No, no, no.

Good evening.

My name is Carlos Rosario, and I am the chair of the Planning Commission and General Plan Task Force.

Welcome to the eighth and last meeting of the twenty twenty five, twenty twenty-2026 general plan four-year review.

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

Please remember to turn off your cell phones.

The parking validation machine for the parking garage underneath City Hall is located near the entrance.

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

Anybody would like to get a card.

We'll start with the roll call.

Vice Chair Bickford.

Here.

Commissioner Barroso.

Here.

Commissioner Bondall.

Here.

Commissioner Contrell.

Here.

Commissioner Cow.

Here, yeah.

Commissioner Casey.

Commissioner Escobar.

Yeah.

Commissioner Wynne.

Commissioner Oliver.

And Commissioner Young.

And myself here.

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

You can fill out a speaker's card and give it to the 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 will hand it over to staff to begin the meeting with agenda item number two, the agenda overview.

Just give us one second to plug the agenda over.

I can do it, sorry.

Okay, we're just pulling up the overall agenda, but the first item on the agenda is going to be an update on outreach efforts.

So we did not create a slide with the agenda on it, just multiple presentations.

So maybe Michelle, do you do we just want to go into the update on outreach efforts?

Yeah.

That's all right.

Um item number three on our agenda.

All right.

Good evening, Commissioners.

Um, Michelle Flores, planner with SDE.

So we'll be going over a summary of the outreach for the entire task force process.

And um, so here we'll start off.

Um, we have an infographic here that summarizes the outreach that was done for the four-year review.

Um, so per city.

Per city council direction um from October through December 2025.

Staff health meetings with groups representing community partners, housing advocates, and labor groups to share the scope of work and seek input on the four-year review.

In December of 2025.

Planning held a virtual community meeting in January.

Planning staff met with the Office of Racial and Social Equity, ORSC, to review previous four-year review outreach efforts and strategically identify specific areas of outreach that needed were needed for this cycle.

Um the key takeaway was ensuring that the topics are accessible to community members who are not familiar with the general plan.

As a result, planning staff created short videos describing the general plan and the four topics.

The videos were posted on the general plan for your review project and YouTube and were shared across social media platforms.

Staff held five community meetings, including the four open houses, 16 stakeholder meetings, six neighborhood meetings, three focus group meetings, one with the San Jose for All Advisory Group, and two facilitated in partnership with the disability advocacy consultant.

Eight task force meetings and five intergovernmental meetings.

In the in-person open houses, over 800 community members participated, and we received over 422 comments.

In the virtual open house, we had approximately 400 members participate and 610 comments were received.

We received comments in English, Spanish, Vietnamese, and Chinese.

We also had 272 members sign up for the email list, and we had over 350 members and leadership groups receiving project updates.

Community engagement opportunities were promoted through various platforms, including PBC communication landing page and email list, PBC and RIC social media, and external community partner newsletters.

Flyers for the open houses were also distributed at 11 community centers and all libraries throughout the city.

The memo includes an exhibit that lists all of the meetings that were held, and the second exhibit has all of the comments received through the various formats as well as the outreach reports from the consultants.

So what we heard, overall the feedback reflected the community's recognition of the need for more housing, including more affordable housing.

There was support for mixed use and transit-oriented development to help reduce the dependence on automobiles and create walkable neighborhoods.

Feedback from the participants who primarily spoke Spanish or Vietnamese indicated a relatively stronger support for increasing housing supply as a way to reduce rental prices and prevent families from having to relocate to other cities.

We heard concerns about how the increase in housing would impact neighborhoods.

There were concerns about infrastructure capacity, traffic, and parking.

A recurring theme throughout all of the topics was the need to create complete communities rather than simply adding housing units.

Participants asked for community spaces, neighborhood serving retail, public gathering spaces, parks, and improved transit.

For the first topic, jobs to employ resident ratio, the feedback was focused on the need to maintain strong employment base while ensuring there were adequate housing opportunities for all residents.

The feedback received stressed the importance of creating jobs that provide livable wages so people can afford to live and work in the city of San Jose.

There was also feedback that for jobs, the city should not only focus on attracting larger employers but also supporting locally owned businesses and neighborhood services.

There were concerns about converting employment land to residential uses.

Participants also questioned how increasing residential density in single-family neighborhoods would affect the jobs to housing balance.

For the residential capacity topic, there was strong support for increasing housing opportunities throughout the city to address housing affordability, accommodate population growth, and provide additional housing choices.

There was a preference for more housing in mixed-use areas, transit corridors, downtown, and locations that had access to jobs and services.

They encouraged ground floor commercial, the inclusion of green space, community gardens, and tree preservation.

In the open houses, there was an activity, the photograph here, for the community to identify if mixed-use commercial sites should make room for more homes or change them to retail and office only.

83% of the responses supported more homes.

In the second activity, staff explored increasing residential capacity in portions on the Alameda and Winchester Boulevard.

On both corridors, the community prioritized more parking and more housing, especially affordable housing.

There were concerns about neighborhood compatibility with existing development patterns, traffic and parking impacts, infrastructure capacity, and potential changes to the existing neighborhood character.

For the Alameda, the community also prioritized historic preservation.

Overall, the concerns were about where housing growth should go.

There were concerns about increases in residential capacity and single-family neighborhoods, but expressed support for housing in corridors and mixed-use commercial areas.

For the third topic, missing middle.

Feedback for missing middle was supported for expanding housing opportunities.

The comments emphasized that the additional types of housing.

Keep going.

Help bridge the gap between single-family homes and larger developments.

Comments noted that this medium density can provide opportunities for young adults, first-time buyers, and seniors who may not be able to afford a single family housing.

The feedback emphasized the importance of expanding housing supply while incorporating affordability requirements, as well as on-site parking and open space.

Neighborhood compatibility was the main concern.

The concern included building height, massing, privacy, block coverage, parking, accessibility, and tree removal.

There were also concerns about accumulative effects of widespread redevelopment.

The participants emphasize the importance of building articulation, tree preservation, safety, lighting, and thoughtful placements of windows and building entrances.

Participants suggested that design standards should be included to address these concerns and address URL compatibility.

Commenters encouraged the city to incorporate anti-displacement measures and tenant protections.

There were concerns about redevelopment, especially without an on-site affordability requirement, would result in value seed to move out of the risk.

And lastly, urban villages.

Urban villages were generally received positive feedback.

Feedback supported the urban village strategy as it creates a walkable mixed-use neighborhoods that integrate housing jobs, transit services, and parks.

There was support for concentrating the housing growth in areas with existing transit and supported taller buildings in these areas.

Similar to the other topics, there was support for providing affordable housing and requests of protections for tenants from being displaced.

Feedback supported streamlining the implementation process, but ask for the city to maintain opportunities for community engagement in future planning processes of the urban villages.

Um the other suggestion was about planning the urban villages.

Participants suggested that urban villages should incorporate community spaces such as parks and open space, improve pedestrian and rescue infrastructure, provide parking, create enhance safety measures, and provide ground for commercial.

So I think we could take some initial questions now on this portion before we move to the next, if there's any clarifying questions before we go on to the main presentation.

Sure, of course, or we can move on.

Well, we have the next portion is on our main topic on urban villages and PQB.

So we will go into that next before the public comment portion.

But if there are specific task force questions related to the outreach, we can take them now.

We could take them afterwards too, but it was just an offer if there's something fresh in your head that you wanted to ask now.

Well, since you offered, I have a question.

Okay.

What does outreach will continue actually mean in practice?

Yeah, so um as we look, assuming that um you as the planning commission move forward with our recommendations and the city council affirms those recommendations in August.

There are different elements that we would work on, various changes to the zoning ordinance.

So, for instance, around the missing middle housing piece, um, there will be general plan amendments required if we move forward with changes along the Alameda and Winchester, changes around mixed-use commercial on those sites.

So each of those efforts would likely have its own engagement or outreach related to those efforts, particularly around missing middle, you know, would have particular focus on those development standards and those things.

So each of those individual streams of work are an opportunity for further engagement beyond this this task force process.

Got it, thank you.

So in the past, have you had this much community engagement?

Um yeah, I mean, yeah, we we have.

Yeah, I think, I mean, it depends on what effort we're talking about.

Um, I will say I think when we did pass general plan updates, um it was more the task force process itself given who was seated on the task force.

Um I don't know that we did these types of open houses as as a part of that, that we had the kind of robust online engagement as a part of it.

It was more a larger task force and then the task force process that had input.

So I I think we, you know, I don't know, we'd have to look go back, but we probably reach more people through this than than through the previous task force processes, but it's something we could look at that.

I think so.

Because I remember a lot of complaints.

So I'm gonna assume they were complaining about something relevant.

