I'll put them on now.

It word my heels today.

Well, you could move the mic down if you want to.

I mean, we have a stool, but I don't think you need our answer.

Good evening again.

And thank you for joining our regular City Council meeting of July thirteenth, twenty twenty-six.

We hold meetings in a hybrid format with both in-person and virtual participation available.

The city welcomes public comment on topics within the city's subject matter jurisdiction and members of the public may provide comments as follows.

In-person speakers will be called first, and speaker cards are located at the back table in the council chambers and must be turned in to the city clerk here at the dais.

Attendees who have joined us by Zoom will be called to speak after the in-person comments have been given, and detailed instructions for public comment will be writed on the screen when the time for public comment begins.

With that, I'll now turn it over to our city clerk to call the role.

Good evening.

Councilmember Chu here.

Councilmember G.

Present.

Councilmember Howard here.

Councilmember Padilla.

Present.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Here.

Vice Mayor Aitken.

Present.

Mayor Martinez Ayos.

Thank you.

Thank you, everybody.

And now we'll go to the Pledge of Allegiance.

Councilmember Howard, could you lead us?

Please join me as we honor our flag and our country.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

Our nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Councilmember.

We have all members of the council participating in person, so we will skip item four and go to item five, which is a proclamation for our outgoing arts commissioner member, Jason New Blanc.

And I will read uh just quick background.

Jason was a member of the Arts Commission and was first appointed when it was still called the Civic Cultural Commission.

The uh City of Redwood City sincerely appreciates volunteers like Jason whose commitment of time and talent enriches our community and helps make Redwood City a better place for everyone.

And I'll read a few of the whereas of the proclamation.

Whereas Jason New Blanc has faithfully served the residents of Redwood City for more than 13 years as a dedicated member and leader of the Civic Cultural Commission and the Arts Commission.

And whereas Jason helped lead the evolution of the Civic Cultural Commission into the Redwood City Arts Commission, drafted ordinances and public art resources, created institutional knowledge tools and commissioner guides, and worked tirelessly to improve long-term arts infrastructure and accessibility.

And whereas Jason championed numerous murals, public art installations, utility box projects, bike rack art, youth art initiatives, and community-driven creative placemaking efforts that have enriched neighborhoods and strengthened civic pride.

And whereas Jason's passion, creativity, leadership, and countless volunteer hours have left a lasting and visible legacy that will continue to inspire artists, residents, and visitors for generations to come.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Elmer Martina Savallos, Mayor of Redwood City, on behalf of the City Council and the people of Redwood City, do hereby recognize and honor Jason New Blanc for his exceptional 13 and a half years of dedicated public service and commend him for his enduring contributions to arts, culture, and community in Redwood City.

And now I'd like to welcome Jason to the podium to say a few words.

Jason, welcome.

Good evening, City Council members and staff.

Um it's been an honor to serve on the Redwood City Arts Commission.

Um I'd like to thank you for entrusting me and the rest of the Arts Commission and the supporting staff to make Redwood City a better place through the arts.

Working on the Arts Commission has been a labor of love, not a love of doing the work, but really a love for our city.

And I'm sure you guys can relate with that.

As you probably know, I have a passion for public art, and one of my superpowers is the ability to imagine art everywhere.

Um I see our city as a vibrant um engaging outdoor gallery where public art inspires and connects our community.

Well, I am proud and amazed by the numerous public art installations that I helped bring to Redwood City.

I'm most proud of building the foundation of our public art program.

I have researched, developed, documented, and advocated for most of the public art policy and procedures that are in place today.

I helped author our percent for art to provide consistent and ongoing arts funding.

I've worked with and mentored commissioners and staff to be great art administrators.

And all of these things lay the groundwork for future arch commissioners, staff, and developers to bring better, bigger and more meaningful art to the community.

Well, I'm stepping away from the commission.

This won't not be the last time you see me.

I'm an artist, I have an art studio downtown.

I'm helping to run the Center for Creativity in Redwood City.

I continue, I expect to remain a force in the arts community in Redwood City.

Um and who knows, maybe I'll reapply for the Arts Commission at some later date.

So thank you.

Commissioner Newplong, thank you for your thirteen and a half years for service.

We have a proclamation just for you.

And would love to take a quick photo of the whole council.

Thank you.

All right.

Our next item is a presentation by the San Francisco Peninsula on their destination marketing organization's new strategic plan.

And I'd like to welcome Chief Advocacy Officer Nova Madondo to the podium for their presentation.

Welcome everyone.

Thank you, Mayor Martinez Sabayos, members of Council, City Manager Heisinger, and Redwood City staff.

I'm John Hootar, President and CEO of the San Francisco Peninsula.

And we are delighted to uh have the opportunity to share our tourism strategic plan.

Joining me this evening, our board chair, general manager of the Hyatt Regency at San Francisco Airport, Kevin Kretsch, Nova Maldonado, our Chief Advocacy Officer, Anthony Baralli, General Manager of the Residence Inn Redwood City, San Carlos.

And starting week three, on his new opportunity as general manager of the Grand Bay Hotel in Redwood City, are a longtime board member of ours and a dear friend of mine.

We've worked uh 20 years ago together in the city, Chris Holbrook.

And if I press the right buttons, oops.

There we go.

A couple of uh slides that feature Redwood City, and there are so many great things to talk about when we market the destination to prospective visitors.

You celebrated artwork in the previous presentation.

Uh great restaurants uh like Huraca, like La Vega, the great asset of the San Mateo County Historical Museum being on the grounds uh for whatever reason this didn't center correctly, but uh you get the picture, and we appreciate the work that your body does to make this such a desirable community to visit.

Uh there we go.

Uh the Caitlin, the striker uh that we brought in uh to celebrate FIFA.

I must commend uh uh economic Director uh Amanda Anthony for I believe being the first county, uh first city in our county to activate the open container state law.

Uh a big buzz.

I happen to be at the museum uh the evening of one of those watch parties.

Uh it was the night of the Sports Hall of Fame exiting the front door.

During the watch party, I felt like a roadie at a rock concert.

It was just uh so much energy, so exciting.

And you can see the tens of thousands of followers and likes and reshares.

And perhaps we could advance the slide.

My clicker doesn't, or I'm doing something wrong.

There we go.

Again, some uh additional uh uh PR features, uh, so many good things to write about our city about our city here, and you can read that in in more detail uh on your own.

Thank you.

Uh next slide, please.

So uh the organization again founded in 1971 by San Mateo County Hotel Years.

I already explained the rebrand, and we uh recently brought together an advisory council.

Next slide, please, um, of community members who are not hoteliers, who are giving us advice, and ultimately ultimately brought together our strategic plan.

Um the uh Board Advisory Council are names that are I'm sure familiar to all of you, and they have given us uh sound advice on how we can better market our destination.

Uh and the first pillar uh of our strategic plan is asset development and supporting destination asset development, and that comes uh that pillar comes under three actionable items uh supporting uh and advocating significant upgrades for the San Mateo County Event Center, analyzing opportunities to develop additional tournament grade sports facilities throughout the peninsula.

The hotels by and large are doing very well Monday through Thursday with corporate business and conventions, uh, but we feel there's an opportunity in sports, youth sports, uh collegiate sports, near professional sports, uh, to fill those rooms uh on the weekend Friday, Saturday, Sunday, if we had the proper uh facilities.

And those facilities could also lean into entertainment, uh, larger-scale concerts, uh, entertainment, et cetera.

Uh, and then uh if those two uh ideas get traction, we are ready to work with cities to develop a tourism master plan.

Uh quite simply, we wouldn't want 20 soccer fields and no swimming pools or vice versa, that it be a cohesive effort as we go forward.

The uh next pillar is to endeavor to maximize the destination experience.

Uh we're seeking a way to develop our version of bottle rock, something that would be synonymous with the San Francisco Peninsula, and we're pleased uh this year we we had an event in April called Flavors of the Peninsula, where we brought uh visitors in to experience our cities and our chefs and our restaurants.

July 26th, we'll have an event at Coyote Point called Heritage Fire, bringing big name chefs to our destination and activating the chefs that are already here to brag about them.

Uh and this is the organizer of the Pebble Beach Food and Wine Festival, so we went with a name brand promoter who knows how to do these events, and that's complemented by a Bayside event uh in August, August 28th on the grounds of Halfman Bay Brewery called Whiskies of the World, which is education of whiskey, uh, and marrying that up with food.

Uh the second point uh is uh advocating for the completion of the bay trail.

Uh in many cities, it's beautiful, and in some cities there are opportunities for enhancement and completion.

Um that is a lovely amenity that is enjoyed not only by hotel visitors but by residents as well.

And then working with communities to further promote their music and nightlife and working with the city staff, economic directors, et cetera.

We recently redid our website, which isn't sexy thing anymore, except ours is now powered with all the bells and whistles to be AI compatible and to be that authoritative voice when visitors are looking to make their uh trip planning decision.

And then the last item is to continue to build on organizational excellence.

We are nearing the end of our roadshow coming to you this evening and uh touching all of our cities that uh uh have a tourism district and our destinations and to continue to uh activate our advisory council and to build these relationships throughout the community.

Uh so with that uh again uh a commercial for our upcoming uh food activations and uh we are activating chefs also from Redwood City restaurants to participate and uh we should have somewhere north of 700, 800 uh guests for our first time out.

Uh that's our goal.

And with that, we say thank you and are available if you have any questions.

Thank you, John, for the great presentation and I'll bring it back to my council colleagues if anyone has questions or comments.

Councilmember Howard.

John, I would just like to say that I am so excited for you and your organization.

This is major.

Just the name.

Well, and the name that you came up with, San Francisco Peninsula made so much sense.

The other one made you feel separate from everybody else.

It there wasn't a connect.

This is beautiful, and I wish you all the luck in the world.

Can't wait to see what you're planning for the event center.

It needs a little bit of a dusting.

It does, and uh, there's a lot of conversation, so hopefully we'll have something to share in the near future.

Let us know how we can work together.

Thank you.

Take care.

Thank you, Councilmember.

We'll go to Vice Mayor Aiken.

Just super quick, John.

Uh, I echo all of uh Ms.

Howard's uh do you have a budget for TV commercials, or is it not called TV TV commercials anymore?

Uh uh so yes, and let me explain.

Uh the biggest cost most cost-effective reach is through digital marketing, and that's through our social media channels.

Um we have a digital content manager on our staff, and we're in the process of developing sizzle reels for each of our 14 cities.

We're now on city number three.

Um television is expensive, uh, and there's a lot of camps that love it, or gee, you can't justify the reach.

Uh, because it is that person who's watching really paying attention to your commercial.

Uh we are working with one of our cities uh who uh is endeavoring into that space, and we we plan on learning from them a bit, and uh we we can further that conversation.

I won't take up too much time, but I just recall when I worked at the San Mateo County History Museum, uh probably pre-COVID, um, there was a uh TV advertising campaign that somehow I don't remember how we got for free in combination with something something, and it was on the cable channels, so it wasn't as expensive, it wasn't on the major networks.

And I just recall noticing an uptick.

I recall um seeing visitors that were at the Marriott in San Francisco and but saw the TV commercial and so came to the history museum, and they were from Australia or something, and that week that those commercials ran, just it's anecdotal.

Um but just so I've since that experience, I've always thought um that TV commercials may be on off channels might be helpful.

Well, thank you for that.

We'll definitely uh have it on our radar, and uh we see each other throughout the community, so we won't forget.

And I uh wanted to also share with you you have a hard copy of our plan and the beautiful San Francisco Peninsula Magazine, which is our visitor guide curated in a coffee table book uh kind of format.

And uh some of the bounties of Redwood City, page 39.

Uh a beautiful photo and spread of HURICA and several other uh restaurants and attractions are featured uh from uh Redwood City.

Not seeing anyone else's lights.

Oh council.

I just want to say thank you so much for your investment in Redwood City and the entire county.

And uh congratulations, Mr.

Holbrook, uh on your new position with Grand Bay.

Fantastic.

Um, and uh love the idea of you know making Rebecca destination, especially through concerts and sporting events.

I fully agree with that, and the only request I would have is if we can get Kaylani to perform at the Fox you know theater, Revit City instead of the Fox Oakland.

Who knows?

Thank you, Councilmember, and I'll see anyone else's lights on.

Um John, the team really appreciate you all being here and all the great work you're doing.

I my introduction to the San Francisco Peninsula was um when I was a staffer for Jerry Hill, and I was working on the as fresh as it gets certificates.

So to see the way that you all have expanded your work, right?

Is is incredible and um just appreciate all that you're doing to amplify our work and help put us on the map.

So we really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Well, thank you, and thank you for all of your support and hope you have a pleasant evening.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

With that, we will go to our final presentation from the community with 5C, our presentation from Caltrain regarding ridership slash budget.

And our friends from Caltrain will share their updates, and we will welcome Michelle Bouchard and Casey Fromson from uh Caltrain on this presentation.

Welcome both.

Great.

Thank you, Mayor.

Council members, so great to be here tonight.

Thanks so much for taking the time to um to listen to the Caltrain story before I begin.

Uh I did want to thank council members Chu and Howard for being on our local policymaker group.

Uh, and of course, um, Member G, we call it Director G.

Um, thank you so much for your leadership on the Caltrain board.

The presentation we're about to give tonight is one that you will have seen a couple of times.

Um, just by way of introducing Casey, uh, wanted to talk about just a very, very interesting dynamic time at Caltrain right now.

We launched electrification about a year and a half ago, and since then have really reaped the benefits of that electrification, whether it's uh cleaner air, whether it's faster travel times, whether it's an increased um customer experience, uh, or whether it's actually now having seven days a week, half-hourly service, uh, show up and go anywhere you'd like to go on the peninsula, and that really has been the benefit of electrification and really does prove the value of prudent investment in transportation.

Um since we did launch electrification, our ridership has been growing uh astoundingly.

We were named the fastest growing transit agency in America.

Um, and uh that is ridership gains uh some months in excess of 50 percent.

Uh and it really is proving out the model and how much uh our riders are really loving the service, but also how we're providing greater value to the communities in which we operate.

Um I'm gonna ask Casey to come up here.

I think one of the things, you know, balancing all of the fantastic results we've had, and and most recently, with the World Cup games coming and all of the region's transit agencies coming together to provide just excellent service to the folks seeing those games.

Uh, we also do find ourselves uh on the cusp of some real financial difficulty.

Um, uh because of COVID and as a result of COVID, we have been balancing our budgets uh for the last, I think it's five years with one-time funds.

Most recently this year, we're balancing our budget with a state loan of 50 million dollars.

So I do want Casey to talk about what this inflection point really does represent for the railroad.

So I'll hand it over to her.

Hello, everyone.

Casey Frampson, Chief of Staff at Caltrain.

Thanks for having us here today.

I was told I had about 10 minutes, so I'm gonna whip through these and get to the really important slides at the end.

You know, we know what a deep partnership we've had with this community and the cities up and down the corridor.

And uh we can see it in some of those numbers.

People like Caltrain as well.

You know, our joke is this is up here with babies in libraries.

We're putting out a good service, and people are telling us that we are, and we want to keep doing that.

Um, every day we're part of people's lives.

Uh, each month we carry millions of people on Caltrain.

And it's not just part your of your daily life, we fit into the regional network of the Bay Area.

We carry the equivalent of about three freeway lanes of traffic.

So even if you are not riding Caltrain, you are benefiting from it because you probably care about the traffic in our region.

We know that we help uh keep a stronger economy and certainly the cleaner air that we help provide, not just by people getting on there, but by transitioning to a completely electric system with 100% renewable electricity.

Um, we have some data points here as well, but we can't forget about that economic tie that we have with the local economies and the value that we bring to cities and businesses along the corridor, and we know that is a win-win for both of us.

We're not gonna spend a lot of time on this today, but we wanted to acknowledge that we have lots of big projects happening up and down the corridor, and I know there will be a presentation the near future about our partnership with the Redwood City Transit District and what that looks like for the future.

I did want to point out one project there on the right hand side showing that Caltrain really cares about safety and we are always looking to innovate and see how we can do things more cost effectively.

At this crossing, we found that there were three cars a week turning onto the tracks.

When we looked what was possible by working with the city, looking at the technology that's out there and with technology companies, we've reduced that now to zero vehicles have turned onto those tracks, and this project was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So, this is an effort that we're rolling out throughout the corridor, and it's something that is just an example of how we want to continue to innovate and do things as effectively as we can.

And this project shows that I won't talk about the electrification service.

Michelle did a great job on that, just for the general public.

If you have not gotten on there yet, you need to try it.

It is an amazing service, and you will not go back once you understand how great of an experience it is.

And we don't just have to talk about it, the numbers are proving it out.

As Michelle said, we are the fastest growing transit system in the U.S., and our ridership is diversifying because people are realizing that you can use this service not just to get to and from work, but also for a variety of other activities because of the frequency of the service and the speed of it, it really works for a lot of different people now.

And then we have the data by each city.

You can see Redwood City is an example, just like the many other ones of the increase in ridership we've seen since we've electrified.

And then this is our last one before we kind of switch gears to looking ahead.

Um, but like the previous presentation, we know that these partnerships are important.

We want to continue to promote what are the good things that are happening at Redwood City, making sure other people know how to get here and what's happening here, and work together to be creative of how can we promote what you're doing and then make sure that we can help facilitate people get there.

So we know that there's more in this world, and we had a great conversation with your city manager a few weeks ago, and we want to continue those conversations with the mayor as well.

Okay, so looking ahead here, um, this is kind of the path that we've been on.

You can see where our ridership was in the 2018 2019 time, and we have grown a lot, and we are so proud of that growth, but you can see it is not as high as it used to be.

And this is the main item that is driving Caltrain's financial challenges.

We used to be able to cover our budget by over 70% coming in from fares.

Today it's about 30%.

This is still nation leading.

Transit systems do not usually support themselves to that level.

It is not as high as what it used to be, and that is really one of the factors for us that has led to what we look ahead at at a $75 million annual operating deficit.

It's driven from the commute patterns having changed.

We used to have people ride Caltrain five days a week.

That was 80% of the people did that.

And today that's not what it looks like.

When you think about how often people are coming into the offices for the major ones, it's really three days a week.

You know, Fridays and Mondays are much slower.

That's why we have changed our service, though, and are trying to promote it to a wider variety of people.

But that commute pattern change has been so significant for Caltrain.

So even though our ridership is up, it is not where it was, and it is less than what we brought in before.

We certainly are not immune to inflation.

And we have a system that has a lot of fixed costs.

We added in another 51 miles of new electrified system in place, and whether or not we're running five trains or 50 trains, we need to make sure that we're inspecting those tracks, the trains every day, and those are things that do not go away when you adjust the service, and those are considered fixed costs that we need to make sure that we cover the cost to run a service.

So again, I talked about this number is what we look ahead at, and it's something that we know it is very important for the first place for us to turn is tightening our own belts.

So we have done a strategic hiring freeze looking out for years from now.

We've also launched a comprehensive cost reduction efficiency program.

We're having people throughout the organization come forward with ideas of how can we make a difference, but we know we have to go over go after the big items too.

So the biggest thing in our budget is the operator contract we have, and in FY27, we held it to the previous level, which it really looks like a reduction when you think about inflation, and we are doing a line by line review of our activities.

MTC, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which again Director G served on, just did a review of all the major transit agencies that could benefit in the future from some additional funding, and it showed that Caltrain over the last five years has saved over 70 plus million dollars.

Looking back at what we're doing, but we know going forward we need to continue to tighten our belt and be a good steward of our resources.

We also implemented crewing scheduling efficiencies.

We're now recouping costs from electricity.

These trains send back 40% of the electricity they get and 25% to the grid, and now we're getting some financial resources from that.

So that's how we're tightening our belt, but we also need to be creative on how we can get revenue as well.

So you can see on the slide it's everything from the special events to seeing what we can sell on the corridor or lease, and then the more long-term items.

And as Michelle tells us, we need to think about how can we monetize as many assets as we have at our disposal and think smartly about this.

So for us right now, we're in this FY26 calendar year time frame, and as we look ahead, we really are at a crossroads.

We are hoping to be able to continue to have service as we have and to grow with the communities along the way, but we have to also think realistically and prepare for potential cuts if we do not see a way to have additional uh financial resources.

So, what that looks like, and through a lot of planning we've done and many board meetings, we have a service that we have today.

It looks frequent, weekend service, everything we've been describing that has given us this ridership boost, but we are now looking at what potential cuts would look like.

So we've articulated to the Caltrain board, and which is why we're going around to councils and partners on the corridor of something that we are looking at.

Hourly weekend weekday service.

So that would be rolling back the increases we just put in place.

No weekend service, early shutdowns, no special event service, and station closures.

And we know that cutting this service is not something that we want to do because it also creates this downwards bial.

We will have fewer riders and less revenue, and this makes it even harder to go forward, but we have to look at the different options on the table and and make sure that we're thinking about this carefully.

I talked a lot about the Caltrain specific kind of lens for this, but this is again a regional network.

People don't just stay in one location, they go between counties, they go between cities, and we know that some of our sister agencies are facing some of these as well.

So there is a connectedness about what our future could be and where we go, or if we look on the other side of the real challenges we could face if we lose these systems and the compounding nature of that.

And certainly we are even looking at what what does it look like if if Caltrain didn't exist?

So as Michelle said, we're at a critical inflection point.

You see on the left-hand column is what we're considering if we have no external funding and the scenarios we need to take seriously and continue to flesh out more what that looks like.

Um we are still going to do everything we can on the ridership and revenue side, and we know that these cuts alone won't solve the deficit.

So we just wanted to make sure, as partners, we're here to be able to answer any questions you may have about this, talk about the issue and share perspective and hear from you directly as well.

And with that, I'm happy to take any questions.

Casey, Michelle, thank you both.

Colleagues, who has any questions?

Maybe Director G.

I don't have any questions, Mayor, but I just want to thank Casey and Michelle for being here and updating the council and our community about what's going on at Caltrain.

It's been a lot of hard work over the last year to get to this point.

There's still more hard work to do.

And one of the hard things for people to understand is the fixed cost component of running fixed rail.

As you mentioned, Casey, no matter what, we still have 50 miles of track and wires and the backbone, the equipment in the headquarters or the control centers that have to be maintained, operated, and inspect.

They don't get to turn off every five minutes and turn back on every 10.

They stay on all the time.

And I think that's one of the hardest components to understand the fixed costs of running fixed rail.

And BART has the same challenge of being a fixed rail public transit agency.

Wearing my SB 63 hat, I can guarantee that the first phase of the effort was very light, looking at how the agencies have contained costs or reduced cost or avoided costs over the three to five years since COVID.

The hard work hopefully will begin next year, and it is on a very aggressive schedule to look at what's next and how these agencies can continue to control costs and enhance revenues.

And I can guarantee, as the vice chair of that committee, the entire panel can't wait to get to phase two because they have a lot of ideas they want to share.

But uh, on behalf of myself as a council member, thank you for coming to Red Bridge City, updating our council and sharing with our obviously community what's going on with Caltrain.

And you didn't have any pictures of the BTS and the trains and all the other trains that have been part of the celebration of moving people up and down the corridor on those special events.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Thank you for your service.

And we'll go to Councilmember Chu and then Councilmember Howard.

So thank you so much for this presentation.

And I so admire uh the excellence, you know, to have a 95% uh on time record, uh, just the way the the electric trains rolled out, was so smooth and amazing.

And you know, I really feel for transit, it has an asymmetric situation in that uh the more transit get you gets used, the more cost effective it becomes versus freeways where the more they're used, the more expensive they become.

And transit is also expected to really fully cover its cost, you know, it's sort of point of sale where anyway, there is some asymmetry in the way uh transit is funded.

Um, I really am sympathetic to your situation and and did, you know, try to get a lot of signatures for SB 63.

Uh, just a couple comments on potential sources of revenue.

Uh one is you know, I'm I fully understand that sometimes ads need to go on the side of trains.

The only thing I would ask is please do not cover the windows.

Um, it really degrades the experience of transit writers uh for the benefit of people who are not in the train.

Uh half the delight of transit is staring out the window.

Um so that's the first request.

The second is, you know, when I lived in Japan, the way the the rail made money, and they were very successful wasn't actually the train rides.

That was like, you know, the movie.

They they did it by selling popcorn.

So they did it by having the stations.

And the stations were not places to change trains, they were destinations.

They were where you met your friends, they were where you hung out, they were centers of commerce and connection.

