for the city of Moraga for hosting on uh Thursday November 5th and I wanted to um

0:05:28give a quick brief update Joan McAn spoke uh on on water issues but the more important uh presentation was from a staff person uh talking about the census and I wanted to remind everyone that the census is coming up next year um that it will be safe easy and important to be

0:05:48counted those were the buzzwords that they certainly threw about so I just wanted to remind everyone that the census is coming and that it's important for that we get we get counted um I I think uh it there was a number that was tossed about that something to the effect of

0:06:06every person that's counted essentially brings $1,000 in in budgets to uh the county and to the city of Els Sero so it's a important for everyone to be counted thank you any other Communications I I have one um I need to report that I attended a couple of things um one uh was um reolution um in

0:06:32Boston and um I actually gave a a talk there um which about a subject that's very appropo for our meeting tonight and the uh title of my uh topic was uh transor development for people with disabilities both the advantages and the disadvantages so um it was a really good

0:06:51conference and um gave me a lot of new insights on transan development um I also uh attended a session um of the Urban Land Institute that was put on that was about Del nordi itself um and that was very informative uh it was over in San Francisco recently and um I found

0:07:14that it U gave me a new perspective it was some a few developers sat down with staff and um uh and Chang also went as as she also went to Revolution but the um it uh was an interesting perspective looking at it a little bit from the point of view of potential developers

0:07:32these were really experts in the field that um I don't know that they would be likely to be a developer for that project but they sort of said what the issues were for them and what they were looking for uh were they to do a development so I think it was a an excellent opportunity to get an

0:07:50independent analysis of the situation um and to see what we needed to work with so I'm really happy I attended um I would take like to take a moment to acknowledge the excellent work of the elero fire department and um I know that the fire chief Lance Maples is here

0:08:10tonight and I want to thank you and your staff particularly battalion chief Michael bond for his contribution in fighting a major structural fire at 500 Cleveland in Albany that occurred on Thursday night um battalion chief Bon established incident command at jacuzzi

0:08:27Street and our team together with Richmond and Albany fought a multi-property high Hazard fire at a lumber yard that included hazardous materials and a propane tank and um collectively the three departments contained the fire in one hour and they really protected our community and the

0:08:47whole region from what could have been a very bad disaster so I wanted to thank the department and all the firefighters who worked on the fire for their uh professionalism and outstanding efforts and service of our community are there any other staff or Council

0:09:04Communications been seconding that that was there was also an adhesive Factory right next to the fire which if that would have traveled much further we would have been in in pretty bad shape so it was great work all the way around U with that we'll move on to item

0:09:22three which is oral Communications from the public for General comment we have one speaker Miller good evening Madame mayor and council members Al Miller [address removed] I just wanted to give you a quick report uh last Monday the elrio street oversight committee met uh it was kind

0:09:45of a rehearsal for our real meeting which will be coming up in January after the audits are done Etc but we were able to adopt some uh uh rules that the committee agreed that this is how we'll work over overall and we uh got a better understanding of the process of how the

0:10:04state documents the transfer of funds to the city and the city transfers uh and pays off not only the bonds but the contractors that are doing the work so I don't see any problem procedural wise uh with the uh major review that we'll be doing in January and in the process I'd like to commend

0:10:26and comment on uh the staff support Jerry Bradshaw gives us and especially his patience uh his uh font of patience is even larger than he is thank you thank you and thank you Jerry no other comments we have no presentations tonight so we're going to move on to item five which is consideration of the

0:10:52consent calendar items 5 a through 5f I have a uh like a comment on 5B and I would like to pull 5D as in dog off I have a question on 5B same kind um well let's see do we want to pull that so we can have a little staff report on item 5B as well I just had a a comment I don't know

0:11:22I just had a question it's a very simple one okay uh who maybe to the city maner question on item 5B why you go ahead with the question okay the question I had is if you look at page two of the staff report um it um under Financial considerations it lists a bunch of cost

0:11:44items and one is to um remove all banners from light poles yes but there I don't see a corresponding item to put them back up is that just covered under normal uh installation of banners I think I believe that when we pay for the banners it's an up and down operation so

0:12:06I believe the the the cost to take them down also will put them back up when they're done if not then we would we would have to amend that I think that was my only question okay your comment my comment is this is uh I think this is a great project um that we started and

0:12:25I'm glad we're we're finishing the project I think it's it's important that if we're going to start a project we finish it and the lights going up are great the polls needed a lot of attention uh it's good that I I would have thought there was more than uh what

0:12:43we're seeing to replace so that means the the poles are in good shape they just need to be painted and and made look good so I I really think this is a a real good finish to a project and it will lend itself well to the Improvement program okay is there a motion I wanted to pull

0:13:04D oh okay move to uh uh excuse me move to approve items 5 a b and c e and f of the consent calendar I'll second it's been moved and seconded all in favor I I oppose motion carries unanimously and I want to congratulate Mark gun3 for his uh appointment to the committee on Aging

0:13:31appreciate his service in the community and encourage others to also join on the appropriate committee so we'll now take up item 5D I don't uh NE I don't need a report other than what I'd like to do is on the resolution the second whereas uh after Stockton Avenue I would

0:13:56like to add um which is a high priority facility under the city's Ada trans uh transition plan the reason why I'd like to do that is one in the staff report that it's identified and it is part of our plan but in the other I'd like it in the public record because um as you know

0:14:17uh we got hit with a lawsuit along with I think it was 14 other cities or 11 other cities what whatever the count was on not M uh not coming up to a standard and even though uh we felt we had met the standard um we still were part of that jpa um that eventually settled the suit

0:14:40and I would just like it under the record that this is part of the plan and we are keeping our commitments uh towards these priorities so that's what I'd like to do okay any comments I have one question about that does that have a negative or a positive impact this question for the City

0:15:01attorney I think a a negative or a positive impact on um the terms of that lawsuit that word that change in wording not that lawsuit that that one's gone but I'm think about challenges there are conditions regarding it that we have to fulfill in oh financing um actually if we're

0:15:29discussing the same case um although the council did authorize um a settlement agreement um as I you should have received um a memo um several weeks ago indicating that um the the current status of of that um is up in the air because the judge U when it went to a

0:15:49hearing um on the certification of the plaintiff class and approval of the settlement agreement was not satisfied with it um I won't go into the details tonight about um what I understand to have been um quite a messy hearing um but basically the settlement is sort of

0:16:05up in the air right now um I don't believe that either way though that that the inclusion of the wording proposed by council member Jones would have any effect on on that case if it continues to be litigated or if it's settled so we have um a proposal to approve item 5D with an additional weas

0:16:23Clause that the in no uh in addition to the second weas clause after Stockton Avenue i' I'd like to add which is a high priority facility under the city's Ada transition plan okay are you looking for a motion sure I'll make that motion second been moved and seconded

0:16:46all in favor I I opposed motion carries unanimously and that completes the consent calendar for tonight we have no public hearing scheduled and so we'll move on on to our policy matters the first one being item 7A the Bruce King Memorial Park thank you Madame mayor and

0:17:16councel again Jerry Bradshaw Public Works director the idea of a dog park in elero has been discussed for several years it's been at least two years uh at the park and W commission itself um it's been a specific item of discussion the idea of a dog park found a home in the

0:17:36aloney greenway master plan as that plan was developed over a period of of almost a year and adopted earlier this year um it was felt that a dog park along the alone Greenway would would serve uh the higher density neighborhoods that tend to Cluster around San Pabo Avenue and

0:17:55the Loney Greenway where residents typically don't have large yards or any yard uh for their pest to exercise in so they felt like the the staff and the Consultants as well as the Pine commission I believe or park and wreck commission believed it was a natural fit

0:18:11for the alone Greenway to contain a a dog park facility that Master Plan um indicated two possible locations for a dog park U one near the Safeway site between moer and portala and another one north of Wall Street up near the Baxter Creek area uh at this time staff is asking the

0:18:34council to amend the Capal Improvement program to include a dog park project we had not have one in there up to this point but um recent circumstances have led us to this point where we're making this request Bruce King began working for the city in 1994 tragically Bruce passed away on

0:18:54April 17th of this year Bruce was a valued and and well-liked employee who made significant contributions in the public works and Recreation Fields as a trained landscape architect in horticulturist he was the city's resident Authority on Horticultural matters this brought him in contact with

0:19:12many residents nonprofit organizations contractors and other departments boards and commissions in Elser read on the surrounding areas Bruce was also an avid lover and owner of dogs soon after his death an idea surfaced to honor his love for dogs through the construction of a local

0:19:31offleash dog park a recommendation that was containing the aloney greenway master plan uh soon after his death a memorial fund was established with the city which was wholeheartedly supported by Bruce's family and friends Els re's administrative policy um lays out a procedure for

0:19:53naming and memorializing City facilities or resources the policy requires that the city council approve any such naming by a majority vote staff is recommending recognizing Bruce's service and contribution of the City by officially designating the name of the dog park to

0:20:10be the Bruce King Memorial Dog Park um the the location that staff is recommending at this point is not one of the two either one of the two that are in The aloney Greenway master plan staff has done a few other survey uh of other locations and I'll briefly go through

0:20:32the locations that were considered again the the the two mentioned in the master plan were between Porta and moer and another one north of Wall Street along the Loney Greenway staff is proposing a third location to be selected which is the area along Lexington Avenue between petero and

0:20:54Blake Street this is adjacent to the Loney Greenway just as the other side sites are but it's actually just off to the side this third location actually has a very unique advantage in that it's available for development of a dog park at this point without interfering with

0:21:09the BART seismic retrofit program that's due to start next year it also is a fairly large site and we think it's actually quite suitable in a lot of regards so that is uh that's a site we're proposing for the dog park um I guess at this point the the three recommendations we are making is that uh

0:21:33you amend the capital Improvement project to add the dark Park appropriate $40,000 to be funded through donations to the memorial fund and measure ww if those uh donations don't prove to be sufficient and then officially designate the name of the new facility to be the

0:21:50Bruce King Memorial Dog Park thanks with any with that I'll answer any questions that you might have I don't have any questions I have comments okay thank you so much for the report you have a question yeah I have a couple questions here um thank you for the report I was just unclear though on

0:22:10did the Park and Recreation Commission recommend funding out of the WW uh yes they did yes they did okay and um the effect on the de the demonstration area for uh trees has been around quite a long time not quite several decades I I remember working on that in the 1990s so I don't want to date myself

0:22:35too much but anyway um and it said that uh the purpose of of the demon the urban Forest demonstration site could be handled um in another area or through another another way has staff uh decided on how that would be or is there a recommendation forthcoming the alone Greenway master

0:23:02plan acknowledges the existing demonstration forest and designates both sections to remain so and to possibly be enhanced with some additional signage or some slight modifications um there's actually two sections of this the block south of petero and the block North of petero

0:23:22we're proposing this go into the block North of per petero but probably only uh fence in half of that area so the trees would still remain we would not remove the trees um it would just be fenced off for casual observers to go in and read any plaques there's still a few plaques

0:23:39uh remaining there although they probably need to be refurbished a bit so both blocks would still contain the forest and the block to the South and half of the block to the north would would be available for any other improvements or enhancements we want to do to the demonstration Forest so

0:23:55they're outside of the the dog park right proposed assuming we do about half of that block those trees would be inside the dog park but they would still rebain good okay thank you and and I read that to mean that it would be possible with appropriate planting protection to actually plant

0:24:18trees inside the dog park you know with the appropriate netting or fencing or or um protective fencing around new plants so even even the area inside the dog park could still continue to be um a demonstrative demonstration Forest as the report says the trees actually

0:24:36benefit the dogs with the shade and and uh and such so I actually read it that the demonstration force would potentially continue inside the dog park as well well I hadn't envisioned planting new trees in there uh I that might be a challenge inside of a active dog park uh my intent with saying that

0:24:57it could be hand handled elsewhere was there are lots of other places in town to to demonstrate um the various Urban forests you can have uh along the hillside area or other Park areas we have we do believe that having one along the alone and Greenway where we have a

0:25:12great preponderance of casual visitors is is still worthy but I had not envisioned trying to cultivate new trees inside the dog park area thank you okay ready for a motion um yeah I was just going to make a comment um that in in fact that my original comment was

0:25:29just that the parks and rec commission did support it and was enthusiastic I would say about it um the um other night I mean it really is a nice feature that this land is available immediately and otherwise it's going to be who knows how many years before Bart finishes the project that they're doing

0:25:48on uh the um Greenway and um the other thing though that I wanted to just mention um is how appropriate it seems for this to be a site where we would honor Bruce um because he did so much for us along the greenway and in in developing things so I think you know I think it's very

0:26:10highly supportive and I would be happy to make that motion if you're ready for it okay com has a comment um I'm sorry I was curious about any Furnishings that would be covered under this budget proposed amount benches or tables and kind of thing well we haven't done the actual

0:26:33design yet okay um we do intend to bring in a dog exercise parkour exercise facility um we plan on having some benches uh trash receptacles other equipment that normally pertinents as you see with dog parks but I don't have the specifics right at this time we still have yet to do a design a layout

0:26:55and identify all the small elements okay thanks M yeah what I uh since we're ready to make a motion I'd like to suggest something here um since we have measure ww funds I I think it would be appropriate to in the resolution uh to state an amount that would be coming out of there uh the way

0:27:17it's written now I think it's a little open-ended um about what donations and and uh ww funding but I think with measure ww uh we should set an amount uh that uh that we will be uh budgeting for this project and I would just suggest that after and the now therefore it be resolved second line

0:27:45third line after measure ww proceeds uh put in the phrase not to exceed $25,000 I think that's appropriate um we did not ask for public comments I don't know if there's anyone who signed up to speak on this item yes we have three speakers okay that'd be a good time to hear from

0:28:11them the first is Mindy [Music] charop mayor Potter and council member my name is Mindy charop I'm Bruce Kings um was his girlfriend um and co-owner at one point of 11 dogs together and I just want to thank the council and Monica and Jerry for going forth with this it would

0:28:43mean so much to Bruce I couldn't think of any other tribute that would be make more sense based on his love for dogs and elero and um myself my brother and his sister and my close friends who have been um contributors and everybody else I just we really when the idea came up

0:29:10and Monica suggested it to me it was like well I I couldn't have even imagined something like this and um so I really appreciate you considering this on Bruce's behalf and our dogs thank you thank you so much for being here tonight Laura [Music] weissinger good evening mayor and

0:29:36council members I just wanted to Second everything Mindy said and uh tell you how appropriate I think this is his love of dogs and his love of trees is being combined in a lovely setting um that really brings a little bit of sunshine into such a unhappy situation so it's

0:29:54really lovely that the city's doing this and um it's really really just so thanked by everybody who loves and misses Bruce so thank you thanks mayor Ritz thank you Madame mayor councilman my name is Mayor Ritz [address removed] it seems appropriate that uh

0:30:18you have Bruce on your agenda this evening I'm here this representing the elrio Garden Club and as many of you know Bruce was a friend of the ELO Garden Club when we needed a tree planted we always called Bruce when we wanted something in the memorial growth he always knew where

0:30:34to get it and how to get it planted in the right way we among ourselves at the at the Garden Club we um collected funds to donate a plantation for Bruce in the Shasta Trinity national forest and this is a reforestation uh for burned areas that or other areas that that have um need to

0:30:58be reforested so we um all of the elrita members would like to present and it is I'm sorry Sandy I should have um excuse me Madame mayor it should have been presented earlier but it is a is in me it's in memory of Bruce for not only his friendship but also all of the work that he did for us not only

0:31:20the Garden Club but the community so we'd like to present this to you and ru's memory thank you Mr rich sorry I didn't tell you earlier so um well we have two great things to celebrate today and um we haven't had our motion but I do want to say that I think that um the dog park is