Um, how did you find this process?

Did you find it elongated the process what you were doing in your workload uh was lifted by this, or do you feel that this was manageable and something that maybe we should consider the next time we do this process?

Um it definitely added to the workload.

It is it was um I think the time frame was constrained, but um I think as planners, you know, maybe why we sort of enter this field, we like to talk to people and we want to be out there in the community, and doing these open houses and when we go out to the neighborhood meetings, it's just another touch point.

So we definitely appreciate that.

I think it's just a matter of balancing that with the other priorities that the team has.

But um we did do something similar in terms of open houses for the housing element, and sort of same thing.

You reach you go out to where people are, you reach them differently.

We had the virtual aspect of it, but I think um, especially with the focus groups, we we reached people that we wouldn't have reached otherwise, and I think that it's important for us to sort of think about that across the planning work.

Okay.

So it was worth the squeeze.

Yes.

Yeah, we always believe in good outreach.

It's definitely worth it.

We're doing these processes.

That's you know, our role as as planning is that we're working with the community, you know.

I actually wanted to stand up and applaud you when I saw it, to be completely honest with you.

Um, I think this is the process we need to go through to engage communities and in a meaningful and productive way.

Um, and I really appreciate the the effort.

For me, it was definitely worth the squeeze.

Um, and I I just I think we should model this process moving forward.

But thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah, I was gonna say, I think it's a good point is that as we hopefully get through this, the the main part of this is just doing some retrospective look at at this process and how it could improve or you know, things we might change, and you know, would welcome your input as well as as we go through that when we have a little bit more time.

Definitely.

Thank you.

Thanks for that.

I mean, I'd like to echo Chuck's uh sentiment, you know.

Thank you so much for all the work that you did.

I went to one of the community meetings myself and Southside Community Center.

Lots of you know, stations and staff were there, so everybody could have a one-on-one conversation with different folks about what they wanted to talk about instead of just getting spoken at.

Um, and I know it was the first night of the NFL draft, and some of you wanted to watch that, and I know some of you had to drive home to San Francisco after the uh community workshop, and which was at night already.

Uh so thank you so much for um all the work that you do.

Okay, so uh commissioner.

Uh yeah, I will also uh share accolades for staff and the work.

I think you also have a smaller team working on the general plan update than you did historically.

Uh one area I recall that I thought was important the last time we did this twice before uh is the mailing of notification within the utility billing where people got a small insert.

That means everybody, and therefore that just magnified to everyone that what was really going on.

Um I'm not sure how that's well, I think yeah, whatever the cycle is for that mailing in between now and council adoption would be something to consider because these changes that we're discussing here are the most dramatic compared to anything we've done in 20 years.

Thank you.

I think that's something if it this you know through this discussion and then the discussion at Planning Commission next week that we could mention to city council to see if how that process is done or if that's possible or not.

Um it's definitely something worth considering.

And just to be clear, it's already a mailing that's getting done and inserted.

Yeah, yeah, I don't whatever the added cost is and on that and understanding the process for that, if it's possible, something we could explore.

All right, I guess we can move to our next agenda item.

Please go ahead.

Excuse me, Chair.

Yes.

Could I just say one thing quickly?

Commissioner, yeah.

I'd just like to really support Commissioner Oliverio's comments.

I've said from the start of this process that this is really a huge change, as Commissioner Library has said.

I think all of us know that, and I think the more information we can get out prior to this recommendation going to the city council, the better, because the last thing that I want, and I think any of us want is people saying we never heard about this, you know, and all of a sudden it's before the council.

So anything we I think the utility billings, great idea.

Maybe there's other ways too.

I know um council members have email lists.

You know, maybe we can utilize that.

But I would just anything we can do to get the word out as much as possible, as early as possible is really important, and again, and you know, just to echo what everyone said, thank you very much for all the work you've done.

You've done um a lot of tireless, dedicated, really high quality work.

So thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

And yeah, we've definitely been leveraging the council office mailing lists.

Um, so we we put together toolkits for their offices to send out in their their notices with everything and how to promote the events and what they can share with the community.

But I think looking into how we could do a mailing if it's possible or not through existing means is something we can definitely take a look at.

Great.

Okay, so I will Cora.

You can.

Oh, yeah, you know, okay.

Uh good evening, Commissioners.

Cora McNaughton.

Um, here obviously with Jared and Michelle and Ruth.

Um, and we're going to present some final policy recommendations for the general plan for your review.

Um, so here's just the agenda quickly for the rest of the meeting.

Um first we're going to discuss some additional recommendations for the urban village strategy.

Then Jared will present on public quasi-public lands, and Ruth will talk about the environmental review process, and we'll then go into public comment and finally task force discussion.

Next slide.

So next one.

So let's start with urban village planning.

So, as you may recall, it feels like um eons ago, but we did come to you in November with some recommendations for streamlining the urban village planning process.

And those recommendations included consolidating the remaining uh unplanned local transit villages into four plans uh with villages along the same transit line being planned together.

Our second recommendation was to make targeted land use and zoning changes to sites in neighborhood urban villages rather than developing individual plans for those areas since they're relatively small areas.

Um the third recommendation involved the outreach strategy, really defining a standard outreach strategy for urban village planning to reduce the timeline as much as possible, which without, of course, um, you know, leaving out any important community engagement, and then finally to simplify the plan documents by utilizing the um or relying on the city's existing design and development standards to the extent possible and minimizing unique standards um for various uh urban village areas.

Next slide.

So after further evaluation of this process, um staff now has some additional recommendations of start with the sort of easy one, the regional transit urban villages.

So these are the largest ones or are the ones near um major transit hubs.

So four of these already have adopted plans, and the fifth one, Blossom Hill Road, Hitachi, staffers recommending that this one, which is unplanned, be removed from the urban village or from the unplanned urban village list.

It's mostly contained within a planned development zoning district, and it's largely built out.

Next slide.

Next are the local transit urban villages.

As you may recall from the last meeting, most of these are within the Senate Bill 79 buffer zones, and as of next month, residential development will be allowed on all commercially zoned properties.

Because of SB 79 and the new relaxed standards for residential development, staff is now recommending deferring preparation of urban village plans for these local transit urban villages, since they will already be subject to a higher floor area ratio and height maximums of the state law.

To complement this new law, another staff recommendation is to apply a commercial overlay in these areas to incentivize job generating uses, and I'll provide more information on that in a minute.

Staff is also recommending some category changes that would affect local transit urban villages.

The two Oak Ridge Mall urban villages are the outliers in the local transit category because they're mostly outside the SB 79 buffer zones.

So staff believe these urban villages merit comprehensive plans and recommends moving them into the commercial corridor and center category.

In addition, two other local transit villages, East Capital Expressway, Silver Creek Road, and the Alameda West would be converted to neighborhood urban villages due to their limited development potential.

And finally, the Arcadia East Ridge Light Rail Village would be removed from the unplanned urban village list as it also has a planned development district and zoning district and is largely built out.

So to come back to this commercial overlay, which I had mentioned for the local transit urban villages that are within SB 79 buffer zones.

As you all know, SB 79 will allow commercial sites to be developed with residential uses.

This could potentially reduce jobs capacity in the city.

An overlay in these areas, allowing higher floor area ratio and height for commercial projects could help to maintain that jobs capacity.

And staff is recommending developing an overlay that would be applied to the unplanned local transit villages that are within SB 79 buffer zones.

However, in the future, it could potentially be applied to planned other areas of the city such as planned urban villages and other growth areas.

Next slide.

So just to sort of refer back to this consolidating of the local transit urban villages.

This is how they would be grouped together for planning purposes.

So one plan would encompass the five urban villages around the light rail stations on North Capital, those are shown in kind of the teal color.

One would encompass the Ray Street and Southwest Expressway stations shown in dark blue.

One would encompass the Kirtner Light Rail and Capital Expressway Highway 87 light rail stations shown in purple, and finally, one would include the two Blossom Hill Road urban villages, which are shown in red.

And just as a reminder, staff is recommending that because of the SB 79 changes, planning for these urban villages should be deferred and priority given to planning for other urban villages.

So moving on now to commercial corridor and center urban villages.

The traditional plan development process would be maintained for these since they have significant potential for redevelopment.

And in addition, staffers are recommending that two of the neighborhood urban villages, Hamilton Meridian and Cooser Meridian, be moved into this category so they would get full plans.

We also recommend that one commercial village, Santa Teresa Boulevard, Burnle Road, be moved to the neighborhood category where it would not get a full plan.

Next slide.

So here's a map of the unplanned commercial corridor and center villages.

The four that would move into this category are shown with the red dashed perimeters.

