City Council Meeting September 22, 2014

0:00:13okay if everyone uh who's able uh we'll take a seat and i believe there are some seats in the other room where you can hear is that true plus tv cameras is that true scott okay and i think uh some people may not be staying too long in which case there will be even more

0:00:36seats um so first of all um i want to thank everyone for coming tonight and we will start out with the pledge of allegiance which is being done in a little bit different way than it normally is so i would appreciate everyone bearing with us tonight we are recognizing the 75th anniversary

0:01:05of the boy scouts and so they are going to do the um a procession and the pledge of allegiance and or moment or observation of a moment of silence so shall we begin attention color guard attention will the audience please rise [Music] colors will you please follow me in the pledge

0:02:04of allegiance or an observation of moment of silence i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for reform [Applause] and just to make things a little bit

0:03:01easier i'm going to go to item the presentation item 4a and i believe after that there will be a little bit more seating anyway 4a is a proclamation commemorating the boy scouts 75th anniversary and um is there a motion to approve this proclamation so made second okay motion by lyman seconded by

0:03:32venicini all in favor please say aye aye any opposition abstentions motion carries unanimously with that um we have this proclamation um honoring troop 104 boy scouts which is an el cerrito they have been uh in existence for 75 years now and so we'll thank you um

0:04:48uh congratulations [Applause] on behalf of the troop i just want to express our appreciation to the city council and the mayor for their support on the troops the troop has been involved in for 75 years as mayor abelson has said and uh but the relationship and the

0:05:40relationship uh with the city goes way back to 1930 when camper was founded upon arlington [Music] for example with the many nearly 100 eagle scout projects that have been conducted by a troop about half of those or even more than that have been involved directly with

0:06:12the city and they've involved service projects reconstruction projects restoration projects at the schools at the community center and we're now really looking after the cinder shotty and taking care of that too there's lots of those kinds of things going on we

0:06:36also the path and the troops combined to offer christmas caroling during christmas season holiday season we have a great time with that [Music] and to hear now that this week is scouting week in el carito and tonight i believe is scouting government today so this is all uh special designation

0:07:12for uh so again thank you very much [Applause] okay the next item on the agenda is council and staff communications are there any is there anything from the council members yeah i have one announcement to make as you all know our city is um working on getting more funding for the

0:07:43madeira open space through a fundraising arm from a group of citizens and they're going to have a fundraising event on sunday october 12th from 2 to 6. this will be held at the courtyard of the community center over on moser lane this is a musical event there's going to be a folk singer

0:08:04and writer our own el cerrito high school jazz quintet will be there stephan lipson a drummer will be there another organization called funkadala cut funkadelic tusson um we'll be there flamingo dancers and i'm a flamenco guitarist the donations are 15 to raise money for the madeira open

0:08:29space and um there will also be a silent auction involved with this event so please put that date of october 12th from two to six at the community center on your calendar okay thank you great yes i have three that i would like to bring to everyone's attention one is

0:08:49a correspondence from east bay municipal utility district and it is a reminder that we're in a severe drought and that we should be doing everything we can to reduce our water use especially outdoor water use so limiting your outdoor landscapes to two times a week use a hose with a

0:09:06shutoff use a broom or an air blower not water to clean driveways turn off any fountain or decorative water feature secondly i too would like to point out a fundraiser that's on the horizon october 19th sunday october 19th of 2 30 to 5 30.

0:09:23the rotary club is having a fundraiser for the library so the new el carito public library and let's see for tickets or sponsorships please call frank lee at 510-658-1453 or mo at 510-705 and advanced tickets are 45 dollars and that's uh going to be wines brews spirits food and

0:09:58fun again sunday october 19th at the mira vista country club overlooking san francisco bay uh 2 30 to 5 30.

0:10:07and lastly there's one more free let's see free fall training for writer coach connection and that happens to be on the 23rd of this week september 23rd which is tomorrow noon to three and for information on that please call contact andrea dace dace and her email

0:10:32her phone number is 510-859-7339 and that's tomorrow noon to 3 and i'm not sure this tells me exactly where it will be high school el cerrito high school thank you okay thank you is there any staff announcements okay seeing none we'll move on to oral communications from the public and this

0:10:56is an opportunity for members of the public to speak on items that are not on the agenda if you want to speak on an item that is on the agenda you can do so when we're talking about that item and we allocate three minutes i'm a little concerned about how many speakers there are

0:11:14tonight and whether or not we can get through them all tonight so i would ask the council if you want to reduce the amount of time in order to allow speakers but before doing that let's see just get a show of hands if we could of how many people that are here tonight think they want to

0:11:35speak if you could raise your hands so um 12 30 30. it's about 30. about 30.

0:11:47what okay um 30 okay so um so we'll reduce the amount of time to two minutes okay so that everybody will have an opportunity to speak and that we will have an opportunity to deliberate the item um so that will start right now actually with oral communications from the public

0:12:13are there any speakers for general subjects we have three speakers at this time i'm going to call the numbers are the names of three at a time if that's fine with you mayor stewart samuelson followed by neo landau and neil landau again yes and i will try to make it under two

0:12:42minutes city council members my name is stewart samuelson and i have lived at 2629 yuba since 1991 on a very lovely street the reason for my appearance today is to advise you that the parking fine for the overnight parking for commercial boats is very ineffective

0:13:05my neighbor dan who lives at [address removed] parks this commercial boat called the boston whaler overnight on numerous weekends despite getting parking tickets during the day he does maintenance on his boat speaking with an officer on september 6 2014 i was informed that the fight for

0:13:30parking overnight is a mere nine dollars less than the seventy one dollar value violation for parking beyond the four hour limit on streets close to the bart station apparently dan feels defined for overnight parking is the cost of doing business or the fine is less than what than what

0:13:53he would have to pay if he parked this oversized boat elsewhere i was also informed by the same officer that if dan ties his boston whaler boat to his truck there is no fine no fine for overnight parking the eyesore which his boat presents is the least of my concerns

0:14:17what really concerns me is a fire truck having to slow down that excuse me to slow down in order to navigate down the street especially if there was another parked car vehicle parked across from the boat it is quite apparent to me that the parking fine for overnight

0:14:39parking should be increased for multiple offenses and times once boat to a truck should not be a get out of jail card thank you for your time thank you and mr landale um i actually have two topics i'll try to be brief on both of them the first one has to do with crosswalks first i want

0:15:08to applaud the new crosswalks by the bart stations they're under they're wonderful people stop it's great for bikers and walkers but i tend to walk down terrace a lot and the intersection the terrace and colusa is very wide very broad there is no crosswalk marked and there's no corner

0:15:28because it's it just goes around and as i was walking by there today a car took that corner at 30 miles an hour without stopping without signaling and there's no the crosswalk should be marked it would be quite easy to do right now there's parking on that whole side so

0:15:48if you step off the curb you may have to go around cars to get into the middle of the street there's no red zones on either side and it's quite busy the situation is similar at terrace and balra on the uphill side it's very wide very broad and there's just a white line

0:16:06and where the crosswalk is is anybody's guess um that's common i believe in the city that there are crosswalks most crosswalks are just marked with a white line and usually you can tell where the corner is and sometimes you can't related to that is the red areas on the

0:16:24curbs near crosswalks some areas at the corner it's red in some corners it's not red and people park right on the corner because it's not red and evidently that is legal to park on the corner if it's not marked red makes it very difficult to walk so i would like to see

0:16:46better marking of crosswalks and some rational reason where curbs are marked red and where they're not the second topic that i wanted to address which is also related to traffic has to do with the parking of delivery vehicles uh and this came about when a couple

0:17:08days ago there was a delivery van parked in the intersection of eureka and ballroom i'm sorry but you're out of time if you could wrap up please well this is the second you don't get it's okay because she had me fill out two cars for two different topics keep it real fast okay delivery vehicles

0:17:27the drivers think they have the right to park for 15 minutes without getting in the ticket and i wonder does the city have a policy on enforcing illegal parking of delivery vehicles and intersections double parked there was a ups truck parked out here in the parking

0:17:42lot a year ago and he told the police officer he was making delivery to the police station that they can park wherever they want the company will pay any fines so the city could make money and have better traffic by citing these people thank you okay the next speaker no other speakers at this

0:18:01time okay on items not on the agenda okay okay uh we're only having two minutes tonight because okay that's fine this is quick i um my name is howdy gowdy i love [address removed] um i wanted to i actually meant to do this as the preceding council meeting i didn't have a chance

0:18:25to do it on the non-agenda but i basically wanted to acknowledge the police and fire departments for their work in the serial arson attempts in july and i also wanted to recognize uh the members of the public who participated in uh responding and spotting those fires

0:18:50um i i know of two i'm sure there were more that that contributed anyway i just wanted to personally recognize them and i was hoping that maybe also the city council would you know make a more formal recognition because i mean that was a very serious public safety

0:19:08and threat to property that existed and i think it was really the quick action of some of these private individuals mark miner and jim mckissick are the two i know but there were others and i think it's also appropriate to recognize the police and fire departments even though it's

0:19:25in their normal role of duty that this was a very serious um issue that could have been devastating to the hillside so i just wanted to recommend that they be recognized thank you thank you thank you okay is that it then on items not on the agenda yes mayor okay thank you then we will move

0:19:41on to our next item [Applause] uh which is uh the presentations category and uh we already did 4a so now we're going to go to 4b which is falls prevention awareness week proclamation and first of all we need to approve the proclamation there's a motion i move approval of proclamation item 4b

0:20:05second okay there's a motion by ben assini seconded by lyman all in favor please say aye aye aye any opposition abstention motion carries unanimously so i believe there may be someone here to accept the proclamation okay so we'll do that really quickly so yeah please do

0:21:09hi yes my name is elaine balk and i work with the fall prevention program and we're a part of meals on wheels and senior outreach services and i just want to say thank you very much for issuing this proclamation we every year we do this to raise awareness of the serious

0:21:23problem of falls among older adults about one in three senior citizens have a fall every year they're costly in terms of of pain and suffering and also financially costly to our communities and our program works to help about 150 seniors a year in contra costa county

0:21:45who are at high risk for falls and need assistive devices in their homes if they need grab bars or shower benches or stair railings and they're not able to afford those our program supplies those and we also do a lot of educational outreach and exercise programs in the community and so we do

0:22:03you know everything we can in our county to prevent falls and i really appreciate you taking the time to recognize that this week is fall prevention awareness week thank you thank you very much okay now we're ready to move on on the agenda to the presentation by the west contra costa

0:22:26unified school district which is an update on the status of the el cerrito high school stadium and it's going to be presented by magdy abdullah who's a district engineering officer now how long are we going to have for this president madam chair i understand that

0:22:44you have a very busy agenda today maybe three minutes and i will make it very quick thank you for having me tonight good evening madam mayor a member of the council and staff a quick quick update on the project uh we have uh started this project on january 27th it was the notes

0:23:03to proceed we anticipated to finish late september of next year this is a 13.5 million dollar project and as we speak between an approved change orders and pending change orders we are at about 1.5 percent uh when we started this project very quickly and the slides will speak of itself there

0:23:24was a few concerns with concerns about cars concerned about noise concerns about inhalable dust and fumes concerns about roots that is going to affect um i'm sorry thank you the construction activity and what kind of effect would it have on you may need to turn it on

0:23:59there we go here's the the stadium uh by itself adjacent to the multi uh uh purpose field that we've already uh finished uh this address just the um the concern about the cost madam mayor and this is the side where by ashbury what actually you see this heavy duty equipment right there

0:24:21we are at below 20 feet from the finish floor we had to dig down 20 feet to actually drive those piles another 20 feet down below so we can build a retaining wall that will hold the whole hillside should be able to build a national track we address few as you see in the slides

0:24:44there is a lot of rebars and steel retaining walls a huge amount of earth moving uh the project is going very well for us now we did have a hiccup because of the weather early on this is the the forms for the retaining wall on ashbury side a huge a massive amount of concrete

0:25:03being built as you see these are are at 20 feet below and we still have to go 20 feet up these are across the neighbor side i would like to quickly to address to you um that the district had the complaints about the noise uh we have consulted an av consultant who actually set

0:25:23up some speakers and some equipment around the parameter of the site actually set it up to send an automatic um alarm to my construction manager and the consultant himself wouldn't excuse me when the dismal goes beyond a certain point we also had a concern about fume and helpable dots we had a

0:25:43concern who actually set a parameter that collected air samples from the construction site across the street from each neighboring uh uh area and we shared this uh results with uh with with the neighbors actually we had to do do it twice we had to do it on an off day to establish a baseline and then

0:26:05an an activity where we were doing uh moving some dust we also had a concern about rodent and uh we had a consultant that was out there setting some base and sending some traps i'd be more than happy to uh answer any of your questions thank you very much for having me i

0:26:24promised uh mr henning that i'll be coming back and give you probably a most more detailed report on whatever is going on but before i go i cannot thank mr han and his staff because we work very closely with each other to to to really bring the benefit of this partnership between the district and the

0:26:42cities of cerrito any questions thank you oh thank you for uh being brief [Music] and comprehensive yes and we look forward to that other report in the future thank you very much okay with that we're going to move on to five adoption of the consent calendar i'll

0:27:02move to adopt items 5a through 5f second motion okay motion by bridges seconded by venisini all in favor please say aye aye any opposition any abstentions motion cares unanimously with that we will move on to the public hearings and the first one is the abatement of

0:27:26the fire hazard public nuisance on two properties pursuant to the el cerrito municipal code chapter 16.22 is there a report good evening madam marion city council members as you know i'm david chaparra i'm your fire second i think i first need to open the public hearing

0:27:58public hearing is open okay i'm david chaparra i'm your fire prevention officer um and i'm here to introduce a resolution confirming the cost of forced abatement on only two properties this year uh previously recognized at public nuisances by the city council and

0:28:13allowing for the lien of the associated costs against the properties so just briefly an overview 272 properties this year were originally found in violation as compared to 140 last year that can be accounted to the fact that we started about a month early 44 were declared public nuisances

0:28:32earlier in i believe it was june and in 2013 there was only 23 but again same reasoning started earlier and we only have two forced abatements in total this year compared to six last year so that dropped further uh one of which as you can see in exhibit b is the property on

0:28:52el dorado um of which the building department as well as the fire department are working into dealing with um in general the total contractor work amounted to twenty seven hundred and thirty five dollars for the two properties as compared to 2915 from last year

0:29:09administrative fees this year were twelve hundred and sixty dollars as comp as opposed to the thirty nine hundred and forty three dollars uh that tremendous difference was due to the amount of police presence needed at el dorado last year um in total we are slightly under four thousand at

0:29:26three hundred three thousand nine hundred ninety five this year as opposed to 6858 last year i'm available to answer any of your questions any questions okay um are there any uh so now it's time to open actually now it's time to open the public hearing i guess is are there is there any public

0:29:49testimony i haven't received any speaker slips okay move to close the public hearing second all in favor please say aye aye any opposition abstentions motion carries unanimously um have any written communications been received no i've not received anything okay is there

0:30:07a motion before we move i do want to make a comment um i really do appreciate that staff started a month early this year with the drought in place it's been as you know you may not know but your predecessor does i have been asking for the last uh three years for

0:30:23us to start this effort earlier in the year and it it really pays off uh with the reduced numbers of enforcement so i appreciate the early start and with that i'm glad to move uh a motion let's see where's the resolution uh a resolution of the city council of the city of el cerrito confirming the

0:30:42report of the costs of abatement of public nuisance conditions resulting from the presence of weeds rubbish litter or other flammable materials on the private property designated here in under the authority contained in the el cerita municipal code section 16.26 a second the motion

0:31:01okay motion by lyman seconded by benesini any discussion all in favor please say aye aye any opposition abstentions motion carries unanimously thank you um and with that we will move on to the san pablo avenue specific plan fees oh excuse me the san pablo avenue

0:31:22specific plan and environmental impact report certification and um so we are going to be taking a number of procedural steps um the first one is to conduct a public hearing and upon conclusion we will take the following actions and i'm just going to read them aloud for the benefit of

0:31:47everyone here and these are related to the san pablo avenue specific plan we're going to adopt a resolution certifying the eir environmental impact report in approving the mitigation monitoring and reporting report adopt a resolution amending the general plan to

0:32:07assure consistency between the specific plan and general plan next we will adopt a resolution approving the san pablo avenue specific plan then we will introduce by tidal wave any further reading and approve an ordinance revising the zoning map to incorporate the san pablo avenue

0:32:28specific plan regulations and then we will introduce by tidal wave any further reading and a proven ordinance revising the municipal code to incorporate the san pablo avenue specific plan regulations subject to sequa and we'll see if that proceeds like that okay now then

0:32:52at this time we want to um announced so i announced the public hearing and we're going to have a staff presentation from melanie mintz our community development director and yvette ortiz who i don't see she's here she's here right there okay um our public works

0:33:14director and um mig our consultant you're taking him so good evening uh mayor and city council and members of the public um as you just said i am the city's interim community development director and i will be some feedback tonight um i will be joined by yvette ortiz our

0:33:38city engineer interim city engineer and public works director as well as uh makol mahotra and ray pedro from mig um during for the presentation i also have numerous other staff here to be able to field questions as you know this effort has been many years in the making and it's been a

0:33:58tremendous collaborative effort so in addition to myself tonight you'll have margaret cavanaugh lynch our development services manager as well as other staff to answer questions and we of course there's many staff before us who worked on this so we could have lights maybe

0:34:17so in recognition of the the number of people here to speak tonight and the fact that you already do have the document we'll try to keep this as brief as possible while still providing an overview to set the frame so i will quickly review the policy precedence and

0:34:36background of the plan's development the planning process that has occurred over the last seven years and i will introduce the administrative components before i pass it along to mako mohotar from mig to review the form-based code event ortiz to talk about complete streets and mig to review

0:34:52infrastructure in eir and then we will be passing it back to you to be able to open the public hearing so i think a really important component of what's before you tonight is it's um it's really the outcome of many many years of planning and beginning with our 1999

0:35:12general plan which identified the need and opportunities on san pablo avenue to convert it from a pedestrian unfriendly corridor which wasn't very vibrant or supportive of the types of main street atmosphere while still recognizing that it's a state highway so the general plan identified as a major

0:35:33issue that the san pablo avenue corridor was very pedestrian friendly and unattractive and identified a number of strategies for addressing that which this plan before you tonight aims to do in 2006 and i think this is an important component of the plan too as we hear often each time we go into a

0:35:50planning process how much people want more amenities and more businesses in town in 2006 our economic development action plan identified creating a consistent vision and having the discipline to maintain that vision for creating a more urban walkable form on san pablo avenue is key to meeting

0:36:07our economic development goals and this was outside economic development professionals as well as our own economic development staff in 2013 jumping forward the strategic plan more specifically identified attracting and maximizing opportunities for new and expanding

0:36:24businesses as key to achieving the city's long-term financial sustainability it further identified reimagining and underdeveloped and underutilized properties and encouraging use of alternative modes of transportation is key to deepening a sense of place and finally it identified fostering

0:36:42environmental sustainability through one of the measures of implementing the city's climate action plan as a key goal a key provision of the climate action plan is its sustainable community goal and that goal encourages more compact higher density infill along our transportation

0:36:58corridors as a way not only to reduce overall vehicle miles traveled but also to increase our economic base and to create greater vitality in a more pedestrian friendly economic environment so again this plan as i've mentioned has precedents and policies that you've

0:37:17already adopted it's also happening concurrently an urban citywide urban greening plan an update to our active transportation plan and our neighboring jurisdiction richmond's livable corridor's form-based code and all of these together aim to create much more urban livability for both

0:37:34existing and future residents so the specific plan isn't happening in isolation there's other efforts that we undertake to think about open space and greening our communities and crew improving bike paths and trails um and as you'll see we also these planning efforts often lead to capital efforts

0:37:53over the last five to six years the city has invested money along san pablo avenue often with outside grants resulting in the reconstruction of city hall the restoration of the cerrito theater the development of baxter creek gateway park um and and the streetscape improvements on

0:38:10san pablo avenue and all of these were again aimed at increasing the vitality of our avenue so the plan is also while it's really born locally it's also further as many regional and state goals um ab32 the state's climate solutions act and sb 375 the sustainable communities

0:38:33and we'll have that the sustainable communities and climate protection act of 2008 both identify the need to coordinate land use planning and transportation planning in order to meet state and regional goals and this plan before you tonight is really exemplary in terms of being able to look

0:38:50at both the transportation environment and the land use together we'll also get in later how this plan also furthers the california's complete streets act and as you know it is consistent with plan bay area so while the planning process started in 2017 the first draft was issued in 2010

0:39:11and it established a list of principles which you see before you balance transportation a mix of land uses context-sensitive design recognizing the need to transition between existing neighborhoods and new development and intensification of uses on strategic sites with proximity to transit which is

0:39:27our transit corridor and the bart stations the plan before you builds upon this here's just an overview of the planning kind of key milestones when the first and second draft of the specific plan were brought before you and then key moments in 2011 and 12 when city council gave direction to really

0:39:44look at the development feasibility and to look at appropriate transit-oriented uh development solutions and in 2013 you authorized the contract that added the form-based code added a very key component which is a programmatic eir looking at the overall area-wide

0:40:03impacts of such a project which both helps provide lots of information for you as well as it helps create the framework for future development to know what their mitigations are to be um to be able to develop in the city of el cerrito and importantly it added the completes

0:40:18the grant funded complete streets element so that we could look at both the land use and the transportation at the same time i'm just in this past year year and a half since april of 2013 we've convened a technical advisory committee consisting of transit agencies such as

0:40:34ac transit and bart as of course they're key to both achieving this goal and meeting many of its goals we also contra costa public health bike east bay which used to be called the east bay bike coalition and caltrans of course since it is a caltrans state highway caltrans is very supportive and

0:40:52has many of its own complete streets goals we also coordinated internally with of course police fire public works and our various internal departments held study sessions a number of study sessions which is in your packet with design review board the planning commission and

0:41:07city council we held some public meetings which were coordinated with our active transportation and urban greening plan and importantly because the previous drafts really didn't respond to market conditions we held the charette with architects and developers to assure that

