Good morning.

We are calling to order the planning director hearing of May 6, 2026.

My name is Ruth Cueto, and I am the hearing officer for today's agenda on behalf of and delegated by the Director of Planning Building and Code Enforcement, Christopher Burton.

This meeting is being held via Zoom conference call.

Members of the public may participate by following the instructions listed on page two of the agenda.

If you would like to provide public comment, you have two methods to do so.

For participants who joined electronically and have audio input available on their computer or smartphone, they can use the raised hand feature in Zoom during the agenda item they would like to speak to, or click star nine on their phone.

Remember to keep your raised hand feature on until planning support staff identify your turn to speak.

During the meeting, please call 408 535 8517 or email planning support staff at San Jose CA.gov and identify your name that is listed on Zoom, phone number that you'll call into Zoom with, and what item or items you would like to comment on.

All members of the public will remain on mute until the individual identifies they would like to speak and they are unmuted.

Planning support staff will identify you by name when it is your turn to speak.

At that time, you will be unmuted and can provide comment for the allotted time.

If you exceed your allotted time, you may be muted so we can move on to the next speaker.

Please note the following.

The hearing procedure and order of input will be as follows.

I will identify each project as described on the agenda.

For those items on the consent calendar, I will ask if anyone wishes to speak on them.

If a separate discussion is warranted, I will move the item to the public hearing portion of the agenda.

If a separate discussion is not needed, the item will remain on the consent calendar for approval.

For those items listed under public hearing, I will ask staff to provide a brief report.

The applicant or their representative who wishes to speak on the item will have up to five minutes to speak and should identify themselves by stating their name for the record.

After the applicant or their representative has spoken, any member of the public who wishes to speak on the item may provide testimony for up to two minutes per speaker, either for or against the project.

All members of the public should identify their name for the record, although it is not required.

Following comments from the public, the applicant may make additional remarks for up to five minutes.

I will then close a public hearing and I may ask staff to answer questions, respond to comments made by the applicant or the public, or further discuss the item.

I will then take action on the item.

If you challenge these land use decisions in court, you may be limited to raising only those issues or someone else raised at this public hearing or in written correspondence delivered to the city at or to the public meeting.

The planning director's actions on the agenda items will be final when the permit is signed and mailed, unless the permit or the environmental clearance determination is appealed.

The planning director's actions on the permits are appealable in accordance with the requirements of Title 20 of the Municipal Code Zoning Ordinance.

The planning director's actions on the environmental review for the permits under the California Environmental Quality Act CEQA, are separately appealable in accordance with the requirements of Title 21 of the Municipal Code Environmental Clearance.

Before we begin, I want to remind members of the public to follow our code of conduct at meetings.

This includes commenting on the specific agenda item only.

Public speakers will not engage in a conversation with the hearing officer or staff.

The hearing officer, staff, and the public are expected to refrain from abusive language, repeated failure to comply with the code of conduct, which will disturb, disrupt, or impede the orderly conduct of this meeting may result in removal from the meeting.

This meeting of the director hearing will now come to order.

We will begin today's meeting with the deferrals.

Any items scheduled for hearing this morning for which deferral to a future meeting date is being requested will be moved to this portion of the agenda and considered on the matter of deferral.

I will identify any items to be deferred and ask for comments from the audience.

If you want to change any of the deferral dates or speak to the question of deferring these or any other items, please use the raise hand feature in Zoom or click star 9 to raise a hand to speak.

We have one item proposed for deferral today.

Item 2A, PD 25-019, and ER25-194.

Planned development permit to allow paving landscaping, including the removal of one ordinance-sized palm tree, the creation of 30 EV truck charging stalls, and 10 trailer truck storage stalls with charger plugins, the construction of an approximately 3200 square foot maintenance building, and approximately 6,420 square foot recycling and trash enclosure located southeast of the Top Golf Drive and Bay Vista Drive intersection at 4553 North First Street, 4563 North First Street, and 4653 North First Street in Council District 4.

Staff's recommendation is dropped to be renoticed for the May 20th, 2026 director hearing per staff request.

Is there anyone who wishes to speak on this item?

Okay, hearing no none.

I will drop item 2A, which will be renoticed for a later date per staff's request.

We will move on to item three of the agenda, which is a consent calendar.