As mentioned, they include the two Oak Ridge Mall urban villages, Cooser Meridian to the southwest, and Hamilton Meridian to the northwest of Oak Ridge Mall.

And finally, the last category is the neighborhood urban villages.

As mentioned, the recommendation is to make targeted land use and zoning changes here rather than developing full plans.

And three urban villages would be moved from other categories into this category.

We do have a final recommendation about regarding mobile home parks.

In addition to the urban village planning process, we're recommending three changes to urban village boundaries to remove mobile home parks from them.

So over the past 10 years or so, the city has applied the mobile home park land use designation to these sites in an effort to preserve affordable housing and discourage redevelopment.

Because that policy conflicts with the redevelopment focus of urban villages, it makes sense to remove these altogether from the boundaries.

And finally, just to kind of echo what Michelle talked about in terms of feedback from people at the open houses and also in the focus groups in relation to urban village planning.

So as she said, many people expressed support for building housing close to services that they could walk to.

We also heard from people more familiar with the process that they felt that the planning process for urban villages is progressing too slowly.

We did hear a lot of support for continuing strong community engagement in the urban planning, urban village planning process, and finally we heard support for prioritizing plans where really redevelopment is most likely to occur.

So that concludes my presentation, and I'll hand it over now to Jarrett.

Okay, so now on to a further discussion on public quiet public lands.

So we had discussed this most recently at meeting number five in control.

So PQP is a distinct land use category that supports public land use is including schools, colleges, utilities and database uses or other community gathering facilities.

That in general kind of includes land use costs and 1.9.

LU-1.9 is meant to preserve existing PQ to maintain an inventory.

Embedded in this land use concept is the concept of third spaces.

Third spaces are the places that are neither home nor work, places where people can show up and connect.

The term captures how informal gathering spots can help in community as much as or more as much as our more formal public spaces do.

These types of spaces are often within the PQ land use clubhouses, places of worship.

These are again places beyond parks and libraries that serve the local neighborhood and community.

Maintaining these spaces makes the city more walkable and livable, especially as we look to continue to grow and expand.

So broadly speaking, what are we talking about across PQP in terms of uses?

We had talked previously about the composition of PQP land, but I think it's worth revisiting a bit.

PQP makes up about 15% of all total developable land in the city.

This is just over 6,700 acres in total.

About 45% of this is public schools, 2.5% university or college, 7% faith-based, 40% government, and then 4.5% of all the other types, and the other uses within that are private schools and daycares, hospitals, private recreation, and then within that government category that includes airports, utilities, public spaces, and certain types of public open space as well.

So to go through a few specific examples, because I think it's it's just worth kind of seeing what we're talking about.

So this first one, this is a San Jose water company site in district one at San Tomas Expressway and Williams, and it's 9.53 acres.

The next is another, this is in District 10.

This is the Kaiser Hospital and medical offices, which is 11.43 acres near Santa Teresa Boulevard.

Then this is 1853 South White Road in District 8.

So this is 4.47 acres, and this is the East Valley YMCA.

The way in which PQP fills in open space and park deficient gaps is another aspect worth highlighting to show how PQP land further serves the community.

Public access and utilization of school sites vary greatly throughout the city depending on the school district.

However, the city does have joint use agreements for public access on at least 44 school spaces throughout the city.

We need some more time to work through this analysis, but sort of our initial look at this over the last couple weeks, we were looking at areas outside of a quarter mile radius of public spaces like parks, and about 45% of our schools help fill in that PQP, or 45% of schools in PQP help fill this gap.

This is just one example in West San Jose along Saratoga Avenue.

So the area, the green, the area in green, those green bubbles, those are the within the half mile of public space, so a park or a plaza, and then the purple are school sites.

So you can see how those purple sites are outside of those green areas.

So again, just sort of one example in this area.

So now to get into the other big consideration, which we talked about before when we talked about PQP.

So SB 79 permits residential on all PQP lands within a half mile of the applicable transit stations at a minimum density of 30 dwelling units per acre.

About 30% of all of all of our PQP is within 79 areas, and then out of that, out of that 30%, 26% of that is public school lands, which is about 548 acres in total.

Given the uncertainty around SP 79, our initial recommendation had been to wait to understand the impact of SP 79 before proceeding with further PQP changes.

That being said, we acknowledge the rapidly changing demographics that have impacted schools throughout the city.

Given these shifts, there likely is a surplus of PQP lands.

But because of the importance of preserving a suitable inventory of public and private community serving space serving uses, we recommend a nuanced approach rather than a wholesale change to the PQP land use designation.

Permitting additional residential uses will fundamentally undermine the purpose of maintaining a distinct and separate land use designated for public uses.

So considering the feedback from the task force at the past meeting, we're modifying our recommendations around PQP to recommend development of a framework in which the city could consider certain land use changes to PQP sites while maintaining consistency with general plan policy LU-1.9.

The PQP framework would approach the framework approach would include developing criteria for determining the appropriate amount and distribution of PQP land and sites throughout the city based on demographic information, economic data, and other relevant data.

We would then use the framework criteria to evaluate requests and changes to land use to ensure that adequate community space exists throughout the city.

Just to expand further, we would look to start this work as soon as we move into the next phase of the general plan update following the August 18th City Council action.

Additionally, we are open to looking at additional public serving uses or moving different uses into allowed uses in that zoning district to provide some flexibility on what might be missing in terms of public uses that could be appropriate in the PQP zoning district.

And now I will pass it to Ruth.

Oh, sorry, you haven't already.

Okay, so just wanted to give the um, sorry, microphone.

All right, an update on the next sort of body of work that we will kick off, which is environmental review.

We are required to do environmental review through because of CEQA and the changes that we're proposing.

Um this will likely be a supplemental environmental impact report given the increase in residential capacity that we're seeking through these changes.

Um this will also require us to update the greenhouse gas reduction strategy and changes to the city's uh transportation analysis policy.

Um the greenhouse gas reduction strategy is a policy document that is embedded in our sequel review of projects and it helps us determine when development projects meet those environmental sustainability goals, goals that reduce pollution, etc.

And it's a it's a pretty heavy lift, but it will be part of this process as well.

In addition to that, the policy changes that we are we've been talking about these last eight meetings, the uh CQO analysis will cover that as well as three other categories of policy changes that impact the general plan.

Um the first one is we are seeking to expand standard permit conditions to reduce the need for technical studies for specific types of projects.

This was recent council direction that came out of the environmental standard conditions action that went to council about a month ago, and specifically, council wants us to look at things like child care centers again to help streamline their efforts when they come forward with development proposals.

The second thing is updating standards for construction noise to allow expanded construction hours.

Currently our standard permit conditions uh for any construction taking place within 500 feet of a residential unit is limited to the hours of 7 a.m.

to 7 p.m.

Monday through Friday.

This was direction from City Council through the budget message last year to have us look at expanding these construction hours.

These are embedded in the general plan as policy, so our environmental team is going to review that and make proposals for allowing those construction hours to be expanded.

And it is something that projects can request now, but they do have to go through an environmental review process, and there's noise studies required.

So again, in an effort to streamline development.

And lastly, updating standards for construction vibration impacts to reduce projects considered to have a significant impact.

And this is specifically looking at construction projects that may impact a nearby historic resource.

Our current standards are pretty high for these construction impacts.

Um, they when they were developed, it was more so impacts to existing ruins, and we don't have that in San Jose, we just have older buildings, and so we think we can council wants us to lower that threshold so that these projects don't come back as a significant impact because they're adjacent to a historic resource.

And I that is it for the environmental review and the presentation.

Okay.

Um that concludes our presentation for this part.

If you want to move to public comment, I think is next.

All right.

All right, we can move on to public comment.

Let's see.

Alright, we, if you would please stand up behind the microphone, start with Greg Carlson, Robert Swerk, Matt Tinsley, and then Murashi Patel.

I'm Greg Carlson with Concerned Corey Neighbors.

And I like some of the proposals that were brought up here.

And I sent an email to Mayor Mayhan's office and Michael McKay's office, which I understand was forwarded to your department.

I don't know if you've had time to read it, but it's a proposal, a concept that is for the Winchester Corridor.

And my again, I just hoping that you'll consider that beautifying a neighborhood as well as providing housing, as well as providing safety for the neighborhood, do not have to be mutually exclusive.

And that I think that things can be done to improve the Winchester Corridor without going above 45 to 50 feet, and also provide housing for the neighborhood.

Thank you.

Good evening, Chair and Task Force members.

My name is Rob Swerk.

I'm a principal planner with VTA, and thank you for the opportunity to speak briefly on this evening's topics.

VTI has an interest in the four-year review recommendations regarding urban villages, both because VTA has agency-owned TOD sites within a number of these uh areas, and because we'd like to see more vibrant transit-oriented development on non-BTA owned lands in these same areas.

