The idea of what we have to pre-cause that's excellent.

I feel like I just dishovel.

Okay.

I mean that's a question of items.

Okay.

I think the back lines might get the lenses.

I need to party it up or not.

All right.

You okay?

Good.

All right, we're good.

All right, good evening, and thank you for joining our June 2nd, 2026 Planning Commission and Architectural Advisory Committee joint meeting.

As a reminder, items will be taken in the order listed on the agenda.

Before we get started, I want to briefly go over public comment procedures for the meeting.

For those who may be joining us for the first time.

In-person speakers, please fill out speaker cards like these and hand them out to the staff at the dais uh to be recognized.

If you're joining us virtually, you may use the raise hand feature on Zoom to speak.

If you're joining us, we are teleconference by phone.

You may raise your hand by dialing star nine and star six to unmute your microphone when prompted.

Please only raise your hand at a time that the item on which you're speaking is called.

Each speaker is allotted three minutes and in-person speakers.

There will be a light at the podium to let you know how much time you have left and a buzzer when time is up.

Lastly, we know that we each bring different perspectives to the discussion and we want to be sure everyone has a chance to be heard without interruption.

Planning commission welcomes public comment on items within within our purview.

Any speaker whose comments are on topics not under the commission's purview will be warned and then removed if necessary in order to allow planning commission to conduct their business.

Thank you for your attention and consideration.

Commissioner Cornejo here.

Commissioner Finch?

Here.

Commissioner Hunter?

Here.

Commissioner Robinson?

Here.

Vice Chair Koch?

Here.

And Chair Sunogaretz.

Here.

I'll just go ahead and read the architectural advisory.

Committee roll call as well.

Committee member Davidevits.

Absent.

Committee member Jenkins.

Here.

Committee member King.

Vice Chair Stewart.

Here.

And Chair Tanakasubo.

Here.

Uh youth committee member Perettis.

It's also absent.

I'm Sue Xline.

I'm the Assistant Community Development Director.

Evelyn Garcia, associate planner and I'm the liaison to the Commission.

Tonight I'm here with Rick Jarvis, our consultant city attorney.

Jeff Schwab, our community development director.

And Christian Mateo, administrative secretary and meeting host.

All right.

Next item of the agenda is notification of meeting participation by teleconference due to just costs pursuant to government code 54953-8-3.

Do we have any remote participation notifications or requests from the commission to consider?

We do not.

All right, let's move on to the next item on the agenda.

It's item number three, which is public comments.

Public comments on the matters of the commission and committee interest and public uh sorry and items not on the agenda.

So we will take public comments for those joining us in person and through Zoom.

Excuse me.

Is a reminder?

Public comments should be on topics within the commission's purview.

If you have join us in person, please fill out a speaker's card if you have a chance and hand it out to the dais.

And if you log in through Zoom through your computer, please click the raise hand button now.

If you're dialed in, press star nine and star six to unmute when prompted.

Um in order to see how many speakers we have in general public comment, I ask everyone who wishes to speak on the item not on the agenda.

Please complete speakers card and raise your hand in Zoom now.

I have one speaker's card with no agenda items.

I presume it's going to be on the not on the agenda.

Not on the agenda.

So uh Mrs.

Nix uh is it for the item not on the agenda.

Right?

Okay, perfect.

Do we have any other remote participants on this item for the public comment?

We do not, and I'll just note that um committee member Davidovitz uh has joined us.

Oh, wonderful.

Welcome.

No worries.

No worries.

Glad you can join us.

All right.

Uh so uh we'll now recognize uh Mrs.

Nix to speak at three minutes uh for an item that's not on the current agenda.

So my name is Save Nix.

I am here in regards for the Rabbit Shores Community Association, and I'm just here basically to I guess beg the planning committee to um respond to the emails that I've sent.

And I'm sorry if you felt that I've been chastising you, um, but it seems like three or four emails um should have some response.

Um this whole Redwood Live thing is very, very, very important to our community, and we really hope that you would um please come out on the walk and we appreciate Maggie responding.

Um, and Dylan who actually came out on the walk.

So we do appreciate you, but this is very very important to us.

So if you could please respond to us.

I know we're all busy.

I just came from a 12-hour day work running down here to get here before the meeting started, so because this is so important to us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Seeing there's no other speakers uh on this item, I will close public comment.

We're moving on the agenda item number four.

Um, the staff report is a request for study session on the proposed draft objective standards ordinance.

Jeff Swab, community developer director, will give a presentation on the item.

Hi, good evening.

Uh members of the planning commission and architectural advisory committee.

I'm Jeff Schwab, I'm the community development director and project um, I guess planner, I guess, in this case for this project manager, maybe a better term.

Um I'm also joined uh tonight by Matt uh Tacker uh from uh WRT.

Uh you may remember him.

He's also assisting us with the greater downtown area plan, but uh WRT prepared the graphics that are in your uh draft ordinance, and he's also helped us refine the ordinance um over the last year-ish, right?

So we've been working on this for a little while.

I also wanted to thank the planning staff and the legal staff who've spent numerous hours reviewing the multiple drafts uh to gain input to get us to the stage.

Next slide.

So the tonight's the outline for the presentation is that I'm gonna give you a couple questions to think about while I give you the rest of the presentation.

We'll give you an overview of the draft ordinance, uh talk about what the next steps are.

Uh, we'll receive public input, and then we'll have uh I'm sure a robust uh question and discussion uh and and uh individual feedback that you can provide us to help refine the ordinance.

Next slide.

So here are the questions.

Um, and I'll just read them real quickly.

Does the ordinance adequately address the built environment design policies of the general plan as outlined in the staff report?

Does the ordinance adequately implement the housing element policies and programs?

Does the ordinance provide sufficient flexibility in meeting the design standards?

And what feedback do you have for additional refinement?

So next slide.

This is the outline of the ordinance.

I thought it was important to sort of just touch briefly on this.

I'm sorry, the intent of the ordinance is to focus on residential development.

It really has limited, very limited impact on commercial development.

Uh and that I'll talk about a little bit more in relation to the gateways.

Next slide.

So going through the ordinance, uh, just high level, I wanted to cover a few bullet points within each section.

The intent is to implement the general plan, built environment and housing policies.

Uh, and most importantly, also to comply with all the state housing laws, and to the degree that we can streamline uh housing project approvals.

The terminology uh section includes definitions of various types of standards and uh defines uh guidelines.

Next slide.

The standards will apply to development as defined in the zoning code currently, which is pretty much everything, but in this case, residential development in large part.

Guidelines that are included articulate some desired outcomes, but they're not required.

Uh they're just uh directional, if you will, to uh applicant, but they could be enforced if an applicant chooses to go through discretionary review versus ministerial review.

And the difference between those is ministerial review, we're basically checking to make sure they complied with the standards, and if they do, they get approval.

Discretionary review is an option that applicants can choose if they want to vary from those standards, in which case you have uh authority to condition a project or to require something different uh in order to meet maybe the spirit and intent of the ordinance.

Uh this ordinance will override other provisions or standards uh when they are more stringent than other sections of the code.

It's important to understand this uh because it's very difficult to fix the entire zoning code in one fell swoop.

Um there are some things that are modeled after mixed-use districts, but they don't occur in residential districts, and we couldn't just go in and fix every district to make it work.

So this is sort of an over, think of it as a blanket or a um an overlay of all of the zoning standards.

So if the zoning district say has a requirement that is more stringent, that will apply.

If this ordinance is more stringent, it will apply.

It does allow some technical standards to be fulfilled at building permit stage.

You know, in many cases, projects sometimes have to do noise studies or lighting studies, and those get to be deferred until building permit because they're more technical in nature.

They just have to identify that they will comply with those, and you know, to the degree they can show us in advance, that's great, but it's not required to get approval.

And then, as I've mentioned, it creates a discretionary review option for projects that want to have additional flexibility and want to vary from some of the standards.

Next slide.

The next several sections really just sort of outline the topics within each of the uh sections.

The first one is the sort of overarching section of development standards.

This applies to all residential projects, and it includes the topics that are listed on the screen here.

And I'm going to sort of address head-on a couple of the topics that you've heard about in the comment letters.

So next slide.

So lighting has come up as an issue.

First, I wanted to acknowledge that this is the first time we've even proposed lighting standards.

There are none.

So this is an improvement over nothing.

And the idea was to, and I've listed out what the ordinance does do.

It you know, it requires compliance with Title 24.

I think that would happen through the building code review regardless, but it's just important to note.

It requires LED or equivalent lighting, which is more efficient.

It includes what's called bi-level dimming controls that allow for adjustments in detection range, hold time, daylight sensors, standby periods, and standby dimming so that lights don't need to be on if they're not needed.

So if there's motion, for example, lights might come on and they might dim more slowly, or they may dim down when there's not activity.

It requires a warm range of light, white light, though, or um that's 2700 to 3,000 Kelvin, that's how they measure color temperature for outdoor common open spaces, and it provides shielding from adjacent properties because we've heard a lot about the lighting and the impacts to sensitive areas.

There are a few things that you could consider recommending or or commenting on tonight.

Uh, that is we further reduce the color temperature in more sensitive areas, we'd have to figure out what those are and what range they would apply to.

We've also been asked to conduct a pilot project using um low spectrum or red-type lighting, which has been used in Europe in a couple of cases in environmentally sensitive habitats.

I think that's an interesting idea to pilot because it it may have consequences that we're not fully aware of.

So piloting something might be an option, and then you know, you could also consider a more robust approach uh as a future item to consider a dark sky ordinance.

Next slide on the bird safe glass.

Uh, admittedly, this ordinance does not address uh bird safe glass.

It is an ordinance that only addresses residential development.

I think you know, historically we've thought about bird safe glass in commercial developments along the shoreline, but it is increasingly being used in residential developments.

