Alright, good evening.

My name is Carlos Rosario, and I'm the Chair of the Planning Commission.

Welcome to the first meeting of the 25-26 General Plan for Year Review.

For this year review, the planning commission will serve as the task force.

Please remember to turn off your cell phones.

The parking validation machines are.

Are there any in this room?

In the back, if you have parked underneath City Hall.

Agendas and sign-up sheets are in the back as well.

Alright.

We'll start with roll call.

Chair or Vice Chair Bickford.

Commissioner Barroso.

Here.

Commissioner Bondal.

Commissioner Contrell.

Commissioner Cow.

Casey.

Here.

Commissioner Nguyen.

Okay.

Commissioner Oliverio is absent.

And Commissioner Young.

Here.

Alright, that is nine out of ten.

I don't think quorum is necessary, but uh those are who who are here right now.

Please note uh later when we have public comment, just listed as item number five on the agenda tonight and will take place towards the end of the meeting.

Like I said, you can fill out a speaker's card, give it to a technician, and each member of the public may address the commission for up to two minutes.

In response to public comment, the planning commission is limited to the following options responding to statements made or questions posed by members of the public or requesting to staff to report back on a matter at a subsequent meeting.

With that, I will hand it over to staff to begin the meeting with item two, task force roles and responsibilities.

Thank you, Commissioner.

I will share the presentation shortly.

Okay, good evening.

My name is Ruth Cueto.

I am a principal planner and you will be seeing me at every meeting, I think, on this uh general plan four-year review.

So just quickly, the agenda is as follows.

Um we will um do just a brief introduction of the team before we kick off and start on item two, the task force role and responsibilities.

Then we'll jump into a quick overview of GP 2040 and review that the scope of work that we'll be working on for the next um eight or so months.

Lastly, we will end with the four-year progress report and then have an opportunity to hear from the public.

Um I'll hand it over to my colleague.

Good evening.

Jared Ferguson.

Uh, I'm also principal planner with the planning division.

Um I oversee the housing team, and so we'll be presenting to you on several of the topics uh over the course of this meeting.

Uh David Paul, uh, plan uh planner.

Uh and I'll be here helping out with um some of the normal operations and the regular duties.

Hi, Laura Maurer.

Uh also on the general plan team, planner two.

Um I did a lot of work with the progress report, and I will be at a lot of these meetings as well.

Daniel Sasueta in the city attorney's office, making sure everybody is abiding by the rules and regulations of the city.

Thank you.

We are missing one team member, but she'll be here shortly.

Okay.

Happy to introduce myself.

Good evening, honorable planning commission.

Um, and USNB, Deputy Director of Planning.

Thank you.

Yeah, probably.

Okay, so we're gonna kick this off with uh task force uh the role of the task force and responsibilities.

Uh, before I begin, I do want to clarify.

I think there may have been or there may be some confusion.

Um, you know, you are the planning commission, but we're referring to you as the task force.

I think it's just easier because it's the same process as um 2015 and 2019, so you'll hear us refer to you as the task force.

I think to some folks and the members of the public, when they think of task force, they'll think that 43-member body, but you're essentially doing the same thing.

You're working with us and giving us feedback on our proposals.

Okay.

So your role lives essentially within this policy IP-211, which as you may recall was amended in August of this year through general plan file number GPT 25-002, which allows for the Planning Commission to now serve as the task force for this third general plan review.

This slide describes the expectations of this group.

At each task force meeting beginning next month, planning staff will present our initial analysis and findings on a specific topic.

For example, next month it will be on the urban village implementation strategies.

Staff will outline in a presentation and staff report the problem we're trying to solve for, our initial findings, and a proposed strategy or policy or policies to achieve that desired outcome.

Your role as a task force will be to provide feedback in the form of questions or direct input.

We want your opinion and perspective.

Staff will then take your feedback and community input we receive and make refinements as needed.

That final strategy and all the strategies as part of this work will come back to this planning commission for a recommendation to council in June 2026.

We will be looking for your support to make the desired amendments to the general plan following that vote.

Those amendments, when finalized, will be presented to the Planning Commission again in the fall of 2027 before we go to City Council for final approval.

So in order to get all of your great feedback, we ask for a few things from you.

We ask that you review the materials ahead of time and attend these meetings regularly.

You should be receiving an email from our team members at least a week in advance of every meeting with the agenda, presentations, and staff report.

We also appreciate your help in helping us stay within the scope of the approved council.

This slide outlines major milestones for the four-year review.

We began actually we began this work in February of this year, sort of thinking through and realizing we had to pivot and start this work.

However, the scope of work was officially approved in June of 2025.

Soon after that, staff began the background analysis and we will continue doing that work.

We've continued up until now.

Now we're kicking this off.

We're continuing our analysis and policy development from this first task meeting until June 2026, the last meeting of this group.

Public outreach and engagement will have started this month, and we have June 2026 as an end date with an asterisk, and I'll explain why in a second.

Environmental analysis will begin roughly after this task force convenes in June 2026 and will run all the way through fall 2027.

And planning commission and city council hearings on the final adoption of these amendments will be November through December of 2027.

I added an asterisk for public outreach for two reasons.

One is that we've started outreach.

And then secondly, we expect that after the conclusion of the task force process in June, we will have capacity to continue traditional outreach and daylight staff's more refined strategies and policies to the public before it goes to a final hearing in 2027.

This slide shows our meeting topics for the next um seven to eight meetings.

We have a hold for the last meeting, just in case, depending, you know, how we we get through all of these topics, and you will notice that residential capacity and missing middle both have two meetings on the topic.

These are definitely more medier topics, and we anticipate there'll be a lot of um public interest in both of these.

Lastly, I want to touch on our outreach strategy.

Um, this doesn't encompass the entire sort of scope of our work with outreach, but it's a way for us to sort of think about those key methods that we're going to employ.

As you can see, we have open houses, and those will begin in the spring, likely in February of next year.

Uh, and there'll be four in-person events throughout the city.

We will have it and have an online presence now with our own general plan website.

Um, and we are also looking to acquire a virtual software that will help us gather feedback and questions.

Um, one of the ways is using a map-based engagement tool.

We also have these task force meetings, which are in-person meetings that the public can attend and learn about the work and provide in-person comments.

Lastly, as I mentioned a few slides back, uh, we have check-ins with subject matter experts and community-based organizations to discuss the scope of work and continue to get feedback on the proposals.

Not included here is the coordination we will do with other agencies, the city departments, the city council to help get the word out on these efforts as well as with community events.

And with that, um I will let Daniel share his slides.

Thank you, Ruth.

Good evening, task force members.

Good to see you all.

Um I was asked by city staff to put together a short Brown Act and Code of Conduct refresher.

Um, just a brief kind of snippet of the Brown Act involving meetings, code of conduct, etc.

Um feel free to ask any questions during this time.

Some of you might recognize these slides because each of you was trained on the Brown Act before you became a commissioner.

And um, so this is just a series of slides taken from that presentation about meetings.

So part of that Brown Act's training, I went through kind of to give you some context.

I went through the history of the Brown Act, and it all stemmed from this 10-part series from a San Francisco Chronicle article called Your Secret Government, and it was about getting all of the decisions made at local at the local level out of the back rooms, the dark, smoky back rooms where politicians would gather and make decisions on behalf of the public.

Well, the people came together and said we don't want that, and the Ralph M.

Brown Act was signed into law in 1953 to basically give a voice back to the people, and the people demanded that all of the decisions and decision making and discussion happen at a properly noticed public meeting.

Um, so with that, we will talk about what are meetings.

Um, some meetings must be open to the public and properly noticed.

Great.

So this is from the Brown Act's statutory language, the meeting means a congregation of majority of members.

The same time and location, and this is important to hear, discuss, deliberate, or take action on any item that is within subject matter jurisdiction of that body.

I think to hear is very important, right?

Because I think you will all be engaged in hearing many voices from the public about this process about going to community meetings and so forth.

So just pay in mind that it's not just about discussing, discussing, deliberating, and taking action.

It's also about being in the same room with other members.

So this is a fun little exercise that you all might remember talking about what is a quorum, um, what is not a quorum.

So this is a five-member body.

So in that scenario, not a quorum would be two members, and then you have three members adding quorum.

And that even so when we talk about uh serial meetings, you might all remember that word serial meetings.

It's when a majority share opinions about a specific item that's coming before the the planning commission or coming before the legislative body or any sort of business that is under the subject matter jurisdiction of the legislative body.

So three people in a five-member body that are sharing opinions about how they're going to vote on something is a serial meeting.

Now that serial meeting can take place even if there's an intermediary like Oscar here.

If uh each of these members share their opinion with that third party, that is also a serial meeting because that third party then knows how those three members of the majority are going to vote.

So that is also prohibited under the Brown Act, as well as the Hub and Spoke meeting, which is basically one person sharing their opinion with a majority of the members, that is also prohibited.

Then we, you know, get asked the question.

Well, can we all meet up at a cafe and hang out together?

A majority cannot meet privately outside of a public agendized meeting, and so that the big no-no.

However, if you're going to a community meeting, a majority, sure, you can meet there, but you are not allowed to discuss city business, right?

With a majority of members.

So just to recap, don't discuss commission business with a majority outside of public meeting, uh, no serial meetings directly with members or indirectly through intermediaries.

Use caution with reply all on social media.

Use caution in general with social media when replying on subjects that are under your jurisdiction.

And uh during meetings, don't discuss anything that's not on the agenda.

So those are simple rules that we all like to abide by.

Um, this is just a quick video of showing where you can find the city council policy manual.

If you go up to my your government and you go up to the city clerks page, scroll down to the council policy manual, you'll see a list of different policies.

And the ones that we're focused on are in the administration and government section, um, and you all were given packets of these different policies to read through.

So this is just a refresher to remind you to go back to those, reread them if possible.

Um-4, uh, which is basically kind of a 33-page uh policy guideline about what commission business is like, uh, the roles of the commissioners, um, legislative process, etc.