0:32:02the most appropriate memorial for Bruce and for his love of animals and his real commitment to elero so um I just am am very proud to be able to be part of this decision and I want to thank the Garden Club also for this very appropriate um contribution and and memorial for

0:32:25Bruce in in the um open space lands a little bit further away from where he spent most of his time but I'm sure where he had a lot of wonderful and peaceful um memories do we have any other public speakers so if we're ready to entertain a motion okay I'd be happy to make that

0:32:42motion um uh the motion is that the elero city council amends the 2009 10 Capital Improvement program to add a project and appropriate $440,000 to be funded through through donations and up to $25,000 of major ww proceeds and officially designates the name of the

0:33:04new facility to be the Bruce King memorial dog park to be located adjacent to the Alani Greenway on lington Avenue between petero Avenue and Blake Street it would be my pleasure to second that and offer these words um I think this is a worthy project keeping with Bruce's

0:33:24priorities um for green Open Spaces safe trails and of course dogs so I I am honored to Second it anyone else want to comment at this time well without saying repeating everything I it's it's a a really great project that's in a place that's really needed and I think it'll be really

0:33:47complimentary to the parks and and amenities that we already have it's been moved and seconded all in favor I I osed we're very pleased that motion carries unanimously and we're looking forward to enjoying the dog [Applause] park okay with that we'll move on to

0:34:13item 7B um tonight we have a study session on the S Pablo Avenue specific plan and I know that we have a staff report I'm happy to see Mitch oos shinsky Back special to provide this report I did just want to say say that um the S Pablo Avenue specific plan consists of three volumes it's out in

0:34:34draft form and a number of bodies have been reviewing the specific plan so tonight is our Workshop to talk about our thoughts and at some future time all those comments will be integrated so we're not going to have a decision tonight but we will have an active dialogue and a study session and so um

0:34:51Mitch please the staff report thank you Madame mayor members of council I'm Mitch oshinsky Community Development director and I'd like to introduce Chris banan and Brian soland who are our main consultants for the specific plan with Mig and I'd like to note uh the same

0:35:07things that the mayor really talked about which is that the numerous meetings we've had on the plan so far Community meetings Community uh meetings with our specific plan group with our Planning Commission with our drb with the city of Richmond and the great input

0:35:23that we've received so far to date on the plan which the input that we've received so far to date is encapsulated in the thick packet that you received tonight for the meeting um and so that input plus your comments tonight are going to result in a new draft plan that

0:35:42will uh come to you before we have our formal public adoption Hearing in the new year so with that I will hand the study session presentation over to chrisk you if I may ask staffer a quick question if it's possible yes please um it I noticed in in our package that uh

0:36:02the city of Richmond had had a work study on it and there were comments from the city of Richmond but I could not find those comments maybe I just didn't look hard enough but I was just curious if you if you had a if you could guide me to where the city of Richmond the

0:36:20city council from Richmond had their comments well I believe Brian can speak to that but the Richmond city council we haven't received any comments from the Richmond city council yet they uh did not have a a formal review session as you are having they decided that uh

0:36:37the city staff has decided that um that wasn't necessarily appropriate um so the Planning Commission did have comments and the the design review board also had comments from the city of Richmond and those are included in the packet great thank you thank you Mitch thank you Madame

0:36:56mayor members of the council uh my name is Chris banan with Mig I'm a principal with that firm we urban planners and designers uh Lo just down the road here in Berkeley again Brian Solen project manager on the project uh as well as Simon alejandrino is here to help answer

0:37:14questions uh he is with Bay Area economics who were our economists on the project um I do want to say this is a very exciting moment we're we're still along the process here but uh we're getting to feel the fruits and culmination of a lot of hard work and dedication on uh behalf of community

0:37:36members uh who have lent time and energy committee members as well as uh staff Mitch and Jennifer and their team Dwayne no uh they're just fantastic and they've lent a lot to this effort and I do want to underscore that this is an historic collaboration between these two

0:37:54municipalities of Elo and Rich and I think a lot is being brought forth by that um not only in the product here but processes and Communications going forward that will lend toward really achieving a fruitful Vision achieving the vision that's outlined uh in the

0:38:11plan itself I do want to emphasize I think what was said this is a study session draft plan we've received a number of comments so far that we'll be incorporating and uh we look forward to your insights uh um conferences such as rail Evolution meetings with developers

0:38:31connected Uli all of those are great insights and contributions that we would like to incorporate into this document uh so the format for tonight is to go over this presentation in front of you all to basically uh Orient everybody to the plan we do have uh folks on the

0:38:50council who have been a part of the committee meeting so they're aware of of some of this and uh and then be able to answer any questions and take comments that you have this evening so we're talking about a very special place s Pabo Avenue and that entails a lot of hard work that I

0:39:12alluded to an ton of work completed and coordination completed over the last couple of years specifically on the schedule here here we are November 16th uh and then moving forward hopefully toward final hearings with you all uh in the early in the new year as well as the

0:39:32city of Richmond so we aren't uh taking the gas off the pill over the holidays here we're going to be incorporating your comments and coming back to you in pretty short order again there are two volumes to this document one or three volumes rather the first volume is uh

0:39:49the kind of userfriendly version outlining the vision the overall Concepts design concept and principles the second one one is the more technical document it contains the design guidelines and specifics particularly for staff use volume three is the set of technical appendices analyses that

0:40:08accompany the uh the plan itself so the vision and principles set forth are based upon the community's input and the committee's input and we're very proud of that uh going back to our visional original uh visioning workshops and hearing their ideas about what they want to see in transforming

0:40:29the Avenue that Vision really is outlined uh as you see uh here and it supports Notions that are definitely put forth in the general plan the idea of nodes along the avenue to focus activities and uh connection and to boost economic Vitality as well as Transit oriented development people want

0:40:50to see high quality uh and well-designed buildings in the area area and that relates specifically to the design and design guidelines we want particular land uses in but they can't just be that land use they have to be designed in a way that really Fosters this this future

0:41:08seen as a very walkable pedestrian oriented multimodal transportation area to use a planner e term uh where we're we still need to accommodate the automobile definitely but we're looking at pedestrians bicycles Transit activity and really boosting that in the area

0:41:26that relates to the streets the design not only of San Pablo Avenue uh but the connection streets that go east and Westward uh from the corridor and then as I mentioned Transit uh so many communities in the Bay Area would love to have what we have here with these two

0:41:44BART stations but they can be leveraged better and people have expressed the desire to leverage them better they've also expressed the desire to uh to harness the power of the uh buses that come into the area the uh the rapid transit Corridor along San Pablo Avenue

0:42:02and make sure that that's married and connected with the land use and design so from that Vision we have a set of uh planning principles ranging from circulation all the way through Community facilities that support that Vision so the strategy and design concept is a series of layers mapping

0:42:21layers that really start to uh outline the future for the corridor it's a it's a long Corridor headed or starting up um up here at the McDonald Gateway area by McDonald Avenue all the way down to the Border uh with the city of Albany and that entails points of different

0:42:40character different building Heights different services and amenities that people have articulated that they would like to see importantly we've been harnessing that Vision uh but through our analyses as well as Simon's analyses and others on our consultant team we're

0:42:56ensuring that this is a feasible Vision moving forward this is not Pie in the Sky we are looking at uh a development envelope and things that are achievable within the next 20 years of this time frame obviously uh We've since we started this plan we've had uh an

0:43:14economic downturn the likes we haven't seen in a long long time but the vision uh continues to hold true and whether that can truly be stimulated in the next couple years or the next five plus years uh remains to be seen but that those core elements certainly hold

0:43:31true so there are four main character areas uh as I mentioned McDonald McDonald Gateway in the North Del Norte BART station Midtown Civic Center and the plaza area as well as these connection points that are very important I'm going to step through uh each of those quickly here the McDonald

0:43:48Gateway is seen as uh an area through its built form through its streetscapes through its uh art uh and other Gateway elements as an entry not only to the city of El Sero but Westward into the City of Richmond also uh this is the corner of San Pablo Avenue here looking

0:44:10uh Southward down the street and then Eastward down McDonald Avenue and the guidelines uh of this plan and it's development Vision brought forth are fostering this sort of Future Vision for the area we know that there are particular uh sites underutilized certain property owners who uh who we

0:44:33want to work with and have targeted uh opportunities in the future this is one potential example of how it might evolve in the future under the guidelines and parameters that we've put forth moving Southward to the uh Del Norte BART station area this is an area that we

0:44:51would see as having the highest density uh along the corridor because of the trans orian development opportunities there uh Bart has been a real key member as along with AC Transit throughout attending all of the meetings uh participating in the commentary on the

0:45:10plan and um and these two Transit agencies want to see a bolstering and leveraging of this delor BART station uh in ways that you might start to see here so uh you can see here Del Norte uh BART station looking Eastward here from San Pablo Avenue well the Future Vision

0:45:31being one where we would want to see mixed use development that would come in with housing with retail perhaps some uh office uses in the area creating a pedestrian Plaza a place that is special and different and caters to the transit users and allows people to connect uh

0:45:51quite easily across and from areas from the outside there is is prent of course in the region here one of them being uh fruit Veil Village down in Oakland at the fruit Veil BART station uh this is one of the first TOS or trans orian developments out of the box and

0:46:09certainly some lessons learned uh there but uh and some good and bad qualities to it but uh something that folks have expressed uh along these lines looking at leveraging and utilizing the blank parking spaces we have right now for velopment that could be of Greater

0:46:27intensity now uh we had talked with Mitch and we put in this example here Santana Row uh down in Santa Clara San Jose area it is a it is not Transit Orient development but it is a mixed use project and we saw it um and pretty intense one and we saw it as illustrative and wanted to give you some

0:46:46points of comparison here just for your knowledge and insights so here is uh the Del Norte station uh project area and if we cut that out out here it's about 40 acres and as currently proposed we or or that we put in our development proposal for analysis uh you know along the lines

0:47:06of 7750 housing units and upwards of about 128,000 squ ft of commercial we would see in this area that does not include uh existing facilities it's more on the underutilized spaces uh and then eventually you know the the areas further to the West here along the

0:47:26freeway as this development Vision moves forth and the land values start to change may start to become a bigger part of this uh area and vision so just for comparison purposes because uh Del nor and and the folks at Uli and others have this on their radar screens pardon me we wanted to put this

0:47:44up here for you Fruitville Village is is a much smaller area these are all at the exact same uh scale and uh houses 288 units about 45,000 F feet of commercial Santana Row again this is more of a it's along the lines of Bay Street a more Regional mixed use shopping center along

0:48:03the lines of of what we've seen the last five or 10 years that's been built uh a more intense area and you can see it borne out here in the numbers I I I think that the future of Del Norte is probably something in between I don't see uh you know with the other uh types

0:48:19of retail oriented development Around The Bay streets and other places I don't see a Santana Road necessarily uh plopping down here in the future but I also think that it's its future is probably more than a fruit Veil Village I think it's something that uh has the

0:48:37ability to become a true center for the city of elero and and a very vibrant place not only for folks who might uh live or shop in the transit area but in its uh live in its surroundings moving Southward Midtown Civic Center and I'll I'll speed things up here here uh is uh

0:48:57right where we are right now in this uh wonderful facility we uh see things coming down uh smaller uh with respect to density and height wise But continuing along the lines of what the streetcap plan has put forth fantastically along the corridor and looking at these blank parking lots here

0:49:18this is a tough environment to walk along and we want to piece together that fabric and make it a more walkable uh vibrant Street and as uh opportunities exist to redevelop uh bring those buildings closer to the street importantly uh folks on the Richmond Annex side on the west side of the

0:49:36street here they said uh wait a second our lot depths are less here we aren't as comfortable uh in in developing uh over 35 ft uh which is what we have proposed on the east side of the street the West Side uh we capped it out at 35 ft and that also Bears out from a

0:49:56development feasibility perspective looking at those small Lots it's it's really harder to allow a developer to even go any higher than that with respect to what they can fit on the site then down at the plaza another place that uh is a heart people uh the the theater a hardware the BART Plaza or or

0:50:18BART station and then the plaza itself an opportunity to start to see uh more change that this plan would would Foster and develop finally between the character areas uh because these nodes are so important and we want to bolster retail opportunities there uh we we want to

0:50:39look at and a plan looks at or proposes not stretching all of that mixed use out along the corridor but really focusing uh housing and Commercial uses of singular use but compatible uh along the corridor in those areas in between between the uh the major notes so there

0:50:58are a number of tools outlined in the plan zoning overlays that uh really Foster uh The Vision support the vision I talked about for each of those areas uh the private realm looking at gateways and these character areas is having um the focus of a lot of the improvements

0:51:19uh but ensuring that we're transitioning very smartly and very well to the uh single family neighborhoods to the east and west that's something we've heard loud and clear that this is a wonderful spine that can become more than it is and we have these great Transit

0:51:33opportunities as well as the the bike and pedestrian Corridor of the aloney greenway but we need to be sensitive as we transition development wise to the East and to the west and so we pay a lot of attention to uh private realm design guidelines that look at massing and

0:51:48scale uh sustainable components are very key here we heard that up and down from day one that we need to be thinking in terms much more smartly with respect to storm water management green architecture as I mentioned building on uh the street streetscape improvements

0:52:06and incorporating sustainable streetscape improvements where we're allowing uh water to come down the rain wire to come down and percolate into the ground and recharge the groundwater rather than Channel all of those oils and toxins and things off into the Bay public art is something we had many

0:52:24advocates on there's opportunity whether you like these or not I think they're they're pretty fun the the idea that public art should be a big component of uh the area and bolster the character the distinct character of each of those areas in particular was very much a

0:52:44notion that came forth we think there's opportunity to do design competitions and things that would allow for that and then as we uh look at our Open Spaces or look at the development really people people saying wait a second uh we can't let this just build out mix use building

0:52:59after mix use building Etc we have to think about uh pocket Parks plazas connections to The aloney Greenway to ensure that this is livable it's walkable bikable Transit Orient but a livable place for everybody and people of all ages and abilities um I mentioned

0:53:16the surrounding areas traffic calming on residential streets uh is uh important as well as the the thought of uh residential permits things like that we'll talk about the parking ratios in just a minute some of the more technical details but uh in implementing this plan

0:53:33folks have said well if you're going to restrict parking in a way or change standards uh we don't want that spill over from San Pao Avenue to encroach uh into our areas where we live so um moving forward there are a couple components here I'm going to talk about

0:53:52some brief economic analysis and then I'm going to turn it over to Brian to talk about the comments we've heard so far and then we'll start solisten your your impact uh ground truthing the vision was very important as I mentioned from a market perspective we went through a whole design process

0:54:08to ensure we weren't just saying oh yeah wouldn't this be great to have this kind of development but what kind of development fits on what sites and does it pencil out for the developer and what tools are available for the developer to move forward so we looked at a number of

0:54:22different prototypical sites along the corridor worked with Simon to uh assess these we did the design he helped us uh look at different prototypes in the area that have been successful and we've aligned all of that in an implementation component so with that I'm going to turn

0:54:40it over to Brian to cover the major comment themes that we've heard so far uh again some of these things you may have already read some things you may agree with others you may not we're here to collect your thoughts on that this evening thank you thank you uh my name is Brian soland I'm

0:54:57with Mig uh I'm just going to outline the major themes and revisions that we've heard um just we've highlighted a few we've received quite a few comments um from all of the Committees that we've taken the plan to um and these are outlined in the the memo that you

0:55:15received and they focus on three different areas vision and principles parking and uh signage guidelines um regarding the vision and principles uh uh steering committee members put forth uh some additions to what we had in the plan and they relate to things like linking transportation and land use

0:55:38um ensuring good what good access to goods and services um things like this we have uh we will be incorporating these into the plan that's our recommended action um moving on to parking uh we received a a lot of different a lot of good conversations about parking and um and while some of