0:41:20we were achieving that the regulations that we put forward would achieve what they need in order to be able to invest in our city and finally we had a public comment period and on september 4th the planning commission voted to recommend um that you move forward with a specific plan

0:41:39so the document um contains an introduction which reviews our goals the form-based code which talks about administration and sets forward the regulatory standards the complete streets element which talks about the performance metrics for our street and reviews from a

0:41:55high level the infrastructure capacity the plan area was set a long time ago seven years ago and it really coincides with our former redevelopment area while the entire plan area is set we don't expect that the whole plan area will change there are sites throughout

0:42:12the plan area that are more likely to develop based on the fact that they're underutilized now so large surface parking lots single-story commercial so the framework identifies key commercial nodes down at the el cerrito plaza and up at del norte so downtown and uptown we call those and

0:42:32midtown there's two commercial nodes which you'll see how this plays later on in the in the presentation at moser and at stockton and the idea really is many of these corridors exist throughout the state where three miles six miles if you look at both sides of the street it's

0:42:45just too much to be able to have a really vibrant commercial life so while the plan allows ground floor commercial throughout it also allows ground floor residential so increasing our residential base to really be able to support these these commercial nodes as

0:42:58a goal of the plan and then of course as we're doing our urban greening plan and our active transportation plan we're looking at how those overlap with these areas to support it in making it a walkable vibrant attractive area the keys the key strategies of the plan are to

0:43:15strengthen the sense of place to ensure return on investment and that's both our investments and public agency investments in the public realm as well as to assure new development and existing development that everything will work in synergy to make a stronger place

0:43:30i've already talked about the market friendly practical development really coming up with a plan that can be built the forum based code's key goal is to really recognize that how the built environment and new buildings interact with our streets and public places is

0:43:43what makes a quality place and lastly catalyzing mode shift and as you'll see when we get into these numbers we recognize the importance of the corridor for all modes so that's automobiles buses as well as pedestrians and bicycles which we are proposing to add in a more significant way

0:44:02and the form-based code aims to do the plan tried to strike a balance between many things so while it wanted to be able to create clear standards so that development really could come out and build we also wanted to make sure there was adequate public review so we have a tier one process which is

0:44:17really for mostly for projects under 2500 square feet things like facade improvements which can be handled at an administrative level tier two projects will be considered at the design review board and could be approved at the design review board through public hearings

0:44:32notice of those public hearings we actually increase the stand the noticing requirements um from that which currently exists including posting sites of development tier three is aimed at creating guidelines for existing structures that won't necessarily be brand new development

0:44:52but they will be non-conforming existing structures and we want to work with those structures to reinvest to get closer to what the plan's goals are so for example maybe adding some ground floor transparency and more windows planting more adding bicycle racks but

0:45:04we recognize they won't always move that they won't be demolished and tier four is for brand new development that doesn't precisely meet the tier two standards and a higher level of review and findings need to be made and those will be considered both the design

0:45:18review and planning commission at public hearings um actually go back to that one more time both tier two and tier four projects also have the option or if we consider it to be a a sensitive project we would also require an early community charette where the t the development team and

0:45:33architects would meet with the public to understand community priorities i'm in terms of land use regulations and they are very they're different than the tiered process the tier review process is for the site plan and design the land use regulations you can see in

0:45:49your in the plan itself we wanted to allow some things by right and not require a conditional use permit to go to the planning commission and those include residential and desirable retail like restaurants we wanted to create fewer hurdles for that other more sensitive uses will still require a

0:46:07conditional use permit and a hearing at the planning commission um and i think that is my part i will now pass it on to mkwu mahotra to talk about the regulatory standards thanks melanie and thank you council the key part of the regulating plan is to come up with two transit zone the first

0:46:30transit zone is really the transit oriented higher intensity mixed use which is around the half mile walk shed of each of the two parts stations the transit only oriented mid intensity mixed use is the area in between the two higher intensity transit zone a key

0:46:48component of the form based code is to make sure that it's not just about land uses that happen in the public in the private parcels but also all the development reflects the desired character of the street that the uh private developments will front into because the combination of two will

0:47:08really help achieve the goals that melanie mentioned earlier in the presentation so the key components of the transit oriented high intensity use is to have a desired form that goes from small to large it allows up to 65 height and which can go up to 85 feet height if the

0:47:25project is consistent with the affordable housing project the aim is to have flush ground floors that are ada compliant uh and also to encourage shop fronts on commercial street types that i'm just going to talk about with the regards to the mid intensity mixed use the desired form is

0:47:41to also have the buildings close to the right of way and allow for a wide variety of developments from big box to medium footprint grain and allow heights which will go up to 55 feet 65 feet of its affordable housing and allow for a wide variety and mix of uses

0:47:58including vertical and horizontal mixed use clearly the midtown area will have primarily residential with mixed use at stockton and moshe notes that melody mentioned the street type span overarching goals is clearly to create a very strong sense of place that responds to the adjoining

0:48:15street and neighborhood context still allows for users that are market friendly encourages design mix of users on the ground floor that could go from residential to uh commercial and retail but keep in mind to concentrate retail and commercial development that would in

0:48:31turn encourage walkability the first three type is commercial type and within commercial street type we have of course along key sections of san pablo avenue that are uh shown in blue along along san pablo avenue they are in complemented by the commercial street

0:48:49types along the cross streets such as fairmount and in total you begin to see that there are only certain key areas that we are focusing where we are requiring the streets to be friendly to walk shop etc and the flex space on the ground floor with 50 percent of street

0:49:07frontage devoted to street activation uses like retail at the end of the day we want to write allow for a wide mix of uses to happen and focus uh primarily the mixed use commercial to happiness keynotes within the project area complementing this the commercial types

0:49:26is the gateway streets there are certain streets that we want to have that we have the first impression and we want to have a desired lasting impression and that can be achieved through landscape and aesthetic improvements the neighborhood street types are a mix

0:49:40of local and residential streets and they are highlighted in pink the aim is to calm traffic and recapture the right of way for place making so we have a great place for friends and families and also more importantly for the residents and workers who live and work in this

0:49:56area a key street type that is unique to el cerrito is of course the oloni greenway we want to make sure that we are respecting it and then finally there is a potential street type with plaza connection and mid block connections which are really trying to achieve

0:50:12enhanced pedestrian and bicycle connectivity and this all through all of them come together in the map which is shown in this slide some of the key standards of the form base code which are highlighted in your uh in your specific plan starts with height i've already mentioned the

0:50:29different heights for different types of transact uses but the key thing to keep in mind is that we want to make sure that parcels that are constraints there's minimum three stories residential and minimum two stories commercial exceptions will be granted with the cop because some parcels are

0:50:45extremely narrow and will not allow for higher intensity use to happen similarly with the setbacks we want to ensure space for clear contiguous pedestrian pathways trees and amenities we want to go with the higher standard for all kind of amenities and that's what the street types clearly begins to

0:51:05say and we want to respect access to sun and light to adjoining residential uses that i'm going to briefly speak in a minute the building articulation is illustrated by providing different ideas for developers to come up with variable wall plane transparency colors materials

0:51:22and ecological and environmental elements that are holistically integrated in the design of the facade this in turn has led to five different types of frontage standards that can be seen and envisioned all along the corridor they include shop fronts four coats arcade galleries and

0:51:42flexible uses that are out allow for a wide mix of uses as well as residential on the ground floor we have a wide variety of parcels in this area there is not one prototypical parcel that is consistent along along the corridor and and they're not many contiguous large parcels some of them

0:52:04are only 100 feet deep which is not a lot if you look at market friendly development at the same time there is a clear need to respect the adjoining residential development in fact as melanie mentioned there is a distinct intent to strengthen the existing residential as new development

0:52:21occurs and what we will model was that how development would happen on single parcels consolidated parcels parcels in the middle of the block parcels at the corner so as to allow for different permutations and combinations to happen so the key thing out here is we were

0:52:38shadow guidelines that were allowed for various type of uses to happen along various characteristics of the street that provide a fine balance to allow for market friendly users to go and achieve their heights while at the same time make sure that we get a desired public

0:52:55realm along the commercial streets and secondly we are providing clear access to sun and light along along adjoining residential uses especially the back of the parcels another key context sensitive design criteria is to have views from public spaces uh walking along san pablo and in this area

0:53:18you really begin to see some of the key uh views of mount tamil pirates golden gate bridge san francisco skyline albany hills and east bay hills we want to try to make sure that development makes an effort a clear distinct effort to keep these locations from the public right

0:53:35away about platform and public plazas at the end of the day the aim is to encourage high quality development that would leverage the best design solution complementing all these standards is the parking standard and there is a very clear desire to have adequate parking for both

0:53:53automobiles and bicyclists the guidelines and standards very clearly indicate where parking should happen generally in the back but it also allows for adjustable parking requirements to balance desired character transit facility opportunities as well as market friendly development patents it

0:54:11integrates integrates opportunities for parking management strategies at the same time it tries to optimize so that people not just people who live and work out here but people who come and visit the various shops and amenities along san pablo avenue have adequate on street

0:54:27parking opportunities to also experience and enjoy amenities along san pablo the location of the parking is clearly to minimize the harmful effects of passive parking separated at least five feet from buildings to ensure adequate room for sidewalks uh minimizing the number of

0:54:45curb cuts we have and one curb cup curb cut per site is what is desired there are various parking standards for commercial residential uses the key thing is to keep in mind how it begins to leverage the proximity to transit such as the bat stations as well as ac

0:55:05transit stops at the same time parking changes and reduction may require a parking study and additional transportation demand management measures will also be required all the parking takes into account what is being readily seen in the bay area developments that is to say allow for

0:55:23tandem and stacked parking shade which can be shared stacked and unbundled for mixed use and multi-family and it needs to make sure that there are clear ada accessible parking which is distinct and conveniently located for the users the signage requirements allow for a mix of

0:55:40allowed signs and there is a list of sign types that are encouraged and clear standards of what they should be open space along with the buildings will help create a unique sense of place again there are standards placed for what should be private common open space

0:55:58as well public open space but at the end of the day the standards clearly try to encourage that there is more public open space as new private developments occur so that the community at large can enjoy the open spaces for non-residential uses the public open space they're also very

0:56:17clear requirements and they are consistent to allow for a unique sense of place complementing this is complete streets concepts and yvette is going to talk more about it good evening council members i wanted to give you a brief overview of the san pablo emu san pablo avenue complete streets plan

0:56:39which works hand in hand with the farm-based code to meet several specific plan goals the complete streets plan oops sorry the complete streets plan aims to create a streetscape environment that builds on recent investments made by the city as well as balance the needs of all

0:56:57street users including motorists bicyclists pedestrians and transit users and welcome users of all ages and abilities it also encourages modes shift toward transit pedestrian and bicycles while maintaining the existing number of through travel lanes and on street

0:57:15parking in the majority of the corridor the complete streets plan identifies improvements for transits riders pedestrians and bicyclists while at the same time providing improvements for hotspot intersections such as san pablo avenue hill and east shore which has the worst level of service along the

0:57:36corridor in order to track our multimodal goals as part of the complete streets plan the the plan proposes a new multimodal performance metric for all modes because the existing right-of-way and traffic volumes along san pablo avenue vary throughout its length there are

0:57:57varying types of improvements identified along the corridor for example in some of the more constrained right-of-ways along san pablo avenue such as downtown and uptown it will not always be possible to provide optimum facilities for all travel modes so when in those cases we're prioritizing adding

0:58:16transit and pedestrian facilities over adding bicycle facilities this is the due to the importance of the corridor as a transit uh regional transit route as well as um the importance of the corridor as the city's main commercial and mixed use corridor we're walking between transit and um

0:58:35and commercial uses are very important uh specific transit related measures um which is one of our priority modes includes um providing for reducing travel time through the corridor by five percent providing far side bus platforms to improve efficiencies and add amenities

0:58:55and also encouraging the use of transportation demand management measures by private development to encourage transit use and again while transit and pedestrian infrastructure are prioritized over bicycle modes bicycle facilities are not allowed to maintain um at low levels of

0:59:12service when we do have measures to improve them such as in midtown where we can add preferred bicycle links to provide high levels of service while at the same time maintaining acceptable levels of service for all other modes including autos in addition although there will be

0:59:28delays along san pablo avenue additional auto delays because of additional traffic growth overall we're gonna the plan is showing an acceptable level of service at the current um city standard at all interceptions except for one intersection which we'll discuss later

0:59:47we also wanted to say that we've been actively involved with the west wick tech action plan update and the wic tak action plan currently maintains a level of service e for san pablo avenue so we're being consistent with the wic tag action plan but at that same time

1:00:04the action plan allows for exceptions within half mile of a transit hub such as the bart stations it allows the city's multimodal level of service perfect performance metrics to govern at this point i wanted to turn it over to mig who will go over the streetscape

1:00:23design guidelines and concepts thanks so the key one of the key things is to ensure that they are accessibly improved improvements like i mentioned earlier the need is to rise above basic minimum federal standards and to provide a clear contiguous unobstructed path of travel

1:00:44all along the corridor with no exceptions in fact we are achieving wider minimums for sidewalks throughout each sidewalk zone and new development will ensure that that happens and the clearances are also achieved from street furniture vertical and horizontal and that becomes very critical

1:01:01incorporating a wide variety of seating ensures that we have accessible environments that are enjoyed by users of all abilities uh including ensuring companion seating allowing permanent accessible seating areas every quarter mile along the major commercial corridors and neighborhood commercial

1:01:20streets there's also a critical need to allow for dual directional curb ramps especially people with visual disabilities and to consider on-street ada accessible parking spaces all along the corridor conveniently located the streetscape existing design takes into account that

1:01:39there are three different corridors that reflect the three different sections that melanie talked about uptown uh midtown and downtown overarching or the the clear design direction is to maintain ultra through travel lanes and on street parking in a majority of locations widen

1:01:58sidewalks for pedestrian contiguous clear pathways uh ensure we have crosswalks and we also have far side bus platforms which in turn improve ac transit use as well as allow for better amenities for bus transit users in the case of uptown the aim is to convert cutting and health

1:02:21to two-way traffic and elementary second left-turn lanes ellen polling is also here from ferran pierce and she can answer some of the more detailed traffic related questions uh providing bike lanes between patreo and wall is part of the uptown that can be considered as

1:02:39well as having shared shadows uh between wall and the richmond border these improvements will only happen as as new development happens and it will have to take into account what the city of richmond is doing with their plans of having the shadows along their sections of san pablo avenue in the case

1:03:00of midtown we are proposing buffered bike lanes and in the case of downtowns we have green lanes that allow to maintain the existing parking spaces along downtown and again this improvement only happens as time passes and there is a clear moat shift that is being observed as new development

1:03:18happens connecting both sides of the street is critical as development happens this is an existing prototypical section of uptown and it is envisioned to maintain the existing travel lanes um and also maintain parking lanes between wall and the richmond border we would be taking

1:03:37out uh the parking lanes between petrero and wall street the key note thing to keep in mind that this only happens as we begin to see a moat shift and we see how the neighboring cities are doing in the case of existing uh prototypical section of midtown this is the area

1:03:57where we have the lowest traffic volumes and we have the widest right-of-way opportunity to repurpose the existing right-of-way the aim is to maintain all the parking spaces uh and allow for a buffered bike lane that is between the sidewalk and the parking thereby

1:04:14allowing all ages groups of bicyclists to begin to use this street um and these are some of the examples of what the character would be they all would have far side bus platforms and in the case of existing prototypical section it is a very light touch the aim is to keep all through movements all

1:04:36travel lane movements all parking spaces and and if the opportunity occurs to have a green shared super shallow lane in one of the travel lanes in both directions the multi-modal level of service takes into account that we are moving away from the traditional level

1:04:53of service so that it's not just about automobiles but other modes of travel especially pedestrians bicyclists and transit users become equal users of the street as the automobile users are the approach is to use a combination of built environment factors as well as

1:05:12person delay calculations for each mode of travel and to evaluate how the development each development actually meets these needs combining individual mode metrics for the corridor individual segments as well as the intersection at the end of the day the aim is to meet

1:05:28the level of service goals for the bus and pedestrian to be high for the bicyclist to be medium to high and the level of service for automobiles to be e but lo level of service f can be considered if it is needed to ensure that the non-automobile goals are achieved if we begin to see how the this

1:05:49mode shift would play and more importantly what is the level of service what would happen as development occurs over the period of time to 2040 we begin to see that there is a dramatic improvement from all modes of travel be it pedestrians transit or bicycle users

1:06:08across and especially it gets better for the proposed as new development occurs in summary the aim is to improve transit conditions to a high level of service with the largest change happening in uptown and downtown improve the pedestrian environment across the board

1:06:24with no exceptions and improve the bicycle environment primarily in midtown and maintain an acceptable level of service that event talked about um along with the complete streets and the farm base code there is an infrastructure analysis which is in chapter four of the specific plan which

1:06:42identifies the various utility providers and it provides a general review of potential limitations in the existing systems and recommends feasibility level improvements primarily for storm water water system and sanitary and dry utilities is primarily handled by pgne

1:07:01with that i'm going to request straight to talk about sql i have seven slides in less than four minutes i'm ray pendro i worked on the environmental impact report with city staff there's the first slide a sequed document sql is short for california environmental quality act

1:07:21that's a state law and a secret document is required for specific plans the secret document does not promote a project it provides information it identifies impacts and recommends mitigations for significant impacts the eir has a separate chapter on each of these secret topics that are listed

1:07:47in the sql guidelines they're in alphabetical order there and they're in alphabetical order in the eir the draft program eir i'll explain the word program in a couple slides identify significant impacts mitigations and significant unavoidable impacts these are defined in table 1.1 of the

1:08:09draft eir on page 1-7 these definitions are based on questions asked in the state sql guidelines called appendix g in each environmental topic chapter these questions are listed as the quote significance criteria for evaluating impacts this information is also in the summary

1:08:34table in front of the eir table 2.1 on page 2-4 and it's repeated in your mitigation monitoring and reporting program the eir identifies significant unavoidable impacts in these topic areas this is not uncommon for a program eir covering a large area 2.2 miles for a long term

1:09:02plan because future individual site-specific projects would still need to be reviewed against a specific plan eir and additional site-specific studies could be required this is also explained in the part of the i'm sorry part of the specific plan the administration of the

1:09:25specific plan if the city council approves the specific plan it must make what's called a statement of overriding considerations explaining why the project's benefits outweigh its significant unavoidable impacts that statement is also in the packet tonight the final eir includes these three items

1:09:48all of which are on the city's website and which were distributed earlier in the summer the final slide is to help define a program eir this is a specific term in sql it's explained on page 1-4 of the eir for the first bullet a long-term plan this is in order to

1:10:12identify potential environmental impacts up front when enough information is known to evaluate impacts to the level of detail that the plan provides this gives the opportunity for the city to still require additional environmental analysis when more specific projects are proposed

1:10:37as an example is the tier four requirements that melanie described earlier could require additional environmental impact evaluation now to melanie for next steps so this is our our last slide and i just wanted to reiterate um that the specific plan both wasn't developed in isolation and it's not the

1:11:06last thing we would be doing to assure its success and assure that the goals of creating both a balanced transportation recognizing the needs of all users of san pablo avenue and continuing to stimulate a vibrant corridor would not stop with a specific plan it's an important

1:11:24um i wouldn't even call first step but maybe third step along the path in addition to what we've already done so we continue the specific plan will be an incredible tool for us to be able to both talk to existing businesses um about what they could do to improve

1:11:38their properties and potentially expand to attract new businesses to reach out to high quality developers and parking and transportation demand management we hear often people want bike share and car share and items like that and having increased residential population will help us attract and

1:11:55develop that marketplace ongoing monitoring of the plan's success implementing more parking demand management tools like residential permit working really with bart to to lessen the impact of the bart commuters um that that drive to town and utilize the stations i mean we

1:12:14really see this as a living document we assume that we will as development occurs as we see how it works in the corridor that we'll be able to continue to update and revise and build new plans we've gotten two grants or notified that we'll be receiving two grants to to further develop

1:12:31different strategies to for the parking and transportation demand management as well as ongoing trying to bring higher speed uh telecommunications and data um to town and looking at really what would make this plan a success um and as you know this plan is so aligned with policies

1:12:49that we'd also be able to attract outside grant monies to continue to foster its implementation and so for questions and answers tonight i will be sitting at the front along with margaret cavanaugh lynch our development services manager anovet ortiz our public works director city

1:13:04engineer and we'll call on consultants as you wish so that concludes our presentation thank you i'm going to open this with some canned questions that i have that i just want to they're more to clarify so that everyone has the same understanding of those issues and then we'll go and then

1:13:22we'll start with the rest of the council and if you're ready to begin first of all is the complete streets program a requirement i think that's you of that hello mayor um yeah the california complete streets act of 2008 does require that local jurisdictions plan for the development

1:13:46of multimodal transportation networks as part of any general plan updates and what the complete streets act calls for is that streets consider all users including motorists pedestrians transit riders commercial vehicles bicyclists and consider users of all ages and abilities

1:14:07the so complete streets are supposed to allow for streets that allow all these users to travel safe safely and effectively within the city and through the city to regional locations and it basically requires that all users be considered both at the planning design and construction phases

1:14:26of a of a city project okay thank you and um this is a different question what are the proposed heights accomplished so actually in the presentation i didn't speak to this so much um the heights that are proposed um are in response to both local and regional studies that indicate the development

1:14:47feasibility so really the cost of the development compared to the expected rents um that the heights that we're proposing so 55 to 65 feet so five to six stories for market rate development is best achieved by maximizing the development envelope on a particular site

1:15:03um by imposing constraints such as the daylight plane that mccool talked about shadow open space minimum sidewalk widths design standards and guidelines such as minimum transparency architectural features and facade treatments the goal is for the experience at the street

1:15:18level to be comfortable and inviting and for the shade impacts of new development to be minimized it is a challenge in some locations in the plan area due to their shallow depth that the that the development envelope will be maximized so we aimed to allow the height

