Welcome to the fifth meeting of the 2025-2026 General Plan four year review.

For this four-year review, the planning commission is serving as the task force.

Please remember to turn off your cell phones.

And please, if you could keep your internal conversation to a minimum so that everyone in the audience can hear the entire conversation, that would be beneficial.

There's a parking validation machine in the back before the garage parking under City Hall.

And the agendas and the sign-up sheets are also available at the back.

Hopefully, everybody has signed in and let us know that you're here.

Thank you for being here.

I think half the people who would have been here went to the sharks game based on the flow of traffic and the people that waved at me on their way in the other direction.

I'm gonna go ahead and do roll call.

Um, Chair Rosario is not here.

Um Commissioner Barosio, I don't see.

Commissioner Bandal.

Oh, Commissioner Bandal.

There we go.

Uh Commissioner Cantrell.

Commissioner Cow.

Here.

Commissioner Casey.

Uh Commissioner Escobar?

Here.

Commissioner Nguyen.

I do not see.

Commissioner Oliverio.

Yes.

And Commissioner Young.

Thank you very much.

We have quorum, it appears.

Not that we need it.

We're not voting tonight.

All right.

Please note that public comment is listed as item number six on the agenda and will take place before the task force discussion.

Um that was based on input that we got from everyone that we'd like to hear what uh everyone has to say before we have the discussion, so we can address any of those things as well.

Um, you can fill out a speaker card and give it to a technician.

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 staff to report back on a matter at a subsequent meeting.

With that, I'm going to hand it over to staff to begin with item number two, the agenda overview.

Good evening.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh, good evening.

Um, task force members and community members.

I'm Sanhita Kosha, the supervising planner of the general plan and analytics team.

And tonight I'm joined by my team members uh Laura Maurer and David Fong.

Um, and three of us are going to give you the presentation in the beginning.

I also have Ruth Quedo and um Jared Ferguson here, principal planners to answer questions.

Okay, next.

Could you all do me a favor and pull your mic a little bit more toward you?

Yes.

Is this better?

Yes, thank you.

Yes.

Awesome.

Okay.

All right.

So first we're going to do a quick agenda overview.

Um, welcome and agenda overview are already done.

So the next item would be public outreach.

We'll give you a quick update on public outreach.

Then uh we're talking to talk about residential capacity and jobs to employed resident ratio, the two main topics of this evening.

Following that would be public comment and then task force discussion.

So the first item, public outreach.

Um, since the last update provided to the task force in March, we have on boarded onboarded an outreach consultant to support the engagement efforts for the four-year review.

We are also working on scheduling meetings with neighborhood groups, leadership groups, and advocacy organizations to share information and gather early input from them.

Our four in-person open house events are coming up in a few weeks.

Um, the days um and the venues are shown on the on the spreadsheet and there on the website and in the memo.

Um the contents of all these events will be the same, but they are going to be located in different parts of the city.

So the first main topic of this evening is residential capacity.

To give you a quick background, the current housing growth capacity a little bit louder.

Okay.

The current housing growth capacity of the envision San Jose 2040 had been consumed by the six cycle housing element.

And in anticipation of the seven cycle housing element, the ratio residential growth capacity needs to be increased.

This is the scope of work for residential capacity.

The first task force meeting that took place in January on January 21st of this year.

At that meeting, staff introduced several strategies to expand the current journal plan residential capacity and received initial feedback from the task force.

I'm going to go through the four strategies we presented and the feedback we received in summary.

So strategy one was identifying new areas for concentrating growth near high frequency bus corridors.

Staff introduced six potential locations, and the task force provided the following comments.

Number one is explore larger growth area boundaries beyond the two blocks proposed, for example, four or six block buffers.

Number two was to explore the geographic distribution of new growth areas across all council districts to incorporate equity considerations.

And number three, a parcel level analysis of the proposed growth areas, such as redevelopment potential and available vacant land in the area.

For strategy two missing middle state housing lots summarized recent state laws related to ADUs, SB9 lot splits, and SB9 small multifamily housing and SB 79.

All of these that might increase housing capacity across the city and may provide opportunities for small multifamily housing.

The task force requested additional clarity on how these laws affect different land uses and how much capacity they may realistically generate.

This topic was further addressed during the previous task force meeting that was number four, missing middle small multifamily housing on March 4, 2026.

An additional analysis is going to be is underway and is going to be provided at the May task force meeting.

For strategy number three, residential neighborhood flexibility.

Staff proposed increasing the maximum density allowed in residential neighborhood general plan designation to up to 16 dueling units per acre.

The task force recommended that staff evaluate additional density beyond 16 dwelling units per acre and clarify implications for design standards and neighborhood compatibility under state law consideration constraints.

Again, in March on March 4, 2026 for missing middle housing, staff presented a recommendation to increase the density to 32 dwelling units per acre to allow missing middle housing consistent with densities allowed by the state laws.

Further discussion on that topic will be presented at the next task force meeting in May.

And for strategy number four, targeted journal plan amendments, staff proposed evaluating specific sites for pretend for potential redesignation of select sites within mixed-use commercial and public quasi public designations.

The task force suggested staff evaluate considerations related to public and institutional landings, land uses such as school sites and religious institutions and consider adaptive reuse opportunities of facilities.

Thank you, staff.

Let's go ahead and move to residential capacity.

The recording guy asked me to say that.

Okay.

Residential capacity so at the January Task Force meeting.

Task Force also requested more information about potential capacity of SB 79 or Senate Bill 79 and how that will impact the residential capacity discussion of the four-year review.

Staff evaluated the impacts of this bill and the intersection of it with the GP four-year review work.

SB 79 creates a substantial amount of new theoretical housing capacity in San Jose by allowing higher density residential development within half mile of transit stops.

A large share of SB 79 buffer areas include traditional residential neighborhood areas made up of standard single-family lots.

These smaller parcels may carry theoretical capacity under SB 79, but maybe less likely to redevelop due to small lot sizes and access and site design constraints or the need for parcel assembly.

Also, existing residential properties, especially occupied housing, may be less likely to redevelop in the near term than lower intensity non-residential or underutilized parcels.

And some residential uses, such as rent control properties and mobile home parks are excluded from SP 79.

As a result, total theoretical capacity under SP 79 is not expected to translate directly into realistic redevelopment potential.

It is also important for the general plan to intentionally identify where housing growth should be encouraged.

Through the general plan, the city can help direct development to locations that support goals beyond transit use, such as design compatibility, infrastructure efficiency, and broader community planning objectives, while preserving land needed for employment and community serving uses.

Therefore, evaluating targeted general plan amendments provide some more deliberate and deliberate and coordinated approach to accommodating future housing growth.

We wait questions at the end.

If you have one pertinent to the slide, please feel free, Commissioner.

The notion that staff has made that SB 79 is inconsequential, will not lead to an impact in new housing.

And I see that the reasons are there, but a buy-right process that allows the density of that nature, I mean that's almost, I feel like it's a judgment call rather than data-driven call.

If I could add a little bit, I think what we're what we're trying to say is that it creates a lot of a very high amount of theoretical capacity, and a lot of that could translate into real capacity at this point.

There's so many factors involved that we don't really know what that translation will be.

And so I think it's one bucket that we can rely on for capacity, but we still need to pursue other planning buckets for that capacity.

But I would say if if staff is minimizing the impact of SB 79, that may force the city to make other decisions, which may not be popular with neighborhoods, versus saying SB 79 is the law of the state, it allows this maximum density, and theoretically would produce this many units.

Because I think HCD would recognize that SB 79 is a state law, and therefore it will generate X amount of units.

Because it feels like I feel like that lady on SNL if that's skit.

Did you see that recently?

It feels like it's so funny, you gotta see it.

Um but it just feels like it's um I I think these state laws should be taken to their maximum potential housing units derived, and then the city should make decisions if it's short.

The issue that we'll have, and I think there's it's a bit of unknown at this point.

Um, when we go through, like when we went through the sixth-cycle housing element, looking at our seventh cycle housing element, the way the housing element laws resides today, is that when we produce uh site inventory that shows all the opportunity sites throughout the city, when we project capacity, it state law requires us to project realistic capacity.

Um, based upon our experience in the sixth cycle and and that law.

I don't know that we could rely on a maximalist definition of 79.

We'd have to go through, you know, and some of this is really challenging, which is why we had trouble in our housing element to show you know what's realistic in in terms of state law and what they would accept in our methodology, looking at at leases, uh occupancy of the site, um, current uses, evaluating current uses if they're likelihood to continue.

Um I I think we've we feel like there's an opportunity for substantial capacity in 79, but our ability to count that going into the seventh cycle, I think is is a bit of an unknown at this point, and trying to plan for that process.

We need to sort of give ourselves the most amount of options to to grow our housing to be able to deliver on current and future arena that's assigned to us.

I will add that during the sixth cycle of the housing element is when SB9 came into law, and there were cities, and you know, we thought about it too.

