All right, good evening, everyone.

Uh thank you for attending uh tonight's meeting of the uh City of Belmont Planning Commission.

Uh it is 7 02, and we're gonna get going um with the meeting.

I'm gonna start with some uh some instructions uh on how to participate this evening.

Um can um obviously participate in chambers as many of you are doing, which is fantastic, really good to see the community out here.

Um the meeting is also being broadcast live to Belmont residents on Comcast uh cable uh channel twenty-seven.

It's streamed live via the city's website at Belmont.gov.

And of course, the meeting is available uh via Zoom and instructions to access um the meeting, including the meeting ID are included in uh the agenda packet.

Uh as for ways to participate, um one can submit a public comment in person by uh by handing a speaker slip to our clerk and then stepping up to the lecture in here, and you have three minutes to um to speak.

Um one can also participate virtually um using the Zoom uh app.

And again, the instructions um for doing so are set forth in the agenda packet.

And lastly, um uh if items are received via email at the C dev at Belmont.gov address before four p.m.

uh today, those items will be um summarized uh to the extent possible in the record.

Um, those are the ways to participate.

And so with that, uh we'll please uh take a roll call.

Yes, good evening.

Roll call.

Uh Commissioner Adam Kavich.

Here.

Framer?

Here.

Chair Coolidge?

Present.

Majeski?

Present.

Twig, you, and Jadala?

Here.

Thank you.

All present.

All present and accounted for.

Thank you.

Uh item two is the Pledge of Allegiance.

Uh please stand.

The flag is here.

I think allegiance.

And to the Republic or which it stands, one nation, under God, and divisible.

It's liberty and justice for all.

Thank you for that.

Moving on to item three, which is our uh community forum.

This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the commission on any matter within our purview, not on the agenda.

Uh let's see if anyone um wishes to speak on this item three from chambers first.

Yes, uh, just reviewing our speaker slips here.

Um it looks like we do have one for agenda item number four.

Um, Jeff.

We're on item three at this point.

Oh, sorry.

Um, the general public comment.

Okay.

Um, I um no uh public speaker slips for this item.

Great.

Let's see if anyone on Zoom wishes the comment on uh item three, which is our our general public comment.

Um we do have one raised hand.

Um it is for a Belmont Coralin Fairback.

Um if you had a comment for this item, please go ahead and speak now.

You'll have three minutes.

Corlin, it looks like you just unmuted.

If you have a comment, please go ahead now.

Yes, I'm going to be speaking on other the agenda item on an Armstrong school.

So I we'll get there.

This is for um this is for items not on tonight's agenda.

So exactly.

No, I'm not speaking on that item.

I'm just on our thank you.

Thank you.

We'll check back in with you in a in a in a in a moment.

Sure.

Um okay.

Just want to take one more check and see if there's anyone for item three.

Um no more raised hands for this item.

Thank you.

Okay, I'll see how to do that.

And I'll see uh director DeMello if anyone had submitted comments um before 4 p.m.

uh today uh for this item three.

Uh we have received no comments on agenda item number three.

Great.

Thank you, sir.

Okay, that closes item three.

Moving to item four, which is commissioner announcements and agenda amendments.

I'll first turn to my colleagues here on the dias to see if we have any uh commissioner announcements.

Just really briefly a reminder that um uh as always the annual applications are open for our commissions, including the planning commission and parks and rec and should be submitted to our city clerk uh by January the 9th.

If anybody would like to join this planning commission or the parks and rec commission.

Great.

Thank you for that.

PSA.

Anyone else?

No.

Great.

Staff, any any amendments to tonight's agenda?

Yes, so no um uh changes to the agenda fairly light.

We have a consent calendar and we have one public hearing, but I do want to use this opportunity to introduce one of our newest staff members to the community development department team.

Her name is Adrian Smith.

She's our principal planner.

She's been with us for about 10 months, and tonight is her first opportunity to be before the commission.

I want to give you the chance to put a name to a face, and uh you'll be seeing her more often as projects that she's managing will be hitting the commission.

So Adrian, if you have any remarks, just thank you uh for that introduction, Carlos.

I actually joined the city last March on St.

Patrick's Day.

I was hoping to have maybe had a project ready uh for the commission between then and now, but timing hasn't really worked out.

So this being the first meeting of the year, I thought it would be a good opportunity to come out and introduce myself.

Um also we have such an important agenda item this evening, and I have been providing a little bit of backup support to Carlos and Jeremy, so I wanted to be here to see how uh that's all gonna come together.

Um so once again, it's a pleasure to be here.

I look forward to meeting all of you and hello to uh members of the public online and in chambers as well.

And thank you very much.

Great, thank you.

Nice to meet you and welcome.

Thanks, Adrian.

And that's it.

That's all for item item four item four.

But I think there was a public comment that was submitted for item four.

Uh my mistake, it was actually for 7A as well.

Okay.

Yeah.

That makes sense.

Given there's nothing really of substance for this.

Okay.

Um, unless someone was commenting regarding Adrian.

Um, so we'll turn to item five, which is our consent business.

Um we have uh one item, uh item 5A, that's approval of the meeting minutes for the December 16th, 2025 uh meeting.

So see if anyone has any questions, uh comments or corrections.

If not, maybe we'll entertain a motion.

Yeah, I'll move to approve the meeting minutes for December 16th.

I'll second it.

Great.

Okay, um Commissioner Adam Kavich?

Aye.

Kramer?

Aye.

Chair Coolidge?

Aye.

Majeski?

All abstain.

Okay, uh Twig.

And Jadala, aye.

Okay, motion passes five zero with one abstain for um the minutes as presented for December 16th, 2025.

Wonderful.

Thank you very much.

Uh that concludes uh item five.

Uh we now turn to item six, which is our study session, and does not appear to be any thing for us to discuss uh under item six.

So we'll move now to item seven, which is most likely why folks are here.

So we have one uh item is item 7a.

It's the Charles Armstrong School at 1405 Solana Drive.

It is a CDP, DDP, CUP, design review, grading plan, and tree removal permit.

And before turning to staff's presentation, which I assume they have.

Nothing to report.

I have a site visit.

Nothing to report.

Great.

I think with that, we're primed and ready to roll.

Hello, Commissioners.

I hope you had a great holiday break.

This is for 1405 Solana Drive for the Charles Armstrong School.

For the presentation agenda, we'll be discussing the project description, followed by the background and the entitlement process, the summary of entitlements, and then after my own presentation, there will be the applicant presentation.

And then once all presentations have been set forth, we will be allowing for the questions to be discussed.

And to those who might be new to the project, its history, we'll be discussing the project description.

The school has filed for a development review application to construct several new buildings in two phases.

Phase one being 11,900 square feet academic wing, the phase two being the approximate 11,100 square foot athletic building, as well as additional site improvements, those including the landscape plaza, storm water management system, slope stabilization, as well as additional utility infrastructure and/or upgrades.

For proposed operational changes, they are also planning to increase the enrollment cap from 260 to 290 students.

It should be noted the current average daily attendance is 230 to 240 students.

However, the CDP and DDP details about the total enrollment.

They are also planning to extend their AUSA operation, in which case I'll be further discussed in the presentation, as well as increase the faculty staff to 85 total.

There is no expected changes to the admin and support staff in that regard for that count.

For the background and historical synopsis, for those who are unfamiliar with this site or new to the uh discussion, in 1950s, the McDougal School was constructed in 1982 of July of that year.

Uh McDougall school site was then converted from the public school to a non-school designation.

And then in 1984, uh the area was then rezoned from that non-school designation of service commercial to I institutional.

In August of that same year, a conditional use permit was then established to operate a provide a private special education school on that former McDougal site.

And then in 1987, that school received the approval of the conceptual development plan, CDP, a conditional use permit and design review, as well as a resolution approving the conditional use permit, the detailed development plan, and design review to allow modular classroom additions.

And then January through April 1988, that conceptual development plan was modified.

And then in 2002, the CUP was then approved to allow further a student increase enrollment cap from 220, which was the normal, to 2260, which is the current standard.

And then in 2003 through 2005, the proposed conceptual development plan amendment was discussed to allow for enhanced school activities, construction of approximately 15,000 square hundred or fifteen thousand six hundred square foot additional floor area for different portions of buildings.

However, this ultimately was reviewed and disapproved.

Now for the process for the required entitlements.

So this would be the amendment to uh plan development as this area is currently zoned as planned development.

However, we are establishing a new conceptual development plan and a new detailed development plan in order to replace the existing.

This was done in order to have a simpler and uh more clear process for both staff as well as to the public for understanding.

This new conceptual development plan and new detailed development plan, however, will allow for the new construction and changes to operational standards, increase the permitted floor area for the campus, as well as increase the total current enrollment cap.

Furthermore, there'll be a conditional a new conditional use permit.

This is also to allow and modify the current enrollment cap as well as operational standards, and it is the way to actually establish the detailed development plan in order to adopt it.

For the design review, that is due to the new buildings being proposed on the site.

That is to permit the removal of 39 protected trees to accommodate the development of these proposed buildings.

It should be noted that there is a one-to-one ratio for replacement of these trees as one of the required for mitigation.

And then, as well as there will be a required grading permit, due to their proposed required combined excavation and fill to exceed more than 50 cubic yards and grading of approximately more than 2,000 square feet of area.

So, in terms of outreach, on August 5th, 2025, the National Night Out at the Charles Armstrong School on site, Armstrong introduced the project to attendees who were interested already in what the school was planning to do.

On October 16th, that was the official school outreach session, and they presented project specifics, did a presentation, and received attendee comments as well as responded to questions by those attendees.

On November 4th of 2025, you may remember that there was the planning commission study session, where we the staff introduced the project and gave the overview of scope and responded to commissioner comments and questions and received public comments.

At that time on November 4th, no commission action was required.

And now on November 25th, 2025, the City Council had a general business item in which case was similar to the study session for planning commission, where we again the staff introduced the project and gave the overview of the scope.

We responded to the council comments and questions and received further public comments.

At the same time and similar expectation, no council action was required.

So for the process, this is for the proposed conceptual development plan.

The lot summary for this location is that the minimum lot size is 4.92 acres, noted to be 215,315 square feet.

The maximum floor area for the existing as well as proposed buildings is 53,579 square feet, with a permitted max floor area ratio of 0.25, in which case they are not hitting that max, they're actually at 0.246, I believe, per my noted reports.

The setbacks for the proposed conceptual development plan would be the front of 30 feet, left side being 25, right side being 16 feet 9 inches, and a rear of 18 feet 5 inches.

So you're able to see how the expectations for the flow for their management of picking up and dropping off their students.

The noted maximum height for this location will be 35 feet for any building, and the parking of 85 spaces will be noted on the side.

Sure.

So the red is the carpool area, and that is Timbermate and the yellow.

It's in the conceptual development plan for it.

That is for the further pickup drop-off for like an overflow area.

Got it.

Okay.

Thank you.

But the Armstrong team can further provide more information.

Thank you.

For the proposed conceptual development plan that we've continued is the permitted uses, in which case we're permitting a private school for up to 290 students and 85 staff members at any point.

And this would include supporting accessory activities and uses such as that gym, kitchen, and multi-purpose room as well as athletic fields.

The community recreational use of athletic fields, playgrounds, and other recreational utilities after school hours, as well as extending access for staff in small group activities until 10 p.m.

on weekdays, and allowing staff to have have weekend access from 9 a.m.

to 6 p.m.

Furthermore, we'll be allowing the school to have 12 weekend events annually involving 25 or more attendees.

Examples would that be school-wide gatherings, accreditation visits, and graduation.

And then further outside of that 12-weekend events will be permitting three annual Saturday evening events, which would include a musical or alumni gathering or benefits and then event ending by 10 p.m.

To differentiate themselves from the normal expected transportation demand management plan as well as pickup and drop off.

They are also seeking to have authorized dismissal on nearby neighborhood streets up to four annual special events to ease traffic congestion, in which case the school can provide further clarifications to what that can mean.

So for a simpler, easier to potentially read for numeric values, these are the operations.

For the current, the student population is 260.

The proposed is 290.

The employee population right now is 76 and is proposed to have no more than 85 at any point in time.

The parking is 85 and will remain 85.

Weekday hours of operation is currently at 7 a.m.

to 9 p.m.

And they're extending it by an hour from 7 a.m.

to 10 p.m.

We can access the school site is currently not applicable as they do not have access, but they are proposing to have access from 9 a.m.

to 6 p.m.

As well for events, there's currently no noted events for week for a weekday or late night.

So that's why they're doing 12 weekends as well as three annual Saturdays.

And now for the more detailed development plan, I highlighted portions in blue and gray.

For the blue portions, that is the academic wing.

That is going to be considered the phase one, and that'll be where the 29,677 square feet.

This is the one that is projected if we're to be given approval to begin construction of 2026 into the year of 2027.

This would include the music room, the multi-purpose room, and art and maker spaces, each room being anywhere from 1,300 square feet to 6,364.

Noted is that there will be two classrooms in the multipurpose building as well as a science lab and four other classrooms in that art and maker space.

For phase two, that is where the gymnasium and athletics building would be.

Outside of that, there is ancillary support such as a PE office as well as just basic facilities for like restrooms and minus 1,753 square feet.

The total that they're seeking for the floor area for proposed is 52,696, which brings the floor area ratio to 0.246.

This is noted to be less than 0.25.

That is proposed underneath the conceptual development plan.

So for the criteria for understanding, the height for the DDD or the proposed DDP standard is 35 feet.

The academic building, which is the art, will be 33 feet six inches.

For the academic building for that movement and multi-purpose area is 34 feet 2 inches, and the academic building for music is 21 feet 3 inches.

The athletics building and kitchen, as well as ancillary support uses, will be 32 feet.

The proposed setbacks will be all meeting the minimum required for the planned development, which again is that 30 feet front, 25 feet left, right side of 16 feet 9 in a rear of 18 feet 5 inches.

So in this rendering, this is going to give a campus area of where it is proposed.

You can see on the north left earned side.

This is where the academic wing is.

It is being primarily screened by the uh trees to its rear, and it is pretty tucked in terms of where the current buildings are.

On to the further right side, you can see the proposed athletic and gymnasium building.

This is also where that proposed kitchen and ancillary support portions are also being proposed.

It is next and located to the current uh blacktop.

For the rendering for a better idea as to scale for the academic building and wing, you can see that this is where the current portions of the academic buildings begin, and you can see how it steps up each time to follow the current slope, trying to mimic the natural Belmont requirements for residential design guidelines to follow the sloop when you possibly can in order to give a more humanistic feel.

For the athletic building, this is what is proposed in terms of design.

Primarily made of glass.

So I decided to showcase the floor plan to give brighter perspective.

In the light blue, that is where the actual gymnasium portion is.

And then in the green, that is where the kitchen is, and it is noted to be um 13, about 1,300 square feet.

So that is to clarify to both the planning commission of Wells of Public from previous discussions in our study sessions as to how that was being laid out.

In regards to the tree removal permit, there are 39 protected trees being removed.

Here, with our tree ordinance, it is a balance between the criteria for removal and then the criteria for retention.

The noted criteria for removal that was applicable to this project is that that was necessary for the proposed development for the site.

These being the site improvements, the drainage improvements, fire access utilities, the proximity to proposed improvements, those being the actual buildings, and that in the Arborist report, there was noted that some or are truly in poor condition and potentially hazardous and therefore should be removed.

The criteria for retention that was applicable from the applicable to this project would be that it's primarily adding the aesthetic value to the site, in which case they're planning on having a one-to-one replacement ratio.

You're planting a minimum of those 39 protected trees to the site, and then per the landscape, you can see how they are currently being organized to screen the athletic building portions as well as the academic wing to the north.

Um are more noted in the actual detailed development plan, um, but they're different species of trees.

Um, but these are all new trees besides the ones that are currently like circled like this.

Okay, thanks.

I found that hard to follow in the uh there's not like a legend in some of the files.

Oh, we'll get back to that.

Thanks.

Sorry, which ones are the new trees?

Show you?

Uh, the new landscape plan would be pretty much everything on this border here.

Um, those would be the new plantings of trees.

Again, I thought some of those were being retained.

There's a uh a border of protection and some trees that are should be staying.

You're saying all those are new trees?

Not necessarily, no.

There's like a there's a there is a legend.

Um I unfortunately just don't have it posted in this portion.

We actually have components of the plan that have a zoom in on those areas so you can see the trees that are to be retained and the trees that are to be removed.

So yeah, and I have that here, but just there's no legend, so I don't know which color is which.

That's why I was asking.

Great.

Well, I guess we'll get back to the link to the tree discussion.

That said, staff recommends that the Planning commission takes the following actions for the project, which is to adopt the attached resolution, recommending the city council to approve the sequel category exemption and conceptual development plan, as well as to adopt the attached resolution recommending the city council to approve the conditional use permit, detailed development plan, grading plan, design review, as well as the tree removal permit.

And now I'll be um going to present for the or the applicant team will be doing their presentation.

Dr.

DeBello had a just a few more remarks.

Thank you, Jeremy.

Excellent presentation.

Just some more context about the project.

So they do propose it in two phases.

Again, phase one is the academic wing and phase two is the athletic building wing.

Two different time periods.

Should the project be approved, they'd be seeking to construct the phase one improvements, the academic wing, later this year, June, July of this year.

The duration of construction would be about a year, and then the phase two component, that's part of this conceptual development plan would be a 2031-2032 time period when they would be proposing to construct that component of the project.

We have a recommendation before the commission, and we are seeking two distinct actions.

Again, the commission is a recommending body.

Irrespective of the commission's recommendation tonight, uh the city will be transitioning that recommendation to the city council.

We have two actions before you.

One of them is the conceptual development plan, which is the overarching plan for the entire campus, which describes the existing buildings and the proposed buildings, and the operational standard changes that are being proposed.

The increase in enrollment cap from 260 to 290, the increase in the uh count of employees to 85, and then the detailed development plan has the details of the project, the actual architectural drawing setbacks.

But again, two resolutions before you conceptual development plan and the environmental determination.

The second resolution before you in a recommended capacity is the conditional use permit, detailed development plan, grading plan, design review permit, and tree removal permit.

That commission recommendation will be forwarded uh to the council for their review, which is currently targeted for your January for the council's January 27th meeting.

But we have a hearing before you tonight to take in feedback uh from the commission, the public applicant presentation, staff presentation.

We have consultants here, we have other staff here available to answer questions, but as is customary with presentations of this nature, we typically have a staff presentation, we have questions held, and then we have the applicant make their presentation and then uh post that presentation, then the commission may have some questions that we will then direct to the appropriate entity for answering.

