Good evening, everyone.

Thank you for joining us for a closed session tonight.

It's five thirty one PM on Tuesday, March tenth, twenty twenty six.

Uh welcome, by the way.

Do you have uh an announcement to make you uh Vice Mayor Clark?

Uh pursuant to government code section five, four nine three, five three point eight point three.

I am participating in this meeting remotely via audio and visual technology while traveling on official business as a legislative body.

Um, all votes tonight will be taken by roll call vote.

Uh City Attorney Log, um, do you have a closed session announcement?

Yes, good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor and Council members.

There's one item on this evening's closed session agenda.

Item two point one is a conference with legal counsel regarding one item of anticipated litigation pursuant to government code section five four nine five six point nine D two.

And I'd also like to um let the record reflect that council member Hicks has recused herself from participation in closed session this evening due to a conflict of interest.

Would any member of the public joining us virtually or in person like to provide comment on the closed session item tonight?

Um, please click the raise hand button and zoom and or submit a speaker card to the city clerk.

We'll take in person speakers first.

Good evening, everyone.

I'm calling this meeting to order.

Uh this regular meeting of the Mountain View City Council to order at six thirty two PM on March tenth, twenty twenty six.

Please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

City Court Glazer, will you uh confirm attendance by roll call, please?

Councilmember Hicks.

Here.

Councilmember Kamei.

Here.

Councilmember Ramirez?

Here.

Councilmember Shulaker?

Here.

Vice Mayor Clerk.

Here.

Mayor Ramos.

You have a quorum with Council Member McAllister absent.

Thank you.

In recent weeks, the city, along with uh a few of our neighboring elected uh decision making bodies, has been subjected to disruptive racist uh and verbal attacks by anonymous callers during virtual public comments.

The council welcomes respectful, non-threatening public comments on matters within our jurisdiction, but comments seemed otherwise pursuant to council code of conduct and the government code may be grounds for terminating a speaker's comment period.

City attorney Logue, is there a closed session report this evening?

Yes, there is.

And we'll start with our first presentation is item 3.1 Women's History Month.

In recognition of and we're honored this evening to be joined by Katie's Ogwin on behalf of the League of Women Voters to accept the proclamation.

Katie, will you join me down at the lecture?

Thank you so much for being here.

So March is National Women's History Month, and it's an opportunity to honor the extraordinary contributions of women that have been made throughout history and those that are and women who continue to make those contributions in our community today.

This year's theme is leading leading the change, women shaping a sustainable future.

The theme highlights the many ways women are leading efforts to build a more sustainable world, whether through environmental stewardship, economic opportunity, social justice, or education.

Here in Mountain View, we see that leadership every day, with women in our community developing sustainable solutions, strengthening financial stability for families, building more inclusive neighborhoods, and educating the next generation of leaders.

Women's History Month is also an opportunity to recognize the contributions of all women, including those whose achievements have historically been overlooked or marginalized.

A full and equitable understanding of history depends on acknowledging those voices and stories.

So on behalf of Mayor Emily Ann Ramos and my colleagues on the City Council, we're proud to proclaim March as Women's History Month here in the City of Mountain View, and we encourage everyone to take time this month to recognize the women who've shaped their lives and our community.

And Katie, I want to especially thank you for your leadership and dedication to the League of Women Voters and our local community.

And that was uh that's a summary of what's in the proclamation.

I didn't read all the whereases, but hopefully I captured all the content.

Katie, would you like to say a few words?

Sure.

Thank you very much, um, Vice Mayor, and also thank you, um Mayor Mayor Ramos.

Um did I say Vice Mayor Vice Mayor Clark, sorry.

Anyway, um I wanted to thank the City First recognition of the League of Women Voters.

The League of Women Voters was founded over a hundred six years ago to help women exercise their new responsibility with their new founded right to vote, which came with the 19th Amendment.

Um we now welcome um everyone, it's not just an exclusively women's group, but um for those of you who don't know us, we are a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that seeks to promote an inform engaged community and to strengthen our democracy.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

We'll do a we'll do a quick photo of it.

And then the other uh presentation item tonight is to recognize Roger Jensen, our chief information officer and information technology director, who's going to retire on March 20th after 12 years of service to the city of Mountain View.

Roger, do you want to come up?

So Roger joined the city in January of 2014, which I'll say a little bit about in a minute.

Um he joined as the city's first CIO and IT director, and he established the city's information technology department.

In that role, he's overseen the city's IT functions and technology needs while helping modernize how organ how the organization operates.

During his tenure, the city expanded Wi-Fi services across downtown Mountain View and City facilities, which many of you have probably enjoyed over the last several years.

He's launched, uh he helped launch the new city website and intranet and and helped develop and implement the city's online permitting platform.

Roger also established the city's geographic information service mapping group, creating a centralized development uh and support for enterprise-wide GIS services, which, if you're a government geek, you know is really really important that we know where everything is in all the assets within the city and the and what the city owns across the entire organization.

He created the Enterprise Applications Group and launched projects to replace several major systems, including the city's utility billing program, um, work order management and land management systems.

Under his leadership, the IT team also strengthened the city's cybersecurity protections, including real-time monitoring of internal networks for system attacks, multi-factor authentication, employee cybersecurity training, and stronger antivirus protections.

Roger also led the effort to integrate new hardware and software systems across departments to improve efficiency and productivity, and he championed innovation across the organization, drawing on his private sex, excuse me, private sector experience to modernize systems and internal functions, including document processing, legal inquiries, and employee onboarding and offboarding.

Particularly important was uh his efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic when he helped to ensure that the city could continue providing essential services by implementing virtual and hybrid meeting support for both the city council and all of our other public bodies who helped were able to continue holding public meetings during that period, and he helped enable remote work for city employees on very short notice.

More recently, he initiated the city's responsible use for uh of artificial intelligence, uh helping Mountain View become one of the first jurisdictions to join the Gov AI coalition and leading development of the city's AI administrative policy.

So, Roger, on behalf of Mayor Ramos and my colleagues on the city council, we recognize and commend you for your steadfast leadership service and dedication to the residents of Mountain View.

And most importantly, we wish you a long and very happy retirement.

Congratulations and thank you for all you've done for the City of Mountain View.

Do you want to say a few words?

Sure.

Um well, thank you.

Um I've been here 12 years.

I have a lot to be grateful for.

Uh, first of all, for the city manager and executive team.

Um IT has to do a lot of work, but it we depend on our departments to support us, um, and they've been great.

Um the things we've done, I couldn't have done without my IT team, Benny Shea are my assistant director and group.

Um, just to give you some idea what it was like when I came here, the city had 30 laptops, and everybody came to the office five days a week.

And if you wanted to be in a public meeting, you came here.

And if you are a council member on the road, we put a phone here with a microphone next to it.

So we were not very high-tech.

Um as of this month, I think we have 600 laptops in the field, all our public meetings you could you know participate remotely.

Um, and that's all thanks to the group that um that we manage in IT.

Um, and as uh Vice Mayor Clark mentioned, we have some exciting projects coming up for enterprise software, um, which we're um excited to do and should improve productivity, especially on the development support front.

Um and finally I'd like to thank counsel.

Um a short story.

Um I was in 2013, the council voted to make the IT department and create my position.

Um I had said to my wife a couple years earlier that boy, if I could do my career over again, I'd like to work for a city.

They're just really fascinating how they work.

Um, and so the Mountain View Voice used to be a newspaper got delivered to your house.

So she came up to my office and she said, you know, you said you want to work for a city, Mountain View's hiring one.

You live in Mountain View, you should apply.

Um and that started.

And so actually, you were on the council, you were a vice mayor and approved it, as was Councilmember McAllister.

Um, so you both helped create this position.

I didn't see the minutes, so I hope you voted for it.

I'll give you, I'll say yes, you voted for it, I'll just tell myself that.

Yeah, it was a big budget.

So anyway, thank you all very much to everyone.

And um I wish you all the best of luck.

Thanks.

Do any of my council colleagues have comments on the presentation items?

Councilmember Sherwalter.

Yeah, I'd like to say a little something about both of them.

Um, first of all, about Women's History Month.

Uh, it took about 80 years of fighting to get or action, maybe it wasn't all fighting, to get the 19th amendment ratified and get women the um the right to vote.

And at that time, it was only white women.

It was much, much later when women of color were given the opportunity to vote.

So the um the fight that we see going on in our country now about voting rights.

I mean, it's not new.

It's a it's we we've had a very um uh we've had we've had a long history of people arguing about who should be able to vote and what criteria they are.

But all that aside, I think I for one feel like it's one of our most precious rights.

And it's something that um uh we all hear is is optional.

You don't have to vote.

I know in my family, we teach uh everybody, our kids and our relatives that it's not optional.

It's you it's it's it's your you know, it's your duty as an American citizen to vote, at least on the things you know about.

So in Women's History Month, I just like to bring that up that this fight over the right to vote and who gets to vote, um, has very, very long roots.

And um, we're not done yet.

But it's um it's something that's worth fighting for.

And then I just want to say thank you to Roger.

I'm not gonna be able to be at your party on Friday, unfortunately.

I always love a good party, but I'm gonna be out of town.

Um, but um, you have been a delight to work with.

I um I am not particularly strong on uh tech, as my children are wont to tell me pretty much any time they get an opportunity.

And but you were always and are always so um good about explaining things and making sure that things got fixed so they worked, and that's actually what we all care about making it work.

And so I really appreciate you um you um being the person that for so many um issues that I had with tech made it work.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Mayor Ramos, I see your hand up.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Clark.

Um, I'll start with uh congratulations, Mr.

Jensen, on um all your work that you have done in our city.

Um, also fellow um leadership mountain view best class ever.

Um it was before I was actually on council, so it was really nice to to be able to talk to you about the different um systems of IT that the city has, including um our open GIS portal, which was really nice.

Umgratulations on that.

And I know that like the obviously the the technology, this position, it's something that has a lot of people um really mindful of, especially in a city, any Silicon Valley city probably has kind of like that uh pressure on them because there's uh an expectation um that we would have the most advanced technology ever uh for our cities, but you have done a good job in keeping us up to date and and making sure that we are focused in having technology that makes us do the the best work we can.

Um I'm really sad I can't be there in person because I really like today's proclamations.

Um but um so but for the next uh for the other proclamation, um, I'm using that for my uh my mayor call to action, uh cult service, call to community, um, because League of Women Voters is um what some people say is the gold standard of um civic engagement.

Um we're very proud to have such a strong chapter that covers us and and Los Antas Los Altos Hills, but um very proud to have a strong chapter that covers that.

So I encourage people to get involved that way.

One of the biggest, one of the one one of the major things that legal women voters do is uh voter education and voter registration, which is a huge um service to our community.

Um so get involved, and you really can't do better on civic engagement than legal women voters.

So thank you.

City Manager McCarthy.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

So I just wanted to make remarks about our retiring IT director, um, Roger Jensen.

And he I saw you tried to leave too fast because he's so diligent that he's going back to his office to help monitor the Zoom component of this meeting.

Um, but one thing that I have just really appreciated about Roger over these last several many years is his ability to to be a doer.

There's a lot of agencies where there are directors that are just delegators, and we don't have that here in Mountain View.

And Roger has been instrumental in making so many changes over this past decade for the better for our community, for our council, and for the city organization.

One thing that wasn't said in the proclamation is that we have about 11 system implementations going on right now, everything from a brand new utility building system to uh contract management system that we're looking at to a land management system that we're hoping to launch, GIS improvements, improvements to our agenda management system.

It really runs the gamut and touches so many parts of our organization.

And Roger's leadership and diligence and passion for this work is really uh tremendous and instrumental.

And I just wanted to thank him.

Uh as he mentioned, he is a Mountain View resident, so I know he's gonna be watching, and he has a lot of passions that I know that you're excited to to do in retirement.

But I wanted to thank you for a great 12 years.

You're you're the first and only IT director so far, and I feel like you've gotten us to a really tremendous place and and a leader in many ways.

So thank you for all of your years of service for being a great public servant coming from the private sector, and I know you have a lot of wonderful things ahead of you.

So thank you so much, Roger.

City Attorney Lowe.

Hi, Roger.

We haven't had a I haven't had a chance to work with you for very long, but it has been wonderful.

I know Matesh would echo um what I'm saying as well.

He speaks highly of you, and we wish you all the best in retirement.

And then um seeing no one else in the queue, I'll just wrap up by saying um I think I've worked with both of you for quite a while, probably too long.

I think you know you've probably been here too long when I think I was yes, I the same month I became mayor in 2014.

Roger joined us.

Um, and and now I'm um seeing him off to retirement, although I know I'll see him around.

But um Katie, thank you again for all the work that you have done.

You Sue Russell, everyone.

Um, I remember Councilmember Ramirez sitting in the back with with um Julie Lovins.

Yes, with Julie Levins and um and some of the league folks, and um and uh you know our community is stronger because of all the work that you and you and your organization do.

And um and Roger, um, I highlighted it a little bit, but I I do uh want to just thank you again for the work in particular that you did turning everything on a dime at the at the start of the pandemic.

I remember sitting here, never thought I would have to declare a public state of emergency, except maybe an earthquake, um, certainly not a pandemic, and to have to almost immediately go fully remote, and knowing that we had to keep the city operating that democracy has to continue.

I mean, you helped enable that.

So thank you, not just for for that, but for everything else that you've done for our community.

Um we'll I'm we'll I'm sure we'll see you around.

Um, and uh maybe every now and then you can pop in and tell us when we do something wrong or something you don't like.

But um so um and then uh I just wanted to check and see if there's any public comment on the presentation items.

I don't see anyone in the queue.

Okay, well, thank you again.

We'll close the presentation items and move on to item four, the consent calendar.

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

And if an item is polled from the consent calendar, it'll be considered separately following the approval of the balance of the consent calendar.

If you are here in person and would like to speak on the consent calendar or the next item, um, which is oral communications on non-agenda items, please um just make sure you've submitted a blue card to the city clerk.

Uh, would any member of the council like to comment on or poll a specific consent calendar item?

Councilmember Hicks.

Yes, I would like to pull uh 4.2 regarding a facade grant programming for a separate vote.

Yeah, separate discussion vote.

Okay.

Councilmember Ramirez.

Uh thank you, Vice Mayor.

Just uh a brief comment about 4.1.

I want to uh thank staff for uh the uh commitment to return to council later with um the minor amendments to align uh the zoning ordinance with state law.

Uh I appreciate uh the consideration, uh, even if the EPC did not consider it.

I appreciate your consideration of making those modifications.

Thank you.

And I don't see anyone else in the queue.

So 4.2 was polled.

We'll um we'll take that separately.

Is there a motion to approve the balance?

