e e
good evening welcome to the planning and
Transportation Commission regular
meeting of November 18th tonight um we
have four Commissioners present one
commissioner excused out sick
unfortunately so um before we get
started I wanted to double check to see
if we have got connectivity with the
zoom
meeting
um good evening chair Clemens hello
hello good evening lyette is that you
yes can you hear me loud and clear yes
we can hear you is zoom uh working and
do we have any attendees on Zoom this
even evening not yet okay I'm sure folks
will come as we go all right great so we
called the meeting to order at 7 p.m. um
item two on the agenda the
teleconference requests per AB 2449 we
don't have any this evening so we can
move on to item three the Pledge of
Allegiance Al to the flag of the United
States of America and to the Republic
for which it stands one nation under God
indivisible liberty and justice for
all thank you I'll ask Andrea for the
roll call
please commissioner Bundy present
commissioner anund present commissioner
CA present Vice chair Garvey is excused
and chair Clemens present thank you
now we're on to item five on tonight's
agenda the approval of minutes from the
October 7th uh commission
meeting uh do any Commissioners have
comments or requested edits to the
minutes no okay with that could I get a
motion
please I move that the commission
approve the October 7th
2024 planning and Transportation
Commission meeting minutes thank you and
second thank
you a roll call commissioner Bundy I
commissioner
anund yes commissioner castan yes Vice
chair Garvey is excused and chair
Clemens yes thank
you okay tonight we have a public
hearing and then we have new business a
new draft plan and then a study session
so a lot of meaty things this evening
I wanted to um call out the procedure
for the public hearing first staff will
present a report on the history physical
features on the application followed by
recommendations and then if they would
like to the applicant can then present
and thereafter interested members of the
community may speak on the proposal when
all interested parties have had an
opportunity to be heard the hearing will
be closed and no further discussion from
the floor can be held the commission
will then consider the the evidence and
make its
recommendation and be mindful please if
you challenge a public hearing item in
court you may be limited to raising only
those issues that you or someone else
raised at the public hearing described
in this notice in the public notice or
in written correspondence delivered to
the city at or prior to this public
hearing speakers if there are any
speakers from the public please um and
would like to speak please fill out a
speaker card in the rear and um and hand
it to the recording secretary thank
thank you uh before you address the
commission so we can keep track of
people's names the the speaker can then
come up to the microphone and we'll have
two minutes to speak and they'll be
recorded um and that'll help us prepare
the minutes so with that we go to um a
public hearing on 782 Elm Street this is
a request for a new vesting tentative
map to create four attached town home
units with atg grade covered parking
and we have a presentation from staff
yes thank you thank you um good evening
Commissioners my name is Laura richstone
and I'm a senior planner with current
development and as you heard this
evening I will be presenting an
application for a new vesting tentative
map at 782 Elm
Street oh goodness
sorry about
that
okay um the request for tonight is to
consider a new vesting tentative map to
create four attached town home units
with Associated atg grade parking at 782
Elm a previous tentative map was uh
approved pln
2017-18 3 that map was approved in 2018
but has since
expired staff will go over and touch
upon the Project's background later in
the
presentation uh however staff would like
to note that the current application for
the tenative map uh proposes the same
map
configuration as the 2018 map with no
changes to the number of units or to the
size of those
units so tonight staff will present an
overview of the project its background
history requested entitlements and
conformance with the city regulations
and then the item will end with
questions comments and an action from
the
commission so at a granular level the
project site outlined here in pink is
located on Elm Street near the
intersection uh with Olive Street and
sits about a uh and sits on a block
developed with multifam and single
family structures
moving to a wider perspective the
project site sits about a block south of
the library City Hall complex and is
located uh two lots south from the elm
Terrace condos if you're familiar and is
within walking distance of our
downtown from a zoning perspective the
project site is zoned RM 100 multif
family which can be seen here in the
orange coloring
the project parcel is 7,000 square ft in
size and proposes a an F of one excuse
me 1.59 or 2.0 is the max um eight cover
eight covered parking
spaces uh a height of 40t 11 in where 50
ft is the maximum and is SQL exempt
under Section 15303 new construction or
conversion of small structures
so getting into the background on
December 18th the previous uh applicant
Viv was granted approval for a design
review vesting tentative map prot
protected tree removal and conditional
use permit for the subject property to
demolish an existing single story single
family home and construct uh and to
construct for a new four story for unit
town home building and Associated outg
grade
parking the original entitlement was set
to expire in December 2020 24 months
after after issuance as per usual
however during this time uh it was the
covid-19 pandemic and the state granted
all housing projects an additional
18month uh Lifan
lifespan so this uh this extended the
entitlement for this project until June
2022
after entitlement building permits were
issued in November
2020 the project was then sold from the
original applicant to the current
applicant in April
2022 and the current applicant began
acting on the issued building permits
and demolished the existing or the
previous single family structure in June
20122 after some structural revisions in
order to accommodate a stick build
uh construction type construction be
began on site uh February
2023 as the new applicant began
preparations uh to file the final
Subdivision map in
2023 it was discovered that the original
map expired in June of the previous year
in
2022 as no map extension was filed
before that original map expired a new
vesting tenative map is now required
however since the building permits were
issued in 2020 when the original vesting
tenative map was still valid the
applicant by virtue of the issued
building permits continues to have
vested rights uh and does not need to
secure additional entitlements or
approvals for the property use or the
design of the structure and that comes
from the um uh map act the state map
act so the request for the planning and
Transportation uh commission is to
review and take action on a new vesting
tenative map to create four new town
home units eligible for individual sale
and
ownership as this project is consistent
with the standards of the municipal code
the Planning Commission will be the
final approving body unless this project
is appealed to city
council seen here is the proposed
vesting tentative map to create the four
new town home units for individual sale
and ownership the tenative map includes
a shared driveway along the south side
of the property shared open spaces at
the rear and front of the property and
atg grade individual two-car garages for
each unit the map has been reviewed by
the Department of Public Works and meets
all subdivision and storm water
requirements the site plan reflects the
proposed Subdivision map and includes
the same elements such as the S driveway
here in purple landscape landscaped open
spaces at the front and the rear in
green and a pathway along the north uh
side of the structure in
blue although the design of the
structure is not under
consideration staff has included
elevations to provide the commission
some contacts for the overall project
and pictured here is the North or right
side of the project
here is the South SL left side of the uh
project where the shared driveway and
atg atg grade garages are located and
they
are highlighted in
pink here is the front of the structure
as viewed from Elm and as viewed from
Elm only one unit is
visible and here is the reare
overall landscaping for the project
includes two Street trees in front of
the project and landscaped areas
highlighted in green at the front and
the rear of the property all of the
front yard is common shared space and
half of the rear yard is shared common
space the remainder of the other half of
the rear yard uh is private open space
for the rear
unit open space is also provided through
decks on the top floor of the
structure um facing the share driveway
and you can see them here highlighted in
dark orange the deck facing Elm Street
is unoccupied and is not accessible by
any of the
units public Outreach for this project
included mail notices to residences
within 300 ft a posted notice on site
and notices and a notice in the
newspaper all notices occurred at least
10 calendar days before the date of this
meeting should the commission decide to
move forward here is the motion before
you and staff would also like to excuse
me oh staff would also like to make
a um a correction uh to formally correct
an error in the staff report and clarify
that the deadline to file approval for
this project would be 5:00 p.m. on
Monday December 2nd um if the project is
approved the original staff report and
notice had a date of November 28th
however that falls on Thanksgiving so to
allow for the holiday the appeal date
has been extended to the following
Monday thank you that that concludes our
my presentation and I am available for
any questions thank you very much Laura
appreciate it um before we go on to
questions for Laura I wanted to see if
the applicant was present and wanted to
make a
presentation great and you're with craft
builders welcome thank you great um and
so for that with that let's go to
clarifying commissioner questions and
then um and then public comments so um
I'll start over to my right commissioner
Anand would you like to ask any
clarifying questions yes I just have one
thank you for the presentation that was
very clear um Elm Street is very narrow
yes um and there are cars parked I I go
through that street almost every day and
there are cars parked on both sides
there are Big Trees so it's just um a
comment or rather a request if you could
when when these cars will come out of
the driveway either go left or right the
visibility is poor and there are blind
spots on that street so if some sort of
a mirror can be installed to assist with
exiting cars there are what eight cars
in the driveway and it's going to be
fairly like the intersection is going to
be used fairly like quite a lot with
like maybe children playing school kids
crossing so it's just some extra
assistance will be helpful on that
narrow street where the visibility may
not be the best yes um to help address
this those uh issues uh and concerns
when projects are reviewed we do look at
the site train triangle to make sure
that there aren't any obstructions
within that to make sure that your ESS
and Ingress can see vehicles and what
what have you but I also believe that
the trees have been removed um at the
project site I was they have and then um
the applicant can address if he would
like to is dra put reques great thank
