Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, good evening everyone.

Welcome to the Mountain View City Council regular meeting of December 9th, 2025.

Please stand and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance.

All right, great.

We'll move on to item three, roll call.

The City Clerk will take attendance by roll call.

Council Member Clark?

Here.

Council Member Hicks?

Here.

Council Member McAllister?

Here.

Council Member Ramirez?

Here.

Council Member Showalter?

Here.

Vice Mayor Ramos?

Here.

Mayor Kamei?

Here.

We will move on to item four, our consent calendar.

These items will be approved by one motion unless any member of the council wishes to pull an item for individual consideration.

If an item is pulled from the consent calendar, it will be considered separately following approval of the balance of the consent calendar.

If you'd like to speak on these items or the next item, oral communications on non-agenda items in person,

please submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk now.

Would any member of the council like to pull an item?

Council Member McAllister.

Comment on 4.4.

Okay, great.

Vice Mayor Ramos.

Thank you, Mayor.

I also want to comment on item 4.4, but not pool.

Sorry, 4.4, correct?

Okay.

All right, so Council Member McAllister, we'll let you comment first.

So I asked a question about the maximum.

We had a big discussion going back

how much the cost for moving should be,

and we were teetering one way or the other,

and some numbers were flying out,

and the council decided let's put it back,

give it back to staff to come up with some numbers,

and I'm glad we did because these numbers are much lower

than what we were discussing, and they're more realistic,

And so I applaud the council for taking an extra step to allow us to really research things instead of doing government on the sly.

So I appreciate the staff coming up with the numbers.

They look more reasonable.

I've heard back from some of the landlords, and they think that's much more reasonable.

So government does work when you do it right.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Ramos.

Thank you, Mayor.

and also thank you to staff on this item.

I know it's been a long slog

and I also thank my colleagues for working with staff

to get what their concerns were hashed out

and worked out to get a nice strong ordinance.

The whole purpose of this was to help mitigate

or partially mitigate displacement in our community

and I'm glad that we're taking,

this is a really good step forward for our residents

and those so that they,

even if they are displaced from their residents,

they may not, they increase the odds of not being displaced from our community.

So thank you all for finding ways to get to yes.

So thank you.

Okay, would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on these items?

If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk.

We will take in-person speakers first, but I'm not seeing any.

So we'll move on to virtual and each speaker will have three minutes.

So if we can unmute Anil.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

Anil Babar with the California Apartment Association.

I'd like to start by expressing my appreciation to Council for continuing this item from the meeting prior

and allowing for staff to conduct the stakeholder outreach.

As you can tell, and I want to echo Council Member McAllister's comments,

the stakeholder outreach provided some really good feedback.

And by extending the temporary displacement timeframe from 90 days up to 180 days,

as well as placing caps on moving costs, especially according to unit size,

I think this provides some good guardrails for the ordinance.

These changes were the result of pure outreach.

If council had an instructor staff to go back and conduct that, we would have a much more flawed ordinance.

So I want to really underscore the importance of stakeholder outreach on every ordinance,

which I think should be mandatory component when external folks, individuals, organizations, and businesses aren't impacted.

That being said, I want to just reiterate one more time that this trail may still present hurdles to getting maintenance done, renovations done, work done on these buildings.

and I want to make sure that the council is keeping an eye on how these will impact the

property owners who want to do these necessary renovations but can't due to the added cost to

because of this ordinance because every cost whether it's the cost of moving housing attendant

and a different residence or the cost of moving attendant adds thousands of dollars of expense

to every unit. Again, want to appreciate the listening that was done and the feedback that

was heard and we look forward to working with staff forward on future ordinances. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. So I'm not seeing any other public comment in the queue. So I'll close public

comment and bring the item back for council action and note that a motion to approve the consent

calendar should also include reading the title of the ordinance and resolutions attached to the

Consent calendar items 4.1, 4.2, 4.4, and 4.3.

Looks like we have a motion by Vice Mayor Ramos, seconded by Council Member Ramirez.

So I'll turn it over to Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor.

I move the consent calendar, including item 4.1, adopt the resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View,

authorizing and directing the City Attorney to compromise and settle the case of Alice Acuno v. City of Mountain View,

Santa Clara County Superior Court case number 22CV405643 in the amount of $275,000 and

authorizing the city manager or designee to appropriate the same amount to the city attorney's

office liability insurance fund to implement the settlement to be read in title only.

Further reading waived.

Item 4.2, adopt the resolution of the city council of the city of Mountedvue authorizing

and directing the city attorney to compromise and settle the case of Ella Kobzanets versus

City of Mountain View Santa Clara County Superior Court case number 23CV420311 in the amount

of $400,000 and authorizing the city manager or designee to appropriate the same amount

to the city attorney's office liability insurance fund to implement the settlement to be read

in title only furthering waived.

Item 4.3, adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Mountain View, reappointing

Tina Fan and appointing Shweta Submanian to the Environmental Planning Commission to be

read in title only, further reading waived.

Item 4.4, introduce an ordinance of the City of Mountain View repealing Chapter 36, Article

13, Tenant Relocation Assistance, to the Mountain View City Code, amending Chapter 46 of the

Mountain View City Code to change the title and add a new article governing tenant relocation

assistance and finding that these code amendments are not subject to the California Environmental

Quality Act to be read in title only further reading waive and set a second reading for January

27, 2026. Great thank you let's vote. All right and that passes unanimously. We'll move on to item

five oral communications. This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address

the Council on any matter not on the agenda. Speakers are allowed to speak on any topic

within the City Council's subject matter jurisdiction for up to three minutes during this section.

State law prohibits the Council from acting on non-agenda items. If you'd like to speak

on this item or the next item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the City Clerk

now. Let's see, it looks like we have one person in person and then if virtual, please

click the raise hand button in Zoom

or submit a blue spear card to the clerk.

We'll take our in-person speaker first

and that speaker will have three minutes.

Albert.

Do you have a presentation as well?

Yep.

Okay.

We will wait.

Of course.

All right, we'll set our clock to three minutes.

Is the clock set?

No.

Okay.

Okay.

I can send it later.

I can forward to that.

Okay, sorry.

A little foul up there.

But yeah, I wanted to give you an update on the RV situation since I've been taking

counts of it regularly.

Do you mind?

I don't know what's the, I don't see the timer going yet.

Oh, no, it's not going.

Yes.

I hear it telling you you're done, but you haven't even started yet.

Okay, here we go.

All right.

Yeah, I wanted to give you a little update on the RV situation.

I performed a count last week on Tuesday.

And, you know, usually I show you this big picture of all the RVs, a simulated picture of 300 RVs in a parking lot.

Well, that's reality now.

We blew by 300.

There are now at least 309 RVs on Mountain View streets.

from 297 about a month ago.

And so it's continuing to increase.

And you can see the trend just going up.

I have a little graph I'll show you in my presentation.

And this issue really hit home for me

because after the last meeting,

council meeting I attended last month,

October 28th, I think it was,

I went home and I neglected to close my garage door.

And lo and behold, that morning at five in the morning,

a man walked by down our street. We have him on camera. I have video of him, and he stole my bike

that I've had since 1979. You know, I've lived in Mountain View before, you know, since 1983,

and nothing like this has ever happened. And, you know, I'm not saying that people in the RVs are

responsible, but there is a sizable RV population just two blocks from me on Charabella Avenue.

And so, oh, wow, you found it.

Great.

That's the graph.

And, yeah, next slide, please.

Yeah, that's my bike, now deceased or happily living somewhere else.

And these are screenshots from video.

A neighbor's camera on the left saw him walking by.

And then I have two shots, one of him, you know, coming up our driveway and then riding away with my bicycle.

You know, at five in the morning, you know.

And our neighborhood is not that, you know, easily visited.

It's sort of isolated.

So, and he walked there, so he must be close by.

But anyways, my point is, next slide, please.

RVs, you know, they're not just unpleasant to look at.

There are real public safety issues

associated with having a lot of homeless people

living on our streets.

As Supervisor Abe Koget pointed out,

you know, housed individuals are far less likely

to cycle through our jails.

You know, supportive housing reduces crime,

things like that.

And so, yeah, we need to care about them,

but Mountain View has done more than its fair share,

I think, compared to other cities

with our safe parking lots and affordable housing.

You know, I think it's time to spend more time

on the residents and make sure we have a safe place to live

and a pleasant place to live.

And yeah, I know there's not much we can do right now

because the Navarro agreement is still in place,

but hopefully when that expires in about a year,

you know, it can really take some positive actions

to reduce the number of RVs on our streets.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, any other in-person public comment

on non-agenda items?

All right, I am not seeing any,

so we'll move on to virtual.

James?

Hello.

Hello.

James Guzma.

I just wanted to, since I know no action

it's taken on public comment, I wanted to briefly call out Mr. Jean's wildly inappropriate

insinuation that our RV neighbors would be connected to increased crime rates. I know he

claimed that there was not necessarily any connection, but by bringing those up simultaneously,

he made a connection, and that is not appropriate. So thank you.

All right, so that concludes. Oh, I see another public comment. So we'll stop our timer. We have Kevin Ma.

Hi, council. This is just a short message. The YouTube stream for this meeting doesn't work, so if someone can get to that, that'd be great. Thanks.

Great. Thank you.

All right, I believe that it's streaming via Zoom for those who would like to watch our

meeting or hopefully can see our meeting.

So we're going to proceed as I'm not seeing staff telling me I cannot.

So okay, perfect, we can keep going.

So that concludes our public comment.

So we'll move on to item six, which is new business.

Item 6.1 is our historic preservation ordinance and historic registrar update.

Chinese translation services are available for this item.

We'll now hear from our interpreter.

Chinese.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

So before we begin tonight, I want to acknowledge that we've heard concerns from property owners

and representatives of property owners about sites associated with religious uses.

Staff has evaluated these concerns and has determined that the City should not proceed

with listing these properties without the property owner's consent.

Staff will discuss this further in the presentation that's forthcoming.

Given the need for Councilmember recusals due to conflicts of interest, this item will

proceed in the following manner.

We'll begin with the staff presentation, which will be followed by public comment.

At the close of public comment, the Council will ask questions, deliberate, and vote on

matters requiring Councilmember recusals first.

And then the Council will ask questions and deliberate on the remaining items for discussion.

Hopefully that is a clear process for us.

Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson will present the item.

If you'd like to speak on this item in person, please submit a blue spear card to the City

the clerk now and we'll turn it over to staff.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, Mayor Kameh, City Council.

This item is regarding the historic preservation

ordinance and register update.

My name is Eric Anderson, the planning manager.

I'm joined tonight by Christian Murdock,

the community development director.

This presentation will provide an overview

of the background of this project,

the key discussion points, and then a summary

of next steps, including information on SB 79.

There we go.

The city has had a historic preservation ordinance

and register since the 2004.

Together, these tools help the city preserve historically

and culturally significant buildings

as well as their character defining features.

There's several reasons to update the ordinance

and register at this time that are shown on the screen.

The bottom of this slide shows an overview

of the project process.

It started in 2022 and has three major deliverables.

the historic context statement to define the significant themes

in the city's built history

and provide a consistent framework for evaluating properties,

an intensive survey of properties

that may be eligible for listing,

and an update to the ordinance.

The register and ordinance are expected

to be adopted next year.

A city council meeting was held in 2023

to clarify the project goals and scope.

The project should reflect preservation priorities,

provide clarity about historic status,

streamline the development review process,

provide incentives and create local district criteria

for a downtown district.

In addition, council directed staff to conduct

an intensive survey that would exclude single family

and duplex properties that had not already been identified.

A number of virtual hybrid and in-person outreach events

have been held regarding this project

to hear from the community about the project's goals,

as well as to inform them about key deliverables and analysis.

Leading up to this meeting, the city held two meetings,

one virtual and one in person to inform the community

about the list of potentially eligible properties

and to hear feedback on process improvements.

This presentation covers these four topics.

We are seeking council confirmation and direction

on these topics so that we can finalize the ordinance

and register for adoption.

The first main topic for this meeting

is regarding the resource eligibility.

Eligibility for historic resources is composed

of two different types of analysis,

significance criteria and integrity thresholds.

The city's ordinance currently includes

significance criteria that are similar

to those established at the state and national levels.

Integrity thresholds are regarding the authenticity

of the resource and are focused

on the seven characteristics shown here.

The city does not currently have integrity thresholds,

though other cities have them as well as the state

and national review processes.

The project team has conducted an intensive survey

of properties as directed by the city council.

Based on the significance criterion integrity thresholds,

a draft list of 101 privately owned properties

is identified as eligible for listing in the local register.

After further evaluation of state and federal law,

staff has concluded that the city should not continue

to pursue listing of religious sites

as part of this process without an affirmative request

to the property owners.

Therefore, staff does not recommend continuing

with the consideration of the listing

of the properties shown here

as part of the Mountain View Register update.

One site is currently listed on the register,

1855 Miramonte Avenue,

and staff will continue evaluating their request for removal

and will provide more information in the future.

Additional properties may also qualify

subject to further review.

Staff have the following recommendations

regarding the eligibility and draft list of resources.

continue to utilize the city's significance criteria,

adopt integrity thresholds,

and include the draft list of eligible properties

in the register, excluding the religious sites,

subject to public review

and the accuracy of published materials.

