OPENPUBLICA · PUBLIC MEETING RECORD
Record of Proceedings

San Leandro Planning Commission Meeting - May 26, 2026: Parking and TDM Ordinance, Economic Development Plans

City CouncilTuesday, May 26, 2026
BodySan Leandro, California
SessionCity Council
DateTuesday, May 26, 2026
StatusFILED
Video Record
0:00 / 2:35:41
Transcript — Verbatim
0:00

How do we give us a h do we give us a hug What we found was that the requirements oftentimes were about maybe even 50% higher than what a private developer actually wished to provide, oftentimes in terms of actual parking.

14:02

And the really the impact of this is it negatively impacts viability and affordability of development.

14:08

For those of you who are not familiar about how much parking costs, it can start at about roughly about $10,000 for a surface space, roughly about $50,000 per space for a parking structure, and $70,000 and above for an underground space.

14:24

So parking quickly becomes a multi-million dollar investment.

14:28

And you can see how it drives the affordability of projects.

14:33

Not to say that parking isn't desired by developers.

14:36

Oftentimes developers will want to provide parking, but they don't want to oversupply parking, which is the issue that we currently face in a lot of empty parking spaces at certain areas.

14:46

Last thing is that we do find there's actually opportunities to better share parking, either between new uses or with uses that are existing to really make most use of empty lots where we can.

15:00

So what are we proposing here?

15:02

The biggest change that we are proposing that Laura just mentioned was changing minimum parking requirements throughout the city.

15:09

And we'd essentially be recommending that in two zones.

15:12

The first zone is within a half a mile of what we call your major transit stops.

15:17

Major transit stops are either your rail system or your the tempo line essentially, the BRT.

15:24

And you can see that here in the blue buffered areas.

15:28

It takes up, you know, a fair amount of the city.

15:32

I will note that in these areas currently, state legislation, AB 2097 has already eliminated most, almost all of your minimum parking requirements in these areas, anyways.

15:43

So our sole recommendation really for this part of the city is just to eliminate those remaining minimum parking requirements that exist, primarily for event centers and hotels, I think is really the two things.

15:56

Outside of those half mile areas, essentially all in the green area that you see here on the map, we're kind of we're offering two options.

16:04

One is either to reduce minimum parking requirements to better align with market demand.

16:09

So as I said, a lot of the requirements right now are maybe roughly 50% higher than the actual demand, or to eliminate minimum parking requirements altogether and simply let the market and private development decide how much parking they need to provide.

16:23

Oftentimes in circumstances like this, if you were to build you know a development in the more suburban part of the city, a developer will want to provide parking simply because their tenants or their residents will likely bring cars and they know that in order to sell or lease units, they will need to provide parking.

16:41

So these are the two options essentially we're providing you today.

16:44

We are there, I should note too, there is some zoning designation called the BTOD designation that currently exists within the city that has some maximum parking requirements associated with that.

16:56

We are not recommending changing those.

16:57

Those are actually set by state law.

16:59

So if you see that in your packets, that's that's why those are still in there.

17:05

So our recommendation as of right now of these two options is at the very least is to go with reducing minimum parking requirements.

17:15

And not only reducing them, but consolidating them from many, many, many different categories down to about half a dozen.

17:24

And there's good reason to do this, particularly, and the consolidation really happens on the non-residential side, is because this really helps businesses turn over at the end of the day.

17:34

I always like to liken it to saying I own a flower shop, it's successful, I do well, I go out of business.

17:41

My colleague Alex wants to come in with a restaurant.

17:44

He can't.

17:45

The restaurant requires significantly more parking than my flower shop does.

17:49

So the shop sits empty.

17:51

And this prevents businesses from turning over easily when they don't have similar parking requirements associated with them.

17:57

So the consolidation really helps.

18:00

Two is that we, as you can see from the middle column to the right column, the existing requirements, the proposed requirements, that they've all been lowered to a pretty significant degree in some cases.

