Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

All right.

Good evening everyone.

Thank you for joining us for our study session.

The City Clerk will take roll call.

Council Member Hicks?

Here.

Council Member Kamei?

Here.

Council Member McAllister?

Here comes McAllister.

Council Member Ramirez?

Here.

House member Showalter?

Here.

Vice mayor Clark?

Here.

Mayor Ramos?

Here.

Great.

So we'll begin with item 3.1, Senate Bill 79 and Assembly Bill 130, Impact on Development

Review Process and Operations.

The purpose of this study session is to receive council input on potential approaches to addressing

Senate Bill 79 and Assembly Bill 130.

Community Development Director Christian Murdoch and Advanced Planning Manager Eric Anderson

will present the item.

If you would like to speak on this item, please submit a blue speaker card to the City Clerk

now.

Thank you.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council Members.

I'm Community Development Director Christian Murdoch.

I'm joined on the dais by Planning Manager Eric Anderson.

In recent years, the California Legislature has enacted a range of laws aimed at addressing

housing affordability.

Due bills passed in 2025 have major implications

for land use regulations

and the development review process in Mountain View.

Senate Bill SB 79 will take effect on July 1st, 2026,

and will require the city to approve

high density housing projects located within one half mile

of Caltrain and Valley Transportation Authority

or VTA light rail stations.

SB 79 includes a process to adopt

local alternative provisions,

which will be the focus of Council's discussion this evening.

Assembly Bill AB 130 is already effective

and included a broad range of provisions.

Relevant to this evening's discussion by Council,

AB 130 created a new statutory exemption

from the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA,

for certain housing development projects.

It also created a new streamlined process

for requiring final action on these projects

within 30 days of certain project milestones.

Projects will be deemed approved

if the city does not act within the required timeline.

SB 79's provisions apply to areas

within one half mile of transit oriented development

or TOD stops.

There are five TOD stops in Mountain View,

two Caltrain stops at the San Antonio and Downtown stations

and three VTA light rail stops at the Downtown,

Wiseman Station and Middlefield stations.

There's an additional TOD stop,

the Bayshore NASA VTA light rail station

that's located in unincorporated Santa Clara County,

but which has about half of its area located

within the city of Mountain View.

These TOD zones comprise approximately 21%

of the city's land area.

There are detailed qualifying criteria in SB 79,

which are included in the staff report.

Some of the major criteria are that a project

must be located on a site zoned for residential,

commercial, or mixed use.

That it not be located on a site with three or more units

that requires demolition of housing

subject to local rent control.

And the units are or have been occupied by tenants

within the last seven years.

Similarly, the site cannot have had demolition

of rent controlled units within the last seven years.

And the project must propose at least five dwelling units.

Projects must also result in a density of at least 30 dwelling units per acre or the

minimum density under local zoning, whichever is greater.

And projects must not result in a net loss of existing residential units.

There are limits on the average size of units as well as requirements to comply with local

anti-displacement standards.

Projects must also comply with other local standards including inclusionary zoning and

objective development standards, provided they do not prevent projects from achieving

the allowable SB 79 densities.

SB 79 supersedes local general plan and zoning standards for height, density, and residential

floor area ratio, or FAR.

There are three categories of development standards under SB 79, based on the distance

from a pedestrian access point to a TOD stop.

Those within either a quarter mile or half mile radius, known as Tier 1 and Tier 2 stops,

respectively, and those adjacent to a TOD stop, meaning within 200 feet.

SITES RECEIVE ADDITIONAL ALLOWANCES FOR HEIGHT, DENSITY, AND RESIDENTIAL FAR ABOVE THE TIER

I AND TIER II ALLOWANCES. SB 79 PROJECTS ARE ALSO ELIGIBLE FOR STATE DENSITY BONUS LAW.

SB 79 HAS MANY COMPLEX REQUIREMENTS THAT REQUIRE DETAILED TECHNICAL ANALYSIS.

THE FIGURE ON SCREEN SHOWS PROPERTIES THE STAFF BELIEVES ARE ELIGIBLE UNDER SB 79 BASED ON A

on a preliminary initial analysis.

Staff has described several options

for how to prepare a TOD alternative plan

under SB 79 in the staff report.

All of these options will require trade-offs

involving deferral of council priority work plan items

that are already in progress.

Community Development Department

would have primary responsibility

to prepare a TOD alternative plan.

The department already has a heavy workload

of ongoing advanced planning items

prioritized by council in the previous

and current council priority work plans,

in addition to numerous ongoing housing element

implementation programs.

The department's advanced planning team,

consisting of two staff dedicated to this type of work,

has three items with primary responsibility

in the current council work plan,

and four such items that are still ongoing

from the prior council work plan.

As described in the staff report,

the overall level of effort for individual items,

as well as the phase of work for each item,

will determine how much staff capacity

can be created by deferral of one or more items.

As Council considers work plan item trade-offs, it's helpful to consider why a TOD alternative

plan will take so long to prepare.

TOD alternative plans are different from traditional planning processes.

Net new density and residential FAR must be transferred to other sites.

Existing density and residential FAR information is not immediately available for every site

and requires parcel-level analysis of numerous sites.

There is a need to be thoughtful with where density is transferred and ensure we create

workable objective standards for projects in those locations.

Environmental review is required for receiving sites, which has technical work as well as

process requirements associated with it.

Council may want community engagement to also be part of the planning process, which

takes time and effort.

And lastly, TOD alternative plans require review and approval by HCD, the California Department

of Housing and Community Development.

All in all, this work may resemble a precise plan type of process in terms of effort, time,

and other resources required.

In light of these considerations, staff recommends approach B described in the staff report.

Approach B is a combined approach consisting of limited effort option number one and number

two.

Limited effort option number one would exempt sites as allowed in SB 79, including those

shown on the slide, and notably sites listed on the city's local register of historic resources

as of January 1st, 2025.

The colored areas in the figure show those sites

with the minimum density and residential FAR allowances

to be excluded and also includes sites

that do not have a residential, commercial,

or mixed-use zoning.

Also, while staff has not completed the mapping and analysis,

a very small number of sites would require

more than one mile of walking distance to a TOD stop

and could be excluded on that basis.

Limited effort option number one would apply

until one year after the next housing element adoption

or until approximately January 20, 23, January 20, 32 rather.

Limited effort option number two would focus on the adoption

of development standards relevant for implementation

of SB 79 developments.

This option would build off the objective development standards

currently being prepared for the R3 zoning update,

which includes standards for development comparable

in density and intensity to those allowable under SB 79.

Staff recommends beginning this work after completion

of the R3 zoning update currently anticipated

to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2026.

Staff recommends approach B because it balances

the benefits from TOD alternative plan work

with the most limited deferral of council priority

work plan items.

The plan would exclude SB 79 from many properties,

including those with historic resources

already listed by the city and other properties

that already allow sufficient development intensity

relative to SB 79.

It would also improve development outcomes

under SB 79 by putting in place local standards

suited for the types of development allowed under SB 79.

Staff could start work immediately

on limited effort option number one

and initiate work on limited effort option number two

once the R3 zoning update is finished.

Approach B would require immediate deferral of work

on the dark sky ordinance,

citywide objective design standards,

downtown precise plan update,

and Moffett Boulevard precise plan

to complete the approach

within the timelines estimated by staff.

Shifting now to AB 130, AB 130 has many provisions that are beyond the scope of this study session.

This evening the focus will be on two provisions in AB 130, the new statutory exemption from

the California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA and the requirement for final action

on housing projects qualifying for the new statutory exemption within 30 days of certain

application milestones.

AB 130 created a new statutory exemption from CEQA.

Unlike categorical exemptions, the new statutory exemption is not subject to any of the exceptions

in CEQA guidelines section 15.300.2.

It applies to housing projects meeting the criteria established in AB 130 and also requires

tribal consultation.

The other key provision of AB 130 is a new deadline for final action on projects subject

to the statutory exemption.

The city must take final action no later than 30 days

after one of two project milestones,

the conclusion of tribal consultation

or the completion of the objective standards

consistency analysis, whichever occurs later.

The tribal consultation process in particular

makes predicting the deadline for final action difficult.

Consultation can conclude before or after the 30

or 60 day objective standards consistency analysis deadline.

Under the city's current process,

staff has had difficulty preparing for

and conducting the required public hearings

within the new deadline.

AB 130 provides that projects will be deemed approved

if the city does not take final action

consistent with the deadline.

AB 130 establishes no limits on the number of units

a project may propose.

There is a minimum density requirement,

which in Mountain View is at least 15

dwelling units per acre.

The main limitation on number of units under AB 130

comes from the maximum allowable site area

with regular projects limited to 20 acres

and builders remedy projects limited to four acres.

Mixed use projects must have at least two thirds

of their floor area dedicated to residential use.

Other criteria require the project to be located

on an infill site previously developed with an urban use.

AB 130 does require consistency with general plan,

zoning and precise plan standards.

Although projects may deviate from these standards

with application of waivers and concessions

through state density bonus law.

There are limitations on certain mixed uses, with AB 130 prohibiting transient lodging uses like hotels and motels, but allowing residential motels.

AB 130 also does not apply to projects that involve demolition of historic resources on a local, state, or national register as of the date of the project's preliminary application.

AB 130 does not apply to projects on a hazardous waste sites database or those located in certain other sensitive locations, such as wetlands, flood zones, or delineated earthquake fault zones.

AB 130 includes other various requirements.

These include payment of prevailing wage for projects above 85 feet in height.

Certain project design requirements apply within 500 feet of a freeway, including filtration

requirements for mechanical ventilation systems, and requiring air intakes and balconies not

to face freeways.

Hazardous substance contamination must be evaluated through a Phase I environmental

site assessment and follow-on preliminary endangerment assessment if necessary.

Slide releases must be mitigated to levels required by federal and state standards before

issuance of a certificate of occupancy.

The City's existing development review process for housing development projects varies depending

on project type and location.

The Zoning Administrator can take final action on many projects after a public hearing.

These are usually projects located outside of precise plan areas.

The Zoning Administrator combines review with the subdivision committee when a project proposes

a subdivision map with five or more parcels.

The Environmental Planning Commission or EPC

does not take final action on any types of projects.

Its project review role is limited to recommendations

to City Council on some projects

located within precise plan areas.

The City Council has final approval authority

for projects with subdivision maps

as recommended by the Zoning Administrator

and subdivision committee,

and projects recommended by the EPC.

The Council also has final authority

on appeals of final actions taken by the Zoning Administrator.

As currently established,

the city's review process requires at least one,

commonly requires two, and sometimes requires three

public hearings for housing development projects.

With public noticing and agenda materials preparation,

review and publication, meeting one public hearing

within the AB 130 timeline may be possible in most cases,

but meeting two or more public hearing requirements

is not feasible without compromising the hearing process.

For instance, taking a project to EPC for a recommendation

before the objective standards consistency review

has been completed.

As explained on the prior slide

and further detailed in the staff report,

the city's existing development review process

for housing development projects

presents significant challenges for compliance

with AB 130 timelines.

The two-step review process required for many project types

and the limited scheduling opportunities

for EPC and city council meetings are particular challenges.

The variable timelines for required action by the city

based on tribal consultation also complicate meeting planning

and agenda management.

Additionally, state law has significantly restricted

local decision-making discretion

when reviewing housing development projects,

meaning there's little opportunity

for public hearing bodies to modify projects

based on their judgment or input from the public.

In light of these considerations,

staff recommends option number one in the staff report.

Option number one would create a ministerial review

and approval process for projects qualifying for AB 130.

Staff sees this approach as balancing the need

to preserve community awareness

about housing development project activity

through the issuance of courtesy notices

and potentially a written public comment opportunity

with the reality that the city has extremely limited

discretion when reviewing housing development projects.

This option also recognizes the city's obligations

under state law to comply with accelerated

project approval timelines and ensures the city

can meet its timing obligations in all cases

without risking that projects will be deemed approved.

Reliance on any public hearing process,

especially an EPC or council hearing,

could jeopardize the city's ability to act

on qualifying projects within the timelines

required by AB 130.

The two state laws discussed in this study session

materially affect the city's existing land use regulations

and housing development project review processes.

Staff will take next steps based on input provided by council

at this study session.

Modifications to the development review process

in response to AB 130 and preparing any TOD alternative plan

will require ordinance and precise plan amendments.

The timeline for completion of these ordinances

and precise plan amendments will depend in large part

on the work item deferrals authorized by council.

Lastly, depending on the work directed,

staff will determine if it's necessary

to return to council to seek a budget appropriation

to carry out the work.

This concludes staff's presentation

and staff respectfully requests council's input

on the four study session questions

in the staff report at the appropriate time.

Thank you.

Thank you, Community Development Director Murdoch.

um we would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide public

comment on this item 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 so it looks like trying to see how many

10 people, one, two, three.

So it looks like we have over 10 people speaking,

so we're dropping down the time to about two minutes.

So our first speaker will be Robert Cox.

Where's the clock?

Oh, thanks you members of the city council,

Mayor Ramos and Vice Mayor Clark.

And for being able to speak here, I'm going to speak on SB 79, Alternative Plan.