you great thank you any other clarifying
questions no no okay we'll move on to
commissioner cast Ana no questions thank
you commissioner
Bundy um I think this question has been
answered but just regarding the
California Water Service right of way
that was shown just would like to hear
kind of where that stands yes so um the
original survey noted an easement for
cow water um this easement was non
plottable meaning that I didn't say
where it was on site it just that the
site was encumbered by this easement um
it was noted by our Department of Public
Works and as a condition um they added a
condition I believe it's condition
number 12 to the report to require
either that the easement be expunged or
removed from the site or that the
applicant uh
get um the a letter from calwater saying
that there are no conflicts um so that
is a condition and then I was speaking
to the applicant prior and he says he
already has a letter of approval um from
calwater but we would check that again
before the filing of the final map thank
you very
much thank you that was actually my
question which is what is a non
plottable water easement so that was
exciting um and I just wanted to clarify
that entitlements are in place they are
vested everything adhered to the 2018
laws or or we made exceptions but um
just wanted to clarify it sounds like
the map is being brought the because the
map was not recorded today standards
apply
and so the storm water regulations that
have gone into effect since
2018 now are being added to the map
conditions is that correct yes 100%
correct thank you one other quick
question is um because these are for
sale units is a condition of the permit
that an HOA was formed and papers filed
with the state is that made explicit in
the conditions for the permit or is that
just required under state law so you
don't have to really stated again so the
conditions require that um they the
applicant submit ccnr um and then for
submitting the HOA I believe that's just
handled by the state and we don't see
that um but I'm not 100% sure um but
usually we don't see the HOA just the
ccrs okay yeah all right thank you
thanks very much okay with that um no
other clarifying questions right so
we'll go on to comments from the public
public if you are joining via zoom and
would like to address the uh the
commission please raise your hand at
this time on Zoom I'd like to take the
remote ones first um once we begin
taking public comments on Zoom we will
not be allowing additional commenters to
join the queue so we're going to open
the queue for a limited time and then
close the queue on Zoom so this is your
chance to now raise your hand so you can
get into the queue on Zoom to speak
um Lynette do we have anyone with a
raised hand on Zoom there are
no there are no hands raised okay thank
you so why don't we go to anyone in the
public Chambers here while we keep open
for another minute or so the um the zoom
possibility that someone wants to raise
her hand is there anyone in uh in
Chambers here that would like to make a
comment in
person no I didn't have any speaker
cards so I just wanted to double check
all right thanks uh Lynette any hands on
Zoom there are none okay um but there
are our attendees on Zoom is that right
yes we have three okay great um welcome
to everyone uh I'm gonna like soft Sho
pedal soft pedal for 30 more seconds to
see if anyone wants to raise their
hand uh we do have one hands raised
excellent excellent thank you um so they
figured out how to do the raise hand
icon so I don't have to read this on the
screen um so uh speaker you can go ahead
and if you can identify yourself and you
have two minutes thank you it's simpler
than that this is Rees Krishna no
comment just didn't want you to worry
about it all is
well thank you for that reassurance from
Zoom I appreciate
that okay great um
well with that there don't seem to be
any public comments so I need a motion
to close the
hearing I move that we close public
comment thank you oh yeah I think that's
better stated close public comment uh do
we have a second for that I second the
motion thank you we have the roll call
commissioner Bundy yes commissioner
Anand yes commissioner castanada yes
Vice chair Garvey is excused and chair
Clement yes thank you okay public
comment period is closed and so let's go
ahead with discussion on uh commissioner
comments I why don't we start down to my
left with commissioner Bundy thank you
um I think that the findings of this um
staff report are well substantiated I
think this is a really interesting
project it's great to see the addition
of the three Net units um in conformance
with the zoning code it's a very
thoughtfully designed project and I'm
supporting
great thanks commissioner
castan I agree that the findings with
the findings um I also uh appreciate
this project and that the size of the
units is going to accommodate families
which I think is a nice feature
especially in this particular area I
have visited the site and I think it's a
very nice uh design so I approved the
project thanks commissioner commissioner
Anand
I agree with my fellow Commissioners and
I I really like the idea that this is
more so that this is closer to the
downtown which will encourage people to
walk um and pull out their carless often
and yeah I look forward to hosting more
families in San Carlos so I approved
this
project great and um my comment um is
similar um I really like how much of an
infill project this is it doesn't look
like many units from the street looks
like one unit but really we're getting
four units in that space so um at a good
neighborhood scale and um and I thought
I just wanted to commend Laura that I
thought the council or the commission
memo was very clearly written to
distinguish what was at hand today what
was not that was what was already
decided in 2018 so I appreciate the
staff work on
that um and so with that do we have a
motion thank you Laura
I move that the planning and
Transportation Commission approved the
request for a vesting tentative map to
allow for the construction of a new
4unit four-story multifam residential
Town Home Building at 782 Elm Street APN
0501
512000 based on the findings and for the
reasons Incorporated in the staff
report right and a
second a second the
motion excellent roll call commissioner
Bundy yes yes sorry commissioner Anand
yes commissioner castanada yes Vice
chair gy is excused and chair Clemens
yes thank you
congratulations um and nice project I
want to say that yeah thank you I did
want to note that the appeal period
um uh if somebody is interested in
appealing the planning Transportation
commission's action will be final unless
it is appeal to the city council within
10 days of the date of the action and
again the correction from the staff memo
is that the deadline to file an appeal
is 5:00 pm on Monday December
2nd uh
2024 thank you Laura thank you
all great so now we're moving on to new
business
and we are going to hear tonight about
the St Carlos local roadway safety plan
and the action that is before the
commission is to
recommend um or comment on the um the
fact that we would like Council to adopt
the countywide and the city um L lrsp
and the vision zero goals so that's what
the commission's as being asked to
do and we have a staff report hello good
evening chair commissioner ERS my name
is Han hushi and I'm the senior traffic
engineer with our public works
department uh very excited to be here
tonight to present to you our proposed
local roadway safety
plan um this slide uh kind of goes over
the presentation topics and it's um
somewhat uh an overview of what the plan
is itself so first we'll go over uh
defining what a local roadway safety
plan is um then we will discuss our
commitment to Vision zero uh I'll
explain how the plan was developed and
the safety analysis that went into it
how the projects were prioritized what
recommendations come out of the plan and
where we go next from
there what is a local roadway safety
plan a local roadway safety plan
identifies actions that an agency can
take to align itself with a Safe Systems
approach as you see on the right side of
the slides a safety A Safe Systems
approach um focuses on five elements the
two that are most uh commonly controlled
by uh any agency are safe speeds and
safe roadways uh the two that are less
commonly controlled by the agency but
are are still relevant to the work are
safe road users and postc crash care uh
the one element that is uh typically
handled legislatively and is outside of
the purview of the city uh is safe
vehicles but that's still relevant to
this
work local roadway safety um plan also
um identifies historical and existing uh
Benchmark uh in answering the question
of what is leading to death and severe
crashes on our roadways it also defines
a series of actions projects and
partners to help us carry out solutions
to reduce death and severe crashes on
our roadway
Network in early 2023 uh City and County
Association of government seag
uh embarked on an effort to create a
countywide unified local roadway safety
plan uh for um the entire County as well
as for the 10 cities in its jurisdiction
that did not have a local roadway safety
plan we in St Carlos are one of the 10
that still don't have one um it is now
required by a lot of Grant uh sources
that every agency has a local roadway
safety plan and commits to Vision zero
goal to be eligible so having this plan
will help us um position us to be able
to apply to a number of Grants such as
obac calr HP Grant US Department of
Transportation Safe Streets for all
Grant among others what you see on the
right is a snapshot of a comparison of
where the 21 cak cities uh kind of rank
against each other in Crash history in
the past 5 years where the study period
was
uh you can see that St Carlos kind of
falls in the middle we're not doing too
terribly but we're not really great
either in the 5-year study period we
experienced 281 surface crashes on our
roadway Network unfortunately 32 of
those were fatal SL severe injury and as
we all know one is too
many cag's um commitment to V Vision
zero collectively as a County is to
eliminate or significantly reduce fatal
and severe crash injuries by 2050 this
aligns us with state and federal
requirements and it the plan also
includes some recommendations on how to
Kickstart to get us out of the status
quo on safety on our roadway network uh
particularly to City of St Carlos our
commitment is to eliminate all traffic
fatalities and reduce the number of
non-fatal crashes by 50% by the year
2050
we'll now move on to discuss how the
plan was developed cak started the
effort by creating a very um cohesive
and large group of stakeholders in an
Advisory Group um all the agencies you
see on this slide are participants in
this effort um the staff from St Carlos
participated from the very beginning in
um the technical analysis data
collection um all the public engagement
efforts we collaborated in creating the
plan we reviewed all the deliverables
and um the final draft of the
plan uh the public was also very
instrumental in providing input to the
project I'm sorry if you're not quite
able to read everything on the slide but
essentially it summarizes all the
Outreach efforts that were done in 2023
and 2024 the St Carlos particular effort
in addition to all the social media and
virtual um efforts the inperson event in
St Carlos occurred on August 27th of
last year um last year this year August
27th of this year um during our um block
party event in downtown the public was
encouraged to provide comments in um the
engagement events they attended they
were also directed to this very cool
interactive map where they could pick a