The EPC supported the staff recommendation.

The next topic, while most of the properties

currently on the register are still eligible,

five may not be eligible

if integrity thresholds are implied.

The staff recommendation is to develop a process whereby these properties have an opportunity

to improve their integrity within a limited time before being removed from the Mountain

View Register.

They would need to submit an application with an analysis showing that the improvements

would return sufficient integrity to be eligible for continued listing.

If they have not met the deadline, they would be automatically removed from the register

and any Mills Act contracts would be canceled.

The staff recommends this balanced approach to minimize impacts to individual property

owners from the loss of any incentives, such as Mills Act property tax reductions, while

at the same time maintaining the integrity of the ordinance and associated incentives

provided to property owners.

The EPC recommendation included a four-year period to submit the restoration plan, after

which they would be, if they did not, they would be removed from the register at that

time.

A property owner submitting the application within four years would receive additional three years to obtain city approval and complete the construction.

EPC also recommended that the city identify and adopt more proactive measures for the two downtown properties.

The next topic is regarding the nomination, listing, and delisting process in the code.

Currently, nomination of a property may be carried out either by the property owner or

by the City Council.

And if the City Council nominates a property, the following steps will only be carried out

with approval from the property owner.

There is then staff review and a formal listing action.

The current code also identifies one formal delisting process.

The property owner may opt off only on the five-year anniversary of the designation.

There's no public process or formal findings

that must be met for this action.

In summary, the opt-off process is not transparent

to the public and may not eliminate obligations,

especially under the California Environmental Quality Act.

National and or California Register properties

are not automatically included in the register,

and there is no process for nomination

of local historic districts.

The following are staff recommendations

for this processes in the code.

First, to remove the owner opt-off provision

and the required owner approval

with the council nomination process.

Owners can still nominate themselves and apply for removal,

but listing and delisting would be under the authority

of the city council.

The city council may consider property owner sentiment

in this decision.

Create a process for neighborhoods or districts

to nominate themselves subject to council approval.

List properties in the register if an official determination

is made at the state or national levels.

provide delisting procedures that consider findings,

such as if there's an overriding consideration through CEQA.

The EPC supported the staff recommendation

with additional clarification and insurance

that property owner negligence,

such as failure to maintain a historic resource

to the point that it becomes a safety hazard

or economic hardship, should not be considered

a valid basis for delisting a property.

The next topic is regarding the development review process.

The ordinance currently has three levels

of development review for projects

that would alter a historic resource.

Additional planning permits are not required

for various improvements that have limited potential

to affect the character defining features

of a historic resource.

The ZA refuse permit applications for alterations

to properties on the register if the property

is not eligible for listing at the state

or national levels.

And the city council reviews permit applications

for alterations to properties that are eligible

for listing on the California International Registers,

regardless of whether a property is listed

in the Mountain View Register.

In summary, there's a limited list of exempt alterations,

which are not objective.

There's no differentiation between major and minor projects.

Projects on properties eligible for state

or national register are required to go

through the City Council,

but this is not transparent to property owners.

There's no clear process for demolition

or other modifications that impact the integrity

of a resource and there are no enforcement provisions.

The following are staff recommendations

regarding the development review process.

Clarify and adopt comprehensive list

of exempt alterations.

Define minor alterations,

such as in-kind replacement of doors and windows,

re-editions not visible from the front of the house

or modifications to non-historic features.

Define major alterations, such as relocation,

visible additions and alterations that would alter

or remove or obscure character defining features,

create a process for delisting a property from the register,

and incorporate enforcement measures.

The EPC supported the staff recommendation,

adding that the removal of original walls

or reconfiguration of interior spaces along Castro Street

should also be considered a major alteration.

The project team has continued to work on these items

shown on the screen,

and will provide an update when the project returns to EPC and council.

If the city council wishes to create a downtown historic district,

staff estimates it would take at least a year since the enabling legislation

would need to be adopted first.

This slide is regarding SB 79,

which was recently signed into law and goes into effect next July.

The purpose of this slide is to show the language in SB 79 that relates to the

protection of historic resources.

As an overview, the city must allow higher-density residential development in these blue areas on the map.

There are five qualifying transit stops in the city.

In general, historic properties that were listed as of the beginning of this year are exempt from this statute,

but the city can adopt a local alternative plan that would allow the newly listed historic properties to be exempt,

but we would need to allow more density elsewhere to compensate.

staff work has started on this,

including mapping of pedestrian entrances to stops and

analyzing areas affected in these bubbles.

In conclusion, staff is requesting city council direction on the draft list of

properties eligible for the register and draft strategies for ordinance updates.

And the development review process for historic structures.

We're happy to answer any questions you might have.

Also in attendance tonight are Ella Karachian,

the project manager, Amber Blazinski,

the assistant community development director,

and team members from our consultant firm, Paige and Turnbull.

Thank you.

Great, thank you.

So per my earlier announcement,

we're gonna do public comment,

and then we'll go into council question and deliberation.

So would any member of the public joining us virtually

or in person like to provide comment on this item?

If so, please click the raise hand button in Zoom

or submit a blue speaker card to the city clerk.

So we'll begin with in-person speakers.

We have a little bit of a queue,

so I'll call up some names,

and if you don't mind queuing to the left of the podium,

that would be great.

And then those who are watching online,

please speak directly into the microphone

so that those joining virtually can hear.

And then you'll see the timer clock right here.

So first we have Julie Satake-Ryu,

then we have Robert Cox, John Martinez,

George Aviet.

Directly into the mic.

It's a little high.

They're getting thumbs up from the back row.

Okay, good.

Thank you.

My name is Julie Satake Ryu.

I'm going to try not to watch that clock.

And I'm president of the board of directors

of the Mountain View Buddhist Temple.

I'm also a longtime resident of the city

and had a family business stock and nursery here in the city.

Served on the tennis advisory board

of the Mountain View Rec Department.

It coordinated the net gain tennis program

for public middle school youth up through 2021.

And in fact was here last night working the booth

for the city of Mountain View tree lighting ceremonies

and the holidays around the world

on behalf of the Mountain View Buddhist temple.

The Mountain View Buddhist Temple has been located at 575 North Shoreline Boulevard since the late 1950s,

after our Japanese-American founders returned from incarceration camps from World War II.

Since that time, we've continued to pursue our Buddhist religious practices

and grown our campus to include a new worship hall, which we call the Hondo,

and revise other buildings for education, social, and religious purposes.

We have faithfully maintained and updated our structures, both to meet current codes as well as to service our 350 plus Sangha community members, affiliated and related organizations.

While the process of updating the historic preservation ordinance began in 2022, we at the Mountain View Buddhist Temple were only aware of this process and the potential inclusion of our property in August 2025 when we received a letter.

We are admittedly concerned and attended meetings as described by the city staff.

We voiced concerns as to whether we would be able to opt out or be listed,

as well as just to understand the implications of being listed.

The Mountain View Buddhist Temple believes that the encumbrance of a historic designation

would significantly negatively impact the ability to pursue our religious mission.

Therefore, we at the Mountain View Buddhist Temple

appreciate the removal of our property from the draft report by city staff and the City Council for inclusion on the Historic Register.

I would also like to recognize any and all of our Temple members and supporters who are here to support the Mountain View to Miss Temple

by having those in person stand to be recognized.

And if you are here online, wave your hand.

I'm waving for you to express our support for being removed from the updated historic register

due to the substantial burden on our religious practice. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Robert,

I think you have a presentation. Yeah, I have a presentation.

You're going to have to lift it all the way. Yeah. All right.

Okay.

Can I start?

All right.

I'm Robert Cox from Livable Mountain View.

I'm here to talk about why we need a downtown historic district now.

Next slide.

Robert, do you mind saying that you're speaking on behalf of individuals?

Oh, I'm speaking on behalf of a number of individuals here with the Livable Mountain View.

Thank you.

Okay.

Senate Bill 79 could eliminate our historic downtown.

If you look here, the blue area is the impact circle approximated by us that covers up the historic retail district.

And it means that six to seven story buildings would be allowed in this area by right.

It provides a strong financial incentive for the property owners to assemble their properties, redevelop them as housing.

And it could mean that our downtown would no longer be a retail and restaurant destination for the enjoyment of our city or extreme generator of property tax revenue for its

maintaining what we need in our city.

Next slide.

So what's the answer?

Senator Wiener has it himself,

the SB 79 local alternative plan.

In a talk at the Southern District,

he said that cities have the ability

to craft their own alternative option

that implements the goals of the bills

but does it in a way that works for the city.

Next slide.

We have presented a three point plan,

local alternative plan,

And the third point is the establishment of a preservation area as an official historic

district for our local register.

Next slide.

Here's our proposed preservation area, which we sent to the council this morning.

It basically is the Castro Street Historic Retail District H, but we also want to include

the Tide and Wilheimer houses as they are on the national and eligible for the National

and California register.

And we could exclude two areas that are non-contributing in red.

And the parking lots are up and structures are up for discussion.

Next slide.

There are tight deadlines.

And as far as we know, the alternate plan should be adopted by July 1, 2026.

The review process could take as long as six and a half months.

That means that starting next week,

we're at risk of maybe slipping the deadline.

We've got a meeting with Assemblyman Berman's office

to try to confirm all of this.

Next slide.

Our cities, other cities are already working

on their SB 79 local alternative plans

such as Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, and Los Angeles.

Here's the Sunnyvale historic Murphy Avenue.

They are working on a plan for that.

Unless we act now, historic core

of our pioneer founded city could be lost.

Next slide.

There are 12 California certified districts, historic districts within the state of California.

One of the closest ones in Redwood City is the Redwood City Expanded Main Street Historic

District.

We look at it as a model for Mountain View.

We note that it talks about the idea of many pioneer and early day residents and organizations

associated with the buildings in the proposed expanded district as part of the rationale.

And we know in Mountain View, the Castro Street was created in the 1860s as a commercial district

when the Southern Pacific Railroad was built.

Acknowledging contribution of minority populations is an important criteria when determining historic

districts today.

It came up when we were talking about the Tide and Wilheimer houses.

And the Castro area includes contributions for a uniquely diverse population of immigrants,

FOR MINORITY GROUPS, AND THAT'S WHY WE BELIEVE IT DESERVES SPECIAL CONSIDERATION.

WE NOTE THAT IN THE REDWOOD CITY DISTRICT, IT HAS BOTH ARCHITECTURALLY SIGNIFICANT AND

ORDINARY BUILDINGS. IF YOU GO CLOCKWISE FROM A VERY ARCHITECTURALLY EXCELLENT BUILDING,

YOU CAN CIRCLE AROUND TO THE SAVER'S WAREHOUSE, WHICH IS VERY ORDINARY AND YET PART OF THE

DISTRICT, EVEN THOUGH NOT CONTRIBUTING. BUT THE DISTRICT CONSIDERATIONS INCLUDE PERSONS AND

events that occurred there as well as architectural design of buildings. Next slide.

So going back to the staff report, we have a couple comments on that that may impact on the

idea of historic registers and particularly the ones on the local historic register. SB 79 requires

a historic district receiving exemption be added to the city's local historic register. While state

and federal guidelines are useful in determining guidelines for local districts. They are not a

requirement. Our city has a final say on what it declares to be a local historic district. Next slide.

So what is a historic district? Going to the national park definition, it's a significant

concentration linkage or continuity of sites, building structures or objects unified by past

events and aesthetically by plan or physical developments. So it has to do

with continuity and history and the unity of the buildings. The San Mateo

Heritage Alliance on their definition notes that individual buildings without

in a district do not need to be highly significant on their own. Some are

contributing some not. Next slide. Next slide. Our downtown

HISTORIC DISTRICT THAT WE ARE

PROPOSING IS AROUND THE

CASTRO STREET AREA.

IT WAS LAID OUT IN 1864 AND

HAS BEEN IN CONTINUOUS USE AS

A COMMERCIAL RETAIL DISTRICT.

WE VIEW IT AS IT AND ITS

VICINITY AS A HISTORIC SITE.

WE NOTE THAT TAKING THE REDWOOD

CITY EXAMPLE, BUILDINGS NEED

NOT RETAIN THEIR ORIGINAL

ARCHITECTURE TO CONTRIBUTE TO

THE HISTORIC DISTRICT.

IF YOU LOOK HERE AT THIS PICTURE

OF HISTORIC REDWOOD CITY'S

COURTHOUSE TODAY, WHAT WE CAN

can comment on it is it has gone through several design revisions. It was completely destroyed

in the 1906 earthquake and rebuilt. And the only part that is existing today is the metal

dome up at the top and yet is still considered a part of the historical contributing buildings

in the district. Finally, we want to say that a proposed historic district needs to be judged as

whole rather than by each of the buildings individually. Next slide. Next slide.

Who can nominate a historic district? The staff report talks about the idea of historic districts

being nominated by owners. And while we support the idea of doing that, we also note that by law,

city council, city development staff, or citizens organizations and individuals can make

NOMINATIONS FOR HISTORIC DISTRICT. AND SO SINCE WE BELIEVE QUICK ACTION IS NEEDED TO CREATE THIS HISTORIC DISTRICT, WE ARE RECOMMENDING WHATEVER IS THE SPEDIEST METHOD TO DO IT. NEXT SLIDE.