1:15:37and reduce parking requirements partly to be able to attract development to some of our really constrained sites so while we don't while the maximum allowable height is 55 to 65 feet for market rate development um that doesn't mean that we envision that the entire corridor will go to that

1:15:53height due to the constraints we've put for shade and to interact with existing neighborhoods um there will be three four five and six story development and we also don't envision the whole uh avenue being redeveloped and what's what steps were taken to assure that

1:16:12these projects fit in with the existing neighborhood um again so some of the things that we did i mean i think all along san pablo avenue and including in joining jurisdictions berkeley um and albany and richmond it's a challenge because our main commercial corridor is of

1:16:29course um there's a single-family and multi-family residential so some of the things we did is we put in the shadow standards that mccool talked about which require really that new development doesn't shade um a property to the east of that of that development more than for example a tall

1:16:47fence would so that we didn't want to impose development standards that restricted the height so low that it would be lower than the shade created by a fence and you can see in the diagrams that that sometimes requires um you know different kinds of step backs so that the shade would be on the

1:17:03property itself so that was uh one of the items the street types that mccool talked about um so some of the setbacks and frontages and sidewalk requirements are all aimed to be uh reflective of the neighborhood that it's on there's several standards that talk about when there's adjoining residential

1:17:18what would be the balance point okay so um what what's the relationship in the plan to in between this uh project and the program rather and the abag or association of bay area governments housing allocation plan b area and so forth so those have numbers of you know

1:17:44for example um you have to for for el cerrito it says for example you have to have so many housing units and so many jobs so it's somewhat complex and you can chime in a margaret so the abag with the state a sign on eight year cycles regional housing needs allocation mostly

1:18:04to make sure that you're zoning appropriately to be able to accommodate the region's affordable housing needs so every eight years that's looked at there's a cycle uh 2014 to 22 22 to 30 30 to 38. so our specific plan would be uh demonstrating that we're in compliance and able to meet those goals

1:18:23uh plan bay area on the other hand is through 2040 just like the specific plan and as i mentioned it really looks at achieving the states it is a direct result of the state's sp 375 the sustainable communities and climate protection act and ab32 which is the state's goals to reduce greenhouse

1:18:39gas emissions it talks about the need to to do the type of planning that the specific plan does so it's consistent with it it however is modeling the whole bay area and so on a model basis it looked at um at pup at residential and job targets it also looks at trends such as where will

1:18:57most of the jobs be located in oakland san francisco and san jose what can local jurisdictions do so our number is higher than what their regional model showed and that's partly um while we were doing an eir as ray mentioned we wanted to evaluate a robust build out

1:19:17that was more reflective of our form-based code and our local desires for economic vitality so we do target a little higher than the regional model shows okay what what does the higher intensity around bart aim to accomplish and what are the benefits of people living near transit

1:19:36i think there's probably uh many people could add to this but very uh succinctly um overall fewer vehicle miles traveled we definitely see that we have a very high commute ship people in el cerrito use bart to i think the highest in the bay area the number of people in the number the

1:19:53proportion of our population that uses bart is very high to get to work many of them of course have to drive due to our topography um but by adding housing at the bart stations those people won't have to so increasing parking facility we can both increase ridership at bart without

1:20:07actually increasing vehicle miles traveled and the need for additional parking facilities um it also very significantly contributes to more local economic activity and especially pedestrian oriented activity as we've talked about that supports local businesses it

1:20:20reduces as i said demand for more parking in the area for commute for commuters and shopping so by moving commercial residential and transit together you really can imagine how little you would have to drive when you live there and as i said while people will still need to drive for long

1:20:34distance trips they would be able to own fewer vehicles and or avail themselves of programs like car share and finally i think importantly in the reason planned bay area looks at this and priority development areas is it maximizes the investment in existing infrastructure

1:20:50the station is already there our transit our ac transit line is there and putting more people to use those actually creates a great efficiency for those transit systems it makes them more viable okay and the last question i came up with as i was looking through the

1:21:03comments um how does the plan support and provide access for people who drive to bart uh into commercial areas so and so forth so this is um obviously something that's brought up con concern and we've heard this concern that um by bringing in um other modes that that that we're not

1:21:22continuing to accommodate the automobile and in fact um all of our our commercial regulations require that parking is still provided it lessens the minimum so that we can actually create more space available for businesses by looking at those commercial nodes one

1:21:37of the goals is to create kind of a park once type strategy as we all know when you go to a vibrant commercial area or or even a mall you might be able to park from wherever you drove from um and be able to actually go to places so it's really trying to shift the amount of space that we're

1:21:52dedicating to cars and maximize the amount of vehicles while still recognizing that we need those parking strategies so um it as yvette mentioned we still emphasize the importance of on-street parking and really prioritize retention of on-street parking um in our parking demand management as we

1:22:11go forward we would again as the parking studies we've done show the largest impact is is from bart commuters and that increasing of course um the cost of bart um working with bart and the region to look at are there other ways to bring people to the stations that don't involve the single occupancy

1:22:26vehicle so that local parking can be more for local serving businesses and so there's a variety of strategies that i mentioned both in the plan such as requiring continuing to require parking optimizing the space for business for people who do have to drive as well as then doing

1:22:42parking demand management as we go forward one of the cities um we talked at the planning commission we have a one of our grants will be to do as a policy to look at like what do we want to retain and one of the common standards is that you want you don't want to be over under parked so you

1:22:58don't want to have so over parked you don't have so much parking available that you're not even using it um on the other hand you want to have enough turnover that people can stop and get a cup of coffee or pick up a loaf of bread so 80 percent is often thrown that you

1:23:09want used as a number that you want about 80 percent of your parking space is utilized and if you have more than that utilize that you need to figure out some strategies maybe eventually move towards parking structures um if you have less than that utilized then you

1:23:22have too much parking thank you so that concludes what i had rebecca yeah i just have a couple more and that's a good follow-up to i have a good follow-up to what you were just talking about so do we have evidence we've talked a lot about analysis and data-driven analysis do we have evidence

1:23:37that indicates that the reduced parking minimums that we're proposing in this plan are sufficient for the number of expected cars in the new development types that are envisioned in the plan um i think the answer and mccoy might be able to jump in so we do have evidence

1:23:53there's studies in other tods around the bay area that show that they're over parked and that parking is being underutilized one of the strategies that mccool mentioned that we'll be requiring this plan is that parking is unbundled so people who um have two cars or want the parking space

1:24:08will pay for that and those that don't there's evidence that there's in if you talk to realtors there's evidence that right near transit stations there's a demand a demand including by people who don't own vehicles and as we've all heard millennials are less likely to to own

1:24:23vehicles um lastly we don't require it to be that low so in aiming to be market driven and feasible while we lower the minimums and for tier two established maximums if a developer feels that they need more they're able to request that and go through the tier four process in that

1:24:40process and this is a strategy supported by you know parking experts if they were to need more and their development could actually accommodate it remember parking costs a lot we could start to ask for other more enhanced tdm measures for example so for if a commercial business wanted a lot

1:24:57more we might say are you going to buy transit passes for your employees um or those types of things in a residential development as well thank you that's good i only have three more questions so my other council members can get ready um can someone from city staff provide a brief update

1:25:12on how the city is participating in the multi-jurisdictional efforts around improvements to central avenue and getting from getting um from wherever you are in central avenue onto the freeway yes um for several years since around at least 2006 the city of el cerrito city

1:25:29of richmond and the contract cost of transportation advisory um contra costa transportation authority have been working together to evaluate options for improving or reducing the congestion at the i-80 central avenue interchange and there was a visibility study that was

1:25:44done in 2006 that looked at over 20 alternatives on how to reduce the congestion along central and most of the alternatives were found to the cost to be much higher than the benefit in terms of environmental impacts right-of-way acquisition and so as part of the

1:26:02feasibility analysis two projects were identified one that was called the operational improvements project that is currently under design and that was approved by both caltrans and the city of richmond and what that will do is it addressed the worst congestion on central which is during

1:26:18the weekend peak period around 11 to 3.

1:26:22and what the project will do is prohibit left turns onto westbound i-80 and direct traffic to use the 580 on-ramps and those two the ramps at 580 will have traffic signal traffic signals installed as well so that will address part of the congestion along central

1:26:42but the bigger improvement would be from the second project or phase two which is called the roadway realignment project and that includes realigning peer street which serves pacific east and um albany um some albany residential realigning piers to come out where san mateo does now

1:27:01which is one block east installing a signal there and removing the signal up pierce what that does is improve the spacing between traffic signals so that you can time them better there's more queuing space traffic can clear out better so as i mentioned the phase one

1:27:20operational project is under design now and should be constructed next year the phase two still has to go through environmental as there is right-of-way acquisition that would be involved so the environmental phase is envisioned to begin next year and we're working with the city of

1:27:37richmond and ccta to identify a lead agency on that thank you and another update i'd like some more information on is i've heard that richmond and albany are considering additional bike facilities on san pablo avenue do we have any update in terms of progress they've made or any decisions

1:27:56that might have been made at this point so the city of albany approved dark san pablo avenue complete streets plan in december of 2013 and they approved a combination of bike lanes and share sharrows along san pablo avenue right up next to our city boundary the proposing

1:28:15bike lanes for about a couple blocks and then transitioning um to a shared bicycle like a green sharer marking along portions of it they're proposing the bike lanes on in areas of san pablo avenue that have lower parking occupancy and then switching to the sheryls where the

1:28:33parking is hot in higher demand so the bike lanes would take over some of the parking and in albany okay and then city of richmond um adopted their richmond bicycle master planet recently as well and they're proposing a shared bicycle facility basically the chero uh north of

1:28:53barrett up um through sao pablo okay thank you and my last set of questions or last question uh is kind of to farron pierce did you say something from farron pierce is here um so i'm looking at page 3 452 in the specific plan and you don't have to look i'm just going to

1:29:09read a tiny portion which says the proposed design we're talking about the auto level of service it says the proposed design has a minimal impact on the level of service and we've just heard so much in all of the various meetings we've all listened to planning commission and other public meetings

1:29:25about how what's going to happen to traffic with these um improvements to bicycle and pedestrian facilities and just reading that statement the proposed design has a minimal impact on the auto level of service i was wondering if ellen maybe you could come up here and

1:29:39just chat with us briefly about the the the analysis that was done on the project on the same page it's also notable i've worked with farron pierce on these sorts of projects and to see a level of service be and see on a highway on a state route like this is actually a

1:29:56pretty good level of service so i wanted to get some of your comments on on the work you did sure yeah so i'm ellen polling with fair and peers we did the traffic analysis and all the transportation planning for the plan and the eir i don't have the page you're talking

1:30:09about in front of me but i know what you're talking about um yeah so the statement about the change in auto level of service having a minimal impact the design having a minimal impact so the we're adding a lot of traffic from new development in this plan um and we are

1:30:28making lane changes primarily up near del norte bart removing the second left turn lane northbound at cutting southbound at hill which would and a couple of other turn lane changes which would make you think gosh we're reducing traffic capacity and adding traffic how can that be better um

1:30:45the fact is that uh compared to what the traffic conditions would be like with all the added traffic without those lane changes it actually comparatively is better because it facilitates traffic including the bus movements in and out of del norte more efficiently because with two-way

1:31:02cutting and the ch and the chain the lane changes at the cutting san pablo avenue intersection we're actually uh making a bigger change which is allowing traffic to enter the the bart station not just buses which can do that now but all traffic to be allowed to enter the

1:31:18uh the bart station at del monte bart on cutting so it's kind of a complex change in circulation patterns up near del norte bart again apples to apples taking that additional traffic without the lane changes and with the lane changes it's an improvement relative to existing conditions it does

1:31:35worsen somewhat and in fact we say in the eir that you reach level of service e which at that intersection at cutting cutting even with the changes but with all the additional traffic growth and that exceeds the current city level service standard but not the proposed

1:31:50new level of service standard of e which the plan proposes and which is also consistent as yvette said with the wic tech new action plan the west contra costa transportation advisory committee right so it is getting worse because there is new traffic but it's better with these lane

1:32:07changes than it would be without the lane changes is what we're trying to say in the rest of the corridor you are we are adding traffic and we did a very comprehensive traffic analysis adding all of the traffic with the new land development in the plan plus five

1:32:19percent for background traffic growth regional traffic growth and we're finding that again since the rest of the corridor we're not taking away lanes we're narrowing lanes we're making space for bike lanes in the central section and other improvements for bicycle and pedestrian

1:32:33and transit but we're not taking away lanes for traffic so the relative effect in the rest of the corridor from that new traffic is less less noticeable than up near del norte where you've already got the worst congestion and um all of the bart related traffic so

1:32:51does that help at all um stay here maybe more later but that that thank you that's a good overview those are all my questions oh yvette has one more comment and then i'm done with my questions i just wanted to add too if you look at that table on table eight of the

1:33:04complete streets plan at existing conditions and project conditions most of the levels of service stay at their their existing levels of service so meaning the delay at those might increase a little bit but still within the level of service standard range thank you

1:33:20jim um yeah so i just wanted to follow up on um i had questions about central avenue and i-80 also did i hear you say that you would not be able to make a left-hand turn on from central to west westbound i-80 only on the weekends for four hours is that did i hear that

1:33:40correct as part of the i-80 central avenue interchange improvement project the concept is to address the worst congestion now as a pilot and caltrans has asked us to do before and after studies to see how well it works and then at some point potentially going back to them and looking at other times

1:33:58of day days of the week because i mean i think most of us who have traveled on central avenue know that that actually isn't just on weekends i mean with a a project that richmond's bringing forward i think this is going to be a major concern and to have it only on the weekends i mean i'm

1:34:14sure the study will prove otherwise hopefully but i think most of us try to avoid driving on central avenue even you know at 11 o'clock on a weekday it's it's pretty difficult correct and we did the cities did propose that initially to caltrans as the owner and operator of those

1:34:33intersections they wanted to just focus on that time period um but the second project this uh phase two would basically address all days of the week and times of day what's the time frame for that well the environmental would begin sometime next year let me move

1:34:50forward from there okay um then i had a question about the the buffered bike lanes versus cheryls so um the buffered bike lanes will exist in um uptown and midtown and the sheroes would be near del norte the buffered right the buffered bike lanes would be in midtown which we're defining as lincoln

1:35:16to pertro can you tell us what a buffered bike lane is the the buffered bike lane as proposed in the plan is a bike lane a separate bike lane uh next to the face of curb with a two to three foot buffer which is like a striped um buffer and um so it separates um bicyclists from moving

1:35:35vehicles and then you would have the the parking lane so you'd have bike lane stripe buffer parking and then the vehicle uh traveling and that's proposed between uh lincoln and petraro south of lincoln known as downtown is the cheryl marking and then north of petraro is a combination of bike lanes

1:35:56and sharrows the the proposal is bike lanes between petrero and wall and then a shared bicycle marking north of wall so if we're anticipating a seven percent modal shift which comes first the the the buffered bike lane to encourage more biking or a sharo where people

1:36:23are a little worried about safety and i understand that the reason for that is because there's there's more constraint there um with the lanes traffic we definitely consider the buffered bike lane to be the priority improvement because it gives us multiple you know benefits uh

1:36:40it both provides for streetscape and economic you know development opportunities given in the improving streetscape improving the streetscape can enhance economic development and also we're not reducing travel lanes there and it's um so we get you know multiple benefits

1:36:57there so our our goal would be to do the buffer bike lanes first which provides the highest level of service for bicyclists as well and then move on to the other bicycle facilities to fill in the gaps between the buffered bike lane and the albany and city of richmond

1:37:13facilities and i said that this was also in communication with our technical advisory committee and especially ac transit and the buffered bike lane provides transit benefits because it actually creates a condition in which the buses and the bicyclists don't have

1:37:26to interact and play leap frog and it adds the bus platform so buses can actually stop in the lane and without having to pull out and pull in and re-emerge into traffic so it by creating a separated bicycle facility so as a vet say said the buffered bike lane would

1:37:41both provide the most significant benefit for bicyclists of all ages and the sharrows were proposed in places where we don't have enough right-of-way with and so they're really a gap closure with us and our adjoining cities and a way to continue the facility while recognizing

1:37:58you can see in the built environment factors that they only improve the condition so much and so over time the goal might be to do bike lanes or to move forward as redevelopment were to occur and the right of way somehow could change or we see new mode shift but in the short term

1:38:11the buffered bike lane really came out of looking as council member benesini said looking at level service in midtown there was b and c there was the space to do the lane with reduction um and add that facility without really taking away from anybody whereas the

1:38:27buffer the sharrows um along the whole corridor i'm not sure would be so satisfying so they're really a gap closure and would come after the buffered bike laner in parallel with it and then i just had a one last question about um tier one and and probably more tier one than some of the other projects

1:38:44but could you just um i think there was a statement made about the change in notice who gets noticed on on tier one and and the others for that matter so um what i wanted to know is it's very important when we have development that we have input from residents affected residents so how

1:39:06how many feet away it'll be posted assumedly on our excellent website um and how many days how much how much notice is there because i think there was a little discrepancy in our um in our plan that we were given and if you just talk to that a little bit margaret

1:39:26cavanaugh lynch your development services manager on your one of your attachments in your packet referred to errata one of the items that the planning commission changed as part of their recommendation for adoption was to increase the number of days of notice from 15 to 21 days and that's for all

1:39:44public discretionary decisions so tier one through tier four we will be posting the sites that's something we do not do now and we would be not only noticing every property owner we would be noticing every property we're trying to with that step notice the renters in the area in

1:40:01addition to the landowners unfortunately a really up-to-date rental address is not always possible but we will be uh noticing to the site address in an attempt to reach to the folks who are renting madonna thank you that's all yeah okay um greg good evening um staff i want to thank

1:40:19you very much uh as you know i've put more than 100 questions to you in the last two days and i appreciate that you've answered most of them um and most of them for the viewers at home and residents in the audience were minor clarifications so the the answers will

1:40:35not be discussed tonight because they were clarifications that helped me understand the document better however i do have a number of questions and i will be going through them hopefully in some method methodology um the the one that i would like to to start with is under um let's see

1:41:00is a distribution of the notice of preparation so it's under it's in our exhibit one um which is exhibit one is is our resolution of the city council certifying the final eir and in there the exhibit a is the um the findings if i remember correctly findings required

1:41:20and on page four of that document uh there's a discussion of how the notice of preparation was distributed so i was wondering if you could read that into the or at least summarize that into the record page four and exhibit a of attachment one announcement one you said it document a

1:41:37sorry no it's attachment one exhibit a attachment one page four exhibit okay you said something different initially i'm sorry sorry okay okay and then where within that uh there's a summary about the notice of preparation starts with on april 14th april 4th april 4.

1:41:56reading from that document on april 4 2014 the city circulated in notice of preparation or nop for 30 days to help identify the type of impacts that could result from the specific plan as well as potential areas of controversy the nop was mailed to public agencies including

1:42:12the state clearinghouse organizations and individuals likely to be interested in a specific plan its and its potential impacts including those who requested to receive notices in the plan in addition the nop was posted to the city's website a public scoping meeting

1:42:26was held on april 10 2014 comments received by the city on the nop and at the public scoping meeting were considered during the preparation of the draft dir so the two would you would consider that adequate uh public notification for the purposes of this document that's correct

1:42:43excellent i'm skipping further into the document page 20 of the same exhibit it's under cultural resources cultural and historic resources mitigation 7.2 and this question will also apply to mitigation 7.7-3 we use a threshold of 10 000 square feet and as you answered earlier that

1:43:05is considered conservative it's not as conservative as the place where i work where it's zero um however i was wondering if there was uh some advice for how we might uh reduce that i think you gave me that the minimum lot size was 3 800 square feet is that correct

1:43:23there's actually lots in the plan area currently are approximately 2 800 square feet there's some very small lots um so i was just curious if that if there was some if maybe the ir consultant can speak to this if there is some basis for 10 000 or a smaller number

1:43:42it's the city council's choice to choose a smaller number that's not a requirement from any state law in many cases that mitigation is applied to construction workers finding something by accident on the site so at this your mitigation is more strict by applying what's called a chris

1:44:08survey for historical and archaeological resources if you would like to make that number smaller or include all properties that's perfectly your decision it's a report that's uh ordered from sonoma state university who is the holder of those records great thank you

1:44:28probably 800 or so great thank you we'll be hopefully discussing that later this evening jumping to attachment two the resolution itself this is where i have highlighted it but the discussion is germane just many places this this is the first place at least i noticed that we used the acreage of

1:44:49the plant area in el cerrito and it's 174 not 174.1 not 206.

1:44:59not an earlier number that i pointed out potentially was not accurate so i just wanted to confirm that it's 174.

