Oh, Order.

Um it is Monday, February 23rd, 2026.

And we'll go ahead and have uh board member Duis do the Pledge of Allegiance.

Please stand.

I'd like to have one question.

I'm just uh individual.

Thank you so much.

And with that, we'll go ahead and start the formal agenda.

The first item is roll call.

Good evening.

Here.

Board member Arisa.

Here.

Member Saheba.

Present.

And President Cisneros.

Here.

Okay, we have six members in attendance.

Um and one absence.

Okay.

Board member has absent.

Moving on to agenda item two, which is agenda changes.

Do we have any um requested agenda changes from staff or board?

No, none.

Okay.

With that, we'll move on to non-agenda public comments.

So if there is an item that someone would like to speak to that's not on the agenda, and just for a reminder, five A, we have various annual reports that we're going to go through.

Uh, and then item five B is a hearing on park station.

So I know there's some newcomers in the room.

So if there's an item that's not an agenda, um, and you want to speak, you can do so for three minutes.

Seen none.

We're gonna go ahead and no one virtually, right?

Um, yeah, nobody uh virtually.

Okay, great.

Closing item three.

Uh consent calendar.

We have some draft meeting minutes from December eighth, twenty twenty-five.

Um do we have any comments or request that changes?

If not, do we have a motion?

I can uh move to approve the minutes.

I second.

Okay.

Uh we have a motion and second.

All those in favor.

Aye.

Opposed.

Okay, so I'm sorry.

And one abstention.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

We'll go ahead and close the consent calendar and moving on to item five A, which is to uh review these annual reports.

Do we have a presentation from staff?

We do.

I'll be giving a part of the presentation here at the front, and then uh we have some other um division leaders who will also be presenting on their portion of this annual report on the work of the planning, building and transportation department, which includes um also our sustainability and adaptation division.

Uh some of our higher level uh customer service aspects, including our permit center, uh is part of the building division.

Um it accepts uh permits and issues um permits for um buildings throughout the city, including express permits, answers to calls and emails and sets appointments for accepting applications.

We have an online permit portal that we accept most of our permits through, but every now and then we need to help someone through the process as well.

So here a little customer service, 8,500 phone calls, over 20,000 emails, and a lot of hand holding, as I said, in terms of helping people navigate online permit applications and issuance fee payments, sorts of those sorts of things.

As you know, being one of those boards, we have five boards and commissions that we support, and that included 32 meetings throughout the year and many other community meetings and events, particularly for transportation and sustainability, where there's a lot of community engagement as well as with the base for use and economic development department.

I think some of you participated in that, and so there's quite a bit of engagement happening throughout the year.

As I said, there's over 4,500 permits that were processed and 30,000 inspections.

And if any of you have done a residential remodel, you know that it doesn't get done on one inspection.

It takes four or five or six.

Each component is inspected as it's done.

And some of these larger projects, each unit is inspected in the same way.

So for instance, the storehouse loss, I know had something like I don't know, 7,000 inspections on that one building over the course of several years that they build out each phase and each unit and so on and so forth.

We also have a code enforcement division that does both complaint-based as well as staff-initiated inspections regarding graffiti and overgrown weeds, abandoned cars, as well as illegal construction and other nuisance cases.

506 cases were opened and a thousand inspections conducted again with an initial inspection to determine if there is a violation and then follow-up inspections as needed for compliance.

All of this is accomplished with a two-officer inspection team.

I'll now move on to the General Plan and Housing Annual Report.

I have to say up front, the general plan report is not yet ready yet.

We're still working on identifying some of the compliance items as well as the housing report.

There's several policies and programs that are cross-departmental, and we've been working with those departments to get this year's activities updated.

The state reporting requirements are also quite a bit more complicated now.

Um, just what we have to report on, including measurable goals, even for things that you might not think are measurable.

So we have to actually create metrics and then demonstrate our progress on those metrics, and those just weren't available or required up until just recently.

But here we have our housing production numbers, including our RENA, our housing needs assessment that was uh assigned to us by the state at 5,353 units over an eight-year period.

We're not quite halfway into that period, but uh we're certainly not accomplishing our goals yet.

It's been quite a slow period for development, particularly because some of the large projects that you might still see actually being developed now or entitled in prior years in the prior cycle, and so as those projects move through the system, we don't really get to count them if they've already been issued permits.

So, for instance, the Lancy condominium development obtained master permits for each building type, and so as they're building out their 175 units or something like that.

They have a five-unit, a seven unit, and a nine-unit building.

Well, they had a master permit issued several years ago, and they've just been kind of reusing that permit, and so we don't really get to count those units.

It's it's a little anomalous, but it's and frustrating, honestly, because you know we're still doing the work and getting things done, but that's one example of how the system is complicated and and not always reflecting reality.

But anyway, here we are.

We still have a lot to do, and so we're uh continuing to look at zoning code updates that can help streamline and accommodate more housing within the planning period.

Um we have uh generally been working with, as I said, with our partners, um, the housing authority and the housing and human services department.

We've uh we have seen some projects completed, including affordable housing for families and seniors and veterans, uh housing rehab for low and moderate income uh seniors and persons with disabilities, and also uh first-time home buyer assistance for below market rate units, so where someone might have the income qualification, family size qualification, and um win the lottery even to move into a below market rate unit, they uh they might not quite have the move-in down payment that they need, and so we're doing some assistance there too as well, just to make sure that people actually get into those homes.

Um, and as I said, we're doing other work uh on short-term rentals to preserve some of the housing stock, um, cleaning up the ADU ordinance to streamline some of those, um, looking at the inclusionary housing ordinance as you know, um, thinking about different percentages of uh low, very low, and moderate income housing.

And then we've started working with the economic development department talking about commercial zoning.

Um it's not all about housing.

Uh, we also want our economic development to be successful and have fewer vacant storefronts and uh more small businesses in town, so we're working on that.

And with that, I will hand it off to Dan Yell Mueller.

Good evening.

I'm Danielle Miller, sustainability and resilience manager, and I'll be presenting on our climate action and resilience plan annual report.

Um, so just as a reminder, our citywide goal is to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 50% below 2005 levels by 2030, and uh achieve net zero emissions by 2045, while we also prepare for the impacts of climate change like shoreline flooding and ground and rising groundwater.

Um we completed an emissions inventory in 20 or for the year 2022, last year, uh showing that our biggest source of emission is um transportation, followed by uh energy use in buildings.

Um, and because we have 100% clean electricity in Alameda, all of that is natural gas uh use.

Um, you may recall that in 2025 we updated our climate action and resiliency plan, and so um, really looking forward to showing you some of the progress we've been making.

Um, as a as a follow-up to that um plan update, we created the CARP metrics hub.

Um, so on our website, we have our tracking all of the metrics and how we're doing uh for CARP.

Um so that's a really great way for the community to closely track what's happening.

Um really proud to uh report that we're meeting some of our 2030 goals already, and we're really on track to meet our overall goal of 50% uh GHG reduction.

We're about halfway through the planning period of from 2019 to 2030, and we're more than halfway through that goal.

So that's really exciting.

We're also on target with our miles of bikeway completed.

Um, the percentage of uh of vehicles in Alameda that are uh clean zero emission are almost at our goal of 12 percent.

Um we've reduced our indoor water use quite a bit, and we've um actually met our natural gas um natural gas use reduction goal of overall for the city.

We did a lot in 2025.

I won't read through all these, but we've been really focusing on deploying public EV chargers, curbside, and city lots.

We did that at our first location at Everett Commons Housing Authority site, and we have new chargers at Bullhol Circle Immigrant Park, and we're working on a lot of other locations we're hoping to bring online in 2026.

AMP supported with a number with it by issuing many rebates for EV charging for e-bikes and for used electric vehicles.

When homes undergo remodels and for electric ready upgrades.

So if you're doing a remodel to your kitchen and includes electric work in the kitchen, we'd like to install a 240 volt outlet near the stove so that we can be ready for future electrification, and that helped meet some Bay Area Air District rules that are coming online in 2027 and 2029.

We also had an electrification fair, that was our second one with 150 participants, and AMP supported our home electrification efforts with a number of rebates for electric appliances.

The city updated its zero waste implementation plan, and we did a lot of tree planting and parks, particularly at Main Street Linear Park, helping meet our tree canopy goals.

And we continued our youth climate ambassadors program this year, which has been really successful working with high school club environmental club leaders to help coordinate across the different high schools in Alameda.

In 2026, we're going to be updating our municipal and community wide greenhouse gas inventory, deploying more public EV chargers.

We're looking at requirements for non-residential heat pumps when you replay when they replace air conditioners, similar to what we did for residential.

We'll be having another home electrification fair this year.

We're gonna pair it with the bike festival in May and hopefully attract some new audiences and some new interest.

And then also updating our urban forest plan that's been in the process.

On sea level rise adaptation, we've also had a busy year.

We supported many of you might have seen our climate, the climate arts initiative that the city supported rising tides.

We had dance performances, we had the band a loop performance out at Alameda Point.

We had a photography exhibit, so it was a really great way to sort of educate the community about the issues that we face here in Alameda.

In September, we had a sea level rise planning fair that was really well attended.

It's the culmination of the first phase of our shoreline adaptation planning process.

We received grant funding to continue to advance the design for the Bay Farm Island project to 60% design.

And this year we're going to be kicking off the second phase of our shoreline adaptation plan that'll meet BCDC requirements, and we'll be doing a lot of public engagement and have lots of opportunities for input over the next two years of that planning process.

We'll be continuing the Bay Farm Island design with the grant funding and then seeking funding for other priority adaptation projects and again commit continuing our robust engagement efforts.

And as we go through these processes with these adaptation projects and with this plan, we really look forward to engaging the planning board to help support us and provide input along the way in this process as well.

And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Lisa Foster for the transportation report.

Good evening, President Cisneros and board members.

I'm Lisa Foster, Transportation Planning Manager for the City.

And I will review our transportation annual report, which shows our progress on city goals related to safety, equity, mobility, and mode shift for our transportation system.

And I do want to mention that the report, you know, that you all received, it represents works of multiple departments, but mostly the transportation planners and the planning building and transportation department, which is the small team that I lead, and then the engineers of public works who couldn't be here tonight.

So 2025 was another banner year.

We implemented 1.5 miles of all ages and abilities bikeways, upgraded curb ramps at 25 locations for ADA access, repaired over 8,000 sidewalk trip hazards, improved intersection safety at 79 intersections, and also increased mobility with our transportation programs, including serving over 125,000 riders on the Oakland and Alameda water shuttle.

And the older adults and people with disabilities who participate in our free bus pass program took over 225,000 rides on AC Transit buses.

And then just a few highlights of things that happened last year, included implementing the first neighborhood greenway on Pacific Avenue from Oak Street to Lafayette Street.

This includes some speed humps, new stop signs, painted curb extensions, new crosswalk and bikeway markings, and a neighborhood traffic circle at Chestnut Ave pictured here.

I also wanted to highlight our bike festival.

We do this every year in conjunction with the Alameda County Safe Roots to School program, and it did and does attract hundreds of people for lots of fun events, including a bike rodeo with uh at safety education component, helmet giveaways, etc.

And it will be on May 2nd at Ruby Bridges Elementary School this year, so mark your calendars.

And then we did have a lot of progress on the city's construction of the Central Avenue Safety Project, including our substantial progress on our first two roundabouts in Alameda.

They are at this point are now mostly complete, just anticipating improved lighting this year at those two roundabouts.

We keep very busy.

Lots of projects happening now to look forward to for this year.

In the planning stage, which are the items in blue on this map, we have projects like Starjill Avenue Complete Streets, future phases of neighborhood greenways, wooden bridge, Pacific Ave Wilmachan intersection improvements, and of course our water shuttle, which we anticipate bringing back expanded service this spring when the Oakland Alameda Access Project starts construction.

And then, of course, lots of construction, which is led by public works, but I don't want to leave without mentioning because it's pretty major stuff.

We do anticipate completing the Cross Alameda Trail this year after many segments and many years of effort to get people safely and comfortably four miles all the way across our island.

So this year the components that could that are anticipated to be finished are the Clement Ave Tilden Way project, which you've probably noticed is under construction, and then the Clement Ave extension from Olone to Grand, which you all as planning board members are familiar with because it's a development project that's that's creating that segment.

Um Caltrans will be beginning construction of the Oakland Alameda Access Project this year.

Uh it is they've announced that it will start in um March in the Webster tube.

And then our slow streets conversions continue and near-term improvements on fern side.

Um so a lot to look forward to this year.

Our staff recommendation is that you all accept the 2025 annual reports on the Alameda 2040 general plan and housing element, climate action and resiliency plan, active transportation plan, vision zero action plan, and transportation choices plan.

And uh, yes, thank you to our wonderful staff.

This is not quite everybody, but almost in the planning, building and transportation department.

Thank you.

Thank you for that great presentation.

I'll hand it over to my fellow board members to see if we have any clarifying questions on any of the reports we heard.

For member Dewey.

Thank you for the update, really appreciate that.

Um, every time I I really enjoy seeing these because it's everything in overview one shot.

So thank you for doing that.

Um, a few questions.

You mentioned that general plan and housing element update is not available, and yet that is part of our approval today, so I'm a little confused.

It wanted to know when that is coming back, or should we pull that away from today's resolution?

