Five, I will call the meeting to order at 7.01 p.m.

For those joining us in person.

Please note that due to our hybrid environment.

Audio and video presentations can no longer be shared from the lectern.

Request to show an audio or video presentation during a meeting should be directed to EPC at Mountainview.gov by 4 30 p.m.

on the meeting date.

Additionally, due to our hybrid environment, we will no longer have speakers lineup to speak on an item.

Anyone wishing to address the EPC in person must complete a yellow speaker card.

Please indicate the name you would like to be called by when it is your turn to speak and the item number on which you wish to speak.

Please complete one yellow speaker card for each item on which you wish to speak and turn them in to the EPC clerk as soon as possible, but no later than the call for public comment on the item you are speaking on.

Instructions for addressing the commission virtually may be found on the posted agenda.

Now I will ask the APC clerk to proceed with roll call.

Commissioner Dempsey.

Commissioner Yin.

Here.

Commissioner Cranston.

Here.

Commissioner Pham.

Here.

Vice Chair Nunez.

Here.

And Chair Gutierrez.

Here.

All commissioners are present.

Awesome.

Okay.

Moving on to the minutes approval, section 3.1 of the agenda.

The environmental planning commission meeting minutes of January 15th, 2025.

Any EPC discussion?

No.

Okay.

Public comment.

If anyone in attendance would like to provide comments on the minutes, please fill out a yellow speaker card and provide it to the EPC clerk.

If anyone on Zoom would like to provide comment on the minutes, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone.

Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with star six.

Clerk, do we have anyone who wishes to speak about the about this issue or anyone in Zoom?

No one on Zoom and don't believe any of these are for the minutes.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

So we have no one that wishes to opine on this issue.

Great.

A motion to approve the minutes should include the following item.

I'll probably need someone to do the motion, then a second.

And the language should be approve the environmental planning commission minutes of January 15th, 2025.

Move by Commissioner Cranston.

Second.

Seconded by Commissioner Dempsey, that we should approve the environmental planning commission minutes of January 15th, 2025.

Let's do the vote.

Great.

Thank you for that.

Now we move on to section four of the agenda.

Oral communication.

This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the EPC on any matter not on the agenda.

Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic for up to three minutes during this section.

State law prohibits the commission from acting on non-agenda items.

If anyone in attendance would like to provide comments on non-agenda items, please fill out a yellow speaker card and provide it to the EPC clerk.

If anyone on Zoom would like to provide a comment on non-agenda items, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone.

Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with star six.

Clerk, do we have anyone who wishes to speak on this or someone from Zoom?

None online and non-in-person.

Awesome.

So we'll move on to section five, which is public hearing 5.1.

Mixed use project at 749 West El Camino Real.

Could the commissioners with conflicts of interest please make your recusal statements now, please?

Chair.

Yes.

Sorry for the interruption.

I just wanted to make a correction for record.

Now this pertains to item 3.1, the minutes approval.

The final roll call was 6 1 with one abstain because of absence.

Thank you for the clarification on that.

Appreciate it.

And now we'll uh who who abstained?

Oh, right on.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

I think once some caution and to avoid any suggestion of conflict of interest or any impropriety, I'm recusing myself from this item.

This is due to a business relationship between the applicant and my small business in San Francisco.

Thank you, Commissioner Cranston.

Okay.

Well, first have a staff presentation, then questions by the APC, followed by public comment.

At the closure of public comment, the commission will then deliberate and take action.

Excuse me.

The staff presentation, as I understand it, will be presented by Project Manager Margaret Neto and Assistant Community Development Department Director Amber Bluzinski.

Okay team, you're on.

I'm joined by assistant community development director Amber Bazinski.

Staff has prepared a brief presentation outlining the project, and I'll begin by providing some context describing the project location.

The existing development includes two one-story buildings, a vacant restaurant building, and an operation operational chase bank building, surface parking and associated landscape and hardscape improvements.

The approximately 3.05 acre project site is located in the El Camino Real Precise Plan within the village centers area and has a general plan land use designation of mixed use corridor.

To the west is a four-story mixed-use residential building, the Elon Apartments.

To the south is a one to two-story multifamily residential uses on Victor Way.

To the north is one to two one to four story commercial buildings and Gateway Park.

To the ease, two-story multifamily residential uses across Lane Avenue.

The project involves constructing a mixed-use development comprised of 299 residential units, utilizing state density bonus law, and a six-story building with 10,830 square feet of ground floor neighborhood commercial space, and at grade podium parking above two levels of underground parking, a two-story 8,483 square foot bank building, a provisional use permit for rooftop deck, a heritage tree removal permit to remove 80 28 heritage trees, and a vesting preliminary parcel map to create a single lot with up to four commercial condominium units from due from two existing parcels.

The project has frontage on four public streets.

El Camino Real, Castro Street, Richter Way, and Lane Avenue.

And most of the site will be developed with the building area.

The project orients ground floor retail commercial, common areas, lobbies, and other residential amenity spaces along El Camino Real and Castor Street within the new bank building proposed near its current location.

It will be adjacent to the public plaza cited along El Camino Real.

The public plaza on El Camino will be wrapped by ground floor commercial space with landscape features, lighting, and outdoor seating.

In general, the proposed project is consistent with the general plan's vision for the site, as it is a mix of commercial and residential uses at six stories, consistent with the land use designation.

The project is in a key location near downtown and adjacent to the rapid bus stop.

Includes a public plaza.

The project is consistent with the El Camino Real Precise Plan, development standards, including building height, open space, and pavement coverage.

The project proposes to provide 15.8% of the base units to lower income households.

31 units will be reserved for very low income, and two units will be reserved for low-income households.

By offering the majority of BMR units at 50% AMI, the applicant is delivering housing at a deeper affordability level than required under the city's BMR ordinance, thereby complying with the requirement.

Units are reasonably dispersed throughout the project, meeting the city's BMR ordinance.

The proposed modern design of the building includes a circular form for the bank building with residential portion of the building stepping back from the bank area towards the other project street frentages.

Most of the residential units within the mixed-use building are located on the second through sixth floors, with the ground floor level containing five residential units on the southwest side of the building along Victor Way.

Have been designed with a residential scale and building heights step down towards the existing adjacent residential neighborhood.

The project's proposed vesting preliminary parcel map for the mixed use residential and commercial project proposes to create a single lot for condominium purposes, which will accommodate the development of up to four commercial condominium units.

The project proposes about 60,000 square feet of open area, which exceeds the minimum requirement for the El Camino Real Requirement.

The open space area includes a combination of both publicly accessible and private common open spaces in multiple locations, including the plaza on El Camino that will contain landscaping and seating, passive landscape areas around the perimeter of the project site and along residential buildings at street level, three courtyards for the residents on the second level of the building, and a rooftop deck that will include outdoor amenities such as lounge furniture, landscaping, a pool, spa, and raised planter beds.

Project currently contains 89 street 89 trees, including 28 heritage trees and 61 non-heritage trees.

The project proposes to remove a total of 80 trees, including all 28 heritage trees and 52 non-heritage trees and preserve nine non-heritage trees.

The applicant will provide 123 replacement trees.

The project will plant approximately 128 23 replacement trees, which exceeds the replacement requirement and result in 43 additional trees on site in areas surrounding the building and within the courtyards on site.

In addition to the replacement trees, the project will plant other new landscaping, including new shrubs, ground cover around the perimeter of the site, within the public plaza, and the second floor courtyards and on the roof of the mixed-use building.

Within the plaza, large trees will be planted, including an 84-inch box and 48-inch box-sized trees.

The overall canopy at maturity will exceed the existing canopy by 5,000 square feet.

The proposed project proposes 76% native landscape plannings, which exceeds the city's 75% native landscaping goal.

Project will contain one level of ground floor podium parking reserved for the commercial uses on site and two levels of underground parking reserved for residents.

Although there is no parking parking requirement minimum for residential portion of the project in the El Camino Real Precise Plan, the applicant is volunteering, voluntarily providing parking for both the residential and commercial components of the mixed use development.

The project proposes 424 long-term spaces and 30 short-term spaces which exceeds the bicycle requirement.

The project provides the off-site improvements, including new sidewalk, protected bikeway, and a bus duckout.

The applicant has provided a TDM plan that provides that meets the El Camino Real precise plan requirements for the project and supports 4% reduction of vehicle miles travel and a 7% peak hour trip reduction for the project.

The project includes a transportation, transportation improvements per MTA, and the project is screened out of the BMT analysis.

There is no BMT impact.

An historic resource evaluation was prepared and determined that the primary structure on site is eligible for individual listing in the California Register of Historical Resources and the Mountain View Register of Historical Resources and is therefore considered in a historic resource under CEQA.

As the project proposes to demolish a historic resource, the city determined that a focus supplemental EIR was required.

The draft supplemental EIR was circulated for public review for 45-day comment period, which commenced on March 11, 2025 and ended on April 25th, 2025.

The city received six written public comment letters on the draft SCIR.

Staff has responded to these comment letters in the final SEIR.

The final SCR was made available to the public on August 19, 2025.

The project results in a insignificant and unavoidable, resulting from the demolition of the bank building and relocation of the artwork.

As identified in the draft SEIR, the project as identified in the project draft SEIR, the project will demolish the existing bank building and associated plaza on site to allow for the construction of the new mixed-use building.

Prior to demolition, the project will salvage the individual art pieces associated with the bank building and preserve them for reinstallation in the new development.

The demolition of the bank building results in the loss of historic integrity for the site as a building.

Artwork and plaza all contribute to the historical significance of the property because the primary structure on site will no longer be eligible for listing in the California Register of Historical Resources to the proposed demolition.

The impact on the historic resource according to the CEQA will be considered will be considered significant and unavoidable.

The significant and unavoidable impact will require the adoption of a statement of overriding considerations by the city council at the time of the final SEIR.

A statement of overriding considerations demonstrates the benefits of the project outweigh the significant and unavoidable impacts.

The benefits of the project have been included and are attached to the findings of fact and statement of overriding considerations, including mitigation measures incorporated into the project.

The applicant held at least 10 community outreach meetings.

Several iterations of the project have been reviewed by staff, which incorporate modifications that came from the community outreach efforts by the applicant.

These modifications included updates to the project to preserve the existing artwork on the bank building.

Staff has worked with the applicant over the course of the development review process to refine the design based on code requirements, design guidance from the El Camino Real Precise Plan, and preservation of the associated artwork.

The applicant attended two design review consultation meetings on August 17, 2022, and October 16, 2024.

This is a Tier 1 project in the El Camino Real Precise Plan, which requires a recommendation by the EPC through the major plan community permit.

The focus is compliance with the objective design standards.

The following are the plan community findings, which are a part of the attachment.

Are part of attachment two of the staff report.

Staff is recommending the following.

That concludes my presentation.

I'm here to answer any questions along with Amber Lezinski and Christian Murdoch.

And the applicant, Dan Didal, is here to answer any questions.

We also have David J.

Powers, our consultant team, and also Paige and Thermal.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Nettle.

Appreciate your presentation.

Members of the EPC, who would like to opine first?

Excuse me.

So Dempsey?

Oh, excuse me, Chair.

The applicant has a presentation also.

Just you wanted to say a few words.

Sure, go for it.

So Chair Gutierrez and uh Commissioner Meeter members, thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight to um to review the project.

And I apologize for getting the uh chair uh wrong on the email this morning.

Sorry about that.

Um, Dan Dibel with Greystar Real Estate Partners, and um we're I'm here representing um Metropolitan Life Insurance, the the property owner.

Um we're happy with the presentation and the staff report.

Um we um have a few things we're gonna work on between now and the city council hearing with uh with staff to uh get to a to a collaborative conclusion on a few open issues um that um we still have on conditions of approval, but um we there's no uh we think that will just uh evolve and be concluded over the next few weeks.

Um we have our team here with us as well uh from Gray Star, our design team, and legal counsel from um from Holland and Knight to uh answer any questions that come up during during your uh deliberation and and comments, and um we look forward to um to uh working with you.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Questions, yes, we are doing questions, right?

So, Commissioner Dempsey.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

So uh I have a preliminary question, uh actually a legal question, a point clarification that I'd like to direct to the director if I may.

Um, I'm curious about if you could help us understand a little bit better the impact of the state uh density bonus law, because I understand it's somewhat strict in its requirements.

Uh, so if you could help us understand what is sort of is germane to the discretion of the EPC tonight and sort of what isn't, I think that'd be really helpful for us.

Sure.

Thank you, Commissioner Dempsey.

Good evening, Commissioners.

Christian Murdoch, community development director.

Um, as it pertains to state density bonus law, I think there's uh likely two main um elements of that law that are relevant to the commission's discussion tonight.

Um, one is uh the deviation between the allowable density or skill or intensity of the project and what's proposed.

State density bonus law provides uh greater intensity of development, typically through uh additional dwelling units as compared to the baseline regulations uh adopted by a city.

And uh applicants are entitled to that by providing minimum uh proportions of affordable housing units as part of their project.

I think the other area that's relevant uh pertains to waivers and concessions and particularly waivers.

Um this project is entitled to unlimited waivers, as I recall, and so what that means is uh traditional development standards, the city may have adopted things like uh setbacks or other kinds of um physical standards.

Um the city's not able to uh impose those standards if it would physically preclude construction of the project as proposed.

And so what it does is provide flexibility and relief for a project providing certain proportion of affordable housing units from those local standards, and so um the commission may be aware of the deviations that have been called out in the staff report.

Um the city has limited opportunity to impose its standards when the applicant can demonstrate it would physically impact construction of the project.

Thank you.

So I will commission it bear with me.

I will take advantage of being in this spot to ask questions next.

Then we'll go with Commissioner Yan and Commissioner Fam and Commissioner Donahue.

So first of all, I have a question in terms of the uh bicycle parking spaces.

Can someone help me point to where these are going to supposedly be?

Are they all throughout areas in general?

Yes, they are located throughout the project at almost each um entry and entrance to the project.

So they are almost all the way around the project.

Okay, great.

And those will be mostly away from public eye sight or within that as well.

No, um, you'll be able to.

I mean, for the the bike raps, right?

RACS will be uh you'll be able to see them so you can park in front of them.

So yeah, they are going to see them.

Great, great.

And then I have a question for the developer.

Um I don't know who can answer this one, but what inspired you to do the parking to add the spaces, all those in general?

Uh just based on our experience in Mountain View.

You know, we have two properties.

We have the property across the street that we developed or no, we don't own any longer, but um developed and managed uh long term, but and then we have uh San Antonio uh the Lansby.

And then it's just that's the demand of the market.

You know, we we live on uh on commuter lines and bus lines, um, but there's still a need for people that to park a car.

Um and so we struggled with the parking ratios and and arrived at uh what we have, and it's kind of follows the um Mountain View minimum or the mountain view standard model that was in place from about 2010 to just recently, I guess 2024.

But um that was a that's a good standard um for the reality of you know Mountain View residents that uh that live in our communities.

And then I noticed when I was reading the correspondence that was sent in um from your legal team that there was an issue about a loading dock being in dispute.

Is that something that you all are still facing now, or has it happened?

Um so it was a lot of uh dialogue on Lane Avenue.

Um, and we did a lot of community outreach and a lot of work with uh with uh with planning and and public works about uh the movements along Lane Avenue.

Um put up a site plan of the can you put up a site plan to look at?

Um, you know, we we um by choice we eliminated the drive uh entrance on Castro because we want to protect bike ped uh movements along Castro, and so we took that off the table at the beginning of the process.

And we wanted to park all the um retail and bank parking and and and those uses at the same level as um you know it's street level, so um guests weren't going up or down in a parking structure.

Um, and that required just right and left turns on of uh Victor Way and only right turns out on El Camino, and then we kind of deal with the other component, which is the residential entrance.

So we have a loading dock um that we use um on an appointment basis um with residents when they you know we know when they lease and they we we they schedule you know with two to four hours or whatever it's required for their moving van to come, and we needed a we needed a place for the the van to get off the street and into a um into a loading dock because there isn't any um area around the perimeter of the site that a the moving van could happen.

And so when you have 299 units you have to 299 move in and then every year you have 150 of a move out and another 150 move in so you have 300 appointments a year that you need to accommodate and so that was our solution is to have a loading dock and then through the process of making sure that we um are paying against paying close attention to bike pedically uh route to school we spent a lot of time with the Questa Park neighborhood association they actually had a subcommittee that we worked with um for about a year to make sure that we were addressing all the public safety needs of their kids and then we work we finalized that with some um resolution with some um mitigations let's call them that um address that on long term we were funding uh 24 thousand dollars a year for five years for a crossing guard at between the alley and the loading dock to for awareness make sure that um people are aware of what is you know that the kids and are are you know aware and that we're bringing attention to that along with speed bumps pork shop at Victor Way and a few other things so and then some real mitigation measures as far as just um that the loading dock doesn't you get used for people parking in it or um things like that there's a lot of precautions and and um things that we whatever we work together to to really make that um area of the project um safe and and um you know kind of uh I think I've said enough yeah yeah no no no problem and then my final question is yeah what what made you I saw here that you were also hiring union labor what's the thought behind that um we have good relationship with uh with union and um we um so the the labor there I believe we have a speaker that will be on later tonight or uh that we just have a good relationship so you know they support us and we support them.

Thank you so much.

Thanks.

Commissioning in the first question was why is this transit stop so special in El Camino that we're modifying the street and the block um for the bus stop there's an island and everything I'm just curious about that.

I can speak that um the current the current layout um with the with the inboard um really doesn't work with the extended buses the the express buses because they stick out into the road and as we were making this application Caltrans and the city agreed to um eliminate the parking on El Camino so it provided the opportunity to incorporate the bike lane into um to our frontage along El Camino and with that um we made all the movements that really VTA City and Caltrans wanted in terms of um how the bus movement works they instead of pulling in and and parting they stay straight into the lane um that's why we move the um the the bus um shelter and point of of entry out along that lane and then brought the bus the bike lane in board and so the movements um I think will be great for all parties pedestrians bike riders bus um uh patrons and um and it is a BTA express stop so they it's the 522 express and 522 regular so it's it gets a lot of use and um I think it'll be about better outcome.

Is that something we would expect at most of the express stops if there's a development that happens there in the future.

I was just curious from staff um I'm not sure of that our colleagues from public works are here I'm not sure if they have something that evening um council.

Sorry, Commissioners um thank you for your question.

I we would with El Camino being such a significant significant quarter in mountain View um as developments come in, we would look for opportunities to um do improvements that support um bicycle pedestrian and transit improvements.

It really would depend on the amount of right-away that's present there.

But and so we would be looking at projects on a case by case and looking for opportunities to coordinate the uses.

When I first looked at it, it seemed that there was access from Castro into the plaza.

But in this diagram, that's not really the case physically.

If you wouldn't mind describing what actually happens, because it looks like it's open space, what really is there and what's uh what you're planning for.

Sure.

I don't have a pointer.

Do you have a pointer?

No.

Um the bank building.

