Uh welcome to the environmental planning commission meeting of April 15, 2026.

I will now call the order, the meeting to order at 7 p.m.

For those joining us in person, please note that due to our hybrid environment, audio and video presentations can no longer be shared from the lectern.

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

on the meeting date.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ms.

Clerk.

Commissioner Subermanion here.

Commissioner Pham here.

Commissioner Goodyeris.

Here.

Commissioner Dempsey.

Commissioner Cranston.

Here.

Vice Chair Donahue.

Here.

Chair Nenez.

Uh here.

Uh six commissioners are present.

Um Commissioner Dempsey is absent.

Okay, thank you very much.

Uh I will now uh move us to item number three minutes approval.

Uh three point uh item three point one, the environmental planning commission meeting minutes of January 7th, 2026.

Is there any discussion from the EPC on the minutes?

3.1, no, seeing none.

Uh, we'll move this to public comment.

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

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

Phone users can mute and unmute themselves as star six.

Uh Ms.

Clerk, do we have anyone on the Zoom line or having submitted a yellow speaker card?

No speakers on this item.

Okay.

Um, then in that case, uh, I'll go ahead and it looks like uh Commissioner Guterres, do you have a comment or would you like to make a motion?

I'd like to make a motion, so moved.

Okay.

Um we have a motion.

Anyone would like to second the motion to approve the environmental planning commission minutes of January 7th, 2026.

I'll second.

Okay, we have a second from uh Vice Chair Donahue.

Ms.

Clerk, can we take this to a vote?

The motion passes six.

All in favor.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh we will now proceed to item number four, oral communications.

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

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

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

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

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

Phone users can unmute and unmute and unmute themselves with star six.

Okay.

Sounds good.

Perfect.

We will uh proceed then to our public hearing.

Uh item 5.1 amendments to chapter 36 zoning of the city code to allow streamlined administrative approval for housing development projects utilizing assembly bill 130 and other minor updates.

We'll first have a staff presentation, then questions by the EPC, followed by public comment.

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

So we'll begin with a staff presentation from our principal planner, Miss Diana Pancholi and planning manager, Mr.

Eric.

Eric Anderson.

Thank you.

Good evening, Chair and members of the Commission.

My name is Diana Pancholi, Principal Planner with the City's Planning Division, and I'm joined here tonight by planning manager Eric Anderson.

Tonight's staff is presenting code amendments to Chapter 36 zoning of the city code to allow streamlined approval process for qualifying housing development projects, utilizing assembly bill AB 130 and other minor updates.

AB 130, which became effective in June of 2025, creates a new statutory exemption from California Environmental Quality Act CEQA for qualifying housing projects and significantly changes the city's review timelines.

In light of these stringent timelines and the limitation on city's discretion, council at their January 27 study session earlier this year directed staff to prepare amendments to the Chapter 36 zoning to allow staff level approval of projects eligible of the for the AB 130 streamline CEQA review without requiring a public hearing.

Such streamline approval process also recognizes the city's obligation under state law to comply with accelerated project approval timelines and ensures the city can meet its timing obligation in all cases.

Under city's current review process, several projects require administrative zoning or environmental planning commission EPC and City Council hearings.

Reliance on any public hearing processes, especially an EPC or a city council hearing, could jeopardize the city's ability to act on quality qualifying projects within the timelines required under AB 130.

The proposed amendments additionally also support implementation of the city's housing element, specifically program 1.1, which ensures consistency with the state law, and program 4.1B, which streamlines housing development review processes.

To qualify for a AB 130 statutory exemption from CEQA, projects must satisfy certain criteria, including maximum acreage, consistency with applicable zoning and journal plan standards, and minimum density.

Table 1 in the staff report attached here presents a detailed list of these criteria.

In the past six months, city has approved four projects utilizing the statutory CEQA exemption, and several projects are currently under review going through the CEQA process where applicant has expressed interest in utilizing this exemption.

At the January 27th study session, council directed staff to develop a ministerial process, while staff continues to work on a ministerial approval process for projects subject to the statutory exemption provided in AB 130.

At this time, staff recommends adopting an administrative approval process due to several challenges associated with adopting a ministerial approval procedures within the time constraints of the current ordinance amendment process.

An administrative approval process involves no public hearing, but it still includes the exercise of discretion where objective standards are not in place to enable a ministerial approval process.

As per the proposed amendments, the projects will also have to meet the courtesy noticing requirements as directed by current council at the January study session.

Once the project is deemed complete, staff will send a courtesy notice to neighbors within 750 foot, informing them about the project under review, and the public will have 10 days to provide input.

Further amendments to update the alternate mitigation approval process to allow administrative approval for non-residential housing impact fees are proposed as part of the current code updates.

Additionally, city's current affordable housing program requires city council approval for an alternative mitigation BMR program.

Changes to this requirement are proposed as part of separate code amendments, and those were reviewed by EPC at the March 4th meeting.

There are other minor code amendments, which are also proposed tonight.

These are in response to the council input and questions associated with the February 24th council hearing.

These minor updates are specifically for City Code compliance with several state legislation, including Assembly Bill 752, State Bill 234, Assembly Bill 2162, and Assembly Bill 101.

These minor code amendments include updating the residential and commercial zone land use table to add a residential accessory use category and rearranging relevant uses under it.

Adding a child care center co-located with multifamily residential as an allowed use by right, subject to the same development standards.

Allow low barrier navigation centers by right in commercial office zoning districts.

After tonight's CPC review, staff will present EPC's recommendation on the proposed amendments, along with other code amendments to other chapters of the city code to the city council at a public hearing tentatively scheduled for May 26th.

This will be followed by a second reading in early June.

If approved, it is anticipated the new updates would be effective in early July.

Additionally, these changes, if adopted, may precipitate text changes to various precise plans to ensure consistency with the zoning code.

Staff will undertake this effort as resources and workload allows.

So in conclusion, staff recommends that the EPC recommend to the City Council to adopt an ordinance amending the City Code Chapter 36 and finds that these amendments are not subject to the California Enwam Equality Act.

Thank you for your time.

Staff, including the community development director Murdoch and Assistant Director Blazinski, are present here tonight to answer any questions.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Uh Ms.

Pentrali.

We're gonna take it to the commission for questions.

So if anyone would like to ask any questions of the staff, you can drop your name in the queue.

Commissioner Cranston.

Staff is recommending this administrative process as opposed to a ministerial process.

Does AB 130 require a ministerial process?

Planning Manager Eric Anderson, thanks for the question.

AB 130 does not require any particular process.

AB 130 is uh or the the part of AB 130 that we're we're uh working towards right now uh prescribes uh a CEQA process and CEQA is is um doesn't have any um uh relationship to the approval process that a project goes through.

Um yeah, so in fact we've we've taken several projects already through the process uh that have not been ministerial and they've been consistent with these provisions of AB 130.

So your belief is that this proposal would be compliant with AB 130 when it as soon as it's passed.

Yes, we are bringing forward an ordinance that is in alignment with state law.

And then you're I think uh Ms.

Petroly said that changes for in precise plans in other areas would happen at some point.

So there's no specific timeline for reviewing those to address the objective standards component of these.

So there's um kind of two uh two issues going on here.

The the question is whether or not we're updating precise plans to address the need for objective standards.

Uh this particular ordinance is not related to the city's ongoing work to make our standards more objective.

That is something that we're working on continuously uh to provide more clarity and more objectivity to our standards for all housing projects.

Uh, that is an ongoing process.

This is a procedural ordinance that's really just about who makes the call for approval of certain projects.

Um yes, uh the precise the precise plans which do uh contain their own procedural sections will not address this circumstance.

However, the zoning ordinance will uh the draft zoning ordinance language that you're reviewing, does uh by its own language supersede the precise plans.

Uh we can add clarity and um and ease of use to the precise plans on a case-by-case basis when we open them up for other uh amendments uh by uh adding references to this provision in the ordinance so that anybody reviewing the procedural requirements and precise plans will more easily know what their procedural uh process is.

Am I reading did I understand that correctly?

So the the least stringent of any zoning requirement would be something that the developer could choose to use.

And that then they would that would be something that could be brought in front of the administrative person making the decision, and they would have to accept that.

Uh general plan requirements tend to be much higher level in nature.

Uh the general plan requirements tend to be things like um the floor area ratio and the dwelling units per acre.

Um, those are um the the zoning or precise plan standards tend to be the bulk of the standards that are actually reviewed.

So there's very limited opportunity for inconsistency between the general plan standards and the zoning or precise plan standards.

Uh that's not to say that that doesn't exist in some cases in the city, and that is another ongoing process that we have to clean those up and to kind of make sure that there's perfect alignment between the general plan and and our zoning documents.

Um the uh I am not aware of, and maybe um uh the principal planner or the assistant director or director can weigh in on this, but uh I'm not aware of anything specifically in AB 130 that says under which cases the general plan or zoning would control.

Um go ahead, Director Murray.

Yeah, good evening, Chair, Vice Chair, Commissioners, Christian Murdoch, community development director.

Uh Commissioner Cranston, I think you are probably referring to uh language on page three of the staff report in table one, where it describes um the various requirements to qualify for AB 130.

And in the uh section uh entitled plan slash zoning consistency, there's the second bullet that reads as follows.

If the zoning and general plan are not consistent with one another, a project shall be deemed consistent with both if the project is consistent with one.

And so I don't know if it's exactly the case where we can read into that, you know, comply with the least stringent requirement.

Um there could be instances where one is not necessarily more or less stringent, but they're different.

And so um to not obstruct uh the ability of a project to proceed relying on the city standards.

If an applicant hits a point where there's an inconsistency, the applicant can choose one and continue to proceed and be found compliant for purposes of AB 130.

So it's not exactly a more or less stringent.

It's uh if there's a conflict, the applicant can choose one or the other and keep moving forward.

Um and to be clear, uh, an important clarification in my mind is we're not proposing to put language in the ordinance about more or less stringent.

It's language in the statute in state law related to AB 130 eligibility.

Okay.

Thank you.

And I wasn't suggesting you're where I'd I'm I'm putting myself in that mind of a developer and say, what can I get away with?

And so I look for the easiest thing.

How does a precise plan tie to a zoning?

Is it is a precise plan zoning ordinance?

Or so which is is it three categories if it's something that's in San Antonio and or El Camino or East Westman, or is it just two?

Right.

I think that's a great question, and one uh that's a subject of discussion from time to time inside the community development department.

Um the precise plan is probably uh best to think of in terms of a specific plan as that terms used in in state law in state planning and zoning law.

And it can have characteristics of both a general plan and uh a zoning standard.

I'd say more often than not, our precise plans in Mountain View are more like zoning in that they have prescriptive standards, they regulate uses in a very detailed way, and we most commonly think of them uh along the lines of a zoning uh plan or set of zoning standards.

And so in either case, whichever um might apply in a given circumstance, the language in AB 130 addresses those situations by talking about a general plan or zoning standard.

And so whichever bucket it's in, uh, a conflict would be resolved in accordance with those provisions.

And who is the decision maker on which one applies?

Is that I mean it I didn't catch who is the administrative person the ZA or is it the staff member who's reviewing it?

I mean, who's who decides which one applies in their case?

Right.

I think there's a couple different contexts uh in which I have to answer that question.

Generally, uh, the city code empowers the zoning administrator, which is currently assistant director Blazinski, um, who's designated to serve as the zoning administrator to interpret the the provisions of the zoning code in the context of this ordinance that we're proposing tonight and the administrative approvals.

Uh I, as the community development director would be empowered to make that determination for a specific project.

And so I would very likely inquire with the zoning administrator sitting next to me here.

Um, what's your interpretation?

What's your practice?

Um, how best should I interpret this standard to apply it to this particular set of circumstances for this project?

And so it's a combined effort, but ultimately for a project, that would be my responsibility.

So if the person getting sued is likely to be you if they don't like the answer.

Well, I defer to the uh senior assistant city attorney about that question, but in general, the city is sued.

Um, not necessarily the individual making this decision.

Okay, I'm questioned out.

Okay.

Commissioner Pham.

So my first question, I think um Commissioner Cranston asked about objective standards in the approval framework.

So thanks for asking that one.

Um I had a question about the courtesy public notice that uh city council requested.

Um I generally think it's a great idea, and I had questions about how it was to be implemented.

I know some of the text says that comments could be received and could lead to project modifications, um, but I wanted to understand in practice or the process of how the applicant may receive those comments and what they may be required to do with them.

I we expect that in the vast majority of cases, uh, comments will simply be advisory to an applicant.

Um, you know, we kind of we think you should do this, or um, you know, consider this, and and if they don't want to, they don't have to in the vast majority of cases.

Uh we are um presenting this option, this courtesy notice uh as a as a part of the proposed process, in order to um uh take account of those occasional instances where staff not being perfect may not have caught everything uh that may uh come up.

And in those instances, we wanted to make sure that this code of courtesy notice was in uh aligned with the um consistency review period uh as required under AB 130, so that if there are any issues that are identified by the public that uh impinge on their um compliance with standards or the code, that um we could uh be aware of that and and inform the applicant in a timely manner.

Okay.

Uh follow-up question to that, then um is the applicant required to, or could the city require the applicant to at least give a formal response to each comment saying that they received it, or any sort of response to each comment?

Uh we I don't we we would not be able to require that um under our uh kind of codes and and submittal requirements.

Uh you know, that's um uh something that is uh you know the staff can absolutely inform the the applicant uh but requiring them to provide some kind of message that they would come up with is not um uh a standard that would um kind of be objective or or meet the other requirements of state law.

Got it.

Okay.

Um next question I had was related to tribal notifications.

Um just curious about that process and in general, how many tribes are notified?

Uh what's that practice generally like for staff?

Do we get responses?

Um just to understand more about what's done there.

Sure.

Um so typically we do need to reach out to uh a state agency in order to get the latest list of uh tribes that we do need to notify.

Uh that list I think has 10 or 12 different tribes on it at this time.