Well, yes, I would I would clarify there's there's nothing really to approve as much as just accept the annual report, and yes, we would bring back the other reports for your uh review and acceptance um as soon as they're done.

Okay, well, then okay, then I'll I'll save my comments for the comment session, they're just question.

And then um, I think the rest are commons.

Thank you.

Any other uh questions for member Sue?

Yeah, just a couple questions.

Um, this one is related to housing.

Um, the staff report mentions um 32 of the units um for ADUs were designated as low or very low income housing.

Um, and I'm just curious, were those um as part of projects that had to provide affordable housing?

I'm just curious because I usually don't see ADUs as something used to meet affordable housing requirements.

Right.

No, we we actually I can clarify that we we don't count them as inclusionary units that are deed restricted or uh specifically designated as affordable, but um ABAG has done a regionwide survey and and H2D has endorsed the approach of um presuming that certain percentages of ADUs are different affordability levels for the purpose of reporting um to HCD as part of the annual report.

Okay, that's really helpful, and then um just related.

I see, so it says that second bullet on page two of the staff report says um issued 65 new dwelling units, including 52 accessories.

So 52 of the um permits issued um last year were for ADUs, and then we've got the rest of the seven for other types.

Okay.

Wow.

Um, what I use.

Okay, uh, just another question I had uh this is for um uh on the CARP plan.

Um you mentioned kind of some of the funding sources a little bit, and I see in the report you mentioned some of them.

Um, and I'm wondering just it looks like a fair amount of from federal grants, some of it from FEMA, and I'm wondering if if you run into any issues just with this current administration in terms of uh like uh getting funding and making sure you abide by all the various different requirements they're imposing now.

Um yes, thank you for that question.

We have received um we do have a fair amount of uh federal funding that we rely on for our sea level rise adaptation and flooding projects.

Uh some grants that when the new administration came came on.

We were sort of in mid-stream and mid-process.

Um, there was a moment when we thought maybe that those those funds would go away.

So far, we have received all of the money that we are expecting for those federal grants.

The one where we had um a pretty significant impact was that we had an application submitted to FEMA for the the BRIC grant program.

It was a 55 million dollar grant application for the Bay Farm Island project that also included components in Oakland around the Oakland Airport.

Um, and that grant program was canceled, so we were not awarded that grant.

Do you know why it was canceled?

I do not know.

Just one quick follow-up question on shoreline.

Can you kind of just expand a little bit on the creation of this?

I guess the this isn't an agency, I think, right with maybe in partnership with Oakland.

Is this a state law requirement?

And then I know is there any coordination with kind of the shoreline going down south kind of in terms of planning for sea level rise further down?

Are you kind of coordinating with other agencies on that effort?

Um so I think you're referring to the the shoreline adaptation planning requirement.

It is a is a requirement that's um by new state law SB 272 that requires all shoreline bay and um oceanside communities to develop a shoreline adaptation plan by 2034.

In the bay, those plans are approved by the um by BCDC, the uh Bay Conservation Development Commission.

And um last year we formally initiated or provided a notice of intent to complete a shoreline adaptation plan.

A handful of other jurisdictions have done the same as well, um, and we were awarded a grant from the state to uh complete that plan.

Um so we are doing that for the city of Alameda.

We are also coordinating through our Oakland Alameda Adaptation Committee with the City of Oakland, and we're going to be doing really close collaborative planning with Oakland, but we'll be developing our own individual plans.

And then because other jurisdictions um, well, and we'll also be coordinating closely with uh jurisdictions to the north of us, Emoryville parts of Oakland, Albany, and Berkeley are completing kind of a joint planning effort as well.

So we'll be coordinating with them to the south of us.

Uh to my knowledge, San Leandro has not initiated a shoreline adaptation plan, though I know they're doing adaptation planning, and we have been coordinating with them through the Oakland Alameda Adaptation Committee.

They've been a part of that because they sort of touch our border.

Cool.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other clarifying questions?

Um President, I just realized I have another question.

Um, this is on the transportation front.

Um, with the connection between on Clement between Grant and Olone, does that mean that the um is Grant still yearmark as a truck route?

Even though I know some of the areas, the dimension might not meet the dimensional requirements for truck route.

The um, yes, it is still our truck route.

Uh Clement is through there, and Public Works is looking at options for that street before opening up the roadway.

Okay, because it there's some dimensions that doesn't meet the truck road demand, because now we put the bike trail in that the roadway on the aurora.

Yeah, there's there's ways to use it with with the existing roadway, they just need to look at their options.

And then the other question is regarding the um save to school.

Um, that all the um thank you for the update on 2025's achievement and also what's um coming up with 2026.

I noticed that um ASTE is now on this list, so was Alameda Science and Technology Institute was not um on the school listed.

So the schools listed for the safe roots to school infrastructure program, yeah.

So those um, how about yeah, some other schools that's not.

I might have missed other ones too that may not be listed in here.

That's just one of the examples.

So there's safe roots to school um education and encouragement program led by the county, and I think we have a hundred percent AUSD participation in that.

And then there's also the safe roots to school infrastructure program.

Uh-huh.

And in that, the the county program does uh school safety assessments where they look at the streets around the schools, uh, coordinate with the with the city and with the uh AUSD, and and create recommendations for street safety improvements around schools, and then the infrastructure project is where we you know take those recommendations, review them and implement our own.

So last year a set of schools that had existing school safety assessments were were implemented.

Um actually, I think it happened maybe at the very end of the year earlier this year, and then we're working on the next batch for design this year.

Got it.

So if the school is not on there, that means that there's no infrastructure issues that meet.

Well, it means they haven't had an assessment yet.

Got it, got it.

Okay, but the county need to assess it first.

Right.

The county does about two assessments for us per year.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

Sure.

Great, thank you.

Um, and any other questions?

Being none, um, I did have uh a couple quick clarifying questions, um, maybe uh related to the transportation report.

There was a mentioned um how there were counters, like three folks counting, and then they had gaps in the bike and pedestrian um collection.

I was just wondering like why and how can you speak to that?

Yeah, we're discovering a fair amount of inconsistency with the technology, just um, kind of things fall apart here and there.

Uh, but we were able to get some apples to apples um comparison with the data that we did have, and then we are working with the companies to you know look at what happened the other months to make estimates on on the missing months so that we can have some estimates on on overall numbers.

Okay, and how big was that gap?

Like how many months was it?

Like, I um I can get that information for you.

Yeah, okay.

I was just curious.

And so you just extrapolated from the existing data.

Yeah, okay, got it.

Um thank you.

And I think this question is related to the climate action plan um with the beacon program awards.

Um I was just curious if it comes with funding, like but uh what goes into these awards?

I don't know.

How does it help?

Yeah.

Um yeah, we got a few awards last year.

Um we got uh from the Institute, I think the Institute of Local Government, the Beacon Award for both our community-wide greenhouse gas emissions um efforts, some of our sustainability best practices, and for our coordination through the Oakland Alameda Adaptation Committee.

Does not come with any funding, unfortunately.

Um I think it helps us, you know, get the word out about the great work that we're doing in Alameda with our community and with other jurisdictions.

Um it was presented to council members at the League of Cities meeting in Long Beach earlier this year, so they got they got to have that kind of notoriety.

They also presented it to us at a council meeting.

Um of the other, I guess, not awards that we got was um from the California um resilient resilient cities um accelerator program, um, and they uh invited us to join an inaugural cohort of cities that are working on um seal rise adaptation.

There's five cities, and we were the only Bay Shore community that was invited.

That one did come with a up to a hundred thousand dollars grant funding, and we've um allocated 40,000 of it so far for a sand movement study at the South Shore Beach to help uh initiate uh adaptation project and concept development for South Shore area.

Amazing.

Thank you.

Yeah, and that's not to uh dilute the awards or anything.

I was just curious, so that's amazing.

Uh great.

Um, with that, we'll go ahead and uh close the clarifying questions and open to public comment.

I do have one speaker slip here.

Do we have any um any virtual or other speakers?

Let's see.

Um, if you have any virtual speakers for 5A, please uh raise your hand.

Um, not seeing any speakers.

Okay, great.

Um and this speaker slip is for Mitchell Ball.

And you can speak up to three minutes.

Right.

Thank you.

Well, there is good news in exhibit two and three.

I think we really need to focus on exhibit one, which shows an objectively disastrous situation.

Well, even in our previous best year, we weren't on pace to meet half of the RHA targets.

Last year showed a uniquely poor performance with less than 10% of target permits issued.

This is an emergency.

Well, Alameda has met the housing element zoning requirements.

Zoning is no longer the bottleneck.

California's housing crisis was not caused purely by bad zoning, but by an insidious nativist and xenophobic ideology that infiltrated and influenced municipal government decades ago, producing harmful policies that now seem commonplace today.

The new bottleneck is cost of construction, a large portion of which is municipally imposed.

Well, last year's uniquely poor performance was in part caused by cost drivers outside of Alameda's control, including tariffs, loss of labor, the Palestine's fire, and high interest rates.

This should not be an excuse to wring our hands of responsibility, but a wake-up call that more drastic action to reverse the injustices of the past needs to be taken.

One of the largest contributors to the cost of construction are impact fees.

And California stands apart from the rest of the nation with average impact fees nearly twice as high as the next state.

One of our planning board members, Andy Wang, has thoughtfully proposed to the city council a temporary discount of impact fees in order to enable construction from developers who are currently waiting for financial feasibility.

In addition to this, I would like to propose a permanent and targeted discount to impact fees that would enable construction during this tough period, as well as put Alameda in a safer legal position.

Legal precedent dictates that while cities can apply exactions such as impact fees to new development.

These exactions must pass the Nolan-Dolan test and be roughly proportional to the cost new development imposes on the city.

In 2019, Alameda proposed produced a Nexus study to justify its largest impact fee, the parks and recreation impact fee.

This exaction was calculated and justified within this document, but impact fees are not the only type of parks and recreation exaction that Alameda applies.

Larger new developments are often also required to construct new parks on nearby city land.

This can be a good thing as local developers often do a better job than more general contractors as they have an incentive to build quality amenities nearby, increasing the value of their development.

However, the Nexus study makes no mention of this kind of exaction, meaning the city lacks the justification to be applying it in addition to the impact fees.

To resolve this issue, every acre of parkland improved or remediated by developers should result in a discount on their parks and recreation impact fee equivalent to the cost per acre established by the Nexus study.

Well, I'm sure someone with a law degree might have a more informed opinion on how a lawsuit on this topic might play out.

It's important to remember that throughout history, legal precedent has often been a lagging indicator of justice.

This is not just about justice for large housing developers, but justice for the most vulnerable in our society, those who are currently homeless, immigrants, young people, and future generations to uh whose homes are not currently being built.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, seeing no other public comments, we'll go ahead and close this portion and bring it back to the board for deliberation.

Did my fellow board members have any comments?

Board member Sahiba.

Yeah, I'd like to thank uh staff for the thorough reports and um I just wanted to highlight uh uh really appreciate the work on Vision Zero, which I think is a critical uh component that uh flows into some other aspects of the work that's being done.

And I know and visually we can all see the um the improvements that are made on multiple intersections.

And so um uh I applaud the city for continuing this work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ah, board member Wang.

Yeah, so thank you to staff for for the various reports uh echo um my fellow board members and saying it's really nice to see progress so visibly uh delivered over the course of a year.

Uh particularly um, it is it is really nice to see the transportation improvements.

I'm quite partial myself to the Central Avenue roundabouts.

Um it's really really great to see the cross Alameda Trail nearing completion as well.

Um I think I'm hearing that we're gonna see the general plan and housing element come back to us another time, right?

So we'll have another chance to talk about that more in depth.

But um I guess echoing some of the comments that we had earlier or a few months ago over the inclusionary housing ordinance.

It is um, you know, freshly disturbing to see um that we delivered so little housing uh over the course of 2025.

Um quite interesting to see that basically five out of six of those 65 units were ADUs.

Um understanding I think that the master permit structure does have does front load some of those numbers into other years.

Um and I do I do think you know I think we all know that construction costs in the Bay Area are driving a significant slowdown region wide, and so there's very little control that the city can exert over those costs, um, and yet I think we also know whether intuitively or or just based on on data that construction costs don't go down, right?

They don't go down from year to year.

So what we're looking at in 2025 isn't gonna change this year or the year after or the year after that.

Construction costs might go up more slowly, but they're not gonna go down.

Um, I'd love I'd love to be surprised by that.

Um so I think we're facing a structural problem here that the city needs to tackle aggressively and proactively, and so what I'd really like to see in the housing element update is not just hey, we built this much, but I want to understand what are we doing proactively to get projects that are waiting in the wings and to move them forward, um, and what are the bottlenecks there?

Um, I want to see us at the table with our sleeves rolled up saying how can we get another 100 units built, another 200 units built.

Um, because you know, uh we we heard anecdotally in the in the last session on housing that there was a project that was maybe 150 units that that would could potentially pencil.

And so when you compare that number to 65, that's that's quite a huge difference that that could be making on that number.

Um, so I I would like to see more work here.

I'd like to see uh maybe just for us as the planning board to understand what staff might be doing behind the scenes to move the ball forward on on housing delivery.

Uh I don't think it's just our job as the planning board um and as a city to uh weigh in on design decisions and and planning decisions and get projects approved.

I think we have a proactive uh a desire to see housing actually built.

So that'll be my comment on this.