0:56:01the committee members said uh things like they want to support Transit oriented development they want to less Reliance on automobiles um that that was one key theme that that came out of our discussions another theme was that uh we shouldn't restrict parking to the point

0:56:19of affecting the economic viability of of development projects and a third consideration that uh was highlighted that the residents really didn't want to encounter spillover parking within their neighborhoods um so what we did weighing all of these concerns we put forth uh a

0:56:38range of allowable parking standards um and it balances it attempts to balance the different concerns that people had um and originally we had um we had placed maximums on uh on the the amount of parking that could happen and that's in the plan that you have right now and

0:57:01uh We've expanded that to say okay here's the range of of allowable uh uh parking standards that can happen on different different uh developments so uh for around the dorte BART it says provide between 1.0 and 1.5 25 spaces per unit um now this was City staff said okay that that's fine but we

0:57:27should really allow for more flexibility there if certain developers say okay we can really pencil this out and and make it a little less than than one space per unit then they should be allowed to put that forward and have an exception um so we we do mention that as well um so

0:57:48there are some other um moving on here other parking considerations that City staff ass us to to look at um where what nearby cities are doing and uh some cities are really Progressive other cities are fall more into the Suburban parking standards Berkeley does something kind

0:58:08of interesting and that they don't base it on the number of units for residential they base it on the amount of square footage of units of the unit so um or of the commercial of the residential space sorry uh so one space per 1,000 to 1,200 ft of of uh residential space so that means if you

0:58:30have smaller units you can fit more units and provide less parking um and then the commercial standard is one space per 500 square feet and for mixed use they they say okay you're exempt up to 1,000 square feet of that commercial space um and Albany Falls more into the

0:58:50Suburban standard with two spaces per unit um and one one space to to 200 to 400 square ft of commercial and Emoryville 1 to 1.25 spaces per uh per unit and for the most part these are uh minimum standards that they put forth uh not maximums um now there are other Innovative

0:59:15approaches out there and a lot of them have to do with not only looking at parking standards but also parking management programs and uh looking at them together to sort of have this package of of parking tools at your disposal so you might lower the standards but you also have metered

0:59:33parking that prices that prices parking to have spaces available um so I'll just walk through these pretty quickly but a a low minimum requirement this is what uh Redwood City does they have a very low minimum so5 spaces per unit in some cases and they say okay uh let's

0:59:55uh if a developer comes in they can provide more than that uh because it's because it may be more economically viable for their project and uh and in most cases the developer provides between 10 to to 20% uh above the minimum because the minimum is low um and it becomes more Market driven

1:00:18another uh another way of looking at it is maximums this is what San Francisco does in certain areas they say no parking's required and we have a maximum of one space per unit for residential and this is in certain to designations um and then also there's a t tood to reduction strategy which

1:00:39actually elero does with if you're within uh a certain distance from a bar station you get a reduction um and we can so the the next slide shows parking management strategies and these are ones that uh red wood city which is sort of a prototype that they've kind of gone all

1:00:59out in their uh in their parking management for their downtown but they looked at market rate pricing so they try they're they're um what their their goal is to have an 85% occupancy rate so at any point in time 15% of the parking spaces are open if you're uh traveling

1:01:19to their downtown they want people to be able to park easily so uh that's what the marking market rate pricing alludes to and then they've also Incorporated these other uh considerations so it's really an entire package of of parking and I just add we're we're spending a

1:01:37fair bit of time on parking here but this is this is one of the points where we could use your direction and insight so we really wanted to to make sure we hit it well tonight uh it's that balance between looking at a a future uh that is more multimodal nature and and you know

1:01:56evolving uh to a point where things are more balanced with the automobile but at the same time ensuring that uh that spaces not only new development but commercial activities along the corridor that do depend on automobile traffic are not thrown by the wayside and and hurt

1:02:14from an economic and economic development perspective so there's a balance in there or an evolution in there that we would like you to all weigh in on on this plan okay moving on from uh from parking um we've put forth some signage guidelines that are located in the memo

1:02:32but they refer to uh um high quality materials having a pedestrian scale um having some size limits in there and illumination guidelines to make a consistent feel along the corridor in terms of of signage and that was one thing that was missing from the plan originally and it

1:02:50was pointed out so we've uh included some language there that we're going to incorporate thank you yeah and so uh Jennifer is going to come up for this last slide and then we're going to turn it over to you all uh we realized bit lengthy of a presentation but uh two years of uh a

1:03:09lot of hard work two plus years and we wanted to make sure that we we painted the full picture uh and then we welcome your comments so uh Jennifer is going to discuss a few of the potential next steps coming out of the plan process one of the things that's become

1:03:25very apparent through this um formation of this of the specific plan as well as the Uli presentation that council member Aon referred to is a real focus on delor um as well as parking and one of the things that we'd like to do is come back to you um for further discussion and

1:03:42Direction related to the Del Norte area um regarding a TOD strategy um possible joint Powers agreement to work with Bart over regulations of their parking lots um a potential Master use permit Master eir for the entire area um infrastructure um discussion the existing versus future needs um

1:04:03potential market and economic analysis and a developer solicitation one of the things that came out of the Uli discussion was a real push on we need to really to develop Del Norte right we really need to bring in a master developer and do it all as one piece and

1:04:19so that's something we'd like to talk to you about um and we would propose that the next study session a separate study session away from the specific plan because the specific plan is rather big and we drill down and really focus on dorte sometime after the first of the

1:04:33year and that's just something that's what this slide talks about for further discussion thank you okay thank you all for the presentations I wanted to briefly um go over what our process is going to be and I also have a question of Staff um we will be here to first to

1:04:50ask clarifying questions of those who presented we'll open it up for public comment and then we'll bring it back to the council for discussions and recommendations and more Direction back to staff but the two clarifications I was interested in is um what what do you

1:05:06see the process being um I know we looked at the time frame but actually for incorporating the various comments that might be conflicting as we move forward to come to the place of a draft final plan and secondly um the timelines and what you anticipate as the public

1:05:22comment review period for the secret docum ment so and then maybe you can discuss the the SQL so the process by which um we see working through all of these comments a number of them the vast majority of them we think can be worked in are not conflictual with one another however there are some

1:05:56key points that uh we do think might need further analysis discussion Etc we are going to work through those very methodically uh with staff and then we'll be uh coming back and uh and going through the process again uh working with uh um staff Planning Commission Etc

1:06:16and coming back to you all we will point out uh areas that uh where we have a recommendation where there were some some conflicts hopefully we're we're going to be able to get some consensus direction from you all tonight and minimize those and if need be we can we

1:06:34can figure out how you know if there are any outstanding points how we might be able to gather more input before the time we come back to you all I was interested um kind of specifically in any differences between Richmond and elero that may need to be resolved oh

1:06:53um from a substantive content standpoint there aren't any items we've really seen that are opposed from the two cities okay thank you okay and then you want to talk about the sqa process so we're uh um preparing a M&D a mitigated negative declaration for this

1:07:18project and um it should be being released in the next two or three weeks um and there's been a a few additions that needed to happen um that that weren't uh initially seen so um it should be coming out soon and then that will kick off the public review period for the the M andd which should be 30

1:07:41days I believe and then the uh Approval Pro the public hearing process should um begin at the end of that public review stage the reason I ask is saw a number of comments related to the mitigating negative declaration and I just wanted to be clear that that document will have

1:07:59its separate own 30-day review period and a time for written comments and an opportunity for you and staff to respond to them so tonight we're going to focus on the contents of the plan and any uh discussion recommendations thank you okay are there any questions from

1:08:18staff for the presenters I'll start with Mr Lyman well uh I'm going to ask a bunch of questions but I want to start by thanking U um in the inside cover of volume one um there's a long list of both staff and of city of Els Sero City of Richmond the consultant team and and

1:08:37uh you know members of the various committees so I actually want to thank everyone for their hard work on this um I do have a few questions uh so I'm going to start out I searched hard in here to find the definition of commercial um so I'm actually not quite sure I know what the definition of

1:08:53commercial is and where the current businesses like automo automotive and and the single engine cycle and and some of those businesses end up because it didn't appear that they fit into the the future plan so I just curious where our community ends up getting those types of

1:09:10of services in the future in in 20 or 30 years so I just was wondering if anybody could point me in the direction of the definition of commercial um let's step back the specific plan goes the way the specific plan will work is in concert with our zoning ordinance

1:09:36so the recommendations that come out of here that will be regulatory on a day-to-day basis including the types of land uses and the development standards will be adopted into the zoning Ordnance as part of the adoption of this plan so the zoning ordinance already covers a

1:09:52lot of the different uses so in places in the specific plan where those uses have been changed those changes will come forward as changes to the zoning Ordnance as well so right now in the the auto uses are really focused in between the nodes and in places um if you go

1:10:10into the development standards where they look at the overlay areas there are places where Auto uses are explicitly not allowed anymore so that's where in the zoning ordinance we'll be pulling them out as allowed use if that well that that does raise a question because the way I read this the

1:10:31specific plan needs to be consistent with our general plan and and so what you're saying is our general plan has to change in order to adopt this is that what you're saying the zoning ordinance would okay and our zoning ordinance has been updated to be consistent with our

1:10:44general plan and and so again the question is where would I find the definition of commercial and where do these businesses go when they're no longer allowed where they are that's what I stepped up to say is that the zoning ordinance has very uh specific and detailed definitions of all the

1:11:03different use types that are in the specific plan as well as others so the specific plan will be consistent with the zoning and will be consistent with the general plan all three together will work and a use that is no longer allowed in a Zone if it's existing now will

1:11:20allow be allowed to stay there until it decid decides to move or is replaced with another use so it doesn't eliminate those uses that exist it it grandfathers the men I I guess my question is where in the plan are these uses allowed going forward and it does to me they doesn't

1:11:41look like they're allowed in the city of elero so I was just curious are is the city of elero really saying we're not welcoming those uses in the future um can I ask okay uh there's we have five different overlay districts um it's in the spa 5 overlay um this designation allows mixed

1:12:03use commercial residential and auto oriented uses so that's that is where they are explicitly allowed and welcomed in between the character areas in between the character areas so yeah in between the nodes okay okay I'm thank you um my next question is um the distance that was selected it was

1:12:27selected at a quarter mile as opposed to say a half kilometer I was just curious what was the basis for for selecting the distance for the nodes a quarter mile radius sometimes they half mile radi I put around these sorts of Transit nodes but quarter mile radius is the generally accepted uh one

1:12:53that gives about a a five plus minute walk uh for a person uh and uh it's a proximal area basically that's about the length depending on climate topography uh you know the the quality of the environment the people will generally walk a lot to get to you know Services the obviously

1:13:15as as the environment becomes more rich and pedestrian oriented the the conceptual notion of those circles I think will get bigger but that's where given the environment we are right now we would start with and it's a generally accepted uh protocol for the for the

1:13:30discipline yeah it mathematically it works out to about two blocks and a half kilometer works out to about three blocks so I was just curious why you know two blocks versus three blocks was was selected but you're saying it's industry standard it's an industry standard correct okay thanks um if I

1:13:47read this correctly The Proposal in the future has more streets and more open space space that the city would be obligated to um fund the maintenance of and and I am I correct in assuming that the property tax revenues would offset that additional cost to operate I didn't see the economic

1:14:13analysis that suggested how we pay for those increased obligations uh there is a section in the I think in the second volume that talks about implementation there is there is and it has a lot of things for the city of Elser to do right and uh one of the sections um within that chapter talks

1:14:38about the different financing strategies that would address both the capital cost as well as operations and certainly um as you move forward with any particular uh Improvement and put it on your Capital Improvement program um you would need to consider what would be the

1:14:53ongoing costs for maintenance of that particular item as well so it is definitely something that the city needs to consider as it moves forward on a piece by piece basis and in a related discussion um there I'm assuming there's more population as a result of the additional

1:15:08units is there an estimate of the increased population and related is there an estimate of the increased number of services in police and fire that we would need to to provide as a result of increasing the population there is an estimate that does talk about the increased students of only a

1:15:25hundred for for this area but I but I didn't see the linkage to population and um that same discussion does talk about uh police and fire but it doesn't necessarily give us an in increase in the estimated Services right um in specific plans cities will occasionally

1:15:44do a fiscal impact analysis to examine the very issue you're bringing up what is the added cost of bringing in new residents um new jobs and uh what would be the added revenues of bringing in those folks as well um that wasn't conducted as part of this analysis I

1:15:58think generally speaking um given Els Cero's relatively dense setup where you uh have essentially efficiencies in service provision um because you have all of these uses being more Consolidated uh the general rule of thumb is that that sort of infill development tends to pay for itself um

1:16:18through its property tax revenue uh where you really start to suffer those fiscal impact is in more Suburban environments where all of these Services get expanded over a much larger area um but to the extent you have any major projects moving forward so for example

1:16:32this master planning of the of the Del Norte bar we would certainly recommend that the city do a fiscal impact analysis of that particular project just to make sure that you are made whole for these ongoing operations costs great thank you um figure 4.1 in in volume one

1:16:48and I believe there's a comparable figure in volume three that's 11 by 17 um there is a a set of corridor connections that are highlighted it's page 45 for those who are looking in there I see a lot of pages flipping um there's a a corridor connection that's highlighted

1:17:10and I'm trying to figure out what those are connecting Bay View for example uh to the west of San Pablo Avenue is four blocks long and then it hits the freeway so I'm just trying to figure out what this is what these are connecting because they're not pedestrian because

1:17:29The Pedestrian is actually in a different color so just trying to figure out what these are highlighting um and how they fit into the overall uh the overall plan everyone's stumped okay I can go on to the next question if you want the the two grid systems on each side of s paabo

1:17:53Avenue are very different um and this is alluding to that we're trying to create better connections across s Pablo Avenue um to link the two sides and that's what this is identifying how just area intersections that may be compatible for u a stoplight where potentially or or a

1:18:20an intersection where you could potentially go through and past uh s Pao Avenue oh thank you yeah and I I would just add the distinction there between the purple and the pink is that the purple are new pedestrian and bicycle connections to break up some of the larger blocks and

1:18:37super blocks whereas these uh pink ones are ones that we would want to reinforce particularly as pedestrian bicycle connections people talked about the difficulty getting across the Avenue and that's really important good thank you for that clarification that adds a lot

1:18:52um my last is probably my most um I don't know might be easy for you guys to answer this question um as I looked at this I was stumped at how the footprint was uh the footprint of the area was developed um it left out areas that Bart owns um that I would think would be

1:19:13included as very probable Transit oriented development um and so I I'm was was very confounded by that and also trying to figure out why it didn't go to Barrett Avenue at the North End which is a huge Entrance Road to elero so I'm I'm wondering why the North End got

1:19:35truncated at Nevan which is which is a small collector Street and didn't necessarily go up to a larger more uh Transit oriented node of at at Barrett or even all the way up to the to the freeway onramp um and and how it missed a few of the properties owned by Bart granted it

1:19:55today it's a it's a three-story parking garage but in the future it could be something else and there's the parking uh surface parking lot that Bart owns that is also left out at the plaza so I was I was left a little stumped at how the planning area was selected so I was

1:20:14hoping that somebody could illuminate me on that uh to the second point the planning area essentially follows the path of where Richmond and elero come together that was the defining element and so um you know going further north to Barett and and these were uh things that were put early on

1:20:45the project the idea being that this is we want to look at the seam between the two cities and that going that far north becomes really more just Richmond oriented or it gets tilted more in that direction so that was some of the rationale there um you know the uh with

1:21:02respect to the boundaries and uh it was originally uh Focus just the aloney greenway West and we did start to look at Parcels uh further to the east that did include uh those Bart uh facilities I think early on with this app was done up the three-story parking structure was

1:21:27uh was considered well that's kind of uh not movable right now but we we definitely Incorporated the the thinking uh and and looked at the entire context so just because it's not uh specifically called out on this uh on this map and this mapping it definitely is part of

