[0:03] May 13, 20, 25, and let us stand for the pledge of allegiance.

[0:30] Thank you.

[0:31] Madam City Clerk, may we have the roll call, please.

[0:35] Commissioner Fung.

[0:36] Present.

[0:37] Commissioner Lynn Scott.

[0:39] Here.

[0:40] Commissioner Sharp.

[0:41] Here.

[0:42] Vice Chair, Kisol-Shrown.

[0:44] Present.

[0:44] Chair, Rao.

[0:45] Here.

[0:46] All here.

[0:47] Thank you.

[0:48] The next item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes of the April

[0:52] 2020, 20 second, 20, 25 minutes if you may take a minute to look at the minutes and then

[1:00] I may have a motion please. Thank you.

[1:21] I'll make a motion to approve the minutes.

[1:23] I'll second that.

[1:39] The motion carries unanimously.

[1:42] Thank you. The next item on the agenda is oral communications,

[1:45] this portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the commission

[1:49] on any matter within the jurisdiction of the commission and not on the agenda.

[1:53] speaker is limited to 3 minutes. In most cases, state law prohibits the commission from making any

[1:59] decisions with respect to matter not on the agenda. Madam City Clerk, do you have any

[2:04] whole comments, speaker? I see no speaker cards in person and no hands raised on Zoom.

[2:11] Okay, very good. Thank you. And seeing no items on the consent calendar, the next item on the

[2:16] agenda is the study session for multi-family and residential mixed use objective design standards.

[2:23] Do we have a staff report?

[2:25] Yes. Good evening, Chair. We actually have with us here.

[2:28] Greg Goodfellow from PlaceWorks.

[2:30] Our consultant was working on this project.

[2:32] We'll have a presentation for you tonight.

[2:36] And with no further ado, I will introduce Greg,

[2:38] who's right here.

[2:40] Thank you.

[2:42] Welcome.

[2:43] Thank you. Thank you for the entire commission for having me.

[2:45] Thank you, staff.

[2:47] So as was mentioned,

[2:49] am I seeing a connection to my presentation on the board?

[2:53] I'm not seeing it here,

[2:58] everybody can see it.

[3:25] Are you seeing it on your screen?

[3:26] I'm sorry, we had a connection earlier.

[3:28] I thought we did.

[3:29] Then it vanished again.

[3:33] Oh, here we go.

[3:35] All right.

[3:36] Staff mentioned we're here for a planning commission study session

[3:39] about multi-family and mixed use objective design standards.

[3:44] Quick overview of my agenda.

[3:45] We'll do a quick project welcome.

[3:48] I'll do sort of a 10,000 foot background into the ODS

[3:53] process and what they are. I'm going to give a quick overview on Cupertino's design priorities,

[3:58] looking into past design guidelines and documents. I'll explain how ODS are developed and then

[4:05] while go over some community insights, we solicited during our community meeting and finally there'll

[4:10] be a plan and commission discussion based on some questions that we put together, but of course

[4:14] you're welcome to ask questions at that point and offer insights on any topics.

[4:23] All right,

[4:23] First of all, I've been working closely with Luke and Pew.

[4:25] You know, well, again, my name's Greg Goodfellow with PlaceWorks.

[4:28] I'm working with Charlie Knox, also at PlaceWorks.

[4:31] I think you know our name from many projects here in Cupertino.

[4:34] Thanks again for having me.

[4:38] All right, in short, this city is in the processing

[4:40] of developing objective design standards.

[4:43] I'll use the acronym OGS from here on out

[4:45] for all types of multi-family and residential mixed use development projects.

[4:50] I'm hoping to achieve three things tonight.

[4:52] I want to explain what ODSR and why the city

[4:54] is working to develop them.

[4:56] All those great potential approaches to ODS, as well as existing objective design standards

[5:01] that we at place works have developed throughout the state.

[5:04] I really want to show the commission that the diversity in these standards.

[5:08] And finally, like I said, we'll solicit commissioner feedback on overall design priorities

[5:12] for the city and different approaches to the ODS process of which there are many.

[5:20] All right, some background on objective design standards.

[5:23] Really moving up to a high view.

[5:25] And I think we're all aware now that there's an insufficient supply of housing in the state of California, some quick statistics, about 80,000 units have been built in the last decade versus the 180,000 a year that are needed.

[5:39] There's higher rates of unaffordability.

[5:41] We're at the lowest ownership rates since 1940 about 1.5 households in California, 1.5 million households,

[5:48] excuse me, devote 50% of their income tremendous.

[5:51] That's considered severely rate burdened.

[5:54] California has 22% of the national homeless population,

[5:58] and the major challenges to housing and the state

[6:00] or material labor and state and local regulations.

[6:06] Now, a result, to that statewide crisis

[6:09] has been a statewide legislative response.

[6:11] And this really goes back to about 2017, with Jerry Brown.

[6:15] And there are two major themes to all of the statewide legislation in response to the

[6:22] housing crisis.

[6:23] First theme is that California needs, multi-family housing, single-family housing just

[6:28] won't cut it in terms of producing the number of units needed.

[6:31] And the second theme is that discretionary view constraints housing production in terms of delays.

[6:38] And in response to this, there's really a common provision that is spread throughout much

[6:43] of the housing laws that have been passed, and that is that subjective criteria can't be used

[6:50] to deny multi-family development for screenlining and fast tracking, and of course that's

[6:55] related to those themes, the state wants to get multi-family development built, and it wants

[7:00] to avoid delays based on subjective criteria and the associated discretionary view that goes

[7:07] with it.

[7:07] I brought up one of the major legislations associated with this.

[7:12] That's SB 330, the Housing Crisis Act in order to really give you some insight into where design fits into this.

[7:19] And a direct quote from that legislation, cities can't disapprove of multi-family housing project,

[7:25] including through design review, unless the project is shown to be inconsistent with quote objective,

[7:32] quantifiable standards, and I'll get more into what this means and other laws that

[7:37] call out these, quote, objective quantifiable standards.

[7:43] Again, the statewide response to housing crisis, multiple laws have been passed since

[7:49] 2017 with SB 35 that tough law on this list.

[7:54] That's screen line ministerial approval that goes straight to the heart of the matter, which

[7:58] calls out the need for objective standards to be used to deny any fast track housing.

[8:04] Since that time we've got SB 330, SB 167, SB 6, SB 9, AB 2011, these are just a few of the laws that have been passed that site the need for objective standards to be used as the criteria for fast tracking housing.

[8:21] I point out 167 here because this really hits home this idea of objective standards and this

[8:27] leaning towards approving fast track housing rather than denying them.

[8:31] That law states that a project must be considered consistent with objective design standards

[8:36] as long as, quote, their substantial evidence that would allow a reasonable person to conclude

[8:42] it is.

[8:43] In other words, the state is leaning very heavily towards approving project as opposed to denying

[8:48] even in the case of objective standards where, presumably, there is no right and wrong.

[8:53] Even in this case, there is this evidence leaning towards approval, as a bit rather than denial.

[9:02] All right, so where does this leave us?

[9:03] It leaves us with the need to adopt objective design standards in order to preserve local design control.

[9:10] And this is somewhat ironic because we think of design control as really being in the hands of traditional design guidelines that are subjective.

[9:16] they're descriptive, they're very detailed. But unfortunately, those guidelines no longer have

[9:22] this approval authority in these fast track multifamily hasn't projects that we're seeing

[9:27] so many of them and that the state has really deemed so vital throughout all these laws.

[9:33] So what is this official legal definition of an objective design standard? These are standards

[9:38] that involve no personal or subjective judgment by a public official and that are uniformly

[9:45] verifiable buyer reference to an external and uniform benchmark or criteria on that is a very

[9:52] worthy way of staying, saying these are quantifiable standards, much like a traditional zoning

[9:57] standard or development standard. Now there are ways to shape ODS that are not just a number,

[10:04] they can be measurements, they can be definable requirements, rates are common, true false statements,

[10:10] scores based on a selection of required elements, numeric ranges, and percentages, or required

[10:17] quantifiable options. There are ways to shape objective design standards that aren't

[10:21] simply, you need to be this high or this wide. And I'll give you many examples of adopting

[10:28] guidelines throughout the Bay Area and the state that place works as a work done that really

[10:32] demonstrate this diversity. But again, the irony in these new laws is that what we think

[10:37] as offering this local control, the subjective guidelines simply cannot be used and the way

[10:44] to regain this control is to adopt these objective design standards.

[10:52] A quick idea of what

[10:54] the difference is here. I'm not going to cite all of these, but if you look at that red language

[10:58] in the first column, that is sort of a typical subjective language and then the green and the other

[11:05] home is a way of turning that subject of language into an object of quantifiable standard.

[11:13] So, you know, a phrase like sensitive to the neighborhood.

[11:15] Well, what exactly does that mean?

[11:17] One reviewer could see a project as being sensitive,

[11:20] where another reviewer does not see a project as being sensitive.

[11:23] That's where we get into this issue of discretionary view,

[11:26] and that is the type of review that the state does not allow

[11:30] In its eligibility for fast tracking should need to turn into shelves ample with or what does that mean?

[11:37] Note that should let's change that to shall be at least 8 feet.

[11:42] So it's really this transformation of should to shelves and a parent to actual numbers and things like that.

[11:50] But again, there are many ways to achieve this.

[11:56] All right, so let's make sure that everybody here understands the applicable development for ODS.

[12:00] What does this, what do these standards apply to?

[12:04] It's very broad.

[12:05] Basically, it's all multifamily residential projects,

[12:08] and that's any project with two or more units of any type.

[12:11] This includes the town homes that are so popular in Cupertino and throughout the Bay Area,

[12:16] and it also includes all residential mixed-use projects,

[12:19] where at least 30% of the square footage is devoted to residential units.

[12:24] Of course, those are the common three to four story mixed-use projects,

[12:27] with the retail in the bottom floor that we see so many of in the Bay Area.

[12:31] What are not subject to objective design standards are all single-family homes.

[12:36] Non-infilt sites, there are some specific requirements for infilt, one of the main ones

[12:41] being that a site that is less than 75%, less than 70% percent of the perimeter is developed

[12:48] as included a non-infilt site, and he has it as sites that would impact natural resources,

[12:55] wetland sites, sites that would impact historic resources, these really go back to those requirements

[13:00] we see and seek with so much. So typically those types of sites are not subject to ODS because

[13:07] of course they will get such a rigorous review and environmental review process in

[13:11] another zoning development and standards, et cetera.

[13:18] A quick differentiation between

[13:20] Zoning standards and objective design standards. Zoning standards, as I think most people

[13:25] understand regulate all types of uses, commercial, industrial, et cetera. They regulate

[13:30] development basics such as building heights, setbacks, lot sizes that are so familiar

[13:38] to us in development standards, and the intent of zoning going all the way back 100 years

[13:43] is safe, consistent, and context, sensitive, built environment. It is not to streamline projects

[13:49] in any way, shape, reform. Whereas ODS are limited to housing projects, those types of

[13:54] projects I just described, they regulate design and aesthetics and the

[14:00] stated goal is screen line review and in light of that existing zoning

[14:05] standards for those applicable projects still apply and a key part of this is

[14:10] that objective design standards do not repeat or conflict with zoning

[14:14] standards. We don't want these confusing overlaps and we don't want applicants to

[14:18] run across zoning standards that are in conflict with objective design standards.

[14:26] All right, I will just share, and this was my staff report, some design priorities that I highlighted in a very extensive review of past planning documents and design documents in Cupertino, because I think we've moved a link in some direction for the city.

[14:42] First of all, the general plan has a lot of focus on enhancing streetscapes in its multi-family residential projects.

[14:49] It's very focused on diverse architecture and articulation of buildings, active frontages that invite pedestrian and pedestrian environments, linking these...

[15:00] Different elements of the urban environment, blocks, boulevards, and nodes. And when that comes up, quite a bit is reduced in visual impact of parking, which is very tied to enhancing streetscapes and friendly pedestrian environments. These are just a few.

[15:16] Looking closer into the city's specific plans, you find some repeat, but some also different design priorities, screening, and slightly building features that could be anything from transformers and front of the building to waste enclosures.

[15:28] I'll get into both of those later, allowing for special architectural features.

[15:33] This again speaks to this desire for a diverse architectural environment, livable common

[15:39] and private open spaces, whether it's shared open spaces in large apartment buildings

[15:43] or private balconies, promoting variety and building facades.

[15:47] Again, this goes back to articulation and a desire for variety in exterior, excuse me, exterior

[15:53] articulation.

[15:56] And something that's quite rare in Cupertino is that really has a jumpstart in design in the city's only court.

[16:03] There are a lot of standards. These are already objective for different elements of design, including building stepbacks, not to be confused with setbacks.

[16:13] Setbacks are these reductions in height for different building levels and stories.

[16:17] There are standards for visual privacy, standards for balconies and private open spaces, vehicle entryways,

[16:24] design standard dedicated just to town homes as well as building glass and lighting

[16:29] standards. All of these things are often in objective design standards and are often

[16:34] not in zone cities own encodes. So again it will be important to look for overlaps in

[16:42] objective design standards that come out of this as well as ensuring that they are not

[16:46] conflicts between the zone encode and the objective design standards.

[16:53] All right, I'd like to introduce you to the process of developing ODS.

[16:57] My next slide is a little esoteric, but bear with me this is something I've used in a lot of my presentations.

[17:03] But when we think about objective design standards, it's really a process.

[17:07] I mean, process of deciding how you want to balance design control with streamlining.

[17:12] And the way I've developed this slide is basically using geometry.

[17:15] And if you think of the shape of objective design standards, start with a very simple broad objective design standards, that's represented by the square, perhaps each side is a standard.

[17:29] So there are very few decision points here. And the result is rapid screenlining. It is very easy for a staff member to go to that checklist, see that those standards are met and it's easy for an applicant to follow those.

[17:41] On the other side, the city has less control of design detail.

[17:47] Now there are cities who have argued and I've been doing objective design standards for the last six years.

[17:52] There has been sort of a sea change where, of course, we would say, well, why would we do that?

[17:55] Why do we seed control for so many of these details that are important to us?

[18:00] There's now been a sort of change towards what that does as it puts control back in the architectural professionals

[18:05] and leads to that diversity that we so value.

[18:10] An example of that is I just finished objective design standards for the entire unincorporated area of

[18:15] Contracastic County.

[18:17] This is a huge county, as you know, with very diverse unincorporated areas, everything from

[18:22] you know, waterfront historic homes in Rodeo to the Pleasant Hill, Bart station, which has a very

[18:33] building, sort of mixed use buildings, how can you possibly create design standards that fit

[18:40] both those two dairy divers types of housing? And the way the county decided to do that was

[18:46] just pull back, excuse me, and do a broader take instead of trying to cover all those elements

[18:50] of design for what could be a duplex in a waterfront, rodeo, or a six story multi-family building

[18:59] near the Pleasant Hill Arts Station, let's just find those common areas of design that we want

[19:04] to prioritize and stick at that broader level. Now, as you move further and further down, this

[19:09] level of detail, and I've ended this with a circle which strangely, as you know, really has no

[19:14] sides, there are infinite decision points, which of course this is what the state does not allow

[19:19] to be used as criteria. That's where there's no streamlining, but there's the most local control.

[19:25] So, I think it's important for you as a plan of commission and the city is a whole to sort

[19:29] of brainstorm where do we want our objective design standards to fall, how do we want to balance

[19:33] this process of facilitating screenlining but at the same time maintaining control while fitting

[19:40] within our prioritization of architectural diversity and things like that.

[19:45] So, this is sort of the way I've shaped this idea of balance in moving from a broader level standards

[19:51] to all the way to subjective, which, of course, is what we're moving away from.

[19:59] Now, I have to see years of slides here that are actually adopted standards throughout the

[20:04] Bay Area and some in Southern California, all of which were created by placeworks.

[20:09] And really, these are not trying to cover a certain type of topic.

[20:12] They're really just a show to the level of diversity and approach.

[20:15] So here is for the city of Sunnyvale, where this was an interesting process.

[20:19] This is the topic of site design.

[20:21] And as we put together many different standards for site design with

[20:24] associated graphics, they like the idea for site design of the simple plan level drawings,

[20:29] as opposed to anything three-dimensional.

[20:32] What happened was we realized, you know, this is a lot of text and a lot of

[20:36] associated graphics, the city decide, you know what we should do is

[20:40] condense all of this if we're really trying to make this readable, but at the same time

[20:43] maintain our graphics and create a table out of this where, you know, different columns are

[20:48] different built-in types, we have multi-family residential, and mixed use commercial and residential,

[20:53] and embed those figure names into this table with ends. So imagine you're looking at these

[20:57] guidelines, these are two sides of the page. So again, this was an example of one city who

[21:02] decided they liked tabular guidelines or excuse me standards associated with figures to illustrate

[21:09] them. And these were focused mostly on the overall layout of the site, building orientation,

[21:15] in pedestrian access, frontages, parking location,

[21:18] what to do on corners, things like that.

[21:22] A very different take on site design

[21:24] was in Southern California, and this was a city

[21:27] that was really focused on site-wide aesthetics.

[21:30] They wanted design themes to be held throughout

[21:33] the different sites, unity and architectural styles,

[21:37] visual consistency, and things like roofs and facades.

[21:40] So their standards were much more photograph-based

[21:43] an illustrative and it's this is just two ways of approaching the same type of topic of site

[21:50] design and site planning. So I wanted to sort of present these two as just one example of

[21:55] the diversity of approaches.

[22:00] Another example here's the topic more of massing and articulation

[22:04] and roof line. This is an example of a common what we call axonometric or 3D drawings that

[22:09] are more common in these massing guidelines. So these are required setbacks that are dependent

[22:14] building height, use of setbacks, pitched roof standards, flat roof standards. So again,

[22:20] this city wanted to focus on brakes and buildings to break up that massing. And it's important

[22:25] to remember here that these don't result in the boxy development and buildings that you're seeing

[22:32] in these standards, or excuse me, in these illustrations. Because again, these are all paired with

[22:36] the more detailed articulation standards, window based standards, things like that. So again,

[22:41] we need to simplify the graphics that go along with a lot of standards, but they do not mean

[22:47] that the resulting product is going to necessarily look just like them, because this is a

[22:51] pattern, of course, with so many other standards.

[22:56] An example of landscaping, here's a city

[22:59] that had this interesting focus on what they called focal point landscaping, instead of developing

[23:04] so many different quantifiable standards for different types of landscaping, they really wanted

[23:09] focus on what they call focal points, so creating land safe standards near the entries of

[23:16] multi-use or excuse the multifamily developments around plasas or in-plasas at the terminal

[23:22] points of pedestrian walkways where you walk in, where you walk out, and then they really

[23:27] like this graphic approach of more landscape-style sketches. They also wanted to make sure

[23:34] they regulated parking lot landscaping, so buffers next to residential units, plantings in

[23:40] those landscape islands, or what they call fingers, those extensions that separate out

[23:44] parking spaces. Again, this was just a unique approach to landscaping into two different

[23:51] sub-topics within landscaping. And again, I don't know any of the cities at this point

[23:55] who really did focus it in that way, but there are so many different diverse ways of doing

[23:59] it, and that's why I'm bringing this one up now, because I thought it was interesting.

[24:06] something common that you'll see are regulating trash and service areas. Here's an example of a graphic we did for a city that really

[24:13] wanted to make sure that trash and closers were finished using materials from the primary building that they were

[24:20] that any trash and closers that were visible from the upper stories of adjacent structures had opaque covers

[24:27] so neighboring residents working working in a trash cans. Again, that's a standard I hadn't seen anywhere else

[24:33] it speaks to, you know, using your priorities and creating standards that you see fit.

[24:39] They also set a standard that storage areas, shall not be closer than 20 feet from doors

[24:43] or operable windows, education structures, that was more common.

[24:47] That's actually quite typical throughout design standards.

[24:50] I've seen some ODS documents that separate out trash and services as their own entity.

[24:56] Others don't build, you know, more into the site plan as a subsection.

[25:00] Again, there's so many ways to do this.

[25:05] Here's an example from daily city. They like the idea of their standards being associated more with

[25:12] Photographs of their neighborhoods. They didn't want to get too technical and

[25:16] They here's some standards for lighting lighting comes in sometimes as it's own chapter other times dropped in to separate sections for exterior

[25:23] Standards

[25:24] But they want to make sure that their lighting fixtures

[25:27] We're oriented away from the street and they were fully shielded. You know that comes up again

[25:32] What is fully shielded mean, well, that's where you add in, so that no light is emitted above a 90 degree angle.