Thank you, board member Wayne.

Any other follow-up comments?

Board member Dewey, President Cisnero.

I want to echo um board member Wayne's comments again.

Um I appreciate public comments about um our um impact fees, and but I think that needs to be rolling when the general plan update um annual report and the housing element annual report is ready to review that we can review that all together.

Um I would recommend that um instead of accepting the annual reports as is, I will strongly recommend striking out general plan and housing elements on the title of our um a sentence so that and have said that they certain for when that item comes back and so we can review that separately.

Thank you.

Uh any other board comments, uh Vice President Arisa.

Um, I just want to echo everyone, my board member fellow board members comments.

Um, thank you to the staff for the reports.

Um I think that it's impressive all the work that the city of Alamida has done so far.

Um, and I think even though the housing element might not look like there is a lot of progress, or at least compared to what the goals were.

It is definitely a complex um issue, and I appreciate what board member one is proposing that we take an um more proactive approach and looking for ways to push that forward.

Um, but in any case, I just wanted to say kudos to all the staff members to the city.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other comments?

No?

Okay.

All right.

Um, with that, um, I had um just uh my global comment is I agree I'm so proud of our city for being such leaders or getting awards and um meeting goals above the benchmarks um and uh lots to look around and be proud of.

Um I um tend to have this uh feedback when I look at reports and it's more so related to the transportation plan where um for example uh it mentioned the point of we had great success with I don't know X number of trips.

Um for me it's really helpful to know uh what that number means, like what's it relative to?

What's the percentage increase?

So um that's just some feedback I'd love to um see incorporated um moving like forward or next time, but um, you know, in uh absent of that uh the numbers are impressive.

Um but again just having that more um conditioned is helpful in that context.

Um so that's one just maybe piece of constructive criticism.

Um, I think I going back to the housing element, um, I agree that we don't have like a full picture because it talks about the building permits, it doesn't really talk about the entitlements and other efforts, and I echo my fellow board members where um, you know, we'll have this opportunity later on in the year to continue to work on our inclusionary zoning policy, you know what are the things that we could do to get projects that are stuck on stock.

Um so I really appreciate the public comment um about ways that we could be uh creative to help um have our housing element be that much more successful.

So I just really um want to appreciate and echo that sentiment.

Um back to uh board member Odisa's uh suggestion in the staff report it mentioned something to the effect of how these annual reports are consolidated to help with the city council's budget and capital improvement program.

So I'm just wondering like is there a reason not to strike out the general plan and housing element approval at this point?

Is it okay if we just wait until we get that more fuller report?

Yeah, I was thinking we could come back um March 23rd.

Okay, great.

Yeah, in that case, I'm I agree with that um recommendation.

Uh, just that way we have all the inform um the things that we need when we're making that recommendation.

So with that, do we have um a motion to accept these annual reports?

I move to accept the annual report with the following amendments, removing the title general plan and housing element from the acceptance.

Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed on absence, and the motion passes.

Okay.

Um any other comments from staff before we move on to the next agenda item.

No, thank you.

Okay, great.

Thank you so much to uh uh the fellow Alameda staff for all your work.

Okay, moving on to agenda item 5B, which is a hearing for use permit for uh the park station project, and we have a staff presentation.

Yep.

Uh good evening, uh President Cisneros, members of the board.

I'm Henry Dong with the planning, building and transportation department, and as mentioned, this is a six-month review and use permit application for the park station uh tavern at 1200 Park Street.

I'm gonna provide a brief um overview of the project, and then the applicant who's with us today would also like to address the board.

And then I'd also like to note that we received over 30 uh public comments on the project, which we distribute to the board, and then we also had one petition with 144 uh signatures on it.

So the project is uh located at the corner of Park Street and San Jose Avenue.

Um it currently contains the uh park station tavern, which has been operating there since August of last year.

Um surrounding properties uh include residential um buildings along San Jose Avenue and um Park Ave behind, as well as mixed use buildings uh to the west, um, and to the uh south of the site and also to the north.

Um so on uh February 13th of last 2023.

The board approved uh design review and use permit for the park station tavern.

Um that included um an outdoor patio use with associated uh outdoor music events.

Um music events were approved for three times per month on Fridays from 4 to 8 p.m.

and Saturdays from 2 to 8 p.m.

Um, and events were up to three hours each.

Um, as part of that approval, the board also required that the applicant return uh to the board for a six-month review after they've been operating at the site.

This is a site plan of the facility.

Um the uh outdoor patio areas located in front of the building at the corner of Park Street in San Jose Ave.

Uh, and then to the north and to the back of the lot is the L-shaped um existing building that's being used for the tavern.

Uh the indoor um music events take place uh in the large tap house area, and then the um outdoor music event performances are performed on the stage that's located in the uh southwest corner of the site.

Um there's also uh initially there was a um a brick wall that was proposed, it was roughly about six feet tall uh as the backstop to the stage.

Um that wall was uh the purpose was purely aesthetic and didn't really have any um noise mitigating purposes to it as some of the commenters um in the public comments that we received were um inquiring about um because uh I guess when you have the elevated stage uh next to the six-foot wall, really it's really actually a short wall.

And the band, I guess the performers would actually be kind of standing out above it.

Um so as part of the um direction of the board to provide more visibility into the site, we worked with the architect to um to make the the permanent fencing all transparent.

Um this slide summarizes um some of the code enforcement inspections for the site over the past six months.

Um we've received some inquiries and uh at least two complaints regarding outdoor music events at the site.

Um, so on September of last year, uh complaint was filed for an outdoor music event.

Um that was followed up by an inspection by COVID enforcement in October to measure ambient levels uh at the site.

Um it was roughly around between 65 and 90 decibels for those ambient measurements.

Then in October of last year, uh there was an outdoor event that exceeded the 85 decibel maximum of the use permit, and so uh a violation uh was noted in the system.

Uh that was followed by two more inspections in January that were indoor events.

Those events were found to be in compliance with the uh ambient noise levels for the site at that time.

Then on January 31st, uh another violation was observed by code enforcement where they exceeded the 85 decibel level, and um were playing past the uh 8 p.m.

time limit, and uh on that date, another complaint was also filed for that event.

Um, then a follow-up inspection was done in February of this year, and uh that outdoor event was found to be in compliance.

So um one note uh that code enforcement um mentioned was that uh typically when drums are played at the facility, that's when the um the event would go over the uh maximum noise limit.

Um as part of this uh use permit review, uh the applicant is proposing to make some changes to the use permit for the board to consider.

Um they're requesting that uh events be held uh 10 times per month, uh and those uh events would occur on Friday between 4 and 9 p.m.

So it's extending about one hour.

Saturday to 29 p.m., Sundays to the 7 p.m.

And then they are going to maintain the 85 decibel maximum noise limit that was approved as part of the previous use permit, um, and no longer requesting the increased uh low noise level, and so uh pursuant to AMC uh 30-4.9A and AMC 30-21.3 C the board may approve this use permit requests.

Um created a slide here uh to compare the uh current um use permit requirements and the proposed changes by the applicant.

So we have the current requirements here in the first column, second column is what's requested by the applicant, and then the third column here is an option that we included in our uh draft resolution for the board to consider.

Um the board can choose to uh go with a different option or also could um consider uh keeping the existing requirements.

Um additional uh conditions of approval that we're recommending because code enforcement was pointing out that uh the drums were a big part of uh when bands would go over the um decibel limit.

We're requiring that they include um drum dampeners as um for all of the performances that have drums.

We're also recommending to require that the applicant install a monitor for uh sound metering uh so that all of the staff are able to um see that at all times, and then also conduct preliminary sound readings as well as uh readings during the events, and then um the last recommendation is that if three violations occur at the site, then um the applicant will be required to come to the board for an additional review.

Sorry about that.

And so um staff's uh recommending the board uh hold a public hearing and then consider adopting uh the draft resolution uh for use permit approval.

So that includes staff's presentation.

Um if there are any questions we can have the applicant come up.

Okay, great.

Thank you so much for the presentation.

Um yeah, I guess we could hold off on the applicant coming up until we have questions.

So um bring it back to the board.

Any clarifying questions?

Uh board member Deweys.

Yes, um, would you mind showing the slides?

Um Mr.

Dom, the above the comparison of what the applicant is proposing.

Question on the outdoor music noise level, what is showing in the staff staff report versus on the slide, I think there's a discrepancy.

Um, under maximum decibel, I think the applicant is proposing 90 decibel, right?

Or is it 85?

Because it's oh they um they're actually uh rescinding their 90 decibel proposal.

Okay, so they they're gonna stick with the 85.

Okay, thank you.

And then thank you.

That's why I couldn't figure out the discrepancy.

Then second question is on um the inspection report, which is exhibit three.

It says informational.

But if you read the content and the just comments area, it looks like they have exceeded the allowable decibel.

So it appears to be in violation.

Is there a reason why it was not annotated as such?

And it was annotated as informational instead of in violation.

This is exhibit three in the staff report.

Yes, right there on the right hand side, inspection status.

Because if you read the description, the comment area, uh said the ambient noise level were approximately 70 to 90 decibel, which exceeds the 85 decibel allowance.

Well um code enforcement advised that this inspection wasn't there was an event occurring at that time.

It was I think it was purely for ambient noise level readings, but correct.

So the information the first line, the inspection status is informational.

This was the preliminary inspection conducted by the inspector, and he found the ambient noise.

That is there's no event happening.

Ambient noise was 75 to 90.

So I'm sorry, you can't.

Sorry, yeah.

Sorry, you have to wait.

Thank you.

But well, I understand I know why NBN is.

Yeah.

Um my question is a refresh my memory, is the original conditional approval on the noise level, was it only for the event only, or is it throughout?

I believe that our municipal code, the noise ordinance is for everything, regardless whether there's event or no event.

Correct.

The noise ordinance applies to residential, commercial, industrial properties throughout the city.

The use permit in this case applies to the outdoor seating and the outdoor entertainment.

The outdoor seating is not an issue here, and so we're really just talking about the outdoor entertainment.

But doesn't ambient noise.

Oh, okay.

I I see your point.

Okay, understood.

Thank you.

I I will just state that there were two ambient noise levels recorded in this inspection itself, 65 to 70, and then 70 to 90.

So um, it looks like it's on two different streets.

It might have been two different, yeah, two different locations.

The report, it's an unclear on where those measures were taken.

So, it says in that like two different streets, like and as louder.

Yeah, it says on park street, okay.

So, next door because they were here, yeah.

Yeah.

Good point.

Okay, okay.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Uh any other questions?

Uh board member Sue.

Um yeah, yep.

Thank you for the uh presentation, uh, Mr.

Dong.

I just one question on, um, I think staff is proposing instead of limiting the number of events just to say no limit to the number of events, but that events should be three hours in total each day.

So does that mean each performer can only go up to each performance can go only up to three hours, or in total the number of performers cannot perform more than three hours per day in total.

In total.

Okay.

And the yes, that which is not changed from the current use permit.

Okay, gotcha.

Um, yeah, I'm sorry, you probably sort of just to follow up on that question, and you probably talked through this already in the presentation, but um in the applicant wanting 10 events per month, like the sum of that would be more hours playing versus staff's recommendation, which is no limit because it's confined to those hours on Friday and Saturday.

So um, yeah, okay.

But it's still more than what the current use is.

Um, okay, sorry, just talking out loud.

Thank you.

Um any other questions?

No.

I guess I would just comment, you know, I I went back and looked at the original um hearing on this use permit and noted the different board members that were there and their their method of sort of reaching compromise.

And I I suggest that just that, you know, they talked it through and they decided what they thought was best, and then we had the six month review.

We're here for the six-month review, and so it's now your discretion to review and deliberate and negotiate um as you see fit.

So um, you know, we have a staff recommendation because we have to put one in the report, and it makes the most sense to sort of work from what they asked for and what we started with.

Um, we then received um, you know, what is it, 30 or 60 public comments and a petition, and so um, you know, there's a lot of different opinions about this, and so um we're here really to hear and to uh deliberate with you uh to help you reach a decision.

Oh yes, four member Sue?

Yeah.

So I just have another question about the ambient noise.

Sorry, to just resurface the topic.

So if code enforcement goes out and is there to do a sound test and they record the ambient noise at like 90 dB before the music starts, and then the music starts and it's at 85 or 90.

Is that not a violation because the ambient noise was already you know at that level at the time before the music started?

Yes, that is the ambient becomes the the baseline or the regulation in the real world, um, that's why there's a range here.

It's 65 to 70, 60 to 90.

Um, I went out today and measured across the street, and it was just lunchtime traffic and it was sixty-eight decibels.

Um, you know, if a bus goes by, it's eighty or eighty five decibels.

Then when the bus leaves, it's back down to sixty-five.

So that's kind of the nature of um real world.

Okay.

Any other questions?

I have a question, but I don't know if this is the right time to ask.

It's really more kind of to the applicant, and I guess to staff.

It's like have there been any kind of studies or considerations or consultants like an acoustical consultant or on how to find ways to acoustically make the space so that the sound stays.

It's kind of difficult.

I understand because it's an open space, but I'm wondering if an acoustical engineer would have an opinion that would serve.