Then you would transition to the public comment portion of the agenda.

So that makes sense.

Let's let's do that.

Yep.

So further.

Happy New Year, everybody.

Happy New Year.

As a reminder, I'm Neil Tuck.

I'm the head of school at Armstrong.

Uh, and I want to start by thanking all of you as commissioners and frankly everybody involved in the uh Belmont process.

Uh, we have been treated with nothing but respect uh and support over the last 18 months as we've taken this from sort of a idea to a plan that now goes before you tonight.

Uh this is a very important night for our school.

Um we uh take what we do very seriously and are very lucky to do what we do.

Uh and this really is a plan that if you approve it and the city council approves it, uh, will move our work forward and allow us to serve more students and allow us to better serve our students.

So we really appreciate your time uh and and your questions tonight, and we're glad to have a good turnout from the community and uh because we do believe that listening and hearing feedback from everybody is ultimately good for all of us.

So thank you.

All right, Chairman and I will coordinate here.

So, as I mentioned in our last meeting, and I know we met two months ago, so there's gonna be four of us that that talk tonight from an applicant standpoint, and we will try to keep it pretty concise because we know there's a lot of folks that want to talk tonight.

I'm gonna start out by just again giving an overview of the school, talking a little bit more about why we're actually here and why we want to do this project.

You'll then hear briefly from somebody on our architecture team who can clarify a little bit of what Jeremy uh presented, and then we're gonna have two members of our board of directors uh who will give our board of trustees who will give brief comments about why this is important to the school and why we hope for your support.

So, as I said, when we met two months ago, we always start out important meetings by reading our mission.

So we'll do that briefly here.

Charles Armstrong School unlocks the unique potential of students with dyslexia and related learning differences changing the trajectory of their lives.

And you'll hear from a couple of folks tonight who can talk about how real that is and how important that is.

So, again, some key Armstrong facts, and I did sort of make these more consolidated.

So we weren't repeating everything from two months ago.

Uh, but just as a reminder, we moved to the Belmont campus in 1984, so we've been here 41, going on 42 years now.

We typically serve 230 to 250 students uh in grades two through eight.

We've uh gotten as high as 252 in the last 10 years.

Uh so we are bumping up against that CUP cap.

Uh, we currently have 76 faculty and staff, uh, that's actually like 72 people that are involved in sort of the daytime running the school, and then four aftercare people that come at the end of school and help watch kids whose parents work beyond this beyond the school day.

Uh, and 12 of those folks live in either Belmont or San Carlos.

About 30% of our students are received tuition assistance.

We do really want to have a broad socioeconomic uh student population, and about 40% of our Armstrong students identify as students of color.

And then the most important thing to know about our program that's different than if you had another independent school up here or a public school up here is literally everything we do at the school, from who we hire to our curriculum to how we talk to students to what the furniture looks like in our classrooms to frankly how this new academic wing is being designed.

Everything is done with our students in mind and with students with learning differences in mind, so that we present the most supportive environment to them and give them the best chance of success because most times they are coming to us because they have not had success in their previous school, and so everything we can do to make them successful ultimately pays off.

So, why this project?

Probably the most important slide I'll present.

So I kind of narrowed it down again from when we did the study session two months ago.

So let me go through each of these five uh a little bit carefully.

So, first of all, we we want to make program changes, uh, and we also are seeing a lot of middle school demand, and all those create space constraints.

We literally at the point now uh where we're doing more and more teaching, not surprisingly, in smaller groups and small groups, need lots of rooms.

Uh, and we have we have run out of room, and there's things we wish we could be doing with our program that we can't because we literally don't have the room to do that.

So, part of it's just even if we didn't even increase our student count, we'd want to do execute our educational program, excuse me, differently than how we're doing it today.

But in addition, we're seeing increased demand, uh, we're seeing increased middle school demand because more and more students are kind of trying to stick it out in their current schools, and then they get to fifth grade and they and their families get panicked and realize we just can't do this.

We need to be somewhere more supportive.

And so, our middle school is as big as as it's ever been, and we really hate that we need to turn away some students, and we know there's more students we could be serving in terms of middle school.

Secondly, on the flip side, so that's middle school, but now if we go to early intervention, we know how important it is to get students in as early as possible.

We see the difference in students who join us in second grade or third grade and where they are by the time they leave us in eighth grade or sometimes even earlier than that.

Uh whereas we see the difference between them and a student who might be joining us in sixth grade because they've now had six years of remediation, six years of learning how to advocate themselves, uh, and that early intervention is now something that's been recognized by the state of California.

And again, I mentioned this last time we met.

There's a Senate Bill 114 that was passed last year that requires all students, K through second grade in public schools to be tested for reading difficulties.

So we're expecting to see a wave, hopefully not too big of a wave, but a wave of students who and families who find that they have a learning difference.

They didn't even necessarily realize they have.

They might have thought parents might have thought, oh, the student's not working hard enough, or teacher might have thought that when really they have a learning difference, it gets identified, and now they're gonna be seeking uh solutions.

One of those solutions.

Third, we uh we have specialty programs, which are things like art and music, uh, and they're really an important part of what we do because our students struggle with reading, they often might struggle.

Well, that's surprising with something like writing as well, but many of them have a lot of other skills.

They're really good at sports.

They're really good at art.

They're really creative in our design thinking, which is what we call our makerspace uh lab.

Uh, and the reality is while we have a great program there, we have inadequate space for almost every single one of those programs, and that's both uh not great in terms of our educational program and also from a competitive standpoint because a lot of schools now, including Belmont Public Schools, are putting in really good space for things, things like those specialty programs.

And so we're it's really important to our school to have these strength-based programs, build up students' confidence.

And so a lot of what you see us doing in this new space is having a new art space, having a new science lab, having a new maker space, having a dedicated music room so that our students who gain confidence from these activities can have better access to these activities.

So that's kind of a third reason.

Fourth, and you've heard us talk about this before, we just don't have some facilities that a lot of elementary schools and middle schools have.

Most of the middle schools in San Carlos and Belmont have a gym.

That is very common in middle schools.

I think somebody in the city council pointed out that a lot of students, the last time they'll ever play a competitive support for their school might be in middle school because it gets too competitive when they get to high school or beyond.

And so we really want to, we do have a good sports program, but we play a lot of away games, especially in basketball and volleyball because we don't have a gym.

And so we really want to have a gym so we have access.

We want to have a kitchen so that we can serve meals, which has become kind of a standard thing at every school, but our school doesn't have that.

So the things we're asking for are not unusual.

They are things you'd see at almost every middle school, many elementary schools, and we just feel like our students deserve that too.

We have the space and we can raise the funds to do that, and so we're asking your permission to go ahead and do that.

And then finally, we do think there's an opportunity to serve more students.

Some of the things I highlighted earlier, for example, the Senate bill that was passed are going to identify more students, but in general, uh, we recognize that there's all different sort of cohorts of students we could be serving that we're not serving now.

And literally every single student that we touch changes their lives and changes the life of their family, changes their relationship with their siblings, changes the relationship with everybody that's in kind of their atmosphere.

And so what 30 students we thought was a very modest additional increase, but the reality is that's a huge impact in terms of have helping 30 more families, 30 more students, and having that type of impact in the world.

So that's the why, and really it's the most important reason we're here.

We are uh we're not just a school where school does very specific work for very important population.

I'm heartened by the fact that even neighbors that disagree with you know, maybe parts of this project, all have acknowledged that the work we're doing at the school is really important, and we want to continue doing that work, and this space will really really have an impact on letting us do that work more and more effectively.

A little bit just about kind of how we interact with the Belmont community because we've been in this neighborhood uh for 42 years in many ways between our campus and McDougall Park.

We are sort of the center of this this community from a space standpoint.

Um, we uh we love being in Belmont, it's a thriving educational center.

Um, neighbors and vendors treat us warmly.

We're on a first name basis with many of the people down at Lenardis, and they uh take good care of us in terms of our sandwiches.

Um, we've had this mutual easement in place.

You're gonna hear about the park and access to the park.

That arrangement's been in place now for like 42 years.

It's it's it's working well.

We have it during the daytime, and after the daytime, it's it's a park that everybody can use.

And so, and in exchange, we have a parking lot that abuts that park that is part of our property, but that neighbors can use.

And not only that, but we leave all of our parking open, frankly, so that neighbors can use that parking and access the park and and sports leagues can access that park.

Um, we also have been lucky to work with outstanding uh school resource officers who have helped us in many different situations, and I won't read everything on the slide, but the reality is as I said, we've been treated very well in this process, and we really value being part of the Belmont community.

And then, as I said, and again, I won't read everything on this slide because you've seen some of this before.

We also give back to the community.

We've had over 175 students from Belmont and San Carlos who've attended Armstrong.

Uh, we provide free training to Belmont and River Shores uh district teachers uh on dyslexia because we want your public schools to be able to serve students with learning differences.

Our goal is not to take all those students into Armstrong, we want them to be successful in your public school system.

I mentioned the parking, there's all sorts of recreational activities.

It sounds like a number of you do did site visits.

If you did a site visit on a warm summer day, you'd see people all over our campus on a Friday night around the weekend using our playground, learning to ride bikes, playing pickup basketball games.

We are a part of this community and we are thrilled that our campus has become a part of the community that is valued by our neighbors.

Quick overview, which if you're at me hit, so I won't go through it in detail.

I will I want to just quickly correct one thing because I think we were missing one line on the slide.

We currently have 29,000 square feet.

Phase one is not 29,000 square feet, phase one is 12,000 square feet.

Uh, and that's three specialty classrooms, one science lab, and six standard classes, classrooms, and then some additional space, faculty workspace.

We have no place for faculty to do work right now other than in their cars or sitting outside, a conference room, small multi-space, things like that.

Phase two, as you've heard, will be a gym, a kitchen for student lunch prep, and some tea offices.

And then phase three, which is going to be much smaller, it's just some renovations to existing spaces.

Once we've done phase one and phase two, it'll free up our ability to move around some other things, and we'll get to that in another decade.

Uh, as part of this, we are asking for for some important operational changes.

Some of it is just necessary as part of this process.

We need some of we need approval for additional square footage.

I think we're allowed nine additional square feet right now.

So that's not going to cut in.

We're gonna need a little little more room than that.

Um, we talked about enrollment, we we tried to go with a very modest number.

I got asked at the city council about like why we only asked for 30, and I said we really wanted to put forward a number that people really couldn't argue was like a big number when we're surrounded by 4,000 other students at other schools, literally within a mile of us.

So we went with a very modest number in terms of our additional enrollment here.

We'd like better access to our campus.

Again, we we live with constraints that no schools in Belmont live with.

Um my understanding is that Belmont Public School teachers have access 24 7 to their campuses.

We uh want a little more flexibility on the weekdays, uh, and we would like access on the weekends so if somebody wants to go in and prep for the next week's work, they can actually do that and be a better teacher as a result.

Uh, and then we are asking, and again, I won't go into detail, but for reasonable understanding, we we don't want traffic either.

So we are we're actually all on the same side of this, and we've realized there's certain events like Halloween where our current constraints make it worse for the neighbors and worse for us by having everybody go back to their cars and then drive onto our campus and then drive off our campus.

Whereas if people just walk their kids to the car after a Halloween parade and just went home, they'd be out of the neighborhood a lot more quickly.

So, you know, part of this is just some common sense adjustments we're looking for to better interact and better uh interface with our surrounding community.

Uh, and then finally, I think this may be my last thought.

I just wanted to clarify a couple of things.

We saw some of the questions that came up.

Uh so from a parking standpoint, we have 85 dedicated spaces now.

Uh, and that is gonna continue.

Uh, we never expect to have more than 85 employees on campus.

Uh at a maximum, we think we'll be at 79 full-time employees, four part-time employees, and then as I mentioned, these four, so that's a total of 83, and then we have these four aftercare employees that come at the end of the day.

Usually there's no more than two of them on campus at a time.

So we don't expect to even hit that 85 number, but there will be adequate parking for every single uh employee that's on campus.

We also frankly have additional blacktop and can add additional striping, and so if we do need to create more parking spaces, it's something that's very doable.

Overall parking, like when we think about the gym, I know there's been some questions about, you know, what if when people are there for the field in the gym, we can park a total of about 130 cars uh across the campus between our faculty parking lot and all the parking behind the school.

So there is quite a bit of capacity, uh, and we're in the gym only gonna have 188 seats.

So there is, I think we are well beyond the ratios that we need to be.

So we think we've got parking covered.

I want to be very clear about McDougall Park because this there's just sort of a lot of noise about this.

We're not asking for a single minute of additional exclusive use of the park.

We absolutely understand that the neighbors want access to the park, and that's great.

It's it's a really important asset to the community.

We are asking just to frankly continue to have reasonable conversations with Belmont Parks and RAC that if we've got a football game that because another team's traveling for a while, we might be there for an additional half an hour.

It's just not a big deal.

It doesn't mean the neighbors can't be in the park, it just means we're gonna also be in the park, or if we once a year want to have a community picnic on the weekend, we can use the field again, not meaning neighbors can't use the field.

So we really want to be very reasonable about this, but I want to be to take away one message from this.

It's that we are not asking to change the arrangement that's been in place, I think for over 40 years in terms of McDougal Park.

Uh, then finally, food service.

Uh we we know that's a hot button for some folks.

We are gonna be very respectful, we're gonna have no deliveries of food outside of school working hours, no trash pickup by the kitchen.

We're gonna continue to do trash pickup where you are.

So we are trying with all these things to make sure that we're being reasonable in terms of how we approach some of the things, and I thought I would just clarify a handful of them that I know have come up in some of the conversations.

That is it from me, and I appreciate uh that some of this was things we covered in the study session, but I know it's two months ago, and so just figured I'd remind you a little bit about why we're here and what we do.

So I'm not gonna ask Sarah Nice to come up.

Uh, she's our architect.

She'll give just a brief presentation, try not to be duplicative, and then we'll have one or two other speakers.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone.

Good evening.

I'm Sarah Nyes.

I'm an associate principal and architect at Ratcliffe.

And again, we don't want to reiterate what Jeremy has already shared, but just wanted to touch upon these slides that you have seen before.

Uh, but I'm just gonna call out a few things here up on the screen, and I'll use my pointer here just in case that might help.

Uh, so what you see is the existing campus.

We've been talking about McDougall Park, as Neil and Jeremy mentioned, that's on the lower left.

The school buildings currently are an existing multi-purpose room, and three uh classroom bar buildings, and at the lower blacktop area, that's being used for pickup and drop-off, and also outdoor play space.

And again, the proposed design includes this academic wing.

It's located adjacent to the existing classrooms to help students and faculty with circulation, uh, you know, kind of right there.

And then the athletics building, we've maintained an existing fire lane at the north of the athletic building, allowing access onto the east side, and that preserves access to the park as we've been talking about, as well as the existing student uh drop-off and pickup on that west side.

Can we keep that slide for one second?

Because this is gonna come up later, so we might as well just try to head it off with the past.

So I know other questions.

Yeah, I know that we need to be in front of the microphone.

Yeah, sorry about that.

The question's gonna be, could the gym be somewhere else?

We've heard from neighbors, we're supportive, we just would love the gym to be somewhere else.

But I want to be clear because this lays it out so well on this slide.

Everybody wants us to do drop off and pickup behind the school, and we want to keep doing that, and that minimizes impact on the neighborhood.

So we need that white area that says existing student drop-off pickup.

We cannot put the gym there because that is where we do a lot of our most of our pickup and drop off.

Then we need to maintain the fire lane.

So if you see where it says existing lower classroom building, like the yellow part that's in between the gym, like that fire lane has to exist for the fire for emergency vehicles.

So we can't put that building any closer to there, and also my understanding is fire vehicles need to be able to do like a K-turn in there.

I can't remember what the word is for that.

Hammerhead turn or hammerhead.

So we need to preserve space there.

So this is literally the best spot, not just in terms of a layout, but from all the things we're trying to balance here.

This is that is how we got to the spot.

It wasn't because we're trying to put it close to the neighbors.

The old version, if you look back, you're gonna hear about 20 years ago, actually had it turned lengthwise.

So the lengthwise face neighbors, and we're like, okay, we can understand that's like a giant gym that's all the way across.

So we've turned it actually widthwise to make it have less impact on the neighbors, and the first part that's by the neighbors is lower.

That's not the gym.

First part is where the kitchen is, where the bathrooms are, so that is lower than the gym.

And the gym is actually at least a minimum of 33 feet back, and I think as much as 90 feet back from the neighbors.

So again, apologize for jumping in, but I think some of this will save us time later when you hear some questions.

Thanks.

Uh also just wanted to point out this plaza area that I'm pointing to here.

This is a protected place from vehicles for students to come out and eat, play.

Um, and again, as Neil mentioned, a lot of what we have designed into this project is to support students with learning differences, so outdoor play space that is protected is very important.

We can go on.

So we wanted to share a few renderings.

This is the view from Solana Drive, as Jeremy mentioned.

We're really trying to tuck the project into the hillside, so you can kind of see it peeking out from behind the existing buildings here.

That academic building is a combination of indoor learning environments as well as covered outdoor space, much like their existing campus.

The athletics building again has that natural daylight, Jeremy mentioned.

And that protected plaza, as pointed out, another rendering of that, which basically unites the two projects as they're phased in.

Thank you.

We're now gonna have two brief speakers from our board of trustees.

The first is Kelly Sortino, who happens also to be the head of school at Crystal Springs Upland School.

And that's why.

Hello, good evening.

As Neil just said, my name is Kelly Sortino.

I'm the head of school at Crystal Springs Upland School, and I also serve as an outside educator on the Board of Trustees at Charles Armstrong School.

Maybe more importantly, I'm also a parent to two children with dyslexia.

I want to start with gratitude.

Nearly a decade ago, my school Crystals stood before this commission to advocate for the construction of our middle school campus in Belmont.

As the head of school, I have a deep appreciation and understanding of how to successfully work with Belmont on a construction project.

We took your and our neighbors' feedback to heart.

We promised to be considerate, thoughtful partners to the city and our neighbors.

And I hope our presence since 2017 has proven that we keep our word.

As a current trustee, I know the Armstrong team is cut from the same cloth.

Armstrong has been incredibly thoughtful in their approach to this project thus far.

They are committed to the same level of partnership and deep respect for Belmont's residents as they approach the construction and future academic operations.

If we look at the facts, the project you approved for Crystal was far more complex.

It involved rezoning and building an entirely new campus.

In comparison, Armstrong's request is modest, in addition to an existing zoned campus with a very limited enrollment increase.

If Belmont could trust Crystal, then you can certainly trust Armstrong now.