Also uh 0-15 code of ethics.

Encourage you all to read that, but most importantly, 0-3-6, the code of conduct for each commissioner, and I think this is um important to read because it applies to you as task force members as well.

Um, and what's important to take away from 0-3-6 is that whenever you're speaking on anything that is before this body, before the planning commission, any city business, you're gonna have to make it extremely clear that you're speaking your personal capacity, right?

You have to remember that you're not here as advocates, you're not here to speak on a um, this is not a platform you for you to uh voice the support or or uh the non-support of a specific issue on behalf of the community.

This is your role as a task member or task force member and a commissioner is to provide recommendations to the city council.

Um so I want to make sure that whenever you're speaking on anything that comes before this body, you are doing so in your personal capacity.

You have to make it absolutely clear to those who are listening to you that you're speaking in your personal capacity unless you're authorized to speak on the commission or task force behalf.

Um, so never use your commission title for anything unless you're speaking on behalf of the commission.

So I don't want to see any emails, letters, anything that, or in in some sort of community meeting where you're saying I am a planning commissioner, and this is what I think, you have to make extremely clear that you're doing this in your personal capacity.

And uh lastly, commissions, commissions or uh task forces, may not independently support or oppose state or federal legislation, but you're free to make recommendations on such legislation to uh city council and other rules committee.

So if there are any questions on any of this, is it clear that when we're going to community meetings, we can hear what we want to hear, but I highly recommend that you do not participate in those meetings that you not identify yourself as a planning commissioner here to help guide the community through some sort of uh decision making process.

You're there to get information.

All the decision making and discussion should happen here in a public meeting.

This is what they're for.

So if that uh are there any questions about that, we can move on.

Thank you.

Um this is also an opportunity if you had any questions on my slides.

Happy to take those or comments.

Looks like we're okay.

Okay.

Okay.

It's a little slow.

Okay, so now um we'll do a brief overview of the general plan and provide a more in-depth uh look at the work that staff is going to undertake as part of this process.

I know you are all experts since we just had our study session, but just wanted for the purposes of the public and folks listening in, sort of, you know, we're starting with the general plan.

What is it?

And um, in short, it is the city's vision for and blueprint for how we grow.

Our Nvision San Jose 2040 general plan was adopted in 2011, and look to 2040, the 2040 horizon.

And so what it um state law requires is that every general plan includes specific elements or chapters or sections, such as land use, circulation, transportation, um, housing, open space, conservation, safety, noise, and environmental justice.

We do not have an environmental justice element, just to be clear at the moment, um, that is on our docket to work on in the next few years.

Um the general plan is a vision and um it covers other areas that affect uh not just land use but the quality of life for the residents of San Jose.

How do we use it?

So the general plan, as I mentioned, sets the long-term vision, and it it includes goals, policies, and implementation actions.

Um, and these are goals again related to topics such as sustainability, housing, transportation, so not just uh the color on the map, which is what we talk a lot about in planning.

Um it is different from the zoning ordinance in that the zoning ordinance implements the general plan through codes, standards, etc.

Um, where the general plan may say you can build, you know, housing or multifamily housing, the zoning ordinance will say you can build that, but up to 50 feet, 150 feet, those um that level of detail.

So, why are we doing this general plan four-year review now?

One reason, well, a few reasons.

Uh, one is that the general plan says we have to do this.

We have a goal and policies in the general plan that speak to a major review every four years.

Uh, we're also doing this in preparation of the seventh cycle housing element.

While the arena goals for the seventh cycle have not been published yet and they won't be published for a few more years.

We're anticipating another increase in our requirement.

We went from roughly 35,000 units to 62,000 units, uh, a goal between the fifth and the sixth housing element.

So, hoping it's not going to jump that high for the seventh, but there will be an increase.

And um the six-cycle housing element actually took up most of our residential capacity in the current general plan.

So we know we need to find that.

We have work ahead of us, and we um we don't want to end up in the position that we were with the sixth cycle where we were late, there were multiple reviews, and we ended up with filters remedy projects.

Um, lastly, we have to do this work because we have programs in the current housing element that we promised we would work on, and we need policy changes in order to implement them.

And so this is a vehicle to get those policy changes done.

General Plan Goal IP-2 says that we have to look at a few things when we're doing this general plan four-year review.

We need to evaluate our jobs, growth, urban village implementation, environmental indicators, as well as affordable housing, how we're doing in terms of affordable housing.

Okay.

So the scope of work for the four-year review can be categorized in sort of these four areas.

These next slides are going to provide a little bit more detail.

The first one, increase residential capacity in the general plan.

When we talk about this, what we're referring to is looking for new areas for growth.

For example, I have here those two sites for recent early consideration hearings, Winchester Boulevard and the Alameda.

And what staff is going to do is take a close look at these areas.

These are adjacent to growth areas, so maybe it makes sense to expand into these types of neighborhoods and sites.

We also want to consider whether a higher density makes sense in the residential neighborhood designation.

Residential neighborhood, if you think back to our general plan land use map, is most of the city and it's covered in yellow, so your single-family neighborhoods.

We're also looking into whether we need a new designation, something between single-family homes and mixed-use neighborhood, which is can go up to 30 dwelling units per acre.

Part of this work is also creating that capacity for missing middle projects, which I'll talk about in another slide.

And then lastly, we want to ensure that there's sufficient capacity in unplanned urban village areas.

Some of these urban village areas have lost units as we've moved them to other areas that we've been planning more recently, like five wounds in downtown.

Missing middle opportunity housing, this is a program that we told HCD promised to the community and the council that we would implement, and we need to develop a framework and policies to identify sites that would allow for at least four units and up to 10 units in areas where are that are single-family and currently adjacent to urban villages or just residential areas along major streets.

The next topic is modifications to jobs employed resident ratio.

We need to evaluate the impact to our jobs target in relation to the increase in housing units, consider changes to the current jobs to employed resident ratio goal, and we are also under this bucket of work, we're evaluating direction we received from the council through the mayor's budget message on eliminating ground floor commercial requirements for specific housing developments.

Next month you'll hear a little bit more about this is modifying urban village implementation strategies.

So we have roughly 60 urban villages and they range in sizes.

Some cover larger areas, other are simply a neighborhood shopping center, and what we're gonna do in this work is consider consolidating some of those areas, possibly removing some of them as urban villages.

Staff is evaluating also gonna evaluate whether we need every component of an urban village plan.

For example, some of most of our urban village plans have design guidelines, but we have citywide design guidelines that we adopted a few years ago.

Maybe we just rely on those for this work.

Lastly, uh just want to touch on the environmental review.

It's not gonna necessarily be a separate meeting, but just to give you a sense of the work that's ahead and tied into the policy analysis of these last four topics I discussed.

Um, because we're looking at increasing residential capacity beyond what is currently allowed in the general plan, we're likely looking at a supplemental EIR.

And as part of the environmental review, we will look at changes to policies around construction hours.

Again, that's something that was directed by the city council and the mayor.

They want to um have us consider having more flexibility for uh construction near residential uses, um, as well as um looking at our and modifying the thresholds of significance for CEQA standard mitigation measures.

We'll also update greenhouse gas emissions, our strategy on greenhouse gas emissions and change how we use uh technical appendix in the in the general plan called appendix five growth areas plan capacity, and that is the end of my presentation.

I do want to note that our agendas, these PowerPoints materials, you can find them on this website, the General Plan Fourier Review website.

I think if you Google that, you might might take you directly to that page as well.

And I'm open to any questions or comments.

Commissioner Casey, thank you.

Um with the recent um signing of SB 79, um, how is that gonna factor into the work that we're doing here as well?

Yeah, I think so.

Great great question.

I I think we're gonna look at it in the context of that residential capacity as potentially one other component of where we could count and add new capacity.

Um so I think as Ruth outlined, we have a number of strategies of where we want to look to add more housing, and so that's one area where I mean some of the decisions have been been made for us in this case.

Probably areas that we already do allow for a certain amount of housing.

Um, but we definitely want to look at that in our context.

Um so it'll it'll be a big part of our analysis as as we go through this process.

So okay.

I mean, I know from the agendas uh the meetings that you noted, we don't have that as a a specific topic, but it sounds pretty impactful.

So I don't know if we build it in as a bullet to one of the meetings or so residential capacity is one of those ones where we have two meetings.

Okay.

So this will be a component of that.

A sub bullet of that.

Okay, fair enough, thank you.

And through the chair, if I may clarify for the audience what SB 79 is.

So this is a recent bill that was just signed by the governor last Friday, um, that allows for um higher density housing near a number of transit stations, uh, and it applies, I think we only to four or five counties in the state.

Uh Jared, do you want to add a little bit?

Eight counties, and so it applies to all light rail stations and rapid bus stations, and it's in a proximity around those stations, either a quarter or a half mile.

Um housing has to be allowed on those sites, and we have to allow up to a certain um capacity based on those proximities.

Commissioner Cantrell's there.

Thank you, Commissioner Cantrell.

Uh I have a question about the this item on update and revise CEQA thresholds of significance and standard mitigation measures.

How much latitude do we actually have in CEQA standards?

And I'm I'm to the chair I I can address that.

So typically with the CEQA process, that's the California Environmental Quality Act.

Um, that's state law that requires uh complete, you know, disclosure on the environmental impacts of any project that comes before a city or county.

Um and the cities are or the jurisdiction that acts on that project is considered the lead agency.

So as the lead agency, we have a lot of discretion in terms of what kind of thresholds of significance to be established for those projects that have to be based on substantial evidence or existing standards such as the in our general plan or in our zoning ordinance or based on best practices in that environmental area.

Uh so for example, there could be a standard for noise uh that is you know identified in the general plan because of the noise contours in this in the safety element, um, and those can then be used as thresholds of significance.

Um so each lead agency has the ability to determine what is the appropriate threshold for each project or each environmental impact.

Thank you.

Commissioner can't travel.

Thank you.