1:21:46the thinking of the plan but uh that we had to draw lines somewhere and they ended up where they are now but there's certainly rationale behind that and we think the boundaries hold up well thank you okay thanks okay um I didn't do a very good job of separating out my questions from

1:22:08my comments but I'll try to do what I can separately um the first question that I have is a follow-up question uh to council member lyman's questions about the nodes um and uh when I look at several of the nodes they seem to me to be um kind of unnatural like for example

1:22:28the plaza uh it breaks off in the you know the edge of the node is right in the middle of the plaza so like it doesn't seem very functional could that be explain to me why how that's really going to function in all of the um other document I mean the other parts

1:22:48of the documents so are are you referring on page 45 I was looking at page nine m page nine okay just to make sure I'm I'm clear in volume uh one yeah so you're saying why does that Circle not go further into why isn't it uh conform to the outlines of the plaza and why is it a circle why is it a

1:23:14circle I suppose uh the simplistic way of looking at it because um it doesn't correspond to anything that anyone would ever do correct and again this is uh this is a convention used in the industry for conceptual purposes uh to do a more specific look you can of

1:23:35course uh do more of a GIS analysis where you look at at paths and you're right this is as the crow flies if you were to fly over all these buildings that would be the quarter mile radius and so we were looking at a a center point there and this is this is certainly not meant to say that uh the

1:23:57parts of the plaza couldn't be more aligned with or closer link to that Central node that might happen at Central in s Pabo Avenue that said uh if if you were to take this even further and go along the lines of what you're talking about that that uh Circle would

1:24:15be smaller that backside of s of elero Plaza is a difficult thing to get get to and it's it's a difficult path for a pedestrian to travel so it's a conceptual way of looking at how you might start to think of uh of goods and services and movement of folks uh at a

1:24:35center point but this is a line on the map that doesn't mean that the whole area can okay but the the the the then later question I have which is I guess the underlying question is then when you later on in various places in the document it talks about these things uh

1:24:52are true in the um um um the nodes and then in between there are other you know the rules are different in the nodes can character nodes I just want to make a suggestion because on um figure 1.2 there's a map that's showing the zoning overlays and so I think that um that's where you get

1:25:13into the detail of what's allowed and what's going to happen in the plan area in the five different it's nine in volume two oh sorry in volume two I think one has to look at the Circle Hub areas at a conceptual level and then you you kind of drill down into the detail

1:25:29which is provided in these overlay zoning areas but then the then I like for examp I mean I look at each one of them and they just don't seem quite they just seem a little off okay um and then for example the one around City Hall doesn't go to moer um which just logically doesn't

1:25:49make sense in fact I would take it south of Mo logically but that's where so when you look at page n of volume volume two okay I'm looking at page nine of volume talking about yeah okay and I I think the mayor very nicely outlined the difference this on uh page nine of

1:26:07volume one is meant to bring forth the notion that we're trying to create centers of activity and hubs the the one in volume two really then gets down toward more of the detail and um I believe it does extend down to moer where we think that the real land use changes can and should

1:26:24take place but then I guess I don't understand why they don't correspond to each other which they didn't don't it just doesn't make sense to me this way presented this way when when we don't even do that so I guess that's just my comment it's okay it's confusing um then

1:26:43um um see most of my things are comments um I then I I have a question about Transit that's kind of a general question and um we talk about trying to get people out of cars and into other forms of uh Transportation uh bike ped and Transit um but we don't really talk a

1:27:09lot about um what we're doing in the plan to make it good for people who use Transit we talk about Transit is or an impediment a lot uh in this plan and and uh we don't talk about the improvements that will be made for the transit Riders um is there a reason for

1:27:32that uh if that's your perception then I think it's an oversight I think we need to inject more of that notion into the plan okay um the um let's see here no okay um and I just might add that as far as trying to help and incorporate more Transit usage the the areas around

1:28:03the BART stations have higher densities and greater building Heights so it would allow more uh development that would then be able to use the transit and take advantage of that so we're going toward higher density in those Transit areas I think I'm thinking more of the actual

1:28:18operate the the experience of riding Transit um it looks like it's being sort of pushed out and pushed away and made more um thought of as a problem Transit operation itself you know like the movement of the buses for example thought of as a problem that you have to

1:28:38kind of fix um as opposed to the issue being how does a person using Transit um um you know for example if they come in on a bus getting on BART easily um how do they um get from let's say they come into the transit center on a bus it's particularly bus transit I think I'm

1:29:01thinking about but also Bart somewhat and then they want to go to a business across the street uh I know there's a little bit that talks about it but I think it doesn't quite do it completely um you know it doesn't I don't get a sense from looking at this that um if you are a Transit Rider that

1:29:22you're going to have it any um much better if at all might be harder um with these changes to get around in that area um that's the that's just what I'm concerned about and and wondering why it doesn't feel like it's Transit friendly and I know one thing I could

1:29:42point out with that is crosswalks the plan does provide for additional pedestrian crosswalk specifically at the Del Norte node to try and assist in pedestrian from the BART to and from the BART station so that's one item right but for example part of the problem is

1:29:57the timing of the signals um are very difficult there you know you compete when you're crossing the street the street with people turning left and you have to dodge the leftand turns for example at cutting in s Pablo um it's it's really difficult making a even when you have a green walk

1:30:21light it's difficult to get across the street because these cars are continuing to turn you know to complete their left-hand turn so these are really issues we'll be able to discuss when we give direction okay then I'll just wait more on that um let's see how many more

1:30:39of these are questions it's okay I may come back to some of this just later under uh oh here's a question um oh I think really isn't a question let's see sorry okay I think the rest I'm just going to wait if that's okay okay Mr Jones yes just have a few just have a

1:31:09few questions here um first of all uh one of the slides you showed was a fruit Veil which is an actual project a real project in an urban metrop potin setting in your estimation what has been the success of that as far as um people using them for at Living Space uh

1:31:32parking traffic around it uh what's been the general consensus on that I would not profess to be an expert on fruit Veil Village and perhaps some others on the team have some insights uh but from my my knowledge of the project in the area the it's been mixed uh there

1:31:59have been certainly uh putting forth the notion that people can live next to Transit and and some of the housing has been successful has been good I think uh there have been issues with the placement of the parking structure from what I've heard that's been a big deal

1:32:15uh another has been the uh orientation of the retail toward uh you know what the the demographics are of the area and what's really useful for folks I think they had some real big stumbles uh at the beginning and have been trying to play ketchup ever since with what retail

1:32:32is appropriate for that particular BART station to okay what what about uh occupancy of the units you know if they were they filled up quickly or yeah and a fair bit you have some knowledge of the area assignment that understand have you heard anything about uh the amount of parking is was required

1:33:07for that or let me put it another way I know there was some required but was it adequate was it not adequate I don't have uh any particular knowledge on that on that project but it's certainly something that we could take a look as part of this okay thanks appreciate it uh second uh looked in the

1:33:28signage uh component and one of the things that is missing and we actually had uh somebody ask about this or why the city doesn't allow it is the moving signs the LED moving signs the computer generated signs um so I don't know where that falls into to your the standards that

1:33:50are being suggested did um don't you Marque the mares yeah the moving mares yeah oh well um we're we've been Gathering that as a point of information because we did not have a signage section in the plan I guess I would uh ask you where you would fall on that particular issue

1:34:15and uh we might you know respond accordingly with I'll hold that to our general discussion but yeah IE it is a new technology and and so and um you know a lot of municipalities a lot of cities are really utilizing signage and Lighting in ways that haven't been done before to

1:34:34are done in a lot of places that to uh exhibit kind of a an excitement or a sense of place and activity so it's something can be thought of certainly okay thanks so as you probably know animated signs are currently prohibited in our zoning ordinance correct um and

1:34:52we did discuss them briefly during the last rewrite of the ordinance and it was still felt that they were distracting and therefore we kept the prohibition in we can definitely do research um take a look at how Berkeley operates and whether or not it might be time to

1:35:06change based on direction from the council okay that's good uh yeah because uh we've got moving signs all over the place but I I'll wait for the general discussion on that we have a lot of Code Enforcement cases going on those right now okay uh third question I kind of touched on this

1:35:26but I don't know when it comes to uh putting to lining up uh successfully both the Richmond and the elero general plans if they're needed how how's that done if there needs to be changes in either one of our general plans to uh absorb the specific plan and then does that have to wait

1:35:51before the specific plan is actually implemented we can tag to we could tag to um so the Richmond is going through uh the city of Richmond General Plan update themselves and actually the specific plan sort of came out of their General plan so our understanding is

1:36:13that those two are very well coordinated our specific plan is also coming out of our general plan as a basis there may be some items that we'll have to go back I think as we mentioned before and either update our general plan or our zoning ordinance to be consistent with the

1:36:28specific plan so that they're all working in tandem together and as of right now it's really just the density number that would need to be changed within our general plan everything's working well together good yeah I hope that's not a big stumbling block but I thought I'd ask

1:36:43okay um two more two more questions the other one is in the parking uh standards for spaces one of the ones and again I I'll save the general comments for discussion but I did have a question there's a one space for every five units for aordable and senior parking and it seems to be

1:37:09through uh all the overlays and where does that come from um we're actually going to be pulling that out as a revision um that's actually in um there was a comment made about that um and there should be a response in your Matrix I'm not sure on which of the 80 Pages it might be but

1:37:31that was something that our housing folks took a look at and felt that it one per five really probably wouldn't work we need to relook at that number I'm not exactly sure what it turned out to be yeah but it will be revised it may work in some cases not most but I I just

1:37:44wanted to know where it was coming through thank you uh the last question is in the agenda Bill the staff report there was uh some elements of parking that's not in scope of the specific plan but will be addressed through future parking studies and I was just wondering is this uh will these things

1:38:08come up as the projects come up or is there going to be do you plan sometime in the future to bring back a parking study and uh maybe augment our specific plan with that I think one of the uh slides that we talked about at the end was that there has been through the specific plan

1:38:28process a lot more discussion generated on parking than had been anticipated and so because of that we feel parking is something we would want to come back to uh outside of the specific plan process and really focus on that and and look at Alternatives and come back to council

1:38:44with a future study session on that okay so it will be you're anticipating that it'll be a plan that that would be augmenting the specific plan and not as each project comes up correct yeah I think we'd want to take an overall comprehensive look at parking and look

1:39:00at for instance with the Del Norte area looking at it and master planning and that there might be some areas where on blocks you could have less parking but you'd have more parking and shared parking and see how it all works together okay thank you and just to note there it's easier

1:39:15to change a zoning ordinance than it is a specific plan so where there might be things like parking standards that may need to be modified in the future that's where they would reside um so we talk about it in the specific plan but would really be in the zoning ordinance great

1:39:28thank you Miss Chang um so my questions I guess to tag on to what bill was asking on page four of the staff report or that memo from Mig um all those components those are bullets that um will those will that language be in the draft plan that we'll look at after this this

1:40:00session everything between the Matrix and the signage guidelines yeah so again I think all of those things and perhaps even more would be the things that we would look at in the follow-up parking study that we would do really look at the state-ofthe-art what will work here

1:40:15in elero given our unique land use patterns our BART stations our Transit oriented Development Area and prior to the final adoption of the final plan well I think our our idea at this point and certainly subject to change is that we do want to keep moving forward with the specific plan we would

1:40:33like to get it adopted and if we have followup parking studies and need to go back and amend the specific plan to incorporate those we certainly could that's that's our view of it at this point but that's certainly subject to the council's direction okay but regardless that all that language that's

1:40:49there is going to be in the the next version we would look at all of those things and perhaps more and then determine which appropriately should be in our city and and which the council would want to have in there or not as we come back to you okay I think so all of these in the

1:41:07next I guess physical version of the plan will be in there but we'll still come back and look at all of these and plus more um studies to clarify exactly which ones we want to do because some of these are just you know it's it's promotion rather than requiring well uh to try and clarify I

1:41:27think what what we what was said in the uh packet is that there were following comments on parking were not scoped in the specific plan but would be addressed through a future parking study and then there's a list of a number of bulleted items so again at this point our view is

1:41:44that we would hope to proceed with the specific plan and then go back and look at these additional things that haven't been fully explored in the specific plan and if the city council decides that we do want to have a maximum occupancy of 85% on all streets then that's something

1:41:59we might need to go back and amend the specific plan if for instance the council decides that as a base as a result of our studies that we do want to have market-based pricing strategies then yes we would go back and amend okay so that's very different than so those

1:42:14all these bullet points won't be in the final version that we would approve it would be only until subsequent to detailed more detailed study I think that's what we've presented tonight and that's what it says in the comments that they will be identified as future steps

1:42:30that we would go look at but again if the council wants to direct us differently that's certainly appropriate okay thank you just a clarifying question um the plan then will have the range for parking that's in the furthest right column and that's what the mitigated neg deck is going to be

1:42:45evaluating unless the council directs us to change that that is so far the direction that we're going okay okay thank you if I could I would just add one of the bullets for that was identified in the presentation for future analysis was a TOD strategy and specifically related to parking and

1:43:01circulation that we actually do want to have a study session on that and the so there's some fle ability in the January date sounds like okay so so wait a minute are these things going to be in this as are you proposing that these bullets be in the scope or not I read it that it's being

1:44:14proposed now not to be in the scope no I think what we're proposing is that we spend more time and I mean the council could decide tonight that what's here is fine and we're we're done we are suggesting that it might be helpful to have another session on the parking and circulation

1:44:38issue and if as a result of that you want changes we would make those changes and if not we would not yeah but I heard that you want that before the scope or before the plan plan is approved and I read in the report and heard tonight that that will that study will be after the plan the study itself

1:45:00the study itself will be after the plan is adopted but we want to make sure that the council has enough information to give adequate Direction on all the different concepts associated with parking and circulation that we think maybe have not been fleshed out enough

1:45:17and that's based on the level of comments received on the subject if the council doesn't feel an extra session is necessary that's certainly their prerogative okay thank you Miss Chang would you like to continue um I think no the we'll get to that um discussion so

1:45:36that's okay y um I just have one comment uh regarding the discussion that we had earlier on figure 1.3 in the plan areas and it appears to me that um four locations were selected that are like starting points so one is at the intersection of s PBA Avenue and McDonald the other is at the delte BART

1:45:57station the third is at City Hall and then the other one is at the elrio Plaza BART station and this is a very common planning tool you make a radius of a quarter mile around which is considered like acceptable walking distance and the plan shows us in a dashed line in a

1:46:15circle to sort of donate an approximate area where you're trying to promote through your land use the walkability and the Hub and the nature and identity of that place and so then it seems to then be translated down to the zoning overlay maps that um continue to reinforce that idea of those areas as

1:46:36hubs and then also to try to implement the vision of the connection and the the types of activities uses and um transportation modes in between the hubs so I I think it's particularly significant that the lines are dashed they're conceptual they're approximate and um that they work well

1:46:58together with the overlay District so that's my only comment and at this time um I would like to open it up to public comment if the city clerk could read the speakers we have five speakers this evening the first is Grace mcneel can I just add one one thing to your comment

1:47:15that just so you know the the nodes that are in the specific plan correspond identically with the nodes that are in the plan for elss Sero and the McDonald one is the only one that's okay thank you good evening is this right can you hear me yes my name is Grace mcneel I

1:47:42live at [address removed] I'm here tonight on behalf of the Historical Society uh Tom panis made a a lot of material for all of you and for staff and Consultants he was unable to be here he's in Santa Rosa uh so I'm speaking for him as well as for the society um first of all the society in

1:48:05town wanted to complement all the work that was done by all of the people involved um I'm trying to condense what he wrote and you'll have a complete copy of it for all of you that's a Society proposes that the goal of the S Pablo plan be to identify all of the specific