[25:38] That's an attempt at moving this language even more towards objectivity.

[25:43] Entry illuminations, the front porch landing, and other recessed entryway lighting, is consistent with the design materials and color of the structure.

[25:53] And then a separate standard for ground mounted lighting, where we incorporated that threshold of three feet tall.

[26:01] So, you know, this is really a process of prioritizing a topic, moving towards a state

[26:09] of objectivity and the mid-realizing, you know, we've got to get a little closer.

[26:13] We need to, and this has come up a lot, and the standard I just mentioned, which is, you

[26:17] know, developing these trash or service enclosures, all right?

[26:20] We're going to make sure that the materials complement the primary building.

[26:24] What does complement?

[26:26] Well, you know, you have to use kind of the same materials, okay?

[26:29] How many of those materials?

[26:30] Alright, let's establish a stance of standard. You need to use one to three of the same

[26:35] exterior materials of the primary building. So it's working towards a standard that is

[26:41] easy to work with, but at the same time gets that priority across as close to that subject of priority

[26:48] that was originally there in so many cases.

[26:54] This is something that we've really pushed for in our documents,

[26:57] which is this go back to that original intent of these laws, which is ensuring that design

[27:03] is ministerial. So in a lot of our documents at the end of the document, we have what's called

[27:08] an ODS checklist. This is where that planning staff can go through and actually check that box mark.

[27:15] So these are the, you know, in yellow there are the topical sections, and then white are each of

[27:24] as she or he creates this project can shut that box mark.

[27:29] All right, we've got those exterior standards, yes,

[27:31] it's three feet from the entrance.

[27:33] And then the planning staff reviewing this

[27:35] can really exemplify that ministerial process

[27:38] and also check those boxes.

[27:39] So it offers both sides of the chance to make sure

[27:42] they've gone through and they're consistent

[27:44] with the standards and they're saving that time

[27:46] and that is so valuable to the state

[27:48] and is so exemplified in this legislation.

[27:54] So, I've worked with staff to sort of sus out how we could develop this outline for Cupertino.

[28:01] And this is, you know, components of other similar, similar cities I've worked with in the Bay Area,

[28:07] looking at those priorities that I believe from going through this exhaustive study of past documents.

[28:14] This is how we could see this, you know, most ODS start with this sort of grand-purpose chapter to explain to users why this is here,

[28:21] what's the definition, how the document is organized.

[28:24] And then again, of course, the administration

[28:26] and the review process, how these applications

[28:29] will go through the city staff.

[28:33] We talked about the diversity of uses.

[28:36] We simply can't, unless, as the county of Contercost

[28:41] did and made their ODS more like a zoning code,

[28:44] to really capture this diversity of uses a duplex

[28:48] in a neighborhood versus a six story mixed use building on a major corridor, I found that it's

[28:55] usually best to separate out into two chapters.

[28:58] See, you've got a chapter of standards for mixed use and multifamily.

[29:01] These are sort of those block scale projects, more than two stories, more than 10 units,

[29:06] typical typologies, are those vertical mixed use buildings and residential buildings and

[29:11] town homes.

[29:12] I see that as split, and each of these chapters would open with a guiding principle section.

[29:18] That is not an objective section.

[29:21] That is the city's chance to really demonstrate to the reader and to the developer in the applicant.

[29:26] Look, these are objective standards, but this is what we're trying to achieve here.

[29:30] This is the way to lead the reader in to those standards and repeat what we really want to achieve here.

[29:36] So the guiding principles in this section would be high quality design, of course, pedestrian orientation,

[29:42] coordination of the project, site and surroundings.

[29:47] And then the major topics would be site design and their subtopics that I will read through each one,

[29:53] building form, pedestrian experience, and common open space and landscaping.

[29:58] And those subtopics you see there.

[30:00] There are prepared largely in what I found in reviewing past documents. And then the other side of the

[30:07] document would really focus on small-scale residential. And those are typologies such as due

[30:12] plexus, tri plexus, other multiplexus, courtyard style apartments. And this is a whole different

[30:18] quote, house scale of 1 to 3 story buildings with no more than 10 units. And again, this would

[30:25] have their own approaches. Some of the same topics but different approaches and different standards

[30:29] of course to fit these different style buildings. Again, this is absolutely a draft proposal

[30:36] in assessing all these things out.

[30:44] Alright, we did hold a community meeting here in this room

[30:47] in early February. You had the quantitative results in your staff report and I just wanted to

[30:53] share some of the qualitative insights. We've got some good written comments and posted notes.

[30:59] I'm not going to go through every single board that would take a little bit too long, but one of

[31:03] major boards was for large projects and the topic was kind of TV. You can see that the

[31:09] first is just the JPEG of the board itself, the second image there is a photo of the

[31:13] completed board. And we got a lot of comments on on entrances and driveways. A quote that I

[31:19] thought was interesting was driveways with just garages, do not create communities.

[31:24] Projects with four more units must have at least one entrance driver and a separate exit

[31:28] driveway. There was a lot of talk about, you know, crowding at drive

[31:33] ways and making drive ways less pedestrian friendly if they're too large.

[31:40] There was also a lot of comments. You can see those post-it notes on ground floor

[31:44] design. Ground floor glass can't be reflected due to glare. Ground floor double

[31:51] heights is a waste of space. One of the topics was should those ground floor

[31:56] retail spaces, the double the height of the above residential units. You should define

[32:03] a number of entries and three points to projects per linear foot. Good design allows

[32:08] for maximum separation between the residential units. This is, I think, more of a density

[32:13] comment.

[32:17] Interesting comments about neighborhood context for smaller projects. Again, this

[32:21] goes back to these duplexes and other small projects. One person wrote that we need to

[32:29] materials, the building, step-ups, window locations, event locations, those ugly HVAC units that are often in front of

[32:37] these small projects. Someone asked, are you considering resiliency, climate factors and hazards? This was a very

[32:44] good question and a lot of this. There are objective design standards that integrate resiliency and let's say

[32:51] drought-resistant landscaping into their landscape standards, but typically larger issues of hazards and climate factors

[32:59] are not included just given the amount of state law

[33:02] or given the number of state laws that

[33:04] guide both things otherwise.

[33:07] But you can always integrate claimant-related standards

[33:11] into different topics.

[33:13] I've seen cities where we've worked with cities

[33:14] who wanted to just do a whole section on bird-save guidelines,

[33:18] which has everything from glare resistance

[33:20] to avoiding landscaping that funnels birds

[33:23] into a building.

[33:24] And so they created actual angles of landscaping

[33:27] that open up to ensure that birds fly away if they don't

[33:31] links right and then getting funneled towards them.

[33:33] That just, again, speaks at a level diversity.

[33:40] All right, this is where I'm going to add some questions here.

[33:43] Before I do, what are I going to stop?

[33:44] And let any of you ask a question if you have any?

[33:48] I'm happy to keep going as well.

[33:49] I have a good question.

[33:52] How many people completed the survey?

[33:55] When he said the quantitative results?

[33:57] I think they were 13 to 15 people here.

[33:59] some people then answer every board, you know, not everybody put a post that

[34:03] know. So that's that's the quantitative story you're referring to.

[34:08] Got it. Yeah. Okay. So under under 15, it sounds like. Yeah.

[34:13] Under 10? No, not under 10. Okay. Great. Thanks. And probably a good time to

[34:20] pause to let commissioners ask some questions, take it all in, and then you can

[34:23] continue. Is that okay? Yeah. Absolutely. And how many more

[34:27] It's just a remaining question slides.

[34:30] Okay, okay, great.

[34:32] You know what I'm going to go first?

[34:34] I know the Vishal Linscox gone already.

[34:35] You have more questions.

[34:40] We're going to just do some questions and then go back to the slides.

[34:44] Just so we can.

[34:48] No questions.

[34:51] So yeah, go ahead.

[34:53] Yeah, maybe a little curious about where this fits in the timeline to,

[34:59] to, you know, objective standard.

[35:07] is your question when when is this uh yeah I'm curious I'm curious but you know

[35:15] we'll we see this again it's a great question I think the next time you

[35:21] probably see it again as the fall I think at the latest yeah excuse me my

[35:27] voice is cutting in and out but the goal tonight this is trying to get

[35:35] and having Greg show up with a draft document,

[35:37] where there had really only been the February meeting.

[35:40] So the goal is, yes, to bring this back,

[35:42] when you have an actual document that's

[35:45] hopefully addressing the themes or major topics

[35:48] that you want to see this focus on.

[35:51] And then it also a big question, Greg,

[35:52] has two, the degree of control you want to have, too.

[35:55] These could be very broad, they could be very specific.

[35:59] So yes, you will definitely see it again.

[36:01] It will go to the city council after this, as well.

[36:04] this has not been presented to the city council, so we're expecting to have at least one more

[36:09] planning commission look and the council would look at it two times at least.

[36:14] Thank you, commissioner. So I'm curious, you know, just given the nature of the kind of

[36:21] import that we get, you know, usually, again, no offense to those that show up, but it is a small

[36:26] subset of our population. And we struggled to represent the needs of the vast majority of

[36:33] So, I'm curious when you've done this across cities, how have you balanced that import?

[36:38] For example, have you spoken to or had the commission speak to developers that are actually

[36:46] able to give input on what cells and what community likes and what to buyers like?

[36:53] So, it's one thing to get community import from a small subsection that gravy may or may not be professionals in the space

[36:59] but are also getting input from professionals like the developers or from staff and what other sources

[37:04] of input do you factor in? Well in past projects we've done what we call stakeholder input

[37:12] and over the few years of doing this now it's become less and less successful in terms of the

[37:19] type of input received and the type of participation you know before there was more input on

[37:25] more about feasibility to level, how standards might make it more difficult for a developer to,

[37:30] you know, to finance a project and how it would impact a project, and I have decided in doing this

[37:38] that given, and this is a whole other issue, but given the number of exemptions, whether it's

[37:45] through density bonus or things like that, there's simply less interest on the part of the

[37:49] person architects in participating in this. And the type of input is sort of the same each time.

[37:59] And that's why I am more interested in hearing from the commission. And keep in mind also that

[38:05] there'll be a public draft of this report available for 30 days for any of it for the city to look at.

[38:11] I've done so many meeting meetings in different places. And community interest has not been high.

[38:18] You know, I'll be honest. It's an esoteric idea. I think that's hard for people to latch on to and again

[38:24] That's why I really want to take that

[38:27] That 10,000 foot view for you and everyone listening to it is about what this is and why it's happening

[38:33] Yeah, I'd like to sort of double click on that a little bit if you look at the kind of

[38:38] interest that

[38:39] Cooper Teno's had as you pointed out earlier. It's a lot of town homes and

[38:43] the town home buyers are pretty selective on what they want and what sells and what

[38:48] what people will buy. And so it would be actually a interest to hear from the town home developers

[38:54] on what it is that we're both a hinder and foster creation of properties that sell for them

[39:03] and that people want to buy and move into the neighbourhood. So I'd push back a little bit on that.

[39:08] I think that there's a difference between sort of high density mixed use where the density

[39:14] drives a lot of the conversations versus what it's selling nowadays where there is an appeal

[39:19] factor that goes within and we don't want to handle that obviously. So maybe through staff,

[39:25] we can look at other ways to really get import from a diverse set of stakeholders and maybe

[39:29] it's offline import but whatever we can do to hear from more than just a small subset of 10 or 15

[39:35] people that give us import. And that way the commission can also weigh those factors in.

[39:40] Yeah, no, and staff has been very clear that we need to have a separate section for

[39:45] count homes, which is why we did why we included that, you know, in that in that first chapter of the ODS.

[39:52] And I'm sure commission can provide important what might be suiting the community versus what is perhaps

[39:59] leading towards interest that more or more density or otherwise. So I think we can apply that filter,

[40:05] but getting the input is useful so that we can get all all points for you.

[40:10] Sure.

[40:11] Sorry, I had a couple more questions.

[40:13] One is, are we expected to vote today?

[40:15] No, it's just a study session, right?

[40:19] And then the second thing was, are you looking for input like you showed multiple styles of

[40:24] developing ODS, right, with the photos of the flat maps, the diagrams, 3D, you know, whatever.

[40:31] Are you looking for guidance from us in terms of, you know, which style we would prefer?

[40:37] Yeah.

[40:37] And then that's why I showed you so many of the different ways any, any guidance and then the follow-up question is how does this, you mentioned density bonus right, how does this play with, if somebody, you know, if a developer does a density bonus request like so, like how much, how much do the audience standards apply in that case.

[41:05] Unfortunately, they can wave them. Exactly. Okay. That was my question. Yeah. Is there anything at all that they cannot wave?

[41:15] I, you know, I just want to make it clear. Right. And that's that's the nature of the state legislation with housing right now. And you know, that's an ongoing issue. There's not much they can't wave.

[41:26] Okay, guess if I could just add to that as the way I look at this now is odds are not gonna give you the authority or control you once had, but it gives you something that right now you lack entirely, because discretionary standards don't have any teeth don't carry any weight, so I think the hope is that the better you do with the odds, the more likely developers will not wave them, but of course through density bonus they're gonna want to get the project they want.

[41:55] But it does give you some measure of control and some assurance

[42:02] Right, and that's that's kind of what I was leaning at in terms of stakeholder input

[42:07] Is there input is generally going to be whatever makes it easier as opposed to what the city's excuse me what the city's priorities for design are and

[42:15] You know, that's why I want to put these decisions mostly in the commission in the council and the and the community's court

[42:22] Sorry, I had one final question and this is to staff right so you said there would be one more planning commission review of this and then it goes to council so it would be great if we get more than one so that we get a chance not just to you know review and improve and check check it off and basically say yes or no but to actually get maybe one more meeting in between we get to have some input in the draft and then have it come back as a more

[42:50] finalized draft. So, you know, two meetings instead of one.

[42:54] I'm happy to do that. My only issue is always managing contracts. Other than that,

[42:59] I get it. This is a kind of abstract new topic for a lot of people, including us.

[43:05] So, I think it's sort of getting familiar with, you know, what do you want to get out of it

[43:10] in terms of, like, you'd ask, even the format of the document.

[43:13] So, I could see where it would take multiple meetings. So, I think we'll see what we can do.

[43:17] To Greg's point with talking to developers. I think that's something we could do fairly informally. We did that through the housing element

[43:24] I will say the comments were fairly predictable and there was not huge rush to participate on behalf of developers.

[43:33] But I think it's something we could get there input outside of having a formal meeting like this.

[43:40] Absolutely.

[43:41] I just had a quick follow-up question.

[43:43] You mentioned waivers for density bonuses and other exemptions.

[43:47] Are there other exemptions that we should be aware of?

[43:52] With objective design standards, I mean there's just, there's the, I think, Luke and

[43:58] you can speak better to this than I can.

[44:02] I mean, overall, and this is why I brought up SB 167 in this, the state is just pushing

[44:09] to make it easy, even with object design standards, to push for the applicant's side.

[44:18] And, you know, the overall teeth for any form of housing standards, you know, those teeth

[44:24] are dulling more and more.

[44:30] And I think, density bonus is the big one, I mean, that's one that people are using right

[44:34] now, because that is the one that, and the inclusionary housing ordinance in a lot of cities

[44:40] uses that as a tool to wave standards. That's often a, I'm not familiar.

[44:47] Disco-Partina have an adopted IHO. So a lot of incentives in contemporary IHO.

[44:53] So one of those incentives is a reduction or a streamlining of different standards in a review.

[45:00] So, I've seen more recently, you know, awaiting a waiver of design standards as a part of I chose. That's a common one now.

[45:10] So, I'm curious, it's been maybe three to four months since the community meeting and this meeting.

[45:17] What has transpired, since then, and what is the bottleneck in making faster progress to either get more visibility or more frequent checkpoints or more community meetings?

[45:26] I mean, it seems like we're having these meetings

[45:30] a few months apart, is that typical of your experience

[45:34] with other cities, or is this schedule

[45:37] comparable to other cities and what drives that timeline?

[45:42] Well, this was getting on this agenda.

[45:45] And I've been working with cities staff

[45:49] to move this at the pace it was moving forward.

[45:52] I mean, there hasn't been any major obstacles.

[45:54] And, you know, like was mentioned after this, we'll go to the City Council for another study session, not for any resolution or passing.

[46:03] I think this is organizing and getting meetings on agendas is, you know, the stretched out point at the beginning,

[46:12] once we can sit down and start developing the standards, things move faster, and then, you know, we'll get into the process of another set of meetings.

[46:20] And I'd like to just make sure that getting on the agenda is not the bottleneck, we can always have as many special meetings as we need if needed, so you know the agenda should not be the bottleneck.

[46:30] So I want to make sure this task is not being a bottleneck in any way for progress.

[46:36] And if we can see this more often to, I think the point that was made earlier, I think that helps to get input at frequent checkpoints.

[46:43] and hate to see this like twice six months apart and then it's done.

[46:49] So we'd love to hear from you through staff what can be done to see this more often and

[46:54] iterate.

[46:55] You know, we have a saying in the tech industry act now when I trade or buys for action, depending

[47:00] on who you ask, but yeah, we'd love to see this more often.

[47:04] And so without much further ado, unless Commissioner Sharf who's had this questions.

[47:08] So I was looking at some ODS for other cities and I wonder if the one for Cupertino

[47:14] do you have open space requirements per unit?

[47:19] Well, those are in the code right now.

[47:22] That's an example of usually, that's not typically an ODS because it's usually a development

[47:28] standard, either the amount of open space per the square footage of residential space.

[47:33] So that's an example of a very close call

[47:35] whereas open space standards in an ODS,

[47:40] maybe pedestrian pathways with landscape buffers

[47:44] are required from each apartment building

[47:47] to that central open space.

[47:50] Or each open space needs two of the following amenities,

[47:55] you know, a barbecue area and a child's playground.

[47:59] So they're much more oriented to quality of life and design.

[48:04] And again, unlimited waivers so they can do whatever they want, basically.

[48:09] Yeah, I would urge you to, would the value I see in the existing design standards as well as objective standards that come out of it.

[48:18] They are indicative of the city's priorities and they're informational.

[48:22] And there are, I think, developers and architects have always looked at them and they're used to looking at them.

[48:27] And I don't urge you to not assume that's a reason to not focus on these answers.

[48:34] I mean, there are good developers and bad developers and, you know, hopefully we get some

[48:40] of the good ones.

[48:42] And on that note, maybe we should let you proceed and finish the rest of your session.

[48:48] All right.

[48:48] These are the same questions that I placed on your staff report.

[48:52] And again, they're just for guidance.

[48:55] And on these next three slides with the questions, these are literally examples of

[48:59] housing in a mile radius of where we stand and again this is just by way of really hitting

[49:05] home the diversity right now in this city and these are all projects that of course passed

[49:10] any form of design review in the past.

[49:14] So this first one goes back to this larger question of you know as a first thought what

[49:20] you see is more valuable standards that are briefer and focused on this broader perspective

[49:26] of these major priorities or that really regulate design tightly?

[49:33] Do you have any thoughts on that?

[49:34] Well, I'm curious who I, you've kind of boxed the choice as being. If you're brought, you'll

[49:40] love for diversity, but as if you're detailed, you don't, you could have a detailed ODS that

[49:45] accounts for the diversity as well. Well, because the broader, I mean, the point I'm making

[49:52] is that a broader simpler set is more in line with the screenlining and housing production

[49:56] that the state is looking at, whereas a more detailed set is, it harkens back more towards

[50:04] a longer process for an applicant and for the reviewer at staff, and it leads to a set of

[50:11] products that are going to look much more like each other, because they all follow everything

[50:15] down to the window framing and things like that.

[50:18] So it's this question of a very detailed set of standard that leads to a very common set

[50:24] products versus a broader set that leaves more room for flexibility in the final product and in the

[50:31] designer of that product. And we have an indication that this is a bottleneck for production of

[50:37] housing right now. It seems to me like financing seems to be the concern that I seem to run into

[50:43] most often. Well, we don't have designs standards right now, so it's hard to tell. But in terms of

[50:48] and applying discretionary standards, it's very detailed and

[50:53] cumbersome processes, if you will, if that is the extreme, as you showed in your spectrum.

[50:58] Does staff have an important, whether they see this as an impediment?