Um I think the option here is in order to move this ordinance forward that you know one option is to consider us doing a more comprehensive ordinance, perhaps as part of the next zoning code update.

Next slide.

Uh again, in the one to four unit development range, these are the topics that are addressed.

And then next slide.

In the five or more project, uh, you know, slight variations on what's addressed.

And next slide.

And then in mixed use development, it's a bit more uh focused on um the facades and elements of the buildings, and then finally, maybe it's not finally, but it's close to the end.

Um gateway areas.

This was a general plan policy that really hasn't been implemented.

Um, and we identified it as something that we could begin to address here to try to develop standards for gateways, and since we don't have any design plans for these, we're basically suggesting that the first project in work to create these standards, and then the city could choose to use them on subsequent projects that come in.

So if somebody picks a street tree for the area, we'd probably use the same street tree.

If they picked a street light fixture, we'd probably use the same street light.

So the idea is that we would eventually kind of complete those standards as part of the project.

But it also has some standards for building design and corner elements of buildings, and then finally the last section are definitions to help us understand what some of the terms are.

Next slide.

And a brief overview of the timeline.

We're here tonight at number one there, where we're gonna get feedback.

Uh we may have to go visit with the airport land use commission.

They like to review all of our ordinances, trying to convince them that there's no density changes or height limit changes as part of this ordinance.

Um, but we're we're still working through that.

Um we would come back after refining the ordinance based on the comments tonight for a public hearing in front of the architectural advisory committee, step three, and hope to get a recommendation to the planning commission for step four, where you would make a recommendation to the city council, and then the city council would hold a public hearing.

And if all goes well by the end of October, we would have a new ordinance.

Next slide.

So our recommendation for you tonight is to receive public comment and to ask questions and have a discussion and to provide individual feedback.

And I think the next slide is just to remind you of the questions.

And with that, I'd be either happy to answer a few questions now or come back after the public comment.

I'll just quickly note um Chair that we have had um commission member Batt join us as well as Committee Member King.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sue.

And welcome.

Um thank you, Mr.

Schwab, for your presentation.

It's much appreciated.

Uh I will open now if there's any clarifying questions that the commission or the committee would like to ask the staff at this time.

Committee member Stewart.

Oh, sorry, committee.

I have no questions.

Okay.

I don't know if you're here.

No, okay, I wasn't sure.

Your light was on, so it's all good.

Uh anybody else had any clarifying questions for staff at this time.

Um, Commissioner Finch, please go ahead.

Um, so um I had asked these questions over email, but maybe just for um here in the public hearing as well.

Um so uh to me it seemed like the uh the open space and the common area and amenity requirements were very prescriptive.

Um but it's now my understanding that um because these are objective design standards, we kind of have to be prescriptive if we're going to ask for something like an amenity, is that correct?

Yes, otherwise you you don't have a standard, you don't have any guidance.

Right, so we wouldn't be able to just say like um we want one amenity for every X units, that wouldn't be uh objective enough, right?

Yeah, it's hard to define what that amenity is, and somebody could say it's a slide or uh swing and they'd be done.

Okay.

Thank you.

And um, and then um for I I also felt that the uh the standards for single family homes were um and and up to fourplexes were particularly restrictive.

Um, but it's now my understanding that this is uh based on uh residential design guide, which was created from community feedback.

Um is that correct?

The residential design guide was created based on community feedback and and uh review by all of the bodies.

Uh it never was adopted because objective standards came into law, and so it's basically a wish list, if you will, uh, of ideas.

And on a lot of the the single family home objective design standards stem from uh the that design guide?

That's correct.

So what we went through is we went through the the design guide and we identified items that we thought were important to continue forward as standards, and so we took out say you should do something and put in you shall do something.

We tried to address massing and compatibility of homes because that is the major issue.

I don't think the AAC and the planning commission get to see many of these staff typically handles them, and the volume of calls and concerns on each home that comes in is pretty significant.

And so, you know, we go through a process of explaining to them what's allowed under zoning, what they can do.

We try to facilitate you know some privacy issues that come up from time to time, and then in some cases, you know, if they really push the envelope and they hit the that magic threshold of fluorary ratio or three thousand square feet, I think it is, um, then they do come to the planning commission.

I think you've only had one of those in recent times.

And and otherwise it's handled by the zoning administrator.

That's correct.

Okay, thank you.

Um I think that is all for now.

Thanks.

Thank you, Commissioner Finch.

Commissioner Hunter.

Great, thank you.

Um, so I know that the idea of objective residential guidelines has been around for many years in the city.

Um, but maybe I just want to make sure that there currently are known no objective design standards.

Is that correct?

For design in particular, I would say they're very few.

I mean, the zoning code has some standards in it, setbacks, height limit, things like that, but for design in particular, very, very little.

Right.

Um, will these um will will these standards um apply to specific plans and precise plans also?

They they would to the extent that they're more restrictive or or more thorough than what those plans include.

So maybe give you an example.

Um if a project came in in the downtown precise plan, um, and there's a standard in this ordinance that is not in the downtown precise plan, they would need to meet this standard.

Okay, so whatever is more restrictive.

So if a um precise plan was proposed that had some standard that was more restrictive, then that would apply.

So if the downtown precise plan had a standard that is more restrictive than this, then it would apply.

Okay.

Okay.

That makes sense.

Thank you.

Um 60.4, which is for the uh single to fourplex.

Uh it says that within R4 and R5 zoning districts, the R1, two, or three standards can be applied.

I wasn't quite sure I understood why, but would that be at the developer's discretion?

Or applicant, yes.

The intent here was to say that um a project if if, you know, R3 and R4 and R5 or R4 and R5 are higher density.

But if somebody came in with a project that was a duplex in one of those zones and that fit on the site, they could use the duplex standards and not have to meet the R4 or R5 standard.

Okay, okay.

Good.

Thank you.

That clarifies that a lot.

Um and then um I noted that the it seemed that town homes, which you know, with the same definition of like three or more, you know, units.

Um, they're covered by both 60.4 and 60.5.

Is that intentional?

And thank you for bringing that up.

I was gonna include that in my presentation, I forgot.

Um we need to clarify that because we've kind of got a little overlap in both, and I think we're gonna try to focus everybody into one set of townhome standards.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Hunter.

Committee member Jenkins?

I'm sorry, I said no and I have a question.

Um just glancing through the document, you know, all the graphics seem to be leaning to a very traditional residential single family home style and design.

I'm wondering how much flexibility there is built into the plan for somebody who wants to come in with a more contemporary design.

I see it gets more contemporary the more you get into the mixed-use uh section of the document.

Um, so how does somebody who wants to do a really modern home kind of deal with this document?

So admittedly, the graphics do focus on uh in that direction.

I think that's because that's the predominant um, you know, example that folks relate to and and typically will go to.

Um if and I think this is you know has come up is that what if I'm in a neighborhood that has flat roofs or eichler's or something like that, and I happen to have a house that has not one of those, and it's I want to do an addition.

How do I how do I relate giving these standards?

And I think the the option there is that you go through discretionary review and you basically say, listen, the context is a little off here.

I want to do something that's sensitive.

I don't want to be overbearing, but I want to keep my pitched roof, I want to do a design, or I want to do a contemporary design.

And it makes sense in in that instance.

It isn't restrictive in that sense of saying you can't do that.

It's really trying to address, you know, roof forms and massing so that it doesn't be isn't overbearing to the neighbors.

And does that mean that then that homeowner would go through a different process?

They'd have to come through architectural review, they'd have to go to the zoning administrator.

I think they would still go to the zoning administrator.

Uh staff would make that determination unless they didn't feel comfortable and wanted to refer it on up.

Uh, zoning administrator does have that ability to refer it.

That usually gives us a little bit of teeth, uh, and you know, trying to get somebody to, you know, maneuver in the right direction.

Um, but uh it would be done by staff.

Following up on that question, actually, were the applicant take on any particular risk of choosing a discretionary review versus you know a standard ministerial review in case they do ask for it.

Well, there would be a public hearing, and and so you know, we're gonna hear from perhaps the neighbors as to what they feel about the design that may influence it a bit.

Even in front of the zoning administrator, there's a public review.

Yes.

I see.

Not if it's ministerial, right, and and they meet the objective standards, but as soon as they want to go outside that box or that that framework, then yes.

Okay.

So maybe just to make this clear, I think I asked this question yesterday as well.

So if if the if the particular block has uh you know 10 iclers and they're all flat roofed, and I want to have a pitched roof in the middle of that, I have to refer to the neighbor to the left, neighbor to the right, and two neighbors across the street, and if they all have flat roofs, I'm pretty much locked in a flat roof.

Uh so if I want to not do that, I would have to go through in front of the zoning administrator.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

Okay, would that still be a ministerial review or would that be a at that point a discretionary review?

I think there may be, you know, you could potentially still meet the standards and not have to go through discretionary review.

But I guess it might depend on you know what envelope they really were proposing and and and whether we could find it in compliance with the standards.

So the risk for the applicant will be going in front of this discretionary review, perhaps getting some public feedback and then being rejected on this particular design and then have to go and then we have to rework the planning somewhere.

Yeah, there haven't been many that have been denied.

I mean, Sue, I mean, I'm not thinking that there's been.

Just wondering.

I can't think of anything in the past five years.

Yeah.

Okay.

Sounds good.

I just wanted to make sure because I know we have to have these very well objective, but they end up being fairly prescriptive and fairly um, how shall I say restrictive in in having to match their neighbors in some way that can you know very much shackle the the architect in terms of the design choices or styles they can use with?

Um, I have a question about compliance.

Uh if a project that's mixed use or residential uh qualifies for state related bonuses because of affordable housing, um, do they have to refer to this chapter at all, or can they you know um deviant, not deviances, deviations, uh or uh or what you might call it?

Waivers waivers, that's it.

So um if a project uh qualifies for density bonus, which means it's a larger project, right?