point put their comment um on the map
where they had had concerns or comments
or questions and cag's team did a
wonderful effort they responded to every
single comment and all of those comments
and responses are attached as an
appendix to the plan uh happy to report
that city of St Carlos we managed to win
the prize on the most participation
among all the cities involved so we were
uh our our thoughts are very very well
represented in the
plan uh in the next slides um I will
move give you a a high level overview of
the technical analysis that went into
the plan uh based on a 5-year crash
history and the patterns associated with
those the plan developed a countywide
high Injury Network for vehicles uh a
high Injury Network for pedestrians and
one for bicyclists through this effort
it also identified some emphasis areas
uh that are characteristics that
contribute um and are most associated
with severe and fatality uh crashes
these emphasis areas are uh pedestrian
and bicycle safety nighttime low
visibility uh having unsignalized
intersection on major roadways um
vulnerable user groups such as a youth
and elderly uh High vehicle speeds um
roadways that are um posted as the
highest speed limits at 35 miles or
above and alcohol
consumptions uh we then uh took all
these um uh High injury networks to a
local level and identified some priority
project locations uh the three factors
that uh were used as inputs to identify
the specific locations were first crash
history um you know what locations
experience the highest frequency and
most SE severe types of crashes uh
social Equity what location and what
projects would most benefit uh
disadvantaged populations and set us for
success ESS uh in Grant applications as
well as systemic factors these are
roadway Lane use characteristics
associated with crash frequency and
severity one thing to note here is that
projects were prioritized and ranked in
each agency individually uh so that we
will not compare to other cities that
potentially have had uh bigger problems
uh so you're you're competing against
yourself um to be fair
out of those priority locations they
they then came up with a list of
treatment uh at intersections and
roadway segments to increase safety at
those priority locations the list is
very comprehensive and not only applies
to those specific locations but it also
can be applied proactively to other
locations that have
similarities um it also um picked the
highest priority projects in each
category and developed a preliminary
scope for them this sets us up for uh
future concept design and Grant
application and projects that are
identified on a local roadway safety
plan typically have carry a lot of
weight on Grant
applications lastly in keeping in line
with uh A A Safe Systems approach the
the plan also has some non-engineering
recommendations these include uh
coordinating with our partners with law
enforcement to increase speed
enforcement to install more radar
feedback signs to bring more speed
awareness to the driver uh collaborating
with our um School District to have more
education around safety on the road um
dedicating more funding to safety
projects coordinating at the plan level
more safe rust to school projects more
uh speed management around school zones
things like that that collectively
increase um safety on our roadway
network but aren't necessarily
engineering
designs what are the next steps uh cak
recommended that upon their adoption of
the countywide plan in June of this year
um they local jurisdictions adopt a
local resolution co-signing the
countywide um effort agreeing with the
vision zero goals and plans as well as
adopting a local resolution that that
adopts the local chapter in our case St
Carlos local roadway safety plan once
the plan is adopted we uh will be
eligible for for a slew of grant
opportunities which will apply uh for uh
the projects identified in the plan uh
once the projects are funded we can
start implementing them and and track
our progress on how we're doing in the
plan uh CAG has committed to updating
this plan every five years or so um so
they will um
uh shepher the effort and this will be a
living
document that brings us to the ask um
tonight from the commission uh we
request that you recommend to city
council that they adopt um the
countywide and the local St Carlos uh
local roadway safety plan uh and the
accompanying Vision zero
goals this concludes my presentation
thank you for your time and attention
and I will take any questions you may
have
thank you honey I appreciate it that was
a very helpful presentation um I wanted
to see if Commissioners had any
clarifying questions um before we go to
questions for members of the public so
we'll start down here with commissioner
Bundy no questions quite
yet Mr
castan um I have I have a question about
um the scope of the plan and how the
plan affects us as an individual city is
our signing on to this
plan um commit us to any
particular um actions or is it is it
advisory it is advisory so the goals
that we're committing to in redu
significantly reducing or eliminating
crashes by a certain
date excuse me we cannot be legally held
to it it's meant to be an ambitious goal
but we are not held to it okay and then
will this in any way we we have many
other
Partnerships um with many other
organizations involved in transportation
is this going to streamline any of that
process will will we then be eliminating
some of these
other um overlaps or something is it um
I don't know if necessarily it o it
eliminates any overlapping but it
simplifies a lot of the process for us
um um a lot of the grant applications
now require you to have an adopted local
roadway safety plan and a commitment to
Vision zero or you're not even eligible
to apply to begin with this is on a lot
of U federal and state monies um but a
lot of local monies come from those
sources as well so if we don't have this
uh we cannot apply for that many grants
out there anymore okay I I do want to
also commend you for such a thorough
report was very good information thank
you thank you and commissioner Anan do
you have any clarifying questions yes um
thank you for a comprehensive report the
one data though that I was looking for
was um some statistics related to rental
car fatalities or rental car crashes
because these are people who come from
out of state out of country um if if
they are getting confused if the signage
is not very clear it clearly means that
we're not we're not doing a good job at
kind of making this more I I saw stats
related to people of color but at the
same time we're not doing a doing a good
enough job to let people from outside
understand our signage for example bike
lens what color like maybe we can color
them as specific colors they're like
more eye-catching or or two-way stop
signs like you know so just like some
some stats on um out of state and out of
country Rentals the incidents would be
um would have been greatly helpful but
at the same time I am amazed by the by
the amazing graphics and I I would
encourage some part of it to be shared
with the over overall community of San
Carlos just so people are more aware of
this yes we will publish it upon
adoption on our website and uh cak has
already published the countywide and
individual jurisdictions on their
website along with the interactive maps
and all the comments everything is
available on their website it but we
will also make it available on our
website that would be very helpful thank
you thank you honey I had a couple of
questions
um
the you talked about you know I
appreciate you clarifying how the um how
you said that the jurisdictions were not
competing against other jurisdictions as
we assessed you know what our needs are
and um how they were looked at um and
pack at page 136 it did cite crash
history social equity and systemic
factors
um is there any frame about how much you
wait each one of those now you I
understand it's only us waiting against
our own correct but even with within our
own um each one of those categories has
a different weight so if you look in the
local roadway safety plan St Carlos
chapter it explains how each category is
weighted against the other and they did
this big big whole statistical analysis
to come up with what the breakdown
should be and that's all explained in
the countywide um chapter but if you go
to the local chapter it tells you this
carries this percent weight this carries
that percent weight and why and what did
the analysis look at and they looked at
each jurisdiction individually they
looked at each jurisdiction individually
how would you know if social equity for
instance was a big was a big driver here
should be a big area of prioritization
versus systems in San Carlos it really
is not because we are a very affluent
City uh For Better or For Worse and um
this is why it's great that it doesn't
compare everybody in one pot because
then we would be at the very bottom of
the pot I was thinking the same thing
yeah so uh for that sense we are
unlikely to win a lot of big competitive
federal grants because we don't have the
equity but even within San Carlos there
are parts that are um less privileged
than others so they need to be
considered right thank you for that um
couple more questions the there were
several
actions in the
resolution um to and what the
recommendation would be if we suggested
the council that they should say yes to
this yes to pursue all the policies to
refer the prioritized locations to
participate
um in the tsac L iag and to adopt the
plan and Implement an inequitable so all
of those issues were was that driven by
CAG resolution you're going to pass okay
that was helpful um and then finally
Vision zero plans as you said most
jurisdictions have them already or are
getting them um nobody's gotten to zero
no and so I appreciated the emphasis
areas for our safety improvements um
here and there I was just wondering if
the
plan had any analysis as to what the
problems what were the um impediments to
trying to get to zero and the places
that do have Vision zero yes so that's
where the emphasis areas are so there is
emphasis areas for the county and then
there's emphasis areas for individual
cities um so whatever is the most common
contributing factor in that City
is identified so we have a list of
factors particular to St Carlos so we
would be looking at those and how to
eliminate them or reduce them in an
attempt to reach the
Zero thanks for that um those are my
only questions any other clarifying
questions yeah commissioner Bundy yeah I
did have one question I appreciated the
robust scoping of the two projects that
were included um but noted that the Alam
was out of scope for the consultant's
and just wanted to you know is there an
opportunity once that project is scoped
to get it into the plan to make it
competitive for funding yes it will be
uh hopefully in the next round I really
tried to get it on this plan but they
ran out of budget they even tried to see
if they could get budget from less
participating cities to dedicate to it
but at the end of the day they just ran
out of money uh so that project is very
high priority for us uh so we're we're
pushing to get it on because being on
this plan means a lot in the grant
worlds so we will definitely make an
effort to get it on there next time
thank
you I have a question oh yes
commissioner um so I as I understand
that the idea is here to kind of compare
different different cities in the county
and kind of learn some best practices
from each other is that one of the ideas
of this um at the end of the
um this phase I guess we could call it a
phase when it's time to update it cak