And I know, you know, I don't know how much land Caltrans own or Caltrain owns.

But it's some of the most valuable land in the world.

And I do hope that at some point the land that Caltrain owns can become a source of revenue for Caltrain.

Because that's that's how other countries have managed to fund their rail.

But I'm very sympathetic, and anything I can do to help.

Happy to do.

Thank you.

This past uh year and a half I've been riding the train back and forth to San Francisco, and I can let people know it's a really pleasant experience.

It's clean, it's quiet, my coffee doesn't jiggle and spill all over my lap anymore, which it did before we were electrified.

And uh it's just a very pleasant experience, and I've noticed people on the train are just happier.

I think the experience is spreading.

And I think that's great.

But we still of course you steed needs still uh need more writers, and that's something I don't I don't know.

That's up to the board and others to creatively think about maybe uh what I remember one time I think it was the um commute.org, they did a uh a dating ride.

It was a lot of fun.

I went on it just to experience it.

But we went from Redwood City to San Francisco, and it was supposed to be like you changed seats and met people, and you paid to participate, but the happiness in that couple of cars that I went through, it was amazing, and it got a lot of people introduced to Caltrain.

So I I maybe you'll think of something like that again.

I'm not sure if the dating has to be done, but something like that.

Meet a new friend or a new coffee partner or something like that.

It could be really quite fun.

Um, I do hope that you will be able to use the land around your tracks to make money for Caltrain, because it makes sense.

I mean, whether it be well, whatever you decide is best.

But I know there is some land in Redwood City, and I'm sure other places that uh you might consider.

Uh I did want to know.

There was an article very recently, I know you're aware, um, about the new consultant on board and the salary that was given.

And um it had a negative feel to the article.

So I I'd love to have you address it because I don't think it emphasized enough that you consolidated here so that you could do here.

I think the public would want to know that.

Would you or council member G like to address that?

Either one.

Yeah.

Thank you for bringing that up and the opportunity to speak to it.

You know, uh, we really are priding ourselves on being an agency that is being a good steward of our public resources.

So it was really disappointing to see a headline that was so misleading that led people to believe we were spending in excess of you know a million dollars on a single person in a year.

Uh we asked for a correction, and we actually did get a partial one uh from the paper, but I think the you know, the story was already out there.

So, you know, in direct response to that, we did not pay someone that amount at all.

It's something called um, you know, an authority level that you can have over a period of time.

It was not a payment.

So, in fact, the actual authority was even smaller than that, and then the payment was about a quarter of that that was in place.

Additionally, um, we went through, you know, nearly nine months of a hiring process to have an internal candidate to take over the roles that that um consultant firm were was providing to us, and we were very pleased to have someone apply for that role after an extensive review panel and be selected.

And we created that internal position too by consolidating two positions so that we'd have savings internally for a position that we thought made sense in addition to being able to end a contract um relationship as well.

So we had savings on multiple levels, and really um I appreciate the opportunity to be able to factually provide what was out there.

I know our director G has you know deep extensive professional experience with this as well as you know monitors on the board and I'd be happy to have him speak to that as as well, but um it just was inaccurate.

I'll be brief.

I mean, I think uh all institutional levels the state, county, city, special district, and we even do that here in Norwich City, have a bench of consultants that we approve on a regular basis.

That doesn't mean they get work, and the only time they get work is when a work authorization or task order, depending on the language, is executed.

And so they conflated the authority, the bench contract maximum value with an actual work order or work authorization.

There are two very different things, and the the reason for bench consultants, as we all know, is to deal with special expertise when needed, or when something else comes up, to have those consultants on call ready to be able to activate it for that era of expertise is why agencies do that because it does take a while to do an RFP, RFQ, go through the process and hire having a bench of consultants.

We have them on all different levels and public works and planning, even for legal services, gives the institution the flexibility and nimbleness to address different needs, and so the conflation of an authorization versus an actual work order or work authorization is what Casey's been talking about.

Thank you so much for the explanation.

You have great challenges ahead, and you're going to need bright people to help solve these problems.

So I'm really glad that we were able to speak now and clarify that there is a measure on the ballot in November regarding funding, and I I want to be sure people get correct information on how their money will be used if in fact they vote for it.

So thank you again very much, and I wish you all the success in the world.

Really enjoy the experience of the train.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, Council Member.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I wasn't prepared to speak, but I I also read that article, and I I think it's important where we where we did clarify that an authority is different from an actual payout.

I think we should not lose that.

There may be residents who were still upset with such a high number being being able to be authorized.

So I I think that people may still have issues with the way some with the process.

So I don't want to get caught in saying, you know, well, there's an authorized amount.

I think so.

If that amount per se, with council member G is saying was authorized, and that was, then people would in fact be upset with it.

So the fact that that was even up for grabs, I think is what some residents have an issue with.

So I don't want to downplay that.

This that is an important thing to consider.

Um we all know that there's initiative before us, we all are mindful of what our sales tax is and how that affects us.

So I do think it's important for residents to have that information.

And could we be I I actually didn't have the I didn't read the entire article.

What was the authorized amount for that consultant position?

Uh what the article was talking about is 1.2 million dollars over an extended period of time for services, and you know, an example of what some of those services provide.

We have multi-million dollar capital projects.

Okay, thank you.

So it was 1.2 million dollars.

That was the number, correct?

That's correct.

Thank you.

So that's I just want to know that that would mean that I know how that is because we as city councils sometimes I understand what it is.

If we can give the city manager sometimes uh a certain amount of wiggle room, then it can allow him to be more inefficient and something's come up, so it doesn't have to come back to council.

So I understand why those things work, but I do think it is important for residents to understand the process and how that becomes to be.

So that that's that's all I'll say on that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember, Vice Mayor.

Thank you.

Um I have a couple of comments.

First of all, I think you couched it as an inflection point.

So I my comments are pre-inflection point.

The inflection point is the election in November, and I I strongly support SB 63, um, and because I I feel it's really important that we continue to have public transportation for all the reasons that you so beautifully set forth for all the important projects.

Um so um, the electrification is amazing.

If you know it's BART, Caltrain, SAMTRANs, and uh Muni are the four public transportation Bay Area, the main Bay Area, public transportation, um vehicles, and um please, it looks like you wanted to say something.

Yeah, I just wanted to um make sure it's actually five different counties that would have been authorized to receive funding, and so it's even broader than that, where the benefit could be.

Yes, and I know it's complicated, um, but in another way, it's just very simple.

If if it doesn't pass, then we don't have public transportation the way that we have known it for 40 years.

So I just wanted to be clear about that.

And then so really it's important the inflection point, really it's important in my opinion, um, the November election, and I support SB 63.

Um post the inflection point.

Well, if it doesn't pass, then it's not relevant.

But as if it does pass, I'd like to echo uh what my colleague Isabel Chu said uh about uh stations being events being hubbub but places to be.

And um I really like um I know the uh Caltrain station in San Francisco at Forth and King has um uh food and drink, and there's a bit of a hubbub.

Um, but I would love to see some of that hubbub and and coffee and food and drink, and maybe newspapers or magazines or um at some of the other larger stations, such as Redwood City.

So it's just feedback post-inflection point.

Thank you.

Councilmember Storken.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you both so much.

Um I also support the you know the measure.

I I know we're not talking discussing that tonight, but when I did collect signatures for it, you know, near the farmer's market, near the station here in downtown.

Um, I really appreciate you addressing the cost-saving measures you have taken, because that has at least at that time to get lost um in many of the residents and voters I spoke with.

And so if we can just make sure that as you were already doing, continue to ramp up the education uh you're doing for the community.

Uh but also with employers who you know purchase the um passes like the goat pass, right?

Um I know I asked you about that, Director X-Pin Epstein at uh progress was it earlier this year.

Yeah, that's right, yeah.

Um and so I'm sure you're already doing it, but they said that we can continue working with our major employers um like my own, who gives me a GoPass to take Caltrain, uh the better.

And I know we don't really have the capacity to to build our stations right now, that's super expensive.

I'm sure you have talked about it at length at the board, but maybe there's other workarounds that you haven't discussed, such as um mobile and sidewalk food vending.

I mean, we have our own policy coming to council at some point for city limits, but not on you know Caltrans property, so Caltrain property.

Excuse me.

Um, so that's an idea if you haven't already thought about it.

Thank you.

Great.

Seeing anyone else's lights on.

Um, Michelle Casey, thank you both for being here.

I have to say, you know, I am just so impressed with Caltrain.

Um, I not only saw sort of that ridership that you described in person over a couple of weekends, right?

Where the Giants aren't even in town, and you know, the train is packed, absolutely packed, heading north to the city at 10 a.m.

So it's um it's incredible to see some of those results already.

And I think I even saw on that chart that some cities saw a triple-digit change in their ridership, which is just amazing to see.

But um, I I really have to credit, I think the 15-minute intervals, the the weekend service, right?

I think those have been huge for just increasing ridership.

Whenever people talk about BART, that 15-minute interval is is always the first thing I hear about why they love to jump on the train there, right?

So, um, and then just building on what my colleagues mentioned around making the stations comfortable, you know.

The can't make capital needs, right?

We can't build exactly, but I did just want to say the the thrones that were installed right by the station.

I see plenty of people use those, and for folks who don't have time to go to Sequoia Station, that is just such an incredible way to make people comfortable while they wait for the train.

So um, food vendors is a great idea.

We have Arduino Adue, excuse me, plaza right down the way.

So there's definitely space.

So I'd be curious to see what great ideas you all come up with, but thank you for the hard work.

And um, yeah, I think that's everything.

We appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you again, amazing.

We'll keep the show on the road before we go to our next item public comment.

Um I also want to acknowledge that the month of July is parks make life better month.

And it's a time to raise awareness of the benefits of park and recreation as a vital community resource.

Um we'll be issuing a proclamation at our next city council meeting on July 27th.

But you get to celebrate all month long, so we're sharing it now.

Um we hope you'll take a moment to say hello to your friendly neighborhood parks and rec staff.

We see them here on the day or in the the room, but um please make sure to stop by and celebrate.

Um so with that, we will go to item six, turning now to public comment.

Uh we'll take public comment on the consent calendar, matters of council interest, as well as items that are not listed on the agenda.

And we welcome speakers providing public comment, but please be advised.

This is a limited public forum, and as such, speakers must address matters within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city.

If speakers do not, they'll be warned, and if they continue to disregard city rules, their opportunity to speak will be limited.

And if you're attending in person, please feel free to fill out a speaker card and submit it to the city clerk here at the Dais.

And if you're attending virtually, feel free to raise your hand on Zoom at this time or press star nine if you've joined by phone.

Once we've gathered all the speaker cards and raised hands and have begun public comment, no additional speakers will be allowed to queue up to speak.

And I will now turn it over to our city clerk to facilitate public comment.

Thank you, Mayor.

I don't have any speaker cards at this time.

So anyone who wants to give comment on general matters or the consent calendar or matters of council interest this evening, feel free to turn in a speaker card or raise your hand on Zoom.

We'll give it a few more seconds.

No public comment, Mayor.

Thank you.

Okay, we'll move on to the consent calendar.

Items on the consent calendar are routine in nature and approved by one motion.

Are there any items on consent from which council members are recused?

Councilmember.

Mayor, I will be recusing myself from item seven B's and Bob.

Um I serve on the board of Casa Secure Catorau, which is proposed to be recipient of one of the grants.

Okay.

Great, thank you.

Not seeing anyone else.

Are there any items on consents that council members like to pull for discussion?

Not seeing any.

Is there a motion for all items with the exception of 7B?

So moved.

Second.

Okay, that was Vice Mayor Aiken and Councilmember Howard.

And could we get a roll call vote, please?

Absolutely.

We'll start with Councilmember Chu.

Yes, Councilmember G.

Yes.

Council Member Howard.

Yes.

Councilmember Patti.

Yes.

Council Member Sturkin.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martinez Savaias.

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you, everyone.

Is our motion for item 7B as in Bob?

So moved.

Second.

That was a motion from the Vice Mayor, second from Councilmember Sturkin.

Could we get a roll call vote, please?

Council Member Howard.

Yes.

Councilmember Padilla.

Yes.

Council Member Sturkin.

Yes.

Council Member Chu.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martinez Sabayos.

Yes.

Thank you.

The motion passes with six votes.

Councilmember G is recused.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you, everybody.

We will move to our public hearings.

And now for our regular business items, we'll start with a public hearing on Senate Bill 79 regarding the abundant and affordable homes near Transit Act.

This item and the next two items all focus on the planning and development initiatives.

So we're putting Director Schwab to work.

I'll hand it over to our great director of community developments for a brief introduction to Planning Night.

Good evening, Mayor Martinez Abaias, members of the council.

Yes, welcome to long range planning night.

Tonight we'll have three substantial efforts for you to consider how to implement SB 79, the Affordable Homes Near Transit Act.

And then finally, the council will provide direction on future planning for the area east or south, depending on your perspective of Woodside Road.

SB 79 has a strong interrelationship with the MTC Metropolitan Transportation Commission's Transit Oriented Communities Incentive Policy.

That's a mouthful.

And our ongoing greater downtown area plan work.

Recently, the city obtained MTC grants to allow us to study the minimum density and maximum parking requirements that, if adopted locally, could make the city competitive in obtaining future one Bay Area grants for transportation improvements as well as other funds that may come available through other grant opportunities such as those at the county level.

It also has synergy with the greater downtown area plan efforts, given that the half mile radius falls largely within the greater downtown area plan boundary.

You'll hear about staff's recommendations to layer these efforts towards completion of a TOD or transit oriented development alternative plan that can fulfill the requirements of SB 79 while also achieving the density and parking goals of the MTC policy in coordination, also with the greater downtown area plan efforts in the early part of next year.

We'll then move to the modernization and efficiency uh components of our municipal and zoning codes.

Uh these largely implement state laws.

They will help us achieve consistency with them and fully implement them.

In particular, the two areas that are I'd like to focus or have you focus on tonight are the ADU provisions, where we propose to follow state law rather than have our own local ordinance and short-term rentals as we transition to a new vendor to help us administer the program and bring it into compliance with state law and other needs for the city.

There's a process for local ministerial approval of 100% affordable housing.

Zoning administrator reviews for projects under 45 feet in height, but still under three stories, allowing the zoning administrator to approve condominium maps that are would normally require planning commission approval, but other aspects of the project don't require a planning commission approval, so it would streamline that process.

It provides some opportunities for time extensions for projects that are entitled.

As you all know, some of those projects have been stalled, and this gives them a little bit more time to get them out of the ground.

It adds some additional uses and eases some parking regulations within the light industrial incubator district, which you'll hear more about in the last item, but it also to help create some more vibrancy and some desirable uses in that area.

And then finally, it uh updates definitions and makes most or more of the city's existing standards more objective to comply with state law.

And then finally, you will talk about the area south of or east of Woodside Road, and provide us some direction on how to achieve many of the goals and address some of the challenges that that area faces.

I wanted to just take one final moment to note that all of these efforts are in combination with other efforts in long-range planning that are currently underway, including the historic resources ordinance with a historic context statement, which is complex for Redwood City because there are a lot of different contexts and the Mills Act program update.

We also are going to need to bring forward a series of general plan updated updates to various elements for compliance with state laws and internal consistency with previously adopted plans and some just sort of general cleanup.

We are in the process of bringing objective design standards forward.

We had a study session with Planning Commission and the AEC, Architectural Advisory Committee, and that should come to you later this year as well.

And then we need to begin efforts to start our climate resilience and sea level rise planning.

So we have a pretty full long-range planning plate.

And with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Ellen Yao, our new senior planner, to tell you all about SB 79.

I'll bring this down.

Good evening, Vice Mayor, Council members.

My name is Ellen Yao, and I'm a senior planner with CDD.

Tonight I'll be presenting on the abundant affordable homes near Transit Act, also known as SB 79.

First, I'm going to go over three main points SB79 overview.

We'll go over the eligible areas and the development standards in those areas and some project requirements.

Then we'll go over the interplay with state density bonus law.

My second point will be on Redwood City and how SB79 applies to us.

We'll talk about the housing policy and direction that Redwood City has been taken.

And lastly, the implementation approaches that we can go forward with.

One, should city staff develop SB 79 compliant transit-oriented alternative plan in coordination with ongoing planning efforts.

Number two, should SB 79 obligations be applied as is, or should SB 79 obligations be paused on selected sites through a temporary exclusion ordinance.

If sites are temporarily excluded, should the exclusions include only local historic resources or all eligible properties.

So first, SB 79 is a recent state law.

SB 79 requires that housing is allowed by right on residential, mixed-use, or commercial sites located within a half mile of the transit oriented development stop in Redwood City.

We have one, which is our Cal Train Stop.

SB 79 also establishes density, floor area, and height standards that in some locations in the city would supersede the local standards we have.

However, SB 79 does not establish a new review process or CEQA processes.

So standard city review processes and SEQAL will still apply for SB 79 projects.

So in Redwood City, we have one eligible transit station, our Caltrain stop.

The map shows the three zones, and the chart to the right outlines the allowed maximum height and density that's allowed for each of these zones under SB 79.

If you look at the map, the outer ring is yellow, that's within half a mile from Caltrain and allows maximum height of 65 feet and 100 dwelling units per acre.

The inner middle ring is a cremsical orange color, which is 75 feet at 120 dwelling units per acre.

And then the closest one, which is 200 feet, allows for 95 feet in height for 160 dwelling units per acre.

I want to give a little bit of context for that.

So right behind the library, there's housing developments that's between the chain checks and El Camino sandwich between Franklin.

Those properties are about 80 feet, eight stories tall, and the density is about 180 to a little over 200.

So that kind of falls between the orange and the red already.

And you can see that those sites are in the current orange zone.

So to qualify for SB79 or residential development, must be located within the half mile that I showed on the map before.

And it must also meet these additional project requirements.

So the zoning for the site must be residential, mixed use, or commercial.

It cannot be located on a site that has or has had more than two units subject to rent control.

You're required to have a minimum density of 30 dwelling units per acre and provide at least five residential units in that project.

Projects with 11 or more units must provide affordable housing.

In cases where the city's affordable housing ordinance restriction requirements are higher with either deeper affordability or a higher number of units, the city's requirements would apply to the project.

So the higher of the more affordable unit requirements would apply to that project.

And for projects that are over 85 feet in height, we'll need to comply with prevailing wage and labor standards.

So if you look back to the previous map that I had, that would apply to the inner red circle because of the required height for the development.

So I'm gonna go a little into state density bonus law.

So state density bonus law is a law in California that provides incentives for developers to encourage development of affordable housing units.

So developers can exceed local height and density zone and standards using state density bonus.

It's kind of an exchange.

We give them more density or height or other concessions, and they provide affordable units.

So with SB 79, projects can use state density bonus on top of SB79 height and density requirements.

So they can do additional density and ask for waivers for reduction of other standards in our code.

However, projects that use state density bonus with SB79 can't request for additional heights.

Now I'm going to go into the second part of the presentation, which is how SB 79 interplays with Redwood City.

So if you look at the map here, the areas shown in green indicate current Redwood City standards that meet or exceed the SB 79 development requirements.

So this means that practically, if an applicant were to come in to use SB 79, if they were picking a site in the green zone, they most likely wouldn't evoke SB 79 because our current city standards would allow for more density or higher heights.

The areas in pink, however, they show where the city's current development standards for height or density is less than SB79 requirements.

So effectively, this if someone uses SB79, this would increase housing density and height.

Now, while it appears that's a lot more red areas than green, there are some considerations to consider based off of the context of the particular parcel and the fact that it's within our city.

So in the near term, SB 79 will likely have a limited impact due to some considerations like there are recent development entitlements.

So there are parcels in the pink area that have entitlements already.

So SB 79 likely won't affect those.

There are also many parcels within this half mile radius that are smaller parcels, and so smaller parcels by the virtue of their size, constrain development feasibility.

So even if you increase the cap, which is what SB79 is doing, it probably won't push a lot of development just because of the limiting size of those sites.

Additionally, current construction costs and interest rates are high and have restricted the amount of housing currently being built.

And as we know with our ZO amendments in the next item, we are looking for opportunities to extend entitlements so that people can get their projects off the ground.

Together, all these factors suggest that the near-term impact of SB 79 may be limited.

I wanna talk about Redwood City's housing policy and direction.

So the policy goals of SB 79 have considerable overlap with the city's own policy goals of encouraging higher density near transit.

For example, council adopted a strategic plan to address the most pressing community issues, and in that plan, they have identified housing and transportation as two of those strategic priorities.

You know, we know there's a mutually beneficial relationship between residences and transit.

Just like a previous presentation, we heard that you know we want to make residents riders and riders as residents.

In 2022, uh we established the transit district as a sub-area within our downtown precise plan, which focused transit oriented development and removed maximum maximum residential uh development limits in that area.

In early 2023, council adopted the housing element, which identified programs to increase permitted densities citywide.

Additionally, we have received funding through MTC to study minimum densities for new residential and commercial projects within that half mile radius of Caltrain Station, just like SB 79.

Uh and lastly, the GDAP is a refresh vision for downtown Redwood City, and one of the main goals and actions for that project is to increase housing supply and prioritize development near transit, again in general alignment with SB 79's goal.

So all together, these efforts demonstrate that the city has consistently supported and taken action and can intended to increase housing supply and prioritize development near transit.

Now I'm gonna go into the third part of the presentation, which is going over the implementation approaches.

So the law provides local jurisdictions some flexibility in applying SB 79 provisions.

Outlined here are four applicable options the city can take.

The first three are singular options, and the last one is a combination approach of any of the top three that I'll be talking about.

So two weeks ago on July 1st of 2026, SB 79 obligations already came into effect.

So the city is already operating under this option of baseline SB79.

So no further action is necessary for this approach.

As stated before, SB 79 is aligned with current city policy to support housing development and increase residential density close to transit.

So this would be the most straightforward and efficient path to further city policy.

The second option is a temporary site exclusion.

So jurisdiction may adopt a local temporary exclusion ordinance.

This would exclude certain sites from SB 79 obligations, and I'll go over the three categories in the following slide.

As part of today's item, we are presenting two options.

Option one is to exclude historic resources sites.

Option two is to exclude all possible sites.

Those were included as attachment B and attachment C in the staff report.

So now I'm gonna go into those three categories.

So first is sites that allow for 50% of at least 50% of the development capacity of SB 79.

So these sites are sites that whatever SB79 allows for, our current regulations are already allowed for 50%.

So it's a majority of the sites shown in this map.

The second group is low resource areas exclusion.

These sites are identified as low resource by the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee, and this determination that they have every year they update these maps, is what's mainly created to support funding for low income housing tax credit, but now it's being used for other various measures.

They categorize neighborhoods based off of factors like economic conditions, educational resources, environmental quality, and access to jobs and services.

So this map we just use based off of uh TCAC's maps.

The third category is historic resources.

Sites with a historic resource that is noted on our local register as of January 1st of 2025 and is included within the SB 79 area is shown in blue here.

So when we look at all of the available exclusion options, we found that there was a lot of overlap between the sites.

So the green, the pink, and the blue.

And so because of that overlap, you know, we saw there may be limited practical benefit in trying to just isolate each of those categories.

And so we are offering the two approaches, a narrower option, which is a historic resources, and then a broader option that applies to all available exclusions under state law.

And this is shown in yellow.

This is the overlap of all those three categories.

Then the third option is a transit oriented development alternative plan.

This uh is a targeted approach to redistribute SB 79's theoretical capacity differently than the law's blanket approach, which is just based off distance from Caltrain station.

The TOD alternative plan allows you to shift that capacity within the half mile radius.

There are limitations when you develop the TOD alternative plan.

Uh, some of that would mean that you must maintain the same number of uh units capacity within that area, just shift it around to different parcels.

No individual sites can reduce their capacity by more than 50%, and no site can exceed their SB 79 capacity by more than 200%.

The last option is a combination approach.

Uh you could do a combination of the other three that I talked about.

This is the staff recommendation to allow SB 79 to take effect as is, and then focusing the city's efforts on developing a transit oriented development plan.

This approach uh recognizes that SB 79 already aligns very closely with the city's adopted transit oriented development policies, specifically to promote housing near transit.

And the TOD alternative plan is the clearest avenue for expressing local voice.

So relying on the TOD plan rather than additional exclusions, let us maintain consistency with our policy direction while still shaping development in a way that fits Redwood City's context.