There are no items on the consent calendar, so we will go ahead and move on to item four on the agenda, which is the public hearing.

There is one item on the public hearing, and it is item 4A, SP25 and ER25-076, a special use permit to allow the expansion of a private elementary school, Harker School, from 580 students to up to 650 students in two phases of construction on an approximately 8.9 gross acre site as follows.

Phase one, demolition of the existing approximately 4,800 square foot library building, and the construction of a new approximately 34,156 square foot two-story, multi-story multi-purpose building with an approximately 6,398 square foot basement parking garage and reconfiguration of the access driveway, parking lot, and vehicular circulation along Rincon Avenue.

And phase two, demolition of an approximately 1,020 square foot circulation, sorry, 1,020 square foot portable building and the construction of a construction of an approximately 4300 square foot one-story addition to an existing classroom building, building 500 along Santa Massaquino Aquino Road, and the removal of 43 trees, 21 ordinance and 22 non-ordinance sized trees located on the southwest corner of Santa Masaquino Road and Bucknall Road, 4300 Bucknell Road, Harker School Foundation, Council District 1.

The staff recommendation is to consider the mitigated negative declaration for Harker Bucknell multi-purpose building project in accordance with CEQA and approve a special use permit.

I will now ask staff to provide a brief report, followed by the applicant, and then we will take public comment.

Thank you, hearing officer.

I'd like to share my screen.

This special use permit allows the expansion of a private school elementary school, the Harker School, from 580 students to up to 650 students in two phases of construction on an approximately 8.9 gross acre site.

Phase one will allow the demolition of the library building to be replaced with a multipurpose two-story building, approximately 34,000 in square feet in size, and has a basement parking garage.

The site access parking circulation of the site will be all reconfigured.

The basketball courts will be moved approximately 150 feet to the north of the site.

And the second phase includes the removal of a portable building, a one-story 4300 square foot classroom addition to building 500 along Centoma Sakina Road.

The project includes removal of 43 trees and planting of 91 new 24 inch box trees in the landscape and parking lot areas of the site.

The school serves students from kindergarten through fifth grade, will have up to 190 staff members, and the school would continue to operate Monday through Friday, 7 a.m.

to 8 p.m.

for their operations plan.

The subject site is located on the southwest corner of St.

Thomas Aquino Road and Bucknell Road at 4300 Bucknell Road.

The site is currently occupied by the existing Harker School buildings and associated parking lots.

Vaker circulation driveways, perimeter uh landscaping, playgrounds, and fields are all part of the school campus.

The site is surrounded by single family residences to the east, south, and west, and a combination of single-family homes and multifamily residential buildings to the north.

The site will maintain the access driveways to on-site parking from Bucknell Road as well as West Rincon Avenue.

The subject site is consistent with public quasi-public uh general plan designation of the site, especially general plan goal ES-1 and policy ES-1.7, which allows uh which supports Harker School expansion and will continue, which uh the school will continue to provide high quality education and has several campuses that are existing in San Jose.

The subject site is in the PQP uh public quasi public zoning district and will be consistent with the private school land uses and development standards of that zoning district.

The expansion of the school requires a special use permit as the uh as submitted.

The project site has adequate access from Bucknell Road and West Rinkern Avenue and includes sidewalk and driveway improvements consistent with the city standards.

The project is consistent with citywide design guidelines, bike and motorcycle parking, transportation policies, stormwater management, tree removal uh findings per chapter 13.32, including tree replacement ratio requirements.

The site, as you can see, the uh is uh the special use permit is consistent with City Council Policy 6-30 for public outreach to inform the public of the proposed project.

The project information was posted on October 17, 2025.

A notice of the public hearing was also distributed to owners and tenants of all properties within the 500 foot radius of this subject site.

The draft permit was posted on city's website and staff has been available to respond to questions from the public.

The concerns from the public have mostly been about pickup and drop-off of children, traffic speed and circulation around the site.

A transportation analysis TA, dated January 27, 2026, was performed for the project based on 38 net AM trips, and uh 38 and 17 net PM trips.

Sorry, sorry about that.

The uh transpiration analysis concluded that the project would be in conformance with the cities of San Jose Transferation Policy, traffic calming policy for residential.

Irena, can I stop you?

Yes, um, the Amanda?

I don't know if that's your screen.