18:13

For the multi-family or multi-unit residential, generally speaking, it's about half a space per unit lower.

18:20

And again, we use this is not just randomly plucked out thin air that we use industry data actually looking at peak parking demands for these various uses and also compare them to the supply that many developments here in the city currently provide.

18:29

Similarly, with office space and commercial uses, going to two spaces per thousand square feet and three spaces per thousand square feet.

18:43

Again, this actually aligns very closely with what peak demands are for those areas.

18:51

And of course, it ranges again from industrial, which is much lower, to institutional as well.

18:57

And when we talk to stakeholders about all of this, there was very strong support for either reducing or eliminating minimum parking requirements altogether, because uh there was a general sentiment among the various stakeholders that we talked with, that yes, while parking is is essential and people do like to have it to get around, that dictating higher requirements that result in empty spaces is not beneficial for the affordability of the community, or for other objectives of the community, like uh the climate action plan.

19:29

In addition to vehicles, um, we're also talking about bicycle parking requirements.

19:34

Um, and these bicycle parking requirements cover both short and long-term bicycle parking.

19:40

So, again, like a bike rack that you might just pull up to if you're you know up to a coffee shop, long-term, if it's like a locker, for example, for a variety of uses.

19:49

But we're also starting to include things in here that more up-to-date codes are including these days.

19:55

It's not just a bicycle.

19:56

Now you have a cargo bike, now you have an adaptive bike, and sometimes these bikes are different sizes.

20:01

Traditional bike is about two feet by six feet needed space, cargo spike adaptive bike is about three by ten.

20:08

So having standards align with that.

20:10

Similarly, having charging for e-bikes, e-bikes are becoming much more ubiquitous these days.

20:16

For larger uses like offices and industrial, having showers and lockers available for employees to use.

20:23

And these minimums here are, as you can see, kind of similarly set up on the left and the right, and you probably don't want to have to squint hard and read all those numbers.

20:32

Um, but the main thing that we're really driving at here is the code currently um calculates a lot of the bicycle parking, as you can see the short-term spaces in the existing requirements column as a percentage of the vehicle requirement.

20:49

So if you provide 20 car spaces, you provide one short-term bicycle space, um, regardless of whether or not you know, it's a strange calculation to make, I'll say.

21:01

To boot, the code also has no long-term bicycle parking requirements outside of the BTOD areas for most of the non-residential uses, I think any non-residential.

21:13

So across the board, I think we're generally recommending increases to both short-term and long-term spaces, as well as the associated requirements for adaptive cargo, etc.

21:26

In addition to this, there's two other areas I'll just like to touch on to wrap it up.

21:30

One has to do with unbundled parking.

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting
Engineering And Infrastructure█████████████████████████████████████37%
Economic Development██████████████████████████████30%
Transportation Safety███████████11%
Affordable Housing██████████10%
Procedural███████7%
Public Safety███3%
Community Engagement██2%
Summary of Proceedings

San Leandro Planning Commission Meeting - May 26, 2026

The San Leandro Planning Commission held a regular meeting on May 26, 2026, to consider a proposed ordinance to amend parking regulations and establish a Transportation Demand Management (TDM) program, and to receive presentations on the Innovation Action Plan and Retail Action Plan. The commission voted unanimously to recommend the ordinance to the city council with several amendments.