I'm speaking for Livable Mountain View and supporting Approach C and a tighter timeline.

I understand from looking at the list of items that you want to go through for coming up with an alternative plan,

should you go in that direction, that you say that it will take a substantial amount of time.

I would advise you to direct yourself to the items needed by HCD in order to approve substantial compliance rather than a complete plan.

The deadline of July 1st was set up with the idea that this must be able to be done in a reasonable amount of time.

So I ask you to take a look at that and figure out what the essentials are.

I want to also just repeat in a letter that we sent to you, there are certain characteristics

of what we're suggesting that are important to call out.

The first thing is that even though a transit-oriented development site may exclude 10% for alternate

use, we're only asking for 3% of the downtown district.

We think that's quite reasonable.

The density so-called transfer can be done over to the East-Weston Precise Plan, which

already exceeds SB 79 in terms of its zoning now, and so no rezoning would be needed.

And the third thing is I urge you to look into an SB 79 local alternative plan because it preserves

the council's ability to make the decisions about what can be done with our downtown, which is a key

beloved area of our city, and we really do want the council people, rather than a state mandate,

making the detailed decisions of the future of that part of our city.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next up we have Nancy Stirr followed by Lorraine Wormald.

Nancy?

I was going to agree with someone who hasn't spoken yet so.

So, okay, I would echo everything that Robert Cox said.

I think our downtown is something, it's vital,

it's vitally important, and anything we can do

to try to preserve it and parts of it should be done.

I know it's a lot of work.

I know it's a lot of trouble for y'all,

but I just can't imagine losing our downtown.

I mean, after all, the city government makes its home here,

so it must be pretty important.

And so I agree that we should go for option C.

And I agree with everything that Robert Cox said.

And I will cede the rest of my time.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we have Lorraine followed by Robert Swarick.

First time I've ever done this.

I echo what Robert has said and what Maureen has said.

Anyway.

I was born and raised in Mountain View.

My family came here in 1910.

My aunt was a woman of the year.

She helped develop Parks and Rec at the beginning.

We had the Arbenini drugstore on the corner of Castro and Dana.

This city is in my heart.

I value option C.

Once a downtown historical area is gone, it is gone.

It will never come back.

Santa Clara lost theirs, and I had family who were involved with that and just cried over what happened.

The city council, you are our trustees.

You are trustees of our heart, of our history, of how things are developed.

I understand the major time crunches and staff crunches.

I worked, too.

When we had issues that involved more work than we had staff, we hired more staff.

We just realized that it needed to be done.

I would imagine that most people in the city of Mountain View don't know what's going on here about downtown,

that the possibility of our historic downtown could be wiped out tonight or soon.

And I just don't think that that's what they want.

I only know about it because I live downtown,

and I've been trying to keep aware of what's going on.

Anyway, I just want to thank you.

I want to thank you for being our trustees

and for thinking with knowledge and with data, but also with your heart.

Thank you.

Thank you. Robert Swierick followed by Luis Katz.

Good evening members of the council, city staff.

My name is Robert Swierick. I'm a principal planner at VTA.

I'm also a Mountain View resident but I'm here representing VTA this evening.

On SB 79, VTA has been following the implementation very closely

and we're interested in continued dialogue with local jurisdictions

about the implementation process.

We've been involved in a number of countywide meetings

including some of the colleagues here in the council chambers tonight.

And we believe that SB 79, if implemented well,

can play an important role in creating more complete, vibrant communities around rail stations,

helping reduce vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions.

We recognize that implementation is complex and nuanced.

We're still waiting on some guidance from HCD at the state and mapping from the region, MTC,

but we stand ready to serve helping Mountain View

and other jurisdictions in implementation,

so don't hesitate to reach out.

On AB 130, we recognize the challenges timeline

in AB 130 poses for local jurisdiction review

and approval of development projects.

Also the limitations on discretionary review

and approval that other state housing laws

in recent years have placed on local jurisdictions.

However, we're interested and we believe the city

also interested in making sure that development projects are accompanied by good multimodal

transportation improvements, bicycle, pedestrian, transit, TDM improvements as they're approved,

particularly larger projects. It places an importance, greater importance on precise plans,

on active transportation plans, on transportation impact fee programs of projects and so forth. So

we hope that with the options for implementing SB 79, that the city is still able to find a way

to holistically plan ahead for transportation improvements along with development.

Thanks very much.

Thank you.

Next we have Louise Katz, followed by Jim Zarofsky.

Thank you, Mayor and Council members.

Speaking on behalf of Livable Mountain View,

it's notable that homeowners have consistently been told

to put aside having concerns about how zoning for density

things such as four to six-story buildings next to single-family homes,

affects property and entire neighborhoods because the law allows this,

and it's for the greater good of the community.

Now comes the issue of more laws per SB 79 and more changes,

but this time the issue is the irreplaceable buildings of our historic business district,

a district that dates back over 162 years and has clearly conferred benefits to the community.

It's our only downtown. It's our legacy of the city and state's pioneer founders.

And it's the unique space that brings people together and provides revenue.

Per past meetings, we've heard how council is now being asked to exempt a select few property owners on Castro Street

from the overreaching standard that has been applied to others in the city.

That change happens, and property owners need to accept that it is the best in the community.

I'm sorry, in the best interest of the community, even if there is a perceived impact on their personal property.

And I use the term perceived intentionally because it should be noted that the density projected for Moffitt and other areas

and new transportation programs will in fact provide hundreds, perhaps thousands, of new customers for Castro Street businesses.

As we densify and add thousands more housing units, preservation is a win for the community and businesses.

If we have a need for more consultants to get this done, we should make it a priority.

The deadlines are not of our doing, but it must be done.

I wanted to also thank you for hearing our story tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Jim Zarowski, followed by Hala Ashawani.

Thank you, members of council. I hadn't planned to speak on this tonight, but I very much

agree with what Robert Cox has said and what some of the other speakers have said. I'll

be honest, most people in the Mauna Loma community do not know about SB 79. What I worry about

is they're going to find out on August 1st or August 15th and all hell's going to break

loose. The people that do know are very fearful. They're very upset. They see the end of the

community that they've lived in for some 30, 40, 50 years and they don't know what's going

to happen. I would very much highly recommend that we go with option C because we want to

avoid the builder's remedy fiasco that happened in 2022. That's probably going to cost this

town $100 million when we think about all the fees that we're not going to be able to

collect and all the building that we're not going to be able to do. I know it's a lot

of work, but I think we deserve to maintain as much control as we possibly can over our own

destiny. I don't think that the state knows what they want us to do. And if we allow the state to

come in and give developers permits in August, because we haven't had an alternative plan filed

yet, and we don't know what we're going to do, we could see a scattershot approach where three or

four buildings are built scattershot around the old mountain view around downtown and around

Mount Eloma, which will cause people to abandon their block, abandon their land. Nobody wants a

seven story building over their garden. Nobody wants a street with no parking on it. So I realize

it's a lot of work and I realize the staff is overwhelmed with a lot of things, but this is

almost like a empty the armories. We have to do it. And unless we have a plan that we can assure

that we don't get cannibalized prior to having a plan done,

I don't think we have a choice.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Hala, you're next.

Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor Ramos, council members, and city staff.

My name is Hala El-Shawani.

I'm a longtime resident of Mountain View since 1984.

I am here to urge you to support Approach C in the staff report in order to save and preserve our downtown commercial and historic district in and around the 100 to 300 blocks of Castro Street.

And I urge you to please make this a top priority so that the plan can be submitted to HCD before July 1st, 2026.

City documents have always called our downtown the historic center and focus of the community.

And the heartbeat of the city, it is a major source of sales tax revenue that supports the city's economic vitality.

75% of the visitors that come to Mountain View are actually from outside of Mountain View.

and that's because of our downtown unique irreplaceable characteristics and history.

Frankly we're the envy of the South Bay area. I mean nowhere else Sunnyvale, Cupertino,

dare I say even Palo Alto. We have a very unique history that connects us to as Luis said 160 years

ago when the pioneers came, established the transit center and the first three blocks and

the adjacent buildings around that.

So I have every faith that the staff can pull this off.

I know it's a lot of work.

And I think with the resources they have and maybe consultant services if needed, that

this can be accomplished.

And I hope the council can provide guidance and support.

so this can happen.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We will now take virtual speakers.

Be sure to click the raise hand button on Zoom.

So our first virtual speaker is Cliff Chambers.

Do I unmute him or does he unmute himself?

So Cliff Chambers, if you can try to unmute yourself.

oh oh okay it looks like oh here we go here we go sorry i had a a spinning uh rainbow uh

my name is cliff chambers and resident of mountain view and i first like to really thank

staff for an excellent report and it really laid out um a lot of really important options on a very

complex subject i i really do agree with the staff recommendation and on approach b with major

caveats i really do feel the concern about downtown is really important but i think we can leverage

the r3 development standards we can work through some of his historic preservation in a timely

manner and really address downtown at the same time i'll let you figure out exactly how we should

proceed with that i i know you have some really complex issues to deal with tonight so i'm not

going to spend much more time other than i hope that we can integrate the r3 update that comes

before you in february with the findings that you have tonight and also continue to address the

the middle income ownership issue,

because that's really gonna happen in the SB 79

and the R3 area.

So please pay attention to that.

And then thank you very much for your time.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Next virtual speaker is Leslie Friedman.

Hello, thank you for this opportunity

to describe our feelings about these very important circumstances.

I'd like to thank Louise and Robert and Hala and Lorraine.

I agree with all of their very reasonable points.

I'd like to mention that Santa Clara destroyed their downtown, then decided it was a mistake,

but it was too late.

is gone and won't come back. I have friends from Oakland who go to football, but they eat and browse

around and shop here in Mountain View. Also, Sunnyvale has set up an historic district for

Morphy Avenue. They plan to file an SB 79 local alternative plan to preserve it. I've lived in

Mountain View for more than 20 years, it would be terrible to destroy something that is really

an addition to everyone here. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker is Maureen Blando.

Good evening. Thank you, Mayor Ramos and the City Council and the City staff. I appreciate

this opportunity to speak in favor of option C. From my perspective of Mountain View,

one of the things that makes it so desirable are the historical buildings in the first

couple of blocks of Mountain View. I'm not a radical who thinks that everything should

stay the way it is. My second favorite part of downtown Mountain View is that, let's call it a

plaza, by the law of the big law firm, I'm forgetting the name of the law firm, where the

Cascal Outdoor Dining is, Pete's, where you can meet people there. That particular area, I think,

is very nice and I welcome more development of that type but what will continue to draw people

are the historical buildings that we have. To have the alternative plan I want to remind people who

may not be familiar with some of these issues does not compel the city council to have no building

in that district.

It just preserves the council's opportunity

to make decisions in the future

to preserve historical buildings.

That's everything I would like to say tonight.

And I thank you for the opportunity

and for the work that the city has put into this planning.

Thank you so much.

Next virtual speaker is Jerry Steech.

good evening ladies and gentlemen can you hear me

yes I can hear you fantastic fantastic good evening ladies and gentlemen um thank you for

the opportunity to speak I wish I could be there in person but I'm presently a bit under the weather

and honestly nobody would want to be near me and get my cooties so I'll just uh call in here

When I moved to Mountain View a generation ago, I was immediately impressed with its

downtown.

It didn't try to be anything forced or ungenuine.

I felt then as I do now that this city has a city that knows how.

How to embrace commerce while preserving its unique character.

How to draw our residents and visitors alike to our downtown with an inviting atmosphere

that evokes both vibrancy and history.

As Talah just mentioned, it's the envy of countless Bay Area cities.

A small part of that lure, of course, is the number of architecturally rich and in many

cases historically significant buildings along and around Castro Street, excuse me, most

of which are very, very bit, every bit as functional today as they were a century or

more ago.

SB 79 is already disruptive and threatens those attributes.

The good news here is, ladies and gentlemen, you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ensure a vibrant historical downtown remains just that, alluring, for generations to come.

And you can do that by supporting approach C that, among other benefits, will serve to preserve our downtown's unique character.

Your support will contribute greatly to our city and your legacies as city council members.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next virtual speaker is David Watson.

Rats, I'm just a moment too late.

I'm almost to council, but that's fine.

My comment is that it's worth remembering why it is that Santa Clara lost their downtown.

It wasn't because they allowed gradual development.

It's because they, on purpose, demolished their historic downtown under the popular at the time concept of urban blight.

Basically, that's not really something that modern American urban planners think is a real thing and is not something that I am worried that the current city council or staff or the state or really anyone else involved thinks is a real plan that we're trying to fix, a real problem of urban blight that we're trying to fix.

So I don't think that city council should go into this with a concern that suddenly our downtown is going to be demolished due to this state law.

However, as much as the folks from Little Mountain View have in the past shown up and been extremely worried about the loss of downtown,

they haven't really gotten into details of what exactly it is specifically that they're worried about.

Are they worried about the actual loss of the businesses, of the buildings, of something else?

And I think that it's a good idea for if council really is worried about these things to think about which part of this they're actually worried about.

Are you worried about a loss of the buildings or of the business as, you know, is highlighted by many of those commenters?