Uh so I'm I'm curious if we're going to take a look at equity, if that the group has been banned already.

Um it's it's throughout vision 2040 without clear definition, but it's fundamental to the position we're in today.

Are we going to is that going to be a part of what we discuss and review?

Yeah, I I mean I think it's it's involved in all aspects of this, but I think particularly as we look at residential capacity and then that missing middle conversation, looking at where we look to grow opportunities for housing, what areas those go in, what types of opportunity are in those neighborhoods that those areas go in.

I think that's a fundamental aspect of that analysis, and as we look at those policies, weaving that into our analysis is going to be critical, and what we share to you will be you know have that lens in it when we do it.

Can I can I ask that we define that?

I would define the kinds of the activity around equity focused on those who were harmed by redlining that continues to exist in those who benefit it, and creating equity between those two groups.

Yeah, that's something we can bring back and talk about at those meetings definitely.

Okay, I have another question.

Um the urban village discussion.

I know we're gonna get to that in November, but um, the the bullet point was elimination of some urban village uh areas, and my question is that elimination of them and a change in potential use for them as not urban village but as something else.

What is the the intent there?

Yeah, uh so most of the villages, and and we'll definitely get into drilling to this more when we get to that meeting.

Generally, villages that are unplanned, a lot of the area is defined as wholly commercial properties unless they're existing residential.

So when we look to remove villages, we're we're essentially saying, you know, there's more limited opportunity for that future growth in terms of mixed use and and residential uses.

Um we'll kind of go through it, you know, uh not jumping ahead too far.

But I you know, I think there are probably several recommend for removal, but it'll be pretty limited, and it'll be kind of case by case as to why those villages are suggesting removal, you know, especially in the context we're looking for places to where we can grow housing.

Um, but I think we just want to be honest, you know, the number of those small villages that Ruth mentioned, particularly those neighborhood villages, they're very small, and the opportunities are pretty limited, or may some opportunities may have already been built through our other policies, and so we'll we'll get into the details of that, but it's it's pretty limited in terms of what we're suggesting to be removed.

I think when we get there, so thank you for the beautiful presentation.

Um I have a question on the voting process.

Uh is there a vote at the end that we'll be voting on the task force we voting on, and where does that vote go?

Is it go back to planning commission because then the task force is the planning commission, or does it go to council?

Maybe you can kind of just clarify that part.

Yes.

So we will schedule um a vote for this body as a planning commission sometime in June.

So it will not be this odd Wednesday, it'll be one of your regularly sort of planning commission hearing dates, and we're gonna bring all these um policies and strategies that we're developing before you to vote on.

Uh we want to get this because some of you I think are terming out, we want to get sort of you uh not a stamp of approval, but it's more we're going in the right direction.

Once we have that vote from you, that that will go to council.

Um, it'll be a recommendation from you to council uh likely in August or September of that same of later of 2026, and um that with that we will move forward with the actual redlining of the policies and further refinement, but it's sort of giving us that framework, like you guys approve and support this framework that we're presenting to you, and then we'll be back in 2027 with the actual red lines, more more of the formal stuff that will live in the general plan document.

And I see the for meeting number seven, which is on June 3rd of 2026.

This is final meeting, and there's a whole for meeting number eight, which is June 17th.

Will we will we be be voting that time in the final meeting at all?

Uh these are not your regular planning commission hearing dates.

We want to it's this is a big body of work and we're just really trying to make sure we put ourselves on your calendar so that we leave time for the deliberation, but that's not the vote, neither of those are voting dates.

It'll be a separate.

I think it's June 24th, maybe the last date for the planning commission next year of June of that fiscal year.

That was helpful.

Thank you.

Alright, um, before we move on, Jared, I just had uh a quick comment.

Uh I would like to certainly take uh Commissioner Intro's comments uh seriously.

Uh I know it's something we talk about frequently, but um it's important and it impacted this and continues to impact the city uh tremendously.

Commissioner Bundle.

One more question, I'm back.

So uh we Jared, uh last time we had the joint session, I uh I briefly brought up uh the cost of development study, and you said it might be available sometime in December.

Um and then we don't meet in December, so will you be emailing us or how we or even at the January meeting or how yeah?

Yeah, I think um and we had a discussion with with the chair as well.

I think what we could consider doing and we uh not finalize yet is we could potentially maybe set up a separate study session with the planning commission to review that study.

Um I don't know the exact timing, maybe it's more like a January.

It wouldn't be a regular task force meeting, maybe one of your study sessions before a planning commission meeting, and we could um partner with the housing department who's who's um the co-lead on that um to go into that.

I think it would be valuable, especially as we get into the discussion about residential capacity for you all to have that background.

You know, we had a little bit of that discussion in the study session, but to kind of get the most up-to-date information um would be would be useful.

So I think that's something we're we're strongly we don't have a date yet, but strongly considering doing so.

And then just one follow-up.

Um in that study, how much time does it date back to does it go back two years, one year, three years?

The studies always, at least generally how it's been structured, is a is a snapshot in time, which is why we update it, you know, every periodically every year.

So it will look at kind of this kind of the current condition, right?

And then we have those past studies that looked at a snapshot of that that existing condition.

So we did one in 2023, which I discussed at the study session, you know, which which laid out some of the challenges, and so this new one will be looking kind of at the current conditions, you know, as of 2025.

So, thank you, Jared.

All right.

Are we on to agenda item four then?

Okay, can I ask you?

Of course, Commissioner Vice Chair Bitford.

Uh, just one more question.

You you mentioned that you are already reaching out to um uh interested parties and subject matter experts.

Um are you inviting them to these task forks sessions to provide input directly to the task force or are you being the intermediary for that information?

I i.e.

how are we getting that information from SMEs that that you may already be communicating with?

Um we uh when we've uh reached out to them to have these conversations, we do share with them the schedule and it's a public meeting, so they're welcome to attend.

I think a few of them may be here as well.

Um, but we we won't be the intermediary in that sense.

They they have you know the public comment period.

I think many of these groups also write letters as as a project moves forward.

So I assume you would be hearing directly from them that way through the public comment and and letters.

But we're happy to share, you know, when as we get to those meetings, what we're learning from them as well.

I think also as we get into those particular meetings on more topics.

If if a particular topic was informed by feedback that we had received to that date, we would be transparent about that as well, you know, and say this is you know, this is based on discussions that we had around that.

So I think I think it's kind of a plan.

I'm sure you'll hear directly from them, but I think we also wanted to hear from them as we're working on the policy and have some of these in-depth conversations early to understand where their emphasis and focus lies within the entire scope so that we can you know discuss with them in more detail as those items come up.

All right, anyone else?

On to item four.

Okay, good evening, everybody.

Um I am Sanita Koja, I'm the supervisor and planner of the general plan team, and I'll join here by Planner David Fong of the General Plan team.

If you pull the microphone, pull the microphone.

Thank you.

All right, shall I start again?

Good evening, everyone, and I'm Sanita Ghosh, the supervising planner of the general plan team, and I'm joined here tonight by planner and David Bong, who um is also from the general plan team.

Together, we are going to um do the next presentation for you.

We also have staff from other departments, Department of Transportation, Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services, and Community Energy, either here or online, an Office of Economic Development and Cultural Affairs to assist in responding to your questions.

We appreciate their time tonight and the assistance provided by their departmental staff in preparing the report.

Also, we are going to cover a lot of data tonight, and I might be reading a lot from the from the paper here, so apologize in uh advanced format.

So the general plan four-year review report evaluates cities' progress towards long-term goals for growth, housing, economic development, and sustainability.

This progress report summarizes key data and trends from July 2011 to June 2025, and we sometimes focus we focus on the last four-year review period, which is from July 2020 2019 to June 2025.

Next question.

These are the six topics that we will be covering in the presentation today.

They are in the order that you will find them in your uh progress report.

So the first one is land use goals.

The major focus of general plans land use strategy is to direct population and job growth to designated growth areas along transit corridors.

This approach supports compact, sustainable development while protecting employment lands and open space.

Residential development outside of these growth areas are envisioned to be limited to neighborhood infill only to preserve and enhance the quality of life in established neighborhoods.

Do we want to mention that uh you also have a printed copy of the slides?

Uh, if you want to refer to those.

I do not.

Oh, we don't, we're not opening copies.

Sorry.

Okay, sorry, you don't.

Okay.

Um, all right, so um, sorry, apologize.

That's not true.

Residential development highlights um that are shown here uh shows that since fiscal year 11-12, nearly 36,000 residential units have been constructed, with nearly 80% of them constructed in designated growth areas.

And the majority of the 20% residential units that were outside of the growth areas in included mostly 20 uh ADUs, also since fiscal year 2011-2012.

Approximately 50,000 residential units have been entitled, with 91% entitled within growth areas.

Approximately 96% of residential units entitled were for multifamily.

Uh, and this number is so high because EDUs and most single-family projects in San Jose, does not require planning approval.

So most of these numbers are multifamily units.

So in the next few slides, I'll show you the building permit and planning entitlement trends for fiscal year 2011-2012 to 2014, 2024-2025.

Each of these charts show the total number of citywide and total number in the growth areas in each of these bars.

And growth areas include urban villages, downtown employment areas, and specific plan areas.

And these vertical lines in the chart they show the duration of the three general plan four-year review cycles.

So in this single-family duplex building permit trend, the two biggest trends to notice are the decline in overall single family home construction and the sharp decline in percentage of single-family homes built in growth areas.

This decline can likely be attributed to the lack of large vacant land for development.

Many recent single family home developments constructed have consisted of smaller developments of three to ten single-family home projects.

However, in the near future, though, there may be a slight uptick in single-family home construction because the communications hill development project is beginning constructing single-family homes for phase four of their project.

The sharp and dramatic increase in ADU construction from 2017-2018 onwards is due to the less restrictive development standards that were adopted in 2016 onwards and also due to a series of state law changes since then.

During the current four-year review period, an average of approximately 500 ADU units were constructed per year.