I want to specify uh I want to go into the timeline for these approaches.

Here, so the two options uh we we would the first option is applying baseline to SB 79, which was took in effect July 1st, about two weeks ago.

If we were to combine a transit oriented development alternative plan in conjunction with our MTC policy work or GDAP work, that would come to council about mid or spring of 2027.

Uh, then the second option you see here is apply SB 79 until a local ordinances in place, and that's temporarily until we can also get that TOD alternative plan again in spring 2027.

This was about to planning commission where they recommended in favor of staff's recommendation, which is again to allow the baseline obligations to take effect without adopting a temporary exclusion ordinance, and then concurrently using that time to develop an SB 79 compliant transit oriented development alternative plan.

So by motion, this is our staff recommendation by motion uh council to direct staff to allow SB 79's baseline obligations to take effect without adopting a temporary exclusion ordinance and concurrently develop an SB79 compliant transit oriented alternative plan in con in coordination with ongoing planning efforts, and you'll see the timeline on the screen above.

So the next steps uh if city council chooses to allow baseline SB 79 obligations to take effect, there is no further action needed.

If council decides to adopt a local ordinance to temporarily exclude sites, staff is required to submit the draft ordinance to HDD 14 days before the hearing, so the next possible uh second reading would be later in August, and that will take a month for it to take into effect.

Lastly, if we develop a TOD alternative plan utilizing planning processes that are currently underway, like the MTC TOC policy or the GDAP, that will come back to you in spring of 2027.

So again, going back to the council questions.

Should city staff develop a SP 79 compliant transit oriented alternative plan?

Number two, should SB 79 obligations be applied as is or adopt a temporary exclusion ordinance?

And if sites are temporarily temporarily excluded, should the exclusions include just historic resources or all eligible properties?

That concludes my presentation.

Thank you.

Ellen Jeff, thank you both for the presentation.

And before we bring it to the council, we'll check if we have any public comment.

No comment cards at this time.

So last call to the audience or our friends online for public comment on item 8A this evening.

No public comment mayor.

Okay.

Thank you, City Clerk and Councilmember Howard, your lights on.

Did you want to get us started?

No worries.

Well, I'll open it up to my colleagues if anyone has any clarifying questions or comments.

Councilmember Stewart.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Um, I have a couple questions.

So I want to know how would each of the options that you've laid out impact our ability to meet our RENA goals this cycle.

Or maybe just starting with the recommendation.

Yeah, okay.

So as I outlined, there's multiple options.

If you were to go with some, I guess overall, SB 79 is a state tool that does increase the capacity of housing units.

Uh it's hard to say exactly how that will support Arena because it does depend on some of the market forces that I talked about, right?

So even if we approve an entitlement, actually getting it built or issuing them building permits, which count towards Arena, it'll take some time for uptake.

So it I think overall reducing some regulatory restrictions and increasing capacity should help with and encourage development, but there are other restrictions like financial and market stuff that can make it a little harder to see those units come into play that can actually affect this eight-year period that we have for this arena cycle.

Absolutely, thank you.

That makes perfect sense.

Also to pose it a different way, would we get any additional points, if you will, with HCD if we were to take the as is approach?

Great question.

That is still kind of under consideration.

There has been talks with HCD just generally, not specifically to Redwood City of how that would count towards credit um capacity for the next cycle because they're already increasing, like the last cycle for housing element, we had to pick specific sites and up zone in order to support arena numbers, and because the state law already naturally increases for everyone, HCD is considering how that would affect the next arena numbers they give to us.

Probably get that in 2028 or 2029.

Thank you.

Yeah, right around the corner already.

Um that's very helpful.

Thank you.

And my final question, uh, with regards to what you've mentioned about being able to redistribute capacity, what does that look like?

How are sites identified or selected, if you will?

Great question.

We have thought about it in uh a little bit in the beginning.

So like I said, there are limitations to the TOD alternative plan.

The intent of SB 79 is to ensure that the closer you are to transit, the more residents you have there, the more units should be provided, logically.

And so that's why the gradient of development is inner circle, quarter mile, half mile.

But considering context, it does make sense that you know our downtown is north of El Camino north of the train tracks.

And so it's very likely if we want to continue encouraging development downtown, we'd had to identify sites that could accept the additional uh density, and through that analysis, we'd have to figure out which sites um if um that could give up some of the that capacity.

Uh we haven't identified a methodology to figure out which sites could or would not, but I think the general direction of that is identified in our already higher density zones like downtown.

Thank you so much.

Back to you, Mayor.

Thank you for getting us started, Councilmember.

Who has other questions?

Go ahead.

Councilmember G.

Thank you, May Mayor and Councilmember, thank you for getting us started.

So I'm gonna pick up your thoughts on the arena numbers a little bit.

You know, I'm kind of at the point where we're almost too late for the current arena cycle.

I mean, whatever's in the pipelines in the pipeline for our current arena cycle.

And given depending on what we do with item 8B and how much time ministerial approvals will shorten, what if someone are to walk in now with the current processes, probably entitlement and permit will come toward the back end of the current arena cycle.

And it may make it in, but it may not.

So what I think we're looking at is the next arena cycle, where I think it's safe to say the number for cities is not gonna go down for housing.

I think it's just gonna go higher.

And I think the conversation is 1.5 to 2x right now for the next arena cycle, which the cities are gonna struggle with that have refused to create housing in their communities.

So I think you know, this is a longer play in terms of looking at capacity and what if and how can we create capacity for the future, not just 2027 or eight or nine, but 30 and beyond.

So given that context, I think if I heard you correctly, the as is SB 79 compliant with the transit-oriented or the GDAP plan will create capacity for the future, and hopefully people will recognize the opportunity to come in with higher density and maybe taller buildings within those different rings.

Did I hear that correctly?

Uh, what I'm hearing you say that I'm saying is that uh SB 79 is a longer term uh tool that developers can use to encourage development with the near transit.

And given what we just heard, Cal Train does own a couple properties or influence a couple properties within a few feet of the Caltrain station that could benefit housing and development and activating the Caltrain station.

Correct.

What happens though when the Caltrain station moves north?

I mean, we now have the Caltrain, the quarter-wide grade crossing strategy as well as a long-range plan service plan where the Redwood City Cal train station will move north in the four-track alignment.

Then the bubbles move.

So for right now, and it is a long-term plan that they will be moving the station, um, but for now, we're just gonna follow the bubbles as they are.

Uh in the in the near future, I'm sure there'll be other new state laws that would come into play.

Uh even right now, SB 79 is on undergoing some amendments as well.

So it's hard to predict exactly what HCD will require jurisdictions to do.

Um, it's possible that the circles will move and then we'll increase development around the new transit station.

But even then, the transit station is much longer plan.

So there may be other regulations that will override SB 79.

So at least right now, if the station were to move next year, let's pretend it would move with the train station, and properties would new properties could be in the bubbles and older properties could be left out of the bubble if it were to move.

Yes, if we were to apply the law as it reads, yes.

It was interesting to know, I think it was on slide six, one of the requirements or exclusions.

You know, we just spent a lot of time looking at an initiative to be placed on the November ballot.

I think if there was a slide about ineligible properties were ones that had rent control on it.

That I understand that correctly.

Yes, that is correct.

Uh right now we don't have any local rent control, so that specific requirement would not apply to Redwood City.

And if the initiative were to pass, would that create a new bubble or new map that would exclude certain properties?

It would not be a new bubble, but it would be information that city staff would review if a developer chose a property and we realized yes, it is uh a property that has rent-controlled units, then they would not be able to use SB 79.

And so would have to go through the traditional planning process and comport to the initiative.

Uh, for demolition and you know, by right, it would just be a standard standard review project, yeah.

Very good.

And this would apply to whoever owns the property, so like Caltrain owned property would comply or have the opportunity to comply with SB 79?

Yes, SB 79 does have a section specifically encouraging transit agencies to also utilize their land for housing development.

Very good.

I think those were my questions.

If we're just gonna lean in, no, my leaning is the S the staff recommendation and what was approved by planning commission.

Because I think it does create capacity.

I think there are too many market forces that are gonna see create anything immediate.

Um, but I think again, we're looking at a long-range increasing development capacity and particularly housing near transitorian development.

And I can guarantee you, as I mentioned earlier, my comments with the SB 63 Financial Efficiency Committee review, that committee is extremely looking forward to the opportunity to weigh in on transit-owned properties near transit stations for revenue generation and value capture.

They can't wait, and so we just have to I've told them they just have to wait until the voters weigh in.

So thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember G.

We'll go to Councilmember Howard.

Thank you.

Uh a little tough to follow at times, but I really appreciate the good slides.

Uh I did have a question.

First of all, um, here we are.

SB 79, half a mile around a major transit center, and 65 feet tall at the outermost part of the perimeter.

Um excuse me, sixty-five feet tall.

Could you tell us approximately how many stories that is?

That's about five to six stories.

Five to six stories.

Oh, and that's at the area even that extends into our single family neighborhoods.

Uh there's only a very small portion that's actually zoned R1, but if you're talking about the area south of uh El Camino, yes, that would apply that height.

Well, you did mention that it would have a very minimal impact on our communities.

So could you explain to me um these neighborhoods we're talking about that may be impacted?

What would prevent it?

Is it the cost of the land?

Uh could you explain further why you think this probably wouldn't become an issue for some of these neighborhoods?

Yes, a lot of this is based off of professional experience and conjecture and just a development patterns.

So we have a lot of sites in those areas.

Like you said, they currently house uh lower density housing.

They are smaller sites, and in order for you to capture the value of SB 79, because they the cap is significant, in order for you to capture some of the value of the law, the smaller sites have constraints.

You have requirements like stairways and access.

So even if by increasing the capacity and the height, there are these other factors that would that may not encourage someone to utilize SB 79.

Um, you know, there's no aside from the increase in height and density, which a lot of developers can already use state density bonus on top of, right?

Right now you can use state density bonus.

Aside from that, there the site itself is very limiting, and so we don't see a lot of uptake with that.

For example, there are other laws in place that encourage single family development to increase their density by doing either lot splits or ADUs, and even that is we're seeing small portions being using those laws.

And so that's just what we assume.

Uh right now we're in about two weeks of SB 79, and we haven't really heard much from the public.

So that's kind of where we stand.

I could pass it along to anyone from management to elaborate.

Cuex line assistant community development vector.

Hi everyone.

I think I just to add to it, Anna was saying, I think the small lots have several constraints, and then if you could go back to the slide with can't remember the number, but it was great, it kind of talked about all the minimum requirements.

Do you remember that slide number?

There you go.

That was one.

So the other thing is here you have the minimum density and you have the minimum unit count as well.

So you have a restrictions that are here with SB 79, and then you have the restrictions of trying to fit that on a on a small lot.

So you have fire access, um, she mentioned, you know, you have other engineering requirements, you've got a lot of other things that you're kind of building.

So the combination of these with existing just how do you build a project on those small lots makes that um harder to do.

Well, that's very helpful.

Thank you.

I appreciate you for pointing that out again.

I did want to ask, did we have any outreach at all to the affected neighborhoods uh either at the planning commission level or did staff initiate any information to be sent out?

Oh, we did public noticing for the specific hearings for planning commission and city council, but we did not do any specific community engagement outreach.

Uh that we have a lot of state laws that come through, and so oftentimes um they just are in place.

That's the truth.

Um, my concern here is you're saying that SB 79 uh may not be over yet, uh, that people are still up there tweaking, and frankly, I think it makes really unstable uncertainty for cities who are trying to do the right thing.

I just I wish that wouldn't happen so often.

Uh but anyway, it's it is what it is.

But because they're still thinking about tweaking this and working to change or even make it more um powerful a document.

I'm guessing that the reason one of the reasons the planning commission voted the way they did on your recommendation is that why not get ahead of this by simultaneously doing a transit oriented development alternative plan to try to stay ahead of whatever the state may pass down in the future.

My guess is that let's make it strong, let's make it robust, let's get the community involved in this, and that's what I would be supporting.

Uh if we are going to move simultaneously, I'd like to hope that we would do robust community engagement so that we could demonstrate that we really went to the community, we have buy-in from them, and this plan should stand up no matter what hopefully comes down from the state in addition on uh SB 79.

So, am I interpreting that correctly?

Uh I'm gonna pass it to John, but let me add a little something to that.

Uh yes, through the transit-oriented development alternative plan, we will be doing community outreach if that is what council um directs staff to do.

Uh, as I mentioned before, there are other planning processes like the MTC TOC grant and the GDAP project that I'll let John speak on, uh, that already have community engagement efforts, and all of them kind of surround increasing density in downtown near transit.

And so all together, we would bring that package and look at it really holistically about how do we want to orient development in the city near transit, density, height, all that will be considered through a holistic community engagement effort that will cover all those various topics.

So we're not just addressing each state law as they come, but looking at it together and how it affects the city.

After tonight, could we get that information out to the public somehow, whether it be a neighborhood association informational from the city or next door or something, so that people can digest this and know that there's going to be ample opportunity for community engagement.

If we don't do that, I'm afraid that after a vote tonight, whichever way it goes, there might be misinterpretation of what we're doing and why.

So if I have supported the council, I'd like to suggest that somehow get this information out in a digestible uh way, that they'll be um what we're talking about tonight and and let people know that they will be involved in the uh planning of this future plan.

Thank you.

Absolutely, yeah.

Um did you want to add anything, John?

No.

No.

I think Ellen basically did a great job covering it.

Um, but yeah, I I think we can we can commit, you know, we'll we'll noodle a little bit on what that um communication will look like in what format.

Um, but I think we can commit to doing something in the short term for that.

Thank you, John.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Those are my questions.

Thank you, Councilmember.

We'll go to Vice Mayor.

I just um in terms of additional information out there.

Uh um we may be doing the transit-oriented development plan, which doesn't exist yet, which will exist maybe in spring of 2027.

So sending information out right now, I'm a little I'm just not sure what it would be.

So I'm I'm not sure I support doing that right now when we're already doing GDAP outreach and um we're already doing um uh other outreach.

Uh I'm this is this is implementation of a state law that we have to implement, and I'm not sure that I agree we should be doing an informational thing after tonight's meeting.

I just I just wanted to say I I'm not looking to do something duplicative.

I'm looking for uh staff to advise on um just an update and maybe it's ongoing updates on all of these topics we're talking about so that the public is informed.

That's all I'm looking at.

I'm not looking to start and stir things up, just informational purposes.

Uh through the chair, right?

Um, yeah, I think it's a uh a good request.

Uh and I'd like to talk to Jeff uh Schwab maybe tomorrow to see what we can do because I do think there's elements on all three of the items tonight that community members back.

How do these all interplay?

And you guys were talking about Mills Act a couple months ago and historic resource, how's that all interplay?

So I do think we can get together with community development staff to figure out maybe it's a series of communications.

Um there will be meetings coming up.

Um we should talk about how those meetings are agendized in that.

It might be good to talk about several of these things at those meetings, even though the meeting might have a very specific topic context is good.

So let me connect with the staff tomorrow and then we'll circle back with with the council to provide some information on that.

Thank you.

Councilmember True.

Um thank you for the presentation and the very clear set of options.

Um, and I think it really speaks to how well Redwood City has done at producing housing, that this has sort of been a nothing burger.

There's a neighboring city that's gotten six applications, and it's been live for 13 days.

Um, and so um, you know, I think that our city has been very focused on transit-oriented development.

That's just kind of what we do.

Um, and so from the perspective of, you know, somebody living in the city, I I would imagine, and I don't know, most people aren't following state housing laws, you know, like sports.

Most people just find out, oh, we've got a new updated plan for the downtown area.

This is what they, you know, it is, and you know, if they want to get wonky, that's certainly an option.

Um, and so my understanding is the GDAP is a transit-oriented plan.

Um, our plan is to concentrate new development near transit.

Um, and so I would be supportive of, you know, the staff recommendation, um, knowing that that's something we're doing anyway, that we're already planning to communicate to our community anyway, um, and then it really is a natural sort of extension of of the things that are already underway in our city.

Um, so uh really appreciated this.

Um again, I think that we're already ahead of the wave, uh, which is why it's not crashing over us.

Uh so very much appreciate it.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Any other questions?

Councilmember Padilla.

I just want to echo Councilmember Howard's sentiments about communicating with our community.

I just think even though things are messy, there we should, it's worth doing the work, even if we don't have clear answers, just showing that there's work being done.

I think I think to Councilmember Howard's point, I just no one wants to feel that something came out of nowhere.

Just it's important for us to make the effort.

So I just want to second that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember Sirkin.

Thank you.

Um I'm supportive of the staff recommendation as well, but I am kind of of two minds about this on one hand coming into this conversation.

I thought to myself, well, if it gets us some more points, you know, this arena cycle, maybe it's worth considering uh the as-is approach, but hearing that in practicality, um, we may not see the benefit of that until next cycle.

Um, I you know support the proposal before us.

And I also appreciate the benefit of the community outreach that will be done over the course of of year, which is a good chunk of time for us to do that in a conjunction with the outreach efforts we're already doing.

And so thanks to staff already for the work you're doing.

Um, and the reason I had asked about the redistribution of capacity was just to be sensitive to you know what I've heard from some of my neighbors in the past about feeling like development gets concentrated in their neighborhood and just being you know sensitive to that, uh, but recognizing that it it does make sense to concentrate new development or the potential thereof in already uh in areas that are already zoned for high density, and that of course leads us right to downtown, right?

So it makes sense, um, but just wanting to make sure that as part of that outreach we are being sensitive to uh residents' concerns as we did receive at least one written uh public comment.

But um, to the point about outreach, the one suggestion I had um was maybe just a simple FAQ uh you know sheet on SB 79.

There's probably already one out there published by published by the LAO or whatever that we could just leverage and share with the neighborhoods, I think as was suggested.

So with that, I'm again supportive of the staff recommendation and thank you so much.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Not seeing anyone else's lights on.

Um, please.

So thank you.

I wanted to thank staff.

I'm really excited that this is housing night, and we've got three, I think it was brilliant of all of you to coalesce all these different housing ish things in one night.

And uh so that's great.

And I um so some of these comments might apply to all three, but I'll I'll I'll do it now.

Um so one of the things about housing downtown, really, which is what this one is about, the half a mile radius.

Oh, by the way, could you put one of the maps up?

I don't know, just any of them, just so we see that circle.

Um that's fine.

Thank you.

Um, so one of the things, just big picture that I want to see about housing, and and tonight is as good as night to say it is possible.

I just I really wish we had more condos.

I I wish that we had more opportunities for our middle class folks to live downtown with their first home and have a purchasing opportunity, which all statistics show it is the way that they will build middle class wealth.

That's means it's going to be apartments.

But I still just want us to keep trying for those middle class opportunities.

Some of my colleagues have said in the past about we do so much heavy lifting on the housing, and it is one of our three priorities and affordable housing and very low affordable housing.

But you know, we do we we do it for a lot of the surrounding cities who simply just don't do it at all.

And you know, that's fine, it's a value, it's the right thing to do, that's okay.

But I don't want us to lose sight that we also want uh again these condos.

I'm not so enamored of townhouses, but okay, at least it's ownership.

Um but I really I really would love condo towers, condo instead of apartments, condo buildings or cooperatives like they have in New York, but where it's ownership, and so I'd like us to keep pushing the banks, and and you know, maybe it means that that we spend some of our general fund money down the road at helping do financing, you know, where we provide money and then the money comes back.

We act as a bank.

If the banks are saying no, we it we don't want to give you money for uh ownership opportunities downtown, then maybe we step in.

I this is all long-term, but it's housing night, and so I'm I just want to talk about some of this.

Um, and pretty pretty clear that the transit transit oriented development plan will be done in the spring uh so six or seven months from now.

A little more than that, but yeah, around that.

Well, as soon as possible, I would I would say, but you already are doing that.

I want to thank staff.

I had a lot of questions.

I'm sort of embarrassed how many questions, but you answered them beautifully, and and so that was a lot of work over the weekend, and and I thank you.

Um I agree with council member Howard.

I I am worried about, I guess it's uh south of El Camino, I don't know, toward the ocean of El Camino, which to me means west of El Camino, but whatever.

Anyway, I am a little bit worried about those.

I just want to point out a historic fact, and that is that the I'm pretty sure that the very first subdivision in very first housing subdivision in San Mateo County occurred along El Camino near Sequoia High School, you know, in the 20 in the 19th century, and very very historic, and um so uh I I share council member Howard's concern about you know this big uh difference between density and housing subdivision, historic housing subdivision, but I'll leave that there for the moment.

Um hold on, I'm almost done.

Um so I am I'm really grateful to staff for studying the historic resources downtown, the historic resources areas, and really doing a deep dive on that.

Historic preservation is is so important, and I just I just want to tell a quick story about the downtown, where we have the courthouse, the eight-floor courthouse that was built in the 1950s, where you go to court, where you go to the county clerk and all that.

That building was built in the 50s, but it was built on public land that was a park, sort of like the park you have in Sonoma.

It was called California Square.

And it's where everyone in Redwood City went.

Imagine if we still had that.

When Simon Mezes, the founder of Redwood City, when his family found out that the city of Redwood City, that San Mateo County was going to take that public take ownership, expand that and take ownership of all the houses around it to make that building.

The family of Simon Mezes dug up his grave and moved it, because it was such a uh deterioration of the historic vision for the town.

And one of the houses that ringed it was the Lathrop House, which has been moved twice.

It used to ring California Square, and then it was uh moved a couple of times.

But that was a heroic effort to preserve the Lathrop House in the 1970s.

Um Nita Spangler, among other women, just just made it happen.

It was going to be demolished.

And we are now it is now a part of the San Mateo County History Museum.

And we are now discovering recent scholars are discovering that the history of that house, the owners of that house, touch the history of San Mateo County, the history of California, the history of Redwood City, much more meaningfully than ever was known before, and not all in good ways, which is why the house is going to be renamed to not highlight negative history.

But my point is we can learn a lot from history, and so I really appreciate staff's effort to talk about that we could do a carvat out to exclude um certain historic resources from SB 79 for for a time and and for really um explaining how that could happen.

I appreciate it, and I studied that very carefully.

One of the reasons that I support the transit uh staff's recommendation of doing the transit or you know, implementing SB 79 as is until we get the transit-oriented development option, is that and I'll just confirm this.

I already got it confirmed, but that um any historic resource just as it does now would still have to go through the EIR process.

Is that correct?

Yes, that's correct.

And all the all the protections that currently pertain for historic resources would still pertain even if a developer chose to use SB 79 to do a development with near or on a historic resource, is that right?

Uh not near, but on sites, yeah.

Um so that that gave me some ease.

Um also as has been described, the fact that these are smaller parcels and that with um other requirements like fire and and that kind of thing, it's it's not likely that there would be any change from SB 79 not being in effect for the near term for until our TOD plan is implemented.

Is that that's your sense?

Right.

So based off of the considerations that we talked about, like small lot sizes, the uptake of um using SB 79 will be limited in Redwood City.

I wanted to ask Ms.

Chu, you said something like in other cities in the last two weeks there have been six applications.

What can you be a little what would you?

Those are cities that don't build lots of housing, so there's pent-up demand in those cities.

The fact that it's been a nothing burger in Redwood City, I think.

Oh sorry.

What why are you sorry?

Oh, I should have been what's okay.

Please go ahead, Councilmember.

Okay.

Um cities that have not built housing and have obstructed it fairly systematically, saw quite a bit of activity in a very short amount of time.

Because Redwood City has allowed people to build housing, there's no pen.

Well, I mean, there's not no pen, but you don't see that same pent-up demand.

Um I don't think that we have, I don't want to say anything to worry about, but I think it's not going to have the immediate dramatic effect that that people can be worried about.

Um I also wanted to respond to something else.

You said that the reason there's so little condo development is because it is a guarantee that if you build condos, you're gonna get sued in about nine and a half years, like the the product, you know, the liability laws.

Uh the clock start uh ends at 10 years, and so there's lawyers whose business model is to go around to condo product projects, find whatever went wrong because of course it's been nine and a half years.

Something's gone wrong, and and you will be sued.

Uh and so there's a new law, AB 1903.

Uh, I believe it's gonna go into effect either you know next year or it's already gone into effect that tries to address that.

I mean, it certainly gives people uh who've truly had defective condos built, the you know, ways to to pursue justice, but it really stops this frivolous uh guaranteed lawsuit sort of approach.