But if you were trying to share slides, we're not seeing them anymore.

Can you see that now?

Yes, thank you.

And this is the subject site, the whole campus.

So a determination for less than significant impacts was made with respect to transportation impacts.

A monetary contribution of approximately 100,000 for hardscape traffic calming improvements, will be provided by the school.

The project will achieve 25 points with implementation of TDM or transportation demand management measures, but the TDM plan, which includes the provision of VAN shuttle transit services.

I will now give it to Court to speak on CEQA.

Thank you.

Good morning, hearing officer and everyone on the call, and thank you, Rena.

I will briefly touch on the environmental review for this project.

So my name is Court Hitchens.

I am the environmental uh I am the environmental project manager for this project.

So this project was reviewed under compliance with the California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA in the city system under file number ER25-076 and was also posted online for public review with the state clearinghouse for this project and initial study mitigated negative declaration or ISMND was prepared along with a mitigation monitoring and reporting program.

The ISM and D and all project-related CEQA documents were posted as mentioned to the city's website and to the state clearing house for a public review and circulation period that lasted 20 days during February of this year.

Next slide, please, Rena.

Thank you.

So during the environmental review for this project, through the initial study, potentially significant impacts from the proposed development were found to potentially arise during uh construction related to air quality during ground or sorry um during construction and tree removals for nesting birds, potential impacts to cultural resources during ground excavation to potentially find archaeological deposits as well as to hazardous materials due to prior use of the site for agricultural uses that would require soil sampling.

So all of the potentially significant impacts identified to environmental resources would be able to be lessened to less than significant levels with implementation of the measures in the MMRP in addition to the city's standard permit conditions included for this project and no significant and unavoidable impacts would arise from this project.

That's all.

Thank you, Rena.

Thank you, Court.

Um, additionally, uh development of the project will be subject to standards building and grading permit requirements.

The Department of Public Works have reviewed the project.

And uh stormwater runoff, drainage, erosion control and issue and and all the conditions have been uh provided in their final memo dated March 13, 2026.

The project must comply with city's maximum allowable noise level decibels as well.

A noise and vibration assessment was prepared dated September 10, 2025, and concluded that operational noise generated by the project, including traffic mechanical equipment and outdoor activities, would not increase the ambient noise levels by uh more than three dBA DNL at the nearby sensitive receptors, especially the single family homes.

Construction related noise would be temporary and will occur in phases and will be restricted to 7 a.m.

to 7 p.m.

Monday through Friday for all work within 500 feet of residential uses.

This restriction is incorporated as a condition of approval of this permit.

So based on the stated facts and findings and conditions of approval included in the special use permit, file numbers SP 25-008, staff concludes that the project will uh with the applicable will be uh in conformance with applicable policies of the general plan, though the development standards and performance standards of the zoning district and would not result in adverse environmental impacts under CEQA.

Therefore, staff recommends that the director of planning consider the mitigated NEGDAC for Harker Bucknell multi-purpose uh building project in accordance with CIQA and approve the special use permit.

This concludes staff presentation and I'm available for any questions.

Public works team, DOT team and and court for Sequo's uh and David Keon are also present.

The applicant's team is also present, and I will hand it over to them.

Thank you.

And please, if Chrissy has not yet been promoted, please promote her.

Hi, good morning, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Thank you.

Hi, good morning.

Can you hear me?

Yes, yeah, we can hear you.

Yes.

Great.

Um actually I'm gonna defer to Brian Jaeger from Harker.

He is ready to speak on behalf of the school.

You could promote him as well.

Hello, this is Brian Yeager.

Am I coming through?

Yes.

Great.

Well, thank you so much.

I want to just take a few seconds to say um thank you to the staff at San Jose.

I really appreciate all of your work with our team and DEF CON in particular on this project.

I know uh you guys get a lot of work and have a lot of things to manage.

So thank you for working with us.

Uh my understanding is as well that we'll have an opportunity at the end of the public comment session to make some more comments, and I'd be eager to address anything that comes up during this meeting at that point as well.

I just in in in preface, in addition to saying thank you, want to acknowledge that um we're really excited about this project at Harker.

I think all of you know is as um uh has been said already that the school has a long history of being an excellent educational institution throughout San Jose and at the site since 1997, I think is when we acquired it.