SO FINALLY, JUST A FINAL SLIDE HERE WITH A CALL TO ACTION. A HISTORIC DISTRICT ENCOMPASSING THE DOWNTOWN RETAIL DISTRICT AND ITS VICINITY SHOULD BE DEFINED AND PLACED ON THE CITY'S LOCAL HISTORIC REGISTER TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF SB 79 HISTORIC PROTECTIONS.

This should be completed by when the law takes in effect

in July 1st and next year,

and staff should defer less urgent land use work

for six months to get an SB 79 local alternative plan

submitted an approval.

Thank you for listening to what we at Live Elmahm

you have to say.

Great, thank you.

George Martinez, and then, sorry, John Martinez,

George Aviat, then Jim Spengler.

Thank you.

John Martinez.

And I've lived in Mountain View for 39 years,

and I have been following the historical process,

and my house has never been listed on the registry.

So now, two weeks ago, I get a letter,

and I look, and all of a sudden,

my house is on the registry.

So I really am kind of behind the queue here.

One of the questions is I'd like to opt out and I was told that I had to wait for you guys to go through your whole process before I can even opt out.

And then so I was wondering why I had to do that.

And then the criteria that you of the company that did the survey listed age and then historical significance and things like that.

And my property is just age.

I don't see why I should be considered on a historical registry just because my property is old.

So anyway, thank you.

If I could reach out to you later and talk more about it, is that possible?

Okay, thank you.

Is there a property?

10-5-2 Monroe Drive.

I'm the owner of Shetty Jai restaurant for last 44 years and I'm 70 years old now and

I'm trying to retire.

I have put all my life and savings in this property and wanted to secure for future of

my life to sell or to lease or to develop this property to manage a future security

for myself and my kids.

Unfortunately, I've been listed in historical registry without my permission, and I've been

fighting it for last 15 to 16 years to take this property out of the list, up and out.

And I'm not very satisfied by even without my permission, putting this property to a state

registry without my permission again, without my consent.

And I wish to opt it out to either develop the property, which we had an amazing development

plan for it about six years, seven years ago, which we were refused to permit for that.

I think I need to have this property opt out so as an individual who has been paying my

taxes and the right of my life to exist and live in this town to be able to sell my property

so I can retire.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jim.

Good evening.

It's been a while since I've been able to address the council.

I've been slowing down a little bit myself.

Can you speak directly into the mic?

Thank you.

I still stay active in the business that I own and the property that my father and I

own at 799 Castro Street.

Spangler Mortuaries was started in 1934 by my grandfather.

AND WE'VE BEEN ACTIVE IN THE COMMUNITY, SERVING THE PUBLIC AND THE COMMUNITY WITH THEIR NEEDS.

I AM A BIT SURPRISED THAT THIS ISSUE OR OUR PROPERTY IS BEING ADDRESSED AGAIN.

IN 2004, WE SPOKE AGAINST THIS ISSUE AND WE WERE NOTIFIED THAT WE WEREN'T DIDN'T QUALIFY

OR WEREN'T LISTED ON THE REGISTRY.

NOTICES THAT HAVE GONE OUT. I HAVE BEEN GOING TO MY 91-YEAR-OLD

FATHER WHO JUST LOST HIS WIFE ABOUT THREE MONTHS AGO AND I WAS NOT AWARE OF ANY OF

THE NOTICES. SO IT RATHER SURPRISED ME THAT WE

WERE BEING CONSIDERED AGAIN. I WOULD LIKE TO OPT OUT AS WELL.

WE HAVE NO DEVELOPMENT PLANS AND I'M LUCKY THAT I HAVE A FOURTH GENERATION COMING ON

and taking over the business.

We plan on serving Mountain View continuously

for the next 30, 40 years, if at all possible.

We take care of our property and maintain it

in what we feel is a very respectful manner.

And it is a nice property,

but it is not historic as far as we're concerned.

We don't feel that we should be punished

for our service to the community.

by having it listed on the registry.

We'd like to continue participating in the process,

and we hope that you'll take our consideration

into plans eventually.

Something's gonna have to happen

whether it's 30, 50, 70 years from now

in that block of Casanova Street.

It's not in the downtown historic area

by the train tracks,

but it's going to be a very unusual piece of property

amidst all the other projects that have been going on

and are anticipated to go on.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Any other in-person public comment?

Great, you can submit.

Yeah, good evening.

My name is Massimo Prati.

I've been living in Mountain View for about 34 years now.

And my residence is the Minton home.

In early 2000, when the council first looked at endorsing an ordinance, we opted out.

We opted out because the ordinance at the time lacked incentives that made it financially

worthwhile to stay on the register.

And it was a good move, quite frankly, given the math that was offered to us at the time.

I'm surprised to come here in December 2025 and see that incentives are still being investigated

and looked at.

They should have been the first thing to be explored and put on the table before this

council.

What I'm hearing tonight for many people is the financial distress that this ordinance

could cause without proper incentives, without the freedom to handle their properties in

the way that they would like.

And I've heard issues around financial security.

That is really all it's all about for us as well is you can walk by our house and recognize

that its historic significance has been preserved and beyond.

But I think it is important if the council is going to adopt this ordinance and force

people on a register without the proper incentives or without the financial security that they

need in order to maintain their property, in order to maintain their financial security,

I think this ordinance will fail.

And that is a concern as I am an endorser, believe it or not, of historic preservation.

But I don't see any, again, I use the word incentives, or progress in this ordinance.

It seems to me that it's stuck where it was 20 years ago.

And the exercise has been worthwhile.

And has shown that much due diligence in terms of identifying new properties and evaluating

historic significance of property in Mountain View,

and I think that effort is commendable.

But what I don't see going with it is an ordinance

that makes any sense vis-a-vis 2025

and the challenges that we all face, we all saw.

And there was a presentation about SB 79

and the need to, and a call to action.

It's something that's being looked at right now.

We've known about it for months

and it should have been addressed earlier.

So I'm speaking to you with great disappointment

that it has gotten to this point.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you, Melanie Kay.

Yes, Melanie Kay, I've lived in Mountain View since 1981

in the same little house and the same little,

I like to say historic street.

Yes, you've all heard from me, I did send a letter.

I just wanted to speak this evening because it feels

as though the real question is,

what is the value to having an historic district?

What is the value of proclaiming a property

or a place of historic significance?

What is the value the city does bring to this picture?

It seems that we're hearing that there is a lot of confusion.

What do I get if my property is historic?

So my question is directed at the city.

Who are the personnel that are directly involved with this process?

Is it simply, and it isn't just simply, of course,

are we counting on an outside group to tell us in our fair city

what is and is not?

preservable? Are we not capable of having a group designated who live here, who recognize the value

of the community and not just of significant buildings via someone famous lived there,

or it was a famous architect? What we have here is a community in Mountain View that was based

on the working class people who built it. Not a university, not famous architects, but a very

strong community. And when you see those bubbles on a map, those bubbles are centered mainly around

the small historic community that was not only commercial, but those people who built that

lived a block or two or three away. This is what we have. This is what Mountain View was built on.

And if we lose this idea, because there are no positive aspects of being on this,

you can hear the fear in people's voices. Oh, if it's historic, what happens to me?

And you can already see and feel it. So I think we need to look as a city at what is the value

of historic preservation.

Take it to heart.

And we need to do this quickly

because SB 79 is coming down on us hard.

And it could be the absolute loss

of what has been built up

since they first watered the horses down there

at the place that has been lost.

Just, we need a city committed to this

in a positive way.

Thank you. Caroline McCormack?

Good evening. I do not come here very often.

The last time I was here was probably in 2014, because that's when I opted out of the Historical Society.

My property taxes would have gone at that point.

I apologize. You need to speak directly into the microphone, or else we can't hear you, and those watching virtually cannot.

Thank you.

Thank you. Do I get time again?

I have not been here since 2014.

I was a member of PEER, I've been a member of Interfaith Action

and Changes in Mountain View that have made significant differences to our society.

I would like to say that last time I was here, I opted out of the historical society.

I looked at the Mills Act for my house.

I would have saved over $6,000 a year, 11 years ago, in my property taxes

had I chosen to participate.

I have maintained my house.

I have a really nice house on Bush Street.

My house is a Victorian,

and we have maintained that structure.

Like many people in my neighbourhood,

I have created a community here.

I know most of the people in this room, right?

However, you are not giving us any clear definitions

of how we proceed to either opt in or out.

you have not given us any clear definitions of what you're intending to do to our community.

People here are concerned about how their community is going to change.

I live next door to the Oida House.

It was built in 1921.

But the original city plans don't have it there because I was at the bad end of Bush Street.

I'm at the cheap end.

I'm now down in the middle lumberyard.

So it's on the property insurance plans, as I found out today at the Historical Society,

but it is not on the city neighbourhood street plans, because I live in the bad end of town.

You choose, through this historical ordinance, to send me a letter that I have to pick up from the mailbox.

I had to go and get it. It was a certified letter.

There are people in this town who don't get to check the certified letters.

one of the people sitting next to me said,

oh my God, did my mother get that letter?

The marketing and the information you're sharing to this community

about what you're doing here is not apparent.

You do not have a public information campaign about what's going on.

And I would say that most of the people

that you've never seen here before tonight,

like the people on Monroo Street, had no idea.

So I'm saying to you, the City Council that we elect,

You need to tell the public what's going on.

You need to be more open about how we change it.

Like I said, I could have saved myself $70,000 over the last 11 years

if I'd known you were going to make me do this anyway.

We care about our community.

I didn't buy a historic house.

I bought a house that I thought was beautiful,

and I made it look historic because I like living in a small community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other in-person public comment?

All right.

We're going to move on to virtual, and we have a queue there as well.

So first is James Kuzma, then Daniel Holsey, then Tushar Pankaj.

James?

Hello, this is James Kuzma.

I'm speaking to Mountain View Yimby's letter on this item.

Our priority here is to ensure that we honor the most important aspects of Mountain View's history

by prioritizing the preservation of critical historical resources

while respecting Mountain View's history as a destination for those seeking opportunity.

As with all things, the way that we implement these sorts of policies matters immensely.

Staff have rightly called out a variety of procedural concerns that

deserve addressing, including ensuring that we maintain a historic registry that makes

compliance with the state mandated secret review simple and straightforward for both property

owners and the city itself. With that said, both the way that we select the actual set of properties

included in the registry and the constraints imposed on such properties matters a lot.

And if we review the actual list generated by Page and Turnbull, there are a lot of properties

on the list whose entire justification for inclusion seems to be that they are well-preserved

examples of architecture from time periods where Mountain View is growing significantly,

as you can tell from some of the comments from property owners today.

While it is appropriate to allow these property owners to take advantage of the Mills Act

compensation to maintain these properties because they do contain some historic significance,

And while it would be appropriate to maintain an accessible list of these properties for members of the public with an interest in history,

it is not appropriate to force property owners to maintain a specific facade that is, to be quite frank, of marginal historic significance.

While we have other buildings in the city that are of substantially greater historic significance.

For similar reasons, a downtown historic district would almost certainly be inappropriately broad

and would likely prevent more people from being able to live, work, and bring their vibrancy to our downtown and our city.

More significantly, historic resources should be considered for acquisition by the city itself

if they are truly that historic as we have, well, as exists with the Adobe Boating and the Rainstorm House.

It is frankly not clear to me that there are any such properties in the city right now, but there may be.

They're just not called out effectively in the Page and Turnbull report.

and when it comes down to it, Mountain View's history is one of its people and the people who

will come here in the future. Let's prioritize that history and make sure that we are putting

people ahead of building facades. Thank you. Thank you. Daniel Holsey.

Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. All right. So I didn't write anything beforehand,

I just have some comments here and some thoughts.

If I look at the staff recommendation,

these first two bullet points are really concerning to me.

The first one seems to be, to me,

like whether or not the city should just be able to steal

developability from landowners,

which to me seems a little wrong.

And then the second one is whether we should be able to do it on a mass scale.

And I think that's just wrong.

If a property is going to be on a historic registry, it should be voluntary.

Otherwise, you're just, like, stealing from these landowners who may have plans for their property.

And, you know, this is actually kind of personal for me.

My husband's grandmother lives not in Mountain View, but in Fremont in the Niles Historic District.

And really being in a historic district is more of a liability than an asset, especially when you're someone who's lived in a house for a very long time.

Houses have to be maintained.

And when they're real old, they fall apart.

and you may have structures on your property that start falling apart when you haven't maintained

them. And then, you know, if you're in the position of trying to take care of these people

and take care of the property, being in a historic district just raises all sorts of questions about

what you can and can't do. And so we got to be real careful. Don't create these historic districts

just because people like the vibes.

It needs to be voluntary.

And we need to recognize that people are actually living in these houses

and they are trying to use them

and they're trying to contribute to their community.

And we could be turning assets, land assets that people own,

into liabilities that they don't know what to do with.

So thank you for listening to my comment.

Thank you. Matthew Marting.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

Hi, good evening.

My name is Matthew Marting.

I'm a renter.

I live near Rangstorf Park.

I'm just concerned that a lot of the buildings that could be put on the historic register

just happen to be old.

And if we preserved every building that happens to be old, we would never build anything new.

And that might be what some people want, but I don't because we have a housing crisis.

We need more housing, and downtown right by the train station is the best place to put it.