In addition, during the last four years, ADUs comprise approximately 25% of all residential permits, and last fiscal year it also surpassed multifamily permits because we had a very low year of multifamily permits.

The map that was in the report that shows that the location of EDUs are all over the city.

Multifamily unit production remained high in the first two four-year review periods, then it dropped significantly during the current four-year review cycle period.

The COVID-19 pandemic likely played a significant role in the feasibility of construction of large multifamily developments with supply chain issues and high cost of construction and labor.

While the last fiscal year we had the lowest number of multifamily permits that I was mentioning before, permits for approximately 1,500 units have already been issued this year, the first two months of this current fiscal year.

So likely the total number for the next fiscal year is going to go up.

Construction of multifamily units in growth areas has remained a large percentage of total multifamily unit construction, as you can see here in those light green colors.

And in the last few fiscal years, there is a slight increase in multifamily permits outside of the growth areas.

These are due to some larger multifamily development projects that were constructed on some parcels with existing higher density land use designations or projects that utilize state laws to construct housing where it may not have otherwise been permitted.

This residential entitlement data, it comprises of mostly multifamily housing entitlement since only as I mentioned before, since only multifamily projects require planning approval, excepting some single-family homes in plan developments.

Recent ministerial permits for affordable housing are also included in this entitlement data.

Entitlements remained steady in the first four-year review period and fluctuated significantly in the second four-year review period, and the current four-year review period has seen sustained entitlement activity.

A large percentage of entitlement in the last in this current review period are affordable units, and some used the advantages of various state laws.

During each of these two spike years that you can see in 15, 16 and 22-23, there were approximately 25 projects with more than 100 units each and three projects over 500 units, and interestingly, both these two years, the permit list almost looked similar.

A large percentage of units entitled were in growth areas, and they are in the indicate a successful implementation of general plans major strategy 3 focused growth.

Lastly, based on the pending and already approved planning permits, we anticipate that approximately 3,000 units will be entitled during the first six months of the current fiscal year 25-26.

This will likely continue the trend of a high residential entitlement.

Alright, now we go to commercial and industrial highlights.

As shown in the tables, approximately 28 million square feet of commercial space received building permits since 2011-2012, while approximately 45 million square feet received entitlement, and more than 87% of all of these are in growth areas.

As far as industrial, approximately 16.4 million were permitted or received building permit, whereas approximately 21 million were entitled, and approximately 93% of all of these is in growth areas.

The percentage of square footage outside of growth areas is higher for slightly higher for commercial since there is significant land outside of growth areas that are designated for commercial use compared to industrial use.

The high percentage of commercial and industrial space constructed and entitled in growth areas again is an indication of the effective implementation of major strategy 3 focused growth.

Sorry, in the first four review four-year review period, we saw record low commercial construction activity as the economy was then recovering from the 2008-2009 recession.

Activity picked up significantly again in the second four-year review period.

However, after one outstandingly record high year of activity in fiscal year, which is I'm sorry, this is the activity in the fiscal year 1920.

In the current four-year review cycle, the amount of permit activity significantly decreased.

This is during and this was during and following the COVID-19 pandemic.

And these spike year activity was caused by two large projects with 2.6 million square feet and 14 projects over 100,000 square feet each.

The large projects were like Adobe North and 200 Park.

Often large office development makes up majority of commercial development new construction permits.

And since the demand of office has significantly decreased due to the change in work patterns from the COVID-19 pandemic, we will likely be seeing this reduced activity for some time to continue.

The majority of commercial construction is again within growth areas throughout all these fiscal years.

The industrial building permit activity again started low in the year 11-12, which is the first uh four-year review cycle due to the 2008-2009 recession preceding that time.

And while hitting a high in fiscal year 2015-2016, it again returned to similar levels in the second four-year review period.

In the current four-year review period, we have seen great fluctuations.

The average construction during the last four-year cycle is 50% lower than the previous two cycles.

While a large amount of industrial square footage was permitted in fiscal year 1920 and 24 fiscal year 1920 and 24-25, the years during and directly after the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw significant decrease in industrial permits, but seems to have started to rebound.

As far as the projects in these three spike years, I'm not going to provide any more details, but generally speaking, there had enough, there was a large number of relatively large projects in each of these years.

Nearly all of the permitted square footage were in growth areas, though some years the percentage had been lowered since there is still land outside of growth areas with industrial designations.

Sometimes they are located adjusting right outside but adjusting to growth areas.

So regarding commercial entitled, there is a sharp increase in commercial entitlement during the past four-year review period.

These entitlements include seven projects over one million square feet of office spaces, with one of them over three million square feet.

While a significant amount of commercial square footage has been entitled in the last several years, many of these entitlements have not moved to the building permit stage as we have seen very low building permit activity in one of the previous graphs.

Many entitlements have been extended due to cities' COVID-19 permit extension and California's states' AB 27-29 extension.

And again, most of the entitlement is within growth areas, which is again a good indication of the implementation of the major strategy 3 focusing development growth in growth areas.

Entitlement of industrial square footage has fluctuated greatly over all three four-year review periods, though the average was higher in the first two four-year review periods.

Entitled industrial square footage decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic but seemed to rebound by fiscal year 22-23, then fluctuated again in the last couple of years.

Many fiscal years had very high levels of industrial entitlement in growth areas, with one of these fiscal years 2019-2020, which is an outlier where less than half were entitled in growth areas, and this is due to a one of the large projects which was located right outside of growth area.

Alright, that was a lot of data.

Now we are going to talk about urban villages.

So urban villages are the strategies promotes the development of active walkable bike-friendly and transit-oriented mixed-use urban settings for focusing on job and housing growth.

The city, the general plan currently has 62 designated urban villages, with 16 of them having an adopted urban village plan.

Four of these plans were adopted during the last four-year review period.

Currently, three urban village plans are in progress.

And two other urban village plans are under construct consideration for the next areas to undergo the village planning process.

Although development in urban villages cannot proceed before a plan is adopted by the council, two policies allow residential or mixed-use developments to move forward if they meet certain criteria.

So one of them is the signature project policy, IP-5.10, which allows market rate mixed-use projects when certain conditions are met.

This policy was adopted in 2011 along with the original general plan.

The first signature project was approved in 2016, and this policy was amended as part of the second four-year review to encourage more signature projects, and it included objective standards at that time.

Affordable housing policy IP-5.12 allows 100% affordable projects to move forward.

This policy was originally adopted in 2016 as part of the first four-year review cycle to encourage affordable housing.

It was then amended in 2021 as part of the second four-year review cycle when all of the specific conditions in the original policy was removed, including commercial requirements.

First approved project was in 2019.

So this table above shows the comparison of signature projects and affordable housing projects under IP 5.10 and 5.12.

City received 9 applications for signature projects with all receiving entitlement, but only two projects having completed construction and only a portion of one project has completed construction.

One entitlement has expired, and one has been replaced with a different project.

There are no pending signature project applications, and the last new project was entitled in 2024.

Due to increased costs for development over the last few years, likely is the decline.

City was for the affordable housing projects under IP-5.12.

City has received 17 applications so far, 10 affordable housing projects, with 15 receiving entitlements, and out of these two completed construction and eight are currently under construction.

Many of the entitled projects that have not moved forward yet were only recently entitled, and there continues to be new projects coming in utilizing this policy.

We saw an increase in applications after the removal of all the criteria in the second four-year review cycle.

Before that, 11 of these 15 projects came in after the second four-year review cycle completed.

The housing element of the general plan addresses the housing needs of economically demographically and culturally diverse population of San Jose.

Oops.

The fifth cycle regional housing needs allocation arena allocated approximately 35,000 residential units for San Jose with approximately 45% for affordable income levels and 55% for market rate.

Just under 22,000 units were constructed during this cycle with about 5500 affordable units and 16,000 market rate units.

The affordable units constructed only met 26% of the RENA goal for affordable units, but the market rate units constructed, they met 115% of RENA goal for market rate units.

The sixth cycle of the arena allocated 62,200 residential units to San Jose with approximately 55% for affordable units and 45% for market rate units.

To meet these goals, approximately 4,300 affordable units and 3,500 market rate units need to be constructed each year.

In the first two calendar years for this cycle, approximately 4,200 affordable units and 1700 market rate units have been constructed.

This is a little less than half of the affordable units needed per year, and only about a quarter of the market rate units needed per year to meet the goals.

In 2025 calendar year, approximately 2,300 units have been permitted so far.

Over the last decade, the state has enacted a series of housing laws that significantly limited local discretion and accelerated in order to accelerate project approvals.

Here are some of the impacts of the local house of the state housing law reforms.

For example, ministerial processes were replaced.

By the approvals were expanded.

Small lot and missing middle housing was allowed widely and in single-family zones.

Example by SB9 that authorizes duplexes and urban lot splits in single-family neighborhoods.

Residential uses allowed on commercial and office parcels under certain conditions.

By SB6, AB 2011 and AB 1490.

SB4 enables faith-based and non-profit colleges to develop affordable housing on South Buslands.

These reforms require the city to update zoning and permitting processes and apply clear objective standards for design and consistency findings.

I'm now going to hand over to David for the rest of the presentation.

Thank you.

Hello, this is David Ball.

I'll be going over the later sections of the province report outside of housing and residential development.

I'll be covering economic development goals, healthy community goals, and environmental goals.

San Jose's general plan prioritizes economic development as a core strategy for our city's future, strengthening our role as a global innovation hub, while ensuring broad prosperity for residents.

Since the last general plan four-year review, we've seen a large momentum, more than 1.2 million square feet of industrial space has advanced.

Industrial vacancy remains low at 3.5%, and we've continued to preserve vital middle-wage jobs.

These efforts directly support our long-term goal as stated in major strategy 4 for an innovation regional employment center of adding 382,000 new jobs, achieving the jobs to employ-resident ratio of 1.1, and sustaining balanced growth between employment and housing.

The city's business climate remains strong with about 428,000 existing total jobs and steady employment growth.