So regarding the specific urban village recommendations, VTA generally supports staff's recommendation to defer planning of local transit urban villages, understanding that residential development in these areas will be able to proceed through SB 79 without having to go through the signature process, signature project process associated with unplanned urban villages.

VTA also supports staff's recommendation to explore an overlay to incentivize commercial development within SB 79 zones, so long as this is an optional path for a developer who wishes to pursue higher intensity commercial development.

VTA staff is comfortable with the other recommended changes to the transit urban village designations, such as closing out the Blossom Hill Hitachi Urban Village or moving the Oak Ridge Mall area urban villages from local transit to the commercial corridor and center category.

We encourage city staff to continue to find ways to expedite the planning of the other unplanned urban villages within the city.

Finally, VTA staff would like to express our gratitude to the task force and to the city staff for your consideration of our perspectives during this process.

We recognize that you're juggling many different subject areas, parts of the city and viewpoints, and we appreciate your time and consideration.

VTA looks forward to continuing to partner with the city to produce vibrant transit supportive developments, help meet the city's housing and economic development goals, and reduce GHG and vehicle miles traveled.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, Chair and members of the task force.

My name is Matthew Tinsley.

On behalf of the Santa Clara County Office of Education, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight and to urge you to support expanding permitted uses within the public quasi public designation as part of this work.

Across the county, school districts are experiencing significant enrollment declines, leading to difficult decisions to close and consolidate schools.

As a result, districts are increasingly responsible for repurposing surplus sites in ways that serve both communities and stabilize district finances.

Excuse me.

I'm sorry, I was at the football last night.

Today that is made much harder by the current zoning framework.

Even clearly compatible community-serving uses often require a conditional or special use permit, introducing delay, cost, and uncertainty into the process.

For districts facing urgent fiscal pressures, an unpredictable entitlement process can make adaptive reuse infeasible, and in some cases lead districts to sell property rather than retain it for long-term public or community benefit.

What districts need is a clear and predictable pathway framework to reuse these sites, one that aligns with the public purpose of these lands and allows timely decision making.

Expanding permitted uses within PQP would provide that pathway.

It would enable districts to retain ownership, support community-serving uses such as child care, and maintain schools as vital neighborhood anchors.

The Santa Clara County Office of Education stands ready to partner with the city in developing and implementing these changes, helping to ensure that districts have the clarity, consistency, and support they need to navigate this transition successfully.

We respectfully urge you to recommend expanding permitted uses across PQP sites.

Thank you.

After uh the speaker will have uh Josh Isimitsu.

Uh good evening, Task For Task Force members and planning staff.

My name is Maharish Patel.

I'm the development manager at Alpha X Capital, here representing them.

Uh we're a development firm focusing on missing middle housing and infill housing, and we're we've been pioneering public policies, such as uh SB 684 and AB uh 1033.

Uh I'm here to show support for the policies that were discussed today and the efforts that the planning staff has been putting in.

Uh, they provide a practical response to San Jose's housing shortage while recognizing today's economic realities.

First, regarding our urban villages, the staff recommendation to streamline planning and defer certain local transit urban village plans is affect in affected areas by uh SB 73.

Uh 79 is a sensible approach.

Uh rather than spending years creating plans that state law has largely overtaken, the city can focus its resources on accelerating housing production and implementing targeted land use changes where they will have the greatest impact.

Uh increasing residential options near transit reduces vehicle trips, supports sustainability goals, and places residents closer to jobs and services.

This proposed uh strategy allows the city to respond more quickly to market demand while preserving flexibility to evaluate the long-term impacts of SB 79 before investing additional public resources into extensive uh planning efforts.

Second, I urge caution regarding proposals to significantly expand commercial development through added commercial zoning.

While preserving opportunities for employment is very vital, we must acknowledge the current market conditions.

Across the Bay Area, offices remain vacant, and many shopping centers continue to struggle due to changes in consumer behavior and remote work trends.

Adding substantial new commercial entitlements when existing commercial inventory is underutilized risks creating more vacant storefronts and unused office space rather than vibrant economic centers.

Thank you.

Just a second, could you explain what Alpha X RE Capital is?

Oh, yeah, sorry.

Uh we're an infill development firm.

Uh we focus on infill housing uh sorry, missing middle housing.

We do a lot of infill development throughout the Bay Area.

Do you have a number of projects in Santa Clara County?

So yeah, so right now uh we have a in Santa Clara County, we have approximately 30 projects that are either in entitlements or under construction, uh, in total of about 200, 220 units in total that are under entitlements or construction.

Thank you.

Yeah, no problem.

And Chair, just to let the speaker know on their LinkedIn profile, their website doesn't come up.

You might want to fix that.

Hi, good evening.

Uh Task Force members, uh chair, staff.

Uh I'm Josh Ishimuratsu and I'm deputy director of strategy at Silicon Valley at home, a housing advocacy nonprofit based here in San Jose and serving the entire Santa Clara County.

Uh I'm here to request that the task force recommend expansion of allowable uses on PQP designated school and faith lands to include affordable housing and other community-serving uses like child care, nonprofit service space, youth centers, and clinics.

Here are four reasons why.

First, the expanded set of uses would help community institutions adapt and thrive.

Schools and faith communities are facing significant demographic and economic changes, largely driven by a current housing crisis.

Elementary school enrollment in San Jose has declined by almost 18,000 students over the past decade.

Many faith communities are also serving shrinking congregations.

Expanding allowable uses on school and faith PQP land gives these institutions more flexibility to respond to changing circumstances while continuing to serve their communities.

Second, this would help keep land in community serving use rather than forcing institutions to sell.

Greater flexibility would give schools and face communities more opportunities to generate revenue and stabilize our finances while remaining community anchors for decades to come.

If there is no clear path forward for these uses, institutions may be pressured to sell land to developers who have the time and resources to engage in lengthy entitlement processes.

Third, affordable housing strengthens school communities.

Families with children are increasingly unable to stay in San Jose.

This is the main driver of enrollment decline in school closures.

Having more affordable family housing can help keep families in San Jose and can strengthen our neighborhood schools.

Finally, this recommendation directly advances the task force mission.

We appreciate that the task force has consistently emphasized and support increasing affordable housing affordability and residential capacity, expanding uses on school and faith lands creates opportunities for affordable housing and workforce housing in neighborhoods across the city.

Thank you very much.

Feel free.

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Alex Shore.

I'm the executive director of Catalyze SV.

Wanted to start out with some positives for the night.

Thank you, Michelle Flores, for your presentation on the committee feedback that you heard through this process for what it's worth.

Catalyze SV members would agree with a lot of that feedback.

It's important to have walkable mixed-use neighborhoods.

It's important to maintain some community engagement as part of the process and to make housing closer to jobs.

So really great feedback that you all have received.

I also read a stat in the Urban Institute today that said of leading metro areas.

San Jose is one of the places that's made the most progress since 1980 in building housing near transit.

And I'm encouraged by that.

I'm encouraged as well by the words of some of the planning commissioners who have talked about the housing crisis from the dais over the years.

And like a parent who says to their kids that you need to eat your vegetables and get enough sleep and exercise, it's worth repeating yet again that the housing crisis is really, really bad here.

It is getting worse.

We are way, way behind on building the housing we need.

And I want to thank staff and the commission for the conversations and the consideration you've made about making it easier to build more housing in the city quicker, because nothing, I guarantee you, nothing will transform the fabric of this city and help our residents more than building more housing more quickly and more easily.

So as always, Catalyze SV stands ready to help the city and help developers figure out how to do this so that we can make sure that this is a community where everyone can afford to live.

So thank you all for your work on this commission and your service on these important issues.

Those are all the cards that I have.

So I think we will go next into task force discussion.

And you know, if I could actually begin tonight, I have uh just something to say about uh PQP land.

I know it's going to it's controversial.

And I know one size does not fit all, and I'm excited to see staff's proposal for how we're going to uh modify to what degree we're going to modify what school districts, places of worship, and other organizations can do with their PQP land.

And I am most likely riddled with um conflicts here.

Uh this morning at Exparte conversations with um the former superintendent of Bo Grove School District, Jose Manzo, who is now a um what, a consultant.

What's that?

Is that lobbies?

Lobbyist.

Yeah, we chatted for a while and you know you reminded me that with the school districts having to face cuts and all uncertain economic conditions that they have more freedom when they're able to you know do different things with their schools.

For instance a healthcare center which I'm on the chair of the board of actually has health centers within different schools including Andrew Hill, including independent Silver Creek, Yerba Buena, and actually my kids primary care physician is on the campus of Andrew Hill.