Hopefully that'll get better.

Thank you, thank you.

Um, and so um thank you for that clarification on the other cities, and with the condos, it's it's also that banks are gonna do what's most profitable, and um so the long statute of limitations isn't the only reason, although I grant you it's it's uh hopefully being remedied, but but um so I guess my point about the condos was I guess I'll just leave it there, but but I I'm finishing my comments by just saying that um I appreciate that staff uh really highlighted the possibility of the historic resource, and to Councilmember Howard's point, we we do have a lot of work to do for sure, on knowing all of our historic resources, um and that helps everybody because it helps people know what isn't a historic resource, so knowing what we have is helpful for everybody, um, and this study just of a half mile radius in our downtown and um is a is a precursor, I hope uh to more story on historic resources.

And um I guess the last thing I'll say is just I really love how many studies we're doing.

I really love how much planning.

I really love that we have all these planners here tonight, because sometimes when the economy is raging and really hot, the developers get ahead of us.

They have the money, they have the banks, they can they own the land, and then there isn't the planning, there isn't the community input, there isn't the study, and and that's happened to us in the recent past, and so I just think the best kind of planning is is planning and and not developer driven.

So I'm really excited that tonight is housing night and that and that we're doing all this planning.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Not seeing anyone else's lights on.

Oh, yeah, please, council member.

Thank you.

Sorry, Mayor.

Sorry, colleagues.

I just want to lift up Councilmember Chu's comments.

Vice Mayor, I agree, condominium is a great way for young families to enter the ownership market, but in California, the laws aren't helpful.

I'll give an example.

My building colleagues were asked to do an interior renovation of a condominium.

No building structure, no nothing.

The insurance cost was quoted at 450,000 to do an interior renovation of that thousand square foot condominium because of all the things that council member Chu said, the litigation, it's almost certainty.

The statute were proposed 10 years.

And so I think one of the I've talked to other um constituents, the one of the easiest ways, well, not easiest because it's going to take a heavy lift in Sacramento, is to change the statute of reposed for maybe 10 years or something less and put a cap on litigation.

Because that's not just the banks, it's it's the attorneys, as council member Chu alluded to, that go around and they particularly go to the HOA board of directors and suggest that if you don't sue your architect, developer, builder, and everybody involved, including the banker, you will then be personally liable for defects after the 10 years.

And if you're a director on an HOA board and approach that way, you will likely engage in litigation to prevent personal liability.

So there needs to be some accommodation to changing some rules and laws in Sacramento to spur middle housing and ownership for younger families.

But right now in California, the laws aren't helpful for that kind of uh development and property ownership.

I thank you.

I just want to say I agree with you that the statute of limitations could be reduced.

That would be helpful.

I also just want to say about some of the characterization, just simply that under the code of ethics for lawyers, they can't solicit.

So I know it happens, but not I'll just leave it there.

And anyway, I don't I don't uh well just thank you, Vice Mayor Colleagues.

I appreciate the robust discussion.

Not seeing anyone else's lights on.

Um add my thanks, Ellen, Jeff, the whole team appreciate the great work.

Um, you know, I just two very quick questions.

I want to make sure that I I heard this correctly.

So SB SP 79 won't actually change like the the amount of paperwork that developers would have to go through.

This is really just recategorizing where in town folks can develop and exactly how much.

Am I understanding that right?

Like there's not going to be any more or less paperwork that comes with implementing the legislation.

In terms of implementing the legislation on the staff level, we don't believe there'll be additional paperwork.

Uh we would probably revise some of our applicant informations and our packets, maybe like a checkbox to say, yes, I am using SB 79.

Um mainly it would be staff reviewing the projects uh to make sure they meet the requirements of an SB 79 project, the slide number six.

Great, thank you.

And that um actually leads me to my next question about what that looks like for developers.

So will there be as a part of the outreach?

Will there be you know any meetings with our housing developers to understand as we roll this out, what's gonna be easy for them to understand and pick this up and go.

I know other cities are getting a little more attention, but when you know folks think about Redwood City, I'm just kind of curious how they can pick up this information and understand the new lay of the land.

Yeah, I think as council members suggested, we can do an FAQ to make sure that information of uh using utilizing this option, uh, we can include that in FAQs or other public forward-facing documents and updating our website.

Amazing.

Yeah, and I know we we have a blog page that typically the um the meteor items end up there just because you you have more space to work with, but I think an FAQ is a great idea too.

Um, and to Councilmember Howard's point around the concurrent outreach, I think that absolutely needs to be a part of this process.

There's lots of land use changes happening.

Um, I think our neighbors need to know the housing developers, the businesses in the community who you know are focused on on their shops, right?

They need to understand all of this and and what it means for them too.

But um, the other question I had was just around how the housing exchange, that's just what I'm calling it, but um how that I guess process will be created of um trading sort of the where the housing units are within that bubble.

Yeah, like I said before, the methodology isn't entirely clear how we're gonna focus that.

We have started just initial analysis.

Again, I've kind of explained some of it before.

We've looked at what our current requirements are, and then we've kind of compared it to what SB 79 would be within each of those rings.

Um, and we'll look at it and compare with uh the other policies we are working through, like MTC TOC, they have specific requirements like minimum density.

So if we're kind of comparing all of these various planning processes that we need to comply with, we'll see where those uh where the alignment can be and make sure we create uh development, an alternative uh transit oriented development plan that kind of captures all of it.

So we're looking again at this holistic approach for community engagement policies, so that's straightforward for our community and developers and staff review.

Great.

Thank you, Ellen, and thank you for reclarifying that.

I um I ask because I I can already see that being a really sensitive conversation that we have with neighbors and with folks who are gonna be hearing about it for the first time when staff is reaching out to them to tell them about this.

So, you know, I think because it's a really careful conversation we need to have.

I think having the city council kind of create uh guiding principles on what that implementation of that process looks like would be really helpful because I can imagine there will be lots of questions and kind of weighing the priorities of what remains in place and what gets exchanged and all of those trade-offs.

I think um it would be great to get the council's way in on that too, um, knowing that this is a year-long process.

So just thinking about that.

Um, and then you know, to just wrap up, I have to agree with my colleagues.

I really appreciate the way this this presentation was um was drafted.

I think the matrix where you explained what each of the different routes and what it would mean for us.

I thought that was really helpful and um including including visuals, right?

Like you did on the FAQs on our communications is gonna be really helpful because some of this is technical and dense, and it should be easy for folks to understand to know what's actually gonna happen and not what they might hear about in in other towns where they haven't done the work that we have in Road City.

So I will leave it there.

Great colleagues.

Um I will entertain a motion.

Councilmember G.

Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to allow SB 79's baseline obligations to take effect without adopting a temporary temporary exclusion ordinance and concurrently develop an SB 79 compliant, transit-oriented development alternative plan as recommended by staff and ask that our city manager meet with community development to amplify community engagement and information.

And I'll just let that figure that part out.

I'll second that.

Hopefully I said that right.

Did I make okay?

Thank you, city attorney.

Great.

Thank you, Councilmember G.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

Could we please get a roll call vote?

We'll start with council member G.

Yes.

Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Council Member Padilla.

Yes.

Councilmember Sturkin.

Yes.

Councilmember Chu.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Eakin.

Yes, Mayor Martina Saballos.

Yes.

The motion passes unanimously.

Great.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you, Ellen.

And with that, we'll go to 8B, assistant community development directors who XLIN will introduce AB and senior planner Apollo Rojas will give the presentation.

Thank you both.

Good evening, Council Members.

Sue X-Line assistant community development director.

So, as you probably know, we come before you regularly for zoning code updates.

Tonight we're also adding a couple minor municode updates this evening.

These happen about every one to two years.

It's to, and Apollo will go through this in more detail, but it's to keep up with state law, it's to update and refresh our codes with new definitions, and it's to streamline our code as well as it gets uh cumbersome cumbersome over time.

The other thing that I'll note is that as soon as we uh say, okay, we are finally done with this round of zoning code, we start our list for the next round.

So it's always a constant process, and we welcome any additions kind of for future updates as well.

So I'll turn it over to Apollo.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

X Line.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members, members of the public.

Again, my name is Apollo Rojas.

I'm a senior planner here with the city.

I'll be presenting the uh zoning and mini code updates.

So to start, just do a presentation outline.

Um we'll start uh with city council questions to provide some key points to think about during the presentation.

Then we'll go into some of the background and purpose of you know why we're doing the zoning and municipal code updates, and those updates they'll include things like development review streamlining, housing element implementation, and code maintenance.

Uh the amendments will also go into a rezoning of two parcels uh over in the Bear Island neighborhood, and then we'll close out with uh planning commission's recommendation as well as recommended recommended actions.

So here are some questions for city council.

Number one, do the proposed amendments sufficient streamline development review and align with city council strategic priorities.

Number two, does the city support ministerial review of 100% affordable housing projects?

And number three, does the city support the proposed amendments to development standards to facilitate residential development?

Now, a little background.

As we know, Rabbit City, the region, the state, you know, we're experiencing uh this severe housing crisis that has that requires significant action in order to address, and so with that, the state has assigned the city to meet our what's called regional housing needs allocation to pronounce arena, and that requires the city to approve 4,588 units by the year 2031.

In addition, Robert City as a leader in housing in the peninsula has aimed for the target of 7,000 units or over 7,000 units in that same planning period.

So uh Rabbit City also has our uh also has housing as a strategic priority with the intent to advance these policies and facilitate housing production.

So back in 2023, uh the city council adopted the general plan housing element, which included 40 uh housing programs that the city is required to implement again by that same 21 2031 planning period.

These housing element programs commit to things like streamlining housing projects and updating our code to allow more buildable area for housing.

So it would be difficult to achieve this goal of approving 7,000 more homes without updating the city's uh development process development processes.

So over the past three years, the city has adopted a number of zoning code updates in order to implement these housing element programs, and this uh proposed update uh before you tonight is again one incremental step uh in that process to build upon that previous work and expanding housing opportunities and streamlining in Rabbit City.

So to recap, summarize we have a challenge in housing, we have policies in place with goals, and the code amendments uh proposed tonight are just an incremental step towards achieving that goal.

Now, throughout this presentation, uh we're talking about zoning and municipal zoning and municipal code updates.

I might just say amendments, I might slip up and just say zoning.

So uh bear with me.

But the idea is both would be amended.

So there's numerous things to consider, so we try to conceptualize into these three buckets.

First, development review streamlining.

This aims to expand opportunities to develop housing, including 100% affordable housing in Robert City.

Second, housing element implementation, such as expanding housing opportunities on small lots.

Um, this is consistent with allowing what's you know also known as the missing middle, and also revising minimum parking standards for affordable housing and senior housing.

And lastly, uh code maintenance.

Uh these amendments are also intended to address just a varied set of issues that we categorize as code maintenance.

These are items that fall under the category of things like outdated regulations, uh cleanups of minor errors that staff has identified through our natural course of work, and then ensuring consistency with ever changing state laws and of course uh as well uh minor policy updates.

So development review uh streamlining.

So uh while considering this, it's important to note major changes to state law over the past eight years.

Uh, a lot of them have prevented cities from denying what's called qualifying housing projects, and this is project housing projects at any affordable uh any affordability level as long as they meet the city's uh local uh development standards.

So discretionary review, including feedback in public hearings such as this, have been limited by state law.

In addition, the city has adopted housing element policies that have committed to streamlining uh this development review process, including uh expanding the types of housing projects that can be approved at a staff level.

So, with that, the first amendment uh proposed would be adoption of a local program to streamline 100% affordable housing and review of the 100% affordable housing projects would occur at a staff level without a public hearing.

Currently, larger development projects require both uh review from the architectural advisory committee and the planning commission, and the proposed amendments would eliminate the requirement of a public hearing in order for to do a couple things.

Uh, first, to reduce the overall time it takes to review and bring affordable housing online faster.

Uh, you know, making development more affordable by reducing the cost to hold land to retain consultants to prepare the materials required for a public hearing, and it also increases the amount of time affordable housing is eligible for their funding sources.

They have to often compete uh sign up for or apply for competitive grants, and those are a critical piece of the affordable housing financing.

You know, a project would still need to meet all the city's objectives development standards and meet the building code requirements and pay all their fees.

Next, height.

Uh the city has an established height threshold where projects uh trigger review by the architectural advisory committee and plan commission if they are over three stories and 35 feet.

Unfortunately, many residential three-story townhomes have been uh uh captured in this requirement and the trigger planning commission review because for a three-story townhome at least uh the 35-foot threshold is very low, considering uh you know your foundation plates, the heights required from a garage, the floor plates for each level, and if you want to have particular roof forms uh to top off that building.

So the proposed amendment would be to increase that height from 35 feet to 45 feet, however, no changes are uh proposed to the required uh three-story threshold, just increasing the fee.

Next, extending entitlements from three to five years.

Currently, planning uh entitlements are active or planning permits, planning entitlements.

These are what uh developers get when they are approved to uh construct something.

They're currently active for three years, and within this three-year entitlement period, an applicant has to obtain financing, develop construction plans, and secure a permit.

All this while facing a building code cycle that also uh changes every three years, therefore maybe impacting the plans they already have submitted in-house.

This is more complicated for larger projects such as affordable housing, which I mentioned earlier, has to obtain multiple funding sources.

So, in the past, Rebwood City has had projects that have returned to the Planning commission because their entitlements have expired.

This can be costly to both the applicant and to the city.

So the proposal is to extend the entitlement eligibility to a total of five years.

Uh, how that breaks down is it would start with a base of three years, plus two separate uh one-year extensions by the zoning administrator.

They would need written permission from the zoning administrator for the fourth year.

And for the fifth year, the applicant would have to show that building permit plans have been submitted and that fees have been paid just to make sure this project is actually moving along and can feasibly meet that fifth year deadline.

This would allow the zoning administrator to review condominium projects that would otherwise not require review by the planning commission.

These are what a condo project is and basically how it differentiates from a rental project is a condo is an ownership project, and as part of that ownership process, uh maps have to be made to outline property boundaries.

This review of the mapping is a very technical exercise that is prepared, you know, it's prepared by licensed surveyors and is reviewed by our technical engineering staff.

So you know, currently, as the code is written right now, in some instances, if all things were being equal.

The city would require a public hearing for an ownership project that it wouldn't require for a rental project.

And this proposed amendment would fix that issue.

Lastly, undergrounding.

Currently, large multifamily projects are required to underground utilities, including utility pools, as part of the project.

So, in order to reduce the cost of housing, the proposals to exempt residential projects from the utility undergrounding requirement.

So that's development review streamlining, which also overlaps with housing element implementation.

You know, these things aren't in perfect silos, and I want to just sort of emphasize that a lot of this work is driven by uh the housing element as well, which also recommends expediting review housing projects and especially those 100% affordable uh projects.

It also uh advocates to reduce timelines and reduce the number of public hearings and part of our uh governmental process and to allow for further uh entitlement extensions or more lead time for these projects to be built.

And small lots.

Uh, that's another housing element program.

Uh small lot is characterized by the housing element as a development site that is half an acre or less.

Uh so you know, these provisions are key for building most of the infield development that we see across Revit City and a lot of the missing middle uh type development uh that we would like to see in Redwood City.

So the proposed amendments would include reducing what's called daylight plane setbacks for upper stories in mixed-use zoning districts, reducing front and exterior yard setbacks in multifamily zones, reducing open space requirements uh in residential districts from 300 square feet to 125 square feet per unit, and that's consistent with the current open space requirements in mixed-use districts.

Also, finally, here allowing open space uh area to be located within setback areas in mixed use zones.

That's a luxury that's currently provided to multifamily districts, but for some reason it's not provided to mixed-use zones.

So just sort of uh clarifying that issue.

Other housing element implementation uh programs uh you know relate to things like housing options for people with special needs and extremely low income.

Uh low back low barrier navigation centers, for example, are defined as temporary shelters that provide services and housing for individuals experiencing homelessness.

So the city would codify existing uh state standards as part of our ordinance to uh clearly uh note to folks that you know this is the process for approving these navigation centers here in Redwood City.

We would also clarify the review authority, which isn't clear in the state statute, that these have to be approved ministerially, and that would occur here by the city's zoning administrator again with no uh public hearing.

And uh here as well, uh the proposal would be to revise uh parking standards to eliminate minimum parking standards for 100% affordable housing, senior housing, group homes, and those same uh low bearer navigation centers.

Now, uh, you know, there's removing minimums, but that doesn't mean that uh parking can't still be uh constructed or provided for these types of uses.

However, you know, the city would not mandate that they are provided.

Construction of parking can be uh very expensive and lead to the uh overall uh cost of housing, can be a significant uh portion of the cost of construction and development, and it can be a constraint to housing.

So removing the parking requirement would facilitate greater development of these housing types.

Now, code maintenance.

The overall purpose of code maintenance code maintenance uh is to ensure that the zoning code remains current, internally consistent, and consistent with state law policies.

So these are the highest volume of updates as part of the zoning code amendments.

So tonight we're just highlighting a few of them that are most substantive for the council.

They include uh updates to be consistent with state law, including reverting our uh cities ADU ordinance back to state law, which is already largely consistent with our local standards.

It would be as well to update short-term rental ordinances to strengthen enforcement of the policies, the existing policies.

So again, a state law was passed.

We're using the allowances of that new state law to uh strengthen our our existing uh short-term rental uh policies, and then updates to uh uh SB9 to clarify that they need to comply with underlying zoning district standards, and finally, uh updates to clarify the review process for state mandated ministerial review.

You know, the state says you need to have this uh you know, ministerial process to approve um uh new housing, new types of permits, but they don't give further guidance.

So this is just making it really clear.

This is uh staff level review by the zoning administrator, and no uh public hearing is required as well as no appeal uh is allowed.

So low bearing navigation centers would be a good example of one of those state mandated processes.

Moving on.

Uh code maintenance will also include policy updates that staff deems to be minor in scope.

Uh first uh we established uh bicycle parking standards by land use in this proposal in December of last year.

The city council reviewed and approved amendments to the city's engineering standards.

That also included standards for bicycle parking design and the number of parking spaces required or bicycle parking spaces required.

The code update would codify this into uh the zoning and update those same engineering standards.

Um amendments to existing standards.

We have existing standards that allow a vehicle uh bicycle parking to count towards uh a site's carpool vehicle parking requirement, specifically car pool requirement.

Now we're uh updating the standard to apply to all types of vehicles.

So in these specific districts, some level of bicycle parking could be provided to provide a minor parking reduction uh for your automobile requirement.

And then uh minor land use updates.

So one is to allow food preparation, uh, you know, that's defined as catering and bakeries.

So allowing those by right in industrial zone districts and in our mixed use transitional zone districts.

That's an area that's located adjacent to you know high commercial areas and industrial areas that transition to uh some of the multifamily uh zoning districts.

Another update is to allow medical office by right within half a mile of uh transit.

That major transit would be uh the by the Revit City Caltrain station.

As we heard, state law now prohibits applying some parking standards within that half mile of major transit, and previously we required conditional use permissible conditional use permits.

The CUP, the conditional use permit, is meant to analyze, you know, traffic and parking impacts.

But if no parking can be required, then uh you know the thought was to, or the proposal is to make this uh allowed by right within that half mile area.

Also, expanding permitted uh by right health and fitness uses from uh 2,500 square feet to 500 square feet, 5,000 square feet.

It was inconsistent within many parts of the code, and so this is just making it consistent throughout.

If it's 5,000 under, it's permitted by right, it's over 5,000, requires a use permit.

And also in the light industrial zoning district, allowing more neighborhood serving uses, so allowing indoor recreation and modifying parking requirements for uh retail restaurants to try to help facilitate those types of uses.

Going into rezoning, there's a proposal here to rezone two parcels in the Bear Island neighborhood.

These sites are located underneath major electrical transmission lines and an electrical tower and are unlikely to develop.

They're not likely to develop.

The amendments would rezone the two parcels from mixed-use waterfront to uh general commercial with a residential overlay in order to uh allow for more feasible uses and to be more consistent with the surrounding zoning, as you could see to the north and the west, also that same commercial general uh zoning district.

So before on May 5th, the planning commission uh adopted a resolution recommending that the city council adopt amendments to the zoning code.

As a reminder, the planning commission uh does not have purview over the municipal code, so there are items such as the amendments to the engineering standards, for example, which require uh direct council action.

There are a couple recommendations here.

The recommended actions are to uh one waive the first reading and introduce an ordinance amending the zoning code, two to waive the first reading and introduce an ordinance amending the municipal code, and two, three uh adopt a resolution approving revisions to the city's engineering standards.

So to wrap up here again, are the uh in addition to the materials in your packet here are some of the questions to uh consider for the city council.

That's the uh end of my presentation available for any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Apollo.

Appreciate it.

And before we bring it up to the city council, we'll open public hearing for this item, and I'll turn it over to our city clerk for public comment.

Thank you, Mayor.

I have three in-person speakers.

And if you've joined us by Zoom, please go ahead and raise your hand at this time.

Uh once we begin public comment, we won't take any additional names on the list.

Okay, we'll close the speaker's list.

We'll have the three in-person speakers and one speaker on Zoom.

We'll begin with Gregory Gilbert, who will be followed by Aaron Takitomo Gilbert.

Welcome.

Thanks for having me.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

Uh hi, I'm Dr.

Gregory Gilbert, and I serve as the medical director for the 911 uh system here in San Mateo County, and I've done so for the past 20 years.

So, if I look familiar, that's why.

Uh, my family has lived uh in one marina for the past 10 years, and I respectfully ask you to continue this item uh until there's been a more complete analysis and broader public outreach.

Um several members of this council know the history of this property and and particularly these two parcels that are being asked to be redistrict.

Um dealership vehicle storage uh operated here, noise complaints from neighboring residents were common.

Eventually, we reached the gentleman's agreement that substantially reduced those disturbances while there are occasional lapses that require re-education.

That agreement has largely protected the neighborhood.

So my question is simple.

Why is this zoning change necessary?

Is the current and proposed zoning uh are as similar as the staff report suggests.

What public benefit justifies removing the existing waterfront zoning?

My concern is that this change weakens the neighborhood's ability to address impacts that we have already experienced.

Noise, increased commercial activity, and traffic.

Those impacts are not theoretical.

They affect families with young children, people who work from home, and night ship workers like myself.

Increased traffic and congestion are not just inconvenience.

They also are uh affect public safety.

There is also an environmental cost.

This property once contained mature palm trees and vegetation that supported birds, gray foxes, hares, and other wildlife uh water waterfront wildlife.

Today, only three dead palm trees remain, trees that were supposed to be removed years ago under the gentleman's agreement.

They state as a visible reminder that commitments made to this neighborhood are not always fully carried out.

Before permanently changing the zoning, I asked your time.

If you'd like, you can always feel free to write us your full comments, but we've got to make sure we get to everybody today.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Aaron Takitomo Gilbert, who will be followed by Shruti Dibodkar.

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

My name is Aaron Takatomo, and I respectfully ask that you do not approve the rezoning of the Bear Island parcels tonight without additional public review.

According to the staff report, these parcels were intentionally rezoned to mixed-use waterfront as part of the 2023 to 31 housing element.

I have lived in the one marina community adjacent to the proposed rezone lots for the past decade.

And in that time, we have seen significant efforts to build and develop our neighborhood, among the few, including the development of Blue Harbor, the displacement of Docktown, and the subsequent environmental cleanup efforts, preservation efforts of Bear Island, and now the building of new luxury apartments to where the old century theater used to be.

Now, only three years after the rezoning in 2023, the city is proposing to change them back to general commercial with residential overlay because the parcels are narrow and have transmission lines, and the staff believe that the zoning is more suitable.

The report states that the districts would allow for similar use and that there is no loss in residential capacity.

Currently, these parcels have been functioning as a vehicle storage for a neighboring commercial business.

Does that mean that the city is rezoning them to conform to an existing or use or rather than evaluating what is best for the neighborhood and the long-term waterfront vision?

As neighbors, we're not asking the city to stop planning.

We are asking for transparency, consistency, and evidence.

Only residents living within 300 feet of the lots were given notice, and that's about 100 residents.

This excludes at least 2,000 individuals in the four neighboring communities who should be included in the shared decision making for the future of this lot.

Once waterfront zoning is removed, it is difficult to restore.

Decisions like this should be based on more than administrative convenience.

Thank you.

Our next comment is from Shruti.

Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members and city manager.