will look into each individual agent and
see how they have done so we're all
required to track our progress and they
will do another run of the accident
numbers to see how you were now and how
you are 5 years from now and see what
practices in What cities were more
successful and I guess those will be
recommended more is there is there an
opportunity to look outside samto County
for some best practices so I'll give you
an example for example the Google campus
in Mountain View there are hundreds of
bikers there every day there are
pedestrians and there are cars so
there's something right that they're
doing so if we can like is is is is it
within the scope of this plan to kind of
learn from such Pockets um they can look
at other agencies that have local
roadway safety plans but not probably
not private entities because the there's
no statistics on crashes or uh speeding
tickets or anything like that on
Google's campus for example come under
Mountain View jurisdiction I would say
right but they they don't collect that
that data on private property um so any
roadway that is within um a private
property the information just does not
get recorded in the system okay thank
you sure thank you okay we'd like to
open it up to comments from the public
um if anyone is in the chambers would
like to speak on this um if you could
fill out a speaker card bring it up I
don't have any speaker cards at the
moment but wanted to check in with
Lynette um again if you're joining via
zoom and would like to address the
commission please raise your hand at
this time um we're going to keep that
open for a minute or two um and then
we'll close the opportunity for Zoom
folks to make comments so um right now
um we'll begin taking public comments on
zoom and then we'll close the queue is
there anyone Lynette with their hand
raised at this time yes we have one
Sonia okay great so um given that we
have no commenters in public in the in
person why don't we go ahead uh to Sonia
then Sonia thank you for joining you've
got two minutes thank you I really
appreciate the uh planning
Transportation Commission um hearing
this and all that the work the city has
done to bring this to uh this project
forward um in the interest of of
protecting everyone who uses our
roadways um I'm a oh my name is Sonia
Elks I'm a safe to school and active
Transportation safety Safe Streets
advocate in St Carlos for a number of
years and I just wanted to take this
moment with on this topic to um let your
the Commissioners and City staff who may
not know and any public who's listening
um know that we uh host this in the
conjunction with the week of the famili
St Carlos bikes and uh Service Groups
and other many other organizations in
this city we come together uh during
week of the family and this we it's
February 2nd for a road safety um
bicycle pedestrian safety um event a
family bike fair at Central Middle
School and we would love any CI any
residents who are interested in this
topic uh who want to help educate kids a
lot of kids have ebikes now um anybody
who wants to help educate and his
passionate or interested in this topic
um check out s Carlos bikes. org if I'm
allowed to say that and um volunteer for
this event to um increase because really
I think what it comes down to there can
do so much with signs and infrastructure
but we also have to have people who know
the rules of the road especially kids
who are riding on ebikes and and have
not taken their drivers tests yet and
don't know all these rules of the road I
think those are there's a big
opportunity being missed there um so
anybody who wants to participate in that
please please join us um and thank you
for taking my comment thank you Sonia
thank you for calling in and just I
would note that Sonia's emphasis it um
is tied to the plan because vulnerable
age groups are one of the areas that we
are trying to Target here in Stan Carlos
so thank you for that
Sonia um Lynette are there any other
hands raised on
Zoom none at the moment okay um we'll
just give it another couple of
seconds and no other speaker cards here
in
Chambers has uh any other hands raised
on Zoom linet there are none okay with
that we'll close the queue on zoom and
um also I need a vote to close public
comment I move that we close public
comment thank you in a second I second
that thank
you on a roll call commissioner Bundy
yes commissioner Anand yes commissioner
castanada yes Vice chair Garvey is
excused and chair Clemens yes thank you
okay now we can go to the commissioner's
comments and discussion um is any who
would like to
start we'll put it up commissioner cast
I'll
start um thank you again for this great
presentation and I do understand that
this is certainly to our advantage to be
in this County plan particularly since
it is also advisory and I think it's
going to offer us a lot of access to
information and opportunities for
funding I was particularly pleased to
see that we will be able to get
information about automated ve vehicles
uh from this uh particular by joining
this plan and um also that we'll be
getting Cal
plans and updates which I think is is
necessary thank
you thank you commissioner commissioner
Bundy thank you so much for the staff
report I really value these Regional
Frameworks I know it's not easy to pull
together this many agencies including uh
Caltrans and others and really
appreciate the time that both staff and
the Consulting team have put in to P
this together um I thought that the
number of fatalities and severe injuries
that we've experienced in the last 5
years was a really sobering statistic
and really points to the importance of
these types of efforts I thought the
vision and goals were really
welldeveloped I appreciated San Carlos
you know eliminating fatalities I
thought that ours our goal was one that
stood out as um being really aggressive
and trying to eliminate the
fatalities I thought the methodology was
easy to understand and the
prioritization process was really clear
and appreciate that sort of transparency
and identifying those projects and
pulling together the scoping and how
Equity was pulled into the
conversation um like you very proud that
San Carlos had significant participation
in the engagement process it really
helps support the the findings of the
plan um I like the menu of engineering
strategies I think that's a really good
place to go to it's a a compendium that
we can be using as other projects come
up and appreciated the the scoping of
the two priority projects so um and
finally I thought that the inclusion of
the measures of success to really hold
ourselves accountable to achieving those
goals is a really important part of the
plan so I'm really supportive and
appreciate all the work that you guys
have done
okay thank you commissioner
Anand yes um the timing of this plan I
feel couldn't have been better uh we are
emerging from the pandemic when people
hardly ventured out and now we are kind
of adjusting to a whole new lifestyle um
SOS is also a climate conscious City so
then we see like multi modes of
transportation there's ebikes there's
regular motorcycles there's cars
self-driving cars as well so I'm I'm
glad that we are creating a more
inclusive Road Safety plan here um the
other thing that makes me very hopeful
is that with the development of downtown
where again we'll see some traffic
shifts plus the new development on the
east side with new businesses coming in
where we will expect more pedestrians
and bike traffic we are undertaking this
so thank you for for your comprehensive
report and for initiating this thank
you um my comments are similarly
supportive uh I like that all the
smaller jurisdictions are banding
together to do a regional approach that
has some consistency but I also really
appreciate the jurisdiction specific
data that tells us what we need to focus
on and how we need to seek grant funding
and and direct our own Capital
Improvement dollars um with that I also
thought you know if there is a
jurisdiction that needs to focus on it
well I was also dismayed at the high
number relative to our population of
fatalities I was very surprised by that
I think it was 32 you said over five
years which you know we've got small
Parcels we have some smaller roads
there's a lot of different multimodal
activity and so I'm heartened that we
are spending resources and attention on
how to make our community as safe as we
can and I think that is also um you know
part and parcel of how we grow we have
ambitious housing Improvement or housing
increased goals and we have a lot of
businesses anticipated um for growth and
establishment um so I I think also as we
make um uh more areas more mix of uses I
think the importance of how these uses
work together and still result in a safe
Community is of primary importance so um
I uh fully support this effort and I'm
glad that St Carlos is bending with
others to do this work but getting our
work done and um seeing how we can um
access some grant funding to help with
that so thank you Ana thank you I think
with that if we could put up great the
motion someone would like to make the
motion I move that the planning and
Transportation Commission adopt a
resolution recommending the city council
approve Pro the countywide and the City
of St Carlos local roadway safety plan
and the accompanying Vision zero
goals thank you and a second I second
the motion great thank you a roll call
please Andrea commissioner Bundy yes
commissioner Anand yes commissioner
castanada yes Vice chair Garvey is
excused and chair Clemens yes thank you
thank you hania great work and good luck
with that we are on to agenda item eight
a study session for the transportation
demand management and parking reform
project which has lots of interesting
pieces to it so um looking forward to
that and again just to be clear this is
a study session and so our role here is
to listen learn advise ask questions
okay thank you um um and I'll turn it
over to staff welcome great thank you
good evening chair Clemens uh members of
the Planning Commission my name is
Rundle buos I am a senior planner in the
advanced planning Division and here to
provide um an introduction to the TDM
and parking reform
project so for an overview of tonight's
agenda item South will start with a
brief introduction to the project team
as well as the purpose of this effort
will then receive a de more detailed
presentation from our consultant team um
on the topics of parking and TDM and
we'll then respond to commissioner
questions as well as receive public
comments followed by commissioner input
and again as a study session no formal
action is being requested this
evening so to introduce the core team um
involved in this project for City staff
the project team includes a mix of
advanced planning staff current planning
staff as well as public work staff
because TDM and parking overlap um these
multiple disciplines and we all play a
role in administering these requirements
we're also joined by our technical e
experts which is our consultant team
from W trans and Nelson niggard Brian
canipa and Phil Olstead respectively and
they will also be Pro uh providing their
presentation on these
topics so to provide the commission with
some context and to kind of underscore
the purpose of of this effort um this
effort began in June of this year with
the purpose of reforming the city's
parking requirements and TDM
requirements which is transportation
demand management requirements as a
response to various local and Regional
Frameworks the first being the city
council strategic goal as shown in this
slide which is a par which I'll
paraphrase um generally has to do with
actively pursuing strategies to improve