Someone earlier brought up the importance of community.

My closest friends recently talked to me about how they are thinking about, you know, long term,

they might leave, move somewhere else because it's too expensive to live here.

They can't necessarily see themselves staying here long term.

So, you know, when we're thinking about community, you know, it's not just what we currently

have the way things currently are.

We also need to think about, you know, the opportunities that may be lost by not building

the housing that we need.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Kent?

Hello?

No, the speaker is Kent.

I'm so sorry.

I think that they went to you.

But we're trying to unmute Kent, not unmute our translator.

Hi Kent, is that you?

Hi, is you ma Kent?

Okay, can you hold for just a second?

Why don't we take a five-minute recess while we work through the component here?

Thanks.

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All right, so I think what's going to happen is we're going to put up six minutes and we're

going to have simultaneous translation.

So our translator Eileen will confirm with Kent what he would like to say and then she

is going to give that back to us and that was part of it.

So that's why both lines are unmuted.

Thank you for your patience as we work through this.

Accessibility is one of the things that we try to do in Mountain View.

And so much appreciated.

All right.

So let's unmute Kent.

Let's unmute Eileen.

And we have the six minutes up.

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134 Castro Street since 1992 to 2018 as a Chinese restaurant.

134 Castro Street.

I understand the design and the design of the building.

Okay.

Okay, so on 134 Castro Street, so I have a very good understanding of this building about the structure.

OK, I found the material of this building is very normal when I did the remodeling of the building.

And nothing special about the structure.

And the exterior design does not look like an ancient style.

And nothing shows a combination of ancient and modern structure.

And the materials about the foresight design is very ordinary materials.

We tried to remodel the front exterior area.

We invited the Chinese architecture designers from China to help us to take a look.

We were thinking of how to change, remodel this building to reflect the Asian architecture

or combination of Asian and modern architecture.

We cannot define it as a historical architecture only because the roof has a special color or design.

Because it does not reflect the Asian-Chinese architecture style.

So I recommend that to remove the designation of this building as a historical resource.

Thank you. That's all.

Okay.

Okay.

So the next speaker is Jennifer Michelle.

Michael.

Oh, okay.

It is now Matt Francois.

Francis.

Good evening, Mayor Kameh and members of the City Council.

My name is Matt Francois with Rattan and Tucker.

And along with Mindy Romanowski, we are Land Use Council for the Mountain View Buddhist Temple.

Ms. Romanowski is also joining me online

We were both planning on appearing in person

And speaking to you tonight

But given the updated staff recommendation

We decided we could combine our comments

And keep them relatively brief

First off, I want to thank staff

For their updated recommendation

To remove the temple's property

And other church properties

From the draft historic register

We sincerely appreciate staff's thoughtful review

and consideration of MVBT's concerns and those other religious institutions may have expressed on this matter.

As Ms. Rue explained to you earlier tonight, the temple is home to a vibrant Buddhist community

offering a wide range of religious and spiritual programs.

On December 1st, we sent a letter objecting to the inclusion of the temple property on the city's historic register.

Under state law, a city cannot designate a religious building or property as historic

over the objection of a religious institution, claiming it will suffer a substantial hardship

as a result of such designation.

In our letter, we explained how inclusion of the temple in the historic register would

impose a substantial hardship to it and its religious use of the property.

Having a historic designation would increase costs, cause delays, and make it more difficult

to obtain permits necessary for campus improvements.

specifically being included on the register would inhibit the temple's ability to make

alterations or changes to the buildings that will be needed over time to sustain and grow

its religious ministry this is not just a hypothetical or theoretical concern in the last

10 years or so mvbt has made substantial improvements to the hondo its current temple

building it's also made alterations to its original temple building known as the yba hall

So two of the four major campus buildings have been recently altered in a substantial fashion.

And MVBT has also been engaged in a master plan process for future growth.

Through that process, it has identified renovations and alterations needed to other campus buildings.

A historic designation would inhibit and restrict MVT's ability to alter demolished campus buildings as needed to sustain and grow its religious ministry.

In our letter and comments tonight, MVBT is reiterating its objections to the inclusion of the temple's property on the historic register and informing the city it will suffer a substantial hardship if the property were to be so designated.

We urge the council to follow the staff's recommendation and remove the temple from the register.

If the temple property were to remain on the register despite staff's recommendations, MVBT will have to pursue other remedies to preserve its rights under state and federal law.

Thank you again for your consideration of the Temple's views on this matter.

I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Okay, thank you.

Jennifer?

Dear Dias, I'm sorry I can't be there in person.

I'm Jenny Michelle, resident of Menlo Park, but longtime representative of owner interests,

managing several assets in Mountain View within a quarter mile of the two train stations.

I also graduated from Los Altos High School, lived in Mountain View for several years, and my husband grew up in Mountain View for over 20 years.

Personal comments.

I'm a recovering homeless teacher who has lived on the streets for two winters.

The housing crisis has been with us for several decades.

SB 79 was bored out of the vision to see our people living and working in resource-rich areas without being tethered to vehicle ownership,

freeing up income to be allocated to other goals such as family expansions.

As a commercial property manager, my trades that serve you directly and indirectly come from Manteca, Livermore, Sacramento, Lodi, Morgan Hill, Daily.

Historic preservation has been used in many municipalities to stop critically needed housing that my family, my tenants and trade are on the market for.

I urge this body to ensure that this ordinance is only used for truly historic assets that are strictly approved by owners.

This ordinance is an encumbrance on owners and your long-term housing goals.

Our workforce needs to be centrally located to transit in order to streamline services, productivity, and safety.

How many people do you know working two full-time jobs only sleeping for a few hours a day?

More people in our city means more economic stability for all stakeholders.

Hashtag maybe one job can be enough, right?

If we want to reposition our assets to take advantage of housing density bonuses,

why limit our investment strategies that help you achieve your AFFH housing goals, right?

Finally, our middle school age son will be on the market for housing soon.

He has selected Sunnyvale as his ideal city because the recently activated mixed use development downtown at the train station is awesome.

Sunnyvale has a competitive advantage over us.

Let's allow the state statute SB 79 to work in our favor and limit the historical preservation ordinance to remain competitive for our youth and workforce.

And there is one community member that couldn't be here.

because of the issue with the translation,

Tushar Panjap.

He's been a resident for five years

and he is calling out that he wants to live in downtown

on top of retail stores,

but right now that would not be an option

with this ordinance.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Kevin Ma.

I'm so sorry just point of order we're doing public comment and so I'm going

through all of the public comment this isn't a interactive portion you got your

chance to speak for public comment and then we're going to go through all the

virtual and then we're going to do questions and then we're going to do

deliberation on the topic so Kevin Ma

Evening, Council. This is the first time I've spoken as an individual comment, so there's that.

I speak for a few items on this topic. One is, what is the purpose of a historic preservation?

I feel like one of the reasons any government would do that would be to encourage people to research the history of the city.

However, the way it's presented in tonight's item doesn't really make that very clear, right?

But once we make a property on the register, how does anyone know it's on the register

if they had to look in the first place?

There's no marker on the site.

And I'm pretty sure if I tried to look at the site in person, I might be accused of trespassing

or scoping for a burglary.

Who knows?

But it doesn't really feel that inviting to actually learn the history without looking

at the study, which the staff have taken quite an effort to compile, which is great.

You know, it's nice to read about what's happened.

but I'm looking at the costs and benefits of what the city has done and it's a little bit

questionable if we as a citizenry are getting really that much benefit. A few commenters have

brought up about the significance of some of these sites. If we're being honest, I don't think

we'll bring in anyone from even our neighboring towns to see some of these sites because

they're not really that interesting. Sure they might indicate a history long gone, a history

when El Camino Real was an actual highway or back to our pioneer roots, but it's not

the greatest demonstration of that, I'd say. If anything, it might seem a little bit boring

because for all the council members, would you visit these sites on your own? I don't know about

that. People have brought up, you know, concerns about development, right? You know, all of

these sites, all of these sites, proposed register were developed at their time, at their desires,

and it's a bit tricky to say whether we should foreclose our future on those sites because

actions of the past, right? Back to the old. Whose history are we trying to preserve? Is

that the right one? I don't know. I will say perhaps a rejoinder for some of the members

who are trying to use the historic designation for downtown to prevent state laws like SB

7 and 9 coming into effect.

Those laws are beginning to distinguish between historic sites and historic registers, historic

districts where, you know, like laws like SB 9 have been modified to specifically point

out sites in particular.

So you can't just dress up an entire area and call it a district and call it a day.

I would like to see the preservation to be done in good faith and actually something

that can provide greater education to the community rather than, you know, trying to

prevent the future from happening.

Thank you.

James Barrett?

Yes, good evening.

Mayor Kamei, counsel, I'm here on behalf of Yuju Cao, the owner of the property at 895

Villa Street.

and Ms. Cow posented this letter to me

and I actually went to the website

and reviewed the ordinance, the old ordinance

and the designations

and what I realized was

there were some things that were still vague.

Ms. Cow has owned this property for nearly 40 years.

She's put her life and blood into having a business there

for 30 plus years

having her children recognize the property.

And what we have here is an ordinance that is a very good intent,

but it just needs to be clarified.

When you have a business that you put your heart and soul in

as an investment for your future and your children and grandchildren,

you're hoping that you can benefit it at some point.

And at this point, the ordinance doesn't define how the historical designation is going to allow her to be able to utilize the property for what she invested for nearly 40 years ago.

So what I recommend is that this ordinance be designed to allow a specific ability to

opt out, a delisting condition that you can set the rules to.

But I believe that what I've heard the speakers tonight, that has not been clearly defined.

And I believe that the citizens of Mountain View really want an historical preservation

but the cost as was brought up previously has to be shared equally.

And if the property owners that are part of the Mountain View fabric

can't see a benefit from a historical preservation,

they should be allowed the opportunity to opt out.

Thank you, Council, for your time tonight.

Thank you.

Louise Katz.

thank you mayor yes as a member of livable mountain view there's a couple points i wanted to

add to robert cox's presentation first of all we're glad that the staff acknowledged that the

issue of a historic district that at the rate we're going and with all the other projects that

we have our staff committed to that it could take a year to get this historic district and in fact

As we've pointed out, we don't have a year.

We have basically six months, if that.

And so we wanted to emphasize, again, not only the need to move forward, but how to assist staff with the burden that SB 79 has placed upon us.

You know, we like to try to come up with suggestions and solutions and not just identify problems.

So we noted that under the house property issues, we would recommend that we put on hold and delay for six months the R3 zoning district development standards because that is not part of the housing elements.

There is no requirement and no state mandate to have this done at this time, that the whole concept is that we can move forward.

But first, we need to do what the state has mandated we do quickly.

We'd also like to indicate the idea that the citywide objective design standards could also be delayed for six months to free up staff time and energy to work on the SB 79.

Again, there is no deadline, and we believe that the time to address that is certainly coming up, but not in lieu of preparing for SB 79.

We'd also like to mention the Dark Skies Ordinance, which, again, to free up the work of Diane Pacholi, who we understand would be instrumental in working on SB 79, we would very much like to see her be able to devote her time and talent to this.

And also the question of using consultants to take care of the various kinds of technical issues that the staff either is not prepared or does not have the time to do.

It really needs to be very much a team effort.

And also just like to mention that for those who were speaking, that there seems to be some confusion between the ordinance and SB 79.

SB 79 and using the historic exception in the alternate plan is not going to stop housing.

Senator Weiner would never have put it in the bill if that was going to happen.

It is, in fact, going to ensure that housing will be built, perhaps even in excess of what could have been built on Castro Street.

It just moves it.

Thank you.

And it moves it within areas that have.

Thank you.

Your time is up.

All right.

The next is phone number 209 and then ends in 227.

Hi.

Yes.

My name is Marie Solera.

I'm calling on behalf of IFBS Hall at 432 Sterling Road.

We would like to opt out and be removed from this list.

We are an active religious organization that continues to use its property for community

gatherings, cultural events, and religious-related activities.

Assigning a historical designation to a functioning religious facility may impose significant

restrictions with us and administrative burdens that may interfere with the ability to operate

and maintain our building, adapt to its space, or meet the involving needs of the congregation.

That's all I wanted to say, and I hope that it goes, that we opt out and we could move forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Ene, you?

Hi.

Hi.

My name is Ene, and I was born and raised in the area.

I went to Mountain View High School, spent a lot of my childhood in downtown Mountain View.

and I'm here to speak on behalf of 134 Castro Street.

My family opened a restaurant, a Chinese restaurant, the same year I was born.

So while this building will always have a special place to me,

the evidence that's presented and gathered doesn't support elevating its status to a protected historic landmark.

I'm a first-generation Chinese American.

I've experienced firsthand the importance of four kids growing up in Mountain View to have accurate representation.

they can relate to. And because of this, I strongly believe this building doesn't fully

represent the contributions of our community and what it means to be a Chinese American

in Mountain View today. The city's evaluation clearly states that the property does not meet

any criteria to be listed in the National Register or California Register. The architectural features

that are listed. Hello? Yes, go ahead. Oh, sorry. The architectural features that are listed

are common and fairly cliche examples that are found in almost any city that has a Chinese

restaurant. So it doesn't necessarily represent what a modern view of that would look like.