Um I think you're referring to between the uh horizontal green bar um next to the yellow on the uh on Castro and then space that space, the gray space between it and the purple.

That's what you're referring to.

Okay.

Um so that is um an area where there's a PG and E transformer right in the center.

If you see the triangle, you have a essentially a square with a triangle, a small triangle um uh within it.

Um, that's a transformer.

And um, as we and we might bring Quinn back up.

Well, when we uh have been planning this project over the years, um about a year into it, the PG<unk>E came to us and said we're no longer um allowing um subsurface transformers in in anywhere and they don't allow them and um and so it's a challenge for everybody that in in the room here um because they have to go somewhere, and um that is what's between the purple and the green is a transformer.

It's also paving and it's the back of house and it's an exit stair for the bank and uh um you know there's a lot going on there.

Um, but but the reason why it's not a pedestrian way through that is because there's a transformer.

I have a question for staff.

Does a project this size if PG and E has a transformer, is it possible initially to say we request that it move slightly over somewhere else?

Does it have to be there?

I'm just curious.

It's probably more of a question for the applicant because he's had more of those conversations.

I think you know, PGE is not very they're a little rigid, and there's really specific, you know, um locate like not locations but um there's they can only go in certain locations with with like that are clear and that you know aren't next to trees, etc.

etc.

And so you know it's it's hard to design these um transformers to be honest, and it is true that a lot of the people in this room do struggle with um these kind of conversations.

So, you know, whether or not that transformer can be moved somewhere else, I don't know the answer to that, but I think that it's important that you know we don't we can't impact site design or the design of the entire you know buildings on this site, um, you know, due to some information that was received, you know, much later than at the beginning of this process.

I think Commissioner.

Right.

Just to build on that point, I think what the applicant indicated is that that design change came up after the project had already been designed, and so uh to basically rethink the entire project likely would have been a significant hardship for the applicant, and so trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Uh this is where this particular transformers need to have ended up.

Public works happen to know.

I think.

Thank you for the question.

So Public Works typically um deals with uh PGE transformer boxes in the public right away, but from our experience, we have um we are aware that PGE has some pretty um stringent requirements on where the transformers can go, um clearances and access for when they do need to um come in and maintain the boxes.

So it seems like that the location there that we've seen is pretty typical of what we've seen of other projects, and then as for um the transformers being above ground, we have heard from PGE that um there is a bit of a shortage of the underground um transformers.

Um, so we we as much as we can we try to work with PGE to get the um boxes to be below ground, but we have had some projects where um unfortunately you know it either would delay the um for the construction of the project significantly if we waited for the boxes for below ground um boxes to become available.

So thank you.

Thank you for your answer.

Okay, good for now.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Commissioner Ofan.

Okay, I have a few questions.

Um my first question has to do with the tree planting on slide, I think it's 13.

Um I noticed that the existing canopy is 23.2%.

The new canopy at maturity will be 27.1.

Um what is the time frame expected to reach maturity?

Generally, the time frame for the counter would be from 10 to 20 years to reach maturity.

Okay.

Um my next question has to do with the public space on this site.

Wanted to get more of an idea of what was envisioned to be there and a description of it.

Um, and also what kind of small community activities you know are envisioned to be able to be held there in the future.

You're referring to the public plaza, correct?

Correct.

Can we go to that?

Can I give you the sheet number?

Are you done?

Oh, okay.

You go to the one that you showed um earlier.

You have another one, I think it was a close-up of the plaza, I thought.

Um anyway.

Um, yeah, that's better, I think.

Um, so activities within the plaza, um, we have you know, activated ground floor retail and restaurant.

That's part of you know a draw.

Um it is the pedestrian, so those that drive to the to the property or those that arrive on bus or bike um uh are gonna obviously go through that space.

The um the parking, the tan area, the low the top of the white section below the plaza is kind of a um generous opening from parking there so that um it's you know uh it's a destination within the the development.

Um then within the uses, there's seating, there's restaurant outdoor restaurant use, um, and I think activation will be programmed by by the management team as we as we build the the occupancy of the building, it will become a focal point of residence and community to to have um you know planned events.

Um typical program, um similar to what we have at uh Lansby.

We have quite an open space there.

Um, thank you.

Um had a couple more questions.

Um maybe not a question for now, but I was curious uh for nearby residents during construction.

Are there any protections for noise or air quality?

Yeah, I mean there's um that's all um been evaluated, studied, and and mitigation measures um developed in within the conditions of approval and um that the on-site team will follow.

Um you know, during our planning application process, we we create kind of the total development schedule and and in this in this case it's a phase development project.

So we need to build the bank first, and so um it's a very long process, but we provide uh those uh the information as far as like the equipment that's gonna be used during each phase of work, the hours of operation, all those things, so that they can evaluate the you know us on them uh effect of uh that of those those impacts and through working through um that process with um David Powers, um you know we've defined the equipment, the level of um exhaust, um, mitigation, like the quality of the ex you know the filtering um so that it minimizes um particulate matter and and uh from being any greater than um uh a certain threshold, it's all documented in the in the EIR.

And so those are the kind of the flavor of of uh or you know, small and short answer of a very elaborate um evaluation of of uh of those impacts and and mitigation measures.

I also wanted to add that um that we've conditioned the project um for construction noise, and there's construction hours, so there are several conditions in the um conditions of approval that address um construction hours.

There's also a disturbance.

Um there's also a coordinator out there, so if there is um a question about noise or any of the construction people can call the um designated, yeah.

Okay, thank you.

I have one more question, probably more appropriate for staff.

I noticed that the project will be paying um a large in loo fee for parks.

Are there any planned parks projects in the vicinity that would benefit from this amount?

Thank you for that question.

Um yes, so park fees can be used for towards the acquisition um development or rehabilitation of parks and recreational facilities, depending on the timing of receipt of the funds.

Um, we do have a um the we recently acquired parkland at 7-Eleven Calderon Avenue, and um we would have the opportunity to use the funding towards the um design and construction of that park depending on the timing of um when we receive the funding of the park fee okay.

Thank you.

That's all my questions.

Appreciate it.

Let's see here.

Commissioner Doneg, actually, Commissioner Yen.

Apologies, I forgot.

Oh, no ways, no ways.

Clear myself of the cue.

Sounds good.

Commissioner Donahue.

Um, one thing that I noticed in the staff report and also in the presentation was that uh it said that.

Basically all the trees are getting cut down except for some non-heritage trees.

But my understanding from the Arborist report is that at least seven of the trees that are being preserved are the redwoods that are between the uh the apartment buildings and what's currently the parking lot, which would I think they're more than 12 inches in circumference, so I mean considerably more, uh, so that they they would actually be heritage trees that are being preserved there.

Is that correct?

Let me ask the apple count because it's been a long process, so maybe now they are heritage trees.

But the trees that you're talking about are right along um right back there, the the existing trees.

Yeah, I I I think that some of the trees being preserved are the ones in that big green box that's uh to the west of the the loading dock.

Right.

Oh you have to um use the microphone.

Otherwise the people online can't.

Seven trees, the seven trees in question are um, yeah, as you said, below above the white triangle or the white uh rectangle in the uh right-hand quadrant of the uh slide, and the parking structure.

There's they're we it's actually it's just a buffer.

I mean, we pulled the we pulled the building back in order to preserve those trees.

Um so those are heritage trees.

Yeah.

Okay.

Eight.

Sorry, eight of those trees are heritage trees.

Okay, great.

So well, so that's a little better than what the staff report said that that they're heritage trees.

Okay, great.

Thanks.

I just wanted to clarify that.

Um one other question I had is the.

And the other thing is that there's commercial space here, so there will be deliveries for uh the for the retail and restaurants and things like that.

Will those be using that loading dock area, or how is that provision?

I believe we have provisions in and the loading dock, with the same same procedures would be addressed for true loading, like someone that has to reserve it, they have to arrive at the time that they're that they're scheduled and they have to use it and pulled completely into the space.

Otherwise, you know, the ceiling height or the clear height of the garage is gonna limit the uh height of of delivery to delivery vans or delivery trucks to the site um from you know from uh pulling all the way in.

So yeah, it will be um it'll be an issue uh that we all experience every day, whether they're parked in, you know, in the street um lane.

Um, okay.

So yeah, I'm just wondering about the you know, somebody I mean El Camino, there's there's no parking anymore.

Uh the bus stop, I think, you know, is that's not gonna work very well.

It's completely off limits, yeah.

Um lane really is completely off limits because it's a drive-in, drive-out.

Um, so Castro is off limits.

I mean, it's a high uh the high frequency traffic along Castro.

Um so yeah, it's I mean I'm I'm primarily thinking now about these Amazon thing, which are pretty tall.

I what's the the clearance in the garage?

It's probably you know less than nine feet.

I mean, for handicap fans, it's gotta be eight to minimum.

So I think we've built some height into that, but that's relatively the range, like eight to nine feet.

Okay, yeah.

Okay.

Um that that doesn't sound great, but um I guess it is what it is right now.

Okay.

Um that's all my questions.

Thanks.

Thanks.

Thank you, Commissioner Don.

Commissioner Dempsey.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um, a couple more questions for the applicant, if I may.

And let me start with trees.

So I have questions about that sort of same neighborhood of trees as Commissioner Donahue.

Um, but I want to ask about the new ones, the these not the big ones, kind of uh that are gonna that are sort of right in the middle there at the uh in the middle of lane, and then that same up down um string of new trees that are gonna be right in the middle of Victor.

Remind me what type of trees those are, how tall they grow.

Um just let me pull it up real quick.

Um really what I'm what I'm trying to get at here is sort of the screening and the impacts and the mitigation of impacts for the folks that live there already.

Um you're talking about along the the what yeah the other are there the other portion of the rectangle that that aren't our heritage trees.

Yep.

Okay, let me um so those are um I have to go to just give me one second.

Um tree.

There we go.

Um the um tree pallet um for that area uh retrieve species, um, can I go to your next question uh while I'm writing this?

Totally fine.

If it's helpful, let me tell you why I ask.

The reason I'm asking is I'm trying to figure out are those gonna be shrubs or they're gonna be screening trees.

Screening trees.

They're definitely screening trees.

I know they're they're gonna be right there next to a bunch of redwoods, it's hard to keep up with redwoods, but are we talking like 30 feet?

What are we talking?

Yeah, so I mean uh I um I expect them to be something like an Italian cypress which grows vertical and the way you get the screening is you plant them close enough together to where they go right vertical and and create a create a uh screen um early, you know, within a few years, I would say.

Um and then there's a fence along there as well.

So there is planting on the fence that's in addition to so that if you see that there's language about screening and also planting, but the planting is really to grow on the you know on the fence um to cover that.

That gets you like eight feet at best.

Yeah.

So really what I'm asking is about the sort of the privacy and the screening implications for the folks that live there.

I think that's a really important consideration.

So if this means that you're gonna try to get them get some cypress up to 20 feet, 25 feet, something like that.

That's good news because I think that'll that'll lessen some of the many.

That's exactly the intent that the folks that live there are gonna face.

And in fact, I'm glad Commissioner Pham asked this question about noise and dust mitigations.

You know, I think as you know very well, heavy dust living next door to it and breathing it all the time, there's uh there's a bunch of negative health impacts that come from that asthma and things like that.

Yeah.

So um it it sounds like that's something that you've considered seriously.

It sounds like the city, you've been in dialogue with the city about making sure that that's adequate.

Um just putting it out that that's important to me because the folks who are gonna live there for multiple years living next to a construction zone, that's a big sacrifice for them.

Yes, so that is uh want to make sure that they're they're well thought after because they're gonna be the neighbors here for all of this.

So that's that was question number one.

The second question I have is if you could I well I take note that the upper right corner there um that's on El Camino, that's going to be private.

That's not gonna be commercial space if I understand it correctly.

Correct.

At the ground level, that's that corner that corner, yes, faces on El Camino.

Yeah, if you look at the kind of the livability of the building, um you kind of have two ends of El Camino becomes your vertical transportation, if you will.

Like people that live there, they they need to get up and down to the floor they live on, and so there's an elevator bank um in that region of the building, and there's one at the kind of near the leasing office uh and lobby along Castro.

Um so that people that park in the lower garage, they go to floor to floor to floor, but when they want to leave the building, that would be kind of their lobby and their amenity space, um, as well as other amenity spaces.

There's you know, there's a there's a bike uh storage facility, but you know, or room, package storage.

There's uh all the uses are kind of taken as far as what the purpose of them are.

Um and that one it's really lobby and some um amenity space for that kind of quadrant of the building.

Okay, and so you may have answered my question, but uh I was hoping you could explain to me what the case is for requiring a waiver to have that section of the building not be commercial even though it's facing on El Camino.

Um I mean it's it's it's really like the usefulness of it as a retail component is it's not as I mean, we struggled with whether or not um retail would be successful there.

Um we think it is successful, you know, leading up to that driveway, but then you break the driveway and you you might have a thousand feet or something like there left over.

We just thought that it was not a um not an ideal location.

It's isolated, um that's our assessment.

Yeah, it wouldn't be my place to argue the point with you.

Um Clarks was there for many decades, yeah.

But very successful place.

Oh yeah, of course, yeah.

I love Clarks, but it's a little different with um when you break the string.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks.

Thank you, Commissioner Dempsey.

Commissioner, I really appreciate being on a commission with others because they ask questions and it becomes like a true discussion.

So um you were talking about the earlier about the um delivery trucks.

And so I know that you you guys have already worked with the community to try to make Lane a little safer, but you're saying that Lane is also gonna be probably be the place for all the delivery trucks.

Um I don't know what for Amazon and everything, which is also if I recall the school route.

Yeah, I s um I did I'm not saying that delivery trucks for Amazon are gonna go there.

I'm talking about a delivery truck that is going to have a regular schedule at you know 10 o'clock in the morning to deliver something to a retail that they make a reservation uh that's not in conflict with a resident reservation.

That's how complicated that'll all be.

But um, I mean, delivery trucks from Amazon and w will have to we'll we'll have to they'll have to figure out how to get to our um package storage and and lobby.

Um, yeah, I I think just knowing that there are 300 units about, it's gonna be deliveries constantly.

And we you're not the first to have this issue, but I bring it up as an issue that is real, um, and you know, you go through great lengths to try to accommodate the ones that are on schedule, which is a little bit easier, but now you're gonna have constant flow of delivery trucks that will block traffic and the bus routes and so I I would yeah, I I you know put out that it probably just needs to have some extra eyes on it and something to figure out perhaps.

I think one of the challenges we have is that um thinking back to when the El Camino Real Precise Plan was adopted in 2014 initially, um we don't have objective standards at this point to address that type of loading or delivery space, and so we're really at the whim of the applicant to be able to design it into the project, and obviously there are a number of factors that applicants are trying to balance when designing their projects.

I understand, yeah.

It's just this is a real situation, and so if that is an area of concern, then if it's possible to figure something out because you know with the design of your building where deliveries will be made, what the easiest way in to get to the mailboxes, you know, where that's gonna be.

So how's that gonna work?

And it's just something to think of, think about um another question then is about the trees.

You guys have underground parking, which I understand you're gonna have to clear a lot of trees, and so the city will give up a lot of mature healthy trees um for the project, which you know is warranted in certain respects and in the balance of trying to get housing, the city is accommodating uh that um but with the underground parking, it's harder to get large mature trees uh planted over it.

So I understand that the canopy will grow in time to have a certain amount of coverage, and that we will have a lot more new trees.

So the count of trees will probably be good.

But in terms of the quality and diversity of the tree size and type and ability to mature into something, that is not something we look at yet.

Wait till 6.1, maybe um agenda item to follow if you're interested.

But um I just wanted to ask if there were any trees in the landscape plan that were going to be at maturity, very large trees.

Yeah, I I think response to your comment that the everything you see there that's you know the large tree canopy that's identified on the perimeter of the site.

Um that's all those are all planted in soil um at grade.

And the plaza is all at grade and in soil, and like it was in the um Margaret's presentation that we have I believe a seven-foot box tree um as one of those and several other like 48-inch box trees in the plaza area to create some scale from the beginning of the project you know, life of the the space.

Um so I I think that you know, in you know, the whole plaza and around the bank is all planted, you know, in you know, soil and not in planters, uh, as well as all the large canopies.

I mean, I think the the um the diagram um really speaks for it's for what to expect long term um in terms of the size and scale of of trees.

Um let's say that those are you know 15-year um diameters on there.

Um I don't know exactly what it is.

I'm not a landscape architect, but I could uh have a lifeline.

But I think it's probably 15 to 20 year canopy diameters, and those that are on the planters are you know on uh um and are on you know on podium or on the perimeter, they've been scaled appropriately here to demonstrate what they'll look like that that scale.

Um, so most of the big trees are along the street, the sidewalk, the plant.

So, those are new street trees, and then like I said, the whole plaza and all around the bank, all the the those are all planted in whatever, not native by the time we dig it dig it up and plant back, but you know, for in you know, at grade um planting conditions, not you know, not up against a parking structure that's gonna limit its root growth.

So, thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Yen.

Commissioner Nunes.

Or Vice Chair Nunez.

Questions for the applicant?

So at least in my opinion, um that corner, that property, uh, if if you also share my opinion that at least as of right now, it is an underutilized property in terms of what it could be.

Um nonetheless, it's still potentially like the most prominent um property or you know, kind of like parcel in the city, at least in my view, in terms of um like transiting through, you know, just like as a person in the community or otherwise, um, you know, as you're moving through Mountain View, there's a very high likelihood that you're gonna for some reason or another transit through that area, right?

It's it's called gateway for a reason in a way, right?

So I guess like in terms of um how you guys set about thinking about the project and kind of like what that location kind of means to the city of Mountain View.

How did that inform, if at all, andor guide like how you guys approach the project, um, both from like an aesthetic and like resourcing perspective, and and you know, to what to what extent did that like influence, you know, what you guys envisioned the project should deliver to the city of Mountain View.

Yeah, thanks for that.

Um I mean, I spoke to it a little while ago.

Um, I was I started working on the project across the street, I think it was in 2012, and um we delivered that but through that process we um engaged deeply with the neighborhood and and and those and the retailers and and the community at large um to know what all the issues were to and and attempt to address those that we could with that development and um during that time was also a very intense traffic calming and um you know kind of bike ped safety along that that route along Maramonte Gastro um and so we were active in that and so when we first thing we did when we looked at this site as far as start land planning it is really paying attention to that as it relates to Castro Street and in taking that driveway away that currently exists because it's an impediment to safety impediment um and we enlarged the the sidewalk widths along there so it was more friendly terms of barrier from um the street to the pedestrian.