19 plus units, um, they can apply for waivers of the development standards.

Um I think I was at the Progress Seminar a few weeks ago, um, spoke on a housing panel uh with a housing developer, and what they said is that while we do ask for waivers, we still look to the city's uh standards as the framework.

And we're not throwing the whole baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.

Um we're basically um trying to comply with as many as possible.

That said, you know, we could always end up with somebody that really wanted to throw the whole thing out.

But again, we're no worse off than we were today.

Make sense.

Thank you so much.

Uh, any other questions for the staff before we move on to public comment?

Um I do have one question about the discretionary review.

Uh should the uh applicant ultimately be denied?

Is there an appeal uh beyond the zoning administrator?

Yes.

Okay, and I think if it's an architectural permit, I guess it goes to the planning commission, Sue.

Yeah, yeah, okay.

I mean, we may stop at the AAC for recommendations.

I don't know.

On the one that did get uh we got approved, right?

It was the one that was over the FAR got approved, but then got called up by the council.

So it wasn't really an appeal.

Yeah, that's correct.

And um we don't go to AAC unless it's um higher than the height.

Yeah.

Okay.

Great uh committee member Stewart.

Yeah.

Uh the neighbors could appeal too, right?

If it's a discretionary review, that's correct.

Right.

Okay, okay, great.

All right, thank you.

Uh thank you for answering all our questions.

Uh, I will now open the public hearing in order to see how many speakers I have.

Um, please, everyone who wishes to speak on the item, please raise your hand now in Zoom.

Uh I have one uh in-person uh speakers card.

So how many speakers do we have online?

Oh, two?

Okay.

Please uh ask them to the data so you can just pass them to me directly.

Either way is good.

Thank you, Alice.

Chair, we have two online speakers.

All right, thank you.

I think we have time for um well, let's make it two minutes uh and see how it goes.

Uh, first speaker I have is Michael Raza Cruz.

Arusa Cruz, I'm sorry.

Um you recognize the speak on this item for A.

You have two minutes.

Um, hello, my name is Michael Arusa.

I am a ref Redwood City resident and volunteer leader for Yes and Redwood City.

Uh, I'm really excited to see the city considering objective design standards since ministerial um design review is oftentimes more streamlined um and gives a lot more clarity to architects and developers when they're actually designing their buildings in terms of what um will be approved versus what we'll need to go to discretionary review.

Um so super excited that we're going down this route.

Um, but the devil is into details, and when I was reading through the um standards themselves, a couple of the items did stand out to me as potentially concerning.

Uh specifically the requirements for um common space scale in a pretty weird way, where um it's one open space amenity of a certain size per 50 units rounded up with a 1% total construction cost requirement.

I'm concerned that that is going to cause uh it's going to encourage developers to essentially round their unit count down to the nearest 50, since the penalty for adding five units, even if they would fit um very reasonably in the design, it's actually quite high.

It's a very discontinuous jump in cost.

I'm also not sure that having a cost calculation be part of the objective design standards.

Well, not sure it belongs in a design document, since that creates all sorts of weird incentives, and it's also probably harder to attribute the cost of the development to a specific amenity than um like do you count like the floors?

Oh, I'm almost out of time.

Um anywho.

Um I also have some concerns around how strict things look for things below four units, and I'm especially concerned about the relative comparisons.

We'll especially penalize duplexes, triplexes, and forplexes.

Uh thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Arusa.

Uh next I will have um Alice Kaufman speaking, followed by Davina Gentry.

Thank you, Chair and members of uh the both uh commissions.

My name is Alice Kaufman.

I am the policy and advocacy director for Greenfoot Health.

Um I'm also full disclosure um on the Redwood City Parks Commission, although obviously I'm not here uh speaking on behalf of the Parks Commission today.

Um and I want to um uh I want to I guess I want to apologize for um the fact that we are introducing some of these concerns without having you know brought in detailed recommendations.

We were a little late to the game here, um, but I appreciate uh Mr.

Schwab sort of previewing this a little bit by talking about some of the some of the issues that we uh were hoping to be able to work with the city on as part of this process.

So I'm going to talk about the the lighting, the exterior lighting standards.

Um, you know, as as Mr.

Schwab mentioned, you know, this is we're the first go at this for the city.

So we want to get it right.

And um, we do feel that well, I'll shoot back up.

There's growing scientific consensus that artificial light at night, you know, light pollution has um some pretty significant impacts on both human health and wildlife.

You know, it disrupts circadian rhythms, particularly when you have those uh higher color temperatures above 3,000 Kelvin.

Um that's when you get the really bright white light, the cool light.

Sometimes it's you call it blue light.

Um it's uh it it really can disrupt um sleep patterns and have a whole range of health effects.

There's there's some studies you never would believe unless you had seen them about some of the health impacts that can come from having this artificial light at night.

And so when we're talking about residential, new residential development, um, where you could have light spilling into bedroom windows.

The um the current draft standards include allow um, you know, the uh light temperatures up to uh 5,000 or or five up to 5,000 Kelvin for parking areas and walkways, and up to 6,500 for sports courts.

Um, you know, that is like this really bright uh cold uh light that can really be disruptive for health.

So we'd like to ask you to reconsider that.

And sorry, I'm gonna go over just a little bit.

We are going to be submitting written comments so that you don't have to memorize everything that I'm saying right now, and we are looking forward to working with the staff on that.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you, Mrs.

Kuffin, for your comments.

Uh we have Davina Gentry, and then I will pass it on to Sue Xline, who will introduce the speakers joining us online.

Good evening, planning commissioners and architectural advisory committee members.

My name is Davina Gentry, and I am a member of the San Mateo County Bird Alliance Conservation Committee.

Bird populations across North America and the Bay Area have been declining at alarming rates since the 1970s, with populations down nearly 30% or 3 billion.

Did you know that the bay is part of the Pacific flyway?

As a critical migratory stop, 300,000 to 400,000 birds land and rest on the Bay Area shorelines each year.

Our marshes and coastlines play a vital role along this route, providing a space for birds to rest over winter.

Unfortunately, monitoring programs of these migratory patterns have found that birds and most notably shorebirds have had sharp declines in population numbers over the past 20 years.

Some birds saw as much as an 87% decrease in population.

Scientific research consistently shows that bird collisions with glass are a major source of human-caused mortality.

In North America alone, hundreds of millions of birds are killed each year due to collisions with buildings.

Collisions occur wherever birds are active, not only in dense urban cores, but also in suburban areas with trees, landscaping, and nearby open space.

In these environments, most collisions occur at tree canopy height, generally from ground level to about 60 feet, where birds are actively foraging and moving through habitat.

Even relatively small buildings and common features such as glass railings, corners, and fly-through designs can post significant risk.

These risks are especially pronounced near waterways, open water, open space, and hillside areas where activity is concentrated and collisions most likely.

There is a growing list of cities that have implemented bird-friendly design standards into their policies to mitigate bird mortalities caused by boat collisions with building infrastructure.

San Francisco adopted nation-leading standards for bird-safe buildings in 2011.

Oakland 2013, San Jose 2015, Richmond 2016, Mountain View 2017, Cupertino 2021, Berkeley 2023, and most recently Palo Alto.

San Mateo County is in the process of updating its design review ordinance to include bird-safe standards for glass railings and light pollution.

It was recommended for approval by the Planning Commission on May 13 and will be going to the board on June 23rd.

Thank you, Mrs.

Gentry.

I encourage you to end up some design safe building standards and light pollution standards and not wait while more birds suffer the consequences.

Thank you so much for your comments.

We will now move on to online speakers.

Dash leads.

Hello, my name is Dash O'Leads.

I'm the conservation coordinator for the Sierra Club Lumber Prieta chapter.

I'd like to support the comments that were just made by Alice and Davina.

We do support a recommendation, adding bird safe design standards language to this document or as a standalone ordinance.

And just as a quick example, Mountain View incorporated the bird safe design language from Calgreen's voluntary code as part of their building code update and not as a standalone ordinance.

So it is possible for you to do it as part of this process, and that is a pathway for you to consider.

Regarding the strengthening of the lighting language, I just want to highlight a couple quick things while I have the time here.

And again, we can follow up with a letter for the next commission meetings on this.

So the current standards establish uh both a color temperature floor and a ceiling.

So there's like a range, and unfortunately, this means that you can't install lighting that's below a certain amount of Kelvin.

So, like if folks wanted to install a nice warm light, like 2200 Kelvin, 2400 Kelvin, they would actually be prohibited from doing so.

And I don't think that is necessarily the intent of the language here.

Um some of the color temperature thresholds um are really high in some areas.

So for example, like parking areas, walkways, and building entries, upwards of 5,000 Kelvin could be allowed.

And for example, most dark sky ordinances are about 2700 Kelvin or at the highest, 3,000 Kelvin.

Um Dark Sky International's 2025 State of the Science Report uh analyzed glare with regards to public safety.

And their conclusions found that you know when blue light scatters inside of the observer's eye, it reduces the contrast between foreground and background.

And this effect makes it difficult to see objects as distinct from what surrounds them.

Uh they found that this reduced visibility at night and found that shorter wavelength, i.e.

blue light causes stronger glare than warm light.

So even for like parking areas, walkways, and building entries, something like 2700 Kelvin is still a great target to hit there and is actually better for public safety.

Thanks for your time.

Ana Magner.

Hi, good evening.

Uh I'm a resident of Foster City, and I'm also a member of the Sierra Club, Luma Prieta, and I'm an active volunteer with the San Mateo County Bird Alliance.

And I second what Davina Granty have just said and shared.

Um, we have uh very accurate details about the very drastic decline of birds that we see along our shorelines, and that includes uh Redwood City, uh unfortunately other cities surrounding the bay.

Um so I definitely am also joining the urge of uh Redwood City to look into bird-friendly designs when looking into construction into structure of new buildings.