I don't know, this is a question to the applicant maybe uh does staff want to direct um I haven't seen any technical reports and we haven't commissioned any did the applicant want to address the question in terms of um outreach to consultants or some kind of mitigations to the noise good evening board members thank you for your time uh so the question is could you repeat the question again so we're clerking oh I was just wondering if um there had been many maybe a consultation with an acoustical engineer and if there were maybe any reports of or a study on how to uh maybe keep the sound in on site of course somehow of course yes so um we have a sound engineer employed for our music events um uh an experienced sound engineer who is guided to maintain the decibel at 85 uh I understand that we've exceeded that on two occasions and certainly have no intention to it is true that the ambient noise is very close to that par anyway um but in the slides that we'd like to present um that my partner grant has prepared I think it will be helpful to be able to see the range of the area and the uh radius of what that decibel looks like and where the measurements of the of the tested areas were were taken from one of which by example is directly across the street at the wash house which is about 65 feet away maybe a little more but point being the um the image that we'll show you in the slide will give you a better sense of what that looks like we are looking at studies to do some additional curtain um uh uh uh attachments to the fence when we have music to help maybe the backdrop lower some of the output going west um and and certainly looking at any of those opportunities where we can reduce the noise level thank you um the staff have the applicant's presentation or no we do we have it oh okay uh I'm just wondering was the intent to have this uh presented during public comment or I'm just a little confused sorry oh yeah actually they were going to address the board after staff's presentation um but then we were taking questions here so um okay yeah so if if the board is okay for them to start their presentation we could have that uh huh got it okay so the questions are directed to staff okay are any other questions to staff um I think I have one so sorry if you want to hold tight um how do we come up with the 85 decibels again I um uh is that just like a standard from like I don't know uh city ordinances um it was a uh standard that was set in a previous uh use permit that for the Taylor lot over on Webster Street and so what we did was took the conditions from that project and brought it over to this particular project and what was the other project sorry oh it was the Taylor lot on Webster Street um that was the use permit that was approved by the board I think maybe a year or two prior to uh the 2023 approval for this parking lot next to the okay all right thank you um if no other questions from the board to staff um uh yeah I think we could hear from the applicant um but yeah I think I think I think that's a good thing I think that's a good idea could you go to the first page?

Staff Member Dong.

My name is Grand Eskin, I'm one of the partners at Park Station, and good evening board members.

This is meant to just give some context.

So what you see on screen is the stage location, and then we have dimensions shown for the uh you know the lineal feet that we have between the stage and the adjacent properties.

So to the south, you have 65 feet to the wash house, and then to the west, you have 85 feet to the nearest uh multifamily uh building there, and then we have 85 feet from the stage to our service counter, so it just shows you the scale of the what we call the yard as reference points, and then we have a radius of 100 feet shown as, you know, I don't think that there's anything magic to the sort of where we're taking the decibel readings from.

Um, you know, we just went to the closest residences, so I'm not sure where Andrew took those from, whether it was 65 feet to the wash house or was it 85 feet to the one across the street, but run 100 feet is a radius just to also show kind of what that area encompasses in terms of the surrounding uh buildings and residences.

Uh you can go to the next slide.

Uh, this is just more of a graphical interpretation to make things as clear as possible.

This is kind of echoes what uh staff member Dong had on screen showing the indoor tap house and then the exterior yard, uh the San Jose Avenue and Park Street locations.

Uh, you can go to the next slide.

Uh again, just more photos showing exactly what we're looking at in real time.

So this is a view from the stage looking back towards the tap house.

That 85-foot dimension goes to the service counter.

We have a service window at the tap house.

Um, so that diagonal is 85 feet.

Uh, you can go to the next photo.

This is a view from the stage looking down Park Street in the next photo.

A view from the stage going down San Jose Avenue.

Uh, kind of hard to see, but this is a view from the service counter looking out towards the uh the yard, and beyond that umbrella is the stage uh next photo.

And then this is a view from the stage looking out towards the intersection of San Jose Avenue and Park Street with the auto zone diagonal, 85 feet to that building that I mentioned earlier, and 65 feet to the wash house, uh, across the street, the closest building.

Uh, that's the extent of the the presentation.

I did more just to kind of set context for everybody so uh we understand landmarks and and what we're talking about here.

Um I think the other thing I want to mention that was brought up is the the brick wall that was mentioned behind the uh the stage that was actually a change uh that was directed to us by the planning department to allow more uh transparency from the street and sidewalk into the yard space.

So that was actually something that was dictated to us uh that changed uh the method of construction and how we built the fence around the property.

Um as mentioned though, uh what Melody mentioned, we are looking at doing sound curtains, things to mitigate the sound transfer that goes through the mesh.

Obviously, there's no acoustic uh qualities to that mesh fence.

So looking at ways to create more of a barrier to help with uh sound transmission that extends outside.

Uh we have looked into some products and uh we don't have them on screen, but uh things that you know lower the decibel level like by 20 decibel level or 20 decibels.

And we're really speaking about the drums, right?

We haven't had a sustained event where we've been over, you know, more than like a second or two of like a drum beat or something like that.

It hasn't been a sustained, you know, two minutes of 85 plus just a blatant violation.

So we're trying to solve for those sort of like off-chance moments where we do have a little bit of a spike in decibel level.

Uh it was actually kind of the reason why we originally applied for the 90, just because we don't want to be in violation, we really respect the rules that have been given to us, and we've been trying to abide by those rules uh throughout uh the course of our operations, uh, but to respect the you know the community and you know the that five decibels is material.

Our intent was not to play the music louder.

It was really just to avoid any violations from a spike.

Uh that's you know why we ended up rescinding on the the additional five decibel levels.

It's not our intent to be you know a nuisance or play loud music.

We want people conversating in our, you know, in our yard and like enjoying themselves and and uh all of that.

Loud music is you know it's uh it's a completely different story and it's not what we're chasing.

Um do you have anything else you want to say?

Yeah, I think the only thing I'd like to add is that um uh by by vip by visual, you'll see that the 65 foot location across the street where the wash house is.

That's a multi-use building.

Um so there are uh apartments above the wash house as there are above the building to the west uh at the 85 marker.

Uh we have another uh tap house in Sacramento.

We also have a use permit.

Um there's uh a further guidance that's provided to us.

Um we have demarkers um uh at a hundred feet out, specific decibel readings that we cannot exceed at those marks.

The demarcation with the code for City of Alameda simply states um by the first resident.

And in this case, it's uh it's a little misleading because these are commercial zoned buildings that are multi-use.

Um I don't know that that it would be reasonable to imagine that we could be at 85 decibels across the street where the building is 65 feet away when the service counter to our our entrance is eighty-five feet away.

Um, and we are respectfully making every effort to stay within the 85 decibels, honestly at all times.

It is true that the ambient noise is considerable when there's not a soul around as well, and I think that should be taken into consideration.

Thank you.

Um I'll bring it back to the board for uh questions for the applicant.

I have a question.

Where are the speakers located in your plan?

Uh that are on the stage, they flank the stage.

We have a PA system and the speakers are brought out specifically for each event.

So they're just on the stage pointing at the audience.

Is that what it is?

That's all that's all the speakers that you have.

Yeah, we have two speakers and they're pointing at the service counter, I guess.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Okay.

So thank you.

Oh, yeah, for member Sue.

Um, so obviously, you know, if we allowed this your events to go till nine, that would be um, you know, give you a little more flexibility.

But can you kind of elaborate on kind of what that how that would help you?

Obviously, I guess people would be able to stay out longer, enjoy music longer, but you know, I'm just taking into consideration the comments we've received about just you know sound going into the evenings.

Of course.

We um we are we're looking at uh a 9 p.m.

curfew to the extent that in the summer hours when it's late lighter out later, we would love to have the ability to have our jazz night, for example, out in the beer garden um enjoying the outdoors.

So uh the hope would be that we would be able to extend that curfew to 9 p.m.

That is the same curfew we have in Sacramento.

I think on a Friday or Saturday night, it wouldn't be unreasonable, um, but we'll certainly respect whatever decision is made.

Okay, any other questions?

All right, thank you.

Um and with that, we'll move on to public comment.

How many speakers do we have?

Okay.

Okay, so like a lot.

And um the it sounds like we have like 25 or so speakers.

Um the rule of thumb, remind me, um Mr.

Buckley, is that when we have more than 10, we tend to limit it to two minutes, or is there like when it's over 20, do we do like one and a half minutes or something?

It's uh I'd say the chair's prerogative.

Uh-huh.

But yeah, we want to do want me to um, terrible with math, but I feel like we might want to do that.

Um yeah, I'm seeing nods from my fellow board members.

Let's do um one and a half minutes.

Uh oh, were you gonna say something?

Sorry.

Well, I was gonna um see bigger requests for everybody to raise their hands online and then we can kind of see what the actual tally is, but it looks like we'll have quite a few.

Um if you would like to participate online uh with public comments, please raise your hand.

So we could take a tally.

And you said this was 16.

Yeah, that's what he said.

So in person, we have yeah, there's 16 in person.

So far, I have two online.

Okay.

Board member Sahiba, yeah.

Yeah, I was just gonna mention if you want to state that if there's repetitive comments of someone, you'll see that as well.

Yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

Um, okay, so you we only have two online speakers.

Yeah, so far, I see two.

Okay, so uh I guess we could keep it to two minutes.

Um if you have a comment that is very similar to the previous speaker, um I highly encourage you to say, um, and I agree with the previous speaker in terms of I'm against um the motion or I am in favor of the motion.

So we could try to expedite um the eme.

So I would really appreciate that.

Uh me and my fellow born members.

So with that, let's go ahead and get started.

We have Kathy Weber.

Good evening, um presidents Cisneros and members of the board.

I apologize in advance for my uh laryngitis.

Um I'm Kathy Weber, executive director of the downtown Alameda Business Association, and I'm speaking tonight in strong support of the um the use permit for park station.

We support the request to allow 10 outdoor music events per month within the applicants' proposed hours and the associated sound allowance for those events.

This business sits within a commercial district where restaurants, gathering spaces, and activity are part of what makes the act the area function so successfully, carefully managed entertainment, helps bring people downtown, supports surrounding businesses, and contributes to the lively, welcoming environment.

What gives us confidence in supporting this request is the track record of the operators, the team behind Park Station, our experienced hospitality professionals who have made a significant investment in improving the property and creating a well-designed space that our community enjoys.

They have shown themselves to be collaborative and responsive in supporting local initiatives and nonprofits, working with neighboring businesses and sharing the broader goal of our commercial keeping our commercial district vibrant and economically healthy.

From our perspective, this is exactly the kind of thoughtful activation that downtown benefits and the activity that it brings to the area while remaining comparable compatible with its surroundings.

We appreciate your consideration and we thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Let's go online for the next virtual speaker.

Let's see, uh Kathleen Sullivan.

I'm going to allow you to talk.

Hi, thank you.

I uh live on Oak Street, and um I I'm against this proposal, and I found it confusing to have the data the association just say 10 events where the proposal from the staff on one of the slides was unlimited.

So I'm not even sure what we're voting on at this point.

I just know, yes, it's a commercial district, but it's surrounded by residential properties, and we are already subjected to enough noise.

I like to walk down the street and not be inundated with music.

Anything that can be done to mitigate the music, decibel levels is great.

They've already had a couple violations.

So why are we allowing them to expand?

Shouldn't we give them a period where they have to be someone or a business that does not violate the rules?

And then we could say, okay, let's see what we can do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker, Michael Haddon.

And I'm gonna read a couple of names so you could get in line if you like.

Um after that, we have Jeff Robos and then Scott Warner.

Thank you, board members.

Um, my name is Michael Haddon.

Um, I've lived in Alameda since 1991.

Um, I taught elementary school here for a dozen years.

Alameda is quiet, and I like quiet.

Um, apparently, the use permit allowed outside music until 8 p.m.

Well, your inspector was only able to get there a couple of times, but I lived there.

And so there were multiple occasions where they went past eight o'clock.

Um they say, ooh, our noise isn't that loud.

Well, at my front yard, the noise is I've recorded it not every time, but at 80 decibels.

Yes, Park Street is noisy.

I live a block from Park Street.

Okay.

Um buses go by, they're loud.

Cars go by, they're loud.

That lasts 10 seconds.

This lasts for hours.

I cannot peacefully enjoy my home when they are playing loud music, which they do for hours.

Um, a transparent wall?

That's no wall at all.

Uh just that just ridiculous.

Um, and if you're going to require them to have a decibel meter, then it should be locked, and the city of Alameda should have access to the data 24 7, not oh, we'll monitor it ourselves.

We already know they've violated the rules they agreed to.

Um, so um, really, really disruptive, really disruptive.

Um, and again, I've lived there for 20 plus years.

Big O tires was there.

Um, never, never any kind of noise like this.

So anyway, uh, thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Alameda Planning Board.

My name is Jeff Robus, and I live at 1115 Park Street.

I'm here tonight in opposition to the proposed amendment that would increase outdoor amplified music events and extend their permitted hours at park station.

Since park station began operating, amplified music has been clearly audible inside my home, even with the doors and windows closed.

The six-month review in the staff agenda report shows that there were three inspections cons conducted, out of which two resulted in violations, either exceeding the 85 decibel limit or exceeding the volume limit and going past permitted hours.

One inspection recorded a permitted uh peak reading at 95 decibels, which is significantly above the permitted limit.

A 10 decibel increase is generally perceived as twice as loud to the human ear.

Notably that reading was recorded across the street and not at the property line or the sound stage itself.