Uh so we have uh contacts with those 10 or 12 different tribes, roughly.

Uh uh, don't quote me on the exact number, but that's about the number.

Um, and then uh we send them both emails and uh certified letters.

Uh typically we get responses from um one to three or four of them on any given project.

Uh so um they do request meetings, and so at those meetings we uh discuss the characteristics of the projects, any concerns that they might have about um uh the project or uh what might be found on the site if with any excavation um and any requests that they might have for kind of special um processes that the developer might need to go through to ensure that um the uh the work is done sensitively for anything that they might potentially find.

Okay.

Um and a related question, I noticed that some of the response periods for the tribes, I think it says within 60 days, the consultation must conclude within 45 days and could be extended 15 days.

It seems to me not to jive with the 30 day review period.

Um so in an instance, if in certain instances, if the tribes get back to the city after the 30 days, how would that work with the approval of the project?

Uh so there is a uh after completeness, we have either 30 or 60 days to determine compliance, depending on the size of the project.

That is this um the same time period as the tribal notification, and then the 30-day approval is after the later of the conclusion of the tribal consultation or consistency review.

Got it.

Okay, thanks.

That was helpful to understand.

Um that's all my questions.

Vice Chair Donahue.

So following up on that, the after 30 days after consistency review.

So if it's found to be inconsistent and then they make some tweaks to to make it consistent, then the 30-day clock begins.

Uh no, the 30-day clock is after the consistency review.

If they if we find the project to be inconsistent, we would need to either approve the project with conditions or deny within those 30 days.

Then the I mean the applicant would presumably make some changes and come back, and then how does the clock work in that situation?

They would have to address any conditions uh through the building permit process rather than through a new planning permit process.

Uh if the project is denied, they'd have to submit a new application.

Okay, but if if you say it's it's inconsistent because the setback needs to be one foot further back or something like that, and they just say, Oh, okay, no problem.

I don't know.

Um and they submit new plans with the building moved.

Um it starts the entire clock from the very beginning again?

No, so I'll I'll take on that part.

So um Amber Blazenski, Assistant Community Development Director.

Um the way that we handle these projects is that we're really proactive with the consistency analysis from the very beginning.

So the very first 30-day cycle, we're um completeness cycle, we're already highlighting anything that could be inconsistent early.

So by the time we get to the completeness and then that actual consistency period, the applicant has had a lot of or you know, time to absorb what we've said is inconsistent.

They've hope they've hopefully already updated their plans or updated their density bonus letter.

It's it's pretty rare that we get to a point where we have to condition a project to be consistent.

Um we did have to do that on a few conditions on one of the AB 130 projects, and I honestly just can't remember which one there's been so many lately.

Um, but it's pretty rare that we get into that situation.

Okay.

But it doesn't restart the clock.

We only ever have like that last 30 days.

It's kind of, you know, it's it's pretty this is kind of why it's hard to get to the hearings because we really only have that time period.

And if things are changing, if somebody did have something that was still inconsistent and they wanted to fix it, I think this more administrative process would allow us to maybe do that and work with them before we're getting here.

But when we're preparing all the documents to bring a project to a hearing, that that actually, you know, we we have to be finished a lot earlier than the hearing.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay, yeah, that makes sense.

I mean, practically speaking is different, you know, technically something might happen, but practically it will okay.

Um also AB 130 uh says that the site can't be located on a hazardous waste site pursuant to some code.

Um is that like a superfund site like MEW or something like that?

It's very prescriptive.

So it it prescribes exactly what list of sites the this the property can't be on.

Sometimes that includes superfund sites, sometimes super fund sites are not on that list.

Uh, but it it's very, very prescriptive.

Okay, I think we talked about that a couple meetings ago.

Okay.

Sounds familiar.

Um as far as so the council said uh to use a ministerial process, um, and you're proposing an administrative one.

Um at the at the council meeting, I was at the council meeting, but I don't remember specifically what was said.

The I assume that the you didn't say we could have it ministerial or administrative, and then the council said we choose that.

So you're not kind of overwriting the council intent.

This is really following what they you think you believe that they intended.

Uh that's correct.

I I don't recall us offering an either-or option.

Um what we put forward was a ministerial recommendation or a process a recommendation for ministerial process, which for the public means a process that's involves no discretion and is either the project complies or doesn't with the various standards, and there's you know no judgment required or no discretion in in interpreting the regulation.

Um that is very much where we want to end up uh for a variety of reasons.

Um the key issue that this ordinance is intended to address was I think clearly communicated to the council, which is that a process that involved public hearings at a decision-making body like the environmental planning commission and city council in the cases of many projects is not tenable within the compressed timelines.

So I don't feel like we're we're bringing something that's inconsistent with what the council directed.

We we cannot at this time carry out their direction.

We ultimately will.

Uh and for now, we're achieving the vast majority of the sort of critical policy need here, which is addressing the process and the timelines.

Because as a reminder, failure to act within that 30-day determination period, excuse me, results in the project being deemed approved with no further action from the developer, no do-overs, no mulligans, no anything for the city other than the project is the applicant proposed it, is now deemed approved.

And so there's a lot of risk to the city, and that's why this ordinance would address that risk, which is paramount.

Okay.

That that that's basically my recollection, but I didn't remember specifically what was said.

So good.

Thank you.

Commissioner uh Sudraman.

Thank you, Jay.

Um, so following on the lines of the question that Commissioner Donahue posed, um, what I took away from the staff report is that um you're working out a lot of the discretionary standards to get to this path of a fully ministerial process.

Um could you talk a little bit about what that work involves and what your anticipation of timeline is to get to a full ministerial process?

And can I just add on to that?

So I also wanted to clarify.

So the dates that you describe, Ms.

Poncholi, it that is to enact the changes to um to enact the ordinance, so the changes to the zoning chapter are in place, right?

Is that also to put in place the administerial uh process that you're proposing as sort of the interim to get to the full ministerial, or is the administerial process already underway, which seems to be the case for some A B130.

Um so when this ordinance is brought to the council for adoption in May and June, uh, that will uh when it becomes in effect in July, at that point, staff can start to approve projects through this through this ordinance process.

We can't do it until the ordinance is in effect uh in early July, tentatively.

Um so you ask what's the timeline uh for kind of creating an all-ministerial process.

Every time we open the code, it seems like there's something else that we find that was written under the assumption that staff or some decision making body will have discretion.

So that process will ultimately be like finding objective standards, it's going to be an ongoing process.

And so at some point, I think we need to kind of get an understanding of what the most of those that language is that needs to be changed before we can give an idea of how long it would take to actually make those changes.

And I would just add amplifying the work that's already underway and that's being talked about more and more.

The council work plan item to develop objective design standards.

It's part of this broader effort to put in place the full range of objective standards for development review.

That work will be aided significantly by the completion of the R3 multifamily zoning update later this year.

And that will be a critical launch point to then fill in the remainder of the standards, but the R3 zoning for the vast majority of project types that are relevant in this context will do very much to help us have a deep bench or a long list of objective standards that will further this effort towards a ministerial process.

Thank you for the for those clarifications.

So does that mean that under the administerial process, until such time we get to a full ministerial process, that there will be a lot of approval, discretionary approval of non-objective standards that are being addressed through projects, and who's the authority that's sort of deciding that so the state law does say that we cannot enforce non-objective standards.

But I think the real opportunity that still exists that we would need to work out a kind of an alternative to the flexibility that exists in certain certain circumstances for staff to actually be able to waive certain standards.

And in that case, staff isn't acting completely without a rudder, right?

Staff is acting based on the stated goals and objectives of whatever planning document that they're working out of.

That's why precise plans are the primary place where staff is empowered or that the approval body is empowered to make exceptions to development standards because there's so much additional language in precise plans to kind of guide the vision and goals and policies.

So we have more information about under what circumstances waiving a standard would be appropriate.

So finding those opportunities for kind of reducing those standards is uh a process that's undertaken between the staff and the developer, and and ultimately needs to be justified by language in whatever doc document we are working out of.

Right.

And in addition, uh I understandably the the commissioners are thinking a lot about you know zoning type standards that relate to the built form of these projects.

Um there are some other, if you will, peripheral elements that uh just don't have an objective path for approval of certain exceptions, like the below market rate ordinance, um, the uh privately owned publicly accessible open space and and certain others.

And so uh until we are able to do further work on those to have some sort of objectivity designed in in the primary and the alternate uh or exceptions uh mechanisms, um, some discretion will continue to be required, even though it's not essentially the core project uh in terms of built form development standards.

But ultimately, in the spirit of what the state law is trying to push towards, uh does it mean that the applicant still has the flexibility to either go with the recommendations of staff in adherence to the larger goals or ignore it all and kind of um you know fall back on what works best for their design.

Um I think when we are talking about what what is likely to happen under these uh ordinance amendments, there's really kind of three different ways that you might think about how an applicant is going to comply or not with development standards.

The first way is they're just gonna comply with the standard, straightforward, it's an objective standard, they're gonna meet the standard.

The second way is through they might receive exceptions or waivers through state density bonus, and that gives them a lot of latitude to say this standard isn't working for my project.

I am going to request a waiver of this standard.

There are some limitations to that under state law and and elsewhere.

Um and under that scenario, uh, giving staff the discretion to say, well, this is how this objective standard is written, but you're proposing something that furthers the goals of the planning document that we're implementing, and so it actually makes more sense to do it the way the developer wants to do it than to adhere strictly to the objective standard in the planning document.

So those are three kind of likely scenarios that may um result.

Uh the last case really does require that staff discretion to weigh the goals of the planning document against what the developer is proposing.

Thank you.

That was very helpful.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Uh Commissioner Gutierrez.

Hello, everyone, I'm back.

So I have questions.

That's pretty simple.

Number one, because these are going to be amendments to a city code, and for transparency's sake, I don't remember if in the staff report it was described that when set updates are made to the code, you would also be able to describe exactly what the process would be like for approvals, no matter which way they go.

That's the first question.

Will you describe in the code exactly how you do the approvals, who's responsible for what, or what it may look like?

That's the first question.

Yes, thank you, uh, Commissioner, for the question.

The the code is a procedural document, fundamentally.

So it prescribes who is actually making the decisions under what circumstances.

Uh so that's the the intent is to be as as transparent as a code is to the public and uh for to know who is actually ultimately responsible for those decisions and what that process is.

Great.

Okay, so you've answered the first question, which is great, because not everyone has access to the staff report.

So I've got these questions.

Question number two is when said projects have been through this process and they've been allowed to continue on, and I again I don't remember if this was in a staff report or not, but after approval of said projects, how will we know that those projects have been approved?

Will there be a report provided to city council then to the EPC or just the city council about these other pro projects that have been approved by this program or by these exceptions to what we have now in the code?

Yeah, so currently the uh staff does uh prepare a bi-monthly document that it publishes online uh with the status of development projects that are going through the the development process.

Uh so that's uh one way.

Another way would be to um uh sign up for notifications about particular development projects.

Uh that is uh a uh process that we have available on our website.

And then lastly, um we have a noticing process in the ordinance itself.

So if you live within 750 feet of these uh properties, you will be notified about the impending decision.

Um and then just to add on the development update, um, so we are eventually, hopefully in the very near future, going to be turning that development update document into a map.

Um so that will live on the same page, but instead of publishing this document, which is pretty time consuming, we will uh the map will pull data from like our systems.

Um we're working on that.

It's um we had hoped to to get it out this month.

Uh we ran into a few uh holdups, but hopefully by the summer.

Great.

See, this is why we ask questions because this is good to know, right?

Uh and then the final question uh to the city attorney.

Legally, I assume that we're fine.

I want to hear that from the city attorney, and I also want to hear whether or not you think this places us in any legal jeopardy at all, which I don't think it will, but I want to hear it from you.

So we've worked closely with planning staff, and we believe that this direction from council and staff's implementation of the direction is in compliance with AB 130.

Thank you very much.

Those are my questions.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Uh we're gonna go to Vice Chair Donegan.

I had a follow-up to uh Commissioner Suberman's question.

Um the goal is to move from a uh administrative process to a ministerial process but then you said that if it furthers something furthers the goals of the plan like a precise plan or something like that that staff under the administrative process is empowered to waive certain requirements even if we had a hundred percent objective um standards would that ever change would would we ever not be in a position where we might want to waive things no it's a it's an important point I think um you know some entities put out there uh the ministerial process as the be all and all of development review and there are many advantages particularly for the developers but also for staff where you comply or you don't and it takes out some of the judgment and some of the the criticism of the process however ministerial processes and standards can have the effect of limiting flexibility and discretion and um it's it's challenging I won't say impossible but it's more challenging in a ministerial regulatory framework to provide flexibility and to provide alternatives and options of meeting unique circumstances and contexts it's it's binary in many respects you comply with what we've told you to do or you don't there's not often a third way of figuring out um something that might make more sense in that unique circumstance but it's hard to write that into a code in a one size fits all way so you'll see sometimes in ministerial standards where we we don't just say you know your lot coverage is X percentage we might say for a lot size of you know this many square feet it's this percentage in a larger one it's a different percentage trying to provide some adaptation and and context sensitivity to an otherwise objective standard but it's very hard to account for all of those potential circumstances and that is very likely one of the trade-offs of of getting to a a fully ministerial process and and the administrative process it is an to the developers advantage it sounds like because the flexibility is more of waiving things as opposed to adding additional constraints which is which state law wouldn't allow us to to do anyway.

I think it's an interesting interesting perspective I think there are many benefits to the applicant uh from an administrative process you sort of get the time savings of not having a public hearing process with some of the flexibility that can come from a discretionary process but that cuts both ways it can result in the city in the community getting a better project as well when some discretion can be used to achieve a preferable outcome so I wouldn't say it's universally uh a developer advantage but there are certainly many benefits that accrue to the applicant or the developer.

That that's what I meant.