1:45:08that is correct okay great um and that answers this question as well jumping to attachment to exhibit a and i'm now actually looking at the one that was handed out at the dice but if you want to look at the one that was not handed out the diocese the question is in the same

1:45:32general place and these don't have page numbers so i'm looking at um goal t3 and this would be i guess strategy t3.1 and the second paragraph it says or somewhere in here for signalized intersections and and council member benecini just brought this up for signal

1:45:54signalized intersections maintain losd or better based on vehicle delay except for san pablo avenue specific plan area maintain los e and my question this is the example of the type of question that was potentially addressed uh by by a lot of my other questions

1:46:17should we not be inserting or better similar to we did before don't we want level e or better if if we can get level e or better i i believe that would be fine okay so that's sort of indicative for those that are in the audience that's indicative of the type of questions that

1:46:34i was asking um that staff was able to answer prior to us getting here so that we wouldn't have to ask these types of questions so moving on to the specific plan itself i believe this is a question it is and and this begins to touch on uh height um so i'm looking at the specific plan

1:47:00uh specifically page zero two do you need help maybe i get it from somebody else okay uh 02.04 dash 44 and and i'm looking specifically at form based code figure 6 which is um six no sorry seven um which is a cross section of of a new proposed uh height and my question is

1:47:36it speaks to some of the conversations we had with the 1517 elm developer who wanted to have a mansard roof to hide some of the materials on the roof and as i looked through this document when i this realization came to me i noticed that every single flat every single roof

1:47:55that's shown in here is flat and there is no accommodation for a dimension or a target dimension or a maximum dense dimension that would provide us to to get the type of vertical articulation that we're looking for that was actually recommended in an aecom 2012 report

1:48:22so just across the page form base code figure 0 8 if you look at this it actually has vertical articulation albeit flat roof but it looks like there's one to two foot you know vertical ups and downs in in the some of these protrusions that are being shown here both in in the plane towards the street

1:48:45as well as the plane towards the sky so i'm just curious how do we in the form based code how do we get to [Music] something that provides us with the types of sloping roofs and there are photographs in here the of of uh of projects that have sloping roofs but basically i'm not i'm trying to figure

1:49:06out how the farm-based code gets us to getting something that is potentially more pleasing and more accommodating to the neighboring there's two sections of the form-based code that may be helpful for uh guiding the council on that discussion the first item is in

1:49:25is on page 02.02 which is the waiver section this came out of a discussion actually in the developer charet that when they're trying to put a tall ground floor in sometimes they would hit the maximum height of the building so um we found that they it would and it would

1:49:44take a variance in other cities to address that so there is um specifically a section on um height itself that allows and it allows it at a tier two or even an administrative discussion um but we can go up uh uh let's see oh i see it it's on not exceeding five feet above the maximum

1:50:03permitted height so there's a five foot waiver available for such things as architectural considerations of a roof or to make the ground floor larger or higher the second place to look to is actually the very end of the code on page a7 which is in the glossary and the definition of height is um

1:50:24more than one would expect to find under the definition of height and if it sorry the end of the code of the entire specific plan um the glossary and definitions is in on page a7 in this case a7 okay and it's uh letter d height um and if it's short enough to read quickly i hope um

1:50:45a limit to the vertical extent of a building that is measured in a number of stories where maximum height is measured in feet the measurement is taken to the eave of a sloped roof or the base of a parapet wall height limits do not apply to mass bell freeze clock towers chimney

1:50:59flues water tanks etc similar features that do not occupy greater than 10 of the roof which may be approved um at any height by the director so that allows for parapets that allows for the elevator tower that always goes the story taller and lots of other challenges that we have when we

1:51:16have a multi-family structure so um so that continuing in the discussion of height as you know i asked you know what's the basis of for the heights that we have selected um you know currently and i'm reading now from the agenda the agenda bill itself page nine um the staff's response to

1:51:39building height comments is that height limits will increase from 35 feet to as high as 65 feet in the downtown and uptown areas and 55 feet in the midtown areas the the based on and going back to the form based code figure 7 on as previously cited where the clear span between floors uh

1:52:03the clear span on the bottom floor is is supposed to be 14 feet and the clear h dimension h is nine feet it it i guess it's envisioned that the bottom floor would be 15 foot given a plenary space or some sort of utility space and that each floor above that would be 10 feet given the same type of

1:52:23utilitarian space so that a building height of 45 feet 55 feet 65 feet would be four stories five stories six stories is that is that the concept that is the concept so going back to my question that that i asked earlier today what's the basis for picking those

1:52:42heights i have the aecom report so i can i can lend this to you if you need to need it to reference it i appreciate that those heights are based on a number of pieces of information that the staff has collected over time i think the one i can touch on immediately is when we look at what can

1:53:09under economic feasibility of construction in el cerrito we have been told that what we could um expect in the near term is the concrete over uh wood construction method that you see i'm sorry so the first story would be a concrete podium and then there would be

1:53:25four or five stories of wood over that alone gardens right now is mid constructed and you can see the concrete podium and the wood floors above there's a certain point in which you cannot go high higher than and that's the 65 feet above that is actually a different type of construction known as

1:53:41steel construction and that turns into more of a high rise which is a very expensive level of construction and we're not expecting that to be feasible in the city in the near term and and that is exactly what the aecom report was which was presented to the council i believe into in november

1:53:58of 2000 december of 2012 and the presentation was on our website um that that indeed there's code regulations for the 65-foot height in here it actually recommends and and i guess you found where it follows through on this recommendation that we consider a 68 to 70 foot height

1:54:18for instead of 65 to allow for that type of roofline articulation and your citations of the in the specific plan for those out those types of waivers does accomplish the aecom recommendation it this document does clearly state that 45 feet um is really not economical at this point and

1:54:45so presumably if 45 feet is not economical 35 feet's not economical um so i'm sorry starting to opine i'll save my opinions for later um and let's see i think i finished my specific code questions did i yes okay so moving to the drafty ir and this was actually asked before

1:55:16and it's it's the and this is i'm going to go this speaks to the range of alternatives um and so i want to touch on this um why more than a bag why somebody else the council member benesini asked this or actually um mayor abelson asked what's the relationship to a bag numbers

1:55:36and and this is in i'm trying to illuminate that actually doing a project that has larger impacts gives us more flexibility as decision makers so why more than why more than the a-bag numbers so a combination of factors and others maybe our environmental consultant will

1:55:54work with us as well so like you said we took with the eir a big tent approach and ray from mig can talk about this more but we wanted to evaluate we wanted to look at our corridor and look about from from the city's goals what would be a desirable level of development and

1:56:09then we wanted because we were investing in this programmatic eir to be to evaluate kind of a it's not maximum meaning it's not billed out of the court or there's still more capacity in the court or after you would do 1706 units but it's a it seems like it's a reasonable

1:56:27target for the length of this plan which would be through 2040.

1:56:32and by evaluating that big tent identifying the mitigations on a project-by-project basis we're actually requiring that even near-term development really play into an environment where there was full build out so a lot of it has to do with this taking a more comprehensive big tent approach to

1:56:50the environmental analysis as well as we felt that based on all the city council's goals around economic development around um vehicle miles traveled et cetera that that number was a more appropriate number for us remember abac doesn't look at your local codes it doesn't look at your local

1:57:09properties it doesn't know whether you're fully built out you know like rock ridge or whether you have a bunch of empty surface parking lots like el cerrito so it was taking it was applying our form-based code which is trying to look at what would make this corridor

1:57:21feel feel more vibrant and be more vibrant how much development could we anticipate so it was a more locally derived number i just want to verify something that melanie explained there and the alternatives chapter of the eir this is the spot where the city decision

1:57:41makers get to try to balance the project objectives versus the impacts so where the rest of the eir is analysis of impacts as identified under sequa the alternatives blends in your project objectives where you get to decide does this alternative with more impacts

1:58:09better accomplish our project exact uh project objectives that's the balancing act for your decision makers in that chapter the only place in me i are that combines something that's not environmental with your decision within the eir right thank you as long as we're on that

1:58:30discussion in alternative three how do we mandate mode shift if somebody could uh speak to that concept of of alternative three well that that's one of the that's one of the explanations under alternative three why the city did not consider that feasible because you can't

1:58:54control human behavior in that way what would happen as a hypothetical you you simply wouldn't give a building permit to a particular project if it would trigger uh an extra impact at an intersection i mean that's that's a basic idea you would say nope you'll trigger an impact

1:59:16we're not going to give you a building a permit for your traffic impact or and that's the problem with that feasibility there but that's how you would do it great thank you last question i think is the last question last question on the draft dir page 3-14 uh this is a discussion of planned

1:59:38projects and entitled projects in the region and if i add these up correctly which i sometimes do there's 435 planned and that doesn't include the potential at the orchard supply hardware property and there's six sorry 185 entitled at rcd and creekside this is a total of 620 can somebody

2:00:04speak to how this 620 addresses the in this case it would be the entire number the 1706 for the planned area because richmond i guess the 5260 is mostly in richmond those those are included in the program eir but this program eir as a program does not would not

2:00:30uh approve any of those individual projects they need their own sequa but this number is subtracted from your net development allowed in the project area and those numbers were especially needed in the traffic chapter so page 16-29 it shows subtracting those numbers

2:00:53just to describe that the build out isn't 1706 for example it's 1706 minus the projects that are listed on that page if i could add to that none of those are built and so there's two categories within there and so doing an environmental analysis mig actually had to forecast

2:01:12uh the traffic impacts of those projects because if they were to do an existing count those aren't being represented so we included both entitled projects which already do have their environmental approvals such as ohlone gardens and creekside as well as just projects that we

2:01:28have heard are on the horizon anywhere from our mayfair project the mayfair project to the central project to some others so we wanted to calculate and recognize that those we had heard about those that those are in the planning phases and as ray said this doesn't convey environmental approval to

2:01:45them they would have to go through a checklist but we um so that i think it's 720 when i do the math but between planned and entitled projects that are not yet built or are being built uh that 720 is included in the 1706 so and and the plan i mean this is this is

2:02:02the this is a program so programs are not recognizing and they are attempting to project project what's going on in the real world but at the same time their their plan it's a plan if i look at those numbers whether it's 620 or 720 and subtract those from 1706 we're looking at a thousand or 1100

2:02:23units left to go to meet the the plans uh analyzed number of 1706. that's on a straight line and that's where the program comes in on a straight line i'd be adding 40 45 units a year is that's the more or less the way the plan was analyzed was a sort of a steady

2:02:45addition of uh housing no as under sequel the entire plan has to be analyzed as one 40-year project it's not split into phases this this allows not only does it allow the opportunity as long as the total comes under the cap of number of units the city can approve

2:03:08these projects by comparing them against the program eir but so the project that that brings in 1707 you're done you need a new eir next time uh that that's the way it where under sql one specific plan or one program needs to be evaluated as one large project over time so that

2:03:32you don't chop up into little projects and look the make the impacts look smaller thank you yep um and then i'm gonna now go into the final environmental impact report um mr panos had some comments on the specific plan and i'm not exactly sure how this comment would get

2:03:57incorporated so it's letter 11 and he had 11 pages on the on the specific plan which were not addressed by the sql consultant because it's not com comment on the actual eir it's a list of properties that may have historic cultural and archaeological significance uh is

2:04:13was that ever is that contemplated to be added to the specific plan so staff has a list um which would likely include all of these addresses and a few more that we have been gleaning from actually the our various sources there's the state regs there's the record there's a

2:04:35um what i'm hoping for the national list right now and then there's a number of them that have identified on the el cerrito historical society's website so any one of those or um for that matter any project that is proposed you know any address that's currently in the plan area that

2:04:52is proposed for development we would look at our existing lists which would not be recorded in the plan document itself but would be a staff holding a list that we can change as we get information at the dynamic list but in addition to any list that we would have we would always check if

2:05:09there's a building on a site what how old it was and do some inquiries just make sure that it we understand its historical status before the project moves forward great thank you um in response to this is the actual letter no this is the actual letter um in letter

2:05:3113 and the author of this letter was marilyn sterling the what is marked up as the 11th comment has to do with housing and the fact is that we are doing a market driven project at least that's the way it was analyzed or proposed how will the city meet our projected

2:05:54housing for very low support of transitional emergency housing to this process we are also working on our new draft housing element um so this discussion is very much part of staff discussions on a weekly basis at this moment the what the city can do in the world of

2:06:16post redevelopment is make these opportunity sites available our zoning will allow for us to show areas within our city that will meet our allocations that have been assigned to us by by the association of bay area governments what the city cannot do is build them

2:06:37so um we uh we do what we can with properties that we have um we oloney gardens and eden which are are currently entitled or under construction are properties that were owned by the former redevelopment agency as the council knows and we leveraged our value in the land to make those

2:06:55projects actually pencil but what we are doing in the housing element is showing that we could accommodate all the requirements before us and then we will work to identify developers that will help us to meet those needs all right thank you um and then uh [Music]

2:07:17another one that is representative of the type of editorial comments that are out there um in the draft eir page 20 dash sorry in the final eir the revisions to the draft eir page 20-2 so it's near the very back of the final eir um in in chapter 20 is the alternative section

2:07:42and in the chapter 20 you restate the goals of the of the project and goal e is to catalyze mode shift and um there was a strategy that was inserted in the feir uh errata number one corrected this mistake in in uh in project description page 3-7 but errata number one

2:08:08neither rad number one nor errata two have modified the strategy the the strategy of goal e so i just wanted to find out if if it was intended to be corrected at some point ray's giving me a quizzical look just just that the the sequence was page 20-2 and the final

2:08:32eir errata came first correct and then the errata with the other two strategies came next correct so it wasn't for ever for page 3-7 yes so it wasn't bound into the final eir when that was released but i've not seen an errata for page 220-2 yet it should be in there there

2:08:55should be an errata page to match identically the strategies listed i haven't seen that yet so we'll we can correct that in one of the two erratas or a new errata we can correct that so i in my exhaustive search sir i've not found it so hopefully we can get that

2:09:10corrected correct and it's the same list of both times exactly i'm assuming it was great thank you that concludes my questions okay um before we move on to hearing from the public are there any last questions from the council okay so now what we're going to be doing

2:09:27is moving on to the public hearing and so in to expedite things if we could perhaps call people up three at a time yes would that be a good idea okay so first of all i'm going to open the public hearing and now we're ready to take public testimony on this subject

2:09:52yes we have a almost 50 about 50 speakers and the first five are bill jones thomas miller eric pressler dave campbell and catherine sessa okay and there's two minutes per speaker mayor may i before mayor jones begins um i recognized many of those names from the correspondents that we've received

2:10:23um we've received almost 130 pieces of correspondence you don't you don't necessarily want to say that because not all of it's in your opinion so if you were repeating what you put in your correspondence please don't and if you're repeating what somebody else has said please don't

2:10:42uh 50 speakers is a lot of speakers if you could summarize your comments as quickly as possible i'd appreciate it mr jones we didn't get anything from you no i want i thought maybe you'd like to hear my words of wisdom in person anyway mayor abelson and the members of city council thank you

2:11:04it's good to see that after several years of this study public and professional input and analysis the time for final determination has arrived and it's good and the thrust of my comments today is that you actually do make a decision so that the community can go

2:11:26forward whatever that decision is this is actually in my opinion the second phase of a two-part program the first one was the improvement of san pablo avenue and the public the public lands associated with that and this specific plan and i know when this first started two of the major

2:11:49reasons for it was to develop a common vision and associated building codes for both the city of richmond and the city of el cerrito on the sides of san pablo avenue in el cerrito i think the second part was to provide a progressive direction for development of improvement

2:12:13in the economic opportunities increase housing and improve quality of community and it's been a long time and what i've been impressed with the most is that it seems that a lot of the comments that have come in have been incorporated and considered in this plan which i think is important

2:12:34i think the most important part of this whole document though is that it is a living document and that the public input review will be will continue almost by project by project and the evaluation of the features of the project is required and so i i do think that that is

2:12:59important tonight i suggest that the city council adjust the plan as you feel necessary and make a final decision to approve the plan there has been more than enough time for thoughtful and reasonable input and analysis it's time now to move forward for a decision in order for the

2:13:21community to to go forward thank you very much thank you next speaker thomas miller followed by eric pressler and dave campbell my name is thomas miller i live at [address removed] and el cerrito as you uh consider this plan i hope that you will really take into account the fact that el cerrito is in

2:13:51the united states of america and in the united states of america most of the people the vast majority drive cars and it's a blessing it's part of our quality of life and we don't fortunately have to rely on donkeys or uh camels or carabaos we drive cars and it impinges the quality of life

2:14:25all all of us i have a in my family an experience recently that is very relevant to this situation my daughter who is a widow bought a very nice condo in san francisco near the ballpark beautiful unit but none of those units have more than one parking place my daughter's neighbors

2:14:56mostly had two cars so one car's in the garage and the others on the street the consequence was that we have rarely been able to have any family affairs in that unit because my wife and i are both in our 90s and public transit is not very much of an option for us

2:15:20it's very very difficult to get to it it is my opinion that no residential unit in san francisco should be approved unless it has two side by side parking places the effect of not having these two places is that you get wind up oh i'm in over speaking i'm very very sorry i thank you

2:15:54for the time that you have given me thank you for your comment eric pressler followed by dave campbell and catherine cesar hello there i'll try to keep to uh the two minutes or or so um i'm speaking against plan particularly i have concerns about the south part of the plan which

2:16:17i don't know if any else anyone else is going to parcel it out that way but uh the two council people on this side both talked about central avenue and we own property just off of central avenue in el cerrito and it seems like a fairly simple thing high density

2:16:37is going to eat equal high congestion higher density is going to equal higher congestion and on central avenue you have a lot of traffic i have pictures in my phone i don't didn't print them out but i'd be happy to send them to you showing central backed up within the last week

2:16:52all the way from the freeway to carlson i went back another day was backed up to santa clara one day i was backed up to belmont but any way you cut it it's a traffic mess people are going to costco people are going to ranch 99 people are going to the freeway to get to their jobs

2:17:10this is not something where we need additional congestion right there until that's fixed somehow so i would suggest holding back on the plan until central is fixed i mean people are not going to go to central on their bike they're they're not going to ride between the

2:17:27cars they're not going to go to costco and bring their big thing a paper on the back of their bike they're not going to go to their job in san francisco or oakland or the other places they said the jobs are on their bike i lived in el cerrito a long time i took bart which is great but

2:17:45sometimes you have to go in a car second item the view blockage issue el cerrito is an area of of many views we lived on elm street and el cerrito and even though the elevation was 65 feet i went and checked uh we could see san francisco from our front porch just sort of the way you

2:18:06look through the trees and the whatever if there was an 85 foot building on san pablo not only would we not see where i'm out of time okay not only would we not see it but uh the view won't look like anything like that last thing i object to the form forced codes you can wrap up please

2:18:26fourth thing is public notification has not occurred i can give details if you have if you're interested thank you thank you next year dave campbell followed by catherine cessa sean klein and tad smith my name is dave campbell i'm advocacy director with bike east bay when this

2:18:44process started we were the east bay bicycle coalition and we support the san pablo avenue complete streets plan because it's going to be transforming the street into a great street for people people walking people bicycling people taking transit and it's going to be a great thing for the

2:19:02city of el cerrito we also support it because we know it can work and we're as a bicycle coalition we don't support projects that cause congestion we don't want to see traffic back up we don't want to see a long lines of cars we don't promote projects that do that

2:19:16we try to promote projects that work for all users of the the roadway and the reason i would submit to the council in addition to the reasons staff have submitted that this project is going to work is the the real crunch is during the commute hour if we can make it work

2:19:33during the commute hour we know it's going to work midday we know it's going to work weekends holidays it's just that commute hour and what el cerrito does and i think you all know this and el cerrito doesn't only do it they're getting better at it is is during the commute hour you have the

2:19:49highest number of people who use transit in the county you have the highest number of people walking and biking in the county you should be darn proud of that you are the leader for contra costa county in active transportation which means during the commute hour this city

2:20:04gets how to uh have options to driving and the really nice thing about this project is you're putting in new housing that's even closer to that transit the the new residents are going to be walking biking and taking transit in even higher numbers than the current

2:20:21residents are already setting the example for in the county and so i think that should help you see us to a better future here in el cerrito that during the crunch hour during the commute hour this street is going to work and it's going to thrive and it's going to thrive

2:20:36even more all day long because it's going to bring people to san pablo avenue people walking people bicycling people taking transit and we know when that happens streets thrive local businesses thrive thank you thank you katherine sessa followed by sean klein and tad smith

2:20:58i'm catherine sessa i have lived in the el cerrito for nearly 30 years uh i did submit a letter but uh you're going to hear me anyway uh i walk a lot i walk to grocery stores post office bart plaza and i still am not convinced that anything that you're doing to increase

2:21:21the density is going to improve my life in fact i still think and i'm convinced that it will increase traffic and congestion and make it more difficult to drive and to walk safely in the city part of the reason there isn't so much congestion during the commute hours is i refuse to drive

2:21:41then because it's so congested i do believe that more people will park on residential streets because there'll still be problems parking on san pablo avenue i also have concerns about the height of buildings over three stories that would block our views even though i live on the flatlands i do

2:22:03enjoy seeing a partial view of the golden gate bridge and the sun sets over mount tam rather than an ugly six-story building i believe that dense apartment dwellers will increase our city services and i'm not sure that we will have the ability to provide those services as

2:22:25you think we will i'm sorry quality of life is more important than making money and i think that the ones who benefit from this project are the developers bart apartment dwellers and certainly not the presidents of el cerrito i would vote no on this plan i'm crying

2:22:50um not clap or say something negative please it would help us with the process thank you sean klein followed by tad smith and david mccord who's the next person coming up he's coming okay sean klein is next correct what did you get he's not he's after sean okay where is sean

2:23:24well move him to the end okay uh tad smith follow david mccord and kevin marcarian good evening my name is dad smith and my wife lucy and i have owned a home in [address removed] and el cerrito for 13 years our street is two blocks east of san pablo avenue i learned about the san pablo avenue

2:23:49civic plan and its issues from a flyer created by the richard richmond annex neighborhood council that was left on my neighbor's doorstep i wanted to learn more about this plan so i attended a recent planning commission meeting and though i only stayed until 11 48 pm

2:24:04i learned enough to have some concerns which i partially list now before is height limit the proposed height limit change from one to three stories to five to eight stories would allow buildings on sao paulo avenue that would be completely changed the character of the street my understanding

2:24:20that thomas tallest buildings would be restricted to certain lots however it has been my experience in dealing with other planning commissions that accommodations can be and are made setting a higher limit makes even going even higher much less a stretch for planning commission facing

2:24:39shrewd developer pressure one of the charms at elstrio is at the village with easy access to the city tall buildings belong in the city not in a village notice in communication i am concerned that proper notice is provided to the elsewhere community regarding development under this plan

2:25:06at the planning commission meeting there was discussion that noticed development would be given to property owners within 300 feet of the votes development is this enough san pablo is different from residential street because it serves as a common area for many residents who use it daily

2:25:22anywhere within two blocks of san pablo avenue already experiences parking impacts and thus everyone within a two block radius of any planned development should be given notice in addition posting a very large notice in front of the property as they do in berkeley

2:25:37should be required so citizens do not get who do not get direct notice can stay informed i vote no on this plan thank you for your consideration thank you next david mccord followed by kevin marcarian and elizabeth burge i'm in david mccord i'm at [address removed]

2:26:02department one here in el cebito i'm speaking for the many members of the sierra club in el cevedo as well as for myself and we strongly support the plan one thing it'll uh it invites encourages the good businesses that more new businesses to move in as well as business students to expand