So that was a early kind of stake in the ground if you will um then you know the linchpin to the site is the bank um is to providing a new bank to chase that they can occupy and park for their for their customers um as kind of a priority is you know and so that so we you know the place where that that bank um resides here is deliberate and um and that's why we design it the way we did with a circle uh circular uh style uh shape um uh to kind of embrace that corner or radius because it's not really a hard corner um and then built from that um we think that the plaza is strong um I think Quinn was participant and many others uh in early discussions about you know when we're talking to VTA and Caltrans and the city and everyone about this idea of doing what we ended up doing here with the the bike the bus um island um and Zoom calls and and and whatnot I mean there was like excitement from those from from planners that work in those entities Caltrans and VTA about how successful this will be for their ridership that people will come here um and then take their ride and so all those things I mean so the plaza was an an intentional um you know idea about um creating community creating um ridership creating you know chance to meet somebody you know so that's was the intent of the plaza and so and then it's a mixed use we we we worked within the framework that the city worked hard on back in 2012 to 14 I think it was uh on the first round of the um el Camino Precise plan and embraced a lot of those ideas as we as we built this um built this design and um and then really work with the greater community especially uh Cuesta Park on like what you know what how does this feel to you and um and you know Mountain View uh coalition for sustainable planning and others like to get input and um make sure that we're addressing um you know our needs but their needs and and making sure that we arrive at a project that we are looking at tonight that everyone can be proud of so.

Thank you that's very helpful and just for um sorry if I missed it do you guys also manage the property yeah yeah yeah okay um and so then uh that furly renaissance color looking thing just like what would you call what's that feature called that which one that wheely thing on the property on the building that like you know that how the you know how Shakespeare had that little what would you call that thing that round you know I mean the fin like yeah am I missing is it looked a little like um iridescent from the images is that just like the effect or are there like light lights and that thing no I mean it's uh it's I think maybe it's solar it's like sunshine you know is gonna hit that it's I think arguably it'll be good for um shading you know and you know during certain times the day but uh no that's just it's the I think the color of the glass versus the color of the of the material that's the vertical material is creating that um illusion or you know whatever that that um kaleidoscope or whatever you want to call that.

Got it.

Yeah.

And then um when it comes to you guys as a management uh you know as you're kind of like fully operating that property.

I don't know, have you had a chance to and correct me if I'm mistaken here on I'm I might be uh uh hand in foot uh concentration here.

Um have you been to that San Antonio property or the nose of the others?

Yeah, okay, cool.

Yeah, and I I think if I'm not mistaken, when it's like holiday time, there's like decorative festive feel.

Yeah, in the center of that, yeah.

So as I was referring to earlier, programming the space and the because there's you know that that was uh a labor of love and design as well.

I mean, we we had a we went through a master plan of that uh that site uh intentionally decided to build four different buildings with different character um that spoke to one another, but you know, worked you know around that park that has the uh redwoods we preserved, and uh it works.

I mean, the four buildings speak to one another, the the spaces um are used, and yeah, they're programmed in order to uh you know create community.

Any similarity?

I think yeah, similar will happen here, yeah.

I mean, Christmas, yeah, like oh, it's Christmas, or extra.

I think things happen, you know, people say, Oh, we need to have something for an art, you know, event or whatever, and they go, Oh, can we come use your plaza?

Yes, you know, so things like that.

Being part of the community is definitely um something that is a is a goal and is and we evidence it um every week or every month in this city.

Um we're very involved and active and uh and say that way.

Two two last questions.

Um how are you gonna like store the art, right?

Like, yeah, right.

Like how how will we know it won't like accidentally chip away or something?

Yeah, well, we provided um the the team and the EIR preparer and and uh consultants that over on oversight as far as what we did.

We before before the project was kind of tagged with it being a cultural resource, we had already done evaluations and deconstruction um work with consultants to figure out how to get the you know what were we dealing with, because it's it's it's currently in a concrete wall, the the mosaic.

So we have to take we have to you know saw cut that out and it's gonna be it's it's quite a uh an effort.

So yeah, through that process it'll come out, it'll be cleaned up, restored so so to speak, um, you know, so it's it goes back into this location in a way that um you know that we'll all be you know happy with.

Um and you know, we have an interpretive um marker there so people understand where it came from, who who you know, the studio that produced it, um, and you know what it uh signifies in terms of the histor history of you know Mountain View or Silicon Valley.

Nice.

And then um if you just assume that just for rent out for the sake of just the timing of this, um, just assuming like best case scenario, um by what date, roughly speaking, are you um looking at a project that would be like fully live, like you know, like that you know, full tenancy, you know, as much as you know can be possible.

Like basically at what point will this no longer be like something like what like roughly?

So I guess I guess spoke to the beginning, um it's a it's a phased effort in order to unlock the the land.

Um and so the first, you know, the first step um of this development is to be able to you know complete the design.

We're we're up through like I think we're you know, we're in design development, if you will, phase of the construction drawings uh for the bank, and then you know, so we after our approvals we would advance that and put the set of drawings necessary to go through the plan check process and uh on the on the bank building, um, and then pull permits and build that, and then when the bank moves into that building, we go start doing the deconstruction, and then deconstruction goes to parking lot uh maneuvers as far as building a parking lot in the plaza for the bank temporarily, and then unlock the the land.

And then so, you know, if things happened on uh just a sequential basis from now, I'm not saying there will be, you know, no fossils, assuming best case scenario.

I'm just putting it on a timeline.

Uh and not yeah, this isn't a commit commitment.

It's just like if you just put that in a normal time frame, it would be probably I don't know, nine months before you could submit the permit package for the first building and then go through so then you have to build the building that's gonna take about a year.

So, like what's a sorry five years?

So, what's 2030?

Yeah, 2030.

Okay, cool.

Last question.

Is the team proud of the project?

Pardon?

Are you proud of the project?

Very much so.

I hope it shows.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Chairman.

Yes.

Sorry, I didn't know if we were entering into this um discussion phase versus question phase.

I'm hoping we enter in discussion phase, but if you have a question, go right ahead.

Uh no, I thought we were entering into discussion, so I was going to chime in.

But all right, sounds good.

We're still in questions.

We're done.

I think we're done with questions unless you have a question.

No.

Okay.

Okay.

So let's go on on public comment.

And then we'll we'll go with that.

Okay.

I'm sorry, I did not think with all due respect to that this was going to take this long for this presentation and questions and all.

I mean, we've had other developers who have been grinded less than this.

Please.

Okay.

So having said that, uh, the comment.

If anyone in attendance would like to provide comments on this item, please fill out a yellow speaker card and provide it to the PC clerk.

If anyone on Zoom would like to provide a comment on this item, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone.

Phone users can mute and unmute themselves with star six.

EPC Clerk.

Uh, yes, we have four uh zoom speakers, and it looks like we may have one in person.

Um, would you like in person or zoom?

In person first.

Thank you.

Um and how uh time limit.

How many do we have again?

Uh typically it's three.

Okay, let's do three.

Um so our first speaker is Leda Adamik.

Hello.

Um I just wanted to comment on the delivery vehicle issue, and I'm grateful that you've brought it up.

Um I don't know what the possibilities are.

Just saying, you know, we don't have something that says anything about it in this particular precise plan.

It seems like it's an issue throughout the city.

So my son some years ago uh attended Graham, and we were so grateful that those um protected bike lanes were put in on Castro Street.

However, when he was meant to use them, a lot of the time the new development across the street uh attracted delivery vehicles, which then would park in the bike lane.

So he needed to bike in the street, which was not as safe.

So I think given and you're well aware the volume of deliveries, Amazon, UPS, FedEx, etc.

etc., it is um I think really essential for every new development.

And I understand that this one started a while back, but maybe future developments somehow provide a way for those vehicles to be off-road, um, you know, off of the street, pull in, be able to make the delivery, and then kind of go back out.

Uh frankly, I'm just kind of disappointed that it's all shrug.

There's nothing we can do.

We see this problem coming, but there's nothing we're going to do, and these vehicles are going to be blocking the street and bike lanes, etc.

So I hope in the future, both for the developers and for the city, this is something that can be incorporated into the design process.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Uh we have four speakers online.

Uh first up is Bruce England.

Bruce, um, you should be able to unmute and speak.

Yes, indeed.

Uh everybody hear me okay?

Yes.

Okay.

Uh yes, Bruce England, Wisman Station Drive, representing both the Mountain View Coalition for Sustainable Planning or MBCSP, and uh Green Spaces Mountain View tonight.

The MVCSP would like to voice our support.

This is in our letter that we sent earlier today.

MBCSP would like to voice our support for the mixed use project at 749 West El Camino Real.

Time constraints prevented us from providing a more formal letter, but our support is just as strong regardless.

We have had several presentations with the developers they mentioned, where they also responded to our questions, comments, and concerns.

Our members have been highly supportive of the project as it provides additional housing options for Mountain View, including affordable options and provides good infrastructure for those walking biking and using transit through the area and includes impressive design elements with attention to reuse of elements from the current buildings.

It also will take full advantage of the bikeway and bus stop improvements recently or soon to be implemented by Caltrans with extensive collaboration with the city.

Not in the letter, but we support emphasizing use of stairways over elevators.

So a thumbs up for placing the stairs ahead of the elevators in the lobby area.

From a green spaces mountain view perspective, we do feel strongly about existing tree preservation that we have discussed this with the project team over time.

And we're happy to see the plans for new tree planning as part of the project work.

We also hope the project will include no artificial turf, and we will continue to advocate this position in general for Mountain View projects.

That's it for me.

Thank you.

Next we have Robert Cox.

Robert, you should be able to speak.

Okay, can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay.

Chair Gutierrez, Vice Chair Nunez, and members of the EPC.

Thanks for the opportunity to talk about the redevelopment of the Chanks Bank site.

Tonight I'm speaking on my own behalf, but I do want to thank Mr.

Dibel, Ms.

Thibodeau, and other members of the Great Star team for reaching out to the Mountain View Historical Association and Livable Mountain View to share their plans to preserve key pieces of artwork from this historic site and integrate them into the new development.

I also appreciate their adopting the theme of Richard Sonian Arches and the architecture for the apartments that they will develop.

This design element will lend a sense of historical continuity to the site.

I do want to echo the concerns that were raised about from Mr.

Donahue and Miss Ian about parking for Amazon and Amazon like delivery vehicles on the site.

And uh when the bicycle lanes were recently installed in El Camino, street parking was removed in front of many a large apartment complexes.

On my last shopping uh trip, I was blocked by Amazon trucks parking in the traffic lanes in front of three of these apartment complexes on just one trip.

Such Amazon vehicles should have dedicated parking somewhere in the complex so they don't block other drivers and create a safety hazard on the road.

Uh there let's plan ahead for this development before any problems occur.

I want to thank you know Graystar for always being a good citizen and it's planning, and it seems like there is still an opportunity for them to voluntarily step up and solve this problem, you know, before it just adds to the problems that we already have on the streets today.

So, you know, I'm hopeful that you might sit down with staff and figure out a way to do this.

And thanks for listening to my views.

Next, we have uh Alejandro Martinez.

Uh Alejandro, um, you should be able to speak.

Yeah, hello, can you all hear me?

Yes.

Awesome.

So good evening planning commission.

Uh, my name's as mentioned.

My name's Alejandro Martinez.

I've been a member of Layuna Labor's Local 270 for over 10 years.

I'm here on support on the 749 West del Camino Rio Project.

The developer Gray Star has proven to be a reliable partner.

They have not only made promises, but also demonstrated their commitment through actions that benefit our community.

Right after high school, I try going to college, have a career.

However, life didn't go as planned.

I found myself struggling making ends mean.

I am a single father and I have a nine-year-old daughter.

However, the union gave me an opportunity to be a skilled labor through the apprenticeship program.

And now I was I was able to provide for my daughter and my family.

Now I also have a home of my own, and I can allow my daughter to grow in the same city I did.

This job allows us to live in our communities and support working families like mine.

Allowing this project by GrayStar will have a positive impact because it will also offer livable wages with benefits to all of us.

Thank you for your time and I urge your support.

And last we have John Zerbus.

John, you should be able to speak.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Hey, good evening.

My name is John Zervis.

I'm the executive director of Wyuna on behalf of the laborers local 270 uh in Santa Clara County.

Uh we represent uh 600 uh 6,000 uh 771 members in this county and 90 uh eight members in Mountain View.

Uh we have worked for over a decade uh with Grayster and appreciate the commitment uh to use union labor that supports working families with living wages and uh health retirements.

We support this project and we thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

There are no more speakers.

Great, thank you.

Let's move on to EPC deliberation and action.

Um I'm going to start.

Uh Graystar, I want to thank you for your time and patience.

And uh I appreciate the time and energy that you've placed in being able to consult with members of the community.

This city is not easy to deal with.

With some projects, some go faster than others.

With others when or in general, if there's an issue, there's a time delay.

My father, I come from a working class background.

I'm first gen with everything.

Um, high school graduate, university graduate.

My dad's a retired uh construction worker, worked in drywall, so he's a member of the union, is proud of it.

I appreciate everything that I was given to him as much as he could provide.

So, having said that, year in and year out, there's always an increase in cost.

So, the way I compare this program and this development project to others, and my example of my mindset and the commission may disagree with me.

That's fine, that's okay.

We're here to agree to disagree but move forward.

I like that this was the most well thought out perspective in terms of listening to community input, working with the city, understanding what the limitations are, and being flexible as much as you can with trees, placement of construction items in general, with PG and E's help or not really, but working with the city to try and get stuff done, right?

Understanding that you've got two major uh streets.

Uh El Camino and Castro, where you have not only general traffic and VTA transportation opportunities, but you also have Castro where you have and the rest of the area there where you have kids going to and from their neighborhood over to grand middle school.

And there's a lot of when I was in the school board and we had issues early on with that construction and development site, and I mentioned with the shuttle buses.

There were a lot of accidents between the shuttle buses and the kids riding their bikes in school, whether in the morning or in the afternoon.

You have to factor it all that in right now, and you're doing the best you can to get this done.

So from my perspective, I'm happy you're still here and that you still want to do the project because it's been some time, right?

Uh, from another perspective, I'm appreciative that you looked at this issue too, and this is where I'm pointing to you as an example of what I think we should be aiming for with development projects, that you looked at the parking situation and understood this is an issue.

Other developers around other parts of the neighborhoods that we have in Mountain View, they didn't do that.

I don't know.

I don't know why.

All I know is that they opted not to do something about it because they had that luxury.

You looked at it more from a responsible citizen perspective from a developer, which for me is a breath of fresh air, right?

So I like that.

I like that you took the initiative to get that taken care of, to look at that.

Now, I've heard other people speak before this project about the issue with delivery trucks, whether it's Amazon or FedEx or what have you.

Man, I live in on California Street in Apartmentville between California, Rangstorff, and Escuela, and all the way up to Target and the Walmart shopping centers, right?

And with the new pedestrian um structures that we have on California, there's a bike lane down, then there's spaces that have been reduced in parking from what we had to a reduction of 44.

In the middle, there's a lane where you can use that to turn either right or left to go into your respective apartment complex, or if you've been lucky enough to get a condor town home to go into your home.

Fine.

But the problem has been always there with delivery trucks, right?

I don't expect you to solve it here.

I expect you to do the best you can to try and listen to what that issue is, see if you can come up with some sort of solution.

But at the same time, it's hard because you're on Castro and El Camino.

And the reality of it is the project still has to go on.

You do the best you can with what you have to make things happen.

We appreciate you that you're doing that already because it's going to provide housing, but also jobs for union members, which I also will appreciate very much.

And I understand there's limitations to everything, but the more important thing here, the most important thing here is acknowledging your ability to be a good citizen and working with us to try and get everything done that you can because other developers have not done that, and that's where I hold you to a higher standard, and I'm holding them to meet that standard because you can, because they can.

When there's a willingness to work together as a team to get things done, it's not just about profit motive, it's about meeting the needs of the community, and sometimes we forget that.

So thank you.

That's all I have to say.

Vice Chair Nunions.

I think it's great.

Uh, I'll be supporting it.

So uh whenever anyone wants a motion or a second, I'd be done.

Thank you, Vice Chair Nunes.

Commissioner Yin.

Thanks.

Um, I forgot to disclose earlier that I had actually talked to uh Mr.

Dyball uh prior to this uh when he presented the project to me.

So I just wanted to say that.

Um, and so he he's already heard this, but I just wanted to share that I appreciate the process very much so that um Chair Gutierrez had mentioned, and I appreciate a lot of the the sort of benefits to the city that we're getting through this project.

So the following, please don't take it too poorly.

Uh the following is sort of a critique of the project and where I feel like it was a missed opportunity, and in a certain instance, if I'm too honest with myself as a designer, it's sort of um in the aspect of place making and urban design, given its location, is sort of not doing the best it can.

And I say that not to take away from all the positives, so if you guys will indulge me, I will just kind of explain what I mean because um I think it's hard to get across easily.

Um, in this respect, I'm talking about urban design and how form creates public space, and I find it great that you have a public plaza.

I appreciate that.

I feel like there was sort of a lack of clarity from the get-go in terms of understanding what you have and how you could use it.

So, from my perspective, if I look at this, initially from Napkin Sketch, I would have created this public plaza to be accessible from both sides, both Castro and El Camino.

And as it's been said before, it's in a premier location.

You know, if I put my self in developer and the owner's shoes, I would drool over the potential.

And I think two aspects which you did through the process hit, which was to listen to the community about the artwork.

Um I'll touch on that.

And mainly it is the design of the public plaza.

So when we have buildings in the city, and this is where please just indulge me.

When you have buildings in the city, they perform a function as sort of like a community citizen in structure form.

So when you're in the middle of the block, you just continue the street wall and you're doing your job.

But because of where you are, the way I see it, it is that you are at the node and intersection of the historic El Camino Real, that is the largest and longest local and regional thoroughfare that cuts through the entire peninsula, you're at the intersection of that thoroughfare and the historic main street of our downtown.

It is the heart, as a lot of people feel, and it's beloved within the city, not just for the area and the neighborhood, it's the city's sort of living room.

So you guys are placed prominently at that intersection and that node.

You just move one block over and it's a little bit different.

So layer that with the downtown, which leads to the historic train depot that's still running to this day, it is the reason for Mountain View's existence, pretty much and its growth as a city when you look at that that way, and you know notice it's a gateway to the downtown.

If you're going out El Camino, it opens up because two of the buildings on west, northwest, the downtown side of this intersection, pull back.

It's a major move.

So when you're designing public spaces, you're using the walls of the building to create and define the space.

Streets are corridors because you have curves, sidewalks, and the walls just go down.

It's you don't even think about it, you know where you're going.

This is the public space.

You don't think about how people place make.

So we've got those two at 800 and the public park that pull away from the corner and define a gateway to downtown.

Now, the older Graystar building that I believe you worked on also pulls back slightly.

So you have three buildings that pull back from the corner, marking this node, an intersection, and what you guys are doing is so close, but and I I appreciate the process.

The end result is what I have a critique on.

You're creating a place that does not respond to its context or its other three members that form the gateway.

So its relationship is primarily just to El Camino and sort of turns its back on your sister building, which has public plaza small, but it's there, and so with the building that you have now, you have a public plaza that ignores its other team members, so to speak, of the gateway and creates a place as if you were not in this place in this select location.