Um being aware of the fact that any glass uh collusion is almost uh a death sentence for birds.

Uh when they're flying into glass, they cannot differentiate between if there's a reflection on those glasses.

Um, they they basically that's uh that's unfortunately um may not end up so well for them.

And even if we don't find those birds by the glass, they sometimes end up dying uh a little bit away from the uh collusion space.

So another point is looking into dark sky lightning standards and light pollution that Dash just mentioned as well as the Vena.

So in general, I know that there'll be more information coming up, but I would deeply appreciate you guys looking into wildlife and then the environmental impact as well as impact on birds uh when looking into designs of buildings.

Thank you so very much.

All right, that concludes our um public hearing.

Seeing that there's no more speakers online.

If there's no objection, I will now close the public hearing and I will open the meeting for committee and commission discussion.

Um if I have if I can have Mr.

Schwab, please join us on the podium.

I think both commission and committee will have plenty of uh questions to pepper you're with, so better get ready.

Um, maybe uh I'll have uh committee member um Dana Gatsuva start us off.

Oh, he was go ahead.

So this is in regards to uh 60.3 uh standards for all residential and mixed use development.

Item A2 site planning block size.

There's a limitation for two acres.

Uh not that we've got an abundance of two plus acre sites around anymore, but uh I'm not sure, I'm not sure I understand the reason behind limiting it to two acres, and I can see situations where there might be two point one acres.

And uh why do we what do we do with.1 acres, right?

Or do we create two different parcels and all of a sudden has a serious impact on the design of the project, let alone ultimate uh tentative map um parcelization, all that sort of stuff.

So I'm I'm wondering if unless there's a real need that this limitation or of two acres may or may not really be necessary.

Um I'm just gonna kind of go down through the through the list and uh open space standards.

Um again, it's based on number of units.

I think it's important for the standards to define if ADUs are included in that.

Uh for instance uh if a if a home has an ADU enclosed within its let's say it's maximum 3,000 square feet, whatever that standard would be.

Would they be subject to a two-unit allocation of open space requirement, or because it's enclosed within the same envelope, would it just be an allocation of one?

And then again, if it's uh an exterior uh standalone ADU in a parcel, then possibly that could that would require uh an additional open space requirement.

So I and I think it's important to try to define that so we don't uh somebody doesn't get confused if they have a project that requires a certain number of affordable units and they're accomplishing that through ADUs, and then that point.

All right, maybe it's open, you know.

Maybe it's fair to add those ADUs to part of the allocation for open space.

But I think there need there should be a little bit more definition in that detail.

Uh there's also the component of uh one percent of development overall construction cost standards for uh certain amenities.

Uh so I did a really quick review of of a project in which uh the fees for the project, and this is for a 124 unit project.

The fees, and this is not in Redwood City, this is another jurisdiction, but um I think that's rather common.

Uh the fees were over 5.5 million dollars.

The construction cost was sixty-five million for 124 units, so one percent of 65 million dollars is 650,000, I believe, uh, and that's a lot of money for an affordable project.

I I think the list of possible amenities that could be used towards satisfying a requirement for amenities is really good.

Uh depending on this parcel, the density, how much actual land there is or isn't, there may or may not be specific land allocations to take care of the amenities, but there may be other alternatives such as uh rooftop amenities.

A number of years ago, we had an affordable project that provided a rooftop amenity.

Um, I don't know if that would have qualified for this or not in terms of square footage.

I don't know if it would have qualified in terms of a dollar amount, but I think there are creative ways uh given infill situations that we probably have as opposed to acres and acres that'll uh that can be solved uh or can be utilized to uh this type of an amenity.

Uh and just as a minor issue, uh no balcony should be longer than 10 feet.

I'm not sure where that came from.

Um and it kind of goes into where I know I've been caught with this before where oh, we need storage.

All right, so we'll put the storage on the balcony.

Um, well, now we have a minimum square footage of private open space.

Okay, so the balcony needs to be wider.

No, you can't exceed the width.

So we have to make it deeper, and then it becomes, well, that becomes too deep because now we're looking at a eight or nine or ten foot deep balcony instead of a six-foot balcony.

And it now we're impacting envelopes and setbacks and all kinds of things.

Uh again, the devil is in the detail, so I'm not sure how that gets resolved.

Um, screening standards for equipment STDs.

I uh sound standards.

I think there's enough CEQA guideline and building code guideline, where I think the standards obviously will be met at some point in the construction document process.

Uh I think the general allocation uh the general notes that usually are part of the planning guidelines of making sure mechanical equipment is not exposed or it's properly screened.

I think that is probably more appropriate than worrying about sound standards because that'll that becomes a building building issue.

Um personal storage.

Um I I always have a problem with this because there are different ways to handle personal storage, and sometimes it could actually be accomplished within the unit, sometimes it's uh saddlebags hanging off the side of the building, you know.

Sometimes it ends up becoming enclosed as part of a common area where people have lockers.

Uh I'm not objectionable to it, but I, you know, there might be a number of different ways that we can describe how this could be accomplished without it being restrictive.

Remember in the old days they used to put uh lockers, plywood lockers in your parking space until we all got vans and big vehicles, and they can't do that anymore.

Um groundborne vibrations again.

I think through the CEQA process, negative DEC, etc.

I think it's important to it could be mentioned here, but I don't think this is something that at the design phase needs to be dealt with unless it's something really severe.

I mean, we know that we have seismic issues.

Um just yeah, we're gonna have to do something about it, but it's not something that affects the design necessarily.

And under 60.4, the discretionary R4R5 outside one half mile from Caltrain can or may R1 R2R3 standards may apply.

Again, I think the wording should be such that it's completely up to the discretion of the applicant as to whether or not they wish to do that, as opposed to uh well, you're outside that zone, so you know you're really in your next to this neighborhood, so you might want to do an R2.

It's zone R5.

Uh we don't want to necessarily box people into that situation.

Um again, I these comments are are not meant to in any way impugn the effort that's gone into the two and a half years plus that have gone into this document, and thank you very much for hard work that you and staff and consultants have labored in order to get to this point only to be criticized.

So I again uh I think it's it's a great great uh place for all of us to start with.

Thank you.

Thank you, committee member.

Uh committee member Stewart.

Yes, uh I don't know how much you guys know about my practice, but I've been a residential designer for 40 years and the peninsula, and I've done a thousand plus houses.

That's why the Charlie is not called me and said, I don't even know why I'm on this committee, but uh so this is an issue that uh it's pretty near and dear to my heart.

Um, somebody already mentioned the flat roofs.

What do you do if you have a house on either side with a flat roof?

Somebody comes and they want to tutor.

And I live in Edgewood Park, and the beauty of my neighborhood is every house is pretty much different than every other one.

I was on the design review committee in San Carlos, and Thomas James came in, and they were doing the same house a block away, the same house, three blocks away, the same house, because you get these neighborhoods where you have a 50 by 120 lot, and you figure out all these standards, and the developers don't want to spend money trying something different, so that becomes a problem, and I rejected that, and the city attorney called me in and said you can't say that.

You know, state law doesn't allow you to say that.

So that doesn't seem that kind of issue doesn't seem like it's addressed by these standards.

Uh the 15-foot setback that matches the height of the neighbors, uh, I think everybody's gonna end up putting their garage in that 15-foot setback, and you're gonna have.

I know there's a provision that if you have a detached garage neighborhood, you have to have a detached garage, which is fine, but uh if people can't have the garage in the front, they prefer it because then you get a backyard.

So, let's see.

Um the other things where it mentions matching neighborhoods or neighbors.

I mean, you're gonna have to knock on somebody's door and say, can I come into your house and measure where your windows are, unless the surveyor maybe could locate those those things, but that's always a problem.

And what do you do if there's a split-level home?

I don't know how many of those are in Redwood City, but you have a level, half a level, half a level.

And it's not only the windows, it's the floor heights.

So you have to go inside somebody's house and say, you have an eight-foot ceiling or nine or ten or and uh what about a one and a half story house where we like to do that in in ranch type neighborhoods where you have the second story and the roof, and you just have dormers.

But that's more of a mitigating factor than matching the height of your neighbors.

Um the whole thing with the having a bay window on the front of the house hanging like that, and shutters and to me, those are not mitigating uh things and balconies.

Um I think that whole section needs to be re-looked at.

Um a lot of times on the porch roof, you have a shallower pitch.

Sometimes the roof comes down and then you you know you have a curve or you have a 4 and 12 pitch on the porch, and you have an eight and twelve.

So the railing was kind of not clear to me.

Would a picket pipe rail, a normal inch and a half pickets at four inches apart, qualify, because it says not less than 50% opaque, so to me that would be not allowed.

So that that doesn't seem right.

Um then the having your front door always have to face the street.

Uh there are times when it makes sense if you have a narrow lot and the garage, it takes up a lot of the room.

And if you go down and you have the side entry, you don't end up with a long four-foot hallway to get to you know your living room.

So and I guess it's a safety thing that you're looking into.

Right.

So the two garage doors, the usually the doors are eight feet, they're not 10, because the garage is 20 feet wide.

So if you had two doors that were 10 feet each, it would be the whole width of the garage.

So I think that probably needs to be changed to uh eight feet.

And a lot of times what we do, like my house is this way, it's a double garage door, but it has a fake post in it, and the way the garage looks, it looks like a traditional garage with a post.

But then when you want to park your car, the whole door goes up and it you're not gonna hit everything with your car.

So let's see.

So with a colonial, you're only gonna have wood siding, you're probably not gonna have unless you do half brick or something like that.

And then we do craftsman houses that do have boulders.

Um that was another thing, and then downspouts, sometimes we'd like to paint the downspouts of trim color instead of trying to hide it the body color.

That's a minor point, it seems like you can't have a horizontal window, because the height of the window has to be taller than the width, so a lot of times on the privacy side, we'll do the high horizontal window.