I think that if we believe that the success of our downtown is due to the mix of good restaurants and other amenities, then that's the kind of thing that we should be looking forward to development of.

If we're worried about the facades of the buildings, that's also something that I understand our downtown precise plan is going to address.

So overall, I would say we should not be wasting staff time with huge attempts to do significant changes as staff estimated.

Thank you.

Your time is up, David.

Thank you.

Next up is Nazanin.

Nazanin?

If you could unmute yourself, you should be able to do it now.

All right.

We're going to move on.

We're going to loop back to you to JC.

JC, if you could unmute. Oh, there we go.

Hi there. Thank you to staff and council for letting me speak today. This is Jessica Chauhan.

I just want to ask that alternatives be considered that will be more operationally efficient and keep our neighborhoods from being impacted and becoming disjointed.

you know there are options presented in here that will contain the building to areas where it could

be better planned and executed rather than being disjointed throughout neighborhoods

so I hope that you will consider those options and that council will do what they think is right

not just what the staff recommended options are so thank you

Thank you. And our final speaker is Matthew Marting.

Hey, can you hear me?

Yes, I can.

Great. I just want to say some people have been saying that, you know, a lot of people don't know about SB79 and they may not like it when they find out about it.

I just want to say that doesn't speak for everyone.

I know exactly what's going on with SB79 and I am really excited about it and really happy about it.

Concerning downtown itself, people are concerned about we might lose our downtown, lose our historic district.

I don't go downtown because there are old buildings there.

I go down there because of the vibrant businesses there, the walkable environment in general, and the transit center.

and when you up zone downtown you know the best thing you can have for businesses is a large

customer base when you have dense housing downtown that's more people who can enjoy that walkable

environment and visit those businesses there that's all thank you thank you and that ends

public comment yay um council will now have the opportunity to ask questions and then discuss and

provide feedback on the following questions. Does any member of the council have questions?

I see council member Ramirez. Thank you mayor. Um, I, there's a lot to digest here, uh, and it's

tough at in particular tackling at the same time two, uh, significant pieces of legislation. Um,

so I'm grateful to staff for, um, uh, doing the best you can to try and break that information

down and put it in a staff report that I think includes a number of helpful recommendations

and some guidance for us how to approach each of these complex questions.

I have a few questions about SB 79, most of which I think you've responded to either in

the presentation or in the written questions, but just I think because some of this is complex,

it might be helpful to sort of break it down further.

So the historic resource exemption is statutorily exempt from CEQA, right?

So there is an option under SP79 to adopt an ordinance that would exclude certain properties,

and that would be exempt from environmental review under CEQA.

And historic resources on a local register as of January 1st, 2025, could be included in such an ordinance.

Okay. Thank you. That's helpful.

But TOD alternative plans are not exempt from CEQA.

That requires potentially an EIR.

Correct.

Environmental review would be required, potentially including an environmental impact report,

depending on the magnitude of potential environmental impacts.

Okay.

And then the moderate effort downtown focus option, which I think is the option members

of the community have suggested we explore is a TOD alternative plan, right?

MR.

Correct.

MR.

Which means it's subject to CEQA in addition to the site-by-site analysis that

would be required for transfers of residential capacity?

MR.

Correct.

MR.

Okay.

there's also the HCD review and approval process,

which is a non-trivial period of time.

Yes.

But even beyond that, the work,

I think this was a response you provided

in the written questions.

The work to create a TOD alternative plan

is akin to the work that you would put into a precise plan.

Is that right?

I think that's likely to be the case

if it's anything more than a small subset of parcels,

that the technical analysis,

the thought in siting in other locations,

consideration of standards, community engagement, and so forth,

quickly begins to resemble a precise plan type of planning effort.

Okay, and that's in part because,

one, you would want objective standards

to help facilitate development

that achieves community and council goals,

and then you would also want to be thoughtful about

while we have members of the community

who are concerned about downtown preservation,

if we shift that residential capacity to somewhere else,

those residents may not be as interested

in sort of being the recipient site

for that increased density in FAR.

Is that right?

I think it's reasonable to expect

that care should be taken

when thinking about the places

where the density would shift

and engaging them accordingly.

Okay, that's helpful.

And then the last question is the residential capacity.

I don't think that's, it's not something that I think we've spent a great deal of time processing.

What does that analysis really entail?

In terms of the work that would be required to determine how much density we need to shift to another location?

Right.

So I think, you know, we don't have a full answer.

I think our initial assessment is that you would need to look at each parcel where the city's

considering shifting the density. You would need to determine the existing density on the site,

compare that to the SB79 maximum density, do the same process for residential floor area ratio on

the site currently versus the maximum permissible. That difference we understand to be the amount of

development intensity, if we'll call it that, that needs to shift to another location. It may not

necessarily need to go to a single parcel.

It could potentially be broken up in multiple locations,

but that cumulative net capacity that's removed

needs to be moved to someplace else.

And again, it may not be all the capacity on the site.

The choice might be made to reduce it

to the 50% maximum that's allowable

or to some other percentage, but whatever's removed

needs to be shifted to some other location.

Okay, that's helpful.

In a previous council meeting,

one revelation I thought was you had described that

even though SB 79 sort of as an overlay includes

residential capacity, there is also the underlying

residential capacity of the existing zoning

and general plan land use designation.

So is that, we now kind of have to think about two sets

of residential capacity, is that how you anticipate

working through this for the TOD alternative plan as well?

I think that's one of the important considerations.

So I think the example I used may have been Castro Street

as an example.

And so considering concerns about SB 79 development intensity,

but recognizing we probably don't wanna try to drive it

to zero, not that we could necessarily do that.

So how do we get it as close to the current downtown

precise plan or future downtown precise plan,

density, FAR and so forth,

and try to use the local alternative plan to match that

so that there's no more, no less sort of incentive

or catalyst to redevelop those sites

if that's not what's intended.

What is the existing residential capacity for,

or the density for area H in the downtown precise plan?

Area H currently allows 50 units per acre.

And that's, you could also apply

the state density bonus on top of that.

That's correct.

Great, those are my questions for now, thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Ramirez.

Next in questions is Council Member Hicks.

Before my questions, I'll say thank you so much

for making a very complex subject much easier to understand.

But I still have questions.

Even after my council questions too.

So first, initially when I was talking to people

about this subject,

it seemed like a TOD alternative plan

was like a one time thing.

But as I talk about it more with people, it's a part of a process, which I don't think we've really, you know, you could have added another 50 pages to your staff report and described that.

But maybe more briefly, my understanding, I guess the simple way to ask this question is some people have said to me, why would we do some of these exemptions that are temporary?

They'll expire in several years.

But when I talk to people with more expertise, they say that all the things we do, or most of the things we do here, the TOD alternative plan, the exemptions, they roll into a future process which intersects with the next time we do the housing element.

So it's not like if you do some of those steps in several years, you throw them away and you pretty much wasted your time.

So can you explain how it's an ongoing process?

Because, of course, planning is an ongoing process.

Certainly.

SB 79 provides that any approval by HCD,

the California Department of Housing and Community Development,

is valid through the next housing element adoption, essentially.

So while that planning work may be able to be reused,

it will be necessary to go through that review and approval process again by HCD.

So if everyone's fine with the status quo, the housing element process and requirements don't inject some sort of new unknown or requirement that requires adjustment to the TOD plan, maybe you could sort of dust it off and submit it again for re-approval and the work would not be wasted.

So it's hard to speculate, but I think that work will likely continue to pay dividends over time.

Or you could learn something from the TOD alternative plan and improve it.

It's not our last chance and it's not something we throw away.

is basically what I wanted to confirm.

Right, the only way there would be a one time

and you don't do it again is if you don't care

about having a TOD alternative plan

after your next housing element adoption.

Okay, so I've had a concern and I asked this

in my written council questions about whether

under a TOD alternative plan or just the objective standards

that we're allowed to do, whether we can require commercial,

because that's one of the more important things, I think.

People have talked a lot about historic,

but I think also people have talked about commercial too.

One of the things that makes our pedestrian mall work

is that there's a continuous string of commercial

as opposed to a block where it's not,

is where people stop walking.

So we don't want to lose that.

Now I've been told if there's enough space,

we can put in, we can require a floor of commercial.

But I'm not sure exactly what enough space means,

particularly the beginning of the block,

close of the 100 block, closest to the transit station.

Aren't we allowed like the most historic block?

Aren't we allowed like 90, wait,

doesn't it prescribe 95 feet?

Is that, am I getting that wrong?

It's 75 feet in some areas,

which is maybe seven stories and 95 feet is nine stories of residential approximately.

So the height limit within a quarter mile of the Caltrain station downtown is 75 feet.

Within 200 feet, which is the adjacent definition under SB 79, an additional 20 feet,

so 95 feet of height would be allowable under SB 79's basic provisions.

So if I wanted to require commercial there, would I have to make it, and if that's 10 feet, 105 feet, would I have to add that?

Right. I think what you're talking about, I would describe as what SB 79, you know, contemplates as standards that would prohibit or prevent achieving the densities and heights that the law requires the city to allow.

So if we were to think about requiring ground floor commercial in a set of

adopted standards, we would need to very carefully analyze whether that required

ground floor commercial could reasonably prevent someone from achieving the

height or the density or the residential floor area ratio to which they're

entitled in that location. So I think it's possible that more height could be

needed as an example or flexibility and other standards perhaps that would allow

them to sort of make up for that ground floor commercial area in some way needed

to achieve residential development density.

Okay, thank you, that's what I've been told,

but I wanted to confirm.

And then also, what about, I'm building market rate housing

and I wanna have cars, I want the residents to have cars.

Am I allowed to say I need some space for that?

I mean, I know parking's not required,

but most people doing market rate housing say

to have it pencil out, they actually do need

to put space for cars.

So we're seeing a lot of developers

not dig underground anymore for parking

but put the parking on the first and second floor.

Is that something that we could also possibly have?

Would we have to raise the height to prevent

that sort of configuration on our pedestrian mall,

a couple of floors of parking garage?

That's a question I don't think we can simply answer.

There are a number of considerations

that we just briefly discussed.

I think one in my mind is

If the city's not requiring it, is it our standard

that's preventing them from achieving their

floor air ratio or density?

Probably not.

And so maybe from a technical standpoint,

there's not a problem.

But the interface with state density bonus law

is where I think it gets more complicated,

where if the developer wants parking,

they may seek to have a waiver or a concession

for some other requirement to enable them

to provide the parking.

I think more work and analysis would be required

to give a firmer answer than that.

Okay, and there's been some talk

of leveraging the R3 development standards,

I really like those by the way,

for our downtown development standards.

I'm wondering what you think the overlap is

because we have within the current downtown precise plan,

we have design standards that are more specific

to the downtown.

So I'm wondering how much would the R3 development

standards help or how much do we already have it

in the downtown precise plan?

Or maybe you have a third idea.

Yeah, I think one of the key challenges is the densities

that SB 79 requires the city to permit far exceed

the densities for which the development standards

have been created in the existing downtown precise plan

as one example.

There may be elements of existing objective design standards

in the Downtown Precise plan that are easily lifted

and put into a local alternative plan

if that's what council wants to pursue.

But more broadly, it's sort of the physical

development standards that would enable

a well-designed building of the densities

that SB 79 requires the city to allow

that's missing currently in our process

that the R3 zoning update would get us much closer

to having for SB 79.

Okay, I think this is my last question.

So, if I can remember it, let's see.

Actually, maybe I will, oh, do you think,

so this being a lot of work, do you think that Opticos could do some of a TOD alternative plan?

It's currently not scoped in the R3 work that we're doing.

And I think it's hard to understand

how that would work currently.

As planning manager Anderson mentioned,

they're not currently scoped.

That's sort of a functional limitation.

Also, their work is more focused on some of the design

and development standards intended for R3.

So they may have a starting point,

but again, further refinement would be needed

given the small lots that SB 79 would apply to

that we haven't sort of worked through

in the R3 high intensity or density context.

Okay, thank you.

That's what I have for now.

Thank you, Council Member Hicks.

Council Member Showalter.

Yeah, I have a couple of quick questions,

I think for SB 79 and then a little more for SB 130.

One, I just wanted to talk a little bit about how long it takes to get a consultant on board.

It seems to me, when I remember doing it, that it really took about three months to get an RFP

written and approved and out, and then another three months to get somebody on board.

So that's six months.

Does that ring true?

That's our experience on recent larger projects.

I'm not familiar with all of the finance department's requirements for

getting this process for hiring consultants.

consultants. But yeah, that's a pretty familiar timeframe for getting consultants on board,

especially if you do need to go out in that public open process.

Do we have a list of people who we could call on for this? I know in public works,

we have some lists of qualified vendors we can go to for street work, for instance.

So we do have planning consultants already

under contract for staff augmentation work.

Their contracts, the amounts as well as the scopes of work

aren't really established for this broad type of work program

that we'd really be talking about.

And so we would potentially have to go through

the contracting process to bring on board a consultant

for this robust purpose potentially.

Okay.

Another question that came up was the use of prevailing wage.

Something, can you talk about when prevailing wage

is required and when it's not?

Sure, so the key trigger in both AB 130 and SB 79

is buildings over 85 feet in height.