Do we identify SB9 as one that would allow us to use it for our inventory?

And the we got pushback from HCD that they felt it's too new, you need to show us sort of like this history of building at those densities or those types of projects.

So SB79 is very different, but I think again, we're sort of trying to be very cautious.

You know, obviously it could lead to that housing, but to Jared's point, based on our experience with six cycle, the the bar is set very high from at least that's our experience with HCD.

Are we allowed to ask HCD their opinion on SB 79 and say, hey, here it is.

It would seem like it would generate this many units.

Is that okay?

Do you believe that?

Or do you believe SBC SB 79 is vaporware?

It it's something we can ask.

I think they're they're quite busy just responding to cities with questions of about how to implement and how to exclude certain sites.

I mean, we're we're talking to them about our ordinance around industrial hubs, and so I I think that will be a natural progression.

They do they are required to produce guidance around SB 79, uh, not until July 1st when the law takes effect.

Um but I I I expect we'll get guidance, but given the timeline that we're on, it's gonna be, you know, we need to sort of plan for that they won't accept it in some ways because we really need to start working on our housing element once we finish this process in 2027 to be able to finish it in 2030.

So we we think it's about a three-year process.

And with a July 1 timeline for guidance, please remind me when is the estimated or anticipated vote by city council on the general plans update?

December 2027, like the final recommendations from this task force.

We will come back to the task force June 24th with um a package of like this is what we discuss.

This is the framework that we're moving forward, and then in August, that same package will go to council to sort of bless yes, this is the direction we want you to go, and the final vote will be December 2027.

Got it.

So either December 1st, 8th, 15th, one of those three dates.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Cow, and then I have a comment.

I have a comment as well.

Thank you.

Yeah, first of all, I want to thank Commissioner Oliverio for bringing this up.

As the back and forth was going on, that led me to wonder is there an opportunity for the commission slash task force to get more information on what was just discussed about you know, here's the capacity that SB 79 allows for, here's what we think is a realistic target number for you know, whatever factors you know, staff had just discussed.

And you know, as someone new to this whole conversation, I think some context here would be helpful.

Um kind of just understanding better what those potential limitations slash barriers could be versus the full extent to what SB 79 allows for and kind of the nuances there.

Yeah, um and well, I'd say first two, it might be helpful to finish the presentation.

Yeah.

Um but I think it's something to that we could um potentially return with.

I know I think the conclusion of this is that we'll need a third meeting on capacity, and so maybe it's something we could bring.

I think anything that we would estimate at this point is very preliminary.

I would just caution, you know.

I think you can you could, you know, so you can make some assumptions around, you know, maybe we take half or we take, but even then that could be very high.

I think we'd have to think through what kind of methodology we would want to use.

But at this point, it's it's it would be very preliminary, I guess, in terms of what we could accurately assume to be capacity, which I think is is part of the problem we're dealing with is what could we adequately rely on going into that housing element process.

And I think I don't think we want to be stuck in a situation where we're trying to produce the next housing element and we don't have the sites available to us to identify.

I think in the sixth cycle, we were fortunate that we had enough capacity in our general plan, sort of planned and sites that we could identify.

But you know, towards the end, as we got through that process with HCD, it was a lot of sites removed because they felt like it didn't, you know, meet the meet the methodology that we had selected in terms of viability or realistic capacity.

And so I think giving ourselves, you know, kind of the the biggest bandwidth to go in and then find those sites through that process is going to be the best situation for the city so that we're able to produce that housing element on time.

Um but I think it's it's a fair question that we can come back with some additional analysis on.

Thank you.

Commissioner, yeah.

Yeah, if I could just weigh in with a little alternative way of looking at this uh in support of what staff is saying.

Um SB 79 is one tool to increase density.

But there's an equity issue in my mind.

So if you live you know half a mile away, you can have high density in your neighborhood.

If you live six tenths of a mile away, you can't.

That's why I really prefer the direction we're going in.

Which is essentially we're eliminating single family zoning.

Um it's fair, it spreads the um capacity out throughout the city.

Um every you know, single family uh neighborhood has a potential for a higher density, that's the way it should be, I believe.

So I don't really see you all as minimizing it.

I see it as we for a number of reasons, some of which you stated, but from an equity point of view, I don't think we should rely on SB 79 to provide our capacity.

I think we need to go beyond that, you know, with the direction we were going in.

That staff's going in at the last meeting.

So yeah, just um if I could um respond to that a little bit too, just to add on something I I didn't mention as well.

That's been a question amongst other cities, you know.

Part of our responsibility in the housing element process is to assure that we affirmatively further fair housing.

And um I think a big question from cities is if they are going to rely on 79, can we show that we're meeting that standard of affirmatively furthering fair housing?

And I know that similar to the SB9 experience, there were cities that were planning aggressively around transit stations, and then some of those were were not accepted because they weren't you know showing that process around furthering fair housing.

And Ruth, we might have more to add to that too.

But I know that's that's also another question around if those sites are acceptable, kind of given that lens and analysis.

I I want to just make one comment and then I'd really like to move on with the presentation.

I feel a little bit like this statement trivializes what we expect the impact of SB 79 to be.

Um there's um theoretical versus realistic.

We get that the answer is somewhere in between, but let's not disregard what what the potential impacts could be and recognize that they're gonna be there and we're gonna have to react to them.

Please carry on.

Thank you.

So the next topic is uh the modification to residential land use designations.

Um so as I mentioned before, um, based on task force feedback at previous meetings, the residential neighborhood designation is proposed to be updated to allow a maximum density of 32 dwelling units per acre or or higher.

The general plan has multiple residential or mixed use designations, mixed-use designations allowing residential, and there is a specific hierarchy or progression in their densities and development standards so that each can allow distinct types of residential development.

Therefore, changing the density in residential neighborhood requires modifying a few other designations.

So this uh this table shows the three designations we're proposing to modify um the second, the middle column here shows the existing density or current density.

So as you can see, residential neighborhood is currently zero to eight units per acre per acre, and um it is expected to go in the in the next um column, it shows expected to go up to 32 or possibly higher units per acre.

So without any adjustment, these residential neighborhood high density, the upper limit of the density will exceed the mixed-use neighborhood as we know it today, which is zero to 30 units per acre.

Uh so who'll undermine the intended progression of land use densities?

So the mixed-use neighborhood density is proposed to be adjusted the to 50 units, the higher level instead of 30.

And this adjustment will re-establish mixed-use neighborhood as a higher density designation relative to the residential neighborhood to support the development of condominiums and medium multifamily um projects.

This new proposal also provides the minimum density for MUN, which currently doesn't exist.

Because the revised MUN designation is intended to function as a mid-density residential designation.

This minimum density would allow for townhome projects.

And um as a result, um urban residential, which is currently 20 30 to 95 um units per acre, is proposed to have 50 as its minimum um limit.

So 50 to 95 units per acre.

So therefore, yeah, to maintain this clear and logical hierarchy across designation, we are proposing that these be that these these are the changes to be made in these designations.

And proportionate changes to the heights are also proposed.

That's in the memo, but we didn't show it in the table here.

Okay, so now I'm going to turn over to Laura Maurer for the next part of the presentation.

Thank you, Sunita.

I will first start by presenting on staff's work on the new growth areas.

The feedback from the task force members at the last task force meeting on residential capacity was to analyze the six presented growth areas, now referred to as tier one growth areas at a two, four, and six block depth from the high frequency bus lines.

Part of this was under the assumption that a half mile was about six to eight blocks.

However, a half mile is actually approximately three blocks.

Using this knowledge, staff switched to using miles-based distance instead of block-based distance.

Also, to get a more representative data set in the miles-based walkshed, staff switched from measuring along transit lines to measuring from bus stops along the bus line.

This is useful in representing actual walk patterns, particularly in areas with less street connectivity.

Staff determined a half mile, third mile, and quarter mile walksheds for each growth area.

Staff then determined which parcels with a residential neighborhood designation were located within this one-third mile walk shed.

This one-third mile walkshed and the residential neighborhood parcels within the walkshed are found on the tier one maps that were attached in the memo.

Further, responding to task force members' feedback to look at more growth areas south of downtown.

Staff created new criteria for what we call tier two growth areas.

The criteria still included being along a high frequency bus lines, but additionally allows for lines anchored by light rail stations.

Also, the criteria for new growth new growth areas to connect existing growth areas was loosened to allow for much larger gaps between existing growth areas or a longer extension past an existing growth area.

Lastly, bus stops along these lines that were in high vehicle miles traveled areas were excluded.

Using the same methodology for the tier one station, staff analyzed the quarter, third and half mile walksheds for these tier two stations, and staff determined which parcels were with a residential neighborhood designation were within this one-third mile walkshed.

The one mile the one-third mile walkshed and the residential neighborhood parcels within that walkshed are found in the tier two maps that were attached to the memo.

Shocased on the map here are the tier one growth areas.

This shows the one-third mile walkshed from select bus stops along these lines, shown in maroon, and their geographic relation to existing growth areas shown in yellow.