mobility and reduce Reliance on single
occupancy
vehicles um there's also a series of
local planning documents that exist
currently such as the general plan um
and others that make reference to
improving mobility throughout the
city and lastly which the city the
consultant team rather will um speak to
in Greater detail um there are a series
of state and Regional policies and laws
such as ap2 097 which restricts parking
requirements um the CAC TDM policy and
mtc's to policy that have set a series
of policies regarding parking and TDM
that are um Regional and are causing
various cities to proactively update
their parking and TDM
requirements and as with any planning
policy effort Civic engagement is
integral to this effort so given the
technical nature of parking and TDM um
our Outreach is a bit more focused and
engaged with folks who will Implement
and interact with TDM and parking
requirements but still to keep the
general public engaged we're having the
Planning Commission itself um serve as
our technical advisory committee um and
meet with the commission multiple times
throughout this process to give the
general public um as well as the
commission multiple opportunities to
speak on this
item um in addition to the commission we
plan on bringing this item to the city
council subcommittee um infrastructure
Innovation and Improvement subcommittee
and lastly terms of um various
stakeholder groups the consultant team
has held focus group meetings um just
last week with um developers
Transportation Advocates and
professionals as well as the gesc and
large employers throughout the city and
throughout the consultant presentation
they'll be touching on some of the
feedback that they've heard at the
various
meetings and with that I'll pass it to
Brian canipa with W TR to discuss more
about the project
a little bit all right thank you Randall
uh chair Clemens members of the
commission pleasure to have pleasure to
be here this this evening with you I'll
be talking about the parking piece of
this so just a division of
responsibilities for this project W
trans is really focusing on the parking
piece with Nelson Ard focusing on the
transportation demand management that's
kind of our division of responsibilities
and duties I will also note just uh
before I dive into the presentation
where we are in this proc process right
now we are we have as you can see from
the schedule we've literally just
finished talking with some of the
stakeholders very recently and we're in
the process of completing our existing
conditions review and uh best practices
so we're really kind of in the initial
stages here and which is why we want to
bring this to the commission to get your
initial thoughts before we dive into
developing framework and strategies so
we haven't gotten to that yet that's
really why we're here this evening is to
to go over these um issues with you and
see if there's particular areas that we
should should should not be focusing on
as part of our
work so a little bit about the parking
piece of this so we are conducting a
really comprehensive review of the on
and off street parking policy and code I
mean this is also inclusive any shared
parking Provisions as well and we're at
throughout this process we're relying on
best practices um primarily around here
in the Bay Area um and looking at
understanding this in the current
context of Carlos but also the future
context given all the development growth
as anticipated with the general plan
through
2045 we are also as part of this keeping
in mind that this is not only an
exercise in local policy but
understanding Regional and state laws as
well um I'll uh renle mentioned earlier
the MTC Transit oriented communities
policy for those of you who are not
familiar with it on the parking side um
it essentially provides certain maximum
parking requ requirements that must be
implemented in order for the city of
Stan Carlos to be to remain eligible for
one Bay Area Grant funds so if those
criteria are not met as long as as a
host of other ones then you lose your
eligibility for those funds so something
we need to keep in mind and I'll be
coming back to that again the
presentation um and also understanding
that there are not only
a2097 but a whole host of other state
laws that have impacted parking in
recent years so not only the elimination
of minimum parking requirements your
transit station areas but the
daylighting law um
a413 um shared parking law AB 894 all
things that affect parking Supply within
the city um and so we'll be keeping
those in mind as we as we develop our
recommendations so again in the process
here just to touch on this again we're
just wrapping up the best practices and
existing conditions we're bringing this
to you right now after we receive your
input we'll be kind of going back back
to the drawing board at that point or
starting the drawing board I should say
and really diving into developing
framework and strategies for these
different elements with that I'll turn
it over to Phil
elead we're gonna have to keep raising
and lowering this
[Laughter]
yeah uh good evening chair and
commission members in San Carlos
Community uh my name is Phil Olstead
with Nelson nigar Consulting Associates
and as Brian mentioned we'll be leading
up the TDM portion of this work um as we
work with I I'll start with a quick
overview of why we're doing this with
this effort um and what we're hoping to
achieve um as we worked with staff to
Define our scope a number of key goals
uh and objectives consistently emerged
one the existing TDM
ordinance and program needs a refresh a
lot has changed within the community uh
uh from a development and growth
standpoint and what you all want to be
as a city and as Brian mentioned as
we'll discuss more a lot has changed on
the macro policy level uh in the region
and in the State uh so we need to take a
step back and uh update your TDM policy
and approach so that is helping your
community meet its larger Transportation
goals and quality of life goals
especially uh as you anticipate so much
future growth um uh and we need to be in
lock step with the parking side so even
though we're we're both looking at two
different things parking and TDM really
go hand inand as I've said to staff many
times before the best TDM policies and
programs are founded uh and anchored in
good parking policy and good parking
management uh let's see so on the TDM SI
what are we producing at the end of this
project there are two key final TDM
deliverables one is the actual TDM
policy in the code so this is the
straightforward the concise and precise
language you will adopt to codify a new
TDM policy and the second is what you
know we're calling uh affectionately at
this point is kind of the Playbook or
implement mentation plan uh so this is
really the supporting information that
developers or employers or institutions
property property managers and also your
staff really need to implement the TDM
policy I kind of think of it as the
how-to
guide uh much like Brian we are this is
our basic process in where we're at now
we've done some existing conditions work
some best practices work and really
checking in with you all to make sure
that we've identified all the issues and
opportunities uh with you all and our
next two phases are really developing
the TDM policy framework its specific
elements uh and then drafting those
deliverables and of course anchored in
all that or a through line through all
that is the public engagement work uh
and making sure that we're checking in
with you all along the way uh and I'll
bounce it back to
Brian all right apologies you'll see me
and Phil jumping up and down during this
presentation but before we dive into the
of the Lessons Learned we did want to
put up these these questions for you
first to kind of keep in mind and kind
of percolate a little bit as we go
through the presentation um on the
parking side really thinking closely as
we kind of move through
this excuse me thinking about how our
project can and should balance the needs
of mtc's uh Toc policy and obag funding
versus development of feasibility
looking at managing on and off street
parking for all uses um and shared par
parking and on the TDM side really
thinking through about you know what
goals and metrics are really guiding
should be guiding this process and what
measures you feel might be kind of best
suited for our work and also keeping an
eye on the end of the day about that
Transportation demand management often
requires monitoring and there is a
certain judgment call there needed to
determine the kind of the appropriate
amount at the end of the
day so we'll come back to these again so
Lessons Learned so we'll focus first on
lessons learned from our kind of
internal existing conditions analysis so
this is of San Carlos itself and excuse
me um we kind of divided this up into
sort of challenges and opportunities and
again this is not an exhaustive list I'm
sure there are others but these are some
of the key ones that we identified um
the first of which being that we we're
living in an interesting world right now
the past 10 15 years because there's
this paradigm shift that's happened
right for most
of the or good chunk of the 20th century
you know minimum parking requirements
more or less dictated how parking was
constructed and how the transportation
system functioned and because of local
and Regional and state changes it's
really shifting from minimum parking
requirements to maximum parking
requirements for very good reasons
because um of the impacts that minimum
parking requirements have on housing
affordability on sustainability on
equity and a whole host of other things
and so part of this is that with this
shift away from minimums to maximums
There's an opportunity to really look at
it and say what does the market want to
provide which is great it also is kind
of challenging in a way because it or an
opportunity I should say because it also
means that if we don't have parking
minimums it puts a lot more importance
on the public parking Supply right if
there's if potentially there's no
minimums being uh no minimum amount
parking be created off Street What
Becomes of the on street parking
so that's the first the second has to do
with this growth that we're anticipated
seeing again kind of going back to that
Paradigm model you know traditionally
developments have been looked at or
viewed as kind of a one by one every
parcel can't takes care tries to take
care of its own transportation needs
often times not very well and oftentimes
very inefficiently um because we're not
pooling our resources as best we can and
sometimes that can be difficult but need
to keep it in mind so with the
significant growth that we're seeing
here in future years we can say with
pretty good certainty that given the
growth forecasts if the city of Stan
Carlos were to develop using status quo
policies and and regulations that you
would have an immense amount of traffic
for example right because it essentially
kind of produces that sort of result and
so part of what we want to be able to
look at here are again solutions that
can be implemented where feasible where
maybe you treat things like looking at
parking districts or transportation
management association the mtct policy
actually allows for a parking District
approach rather than individual parcels
and this can lead to much greater
efficiencies at the end of the
day looking at private parking so this
is not atypical but most cities in the
US um your private parking is reserved
for that particular use um that's great
for the particular use but again it
creates um um a lot of inefficiencies