So I'm sorry if it's I'm not conveying this well, but it's not only a missed opportunity.

I feel like given this premium location, which I'm sure you'll benefit from, you're not making the most of the responsibility of what the building should be doing on that site.

So it's it's not just a missed opportunity.

I feel like it's it's a role that isn't being fulfilled in a sense.

So again, this is not to take away from the positives.

It's my own personal thought in terms of placemaking and design.

And then you've also made a big move to shape the plaza.

The shape of it is like a funnel that directs you straight to the PGE transformer.

Now I know you earlier you had said that Gini is strict and rigid, and they said you know, late in the game it has to be above.

If the idea in the beginning was clear enough, I think PAGE would have understood that.

Oh, we've got to clear the space out.

It's a huge move.

We can accommodate something.

So saying PGE wouldn't budge, and we just said, okay, I understand that's what happened.

I don't think that was that's not a great excuse because if the idea were clear enough and strong enough, they would have made an accommodation.

I think the city would have pushed for it, you guys would have pushed for it.

I think you guys did not understand like the gem that you have in this site and did not take advantage of it fully.

The process of getting the artwork that happened through many, many conversations with the community, and I appreciate that it happened that it's being saved.

Um but had there were uh had there been an understanding of what you had to begin with, I think the clarity of the design would have been there, and you wouldn't have to go through the rigmarole and all those conversations, and a lot of the time and effort and money could have been spent in making the project, you know, go to the next level.

So I understand provides housing, provides a public space, but it is doing so in a way that does acknowledge not acknowledge its role as an anchor, as a gateway member, and one of four that mark this very, very important place in our city.

So I'm sorry, it's really long, but I just feel like I wanted to, you know, make it stated uh or state it so that you understand where I'm coming from.

So um I'll just leave it at that for now.

Thanks.

Are you going to apply and further so that we can give you more time?

If you like to continue on, I don't we don't want to cut you back or hold your back.

No, no, I'm not cutting back right now.

My mouth is dry, it's tired.

I'm I'm tired.

You're guys are tired, but uh, I'm hoping I was able to convey it.

I'm not working at my best potential either here.

Um that's quite right.

No, I'm thank you for sharing.

Thank you, Commissioner Yan.

Thank you.

Um, Commissioner Donahue.

So I think this is a obviously it's it's a premier location in town.

It's a great location for uh for for redevelopment.

Uh it's right near the downtown, uh it's with the walking distance of the downtown, it's obviously within walking distance of the 522 bus stop, which is right there.

Um, and it's uh I like a lot of the the elements I like the the trees that are being preserved, that's screen of trees that that uh delineates the the existing uh uh residential uses from from the project, um and uh and the the plaza trees with the the not only 48-inch box trees but 84-inch box trees, which are really huge, um that's I think uh fantastic that the the tree stuff uh 20 27.1% canopy at maturity, which is above the what we're gonna talk about the 22.7 percent that we're gonna talk about uh later tonight.

Um the and and the artwork actually is uh preserving the artwork, I think is great.

We're um I'm on the Quest of Park neighborhood email list, and somebody sent this out a few years ago.

The first response was what's gonna happen to the mural?

And I'm glad to see that that's been answered, and it will be um uh preserved.

I have a uh a book called Public Art in Mountain View.

It's kind of a booklet put out by the visual arts committee, I think in the 90s, and it's it's one of the there's like three dozen uh artworks across town, and it's one of them that's in there.

So I'm glad to see that it will be that it will be preserved.

Um, so as far as the um the interface with the existing uh uh uses, uh, you know, the neighboring uh residential uses.

I am somewhat disappointed in the the waiver of the 45 degree angle.

Uh I dusted off my high school trigonometry skills and uh and it looks like it's about a 55 degree angle, which is a pretty considerable difference.

Um not totally thrilled with that, but it's I don't think there's really anything that we can do that we can do about that.

Unfortunately, um the um, as far as other waivers, I'm not quite as concerned.

The um uh I think it's uh a bit ironic that the um that the one of the waivers has to do with the fact that the uh the property line cuts in for the bus stop there, and so there needs to be a waiver for that, but the bus stop is the thing that allows uh some of the uh uh I think it's well now I now I forget exactly what the bus the uh the parking requirements reduce parking requirements.

Um so anyway, it's kind of ironic that that the bus stop kind of cuts both ways.

But anyway, um obviously the the thing that I mentioned before that everybody's been talking about is the kind of the Amazon deliveries, UPS, things like that.

I think I hope that in the uh near future that you kind of come up with some sort of a an answer to that, so you know when it comes to council that that you have some sort of a uh uh a plan that um that that will work.

Um yeah, other other than that, I think that uh oh the other thing that I love is the um not only the the affordable units but the um uh very low-income affordable units that are inclusionary.

So it I I just think that that's uh that's great.

Um so yeah, overall I think it's um definitely not perfect.

I mean, no project is, but I think that it's uh I think it's worth supporting.

Thank you, Commissioner Donahue.

Commissioner Yen.

Okay.

Commissioner Dempsey.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

So I don't think I'm gonna break any new ground with with comments that I have tonight.

Um I'm definitely gonna support this project, so let me just get that out there now.

Um I sat and tried to, as my colleagues were talking, I tried to make a list of things that I liked about this project, and I I started running out of space on my on my paper, frankly.

And so I think there's a lot that really sh that is admirable and deserves recognition in this.

And it's frankly, it's things that people have already mentioned.

It's you know, we it's densification of Castor Street and it's better utilization of that space.

That's absolutely true than a you know, big empty parking lot, except for when it's a Christmas tree lot.

Um, you know, it it really is bringing more people down to Castro so it can activate the street better.

We want that.

We're there's all kinds of things we're trying to do to get more people down there.

You can walk, just walk down Castle Street and go jump on VTA or go jump on Caltrain.

That's a really good thing.

We want people down there.

Uh the affordable housing additions and the fact that it was done inclusionary and it's properly dispersed throughout the building.

That's fantastic.

You save the art, which is I mean, I'd love to see how in the heck you're gonna cut that mural out and replace it somewhere.

I'd love to see you actually do that.

Like that should be that's gonna be a great YouTube clip one day.

Um, you know, I'm glad to see that there is some retail activations out on Castor Street because Castle Street needs it.

Castro Street really does need it.

That's not the most appealing part of Mountain View, uh or uh El Camino is not the most appealing part.

Castor is wonderful.

Uh El Camino, uh, not always my favorite.

Uh, it needs some help.

The fact that you've got uh, you know, 1.5 to 1 tree replacement rate, that's aw, I love that.

Let's let's stick some more trees in there.

That's good stuff.

The fact you pay living wages to your construction workers, that is really admirable because not everybody does that.

There's so much I like about this.

I say all that, and then to be honest, there was a couple parts that were disappointing.

They're understandable, but they're disappointing.

I feel like I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't say it.

Um, you know, I am a little disappointed that the retail activation isn't all the way across uh El Camino.

That corner where Clark's was.

I, you know, I would have loved to have seen that activated all the way across.

Because when we and we put it in the precise plan for a reason that uh you know, in a village center like that, you've gotta you have to have that ground floor activation, and and part of why I care about that, it's really gets to what Commissioner Yin was talking about.

When big you know, what I don't want to have happen with El Camino is just to have it turn into a walled canyon.

That's why we activate ground floor, right?

We want it to be welcoming.

We, you know, one of the things I love about the building that's across the street where Mr.

Sun is and where Elon is, there is a space out front.

There's uh, you know, there's a fountain, there's some places you can sit.

And I I myself have gone there many times and gotten boba with my son.

We sit out, sit out front or whatever.

That's really kind of nice.

I like that.

That feels good to me when I drive by, and I live down sort of by there, and so I see people out there with their dogs.

Like that's a nice feeling.

And I actually am a little bit worried with this, that it does sort of turn its back on Castro, I think was the phrase that Commissioner Yin used.

And that when I when I look at the pictures and when I imagine how I'm gonna feel driving down that street, as I do almost every day, that doesn't feel welcome.

I don't feel welcome there.

It's just a wall.

And I mean, yeah, you know, the the Chase building kind of looks cool, I admit that.

But I don't, I'm not being invited anywhere.

And that that kind of bums me out a little bit.

Um, and there's nothing we there's nothing that we can do about it.

I totally get how the law works, that's fine.

But I do feel like there was a little bit of a missed opportunity to welcome to welcome people in from both sides.

And I understand that that's a hard thing to do from a construction standpoint.

Um, but you know, those kids coming home at three o'clock from Graham, they're just gonna walk past a big old wall all the way down to the corner.

And that I don't know, that just feels like a lost opportunity.

Um that's enough.

That's enough for me.

But I do support the uh project.

You did a lot of really good things for the city here.

I'm glad there's folks who are gonna be able to come and live here, especially those that can do it affordably.

So good on you.

Thank you, Commissioner Dempsey, Commissioner Pham.

So I don't have a lot to add from what my commission my fellow commissioners have already said.

Um I'll echo some of the things that I like about the project.

The tree preservation replanting is really neat.

Also, um the addition of housing, especially affordable units is really great and supported as well.

And it's uh really awesome that uh the applicant and others were able to find a way to keep some of the artwork.

Um, one of the things that I read in the staff report that was really impressive and really neat to me was um the outreach and the solicitation of input from community members.

It listed 10 um community meetings in three years, which is really impressive.

So it shows that um the applicant really cared about getting input and incorporating it to design.

So that's all I have to say.

I'm gonna be supporting the project.

Thank you, Commissioner Pham.

And thank you, Grace, for your time and patience.

Okay, so we've let's move on to action.

So I'll make a motion and I think at this point in time.

Okay, cool.

Uh so Commission makes a motion seconded by Vice Chair Nunez to do the following number one.

Adopt a resolution of the city council, the city of Mountain View certifying the final supplemental environmental impact report and adopting findings of fact and mitigation monitoring and reporting program, and a statement of overriding considerations for the mixed use project at seven four nine West of Camino Real in Parent's APNs call in one nine three-02-049 and one nine three-02-050 in parents.

To be read in title only.

Further reading wave and permanent exhibit one to the APC staff report in parents, and prevents something.2 adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View approving a plant community permit and development review permit to remove an existing commercial bank building.

And a supplemental environmental impact report in Parent's S E I R in Parent was prepared for the project percentage of sections one five one five two and one five one six three of the California Environmental Quality Act to be read in title only.

Further reading waived in parentheses, exhibit two to the EPC staff report and a parent and point one to two.

Look at the language.

Thank you, by the way.

Adopt a resolution of the city council of the City of Mountain View conditionally improving a vesting preliminary partial map to create one lot with up to four commercial condominium units on a three point zero five acre lot at seven four nine west of Camino Real.

Parent's APNs call in one nine three-02-049 and one nine three-02-050 in parent to be read in title only.

Further reading waived.

Parent's exhibit three to the EPC staff report in parents.

Let's do the vote.

Yes, that was me.

Thank you.

Because I'm not going to restate the motion, but the motion passes with uh six years and one uh recuse.

Thank you.

So team, at this point in time, should we take a five-minute break?

Are you open to that?

Okay.

Let's do a five-minute break right now at uh the time is what?

I don't know, well, we'll do a ten minute break.

I mean, a five minute break now.

Thanks.

Okay, at nine oh one PM, we're back on.

Six point six point six new business.

But yet I find something here that says five point one.

Do we refer to six point one?

Okay.

Let's try and make these corrections ahead of time so that I don't call them out in public because I don't want to have people think that I'm capping on you guys.

So let's let's just try and work on that.

And also, food for thought, EPC Clerk, remind me, and remind the team if we can.

Let's see if we can get a pointer.

So that in case there's presentations and people want to point out to things and developer show up, they can use a pointer.

And if you can't get one, no problem, I will get one.

And I will give it kindly to the city so that you can use it from here on out.

That way you can remember me for the rest of your lives.

There you go.

We have a point right here.

Courtesy of uh, thank you.

All right.

So let's go with six point one biodiversity and urban forest plan draft.

First, we will have a staff presentation followed by public comments.

At the closure of public comment, the commission will ask general questions and deliberate on this item.

Let's begin with a staff presentation from Assistant Community Service Director Brenda Sylvia and senior management Analyst, Lynn's Miss Lindsey Wong.

Thank you.

Good evening, Commissioners.

My name is Brenda Sylvia, Assistant Community Services Director and Project Lead for the Biodiversity and Urban Forest Plan.

I am virtually joined by my project partner, Lindsay Wong, a senior management analyst, as well as Russell Hanson, Urban Forest Manager.

Also with us virtually, are members of our consultant team from the San Francisco Estuary Institute, also known as SFEI, who are co-presenting this item.

I am pleased to introduce Selena Pang and Lauren Stoneburner, who have led the development of the plan in partnership with city staff.

Tonight we will present the draft biodiversity and urban forest plan, answer your questions, and receive your feedback.

We are specifically requesting input from the commission on the discussion question outlined in the staff report.

Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge the city project team.

They aren't here, but their time, knowledge, and expertise has been invaluable throughout this effort.

John Marchant, Community Services Director, Russell Hanson, Urban Forest Manager, Tim Youngberg, Parks and Open Space Manager, Jeffrey Sumera, Senior Planner, Danielle Lee, Chief Sustainability and Resiliency Officer, Ariel Saidna Saidnia, Senior Project Manager, Raymond Wong, Senior Civil Engineer, and many more city staff who helped support the development of the draft plan.

Excuse me.

All right, I'll give you a little bit of background.

In June 2021, City Council adopted the strategic roadmap map, which included sustainability and climate resiliency as a key priority.

Two related projects were identified to update the 2015 Community Tree Master Plan and define biodiversity requirements for landscaping.

Staff began working on both projects, partnering with Davy Resource Group for the Community Tree Master Plan update and SFEI for a biodiversity strategy.

Based on feedback from the Parks and Recreation Commission and our community, the scope of the project is expanded to integrate the CTM CTMP Community Tree Master Plan into a broader biodiversity and urban forest plan developed by SFEI with support from Davey Resource Group.

The plan is the first of its kind in the Bay Area, providing a unified science-based framework for enhancing biodiversity and managing Mountain View's urban forest.

The plan is a guiding document that lays out priorities and recommendations, recommended actions.

It doesn't include cost timelines or detailed targets.

Once the plan is adopted, city staff will take the lead in implementing it.

Some key milestones in the project include in 2022, the Parks and Rec Commission reviewed the consultant scope of work.

In 2023, the Parks and Rec Commission reviewed project updates, outreach information, and offered guidance to strengthen the public engagement process.

In 2024, the Parks and Rec Commission reviewed research findings, outreach results, and the draft vision goals and objectives.

I will now hand things over to SFEI Selena Pang and Lauren Stoneburner, who will share an overview of the draft plan and the process that brought us here.

Thank you for that intro, Brenda.

And can you all hear me?

All good.

I'm not seeing nods, Brenda with Yes, we're good.

Perfect.

Thank you so much.

I just wanted to make sure I wasn't talking to myself.

I'm Lauren Stoneburner.

I am an environmental scientist at the San Francisco Estuary Institute.

And like Brenda mentioned, I'm joined by Selena Peng, also an environmental scientist and planner at the San Francisco Estuary Institute or SFEI.

And thank you, Commissioner, so much for inviting us here tonight to talk about the plan and for bringing your input with you.

We're very excited to be here and hear what thoughts you have.

So in this presentation, we'll try to keep it short for you so we can get to the discussion.

But we'll first just introduce the plan review process, and then we'll spend most of the time talking about the contents of the plan, and that includes the input ingredients to developing the plan, introducing the recommended path to implementation, and the tools for evaluation of the plan after implement uh as it's implemented, and then we'll just briefly provide an overview of the supplemental guidance that's appended to the plan, and then we'll leave time for feedback and our discussion.

So here is the review process and timeline.

We're towards the beginning of the draft review process.

And prior to today, staff from across city departments have provided the first round of review of the draft plan and the draft.

This current draft is the first publicly released draft for public review and comment.

We heard comments from the Parks and Rec Commission last week, and we're presenting the same draft tonight to the Environmental Planning Commission.

And we are also receiving comments from the public through this coming Friday on the project website, biodiversitymv.com.

We're then going to revise the plan and return to the Parks and Rec Commission again in January 2026.

And pending the Parks and Rec Commission's approval and recommendation to the City Council, the plan would be reviewed by City Council first in April 2026 and then hopefully finalized and adopted in June 2026.

So now we'll spend the bulk of our time providing an overview of the contents of the plan.

As Brenda mentioned, the Mountain View Biodiversity and Urban Forest Plan is a set of vision, a vision, goals, and objectives that promote access to, enjoyment of, and benefits from nature.

And the science-based assessments, community perspectives, and city perspectives were central to setting the plan's priorities.

This document, like Brenda mentioned, also serves as an update to the 2015 Community Tree Master Plan.

And importantly, integrating biodiversity and urban forest planning will better inform how to manage Mountain View's landscape as a single cohesive urban ecosystem.

And also because the terms biodiversity and urban forest can be interpreted in different ways.

We also just want to provide a brief set of definitions.

By biodiversity, we mean the diversity of all living things in an ecosystem, including mammals, pollinators, plants, and birds.

And by urban forest, we mean the entire population of trees in an urban area, including both in the built-up developed areas of a city and the vegetated naturalized areas.

And so, like I alluded to, the three key sources of information that were the pillars to developing the plan were community perspectives around what the Mountain View community feels is important to uplift in the biodiversity and urban forest plan, a science-based assessment of what's needed to support biodiversity and urban forest health, and then city staff input on what is feasible to achieve through this plan.

So these three inputs were synthesized together to develop the plan, which charts the path from vision at the bottom to action at the top.

And so we're going to walk through each of these components individually, but in short, to summarize here, the vision forms the foundational underpinning of the that leads to the goals and objectives.

The metrics and targets are what enable the city to evaluate progress towards the objectives, and then the actions are the concrete steps that the city can implement to make progress towards the vision.

So first, I'll just give a brief overview of what the inputs to the plan were.

The science-based assessment started with an assessment of the historical landscape and ecology of Mountain View.

That's what you're seeing in this map, and it represents pre-Euro-American settlement of the landscape and around the mid-18th to early 19th century.

And then we kind of describe how the landscape has changed over time from that historical landscape to today.

And then we also broadly evaluate the projected future climate conditions to understand growing threats.

Also, part of this science-based assessment was an assessment of biodiversity.

Our biodiversity assessment was based on the biodiversity urban biodiversity framework, which was published in SFEI's 2019 Making Nature City Report.

And using the urban biodiversity framework, we evaluated seven essential landscape elements, which are shown in this diagram, including patches and connections to identify the needs and opportunities to improve ecological conditions and support greater biodiversity in the city.

And then the final dimension of the technical assessment was evaluating conditions of the urban forest.

And so in that chapter, we examined tree canopy cover across the city, the composition of public trees, which are trees that are owned or managed by the city, the threats to the urban forest, and then the benefits that you are likely to see from trees in the city.