Showcased on the map here are the new tier two growth areas, showing the one-third mile walkshed shown in orange and their geographic relation to existing growth areas shown again in yellow.

There are no walksheds further south of the tier two growth areas because these eight areas either have do not have high frequency bus lines or are in high vehicle miles traveled areas, which council directed staff to avoid.

Also to note there are no new growth areas in the West Valley because they are already urban villages along those high frequency bus lines, and most of North San Jose does not contain parcels with the residential neighborhood designation.

The feedback from task force members at the last task force meeting on residential capacity also expressed wanting to understand the equity impacts of these new growth areas.

This map showcases the San Jose Equity Atlas combined scores by census track and the geographic location of these new growth areas to these census tracts.

Darker blue shades represent a higher concentration of lower income and a higher concentration of people of color with the opposite characteristics shown in lighter shades.

The growth areas shown in maroon and orange intersect with a range of equity scores, but generally the tier one growth areas have higher incomes and fewer people of color, and the tier two growth areas generally have lower income and more people of color, except for the western portions of bus lines 25 and 26 in the Willow Glen area.

This map showcases the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee and Housing and Community Development Opportunity Categories by census track and the geographic intersection of the growth areas with these census tracks.

The categories represents the level of resources available within the census track.

The highest resource census tracts have high performing schools, high employment rates, low poverty, and great economic and health outcomes.

The low resource census tracks have lower performing schools, higher unemployment rates, lower income, higher poverty, and low and poor economic and health outcomes.

Most of the growth areas intersect with low or moderate resource areas, except for the 60 bus line along Winchester Boulevard and the western portions of the 25 and 26 bus lines in the Willow Glen area.

This map showcases the intersection of the growth areas and the historical homeowners loan corporation map developed in the 1930s, better known as the redlining map, which assessed bank lending risk.

Neighborhoods with predominantly black, Hispanic, immigrant, or Jewish residents were typically marked in red or de hazardous zones and denied home loans and other financial services, regardless of individuals' credit worthiness.

This practice systematically disadvantaged communities of color, creating patterns of disinvestment.

These zones were limited in area compared to the larger extent of the city today.

Therefore, many of the growth areas do not intersect with any of these zones.

For those growth areas that do intersect with the zones, they intersect in a variety of the zones with a few spots within the de hazardous zone or the red line zone.

The 25 bus line walkshed near First Street has the largest intersection with the red line zone.

Staff initially worked on analyzing residential neighborhood designated parcels within these walksheds for a change to the mixed-use neighborhood designation at 30 dwelling units per acre.

However, uh staff presented and task force members supported changing the residential neighborhood designation to 32 dwelling units per acre at the last task force meeting.

This new higher density for residential neighborhood would achieve the envisioned density without the need for new growth areas.

Staff believes designating existing residential neighborhood sites with this new potential new uh with the new potential mixed-use neighborhood, which would allow for densities of 20 to 50 dwelling use per acre would raise neighborhood concerns related to privacy and building scale in predominantly single family neighborhoods.

Additionally, this new mixed-use neighborhood density would make it difficult for single-family homeowners to demo and rebuild a single family home, since the new minimum density would be 20 dwelling units per acre.

Therefore, staff is recommending to no longer move forward with adding new growth areas at this time.

Staff will continue to look at site-specific changes within the Winchester Boulevard and the Alameda growth areas on sites with a neighborhood community commercial designation or sites with commercial uses without the neighborhood community commercial designation.

For the two corridors, first I will discuss staff strategy for analyzing parcels along the Winchester Boulevard corridor.

Can we pause for just a minute?

Commissioner Alguera?

Sure.

Thank you for the presentation.

Isn't the legislature currently looking at doing what you had earlier regarding the bus stops as an expansion of SB 79 under SB 677?

And if so, I mean that's a it's a moving right.

There's going to be all the state legislation that's going to create more opportunities for density throughout the city.

Because if it's if you're saying uh SB 79 has now been transported from fixed rail and bus rapid transit to bus stops, then that sort of changes the game again.

Yeah, no, uh there I think there's maybe four different or three or four different uh SB 79 sort of cleanup bills and that are looking at different changes or modifications.

So we're we're we're tracking them all, but I think it's uncertain at this point the timing and what they'll actually end up at.

But yeah, it definitely something that could that could be changed in the future in terms of um high quality bus stops, which many of these would would meet, obviously.

So it could expand.

Yeah.

Yeah, and clearly that could happen before the December vote of the city council, which then means staff has to sort of move rapidly.

I think I don't know.

I just it just seems as though the state is moving at a much more rapid manner than local government, and that's broad impact will be forever, uh be permanent and potentially generate all the numbers that HCD wants that whether you're you know building housing or not building housing as a city.

So I just think it's important to be part of the story here.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner.

Please carry on.

Okay.

Uh so for the Winchester Boulevard Corridor.

Staff has identified 18 parcels highlighted in the black outline along Winchester Boulevard north of Forest Avenue to the Santa Clara City border.

Uh these are mostly neighborhood community commercial designated sites or a few residential neighborhood designated sites with commercial uses.

These sites have a mix of commercial or office building, a church, and a few single family homes.

These sites either have an equity atlas score of three or five and are in the high or highest opportunity areas.

Staff intend to review each site to evaluate the site size, existing use, surrounding context, and floor area ratio to help guide which parcels would be appropriate for a land use designation change, which would allow for residential uses, and to determine the appropriate new designation.

Next, I will discuss staff strategy for analyzing parcels along the Alameda corridor.

Staff has identified 71 parcels along the Alameda highlighted in with the black outline between Pershing Avenue and Highway 880 with the neighborhood community commercial designation.

These sites have a mix of commercial office buildings, single family homes used for commercial office uses, some multifamily residential buildings, and some single family homes.

These sites have either an equity atlas score of four or six and are in a moderate opportunity area.

Additionally, most of these sites are zoned with a 1985 city-initiated plan development zoning that includes specific development standards to preserve the existing 40-foot setback from the historically designated the Alameda right away and to preserve the historic character of the buildings.

Staff intend to review each site to evaluate the site size, the existing use, surrounding context, floor area ratio, and historic context to help guide which parcels would be appropriate for a land use designation chain, which would allow residential uses and to determine the appropriate new designation.

Staff also intends to uh examine what methods may be needed to maintain the historic design standards and the 40-foot setback along the corridor for sites that change to a new designation that allows for residential uses.

And with that, I'm gonna pass this back over to David.

Unless there's any questions.

Just looking at the Alameda uh map.

What's the the FERDAS uh Southeast Street there?

Cross Street?

Yeah.

Uh Pershing.

So this is Persian?

Yeah.

Okay.

Cool.

Thank you.

Pershing, sorry, for the for the audience, Pershing at the bottom.

Yes, correct.

Right.

Thank you.

Yeah, and it's uh border at the top by uh highway 880.

Thank you.

And one additional question.

Sure.

Just to give an example of the amount of staff time.

Like just this would this occupy two people for three weeks?

I mean, you know, there's like a lot of things that have to get done, right?

And I'm trying to not trivialize the amount of sta time that staff has to put into things.

But if could you give me any roof?

I mean, do you have any?

I'm thinking a month, yeah, four weeks probably.

For one individual or multiple?

One individual.

Um, and it's a very iterative, right?

Because they can come back and say these sites, and then you know, we give feedback, and it's like, no, go back and look at this instead.

And so we're trying to develop that criteria.

I mean, we have some, but once you look at the sites, I think one by one you it does become a lot uh an iterative process, and so it is a lot of staff work.

And what's the total planning staff committed to this GP update?

Uh six of us, I think, but we have other work as well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Can I just clarify what what you said?

Did you say a month per property?

No, no, for this work.

Yeah, for this.

Winchester Alameda making sure.

Thank you.

All right.

I just want to just want to be certain I understand.

Is the is the point to limit staff time or to do a good job?

We want to do a good job.

Yes.

Good answer.

Okay.

Can we continue with targeted general plan changes?

Thank you.

So we'll now move on to the next item.

Targeted general plan amendments, and we'll start with mixed use commercial or MUC sites.

This is one of the areas staff analyzed to determine where site-specific land use changes may be more effective than relying on the current designation alone.

MUC is intended for mixed use projects with a strong emphasis on commercial activity.

In practice, that model has not been successful.

The market for mixed use development of this type with more commercial than residential square footage is essentially non-existent in San Jose.

Since adoption of the general plan, there have been a total of 13 projects on MUC sites that were built.

Only three included mixed uses, and none of those met the minimum commercial square footage requirement.

This map shows the citywide distribution of MUC sites.

These parcels are located both within growth areas and outside of them.

From this map, we see most MUC parcels are concentrated in a few major commercial corridors.

They are mainly along 13th Street, Japan Town, Keys and Story Road, South First Street, and the urban villages of West San Carlos, South Winchester, and East and West Stevens Creek Boulevard.