So landmarking a building that lacks individual historical significance would also introduce avoidable constraints on our and the city's ability in the future to revitalize the property, which is a pretty big chunk of this block.

It wouldn't have the ability to adapt to the space in ways that would better serve today's community needs or to support the evolving needs of our people or the downtown community serving purposes.

And we absolutely should honor the Chinese American community contribution, but we should do it in an accurate and appropriate way that elevates truly significant sites or promotes accurate context and not simply stretch the definition of landmark to include buildings that don't meet the standard.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Jerry Stich?

Hello?

Hello.

Hi.

Can you hear me okay?

Yes, we can.

Hi.

Thank you very much for your time, ladies and gentlemen of the Council and Mayor Kameh.

This is Jerry Siech.

I'm with the, well, associated with a number of things with the Old Mountain View Neighborhood

Association, I'm the subcommittee chair there.

I'm part of the level of Mountain View.

I'm on the board of the Mountain View Historical Association.

The primary reason I moved to Old Mountain View years ago was how the city embraced its past historically and architecturally.

Now, tonight, much of the opposition that we've heard to establishing a historical district is based on personal interests,

where those in favor are altruistically focused on preserving character, history, and vibrancy at the core of downtown.

Overlooked, however, is some very basic map.

The first three blocks of Castro Street continue to draw visitors in droves.

Restaurants, retail stores, coffee shops, bars.

Any economics 101 course will teach you that the greater the customer base, the greater the revenues.

The greater the revenues, the greater the general public good for residents.

So do we really want to, I'm sorry, I'm using a common metaphor, do we really want to kill the goose laying the golden legs?

Property owners, whether of commercial buildings or nearby homes, can only gain from our not disrupting the vitality of downtown for short-sighted personal gain.

I have two requests.

Let's be clear and forthright with property owners what they gain being on the historic registry.

Two, let's please not conflate housing needs with issues facing commercial properties.

It's within your grasp, not due to the council, to preserve what served the city so well for so long.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Erica, you?

Hello?

Hello. Hi. My name is Erica. I grew up, worked, and lived in the Mountain View Los Altos community for most of my life.

I'm here to speak on behalf of 134 Castro Street tonight, which was previously a Hanjin restaurant for over two decades.

I recently read that this historical registry project has been in the works for many years.

But my family and I were pretty surprised to hear about it only just recently.

We got a letter, I believe, like in October of 2025 about our building being placed on the list of potential historic buildings.

The owners had no prior knowledge of this project before this letter, and so they were all kind of just taken aback a little bit.

As previously mentioned by others, the current owners of this building are in their late 60s, 70s, and almost 80s, and they're all hoping to retire sooner than later.

They've worked really hard to maintain this property through their lives and even pulling from their retirement savings to ensure this building remains up to code and active in this community.

and just as they're feeling some stability since the pandemic they find out they've been placed on

this list and it's a lot of new information and like new potentials of what may or may not happen

with the building the addition the addition of their building to the registry will bring kind

of like another big hurdle to their future plans of selling remodeling or any visions that they

may have for it while i respect the diverse roots of our community i feel as this building is solely

placed on the list because of its age. There's not too many other significant historical

aspects to this building. The outside attached decor is basically like an attached decoration.

Like it looks ethnic when you look at it, but it's not actually culturally accurate or

a part of the building itself. The owners would kindly ask to opt off of this list.

I believe ultimately it is important to preserve our history, but in an accurate and meaningful way that actually benefits our community.

And ultimately the choice to be added onto the historic registry should be up to the owners of each building in our community.

Thank you so much for your time.

Great. Thank you.

All right.

Last call for any in-person or virtual public comment for those who haven't spoken.

Hello, David.

on zoom in line but uh your hand went up and then it was down yeah it's very i thought he's here he

doesn't have anything to say no no uh so uh mayor kamei and council uh i'm uh david watson i've been

a resident here of mountain view my entire life uh and i don't have any financial interest in uh

in the historic preservation.

I live in a new house that I built here.

I value that Mountain View is a place of innovation

and change.

When people ask me if the city has changed my lifetime,

I say yes, proudly.

That's why I oppose creating a historic district

without property owner consent.

You just heard from Mr. Aviat.

Nice. His story shows exactly what forced historic designation does to real people.

You're considering doing this to a whole district of property owners. The definition of historic

resource here is too broad. Under this framework, essentially any 50-year-old building without

substantial alterations can qualify. This approach doesn't preserve unique historical treasures.

It just freezes ordinary old buildings in place. Little Mountain View's own materials admit this

This is about circumventing SB 79's requirements,

but do not mistake current loopholes for permanent shields.

The legislature is essentially responding in real time

to cities that try to use loopholes.

Every time a city weaponizes historic status

to block new homes, the state responds

with stricter enforcement and the new legislation

to close that path.

You're inviting the legislature

to further override local control.

When cities use protection tactics to block housing,

HCD and the Attorney General have sued and won.

Pursuing a transparently protection designation

is a waste of staff time and taxpayer money

on a legal battle the city will lose.

The only thing you will succeed in doing

is eroding the financial security of long time owners

like George, turning their assets into liabilities

in the name of preservation.

If we wanna honor Mountain View's history,

we should commemorate it.

Plaques, signs, heritage trails,

the story of Castro Street can be told

even as the buildings evolve.

What matters is the history itself,

not freezing structures in amber.

If the city wants to preserve specific buildings,

we the city should bear the cost

as we do with Rengstorf House.

I really like Rengstorf House, I got married there.

but we should not force property owners to subsidize the community's aesthetic preferences.

It's the people not the buildings that make Mountain View the city that it is. Thank you.

Great thank you and you'll submit your blue card. Thank you very much. All right all right so that

concludes public comment both in person and virtual. So we'll take the item back for council

questions and deliberations. The council members with a conflict of interest will make their

recusals now. Council member Hicks do you have an announcement to make? I do have an announcement to

make. I am recusing myself from any discussion concerning 12 properties for inclusion in the

historic register due to the proximity of my personal residence to these properties.

Mayor may I just briefly for the public for those of you who are not able to see staff will be

placing the 12 properties momentarily in a presentation however for the minutes

the addresses are 537 Bush Street, 444 Castro Street, 501 Castro Street, 655

Castro Street, 799 Castro Street, 334 Church Street, 595 Church Street, 624

West El Camino Real, 425 Hope Street, 782 Hope Street, 472 View Street and 680

Yosemite Avenue.

Great, thank you.

I'll turn it back to staff.

Thank you, Mayor.

So the purpose of this portion of the meeting is to hear if the City Council has any questions

or concerns about individual properties that may be affected by Councilmember recusal.

Council member McAllister.

4-4 Castro.

It was an obatros when it came up, so does that make it an historical site?

There's a lot of people who have long memories out here.

What makes it a historical building, I believe, is its architecture, the fact that it is of

a particular modernist style that isn't constructed anymore.

We do have our consultants here that may be able to speak

more about some of the details about why that property

is included in this list.

Okay, are those consultants virtual or in person?

They are in person.

Okay, great.

Would they like to approach the lectern

and provide comment to Council Member Callister's question?

Thank you.

And if you don't mind introducing.

Christina Dykus-Bropes from Page and Turnbull.

I have the evaluation right here,

so I'm going to take a quick look at it

and refresh my memory on this particular property.

Excuse me.

This building is significant as the first

and only high-rise in Mountain View

and as a notable work of innovative structural engineering

and late modern design.

The property is eligible for listing

in the National Register, California Register,

and Mountain View Register.

for its construction date of 1971 when the property was completed. Before that there's some

historic context about when it was completed. I believe that it was an unusual construction method

from the top down which for those who were here probably remember that. And we did consider

you know, mid-century architecture,

we evaluated properties that could have been built up

through 1980.

So, happy to.

Ask for any kind of a pop-up on this one?

I don't believe so.

No, we haven't received any comments from them.

Okay.

That's it for this one.

Great, thank you.

Council Member Clark.

I just have a couple of broader questions as we consider these properties.

So first, just confirming, nothing we're doing tonight is a final action.

We're not formally adding anyone to the historic register tonight.

This is just a preliminary list and then there will be additional opportunities for members

of the public to kind of challenge that list or the criteria that were, not the criteria,

the findings that the report had.

So this is just a preliminary look at what might qualify

under the work that's been done.

Exactly.

In addition, we're also checking in with council

about whether the criteria are the right path.

And so the direction that we receive tonight

from the city council could affect

what properties are ultimately listed.

But yes, you're right.

No final decision tonight.

Yeah, which could include if we wanted to have

a broader discussion when all of our colleagues are back

about listings more generally,

whether there is an opt-out process or whether,

or some sort of, okay.

Exactly.

And then the second question is somewhat related,

the, because there's the inclusion of some based on the,

there's an automatic, proposed automatic inclusion

of those on the California Register.

My understanding, I originally heard that

you can end up on the California Register

even if you don't want to be.

But then I did a little bit more research

and there's, you can object, right?

There's a period during which you can object.

So they don't require owner consent,

but you can, but you also have a period

during which you can object.

And if you object, you don't necessarily end up

on the California registry.

My understanding, and perhaps our consultants can confirm,

but my understanding is that if somebody other than the owner nominates you to the national register,

they will not list you over owner objection.

If you are nominated to the California register, they will not list you over owner objection.

But if you are deemed eligible for the national register,

you are automatically included in the California register over owner objection.

So it's that one specific path of, is there a, go ahead.

Yeah, please.

Hi, I'm Stacey Kozakiewicz.

I'm with Paige and Turnbull.

And the one clarification to the eligibility for the National Register leading to automatic listing on the California Register is that that eligibility needs to be concurred with at the state level.

And so it isn't just a finding by a consultant or a finding by a city.

How this can happen is if a property is nominated to the National Register and the State Historical Resources Commission agrees with the finding of eligibility, but there is an owner objection.

And so the property is not listed on the National Register.

In that case, the property might be automatically listed on the California Register.

Properties also which are reviewed under certain federal review processes, the Section 106

process for example, which are then reviewed by the State Historic Preservation Officer,

those properties can automatically be listed on the California Register through their finding

of eligibility for the National Register through that federal review process.

And in those cases, there is often very little notification of that eligibility.

Okay.

It's that.

Okay.

And then the prior council direction, since I wasn't here in my last question procedurally,

there was some direction around not looking necessarily at residential and duplexes, but

I think a colleague confirmed to me

that that was those already on the prior register.

I'm just trying to figure out what the prior direction

around duplexes and residential was.

Sure.

So the only single family and duplex properties

that we did look at were basically three categories.

First, properties that were on the existing register,

Properties that had opted off but were found to be state or national eligible through a city commission study back in 2008, 2009.

And then there were also some additional single family homes that had never been on the register that were found to be state or national eligible back in 2008, 2009.

So those properties were included in this analysis because they were already known to be state or national eligible and would already be subject to review under our current ordinance.

The properties that had opted off but had not been determined to be state or national eligible in that 2008 study, city council said let them be.

but do some outreach to try to give them some incentive to opt on to the register.

So some of the residential properties that we're seeing up here now are up there because, for example,

they probably would already have to go through that special sequel analysis

because they're eligible for the California or federal register.

Exactly.

They just haven't been added to ours.

Right.

We don't currently know.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yes.

And would also require a historic preservation permit already.

Council Member Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor.

I think Council Member Clark asked questions that are substantially similar to the ones

I was going to ask, but I'm not as smart as he is, so I'm going to ask them again, but

using different words.

So all of these or some of these, the residential, not 444, can you sort of break down the categories that you just shared with Council Member Clark?

Who, which of these opted out?

Which of these were never considered for placement in a local register?

Can you help us sort of break down where each of these properties would fall?

Sure. So 537 Bush Street was an opt-off property previously.

So you said you did not want to hear about the commercial properties.

So 444 Castro and 501 Castro, those are new properties.

655 Castro was not previously identified, but that is a commercial property.

799 Castro was not previously identified, also a commercial property.

334 Church Street was previously opted off.

595 Church Street is already on the register.

That's the one with the very visible staircase, the Spanish style with the palm tree.

624 El Camino was not previously identified.

That's a commercial property.

425 Hope Street is already on the register.

782 Hope Street was not previously identified.

472 View Street.

was not previously identified,

and 680 Yosemite is currently on the register.

That's helpful, thank you.

And then you shared that, again, to clarify,

all of these would need to go through

some environmental review for substantial redevelopment,

but for those that are not on the register,

they still require a historical preservation permit for smaller scale work?

Because they are, our current ordinance has language that says that if a property is determined eligible for state or national listing,

a historic preservation permit is required.

And so when we did this study back in 2008, we found a number of properties where the consultant had determined that they could be state or national eligible.

And so subject to that study, had they come in for a permit, we would have required a historic preservation permit from that property.

So moving forward, right?

We know that they're eligible.

Do all of these require historic preservation permits, whether or not we include them in this draft list?

The single-family homes, yes.

But the commercial properties, not necessarily today because they may not be state or national eligible.

They would need some kind of development review permit, which would trigger CEQA.

Okay.

Yeah. So for the single family homes, the residential, what's the functional distinction then for them between being on in this draft list and if the council had, you know, if we decided to keep them off the list?

Thank you.

Thank you for waiting.

So currently we have one level of historic preservation permit.

And if a property is deemed eligible for state or national listing,

if they wanted to do an addition or even a minor modification,

they would have to go to the city council for that.