Discussion Items

  • Parking and TDM Ordinance (ZCA26-001): Staff from the city and consultants Nelson/Nygaard presented a proposal to repeal and replace zoning code Chapter 4.08 (off-street parking) and add Chapter 4.10 (TDM). Key changes included:
    • Eliminating minimum parking requirements within a half-mile of major transit stops (areas already largely covered by state law AB 2097, except for event centers and hotels).
    • Outside those areas, offering two options: reduce minimums to align with market demand (about 50% lower than current requirements) or eliminate them entirely. The recommendation was to reduce and consolidate parking categories.
    • Updating bicycle parking standards to include cargo and adaptive bikes, e-bike charging, and showers/lockers for larger uses.
    • Requiring unbundled parking for developments of 5+ units (state law requires for 16+ units).
    • Expanding shared parking allowances per state law AB 894.
    • TDM: a starter framework with mandatory measures (mode share surveys, education, parking management) and optional measures (flexible work, transit benefits, end-of-trip amenities, etc.) for non-residential projects over 50,000 sq ft and residential projects over 25 units. Compliance via self-certification and biennial surveys.
  • Commission Questions and Amendments:
    • Commissioner Rich asked about the definition of "renovations" triggering TDM; staff clarified it was intended for significant additions or changes of use, and agreed to add a definition. He also noted bicycle locker dimensions might not match proposed standards; staff agreed to add flexibility.
    • Commissioner Zuber raised concerns about unbundled parking enforcement, parking demand for affordable housing (staff cited ITE data showing lower demand for very low-income), and suggested making bicycle repair a mandatory TDM measure and adding meaningful ratios to flexible work arrangements.
    • Vice Chair Mendoza expressed concern that reducing parking could benefit developers at the expense of neighborhoods, seniors, and disabled residents. Staff responded that current minimums are often higher than demand and that on-street parking management is key; they cited a UCLA study showing parking costs add 20-30% to construction costs.
    • Chair Tejada asked about EV charging as a TDM measure; staff noted state building codes already require EV charging and that TDM focuses on trip reduction, but adding it as an optional measure would be straightforward.
  • Public Hearing: No members of the public spoke.

Key Outcomes

  • Motion and Vote: Commissioner Zuber moved to adopt a resolution recommending the city council adopt the ordinance with the following amendments: (1) include bicycle repair stations as a mandatory TDM measure for residential projects, (2) add a meaningful ratio to the flexible work arrangement optional measure, (3) clarify the definition of "renovations" in Section 4.10.103, and (4) add supportive amenities (e.g., EV charging) as optional TDM strategies in Section 4.10.104.B.1. Commissioner Rich seconded. The motion passed unanimously (5-0).
  • Next Steps: The recommendation will go to the city council for final adoption. Staff will also track data on the effectiveness of the changes and report back.

Presentations

  • Innovation Action Plan: Economic Development staff presented the plan, which identifies four target industries (life sciences/medtech, cleantech, food tech, advanced manufacturing) and outlines actions such as one-on-one business support, marketing, streamlining regulations, and partnering with PG&E to address power needs (up to 200 MW over 5-10 years). Success stories include CoreShell (battery startup) expanding and Pacific Fusion (fusion energy) moving in, resulting in a $62M property sale and $500K transfer tax.
  • Retail Action Plan: Staff presented findings from a consultant study, highlighting strengths (location, pro-business reputation) and challenges (online retail, aging population, high tenant improvement costs). Strategies include market readiness (database of available spaces, zoning review), marketing (new website, flyers, broker events), and shopping center outreach (encouraging small upgrades). Recent openings include Sprouts, Phil's Coffee, Ace Hardware, and new restaurants. Commissioners asked about safety perceptions and the role of downtown ambassadors; staff noted the downtown safety ambassador program funded by the city.

Commission Reports & Announcements

  • Staff announced that a development activity mapping table will be updated soon, and provided a housing element annual progress report and a new housing dashboard for information. A June meeting is likely to consider an update to the ADU ordinance.