MUC parcels are also generally small with a medium size of 0.14 acres, and truly vacant sites are essentially non-existent.

This map helps illustrate how little the total amount of MUC area is in the context of the entire city.

Yeah, okay.

I'm just I'm just curious if part of the problem with this is that uh the commercial requirements maybe too high to push development in these areas.

Do you do you have any idea of what that is?

So the this designation, it was really designed.

It was designed to be a commercial first designation, and we said, well, you know, if if you can bring you give us commercial and you wanted to sort of put some housing on the top floor, we're okay with that, but it was really meant to be commercial first.

And I think what what we've seen from experience is that it's not one that that fits well within what the market wants.

And so that's why we wanted to take a closer look at this designation and what David's gonna go through is is sort of like some maybe should be mixed use and some should maybe stay commercial, but that this designation has been challenging.

So yeah.

All right.

Please continue.

So this map is a close-up of the more concentrated areas.

The orange are the parcels and sites, the black outlines are the boundaries of all the different growth areas we have in the city.

Staff is not recommending a blanket change to all MBC sites.

Instead, the goal is to identify which sites may be appropriate for a higher residential designation and which may be more appropriate to remain wholly commercial.

Staff will consider criteria such as parcel size, existing use, surrounding context, commercial role, and viability.

You can see from this map there's an almost equal divide between the number of MUC parcels within growth areas and the number of parcels outside of them.

Of those within growth areas, approximately 12% are in the five Bluins urban village plan area.

Additionally, about a quarter of parcels outside of Grow Fares are covered by the neighborhood business district overlay, which allows for housing.

Staff is proposing to exclude these sites from land use changes given the current planning effort underway for the former and the recently adopted changes for the latter.

This slide shows MUC parcels as they relate to CTAC and HCD opportunity categories and the San Jose Equity Atlas combined equity scores.

Looking at the top table of substantial share of MBC sites are located in low resource areas out of 779 parcels, 513 are located in low resource areas.

The combined equity score chart at the bottom shows that most parcels with an MUC designation reside in areas with an equity score of five, six, and seven.

Staff will consider this equity analysis as we look at sites for potential conversion to residential uses.

Can you before you move on?

Can you just say more about the numbers on this beta?

I'm sorry, I've I've missed what which numbers are uh are you using to judge which ones would be changed versus not.

So right now this is just an overview of the different um this is not the analysis.

This is not the full analysis, no.

Thank you.

This is just a just start.

Um staff's recommendation is to identify sites that are good candidates for targeted land use changes to a wholly residential use or one that allows mixed uses but doesn't require it.

And also consider whether specific MC sites should be converted to NCC to preserve existing commercial uses.

Analysis and determinations are still ongoing.

Staff will present their findings on the work for targeted general plan amendments to the task force at the June 3rd, 2026 meeting.

The second land use designation staff reviewed for targeted general plan amendments is public quasi public or PQP land.

These sites often serve important public institutional, educational, religious, or community supporting functions.

This map shows all PQP sites within San Jose.

The black circular outlines are SB79 zones around major transit stations.

The PQP review was based on inside and outside of SB79 zones because state law may already create substantial housing potential on some of these properties.

However, not all PQP land is realistically available for redevelopment.

Many of these sites perform essential public or institutional functions.

So staff is distinguishing between overall theoretical capacity and a subset of sites where redevelopment may actually be plausible.

There are approximately 728 PQP sites citywide, representing about 1,041 parcels and roughly 6700 acres.

Of those, 210 sites or about 29% of the sites are located within SB79 buffer zones, providing capacity for residential development.

Within the SB79 buffer zones, there's a total of about 2,049 acres.

Most of that land is government restricted.

These would be municipal buildings and utilities like City Hall, the airport, landfills, and water recycling facilities.

The second largest share are public schools after removing sites with uses that are less likely to redevelop, such as the government restricted properties, large institutions, private hospitals.

124 sites remain, totaling about 678 acres with a minimum potential capacity of roughly 20,300 units under SB 79.

Outside of SB 79 buffer zones, there are 518 PQP sites totaling about 4,721 acres.

Most of that acreage is public schools, followed by government restricted land.

One important subset of PQP land are school sites.

Public schools account for approximately 46% of all PQP land area.

There are over 200 public school campuses operated by 19 different school districts within San Jose borders.

Staff has identified approximately 25 public school campuses that are closed or soon to be closed.

While this creates a potential for future housing opportunities, and we are already seeing interest through builders' remedy proposals.

Staff is not recommending a broad school site policy changes as part of this four-year review.

This slide adds the equity lens to the PKP analysis.

Citywide PQP sites are distributed across all opportunity categories.

But within SB79 areas, a large share of those are located in low resource communities.

Looking at the equity atlas data in the chart below, staff did not find a concentration of PQP sites with specific tracks or scores.

As shown in the initial PQP equity analysis, these sites are found across the city.

After all the PKP analysis, staff is recommending no change to PKP sites given the significant conversion of PKP lands that could occur under SB79 to residential and the importance of maintaining an adequate supply of community supported functions to support this housing growth.

Staff recommends not pursuing land use changes to PQP sites outside of SB79 buffer areas until we have a better understanding of the outcome and effects of the state law.

So that was a walkthrough of staff's work analysis of targeted GP changes for MBC and PQP.

I will now hand it back over to Sanhita to summarize staff's recommendations and she'll go over jobs to employ resident ratio.

Thank you.

Thank you, David and Laura.

So to summarize all the recommendations related to residential capacity.

So first of all, modify the standards and densities.

Second is not proceed with either Tier 1 or Tier 2 growth areas.

Third, evaluate the Alameda, the Alameda, and Winchester corridors for potential changes in land uses.

Evaluate MEC for these in evaluate MUC sites for potential changes in land uses.

And lastly, no change to PQP sites.

These are the summary of the residential capacity recommendations.

And after this, we are going to proceed to the next agenda item.

I'm going to pause here just to see if anybody has a thank you.

So no changes to PQP.

But these proposals will come forward as school districts closed school sites.

So then I guess each of them will just be taken individually on what they want to propose.

Because I know our former mayor was complaining about the union school district in Cambrian building three million dollar houses on school property, and I know Mayor Mahan asked this to be reviewed.

So I'm just trying to think the proposal is leave as is.

Um I know that there are a number of um churches in San Jose where the congregation is getting smaller, and and one of the things they look at is possibly um consolidating with another church, and therefore that piece of property could be you know developed.

So those would be in the PQP that we're talking about, correct?

So let's say currently the way things stand, if a church wanted to come in with a proposal for say missing middle housing, say a three to five story apartment building, what what would they have to go through to it to do that?

So um places of worship do also have another path through state law to um build housing on their sites.

I believe it has to be a hundred percent affordable, so again, it may not be the missing middle or um market rate that some churches or places of worship want to do, but there is a path for them to do that.

There's and it's streamlined, meaning it's ministerial, no public hearings.

Um other than that, if it's not it doesn't fall within those parameters, they would have to apply for a general plan um amendment to build um that type of housing.

And um actually, and there's also a different process within our um our current uh PQP designation, we do allow 100% affordable housing so long as 25 percent of the units are permanent, 25 or 20 percent uh are permanent supportive housing.

And um, and that doesn't require it's not like ministerial, it's just a city's process.

So again, it is very specific to affordable.

So um obtaining a general plan amendment is a big deal, right?

It's it's I think we only consider what two or three of those a year.

One once a year for privately initiated general plan amendments.

It's a very long process.

Right.

Yeah.

Right.

So I guess my question is wouldn't we want to look at um some sort of streamlined way that a place of worship could let's say they wanted just for the sake of argument to build a combination of market rate and you know affordable housing so they wouldn't fall under the state law.

Isn't there a way we could come up with a some sort of uh PQP, you know, PQP.

I understand the concern about not wanting to convert all the PQP lands, but it just seems like places of worship in particular, they don't have a lot of money to do, you know, get lawyers and do the general plan amendment and all that, and there's there's a great need, uh you know, a lot a lot of uh I've talked to some different people in different um congregations that they need to do this to stay economically viable, and they they look at it as a way to generate a stream of income, which they they can then do good things with, right?

So I'm just wondering would it be possible to look at um some sort of a streamline process for places of worship in the as we look to amend the general plan um I think we can um consider we could look at what is allowed now in state law and what it would take to make some kind of change within the city.

Um sometimes what we some experiences when we have these projects where we allow them to, you know, they can do market rate and affordable, right?

We're concerned with being able to get the affordable that sometimes applicants come in with at the beginning, right?

Because what we hear sometimes is well, the market rate is what is gonna help everything pencil, give us our certificate of occupancy for this market rate, and then something happens and then there's no affordable.

So we're sort of trying to balance making sure that we get this when we're sort of giving away some of that land use authority and those changes.

Um I think um, but we can we can look into this and bring you back some more analysis either in the next meeting or the meeting after that.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioner Young.

That was uh an item that I was saving for later.