because other people cannot use that
parking at other hours um we know from
our work in the downtown study that
roughly 40% of the parking in the
downtown is private um and which is a
considerable amount when you think about
at the end of the day and that just
poses challenges for for its
utilization so what we want to be able
to look at here is well what are what is
the system what are the incentives for
creating more publicly accessible shared
parking um and these can be it be
voluntary or it could be required um I
say both ways because most people are
relatively familiar with voluntary
assured parking agreements and those
also can be facilitated by the city it
also could be required most people are
not aware of this but under AB 2097 the
City by right has the power to require
that any parking provided within a half
mile of these major Transit stops be
publicly accessible some or all the time
this provision I I believe is rarely
utilized but I do want to make you aware
of it and it's something that we want to
keep in mind as we work through
this um four has to do with employee and
Resident permits um so right now really
the only District uh within San Carlos
that actively uses residential parking
permits is greater East San Carlos um we
actually did have an opportunity to meet
with them uh the other day and it was
great we had a really robust
conversation about kind of the pros and
cons of the system we were actually very
encouraged to hear that the residential
parking permit system seems to be
relatively working well um for the most
part I think there were some comments to
say that there are areas for improvement
like a local Brewery had moved in and
there's maybe some people parking in the
neighborhood during off hours things of
that sort and so there's an opportunity
here to look at not only as this how
this permit Pro program applies here but
potentially elsewhere in St Carlos in
terms of what makes a permit program
successful how are they priced what's
the availability of permits um you know
how does this change over time and so
forth um and the last challenge I'll
focus on is basically is really the
process itself for parking management
and this is kind of a little bit hard
sometimes for people to wrap their heads
around but right now as happens in St
Carlos as many cities in the US is that
whenever parking management changes are
proposed or needed often times they have
to go to council for approval every
single change needs to go through
Council for approval and often times
this process leads to parking being
somewhat of a political football rather
than an actual technical topic um and
one of the PO potential opportunities
from this is really to shift to A system
that is not a caseby casee basis for for
Council but one which is really directed
by Council desired outcomes so the
council and you as Commissioners would
say these are the outcomes we're really
aiming for here are kind of the limits
we want to set to this so you can work
within these bumpers so we're nice and
safe and then allowing staff the
flexibility to make changes over time
without continually having to come back
when we've seen that it's often a really
great successful model used by other
communities and with that I'll turn it
back over to Phil and raise the mic
right we've also been doing a lot of
existing conditions work um we won't go
into all the details but a few kind of
key trends and challenges have emerged
um much like Brian said the regulatory
or the state and Regional policy around
TDM has changed so for example CAG
adopted their new TDM requirements or
updated their requirements in 2022 the
TOC policy also priori prioritizes TDM
strategies near
Transit you all are very close I believe
to adopting new Transportation study
guidelines that really elevates TDM as a
key mitigation element for for projects
and as part of that process alas your
TDM policy uh is out of date and not
fully in line with with some of that
local and Regional work so that's a
challenge but it's also a great
opportunity um those local and Regional
efforts really give you an opportunity
and and really serve as a catalyst to
redefine what you want from your TDM
policy again in light of the new growth
that you're
anticipating um within that context when
we look at your current code it's it's
not fully with those policies and what
we would see as best practice so the
required trip reduction is below
Regional standards it's really a
one-size fits-all policy it's of 20%
regardless of project size or where you
are in the city uh doesn't really
comprehensively speak to your
transportation Vision or Mobility
approach and services or or even parking
policy and
management uh on the positive uh again
this project is really an opportunity to
be more proactive more robust more
flexible uh we can give developers and
employees more CH employers more Choice
with the with the policy but also make
sure that what they decide to implement
will work it's not just a check the box
exercise uh and be appropriate for the
project type and location within your
community uh having a strong robust and
impactful TDM policy and program is hard
um many cities do the policy well uh but
implementation and uh and but you know
struggle with the implementation and
consistent follow-through if we don't
measure um the TDM efforts we don't know
if it's working and the best TDM
programs are living efforts uh they need
constant monitoring and adjustment over
time uh that's easier said than done it
takes time and effort uh one of the
things we're really digging in with on
staff is to really understand and find
out more about the specific process that
your TDM plans go through what staff do
what what information is most impactful
for you as Commissioners or Council to
really understand if the plan will work
um and where what are the specific
barriers after the plan is approved to
successful implementation so as we go
through the project we're really going
to explore with staff and you all you
know are there new processes that we can
try are there new tools that are
available that can really streamline
that and make that more effective um but
it will uh eventually come down to
resources the best municipal TDM
programs and policies are well resourced
um and often have dedicated staff
directly uh allocated to TDM
work uh again requiring TDM is the easy
part implementing it for the user in an
effective way is really hard a key
challenge here like many communities in
the pen on the peninsula is that many of
the TDM strategies that reduce Drive
alone trips or encourage multimodal
travel um are on the shoulder of lots of
different entities from the developer to
the employer to the property manager to
Regional agencies uh and sometimes the
city uh this can be confusing it often
leads to ad hoc implementation I think
the last thing you want as a
community uh is each project or
developer or project uh project um
property manager or District doing their
own thing uh doing their own shuttle
service or own Bike Share or own TD TMA
we need
coordination um so now it's the time
this is a great again another
opportunity for this project to really
work with all these folks to Define who
does what where and
when uh we did get our hands on and
staff shared with us about 30 TDM plans
that have been approved in the last 10
years or so we reviewed them we mapped
them so this is a map the the gray
polygons or are the footprints of those
TDM plans uh and then where they're
located almost all are within um a
couple Transit zones so the transit
priority areas for
CAG the TC areas for MTC and then a lot
of them fall within one of these key
planning areas uh within your city so
the key is how we calibrate again I
mentioned one size fits all right now
how do we calibrate the TDM policy for
these different locations and different
project types without getting in the
Trap of being overly precise or false
Precision um I don't want you to squint
too hard at this what we're showing here
is these are all the different
strategies listed in your TDM plans and
what share of projects included them so
it's a lot of different things so the Y
AIS shows kind of what percent of
projects included this specific TDM
measure I think there's two key points
to highlight not all of the ones
commonly included are always the most
impactful at reducing vehicle trips and
some of the ones that are most impactful
are often not included um second the
current monitoring process um doesn't
really allow staff to really see the
implementation details on a lot of these
strategies and how they're actually
coming to fruition so what does the
website look like what is the TDM
coordinator actually doing how many
subsidized Transit passes went out um so
it's it's a challenge with the with the
current program
uh implementation also falls to a lot of
different froes as again these are what
was stated in the TDM plans and how
they're being implemented so on the left
who's implementing them and it's a lot
of different folks and then on the right
you know how they're being monitored um
as you know a lot of them list an annual
report trip counts travel surveys uh but
you know right now staff don't really
have a cost-effective way or a system of
tools or platforms to track this down
I'll kick it back to Brian and we'll go
through some of the best practices and
what other communities are doing um to
kind of uh Benchmark where youall are
at all right so moving on from s caros
to our best practices um mostly here in
the Bay Area but again some that are not
um and the way we did this with we
looked at various communities and we
looked at it in terms of specific how
they deal with specific topics there
related to parking or Transportation man
management so for example for parking
maximums looking excuse me looking at
these communities from Alama Redwood
City San Bruno and Sacramento Sacramento
tends to be a larger example but we'
included them for very specific reasons
because certain um management techniques
they have a considerable amount of
experience there but what we found
looking at parking maximums is you know
this is again is nothing new many
communities have had parking maximums
for quite a while um and they vary a bit
you know you can see from the examples
here that for residential it can be one
to one and a half spaces per unit you
know in Alama you could have
non-residential anywhere from 2 and a
half to 7 per thousand so you have a lot
of of variation in there um you know we
at w trans and Nelson Ard are actually
jointly working on a project in the city
of Sacramento right now I'll be there on
Thursday because we're completely
revamping their parking code for the
whole city um and we've worked we were
able to use a lot of their development
data we also worked with staff here to
look at development data here to
determine how much parking entitled
projects are actually providing and we
know from at least the areas in
Sacramento that have had maximum parking
requirements the vast majority of
projects that have been built and
entitled actually do so underneath the
maximum they don't even go to the
maximum now again that can vary from
Project to project um but it's an
interesting data point
nonetheless but we did find in talking
one of our stakeholder groups that we
did talk with were developers we said
gosh you know what what do you see here
in St Carlos as being you know
constraining or not and again not
surprisingly what we heard from the
development Community was we want to be
able to build what we want to build to
whatever the market demand is whatever
we feel that market demand is and so
part of what we want to look at as part