I didn't mean that it's only the the developer's advantage but in in general being able to waive things because the the the the developer might or applicant might choose not to waive things and they wouldn't be forced to do that or whatever.

Yeah I think I would characterize it as um offering flexibility or alternatives in some cases you know it might be relieving a standard but in other cases like I said earlier doing it differently right and so it's not as though we're making it easier or cutting the standards or cutting corners we're doing something in a different way that achieves the spirit and intent but maybe not with the the strict you know uh by the letter of the law requirement in the first instance.

Okay but always keeping the community in mind is really kind of absolutely uh that's one of the very important you know factors that you know if I'm imagining me in this role if the ordinance is passed by the city council um certainly thinking of what's in the best interest of the community and where discretion can be used to achieve that while remaining mindful of the many limitations in state law and the legal framework on acting on these kinds of housing projects which the commission you know has confronted in in many instances where you want to do something but you simply cannot because of the legal limitations on discretion compliance with the objective standard and the like great thanks Commissioner Granson so I'm I want to clarify something that I thought I heard the director say in the council meeting they you guys proposed developing this process and the term ministerial was used at the time through your evaluation you've come back and said this process would be what we'd recommend you are not recommending through this document or in any other way that a ministerial process would be put in place separately or beyond this and that the method of improving the just reducing the discretion in the administrative process is not related to this document but would be through the addressing the standards in the precise plans and other areas that there is no my read of this is there's nothing in this that says we will work towards a hundred percent ministerial process if we adopt this that's what I thought I heard.

That's what I thought I heard.

But a couple of commissioners said the goal is still administrative process.

I did not hear that.

Is that the case?

Well, the council's direction was to prepare an ordinance in a process that was ministerial in nature.

Um our work has concluded we we cannot do that, at least in a way that we would recommend as staff.

I think the only way we would be able to bring forward a ministerial process at this time would be to peel back many elements of our standards and certainly the exceptions processes that are in uh various places and precise plans and in um the below market rate housing and other requirements.

So I think in theory, we probably could prepare an ordinance that would allow ministerial review.

I don't think anybody would want that at this time, and we would want to take the opportunity to do further work and fill in that framework of objective standards that allows us to have much better outcomes when we get to a ministerial process.

Okay, so council could say we don't agree, come back with that, but you're not proposing that in this document.

That's correct.

I mean, we've proposed what we think we can put in place and would recommend moving forward with at this time.

I'm hearing something different from the commissioners.

Any other questions from the commission?

Um, I guess I my my only question I can understand pragmatically, like why the administrative uh proposals being put forward.

Um, and I appreciate uh Mr.

Anderson's commentary around the yarn ball nature of the of the code and finding um new threads to pull on can be maddening.

I guess I'm definitely just kind of curious as to like, you know, given some of the commentary here, you know, what comes to my mind is is it is it really that difficult?

And I'm not trying to be like I I'm genuinely asking because I'm I'm of the less informed um you know, from from relative to staff's side, but uh is it really that difficult to to attempt to provide some sort of um time frame or or even like a time frame for a time frame of just kind of like um assurance around what that ministerial target would look like.

Um that's my main question because I'm also concerned about the council direction and the the lack, like I can appreciate why the administrative is is where we're you know staff is coming from, but I'm also very concerned about the lack of like more formal acknowledgement and in the current proposal.

So I guess I don't know who would probably take that on, but sure.

I I think you know, I share your concern that we we have not been able to fully carry out the the council's direction in the way that we had recommended they direct staff.

Um that is the reality of doing policy work that sometimes when you get into the work you find other aspects that you hadn't anticipated, and you have to find how to work through or beyond or around those issues.

Um I think the best timeline I can give is is not in the near term, but probably you know, sometime beyond 2026 at this point.

Um as I mentioned earlier, uh completion of the R3 zoning update will go a long way to filling in uh a broader framework of objective standards that allow high quality development review outcomes.

Um but that won't address everything that needs to be done to I think have a really durable and rigorous ministerial review process with an appropriate range of standards, but that's a critical and a very major step that will move this process forward.

Uh beyond that, as we mentioned, there are other you know, non-zoning type ordinances um, or at least non-traditional development standard ordinances that also need thoughtful treatment.

Uh and we have uh not yet programmed or put a timeline in place to amend those ordinances uh to achieve a ministerial process.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

And especially just because as um as noted, like pragmatically speaking, I understand the the proposal of being administrative in nature.

I think um on the other end, pragmatically speaking, having even if it's like kind of as you mentioned right now, hey, it's beyond 2026.

Here's um, you know, events or uh milestones that will add clarity to that, such as the R3 project being completed, etc.

etc.

And and earliest projection we can give is as noted right now beyond 2026, even that felt a little more clear than uh you know in the staff report so for whatever that's worth.

I'll just kind of like toss it out as a consideration and maybe you know, in terms of like my fellow commissioners just kind of like having that in mind as well.

Um, but that is a comment and I've veered into commentary.

And speaking of comments, we will oh, do we have uh question or no?

Okay.

Do you want to wait for the comments?

Because I'm totally flubbed on that.

Um we'll go to public comment.

Speak up comment.

Um so if anyone in attendance would like to provide comments on this item, um, please do fill out a yellow speaker card and provide it to the APC clerk.

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

Phone users commute and unmute themselves with star six.

I'll ask our commissioner or commission clerk if there's any yellow speaker cards or attendees with raised hands in Zoom.

Um no speakers at this time.

Okay.

Commissioner Guterres, you're first in line for uh EPC deliberation action in that case.

So uh we'll take a comments now.

Great.

So I get why this is being presented to the APC.

I appreciate the work behind all this.

Totally get and understand why it is that this was brought up by the city council.

And in terms of a policy perspective, I'm happy that there was some initiation and proactiveness to try and get this or these items uh moved along.

Uh, when you look at efficiency and productivity, this is something that you have to address one way or another so that you can speed up the process, especially when you know that the project's already in compliance, was basically 90% already there.

And if they're not gonna meet the timelines because it just doesn't fit their needs to come to us or to other uh bodies for XYZ types of approval, then why not have this type of process?

Makes total sense.

Um, why it wasn't done before, I don't know.

I don't really care.

All I know is that you brought it forward now, and I appreciate that type of mentality, and hopefully that's the same mindset you'll have for other issues that come up that affect the EPC and the deliberative process.

So further along, just the process of development as a whole.

We all know that up to a point uh developers have a large say of what they want to do, and they have a lot of leeway of what they can do, and whatever we have that are suggestions that are very limited.

But as long as we can get those process moving forward with actual development, that gives us a chance to meet our housing element um goals that we've established with the state of California, and we're not losing sight of that either, right?

So when we look at it from that vantage point in that totality of perspective, I get what you're saying.

So I'll be voting in favor of that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Guterres, Commissioner Sub Romanin.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, I have a few comments on just edits to text in the ordinance and clarification.

So on page nine, under the commercial district land uses where it talks about clarifying child care center, not co-located with multifamily uh developments, and then the later table on page 12 allows for child care centers co-located with multifamily developments by right.

I think it's it um so if you go into the first section where it mentions it on page nine.

It would probably help just to clarify that those are that's the category where it's not co-located because later on it talks about ones that are co-located.

So just a clarification to make it explicitly clear.

That was one comment.

Um then the second one is sort of question, comment.

Uh there is small animal keeping, which appears both under agricultural uses as well as accessory uses in the residential district.

Is there a distinction and do we need both we can look into that, but I believe that was part of the previous round of uh code amendments which uh came forward as part of the small business um updates?

But that might we we will look into that.

Thank you for pointing it out.

And then the last question is on um under the foot uh in the footnote on page 14 under other uses.

What is the reference to supportive housing that doesn't meet the requirements of government section code?

Um 65650.

So there's one piece where it talks about meets the code, and then there's a category that doesn't meet it.

Could you clarify what that is?

Yeah, so the that uh provision of state law uh sets more specific operational requirements for supportive housing that has to be by right if this if those uh supportive housing developments comply with those very specific operational requirements.

There's a more general definition of supportive housing, which we are maintaining the the current review process as applicable for um resident for uh residential uses.

So under state law, there's kind of this this layering of provisions, right?

We have to consider it a residential use, and we can't apply any different residential uh different uh permitting processes.

But if residential is typically a conditional use permit, then that supportive housing would typically be a conditional use permit.

Um but this very specific provision of spate state law says that if a supportive housing development has these very specific criteria, then that has to be by right.

Understood chair, if uh we could just have a moment uh as staff uh to address the the comment about small animal keeping.

Um just from my assessment uh of Commissioner Subramanian's comment, um, it looks like it was originally listed in uh agricultural category within the our the residential zoning table, but uh is also now shown as added into the accessory uses table without deleting from the agricultural listed uses.

So I just want to confirm with staff.

Um we might recommend deleting the small animal keeping from the agricultural category given section 36.12.55 G listed in an accessory use capacity, and and that would be an amendment that the commission could recommend if there's a majority, and if that uh is confirmed by staff, I I believe that was the original intent, and and we may have just as a typo forgotten to strike it through on this version and that in that part of the table.

Thank you for clarifying that.

Quick question.

Um, would uh typo require that to be in the motion, or is that kind of like just a uh minimus?

I think uh on balance it'd be better for that to be part of the recommendation to um complete the strike through of small animal keeping to carry it into the accessory use category as intended.

Perfect.

All right, the more we can say small animal keeping, I think we'll liven things up.

Okay.

Um was that all your questions, or do you have more?

Do you have commentary on the item?

I'll I'll make a quick statement apart from those clarifications.

Thank you for providing those answers.

Uh I generally want to state that I'm in agreement with the approach that staff has taken.

I think it is uh it's a neat solution to sort of fit into the process we need at the moment to address projects that are coming through the AB 130 um application application.

So uh I commend staff for the very quick response to council's directive, and I think this is a good solution and a good way to proceed.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Subraman.

Uh Vice Chair Donahue.

So my my previous line of questioning was based on a different uh commissioner also raising this uh administrative to administerial um kind of eventuality, but I'm comfortable with uh with having the administrative process.

Um I'm comfortable with uh with allowing staff discretion uh understanding the the intent of of what's uh precise plans or whatever whatever the uh uh controlling um document is and uh I think that as I pointed out earlier, I think that it's you know usually going to be to the uh development of the to the uh benefit of the developer anyway, and the important thing is the staff will be uh keeping the community in mind, which is which is what what we're concerned about.

Um so in general, I think that this is um is great.

I'm also uh very happy to clean up small animal uh uh keeping.

Yeah, it's very very important.

Um so yeah, I'll be support, I'll be supporting it.

Thank you.

Any other commentary, Commissioner Pham, Commissioner Cranston?

Do you have any small animals?

No.

All right.

Well, in that case, then um I also support this.

Um I won't belabor the timeline piece.

Um I'll leave that to staff to consider the merits.

But um, Commissioner Subraman, would you like to make the motion and include the small animal keeping strike through?

Donna second it.

Or unless Commissioner Guterres, do you have any uh commentary?

No, I got this second.

All right.

We got a second from if staff has guidance or if um on the strike through or otherwise, we can just let Commissioner Saban and take a crack at it.

That the Environmental Planning Commission recommend the City Council adopt an ordinance of the City of Mountain View, amending Chapter 36 zoning of the Mountain View City Code to authorize streamlined administrative approval of housing development projects that are statutorily exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to public resources code section two ten eighty dot sixty-six and to make other minor modifications to Chapter 36 to align land uses in the residential and commercial zones with state laws, including the strike through to small animal keeping under the agricultural uses of chapters 36 and finding that the amendments are exempt from review under the California Environmental Equality Act as recommended by the environmental planning commission to be read in title only, further reading waived attachment one to the staff report.

Just want to confirm with Ms.

Pencholi and that okay, yep, okay, cool.

We'll take this to a vote.

Um the motion carries unanimously.

Wonderful.

Thank you very much.

We will now proceed to item number six point one.

Amend and add new sections to Article 10, transportation demand management of chapter 19, motor vehicles and traffic of the Mountain View Municipal Code.

We'll first have a staff presentation and then public comment.

At the closure of public comment, the commission will then discuss the item, including any questions.

We'll begin with a staff presentation from transportation planner Ben Bachel and Assistant Public Works Director Alison Boyer.

So uh yeah, we will go ahead and do that.

Thank you.

Uh good evening.

My name is Alison Boyer.

I'm the assistant public works director, and with me I have Ben Pacho, our senior transportation planner.

We're here to discuss the draft citywide transportation demand management or TDM ordinance.

City Council identified the development of a transportation demand management ordinance as a strategic priority for fiscal years 2023 to 2025.

It was identified as a priority as a result of the city's 2030 general plan, greenhouse gas reduction program, sustainability action plan, SAP 4, and precise plans, as well as the regional and state laws.

To date, the city's approach to TDM spans a mix of project size and land use types.

Over 27 entitled development projects in Mountain View have TDM requirements as part of their conditions of approval.

These current TDM requirements include different targets and measures.

The proposed ordinance aligns with existing policies, policies, strategies, and TDM standards, and monitors requirements and monitoring requirements.

It ensures consistency with the MTA handbook, VMT screening, and the city's greenhouse gas reduction program, while also standardizing trip reduction targets, the TDM planning process, and monitoring and enforcement provisions.

Reviewing the project's workflow, staff is currently in the project phase focused on developing the ordinance language seen here in blue.

Staff presented the project vision and goals to both BPAC and EPC in quarter four of 2023, where members voice their support for the project's objectives.

In quarter one of 2025, staff returned to BPAC and EPC to present the TDM policy framework that included trip reduction standards, reporting elements, and enforcement provisions.

CTC and City Council reviewed and supported the proposed framework in quarter two and three of 2025.

Next steps will include finalizing the draft TDM program standards, TDM toolkit, and staff will be presenting the TDM ordinance to council for first and second readings in quarter two of 2026.