Um also um we recognize that our program has great benefit to the community but also some impact on it.

And a big aspect of what we're trying to accomplish here is actually to improve those areas that have been brought up as concerned by our own neighbors and by our own uh community members, and primarily that's traffic in and around schools.

So this new project incorporates uh an additional 20 parking spots on campus from what we currently have, an increase of about 50 percent in the queuing space by moving our library to the interior part of our campus, and we know this will reduce not only um backing up onto the roads around us, but also the speed and in and ease with which students will load and unload from our campus.

So we we are looking forward to the benefits of this project for our own community as well as for the neighbors, and um uh are confident that the impacts will be on the positive side for everybody.

Um we also are concerned with uh sort of traffic and safety in the neighborhood, both for the residents of the neighborhood and again for our own families, many of whom are walking and also driving and and um that's why we are eager to uh volunteer that $100,000 up to $100,000 for calming measures for traffic.

We hope that'll make a nice difference throughout the neighborhood as well.

Uh so um I know that um again, everyone's put a lot of work into this.

Thank you very much.

Um, and if there are specific questions or concerns that anyone on the planning commission has, happy to address those directly, but I know you've done a thorough job.

And so thank you, Ruth, Rena, and Court in particular, but everybody else behind the scenes as well for your work.

I don't know if I need to sign off or say I'm done.

Thank you.

Okay.

If you are a member of the public who would like to comment on this item, please raise your hand and we will identify you by name.

You will have two minutes to speak.

Gail, please unmute your device and oh, thank you.

Hi.

My name is Gail Wilson.

I've have lived in this neighborhood since 1969.

And I strongly object to this project, and I urge you to deny the permit.

My main reason is the traffic.

Currently, with the number of students and employees at Harker, it's for multiple times during the day.

It's impossible to exit along Bucknall and Weston Drive.

I I, of course, need to commute as well.

And I have to travel maybe an extra two miles.

I go a mile to the east, or to the west, I'm sorry, and then back around to get where I need to go coming and going because of the Harker traffic.

There's additional pedestrian traffic as well because the parents park on our streets to walk their kids to avoid the traffic hassles.

And they're not always good pedestrians any more than the parents who are commuting are not necessarily courteous drivers.

I think the original school when it was open was probably intended for a maximum of 300 kids who were who were all coming as pedestrians.

The neighborhood has grown and it's the traffic is unsafe today.

And adding more than 10% of students and the additional staff to serve them will just make it worse and less safe for all of us who live in the neighborhood.

And we should be protected.

Thank you.

Debbie.

Yes.

Hi.

And I appreciate the fact that the school is going to replace those trees.

I like that part of it.

But we have are so impacted right now.

And I know that you guys are all trying to do your best.

Parking in people's driveways, as she said, running over leaf piles, blocking driveways, even in between.

So there's no traffic control on Rinken currently.

I know there is on Weston because I've tried to get out to go to a doctor's appointment.

And I appreciate the fact that you have people, three or four employees on Weston trying to help direct that traffic.

My husband went to this this school when it was Bucknell School.

I did also in kindergarten.

We could walk to school.

I walked my children to Baker down the street.

I feel really bad.

I know these people want their children to have good education, but we also have public education that's gonna be impacted by by Harker.

Um there is the the tree situation where you're gonna remove 40 to 243 trees.

I'd love to know what kind of trees you're gonna replace them with because the trees that are on Rincon kind of do give us a little bit of a sound barrier, not much, but they're good, and we need all we need more trees in the city than we do almost in the forest at this point in time.

I know that you just mentioned some somebody mentioned about there are going to be activities over here from 7 to 8 p.m.

in the evening, which is kind of sad.

That really and truthfully takes away.

We have some older people who live on Rincon who've been here probably since 1965.

My parents owned this house in 1964 also, 65.

It's impactful and it's really sad.

I I want to make sure that everybody gets their their just due, but I think it needs to be really re-looked at a little bit better.

I know I appreciate all the work that all the the public people did.

Um I'd like to see that in writing again.

I'm recording this.

Uh Nandini, your please unmute your device.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay, hi.

My name is Nandini Acharya.

I've lived in this neighborhood since February 20 uh 16.

It's about 10 years.

Um, I live on Della Court, which is diagonally across from Harker, and I do object to this project primarily for the traffic issue.