So I do appreciate schools being able to have that flexibility to put health centers on those.

And I also appreciate their ability to be able to put child care centers on the campuses of those schools.

So I would like to see whatever us to do whatever we can to allow schools to provide that child care, provide health for students and the community members and I think I would like us to remember that we aren't only talking about housing when we're expanding the uses of PQP land.

There's other things that they can use it for which for right now they need to see conditional use permits and that can cost us money.

And to the extent they aren't able to for example with Oak Rose School District now they're seeking a parcel tax which will cost everybody in the neighborhood which will increase obviously taxes of everybody in the neighborhood that owns a house when they have a school that they would like to get rid of that's just sitting there and falling apart and it's in disarray.

So as I said many conflicts of my own but from what I see I think school districts could benefit quite a bit from expansion of the they're able to their abilities to use their land in the way they see fit.

Just to make one comment um those like daycares and medical are are allowed in PQP.

So those are things that could proceed and you know I think it's a fair question of if we could consider like what level of you know conditional use special use or permitted something we could look at but just you know their those uses are available um now yeah.

Thanks here.

All right.

Commissioner Young Thanks Chair.

I'd like to just continue the discussion on that PQP conversion and first of all I apologize I sent an email that probably uh royal the waters I didn't realize we were going to have a presentation on this tonight so my my apologies.

So I was wondering if staff could do this for us.

And I'm going to give you just a scenario that I think is pretty common.

So let's say you have an existing elementary school that's closing due to enrollment and they want to keep the school buildings in place to lease to a private school so they'll get some lease revenue and they want to convert a portion of the play yards to uh teacher housing.

What I'd like to do is if you could talk about how that would happen now what they would need to do with you folks and what would happen under this recommendation.

So if you could do that I think I think that would be helpful to me and the other commissioners to understand exactly kind of what we're looking at.

Okay I'll start and then um Ruth and Michelle could interject if I get something wrong too in that scenario private schools are allowed uses.

I was just looking at our zoning so they're typically a special use permit for schools.

I think Ruth and I were chatting about this too you know we've haven't gone through some permits with private schools um you know typically you look at um transportation traffic circulation that's really what is kind of the main purpose of having that special use permit aspect of it in there.

So that's how that use would be done.

Now for teacher housing um if it's employee housing um there is some state enabling legislation that allows um the construction of teacher housing.

There are some specific rules around it, but that is a one pathway that exists today.

Now, if it doesn't fall under the parameters of that state law allowance, then that teacher housing would need to that portion of the site would need to undergo a general plan amendment change to change that land use.

Now I think what we're proposing is through this framework process is if that concept came to us, and we had developed a kind of our criteria of, you know, sort of looking at areas, what's an appropriate amount of PQP land, and they wanted to change it, and it if within the criteria was, you know, there's ample PQP around that area and the change of part of that site is something that would make sense, then we would put it through this process to change the land use on part of that site, but would not necessarily require a general plan amendment.

So we would try to help stream streamline it for them or bring it through a city process.

So it wouldn't necessarily be as easy if we changed all of PQP to allow some type of residential, but we're trying to sort of split, you know, and and um kind of a compromise effort so that we can still try to maintain some level of PQP.

Did I cover everything?

Okay.

Hopefully that's helpful.

That's very helpful, thank you.

Um so uh maybe I shouldn't have used uh teacher housing because it sounds like there's a state, but let's say they wanted to do uh low-income housing.

Um currently they'd have to do a general plan amendment.

Is that correct?

Right now, um PQP allows permanent supportive housing, which is a specific type of affordable housing.

Um typically that's been more challenging because of that that type of housing.

So if they wanted to do more traditional affordable housing, then it would need a a general plan amendment, yes.

Okay, and uh just for to review uh to remind me and for the public what what is involved in a general plan amendment.

Um so a general plan amendment um would require a general plan amendment application.

We would also need um the development application, so whether it's a special use permit, site development permit, sometimes they have tentative maps, but it's multiple applications, it would include environmental review sequel analysis.

Um the sequel process for general plan amendments typically take and the general plan cycle usually takes about a year.

Um, we have a policy in our general plan that limits the number of uh cycles that we dedicate for privately initiated general plan hearings.

So we typically request that developers submit their applications around March and their CEQA documents by June of you know, let's say 2026, and we would take them to hearing then the following year.

So it is a longer process.

Um it is a change to our general plan, so it's uh a more analysis required.

Okay, great.

And so um again, under the under this scenario, uh, under the let's just say kind of I know this is all a work in progress, and I and I appreciate that.

Um, but Jared, I think what I'm hearing, I just want to make sure I understand is that you would come up with a framework to have some sort of evaluation criteria to look at a proposal, see how much other parks and PQP lands there was in the area, and then kind of a yes or no, whether it could proceed with or without a general plan amendment.

Is that kind of the direction you're heading in?

Yes, except for that last part.

I think what we're suggesting is if you got to that step and we were saying yes, we would look at some type of streamlined general plan amendment, like if it were a city initiated general plan amendment, then it wouldn't be as potentially restrictive or um limiting as going through that privately initiated process.

Um just just one thing to add on.

I think what's been made very complicated for cities is in this overall context is the change to state laws around our discretion.

So it's really pushed it all onto that general plan um amendment change versus you know, previously we had more discretion around zoning changes and and those sorts of things, and so um unfortunately it's put into a very easy process or made it very hard for us if we want to maintain any type of discretion.

So that's that's just sort of, you know, just that context I think is important is that some of that is is out of our hands in terms of try to be more in the middle, it's hard to be more in the middle just because of where we're at today because of the state laws around housing.

Right, I understand.

Okay, so then let's talk about um something that I'm interested in.

I think we've um we've received a lot of input from Silicon Valley at home uh on this issue that they would like more flexibility um on these P PQP lands.

Um we also have heard from the uh Santa Clara Valley Office of Education sent us in a memo, and thank you for the gentleman's here today.

So um let's just say how would we what let me put this way if we were to take it one step further and say the PQP land use designation would also allow housing, just for the sake of argument.

Um that would involve um that would involve uh a vote by the commission and approval by the council, correct?

Yeah, so if if that was the the direction, then um at the planning commission meeting next week when we look at the full um slate of recommendations from staff, the planning commission could modify those recommendations and make a recommendation to council that was that was different that we could forward on, and then as a part of that, it would be up to the city council to decide how they wanted to proceed in terms of um what the changes to to PQP would be.

I mean, if I think if um uses were greatly expanded, I I think you know, considering whether or not we would even maintain PQP as a land use, I think would be an consideration.

Um I mean I'm um as Commissioner Rosario said, um, I'm very torn on this issue also.

Um we have a really beautiful elementary school block from our house, and we love to go over and you know, use the play yards and that.

So I understand.

I I I definitely understand the concern about the conversion, but um, I just kind of feel we're in such a urgent situation to uh create more supply of housing that we should look at at every option.

Um chair, I would just want to ask a question on a procedurally how we might do you and uh Vice Chair Bickford think it would it be feasible to have basically two recommendations and we take a vote on it next week as to which way we want to go, or or is there a third way?

Pass that too.

Yes, good evening, many assembly, deputy director of planning.

Uh so for next meeting, we are looking at you know, framing it in a way so that the the commission has options on how you would like to move forward where the commission is maybe divided on their recommendation, so that you have an opportunity to make a motion, vote on it, or make an alternate substitute motion and then vote on it.

So we're going to lay it up so that there are a number of recommendations and you can pull out the ones that you would like to discuss as commissioners, and then maybe vote on the rest where you are aligned, and then focus on the areas where they may be uh distinctions.

Yeah, so in the in the report, and then I think we'll have an attachment potentially as well with a grid that shows kind of all the the line items of recommendations, and then we'll try to maybe have slides with more of sections so that if you wanted to have a certain discussion around a section and modify it, we could try to facilitate that on the screen with sort of the verbiage and you could make changes or suggestions on.

Okay, that sounds great.

Um, I think uh Commissioner Bros.

You'll add you want to go.

Just a follow up.

Um thank you, staff, for your report.

When you were discussing um the different examples of PQPs, Kaiser, Water Company, YMCA, those are companies that employ people, right?

So, in a way, these lands are locations where there's jobs, which is another side of the coin, right?

We want more housing, but we need to serve the people there with roads, books, access to utilities and all the other good stuff.

How does that calculate into the equation when we flip these lands into housing and they're no longer employment lands?

How does how does that calculate?

Yeah, that's a good question.

One other element of that policy that I I showed quoted was to also maintain PQP as a way not to put pressure on like fully commercial lands.

So when you have sort of what you're describing, which maybe for profit, but maybe also some non-profit space, right?