So, but to me it's like if somebody wants to peek into your house, they're gonna stand on a box to look out the window, but uh and then gang windows.

I think Niles, you might clarify this with me.

You can buy windows where they're all already gained together, where there'll be two or three game together, and I don't think they're two inches in between, it could be an inch and a half or probably depending on the style, too.

If you have a modern house, you want to keep the down.

And then the next section that talks about no aluminum windows or windows shall not include mirror glazing exposed aluminum, but in a modern house, you might want an aluminum window.

Um the whole privacy thing, that's always kind of hurt me because I mean people don't always look straight ahead, they're gonna look at a angle, and if you know it's always a problem, and if the second story is six feet, but the first story is only three or four.

There's not an opportunity for landscaping, but landscaping is probably the best thing you can have.

I hate the opaque glass, but that's just me.

Um that covers my comments.

Thank you.

Thank you, committee member.

Uh Jenkins, please.

Yeah, I I have um I guess it's a similar concern that I stated before.

So I I feel like the ordinance leans heavily into a traditional home design.

Um I wonder, I'm wondering if there's a way to structure the guidelines so that it's a heightened bulk kind of approach rather than talking about porches and pitch roofs and bay windows, and um I appreciate that perhaps most of the applications lean into a more traditional style, but to kind of penalize a homeowner to go through a more discretionary process because they want to have a more modern design that doesn't fit into these guidelines.

It doesn't feel equitable.

So I would like to see it structured very differently.

I like variety in neighborhoods.

I think that's what creates a really interesting urban fabric.

And I wonder if the majority of the applicants are more traditional because it's the path of least resistance, and we haven't offered kind of a similar pathway for a more contemporary design.

So I won't say much more, I think that kind of covers it, but I I tend to agree with a lot of the things you were pointing out.

Um the necessity of shutters and porches in a very traditional way, window orientation, alignments, proportion.

You know, I think there's some very beautiful designs in many different styles, and it would be nice to see it be recognized within a document like this.

Thank you, committee member Jenkins.

So I um in support of everything that uh my two colleagues have mentioned or have stated it additionally, um's a hard, and the ability of the the street fabric to have variety as opposed to uh subdivision look, I think is really critical.

And it then it comes into conflict with flat roof, slope roof right next door to each other, but that is the sort of thing which creates great uh complexity and also uh a non-linear conforming street image.

Um and that you know, that being said, I think one of the issues here out of Redwood Shores, uh, one of the uh organizations uh requires an architect to design any addition uh that extends beyond the house.

And it's had great success in the level of design that is created.

And this is not to cast dispersions at builders or people who are really good at what they do because they've done it for a long time, but there is definitely uh an issue of sensitivity to design that comes from what we try to legislate.

This is all trying to legislate good design, which is really hard to do.

Um so flexibility is a double-edged sword because it means that somebody can really go after reservations, but it also means that somebody can take it and do a really nice job with it.

I mean, there's uh an architect, Q Newell Jacobson, who takes you know the modern saltbox traditional form and makes it the most crisp modern thing you can possibly look at.

Yet you know, if you apply these standards to it, it would be my goodness.

You know, it's it makes everything that we're asking for, but it sure doesn't look like a uh you know hacked together traditional design.

Um, and that in the discretionary review, that is part of the issue of you know what happens if somebody wants to go that way.

Uh but it's tough for it's tough for staff because they have they gotta they gotta do this, they gotta look at this, and if staff has to go outside of this, it's really difficult because it's you know how far do they go before all of a sudden a million people show up at a public hearing and and they're all looking at staff.

Well, you said you said, right, as opposed to it going before um like the AAC or even the planning commission, which I guess was sort of required to take that heat, and uh and maybe that's how discretionary review should work, so as part of what was talked about earlier process, but sorry, go ahead, I guess.

Yeah, and I think there's one step further with that, you know, it's not just the staff and the interpretation of the standards, but um, you know, in some cases, we have community associations which have their own layer of interpretive approach to these standards as well.

And I think it creates a hardship for the designers and the homeowners in order to kind of get through the process.

But perhaps those neighborhoods have more historic relevance or control that kind of adds the layer that we don't need to prescribe in here.

But yeah, I think this is a really important place for us to live.

Um where we can put something out that everybody's going to be happy with, and not everybody's going to be happy with it.

So I do appreciate the effort that's gone into this, but you know, I my biggest concern is I open this in all the pictures or this kind of storybook dollhouse kind of look.

Um, and it does feel like it discriminates against, you know, a certain style or a certain type of homeowner that might want something different.

Thank you for putting it.

And have we addressed roof decks at all?

Have we addressed roof decks habitable or not or usable roof space in single family?

Because this has come up, this has become a real thing where people are desperately looking for more square footage and they're converting their roofs to actual patio space.

Um like on Long Island.

So they're you know, regardless of the expensive fact it's gonna leak next year and everything else, they're still doing it, and and uh one of the one of the communities has been having real issues with it because they've been getting a lot of applications where uh they're taking remodels and basically gutting it and then creating uh two-story homes with a third story basically being the roof.

So not that that's a bad thing necessarily, but you know, it also could be very awkward.

Yeah, I appreciate all the comments, especially coming from uh such wealth of knowledge and experience.

Uh I think maybe what will be helpful for staff, but I'm not gonna uh speak for Mr.

Schwab.

Uh it is really like as we said, like how do we balance these two things having prescripted because as uh the commission member steward says the state is gonna say it has to be built because it complies, you know, with a floor yeah ratio and and you just have to check yes uh and how within that context you mentioned about form and size and an envelope as being a guiding principle.

I don't I don't know if there are jurisdictions on the peninsula who have gone through this process and maybe had a more successful or balanced approach that we can model um this particular ordinance on.

But I'm looking forward to hearing more opinions from our commissioners.

I'll start from over here, Commissioner Butt, please.

Yes.

Uh thank you so much to the committee members on AAC who have much more in-depth opinions on the details than I do.

Um my concern is more general, and it was echoed by I believe Mr.

Arruza.

Um we in in two different places, both for our common open space and for our um common area facility requirements.

We effectively create a profit club on developments at 20 develop at 20 units.

Um we seem to, I don't know where that 20 number came from, but we seem to be heavily discouraging um people to build any middle units that are any more than that because suddenly they have to be spending no less than one percent of their overall construction cost on uh list of menus that doesn't seem cheap already, in addition to a shared kitchen fitness equipment, bed washing, grooming, and another list that doesn't seem cheap either.

Um so I guess this is not necessarily question, but I would love if our design standards didn't create these profit cliffs for what I would consider as new developments, but still affordable.

Thank you, Commissioner Butt.

Um Commissioner Finch.

Um yes, I I would also like to echo that.

I think that was a great point.

Um yeah, I would like to also thank staff for their hard work on this.

I think this is um this was a long read, but it was it's and I'm sure it was a lot of work.

So thank you.

Um I did I wanted to start off with some things that I liked.

Um so I I liked the uh the standards around trying to create a pleasant pedestrian environment.

Uh things like breaking up the large blocks um with alleyways and pedestrian walkways.

I thought was really nice, uh keeping trying to keep garages to the side streets and the standards to try and keep eyes on the street.

Um I thought that was all great.

Um and then so then yeah, to some of my other comments.

Um I think um I also have concerns about the prescriptiveness of the of the amenities uh in the in the different amenities lists.

Um so I know we have to be prescriptive because these are objective, um, but I would be in favor of um uh trying to um, and and I'd like to hear some thoughts from my fellow uh committee and commission members.

Um, but I I feel like it might almost be better to just not require any amenities rather than have this like semi-arbitrary list.

Um I'm I'm quite confident that market pressure would still encourage developments to include popular amenities, and it might be amenities that we don't even have on our lists.

Um perhaps we could just keep the percentage cost requirement.

Um I would probably be in favor of lowering it and removing it for affordable projects.

Um, but I I would the list of allowable amenities for open space and common area just seems very prescriptive, and I'd like to give the development more freedom uh when it comes to doing those.

And then another area where I have concerns around prescriptiveness is um just kind of the form and massing and facade.

I think the AAC members brought up a lot of um uh very particular ones where it might preclude uh homeowners from building something that they want.

And um I would I would be in favor of uh trying to simplify and remove some of these if we can.

Um I know that we have a lot of these for um perhaps um privacy and uh community concerns around height, so I I think we could totally keep some of those.

Um, but I I would be in favor of trying to remove or simplify some of the stylistic, the prescriptive stylistic standards.

Um I think the uh the the AAC members gave some examples.

I think some other ones are I saw one that uh tubular metal metal shall be a minimum of one half inch cross section.

Um again, I would almost be I would almost prefer to just have no uh standard on the uh cross section of tubular metal rather than um this very particular uh prescription for it.

Um and so I I would be in favor of kind of looking through this and seeing where we can get rid of some things like that just to provide um the the applicants or developments more freedom when it comes to realizing their their vision for their home.

And I think when it comes to single-family homes, um you know it's it's their house, and I think they should have a lot of freedom when it comes to trying to express themselves and their in their architectural style.

And when it comes to these larger developments also, um I would like to try to give the the architects creativity to um to make interesting and unique buildings.

Um, and again, I worry that we're being too prescriptive.

Um, and then I I also worry um, especially for the single-family home um requirements, which are very long.

I worry that it's very it would be very expensive and time consuming to comply with all of this, and that might push them again towards that discretionary review process.

Um I I thought um a committee member Jenkins brought up a good point about how there are also areas um that might are neighborhoods that might already have standards, maybe like Redwood Shores.

Um maybe it could be interesting to look at uh just not having any city standards in these areas where if the Redwood Shores Community Association is already kind of um setting the standard for what a home should look like in that neighborhood.