[51:02] No, sorry. I think you're commented that financing and other issues are by far the bigger

[51:07] impediment to housing getting developed. We're hearing that from everybody. I think

[51:12] where Greg is going to though is, and I guess an example I would have would be a place like

[51:18] you would have very detailed standards that are dictating materials,

[51:22] volumes in the window, limited color palette, tile roofs, things like that

[51:28] where you're getting a very tight detailed design that, while it's specific,

[51:32] it may tell you exactly what you can do, it doesn't allow a lot of leeway.

[51:35] I mean, you pretty much know down to a very small level,

[51:39] versus having broader standards that may focus on, say, defining an entry,

[51:43] or having landscaping at key locations, but while it's clear, it's broader and allows

[51:49] for more flexibility because I think where you're going with a detailed grade, too, is

[51:53] that detail can lead to monotony and can lead to uniformity.

[51:59] My perspective on Cupertino is that's not the city you have right now.

[52:02] You do have a pretty diverse city, mostly built later.

[52:05] You don't have a lot of historic buildings,

[52:09] like a city like Palo Alto where you have a strong

[52:11] craftsmen heritage, you have a lot of idler development, you have a lot of things where you

[52:16] might want to tie into those, depending on the location of a building. But again, this is a

[52:21] big topic that I think we're great as going as you have a lot of latitude, do you want to have a broad

[52:27] process that focuses on quality, but allows greater latitude and design versus something very specific.

[52:35] Right. And I didn't just drop the set of the blue, this goes back to my reading of the existing

[52:39] design guidelines which really focuses on this diversity of uses and product, the diversity

[52:45] of facade articulation and things like that which you will tend to lose with the very

[52:50] detail set of standards.

[52:52] Can you pick a couple of examples from our neighboring cities?

[52:56] Say Saratogal, Asarto, Sanivel, Miltbe, because if you had to sort of look at what saransas,

[53:01] this direction have they got?

[53:03] Sanivel is more towards that broader set of guidelines where a certain design style is never

[53:08] mentioned that, you know, the word Edwardian or craftsman is never there.

[53:12] There are not standards for something like mullions or, or, or, or, or fenestration

[53:18] with, whereas in Marin, their set for the county in Marin, their set of design standards,

[53:24] is literally a 500 page form-based code down to each individual city and, you know, representations

[53:32] of different craftsman styles and things like that.

[53:35] So that a whole idea of streamlining if you're going to build there is almost gone when you open up that 500 page document

[53:43] And you're trying to follow it, but what the city and county is going to get are these very defined styles of product and that's not a bad thing

[53:51] That's not a judgment call by any means, but I do think each city needs to try to make this decision of where they want to go.

[53:57] Sure, if I may also add to that, you know, the more complex the length the year this document gets or these standards get.

[54:05] It's just more, you know, for a developer to basically say, you know what, I just don't want to deal with this and I would much rather wave every standard you have or most of the standards you have.

[54:14] But if they were broader and they were a little bit more general and allow for that diversity, they may be more inclined to actually try to meet us, at least halfway, if not all the way.

[54:25] So, I mean, it sounds like we know what the answer is, at least the answer you're guiding

[54:30] us to words, which I happen to agree with.

[54:35] I think we should have broader guidelines, but we should try and have some targeted details

[54:43] in some key areas.

[54:45] So, yeah.

[54:46] So, it's like, I don't want you to think I'm guiding you, but.

[54:48] Right.

[54:48] So, you know, like, have a friend who lives in an HOA, where they tell you everything from the size of the windows to the material that has to be stucko and they have a color palette of like five colors, they can choose from to paint their walls, and during any serious, I mean it's hugely restrictive and it creates a very homogeneous neighborhood, which, you know, is a choice.

[55:15] I don't think we want that, so I think we want to allow some innovation, especially, you know,

[55:20] work with the home of innovation in the world.

[55:24] So we should be allowing for innovation, we should be allowing for creativity.

[55:28] So I do think we should try for a more balanced approach and I know balanced sounds like

[55:31] we want it all, right?

[55:33] But it is kind of like allowing for these broader guidelines, but then in areas where it really

[55:38] matters get very targeted in some key areas and provide more specific guidelines there.

[55:43] So, really quickly, how many questions are you looking to get commission input at this point on these questions?

[55:50] Or for you.

[55:51] Absolutely.

[55:51] I mean, this is it.

[55:52] How many of these do you have?

[55:54] This is it.

[55:56] I just, I just bought to have one slide.

[55:58] So, so we can talk about it.

[55:59] Yeah, six questions.

[56:00] So, we haven't taken public comment.

[56:02] And I want to maybe pause us for a second.

[56:05] So, we hear from the public before we go further.

[56:07] Is it okay if we pause?

[56:09] So, at this point, maybe we open it up for public comments.

[56:12] if you have any ready to take a look?

[56:16] We have one speaker card in person and no hands raised on Zoom.

[56:20] Our speaker is Jennifer Griffin.

[56:22] Welcome, Jennifer.

[56:32] Good evening, planning commission.

[56:35] And everyone else here.

[56:37] And my regards to the planning commission and place works.

[56:41] You always are presented with very, very interesting,

[56:46] different problems that you have to solve.

[56:50] 20 years ago, we had a very, very heated discussion about Florida area ratio in these very chambers on a Tuesday.

[57:00] I went home that night and was carried. You talk about the sacrifice that the public puts into caring about what their communities look like.

[57:13] I think that everything that Cupertino has currently in their design is good.

[57:22] It's all the part of us.

[57:24] We spent hours, the previous planning stuff, planning stuff that's been here, City Council,

[57:32] they put their best and hard into it.

[57:34] everything that is currently the design standards in Cupertino is of the people.

[57:42] I did not fully understand the difference between subjective and objective

[57:48] and tell about two months ago a planner in San Jose was interviewed over San Jose to adopting

[57:57] objective, design standards, and he said, the public's input is too subjective. It's

[58:06] not objective enough. We need to limit it. Now, I'm sure that planner is a wonderful

[58:13] person. I have no problems with him, and they happen to have spoken to one of the papers.

[58:18] I got it. They don't want to hear from the public. We are, we are problems. The public

[58:28] local control is a problem. The powers that be that want us to go into objective design

[58:36] do not want to hear from us. This is all directed toward multi-family housing. Everything

[58:43] is. I hate to say that I have studied this problem way more. My brother in Portland Oregon

[58:51] successfully protected his neighborhood from having the historic homes torn down. They paid a price.

[59:01] This is, I'm upset because we're having to dump LOS because it's not objective enough.

[59:09] Why confuses everyone with VMT?

[59:12] It doesn't work.

[59:14] So the other thing is too,

[59:15] everything that has happened with these housing bills,

[59:18] being dumped on us, we don't get any input.

[59:20] Now we have objective designs, which nobody understands,

[59:25] and I am rebelling.

[59:26] I have taken a step back, I understand it,

[59:30] and I say, no, the line you do not cross it.

[59:34] Thank you, Jennifer.

[59:35] That is your time.

[59:36] We have no other speaker cards in person

[59:39] And we have no hands raised on Zoom.

[59:41] OK, very good.

[59:42] Thank you, Madam City Clerk.

[59:43] So maybe we can reconvene with place works

[59:45] and let you continue with your questions.

[59:48] Since you only have six questions, let's try and limit our time

[59:53] but to commission a feel like we need to vote on these things

[59:56] or any preferences and how we want to give input.

[1:00:00] No interest in voting? No. Okay.

[1:00:09] Okay, very good. So let's continue on. Okay. So I advance forward to these two, because we got to this point of if we're going to create more of a broader ODS package, then let's make sure that we do hit on key priorities for different housing product types.

[1:00:28] So these two questions are, again, these are two shots of a duplex and a more traditional or contemporary mixed use.

[1:00:36] Excuse me, multi-family project right here within a mile radius.

[1:00:41] Are there design components in these larger projects that you'd really like to prioritize and create standards for?

[1:00:48] Are those two separate questions, sir?

[1:00:50] Well, that's the first one.

[1:00:53] Priorities for larger projects and priorities for smaller projects.

[1:01:00] I was going to actually ask a different sort of question.

[1:01:03] Go for it.

[1:01:04] I'm curious.

[1:01:05] In the current general plan,

[1:01:10] the city is divided into areas, you know, kind of geographic areas,

[1:01:14] which have different characteristics.

[1:01:17] In your professional opinion, is that a keeper?

[1:01:21] in the, in the, for the, or the subjective version of this.

[1:01:24] Now this might be a, a frustrating aspect also a Richard design

[1:01:28] standards, which is that they are based on product type entirely,

[1:01:32] not place. A lot of people get this confusion, very understandably that

[1:01:36] they apply to certain zoning districts, no, they apply to the project,

[1:01:39] and with so many variation, you know,

[1:01:43] variance is offered in land use and in districts,

[1:01:46] A multi-use product could be approved in a non-typical zoning district.

[1:01:53] The point is just that any project with more than 2,000 units cannot be disapproved or

[1:02:00] if density reduced based on a subjective standard.

[1:02:06] And therefore, I'll stress once again, no one, no law requires a local jurisdiction

[1:02:11] to adopt ODS. It just says, you can't use the opposite in your review. So, the hooves every city

[1:02:21] with multifamily development activity to adopt ODS. So, sir, Commissioner Fung's point and maybe

[1:02:29] playing off of some of the rest in Port earlier as well. Have he considered sort of looking at

[1:02:35] these specific plans that embed the many years of character that these neighborhoods have had

[1:02:40] looking at what it would make to convert those into being normative or prescriptive such that

[1:02:46] it would be qualifying as objective designs, at least to some extent.

[1:02:53] That is why I completed that study exercise that's in your staff report of looking at

[1:02:57] those themes from all of those existing design documents as a way of saying if these and

[1:03:03] they cliggly are through the adoption process, if these are priorities in the city of

[1:03:07] you know, let's do our best to consolidate them, and to transform those as best it can,

[1:03:12] it's not always easy into objective standards, and that's one reason again when I saw

[1:03:17] so many guidelines and statements about diversity and about, you know, avoiding

[1:03:26] difficult frontages where you're afraid to walk in front of, you know, those are two examples where

[1:03:30] I thought, all right, we need to make sure there's flexibility here, we need to make sure we're

[1:03:34] on ground floor design, let's make sure there are standards for friendly landscaping and

[1:03:41] widths of retail frontages and requirements for seating for pastors by things like that.

[1:03:48] So that's why that first task in place where contract was sick. Let's go through it all

[1:03:53] first from 1982 onward and you know things obviously need to be irrelevant. There are things

[1:03:58] in 1992 that simply, you know, we need to look over but any of these relevant standards that

[1:04:04] work based on existing community input at the time and are there for relevant to the community,

[1:04:10] let's highlight those and let's do our best to transform those.

[1:04:18] So that list looked good. I agreed with all of that list. I went through the questions you listed

[1:04:24] the report and I kind of wrote up my answers on that so they don't map exactly to the questions

[1:04:30] you have here but I did have quite a lot so how should I just go through it or should we

[1:04:38] make turns or how do you want it. From my perspective I'll remember I'll be going through this

[1:04:41] recording and creating a what's for myself. I know but I don't want to be the only one.

[1:04:45] Oh I think so. Yeah so do you want to. The wife should head a comment then maybe we can go back.

[1:04:50] I was actually going to answer the questions as well so why don't we just put down the line and

[1:04:54] Okay, so like I said, I didn't, I organized them based on the questions you've sent, so I have slightly different approach, but I think for the multi-family and mixed use projects on major corridors, one of the main things that concerns me is

[1:05:13] kind of our in adequate retail strategy, you know, so we we tried to require certain percentage

[1:05:24] of the of each development to be retail, but what that ends up doing is it creates small

[1:05:31] pockets of scattered retail that don't really create any synergy and we're honestly we're

[1:05:38] up those retail shops or what of they are retail commercial developments to fail because they're

[1:05:46] not plastered together. We're not creating destinations.

[1:05:51] So I feel like there needs to be

[1:05:53] a better retail strategy. So instead of saying, we should be looking more about how we encourage

[1:06:02] retail by doing other kinds of concessions, to make it financially viable for the developers.

[1:06:13] But beyond that, trying to think across how do we create clusters of retail so that we

[1:06:22] are creating destinations for neighbourhoods, almost like a 15-minute city, kind of thing,

[1:06:27] where you have the landscaping, but you create kind of like pocket neighborhoods, right?

[1:06:33] Where they have their local bodega neighborhood kind of thing, where they can go banking,

[1:06:38] they can go shopping, they can go, you know, to the cafe and to the restaurant or whatever.

[1:06:45] So really kind of rethink our retail strategy and create these clusters. I think would be a

[1:06:58] Okay, so I wanted to answer, I guess a few of your questions.

[1:07:02] I have gone through some neighboring cities objective design standards and had some thoughts

[1:07:07] on this.

[1:07:07] So I think there's a lot of things you could put in here, but I'll try to, I think, for the

[1:07:12] sake of the broad ODS, I'll keep my high level to the most important things.

[1:07:17] I think first of all, would it be possible to have different objective design standards

[1:07:23] for multi-family that is adjacent to R1 single-family neighborhoods because then you know

[1:07:30] then you have privacy concerns.

[1:07:34] Well you could have multi-family that is in an urban area

[1:07:38] which then you're not impeding on the privacy of a neighborhood.

[1:07:42] Yeah many objective design standards certainly ones we create have typically what are called

[1:07:47] context-sensitive standards where there's a daylight plane standard with my talks about shadow

[1:07:52] That's a boiler play one. We can be better than that. There are standards for window placement where, you know, you're window, if you're above an R1 district, your windows need to be offset by 20 feet from an existing windows. So any direct view is not into that neighboring building. There are a lot of ways to do this. There are, you know, landscape buffers of a certain height if you're near. So the answer yes, which is absolutely right. Yeah, I think that's something that I would want to be considered just from a privacy standpoint for the R1 neighborhoods that are neighboring.

[1:08:21] And the second is around landscaping in open space.

[1:08:25] I think to the extent that we don't create concrete jungles, and we do have some sort of

[1:08:32] regulation.

[1:08:32] I don't think this would be onerous from a cost standpoint, but it's really a matter of

[1:08:36] making sure that we have street trees, X number of feet, certain percent ratio of

[1:08:42] partscape to landscaping.

[1:08:45] So we want to include that, and I don't think it would be too costly.

[1:08:48] And then the third is, I've noticed a lot of objective design standards have a lot of focus on the facade

[1:08:53] and I feel like what that is leading to is actually a disjoint between the front of the building and the back

[1:08:59] because the developer is focusing all of their resources on building a really nice facade

[1:09:04] and then the back is like a blank building.

[1:09:08] And so I think to the extent that we can have something that encourages...

[1:09:13] around standard where you're encouraged to integrate that based middle top facade on all four

[1:09:20] side there's three probably. Right exactly because I think for multifamily once it goes above

[1:09:25] three fours or so you can see the backside no matter where you are so the facade doesn't matter

[1:09:30] as much so I think those are sort of my three larger ones that I would start with and with that

[1:09:37] Yeah, I'd be happy to go next. Did you want to add anything?

[1:09:41] I have no. Okay. Yeah, we'll try and keep our comments brief and try to get through this.

[1:09:47] But I think just staying on the broad theme, what I hear from residents is the top post

[1:09:53] concern for instance is privacy. How it affects the neighborhood around them as well as those living in

[1:10:00] these properties. How much of privacy they get. So I would definitely look at standards that govern

[1:10:05] privacy aspects. I think we are a city that differentiates ourselves from some of the other

[1:10:12] gentrified or high identity cities. So looking at aesthetics I think is is something that

[1:10:17] is an appeal to both the current restaurants and future restaurants and why they want to live in

[1:10:21] cup of tea now and so I'd say continuing to look at aesthetics that makes this destination that people want

[1:10:28] to be one of the end and feel like there's a character to a rather than just more units in place.

[1:10:34] So I would, I would prioritize, ace to take set, prioritize privacy and certainly the ground

[1:10:40] throw aspects because we are a city that values our ability to use multi-modal transport

[1:10:46] whether it be walking or biking or just enjoying our heart of the city.

[1:10:50] And so given we are talking about these larger projects that hopefully are more in the heart

[1:10:54] of the city, we'd like to see a focus on the ground floor design that makes it welcoming

[1:10:59] and livable, as well as enjoy both, so that we might think.

[1:11:06] Yeah, so I had a couple of comments, I think, then, again, kind of a more general basis.

[1:11:12] The particular set of information is provided to us, kind of reflects the fact that the people are building townhouses now.

[1:11:22] I hope that we can think maybe you think beyond that in terms of how we put together a set of objective design standards,

[1:11:30] because I don't think we need to achieve the housing numbers we want to have if everybody wants to

[1:11:36] build townhouses.

[1:11:37] So, one of the questions I kind of asked, you know, before about the city was divided into

[1:11:42] different areas, you know, I think that that's probably a good thing.

[1:11:47] The, you know, the core, the heart of the city areas, a long steepest creek, you know,

[1:11:51] did call in the past for more, for greater density.

[1:11:54] I hope that there are standards that reflect that.

[1:11:56] definitely would support having, you know, having standards that differentiate from large,

[1:12:02] large projects versus small. In particular, I don't know. I mean, this is beyond, maybe

[1:12:08] it will be on the scope of the objective design standards.

[1:12:13] But, you know, we have a couple of townhouse

[1:12:14] projects that are being proposed right now, you know, right in that, in that core area. And

[1:12:20] The interesting question is, you know, how do you financing makes that, it's what is pushing

[1:12:28] that today, and I hope there would be some way to undo that, even though, you know,

[1:12:32] I would welcome that, I would welcome how simply they would bring, but it's unfortunate

[1:12:36] you know, to be, you should not be having discussion about larger buildings in that area.

[1:12:41] And so I think the part of that is really, you know, the design standards, you know, hopefully

[1:12:46] those can reflect those things that we don't focus a lot on, you know, how do we build

[1:12:51] townhouses? You know, so I think that's an important thing. We didn't have a, we didn't

[1:13:02] have it. When the city was first built, you know, given the agricultural nature, there wasn't

[1:13:07] the normal kind of greedy that you would hope to see, that a planet would hope to see where it's,

[1:13:12] you know, dance along the arteries, and then there's, you know, perhaps a district which is more like apartments, primarily apartments, and then single family comes, so I hope again that those things would be reflected as something that we try to capture a way to save that in the objective design standards.

[1:13:33] So in that respect, as you said, and I think, so first of all, I thought that was a great answer to the question I'd asked you before.

[1:13:40] You know, you can apply these standards anywhere, right, and I think that's important part of that.

[1:13:45] But they think trying to have a clear path and having this process, you know, in another way to kind of get people to think about, you know,

[1:13:52] if you build big here, then that lets you build smaller elsewhere.

[1:13:57] And, you know, and I think that, you know, the objective design standards, you know, given a choice between, you know,

[1:14:04] if the city creates a bunch of standard which are restrictive and prevent people from building any community.

[1:14:08] of course, they will wave them all, and you'll kind of get what you get.

[1:14:14] I think if there's a statement where it really comes clearly, you know, that the people

[1:14:19] spoke about things that, you know, a larger structure, you know, a larger, multi-family housing,

[1:14:25] how that, the kinds of things we would hope to see there.

[1:14:28] I think that that really, you know, may encourage, you know, may encourage somebody to actually

[1:14:31] try to build more on this one.

[1:14:33] I mean you just made a great point as did the chair earlier talking about privacy, I see these

[1:14:40] and this was in my proposal, each section opens up with a guiding and tense statement.

[1:14:44] That's subjective and the chair worded it wonderfully and talking about privacy to me that

[1:14:50] polished statement would lead those privacy standards.

[1:14:54] So a reviewer or a reader thinks, all right, that's where these standards are going.

[1:14:57] Even though that's not something I have to follow exactly.

[1:15:00] That's leading me into the standards. What you were saying could be a guiding statement for that whole section of a large project. This is the city's overall priorities here. These are why we create these standards. Now here they are.

[1:15:12] The other thing I just we have to note that I had was you mentioned any having a having an objective standard for offset windows. That's really great. I hope that that comes back.

[1:15:23] I don't think there's anything like that in our code today other than things like the certain Windows can only be can't be fully.

[1:15:34] So I think that's great, and I hope to see that one come back.

[1:15:41] So to this first question about the multi-term, the mixed use projects on major corridors,

[1:15:48] You know, when I look at some of the projects that had built in Cupertino with failed retail,

[1:15:56] it always seems to come down to parking.