We are proposing that for these properties,

we create a range of historic preservation permit

processes that reflect the level of work

that they want to do.

And so if they do come in for minor modifications,

that could be a very minor permit

that wouldn't even need a public hearing.

Or it could be, if they wanted to do major modifications,

That could be a permit that could go to the ZA instead of the city council.

Now, if they wanted to come in and request some kind of delisting or some kind of improvement that would demolish the site or rebuild something new, they would still have to go to the city council.

But that would be a similar process even to what they would be required to do today.

So I think that speaks to the proposed process changes contemplated for the new ordinance,

but I'm not certain I captured the difference to a property owner between being in the local

register and not being in the local register if they're state or national eligible.

Is there a difference?

For the properties that we are currently aware of, no.

There's no difference.

Okay.

So I.

Excuse me.

Thank you.

We're just going to continue with council questions and would just ask the audience

that this is the listening portion of the meeting.

We had the public comment.

So you're welcome to email us again.

Nothing we're doing today is final action.

And thank you very much.

Thank you, Mayor.

Can I just clarify your question?

Are you asking about the difference if we decide to list them or decide not to list them?

Or are you asking about the difference between today's conditions versus if we decide to list them?

Let's see if I have a strong enough understanding of what we're doing to respond to your question.

So I guess it would be for, so there are property owners, clearly, right?

I think we're hearing from property owners who are uncertain about the implications of the decisions that we're making.

Not necessarily today, but we're providing direction and we'll come back with an ordinance and some real regulations that may affect what they're able to do with their properties.

And I think what I'm having trouble understanding is, this decision right now has to do with the draft list of properties that we're putting together for the local register, right?

Now, the properties that you had shown on the screen earlier are properties, excluding the commercial ones, for the single-family homes, the residential.

those are properties that are eligible for the state and national register not for the most part

right not in our local register and what you've shared is because they're eligible for the state

and national registers they're required to go through some additional level of review right

and get a historic preservation permit so I guess the question is if we say you know we're hearing

the property owners we don't want to include them in the local register we take them off this draft

list, what does that actually mean for the property owner?

Yes.

Okay.

I understand the question now.

Single-family homes, with our draft ordinance, if they are not on our register, single-family

homes would be subject to ministerial approval, and they would be allowed to do anything with

their property under the R1 zone.

if they are not listed, if the council that goes in the direction that we are recommending for our code

and the council directs us to not list those single-family homes.

So they would not be preserved.

So it's advantageous to the property owners not to be included in this list.

I am not making any statement about advantage or not.

I am saying that if they are not listed,

then, well, maybe Director Murdoch might want to say it.

Thank you, Eric.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor, Vice Mayor,

Councilor Christian Murdoch, Community Development Director.

I think part of the challenge in answering the question

is that multiple variables are involved.

So to try to tease them out,

as the planning manager noted a moment ago,

for single-family residential properties,

typically zoned R1, most projects you would want to do, including demolition, are ministerial

permits only, meaning they would not be subject to the city's historic preservation permit process,

which currently is tied to, in part, either listing on the local register or state or national

register eligibility, even if not listed. So for a single-family project that would otherwise only

have ministerial permits, under the current ordinance, state or national register eligibility

is a determining factor of needing a historic preservation permit or being a local property

listed in the Mountain View Register.

What we're proposing is to change that dynamic away from including consideration of whether

it's a state or national eligible property so that we're focusing our historic preservation

permit requirements on listed properties in the local register.

And so I think to make that function properly,

the staff's recommendation is let's list all of the properties we know have

historic significance, right?

Including those that are state or national register eligible,

but fundamentally that's a policy decision for the council.

So as we're recommending for the new ordinance,

if council decides not to list some or all of the properties that are state

or national register eligible, I think the likelihood,

if the ordinance is developed the way staff's thinking

and recommending, they would not be subject

to historic preservation permit requirement.

Now, if some other requirement required a discretionary action

by the city, as we've touched on,

that state or national register eligibility would again become relevant

for purposes of the California Environmental Quality Act.

But that's a very unlikely scenario for these types of properties

that are in the R1 zone and that would typically be subject

to ministerial only review and approval.

Last question, Mayor.

Do we have to, can we finish the ordinance

so everyone has a clear and accurate understanding

of what the regulations would mean to them

before we complete the list?

I believe that's possible.

Currently we are anticipating a process that's concurrent.

So effectively we would have the council agree on all of the ordinance parameters and then simultaneously decide at the same meeting or at a meeting to follow very shortly thereafter which properties to list.

It's very much possible to break those apart and to provide more time and space between them.

There would be other staff resource and work plan management challenges to work through in that scenario.

But functionally it's possible to do that.

That's helpful. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Showalter.

Yeah, just with our questions focused on this list,

I just wanted to know,

has anybody on this list requested to opt out?

Yes, well, you've heard from 799 Castro,

for example, tonight.

there may have been other property owners on this list on this particular slide who you may have even heard from tonight

so yes I don't know exactly which properties but it's possible that you've heard from people on this slide

and that we've received public comment

And then the other thing is that basically all of these listings, they're related to architectural style and age.

None of them are related to what's happened here.

Is that correct?

They are, there is a broad range of significance criteria.

There are four significant criteria, but they can apply in multiple ways to individual properties.

And the definition of significant event can also be fairly broad.

So, for example, it's not necessarily just the architecture for which these buildings are significant.

I mean, for instance, I look at 624 El Camino Real, which is a garage that is currently being used as a gym.

Great reuse of the property.

I really appreciate that.

Very, very inventive.

But that garage wasn't where, you know, Steve Jobs created Apple or, you know, some other thing like that happened.

It was just a garage, right?

Yes, I believe that one is mostly for its architecture.

I'm confirming from Paige and Turnbull.

Thank you.

There are, for some downtown sites, for example,

the significance is being kind of a critical part of the growth of downtown.

Yeah.

And that's the significant event that happened there.

Not necessarily that some major invention was created there or some document was signed there, for example.

It's kind of how they were part of the community.

Exactly.

Thank you.

Vice Mayor Ramos.

Thank you, Mayor.

This is more of a general question, and it's similar to the nature of Council Member Clarkson and Council Member Ramirez's questions,

except as Council Member Ramirez mentioned,

I am actually, I have more difficulty understanding

a lot of this than they do at this point.

So in terms of breaking down, the delisting process,

can you go over, as some of the public commenters mentioned,

they wanted to already delist,

but they couldn't because we were going?

Yes, because one of the property owners says

his property's like there.

He's like, I want to delist.

How do I delist?

And you said you couldn't until we started.

So at what point,

what is the earliest point

they would be able to delist

based on what the staff's recommendation

is going to be?

I will just say, Council Member,

that this does sound like a general question

that Council Member Hicks may want to be.

That's what I was trying to ask

if it was specific to these individual sites or not.

Okay.

Because right now we're talking about these individual sites on this slide.

And then Council Member Hicks will come back.

And we have other council members that need to recuse themselves so that we can talk about those items.

And then we're going to have a general overall opportunity for people to ask questions about general things,

which that's why I was trying to ask you if it's about a specific property here.

Okay.

Are we supposed to be making a decision about this now without those general questions, though?

The process as outlined tonight was that because of recusals we need to go portion by portion

through all of the implications of what we're doing.

So in addition to Councilmember Hicks, we have Councilmember Clark and Councilmember

Callister who all separately need to recuse.

So we're only on one of three that we have and so the process will continue.

So if we do not have any further questions on this slide per se, we may want to continue

on the recusal process and save some of those questions for our general opportunity to ask.

Looking to staff.

Is that?

Right.

And we do have a slide that will get us back after the individual property discussions

to the criteria, and that's a good time to talk about, you know, how much of that do

you need to be significant enough?

Is it just design?

Should it be design?

Right.

Correct. So this is all the question portion. So does anyone have any further questions on this slide to individual sites?

Okay. So there's other people in the queue. So before we get to you, Council Member Clark, do you have more about this site?

Yeah, it's whether any of these properties listed on the slide are not currently, in

our opinion, eligible for the state and federal registers.

Is the finding from the consultant that these would be most likely eligible for state and

federal register?

We have that information.

I think it might take a second to look up

for the commercial properties.

If it's in that report, I can go read it again.

Yeah, I will say that for the single-family properties,

yes, for all of these single-family properties,

the consultants confirmed that they would be eligible

for state or national.

Okay.

Okay.

And then just process-wise,

if we wanted to have a treatment,

the segregation of the decisions,

that's just property of our property.

if we wanna talk later about how we globally treat

the properties on the list that don't target specific properties,

we can do that later with everyone, including me.

Yes, that's right, Council Member Clark.

Thanks.

Great, thank you.

Okay, Council Member Kalisar, do you have a question about the slide?

Yes, I'd like to take Council Member Strowalter's question and reverse it.

How many people asked to be on the list?

We had a number of people showing up at public meetings,

you know, happy that they are listed

and happy that they are being,

their property is being recognized.

I don't know that they necessarily asked to be on the list,

but we have a number of people who we have interacted with

that are happy to be on the list.

Okay.

How many people up here has to be on the list?

Oh, I don't have that information.

We may be able to do some research

from our public outreach to be able to answer

that question about these 12 properties,

but that would take some time.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, great.

Councilman Schultz, did you wanna ask your question?

I just wondered when we were gonna make comments

about what's on this list.

Are we going to get to do that specifically to say we think they should continue on the list or we don't?

Council Member Sherwood, now is the time for comments related to these specific properties.

I think that I would like to see 444 Castro and 624 El Camino removed.

I do not concur that they have historic value and we should give their owners any extra restrictions.

Council?

Yes, I believe that with staff's direction, if there are any of these 12 listed,

that council is curious about, I think, not having on this list,

then now is the time.

Okay, Council Member Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Right now I'm able to be persuaded, but I'm actually,

I would prefer to suspend work on the local register

until we've completed the ordinance.

So that way we have an opportunity.

Everyone will understand what the new regulations will be,

and we will have an opportunity to work more closely with the community

and the property owners so we can avoid,

I think, some of the level of frustration and angst.

So I think, I don't feel comfortable

with arbitrarily picking and choosing what's in the list, right?

Either we have a set of criteria and they apply or they don't.

It doesn't feel good to just say,

you didn't show up to the council meeting,

so you're on the list, but you showed up

and so you're not on the list, right?

That doesn't feel equitable.

So I could not support any determination about the list at all until we've completed work on the ordinance.

Okay. Thank you. Council Member McAllister.

I agree with Council Member Ramirez.

It is, I mean, this is a whole big pie of confusion.

But just for the sake that I got the mic, any of the commercials, Castro Street, the

BMO Bank, and the garage don't qualify to me.

If we wanted, and I guess I could do that later on, the general comments, but if we

wanted to recognize any of these, we could do like in Salt Lake City that has plaques

on the walls or plaques in the ground to say this particular part, this something happened

here and it's a point of interest.

And that could be used for all the other properties that we see going on.

So I'll come out later on those.

Okay, so I'm hearing at least two council members saying that they would like to

focus on the individual sites after we've crafted the ordinance.

So, Council Member Clark.

Slightly different version of that.

I'm not comfortable sort of picking and choosing properties here tonight.

but I will have a suggestion later when we're all back

as to how to handle the register

that isn't quite suspending work,

but is a hybrid of that.

Okay.

Any others like to make comments?

Okay, so I'll comment.

I haven't had a chance yet.

So I think that I'd be curious

to hear Council Member Clark's idea

of how we might handle the individual sites.

I do find it difficult to move forward picking and choosing.

I think particularly because I guess it's twofold.

One, you know, I'm fortunate that not everyone got the notice,

but I guess good that people did eventually get the notice.

But we would love to hear their input.

And so before moving forward with sites,

I just want to make sure that all of those who might have implications

would be able to have the opportunity to comment.

one way or the other.

And it sounds like perhaps that we haven't had that opportunity.

So I am not hearing consensus on moving forward

with this list of 12 sites.

So if staff is okay, perhaps we can move forward

and hear the general recommendation

maybe on how we might be able to handle this.

Maybe I can do a quick straw poll or something.

Mayor, just so I understand,

you would not like to continue with segmentation

because those individual properties will not be discussed,

and instead you're going to fast-forward to the general discussion?

I think it's more of a table than a fast-forward.

Okay.

Is that, I mean, I didn't hear any consensus on any of the sites.

I heard at least two.

I'm feeling a little bit reticent on moving forward on this list,

and then I, well, two and a half.

I'm going to put Council Member Clark as the half,

and then I count myself.

So maybe that's almost a majority.

It's three and a half, four-ish.

So looking to staff on how we might be able to power forward, what might be a way?

Sure.

Thank you, Mayor.

I think what I heard amidst the discussion was a lot of questions and ideas on different

approaches for the individual properties.

I think there seems to be interest from the council to move forward with discussing the

ordinance and the criteria that would inform future listing decisions.

So I think for now we can sort of break apart and segment the ordinance discussion from the register discussion.

Perhaps the ordinance discussion will then make you feel more comfortable in coming back.

And we may have to segment, you know, conflicts of interest at that time.

Or we just push off the decision on the property listings in the register until a future date.

There will be timeline impacts to conclusion of this work plan item as a consequence.

We can talk more when the council's ready.