Um perhaps the city can kind of just step back and allow them to take that over and set what the requirements should be.

Um and then sorry, just a few more comments here.

Um I would uh I I would also I I think just be in favor of getting rid of the extra storage space requirement.

Um yes, okay, and then the very last thing, um, if you'll entertain me, Chair, I have a picture and a video.

Um perhaps we could show the video first.

And this is with regard, uh, I would I'd be interested in um and setting some standards around site lines for uh parking garage exits in uh larger developments.

And so I just have a video uh kind of showing why um the the sight lines can be a little dangerous for um pedestrians around the exits of these garages.

Well, this will be a first.

I don't think I've seen a video in a present in in discussion part.

So if it is technically feasible, I'm uh more than willing to entertain um that particular part.

Or not, okay.

So yeah, so here you can see uh perhaps I'm a car here exiting this parking garage, and then boom, there's a pedestrian uh here, it's just my reflective uh jacket.

But uh you can see it's uh the because of the the very sharp angle of the parking garage and the sidewalk being right next to the exit of the parking garage.

Um it's just very it's very hard to see that someone is there until you're right up at the intersection.

Uh I've also noticed this at the exit of like the city parking garage, the Jefferson parking garage.

Um and it's just it's I do not blame car drivers who are coming out.

It's it's just very hard to see.

And I think we could maybe set a standard around just uh kind of cutting off the corner there, just giving a little bit more visibility to the um to the people walking on the sidewalk.

Uh and I think you don't need to show the picture, I think that was good.

Thank you.

Flashing lights or I mean there are many ways either to uh yeah, warrant a pedestrian or the driver of the conflict.

Um thank you for your comments, Commissioner uh Finch.

Uh before I move to the next commissioner, I do want to uh you know uh touch upon your comment about allowing people who want to express themselves personally in terms of architectural stars, especially for single-family homes.

I I agree with your sentiment.

Uh I just want to bring an example of there are people uh and and applicants whose first design choices that I this is my lot, and they go through the architect and say what is the largest number of square feet you can squeeze into this lot uh and then say okay, it's gonna be a five thousand square foot home.

Uh so the the maximization of per squid living area in a particular lot, especially because of the market conditions over um of a neighborhood or or or region, sometimes you know, really guide the design choices to to either cookie cutter or these boxy uh designs, which may be you know mostly driven by economic sense or or other profit modes rather than design or aesthetics uh or personal expression.

So I think the the hard part here is really to allow the staff to have some kind of um uh tools in the toolbox to be able to uh I guess massage or or guide the candidates uh to a particular uh you know, maybe a more pleasing design while still complying with state law.

And I think this is where we really have a difficulty of of balancing the both.

Uh Commissioner Robinson, the floor is yours.

Hello, thank you uh for this excellent presentation.

I am in banking, so looking at some of these small diagrams is challenging for me.

Um I uh appreciate that um you know the difficulty to do something like this for a city like ours, where we have very diverse neighborhoods based on the era that they were built out.

Some are all, you know, custom, semi-custom, some are tracked, some are in HOAs, that type of thing.

So I'm trying to envision how some of these standards would work for the residents in those different types of scenarios, and I could see it would be very different for let's say Woodside Plaza versus Mount Carmel.

Um, and I'm so I'm somewhat surprised by the linkage to uh adjacent lots, for example, and I'm speaking specifically to the single uh family duplex triplex fourplex on page 25.

But then again, I mean if we're trying to set a standard, you know, to fit each unique neighborhood, that does sort of make sense.

Um I would say on the front facade height, and again, uh I you know this is not my area of expertise in in I'm I'm a pro houser, um, not necessarily an architect though, that's for sure.

Um when I see the front facade front facade height, that's the middle of page 25 within 15 feet of the front setback.

Um I'm envisioning this meaning the second story would have to be 15 feet back, if and I'm and I've interpreting these diagrams correctly.

I I would just suggest that maybe that be revisited, or if we have any, you know, actual real life examples, because I've seen this in the neighborhood where you know maybe that's not necessary.

You if if you have a setback, but not necessarily an entire 15 feet.

You lose a lot of square footage on the second floor, and if we're trying to give, you know, people the opportunity to build house, you know, rebuild or remodel with an ADU or something.

Um 15 feet seems like that could be a lot and not necessarily, you know, works with every design.

Um I have you know thought through how the Thomas James effect has impacted my particular neighborhood.

We know which houses those are um but they have I think at least done elevate we know they have very a variety of elevations.

So I think it's really important that you know a Thomas James like model would likely want to go through these standards um because of just sheer efficiency and economics.

Um so I think it's very thoughtful that you know all the time we're putting into this um to get it right.

Um I'm not entirely sure I understand what's at the top of page six, the upper story bulk for seem single family dwellings, and it shows like this three-foot notch on the upper left-hand side of the facade of the home, but not on the right hand side.

So I'm not sure exactly what that is trying to accomplish.

Um, and I know these again are intended to be like almost generic kind of designs.

Um, but I I would maybe appreciate some clarity on that to uh understand that.

Um I share the uh my colleagues on the architectural side concern about the diversity of housing in the community and making sure that we have an enough flexibility built into this for the look and feel.

So you know, neighborhoods that have largely, you know, have a variety of very interesting styles can continue to have that.

Um and then I think I just had one other maybe comment or question, or that may be everything at this point.

You'll just bear with me.

Oh, so this is one on um page seven, bottom of page 17.

And again, this this could be my lack of expertise on trees and how big they grow.

But um, it says landscape strips shall be comprised of trees that are spaced not less than 20 and not more than 40 feet apart.

I thought maybe 40 feet was too far apart.

Uh maybe we could go back to something slightly lower, but uh you know, I would defer to you know, the uh experts on the way we'll get to that.

Um but it's just something that stood out to me.

Um, thank you, Mr.

Robinson.

And comments, thank you.

For your for your comments.

Um I uh I have a list of comments related to trees, but it's it's uh what like 15 minutes of my new show, so I'm wondering at what point would torture both committees uh to listen through my questions, but um we'll go through that no problem.

Um I will yield the floor to uh committee member King uh for your comments, if you'll please.

I I agree with um a lot with the what you just said.

Um putting the restrictions on adjacent sites for uh heights, the roof heights and the floor-to-floor heights, it's gonna be kind of hard to do for like the split level homes on farmhill say.

Um how would you go about doing that?

Is there a section in here?

Maybe I missed it on the split levels because like every house is gonna be a different level as you go down the street, right?

So how would you compare it to the next door neighbors' height?

Or across the street height when when you're in hills.

So that's another thing.

Maybe if I don't know, maybe there's a section that I missed in there.

And is there a section on like um shadows?

Like if you build a big house, are you gonna put a shadow on the next door neighbor's house?

Anything like that, because a lot of cities you have to do a shadow, you know, pattern to see where the sun goes and if you're gonna be in shadow all day long or not.

Um I guess the other thing is uh I agree that there should be uh a lot of variety and and when you're building houses.

I dealt with cities where I went in and they said every every house in this area has to have a Spanish tile roof.

You know, and I'm like, well, isn't that gonna be a boring community?

If everybody has the same red style roof, what what is that?

Three model, yeah.

Very blah, but then on the other hand, I have a friend that has a historical landmark in Redwood City and a lot of historical homes all around him.

And then I saw a couple homes that were built that are just way out of character that are almost an eye sore to tell you the truth.

There there could be be they're they're nice homes, but just don't fit in that particular surrounding.

So it's hard, it's a hard thing to do, balance.

So I I take my hat off to trying to put together something like this that is gonna have a balance between the two.

Thank you, committee member King.

Um Commissioner Cornejo.

Yeah, I just wanted to echo what you were saying about the balance.

Um I agree that there should be variety and flexibility for people to build what they desire.

Um, but in my parents' home in friendly acres, they live in a cul-de-sac and the homes are flat and very old.

Um, but our neighbors right in front just build this beautiful luxurious home that really just it just looks odd.

Um there's only I think there's like 10 homes in the street, and that one right across just I don't know, it almost makes us feel out of place, but they should feel out of place because they're the ones that coming in.

Um so I'm just like imagining, and maybe that wouldn't happen if we had more variety and just flexibility to um to build something, but uh like the garage is see-through, and it's just very over the top.

But anyways, that's just I just wanted to say that.

Um I in the importance of balance and um I can't stop thinking about the comments that were said about the birds.

Um I don't know what would need to happen to make sure that we're not um doing harm to to animals or just in the future, but I just wanted to vocalize that.

I think currently there are some things in place already for the birds.

I know that um the green building standards you they have you have to go through that.

Um knows too that we've worked on high-rise you know buildings together and having to deal with the bird situation is it's always been one of the top priorities, you know, getting through design with that.

I mean, I do have a follow-up question for staff.

Uh, whether these bird friendly uh design standards should be part of EIR if it's a larger project in terms of mitigations, or is it a design standard that should be included within this document perhaps for for residential, or is it something that's should be part of the building code uh as a different part?

So I if maybe clarification for us whether this should be addressed, uh versus I mean there's so many different uh entry points to to enact with most uh best action.

So um as it relates to commercial development, you have discretion, and so when a project comes up, say in the shoreline area as an example, you could require it without anything.

Residential would be difficult without a standard.

Sometimes, and I think was mentioned earlier, environmental review allows you to uh impose mitigation.

Uh given all of the state laws that deal with housing, many housing projects are now statutorily exempt or exempt under infill development, which means there is no additional sequit review, so you don't have that layer of uh protection.

Um mentioned tonight, I think was the option of doing a building code amendment under Cal Green.

You know, that's something we could explore.

Um I do think that a more comprehensive ordinance dealing with you know bird safe glass and maybe you know lighting standards is probably in order because we don't want to just single out residential development, it's not as prominent as um, you know, uh the commercial development along the shoreline in Redwood City anyway.

There aren't that many sites left to develop.