Um, and just to note that 4.1 requires reading the title of the ordinance.

Uh Councilmember Show Walter.

Yes, I would like to um move the remainder of the consent calendar.

So that would be items um uh one, four one and four two, I think.

Um item four one and three.

Okay.

Uh adopt an ordinance of the city council, the city of Mountain View amending Chapter 36 zoning of this Mountain View City Code to implement the economic vitality strategy by streamlining permit processes for certain active small footprint land uses, remove change of use permit requirements, and reduce minimum parking standards for retail and personal service uses to make other modifications, clarifications, and technical corrections throughout the chapter to align land uses in the residential commercial and industrial areas with parking standards and definitions to improve consistency and clarity and to modernize definitions and land uses to align with current business trends and finding that the amendments are exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act as recommended by the Environmental Planning Commission to be read in title only, further reading waived.

Okay, so that motion is to approve the balance of the consent calendar, which I believe is everything except 4.2.

And the motion was by Councilmember Schoalter, the second was by Council Remember the Councilmember Ramirez.

Is there any uh public comment on the consent calendar?

I don't see any, so um we're ready for a roll call vote on the balance when you're ready, city court.

Councilmember Show Walter?

Yes.

Councilmember Ramirez?

Yes.

Councilmember Hicks, yes.

Councilmember Kamei, yes.

Vice Mayor Clark?

Yes.

Mayor Ramos?

Yes.

Motion carries six one.

Thank you.

We'll turn to item 4.2.

Um, Councilmember Hicks, did you want to start us off?

Yes.

So um 4.2 is improvements to a facade grant program that we've had for several years.

Um I'll start off by saying I like all the improvements that staff has suggested uh to the facade grant program.

I'm not I didn't pull it to complain about them.

Um in fact, this program's really important to me because cities I've worked in, principally Oakland had uh fabulous facade grant program that over time reduced vacancies, increased foot traffic, and increased business um in the city and was um won honors for for doing so.

So um, and it didn't do that alone.

There were other supplementary programs, but uh facade grant programs are are one thing I really have faith in uh in our economic vitality plan.

Um I believe it needs continual improvement, as many of our programs do.

Um, and so I talked um both to our community development director, our economic vitality director, and um to Mr.

Katz from the Chamber of Commerce about my you know several hundred ideas for how to improve it, um, and narrowed it down to two that oh I see they're smiling to just two of those ideas.

So um so those were uh and feel free to reword this if if you need to narrow it more.

Um so those were first to focus our priority on um placemaking and historic improvements, and second to um focus on the downtown for the facade improvements.

Now, I don't mean solely those areas, but to focus on those areas because I think in walkable areas, and at this point our pedestrian mall is our primary walkable area.

That's where facades really make a difference, as opposed to streets that you drive by, they make less of a difference.

So to have an impact, I think those would be the appropriate uh focuses or foci, if that's the right way to say it.

Um I don't know if you want, so those would be the changes I would make.

I don't know if staff has any comments on how to word those changes.

Good evening, honorable council members.

Christian Murdoch, community development director.

Um, what I would ask uh when we're we're talking about focusing the effort of the program is uh perhaps to focus on the staff outreach to businesses where a facade grant would achieve one of those policy objectives that are prioritized.

Um we have a broad range of needs in businesses across the city, and we wouldn't want to limit funding opportunities to those that come to the city uh in some fashion to pursue a facade grant program if they don't uh meet one of those criteria.

But in our efforts to contact business owners, make them aware of uh the resources, um having that priority focus would be helpful for us.

I'm so glad you worded it that way because that's exactly what I wanted to do.

Thank you.

Uh Councilmember Sherwalter.

I really appreciate you bringing this up.

And um I the I I applaud the the idea of of move working with outreach, but I I would also um I also think about the signage ordinance that um we have on the books, and it doesn't seem like too many people understand it.

And um the idea behind the signage ordinance is that most of the window is opened, you know, so you can see in and um sort of enjoy the you know what's what's going on inside.

And um some of our uh our um our businesses cover every them up with all sorts of notices and things, and some are nice, but but um I I do think that the idea that you can look inside and see what's going on makes um makes an uh uh a restaurant or a store much more inviting to go into.

So I hope that when you you know do the outreach, you'll you'll do a little bit of marketing on our signage ordinance as well.

Thank you.

Councilmember Ramirez.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Short remark on Councilmember Shell Walter's comment first.

I I I this is God's work, and I'm not suggesting that we do it, but it would be good to update um that that part of the code.

Um, but I know that that's that's very tricky, but um a good uh endeavor for a future council.

Um I'm thinking about Councilmember Hicks's suggestion, and I'm not sure I actually agree.

Um, and and maybe you could persuade me to support it.

But I uh recently I went to a restaurant in um a part of the city far outside of downtown, um a restaurant I like, and I was meeting a couple of friends from out of town, and it took them a while to find it because they don't have a sign.

They have like if you go up to I knew where it was, right?

So I walked up to it and you could see they have a very tiny, like like this sort of size sign.

Um, but my my friends were sort of giving me a hard time.

Like we we thought this place was closed because they didn't have or like there was a vacant storefront, since they didn't have um uh something that you you could see like when you're navigating the shopping center.

Um so I I I think I appreciate the intent, but I want to make sure we don't leave businesses outside of the downtown um uh out of or we don't give them the same opportunity since it could be for some of them the difference between viability and non-viability if people don't know of if you drive past it, it looks like it's a vacant space.

So I I'd love to find a way to to make sure we're not you know um uh you know disadvantaging other businesses.

Uh was because it's it's I I want to respect the suggestion and maybe find a way to yes, but I'm I'm a little concerned that if we if we narrow the outreach too much, then you know I I'm not sure that that business owner, for instance, would think oh you know, I should go to you know the city and see if there's a grant program for the facade.

You know, that's that's not intuitive, I think, for most.

So I'm thinking about is there a way where um we can achieve the spirit of of the request, but but not leave some businesses that would benefit immensely from participation in the program, you know, not denying them that that opportunity Yeah, so so funny you should say that because in discussion both with Mr.

Katz and now uh with the community development director, they said similar things.

I think that the highest impact if we had multiple facade grants would be on the walkable, would be on the pedestrian mall.

Um frankly, I think the I think many things about our our downtown and pedestrian wall mall are really great and thriving, but I think the facades are could use some upgrades and it could make a big difference.

I do think though that that you're exactly right, that there are other places that could benefit too, and I really liked what Mr.

Murdock said about um about uh not confining the so I could have said the facade grant should only go to the first three blocks of Castro Street, but I think that the program should be available citywide, but just most of the the door knocking and promotion could be on the the downtown.

And that's not to say I also believe that this there should be continual improvement.

You know, if if the downtown has upgraded a tremendous amount over the next give me any time frame you want, year, two years, you know, we could continue and and uh and promote uh other pockets citywide, but for now I think we really should um have our outreach focus in that area.

I can see that's not quite doing it for you yet.

Okay.

Well, while you all noodle on that, is there any um is there any public comment on 4.2?

I don't see anyone in the queue.

So um we'll bring this back.

Uh um motion is in order to um to do something with 4.2.

Councilmember Hicks.

Sorry, Councilmember Kamei, you're in the Q.

It's okay.

Thanks.

Um, so I actually want to say thank you to staff.

It's really exciting to see that we've supported 14 total facade improvements across our city.

About, you know, it said seven, so about half of those are a little over half, or is it my math right?

Is our is in downtown.

Um, but exciting to hear about the other locations that we're looking at.

Um and so I think what Councilmember Hicks brought forward that perked my ears up was the idea of the placemaking and the um kind of historic improvements.

And so maybe that could be um, you know, to get to to bring forward maybe a compromise if it's not just focused on the downtown, but I'd love to think of the placemaking and the the historic improvements because I think there's so many different um areas of our of our city that are wonderful, and um I'd love to for it to feel especially where I live in the East Wisman area.

I'd love for that area to have a little bit more placemaking.

Um it wasn't listed as as one of the project locations currently.

Um so I think maybe we can it would make me feel more comfortable if we included those with like less of a focus on downtown.

The downtown also in addition to the chamber support has the downtown business association, so they get to be highlighted, but I understand that the concern of um being equitable um throughout the city.

So I don't know if you would be open to that, and because I know there was kind of two parts to your yeah, I would be open to changing it to dropping the downtown and just saying placemaking and historic improvements.

Okay.

Is that uh is that motion clear?

The motion is by council member Hicks, seconded by Councilmember Show Walter, and I just want to make sure that community direct okay community development director, you okay.

Um so we'll um that motion is by councilmember Hicks as she summarized uh for 4.2, seconded by Councilmember Sherwalter.

Um I don't see anyone else in the queue, so we'll go ahead and do a roll call vote.

Councilmember Hicks, yes, Councilmember Scholar?

Yes.

Councilmember Kamei?

Yes.

Councilmember Ramirez?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Clark?

Yes.

Mayor Ramos?

Yes.

Motion carries.

Thank you.

So that um concludes our consent calendar.

We'll move on to item five, oral communications.

This portion of the meeting is reserved for push persons wishing to address the council on any matter that is not on tonight's agenda.

Speakers are allowed to speak for up to three minutes on any topic not on tonight's agenda, as long as it's within the city's council's uh subject matter jurisdiction.

State law prohibits the council from acting on non-agendized items.

If you would like to speak on this item or the next item in person, please submit a blue speaker card to the city court now.

Would any member of the public joining us um virtually or in person like to provide comment on this item?

If so, if and if you're in the Zoom room, you can click the raise hand button uh or press star nine on your phone, and if you're in person, uh as I mentioned before, submit a blue speaker card.

We'll take in-person speakers first, and then we'll move on to virtual speakers, and we'll have uh three minutes for each speaker.

Our first in-person speaker is Bob Rich.

When you're ready, sir.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

Uh my name is Bob Rich.

I reside in Los Altos with my wife and two children, and my 16-month-old black Labrador puppy who's already 100 pounds.

With me today is Sean Clifford, who is a U.S.

Marine who fought in um Afghanistan for our country.

I'm here today to bring to your attention a serious fire hazard.

And the reason there's a fire hazard and a hazard to our dogs is because when I'm holding my hand, which is a foxtail.

These are extremely dangerous to dogs.

They're an invasive species, and they've overgrown the annex, where we let our dogs roam freely until 10 o'clock in the morning.

Here is a picture I took this morning of this is George.

He's actually bigger than he looks, because he's this is Sean's dog Clyde.

You could see the overgrowth of the foxtails.

Tons and tons of them throughout the park.

The plan this year, as it's been for prior years, is to cut this down in the next week or two, maybe even the first week of April.

The problem with that is they don't pick up the debris.

They leave it on the ground.

There's a contractor that you hire to do that.

And unlike your our lawns where we do grass cycling, there's so much wooded debris here, tons and tons of this, that when you leave it on the ground, it's creates a fire hazard.

It dries out.

Now, in the hallway before we started, I got here early.

I talked to Officer Jones, the fire marshal.

He told me that in this state now, it's a fire hazard because the fire, when it's tall like this, it can grow quickly, spread.

But even when you cut it, if you leave it on the ground, it still creates a serious fire hazard.

It's laying a thick mat of this dry debris that's down there.

And to leave it there is a huge fire hazard.

And I think I wanted to bring that to your attention.

But for the dogs, it's a very serious health hazard because now the way it is now, dogs rarely try to run in there.

It's kind of a barrier, right?

It's it's up five, six, seven feet high.

Once you cut it and you leave it on the ground, the dogs are going to run through there.

And these foxtails get in their noses, get in their ears, get in their eyes.

They're barbed seeds.

And if you run your hand down, you can feel it.

They're spiked, they're barbed.

And these they're like biological drills.

They get into the fur, but don't stop there.

They dig deeper and deeper.

And as the dog moves and jostles around, they dig into the organs of the dog.

They'll get in your eyes, they'll get into the mouth, the throat.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it.

We can't take any specific action tonight, but we can note your comments and uh and follow up.

No, I'm sorry.

We're we're doing uh same time for everyone tonight.

Thank you very much.

Do we have anyone?

I don't see any more in-person comments or the new virtual.

Okay.

So we'll go ahead and close oral communications from the public and move on to our public hearings.

We have two items, or excuse me, uh we we had three items tonight.

The first of which 6.1, a mixed use development at 843 and 903 Castro Street and 700 West El Camino Real and 750 Fairmont Avenue.

Um that item will not be heard tonight.

Um it will be renoticed for discussion at a later date.

So we'll proceed to item 6.2, which is a mixed-use residential development at 490 East Middlefield Road.

Um we'll start with council member disclosures, which um to save us time, especially since we have one person remote.

Um, I'll start by asking you know, colleagues if you've um raise your physical or virtual hand and I'll note you if you if you've met with the applicant, which I have.

Looks like um Councilmembers Ramirez, Councilmember Kamei, and myself.

Um then um for those who've been to the site in the recent past, I think probably most of us have, it looks like.

Umcept uh councilmember uh Ramirez and uh and um I didn't see Mayor Ramos's hand for either.

So and then if anyone wants to make any other additional disclosures, you're welcome to jump in the queue.

But um thought I'd save us that.

Um tonight we'll start with uh so the order will be a staff presentation, and then we'll have um an applicant presentation.

Council will ask questions and then we'll take public comment and deliberate at the end of that.

So we'll um we'll start with our staff presentation.

Uh principal planner Diana Pincholi and uh senior planner uh Jeff Sumura will present this item.

If you wish to speak on this item in person, uh you can uh fill out a blue speaker card during the during the presentation, and we'll make sure to get you into the queue.

And we'll proceed with the uh staff presentation when you're ready.

Good evening, Council members.

My name is Diana Pancholi, principal planner with the city's planning division, and I am joined here tonight by uh project planner Jeffrey Sumura.

The item in front of you tonight is a mixed-use residential project at 490 East Middlefield Road.

The approximately 2.86 acre project site is located northwest corner of East Middlefield Road and Ellis Street.

The general plan land use designation for the site is East Swissman mixed use, and it's in the East Westman Precise Plan Zoning District.

The site is currently developed with a two-story commercial office development and surrounded by similar one to four-story office developments.

The applicant is requesting various permits for the project development, including a planned community permit and development review permit to construct an eight-story 460 apartment unit with ground for commercial mixed use building and an ad-grade parking garage, a heritage tree removal permit for removal of 29 heritage trees, and a development agreement request to utilize both East Westman Precise Plan Bonus FAR program and state density bonus law to develop the additional floor area and allow for flexibility in the timing of the project.

The proposed site plan includes a mixed-use building with ground floor commercial uses along East Middlefield Road frontage and Ellis Street frontages.

Surface parking and vehicular access is located along the East Middlefield Road at the southwest corner and Ellis Street at the northeast corner.