But the discussion tonight can continue just on the ordinance.

Okay.

Okay, so, because is the segmentation all about sites?

Yes, Mayor, all segmentation is about different sites.

So then, are Councilmembers comfortable with that?

So then that would mean we would bring Councilmember Hicks back, we would not have recusal of Councilmember Clark or Macalester,

and we would go into our more general discussion on questions about ordinance criteria.

I think if we, if the conversation moves to talking about sites, then maybe that's when we would have the segmentation of recusal, and we would circle back towards the end before summarizing the general recommendation of where we'd like to go so the public is clear about the next steps.

Does that sound like an accurate summary?

Okay.

All right.

So, City Attorney McCarthy.

Thank you, Mayor.

So I just want to also add that I am hearing a lot of discussion about council members

being interested in the non-technical aspects of whether a property would be historic.

So whether it's an event or a person or essentially looking at something beyond what you have up

here, which would mean maybe these properties or others don't make the list at all.

So you have a much narrower, smaller, shorter list of historic properties.

So that, you know, would be something that I think you should think about or at least discuss once the full council is here.

Because honestly, in terms of timing wise, if we are not to consider a local register this evening,

and it sounds like there might be interest in that and doing a more phased approach,

it will just take some time to do that because of all the other projects slated this year and

we're probably likely looking at 2027 i just want to get that on the record now and then if council

is interested in narrowing the list and not having a lot of properties on the list now

it would just be good to get that feedback tonight that will help staff because right now

I think there's, is it 60 some properties on the list now?

Can you clarify how many, what's the number on the list?

I believe currently on the register,

there are between 40 and 50.

The proposed list minus the religious sites

would be about 90.

Okay, so that's where I was maybe getting

the smaller number.

So that would be something for council to consider.

Maybe the historic residents that the city has

or the ordinance is just a very small list,

if that's something that council's interested in.

So I just want to put that out there for you all.

Mayor, if I could briefly just add on

to the city manager's remarks.

Based on the other public comment we've heard tonight,

one of the implications, however,

is that SB 79 affords certain protections

to properties that are included in a local register,

and so delaying work on the local register

could limit the number of properties the city

could potentially exclude through a local alternative plan.

I think what I would say about the site list that I struggle with is,

maybe we can have this as a general question,

but just like the delisting process or the opt-out.

So I think I would be comfortable creating a site list,

but it's a bit nebulous right now on what that delisting or opt-out process is,

and that's where my discomfort is,

where we need to provide clarity to the public on what that is.

So if the idea is we need to decide about a local register or not,

there needs to be, I think, an opportunity for conversation on opt-out and delisting.

But that has to have been with the full council.

So perhaps looking to our city attorney,

we can have that conversation

and then maybe try to circle back and do recusals?

I mean, I...

It seems to me, Mayor,

that what you're suggesting

is that Council Member Hicks return to the dais

and based on how your conversation unfolds,

you can then decide

if you'd like to revisit the list

or provide direction to staff

to draft a new list based on your discussion.

Yeah.

Does that sound okay?

I know you had your hand up,

Council Member Showalter.

I think that there's really two things going on tonight, at least, maybe three or four.

But one is we're looking at the update to this historic ordinance.

And then the other is that we're dealing with how do we meet the requirements for SB 79 and what an alternative plan might be.

And having things on the local register is one of the ways you can, you know, one of the steps toward that.

So I think I would really like to understand better how we can tease out an area for the SB 79, whether it's as a historic district or an alternative plan.

I personally am very, very interested in protecting the economic vitality and aesthetics of the downtown.

But that's not necessarily a historic district.

So we haven't really talked about that yet.

But I think those two, I don't think these two subjects rip apart very easily.

So I'm very confused about how we're going to make progress if we just talk about the ordinance

and we don't talk about SB 79 and what we need to do pretty much right now at the same time.

So that's where my personal confusion is.

Okay.

Council Member Hicks, welcome back.

Thank you.

Now I'm trying to figure out what point we're at.

TV didn't work in there.

Oh, okay.

So the council, let's see if I can accurately summarize this.

The council had discussion about 12 individual sites with which you had to recuse.

I think in that conversation we had more questions and we wanted to get into general questions,

but you were not here to have those general questions.

So I think what we're talking about is allowing this opportunity for the full council to ask questions,

and then if we'd like to go into site specifics,

then we can break into the individual recuse

of the three council members who have implications

of needing to recuse themselves.

So does that sound right, colleagues?

Is that accurate?

Okay, nodding heads is good, okay.

So I don't know if you have any general questions

that you'd like to start out with

since we've been going for a little bit here.

Give me a moment to refocus.

Okay, anyone else like to ask any questions generally?

Council Member Clark.

Yeah, I have general questions.

And just to frame everything,

I'm very much comfortable with moving forward

with a lot of the ordinance framework.

I have some questions about that and maybe a few tweaks.

But I think if we're comfortable

kind of moving in that direction,

then maybe we can circle back to the site's list in any,

and if we need to do recusals

because we get into specifics then that's fine.

but the questions I had about the overall ordinance framework

were,

there's kind of different sections.

So in the,

so first of all, do we,

I know it might change tonight based on direction,

but do we have a general sense of when the ordinance itself

might come back to us for a first reading?

Are we talking like Q1, Q2-ish next year,

assuming we don't make major changes to it.

Yeah, we're targeting Q2.

Okay.

And then,

and then part of the,

part of actually what you're suggesting is

because we're not adopting a site list tonight,

we'll be able to, if we want to,

consider owner sentiment as part of including

or not including properties

at the time that we adopt the formal list

for the new register?

Yes, absolutely.

And the primary change that we are recommending

is giving council the authority

to allow individual property owners to opt off,

giving council that discretion,

rather than giving a property owner

the unlimited right to opt off.

That makes sense, okay.

So most of my questions for the ordinance framework,

there's a couple different sections.

So one is the community nominated districts process

and I'm just personally confused around

contributing versus non-contributing property owners

and the proposed 50% threshold.

So I think what would be really helpful for me

is just to understand sort of the process flow

for let's say a group of community members

or property owners wants to nominate a district.

Is the 50% threshold just contributing property owners?

Can it be non-contributing property owners?

And then does that change in the actual like

petitioning and voting process?

What's being proposed?

So we actually talked about this a little bit

with the consultants a while ago,

and I think there is a cart before the horse issue

where you really don't know what properties are contributing

until you've had a chance to start analyzing and studying

and creating that eligibility.

So our proposed approach is to have 50%

just be the threshold of properties that can apply.

So the properties apply, they draw some lines on a map,

and if 50% of the owners are included

in that line on the map, then it goes to the city council

to decide whether the district is actually created.

So the power is still 100% with the city council

to define and adopt the district.

But the nomination process,

the process of actually applying for this designation

would be through the 50% of property owners.

I think the, I'm okay with that.

I think the heart of my question is what happens

between those two points.

So let's say, I think some other jurisdictions have,

you can do 50% of property owners can nominate.

and then draw some lines.

And then those lines go to professionals

to kind of validate what would be reasonable

under the ordinance and the criteria.

And then I think some jurisdictions

then actually go to,

then you don't have the cart before horse,

then they go to the contributing property owners

to make sure that they meet the threshold

and then it goes to the city council to decide.

Is that what you're envisioning

or are you kind of leaving out

the contributing property owners

and just saying that those contributing property owners

can address this at the council meeting

if they want or something?

Yeah, so the latter.

We are not proposing a second vote through this process.

You know, property owners have the opportunity

to petition council,

and then it's ultimately up to the council's judgment

to decide.

But there would be some sort of validation phase

where, like, someone who knows more than we do

looks at those boundaries and says,

this is reasonable or this is unreasonable.

Exactly, there would be a whole staff review process,

a consultant review process to determine

that the district itself meets eligibility criteria.

Okay, and then,

yeah, go ahead.

Thank you, sorry, through the mayor.

So a quick follow up to Council Member Clark's question.

So if the technical experts determined

that a historic district is not eligible,

does the council still have an override

or does the process stop there

and it would not go to council for consideration?

That would depend probably on the applicants.

You know, there's always an opportunity

once the applicants hear like the, you know,

this is a DOA proposal,

they may wish to withdraw the application.

what it sounds like they could decide not to withdraw

and then the council could create a historic district

even if technical experts determine

that it doesn't meet the criteria.

I think that's a process mechanic

we haven't worked out yet.

If there's council direction to consider how

we would ensure all of these nominations

that have 50% in our study come to council for determination,

that's helpful feedback.

I think it's important,

whether it's individual property listings or districts,

you know, the staff recommends that we ensure

that there's sufficient technical evidence,

substantial evidence to support a district, right?

So that it's not an arbitrary use of this district tool.

But ultimately council interprets that evidence

and that information and weighs it as the council sees fit.

So as long as something's there to describe

historic substance to a district,

I think the council likely has a lot of broad latitude

and discretion to form the district

or to reject the district.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Council Member Clark.

Yeah, I think that my assumption is that

how it would play out is,

you know, there's a nomination,

there's a review process,

that the lines are kind of refined

based on the criteria, justifiable criteria.

And then, you know, the council would then say,

okay, yeah, those boundaries in that district

in the petition makes sense.

Or if the community wants to make an argument

that the, you know, there really is a legitimate reason

to have the lines expanded,

then they could make that argument.

It'll ultimately be our decision, I think.

And then the last question, which is kind of slightly different,

was about an EPC recommendation on considering interior floor areas a major alteration.

I didn't have a chance to watch that EPC meeting, or at least that portion of it.

And I was—I'm trying to figure out—so one example,

the LGBT community in loving form ripped itself apart

over the Castro Theater in San Francisco

when they wanted to redo the seats.

So not the exterior of the building, but the seats.

And so that gets into like interior alterations

and I don't want to be in that world.

So I'm trying to figure out if their recommendation

was major interior alterations generally

or if they were really just cared about

about the consolidation of interior floor areas.

And it sounds like that was a recommendation they made

that wasn't staff's recommendation.

Like your recommendation at the time

was just to maybe not take into account the interior stuff.

No, that was a new direction from the EPC,

new recommendation from the EPC.

We would have to take a look at that

see whether there are kind of whether there's a foundation for that in historic review.

I think their primary concern is really about the rhythm of downtown and the kind of frequency

of different businesses along Castro Street.

And that's certainly something that we can draft standards for

in the Downtown Precise Plan.

I believe there may already be standards for that

in the Downtown Precise Plan.

But we would have to look a little more closely

to see whether there's a nexus there

and the historic preservation ordinance.

Right, and I think as mentioned,

perhaps in the response to the council questions,

you know, the concern from EPC seemed to be focused

on the downtown and possibly even Castro Street specifically.

And that would be the only area that sort of has

a relationship in this process to interior modifications.

And so it would be a unique twist in our standards

to just look at those properties given none

of the properties we've identified have

the historic character tied to interior uses

or aspects of the buildings.

And so it would be an anomaly,

but it's something we can look into further

if there's council interest.

Okay, that's all the question I have about the ordinance

overall, I have comments later, but I'll let everyone.

Great, thank you.

Yes, we are still in questions.

Vice Mayor Ramos.

Thank you, Mayor.

This is more of like trying to really grasp how this is actually getting done.

So imagine I made smarter decisions in life and I own a historic property that I did not want to be listed on.

And what happens now?

Like, hypothetically, the smarter version of me got the notice and I wanted to delist.

I understand I would not be able to delist until this whole thing is over,

until we determine what the process to delist now is over.

What would be the earliest time I would be able to delist?

I think the terminology here is important,

and so there are different categories of properties,

so let's try to sort them out.

There are properties that are already on the list

that are proposed to continue on the list.

There is currently a delisting mechanism in the city's code.

It's limiting, and it's tied to every five years from the date of their initial listing, right, the anniversary, every five years.

So those properties have a mechanism, however limited it is today.

I think we're using the term generally about delisting for those properties that perhaps are not currently on the Mountain View Register.

They're on the list currently proposed to be added to the register as part of this process.

and they're wanting to be removed

from the list of consideration.

Technically, it's not delisting in my opinion,

but we're using that term loosely here.

So I think what we've told the community

is we're not in a position as staff

to remove you from this list of consideration yet.

That will be up to the council,

including tonight's consideration

and future action by council.

If the criteria change

and you ask us to scrub the list, for example,

some properties may be removed.

So there hasn't been a mechanism

because those properties aren't listed.

They've been identified for study and analysis

and consideration by the council.

And it's up to you at this point to tell us

what to do with these properties.

Okay.

And also for clarification,

in the attachment two,

where it has the amount of you registered,

you have off-register and on-register.

So basically, if you are off-register,

you're essentially already delisted,

but then you're under consideration to be put onto it.

Is that correct?

So we, a feature of our current ordinance is that even if you opted off the register, there are still aspects of your property that still require listing.

There's a requirement that you meet with city staff prior to requesting demolition.

There are CEQA obligations.

there may be other aspects of the city code that require that we keep you on a list,

you're just not on the register, even if you opted off.

So that's what that opted off means.

It's just the fact that we've kept track over time of all of the folks who have requested the opt-off.

So with the changes we're going to do, there will no longer be off-register and on-register?

or is that?

That's right.

With the changes, it's just gonna be clean.

There will be just a Mountain View Register

and that we will not need to keep track of off-register

for the purpose of the ordinance.