First, I'd like to thank the council and the city staff for taking the time and the amount of effort it goes into planning.

About 10 years ago, I actually was one of those people that uh a mayor, a sitting mayor uh told me to buy property here in Redwood City when it used to be called Deadwood City.

So thank you for doing that.

I appreciate that.

Um, after reviewing the staff's report, I respectfully urge you not to approve the zoning and think about probably continuance.

Just three years ago, the city intentionally designated these parcels as mixed-use waterfront, which gives you a lot of flexibility that goes away if you change it to commercial.

Um, today you're being asked to reverse that decision, yet I don't believe that the report demonstrates why the policy decision should change.

Staff uh staff generally stated that it's more appropriate, but doesn't really explain what has changed, what problem it solves, and what public benefit it has.

Uh zoning is one of the most important tools the city has to shape the future of development, and we see that on Bear Island.

Over 10 years ago.

This area is home to thousands of residents with one uh one route in and one route out, which must be considered for evacuation uh capacity, uh, especially the looking at the century theater now being built with luxury housing.

I respectfully ask that you maintain the maintain or think about continuance on this matter.

The so what today is that the decision is not about zoning on a label on map, it's whether the city's long-term planning decision remained predictable, transparent, and grounded, and I have a clear public uh public trust and benefit.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

We will move now to our one speaker on Zoom.

Gita Dev.

You may unmute yourself and begin your comments.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, City Council members.

This has been a fascinating evening.

As always, I um you have a special place in our hearts, Redwood City.

Uh, you have always tried to do the right thing.

One of the it it really concerns me that we are looking at so many zoning changes, without consideration of uh what you know, the transparency aspect of what changes this would bring into neighborhoods.

I particularly noticed uh, you know, reducing the open space from 300 feet to 120 feet.

The livability of our communities as we densify is really really important.

Our green urban canopy is incredibly important for our, you know, just quality of life, but also for heat island effects and so many things.

When you add that many people, and you're going to add that many cars as well.

The streets are going to be so crowded with cars.

They're going to be parking on their front front yard, so their front driveways.

And we need the open space.

But there were too many, I think, for uh any one person to absorb.

And I would love to see that this was done in a more thought thoughtful, slower uh way in which people could have some input into it before it's too late.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And that concludes public comment, Mayor.

Thank you, City Clerk, and thank you to everybody who provided public comment today.

With that, I'll close the public hearing and bring it to council discussion.

Who would like to get us started?

Not seeing anybody.

I'll go ahead with just an opening question.

If we can get staff to speak to the two parcels that many of our neighbors came to speak to, I think that'd be helpful background.

Sure, thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mayor.

So uh as part of the 2023 process where we updated the general plan housing element, uh, multiple parcels were uh rezoned with the help of some of our consultants.

Uh the base tactic we took initially was to take whatever the underlying uh general plan designation was and to apply any associated um uh zoning district uh that kind of match one for one there.

Uh as far as this uh particular two properties, they actually were previously uh zoned uh general commercial prior to the housing element uh update.

Now the mixed use waterfront um zoning um generally allows you know different types of uses that mainly have to do with uh an associated structure.

Now, because of the overhead lines that are there, you can't really build any structure legally uh because of the easements that are located there and the shape of the lots themselves, they're pretty narrow and constrained.

You're not really gonna get anything you know substantive there.

Uh there's nothing necessarily that would prohibit any type of um you know natural changes that would open up that space to uh the uh trail the associated trail or some of the other uh paths in the area, uh from either district, that's something that wants to occur that could still happen.

Uh this is mostly associated with um private uh businesses that want to locate there.

So private um development.

Uh like all zoning is, right?

You you zone a property and it tells you what type of uh private use is possible for that particular land.

Great, thank you, Paulo.

And um, as a quick follow-up, could you talk a little bit about what's community outreach happened um around those parcels?

Yeah, these particular parcels, uh, you know, as part of the planning commission and city council hearing, we did notify, as they mentioned, the surrounding 300 feet, which is our standard procedure with any uh rezoning.

We did notify the owners, uh, we did contact them multiple times.

You know, this public hearing was noticed in the paper, but there weren't uh specific uh let's say door-to-door efforts or um uh efforts to any of the uh further uh apartments uh further down on Bear Island as they're outside that initial radius, and so you know that type of outreach would be a little consistent with other uh you know rezoning uh requirements that we've done in the past.

Okay, thank you, Paul.

It's good background, and I'll open it up to my colleagues if anyone has any follow-up.

I saw Council Member Sturkin, and then we'll go to the vice mayor.

Thank you, Mayor, for getting us started and asking some of the questions I had in mind as well.

And thank you, uh Ms.

Rojas, for your um really helpful responses.

You know, I can remember back in 2023, uh, when uh vehicles alarms were disrupting residents and including some of my neighbors out there who had you know babies who were trying to sleep, and and staff did a really great job over time, and credit to our former um city manager Melissa Stevenson Diaz for coming up with a um well, a compromise, I suppose, to address that, and I'm glad to hear that.

Relatively still that is has been resolved.

Um, but I I am definitely interested in how we can address some of the concerns raised this evening.

Um, you know, and talks to the city manager or I heard ideas around maybe a park or I think you did address that to some degree with uh what you said about there is the possibility of still allowing trail access um through this parcel regardless of its zoning, is that correct, Mr.

Ramos?

Yeah, that's correct.

I'm not sure if a full blown park would be allowed, I have to take a look at the zoning itself, but uh something like allowing trail access, allowing you know moving to the site, it's more of a private private property owners uh sort of purview of what they want to do more so than what the underlying zoning district is.

I see, thank you.

And just as a quick follow-up to that, in other conversations I've had with one marina residents, there was uh interest in a some type of farmer's market, or you know, out on that lot as well.

Um, and so you given some of the concerns of heard tonight as well as what I've heard from residents um regard to regarding other uses.

Is there a need?

What happens if we don't rezone this these two parcels?

What's the is there an unintended consequence?

Is there a con?

Yeah, I think just that the kind of options for how the site can be used would be pretty limited uh you know part of the charge of the uh housing element update was to rezone areas to allow housing you know that was the main driver between the initial zoning change because mixed use waterfront does allow for housing however given the transmission lines and additional analysis and a look at the property it was clear that you know that's not possible here we still did keep the housing overlay just so that we're not out of compliance with the housing element and what HCD's uh wishes were at the time but uh yeah the the uh allowable uses are a little bit more expanded with the general commercial area and I would say for the most part any type of use of the site would require a conditional use permit which would have the same um noticing requirements of the 300 feet uh as the rezoning did thank you I think you're getting to the main point here that the mixed use waterfront does not allow us to be compliant is is that what I'm hearing in terms of our housing element yeah so I I think the the initial charge of the the HCD and the general plan said hey you have a um zoning parcels all across your city.

If you have a general plan designation that allows housing then your zoning must also be consistent to allow housing and so because this was uh general plan designated mixed use waterfront you know I think uh at the time working with the consultants there was a very sort of direct correlation oh mixed use waterfront zoning let's apply that without maybe the additional consideration of uh what the uh actual uses that would be feasible at the site given the constraints of the overhead lines and the lack of development potential at the site for physical structures so we kind of backed ourselves into a corner a little bit where we're required in order to be compliant with HCD or have our housing element be compliant with HCD to rezone this parcel.

Oh, yeah yeah and I think either either the zonings would work for the HCD purposes of mixed use waterfront which allows housing and the proposal tonight which is to revert it back to um commercial general but with a residential overlay just this housing element uh idea is you need to allow the the option in case the situations change in the future but given that this uh electrical transmission line I think runs to Redwood shores so it serves like a regional type area I don't envision that moving anytime soon if you if you don't mind I'll jump it out a little color um back in 2023 when the rezonings happened is very different than the item tonight there are hundreds of properties that were rezoned in one evening um what I would say is that the the issue that we could have done better job was was connecting with the property owner at that time uh and letting them know that the property was probably going to be rezoned um because essentially stated differently it was inadvertently rezoned um a dealership had purchased that land with the assumption that they could park cars on that and then when the zoning program had come out several months after then they realized it had been rezoned and it forced this conversation where we then looked at it and said wow had we had a you know conversation but to uh Mr.

Oas's uh point a consultant did help with the hundreds of rezonings before so it is hard to have you know con conversations with each individual property owner so I just wanted to get it on the record that the property owner did did purchase it and use it in accordance with the eligible use at the time and then it was rezoned by the staff with without any outreach to them at the time as well if that makes sense.

That does make sense and I appreciate that I'll just close by just saying based on what I've heard that housing is still allowed under the designation though highly unlikely, knowing that there are power lines overhead.

I don't see a need to rezone it, but I'll defer to my colleagues.

Maybe I'm missing something um and we'll make a decision at the end.

Yeah thank you.

Thank you, Council member.

The Vice Mayor.

I just want to address this specific item um before I do my other stuff since we have people that came.

I I uh I would concur with you, Mr.

Sturkin, that I don't see the need to rezone, and or that we grant their request to study it more at the very least.

So at the very least, study it more, take that out of what we're considering tonight at their request, study it more, or just don't do that rezoning.

Those are my two thoughts, and I'll leave it there.

Great, thank you, colleagues.

Any other thoughts on this particular item?

Councilmember G.

And then Councilmember Padilla.

Council Member McDay if you'd like to, please.

Sure.

I was just gonna say um, uh I think I've said this before.

I I think we have what we're required to do.

I've mentioned this before, we have I've asked before, like how many miles we are required, and then we have what we can do.

And I know mailers are expensive, but we are building goodwill and we're relationship building with our community, and I think we spend money on other things.

I think there some mail mailers are valuable, and I mean, if we're gonna if if and we're talking about Bear Island in a very specific community, so I don't I don't want us to do the minimum.

I don't if we can only reach out to 300, let's do more.

We we can do better, and I think that we should because it's it's a community that cares and shows up, and and I and I I want us to extend that for all of our community outreach.

I always want us to reach out to more than we're required to because I think it's important, and to the point of us, you know, advertising in you know local papers, we can do better than that too.

That's we all know that's like something in a classified, that's not something the average person is gonna look at when they pick up their daily journal.

They're looking at the front of the paper.

So if that's an opportunity for us to leverage our own webpage or social media or partners, I want us to we we do want people here, and it's true.

So I want us just to be more creative of the ways that we're advertising because um I think we can go a little further and find some new channels because we we want the input, we want to know how people feel, and um we welcome it.

So thank you.

Thank you, councilmember.

We'll go to council member G.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um City Manager, I wasn't wanting to go here, but since you kind of gave some history, and I'm gonna look to my city attorney here to stop me if I go too far.

So this piece, the two parcels are in private ownership.

Is that correct?

Correct.

And when the owners bought it, they used the property consistent with the zoning that was in place at the time.

That's my understanding.

Is that correct, Apollo or Jeff, or can we confirm that?

For the record, the property bought it with the understanding that the use was conditionally permitted, but did not obtain a conditional use permit.

Okay, so they they bought it, but they did not go through the planning process.

That's correct.

And so with the rezoning to mixed use waterfront, would that remove the opportunity for them to apply for?

That is correct.

And so, in some ways, well, because they didn't apply for it, that's the problem that they they did not obtain the entitlements to use the property for that.

That's correct.

And so with the mixed use waterfront designation that opportunity was completely removed.

That's correct.

And so by rezoning it to CG, I think that's the correct, it puts back in place that opportunity.

That's correct, and then it would require use permit.

There would be public hearings to consider that use.

And then the residential overlay was just a um output of the housing element process.

That is also correct.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you for clarifying that.

Because I was trying to figure out sort of the fine details about how those process worked, because if they did have their entitlements and we rezoned to a lesser use, that would have been extremely problematic.

So that's why I was trying to walk into this very delicately.

So I didn't trip us up too badly, did I, City Attorney?

You did not think you, Councilmember, had they received their entitlements, it would have been a legal non-conforming use.

Which would put us in a very difficult position to do anything different.

So thank you for that clarification.

Thank you, Councilmember G, colleagues.

Any other see Council Member Howard first?

Okay, well, I just have a some couple of questions.

I wanted to ask small lots, you identified it as a half acre or less.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

So you know it's it's important to remember the housing element affects all of California.

So what might be a small lot maybe in Bakersfield uh might not be a small lot here, but uh my understanding half an acre is around 21,000 square feet.

Which is a big piece of land.

Um but I did want to note um does that mean you're trying to streamline efforts if something is proposed to be a hundred percent affordable, or are you talking about any half acre lot and whatever's being proposed?

Yeah, so the housing element, like I mentioned, has 40 uh programs.

Uh, and so some of those programs are city driven, and there's some prerequisites that the state says, hey, you need to implement a program that affects this.

And so in this case, the thing that need to be uh updated was for it to allow more development on small lots.

So that's sort of the umbrella in which we're looking at it.

Uh the actual proposal is to amend development standards that would apply to all uh types of construction.

So these setback requirements wouldn't toggle between, you know, one requirement for a smaller development and another requirement for a larger development.

Um they all align to allow more buildable area, which is most favorable to small lots.

So that's kind of how why we're characterizing it that way.

Uh the smaller in-de-fill development lots are going to be um helped out by having reduced uh development standards, because whether it's a setback, whether it's increased open space, whether it's parking requirements, that eats up land required uh for housing.

So there's there's that trade-off of space for housing or space for uh development standard.

So you're saying you're saying that someone could purchase a half-acre lot and do a dense development, but I'm guessing it's not likely to happen because the rate of return just wouldn't be there, considering what our housing prices are.

Yeah.

Generally speaking, in Rabbit City, it would depend on where you're looking.

If you're looking to consolidate uh, you know, a bunch of single-family lots and do something half an acre, that's that's a lot of lots.

Uh I we don't think we've seen a development like that in quite some time.

Uh but kind of just taking a step back, yeah.

The proposal is to amend some development standards to uh allow for uh more buildable area on smaller lots.

Okay, and uh but I'm also I'm thinking more around the um the area, the half a um half a mile transit area, and I I because I it was mentioned that it's not likely to have a big impact, and I'm guessing that's why, because you'd have to couple a couple of lots to make it pencil.

Well, I don't think you could do it.

It just the prices are so different, and I I just wanted to confirm that.

But this is all in trying to be in compliance with state laws, I'm guessing.

We're not creating anything new and different and going above and beyond.

I I'm guessing we're trying to be in compliance with state law.

These specific uh amendments to development standards are to uh progress housing element um programs.

And so basically HCD said, in order for you to have a compliant housing element, you need to have a set of programs to um you know, be approved so that you're not subject to the builder's remedy and you have a compliance zoning.

The next step of that is okay, if you're to effectuate this goal to implement this goal, you now need to have uh zoning standards that make that real.

So, although it's not directly uh a mandate or requirement, the state is not saying to lower your open space standards to a certain number.

They are saying you should amend uh certain development standards, such as open space, such as setbacks to allow more buildable area in order to continue having uh uh compliant housing element because they do uh progress updates and status checks to check that you have uh indeed completed these programs that have not just you know stated them and and not followed up.

Well, the one the one thing that does concern me is the parking requirements uh being there if we align with the state, which they practically say there are no parking requirements at this point, I mean I it is what it is, but I just say for the record that I have grave concerns about what will the outcome be of these neighborhoods in the future when cars have nowhere else to go but the public street, and that's what's happening already and will continue to happen as we tighten this up.

So I I do have great grave concerns about uh the unintended consequence of allowing more housing on smaller areas, pushing off the need for parking, and I know that the future for some people they would love to see no cars.

I don't see it happening in the next 10 to 20 years unless the Jetsons come along and have their little buzz alongs in the city.

But uh anyway that it's just a comment.

I don't think we can do much about that because we certainly want to be in compliance with the state and not jeopardize what we're trying to accomplish here.

Um the low barrier navigation centers.

I I did get some answers uh earlier today, but does this apply to neighborhoods?

Uh I'm just wondering, are low barrier nav centers uh they have less regulation than the NAV center we have uh down by the water.

So you may allow couples and pets and things like that, but are they also smaller in size that they could be located in a residential neighborhood?

And if so, shouldn't we require public input uh to the neighbors?

I mean, could we require that of someone coming in and buying a piece of property, coming to the city for permits?

Could we require that the neighbors be notified of the use of the of the lot?

I'm thinking now we are going through something like this right now on Hudson, and I really do want neighbors to know, and maybe I shouldn't have mentioned the street.

Sorry about that, but anyway, I do have concerns about uses going into a neighborhood that could impact the neighborhood and the neighbors not being made aware as the process begins or goes through.

Yeah, just to address the the low bearer navigation center uh question first.

Uh so uh the specifically defined by the state uh so they're very um specific types of uh navigation centers, and and the state says you have to allow them and it provides a list of requirements uh that cities need to follow.

I'm a little unclear as if as if uh the city were to try to uh require something in addition to that, such as notification.

That's not outlined by the state.

That's not one of their uh things that they require you to do.

Whether or not we could do that or we could uh force the applicant to do that, for example.

Um, you know, that would take additional research, but just kind of high level, the state has said you need to allow these types of developments, low-bearer navigation centers, uh, in specific zones, and they need to meet certain criteria, and if they meet all the criteria, uh, you the city need to approve it.

So, uh what this proposal or the proposed amendments are doing is basically codifying that criteria because when we get a development application in, which we did get one last year, uh we're an old converted church, it was a little uh questionable like all right, do we point to this government code section, that government code section?

So, really outlining both for the provider of the low bearer navigation center and for staff.

Here are the ground rules, here are the sections to review, and here's the process uh to go through in order to get it approved.

I can't speak again to the the public noticing procedure uh off the top of my head, but I just generally there may be limits to what the city can do for like a very rigid uh state process, John.

Did you want to add to that?

The only thing I would add is that just a point of clarification is that um the navigation center that we do have at Red Ridge City is also a low barrier navigation center.

There is no distinction between a they're all they're all low bearer navigation centers.

That's the just the term of art.

I was trying to figure out why they called it that.

A low barrier navigation center.

I'd anyway.

I'd but uh I I guess my question still stands.

If a use comes into a neighborhood that's um going to be not your typical use in a neighborhood, can we suggest if we can't mandate, can we suggest uh public input for the benefit of the community, just like we're hearing from Bear Island right now, they want communication.

I just I'm so concerned that here we are trying to accomplish helping homeless people, producing more housing, doing all these things, but if we're not allowed to let the public know and be engaged in the process, I think it could backfire on us, and so that's my concern.

Uh how how can we accomplish that?

It's a reasonable request.

The state should allow it, my own sense.

So this is a very quick Google search, so I'm not sure it's totally accurate, but I think we could potentially notify people of it.

Um I think the input is a different category, so how could we notify people?

We could um do what we do now, um, which is you could put up a sign up a location, we require that as part of our um sort of checklist and right in the beginning when a project um files for any entitlements, and then we could we could include it on our website um like we do other developments.

So those are at least two minimal things that that we can do.

It seems like we can do.

I would probably double check my research besides that two-second Google search, but I think I think we could do that.

Well, I like your answer so far.

I hope my colleagues would agree that we don't want things backfiring on us, and I can see it happening if we allow things to go through, and no one's been notified of the what's been going on.

So I I'd like to see if we can make it better, and if it's the city that needs to take the initiative, maybe that's what we need to do so that we don't violate any state laws of any kind.

We'll take that note and do some additional research and see to what extent we can either from the city's perspective, you know, be proactive with the notification versus also uh recommending that the applicant do some notification as well.

Okay, thank you.

Um I think that answers all my questions, but I am concerned about the uh Bear Island rezone, so I'll hear what my other colleagues have to say.

I wouldn't mind um delaying it for further study, but uh I'd like to hear what others feel without.

Thank you, Councilmember Howard.

We'll go to Councilmember Padilla.

Thank you.

Um I also have concerns to be on, as everyone knows, I love public input.

And any time we want to eliminate it, I'm I'm I'm a little concerned.

I understand the reasons behind and efficiency, but I always want to hear more from the public and not really eliminate that.

And I I know I know the reasons for and against it, so I won't go into depth on that.

Um but yeah, I I am not always one for eliminating public hearings for projects, um, especially when we're considering all of these changes.

And um, I wanted to go a little so I wanted to speak to that, and then I also wanted to go back to the small lots and some things that I heard and was writing down.

Um as we are growing and we're building homes, and I think we had someone call in and talk about this.

Just the importance of our disappearing and ever growing smaller outdoor spaces, our green spaces are finite, and when I see us encouraging policies to further erode those spaces, um, it it's disheartening to me to say less yard, less spaces to play.

Um trees are not just something that it's it's a nice thing to hear birds.

It's it's what keeps us cooler.

Some children sleep better at night.

They are more rested, that adds to the days that they have.

There's a powerful thing about trees and grass and coverage, and I understand how housing is important, but I just want to know what we're losing when we're maximizing every little inch of square foot, and we're using terms like setbacks, but I want us to know when we're doing that.

That's that side yard that you're you kick the ball with, or you throw it with your friend, you know, that area that you play fetch with your dog.

Now you can't even have a dog.

Where do you go?

And we see how hard it is.

I I served on our parks commission for 12 years and just trying to acquire park space, how hard that is and difficult.

So I just want us to be very aware of how important our green spaces are.

Um, to council member Eakin's story earlier, where you shared about um about California and that was, and I just think of these spaces and they're disappearing, and I want places for people of all ages to play and to smell flowers and to see plants and trees and to hear real bird sounds.

I went somewhere the other day where I thought I heard birds, and I noticed they had a recording up, and it was actually a speaker, and I thought, is that real?

And it seemed so repetitive, and I looked and they they were playing bird sounds, and I don't want that.

I mean, when I think about our city, I I am a bit of a birder.

I have an app, I wake up every morning and I open my window to record what kind of finches I'll get in the morning.

Um, so I just I want us, I don't want to digress too much, but I want us to know that our outdoor spaces are important.

Umriginally, you know, my grandmother, we had a tiny house on Vera, and it was a huge lot.

It was one of those where it was a two-bedroom house, one bathroom, and a gigantic lot.

And we were never inside that house.

We played outside, we climbed on the tree, we played games.

Um, so I just want us to think of how valuable our open spaces, and I would not feel good doing anything that supports taking it away.

So I'll leave it at that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Padua.

Go to Councilmember Chu.

Um, thank you uh for the presentation.

Um first I had a question and then I will respond to the specific um items here.

Um, so the the two parcels which are being rezoned, I just want to make sure I clearly understand.

At present, the store it's being used to store automobiles.

Is that correct?

For a dealership?

That's correct.

And at present that's a non-conforming use.

Uh that's correct.

And the changing the zoning would make it a conforming use.

Uh yes, with uh obtaining a use permit as well.

Great, okay, thank you.

That helps me understand.

Um so uh I would be supportive of uh you know um carving that um item out for further study input and review.

Um the rest of it uh looked quite good to me, and I will be supporting um the staff recommendation tonight.

However, I did want to bring up a few things uh that I would love to see either, you know, if my colleagues are interested uh tonight or for uh future time.

Um, am I uh first I wanted to consult with the city attorney?

Am I allowed to make suggestions?

You are.

I'm sorry, I don't know why my light's not working on my mic.

Um sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, Councilmember Chu.

I did want to clarify one of your questions that the the use right now on the property is not currently legally nonconforming, so it's not non-conform.

No.

So in order for something to be non-conforming, it needs to have been permitted at the time when that use was allowed.

Oh and that so the property would need to have gotten a conditional use permit or no conditional use permit would have been required at the time for something to be nonconforming.

So I just wanted to correct that for the record.

Sure.

I meant the colloquial understanding of that term, which means like offsides or not currently permitted, like, should they be doing what would the correct term be?

I don't know what colloquial term you're speaking to.

I only know the legal term.

Um so it was they purchased it and started using it, but they didn't get the permits that were required for it before the ordinance was updated.

Got it.

Okay, thank you.

Um, so I I would given all that, um, I would be supportive of of pulling that item for a few further input from the community.

Um it does sound like there's been a fair amount of interaction with those two parcels, and it's it's more complicated than than it appeared at at first.

Um so in general, uh very supportive of all these changes.

I did want to make a few comments on particularly our two zones, and and I'll speak to my district in particular, which has a tremendous amount of several things, a tremendous amount of crowding.

We have multi-generational families living in basically a 1940s tracked house in a footprint uh really intended for one family.

Um we have many families where their house, because of you know the economy is worth a great deal, uh, but they don't have the resources to move, expand, whatever.