As a parent of children with learning differences, I ask that we don't lose sight of the why.

In the world of planning, we often talk about buildings as assets that depreciate over time.

But these buildings serve people, and children are the only assets that truly appreciate.

This project isn't just about square footage or 18 months of construction.

It is about the Armstrong magic.

This project is fundamentally about people.

It's about the students who walk in feeling broken and who walk out realizing they have a superpower.

This expansion allows Belmont to be the home of that transformation for even more families across the Bay Area.

As a fellow educator, I strongly believe that schools like Armstrong are essential to the ecosystem of schools on the peninsula.

Belmont should feel proud that a school with a national reputation is located in its community.

I know we at Crystal are proud to call Belmont our home, and Armstrong is equally honored to be here.

And just like I started with gratitude, I want to end with gratitude to each and every one of you for your commitment to the city of Belmont and its citizens.

You have an opportunity tonight to expand your commitment to the next generation.

I urge you to vote yes to help change the lives of more students with learning differences.

Thank you for your time, your service, and your consideration.

Good evening.

Thank you very much for having us here.

My name's Mark Moore.

I'm the very proud chairman of the board of the Charles Armstrong School.

I'm also the father of Patrick, who spent seven years at Armstrong and graduated in 2021.

On behalf of the board and the staff and all the parents, the entire community, I do want to express our gratitude for your consideration here.

The Charles Armstrong School, as you've heard, is an extraordinary place.

The first reason is that we have flipped the switch on dyslexia.

Dyslexia at Armstrong is not a limit to overcome, but it is a strength that we nourish and celebrate.

And that is a very different feeling if you're a young person with dyslexia dyslexia.

Dyslexics are special thinkers, they're hard workers, they're creative learners, they're curious scholars.

They have an innate wisdom and just a cool way of finding solutions going down a different path.

Our school has helped thousands of children with dyslexia by honoring and rejoicing in these differences.

It's fundamental to who we are.

The second hallmark of our school across our 58 years, I know it's 58 because it was founded the year I was born, is that our kids don't feel like they're going somewhere different.

They are different, they don't feel like they're going somewhere different.

At Armstrong, we want to look and feel like every other elementary and middle school.

We have competitive sports teams, school dances, parent events, a sensational spring musical.

Kids aren't going somewhere different, they're just going to school, and one that fits their learning style.

I am happy to report that the first hallmark of celebrating dyslexia is rock solid at Armstrong.

But the second feels like it is frankly under stress.

We have been on Solano Drive for 41 years, and we love our campus.

It's breezy and open with a distinctly California vibe, but it needs major upgrade, and we need to provide more for our next generation of dyslexic students and families.

We need more classrooms, as Neil said, flexible and design to accommodate our teaching approach.

We need state-of-the-art specialty classrooms, art, music, movement, and maker lab to nurture those interests where dyslexic kids often excel.

We need an athletic facility where the cougars can host a basketball game and can also serve as a community center for our families and teachers.

We need dedicated teacher space badly.

And yes, we need a hot lunch program and a proper kitchen.

Our kids deserve this.

This is what elementary and middle schools look like.

And this is what our kids and their teachers deserve.

So please know that we don't come here in haste.

We have been planning on the literally six years.

I've been on the board planning this.

And we've been really planning it for 20 years.

We're absolutely committed to being good citizens of the city of Belmont.

So thank you for your partnership.

And we as we undertake this ambitious project, the first of its kind in our history.

Young people will benefit for years to come, and we look forward to being a proud presence in the city of Belmont for at least another 58 years.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

So that concludes both city staff's presentation, the applicants' presentation.

We do have the environmental consultant Panorama who's here available to answer questions if the commission has it.

We have our parks and recreation director, Bridget Shear, who's also here to be able to answer questions.

If there are questions about field use for McDougal Park, the relationship that's been forged, how field use uh uh happens on other fields.

Um so we have resources here tonight to be able to answer questions as the commission may have them, or as questions that may come up from the public about how field space is used and how the interplay of schools and fields are used as well.

So and the commission uh you will have questions for us right now that we will direct appropriately to the um right entity to answer them, and then as I indicated earlier, once we're concluded with that portion, then we'll transition to the public comments section of the of the agenda.

Yep, great.

Let's let's now thank you for that uh outline.

Sure.

Of what's uh what's coming up?

Um so I think first then we'll turn to um commissioner questions.

We'd like to start.

Well done.

You'll start?

All right.

I have a few questions and a few clarifications just gently.

Um could you talk us through the traffic problem for the drop off in the morning and how the use of the black top switches from child use to drop off?

Because I wasn't quite clear on the two loops that you pointed out right at the start.

I will default that to the Armstrong team as they will be the best individuals to actually give uh since they are the expertise.

It seems like the black the blacktop's been used for like a mixed use.

So well oiled.

I think ballet might be a good word.

So we we basically run two loops, but we have a short loop, which was one color.

Uh that's where we have carpools and we define carpools as having three or more students.

So they go through that they get the benefit of it.

Do they park?

Do they s they stop and park?

No, no, they like them stop to drop off the kids, but they don't they don't actually park.

They go around a loop, they we open up the we have people there to open up the doors, uh greet the kids, and and so they can just be quickly on their way, because we want to reward them for carpooling and three or more.

Uh the other, the uh that's the orange that the yellow loop is where all other cars go, they go around that blacktop, do a loop, and they uh the part of that's closest to the lowest building uh is where again they stop, they get out, uh the kids sometimes let themselves out, we sometimes help them out, uh, and then they all go up to the upper blacktop and congregate until the school bell rings.

And so there will be a locked gate between the the new courtyard and that blacktop area for kids who are already dropped off.

There's there's no mixture of kids on that blacktop area during drop off.

No, no, no, there's no students, no students anywhere.

Number one rule, cars are separate, moving cars are separate from kids.

So the kids all get dropped off, sort of I don't have a pointer, but sort of the top part of the loop, uh, and then they immediately go up to the upper blacktop.

They don't cross in front of cars, they don't press the green button.

Yeah, so they get out right here, they walk up here and they congregate up here until the bell rings.

And so they are completely separate from where moving cars are.

And these students get out here and walk along the edge of the school up to here.

So they're through there before until the bell rings.

So if you say somebody's dropping off late, what what happens in that scenario?

Because at some point the yellow loop is locked down.

Exactly.

At 8 15, we close the lower loop and cars uh come around all cars that are left.

Usually there's not that many, but there are some that come late and they drop off in the orange loop and then go up, get a late slip, go to class.

And you mentioned before, do you do you have a member of staff physically standing at the driveway turn-in, so you don't get many people missing the turn-ins at the start of the term?

No, no, we have about six different people.

Right.

Um, so we station somebody, is Daniel here?

Daniel, the whole name everybody knows him.

He's at the top here.

He's directing traffic in and out.

Again, you'll hear about people saying they have challenges getting out, but he literally stops traffic.

Any cars that have come down the hill, we stop traffic coming out of our parking lot, and cars from the neighborhood go right on down, and they do have to wait at the stop sign like everybody else, but we stop our cars from coming out.

We also have a second person up there who's a spotter sometimes during the afternoon, so they can call out when a car is coming down the hill.

We have somebody at the gate right here, because the people have to come in and out of the gate.

And so we have somebody here.

We have one or two people greeting here, and we have one or two people greeting here.

So we have a total of about six, six to seven people that are part of the whole traffic management.

Short drop.

And the access to Dougal Park and its normal operative operation.

Where is the parking for the park?

Is it is it also at this same location?

Yeah, so the access to the part we have exclusive access between eight a.m.

and four p.m., okay.

And so there really isn't overlap.

I mean, once it might have somebody who might be still walking their dog at 745, but that's never an issue.

Uh and so this is the area of the city has an easement down this driveway, and this whole lower parking uh, this whole we call it our business office parking lot.

So this is what's available after 4 p.m.

every day for Belmont residents to be able to access the park even though it's part of our property.

That's the again, the arrangement that's been in place for 40 plus years.

Now, as I pointed out, I kind of don't want to be too early here.

We keep this open on weeknights and weekends so that the city and recreation leagues have the benefit of all this parking as well.

I'm very familiar with that with that there.

Um so I'm just rattling through a few things that are in the general topic.

Um so you said that there's 80 f the staff will be increased to 85 and there's eighty-five parking spaces.

How do you handle visitors and dedicated disabled parking?

We have four visitor spots right there, um, for visitors.

So we don't tend to have a lot of visitors.

Uh we do have four visitors there.

We try to keep them off of local streets once in a while.

I mean, we advise people not to.

Once in a while, somebody may have to park on a street.

There are public streets, but we do our best to minimize that.

We also have some ability because this gates closed once, as you point out, once the day starts, because PE is going on down here.

We can also, there's lots of other like we can park people along the fence line here.

There's other things we can do to squeeze in if we do have more visitors.

If we have a special event, sometimes we will actually make sure that P is not using this space, and we'll use this space perhaps if we have a morning breakfast.

Sorry, I'm just I'm just conscious of time.

So you mentioned that the waste collection from the kitchen will only be happening out of hours moving around, but what is the what is the path that the bins say from the kitchen or the deliveries to the kitchen?

What is the route that they would take?

And you mentioned that it would be outside of school operation or the students be on the side.

Well, I think you know, I think we're after it's gonna be no, it'll be during the hours of school operation, I think is what I said.

And so we'll have to see, you know, uh whether we have people do drop-offs, you know, at 7 30 before our students start arriving, or whether they do drop-offs after 3 30 when there's no longer students on campus, those drop-offs would be here.

There's not a loading dock or anything like that.

There is a ramp because there's just they're on different uh levels of terrain.

Uh but that would be drop-offs would be here, and again, our food our garbage is over here.

So it's away from all neighbors.

It's kind of in the center of campus.

That we don't anticipate changing.

We may have to add to the number of pickups if we see we have a lot more food waste.

Okay.

Um tell me if you want shorter answers.

I'm trying to give you.

No, no, the great great answers.

Great answers.

Um, so I'm just going to this list.

Uh sorry, moving through them.

Um, I had a question actually for Plana Ruiz.

Next, um, about the about the uh the rear setback.

I wasn't quite clear if perhaps you could just point out there's a few lines there on the plant.

Each plan I looked at had a couple of different lines.

So there's a 10 foot easement on the back condition.

And then I couldn't point out where the 18 feet was to the lot line.

That is with the conceptual development plan.

Um that actually details that portion um.

I unfortunately don't have that in front of me, um, but that 18 feet would be noted right where my cursor would be.

So when you when you zoom into the drawing, the back of the fences is within the easement and from the lot line to the back of it.

I can't really see where that 18 feet comes in.

I'm not sure if there's a zoomed-in image of that back in that kitchen to the fence line or to the lot line.

I'll leave it to the architect team.

I think we can answer this.

Thanks.

So, I'm not sure it's just like a layering problem in the drawing.

Okay.

So the property line is how we're always measuring the setbacks.

There's a line depicted on this particular drawing that's a scope of work line, which is a dashed line.

But the 18 foot six is from the wall to the property line.

There's also this 10 foot PGE easement, which is on school property.

So essentially from that 10 foot easement over, then it'd be eight foot six to the wall of the kitchen.

18 foot six.

Is there a fence on that side at all?

There currently are fences.

There's a chain link fence, and then the neighbors have varying types of wood fences.

And then within the easement currently.

I think it varies.

Sure.

Okay.

But there's there are power lines there, there's some trees, and uh that is on the school's property as the the easement.

Okay.

Um thank you.

I had a question about um parks.

There's a there's a sort of nod towards parks and rec's potential use of the gym.

I wonder if that's something that we could shed a little bit more light on and if that's something that's formalized.

Um, something we mentioned in our last session.

We have a condition that's been added as part of the project.

Again, should the project be approved?

And should the phase two component of the project advance in that 2031 2032 time period, Armstrong would commit to meeting with the city to explore the joint rental opportunity for that component.

But at this point, here we are in 2026.

We're still six years away.

Um they're wanting to get through phase one.

Again, on the should the project be approved, and should they advance on phase one with construction starting later this summer, then the phase two component in the construction of that component of that project prior to its completion, then they would be entering into discussions with the city for how a joint use of that facility could come to bear.

But at this point we haven't defined any component of it, it's just too soon.

Okay, so it's not so that sort of potential collaboration is not captured at all in this.

Well, there's a commitment to explore that collaboration for joint use of that component, but at least at this point right now, the days, hours, user groups, how it would come to bear has not been um conservated.

I think it's just a way to capture the fact that it will happen at some point in the future.

Right.

So if if you see the performance standards and conditions of approval, which are exhaustive for this project, I think we're at a hundred and ninety-five for it.

Um one of the conditions uh talks about that um joint use discussion related to that component of the project.

And keep in mind the world could be different six years from now relative to the city's needs and Armstrong's needs for that particular component of the campus.

Um while it's certainly a valuable asset that that could work, uh it's too soon to define how that asset could be jointly used by both the city and Armstrong for future use.

But there is a commitment to explore that use opportunity, and we've captured that in the conditions of approval.

I guess we're just raising the question that if they're they are limited in how many events they could have outside of that quote of time.

D would the Parks and Rec collaboration come out with their 12 events or their time slot, or would it be completely separate?

Well, again, this is just related to the the gymnasium component.

The the school is seeking not only an extension of one hour during the weekdays for operation for the school, but access to their campus on weekends, and they're seeking a handful of opportunities to be able to have events within their campus and potential use of the field.

How it works out with the scheduling of the use of McDowell Park would run through the parks and recreation department.

Every year they actually run through a schedule as to who's going to be using the field, what kind of user groups and Armstrong would like to be part of that discussion, but in terms of the specific days and hours and how it would come together, it's premature on January 6th.

That's true.

I guess I guess if we're being specific about how many events they can have outside of the quote of time, they're increasing it as part of the um, I just wanted to.

Yeah, I think it's fair to say like the numbers 12, and whether it's because we're using it because Belmont's using it, that's the commitment we're making to the number.

Okay.

Okay, so there's only 12 times we could go past six o'clock on a weekend on the campus.

And if that's because Belmont's has a basketball tournament, that's one of the twelve.

Oh, right, okay.

I thought that'd be a school-specific.

Well, I think you know, again, I'm trying to be fair.

I'm trying to be reasonable.

And if we're committing to the neighbors that there'll be no more than 12 times, that we're running something past six o'clock on the campus, uh, then that should be one of the twelve times.

Okay.

Sorry, I'm not trying to get into too much detail, but um what is the like notification?

Is it is it like a detail?

Do they need to write to the neighbors to let them know if you're having an event that's gonna run late?

Like, is that something you do like how do you inform the neighbors that there's gonna be say a larger event happening, one of the twelve or one of the potential twelve in the year?

We provide a quarterly newsletter to the neighbors that outlines sort of all upcoming events.

I mean, something like that we would have, you know, we'd have uh advanced notice of it.

So every quarter we send out a newsletter ready to to uh our neighbors to let them know what's happening on campus so they can know when there might be a new you know music coming from our multi at 7 30 on a Friday night, there's a middle school dance.

Um, that sounds ideal.

That sounds a really good way of communicating that.

And then my last uh, just a clarification really there's an impact fees associated with the application, and I wondered if it's captured that that will how these will be used if they're gonna be assigned to doogle punk specifically like is there some way that this is captured that they're gonna stay in this area and be used for that poll cool.

The school is subject to impact fees.

Again we've talked about how well housing impact fees um traffic impact fees parking loo impact fees um but they are making a specific voluntary contribution of a hundred thousand dollars to be programmed for use by the city through the parks and recreation department for specific improvements to McDougall Park and that fee would be due prior to certificate of occupancy for the phase one component of the project and that is captured within this document that's for Medal.

Correct correct correct okay I believe that's condition 133 okay thank you that's my that's my list.

Yep and condition 151 is the uh the shared correct uh building correct uh athletics building access just for the record uh great thank you is that yes my list anyone want to go next go ahead please go ahead I have a specific question about the the multi-use building the the elevation where the kitchen is is where it comes closest to uh the neighbors um and I I didn't see an elevation on it how tall is the building at the kitchen and do you have windows facing into the the backyards there?

Great question we don't have any windows facing the backyard it is 22 feet tall and that's a standard kind of kitchen height you know 10 foot 12 foot high ceiling in the kitchen and then we have a parapet that's kind of the balance of that that parapet is concealing mechanical equipment exhaust fans and that's really to shield any of that equipment from any view kind of around the whole the whole building.

So it's 22 foot to the top of the parapet that's the wall and it's 18 and a half feet away from the property line.

Correct.

Okay and then the the gym volume is kind of beyond that thank you.

Do you have any further questions or you want to move not one of that one.

You got that one okay I had a a somewhat related question.

So when I was looking at the arborist mapping and looking at the renderings it seems as if for academic buildings that there is a you know pretty good coverage of foliage in the back even with tree removal so I'd like to confirm that I'm interpreting that correctly and secondarily it looks like there's tree removal around the back of the athletic area which is where the kitchen is and it's not as clear what the replacement foliage is so I'm wondering if you could elaborate on that.

Yeah I wanted to second that question I didn't understand the which trees are remaining the color system in this in these drawings.

Yeah so this is one where we ran into a little bit of a challenge from uh you put in the application then if you change it that changes everything so the way it is drawn now there is not as much uh there's not as many trees added behind the gym or by the kitchen as we would expect to put in I mean we are very committed to mitigate that um that view for the neighbors and so I think this this was done a long time ago and then we asked about changing and it was like well if you change that you're kind of changing the whole application so even though it's not shown here we would absolutely are committing to and we could put this in writing to put trees in between the athlete athletic center and our San Carlos neighbors because we do very much want to mitigate that view.

Frankly even they were kind enough to invite us over and now they're looking at a blacktop in sheds even now it's something that I think we should be thinking about doing sooner rather than later just so they're looking at trees as opposed to looking at our sheds.

So coming back to my comment this this image is what I'm talking about is like a little misleading because the space between the back of the kitchen and the fences is larger than that green strip.

Do you see the way that it's been shown it's actually twice as thick as thick as that right?

This looks like eight.

So that's that's depicting the area between the easement, which I think we're not gonna plant any trees in the PGE easement, but that green space is in indicative of planting, whether that's ivy or narrow shrubs or trees, as no point out that could be refined.

Uh and to clarify on the different three different colors that you see here on the trees, maybe I should borrow that the the light green with this dashed outline here, those are existing trees to remain.

Sorry, this plan is a little washed out, but those are existing.

Then these dark green trees are new.

That's a certain type of box size, you know, 48 gallon or something.

And then uh these smaller medium green trees, those are also new.

Those are 36 gallon.