[1:16:00] Trevigna, the one at City Center, partially at Metro, and owned especially at Monabella.

[1:16:11] You know, the retail is an afterthought.

[1:16:13] It's often sometimes there is parking but it's not, it's not obvious, and why I hate to have a parking lot be right in front of a building, if you want the retail to actually survive, it really does need some way to have parking for people that don't live there to patronize that retail.

[1:16:36] Now, of course, the developer could and we just saw this recently say, you know, I'm going to reduce the retail reduce reduce reduce and to zero because it's

[1:16:46] It's just not profitable. There's, you know, they'd rather put in somewhere housing units

[1:16:52] On that ground floor than to

[1:16:55] Put in the retail of course, I was just down a Los Angeles where they're building a

[1:17:00] Costco with apartments on top of it, which is very interesting

[1:17:05] I don't know. You don't even have to ever cook. You just go down to the free samples

[1:17:10] every day. So yeah, for the larger projects, I just hope we can do something that helps

[1:17:20] the retail survive. Now, the one example that has been successful is over by Panera,

[1:17:29] where the parking is in the back and they have some seating out in front.

[1:17:33] Although I've sat out there, it's not the most pleasant place to sit with the traffic

[1:17:37] roaring by on Steven's Creek Boulevard.

[1:17:41] So by that token, maybe the parking should be in the front and the outdoor seating on the

[1:17:47] back.

[1:17:48] And for small projects like duplexes, triplexes, town homes,

[1:17:57] the developers are going to

[1:17:58] with cells and they're going to have garages and drive ways because they can't sell it.

[1:18:04] Even if they could wave the parking requirements because of state law, they probably won't

[1:18:09] do that and then finally, we've got thousands of units approved in Cupertino that could break

[1:18:17] ground if they wanted to and they're not doing it. What they want to build this townhouses

[1:18:21] and I don't know when that's going to change or population has shrunk so they're maybe less

[1:18:27] And then now, but yeah, for the foreseeable future,

[1:18:31] I just see townhouses being, you know,

[1:18:36] what gets built, including on Steven's Creek Boulevard,

[1:18:39] you know, we approved one over by

[1:18:42] selling on Steven's Creek near Stelling,

[1:18:46] and it's just one townhouse project after another.

[1:18:51] Can you see, I'll throw this out, is this,

[1:18:55] pattern warrant, townhouses, as their own section in the document with its own guiding statement,

[1:19:01] pulled out of that larger section on, perhaps that seems to be what everyone's building,

[1:19:08] you know, maybe that would be a good idea. It doesn't necessarily mean so many new standards,

[1:19:13] it's a symbolism of that value and that local attempt or need to control this product and

[1:19:24] I mean, I would like to see some larger buildings as well, but it just seems we approve

[1:19:28] them and they get pushed out and pushed out and pushed out and now with the financing

[1:19:33] and with the, you know, the falling population, not just in group routine, but in other

[1:19:39] cities, you know, throughout the area, there's just going to be, you know, less demand.

[1:19:45] You know, when someone has their restricted stock units and a lot of money, they're not

[1:19:51] moving into high density rental apartment, they're going to buy a house or a townhouse somewhere

[1:19:57] whether it's in Cupertino or out in Mountain House or somewhere else.

[1:20:03] So, if I may.

[1:20:04] All right.

[1:20:05] Thank you.

[1:20:05] I may try to move us along here because I think we're going to take much longer than we have here.

[1:20:10] So, why don't we do this?

[1:20:11] If you can run through your questions, I think it's in the staff report and everybody hopefully

[1:20:15] has the staff report.

[1:20:16] So, we'll give commissioners five minutes to run through their feedback.

[1:20:20] but if you can hit your questions up first,

[1:20:22] so that I've got my time.

[1:20:23] I think there's been a lot of cross referencing the other questions.

[1:20:26] I'm fine, leaving as it is.

[1:20:29] And if you feel like you have input,

[1:20:30] do you have an added, please add that?

[1:20:31] But if you might just walk through the questions,

[1:20:33] just so we have your context

[1:20:34] and what you are really looking to get out of here.

[1:20:36] So you take a hopefully a brief amount of time

[1:20:39] to just take your questions up and then we'll go.

[1:20:42] These were my others, which I called resident

[1:20:44] up design on the ground, it's impacts.

[1:20:47] These are larger issues, how to support design

[1:20:50] impact residents, how can these impacts inform the ODS?

[1:20:53] What recent design trends concern you in which you support?

[1:20:58] This is my way of wondering if they're actual projects that you see where you, oh, this

[1:21:03] was an example of something I just, I want to move away from this, you know, or I'd like to

[1:21:06] really highlight this and make sure we keep doing this, whether it's a certain entry-way

[1:21:11] type, or, you know, I just heard from Chair Shard about, or excuse me, Commissioner Shard,

[1:21:17] about parking and focus on seeing it at the front, things like that.

[1:21:30] Again, these were just meant to guide if nothing comes up, that's fine also.

[1:21:33] Was this your last night with questions?

[1:21:35] Oh, it was. Okay, very good.

[1:21:36] So why don't you do this then?

[1:21:38] Just go around the table, take hopefully no more than three minutes or four minutes and hit it.

[1:21:44] I'll go fast.

[1:21:46] Okay, so here are kind of the big themes that I wanted to make sure we touch on that I felt

[1:21:51] like we're, some of it was maybe tangential,

[1:21:55] but some of it not at all.

[1:21:58] So walkability wasn't touched that much at all.

[1:22:01] I mean, I know you mentioned the word pedestrian

[1:22:03] and a couple of times, but the idea of a walkable city

[1:22:07] and wider sidewalks, more greenery, more mature trees

[1:22:11] for more benches, just creating more welcoming environment,

[1:22:16] for walkability, connectivity between neighborhoods,

[1:22:20] with major developments,

[1:22:20] make sure they're well connected to the neighborhoods surrounding them. That's a big one, I think,

[1:22:27] access to nature. So making sure that every resident is, you know, no more than a five-minute walk

[1:22:34] from some nature creating pocket parks, parklets. You know, there's a lot of creative ways that we

[1:22:44] can create nature and more opportunity for nature for residents, no matter where they are. So we're

[1:22:49] not, you know, they're not surrounded with a concrete jungle and heat islands.

[1:22:54] Place making, I think is really important and creating that sense of community, fostering

[1:23:00] kind of social interactions.

[1:23:02] There's great examples of cities doing place making, you know, in a lot of really creative

[1:23:09] ways.

[1:23:09] And I would like to see us encourage that.

[1:23:13] And I think parklets and mini parks go along with that really well.

[1:23:18] Make sure trees and landscaping, not just for the privacy, which I think is very important but also to increase the attractiveness of the neighborhoods.

[1:23:28] Outdoor seating for restaurants and cafes, really encouraging that in all of the retail development that we do to, you know, and yeah, I think that would mean putting the parking to the back of the side or something like that.

[1:23:41] to, again, make it more walkable and make it more welcoming.

[1:23:46] So I think those are kind of the guiding spirits,

[1:23:49] and then more options for aging in place.

[1:23:53] So encouraging the developers to be more creative

[1:23:57] in terms of helping residents find ways to stay in their neighborhoods,

[1:24:05] and create this architecturally integrated middle density housing

[1:24:10] that's mixed in to single family homes to allow our seniors to sell their homes which are

[1:24:16] often their retirement savings and move into a smaller home but to maintain their neighbors,

[1:24:21] their friends, their shops. And I think those are kind of the big ones, yep.

[1:24:29] Thank you, Michelle. Nice to meet you.

[1:24:35] So I'll take your questions real quick. The ones that we haven't

[1:24:38] over here, the, I guess the concerning trends, just adding on what Commissioner Linscox said,

[1:24:46] I think, greenery and urban forest is something that could be important for the city.

[1:24:54] It is in keeping with our character where we are adjacent to the hills and kind of blend into

[1:24:58] the rest of the countryside as you have had south, west, south.

[1:25:03] So, certainly avoiding concrete jungles in prioritizing our landscaping, I think, or specific

[1:25:09] plans also kind of try to maintain the character of each neighborhood as you progress through

[1:25:13] the city.

[1:25:14] So, focusing on avoiding the ability to just kind of pack these things into concrete jungles

[1:25:20] that may not suit the nature of Cooperty.

[1:25:23] No, I think that is an area of concern.

[1:25:27] The other one that I'll add there is just continuing to look at how do you optimize the space that you have.

[1:25:34] We have certain regulations that are on max height and so on that are trying to limit how high these constructions go.

[1:25:42] So if there's ways that we might within those objective design standards still try and enforce those limits so that we can still enjoy the skyline that we have on our west and on our south side.

[1:25:52] I think trying to avoid situations where we continue to scale and height, I think that be of importance to the city and the residents.

[1:26:01] I talked about privacy earlier, making sure that we don't lose privacy, I think that's an area of concern.

[1:26:08] In terms of design trends that contribute positively, I think the design trends that we've seen around the constructions,

[1:26:17] where the pay attention to the ace the takes to the facade, I think it is an important part of the city.

[1:26:23] It does, it does add the character to the city, so I think it's important to balance it, of course, with all sides of the development,

[1:26:30] but the facade is an important part of the city and the walkability, the livability is an important part of it.

[1:26:36] So looking at facade design, I think is, is important.

[1:26:40] And then I think we covered pretty much everything else here.

[1:26:44] You asked for examples, which were positive and negative.

[1:26:47] I'll throw out one, we had the Oaks, which was a beautiful, nice green foliage of Oaks,

[1:26:53] as we had, and that's been replaced with a tree scape that is very sparse, and is even

[1:26:59] in its mature state, unlikely to be anything that's a shadow of its former self.

[1:27:04] So I really encourage us to think about how do we bring a green canopy to Cupertino, because

[1:27:10] It's a green canopy benefits, the developer, the properties are probably more valued, they attract an audience to the city, so definitely prioritize a green canopy that is in keeping with our neighboring cities as well, and with that.

[1:27:25] I just have a couple of things I guess I want to say.

[1:27:30] I hope that in the future recommendations that there is a good delineation of kind of small medium large,

[1:27:38] where, you know, a small is the kind of, as you put that pointed at here, you know,

[1:27:43] where we do play extra-like things, medium, I guess, I don't know if medium is down,

[1:27:48] is the townhouse world, and then to actually have a, you know, express a clear vision

[1:27:55] on buildings of the larger in scale.

[1:27:59] You know, I think that, again, I think that's probably heated to success, in terms of

[1:28:04] trying to be housing objectives and to try to, you know, and for the help of the city as well in the longer term.

[1:28:13] I also wanted to speak in support, Commission on Scott, but actually a lot of people here have spoken about place-making.

[1:28:20] One of the things that's difficult is if you take a building that has, you know, 40 units in it and you say,

[1:28:27] okay, I want you to put a commercial space in it. When it has to do that and stand alone,

[1:28:31] and it's generally not going to be as successful.

[1:28:34] And so there's a lot, I think, this actually

[1:28:36] could go up in our last meeting.

[1:28:39] Commissioner Lynn Scott had suggested,

[1:28:42] at the Oaks development, if there were an opportunity

[1:28:45] to kind of concentrate, commercial areas together.

[1:28:49] If there was a way to express that,

[1:28:51] if something is there as a preference for this,

[1:28:53] that I think that that actually would be something

[1:28:55] that's a strong statement to make.

[1:28:57] So I hope that that's something that you consider

[1:28:59] find great examples and sell people on that, individually on a single project, it may not

[1:29:07] make sense. If we're lucky and have a district kind of appear, where buildings are a little

[1:29:16] bit larger than the ones that are there today, then I think there's really a good opportunity

[1:29:20] to be successful. I definitely think that economic considerations drive a lot of this. That's

[1:29:26] out of the scope for these standards so I wouldn't I wouldn't worry but you know you can't solve that

[1:29:33] problem. You can't solve that problem but at the same time I hope you can pretend that those aren't the

[1:29:41] only things are happening so that we don't end up with a bunch of you know here's here's here's

[1:29:45] here's the city statement on how to build townhouses and and I think otherwise you know I mean I think

[1:29:53] There's some good things here today, and hopefully you've got some good stuff around up here.

[1:29:56] So, absolutely.

[1:29:57] Thank you.

[1:30:00] All right, so I'll go into the design trends that I supported, and one of them is what was going to happen at the Hamptons, where it's 342 units, and we approved another 600, they were going to do 942, and it was a well-designed project, a lot of open space.

[1:30:20] And, unfortunately, that project has not moved forward, I think it's been eight years now

[1:30:28] since the approval, and it's like a lot of other projects in the area, just the high

[1:30:34] density housing does not make financial sense, and even though the entrance is right next

[1:30:39] to the Apple spaceship, you would think that the rents would be high enough to make it

[1:30:44] financially viable, but, you know, I've talked to the people from Irvine multiple times,

[1:30:50] And it's like the economics just don't work out and it's a great location right next to the

[1:30:56] Cooperating of the Lachamping Center. So I would love that kind of a trend where you can go

[1:31:02] higher density, but keep the green space and have it adjacent to viable retail. And yeah, I'm not sure

[1:31:09] Know how you do that in Main Street Main Street is retail, but they have housing instead of housing with token retail

[1:31:16] And I think that's a key thing, when you have retail and then add housing that can work, when you have housing and just add a tiny amount of retail, it's just not going to have the amount of retail for it to be a destination.

[1:31:35] And I'm not sure what the solution is there, you know, with the state of retail these days.

[1:31:42] Just a word of caution to everybody here is that these design guidelines can't change where things go.

[1:31:49] That is part of the general plan and I really want everyone here to understand.

[1:31:53] These are all great points but this is not going to change where retail can be in the city.

[1:31:59] It is only going to regulate the design of that retail.

[1:32:04] So I want to make sure everybody understands that.

[1:32:06] you know, it's really outside of the scope of this, the general land, the general plan land you

[1:32:11] snap is the guiding regulation for other things go, and we are not going to change the general

[1:32:17] plan land you snap. If I can just clarify what I mean by when I meant by the retail. I understand

[1:32:23] we can't. Oh, I think I understand what you were saying about creating connections and. Right,

[1:32:29] but let's say you have, you know, two buildings next to each other. It's like encourage them to put

[1:32:32] retails close to each other, right? Or if you have one building that has like pocket

[1:32:36] retail, no, put it all together. You know, so those kinds of things I think we

[1:32:40] can influence within these guidelines, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah,

[1:32:46] we can't force anything, but we couldn't adopt things that would maybe

[1:32:53] encourage a good developer to consider those instead of, you know, not doing it.

[1:33:00] And, yeah, I mean, some mixed use retail has been successful and I'm hoping that if anything

[1:33:07] ever gets built at Marina that they have successful retail as well, I mean, that's another

[1:33:14] project that was approved, you know, many, many years ago and still has not moved forward

[1:33:20] because the economic issues.

[1:33:23] Okay, thanks.

[1:33:24] Thank you.

[1:33:26] Just one quick comment. I did mean to highlight. I noticed on the following takeaways from this process that was listed in the staff report.

[1:33:34] It said one takeaway was minimal parking presence. The visual impact of parking lots and structures is considered a design liability in Cupertino.

[1:33:42] I don't know that I would agree with that and I think that we need parking. So I don't know if there's, you know, where that conclusion came from if there's a way to maybe like reshape that because we do need parking and I don't think it's a liability.

[1:33:54] that's just the location of parking out of front is what's there. There are many policy

[1:33:59] statements and guidelines in past documents that say keep parking behind, not on the street

[1:34:04] because it's not a good pedestrian environment, so I didn't mean to, I'm sorry if the wording

[1:34:09] was framed. But yeah, it wasn't as a statement of reducing parking or saying it's not necessary.

[1:34:15] It was just parking in front.

[1:34:17] Okay, very good. Thank you to all the commissioners. I want to keep us moving here. I know we have

[1:34:21] another genitum, but in just looking through my notes as the commissioner spoke I think there was

[1:34:26] the common theme of making this destination that is livable, that is enjoyable, that is a place

[1:34:33] to go to where people have things to do, retail, urban forest, connectivity to, you know,

[1:34:40] walkable networks and privacy came up, I think parks came up, avoiding heat islands and

[1:34:49] So, in general, I think you get the sense that we want to keep cooperating with the character and continue to enhance and make it a livable enjoyable place that people want to come to.

[1:34:59] And with that, if you have any closing thoughts before we wrap this up.

[1:35:04] No, I just would encourage you in my staff report to council for that study session. I'll be summarizing your comments there.

[1:35:10] You know, to make sure that you feel like everything has been recorded.

[1:35:13] Okay, wonderful. And then, in closing, I want to encourage us to try and innovate on how we do stakeholder outreach.

[1:35:19] I think the community outreach process doesn't work.

[1:35:22] And so, anything that we can think of in innovations and reaching out to a diverse section of stakeholders,

[1:35:27] whether it be town home developers that have a sense of what appeal actually sells,

[1:35:33] so that we get people that actually want to move in and these units actually get constructed.

[1:35:37] There's a profitable developer is one that's going to add units to the city.

[1:35:40] So, wonderful. Thank you for your effort and hope to see you sooner rather than later.

[1:35:46] Thank you so much.

[1:35:47] And thanks to staff for keeping this item progressing.

[1:35:52] With that, we will take a quick break while our transportation friends get to set up out here.

[1:35:57] Welcome, Chair. Welcome David Matt.

[1:36:01] We will take maybe a 9 minute break and resume at the bottom of the hour.

[1:36:06] Thank you.

[1:43:53] We are back.

[1:43:54] very good. So thank you for your patience to staff. I think the next item on the agenda

[1:44:02] we have no old business on new business is agenda item three, which is the Steven

[1:44:07] Street Boulevard corridor vision study and is there a staff report? Yes, thank you. Good evening,

[1:44:15] Chair again. We actually have here, we're a grace by the presence of three public works department staff

[1:44:21] And they will be making the presentation related to the Steven's Creek corridor vision study and with that I will hand it off to I think Matthew Matt is doing the presentation tonight

[1:44:31] I want to welcome Matt and David and Chad. Thank you for for joining us here today

[1:44:36] And hopefully this is a better hour than last time chair will see her so thank you for that

[1:44:44] Good evening planning commissioners

[1:44:47] My name is Matthew Strader senior transportation planner for the city

[1:44:50] I'm going to be presenting on the Steven's Creek Boulevard Court or Vision Study, which is a multi-agency, long-range transportation planning study.

[1:45:01] So before we really get into it, just some brief background. Sorry if I can pause you again. I don't believe the remote participants are seeing this screen.

[1:45:14] It's visible on the monitors inside here.

[1:45:17] Not in this,

[1:45:19] not for remote participants if you can ask the video team.

[1:45:22] I think it is.

[1:45:23] I think it is.

[1:45:24] It's a good idea.

[1:45:25] Okay.

[1:45:27] So brief background on how we got to where we're at today.

[1:45:30] Really started in 2017 when staff from corridor agencies began to meet semi-regularity just to discuss regional issues and how they could partner to enhance the corridor that working group was then formalized in 2019 when Council adopted a resolution supporting Cupertino's participation in this project to study the corridor and that project started in 2022.

[1:45:55] So,

[1:45:58] Cupertino's participation in the study was explicitly directed by the Council adopted

[1:46:02] Resolution, which stated that Cupertino would support a complete street study and continue

[1:46:08] the conversation about potential high capacity transit, so long as it followed these requirements,

[1:46:15] not use general purpose lens and negatively impact traffic, be grade separated and time

[1:46:21] competitive with the automobile and consider an alternate alignment along I280.

[1:46:29] A little bit about the project area, it spans nine miles across as Cupertino, Santa Clara,

[1:46:34] San Jose, and County right away, and the center line for the boulevard designates the right

[1:46:38] away in many areas, most notably between Lawrence Expressway and Winchester boulevard.

[1:46:47] Adding to the complexity of the project area, the roadways with and lane configuration

[1:46:51] very in different sections. As you can see from this graphic, some areas of bike lanes, some

[1:46:56] have on-street parking, and other portions have no bike lanes at all.

[1:47:03] And then lastly, I think

[1:47:03] it's helpful just to note the importance of the corridor as it includes key destinations like

[1:47:08] Dan's a college, deer and on-station, and valley fair.