And then finally, actually, I'm sorry, this was the second pillar is seeking input from the Mountain View community.

The goals of engaging the community were to first enhance public awareness of the plan and also to generate meaningful input from a diverse range of participants, including those who otherwise might not have sought out participating in an in a biodiversity and urban forest plan.

And we ended up with over 1,300 community interactions, over six workshops, three pop-up events, an online community survey, and postings on the project webpage.

And we worked closely with the city to develop the plan.

I mentioned the plan is housed within and led by the community services department.

We also had meetings, workshops, and consultation with our city project team, which included staff from the community services department, city manager's office, community development department, and public works department.

And we also consulted with advisory bodies, native rec commission, and we also worked in close collaboration with the urban forest manager, Russell Hansen on the urban forest components of the plan.

And in addition to consulting with the city, we also reviewed city and regional policies and plans in order to align and dovetail our plan with other efforts.

So we synthesize the input from the science, community, and city to develop the plan.

We'll introduce each step from vision to action, but to save time and jump kind of right into discussion, we're not going to dive deeply into the content.

So the vision is a single sentence that represents the city's North Star or where the community envisions Mountain View, what the city envisions Mountain View looks like in the future by living the community's shared values and ideals.

Resilient are the values that we heard often through our community engagement.

Abundant access to both nature and its benefits represent the community's value of access to nature for recreation and enjoyment, and also value of the services that nature provides, like clean air and water, cooling and human health.

And the last component for people and native species alike harkens back to the next tier, goals translate the vision into long-term, tangible aspirations, and for nature.

And it acts like a compass that eventually would lead you to that North Star vision.

And there we outlined four goals: connect people and nature.

By this, we meant connections in all directions, connecting people to nature and place, connecting nature to nature, and connecting people to each other in their community.

The second goal is foster places of refuge.

And here we're referring to balancing improving natural resources for both people and nature.

The third goal is build resilience.

We're referring to resilience of the urban forest, of natural resources and habitats, and resilience in a changing climate.

And finally, activate and collaborate, represents engaging and kind of enlisting support and partnership with the community with practitioners and projects and across city departments and also with other external agencies.

And then the next level is objectives, which translate the high-level vision and goals into specific, measurable, and practical commitments that guide the city's implementation.

So there are 11 objectives here.

I won't walk through all of them, but just to give you an example, in order to work towards goal one, connect people and nature.

The objectives include supporting a network of connected green space and fostering a cultural shift that spotlights biodiversity to instill a sense of place.

So we can flip back to these slides in our discussion if it's helpful and you want to look at the language that we have in the plan.

And related to these objectives, there are then two components that will drive the day-to-day execution of the plan.

And the first are actions, and those are the concrete steps that the city can take to implement and make strides towards the objective.

On the other hand, there's targets and metrics, which are evaluation tools, and the metrics are the methods of measuring progress, like this ruler, and the targets are the milestones along the way that help you see how far you've come.

City staff on the city project team played a big role in helping us develop these the implementation and evaluation components of the plan, especially.

They helped us identify steps that are feasible for the city and to tie actions to city processes and operations where possible.

And again, we can flip back to these slides if we want to pull them up.

And I think I'll just for the sake of time, I think I'll just flip through these slides and again we can come back.

But the I'm sorry, I'll go back to the first goal, but you can see how there's a nesting structure where you have the goals with nested objectives, and each objective is tied to specific actions.

And then, like I mentioned, the targets and metrics enable the city to track progress towards the objectives.

And we outlined two sets of metrics.

First, we put forward 14 recommended metrics that the city can readily implement with the information that it already collects currently.

And with these 14 metrics, each objective is touched on by at least one metric, so meaning that there's full coverage of the objectives with these recommended metrics.

And then we also offer 10 additional supplemental metrics that would require additional data collection beyond what the city currently tracks, and these supplemental metrics also span all objectives, and appended to the plan, we also provide four complementary guides.

Um, there is a lot of detailed guidance in these uh guide resources, and they're very specific and applied.

And so we collectively decided with the city to format these guides as independent self-contained resources so that the city and community can pull out these guides, print them and use them separately from the plan.

And the city felt that this would be the most usable way that the city could apply these resources in their day-to-day operations and decision making.

So the guides cover specific resources on urban landscaping strategies, plant and tree lists, uh strategies for urban forest policies, operations, and management, and a guide on monitoring and target setting.

So, again, um we really appreciate how much expertise is in this room and also how much enthusiasm that the commission and also the public bring for making Mountain View healthier and more biodiverse.

And so we came up with some um discussion topics to help leverage all of the amazing ideas and knowledge that you all bring.

So, you know, this is um something that you can use or you can speak um kind of on the the items that you feel are important, but um we would love to uh get your thoughts on whether the plan aligns with city needs and priorities, and whether the the plan and particularly actions are feasible and have the necessary impact, and then finally what could be done to lower barriers to implementation of the plan, and because the actions, metrics, and targets are what really influence the city's day-to-day operations and execution of the plan.

Um, any comments that you have on those are especially welcome.

And then just to show the review process and timeline again.

This is the first draft that's released to the public, and we have several more review stages ahead.

The plan is planned for adoption in June 2026, and anyone can follow updates at biodiversitymv.com.

So thank you again for your time and review of the plan.

We're excited to hear your ideas, and I'm gonna pass it back to Brenda to close us out.

Thank you, Lauren, and thank you, commissioners, for your time and engagement on this process.

This plan is truly groundbreaking, and Mountain View is really paving the way, so we're very excited about this being a leader in the Bay Area and a leader with a plan like this.

So thank you.

Thank you.

We'll move on to public comment.

If anyone in the tenants would like to provide comments on this item, please fill out a yellow speaker card and provide it to the APC clerk.

If anyone on Zoom would like to provide a comment on this item, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone.

Phone users can mute and mute themselves with star six.

APC click.

Yes, um, we have uh five members on or six members online and two in person.

Uh, would you prefer in person or we'll do it in person first and then the callers online and does everyone have a uh maximum of three minutes, or can I modify that?

You can modify it.

Two minutes, please.

Okay, two things.

Um, the first speaker in person is uh Andrea Wald.

Good evening.

My name is Andrea Wald.

I'm co-founder of Community for Natural Place Services.

On October 12th, I sent an email regarding the draft biodiversity and urban forest plan to you all, and included city council members and park and rec commission members.

I believe the info contained in my message is something that should be shared with all who have input on future processes and decisions in Mountain View.

The draft is amazing and contained a wealth of information and relative findings and suggestions.

However, it did not go far enough in that artificial turf, which is a toxic plastic ground covering and whose use is counterproductive to the goals of your plan, is never ever mentioned.

The intent of the plan you're discussing is to help make Mountain View greener, cooler, and healthier.

It concentrates heavily on trees and shrubs and also natural things that will contribute to quoting from the plan, a healthier and more diverse city.

It brings up all the to-dos, but nothing much about what should be avoided.

I will not take up your time now to reiterate my reasons why artificial turf should not should be brought up in the plan.

I only hope you will take the time to read what I sent and feel a need to take action on my suggestion.

If anyone wants more info or to discuss with me further, please do reach out.

I am very passionate about cities doing the right thing for their communities and for the future of our planet.

Thank you.

Hello, commissioners.

I sent a very long public comment.

I hope you enjoyed the comics of my struggles with squirrels.

I think that the plan, especially since it's pioneering, needs to take responsibility for all effects that it will have so that it's not going into rewilding, which is basically what it is, blindly.

We had 75% of survey respondents say that allergies are at least somewhat important.

The plan makes no mention of strategies to minimize allergies with plant selection.

At least 75% of survey respondents said that they were concerned about nuisance animals and pests.

How much do people want more crows?

Sunnyvale had a mega murder of crows that I don't know if they're still trying to tackle.

Do we want to put out a bunch more food for this wildlife?

So I would say this plan needs to not just tout the benefits of biodiversity, but also look at the science.

I provided references for what the holistic impact will be to the quality of life in our city.

Thank you.

Our first speaker will be Shani.

You may now speak or unmute yourself.

Good evening.

We have been advocating for this plan for a very long time, and we're glad to see it moving forward.

A couple of small comments for tonight.

One is that it's very gratifying to see the division, look through what nature and biodiversity, and not only through the anthropocentric view of how of what does it good for people, but also nature in itself has value.

That is wonderful.

However, I think that the vision statement is hard to understand.

And if it's possible to simplify that, I would go for simplification.

I understand that some people are concerned.

So if you want to see examples that are working as to how you can integrate our uh natural environment into the urban environment, I think looking at the mountain views on North Bay Shore is a great example where Google has planted oaks and all kinds of locally native plants and the monarchs followed.

And it's absolutely beautiful to see butterflies, which children don't get to see anymore.

And it's just something very, very special with the bird life and the pollinators and the butterflies.

Sunnyvale has a native um native flower, wildflower meadow in front of their city hall.

And if you haven't seen it yet, please go see it.

It's absolutely beautiful, even when it's not in full bloom.

So it's feasible to do a really in a real integration of nature into an urban environment.

I would only say a couple of things if I still have time and it's hard to tell.

Um it's great to focus on trees, but please look for immediate actions that don't take time and don't take a long process.

Uh we have in this area tremendous variety of shrubs that are native to the region and support a lot of butterflies, and potentially the city could just start planting only that selection in the city's uh landscaping and maintaining things differently.

And if you just do those two things, we get a long way into the.

Thank you so much for your comments.

You've reached a two-minute time limit.

I apologize for interrupting you, but by all means I encourage you to send the rest of your ideas in to our team through an email.

Thank you so much.

Uh next we have uh Dashu Leeds.

Dashell, um you can unmute and speak.

Hello, thank you.

Uh, my name is Dasha Weeds.

I'm the conservation coordinator for the Sierra Club Lumber Prieta chapter.

Uh we broadly support the biodiversity and urban forest plan and uh have advocated in its support as well.

Um I just want to talk a little bit about trees and um to emphasize the importance of using locally native trees, which have far greater benefits for local biodiversity than non-native drought tolerant species or even California native trees from other regions.

Um, so just really emphasizing the use of locally native plants to really enhance that biodiversity impact.

I know that the plan discusses the balance between this, and we hope that the balance uh prioritizes locally native species uh wherever possible.

We also support the rapid uh implementation of the biodiversity plan once adopted, so we hope that the city really hits the ground running and uh begins working on implementing the plan as quickly as possible.

I also want to support uh the comments made before uh by Chenille from the Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance.

Thanks so much for your time and consideration.

Uh next we have Bruce England.

Bruce, uh you can unmute.

Thank you.

Um, yeah, we're not seeing timers on the screen for the remote people, so you might want to take that into account.

I think I've got my own timer running.

Bruce England, member of Green Spaces Mount, who's speaking for myself tonight.

In general, I like what I've read so far, which is most of the plan.

I've got six short comments and one question.

One like the various, I like that various city departments are involved involved in the development process on this and other key city plans, actually.

Number two, strategy was dropped from the title.

Not sure why, but that could be problematic for those running searches on the original title.

Number three, private property canopy full details are truly needed for this plan, at least eventually.

Otherwise, you're not looking at as full a data set as you ideally should.

Number four, practical details regarding actions to be taken should be more fully described, including timelines and dependencies.

Dark skies is currently off the ri the radar, it seems, and the city is called out, but that's vague and can mean multiple things.

Five, as you know, Green Spaces, Mountain View members, and others have raised objections to heritage tree removals in both public and private projects.

We feel it's particularly important to establish clear and reasonable guidelines for tree removal, approvals, and appeals beyond what we have today.

This will make life easier for commissioners too.

PRC and EPC.

Number six, I appreciate all the comments and questions raised so far from commissioners and the public, including what PRC commissioners brought up regarding artificial turf and adjacent city uh canopy levels of cities meaning around our area, around Mountain View.

These Dales does these details could easily be missed along the way.

And my question is how will other plans, city plans be impacted by work on this plan through the review phases and vice versa.

That's uh still unclear to me.

So I think I'm within the two minutes.

Thank you.

Uh next we have uh Aisha Thiessen.

Uh Aisha, you should be able to speak or unmute yourself.

Hello, I am Aisha.

I represent the Guardian project, which is a grassroots volunteer effort to save the burrowing owl, specifically in Shoreline Park.

And looking over the plan, I was surprised to see that in the biodiversity ambassadors, burrowing owls weren't included, and instead they're only what we call urban tolerant or common species like frogs, warblers, and lizards.

And in fact, there were no local species of conservation's concern, not just the burling owl, but like the tricolor blackbird, the western pond turtle.

And uh it's pretty disappointing because we've been fighting for the burrowing owl, which has been dropping, plummeting in numbers since the 80s, and over a year ago, our biologist was put on administrative leave.

He still is, we still don't have a biologist supporting us, and yet there are more volunteers now than ever before.

So I am curious what the disconnect between this plan and the local community is, as we have been leaving input online, volunteers going to your meetings, bringing up the brolling owls, and yet they are still do not appear in the plan.

And uh yeah, I just want to know why, especially because we're fighting so hard to get support, and we're not getting it, and that's all I have to say about that.

Uh thank you.

Um next speaker is April Webster.

Um, you should be able to unmute and speak.

Hi, thank you.

Um, I want to start by saying, sorry, I think this this plan is is groundbreaking and really strong on biodiversity.

I'm really happy to see that.

Um, but I want to ask the question: where are the people?

They seem to be missing from the urban ecosystem that's defined in this plan.

It highlights animal ambassadors, but there aren't any human ambassadors.

The people who walk, bike, um, seniors, people who are sensitive to heat, um, low-income communities.

Urban forests are just as much for people as for habitat.

Yet in this plan, they seem to have taken a back seat.

Trees aren't only ecological assets, they're public health infrastructure.

They make sidewalks and bike lanes usable when it's 95 degrees in full sun, mean radiant temperature.

What your body actually feels can exceed 120 degrees without shade or evapotranspiration from trees and um landscaping, that heat radiates off the streets, the asphalt, the buildings, and it makes our streets physically unsafe to walk or bike.

Um, the tree canopy assessment missed this connection as well.

It looks at parks and schools, but not sidewalks or bike lanes, the very spaces where people experience heat most directly.

So if we want um that to be usable, safe, we have to think about these corridors and our canopy and cooling zone analyses.

There's also a circular reference I noticed between this plan and the active transportation plan.

I'm on the technical advisory committee, and they both point to each other, yet neither sets measurable goals for reducing shade deserts or increasing canopy over sidewalks and bike lanes.

Um, they also don't talk about road diets and how that's going to happen.

Um, and we won't be able to find those shade deserts without an updated complete tree inventory.

Ours is 10 years old and it's missing fit for 15% of the trees missing metadata.

Um, and there's no clear plan to update that um or to maintain it.

Um, I want to say the cooling zones are a great start.

Um, I love to see that, but they don't include the tree equity index or healthy places index, which helps identify lower income neighborhoods.

Thank you for sharing your opinions.

I'm sorry, your time's at the limit now at two minutes, but please feel free to send in the rest of your comments through email to the EPC and we will read these.

Thank you.

Uh next we have um Tracy.

Uh Tracy, you should be able to unmute and speak.

Okay, can you hear me?

Yes.

I'm Dr.

Tracy Faria.

I am a PhD biologist.

I want to say we need to pay attention to the natives appearing to be walked back in multiple sections, and that should be cleaned up.

For example, pink sections eight and nine.

Uh, we all know humans are creatures of habit, and if we provide the easy out, even the great people will take an easier path.

None of the recommended metrics include natives.

Guide A, section C doesn't belong in the plan.

The green zone appears to be a way of going quickly without natives, yet saying we are meeting biodiversity goals.

Native planting escapes are built in multiple sections.

An example is goal two, action six, which says native and biodiverse plantings.

Biodiverse plantings are not defined.

Similarly, they use near native in places.

As a biologist, I don't know what that means, and can only surmise that means non-native.

To be clear, if it is not native, it is not supporting biodiversity.

Um the plan is intricate, but we can't lose sight that if we aren't planting natives, we are not supporting biodiversity.

It's that simple.

Our trees are currently only 15% native, so we should really put a moratorium on planting the non-natives and try to get quick tree plantings to be natives every day, or bushes, or shrubs, whatever.

Every day that we don't, we are literally losing biodiversity.

And as Lauren, the uh presenter of the plan said at the PRC meeting, artificial turf.

This is similar to non-native turf.

I'm sorry, I'm paraphrasing, I couldn't get her exact quote.

But uh for biodiversity, it needs to be native turf.

So she made the point there too.

Thank you so much.

And it's a great thank you for writing it and working on this.

Since I had time to put that in, there's a lot of positives and a lot of natives, so thank you.

Thank you.

Um, our last speaker is um Mary DeTeo.

Mary, you should be able to unmute.

Um, good evening.

I'm excited to see this biodiversity plan.

Um, and um I'm excited to see that more native trees um are being added or being recommended to be added to the city's um tree list.

Um given our city's projected growth.

I especially think that uh recommendations to set some development standards, um, are especially important, um, including uh I'd like to see in the stand our standards and include um guidelines about uh soil systems, engineered soils, etc., so that the uh trees that are under pavement can reach their um closer to their real canopy size.

Um cooling and greening are very important, and um I'm also as a previous speaker also following the active transportation plan very closely, and I want to echo the comments about um it's unclear how the departments, you know, there are different departments involved, and um I think it's in order to achieve our goals of greening and cooling and resilience, and also encouraging people to be out and walk.

It's extremely important that this plan, um, the greening goals be incorporated in the active transportation plan and that and recognition be given to how important um greening and cooling are to active transportation.

Um I was recently in a city in Utah that had very few trees, and it was only in the like the 80s, and it was just really draining to be out walking.

So we need these to be integrated.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you, sir.

Okay, let's begin with our APC questions.

First, let's go with general questions.

Are there any general questions regarding the topic?

Excuse me, this topic from the APC.

And from reminder, questions focused on individual recommendations should be held until later, and then Chair Nunez.

I guess I have a meta question.

Did you say that questions about the process are not for enough?

Just to come from.

Right.

So just to reiterate questions focused on individual recommendations should be held until later in the meeting.

Okay.

So we're just asking staff questions.

Okay.

Um I do I do have questions about the the like the native element.

Um I guess if you look at those like CO2 graphs and the, you know, it looks like significant change very fast.

Um curious um like, I guess the rationale, the assessment, like at what point and and from like a native plant perspective, at what point is that not appropriate, if at all?

Why why such an emphasis on native versus like functional?

Um, and I know that there's like language and they're like prioritize, but um, you know, at what like like within that prioritization, when does the nexus tilt toward okay, native doesn't work for for whatever purpose we're going for at whatever moment regards the plan implementation?

I can should I should I answer that?

Yes, please.

Okay, yes.

Um I please correct me if I'm not pointing to the section that you're referring to.

But I guess I could talk about guide A.

It would that be helpful.

I think um related to guide A, we provide some zones where planting strategies can be prioritized in one location or or another at the city scale.