The primary residential lobby is located along East Middlefield Road frontage.

The project features a contemporary design organized around second floor courtyards and upper level roof decks that help break the building mass.

The building frames East Middlefield Road and Ellis Street, emphasizing the key corner with active ground floor uses, public artwork, and vertical articulation to support a pedestrian-oriented streetscape.

Massing is stepped and articulated, and a light plaster pellet with dark metal accents further softens the building's height and bulk.

The project is requesting a state density bonus for a 27.5% bonus above the base units by providing approximately 15% affordable units.

The project proposal includes 99 bonus units for a total of 460 units proposed on site.

As per the state law, the project is eligible for up to one concession and unlimited waivers of the development standards.

The applicant is requesting one concession to provide the BMR units as the smaller unit type rather than the market rate units required by the city code.

Compliance with the city code requirements would result in identifiable and actual cost reductions to provide for affordable housing cost.

The applicant is also requesting six waivers or reduction in development standards that would otherwise physically preclude construction of the project at the permitted density.

Details of the waivers are included in the staff report and also listed on the slide.

Staff has determined that the project could not be constructed without these concessions and development waivers, as full compliance would generally require a reduction in the density bonus area.

The project includes fully affordable units at or up to 80% of the area median income and split between two income levels.

This exceeds the city's 15% BMR requirement and provides for a wider variety of lower income units.

Pursuant to the city's code, the affordable unit shall remain affordable in perpetuity.

Aside from the unit size proportionality requested under the concession, the project complies with other requirements applicable under the BMR ordinance.

In terms of the tree removal request, um, the project site contains a total of 112 existing trees, including 29 heritage trees.

The existing tree inventory is largely composed of mature parking lot and perimeter trees, many of which are in poor to fair condition due to constrained planting areas, proximity to the buildings, and long-term conflicts with the overhead utility lines.

The project will require the removal of 29 heritage trees and proposes a total of 159 replacement trees at a nearly 5.5 is to 1 replacement ratio, which exceeds city standard practice of 2 is to 1 replacement ratio for heritage trees.

Additionally, the project will also provide approximately 34,000 square foot of common and private open space distributed among the second floor podium courtyard, roof decks on the fourth and the seventh floor, and landscape areas throughout the site.

Streetscape improvements include new detached sidewalks, landscape strips, and street trees along the East Middlefield Road and Ellis Street frontages with additional planting within the parking area.

The project is within one half mile of the major transit stop and is not required to provide any parking per the city code.

However, the project is voluntarily proposing a ground floor parking garage with 442 parking spaces for residential users utilizing a stacker system.

Additionally, additional residential parking spaces and commercial parking spaces, including three loading spaces, are provided in the surface parking around the proposed building.

The project also includes a TDM plan that meets the precise plan requirements for residential TDM, except for the minimum bicycle parking requirements for which the applicant has requested a waiver.

As part of the requested development agreement, the project will receive an initial four-year term with two extension options in exchange for monetary public benefits as described in the report, including 1.2 million dollar contribution in tenant improvements for ground floor retail spaces, 1.2 million dollar contribution towards parkland acquisition for a new park within the project vicinity.

Commitments to the Calgreen compliance, lead silver equivalent design, and an all-electric building design.

Options for a master lease guarantee to designate up to 60 units as BMR units for the minimum of seven years.

Sales tax point of sale designation for good faith efforts to require all persons and entities providing materials for the project over a specified value to have the local portion of the sales and the use tax distributed directly to the city.

In addition to these public benefits, the project will also provide community benefits associated with the uh precise plan bonus FAR requirements.

City staff has completed the review of the development agreement and finds the agreement is advantageous and benefits the city as it advances the legitimate planning and public objectives.

In terms of the environmental review, the project is determined to be statutorily exempt from the California Environmental Equality Act CEQA pursuant to the public resources code section 21080.66.

Specifically, a condition of approval has been added into the project resolution for additional site testing and preliminary endangerment assessment to mitigate any potential hazards to acceptable levels for future occupants.

In terms of the meeting so far, the project was reviewed at the design review consultation meeting in September last year, and the applicant has made revisions through the project plans, incorporating desired the DRC suggestions.

Typically, for a project of this size and scale, staff does recommend to the applicant to conduct a neighborhood meeting to solicit uh community input on the project during the review.

The applicant chose not to conduct a neighborhood meeting for this project.

The environmental planning commission reviewed the project at the public hearing on January 21st this year and voted 6-1 recommending approval to the city council.

Based on the EPC recommendation, the applicant has been willing to explore a duckout along the middlefield road frontage for delivery vehicles.

Following the EPC meeting, the applicant also requested additional modifications to the proposed conditions of approval.

Staff is supportive of these modifications and is recommending amendments to the project conditions as shown in attachment one to the council report.

On February 11th, the zoning administrator held a public hearing and recommended council approve the development agreement.

In conclusion, the staff recommends adopting a resolution, approving the project, and introducing an ordinance, approving a development agreement for the proposed project and setting a second reading for March 24th this year.

It should be noted that following the agenda publication, staff received three public comments.

One expressed concerns about the increased traffic given recent and developments in the area.

One supporting the potential um duckout along the Middlefield Road frontage for deliveries, and one noting the city's obligation to review and act on housing projects pursuant to the state law.

Please note that staff, in addition to uh community development director Murdoch and Assistant Director Blazinski.

We are present here if you have any questions.

The applicant is also present here tonight and has a brief presentation for council.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Um we'll move on to the um the applicant presentation.

My notes say um we have Brian Griggs and Andrew Jake Jacobson, maybe with development partners, but um when you're ready to start your presentation, just uh just please introduce yourselves and in the mic for the for the record.

And I believe we have um, please is is it I believe we set up seven minutes for the applicant presentation.

Is that right?

So the the timer should appear below.

So whenever you're ready to Good evening.

My name is Brian Griggs.

Um Mayor Ramos, Ramos, excuse me.

Uh Vice Mayor Clark and Council members.

Thank you for the opportunity to present our project here this evening.

I'm joined by Andrew Jacobson, who's going to present the project, and uh several other members of our development team who are in the back.

Before I start, my main focus is going to be on um the process, which uh working with Jeffrey and Diana, uh, Susanna, Renee, Quinn from Public Works, um, the city attorney's office and working through the DA in a very efficient and timely manner.

And uh having the collaboration is is certainly in my mind a model of um how development can be done in this city.

I think we've uh been able to address issues that were challenging for us in collaborative ways, and um we're proud to be able to bring this project forward to you tonight.

We um are gonna provide 60 uh affordable rental units at 65% average AMI.

Um we have underwritten this project um to be able to to build it, finance it, which is challenging in this market, and uh we look forward to being able to actually break ground in the not too distant future.

We'll jump into working drawings and a lot of the other due diligence that must occur.

Um Andrew, you want to take over with us on the slides?

Yeah.

Uh thanks for your time, mayor, vice mayor, uh, council members.

Really excited to bring this project forward.

It's a very interesting corner, very important corner for East Wisman.

You can look in the rendering, not a ton of housing nearby.

You know, I think the the goal is to have a very mixed use community with housing and office today as it stands, quite a bit of commercial.

So, how we really approached the project was through two things housing and vibrancy, and that's really how we we set out um and made all of our decisions.

So good, next slide.

So, first and foremost, density housing.

As we all know, there's a huge crisis in California.

We really aim to deliver on that.

What we set out to do is to deliver a different product than what this area is used to seeing, which we see as something you would more see in an urban setting, which is smaller units, highly amenitized, great retail, and try to get people out of their units.

You know, I I think a problem in Silicon Valley in general is people are very insulated, tend to stay in their homes a lot.

Um we're trying to one build a community within this project that can hopefully become an anchor for more future development for residential.

Retail is tough in this area, and so our hope and belief is if we can do be very successful in bringing great retail to this project through the residential as well.

It'll encourage more residential development in the neighborhood.

So as you can see, we spent a lot of time at the ground floor, put as much retail as possible on the ground floor.

Our aim is to bring some of the great retailers into this area, not to really touch on um nine to five commercial tenants, but really 24-hour living that that is more accustomed to residential living.

Next slide.

You can see as well on the second floor.

We did incorporate our amenities on the second floor and really try to spread that and open that up to East Middlefield.

And so the idea is as you're driving by, you actually see a lot of people.

You see people in the retail that are hopefully eating, having coffee, enjoying their time, but also enjoying the amenities because you you don't want a lot of these insulated uh residential projects where people may be in the amenities, but it's really not visible.

And so our hope is to actually enhance um the community and enhance the feeling of vibrancy.

So when you drive by this project, it feels active.

Next slide.

And here's a shot of the corner.

And you know, East Middlefield is the most obvious area for the retail.

Ellis is a little bit more tricky.

So what we we aim to do is to really set that corner, and we're doing that one through public art, but two letting the retail um spread out into that corner.

So that's hopefully indoor-outdoor experience, so you can really round that corner and have Ellis thrive as well, not just middle field.

Uh here's a shot of of the residential units and the amenities.

You can see this is shot of uh the second floor, pool, outdoor space, gym, co-working, all in one area.

Again, our goal is to encourage people out of their units.

The units are a bit smaller, um, which does create a little bit naturally more affordable unit type.

And by creating these great amenity spaces, our hope is people are actually spending time together, um, not sheltered in their unit as much.

And you can see some more outdoor space um as you go up.

Again, some more private spaces, so you know, some may feel they want to be around a lot of people, but if you want a little bit more intimate moments, there are areas you can go into.

And it is very generous in the amount of amenity space.

And you can see the same idea on the seventh floor, which is the top of as much outdoor space as we could put in here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So we'll start with council member questions, either for staff or the applicant.

And look at my cue here.

Councilmember Ramirez, we'll start with you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

I have just one quick question.

I'm curious.

Uh the design review consultation is a voluntary uh practice.

Um I'm I I would I'm curious to understand why you would voluntarily participate in a DRC uh hearing, but not have a voluntary neighborhood meeting.

Yeah, no, it's fair.

Um we did go to DRC, we got a lot of comments.

We did make a lot of changes.

There wasn't a ton of um engagement.

You know, there's not a lot of residential nearby, so we did make a lot of changes along the way, but our our goal is really to push this as fast as possible because we'd like to get a shovel on the ground.

Okay, thank you.

Council member Hicks.

So I have two hopefully quick questions.

Um the first is for uh those of you who don't um come to council meetings a great deal.

Uh we council members can submit questions in written form before the the um council meeting, and we get to read everybody else's questions, and you can too if you're really good at getting online.

Um so one of the questions that one of my colleagues asked is whether some of the studios are likely to become offices.

Um I'm wondering from and staff has a you know a good answer to that.

That was a curious question to me, and I wanted to know.

I guess the council member who asked could also answer this question, um, whether that's uh a regular thing.

I've heard one resident ask about this regarding another project we did a long time ago.

But I'm wondering whether that's a regular thing, turning like where that question comes from, because it was curious to me.

Thank you for the question.

Um I can say no, we don't see that often.

Not even really.

Yeah, it was my question, and frankly, it came up when I went on a tour of a um of a new um building once, and one of the one of the the builder was saying, yeah, he thought maybe you know these might actually be used for offices, and I thought, oh, that's interesting.

And um apparently it's not legal without a permit.

So but but when I think of um what you need in a uh like a small engineer's office or uh a therapist's office or something like that, um, you know, a studio, you have a you know, you have a you have a nice living room kind of area, you have bathroom, um uh you have sort of that could work, but apparently you would have to get a um a uh uh a permit for that, and we don't typically do that.

Another thing I I in my um uh asking questions about this to some other people, I found out that this would be a very, very expensive office unless you live there, because um the cost per square foot is at least right now much higher in apartments than it is in um uh in in uh office.

So that's where the question came from, and um those are the answers I have.

Council Member Hicks, did you have any other questions?

I had one other question.

Okay, yeah.

So um but thank you.

Now I have more information on that subject.

Um my other question is that uh the staff report said that in response to the EPC recommendation for a loading that the EPC asked for a modification for a loading area along the project frontage, and that the staff report said the applicant is willing to work with staff, etc.

etc.

Um, to accommodate a duckout in front on Middlefield Road, um, in front of the project.

And I I asked a question again in the written questions about that and got a very thorough answer, but I have more.

Um so to me, this is concerning because uh because there's not a lot of there's a reduced, some of the waivers are for reduced common space.

And to me, it seemed to be made up by what you called an indoor outdoor experience, um, encouraging people to get out of their units in various ways, but partly in the the retail with a wide sidewalk and with a buffer, a landscape buffer from the street.

Um this is in my mind drastically reducing that and turning it just to a bunch of concrete in front of the retail with all these other amenities.

I would stay inside.

But so my question is um uh so my question is uh is there an you were going to do it without this on street loading, so it seems like you feel fine with that.

How do you how would you alternatively do the loading?

How are you planning before to do it?

The real the challenge is the bike lane, how to safely navigate a bike lane.

You don't want cars crossing a bike lane to get into a loading area.

So how we've been working with staff is putting that area just in front of the lobby, so it doesn't actually take away from any of the retail.

So the retail will have those wide sidewalks, will have all that planting you're speaking about, and have that area just in front of the lobby.

So prior to that suggestion from the EPC, how were you going to do the loading?

Was it in the parking lot?

Yeah, around the back, um, which creates challenges.

I think the main concern is whether or not you have that that loading area, people will just stop if they're taking a Waymo or an Uber, they're just gonna stop in the middle of the street anyway.

That's the big concern.

Um, which we we think is there should be a solution for that because you see it all the time when you go anywhere that UVers and Waymo's are just stopping in the middle of the street.

So that's what we've worked with staff to address.

Okay, and does I know that you're still working on this, so I I can't get a drawing of it, but um, do you know like what percentage of the buffer?

I'm I haven't trying to picture it because I'm hesitant to go for it for now.

Yeah, I maybe 20% of the frontage is 20% of the front.

Yeah.

So and none of it would be on the retail, it'd just be in front of uh the lobby.

Okay.

Okay.

Oh, do we have more answers or good evening all?

Jennifer Ng, the public works director here at the city.

Um, just for a little bit of context, the condition of approval that is put on this project is uh that city staff will work with the applicant to create or to um explore a loading zone in front um for a two-car space.

Uh it will require um that the sidewalk wrap around the back side of the ducko and no trees would there would be there.

At this point, we're still working to locate the ducko, whether it's um directly in front of the lobby area, or maybe pushed a little bit uh down towards the driveway to the west, uh, but somehow centrally located in front of the project.

A two-car duckout, would it be possible to do a one-car one instead?