[1:47:16] So the project was driven at a high level

[1:47:19] by steering committee comprised of elected officials from each of the project agencies. The steering

[1:47:24] committee then decided to establish a community advisory group, which was made up of neighborhood

[1:47:32] representatives from various parts of the corridor.

[1:47:37] The project consisted of three primary phases,

[1:47:39] which were based heavily on community outreach, and included identifying community needs,

[1:47:45] developing a vision for the corridor, and then coming up with project recommendations for

[1:47:49] helping to achieve that vision.

[1:47:54] Each jurisdiction was provided with an equivalent amount of outreach

[1:47:57] that included sit downs with specific groups and steering committee meetings that were held in each

[1:48:04] jurisdiction.

[1:48:08] In addition to online webinars and open public meetings,

[1:48:11] Cupertino residents were directly engaged in the following ways with the D&s of farmers market

[1:48:16] and flea market being key touch points for the outreach team.

[1:48:24] During the first phase of the project,

[1:48:26] various outreach methods were used to identify community needs along the corridor and this graphic

[1:48:32] was developed after summarizing those different community input methods just to visualize the level

[1:48:38] of comfort and convenience for different transportation modes across the corridor.

[1:48:43] And the image in the lower right is from the Deans of Farmers Market and some of the outreach

[1:48:48] that happened there.

[1:48:52] The outcomes from each phase inform the subsequent phase and phase one, the community identified

[1:48:58] key issues in the corridor.

[1:49:00] this led to the development of general concepts for a vision that were formed by the

[1:49:06] Cag and the public. And then from their individual project recommendations were developed.

[1:49:12] And these project recommendations are projects that came from existing agency plan documents.

[1:49:21] The vision was an iterative process that took a couple months to develop,

[1:49:24] and it's comprised of two parts, the first of which is here, and it's a general statement

[1:49:29] that the corridor agency should really strive to create a corridor that is safe and enjoyable for all ages and abilities,

[1:49:37] as well as all transportation modes.

[1:49:42] And then the second part of the vision goes in a detail about the elements that can be implemented to achieve that broader vision.

[1:49:49] This includes an emphasis on transit, the need to be pedestrian and bicycle friendly,

[1:49:55] and consider the need for efficient automobile travel.

[1:50:01] So to realize this vision, the community looked at existing agency plan projects like I mentioned,

[1:50:07] those projects which could be advanced to help create the corridor that was described in the vision,

[1:50:12] and during this phase various projects were evaluated by the community to see which they felt should be prioritized,

[1:50:18] and then those community selected projects were then categorized into three timeframes, the near, mid, and long-term projects.

[1:50:25] This was originally called the implementation plan, but really should be thought of as the recommendation plan, which is why at the final steering committee meeting in December, the steering committee renamed that chapter of the report, the recommendation plan.

[1:50:44] So, the first of the near-term projects are the corridor identity maintenance projects,

[1:50:49] and this is really a package of programs that are place-making oriented,

[1:50:54] just to make the corridor a more enjoyable experience, which is one of the primary goals

[1:50:59] of the vision statement.

[1:51:03] The second group of the near-term projects

[1:51:07] relate to the transit first vision for the corridor,

[1:51:10] and these are projects that would be led by VTA with ongoing coordination

[1:51:15] and approval from each agency, and the recommended projects included in this bucket are all policy oriented and just emphasize the need for corridor wide coordination, just to optimize existing transit service along Steven's Creek.

[1:51:36] Then, again, consistent with this community vision of a safer, more enjoyable corridor, various

[1:51:41] bike and ped projects were also identified, additionally the need to add street trees was

[1:51:48] identified just to, again, improve the overall field of the space.

[1:51:52] As I'm sure all of you know, from your own experiences, Cooper Tino has great street trees

[1:51:56] that prominently align the corridor, as you can see here in the image.

[1:52:03] So, the next category is the midterm, or the 10-year projects, and these consist of intersection

[1:52:09] and crossing projects that enhance safety at key locations, and during the biking tour that

[1:52:16] happened during the outreach participants went down and visited the McClellan and Danza intersection

[1:52:21] and remarked that this is exactly a type of protection that they would like to see the implemented

[1:52:26] along Stephen's Creek.

[1:52:32] And then lastly, we have the long-term project, which is to further study

[1:52:36] potential for grade separated high capacity transit while also adhering to

[1:52:41] Cupertino's stated resolution that we consider an alternate alignment along

[1:52:46] I280. An example project timeline you see here is an estimate provided by VTA

[1:52:53] that's based off of the East Ridge light rail extension project.

[1:53:00] So at the final

[1:53:01] steering committee in December the steering committee amended and then approved

[1:53:05] the plan changing it from implementation to recommendation, and it also kicked it back

[1:53:11] to each jurisdiction to review within a local context.

[1:53:18] The plan then went to the BPC in April, and the BPC recommended that the city council

[1:53:23] except the plan with the qualifications that it has made clear that the city maintains final

[1:53:29] decision making authority over the projects that are in the city, and it also reaffirm

[1:53:35] the city's commitment to the project under the 2019 Resolution.

[1:53:43] The study is currently making its way through each jurisdictions approval process, and the steering committee is

[1:53:49] ing a meeting date sometime in the summer to discuss progress on each jurisdiction, accepting the plan,

[1:53:59] as well as to give staff direction on how to proceed. And then at this time,

[1:54:07] It's also really important to note that if the city does decide to accept the plan that

[1:54:12] in no way constitutes the approval of all the projects within the plan and each and

[1:54:17] every one of those projects is still at the discretion of the city with respect to whether

[1:54:22] or not it wants to implement those.

[1:54:29] So the recommended action for this item is for the planning commission to recommend that the city council

[1:54:35] except the Steven's Creek Boulevard corridor vision study as it is.

[1:54:44] Can you go back to the last slide?

[1:54:48] Where does this say as it is here? It doesn't say. Sorry. You just put that in.

[1:54:57] Okay.

[1:54:57] Do you have more slides? Was that the last slide? No, that was the last slide. Okay, great.

[1:55:01] Thank you, Matt, to appreciate your pleasing through this. It's still keeping us informed. I appreciate the

[1:55:08] presentation as always and appreciate a full house from staff so before we open it up for

[1:55:14] questions just a couple of clarifying things I just want to get the recommendation if you

[1:55:21] might put up the recommendation again

[1:55:34] and maybe if you might keep the presentation in case

[1:55:36] we need to flash back to any slides yes yes so the recommendation does that factor in the input

[1:55:42] from the bytepad commission.

[1:55:45] It will, yes.

[1:55:47] So I just want to make sure that what we are reviewing here is

[1:55:53] the staff presentation that went into the bytepad commission and then your recommendation

[1:55:59] is to accept the recommendations from the bytepad commission, is that right?

[1:56:03] Yes.

[1:56:05] And if you might comment on the

[1:56:09] the process through which you got stakeholder and word that any businesses that had a chance

[1:56:15] to give input.

[1:56:16] So the consultant team contacted many businesses along the corridor most notably the

[1:56:22] automotive deal of dealerships.

[1:56:24] I know we received public comment that those folks weren't notified.

[1:56:27] Those folks were notified.

[1:56:30] The consultant reached out to

[1:56:34] about 10 dealerships.

[1:56:36] They worked with the

[1:56:42] Silicon Valley

[1:56:48] Auto dealership association, where they were able to get in touch with Penske Auto who oversees Audi and Porsche.

[1:56:57] And they were also able to talk to Subaru and Infinity and they contacted a list of 10 dealerships along the way and didn't hear responses from those.

[1:57:07] Okay. Sounds good. I think the general question that seems to come up is not enough community

[1:57:14] outreach, but I think we'll just throw in diversity of stakeholder outreach as well,

[1:57:18] just making sure we get all parties at the table that need to have it in put on the boulevard's.

[1:57:25] I will open it up to the commissioner so there are any questions at this time.

[1:57:30] Yeah, I had a quick question. I wanted to clarify around, sorry about that. The transit signal

[1:57:35] priority we have had some concern from residents and I wanted to understand how does it actually work

[1:57:42] would technically be the amount of green light time on Steven's Creek increase basically

[1:57:48] to make way for each bus you know would it actually lead to a faster Steven's Creek but then

[1:57:55] maybe slower intersections that come up to Steven's Creek if you could just clarify that that would

[1:58:00] Thank you. I'll be happy to answer that question. Good evening. Commissioner's on David still

[1:58:05] in the transportation manager for the city. Happy to be here tonight to discuss this

[1:58:10] important project with you all. Transit signal priority is a feature that is locally implemented

[1:58:18] at each traffic signal that you define certain parameters that allow buses that may be behind

[1:58:26] schedule to get an advanced green generally to allow them to catch up to the schedule that

[1:58:34] they are supposed to be on.

[1:58:37] And the way it works is generally either a green light for Steven Street Boulevard, for

[1:58:41] example, will come on a few seconds early or at May the red light for that particular movement

[1:58:47] might be delayed by a few seconds to allow a bus to proceed.

[1:58:51] And those are parameters that are completely under the city's control.

[1:58:57] That's not something that, so even the VTA, for example, would coordinate this effort among all of the jurisdictions.

[1:59:04] Every city maintains control of its intersections and can determine what those parameters are in terms of additional green time or moving it up.

[1:59:14] generally results in little to no additional delays for vehicles because we're only talking

[1:59:19] about a few seconds of advance or retarding of green times to allow the buses to stay on

[1:59:24] schedule. So does if there's a green time extended for a bus does it later on get detracted

[1:59:31] or is there a later on subsequent longer red time that makes up for that or is that up to the city

[1:59:36] to decide? It's up to the city to decide that signals generally are responsive to the traffic

[1:59:41] out at the time. So if the intersection determines that, there's a need to hold the green a little

[1:59:47] longer on the next cycle to allow cars to. It can do that. Thank you.

[1:59:53] So I wonder what the width of

[1:59:55] the corridor is. Is it just Steven's Creek Boulevard? And the reason I'm asking a-

[2:00:00] I look, I bicycle a lot and I look at other cities like Palo Alto and Mountain View and they specifically

[2:00:07] are trying to get the bicycles onto bike boulevard's which are not on El Camino or Alma or Central

[2:00:15] Expressway. And this seems to try and when I ride my bike to San Jose, I'm either using prune ridge,

[2:00:23] a park or I'm on the south side of 280 and using crossing at midi and using Williams and

[2:00:33] it's a much more pleasant ride because you're not on the street with cars, you know, zooming

[2:00:43] past you really close and you have less intersections.

[2:00:46] So I'm just wondering when you say corridor is it just Steven's Creek Boulevard or

[2:00:52] is it extend a half mile or a kilometer to either side or what?

[2:00:58] Yeah, so the corridor is a half mile north and a half mile south, so all the analysis that went into this project was considering that as well as key connections to the corridor.

[2:01:08] So those parallel routes are things that were considered and are included in terms of the bike treatments.

[2:01:14] the plan isn't saying we need to install bike lands on Steven's Creek.

[2:01:21] It's saying we need to look at the corridor as a whole and understand how we can enhance it.

[2:01:27] So that's more pedestrian and bike friendly.

[2:01:29] Okay, so it's really emphasizing Steven's Creek.

[2:01:33] Like, prune ridges more than prune ridges 0.6 miles from Steven's Creek.

[2:01:39] So that would not be considered part of the corridor, is that correct?

[2:01:45] One of the recommendations in the study is for cities to implement their relevant plans,

[2:01:50] and the prune ridge complete streets plan, or blanking on the exact name for it, was one

[2:01:56] of the plans that was identified.

[2:01:59] So when thinking about the corridor, it shouldn't be thought of just as Stephen's Greek alone,

[2:02:03] But how do we move people used west on all the roads that are available to us?

[2:02:10] Okay, thank you.

[2:02:15] Oh, sorry. So yeah, so I'm looking at bottom of page 50. I think figure 14 and 15 and that's what you're referring to, right?

[2:02:23] The the kind of a complete network

[2:02:26] Not just protected by claims on on Steven Street Boulevard, but the surrounding streets as well. Correct. If you're referring to the the map of the bike network in the plan

[2:02:36] Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So I just want to clarify the reason people bike on Steven Street Boulevard is

[2:02:43] because it's often the most direct and fastest way to get there versus, you know, me

[2:02:47] entering 40 minutes for a 10 minute, otherwise, you know, 10 minute destination distance. And also a

[2:02:53] lot of the destinations are on Steven Street Boulevard. So if you want to go to a restaurant or

[2:02:58] you want to go to a Main Street or you want to go to a cafe or the bank, you don't have a choice

[2:03:03] but to buy counts to even scrape.

[2:03:05] So I do think it has to be part of the corridor.

[2:03:09] And we can't just say, okay, just to remind

[2:03:12] commissioners for doing questions right now,

[2:03:14] we will go to discussion.

[2:03:15] Does that make sense to you?

[2:03:17] That's the question.

[2:03:19] That does make sense, yeah.

[2:03:21] All right, thank you.

[2:03:22] Wonderful, appreciate the creativity there.

[2:03:25] Other questions?

[2:03:27] I do have a question.

[2:03:28] Can you comment on the funding that the city put into this

[2:03:31] during the period looking backward and then what is sort of the funding expectation looking

[2:03:37] forward because the report just talked about ongoing into perpetuity coordination across the

[2:03:45] members of the corridor and what is the translate to in funding for the city.

[2:03:54] So the city put in about $154,000, I believe, to cooperate in the vision study to get to the

[2:04:02] point that we are at today, that is the end of the city's current financial obligation to

[2:04:10] the project.

[2:04:12] With regard to the future,

[2:04:16] how the study or the process proceeds from this point on hasn't

[2:04:20] been exactly determined, there will be some form of steering committee which will most likely

[2:04:24] continue into the future to discuss how to move forward with some of these recommendations

[2:04:30] in the various jurisdictions, the any projects there would need to be most likely outside

[2:04:38] sources of funding identified in order to move on most of the projects, at least the medium

[2:04:44] and the long-term projects in the project list. So the cities would to extent that they remain

[2:04:51] to be involved would cooperate to determine outside funding sources for those projects. And that's

[2:04:57] reason for the partnership is that makes the likelihood of being selected for a grant a lot

[2:05:06] more likely if the agencies that provide the funding see that it's multi-jurist, multi-jurist

[2:05:12] fictional partnership project moving forward. And so to follow up on that then the 154,000 was

[2:05:20] offset by grants? I believe that was general fun money. I was okay and then if we were to

[2:05:28] recommend adopting this is the thought process then that we were to apply for grants that would

[2:05:34] offset the cost of that is that how we should think of this or is this an ongoing added cost burden

[2:05:41] that the city would be taking on if it chose to pursue this. There's no there's no finding obligation

[2:05:47] and to the city by accepting the plan this evening.

[2:05:52] The $154,000 has been spent and will not be reimbursed through grants.

[2:05:58] You can't apply for reimbursement for many that's already been spent.

[2:06:02] But the city can participate to the extent that it desires or not moving forward with respect

[2:06:09] to any of the recommendations in the project.

[2:06:12] There's no obligation by accepting the plan this evening or at the city council.

[2:06:16] And then, sorry, go ahead, Ted, what did you want to add?

[2:06:19] And I'm just going to say any further spending for this project would have to be approved by City Council.

[2:06:25] And then the commentary, I think, towards the wrap of the corridor study was that the recommendations went from an implementation plan to set of recommendations.

[2:06:40] I believe was I think the term you used and then you said local guidelines would be

[2:06:46] allowed to take effect and they were recommending relevant local plans is that how I

[2:06:52] interpreted it I get that right was that you're closing yeah so it was always

[2:06:58] it's always thought of as a recommendation plan the term implementation was probably used

[2:07:03] just, you know, appropriately and scared some folks, and then one of, to your second part,

[2:07:09] one of the recommendations that's included in this plan is for cities to, just do what

[2:07:15] they say they're going to be doing anyway with respect to their multimodal plans or the

[2:07:20] primary plan.

[2:07:23] And so on that note, you know, we have a number of local plans, we have the ADP, we have the

[2:07:33] of these that are in progress right now. So would you say this plan is a super set of those

[2:07:38] or is the ATP a super set of this does one subsume the other? How should we review these various

[2:07:44] plans? I wouldn't say there's necessarily a hierarchy. I would say this plan is useful in that

[2:07:53] when if the city does decide to pursue grant funding for those other projects we have this document

[2:08:00] that we can point to to say that this project is within the Stevens Creek corridor vision study

[2:08:05] and is critically important not only to Cupertino but also to San Jose Santa Clara and the county.

[2:08:11] So you're able to demonstrate a larger impact. So if the city wants to pursue those projects,

[2:08:18] there's a better chance that those projects would be looked at more favorably by those granting agencies.

[2:08:25] And given the other projects sort of covered the whole scope of the city, this one is sort of

[2:08:31] corridor focused, would you say maybe the ATP was a superset of this and the ATP could

[2:08:36] subsume this is there. Is there a reason to pursue both projects or to be say that our local

[2:08:41] implementation of this shall be through the ATP for example. The ATP is entirely different

[2:08:48] document and it's scope completely differently. This is looking at, again, those policy recommendations

[2:08:56] related to transit, those pedestrian enhancements, like street trees and intersection improvements.

[2:09:04] The ATP is much more comprehensive and focused on how do we build out the city's active

[2:09:10] transportation network. So again, there's no hierarchy here.

[2:09:15] Okay, very good.

[2:09:17] Other questions?

[2:09:18] I want to pause here.

[2:09:19] I have panelists to do a bit.

[2:09:21] Actually, since we talked a little about finance of Curious,

[2:09:25] the advisory committee, was there a mechanism through which there's

[2:09:29] some recommendations or estimates of the implementation cost for this plan at the end of the plan?

[2:09:38] Now, Curious, was there something,

[2:09:44] it seems like

[2:09:47] And I'm just curious whether there's a grading factor that was applied or as it's just, you know, at the end of the day, you know, you provided, here's a group of Tinos of total,

[2:10:03] or I'm just reading it.

[2:10:06] I saw some gigantic projects like Senos, they had some, you know, 10 million dollar projects to there, but somehow the capital project component came in for them at the high side of 9.4 million.

[2:10:18] You're referring to the cost estimates in the tables in the back of the plan.

[2:10:23] Yeah, those are very, very high-level cost estimates that were developed by the consultants as part of the process there.

[2:10:30] Those would probably change considerably in the future as the project development proceeds on the scopes of the individual projects get better defined.

[2:10:39] Yeah. It was interesting to me in reading this because the, you know, the four communities

[2:10:47] mentioned there are kind of in the same ballpark. I mean, you know, and yet there are things

[2:10:53] like, for instance, the cost of having street trees. In Cuba, Tina would be much lower than

[2:10:58] it would be in San Jose just because we have trees right now and they don't, that kind of thing.

[2:11:05] Yeah, so I, part of that is just to understand, you know, to make this, to turn this in the

[2:11:11] implementation, to turn this into a, excuse me, a plan. It seems like that area probably,

[2:11:18] probably could use some additional refinement, but I understood that it's, it's, you know,

[2:11:23] this is just kind of a very high-level planning exercise.

[2:11:30] Maybe a follow-on question.

[2:11:32] Thank you for including the 2019 Resolution which I believe our current commissioner was probably part of that so he may have some history and context on that as well.

[2:11:43] I sign if I may if I may just make that plug there.

[2:11:49] But can you comment on whether the other cities in the corridor had a resolution to similar effect or what was the nature of the resolution if there was one from the other cities.

[2:11:59] For example, agree on the concept of a great separated high capacity transit, you know, I'll just pick on that one for example.

[2:12:08] The other cities did have resolutions.

[2:12:11] I don't recall the details of their resolutions.

[2:12:15] They're listed on the project website.

[2:12:18] Maybe we can pull those up.

[2:12:21] But would you recall if the great separated high capacity transit figure in their resolutions?

[2:12:27] I'm not sure.

[2:12:28] Okay, because it would be kind of org for Cooper Diner to have a great separated high capacity

[2:12:34] faster than the rent of the Cooper Diner corridor but not the rest of it, so I'm curious

[2:12:38] how and maybe our commissioner's sure might have some history there.

[2:12:44] I don't recall other cities signing on.

[2:12:48] I do recall that the emphasis has always been on Stephen's Creek Boulevard and at the time

[2:12:59] unanimous unanimously we decided hey that's great except that doesn't serve either

[2:13:04] apple campus and that's why you know we had mentioned that we would prefer it in the

[2:13:11] median of 280 at least in Cupertino the other reason is it would be a lot less

[2:13:16] expensive to put it in the existing median than to do it any other way I think at

[2:13:22] time, it was estimated at like $50 million a mile in the median of $280, and it was under

[2:13:31] ground, it would be like a billion dollars a mile, but obviously that can happen.