So you be doing.

Um please carry on.

And one additional comment, please.

Uh Commissioner Young, I know you like to travel, so if you go down Moore Park by San Jose City College, you'll see a church that converted to 100% affordable low income.

Uh and that no public hearing by right because of the state law, and that's about I think it's at least four stories right there.

Lee Lee Avenue by the fire station.

Oh, yeah, okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

To look at it too.

Okay, so jobs to employed resident ratio.

Yes, yes.

Is that where we're going?

Okay, yes, thank you.

Um, yes, the next agenda item tonight this evening is um jobs to employed resident ratio, or sometimes we say J2 ER.

As part of the four-year review, the scope of the four-year review, the city council directed staff to re-evaluate the general plan's jobs to employ or JER ratio, and how additional housing capacity beyond the currently adopted 120,000 units in the general plan, uh, that could affect this ratio.

So I'd give you a little bit of background before we get into um the analysis that we did.

Um so the jobs to employ ratio um is an indicator of how well a city balances employment opportunities with its housing base or with its residential base.

A higher ratio indicates that more residents can work locally, while a lower ratio shows that many residents have to commute elsewhere for jobs.

San Jose was historically developed as a predominantly residential community, resulting in a larger share of residents commuting to jobs in other cities.

This imbalance continues to uh contribute to traffic congestion, greenhouse gas emissions, and longer travel times, while also limiting access to opportunity for residents.

But more importantly, a lower number of jobs in the city reduces the fiscal benefits delivered for from local employment to the jurisdiction.

So improving the balance between jobs and employed residents had therefore been a longstanding objective of the city's general plans for many decades because it enhances both economic sustainability and quality of life.

And the current target in the envisioned Sansa General Plan 2040 is 1.1 jobs per employed resident.

And the observed G2ER ratio since the adoption of the general plan in 2011 has averaged to be 0.82 jobs per employed residents.

So this um J2ER ratio is based on uh the number of employed residents, which depends on population, the share of residents over age 16, labor force participation, and unemployment.

So increasing residential capacity alone does not necessarily translate into proportional growth in employed residents.

And based on projections from multiple agencies, San Jose's population is not going not expected to experience significant growth beyond what was assumed in the 2015 analysis.

For these reasons, staff recommends maintaining the current G2ER ratio target of one is to one jobs per employed residents.

Maintaining this current ratio also supports key general plan goals, including fiscal sustainability, environmental performance, uh transportation efficiency, and complete communities, while ensuring that city remains prepared for future job-generating projects.

So that's the end of that um topic.

And these are the next steps.

Um based on today's task force uh recommendation and community feedback that we'll receive today, we will identify individual sites for um converse conversion and we'll come back uh with our recommendations at the next task force meeting on residential capacity and jobs to employ ratio, which is scheduled for June 3rd, 2026.

And that concludes our presentation tonight.

Thank you.

And uh more questions.

I want to thank staff for their thoughtful presentations this evening.

Um I do have some speaker cards.

If you have not already, um please do fill out a speaker card and give it to the technician.

Each member of the public will have two minutes to address the commission.

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

Uh so we're gonna move to um public comment.

And uh if I could start with our friend Rob Swick and Brent Van Brocklin, and uh and then we'll go from there.

Good evening, members of the task force.

My name is Rob Swork.

I'm a principal planner at BTA.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak briefly on this item tonight.

BTA staff has been following this general plan for your review process closely through these task force meetings as well as uh discussions at the staff level.

Uh we generally support the proposals to increase residential capacity described by staff uh for today's meeting.

We understand that staff is now recommending that residential sites in the tier one and tier growth two growth areas stay as residential neighborhood proposed to be increased to 32 dwelling units per the acre uh citywide.

While we're happy to see this residential intensification of the RN designation, we suggest that the city still consider further intensification near frequent bus corridors, increasing residential density near these core transit services, puts more potential riders near these services and helps incrementally reduce vehicle miles travel per person.

Beyond this, we'd like to bring up one topic which was not addressed in the staff report.

As we've noted previously, VTA has been discussing with city staff the potential to change the general plan designation on the BT VTA Saroney and Santa Teresa TOD sites to allow mixed use development, including residential.

We originally raised this issue within the discussions on the SB 79 Industrial Hub Exemption Ordinance because we could see that that uh ordinance would uh cover Serone and Santa Teresa TOD sites and preclude VTA from exercising land use authority under SB 79 granted by the law.

Um, in many meetings, we have been told that this general plan four-year review process is the right venue to look at adding mixed use and residential capacity to these VTOTOD sites.

So here we are.

So we're surprised and concerned actually to see that there's no discussion of VTA's request in the staff report for today's meeting.

These sites could have been included in the targeted general plan amendments section of this evening's staff report.

This is a missed opportunity given where we are in this general plan uh task force process.

And my colleague Brent will discuss this topic more fully uh in a following public comment.

Thank you.

Um I brought a uh image just to have of the general public, but I haven't passed it out right now.

We can help if you want to just one by one.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

State your name again for the record and Brent Van Brocklin.

Thank you.

Please go ahead.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Good evening.

My name is Brent Van Brocklin, and I'm a member of the TOD team at VTA.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this item.

Following up Rob's comment, I'd like to focus specifically on VTA's Cerrone and Santa Teresa TOD sites.

We want to thank the mayor's office for their engagement, including January's housing day and council member Cohen for his comments at the March 17th meeting, encouraging staff to work with VTA through this general plan four-year review to explore mixed-use opportunities on these sites and for identifying this process as the appropriate venue to advance that work.

Together, these sites shown in the graphic represent over 60 acres and are the largest, the two largest developable properties in VTA's TOD portfolio.

Given their scale, location, adjacent residential uses, and proximity to high capacity transit, they are among the most important opportunities in the region to deliver transit supportive development.

VTA respects the city's goals of preserving employment lands and strengthening job centers, and we are committed to ensuring these sites continue to support significant employment uses.

However, the task force should not consider this as a choice between jobs and housing.

These sites are positioned to deliver both.

Creating jobs while also adding housing that supports transit ridership, reduces car dependence, and advances our shared climate goals.

We have requested a meeting with city staff to determine appropriate mixed use designations along with minimum employment floor area ratios and requirements and appropriate use sequencing to ensure jobs are not just per permitted but actually delivered at scale.

Given the comments from Mayor Mahan and Council Member Cohen and the importance of these sites, we strongly encourage the task force to recommend that city planning staff and VTA jointly develop a mixed-use zoning concept for the Cerone and Santa Teresa sites and bring forward options as part of the June 3rd recommendation.

We are eager to collaborate on a framework that reflects both agencies' priorities.

Thank you.

Well done without a timer.

I appreciate that.

Can we hold questions on this one until um after public comment, please?

We will have questions for staff on this one.

Okay.

Um Allison.

How do you say your last name, Allison?

Singalani.

Thank you.

And after Allison, Kathy Sutherland.

Good evening, Alison Singalani, Director of Policy with Silicon Valley at home.

I'm speaking on behalf of a community partnership working to expand access to housing and community serving land uses across San Jose.

Our team of planners, housing experts, and community leaders is evaluating potential adaptive reuse of faith and school sites to support both affordable and mixed income housing and broader community serving uses, including open space, community facilities, and other neighborhood serving uses, such as those at the Moxa site that is in negotiation right now.

We recognize the demographic pressures facing both faith institutions and school districts.

My own children's school district has had to close six schools and merge an additional six down to three.

Our goal is not to accelerate sale of these properties, but to help ensure and help empower faith communities and school administration to continue to serve the communities where they're rooted, the needs of those communities when these transitions must occur.

We're encouraged by the scope of the four-year general plan review and the task force's thoughtful deliberation so far, especially the emphasis on expanding housing opportunities and advancing equity citywide.

As the task force has noted previously, the growth areas cover only a small share of San Jose's land.

Faith in school sites, many of which are outside those areas should be part of the citywide conversation about housing capacity and equitable access to community assets.

Faith in school sites are many of which sit outside the designated growth areas are meaningful part of that citywide picture.

So we understand that the planning division is currently assessing residential capacity within SB 79 areas.

We have confirmed that our work complements this analysis while also filling an important geographic and analytical gap by evaluating faith in school sites not only as potential housing sites for educators, families, and middle income households, but also as community anchors whose present and future use can directly increase access to amenities and public assets in historically disinvested neighborhoods.

We're assembling a site-specific database now and expect to share findings in May.

Look forward to supporting the task force's work on advancing housing and equity goals through the review process.

Thank you.

I'm always amazed that people can get done at exactly two minutes.

Kathy Sutherland, please.

Good evening, Commissioners.

My name is Kathy Sutherland, and I'm here on behalf of the S Plus NI, which is the um strong stakeholders plus neighborhoods initiative group that was formed when Google was talking about development in our neighborhood.

And we stayed together through the expansion of downtown through the downtown West process.

We support affordable and high density development in our neighborhoods, and we have spoken out in support of these things that the projects that we see.