All right, all right.

Well then moving on to 130.

I did ask a couple questions and I'm just kind of

gonna repeat them because I think it's,

I don't think the public reads the answers to our questions

in the few hours before the meeting starts.

One thing that I was concerned about

is some of the environmental protections.

We have a couple of toxic groundwater plumes

in Mountain View and the standard practice

for protecting residential development over them

has been to install vapor barriers.

And I just wanted, I understood that basically

if residential property were proposed in those areas,

then we would require an initial study

which would identify the problem.

And so could you just go on, talk a little bit

about how that would be handled

so that our community would be safeguarded?

Certainly.

So I think there's sort of two circumstances.

AB 130 does not eliminate these environmental protections.

It changes the process

through which we achieve them essentially.

The first circumstances where a site is actually listed

in a database of hazardous sites,

AB 130 would not apply to those projects.

And so-

Period.

Period.

Some other SQL process would be needed,

maybe another exemption, maybe actual SQL analysis.

Perhaps the more common scenario

is that the site's not listed

and a phase one environmental site assessment

must be performed,

potential contamination from past use is identified

and a project would then need to do further analysis

and implement any requirements

of state and federal regulations

to achieve safe levels of mitigation of the hazard.

So that's required to be implemented and verified

at the certificate of occupancy stage

rather than front loading that analysis,

which is sort of a prior process through CEQA.

Thank you. Okay, the other one I wanted to check on with you is on page 31 under other criteria.

There's an exemption for not, it doesn't apply in a special flood hazard area subject to inundation by a 1% annual chance flood, 100-year flood.

But I didn't see anything about riparian setbacks.

and we do have two streams in our city that are sinuous,

you know, are getting more sinuous as we,

that means wiggling.

As we have more intense storms,

erosion gets, happens,

and they meander a little bit.

That happens significantly on Stevens Creek,

I think it was four years ago

and a big section fell in on the Stevens Creek Trail.

I know Eric will remember that.

I don't think you will.

But anyway, that is likely to go on.

And we have signed quite a while ago with, if memory serves me,

a guidance document with Valley Water that requires us to have a 25-foot setback

from top of bank for riparian zones.

Is that in here?

it's not in ab 130 there's no special provision uh if those areas are not within a flood hazard

area that's described there's nothing in the law that would get someone out of complying with

other regulatory agency requirements so if there was some sort of permit needed from the department

of fish and wildlife or the u.s army corps of engineers for work very close to a string that

could be required still but that's independent of and not addressed in ab 130

Thank you.

Thank you.

Do we have any other questions from my colleagues?

Oh, one more question from Councilmember Hicks.

I guess I'll just follow up on what some of the community members asked.

They were kind of asking if I got them right.

If they only transferred 3% of the density in the downtown area, would that be much less

work than some of the other things we may be imagining.

I guess we'll find out what everybody's imagining in a few minutes.

But you know to do minimal alternative TOD, TOD alternative plan and then later when we're

doing the housing element do more.

Can you see it very finely scoped?

So what I understood from the public comments was their calculation that the area in the

the downtown that they would like to be protected

in a TOD alternative plan was only 3% of the area

of that TOD zone.

I didn't understand it to mean we only wanna,

or they would only want to shift 3% of the density,

which might be a more limited sort of scope

of technical analysis.

The area they're talking about is comprised probably

of dozens of properties with buildings of different types.

And so we would likely have a pretty extensive technical

process in order to figure out existing density

and residential floor area compared to SB 79's requirements

and then where to shift that.

So I think it wouldn't necessarily limit

the extent of work needed.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Hicks.

Any other questions?

I had a quick question,

which I think I'm hoping it's an easy question.

Projects that will make use of SB 79,

they're still subject to park fee requirements, correct?

There's nothing that I know of in SB 79 that addresses the payment of fees.

So I would interpret that to be that the fees would still apply to whatever extent they

apply in the first instance.

All right.

Thank you.

All right.

We will now move on.

Oh, we have questions from Council Member Callister.

Yeah, I wasn't going to ask any, but my colleagues brought up something.

So about this relocation of density,

would it have to go to those other TOD areas

that we have been identified?

Yes, any density that would be shifted

from one site in a TOD zone

would have to go to one or more sites

also in TOD zones in Mountain View.

So we only have two other,

well, one's on Lighten Rail pretty much.

There are five zones.

Oh, that's right.

From San Antonio down to the Wiseman area.

Okay.

What options that you have A, B, and C, or alternative plans, would keep downtown as close to possible as it is now?

That would likely be approach C that involved a focused TOD alternative plan that sought

to minimize density in the area H of the downtown precise plan to shift that density to some

other place or places in Mountain View.

Okay.

So there was the question about the 50 units per our solar whatever and you said, well,

what's the downtown precise plan does so is it they overlap or how did that play

into you're saying the alternative C would do more than what you said that

the precise plan would allow so I'm gonna confuse it one or the other sure

it's a little hard to sort of verbalize and visualize the math but essentially

portions of the downtown would be subject to the 120 dwelling unit per acre

example for a tier one within a quarter mile to keep it simple. Downtown currently

allows 50 that's a little bit less than 50% of 120 dwelling units per acre so we

probably wouldn't be able to push it down to existing 50 dwelling unit per acre

density but we probably could shift it down to 60 dwelling units per acre and

then shift those 60 dwelling units per acre to some other location. That's sort

of the construct that I was imagining

to try to approximate the downtown precise plan

to minimize development pressure from SB 79

to those focus areas.

Okay, because when we discussed this before,

and you said, well, we're not gonna discuss 79 right now,

a couple of months ago,

a lot of people were concerned about preserving the downtown.

In your approach, and help me get a better clarity,

this report was sort of like a pinball machine for me

because you were going bing, bing, bing,

and I was just trying to follow it.

It was one of the more interesting reports I had to read.

So if we do that, and they were asking to protect downtown,

and now you're saying, okay, well, you're not saying,

but approach C would probably be the closest to protect,

or resemble what we have now.

Why isn't that potential in B?

or is that because of the local approach additive

that you were gonna put on?

So what we laid out in the staff report

was a series of limited effort, moderate effort,

and a significant effort option.

Approach A is one of the limited effort options

to just do the exclusion ordinance.

Approach B, which staff recommended,

is both of the limited effort options,

so the exclusion ordinance plus the development standards

to implement SB 79 building off of the R3 zoning update.

Approach C adds to both of those efforts,

a focused TOD alternative plan in the downtown.

And so it's just the way that we structured the approaches

that TOD alternative plan work in the downtown

is only included in approach C.

So are there any assurances on approach B

that would sort of make the community feel

feel a little bit better about it.

All of a sudden you don't come back and say,

well, we missed something and so now we're gonna lose it.

I think for the downtown, the main thing in approach B

is the ordinance that would exclude from SB 79

historic resources that are on the local register

as of January 1st, 2025.

So there are a number of those in the downtown area

in question and so those would be excluded from SB 79

and would not be subject to the development pressure

from the law.

Okay, so now it kicked in.

So when we were doing the historical ordinance,

we were to, staff was gonna identify properties.

Have those properties been identified?

So we've identified potential new resources to list

as part of the historic preservation ordinance update.

There, those properties,

those new properties are not yet listed.

Those properties would not be subject

to the exclusion ordinance and approach B,

recommended by staff.

Only those properties listed as of January 1st, 2025

could be excluded.

We would have to do a TOD alternative plan

like approach C to exclude historic resources

added to the local register from this point forward.

Okay, that's, thank you.

Thank you, Council Member McAllister.

Council Member Kameh.

Okay, thank you.

So I apologize, I'm trying to go through the staff report, double check the questions

and try to fully understand.

It's a process question.

So our first council question is if we want to pursue a TOD alternative plan and then

council question three asks about deferring certain work items.

So if we answer yes for question one, does that mean for question three all of these

items would get deferred if we go with staff recommendation B?

I think-

Or do we pick?

Sorry, I'm sorry.

Sure.

I should have asked this sooner.

There was a lot to think about.

It's a difficult conversation to have.

I think from my perspective, all of them need to be paused for some period of time.

Okay.

Because of the need to focus potentially on an AB 130 ministerial approval ordinance,

which will be a very focused effort

we need to get in place very quickly

if the council supports that

or whatever other modifications.

And then the need to put in place

potentially the limited exclusion ordinance

and then do whatever other associated planning work.

The question becomes if it goes beyond approach B,

those would be deferred longer potentially

because of the elevated level of effort.

So some of those could resume sooner

if it's just approach B, for example.

So is it also that if we do a TOD alternative plan,

these would get accomplished before, like for SB 79, right?

Certain provisions need to be done by July.

So is that why all four of those plans would get paused

to accomplish and meet that?

Or were there still, because I saw some things that said

some of these options will take 12 to 15 months.

And so I just, I'm trying to understand timeline-wise what would actually be in place, I suppose.

Like, for example, for SB 79, when that comes into effect, what realistically would we have accomplished at that point?

I realize that that could be, we don't maybe know yet, but.

Sure.

So I think it's possible, but I cannot guarantee to the council that we may be able to put in place an ordinance before July 1st.

Part of that hinges on what council may direct and whether that's something that requires HCD approval under SB 79.

If the approach does, it's almost certain that we won't have this in place for July 1st.

If the council directs, certainly it's clear to me to work on this as expediently as possible.

And the way to do that is to pause the other council priority items to make sure we don't have other deadlines or distractions or demands on staff capacity.

Okay.

So the two questions at least are, you know, they're interrelated.

So with the idea that if we say yes on the alternative plan and then we say yes to three, there is the goal that we would be going towards the July 1, 2026 date on adopting if we can.

Fingers crossed.

Adopting the ordinance as quickly as possible would be the objective.

It's difficult to assure that that would be done by July 1st.

But this would be if we, this is all taking into account

if we go with the staff recommendation, which would be B?

That's correct.

And if there's some thought to scale that down in some way

or do approach A, that might simplify the effort

and shorten the amount of time to defer

and increase the likelihood of July 1st.

Okay, I just wanted to understand kind of,

as staff mentioned, the trade-offs.

So thank you.

All right.

I don't know if, okay, Council Member McAllister.

So a follow-up question.

On option C, would that also include the pausing of those other four projects that you discussed?

Yes, and likely for a much longer period,

given the additional demands and requirements to pursue a TOD alternative plan of the downtown area age.

Okay, and would C then take, I think you mentioned or implied that C would take,

more time than B?

Correct.

But B isn't going to guarantee us

that we're going to get

done on time anyway.

Correct.

Okay.

Is that all your questions,

Council Member McAlso?

Okay.

City Manager Kimber McCarthy.

Thank you, Mayor.

So I would like to also clarify,

and perhaps our director

could underscore this,

that if we are to pursue a TOD plan that moves densities and requires us to study not only

the individual heights, all of the specifics to one property and have to move it to another

property, that also entails doing CEQA analysis.

That is why this takes so long.

It is not because staff's dragging their feet or they have, you know, not enough time.

It's truly because there are regulatory efforts and steps that we would have to go through

in order to do that.

So that's really why it's taking a long time.

But I would also like to say that meeting a July 1st deadline anyways is going to be

very difficult just because of all of the steps that staff will have to go through.

They will try their best.

they will expedite given wherever council ends up landing.

But I do wanna just make it very clear

why option C is indicated to take as long as it does.

It is because we have to go through

all of these regulatory steps along with CEQA.

Thank you, City Manager McCarthy.

Council Member Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor.

Really quick question.

Can staff remind us when each of these items

is anticipated to be completed?

So the Dark Sky Ordinance,

the Precise Plan Update,

Downtown Precise Plan Update,

Moffitt Boulevard,

and Citywide Objective Standards?

So maybe I can just reference the information,

the figures in the staff report.

So R3, we are projecting a completion

by fourth quarter of this year, 2026.

historic preservation ordinance by potentially the end of the second quarter but no later than

the third quarter of this year dark skies no later than the third quarter of this year with a goal

second quarter citywide objective design standards would finish probably in late 2027

is the best estimate at this point in time and then the moffett boulevard precise plan

is projected to be completed by the end of the fourth quarter of this year.

And the Downtown Precise Plan going probably mid to late

2028 is the best estimate at this point in time.

2028. Correct. Thank you.

All right. Any other questions?

Oh, I see a question from... Is it a question?

Oh, great. We will now move to comments by the

Council which should include feedback

on the questions staff posed in the staff report.

If staff could put slide 27 up with the council questions

relating to SB 79, we'll start with that first.

And because I also know my colleagues very well,

there might be items where we may need to do a straw poll on.

So staff will be capturing any items

that we will be doing a straw poll on.

And so after you are done speaking,

they will put on the screen possible items

that we may need to do a straw poll on

after each council member has spoken.

All right, so we will start with Council Member Hicks.

Start with turning my mic on.

Okay, I'm gonna give my initial ideas

and I'm curious to see other people can build on them.

So I am, I, responding to some of the things that, well, no, I'll start with saying I am

for a TOD alternative plan that focuses on the downtown.

So I guess that is C. I'm not extremely concerned about getting it done right away.

Maybe I'll regret saying that later.