Over the course of the project, staff has engaged key stakeholders and advisory bodies to gain a broad understanding of current practice with the TDM, as well as how requirements can be further streamlined and made more effective under the ordinance.

Key insights were gathered from downtown business association and the TMA, and one-on-one interviews were held with developers, employers, property managers, and community members.

Collectively, the input gathered has been used to guide the direction of the project, including its vision and goals and the TDM framework.

So just to remind everyone, staff presented the project's vision to EPC in quarter four of 2023.

The vision states that the TDM ordinance will seek to reduce single occupancy vehicle trips for new development and increase use of multimodal transportation alternatives that are sustainable, equitable, effective, and respond to changing demands.

The goal of this project, as outlined at the bottom of the slide, were informed by existing conditions, analysis, and stakeholder input.

Asking for the Environmental Planning Commission review and provide comments on the draft citywide transportation demand management ordinance and draft TDM program standards.

So quick overview of the TDM.

The new TDM ordinance will apply to all projects generating 200 or more net new average daily trips, or ADT, including residential, commercial, and mixed use developments.

Projects will have to demonstrate a plan to reduce projected ADT by 20 to 50% through the use of approved TDM strategies and maintained program management and annual reporting post-occupancy.

The city will maintain records of annual project reports and any noncompliance may result in corrective action and/or fines assessed by the city.

Moving from left to right, projects will be analyzed based on trip generation assumptions and estimated ADT using the city's VMT analysis, transportation impact studies, and the multimodal analysis handbook.

If proposed projects generate more than 200 average daily trips, they will be required to mitigate vehicle trips by adopting a TDM plan.

Following one year post-occupancy, property owners will be required to submit annual TDM reports that show their compliance with ADT targets or face potential penalties assessed by the city.

So who will be required to comply?

All new development modifications, change of use, and expansions of existing sites, generating 200 or more net new average daily trips will be required to comply.

This will apply across all land uses, residential, commercial, and mixed use.

There are, however, a couple exemptions, 100% affordable projects, very small projects, or patron-driven projects with less than 100,000 square feet.

Trip reduction targets will be determined by size.

Projects are divided into three categories: small projects, 200 to 499 ADTs, medium projects, 500 to 999 ADTs, and large projects, anything over 100,000 ADT.

I'm sorry, 1,000 ADT.

Projects will be required to implement TDM strategies that reduce ADT to the following levels of 30% for small, 40 for medium, and 50 for large projects.

TEOD or transit-oriented design projects will have reduction target levels of 20, 30, and 40%, respectively.

These thresholds were informed by cities' existing precise plan targets as well as case studies to similar TDM programs in San Francisco, San Mateo County, Redwood City, and the City of San Jose.

Prior to entitlement, prospective applicants will be required to submit a TDM plan for city review.

Specifics of the TDM plan will then be included in the conditions of approval precedent preceding adoption by council.

TDM plans will be comprised of two types of strategies.

Core strategies offer an array of flexible, proven trip reduction strategies that applicants may select from to develop the project's TDM plan.

Some examples of core strategies include transportation subsidies and van pool incentives.

And auxiliary measures, which, when paired with core strategies, are complementary and more effective at reducing trips.

Some examples of auxiliary strategies are wayfinding improvements and transportation related marketing events.

Applicants will have access to the TDM toolkit, which is designed to offer a menu of strategies that vary in scale and cost, allowing projects to create site-specific TDM plans fit for their purpose.

Moving into monitoring elements of the framework, this side this slide illustrates the various reporting activities that projects will be responsible for and which again are based on project size.

Small projects must report annually for three years, medium projects for 10, and large for 20.

Additionally, residential and patron-driven uses are exempt from additional project performance monitoring conducted through the annual travel surveys and traffic counts.

I will now pass it off to Ben to walk through some more updates and details.

Thanks, Allison.

Good evening, commissioners.

So staff would like to note a few key updates which have been incorporated into the TDM policy framework based on feedback we've received since last June's study session with council.

Proposed changes include exemptions for patron-driven uses less than 100,000 square feet, implementation of housing element action items, exemptions from site-specific trip caps for residential and patron-driven uses, including requirements to provide traffic counts and travel surveys, updates to enforcement provisions, and optional TMA membership.

Oh, okay.

Categorized as non-residential, these project types typically generate trips that are primarily by patrons or customers rather than employees.

Examples of such projects would include child care centers, restaurants, entertainment, medical retail, including general merchandise and grocery, as well as other personal services.

This exemption was incorporated into the framework, recognizing the value of such uses that are neighborhood serving.

They also support economic vitality by attracting and retaining high-quality retail and other service-oriented mixed uses.

The next update relates to the city's housing element program, which went into effect in 2023.

Provisions of the housing element require the city to adopt a TDM ordinance as well as study the costs of TDM requirements on residential developments and to identify lower cost options for developers.

To support this effort, the ordinance will allow residential parking reductions and exemptions from parking requirements for projects that enhance features of a TDM plan, which would achieve a higher level of trip reduction than the minimum requirement.

To satisfy the enhanced TDM criteria, a residential project must either exceed its ADT reduction target by at least 5% or adopt one additional core strategy and two additional auxiliary strategies over the minimum required number.

The enhanced TDM criteria presented are really intended to incentivize higher levels of trip reduction and reduce parking demand while increasing mobility options for residential projects, ultimately with the goal of supporting the city's broader goals related to expanding delivery of affordable housing.

The next update to the framework includes exemptions from monitoring and reporting requirements for residential and patron-driven uses.

Specifically, all residential and patron-driven uses will be exempted from meeting site-specific trip caps and associated ADT reduction targets.

The exemption also extends to the requirements to provide travel surveys and conduct traffic counts.

The noted exemptions here reflect existing conditions and local and state regulations.

Combined, these seek to reduce financial costs and administrative burdens related to delivering more affordable housing and neighborhood serving uses.

However, still required of these projects will be the requirements to adopt and implement a TDM plan and provide ongoing annual TDM reporting in accordance with project size.

Moving ahead, uh, the proposed ordinance seeks to align the enforcement provisions under code enforcement violations and administrative penalties of the city code.

This approach is consistent with neighboring jurisdictions which codify violations of TDM noncompliance under municipal code sections in accordance with administrative citations.

Examples of noncompliance might include failure of a project to submit annual TDM monitoring reports or maintain ongoing approved strategies of a TDM plan following occupancy.

Additionally, updated enforcement provisions will consistently apply to all projects subject to the ordinance rather than by specific project conditions of approval.

For the next framework update, the proposed ordinance will not require projects of any size to join the TMA.

Membership in the TMA will be optional and included in the TDM toolkit, uh particularly to incentivize new projects to join as a way to satisfy their TDM requirements and trip reduction goals.

While TMA membership will not be required, staff with the TMA will explore the process of establishing a property-based assessment district or PBID following adoption of the ordinance.

Similar to other jurisdictions, such as City of Emreevo, the goal of establishing the PBID will be to provide a long-term scalable approach to funding TMA provided services, including the NBGO shuttle.

Most notably, a PBID would support growing membership in the TMA over time by clearly defining its governance structure and assessment of membership fees.

Currently, staff is working with the project team to develop a cost estimation and implementation planning study as part of this work.

This study will evaluate the long range of city, the long range, sorry, will evaluate the range of city staff time and administrative resources required to administer the ordinance, including TDM plan review and ongoing monitoring and reporting activities.

The findings of this report will inform the basis of annual TDM of an annual TDM fee, which would be intended to recover a portion of the city's ongoing costs associated with implementing the ordinance.

Following completion of this fee study, staff will draft a resolution for the city council to review and adopt.

Additionally, the TDM program standards will be a key guiding document to implement the citywide TDM program.

This document will be an appendix to the MTA handbook, which may be updated periodically to reflect changes in travel patterns, technological innovation, and TDM best practices.

And as we move on to discuss next steps, I'll pass it back to Alison Boyer, Assistant Public Works Director.

Thanks.

Following the EPC review, the proposed ordinance and the EPC comments will be forwarded to the City Transportation Commission for consideration on May 5th.

Subsequently, the ordinance will go before council at a public hearing prior to the end of this fiscal year.

Once adopted, implementation steps will include development and refinement of the TDM program standards in the TDM toolkit, updating the precise plans and city codes to implement housing element action items and ordinance provisions, present annual TDM fee resolution to council for review and adoption.

Explore feasibility of establishing a property-based assessment or PBID district citywide, integration with the city's permitting and entitlement process, establishment of ongoing monitoring and reporting systems, including identifying technology solution providers, and coordination with stakeholders and regional partners.

And again, staff is here for asking that the environmental planning commission review and provide comments on the draft citywide transportation demand management TDM ordinance and draft TDM program standards.

All right.

Thank you very much.

For this item.

So if anyone in attendance would like to provide comments on this item, please fill out the yellow speaker card and provide it to the APC clerk.

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

Phone users can mute and unmute themselves.

Excuse me.

Any speakers with yellow cards or on Zoom?

Um there are no speakers on this item.

Okay, we'll proceed to APC questions and discussion.

So anyone like okay, we got Commissioner uh Victor Donahue on on the first.

So the TDM ordinance seeks to reduce single.

It says single single okay, single occupancy vehicle trips.

Uh but the ordinance defines a single occupancy vehicle as a motor vehicle occupied by only the driver during a commuter trip.

But that might have worked 25 years ago, but nowadays there are single occupancy vehicles that don't have a driver at all.

So and I think that the intention would be that a Waymo would count as a single occupancy vehicle.

Is that is that correct?

Thanks for the question, Commissioner.

Yes.

Um I think it's a question of terminology that doesn't isn't reflective of uh Waymo's or autonomous vehicles, but it does extend to those as a trip is in a trip itself.

So the ordinance seeks to increase um high occupancy uh vehicle trips.

So maximizing each trip with the number of occupants beyond just one or zero no occupant vehicles.

Um it does uh make sense of that.

Right, yeah, no occupant vehicles too.

I didn't even think about that.

Um which obviously is this kind of the same thing.

So I I suggest somehow, or is there a way to define single occupancy vehicle to be a vehicle that contains fewer than two people, something like that?

We can look at adjusting the definition of the ordinance, yeah.

Yeah, because right, because yeah, as you said, even zero.

Okay.

Um the other thing is somewhere you said that um where did it go?

Basically, uh uh a new project or a modification um would would trigger this.

I don't know where that went.

But um if there's a modification to a building or something like that, what counts as a modification to a building?

Like if somebody, you know, that we have this facade improvement program that just uh got renewed or approved.

Um, you know, if somebody just puts a new sign up, is that a modification?

Does it mean like increasing the square footage only or like what counts?

Thanks for the question.

Um modification is in this context proportional to the extent that it would generate 200 net new average daily trips, so that it would warrant additional or subsequent transportation analysis.

Um, but would um mitigate against potential you know marginal tenant improvements.

Okay, so so if yeah, if there's an increase to the square footage that would be substantial, maybe yes, it's it's not the um aesthetic changes to a building, it's something that is either changing a use or changing the square footage.

Okay, the modification in the transportation world.

Okay, I see.

Yeah, I mean I'm sure that a business would put a new sign up and would hope that they would get 200 new customers a day or something like that.

But but uh yeah, I see that wouldn't wouldn't trigger it.

Okay.

Uh those are my questions.

Commissioner Femme.

I had a few questions.

Um the first one has to do with the administrative penalties and enforcement actions.

Umcompliance was referenced to two different um sections of the code, 1.7 and 1.17.

And I hadn't had a chance to look those up.

Could you just in general describe the nature of penalties and enforcement and describe whether these activities had happened in the past and to what extent?

To date, we have not enforced any penal or collected any penalties on any of our TDM ordinances in place.

Um that being said, the we are tying it to the administrative code um rather than new trips generated, which I think is what you guys saw last time, just with all of the changes that have come in current A B world, which I'm sure you guys are very familiar with.

Um it has changed what we can and can't how easy it is to enforce some of these things.

So um and who has the authority.

So what we're looking at is using the administrative code.

Um we are enforcing them differently between residential and non-residential.

So the residential side is based on implementation of the strategies, whereas not the non-residential has it based on um success of hitting their target.

I see.

Um thanks for that context.

In general, have you seen good compliance, even though administrative penalties have not been you know used in the past?

Thanks for the question.

So I think compliance ranges between 40 to 50 percent.

And prior to me assuming this position this position, there largely hasn't been any monitoring to that effect.

Um I think right now enforcement lies in specific conditions of approval, which have been inconsistent project by project, and so it's been hard to enforce these TDM requirements as such without having a clear um uh letter and you know, black letter that you can point to in the code that can be applied consistently.

And so this is standard across other jurisdictions that kind of house um non-compliance with TDM requirements in the city code and gives us uh discretion in the sense that we can be more proportional with I think the level of non-compliance because as of right now, it's a fairly stick approach.

So projects that exceed their peak hour trip targets could potentially be levied a 100,000 fine, and each subsequent percent after be above their their trip target would be 50,000.

So you can tell kind of how this escalates quickly, and to Alison's point, this is kind of why we haven't used uh you know our enforcement process to state and want to make it uh much more transparent and um consistent.

I see.

Thanks for that context.

Um I also imagine that going through the process of enforcement would be very um impactful on staff resources, which is why I think I was happy to see slide 20, which showed that you're doing a fee study to try to recover costs for enforcement and monitoring.

Um so I just wanted clarification that that those annual TDM fees would be different than administrative penalties and meant to cover cost and would be applied equally whether someone was in compliance or not.

Right, thanks for the question.

So, right, there's gonna be an administrative fee assessment essentially that captures staff's time for um you know the entitlement phase of kind of working with applicants to develop their TDM plan and then to stand-up programs post-occupancy for the monitoring and enforcement side.

And then we're going to yeah, continue to work with the city attorney's office um at their advising consent to to kind of schedule the the penalty schedule for non-compliance as part of the fee study.

Okay, okay.

So the fee study will cover like annual fees but also the fines.

Okay.