As a result, the sound permanent in our home has disrupted our afternoons and evenings, including my children's 7 30 p.m.

bedtime, which is the recommended bedtime for by Alameda Unified School District for elementary students.

Allowing this to happen two days a week would make that disruption recurring in a frequent event in our household.

In 2023, the board limited outdoor music events to three per month ending at 8 p.m., specifically to minimize disturbance to the surrounding neighborhood.

Over the past six months, many neighbors on my block, including myself, have experienced the negative impacts of the amplified music in our homes and on our quality of life.

The documented violations and complaints during this review period do not support the increase in frequency of events or extending the permit hours.

For these reasons, I respectfully urge you to deny the permit expansion request and enforce the existing limits.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time.

Scott Warner.

Yep.

And then after we'll go to virtual.

Okay, good evening, uh, one and all.

Uh yeah, my name is Scott Warner.

Uh, I've been a resident of Alameda since the late 90s.

I want to speak in favor of uh an expansion of music at Park Station.

Um, and I want to commend the ownership team for spending two and a half years to do the soil mitigation and renovation on a property that had been a vacant lot for almost a decade.

My hope is you all are as committed to the flourishing of a new new Alameda business as I am.

Um, the ask that they're making is a modest one.

Right now, they have Fridays and Saturdays on it on an occasional basis.

They want to ask for Sundays as well.

They end events at 8 p.m.

They're asking to push it to 9 p.m.

on Saturdays and Sunday on Fridays and Saturdays.

The duration of events is the same, three hours.

Uh, in addition, I would say, in a time of uncertainty, both nationally and internationally, the uplifting spiritual power of music is more needed than ever.

We need more music, not less.

I will say I am in favor of a visible decibel meter.

One is used at the Bistro, which is a venue down in Hayward, uh, and it's uh it's it's helpful.

Um, my final comment is that uh Mr.

Buckley earlier spoke about empty storefronts.

To be sure Park Street is better than it was two years ago, but I walked the streets earlier this evening and I counted 14 empty storefronts between San Jose and Lincoln, and so I'm not including John Patrick's, which has been a dead property for a decade.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And who do we have online?

So we have um two more speakers online.

Um, we'll just do one more, and then after that, uh Kevin Durfee and Reed Watley.

So uh next speaker is Jim Daly.

Uh Jim, you are allowed to talk.

Uh thank you.

Um, several months have passed since park station opened, and while its services have been a good addition to the quiet end of Park Street, I find that the huge disruption this single business has caused to dozens of households across this entire neighborhood is not.

I'm a homeowner, I live approximately 200 yards away on the far side of Chechenio Park.

And despite that distance, even with my doors and windows closed, I can hear bands playing clearly from my living room all weekend, often for hours at a time.

I don't begrudge anyone the enjoyment of live music.

I'm a former music journalist myself, but I should not be captive to other people's music in my own home.

I've also reached out to park station's owners about these noise issues and received no response.

Um, noise is not the only problem.

We uh on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings, parking near our homes has become nearly impossible unless we return by three or four in the afternoon ahead of the crowds.

So I urge the board to also explore a residential parking permit program so that people who actually live in the neighborhood can park here.

But given all this and the owner's seemingly unwillingness to meaningfully engage with the neighbors, their business effects, it is astonishing that Park Street wants to increase both the number of concerts and the permitted noise level.

Tripling the number of music events would significantly increase the disruption this business already inflicts on our neighborhood.

Hundreds of residents are already struggling with a noise nuisance that any property seller also would be legally required to disclose that a single establishment on Park Street feels entitled to reshape the character of an entire Alameda neighborhood on both sides of the street is not a minor concern.

So I urge the board to hold the maximum allowable noise level to 85 decibels, which we've seen they've already violated or lower, and to reject any expansion of the current event schedule.

I want to thank the board for their foresight in approving the creative reuse of a former automotive facility, but I hope he will now act with equal care to protect the neighborhood that surrounds it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, members of the city council.

I'm an engineer who has worked in audio for over 10 years.

I live across the street from Park Station with my wife and 18-month-old son who is struggling to sleep due to the park station noise.

I would like to focus on a few key points regarding the proposed permit changes.

First, under the guidance of a CEQA attorney, I would like to publicly say that this change is going to have a significant impact that needs to be analyzed by CEQA.

The CQA exemptions you are listing do not apply.

Second, Park Station has repeatedly violated the terms of its existing permit.

Why are we giving them more?

Third, most importantly, the existing 85 DBA limit is extremely loud, unsafe according to the CDC, and without precedent across California.

I like I like your question.

Where did this come from?

I honestly don't know.

This is a diagram.

The existing noise ordinance in Alameda or music on commercial sites is 60.

If you double that, you get up to elevated impact analysis on 75 DBA.

Nearly unacceptable noise for residential buildings.

You double that again.

You get to 85 decibels, park station permit, CDP threshold for hearing damage.

And interestingly enough, the limit for construction noise in Menlo Park.

I spent the weekend searching for towns and CD permits and regulations across California.

This is without precedent.

Please just ask Chat GPT, do some Googling.

This makes no sense.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Reed Watley.

Thank you, President.

Thank you, board members.

My name is Reed Watley, and I've been an Alameda resident since 1995.

Professional musician for all of my adult life.

I was so pleased when I went to Park Station for the first time.

What a great and needed addition to that side of Park Street and to Alameda in general.

What I was most pleased with about was the owner's support for live music.

From 2003 to 2007, I was the right-hand man for Kelly of Kelly's of Alameda.

You may remember at 1313 Park Street, now the home of the hobnob.

Live music was a big part of the venue, and people came from miles around to hear the music and to participate in the very popular open mics that we held.

As I'm primarily a drummer, I became an upright bass player as a result of my involvement with Kelly's.

In addition, I developed a popular act Big Cheese and the Jive Rats at the club, a comedic novelty swing act.

Now my act is experiencing a renewal because of Park Station.

My salsa band is also playing at the venue, and both swing and salsa dance party events, which are indoor events have been well attended.

We have all ages enjoying and participating in the music and the fun.

I can't emphasize enough the effect the pandemic had on live music and many businesses in general.

So much live music and venues didn't survive.

I've attended several outdoor events at Park Station, which all have been really fun.

The guests have an exceptionally good time mingling, enjoying the community atmosphere and especially the music.

A community needs live music and places to gather to enjoy culture and togetherness.

Park station offers that and more.

Please consider a favorable review of Park Station, a much needed community gathering place for Alameda in the Bay Area.

In addition, uh I'm a drummer.

I've played in living rooms in Atherton, and places like that where I've controlled my sound.

And I see the note the note about dampening on the drums.

Drummers tend to get louder when the rest of the band gets louder, and drummers have an have a proposity, propensity to not control themselves.

And I think that's an aspect as well to be observed.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Sorry if I pronounce this wrong.

Uh Kirsty Lee.

You're allowed to talk for two minutes.

Oops.

Sorry.

Okay.

It looks like they lowered their hand.

So I'm gonna go to Grace Rubenson.

Hi, thank you.

Um board members and community members.

Many of my neighbors around Chichenio Park, where I also live, are rightly raising concerns about the amplified noise level.

There is also a second significant um park station concern that I really want the planning board to be aware of, which is parking.

Um I can put this on your radar now, we can talk about it more in the future.

But the opening of park station demolished park avenue residence parking overnight.

Well, I'm glad to see a thriving new business and a gathering space that Alamedans can enjoy.

The neighbors are paying a serious price for it.

Literally, the moment park station opened, the streets around Chichenio Park became its de facto parking lot.

The difference was dramatic and instantaneous.

Park Avenue is home to a lot of multifamily residences where tenants rely on street parking and those tenants no longer have it.

So from 4 p.m.

to 8 p.m.

on weeknights and all day starting at noon on weekends.

Park Avenue is completely filled with park station patrons' cars.

I personally often return home with two kids and four bags of groceries, and I can't find parking anywhere near home.

So park station, the business should certainly do its part by encouraging patrons to use the Ug Street garage, but I think we all know there's no way that alone is going to solve this problem.

We neighbors need and want to work with the planning board as soon as possible to institute some formal parking protections for residents.

Thank you.

Um let's go back to the room.

Um Ann Rabbit and Betsy.

And just a reminder, you could say I agree with the previous speaker.

So yes.

Thank you to the board for letting me speak.

And I do agree with the previous speakers against the resolution.

Um I am urging you to please retain the original conditional use permit requirements and not to expand for the reasons mentioned that there have already been two violations.

Um I do have a couple of other comments.

Um Tito Villa Senor, who is a resident of 1117 Park Street, he lives right next door to AutoZone.

He could not be here today because he is in Italy working.

Um he mentioned that uh one day he went to go talk to the uh the uh person who was mixing the band's audio and he asked if he was monitoring the decibel levels, and the audio engineer just said no, and it wasn't his job to do that.

I'm a little concerned, and Tito is a little concerned that that's not showing a willingness to be uh responsive to the residents' needs, and also um Tito did mention that the sound wall that was proposed uh for the original height would not be effective, and he works with uh live television productions, so he's familiar with audio and uh video transmissions and broadcasting.

So uh he was really concerned about that and um I also live um at 1105 Park Street, so I could also hear the music very clearly inside my house in um at three around three o'clock on Saturday, January 17th.

I'm betting that the music was over 85 decibels because I could hear it with my doors and windows closed.

I could not listen to the TV, I could not talk on the phone without having the sound interfere.

Um, the other question I have though is why were we not notified about the potential about this hearing?

The previous board meeting in February 23.

They mentioned that they shortened the radius from 500 feet to 300 feet.

Yes, thank you.

If you do it by the Yeah, thank you very much.

I appreciate I appreciate the no, and we'll follow up on that.

So thank you.

And I'd like to know.

Thank you.

Um Rabbit.

Thank you, all of you board members, and thank you to the president.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, especially on Monday when they are closed.

I wish they would be, I wish they would be.

Good neighbors.

I live at 993 Park Street.

So I am a block beyond Anne.

A block beyond Jeff, a block beyond John and his wife.

And I can still hear it inside my house, much, much more in my backyard and in my front yard.

But even inside the house with the doors and windows closed at 993 Park Street, I can hear it.

And as well, I will couple down on the parking, even as far away as where I live.

So I'm beyond a house and two houses beyond the corner of Clinton and Park Street.

So even on Clinton, the car there's I'm there's no parking as soon as they opened.

And even down on my part of Park Street, which is again a bit away from these speakers.

And it's the noise and the parking, and I don't feel like they tried to be good neighbors.

And again, why are they doing asking for more?

They want longer, later, louder.

And this isn't Sacramento.

And this is the very, very, very end of your business, the business part.

All of us neighbors are all around.

And I'm I appreciate what you say about the live music.

I love it as well.

But you wouldn't love it if you lived where I live, and I bet none of you live on Park Street, or even near to this place.

So I really hope that you do not let them expand.

Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

Betsy.

Good evening, Betsy Matheson, 1185 Park Avenue.

I commend Park Station for converting a downtown eye store eyesore into a thriving example of adaptive reuse.

Park station and South E Restaurant are one of our family's new favorites for our frequent dinners out.

The cheerful voices, children playing, and occasional outdoor music are a welcome replacement for the buzz of lug wrenches and the intercom announcements from the old tire place.

Park station's outdoor music fills our backyard with happy sounds.

I find myself singing along.

One afternoon I was enjoying the music so much that I put away my gardening tools and walked over to Park Station for an IPA and a grilled cheese sandwich.

But when listening to the music from our backyard, I also found myself laughing nervously.

How can this be allowed in a residential area?

What about the people who live closer?

There are two houses and a street between our house and park station.

The stage faces away from our house, and still we can hear many of the lyrics clearly.

I wonder about the neighbors who want to hold backyard birthday parties and select their own playlists instead of relying on the bookings of events at Park Station.

Most of Park Station's first six months of operation have been during the chili season when we've all had our windows closed.

This spring, the music will follow us indoors when we open our windows, making it difficult to concentrate.

I urge you to hold the allowable noise level at 85 decibels at most.

If the number of events is to increase, the allowable noise level should be reduced.

10 events per month would be essentially every weekend evening.

And I appreciate several of the other speakers.

Thank you, thank you so much.

Um, Mr.

Dong, how many online speakers do we have?

We have one more online speaker.

All right, let's do that, please.

Thank you.

I'm going to allow you to talk.

And then after that, we have Act Thomas.

Hi, I'm Kirsty.

Sorry, I put down my hand because you called on me and I didn't.

Anyways, my name is Kirstille.

I live nearby at 1183 Park Street.

That's uh right next door to Betsy.

I just want to begin by saying that I'm super supportive of the park tavern and genuinely appreciate what it brings to the neighborhood.

It's a valued local business, it's an important part of the community.

When we bought our home, we intentionally spent time on the street at night to understand the environment.

We previously lived in Oakland.

We chose this neighborhood because it struck a balance between being lively and being livable.

Um I'd like to offer a few constructive suggestions if this application moves forward.

I think it's important to distinguish between the ambient neighborhood noise, voices, convo, people enjoying the area, children.

I have for myself, and the sustained amplified music, which travels further and has a greater impact on neighbor on nearby homes.

I would support later or longer events, provided they don't include amplified music.