But it seems to me that the economic conditions we have now give us a little reassurance that

we can work on something that we'll be happy with.

You know, it won't be probably the last one we ever do.

We'll learn from it and reconsider it later.

so I'm not saying I want something, you know, that we spend,

we're not making the greatest novel we can ever write or whatever.

I'm also very interested in a historic exclusion ordinance

as quickly as we can do one,

if we can do that before the TOD alternative plan.

plan. For me, the model for us is more or less is in some ways, we're all different,

but is more or less Sunnyvale that has Murphy protected. And I think they'll put that into

a TOD alternative plan and then they, you know, build up around it. I want to say kind

kind of the values, you know, this was a really good technical report,

the staff report that we're working off of,

but there were not, of course, values expressed in it,

because that's our job, so I think I should say some of my values now.

The first thing, I think, following the things that I've said would do,

we are encouraging housing.

That's one of the goals of this project.

We're now not getting much in those areas, so this does encourage housing.

At the same time, I agree with Mr. Watson.

It's not going to all go at once.

We're not going to tear it all down.

Things will be torn down and developed gradually, and I think we should decide where those things happen.

We don't want 10% of it to develop and we say, you know, we wish all that development was consolidated.

It's a scattered site.

we want to make those decisions.

And we want to make those decisions in a way that continues the projects that we're in the middle of.

The main project that I'm worried about right now is, call it what you will,

the pedestrian mall or that downtown component of our economic vitality,

which we've been putting time and money into and we expect to invest in more.

And I think if we don't plan carefully, to me it's not so much the historic buildings themselves.

You know, Thomas Jefferson never lived there.

That's not the kind of thing that we're looking for.

It's a sense of place that we get from kind of the overall, like Murphy, not every building is historic.

But a block, a couple blocks with sense of place, there's, I mean,

I can pretty much guarantee in the next 10 or 20 years, the entire downtown is not going to become six to 10 stories.

So we have to pick where we want it to be.

And by transferring some of that density, we are not stopping housing development.

We're saying where we want it to be.

And you can see that from the upzoning that was done in the 60s in Old Mountain View or many other places I've lived.

a few apartments popped up, but the whole blocks,

you know, in Old Mountain View were not torn down.

So over the decade or something that they allowed that.

So I, you know, I think they've given us a way

to have control over the projects

that we're in the middle of, like the pedestrian mall,

and that we should take that control.

I also want to say that upzoning alone

doesn't make economic vitality there are a lot of places with tall apartments

such as the San Antonio Center taller than downtown Mountain View not as vital

in terms of walking and community and tall buildings I love tall buildings I

would like to move back to San Francisco personally but tall buildings

alone don't make community and don't make walkable streets and economic

vitality there are other ingredients and I think we as planners and council

members have to add those other ingredients so that is oh and I would

love to declare a Villa lands historic district Villa lands was the first

subdivision in all of Mountain View it includes the first three blocks of Castro

plus villa. Doesn't mean you can't develop, if you haven't a historic district, you can

still build tall buildings there. But it gives you a little more discretion and recognizes

that. So if I were making this decision all alone, that's what I would do. So that's my

opening statement. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Council Member Hicks. Now testing out the system that we have put in place,

Do we have, can we see what we have so far as possible?

Council straw polling items.

Well, I'm just making sure that Council Member Hicks

sees that nothing was missed.

So really this is just for Council Member Hicks' sake

to start out with.

So we have two items already.

Yeah, that looks good.

Perfect.

You're good.

I don't know who wrote that down.

All right.

So next we will have Council Member Ramirez.

We could put up a slide 27 back up.

Thank you, Mayor.

First, I want to echo or emphasize some of the remarks from the city manager.

I know there is frustration perhaps with some of the timelines that are described in the

staff report, but that's not the staff's fault.

I think it's the practical reality that it would have been nice to have a statutory CEQA

exemption for a TOD alternative plan, but that's not in the law.

So we have to do CEQA.

That is the law.

It would be nice if HCD were expeditious in their review and approval, but we can't guarantee

that.

And the one thing that is within our purview is the thoughtfulness of the plans that we

create.

And for better or for worse, Mountain View tends to be very thoughtful.

And I don't think that's a bad thing.

I don't think we want to rush something out there that doesn't include thoughtful development

standards or that may end up placing the residential capacity in an area where there are different

unintended consequences, including making a community that is the recipient of that

upset because they weren't a part of that community conversation.

So we wouldn't want to rush something together, rush to put something together.

I think we would want to include members of the community

who are interested in downtown preservation,

but also the folks who are going to be on the receiving end

of that residential capacity or who have other interests

in the development of a TOD plan.

So I think I appreciated your remarks,

and I think it is important to recognize

that this is not a problem of the staff's making.

I also appreciate following Council Member Hicks.

I think there are probably a lot of themes

that are going to be similar in my own comments.

I think I'll start with, though, as I've sort of reflected on a lot of the material,

this feels more than anything like a workload management exercise,

more than it is like a land-use policymaking exercise.

I think what the staff's ultimate contention appears to be is,

eventually, we should put together a TOD alternative plan.

We should have objective standards, right?

We should try and shape and guide the physical evolution of the community

as best as we're able to,

recognizing that there are many constraints under SB 79 and state law.

So I think my direct response to question one would be,

yes, we should pursue a TOD alternative plan.

Personally, I don't know if I would necessarily want to just limit it

to the first three blocks of Castro.

I think that is important, and we have a lot of community input right now.

But I think, as many members of the community also alluded to,

over time, other members of our community who are in Montaluma or elsewhere will probably want us to

start thinking about their parts of the city as well, their neighborhoods. So I would say yes,

pursue a TOD alternative plan. I agree with Council Member Hicks. I don't think we should

start it today. I think there's a lot of work that has to go into the existing work plan items.

I would like to see those completed and also how we just like talking about what the TOD

alternative plan should achieve is important too. There are some areas where we may want to limit

the density and height and there are other areas where we're maybe more comfortable with shifting

that height but that you know beyond being a technical and challenging mathematical exercise

I think it's also that's where what what type of a community do we want in 20 30 40 years is a

com a critical component of the conversation that we're really not able to meaningfully have right

now so question one yes but I think that should follow the existing work plan items and in

particular I think the city-wide objective design standards are really important that's city-wide

right we have many instances where not having objective standards has resulted

in suboptimal development elsewhere in the city and I think that's why that

work plan item is critical and also the precise plans the downtown precise plan

update and the Moffitt Boulevard precise plan update can inform the TOD

alternative plan and I would welcome staff's perspective on perhaps maybe

there's a different way we can approach those precise plans one one thing to consider is

if if the downtown historic core had a base density of 60 units per acre we could have

a simple exemption by ordinance today right if it were just 10 units per acre more dense

we would actually have an easy way to exempt that portion of downtown but it's not sufficiently

dense so we don't have that simple pathway that sp79 does allow so you know maybe a more narrowly

scoped downtown precise plan where we talk about making that area 60 units per acre could allow

perhaps more quickly a simple exemption where you don't have to go through a much more elaborate

tod alternative plan and it can provide perhaps some relief more expeditiously but that's where

where I think we would need a lot of input from staff

about how to re-scope or how to appropriately plan

for the existing items to see them through

and maybe break out the things that are more urgent

and defer the things that are less urgent.

So for question two, I agree with Council Member Hicks.

I think we should pursue the exemption

for historic resources.

That's something that we can do through ordinance without CEQA.

I don't support the other exempted parcels.

I was going through that map, and most of those, first, there aren't that many.

Many of them are already built out, or it's like City Hall or the Kaiser Building.

I don't know if that's the priority.

some of these other areas I don't want to trigger you know conflicts of interest but

I live in a very dense part of the city and I don't know if we necessarily need to

exempt you know the San Antonio precise plan from SB 79 and honestly that staff time and capacity

would be better spent on many other things so maybe it's like a modified staff recommendation

where pursue the statutory,

statutoryly CEQA exempt,

you know, historic resource exemption.

Do not proceed with the precise plan,

sort of the random assortment of parcels exemption.

Pursue the objective standards by ordinance option,

which right now I think would use R3

as sort of the baseline,

which I think is a good place to start, I agree.

And then after we've completed the work plan items

and informed by staff's recommendations

about how we should think about the precise plans

in particular, then we should start the TOD alternative plan.

So happy to sort of go through that if that's helpful again.

I also wanna answer a question for you

because that's the easier one.

We really don't have a lot of options there.

if we don't meet the deadlines,

the projects are deemed approved,

which is actually pretty crazy.

So it's in our best interest to have a process

that allows us to meet those extremely aggressive deadlines

in state law, and I think the staff recommendation

is a prudent one.

So I support the staff recommendation for question four.

Thank you.

Did staff get that?

I think so. So far so good.

All right. Did you want to double check to see if they did catch it, Council Member Ramirez?

Because you are the one I'm most worried about with this process.

I guess so maybe this is a process question for later. Some of these I'm not certain need

straw polls like include members of community and development of tud alternative plan

i don't think there's a scenario where we would exclude the community um so i i mean it's if staff

if that's helpful guidance for staff then certainly um but i i feel like we're do you have a

independent mayor and council members if i may so i would suggest that what we're trying to capture

here are your options, frankly for number two, question two,

because if you're going to think about different approaches,

that's where the straw polls are gonna come in.

So I would suggest just for efficiency's sake

that let staff capture this

and then let's display it at the end.

And then to staff, why don't we just make sure

that this document is capturing the items

for the straw polls because I'm also taking track

of where we're at with questions

and then let's pull it up after we're done

and then we can move forward from there if that works.

That does work.

Can I ask one thing I completely forgot?

We only have like two staff who do advanced planning.

Maybe we should have more.

Maybe you should have some friends, Eric,

because I know we're expecting a lot of you

and maybe adding, I don't know,

I'd love to see maybe in the mid year,

by consideration of like, this is,

we're getting to a point where our staff are gonna break.

If we keep adding all of these state mandates

on top of the council priorities,

I think it's something we should seriously consider.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

We will, if we could go back to slide 27,

and now we will have council member Showalter.

Thank you.

I like this list thing with the chart.

Very good idea.

I used to make one on just a piece of paper,

but it's really nice to have it pretty and neat up there.

I wanna just go to a sort of a little bit of a higher level.

When I look at all of the state legislation

that's been passed to promote housing recently,

there are a couple things that seem to be commonalities.

One of the commonalities is that

if you have objective development standards,

you can enforce them.

And so I think that what that says to us

is that the lack of objective development standards

is really a problem.

And I know that R3 is designed to develop them

for a portion of our residential development.

That's great.

I mean, it seems to me like it's a wonderful start

in that direction.

But I just think that we really need to remember

that commonality, objective development standards,

and we need to have them because otherwise,

the state has control and we don't really wanna cede

the control for our local development to the state.

We have worked really, really hard

to be a pro-housing community and support housing

and think about planning in a very comprehensive manner

where we put together parks and schools and commercial

and industry all together.

We look at the whole package.

So I think that's an excellent model

and we need to kind of protect it.

And the way to protect it, it seems to me,

under the current situation

is to get those objective development standards done

as soon as is reasonable.

then the other thing we've I've heard loud and clear and I I agree with is we all love downtown

we all want to protect downtown so what we need to do to protect downtown I'm not sure exactly

what it is but I'm I think that's where you know that's where we've heard from our community and

I think that's what we want to we want to really concentrate on and then I would I would echo what

my colleague, Council Member Ramirez said,

it seems like along with the objective development standards,

there's a lot more work for advanced planning

than there used to be.

And so I think we need to think about that

as we move forward and make sure that there's adequate staff

or consulting power or whatever's the best way to do it.

That's not our decision, but just to recognize

that advanced planning is super important.

and we really recognize that.

Okay, so, oh, then the other thing is,

we are not powerless in terms of how these,

how these bills are written or amended.

So, and we have a good reputation,

and we have very good relationships with our legislators.

So I think as we go through this process

and we identify things that perhaps aren't written

as well as they could be,

we should bring that up to our legislators.

For instance, it seems to me in 1.30,

there's a timeframe that generally you use,

and it's kind of a one size fits all

until you get to the huge size.

And then it just adds a little bit more time,

if I understood correctly.

Most of the time it's 30 days,

and then if it's a slightly bigger one, it's 60 days.

That's not really time for much process.

So I think that putting together

an understanding of what would be the cutoff

for when we really feel like it's not just a single project

on a, it's part of like a plan,

and it needs more community time.

I think that would be a legitimate thing

to bring up to our legislators.

So I wanted to bring that up.

Okay, to the questions.

Sorry for all that soapboxing.

Yes, I think we do need to do a TOD plan,

but I think we need to do it thoughtfully.

We are, in a sense, protected by the economic downturn

and the lack of residential development

that's going on right now.

I do feel like getting R3 done

and getting objective standards done are,

They seem to be me to be the most important things

to do before the TOD.

But again, we're not gonna do this tomorrow.

So if staff, after thinking about it,

has a better way to handle it,

I certainly would be interested in hearing it.

But then I think we don't wanna put off

the precise plans too much.

But if we can do them in parallel to the TOD,

I think that would be great.