Our main concern is that when the downtown West process was going through, there were five blocks out of 270 acres that were bifurcated.

And they were bifurcated with R2 on one property line and downtown development on the other, with no setbacks from the property lines and the homes that are basically on a zero lot line.

So the information that I gave you shows the pictures of where the line is, what is in the DSAP and what is in and what is R2 outside of the DSAP.

We would like this task force to remove the five bifurcated blocks from downtown West.

We are also, we were told that they had the property had to be there and it had to be designated as part of downtown because the city had to reach the arena numbers.

We are already seeing projects that were approved, for example, for an assisted living project that's on the corner of Gifford and San Carlos.

That was proposed as a assisted living.

The developer has now come back and come back and asked to make it all housing.

So there will be over 200 units that are now being created just by the reuse of that site.

We feel that with all of the commercial sites that are in downtown West, that there is enough room to make up the need for housing by reducing by removing these five blocks from the downtown West designation, the five bifurcated blocks.

Thank you.

Allison, I apologize.

I'm going to ask you to come back up and do some of your presentation again.

So I I hate to ask you to do it, but if I could have you do two minutes all over again.

I live to serve.

All right.

Good evening.

Alison Cingalani, Director of Policy with Silicon Valley at home.

I'm speaking on behalf of a community partnership working to expand access to housing and community serving land uses across San Jose.

Our team of planners, housing experts, and community leaders is evaluating potential adaptive reuse of faith in school sites to support both affordable and mixed income housing and broader community serving uses, including open space, community facilities, and other neighborhood serving uses, such as those under consideration in the redevelopment of the Moxa site.

Our goal is not to accelerate the sale of these properties, but to help ensure that if transitions do occur, faith communities and school administration is empowered to continue to serve the needs of the communities where they're rooted.

We're encouraged by the scope of the four-year general plan review and the task force's thoughtful discussions so far, especially the emphasis on expanding housing opportunities and advancing equity citywide.

As the task force has noted previously, growth areas cover only a small share of San Jose's land.

Faith in school sites, many of which are outside those areas should be part of the citywide conversation about housing capacity and equitable access to community assets.

Faith in school sites, many of which are outside these growth areas, are a meaningful part of that citywide picture.

We understand that the planning division is currently assessing residential capacity within SB 79 areas.

We've confirmed that our work complements this analysis while also filling an important geographic and analytical gap by evaluating faith in school sites, not only as potential housing sites for educators, families, and middle income households, but also as community anchors whose present and future use can directly increase access to amenities and public assets in historically disinvested neighborhoods.

We're assembling a site-specific database now and expect to share findings in May and look forward to supporting the task force's work on advancing housing and equity goals through the review process.

Thank you.

Thank you, Allison.

I apologize for that technical difficulty.

And I still appreciate two minutes.

Vice Chair.

Can I I think the Zoom audio is completely out.

Okay.

Do we have somebody in technical support that can assist with this?

I think Danielle, our technician is trying to figure out what's going on.

Do we need to take a pause?

Or shall we continue?

Chair, if I may.

Maybe we can take a brief recess to see if we can restore the online Zoom function.

748.

Oh, is that the other speaker?

So if we I would like to get them on the recording, so if we could take a maybe a 10-minute break, come back at no uh come back at 8 o'clock.

Is that okay for everybody?

Hopefully they can restore our audio so that uh the public can hear this these conversations.

So we're gonna take a 10-minute break, everybody.

And then is that is is this person's name?

Can you read this?

I can.

P.M.

So if you could take your seats.

And we have resolved our technical difficulties, so we are going to uh get started.

Not that anybody is listening to me, but please take a seat.

So it's like uh I am hoping uh is it Glenn Carson?

What's your name, sir?

Greg Carlson.

Well, I was close.

Come on up.

I should know him by now, you're right.

I apologize, Greg.

My name's Greg Carlson.

I'm with concerned Corey neighbors.

And uh want to be known that we are pro-development, pro-housing, and specific to the development on uh Winchester and Heading.

Umbite you all, if you have not been out there, go out there, especially during commute traffic, and and see what the impact of a four-story, let alone seven to eight-story building would have on that neighborhood.

And uh in regard to SB 79, it's I think rather simplistic and maybe short-sighted to paint San Jose in a broad brush stroke.

But I appreciate uh the use of of terms where we are looking at reasonable development, and that's all we asked for is reasonable development in our neighborhood and integrity in the development of San Jose as a whole.

Thank you.

Solomon Oh.

Okay.

All right, can you guys hear me?

Okay.

Uh can I actually take this off?

It's a little bit shorter.

Oh, got it.

Okay, perfect.

A little bit of speaking.

Great.

Well, uh, good evening, council members.

Um I'm Solomon.

I work with a local builder that focuses on missile uh missing middle housing.

And um I appreciate the discussion tonight about um using underlying underutilized sites more effectively.

Uh from what we're kind of seeing on the ground, a lot of these sites sit idle, uh not because there's not demand, but because they're really hard to pencil under the current rules.

And so when these constraints are adjusted thoughtfully, um these projects can actually start to open up.

Um opening up more of these sites selectively and with clear guidelines can increase housing supply without fundamentally changing the neighborhood character.

At the end of the day, more viable projects means more homes, and more homes ultimately mean a better chance at ownership for the next generation.

I'd encourage the council to continue to keep moving in that direction.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I don't have any more speaker cards.

Are there any other uh uh public members that would like to comment before we turn it over to the commission?

Okay.

Uh hearing none, um like to turn it over to my fellow commissioners.

And it looks like Commissioner Bandal, you'd like to go first.

Thank you.

Thank you, uh Chair.

Um special shout out to the to to the chair as well.

She's doing a beautiful job.

Fantastic job tonight tonight running it.

So keep up the go work.

Second, I'd like to give a shout-out to uh Ruth and Jared and Sanita, David, and Laura.

I know it's a lot of hard work.

Um you guys are working very hard and you guys are doing a good job at what you guys are doing.

So keep up the go work.

And second, third, I'd like to give a special shout out to our the speakers that came out and always join us.

Uh even a bigger shout out to Corey Neighborhood Group who comes and joins us uh every week, every time, and and you guys are our number one fans, so as we feel um okay, so uh let's just jump in jump into the questions.

Sunita have a question for you on on page five.

Just a real quick question.

Um it it's it's the community outreach page.

Um so I I noticed that one of the meetings uh that the one that's on April 19th, it is is a longer than the than the other ones.

Is that an error or is it supposed to be that way?

Um thank you, Commissioner.

Um so we um in concert with our consultant decided that um being at sort of a different venue, Viva Cae, it's uh pretty much a 10 to 3 p.m.

event would be a good opportunity to reach folks that typically don't come to our meetings.

It's on a Sunday early in the day.

So um it will be from 10 to 3.

So it is a longer period than the other um evening meetings.

Okay, thank you.

And then uh for town homes allowed to be built on M U N zoning.

Yes, they are, yes, okay.

Town homes are permitted.

So last week we had a project that was uh at the Camden site, it was for uh Builders Remedy.

Yeah, it was about 16 units per the acre.

What's the average town home per acre building?

I did you have some three.

I was gonna say roughly 2023.

It can be lower too, but um we don't see that many townhome projects in San Jose right now.

Oh okay, so so moving the minimum from zero to twenty for the MUN uh town homes would still pencil make sense there, would that still be something?

It's at the denser end of the town home.

So I think what what you may have seen on that builder's remedy site was was a little bit below the 20, um, but 20 would still be in the range of townhomes, but at the higher end, and then 30 you would get into more of maybe a stack flats type of uh density.

Sure.

And then um I like to bring up the the VTA uh folks are here.

I think they always join us as well, so shout out to you guys as well.

Um yeah, I passed by the Santa Chisa site uh pretty often.

It's uh I think it could be a better use to that site.

I appreciate the site, it means 35 acres.

Uh as always buses going in and out, it is active.

So, but at the same time, it it there could be a better use for that site, I believe.

So I understand what you guys are trying to say.

Um then I uh but but I believe that they mentioned that they have a meeting upcoming with with staff.

Yes, we'll we'll be meeting with them.

They reached out yesterday to us.

Okay, I think that that would make the most sense if you guys were just to meet and then kind of talk, and I think that'll be productive, right?

Uh that's it for my comments for nothing.

Can I can I just feed on that for a minute?

Um it seemed that there was a suggestion at least that we consider these two locations as part of this plan.

Is there a reason that we are not so these sites weren't something initially that we were considering as a part of this growth area expansion through the discussions around SB 79 and the industrial hub exclusion?

This came up just a couple weeks ago, you know, and or through those conversations, and so that specific discussion that they're referring to with city council and the mayor was at City Council on March 17th, so just a couple of weeks ago.

So it wasn't something that we had time to incorporate into this meeting.

So, you know, I think as I said, we've we've already we'll we'll meet with them and have these conversations, but it wasn't something that we could fit into to accommodate in this meeting.

