On December 5, 2023, the Redwood City Planning Commission convened to consider multiple items, including the Architectural Advisory Committee (AAC) work plan, the adoption of the 2024 meeting calendar, and the approval of Stanford in Redwood City Phase 2 developments. The meeting lasted from 2:30 PM to approximately 5:30 PM, with Commissioner Chu recusing herself from the Stanford item due to a conflict of interest.
Meeting adjourned at approximately 5:30 PM. The next regular meeting is scheduled for January 16, 2024.
Or there was needs of the city where your expertise may be uh called on that that it's possible to add things, or does is this very sort of is it is this a ceiling or a floor? I would say it's a floor. Um there are multiple instances where outside of our regular meetings, um just a couple of weeks ago, one of our um one of our committee members since they lives out in the shores was asked to review a mock-up of one of the building, you know, one of the project pieces and was to come back to us with the recommendations. In other words, was this meeting our expectations or not? And that's that I remember standing out there looking at the colors of the of the theater project when it was going in, you know, it's with Charles Jenny way back when. Um so yes, there are often where we'll have um additional study sessions or extracurricular activities like that that will come up. And um, so yeah, I would say this is the floor. Um it's a high floor, but um we actually haven't been meeting as often, you know. We we're generally scheduled to meet twice a month, but if there's nothing on the agenda, there's been multiple months where we've skipped, and that's that's actually been a problem for committee members because we're trying to plan our lives and we sort of have set those times off, and then when it doesn't happen, it's like but then when it does happen, oh I didn't happen the last two months, and now it's happening, so I gotta be available. So the attendance policies have been a bit of a challenge. I think one of our um one of our losses was uh kind of over that actually, where the person felt that it was unfair the attendance policy, it was a bit too rigid, so I don't know. Commissioner Lazarus Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um thank you uh for the presentation and thank you again for your commitment to this issue. I'm dovetailing on what the vice chairman was talking about. I'm wondering if instead of maintain or achieve what you're trying to say is seek, we seek a balance because it's never there. You're always looking. And the future just is the future. Things come and maybe they get maybe they get built, maybe they don't, maybe they we change the way we build. You know, it's always about um I I also have some um I have some other thoughts I think could be relevant to when you said you don't know what's happening. Uh Commissioner, maybe this is the time for clarifying glasses. Thank you. So I will reserve I want to just put a pin in that and we'll reserve for our the proper time. I think that's a you know good suggestion. Okay. Uh okay, with um with that, I will now open the public hearing. I have no speaker cards. Um I did see some people just recently come in. So uh does anyone is anyone in the audience um seeking to comment on the AAC work plan? I see no hands. Uh so therefore I will close the public hearing and now um open up for uh commissioner discussion and comments. And um so I'll look for light, Commissioner. Thank you, Chair Hunter. There it is. Thank you so much for the presentation. Um I probably should know this, but I don't. What determines a project comes to AAC? Because I know they don't allow it. So it's really part of the zoning administrator and but generally we look at larger projects um mostly commercial but occasionally residential, um, especially if they're controversial. Um, and when I say larger, it that's in context because it it could be like a small hotel on the corner where the gas station was, but there's residential right next to it, or it could be the entire triangle between Main Street and El Camino Real, you know. So there's um and or the Stanford Project, or you know, there's you know, again, I've been around long enough where I watched that whole area where the Stanford Project is transformed from just tilt-up warehouses to multi um multi-tenant buildings of which now have gone away to the Stanford campus. So but those are the kinds of things um, you know, generally the bigger, more development-based projects, but um, you know, sensitive downtown stuff. Anytime I forgot to mention, any time something is a deviation from the downtown specific plan, right? Then we would actually need to see that as well and and weigh in on the deviations, which we really rely on staff, Apollo and the other planners to help us weave through that document, and they lay out very nicely for us. Here's what's supposed to happen, here's what the architect's proposing, yay or nay, you know, so that works out. Commissioner Coke, if I may, uh Apollo Rojas also I think can tell you what is in the current um resolution for what the AAC reviews. Thank you, Apollo. Uh yes, thank you, uh Ms. Xline. Uh you know, as uh Chair Spatorno mentioned, um larger development, so not necessarily single family, not uh uh you know, single story um you know, multi-family, we're talking about multi-story, multi-family, uh larger commercial projects.