1:48:25historic resources that exist in the plan area fleshing out the draft plan much further would be inadvisable without this information which would be an extremely valuable addition to the plan information about the historic resources in the plan area would be valuable to the community in general as

1:48:45well as to the individual Property Owners s paabo Avenue itself may be the oldest historic resource of nonnative American origin that we have in the East Bay the draft plan notes that the San Pablo Avenue has served as a transportation Corridor and focus of development from Oakland to Martinez for

1:49:08nearly 200 years accordingly a goal of the plan should be that the final outcome reflects the historic nature of s Pablo Avenue itself Beyond these comments the Historic Society has noted a number of problems with the information compiled for the draft plan these problems

1:49:28include erroneous information material that is presented in a way that could easily be misinterpreted and omissions a list of these items is attached the society believes that leaving the plan as written would be a disservice to the community the society would like to work

1:49:46with the authors of the plan to correct this material the society requests that the council directs staff to have an historic contest context study and a survey of historic resources completed for the plan before the environmental review process is completed thank you and I'll give all

1:50:08this with the clerk thank you our next speaker is Rebecca benini good evening mayor council members Rebecca benini uh 5-year resident of Els Sero currently a renter slowly dipping my little toe into the for sale Market looking for a nice modest house and I think this plan might be uh going the

1:51:06right direction I'm here to support high density development um particularly the seven I was happy to see the 70 units per acre that were listed in the plan at the high end also wanted to support the low uh parking ratios that are listed I'm a big supporter of compact

1:51:22development for the variety of reasons that are listed in the plan environmental health uh quality of life but I want to talk about two in particular that um maybe have been mentioned before maybe haven't been first cost to new residents and businesses I I just came across a Urban

1:51:38Land Institute publication related to the cost of housing and transportation for Bayer residents you might be aware of it uh it lists that 39% of household income goes to housing and a full 20% goes to Transportation costs that proportion as you might uh guess is even

1:51:53higher for Contra Coster residents to the extent that this plan can help facilitate uh moving residents and jobs nearer to Bart and AC Transit lines we may be able to improve the situation and help decrease at least a portion of the household budget that's spent on on

1:52:09these two fundamental things that we all need to spend money on uh and and this is we could get there by encouraging compact development the other one I want to mention is that uh I was happy to see the implementation plan uh that's noted in the specific plan there are a number of things we're all

1:52:27hoping that will come out of this including great Street amenities a better pedestrian environment more open space the ways to get there are by creating land value by encouraging more development and the financing plan that's listed in the specific plan notes a variety of mechanisms many of these

1:52:46are development-based and in order to get the value out of that land and allow developers to contribute to more public space uh public open space and better Street amenities we need to allow them to build uh as much as is possible given the constraints of the existing environment

1:53:04in elero uh thank you very much thank you bong bong one hello my name is vangin I'm from Urban habitat uh we're Regional social equity and environmental justice uh nonprofit based out of Oakland I just wanted to thank um everyone involved with the plan first of all especially

1:53:29Mig and the advisory committee I just wanted to point out some of um some things that we've submitted before one is a um report from the center for Community Innovation U that was uh should be in your package it's called the San Pablo Avenue housing needs assessment report and also a letter that

1:53:45Urban habitat um was has written out based on the uh the plan and I just wanted to read off uh some of the summarizing points which I think are very important in the report uh the first is onethird of households making between 35,000 to 50,000 a year are paying over 30% of their income on

1:54:01housing and 133% of all households uh are paying over 50% of their income on housing uh in the S Pao Avenue um area this is not even including uh what they pay for transportation so if you think about the two together it's a pretty significant um amount of money and uh

1:54:17any opportunities to build um both um in this area is going to be great just because of uh the proximity to Bart the association and the second point is the association of Bay Area governments has assigned 232 affordable units to elero uh to construct uh regionally uh between

1:54:34the years of 2007 and 2014 and despite several projects being entitled um there were actually no new units built during this period uh which is a little disappointing uh the next Point um is that rents and housing prices have increased in elero between the years of

1:54:492000 and 2009 um but there has no uh there has been no rise in income in the project area which means folks are paying a lot more for housing and transportation um than they were in the past and the bottom line is that only 11% of the S Pablo Avenue um steady a

1:55:06residents can afford uh the medium priced home in elero in 2009 which is uh $530,000 per home um so I wanted to end by saying that um there's a lot of opportunities for affordable housing near Transit um in this specific plan and that in order to do so um there has

1:55:23to be something to do with uh parking ratios uh near Transit that actually reflect the opportunities there um and in order to um encourage development uh for affordable housing and we also need some densities that take advantage of the transit opportunities there and um

1:55:38I'll just submit this again just in case great thank you Wy Osborne hello my name is Wy Osborne I live at [address removed] I'm glad to see that the parking uh minimums have been reduced uh since when they were first introduced um in the earlier study sessions uh and I want to

1:56:03advocate in general that that that that that's a great thing that they should be reduced uh specifically uh around the Del nardy Transit Village um that the the city should be opening to be open to reducing it even further uh similar to the low minimum standards that have been adopted by

1:56:24Oakland and Redwood City residents there have many many Transit options bar dayc Transit bike walking and from people who don't have cars but uh do occasionally need a car they have options as well City car share zip car and and other services like that uh and I think that in this area the

1:56:47residents should have the option of not having to pay for a parking space if they don't have a car and they can meet their transportation needs by other means they shouldn't necessarily have to pay for the parking space and that greatly reduces the cost of the unit

1:57:03making it much more affordable uh I just want to Advocate that the city and Mig pursue that possibility uh and uh in the specific plan into the future parking study sessions thank you thank you last speaker is John D rimple my name is uh John Dal rimple I work as a consultant for the Plumbers uh

1:57:28Electrical Workers and Sheet Metal Workers Union in this uh in this County and um a couple of things um these my comments are being informed we've had about 30 or some more members who live in or near the specific area plan have met a couple times and and talk through

1:57:45what their concerns are so some my comments my comments be informed by by though there by our members and uh but the first I wanted to make a comment about the plan in general and and it was I was trying to understand how when we read the plan how do we understand the

1:57:59economic uh development impacts uh that this land use this new land use uh would do um and that was a little confusing for me um I I've had looked at some we're involved in several specific area planning processes we just had for example in Pleasanton uh a member uh

1:58:16placed on the advisory committee for their transitor development in in Pleasanton um and it helps sometimes to have sort of here here are the economic objectives that we want to have for example our members were concerned about the mom and pop character of the uh the

1:58:30small business Community here um in Berkeley last uh there was a story a couple months back about how they're the only city that sales tax Rose last uh last year and everybody else lost money and it's because of their land use pattern and the way they encourage uh

1:58:44small businesses um we're going to raise values of the land and so what what's going to happen to some of these businesses that have been around a long time that was some of our members worry we should have some I know you have an economic uh development plan but I think

1:58:58should be integrated into the document uh so for uh other examples are um uh you had a document early in the planning process that outlined uh Economic Development impacts as one of the three key objectives goals and it talked about jobs as as an outcome quality jobs

1:59:14there's nothing in this document about that um one of the things that uh we we proposed to you in our letter is that we be thoughtful about that we're going to have uh a few maybe 500 million more construction enabled by this uh who's going to be involved in building that is

1:59:31it going to be local uh businesses uh local workers uh or we going to bring folks in you know this was a beautiful absolutely stunning building right but we know that the developer who who built it um the Builder uh stole money from the workers as they were building it

1:59:48that's undeniable and she's up for 42 feling counts um and so uh that's a fact uh and so so do we don't want to do that we want to have policies it's not any fault of this Council our our staff this was a she had she had she had tricked many uh folks with her lowball bidding

2:00:09and she took it out stole it from the workers to do that but it's it's she was finally caught but there are policies that you could do that could ensure that local businesses local cont contractors good union contractors are are encouraged are given the opportunity uh

2:00:25uh to to build this uh and that the workers in this area many who are right now to this day on this day wondering if they're going to lose their home because we're at 30% Unemployment uh and uh so we need to give them some hope so we've made some proposals to you that uh one

2:00:41for example is that uh you encourage the opportunities for a career path in the construction trades uh as an economic outcome and that's something that you have the power to do uh through this plan now we're not talking about every piece you know but I I mean clearly you

2:00:58know uh there would be the mass I think it was a great the the the recommendations to look at for example the Del Norte in a much bigger way I think is smart now there's some impacts to that it's probably going to push it back year or two a couple years before you but but that's an opportunity for us

2:01:13to really think about double you know uh dble uh looking for other benefits and we should give kids a chance for career the trades the other is that we should encourage plas um we should encourage uh the uh uh that that we we we ensure that the the workers are going to be paid uh

2:01:32the area standard that they get pensions that they get uh uh healthc care benefits in this construction and you can help ensure that that happens um and uh and they and it be built on time and it'll be built you know of high quality so I've we've asked you to consider

2:01:48those policies and we hope you do and uh and I think we should be much more thoughtful about you know what are going to be the impacts uh on this community in terms of uh how it's going to impact the specific plan will impact the economy o of this area over the next few

2:02:02years thank you thank you um I just want to make a comment about the city hall building I understand that the contractor ran into some trouble on some other projects but this contract um had in it on our part an audit system for time sheets for payrolling for labor

2:02:20laws and I I just want to give the city manager an opportunity if he wants to add anything to that we're not aware of anything yeah I understand that you were and you followed the normal procedures nevertheless yes I I I appreciate that I'm not questioning your your your yeah

2:02:37we know that it was a consistent every project and that's that's what's the Mr Del I just wanted to make the point of clarification that that conflict did not occur in fact that we know of at this El city hall building that was my only reason for making the clarification I

2:02:52thank everybody for their input and their comments um on this really important plan tonight um a tremendous amount of work and time has been put into this I thank the consultants and this is now the opportunity for the city council to discuss some of the direction

2:03:07that um you are asking for tonight specifically looking again at the range of parking and also my understanding is to look at the bullets um on the new handout and let you know which are all of those we might want to look at in more detail at a subsequent meeting um I

2:03:26know there's other areas you may want to comment on but I wanted to make sure that we do touch on the parking issue so perhaps we can start with Miss Chang this time and go the opposite way down the road okay thank you um I just like to add to the inventory of cities that have adopted

2:03:45Transit oriented development plans that have enforced for that have effectively adopted maximums only and not minimums um the city of San Leandro their toote plan Strate downtown strategy plan has a one: one maximum and 1 to 200 um for or two spaces per thousand or one parking

2:04:07space per 500 uh square feet uh the city of Santa Rosa their uh downtown plan and railroad square area toity strategy also so adopts a one parking maximum um and two spaces per five uh per thousand the city of Pittsburgh that doesn't have a station yet eart um which

2:04:32Mig also was involved in drafting or writing and shepherding the whole process has a 1.5 um parking spaces maximum and no minimum um and so I just ultimately I I I hear that that you know I hear there's concerns you know the number one concern of spillover parking but I think we have

2:04:54a very rational um way to deal with that and by in expanding and looking deeper into our uh residential permit parking programs and um I ultimately think that you know for the BART stations specifically that we need to be talking about a one parking space maximum um at sba2 and and

2:05:19I think even for the places in between the the nodes uh a two parking space uh per unit is is too high and that you know when you look at the cost of building the parking space the cost of the land and it's just you know we're in a Transit Corridor with parallel routes of buses

2:05:45with uh the Looney Greenway with Bart um I just think these are you know we need to to give the market the flexibility to go lower as needed although in order to do that the commensurate complement of strategies are essentially this bullet list of of strategies that as I'm hearing

2:06:09are um not going to be included in the plan and I would suggest that they should all be included in the plan as a menu of strategies and that we in a subsequent look at the plan um and doing this work session on the details flesh out exactly how these would play out and that at this point

2:06:29they're just a menu they're in the plan to be referenced um and it's you know ultimately echoing all the concerns that have been brought up that you know we I grew up in elero I do not see the type of people that I grew up with being able to for Bo homes in elero

2:06:51and that's a major concern to me and when the average home is half a million dollars and people who are my age professionals are essentially sharing home single family homes and saving up money but for what you know so so really um I think more and more people want to

2:07:08live near Transit want to uh maximize the quality of their life and not quantity of their living space because we have such beautiful outdoor spaces and um and if we can complement that with uh a a sweet just a vibrant local serving retail and um local shopping

2:07:29districts I think it's that's really what we're trying to create um in more places for more people to to uh go to in our own Community um it's you know I understand we're we're concerned but I think there's ways to deal with the the Overflow parking and by doing things

2:07:51like you know requiring developers instead to instead of putting essentially that the standard uh cost of a parking space for structured space is $20,000 instead I've done the analysis you can spend $114,000 per unit and provide free AC Transit passes for the life of the project because AC Transit

2:08:12has a bulk purchase program if you buy 100 passes in a given year you only pay $8 instead of $60 for a transit pass and when you also complement that with free car share membership which is also only $4 for to to to $20 a month both of those things combined are um better

2:08:32things to invest in rather than places to store cars um and I'm not saying eliminate uh parking but that we allow the flexibility that maximums would give um I think that's you know ultimately when we went to the deal doctor session at the U the Urban Land Institute

2:08:53everything came back to parking how are we going to deal with the parking and I think for every um for all the opinions that you you can hear you can find as many opinions about saying it's not enough parking um that we we need to build more parking and we did at one

2:09:12point have olon company at the do Motor Station saying they wanted to provide more parking and I don't think that those are the developers that we want to be working with and having gone to Revolution having worked throughout the region in transit Orient developments

2:09:27right now San Leandro has a project where it's one toone parking um right now South Hayward BART station area also has a one toone parking um project that's entitled and it's you know we I think from a tax perspective we can get a lot more out of people rather than uh uh their cars and

2:09:50that if we can add more people rather than saving space for cars and instead saving space for open space that we're we're making a better use of the land um so I think for me it's specifically one: one maximums at and eliminating minimums at the B station areas is my uh main

2:10:14concern with this proposed parking requirement and as with the um with the commercial space that it's a maximum of one space per 500 square foot of commercial so essentially two spaces per thousand and both of those would be maximums um so for clarification is your proposal

2:10:39in the spa 2 that there be no minimum and a one car per unit maximum yes okay and I would also say that the the two space maximums are also too high for the this interstitial uh in between node areas for um where is it sorry yeah for SBA three and four and five that it

2:11:16should be a maximum of 1.5 okay and that really it's it's uh to do that you have to look at these other you have to include all these other strategies as a way to complement that reduction that it can't just be only reducing and not looking at all these other complement strategies to to

2:11:39support a realistic um reduction Mr Jones sure um first of all I'd like to say that this is uh exciting coming to the end I think there's been great um public process in this with a lot of uh varying degrees of opinions and how to approach and I have to say that it it uh there

2:12:10was far more input and interest and and people showing up to meetings that I thought there would be so that uh to me was very gratifying to see that when we started this um it's been the work of a number of commission uh councils before us uh varying degrees of

2:12:29interest and trying to put something like this together and it started with uh the council before us that we we got this going so I'd like to thank uh the previous Council as well as this current Council for keeping this alive and hopefully uh coming to a real successful

2:12:45conclusion with the city of Richmond uh that being said uh I think the the the most important part of things we have to do is find a plan that fits El Sero and with our association with Richmond of course um I think there's a lot of good Concepts out there there's a lot of good

2:13:06things that uh other cities have tried but the the fact is we're it's elero and what fits in San Francisco what fits in Oakland what fits in New York or or Albany for that matter may or may not fit elero we're an INF Phil City for instance we don't have a lot of uh

2:13:26property you go out to Dublin and pleasant hill and that area where they're they're developing massive uh Transit oriented developments and that type of thing can't work here so we have to find what does work because I think there's a lot of good good things that we want to do with