And about the deferral, I guess we just have to,

I would like to say instead of the deferral,

my priority is R3 and the objective standards.

It's not like I wanna defer any of these

any more than is necessary,

but we all need to make sure that we do things

at a staff that they can,

a timeframe that they can be done well.

And so I, you know, I understand that

that could be deferring something.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Showalter.

As requested by the city manager,

we will do the visual aids after everyone is done talking.

Anyone else wants to go next?

Council member Clark.

I think,

open to hearing from my remaining colleagues,

I think I mostly agree with

Council member Schalter and Ramirez so far,

but a little bit of minor difference.

I think we should pursue a TOD alternative plan.

I think the path forward,

which is, sorry, I'm sitting away from the mic.

The path forward that Council Member Ramirez described,

I think makes the most sense to me,

mostly because we're taking a,

you know, if we were in a different economic environment

like we were in 2019 per se,

I would be much more worried than I am now.

because I think if you look at, and staff identified this in the report, but if you look at,

I don't think we're going to have a flood of applications on July 1st.

And if there were going to be significant applications later this year,

it's probably going to be from the most well-resourced developers with whom we have relationships

who probably don't want to torch those relationships,

I would guess, if they want to continue doing business in the city.

Now, I might eat my words, as Council Member Hicks pointed out earlier,

but I think that is one of the macro factors

that I think is playing into how I think about this,

and also sort of doing this right versus really, really quickly.

I think the one area I don't know if it's an area of disagreement but the I do think

the citywide objective standards is important because it's been pointed out you know those

are things that we can enforce citywide and I think especially in the current legislative

environment they're going to become more and more important.

So in terms of deferring things, the world, as much as I'm sure we all love dark skies,

the world is not going to end if that gets pushed out six, nine months.

These other things sort of dovetail with one another.

The Moffat Boulevard precise plan, the downtown precise plan, the TOD alternative plan are

probably going to inform one another.

and I don't think I'm in a position

where I feel comfortable dictating

which of those should go first or in parallel.

I kind of trust staff after they get RFE back tonight

to sequence these things, what should go in parallel,

what can be fast follows.

But of the things that were listed,

I want to get the Dark Sky Ordinance done,

or at least in a state where we can talk about it again.

But I also don't feel that getting that done this year is really going to have a dramatic impact in terms of the priorities that we're talking about here, especially at the state legislature gearing up probably to pass even more legislation.

So, and I will point out, so that's a long way of saying I think I answered yes to one.

The answer to two is probably something along the lines

of the staff recommendation, but more along the lines of,

but I think more closely with what Council Member Ramirez

recommended, except in number three,

I don't wanna dictate which of these should be deferred

and when I've said that I'm most comfortable

with dark skies being deferred and maybe a few other things.

But I do think that there are,

there are tie-ins between the other items on this list,

so I'll trust staff to kind of identify

which of those should go when.

For question four, I do think we should create

a ministerial process, approval process, that makes sense.

And then just the last note,

as Council Member Showalter pointed out,

I hope that, and I plan to have these conversations,

if I'm able to, with some of our state

legislative representatives, and I hope others will too,

and maybe the city can do this formally

on the council's behalf, or maybe the mayor can.

But I really hope going forward that we're,

I think there's a lot of lost potential

with the, you know, the,

the designation of being a pro-housing city,

you know, the thing that everyone talks about

the availability of funding or at least the potential

to compete for that that comes along with that.

But I think what would really move the needle

is additional carrots for those who pursue

a pro-housing designation.

I think the state could say, you know what,

you've worked hard to do this.

This isn't an easy designation to get.

And if you get that designation,

we know you're acting in good faith.

And so we're going to give you the grace of instead of forcing you to try and put a TLD alternative plan in place in six months, you have a year or two.

And not just this, but I think there are additional carrots to where the pro-housing cities aren't necessarily exempted from new requirements.

but they have the ability because they're presumably working in good faith to build additional housing

to have a little bit more latitude in where that housing goes and how those plans are developed

and not necessarily preempted at the state level.

So I just, I really wish that, and this is a conversation that we can maybe have,

but I think that would be a really helpful framework

is to choose the, allow the pro-housing designated cities

to have a little bit more latitude and time

to effectuate their plans if they really are moving toward

in the direction of building additional housing.

So hopefully that's a separate conversation

that we can have at some point,

but I just wanted to point that out.

Thank you, Council Member Clark.

Council Member Kamei.

Great, thank you.

All right, I think I'm gonna do my best

to follow directions, which is, I think it's just one, two, three.

Okay, all right, thank you.

So I just want to thank staff for all their hard work on bringing this forward to us,

the community, for all your comments.

I just really appreciate all the feedback that you've provided to us.

So for question one, yes.

question two. I'm comfortable with the staff recommendation, but I tend to be, perhaps as a

former staff in another jurisdiction, I'm always comfortable with staff recommendation. I think

it's balancing the environment that we're in. I'm comfortable with work beginning immediately,

I think mostly because there's the, for SB 79, there's the July 1st kind of deadline.

And I think that's probably why the legislature put that in there in terms of trying to have a target goal.

And hopefully we can achieve, and maybe that's tempering expectations on, you know,

we're going to try to put forward as much as we can with our alternative plan.

and not let the kind of perfect be the enemy of the good.

For question three, I'm comfortable with the deferral,

knowing that, again, knowing that there's kind of the timeline looming of the July 1st deadline

and really trust staff in terms of being able to let us know kind of the different timelines.

I think I hear what colleagues are saying in particular to the citywide objective design standards.

But considering it's January and July is just a few months away, I just feel comfortable knowing that we're going to get right back to it.

And I think hopefully some of this work is already happening and can build off of each other happening in parallel.

So those are my answers. Thanks.

Thank you, Council Member Kamei.

Council Member McAllister.

Yes, I have a follow couple questions.

Currently, what does the city have as it relates

to citywide objective design standards?

Do we have anything in place right now?

Or would this be just a tweaking of or review of?

Yeah, so we have some objective design standards

in precise plans, but the all the plans

R3 project is developing objective design standards.

And then there's a work plan project,

council work plan project where we would build off of that

to apply to other mixed use areas in the city.

Okay.

And the one on the downtown precise plan,

I attended a public meeting and the consultant said

that the downtown precise plan update

would probably take until 27 and 28.

So I guess we're not pushing, that's okay.

So that being said, I will answer the questions.

Yes, C, yes, yes.

I mean, council member Ramirez says,

well, you have the work plan, then what council adds on.

And when I came on board and I campaigned for it,

it says we gotta start taking things off to get things done.

And we just keep adding them on.

And then I also hear, well, we gotta trust staff,

and I'm trusting staff because they spent a lot of time

to come up with this information,

and then we say, well, why don't we tweak this?

We'll trust staff to do something.

Well, if you trust the staff,

you would trust what they recommended and go from there.

So it's sort of, you can't have both ways,

so I'm trusting staff to get it done

because they did put the time and energy

to think about what would be best for the city.

So those are my thoughts.

Thank you, Council Member McAllister.

Council Member Clark, are you?

Oh, okay.

Council Member Hicks.

Okay, so I spoke first, so I only answered question one, maybe a little bit of question

two.

So I'm left not quite knowing where we're at, so I'll ask.

With many people choosing option B, but many people in the audience and virtually asking

for a focus on downtown, I think I'm unclear on whether, and I guess Council Member Showalter

said she'd like a focus on the downtown.

I didn't think, I'm going to ask two questions actually.

I didn't think option B had much focus on downtown.

So I want to clarify whether everybody's on board with that or whether some of the things

that people said in the audience resonated with them because I think that the downtown

is probably the thing that's most in danger.

That's question number one.

Then question number two is related.

Councilmember Ramirez said he did not support the exemption of some of those other buildings.

I know other buildings is poorly defined, but he, in some table, the number of which

I don't remember, but he mentioned the San Antonio Center.

He said, it's a tall place.

If we get another couple stories, it's probably not going to kill us.

I thought option B did have those exclusions.

So the reason I didn't pick, and I may be wrong, but the reason I didn't pick option

be is one, it had no focus, no really very good focus on the downtown, and two, it focused

on some areas that I think already have a lot of density and it will make little difference

to do a lot of work on.

So I believe we can do a shortened, I understand people want something more efficient, but

I think we may be doing something that nobody really wants.

And that's a question.

So approach B, recommended by staff,

does not have a focused planning process for the downtown.

What approach B includes is adoption of a limited ordinance

that has exclusions allowed under SB 79 for historic resources

on the local register as of January 1st, 2025.

That's sort of the main point for us.

Yeah, and I support that, but honestly, that's super minimal,

and that's not what people in the audience were asking for at all.

They're asking for the sense of place, the pedestrian mall working,

making sure we have commercial there, a whole set of things that are not.

I want council members who may be voting for it to be clear that if you vote for option B,

it doesn't have any of the things people have come to ask for, except for the historic buildings.

Thank you, Council Member Hicks.

Council Member Kamei?

Well, I guess the question that I have back is what other tradeoffs may need to happen to include that focus on the downtown.

And I don't know what that is.

And I think that from what my understanding was from the city manager's comments, that could also include having to do further CEQA analysis, potentially.

which I think yes, definitely would be a benefit,

but I don't know what else that would mean,

what other tradeoffs that might mean

in terms of putting forward some sort of alternative plan.

And I'm not sure if staff is able to answer that question,

but I think that was a bit nebulous to me,

so I thought at least if we're moving forward with B,

which staff says they can accomplish,

which is, and it includes the historic register,

that would maybe encapsulate some.

I know that some colleagues were also talking about

prioritizing and not deferring some of the other items.

Like if we did something like a B approach,

but still tried to move forward

the citywide objective standards,

could that maybe umbrella under some parcels

within the downtown?

That's kind of what I was thinking of,

but I don't know if, I don't know looking to staff.

So I'd like to take this one.

So here's what I'm hearing.

I'll summarize.

And we haven't heard from our mayor yet,

which I think as the seventh person,

we'll need to see where her thinking is as well.

So right now, what I'm hearing

is that at least three council members

are wanting somewhat of a hybrid approach

between A and B.

And so then I'm hearing some support for C

and some support for B.

So right now, if there were to be a straw poll, it would give staff the direction that we would focus on finishing R3.

We would finish the historic preservation ordinance.

We would exempt those historic properties that were on the roll, which are some buildings downtown.

we would not necessarily put anything off except we would not start the TOD

alternative plan until those existing work plan items were finished and then

there's interest in other things like the legislation and some other things

that folks brought up so I don't think we have a clear a B or C at least from

So I'm hearing somewhat of a hybrid approach.

And then we would just need obviously the mayor's thoughts

to see where you all land and then we can take straw polls.

Thank you, city manager McCarthy, no pressure at all.

Okay, so I guess that my thoughts.

When I thought looked at SB 79,

I believe that we were already working

on our downtown precise plan.

We were already working on Moffitt precise plan.

And it was my hope that those plans would essentially

take into account the density requirements of SB 79

as we move forward.

One of the questions I asked ahead of time,

which was about facade standards,

which I guess was my way of asking about the objective design standards,

particularly for the downtown,

because I do feel like what a lot of people,

I mean, there is a lot of concern of us losing our downtown.

And it's a really interesting thing to think through,

because the question is,

what does it mean to lose our downtown?

Is it just going to be,

I'm pretty sure no one anticipates the downtown

is just gonna be bulldozed and raised

as soon as July 1st comes down.

That's probably not gonna happen.

But I think a lot of people are scared of that drip, drip,

drip of the change happening so much

and at some point we'll look around

and it's not the downtown that we had envisioned it to be.

So as we look into our,

and I'm sorry, I'm not really good

about fitting into those boxes of ABC.

I am okay.

I would love to pursue a TOD alternative plan.

I think the reason why I like B

is because I don't want to put more on staff

than we really have to,

but then I'm also going to be like,

what about B plus?

And the thing is,

we're already asking to defer work

of Dark Skies, Orinan, Citywide Objective Design Standards,

Downtown Precise Plan, Moffitt Boulevard Precise Plan.

But it was my hope that the Downtown Precise Plan

and the Citywide Objective Standards

would help feed into SB 79 work.

And so if we were going to look at B+,

we would look at the Objective Design Standards

that we maintain that look and feel of our downtown.

And it's not a guarantee that our downtown

will remain the same way

if we do those objective design standards,

but it's kind of our best shot.

It's how we implement our vision for our downtown.

So that's overall what I was looking at.

Also, due to the historic exclusion ordinance,

I would love us to get started on that

just so that we can ensure that the historic buildings

that we do have already on our local registry

are protected, because I don't see a appetite

for people to demolish those

that we have already deemed as historic.

I think those are my answers to the questions.

Should we start with the visual aids or,

oh, I see Council Member Clark.

It was just to clarify after the city manager's summary, I'm not opposed to deferring the items in question three.

I think we should defer things to the extent we need to.

What I don't want to do is just wait and do the TLD alternative after all these things years from now.

because I think if we're going to pursue a TOD alternative,

then we should do so with some urgency,

and I'm willing to defer the things in number three.

I think what I was trying to point out earlier

is I think some of them inform one another,

and I realize that it's impossible to do all these things at once.