And I think what we are counting here, it's the one-to-one replacement, and we know the minimum box size is 15 gallon.

So the two difference of colors between the small medium green and the dark green is a species difference, and then all of these existing dashed lines are existing to remain.

Thanks.

Is there anything that depicts which trees are being removed?

I believe there is a tree demolition plan as part of the packet.

There is.

There is okay.

Yeah.

And which where does that where we find that?

So that's in the detailed development plan set.

Which is attachment, I believe it's attachment six to your staff report.

Great.

Thank you.

And we could call it up if you'd like.

But again, 39 protected trees being removed.

They're required to plant a minimum of 39 trees in its replacement, and I believe at least 44 trees are being planted as replacement.

I think they should call it.

That'd be helpful.

To visualize it.

Sure, absolutely.

Yeah, I think the question is about the location of the trees being removed and where the new ones will go since it will be so much smaller than the ones being removed.

So it's it's pretty important to understand.

This was a main point of public comment, and um I would have liked to see this in more covered in the staff presentation, frankly.

Um yeah, so for example, I'm looking at like I think it's page 14.

These plans are really hard to read on a laptop screen because they're not they're so big.

Um it'd be helpful if you could project it.

So while Jeremy's calling things up, do we have any non-tree related questions that we could address at this point?

I have one.

Um, so I'm wondering, I I think there's someone in in the audience who knows about the current usage of McDougall and to what extent it um you know it's being used on the weekends in the summers, and um how easily and how well Charles Onesron could work with parks and rec to find shared uh shared time for space.

I guess I'm gonna cue up our parks and recreation director, Bridget Shearer, um, whose time with the city unfortunately is going to be coming to a close later this year.

So we're all shedding major tears.

Still here, but you're still here.

And we're glad you're here tonight.

Thank you very much.

Um, uh thank you for the question.

Um if you don't mind, just bear with me.

I'm gonna zoom out a little bit from McDougall to kind of explain all of the city's um parks and recreation fields because they all work together and they need to work together.

So um the city, the parks and rec department oversees the scheduling for all youth sports throughout the city of Belmont.

Um that's all of our sports leagues, our soccer, our baseball, our softball, et cetera, and summer camps.

We do that across the city by um uh activating our own fields that are owned by the city and through joint use agreements with the school district with Belmont Redwood Shore School District, Charles Armstrong, and Crystal Springs Uplands Middle School.

We could not do what we do for the city without the partnerships with these other schools, public and private, and we do this through joint use agreements.

In one case, we um uh with the school district, um the parks department maintains the field, kind of everything from the irrigation pipes up.

Uh we mow, we we deal with the red rock, that sort of thing.

Um, and we share the cost of water with the school district at Crystal Springs Uplands, for example, they thankfully have a synthetic turf field.

We have access to that one day per week for um for our youth sports leagues, and um, and then on our own fields, anything that's flat, we use it to play on.

And so that's Alexander Park, Barrett Field, Cipriani Field, that's also adjacent to a school.

Um, and D.N.

U.

COUF.

Belmont, um, Belmont Sports Complex on the other side of 101, and McDougal Field.

McDougal Field isn't is a little different because we do have the agreement with Charles Armchamp School that they have access to it exclusively from eight to four during the week and on select other times.

We work that out with them every year, as Neil was mentioning.

If we need to tweak a little bit to give them a little extra time for a game that's going late or something like that, we work all of that out.

And again, it works for the city of Belmont and for the youth sports leagues of Belmont because we have access to all the fields throughout the city.

Even with all of that access, it's not enough.

If you ever go over to the Belmont Sports Complex North Field, you'll see multiple teams, multiple age groups playing together.

We make sure everything's safe, but we have to work together, we have to share the fields.

And with our arrangement with Charles Armstrong specifically, we have access to the field generally after four o'clock when it when youth sports needs it from four to eight p.m.

or four to dusk.

And we have a lot of scheduled softball games there.

The public is also welcome to come and use the field as long as it doesn't conflict with whatever scheduled activity we have there.

But it is an arrangement that works beautifully.

We have a very positive relationship with Belmont's uh Redwood Shores with Crystal Springs and with Charles Armstrong to make all these work.

And again, you field is one that we're in discussions with now with their new owner to to make sure that we um kind of get that access back again.

We lost that for a little while.

I live across the street, and yeah, but usually there's a lot of a lot of noise coming from.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we're um it's all good noise.

It's uh it's kids playing and um and we we we want to do everything we can and again the partnerships make it possible for us to um to get kids off their screens and outdoors exercising and playing and um and also kind of maximizing these spaces for public use as well, non-youth sports public use.

Did that answer your question?

I know it was a lot.

Uh so I guess I'm interpreting that you'll just work with them and they can get time incrementally as they need it, and you don't foresee any issues.

I don't foresee any conflicts as Neil was mentioning.

We've already um, you know, because of our um, you know, I'll say positive collaboration.

We now have access to the um Charles Armstrong restrooms, they're fixed building restrooms for our softball, scheduled softball time at that field.

Before that, the softball players were using um one or two or maybe even three uh port-potties that were um and and just I'll leave it, I'll suffice it to say everyone prefers the new arrangement.

And that was um that was affected through just open discussion and dialogue with Charles Armstrong.

So it's a perfect example of I I wouldn't foresee any issues going forward.

We will figure out a way to work that out.

Thank you.

Do you want to have piggyback on that just a little bit?

I want to ask a question of Director Mel, because I think it'll help clarify.

And you spoke to this, Neil.

The phrasing in the conceptual development plan B6 is coordinate shared use of McDougall Park for limited weekend and additional weekday access, including during the school's four-week summer session.

So I think some of the public comment we received was kind of reacting to that, like, hey, they already get the park from 8 to 12 30 for four weeks in the summer, or you know, more.

But I think the key is it's coordinate shared use of, not exclusive use of.

And so I just want to confirm uh with Dr.

Director Damella that that's the understanding.

The school's not asking for any more exclusive use of the park where the public is blocked, they're asking for shared use, such as like as you mentioned, a picnic.

So I just I wanted to clarify that because I think a lot hinges on that word shared versus exclusive.

So there's no additional exclusive use of the park being asked for.

Thank you for clarifying that.

And thank you for outlining the um really excellent coordination between Parks and Rec and our different school entities.

Of which, yeah, there are three more than three now that you're coordinating with.

Yeah.

Because I know we use Carlmont as well for uh summer schools.

Carmont, we we rent the pool from them.

So that's a that's a very simple, we rent and and we get you know those those weeks there.

Um the other thing just at McDougall that is again unique is because we have um several softball diamonds there, but there is also at the very western end that little triangle that is a park in our parks recreation and open space master plan that was identified as the location that could use some love and um to provide some additional seating and sort of make that space a little more welcoming, not just to the families that are there for youth sports, but also as a destination for the public, um, you know, to have maybe um just a more inviting space.

It's not to create any kind of great amenity that's gonna draw big crowds from outside the neighborhood, but just to make a nice space for the neighbors to be able to walk to, you know, have a little snack with their toddlers and then walk back.

So and we're grateful for the for the contribution that um that director de Mello mentioned to help us uh realize that.

Great.

Thank you so much.

That's them.

Yeah, okay.

Uh looks like Flynn Ruiz has pulled up the this shows the trees that are being removed and trees that are remaining.

It doesn't show trees that they're being added.

That's right.

It'd be nice if we had like two of the page two.

I know they need to merge.

Uh, but this does or maybe page the following page.

So, yeah, the previous page with those red circles, those are the trees that are planning to be removed, primarily because they're in the way of the development of the new building.

And we care very much about sustainability, carbon sequestering the environment, and as we've worked with our landscape architects, it's really important not only because it's a mandate we're conforming to, it's just the one-to-one, but that we bring the natural beauty of the Armstrong campus, which has a lot of trees for those who've been there, we maintain that quality.

So as we look at that three pages from now, which shows the new uh proposed trees.

This is kind of the lay of the land for the future, even though we are removing some trees that do have conflicts either with um the buildings themselves, or perhaps sometimes there's some stormwater uh related reasons, or the tree is in in poor health.

So we're tracking all of those.

We do have an arborist um as part of this project, and uh working very carefully to make sure that it's a uh green environment when all of a sudden done.

So here if I'm read if I'm looking at correctly, it's still looking a little sparse behind the athletic building.

Is that where you would have liked to put some you know something in the in the plan, but you just you didn't want to start over?

Uh I think for this area here, it's some of the things we've discussed that are possibilities for the future could be ivy, could be these narrow shrubs that kind of maintain in a narrow footprint, or possibly trees within that eight foot six area.

Again, we don't want to be in the PGE easement, but there is space four feet away from kind of each side uh where there's some possibilities, and again, there's no windows, and it is a um a blank wall at the moment.

So I think what Neil has shared is there's some opportunity here for the future.

Okay, thank you.

But to be clear, even if that weren't done in the future, what is proposed here complies with what is required um with tree removals, correct?

They have satisfy the requirement by having a one-to-one correct removal replacement.

Correct.

That's correct.

Okay, I just want to clarify that.

Any further questions on this end?

No, thank you.

I have a question.

Um, can you clarify what entitlements we're giving the gymnasium today?

I is it any different than what we're giving the two academic buildings that are proposed for construction now.

Will we have to have another meeting like this to talk about the gym later, or does this meeting cover the public?

Both.

Yeah, so what they're seeking is a new conceptual development plan that takes into account both phases.

Phase one academic component, phase two athletic component.

The detailed development plan is the fine-grained details associated with the individual construction components for each of those two phases.

Um the applicant is seeking clarity about both components.

They aren't looking to bifurcate, they're looking to actually show both components as part of this planned development amendment that takes into account phase one and phase two.

So what's before the commission tonight and what we be before the council in the future would be an amendment that takes into account a new conceptual development plan for both components, as well as the ancillary entitlements, things like the conditional use permit that vests the detailed development plan, all the details, grading plan, tree removal permit, and design review.

So they're seeking all of it as part of their ask before the city's commission and the council for both phases.

But to clarify, if in 31 or whatever, 32.32 they come back and they want to build the gymnasium, will there be any public meeting from a planning perspective at all?

No.

No.

Okay.

And everything is covered as part of the entitlements that's before the commission and the council tonight.

But there would still be a full building review that would take.

Not if our planning changed, but if our building codes changed, everything would be up to snuff for that time.

Correct.

Just to clarify that.

And is there any uh let's say a 32 isn't the year?

Just want to clarify that that entitlement is now part of that property into perpetuity.

It doesn't end in 32 when they currently think they might build it now.

That's a possibility for them moving into the future.

Correct.

So this is where they anticipate construction occurring for the two different phases.

Okay.

But the conceptual development plan would lock in both of the square footage increases associated with both phases.

Not even square footage increase, to be clear.

It's actually kind of a they're locking in a volume because they've described a building with a footprint and a height.

If they wanted to build a taller gym, they would actually have to come back and talk to us again, is that clear?

Uh well, based upon the conditions of approval, there are minor deviations that could be considered on it on an administrative basis.

Now, should that be a condition of approval that causes concern, then at the commission and council level, we can also discuss that.

But what's proposed here tonight is the height and the setbacks and the square footage and volume associated with both phases one and two.

Okay.

But again, what's before the commission is those two distinct components, and they would be subject to current building codes for phase one, and then should they progress forward to the actual construction phase for phase two in that 2031 2032 time period, they'd be subject to all the current construction permits and fees and impact fees associated with the the project for that phase.

And technically phase one doesn't have to get built today either.

We're approving entitlements for future phase one and two.

There's no contingency that they have to start with phase one immediately either.

Just want to clarify.

True.

They they have the discretion to say we'd like to move on.

Now they have nine more square feet they could build.

Right.

Yeah, they have the discretion to move forward differently with the phasing, but at least at this point, they've indicated strong direction that phase one is first up.

And that's something that they would like to advance on this year should the entitlements receive approval.

Okay.

That's my question.

Great.

Thank you.

Yeah, I had a couple of questions.

Um, I guess for for staff.

So the first one would be um about the interaction between this plan um and the BZO section eight about parking.

So and I discussed with Dr.

Uh Director DeMell the other day.

Like, how do we determine that the athletic building, which looks to me like a recreational building, should looks to me like it should be requiring extra parking.

There's things in the BZO about uh number of parking spaces for the number of seats in a recreational building.

So, how did you decide what the classification of that building is that it doesn't require more parking?

So the city looks at this school as an extension of ancillary activities associated with the school.

You have classroom buildings, multi-purpose buildings, and a gymnasium.

They're not adding extra staff to accommodate use of the phase two component, they're required to provide parking based on the number of employees sought for this campus.

They are getting to 85, a maximum of 85, and they have 85 spaces.

That's how we evaluated the project.

We believe it's an appropriate number.

It it uh comports with the use of staff for the support of the educational uses and ancillary uses associated with this elementary and middle school.

So, you're basically saying it's not a recreational building, so it doesn't fall under that part of the BZO.

We are indicating that it does not comport or connect to that component of the zoning code.

This is a planned development where we are utilizing the standards of employee as the measuring stick for how much parking is required for uses that are customary for a school for an elementary school and a middle school.

And these schools have things like multi-purpose rooms, have educational buildings, have in certain cases, gymnasiums and kitchens.

And the same support staff, whether it be teachers, faculty, or other staff, that's proposed, is the governor or the driver of the required parking for this total campus, not one building for one kind of use and one building for another.

To like further clarify, it is what would be stricter in this instance is to think of the gymnasium as being ancillary because these are the students as the predominant of grades two through eight are the ones who are going to be using it for recreational use.

Um to my knowledge, and the United States grades two through eight do not drive and therefore do not need parking in order to.

Yeah, sorry, I but that's not what I said.

Please don't change my word.

So sections 8.4.6 talk about auditoriums for schools and colleges, that's not this.

It talks about high schools, that's not this.

It talks about staff for elementary and middle schools, and that's where it is one per staff.

That's clear.

There's a completely separate part that talks about recreational buildings and whether they have bench seating or fixed seats, and that you need parking for those.

So I'm I'm setting aside the staff.

I know it's a school, I'm asking whether this counts as a recreational building.

And it sounds like staff's determination is that it's not a recreational building under the code.

Correct, that's correct.

We are basing it based upon staff for this planned development.

That's how we evaluated it.

Okay, so the it's the position that that's a ancillary use, just like a classroom, and the fact that, for example, you might have parents coming to watch a sporting event, doesn't matter.

We don't need parking for that.

That would be staff's position.

I'm not sure I agree, but it sounds like that's what you're saying.

There is ample parking, we believe, based upon the use of that facility, both existing and proposed.

Okay.

That's how we evaluate it.

Okay.

Next question would be can you clarify how this plan qualified as minor under CEQA?

Given that my understanding is that um minor would be uh less than 25% increase in students, which this obviously is, uh, and less than 10 classroom buildings, but or new classrooms, but I pretty sure we saw in the plan that in fact there are 10 classrooms being proposed here in addition to the gym.

So I'm not sure how we came up with minor for CEQA.

And I noticed SQL wasn't touched on at all tonight.

I'm not the expert here, I don't know if you guys better believe it's 10 or fewer, it's not less than 10.

You guys experts here.

Maybe I misread my staff report.

Yes.

Uh or 10 classes, Drivers.

The use of the categorical exemptions uh have been defined in CEQA.

So, you know, this is a relatively straightforward um math sort of uh intensification of use sort of um um trigger or criteria.

So, you know, based on that student population increase and or the classroom, it is a pretty straightforward application of that particular class that's allowed, and then through the exemption process, we look at any exceptions based on location, context, um, you know, presence of any hazardous materials uh as defined through the Cortesi list and and then other like visual and biological resources, and it didn't trigger any of those exceptions, including any unusual circumstances that would be different than any other school that was attempting to expand.

So based on looking at the available exemption classes, and then anything that would kick it out of being able to use that exemption class, we felt comfortable that that was an appropriate criteria.

Okay, so it's 10 classrooms, not less than 10.

Yeah, well, and then the gym just isn't considered, it's just not because it's not a classroom, doesn't have to be counted.

No, it's not, it's not identified as a classroom.

It's just to be clear, the exemption is the addition does not increase original student capacity by more than 25%, or 10 classrooms, whichever is less.

I get that.

It's not 10 or fewer classrooms.

It's whichever is less between the 25% increase or the 10 classrooms.

Correct.

Correct.

And I think the position here is that it is 10 classrooms being added, or I just want to make sure that the record is crystal clear on that.

Yes.

Okay.

Could you accounting the on the detailed development where it identifies the classrooms?

Could you introduce yourself?

Uh again, Peter Mai, yes, uh senior planner with the panorama.

And sorry, maybe using the microphone for the one.

Please use the microphone, Peter.

Peter Mai with a panorama environmental group.

Thank you.

Okay, so sorry, and I just want to clarify.

I think I heard you, but so uh gyms or recreational spaces, kitchens, gardens, none of that can be goes towards whether it's minor or major change in our sequel.

You just pretend you just ignore all that and you only focus on classrooms, is what I'm hearing.

Yes, because I think uh based on, you know, you things like the intensification of use, it's those elements of the change that would you know potentially you know go above uh a level where there might be potential effects that have to be looked at uh in more detail.

In this case, you know, there are other, you know, classes that are available.

A class two would allow for you know the complete uh, you know, uh rehabilitation and redevelopment of the school on its existing campus and would allow you know a greater increase in the capacity or the student enrollment of I believe up to 50%.

So, you know, when these exemptions were created, uh I believe there was likely case studies looking to see if these, you know, going above these thresholds uh would generate uh you know any, you know, additional concerns when it came to existing in field development on an existing developed campus.

So it's very you know defined where you're not pushing out, you're not expanding the size of the of the campus.

You're working within, you know, an existing developed site that's served by service public services.

There's no extension of utilities to serve that site or the expanded portion of that site.

Thank you.

Okay.

That's all the questions for me.

I just mentioned just so it's um it's not an arbitrary, like the the there's language in the provision that is very specific about what it is a classroom, what's not a classroom, so it's not some arbitrary judgment about whether you call something a classroom, like it specifically calls out that a gym is not a classroom and the definitions.

Okay.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks.

No further questions for me.

Thanks.

Okay.

There's a there was a uh my question was on C.

I was I was disheartened that it we hadn't talked about it, but here we are.

Um so the other there was another comment about the fact that this was um piecemealing of a project to kind of um maybe uh for the uh applicant to avail themselves of a of an exemption.

Is there any any kind of basis to that?

I wasn't I was almost fully tracking the the comment, but it seemed that that the idea was that somehow because this was phased, it was um it was piecemealing a project.

You are approving the total conceptual development plan and detailed development plan.