Um if they don't have that PQP space, they may push into other employment sites, which you know, in some cases they are providing you know jobs, but in other cases maybe taking space away from maybe higher revenue, higher um jobs performing commercial.

So there's there's that other piece of of reasoning around maintaining PQP that's also embedded in that that we didn't talk about.

But yeah, that is also a consideration to think about.

Yeah, perfect.

Thank you.

And if in the scenarios that are going to be developed, if that could be included, I don't want to add more work, but if it's something feasible, you know, just some rough estimates in terms of pros, cons, impact, you know, the like, I think would help um make a very complex um situation a little bit more clear.

Um, and then my second question, um, I'll pause because it just left me.

Yeah, thank you.

I just wanted to uh sorry, Daniel says with the city attorney's office.

Just want to highlight how important that statement is, right?

I think you all, and I'm neutral on this, right?

I want to make sure that there's a robust conversation of what exactly PQP represents in the city, what what's on PQP, right?

So we fully understand it's not just school sites, hotels, convention centers, libraries, police stations, fire stations, um, and just to make sure you appreciate how rare it is to have public space reserved in the city, making sure that you understand that we don't know what the future holds.

We don't know that schools are continually going to decline in enrollment.

They may, we don't know that.

And so it's important to keep in mind that once these are gone, they're gone, right?

So be very careful about making, you know, obviously we want housing, we want more affordable housing, but with more housing becomes more density, more population, the more demand for public services where these sites are designated to provide public service.

So I just want you to all kind of keep that in mind when you're having this discussion.

Thank you for that.

Did you remember your other questions?

Yes, um, and it's more of a statement.

I appreciate um the fact that different scenarios will be will be drafted.

I think that's that will encompass the range and the spectrum of the commission in terms of how we currently see things, and maybe the scenarios will make us see things a little differently.

But I think the more information and the more flexibility that we have to kind of weigh in, would definitely be appreciated.

So thank you.

To the chair, I wanted to clarify that I don't know if you're drafting different scenarios for the recommendations, but I think we'll give an opportunity for the commission to pull out the recommendations that you know you want to discuss and propose something alternate to the staff's recommendation.

Yeah, just to we'll think about what we can do.

I I just, but to to put a finer point, we just have a limited time frame.

Um Friday's a holiday, and then we're back on Wednesday.

So I mean, I you know, I I understand we're totally understand we're coming from.

We can think about some different optionality and considerations, but we're our time's limited, so yeah, yes, definitely understanding.

Understood.

Thank you.

I think it would go ahead.

And this is just the planning stages.

We're not finalizing what this is going to be.

This is going to take a long time.

We're just putting out the recommendation, and then city council's going to say, yes, this is the recommendation, go forth and draft it.

So there's still going to be time to massage the language.

Right.

And one thing to sort of think about or consider is is you know, we've sort of outlined the framework of this PQP.

Um, if there are things you want to sort of add into consideration of that framework, that might be a way to approach it in terms of things that you're mentioning.

Of like these are additional things that you would recommend that we add as as a consideration within that framework.

Um, just another way to think about it.

I think it could help us all if we understood what it means.

So once they're gone, they're gone.

We're I think we're seeing one thing in the letter from the Office of Education, we're hearing different things from other folks.

I think it's sort of unclear.

I just feel like we're certainly hearing different things, that's making things confusing for all of us.

I think actually, before we get into that, because that is specifically what I'm trying to understand.

Uh thank you, because this is really good dialogue and input uh from everyone.

Um, and I think it's important to kind of clarify the mechanics of PQP land specifically for schools, and how the school systems, at least what I've learned and what I've heard, and what we heard in in some testimony previously.

Um, there are other multiple ways to deal with things like land swaps, um, rather than giving the land away, other land is given that could be maybe rezoned as PQP is PQP, or I don't know what the mechanics of that are, but there are multiple ways to deal with it.

Um it seems to me most of this conversation is about school lands.

Um I think is that am I correct about that?

Is it really mostly about school lands?

And faith-based in faith base.

Absolutely.

Faith base is already on the table anyway.

PQP does not pertain only to school.

I know, but that's what our conversation is kind of about.

Why not pull that out and address, as you said, you wanted to try to have more flexibility in how you approach it?

Pull that out and look at the options for development of PQP, if that's sometimes a land swap, if that's sometimes, you know, because we you're right, once they're gone, they're gone.

Maybe we can act preventively to that by you know maybe requiring some swaps or requiring some resources be made available, um, so that we don't tie ourselves into you know, an untenable situation where all of a sudden we have population growth and no place to put children in the day.

So just uh a thought.

Thank you for that, Commissioner Kantra.

And in all honesty, I'm actually more interested in how we're gonna see development around transit and urban transit areas than the very small percentage of land that is uh owned by school districts.

So I mean, big picture, right?

Can I ask a question?

I I know I asked this once already, but I I want to understand a timeline for developing some kind of a framework.

Um I'm assuming that is during this timeline of our recommendations and and city council that that we would look at a framework that says um we might include some additional land uses, and we might make it easier for whoever uh is uh uh owns the property um to be able to do something with it that would be beneficial to the citizens of the community.

Is that I heard several people say we want to expand use?

They didn't necessarily say housing, but we're all thinking housing because that is I I think our so how would you do that?

And as you said, time is short.

Um what recommendations are you thinking, and how would you act?

How would that actually address commissioners Young's questions of this is actually a two-year process if we do it in the in the standard that we have today?

How could we shorten it to a year, for example?

Yeah, so if we were to move forward with this recommendation, we would look to start it.

I mean, we'd have to look at scoping it and resourcing it, but our intention would be that it would be part of that body of work coming out of the four-year review with missing middle with all of those items, and that we would start, you know, after August.

And so I think we'd have to get more into it to commit to an exact like we can do this in 12 months or 24 months.

Um and I think there's there's kind of two two streams of of work.

One is sort of looking at the zoning if there are other, you know, PQP uses that we could modify either to being allowed uses or modification around whether they're permitted or special use or conditional use, you know, that's something that could be done in a shorter timeline and perhaps come back uh at the end of 27 with all of the changes.

Um, the looking at more of the other non-PQP uses, like more residential, like the scenario that Commissioner Young mentioned, that would be where we would just need to see how you know what that timeline would look like depending upon what the final recommendation is and everything.

But our intention is to try to start it right away.

I meant to proceed on a path, but I think we'd have to get into a little bit more to know exactly what the timeline we could commit to was depending upon um what we would when we fully scope the work.

And the fact is none of us have a crystal ball.

And if we were successful at reducing the cost of housing in our city, theoretically people would move back and we would need schools and places for kids and young families.

So you know what what uh uh the city attorney said was absolutely appropriate.

Once once we lose this, we don't get it back.

So we do have to be thoughtful about it.

At the same time, I can see a whole bunch of places that are sitting fallow that could be used for something that benefits the citizens here.

Any other commissioners?

Let's see them.

Okay.

No nothing specific, just sort of train uh flow of thought here.

Uh back to urban villages on page seven, allow higher FAR and height in local transit urban villages.

You know, for a city that's been struggling for jobs housing imbalance, and uh wanting this to happen, you know, why was essentially something like this not just sort of painted all over the map wherever there was commercial in the city to incentivize this X amount of time ago.

And I'm not trying to chastise or be mean here, but it's like, wow, that seems pretty simple.

Um yeah, I don't know if I can add, you know, I I I yeah, I think initially it was a lot of the jobs capacity was in we have employment area growth areas and we have urban villages, and that's where where the job was gonna go, and we were gonna do individualized planning efforts to really understand where there was you know maximum potential for that commercial versus where there was less potential.

Um so I it was it was sort of a better Cadillac approach, but took a lot more time and resources.

This is really the put it all in one space and sort of let things work out.

So I I don't I you know like, but I think SP 79 also spurs that on, right?

Like, hey, I'm gonna lose all this employment land, so let me offer an option for you to do a higher density commercial project.

Right, right, and yeah, and to the comments, this is this would be fully optional for for the property owner, right?

They'll still have every right to develop under 79.

But if someone came along and said, I do want to do, you know, in five, ten years from now, do you want to do some intense office or higher FAR commercial uses, they would have this route and we would have an easier way to to give them that capacity in terms of jobs near transit, right, which is still what we want as well.

So yeah, no, I mean, seems like another option, like you know, if you look at in downtown Los Angeles, KPMG, which had a big office, and then where people are working and where they're working from home and this and that, and they're like you know, dramatically downsizing the downtown office and offering another satellite office by the airport, um, maybe a particular street like Bascombe can afford that type of uh lot size, it would allow a new commercial building.

Otherwise, they're kind of rare these days here.