If the amplified music is approved, I respectfully suggest conditions such as installation of a noise meter with enforceable decibel limits, defined time restrictions for that amplified music, and thoughtful consideration of the cumulative impact of sustained amplified sound, not just at the peak levels.

Secondly, the parking has become extremely challenging.

I hate to be the one to complain about this, but the parking impacts do need to be acknowledged and addressed.

Finally, I just wish there had been more proactive outreach from the neighbors to the surrounding neighborhood.

Direct communication goes a long way in building trust and solving issues collaboratively.

We really love you.

We want you to be here.

We also want to live in this neighborhood.

So between those two things, we just need to find a balance.

I wish they have reached out to us.

We tried reaching out to them.

My daughter has been there twice.

Um, and we also really love the business.

We've eaten there, we've bring we've brought guests there from out of town.

We really are glad they're here.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you.

Um, art.

Sorry, maybe.

Sorry about that.

And then after that, um, Sean Alfred.

Okay.

My name is Ark Thoms.

I'm the owner of Washboard Laundromat, which has been mentioned several times here.

Um 1198 Park Street, the corner of San Jose Avenue, across the corner from Park Station.

It's my 49th year in business uh this year.

Serving the residents of Alameda.

Uh one of my concerns is the addition of Sundays to their schedule.

Saturdays and Sundays are my busiest days.

Most people work Monday through Friday, so part of their weekend is doing laundry.

Laundromats during the COVID uh epidemic were designated essential services to help stop the spread of COVID and are still uh still are on the uh and still are essential on a smaller scale.

Parking is obviously a major factor for people to be able to do laundry.

I have three parking spaces for customers when park station is open.

There is additional demand from employees, band members, customers, and owners.

There are apartments and businesses across the street and surrounding park station.

A lot of parking has been eliminated with the uh park or park goods for the restaurants.

My main concerns are being open on Sunday.

Number two, more than tripling the number of events which draw more people and more cars, and the noise, which has been mentioned.

Thank you.

Did you have any questions?

No, thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Sean and then Eden merchant.

I'm in support of the uh expansion of music.

Um I want to thank the board for hearing me.

Um I'm speaking to express my strong support for ParkStation's proposal to expand its live music programming to include both Saturdays and Sundays.

Expanding live music at Park Station would provide a much needed outlet for performing musicians, which I am, and create a consistent welcoming space for patrons to enjoy live entertainment.

I actually live above the laundromat, right across the street from park station and work for art as his manager, and I have not heard any music and have not had any kind of issues surrounding the music.

So that 65 feet is me, and that's my kids, and we live there.

I do acknowledge that there have been some parking issues, but I want to continue by saying that over the years, many of the venues on the island have disappeared, leaving fewer opportunities for artists to perform and for the community to gather around live music.

Park station has that opportunity to fill that gap and serve as a vibrant cultural hub.

Live music contributes not only to the local arts community, but also to the broader economic and social vitality of the area.

It brings people together, supports local talent, enhances the character of our community.

Park station's expansion would make a unique and valuable venue on the island.

One of the only places of its kind offering regular live performances.

I respectfully encourage you to approve this proposal and support the continued growth of live music in our community.

Thank you.

Eden, I'm just gonna be very brief as a community member here.

I just am in support of it.

I just think it's done a lot for our community community in terms of bringing people together, generations of people I've noticed when I'm there.

And I just think that we need more arts, we need more music, and I think it's actually helpful to the families also here in um Alameda, just so the kids can also learn about music and see the different artists.

So I'm just in support of it.

That's why I wanted to come and say thanks.

Thank you.

Uh John Legg and then Ted Anderson.

Thank you very much.

Uh again, I didn't really have a lot prepared because we weren't notified really in advance, but I just want to point out a couple of things that we're not like people who bought houses next to the airport and then complained about the noise.

Those of us that are in here complaining about the noise, we've all lived here for considerable amount of time and would like, you know, we respect each other as neighbors.

We don't play loud music in our backyards and interrupt their days and their Sundays and their Fridays and their Saturday nights.

And we'd like the neighbors who are moving into the neighborhood, including the business, to do the same for us.

I want to point out that with one exception, the people that are opposed to this all have stated clearly where they live and that we live in proximity to it.

We can't leave.

If we don't like the music, we can't go anywhere.

We have to live with it in our house or we have to leave our homes.

That includes when I'm barbecuing in the backyard.

Hey, you've got the two minutes.

I can just keep going.

You forgot the we can we have to listen to it when we barbecue in our backyards.

We have to listen to it when we're sitting in our front rooms.

I'm lucky we have noise attenuating windows, but not everyone does.

Um just want to point that out.

You know, if they don't like it, they can leave.

They don't have to come in the first place.

We don't have that option.

I certainly agree with the parking issues.

It's horrendous.

Extending the hours means it'll be that much later till a parking place is available.

I gotta go out and move my car when everybody leaves.

So I'm asking that you finish all the aspects of the original permit and implement the required monitoring, which was discussed, formal monitoring before considering any expansion of hours, performances, or sound levels.

I heard somebody mention that the sound law wasn't effective.

Don't know the reasons or determination behind that.

Sounded like a great idea, but now they're suggesting something else.

Let's wait until something else is in place and the monitoring is ongoing, so we can see if it actually works.

Otherwise, you're gonna put us as neighbors in the role of enforcement for code violations.

We're gonna buy noise meters.

We're gonna call the police.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ted Anderson.

Thank you, everyone.

Uh, my name is Ted Anderson.

I'm a 25-year resident of uh this beautiful community we call Alameda.

Um, to provide some background, uh, I'm a big believer in and an advocate of anything that enriches this community and makes Alameda a more vibrant and thriving place to live.

It's why I got involved in the park station uh project and joined the ownership group for disclosure's sake.

Um but beyond that, I'm also a lifelong music lover and particularly live music.

Over the last quarter century, I think Alameda has sorely missed a consistent outdoor music venue to support local artists and those that want to listen.

Over the last quarter century, in order to consistently enjoy life, outdoor music has required citizens of Alameda to travel to other municipalities to seek those opportunities and venues.

Park station and its owners have believed strongly from its very inception that outdoor music is an important community building block.

We've succeeded in creating a unique venue that can successfully support a safe and controlled environment for outdoor music, and we'd like to secure the long-term right to provide that for the community within reasonable limits.

Alameda deserves a consistently supported and curated outdoor music program that intends to offer a wide variety of influences and most importantly provide a place where artists can find an audience and be paid for their talents and patrons can be given an opportunity to sing and dance more than a handful of times a year at city-sponsored festivals and concert series.

We hope to have the planning board's continued support in maintaining and expanding our outdoor music program at Park Station, and if not at Park Station, where you and then Emily Grunt Grant and Parker Beverly.

Hello, thank you for having me.

I'm Emily Grunt, and I have been an Alameda community for over 20 years now, and I am in favor.

This community venue at Park Station enhances our community.

I've noticed that myself and many families gather there, and when we come to Park Station, we not only stay at Park Station for a bit, but we also explore more businesses on Park Street, including Tucker's, yogurt, books, inc, dinner places that I know is benefiting the whole community at large.

Beyond that, Park Station's greatest contribution has been its extraordinary support of local schools.

I have a 12-year-old daughter in seventh grade at Lincoln Middle School and a nine-year-old in fourth grade at Edison.

Our family has been actively involved in PTA at both schools, and I am currently serve as the Lincoln Middle School PTA president.

Dan and Melody have supported our schools in many ways that I've rarely seen any local business do.

They have generously provided space for committees, PTA exec board meetings, and hosted fundraising events that have directly benefited programs and activities at both Lincoln and Edison and other schools.

I am deeply deeply grateful for their commitment to our students and the schools, and I know this permit would continue to support those efforts and their willingness to be generous in their space and their time to help us raise funds for the community and for our students at large.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Parker.

Good evening, board members.

My name is Parker, and I'm a resident of Alameda and a regular customer at Park Station.

I'm here because I truly value what this business brings to our community.

The environment and culture have consistently felt well managed and respectful.

It is not a rowdy setting.

Rather, it is a place where people gather, talk, and enjoy live music responsibly.

The staff is attentive, and I've personally seen them manage performance times and guest behavior in a professional way.

I understand the need to balance neighborhood concern with support for local businesses.

I believe this establishment can operate under the reasonable conditions proposed while continuing to contribute positively to our local economy and community life.

I respectfully ask that you approve the permit.

Thank you.

Do we have any more online speakers?

If there are any other online speakers, please raise your hand.

Not seeing any um any more speakers.

Okay.

It looks like uh we've gone through all the speaker slips, and with that, I'll go ahead and close public comment.

And we will move back to the board for.

Oh, yeah.

Sorry.

Yes.

Um, Madam Chair.

Uh, since this is a quasi-judicial matter, it would be a good idea to give the applicant um an opportunity to rebut some of the comments.

Okay, for just a you know, couple minutes.

Um, I'll speak to uh I don't know if you guys can hear me, but I'll speak to the the amount of days we're asking for.

This is at the most extreme.

Um we during January and February, we've had two events outdoors.

Uh, you know, obviously December is gonna be the same thing.

Um 10 days a month is it may happen one or two months out of the year, but will not happen very often.

The other thing that we may not have spoken to is that we are looking for an extension of hours probably for Friday nights.

Um the difference for us in Sacramento versus Alameda was we don't worry about weather concerns here as far as you know heat.

So we're starting our music on Saturdays and Sundays at three o'clock or four o'clock and ending at seven o'clock.

So there's no intention to change that as far as the the Saturday Sunday times.

Uh Friday, it's a little more difficult because of people getting off work and trying to get band members there as well.

But that's the only that's the only time we're really looking to extend those hours at that point.

This uh may have uh been brought to um your your attention, but in addition to the speakers in support of park station, we have 144 people that have signed a petition in support of park station, and I just wanted you to know that there are many people in our community that that do believe in in the culture and um the the community that we're building.

I understand the parking and the other concerns.

I also live in the neighborhood.

I'm a block within the same block.

I get it, and and there are probably ways we can figure this out, but I do think that that what we bring to the community is far beyond just the inconveniences of of the personal experiences that we may encounter from time to time.

It really is building culture and community that we haven't seen on Park Street in many years.

Thank you.

All right.

Um, and with that, uh, we'll bring it back to the board for comments and deliberations.

Um, to my fellow board members.

Uh board member Louise.

President Cisnero, I have a few further questions based on the public comments.

One is about the noticing process.

Several members have noted uh mentioned that they were not notified.

And I'll also second thing, I would like to understand further the community outreach aspect from the owner.

And full disclosure, I'm also a frequent um patron of the station, and I appreciate the venue.

At the same time, we'd like to know what is the community outreach that you have done.

So one question is for the staff and one is for the yeah, um, the in terms of a public notice, that's for the staff.

We typically notice 300 feet from the property, and um we have staff that they typically go to 325 or 350 just to make sure we capture all the the surrounding properties.

Okay, thank you so much.

We already had public comment, so um unfortunately uh public comment is closed, and I I do appreciate the question and um we have staff's response and we will um try to better understand the concern because I think it's a good uh concern to bring up.

Um I'm I'm curious if the applicant also wants to address the other piece to this question.

We uh as soon as we received the date of the hearing, we posted the notices on our south facing window and and the west facing window of the property to publicly alert our our customers and and patrons and um area uh members that are walking through.

And then we've also posted on our social media as well.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments from board members?

Vice President Arisa.

Um thank you everyone for your comments.

I think this is a difficult um problem to solve because knowing what I know about sound, you know, travels through the air, it's gonna be hard in an open setting to control it.

I did uh um ask for some comment or suggestions.

I did some research, and it seems that we might have set them up for failure no matter what, because you know, in San Francisco, they don't give a maximum decibel, they just say that it should not be heard 250 feet.

And in Berkeley, they say for outdoor music venues, they say the maximum sound should be 15 decibels above, no more than 15 decibels above ambient noise.

And if you've been in a bar or a restaurant, you know that you know 50 people talking at the same time can be very loud, and sometimes even without music, you have to raise your voice.

So I I guess all this to say that um it's a difficult balance to find.

So I have a question for the applicant.

Would you be, would you consider moving the stage to the top room area that is inside, even though I know that the doors open, and and I know that this is a far reach question.

I'm just asking.

The stage is positioned where it's at because we have exiting requirements by the fire department to exit the space.

So we have walkways that we need to maintain that are clear in front of the South E building in front of the uh tap house building that extend to crash bar gates at exit.

So we have a very limited sort of area that we could put that stage, uh which is why it ended up in the corner where it's at.

Thank you.

I think that's it.

Um and thank you uh to the audience to the members of the public.

Um again, public comment is over, so please restrain from participating because the board is deliberating right now.

Thank you very much.

Um any other board members, uh board member Sahiba.

Yeah.

Uh appreciate all the public comments.

Uh I did have uh through this process and the recommendations that the um staff have made.

Um, the unlimited number of uh events uh was that a negotiation with the ownership, or that's just a staff recommendation because of other precedent established within the city.

Well, I think we were starting from they had asked for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, which would be 12 or more times a month, and um if we took away Sunday, then that would you know be a third less.

So we thought, well, maybe Fridays and Saturdays in general would be okay.

Um with limited hours.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Is there any other precedent in the city that we would look at?

Specific to time.

I not that I know of now.

Okay.

Um I had a follow-up question or uh tied to that.

Is it essentially um eight um events per month?