[2:13:36] And I think that was one of the reasons we had preferred the 280 alignment.

[2:13:43] I think mainly because it, you know, Stevens Creek Boulevard doesn't really go between

[2:13:49] jobs rich areas and housing rich areas. Those are the more the north south

[2:13:55] routes like Lawrence and Santa Moss. Steven's Creek will serve several shopping

[2:14:02] centers but it's really not around the people commute on and we were more

[2:14:07] interested in daily, you know, how can we serve commuters, you know, maybe the ones

[2:14:13] that aren't taking the Apple corporate bus. And I think that was the main reason

[2:14:17] and that we are preferred to 80.

[2:14:19] Thank you.

[2:14:21] Chair, I can answer that question.

[2:14:22] Sure, please.

[2:14:24] So reading from the City of Santa Clara's resolution,

[2:14:27] I'll quote, that the study considers potential options

[2:14:30] for a great, separated, high capacity transit system

[2:14:33] for the Steven Street Boulevard corridor

[2:14:35] that connects the cities of Santa Rosa, Santa Clara,

[2:14:38] and Cupertino, and from the city of San Jose's resolution,

[2:14:45] The City of San Jose supports a complete streets and near-term transit implementation plan that considers new modes of transportation and a great separated high capacity transit system for the Stephen squeak corridor that connects the cities of San Jose, Santa Clara, and Cupertina.

[2:15:00] Thank you for that clarification. And so it sounds like across the corridor there was broad alignment around the concept of a great separated high capacity transit that would be the focus of this of this study going forward. And so I'm curious when I look at the study report though the word grade separated seems to have sort of lost focus. And I see separated but not great separated. Can you comment on how the report lost its focus on the great separated part of it?

[2:15:30] Or is that something staff is able to comment on?

[2:15:33] I don't believe there is an intention that the report

[2:15:36] was focused on the great-separated aspect.

[2:15:39] The report contains a list of eight or so options for accommodating

[2:15:46] transit down Steven Street Boulevard, including a great-separated

[2:15:51] including at-grade with a specific note that an at-grade option,

[2:15:57] There's a cost estimate for one that excludes the Cupertino section so that we don't violate the conditions in the

[2:16:04] Resolution that Cupertino City Council

[2:16:07] Adopted back in 2019 so the study does not recommend a specific option it looks it provides information and

[2:16:17] Does a very high level study of many options for transit along the corridor?

[2:16:21] There wasn't an intention to necessarily

[2:16:25] reduce the focus from grade separation.

[2:16:29] Okay, but if I look at the report,

[2:16:32] prominently I find separated as opposed to grade separated and some places that is

[2:16:37] at grade, which I don't think the resolutions that were made refer to,

[2:16:42] was there any discussion through the course of that steering committee meeting to

[2:16:47] maintain fidelity to the resolutions and focus on the grade separated part of

[2:16:51] supposed to add grade or omitting the grade separation?

[2:16:56] Yes, there was, but we did hear from many members of the community that wanted to consider

[2:17:02] at grade transit and so to responsive to community input, it needed to be acknowledged and placed in the study.

[2:17:11] And was there any characterization of what the nature of that changed in port was?

[2:17:15] I assume going into that resolution.

[2:17:17] and there was input from the same set of stakeholders,

[2:17:21] the conditions change between 2019 to 2025,

[2:17:25] because if anything, I would assume COVID

[2:17:27] and everything else has changed our way of working,

[2:17:30] and our way of commuting, there's a lot more online classes

[2:17:32] for the as a college, for example,

[2:17:34] it's somewhere that 56% of the as a students

[2:17:37] are actually online students.

[2:17:39] And so I have to imagine 2019 that may or may not have been

[2:17:42] the case, can you comment on what changed

[2:17:46] in the import?

[2:17:48] I cannot, no, I can just speak to the input that we received from the public as a part of

[2:17:53] this process.

[2:17:54] And so we wanted to honor that and make sure that it was reflected in the document.

[2:18:01] But again, this isn't a prescriptive requirement that Cupertino had adopted any kind of an

[2:18:05] at grade, you know, transit, and there are alternatives listed for an elevated grade

[2:18:11] separated transit in conformance with the resolution that our city council passed.

[2:18:16] Wonderful. Yeah, I mean, I think the concern here is we want high speed, high capacity.

[2:18:26] BRT, as opposed to the current 523, is not really going to solve any issue that we see on

[2:18:33] Steven's Creek. And, you know, if we accept the study, you know, I would want to put something

[2:18:41] and there that, you know, we make it clear that we're talking great separate.

[2:18:47] Just doing questions, commissioner.

[2:18:48] Oh, I'm sorry.

[2:18:49] But thank you for the reminder that it may be time to progress towards discussion.

[2:18:52] So on that note, if you want to.

[2:18:55] Just one quick item, Commissioner Fong, you had talked about why Cupertino's

[2:18:59] section was was high.

[2:19:01] They are looking at the entire section of Cupertino from Tantau to basically Lehigh.

[2:19:06] So we've got a very long section and we have the second largest number of intersections and so some of those

[2:19:14] Cossers, so see with intersections and both so it's just because we have a large section and that they're looking at

[2:19:20] Okay, so we'll have more opportunity for questions, but I want to open it up for public comment if you have

[2:19:26] Madam city clerk if you might share how many speakers we have

[2:19:31] We have two speaker cards in person and then we have two

[2:19:35] three hands raised on Zoom. They're all under the same name, same name, so I want to verify that

[2:19:40] they are different people. So Zoom participants, if you don't mind, when I am mute, you please

[2:19:46] state your name.

[2:19:53] Betsy, you make us. Can you repeat that?

[2:20:00] Betsy, you make us. Thank you.

[2:20:08] I guess we're seeing more common cards coming in. Hi, this is Sundana Siva. Thank you.

[2:20:19] Okay, so Madam City Clerk, if you may call on the public comments starting with folks in the room.

[2:20:27] Sure, so our first speaker is Jennifer Griffin, followed by Harry Neo, followed by Emily. Welcome, Jennifer.

[2:20:41] Good evening, planning commission again. Hi, Jennifer Griffin.

[2:20:46] I attended all these meetings. It was two and a half years. Lots of meetings. The consultant did a great job.

[2:20:53] I went on a bus ride from Dira Dawn up and down the corridor.

[2:20:59] I can't walk well, so I was kind of representing a lot

[2:21:02] of the people that have mobility issues.

[2:21:08] I will say that I, one of the questions I had initially,

[2:21:13] was why was this study going from Dira Dawn

[2:21:17] in San Jose south down to Stephen's Creek Boulevard

[2:21:21] and then going up to Diane's a college.

[2:21:24] I didn't really get it because to me,

[2:21:27] the court or has always been from downtown San Jose,

[2:21:31] San Jose, state, et cetera, downtown to maybe Cooper Chino.

[2:21:37] But why Derodon was involved,

[2:21:39] I still don't have any idea.

[2:21:41] My nephew actually lived at Derodon

[2:21:43] before he moved to Seattle,

[2:21:45] and I'm very familiar with K-Hill station there,

[2:21:49] And I still don't understand why they even wanted to have a study there.

[2:21:55] I maybe I missed the boat there, but I missed the transit.

[2:22:00] One of my questions is that I wanted to make sure that people understood why Cupertino,

[2:22:09] why a lot of people in Cupertino did not want to have a lane loss on Stevens Creek Boulevard

[2:22:16] to BRT.

[2:22:19] If they say, now I know what BRT is, I can use to call it fixed best rapid transit, but I understand

[2:22:24] what BRT is now.

[2:22:25] We don't want to do that, because Steven's Creek Boulevard would be completely immovable.

[2:22:33] If you take a lane off in our area, you're going to slow down school traffic, apple traffic,

[2:22:41] emergency vehicles, et cetera, et cetera, no, no, no, no.

[2:22:44] Now, the consultants never really discussed taking a lane off.

[2:22:51] They may have had it talked about it briefly.

[2:22:53] But in August of last year, there was a meeting in Cupertino

[2:22:58] that was bombarded by 50 people who demanded that the city

[2:23:03] or the committee take one lane off of Stephen's Creek Boulevard

[2:23:08] to put in BRT.

[2:23:10] I didn't get it.

[2:23:11] Well now I understand about SB-79 and I think this was a setup to implement SB-79 prematurely.

[2:23:21] SB-79 is weiner bill and it's going through the houses now.

[2:23:27] I'm really, really concerned about this. No, no, no, no, no. We don't want to do that.

[2:23:33] We have a lot of issues with Stephen's Creek Boulevard but remember a lot of people drive on it.

[2:23:40] I can't walk and I can't ride a bike. Thank you.

[2:23:43] Thank you Jennifer.

[2:23:44] Thank you Jennifer.

[2:23:45] Our next speaker is Harry Newell, followed by Emily.

[2:23:47] Welcome, Harry.

[2:24:01] Good evening, Plana Commission. My name is Harry Newell.

[2:24:04] I am a member of VTA Citizens Advisory Committee

[2:24:07] and a former member of the Steven's Creek Court

[2:24:12] or Vision Study Community Advisory Group.

[2:24:15] Very long-winded name.

[2:24:17] But I'm here today in my personal capacity.

[2:24:20] Here you will see a coalition letter that I have.

[2:24:24] The text in bold is the stuff that you really need to pay attention to.

[2:24:28] It says the committee unanimously approved a recommended plan that would transform

[2:24:32] Steven's Creek to support the safe, efficient, sustainable mobility that all users

[2:24:36] deserve.

[2:24:37] We, the undersigned, urge the county of Santa Clara VTA, the cities of Cupertino, Santa

[2:24:40] Clara, and Sathosa to approve and implement the Steven's Creek corridor during committees

[2:24:44] recommended plan.

[2:24:45] And you will find, at the end of it, a very, very long list of organizations and individuals

[2:24:54] who have signed on, including the California State Assembly members of Mark Berman, Patrick

[2:25:00] Erin's and Ash Calra, Andrew Seagler, representing Surge Santa Clara County, Cassandra

[2:25:08] Magana from West Valley Community Services and Dr. Omar Torres President of Deans of College,

[2:25:13] among many more.

[2:25:16] Beyond that, one of the things Commissioner Sharf that you mentioned was BRT.

[2:25:21] And the previous public commenter also mentioned BRT.

[2:25:24] That is a very, very specific thing.

[2:25:27] A dedicated bustling is not the same as BRT.

[2:25:30] And this study does not propose BRT,

[2:25:33] and BRT as a specific mode is not on the table for this.

[2:25:40] BRT is center running almost exclusively and requires a significant infrastructure investment that

[2:25:48] side running bus lanes do not.

[2:25:50] It is also worth noting a study out of Minnesota Transportation Institute at San Jose State

[2:25:55] University, one of the best transportation institutes in the country, noted that bus lanes

[2:26:01] when converted from a general traffic lane to a bus lane do not increase general traffic.

[2:26:07] they actually keep it almost exactly the same, but they make buses faster, more reliable, cheaper to operate,

[2:26:15] everything that we want out of our transit agencies.

[2:26:20] But even with that, it is again worth noting that the caveats that Cupertino signed onto this product with, when Commissioner Sharf is mayor,

[2:26:31] included not converting a lane in the city of Cupertino.

[2:26:37] So for those who are not in favor of it,

[2:26:41] you already have what you want in the city.

[2:26:44] I would also note that the recommendation

[2:26:51] of high capacity grade separated transit

[2:26:54] should it be elevated like rail, which I think

[2:26:57] would be ideal, it is very, very worth noting,

[2:27:00] At a time when many projects in the United States are some of the highest costs in the world, including here locally, with Bart, VTA's elevated light rail at Eastridge, that project is actually on par with or lower than the construction costs in some low-cost countries like Thailand and India.

[2:27:21] So, that is a very, very affordable way of building rapid transit.

[2:27:26] It seems like a big number, but internationally, it's a very impressive cost in terms

[2:27:34] of what VTA is doing on the east side.

[2:27:39] Should there be any changes to this plan recommended by the Plan Commission, this will

[2:27:46] due to the nature of the project have to go back to the steering committee to redevelop

[2:27:49] consensus.

[2:27:49] That would mean a minimum six month delay, realistically.

[2:27:54] On a product that is focused so heavily on safety, that means that we will be putting

[2:27:59] people at risk.

[2:28:01] That's not acceptable.

[2:28:02] Please adopt this unchanged.

[2:28:04] Thank you.

[2:28:05] Thank you, Harry.

[2:28:06] Our next speaker is Emily followed by our three Zoom speakers, welcome Emily.

[2:28:13] Hello.

[2:28:14] My name is Emily Poon.

[2:28:15] I'm an ordinary citizen, not related to any group.

[2:28:19] My interest is to have everything understood by ordinary people and be really transparent in a way that is rather difficult to achieve when people are busy with their everyday lives

[2:28:31] and all this talk, it has a lot of terminology that ordinary folk don't understand, like VTR and us only laying

[2:28:43] But what experience I have in talking to people along the corridor, which included a lot of car dealerships and also people who work in the main street restaurants is

[2:28:54] Whenever they heard about us only lane, they are in great shock, they say, what buses, the buses always run empty when they're in the part of the cupatino part of Stephen's Creek.

[2:29:09] So that is to tell you I want to reflect the ignorance of the people of what is going on and what these meetings are all about.

[2:29:22] Then I came in late today and I did hear the traffic engineer say that 10 dealerships were contacted by the consultants after the meeting I would like to get a hold of this list.

[2:29:36] And I heard the name Subaru and Audi.

[2:29:39] Why do I want these details?

[2:29:41] Because I did spend two days with another volunteer who lived in Santa Clara to go to the dealerships.

[2:29:49] And they are ignorant of all these goings on.

[2:29:53] I want to finish my job properly.

[2:29:55] Match up what I have contacted with what the engineer cited.

[2:30:00] The consultants have contacted and see who got the news and who did not. Thank you.

[2:30:08] Thank you, Emily. Up next, we have our first Zoom speaker.

[2:30:20] Welcome.

[2:30:22] Good evening. This is Betsy Megus. I'm a resident of the city of Santa Clara. I'm a member of the city of Santa Clara.

[2:30:28] bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee, and also a member of the VTA, bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee,

[2:30:36] speaking tonight for myself.

[2:30:40] I'll do the bottom line first. Please recommend the city adopt the plan unchanged.

[2:30:46] I attended a good many of the workshops and I have also

[2:30:54] bike the entire length of this corridor and I would like to

[2:30:59] thank David Stillman for coming on the

[2:31:01] Cupertino end of the of the Survey Rides with us on a

[2:31:05] bicycle. Some of Cupertino's bicycle facilities today are

[2:31:10] what the rest of the cities along the corridor need to

[2:31:14] by or two.

[2:31:16] Seema said what I was going to say already, side streets are not as good, they are not

[2:31:22] as direct, and the destinations are if the destination is on Steven's Creek, it doesn't

[2:31:28] do any good to be on a side street.

[2:31:36] I hope that the plan, I think that the plan says something already about the bicycle and pedestrian

[2:31:43] collision history.

[2:31:45] We need this plan for safety, not just, you know, it's not just a nice to have, but the

[2:31:54] history of bicycle and pedestrian collisions on a corridor like this also speaks to the demand.

[2:32:00] If people are writing a bike or walking, where it is this dangerous, we need to recognize that people want to

[2:32:10] can walk there and make it less dangerous.

[2:32:15] There is a lot we can do without waiting for the

[2:32:21] eventual elevated grade separated transit to improve the transit that we have today. That is

[2:32:31] things like the signal priority and also giving the buses and dedicated space, it would

[2:32:43] not be as harmful as everybody makes it out to be as far as traffic, and it might actually

[2:32:50] help people get around, including people who can't drive.

[2:32:56] The potential separated transit is something like 20 to 30 years in the future.

[2:33:05] This is the kind of plan that only works if all of the cities work together and sign on to it

[2:33:12] and proceed to implement it.

[2:33:15] Please recommend that the city of Caputino adopted the plan.

[2:33:19] Thank you.

[2:33:21] Thank you, Betsy.

[2:33:22] We have two more hands raised on Zoom.

[2:33:31] Welcome.

[2:33:31] this

[2:33:44] is Danny Haptum, not Henry.

[2:33:51] Use these. I use Steven's big boulevard on a regular basis and I'm pretty sure a lot of you do too.

[2:34:02] Um,

[2:34:05] as a, uh,

[2:34:09] A122, I believe that we should implement this plan because it will both make it easier for me and others to,

[2:34:23] uh,

[2:34:23] along Stephen's Creek.

[2:34:33] Yes, I do use it a lot.

[2:34:38] I have used the buses on Stephen's Creek and

[2:34:47] they are crowded during certain peak periods.

[2:34:52] In this night on bike, but I know a lot of people would do,

[2:34:59] I'm sorry, I'm a bit nervous.

[2:35:04] Thank you, Danny.

[2:35:08] We have

[2:35:11] one more hand raised on Zoom. Welcome.

[2:35:20] Hi, my name is Kelly Wang. I am a, I am born and raised in Capricre, you know, if you

[2:35:26] had just the alum, and we could travel or visit her on the Stevens Creek corridor by foot by car and by bike.

[2:35:32] So, I've been following the process about reach for the Vision Plan and I support it as it's written.

[2:35:40] I think it gives us a bold vision for Steven's Creek that makes it safe and attractive for businesses, visitors, residents of all ages and abilities.

[2:35:51] And I know there's been a lot of concern and confusion about specific parts of the plan.

[2:35:57] I view it as a pull box of ways to improve

[2:36:01] livability and traffic safety on that improvement

[2:36:04] on server from corridors.

[2:36:07] It is...

[2:36:10] Steve's Creek is a lot of things to a lot of different people.

[2:36:13] And I think having this vision plan is a good way for us

[2:36:17] to think about how to put you know it can

[2:36:20] get way one out of the corridor and to improve

[2:36:23] coordination with our neighbors in San Jose and Santa Clara.

[2:36:26] While preserving a local control, this again, no specific projects are mandated by this.

[2:36:34] So, as long-term as an, I think Stephen's Creek has a unique role for cryptocurrency note.

[2:36:39] Unlike Santa Clara Santa Jose, it's not a border area.

[2:36:42] But for cryptocurrency note, this is the heart of the city.

[2:36:45] You know, and it should be an attractive, inviting and walk-able destination.

[2:36:49] Or all of the cryptocurrency note, no matter if you get around by car, by foot, by bike or by transit.

[2:36:55] I think the vision plan aligns with the general plan that we have, or the heart of the city, to make it that kind of thriving attractive place, or all modes of transportation, and ties into the years of planning work that can recognize them to make Stephen's streak of a very inviting kind of corridor.

[2:37:15] For example, I walk around, let's say I walk to Phil's coffee, like there's so many people

[2:37:22] and give my piece of advice, who are walking or crossing back and forth, I see families with

[2:37:29] kids, I see seniors, I see Apple employees in their lunch break, it's surprisingly active

[2:37:37] or a major six-lane road. And I think that speaks to the potential that there is here,

[2:37:43] or making it even better for all ages and abilities or walking for biking for transit.

[2:37:50] On the topic of bike lanes, I don't think it's side streets or protective bike lanes.

[2:37:56] This vision plan examines the network as a whole, you know, looking to that half mouth buffer for

[2:38:01] on each side.

[2:38:02] So I think this aligns with what I want to see in the group, you know, I think aligns with

[2:38:06] a lot of books in the city, you want to see as well and it really helps us to get clear

[2:38:12] and get attracted part of the city that we've long lacked and we really deserve.

[2:38:17] So thanks, thank you for consideration, I support the vision plan.

[2:38:22] Thank you, and we have one more hand raised on Zoom.

[2:38:27] Welcome.

[2:38:34] Hi, City Council.

[2:38:34] I mean, high planning commissions, I'm sorry about that.

[2:38:37] I'm Sandana Silva.

[2:38:38] I'm a student at San Jose State, and I'm from Cupertino myself,

[2:38:44] and I live on the Rancher Rinkanada side of Cupertino.

[2:38:46] And I do take bus 523 or 23 to get from

[2:38:54] Puportino to San Jose State University.