Um so I think it's it's it's something that we should think about.

And I think the question, you know, ultimately is how much can we do and get something done and have something on the books?

And what do we need to do as follow-up?

Um so I think it's a little bit of a balance, uh, you know, as I'm listening to a lot of the comments tonight, just trying to figure out well, how do I thread this needle?

How do I put something down that you know is acceptable to most people, and then figure out, well, what can we follow up on?

Because it's gonna take a lot more time.

Um, yeah, I'm aware of a comprehensive new ordinance, maybe you know, five years down the road, maybe even a decade.

So if if you were in the situation where we have the opportunity with these objective design standards to put something on paper that seems reasonable, is this a good time uh would this be a reasonable time to implement such a measure?

Yeah, I mean your housing element says we're supposed to have had this done.

Um, you know, so we're a little kind of on the edge of not complying um for residential development.

And the question is, well, how much can we do?

When I started this three years ago, thought it would be very simple.

We'd take some shoulds and make them shells, we'd experiment a little bit and we'd come back and we'd um refine and and adapt and try to figure out how do we address either different neighborhoods or more contemporary design.

Um, and it's just been really hard.

And I think you you you know mentioned that there are so many different neighborhoods and they're different in character, and this is trying to synthesize that down to you know, a formula, which as a you know, uh background in design too, very, very difficult to do.

Um, so you know, I don't know what the answer is offhand.

You know, I think the comments are all good.

I think they're all on point.

Um, and you know, we have looked at a lot of other jurisdictions as well.

You know, they tend to be full gamut, you know, very prescriptive to the you gotta have everybody's got to use a tile or a slate roof to, you know, not much.

So, you know, we have to figure out what's you know what's the best approach for us for now.

Sure.

Yeah, I agree with that.

I think I think my question was specifically about you know uh these these uh carve outs for bird friendly designs, uh and these.

Yeah, no, and I and I think you know these the point's well taken.

I think you know, number of jurisdictions have done it.

I actually looked at our general plan, it does speak to light pollution, but in the terms of energy conservation, not in the terms of you know environment and things.

But I think we all recognize it, and I think it's something that you know needs to be done.

It's just you know, we have to fit it into all the other things that need to be done.

Sure, sure.

Thank you.

Um, Commissioner Koch.

Thank you.

Um thank you, Mr.

Schwab.

This is an amazing piece of work, and I know how many years you've all been working on it.

Just a couple of things I wanted to ask.

Um, when you're going through and hopefully reworking just a little bit, the lighting standard.

Is it a possibility, or do you already work with our um local county chapter of the Bird Alliance or the Audubon Society?

Just to get their input.

Well, when we started this out, we weren't thinking about this being that topic.

But yeah, clearly they're all the organizations have now come forward and seen because we put lighting standards in there, probably triggered in their mind this was an opportunity.

So, you know, of course we're going to continue to work with them and see what we can do.

As I mentioned, is one of the options.

We can lower the light temperature, we can start with that.

We can agree to do a pilot project.

We could agree, you know, if you if the commission thanks ultimately to recommend to the council that we do more, we could do more.

Okay, thank you.

Um I agree with everything our esteemed committee members over here from architectural committee had to say.

Um it is very prescriptive, as we talked about yesterday.

I understand we don't want blocks of chaos, so to some degree I think it has to be.

Um I know I mean, I was thinking about when you mentioned the rectangular windows or like a rectangular window a couple of years ago when we were discussing building ADUs, and then it came up some ADUs with a second story, and people were very unhappy with the thought that an ADU in the in the next door yard could look over the fence and into their backyard.

And one of the things people mentioned was well, you could think about putting long rectangular windows down from the ceiling instead of right in the middle of the wall, you know, just for light source, but not for so this would leave out this would leave out anything, I guess, like that, or having the opportunity to have something like that designed.

Um I don't know.

I think I don't know.

I know it's just it's a lot, it's huge.

Um, we have to have our guidelines.

Um my question was the lighting, and I you've already answered CEQA will not be part of the lighting because we're basically going to be doing infill.

This is basically for Invil.

Yeah.

And so there already was a home there to be replaced with a home there, which is why we don't have to do CEQA.

Correct?

Just in a overly simplified.

But even in in infill development center five acres, a multifamily project could be exempt.

And now under AB 130.

Yeah, a lot of housing is exempt.

Sure.

And then the only other thing I was gonna say was I also agree with everyone else as far as the one percent for the amenities.

Um we've been working really hard, I know as a city and all of our various committees to do what we could to try to shake loose some of the builders from so many projects that we have approved over the last couple of years, but building right now is unaffordable for a lot of those developers.

So trying hitting them with another fee.

I'm like, oh, you know, if it could be lowered, if it could be lessened, um, we could do it another way.

I I don't know, but I just feel like it's just adding more dollars on top of it, and we don't want to do something to dissuade someone from wanting to come and to build here.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Koch.

Um I'm gonna have to take this opportunity to to put in some of my comments.

Uh talking about windows.

Actually, I have three comments about windows.

One is about privacy on the second floor when facing a neighbor's backyard.

Uh, I'm not sure if we have any standards for that right now, whether frosting or making windows high on the closer to the ceiling so they're not visible through something to consider.

I'm not sure what the best recommendation here would be.

Um, second question is about you know the shape and size of windows.

My house has a partial basement, it has hopper, sorry, awning windows, and that would be not allowed under these particular ordinance.

Uh, you know, there are case studies that sometimes you when you may need to use such windows.

I think being overly prescriptive will not allow that.

Um, and the third one was there's a section that talks about two square feet of transparency through glass on the door, front door, or right next to the front door.

So I'm not sure if this is like a safety-related component for like fire to be able to see if there's occupants inside, you know, or smoke or whatever it may be.

Um, you know, I haven't seen that many houses with such large openings, probably for security reasons, but um I'm just curious whether this is out of the ordinary or not.

Maybe I can ask um committee member stewart uh since he's in a single family housing um space.

A lot of times we'll have a side light next to the door, but and sometimes, you know, you'll have a window in the door.

But uh I don't know, a lot of people don't like that.

They'd rather have the people.

Team Hollow, right?

Yeah, but is the is the impetus behind it for for safety reasons to be able to see whether you know maybe someone's inside, or is it just for I I don't know, I've never seen that required anywhere else.

Okay, thank you.

Um, I think it's a security issue uh having somebody case the house.

You know, they can look through the side light and uh it's a little bit less of a concern with ring, you know, ring doorbells and everything, but you still have that happening where people happen to come by and they're able to look inside the house and solid door precludes them from doing so.

Um it's also if someone wants to get in, doesn't take much to break the glass and just reach around and open.

So right, that makes sense.

Kind of defeats the purpose of a deadbolt.

Got it.

Um I also have a similar comment with Commissioner Finch about personal storage space.

80 cubic feet.

I I try to look online what it is.

It's actually a small shed uh for each dwelling unit uh on on these uh smaller or you know fourplexes, multiplexes.

Uh and I feel that you know we're just feeding the addiction of ourselves to give more space for our stuff.

Uh I think Americans as general have the largest storage personal storage space industry in the whole world in terms of how much material components they have.

So I I think having it as a part of a general you know uh build, not having it carved out as a special space to be dedicated for personal storage rather than being like how many closets or whatever you may be, rather being that prescriptive, just having it uh open or not having the personal storage requirement may be better.

Um, but then that's just my my opinion.

Um, and then the other question uh comments I have are all related to trees, uh so bear with me.

There'll be another 10 minutes worth of tree comments.

So first part is about uh trees in public right away.

So on the streets, uh I think it was mentioned about five foot uh planting strip.

There's many streets in my wood city have monolithic sidewalks, so there's no planting strip, and we don't want to shortchange those neighborhoods with zero trees uh from there.

So I think there should be some um the uh the space behind the sidewalk will become part of the um I guess it was it called public um right away, it goes behind the sidewalk basically.

So I just want to make sure that the the the design standards reflect the fact that in case you have a sidewalk, it goes right against the curb.

The space behind the sidewalk now serves as the planting strip for the tree.

It's a public tree because it's probably easement that's owned by the city of Rebu City.

Um second parties uh mentioned by commission uh commissioner Robinson about spacing of the trees, it's 20 to 40 feet apart.

I think it should scale with the size of the tree at maturity.

You don't want to put 40 feet apart these tiny trees that are 10 feet in size because you'll have basically lollipops or bushes uh that do not provide any community benefit shading uh or air filtration.

Um next question was about tree grating, tree grates, uh and um allowing for deviations when they need to be four foot wide sidewalks for ADA access.

Uh I think generally speaking, I think we should discourage tree grates used anywhere in the city because it looks nice when you install it, people forget about it, and then they kill the trees that are inside.

And I've seen now multiple examples around Redwood City that this happens.

So I think um, you know, there are maybe high traffic areas within the downtown core that may uh you know require tree grates, but they need to be uh when one needs to expand that area, someone has to come with a blowtorch, uh, and you can see how many man hours from public works is required to blowtorch a bunch of um tree grades.

So I would prefer softer materials either, DG uh bark uh there's a there's a lot of other options to be used in that particular situation.

Um I would also prescribe that the minimum size of planting of a tree should be a 24-inch box, anything less than that uh has been instead of California, including Calfire Calfire recommended as a non-viable size, so for 24-inch box should be minimum for any uh plantings within the public realm.

Um and the next part about this is um about trees on the private lots.

So um the Redwood City has been trying really hard to you know support an urban forest, but the data from the um uh from the Calfire says that between 2018 and 2023, Redwood City lost 2%, so we went from 15% urban forest to 13% urban forest.

Uh so we are actually losing trees.

Um and the fact is that half of the trees in Redwood City are in people's private property, you know, in the front yard or the backyard.

Um, and I think we should have um some kind of a prescription or explore the ability to ask whether we should require at least one tree per lot on private property.