And so one thing I think a lot about is how can I enable the families in my community to make use of the thing that they have, which is their home, to meet the needs of their own household.

Um, and so there are a number of things that I think would help accomplish that.

One is front setbacks.

So if you look at any neighborhood, all of the houses are built to the front permitted front setbacks.

And you know, the back varies quite a bit more, and and I think what that tells us is people want to uh minimize the amount of space in front.

If people wanted more front yard, they would set their houses further back, but you see a straight line.

And you know, really front yards are just something you walk by on the way to the door for the most part.

I mean, I have a pollinator meadow in my front yard because I had to do something with it, but um, if you asked most homeowners if you could swap 10 feet of your front yard for 10 feet of backyard, I bet you most people would go for that deal.

Um, because backyards are where people really live.

That's where they play with their kids, that's where they put the, you know, that's where people really um spend their time.

Uh so I would be interested, at least just for you know, R2s or R4s, in looking at a five-foot front setback and and allowing people to swap that for backyard.

Um, some of the most beautiful front, the other thing too is if you don't have a lot of money and time to, you know, cut grass, you know, a la 50s, um, some of the most beautiful front yards I've ever seen were five footers.

Every single one of them had a beautiful shade tree and you know, flowers because that's an amount of space that that's tractable for a busy family uh that can't afford water or is resource constrained in some way.

Uh so that's the first thing.

Uh the second thing is our current FAR, as I understand it, is based on the childhood home of a previous uh planning commissioner.

And while I don't doubt that the house was lovely, that does seem kind of arbitrary to me.

Um, and so I would love to think about looking at what's reasonable and customary and what are the needs of our community.

I mean, we have a housing crisis.

Just I I think that FARS should be based on the need for homes, not someone's childhood home.

Um that was a long time ago.

And things have changed.

This is a different market, a different state.

So I'd really like to look at at FARS.

And particularly for R2s, the building envelope is based on our one, as I understand it based on R1 district.

So you have multiple families being forced to cram into the amount of space that someone had as a childhood home or that you know just was historically there.

I would really like to look at increasing the FAR for our two districts to enable families to meet the needs of their own household.

Um if we're wanting missing middle housing, I think we have to start looking at point access blocks and single stair reform.

Um there's a negligible impact or no impact as I understand it on fire safety, and it does allow small mom and pop type developers or or homeowners to develop their land uh at a much lower cost.

And you know, this is trading room for a stair for room for people, and you can meet the double exit requirement with a fire escape.

I mean, that's what we had for hundreds of years.

Um not hundreds of years, probably a hundred years, something like that.

That was overstating it.

Um, and finally, parking minimums, and and I know I'm the the minority opinion here.

There's no law in the books that says you have to have a bedroom for your kid.

Cars have stronger rights to to housing than people do.

Um there's no law that says you have to provide an apartment for two renters, but you have to provide covered parking if you own a home for two cars, and so I think cars should be forced to, you know, I don't think people should be competing with cars for places to live and spaces to live, and so the extent to which we can reduce parking requirements, um, particularly for resource-constrained communities.

I think you know it's much worse to be out of a home than it is out of a parking spot.

People can walk a few blocks if they have to, but they can't find places to live.

Um, and so I would be supportive of obviously removing parking minimums, but certainly reducing them as much as we can.

Um, I think that's it for now.

Um, I know that was a lot.

So, so yeah, I'm supportive of these changes.

Uh, if there's support for the proposed amendments I had, then I'd be very interested in entertaining that.

Um, I'm very supportive of ministerial review for 100 afford 100% affordable housing projects.

I don't think there's many grounds left that we can deny them anyway, so we may as well get on with it.

And um, I do support the amendments uh to facilitate residential development.

Thank you, Councilmember Chu will go to Vice Mayor Eacon.

Thank you.

So, um to start off, I guess.

What I already said, I am willing to either delay or um not zone, not rezone at the Bear Island, but I already said that.

I don't really have any questions.

I did I don't want to highlight something for the public that I think is important, but before I do that, uh what I want to comment about um council member Chu's ideas is that um I I hear what um the staff report said at the beginning, which was you you're already these are zoning changes that you're that you have right now, and you've you're already compiling a list of zoning changes for two years from now, that it's always a revolving, it's always changing with state laws and with everything else.

So for me, the suggestions that council member Chu made for me it's like yes, let's look at them, yes, let's study them.

But for tonight, I'm interested in I'm I support the staff's recommendation.

Um I read the report carefully.

I had a lot of questions that were well answered.

So for me, the council member Chu's ideas are interesting and important and worthy, um, but for tonight I I'm gonna support staff's recommendation.

So a couple of ones that I really liked were the entertainment zoning in the industrial and the industrial kitchen and the industrial.

I'm excited that maybe we'll get in the a new roller skating rink and uh you know, maybe a new bat bowling alley.

Um so I mean all we can do is hope, right?

We zone and and hope.

So now to to um in the zoning thing, the the part of the report that I just wanted to highlight, I I'm glad that we've hired a new uh consultant, HDL, to look at our short-term rentals.

There are two types of them.

There are owner-occupied short-term rentals.

Some are brokered by hip housing and others, this is an elderly person or any person that rents out a room in their house.

Um that's an owner-occupied.

Um, and then there's of course houses that are owned that are just uh what is it called?

It's called um unhosted, unhosted rentals, and that's like your Airbnb or your RB VRBO.

And we don't know exactly what percentage in Redwood City is um unhosted and what percentage is hosted, um, but we're we're going to find out in the next few months, and I'm interested in knowing the percentage of both.

I and then I just want to highlight that um unhosted uh short-term rentals.

So that's your Airbnb.

Uh um Redwood City's ordinance, it's important that people know this.

Redwood City ordinance caps it to only three months a year.

So it has to be owner-occupied, or um it can't be a hundred, uh, can't be an Airbnb 365 days a year, can only do that for three months or 25% of the year.

I think it's important that we all know that.

Um, and also no person at a no rental can be for more than a month for the Airbnb.

Um I think it's important that we all know that.

And um I am glad that we're going to be studying that more and beefing up enforcement and um, you know, uh for me there's a difference between an owner-occupied or a hosted rental where that's kind of a benefit to the community, it's a lower rent for someone renting a room and it's companionship or or just it's meeting a financial need versus a um Airbnb or a VRBO is is for-profit, and there's nothing wrong with for-profit, it's great.

But but it is a business, it's a for-profit business, and those are two different animals.

And I just want to make sure that we're uh doing enough regulation on that for-profit business, um, and and that um those folks are complying with the law and sharing their profit by by paying the TOT tax and so on and forth so forth.

And I'm glad that we have a new consultant and that we're going to be um uh learning more about it's it's a relatively new type of business everywhere, and also in Redwood City.

So I'm really glad that we're gonna learn more about it.

Um I didn't really have questions, I just wanted to add those comments.

And I think that's it.

Jeff, you want to.

For the record, I just want to clarify that the current ordinance and the uh amendment still allow for a hundred and twenty days of unhosted.

Oh, what did I say?

You said uh 90 days, three months.

Oh, three months.

Oh, three months.

Oh, it's four months.

So and and one additional point of clarification.

All short-term rentals are by owners of the property where it's their primary residence.

The difference between hosted and unhosted is that um somebody could go on vacation for a month and rent their home for up to a month, 30 days.

And that is considered unhosted.

It isn't somebody renting their home to uh like hip housing to uh, you know, partnered people up to live in people's homes.

That's a long-term rental.

Oh, yeah.

So it's not that particular aspect.

Uh it is and they're all potentially all short-term rentals are potentially on a platform like Airbnb or VBRO or home away or uh one of those booking.com, one of those type of platforms, but they could also be done without a platform, so people could just do it by word of mouth, but they tend to use the platform.

And so you could rent a room in a home as hosted, or if the owner happens to be on vacation or gone for a period of time, it would be an unhosted, and those are unhosted or limited to the 120 days.

Four months, yeah.

Right.

But but no more than 30 days, you know, in one setting.

Okay.

I just I think thank you.

Thank you for those clarifications, Mr.

Schwab.

I I just wanted to make sure, since it's a new, relatively new, I just wanted to make sure that our residents and our everybody understood those rules, and um dad just wanted to highlight them.

Thank you, Vice Mair.

It's like there was a change.

Sorry, I didn't see the light.

I'm sorry it's not working.

Uh the mic is working.

Um I wanted to before other council members spoke, I just wanted to note for everyone that um council member Chu, your thoughts about additional zoning amendments.

I I saw staff uh you know kind of jotting them down and uh and and you know, kind of noting everything, but that's not something that the city council um can look at adding tonight.

Uh the the for land use law purposes, we do need to take anything that gets considered to the planning commission, it does need to be noticed, and then after a recommendation by the planning commission, then the city council can consider it, um, but definitely duly noted.

Thank you, City Attorney.

Go to Councilmember G.

Thank you.

Just from a historic um follow-up to Vice Mayor Aiken's comment about the short-term rentals.

I think some of us are long enough that this is not new.

It was actually put in place after one of the earlier apartment buildings was built, went through the entitlement and construction process, then was purchased by a tech company and converted into a short-term rental property for their tech workers coming to visit.

I think Councilmember Howard, remember that it's located on El Comida Real.

I won't give the exact location, but this was the outcome of that unfortunate occurrence because we worked hard to create housing, then all of a sudden it was taken off the market for short-term rentals, the entire building.

And then it's evolved to the limitations and the TOT and things like that.

So it's not new, but is it's a good reminder that that ordinance is in place.

Um, I want to thank staff for bringing this for it.

I wanted to ask a couple clarifying questions.

Is you know, we the question wanted to talk about sufficiently streamlined.

What is can you quantify what that might mean?

Um are we talking we'll shorten the development process by two days or two months or two years?

I mean, what does that mean to to stream sufficiently streamline the development review?

Yeah, that's a good question.

Uh, Councilmember G.

Yeah, I guess the devil's in the details, right?

I I think like you said, to have uh like you're implying uh two days isn't enough.

You want to take significant time off.

Um, you know, we talked to affordable housing developers particularly, they'd love to work backwards.

Okay, our funding cycle is in this month.

We know that there's at least two public hearings.

Let's bake on, you know, three to six months plus uh multiple rounds of review, and you know, now you're pushing out so it's a year.

So uh, you know, in particular with the 104% affordable housing uh question, uh, you know, removal of public hearings, is that sufficient?

Uh you know, moving the needle, I guess is the question.

That I mean that's that's kind of part of the question.

So it's gotta be, I mean, we're going through a lot to you know, I just don't want to go through a lot and just have it change two days.

So just want to make sure there's meaningful streamlining to be able to facilitate residential development.

And I know it's hard to quantify, but hopefully we can get a follow-up if council does approve it to see if it really does make a difference.

Um, because that's what I think the goal is to make a difference, and and the flip side of streamlining is for developers.

If even if it takes longer, they want certainty.

So will this give uh increase certainty to an applicant that it will get through a process by a certain time.

Yeah, I believe so.

Provide heightened uh, you know, certainty in terms of our prerequisites, they're very clear.

Uh, you know, when trying to analyze state law, for example, you have to reference multiple sections, it's subject to change every year.

You know, it gets really confusing.

Something like SP 79, where we're talking about part of the process why it might not be adopted immediately is because it's novel, it's new, and so there's a learning curve that goes into that.

We saw that with SB9.

We thought there was going to be a flood of new single family developments uh happening with two units.

They didn't just because of the complexity of the law, the prerequisites and challenges within uh building and fire requirements.

So, you know, there are natural just barriers as we talked about with the small lot development and SB 79, like you know, other challenges, fire access, etc., on top of the planning entitlement process, which comes before all that.

So yeah, I think having a direct process is helpful for clarity for applicants, developers, affordable housing developers, but also it sends a message, I believe, that you know Redwood City is welcoming to that type of development as well.

I think one of the other challenges, and you've alluded to that, you know, whatever council does today, the list is already started for the next time.

And even the last three years, the state has probably passed and the governor is signed, quite a number, large number of housing facilitation bills.

And I think from what I've been told, the next legislative session is just gonna be as robust with more bills to increase housing production.

So the list will just continue to grow, and sadly, it's gonna reduce our ability to influence outcomes and to conform with state law, because I think I've said it before whatever happens in Sacramento, it's one size fits all, and the good actors get penalized for it, and the bad actors continue to fight it.

And so that's just the unfortunate reality.

Um, I answered the second question.

I support the ministerial review of 100% affordable housing projects because there's a misalignment of our local process, planning commission, AAC, and ultimately city council, with the application deadlines for you know the tax credits and financing, and it really screws everybody up.

I mean, it screws up the calendar for meetings, they missed the application cycle, they have to wait six months or a year for the next, and we know time just means it's gonna cost more, and so to the extent 100% affordable housing projects championed by our partners, Midpen, Eden, HIP.

If we can help them be more successful by doing this, I fully support that.

Lastly, there's a big chapter in here about ADUs, and many of us have been through the ADU process here at the local level, and I think the easiest process is to comply and comport to state law, even when we adopted ADUs at the local level within six months, the state stepped in and wiped out all the things we did.

Um, and I think as part of next year's legislative session, I've already heard there's gonna be more laws about ADUs.

So the easiest thing to do is comply with the state law on that.

One thing I do want to um encourage, separate from supporting the staff recommendations, is that when we go to ministerial approval, there will be a loss of transparency.

I think many of us have said that, and I've asked the city manager to consider in his city manager report a written report on a quarterly basis of some of these projects, so that there's visibility, number one, to the community.

Number two, it's written, so people that can see it on the agenda.

You know, what projects came in, which projects are in the ministerial approval process, so at least there's information, which is different than public input.

A lot of these state laws are removing opportunity for local input, but that doesn't mean we can't inform our communities of what's going on.

Two very different things, and so that's just a friendly suggestion to staff to if council does go this route to include regular reporting.

I'll just make it quarterly of what projects are in for ministerial approval.

So that there's visibility.

I don't think there's any state law to prohibit that.

I think that covers everything that I wanted to bring forward, but again, this is a very comprehensive report.

The only other thing is this is really tonight focus on residential.

You know, I hope that the next set of amendments deals with commercial.

Um I think with our economic vitality program focused on small business.

There are things here that probably are barriers to small businesses, opening up shops here in Red Bay City.

I think we talked, you talked about, you know, underground utilities and things like that.

If you're a small business operator trying to start, they shouldn't have to repave the street in front of them or put a street light in or replace the sewer lateral or upsize the water line in the street.

Things like that should be looked at in the next set of code updates when we focus on commercial properties.

And I think the economic vitality study can highlight and identify those barriers, and then the zoning amendments could remove those barriers.

So just something for the next chapter and the next focus.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Councilmember G.

Any final thoughts?

One more on parking.

Um I know we talked about the low barrier navigation centers and group homes, but I will admit it it is hard for me to understand the eliminating uh parking aiding for senior housing.

I I know there we it's I know that the goal is for with transit, but with that, there will be people that will be the employees who work there.

Not all of them will use transit.

Um I know that we talk about, I heard Mr.

Rilha say, you know, that these amendments send a message that Redwood City is welcoming to belt to developers, and when I talk with residents, they feel that they know that message.

They feel like we have consistently sent a message that we're welcoming to developers, and I just want to make sure that we're also checking in with our residents and being good to the people who have lived through all of our developments, and I think to council members G's point, whether we're not allowing people to participate in the input, we need to make sure we're sharing information.

Um considering those longtime residents who have been through us with all of this.

So um, I just want to make sure we're including everyone in the community.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember, Councilmember Circus.

Thank you.

I don't mean to belabor this, but I just I'm still a little unclear with regards to the parcels that are zoned, I know.

Um UW.

So help me here.

I've heard it's problematic.

I've heard it's there's a use that's going on.

Somebody please um clarify.

Do we need to do this or not?

I don't know that there's an extreme urgency in you taking action tonight.

However, um the the property owner when they purchased the property had an expectation under the prior zoning, the one that we're proposing to restore.

They should have gotten permits to do the work they did.

You know, it resulted in a number of complaints that we work through to try to minimize the disturbances.

Um, but there is no permit regulating the use of the property, and we will not be able to issue a permit to regulate the use of the property.

It will be as I think the uh neighbors described a gentleman's agreement.

We um, you know, the uses in violation of zoning.

And so the only way to rectify that is to change the zoning and to allow a use permit to run its course and determine whether or not the use is get it will be permitted.

And if the use is ultimately not permitted, then it's a zoning violation, and then we would have to enforce.

If it is permitted, there could be conditions of approval, could address some of the landscaping issues as an example, some of the public access issues that were discussed.

So the use permit gives us a tool under the proposed zoning that we do not have today.

Thank you.

Okay, I just want to move on to a couple other things here.

Outreach.

I really appreciated the conversation with regards to including a ministerial approved developments in our future agendas.

Um that was a great idea, Councilmember G.

And I would support that to the extent that staff have capacity.

Um, because our public outreach should be thoughtful and transparent.

And then going on to open space.

So we talked a lot about people being in able to enjoy open space, but what we're discussing here tonight is solely on private property.

Correct?

I, okay.

Thank you.

You don't have to get up again.

Sorry.

There's a head nod there.

Yeah, yeah.

So I can see you just barely over the podium.

Okay.

So and then I think I heard you explicitly state, uh, Mr.

Rojas, that in order to continue having a compliant housing element, this is one of the changes we need to make, reducing from 300 or so square feet to 125 square feet.

Did I get that right?

In terms of open space.

Yeah, thank you, Councilmember.

Just to clarify, there's not a specific number that the housing element calls up, but uh there is an expectation from the housing element or from HCD that our housing element and our associated um uh zoning changes, development standards get reduced to allow more buildable area.

Uh and and uh while I'm on the mic, I guess open space could also mean things like balconies, patios, porches.

It's not all necessarily uh, you know, green grass.

In fact, trees might obstruct kind of some calculations for upward space because it's actually not usable functional in that you can't walk around and and move around it.

There's additional uh pervious area requirements, for example, that require uh portions of a parcel to be uh free from pavement, uh stuff like that.

So I just wanted to kind of make that note.

The open space uh is kind of a varied issue where things like balconies, porches can also um count towards that as well.

Thank you.

And then on to the 100% affordable housing fully support all the changes that are proposed to make it easier, cheaper, especially if as we discussed last time a measure passes um anything we can do to reduce costs on uh affordable housing development, uh we need to do that.

Uh and I know that we're not able to discuss help me, city of attorney.

So we can't add additional ideas to what we're uh considering tonight, but we can suggest to staff maybe to through the process you outlined, bring forward to planning commission additions.

Is that right?

That's correct.

So the actions that are before your what what's proposed, but you definitely can share you know what you would like to see come back.

Thank you.

So then in that case, I would also support uh council member two's suggestions for uh further study and consideration with regards to uh five foot uh front setback for R2 and R4 um zoned neighborhoods, I think it was, as well as um looking at the definition of the floor area ratio uh or far uh for folks who may not have known what that was.

And increasing it.

I think it was for R2 neighborhoods, zoned areas, parcels, and then looking at those uh reducing those parking minimums as well.

Uh okay, and I'm gonna I think pause there.

Thank you.

Thank you, council member.

Not seeing anyone else's lights on.

I'll um I'll go ahead and try to make this as quick as I can.

Um, Apollo, quick question on outreach and ministerial review.

Is there is there a legal minimum to that or is there, you know, no outreach that needs to be done in that review process?

I think currently our city practices outline the things like on-site noticing, uh things like that.

So I don't know that there's necessarily a minimum uh requirement.

However, what I heard heard from staff or from our community of adultment directors a commitment to you know explore the best possible options to um notify the public so that's not do the bare minimum, so whether that's on-site postings, more robust uh information on the website, uh things of that nature.

Awesome.

Thank you, Apollo.

And um yeah, would agree with lots of the comments made by my colleagues around um wanting to have a robust outreach and doing our part to to educate our neighbors around what projects might be coming that won't go through the the traditional um the traditional pipeline and um you know I think generally I'm um very much in support of staff's um proposed amendments tonight.

I specifically to touch on the um the two parcels and the conversion there.

I think especially just knowing that there will be a conditional use permit, and that process is gonna have to go um that'll be underway.

I think that will definitely help address some of the the concerns we've heard over the last couple of years.

So um I feel good about that recommendation from staff, and then you know, to council member choose points, um, the idea bank that um our city attorney mentioned that would go to to planning, um, you know, appreciate those ideas.

I the front yard swaps specifically.

I you know have older properties in in my neighborhood where it's actually turned exactly into that, where it's it's a flower bed and people are coming up with different reasons or different uses.

Excuse me, for their front yards, but um, so all you know on board with um with taking a closer look at that and taking it through the process.

Um and then council member G's point around the barriers that exist for commercial properties.

I think that would go a long way for our uh economic vitality here locally um for us to be able to pinpoint what changes staff is even noticing, right?

Um in the day-to-day of your work and working with our businesses so closely.

So I I would appreciate that.

Um the next round.

And then I think generally I going through the packet, it felt like a throwback to my days on planning commission, where so many of our conversations were a uh deliberation into setbacks and how far the setback would go exactly, or the parking minimums that if my memory serves me correctly, we removed parking minimums in our downtown before four months later the state came and changed that entirely, right?

So um the way that I read all of these proposed changes, I feel like we're gonna be again ahead of the curve, and we might find ourselves coming back in a couple of months to learn that this work is saving us staff time on top of everything it's gonna do to help bring housing online that much faster and at a cheaper rate.

So I think I've answered all three of those questions, and I will go ahead and make the motion if there's a second.

I'd like a so I would like to carve it carve out about the the two parcels in Bear Island that either we study them further or just take them out.

I I heard a majority of people that supported either of those positions.

So Vice Mayor, um, the mayor just made a motion.

Are you asking for a friendly amendment in order to second?

Or I'm so sorry, I'm asking for a friendly amendment.

And I I want to keep the course, so I'll stick with staff's recommendation.

And we'll vote on this before we we take any other motions.

I think there's a second pending, but let me let me try to clarify where we are right now on the two Bear Island properties.

Right now it's zone mixed use waterfront, and there's an illegal zoning, there's a non-compliant zoning use on that property, and with the current zoning, a use permit is not allowed.

Correct.

So the only way and a property owner can go through a use permit is to rezone it back to CG, but in its current zoning, there's no use permit process allowed.

That's correct.

I'd like to ask a clarifying question if if I may.

Please, Vice Mayor.

Uh is there any problem with studying it further?

I mean, can it be studied further?

I mean, we've we've already spent a lot of time trying to figure out what this means or doesn't mean, or I mean, can we just uh study it further?

Of course, you can't of course you and we can study it further and provide additional um options or recommendations can engage the community.

You know, at this point, given that these two items are almost coupled together, we could just bring the uh a proposed rezoning and actual use permit forward uh as a package um for the planning commission to make a recommendation on and ultimately the city council to act on.

I I guess my um I guess my point is that the citizens are requesting more study, and I heard a majority of the council members saying let's let's do more study, but I'll leave it there.

Is there a second to staff's recommendation?

I think that's done.

Is there another motion?

Mayor to take a try at this.

I'd like to recommend make a motion to adopt the staff recommendations with a and bifurcate the two Bear Island properties and ask that staff engage the property owner and the resident or the community around the properties in a process that could will go through the planning commission and ultimately come back to city council.

Perhaps I'm not gonna project the outcomes, but at least bifurcate the all the stuff in the staff recommendation and separate out the bear island properties, vice mayor.

I'm just seeking clarification.

Is is that a motion to adopt staff's recommendation with the exception of the two Bear Island parcels?

Yes, Councilmember.

I'll second that, and then I had a question.

Okay, because now we can deliberate the okay.

Um I'm sorry, you had said something about if we don't do this, we'd have to enforce right.

Yes, but we always give applicants the opportunity to correct the violation.

Okay, and we don't really want to do enforcement.

I mean, that's okay, thank you.

That's helpful.

And so what council member G has suggested is that it would go back through planning as a separate item.

That's correct.

And then and you know, we would engage the community, we would um discuss the you know the ramifications of the of the actions, and then the planning commission would hold a hearing on it, and they would normally they would act on a use permit because this one requires rezoning.

It would come to the council as a package, assuming the planning commission recommends it.

If the planning commission does not recommend it by four affirmative votes, I believe it would take of the seven members, regardless of number present, then it uh dies unless the applicant appeals.