There this is not trying to phase the phasing is in terms of the construction, but your approvals based off the totality of the scope.

Right, right.

And so the SQL exemption applies to the whole thing.

Right.

Yeah.

So it draws the public comment that somebody thought maybe it didn't.

Yeah, I just want to make sure that was clear.

So thank you for that.

Um, most of my questions have been addressed.

Um, I think my questions have been addressed.

Thank you, colleagues, for doing that for me.

Um, okay.

So I think we've gone through presentations, we've gone through um commissioner questions, and I think at this point now it's time to open the public hearing.

Uh, and we'll start uh with uh any uh comments in chambers.

And again, this is uh for item uh seven A.

Yes, uh, we do have some speaker slips in-house here.

Um first up we have Jeff Chriswell.

Just for CB, probably another drill, but your name is called, you can go up to the lecter and you have your time to submit your public comment.

Yeah, you'll have three minutes.

And for clerk, is it possible to say the next person at bat so that like that person knows they're gonna be next?

I think it'll help things go more smoothly so you could maybe say who's next.

Yeah, that's great.

Um next up after this will be uh Warren Gibson.

Okay, thank you.

Anybody else think it's hot in here?

Yes, it is very warm in here, yeah.

Uh hi again, I'm Jeff Chriswell.

I was at the last meeting that you had.

Um, just a reminder, my family and I have lived on Dartmouth Avenue since 1998.

Uh, first, I can't say enough that we applaud the work the CAS does for the children, and we hope the honorable and absolutely needed purpose of the school can be distinguished from the impact it's gonna have on the neighborhoods.

So just to say that.

Also, I want to thank Neil because I know he's trying to address the concerns that the neighbors have.

Um, I've already uh we've already stated several concerns in writing and at the planning and council meetings, which I don't want to repeat here.

That said, after reviewing the recent staff reporting, we have some other concerns to add, but a lot of that's already been addressed here.

First, I had to do with the CEQA, and the fact that uh looking at the numbers, I think you have 29,000 feet now.

You're adding another 22,000 feet, I think, in both both phases.

That's like a 40% increase in footprint.

I would think that would be something that a sequel would be required for, even though it doesn't specifically seem like it'd be in the spirit of the CEQA.

So I just I'd like to say that you know we emphatically request that even if it's not required that it be done, you know, for the benefit of the neighbors.

Uh I want to mention the location of the gym being within 20 feet of a single-family residence, uh, would be an unprecedented unprecedented in the Belmont area.

And I realize that the gym itself is about a little bit further, but the kitchen and the parapet is 22 feet, and that's right up against our backyard fence.

Okay, so we're looking right into that.

I'm gonna talk about the trees in a minute, which you guys have already kind of addressed.

But they're gonna remove all those trees.

Hopefully, they will put them back, but right now there's no provision to do that.

They're just gonna be gone.

We're gonna be looking at a 22-foot wall at our backyard fence.

So um I'd ask you to take a look at the other grammar schools and middle schools in the area.

Maybe maybe you've already done that.

Um, and then come by our homes on Dartmouth to take a look up for comparison.

Generally, the larger multi-use or athletic buildings are near the center of each campus.

Okay, or at least about a hundred feet from the nearby homes for the larger buildings that are 30 35 feet tall.

The one variants might be at Nesbitt where there is a two two-story classroom building up against some apartment buildings on the uh west hand side.

Uh those are rental apartments, not single-family homes.

Um, the apartment wall facing the school just has some small bathroom and bedroom windows, so there's no real impact there.

Um, we already talked about the trees.

We think there's a big concern there about putting the trees back.

Uh, I do want to mention that we've we've read that there is some dropped enrollment in middle schools forecast over the next few years, and that the district is considering consolidating the two middle schools, and that might be an opportunity for uh CAS to take one of those vacated campuses, use the already existing gymnasium in a better access area and more friendly to the public.

Sounds like my time is up.

Your time is in time.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Just so folks know the first um indicator is 30 seconds left, and then it gets more aggressive as your time runs out.

Who's next?

Um, next up is Warren Gibson, and then after that will be Richard Hughes.

Great, thank you.

Thank you, good evening, everyone.

I'm Warren Gibson, uh 48-year resident of Belmont.

Um my house is not near the school, and uh I've never had anything to do with dyslexia.

But I'm here because I believe an injustice was done when a similar proposal was denied in 2005.

I was chair of the planning commission at that time, and I remember that hearing vividly.

I voted for the uh proposal, but it was denied by my colleagues, and it's bothered me ever since.

I uh toured the site recently and I studied the plans, and I find them quite similar to the 2005 proposal, and but it seems my memory is correct that the gym has been rotated away from the property line to reduce the impact on the San Carlos people.

Um I'll just pick one issue to comment on, and that is noise.

I believe the sound of children at play within limits is a joyful thing, not a nuisance.

We sorely need some of their vitality and optimism to rub off on the rest of us in these trying times.

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, says Psalm 100.

So by all means, dot the I's and cross the T's, and I hope that when you finish that you will see fit to approve this project.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Um up next is Richard Hughes.

And after that will be Julie Hughes.

Hopefully, I'm saying that correctly.

Uh, my name is Richard Hughes, and I lived on 1532 Desreal Street for about 58 years now.

Uh before Armstrong School became a school that was McDougall School, my daughter went to McDougal school.

Never was a traffic like it is now.

The traffic is horrible.

Um, like a prisoner, either leaving my house between three and four, or a prisoner down on Ralphson Avenue with both planes of traffic backed up.

It's horrible.

And it should not be allowed to happen.

There should be no traffic going in there at all like that.

The main concern is what I feel is fire.

Fire, fire.

You all know what happened in Los Angeles and Altadina.

There was not enough fire protection to put out the fires.

What happens, McDougall if a fire starts?

We have woods behind us with twin pies and also the two retirement uh Silverado uh place.

If a fire truck tries to get up Ralston Avenue with two lanes of traffic there backed up, and I've seen it, just go drive there between three and four o'clock and watch both lanes with traffic coming from Carlmont and traffic coming up the hill to Armstrong School to pick up their students and coming out of there.

I've waited 10 15 minutes to get up that hill.

You think a fire truck would get up there in any sooner time?

No way.

McDougall will burn just like Altina and Los Angeles.

I beg the planning commission, do not be a party of agreeing to this and having McDougall neighborhood burn down from a fire, and it can happen.

120 mile winds.

We've seen them just two weeks ago.

Fire, there was a fire in Twin Pines, not Twin Pines, but the old sanitarium grounds about 30 years ago when hippies were living in there, and the fire department sprung hoses up on our yard to go through there to fight the fire.

That was one little bonfire or something that got out of control for some hippies.

But if there's winds and houses burning down, they're gonna burn down.

That's all I have to say.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Julie Hughes is up next.

And after that will be Richard Konigsberg.

Hello, I'm Julie Hughes.

My husband, I live on 1532.

Sorry, I'm just asking you to start the time here.

No, no, no, you're all you're right.

You're good.

I'm okay.

Okay.

Keep going.

Okay.

Uh yeah, and we've been through a lot with McDougal school, uh, which is now Charles Charles Armstrong School.

And my main concern also is safety.

And I started out where down at our street on Desville Way.

I got them to paint the city.

I had to go to the council and get them to paint the curb red coming around the corner because our street is narrow.

And we also have Solano that goes up, and we have Eltura.

And I really feel sorry for the people on El Tura having to deal with all of this now, especially with that gym going up, because you look at Altura, and they've got the water towers on the top.

And I go, what about if there's an earthquake?

All that water comes down, and where is it going to end up?

It's going to end up down in the school area down there, too.

I mean, you have to think about all these things that what's going to happen.

And I really think all of you on the Planning Commission here, and the city council also, when this comes up before them, you need to go and take a look.

Don't look at the pictures.

You questioned the trees, you questioned all of that.

You go out there and you look at the school grounds and you visual, then you can see a true picture.

And you do it when all the traffic's coming up, either in the morning, or picking up the dropping them off, or picking up the kids.

And then you can see what our our neighborhood is going through up there because we only have one way in and one way out, and that goes right past the school on Solana where we connect on to Chula Vista.

And if there's ever an emergency, a house fire, anything up there, we're in for it.

Another thing is the trees.

You cut down those trees.

Those trees are old and they've got their roots buried down in the ground, and they are supporting us.

We've been through a landslide in 1980.

And believe you me, we have all trees now that are on that slide where the slide area was.

We've had a big, we went down 22 feet.

So it's no fun.

And it I tell you, you don't fool with the hills in Belmont.

So I suggest that they look for a bigger place, or they just forget about it and they do an extension someplace else where they can put a gym in and have their own little recreational area.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Up next is Richard Conisburgh.

And after that, we'll have Judy Allen.

Hi, my name is Richard Konigsberg.

I've lived in Belmont now on Solana Drive for about 25 years.

So kind of a newcomer.

Um I'm opposed to the proposed extension of Charles Armstrong in our neighborhood.

The project poses clear and significant risks to public safety, neighborhood uh livability and integrity of Belmont's zoning standards.

The impacts are not minor or speculative.

They're predictable, unavoidable, and inconsistent with the city's responsibility to protect residential communities.

And during school commute hours, the expansion would sharply increase the volume of cars, delivery vehicles, and event-related traffic funneling through the streets never intended to serve as high capacity corridors.

This is not simply an inconvenience.

Children walking or biking in the area would face substantially greater risk.

No amount of traffic management or staggered scheduling can realistically offset the volume increase this expansion would produce.

The proposed growth would also intensify noise far beyond what is reasonable for a residential zone.

More students, more outdoor activities, more events, and longer operating hours will affect residents every single day.

This is a neighborhood where families, seniors, and longtime residents rely on a peaceful environment.

Approving an institutional expansion of this magnitude would undermine the purpose of residential zoning and materially diminish the quality of life for those who call this area home.

Belmont zoning framework exists to prevent exactly this type of imbalance where the expansion of a private institution begins to override the rights of nearby residents.

The scale of the expansion is incompatible with the surrounding housing and sets a troubling precedent that private organizations can outgrow the constraints of residential zones at the community's expense.

Protecting the neighborhood character is not an abstract concept concept.

It is a fundamental obligation of city governments.

While the school service is an important purpose, private institutional growth cannot come at a disproportionate cost to public safety, neighborhood stability, and residents' daily lives.

The burdens of this expansion would fall overwhelmingly on those who live nearest to it, while the benefits primarily accrue to the institution there.

To put things in perspective, the 2005 City Council quashed the proposed expansion plans of the school.

The original plan back then was much less grandiose than the current plan.

And since then our neighborhood has had an increase in residence, but nothing else has been done as far as infrastructure goes to improve the roads or expand them.

The roads are still narrow, cars parked on both sides of the streets make it difficult to navigate, especially for uh emergency vehicles.

I have more, but thank you for listening.

Thank you.

I appreciate your probative questions before.

Thank you for your comments.

Thank you.

Uh up next we have Judy Allen, and then after that, we'll have Stephen Cann.

I never know if I need to buy glasses or not.

My name is Judy Allen.

I've lived in Belmont 55 years.

I served on the Belmont Park and Recreation Commission for 14 years, many years ago, and five years on the Arts Commission, 10 years with the Belmont Park Booster.

So I've been involved with Belmont for very many years, and now I'm just old.

At any rate, I want to reiterate and compliment my previous speaker.

I agree with him totally.

I live on Alameda de las Pugas off of Ralston Avenue where the traffic is at an F level when you're talking about the general plan.

If you want to try and go from uh Rawlson Avenue on Alameda to uh San Carlos or even Club Drive, it's a nightmare during that time.

That quadrant of our city is a nightmare.

It's already too congested and too compact.

At any rate, um, I kind of don't feel that this is a good project to go forward with.

And I know that Charles Armstrong's school has done an amazing job and what have you.

I just think that when you grow out of your uh your clothing, you need to move.

I've worked at big companies, Genentech had to move, oracles had to move.

Everybody has to move when they outgrow what they are in to begin with and become successful.

Now, speaking of, I have called and talked to Belmont, Rabbit Chores uh school district, and and the two schools serving railway chores, which is Nesbitt and Sam Piper, are probably very much going to close down both the school's middle school programs.

So they will have extra room in those areas.

I don't know anything much more about, you know, what that might possibly be, but it may be an opportunity.

But I think expanding in that area, which is in the middle of uh the McDougal neighborhood area is really a slap in the face to the people who are taxpayers in this uh city of Belmont, which is beautiful, but it has become so compacted with traffic.

Um I honestly think that um the contribution um which has been committed by Armstrong School to the city of Belmont of a hundred thousand dollars, which is over and beyond all the impact fees that are shown in the documentation that you have.

It's like a it's like a carrot, and let's call it a bribe.

I think it's really sucks.

And I actually uh called the former director of parks and recreation and had a long talk with him, and he kind of thinks it smells too.

So I want you to think about that.

That, you know, I don't want to shut down Charles Armstrong.

I think that there's great, but I think it doesn't belong in the middle of the McDougall neighborhood.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next is Stephen Cann.

And after that, we'll have uh Lynn Murphy.

Good evening.

My name is Stephen Can.

I've been a resident of the Belmont McDougall neighborhood for the past 30 years.

Charles Armstrong is an important educational resource for many families across the Bay Area, and I respect its mission.

But in reality, it's is that the school has outgrown its current location.

With respect to the school's proposed massive expansion and increased usage, I ask you to consider carefully how this build-out at this location will impact a legacy residential community that was originally built in the 1950s.

For example, meetings of this importance should not be scheduled two days before Thanksgiving.

This is the school's second attempt in 20 years to significantly increase the density and intensity of use on a narrow cul-de-sac with limited access.

That history strongly suggests that the school has simply outgrown its property.

Alarmingly, the proposed build-out would remove at least 30 heritage of trees and involve extensive hillside excavation.

This would cause permanent environmental degradation and disrupt vital wildlife wildlife corridor that supports the owls and the raptors and many other species.

This proposed this proposal is fundamentally out of balance with the surroundings.

Traffic and parking congestion are already seriously, already serious problems.

Cut through traffic from commuters avoiding Ralston and Alameda Alameda regularly blocks neighborhood streets and prevents safe egress multiple times per day.

This is also a public safety issue.

Increased density on the narrow streets with further degrade emergency access.

Park cars often line both sides of the street near the school, making two-way traffic impossible.

The problematic and problematic for fire trucks and other emergency vehicles.

This neighborhood built more than 70 years ago never was never designed for this level of traffic.

Please keep in mind the lessons of the 1991 Oakland Hills Fire, as well as the more recent Palisades and Altadina disasters.

The time has come for Charles Armstrong School to operate within the current conditional use permit, and that to seriously consider serving families throughout satellite facilities, more appropriate locations throughout the Bay Area.

Thanks for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we have Lynn Murphy, and after that is Barry Lake.

Hi, good evening, everyone.

I wanted to say thank you to Charles Armstrong for all their excellent communication.

I have lived in raised our family over 33 years on Chula Vista.

So we have schools behind us, to the left of us and to the right of us.

And the noise of schools, different events, children laughing, children screaming, any kind of noise from kids.

I've raised my family here and love Belmont.

The communication from the staff from Charles Armstrong has been excellent.

Very um supportive of the community with attention to letting us be informed.

And I guess my concern is now as we look at this going forward, I have a lot of concerns about the safety that others have mentioned, about the egress of emergency vehicles.

It's mentioned that the school population would increase by 30 students.

Currently, I heard 240 students and then 252 students.

So it seems to me it's not really at capacity at this moment in time.

So I don't know, there's probably a good explanation for that.

But 30 students, in addition to those that are attending, requires 23,000 square feet additional.

I just I can't compute at all the additional classrooms as well as the um, you know, the huge uh multi-purpose gym.

Um I've had family members graduate from Charles Armstrong.

I've gone to graduations there.

You do amazing, amazing work, and I thank you.

Those of you that are involved in teaching and organizing this school, but I really am asking for consideration of the local community.

Um it's difficult to um exit from my own home.

It's uh during the times that people have mentioned the higher traffic drop-off of school, um, cars up and down the street.

I sometimes wait in my own driveway for 10 minutes.

Now that's not a big, big issue, but in the bigger picture, emergency services, the safety is really a concern that I have.

Um we have a lot of dry brush.

You're talking about removing trees, 39 of them that are protected, and yes, replacing them one-on-one.

I've heard shrubs being possible replacement for trees.

Um, you don't have the sustainability of existing long-term trees that have been protected by a new new barrel and putting a shrub in it or putting another tree in it.

I just don't see that that's a fix to the removal of all the trees proposed.

Um, so in addition, I I guess I haven't been, I wasn't not involved in the 2005 um uh decline or denial of the expansion, but this expansion seems so much bigger.

That was so much smaller.

So please consider the size of this and um the community defects.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comment.

Thank you, Barry Lake.

And up next will be Russ Sullivan.

Uh good evening, everyone.

Uh happy new year.

Uh I'm Barry Lake, a 30-year resident uh on El Vareno Way in the area that would be affected by this massive expansion.

Um I have two words for you stare decisis.

It's a legal term, it just means stand by the decision.

Well, I recognize this is not a court of law, and you guys are not um required necessarily to respect uh precedent, but you should.

Um a respect for precedent is uh is a hallmark of good and proper governance, and you must give weight to prior findings in similar cases where circumstances have not materially changed.

Uh in 2005, your predecessors, fellow citizens, residents, uh neighbors spent tremendous effort to evaluate a previous the previous expansion request from the school, a proposal which was much smaller than one than the one before you here.

Uh after a lot of review, that commission identified serious concerns, including traffic and safety risks, inadequate parking access, excessive bulk and mass, and incompatibility with uh the choir residential cul-de-sact.

Later that year, the city council uh reviewed those findings and agreed.

The project was denied.

Conditions today have not improved.

It's the same uh, in other words, um things are worse, in fact.

Um, there's more traffic, more density, more cars, and more pressure on the narrow neighborhood streets.

Despite that, this new proposal is far larger.

More square footage, more buildings, increased enrollment and staffing, longer hours of operation, and extended weekend use.

Let me be clear.

I'm not opposed to the school or its educational mission, and I've been impressed with the uh the presentations.

It's it's a be it's a wonderful organization.

Um, but uh they have continued to to successfully execute their mission without that prior uh expansion, and they should continue to be able to do so without this expansion.

My objection isn't philosophical, it's just practical and site-specific.

The proposal is out of scale, out of proportion, and incompatible with its location.

Given the prior findings, the worsened conditions in our neighborhood, and the substantially larger proposal of this one, the only cons uh uh a consistent and responsible conclusion is to deny this request.