2:26:37people won't need to go out of town to buy what they what they need it'll make the walking or bicycling at to the to the businesses more pleasant and it will bring more people close to these businesses to to take advantage of them it makes transit easier for people to

2:27:16to use and so overall it improves the city's their finances and it improves our lowering of greenhouse gases thank you thank you kevin marcarian followed by elizabeth burch and robert garrett uh hello i'm kevin mercarian i live at [address removed] excuse me a second uh the

2:27:47uh light isn't there we go huh what's up excuse me oh uh i live at [address removed] in el cerrito i've lived here for two years my wife and i moved here two years ago and since then housing prices have gone up 30 percent um we would probably be priced out by now um

2:28:06also since then as you know the u.n meeting on climate change is happening right now we're talking about a 4 4 degree increase in global temperatures over the next 20 to 40 years and that's a big problem and also speaking as an architect with almost 20 years experience i can say

2:28:27that this would certainly bring jobs and make it more affordable my neighborhood group one of my responses to the forum was that universally saying note all future development is very cynical and short-sighted much of san pablo avenue is bleak and not just because there's traffic but

2:28:46because there's a lot of places that are vacant and underutilized we deserve so much better in our community in terms of making a livable place with shopping places to work and live nimbyism is fine as long as it leads to productive dialogue but when it stagnates our local economy

2:29:06a negative view stagnates our local economy it contributes to global warming because we need to get out of our cars i bike to work we're a one car family and it ignores the need for future housing i'd like to encourage those who oppose development to get more involved and

2:29:23demanding better quality developments and also you know helping to address some of the traffic concerns that are i think one of the biggest concerns of all these changes thank you thank you elizabeth burge followed by bob garrett nicholas colau collaro and diane stark

2:29:45i'm elizabeth burge i live on lexington avenue and i strongly opposed to this plan thank you thank you rob garrett or everett i'm not sure no is he next yes okay i'm rob everett and i have poor handwriting i apologize okay um i'm a resident i live on um ashbury ave

2:30:16and i just wanted to thank the amount of public input that has gone into this and the extent to which you guys have obviously been looking at it i do ride my bike my daughter rides her bike san pablo is brutal it's not villagey it's car driven i too have concerns over the height in

2:30:38certain areas i find it interesting that in a lot of these photos we're seeing the theater district which is all one or two stories as kind of what we're wanting to look at while we're also talking about six story high so i just want to make sure and i realize that's in specific areas

2:30:56but just making sure that as we continue to move on that we do continue to have public um opinions and thoughts being brought in so that way we are maintaining that feel of trying to make sure that it's walkable that it's enjoyable and it doesn't turn into if you guys have been

2:31:15on the film more or it's just all solid there's no livable and it's all high density there's definitely different ways to be doing it so thank you for moving forward development has to happen so let's be conscientious as we're doing it as it seems like you are thank you thank you

2:31:33nicholas galoro diane stark and al miller hello my name is nick galoro i'm an el cerrito resident living on lexington lexington avenue only two blocks from both san pablo and central avenue i taught college economics and computer information systems for 30 years

2:31:53and i haven't owned a car since 1985 and get around by walking biking and transit in some ways i may have been ahead of my time and i believe that in some ways this plan is behind the times the main emphasis for greater housing density comes from its profession the perception

2:32:12that growth is good build more build higher and build more densely we should know better we who have lived through the housing boom that began after world war ii that resulted in building of high-rise apartment buildings and low-income projects know that this does

2:32:27not create sustainable communities it hasn't in the past and it won't in the future high density high-rise market-rate housing is not designed for families and is virtually childless there if you go into any of these high-density buildings you will discover there are virtually no

2:32:44children the new housing updates stories high knots five or six because of the density bonus gives you the ability to build higher than five or six stories may either be built or bought by large corporations instead of homeowners and small landlords in el cerrito economic

2:33:00segregation will grow between single-family homeowners who are outside the zone of the development and renters between people living in single-family homes above the bar tracks and those living in rental housing below the bar tracks why is it that the zone comes down two blocks from bart but only

2:33:20doesn't go up two or three blocks from bart it seems to me incredible that you wouldn't have included housing close areas close to the bar tracks that are up above the bar tracks we see the effects of increased housing density in san francisco where renters make up two-thirds of the households

2:33:39children's and teens under 18 make up less and less of the population and rents and home prices rise as building helps rise step up please okay is that we want here i vote no on this plan as well diane stark good evening mayor abelson and city council members i'm diane stark i live on [address removed]

2:34:03avenue it's two blocks from san pablo and a couple of blocks from central it's in your downtown neighborhood i've been a transportation plant in urban planner in the east bay for over 20 years and despite all my knowledge about planning and i've done plans like this

2:34:19before i appreciate all your work i know it takes a lot of effort to do i believe that this density is too high for this neighborhood that the change is too high the the height limit it's not that we shouldn't have development and improvement have complete streets but the height is too

2:34:33much for this neighborhood the traffic congestion is terrible not only on central but also on san pablo it's backed up all the way down to albany on the weekends i haven't owned a car in over a year i walk along these streets i would not bike on them i don't feel like it's safe to bike on either of

2:34:50those streets we do have spillover parking in my neighborhood from areas on san pablo like where the theater is it backs up into a block or two over um so i'm concerned about parking and i know that always you know you have talented people looking at this but i do believe that there will be

2:35:08spillover parking from the el cerrito bar and the new commercial development um into the neighborhood and then of course there's always air in noise quality issues we have school children a lot of schools nearby senior citizens that are called sensitive receptors by

2:35:23the air quality district um the noise from traffic their safety from all the uh the people that do walk in the neighborhood and all the schools and school children we have a home for people who are blind that we're all in this neighborhood there's more traffic cutting through which there will be

2:35:39even if you had one or less cars per house there's going to be more traffic i'm concerned about safety for our local residents and then new people there too public services i was trained to do um community emergency response training for elsa's fire department they said that they

2:35:56don't have enough fire stations and fire staff for when there's an emergency like an earthquake and i'm concerned about it okay so anyway um it's mainly i'm concerned about the environment health and safety of our neighborhood um and i urge you to deny the current the

2:36:16height limits that you're proposing right now thank you thank you al miller followed by ronnie polonsky linda frank and bill pinkham good evening mayor abelson council members i've been following this plan for a long time even before i knew what the plan was back in

2:36:38mid-2000s when i started i'm impressed by the amount of public input that has been achieved and the response that has included that as each evolution of the plan i think too many of us are looking at this plan as something that's going to decide our future the decision you make

2:37:01tonight is going to decide the future forever rather than as you're giving us the opportunity to have a well thought out well plan that offers a work in progress so that we have can have a visionary future rather than one that's been limited by the lack of development

2:37:24in past years well i have some concerns on a few parts of the plan i strongly support it because i believe that it does establish a future for us a visionary future for the commercial area we're face measure r because we need to increase our revenue if we can't present a viable

2:37:46business community commercial development community to attract developers that will i believe increase the economic power in the community bring more revenues in through sales tax etc so we won't have to pay the taxes ourselves to keep up with this type and the quality

2:38:08of the services that we've come to expect and come to demand so i think that if you're looking into the future we need this the uh attractiveness to developers that this plan the foundation that this plan lays so that we can bring in the type of development that we want

2:38:29in a method that we can control it as each individual project is approved so i support your approval of the plan tonight and the implementation thank you next ronnie polonski well you've also heard from me by letter but since i'm old and getting a little senile i'm not sure what i said in a

2:38:49letter so i'm going to bother you all over again i wanted to know i since i can't look around and find out how many people in this room know what a mode shift is a charrette a density bonus a form based code i'm shocked at how much double speak there is and how little most of us

2:39:08understood anything that was said in here tonight i consider us to be an educated group of people and intelligent and i would doubt that many people in this room understood any parts of this plan except the height limits and i find that upsetting also it was upsetting to me that i've lived here for

2:39:24four years and i found out about this plan accidentally through one of my neighbors i'm not sure what the what the legal um i don't know i don't know what the rules are for announcing public meetings but it was underdone and i and when i started talking to my neighbors nobody on my block knew about

2:39:43the plan um i don't feel that since we're getting since we are getting o bag money and i'm sure nobody here knows what obag is um which is one bay area grant money um it's taken the place of redevelopment funds just because we can get a lot of money from obag doesn't mean we should take as

2:40:03much as we can get in the name of green development and transit use i think height limits should conform to those who are already here if you walk through our neighborhoods they're beautiful below the bar tracks i live on lexington avenue we've got low-rise apartments

2:40:16we've got a mix of single-family homes it's lovely i don't want to see a wall of apartment buildings on san pablo avenue and i'm shocked that the zoning changes like nick said don't affect people above the bar tracks those people are closer some of those blocks are

2:40:30closer to bart than we are below the tracks i say yes to the bike trails i think that's a great idea i say yes to widened sidewalks but where's the shuttle for people so that they can get back and forth shopping where are the parks the community gardens 17 of the population of el cerrito i got

2:40:48it from the census is over 65 and they won't be hopping on bicycles you need to wrap up please okay and there's no financial help for all these small businesses um who are going to have tremendous competition from the plaza and um i like the city the way it is i hope we can maintain its

2:41:05character and not ruin it thank you next linda frank followed by bill pinkham and deirdre heitmann move him to the back linda frank i guess we need to move on linda frank followed by deirdre heightman and susan pressler linda frank was the one who i think who isn't or bill pincum

2:41:37yeah right good evening madam chair and members of city council my name is bill pinkham i'm on the board of directors of the of bike east bay vice chair of the richmond bicycle pedestrian advisory committee and on the county bicycle pedestrian advisory committee

2:42:01i also live in the annex and i believe we have dual citizenship with el cerrito so consequently i i travel elsewhere streets all the time loaning greenway etc the san pablo avenue is a different animal and i've had many close calls on it but the plan calls for protected bikeways and buffered bike

2:42:31lanes hallelujah most many people would not ride san pablo avenue on our bike map it says for experienced riders only but if you have protected lanes a little coverage encourage many more people to use it the ohlone greenway is my freeway i suppose you could say but like cars on

2:42:54the freeway if i want to shop i get off the freeway and i ride down the main street most uh when people go by in cars they don't really see the all the businesses but on a bike you see a lot more you notice a lot more businesses so it's very business friendly you develop a lot more

2:43:13many more customers um it's also the traffic in the bay area accounts for 40 percent of the pollution which is mostly greenhouse gases it's crunch time for the planet we can't afford to pollute it much more many estimates give us 20 30 years at current rates maybe less

2:43:42you may have noticed that may have heard that 310 000 people marched in new york the other yesterday and um we had a solidarity yep sorry we had a rally here in oakland five four thousand people came so let's encourage uh alternative means of transit thank you okay next

2:44:08linda frank oh deidra deidra and susan pressler will be following following deidra good evening i'm deidre heitman i'm a principal planner with bart and i'm here tonight on behalf of grace crinica and bart's general manager it's not turning the light thank you and the two bart board members that

2:44:30represent el cerrito director malay and director saltzman i have a letter here from grace crinican that i'd like to read in support of the specific plan dear mayor abelson and council members on behalf of bart i want to express our support for the san pablo avenue

2:44:47specific plan bart has actively participated in the development of the plan the plan creates a framework for transforming the avenue into a multimodal corridor and as a place that provides opportunities for living working and community life the plan's key principles are to deepen

2:45:04a sense of community identity attract private investment enhance the public realm promote the everyday use of transit walking and biking foster environmental sustainability and ad housing and commercial space the plan will help the city advance its housing and climate action plan goals

2:45:20and serve to revitalize the avenue bart's vision is for a high quality transit service that supports a sustainable region and we share the vision expressed in the plan consistent with this the bart board adopted a transit-oriented development policy which promotes high quality

2:45:36intensive development at or near bart stations station area development will generate increased ridership as well as new revenues for transit and the city in addition it provides an alternative to congestion and reduces air pollution by encouraging built-in ridership at the

2:45:52station the development proposal in the specific plan is supportive of this goal bart supports the plan's emphasis on enhancing the area's walkable setting as bart ridership grows and the system expands to silicon valley in the next few years we seek to encourage

2:46:11sustainable station access modes especially biking and walking your complete streets element supports the creation of a robust bicycle and pedestrian network that connects all areas of new development to the bart station thank you and in closing we urge you to adopt the specific plan which is a much

2:46:29needed step we feel in this improving economy to bring development to our bart stations thank you yes and i have a letter susan pressler followed by steve price and tom panis my name is suzanne pressler i've lived in the el cerrito area since 1980. my husband and i own property on

2:46:51belmont and also on santa clara in the annex i have a letter to read into the public record the form-based codes outlined in the specific plan indicate zero foot side and rear setbacks for commercial projects adjacent to residential areas this means that the plan measures its

2:47:10daylight plane from the rear property line giving el cerrito and richmond annex residents a reduced rear set back and problematic daylight plane this is unacceptable to the community instead the community strongly urges el cerrito to adopt albany's daylight plane

2:47:28provision which addresses both direct and indirect light by first requiring a commercial development to provide a 10 foot rear set back followed by a daylight plane after this 10 foot setback is respected this is a much better daylight plane this provision greatly improves privacy for

2:47:48the residential properties located directly behind the commercial development and is appropriate for all areas on both sides of san pablo avenue central avenue kearney street lexington avenue liberty street and richmond street thank you thank you yes steve price followed by tom panas and

2:48:10mark miner i'm going to share something with the audience here maybe we could do that afterwards so that we can keep going what i'm sharing is a photo simulation that i've done actually i did a number of years ago because i i do photo simulation work uh professionally

2:48:51i live at [address removed] by the way my name is steve price and i've lived in el cerrito for about 30 years and i'm often hired by communities across the country to kind of take the the planning documents that communities generate development regulations and give some life to it so people

2:49:15really understand what the implications of the design regulations really mean you know all the talk of i share the opinion with the woman who spoke previously about how she her eyes are kind of glazing over with all this talk about vehicle miles traveled and building heights and

2:49:33and uh housing targets and so forth and so on that is a lot of you know planning talk so what does it mean actually experientially to be on a street that has buildings up to the sidewalk and um has a certain height of buildings in relationship to the width of the street

2:49:52so uh the images i create are based on existing conditions photographs so you can toggle back and forth between the existing conditions photograph and decide in fact whether um the visualization actually is is accurate and really conforms to the scale of things that exist in the real world as

2:50:15opposed to a lot of drawings that are often are generated for development purposes that sometimes over idealize what what people are seeing um so i i'm personally as as a resident of el cerrito interested in seeing destinations consolidated together in commercial centers

2:50:39and i think it will leave a lot of the traffic patterns that we're seeing right now where people instead of walking to local stores in recent years we've seen we need to wrap up okay so at any rate i'm i support this plan it's not a perfect plan i've submitted a number of comments

2:50:58um but uh nevertheless think that uh it's a worthwhile plan that will grow over time as a living document and encourage the council to adopt it thank you tom panas followed by mark minor and nicholas arzio good evening mayor abelson members of the council and city staff my name is

2:51:22tom panis and i live at [address removed] el cerrito i've been watching the plan for seven years and i've been skeptical about it and i'm ready to embrace it now i like it very much the staff's done a great job on it in particular they invest a lot of time and effort in drafting

2:51:35language and mitigation measures to protect our historic and cultural resources i appreciate this very much and as uh councilmember lyman mentioned earlier i'm very happy with what the staff's done now i'm not sure where it should be or if it's already there but i have a very

2:51:52strong feeling we should make a statement about single family residences in a specific plan area i think the owner of a single family resident should be able to demolish or rebuild their house without any additional paperwork beyond what's required if they didn't live in the

2:52:07specific plan area and also that shouldn't cost anymore the staff report did not address the second half of issue number three described on page 10 it had to do with bus service in the hills if our city doesn't step up to partnering with ac transit or coming up

2:52:20with its own alternative solution for getting people up and down the hill or missing a major opportunity for modeshift and shooting the plan and its property foot the shadow standards only strict shadows cast on the only greenway shadows cast our major commercial streets and on

2:52:34neighborhood streets buildings erected on other other types of streets appear to be exempt from the planned shadow standards i don't know if there's a drafting error or the intent but i don't recall this as being in earlier public discussions a related concern is that winter shadows

2:52:48can be long on the north side of a tall building i think the shadow standards should apply to buildings on the north as well as buildings on the east i think all parties would benefit if the plan defined the outcomes of conflicts between the shading rules the height allowances and page 49 of the

2:53:05housing element council deliberations on this would be great i'd also like to say that all thing all parties would benefit from a side-by-side comparison of the old versus the new development fees not showing the old fees makes informed public comment possible so i'd

2:53:20like to compliment the staff again on the great work mig on the great work and thank you for your time this evening thank you mark miner followed by nicholas arzio good evening madam council members my name is mark miner and i reside at [address removed] i am chair of the el cerrito

2:53:44environmental quality committee and a member of the el cerrito trail truckers board but my comments are my own i support the plan and i really wanted to start at a high level that sustainability is not really optional i don't believe that we can continue to organize our society and our resources

2:54:02the way we are for the next hundred years much less a thousand so that we really need to open our minds to make some changes and i think that being building some of our future infrastructure not to be car dependent will make el cerrito a much more resilient place

2:54:18but more important than that if we look at those five strategies that melanie had presented i really do believe that the details behind it really will support those strategies and those goals and that when that's done el cerrito is going to be a much more pleasant place

2:54:32to live the first time i encountered san pablo avenue was in the late 1980s early 1990s along this stretch and i think that it's really a lot nicer now than it was back then but i think that change can be good change can be powerful and we can make this a a better more friendly

2:54:52more human-centered city to live in i think the idea of having san pablo avenue being open to cars and pedestrians and the bikes and to value all all those different interest groups was very well balanced in the group in the plan i don't think that cars were forgotten

2:55:09and originally i was skeptical of the idea of riding bikes on san pablo but i've come around to that idea i believe that having bikes where the stores are where the people are where people are walking and really have that becoming just the way people act and react in the next 40

2:55:24years is very possible i would be very interested to see the statistics on biking and walking because i've seen a real change in the last couple years even in 2014 that may not be showing up in the statistics that you're working so this whole movement i think is really ready to to take off

2:55:42to really address our city in a different way and i don't think we're that far away and i support the idea of the mid-city charlotte chair lane i think that could be a real marketing opportunity for the city to show that our progressive stance as well as the practical use thank you

2:55:57very much thank you very much nicholas arzio followed by damian moskowitz and darcy newton good evening i'm nicholas arzio i live at [address removed] i'd like to refocus our attention to where it belongs one of the san pablo avenue specific plan's goals is to ensure roi

2:56:18so the real divide here is not between bicyclists and motorists it's between community members and real estate developers and this plan has real estate developers smiling ear to ear because as you stated in your goal you're going to ensure that they get a good roi

2:56:33that's why you're planning on having a 65 foot tall buildings with with six stories um when we don't want it residents don't want it we've we've said that over and over again so the next thing is let's take a look at what's working right now and what's not working in terms of our

2:56:50commercial corridor the cerrito theater is working elevation 66 is working non-thon vietnamese restaurant is working those are all existing structures they're all one story tall they're not in mixed-use buildings now let's talk about what's not working in el cerrito

2:57:07the village at town center has vacant commercial parcels this is a mixed-use building new construction we've had a vacancy for four years now do we think that making new mixed-use buildings is going to attract businesses and is going to eliminate bacon season uh in el cerrito well we've got to look

2:57:24at what's already happening now and take a hint from that and that's just not happening also we can take a look at the new uh commercial structures surrounding safeway vacant unfinished raw never been moved into and we can also take a look down san pablo at other mixed use buildings 6465

2:57:43san pablo commercial parcels on the ground floor vacant raw never been moved into it's been years since it's been opened so i think that the the city should really refocus it seems to me like what they're doing is taking away commercial space rather than adding it

2:58:00taking away the possibility of economic vitality and commerce by taking away commercial floor space it hasn't worked it's not working it's not what we want this is not about bicycles and cars this is about money thank you damian moskovitz followed by darcy newton and carol langhauser

2:58:25mayor abelson council members good evening my name is damian moskowitz i moved into an apartment on fairmount avenue at kearney give me one second i'm sorry thank you again i moved into an apartment on fairmount at kearney a couple of months ago and i'm very happy to be a resident of el

2:58:40cerrito however i'm also very concerned about the impact this plan will have on the level of service for various modes of transportation on san pablo avenue currently the level of service is rated for automobiles only from grade a to grade f under this plan the city will extend

2:58:56this rating system to other modes of transportation such as bicycles pedestrians and buses currently the lowest acceptable grade for the level of service for automobiles is d this plan however would lower the acceptable grade for the level of service or automobiles to e or even f so

2:59:14long as the level of service for other modes of transportation is improved a grade of f for the level of service is defined as a quote total breakdown city staff claims that this plan isn't anti-car yet it allows for the total breakdown of automobile traffic rather than rushing this proposal to a

2:59:33vote tonight please take some time to rework it so that it prevents breakdown rather than causing it thank you carol langhauser followed by michael john and arlen robbins good evening my name is darcy newton um the plan requires as few as zero parking spaces per housing unit for building for

3:00:05buildings near bart stations the city assumes that new residents will move into transit oriented development because they want to use bart and not own a car i think this assumption is wrong why do i say this i am a new resident in el cerrito i live in an apartment a block and a half from bart

3:00:27i ride bart to and from work five days per week however i own a car because bart and a ac transit don't travel everywhere and i want the freedom to go where i want to go i may not drive my car every day but i have to park it every time i drive and street parking is a real problem on my block

3:00:52similarly many future residents will own cars and just because a person uses public transportation doesn't mean that he or she won't want to own a car please rethink your assumptions and don't rush to a vote today thank you is carol langhauser here okay she's not here okay sarah

3:01:13langhowser all right so no michael john madame eric council members staff thank you my name is michael john i live in el cerrito have for the past nearly 31 years on lexington and i'd like to actually read this on behalf of someone else who wasn't able to be here tonight