We have um, I think it's called an ecological enhancement zone where we prioritize planting natives, and we identified those that zone um locationally based on its um uh proximity to important re uh natural resources for biodiversity, namely habitat patches and connections and special resources.

So um, because we expect that more um urban sensitive species, spent species that are um less tolerant of urban conditions would be found in habitat patches and moving through um more conserved corridors, um, providing native plant resources in those areas would be more beneficial.

On the other hand, um we the areas that are um less uh in close proximity to those natural resources we identified as greening zones.

It's a little bit more of a general term.

A lot of the same principles apply of converting um underutilized turf or converting um impervious cover to vegetated landscaped areas, but there's less emphasis on native because those sites are more likely to be more impacted with less vegetation in those areas.

They're probably experiencing greater heat and um having harsher soils, um, maybe greater contaminant.

And so greening um having a more flexible plant palette might enable those plants to thrive in those harsh conditions without having so many constraints on which plants you're selecting.

So we want to enable the plant selection to be responsive to the site condition, and that um just getting plants on the ground is better than no plants at all.

Um, so I hope that that responds to your question, Commissioner.

That was very helpful, thank you.

Um along those lines, uh, and yeah, I did I did look at that guide A component.

Um, but I guess one thing I'm just kind of like it's not a concern, it's just I more on observation at this stage.

Um I noticed a lot of language like prior prioritize, um, and um it is just like it's it's not clear to me when a prioritization has to go elsewhere in terms of an action.

So for example, um where it comes to some of the um uh kind of like the use of whether it's tree canopy or you know for urban forestry as a means to um, you know, kind of reduce heat corridors or to um, you know, kind of like a company or or support the use of um public infrastructure or transit stops or things of that nature.

Um there are areas in that um in the plan where it says you know, prioritize, you know, out of greening or I don't know what the verb would be, but um I guess I'm trying to understand more around like what are the circumstances under which for example a bus stop won't be able to support having tree canopy or something like that, right?

Like um, yeah, what's the like where's the wiggle room there is uh in broadly, I guess is what I'm trying to get at with regard to some of that public um because I I too am interested in the human infrastructure element of this, um, and especially as pertains to like heat corridors and to um those kind of like um bus stops where people would be just kind of like having you know heat rain down on them that I'm trying to understand why prioritize and why not like a shore or something of that type, if that makes sense in the language.

And are you referring to the actions in the plan or to the guide A?

Yeah Yeah, both.

I guess like I I noticed the word prioritize comes up a lot across the plan, and I'm trying to understand like why prioritize or like at what point is a priority not available.

I guess it's it's ambiguous, and maybe that's why I'm struggling to explain exactly the concern.

But I hope you hope you can fill in the thoughts.

I definitely hear your point there on, you know, maybe using the word prioritize so often might uh make it hard to see where the actual priority is.

Um I think the intention of the guidelines or the guide A urban landscaping is to um offer strategies and best practices, and so um it's a resource to use it if you are in a certain certain site type or um zone within the city, um, it gives you sort of a palette of options or a menu of options to look to on what can help you bring your project to the next level.

Um, as for the actions in the use of the word prioritize in um in that chapter, I would need to take a closer look at how we use that word, but I definitely hear your point on um how it can using the word prioritize often could potentially dilute that as a as a term.

So um I just want to say I I hear your point on that.

Okay, thank you very much for that.

Um, and then I guess um two more questions.

Um I did I did look through the plan I promise, and maybe I'm just maybe I'm neither a biologist nor a horticulturist, and so maybe this is just like escaping my like where, um, but in terms of some like assessment of like existing, because I did see there's like the analysis on the current canopy cover, right?

Um I guess I'm curious if there was an assessment or analysis done which may have like transposed for example like um uh like existing heat corridors or um like existing like hotter places of the city um as mapped against areas where um you know there might be less urban forestry resources as as exist today is there did I miss that can you speak to that yeah in the um we don't address or provide um like a technical analysis of heat exposure or heat risk in the urban forest assessment that would be chapter 3.2 but we do factor in the trust for public lands heat severity map um into the cooling zone of guide A urban landscaping so the areas that we've identified as um a priority for cooling through um tree canopy cover expansion um factors in exactly what you're describing which is the the overlap between areas of greatest heat severity um and heat exposure and the least canopy cover um also factored into the cooling zone are also the um the bikeways um but just to answer your question um yes that is where it is factored in okay thank you and then uh my last question um I guess like as much as much like you know I I love the wildlife um like I plant my garden for the squirrels actually um but I I am I am very curious about um it like the considerations around um if there was like that analysis around like you know the the kind of like I guess fauna um absorption rate that the city can support and tolerate um I guess like is there some ecological um you know kind of like unforeseen consequences for example that um that was a set or was some assessment of that type conducted as part of this just to make sure like you know as and if we do proceed with a plan such as this that um you know we're we're at least a little more conscious and deliberate toward um what kind of creatures we're inviting in um how that relates to you know um the need for humans to live in a city right um can you just speak to what kind of um you know considerations were taken as part of the development of the current draft yeah um I liked the term that Lada used earlier and now I'm not finding it in my notes it was something like um the the capacity tolerance or um of um of kind of undesirable species um people have different of opinion on you know raccoons and squirrels so um I won't try to get into that but um I'll just say that we did include um the challenges of inviting nature and greening and biodiversity into the urban environment in the community engagement process that was where it showed up the most and so we um uh asked the community to sort of rank their level of concern for various um challenges as well as the benefits of nature, and um we generally saw that the benefits were um ranked higher as an area of interest over the concerns, and the issue of um potential like nuisance or pest species was ranked relatively low on the list.

Um, and so that wasn't an area where we spent as much time um exploring in a more technical sense.

However, we did um include action nine, which focuses on mitigating human wildlife conflicts and the trade-offs of inviting biodiversity into the urban environment.

And so, um, the plan's purpose is inherently to support biodiversity, um, but it also seeks to consider the human needs and potential conflicts and um so action nine um promotes um investigating this a little bit more and um so that and giving kind of creating a framework for how Mountain View can collectively support biodiversity in a resilient forest while also managing these trade-offs.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And at this point, I'll do a point of personal privilege.

I have a quick question for the team.

So I think we're covered by their biomacks, so I'm just double checking here.

Do we need to extend or have a motion to extend the meeting after 10 o'clock?

Are we obliged to do that as well, or do we just go on until we finish?

EPC doesn't have that rule.

Great.

Thank you.

So having um understood that and having my question be answered, let's move on to Commissioner Fan.

All right, I have a few questions.

Um, one of my questions relates to the plant list.

It's clear that a lot of work went into it, it's a pretty extensive list and also a lot of discussion on the selection criteria.

I had a few questions specifically on the selection criteria.

The first one was regional nursery availability.

Nurseries are not something I know a lot about.

Um, what nurseries were considered?

Um, were they generally in the area?

Um, can we indicate on the list how far these trees may be coming from?

Yeah, this list was developed primarily by Davy Resource Group who isn't here tonight.

Um, so that is something that we could look into, but I do know just from my own experience that there is a database of um nursery of uh plant availability and um I there are sort of regional or geographic constraints you can put on that that search query.

Um so that's something we can take a note of to circle back to.

Um, but I I'm I would guess that Davy referenced that that database on um nursery plant availability.

Okay, great.

Um, another selection criteria that I had um a question on, I was just curious.

Um it was salt tolerance.

The report says that you know trees were selected based on if they could be successfully irrigated by reclaimed water in a hypothetical future if the quality of reclaimed water were to improve um in the next three to five years.

Would that open up additional plant species to be included on the list?

Um again, with Davy having been the lead on this, the lead on this um the tree list, um that is something that we can um ask them and gather more information about.

Um, as I'm not I'm not quite um as informed on whether changes in the technology of reclaimed water would change the criteria that we use for selecting plant species based on salt tolerance.

Um so that's something that we can just take a note of.

Okay, great.

Um, my next question has to do with the section on past and current context, which was great.

It helped me kind of understand where this plan is coming from and um how it relates to Mountain View.

Um, my question specifically was for future climate challenges.

There was language in the plan about what challenges um were identified and needed to be um accounted for in the future, but no sort of timeline on how far in the future, any sort of guidance or thought process you can share with us yeah um this was a section that we we actually drafted a much longer version of the of the plan if you can believe it and um we did have to uh boil it down and so um I don't have the the prior draft in front of me to reference the time frame but I would guess it would be somewhere within the century that we're we're talking about but that is another one we can take a note of right it may be good to note for the public so that they know how far in the future you may be thinking um to help understand the timeline.

Absolutely last question I had was related to grants and external funding in the next step section um there's mention of the Santa Clara County Urban Forest Master Plan, which is a document I wasn't aware of.

Can you speak a little bit about that and how you know future funding may come from there to help carry out these actions?

I'm gonna go ahead and defer to Russell Hanson our urban forest manager who can speak to that he sits on that committee.

Great can everybody can everybody hear me this evening.

Alright thank you commissioners um yeah in terms of the Santa Clara um urban forestry alliance what that really is intended is Santa Clara County has taken a lead to try and improve I'll say the collaboration between all the different agencies that ultimately reside within Santa Clara County.

As a result of that, kind of what we're going to be able to do is share a lot of resources in terms of outreach in terms of you know designing planting programs in terms of our species lists that we talk about etc and just having all of that information kind of prepared or otherwise um will I'll say um make us better situated in terms of when grants come available um Calfire has a regular program um where at least every year or two they're releasing um funds for grants um a lot of those are related to tree planting efforts etc um but they have also branched out in terms of maintenance and other kinds of activities um over the last several years based off of feedback from the different agencies and so forth that have been applying for these grants and so it it really just boils down to preparedness that we will have the ability to work with these other agencies to very quickly um build list builds programs build outreach all of those different things to where it just it makes our applications look a little bit better I guess is the best way to put it okay thank you a follow-up question sounds like there's a lot of collaboration and resource sharing at the county level are there other um government levels or entities that could help provide funding to help further these actions or goals I mean ultimately there are grants that come from the federal agencies that come from the state agencies as well as there are absolutely other nonprofit groups or otherwise um that typically will take some of those funds from some of these other I'll say higher agencies and then maybe come responsible for the actual disbursements of the grants and so forth California Urban Forestry Council is just one of many that kind of come um to mind in that regard but um yeah the the the green industry has them at all levels of government as well as even in the private sector in the nonprofit groups.

Okay thank you.

Thank you Commissioner Fam.

Moving on to Commissioner Donahue.

So guide D has a lot of it's kind of a framework.

It has a lot of fill-in-the-blank kinds of things for developing these metrics.

At what point will those get filled in?

Is that is the idea that those get filled in later in the process so that by the June uh adoption, all that's there, or is that kind of a the plan just kicks off that process and then that gets done later?

Yes, we're intending to build a an implementation team within the city, much like the city project team, where that team would look across departmental what would work, what's realistic, what's feasible.

So it would be after plan adoption that we're looking at that to fill in those blanks.

Okay.

So the the metrics then wouldn't wouldn't be wouldn't go to the city council and and well there are metrics that are laid out in the plan that are recommended and some that are um suggested, but those fill in the blanks are more of a, correct me if I'm wrong, Lauren and Selena.

They're more of like a guide, like a suggestion, like this is something that you could be tracking and reporting out.

Yeah, to clarify the the fill in the blanks column are the targets.

So that's what you're trying to get to by a certain date, and the metrics are what you're measuring.

It's like the yardstick you're using to measure um to get to that target.

Okay.

Um, along those lines, the well it this is actually even in the uh the presentation.

The there's the targets and metrics slide has basically targets and metrics and how they track towards uh meeting certain objectives, which is useful, but also each objective has multiple actions, and if there's an objective that has three actions, um it would be nice to be able to see which action is the thing that is helping us meet the objective so that we can pour more resources into that action versus into some other action.

So uh the tar uh pairing it with objectives makes sense in one respect, but uh kind of targeting uh pairing it with actions would make sense in another respect.

What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I definitely um hear that you know being able to provide something concrete to um be able to demonstrate progress towards the actions and the contribution of actions to the objective would be helpful.

We did intentionally decide for the metrics to measure the outcomes of the um towards the objectives as a more of a holistic or cohesive framework where um the activities that you're conducting, meaning the actions that you're conducting may change over time, and regardless of the actions changing, you're still working towards the same objectives, goals, and ultimately vision.

So then that way it has a little bit more staying power than if you were tracking individual actions.

Yeah, I mean I I can see both both ways.

It so anyway, I just wanted to point out that that's that's another way of looking at it.

Um I think that's probably all my questions for now.

Thanks.

Thank you, Commissioner Donkey.

Commissioner again.

Thanks.

Um, I think the document is impressive, it's a great start.

I know right now you're just looking to get feedback to fine-tune and tweak and um get some more input as to how to make it better.

So um one of the questions I had, and these are the ones that maybe overlap with what some of the public had asked.

Um, I know we've up here seen a lot about the Dark Skies ordinance and it hasn't really come forward, but I think maybe there's some basic principles that are there.

Has that been looked at and is that I didn't see it, but is that folded into the plan anywhere?

Um, and it does it leave room for the plan to change when that does come to fruition.

So one of the action items is actually to develop a Dark Skies ordinance, which we have started internally as a team, so that's one of the action items, so the the actual ordinance is not baked into this this plan.

Okay, no, that's great news to hear.

Thank you.

Um, I I also read that there are some more regional programs that like there's an SB coming up regarding this or an A B.

I forgot.

Um, and I was wondering how this document then will tie to some of the larger plans that are coming aboard or in place.

Sure.

Do you want to speak a little bit to that, Lauren?

How this plan kind of cohesively works together with all of the other active transportation plan or precise plans, things like that.

Do you do you have first thoughts, Brenda, you'd like to share?

Well, we did work collaboratively with all the different departments that are working on all these different plans.

So they all weighed in heavily on this biodiversity and urban forest plan, and how would it tie into, for example, active transportation?

Um how can we create these sort of green zones and these these um uh corridors, if you will, in conjunction with active transportation.

So we had representatives from, like I said, all different departments and divisions that set in uh sustainability and climate resiliency.

So we made sure that this plan works together in tandem with other plans in the city.

Also, SFBI took a look at all of our different guiding policies, guiding plans that exist currently in the city and crafted this biodiversity and urban forest plan based on those existing plans.

Do you want to anything else I'm missing?

No, that was perfect.

Thanks, Brenda.

Okay, thank you.

Um, another question was oh um artificial turf.

Is that discussed in the document?

I didn't necessarily see uh a discussion of it, and I as person agree that you know we should try to avoid using artificial turf.

Maybe not everyone's opinion, but um is there a discussion or was there thought going into whether or not to include it, not include it, and what were those reasons?

That one I want to defer to Lauren.

Yeah, the artificial turf topic um definitely came up in our discussions with the city as we were formulating the the plan and also what we would be um getting input from the community on, and we ultimately decided that um the high use recreational spaces that are covered by turf where there's heavy foot track traffic is kind of outside the scope of this plan and not a focus.

Um the guidance that we provide and the strategies that we're putting forward focus more on where and how to um potentially convert underutilized turf, whatever form, um, into more structurally diverse and higher performing plantings for biodiversity um for or for other multiple benefits.

So um, you know, the the differences between one turf or another were a little bit outside the purview of this plan.

Okay, uh does the city have any?

Since you're working holistically within the city and there are lots of plans.

Artificial turf um like Lauren said, we we use that for recreation programming, not to enhance biodiversity and and greening in our city.

So we again like Lauren said, we felt like that was outside of the scope of this plan.

It's not this plan doesn't talk about recreation programming, which is what our artificial artificial turf is currently used for.

So that would sports fields.

Right.

So then where would that fall in the city's purview?

I guess which department mainly would it would be parks and recs.

It would be parks and recreation.

That would be part of the parks and recreation strategic plan, which we're currently working on.

Okay.

Um just a point of clarification.

For the majority of the funding for those programs come from the Mountain Mew Whisper School District.

They have oversight over the fields, like Graham and Quinton and Middle Schools.

So they have jurisdiction over the funding to that, which is why uh where I pitched in to help.

Mentioning that I don't like artificial turf.

I want grass because of various reasons.

I've already been stated before.

So that's a partnership issue, I think.

Let's see, where are we the other questions?

See if I can get them all into one shot.

Otherwise, you know, yeah, you have to come back.

Um, I think you answered this one already.

Yes.

Size class distribution.

Um I saw that there was one table or chart that had a goal of size distribution.

I was curious.

Um we have to get into super detail about where it came from, but um it did it did show that Mountain View was sort of short on the larger older trees and made a point to say that we should take care to preserve our heritage trees.

I was also curious um if we had uh some thought in the plan that goes into how to replenish specifically for the larger trees because if we're talking about biodiversity, we want you know a good selection or of each type.

Um, and I know along with having larger trees requires the environment to help it succeed, and it's a constant struggle in Mountain View to find, you know, extra land.

But I think it's important, and so I wanted to find out how you guys have been thinking about how to meet that goal.

Sure, I'm gonna let Russell Hansen, our urban forest manager, answer that.

And Lauren, you can always chime in too.

Thank you again, commissioners.

Um, you know, it really what it boils down to is making better decisions when we are planting our trees so that they are more sustainable.

What we historically have done in the industry is without a lot of consideration, unfortunately, plant a lot of trees, trying to meet certain, you know, high-level goals where we need to plant like big initiatives, LA, New York, etc.

Plant a million trees.

And unfortunately, what happens in a lot of those cases is just we we are so focused on getting trees in the ground, we are not doing it well, I will say.

And so it really boils down to um, you know, in terms of our public spaces for us to kind of have a good idea of those spaces, what species are likely to thrive, et cetera, using this biodiversity plan, et cetera, to kind of support all the other things we're trying to accomplish.

And then above and beyond that, when it comes to private property, new developments, etc., we have lots of competing challenges in terms of infrastructure or otherwise, um, when these developments are put in.

And unfortunately, that frequently leads to conflicts further down the road, whether it be walkways, whether it be you know, street lights or other kind of infrastructure, ultimately, um, that is what typically affects our trees.

And so it really is just a matter of kind of addressing that very early in the development process when we're planting those trees, so that we can allow them to grow.

Um the second aspect is maintaining them well.

Um, you know, that's a big challenge that uh obviously we have control over some of the trees that are within our areas, again, public right-of-way parks, etc.

Um, but private trees, making sure that we have good contractors available to property owners.

Trees are not something that a lot of property owners are well educated on, I will say, and so providing resources to kind of help them make those good decisions, select the right contractors, take the right approach to maintaining their tree, um not just in frequency, but just in the style and the and so forth that they're doing it, that some trees require end weight reduction to prevent limb failure, that ultimately those limb failures could lead to complete structure loss within the tree, etc.

And so it really comes down to that maintenance, not just making right decisions in the beginning, but also doing the maintenance, um, to kind of prolong those trees, make them more sustainable, less susceptible to our storms or to other issues that are gonna kind of impact them.