Although, you know, I see still a ton of commercial getting built in SF and the peninsula, which I cry and whine about because it just somehow doesn't trickle down to San Jose.

Um, a few more comments if that's all right.

Um so going to PQP.

So right now a church, a faith-based organization, they can do by right low-income housing, is that correct?

Yeah, um, it's uh churches and uh nonprofit God in my backyard or something.

So colleges, nonprofit, colleges, and faith-based uses can utilize SB4.

Now, there are some specific parameters around that, but they can't do affordable housing through that that route.

That's right, and that's a that's a quick process, correct?

Correct.

Okay, and then um so when we look at 15% of the land PQP versus the industrial land in the city or the employment land, I think PQP is greater than our employment land.

Yes, it is, yeah.

Um, so that's you know something to think about, and which uh and we because we struggle with not having enough employment land.

Um I'm thinking about uh former uh Sansa Hospital on Santa Clara Street and uh old O Connor Hospital Sanitarium on Meridian.

Um so those converted from hospital to housing pretty much, right?

So like so was um, so like San Jose Hospital in Santa Clara, because that's more recent, right?

I mean, they could have stayed medical use and never come to the city council, but when they wanted to go to housing, then that would require coming to city council.

So the old um medical site on Santa Clara was actually um during the East Santa Clara urban village planning process, it was redesignated to mixed use commercial, so it was still intended to be wholly commercial and some of some housing.

Um but the projects that were approved there used SB 35 and density bonus concession, so essentially got a mostly residential project with some commercial.

Highlights the problem with MUC, right?

Right, but and then I guess on the other thing, the reason it was rezoned to that is because the city could control that.

Yes.

Otherwise, if you said PQP housing, uh my guess is that organization would say uh I think that was HCA, they would look for the highest most profitable use and would have sold it for straight up all housing.

Yes.

Okay.

Um yeah, when I think about you know the deficiency in gaps that you have on page 21 or slide 21.

Uh I think of in district nine, uh, you know, there was a thing called nailer rights where uh a school or a public entity would sell land, and the first choice uh that they had to uh offer it to were other public agencies.

Are you familiar with that city attorney?

Nailer rights?

No.

Okay.

From what I recall, I'd look for you for fact check, but if you're not here on this one, that's okay.

Um but long story short, hey, I'm a public agency, I want to get rid of some land.

Uh, before I can sell to a private entity, I have to make it available to all the public entities first to allow them to bid on it.

You're familiar?

So currently there's what's the surplus land act.

Is I don't know if they replaced that, but that's what they have to go through and if they want to dispose of property to a private entity.

And that requires they have to offer it for sale to certain certain uses.

So, for example, in District 9, the Kirk Elementary School sold, and then the city bought it.

So then that became a public park for everyone in the neighborhood, and that became a community center job training center for the community.

Um Lincoln Glen in District 6, that closed, the city bought it.

Now there's a community center, fire station, um, what other oh there's a park.

So these are kind of these public amenities, which I, you know, I think are very popular.

And I know a lot of people um talk about I don't know, uh democratic socialists, this and that, and certainly these public lands provide opportunity for people to enjoy things in their neighborhood, whether it's open space or some other type of use.

Uh I'll give you an example.

When I was on the city council, because we had control of PQP, uh on St.

Elizabeth Drive, there was a uh private uh religious school that wanted to sell for housing, and then I, as the council member, because it was kind of the thing that you did back then, you could kind of say, I'm gonna support it or not, and I uh did not support it because I thought that land should be maintained for public use, and we now have the Morgan Autism Center there, which didn't have a home, they had nowhere to go.

They now serve the parents and children, um parents that uh that have children with autism, uh, and they have been successful there, and they actually bought the adjacent parcel, and they're gonna do some more things.

And that's sort of the unique aspect you get when you do have the ability to um you know to to have some control.

Uh just throw that out there.

Um moving on to page, let's see here.

Um, so on schools being allowed to build housing by right.

Someone said 30 units per acre.

Is that a minimum or a maximum?

That's the minimum under SB 79.

And since PQP has no density, it defaults to that density as a minimum.

Got it.

So SB 79 controls the density on a PQP site or a school site.

On a PQP site within the 79 half mile radius.

Okay, and that and I'm sorry because I'm dense.

Uh was that the minimum or the maximum?

That's the minimum.

Okay.

And then it sets different maximum.

So I know that.

And then um when it was mentioned at Andrew's Hill, the health care uses, and you say those are allowed in PQP.

Are they allowed through a permit process or allowed by right?

Um special use permit, I think on medical office.

Okay, so for example, as far as looking at your framework, by allowing health care uses by right, might be something right, offering another opportunity for the land rather than just the housing.

Right.

Those are that's the type of zoning changes we could consider, you know, of other types of uses and modifications, maybe changing special use to permit it or conditional use to special use, those sorts of things.

Yeah, okay.

And then um, as you was mentioned, school districts can build employee housing by right.

Yes, there's state law that allows for employee housing.

And in fact, based on the neighborhood, doesn't even get a public hearing.

Right?

Because it depends on the neighborhood to have a public.

If it's an underserved neighborhood, they get a public hearing.

If it's not an underserved neighborhood, there is no public hearing.

That's for um SB 35.

Yeah, we had one that came to the commission.

Yeah, they were they were taking advantage of SB 35 and the law that preceded what's now AB 1021.

So B 1021 is the new one that allows it's updated law that allows um housing on sites owned by a local education agency.

Correct.

And I remember during the discussion, it was said that, well, in this neighborhood it gets a hearing, but if it was in West San Jose, not considered underserved, there would be no public hearing at all.

So that is a pretty streamlined process if you don't even have to go through a public hearing.

Well, and that hearing is just information.

Yeah, and you there's no discussion, you're just there to listen.

Right?

There's not even an action taken by it.

Um, I think the reality is that school districts they're less interested in teacher housing.

They're less interested in low-income housing.

What we see that come before us are multiple projects, like union school district, where they built three million dollar homes in the same paragraph where they mentioned they couldn't pay their teachers.

So, you know, it's you know, so I think I remember when we that came before us and Mayor Licardo uh was not happy with that situation.

Um then when we and then I think that situation was a land swap.

So this land swap thing, the land's gone.

You can't say I'm gonna trade my school site for your gas station in Los Banos to raise revenue, but you're gonna build housing on my school site.

I'm not gonna, no one's gonna knock down the housing and put a school there.

It's gone forever.

So the land swap is a mechanism for the school district to obtain revenue.

It's not necessarily preserving the land.

Because I mean, you tell me when we're knocking down housing to build a school, it just doesn't happen.

Um let's see here.

Um, and I think on the demographic changes, you know, it's always often pointed to cost of living, cost of housing, etc.

But, you know, the demographics of the United States are changing drastically where people are choosing a child-free life.

They are single households.

And I even think to just a you know personal antidote.

Family I went to school with, public school, three kids, all outstanding uh careers and incomes.

Um, none of them have children, they all chose not to have kids.

So I think we have to decide what it is.

Overall, there's the overall number of family size shrinking in this country.

Um, and that's what schools maybe have to plan for in their uh enrollment forecasting.

Um I just think it's another factor when we're talking about why enrollment is shrinking and whether it's some percentage homeschooling, et cetera, that type of thing.

And then finally, on environmental review, that will include water supply.

Yes, that's reviewed there.

And is it gonna include water?

Like water we have today versus what you can build if you have toilet to tap or fully recyclable water, because I think I've heard that, well, some of the housing numbers will be supported by you know discharge water being purified to drinking water.

And I at least if you don't know that question, I'm curious, you know, will the environmental uh review be done with and without that?

Um, I I don't know the answer to that.

I can look into that.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Just one point.

Actually, it was great.

I I appreciate that.

Actually, that does open a question for me in terms of the land swap process.

Um, so if I swap it out for gas station in Los Paños, the developer of that land still has to go through a development process.

It is not in any way automatic, I would assume, correct?

Yeah, I mean, we regulate the land, right?

So the swap is is not we don't we're not involved in that.

Okay, that's right.

But you would lose that land if you if the city and the and the council approved it.

Right, by changing the land use in it being developed into something else.

Yeah, the land is is lost.

So actually, I think that's a good question because that kind of talks about local control.

What's the presumed outcome here?

What would what would happen?

Just your professional experience and thought.

What would happen in that case?

Um, I maybe you can clarify a little bit more.

I'm not sure.

So if I'm doing a land swap, so that my school system can get three million dollars it desperately needs, and that land swap means that a developer is gonna develop how many multi-million dollar homes, what would be the likely outcome of that?

Would the council have control over what really happens?

I'll speak to what happened.