Um, so my next question is related to the patron-driven uses.

Um, and you've listed in the slide and in the staff report examples.

Um what or who would be the ultimate um decision maker whether uh certain uses would qualify as exceptions under this definition.

Thanks for this question.

So the need to call out patron-driven uses specifically was to identify the nature and characteristics of travel and demand.

Um, so a lot of our precise plans set TDM requirements uh that target specifically employment or employer generated trips.

And so um this exemption um kind of adds a little bit context sensitivity around, you know, not targeting specifically all trips, but um exempting patron-driven uses.

Um I think to use an example of the knobhill um grocery store of about 62,000 square feet.

I think um the city wants to support these dynamic uses and um would kind of hesitate placing onerous requirements on these kinds of developments when the mark of success for these projects would be trip generation of uh you know characteristic of uh customer uses rather than employer uses.

And so it kind of aligns with um the Bay Air Bay Area Air Quality Management's regulations where they set required commuter benefits uh for employers that have 50 or more employees, and so that's typically in line with you know our our threshold for 100,000 K uses and typically what you would see for the number of employees for of that size and nature.

So we just wanted to create that use, and we've worked really closely with planning to identify the types of uses that where the chip generation would be um customer or patron driven in nature.

Okay.

Um, last question has to do with um, I think it's page 11 talking about um Prop 218, I believe, although it says Prop 18.

Um I wanted to understand more about the property-based improvement district and how um assessing of the membership fees in that approach would be a compliant and how it would be different from the existing practice.

Okay, so uh I'm not a legal scholar on Prop 118, so I might need to phone a senior attorney, uh, city attorney, but I will speak to kind of the complex um or context that kind of precipitated that discussion.

So the current practice is uh the TMA is a nonprofit organization that's composed of employers, developers, property owners across the city, and collectively they pull resources to solve transportation uh problems.

So the way that the fees are currently assessed, uh the TMA board adopts them on an annual basis, and it takes to account um new members who might be joining based on our developer pipeline.

And so it changes on uh in annual basis based on who the existing board is and incoming members, but it's also based on uh the services that the TMA provides, specifically the NVIGO shuttle.

So if a project is about a half mile distance from a stop that they are required to pay into a shuttle fee.

And so I think the issues raised um from a legal perspective is that potentially uh the TMA could run into an unlegal franchise where there isn't a a kind of a transparency issue in how these fees are set for for members, and so a PBID would more clarity on how those fees are established and how new members are assessed.

So I'll and I think we have our city attorney Matesh with a comment on this.

I don't know if we can promote him.

He's allowed to speak, he doesn't want to be promoted.

Oh, okay.

Go for it.

Uh thank you, Alison.

Um, and uh good evening, Commissioner Senior assistant city attorney Matesh Bakta.

Just to address the commissioner's question regarding both the TMA and a property-based improvement district.

This is a broad brush overview of how state law functions, but essentially the combination of props 218 and 26 requires any kind of property-based assessment that funds a particular benefit, such as in this instance a transportation program or shuttle to be levied in proportion to the benefit received by a particular parcel.

Therefore, most other jurisdictions that operate a shuttle program, such as the Mountain View Community Shuttle, tend to over time transition towards a property-based assessment district that levies according to the benefit received by each individual parcel within the operational zone of the proposed shuttle.

So for Mountain View, this would mean that a proposed shuttle route would be overlaid with the parcels that are served by the shuttle, and they would pay a property-based levy in proportion to the amount of service that they receive.

This would also take into account the types of property, the level of service frequency, and so on.

And this is in compliance with propositions 26 and 218.

Uh, the city of Emeryville, as um Ben mentioned, is a good example of how this can uh work very well for a community shuttle.

And under a separate provision of state law, the city does not have legal authority to compel property developers to pay property taxes to a third-party organization.

Therefore, the TMA cannot be funded by a permanent ordinance, even if individual properties have agreed to pay the TMA as part of their development agreement.

That is a contractual relationship as opposed to an ordinance that compels payment to a third party.

The third party compelled payment would be an example of an illegal franchise arrangement.

I see.

Thanks for that context.

Um I did have a follow-up question though.

Um would that mean that if a P bid was enacted, it could be the case that many factors for individual properties would be considered in calculating the membership fees, such as proximity to the route or size of the parcel, etc.

Am I understanding that is generally correct?

Um before an assessment district can be formed, an engineer must calculate the actual proportionate benefit received by a parcel, and that includes depending on the type of service being provided, but for a shuttle, it would probably include things like is the parcel a single family home, or is it a high-rise building?

Is it commercial?

Is it retail?

Is it residential and so on?

What is the expected number of passengers per parcel and so on?

All of these factors would be taken into account, and then it would be fed into a formula to determine the fair ratio of compensation.

I see.

And and how does that differ to how fees are assessed now to members?

Um currently.

Okay.

I I think that's all my questions.

Thanks.

All right.

Commissioner Cranston.

A few questions.

Um I don't have a frame of reference.

A project that is 200 average daily trips, and it's residential.

On average, how many units would that be?

I mean, I'm a single family unit, and there's one of me, and I have maybe less than two to a day.

So is it 100 units?

What does it mean?

So it's not an exact science and IO based on the travel modeling that was provided by our consultants, which are on their call and can provide additional support, but averages to about 30 between 30, um 30 to 40 units.

All right.

Um second question.

Is any cost analysis of these core and auxiliary strategies been done?

Thanks so much, Jenny.

Yes.

Um, as part of uh putting together the TDM toolkit, um, there's been a study put together that looks at um the cost of locations for um for implementing these strategies, and it's tiered based on um low, medium, and high.

And so the low would be anything up to $5,000, and the medium, I believe, is um five to 25,000.

I don't know, I might need to get um the consultant to speak to their analysis, their cost analysis.

So we have Julia Ween and Natalie McCarville on the call.

Yeah, I'll just add quickly that it is part of your attachment three to the staff report, has the transportation demand toolkit, and in it it gives you all of those core and auxiliary and the associated cost and who can apply them, residential, non-residential, and so that's all in the toolkit as these developers come in.

Again, our goal is to make this easy and very streamlined so they know what they're they're getting when they come into the counter.

Okay.

Um for planning staff under density bonus.

Can anybody just waive participation period from the TDM?

Can you repeat the question one more time?

If someone's using the density bonus, can they choose as one of their and I can never get them straight?

The one that basically says I'm not gonna do it.

Um basically say I'm not gonna do the TDM, period.

End of story.

Commissioner, I could respond.

This Selena Chen on behalf of the city attorney's office.

Um if I don't believe it would be appropriate for a developer to request a waiver of TDM measures, because um to request a waiver it would have to physically preclude development at the proposed density.

But it is possible for a developer to request um waiver of the developments, the TDM measures as a concession or an incentive under density bonus law.

So if they qualify for incentives or concessions and they can demonstrate that there are identifiable and actual costs that impact the development of affordable housing, then that is an appropriate uh standard that can be reduced or waived under density bonus law.

So if we've identified the costs, why wouldn't they be able to say I can identify the costs?

Um if I understand your question correctly, the developer just needs to assert that the development standard has an identifiable and actual cost.

So for example, providing um transit passes or you know, whatever measures that have costs, if those if there's an a statement from the developer that the costs impact the affordable housing, then it is an appropriate use of the concession or incentive.

Okay.

Um the I'm and VMT is mentioned only in a kind of in passing, and I don't know whether somebody in staff can help me with this.

One of the reasons that in my mind that that one of the biggest arguments for allowing more density locally was to reduce VMT.

Somebody's not driving all the way from Gilray to come here, okay.

But that there was evidence that an actual the um individual trips, these ones that we're trying to get rid of, in fact increase when people live closer to their work.

So the that there's a reverse correlation between distance and the amount of time they're driving by themselves.

If you're local, you're more likely to drive to work than if you if you driving off from Gilray, you're more likely to take the shuttle bus.

So it my recollection over time was that they're actually kind of fighting each other.

They're not going in the opposite direction.

That if we want to bring more residential into the city, we risk in fact increasing the single occupancy trips.

Am I not remembering prior discussions correctly?

I I it was very it was I I came away thinking, okay, the closer they are, if I live less than a mile away, I'm more likely to drive the car because it's quick than if I'm driving 20 miles from Gilray.

So I'm what I'm struggling with, what I'm trying to understand is we're talking about making the penalty higher when we have a bigger development.

It's reducing the EMT, but we are making it harder for them to actually they're more likely to come back in these VMT, you know, these these density bonus waivers because we're setting these thresholds so high.

I'm struggling with the they appear to be competing objectives to me.

We want more density locally, therefore people are more like the local people are gonna drive, but they're not gonna drive as far, but we're making it very expensive for them to build those high density units because we're putting all these additional requirements that are outlined in these costs.

Am I wrong in the recollection that single occupancy trips in fact increase when people live closer to their jobs?

I don't recollect that we have provided such a study or a conclusion in any of our recent research or reports.

Um I've been around for eight years, so it may not be recent.

No, I'm looking at um planning manager Eric Anderson, and we both have been here for at least over 10 years, and we haven't heard that yet.

So I just want to twease out a few things that you've raised.

So I think increased residential in and of itself is a TDM strategy.

So that, you know, with increased residential, we're gonna see less VMT generated.

I think the goal of requiring TDM strategies implemented for residentials that even if you might see an increase in average daily trips proportional to their project size, is that you're also providing them alternatives for them to make those short trips.

So whether you're providing the end of trip facilities for bicyclists that would incentivize them to switch modes for other types of trips, whether that's not just employer, uh not just to work, but to daycare to um you know, other types of recreational activities.

And so, and then aside from that, I think there's studies that show when you increase density, particularly you can create create the environment that transit use is actually much more viable because you have the demand that's there to support service and increasing service, um which you know, we've seen from our community shuttle.

So ultimately, even though with residential you're gonna see an increase in net new average daily trips, it's about providing them with the array of multimodal strategies for them to shift modes and make it easy for them to take up transit to bike to walk rather than kind of incentivizing increasing um demand for more parking or or more drive-alone trips, things like that.

So it's all about it's ultimately about choices, um, a matter of design and programmatic measures.

I don't know if that speaks to your question.

Takes a second for the microphone to turn on.

It uh I stand what you're saying.

I guess I'm I'd have to go back back through all of my history to find this discussion around that single single occupancy vehicle trips are actually more likely when people are close, but no, I'll defer that for the experts.

Hi, good evening.

I'm Jennifer Ng.

I'm the public works director, and I thought I would try to take a slice at your question in in a slightly different way.

Um have been around for a little while.

I remember when it was level of service versus VMT.

So kind of to tease apart your question.

Um I think the first thing I heard is you know, by adding residential, is that going to, you know, increase the number of trips by bringing them into our city?

Really, if you think about to when I started my career um several decades ago, um, there were huge employment centers, and those were certain parts of town, and there were residential areas, and those were certain parts of town, and they were they were segregated, right?

They weren't intermixed.

Nowadays, what we're trying to do is we're trying to bring those two uses together so that residential and where you want to go, whether it's an employment center or whether it's your neighborhood conveniences, are all within a quick distance, right?

All of that is sort of interspersed, and by doing that, you have the ability to use other modes of travel.

You can easily ride your bike, you could take a scooter, you could you could walk, right?

In some places in some instances.

Um, you could adopt the European model of going and walking to the grocery store every day and picking up your fresh baguette so that you have fresh bread every day, right?

That's basically the model that we are trying to get to now.

When we switched from level of service to VMT, level of service was really about how we are looking at the functionality of intersections at any one particular intersection location.

VMT is a totally different strategy that looks at how we're looking at um the transportation impacts across a region.

So as the name implies, vehicle miles traveled, it's really more about you know where you're going and how you're getting there rather than how you're going to impact every single intersection along your route.

Um the TDM uh ordinance that we're looking at doing now really looks to um kind of push people outside of the comfort zone of being car reliant and provide other alternatives for how to get around and go um to the places you need to go.

So whether it's a transit pass, um, whether you own a bike and your apartment complex, you know, has a workout room in it and um an adjacent, maybe not an apartment complex, maybe your place of work, um, has uh a workout room in it and um a bathroom where you can shower off, you know, and encourage the use of you to use your bike.

Those are the kinds of um things that are going to be in the TDM toolbox that would um be incentives for those to not be um single occupancy vehicle or car reliant um in just going about their day-to-day lives.

And sorry, just to add one more thing here.

Um Alison Bort.

Assistant public works director.

Um, I just the TDM is not being done by itself.

The city is looking at other things to make this easier.

You know, we have sorry, I have to do my own plug for for the transportation side here, but we have our active transportation um plan, which will be going to BPAC and council, and that looks at our white our walking, rolling and path, and how we can connect to the city and where the gaps are and what projects we can implement where we are going after grants to get complete streets, which includes bike path, uh I'm sorry, bike and pedestrian paths as we look to reconstruct some of our roads, improving the pavement.

So it it there is a holistic city approach to some of this, and this is just one component to it.

And if you make those things more desirable, more people are likely to choose that.

Um, you know, you see the scooters.

I don't want to say electric bikes because I know that's a pain point, but though you know, there are other options to get around the city and trying to make those easier for those around.

All right, uh Commissioner Subraman.

Thank you, Chair.

I have a few questions.

Um starting with the reduction targets that were assigned to standard as well as TOD projects under the different sort of classifications.

Um I heard the um reference to looking at pure cities and other projects that it implemented that.

But more specifically, could you talk about uh the reduction from the standpoint of studies that have been undertaken on how successful such implementations were because there are the some of the reductions are pretty steep when you look at small projects or medium projects, and you're talking about a 20 or 30 or 40 percent reduction, that's a pretty steep requirement.

Yeah, so those are in line with some of the other TDMs we have for current and precise you know um plans.

But the idea is that there are multiple core and then the auxiliary strategies that help when you put those all together, that's how you get those percentages.

So it's not the idea is not you're not doing one thing, right?