3:01:41on land use classifications el cerrito like cities else everywhere currently requires a conditional use permit for some types of commercial uses under the san pablo avenue specific plan the adoption of form-based codes streamlines the public review process for these businesses that would

3:02:01otherwise require a conditional use permit without a public hearing before the planning commission and most importantly pertinent conditions it results very little in very little protection for the adjacent residential neighborhoods leaving them vulnerable to potential impacts the businesses that

3:02:21need a conditional use permit or clubs and lodges hospitals schools animal kennels auto dealership and on and on an administrative use permit is not good enough and allows the planning department staff to make the decisions without appropriate lists of conditions

3:02:40because these businesses can have a heavy impact on abutting residential properties it is critical that a public hearing before the planning commission be required and a number of pertinent conditions be approved to protect the adjoining residential neighborhoods from

3:02:57negative impacts this is what other cities require we would like the same thing thank you very much thank you next arlen robbins inca followed by inca arachiga and marilyn langhoy city council members and city staff my name is arlen robbins and i've lived at [address removed] for 31 years

3:03:21there are a number of concerns i feel about this plan but i'm just going to speak to a few and the biggest one which we have talked about is congestion but there's a couple of points that i don't think i heard first of all i really like the actual transportation plan

3:03:39i think the design of the streets themselves are beautiful and i think it addresses a large number of of concerns that all of us have had about moving and living in the area by san pablo avenue what i'm concerned about is that even though your intention is to reduce the reliance on auto

3:04:01transportation you cannot significantly reduce the drivers who use san pablo to get from one end to the other of town or especially the additional load during rush hours when drivers are seeking an alternative to the highway add to that the vehicles that they either park or bring in drop off to the

3:04:20bart station on central and we currently have more than we can be smoothly handled if you bring more reasons for people to enter and exit the streets from a high density building that will basically make these areas a constant source of honking irritation delay and congestion that it's the high

3:04:41density buildings all in very limited areas that are actually going to create the congestion problem not these changes these are beautiful changes my other concern was the view obstruction um the western view right now for most of the hounds houses in san pablo from san

3:05:01pablo all the way east to asbury um there's some beautiful views there's a sense of openness they will all be restricted or obstructed in one way or another from buildings as tall as you're talking about i'll make this really really fast then um so so i want to concern i'm concerned

3:05:21about the mountainous scale i think that we can if i recommend lowering those height limitations and you need to wrap up i am i am and that if you can't find developers that want to come in from all over the place to build the the smaller buildings you'll find them locally and those people will think

3:05:42locally so i'd like you to think longer before approving the entire program thanks inca arashiga followed by marilyn langlois inca marilyn thank you oops a minute hello okay my name is marilyn langlois good evening madam mayor members of the council i was born and raised in el

3:06:22cerrito my dad was on the city council of el cerrito back in the 60s and i learned to first learn to ride a bicycle while i was living here i currently live in richmond i'm a founding member of the richmond bicycle pedestrian advisory committee and i'm also richmond planning

3:06:36commissioner although tonight i'm speaking as a private citizen i want to strongly support the complete streets aspect of this plan with its enhanced bicycle and pedestrian safety improvements this would really dovetail very well with richmond's bicycle and pedestrian

3:06:52plans and lay the groundwork for us to really make san pablo avenue a vibrant place for all users and it would be it would bring benefits to the residents of el cerrito and other area residents to local businesses and our planet other speakers have mentioned and

3:07:08i'd like to remind you that on sunday there were millions of people who came out in cities in the united states and around the world to bring attention to the the urgency of the climate crisis so everything that local cities can do to encourage people to get out of the

3:07:25single um occupancy vehicle trips and use other alternative methods of transportation is really important of course some people will always need to use cars but there are others who have choices and if we can encourage bicycle use it will really benefit our environment and for local

3:07:43businesses the more you can encourage those people who do drive and ride their bikes to visit local businesses rather than use san pablo avenue is just a thoroughfare or a freeway alternative the better it will be i always i only drive on san pablo avenue when i want to

3:07:58patronize a local business and there are many great businesses in el cerrito and i use my bike on san pablo avenue also when i want to patronize local businesses i ride my bike on the ohlone greenway if i want to just go straight through from richmond to albany or

3:08:12berkeley so again it's it's a really good plan this complete streets element it will also benefit people's health and well-being by getting out into the fresh air being out on the street and interacting with their neighbors thank you thank you sheldon bellankov followed by kyle

3:08:30brunell and mary salva sheldon look like sheldon's here kyle followed by mary salva and dave harris good evening i'll try and be brief um thanks for the opportunity to speak tonight my name is kyle bernal my wife and i have been el cerrito homeowners for a little over a dozen years now

3:08:54and i want to urge you to support the complete streets aspect of the san pablo plan i personally i use my bike whenever i can i try and avoid driving i don't like to be forced into using my my car in order to access certain businesses so i and i'm able to live most of my life

3:09:11without getting in my car um but patronizing businesses along say i like to patronize local businesses and um since most of our businesses are along san pablo avenue and it's a hazardous area to bike it's very difficult to actually do that and i just think that a

3:09:28much more more bikeable san pablo avenue will bring out a lot of people who will will travel by bike to get there and i think it will be good overall for local businesses there's only so many cars that can park there once that's full the the only other way to get there is

3:09:46is either walk or cycle and i i think it will bring in more people uh to use local restaurants and and the theater and all if they can come by bike and park their bike and they'll only do that if they can travel safely along the avenue so again for safety reasons i urge you to

3:10:01support this thank you mary silva followed by dave harris good evening my name is mary silva and i'm the president of the richmond annex neighborhood council and uh our group is very familiar with planning and zoning zoning ordinances form-based codes sign ordinances you name it we've been

3:10:30involved in doing this and been on the planning zoning committee for many many years so we have extensive knowledge on that we even have a 35 plus year city planner on our planning and zoning committee we have some major concerns about this plan and we submitted a 16

3:10:51page packet and we hope that all of you had an opportunity to review it um we have to represent our community here in the richmond annex and one of the biggest concerns that they've have over the years for many years is views views are very important i don't have a

3:11:13view but there's a lot of people in the rich magnanix have a fantastic view of the el cerrito hills and going in the other direction of the golden gate bridge similarly el cerrito residents up to navalier have a spectacular view you wouldn't know it until you go inside their homes i've been into

3:11:34a lot of people's homes over the years and i'm surprised they have a view of the bay so they paid extra for those views and they want their views preserved so we're here representing them um albany was going to go with a higher density building this is back in 09

3:11:58and there was a lot of opposition to that during that time during their plan and so they reduced it and their height limit is 38 feet on san pablo avenue albany and for the midtown area where you have a major view corridor in there that's what we would recommend i don't

3:12:19think we have to have high density along the whole avenue we don't need to have high density along the whole avenue so please take our considerations into your deliberations thank you very much dave harris followed by jerry yoshida and garland ellis my name is david harris i'm at the

3:12:46richmond addicts neighborhood council form-based codes which are regulatory and not advisory contain highly detailed parameters and are intended to provide very specific outcomes with little or no modification before approval negotiation becomes minimal and this

3:13:03eliminates community-based planning form-based codes are only as good as the administrative process and due diligence that support them el cerrito through the specific through the specific plan commits itself for the next 40 years to a building design type that will dictate all future development

3:13:22and businesses without knowing whether it is the right fit economically for the city does the market analysis support the kind of development and density the code calls for can el cerritos resources and infrastructure really support all that high density do other regulations reinforce the

3:13:40intended outcomes of the code in the few california cities in which they are used form-based codes are restricted in extent to spans of one or two blocks or limited to just within the downtown area not used city-wide as proposed under the specific plan if the city does not very carefully

3:14:02prepare a well-crafted set of appropriate design elements under the form-based code before it is implemented the community can get stuck with a strong urban forum which clashes with and shows little regard for the adjacent residential neighborhoods this will happen to all areas of the

3:14:19down of the all areas of town under this under the specific plan and is unacceptable we remind el cerrito that the plan did not have sufficient neighborhood notification or input before the form-based codes were adopted we strongly urge el cerrita to modify the existing specific plants so that it

3:14:40realistically protects the integrity of all the established neighborhoods in the city without negative impacts from the adjacent commercial districts i'm just about done instead of the form-based codes the zonings of regulations should emphasize locally relevant factors such as the specific

3:14:58needs of commercial uses appropriate density design contexts project specific parking requirements and a review process consisting of increased local public notification and hearing and right of appeal jerry yoshida followed by garland ellis and michelle kavanaugh lynch

3:15:22good evening mayor abelson it's nice to see you and council my name is jerry yoshida i'm on the board of the richmond addicts neighborhood council and also the coordinating council for richmond neighborhoods i'm talking here on behalf of the annex and talking about form-based codes

3:15:40form-based codes can either replace or supplement the zoning audience on our method of regulating development to achieve very specific physical results such as urban form scale and overall character these codes are prescriptive rather than proscriptive focus more on the form for development

3:15:58rather than the use form codes should use a larger neighborhood perspective to determine the mass of buildings their design elements and connection between sites and their relationship with the with the public realm unfortunately the san pablo specific plant as proposed

3:16:18does not use the larger neighborhood perspective to determine the mass of buildings their design elements connection between sites and their relationship to the community farm-based codes are supposed to specify what type of development a community desires many of the plans as proposed

3:16:36does not represent the type of development that is compatible with community forum some of them do but there's others that are very more urban and industrial looking and i don't think that's appropriate it should have more roofs it should provide compatibility with the adjacent

3:16:57architectural styles that's already present as well as the homes and there are mixture homes and you're going to be stuck with a very specific style this proposed specific plan does not enable different development patterns and densities and instead prescribes one

3:17:14side one size fit all approach this is unacceptable to the community the city fails to recognize that each area within the city is different wrap up please and if the cities does not carefully lay out a well-crafted set of design elements and i think it's something that

3:17:35we really need to do under the form based code upfront the community end up with a design that shows very limited regard to building compatibility with the neighborhoods thank you thank you garland ellis followed by kavanaugh lynch and bj thor'sness um how are we doing

3:18:01we have uh several to go maybe 20 maybe 20 or so okay yeah why don't we do it now excuse excuse me just a second i move that we extend the meeting until 11 30.

3:18:16okay second 11 o'clock we well then we're it's going to have to be at least 11 15.

3:18:26this will go to 11 30 if you don't mind all right so that's a second second okay so motion by benefiting seconded by bridges to extend the meeting till 11 30.

3:18:39all in favor opposition extension motion cares unanimously go ahead please well mayor and council members my name is garland ellis i'm also a member of the richmond annex neighborhood council and also on the richmond coordinating council the first thing i would have to state

3:18:59about this meeting is there was a lot of people that tried to get in in the back after it started they had no place to sit they left i'm sure a lot of them wanted to speak but the presentation was long and then a lot of comments after that went even longer and they got disappointed and

3:19:19just walked out unfortunately there's a few of us that are diehards and want to stay here for the excitement form based codes what you have proposed shouldn't really be called form-based codes because it isn't according to the form-based code institute believe it or not there's an institute

3:19:40that does a lot of this for cities and what you guys have made up is made up it's the same thing in richmond too and the planning director in richmond will even admit it the design standards that you have should require setbacks differences in building height there's

3:20:03too much for the bonus program all of this is to benefit developers it doesn't really benefit the residents what you have is something that's going to make big developers want to come in not your local developers the height should be probably about 45 feet this should include your bonus

3:20:29and your height the equipment that you're going to put on the roof more than this is probably too much for this area at this time you may want to consider it in 20 30 years you're gonna have to redo your plan again in 10 to 15 years anyway why are you going for broke at this time

3:20:53also you talked a lot about central avenue central avenue the whole project that you have for traffic was proposed by the city of el cerrito not richmond and all it does is it moves traffic problems from one intersection to another i'm sorry you need to finish the

3:21:14money for the rest of the plan is not even in the works the county has doesn't have it measure j won't address it actually the city of el cerrito ought to think about kicking in some money so that we can get it going thank you all right mel cavanaugh lynch and b.j thor'sness

3:21:40good evening madam mayor and council members my name is mel cavanaugh lynch and i'm an 11-year resident of el cerrito i'm also a physician public health scientist and breast cancer researcher i want to speak in support of the san pablo specific plan because of its

3:21:56leadership and implicitly recognizing the role the place where we live work and play has in shaping our behavior our attitudes and our health research shows that the built environment can have a profound impact on the health of residents built environment features that promote

3:22:15health include many of the elements of the form-based code and the complete streets complete streets and form-based codes provide opportunities to shape the san pablo environment to increase physical activity by incorporating features that promote regular walking cycling and transit use

3:22:35in daily life walkability and bike ability has a direct and specific relation to the health of residents a comprehensive study of both have found that people in walkable and bikeable neighborhoods engaged more physical activity per week and were healthier than similar people living in low

3:22:54walkable and bikeable neighborhoods easy access to transit can also contribute to healthy physical activity nearly one-third of transit users meet the surgeon general's recommendations for minimum daily exercise through their daily travels this plan can help el cerrito residents

3:23:11become healthier by removing environmental barriers to an active lifestyle it can also help make our children who do not drive safer as they move around our community from home to school to playgrounds and even to hang out at the corner store this plan will lead developers to build

3:23:29community spaces around san pedro avenue that are safe and accessible and that promote activity by all individuals including the young the old and the disabled this plan describes the kind of community i want to enjoy and my i want my children to grow up in thank you

3:23:46thank you bj thor'sness followed by howdy gowdy and robin mitchell followed by robin mitchell and lisa wicks uh good evening mayor abelson council members my name is howdy gowdy i live at [address removed] um so i want to speak in favor of this plan i think there's a lot of

3:24:29good aspects to it um i came to it with you know some well let me state the positive first i mean i'm certainly in favor of the complete streets aspects particularly the protected bike lane i think that's a good example of really strong leadership in you know bike and ped

3:24:52amenities so i i really want to strongly support that um that effort um there's other things that are very you know laudable about the plan the context sensitive um aspects um i was initially very encouraged by the inclusion of the shading um criteria as i thought you

3:25:14know my one concern about heights the shading actually appeared to you know do a good job of mitigating that i do have as i learned more about it and i actually kind of you know poured into the the details of it um i'm not convinced that the shading criteria is

3:25:32really sufficiently um designed to to meet you know the the goals evenly um you know one particular concern is it does a good job on you know the east and and north which are you know clearly the shaded features but you know residences to the west have a very different

3:25:58setback as i read it it would be you know 35 feet on the property line with a 45 above that and that does not seem like an appropriate you know interface with the residential environment i'd also like to express my concern for the tier 4 opportunity i think it's um

3:26:20superfluously easy to you know invite that um relief from standards so you should really just rely on the propos plan development because the tier four doesn't really add anything except make the exceptions too easy and really you should be about enforcing these

3:26:41standards and not letting them go too easily so thank you thanks robin followed by lisa wicks and marty connor so council uh mayor ableton council members and city staff my name is robin mitchell i live at [address removed] um there are many exciting elements in the plan particularly in the areas of

3:27:11crete protection and restoration urban agriculture open space and renewable energy however i do have some concerns about other elements in the plan as follows tier three i think that this tier should have planning commission review which it does not currently have

3:27:25tier four i think this tier is a big loophole and should be reconsidered it allows the city to disregard the guidelines in the plan and other code documents if the project is deemed innovative or high quality the height limit i think that the height limit of 65 with a maximum height of 85

3:27:40feet is much too high i think that a height of cot that accommodates four stories is adequate as a maximum the shadow standards the stringent shadow standards currently in the plan which i believe are necessary to keep height limits from shading existing residential uses and the alone greenway

3:27:56will limit the height for most projects to be much less than the maximum allowable i predict that the city will choose not to follow the shadow standards if it makes a project unworkable for a developer the sustainable design elements the plan says comply with most of the

3:28:10requirements but only says consider sustainable design elements this is a change from the original version which said incorporate sustainability guidelines i believe projects should have to comply with sustainable design guidelines and be required to justify why they would not be including

3:28:25a sustainable design element the stringent shadow standard and the lack of a requirement for the sustainable design elements leads me to my main concern which is that if projects cannot relatively easily meet any of the requirements most large projects will be put into the tier four

3:28:40category where basically the city can allow any type of development that they and the developer want given the process that i've witnessed for the project at 1715 elm street where the city decided not to enforce its own creek ordinance and is allowing the developer to build within five feet of

3:28:54the creek running through the property i have little confidence that the potentially sustainable objectives in the specific plan will actually be implemented also it was interesting um that we already have the highest use of transit of active transportation in the

3:29:10county which includes walking bicycling and riding bart and so if we already have that without density we don't necessarily need to add the super high density that's part of the plan thank you lisa wicks followed by marty connor and nathan landau good evening thank you my name is lisa

3:29:33wicks i've lived in el cerrito 25 years speaking on the back of the high density concern high density population requires infrastructure to support it and right now as it is neither bart nor ac transit can support what there is now i'm really unclear on how that's

3:29:53supposed to work even though bart is making nice and is supporting the plan thank you thank you marty connor followed by nathan landau hi i'm marty conner i live at [address removed] and hello to the city council staying up so late like the rest of us um i just want to say that i've

3:30:15been following the the road plan or the um i should call the san pablo avenue specific plan since last november and i want to say i'm really excited about what's happening um i love to ride my bike i ride for exercise i ride to explore new areas and i ride for errands and um

3:30:37riding for errands makes this san pablo avenue corridor very critical for me i'm not going to use the ohlone green greenway for that purpose because i don't want to stop at every single block i want to move i want to move with the traffic and i want to move safely

3:30:55when i ride i want to i want the cars to know where i'm supposed to be and when i drive i want the bikes to know where they're supposed to be and so i really appreciate this plan i've biked roads that are like this plan like mount diablo avenue in lafayette and i feel very safe as a bike

3:31:16on that road and i feel that it can happen on san pablo avenue too so i support the plan and good luck hope it happens thanks next nathan landau followed by nick pilch and george gager um let me get my timer going here we have one oh we've got i need an exact time i'm

3:31:42kind of crazy about this um good evening i'm nathan landau i'm a planner for ac transit good evening mayor abelson members of the council and city staff ac transit is pleased that the plan includes a strong commitment to transit oriented development which demonstrably reduces the amount of

3:32:01driving lots of research on that we're also support transportation planning that considers all modes that's a sometimes called complete streets we tend to think complete networks may work better but that's a good idea that's that's embodied in this plan um i want to talk a little bit about san

3:32:21pablo avenue for ac transit it's our third busiest corridor we have overall 32 000 passengers get on and off along the length of the corridor in el cerrito alone 5400 passengers get on or off in the course of a weekday it's very important and there's a lot of service at the

3:32:43rapid stops there are nine buses a day i mean my bus is an hour sorry which is as much as we have anywhere in the system um so it's very important and there's one unique thing about buses buses can't go anywhere else we don't have an alternative street we can run i

3:33:01don't think the neighbors would be real happy if we started trying to run up lexington street so we kind of live or die by san pablo avenue to us that means that the transit improvements were the only mode that's in that situation the transit improvements need to be the

3:33:18first priority they're good they need to happen um and other improvements we need to be sure that they don't cause problems for transit operations the one thing in this plan that really gives us heartburn as sharrows what we have seen of sharrows elsewhere is that

3:33:36they can interfere with bus operations and they really don't seem to provide much for the cyclists so there's a lot of further planning that's going on about san pablo we have a major corridors plan that's kicking off it's going to look at san pablo so i think improving the street and making it

3:33:54really work as a great transit corridor which it can be is a very good thing thank you thank you thank you nick pilch followed by george gager and cynthia mcmillan maybe if we could have people line up it would we could go a little bit faster thank you so the next two people could

3:34:21kind of get george gager and cynthia mcmillan okay thank you good evening mayor council members my name is nick pilch i'm a resident of albany your neighbors to the south i'm a member of the albany's planning and zoning commission and have been appointed to the city

3:34:38council where i'll begin serving in december additionally i co-founded the group albany strollers and rollers a bicyclist and pedestrian advocacy group i don't purport to be representing the first two groups i mentioned but i will represent strollers and rollers uh by

3:34:50the way i also participated in your baxter creek working group a number of years ago that project is referenced in your plan the albany planning and zoning commission by the way reviewed your specific plan in june june or july and our response was favorable personally i believe it will help albany

3:35:06with its planning process and help support the more forward-looking projects we're trying to get going such as our san pablo avenue complete street projects that was mentioned earlier today earlier tonight myself and my organization are happy to see el serio continue the progress it

3:35:21has made over the recent years the rain garden other streets streetscape improvements the bikeways etc the improvements to bicycle and pedestrian access in this plan are wonderful and point us in the right direction for creating stronger communities in combating climate change also in

3:35:36particular i strongly support the separated bikeways in the plan and the dense development around bart stations uh penultimately i'd like to say that if you'd only restripe your loan and greenway to three lanes two for bicyclists and one for pedestrians as we've done in albany your vision for uh

3:35:53access on the ohlone greenway will be complete thank you for that thank you for allowing me to say that and finally i do support the approval of the plan and the certification of the eir thank you george gager cynthia macmillan and steve conifeel line up hello my name is george gager my family

3:36:17is relatively new to el cerrito and we love living here thank you for all of your good work but we don't live in a static world every day we are competing with the surrounding communities for jobs retail sales and our very quality of life if you look at albany berkeley and richmond you'll

3:36:37be surprised to see how well we compare statistically the proposed streetscapes are elegant and the proposed planning changes will allow our community to grow with grace we have half the dense population density of albany and berkeley but we generate twice the retail sales per capita

3:37:04this is a successful community with many successful businesses but we have a lot of underutilized buildings and building sites we will not benefit if our existing office and retail tenants move to the neighboring communities we need to give the council and city

3:37:25agencies the tools contained in this plan to help protect both the viability of our city and the quality of life we enjoy i urge the council to accept this plan and move ahead with el cerrito's great future thank you thank you next are you guys ready can i just start um

3:37:50you wanted to call up the next ones it's cynthia mcmillan steve kahn and jessica jones are we good good thank you okay i live in richmond annex i grew up in this area i did spend a certain amount of time living in los angeles and when i came back to this area and i saw how they