I have serious concerns, and it seems to have gotten worse over recent years.

And I know that Harker has tried to be a good neighbor.

I appreciate the school, but I think it really comes down to parent education, and I'm just gonna be blunt.

The parents have a huge sense of entitlement, it's one child per Tesla.

Um they don't understand the concept of a four-way stop sign, and that is what really concerns me getting out of my little court.

They don't respect that it's a four-way stop sign and it's a round robin, and you got you have to take your turn.

There's some very dangerous driving that I've observed, and I am concerned that there could be a tragedy involving a child, as some of the others have commented.

There are pedestrians who have to get to Buck to have to get to Baker Elementary.

The traffic situation is terrible, particularly in the mornings.

And recently it seems like the school had some personnel on that corner of Weston uh Bucknall and and Della to direct traffic, and I was very happy initially to see that, but then it seemed like they were definitely prioritizing the Harker parents over the the rules of a four-way stop sign.

So that's not gonna work for the neighborhood.

Um, I think I'm very you before the pandemic, there used to be a crossing guard at this intersection, and that has gone away, and it's just impossible.

It makes life very difficult to get out of our our street, and we live in this neighborhood as well.

So I I really want to hear more about what the plan is to deal with this traffic, uh, because that's my biggest biggest concern with this thing.

I do thank all the city professionals for their time as well as the school, and I hope that Raji, please unmute your device and begin your comment.

This is Mrs.

Raji.

I just want to get to the point.

I I agree with everybody that came in and just said it.

It's from our heart.

I have been living here since 1989 with my husband.

We don't have no children.

However, I like the neighborhood, we put the money in to become a senior citizen here.

What I'm getting is we have no respect whatsoever from the traffic is a mess.

We can't even park our cars front of the door to unload.

We come for like five or 10 minutes on a day off on Sunday, somebody comes and give you a parking citation because it was not properly parked since we were unloading it.

We paid for that stuff, but these are all the things are going through the traffic, the noise from 7 a.m.

to 8 p.m.

We have a double paint uh windows, but I cannot I can hear outside.

We're living in this neighborhood.

We love the neighborhood.

We don't want it.

What I'm asking you guys, either please, um, against we're all against it.

We don't want any new any additional noise or situation.

If you really want the entire neighborhood, why don't you just offer us multiple times for us for all of us to get out of this neighborhood?

Because the traffic, look at the asphalt.

Look at look at the condition of the street.

They cannot do anything.

Because you guys are been here since, as you said, 97.

Look at look at look at everything around us.

The traffic is mess.

We can't even walk.

And I agree with every one of these people that came up and just they share your, they share their thoughts.

Thank you so much.

Yes.

Hi.

Hi there.

My name is Shamit.

I live on Dorbal, just south of the school.

I also wanted to kind of express my um very apprehension.

I have a daughter who goes to Baker Elementary.

Um the traffic challenge, there's two big things where I think when everyone's alluded to this traffic problem.

Um in the mornings between Weston and Rincon, the traffic backs up all the way around the school.

Um and it's a very difficult takes what should be a three-minute drive to get to Baker from Dorval is like a 15 plus minute drive having to go figure out how to get around it.

It's dangerous because the traffic, you know, cars try to go to the right side and other cars are trying to get around it.

So as you're turning from Weston onto Bucknell, that that stop sign, it's um it's not a great situation where for for those who are trying to either turn right around the Harker traffic or turn left um to get to Baker.

Um I will say also just in terms of the school start time, you know, there's it's very well researched that adultly start time is better for schools, and it feels like Harker has kind of won that battle of having the later start time vis-a-vis Baker who starts at eight.

Um, I think staggered times possible help, but I think in general we've kind of put some of those kids at disadvantage because Harker has a later start time.

I would say the other thing that I would flag here is just kind of community inequality.

Um Harker as a school, great.

I realize it's a great education.

It's $51,000 a year to attend Harker.

There are very few people, if any, in the neighborhood that can afford to go to that school.

Um, and so we're sacrificing the quality of life of those in the neighborhood for you know those who can afford the school.

So I I appreciate what you know the the motivations are, and I appreciate having um that offering for those who can afford it, but we're sacrificing quality of life and traffic for those who cannot for a very like uh very specific set of of folks in the traffic.