If you're saying like Friday and Saturday four times a week, um right.

So when we say unlimited, what we mean is it it could be any Friday and any Saturday.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so pretty much I find it confusing as well, and I'd rather just frame it for my understanding, like cap it at eight.

That's what the staff is recommending.

So that's like maybe another way to think about the option that's presented to us or maintaining it at three, so on and so forth.

Exactly.

Okay.

Uh board member Sue.

Um, thank you.

Um, yeah, I just want to thank everybody for um the comments for um park station coming to present today and also for all the public comments with the neighbor um of neighbors in the area.

Um, you know, I want to make echo um Vice President Reese's comment.

You know, this is this is a tough one.

Um, you know, this is an area that's that is kind of right on the border between um a more residential neighborhoods and this commercial district.

Um so I've just been thinking through some potential uh solutions uh you know um I think some level of kind of formal monitoring is probably required, um, you know, though I don't want to get too uh um I don't want to micromanage how code enforcement act exactly will go about doing that, but I think there needs to be maybe some more guidelines on on how the monitoring will happen.

Um I think you know, a lot of the where the uh neighbors that came today, and maybe it's just yeah, I'm sure the sound is also elsewhere, but was kind of that area heading down park towards South Shore Center.

Um so I I think the idea of some kind of barrier that the uh business has been exploring is a good idea.

I wonder if there would they be open to something more of a kind of permanent s solution instead of just like a uh fabric or uh uh I guess kind of drapes that you could put up, maybe a a band shell of sorts, and I know that has its own kind of design um and aesthetic concern, so you know I'm cognizant of that, but but perhaps that would help present this prevent the sound from going that way and toward and point it towards more towards the actual buildings.

Um I I would support a uh just like a a cap on limits, the no limit, I think can be a little confusing.

So perhaps it is eight and then just keeping it at um Friday and Saturday.

Uh board member.

I was gonna make a recommendation.

I don't know.

Do you have more comments?

Yeah, but I already spoke, so go ahead.

I can I can I squeeze in a quick clarifying.

I know everyone likes um I have a super quick clarity question.

Um what is the uh decibel ambient noise right now for um the area?

Um well I today at 60 today at noon it was uh 68 decided.

I guess there are the organisms that we have where um in this area in this commercial area, it can't exceed more than right.

So in a typical uh say um commercial district, um it's uh 75 decibels is the allowable noise level in the general plan noise element.

Oh, okay.

Um that's a that's a daily average.

So the the problem with noise measurements are there's so many different ways of doing it.

So you have a community level average, which for instance airport planners use because they don't want to count every plane as a noise violation, but it is that you average it over 24 hours and it's not.

And so that's um that's the way some people do it, and then you can do it by hour, which is how the noise ordinance is written.

You have an hour and then you have a half hour, and you have 15 minutes, and so those are different standards depending on the duration.

And so, for that duration, in the commercial district, um, you can have sixty-five decibels for any half hour period.

Okay.

The reason why I asked I was just curious from Vice President Edison's comment of not going more than 15 decibels over an ambient noise level.

So I was trying to do the calculation of what that would potentially be for his area, but um anyways.

Um I'll just keep that for myself to further think about.

Um board member Sahiva, did you want to go ahead and go ahead?

Okay.

Or memory, yes.

Thank you.

Um a further question, just refresh my memory.

When we were reviewing the outdoor venue place in on Webster, we bifurcated the amplify music versus non-implify music, non-implified event.

Which is a can you dig it up while we approve over there what was the um because I know we put a lot of conditions for that very reason because and then we know they were gonna hold events that are non-amplified so I remember we made allowance for that provision um so you don't have to get back to me now but I just wonder if you can look it up now so we have some baseline as a comparison as a way to discuss this and also I would like to make a public comment if you allow me I understand that to many of us this is the first time participating in public forum and there's specific procedures that we do when the board is deliberating please do not interrupt us we don't do that when you're speaking and please do not speak back or make motions when we're deliberating because that is a very distracting and we don't ask our children to do that so please respect us as we deliver thank you.

I would just add I don't know the Taylor lots amplified not amplified but in this case we have indoor and outdoor and so this this permit is only about the outdoor there is actually indoor space with a stage um that is used and there's speakers that transmit outside so this permit does kind of bifurcate there so they're you know when it's indoor they just have to conform to the the noise ordinance in general um this permit is specifically for the outdoor which has extra allowances by the way you could sit down and we could call you up if we have more questions.

Oh did you have a comment okay may make one last comment I know that you're considering eight times per month or Friday Saturday or two days a week and I just wanted to make mention that there are two months in a year where there are three weekends in a month with the 52 weeks a year right so I I would maybe suggest that if it's limited to a certain number of days per week that it's simply stated as Friday Saturday or something along those lines yeah that's a good um suggestion thank you.

Yes board member Wayne um so I think I think probably everyone in this room remembers very clearly that this space was derelict for a long time and I think most of the people here who've spoken up you know whether for or against have shown some level of appreciation I think for park station being there it's a huge improvement I think over the derelict space and also is just a great business I think on its own merit.

And I say that as a resident as well as a planning board member so I think you know of the two issues that we that we heard about today noise and parking I I say all of that because I think these are these are both I would characterize as as good day problems which is which is to mean to me that means we we've got a we've got to work on managing them right in good faith um but we're also glad to have a business here that's thriving and that people love to go to um so just a general comment and it's come up a couple times already already granted we are in a commercial district um but we're also we're also sharing space where cheek by jowl with residential neighborhoods so we've got we've got I think um a delicate balance to strike here um we don't we don't want to uh lean too much in one direction we don't want the residential needs to override the commercial or vice versa um so um I'll talk I'll talk about parking first um I think again it's a good day problem right that you've got so many people coming here I think that's fantastic um managing negative parking spillover to the neighborhood I I would say um I heard this a couple times too I would encourage staff to look into a residential parking permit program I think um that that would be important for for the neighbors um who are struggling to to park uh their own cars um we did get a comment about um I think we've seen repeated uh parking in the in the bike lane so that's it's not really the business's fault but I would like to hear from staff if there's a capital plan or operational plan to address that sort of repeated violation we don't want to see uh patterns or that behavior um you know it's hard to control the way that people get to businesses in general I think but if we do want more people riding their bikes uh we don't want to discourage that by having cars parked in the bike lane um noise um I think I'm hearing that an expansion in in the number of hours and the number of events a month would be a nice to have I have not heard an exigent reason otherwise to expand the amplified music or the number of days a month um in my view the three days a month is reasonable and to me strikes that balance between having a commercial program here that's right next to residential neighborhoods and so is ending at 8 p.m.

So I I think we've heard uh a good amount of stress from the neighborhood we've also heard a lot of enthusiasm for the program here and we've heard both from a lot of people right so before we get to expanding the use permit and expanding the program I would like to see this proceed in a more stepwise fashion we've heard some good suggestions from staff on additional conditions that we can look to um for uh addressing some of the noise and measuring the noise more proactively we've also heard some suggestions from the board on what can what can be looked into so I'm not and those are all good ideas so in my view I would like to see those things explored uh before we expand um and I'd like to consider the expansion uh after after those things are explored so that we can come back and say hey things are going well things are doing better we're saying we're hearing better outreach we're uh seeing more we're seeing improvement on parking or seeing improvement on noise uh before we think about hey let's add days let's add hours I I don't think we're ready I don't think we're ready for that thank you.

Uh board member Sahiba uh I'd like to make a proposal on the resolution if I can do that.

Um but before I do I'd just like to say a few things um I think we have to be careful about how much restrictions we put on infrastructure that is not in the control of the business.

I don't believe parking will be in the control of the business so that's a challenging thing.

Second is I think we have to be careful on how much we suggest permanent structures be put up to try to mitigate this because I think this is a sound issue and we have to control the sound and the structures are meant to do that but you can also just turn the dial up and down on on a speaker to control sound.

So I I think we have to think through that I would say that when I look at I'm just focused on number nine in the resolution um the be limited to no more than three days a week I know the suggestion is getting to well eight days if we take the city's approach um on keeping Fridays and Saturdays but not on not uh not on the request for Sundays um I'm in favor of that uh so I would I would just recommend um you know as as a states to change that from three to eight uh but keep it on Fridays and Saturdays.

I think the event times um if we wanted to be a little bit more nuanced on which months you know can go later into the um into the evening summer months where you know kids are on vacation schools out maybe that is one way to thread that needle.

Sorry I'm gonna try to thread a few needles here.

And so that's for B and C.

We could if we want to say during specific months that the hours could be extended to nine.

I would be open to that.

And then I think D is fine the way it's written E as far as um you know how how the breakdown activities occur that's fine.

I think with the noise level which is the most contentious thing um and I know in this um in the way that this resolution is written we're saying you know upon three verified violations we have to come have to come back to the planning board do a hearing for the use permit again um I think the way to maybe look at this is um there has to be some punitive things that happen it when a violation occurs so one recommendation I would have is uh if there's a violation above 85 then um it has to drop to 80 the the maximum measurement if there's a second violation it's got to drop to 75 max decibels and then when you get to uh if you're able to not get any violations uh you know for say a three month period then it could go back up so I think the neighbors have to feel that the sound is going down when the violation occurs because if it's then it's gonna maintain that and then it achieves over that viol over that decibel level again um then I don't think there's a meaningful potential um uh sense of what has happened.

I I imagine also the patrons I don't know how much the lowering of that level of sound is impacting them by five decibels each time in that um area that uh they're going to be um enjoying the music in so that's that's a suggestion that I would make to the board as a strategy to look at mitigating sound thank you um any other comments or suggestions or reactions to the motion um put forth um board member sew yeah um just kind of want to uh build off of board member Wang's comments and something I kind of forgot to add is um I did have the thought of just given the the ongoing issues and and kind of just trying to strike a balance here is to just require you know in addition to obviously the three verified violations but perhaps another return to this board within you know some amount of time maybe six months um for just a kind of reconsideration of of ongoing things I would be willing trying to thread a needle here um you know because I I kind of do agree to somebody on the board when member Wayne's comments of just the things we need to think through uh of maybe picking a uh number of events between three and and 10 or I guess eight if we're just keeping it at Friday and Saturday which I support um and then having them come back in six months but then also adding kind of just some more formal monitoring to make sure we're we're really um you know that they are abiding by what is required of them.

And I think the parking thing you know definitely needs to be addressed um I agree with kind of both of you though I it's it's it's infrastructure issue but I also think it needs to be studied there's also I think a comment about uh public comment about some striping issues along um park that I think should be addressed with that and I would recommend just that staff work on that and come back to us within the like the next six months to kind of discuss and I imagine that'll involve the Transportation commission as well.

Uh board member Dewey.

Thank you for the comments um I'm in agreement with board member Wang.

I'm less inclined to make adjustments at the moment seeing that um the current conditions have not been fully adhered to.

And in terms of the stripings that is the city's work we should not impose that upon applicant that is our city's delay in in our work.

So that's something that we need to fix.

That's not their fault and that's the infrastructure issue.

In terms of um punitive measures when it comes to decibel I mean I'm not a sound engineer but I also understand that that is a bell curve.

So it's not five is not a you know incremental it can be exponentially drop and make it nearly impossible to me.

So I'm less inclined to do that but at the moment um I'm less inclined to make any adjustment to current current approval that's where I stand right now.

Just because there have been I understand three violations it's you know then you your you conditional use permit is um is in jeopardy but there's two does that mean that two is okay there's still two violations right two formally documented and what has been done so I and I'm also in support of more permanent monitoring system so that we can extract the data.

Vice President um I just wanted to add after all these that I would love to hear the opinion of an acoustical engineer because I just don't want to set them up to fail and violate what we told them to do just because it's impossible to meet you know so it would be good maybe for the applicant to to hire an acoustical engineer is just a suggestion but to have a report that's actually from a professional who understands sound I do know just from some experience that there are ways to reflect the sound to where you want it to go so but I don't know I'm not an acoustical engineer so it would be useful perhaps before we do any changes too.

Yeah.

I I also um gravitating towards this um space of holding off until we see some mitigations put in place um something that I think board member Sue mentioned earlier and I've been thinking about this as well as um and something the applicant talked about right at the outset of this is that their desire to have this ready for the summer and um it's when like you said board member Sahiva maybe there's uh less kids at that point and so on and so forth.

So I almost wonder um if we could um continue this six month pilot for I you said six months but I'm thinking like four months till the summer with these recommendations that we talked about with um the the meter and doing something the buffer I don't know like we said a bunch of things but and then at that point revisit if if it makes sense to go beyond the current um use permit hours and number of times per month um so that's something that I want to just see the board has a reaction to that because um I think that's what it was driving the applicant's um request uh from the beginning and it doesn't mean we make any changes at this point but um yeah yeah yeah and board member deweise presence I'm open to reevaluating this at uh sooner than six months um because we want to see significant improvement and active outreach and monitoring on the applicant side, I also understand they're probably booking for summer pretty soon.

So, you know, when are you gonna be this is a question for the applicant?

When would you be starting the book for summer?

Uh sure, please.

Yeah.

Uh yes, it is true that we are um actively looking at booking for um, you know, several weeks out.

Uh we have not made commitment, and um respectfully we'll we'll go with the discretion of of the board.

Um I would like to ask um some consideration on the decibel reading of the 85.

It should be measured at a certain distance.