I think we really need the flexibility for two cars to be there, whether it's a larger Amazon type vehicle that is dropping off, you know, bigger packages, whether it's a you know, a bigger truck of some sort, um, or whether it's just two smaller ones.

The intent is really for it to be kind of like a five-minute, you know, somebody is door-dashing um some dinner or something like that, or a Waymo is coming up and and you're really just jumping in and out of the car, and it's it's not like a 10-minute zone or a 15 or 20-minute zone.

It's really just a quick, you know, drop and go kind of kind of transaction.

And why not on Ellis Street instead?

Middlefield is the front entry of the project, right?

It's sort of the most prominent place um if somebody is putting into their GPS, hey, I need to drop off a pizza to you know, such and such unit, it's probably gonna come up on the middlefield side.

Um, and it it makes sense.

Yep.

So um apologies.

Um, so I have a question that piggybacks off of this.

So I think I'm trying to we have another project that the council prior to my being on council put on EPC 100 Moffitt, where it we had similar concerns.

So it is on Central and Moffitt, and there's a bus stop there.

It's all red curved.

And my recollection is that council worried about people double parking.

But every time I've been in that area walking, running or in a vehicle, I do not see that double parking.

And I am curious if staff knows if it is the way that the addresses, there's rerouting.

I think there's some signage along that says there can't be parking.

And I just I just wonder, because I feel like as our developments get taller and more dense, we're going to be having to have this conversation a lot.

And the rendering that I saw was the street, the bike lane, the it gets dotted, the cars go behind, the the bike would go in front, and I just worry about the conflict.

Um and and so that was my question because I feel like we have other developments that are quite dense where we have not gone forward with the duckout where we aren't seeing the double parking issue.

I don't know if colleagues remember this project.

And also I don't know if staff has looked at that.

And I think to council members uh Hicks' question, it didn't exist prior to their feedback, correct?

On on the drawings, correct.

Correct.

To be to be clear, our initial submittal did have a duckout there.

And uh when we were informed there was a protected bike lane as part of a CIP project, um, staff encouraged us to take that away.

But then in hearing the EPC and revisiting it, looking, and actually, if if you're talking about the drawing that I shared with you the other day, the bike line does duck in towards the building, so it's always protected.

There'll be bollards, and so you'll never have that conflict, which I think was the biggest issue we were trying to face, which was bikes and cars usually don't get along very well when they're crossing over each other.

So I'll I'll add there's a current CIP project right now to look at putting class four bike lanes along Middlefield Road.

And of course, class four bike lanes are the ones that are separated from the vehicles with some sort of vertical delineation.

Um typically it would be some sort of channelizer.

Um we do like to minimize the conflicts between bikes and vehicles.

Obviously, bike versus car, car usually wins.

Um, but in this case, when I said we're trying to locate the duckout to an appropriate location, you know, if if we can get it to a place where um as we design the project and as we look at it as a whole, where the conflicts are minimized, that's certainly what we want to do, right?

And so to the extent that once a four um a class four bike lane goes in, there really is nowhere for a vehicle to stop on the street and do a quick drop-off.

If they miss the driveway on middlefield, the one driveway on middlefield, they're going all the way around the block and having to find the other driveway on Ellis.

And so I think having a duckout here is really in response to just sort of the modern um ways that the world is is evolving and how you know our residents are are getting their goods and services.

Did you have any other questions?

Thank you.

Um Councilmember Show Walter.

Yes, um, I uh I submitted a question about uh vapor barriers.

You know, you're um in the area of the MEW uh groundwater plume, and so I wanted to ask you about um uh your plans for a vapor barrier.

Yeah, so there's some work that's already been on done on the site, so there is a barrier that already exists, so you know it's mostly known conditions uh where the troubled area is.

We will work with the EPA um before we start to get their blessing on our our plan.

I can expand on that.

There's I think four or five specific um conditions of approval, one of them being number seven, which does require us, you know, prior to the commencement of construction to have a approved work plan by the EPA.

That same condition requires um the EPA sign off prior to occupancy to make sure that they've done the testing and we've implemented the approved plan.

Um, and there's several other four or five other conditions that talk about the vapor barriers and that sort of um we do have the garage and the ground floor um that serves a little bit of the difference of a buffer.

But I think what Andrew's speaking to is most of the the plume is actually at the south end of the property.

In fact, there's some piping and such that we can't build in.

So you'll see on the design, there's actually nothing along that common property line to the new AI corporate headquarters in the back.

Well, I just want to bring that up because it's a it's a safety issue for the people who are going to live there.

And it's it's it's really crucial that it's done properly.

And one of the things that I've observed over time is that requirements just get more stringent.

And so you know, if there is a place where we're you're close to the threshold, but you're not there.

I would just urge you to um you know go the extra mile because um uh we had an we had an instance and uh a project that occurred about 20 years ago where we did the health risk assessments, and um the standard changed after we got the project built.

And that meant that we had to go back and do a great deal of monitoring and retrofitting, and it was just um not only was it difficult, it was it just produced an incredible amount of anxiety.

And since we know that you know that this situation exists, and we know how to deal with it.

I you know, I just want to always bring up how how very um significant this is for our community.

Absolutely.

Council member come.

I don't have a question for the applicant.

Thanks.

I have a question for staff.

Okay.

So my question for staff is uh I ran through the property today in the neighborhood and the block from Ellis to WISMAN that I that I noticed when I was running.

I didn't note any speed limit signs.

Um, and so I feel this tend this tends to lead to to speeding.

And so I was just wondering as we are doing the streetscape improvements.

Can we add some signs of what the speeding limit is?

Thanks for your question.

Yeah, sorry.

And I didn't run in my run this afternoon after I spoke to the city manager.

I'm I apologize.

I didn't, I didn't know.

So yeah, no worries, no worries.

Um I I was just making a joke that I'm not a runner and I I didn't run over there today.

But um, yeah, that's something I can certainly look into.

You know, we we do space speed limit signs out so that they're not you know always um they're not too dense, right?

In location, but I can have my staff take a look and see if there's something that's needed with this particular project as we go through um the construction drawings.

Because I I wonder if if we're moving in the direction of doing the you know, carve out, if having it before could help with like the visibility in terms of people.

I just think it could be an opportunity.

So okay, thanks.

Okay, yep, that's a question.

Thank you.

I don't see anyone else in the queue with questions, so we'll move on to public comment.

Um and we'll do uh three minutes per speaker.

We'll start with in-person uh comments first.

So if you haven't already and you wish to speak in person, please fill out a blue card and submit it to the city clerk.

And if you're in the Zoom room and you want to speak uh virtually, just click the raise hand button or press star nine on your phone.

Our first in-person speaker will be our jeans when you're ready.

Thank you.

Uh, don't have a presentation today.

Um yeah, as noted in the staff report, I was the one that submitted a comment before the EPC questioning why there wasn't a parkland dedication for this project, you know, which is probably gonna have over 500 people in it.

And at that meeting, I thought they said something they made they waved their hands and said, Oh, it's a mixed-use development doesn't qualify.

But this report, they say it's a project is a rental development with no ownership units, and therefore the project is not subject to parkland dedication requirements that are applicable provisions of the city law code.

That's the first time I've ever heard of rental units not qualifying.

I mean, the sevens on West Middlefield, West Middlefield had a huge parkland dedication, like 20 million dollars or something.

It's all rentals.

And there's nothing in the ordinance that I read, chapter 41 that says rental units are excluded from this.

So I'm just wondering, you know, what's going on here.

I mean, between this project and the next one, you know, this project should have had like about a you know half an acre or so.

What's it, 500 people?

No, a third of an acre.

One and a half acres time, one and a half acres of parkland, which at current rates is 15 million dollars.

And you know, the developers offering 1.2 million, so the city's experiencing quite a shortfall there.

And then I'll talk more about the next project when that comes up.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Jeans.

Uh Eli.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members, and community members.

My name is Eli Rollis.

I'm here on behalf of Carpenters Union Local 405.

As you consider the 490 Metalfold Middlefield of the Road Project, I want to stress how important it is to select a responsible general contractor, one that upholds strong area labor standards and reflects the values of this community.

A responsible contractor ensures fair wages, safe working conditions, and family sustaining health care.

And the uh rely on state accredited apprenticeship programs that can create real career pathways for local workers.

These standards don't just protect workers, they protect the project itself by reducing delays, improving quality, and ensuring that public and private investment in Mountain View delivers long-term benefits.

Choosing a responsible contractor who meets these expectations, strengthens strengthens the local workforce, uh supports economic mobility and ensures this development to be built safely, ethically, and with community benefit at the forefront.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comments.

Andrew?

Andrew Wills.

Good evening, uh, Mayor and Council members.

I just wanted to follow up on uh councilmember Shaw Walter's comment.

I'm a resident of the Slater neighborhood, and I do think it's exciting to see some development occurring in East Wisman.

That said, I do bike down Middlefield pretty much every day, and I do it often with my children.

So I just wanted to understand as this project is a relatively high building, it will dig into the plume.

And so I want to understand perhaps from developers and also from staff what the plans are to avoid TCE exposure during construction, which I don't I haven't heard being addressed.

And also I would like to know from staff if they've been in communication with the EPA.

I know we have a challenging APA situation with the current administration, and if they're confident that EPA will provide sensors and monitoring during the construction process.

Otherwise, it looks like a really lovely development.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Paul Donahue.

Hi there, Paul Donahue, Mountain View resident.

I wasn't gonna speak, but I wanted to uh discuss the EPC recommendation for the uh the cutout, although I'm speaking only on behalf of myself.

Um basically I I've talked to a lot of people around town who are concerned about Waymo's and and Ubers and Amazon deliveries and DoorDash and all these things basically stopping.

They have no time.

Uh there they want to do quick turnarounds and minimize the the time stopping.

They don't want to park in the back and walk around uh potentially carrying lots of packages and things like that.

Um so it it seems important to um to have some way to accommodate that without blocking the bike lane.

Um, as Director Ng said, um, if there's a car and a bike, usually the uh the car wins.

And I was on uh shoreline when a um uh a car pulled into the bike lane.

I was on a bike and I went through the back window of the uh the uh minivan.

So anyway, I I hope that you support the uh having the cutout for bicycle safety and uh traffic safety in general.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um that's all of our in-person speakers.

We don't have anyone online.

Okay.

So we'll bring this back to the um council for any action it would like to take uh after deliberations.

Would anyone like to start?

If not, I will.

Okay, council member Hicks.

So I have to say I understand all the the reasons for the the duckout, and they all make sense.

The problem I'm having with it is that we're having so much it is that we keep one piece after another taking out green space and open space to the point where there's just like nothing there.

And I'm and uh we're building a concrete jungle.

And I I in this case, we're putting it in the place where people are gonna be.

I don't sit outside next to a very car-oriented street.

So we're putting it, putting people right next to cars.

So I'm on the fence, whether to vote for it or not.

I don't know, you know, it is a safety issue.

I assume if I vote against this, it's probably gonna pass anyway, and it will just be a protest vote, telling everybody that I am highly concerned about the loss of green space.

Um and that that's always the thing that goes.

So I'm like I said, I'm on the fence.

If you all have proposals for some other way of handling, you know, having uh a place for Waymo's and and drop-offs is important.

Um I just don't know why it's always why we always lose the green space, why we always turn a place that I would like to spend time into a place that I'd be like, maybe I'll just stream Netflix tonight.

Um so any comments you might have, and I'm on the fence as to how I'll vote.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

If not, I will I guess I'll jump in and make my comments.

I I'm um I'm fine with the project overall.

I have some personal and HOA experience with um loading zones and parking going away on a busy street on El Camino when the bike lanes were put in.

Um and uh unfortunately that project was not uh did not conceive that bike lanes and and the and the parking lot al Capino might go away someday, um, and there's just a tiny, tiny little loading zone.

So that was challenging.

Um I mean the nice thing about these projects coming before us now is that we can kind of better plan around um the realities of of modern day multifamily uh living in Silicon Valley.

I think there are really two things that you need to think about, or or I I think the the applicant has probably done this enough that they that they thought about this, but it's there's really two primary use cases.

There's the there's the the five to ten minute quick in and out, which is you know, DoorDash, Waymo, Uber, uh for most for the most part, they're not sitting and waiting.

And in those cases, I think if if the plan is, if my understanding of the plan long term is to have a protected bike lane that jogs in, and so the the vehicle, the the cut in where a vehicle might stop for five or ten minutes, isn't actually crossing the the bikes, uh the person on the bike's path of travel, then I I'm a little it's not completely safe, but it's it's safer than if the cutout is uh such that you have to cross through the bike lane.

So I'm not sure the exact final design.

But the other thing, and the thing that we've bumped into a lot is you know, in a in a multifamily complex, you have a lot of people you have people constantly moving in and out every month or two, right?

And so the the real issue there is that you you have these larger moving vans and moving trucks that aren't just gonna be there for five or ten minutes, they're gonna be there for you know an hour or two.

And in those cases, you know, those um what you those you and those you can easily direct to specific spots, either back in the parking area, the back of the building, maybe there are some number of parking spots that are um dedicated to those large vehicles.

Um but it but I will um whoever said this is is correct.

Yeah, I think it was um our public works director, you know, when you're when you're plugging in your destination and it's 490 East Middlefield, you know, unless you're unless you're really diligent about placing that that pin on on Ellis or uh maybe on a named alley, um you're you're gonna end up on middle field and um for better or worse.

So I think we probably do need to to think about some sort of of carve out and um you know my my preference would be for something that doesn't cross through a bike lane um if perhaps there's a way to um have the the bike lane duck in with the traffic, but then you're then you have the person loading and unloading has to look out for the bike lane.

Uh there's no perfect way to do it.

But in any case, I just hope that as we're as uh the applicant is working with staff on this that they think about those those uh at least those two use cases, the the uh loading and unloading zones for um really large trucks and then also for you the the quicker um uh the the quicker ones five five to ten minutes.

Um I I do want to just um just share a little bit of a different perspective.

I don't think we're building a concrete jungle in this case.

I think we have a giant asphalt uh a building surrounded by an asphalt parking lot um that eventually will have a greater canopy than it has today, and we'll eventually have uh hopefully less asphalt than it has today.

So I I I understand kind of the sentiment, but I and I and I understand the you know, why does why do we have to do this at the expense of what little open space is being created in a particular project?

But um I I just I don't subscribe to the view that we're creating concrete jungles of anything.

I think we're actually reducing heat islands by eliminating asphalt um or reducing not eliminating reducing asphalt and increasing nursery canopy.

So and I think this despite the loss of the heritage trees in the near term, we'll end up with um better, I think um better canopy in the long run and native species of trees as opposed to um some of what's there now.

So those are my comments, Councilmember Sherwalter.

Yeah, I have a couple comments too.