Um before I conclude, I just want to address the CEQA exemption.

Um I uh sent an email with a detailed list of objections to why I believe that exemption was incorrect.

Um, some of them I think have been addressed tonight, but some of them have not.

So I would respectfully request that you go back and review um all of the conditions under which that exemption was given because I believe it was incorrect.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Uh Russ Sullivan.

And next up will be uh Brianna Dooley.

I asked how many more speaker slips we have at this point.

Yes, um, we have two.

Um six speaker slips, and it looks like two raised hands on Zoom.

Great, thank you.

Yeah.

Sorry, to interrupt.

Uh I'm Russ Sullivan.

Uh, my wife, Ashley and I have been residents of Belmont since 2004.

Uh we've raised four daughters here.

Our youngest daughter is severely dyslexic.

Uh she attended Charles Armstrong from third grade through eighth grade.

And um, I think when Neil says it they changed the trajectory of kids' lives, uh, I think we can testify to this because when she was at Central Elementary uh through second grade, um, she was starting to go into a dark place.

I mean, she was sad, she got angry, very frustrated.

Um, the school just as much recognized that there wasn't anything they could do for her.

So when she got into Charles Armstrong, it changed her life.

Within a week of being there, uh her oldest sister said, I've got my sister back.

She was like this fun, happy go-lucky kid, got into this dark place.

Within a week of being a Charles Armstrong, she was back to being that fun, happy go-lucky kid.

You you've heard lots of very valid concerns from from the from the citizens here.

Um I just want to reiterate just how important this school is, uh, not only to the community, but the children it can serve, and to open it up for another 30 children in my mind would be a great service to uh to the Bay Area.

So I just wanted to provide our support for this expansion for Charles Armstrong.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Brianna Dooley.

And up next will be Ryan So.

Hello, Planning Commission members.

My name's Brianna Dooley, and I'm a sophomore at Cromwell High School.

I attended Charles Armstrong from third to eighth grade.

Armstrong changed how I see myself as a learner.

I learned how I learned, how to ask for help, and now I have and and now I believe in myself.

Because of Armstrong, I was able to transition successfully into public high school and feel confident at Carlmont.

Having Armstrong in Belmont was important because I could stay in my community and close to home.

I know other places in Belmont like Carmont and the Barrett Community Center are improving their facilities.

I hope Armstrong is given the same opportunities so it can continue helping students like me get the chance to change the way they see the world and learn.

I support this project because it will allow Armstrong to serve more students and change more lives like my own.

Thank you for your time and your consideration.

Thank you very much.

And it takes courage for a 16-year-old to come up there and speak, so just want to recognize that.

Thank you.

Uh Ryan So.

That's a Jay.

I really got to work on my pending.

Oh, Joe.

Perfect.

And then uh Mary Pardon will be next.

Hello, Belmont community.

My name is Ryan Joe.

I am here today as a Belmont City resident, a father of a child currently enrolled at Charles Armstrong, and uh your 2026 Regional Commissioner servicing uh AYSO Regional Commissioner servicing Belmont and Redwood Chores.

Um your premier uh community-based soccer organization.

Uh our one of our core philosophies is everyone plays, and McDougal plays a huge part in uh in that philosophy where everyone plays.

Uh I work uh I work directly with Parks and Rec uh every year on uh availing all their fields for our children to have spaces to play in McDougall.

Uh and the folks at Charles Armstrong have always been uh wonderful to work with uh for us to run a soccer program.

Uh, our fields in Belmont, we have to have to have access to equipment, uh, maintenance and repairs, weekly field painting, uh provide parking, bathroom access, and I've worked with Charles Armstrong on all this, uh, putting in AEDs at their location.

And anytime I ask for any support from their organization, they've always been very, very supportive uh in allowing us to uh be on campus during school hours.

Uh I asked for an AED that needed power.

They said, let me know how I can help, and here's a great place to put it.

So they've always been accommodating to work with, and I think that that's uh that's the most important piece here is uh how do we work together as a community to make sure that we get uh everybody gets what uh what they need to make this happen.

Um regarding the parking, you know.

I pick up my son every day.

Uh I I I brutal, I go through the the traffic.

Uh down Alamita Dillas Folgus, down Ralston.

I'm a coach.

I I mean I I said miss traffic as well.

Uh to be honest with you, Charles Armstrong is probably the only school that does anything to alleviate the traffic.

Um we got kids crossing the street to go to Carlmont, we got all kinds of kids walking arbitrarily, willy-nilly, capriciously across these streets.

Uh, and I think that's probably the majority of the the traffic that's uh that um is is uh uh that is that is created uh and so I appreciate Charles Armstrong for all that they do.

Uh my son goes there and I uh please uh I urge you to uh allow these spaces to be available available.

I would love to have a uh another gym for good kids to play sports and and uh uh to available to the community.

So uh anyways, thank you very much for your time.

Uh happy new year.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Mary Pardon, and next up will be, I believe it's Karen Shane Shen.

Mary Morris C.

Pardon.

It's great to see you here, and I uh want to call out uh Carlos Tamello, myself, and um former planning chair, Commissioner uh Gibson, who I was just with, as all being in this room 20 years ago, and speaking about the same subject.

And it's uh what I want to bring to you.

I'm I have a 40-year business here in Belmont at the Carmont shopping center, uh, a proud uh resident here of Belmont, and I want to tell you with the Chamber of Commerce that the largest employment sector in our city of Belmont are our schools, both private as well as public schools.

There is a wide divide though between the private and public schools, and a lot of it's funding, and a lot of it is the fact that the state architect oversees projects for our public schools, where here we are in a small room trying to provide equity and work with uh private application, as with Charles Armstrong.

You know that, but what we've lost track of is how Barrett School has gotten to the condition it is in today because of deferred maintenance.

McDougall School, now Charles Armstrong has over time continued to be small, a small footprint.

It hasn't built to the scale of our other public schools in Belmont.

We have had opportunities, and I'm gonna call out Carlos on this as well, because we've gotten better at planning.

We've tr figured out plan unit developments, we figured out conceptual and developmental um programs that have worked well in neighborhoods, and that's a big change, you guys in 20 years.

It's how um our work at uh Crystal Springs Uplands has shown success, and truly, there have not been a lot of complaints.

Zero traffic complaints the last I checked with the city.

So again, from the chamber of commerce perspective, we think there should be some equity for the school.

Um the considerations of CEQA, I can tell you, I think are very important, but they seem to have met all of the CECA requirements.

So also I just left a 10-year position as uh somebody on the oversight committee for the Belmont Redwood Shore School District, and it was on their bonds, which improve the schools, and I can tell you, as much as Charles Armstrong has done to keep up within their footprint, they're still behind.

So please allow them within the planning envelopes that have gotten a lot better in these 20 years to continue with this.

I fully support this phased-in uh development project and ask for your consideration in that as well.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Karen Shen.

And up next after that will be Heather Rainey.

Hi, I'm Karen Shane, 63-year resident.

Also went to McDougall, as I've all told you before.

A thought listening to all the comments.

You know, if if Charles Armstrong does not get their 30 people, okay, fine.

But Carlmont, Terra Linda, they can grow as big as they can because they're a public school.

So I have the feeling here that we're having traffic issues, which we all deal with because of the public schools.

And Charles Armstrong is bearing the brunt of that problem.

And if folks, if you're concerned about safety in your in your streets, as I am where I live up on Mezzies, and Wooster, then that's a whole other problem because that earthquake is coming, that fire is coming, that flood is coming.

Prepare.

It has nothing to do with this school.

I am a complete support of all of this, and I think what is being brought up.

Oh, in regards to trees, I looked at the list of the trees.

The Aleppo Pine, the Canary Pine are not native.

Most of them are in ill health.

They're the pine trees that were put up in the 50s.

There's another one that's the Siberian elm is an invasive tree.

So half the trees that they're taken out, we shouldn't have anyway.

So anyway, thanks.

Thank you.

Uh Heather Rainey.

And last in-house speaker slip we have will be Dean Wilson.

Hello, my name's Heather Rainey.

I live on 1519 Altura Way, right above the school.

I just want to make this very clear.

I'm neither for or against this.

I just have a lot of comments that I'd like you to take into consideration.

My husband and his family have owned our home for about 20 years now.

My husband is dyslexic.

He went to Charles Armstrong school.

It was an amazing school.

It is a great school.

I have a daughter and a son on the way, who is due in July.

So I'm really not loving this timing here.

But you know, they have a 40 to 60% chance of becoming dyslexic.

Something that I'm concerned about here is the community that this serves.

Now they stated 175 Belmont and San Carlos residents have gone to the school.

That's about 4.17 students a year that attend from this area.

That's about 1.6% of the population, if I did all my math correctly.

And that equates to about 1.8 million extra dollars a year for them.

I think that's great, but I also think that this shows an opportunity for more locations.

There are only three dyslexic schools in the Bay Area.

This shows that a satellite campus, more expansion, would be a great opportunity, and it's something that the Bay Area actually really needs.

Additionally, we talked about safety.

I have I live on a street, there was a fire right next door.

Thankfully it happened in the middle of the night, but unfortunately, if it happened during school hours, yes, super big concern.

Additionally, the hill, they've addressed my concerns that they're gonna stabilize the hill.

I think that's great.

They've actually addressed a lot of my concerns.

Um I now have new concerns, thank you for everyone about the the water tower.

I'm literally right below it, so thank you for that.

Um, but um, you know, I do think safety is important.

I did bring up to the school at the October meeting that uh the four-way stop sign would be nice to make it very clear because that gets run consistently.

They do a great job with traffic.

I think a lot of the traffic has to do with a lot of the schools, but I think that stop sign is very dangerous, and I see it consistently getting ran and students almost getting hit, and I have heard of students getting hit before.

Additionally to that, I do think behind the gym there is a safety concern with how close the building is to the perimeter, and I have a background in corporate security and risk assessment, and that is a dark alley.

I don't suggest lighting it because of the fact that the residents are right there.

However, that is a narrow area, and you guys are talking about expanding after hours, which provides a security concern for a tucked away location on a public airplace where people can tuck away behind and dangerous things can happen.

So I do suggest that that is an area of concern to be considered.

Additionally to that, um, I do think that it is really great this community and the dyslexia that it serves.

I myself have donated to charities that give to Charles Armstrong.

My mother-in-law does.

I really think it's a great school.

I just think it's a great school who it would be really amazing if they could expand to another campus because then you can serve more of the community and do more great things.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Last speaker slip in house tonight is Dean Wilson.

Hi, good evening.

I am the last, so that's good for everyone.

Um don't worry, there's speakers over Zoom, so okay.

First of all, I love Charles Armstrong.

I love living across the street from them.

They're great people, support the mission uh greatly.

My biggest concern is that this, and I don't understand zoning, but it seemed like this must have been zoned elementary school tucked into a really tucked in to a very small residential uh community, and we're now trying to make place a Ralston type gym in that little resident or that little elementary school parcel.

Um, I even heard it called a community center at some point in one of the presentations, so that worries me a little bit.

The gym worries me, it was the same gym came here 20 years ago and was turned down.

Now it's back.

I don't see the changes.

Now I'm all for the academic piece.

I think 30 students, great, that isn't going to be that big a deal.

And they need the space.

But again, it seems like a middle school Rawlson type gym placed on a footprint that was never meant for it.

Okay, that's thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And that I think concludes our speakers in-house.

Yes.

Okay.

Um we'll now see if there are folks over Zoom who'd like to submit public comment.

Go ahead, okay.

Uh, you have about a minute and thirty seconds left.

You can you can jump up really quickly.

But this is definitely the piece to alleviate that.

This is there is a phase one and a phase two.

Could we call out phase two for additional consideration?

Go ahead with phase one, approve it, go, go, go, but give us more time to look at and ask questions and get answers to how that gym is going to be used after the regular seven to four o'clock that they operate now.

Just a thought.

Thank you.

Okay, let's turn back to Zoom.

Okay, um, speakers on Zoom.

Um, Coralin Fireback.

Uh, go ahead whenever you're ready.

You'll have three minutes.

Okay, can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Okay.

Good evening, members of Belmont Planning Commission.

I'm Coralin Feierbach.

Having served as a member of this of a previous planning commission and as a former Belmont Mayor, I have firsthand how difficult and how rewarding your role is in shaping our city can be.

I'm here tonight because history is repeating itself, but on a much larger scale.

Twenty years ago, the commission and the city council voted against a much minor expansion for the Charles Armstrong School.

We denied it for two main reasons.

One, the impact of increased traffic and noise on a quiet residential neighborhood.

Two, the significant concerns raised by our neighbors in San Carlos who share those borders.

Today, the school isn't just asking for that minor expansion.

We previously denied.

They are asking for something far more intensive.

This is no longer just a school expansion.

It is a big business expanding into the heart of the McDougall residential neighborhood.

While we all respect the school's mission to help children with learning difficulties, we must ask: is this massive infrastructure change truly justified for just 30 students?

And more importantly, do we believe it will just stay at only 30 students in the future?

Furthermore, the proposal for weekend operations is deeply concerning.

When do the neighbors get their peace and quiet?

We must also consider the cumulative impact.

The traffic in the Chula Vista area is already strained by Caramont High School students.

Adding more to this specific corridor creates a tipping point we cannot ignore.

If I were sitting in your seats tonight, I would move to deny the application, or at least recommend scaling it back significantly to protect the integrity of the neighborhoods.

This may seem too strong to some of you, but Belmont is changing little by little.

We're being overtaken by the same urban density problems that plague much larger cities.

We must decide tonight: is this the future we want for our neighborhoods?

Thank you for your time and for your service to Belmont.

That's it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Up next, we have Hetal Vasavada.

Please go ahead whenever you're ready.

Hello.

Good evening.

My name is Hatla Bisavida, and I live in the McDougall neighborhood, directly across the street from Armstrong on Salana Drive.

Because we live so close to the school, we see daily how Armstrong operates.

They're thoughtful, organized, and mindful of the surrounding neighborhood.

Danielle, who manages the traffic, consistently looks out for everyone on the street and not just students.

He makes sure my daughter Alara is safe while she waits to be picked up for her carpool to her own school.

And that level of care really matters to families like mine.

Armstrong has been a part of this neighborhood since the 1980s, and a school has been in that location since the 50s.

And when my family chose to buy a home across the street from a school, we did so understanding what that would come with.

This part of Belmont has several schools within a very close radius, and with that comes shared traffic patterns during peak hours, school noise, and everything else that comes with being in a community with the school.

That's the reality of being in a neighborhood centered around schools, and something we all knowingly accepted when we moved here.

What we did not anticipate was how welcome and connected we would feel with the school itself.

From our experience, Armstrong does its part to manage traffic responsibly.

Their staggered dismissal system works well and they're attentive to flow and safety.

Central, San Carlos Charter, Notre Dame, Carlmont, Central, and Ralston all let out at the same time or around the same time.

And Armstrong has staggered their dismissal time to avoid overlap as much as they can.

While congestion can happen in the area, it reflects the presence of multiple nearby schools rather than just being attributed to just a single campus.

I also think it's important to look at the traffic in broader context of vomit's growth.

The city continues to attract families like mine, and the number of residents under 18 has increased over time and most likely will continue to increase.

That population growth naturally brings more daily trips overall, which includes commuting, child care, and after school activities.

In that context, Armstrong is actually relatively small and a predictable contributor.

The school currently enrolls about 230 students, which is significantly smaller than nearby schools.

Carmont has 2400 students.

Ralston has 1100 students.

Armstrong has less than half of most of the schools.

Even with the proposed addition of 30 students, Armstrong would remain one of the smallest schools in the area.

And from a planning standpoint, it's difficult to attribute broader neighborhood traffic patterns to a modest enrollment change at an existing school, especially when overall residential growth and increase in student enrollment and nearby schools are a much larger driver for traffic.

Armstrong has been a positive presence in my daily life.

We regularly use their playground, use their blue basketball court.

Since Belmont has limited public court space, it's been helpful for me and my daughter and my team to play.

It's become a safe place where my daughter can hang out with their neighborhood friends, and the school has always been really welcome welcoming.

Even though my child doesn't attend Armstrong, we've been invited to school musicals and community events, and we've attended them and even seen firsthand the difference the school makes.

Armstrong provides critical support for students and learning to learning differences.

You're a time.

Oh, sorry, I couldn't hear the beeps.

Yeah, just please wrap it up.

Sorry, please wrap it up.

Thank you.

Just saying the building plan allows for them to continue serving families and remaining a thoughtful engaged neighbor.

Thanks for your time.

Thank you for your comment.

Thank you so much.

Next up is Mark Harnett from Drac Marketing.

Go ahead when you're ready.

This is Mark Hart.

I live on Alturaway.

I want to echo the kudos to Daniel.

He's uh he's an asset to the school and the neighborhood.

Uh he handles the parking of the neighbors or the dog walkers with uh very very well.

Uh the the school is an asset to the community and the whole Bay Area.

Uh I highly applaud the expansion and uh I think we should support it.

Thank you very much.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um no further raised hands on Zoom.

Okay.

Do we have anyone else in chambers?

I'm just gonna make that helpful announcement.

This is this is uh last chance to submit a speaker slip and comment in chambers.

Okay.

Seeing no movement from chairs, I'll take that as you want me to fill out a slip.

You can go ahead and submit your comment and then fill this slip afterwards.

Yeah.

Hi, I'm hi everyone.

Happy New Year.

I'm Ed Geisy.

I live over at 644 Dartmouth Avenue in St.

Carlos, and this would be kind of what I'd be looking at.

This wall here, about 18 and a half feet from my back yard.

My wife and I, the cute little blonde here.

We bought our house in 1999.

We bought a 1926 Spanish that was our dream house.

It was a complete dump.

We literally spent the next 20 years raising our boys and doing construction on that house and bringing it up to something that we really really love.

We have people all the time coming by wanting to buy the house, and there's no way I could ever sell it.

I my heart's been our hearts been poured into that place.

We're looking at putting in a pool, and I was over at the school and I said, hey, you know, 20 years ago, you know, we almost stopped our construction because of this gym that was gonna go back there.

Um, and I just hope you guys aren't looking to put a gym behind our house again, and oh, we should meet.

Let's talk about this.

So lo and behold, I'm looking, I keep on looking at this wall here thinking that's 30.

That's about as high as the wall's gonna be, right?

And it's gonna be about 18 and a half feet.

I mean, visualize that.

I invite you guys over to my house.

Please come over and and check it out from my perspective.

We love Belmont.

Over my back fence is Belmont.

We spend all of our time in Belmont.

I hike your hills, I eat at Vivace, I we shop at Lanardi's.

We love this town.