Our unemployment rate remains low at 4.8%.

While office recovery has been more gradual with vacancy rates at 20% citywide and 30% vacancy in downtown.

San Jose's industrial and retail sectors continue to perform well.

Vacancy remains among the lowest in the region.

Retail space vacancy is less than 5%, and industrial space vacancy is about 3.5%.

More than 1.2 million square feet of industrial space under construction.

We can see the demand for industrial space is still strong.

Emerging industries are driving the next wave of opportunity in San Jose.

Artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and clean technology are all expanding rapidly.

These sectors are supported by new AI incentive programs, energy infrastructure upgrades, and other investments positioning San Jose as a national leader in advanced manufacturing and innovation.

Over the past few years, our economic development efforts have helped attract and retain approximately 20,000 jobs through outreach, corporate engagement and business support.

We strengthen partnerships with state and federal agencies to secure significant investments.

These include new semiconductor facilities by Nokia, Western Digital, and as well as collaborations with NVIDIA to leverage AI technologies for workforce and sustainability goals.

We anticipate steady job and publisher growth, continued expansion, and semiconductor sectors and major new energy capacity with 1,000 megawatts of transmission lines scheduled to come online by 2028 to support our growing tech and manufacturing base.

At the same time, San Jose's cultural economy has rebounded.

Outdoor events are exceeding pre-pandemic levels, and new public art installations are enriching a community life.

Cultural and international events in the region include the 2026 Super Bowl, FIFA World Cup, and CAA tournaments will elevate San Jose's global profile, driving local spending, and reinforce our standing as the capital of Silicon Valley.

San Jose is the largest and most urban city in Silicon Valley, home to roughly 1 million residents, but we continue to face a significant jobs to housing imbalance.

Our current jobs to employ resident ratio is 0.84, meaning there are fewer jobs here than employed residents.

In fact, twice as many San Jose residents commute out of the city for work than those who both live and work here.

As you can see in the chart, it hasn't changed much since 2014, where we were at 0.82.

This imbalance impacts our fiscal health, traffic congestion, and air quality.

Because of Proposition 13, cities like San Jose with a high share of residential development, collect less revenue from property taxes, while employment-based development brings in stronger returns that support city services and infrastructure.

You can clearly see the imbalance and the catch up we need compared to our neighboring cities.

The general plan envisions healthy communities as places where urban design, natural resources, and public services work together to promote well-being.

Three major strategies along with many goals and policies in Envision San Jose 2040 general plan, guide this vision.

Calls for streets that are safe, complete, and central to neighborhood identity.

Major strategy 10, life amongst abundant natural resources, emphasizes access to open space, parks, trails, and the protection of hillsides and natural areas.

And major strategy 11, designed for helpful community highlights active access to helpful, active living, access to helpful foods and equitable health and safety services.

Together, these strategies help create a city that supports wellness, equity, and environmental stewardship in every neighborhood.

San Jose is making major strides towards a faster, cleaner, and more connected transportation network.

As of June 2025, our total bikeway network has grown to nearly 485 miles, including 48 miles of protected lanes, and our trail system now spans almost 67 miles with more projects underway.

We're advancing safer, more equitable mobility through the Move San Jose plan, Vision Zero, and the transit first policy.

All of these policies focus on reducing vehicle miles traveled and creating a more complete streets for everyone.

Transit access is improving as well.

Today, 84% of households are within half a mile of frequent transit service.

Regionally, we've seen major progress, including cow train electrification, the East Bridge to Bart extension is under construction, and planning continues for high-speed rail at Deradon Station and the BART phase two for downtown connections.

In 2024, the federal transit administration committed to funding 40% of total project costs, totaling about 5.1 billion, making one of the largest federal transit investments in the nation.

San Jose continues to make significant strides to our vision of nationally recognized parks and recreation.

We now manage 215 parks, 46 community centers, and 67 miles of trails, expanding inclusive access with new all-lability playgrounds and upgrade facilities.

Beyond recreation, we're improving community health.

Over 354,000 meals were served through our senior nutrition program and 18 farmers' markets and 18 community gardens, connect residents to fresh local food.

We're also leading on equity serving 1.2 million residents and participants annually through these programs.

Urban and rural agriculture are moving ahead.

Partnerships like vegetation and the preservation of 1,500 acres in Coyote Valley.

Resulted from our last four-year review, underscore how our commitment to sustainability, food access, and climate resilience.

Together, these efforts are transforming San Jose into a healthier, more connected, and more equitable city for all.

San Jose is leading the way in environmental action with bold leadership.

Clear programs and growing committee involvement.

Clean energy plays a central role in this progress with San Jose Clean Energy providing a 95.6% carbon-free energy portfolio in 2023 and securing major renewable investments.

At the same time, building programs are driving uh measurable results.

The building performance ordinance covers around 1,800 large commercial and multifamily buildings, achieving a 22% reduction in gas use intensity and an 18% decrease in electricity consumption since 2019.

Water use intensity has also fallen by 18% among these properties.

Canadian participation continues to grow through the climate smart challenge, which helps save energy, water, and reduced emissions.

San Jose has made significant progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, cutting them by 35% since 2008 and 15% since 2017.

This progress is driven by cleaner energy efficiency and local programs.

However, in 2023, emissions plateaued for the first time in over a decade due to a slight rise in natural gas use and increased transportation emissions linked to higher vehicle, higher vehicle travel and lower transit ridership.

These challenges highlight the urgent need to strengthen efforts in transportation and building electrification to stay on track for carbon neutrality by 2030.

In 2021, the city adopted a resolution committing to carbon neutrality by 2030, establishing one of the most ambitious local climate targets in the nation.

This was followed by 20 followed in 2022 by the pathway to carbon neutrality, which sets out sector-specific strategies for transportation, building energy, and natural land.

San Jose's Clean Energy provides nearly all local homes and businesses with affordable renewable electricity, achieving a 95.6 carbon free energy portfolio in 2023, and supporting customers like rooftop solar and electrification to drive down emissions and costs.

San Jose's community forest management plan is key to preserving and expanding the city's urban tree canopy, which helps reduce heat, improve air quality, and support public health.

So came to the end.

This concludes our presentation on our four-year progress report.

We're open for any questions and follow-up comments.

Thank you, Chair.

I just first wanted to compliment the staff on the report.

It's very dense, but uh I really liked your blue sidebars.

That was really a nice break.

And I just wanted to say thank you because I know how much work that was.

And I'd also like to uh first of all uh thank all the folks that are here.

Glad to see you all here that we had a good turnout.

But I would really recommend if you haven't read this report that you do.

It's really interesting, uh, very eliminating on what we're doing now and the challenges we have ahead.

And I think the city has a website uh that maybe they'll put up again for that.

I have um I have a QR code too.

Uh I have a couple questions.

Um one is uh on page one hundred ten there's a reference to the HE program P35.

Um can you clarify what that is?

I'm just not familiar with that.

What we'll look up that.

Can you repeat that?

H?

Uh it's on page 110.

It's HE program P-35.

Small multifamily housing.

Housing housing, yeah.

So H E just means housing element, and in chapter three of our housing element, um, all the programs have numbers and letters associated with them.

And so P P 35 is kind of one of our key larger programs, mentioned in the scope a little bit around that missing middle, small multifamily housing.

Um, so that's where we're going to consider four to ten units on various sites throughout the city.

So anytime you see the HE is just our acronym for housing element, and then the letter dash number is the reference to the program.

So that's right.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

And then on page three.

There's a reference to a program called MHIP.

Just wondering what that is.

Yeah, it's our multifamily housing incentive program.

It was started last year, and it gives a um uh fee and tax reduction um to multifamily housing meetings to certain qualifications.

Umita mentioned, you know, kind of that recent uptick we've seen kind of in the last few quarters.

A lot of the market rate multifamily housing that we've seen breakground has been able to utilize that program, um, and so kind of relates to that uptick that we've seen.

Um so we should have clarified that acronym, so apologies for that, but that's what that refers to.

So basically a program to try and encourage construction by reducing some of the some of the costs.

Yeah, that that's right.

So, you know, I mean, we recognize that we're you know, there's a lot of costs that go into the construction of new housing, and while our ours is one slice of that kind of stack, um, doing what we can do, you know, to try to incentivize that construction is is what we what we're doing with that program.

So if there's a construction tax reduction, um, and then the amount of affordable housing that they're required to provide um in within the program under our inclusionary housing ordinance is is reduced if and they have certain deadlines in terms of when they need to have building permits issued.

Right now it's the end of the year.

Um housing department is is considering extending the program given some of the success that we've we've seen with it so far.

So, great, thank you.

Um, you know, one of the things that kind of stood out to me in the report was um how little development there appeared to be in the 2425 fiscal year.

It was interesting to me because um, you know, I understand after COVID, there definitely was an understandable drop in development.

Um interest rates were very high, there were supply chain issues, etc.

But it seemed like it rebounded somewhat in 2223 and 2324, but then 2425 I noticed uh multifamily units permitted was quite low, and also um just some other, you know, some other um aspects of development other than industrial, it looks like industrial we're doing pretty well.

But um, I'm just curious if you had any ideas of why 2425 was was such a challenge.

Um one thing I can comment on on some of that multifamily rebound that you did see a significant component of that was uh affordable housing that we saw constructed, so um you know it's definitely susceptible to those market forces in terms of the cost of construction and labor, but with um you know, kind of the the dollars out there to subsidize those units, they are they were able to move forward.

Um I think it was and I uh to look at the exact year, we had we were close to meeting our low income yearly target um for under the the housing element, and so we kind of saw those numbers come from those affordable housing numbers.

Um more recently we've seen the uptick on market rate, which is good.

Still, you know, we haven't hit kind of the traditional average that we had, you know, around it was over 2,000 units a year, right?

Which as Sanhita showed, allowed us in that fifth cycle to meet our above uh moderate goal for housing units, which is our market rate numbers, because of the production that we had early on um in the in the general plan.