It's simply currently being measured at the wash house, which is 65 feet away, and directly across the street.

So it's unfair to um kind of establish a point of reference to an area such as that when our property line within the premises to our order counter is eighty-five feet away.

So if we're allowed eighty-five decibels within our premises, we're already going to fail simply because across the street is 65 feet away.

And the other consideration I would like to make is if eight times a week or two days a week is not allowed, and the and the recommendation is three days, we would at least like to have one day per weekend.

So four times a month would be you know our our request for this period of time till we can be reevaluated.

I see, I see.

Um, so Friday.

Um yeah, increasing from the current three to the four uh for this extended pilot, I guess, if we want to call it that.

Um did board members uh have any thoughts about the distance requests and point for measuring.

I I am struggling with to be honest, the the 85 decibels and one, but yeah, um, oh yes, board member Wayne.

Yeah, um as much as I tend not to like adding studies, especially for a use permit.

This is a use permit, it's not a it's not an EIR.

Um, a little bit leery of adding studies.

Um, however, I I take Vice President Arisa's comment to heart.

I think we are at a disadvantage on the technical merits of this question, and I don't want to sit up here negotiating numbers arbitrarily.

And so I would I would actually suggest I'd rather have rather than the applicant um taking this on.

I'd like I mean it's kind of the same thing.

But I I would like the city to city staff to make a recommendation to us based on uh uh some kind of technical analysis and whether whether that's paid for by an applic application fee or or whatever is it's kind of kind of all the same thing, but I I don't want to uh if we're gonna extend the pilot, I don't want to make something up and then say, hey, did that work?

Uh we're not we don't want to be up here guessing and checking to that degree, I think.

Um so um yeah, that's my comment.

Uh yes.

I agree.

I think I think they're we would all benefit from from some advice about best practices in in each of these regards, and um you're correct that the applicant would ultimately pay for it, but we could supervise the work um and uh find some folks that can help us out.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, board members.

Where does the current measurements occur from?

Um our code enforcement officer has uh stood um, I believe on uh Park Street at the wash house and then down the street on San Jose.

And that's where I took some measurements today as well.

And that's what our uh ordinance suggests, or is it just arbitrary?

Um it's I believe it's it's what it says is it's at the receiving property.

So if if someone files a complaint, and it's a residential property, then we would stand in front of their house and just see how loud it is.

And unfortunately, the the general plan measures it from the property line.

So there could be some inconsistency there.

And I and I think that's kind of why I was saying that we were setting them up to fail.

So there needs to be a more reasonable way of measuring if we are saying that they are allowed to do music, live music outdoors.

And that it is a mixed use neighborhood.

Yeah.

Yes, board member Sue?

Yeah I'm yes well proposed one.

Maybe someone will put it into more formal words.

But um I I I agree kind of where what a lot of the board members are saying in terms of just kind of uh verifying and following up and making sure that we're we're I think doing right by the by the neighbors in this in this area.

However you know I I also do hear the comments from the public about how great this is community has been uh been for the community and how it's drawn so many um you know just not live music more more more just patrons um just activating the area so I think I would I would support them coming back within I think you know four months or so to kind of follow up on these including the the noise consultant um formal monitoring plan.

But I would uh support moving the um just the three event um minimum maximum limit to four events per month for the time being um just because I you know I think as uh boardman Wang pointed out there they will probably pay for the consultant so I want to kind of help balance that out a little bit.

All right that sounds like a motion sort of um yeah so I will uh I will move to oh my gosh um continue the um the use permit uh with the uh modification that they can have uh four events per month um all the other current use permit conditions remain the same um with the plan that the applicant return in four months uh to uh with an update on working with the city on a formal monitoring plan um the uh preliminary report at the very least uh from a acoustical engineer on methods to reduce uh or mitigate the impact of sound in the neighborhood um I mean I think that's all from the noise from that I don't want to add anything yeah and we reward so they could come back earlier than four months uh when they are ready oh I I recommend to be three months because that puts us in May May for three months oh board members can I just clarify they're coming back in three months but actually what we're saying is that they're approved for six months I'm sorry or they would approve what we four events a month.

Well four events events a month.

Okay.

Can we um question for the city attorney are we allowed to do that.

Can we shorten approval to four months yes that's fine.

The only um issue that that um I think needs to still be resolved is how to address the violations that are in the existing resolution.

So there were three violations allowed and they theoretically have um already had two violations so do you want to keep that language in or do you want to give them more lenience.

I think it's um within six months right so like technically right now if they hit that then they would come back.

I mean I would just probably keep it the way it is keeping it so it resets it resets three.

Yeah it's dangerous.

Uh yes board member I think I mean I think you're identifying there there's I mean to me there's a little bit of a dilemma because we're articulating collectively here.

We're possibly a little bit dissatisfied with the metric that's in the current conditional use permit and yet we're at an impasse as to how to modify that.

Um so I think I think part of the having the expert uh for me is not just um additional additional measures for attenuating the sound but from a policy perspective I would like as a board to be informed on best practices on how to measure um so I I think in absence of that I would I would support so it's keep keeping that language in place for now and then when we come back in three months I'd like to hear how they did and then I also want to hear is this the right measurement what's the alternative measurement and how would how would they have done under the alternative measurement.

Does that make sense?

I do have a question.

Yes yeah because in the meantime as the applicant has said if our code enforcement officer goes out based on a complaint and there's a band playing where should he stand?

Yeah and I think that's that's a fundamental question and typically it's at 50 feet or at a hundred feet from the noise source.

Otherwise it's distortion and so you know over a five minute period or over some other you know incremental time period as well so it's averaged because you will have variation.

So I just want to just based on my experience I I think this is the kind of advice you're gonna get and I think we need to at least give some direction to our code enforcement officer um when he stands somewhere.

I would suggest if I may um stand across the street at the auto zone uh on that corner so it's roughly a hundred feet away for five minutes and just see what he finds.

Um and that's sorry just to clarify that's to uh check when there is a violation per the current use permit and in parallel we're gonna have some a technical analysis that will give us um a better sense of what the actual policy should be and I and what I hoping is that we'll have that analysis sooner rather than later.

Correct um before maybe even the the three months or whatever before May so I I feel like that um I'm hoping that the direction we give to code enforcement is like a a short um temporary solution until we get to the longer term solution.

I think that's right.

I think it's an interim solution just so that we can still monitor for violations in the meantime.

And that's fine.

If you're leaving it at 85 then I think the consultant would also be advising you on is that the right number and what does it mean to either go higher or lower.

Exactly and what other physical changes can be made to measure it because yeah yeah if if you measure it across the street they they're probably going to fail.

It's the way sound works is what I mean.

So it behoove the applicant to get this consultant as soon as possible.

Oh yes can uh you want to react to that.

I mean we're we're happy to stay at the 85 decibels within a hundred feet and I I don't know if an acoustical engineer is gonna help dictate anything different than us abiding by you know the original approval of decibel levels.

And I think that that's the concern because otherwise we have to go out and hire an acoustical engineer and we have to do all of this rigor moral to come up with a study when why don't we just live within the the confines of what was approved originally at 100 feet because that's all we need is a benchmark.

So we've been just guessing that at a hundred feet if we can stay at the 85 and we can do that that's that's all we're trying to do, and I think that's um that's kind of the the goal of having a benchmark distance from the stage.

That makes sense.

Yeah, and then I think again, what the consultant would tell us is 85 a good number or is there some other standard that you should be abiding by.

Yeah, yeah.

I I think yeah, it could be maybe a time period, uh average or I don't know, lower, so uh yes.

So there's the cost of the acoustical uh application or the the engineer, and it could be in the neighborhood of 10 to 20,000 to do this study, which would be excessive of what we would you know really be able to afford to do.

So maybe we can just come up to an agreement about what that cost might be or have some parameters around what the actual ask is of this acoustical person.

So it's a specific task, you know, and and we keep keep the delineation of what that what that ask is for um so we can keep the cost down as much as possible unless the city would choose to share in the cost with us that would set precedent for the rest of the city.

I can um commit to um sharing the cost estimate with the applicant before we um initiate the work.

Yeah, I think that's fair, like have it really contain scope so it's responsive for your business and also something that could help with our future policy making.

Um, board members eventually.

I just had a question.

Um who's establishing the parameters of the study.

Uh I mean we're saying let's go do a study, let's go.

Uh but the city needs to create the parameters, like we said, all you know, various cities like Berkeley, San Francisco have different strategies.

We're defining a city strategy, not specific for this business, but for the city, correct?

So shouldn't this just be something that the city if if we have a murky undefined strategy right now, I think it's on us, right?

To figure out how we want to do this.

Um I'm getting a little concerned that this is getting very very specific to this business versus specific to the city.

I think you're correct that if it's for the measurement, it should be on the city.

I had suggested it more on ways that the business itself could control the sound, but but those are two different things.

Totally different.

And that's up to them if they violate three times, they've got to figure it out.

It's not we're we're not here dictating like hey, you like if they want to figure it out by doing their own research or however they want to do it, that's that's the way it has to be done.

Like I think we're putting an unnecessary burden on the business when we're trying to figure out as a city how to measure this.

So this doesn't make sense to me.

It almost seems like the city needs to do some research, either on how other cities do it or or higher.

I don't know how, but somehow.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, sure.

Go ahead.

Remembering.

So now that we've gotten ourselves wrapped around the spokes a few times.

I mean, I I I I yeah, so I think we're on one hand um maybe a little bit skeptical about the current measurement.

Uh on the other, I'm also hearing from the applicant.

So okay, the applicant is uh not satisfied with the 65 foot measurement at 85 decibels, but would be happy to measured at a hundred feet for 85 decibels.

Am I hearing that right?

That's what they said.

Yes.

So how's the how does the rest of the board feel about that?

Yes, we could we just want to keep it simple.

We we can decide that if we'd like.

Yes, that's right.

But we don't need to wait for anyone to decide that.

That's what I'm prompting.

So I'm I'm fine with that.

100 feet 85 decibels, we could put it in here versus measured at adjacent residential property lines is what it is right now.

Yeah, I guess for me, I I do think about like the larger policy question, though.

Like it's like, I mean, it works for this case, but and well we could we could amend it in six months or whenever we determine the city fig figures out what what wants to happen.

That's fair, yeah.

All right.

Do we need another motion?

I think so.

Well, so yeah, I would I I agree with with everything you guys all just said.

I I think we we should just um it should be measured at a hundred feet, and I think as we've seen, there have been a couple noise violations already, so it's it's on them to follow the requirements of the use permit.

So I think the open question then is are we now then considering just are we amending the limits?

Are we saying still keep it to four cents a month and come back in three months with just another kind of consideration?

And I think that would be helpful for I think all parties involved.

Um, you know, I know I'm I'm wary of of you know the continue to keep coming back to us, but I think I think this is the type of the type of use permit that warrants it, and I think both parties are amenable to that.

Um, but I I am also wary of, you know, um, you know, right, if you're looking at a 10 10,000 to $20,000 um fee for consultant, they're they are expensive and there's like scoping and then then the report and like as board members I said, like the parameters of the actual study.

Um if you're looking comparing that to like okay, that's I'm paying $20,000 for now.

I'm gonna get um four more events per year, basically, and you might just say that's it's not worth it.

Yeah, so um, but but I so I I think kind of in the coming back in three months, like I would just give more discretion for both city staff and the business to like figure out like okay, what do we want to do?

And you might also you were looking at the noise violations for those um for those three months.

So it would be the hundred feet uh radius of where you're measuring from on the corner of that auto zone um and going to um four for um events per month and then keeping everything else in the use permit the same, right?

I don't think I missed anything.

Yeah, I think that's right.

And um, do we want uh I don't know if it was I should double check, but do we want to talk about parking?

Is that just gonna be recommendation for staff uh to consider in addition to the um consultant like separate in this resolution?

Yeah, like a separate thing.

I think so.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, okay.

All right, we have a motion, second, all of favor.

I'sta none.

Um, and sorry, I I did just want to um, because I I also saw the public comment about the the curve striping and everything.

So I just wanted to make sure that like we did address that, and I know it came up a few times from not just public comment written, but also from the audience, and so I just want to make sure um we publicly mention that, and that's something that would be uh considered by the city.

So okay, uh great.

Thank you so much.

Um to everyone who came, expressed um your perspectives.

So this was really challenging.

Um park station is a wonderful addition to the community, and um, you know, we uh want uh all new additions to the community to be good neighbors, and so um I'm hoping that this uh path forward uh could help us get to like a more happy medium.

So again, thank you everyone for coming this evening.

All right, we're closing uh agenda item five B, and moving on to staff communications.

Yes, uh under six A, recent actions attached to your agenda packet is uh zoning administrator um and design review decisions that were taken in the past couple of weeks.

Um they're still in their appeal period, so if you fine.

If you want to challenge them or if someone else wants to challenge them, now's the time.

Um I have nothing further.

Sorry, can you uh speak closer to the mic like uh I have nothing for further for you tonight?

Item six, we'll go ahead and close it.

Well, you have to open it to the public.

Okay, open it to the public.

Any public comments?

No, okay.

Now we're closing item six.

Uh, board communications, any members of the board have any announcements?

Seeing none and any public comment on that item.

Seeing none, we'll go on to non agenda public comments.

Anyone could speak for three minutes on an item that wasn't on the agenda.

All right.

With that, we are adjourned.