I thought it was months ago, so apologies.

Thank you for clarifying.

Who would like to ask another question?

Anything?

Commissioner Young, please.

Thank you, Chair.

Yeah, um staff uh like to echo Commissioner uh Bandal's comments.

Thank you very much.

As usual, very professional, well thought out presentation.

I know a tremendous amount of work has gone into that, so thank you for that.

Um I wanted to talk a little bit about the um downtown west um issue that one of the speakers brought up.

Um so I've had a chance to read read the uh letter they brought in and talk to um one of the residents.

To me, it seems like what they're requesting is very reasonable.

Um they're basically asking that um the 100, 300 blocks of Gifford Avenue, Columbia Avenue, Park, and Roads Court be taken out of the um the DSAP.

Um considering the amount of uh you know, I'll tell you why this seems reasonable to me.

Um bifurcating, you know, up these blocks is really problematic.

Um one of the residents that I spoke to said there was a developer that wanted to build a you know four-story parking garage next to her home.

Um I know that the downtown in general and downtown west has been really active in you know supporting uh supporting housing.

Um I guess I feel like they've done their share, and I think what they're requesting is reasonable to have to have these um blocks taken out so they don't have that issue.

Um so I was wondering if staff could look at this and um maybe come back at the next meeting with uh with your thoughts on this.

Yes, we can do that, evaluate and then return with um I recall some of this work, but we do have to go back and do a little bit more.

Um background search.

Yeah, Commissioner Kentral, go ahead.

Actually, I was on that same note.

It that it made me ask ask the question why these very specific pieces were were this way in a very large surface area.

I'm I'm just curious.

I mean, it didn't I don't understand it.

Yeah, that's that's what I think I'd like to go back and look.

I wasn't um involved in the project as much.

I don't think anyone here was, so just getting a better understanding of why that delineation was there, we can bring that back and explain so the thinking back then.

Yeah, right.

Thank you.

And is it just for my own clarification?

Is it possible to include this in the changes that we're proposing?

Or do you need to review it and let us know?

I think we need to evaluate that first.

Yeah.

Commissioner Cow.

Yeah, thank you very much.

And I echo the same sentiments from the um the two commissioners who said thank you to staff and everybody for um not only providing the presentation but all the community input so far.

So thank you very much for that.

I have a few questions.

I think the first one, I'm trying to wrap my head around a concern I have with a recommendation that staff provided.

So I guess just for context, on slide 19, the growth area recommendation is to not proceed with either tier one or tier two growth areas.

I want to share the concern I had, at least while going through the presentation, is that it does seem and staff even brought up that the growth areas, the tier one and tier two areas are in low to moderate resourced areas, and that definitely brings up inequity issue.

So that is my concern, but up against the recommendation like from staff.

Um, can you clarify what you mean by not proceeding with either tier one or tier two growth areas, like aka we're abandoning this growth area strategy completely, and then we're looking at um something else, and I think I understand what staff was trying to say, but I wanted to bring this up for clarification.

Yes, thank you, um, Commissioner.

Yes, that is our proposal is that that strategy um that we abandon it essentially because um if we proceed with the 32 dwelling unit per acre for residential neighborhood areas, which these are currently residential neighborhood areas, um we would achieve the densities that we were envisioning under these new growth areas.

So it's kind of a moot point in our opinion.

If we're already going up to 32, no need to go to what we initially thought was up to 30.

And if you recall one of the earlier slides was you know, if we go up to 32 for RN, we have to adjust mixed-use neighborhood, which is the next one.

And that one, our recommendation is to go from 20 to 50.

We think going up to 50, right, 20 to 50 in these residential neighborhoods, it's gonna bring up issues of privacy and scale for the existing um single family neighborhoods, as well as the ability for single-family homeowners to demolish and rebuild their homes, right?

Right now they can do that if they're RN, it's a permitted use.

But if they wanted to demolish this and the minimum density is 20, um, you wouldn't achieve those densities, right?

And so we're sort of locking people into this the existing use for the moment.

So that's why we're suggesting we won't go forward with tier two growth areas.

Essentially, the missing middle strategy would help us achieve those densities.

Got it.

Thank you so much for the clarification.

My next question is related to content on slide 25 on mixed use commercial parcels.

The third bullet point highlights that only three MUC projects built have provided mixed uses, and none have met the minimum commercial square footage.

So the question that popped into my mind is why the poor outcome?

I I it sounds like staff discussed this briefly, but if you can elaborate on that, that would be very helpful.

Um it's essentially what we've been saying that mixed use commercial at this density, so up to um yeah, up to 50 with a significant amount of commercial, it doesn't pencil it's there's no market for that product type in San Jose.

So of the three that have been built since 2011, um, they've been able to use um I think two of well, all three have some level of affordability.

So they've been able to use excuse me, density bonus to reduce their required commercial.

So that's why they, you know, there it's a mostly residential with maybe two, three, four thousand square feet of ground floor commercial.

Mixed use commercial in this sense would actually necessitate maybe 10,000 square feet on maybe a half acre or one acre site.

So it's just something that doesn't generally pencil or work here.

There's not a market for that, and that's why we see these projects that don't meet that minimum commercial requirement.

Got it.

And to further clarify what you just said about not penciling out and not having a market, does that directly just translate into developers not being interested in submitting for projects with these conditions?

Yes, on these sites with mixed-use commercial.

Okay.

Thank you.

Do you mind if I ask a correlated question?

I actually don't understand that because I live in North San Jose in Milpitas, in Santa Clara, in Mountain View, in all of our surrounding areas, they're all doing this quite successfully.

So what is the blocker in San Jose?

And why can Milpitas in Santa Clara and our surroundings do this incredibly successfully, and we simply can't?

The problem with with mixed-use commercial is the cap on the residential density.

So with what you're probably seeing there, and another designation that we have is what we call urban village designation, and it allows commercial and up to 250 dwelling units an acre.

So where we've seen issues is where someone maybe wants to do more of a mixed-use residential and mixed-use commercial.

They they hit the density threshold very quickly and cannot meet the high commercial threshold.

So it's it's really the combination of the two.

So it's not that mixed use can't work, it's just in in the specific combination that mixed use commercial has it blended, it doesn't work.

And it actually leads me to my other question, which is why is urban residential not being recommended for any increase if we think that that's the answer, then why wouldn't we increase urban residential?

So we are proposing that it increase in density, and then I think what we want to look at on a site-by-site basis is that we would change some mixed-use commercial potentially to urban residential, and some mixed-use commercial may make sense to stay as commercial, but we we want to go kind of and evaluate different areas and different sites on a case-by-case basis.

Okay.

I'm just reacting to page 11 where you're changing proposed density to 50 to 95 from 30 to 95.

So that's not an increase, right?

That's an adjustment.

Well, the the lower is the lower bound is increasing.

Yeah, but the higher bound isn't.

Would you would there be a reason to go higher?

Or is that like really we think that's the highest we could go at X stories and I think so because we have um transit residential is the one after it, after that, and it goes a little bit more dense.

And the idea is that it's surrounded by some kind of uh resident, I'm sorry, transit that could support more density.

So we haven't seen an issue so much with urban residential, it's really that mixed-use commercial that the the ceiling for density, you know, is impacting projects.

The other thing I would add is that if someone were to want to go higher in urban residential, they're still not precluded from using density bonus law and and potentially in a way that would be more productive than we've seen it used in mixed-use commercial, where maybe they would go to a hundred, you know, and we would be getting additional units that would be affordable and some additional units that would be market rate.

Thank you.

I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Please carry on.

No worries.

Can I interrupt you?

No worries.

I I think that use needs a little bit of can we can we look at the history of that use specifically?

Because I I think it's restricted by what kind of rents you can get in that amount of space, and that's where the revenue problem is.

Um is not as good as Mount View in terms of rents neighborhood.

So it restricts the developer's ability to actually make a profit, especially in the in an era where commercial use is just not the thing to do today.

So I I think that's no, whether or not that doing this change makes that go away.

I don't think so, because I think you'd have to, I don't like the commercial residential mix person.

But anyway, um, it gives a developer to the next step up to go to a profit generating uh rate for rents to cover the commercial use as well when there's a market for commercial use.

I'm just gonna say the people in Milpitas that have a Trader Joe's and the Starbucks downstairs from them, they really like that.

Yeah, but they they also have more density.

Yeah.

That's right.

That's that's where I was going.

Because growers will go there.

The density question.

A grocer's profit margin is very thin.

They're never going to go to a place without enough density to make a profit.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Please carry on.

No worries.

Okay, one final question on the jobs to employed residence ratio.

So I vaguely remember a rate at this ratio discussion.

I think it was at my very first meeting last September during the joint city council planning commission session.

And here we are back at this ratio.

I do have a question on just arriving at this 1.1 ratio target where we are right now seeing an average around 0.82.

Without much context to this ratio.

I'm curious to understand better why we continue to have that 1.1 target.