2:13:45Transit oriented uh Transit oriented and and uh high density housing I I did have these comments here first of all we had a a letter by Safeway in the packet uh mentioning a lot of different things and I was just wondering if we need further uh legal opinion on that

2:14:07and could that be uh is needed before the city of Elser makes a decision on the specific plan I'm asking Council or city manager on that yeah we'll review the the comments received from Safeway in the process of of developing the final draft that comes forward for city council approval um you

2:14:31know I don't think we've we've completed our review and Analysis of of that yet but uh we'll certainly respond to it in the course of preparing this okay thank you um there's a couple things uh in the nodes that uh I'm not comfortable with one is uh in the whole Transit oriented

2:14:54nodes both on delord and the plaza there's a well we saw we saw the plaza there was 40 acres or more or uh that was Del Norte 40 acres or more all cost calling for uh allowing a maximum of 65 ft if I'm not mistaken which equates to five to six stories and I'm looking at that trying

2:15:19to Envision six stories five five to six stories places all through that 40 acres and uh people will say no that there's going to be varying things but the fact is we could allow that and uh I understand the height around the BART stations I have no problem with that

2:15:40maximum I do have a problem with 65 ft along San Pablo and areas in between um if you take a look at uh on shadic across from uh cheeseboard would be my and and going towards uh downtown Berkeley you see four stories there you have to imagine another story up there to give us begin

2:16:08to get the examples 65 ft Albany they have uh two developments down there that are uh not 65 ft you have that another story they've since brought down their requirement they they're no longer allowing uh multi-unit places that high so uh if you're looking for opinions I'm

2:16:33saying that we need to come down a little bit on that be a little more varying instead of having an overlay that just overlays the whole 40 acres trying to take a look at uh varying Heights I'm worried of that because of infrastructure for the most part um the infrastructure

2:16:52we're talking about requiring our streets in my opinion and I haven't seen any study on it and probably will come later I don't think our we have the infrastructure to support 40 acres of five to six stories of of housing right now Central Avenue is a mess there's no plans uh to really take

2:17:16care of that we'll need improvements in streets improvements in utilities and storm drains to handle that volume of uh citizen of development uh Wastewater sewers garbage services and then we have to analyze Public Safety the effect of Public Safety and housing and we're we are this plan

2:17:41suggests that we do that both in the the North and the South that we have those types of overlay and that type of development so um I'd like to come down a little bit on the height and make sure that our infrastructure can can handle this uh I historically elero does not have the

2:17:59type of funds nor have they supported um massive tax uh increases to take care of infrastructure improvements of this size just think what it would take to widen Central Avenue from San Pablo down to to the free the freeway to buy all that land so anyway that's one

2:18:22of my directions uh on the parking I I like what is being proposed um I I we need flexibility um it's it's great to say that we can get by with one space or less but the fact remains that right now in our neighborhoods the parking at Bart is um is impacting those neighbor

2:18:47neighborhoods and it's getting further and further out um it has to do not so much with people that may move into the transit oriented uh uh living facility and thus decrease population it has a lot to do with people outside of elero coming in and uh using mass uh the ma the BART

2:19:09Transit um so I think we have to be careful in that area I think though that if we want to try to incen uh less parking I would be I'd be up to seeing what type of program we could put forward uh so that we could get down to one space in that by the way I thought

2:19:29that the senior housing um the one to five I thought was too much but if you put that in half or one to three one one to two one to three I think that's proper I I have a family member that's in a a senior Ser uh Center and definitely they they don't have one car

2:19:46per per household or or whether they need uh they don't need it so I think that would be uh good to look at U let's see here um I really think that the elements that we talked about which were the bullet points uh that staff was recommending that we look at at Future parking

2:20:12study I I like the idea of looking at it separate from the specific plan there's some that I like in here and would support there's some that isn't so I think they and I'm I'm sure uh that's the way it is with a lot uh a lot of people and maybe a better way to flush

2:20:31those things out and uh is to take it look at it separately in the parking and finally the historical element uh I know in one of the meetings we said that we were going to look at that and put one in are we considering a historic element in this in this plan that's a separate work item that we

2:20:54have to develop uh an RFP a request for proposals to go out and see about hiring a consultant to work with the city to do a survey of the entire city for historic buildings so that's a separate work does a specific plan though for for for just the specific plan mention the fact that

2:21:11we'll be looking at that or there'll be future we could definitely put that into the implementation section that it's a a separate process we have forwarded um the historical society's notes on what they feel are um inconsistencies or incorrect facts onto Meg for correction

2:21:27in the final document as well okay um also I just was thinking about the historic issue we we have some policies in the general plan that speak to the historic preservation in El Sero and I would assume that they apply here in the context of this s paabo Avenue specific

2:21:45plan area correct the general plan still hold holds Credence over everything the specific plan adds to it okay thanks and I I just want to comment I forgot I was going to comment on the the signage um I think there's a lot of new technology coming out by the way I do like though

2:22:00the uh suggestion that we do away with the plastic fronts were ever possible I think those are there's a lot better presentations for signs these days but anyway um with with LED and computer generated I I understand the fact fact that motion may take away that they

2:22:19happen to be on the freeways when people are traveling 60 70 80 mil an hour but um that's that's Cal Tran's problem not ours uh I would like to see though it is possible that they not move yet use the technology the LEDs the LEDs use way less light and energy um they're able to

2:22:40get in color uh and detail that traditional signs have a hard time doing and even if we wanted to eliminate Movement we could possibly make standards that the sign could move every minute or something like that uh that would allow uh uh businesses to give a variety in their

2:23:02signage not saying maybe that idea won't carry but at least we should look at it in my opinion thank you thanks thank you um I have a lot of comments and um there's a c category of comments that I have that I think are um more about what I would call details and facts and I talked to the city

2:23:27manager about getting together with staff afterward and afterwards and just presenting those comments so I'm going to try to limit myself on those not doing too many of those tonight because otherwise we'd be here too late and I don't want to do that so first I'm going

2:23:42to start out with um My overall would you mind giving us an ex example of of one of those just an example is that um it lists the the buses that go into um the Del Nordy station it leaves out a number huge number of buses that go in that are AC transit buses and um so you

2:24:01know of course my concern is that in figuring out the uh movement of buses around there they're not since they they don't acknowledge that that it's not happening right thank you for the and the as a category those are buses that come the Lo they're all local buses

2:24:15they're not buses that go on the freeway their buses that travel on surface streets um primarily from other parts of uh AC Transit service area in uh Richmond and S Pablo um and um so and also from Berkeley as a matter of fact but um anyway um so the things like that though

2:24:36it's just you know um things like the um uh there's you can't get on uh Bart with a bicycle at delori um during rush hour that's true if you're going to San Francisco but if you're going certain other PL if you're going on the Fremont line you can as a matter of fact right

2:24:56thank you stuff like that I'm gonna just you know it's it's not a matter of opinion right technical accuracy yeah it's technical accuracy type comments thank you um so I'm not going to do that um what I am going to start out with is saying I'm going to start back with the

2:25:11overview what I call the overview which is um my understanding of why we're doing this process and um I think the reason we're doing this process is to have an overall integrated approach that includes both of our cities and I want to first of all say that I strongly support doing that I

2:25:28think it's a really good idea for a variety of reasons ranging from it brings the two cities together in a more Cooperative way and I think that's always a good thing to do to it gives us an opportunity to look at the overall big picture and try to plan out our

2:25:45future now that that's not to say that we're going to ever be able to implement every single piece of it because this is a planning document and I don't actually expect that the future will be exactly as we plan it out today for the next 30 Years goodness knows 5 years ago we

2:26:01couldn't have predicted we would be where we are today with the recession um but um then there's another thing that I would just like to bring into this picture that I think is a really important aspect of it and that's our climate and um as we know you know we're having a real concern with um

2:26:21global warming and um what we do in places like El Sero along San Pablo Avenue can really go a long way towards making a positive difference in um meeting the challenges that we're going to face as a society um in the in the immediate future really but in our in our in our

2:26:43um ongoing future and um the way we use use uh alternative modes to the car ranging from walking biking Transit um and maybe new ways that we don't know about yet um really will help us address that so when I think about this plan and its future one of the things I think about is that we're not

2:27:06really doing things here this is a really good place this is where a lot of those things ought to be done and where I certainly want to see them done and Incorporated um and a lot of the studies that I've seen show show that the inner uh ring of the bay area of which we are

2:27:24apart are where is where these things need to occur that outlying places like East County for example um are are not going to be where these things occur um they've already got a um 25 30-year housing supply of single family housing and there's lots of it and uh what

2:27:44people are going to be wanting and certainly when I look at my own kids um there's not a one of them that lives in a house that um I envisioned in my childhood living in uh they all live in some sort of condos or apartments uh duplexes you know they're all in multiple family housing and um uh I

2:28:07think only I have I have um three kids who have you know jobs um and um they all are in um you know this kind of a situation only one of them owns a home um and no excuse me two and um you know it's just a different world um for for that generation and for future

2:28:32generations and um so I think we need to really put it all into that context when we're doing this and I I think that's some of what an Chang was talking about um also um and talking about growing up in elero and people that she knows and I think it's very important that as we go

2:28:51through this we do that and so I'm going to now go through my more detailed comments and they are always going to um be in that context so when I'm thinking of who it is we're trying to attract to live in this area uh it's not the people who want the single family house with

2:29:09the three-car garage there are places that they can live there are places that they can live in elero but Sam Pablo Avenue is is just not that place this is the place for people who want to live a different way and so I want to make this a place where in fact those people will

2:29:27feel comfortable and will want to come and will want to live and and I hope that we will be Innovative about the way we approach it looking at the parking which I support very much um and the different um approaches that we might use I find to be actually a really

2:29:44exciting topic and um one that I look forward to dealing with um in and giving it the time that it deserves um another thing that I'm concerned about is affordability one of the things I've noticed in the um developments that have gone up recently along the Avenue is that they are pretty

2:30:03expensive to live in you know and so one of the things I'm concerned about is having units that are truly affordable for people because affordability is a problem for um the younger Generations um that um that I talk spend a lot of time talking to um in my own family and

2:30:26um you know they can't afford these high prices that we see and then I worry about the businesses who um the the mom and pop operations as they're known that are the thing that everyone says they want everyone says they don't want chains they want the oneof a kind you

2:30:45know the uh um the owner operated businesses and um a lot of times you know they don't they're not they don't have a lot of capital to operate with so they need to be in an environment that's affordable so we haven't I I haven't really ever been in conversations where

2:31:01there's a lot of talk about affordable um commercial space but that's something that I think that we need to think about also as we're doing this um planning so now I'm going to go to my ort of next level down comments and I will try to be as concise as I can and leave out as much for later

2:31:25as I can um so um one of the the concerns that I have is about um the support of Transit writers and writers and and transit services in this district and I know that in our general plan we uh Incorporated our Transit first policy um so that uh supporting Transit

2:31:52is in fact uh something in our general plan and so to be consistent with our general plan this document needs to do that also it's not something new that we're incorporating and um that way mean that means that we need to um uh do things that make it easier for people to ride

2:32:14Transit and for the vehicles to get around um it doesn't mean that we eliminate ways that Transit Vehicles can get around for example and um I see places in this document that almost sound like they're doing that and I'm a little concerned um and um so so I there the details of that I I

2:32:35will go over with separately but um I see a number of places where there are some really pretty pictures that are presented but but they don't seem to correspond to the requirements that are being suggested one of them is the setback requirement um that I see mentioned if for buildings that are over

2:32:55three stories tall and then I see a number of examples of really beautiful buildings that in fact have no setbacks and so that needs to be um made consistent either we um do or don't have setbacks but it seems to me the examples we show as good examples need to either

2:33:15be need to be the way that is not uh the opposite um and um I see another example I'm looking at page 41 of of um volume one and I see a picture of a park and I actually can't figure out where that would be um on St Pebble Avenue so that's confusing to me in the con in context of

2:33:43this document uh certainly a thing I would expect to see all over the place in elero but just not in that Corridor with all that traffic um okay and then um did that one already okay so um there's there's a few comments that have been made about uh the parking requirement uh for that's singled out

2:34:24for um this particular example says affordable allow this particular example that I'm looking at says allow no more than one parking space for every five units for affordable and Senior units and I think there's one that says the same thing for disabled units and my

2:34:41cont comment is that it looks to me kind of like discrimination and so I have some concerns around that I think this started out as in the thinking was that and I think it's true that um if you have a project for example for disabled people uh or seniors they in it may be

2:35:03the kind of project where in fact you don't need as much parking because it's an assisted living project for example but then there's active senior um living what if you had a project that was 100% active acve seniors um they probably need cars more than anybody um in the

2:35:21entire population because they're actually starting to get frail and they can't walk long distances um but in fact they're still driving a car and going all over the place so um that would say that a a project like that if we had such a thing um wouldn't be entitled to parking it

2:35:39doesn't make a lot of sense to me to do that and so I I think we need to be really careful about those kinds of restrictions that say no more than and then say uh the word after that is um affordable senior or um disabled um so I would not like to see that language in there just that way I'm

2:35:59quite happy with one that says if you have that kind of a a project uh you are allowed not to have the parking but to require it is another story um and I might add that um the fastest growing segment of the population is the senior population uh as the Baby Boomers become

2:36:19seniors um starting very soon um then um we will see quite large numbers of the active senior who is like nothing we've seen uh before now according to the studies that I've looked at extensively and it shows that they're going to have be very very active very healthy um you know they'll

2:36:42have like arthritis and things like that but they're going to be wanting to get out there and get around um so to say they can't have parking um is not um it's probably not going to sell or or rent very well if that's the kind of thing that we do um the um this I guess

2:37:01is a a question or I can't figure out why it's this way on page 11 this is in volume two um SBA there's the discussion about an SBA 4 overlay and an SP on the next page SBA 5 overlay and um this is the right page I think it is um yeah they almost identical except I mean for example I mean they're

2:37:31really close to being identical in terms of the development intensity the height requirements and parking requirements so in other words what they would look like is is pretty simple and the only difference seems to be that one says it is um moderate intensity development and

2:37:49one says low to lower intensity development and and there's a slightly slight variation in um like there commercial in one but I can't figure out what the difference there can you can somebody address that because that doesn't make sense to me that why would why aren't they combined into one for

2:38:07example um one of the diff differences is in the types of uses that would be allowed um Spa 5 is one of the places where we would allow those Auto servic that aren't allowed in any other overlay zone so why do you why do you not just have it all combined because in Spa 4 um

2:38:27Auto uses might not necessarily be appropriate whereas they would be in spa5 so we needed that extra split in order to have something a little bit different that would provide for those industrial type uses that wouldn't be allowed in spa for I guess what I'm having a real hard time with is the that

2:38:44the um um you go the uh the densities are different or excuse me the same and slightly different well hardly I think it's 25 to 45 versus 20 to 45 at the high end they're identical so so one one is described as low one is described as moderate can you flip back one page to page nine and if

2:39:15you look at the bright red areas which is spa4 you'll you'll notice that they focus on intersections and that the primary focus is to have uses that take advantage of those of those intersections that that appears to be the major difference between the two right but what I'm

2:39:36focusing in on is that the density is the same and one is called low to um lost my place now low to lower low to lower and one is called um moderate moderate so it doesn't make sense to me that they have the same height [Music] requirement we could take a look at that

2:39:57and and see but they they they don't have to be drastically different to be different overlays and so I think the real drastically different change that you're looking at here is the types of uses that would be allowed even though the types of densities and Heights would

2:40:12generally be the same you don't necessarily want an auto service station at a corner that could have a pedestrian okay but that's not what I'm talking about what I'm talking about and have the question about is the you uh the the um intensity level which is moderate in

2:40:31one case in um low to lower in the other case but it it it had it has the same attributes pretty much other than that particular thing you're talking about but but in terms of the density it is isn't different right and it doesn't have to be different what what the