There's multiple things that get that get you there as far as the studies and the um other jurisdictions that were.

Do you want to talk to that?

Right.

So just to give you an example of how we apply that locally for the North Bay Shore Master Plan, the city had required a 50% um single occupancy our SOV uh reduction target.

And so that was really kind of a model that we looked to build off of and how we could implement implement that citywide um to refer back to how we'd set those.

We referred to the greenhouse gas emissions reduction program, and that was adopted in 2012, and that study looked at what the city needed to do to achieve um compliance with state regulations for carbon neutrality.

So what it did is it looked at growth areas across the city at Eastwissman, uh downtown, North Bay Shore, and based on that horizon, I think it's a 30-year outlook.

They based on they kind of required, I think, an 8% trip reduction target in East Swissman, um, etc.

So we realized that study had been completed in uh quite a while.

And so we looked to neighboring jurisdictions and neighbor Redwood City had kind of required um a 50% SOV or non-SOV rate uh for new development.

Um the San Mateo County uh TDM program requires a similar breakdown of thresholds uh for similar-sized projects between 30 and 50 percent.

And so these TDM programs are fairly novel in their approach, but they're fairly consistent with their climate plans to be uh to achieve the targets of carbon neutrality based on kind of their own local uh specific targets.

So in kind of triangulating where we should land, we kind of looked at the ambitions of of San Jose, Redwood City, of San Mateo County that kind of use climate targets as the basis for the targets, but also looked at our own targets locally of what we required at a precise plan to kind of find a middle ground.

We found that it could potentially be shaky ground if we were based the targets specifically in reduce and achieving our our climate targets because we needed a solid basis beyond just our climate targets and base that more so on transportation analysis and proportional impact based on uh project size and and land use and and base those rates on ITE or the Institute of Transportation Engineers standards, um which kind of looks across industry and what uh land use are what transportation characteristics and travel patterns you see kind of across various land uses and project sizes.

So it was kind of uh that kind of analysis, and then if our consultants on the call have anything to add on kind of the um the studies and travel demand modeling, um anything that I might have missed, I'll uh elevate our consultants if you have any follow-up questions to that.

So to refer back to a clarification you had made to Commissioner Pham's question around the same topic, you stated that compliance on existing projects is about 50 percent, which I think kind of goes to prove that the thresholds might be quite high to begin with.

I don't know if the same thresholds are being applied, but I also question if there needs to be a distinction between commercial and residential projects, specifically in looking at some of the core and auxiliary strategies that are being proposed.

There's clearly a number of strategies in both those columns that only really apply to commercial and can't really be extended to a residential project.

And so it further sort of creates a subset of strategies that really can apply to residential and with thresholds that feel very high to achieve, and if that's what you're observing in some of the projects, it feels counterproductive again to sort of set very high goals and then to be chasing our tails on compliance and penalties.

Thanks, Commissioner, for the question.

Um we set the ambition of the targets really based on transportation's contributions to greenhouse gas emissions.

We recognize that a majority up to 60% of carbon emissions are attributed to transportation, and these are often the stickiest emissions to mitigate.

And so, in and recognizing that we do set um those targets, but also based on what we require locally, again in our precise plans in North Bay Shore.

So we do provide a degree of flexibility in our toolkit for developers to propose their own user strategies and also modify TDM plans on an annual basis based on what's working.

And so the TDM toolkit itself is not a fixed toolkit.

It will change and adapt based on the data that we collect on programs that we require this of.

Um I just want to add the enforcement for residential is a little different.

Remember, it is not based on trip reduction, it is based on have they implemented what they said they were going to implement.

So if they if the residents don't, if the residential developers don't hit those reduction targets, it's more of a conversation of making sure they've implemented all the things, all of the strategies they told us they were going to.

That's the enforcement piece for residential.

It's the um non-residential to commercial um that have the trip reduction target enforcement piece to it.

So then going back to the point about offering flexibility within the toolkit, I see that the toolkit offers both a calculation of the associated reduction along with an estimated cost to the measure.

So if it is a user proposed reduction approach, how would you calculate the resultant reduction that comes with that?

I think we'd look at we'd ask them first if they've been implemented in other places and to look for that.

You know, um, we're not the only city with a TDM ordnance, so I'm sure there's lots of other cases out there that we can look towards.

Um, but we would be asking the applicant to to prove that, and then we would also verify it on their annual reporting that that's what that it is truly doing what they intended it to do.

And then going back to the point about having residential projects adopt different measures from the toolkit or beyond.

I do feel some of the strategies proposed there are not really enforceable within the residential setting.

Um for instance, some of like the carpooling measures, the transit subsidies, providing the free door-to-door transit.

So then I want to talk about maybe looking at measures that do have measurable impact on reducing trips generated from housing projects.

And that goes to the two things that you say can't be combined to go after the enhanced compliance, which is the unbundled parking as well as uh limited parking supply.

And I think in many instances, particularly when you look at TOD projects that are close to TODs, um transit, and you look at dense um urban info type of projects.

It seems like unbundling parking as well as limiting parking is a prompt to get residents to use alternate modes of transport.

So, what is the rationale behind using two of these like really good carrots and not including them in achieving the enhanced compliance?

Thanks for the question, Commissioner.

So I just want to address kind of the efficacy of the specific core strategies that you called out at the top of your question, which is you know, kind of questioning the effectiveness of transit subsidies or car share.

So these are in practice right now for existing projects, and we see them working.

Um I think believe the Sevens projects at Middlefield and Shoreline, we worked with them to implement uh required transit subsidy, which is to the benefit of all new residents now that they can utilize.

And in combination, we kind of set uh a threshold of that subsidy that is viable for that specific project, and that works in tandem with free door-to-door transit that's provided by the TMA.

So that's something that they've leveraged both uh a regional transit service provider and VTA, but also local one in the TMA, uh, which has stops on the frontage.

Um we write size TDM requirements based on project needs.

It's not a one size fits all, and it's very again, the toolkit is not we wanted to move away from being overly prescriptive in our TDM requirements, which I think we've gotten into that problem with existing projects.

So we want to be more flexible.

Um in implementing the housing housing element action items and determining what the criteria would be for enhancement.

We were very cognizant of uh or aware of the fact that potentially projects might want to double count to the extent that they would benefit from strategies they would have done anyways, and that could be more successful had they had supplemented reduced parking with other strategies.

So with their reduced parking, there's gonna be a need for non-drive-alone modes.

So we've seen transit subsidies work really well hand in hand with reduced parking, unbundled parking, or reduced parking minimums.

Um that's kind of what the basis of the rationale was, but I'll defer to our our colleagues in planning to kind of talk through a little bit more of the considerations for that criteria.

Thank you very much, Eric Anderson, planning manager still.

Um first want to acknowledge that the um the minimum parking requirements don't apply within our transit-oriented precise plans like downtown El Camino Real, uh East Wisman.

Uh, they also are uh don't apply in general within a half mile of major transit, like um uh the downtown transit center.

Uh so this incentive really applies in those areas that have limited transit access.

Um there are a couple of reasons to uh uh continue to have minimum parking standards in these areas.

One reason you might want to consider continuing to have minimum parking standards is to um kind of avoid bad actor developers who may want to uh build a less expensive development and force people to park on the street, the kind of um classic um tragedy of the commons scenario where everybody's putting their costs on the public space.

Uh another reason might be to just ensure that whoever is moving into those spaces has access to the basic transportation needs of having a car.

You know, not every neighborhood can live uh without a car.

Um so there are reasons to continue to require minimum parking in these areas.

Uh now that's not to say that there are also policy reasons to eliminate minimum parking requirements, but I'll get to that in a second.

Um given the uh policy reason to continue to require minimum parking, the rationale for this um enhanced TDM is to say, are you providing enough TDM to your residents that they can reasonably live without a car in these areas that aren't well served by other modes?

Um and so to uh uh say the kind of circular argument of I'm not providing parking, and therefore I shouldn't have to require parking, kind of sidesteps that argument for the enhanced TDM.

Um now, if uh as I'm I'm sure um many people believe that reduced parking is a good unto itself to encourage people to to not drive, uh that is a strong rationale to eliminate parking standards, and uh we continue to do so.

Uh we have done so in a number of areas, and cities like San Jose have done it citywide.

Um and if that's your perspective, then uh I would encourage you to do that through the zoning code rather than through uh TDM and you know enhanced TDM measures.

Thank you.

Um more questions for uh staff here.

So um going back to the TMA membership.

I understand that it's not um it's an optional and it's not enforced.

But is so to the extent that developers enrolled within the TMA, it sort of helps the overall membership and it helps the service of the shuttle, right?

So why is that not targeted as a core strategy and instead as an auxiliary strategy?

Because it seems to have a pretty big impact in creating an alternate mode of transportation that can service parts of town that are not proximate to transit.

Thanks for the question, Commissioner.

So the idea of including team membership as an auxiliary strategy as opposed to uh core strategy was more so on the basis for the requirement because core strategies are required and to reduce potential um liabilities for the city of requiring that as a core strategy would open up um, I think further questions since we are moving in the direction of a PBID.

But we are working to incentivize team membership because there are a lot of benefits that come with it.

It's not just you know, the guaranteed last mile service, it's not embigo uh shuttle service, but it's also the support of even small to medium-sized projects of helping them put their TDM plan together to um to support them with monitoring and reporting over time that which these projects might not have the capacity to do that on them on their own.

And so the idea is to kind of sweeten the pot with TMA membership to make it very uh beneficial to them and um to make to foreground that when they're going through the entitlement process.

Um and so last question is does to in order to establish a PBID, does it have to go to ballot and get voted on?

That's correct.

Uh thanks, Commissioner.

So there is a question of process, which um we're working with the city attorney's office to kind of figure out next steps based on what City of Emeryville has has done.

So I think there's a number of uh pathways to getting it approved.

It might be city-led, it might be community-led, and there's different thresholds on different thresholds.

I might be able to help finish answering this question for you if you don't mind.

Commissioner, just to answer your question, there is more than one way to create a property-based assessment district for this purpose.

And the city will evaluate the best options and uh proceed according to what makes the most practical sense after the technical aspects have been worked out.

Okay, thank you.

I've been acknowledged by the chair to speak.

So just so you know.

I have just one basic simple question.

Um you look at the ordinance and you're trying to promote what you're incentivizing, whether it's residential or commercial developments.

I I understand why this is being brought up.

I don't, I think we I've been here since the inception to this.

We've been through so many questions like this throughout these sessions, and sometimes we get to the end point, and then there's even more questions from folks who are new to the team, and it's totally understandable.

Um, but for me, the the only one question I have, which is pretty simple is um based on what's happened with COVID and after that and where we're at with business as a whole, uh, and a lot of job losses.

I'm sure that you've also taken into account with commercial developments, um, all that.

So my question is would the percentages change knowing now that you also have remote work as an option, or has that not influenced the numbers on that side?

That's the only question I have.

Thanks, Commissioner, for the question.

Yes, I think it's a very valid question, it's very top of mind.

So if you look at North Bay Shore as uh an important case study, uh, what we saw was traffic volumes precipitously drop.

Um since we restarted monitoring in the within the district, we've seen traffic return to about um 80% of pre-COVID traffic volumes.

So I believe we've reached somewhat of a stasis, but we are seeing the SOV rate um around 60 to 70 percent, and that is nearly unprecedented since monitoring has begun, and that's typically because you have maybe free-flowing traffic and conditions that are kind of more permissible to people driving, and you're not seeing as much queuing into and out of the district.

And we've seen use of transit fall from about 30 percent to about 15%, so it's been halved.

And so what we're really trying to do with the team ordinance within the district citywide is really kind of use this transition period to get back to shift people to using more sustainable modes of transportation, and to the extent that the toolkit provides flexibility and accounts for um remote work, certainly applicants and developers can leverage that as a strategy.

I think it's about five to ten percent level of effectiveness of each of ADT reduction for projects that do implement that um as part of their strategy.

So it's it's one of many, and it's been also noted by council, but I'll let Allison.

Yeah, so as Ben mentioned, there is a strategy for work from home, so there that is accounted for.

But there is also, if you look in the ordinance under the enforcement, there is um that the fees might be waived if if conditions changed.

So there is that, if there's vacancies or certain things, there is a caveat for those situations.

Great.

And as a follow-up, I just wanted to bring that up because again, I'm I'm really into transparency and asking these questions that are just to the point so that we can get clarity and understanding on how this looks like as a whole, all the hypotheticals because that this end stage of the situation, we want to get moving as fast as we can and get this done.

And with your help, we're getting there.

So thank you.

Can I sorry, just add one thing here?

Both the toolkit and the standards are meant to be evergreen, and we can change them.

The ordinance is what is you know, law.

Um so as conditions change, we we can continually update the toolbox if we see things are having a better impact, or or they're not working the way we thought they would.

There are all things that can change as we work through this.

Wonderful.

So that's an added bonus.

In other words, it's a living document that's not set in stone, open to interpretation and flexibility, amendment suggestions, all that.

Correct.

And that's why we have these monitoring periods for the the times we prescribe there.

It helps us create the history so we can keep this moving in the right direction.

Again, thank you very much.

All right, and um just confirming with stuff, this is a study session, right?

So we're not gonna there's no vote or anything.

So we don't have to necessarily disagree.

Um, we can only aggregate feedback and agreement with that.

Yeah, this is a new business item, more like study session, so there will not be a formal.

Perfect.

So then um because all my questions have been asked.

I think one thing we can probably do is to extend suits the commission as well.

Um, as you're kind of like giving your commentary, um, you know, like feel free, obviously discourse as you like, um, to the extent there are things that you'd like to change, modify, um, see different, etc.

Feel free to comment on those, and we'll be like trying to aggregate um commissioner uh sentiment on those discrete uh kind of like thoughts.

Um, and then you know, if we do a successive round, um if any commissioner comments uh from your colleagues kind of pique your interest or feel like you also support or didn't kind of think of that, then you know we have an opportunity to again kind of like just aggregate um positive sentiment toward modification change, et cetera, but um by no means in any way.