Um I don't have as much to say about the commercial, but that's some something around what we've seen on on the the um the housing goals.

Can you maybe add in a little bit on that too?

Uh just reviewing a lot of the data.

I did a lot of the data work on this, but there is just a natural kind of ebb and flow to stuff it's like it doesn't always come in very consistently and I think it kind of shows that it happened like right in the beginning of the the fiscal year this year I think a lot of that we had anticipated would potentially go last fiscal year like very towards the end but um it seemed to have just kind of you know kicked itself into the next fiscal year and that kind of happens you just get kind of some months really low some really high just kind of that natural up and flow to some of it.

That makes sense so um Jared I think you were saying that you have seen somewhat of an uptick um since the start of the fiscal year or just in the last couple months you know there there was it was very very low as you saw and we've seen in those first couple quarters an uptick you know I don't I don't want to I don't know that it's gonna necessarily get us you know there but it is at least some positive momentum I don't know how long or how far that that's gonna go but um at least we won't be we'll we'll be well above what we had last fiscal year but um I think it's still gonna be a challenge to get anywhere um as to where we were you know kind of historically um on on housing permits so okay yeah it's just really a puzzling to me on multifamily especially market rate because we have such a shortage of rental units and the rents are really high so you'd think that developers would be able to you know get a good rate of return on projects but um I guess part of the part of the issue as I understand is interest rates for uh construction financing is are really high right now so um anyway um thank you that's all my questions thank you Chair Commissioner Cantrell actually uh Commissioner Young I I think I have kind of an answer for you uh about some of the cyclical uh growth patterns we see it seems to be directly tied to recessionary periods um and it's interesting because other cities of our scale have been able to get enough things in the pipeline so that during those periods growth continues at a lower rate but maybe only slightly so not so significantly so I'm a recovery strategy consultant so I I'll tell you that um there can be a strategy for that um we we should actually consider looking at those patterns and creating strategies to address them as they happen in stream um so one big suggestion too I'm I'm curious with the uh growth areas were we expecting all most of our growth to come from those areas only was that the plan so um so the way the policies are written is like we anticipate most of the like intense growth to happen in our growth areas but the but there are land use designations outside of growth areas that do allow for some higher density housing to be built there is commercial designation that's not in growth areas you know we have our little neighborhood um commercial areas there is some like older industrial that just was not included maybe in a designated growth area I think one of the main points too for residential was the AD production when we adopted the general plan in 2011 we were only permitting like 10 ADU units a year and um you know with the state law changes now we have a significant uptick in ADU production and those can go anywhere it's basically anything that has a residential use law on it already can build an ADU so it those are significant numbers that are going to be outside of growth areas that wasn't originally anticipated when the general plan was first adopted.

So there is some room for it to be outside of growth areas but we want to like concentrate most of it within the growth areas.

I think that might be a significant flaw um because that's only 16% of our city right it I don't know if it I don't know the percentage, but I mean generally that that was one of the key strategies, right?

A key strategies of our general plan is focus growth, right?

So the major growth for both employment for residential is focused in those areas.

So that that's how the general plan was constructed.

And the reasoning was to promote transit, help sustain you know, sustainable sustainability goals, environmental goals, right?

We don't want growth everywhere on the fringes.

We wanted that very focused, and it was to achieve all these different sort of goals for um through the general plan.

Yeah, I I definitely get it.

But it it just seems like the plan should be multi-pronged instead of basically one way of doing it.

I hope we get an opportunity to reflect on that, because I think I'll just say that I think equity is the key here.

I think this is gonna it could solve a lot of problems for us.

Because we talked about employment being at five 4.8%, not for a substantial number of our citizens, is that the case?

For blacks, it's it's at least double and growing.

For Latinos, it's almost double.

Um Asian community is doing very well in that area, uh, and the white community is beginning to see some decline.

So part of our problem, I think is a jobs and employment problem, or you know, if you look at the breakdown, the people who are not developing communities not developing at the rate they need to to sustain our entire community, are basically underemployed.

This is an opportunity for our OED to really focus on equity, both in education um and employment to really make this work better for us all.

I think that's one of the reasons it's so difficult to live here is because wages or rent outpaces wages significantly.

So if we were to focus on those problems and to actually look at the communities most harmed by those problems and help develop those communities, um, I think we'd all be in much better shape together.

Um I think I have one other point.

Um, yeah, I'll just say this because this is my sound bug.

I think we're constantly asking communities to lift them up themselves up by their bootstraps without support from our city, and I don't think we notice that those booths don't have any souls.

Um so we I think this is an opportunity for us to really holistically look at not just our planning, but bringing OED and to look at how we address economic inequity.

Vice Chair Bickford.

Uh I just have a question about that ADU growth, the the slide that you showed.

Does that ADU growth contribute to the overall count into the housing element?

Yeah, uh ADUs are actually their own category that we report on uh annually on our progress.

So it does those units too count uh towards our towards our goals.

And where are we compared to what because you said it it accelerated more rapidly?

So I just didn't didn't see a line item that said we expected this and we got this.

Can you show the slide?

And I may have missed it as the slide went by, but I'm uh I think to um Laura's point we were, yes, this slide.

We were permitting, I mean, back in the 2011 when this was adopted, 11 um 80 use in one fiscal year in one year, and now we're in like the 500, 400.

Yeah, my question was though, what was the expectation?

Did we have one in our housing element or did we have one with the uh a goal for each of those years?

Um we do.

We calculated I can't remember.

I'm saying around 300, maybe a year, because um, you know, not all ADUs are used for housing.

Sometimes you know, they they're waiting for someone else.

She sheds, yes.

Um, but we did anticipate, I believe, 300 a year as part of our housing element.

And and do we have that estimate going forward or I are we anticipating increases, steady states?

Do we know?

I mean, uh you know, I think it's a little bit um to be determined, but I think as you can kind of see a little bit from the data, I feel like in the last couple of years it's kind of plateaued in terms of our production where you're kind of seeing just over that 500 range is kind of what and so I I suspect I mean this is you know, uh I think this is all sort of new territory, right?

You see you saw big growth after kind of the laws changed, you know, in 1718 and then 1919.

Um, but I I suspect it will start to decline as we sort of, you know, tapped into that capacity, you know, and people that are able to do it were do it, you know.

So I I think it it'll continue to be a component of our housing production, but I think it's gonna be challenging to rely on it as a significant contributor to you know that sixty two thousand number and our future number.

So I think it's it's an important aspect, but at these levels we're we're not gonna get to that meaningful production that you know I think we need in order to hit the goals that we have.

Do we have a bit of time in our schedules come coming up just to talk about that for in November?

ADUs.

Um maybe if you can give us a questions, we can think about that and if we can incorporate it at either maybe the residential capacity um discussion and bring some some background, that might be actually a good time for us to do that.

Um if you want to just email them to to the team, gotta hope that'll help.

Thank you.

I was speaking earlier today with somebody and uh the question came up how many pools does the city currently manage.

We have someone from the parks department here who could answer that question.

The city you uh Raymond Costantino, City of San Jose, uh Capital Projects Division Deputy Director.

Um the city currently has six pools that we manage.

Then um this may be a question perhaps for the city attorney.

But so in in the fifth cycle, we had 21,000 out of 35,000 as our arena target, so about 60 percent, and you know, we weren't penalized by HCD for only hitting 60%, is that correct?

Or roughly, yeah, there was no penalty.

Um, and right now we're at 10% of our goal for the sixth cycle.

Do we have any idea or there are any uh examples from perhaps the fifth cycle where any city was penalized for not meeting the arena numbers?

Or do we have any other questions?

No of any penalties.

I mean, no, I I mean one that does come come to mind, not necessarily a penalty, but the way that SP 35 was implemented and now spour or sp 423, um it was it was based on your performance on above moderate, so um initially on SP 35 projects they they had to have 50% affordable, um, and then cities where they weren't performing on above moderate only required 10% affordable.

Um so that was not necessarily a penalty, but a way that it was enforced.

Um so each year in June, HCD comes out with the determination in terms of how cities are doing, um, and then it determines what level of affordability is required for those streamlined projects that could move forward.

Um I think the the key thing for our continued compliance is that we are performing on those programs.

We're implementing, we're doing the actions that we committed to.

I mentioned chapter three of our housing element that those programs and policy changes that we committed to in those timelines, um, at least in the six cycle, it you know, the state has said that that's really important that that's what they're gonna be monitoring for.

Obviously, they'll be watching how our numbers are, but that those policy changes that included metrics and milestones that were hitting those targets.

Um in particular, in the letter to us, they had a set of programs that they were gonna be scrutinizing closely in terms of our implementation, um, which the the small multifamily program was one of those, um, as well as some some other programs.

Um, so I think that's that's where we're f we're obviously focused on the numbers, but also how we're doing on those programs and policies.

And if I may add to that, uh Chair Rosario, so this is not unique to San Jose, right?

Like these numbers are a direct causation of, you know, items beyond our control, local control.

So it's really tied to the financial markets and the interest rates.

And so this is probably affecting a lot of jurisdictions in this thing.

And I'll say the penalty is the builder's remedy, right?

I mean the penalty, right?

We're basically creating aspirational goals to reach a certain number, but they can't force a city or a jurisdiction to reach those numbers, right?

I mean, the legislat California legislature is trying, we're trying, everybody's trying to create these incentives to build housing.

However, it's so hard to build housing because it doesn't make any money.

So, developers aren't gonna make money from building housing, they're not gonna build housing.

And there's only so much that we can do as a city to encourage them to do that or the state to encourage them to do that.

Um, and uh it basically putting together this housing element plan to build that many units, um, and if we're not able to implement that plan or execute that plan, then the builder's remedy is the penalty that says you can build housing anywhere.

I guess when when we're speaking to our community groups or neighborhood associations and whatnot, we say, well, we're supposed to hit this number of housing units, otherwise we could, you know, HCD may impose some type of penalty order.