Um, but we love our house.

We love the view.

We love those trees.

We have beautiful oak trees in that shared easement that they're thinking about cutting down.

I maintain those trees.

I pay to have them, we pay to have them maintained.

I just it would it would ruin us if we had to look at this wall.

And I uh built a in-log unit back there.

It's literally four feet from that back fence with windows out.

It's gonna be looking right into a wall.

Please come over.

I invite you.

Cold beers, wine, chips, whatever.

Come and see it.

The last last time we went through this 20 years ago, we had the whole team out.

We had a little party.

Thank you for your support.

Thank you for the comment.

Okay.

Um before I close the public hearing, I will um ask if I know we have there were some comments that were received before the 4 p.m.

deadline with regard to this item.

Are there any additional emails or comments that we have not been?

Yes.

Yes, Chair Coolidge.

We had before the 4 p.m.

deadline, we had 13 emails received since the packet was made available to the public and the commission on December 24th.

Six comments generally for, six comments against, and one that was split and one that came after 4 p.m.

that had concerns about the project.

So kind of an even split.

Again, the kinds of comments that folks had were similar to what you heard tonight, concerns about expansion, the intensity, traffic, existing conditions, and then the comments of support were that this is a modest addition, that they support the mission of the school and may support the modest expansion that's being proposed by the school.

So that generally summarizes again 13 total emails and then a 14th after 4 p.m.

So that's it.

Great, thank you.

With that, I'm gonna close the public hearing.

Public hearing is now closed.

And we are now going to I'll see actually before we turn to deliberation to see if there's any additional questions.

Yeah, yeah, there'll be good uh opportunity for us to have whether there's any clarifying questions the commission may have based upon the public comments you received, or there's opportunities for answers to those questions from either the staff team or the applicant team.

I had a couple questions, but do you want to go ahead?

Yeah, no, I just had one.

Go ahead.

It's fine.

Just the one was something about that Armstrong has staggered hours, so they don't start school the same time as other schools.

I'm wondering what if I understood that correctly.

Yes, uh, I'm not gonna know the exact time, but we we look, we know Carlmont uh has 20, I guess Sony said 2400, I think it's like 2360.

So we really try to avoid that for both the sake of our families and for the sake of the neighborhood, so we kind of look at when they um when they are coming uh to school and we try to be at least like a 15-minute move.

So I believe we we started at 8 15, and I believe they now start a little bit later than that, and then we have a staggered ending at the end of the day.

We dismiss our um lower school at 3 o'clock and our middle school at 3 15 again, which I think are both uh a little bit earlier than when Carl Mont gets out, so we try to both stagger our own dismissals and also try to pay attention to what Carl Mont's doing because we know that's 2,300 students, many of whom are driving themselves and haven't don't necessarily have a lot of driving experience.

So thank you.

Great, great, thanks.

Can I pivot and ask a question of the school in terms of when your traffic and circulation plan and its current iteration has been in full force so that the commission and the public understands the six employees that you have had employed for this facility have been operating traffic management?

Not time or sorry, to make sure I understood the question.

So yeah, this plan has been in place I think for at least 20 years.

Uh, it may be longer than that, uh, but it's something that has been, you know, was a conversation with Belmont uh back in the day just because we understood that we are in a uh in sort of a one-way in, one-way out um area, uh, and we feel responsibility for that.

So we worked with Belmont on uh a plan that's been in place, and we little, as you can hear, I feel like I'm gonna have to give Daniel a raise, which is an unfortunate side product of tonight.

But yeah, we have people that take it very seriously and understand the roles, and we have the same people generally do the same roles so that we have a smoothness to it and a level of experience there, and people have literally been doing it for years.

And your confirmation provides a statement that I'll provide that I want the commission to be able to deliberate on this topic before we get to it, about how things have changed since this project was since before the commission and council in 2005.

Because I did sit here.

I was the planning director at the time from 2003 to 2005.

I lived through that experience, and the circumstances had changed dramatically.

Not to this school, but to the world around the school, the schools surrounding this school, the community surrounding the school.

They have not asked for one additional square foot for this particular property since they've occupied it in 1984.

They've asked for modest enrollment increases, but this is the first expansion that they've asked for besides the 2005 version, which was disapproved.

And again, I'm not trying to market the project, I'm just trying to illustrate facts.

Alright, let's have some uh decorum, please.

Thank you.

Yes, I have I have I just had a couple questions that I want to answer.

Sure.

Um, firstly, um, there was just a comment about um impact to private views.

Um, ordinarily with a residential development, if there is not a floor area ratio exception, we do not consider um impacts of private views.

In this circumstance, is that something that we are allowed to consider or not?

Well, according to the CUP DDP findings as well as the conceptual development plan, private views are not in consideration.

Okay.

And again, the city did an exhaustive analysis in conjunction with the CEQA analysis for general plan consistency for this project.

Or so the city adopted a 2017 general plan update with a rigorous set of policies, goals, and actions that were evaluated in conjunction with this project in its current iteration.

And that's part of the CEQA document that's been provided to the public and the commission.

Okay.

About the CQA document, I just want to clarify.

I'm pretty certain that classroom is not defined uh by the CEQA guidelines.

Um, so I looked it up and I don't see any definition under section 15314 or any citations there too.

So I don't think it's defined.

Um so I just want to clarify for the record.

Um I don't have a better definition or analysis than what's set out in the um in the SQL analysis, but I just wanted to note that I do not believe it's defined in the um in the sequel guidelines.

Um, and then quick question about I think one of my colleagues raised um there was a discussion about the newsletter that goes out to the neighbors um in advance, kind of notifies folks of the events, and I don't see that anywhere kind of like codified in these findings.

I would suggest that if we do move forward and approve this project that that actually be something that is codified in here as as part of the conditions, it just it is in our existing CUP.

Is it yes?

Okay.

I didn't see it in any of these 100 some odd findings, but okay.

If it's there, I'll take your word for it.

Oh, to the original CP, right?

Got it.

Okay, right.

Thank you for clarifying.

Gotcha.

Thank you.

Okay.

Those are my questions.

Anyone else have any further questions?

Okay, who wants to start deliberation?

On deliberation.

Do you want to go a few months?

I mean, it's called the time.

I feel like we've come this far.

Okay.

I don't know.

I feel like I can push forward.

Yeah, yeah, I feel like I mean, if it go past 10, I've I've I feel like we're in a place where you can probably get this wrapped by then.

But if if not, then we can kind of reassess.

Okay.

Yeah.

And again, to remind the commission, you're a recommending body.

You have two actions before you tonight.

Yep.

Um, yeah, along those lines, maybe I'd open because I'd like to propose to my fellow uh commissioners that we amend the resolutions in front of us.

Um I think that we should, uh, as a couple speakers mentioned, separate the academic buildings from the gym, and I would like to amend the resolution to sever uh the gym from the conceptual development plan, the detailed development plan, et cetera, and just completely, again, I know we're recommending.

We don't get to decide anything, the city council decides everything, but I would like to say that the resolutions that we approve that say what we recommend, um, that we uh make a motion and second and all that to amend those so that the gym is not included.

Um I think my my rationale for that is is uh multiple fold.

So I think number one, it's really not clear to me that the CQA exemption applies to the gym.

It's very clear that it's minor, the 10 classrooms.

I got that, um, but the gym is doubling the square footage.

I it sounds like we're not even sure what the definition of the classroom is under sequel.

I just really think it needs more study.

Uh number two, I think it's really important question about uh the PG and Easement and the the trees there.

Um I will note that unfortunately the arborist rated those oak trees as low health because they had to be topped due to the voltage wires.

Um but it's very clear that we should have greenery there, right?

It's really important to have, you know, trees, shrubbery, whatever is consistent with with voltage.

I don't know how we do that given it's a PGE easement.

It obvious I think it needs more study.

Um a few like ivy along the wall is just not gonna cut it.

Um I think uh for many other things we do, um, most of our zoning has setbacks, you know, stepbacks when uh residential abut something.

We've been talking about this with the harbor industrial area, for example, or the hotels along El Camino.

Unfortunately, because this is a PD, we don't have required stepbacks.

Um Planner Ruiz really highlighted how the academic building kind of steps and flows up the hillside.

The gym doesn't do that.

It's kind of unavoidable because it's a gym, so it's just one big mass.

But I I just really think this needs more study.

So I'm proposing, again, not trying to block the school from doing that.

I completely understand why you want a gym and what it benefits your students is.

I'm hoping that by severing this now, you would still have a chance to come back to the plan before 2031.

Um, so this wouldn't block you from doing what you want to do, but would allow all of us to come up with a plan that I think is both meets the needs of the school and it's just better for the community and the neighbors and and the look and the greenery.

So that's uh I we can deliberate on other things as well, but I just wanted to throw that out there because it would require, right?

Do we make a motion and second and so forth to make an amendment?

And so we'd like to hear the commissioner, my fellow commissioners deliberate on that as well as on the on everything else before us, because that is gonna be my proposal tonight.

Uh can I comment on that?

You may.

Um my thoughts on that, uh, I agree with what you're saying, but possibly a different analysis.

Because I I think it's important that they bring forth the entire scope that they want to do in the next 10 years for the SQL review.

Uh otherwise we're not doing the analysis correctly.

Um I do think it might be a good idea for it to come back for detailed review five years from now because if they change in 20 years, they change in five years.

And uh might want a bigger building that's yeah, it concerns me that if we approve it now, there's no more review.

Yeah, so I I think that's a that's a good recommendation.

Um I want to address that particular idea.

Anything in addition with regard to deliberation.

Well, I like the idea that our job is to cross the T's and not the I's.

I think the applicant has done an excellent job of trying their best to uh address the issues and the the there's some very eloquent speakers in this town that uh um are hard to ignore, but I would I would be able to make the plannings to make the recommendation that this project has been as mitigated as it could be for what it is, and if it was going to get rejected over marginal traffic increases, I'd leave that to the city council to make that decision.

So I I think we're done a good job of due diligence and uh uh opening up the public comments and asking questions to make sure that staff has done their job, which I think they have done.

Um, and Charles Armstrong seems to be a very good neighbor.

They're doing more for traffic mitigation than any of their peers in the neighborhoods, and it's a school and umline is getting denser.

So that's my thoughts.

Great.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

All right.

Um to just take my stab at the setback and that area that seems to be a uh most concern to most people.

Um, if this was a house and it was set back eighteen and a half feet from a fence, it could be taller than they're proposing.

Twenty-eight feet, right, is our usual.

Uh yeah, well, twenty-eight feet is the maximum height, but even from a fence line 12 feet up, you get to go to a 45 degree angle.

So you're starting at what is it, 12 plus that chunk.

So yeah, you could be full height by that line.

So from my perspective, though it is a tall, large wall, um, it's not a tall, large wall that if it was a residential lot couldn't be built.

And in most cases, it would actually start a lot closer to that fence line.

Um and would have windows looking into your backyard from the second story.

Almost for sure.

Um I think there was a lot of valid points brought up on both sides.

I my my take is that the largest concerns are concerns that this school hasn't brought to the community, um that they are in a location that was allowed to start.

Um that road has in my in my personal opinion, the worst traffic in all of Belmont.

I see more frustration at the corner of Ralston and Trule Vista than I do anywhere else in Belmont driving by far.

I don't think though that if a fire truck wanted to drive up that road, people wouldn't get out of the way.

There are much busier streets in our town at times, everyone gets out of the way in dead stop traffic for an emergency vehicle.

That's the law.

If you don't get out of the way, you're breaking the law.

And you can get out of the way in places there it's not easy, it's a possibility.

I I see that as the biggest concern brought up that I would have to vote negative on.

Um I personally can make the findings without an amendment to separate the academics from the gym.

I don't think that's what was applied for.

Um I think that in unless the application uh applicant doesn't want a vote on their full application, we should give them a vote.

That's my opinion.

Okay.

Well, I appreciate all the comments.

It's been really helpful to hear from everybody.

I know some of them some of these things are uh repeats of the previous session, but it was actually super helpful to hear them all together.

Um I'm I'm generally supportive.

It's been interesting to see it all together as a master plan.

And I think the point is that the current school building, the both the quality of it and the size of it is no longer fit for purpose, which is a seem to kind of skip over the fact that the building there is very tired and is not really up to modern teaching standards.

Um the the main thing I feel like the the whole presentation has been very comprehensive and thorough, but the thing that I'm sticking getting stuck on again is the gym and that that back constraint towards the um the rear of the site.

And I do uh I'm supportive of Commissioner Adamkovich's approach to splitting the two.

Um more as a way not to block the entire application because I think it's really almost there.

It's really just that wall.

And um Commissioner Majinsky mentioned that if it was a residential application with a daylight night plane you could build a wall that tall, but you would also have an obligation to provide articulation or make it break it down somehow.

So it's not just this like the elevation really is like something out of business park.

It's just a sheer wall.

And even though it's a little setback, I feel like it could do a lot better and it makes a very large impact of those three houses that are right against it.

I I feel like it could be much better.

And so in attempt, not not so much as a revisit of the entire master plan, more that I feel like the constraint that we won't see it again, we won't have a chance to comment on it again on it would be why I'd be pro splitting that element and not not a not a complete redesign, just a small tweak to what these few houses uh experience of the site is would be a real asset to that continuing relationship with the community around the school.

And uh sorry, one more thing to add.

I I know a few people have suggested um if Charles Armstrong has outlived outgrown the site that they should move.

And we'll find another site, find a satellite.

I've I actually lived next door to uh a school that during my time living there for three and a half years decided the district, not not Belmont, they decided to consolidate the schools and that school then became vacant.

So I've lived next door to an empty school site for almost three years and it wasn't fun.

And you know you want to you want to kind of weigh that up with the the kind of assets that the school brings compared to what could be a real sink on the community and a negative element to have right there in that heart of that area of our community.

Thanks.

So I I largely agree with with uh my my fellow commissioners um I I'll start with that I think it's very reasonable that the needs of a school will change over 40 years or or you know 20 years and that there well may need more additional facilities they may be in the gym I to me that seems like a reasonable ask, especially since all the other schools um that have middle schools are pretty much doing the same thing um regarding traffic you know I feel your pain and probably everyone in this room deals with the school traffic.

Uh I took my daughter from Ralston with through the Caraman traffic to Belmont Oaks and Mary Moffat and then we went to Notre Dame and then I mean so we've lived through it.

Every everybody lives through it it's it's really annoying but it's kind of part of the ecosystem it's not specific to Charles Armstrong school.

I think it's a thoughtful plan as a whole I do have the same concerns about the athletic facility and and the kitchen area and the you know we'll do what we can doesn't feel that that's the one area where I don't have comfort in being comfortable with the recommendation.

But the large majority I think is a very thoughtful plan.

I had one more point that I didn't I don't have to make it you can I was kidding I was okay overly dramatic.

Alright well uh there was some comments about the height of it in comparison comparing it to Ralston uh's gym which is uh twice as high and four times the square footage just for comparison it's not even in the same realm of scale I looked at right but Ralston gym is on the center of their site not up against the edge.

So that's the key difference.

That is true but I think facts are facts and we should okay let's let the commission deliberate please let's let the commission deliberate please we it was said that we're proposing to put a gym like Ralston's on this site which is not true.

I just want to clarify that for the record.

Great thank you.

Um yeah I mean I uh this is a first of all thank you.

I want to say thank you to everyone who came out here.

I mean it's 10 o'clock on a Tuesday you probably have many better things to do than be here um but it's pretty cool that you're here and being part of of local community and local government this is what it's all about so thank you to both sides.

This is a tough project uh it's a good project I think there are concerns that are rightly raised by the by the neighbors and the residents on balance though um if I could just kind of go well beyond kind of what our findings are um in these documents I may kind of come to a different conclusion but we are a bit circumscribed as to what we can rely on and what our rec what our required findings are.

Based on the findings that are set forth in these documents I can make those findings.

The biggest concern is the traffic impact we do have a traffic study analysis that's provided in the sequa document.

I'm not an expert in that I could talk about myself driving down Ralston as well yeah there's traffic we have an expert who conducted an analysis and found that based on that analysis the incremental increase in students would not substantially affect the intersection operations, rover capacity, pedestrian or bicycle circulation in the project area.

I could probably come to a different conclusion, but I'm not an expert.

So based on the findings based on the analyses that are set forth, I can make the required findings I do think it would be I I respectfully disagree I think we should make a finding as to the entirety of the project.

I think it's it is helpful that the community knows what exactly is being uh considered, like in one fail swoop.

Um there's this argument about kind of breaking up this project and piecemealing it.

I don't know how kind of now the fact that we would specifically be piecemealing it affects that argument.

Um so um for that and other reasons, I would just um my preference would be that we um would decide upon the project as a whole as opposed to uh breaking it apart.

But um that's simply my deliberation and thoughts, and we should probably take a motion and see how the commission feels about that and go forward from there.

Okay, so using what I've heard from all six commissioners, you have two resolutions before you, and I think it would be appropriate to start with your conceptual development plan resolution on that recommendation because that's the whole of the project.

That's the component that talks about both buildings on the site and the categorical exemption.

I know there's been some discussion from a few of the commissioners about wanting the gym component, the athletics building component, to have further review at a later date.

But I think it's appropriate the way the order of matters is to start with the conceptual development plan, categorical exemption.

One would offer a motion based on the resolution that's before you tonight and see where that recommendation falls in terms of taking a vote, and then we would transition to the next resolution.

Does that work for the commission?

Yes, it does.

And I would make a motion that we amend the conceptual development plan resolution to strike phase two of the building plan from the first resolution, the conceptual development resolution.

So move.

But then, okay.

And can I clarify that would mean that the phase two would be not part of the conceptual development plan?

Correct.

That is my proposal that is not part of the conceptual development plan.

So, and we're voting in affirmative on an amended.

Yeah, voting whether to amend or not, and then once we amend or not, then I guess we would vote to adopt or not the resolution that's either amended or not amended.

That's my understanding of the procedure.

Could you amend it to add in the further review?

I don't think we can.

I mean it's a it's a PD, and if it's a PDP plan development, right?

If we approve the CDP and the DDP, then it's approved.

We can't change Belmont planning procedures.

Can we vote on the PD stripping part of it out?

It's not it wasn't offered.

The whole reason for me asking for the commission to take an action on the first resolution is that the concerns have been raised about the athletics building and its placement, its look and feel in uh relation to its adjacency to neighbors.

That is better addressed through architecture, through landscaping, through placement, through various components of that nature.

But the CDP looks at the actual components on the campus, existing and proposed.

That's why I asked the question about the commission taking an action on the CDP that considers all components existing and proposed, and then using the resolution for the DDP and conditional use permit to then potentially look at potential modifications for a relook at the architectural components of that phase two component through that vehicle.