Um, you know, there are street trees that are maintained by this by the city itself.

We plant them, the city waters them, uh, and it's within the responsibility of the city.

Um, but you know, I have seen a lot of multiplant family developments that do lot edge-to-lot edge development with uh zero, not a single leaf anywhere within this particular development.

So um, you know, there I want to reference City of Berlin Game, which actually has an in their uh ordinance uh and design standards to require a single tree eater that's publicly facing so that every lot contributes to the uh urban canopy of the city.

Um now you can talk to legal how how this will be implemented, but I think it would be something to at least look into.

Um I think that's that's it on the on the tree-lated standards.

Commissioner Robinson, I will yield now to you.

Well, thank you.

Um I think we've had a lot of discussion on um the large multifamily um the single family, which is my lived experience in single-family neighborhoods with individual homes.

Um, and we've had you know, we're we're fortunate at Redwood City.

We produced a lot of housing in uh apartments for rent, um, many coming online, many currently going vertical, hopefully more coming.

Um, but the foresale and ownership housing, especially in infill, which is likely what we're to see for ownership housing is um townhouse town homes.

And so I haven't I'm having just personally having a hard time visiting some of the renditions here.

And I would just say, you know, it may be more tangible for those that are going to review and approve it in the future.

Um if if we had any, say, for example, examples that were recently built or projects like the city ventures project that uh came to planning commission.

Would that you know, since this will be a standard we will hope we hope that it's successful so that builders will do some ownership housing here in our city on an on a more expedited basis?

Would would will this work for them?

Um that's just kind of my my just natural reaction to say, I'm not sure how I I how I as a layman can see how this would work for them.

Um, but I know we recently looked at like a city ventures project nearby.

Would would something like this work for those builders that are that are doing that?

Just a suggestion.

So thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Robinson.

Uh Commissioner Hunter.

Great, thank you.

Um I don't have many comments that haven't been said already.

Um the one recommendation that I would would add uh has to do with um missing middle housing types.

Um and I've was looking at my uh you know reference guide here on missing middle housing, and um there are two um uh types that I want to make sure that these um guidelines here would still allow.

Um there's cottage courts or bungalow courts, which are kind of around an interior courtyard, and I think the um the the standards here under the uh five plus developments would allow that, but uh uh we're just you know one wants to have to make sure that that those would be allowed under these standards.

And the other type is courtyard buildings.

Um, and I don't, you know, when I when I look at things about street frontage and all, um I don't know, and I don't have the uh, you know, detailed um professional knowledge to know whether a courtyard building would qualify under under these, but I would I I would like the standards to you know be flexible enough so that they would all uh accommodate those kind of buildings.

Um and the only other general comment I have is um I think that this um I'm very positive on what you've done, and obviously there's tweaks that will need to be done, and the comments I think, you know, of my um my uh um companions here are you know um right on.

Um but I think this is a very very good project here.

Um, you know, as it says in the um in the section here about building you know single to fourplex, um you're you're really trying to um do the two things encourage um respecting the established scale and character of neighborhoods while promoting infill development to increase housing opportunities and the pedestrian experience.

Um and I think that these standards do an outstanding job of threading that needle.

Um and they are yes, they are they I think there's a lot of ways you could have done this, and I think you have come up with a uh a masterful job of threading that needle, probably not the only way you could have, but that is one.

Um, and I think they are prescriptive and um you know and and they lean toward um toward buildings that are consistent with the neighboring structures.

Um but they are still flexible because if you you know do a Thomas James in a Nikler neighborhood, well, that doesn't mean you can't do it, uh, but it just means you have to go through the architectural permit procedure, which which is flexible.

And in my experience, um, you know, when the when the planning commission had more things come before it uh, you know, regarding single-family homes, um, you know, by and large things were approved um under the architectural permits, even though it it's a more flexible standard.

So um proposing a building that is uh is is different from the neighboring buildings, um, isn't it isn't precluded at all.

It just means you're gonna have to maybe have to have a public hearing, and if the neighbors really object because it's way out of character, then that'll be part of the public hearing.

And uh, you know, hopefully uh um involve some compromises.

But um overall, I think it's a very good job of um you know um dealing with both of those two um two objectives.

Thank you, Commissioner Hunter.

Um Commissioner Finch.

Oh, yes, just wanted to echo I love those missing middle uh shared courtyard houses, so it would be awesome to make sure that those are not discouraged by the code, yeah.

Thank you, Commissioner Finch.

I mean I mean responding to your comments and also uh going back to the very beginning to committee member Jenkins uh about the size and form.

I remember uh seven years ago or before I joined the planning commission, there was a movement to enforce more strict floor area ratios, especially in historic neighborhoods.

I think in this case it was Mont Carmel that was in question with super large size homes being put in you know in the historic context.

Uh and I wonder was that part now on the zoning code in those particular R?

I think it's R2 uh in terms of where is the FAR specified it's not part of the design standard as part of the zoning code.

It's part of the zoning code.

Okay, would that by itself already give some kind of an envelope in terms of the volume that a particular house would be?

It does, it encourages you know a limit um uh floral ratio or 3,000 square feet.

If you go over either of those thresholds, then you go to discretionary review before the planning commission.

And as you may recollect, there haven't been too many, so it's been relatively successful.

I think you know, there's folks that still feel that maybe that's too much, uh, in the context of homes that are surrounding it.

I mean, the old homes are tend to be very small, and when someone invests in a major remodel, they tend to be pretty large.

So, you know, those are just that's the the conflict.

And that's applicable across the full city, the whole city, or went through our phone.

Okay, quick.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, there was a lot of input and discussion.

Are there any more comments from the commission?

Uh committee member Jenkins.

Beat you to it.

Um, yeah, I would just advise caution.

I think it's a good idea with lighting and bird safe building design to have a broader ordinance and not just specific to residential.

Um I work in commercial architectural design, and most of those projects have these blanket requirements for bird safe building design.

Um, and so we've deferred to using consultants and subject matter experts to look specifically at our building in our location.

And in most cases, we found in one case it was like you don't need to do anything at all.

And so if we'd have kind of gone through the prescriptive process, we'd have had fritted glass on the whole thing.

And in another case, it identified very specific corners of the building that we needed to treat, and not just the zero to 60 kind of big swath around the whole building.

Um the financials of kind of going out and getting a subject matter expert to look specifically at your project and make a determination is in the context of a large project is not a big deal, but in the context of a single family home development, it can be pretty cumbersome.

And so I would hope that we can kind of find some middle ground there.

I think it's important to uh think about wildlife and what development is doing to wildlife in the environment, but um, you know, it it can be very cumbersome when we put all these standards on a relatively small development in the scheme of things and the burden of additional costs to kind of get to a place where we've addressed you know particular things.

Um so I just wanted to kind of share that.

So that it's there are very good ordinances out there.

San Francisco was one that we referred to most often because it was the only really comprehensive uh site-specific bird safe building ordinance that was around.

Um but it is very contextual, you know, the the flocking behavior and the migratory patterns are very specific, and it can be about bodies of water adjacency, more than an acre of open space.

There are some kind of general rules of thumb.

Um so it it's a lot to unpack, and I think it it's probably better as a broader citywide ordinance than belonging in this particular document.

But I do agree it's like we should consider every development and the impact and not just commercial, if there's a way to do that in a meaningful way.

Um, thank you, committee member Jenkins.

Uh committee member Tanakatsubo.

Um I'm gonna suggest that I'm gonna put my um colleague here, John, kind of on the spot.

Um, and throughout to the to staff, if the possibility of having um the local AI chapter maybe do a workshop on testing, kind of doing a dry run on how these ordinances look if they're given a program saying this is a basic single-family addition.

What does it look like with this?

This is a this is a bad addition because it's gonna leave one wall, making it an addition, but they want to build it to the max.

You know, what uh maybe some different scenarios and have a workshop uh where members of the local architectural community can step forward.

So yeah, I've looked at this and I've had this before, and this is what this is what results from it, you know, from uh from the prescriptive point, and this is how we manipulate it just to see how how it flushes out in real world terms.

But yeah, I I'm on the board of directors.

I have been for most of the 40 years, and I was president in 2010.

Were you a president?

No.

Okay, we've got to change that next.

So I was the originator of the charred.

You were back in the late 70s, right?

And um, downtown San Mateo, B Street.

Yeah, and uh we're always looking for opportunities to help communities.

So I'm chairman of the housing committee.

So I could I can set that up.

So uh just let me know when when you want to do it and how we can help.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I think the staff is the one probably who would be the most uh appropriate body to act on this.

Commission member um Finch.

Yeah maybe maybe um uh like just similar to that I would be just um interested in like if some uh recent projects that have come through that like one would expect they did they didn't um uh there wasn't a lot of community opposition um like if those were um assessed by these standards would would they have passed um I think that would be interim maybe that's something that the um that that uh group could do um but yeah that'd be interesting so to get this straight so you would allow architects to come up with the the most um I guess varied versions of how housing they can build within the context of these prescriptive standards and how what kind of variety can come out of it got it that makes sense or not or or not okay or cookie cutter so okay this we have you've got that um any other comments from the commission or the committee I know we have made uh Mr Schwab's stand for a good portion of an hour and a half so that's good work out um yeah there's no other comments I guess I will uh close the uh the committee and and commission discussion and move on to the next item uh which is matters of commission and committee interest um I'll I'll keep it brief we um have our next meeting scheduled for um june sixteenth and um that's really all I have have to report great um any updates from the commission members or committee members well uh do we have any um uh schedule AAC meetings coming up in the month of June already or in July it got canceled in July.

Yeah no upcoming meetings in June or July or this summer yeah I will set I will share an update if anything gets added to the agenda.

Thank you.

All right that concludes the items of for tonight's agenda the next planning commission meeting is scheduled for June 16th 2026.