3:38:10developed emeryville it reminded me of la and when i saw your form-based codes drawings in the el cerrito or in the san pablo plan that you guys are trying to work on here it made me think of those places and i didn't like that so fundamentally i don't like the height

3:38:28and i don't like the look to me it looks like an urban place and what i like about el cerrito and you know that's where i do my shopping because i'm so close in the annex i like the fact that there's el cerrito natural there's little businesses that have come up

3:38:47along stockton i like the the businesses that are adjacent to the plaza and when i go out walking in an area because i like to walk in areas i look to go to places like 4th street in berkeley and i look to go to college avenue and those are all and why because they have little unique

3:39:09businesses it isn't something where oh our community is going to give away the farm allow people to build six stories and have mega developers come in and then i'm going to see all the same corporate stores that i see in every town america i just don't think it's the right kind

3:39:25of development for the area i think albany has the right idea i think 38 feet is high enough for buildings and i think that this bill the fact that this village over here is not completely doesn't have all the tenants i mean what if you guys build let them build all these huge buildings

3:39:42and they sit vacant or what if they're all full of people then where's the traffic gonna go it's gonna go through my neighborhood it's going to go on plumas it's going to go on tehama it's going to go on burlingame because there's no plan on how to get these people in and out of here

3:39:57i like the fact that there is a bike path i used to ride my bike all the time in la of all places and i could do it safely and i can't do it safely here you need to wrap up please yeah i just that's basically it i feel like it's not it's not a good plan for me thank you

3:40:18but i like some aspects of your plan steve kahn followed by jessica jones and elon iman thank you for uh hearing me i'm a property owner at 11820 san pablo avenue which is basically encompasses eight parcels that's over thirty thousand dollars in property taxes every year my

3:40:48business generates about a hundred eighty thousand in sales tax and pays over 170 and other taxes and fees i do have a stake in this uh i've heard a wide range of concerns over the san pablo avenue plan and you have quite a task in front of you i do have some reservations though

3:41:09what safeguards would you have in place to minimize the impact to small businesses during this construction i was in front of you about two years ago to appeal decision to grant a permit next door because the plan was kind of vague and there seemed to be no real

3:41:29interest or due diligence in my belief of the city staff to ensure harmony in the surrounding areas i'm hoping that with this san pablo avenue plan that you're proposing that there is going to be harmony between small businesses and what you're proposing to build

3:41:46all of you turned down my appeal two years ago please look at the photos of what we have to endure today mind you that's two years ago my point is what you allowed to impact my business on san pablo avenue will history repeat itself thank you have a good night thank you jessica jones followed by

3:42:07island eamonn and gina hi thank you for hearing me tonight i won't repeat what's in my letter actually i want to excuse me you need to fix the light there you go i'm jessica jones i live on ward avenue in el cerrito i've lived here for almost 10 years and what i do want to make clear is i do

3:42:27run my bike everywhere in the city that's why i live here i chose to live here over where i worked in marin because of the walkability the ride-ability and the fact that people could afford to live here that worked here and that my kids could go to school with people who worked at my school or

3:42:43people that worked in my community you don't get that in other communities in the bay area because it's too expensive and the ability of the the city to increase the high-density housing to bring younger people to the community that maybe will eventually buy homes

3:42:59later and raise families or even in high density that people can have can raise families is this is why a lot of people i know live here so i think people are missing the oh it's a great corridor plan and it's great to have biking well you also need the people there and the

3:43:15and the developers to come in to pay for all of that and obviously san pablo is not full of a vibrant community of lit people living there businesses it looks pretty bleak i see lots of empty car lots and a storefronts that don't have anybody in them and the more

3:43:36people you bring to the corridor the more people will be there to support the businesses and also the more people that want to ride their bikes there will support those businesses and they are not mutually independent so i think it's an excellent plan and i really hope that

3:43:50you support it this is why we live here and we don't live in the suburbs we live in a really vibrant urban community thank you thank you elon ewan followed by gina kalakura and gabriel quinto hi gina kalikura i live at [address removed] currently sorry the light straightened out

3:44:21there you go okay i live at [address removed] and i've lived there since 1999 my first house i bought was in town el cerrito rocks my letter is on file and i want to officially apologize for the typos i wrote it right before the midnight deadline so i'm sorry the building height is too high 38 is

3:44:42great but i think what we've got right now is a little too high it you know it could even go as high as 85 and that just scares the bejesus out of me large properties will go too close to fence lines that's something else that's really no fun for my neighbors on the

3:45:00other side of the street the big building side of the street shade issue is a big deal for me i really don't think that that's going to work out with the height as it is now i'm going to go through these really fast because i know i hardly have any time parking issue for neighborhoods it's

3:45:16really bad already and it's only going to get a lot worse parking minimums in developments and on streets lowering the number of parking spots will bite us in the butt slowing down traffic even if it slows traffic vehicles a little bit it's too much safety concerns including police fire

3:45:37and ambulances being able to get through that's so important to me and to anybody that gets in an accident or needs some services businesses are going to suffer to shoppers and service users come to our city to spend money in cars quite often unfortunately it's true

3:45:57the findings admit that there's going to be minimal impact on the level of service for autos so we're expecting some impact and it's only going to be worse than we're expecting urban versus suburban i feel like we're really actually suburban i won't go into the

3:46:11details but a lot of us probably feel like we're in suburbia uh sharrows are gonna cause death and mayhem i won't go into that uh and that's not the goal uh bump outs for buses really worry me too am i out of time oh darn okay well it's not a case of nimby it's just a

3:46:30case of get it right thank you our final two speaker slips are gabe quinto and sean klein good evening mayor council members i am here as a resident of el cerrito and also as a board member of the sierra club and the sierra club urges the council to adopt the san pablo avenue specific

3:46:57plan the sierra club has supported transit oriented development along major transportation corridors and the increase in density along these corridors that make public transit to all in all forms more efficient and more effective the plan is an important part in making sure that these goals and in

3:47:24the making of el cerrito a more vibrant and exciting place to live and to shop and to raise a family and i am very proud of the staff of el cerrito to look at this and i know it's not perfect this is a 40-year plan and we are talking about this i'm glad everyone has a chance to speak on this

3:47:48and for me being raised in lexington avenue for many years from 64 until 78 or 79 i see less shops on the area where i live there were more shops in the 1960s and 70s than there are now i hope we can add new businesses in the future and i would love to see our seniors have the

3:48:16opportunity to move uh down to transit oriented development where they don't have to worry about cars and wait for buses that take an hour to get down they can walk to their favorite shopping mall the el cerrito plaza they can walk to the bart station to go to their doctor's

3:48:36appointments at kaiser and i'm very proud of what we're doing in el cerrito and transit-oriented development is where it's at i don't believe in that thank you thank you sean klein and is that our is there's that editor that's the last speaker slip i have okay or if i if i may i would like love to

3:49:02have the clerk reread any names that we skipped um just in case they didn't hear their names um just take me one moment councilmember lymon linda frank carol langhauser if there's anyone who turned in a speaker slip that didn't get called that worked as well is there

3:49:27anyone who didn't get that put in a sneaker slip and didn't get called is there anyone who wants to speak and didn't put in a speaker slip okay i think that answers our question okay so with that uh is there a motion to close the public hearing also move second

3:49:49okay motion by bridges seconded by lyman all in favor of closing the public hearing say aye any opposition any abstentions motion carries unanimously so now we move on to the next part of our agenda um we have um five parts to this item and so i'll take them one at a time

3:50:16unless we want to have a uh something just not on here which is uh comments well i i actually before comments even there are some questions that were raised during the public comment period that i would like to have possibly get really brief responses to just to sort of make sure that i

3:50:35understand the issues so if possible uh the there's a comment about the footprint of the plan not going far enough east of the bart tracks just wanted to find out if staff wanted to speak to that the plan as i mentioned was built really when it started seven years ago on the

3:50:54former redevelopment planning area in the city's priority development area so it's consistent with that policy looking long-term maybe when you do a general plan update at a more true half mile walk shed would be an interesting next endeavor right parking um council member benacini covered this

3:51:10before but uh parking the statement you made earlier was there's some reduction in parking but there will be adequate parking pursuant to the number of vehicles we planned is that correct yes um when speaking to your comment that you just made a minute ago about

3:51:28changing the footprint location this plan can be revised at some point it's there was the term living document used in public comments when when is the soonest you would expect this plan to be revised when i'm 60 um actually that's not that as far away no it's not

3:51:47um we um you know we would like to see some movement i think that's going to be something that council and staff we can look at but there's no early anticipated revisions several comments about zero foot uh setbacks versus ten foot setbacks the setback discussion

3:52:07uh maybe i missed the the plans can you just to educate me a little bit on what when would there be zero setback from the rear property line so comparing our um proposed setbacks to the existing there's some that are more restrictive so currently our rear set back in the transit oriented mixed use

3:52:27and the community commercial which is our two zoning districts on san pedro i don't have zero setback the setbacks now will be set by the shade requirements so um they're more performance-based versus prescriptive setbacks adjacent to residential zones and i might have to

3:52:42turn it over to margaret or sean but it's different depending on whether you're adjacent to a single family or multi-family so currently there is anywhere from five foot to 15 foot setbacks required if it's next to a residential zone and then above three stories you start to use the daylight

3:52:57plane the current proposal is just to use the daylight plane above residential and to use our shade requirements so that would work on the east side the west side it wouldn't so there is less setback but the same daylight plane uh adjacent to residential okay um

3:53:16there was a comment about shadowing on side streets and and to the north and then yet there was other comments the fact that the plan does the shadow plan does accommodate northern shadows so we're just curious what which is it it does mccool correct me if i'm wrong but it includes all

3:53:34all street types and the difference would be based on how big the street is so the provision is that the northern shadow would not go past the curb line on the opposite side of the street so actually on a smaller street that will require either shorter buildings or

3:53:50greater setbacks than on a larger street so a neighborhood street for example several commenters talked about the fact that we have a lot of vacant commercial space on san pablo avenue now can you speak to how the flex space that we're proposing um allows for it to be residential for

3:54:08some time until there is commercial demand um many speakers spoke to the village of town center and uh you know several years ago mixed use meant that we were going to do ground floor commercial everywhere and in fact our current zoning ordinance requires ground floor commercial along the entire

3:54:22corridor and one of the key provisions in the proposed specific plan is to allow ground floor residential recognizing as i said that three miles of commercial is not an effective strategy the plan as we've stated should create not only new new design flex space that can be higher

3:54:41ceilings but it should also bring in just new energy and new development that would help people reinvest in existing commercial businesses refresh my memory flex space is only in midtown or is it all three zones it's actually required through out so to allow for transition

3:54:54over time and there's comment and i looked hard for it because i do remember reading this comment there was a comment about use permit conditional use permits and administrative use permits and the potentially making a change to the use table which i think is off the top of my head somewhere in

3:55:12three something two something um can you speak to that commenter's issue about use permits conditional users versus administrative use permits so the big difference between an administrative use permit and a conditional use from it is a public hearing before the planning commission

3:55:30the findings are identical and the decision is noticed so anyone who feels that the staff has got it wrong which i think was the concern of the neighbor they appeal this to the planning commission for for review and that decision can be appealed to the body of the city council

3:55:47um there was a comment about the form based codes being applied to city-wide and it's by understanding that form base code is only for the specific plan area this form-based code is only for the specific plan area um there was a one of the last speakers and there might

3:56:01have been somebody before that was talking about provisions for small business owners and and protecting small business owners i'm not exactly entirely sure but it um can you do you have any thoughts on that commenter's topic um yeah two thoughts so the tier one process was

3:56:18definitely designed for small business owners to easily facilitate them reinvesting through an administrative review process so existing businesses it also for example people have spoken about non-thon and elevation 66 they in fact are not required to provide parking

3:56:31um so it also allows for example if a building currently we know of a couple buildings that are looking to react re-tenant with new restaurants but their park the old parking requirements were too high for them so it actually helps in terms of being able to do facade

3:56:44improvements and other financial assistance to developers we sure would love to have the funds to be able to do that and when i talked about next steps and i think the economic development committee is also looking at how can we provide that kind of assistance there

3:56:56were several statements about this being a 40-year plan it's through the year 2040 but that's only 25 years from now is that correct correct and i know you turned 60 next year right by 60 then no i don't know um that's it for my questions my clarified questions okay

3:57:15you've covered what i what i was thinking thank you okay uh jiminy okay so are there any comments i'm sure there's comments but i'm going to yield to uh the council member bridges she looks like she's ready to go i just want to know if we let you talk first how much

3:57:31longer we'd have to extend now sorry remember i voted for 11.

3:57:43so first of all i want to thank everyone for making all their comments their letters their emails we appreciate when we have a dialogue in this city and sometimes you don't probably agree with what we vote on but we do hear you and i think that was a nice recap that um

3:58:04council member lymon just did um one of the things that i was thinking about when it came to consider this plan was that you know climate change is again in the forefront a couple of our speakers actually mentioned that that there was a march over the weekend 300 000 people strong

3:58:27marching about climate change you know it's really it's really not um it's not a choice anymore to to pay attention to this it's really now it's a mandate and we're seeing this even being addressed by the un we do a lot in california and we in el cerrito like to think of ourselves as

3:58:47being in the forefront of um acting on our climate action plan and trying to reduce our carbon footprint and one of the ways we're going to do that is to address transit-oriented development and particularly with the complete streets program we also have other issues in the city

3:59:08and anybody who watches these council meetings know that we've had very bad difficult budget sessions particularly this year last year a little bit and one of the things that's important to us and all you have to do is look up and down the avenue and see how non-vibrant we

3:59:24are now we need the financial sustainability and to have another big box development or another small strip map mall that you see up and down the avenue and more car lots is not really where we want to be going we really have to bring a little more vitality to our city

3:59:48i don't have any problems with the parking reduction because i think we've talked about some of the projects that have gone forward and things that we've been talking about in the city and that is people sometimes self-select people who are bikers and are walkers and want to

4:00:03live by transit will be that they may not be the people with families that one of our speakers talked about but when they see our city and see our vision you know they'll probably buy a house later you know they may not be in the transit-oriented development of an

4:00:19apartment or a condo but they'll kind of see what we what our vision is here in the city and a lot of our residents are very happy with what we do you know i think we all deserve better i think you deserve better we deserve better and i think we could do a little

4:00:37bit better for our city and you know because of that i think you know i'm very much in favor of adopting this plan and i just wanted to make one comment that greg didn't really miss it he just didn't address it but and that is you know we did do due diligence we've been

4:00:55talking about this for seven years we started in 2007.

4:00:58you know we had community workshops we had you know responses that could be addressed on the on our website it's been addressed in our little views magazine that gets mailed out and there there really has been very ample time and you know it's kind of unfortunate

4:01:14that maybe maybe some neighbors didn't know about this until recently but something catalyzed there was some sort of uh cataclysm that happened in that in that neighborhood and made those people come forward and that's fine but we did our due diligence and i think when

4:01:30mr jones got up and said you know it's time we've worked on this for a long time our staff has done a very good job and i think that we do have some flexibility in this plan it is it will be modified and it will be looked at and projects will be reviewed and you know i think the one comment i

4:01:49would make about public hearings and public notifications is that when projects do consider to be come forward is that we put them on our website not just you know our 300 foot mailers or whatever so that we can keep that dialogue happening and hear our residents that's awesome

4:02:10thank you and thank you everyone for coming i've counted more than 55 comments and it's incredible to stan sit up at this dice and to watch the room fill up with people it's in it it feels like an incredible responsibility to be up here and to listen to your concerns

4:02:23and to try to make a decision that's not only good for you but for your children and our children and our children's children so thank you so much for your interest in the plan we're talking about the vision our future what's our future for san pablo avenue as i think about the last seven

4:02:40years of analysis we've been doing on this corridor i asked myself questions are we satisfied with the status quo um to clarify or to dig deeper on that what can we do if we're not satisfied with the status quo which i think many of us many of us are not what can we do to get

4:02:55ahead of future growth not only local growth but regional growth we want to consider the present conditions on the avenue and also consider 25 years from now like we were talking about through 2040. in 25 years the bay area is expected to grow by about thirty percent from seven to nine

4:03:11million people this is a huge consideration because we have a roadway that cannot physically be expanded so we need to find a way to accommodate more people within the same footprint i was going to read some of the plan principles we've talked a lot about the plan principles and the vision for the

4:03:26future and i'm particularly struck by a number of the goals some related to adding um housing and commercial space adding this space in el cerrito by the way it was mentioned that we have an incredible mode split that is we have an incredible proportion of our people who

4:03:42take public transit so we're a great location for more people to live the more people that live in a place where it's easy to take transit the fewer vehicle miles traveled we have in our region so as we're thinking about adding housing and commercial space on a tran

4:03:57in a location where many people are able to take transit this is an important solution to the bay area's problems some of which include residents having to live very far from their jobs and from their everyday needs also creating more housing in particular helps to solve some of the key crises in

4:04:15our area related to housing affordability where the unavailability of housing for many years has been fueling high prices that are out of reach for many income levels but the plan is not about just adding space to the city many legitimate concerns have been raised

4:04:30about how we add new residents and workers while we're upgrading facilities for pedestrians bicycles and buses on the avenue and i've been listening very closely to staff responses to those concerns that have been documented over many weeks in the letters and emails

4:04:44we've been received we've received first on the i'm going to talk about three of them that struck me on the parking requirements the current plan includes a detailed study of parking and you'll notice that all of us read these studies we don't just take these studies and their recommendations

4:05:00at face value we send questions to staff we prod and ask questions of the consultant so when we get a study we feel like we need to understand exactly what the recommendations are and we want to know the support for those recommendations so the parking study that was done is

4:05:15very consistent with our everyday experience parking is extremely scarce near bart stations on weekdays but elsewhere and near bart on the weekends particularly there is parking available but it's important to note that the plan does not significantly decrease the

4:05:30current level of on-street parking so those of us who do drive to shop or drive to go to places along the avenue we can still continue to do that and the discussion of the level of parking that's required new development again we've prodded this very carefully in some of our previous studies that we

4:05:49had with the consultants and that is where's the evidence to suggest that people who are going to live in some of these newer new high density or higher density locations here transit have fewer cars and there is extremely strong evidence to suggest that they're

4:06:03they they still have cars or they have access to car share facilities but they don't need as many spaces as some of us who live in single family homes tend to need i'm really sensitive to this because it's really important to not require people to over park their developments

4:06:21it's wasteful and that it over dedicates land to parking rather than to people and we're forcing new residents to pay more for housing because they're paying for housing with parking that they may not need and we live in an area where housing prices are extremely high so we don't

4:06:37want to force our any of the new buildings to be built on the on the avenue to have more parking than than are needed i had a long long thing on parking but i think that we've addressed the parking issue um on the height this is one that i think we're all extremely sensitive to

4:06:53we have our seal which shows beautiful views we're all concerned with beautiful views the current height limit on the avenue is 35 feet there are some places clearly next door to us this building is about 50 feet tall but their buildings are a bit higher but the general limits are about

4:07:0935 feet this has not led to much development this has not led to much much reinvestment in the avenue and we've heard and the work that i do in my professional life has has is consistent in in our findings that that is not a high enough level to support new growth new new construction

4:07:32on the avenue the plan has evolved from lower highland height limits to where they are today because of this we've been seeing very little investment in the avenue um and basically keeping things the same in terms of the height limit we don't think are really going to help us to achieve

4:07:48our goals of a more vibrant avenue i do want to reiterate that we talked a little bit about why we want more people in el cerrito we want more people in el cerrito because we have a great quality of life and we live sort of a lower impact existence than some of the i

4:08:03would agree we're a suburban community but we're not as suburban as other locations to have a mode to have people writing transit the level they do here uh you won't find that in in communities like arinda or danville or san ramon so there are sort of gradations of of

4:08:18suburban-ness so with regard to the height as i was reading through the plan i was gratified to see that there are some strong protections for trying to protect the neighborhoods that do exist near the avenue that will have to live next to some of the new growth and i

4:08:36like that the requirements are really sensitive are sort of performance-based like melanie was speaking about earlier i'm very supportive of keeping a very close watch on how the shadow studies come along as we're looking at new growth that's proposed on the avenue

4:08:53with regard to traffic which is the final one i'm going to talk about until i conclude there's existing sometimes very frustrating traffic on our streets this is a result of our pattern of development and land use and a result of our existing infrastructure and

4:09:08ulcerative location in the broader region we have a constrained roadway in which more and more people will want to use regardless of any growth in the city we there's other people in the region that will want to use the streets there's simply no more room to grow the

4:09:20roadway for existing traffic problems and in many cases you don't want to grow a roadway anyway there are many studies that show that this doesn't actually help help traffic the nice thing or the excellent thing about this plan is that we've devised a way to move more people not cars but

4:09:39people along the san pablo avenue roadway the roadway improvements are not based on hoping that people will get out of their cars but based on sound traffic analysis related to transportation usage of residents and workers of higher density or mixed use locations i've read this traffic

4:09:57analysis is done by a firm that works throughout the bay area that's very well respected and what's gratifying is that the analysis that was that's done in the plan that kind of follows along from it supports a very efficient use of this scarce public right-of-way

4:10:12we've managed to significantly improve travel times for pedestrians bicycles and bus riders with with very little delay for autos this would move us from a largely auto dominated roadway to a location with faster bus service better walkability and bicycle facilities that connect to

4:10:29the facilities the bicycle facilities plan in richmond albany however will still have an extremely auto dominated roadway so the shift that was discussed there's still lots and lots of space dedicated to car use the mode shift i think that was mentioned was we would go

4:10:45from an 80 percent um auto use of the of the avenue to a 74 use over a 25-year period so cars are still going to be the dominant dominant source of um of movement along the avenue so i'd like to really fairly recognize the magnitude of what we're doing with this plan

4:11:07the roadway changes as proposed while they make great strides in providing non-motorized circulation are still a modest step forward with the total share that i discussed earlier going from 80 percent auto use to about 74 auto use at build out in 25 years the parking