[2:38:57] And the Stephen's Creek Boulevard itself

[2:38:59] is like a very heavily used corridor,

[2:39:03] especially for educational and commercial institutions,

[2:39:08] especially like educational institutions like Dianza College

[2:39:10] and San Jose State University.

[2:39:13] And it has like heavily used, like bus, bus for house on BTA itself, like a bus for

[2:39:23] house 23 and 523. And 523 is like probably more widely used because of the wider

[2:39:30] spacing in between the bus stops. And there are just like at least like a 10,000 people on

[2:39:40] bus like per day and this would be really useful because having like a

[2:39:46] bus lane on this like a boulevard would increase like the ridership or VTA even

[2:39:51] more and per buses in general and buses and public transportation is a more

[2:39:56] energy efficient mode of transportation itself and would help with climate

[2:40:01] mitigation goals in contrast to cars which are seen as less energy efficient and releases

[2:40:12] much more greenhouse gases. Thank you. Thank you. We have no hands raised on zoom and no

[2:40:21] speaker cards. Thank you madam City Clerk at this time. I will close public comments. I think

[2:40:26] the public members of the public that offered their invaluable input. I've also sort of channeled

[2:40:34] the many written comments that we got. I believe we had several restaurants that chose to write in

[2:40:39] and I think some common themes there were they value their lanes. A lot of input there are not taking

[2:40:46] lanes away. A lot of input are making sure the driving is not made more troublesome and they want to be

[2:40:56] without creating challenges for people that use it to commute. So just wanted to channel the written

[2:41:01] comments. And at this time we will open it up for discussion and members of the commission

[2:41:05] can feel free to ask questions as well. And before we do that I just want to ask a couple of

[2:41:11] questions real quick. So for the projects that were identified here, obviously Cupertino has already

[2:41:18] made a lot of investments in its bike infrastructure and its its corridor investments in general

[2:41:26] Would you say that there are places in this in this in this report that you thought we were

[2:41:32] Fairly well invested and already for example when I look at the table. We are already funded for the Steve's Creek Boulevard bike buffered bike lanes

[2:41:39] I believe that project has already been prioritized and is in implementation right now for phase 2A and 2B

[2:41:45] I believe or

[2:41:46] Diffing phases of 2A and 2B so can you talk a little bit about what parts of this report you might

[2:41:52] Consider as new work ahead of us was this work that we have invested in

[2:42:00] Like you mentioned, the Stevens Creek Bikeways are a huge success for the city as shown

[2:42:08] with the survey responses, and the people that participated in this project from Mark

[2:42:13] that Cupertino's infrastructure made them feel more comfortable than at other places along

[2:42:19] the corridor.

[2:42:20] I think where this study has its most value is when thinking about the connections and the recommendations

[2:42:27] that we figure out how to improve connections to Steven's Creek. Most notably the Lawrence

[2:42:33] MIDI Trail is something that I think could help be advanced through this project and the treatments

[2:42:42] related to placemaking and just making the corridor a more pleasant place to hang out,

[2:42:52] So, I think those are the areas that the city is, you know, going to benefit the most from.

[2:42:58] Thank you.

[2:42:59] And then we got a number of comments on the transit part.

[2:43:01] Does transportation have any metrics around utilization of our VTA transit in

[2:43:08] Cupertino specifically, if you might have any metrics that you care to share?

[2:43:12] I don't have those numbers off to top my head.

[2:43:14] VTA publishes their boardings and a lightings online.

[2:43:18] So you can go and see what ridership looks like at the city stops, but I don't know what those figures are off hand.

[2:43:26] Okay, would have been good to see some metrics in the staff report as well.

[2:43:30] At this time public comments are close. Thank you very much.

[2:43:34] I would also like to know if there's any data we have on how many restaurants use our VTA transfer lines versus

[2:43:41] Is there any characterization of the traffic that we get into the city or out of the city on these VTA lines in terms of

[2:43:47] who's using our lines coming in, are going out?

[2:43:51] No, I know VTA occasionally will do onboard surveys,

[2:43:56] and that would be the only way for them to determine whether or not

[2:43:59] those writers are actual, kupertino residents,

[2:44:02] but that's a very difficult thing to determine.

[2:44:06] Direct mostly.

[2:44:12] I think I said would like to say as we proceed down further studies

[2:44:15] of transit, that level of information would probably need to be pulled

[2:44:20] at that point in time. Again, keep in mind, this is a very high level conceptual study, when

[2:44:27] we were, you know, the original resolution from the City Council was to work with VTA San Jose

[2:44:33] and Santa Clara to look at high capacity transit options within Cupertino, and that's kind

[2:44:39] of what this report does here.

[2:44:41] Yeah, I'm looking at the resolution. Thank you, Dr. Moslim, looking at the resolution.

[2:44:49] And

[2:44:50] look at the i280 corridor alignment and look at high capacity transit that is great separated. I believe that's the

[2:45:00] That's the operational phrasing here. Is there any other questions before you go into discussion? Anyone else? Okay. Sorry.

[2:45:11] So I was looking at the VTA data set and I was, was I correct that one of the speakers said that the 523 had 10,000 riders a day?

[2:45:23] I can answer this question. I've looked into the numbers. I was actually going to talk about it during

[2:45:27] comment, but since we're asking, so the 23 and 523 bus get about 9,000 riders per weekday

[2:45:35] if you average out across weekdays and weekends at averages to about 7,800. If you look at the 23

[2:45:42] the cluporotino portion of the 23,523 because the VTA does give visualizations that let you filter by

[2:45:49] The number goes to about 1,690 residents or not 1,690 writers per weekday that are going

[2:45:59] to stop in Cupertino.

[2:46:01] We don't know where they come from.

[2:46:02] That's the combination 23 and 520.

[2:46:05] Okay.

[2:46:05] I thought the speaker said 523 only, but maybe I've misheard.

[2:46:11] I've combined 23 and 520.

[2:46:14] I'm not sure about the, the speaker is probably referring to both combined.

[2:46:17] because there's no way both each one and isolation.

[2:46:20] Right, right, of course.

[2:46:22] Thank you, Vice Chair.

[2:46:23] That's helpful and appreciate the data point.

[2:46:27] Anyone else have questions or we're not

[2:46:29] going to kick off discussions?

[2:46:34] I'm happy to kick it off since we are talking

[2:46:36] about a topic that I wanted to discuss.

[2:46:38] So I think that there are some great near and midterm elements

[2:46:42] to the Steven's Creek Quarter Vision study

[2:46:44] that I'm happy to support.

[2:46:46] I do have significant concerns over the long-term component

[2:46:49] of this plan which is mass transit. This originally came in 2017 that was pre-pandemic and I think a

[2:46:56] lot has changed since then. My biggest concern is really around cost. We're proposing another

[2:47:01] 1.8 to $2.8 billion project at a time when all of our local transit agencies are encountering

[2:47:07] long-term structural deficits and they have no way to fix it so far. As a few examples, you have

[2:47:13] which has a projected operating deficit of $1.8 billion from 2027 to 2030.

[2:47:19] CalTrain is at a $65 million 10-year operating deficit VTA just shared that they have

[2:47:25] about a $780 million 10-year structural deficit starting this year as well as a hiring freeze.

[2:47:31] So, you know, personally, I would think that we need to focus our resources at this moment

[2:47:34] on protecting our existing transit systems that people rely very heavily on.

[2:47:40] So now is not the time to be spreading our resources more thinly.

[2:47:43] You know, at the end of the day, we are going to pay for this as taxpayers, the VTA is 86% funded by sales tax revenues.

[2:47:51] They already have three sales tax measures. They're contemplating another sales tax measure.

[2:47:56] And, you know, who knows what other taxes it'll take to get this funded?

[2:48:00] And so I also do question the forecast around 20,000 riders per day on a separated transit line.

[2:48:07] This is a somewhat unrealistic number that we have not attained anywhere in this nearby area even including San Jose, which is much more densely populated.

[2:48:17] If you look at currently VTA has three light rail lines, and they each average about 5,000 riders per weekday, the newest part extension to Mopetus, which cost billions of dollars, gets about 1,000 riders per weekday.

[2:48:31] So for whatever reason it is we've made these investments available, but people are not choosing the rail option.

[2:48:39] And you know, I just talked about the 23 and 523 bus line.

[2:48:44] Those are getting about in the Cupertino section of the bus line is getting about 1,690 weekday riders.

[2:48:52] So this is not light rail level demand within, at least to go in and out of Cupertino.

[2:48:58] and other parts perhaps, but not in the Cupertino section.

[2:49:02] So what we wouldn't want to see is a massive investment

[2:49:04] into a line that doesn't reach its full capacity.

[2:49:08] So I do support many of the elements in the near and midterm

[2:49:13] portions of this plan, but personally I think

[2:49:17] now is not really the time to be participating in mass transit.

[2:49:22] And I'd be curious to hear what the rest of the commission thinks.

[2:49:24] So I just you're correct about the three sales tax is there's also a fourth tax which is not a sales tax

[2:49:32] It's added on as a vehicle license fee add on and that's in perpetuity

[2:49:39] The first sales tax half-cent is in perpetuity. The other two do have

[2:49:44] Explorations. I believe one in 2036 and one in 2047

[2:49:49] And so ironically, VTA, because they get so little of their revenue from fairs, they kind

[2:49:56] of weathered the pandemic a lot better than Bart or Caltrain, plus they ridership was

[2:50:06] so low that recovery was a lot easier as well.

[2:50:10] And during the recent strike, you know, it was, hey, wait a second, they're not paying all

[2:50:15] employees and yet the sales tax revenue continues to roll in, you know, they probably did pretty

[2:50:21] well financially on that, which is, you know, not what we want to see. We want to have transit

[2:50:28] not beyond strike, but it was a good point about the finances. I don't think they could count on

[2:50:35] another sales tax passing to finance transit along separated grade. And I would remind people that

[2:50:44] we were supposed to get light rail up the median of 85. That was the plan the median was

[2:50:50] reserved for it and it never happened and that was relatively cheap at the time it was

[2:50:55] $37 million a mile and that rail, that line would have actually gone from housing rich to

[2:51:04] jobs rich areas, something that the Stevens Creek corridor does not.

[2:51:11] Okay, many good. Go ahead.

[2:51:14] So I'd like to share, can I get on Zoom, can I be made a participant so I can share my screen?

[2:51:25] And while I'm waiting for that, I just want to make a comment.

[2:51:29] I understand right now,

[2:51:32] there may not necessarily be enough ridership in some of these things,

[2:51:38] But we're not building for the past, we're building for the future.

[2:51:42] And we know that all of the cities around us, including us,

[2:51:46] have pretty aggressive housing goals that's going to add.

[2:51:52] I think it's like 130,000 new homes just in Santa Clara County alone.

[2:51:59] So I think we need to be looking at projections

[2:52:03] before we make these decisions.

[2:52:04] And the other thing that I would mention is, we're not committing to building great separated transit or any kind of transit right now, right?

[2:52:15] All we're saying is that we're interested in exploring it in the future if it makes sense.

[2:52:21] So, I mean, that sounds reasonable to me because if we get to a point ten years from now that, you know,

[2:52:30] everybody has built the housing that they're required to build and our streets are completely

[2:52:36] gridlocked because we've just added 260,000 more cars to Steven Street Boulevard and

[2:52:42] Dienza. Transit might start to look pretty attractive to us and at that point it might make

[2:52:48] sense to build it but again that is not something we're committing to today. The vision statement

[2:52:53] they're we're committing to today is that we think it might be something we would be willing

[2:52:59] to consider in the future, so let me just share my screen so I can couldn't everybody

[2:53:09] see that.

[2:53:18] Okay, great. So it was, well, I'll start here. So I

[2:53:28] just want to remind everybody

[2:53:29] of part of what's important here, and that's the fatalities and serious injuries. Steven

[2:53:36] Street Boulevard was ranked number one in the Vision Zero Plan for the highest number

[2:53:43] of fatalities and serious injuries.

[2:53:46] And if you look at that, the Vision Zero Plan, it says the total of 260 injury collisions

[2:53:56] in a nine year or no, what is that?

[2:53:59] Yeah, I think it's about nine years, including 16 severe injuries.

[2:54:02] an unsafe speeding was a common factor. This is a pretty dangerous stretch. And a lot of these

[2:54:10] if you look at where the dots are, a lot of these serious injuries and fatalities happened

[2:54:14] at intersections. Actually most of them happened at intersections. And a lot of those were due

[2:54:20] to unsafe right turns. So this is a huge part of why we need to make this street safer because

[2:54:28] it is a real problem. This is the other issue I want to talk about. I'm looking at all the

[2:54:34] housing that is currently approved and planned in our city along this corridor and I marked them all

[2:54:41] and it adds up to about 3279 new homes that are already approved right now and we're just starting on

[2:54:51] now, which will add approximately, you know, most homes in Gubertino have two cars, so that's a

[2:54:58] little over 6,500 homes. If we look at all the Santa Clara County cities, that's 260,000 more cars.

[2:55:06] So yes, traffic and mitigating traffic and reducing the number of cars by encouraging multi-modal

[2:55:13] transportation is a key priority for us, unless we want to be like a plan out where, you know,

[2:55:18] running rush hours, starts at 6am and ends at noon.

[2:55:21] I don't think we want that in our city.

[2:55:25] OK, so then I looked at all of the letters that we got.

[2:55:29] And it was actually kind of interesting,

[2:55:31] because clearly there's been some coordination,

[2:55:33] because they all said the exact same 10 points

[2:55:35] in the exact same order in different wording.

[2:55:38] So it made it easy for me because then I could

[2:55:40] respond to them more easily.

[2:55:43] So I went point by point.

[2:55:46] So the first one is, don't reduce the car lanes.

[2:55:49] There seems to be a misunderstanding here, because there's no proposal to reduce car lanes along this corridor at all.

[2:55:55] I mean, I read the report and there's no proposal to reduce car lanes.

[2:56:00] So, I don't think that's an issue.

[2:56:02] Don't redesign the intersections.

[2:56:04] The Wolf Students Reak Intersection is already confusing.

[2:56:07] Go back, going back to the chart I just showed with all the fatalities and serious injuries.

[2:56:12] We do need to make our intersections safer because we value the people in our community and we want to keep people safe

[2:56:20] And it is a huge problem. So yes, we have to look out for the entire community. It's worth spending a couple more seconds

[2:56:27] Taking a right turn or going through an intersection to save somebody's life

[2:56:32] Don't prioritize VTA buses with special lanes of signal priority. Oh, I forgot

[2:56:38] I need to do a, I spoke to the project manager for this project, so I have to disclose that, and his name was,

[2:56:51] sorry, if you might keep it brief.

[2:56:53] Yes.

[2:56:54] Sean Daley, assistant vice president of ITERIS who is the consulting project manager.

[2:57:00] And so, signal priority is we increase the light in extra 10 seconds, or change the signal 10 seconds earlier or later.

[2:57:07] it actually makes a chance that go 20% faster and can make cars go faster.

[2:57:14] Don't reduce street parking, there is no street parking on Steven Street Boulevard in

[2:57:18] Gupertino.

[2:57:18] So that doesn't affect us at all.

[2:57:22] Let's see.

[2:57:23] There's actually, and I checked this with the guy that I spoke to, but he actually said,

[2:57:28] and I quote, that there is enough width available throughout the entire length of Steven

[2:57:34] we Boulevard all the way to dirt on station to implement a complete street along the whole length

[2:57:39] of the corridor, the same number of car lanes, the same number of parking spaces, and protected

[2:57:44] bike lanes. We might have to narrow the lanes in a couple of places, but most of the way you could

[2:57:49] keep everything exactly the same. The allowing red turns, yeah, again, we have to look out for the

[2:57:55] the entire community. Next slide, and I'll be done.

[2:58:02] Folks on optimizing traffic lights, that's actually in the proposed study, so that should make everybody happy.

[2:58:10] Plant shape trees, that's already in the vision statement, ad benches, that's in the vision statement,

[2:58:15] enhanced crosswalk safety, that's also in the vision statement, install blinking lights at all crosswalks that improve pedestrian visibility.

[2:58:21] So there's actually only two non-signalized crossings along this whole corridor and they're both in Western Carlos and they already have flashing lights

[2:58:29] In Cupertino, there are no crosswalks that are not signalized. They're all at signalized intersections, which are by the way far safer for spades streams and cyclists and drivers

[2:58:39] So we're good on that as well. So I hope that addresses all of the concerns that were raised in the multiple letters that we received. Thank you

[2:58:47] Thank you, Commissioner Lynn's call,

[2:58:49] I appreciate the data that it's presentation.

[2:58:51] I will remind you that on the website we do have one crossing

[2:58:54] that is not signalized by the Blackberry Farm Golf Course,

[2:58:58] but yes, overall I agree that most of our crossings are signalized.

[2:59:04] So, anyone else want to go next?

[2:59:07] Sure.

[2:59:10] So, I support the vision proposal.

[2:59:17] In the form that it's in, I did want to attach them notes to it as considerations if they were going to be adjustments.

[2:59:25] But these would not be, these are not deal breakers for me.

[2:59:29] One of them was Chad, thanks very much for the information about why the costs were high.

[2:59:35] I actually would recommend that the scope of Stephen's Creek that's being studied, you know,

[2:59:42] end at the anthropology and the Westport.

[2:59:47] It's not to say that it wouldn't be worthy to have improvements farther, but that's probably

[2:59:52] it's a different qualitatively different than the more central part.

[3:00:06] I think that, you know, I raised an issue about some of the estimates, the cost estimates. I think it is, this was, it's very clear that this was intended to be high level, not to be a careful accounting. So, you know, I think that that would just be something, again, I would say, if we were to make a modification, I would say, you know, perhaps, perhaps we would ask for further study on those on the calculation.

[3:00:36] And so, at least for the coupon portion, to understand what we think is, but not a sure stopper for me.

[3:00:43] I don't have an issue with a study cost that we're sunken to this that those are quite

[3:00:47] nominal concerning the value of what's happening there.

[3:00:52] Not opposed at all to continuing the relationship, I think that's a good thing.

[3:00:55] I think there are a lot of positives here.

[3:00:59] I think that there were, I didn't see any conflicts with the things that we were trying to

[3:01:04] I think that's really important because I think, particularly, you know, some of the things about

[3:01:11] the usage of Santa Clara and things, they're probably our conflicts there.

[3:01:15] But I didn't see any conflicts with the kinds of objectives that we've been trying to put

[3:01:19] forth in Coopartino.

[3:01:20] So I think that that's positive and the additional things that we're being added were going

[3:01:26] to be a plus for this is the end of the long term.

[3:01:31] The final one for me, I think, you know, it's difficult.

[3:01:37] Commissioner Lynn Scott had mentioned this, it's very difficult for bikes to pick an alternate

[3:01:42] path.

[3:01:42] Unfortunately, this is, again, it's just kind of an unfortunate design element of not only

[3:01:48] Cooperty, you know, of our neighbors and these as well, that there's not a better grid,

[3:01:53] which created an alternative, where you can make a choice,

[3:01:56] where you can intelligent and kind of go in and say,

[3:01:57] okay, this will be the bike, the bike friendly road,

[3:02:01] and this will be the car friendly road.

[3:02:04] But one of the things that I think that,

[3:02:06] so it is difficult, it is difficult in your bike

[3:02:09] to not get an answer to your screen.

[3:02:11] It is difficult, I think that if there's concern

[3:02:14] about losing the ability to write turn on red,

[3:02:16] I think that, I mean, there's actual real concern there.

[3:02:19] But people are pretty smart and Google is pretty smart, and it may be difficult for bikes to go on the other paths on those other parallel paths that are not that close, but it's not that hard for cars to do that.

[3:02:32] That doesn't mean that doesn't mean advocating that the car load should get pushed up to the other roads.

[3:02:42] I don't want to make it, you know, I don't want to make premarige impossible for you, right, but I do think that, but I do think that there is, there is great value.

[3:02:56] You know, the cars, cars will make the, we'll make the change if they need to.

[3:03:00] And you know, I really hope that that, that people might consider that as something that would mitigate some of the impacts.

[3:03:09] Some of the real impacts that I think that they may see, again, the benefits and, again,

[3:03:19] you know, looking at the number of cars that they come, the future traffic projections,

[3:03:26] it really does say, you know, if there's a mechanism through which we can better utilize, better

[3:03:31] utilize the roads that we have, you know, that does mean, you know, better bus transit if we

[3:03:36] can do it, just to increase the usage, even if it's moderate, it's meaningful and to make

[3:03:46] it safe for people in town to get around town. There are really not a lot of alternatives.