Um is this commentary meant to um uh kind of like hamper any commentary you might wish to give?

Just a thought in terms of uh how we proceed here.

So um, yeah, anyone would like to start with their commentary, thoughts, objections, shoes on tables.

Commissioner Gutierrez.

Yeah, so just to reiterate, I like the way the process is going.

It's taking some time to get there.

It's an imperfect process.

This is an imperfect life.

You're doing the best you can to just try and mitigate the circumstances that you have with traffic.

Well, ideally in a perfect world, we would like to be in the name of that movie, pleasant pleasantville or something, way back in the day.

Everything was perfect, right?

Oh my god.

Dude, I I work in the city.

I can't bike there.

Because my job's not here.

My what I do isn't here, it's over there.

But on the weekends, even though I live in an apartment complex on California, I'll pick up my bike, I'll ride over to the store, Trader Joe's, get my backpack, do my shopping.

Not everyone's gonna do that, right?

For whatever reason.

But it's nice to try and have these goals set up so that you can work with developers, whether it's residential or commercial, to get things going, to try and revitalize the way you look and define what a city is, a neighborhood, and what job work life balances may or may not look like within your own community, just to ease the burden of traffic.

So to be at this point at this stage, I really appreciate your time because it's taking effort to get to this spot.

And it's not easy to do.

You need a lot of patience, you need a lot of diligence, and you have to be resilient.

So you've listened to our opinions and to our commentary and to our questions all these years, and city councils chimed in with the power policy aspect to it, because we don't do that.

Um that's appreciated.

So I want to thank you for this, and I'll be um very supportive with where we go next with this project.

So thank you for your time.

Thank you, Commissioner Gutierrez.

Commissioner Superman.

Thank you, Chair.

Um I also would like to thank staff and all the efforts over a multi-year process.

Um I appreciate some of the comments and the feedback that you shared.

It gives a lot more nuance.

Um, as I understand this is a pretty nuanced approach to uh providing a TDM framework.

Um I uh wanted to just make a few points.

In the ordinance under um the applicability and where you outline the exempt projects.

I think the office under 10,000 square feet was left out because I noticed that it was mentioned earlier on uh probably in the staff report, but I don't think the ordinance had it, so just a little um cleanup there.

Um then also there's mention of an annual TDM fee, and the ordinance refers to details uh to the details of the administration and the standards, which I didn't see anything included there.

So if you can clarify where that's addressed and if it was left out.

So two type of cleanup items in the ordinance.

And outside of that, I I would like to sort of propose adding a couple more strategies for your uh consideration to include within the core or auxiliary strategies, particularly around sort of um incentivizing uh good actors whereby they reduce parking requirements and sort of tie into other transit subsidies and to allow that to be recognized within the core strategies.

And I don't know if it helps to have a tiered approach where you know it really sort of pushes the incentivization away from cars to other modes of transit, and to also recognize sort of physical strategies within buildings as as a strategy to make pedestrian connections easier to approach, um making sort of arrangements for uh with third-party bike providers, so sort of physical design um changes within projects and to sort of hold space within the auxiliary strategies or uh for that would be another suggestion.

Um and then the last one I think would also merit inclusion and it goes to what Commissioner Cranston had clarified earlier, which is this idea of incentivizing mixed use.

So if a project has mixed use within it, whereby it cuts down some trips, if there's particular you know, specific recognition for that as well.

So I think these are all strategies which might go well with residential projects which don't have some of the other strategies available to commercial projects.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Um Commissioner Cranson.

So I guess the thing that I'm and and I asked the question earlier about have you done cost analysis, and part of the reason that I said is I didn't believe what I saw in there and the relative cost when it applied to the scale of the project.

Your scale of medium cost for something being five to fifty thousand dollars on something that was potentially adding a thousand, you know, a thousand trips a day seems unrealistic to me.

And my we are seeing the reason I raise this on the on the zoning side and the and the density bonus, and it is concessions, not waivers.

Um you see a project with that number of that size, it's gonna be a density bonus project.

And I don't if it if we're talking about reducing park fees and all these other fees in order to try to address things to make them competitive.

I am very concerned that by using the scale where the the implementation has to be even more stringent, more severe, the bigger the project, it creates a situation where where we're even more and more likely to have the concession request being I'm not doing this at all.

Okay.

And that would be a problem in my mind.

So I that there is a I I like the idea of a TDM program.

I don't like the program to something this is this is not this is actually regressive.

It's actually increasing the cost to a developer on a large project on a residential side to the point where it's actually contrary to what we're trying to do and everything else in the zoning and in the and in the housing element.

And so I'm I don't know what the answer is, but it's this going from 20 to 30 to 40 to 50 percent to me says we're gonna we're not gonna get this at all on the projects where we probably need it the most, quite frankly.

If we've got a large number of people there, then we we want as many of these things as we possibly can.

And so it feels like there's a disconnect in my mind between the goal of making housing more affordable and getting people out there on the street.

And I just it doesn't I couldn't reconcile that as I look through this.

The relative cost that you're listed doesn't scale based on the size of the project.

So I think you're underestimating particularly the cost on larger projects.

So that's my in in general.

I like the toolkit idea, um you know, giving people flexibility on it, uh the idea that developers could change what they were using in the future.

I kind of like but I but we have another goal altogether in the city, which is adding housing, and it should not be something at the expense of getting transit at the same time.

So I think I'd ask that staff look at that and say, okay, how do you reconcile lowering costs for housing with increasing costs on this on this program?

That's my worry in the in what I read.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Consen.

Commissioner Femme.

I want to thank staff as this topic has been brought up several times over multiple years, so it shows all the work that staff has put in to bring this forth to us again.

Um I agree with a lot of what uh my fellow commissioners have said um with how you guys have structured this with the ordinance in the toolkit.

I like that the toolkit um gives a lot of options for developers to um pick and choose core and auxiliary strategies um that may work for them.

Um one of the things I'm concerned about is um kind of staff resources to implement and review TDM plans and ongoing um like compliance and enforcement activities, which is why I guess you guys are putting together the fee schedule.

So you know that's really important in my eyes to get the amounts right to match um you know the work that will be needed um in the future.

Um I think that's all I have.

Thank you, Commissioner Fan uh Vestra Dunhill.

Uh I have similar thoughts to other commissioners about this structuring with the having the targets in the ordinance and the the uh mechanisms or the strategies in the in the uh evergreen document.

Um thing that I just noticed is that on the if you have 999 ADT, then you have to have a 30% reduction, so that's about 300, so that's about six hundred and ninety-nine.

But if you have a thousand ADT you have to have a forty percent reduction, so that's six hundred.

So it like it doesn't it doesn't as you increase the ADT, you don't linearly increase the um uh the the target.

So uh you're kind of incentivized.

You end up the with these weird jumps, and it's not quite uh it doesn't seem quite fair.

So uh I'm not sure what to do about that, but I'm just pointing out that that uh a jump of of one additional ADT uh can cause you to have to be penalized where you have to reduce your ADT by an additional ninety-nine.

Um just when you're when you're in that kind of that edge case there.

Um other than that, uh yeah, generally I I think it's um it's uh a good direction and um yeah, thank you.

Commissioner Guterres.

Yeah, uh you know uh uh I was wondering about the the large scale developments myself, but when I look at what's happened the last few years, I haven't seen any come in with that type of size.

I thought we were promised some by Google.

But yeah, that didn't happen.

And and they've got 30 years of make up their mind, right?

So I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon.

So I would look at that more in depth and detail if that were happening now.

Because with AB 79 and you have those corridors that are questionable for development as well.

If I remember going back to what we've studied so far the last few years in terms of where we can build and where we could add in to have potential housing be made available.

Then won't too many sites that were huge or open space that will lend itself to that type of development, I think.

Not sure.

Good evening, Commissioners.

Christian Murdoch, community development director.

Um we're talking about 1,000 average daily trips, um, which is not 1,000 units.

So um much smaller projects, far fewer than a thousand units could generate a thousand average daily trips.

Um it is uh rare here to see projects of a thousand units or more, but we are processing one project at least that is proposing, I think one thousand nine hundred un units approximately on a very large existing developed commercial site that would redevelop into primarily residential use.

So they do exist, but they're they're rare uh in the mountain view context.

And having said that, I think now if we look at it from the commercial perspective, I I don't know that we've have that so far.

I'm hoping we will in the future, but then because some of these are also living documents.

I'm thinking that perhaps if you do see some correlation between nah I'm not gonna do that because of this, that then you would be able to adjust possibly the percentage penalty fee associated with what you've described so far, or is that not an option?

That's correct.

And then I'll just add that this is net new, so any redevelopment would take into account what trips have already been generated there previously.

So it's a thousand net new trips.

So you'd have to have a complete green site in Mountain View to get the well that helps for clarity sake, because that that raised when Commissioner Crassen brought up these points, oh wait a minute.

Hmm.

So thank you for your for your answers.

That helps out a lot.

Commissioner Cranson.

Yeah, I just when I asked a question earlier, and they said 200 trips was 30 units.

That's roughly six trips per unit.

Which says any proper any data development with a hundred and sixty-six units or more?

Would generate a thousand trips.

So it's not a thousand units, it's a hundred and sixty, a hundred and seventy unit development will fall into that high category.

If that is if I did my math right.

So that's and we've seen one, two, three.

Three that I can think of in just the last few months that are at that level.

So that's that's not gonna be unusual.

Commissioner Gutierrez, I I totally agree.

I don't think that would be unusual.

Um, but that's just the way it goes because there's all we've also seen developments where they've gone ahead with developing units for housing.

Yeah, they don't have enough parking spaces for them.

So that's part for the course.

It's another it's an uneven system.

It's so you do the best you can to mitigate.

Commissioner Donahue.

Okay.

I I have a question about the net new trips.

So if there's a commercial site that is being redeveloped into to housing, um, but the commercial site basically is empty and doesn't have any um current uh trips, it is it based on what it was generating when it was actually active or when it was approved as a commercial site, or is it like today when it's empty?

We would look at what its permitted use was.

So we would use the ITE again to determine based on square footage what number of trips it would have had.

Um it's basically what it what it would have been when it was when it was approved initially.

Right.

The idea is that this is trying not to put a more wear and tear on our infrastructure, think of it that way, right?

So the infrastructure was designed for that original use.

So it's the new that would add a new capital cost to the city if we were to do it.

Okay.

All right.

Um thank you.

So without putting uh words in anyone's mouths from what I'm hearing from Commissioner Subraman, I think there was like an exemption of I think office projects under 10k.

What was that like trips or square can you yeah?

So uh in the ordinance, I think under the exempt projects, the ordinance was missing mention of office projects under 10,000 square feet.

Okay.

And then the second place where the ordinance was missing or it's not the ordinance was missing it.

The ordinance refers to the details of administration of the TDM fee in the standards, which wasn't included in the standards.

All right.

So then we've got and that sounds like it's a cleanup request.

Okay.

And then there was also a call for additional incentives around the um core and auxiliary or just generally.

Um auxiliary for residential projects.

For ex for residential, and was that like a general kind of like call to like explore more, or is that like uh you have specific incentives in mind?

Both the call to explore more as well as to include incentives to recognize tiered lower parking um to recognize mixed use on site, which could hopefully reduce some trip generation.

Okay.

As well as to maybe do the other way, which is to uh penalize excess parking that's provided.

Okay.

And then um from Commissioner Cranston, I think he has a concern around more like concession proofing.

Uh the TDM ordinance.

Um Commissioner Pham likes the compliance piece.

I didn't hear any kind of was there like a request to that or further exploration to that that you were commenting on, or okay.

Um and then Commissioner Donahue has a concern around the the nonlinear scaling of the ADT, which I like things to make sense.

So I'm I'm inclined to agree with that.

Like in the sense of like, I don't know if staff has a problem with that or finds that to be problematic.

Um so then if I'm seeing about like four things here that are a little bit more around like specific calls.

Um I'm gonna say I'm in order again, well, three actually.

Um probable decreasing order of complexity.

Um it'd probably be Commissioner Donahue's around um the the scale.

Um can I just add quickly that that was what was approved by CTC and council were those threshold limits.

So I've been over like to stick to those for this first round of the ordinance.

Um we've been sprayed with the water.

Okay, that's but I I have your note, and we'll keep that as we continue to evaluate these projects and as as we get data points.

We'll we'll keep that on the radio.

Yeah, cool.

So then calling counsel.

Um then in probable order of decreasing complexity.

Um we've got a general call from Commissioner Cranson to please explore ways or a general concern to um take another crack at just making sure that the TDM isn't just like a concession magnet or waiver magnet, basically.

Um, and then also um you know, uh Commissioner Submanion's um call for additional incentives around the um the the strategies with um the tiered parking being a specific call out.

Um do you have other support for that?

Like I mean to staff like does going back and looking at the concession proofing, like what's your general like sense of that?

You know, we don't want to like recommend go do more work if you're like feeling it's ironclad as much as things can be.

That makes sense, but can we get like a sense from you guys?

I think there are a lot of possibilities.

What we have right now in our ordinances more about what we have learned from other jurisdictions or the ordinance which are already in place.

We have also seen um examples of development projects where somebody has asked for a concession to be subject to a lower TDM requirement rather than saying we're not gonna do anything at all based on whatever is their feasibility.

So I'm not sure.

Um I think there are further discussions going on here, uh, which might result in other um additional information, but that's what our experience is.

Okay.

Right.

I would add to that we in absence of an ordinance, we still have implemented TDM based on our precise plan requirements.

And for the state density bonus requirement, projects have requested a number of exemptions, as Diana mentioned from TDM.

Um, they have acted in good faith and had tried to meet the spirit of the requirement, although it might have impacted their viability.