Um first of all, I I think this is just a real demonstration of how some of the legislation that changes the time frame of approval um is uh is playing out.

And I and I'm sorry that we didn't get to have a community meeting, because frankly, um although a lot of people don't come to those community people meetings, the people that do often have really good ideas, and they know a lot about how you know traffic flow and that sort of thing functions in their neighborhood that they can share that's you know that turns out to be valuable.

So I'm sorry that that didn't get to happen.

Um another, and I'm very pleased to hear that you're cognizant of this vapor barrier issue, it's a really big deal long term, and um I you know I feel the need to bring that up.

I'll bring it up for the next project as well.

Uh because um uh it's it's just a fact of life in living in um an area that had uh these these ground have these groundwater plumes and using this land for other uses, which is a perfectly reasonable thing to do, but it needs to be done safely.

And um, so the engineering um, you know, the engineering uh uh parts of the project to make that happen are are very important to safeguard the community.

The thing that I find a little the most troubling about this is really the the mix of of um units.

Uh when I see this, all you know, it's half studios, and then um half except for a few uh one bedrooms.

To me, this is you know, clearly it's workforce housing, and I'm sure that you've done a great deal of market research to say, oh, this is gonna do really well here.

Um but when I think about a building, I don't just think about well, how's it gonna be in the next or the first five years?

I think about well, how's it gonna be 20 years from now or 30 years from now when the economy is different?

And I wonder how this studio um building will kind of hold up from a social point of view.

And um I uh it sort of bothers me because to me um most studios I I I understand about 86% of studios are occupied by one person.

So uh it's a very specific, you know, kind of um of uh lifestyle, which is fine, but I don't think it's necessarily a long-term one for many people.

So I think it's gonna be the kind of place where there's a lot of turnover.

So when I think about this, I think this is gonna be a really nice dormitory for young adults.

That's what I think this is gonna be.

And I'm not necessarily against really nice dormitories, but I do think, in a sense, that's that's what we're building here, and and that's probably appropriate at the moment, but if it will be appropriate in 30 years, I don't know.

And that that's so that's the thing I find the most troubling about this.

But um that said, uh it and also it had 20 waivers that seemed like some sort of a next project.

Oh, it's the next project.

Okay, it has it had sort of sort of quite a few waivers.

Um then the other, but one thing I thought was really interesting was the idea of the sales tax point of sale designation.

Perhaps that's standard, but um I had never heard, you know, I I think it's a really good idea, so thank you for coming up with that.

So those are my comments, come here.

Great, thanks.

Um thank you to staff.

Uh really really appreciate all your hard work on this project.

And if colleagues don't mind, I'm gonna talk about this a little bit.

Um, because it's not a concrete jungle area for me or a piece of asphalt contributing to our GHGs.

It's it's my neighborhood, it's where I live.

And um the East Wisdom Precise Plan is something that we worked on on the planning commission, and now over seven years on um council, we with care have adopted our East Wisman Precise Plan.

And so as different projects come forward, and I'm not recused out.

Um I I want to take the opportunity to talk about my neighbors, my future neighbors, and the community that we're building in Mountain View.

And so I I have comments and some ideas and subjections and some suggestions for our applicant that hopefully they'll heed and they'll take to heart.

So, you know, first of all, it's it is unf I want to echo the comments of some of my colleagues made that no community meeting is unfortunate because as I mentioned from my house, I can run to the through the neighborhood, and I actually ran and did a loop through both project sites.

And I'll say fun fact on my run, I saw a woman taking a beautiful walk by Heritage Trees, and as I loop back to my house, she had a super big uh big gulp because that's all we have in our neighborhood is a 7 Eleven.

And I I want more mixed use commercial, you know, residents to live there.

And I feel like a community meeting might have helped as well because just right across the way is a six-story, 600 unit project that's gonna be coming forward from Prometheus.

That's only putting forward a 5.2 acre POPA, you know, publicly accessible, open space publicly accessible.

Um and so I think that we need to, as we see projects coming forward and laws from our state that's doing a lot of streamlining.

I hope the applicants will still take the care that these projects, particularly ones that we're looking at office commercial, moving to housing and residential neighbors are going to be surprised.

And um I just think we need to do our due diligence in daylighting the project, soliciting feedback because this is our community.

Um so I wanted to also just talk about a little bit in terms of the what hasn't been mentioned from colleagues, which is the acquisition and development, um, the fee that's being offered by the applicant that it would go towards hopefully a new city park in the area.

But um, if that doesn't happen within one year of issuance of the final certificate of occupancy, it would go to Pyramid Park.

Uh Pyramid Park is oversubscribed.

It is the largest park that we have opened, and I was looking to see if uh Mr.

Marchant was here, but it's the largest park at you know, over three acres that we have opened in our city in I think two decades.

And as we're seeing a 600-unit um development come forward, this nearly 500 units come forward.

I really, and and limitations in terms of funding sources for our public open spaces.

I I think anything we can do to ask for some flexibility, maybe it's two years of issuance.

We really need this public park because your project, the amenities that you are putting forward to get people out of their units, they would benefit from a public park, not a POPA or not an oversubscribed public park where you cannot find a swing on a weekend because people are there trying to enjoy.

Um but you know, you have to line to get on the swing.

So I just I I just think there's a little bit more thought that can happen.

Also appreciate the comments from our cyclists that said that they not only use it as a you know route for themselves but for their family in our area.

There's quite a few people who cycle, and I was very encouraged on my run to see how many people were walking.

And it is though office and commercial quite a peaceful and serene place.

And I think I caught a glimpse of council member Schalter when I was on my run.

And hopefully you could see their beautiful, it's a beautiful area.

Um, and it's not too far, and hopefully, people could also, if there's a public park right across with the, you know, uh hopefully what will happen as a public park, it could also be a thoroughfare along our Hetch Hetchy to Wisman Park and Pyramid.

So just thinking about the connectivity, the walkability, livability of what the project will bring forward is something that I think is I just like to highlight the L-shape frontage for the retail.

I do feel you're going to get a lot of traffic from your neighbor next door that's coming.

And so I do think anything we can do to articulate that corner more.

Um, I just personally I thought I was curious that the it will be along Middlefield because I with the specialties too right down on Ellis, I think that your residents might want to walk there.

So just thinking more about that, the corner um activation, I think would be great.

The placemaking that we talked about earlier in our council meeting, people could enjoy and sit out.

Um the rendering was was nice, but I think um kind of active, passive, open little space on that corner of Ellison Middlefield could could go a long way.

And then I I will say the thing that I I did enjoy was the total retail of over 9,000 square feet.

And um just want to call out that as we are creating more density in this area, how are we gonna meet the needs of our residents in terms of city services?

So I did talk to the applicant and they were open to continuing the conversation with staff is you know, could there be a drop off um for library books um in the somewhere within the open retail?

Um and I solicited feedback from a different uh library within Santa Clara County.

They said the return box is less than 10 10 feet.

So um just having something like that, uh obviously there would be staffing, which we would have to talk about as budget, but I think that would kind of add to the feel of the amenity rich um project that you're trying to put forward.

So I think that is everything.

Really appreciate my colleagues um allowing me to speak about this because I there's there's excitement, but I think there's also thought um that we need to have and and and care for the area, and just because it's existing office commercial doesn't mean that the people who live near it don't care.

Thank you.

So member Ramirez.

Uh thank you, Vice Mayor.

Uh very much appreciate the comments uh from my colleagues and especially Councilmember Kamei.

I I um I live in a a different change area in the community uh and uh San Antonio shopping center area, and um I I agree very strongly that one um uh soliciting uh neighborhood or community feedback is essential because everyone wants to be able to contribute uh in uh the the evolution of of their neighborhoods.

And um if I if you were to pick between you know a neighborhood meeting and the design review consultation, I I would pick the neighborhood meeting because what you will learn I think will be valuable for the design of the project and the amenities that you will provide in the future.

Um so I think that's something that we should continue to uh work with the um with the development community and encouraging, even if they're not obligated to provide a neighborhood meeting, strongly encouraging that we we solicit input from um the uh the existing uh residents in the in the neighborhood who are likely to uh interface uh very often with uh the new development.

Um so a few different um uh comments.

First, um uh Councilmember Show Walter alluded to this.

Um the speed with which we had to review this project is is stunning, right?

Um preliminary application submitted, uh SP330's preliminary application application submitted at the end of December 2024, and we're at entitlement in March 2026.

That's that's really remarkable.

Um and I think there's there's a that's that's good in many respects, but it also means that we have to be very careful and you know very quick with our decision making.

Uh and so that I know that that leads to some um challenges along the way, but I think fundamentally um it's it's it's a good thing, and I uh I want to uh commend the staff for for working very uh quickly and diligently and and getting I think a very good project um in partnership um with the uh the applicant.

Um I also wanted to uh uh express my support for and and appreciation uh to staff for in um uh their creativity in negotiating the development agreement, which I think includes um uh some important um uh amenities and uh uh some ideas that we hadn't really contemplated um with other projects.

So um I I would I guess encourage um uh staff to continue to uh be uh similarly creative and flexible and working with other developers when we have uh a very complex uh tapestry of regulatory frameworks that we're contending with, right?

How does the state density bonus law interface with the East Wisman Precise Plan?

Um I know these are challenging questions, but I think you did a very good job um putting together um a uh a community benefit list um and also some um uh uh I guess uh uh what's the word I'm looking for?

I don't want to say benefits, but uh some consideration of of the the concerns of the applicant as well uh in the in a development agreement that I think does a good job um in meeting uh some of our uh expectations as a city.

Uh so um those were the major things I was interested in.

I I I support Councilmember Kame's suggestion for um I don't know if we want to call that sort of like a uh like library annex like, you know, but um thinking about how we extend um city services into uh this this new emerging neighbor neighborhood, which right now doesn't really have very many.

Um so that's that's a very creative idea that I'd love to explore.

Um I'm also excited for the nearly 10,000 square feet of uh commercial space that the uh project is providing, and I hope that um you know we're able to find uh tenants sooner rather than later.

Um we're starting to see the San Antonio shopping center uh fill up and it's it's uh it it's uh it's transformative, right?

Going from you know vacant storefront after vacant storefront into something that is that's that's I think thriving now.

We have some really great um uh restaurants and and uh commercial uses there.

Uh so I'm I'm hoping that we get to see a similar vibrancy uh in the East Wisband Precise Plan.

Um I'm gonna go ahead and uh move to approve the staff recommendation um including uh one adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View approving a planned community permit and development review review permit to construct an eight-story mixed-use uh building with 460 apartment units utilizing state density bonus law and approximately 9,371 square feet of ground floor retail, replacing an existing office building, a heritage tree removal permit to remove 29 heritage trees on a 2.86 acre site located at 490 East Middlefield Road, EPN 160-53-004, and finding the project to be statutor statutorily exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, CEQA pursuant to public resources code section 21080.66 to be read in title only, further reading waived, attachment one to the council report, and two, introduce an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Mountain View approving a development agreement between the City of Mountain View and WTA Middlefield LLC for an eight-story mixed-use building with 460 apartment units units utilizing state density bonus law and approximately 9,371 square feet of round floor commercial, replacing an existing office building and the removal of 29 heritage trees on a 2.8 uh six acre site located at 490 East Middlefield Road to be read in title only, further reading waived, and set a second reading for March 24th, 2026.

Thank you.

So that was a motion by Councilmember Ramirez for the staff recommendation, seconded by Councilmember Sherwalter.

Um Councilmember Hicks, did you have further comments?

Yes.

Um as for voting, I think I'm gonna flip a coin.

I don't know whether to um whether to vote for to support the project or protest the the loss of uh buffer from the trees.

Um but I don't want to do that before first.

I realize in question asking those questions, I didn't say anything about the entire rest of the project.

And I I'll flip my coin and and if I end up voting no, I want you to know that I actually really like the project.

Um I think the architecture is generally very good.

Um I wish we were getting more of that, frankly, close to my house.

Um and I like you know, the the I like sort of the display, the second floor uh public space, I like the way you talk about it, getting people outside.

I like adding commercial to the area.

Um I think people there is a deficit of parks in the area, but people also go out to cafes.

There's a deficit of of those kind of places as well.

And you can see that in our downtown, as we've closed it to cars, people use that uh the downtown as a public park.

So I'm hoping that this area more and more in some ways will, you know, it'll be a viable outdoor space.

And I liked the retail courtyards very, very much.

Um so there are a lot of things that I that I really like about the project, and um I'll be flipping a coin.

And if I vote no, it will just be because I want more focus on I I think that the carve out for uh drop-offs is important, but I want us to think a little more about how how we do those and how we don't um sort of in endanger some other aspects of the project while doing it.

And I was you're probably completely right, but I was disappointed to hear that it might be a your your mapping app or your Lyft or Uber that would determine the fact that we have to take out the buffer and the trees.

There must be a way of like can't those companies are near us, or we can get them by phone and ask them to change the app rather than because this will play out as we keep we'll be we'll be cutting down trees and buffers or not planting them in front of each building like this that we that we build.

And I don't I don't think that's uh an optimal solution.

So um I'm gonna go find my coin now, but um but uh thank you for otherwise developing a great project.

Thank you, Councilmember Hicks.

And you're right.

Um if if um if a building does have a designated drop-off, um you can you can um most of the ride shares and others will will respect that or or default to it, you can override it, but it'll default to it.

So that's that's a good point.

Um maybe someday our AI agents will talk to their AI agents and figure it all out.

Um Mayor Ramos, do you have comments?

Yes, thank you, Vice Mayor Clark.

Um, overall, um love a bit housing project.

I actually it's really kind of funny as as council member Kameh mentioned that this is her neighborhood.

I am on the other side of this part of the neighborhood.

I'm in the North Wisman area.

Um I'm a little bit farther though, I think.

Um, but it it is nice to see um some commercial um retail um on the bottom floor to have have more things to go to in the my area.

Um I think that that's that's a good thing.

I I really like council member Kamei's um uh um suggestion about the library drop off.

Um I was I was talking to uh my older sister lives in a uh bigger city that has like I was joking with her about how many libraries they had.

They had like 50 libraries.

It was it was kind of ridiculous.

Not all of them were full libraries, that's not that's not the expectation I have, but um, but to have just uh some mini version of that or just a drop-off would be a nice gathering um ability, so you don't always have to go to the one library downtown.

Um I I like studio units.

I live in a studio unit.

Um if that is the the thing that is kind of in the market right now.

I I don't mind that um that much.

I know that we we do a lot of focus on family units.

Um I it it makes me think about how I used to live in a two-bedroom, but that's because I had a roommate, it wasn't necessarily like because I was like a family, although she could have been like family to me, I guess.

Um but overall I do like this project.

Um I guess that's that's all I have to say about that.