I think it was even higher back then, but now it's been adjusted.

But we have seen, I think history has been around 0.8 more or less.

And we can't seem to get ourselves up to closer to that one threshold, let alone 1.1.

So what are the benefits to keeping a ratio that much higher versus adjusting that ratio?

This is coming from very limited understanding.

And including, I'm just gonna add, and including when we're giving up some commercial land for residential uses.

I wouldn't expect us to ever get there if we're gonna continue to give up commercial land for residential uses.

That's a great point.

Right.

And that that's always the careful balance that we've been in with our general plan, you know.

I think go going back to the root question you had.

Um, you know, I think you look at sort of what's a what's a healthy city ratio, right?

And generally you want it to be 1.0, right?

Where you're living and you're working in the same city, right?

Um that's the best for sort of the fiscal health of the city that you know you have a uh a job that that sort of takes less in city um services and resources combined with a resident that probably utilizes more services than is maybe contributing in terms of revenue.

Um as you've mentioned, we've sort of historically been at that point eight.

Um so we did start out with a 1.3, which was pretty ambitious and lowered it to 1.1 in a previous uh four-year review.

Um you know, we we did sort of look at some of the calculations based upon several um population projections on how it's calculated.

Um so still kind of keeping an aspirational goal uh higher than one, you know, um, to try to continue to keep us towards that goal of at least increasing it.

We thought was was beneficial.

Um then also if we were to lower that ratio, it would translate into lowering our jobs capacity in the general plan, and we didn't feel like we should go there yet, you know, and um just uh reserve that capacity if there were was another you know major jobs generating use.

I mean, we could be so lucky, I suppose, but if that did come along that we would have that ability to move that along by keeping that capacity.

So for those kind of reasons, that's why we felt it didn't make sense at this point to change the ratio.

Um and again, as the staff said, just to sort of also reinforce those other strategies in the general plan that still remain in terms of you know preserving commercial, preserving industrial and trying to grow the job space.

It was consistent with that.

Yeah, I know I asked this question in our pre-review, but I'm gonna ask it so that everybody can hear.

What are the other knobs that would have to be turned if we adjusted this number?

Like you said, we we would have to drop our estimates of of employment, we might have to adjust some other things across the plan if we were to take this number from a 1.1 to 1.0.

If we reduced it from 1.1 to 1.0, um, what that would mean is that it's um within our environmental document that assesses future growth for the city, um, we would just have to adjust that number down, like the potential jobs growth.

And to Jarrett's point, you know, we want to have just that capacity in case something happens because then if we don't have it, that ends up being part of a sequel review, an environmental analysis.

It's sort of similar to our conversation around residential capacity, right?

SB 79 can happen, and yet we still want all these other options, and that's why we want to keep the jobs number where it is now for options and but if we do that, if we reduce it, it's just it's a it's a number that's tied to our environmental review of this this policy work essentially.

It's like background of the environmental work.

How does it compare in your mind to the adjustments we're potentially gonna have to make on property that that we SB 79 would would enable us to use for residential?

That means we are gonna give up some commercial.

I think I mean I can see the writing on the wall.

I don't think there's gonna be a lot we can do about it in some cases.

So are we are we being realistic?

Is San Jose capable of getting to 1.1?

I guess I I I like to set realistic goals.

And it's the question.

Have we ever been at 1.1?

Ever?

No.

1989, Lesb.

Let's go.

We have not.

No, I but I mean, and I don't know the full history, but 0.8 and thereabouts.

I think the highest one I saw on record was like 0.85.

Right, I think.

If I could could I weigh on this?

Um did you want to go ahead, Commissioner Kendra?

Actually.

Yeah, I'm I'm sitting on my hands over here.

I'm sorry.

Um I think it's an aspirational goal, quite honestly.

That's basically it.

Um so and I I don't think it changes much because so far, um, you know, we plan this, but we do nothing to encourage or move it.

Um it's a lot of secondly, the market here is very different from other places.

Work in the valley is different from work in Ohio.

So in Ohio, that mix might make more sense.

But in the valley, the type of work that we do is largely intellectual.

It can happen in a bedroom or anywhere else.

Um and you know, it's it just doesn't move the needle the same way that industrial lands would do that.

Yeah.

Um and I I think that's a big part of the problem.

Um I I I've always thought this number was weird science.

Because it just kind of came from nowhere.

I I tried to find the calculation.

Is there one?

There's um I think we may have linked it to this report from 2015 when we readjusted it.

So there's some um there's a staff report and then a link within the staff report on the background.

Yeah.

I I think it it's aspirational.

And and I agree to to the concept of having growth available for change.

Because who knows?

Maybe all the machines will break one day and we'll have to go back to work in factories or something else.

I just feel like increasing housing might work against this number.

Yeah.

So if you increase housing by 60,000 units, which is our aspirate other aspirational goal, this number drops by two percentage points.

It's going the wrong way.

Just an observation.

I think it's the question is is it the wrong way?

Yeah, I agree.

It's a regional problem.

But uh essentially, I was gonna say what Commissioner uh Kentral said, and also uh Jared, what you said.

It's an aspirational goal.

I mean, a general plan really all of a general plan is aspirational.

This in a perfect world, this is where we'd like to go.

The reason I think this one's important um is you know, we have a structural budget deficit in the city.

We have had for a long time.

Um, providing services for residents, it costs more than providing services to uh commercial building.

And and unfortunately, the way you know property tax laws are in California, um, you don't, you know, our city doesn't get as much property tax from residential.

So I just think it's important to keep it as an aspirational goal because if we don't if we don't move the needle that way, we're gonna continue to have budget challenges every every year as we do this year.

So I think it's important.

Commissioner Madow?

Yeah, I believe it is the aspirational goal.

I think it's a very important goal.

Uh that means the city is kind of thinking towards how important the employment lands that we have are.

Would you consider it important?

Or yeah, I mean uh that you know that's always what's driving our decision, you know, as we looked at that 79 industrial ordinance and getting that included on the bill is very important to the city, especially, you know, we value all of our employment lands, but in particular those industrial uh employment lands are particularly important.

It's it's hard to gain new industrial given the the kind of uses that are performed there.

So, you know, it's it's it's very important to us from a land use perspective.

Yeah, I just believe the in the SP 79 is just so complex, and I think under SB9 uh 79 you can convert to housing, and that's probably something that the city can't have too much control over the state does, but uh we as a city should do everything in our power to preserve those lands because it the situation is uh if once you use it you lose it.

Uh if there's housing there, you you never get it back.

And maybe we do have to go to work in factories and machines one day.

We want to, you know, um it's just getting there, but I I think it's important, and we've been a bedroom community long enough, and uh there's more people in the city of San Jose at night time than they are during the daytime.

And uh there's more people in the city of San Jose at night time than they are during the daytime.

So uh we need to preserve and we need to preserve those lands.

Um I'm a strong supporter for that.

We need to preserve our commercial lands, and we need to preserve our in industrial zoning.

So thank you.

Additional comments from the commission.

Okay, I wanna thank um staff once again uh for your thoughtful and uh and excellent um information and the commentary and discussion this evening.

We appreciate it.

I'll remind uh everybody that our next task force meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, May 20th, 6 30 to 8 30 right here, same place.

And uh if I can um oh, I I just have one quick update.

Um the calendar does show on the website that we have a meeting in May, um, then um meeting number seven June third, and then we have this meeting number eight, June 17th, if needed.

It will be needed.

But just want to put that out there that we will update this table.

It looks like you know, a lot of work, a lot of discussion and follow-up, so we will um certainly have some for the final meeting will be June 17th.

Commissioner Rosario.

I'm sorry, LeBerry.

Yeah, I just want to confirm you feel at this point in time you won't need to schedule an additional meeting.

But if this meetings we have, it'll all work out.

She just said she added June 17th.

I know, I just wanted to conf that was my question prior.

I mean, I don't know, before I mean we're doing our best to have everything June 17th.

There will be the final June twenty-fourth vote where you will sit as planning commission, um, not the task force, but uh we are looking at you know keeping you guys busy through June.

Oh, I'm sorry, and so just to understand that's we are the task force June 17th, then the same idea comes to the planning commission.

Oh, you never saw it before.

Uh yes.

Yes, but then not to council till the December.

Oh, August for preliminary.

Yes.

And then December 2027 back to planning commission and city council for final vote.

That would be all the actual changes to the general plan amendment uh December.

2027.

Yeah.

If the city council comes back with any substantive things in August, would you be asking the ta task force to reevaluate anything?

Or no?

Like we're I think it will be up to the council how they want to direct our work.

So and aware that you not everyone will still be serving as a commissioner.

Some folks I think are termed out.

I think typically though the the city council vote is is more of the final vote.

So um I mean it would come back in its final form, but unless I think unless council directed us to come back to the task force, it would it would we would move forward based upon the city council recommendation.

Any other comments?

Uh once again, thank you to the uh general public and to everyone that attended.

We appreciate your time this evening.

We're adjourned.