Meeting Transcript

How do we give us a h do we give us a hug What we found was that the requirements oftentimes were about maybe even 50% higher than what a private developer actually wished to provide, oftentimes in terms of actual parking. And the really the impact of this is it negatively impacts viability and affordability of development. For those of you who are not familiar about how much parking costs, it can start at about roughly about $10,000 for a surface space, roughly about $50,000 per space for a parking structure, and $70,000 and above for an underground space. So parking quickly becomes a multi-million dollar investment. And you can see how it drives the affordability of projects. Not to say that parking isn't desired by developers. Oftentimes developers will want to provide parking, but they don't want to oversupply parking, which is the issue that we currently face in a lot of empty parking spaces at certain areas. Last thing is that we do find there's actually opportunities to better share parking, either between new uses or with uses that are existing to really make most use of empty lots where we can. So what are we proposing here? The biggest change that we are proposing that Laura just mentioned was changing minimum parking requirements throughout the city. And we'd essentially be recommending that in two zones. The first zone is within a half a mile of what we call your major transit stops. Major transit stops are either your rail system or your the tempo line essentially, the BRT. And you can see that here in the blue buffered areas. It takes up, you know, a fair amount of the city. I will note that in these areas currently, state legislation, AB 2097 has already eliminated most, almost all of your minimum parking requirements in these areas, anyways. So our sole recommendation really for this part of the city is just to eliminate those remaining minimum parking requirements that exist, primarily for event centers and hotels, I think is really the two things. Outside of those half mile areas, essentially all in the green area that you see here on the map, we're kind of we're offering two options. One is either to reduce minimum parking requirements to better align with market demand. So as I said, a lot of the requirements right now are maybe roughly 50% higher than the actual demand, or to eliminate minimum parking requirements altogether and simply let the market and private development decide how much parking they need to provide. Oftentimes in circumstances like this, if you were to build you know a development in the more suburban part of the city, a developer will want to provide parking simply because their tenants or their residents will likely bring cars and they know that in order to sell or lease units, they will need to provide parking. So these are the two options essentially we're providing you today. We are there, I should note too, there is some zoning designation called the BTOD designation that currently exists within the city that has some maximum parking requirements associated with that. We are not recommending changing those. Those are actually set by state law. So if you see that in your packets, that's that's why those are still in there. So our recommendation as of right now of these two options is at the very least is to go with reducing minimum parking requirements. And not only reducing them, but consolidating them from many, many, many different categories down to about half a dozen. And there's good reason to do this, particularly, and the consolidation really happens on the non-residential side, is because this really helps businesses turn over at the end of the day. I always like to liken it to saying I own a flower shop, it's successful, I do well, I go out of business. My colleague Alex wants to come in with a restaurant. He can't. The restaurant requires significantly more parking than my flower shop does. So the shop sits empty. And this prevents businesses from turning over easily when they don't have similar parking requirements associated with them. So the consolidation really helps. Two is that we, as you can see from the middle column to the right column, the existing requirements, the proposed requirements, that they've all been lowered to a pretty significant degree in some cases. For the multi-family or multi-unit residential, generally speaking, it's about half a space per unit lower. And again, we use this is not just randomly plucked out thin air that we use industry data actually looking at peak parking demands for these various uses and also compare them to the supply that many developments here in the city currently provide. Similarly, with office space and commercial uses, going to two spaces per thousand square feet and three spaces per thousand square feet. Again, this actually aligns very closely with what peak demands are for those areas. And of course, it ranges again from industrial, which is much lower, to institutional as well. And when we talk to stakeholders about all of this, there was very strong support for either reducing or eliminating minimum parking requirements altogether, because uh there was a general sentiment among the various stakeholders that we talked with, that yes, while parking is is essential and people do like to have it to get around, that dictating higher requirements that result in empty spaces is not beneficial for the affordability of the community, or for other objectives of the community, like uh the climate action plan. In addition to vehicles, um, we're also talking about bicycle parking requirements. Um, and these bicycle parking requirements cover both short and long-term bicycle parking. So, again, like a bike rack that you might just pull up to if you're you know up to a coffee shop, long-term, if it's like a locker, for example, for a variety of uses. But we're also starting to include things in here that more up-to-date codes are including these days. It's not just a bicycle. Now you have a cargo bike, now you have an adaptive bike, and sometimes these bikes are different sizes. Traditional bike is about two feet by six feet needed space, cargo spike adaptive bike is about three by ten.

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