All right.

Thank you, Mayor Ramos.

Um so we have a motion on the floor uh to approve the staff recommendation by councilmember Ramirez, seconded by councilmember Sherwalter.

Um we've taken public comment, and I think uh we've made it through the council queue, so we're ready for a roll call vote.

City court.

Councilmember Ramirez, yes.

Councilmember Shaw Walter?

Yes, Councilmember Hicks?

Yes.

Councilmember Kameh.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Clark.

Yes, Mayor Ramos.

Yes.

Motion carries.

Okay.

Um so we'll move on to our second public hearing item, which is 6.3, a row house development project at 515 through 545 North Wisman Road.

Um like last time, we'll start with um a staff presentation and then uh an applicant presentation, uh, council questions and public comment.

And um, I believe for this we have um yes, advanced planning manager um Eric Anderson and senior planner Sam Hughes to present this item.

Um, and if you're planning to speak on this item, you you you're welcome to use the presentation time to fill out a blue card and submit it to the city courts so we get you in the queue early.

Um so um Mr.

Anderson and Mr.

Hughes when you're ready.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, Mayor Ramos, Vice Mayor Clark.

My name is Eric Anderson City Council.

My name is Eric Anderson, advanced planning manager, and I'm uh this item is a Rojas development proposal located at 515 and 545 North Wisman Road.

I'm joined by Sam Hughes, senior planner, and we prepared a brief presentation outlining the project, and I'll begin by providing some context describing the project location.

There we go.

It has a general plan, land use designation of East Wisman mixed use.

The existing development includes two vacant office buildings, surface parking, and associated landscape and hardscape improvements.

There's an 18-foot public access easement with an eight foot pedestrian and bicycle trail running north to south along the eastern property line.

To the north is a two-story two building office campus.

To the east is a four-story office building site.

To the south is a one-story commercial condominium site with various commercial and light industrial service uses.

And to the west across Wisman Road are one and two story single family and multifamily residences.

The project involves demolishing the existing office buildings, surface parking, and associated landscaping, and replacing that campus with a row house development with 195 units.

This involves requests for the following entitlements a plan community permit, development review permit, and provisional use permit to allow the project as proposed, a heritage tree removal permit to remove 139 of the 151 heritage trees, and a vesting tentative map to create 30 residential lots containing 195 condominium units and 26 common lots.

The proposed design involves the following features.

A 30 Rowas buildings, each three stories, containing a total of 195 dwelling units with individual rear loaded garages.

A.24 acre publicly accessible open area with game space and landscape gathering amenities in the southeast corner of the property, which would be accessible through existing and proposed public access easements, a total of 40,275 square feet of common open space, new streets and pedestrian pathways, paseos and common open areas, as well as three new service streets, 11 alleys that would provide garage access.

Regrading and re-landscaping the project frontage to provide stormwater treatment as well as frontage improvements to meet the precise plan street design standards for North Wisman Road.

The project is consistent with the general plan, East Wisman Precise Plan and Row House Guidelines, as superseded by density bonus waivers allowed under state law.

The applicant has proposed a BMR program that restricts 46 units to below market rate prices equal to 25% of the base number of units.

28 of these units are restricted to moderate incomes between 100 and 120% AMI, consistent with the city's BMR requirements.

The remaining 18 units are proposed at 1757 AMI average, which does not meet the city's BMR requirements for row houses, but the applicant is proposing an alternate mitigation under the city's BMR program.

This alternate mitigation supports the city's goals of middle income ownership, which were discussed at the recent December 16th, 2025 City Council meeting.

By offering 28 units or 15% of the units for sale to moderate income households, the project is eligible for a 10% density bonus.

It's also eligible for one concession and unlimited waivers.

The project requests one concession for dispersal of the affordable units.

The affordable units would be located on the western side of the property where the units are slightly smaller by floor area.

The project requests waivers from 20 development standards, which are listed in the staff report.

The North Wisman project frontage includes four buildings with units facing the street.

The buildings are separated from the right-of-way by a private sidewalk, providing access to each building and a bioretention basin, which can be viewed in the images here.

This area is currently on a berm that will need to be regraded, and the existing heritage trees along this frontage cannot be retained for this reason.

Building materials consist of stucco, fibersmith, shingle siding, and stone veneer, and use alternating color schemes to provide more variety in building character.

Two-story stone clad accent features with standing seam metal roofs, help highlight the front entries.

The image on the right shows the central paseo and its terminus, an open recreational space, and crosswalk across the plan A Street.

The central Paseo will be a new publicly accessible pathway going from the north to the south of the site.

On the left, you can see the bicycle and pedestrian path that runs along the east of the property and the interplay of the proposed units and open area behind it.

The project provides three new publicly accessible paths east to west across the site, connecting North Wisman Road with the existing bicycle path.

The project has a vesting tentative map that would create 30 residential lots with 195 condominium units and 26 common lots.

The slide here shows the public access easement areas as shown on the vesting tentative map.

The project would remove 139 of 151 heritage trees and all non-heritage trees.

Heritage trees would be replaced at more than a two to one replacement ratio with 282 new trees and 158 additional accent trees for a total of 440.

The canopy area and maturity would exceed the existing canopy area.

This map shows various hierarchy of pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicular circulation at the site, as well as street parking.

The project is not subject to a minimum parking requirement and voluntarily provides 390 garage parking spaces and 30 guest parking spaces.

The project proposes 195 long-term bicycle parking spaces and 24 short-term bicycle parking spaces.

The project is subject to the AB 130, a streamlined process that creates a statutory urban infill exemption to CEQA.

The project received feedback at one design review consultation meeting and made some changes in response.

On February 4th, the EPC recommended approval of the project based on its compliance with city policies.

They made comments regarding the density bonus concession, the loss of heritage trees along the front edge, and the lack of a neighborhood meeting.

The city received public comments about the project, expressing concern about tree removals, the environmental review process, and site contamination issues, BMR unit locations, parkland dedication calculation, and neighborhood character issues such as building massing, traffic, crime, and crowding.

This slide shows staff's recommendation, and this concludes the presentation.

We're available for questions, including myself and Sam Hughes, community development director Christian Murdoch, Assistant Director Amber Blazynski, as well as staff from the public works and housing departments.

The applicant is also in attendance with a presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And as this pointed out out to me earlier, I forgot to ask if we want to do a show of hands for those who've met with the applicant and Mayor Ramos.

You can raise your virtual hand if you have.

Looks like everyone except Councilmember Sherwalter and Council Member Ramos.

And then those who've been to the site recently.

Looks like Councilmembers Hicks, Kamei, myself, Councilmember Sherwalter.

So we'll we'll proceed now with the applicant presentation.

I believe this is seven minutes, and the timer will show up here and start whenever you're ready.

If you could just uh just for the record, just introduce yourselves some more time when you're when you're ready.

Sure.

My name's Brian Griggs.

Thank you for the opportunity to present this project.

I'm joined by Jonathan Boriak, who is a principal with KTGY, who will walk you through the project in a little more detail.

My um comments are going to be a little uh more general than the last project.

You know, first recognition for uh Eric and Sam, uh Lauren Cody, Renee Gunn, and Quinn Breyer, who have been very helpful for engineering.

There's a lot of challenges here.

And then um, even more so for your housing director Wayne Chan and housing specialist Anna Renoso, who have been working through some of the challenges we've had on trying to uh address the 25% requirement, but also be able to underwrite and finance the project.

So, as uh you may have seen in the staff report, um, we're providing 46 uh affordable units.

Uh, we're very proud of that.

Um, you may have also heard in some of your prior um efforts to address some of the affordable housing requirements in the city.

You currently have 14 uh below market rate ownership units.

So we'll be uh more than tripling that with this one project, and we're um proud to be able to do that.

We think there's a real uh void of ownership BMR units in the city.

Um there's a little over 4,000 people apparently on the list who would uh like to purchase a BMR unit.

And uh one BMR unit that was sold since 2000 uh excuse me, 2019, apparently had about 250 people in a lottery who uh ended up with seven qualified people of which they went down the order to see who could actually obtain financing, which is another challenge with BMR units.

The um the desire to have the affordable um alternative mitigation is really to try and hit different stratas.

Um, as Eric had advoiced and I uh participated, or at least it um virtually in the December 16th hearing.

Um, I think there is a missing middle that's very legitimate.

Um you know, whether that's specifically in the ownership, you don't have a lot of ownership units, so it doesn't necessarily apply just to that.

But I think it's very true if you look at people who make 200, 250,000 a year and try and compete when the average home value, I think is a little over 3 million dollars in mountain view.

Um homeownership is a a goal of everyone, I think, and this is one way that we can try and assist in that.

The uh community meeting, um, we swung on and missed.

Um we should have had it in hindsight.

Any other project we bring through here, we will.

Uh, we're still fighting a little bit the uh new laws that afford developers a lot of uh liberty and luxury of not going through design review and trying to push projects forward.

We knew we wanted to hit a certain density.

We knew that we'd have challenges, as Eric said, with some of the heritage trees because of the existing berms and topography that in order to get the density that we needed to hit.

Um necessitated you know almost all of the trees, with the exception of a handful being removed, and we know how valuable those trees are, especially the wagon-wheel neighborhood across the street.

Um we did make a lot of changes from design review, but I think as several of you said, it's really the neighbors that you know we should have engaged with more.

Um we're proud of how the projects turning out.

Would we have made a lot of changes based upon the neighborhood input?

Maybe, maybe not, but it's still a process you should go through.

As far as the environmental, um, I think there'll be questions on that.

Um we spent a lot of time trying to engage with the um party who's written now two very lengthy letters last minute, first to the EPC and then to the council tonight.

Um we have worked with staff.

We firmly believe that the approval of this housing project tonight is only the first step.

The EPA the requirements, there's nine conditions of approval that require us to go through the EPA, obtain all the clearances that are necessary.

The city is not the jury, the staff is not the jury, we are not the jury.

The EPA was um formed over 50 years ago by the United States government to make sure that the health and safety and protection of environmental sites is is satisfied.

We're fully aware it's gonna cost a lot of money, take a lot of time, but until you have a project, you really can't dig into the next steps.

Many of you may know um the case manager who worked for 16 years in this area, Alana Lee, unfortunately passed away.

We had engaged with Alana's as um early as last February and had uh meetings with Alana, had her approval on different testing.

We had different plans in front of her, and we had a clear pathway towards what we she felt with the results that we were able to do and some remediation could lead to clear health eventually on the site.

That hit a skid first with um the furloughs and then with Alana's passing and the and the recent people who are taking over, really just getting up to speed.

So we know this'll be we won't start construction in two months, we won't start construction probably in six months because we have a lot of work to do.

But until I think the council can feel comfortable that um once the EPA signs off on this, both before we start construction and prior to the certificate of occupancy, this will be safe.

Um and to um commissioner um Show Walter or council member excuse me, um, we're not gonna just hit the bare minimum.

We know there's rebound, we know there's a lot of things that come into play.

We know the standards are gonna continue to get lower and lower, and you know, the health and safety of the 195 homeowners in here is going to be paramount.

So, Jonathan, I took five of the seven minutes so go.

Jonathan Borriak with KTGY.

I think staff did a great presentation.

So if we just flip forward a couple slides, um keep going, keep going, one more, one more.

Okay, I just would like to touch on the open space and really our concept for how we oriented these buildings, right?

We're balancing a lot of uh factors, both general plan goals for pedestrian connectivity from existing residential neighborhoods across North Wisman to Middlefield Light Rail and some of the other um uses to the east.

Um, and then working both with the topography of the site, knowing we had to run drainage towards Wisman, um, and then working with some other goals we know from our history of working with City of Mountain View over many years of getting front doors onto multiple streets.

And so it's you'll notice it's not just a oh you one grid across the site that as Street A runs through uh buildings turn and orient that as well.

Um, and creating two different varieties of unit types uh allows for better marketability, um, allows for greater absorption.

And then when it comes to the open space, we have the three public open spaces.

There is the mini park, which is just shy of the East Wisman uh precise plan goals.

But when combined with all the other open spaces across the site, we're about 1.74 acres.

You really the goal was to focus those, not just in one location, but spread them out.

So we've got what we call the picnic park along the existing pedestrian bike access to the east, our plaza park along the linear paseo, and that paseo is 30 feet wide, so really kind of upsizing that both for the homeowners and public use.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, we we might have some questions for you.

So pull up my queue here.

We'll start with um so for council questions, we'll start with council member uh Ramirez and I see you mayor in the queue will do you next if that's all right.

Okay, great.

Councilmember Ramirez.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Uh, I appreciate the applicant's recognition um that uh neighborhood meetings are important to the council.

Um so uh just wanted to acknowledge that.

A couple of questions, I think probably more for staff.

First, um I appreciate the information about um the projected um uh for for the AMIs, the that uh for the BMR units, the projected um sales prices, but um you didn't provide um a comparable for a market rate unit.

So I was hoping to see what the the delta would be, especially for the the 180 uh percent AMI units.

Uh I wonder if our housing director, Mr.

Wayne Chen can respond to that.

Uh good evening.

Um thank you for the question, Wayne Chen, uh housing director.

Um the projected market prices would be something that would really be for the applicant if they have information to share.

I did want to note that in the responses to the council questions, uh, we had inadvertently provided uh former uh price that was more at the 200% level.

Um and so we wanted to clarify that the information that you have in the chart is all correct except for the 180% AMI, the four bedroom that should be uh 1.59 rather than 1.79.

So that creates a further um separation between market rate units.

I will say that based on our December study session with the council uh regarding homeownership that uh the range for uh townhomes can be anywhere from uh 1.6 to 2.3 uh million dollars, and um the the average is around you know one 1.8 or 1.9.

Um I'll turn it over to the applicant if they have any information to share about the projected market prices.

Yeah, the range that Wayne gave us is probably the best information.

You know, we have a lot of uncertainty as to how long it's gonna take is how much it's gonna cost um as far as the project.

But you know, clearly the market rate units um there will be a discount um to the various levels of AMI.

Um and I don't mean to be vague, I just can't tell you it's a two million dollar unit or a million eight unit.

I well, uh I guess I I maybe this is more of a comment.

I'm I'm concerned that the 180, I thought the 180 would be a little bit lower based on the low end of that range that was provided.

Um I'm curious about you know what happens when that the 180% AMI uh projected sales price starts to bump very close to the market rate price, but that's again more of a comment.

Then you lower the price.

Fair enough.

Um question uh for staff.

Um I'm I'm uh wanted to better understand uh the the use of the concession.

Um I I believe if memory serves or you may have written it out here, the intent is to um uh allow for uh oh, I guess maybe it's not defined here.

Um so I think I think the concession uh is oh so okay, here it is.