4:11:22changes that are discussed will reflect or do reflect growing evidence that there are households with fewer cars that are owned the maximum heights that are proposed i believe are appropriate for an foot plus wide avenue a very wide avenue and the limits are not uniform so that in each

4:11:39parcel that comes forward and proposes a different type of development will have to demonstrate on a performance basis they're not impacting their neighbors that are not consistent with with the plan's goals i know that these sorts of changes are extremely difficult and i've read every

4:11:56single letter that we've received and i've tried to send responses to people as i'm able to there are many people here that don't agree with the plan but there are many people here that do agree with the plan and i think all of us have little things that we would like to

4:12:09do to improve it but what i would like to do to improve it might be not the same as somebody else so i'm not going to spend too much time tonight coming up with a little this and a little that it's a living document and i think we need to move forward and see what we get we need to move forward to

4:12:25see what we're going to get in terms of investment in the area just a final thought planning in an area like ours with mostly paved or fully and fully or partially developed parcels parcels is sort of akin to turning the titanic it's a nudge here and then this will point us

4:12:44in a slightly different direction that over time we'll be able to finally see a change so i propose that tonight we start turning our titanic and allocating a little bit more of our road to non-motorized transportation a little bit less of our very scarce land to

4:12:58parking and that we welcome new residents and workers to our area to be our our new neighbors and our new service providers where we can shop and recreate thank you for the time to allow me to do that okay um i'm looking at the time and um i i have some comments but there aren't

4:13:21a whole heck of a lot i just say that's different don't be don't don't don't interrupt please okay i do want to say though that there are a couple things we have not talked about at all and that's the shortage of housing in especially uh what i would call um apartments and condos in our town

4:13:40and for example over at hazel shirley manor i don't remember now how long ago it was they told me they had a waiting list of 200 that's for seniors they those seniors probably won't be alive when their turn comes up um so we have a real um strong need to provide the housing for

4:14:03people who can no longer live up in the hills who still want to live in our city they've lived here all their lives maybe and they want to still live here and they cannot live up in the hills because they can't get up and down the stairs or whatever and so i just wanted to bring

4:14:18that into that because i've heard a lot from that in my role as a liaison to the community on aging and other places so the another thing that i want to mention is the recession i don't think much attention has been paid to that that's had a tremendous impact on our city

4:14:41on a lot of cities and so some of what you see now is explained by that some of it's explained by like um down at the other end of the block where there's where the businesses aren't rented they've said that it's because they didn't really design the building right

4:15:04and it doesn't work well for businesses so sometimes there are things like that going on sometimes we have and we do certainly in this town have land owners who sit on their property they don't care if it's rented maybe and or we have a an a somebody who's renting the property

4:15:28that doesn't you know they want to prevent another business of the same type from using that property so there are all kinds of factors that enter into why things are like they are and um so i think they're you know but i think what this plan will do is enable us

4:15:45to really make a difference and to try some new things to enable non-single occupancy vehicles to get around our town a lot better and so i'll just leave it at that and we'll move on now i could i don't get a shot at comments you can put a light on me if you want

4:16:07let's do that let's put the light on when it goes green i'll start okay i want to thank everybody for coming out tonight in providing a dialogue it's really important that the community gets together and has discussions about things that are this of this magnitude

4:16:24and for the almost 50 speakers you guys came out pretty much even which is a good sign that we've got something that's worth discussing i want to thank staff and consultants for preparing what i consider a clear and concise document and and the hard work that you guys put into this really

4:16:39has paid off i got lots of topics but i'm going to run through them quick um council mayor abelson just covered the housing element more housing will increase supply of different types and should help reduce pricing on that rents pace development it's a living document

4:16:56if we're going too fast we can do something to potentially change it and slow it down uh small town feel everybody is most of the comments were small town feels uh is and they're linking it to its canyon or it's the shorts building stripes heights i want to i'm here to say to you that

4:17:14small town feel has nothing to do with architecture or the way you get to town you can come to town on a donkey or a train or a car small town feel has to do with the people and the interactions you have when you're on the street activated streets and the and the things

4:17:31that you do there so um it's not linked to architecture or mode of transportation and then uh to deal with thomas miller i actually think that and it didn't cover this increase in handicap curbs um it was actually something that he didn't suggested himself but i don't know if

4:17:49there's enough blue curb proposed and last but not least is height aecom did do an analysis for us they did recommend they did an analysis of some various locations and they only analyzed 45 foot height in in midtown i don't know which property they they analyzed for that but they didn't

4:18:10analyze anything higher than that so for us to to be considering 55 foot or 65 foot with bonus densities i'm not certain that there's data for either one of those so i would like to propose a motion where we adopt a 45-foot height limit for midtown not hearing a second

4:18:35well it's it's not i mean it's not it's there's so many other things we have to do but okay you just made a motion though i did okay and you did not get a second okay so um shall we look at the the order that's on our sheet which starts out with a resolution certifying the environmental

4:18:56impact report for the san pablo avenue specific plan adopting a statement of overriding considerations and adopting a mitigation monitoring and reporting program so i've got a few typos to correct okay i can make that motion but i'd like to change a few typos okay

4:19:16in resolution in resolution item number eight where it references the mitigation monitoring and reporting program i would like to insert in parentheses mitigation checklist and in the title of the attachments exhibit b similarly uh following mitigation monitoring and reporting

4:19:38program i'd like to insert mitigation checklist on page of exhibit a uh page seven there are one two three four five references to exhibit b all of those should be exhibit a um and on page 10 mitigation measure 7-1 has letters hr in front of it i would propose to delete hr

4:20:10similarly on page 11 mitigation measure 13-3 has noise capitalized in front of it i think we should delete that this these deletions are to make these impacts consistent with the mitigation checklist which is also known as the mitigation monitoring reporting plan

4:20:26page 12 delete the word noise in mitigation measure 13-4 and on page 613 delete capital t-r-a-n for mitigation measure 16-12 and i would also like to propose that we reduce on page 20 reduce the threshold in mitigation measure 7-2 from 10 000 square feet to twenty five hundred square feet

4:20:55you guys tell us what that is uh that's the how many square feet uh the project needs to be to trigger uh the historic resources document survey or c-h-r-i-s uh document review did you repeat the number uh it was 7.7-2 and 7-3 pages 20. oh i'm 2500 square feet sorry okay

4:21:19so so from 10 000 down to 2 500 square feet and that would apply to both 7-2 on page 20 and 7-3 on page 22.

4:21:30and i will make that motion the motion is a resolution of the city of el cerrito city council certifying the final environmental impact report for the san pablo avenue specific plan adopting a statement of overriding considerations and adopting a mitigation monitoring reporting plan

4:21:49including the second errata is that correct i have to acknowledge that you gave us a second errata this evening there are two errata sheets that's correct they're they're cumulative right they're not the second one does not replace the first one that's right okay

4:22:04so just noting that that includes the changes in in both sets of errata correct and and then the only other one that i had mentioned earlier was to make sure that the goals e for on page 20-2 were revised to reflect the uh strategies five six and seven as revised

4:22:24previously i second the motion okay so there is a motion by lyman seconded by benacini any discussion all in favor please say aye aye any opposition and the abstention motion carries unanimously okay now we're on to b which is a resolution approving a general plan amendment to

4:22:46change the land use designation for property located in the san pablo avenue specific corridor plan or specific plan i'd be delighted to make this motion a resolution of the city of el cerrito city council approving a general plan amendment to change the land use

4:23:00designations for property located in san pablo specific plan area typos that i would like to correct exhibit 1 should be exhibit a exhibit 2 should be exhibit b [Music] we got a new uh replacement package that we got at the dyess which means that on page 4-6 it actually adds

4:23:26up to 174 so i'd like to make sure that we are approving this document and in this document i would like to propose that um the on page no page number table table 4-2 density intensity ranges this the note which is starts with two double asterisks the last sentence says

4:23:56height bonuses may be allowed through a tier 4 entitlement process or through state mandated density bonus program should it be an and actually height increases height increases are only through the dent city so it is not read that again height bonuses may be allowed through a tier 4 entitlement

4:24:20process or through a state mandated density bonus program i'm going to look at our sql consultants right now but i believe that um height is not allowed to go up even in tier four except through the waiver program that we discussed earlier five feet right then this does need to be modified and i

4:24:38would propose that this read height bonuses may be allowed through a waiver or through state mandated density bonus programs correct no height bonuses wouldn't be through waiver height bonus bonuses only through the state mandated density is that correct that's correct okay so if this

4:24:55should be hype bonuses may be allowed through a state mandated density bonus program um and i know we're running out of time what was this one that was a comment well can we interrupt uh sure that to make a motion to extend the meeting i would suggest 10 minutes i move that we

4:25:16extend the meeting until 11 40.

4:25:19a second all in favor aye aye that concludes my comments uh my cur my typographical corrections to this motion so i have made the motion a resolution in the city of el cerrito city council approving a general plan amendment to change the land use designation for property

4:25:36located in san pablo avenue specific plan we have a replacement exhibit a and exhibit b is the map without changes okay and second okay a motion by lineman seconded by bridges all in favor please say aye aye any opposition any abstention motion carries unanimously

4:25:56now we're going to move on to c which is a resolution approving the san pablo avenue specific plan actually didn't we just do that yeah i think this would be um you know where's it no we did the eir you've done the eir and the general plan amendment so we're moving on to what i

4:26:13just said yes okay i move a resolution of the city council of the city of el cerrito adopting the san pablo avenue specific plan which is noted as attachment 3 to agenda item 6b in our packet second okay there's a motion by venice any seconded by bridges any discussion

4:26:34uh i'm not finding mine i think this is one of the few i didn't have any comments okay just two pages yeah i think that was the one and i will say all in favor please say aye aye any opposition any abstention moshe's motion carries unanimously now we're on to d which is to introduce by title wave

4:26:52any further reading and approving ordinance rezoning properties located in the san pablo avenue specific plan area which is attachment for and well i i think i think that's it i'd like to pass an ordinance of the city council of the city of el cerrito re-zoning the

4:27:10properties located in san pablo avenue specific plan area with the following type two typographical changes both are in the same paragraph it's known as section one of section two uh section two rezone is the section section one under that has 174.1 that should be changed to 174.

4:27:32and to the last sentence it references exhibit a which that should be changed to exhibit b exhibit b is the specific planned zoning map and that's what that citation references i second the motion okay um ready to vote so a motion by lyman seconded by benesini all in favor please say aye aye aye any

4:27:57opposition any abstention motion carries unanimously now we'll move on to the last part of that which is e introduced by tidal wave any further reading and approve an ordinance amending title 19 of the el cerrito municipal code by adding chapter 19.15 to incorporate the san pablo avenue

4:28:17specific plan area i move an ordinance to the city council of the city of el cerrito amending title 19 of the el cerrito municipal code by adding chapter 19.15 to incorporate the san pablo avenue specific plan area check it okay anything on this one nope okay so motion by benesini seconded

4:28:39by bridges all in favor please say aye aye in the opposition did everybody vote on that yes yeah okay um so no opposition no abstentions and motion carried unanimously now um we're moving on to 6b or 6b2 which is this san pablo avenue specific plan fees which is a separate public hearing

4:29:11so with that i just announced that there is a public hearing there's a staff presentation good evening i'll try to make this as brief as possible um the first item before you is to conduct a public hearing public hearing and upon conclusion adopt a resolution amending

4:29:30the city's master fee schedule to add new planning fees in a planned maintenance fee related to implementation of the specific plan which you just adopted the specific plan as you know creates new processes and it also uh creates um a different scale of development than our current master fee

4:29:50schedule um contemplates which actually starts its last tier at more than uh ten thousand uh at lower thresholds at 11 units and up so the new fees before you tonight in terms of the processing fees are to establish new and new fees for larger projects as well as

4:30:10new fees for our processes our tier one two three and four processes the second fee that's a part of our masterpiece schedule would be a plan maintenance fee and the government code allows us to actually charge development for some of the type of work that would go in to make

4:30:27the plan successful over time so it also includes that those fees just need to be set to be reasonable to be able to do the type of work we think that we'll be able to get other grants as and as well as do the work to assure a successful san pablo avenue specific plan

4:30:45um just through our existing staff capacity so the fee is set um not quite at the full amount of all the work that we could do to implement the plan because we think that fee would be higher than what can really be justified through existing real estate economics so it's

4:31:01set um currently at an amount that we think keeps us kind of in the in the mid-range and it would be bringing in new revenue to the city to be able to conduct the studies and do the type of work that we talked about parking demand management et cetera the this item was noticed um the plan

4:31:20the fees would not go into effect until november 24th and so as you will see the next item is about adopting a resolution that would uh cover the interim okay thank you thank you um are there any questions from council no yes oh go for it um the fee that you have in here that's being calculated 160

4:31:40per unit and 13 cents per square foot of non-residential um those fees potentially were based on a methodology that undervalues those by almost a factor of two um is that is that something that is that correct that this is about half of what we we could potentially need to

4:32:02charge in order to recover the cost as identified in table one or table two rather yes again these fees aren't required and the work that we're identifying is not required um for example by the eir but it's the type of work that we could reasonably assume to do and so

4:32:17yes we they could be double and still be justifiable but we don't think that they're that that they're appropriate at this time okay um so now then we are ready to open the public hearing are there any public speakers we have one speaker al miller went to bed okay is there anyone else

4:32:44who wishes to speak on this okay not seeing any uh but we've got one coming up he's okay he's running you're taking elle's place huh good evening mayor evelson members of council and city staff my name is tom paris i live at four five fair amount um i just can't tell by looking at this

4:33:04stuff and perhaps staff would like to comment on whether or not i'm going back to the person who owns a single family house in the plan area if they have new fees thank you if they want to rebuild reconstruct etc thank you that's that's a public comment and uh with are there any other public

4:33:26comments i moved close to public hearing second all in favor aye aye aye any opposition absent motion carries unanimously okay the public hearing is closed now would we could we ask the question yeah can i ask staff to answer the question that was just asked make it my

4:33:42question yes so in a nutshell no new single-family homes could be built in the plan area existing single-family homes are welcome to stay they are welcome to be maintained if they burned down or had some other act of nature affect them they are welcome to rebuild we would building permit fees

4:34:04would apply but they would never use permit or anything additional thanks thank you any other comments from council okay um have we received any written communications on no okay none i'd like to make a motion okay please a resolution of the city council of el cerrito the city of el cerrito adopting

4:34:22revisions to the master fee schedule to add planning fees related to implementation of the san pablo avenue specific plan and i would like to increase the maintenance fee from 160 per residential unit to 200 per residential unit and from 13 cents a square foot to 18 cents a square foot

4:34:47um can you tell us why yeah they're half of what they should be 26 cents a square foot and they should be 320 dollars a unit to to recover the college enough staff wants to make a comment i i think all it um so maria sanders did a lot of the work on this and you can

4:35:06see that we tried to come in the mid-range partly as you know we haven't had a lot of development and so we know there's a development feasibility issue this does add to the cost but it's an untested market so we don't we can't really state what the impact would be i mean about how optima um

4:35:25you know that's if i could just add something i just want it just to sort of help frame the issue a little bit um the study that's attached to um the staff report justifies a higher level of fees than staff is proposing if this is a policy decision for the council

4:35:41about whether or not you want to collect the full amount the amount the full amount that's justified by the study the amount that staff is recommending or some amount in between this is this is completely a policy decision for the council about what you think is the

4:35:55um proper level of cost recovery balanced against the potential impacts on um development feasibility resulting from the additional fees so up to the amount the maximum amount that's identified in the study you're legally justifiable and this is a policy decision for the council to make

4:36:15and if you look at exhibit b you can look at the type of fee that we're talking about for a theoretical 50 unit project which would be about ten thousand dollars in this maintenance fee as we've proposed it um and i guess about i didn't do the math of what you just proposed but it's

4:36:37somewhere in between the full recovery and so 15 000. so right it would be another two thousand dollars it would be a um an additional forty dollars per unit so it'd be another two thousand dollars against the residential line item and it was five cents a square foot more so that would

4:36:57be five times twenty thousand is a thousand dollars so i'm adding three thousand dollars to the to the theoretical 50 unit project there's one other aspect to this which is that these fees are subject to review and change every year that's correct so so uh if we didn't like what we did

4:37:21either way there's always the re that process that will happen that is true yeah if we go with the 160 13 cents i'll be back making a motion to increase it because i think this is a pretty hefty subsidy so are you making okay my motion my motion was to adopt the motion as as is

4:37:42except with the revision of the per unit price to two hundred dollars which is a forty dollar increase per unit and from thirteen cents per square foot to eighteen cents per square foot which is a five cent increase per square foot and before you move on if i could point out that you extended to 11

4:37:5840 so um you'll need to okay can we so we'll interrupt here to extend move that we extend until 11 50.

4:38:07okay second okay motion hi i'm second to extend it you know what i said right we can watch the tape back aye aye aye aye aye okay motion extended okay now we were you had made a motion but no one had seconded it that's correct can we do that now if we're interested

4:38:29i think i'll second the motion i think this is a very marginal increase and some of the i mean we've done so much with a specific plan to provide developers some level of of what we want that this is a pretty small additional fee so i'll second the motion okay any comments by anyone

4:38:47okay um all in favor please say aye aye any opposition or abstentions motion carries unanimously so now um open another public hearing right so now we move on to that ends that item now we move on to public hearing number four which is item 6b3 on the agenda which is the

4:39:11interim adoption of the san pablo avenue specific plan fees as an urgency measure so i'm announcing the public hearing there's our staff presentation just briefly uh again the um and our city attorney could speak more to the code that regulates us but the fees would take 60 days to be put in

4:39:33place and we do know that there are potential applicants that are interested immediately we would have no way of taking in those applications and facilitating so the urgency ordinance is allowed as described in the staff report it would be just for 30 days and then we would have to notice another

4:39:48hearing to extend it for another 30 days to get to the november 24th date at which what you just passed would become effective okay are there any questions from council no okay um so this time i'm going to open the public uh hearing is there any public testimony

4:40:10i have no speaker slips who would like to make a comment we'll be close to the publication okay second all in favor please say aye aye any opposition or abstention motion carries unanimously um so now have there been any written communications no okay none okay is there a motion i moved to

4:40:33emergency resolution of the city council the city of el cerrito establishing interim planning fees related to implementation of the san pablo avenue specific plan with the modification to the maintenance fee of increasing it from 160 per residential unit to 200 and

4:40:47from 13 cents per square foot to 18 cents per square foot second the motion okay there's a motion by lyman seconded by ben assini is there any discussion hearing none all in favor please say aye any opposition in the abstention motion carries unanimously that closes that

4:41:06public hearing at this point i would actually like to uh spend the rest of our time adjourning the the meeting and leave any uh remaining business we have we have one more item one more item on the agenda and this does need this has a calendar on it is that correct

4:41:22that's correct one more we need to do okay i do need to spend a little bit of a time adjourning tonight unfortunately um so what are what did we leave out this is item 7a oh 7a excuse me okay so 7a is there a staff report very short okay thank you so the uh good

4:41:46evening mayor abelson and council members i'm hildy mile housing program manager uh before you tonight is the recognized obligation payment schedule 1415b for the successor agency to the el cerrito redevelopment agency the successor agency must first approve the submittal of the rops prior to

4:42:06submittal for approval to the oversight board and the oversight board must in turn approve that before october 2nd for submittal to the department of finance for approval of redevelopment property tax to sufficient to pay our obligations uh on the wraps so before you tonight is the rops itself

4:42:29i'm happy to answer any questions that you may have about specific items or issues in general thank you any questions don't seeing none do we need to get public comment yeah i have no speaker slips you ready yes i move a resolution at the elstrada redevelopment agency successor

4:42:49agency authorizing submittal of the draft recognized obligation payment schedule 14-15 b as required under the disillusion acts okay is there a second second okay that was a motion by lyman seconded by bridges um did i leave anything out i'm a little tired yeah i got it all okay all in favor

4:43:10please say aye aye any opposition or abstention motion carries unanimously now i believe now we will we can move to the adjournment process and we have a very unfortunate two things actually and they both involve staff members of the city of el cerrito both of whom passed away

4:43:33very recently and so i wanted to spend a minute talking about them the most recent one was actually liz espadilla who worked at the senior center for 14 years she just passed just passed away and very unexpectedly and at a very young age and she was this very strong advocate

4:44:01for seniors and they loved her for her quick wit and her sense of humor she was also an active member of el cerrito's seiu local 1021 chapter and she was studying if some of you maybe didn't know i didn't she was studying at cal state east bay so that she could one

4:44:20day open a home based senior living business so that's really great she was also an artist with an amazing drawing skills but as you would know if you ever went to any of this city function she would bring her son and she is survived by her 16 year old son giles

4:44:39the love of her life who one day will attend uc berkeley or mit and we will miss her dearly and are very sorry to lose her in addition to that unfortunately we lost a long time employee of the city of el cerrito that many many people knew very dearly and that was emory weed

4:45:06he was a senior lifeguard for a very long time and he was one of the people that provided i think the character of the pool and um he was just a great person he actually retired from the wreck department swim center in 2013 after having worked 25 years serving both as a pool manager and a

4:45:30senior lifeguard instructor and um his name is weed his he was a native of weed california and he spent the majority of his childhood in ferndale california in humboldt cali county he graduated from school there and attended san francisco state the holistic life institute and

4:45:52remaining remain consistently enrolled in the school of life he also served in the u.s air force from 1960 to 1964 and so emory aka abaha buffalo was an elder of the cherokee nation and belonged to the native american church prior to coming to el cerrito he was an aquatic

4:46:19instructor for the boys club of san francisco as well as many other things he was a major figure in our recreation community and i know that um my kids you know knew him well and in fact even in my personal family um he would drive my daughter around to um basketball because he had a daughter

4:46:48that was the same age so he did a lot of carpooling duty because i can't couldn't do that um so um he's a very special person and he lost his life to a brain cancer on september the 7th and but he was always incredibly positive and enthusiastic and we will all miss him

4:47:12and in emory's own words i'll close the meeting with peace love happiness and prosperity thank you and the meeting is adjourned thanks thank you all for coming you