So thank you for uh for considering um and thinking through what the consequences are.

That concludes our speakers.

Thank you.

I am going to ask um the excuse me, the applicant if he has um some more information he would like to add and specifically actually if you can also address um parent education in terms of drop off pick up pickup that um that was raised, and then also opportunities for um enhanced staff sort of traffic direction along Rincon.

Sure.

Am I on?

This is working.

Great, thanks.

Uh yeah, thank you.

I'd be happy to speak a little more.

Um so again, I I appreciate our the neighbors uh who have spoken and um sharing their concerns.

Um I can address a couple things.

I we we know that when we complete the project, like our impact on the immediate roads will be improved.

I mean, as I said, we are increasing the queuing space by 50%.

That'll get a lot more cars off the roads to mitigate um, you know, the backup might still happen, but it's gonna happen less frequently and be less significant.

Um, and therefore, we hope to improve the safety conditions and the flow of traffic rates for everybody um around the neighborhood, and again, more more parking on site for staff and visitors.

Um, but recognizing that, yeah, our our entry and exit from school does utilize the space and the roads, and I we know that, and that's part of the reason we're making these big changes, is to enhance that.

Um, you know, I'm um very confident we're very confident that modifications will work.

We do educate our parents, we really stress it uh about how they interact with the neighborhood.

We have certain rules about turning only right out of campus.

We talk every parent coffee we get uh by grade level and large level, and it reinforce our expectation for our parents not to park in driveways, not to block spaces, not to park on leaf piles.

And I know it happens sometimes because we hear about it from the neighbors, but believe me, we whenever we know about it and know if it's somebody who does it, we we we um correct their behavior.

We also are concerned about traffic in the neighborhood and and from other parents, not in other vehicles, some driven by teenagers that have nothing to do with Harker, and that's part of the reason we support the traffic and calming measures, which I know the city wants to wait till after the construction's finished to determine the best use of those hundred thousand dollar funds, which we're happy to to do and to contribute for everyone's benefit in the neighborhood.

Um, and uh again um our presence on the roads uh um we have staff out at the corners and the driveways mostly shepherding our parents in, and um uh at times we've had some people uh at the crosswalk.

I think that was a Harker person that was pre-COVID, and there's a staffing uh additional staffing member we had back then.

Uh that's something we certainly can consider.

Um, but we know that on campus we have a lot of people helping kids get in out of cars.

Oh, the last thing, two things.

There was a comment about noise.

Our program ends every day at six uh in the evening, and we'll continue to do so.

We're not asking for a change there.

I think what was said is that the construction could go until seven, and I know that's generally not the hour at which it ends, but I think that's the window in which it's available for the contractor.

Um occasionally we have evening events, but we're limited on those.

But our our basic programs ends at six.

And as to the tree question, yeah, most of those redwoods on Rincon are staying.

I think the preponderance of trees that are slated for removal are interior trees, and some redwoods that have been designated by the arborist as unsafe or failing trees.

So we're keeping the perimeter trees is intact almost entirely in this mostly interior tree removal and then replacement.

I don't know the varieties that are going in.

Sorry, I don't have that level of detail.

But please know we we really care about the trees and want shade and all the tree benefits that that they bring.

I think that covers those questions.

If there's other specific things I could ask, please let me know, staff.

Thank you again.

Thank you.

Staff, um, can you please uh if you have any responses to the comments raised, and then also specifically the kind of trees, if we can address um that comment.

Yes, I can speak to the trees, and then I'll have uh Florin and Manjut speak to traffic and calming uh traffic calming measures.

So the trees that are going to be planted uh uh and as Brian said, the trees to be removed are mostly interior to make space for the multipurpose building.

Um and uh the trees that will be planted will be mostly the the similar kind, which are London plain, Chinese pistache, um, and uh and maple, red maple ether, as uh trees.

So they'll be similar to the existing trees that are already there on the which are going to remain on the on the site.

And I will now have Florence speak to the traffic study, the analysis that done for the school and how uh how that conforms to the city policies.

Thank you.

Yeah, and all is there too.

I can speak on it, Rena.

Yeah, so good morning, hearing officer.

So I'll just go over general overview of uh what we studied in the transportation analysis, so a transportation analysis was studied for the project in accordance with uh city council policy 5-1 under CEQA and uh policy 5-1.