Does that make sense?

I mean, no, unfortunately not because I'm I'm looking at the resolution and it says Can we allow the commission to deliberate, please?

This is not a shouting match, okay?

I'd appreciate courtesy and respect in that regard.

Thank you.

So the resolution we're discussing, Director DeMellas says uh, whereas the Charles Armstrong School, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, describes the 11,893 square foot academic wing and the eleven thousand hundred twenty-six square foot athletics building, that's a very specific number.

It's got the square footage in it, et cetera.

So if we're approving that, then we're essentially approving a building of that size, which would then negate the ability to review it.

So I don't believe that we can leave it in the conceptual plan as this is written, and then claim that we can later change the detailed development plan because the way the conceptual development plan resolution is written, it's very specific.

So my motion is to strike all references to, and I've made the motion, it's been seconded uh to strike all references to the phase two from the CDP resolution.

Motion's made and seconded.

We can vote, you we could vote it down, but we need to now vote on the motion that's been made.

So it's to strike all language related to phase two from the CDP resolution that's in front of us.

It's a multi-page resolution, right?

So there's many places in the text we'd have to go through it.

Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, that is a pending motion, it's been seconded.

Sure.

So I think we can still have discussion about it.

We can still have discussion.

Exactly, but exactly.

Because I I would have to vote against that, because that's not what I would be trying to achieve here.

Um what I'm hoping is there can be further review about the details, the detailed design review.

Um, and I think the planning analysis, the environmental analysis should be for the entire project, and that should be done now, as staff has insisted and as the proponent as the as I've done.

But we're looking at something five years from now.

Requirements are gonna change in five years, and uh neighbors are gonna change.

I I I would like to see maybe it just recommend something at a higher level that maybe it has to go back to whomever, but I don't know why we wouldn't be able to figure out a way to do that in a PED.

Yeah, I mean I I do agree with that.

That's that's my position as well that we should approve.

I mean if you look at the way this is written, it's really unfortunate.

So I'm looking at the CDP resolution, it says now therefore be resolved that the planning commission recommends the city council approve the conditional use permit and the associated detailed development plan design review, blah, blah, blah.

So by approving the conceptual plan, we're apparently recommending approval of the detailed plan.

Like these things are not written in a way that they're separable.

I'm looking at page one of the resolution.

So there are two distinct resolutions.

The CDP describes the intent.

Reading the CDP resolution, Carlos, and it says the planning commission recommends blah, blah, blah, blah, including the detailed development plan.

That's in the first resolution.

So unfortunately, the way they're written, it's not really it's not separable.

That's not what I'm that you're reading.

I think we're reading the wrong one.

You're reading this one.

No, part.

Uh, it's this one.

The conditional use permit, resolution.

Exactly.

Aren't we looking to approve this one?

Uh let's see.

CDP resolution.

Because the CDP deals with the specific findings related to the CDP and CDP only.

It does not address the specific findings related to the detailed development plan, and the conditional use permit that establishes that detailed development plan.

The CDP locks in the concept of two additional components for this canvas, a phase one and a phase two.

The details surrounding those two components are addressed as part of the DDP CUP design review grading plan, entry removal permit.

You do have the opportunity to ask that that component come back at a later date because there appears to be concern related to the phase two component about its look, feel, presence, proximity, setbacks, all of the above, but not the overarching thought of having two distinct additional components for this campus.

Yeah, if we object completely to the idea of there being a gym on this campus, regardless of the details, then maybe we have to strip it from both documents.

It's just that it's captured and not documented here.

Both of them captured in the resolution.

That you're approving both.

That's here on the resolution.

Where?

On the first page.

Now, therefore it be resolved that the planning commission recommends and it lists out the entire document.

You're reading number one, that's again the C UP, not the CDP.

Here's the CDP first page.

So on page five, it talks about the relative locations of all proposed phase one and two improvements, for example.

So we're approving the relative locations, so they wouldn't be able to move the gym.

That's on page five of this resolution that we're looking at.

Exhibit A has attached the conceptual development plan and detailed development.

I think that would be fine.

It's the detail.

Yeah, but it's again it as as I've understood it, again, correct me if I'm wrong.

You have concerns about the architectural details associated with that gym and landscaping, screening, proximity.

Not necessarily the fact whether there should or should not be a gymnasium component as part of the CDP.

Am I misinterpreting something here?

That's totally correct.

No, you're not, Carlos, but there's enough details in here about the gym that it's gonna tie our hands for later.

Again, exhibit A, it's got square footage, it's got um location.

It's so basically we're pre-approving those things.

I'm not sure the location is correct.

I'm not sure the square footage of the gym is correct.

So no, I'm not I I don't think the CDP has written.

It has gymnasium, 7,973 square feet as part of this resolution we're talking about.

So that's a very specific number.

I would say it's a specifically too small for a gym number.

It's like a uniquely miniature gym they're asking for.

Okay, well, my point is that the details about that are in here.

So if our goal is to be able to review the gym at a future time, this doesn't really allow for that because we're tying our hands about the location, the size it says gym and kitchen, the floor area ratio.

Like that's all in the CDP, the resolution.

So, from my point of view, it's more an architectural detail element.

The size and the location, the must the master planning of it, I don't I don't object to.

It's the detailing of that wall and the constraint and perhaps slightly the positioning of it.

Exactly.

That's more my concern.

I feel like the gym and its location will roughly stay the same size in its next iteration, and it's more of a fine-tuning of that constraint from my point of view.

But fine-tuning enough that there should be a public meeting to discuss it, right?

We think it should come.

I think it should come back.

If it feels uncomfortable, this will be the last time we see it, and that wall doesn't look like it's had less consideration as you pointed out than the than the classroom site.

Right.

I also know that we are still a recommending body here.

Correct.

So we didn't question.

City council action.

Correct.

So um I think a motion's on the table, but I think the I think the motion, yeah.

Unless it's once unless you want to withdraw the motion, I think we should take action on the motion.

We should just take action on the motion.

But just to clarify what you're proposing instead is that we leave the CDP as written and then we strike the gym from the DDP.

Yeah.

Correct.

That's right.

We haven't made a motion on that yet, but that would be one other comment though.

If we adopt the CDP as is, is there an ability to provide better screening because that would be handled as part of the DDP component.

But if you if the building is still in the same placement, like are you able to do anything different in terms of the screening or um arborist work because of the PG and E easement, and you're really limited by what you can do.

Well, I think that's what the up that's that's where there's been an ask for a continued opportunity to review those fine-grained details, whether it be the elevation of the building, all four sides, whether it be landscaping screening as part of that DDP C UP component.

With the understanding that the gym is 7,973 square feet, and then the support and kitchen has the same square footage.

Correct.

So the total square footage of the athletic building, which is 11,126 square feet of that component, 7973 is the gym, and the balance is the ancillary space associated with that gym.

And then behind it is the PG and Easement, and then that's it.

But again, you're talking about details associated with the aesthetics, the architecture, the screening, the landscaping, all the things that could have more exhaustive review on solutions that could address concerns related to how that building looks and fields in its interplay with adjacent uses.

Okay, so there's still there's still a lot.

Again, should the commission want to take that direction, or again, you have a motion on the table first, take action on that motion.

Yeah.

The original CDP reso as it's been presented to you, um, and let's see where it goes.

Right?

Am I am I correct in that?

You're correct.

Okay.

That's not what the motion of phase two from the CDP, so that's the motion.

We didn't have a vote on that.

That's probably.

So let's get less than that component first.

Let's vote.

Let's vote on that.

Okay, uh, Commissioner Adam Gavich?

No.

Kramer?

No.

Chair Coolidge?

No.

Majeski?

No.

Uh Twig?

No.

Jadala?

No.

Great.

Okay.

Okay.

Thanks.

Motion does not pass.

So now you have the am I correct in saying you have the resolution that's before you as it's been written for you to take a recommendation on.

Right.

Correct.

Yeah.

But go ahead.

Yeah, and I just wanted to address also uh Commissioner's point.

Um page 4.0 says that deviations of up to 10% of numeric standards from the CDP can be approved by the community development director.

So in other words, even though it says exactly 700 and whatever square feet, they can go plus and minus 10% from that.

So it's like we're not locking them into like an exact square footage.

Um so that's helpful, I think.

Yeah, exactly.

I think room for a tree or something.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

And I would say whoever makes the motion for this particular resolution that we've talked about.

I think we should make clear that we're doing it with the caveat that um we address kind of the concerns that are raised by I think the commission when we get to the second um resolution.

No dispute in the record as to kind of what we're acting on and why.

Is that fair?

I think that's okay.

So if anyone would like to make a motion, I think we'd like to make a motion.

Um I move we approve the resolution of the planning.

Is that the right one?

Yes.

Let's read the correct one.

Yes.

They look very similar.

Um I move uh we approve the resolution of the planning commission of the city development recommending city council adoption of a conceptual development plan, CDP for the plan development PD, zone property located at 1405 Solana Drive.

Parcel number blah blah blah for the Charles Armstrong school project application number PA 2024 0050.

And uh noting that it will be in conjunction with our next resolution or something along those lines.

But let's take action on this one via a vote.

Right.

Is there a second I'll suck them out?

Any further discussion?

Sorry, we should have frightened.

Oh, okay.

Three hours isn't enough.

No, we're good.

Okay, Commissioner Adam Kavich?

Aye.

Framer?

Aye.

Chair Coolich?

Aye.

Majeski?

I.

Jadala?

Aye.

Okay.

Motion passes 60 for Charles Armstrong School.

Um conceptual conceptual development plan um resolution.

Okay.

That was the easy one.

So now you've got a little bit more work ahead of you related to the C UPN DDP.

And that's would further discussion as to how you would then want that component of the project.

Sounds like phase two.

Would the recommendation you'd be making to the council would be having the phase two component have further review, uh, not on an administrative basis.

Is that what I'm I'm trying to infer from the comments from the commissioners?

And how we craft that language.

I don't agree with that personally.

Again, but I think that there's a group of us who feel that way, and there's a group that feel the other way.

Okay, so someone needs to either articulate or uh either support for the resolution as written or uh suggest modifications to the resolution based upon certain concerns that have been raised.

If only we had a lawyer.

I could offer a clean clean of the resolution and or recommendation and uh offer that for a vote and see if we have four there.

That would be my personal deliberation on this.

Before we do that, I'd like to have some clarity as to what the the alternative path is.

Right.

I think it would be to make the motion that I made but on the wrong resolution to in this uh second resolution which deals with the detailed development plan DDP uh to strike all reference to phase two from the document, but otherwise uh approve it.

Um so that would be a separate motion that could be made, which would also then have to be seconded and voted on.

Um, so since I thought I understood we don't all agree, but we've been talking about it enough.

So I uh I move uh that we amend the resolution that refers to uh the conditional use permit and the detailed development plan uh to strike all reference to uh phase two of the project um so that that will be of course included in the CUP that we already sorry the CDP that we approve but would would be stricken from this DDP in our recommendation to the city council um so I I move that we amend this resolution to strike text related to phase two now we'll second it okay um commissioner Adam Kevich aye framer aye chair coolich nay majestic twig all right and Jadala motion doesn't carry okay so all right can I offer a clean one we'll run this one out right yeah all right I'll offer a resolution of the planning commission of the city of Belmont recommending the city council approve a conditional use permit CUP to be established to establish a detailed development plan design review grading permit and tree removal permit for property located at 1405 Solano Drive assessor parcel number 045 122 190 for the Charles Armstrong school application number PA 2024-005 is there a second so that fells so do we have a third route that anyone wants to propose well I think the third route is that that the resolution is um submitted with a recommendation to the city council that they consider um requiring um the applicant to come back for um a review or approval of the details that are uh that um the details regarding the the gymnasium phase two the phase two okay i think that's the middle ground which is potential um reasonable um alternative okay so sorry chair can you clarify so we would make a new resolution that the commission recommend to the council we we do not pass this resolution but we recommend the council in their deliberations consider some way of requiring the applicant to come back again in five years or I think so I think we amend yeah I think we amend the resolution to to reflect that is there any way the city council can do that other than by not approving the gym in the DDP I mean we're not recommending that to them but I don't see any other way legally that they could do that.

So it's it's a little odd to not approve the motion I made and yet then to recommend to the city council that they do what we just didn't do that that's right.

But they are the city council though.

But they are the city council they will have one action that's clearly been made related to the CDP that they can act on.

And then they have an action where you had a split vote where you could not take an action related to the CUP the DDP the grading plan the tree removal permit and the commission could not come to a majority decision that the resolution should be modified in some way to strike out phase two and then have it come back at a later date for review or to have that resolution get approved as is and we could carry forward that deliberation that discussion to the council they could take that under consideration and you can at least provide guidance to staff to give to the council to say the commission was unable to reach a decision related to the DDP related to phase two.

May I try one more sure sure because I I think what it what I want to get across loaded city council is we're we're not actually against like I think you were saying this Commissioner Twig like we're trying to help the school advance.

We're not trying to block their grading permit and all these other things.

We're just like and so we don't want to give the impression that we're that we don't want to approve this whole thing, right?

So I think we'd have to be very careful what we I know they often listen to our recordings, but I like to I don't know if this would work, but what if we the the resolution for the you know the the DDP and the CUP, um and then the difference would be okay, so resolution, blah, blah, blah, condition of detailed plan signary grading permit, and tree removal permit for phase one of the property with phase two tree removal to require further enhancement or something.

But I don't think it's it's not just a tree removal though, it's it's also sort of the massing of of the design and whether it should be moved back by a few feet and things like that.

I don't think it's just the tree removal permit we want them to think about.

Okay, it's just a little more complex than just striking out phase two from the DDP because the analysis related to the findings co-mingles both components, phase one and phase two.

Now, with some time, um, I we could probably go back in a back room and I could kind of work something out that I could bring to you, but um we could also carry forward to the council that the commission was split, that you could not take an action that that you're supportive of these entitlements, but you could not reach a majority decision related to the phase two component and would ask that the council have that component come back for further review at a future date should the council approve everything.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, and just to clarify, um, Director De Mello, like we can't direct staff to do that kind of analysis, but city council can, right?

So city council could tell you to go back and change the resolution site, but we can't, we can't do that ourselves.

Yeah.

So it seems like we're not passing this resolution.

We have no alternative amended resolution, and so instead we want to do we have to even make a motion then.

I think just our our recommendation gets conveyed to the city council.

Exactly.

I think the deliberations associated with the second resolution get conveyed to the council as part of the time when they will review the project as a whole.

And I think you've been clear, you were you were split that you couldn't take an action either way, strike it or keep it as is related to the phase two.

And again, we will we will indicate that as part of the DDP for the phase one, there were no issues, correct?

No.

Correct.

It's been passed, yeah.

It's been passed.

Yeah.

Um, DDP hasn't been passed for anything, right?

The DDP hasn't passed for anything, but but but at least can I infer from this commission that should the DDP only included a phase one as a project ask, this commission, based on your deliberation, would have potentially offered a resolution recognition.

I did offer that resolution and it wasn't passed, so I don't think you can say that.

I'm not sure what we're saying, except that we're supposed to offer that exact resolution.

I'll just make it clean.

The solution actually specifically took something out, which is different.

So if there's a resolution, our resolution isn't have the gym at all.

If the gym was one resolution and the academics were a totally separate resolution to make, I could have made an academic resolution, but I don't want to throw out the other piece.

I don't think that's fair for this process.

I guess I don't see the difference.

You would end up in the same place either way.

That's significant.

I don't know if we're gonna make any procedure goes.

And what we were asked to do.

I don't think we're gonna make any demonstrable change related to conveying where the commission had a sticking point related to taking a majority action on the resolution that's before you as it's been written.

Right.

We could convey your deliberations as they've unfolded related to the second resolution, and you're asking the city council to review that deliberation in concert with their review of the project as the approving body for this particular project.

So I quote, as a chair, I think you have the right to take a straw poll for I for one am fine with the design on phase one.

And if that had come to us separately, I would have approved it.

So I'm happy to say that.

Um we can ask if other people would have felt that the same way.

The fact that we voted against the the split is I think a separate issue.

I would agree with that because the way that it will arrive at the city council this way, it it could be we would split over a number of issues when actually we broadly agree with a phase one site, and we don't want to we don't want to inadvertently convey to the council that it was a broader issue that we will be conflicted about.

So do I have at least a majority understanding of the commission that the DDP component related to phase one, there is a majority um support for that component as it's been proposed?

Yes.

Okay, that before.

Okay.

Well, straw poll, I guess.

Maybe something like that.

Okay.

But again, absent of that, um, we could convey that you could not come to a majority decision on the resolution at hand.

But that from a phase one perspective, you believe that the DDP and the ancillary entitlements were appropriate for phase one, but you had a difference of opinion relative to phase two.

Am I correct in capturing that?

Yes, I think it's correct.

Okay.

I think the record is pretty clear as to kind of where that's.

I think we've I think we've got our direction again.

It's a recommendation.

The totality of your deliberation will be forwarded to the council, and they will have their opportunity to review the totality of that decision and public review, public comments uh when this project is before them.

And I'd say we we are concluded uh with this item unless there's anything else.

I don't think it's anything further for us to to discuss.

I think we're the uh the record is for the case.

The uh CEP establishes the detailed development plan.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And again, everything transitions to the council.

All the deliberation tonight.

Which is recommended by it.

Okay.

Yep.

And I and again, I think I think kind of I think our position is is pretty clear.

I think the position is really clear.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um okay, great.

So that concludes item seven A.

Thank you everyone for sitting through that marathon uh uh hearing.

And the next item on the agenda, I think, is what further business?

I close my computer.

It's other business and updates.

Yeah.

Yes.

Um I know it's late, so I apologize for that.

Give me one second to get to my sheet.

Um through the chair also, we're at that three and a half hour mark.

Don't we need to make a motion to extend?

I know it's only gonna be like one more minute, but in the journal, literally.

We're gonna adjourn in about a minute.

Okay, so Commissioner Adam Kevich gave a public service announcement about commission recruitment.

The deadline is this Friday, January ninth.

Um we also have a lunar new year celebration, February eighth, uh, at the Twin Pines Senior and Comm Center for the lunar new year celebration.

This free event will be filled with dance, music, crafts, and more.

We encourage folks to attend.

And with that, you will be having a meeting on January twentieth.

There will be items on that agenda, and I will conclude my remarks and say, Happy New Year.

Thank you for your time on this uh commission agenda tonight.

Thank you for the public for showing up tonight.

Great.

Happy new year.

Thank you every for coming here.

And we are adjourned.

Thank you.