of this process and of course we would
need to confirm this as part of the MTC
policy is is there a flexibility that
can build into those maximums and still
be in compliance with the TOC policy so
for example in Alam they allow that
maximum to be exceeded with a certain
permit we're proposing the same thing in
Sacramento as well so long as some
Community benefit is provided um in
Sacramento the cas is you can exceed
that maximum if those spaces are the
maximum are publicly accessible right so
there's something given in
return um the second thing that we
looked at was car sharing this is
something that that has been had kind of
a varying degrees of success over the
years um several codes for a while were
requiring car share spaces in different
developments um it's car sharing as we
found is very difficult to make it work
in pencil financially um so
incorporating those same sort of
stringent standards that occurred in
some codes before might not necessarily
be in the best interest here you want to
be able to encourage car sharing and we
found good ways to do that like in on
Street spaces but trying to incorporate
requirements into a city code or use the
provisions with an a2097 may not be
necessarily the best Avenue for
it looking at residential permits um now
you can see we've kind added Palo Alta
to the fifth the fifth list here um
because they've had an RPP program in
place for quite a while um RPP programs
again very significantly across the
country and within the state about how
they're implemented they could be very
strong or not one of the more common
problems that these cas studies some of
these case studies have encountered is
that they don't necessarily match the
number or pricing of permits to the
actual demand in the area if you give
away unlimited permits for example that
are free it's not surprising that there
might not be enough spaces on Street to
be able to accommodate demand you've
given out free pizza to everyone and so
everyone wants it um so some of the best
examples that we've seen in other
communities is for example limiting the
number of permits per household
depending on how many spaces you have on
street or how many households Etc um and
being able to often times price it
accordingly um such that maybe if you're
going to have multiple uh permits
available maybe it's on a scaled
approach so that if you want to park all
four cars on Street maybe that costs
more than if you want to park one or
two um but at the end of the day we want
to be cognizant of this over permitting
that's really the key issue here often
times looking at on street parking
pricing on on street parking pricing
obviously doesn't currently exist here
in Stan Carlos but it is one of the most
effective ways to be able to manage um
on street parking demand particularly in
obviously in commercial
areas um other communities have had this
in place for years and have done it
successfully so Redwood City would
probably be the most commonly known
example here um where not only did they
establish a system of pricing but they
actually Managed IT in such a way to set
it towards a specific Target Donald chup
oftentimes known as kind of the guru of
parking parking reform you know has
helped identify this 85% occupancy
threshold where it's like the ideal set
you you set your prices to um reach a
certain occupancy on street so it's not
too hot not too cold what we've seen in
programs and pricing programs that have
failed in other communities is when
they've tried to make pricing about
Revenue rather than about actual
management of parking um and so hence
theot rightful skepticism uh of parking
pricing as a practice because it's often
uh been misused in the past other places
I will note like in Palo Alto try to get
around this problem in other ways we're
currently working with the city of
paloalto right now um and you know they
if you're familiar with their program
they have kind of these colored zones
within the downtown and you can kind of
move from one zone to another so long as
you stay a certain amount of time but
you can stay all day if you pay
$15 um it creates a lot of issues it
basically it's a recipe for shuffling um
and what I mean by shuffling is you
almost have an active incentive to
basically keep moving your car every 2
to 3 hours so you know from these
examples we can kind of see the the pros
and cons of the of these
models and lastly looking at bicycle
parking I should note this is not just
about Vehicles as in cars and vans and
trucks but it's also about bicycles um
and that almost every modern code these
days has really robust bicycle parking
requirements built into it for new
developments that are coming online and
those pertain to both long-term and
short-term bicycle parking but they go
beyond that now often times going into
design standards right going into the
varing different types of two- wheeled
vehicles that are available it's not
simply just a bicycle anymore it's a
cargo bike it's an ebike it might be a
micr Mobility device um you might have
design standards that are specifically
designed because you might not be able
to reach up on a wall and be able to
pull down a bicycle if it's hanging
vertically so things of this nature that
we want to be able to incorporate and
have been done in other
communities and with that I'll turn it
back over to
Phil all right I promise we're almost
done drink from the fireos here um so
yeah we also did a scan of best
practices around uh what other
communities are doing with their TDM
Frameworks we looked at four key or five
core areas uh first was how is the
program structured
is it simply an ordinance or Does it
include a set of complimentary
guidelines uh kind of a how-to
guide second was whoops second was
applicability what projects uh and land
uses are subject to the policy versus
exempt uh do the do the policies vary by
type or location such as proximity to
Transit uh what are the specific uh
third was what are the specific targets
what strategies or items are required
versus optional
fourth is what are the metrics for
success and how is monitoring done and
by whom and finally what is the
compliance and enforcement process we
looked mostly also at areas uh in your
region and uh as well as one National
example I think it represents an
interesting approach with some
long-standing
results uh and I'll highlight a few
theme a key themes across these uh uh
cities one of the trends we're seeing uh
in terms of structure
is a clear concise ordinance
complemented by a set of guidelines that
are Standalone uh the guidelines really
allow cities to provide more detail
again it's that implementation how to uh
for the developer employers employers
property managers and staff and one of
the key benefits of that is it's easier
to update over time if your strategies
change or targets change or methods
change you don't have to go back and
update the ordinance every
time uh second is a pla
applicability U most cities tier their
requirements recognizing that projects
of certain land uses sizes or locations
have greater potential to generate more
vehicle trips and therefore uh likely
need to do more to mitigate those trips
so for example South San Francisco has
four tiers uh the highest tier being
office and R&D development above 400,000
ft they're subject to the highest TDM
requirements many es also allow for
exemptions so for example Brisbane has
Exempted 100% affordable housing
projects multif family projects uh
multif family residential projects less
than 20 units and single family
residential projects less than 10
units more and more TDM policies set a
Target threshold of trip reduction so
for yall right now it's that 20% one
siiz fits all um that can be again
tiered by or uh calibrated by the
specific tiers but of often it's a
percent reduction or a point
threshold um South San Francisco again
for example has a point target ranging
from 20 to 50 depending on what tier
your project falls into and then
projects can pick from a menu of
strategies that have assigned Point
values uh representative of their
ability to reduce trips so things that
reduce vehicle trips more have higher
Point values thus you want to pick more
impact trip production strategies worth
more points um and this really allows
for flexibility for developers who don't
want to be mandated to do one specific
thing um but they can pick and choose
the strategies for their potential
tenants um but they can't just say oh
we'll put in you know a kiosk and some
bike parking and call it a day right
there's some meat um and there's some
meat on the bones of of the of the
actual
plan uh mon the monitoring requirements
vary some are self-report by the
developer or property owner or employer
but some are more stringent and often
have staff-led efforts um the methods
also vary uh some are mode split travel
mode surveys of tenants or employees uh
sometimes we do driveway counts seeing
how many vehicles are coming in and out
of a driveway um and often there's an
annual reporting process uh aligned with
that a key point I think to drive home
on the monitoring front is that it does
take a lot of time um and it's costly
and the best programs really strike a
balance between getting lots of data
important information about how the plan
is performing but also recognizing that
it is a resource allocation challenge
whether it's for uh being overly
burdensome on the property owner or
employer or your own staff and finally
uh what happens in these cities if you
aren't doing what you said you would do
uh
most cities really try and find a kind
of a balance between having teeth and
being overly punitive um really
ultimately defaulting to be a
collaborative partner often we we kind
of call it a three strikes model you
know hey you're not doing well you're
not doing what you said you do what can
we work with you to update your plan hey
you're still not doing well what can we
do and then kind of The Last Resort is
is many cities have Financial penalties
and those can scale um based on size or
how far away you are from hitting your
target those types of things so I think
that's I think that's our presentation
we threw a ton of stuff at you I realize
um here is our questions again um
seeking your feedback on other
challenges and opportunities any
questions you had on best practices or
where we might look a little bit more
and then as Brian went through earlier
um we threw out some questions and ideas
um of where we're looking feedback but
certainly open to a good conversation
with
yall oh sorry and rendle is going to
close us out just
one thank you Brian and thank you Phil
one more slide just to bring our
presentation to a close just some um
next steps are listed here which that
we'll receive your feedback this evening
and then following this meeting the
consultant team will then start to
develop actual reforms um in response to
your feedback and our stakeholder
feedback um with the intent of BR this
item back for additional feedback um in
L later on in
2025 and lastly just for the benefit of
the public some ways to provide input
throughout this project um the project
website's listed here with staff contact
information on the site as well as the
email listed here so this concludes
staff's presentation and the
consultant's presentation happy to take
questions thank
you thank you that was really really
interesting for anyone who doesn't know
if parking or Transportation demand
management is interesting it that was
crazy interesting
um I took a lot of notes so um yeah I
just wanted to open it up to
Commissioners um with comments questions
but I think you know the major goal is
to get some feedback from us as to um