So we've had found a middle ground to determine what is feasible for them and um have kind of modified uh the transit subsidy level or the certain kind of design requirements uh of the site um to kind of adapt it based on uh what was achievable for them while still maintaining uh some uh you know contents of a TDM plan.

Okay.

Um it sounds like there's a pretty intense golf conversation.

I'm super keen to wait for what has the jury ruled.

Thank you, Chair.

Um the the sidebar that was just occurring.

Um I'm very much uh recognize the concern about the um vulnerability of a city requirement to the use of a concession under state density bonus law.

It's something that we think about all the time as staff.

Um it's very difficult to make a requirement concession proof because most obligations come with costs, and the fundamental basis of applying a concession is a cost reduction for the provision of affordable housing.

So it's challenging to safeguard um a local requirement against use of a concession.

It's just the reality of state law such as it is.

Um what we were dialoguing about a moment ago is um something known as the congestion management program or CMP.

Um it's a state law requirement for um counties to administer um programs that reduce uh congestion on core roadways and intersections.

And so it's not an apples to apples comparison with the city's uh TDM ordinance that we're discussing.

Um many jurisdictions, but not all implement local uh ordinances that help to carry out congestion management program requirements under state law, and they can in many cases uh take the place of county level congestion management program requirements, but even in the instance of uh a project applying a concession to the city's TDM ordinance, um, those congestion management program requirements that are a part of state law are not in our opinion um subject to use of a concession.

So it's it's maybe uh cold comfort, but there's at least sort of a floor to what a larger project that affects the congestion management um network uh of key roadways and intersections, they will still need to achieve some measure of transportation demand management trip reduction to comply with that state law requirement.

Okay.

Um thank you.

Yep.

Commissioner Granson.

I I guess I the term making it concession proof is an overstatement of what I was asking for.

The fact that today they go through this process and they look at these things and they and there's a there's a discussion around it, I think is important that it stays there.

I would rather have I'd like to do this and it's a little bit less, then no, I don't want to do it at all.

And so what I'm asking is that you take a good hard look at what have they been asking for, when have they, when of those has occurred, when they've requested for it, had they been actually likely to follow through with it?

Are they the ones that are complying?

Or are they even if they say I'll do it and then they're walking away from it to make sure that as we evaluate it, we that we have some flexibility in the program to keep something in place.

I'm not looking at I don't expect it to be an all or nothing.

That's that's just the message is take a good look at where it's working, where it's not.

Others jurisdictions are probably seeing something like that where they seeing it.

And so just add that into your evaluation and if changes are needed, great.

If it's perfect, I'm just telling me that and I'll vote for it.

Okay.

Sounds like that's a depth and defense request, right?

Just assess, assess.

Um, so I mean, I support that.

Anyone else?

Yep.

Again, knowing nods here.

I think that sounds good to the commission.

And then with regard to the tiered parking and additional incentives, it sounds like um, yeah, what's the what's the assessment or the like I don't know, like not burden, but like the the status quo of that and the um kind of like um the effort uh at the elbow grease requirement around um commissioner submanions suggestion?

Um, it's about the tiered in incentive program.

Would you like to state one more time for the record?

Tiered parking program.

Can you uh clarify that?

Sure.

Um and again, this is in the spirit of this being a living and evolving document to have consideration of measures that allow residential projects to sort of um get their incentives through all these measures that are likely to have true impact.

So anything around parking reduction, that will obviously be uh you know tied in with lower trip generation.

Um so to the extent that there's kind of tiered reductions in parking to recognize that as maybe one or more auxiliary measures to count towards um you know being in compliance.

What's the stuff?

Commissioner, I just want to make sure I I'm understanding.

So uh is your is your suggestion to allow um tiered reductions in the required parking under zoning as various TDM measures are implemented, or to allow um tiered reductions in parking to yield some recognized TDM value that goes towards the TDM trip reduction requirement?

The latter and so the key issue here is it's not an all or nothing option as it's I guess currently provided, right?

So I defer to my colleagues in public works who have been leading this work if that's something they could evaluate um as a policy option.

We can evaluate it, what the levels of effectiveness would be for reduced parking across a scale um and uh and be able to provide that for applicants as they're going through the process.

We can certainly.

All right.

Um does the commission feel good with that?

Yes, that's good.

Yep.

Um one other suggestion was to also consider uh mixed use buildings to be able to apply a measure, and hopefully that's straightforward enough to be accounted for.

Just to clarify, so would the idea be if a project proposes a shell use that could eventually be you know a commercial use in addition to another use?

Um yeah, and as I understand that some of these measures are based on like marketing strategies, so the eventual outcome might be slightly different, but if it's part of their marketing outreach to towards that goal of fulfilling that kind of complementary use within the site, then that be counted as a measure towards compliance.

That's interesting point.

Um right now our MTA handbook provides an exemption for mixed use projects.

So if a residential, for example, proposes um a mixed use uh with I believe uh 50,000 square foot um commercial space that they would be exempted from VMT screening.

Um so I think we could potentially look at where a project provides you know uh a similar use around the same size could potentially um either be you know uh eligible for certain exemptions or incentives so we could look at how that could be applied.

Commissioner Cranson.

If I can say and I something that to me sounds like what you're so San Antonio Center, the Merlin Gallery phase one had residential retail services all in one spot.

And in theory, the person can walk down to the grocery store, they can walk to the Starbucks, and that those things that's that's what I think what I hear you're talking about, is where it's some it's a development that includes a combination of some kind of commercial and residential that that there's some value in the they're more likely to get out of their car than when they can walk to the safe way than otherwise.

And that's is that what you're talking about?

So I think the the the framework itself makes a distinction between that type of campus approach to mixed use versus like project approach to mixed use, and I think to keep it simple, so if you were to take a large apartment complex that's not part of San Antonio Center, but say has a retail storefront in the base, then that would be project mixed use, and that too should be allowed to take uh credit for that.

So currently we have the VMT uh the VTA VMT screening tool, which applicants can use and they submit a number of inputs uh related to the characteristic of their projects.

And for a mixed use project, uh there could be an anticipated difference in that ADT generated between a project of a single use versus a mixed use, and potentially we can capture that delta as a potential uh uh ADT reduction and apply that as a strategy.

That's kind of a way that I see it working, which I think what you're getting to is that there's an internalization of trips that happen for mixed use, right?

That wouldn't be otherwise generated because they could just walk to that use.

Exactly.

So we could capture that delta.

We would have to look at the methodology and revisit the toolkit.

Um that might require some time, but I think certainly I understand kind of the mechanics of what you're proposing.

Yeah, I think right, it's not a quick thing.

Um I think it's definitely one of those if a developer were to come in and propose it, we'd have conversations look at how they were implementing it, look at if it there were other cities that had similar examples.

Um we'd have to spend some time to just put it in the toolkit right now, but it's definitely something we can continue to explore.

I I I do like the internalization of the let's like and kind of incentivize with within itself incentivizes the the mixed use that we want to see.

Is that feeling good for the commission?

The two, yeah.

Yep.

Yeah, I'll just say we understand the logic, we have to figure out the quantif how to quantify that and yeah, and put that in there.

So total recommendations and guidance, you know.

So we'd leave to you the total like how of it, right?

Um is that feeling good?

Any objections, strong objections from Commissioner Subraman's nope.

Any final thumbs up.

Commissioner Guterres?

Yeah, no, I abstain.

I'd I'd rather do straw votes that we're clear on with who says what and why and where.

Because the way I look at it is like if you've already said that it may be time consuming, I don't want to put more border burdens of that on you.

Uh we have to look at what you can do now, what's feasible?

Okay, that's technically.

And that's and that's my perspective.

I'm not done.

And that's my perspective on that front, right?

So that's why I'm obtaining right now because I don't want to give you more work.

All right.

Sounds good.

Um let's take a straw vote then on the mixed use proposal from Commissioner Subraman.

Ready?

All right.

All right.

And then for the additional incentives.

Straw vote.

Ready?

Yeah.

Incentives for the tiered parking.

Yeah.

Yep.

All right.

Right.

Yep.

Yes.

If we can have like clear show of hands.

Sorry.

Yeah, but do you want to restate it?

Yeah.

Can I just be uh clear?

Um what we're asking for is a is uh feedback.

So we will take this to CTC and council right now.

This is not a direction to staff because that does need to go through them, but we will provide your feedback to them and recommendations.

All right.

Yeah, the straw would just do um assess um majority feedback.

So the direction was to um quantify the reductions in parking provided in terms of measurable sort of incentives as auxiliary strategies, if you will.

So applicants could use that in their projects to the extent that they choose to uh go with reduced parking capacity.

And to the extent that there's tiers of reduction, that there's like more brownie points for the different tiers.

Understanding that it requires some evaluation and effort, but also something that is much more applicable in a residential context as opposed to some of the measures that are in the toolkit that singularly apply to more of a commercial context.

Commissioner Cronson.

I'm I'm open to looking at more options, but I'm as um Mr.

Anderson mentioned, I'm not interested in something that encourages people to push all the parking out into the neighborhood.

So something that says you if you offer less parking, that means there's less there's less travel every day is not an outcome that I would view as a way to doing it.

So if it's I'm okay with the idea of evaluating if it's something they're putting a building right next to the downtown transit center, and there's a lot of parking there, and and they get more out of it, that works.

If they're putting it in the middle of I don't know, Wisman, where there's not a lot around it, then I'm not then so I I get I'm open to the idea of looking at it, but it has to be it has to be within a context of the neighborhood and where it is and whether there's alternatives that can actually absorb the the less parking that's there.

So that's why I'm hesitant to just say yes, I'm I I like the idea of something there, but it can't just be you you don't you don't off the parking and that's you know that's fine.

I think that's a fair addition to clarify that because I believe in addition to that, there's market reality too for the developer that if they completely cut out all the parking, they would have a hard time marketing it.

So I think all in combination will go to sort of recognizing what that does, at least from a TDM standpoint.

And so how is that different than what's in here as an option?

There's already a reduced parking option as one of the tools.

How is what you're proposing different?

So this is a broad brush, just you get one brownie point for reduced parking versus um not recognizing deeper reductions in areas that are closer to other modes of transit and still providing parking.

So this is kind of going the other way where developers do provide a lot more parking than perhaps is warranted by the location.

Ms.

Penchel, we're gonna say something as well to contextualize it, or I was just gonna add that you know, I'm looking more towards my um colleagues.

If they want to add the time frame estimates, like some kind of an estimate about it, like you know, this can be achieved within um uh a month or two, because that's when we are tentatively scheduled the little council.

So what I'm hearing though, are not necessarily changes to the ordinance, but changes to the toolkit, which we have already explained is evergreen.

So um where I was kind of gonna go with this at the end is I'm hearing in general straw poll, you guys are on board with the ordinance, but you would like us to continue exploring our toolkit.

Um I'm gonna be honest, that's not a month, that's you know, probably more like a year.

I've got Ben and he's got some other projects.

So um, and we have a consultant contract who helped us with all of this, so that's expiring, so we'd have to have bring the consultant back on board to kind of explore some of these things.

So um, it's it's definitely doable.

Um, but I think we'd also like to see how some of the ones we already have, you know, because we're not excluding uh developers from coming to us and saying we'd like to do this.

This is what we think the redaction would be.

There's nothing in there that won't let them do take these strategies as we move forward.

Um what I'm hearing is there's a general acceptance of the ordinance, but you would like us to continue exploring what other agencies or just what's around the area for the toolbox, and we can continue to to update that as makes sense.

Yep.

Uh I am in agreement.

Okay, perfect.

Um, and yeah, the the mixed use piece.

Um, I think definitely um to extend sounded good to everyone.

I just want to make sure I'm confirming that.

Yeah.

All right.

Sweet.

So staff, do you feel like you have the feedback that you need?

Yes.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Yeah, perfect.

All right.

Then in that case, we will move on to item number seven.

Commission staff announcements, updates, requests, and committee reports.

No action will be taken on any questions raised by the commission at this time.

Would anyone like to make any announcements?

Including potentially the next meeting date.

Do we have a next meeting date?

I think some of the commissioners might have an announcement.

Maybe we can go through that first.

Oh, sorry, I didn't see that.

Commissioner Subnomanion.

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to share uh with this group that Commissioner Fam and I had the good fortune of attending the planning commissioners academy conference.

God, it feels like an age ago.

Um, and have uh the only takeaways that were constantly repeated was uh the limited uh capacity of planning commissions in the age of uh state laws and many ways to commiserate around that, and uh was pretty much dinned into our heads about focusing on making sure that our cities put in place uh objective standards as soon as possible, so we don't have to uh be entirely handcuffed in this process.

But um, I did want to say that it was a very valuable learning experience, and the conference itself was uh set up um in in a very good format for us to have a lot of learnings and takeaways.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, I completely agree.

It was a great experience.

Um, not only to uh attend and learn from the sessions, but to network with other commissioners, especially in the Bay Area, um to share notes and to continue relationships.

Thanks.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Thank you.

Any other announcements?

Oh, um, do we have a next meeting date?

Thank you, Diana Pincholi, Principal Planner.

Um we don't have any items on the agenda for the upcoming May 6th meeting, so that is tentatively going to be canceled.

Um we do the one item which I know for sure is going to be on the agenda, um, but it's still tentative, but it uh I'm preparing for that is the EPC work plan, which is going to be on the June 17th date.

So please make a note of that.

We um I don't have any announcement of what happens between May 6th and June 17th, because if an item comes up, we may have to schedule that.

Uh the other thing that I wanted to bring to your attention is that I forwarded an email to the commission, but the draft of the the design draft of the biodiversity and urban forest plan is now available.

And um, city staff is pretty very appreciative of all the input that uh we received from all the boards and commissions.

Um this is tentatively scheduled to go to city council on April 28th.

So the feel free to share the link.

Uh I have included the link in the email and let us know if you have any questions.

All righty, thank you very much.

Uh having said that, uh seeing no more other announcements.

Uh, we'll adjourn the meeting at 10 04 p.m.

Thanks.