You're speaking to them in your personal capacity, is that what you're telling me?

Obviously.

But if they report with, no, they aren't.

No, they are what?

A C D there's not gonna be any you know, repercussions if we don't meet those numbers.

Yeah, I mean the I know that you can jump in, but uh the idea here is is to work together with the state to create the environment where we can encourage incentivize development, but yeah, there's not going to be I mean I don't I don't know what kind of maybe a fine is that something like that.

Or I mean builders remedy.

If I could add too, I mean I think that's going back to those programs and and performing on the housing element in those ways.

So if they find us out of compliance and we're not we haven't sufficiently made the effort to implement those programs, for example, then they could decide to withdraw our our certification of the housing element.

When they withdraw that certification, then the city can be subject to to builders' remedy.

And there's other means that can be pursued by the attorney general as as well.

So um, you know, there's examples of other cities in Southern California who have not you know sufficiently agreed to do what they said that they would do.

Um, and so there are you know various avenues being pursued by HCD and the attorney general in terms of you know getting them to that that compliance.

Um there's I think that's other cities in the state.

I don't know if the number and there's there's even other penalties that can go beyond builders' remedy.

They can revoke our ability to issue permits, even building permits, if we continue to disregard what they tell us to do.

So there are um jurisdictions that have been subject to that as well.

So there's it kind of can escalate, and we hope never to get there, but that that is kind of where it can go if we don't um again it's you know the numbers are important, but it's also how are we showing, you know, as Daniel was saying, it's we talked about this a little bit in the study session, right?

We we create the environment right for housing production, and we're one element of that, you know.

Um we're not all the other elements like that, you know, economy, you know, labor costs and those things, but we have to do our part and share what we committed to.

Anything else from the commissioners before we move to public comment.

I just wonder I forgot to say.

This is what I meant to say earlier.

Um focusing on those court theories the way we did seems like the definition of putting all our eggs in one basket.

Yeah, I I think you know, to to that point, I think this this look at at our city, you know, as we look at capacity, we're gonna, and I think that's indicated in the scope, we're gonna have to start to look outside those areas.

I think, you know, we've we've pursued that and we're gonna continue to pursue that, but in order to reach those numbers, we have to look, you know, no stone has is left unturned, right?

We have to look at all areas in of the city in order to grow and provide opportunity for housing, right?

That's exactly what I'm wondering who was saying.

All right, moving on to public comment.

If uh you would like to make public comment and you haven't already, please fill out a speaker's card and give that to the technician.

Each member of the public may address the commission for up to two minutes in response to public comment.

The commission is limited to the following options responding to statements made or questions posed by members of the public or requesting staff to report back at a subsequent meeting.

Uh I have a stack of cards here, so please line up be behind the mic when possible.

We'll start with Mike Sodergrin and then Larry Ames and then Robert Wood.

Thank you for your service in doing this.

All of them appreciate it.

Um I had two points I wanted to make.

One is a process point since we're just starting this process.

First task force.

Can we possibly, instead of the I make a speech process for two minutes, engage technology that allows us to text in questions that a moderator could potentially address in the course of the meetings going forward?

That would be that's done very successfully at conferences and training seminars, and I think that we could step into that.

So that's a comment.

Uh, the second comment is um what is the limit of the policy exploration um that we are this task force can explore?

Is there any chance that we'll collaborate with other cities?

Is there any chance we're gonna challenge what the state has, you know, issued, like in SB 79?

Um I would like us in the case of that example to uh develop as a part of this task force worst-case examples of what it could mean.

Pictorial examples, like in in the example of uh SB 79.

Um, could we potentially lose 90% of the downtown commercial historic district, um uh uh under SB 79, right?

Could we have a 28-story building in a residential neighborhood um in Willow Glen or Almaden or West San Jose?

Um, I would like to know the policy options that we have to preserve um local land use decisions.

It seems to me that um even if we disagree as the public with a local land use decision, you are local.

We can talk to you, we can vote for you, not vote for you if you're if you're a council member, and it really is discerning.

It's concerning when you see that all of that is seemingly transferring to the state, and uh because of the state direction on housing, are we just resigned that we're the jobs ratio, uh jobs to housing ratio that we fought so hard to improve is gonna be stuck at point eight four?

Thank you.

Um staff, would you be able to report back on the questions that uh Mr.

Soderman just posed?

Maybe you may need to clarify the second one, but regarding texting in terms of and then also what are our options if uh the state takes away local control.

Yeah, we are we are we open to exploring options that you I hate to say it, but for clouds and other cities, in clearing how we could be basically 75 areas, um, to see see how everyone can address that.

Thank you, Ruth.

Well, let me let me just address the the texting comment.

Usually, and I think this is a perfect point is that um public comments not necessarily a conversation with the public, right?

So it's difficult for us to sit here and field different questions from various members or various questions from the same member um as we do in a conference.

And I I like that feature of being in a conference or being in a you know a webinar and being able to ask questions and at the end folks are able to you know answer those questions.

I I perhaps we could use the speaker cards to write some questions down and maybe folks can entertain those questions.

Because there's a lot of questions, and this is supposed to be a study session, and we want public input, so I think um we'll think on that just how how we can kind of figure out that non-dialogue public comment yeah Larry Ames.

Okay.

I'm Larry Ames um housing is important it impacts the affordability in the homeless issues and so forth but you want to you want to build in the appropriate areas you want to be near transit and you want to be away from sensitive habitats and also want to say historic structures in neighborhoods.

What is the impact to the jobs per employed resident ratio?

That was important in the previous version in fact the environmental of this vision 2040 is tied to the city's structural budget deficits.

So if you build more housing well that make it still have worse structural deficits in the future.

Also is the urban village concept still viable um this the city has guided I mean there are guidelines rather than uh mandated uh quantitative requirements in the state laws requiring quantitative quantitative requirements now and so for example there's a project at race street at San Carlos Street is in an urban it's supposed to be an urban village dense high density thing and you ended up approving a large parking lot with a single one story building in it because that was the only requirement that you're able to hold was it did not have drive through it's supposed to have been but those the other things are all guidelines and so you couldn't enforce them.

I want to point out that parks are important especially in the high density developments.

Residents do not have backyards there and so the parks provide them with the critical access to daylight fresh air and nature.

The urban villages need to designate parklands or at least have floating parks so that the facilitate future planning for the parks and also park waiver you give waivers and the fees for parks which was supposed to incentivize development but that's trying to counter global financial issues and so it's not successful.

So do not give away park plans just to try to find something that's not successful.

Thank you.

I I think those are some great questions.

We had a joint session recently with city council and uh the mayor mentioned what the jobs to employed residence ratio should be and if it if the uh if there was an increase in housing um and that didn't move the needle on the jobs to employed ratio would that be a necessarily a bad thing and if it increased affordability um so how focused on that number exactly should we be that was an interesting uh question he had and um the urban villages are they still viable uh we'll be going over that in I think two separate study sessions during this um in no November and then later in the year so that's certainly a some an issue we're going to be discussing uh in this task with this task force.

But thank you.

Please stay in other words please stay tuned.

All right.

Let's see.

Let's see Robert Wood.

Yeah hi I'm Robert Wood I'm professor of strategic management at San Jose State and I'm chair of the housing committee of the San Jose State chapter of the California faculty association.

We've got nine professors including three members of the urban planning department so a little bit of knowledge about uh these issues uh and I want to make uh some points about the failure of the plan so of the general plan since 2011 because I think they're being uh neglected here um the the the and I want to say that I think there's no way that the majors mayor's goals of uh including ending unsheltered homelessness is going to be achieved without more dramatic change in uh housing production than seems to be set up for uh so far we're averaging maybe two thousand units a year on the right I'm sure there's going to be an uptick as interest rates come down um but the the the the economists working behind Rena uh clearly showed we need 7700, 8,000 uh and I'm afraid that if uh uh city planning's approach is followed, we're gonna have homelessness continuing to rise and overwhelming the shelter beds that the city's promising and this graph uh uh compares San Jose housing production to Seattle's, and you can see that till 2006, San Jose consistently produced the same amount of housing as Seattle, but after the completion of the 2011 plan here, San Jose consistently produced about one-fifth of the amount of housing of Seattle.

Um, and uh uh there are two big problems in uh that drive that.

Um, one is the small amount of land available for multifamily and small unit single family housing.

Uh, and the other is that um uh in the growth areas, the city prescribed 50 units per acre, and 50 units per acre development is much more expensive than uh uh than uh 25 units or 30 units per acre.

Uh and it's turned out, I've talked to many developers, that they're not able to develop at those units.

Uh I sent in some slides that expand on what I'm saying here, and they um uh include a couple of pictures of areas where development is impossible because of the 50 unit per acre minimum.

Uh I have plenty more of those pictures if you want to take a look at them.

Um I think uh uh we really need um uh um uh to develop effective use of the growth area land that we've got and to find more land that can be used for housing, and that's gonna have to include some land that's currently uh dedicated to uh uh warehouses and other low intensity uses.

And I'm looking forward greatly to your work on residential capacity.

Where can we access those?

Uh where can we access those additional?

Uh there was a there was a uh uh on your end, on your um uh agenda it says if you have a comment, please send it to planning staff at uh such time.

You guys should have it.

I gave you nine nine slides, and um if you want more, I got lots more pictures.

I did some for uh member of the city council, and I can sort of some for this group here if there's interest.

We have a copy of it, and we'll make sure to share it, and we'll also post it to the four-year review webpage under this meeting under public comments.

Okay, I know Vice Chair Big Fur is very interested in uh increasing the land liberal group.

I would love to see those slides.

Okay, well, we as a group and the uh uh uh California Faculty Association would love to work with the community here to uh uh to show ways of expanding uh uh housing production and getting you know sort of close to where Seattle is.

Getting close to where Seattle and Sacramento are should be a goal.

Right.

Next, we either we have our Harry Neil, Elizabeth uh Agriman, Justinum, and Mani Beckle.

Michaela.