And so either way could come to council, either with a planning commission recommendation or an appeal by the applicant, and Jeff, just to be super clear.

If it did come back to council, that's also including a use permit as well.

Yes.

Got it.

Thank you.

So we have I think there was a motion and a second from Councilmember Skirgin.

So we'll go ahead and take a roll call vote.

And if I may um just for a clear record, uh that means that Article 60, um the changes on pages 102 to 103 would be removed.

And so there's an Article 60 zoning district boundary map revision, and that is not part of the action being considered right now based on the motion.

Are you asking me to say yes?

Okay, just for the record.

Just for the record, thank you.

Okay, let's do a roll call vote, please.

We'll start with council member Padilla.

No.

Councilmember Starkin.

Yes.

Council Member Chu.

Yes, Councilmember G?

Yes.

Councilmember Howard?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martinez Saballos.

Yes.

Motion passes with six votes.

Councilmember Padilla opposed.

Okay, thank you everybody for the robust discussion.

It is a little after 10.

We have one more item in closed session.

Excuse me, I think there are more actions.

There's the municipal code and then the resolutions.

But you did say all staff recommendations.

So I just want to make clarify that includes the municipal code amendments and the resolution.

That's correct.

So my understanding of what was on the table was the staff recommendation, but with the deletion of the zoning map um boundary of zoning district amendment.

For the record, yes.

Thank you.

Thank you everybody.

It is a little after 10.

We've got one more item before we jump into closed session.

So we will roll right into item 9A, and our assistant community development directors who X-Line will introduce the item and principal planner, John Francis will give us the presentation.

Good evening, Council.

Uh Sue X-line, assistant community development director, and uh just wanted to introduce uh John Francis, our principal planner and project manager for the Greater Not Town Area Plan, also called the GDAP.

Um GDAP is our initiative to refresh our long-range vision for the downtown and its adjacent neighborhoods.

And so tonight we're here to consider a potential expansion to that boundary and to that scope of work.

Um that potential boundary could you know include future land use changes.

So I will turn it over to John for the presentation.

Thank you.

Good evening, mayor and council members.

So I'll start my presentation tonight with a brief overview of the project goals and schedule for GDAP.

Um, just as a reminder, I know if folks have probably heard it uh before, but for our public.

Um I'll also provide a brief summary of the existing conditions and policy context for the potential expansion area that's under consideration.

Um I'll present some factors that staff believe are important for council to consider in weighing uh whether to pursue a boundary expansion.

And lastly, I will provide some alternative paths for council to consider on this item.

And the council questions for your consideration tonight as um uh we're you know talking about this item is should the GDAP boundary be expanded, or is one of the other alternatives appropriate?

And second, should city staff consider additional alternatives beyond those presented tonight.

So the GDAP will be a comprehensive plan that covers topics ranging from land use and mobility to climate resilience and infrastructure.

Some of the overarching goals driving the planning process are to create a refreshed vision, as Sue said, for greater downtown to support downtown revitalization, to improve bike pedestrian and transit mobility, in part by closing network gaps between downtown and neighborhoods beyond the GDAP boundary, to improve climate resilience, especially considering sea level rise in inland flooding, and to ensure development compatibility between the downtown core and neighboring districts.

Staff kicked off the planning work for GDAP with our consultant team in September 2024.

And since then, we've moved steadily through our first two project phases to complete the existing conditions analysis and to create a vision framework that sets the high level conceptual direction for the plan.

We're currently about halfway through the project phase three, which will culminate in a plan framework that fleshes out the major concepts at a finer grain level of detail, and those will form the basis of the project description for the environmental review.

And during phase four, the project team will draft the final plan and do our environmental impact report.

The plan adoption is anticipated in spring 2028.

And looking at the project's schedule overall, we're about 50% through the entire scope of work.

So the idea for expanding the GDAP boundary stems from the City Council study session that was held in January of this year when the project team presented the GDAP vision framework.

Members of the council expressed interest in having the project team study opportunities for improved bike and pedestrian connectivity along Broadway, outside of the current GDAP boundary.

And on the right side, we're showing a kind of a zoomed-in version with the expanded area in greater detail.

It is generally located just to the east of Woodside Road, bounded by the 101 freeway, Douglas Ave and Bay Road, and then there's a small spur down to Spring Street just north of Hoover Park.

And then Stanford's Redwood City campus is just to the east of that.

So on this and the next set of slides, I'll provide some information on the existing conditions and policy context of the potential expansion area as well as factors for consideration and evaluating an expansion of the GDAP boundary.

The map on this slide shows the general plan land use designations within the area.

So most of the area is designated as light industrial overlay incubator.

It's a bit of a mouthful, with a small portion designated as mixed use transitional.

And as the name implies, the intent of the light industrial overlay district is to quote provide opportunities for small light industrial businesses to expand to medium-sized businesses, and to continue to function and create new jobs in Riddwood City.

The general character of the built environment in the expansion area is light industrial in nature with large one to three storied structures that house over 30 businesses, including a range of light industrial and research and development businesses, as well as some compatible retail and other uses.

Business occupancy is nearly 90% in the area, which compares favorably to the citywide office and RD occupancy of around 69%.

And this area does comprise nearly half of Redwood City's land dedicated light to light industrial uses.

So when weighing an expansion of the GDAP boundary and an associated land use change from industrial to mixed use, staff recommends consideration of a few factors while also recognizing that other city priorities should be evaluated at the same time.

First, light industrial uses are an important sector of the regional and local economy.

They contribute to economic diversity, which helps us weather turbulence in the larger economic or in the larger economy when there are economic shifts or disruptions.

They support middle income jobs that often have educational requirements that are less than a bachelor's degree, which in turn supports the economic diversity of workers and residents locally and in the region.

In the potential GDAP expansion area alone, businesses support over 1,100 jobs, 60% of which are manufacturing robotics and industrial supply.

Light industrial uses also support local and regional supply chains by ensuring that raw materials, goods and services are available for faster access to other business sectors and to local residents.

And they also contribute to the local tax base.

Lastly, staff recommends weighing land use changes in the context of the city's existing and developing land use policy as has been noted a couple times tonight.

You know, there is a larger land use context for all of our work.

Our general plan calls for the preservation of light industrial uses within Redwood City.

And of course, the housing element, the downtown precise plan, and policies under development in the GDAP and elsewhere generally seek to focus major new development in an adjacent downtown within the half mile of the Caltrain station.

So, shifting topics from land use to mobility, the figure on this slide shows the network of existing dedicated bike lanes in and around the potential expansion area.

So the important takeaway from this figure is that the existing network of dedicated bike lanes, bike facilities on the ground today, has a lot of gaps and really prevent easy and comfortable access for cyclists within the area into downtown.

And then while not specifically shown on this figure, there are also significant gaps in the pedestrian network as well.

And addressing these gaps really is a high priority for the city and for city staff.

So the city's existing bike and pedestrian master plan is called the walk by walk bike thrive and was adopted in 2022.

And it includes a comprehensive bike network intended to connect all neighborhoods of Redwood City to each other and to downtown.

So the figure on the slide shows how the GDAP area and the bike network interconnect.

As part of the GDAP effort, the project team has identified strategic locations where we plan to recommend enhancements to walk bike thrive network beyond what you see on the map.

And the build of the network is, of course, a work in progress.

As resources become available, the city implements projects to convert those dotted lines you see on the map, which represent planned but not yet built bike facilities into the solid lines, which means that they are built and on the ground serving our community.

In the immediate vicinity of the potential GDAP expansion area, there are numerous bike and pedestrian improvement projects that are currently underway.

These, which are described in detail in table two of the staff report for this item, that are in various stages of development.

So for example, some like the new uh buffered bike lanes on Broadway west of Woodside Road are slated for construction later this summer.

Improvements as part of the 84101 reimagined project will be constructed over a two-year period starting in 2027.

Plans for a separated bikeway on Bay Road are in design and slated for construction between 5th and 15th Avenue on 20 starting in 2027.

And then there's a Bay Road segment between Woodside and Fifth Ave, that the city and the county are jointly in active pursuit of grant funding for design and construction.

So in the context of considering a potential GDAP boundary expansion, staff would highlight that there is significant investment in new bike and pedestrian infrastructure on the way to help fill existing network gaps over the next few years.

And additionally, as described in table three of the staff report, staff have further identified projects that would address remaining gaps in the bike and pedestrian network in the area.

And these could be prioritized in a relatively short order as part of the city's capital improvement plan process, separate from the GDAP process.

An additional factor to consider related to the potential GDAP expansion is the fact that the project scope and budget would require significant amendments.

The project team anticipates that the boundary expansion would add 12 to 14 months to the project schedule and estimate the project budget would need to be increased by between 625,000 and 715,000 dollars, although the ultimate timing and cost would depend on the final agreed upon scope of work.

So in light of these factors, staff has developed some alternatives to the boundary expansion for city council consideration.

And I should note that any combination of these alternatives could be pursued in tandem.

So first, the council could direct staff to recommend mobility projects from table three of the staff report for prioritization in a future capital improvement plan.

Second, the council could direct staff to incorporate mobility recommendations that come out of GDAP or through other planning processes into a future citywide update of the walk bike thrive plan.

Third, the council could direct staff to include the GDAP expansion area as a focus area in the upcoming economic vitality strategy that is set to be led by the city manager's office.

And the purpose of the strategy is to create a five-year roadmap to strengthen uh Redwood City's local economy, support local businesses and property owners, and to attract new investment.

A fourth alternative is the council could direct staff to evaluate initiation of a community plan effort for the area east of Woodside Road later in 2027.

That could include land use changes, additional mobility improvements, public space improvements and enhancements, uh, economic development strategies, and other policy goals perhaps as well.

Last, the city council could direct staff to retain the existing GDAP boundary and implement the existing scope of work for the project.

So wrapping up, the staff recommendation for this item is for city council to direct staff to either retain the existing GDAP boundary, to expand the GDAP boundary, or to pursue one or more of the strategic initiatives that I just presented as alternatives on the previous slide and are also listed for short here.

So that concludes our staff presentation, and we are available for comments or questions.

Thank you.

Thank you, John.

Before we go to council questions, we'll open it up for public comments and I'll pass things over to our city clerk.

Thank you.

We have one speaker card.

So if there are others, feel free to bring them up.

And if you're on Zoom, go ahead and raise your hand at this time.

All right, we're closing the speakers' list.

We'll call up Cindy Bickers staff, who will be followed by Michael Rusa Cruz, and who will be followed by Dylan Finch.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members.

My name is Cindy Bickerstaff.

I live in the Eagle Hill area of Redwood City.

The winter 2022-23 storms demonstrated that what happens in and around the greater downtown area directly affects Eagle Hill through the storm drains.

I care deeply about our city's plans for downtown as they relate to mitigating and adapting to climate change.

Enabling easy and safe bicycling, scootering, walking, and other forms of legal micromobility or active transportation is very important to reducing the carbon pollution causing extreme weather like the storms of 22-23.

As such, I urge the council to direct city staff to expand the GDAP boundary as described in this agenda item staff report.

With respect to the strategic initiatives, I urge council to direct staff to prioritize safe legal micromobility across Woodside Road within the expanded area.

Given this area will also be subject to the construction of Highway 84101 interchange, probably followed by uh or continuous with the Stanford Cancer Hospital construction.

I urge council to focus staff on buffered and protected micromobility passage during the construction intervals and beyond.

The 2024 CCAG SMC bike and scooter share outreach report identifies at 40% don't feel safe as the largest impediment to bike, e-bike, or e-scooter usage.

In the largest agreement category, 84% of walk bike thrive respondents listed improved safety as very important.

Adding a strategic initiative to plan for safe passage across the expanded GDAP while these two major construction projects occur is necessary to grow active transportation.

In summary, expand the GDAP area and provide and prioritize buffered and protected micromobility passage.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you, Cindy.

Michael Arusa Cruz.

Hello, Mayor and members of City Council.

My name is Marcarusa.

I'm speaking today purely in a personal capacity as a Redwood City resident.

I wanted to comment on specifically one of the things that the staff report calls out is the potential for an expansion of the number of uh micro retail or micro businesses in Redwood City.

While I have not lived in Japan, like Isabel, you mentioned earlier.

Uh I have actually visited it recently.

And one of the things that I distinctly remember enjoying a lot about the many cities in Japan where the enormous number of micro retail stores of astonishing specificity.

But the cities had this vibrancy and richness to them because the cities allowed for very small businesses, micro-retail that could be supported with just a few employees, and very small overall footprints, which meant lower startup costs and lower overhead.

These businesses were really cool to see, but also really added to the um economic diversity of the cities that I saw.

And I think that I'm very curious to see how River City could expand the places where micro businesses and record retail are allowed.

The other thing that I did want to briefly comment on was the um proposed potential timelines.

Um, since a lot of that seems like it might be spent on environmental impact um review.

I am aware of state Senate Bill 131, which exempts most rezonings that implement compliant housing elements from CEQA.

So I'd be curious if um the any um if there's any opportunity to save on time by leveraging SP 131.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Dylan Finch, welcome.

Hello, Council.

I'm also just speaking for myself today.

I would also be in favor of expanding the GDAP boundaries.

I think this would strengthen the connection between downtown and Stanford.

And I think the pedestrian and bike improvements that are included in the Woodside Veterans Broadway intersection as part of the 10184 Reimagined Project also increase the connectivity along the corridor and make this expansion a better fit.

The strong connectivity of the area would also make it a great candidate for density, which could allow us to meet our housing goals with less impact on other existing residential areas.

The staff report uh does highlight the possible labeling of existing businesses as non-conforming if the area is rezoned as mixed use under its current definition.

Um I would be interested in exploring a new zoning type that could preserve some of the uses that would not uh negatively impact uh any new residential that uh develops there.

Um I think the biggest trade-offs would be uh the elongated uh GDAP timeline and the loss of the um of the older and cheaper to rent properties for the light industrial uses.

Um but uh uh even even if the existing uses are preserved in the zoning code, plots would eventually probably still get redeveloped over time.

Um those are real trade-offs to consider, but I I think they're worth it.

Um this might also be an ideal time to spend a bit longer on the plan given the market uncertainty and the reduced development activity.

Um this expansion would cement the Broadway corridor as a vibrant and people-centric corridor.

Um Broadway's been a focus for the city for a long time, including the old streetcar line proposal, and this would certainly move us towards that vision.

Um even if we don't implement a streetcar, uh, this long straight corridor would be a great target for future expanded bus service, um, and uh residents would have an easy uh way to downtown with uh low carbon transit options like the bike and the bus.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That concludes public comment mayor.

Great.

Thank you, City Clerk.

Thank you to our commenters for sticking with us into the lateness of the evening, and we'll bring it back to city council for discussion.

And I see Councillor Chu.

Well, go to you first.

Okay, um, so first of all, thank you everyone for sticking it out until 10:30 at night.

It's so appreciated.

And I did want to clarify, um, you know, I I was the one who initially suggested this, and I want to clarify what I'm asking, I was asking for, and and the vision.

Um the first thing is I can certainly understand why it would be interpreted as, you know, she just wants a bike lane that that it would be on brand, uh, but this is a much more expansive uh vision.

And I think really the the World Cup cemented it for me.

It showed Redwood City at its most magnificent and its best.

And downtown was this hub of joy, connectivity, activity, commerce, and vibrance uh that makes our city so awesome.

And a huge part of why all of that activity was concentrated on Broadway, and I think it's something we don't even think about is the way Broadway is designed.

It has wide sidewalks, it has trees that almost touch in the middle, and it has two very narrow lanes that facilitate connection and access and make our make Broadway a destination and a place to be rather than trying to get people through our city and out of our city as quickly as possible.

Um and so my vision is to take that beauty, that vibrance, and and that um archetype and extend it all the way down uh through uh the current industrial area across Woodside, all the way past Stanford and down to Second Avenue where Stanford ends.

And then ideally also through downtown, and I'd love to see it even go across El Camino Real and drop kids safely in front of Sequoia High School.

Um and so an ideal street, a person centered street, doesn't actually need a bike lane.

One of the most comfortable places to bike and walk in the city is along Broadway.

A bike lane is completely unnecessary if you have a slow person pedestrian centered street.

So that's the first thing.

The vision is for a street for people, a place that is a destination, and that you want to be and linger, not just a place designed to get trucks through our city and onto the freeway as quickly as possible.

So that's the first thing.

The second thing is it's not really possible to have a person-centric street, unless you have land uses that support that.

So I frequently walk, you know, I walk all kinds of ways and bike all kinds of ways and take transit.

Walking along Broadway, even if you had a Jersey barrier protected bike lane at night, is creepy and deserted because it's an industrial area.

There's no, you know, there's no people there, it's very uncomfortable.

Number one, number two, the kinds of traffic and the type of road that needs a cement protected bike lane is almost by definition not a pleasant place to be.

Those are typically required when roads are wide, busy, fast, and designed to move cars through a community as quickly as possible.

And so the ask is really that that Broadway become a marquee place in our city, and that the beauty and the joy and the very redwood city, you know, that's where our signs government best by uh climate best by government tests are, that spirit gets extended all the way through.

That's the first thing.

The second thing is this is not an original idea.

Um there's been a dream and a vision for a streetcar uh along Broadway for at least 20 years.

It made its way onto paper 13 years ago as a distinct plan for a Broadway streetcar.

It was reviewed again in 2020.

Obviously, a pandemic was not the time to implement it.

And the plan for the Broadway streetcar actually informed how Stanford did its road improvements.

So the reason the lanes are so wide in front of the Stanford campus, and the entrances to the garages were put on bay was because the plan had originally been to have a streetcar.

Um, and so that you know the reason the streetcar was proposed on Broadway is because that is one of the oldest and most historic streets in our city.

It is the only street that is intuitive and direct from the southern neighborhoods through our city down to downtown.

Um, and it's the intuitive route.

So when you're driving a car, you think about friction, so how wide and fast is the road, and simplicity.

You're just trying to get onto the freeway in almost all cases.

When you're walking or biking and to a lesser extent taking transit, you think about distance.

Um, so adding 20 to 40% to a walk or a bike is a much bigger imposition than just giving people a direct route downtown.

Um, and you think about safety, what's comfortable?

What you know, like when I get in my car, I don't think about what is my risk tolerance today.

I just get in my car and drive.

When I ride my bike, I'm like, okay, I've got this much time.

How brave am I feeling?

I would like one road in Redwood City where people don't have to make the how brave am I feeling today calculation.

I would like to be feel safe and comfortable.

Um, and there were many things in the staff report, uh, concerns that I would like to address in turn, but I first just wanted to make it clear what the vision is.

This is not just some green paint on the side of an industrial car sewer or even a curb.

It's making Broadway a place to be and a destination and is something that connects our city to the southern, you know, downtown to the southern neighborhoods, and not just you know, a bike lane.

So I'll I'll I'll stop there and can answer further questions as needed.

Thank you, Councilmember Chu.

Any other questions, thoughts?

Vice Mayor.

No.

Okay.

I don't think there's a rush, so if you wanted to go first.

I have a concern of delaying the GDAP for a year or a year and a half.

I love all the ideas about the I love the streetcar, but I think we can study these ideas.

I think we can study micro-mobility.

I think we can study walk bike thrive.

I think we can study all these things without delaying the GDAP for a year to a year and two months.

We already had a lot of considerations and a lot of study when we defined the GDAP area.

And I'd also like to add that the GDAP was delayed, the downtown precise plan from 2011, which was supposed to get built out over 20 years, the commercial part of it got built out in like five, or or got entitled in like five.

And so then there was a period where we had no downtown plan.

And then it became a developer-driven type situation.

So I really am very, very concerned.

I'm thrilled, I was thrilled last year when we started the GDAP process, because it's as I said earlier, it's better to have community-led planning, not developer-led planning.

And developers don't mind that.

So they're fine with knowing what the general plan is, and and that's fine.

That's certainty, that's no problem.

So I have a grave concern about delaying an already delayed plan for another year.

Though it be lots of really wonderful, good, nice smart reasons, I just feel like that ship has sailed.

Yeah, this slide.

So I don't I don't recommend this, but I would just say logically, if if you're going to delay the GDAP plan, which I don't think we should, but then it sh it should study the entire east side of Woodside Road because the problems at Broadway and Bay and on and on and on exist on the entire east side, you know.

Um, but I don't think we should delay the D G DAP.

Um, I think we can study the we can update the walk by bike thrive plan.

Um I, you know, I think we can do some studying, um, but I I don't um I also I also think about the rezoning of the industrial area.

I I got some questioning from staff and reorienting my head on it, but the you know, the that industrial zoning, it provides jobs for local folks.

I like the tweak that we made with the zoning to allow the entertainment and the industrial kitchens and the wider uses without without completely destroying the industrial designation.

Um but but council member Chu's point was more about the micro mobility, and her vision is beautiful.

I just don't want to delay the GDAP, and I want us to study all of the east side but not delay GDAP.

Let me just um you know, I don't I don't necessarily want to micromanage walk bike thrive or that the transportation plan, um I trust that the folks that are working on that are doing a good job, and uh so I think it's good to be I again if the if the just for me if the economic vitality strategy plan is going to be expanded, which I guess it can be done without extra cost, which is nice, but then again, it should study the whole east side of Woodside Road, not just those that you know, not just uh Broadway and Bay and the third one.

Um but again, no delay.

Um, I may have more comments, but I'll leave it there.

Council Member True.

Um, may I respond to you, my colleagues?

Um, so I'd like to uh respond to Councilmember Aikens' comments and better explain why kind of hair on fire urgent about this.

Um so there are three things happening simultaneously that present a generational opportunity.

The first is that we're doing the GDAP, which takes us to Woodside.

The second is that Stanford University is about to put in a world-class cancer center that takes us to Douglas, and the third is that we're redoing the Broadway Woodside Interchange.

The confluence of those three things is not going to happen again ever.

Um, but this is a generational opportunity to get that bridge from 80% over the river all the way over the river.

So that's the first thing that, like, there's really not, I mean, the south or east of Woods, east of Woodside is baked.

Stanford has already got its plan entitled.

They're gonna build that out.

The remainder is is neighborhoods.

Um we don't own anything, I mean, all the Redwood City land east of Woodside is between second and and Woodside.

Um, so that is the only remaining chunk that's not already entitled.

Um so that's why I have such a sense of urgency about it.

Um I think the other comment I wanted to make, although it is true that there are 1100 jobs there and it is well populated.

Um if you if you do the back of the envelope calculation, it's probably about 66 light industrial jobs.

So we learned, you know, this week that about 92% of jobs in Redwood City are held by people outside of the city.

So being generous, let's say it's 10% of the jobs are held by Redwood City residents, that's 110 jobs.

You know, if 60% of those are light industrial, that's about 66 jobs, and those really are, you know, it's great that those jobs are there, but um what gives people longevity and and opportunity is actually having access to a robust economy.

So if we were even building one building uh in in that area would produce between 800 and 1,200 union or good union jobs.

Uh and and 25% of my district is a member of a union.

And so, although it is true that there are jobs there, I think when we compare the amount of opportunity that upzoning that small area would provide, I think the trade-offs are very worth it.

Number one.

Number two, Redwood City has more industrial space than than almost any other city on the peninsula.

And number three, if you really drill down and look at those uses, they're almost all compatible with other types of space.

Some of them are biotech, they can move into biotech.

You know, some of them are perfectly compatible with residential, some of them, you know, there's all kinds of ways that those uses could be readily accommodated throughout our city.

So I understand it would delay uh the GDAP somewhat, to the commenters' point.

I think exemption from CEQA would accelerate that a lot.

But if it doesn't happen now, I'm afraid it's gonna be another 20 years because that's we've been studying the streetcar for 20 years.

So thank you.

Uh so I um I uh on your sense I understand your sense of urgency and I appreciate it.

I I would just say that um the as we know with the 84 101 exchange, it's gonna take a long time.

It's our we've been studying it for since I can remember in Redwood City, um, and it's not gonna be built in it's not even gonna be finished to be designed and entitled and built in the blink of an eye at all.

It's going to go slowly.

So I worry about delaying the GDAP.

It it's there is time.

And to your point that only eight percent of people that that work in Redwood City live in Redwood City, um that may be a miss um, that may be a um misunderstood statistic because there are a lot of jobs in Redwood City compared to surrounding cities, and if you look regionally, the the real problem is if they're coming from the Central Valley or Tracy.

If they're coming regionally from East Menlo Park, East Palo Alto, Menlo Parks, San Carlos, that's really the relevant.