It was just pointing out that I think I'm willing to defer

what we need to defer to move the TOD alternative along.

I just, I also understand that, you know, even if we were to go with C, it's probably not going to be done for 18-ish months, right?

So, unless something changes.

But the only other kind of quasi-question I had was, one of the things that you proposed referring was citywide objective design standards,

and I thought a little bit more about it, and maybe you can be a thought partner with me.

So we have objective standards, I think, in most of our precise plans.

Some of those precise plans are old, like downtown, but they're there.

And so that covers a big chunk of the city.

That's El Camino.

You know all the precise plans.

So really citywide objective standards might have saved us in some of these instances where we were outside some of those precise plan boundaries.

But those were kind of few or far between.

not to say they weren't important, but that changes my willingness to defer that a little bit more,

knowing that a big chunk of the city is already covered by those.

Plus, we're doing R3, and those objective standards can inform some of the other things.

So I just wanted to update my thinking there and just correct me if I'm wrong.

But I feel like while all the objective standards might not be the same,

there are written objective standards

in most of the, well, a big chunk of the city

because we're talking about precise plan areas.

Is that right?

I think that's correct.

I think it's important in answering your question

to understand the context

in which you're asking the question.

So yes, generally, that is true, what you described.

There are objective development standards

more or less depending on the area

and the age of the plan, for example.

The challenge is if it's in the SB 79 context

that you're asking the question.

Those objective standards probably would prevent

achieving the heights, densities,

and residential floor area ratio

that we're obligated to allow,

and so they wouldn't be enforceable.

So that's where the need to do focused planning work,

building off of R3 as a starting point

to tailor those standards in a way

that shapes those projects to the extent

that we can still shape them

and allows them to achieve their density,

floor area ratio, et cetera, to which they're entitled.

Okay.

That's helpful.

So I think, well, I guess we'll get into where we all land and we'll figure out a path forward

in one way, shape, or form.

Just a clarification from what Council Member Clark was asking.

So like if we're looking at our objective design standards, say in our downtown precise

the current ones that are there would not fly under SB 79.

Is that what you're saying?

So a few years ago, council adopted design standards

that were crafted to be objective design standards

for areas A, G and H.

There was some direction at the time

that council wanted to modify some of those

and we're working on some of those modifications

with the project right now.

But there are other parts of the precise plan

that don't have the benefit of those standards.

Further, I would say that the focus

of those objective design standards

were on kind of historic design and character,

which may be applicable to taller buildings.

But as Director Murdoch said,

the challenge here is a broad range

of other development standards

that may constrain those taller, denser buildings

that we would have to allow under SB 79.

So if we do want to address those design standards

those design standards while still maintaining the feel of downtown,

but still have it done by SB 79.

What buck is that?

Is that A, B, or C?

That would be, well, A doesn't include any updates to standards.

So that's just the exclusion of sites.

That would be bucket B.

Okay.

Okay.

Bucket C involves changes to density.

Oh, okay.

All right, that makes sense now.

All right, are you still up, Council Member Clark,

or are you good?

All right, Council Member Hicks.

So I did like the mayor's description of B+,

but I was thinking maybe it was with what people have said,

B plus minus, which you would think would make B,

but I mean adding something and subtracting something else,

so it doesn't.

And kind of answering Council Member Kameh's question

of what can we do to speed things up.

So I'd say the first thing is I don't feel like we have

to finish by the July 1st deadline,

and I don't think we will.

And I think, as people have said,

because of economic conditions,

I don't want to go too far out there,

but I'm not too nervous of going past that line.

So the plus, the minus is what

Council Member Ramirez mentioned about exempt,

doesn't B have exempting these other buildings in it?

Yes, B includes exemptions under the provision of SB 79

where the zoning allows more than 50% of what is prescribed in SB 79?

So I thought if I heard right that Council Member Ramirez said

that was probably not worth our time.

And if everybody agreed it wasn't worth our time

and people are looking for things to cut,

we should probably cut the thing that's not worth our time.

So I would agree with B+.

minus what Council Member Ramirez said is not worth our time.

But I'm still, most people have said they want to do a TOD alternative plan,

but I think that's at some time in the future, people have said,

tell me if I'm hearing wrong, when it can be informed by objective standards,

and I would say probably informed by the downtown precise plan and Moffitt precise plan,

the amount of work that's been done in them so far.

But that's the thing I'm not,

people say they want to do a TOD alternative plan

and some people have said they want to focus on the downtown,

but I'm not sure that I've understood,

you know, and do it later.

I'm just not sure, they're gonna do this,

we all are gonna do this TOD alternative plan later,

but does it focus on downtown?

Is it just, are we just all talking about C

but doing it later?

I'm not sure.

Mayor, can I offer a way to think about

doing the TOD alternative plan later?

I think the reality is we can't, at the staff level,

do all of these things all at once.

I think the council understands that.

So what we're talking about is trying to pause

some of the existing work plan items

other than R3 as an example,

Historic Preservation Ordinance as an example,

pausing the others only to the extent needed

to complete this first tranche of work.

the ordinance to exclude historic resources that are already on the register,

and then completing R3 so we can use that as a launch pad to build objective development standards that meet the purpose of SB 79.

Really, the timeline to do that pushes us into early to mid-2027 already,

when the council will be developing its work plan for fiscal years 27 through 29.

It seems sensible to me that that might be a juncture which will know more about SB 79,

We'll know if any cleanup legislation's come out.

We'll know what other priorities may have emerged

at that point, what work plan items we've completed.

And council can prioritize then whether to do

a TOD alternative plan, which seems supported at this time.

And also the scope of that.

Is it remaining focused on area H,

which is a very narrow task?

Or does council wanna prioritize a bigger planning activity

by the staff at that time in order to broaden

that beyond area H?

So I think the timelines converge in a way

that allows council to revisit this point with more focus

at some point, give or take a year in the future.

So I wanna offer that,

we may not have to have the council solve all of that now.

What you are, I think, approaching is knowing

that you're not gonna do that now

because of the drawbacks of deprioritizing other work

that would be necessary to do a TUD alternative plan

starting today.

Okay, Council Member Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor.

I actually appreciate what Director Murdoch just shared.

I think that we're not going to prescribe a date

to start the work and it's very difficult to know exactly

when work plan items will either be completed

or where they could land in a place

where we might suspend that work to begin other higher priority work.

For, I mean, all of us I'm sure have had jobs where you invest a lot of time and effort in a

project and then your boss says, you know what, I don't care about that anymore, you know, on a dime,

flip and focus on something else. And that's very disruptive, that's very challenging.

And the reason I'm uncomfortable with being very prescriptive in how to treat the work is

only the staff know exactly where they are in each project.

I agree with Council Member Showalter and others who have shared.

I think the Dark Sky Ordinance is nice,

but I think we're acknowledging that there are higher priority,

urgent items that we need to attend to,

and that's one where if we had to ask the community to pick,

do you want to do some of this important land use work

or do you want the Dark Sky Ordinance,

I think most would say the land use work is really essential.

So that's one where we're making a tough call.

We're saying, sorry, staff, I know you've invested a lot of time on that item, but it's because we really have to make that tradeoff to achieve these higher priority items.

And I think Council Member Clark spoke to the challenge that I have as well with the downtown precise plan update and the Moffett Boulevard precise plan update.

I don't know exactly where you are in that work.

Moffett Boulevard is, I think, anticipated to be completed by the end of this year.

So it is disruptive to say stop working on that and pick something else up, especially when it has a lot of overlap with the TOD area that I think we care most about.

So I don't want to say suspend work.

I think it's more have staff think about now that SB79 exists, how should we rethink or re-scope the Moffitt Boulevard precise plan?

Spend a little bit of time thinking about where should that land?

And then I think you would be better able to articulate to us where that should fall and where we should suspend work or where we should complete work because it so heavily informs our thinking about the TOD plan or the TOD alternative plan, especially for the downtown area.

I think, Council Member Hicks, you asked the question that I wasn't fully grasping until just now, and that's when we begin a TOD alternative plan, where should we focus?

And I think what you're suggesting is we should be very clear to staff today that when we begin it, it should focus on downtown.

And I'm comfortable with that.

The only concern I have or the only advice I would give for those of you who will continue serving after I've passed away politically

is there are going to be communities that will come out to their council, to the new council, and say,

we just found out about this.

We're very concerned about the impact to our neighborhood

outside of the downtown historic core.

And if we go too far along the TOD alternative plan

and have already directed staff to invest heavily

in just the historic core,

then the risk is that council or the staff

would be less able to respond to other,

I think, equally valid community concerns about,

well, what about the infrastructure in Monoloma?

What about the infrastructure west of Wiseman?

Those are also de facto change areas now, whether we want them to be or not.

So I wasn't explicit in saying where or what the TOD alternative plan should focus on.

I am comfortable with saying, based on the community testimony tonight and before this meeting,

downtown is a fine place to start.

However, I will not be here, but I think it's important for the council to consider what happens when other neighbors find out and they come to you all at that podium and say, wait a second, what about my neighborhood?

Thank you, Council Member Ramirez.

So for the first three questions, is there things that we need to do a straw poll on that staff needs us to clarify?

And do you have the Google Doc or whatever word doc ready for us to start going down those straw poll votes?

If you don't have it ready, we can go on to question four because I think that's actually really quick if you need time to get that ready.

But if you're ready now, we can do that now.

Why don't we try another moment to attempt to formulate the questions based on the last bit of dialogue from the council.

All right.

So I am letting everyone.

Oh, yeah.

Go ahead, Council Member Kamei.

Sorry.

As the only one who said I'd be happy to work on it immediately or a later date.

So I feel a little bit nebulous on it.

So what does a later date mean?

So we say yes.

We had discussion.

so staff will do an off-agenda memo

or just let us know when it's happening.

I want an alternative.

So I just don't, that's the part that I got confused on

because people said we'll just start if staff could.

City Manager.

So is it just January of 27 or Q1 as you were mentioning?

So if we, for question two,

it sounds like the majority says later date.

So later date would be sometime next year.

So I think where I've heard the council majority seeming to form is

consider pursuing a TUD alternative that may focus on the downtown area H

or maybe broader,

perhaps as part of the council's work plan prioritization for fiscal years

2027 through 2029.

That would be happening in the first and second quarter

of 2027, most likely.

And so at that time, right, with better understanding

and insights into the functioning of SB 79

and other priorities, there can be a proper discussion

of exactly when to start and the extent of that work

in light of other staff demands at that time.

So effectively our conversation may inform if the future council will

prioritize this as a work plan item but effectively after today then nothing

would begin until it's potentially added as a future work plan item next year.

Is that what I understood?

Did I understand that correctly?

That was what I put out as my interpretation.

Okay, thank you.

Mayor, Councilmembers, if I may.

So I think the biggest thing about the timing is,

this is good news,

R3 is coming forward to you next month.

It's coming forward the first meeting in February.

That will help inform the TOD plan.

We're also working on the historical preservation ordinance that is also expected to be wrapped

up this spring, which will also help the plan moving forward.

By not postponing the downtown precise plan or Moffitt precise plans by as far in the

future, it means staff can work on those also, which may also help inform the TOD plan.

And then I think where we will need clarity from council is if you want to focus on all

the priority areas or only downtown, is downtown shifting to Montaluma?

Is it shifting to San Antonio?

Is it shifting to the other transit areas?

Or do you want us to look at all of them holistically, which I think is where the timing is going

to come in for the TOD.

but all the work that you will have done

on all those other policy items

will help inform the TOD piece.

So I think where you all have the decision to make is,

are you comfortable with this kind of B plus option?

And are you comfortable with the timing

of when these items would come to you?

Now, you all can say, this is a priority.

we want you to start the TOD at the beginning of 27.

You don't have to necessarily wait for this

to be put on the next work plan.

It would go on the next work plan

because the work would continue at that time.

Thank you, City Manager McCarthy.

Council Member Ramirez.

Thank you, Mayor.

I think just, as uncomfortable as I am

to stipulate a particular area,

especially if the future council's gonna work on this

and not me, I am okay with having a fairly narrowly scoped

downtown focused TOD alternative plan.

If that's helpful direction for staff today,

then when you begin it, as Council Member Hicks

had described, I think focusing on the downtown area

and especially the historic core

to the greatest extent possible informed by the work

that you will do or have done on the downtown

precise plan update.

As long as we found a place to land those precise plans,

that's comfortable for staff, right?

Don't do anything that is disruptive.

I know that's a hard thing to do.

So I don't, it's hard to say start at this day.

It's more I'm trusting staff to figure out

how to wind down some of these other items.

I'm okay with deferring dark sky ordinance.

I'm okay with saying downtown focused TOD alternative plan.

And then reiterating the only immediate actions

would be the ordinance to exempt historic resources

as of January, 2025,

and the ordinance to implement

objective design standards for SB 79

and as staff is recommending

using the proposed R3 standards as a baseline.

So those would be the things that we would do soon.

Thank you, Council Member Ramirez.

Council Member Showalter.

Yes, I just wanted to confirm that the development of the objective standards is on the list of things we're getting going on right away.

Is that correct?