We've analyzed VMT or vehicle miles traveled to determine that transportation impacts.

And the results uh that VMT analysis indicates that with the continued operations of Harker's carpooling and private shuttle programs, the proposed project would result in less than significant VMT impacts.

So from a operations or condition standpoint, the analysis showed that there will be no adverse effects at the intersections.

So they are trying to minimize that from occurring as much as possible.

And in addition to that, we also coordinate with the city's Department of Transportation neighborhood traffic team to provide additional short-term parking zones along Butt Bucknall Avenue along the uh schools frontage to minimize vehicles using the neighborhood streets and blocking driveways to minimize that sort of issue to uh occur.

Um with regards to the uh traffic calling policy, as mentioned previously, the project will be providing a monetary contribution of 100k, and uh study will be done post-occupancy so you know the we can see what sort of traffic patterns are occurring there and seeing what best to help improve that area.

Um we will work with uh council district one as well as the local residents to determine the appropriate traffic coming measures, but uh some traffic coming measures that could be implemented could include speed humps, uh street edge lines to narrow the roadway widths uh and intersection improvements if there's you know enhanced uh crosswalks or any way to uh minimize uh the amount of uh vehicle pedestrian conflicts intersections.

And then lastly, I'll just go over um the project will be um doing a transportation demand management plan or TDM plan.

So as I guess I mentioned that the project will be uh maintaining their private school shuttles.

So uh we're hoping that uh students can enroll in that private school shuttles and minimize the amount of uh uh parents and students who are uh using uh you know the single occupancy vehicles to pick up and drop off, they could use uh private shuttles as an option that is provided by Harker, and another TDM measure that the project will implement is education and marketing.

So they'll um inform the parents and students as well as their employees about the other um multimodal options in the area, such as uh transit stops in the area, bike network, and um carpool programs um that is organized by Harker.

So, um with all that mentioned, um that'll hopefully minimize uh the amount of uh traffic um generated by harker and um city staff and myself will is also here to answer any specific questions thanks thank you renzel uh thank you reena um the public uh comment period has been closed for this item already um i appreciate the team's work on this you know your presentation the staff report staff permit um and i sincerely want to thank the residents and the neighbors who joined us today um i am also very familiar with sort of school drop off i think a lot of us are you know it is it can be very chaotic all across San Jose um but we do appreciate you calling in and sharing sort of the the perspective and the frustration of what you have to deal with um you know in the mornings and afternoons I will say that um when it comes to sort of this you know the the school the traffic impact across schools I think it has to be a multi-pronged approach to improving what is currently there what you know improving and ensuring that there's safety for our students for the children for the community and um what staff has presented here are those options some of those options which is the improved infrastructure that will come with the redesign and the expansion of the school with more uh queuing space with um future traffic calming measures that I strongly encourage the the neighborhood to continue to connect with the council office because that will be your conduit I think the easiest conduit to understand where that hundred thousand dollars could potentially go for um in terms of safety in terms of improvements for the neighborhood um you know the the other sort of um I think lever that can be changed here in order to improve the situation is behavioral and I think that that's the hardest part right it's how parents how we all uh behave when we're dropping off and picking up our children and um I just I want to strongly encourage the school Harker to continue to convey that message to the parents about um impact to the neighborhood about being a good neighbor about um my school public school my child's public school constantly sends us you know those reminder emails that come from our principal and sometimes a little bit of that does help and reminds us that you know we are here and we we sort of it's maybe 15 30 minutes in the morning but we need to be mindful of the behaviors on the road and um sort of related to that I will say is also enforcement.

The San Jose police department does have a traffic enforcement unit um like many of our departments it is short staffed and it's complaint based and I strongly encourage the neighbors to submit those if you feel that there needs to be some traffic enforcement you know the motorcycle police officers are out there they've come to to my school as well that may be sometimes what can help in this situation and so I encourage the residents and the neighbors to visit San Jose Police Department's website they have a traffic enforcement unit and you can submit your request through that website.

With that I will um move forward and uh recommend I'm sorry recommend and I will um going to give my approval for this uh special use permit considering the mitigated negative declaration for the project and again approve the special use permit for um the Harker school expansion this uh now concludes the director's hearing for May 6 2026 thank you all for joining us.