2:40:50difference in the Spas here are uses not densities I I'm going to make a suggestion that um that be part of the package that you sit down with st thank you okay then the next issue I wanted to talk about was an accessibility issue that I actually just gave a talk

2:41:08on um at reolution and um tow houses for example are typically inaccessible units the project done at uh the Richmond Bart station the first uh phase of it if you're familiar with it uh was a townhouse um project it sold very well I was invited as a member of wict TAC to

2:41:30um come to the grand opening ceremony and was unable to do so because there was not a single unit that was accessible through the front door or any other door um so um when we talk about townhouse hous is uh unless we say something else we're talking about units

2:41:49that are off limits to people with disabilities um and I would um like us to have language in this plan that um says that um all housing developments have um units that people with disabilities can certainly get through the front door in and preferably live in uh in at least some of the units um

2:42:15so um that would that would be uh addressed to the um the building prototypes on page 13 of uh volume two um and um just an example just just just and the details of how you can do that I can discuss offline separately because I've um have information on that um

2:42:54here um let's see theprice for not talking about my comments is I have to flip through them um uh one of the um things that I saw throughout that I was a little confused about is U building orientation Windows and um the desire not to have blank walls um and and as I go through the document um

2:43:47I see things that say we want eyes on the street on St Pavo Avenue and then on the side and um and I'm not it seems to me that you you can't have everything everywhere and I've also seen things we want Eyes On The Greenway so what I'm a little bit confused and we also want buildings

2:44:11right next to each other if I read correctly um so I don't see how we can do you know we can't have a series of buildings with um windows out the side that are actually right next to each other so that for example so um could that be explained to me I don't catch

2:44:31how you could do all of that in what what is it we're really after here I think the desire is to try and maximize it but we know we're not going to be able as as you've so well pointed out we're not going to be able to achieve that on every project on every facade and elevation

2:44:48but the idea is and we do that with developers now to orient them to directing the projects to face or to to have Windows onto the greenway for better security as well as it enhances their projects as well as the street so we want to try Max so what I've heard developers say is just tell us what you

2:45:06want we'll do it um how are they going to be able to take this Lang that Lang the language that's here and know what will actually get approved approved well the developers will come in and they'll look at the language and typically they'll go over it with staff and so

2:45:21then we will help uh Define or delineate questions like that and try and help them and show them examples of projects that have been approved in the past things that the city is looking for other projects in other cities that are good examples and how given the unique

2:45:37circumstances of an individual site they will try will try to help them maximize achieving the goals that we want and uh will you be able to do that in a way that's uh uniform and and not arbitrary well yeah and I think from this from these guidelines I think so

2:45:54and and again it does each site is unique so there will be differences between projects okay thank you sure um um a complaint that I've heard from businesses um has to do with [Music] um uh build buildings I'm talking about commercial space now that um have in have sort of two entrances uh

2:46:23an interest in the front and the for the U people who would walk in and then have the parking in the back for the cars and then people have to get from obviously from the cars into the store so um one of the concerns that I've heard about that uh is that that means that

2:46:41they need to have if they have two entrances that way they need to have um employees stationed at both entrances to avoid theft and things like that and um that has in a number of cases that I personally know about proved very cumbersome and unworkable for businesses

2:47:00and um then in a in a sort of related thing um the idea of having a lot of window space has also prove not workable because the stores themselves will be somewhat small and there's no place to put the merchant if in fact the window is not covered by the merch you know by some of the

2:47:20merchandise could you address those somebody could address those concerns and somehow I'll try to I think you're right it's an issue I think sort of in the best of all worlds there was this idea about trying to make projects totally commercial totally pedestrian oriented

2:47:38to the street and then also pedestrian oriented to the people coming in cars and so when we look at the elero plaz and Fairmont Avenue we have shops that we tried to get entrances on both sides and and in reality we do have issues with the shopkeepers needing uh extra

2:47:54staff to monitor both entrances and security and concern so that's something we're certainly sensitive to and and would look at new projects perhaps differently and the example I could cite of a more recent project would have been the Ian violin building where that was

2:48:08an issue that we had to work through with the drb and there there was some push and there was some pull on it and we ended up sort of enlivening the front of the project on Fairmont with Windows where people could see in and see the workers and and have an interesting

2:48:24facade but then orienting the uh pedestrian access around to the back where the parking was for that building which was very important to that business person so I think that one worked out very well so is that something that'll be done very upfront in the um in an applicant's

2:48:43um experience with our city in doing a project would you be able to help them with that um in such a way that they won't have spent a lot of money uh designing a building in a in one way when in fact we're going to require them to do it another way yeah I think

2:48:58because as you have identified we know that it is an issue and a concern we've heard that so it's something we would identify right upfront with businesses that we need to work together and try and come up with an approach that is the best for design but that also meets

2:49:13their business plan needs and security needs as well okay um um just to quickly add to Mitch's Point uh and I I agree with all the the points that he raised uh The Pedestrian orientation around design and development can be quite difficult for all the reasons he cited uh one good

2:49:35example is a project called Davis Commons up in uh up in Davis uh right by the downtown where they have done a great job of tucking the parking in round back having a nice pedestrian poo that takes you through to the storefronts that front onto a nice park slpa space and then uh the backside by

2:49:56the parking has service entrance type spaces but nicely screened and obviously you need to have waste management and things like that so you need to think right down to that design detail level but it is possible to have parking in behind have a nice way to get to it

2:50:12through and then have that pedestrian street skate you just have to make sure you're thinking about it from all the different angles okay thank you um then my next question has to do with page 41 and volume 2 um 1 g- um XI um and it says screen loading and waste storage

2:50:31areas from adjacent uses with vegetarian landscaping and well-designed structures what I've noticed at the plaza where this is done is that it also blocks the visibility of the walkway that Corners uh of the walkway uh across uh traffic Islands um I'm not you know the in other

2:50:53words it's sometimes done where the automobile meets The Pedestrian at a crosswalk and what it results in is a situation where The Pedestrian is at risk of getting hit um by a car and it also can be done in a corner of a um side walk where if somebody's going fast

2:51:17they'll bump into the person coming around the corner because these are blank walls even though they're not as big as a building where people are um can't see around at all and I'm so I'm concerned about the location of those receptacles so that they don't block um

2:51:34visibility of either walkways or driveways could that be incorporated we can look at adding additional language to that that is valid concern and you don't want those um enclosures right at the end of parking aisles You' want to put them sort of maybe in the middle or buffer them with landscaping

2:51:59and we can look at language to incorporate to ensure that we don't obscure visibility thank you um I'm noticing it's about 10:30 I I have a few more comments that I think I want to make but um do you want an motion for extension we will need a motion to extend but if you could just

2:52:20hit the highlights that you won't be able to discuss uh in your meeting with staff that deal with the details and get to the policy issues that would I think allow us to move forward and give okay well I'm in volume um I'm in volume two this is our opportunity to say things

2:52:34yes um saying that we are going late and Mr lman hasn't had a chance right the um yeah this is everyone's chance um we need to extend I will I move to extend the meeting by 20 minutes I think we're going to need more than that okay half an hour half an hour okay okay second all in favor I I an is

2:52:57absent from the room okay um so um oh trees and sidewalks is an issue that I had a lot of concern about um what I'm wanting to know is that when all is said and done in every single case is is it true that there is are 60 Ines for the pedestrians that are unencumbered by any Street

2:53:42Furniture um or or plant material or Street Furniture to me encompasses every thing that is an object um I I don't see um our Public Works director here um the streetscape plan is actually dealing with a lot of the sidewalk widths and the bulbing out um that is the goal is to have the 60

2:54:06inches unencumbered I I I'm not sure if there are parts of the city where that might be less and we're not able to expand it but that is definitely the goal on St Pao Avenue I'm just right okay the um what concerns me is uh there's a lot of mention of putting in trees which I

2:54:22think are very important in our community however um some of the places they're put in they make things unusable um an really good example of that is a bus stop um and uh for example we have um trees and um a bunch of uh furniture at the bus stop at the Plaza on S Pablo

2:54:47Avenue and you can hardly even get by let alone have two people get by at the same time let me um I let me take your comment to um Jerry Bradshaw because the street skate plan is really what is dealing with that not the specific plan So the streetcap plan is also is much

2:55:05farther along than this plan is and they're actually looking at the sidewalks and the tree plantings and this is just being consistent with that okay there it's just that there are repeated mentions of of how much space there is for each of the components you know ranging from the street but to Bo

2:55:23from the streetcape okay um um I think I'm just going to call it a day for just because it's so late well I I will do my my best to be concise quick and uh clear on my guidance um first of all I I come at this I guess slightly different than others I'm going to be looking at the

2:55:54finances of this and found that the economic analysis in volume three to be most Illuminating that uh really market rate housing is what obviously pays for itself and that all the other projects uh need um subsidies there was it site three at elero Plaza a 70 unit acre unit

2:56:15per acre project that um you know needed substantial amount of of subsidy in order to make that project fly and uh it it's it's up to us to find that financing I understand that there's an implementation plan that talks about financing but it's very difficult for us

2:56:35to um to constantly be having to uh pay for more services more pavement and and maintenance of of pavement because there's there's several roads that are being added if you look at the plan in detail and still come up with subsidies uh for to make the the um projects work

2:56:56so I guess part of my comments are going to try and make this work because what isn't addressed in here is it doesn't tell us what the parking ratios were and uh therefore we don't know how much of the project cost was driven by um something called parking um which I'm

2:57:13going to also look at volume three and and on page six of one of the appendices is the transportation goals from our general plan and T1 point1 is balanced transportation system uh create and maintain a balanced transportation system with choice of Transit bicycle pedestrian and private

2:57:33automobile modes and and you know we we're ending up with a huge bias against the automobile and I'm wondering if we would have that bias if our automobiles were all elect elect sparrows or electric smart cars would we have that same bias against those vehicles and my

2:57:50concern is that um by not addressing parking and maybe it's addressed through market rate pricing or centralized garages or shared parking in some fashion but by turning our back on parking um we we potentially are turning our back on a very large portion of our

2:58:10resident population um so in in one of the these documents there is the discussion about um police services and uh how many services are coming and I think there's estimate of 1,300 units roughly so 3,000 people let's say um we're we're a city of 23,000 and so there's a large percentage

2:58:34of our residents that are going to come to this shopping Corridor through something other than their feet and so we can't ignore parking and we cannot go to um to to some of the zeros and I think that we need to listen to our commercial people and if and if they we have to give them

2:58:52the flexibility and I think that was covered in the Mig coverlet memo we have to give some businesses the flexibility because their business may require a a a different parking um Arrangement than uh all businesses now so I with regards to parking um specifically um I think that

2:59:16it's appropriate for us to be reducing the minimums I actually look at spa 3 four and five or mostly spa3 which is the Midtown Civic Center and wonder why the minimum is 1.5 you know I I Ann is proposing a maximum of 1.5 but I'm trying to figure out why we even have a minimum that's

2:59:351.5 um when we should be building more flexibility and council member Jones said the same thing we need to be building more flexibility not having these tight ranges I consider them fairly tight one and a half to two that's fairly tight one to one and a quarter these ranges are very tight so I

2:59:53think that that we should be looking at dropping the minimums and and building more flexibility into into those um The Proposal right now is zero minimum uh for the spa 2 um I think that's a potentially a little too far down uh with regards to residential but uh you

3:00:11know something on the order of half in the in Spa 2 um and uh you know one or maybe under one in Spa 3 which is Midtown mode uh and then on those inner specials ones spa4 and spa5 uh definitely a minimum of of one so I'm trying to be as concise as possible there um with regards to the commercial

3:00:34I guess my comments uh lead me to to suggest that you know we need to again also create a wider range U one per three 50 and one per 250 again fairly tight range and uh I understand that the footnote does allow for people to come in with exceptions but I would um you know try to encourage

3:00:56us to encourage a greater minimum um and I again in in the absence of some of the bulleted items that are that are recommended studies which include centralized and shared parking and and uh you know um market rate parking we we're we're left in a place where we are

3:01:17potentially um have a bias against the vehicle when probably over two-thirds of our residential population is going to use something of that sort to get to this shopping district so to so to turn our back on the car is to turn our back and say to our residents who live in the

3:01:35Hills oh it's better for you to get on the freeway and go to Hilltop and put your dollar in in another uh Community than to to to come visit our vibrant and and growing economic Center so I really would like to um address both of those respond to that real quick because I

3:01:51don't I don't see that as I don't think if we're putting a maximum it's it's actually if you look in my comments that I included um that are buried in here but um Nelson Niger did a study of downtown areas where the the that don't have Bart that include Chico Palo Alto

3:02:10Santa Montica and the exhibited parking demand was two spaces per thousand and that's really where my my number is coming from and that's actually what's being used versus what we see I mean right now look at all of our retail spaces it's there's tons of like 60% of

3:02:29that those parking lots are actually being used and and that's it's it's getting it down to the right size and I don't think what I'm what I'm trying to say is that it's turning the back on the car it's it's accommodating and and making it appropriate to the fact that

3:02:43there's Transit there and that we're not letting the floodgates open to to to to have as much as retailers would like to have well I hear you two saying similar things about um lowering the minimums and possibly lowering the maximums also so why don't we go ahead and continue to

3:03:02collect the comments and there's going to be some work to do to try to figure out like what the actual range is that we end up thanks if I may just briefly answer the council member's question was Greg was there a question oh I don't was there a question oh there was a question about

3:03:20the parking ratios being used in our financial analysis sure if you have that information yep um Mig developed those prototypes for us to test they assumed all of today's parking ratios um not these proposed parking ratios So in theory as you lower them the necessary

3:03:37subsidy for the project um would also be lower if the costs were lower and uh just to clarify the subsidy that was necessary for the projects we found was specifically for the affordable units and the city does have Redevelopment funds available for those um and so it

3:03:53is a discret pool of money that could be used for that purpose it has to be used so so I guess in in my view of this this is a a vision that is a wonderful vision and I would love to be in this Vision uh at some point 20 years 30 years from now um but the implementation plan is maybe

3:04:14not necessarily looking at um the transition that's needed to go from a population that's not oriented to pedestrian uses or pedestrian oriented shopping what we what we have as a population that's aging um that has grown up with the car and needs time to reorient itself for the Next Generation

3:04:36as council member Aon said to come through and and really educate us all on how the the um Transit oriented development and pedestrian oriented development uh is is the preference I I just spent some time in in Europe in Paris and walked everywhere and it's very pedestrian

3:04:59oriented and I look at and and it's a wonderful set of maps in here about your pedestrian um analysis about pedestrian unfriendly areas and areas that where there should be pedestrian friendly development and that is something that we should be emphasizing is that

3:05:14pedestrian friendliness more signage that's pedestrian oriented and not vehicle oriented um so I'm I'm all for The Pedestrian experience and and really would like to push that The Pedestrian experience uh but we we definitely need to transition into that and and I'm

3:05:35concerned that um you know maybe we're looking at uh these types of ratios whether it's uh parking or number of you number well it's mostly parking whether it's parking for commercial parking for residential that potentially they change over time that we have a density a ratio

3:05:55today that's good for 10 years and then it goes even tighter goes down so that we we are we're giving the population time to Dr grow and adjust to the to the new orientation to be giving businesses an opportunity to to come in under under one set of operating rules and then they

3:06:15they can grow into the the future operating rules so I you it's it it's a transition from here where we are to the Future and and I I don't see that I see an implementation plan but I don't see a transition plan that helps our population um grow into the future

3:06:31reality and the future reality really is going to be pedestrian oriented uh so I that's that's the sort of the only thing that I see missing is a a transition from here to there there that takes into consideration how the economies of a commercial business a new business um