So the discussion I'm tracking right now does include the objective standards work that builds off of the R3 zoning update completion.

Excellent. I just think that's really important. Thank you.

Thank you Council Member Showalter.

Council Member McAllister.

So everything you heard tonight,

is anything gonna get done by the initial implementation

of SB 79?

The honest answer is probably nothing will be in place

by July 1st given the work that's required

and the potential need for HCD review and approval.

And so we will work as expediently as we can,

but it's not likely to be in place by July 1st.

Thank you.

Council Member Hicks.

So if it's downtown focused, I will be voting on it.

I have, or for it, not exactly the way

I would have done it myself.

But I had thought that we would defer the downtown

But we would defer the downtown and Moffitt because we would work the work we've already

done into a downtown-focused TOD alternative plan.

And you look puzzled.

Well, I think the look on my face reflects that we're still at a relatively early stage

of the downtown precise plan update.

So we've largely completed the visioning framework phase.

we have not done the extensive

refinement and development of

standards. So there's not much

to inform it. Correct.

Okay, now I understand that

facial expression.

Yeah, so that's

why I thought maybe we could defer those and

start the TOD alternative

plan earlier. But

yeah, if it's focused on the downtown

then

it's not ideal, but I will be voting for it.

Okay.

Okay, is staff ready for our straw poll, or should we move on to question four, and then you'll be ready for some clarity in any of the straw votes?

So I think we have what I think is a workable starting point for this discussion.

And so if we need to tweak these to get the exact council majority, then we can do that.

Okay, so we will move on to question four, and then we'll go back to those straw polls,

because I think question four is actually relatively simple comparatively to the three other questions.

So I believe Council Member Ramirez already said his answer to question four, which I already forgot,

but I'm sure the staff remembered it.

So the answer to question four that I noted for Council Member Ramirez was to support the staff recommendation of option number one,

prepare a ministerial approval process

for projects eligible under AB 130.

Thank you staff.

Does anyone have an answer to question number four?

Council member.

Mayor.

Yes.

You may just wanna do a straw poll

and say who supports staff's recommendation.

All right, so let's go with that.

Everyone who supports staff's recommendation

for question number four, please raise your hands.

All right, we have six, oh, any opposed?

All right, and abstentions?

Oh yes, go ahead, Council Member Scherwalter.

The reason I'm opposed is because I really am sad

to think that there won't be a public hearing

where people who object to a project

or have good suggestions for it can share them.

And that's one of the things that the ZA hearing, I think, is really valuable for.

Granted, with this new AB 130, the city won't be able to say, okay, you have to make that change.

But a lot of times our developers hear an idea that is suggested by our residents and say, oh, that is a good idea.

I could do that.

And so that's why I'm objecting, because I feel like even though we can't require them anymore, we need a vehicle, or I would like there to be a vehicle, where they can share those opinions.

Thank you, Council Member Showalter.

I'm trying to see if there was like a question relating to that about, oh, there wasn't, oh, about the ability for community input even when things are ministerial.

Like there's usually like a big sign saying there's a development coming here and send an email to whoever.

Is that correct?

So I think what you're describing is the public notification component of the discretionary permit process where those on-site signs are provided.

We have contemplated evaluating in this ministerial approach some sort of courtesy notice and possibly a written comment opportunity.

we need to think more about how that would work,

but that would at least offer the opportunity

to point out unique issues or concerns

about a particular site or neighborhood

that may not be evident to staff

that could have bearing on our analysis.

And so that's one of the alternative sort of options

that might come along with this ministerial process

if we can find a way functionally to make it work.

Okay.

Does that sound good to you, Council Member Scholl?

That does sound good. Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

Council Member Hicks, you're up.

So Council Member Showalter, I appreciate your no vote.

I was going to add that as a comment, not as a no vote.

So I agree that it's important to notify,

it was mentioned in the staff report,

but probably not everybody here has read

the full staff report, that there would be,

could be courtesy noticing as a part of this,

and I agree with Council Member Showalter

That's important, some way of taking in people's comments

because they can be really, in my time as a planner,

they can be really helpful in things you actually want to act,

that are beneficial to you to act on,

maybe even save you money.

And then I also think we should check on the purpose

and role of the EPC because this is changing

a lot of what the EPC does.

So I think we're going to need to check in on that.

And like we said before, for the SB 79 portion of this agenda item,

we should lobby for modifications we may want to this legislation,

such as longer time frames for planners to complete work on larger projects,

like really big projects.

So those, oh, and we should publish something in the VU about this.

we should educate the public.

I mean, not that you publish it in VU

and everybody everywhere will have comprehensive knowledge on it,

but it's a good first step.

Thank you.

Do we need to take a straw poll on all that,

or is that kind of feedback?

Because I feel like we're generally okay with that.

So what I would imagine,

clear majority support for the ministerial approval.

approach we need to work on an ordinance and precise plan amendments to effectuate that

i think what we can take from the council discussion is serious interest in courtesy

notice and potentially a written comment opportunity and we can evaluate that as

alternatives or components of that ministerial process when this comes back to council

great and you don't need us to do a straw poll on that or we're i don't think so um at this point

Mayor, I think it's pretty clear we will certainly do what we can to educate the public about

the AB 130 and the process and the steps that we'll take to provide that courtesy notice

and the written comment period.

So we'll make sure to do that in various ways.

Thank you, City Manager McCarthy.

Mr. Anderson, do we have our straw poll grid that we need to go through to get any

lingering questions and clarity in the way?

Yeah, it's coming up.

All right, thank you.

So here we've tried to lay out the questions

from the study session as well as sort of the components

of those based on the flow of the council discussion.

We didn't capture anything quite right,

please let us know.

So question one, pursue a TOD alternative plan.

It sounded like there was council interest

in pursuing that in the form that we described it

in the staff report, which is some sort of local approach

to respond to SB 79.

The TOD alternative plan is strictly defined

and SB 79 is a subset of that discussion,

which is broken out here in the third row

related to approach C.

So maybe a straw poll just to confirm

the answer to question one is yes,

and then we can proceed to question two.

All right, all in favor for question one, yes.

All right, it looks like that's unanimous, so yay.

Question two, approach B, staff recommendation,

focus only on historic resource exclusions

and developing SB 79 objective standards

based on R3 update.

If in favor, raise your hand.

Wait, I said I'd vote for it if it had a downtown focus.

Oh, this is, what?

Wait, what?

One has a downtown focus?

Okay.

The downtown focus is for the TOD alternative plan.

Okay, so it had that when I voted for it?

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

Okay, so

Are we clear on the question?

All right, so we're gonna, oh,

we are not clear on the question.

Can staff explain the difference between question two,

well, question two in the,

question two approach B staff recommendation,

so forth, and then question two approach C TOD

alternative considering in fiscal year 27

through 29 work plan?

So the first question two is really to confirm

council majority support for the staff recommendation

as sort of the base amount of work.

So put in place the historic resource exclusions

that SB 79 allows and then do the work

on the objective development standards

building off of R3, so essentially the staff recommendation.

The second question two in row three is this B plus,

B plus minus, the various ways it was described.

It wasn't clear to me where the majority support was,

if it was focused only on area H,

or if there was a desire to consider at some point

other areas, Montaloma has come up as an example

that may need to be discussed later,

or if council's sure now.

And so we've set it up to just talk about

considering it in the work plan for 27-29,

because there's maybe different interests

in the geography that would be planned for.

So through the mayor, I think the challenge is,

they look like, because they're both question two,

they are mutually exclusive, but they are not.

They are not meant to be mutually exclusive.

We can do both of those things.

Correct. Thank you.

But none of them are focused on the downtown.

That one is not there.

That's C.

So maybe I can clarify approach C

if you give me a moment to just add

at minimum area H of the downtown

and other areas to be considered

by council in the future.

That is for the third question.

That is question two.

Yes, go ahead, Council Member Camille.

I mean, I understand the emphasis on the downtown,

but I wonder, since it sounds like this will be coming back to the new council,

they'll get an update at that time.

Do we need to call out the downtown at this time,

or do we just need to coalesce around an approach?

I wonder how prescriptive we need to be when there's going to be a new council.

I don't know.

I mean, I just, while I appreciate the conversation, I think I'm grounding myself in understanding

that this work will go forward.

But I don't know if it's helpful because it will actually help scope between now and

next year and if that scope is actually necessary

or will that come back at a later date

for the next council so.

I think it's helpful to get your feedback tonight

because then staff knows what they're starting to work on.

Perhaps a clarification for that third row.

So approach C which would be in tandem with approach B.

approach B, pursuing the TOD alternative plan for area H

and staff can evaluate the other areas,

which it sounds like there was interest for that as well.

And then that would be looped

into the future council consideration.

So if that's where this council's at,

so you wanna look at kind of holistically all the areas.

So yes, downtown and also other areas

that staff may identify,

then that could be looped in with that second question too.

So really they're together.

It's not really two separate things.

All right.

Let's do the second question in the row

which is the approach B staff recommendation.

Then this is not exclusive to the next question

that we're going to do after it.

But let's start getting answers for staff and consensus.

So question two, approach B, staff recommendation,

focus only on historic resources exclusion

and developing SB 79 objective standards

based on R3 update, all in favor?

One, two, three, four.

That is correct.

I know the numbers are.

Yes.

All right, unanimous, let's go.

All right, now question two.

Approach C in tandem with approach B for area H,

future council consideration of other areas

in fiscal year 2027 to 29 work plan.

All in favor?

One, two, three, four, five, six.

Unanimous, yay!

Now we're going to, two more questions left, you guys,

and then we're almost through with this item.

So question three, deferral of some items,

finish R3, historic preservation,

objective design standards,

don't start TOD alternative plan

until these existing work plan items are finished.

All in favor?

One, two, three, four, five.

All right, five.

All opposed?

All abstentions?

I'm going to assume that's an abstention.

So we have five votes.

We're just breezing through this now.

Question three.

Resume downtown precise plan and Moffat Boulevard precise plan

as soon as sensible and practical.

All in favor?

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

All right, it's unanimous.

And I think we have,

I'm hoping that made sense to everyone.

The staff have what they need.

Wait, there's a question four?

We did.

We did that.

Okay.

All right, we finished.

Does the staff have what they need?

I guess I wasn't clear on the final point

related to the resumption of the precise plans.

We were trying to respond to Council Member Ramirez's

statement of not being overly prescriptive

and knowing that they will need to be pushed off

for some period of time,

but starting the work again as soon as makes sense

once we think through the best way to account

for SB 79 in those processes.

so it's a little bit wishy-washy but because i think it's just meant to allow conditions to

dictate rather than council prescribing when that works to resume all right perhaps just confirming

my verbalization of that with the straw poll might help does that sound right that sounds

that sounds all right thank you so much everyone for your patience um we are going to take

a 10 minute break and reconvene at

at

at 2000 which is 8 o'clock.

Thank you.

Okay, everyone.

Hi.

We're going to call this meeting back to order.

Welcome to the joint meeting of the Mountain View City Council

and Shoreline Regional Park community of January 27, 2026.

Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

All right.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America

and to the republic for which it stands,

one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right.

The City Clerk will take attendance by roll call.

Council Member Hicks?

Here.

Council Member Kamei?

Here.

Council Member McAllister?

Here.

Council Member Ramirez?

Here.

Council Member Showalter?

Here.

Vice Mayor Clark?

Here.

Mayor Ramos?

Here.

Yavacorn?

Yay.

All right, thank you.

All right, we will now move on to Item Three.

Please note, this is a presentation only.

City Council will not take any action.

Public comment will occur after the presentation item.

If you would like to speak on this item in person,

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

All right, so we are happy to be joined.

Oh, I should move up, all right.

We are happy to be joined this evening

by Leslie Carmichael, board member of Hope's Corner,

to accept this proclamation.

Leslie, will you join me at the lectern?

All righty.

The proclamation reads,

whereas January has been recognized

as National Poverty in America Awareness Month,

an opportunity to shine light on the struggles

faced by millions of Americans daily and to explore solutions to ensure opportunity and

dignity for all.

Whereas poverty is a complex, multidimensional issue shaped by policy decisions, lack of affordable

housing, low education levels, limited employment opportunities, and systemic challenges that

affect individuals and families across all demographics.

and whereas the intent of the National Poverty in America Awareness Month is to heighten awareness,

encourage greater support for effective programs, challenge preconceived notions,

and inspire empathy and action within our communities,

and whereas organizations, educators, volunteers, and businesses across the nation

dedicate time and resources to address the root causes of poverty

and provide essential services such as food, shelter, counseling, and support to those in need.

Now, therefore, I, Emily Ann Ramos, Mayor of City of Mountain View, along with my colleagues on the City Council,

do hereby proclaim the month of January as National Poverty in America Awareness Month in the City of Mountain View

and encourage all residents to recognize the challenges faced by those experiencing poverty.

to learn more about the system that contributes to economic hardship

and engage in activities such as volunteering, advocating, and donating

to help combat poverty and support those in needs within our community.

So here's the proclamation.

Leslie, would you like to say a few words?

Just a few.

Thank you very much.

On behalf of Hope's Corner, I'm in essence representing a multitude of agencies

that are part of the community's safety net.