One concession that says unit proportionality and dispersal, those are two different things.

Um so I'm curious how one concession can be used for both unit proportionality and the uh the distribution across the site.

Um yes, thank you for the question.

So in this particular project, I should say um in general we have been seeing um a greater ink uh increase in frequency of using the concession for this type of situation.

Um the uh unit sizes are uh proportionate based on the number of bedrooms, but if there are multiple floor plans, then the concession is to allow the smallest floor plans to be provided as the BMR unit.

So that's been pretty consistent from what we've seen.

Um in this particular case, um, which may be a little bit different from say uh multifamily condo project, in which there's uh an easier way to disperse the units because this particular road home project um has uh sort of individual buildings and many individual buildings.

The location of those smaller floor plans are oriented in a way which it is more prevalent in one of the neighborhoods than in the other neighborhood.

And that was um probably just a fact of the way that the site plan got laid out.

Uh perhaps the applicant can say a little bit more in terms of um how the site plan was laid out, the distinctions between neighborhood one and neighborhood two, and identifying where those smaller floor plans um were were located um among the buildings.

But uh in this particular case, um one was really connected to the other um pieces, and they they were interrelated.

Yeah, so uh the unit in question was a tandem unit.

It works in an interlocking module with another side-by-side unit that occurs in the product type that sits to the western half of the site when you look at that site plan.

Um so it it's dispersed amongst that half of the site in an even number, I would say, throughout those buildings, but it exists and works in that floor plan type only.

Um again, maybe more of a comment, but back to um the housing director.

I want to uh make sure we're we're not inadvertently ending up in a scenario where you can use the the layout and and design to get around sort of in a de facto way the intent or the the regulation and the the BMR ordinance.

So it um I want to make sure that I'm not sure how to frame this question, but I'm concerned, right?

That anyone can now come in and say this happens to be where all of the small units are.

So we're going to use our concession to say all of the BMR units will be in this part, and they also happen to be the small units.

How do we is there a way to uh uh better articulate that regulation in the BMR ordinance, perhaps?

This has come up, and you know, as you know, um you'll you'll be seeing the BMR ordinance coming up.

Um we we think that this can be clarified.

Um uh work with staff and connecting with the city attorney's office to see if this is the type of thing that could be just further clarified through the administrative guidelines about the intent and in situations where there might be interrelated some clarification regarding how it's applied.

Um, if we need to do uh to do this through some uh more ordinance level work, um we envision uh incorporating this as um the very next uh BMR review is is actually coming up not that far from now because of the housing element timing, and that could be one of the things that um we can incorporate at that time.

Uh but to the extent that we can, if we can incorporate some further clarifications in the administrative guidelines, um we would endeavor to do that.

Thank you.

Those are my questions.

Mayor Ramos.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Clark.

Um, my question to the applicant is mostly about uh community the a neighborhood and community meeting.

And I acknowledge that you said that in the future you'll you'll probably do uh community meetings for future projects.

I do kind of want to delve into like what kind of barriers are you facing in having a neighborhood meeting or a community meeting.

Um my experience, I've been doing this for quite a few years, is they're often emotional, they're often um vocal.

They um the concept of NIMBEs, a lot of people don't want change.

And you know, sometimes it's challenging to have to say no.

Um that said, you I think as a few of your fellow council members indicated, you do get a lot of you know boots on the ground kind of feedback.

And you know, transitioning this particular property from an office building that on weekends is empty and people could go enjoy and get over the trail to possibly having you know 500 people if you figure two and a half per unit.

Um it's different.

And people are usually resistant to change.

Um I think the precise plan did a really good job at making this property and just a couple others transitional properties where it was going to be low rise versus high rise or mid-rise.

Um but I think it's more wanting to move fast and also not wanting to have to say no.

So it's it's not a logistical issue.

No, no, we could have easily organized it on site.

We could have had you know uh placards, we could have been collaborative, and I've done that, you know, candidly.

And I think as I tried to say earlier, the state laws, you have to balance how much how many rights you have implied under the state now as a developer versus being collaborative and try and come up with that right solution.

And you know, in this case, admittedly, we swung a little far to the one side.

We need to swing back.

Okay.

I'm I'm I appreciate that you're taking our feedback that we do want community meetings.

None of you is a pro I'm gonna I'm delving into comments as a we'll we'll we'll I'll leave it at that again.

All right, thank you, Mayor Rums.

Um additional questions, Ellison or excuse me, Councilmember Hicks.

Sorry, my brain is right.

Just can someone briefly I was recused from the East Wisman Precise Plan.

Could somebody remind me where the park is to be and what triggers it?

Because I'm you know, I love that we're turning parking lots into and so forth into housing, but I'm just wondering when the amenities come that make it a little more livable.

Sure, there are a number of parks that are planned for the East Wisman Precise Plan.

Um, one of them has already been approved as part of the Middlefield Park Master Plan.

Uh, there was a neighborhood park that was approved as part of that.

Uh that was going that is planned for the block that's bounded by um uh logue, Clyde, and um Maud.

Um I can bring up a map.

Uh if you'll bear with me for just one minute and I can show you that.

Uh there are also a number of other mini parks that are planned for the area.

Uh quite a few, actually, probably on the order of four or five, um, just dotted throughout the area.

And this site itself was planned for a mini park in the precise plan.

Uh, and so they are implementing that, as they said, as a as a publicly accessible uh open area, slightly smaller than the standard for the the mini park.

Thank you.

Okay, I don't see any further council questions, so we'll move on to public comment.

Um if you would like to comment on this item um and you're in the zoom call, please press the raise hand button in Zoom or press star nine on your phone.

And if you're in person and you haven't already uh filled out a blue speaker card, uh please do so now and hit it to the city clerk.

We'll start with in-person comments, and the first person in the list is uh Albert Jeans.

How much time did you want to issue?

We'll do three minutes each.

Hi again, Albert Jeans, long time Mountain View resident, uh, again advocating for parks.

I was interested to see council question number 18.

Can staff explain the parkland dedication dedication in Luffy math?

Um maybe you know, you didn't read the extensive public comment I made at February 10th, which at least laid out what I thought was the formula that was being used, which incorporated all the variables they listed here.

But staff just said it's a complex mathematical calculation.

Um, just give it to us.

You know, we're adults, we can take it.

We've had how high school algebra, hopefully, so it would just you know, lay a lot of things to rest if we could just see what the formula is.

It can't be that complicated.

But the main thing I want to go back to is the whole reason why we're using this alternate method for calculating parkland, which is uh Supreme Court ruling about sheets versus county of El Dorado.

This is a case where uh uh the retiring individual in El Dorado County wanted to build a little prefab home for him and his wife to retire in in a rural part of the county.

And the county, when you applied for the Burp building permit, they wanted a 23 or 26,000 impact traffic impact fee.

And he objected to that, of course, because there was actually no way that he was gonna benefit them from this pat this fee.

And that's what the Supreme Court ruled.

They said you just can't extort fees from anybody just because you know they they happen to be applying for a permit and you want to cover some other costs.

But the way I see it, you know, our parkland or dedication orange is quite a bit different than that.

This park is going to service the people that you know we're extracting the fees from.

It's to provide, you know, residents of Mountain View with parks.

It's not to just it's not just sort of a general park, you know, maintenance fee or whatever that doesn't the residents won't really see.

This is supposed to be for a park for those people.

And between this project and the previous one, we have a thousand people coming in, and we have only about you know the equivalent of half an acre of parkland.

So, how's the city gonna make that up?

Um, it's kind of ironic, you know, the strategic parks and recreation plan is coming before you, I think fairly soon.

It's almost done.

You know, huge document, hundreds of pages.

And yet now, you know, when I look at what's happening, you know, it looks like a toothless document of exercise of futility because we're never gonna have the funds, you know, tens of hundreds of millions of dollars to buy this park land from private developers.

It has to come from the developers.

They're the ones that hold all the cards, they're the ones that have the land.

You know, if we can't get that land, I mean, there aren't going to be enough parks for all the people coming.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Jeans.

Andrew Wills.

Mayor and uh City Council members, as I mentioned earlier, my name is Andrew Wills.

I'm a resident of the Slater neighborhood.

Uh before I was fortunate enough to buy a house in Slater, I was a renter on Devonshire Avenue directly opposite this proposed project for about five years.

Um thank you for bringing up these slides.

So I find this project really troubling in particular because we do have a heritage tree ordinance.

And because if you've been to this site, you know this site has some really gorgeous trees.

And these trees are not in the middle of the project, they're not where you need to put buildings, they're at the very front of the property, and to a lesser extent, they're at the very back of the property.

So as I see it, the developer wants to clear cut this entire property for convenience.

It's not a necessity.

It's not where the you know buildings need to go.

Okay, there's a berm.

It's not possible to work around the berm to save some of these trees.

I do think it's exciting that the East Wisman area is seeing some possible development.

But when I look in general at all of these trees at all of these developments, they all are clear cutting.

They're taking out almost every single tree in there.

And I think we've all been to neighborhoods, you know, parts of East San Jose and such that have no trees that are really pretty desolate.

And while I want to see this area developed, I wanted to see it developed in a way that you know I could live there, or you know, my kids could live there.

And if you can go to the next slide, I just wanted to show a few more examples of these.

Um, if you look at the Arborist report, these are healthy trees, these are not bad trees.

If you look at that uh eucalyptus in the corner, that's like a three-foot tree.

I think I have a picture of my kid hugging that tree.

Um by the time whatever the developer is planting grows up, I'm gonna be dead.

And you know, pretty much everybody here is going to be gone.

These are trees are worth saving, they're right on the edge of the property.

I'd ask the city council to reject this plan and to ask the developer to come up with something that maybe is a little bit less convenient for them, but that retains the trees that are part of the character of Mount View.

Um, and then I guess in addition to that, I'd say I don't think they're offering many other amenities.

The the BMR is sort of gaming the system.

So I'm not seeing that this is being offset in another in another way.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um that's it for in-person comments.

Uh and then it looks like we have one person uh virtually, Gabrielle uh Heilek.

Okay, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Okay, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to make a comment.

Um, I live on North Swissman Road.

I have been living there the last 13 years, so I've seen the up and down of the use of the commercial buildings initially with all the Google buses, and then this COVID, of course, the clearing out of the building.

Um, I do welcome that the space is being used for something that is not a vacant office building.

However, I have large concerns with respect to the massing of the proposed project.

As has been pointed out across the street, we have single maximum two-story buildings.

So I would like to encourage the developers to consider a stepping up of the complex.

Maybe the units facing North Wismond could be two stories only with a slightly different layout.

Maybe they can only have five units less in the overall project, but the stepping up would um create a more harmonious fitting with the existing neighborhood.

And then secondly, I strongly second the comments that were just made about the heritage trees on North Westman Road.

They're beautiful trees, they're healthy.

It takes decades for canopy to grow up.

We are facing 101 on the tail end of North Westman Road.

These trees provide a filter and a clearing of the area for the people that live in this neighborhood.

And so I can only strongly echo what um the gentleman that just spoke before me said that the heritage trees should try to be uh maintained and protected as much as possible.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I don't see anyone else in the queue for public comments, so we'll bring this back to the council for deliberation uh discussion and action.

Uh Councilmember Ramirez, you're first in the queue.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

I'll first start with uh what I like and then I'll share some of the concerns I have.

Um I do appreciate that the uh applicant is providing um uh uh or meet meeting the 25% requirement requirement and our BMR ordinance, and that uh there are a number of different um uh AMIs served uh in uh in the proposal.

Um especially the the my preferences you know serving lower incomes, especially uh the households who truly have no options.

I think once you get to the 180% AMI um uh income bracket uh most households uh may not be able to purchase in Mountain View, but they will have some other options.

But the folks at the 100, 120 percent and even 160% AMI uh levels would struggle to find uh I think an ownership opportunity, especially families, right?

Three and four bedroom units are they're gonna struggle to find um uh a home in mountain view.

Uh so that's uh that's an advantage uh that uh this application has or that this this project has.

Um as I think many of you know, I have a particular frustration with the housing typology and the you know row house townhouse scale development.

And I think it's it's we've seen it in other contexts, but but here it's it's pretty stark.

This is 10 acres of land.

We don't often have um projects of of this magnitude.

Um the previous project had more than twice as many units on uh less than like a third of this property, right?

We could have dedicated uh six acres uh of this property for a park, and then at the far back end, right, had a project that looked more like the the previous project with commercial square footage with you know even more BMR units.

Um that's not what is before us today, but but I'm I'm frustrated by the opportunity cost of a of a of this particular housing typology of this particular project.

Um and I I wish um we had uh a regulatory framework or discretion or something that would that would allow us to encourage or or uh require um projects to uh meet the needs of of the future residents of this community and also the residents who are very close by in existing neighborhoods who are asking for parks and open space and uh uh uh commercial amenities, uh city services.

They're not gonna get that here.

They're just gonna get 10 acres of row houses.

Uh and I think that's too bad.

Uh I'm also uh this sort of less of a concern.

Um I I understand uh the the rationale, but um learning about like although this is a lot of waivers.

I think council member Schobalter had mentioned that in the previous item.

Um and and some of these are are non-trivial, right?

I I uh would love you know to to think about the implications of uh seeing a project like this and how it might uh inspire us to make revisions to precise plans to uh the standard zoning districts to to make sure that when we think about things like um you know the the street network that we're we're not just subject to a waiver, right?

That's that's a it's it's it's a major impact, especially if we're contemplating uh a transformative change as we are in the East Wisbon Precise Plan.

Uh so I I'm not uh losing sleep necessarily over street A, but I think what what I've learned from this experience is it's uh it's going to be increasingly tricky to uh fulfill the vision of the precise plans that we that we've currently adopted and that we'll work on in the future, right?

Like the Moffitt Boulevard precise plan.

Uh so we'll we'll have to be very creative.

Um maybe that means using development agreements or some other uh mechanism to to provide an ad uh some something for for the applicant to uh uh to you know encourage them to help uh meet some of these community the these community needs and and provide the uh city infrastructure that's necessary to support these developments.