3:06:49potentially develops from today to the future with that hopefully I've left you something to comment on so thank you for those comments um I just do want to follow up that this is a plan for the physical changes in our community and these kinds of plans they don't take effect immediately and they

3:07:09take a long period of time to implement so by setting out in this process which began as Mr Jones indicated years ago with an earlier Council we're slowly moving towards implementing our vision for more pedestrian friendly um Community a landscape on San Pablo Avenue that has a rich Urban Corridor

3:07:28that creates uh interests at The Pedestrian level and promotes the mix use that and Transit Orient development that we're interested in so I'm less concerned about a transition plan because I think just by the nature of uh sort of grandfathering in the existing

3:07:45businesses and having these new guidelines and rules for new businesses that come in that we'll naturally see that happen over a long period of time gradually um but I wanted to comment on five areas historic preservation the labor issues that were brought up height

3:08:02limits signage and then the parking so just briefly we had a little bit of back and forth Dialogue on the historic preservation I think that perhaps to make a comment or a general comment about how the general plan relates to this specific plan could be helpful um and then to reiterate that

3:08:21preservation of historic resources when possible and promoting the history of San Pablo Avenue is Our intention and that we've reinforced that through the San Pablo Avenue Improvement plan that features public art acknowledgement of our culture and history um regarding the ideas that were

3:08:41brought by Mr D Rumple and in some of the comments regarding labor um I'm not opposed to the proposed uh policies Lu 3.4 and LU 3.5 but I would suggest um a change in language if other council members support it for Lu 3.4 which would say to promote career op opportunities for Area Youth in the

3:09:04construction industry by encouraging contractors to employ local apprentic Apprentice who are enrolled in a State Certified apprenticeship program these programs should have a record of graduating apprentices each year over the last 10 years and the second um suggested policy Lu 3.5 to promote the

3:09:26use of project labor agreements on developments to encourage local hires and the reinvestment of construction wages in the local business along San paabo Avenue uh I'm I think I find that very acceptable I do want to note that I believe that this specific plan by

3:09:42providing pedestrian amenities and high density and a rich urban street level development actually does more for small local businesses um it focuses Less on Big Box than our current planning framework so I think that that it's in the spirit of the specific plan to

3:10:02continue our effort to bring in and to support small businesses and elero um are you looking for comment on um uh I'm not opposed to apprenticeship programs I think 10 years is is uh too long for instance that would preclude the city of Richmond's own Apprentice

3:10:24program um which I don't think we would do it it's less than 10 years uh so I I can't support the 10 years I support the concept and uh I I think it's too early to commit to a PL P pla for this whole area well I I think in um lu 3.4 we could strike the last sentence and leave out

3:10:48the requirement on the graduation the other policy isn't a commitment it's just a an idea that we encourage or promote the use of those agreements and um maybe the language could be modified so that encourage that maybe developers consider pla but I I wouldn't put it

3:11:09come anywhere close to making it look like it's a requirement okay so maybe some wordage there that would indicate encouragement um urge to consider Mr Jones brought the issue up of the 65 foot height limit I um have heard the concerns about height in Els cero and I think that when we

3:11:32approve a zoning such as this we cannot expect to see a build out of 65 ft height straight across uh the zoning area it may be worth going back and looking at language that would allow a flexibility um maybe not that height by right but a flexibility so in the right

3:11:53conditions and with the right projects we would allow to go up to those height limits on the signage issue um I I know that we have the moving electronic sign at the elrio high school and that is not a type of sign that I um would like to see a lot of especially in

3:12:14the residential area I'm not that fond of it in the commercial districts either so my inclination would be to try to develop a sign ordinance that would provide quality materials um and appropriate signage to to reinforce the type of pedestrian friendly atmosphere

3:12:32and I know that the specific plan had many references to the awnings and um the types of signage and the quality materials and the facade so I support that just wanted want to make that note on signage um and then finally parking I agree with many of the comments that

3:12:49were made tonight about shifting those um ranges so I could support no minimum on the SB uh Spa 2 and going to um a maximum of one car per unit I think that when we try to get transit Oran development and I know we're going to talk about that more in detail that that could be a type

3:13:16of uh parking that could work um I also support Mr lyman's idea of bringing the minimums down to one in the uh Spa 3 four and five area and um agree with Miss Chang that two parking spaces per unit maybe too much and maybe we need to come up with a way of being flexible

3:13:43again but given that we have a list of other strategies to replace parking which I think you know I don't know in depth about all of them but I would like to see that menu of parking um Alternatives and options be structured in a way that not any one of them is

3:14:04required but that we have a way of providing incentives for those to be chosen over a parking and um I'm not quite sure today how to do that but that that was my take on them and you know whether somebody gets an AC Transit pass and that's required as part of their development or they

3:14:23provide for the car shares or they do some other kind of um parking arrangement I think that providing economic incentives both during the construction phase and for the parking is a good thing I also agree with Miss able son on her comments regarding senior affordable

3:14:45and disabled um parking requirements and I believe that staff had indicated that those were going to be revamped in accordance with our housing element I wasn't sure on how they were going to be except for it sounded like we would be recommending more per unit in those

3:14:59areas but I do think there's a question about equity and why we call them out separately so I just think we should be sensitive about that and maybe we want to characterize them more based on size of units and the type of housing in terms of whether it's a townhouse an

3:15:16apartment or um Assisted Living Well I think you know there's different when it comes to seniors there's different types of senior housing you have Independent Living which I think should have the normal uh parking whatever is decided upon but the assisted living and the

3:15:38um the Intensive Care type of housing really doesn't need the type of uh parking that Independent Living does so I I I think if we could somehow work it to where we can maybe depending on the lifestyle and I'm I'm talking about the ability to function and ability to to

3:16:01drive um that I I would because I think also in that type of assisted housing it becomes um a quasi institutional use and there's a need for staff parking and for emergency access and other Provisions so I think that making that distinction uh might be helpful for the plan so I those

3:16:22are the comments I have on parking that I can remember if there are any other comments from the council with brief comments with regards to those we could hear them now okay I would um just quickly support your suggested labor um inclusion of those two additional policies to provide

3:16:40quality jobs and encourage local hiring because they're um they're part of the solution to the climate problem if we are if we can have good jobs in town we can complement the bedrooms that are here um and with the I don't have an issue with the height I think the heights um I think

3:17:01having a good set of design guidelines which I was a part of the discussion where our design review board gave very detailed um input on that I think um they they if you look at the comments and in on in context with what's proposed right now I think they addressed a lot of those concerns that

3:17:20we have and ultimately it's about design and not um The Heights because we're you know what is the the BART tracks are 40 feet or it 40 feet 50 feet it's it's not that much higher than the bark tracks um and that you know we're it's going back to leveraging the this public investment

3:17:43that we have to maximize you know we have 7,000 people coming a day from outside of the Elser if we can get them living in El in Elso instead that's I think it would actually answer also the the public security question we won't need as much police enforcement because

3:17:59there' be more people out and about and walking around and that's natural surveillance that I think is inherent to what we're trying to do and um and by you know I think we can do it sensitively in a way that is in character with our community without losing the benefits I

3:18:18think ultimately you know by reducing Heights you are creating um a Transit what were they called uh Transit adjacent development where you're not getting all the benefits of doing Transit oriented development when you start to ratchet up the parking and reduce the the density um and the and I

3:18:40would I I I would be be um supportive of I guess council member Lyman and um mayor Potter what you're suggesting to put in the the revised minimums to be more reflective and of the one to one or is it I don't have it in front of me but the one um in Spa 3 four and five and um

3:19:04I guess I'd like to hear what other folks think about no maximums or no minimums at the BART stations okay briefly Mr Jones yeah I I really think I go back to the fact that you need a practical plan that fits the environment and to say well maybe we can get 7,000 people to roll in and and

3:19:27live here and maybe because there's a lot of people out we won't need Public Safety I think goes against reality I I I think those are good goals and I think we can work towards them and I'm not arguing um or disagreeing with the con concept of Transit oriented or or

3:19:45multi-unit but what I am looking at is the Practical thing that we're we want to put 65 ft maximum on 40 acres of land here and whatever it is at at U at the plaza and so I would just like to fine-tune those things I'm not against any of that the design guidelines do

3:20:05that design L doesn't do it when you allow 60 65 ft you're telling the person they can go up to 65 ft and you but you also have to be sensitive and step back so you can't do both and what our design guidelines say you know you need you're setting up an envelope and then you're

3:20:23layering on those design crit understand that but you take a look at what's out at Dublin the the mass amount of multiuse those units are all four stories right across for as long they nothing nearby it to build contact these two council members were both on this

3:20:42andabo Avenue specific plan special the team the other thing the other thing I want to point out is this the reason why I think it's important to really study the parking is if alternative fuels come in like they're they're coming and continue there will be more Vehicles not

3:21:00less if you take the fossil fuels out of transportation for the most part and you use alternative fuels believe me there will be more uh Vehicles than we have now and I don't know how we handle all that not so I just want to say that it the parking and the cars the the the fossil fuels

3:21:25are not the only problem with cars so there are other impacts of having a lot of cars in the community and providing parking for them but I think that um we had a established the idea that without a minimum then people could come forward with projects that were more flexible

3:21:42and more creative so that that on the minimum end was the direction and I I would like to just first of all associate myself with um uh council member Chang's comments and by that that some the comments that uh both um council member Jones and mayor Potter made just now um but what I also want to

3:22:01say is that um the the idea to me of places like Del Nordy are it's not that we're trying to attract Shoppers and cars it's that we're trying to make a place where people who use Transit can be and have it work uh if people who want to Sho in cars probably are going to Walnut Creek or um C of

3:22:22Madera or wherever um people who use Transit don't go there okay they need a place to shop too and Del nordi is um the place they need to go and it's a Transit oriented District so it need to being Transit oriented means the priorities on Transit not on cars um so

3:22:45I I think we need to kind of keep that Central in our mind that this is the place for for Transit users and so that we want to what that to me means in in large part is that we want to build what will attract those people not what will attract all people not everybody has to

3:23:03go to every place and um uh you know I'm perfectly I'm you know I'm not going to want to prevent building one place just cuz I can't get there I don't want to go there uh it doesn't mean that everyone has to be like me or any you know any you know anybody else but Transit users

3:23:22need to have a place too and that place uh in large part uh the best example that in our entire county is still NY so um I don't think we want to turn it over to Auto oriented uses um by um doing the kind of development that would encourage that um likewise we don't want to

3:23:42completely exclude cars but um anyway enough said on that um I I would would want to encourage or explore a minimum of a quarter um unit car per unit for the spa 2 as opposed to a zero I I think that there is if nothing else that that quarter could be used for car share or

3:24:07some other type of uh you know communal parking communal vehicle use so I think zero is is potentially um although economically probably a huge incentive for a developer it it potentially does uh you know go a little too far over to the to the um not providing handicap

3:24:28parking or not providing types of uh parking that might be necessary so I I just would like to see the minimum be something um you know on on the order of a fraction of one uh so that that would be my um request with regards to that the I think the maximum we're discussing between one and

3:24:48one and a quarter and one is fine with regards to the two proposals for land use uh for labor I I support those and if we covered all of your requests mayor for discussion thank you uh we need a motion to extend don't move moved for how long there number five 10 minutes 10 I'll second that all

3:25:14in favor I I um I did want to clarify on the labor Provisions that those would be worded in such a way as to promote and encourage when feasible and that also I would be open to some kind of minimum value of a project for the project labor agreement so if there's some um example from other

3:25:35cities that might be relevant and in regarding Mr lyman's comments I would support a 025 as a minimum I think that's a good compromise but it also did raise the issue if we are going to go to some uh ZIP card car share or other communal cars that I would like to see those parking

3:25:56Provisions be separate and apart from the per unit requirements so we made sure that we didn't have any barriers to providing enough of that type of parking yeah that sounds good well said okay well it's been a very productive even even and I thank you again so much I

3:26:14hope we provide you with the direction you need to move on and we look forward to seeing you again in the New Year we're now going to move on to item eight council is on and assignment reports I'd like to report on the financial Advisory board meeting of November 10th um we continue to work on

3:26:33the reserve fund policy and we are preparing to bring that to Council in January um so that that is my report out thank you um I'd like to report on the um Environmental Quality committee which uh recently met and um had what I would call their first media issue um which

3:26:54had to do with the animal ordinance and um there it was uh controversial among the members they didn't all have the same opinion uh and the area where they didn't all have the same opinion was about roosters um there were four people people in I think it was it was three or four people

3:27:13in favor of roosters and the rest there I'm not sure how many were there total um were anti- roosters uh they then proceeded to um um um put together a um a motion uh on a proposed animal of contents for a proposed animal ordinance concerning um chickens which so hin they approved of

3:27:40100% um in elero which is not something we currently have in the form they're um suggesting and then also there was a section on bees and a section on goats and um I have to say that the main thing I have learned from all of that is that there in fact are already a lot of

3:28:01people in elero who have chickens and uh they're very proud of the chickens and very proud of the positive um impact that's had on uh their lives and their neighborhood and um people's enjoyment of both the uh companionship of the chickens and their eggs and you know having uh healthy eggs

3:28:24to eat and um so anyway it prevented uh it so that was all passed and now I guess it's going on and I guess the planning department staff left but I think it's now going on to the planning division for the actual preparation of the revision of the zoning ordin that will come out of that

3:28:43and U then it would go on to the Planning Commission and maybe somewhere else that I don't know of so I I don't have anything as exciting as a rooster controversy but I do have Integrated Waste Management uh we're working on the annual budget uh actually it's a two-year budget but we're working

3:29:02on that it has to be passed by December 31st or else they're not in business so um anyway that'll that'll be what's what's really holding it up is the second thing I want to talk about we are trying to get a green waste and food waste uh Service as a standard service

3:29:23with Integrated Waste Management and we're trying to get the best price and elero is kind of in the Forefront of of pushing that uh not all cities are ready to go in with the food waste uh but elero and Richmond uh are uh I think penol they want to study it more but

3:29:42they're they look like they're good San Pablo and Hercules I think will once they take a look at it they'll be in agreement but what we want to do is get that in as a a standard surface with a standard price for those cities who want to use it so that's where we're at with

3:29:56that great thank you I have no meetings to report great um Mr Lyman did an excellent job of reporting on the mayor's conference and I just wanted to announce that uh December's mayor's conference will be on December 3rd in Lafayette um also we will be meeting next at our

3:30:15regular scheduled meeting on December 7th and that is the first meeting in December where we usually have our reorganization we'll name a new mayor and then tonight we have a special adjournment and I want to read this note um it was with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Maran Wilkins

3:30:32on November 6 and Miss Wilkins was an renowned leader of the Heritage Rose movement and founded the internationally claimed American a Heritage Rose group in 1975 she had received many honors and um an annual scholarship award was created in her honor in 2007 at the Heritage

3:30:53Rose Symposium Miss Wilkins was the daughter of an elrio founder who petitioned for the city's incorporation in 1970 17 and she attended Local Schools she became a teacher in the west contracosta Unified School District and taught at um Fairmont School uh she worked with the Heritage

3:31:16Rose show and she actually organized the annual Heritage row show and served as its chair for the annual event at the elrio community center which started over 24 years ago we had great honor and respect for miam and we had the privilege of installing her in the city's uh Wall of

3:31:36Fame in December of 2008 and recognized her contributions to the community and I think we all have fond memories of that council meeting where she came and spoke with us so I just want to say that our hearts go out to her family and the Heritage Rose Community worldwide and

3:31:53before we observe a moment of silence I wanted to read a qu a quote that she has that I think very much reflects her love for roses and the gardens dear friends there is so much in the old Rose world to mystify and entrance us now as the rose spring forth and Bud of known and unknown Beauties I

3:32:15find the old excitement Rising filling me with Wonder the old world goes off arai but there is always the comfort of the garden so we'll now have a moment of silence good night everyone