Um does that answer your question?

That helps, thank you.

Um I know that the private public sort of dichotomy there is a challenge.

Um we read that 90% of our trees in the city are actually on private property.

And with any document and plan, you know, you've got the goals, the action items then you like you said you need funding for monitoring.

There needs to be enforcement of whatever you're putting forward.

I I was curious um what are some plans for the private lands that's 90% of the city if we're to meet our goals then we we need to kind of look at that I'm I'm not trying to advocate for you know every tree must be absolutely safe no matter what you know and pushing that it has to be and then having city members go onto private land and just like investigate every tree and every route that's not what I'm saying.

However there needs to be a balance and if we're to truly try to meet the goals then we have to have a plan in place for that.

So I was curious what very legitimate question something that we talked a lot about internally the city project team and it's it's all about kind of getting creative and maybe looking at the way we do operations differently taking a look at some of our agreements that we have with the private landowners and and seeing if we can come to some compromise where you know could we green some areas and they would be amenable to it if we were to maintain it taking a look at a lot of different ways of doing business and and how we operate it's it's really I don't like using the term think outside the box but it really is it's thinking more creative creatively and like Lauren said it's like a like a mind shift a little bit on how we've been operating and how we could be operating so incentive programs working with our partner canopy um canopy we had them do uh two uh street tree campaigns where they were tasked with you know signing up 25 new homeowners to put a to plant a street tree and a lot of that was just pounding the pavement going out there and knocking on doors and explaining the benefits of trees but that's time consuming right and it's but it's 25 new trees that we were able to put in and and being able to provide that education that benefit explaining that and then being able to also provide um follow-up care you know can it be when out there followed up how is the tree doing what can we offer so again looking at creative ways to implement some of these programs and partnering with our private landowners is that something that could be put into the plan some of the there's uh taking a look at the agreements is in here that's one of the action items um looking at operations differently that's another action item those are in there they're not specifically spelled out because we want to give ourselves a little bit of flexibility and understand again that creative thinking I'll also underscore that the goal for activate and collaborate is entirely about exactly this idea of the fact that um the city or even more specifically the community services department can't operate alone to achieve the vision and goals of this plan and so also like we are open to feedback if you do have specific ideas and input on actions related to a um better activating and collaborating with um with projects with community with um other agencies okay thank you I think we were asked to wait till later I'm I'm good with questions now thank you.

Thank you Commissioner Yan appreciate your help.

Commissioner Dempsey thank you Mr Chair just a couple of quick questions about the state of tree maintenance now.

So for example on it sounds like Parks and rec are the city staff that work on trees is that fully staffed up do we have vacancies?

How are we doing there?

It's a division of eight folks total and we are in the process of filling the last vacancy which is this has been about four and a half years in the yeah trying to fill those vacancies so um we're close is we also have a contractor that we use as well.

Yes, we have a a very large contract with um WCA West Coast Arborists that do a lot of our larger tree work, and our um our city staff folks kind of work on the more high touch um residential in our park system that things like that.

Congrats on getting that last person hired up.

Thank you.

We're almost there.

What is the city's backlog for tree maintenance?

Ooh, Russell's gonna have to answer that one.

You guys hear me?

There we go.

So yeah, in terms of backlog maintenance, absolutely that has been a challenge over the last three or four years, as Brenda had kind of suggested, as we were short staffed or otherwise, a lot of those programs have fallen by the wayside.

We just were not resourced well enough to stay on a set schedule.

Um said that, um, no official backlog.

I can't give you a hard number in terms of deferred trees, etc.

Um, but one of the things we are currently doing, I'll just throw some rough numbers out there as to kind of what we are looking at as we move forward.

Um, generally we have between 25 and 30,000 trees in our inventory that are in public spaces.

Um we are in the process of updating that.

That some of that data as this plan calls out, some of that data is a little bit old.

So we're in the process of kind of tackling that.

We're going through with the West Coast Arborist to kind of inventory upwards of about five to six thousand trees this year, perhaps, um, so that we've got updated data on that.

In addition to that, um, you know, if you take that 25 to 30,000 trees and we divide that over kind of what the recommended best practice is within the industry, and that's about a five to seven year cycle.

Um, you know, roughly I'll say five thousand trees um a year was what would be required uh to do those on a five to six year cycle.

Um you could drop that maybe a little bit lower if you extended it out to a seven-year cycle.

Um what we have done is about two years ago we got back on track and started to where we got almost a thousand to fifteen hundred trees.

Last year we were closer to about two to three thousand trees, and this year we hope to get as close to that five thousand trees um actually touched, serviced, etc.

Um, before the end of the year.

And so again, I don't have a hard number in terms of the backlog, but if you wanted to look at it in that way and say that it was, you know, 4,000 trees a year that got missed for four years.

There's about 16,000 trees um that we're off cycle on.

But we're trying to get back onto that, and hopefully over the next couple years we do achieve that.

Okay.

I I can imagine that that is really, really hard work.

Um I guess I would I I would proffer for your consideration the metr some of the metrics may want to include are we taking care of the trees we have now as we are focused on trying to get some more trees?

Let's take care also take very good care of the trees we have now, otherwise we might lose some of them.

Um I I also think the the point Russell was getting at about sort of the tree census, I don't know what else you would call it.

Um uh if to whatever extent we can have uh a good cadence of our tree census, I think that that's an important metric because we need to know what we have, especially if one of our key metrics is canopy coverage.

If our data is multiple years old, we could be pretty cl that maybe 22.7 isn't the right goal if we're maybe we're at twenty-one.

I don't we don't know.

We haven't checked most of the trees in a while.

So I think that getting some data about what we have now, what we essentially what we have now and where we're at now, I think that's really important.

And my hope would be that that would be well baked into the into the metrics.

One of the first uh one of the first uh um, oh, what do you call it?

It was uh the percentage of tree canopy by a certain year, and that's that those blanks that we need to fill in.

I think we need to do a little bit more like you say, some of our um filling in the existing blanks that we currently have so that we can set those goals.

We can't do that if we don't know all we don't have all the accurate data.

So there is some backlog that we'll have to do to catch up in order to set those goals.

Perfect, thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Dempsey.

Commissioner Clanson.

So, my other questions have been asked by other commissioners.

Um not that long ago.

We were in a drought.

Several of my neighbors took out landscaping and put in green plastic in their yards instead.

Okay.

Did you test this against the next drought?

Okay.

This it seems to assume the level of precipitation we have today and not dealing with the fact that we were the city was paying people to take landscaping out four or five years ago.

Can you talk about did you look at that?

Lauren, I'm gonna let defer to you on that one.

Yeah, um this plan does account for the likelihood that drought will become a more frequent occurrence and that uh water use will be more restricted.

And so this plan does really emphasize um both uh native plant pallets, which should be more drought tolerant, um, and also climate adapted species.

And so the the tree list in particular really takes into account water requirements, um, and one reason why it's very important to a special attention to climate adaptedness in trees is because they have such a long lifespan, and um losing a tree early, um either on its own accord or um or if it has to be removed, is really a loss of great potential um because they provide so many services for so long, um and so we put a lot of emphasis on climate adaptedness for trees in particular, but um overall we do emphasize um climate resilience in tandem with um landscaping strategies.

Next question.

You have a prioritized list of these things, because I looked at this and said there's no way we can we're gonna do all of this, so you have a have you looked at this and said okay, if we're gonna work on these subset, which one would they be?

Sure, the the action items are prioritized by short-term law or medium term and long term.

Um, some of the action items we're doing on a very soft level that we haven't formalized anything, but we've started some of those items, like for example, the the dark skies ordinance.

We've gotten started on that.

We haven't um adopted anything.

So we we prioritize those actions working with SFEI based on the needs in our community and also what would be practical, realistic, uh feasible, and then again we'll have to create that implementation team on of all these short-term items.

What are we gonna be doing first?

And again, some of those things, some of the the action items we are currently doing, we just need to amp them up a little bit, improve upon them, build upon those things.

You're saying this is already a priority.

Each of the action items have a short-term, medium-term, long-term priority attached to each of them.

But you haven't prioritized which ones should stay on the list.

I'm more worried that there's just too many actions overall.

That's my not prioritized within actions, but that there's too many for the city to actually have a look at that.

Yeah, yeah.

I um it's it is a it is a visionary and a guiding document that's meant to evolve and change, and we can, you know, take a look and updating it.

I just dark sky ordinance has been on the list.

How long have I been on EPC?

So I'm not confident that just because it's on a list that it means it's gonna happen.

Sure, sure.

And it is bold, and it is that that is what a uh vision is, it's bold and thank you, Commissioner Cranston.

Okay.

Moving on to me.

I have a couple questions.

Following up on what the rest of the commissioners have said, I agree with all the all your perspectives.

Bring very good points of interest and concern.

The biggest one I have, which is what Commissioner Cranson alluded to is can we do this?

Followed up by, is there money to do this?

Followed up by, will we continue to have money to make this happen?

Because to me, it seems like it's too bold.

And I'm sorry if people don't misunderstand what I'm saying, but I want this to be realistic.

And I want this to be specific with budgetary estimates for cost and maintenance and upkeep.

I hear that we have ideas, and that's wonderful, but I don't see any follow-through with accountability to that.

And one of the things that I've always been concerned about, along with many members of the community, is follow-through accountability and timeline.

Meeting those said goals and estimates.

Because the city, unfortunately, doesn't have a great reputation sometimes to keeping that in place.

I'll give you one quick example.

And I don't mean to sound like a negative meaning, but I'm just picking up on this stuff and it it concerns me very much.

I heard a lot about protecting trees.

I read a lot about what type of trees we need.

I heard a lot of concern for heritage trees, not only in this report, but also when we've had community comments, whenever said developments that have been brought to our body have been reviewed.

And for the most part, they're taken out over and over and over again.

So my question would be: when will we revise or revisit the issue of protecting our heritage trees?

What can we actually do to protect them more than what we do now?

Because now it just seems like we have no options, or they're very limited.

So realistically speaking, how effective can we be in doing something like that?

Protecting them.

Because if we can't do that now, and that's part of this plan, I don't think that's realistic.

And I think that's an undue burden on the team that the city has, focusing in on that.

Because if we all, and I heard something else which was disturbing for me, um, I I forgot who mentioned this.

I think the gentleman mentioned that they had not enough resources, which tells me there wasn't enough money to do the maintenance of the trees, the upkeep of the trees.

So help me to understand how this is gonna work.

Sure.

I think he was referring to staff resources at the point.

Um we are one of the things that we're looking at at incorporating into the plan, there's a couple things, is um not cost necessarily, but a legend of you know, say it's between, you know, it doesn't cost anything but staff time is one dollar.

And if it's you know, the little legend would be if it's uh shows you two dollar signs that it's uh you know anywhere under a hundred thousand dollars.

So at least we can kind of give an idea of the cost that'll be associated.

We'll have to bring those budget requests with as part of the budget process when we're implementing these action items.

Um another thing that we need to do a better job and update the plan is to articulate our implementation plan, which is to build that city team to keep this momentum going and to and to help guide it.

CSD, while we're leading the plan, we're not the only ones that are are you know tasked with taking on some of these action items.

We're we've been partnering with CDD and with public works and with sustainability, and so there are other players at the table that we need to coordinate with based on you know current existing workloads and and current action items and priorities that council sets out.

So we have to kind of balance this, and that's why we didn't want to put any hard and fast timelines exactly in this document because there are other competing plans, projects, and um priorities that have been laid out, you know, by our governing bodies, so uh, but we do need to do a better job at kind of articulating what that implementation is.

Regarding the heritage tree ordinance.

That's one of the easy layups because we have already been talking about the heritage tree ordinance when we were doing the community tree master plan update when we started that process.

We started working behind-the-scenes staff um on how can we make those those updates?

So uh that one's an easy one.

We can get started on that one right away.

That's that low-hanging fruit, if you will.

Uh, we have intended to bring in phases those updates based on kind of like themes uh within the ordinance as opposed to one giant update that would be you know a heavy lift, if you will, because it has to go through different um, you know, uh review processes.

So we had talked about, I'm trying to look at the themes here.

For example, tree size and scope of protection, species considerations, appeal process, and that way those changes can be thoroughly reviewed and implemented as we go.

So phasing things like that.

So I don't know if that really answers your question, but I hope I provided some context and some helpful insights.

Oh no, no, I I your response is what I I thought I would hear.

Um, and so that just allows me the ability to just reiterate my concerns because there's still a lot of um openness, and and I I don't deal well with openness that way, right?

I just don't.

I I can tell you we had a bold vision in the school board with teacher housing, and look what happened.

There wasn't enough accountability or oversight.

Some people like myself pushed for it in the end, it didn't happen, and it turned into a mess, and that's not good for the city.

So, my my follow-up question, it's a simple one.

Uh so I hear in your timeline you have um, you are presenting this to us now in 2025, October, then parks and rec 2026.

Parks and Rec had this before October 2025, and then in April 2026 at City Council, and I would think final reading would be city council of June 2026.

So, my question to you is is this the only chance that we have to then look at this, and then afterwards it's all in the hands of Parks and Rec?

Yes.

Thank you for being clear on that.

Is there a reason why?

Uh, when we started this plan uh a few years ago, that was what was laid out was that because CSD was leading it, that we would be revisiting the Parks and Right Commission twice and EPC once.

Great.

Final question.

Um the timeline seems to be a little aggressive.

Do you think it's feasible that by April 2026 we're going to have something concrete more than what we have now?

Will you be able to fill in the blanks then?

Well, we've been working on this since I started with the city, which was four and a half years ago, so I'm not sure if it's super aggressive at this point.

Um we've been very thoughtful and mindful with the um with the timelines and working with SFEI and what's what's realistic.

We actually did um extend the internal review period, which pushed our timeline out even a little bit.

We're being very careful, sticking to the timeline, but also being realistic with with you know all the different you know internal reviews and working with everybody.

Okay.

So then follow-up question would be I trust your judgment and the team, and I'm hopeful that the city processes and tackling these issues become effective, efficient, accountable, and responsible responsible.

So I would think that if you all seem to believe that that time, but timeline's not realistic, you'll promptly let everyone know so that we can then figure that out and realize what the next steps could be and by when.

I'm a stickler for it, so absolutely, okay.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Does anyone else have any?

Oh, here we go.

Commissioner Fan.

Um, I had a follow-up question.

Um, staff had mentioned that the implementation plan will come after adoption.

Um will council be able to weigh in on the implementation plan.

If not, um, can you talk more about how that will come together and who will have input?

Sure, everybody can weigh in on the implementation plan.

I welcome it.

Um I would I would hope that council would have um some thoughts and some uh something to contribute if they have you know some strong opinions about the implementation plan.

I do know that council really values that cross-departmental uh work that we have done with the city project team, and the idea being that the implementation plan we would continue with that cross-departmental work together to execute.

Thank you, Commissioner Fan.

Okay, so let's go on to EP right here.

It's got EPC questions.

Does the EPC have any feedback on the following areas to better align the plan with the city's priorities?

But mind you, I want to go back to what I had highlighted before and it was emphasized to me.

Questions focused on individual recommendations should be held until later in the meeting.

I'm thinking that that means now.

Okay.

So let's roll with this.

And I I I hate to do this.

I am so sorry.

Something told me to bring the full report because I thought you would bring out a certain page or pages.

I didn't do that.

So and that's my fault.

Okay, that's on me.

So when you refer to the plan's action items and priority levels, page 77, do I have that here?

And if not, can we get that just on the screen?

Same thing with performance metrics in targets.

I don't have page 98.

Do we have that here?

I don't think we do.

Can we get that presented on the screen or somehow get copies of that to view?

Does that make sense?

Yeah, if you give us a few minutes, we can bring that up.

Sounds good.

So should we take a five-minute break or are we good?

No, I can bring that up.

All right, great.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate that.

So once again, we'll go to EPC questions.

Does the EPC have any feedback on the following areas that better align the plan with the city's priorities?

We'll first look at the plans, action items and priority levels found at page 77, and then we'll move on to performance metrics and targets found at page 98.

Taking into consideration that we have if we have questions focused on individual individual recommendations, we should do this now.

And I will um do the best I can to track the majority sentiments on ideas that we have that are presented, and I trust that my colleagues, such as Christian and will help me with all this one way or another, but we'll get this taken care of tonight for sure before midnight.

Yeah.

Okay.

Go to the little uh it's like a chart right above.

I know that it said page 77, but it sometimes when it went to PDF, it didn't translate.

There you go.

That's a nice good snapshot.

Action items, priority levels.

Priority levels aren't listed, they're actually listed with each action item.

Okay, team, do you have any questions right now about this?

And are these all the uh is this everything on page 77 or does it spill over to something?

If the commissioners um, you know, this is a lot to look through, and I I recognize that it's a lot, it's a lot that we're asking.

Um you've provided a lot of great input for us already.

Um this is very specific, and we welcome the feedback.

If you would if you want to take some time to digest and look at all the priorities, going through this would take some time tonight, um, because each action item actually has a priority listed with it.

There's 25.

Um okay, bear with me here, and and I'm sorry to interrupt.

I'm just a little confused because it said page 77 here, but yet in the report, it's not 77, it's 74, 75.

When we were when we were changing the document from a Google Doc to a PDF, there was some of yeah, got it.

I I have faced that before.

Apologies.

No worries, no ways.

Okay.

So Deanna and Christian, what do you suggest?

Because right now it seems like we've provided ideas and suggestions and concerns, but yet now we're looking at something more detailed like this.

Should we table this for another meeting to look into the issues that are presented here so that we have time to look at this more closely?

Or how would you think the best approach would be moving on to what you requested of us with question one EPC questions?

Do we have any feedback on the following areas?

Um so I think at this point of time, um, and you know, listening through all the information that we just heard and the uh as part of the discussions and questions, and um seeing where um you know Brenda is leading us as well.

It seems like staff actually got a lot of information that they were looking for, which will help them to kind of refine the project uh document for the next step before we come back uh in 2026.

So at this point of time, it feels like we're good, and you know um what staff had drafted as a specific question, they got that information and direction from EPC.

Um again, Brenda has said that you know, you're welcome to send more uh suggestions or comments uh if need be.

Uh, but I think going through each of this is uh not gonna be that easy at this point of time, and it yeah, okay, and commissioners, I'm open to your ideas.

Thank you so much, Deanna, for providing this um uh response.

So uh just because we were going through my fellow commissioners, this process, um I have a question.

I in case people do have additional feedback or what have you on the plans, action items found at said pages and the performance metrics and targets.

Would would we be able to submit through email those concerns to you and then have that be publicly made available on the website as potential follow-up for review and understanding, or how would you suggest we tackle this?

Because I have a question here that that would be quick that I'd like to bring up, but I'm not sure.

And so if I have that, I'm thinking perhaps maybe others might have ideas too.

And I just want to make sure that we all get a fair shot to pitch in.

Good evening, Commissioners Christian Murdoch, community development director.