Hello.

Uh my name is Harry Neal.

Uh I'm a local transit advocate and a member of BTA Citizens Advisory Committee, but I'm here in my personal capacity not representing them.

I've got a couple of points uh I want to uh hit on uh one is uh the project in advance of an urban village plan.

I believe for an affordable project, it should be uh lowered from 100% down to 50%.

Makes sense to me.

Uh this is possibly going to be unpopular, but single-family home zones can't be left blanket-protected anymore.

They are too much of our city's land and they need to be open for development because so many of them are in high resource areas that should really be used for much higher density.

Uh also light rail stations need to have every possible barrier to development lowered.

Uh it should be as easy to develop a 25-story mixed-use tower to light rail station as it is to develop a single family home elsewhere in the city.

Uh urban design guidelines should be relaxed, especially on building form.

This is something that both particularly annoys me, and is uh an issue of cost as well.

Uh the articulation mandates in urban design guidelines where you have to have a bit that uh might stick out or a bit that might go back in.

That adds cost and it is not an inherent, it's it does not inherently make a building better.

There are lots of both historical buildings here in San Jose and elsewhere around the world that don't have articulation on their facades and they look beautiful.

I see no reason for that should be mandated, especially when it adds cost.

Urban village plans for light rail stations especially should be fast tracked as soon as possible.

And if that is not possible, then uh frankly, just as uh with what SB 79 is doing.

Uh, all of those uh stations should just be blanket zoned as urban village to uh enable mixed use high density uh development around them.

Also, highly recommend looking to San Diego for successful housing development policy, especially an ADU density bonus and the super streamlined permitting that they have, making it so most permits are uh done in eight business days or less now.

Thank you.

I believe those are some unpopular uh suggestions, but I do appreciate them.

Hi, I strongly support extremely low income housing, including permit supportive housing.

Um I support uh housing that is truly affordable for folks with extremely low income under 30% AMI.

Historically, not enough is built in our city.

Folks that will folks that will really benefit from this directly are black, indigenous, Latinx uh communities, immigrants, senior citizens, folks with disability students, and folks with low income.

This should be the benchmark for what we truly deem affordable rather than the 80% AMI being deemed affordable in terms of development and production of housing.

Um I support creating mixed income housing in residential areas and near transit, um, increasing affordable housing housing in high resource areas.

Having housing buildings in communities that are mixed income and racially demographically and socially diverse is advantageous to everyone in our community.

It helps provide folks with new financial and social resources and opportunities.

It allows folks to learn about one another and makes it so that we can all thrive.

Also, I think that we should keep uh deed uh have deed restricted um units.

They should not expire.

We should work on trying to do that.

And then also we should really focus on uh rent stabilization, rental assistance, and we should take in mind um what HR1 is going to have uh in terms of impacts for the most vulnerable in our community.

So we need to really work hard to prevent evictions or else we'll continuously fall into a cycle of not having enough, and even more and more people are becoming uh unhoused.

So um thank you.

I believe we're seeing an increase in the people in first time unhoused folks, so right.

Good evening.

My name is Mani Vacoa, and I'm a high school student and a resident of San Jose District 3.

Um I am a member of the climate advisory commission, but I'm speaking in my personal capacity.

I'm also co-ead of the San Jose Youth Climate Action team.

I'm here to request that as you review the general plan, you incorporate climate action as one of your top priorities, as it's one of the biggest issues facing our city right now.

Environmental leadership was one of the top three community priorities identified in the creation of the 2040 general plan in Vision San Jose, and our city has been in a declared climate emergency for six years.

We have committed to carbon neutrality within five years, and we are not yet on track.

Planning and land use is critical in the climate transition.

Please make sure to do everything possible to support dense, walkable, bikeable, and transit-oriented communities, as other speakers have mentioned, um, rapidly increasing uh housing development near transit and decreasing the prevalence of single-family zoning.

Of course, far too many San Jose residents are facing homelessness or near to it, and the cause of that is lack of access to housing that is affordable.

Um I ask you to listen to the voices of community members, advocates for um housing um the homeless and equity, and to, for instance, using zoning to expand the areas where our city can build affordable housing.

This affordable housing can go hand in hand with our climate goals.

Dense, well designed in build developments can make it much easier for us to use climate friendly transportation and to live without the need for a car.

Please advance this in full development and not development in open space where residents would lack easy transit access, economic opportunity, in addition of course to the destruction of the natural environments in those areas, especially Coyote Valley.

Once again, please put um the two most pressing issues we face front and center and have a plan review, the crisis of climate change and the crisis of unaffordable housing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Those are all the cards I have any others.

Anything further from the commissioners or s I just had a question about some of the comments.

I mean do we reference back to them now?

I mean like some of them that talked about the articulation of buildings and things like that, that's not part of the scope of this effort so it wouldn't be I don't know.

Is there a way to give some clarity to some of the comments tonight or it's just a collection of the general plan review is not going to talk about building permits and the design of buildings and things like that.

So just setting expectations correctly for two participate.

Yes and what um we could do for the next meeting is maybe in the beginning just briefly address sort of and and we will have a synopsis and try to post as many of the comments that we get.

But you're right, you know design guidelines, we're not gonna work on that.

It's not part of the scope um and I'm sorry you said something oh uh building permit process um our our team does work on that but it's not part of this work as well okay just so we can kind of set expectations that we're we're hearing you but this group's not gonna do anything about it but it's still being categorized.

In this process there are other places task forces groups, people jobs, etc.

Yes, thank you.

No, exactly that's not what I think we're hearing it and then we're not gonna work on it in this forum but you know we can pass it on to the right group.

Are they if I could just if I could just chair sorry could I direct a question to city attorney?

Yes Commissioner Young okay.

So typically at our planning commission meetings we do not respond to public comment.

Are we in a different situation here because we're in a task force or I think it's a it's a little bit different right I mean I think at the end of public comment I don't what I want to avoid is just a direct dialogue with the public because that's not what's meant because then what you're doing is you're creating an unfair situation where there's others who may want to have a dialogue and you don't have a dialogue with them and then there's others that you choose which people to have a dialogue with so we want to avoid that right but there are certain questions that may pique your interest uh during public comment and I think it's appropriate at the at the end of that or like uh Ruth suggested maybe in next meeting we could address some of those meeting uh some of those questions to give staff a little bit of time to research if if necessary um but I think that it's helpful for you all to raise some of the questions or at least say hey you know I also want to know about that um I think that's helpful and that's certainly appropriate.

Okay great thank you.

If I may add to that the chair so you know we as you know we mentioned that some of these items may be beyond the scope of this task force meeting but staff is always looking for good ideas and we really welcome the input like I'm certainly curious about the eight day permitting process that San Diego may have and so we will certainly look into these and see where we're appropriate you know to incorporate into our processes but again they would not be individually they may not be individually discussed at the task force meetings on this within Commissioner Pumbo.

Thank you Chair.

A member of the public had a beautiful suggestion about texting questions uh even though the attorney mentioned that that can be kind of uh can be a little bit difficult to do.

Um I had a question that time per time comes to the planning commission uh which is that the meetings being available on Zoom is that something that we're still working on or is that something that's feasible or where are we with that?

I was gonna suggest if our city attorney wants to answer that question.

You're referring to receiving public like virtual comments through Zoom, right?

Yes.

Um well are we have a policy in place and so as of now the only body that allows that is our de as our director's hearing um meetings and it's still not um something that's allowed under the policy that we have in place so it has to be in person if you want to give public comment.

And that director's hearing meeting is held entirely virtual so there's not a kind of that hybrid option and that that's a policy set by by the city council.

And if if I may add some context to that I think that was a policy created in response to a lot of some bombing that had occurred with some really egregious comments coming through soon and so that is a policy that applies to all commission meetings for hybrid.

Just wanted to add to I think Ruth mentioned this as part of the outreach of just a little bit but I think what we're we're looking at is to have um an online engagement tool that does allow a little bit more ability to provide comments and for us to hopefully summarize those better and to provide those both to you and to city council and other public members as well so I think um hopefully we have another tool it won't necessarily be through this form and meeting but another way to engage the community through through online activity that's a bit more robust.

Yeah no I just wanted to add one more thing and I'll reiterate this until I'm blue in the face it's just this isn't the only time that you can email or express a public comment.

Email us at any time email questions at any time your your public comment piece is not the only time you get to address this body right so any email that is provided as correspondence is going to be provided to you all as part of the public record so any time you guys want to reach out to anybody do so that'll be part of the public record you want to send a question you want to make it look like a text message whatever you want to do just email us questions hopefully we can address those thank you I think uh prohibiting zoom bombing in uh implicates first amendment uh issues so there's that commissioner can throw actually just quickly I just wanted to say all the more important for people like you who show up and get heard and we can't unhear what you say.

So please let your neighbors know that your friends know showing up for at this point in our in our history is important.

I had one uh question all also with Commissioner Casey mentioned that there's some things we're gonna cover that are things that we are not and some things we'll mention that we will cover that we will not what is the what does residential capacity which is set right now for January 21st what is that going to encompass it seems like everything in some way touches on that if I'm not mistaken.

It does um and I think as you as as we bring the different topics you'll see how they're sort of connected but for that January meeting we're gonna bring our initial analysis on where um if by then I'm hoping we will have identified potential like future growth areas like I said maybe parts of Winchester parts of the Alameda um we're also we'll be talking about um the actual increase in residential capacity.

Right now we are capped our general plan covers a hundred and twenty thousand new units from when we adopted it so maybe now we're gonna say we want another 30,000 4000 whatever it is so we would have a number as well that we can share with you and maybe scenarios of where we think it makes sense to put those units like whether it's in those growth areas or if it'll be the small multifamily housing that's what we would we plan to discuss.

As well as um the residential designations and sort of what we're looking at are N and an MUM.

Thank you.

Any other comments from commissioners?

Anything from staff?

All right, then I think we're ready to adjourn tonight's meeting at eight thirty-seven.