We may need to hold on to some of these studies

for the purpose of CEQA.

So, hypothetically, in my imagined scenario

where I have a single family historic home

that is not currently registered as historic,

but I don't want it to be,

then if I don't want it to be deemed historic

and presuming that it's also not national.

Actually, in this hypothetical situation,

and I'm sorry I'm doing hypotheticals,

but it's the only way I'm really understanding

how it's going.

So in this hypothetical situation,

it is eligible for state and national.

Is that still a decision for the council to make

whether they're on the,

whether my hypothetical single family home

is on this property or on this list?

Yeah, so again, presuming that the council

follows the staff recommendation

for how the ordinance would be structured,

we are recommending that the council

be the ultimate authority of whether a property

is listed or not on the Mountain View Register.

That does not preclude potential CEQA consequences

of that decision.

So if a property is currently subject

to protective permit requirements,

and council is, adopts an ordinance

that would effectively strip

those protective permit requirements away,

there may be CEQA analysis that we might have to do

to prior to approval of that.

Okay, so as we go through this process

and for some reason I recall the concern

that some of the council members had about

like if you showed up here and said, I don't want it,

and we go through the site inventory

and we're like, okay, we'll just remove that.

Somehow, I don't know, in my hypothetical property,

I did not pay attention to my mail,

did not know about this,

and then suddenly we pass our thing

and then my hypothetical property is on there.

Based on that, what is the first moment, essentially,

I can actually say, I don't want this here,

and what would be those next steps?

Sure, under our recommended ordinance,

you would be able to apply for delisting.

In all likelihood, that application would be associated

with a specific request, like I want to modify my building

in a way that would be inconsistent with the integrity

or I want to demolish it or whatever.

And then that application process

would need to go to the city council.

If I could just briefly add, I think the main issue here on the listing delisting question,

right, once a property is on the list is, does a property owner have unilateral ability

to request delisting and to achieve delisting?

Our ordinance currently provides them the ability to do that.

It's limited, as I noted earlier, every five years.

What we're suggesting is take away that unilateral option for property owners, require a process

where the council is the ultimate decision maker

in the delisting.

To provide some balance, broader public input.

Currently, it's a letter to the city.

I've reviewed one already in the time I worked

in Mountain View and had no discretion.

They filed the request timely and I approved it

and it was removed from the list.

So it's just figuring out the right balance

as a public policy question for the council.

And are we, what kind of staff time are we taking

into account in the, then whether,

when someone wants to delist their property?

I'm kind of scared that it becomes like another gatekeeper process where we lack the staff capacity to do it quickly enough.

So what is, what?

I mean, I think much of that, the answer to that question hinges on the criteria and the circumstances under which council will allow those requests to be filed.

If there doesn't need to be any reason and it can be filed at any time, there could be a large number.

but ultimately we're only talking about 90 properties

at this point, right?

So it won't be a deluge,

but there could be unexpected work for staff.

It's very similar to other permitting processes, right?

We don't know when people will want to file

for a building permit or other zoning permit.

So we don't have the ability to meter that work very well,

but ultimately it's not a very large number of properties

if council proceeds with the register

roughly along the lines that we've proposed.

All right, thank you.

That's all my questions, Mayor.

Thanks.

Council Member Hicks.

So following up on the vice mayor's question first,

still with her hypothetical home,

I suppose when, and I'm hesitant to use some of the language

because there's various lists, but she removes herself,

she's no longer on the register, but you have her on a list,

I imagine that's to keep her up with news

such as that might be relevant to her,

changes in state and federal law maybe,

or changes in incentives so that she might want to opt on?

Is that the reason that you keep her name and address?

We haven't envisioned this as a sort of continuing

relationship with the property owners in quite that way.

The issue is really for upholding the city's other obligations

under state law, notably the California Environmental

Quality Act, CEQA, such that if we know, based on evidence,

that a property has state or national register eligibility,

and they come in for some discretionary action

from the city, we're bound by law to consider that

in the environmental review process

and undergo a sequel process.

I think the circumstances are slightly different

if that hypothetical property was not state

or national register eligible,

but was considered for local listing in the register

for other reasons, right, unique to Mountain View,

then there may not be any sort of ongoing burden

or need to have them on the list for any purpose

because the council's decided they're not on the local register.

And so they're not relevant for historic preservation purposes.

Okay.

So my next question, I'm going to tease out a little bit more the question that

council member Showalter was, was asking.

So we, well, actually I'm going to go back.

Yeah.

I'm interested in the previous question I asked because unlike most of what we've

heard tonight, we've gotten a lot of email from people who either want to be, and you've

gotten messages too, people who want to be on or want to take advantage of various incentives,

mostly the Mills Act. So moving on from that, I want to tease out a little more the question

that Council Member Showalter was asking. We've gotten a high volume of email from people who

are concerned about the downtown. And I think they're concerned about multiple kind of, as

Council Member Showalter was saying, interlocking characteristics of the downtown.

One is the placemaking and historic nature. Another is the fact that it's the kind of the

part of one part of our economic vitality plan.

So the fact that there's continuous public uses

on the ground floor.

And then a third thing is the design guidelines

that are currently in the precise plan.

Those are three things that I feel when I talk to them

that people are concerned about.

And there have been, so it's unclear to me

how we, given new legislation like SB 79

and other legislation, how we preserve

that collection of things.

And maybe there are multiple tools, you know,

maybe a downtown district and an SB 79 alternative plan

and then there's our downtown precise plan.

What mixture of tools do you think,

because this could really, if we don't have public uses

on the ground floor, it could really gut

one of our main public places in town.

So what of those three tools, what mixture of those

do you think would work to preserve that important place?

I think you hit on the relevant ones

that are currently on my mind, Council Member Hicks.

I think what you also hit on is just the complexity

of thinking through this SB 79 circumstance

and why it's taking time for staff

to prepare a thoughtful approach

and options for council consideration.

You know, I think there's an understandable concern

from the community about the impacts of SB 79

on the downtown in particular.

And a local alternative approach is one option

for the council to consider to try to restore

some extent of local control.

I think in my mind, there are different variations of that.

And thinking about how historic resource listing

in a local register is one of the tools

that can advance that planning.

I just, we need to be clear

that there may already be other state laws,

state density bonus law among them,

where developers could use concessions potentially

to reduce or eliminate ground floor commercial space.

So it may already be a situation

where we don't have the ability to always mandate.

But what we can do is set clear requirements

and plans and vision and urge developers to follow those

and remove incentives to disregard those requirements.

And so rebalancing through a local alternative plan

could be one way to do that,

with or without using historic resource listing

as one of the mechanisms

for the local alternative planning process.

So am I understanding your answer to be,

and I might not be understanding it,

am I understanding that you're saying

we may have to use multiple tools

and kind of layer them and see where things go?

I think so.

You know, I haven't read SB 79 in a little while

for this purpose, but my recollection is there is reference

to meeting other objective standards

that are locally adopted.

And it's not solely come in and build

to the densities allowed in the law

and that's all you have to do.

So having thoughtful planning,

including an updated downtown precise plan

or other relevant zoning standards is a critical instrument

as one of many layered tools, as you put it,

to achieve the city's objectives.

Okay, just a couple, that was really my main question,

But, oh, no, here's my other main question.

I'm interested in streamlining, and I'm glad that that's a part of the staff recommendation.

But I'm actually interested in more streamlining.

How streamlined can we get with things like, I'm thinking of, I could name any number of types of properties, but let me say single-family homes.

So, I, you know, there has been talk at council in the past about homes and additions they're

doing in the back that no one can see.

I wish those had never come to council.

Are there even, and I think they may not in the future, can we streamline even more like

things where you can't, you can do a, I want people to be able to do rear additions.

super common and in a neighborhood in neighborhoods like those in Mountain

View single-family neighborhoods those are going to happen are there ways to

streamline it to allow that and to allow us an incentive like more discretion for

ADUs that's another thing that there's been some talk of in my community that

maybe instead of knocking down homes and putting up monster homes there it's

It's easier to do an ADU if you're a historic property.

I think the council has discretion to be very forward leaning or very aggressive and streamlining.

I think we're envisioning doing that in large part through the exempt alterations definition.

And so describing those types of projects that can be undertaken on properties that are on the register,

that by definition are not going to run afoul of the historic preservation objectives.

and I think finding where that line is

is an interesting space to explore

with the community and with the council.

I think it's important not to violate

the integrity of the ordinance and the intent,

which is to preserve those character-defining features

that are the essence of the historic structures,

but getting up to that line without crossing it

is where the council can streamline.

From that point forward,

where perhaps a character-defining feature

would be altered,

the council also can set the level of review

right from a public hearing at the zoning administrator or requiring council review.

Those are different levels of effort, time, money for applicants that arguably are different ways to streamline.

So you're saying I or we should suggest some more exempt alterations if we want further streamlining?

If you have key ideas, tonight would be a good night to hear them.

I think we're not expecting to define those tonight.

that's work that we'll do if the framework and the approaches is one that aligns with council.

Okay, I think that is all, well, I have one small question. What's the border for districts?

Does it have to be on a street? Often there will be some of the most, sometimes some of the more

remarkable buildings, both commercial and housing, are on the corners of blocks. Can you draw a

or say homes if those four residents want to do it.

How are you envisioning allowing and disallowing borders?

Yeah, looking to our consultants for confirmation,

I think there's a lot of discretion.

I think being contiguous is probably a good principle,

but including corners and crossing streets

and what have you, it doesn't need to be split

by a center line or anything like that.

Okay, thank you.

Great, thank you.

Council Member Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor.

one of the most challenging topics I think we've covered in a long time.

So I appreciate staff's patience and perseverance in responding to all of these questions.

I wanted to ask about some things we haven't yet talked about.

We have a couple, there are five properties that are ineligible,

but two in particular that have Mills Act contracts that may not be justifiable.

So I think the staff report characterized them potentially as a public subsidy for properties

for which there is no good public policy rationale to enjoy a public subsidy.

So I wanted to seek clarity on staff response to one of the questions submitted in advance,

and it has to do with the disclosure when one of those ineligible properties is transferred,

and in particular, if one of the properties with a Mills Act contract is transferred.

So it sounds like the seller would merely have to disclose that it has a Mills Act contract

and not necessarily that that Mills Act contract is likely to be terminated after the conclusion of the grace period,

if the council approves the grace period. Is that right?

I don't know if we can answer that very detailed nuanced aspect of the disclosure requirement.

I think disclosure tends to involve, you know, risk mitigation.

And so it's typically a good practice to disclose as much as you know about a circumstance, right?

and not to withhold material information.

Fundamentally, that's a decision for the property owner

in relation to meeting the minimum legal obligation

and then deciding if there's more to disclose

to ensure that nothing's been inadvertently

or inappropriately omitted.

Okay, I'm gonna mull that over.

Related to that, one of the things I was interested

in understanding is whether as part

of this grace period process,

we can require the property owners up front

to basically elect into that process, right?

So if they have no intention of getting into compliance,

of renovating the property

to restore the character defining features,

then a very lengthy grace period

doesn't really make sense, right?

That's a public subsidy, I'm sure.

every owner of an ineligible property

would also love to have that property tax relief.

So it's hard for me to justify that.

Is there any way we can devise a process

where we say, you have to let us know upfront

whether you intend to submit an application?

And if they say yes, is there a way

to sort of enforce that, right?

So if that the conclusion of that grace period

where they've told the council,

we intend to go through this process in good faith, right?

Then is there anything that we can do

if they ultimately determine,

if they don't follow through?

I think the council can set the process

and the requirements and the timelines

for this off-ramp, if we'll call it that,

from listed properties

to being delisted properties in this case.

I think when you're considering

Putting yourself in the property owner's perspective,

considering undertaking a sizable project

that would restore historical integrity,

it's a major investment and one that you probably,

you know, won't be able to come around to understand

and make a decision within a few months.

You know, just deciding whether you're interested

and then engaging an architect,

having them do their work,

come up with cost estimates, refinements, what have you.

I mean, easily that could take a year or more in my mind

from sort of initial idea conception

to a valid potential proposal.

And so the council can make it as short as it would like,

but I would recommend not making it so short

that the sort of default answer in most cases

is gonna be it's not worth it or it's too risky.

Okay, fair enough.

I also wanted to ask about incentives.

I think one of the most challenging aspects of this work

work for property owners who may be subject to these regulations, it's not clear what the incentives are.

And that was on the list of additional topics for future discussion.

So I was curious to know when would be the appropriate time for the council to weigh in on appropriate incentives.

so we're we're not prepared at this time to give council something to respond to however

we do anticipate that coming when we come back with the the ordinance uh next year uh that we

will have a draft list with you know some analysis to to support a council decision on that draft

list. There are certainly ways that we can create better certainty around our current incentives.

And I think that may be one low hanging fruit that we can provide. And then certainly,

a lot of folks are really interested in those financial incentives, such as the Mills Act,

and providing a little bit more education in the community

about what that might entail

and how that might benefit property owners.

Okay, thank you.

And then last question is about process.

So the staff presentation helpfully breaks out

what I think are four discrete elements

in the feedback that staff is seeking from the council tonight.

Is it step but the recommendation is sort of here are the four categories but there isn't a

like a like language associated with that as we're accustomed to as staff recommendation is