We had no control of so okay, so the school district comes forward as the applicant, not the the home builder, and they're coming saying, Hey, we want to convert to housing, and this is what we're gonna go build, and our private business is our business, it's none of your business what we swap the land for, because we were asking that on the dais, and they didn't want to talk about it.

And so there's no risk to them, but as long as they get the entitlement first.

Okay, okay.

Because all that'll happen is the if they don't get the entitlement, then that that land swaps off.

Right.

Again, so what yeah, what we control to what to what the um commissioners saying is is just that the land use action, the approval of whether or not we change the color on the map to something else.

We don't control what happens with that deal or anything else related to it.

That's entirely up to the school district and those entities to negotiate.

Okay, thanks.

Thanks, uh, Commissioner Oliver.

That gives me some thought.

Alright, any other commissioners.

Do people want to wrap this meeting up before 8 30?

We do have a few more slides.

Just closing out if there's no more comments.

That's correct.

Before we close out, almost we're almost done.

A brief overview of next steps and upcoming planning commission and city council votes.

Yes.

Thank you.

All right.

Um so this meeting concludes the task force process.

Thank you very much for sitting through this with us for eight meetings, in addition to your role as planning commissioner, uh planning commissioners.

So we just wanted to express our gratitude and let folks know this is the last meeting.

It closes this process out, but we have what we have next is what we've discussed throughout these last few meetings.

Um we are proposing a general plan for your review policy framework.

The agenda and the staff report and attachments are posted on the website now so you can have access to them.

And what we're requesting next week from the planning commission is um your your feedback and recommendation on how we move forward with all these topics that we've discussed these last eight meetings, um, so that when we so that we come back back to you in December of 2027 uh with those red lines and the policy changes after your vote on the 24th.

Uh we will that recommendation will go to City Council on August 18th, and um we will wait to see what sort of the direction council goes and then continue that work there.

But again, just want to express our gratitude, Jared and I think Manira wanted to share some words too.

Oh yeah, I just wanted to say thank you, and I really appreciated this process and the opportunity to interact, you know, and have these deeper discussions.

You know, I think it went fast.

Um, but it was a lot of work, but really appreciate all of your your thoughts and input, is really helpful to us, and I think we really appreciated this process and your your commitment to it.

So, yeah.

If I can add to that, but first of all, a really big shout out to staff.

They did a phenomenal job keeping us all on track and you know, turning out reports every other week, I think it was it was pretty intense, and all of that outreach that you saw, the robust uh conversations that we had with the community.

Uh for the task force members, again, you know, want to echo what Ruth and Jared said.

This was you guys taking a lot of time out from your personal, you know, lives from your jobs and your day-to-day like uh families and contributing with your thoughtful like ideas and input and sharing your lived experiences, and I think that's really led to a very successful task force process with a lot of opportunity uh to further you know different types of housing within the city and really transform the city perhaps in the coming decades.

Uh so thank you for taking that time, especially in addition to all the other planning commission responsibilities that you all hold.

Really appreciate it.

Just one more thing.

Uh we will send out some an email soon.

Uh, we would like to have a little celebration before the next planning commission meeting.

So um, just like how you do with a study session, we'll have um dinner and just want to again acknowledge your service.

Perhaps a shout out to the community as well.

We've had quite a good turnout in these rooms, so really appreciate you all sharing your points of view with us.

I was doing the public done.

I've lost about 10 pounds of some of the just for the record.

We'll take another picture next week.

Okay.

I just want the public know if it's dinner, it's probably a sandwich.

And then uh you mentioned December 2027 for Planning Commission.

Then would that mean about March, April for City Council 2028?

No, we're trying to do both in December.

So planning commission and city council.

I good this is on record here, so okay.

That's a try.

Targeting, yes.

Because you're gonna present in August.

And then you sort of are gone for a year and a few months.

Is there anything that happens with the commission in the interim?

Like, are we having any further conversation?

Are you just sort of gone and you're silent for a year and a few months?

It just seems odd to me.

Yes, I know you're you'll miss us.

You've been seeing us so often, but that is the point of the the framework is that that's sort of our our our sort of sandbox that we're gonna do our work in, and then we sort of yeah, just go go ahead and make these changes.

We're still gonna do some outreach on the standards and the different, excuse me, policy areas, but we won't be coming back to the commission until December for a formal recommendation.

Is it possible for the commission to ask you to do something like quarterly or at the end of six months or at the end of nine months or something?

I'm just very worried that you go away and run silent for a year and a while, and then in December we get an influx of stuff that we haven't seen in a year.

Yeah, we're happy to do some kind of update or report.

Yeah, I mean, maybe sorry, I know I'm asking for more work.

I apologize for that.

But maybe there's some opportunities through, you know, planning commission meetings when we get the updates to sort of give some updates, and then as we get into it more, maybe there's an opportunity for a study session or something.

Um but we just have to think, but again, I don't think we'll be quiet, it won't be with the commission, but you know, there'll be a lot of work in the community.

I know you guys will be working, but my my concern is if this commission isn't seeing it, and there's not sort of input along the way, and then in December, you get somewhere that's different from where we've evolved to over a year.

I just I feel like we should tighten that up a little.

Yeah, I I think we can look at the study session at least, you know, and the cadence, you know, maybe six months, you know.

I I don't know, we'll just see what what makes sense, but I think that's something we could we could do for sure.

Yeah.

If I can add, does it maybe looking at it this way?

You go to work for a year, because we go away for four years.

Is that is that the right way of looking at it in terms of the task force?

I know we switched the model.

But is that mainly the main reason is because you no longer have to talk to the task force because you've talked to us for eight eight sessions, you're gonna go to work, and we're no longer the task force, like we'll be commissioners, and by 2027, we may not look like this.

Um, I mean, it's the task force process was meant to end at some point and then we've sort of come back to you as um the commission, but I think in the past it has taken that long, like when we did the task force process with the 40 plus members, staff then went and did their work and then came back to council, maybe a year or less, but it does take that long to do the environmental analysis and the review.

But we need this direction in order to kick off the environmental review, and that's gonna take at least a year.

Right, right.

Um, maybe you won't say it, but I'll say it.

If you come to us as a commission and give us updates, please give parameters in terms of trying to have a ninth task force meeting, you know, impromptu, right?

Like, you know, we shouldn't.

I mean, we said what we've said, public comments have been made.

If we begin to have um ninth and tenth meetings, um, unofficially, then it could complicate your work and it could complicate the process in terms of, you know, the community may not be able to know that we're gonna have these ninth and tenth meetings, but we will.

So it kind of that part needs to be clean.

So I think if we position it as a study session of the planning commission, that's really an informational, it gives you opportunity to have a discussion, yes, questions, but there's no direction, so then it it would it wouldn't be as much of a you know an extension of the task force, just really an update to to the planning commission.

So I think that that model would allow for for not sort of because yeah, we certainly can't take new direction in the middle of it, it would be very hard for us to to accommodate.

I think my my concern was you're gonna go out and get some additional public comment though, because you're doing more during this year that you're gone, and so the study sessions I think are reasonable to feed some of that back to us so that we hear what you've heard.

Yeah, if I could add to that, I think we are very cognizant that there, you know, that would be the direction given by the planning commission and the city council, and our goal will be to stick to that direction with the public input for the areas where there are there is flexibility, such as the development standards, but really not allow for any scope creep where the scope of the general plan four year is expanded further, so that you know that triggers the next four-year review process.

I think we will come back again in four years to explore what other things could be added to the general plan scope, but for this um next phase, we're just going to focus on the final recommendations of the framework.

Correct.

I appreciate that chair the planet.

But the other thing that could happen in between here and now is additional state laws that move the needle on something the city hadn't expected on housing.

Yes, let's make a wager on that.

Can I add one more thing?

Okay.

Yes.

So thank you for bringing up that before 11 people, it was 40 people.

Um would we be able to get a at the next meeting some sort of analysis of if was this better?

You know, I didn't tune into the time when it was 40 people.

So I wonder now that we've had our final meeting and you've had it with the planning commission, would love the internal feedback in terms of what went well, you know, like what are some things maybe to consider for the next time, you know, if it's going to stay like this would be great.

I could think I think we could think about it a little bit for next week, maybe if at a at a study session when we come back.

I think I'd like to have some more time to think about it, especially after we get through the council meeting in August, just to fully take in the whole process and think about it.

But I do think it would be helpful to hear both ends too about how we thought about it, how you thought about it, and how we could improve it in the future if we do the same model or a different model, I think it'd be really useful.

So I agree.

Yeah.

Thank you.

All right.

With that, we'll adjourn this final meeting of the task force at 8 15 or 16.

Uh, thank you all for coming this evening.

Thank you, uh, Corey neighborhood for your uh commitment, consistent commitment to uh your advocacy.

It's uh admirable.