Um anything that comes after this meeting tonight will not be a commission recommendation.

Individual commissioners as members of the community can submit their further thoughts.

What was discussed tonight is part of the feedback that can carry forward as uh the official discussion of the commission.

Okay, well, that raises that opens up a count of worms here.

Okay.

Um, Commissioner Yen.

Sorry, I I was under the impression that those were questions and we were to save our remarks for later, and uh am I understanding that that's no longer needed or you're not requesting that anymore that we're sending.

Yeah.

So maybe one way to look at it is you know, usually the kind of items that we bring to uh planning commission.

Uh, you know, we have very specific things like these are the four options, we want you to weigh in on that, going through a process like this.

Uh in this case, the question that has been brought um uh forward to you in the staff report, it actually deals with all the goals that are listed in here.

Um there are not you know, we're not discussing one to ten prioritize those.

So if you have any uh specific suggestions or comments uh on the goals that you have actually you know gone through as part of review of the package, we can take that.

I think usually when we present a policy document and we say policy A, policy B, let's discuss each policy.

We will not we would not suggest going down that route or that approach for this one.

Sort of like a study session in a sense, kind of.

Yeah, we provided that question just to help kind of guide the APC on providing some feedback.

It wasn't meant to go down the line and have everybody weigh in, it was just kind of a guide because it is a big document.

Understand.

Um, so since a lot of us I think were waiting to save those comments.

I'm for going ahead and going through and just giving everyone a chance to say what they saved.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Commissioner Dumpski, I think you had a uh suggestion.

Uh I think it's very much in line with what Commissioner Yin suggested.

The hour is quite late, and I think it behooves all of us to move efficiently.

And so for those of us that do have questions that pertain to individual items on here.

If maybe we could instead of making them questions, turn them into comments and speed round through them, get them out, get them said, you'll hear them, you can work them in.

Um, but it's nothing that needs to take a long time to bring this to completion because it is very late, and I think everybody wants to go home.

So uh submit that to you, uh Mr.

Chairman.

For sure.

So just to understand quick quickly, um, we're basically just doing like a almost one-one-one, and staff is gonna record what we're saying and grab a majority that comes out of that.

As such, pseudo, right?

Everyone's gonna say what their comment is around the plan, what their recommendations are, and then staff is gonna record that.

Am I just hearing that correctly?

I would think that that's the perfect stand.

Okay, thank you.

And let's just double check with the Anna and Christian is that what you also understand okay great because it's good to be on the same page okay all right sounds good so having said that thank you commissioners for being flexible um and I will go first I just have one question slash well yeah just questions and concern so in the report it said hey we have to promote uh um protecting our trees and we want oak trees and we want better quality of life and we want everything to be made sure that everyone is looking after the best interests of the city that way with nature and human beings coexisting as much as possible and I want people to know that the commissioners here receive emails and your concerns if we read those right so so we hear what you're saying we understand what you're saying a few of you came in person to also make your points come across and you also called in to just say hey I sent in the letter and this is what I'm thinking about.

And the first thing that struck me just quickly was holy cow wait a minute I'd like to report I like the energy I like the vision however I'm concerned because if we plant certain types of trees that'll promote more pollen I myself go through allergies I don't want more allergies you ever been to Austin Texas holy cow man that place is a nightmare I'm sorry to people from Austin Texas you might think I'm a hater on Austin.

I'm not it's just that the allergies were everywhere because of the type of tree that exists there.

And so then the cleanup that comes with that in the streets the street sweepers and around businesses is intense which means cost and if you have that added cost that's something that you have to factor in with budget.

So just please keep that in mind.

And the other issue is the type of trees that we're promoting for the most part are things where certain types of of our animal friends like to reside there and make a mess particularly squirrels.

I remember a few years back squirrels were a huge issue at our parks and we we had aggressive squirrels.

Watch out for those black squirrels watch out for those brown squirrels watch out for the squirrels in general because they were just there everywhere and in crazy amounts so I'm concerned that we aren't factoring that in and we should this was brought up to us in our e in the emails that were sent in I understand that concern and I want to give voice to that because I think that when you're doing a project like this this goes back to the efficiency um uh accountability and the follow through we need to factor all that in one way or another because those are consequences to the actions that we're trying to promote and if we don't look at those side issues that come into play when that type of item happens then this wasn't really thought out that well and we're gonna find ourselves in another situation where we need more money to do extra things to possibly control our little friends one way or another and the last thing we needed to have something like Sunnyvale where crores were an issue that way.

Thank you so much and having said that Commissioner Cranston.

So I wasn't prepared to go through this probably gathered from my question is I think there's too many number one and just like Mr Densey's question chair and he didn't bring it up today but uh commissioner Dempsey is and both Commissioner you mentioned metrics I was troubled by the and I think uh vice chair wrench and first it's not just you know one weasel word it's a lot of weasel words.

There's a way too little specificity in what these actions are going to be so it was hard for me to say okay establish conduct explore what do those mean okay so my general feedback is there's too many and they're not specific enough.

There's things that I think are coming I I'd suggest a tighter list of here's the lower hanging fruit we've heard heritage treats several times I think you'd get a lot of support for heritage trees to be high on that list right but I it there's other you've already talked about staff you finally got into staff and after four years the next person quits it could be four more years until you're back to full staff so just it feels too big it feels too vague and what I'd what I'd like to see look for is victories you can show the community that it's on the way heritage tree program would be part of that I don't know that dark skies would be a big viewed as a big win for the community as a whole but there's people who would it's a good thing but I don't know that it would be seen as necessarily a quick win.

So I would like to see this overall list is kind of like to me the general plan list had 30 years of stuff to do and we're still got stuff on the list that we've never done.

I don't want this to be a general plan list.

It needs to be something that's much more tactical and I'm sure we would each rank the 25 things in there different ways.

I don't think that's a good use for our time but I think staff should we gotta go back and look at this tighten it up with more specificity and say here's our here's our low gain fruit that we want to try to go after first that's my general feeling overall because that's the thing and the some of the things that I thought were just missing.

We talked about the things that people residential I didn't call the city when I wanted to landscape my property I called my landscaper.

If you want to talk to somebody don't call canopy go out put in a program that's gonna outreach to local landscapers local nurseries as uh um mentioned and they should know when they go in there hey this is what the city's looking to try to do every every landscaper in the city should know what that is every you know every every nursery should know here's the plants that are on that list that's the way to help reach that other 90% and that's not touched in here at all and it's not again they're not gonna call the city and just that level communications isn't in there.

I lived here for 22 years before I found about the free tree program.

I've got two now I both times I applied I got a tree but I had no idea and someone's like I can get a free tree.

It was so let's reach out to the find a way to reach that other 90% I think that's my only kind of general thing that seemed really missing in all this was techniques for reaching the 90% we don't touch business.

Commissioner Crasson thank you so much that's very insightful as always um commissioner yin.

I'll piggyback on what you said I think the same about regarding the the second statement which is um reaching out to the contractors uh I remember reading in the document that it was based on availability and I thought once we have a plan the availability will be there because they will know what is needed and so they will stock what is needed and what people will plant.

So it's like you know working together.

So you're already doing a good job of being holistic I think that is a missing piece that would greatly help and it's a little bit more proactive.

Some other things uh the metrics I think we could add in the metric for how to overcome the shortage of the mature trees the big ones since we are short on those do we have a plan to replenish that stock uh we have to make sure you know the environment is suitable for for them and create those environments that are suitable for them if that is a true goal.

So in conjunction with the active transportation plan and also our street corridor design green streets so on so forth a larger planting stroke very often is what you need I've gone to LA where it's like this gorgeous trees and the poor things are like gnarled at the bottom because the tree well was so small they lift the sidewalks it's just it's a nightmare for the future so just plan for that future if if that is a priority to try to meet that goal let's truly plan for it and that means larger planting strips and you know you can have a hierarchy and prioritize where that is prioritize.

Um anyways so that that's another another one.

So metrics as to um for that particular goal I do we have a public GIS system that has the data set for trees and can the public access that?

I think that would be really helpful.

We have so much public data.

We have an internal GIS and we're working to make that publicly available eventually.

Okay to update it currently great.

If that could be on the timeline is you know, as far as what you feel like it's doable, I think that's also good.

I believe it's actually mentioned in the plan.

But okay, thank you.

I'd missed that then.

Um as far as the outreach and the education, I'm so glad to hear that you were thinking outside the box to see how to get this done.

I sort of liken it to, you know, how cops, the beat cops, when they're on the street, there's relationships are built, people understand more about what the, you know, they work together, it's more community building.

It's the same thing.

If there's somebody had an idea of like a little junior core of tree, you know, like I think that's a great idea that gets the youth involved, uh, gets them outside.

Have to say, you can't ask the future generation to protect the environment if they don't, and you know, and diversity and sustainability, all those goals that we want them to like prioritize.

If most people live in the cities, and if the cities don't have those things, if they don't know about it, they're not gonna care about it, they don't understand it.

What what's the incentive for them to save it?

Um, what are the other ones?

Oh, very simple one.

The vision triangles, I know we c we chop down a lot of trees for vision triangles.

If we could just limb those up, you can still see from the cars and people pedestrian.

I think we would save some trees there.

I know that's not part of this, but it's just a thing I'm throwing out there uh to save some trees that are already there, because that was another one is to protect the large heritage trees.

Now that's a biggie, I know I'm lotting this out.

We really need to have some true guidelines around when we say protect heritage trees, because on private property it can get very sticky, you know, somebody's garage door can't even open because of the roots, and they can't remove that tree.

But in an instant, 128 heritage, or not maybe not 128 heritage trees, but 120 trees, the mature ones that provide the biggest benefits go in an instant, and I understand that's a matter of priority, and in some cases we can't help it, but if it's a true priority, then it needs to be stated so and enforced, and somehow there need to be guidelines as to how we make those decisions.

Um I think that's a too many, it's gonna be hard to implement.

But yes, clarity, implementation, doability, all things I'm for.

Thanks.

Okay, and just for the record, I think it was a youth ambassador program that they were pointing to, which was awesome.

I like that idea too.

So if you all haven't read that those ideas yet that have come in, and I know you presented the emails to us in hard copy format.

I strongly encourage you to just look at some of that, read that because there's a lot of good good good information.

Okay, so uh moving next, uh Commissioner Dempsey.

Oh, are we going through through this here?

Okay, then my bad.

So we'll go with what's listed here on my screen.

So in this case, it's not Commissioner Dempsey, but rather Commissioner Donahue.

Okay, so there's there's 25 things else I'll have like two to three minutes each.

So I'll just okay.

Everybody knows that's a joke.

Okay.

Um so I do have uh specific comments on specific things though, but not not all of them.

Um so objective 3A is about um increasing the canopy to 22.7 percent, but that goal we had 10 years ago, and we got halfway through that the the period to to get to the 22.7, but we're only a third of the way to the goal.

So my concern is that we're not planting at the required rate, and how is this plan going to I you don't need to answer this question?

I'm just how how is this plan going to uh help achieve that goal?

Because I don't want to have an old plan that people weren't paying attention to get replaced by a new plan that people aren't paying attention to.

Um okay, so that's one comment.

Um, the um uh also on that uh uh point, there's a map that shows that actually three of the seven census tracts already meet the 22.7% goal.

And so I want to throw out the um the the concept of uh kind of equality versus equity and and making sure that uh that resources are put into the the deficient areas, not just equally across the city.

Um the action 12, which is in in support of that that uh that objective is um, let's see what else I'm gonna say here.

Um, yeah, it's to plant 1575 street trees uh by 2030.

Uh it wasn't clear to me if that was net uh new street trees or if that was, you know, that if we that some that get taken out get replaced anyway, um so it should I think it it at least should be clear about whether that's a net increase of 1575 street trees or if that's just planting 1575.

Um let's see uh changes to the heritage tree ordinance, uh things like no net loss.

So um I was on the parks and rec commission 15 years ago, and one of the things that we discussed at a meeting there that kind of nothing came of it, I think.

But some nearby uh cities have uh requirements that if you take out a heritage tree that the replacement tree must be it is considered a heritage tree, even from it's when you initially plant it, um, as a way to uh to basically prevent the the kind of work around where you cut down a heritage tree, you throw a little tree in the ground, you say, Oh, it's not heritage yet, and then you cut it down, and then you don't have any tree.

Um the uh I mean somebody on my street uh cut down as this beautiful tree, and it was a huge, huge tree, and it was lifting the driveway, and so it was appropriate to cut it down, I'll say, but um uh but they replaced it with a dwarf lemon tree, which is about about this high, and so it's never gonna get to be heritage size, and it's I I wouldn't even consider it a tree, it's more like a bush.

Um, anyway, uh action 17 talks about shade trees and parking lots.

It doesn't list community development as as a department that's involved in that, but I think that it should.

Um, uh action 20 uh review city development processes.

I think that's kind of one of the core things that uh for community development, and I think that the ideas that are listed in that action are are uh great ideas.

So uh like the plan, and uh looking forward to uh getting it there and uh and starting implementing it.

So thanks.

Thank you, Commissioner Donegan.

Commissioner Dempsey.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Let me go quickly.

Uh three points that I want to make.

First, the pest burden is a real thing.

Uh I live in South Mountain View.

I have to deal with gophers, I have to deal with rats, I have to deal with rabbits, if you can believe that.

Um, I got all kinds of stuff.

And I try to garden, and it's it's a constant, never-ending war.

And I'm grateful for all of the, you know, for all the trees that we have down there and stuff.

It's really lovely.

You know, the over by Questa Park is perfect.

But if you go walk around the annex of Questa Park, if you actually walk through it, it is Swiss cheese with gopher holes.

It produces gophers and the gophers go spread out all through the rest of the neighborhood.

Still, I love that annex and I love walking through it.

My point is simply nature doesn't always stay where we put it or where we want it, and it's not always cute.

And so I just think that this pest burden issue that's been raised by others, we really are gonna have to wrestle with it because it's a cost that comes with greening.

Second point, um, I'm not sure this is even gonna end up mattering, but I just want to speak for a second in defense, partial defense of artificial turf.

As a long-time soccer coach, there are a couple of good reasons to have turf.

I mean, part of it is the school districts need it, and it's a little bit probably cheaper than grass, but it means you can play soccer when it rains, because the turf doesn't get chewed up.

You also don't get gopher holes because I used to have to coach at Springer, and Springer was full of gopher holes, and those are ankle breakers for little kids.

And so I would have to go and steal sand out of the sandbox and pour it into holes before games.

Don't tell the school district I did that.

But like it it really is a real thing.

And so I understand that there's problems with turf, but turf also does make it possible for more kids to play more games, and that that has value too.

Lastly, I really do agree with Commissioner Cranston that there's probably too many things in this, and when there's too many things, if you don't really prioritize, then every you know he's right.

I mean, there's there's stuff that just never gets done, and it looks great, it sounds great, but if we don't make it a priority, we're not gonna get to it because there's the city has too many things to do.

So um I I think it may be that you want to give a broad list of options to the council, and the council will winnow it down.

And if that is in fact what you're doing, no objections from me.

I think that it's good to give people choices as long as at the end of it we winnow it down to the stuff we really care about and is really doable.

Otherwise, we just get lost in this ocean of possibility and nothing ever gets done.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Dempsey.

And just for the record, Springer School is not part of the Mountain View with the school district.

It's part of the Little Software School District.

And as a former soccer coach myself, I do not like artificial turf, because it changes the nature of the game.

Having said that, we will move on to Commissioner Fam.

All right, I don't have that many more comments other than what my fellow commissioners have brought up.

Um I wanna say that this plan is great, that it's bold.

Um it's very detailed, ton of GIS maps and detail for the plant lists.

Um it's clear that it took several years to put together um with a very complex team, so that's amazing.

Um I also want to say that um echoing some of my other commissioners, it's bold, but implementation is uh a question of how it's gonna happen.

Um I wanna say that I read in the plan that it's supposed to or consider to be updated every five years.

So it may be something that you want to highlight some of the interim goals that could be completed in five years if the intent was that it needs or should be updated on a reoccurring basis anyways.

Could be something you consider.

Um last thing I wanna say is that I really support um some other commissioners mentioning the youth ambassador or junior court idea.

That's um something I can get behind as well.

I think some other cities do have similar programs for tree planting and involving the youth, so that's something I think that um, you know, Mountain View can take on as well.

Great things.

Thank you, Commissioner Fan.

Commissioner Nunez.

Last chat news.

Um I think that as much as I, you know, I'm down with the wildlife and the and the biodiversity in the forest, I think that the biggest value of this plan needs to benefit like humans.

Um, and so to that end, I um very much would like to see more specificity and like um l like a a harder, how can I put it, um, less wiggle room uh if any around the concept of um putting canopy and other greening around and above and as in support of pedestrians, um, you know, bicyclists, people waiting at uh bus or transit stop.

Um I'd I'd like as little wiggle room as possible with that.

I mean, I in my view there's no reason that every bus stop in Mountain View should not have um effective tree cover for the people.

Um and so that's that's the biggest uh thing I'd like to see.

I I again not being a what do they call a arborist.

Um I don't personally have as much and I'm just gonna leave this to the bigger um brain people around this subject, but like um I especially as the climate is changing, if we need to let go of like native plants and have more functional plants within the like actual borders of again this being a city for people.

Um, like I said, I love the wildlife, um, but I'd just like to see a little bit more of the discussion around that, around like the functional canopy, functional species, if you will, of plants, um, that will like be equipped to handle the future and the climate whiplash that we are experiencing um increasingly.

Um, I'm extremely uh grateful and and appreciative of the the vole being one of the ambassador species.

Um I am a massive ally to the rodents, and I don't appreciate all the hating on the squirrels.

Um or the rats or the all of them gophers, they're wonderful.

Um, and for that reason, I also agree that maybe we just need to be considerate of not increasing the numbers to such an extent that we trigger unwarranted aggression against um rodents.

So that is how I would categorize my views.

Thank you.

I don't know what to say, but uh thank you for chiming in.

I appreciate that.

Uh uh I feel threatened by the animals already, but it's okay.

Not a problem.

Do you have what you need or do you want me to just read it?

Okay, sounds good.

All right.

Um, and and finally, uh, I just want the team to know we appreciate all the hard work, and what we bring up is not meant to bash or to debunk whatever goals there to try and make things happen, just so that we're trying to do the best we can to give you serious input so that you can then relay that on to the next commission and eventually city council, because as you can tell, we have concerned members of the community here that really care about their city.

And we thank you for your time and for presenting this to us tonight, and we appreciate your help very much.

I appreciate all the input that we've been given.

It's been great.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you so much.

And then moving on to that, I I believe this is now seven.

Commission staff announcements, update requests, and committee reports.

This says for Deanna as EPC liaison.

The next CPC meeting will be on November 5th, 2025.

That's correct.

Okay, all right, great.

Um, and then moving on to point eight, adjournment.

Right now, I will adjourn our environmental planning commission meeting at the time of eleven sixteen p.m.

Thank you very much, everyone.

We did it.