[3:03:53] So I think that those things are all together, those are in plus. So the end result for me

[3:03:58] is that I will vote to support this. If I think there are a few places who are identified

[3:04:04] where I think it could be better. And if there's a mechanism through which, you know, we can make that

[3:04:09] recommendation, and I'm happy to include that. But it's not a show stopper. So thank you very much,

[3:04:16] you know, I appreciate the work that's gone into this work and thinking. Wonderful. Thank you,

[3:04:22] Commissioner Fung. I think Commissioner Sharfe, if you want to go next.

[3:04:31] Yeah, I think the studies

[3:04:32] a good start and I think with a few modifications, you know, I could support it, I would

[3:04:38] not support it as is, as requested by one speaker. And I would point out that we're not

[3:04:47] just looking at Cooper Tino in acceptance. We're looking at the big picture, the whole plan

[3:04:52] for all three cities. So let's not just be Cooper Tino centric because we want people to be

[3:05:00] able to go the whole length of the cord or not and not just look at Cooper Tino.

[3:05:06] So some of the changes I would make the support and I would restore the word grade separated.

[3:05:14] Restore the word grade instead of just separated into the recommendation.

[3:05:21] And there's a reason if you put in non-grade separated transit it would greatly reduce the

[3:05:29] likelihood in the future of ever moving to a great separated system, which, you know, I think

[3:05:35] we all agree would be better because it would be faster and less disruptive.

[3:05:41] I think we should encourage that the bicycle routes be on the adjacent, parallel, lower

[3:05:47] traffic routes that are already being used by cyclists, and I would point out to contradict

[3:05:54] Commissioner Lynn's calling and Commissioner Fong.

[3:05:58] It's exactly what other cities are doing and neighboring cities have done.

[3:06:04] Commissioner Lynn's card mentioned, oh, you must use Stevens Creek to get to Main Street,

[3:06:08] which of course, that's not quite accurate.

[3:06:11] I ride to Main Street all the time, I use Regnar Creek Trail, then through Creek Side Park

[3:06:17] and Calada Barcelona, and then I enter on Finch, I intentionally avoid Stevens Creek

[3:06:22] of art because it's so unpleasant to ride on, also to get to the Mary Avenue bike bridge,

[3:06:28] which I go too pretty often. I don't have to go on Steven's Creek. I even found a way to

[3:06:33] get the Voyager coffee without riding on Steven's Creek.

[3:06:39] And we often go to Palo Alto, my wife,

[3:06:41] and I'm in Mountain View. And of course we don't ride on El Camino, or Central Expressway,

[3:06:46] we use the Palo Alto Bike Boulevard and the Mountain View Bike Boulevard.

[3:06:54] So, you know, cyclists know that they know these routes.

[3:06:57] They're not secret passageways, you know, they use them because they're safer and more pleasant.

[3:07:03] And I would also say some of the items in the recommended plan will actually increase traffic congestion

[3:07:08] are environmentally, unfriendly, but reduce sustainability, increase air pollution, increase

[3:07:15] accidents and injuries and fatalities, and we'll have a long-term negative effects.

[3:07:20] And those need to be fixed in the recommendation, even if it delays something six months,

[3:07:26] it's worth it.

[3:07:26] We've been working on this since we passed the resolution in 2019, it's now six years

[3:07:32] later, if it takes six months to get a better plan, I think it's well worth it.

[3:07:40] I think we also, as Tracy pointed out about transit and the financial issues that we need

[3:07:49] to really be promoting some kind of expansion of the on-demand service and autonomous services

[3:07:55] when they become available on Steven's Creek Boulevard, which could actually reduce costs if

[3:08:00] We could reduce the frequency of the 523 and 23 during non-commute hours.

[3:08:10] And then finally, we keep hearing, oh, look at these rena's, all this new housing is

[3:08:15] coming.

[3:08:17] But we can't even get the housing built in our previous rena, and our population is decreased,

[3:08:25] Cupertino, more than most cities, and the whole county has decreased, including San Jose.

[3:08:32] And the housing that has the large housing that has been approved recently is not on the

[3:08:37] Stevens Creek corridor.

[3:08:38] It's more on the north side in Santa Clara and San Jose, where there is already more transit

[3:08:45] including light rail.

[3:08:48] So I support this with some modifications. I cannot support it as it as is. Thank you.

[3:08:56] Thank you, Commissioner Sharf. I think we've been going for a while.

[3:09:00] So I'll begin my discussion by just saying I think there are some areas of broad agreement.

[3:09:06] And before I even go there, I think what I heard from staff at the building was you'd like to see some room for how you approach the study.

[3:09:14] and there will be checkpoints in the future where we can iterate and look at, you know, what our

[3:09:19] learnings are, what data we found, and then make certain decisions along the way, but you know,

[3:09:24] you'd like to look at this starting out somewhat broadly and then work your way through the process.

[3:09:29] I also heard that grants may be a way to offset some of the costs that may come with it.

[3:09:34] Now, having said that I want to acknowledge the areas of common interest that I heard,

[3:09:41] which is corridor maintenance, corridor identity, I think everybody agrees that we want

[3:09:46] to purify the corridor, we want to have signage, we want to have, I think I heard common

[3:09:51] agreement around street trees and making more investments in street trees, medium plantings

[3:09:57] and all of that. So, if I had to sort of look at where we all have some common agreement,

[3:10:04] even across the restaurants and stakeholders, it is in making Stephen's Creek a more beautiful

[3:10:08] place, a destination place. And so a corridor identity and maintenance was one. The other

[3:10:13] one was around safety. There may be differences in how we view safety, but again we want to

[3:10:19] give staff the latitude to view the approach safety broadly and then have the conversations

[3:10:24] as we go along on safety. So I think safety was certainly an area. The other thing I want to point

[3:10:29] out is we didn't spend as much time talking about the via hopper, but it is something unique that

[3:10:38] of transport. I mean, sometimes we talk about multi-modal as walking, biking, transit, and driving,

[3:10:43] and that is the via hopper, which is another twist to that makes as well. So, with all of that

[3:10:49] said, I think there's also a recreational aspect to the corridor. It's not just about getting from

[3:10:53] destination from source to destination, but it is for people that enjoy what they can do in the corridor,

[3:11:00] and we do have a unique corridor because just south of us is the Stephen's Creek Trail. On the

[3:11:05] side is the upcoming Lorentz MIDI Trail as Matt pointed out on the Northside. Hopefully there's

[3:11:10] the team in Inutrails. So we want to have the latitude to operate a little more broadly in

[3:11:15] sounds like you were talking about a half mile north and a half mile south. So to make this more

[3:11:20] encompassing, we'd like to maybe think about this in the context of what can the corridor accommodate

[3:11:26] for off corridor investments for the network for walking and bike use. So with all that said,

[3:11:34] maybe I'd like to see if I can craft a motion here to get us moving towards a vote.

[3:11:40] I'd like to propose a motion that we accept the report.

[3:11:48] I'm sorry David, will you help us with taking notes as I try to craft this motion?

[3:11:53] I'd like to propose that we accept this report and reaffirm the recommendations

[3:11:59] from the Bike Pet Commission, including not eliminating lanes, which I believe is one other

[3:12:05] recommendation of the Bike Pet to reinforce that again,

[3:12:10] and prioritizing investments in

[3:12:12] corridor identity and maintenance,

[3:12:17] prioritizing investments in safety with a focus on innovations

[3:12:23] around safety, I have mentioned about being able to look at what sensors we can use to improve

[3:12:30] crossings and things like that. So I think prioritizing safety in general, looking forward

[3:12:36] with a focus on innovations and then being able to prioritize cost by limiting the focus

[3:12:44] still westport I believe, which is a reasonable ROI.

[3:12:53] The motion was to focus on the corridor

[3:12:55] until some point, such as Westport, or maybe Mary Avenue, we can

[3:13:01] notice that as we go, let's forecast the motion first.

[3:13:06] And to focus on

[3:13:07] cost again to limit this to one area of investment and transit and based on

[3:13:13] the resolution that was great separated transit.

[3:13:19] Excuse me chair, would you be open to just slightly changing your motion to

[3:13:24] not that you move to accept the report, but you would recommend the council accept to report with your additions.

[3:13:33] Yes, thank you, Anthony Ru, the small quick there was the recommended council that they accept the report with the following areas to consider prioritizing.

[3:13:47] So I'm good with all of that, except I wasn't quite sure where the Westport thinking from. Can you clarify that?

[3:13:52] That was commissioner or fun with the focus on cost and character.

[3:13:56] Yeah, I think when I asked the question about costs,

[3:13:59] one of the things that happened was that

[3:14:01] Cupertino had a long section because the analysis went all the way to Lehigh.

[3:14:06] So the section from Lehigh to Westport

[3:14:09] is a different character than the main quarter.

[3:14:14] So, and I don't want to get into the discussion.

[3:14:16] I want to make sure staff can try it up this motion and we can look at it and then I'd like to seek a second.

[3:14:20] I'm trying to get broad areas of agreements

[3:14:22] so let's get the easy parts in there.

[3:14:24] Corder identity in maintenance, safety,

[3:14:28] and a focus on cost to smart choices,

[3:14:33] and a focus on off-corder investments

[3:14:36] around trails that are to the north and south.

[3:14:41] So if we may pass that and maybe I

[3:14:43] project the motion or read it back IDL if you can project.

[3:14:51] And if I can see the second.

[3:15:34] Is it easy to send it to Matt? It looks like he could share

[3:15:43] or maybe Matt can project.

[3:15:53] It's on the screen.

[3:16:07] Okay, very good.

[3:16:15] Okay, perfect.

[3:16:18] Okay, so we have a motion to recommend the council accept the corridor vision study.

[3:16:25] Reaffirm the BPC qualifications with the following additional qualifications, which is prioritize investments in 19 maintenance.

[3:16:35] I'd like to, for the caveat to safety with the focus on investments in technology innovation, if you can add that in place.

[3:16:43] I think there were some things around pedestrian sensing.

[3:16:49] Investments in safety with the focus on technology innovation.

[3:16:55] And if you can throw in a few samples, pedestrian sensing may be adaptive signals.

[3:17:01] If you can add a few examples, including but not limited, just to throw in a few examples.

[3:17:05] And maybe at home the scar is supposed to.

[3:17:08] So can I say one thing?

[3:17:11] Sure.

[3:17:11] You're trying to modify this thing.

[3:17:12] Can you just.

[3:17:14] Are you trying to clarify the motion?

[3:17:16] Because I want to clarify.

[3:17:17] Oh, okay.

[3:17:18] Yeah.

[3:17:19] I am trying to clarify it.

[3:17:22] Okay.

[3:17:22] So.

[3:17:23] But yeah, I'm trying to change something.

[3:17:26] So I will not.

[3:17:28] Okay.

[3:17:29] But yeah.

[3:17:29] Let me.

[3:17:30] Let me ask.

[3:17:31] There's a section here where we were reaffirming

[3:17:33] to be BPC qualifications, those were not in conflict with this.

[3:17:38] We're just doing that.

[3:17:40] If that's the case, in our second there, I

[3:17:42] didn't actually say before that I'd be happy to accept this in a normal

[3:17:46] phone, but I think this is close enough.

[3:17:48] I have a second there.

[3:17:50] And so if we may just make sure we've got a motion and a second

[3:17:54] at the moment, if there's any comments on the motion, if we can open it up.

[3:17:57] So I have a couple of, oh, sorry, go ahead.

[3:18:00] The only common I have is that I

[3:18:03] I think the scope should end at Bob not at Westport, because Bob is a major corridor.

[3:18:09] We have a lot of Apple people riding their bikes over to all those buildings on Bob Road.

[3:18:17] This is the best site.

[3:18:18] So not the East side.

[3:18:20] No.

[3:18:20] The scope should end at the end or Westport.

[3:18:23] I'm saying that you're saying that Bob not.

[3:18:25] Yeah, I think that makes.

[3:18:27] And also 85 is a particularly dangerous intersection for pedestrians and bikes.

[3:18:32] you got the high speed entry on to 85 northbound.

[3:18:37] So that's the only thing I would change there.

[3:18:38] Yeah, I would accept the change to,

[3:18:40] I think that's a minor change to exchange from Esport to Bubb.

[3:18:43] I also didn't see the inclusion of the off-corder

[3:18:46] investments in the bike and bed network.

[3:18:50] Could be add that, please.

[3:18:54] There was another bullet I listed,

[3:18:56] which is invest in the bike and bed network,

[3:19:00] such as Stamian and Otray Lawrence Media Trail.

[3:19:04] and the Bike Boulevard as well.

[3:19:06] Let's throw that in.

[3:19:09] So, after Bob Road, there are a lot of students that ride on that stretch of Stephen's Creek Boulevard.

[3:19:19] So, I do think we should stay with looking at the report.

[3:19:24] The scope goes all the way to Foothill.

[3:19:27] And we know, I mean, a lot of students ride that stretch.

[3:19:31] So I do think we should keep it to the corridor all the way to Foothail Boulevard that is very heavily used by students.

[3:19:42] I think that would send a very bad message that we don't care about our students.

[3:19:49] And the priorities investment in safety, I'm a little concerned about being exclusionary.

[3:19:58] I think we should leave it up to the staff to come up with what they, I mean, we can say focus,

[3:20:03] I mean, you know, be creative in terms of, you know, use of technology and innovation,

[3:20:08] but I don't know that I would say with the focus on that because that seems exclusionary to

[3:20:13] other potential solutions to increase safety.

[3:20:15] Thank you, Commissioner Lynn's call and it was not meant to be.

[3:20:18] It was intended to give them some broad latitude.

[3:20:20] So maybe we can identify with the focus on, but not limited to can you add a phrase with the focus

[3:20:25] on, but not limited to.

[3:20:28] on the second bullet prioritizing investments in safety with the focus on but not limited to technology

[3:20:34] innovation if that's sufficient to and I think the spirit of it was to give you room to innovate

[3:20:41] and come back with suggestions on safety and then we can look at it. So I believe we have a motion

[3:20:46] in the second is there any other comment otherwise you can. Well would you consider a mending from

[3:20:51] unbubroad to foothill?

[3:20:54] I actually think, if you think about the whole of the things that the vision includes,

[3:21:02] then you ask, you kind of ask the question, do you, so I completely understand what you're

[3:21:07] talking about from a bike standpoint, but would you want to extend above grade rail, you

[3:21:14] know, above grade mass transit to foothill?

[3:21:17] Yeah, maybe.

[3:21:18] But that's not what we're saying.

[3:21:20] We're saying the corridor, we're not saying transit will go up to Foothail.

[3:21:23] We're just saying we're going to look at the corridor as a whole.

[3:21:28] Irrespective, the transit is a separate topic, right?

[3:21:31] Where transit goes and where it starts and where it ends is a separate conversation.

[3:21:35] But in terms of safety improvements, intersection improvements, crosswalk improvements,

[3:21:42] we should be looking all the way to Foothail.

[3:21:48] There's nothing that stops Kupertino from doing that independently of it being included

[3:21:52] this part of the quarter study.

[3:21:57] Yeah, I think the spirit of the comment is not to be exclusionary, but to also apply a

[3:22:03] cost focus such that we have other projects that allow for that, for example, the Steven

[3:22:07] Street Bullwerd, Buffard Bike Lane Phase 3, gets us the independent of this anyway.

[3:22:13] So, I think there's a bit of that.

[3:22:14] So I'm okay keeping the motion as is.

[3:22:18] And I think we have the spirit of the comment

[3:22:21] that is actually met through other projects as well.

[3:22:25] I think the primary part of the comment

[3:22:27] was not to spend time looking at taking a transit

[3:22:30] out into the Leigh-Kawarir.

[3:22:33] So is the main concern that we don't want transit

[3:22:35] to go up to Leigh-Kawarir?

[3:22:37] So can we just then mention that?

[3:22:40] than just say, you know, we don't limit the consideration of transit to go no further than

[3:22:47] Bob, but keep the corridor, the same length, all the way to Foothail?

[3:22:53] I think the character of the character of Steven's Creek is a gocast, Bob.

[3:22:58] Actually, I think even by the time you got to Bob, but very true about the 85 intersection,

[3:23:04] although that one boy, you know, that's going to actually be something that's not here

[3:23:08] which is the same as Lawrence and Steven's Creek, it's a terrible.

[3:23:16] But I would also point out, I'm not sure what students are writing there, because if you're

[3:23:22] writing a Monovista or to Kennedy, you would ride through the neighborhood near Blackberry

[3:23:28] Farm, and we even put in that bike bridge, what is it called, scenic specifically for that.

[3:23:37] And you don't ever have to go on onto Stephens Creek

[3:23:40] to get to those schools.

[3:23:43] But I guess if you're riding to Dianza,

[3:23:46] that would be the case, but I would suspect

[3:23:48] that most parents would prefer their kids ride

[3:23:52] on the local streets.

[3:23:55] So I do want to, before we go to for my motion

[3:23:58] included, the examples for the off-corder networks

[3:24:01] to be Lawrence Mitty, Trail, and Damian in Trail,

[3:24:04] if you can please include that.

[3:24:06] that was part of the such as, but not limited to, again, not trying to be.

[3:24:11] Yeah, no, that's fine. If I can just go back for a second that map that I had shown

[3:24:15] of the Steven Screeble Art Fitalities and Series injuries, a huge cluster of that is at Steven

[3:24:21] Screeble and Foot Hill. So I feel like if we're worried about transit, let's call that out

[3:24:27] as a separate bullet point and keep the corridor itself all the way to Foot Hill. If you guys

[3:24:34] amenable to that.

[3:24:40] It's a little way that we might phrase this. So I sense that it is a bit

[3:24:44] of the character part of it as well and so I want to appreciate and respect that. So I think

[3:24:50] I feel like we have a motion that's not necessarily perfect but I think we've got the spirit of

[3:24:57] what we would like to accomplish in there. So with that I'd like to try and move for a vote.

[3:25:04] I think we have a motion in a second, and it's not going to be perfect, but let's see if we can get this to a work.

[3:25:14] So I think shared your current motion is that you accepted Commissioner Sharfs,

[3:25:21] friendly amendment to extend the corridor to Bob Road, but I think the second year needs to agree to that as well.

[3:25:28] The second year is, I don't think it was an amendment to the motion as much as I was still crafting my motion.

[3:25:34] And so that was a suggestion to make a minor tweak to my motion.

[3:25:38] So, but yes, I mean, if you want to.

[3:25:40] Well, it's all a step is clear on the motion because the original motion

[3:25:43] understood was up to Westport.

[3:25:45] And then that was seconded by Commissioner Feng.

[3:25:48] And then separately, I think Commissioner Sharf suggested this movie to

[3:25:52] Bob and that the seconder has an opportunity.

[3:25:55] If this is an issue of me seconded again, then I would accept that.

[3:25:58] Okay, so we have a motion and a second.

[3:26:00] So let us, what if we may, are we voting the lights or

[3:26:12] the motion carries unanimously?

[3:26:14] Okay, very good. I want to thank staff for their patience and promise not to keep it 11 and I think we

[3:26:21] over achieved on that front. I know our planning staff would like to be wrapping this up as well. So with that,

[3:26:28] I think we conclude agenda item 3. Thank you for our visiting planning staff. Don't be

[3:26:36] transportation planning staff if I should call you that transportation planners

[3:26:41] Don't be strangers. Hope to see you on our next set of meetings and with that we vote to staff and commission reports

[3:26:46] Are there any staff reports? No, sir. There aren't any any commission reports?

[3:26:53] Okay, if none we move to future agenda setting and future agenda items. Can we talk about when the

[3:27:03] When when will we'll see the objective design standards again?

[3:27:09] I believe there was some talk about fall, but again, this section is-

[3:27:13] This section is for new items, it's not necessarily for what was on the agenda, you know,

[3:27:19] as soon as we are able to have something ready, we will bring it back for the commissions.

[3:27:24] And as Luke mentioned, we also need to look at our budget to see what we can and cannot do.

[3:27:29] Got it. Okay, very good. So if no future agenda items, I believe we are done.

[3:27:34] Okay, sorry. So, so you have it's possible to come back when it's at an early draft I think that would really be

[3:27:42] If we can be accommodated with the budget that we have absolutely yes wonderful learned with that. I believe we are adjourn. Thank you

Planning Commission May 13, 2025

Agenda

Transcript