So it isn't so much do they work and live in Redwood City.

So that if you look regionally, that number's gonna be much higher.

And those industrial those I don't see the urgency.

That area is going to I I don't I don't see the urgency, I do see the urgency of I think that we can do a lot of what you I think that we can do a lot of of your vision and a lot of your planning and a lot of your ideas without delaying the GDAP.

And um there are wonderful opportunities on the entire east side of Woodside Road.

Um, and I think these alternatives that the staff has identified can get us to where we need to go without um delaying the GDAP.

Thank you, Councilmember Sirkin.

Thank you.

And thank you, Councilmember Chu for bringing this forward.

Um I support the uh number two.

Um here's a couple of reasons why.

So downtown shouldn't stop at Woodside Road.

And we need to open up more neighborhoods to housing.

Um, and I think I just have a couple questions, you know, to the concerns that have been raised about the timeline.

So I saw in a footnote on page 18 that outreach uh that was scheduled for summer 2026 has been postponed.

And as a result, we've lost two to three additional months of uh outreach.

And so I would have thought we could have done that concurrently with, but but anyhow, um, so I I what I'm seeing, what I'm hearing here is that part of the 12 to 14 month calculus is including that postponing of two to three months of outreach over the summer.

Is that right?

Okay.

So that helps explain a little bit why it's a little bit longer than maybe we would have liked, but uh that aside, um what is the best case scenario?

Like is 12 to 14 months, is that just um is that padded in case you know things run behind, or how do you how did you get to that number or that range rather?

Thank you.

And thank you so much for preparing all of this, by the way.

So um you know the the 12 to 14 month is an estimate.

Um you're correct that it does include some of the time that we paused while we get clearer clarity on what where we're going.

Um and we didn't think it was appropriate to go out and do the additional outreach in that time frame until we know what we are actually studying.

So um, and and keep in mind no outreach has really occurred in this uh potential expansion area.

So um and and it will be important to reach out to the business community and the residents and a broader area to do that.

So that's really going to be a big focus.

As you can see, we've done a lot of, you know, sort of preliminary analysis.

Um we do have some tools uh that we can invoke, um, but it but it is just gonna take a little bit longer to do all of it.

Absolutely fair point.

But best case scenario, what would be the shortest duration?

Well, um, you know, we're we were scheduled to come to you this um fall, October, um, with uh the framework for the plan.

Now we're going to, you know, we can still continue to work on that, but we need to figure out what the framework is for this side as well.

So there's additional work to be done very quickly, and then depending on, and that goes to commission first, commission and council.

Um, so commission will occur even earlier than that, and all the BCCs that you asked us to reach out to.

So it will depend on all of the feedback we get, and then ultimately the direction you give us on the plan to determine what the final timeline will really be.

And if the timeline, you know, if the outreach and you know the uh the comments are um detailed and require further analysis and study, that could delay the environmental review until we know exactly what it is we're doing.

Um, you know, I think was mentioned there may be some opportunities to streamline environmental review.

That is to implement the housing element rezonings in essence, which have been done.

So, you know, we could say, Well, we're doing more rezoning for housing, that might cover some aspects of it, but there's a lot of other aspects to this plan, the climate resilience, the mobility that need to be analyzed in the environmental document.

Probably will be an EIR.

I think that's the expectation.

Thank you, that's very helpful.

And then my final question, which was is with regards to the zoning.

So I saw on page 14 to 15 that if we were to change the general plan designation, it would render the light industrial zoning uses as non-conforming and would limit their ability to expand operations.

And I thought to myself, well, that that seems like a false choice.

I mean, there to the point of one of the public commenters, isn't there some type of zoning designation, or can't we?

Is there what opportunity is there for us to truly make that area mixed use in uh to allow housing commercial retail and light industrial?

So the closest designation that currently exists is the mixed-use transitional, and um you know, it may not be a perfect fit for what we want to achieve in this area, but it could be um, you know, it could be its own sort of um underlying district or modified district, mixed-use transitional Broadway, streetcar, you know.

You know, there could be some some additional letters put into the zoning that would give us some opportunity to customize it.

Okay, and and in that regard, it could allow for some of the continued operation of the uses that are there.

Um, but you know, it's a double-edged sword.

Um if you basically allow them to stay, you don't see the transition occur as quickly.

Um, you know, though, because if if it's non-conforming under the new zoning, they can't expand.

If it's allowed for them to expand or to make changes, then the transition doesn't occur.

So you know, get away both of those things.

Thank you.

I just wanted to quickly comment to Councilmember Sturkin's point about hey, can we speed this up?

The la, you know, does it really have to extend it for a year to 14 months?

Can't we do it faster?

The last thing you want to do when you're trying to put in a uh a new plan for all for for your built environment for the next 20 years is do it as fast as you can.

You you want to do it right because it's gonna dictate uh development for for decades.

So I think Councilmember Howard.

Thank you.

Um, I was going to say there's something to be said for going slow and steady when you're doing massive projects like this.

Um I wanted to address, and I'm hoping um Councilmember G will correct me if I make any mistakes on this with my memory here.

I wanted to address a streetcar, it was brought up several times.

And uh there was a great deal of planning around that, a lot of discussion.

We had a great deal of citizen input, community input, and at the end of the day, uh, what I recall was we decided not to move forward for a number of reasons.

Most of all because the money, we just did not have the money to do that kind of a plan in Redwood City.

It would have made it wonderful going along Broadway, no doubt.

However, what was proposed is permanent infrastructure that would be unable to be moved without great expense.

And imagine today if we had had that along our Broadway corridor, we wouldn't have had parklets, we wouldn't have had the outdoor walking pedestrian experience on Broadway.

We wouldn't have been able to, unless we stopped it, we wouldn't have been able to have the FIFA um World Cup on our downtown plaza that extended well over and down the streets.

I'm kind of glad it didn't come to fruition.

I'm much more a fan of something that's not permanent infrastructure like a shuttle, which we had when it was funded that ran along Broadway and it was very successful.

We just ran out of money.

But uh there's a reason the streetcar didn't come into fruition.

But looking back, it wasn't a bad thing.

Because I'm really happy with the way we've evolved with our downtown, and that couldn't have happened if we had a permanent rail running down the middle.

But I I hear what you're saying.

I do really like your vision.

I really do, and I've always felt that we should carry it all the way down to the end of Broadway as best we can for many number of reasons.

But anyway, did I leave anything out, Councilmember G about the streetcar?

Okay, thank you.

Because I I don't think most of the public knew that we spent so much time and energy on that.

We always had the dream, just the dream didn't come to reality there.

Um so I I just wanted to um remind people that we started this greater, I call it Downtown precise Plan 2.0, but we can call it what we want.

We know what we mean.

But it started in September of 2024, and I'm glad we're in phase three, which will be a four-phase process.

So we've really been moving quite along quickly, and I love the idea that we're expanding the boundary to improve our mobility network, incorporate micro businesses, and expanding the possibility of a range of allowable land uses.

I love some of the uses that were suggested by the speakers, for instance, in Japan, the smaller footprints and things like that.

I really like that.

And also, but I did have a question.

I was led to believe that this would probably take between probably more than five, but closer to 10 years for these two projects to be completed.

Now, maybe you can help me with that, staff or councilmember G.

But it certainly wasn't going to happen tomorrow.

And so I I just want to remind be go ahead, I'll let you answer the question before I add what I was going to say.

Every Tanisha Warner, the Engineering and Transportation Director is here.

Uh let's say approximately four ish years.

But let's just say they make it through entitlement next year, and then you know, construction drawings, improvements, probably another year or two before some additional development starts to occur, and then probably take many years to build out.

Okay, so I was close with the second one then.

Well, I wanted people to remember something.

Our original work, uh Councilmember G was working with us at the time on the downtown precise plan.

It took 10 years, I don't know if many people remember that.

It took 10 years.

We had a lawsuit on uh shadow studies, we had any number of delays, and it was most fortunate actually because we had no development going on at that time, and developers were still trying to piece together financing.

So it was actually beneficial that we took that amount of time to get it right.

But it took 10 years, and here we are talking about going into phase four of our GDAP, and I'm just amazed in such a short time, I'm crossing my fingers, everything goes smoothly.

But I think patience and persistence are so vital, so vitally important when you're doing these big changes.

So what I'd like to propose is maybe um some kind of um plan to phase in because I would like to move along with what we're we're phase three, about to enter phase four of the uh GDAT, the original or the second 2.0.

And I was wondering if what we could consider is making the next step, include the expansion area as a focus area and our upcoming economic vitality strategy, which is about to begin.

And now, maybe I'm not interpreting that properly, but if we're about to begin that, I think this would fit in quite nicely with the next step.

But let's finish the GDAP, and then the next phase becomes the economic vitality plan or something similar with the possible expansion that we're talking about.

If we did it in phases, it gives us time to regroup and plan for the next steps without holding up what we've already started.

And I'm wondering if that's a possibility.

So, as we've listed out some of those alternatives there, doing the economic development strategy is going to occur.

And the question is could we focus a little bit of energy around what's occurring in this area and understand it a little bit more thoroughly so that you can make an informed choice about what the change should be.

So that timeline for that work generally coincides with the timeline to prepare the final GDAP plan.

And so we would have some understanding of what that would inform us as to what should or could occur.

What I'm kind of hearing is what we listed out as option D is a community plan for the area east of Woodside Road as a follow-on action.

So we would do the study, we understand there's a number of issues that need to be addressed in the area, and then we would work towards that, and as staff laid out in the staff report, as we're wrapping up the GDAP plan, we would begin initiating a more formal plan for the area east of Woodside Road, and then work through that process.

And so that would probably take an additional year and a half or so to do it and to actually get it in place.

That would potentially coincide very nicely with the next housing element update if housing is to be uh incorporated into that area and would help set us up for success for the next housing element as well.

Well that that sounds intriguing.

So I I knew you'd come up with a better solution than I was recommending, but uh uh the uh community plan, I just wasn't sure what that actually meant.

Yeah, I mean it is a broad term, it could be a precise plan, it could be, you know, as I think one of the questions we got is are we doing a precise plan or a specific plan?

And um, you know, there's some differences under state law, but you know, in essence, Redwood City's practice has been to do a a precise plan, and so it could be precise plan, you know, uh adjacent to precise plan, just in the same way Kaiser is a precise plan within sort of the downtown area currently.

That's right, that's right.

And we had success doing precise plans, and I I think that sounds like an excellent idea, but I'd like to float that out there as a a compromise because I I hear my colleagues saying that we're anxious to see the completion of this second leg of this development, and I bet the businesses along the corridor up to Woodside Road would love to see it completed also, because that means that there's possibility there for a lot of possibility there to create a whole new neighborhood with retail below.

Uh but then we transition to an additional precise plan that you're saying maybe a better timing to do it, and I think I'd like to offer that as a suggestion for discussion as we go forward.

And I've that's the end of my questions, thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Councilmember Trump.

Mayor, before we get there, probably need to extend the meeting to at least 1115 and then make the motion to extend the meeting to 115.

I'll second that.

Sorry, thank you both.

Could we get a roll call vote, please?

Let's start with Council Member Stricken.

Yes.

Councilmember Chu.

Council Member G.

Yes.

Councilmember Howard.

Yes.

Council Member Padilla.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes, Mayor Martinez Sabayos.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

Thank you all.

We'll go to Councilmember Chu.

Sorry.

Um I I see that I I haven't been clear.

Um my request is not for a streetcar.

It is for a human-centered street.

And my point about the streetcar was just that Broadway is the intuitive route for people going from the southern neighborhoods to downtown.

It wasn't that, oh, you know, I want a street car, and in fact, there's two awesome buses, the EPX and 276 and a shuttle.

It is one of the most well-utilized transit routes in the city, and that's with a foot and a hand tied behind its back.

It's an industrial car sewer that's one of the most heavily utilized transit routes in the city, which is remarkable.

And so really what I'm asking for is land uses that that really lean into that amazing strength.

That was all.

I just want to clarify that.

And I appreciate that.

No, because I I kind I knew that.

It's just that there's so many people here listening or in the audience who didn't know about the streetcar, and I could just see it.

I get calls tomorrow saying, Well, why didn't you do the streetcar?

What happened?

And I said, Well, let's just explain it and get it out of the way.

So thank you for bringing it up.

Thank you both.

We'll go to Councilmember Padia.

I think I understood Councilmember Chu's sentiment.

And I I understand how important timing is.

Um and I know that it's it's something we can all, it's something we can acknowledge.

There are certain areas of our town that have feel like they've waited longer than others.

So I understand how we can all sit here, we can talk about the importance of patience and doing things well, but you know, there's certain people who have just felt like they've always been at the end of the line, or they've never been in the queue.

So I just want to say that I understand when council member Chu is.

I know you're not talking about, you know, a dedicated bus line.

You're talking about connecting people.

We we are one city, and there are physical barriers that make us feel like that.

I mean, I remember growing up at Kennedy and having friends who had to find holes in the railroad track to make sure that they didn't walk three hours to get home from school.

So um these aren't new problems.

We may have found other ways to go around them, but um I do think that there are things that we have to acknowledge.

There are certain things that aren't going to present themselves.

There are certain developments that are in that area that may you want us to consider things that we may.

I just I don't want to look at it as holding up something else as more as bringing more people into the folds.

Like I don't I don't I don't think it has to have that negative connotation that we're holding something up, but we're being more inclusive of others that haven't always been there been thought of all the time.

Um, and I I do I think of that that connectivity in Broadway and what our downtown is, and when I saw how alive it was these past weekends, and there were people coming from all over, and you're getting calls and texts.

Is it gonna be there?

People being there.

And it was there were kids playing soccer, but there were also kids finding quiet spaces of of AstroTurf to trade their Pokemon cards.

I mean, there was something for everyone.

So I just I am supportive of finding ways for us to build connection in our community, and I want us to know that timing sometimes is important.

So um I just wanted to lend support to Councilmember Chu.

Thank you.

We'll go to the vice mayor and then Councilmember Chi.

I just had a clarifying question for Mr.

Schwab.

My understanding is that um strategic initiative D, if I'm understanding correctly, we would keep going with our GDAP, which we're in phase three, we'd get it it done, and at the same time, we'd study separately.

We'd have a separate study, but but we wouldn't slow down the GDAP, we wouldn't extend the GDAP by a year and a half with strategic initiative D, we'd keep GDAP going as it is, and then we would um also um evalu, you know, study the east side of Woodside Road.

So it's a yes and but I I so we could have Ms.

Padilla's vision that yes, it's Broadway all the way, and we we look at that without slowing down the GDAP.

Is that in my understanding what what um I understand?

Yeah, I think that generally what you describe is is correct is that we would continue on the GDEP path as outlined, you know, minus the two to three months as we've you know figure out what we're gonna do here.

But um we'll finish the GDAP.

Uh as we approach the finishing the GDAP, we'll start to find a consultant to help with the community planner precise plan for this area.

We'll um we'll have done some studies uh through um say the economic development strategy, we'll have some additional information that will help that process that when we start that process on the heels of the uh GDAP um ready to go and in place to move forward more uh more efficiently.

Okay, I so I just I just wanted to clarify that we don't have we can still study east of 101, we can still study east Broadway without stopping or stalling the good year and a half work we've already done on the GDAP, and we can still get that closed out.

Yeah, I think what you could what we're saying is you can do all of the things in uh item number three, and then uh as we finish GDAP, we would formally kick off the community plan or precise plan for the area east of Woodside Road.

Thank you for the clarification.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Councilmember Chu.

I know I'm hogging the mic tonight.

Um I wanna be clear.

I do not believe option number three will accomplish my goal.

Um I I don't think it will accomplish my goal.

Um I have brought this up.

I mean, I brought this up in 2020.

I couldn't have brought it up in 2024, I wasn't on council, but I remember bringing it up early in 2025, and then again at the at the um off-site.

And so, you know, I I feel like I tried to bring it up fairly early in the process, it just took a long time to come before all of us.

And and what I'm hearing is you were too late, but I think that really underscores the urgency.

Once you know the plan for something like 101 is baked, it's very hard to change it.

Once the plan for something like a world class cancer center is baked, it's very hard to change it.

And what I've learned tonight is if you don't get in early, you don't get in.

And my district has waited for a very long time to be connected to the rest of the city.

So I feel like this is our chance, and I'm I really want us to get our chance.

So thank you, Councilmember.

Councilmember G.

Um, Councilmember Chu, thank you for sharing your vision and and trying to connect your district with downtown and you know, bringing everyone together, and I support that vision.

How we get there is sort of a challenge with timing and everything and all that.

Um, Councilmember Howard, you mentioned the downtown precise plan that didn't happen overnight, and it took a long time.

I remember that's how I started on the architecture review committee, and I was the newbie who got assigned to the downtown task force that was chaired um with property owners and residents to create a new vision, and it took 10 years to get to council.

You went through the CEQA process, and they got delayed by litigation before things went happened.

And the tough part, and one of the lessons learned from that experience was there were people excited about the downtown precise plan, not developers, not corporations, but family-owned investors who bought property in downtown with the expectation that the precise plan was going to happen, and I got hung up.

And they and I I emphasize the family owned investor because they didn't have the ramp to wait the two years of litigation and had to sell.

I remember listening to those stories.

Um I think some of us have heard those stories, and so I'm trying to find a way to to bridge the work done today.

And and Jeff, you're here and I asked you, are you gonna finish on time?

And now we're not because of this lack of clarity of what are we studying and what are we reaching out to the community about?

And I'm I'm sort of leaning towards I want the GDAP process to continue.

I'm not, and I shared with the city manager, I wasn't pleased to learn we were already delayed two or three months.

But I'm fully supportive, and Councilmember Howard, thanks for bringing this forward, a precise plan for that area.

And the reason I want to lean that way is while Councilmember Sturkin talked about the best path for it in the best short amount of time.

What happens if the business owners say, I don't want this?

They have that opportunity.

We don't have to say we're going to up zone your property, get rid of the light industrial.

They may not like that.

Because it is hard to find light industrial space in this city.

And if that happens, then it's gonna take a little longer than what you're looking at in terms of timeline to find a zoning that allows mixed use with a residential overlay, that grandfather's in light industrial, but doesn't kick them out when there's ownership change or use change.

And that's why making land use decisions like this makes it very difficult without going through a process.

Um I can imagine having visited some of those businesses, some owner property owners saying, I don't like this.

I want it the way it is, and we haven't accounted for that in the conversation.

So we before we even start this, we gotta start a community engagement process with the property owners in that area, or a little bit wider, to say this is what the council is thinking about.

This is the planning.

What do you think?

Do you like it?

Do you not like it?

What would work for you?

And that's gonna take the time before we get there.

So is it reasonable, Jeff and and the planning team to look at continuing the GDAP and asking staff and to initiate a precise plan, or even before that, a community engagement strategy with the property owners in this area to gauge their sentiments before we make the commitment to a precise plan?

It can be done, but as I did in my introductory remarks this evening, there were a lot of things on our plate, and there are capacity limits, or everything slows down a bit.

Um so it is a little bit a matter of you know telling us what your priorities are and where you want to focus, or understanding that everything will take just a little bit longer because we're gonna be spending some time talking to the community and the businesses now versus maybe a little later.

Right.

I'm not talking right now, but I mean there's got to be a property owner, business owner engagement process before we make the commitment to a price precise plan.

So in thinking through the timeline, is it and I ran out of meeting time, so I gotta make a motion to extend the meeting to 11 30, Mayor.

I'm sorry.

Second.

Can we get a roll call vote, please?

Councilmember Chu.

Yes, Councilmember G.

Yes, Councilmember Howard?

Yes, Councilmember Padilla.

Yes.

Councilmember Sirkin.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Aiken.

Yes.

Mayor Martinez Wayz.

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you.

So Jeff, I'm just trying to do a schedule in my head.

Is it reasonable to ask staff to continue to put the GDAP process?

And then let me think, April, May, June timeline of 27, initiate a kind of business property owner engagement process to gauge their tolerance, acceptance, enthusiasm for a precise plan.

And based on that feedback, look to begin a precise plan effort in the fall of 27.

Again, I'm just doing this in my head without I think so.

And you know, um, we as we laid out in the staff report, we would be coming back to you later this year with a work plan that could include that first initial effort, and assuming that it it was um, you know, we we heard back, and it seems like there's a path forward, then it would execute the other the following steps upon the completion of the the GDAP work in spring.

So we'd be concluding GDAP.

There will be a lot of work to you know pull that together.

Um, but we could potentially engage some other staff members in starting the outreach in that area and working maybe with a consultant to help us do that.

And and economic development are one of those.

I think the economic development is important.

And and the other piece is to engage Caltrans, because I think one of the physical barriers is Woodside Road.

Um I think I've I've mentioned that Councilmember Chu, I'd like to see that pedestrian overcrossing replaced with a gateway structure, because it is becoming a gateway into our city, and what we whatever we can do with Caltrans to make it seem less of a barrier than it currently is, I think would enhance the connectivity between you know both sides of Woodside Road.

But I think what's important is to give Councilmember Chu and her constituents a date certain when this is going to happen rather than keeping it fuzzy, whereas Councilmember Pidia said it's always waiting.

Let's try to put some date certain in here, and I like I like quarters or I like seasons rather than April 1.

So you know my leaning is let's continue with GDAP, look to initiate some sort of property owner-business owner engagement process in the spring of 27 with the goal to initiate a precise plan effort by the fall of 27 based on feedback from the from that community.

I saw two lights I just have a quick question.

Let's go with Councilmember.

Would we be able to ask for assistance from RCIA?

I mean, they've been helping us a lot with a lot of different um, I I was just thinking either the chamber or RCIA helping us with getting to the businesses and helping with uh that kind of outreach.

I think the chamber for sure, I think more so than the RCAA, which is focused in the core, right?

Yeah, it's not their mission per se.

Um, but yeah, the chamber for sure.

We'd reach out, we'd see if they could help help us connect.

Um Amanda's also great at making connections.

Um, you know, she she went out with a few staff members and toured some of the businesses, so that was helpful in giving some of the questions.

And we might ask Sam CETA if they'd like to help because during COVID, Sam CETA and the chamber were miraculous.

They were just so wonderful, and we've we developed strong partnerships with them, helped us with a lot of different things.

Maybe this is the time to call our team into action to help.

Sure.

Thanks.

Thank you.

How much do you think it would cost to embark on an entirely new precise plan in comparison to doing what is number two?

Both are gonna add a cost to the program as we made an estimate of what the expansion would include.

I do think that doing the follow-up precise plan will be more costly because we'll have to do subsequent environmental review for that area.

Um, whereas if we try to incorporate it in the GDAP uh expansion currently, we would have some synergies.

So there will be some additional cost.

I I can't exactly estimate what that would be, but thank you.

So considering our financial outlook and the economies of scale, if you will, that we have with the current GDAP process, wouldn't it be more financially prudent to embark on number two rather than a separate process understanding the value of it?

Councilmember.

I appreciate that.

The other side of it is if we and I'll look to our historian on council.

We look at Bay Road being the former 101.

I will guarantee you absolutely when you start to do soil samples underground, you will find contamination.

Absolutely guaranteed.

Because that was where all the industries were located before the 101 we have was built.

And so the potential is that we will slow down the CEQA process for the GDAP area as we deal with the CEQA issues on the east side of Woodside Road.

Guarantee it, because all that stuff is sitting there.

If you do um a phase one report, you'll find a lot of old industrial businesses that were there where there were no regulations about where the stuff went, other than dig a hole and put it in the ground.

And that's a trade-off.

That's the trade-off.

So the timeline that was talked about could be significantly lengthened based on the sequel findings and the results, dealing with soils and geotech and all that fun stuff.

But I guarantee you you'll find contamination over there.

Thank you, Councilmember.

We'll go to Councilmember True.

Uh I just have a clarifying question about process.

So if the little chunk, the only unentitled chunk remaining east of Woodside were to be folded into the GDAP as suggested option two, is it possible to do um sort of initiation?

Is it possible to have it phased?

You know, if you think about you order a meal all at once, but your appetizers come out first and then your main course.

Um I feel because including it with the GDAP would give us the economies of scale, um, is it possible to allow you know parts of the GDAP to proceed while other parts of it are finishing up, or is it all or nothing?

Uh I I think there's a symbolic importance for my community of concluding it with the GDAP.

It sends a message, the city doesn't end at Woodside.