But um it's it's it's a non-trivial thing, and I I think it's important for us to to contemplate that and uh maybe provide some gentle guidance to staff to think about in the future, right?

some something for for the applicant to uh uh to you know encourage them to help uh meet some of these community the these community needs and and provide the uh city infrastructure that's necessary to support these developments but um it's it's it's a non-trivial thing and i i think it's important for us to to contemplate that and uh maybe provide some gentle guidance to staff to think about in the future right when other uh office buildings in this area redevelop are there opportunities to um uh to use that redevelopment to get the infrastructure that we need to support this community or is all hope lost and we just have to deal with what we get i'm i want to be optimistic on that front and and see if if there is a way uh to make sure that we're we're not losing out um uh on on our ability to fulfill the vision of of the precise plan so um those are that's my uh I don't know my soliloquy um uh I'll be supporting the project I don't want to make the motion on this one sorry someone else will have to read that um but um I do appreciate uh the applicant's willingness to to work with the city on the uh the BMR ordinance um alternative compliance and bring down those AMIs serve uh uh you know more uh or provide more deeply uh affordable ownership opportunities for missing middle house households um but I do wish you know we could have a different project um one that I think it takes uh greater advantage of the opportunity that you get when you're redeveloping 10 acres thank you thank you council member Ramirez I don't see anyone else in the queue so I'll take my turn um I I agree with almost everything that council member Ramirez said um our our our hands are a little tied here through waivers and because of the because of state law and the um the affordable housing component here which is great um there are things about this that I really really like the the additional pathways the connectivity that's going to be put in here I think is a really significant benefit to to that area uh it's been a long time since I um lived in um lived in that part of the the community but it was my very first um mountain view apartment there in the area and I think the the additional connectivity to some of the uh trail networks whether it's hedge hechy and and otherwise are a big benefit um I I do appreciate the additional housing and and addressing here specifically missing middle housing um it's it's not it's not perfect but um unfortunately I don't control the economy um it's probably in everyone's interest that I don't control the economy the I don't trust myself um but um but I think there uh as has been stated uh the the um I'm usually the the first as I did in the prior um uh item to to you know say that you know the the canopy that we'll get in 20 to 25 years will be better than what we get today but you know this is a uh a 10 acre site a lot of trees are going to be removed some of them um non-native um but still but still beautiful um and some of the especially the uh the mature redwoods that are um you know in in otherwise good health then they're usually very very thirsty but they in this particular case they are in good health even though they don't naturally belong there um but um so and I think the final comment is just as councilmember Ramirez said I um I wish this were the the highest and best use for this land I don't think this particular project is but um but again uh at the end of the day um we we need to respect the process and um uh and I think having housing here especially that addresses the missing middle is is better than uh an empty set of office buildings so um overall I'll support the I I plan to support the project um I just wish that if anyone's listening you know we are generally a pretty pro-housing council and I think as council member Ramirez said we would probably be thrilled to hack a whole bunch of high density housing including some for missing middle and a portion of this site in order to get uh save some trees and and get a larger park but in this case um we have what we have before us and uh at least uh I I do appreciate the applicant you know putting in the um the the open space and addressing the the missing middle and and and addressing the environmental cleanup we'll end up I think with a with uh with a cleaner environment on that front especially uh uh especially with soil there so uh assuming you can make it all happen which I trust you will with the EPA so uh council member Hicks I can speak but I think the mayor has had her hand up I'm sorry mayor I keep it's hard to say and no I'm my peripheral vision is bad mayor did you have comments oh no that's that's fine but um yeah I could do my comments now um I I have a very similar feeling as as my colleagues who have spoken before um it it was an interesting um I I guess I'll start with some of the what I was almost commenting on during the questions.

Oh no that's that's fine but um yeah I could see my comments now um I I have a very same similar feeling as as my colleagues who have spoken before um it it was an interesting um I I'll guess I'll start with some of the what I was almost commenting on during the questions Mount of you's a pro housing city and and we want housing here um we want we have a pro housing council our our our neighborhoods and the people here are pro housing and I think it it was a disservice to your the developer um the developer did disservice to themselves by acting as if we were um I'm not naming other cities I probably wish I shouldn't do that um but acting as if we were a NIMBY city kind of thing because we we aren't and as as council member showwalter mentioned in in uh a previous project you get a lot of good ideas you get a sense of what our community cares about and this is a very collaborative community it's a very collaborative council it's a very collaborative uh staff um we we would work with you to get what we really want on those projects as as council member clark saying the highest and best use of the land because we know um land in mountain view is valuable and and we think that through um though I I understand um uh there's there's not much we can do at this point in changing it um so I am supportive of the project but it is really important to have those kinds of community meetings to have that discussion to see um what more we can do with the land which right now yes the best uh it it's what what we're putting there now is better than an empty office space um but we could have done better and and that just makes me a little sad about that but we're getting housing and that's that is overall a good thing so yay almost a thousand units tonight thank you mayor ramos council member hicks so I liked the um I I did like the phrase frustrated by the housing typology um and so I think I'll use that one too um that's and uh you know that we could there the opportunity cost um that said I know there's a market for um missing middle row homes um so you know after expressing my frustration I'm gonna say some of the things that I think are good about this project and why I'll be supporting it um that that may other people have not brought up yet first I I think the architecture I appreciate the architecture it's um you know not too fussy fake historic it's more transitional architecture which since I've used that term before I decided to look up the definition so I knew I was using it right um uh which is defined as blending tradition and modern with simple lines and uh and uh Google told me it's less likely to feel dated as time goes by so I particularly appreciate that because I think sometimes we do a lot of fake craftsman houses with oh I see the architect nodding yes other architects have done that too and I think we have to do do less of that I could say more um but uh people say that's becoming the the architecture for senior homes and I love seniors but um I think that I like the transitional architecture better.

Um so I wish we'd do more of that when we do town homes I I don't particularly need the patchwork of color transitions but um and I'm a little um I'm a little uh timid about stone veneer um because some of it's so bad and some of it's better so I hope that you pick a stone veneer that is not so bad.

Um let's see I love the boardwalk connections across the bioretention basin and the replacement of artificial with real turf um so I really appreciate that um I wish we could find a way to make our townhome developments less driveway centric and I asked uh because they tend to end up being like islands of little homes surrounded by lots of driveways and I asked a question about that and staff said that's our row house uh that it's um our row house guidelines encourage well it's our road to house row row house guidelines um which makes me think uh back to frustration with housing typology if that's what our guidelines make us do maybe we need to rethink them so that it's not all driveway um so that it's more shared streets or wound type streets which I've seen done on the east coast um and like in the previous agenda item I do fear that we're doing losing a lot of trees not getting a lot of parks

If that's what our guidelines make us do, maybe we need to rethink them so that it's not all driveway.

Um so that it's more shared streets or wounder type streets, which I've seen done on the East Coast.

Um like in the previous agenda item, I do fear that we're doing losing a lot of trees, not getting a lot of parks.

Um so I hope we can find ways to embellish the green spaces near this development, create parks soon, or um you know, improve the improve the pathway to the Wisman Park or some other solution like that.

And I think that's it.

Councilmember Sherwalter.

Yeah, I'm gonna echo um a lot of what um my uh fellow council members have said.

I I do think this is basically a good project, but it isn't the best use of land, and really, in a sense, if we could have had a project with some nice large stacked flats, we could have had a lot more open space.

But that's not what's before us, and everything is you know in compliance with the rules, even though there's lots of waivers.

I I I haven't kept track of how many waivers people typically get, but 20 seemed like a lot to me.

Yeah.

Um but but then when I went through the the list of them, some of them were very minor, and others of them were weren't minor.

You know, they were important.

But that said, I really think the um uh the pedestrian circulation around um row houses is very important.

I grew up in row houses and uh played as a child in row houses.

We played in the alley, which I don't think in modern um row houses works too well because we had backyards behind our row houses before you got to the alley, and there was sort of this unwritten rule that nobody was allowed to drive in the in the alley.

You parked on the front of the street, and um uh the only person anyway, so so that's gonna be very different.

But I do think the the pedestrian connectivity is vital, and I'm really glad to see that.

Also getting rid of um the artificial turf and putting in real grass, that's very, very important.

And I would really ask you to work with the staff to see how many of the trees along the front edge you could save.

I mean, as you've said, there's a lot of work left here.

And um, if that's something you could do, each and every tree that you're able to save would be appreciated by our community.

So that I'd like to say um uh I I appreciate this, and I I plan to vote for it.

Councilmember Kamei.

Great, thank you.

I was gonna thank you, Councilmember Schulter.

I I wrote that to ask the applicant.

I don't know if it's too late to ask if they're open to that discussion at all, but I think um they're not they're not moving towards the mic.

So I'll I'll um double tap that suggestion.

Um but just uh my comments, um, so while I feel like uh no project that comes forward in these times is is perfect.

What I do like about uh the city of Mountain View is you can see a project like the one before us, and then you can see a project like this, and so um while I I hear my um colleagues' comments, I think just the different product types that we're able to produce in Mountain View is what I am encouraged by because we can show density, we can show a variety of units, we can um with with row homes at different affordability levels for ownership.

I I think as a portfolio, we should all um have some positive uh feelings about that because I uh we're we're doing our part, I think, to meet the very complex needs of our community, and so um that's why I'll be supporting the project.

And I think um one of the things that was very illuminating for me is I think some of us attended the joint venture Silicon Valley, they do their kind of annual state of the valley, and they reported that in Silicon Valley the average medium home price is over 1.9 million, with 20% down at 396,000.

So your monthly payment, including tax and insurance is 11,000 900.

Um, then they put forward a slide that said child care was about 2800 a month, and preschool is about 2500 a month.

Um yeah, well, it says tax and insurance, yeah, right.

It didn't have an asterisk with HOA, so we don't we don't know what the HOA on that is.

But but just all to say, just thinking about all of that.

You have someone who's at market, probably contributing $20,000 or more towards being able to have their children in some sort of preschool or daycare, plus their their mortgage, and that's not even the property tax.

And so I think um that you have to pay twice a year.

So I just think I hear what my colleagues are saying, but that's the reality of home ownership right now in our valley.

And so anything we can do to create more opportunities for our residents to have some sort of um entry into to home ownership is encouraging to me.

And I just really want to, I believe the applicant did it.

Just want to really thank staff.

Um it was such a collaborative process to come forward with this kind of creative um solution.

And I know that at the end of the last year, the council talked about our our middle income um housing, and really appreciate that here we are two and a half months later being able to look at a project like this based off of uh what was brought forward to me.

That's really fast, and um just appreciate uh the hard work.

I also really appreciate it about the project, as was mentioned.

The connectivity, the alignments of the streets.

Actually, I think you know, one of the streets um Devonshire will go to that little pocket park that's there, and then um Merligan is not too far from Athena, which is along the Hedgehog sheet that will bring them to Wisman.

So um, and then the Stevens Creek Trail.

So I do feel encouraged that there's a little bit more in terms of access to um open space, although agree the comments from colleagues that it would be nice to have more on site.

Thank you.

Okay, I don't see anyone else in the queue.

Um it looks like we have a motion by councilmember Kamei.

When you're ready, you can read it.

Um I'll go to Councilmember Hicks first, who looks like she has one more comment.

Yeah, I just wanted to add to the request to save any trees that are possible.

Thank you.

So I move that we adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, conditionally approving a planned community permit, development review permit, and provisional use permit to construct 195 three-story attached row houses utilizing state density bonus law and a heritage tree removal permit to remove 139 heritage trees, all on a 10-acre site, located located at 515-545 North Wisman Road, and finding the project to be statutorily exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to public resources code section 21080.66 to be read in title only, further reading waived.

Adopt a resolution of the city council of the city of Mountain View, conditionally approving a vesting tenative map to create 30 residential lots with 195 condominium units and 26 common lots on a 10-acre site at 515-545 North Wisman Road to be read in title only further reading waived.

Thank you, Councilmember Kamei.

So Councilmember Kamei has moved the staff recommendation and has been seconded by a council member Sherwalter.

I don't see anyone else in the queue, so we're ready for a roll call vote.

City Cork when you're ready.

Councilmember Kamei.

Yes, Councilmember Show Walter.

Yes.

Councilmember Hicks.

Yes.

Councilmember Ramirez.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Clark.

Yes.

Council Mayor Ramos.

Yes.

Motion carries.

Great.

Thank you, everyone.

Um so that concludes our public hearing items for tonight.

Um item seven is council staff and committee reports.

Do any um council members or staff have committee reports or other reports, other report outs they'd like to make.

Uh Mayor Ramos.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Clark.

Um, I'm gonna report out that I attended the state of the valley.

Um trying to double check my calendar.

But yeah, I attended the state of the valley um by the Silicon.

I don't know what this is called.

It's like a quorum.

Um, but the city paid for it, so I'm reporting it.

Um, and I also attended um uh I threw the first pitch in Little League and I made it over the plate.

I was very proud of that.

Um I think I think that's uh oh um council member Ramirez and I actually also uh presented a commendation to um um Los Altos Town prior uh former editor uh uh Bruce Barton on his retirement, which was lovely.

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

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

And I think you uh congratulations on the little league pitch.

I think there are still photos of me attempting to get the ball over the plate and failing miserably, even though I played baseball when I was a kid.

Uh Councilmember Show Walter, yes.

Yeah, I um most many of us went to the state of the um valley.

And I would just urge everybody to take a serious look at the Silicon Valley Index.

It is just chocked full of information, and um you can look at it online or you can buy a copy from Amazon.

And um, I also attended a BCDC meeting, and um we are working on more of protecting uh the uh region from sea level rise with policy changes.

Councilmember Hicks I also went to the State of the Valley Conference.

And Councilmember Kamei.

Uh great.

I just want to report that I attended our city's uh lunar new year with the mayor.

Um wonderful um event on February 28th.

It's great to see how it's grown, and thank you to staff.

Councilmember Ramirez.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Uh I I have no say over any of this, but um uh I heard a rumor that uh there might be an opportunity for the council to weigh in on SB63, the uh regional uh transit uh ballot measure and operational funding through VTA, and I just want to request that um that one that if this is something that the council has an opportunity opportunity to weigh in on, that it not be merely a presentation, but some um something agendized for us to actually provide you know some direction by consensus or at least uh you know take a position on uh whatever it is that you know staff would recommend that we advocate for.

Um I don't want to be lectured by you know a politician who doesn't represent our area, for instance.

Um so that would be my humble request.

Thank you.

Um City Manager, how would you like to handle that?

I is there are if it's agendized, are we able to have a discussion about it if and when it occurs, or is that something we need to have a show of hands to do?

Um thank you, Vice Mayor.

So I think I'll discuss with our legislative uh affairs manager, and we can uh figure out the best path to move forward to alert council to what staff's recommendation is and if there are those opportunities.

Does that work for you, Councilmember Ramirez?

Okay, and then I don't know what the report out rules are.

Um I was supposed to attend the state of the valley.

I was um and I registered, but I was sick.

Uh as you can tell, I'm still nasally and disgusting, um, but not contagious.

So um but so I am feeling much better than I sound.

Um, but uh anyway, that's been disclosed just in case I need to disclose it.

And there are no other items uh before us this evening, so we will adjourn the meeting at 9 28 p.m.

The next city council meeting is scheduled for March 24, 2026.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you for staying up and being with us.

Bye.