you know items that we that could help
answer these questions um our opinions
but uh who would like to start
commissioner
castanada oh yes thank you for that
great presentation um I mean obviously
we want to do an update that is going to
incorporate the changes in law I mean to
start with of course we want to do that
but I'm wondering if you could share
with us the input that you got from the
focus groups that you talked to on uh
November the 11th the developers the
large and employers and and the
professionals and and the workshop too I
mean do you have any specific
recommendations to give us at this
time I don't think we're at that exact
stage yet um staff wasn't in attendance
of every stakeholder meeting
intentionally um to provide a more open
forum for developers and large employers
particularly um I think overall the
feedback was varied with different
highlights from each group given their
interests in parking and seating
but I'll look to Brian if you wanted to
add any kind of highlights from the
various stakeholder
meetings
sure were there were there specific uh
stakeholder groups that you were
interested in or just in
general um well I was thinking of the
the large employers particularly and the
developers okay I'll I'll we'll kind of
tag tag team this some of the groups
were more interested in the parking
aspects and some were a little bit more
interested in the transportation demand
management um not surprisingly I'll I'll
speak to the developers and I'll turn
over to Phil to speak to the to the
large employers so when we talk to the
developers we had both residential and
non-residential in the room and I kind
of maybe alluded to this a little bit
earlier because we've also done similar
exercises in other communities but when
we bring these sorts of issues to
developers often times what we hear is
yes we understand these are you know the
city's goals and what they're they're
working towards but developers are often
times keeping an eye on the bottom line
um and not want
anything to uh interfere with that at
the end of the day um looking at what we
saw here there was a realization that on
the residential side that your parking
ratios for example can vary based on
your placement within the city right so
if you are closer to the Cal TR station
or in that that Transit oriented
District maybe one space per unit can
can work and it also can might vary a
bit I think depending on whether it's uh
below market rate or market rate housing
um on the non-residential side I think
there was a understanding that the the
mtct TC policy which is at 2 and a half
per
thousand can work for offices I think or
sorry R&D research and development but
there was some hesitation about whether
that can easily transition to to office
or other more intense
uses um okay the question I'll say one
one last thing and I'll switch over to
Phill but in terms of the shared parking
I think residential developers were
pretty clear that shared parking would
be very difficult to to function which
is not uncommon um but even from
non-residential developers it was it
there was some hesitancy around it um
again so I think there would need to be
adequate um protections kind of built
into
it know thank you commissioner great
question uh we heard a lot of amazing
feedback I think a couple highlights one
was definitely a recognition that TDM
and transportation demand management is
needed uh concerns about traffic impacts
partic particularly as we look towards
the amount of development that um the
city is is moving towards um it's on
things are balanced now things are kind
of working now but again kind of
concerns about you know it will that
will things get out of balance
particularly with our policy and and a
lot of the new development coming in uh
we had some great feedback from um some
of the smaller employers saying we'd
love to do this stuff but we don't have
the resources to do it so it speaks to
how can the city as a whole uh help
collaborate and help um stitch together
some programs that support some of the
smaller businesses that can't maybe
can't afford to hand out Transit passes
or can't stand up uh a a big TDM program
on their own uh I think uh others are
recognize that they this is something
that they need to do from a development
perspective but really want to make sure
that the burden is reasonable and that
the process is user friendly right now
you essentially have two TDM ordinances
you have the regional one that
developers need to go through and you
have your TDM ordinance and they aren't
in they aren't totally aligned so it's
it kind of doing two things so I think
there's a desire for a streamline
process and streamline tools to do that
and then finally I think in terms of
specific strategies there's a desire for
flexibility right don't tell us we have
to do a b CDE e for every single project
give us that menu of choice and make and
let us figure out kind of the best thing
that'll serve our tenants um I think on
the city side right you have to again
make sure that that combination of
things that they're picking is going to
meet that the meet the goals that you
all set okay so that that those are some
highights okay that's good thank you
thank you U the only thing i' I'd just
say in followup is
um I want to see as much flexibility in
a plan as we could get and that includes
with the numbers uh with ranges with you
know plus or minuses and also I think
and I think you pointed this out that
there there are going to have to be
different rules for for different
densities different different areas is
those are certainly things that that I
would like to
see so I'll let turn it over to someone
else now thanks commissioner
commissioner
anad thank you for the presentation um
I'm wondering if this project involved
or involves schools um in particular
there's a pocket in San Carlos where we
have about five schools in the same
location and it's a nightmare
traffic-wise be it public or private
transportation so how how how are
schools um featured in this project or
if they are in the scope of
this so the bulk of this project is
really focused on new development right
so we're changing the code most of that
will affect new development the question
has come up from City staff and that's
that we would we absolutely welcome your
feedback on this um is whether or not
these policies particularly
Transportation demand management should
apply to existing development very few
communities do this but it is possible
um so in terms right now the way we're
looking at in terms of schools it would
be mostly affected by the management of
on street parking right you have an
existing School we're not necessarily
proposing that they change their off
street parking but we might recommend um
different uh a different framework for
how they manage their on street parking
but if you do have other desires like
you know managing TDM programs for
existing development we'd love to hear
that as well or if you would oppose that
so does it mean that if there's a new
development coming coming up where there
is a school nearby the on street parking
uh ordinances might
change yes so I mean so the idea here
with the on street parking and what
we're kind of leaning towards right now
is to allow flexibility so that if you
do have a new development and you are in
a school zone that you have maybe
different rules and procedures put in
place than you would perhaps in a
residential area or whatever the case
happens to be so yes that that that
element would be built in thank you
commissioner
Bundy lots of topics here um first of
all I really appreciate this refresh you
know bringing together an integrated
framework that's incorporating the new
legislative requirements and the
policies and plans and parking can be
such a lightning rod issue as new
development projects come before us and
so I think it's really important that
we're really intentional about this um
and appreciate that this is like a data
driven process it's incorporating
stakeholder feedback and best practices
from around the region and and your own
expertise working across the country so
really appreciate that aspect of it I
guess focusing in on your questions I
think you're posing a tension here
between the MTC obag grants and
development feasibility and could you
elaborate Enlighten us a little bit more
on what you see as that tension that
we're we're trying to
balance sure um so to be a little bit
more specific you know I'll give you
actually firm numbers to deal with here
so when we looked at
developments um I'll use multi-unit
residential here so the mtct policy pegs
it at one space per unit the maximum and
that can be on an individual lot basis
or parking District this is only within
a half a mile by the way of like for
example the Cal Train Station looking at
the developments that have been built
within the past five years here your
average multi-unit market rate
development has 1.7 space is built per
unit your below market rate has
7 um based on those ratios if I'm a
developer coming in and I want to build
those ratios that could be problematic
right and so the the tension that I'm
speaking to here is if we do pursue and
we say yes we do want to maintain oag
funding for the city and set it at one
one per
unit um is you know we have to realize
how that affects potential devel
development feasibility That Could That
Could materialize in different ways also
because it's based on a per unit basis
you could it could incentivize
developers I don't know to build more
one bedrooms and Studios rather than two
or three bedroom units we also plan on
having a conversation with MTC to see
what flexibility is available within the
TOC policy the way it reads right now
just literally is just there's not a lot
there um so we want to better understand
for example can we build in you know
provision Serv to say yes you can exceed
this if you provide some sort of
community benefit um but that's we want
to be cognizant of this of this tension
between setting maximums that are
potentially too low um and threatening
housing Supply especially when the city
is on the hook for making its Arena
targets and other things of that sort
and are oag grants what kinds of
projects are they funding how
substantive are they in the funding
stream for the types of projects that
they cover that would be a City question
I'm not sure what um how you've used oag
funding in the
past I'll come
up yeah sorry I just can't I can't speak
to
that thank you for the question
commissioner uh Lisa poris planning
manager Advanced planning division so
the city has received one Bay Area
grants obat grants in the past to to the
tune of about 3.5 million over the
course of I'd say maybe four or five
years um and a lot of them have been
used as capital projects to improve um
Street conditions for example we
received a wbe area Grant to impr
improve a portion of El Camino Real near
the or Royo uh Avenue intersection um so
um the way that staff is looking at the
one Bay Area Grant opportunity and again
they are changing their eligibility
criteria so they've started meeting with
local jurisdictions very far in Advance
you know there's nine counties in the
Bay Area region many many cities so um
we in conversations with our Public
Works Division and in recognition of a
lot of the initiatives that are underway
improvements to the downtown and a lot
of other Capital Improvements the city
would like to undertake um we are very
um interested in making sure that the
city is eligible but we want to like
Brian mentioned have conversations with
um abag and MTC staff to see if there is
that Flex abbility but at this point um
it is um something that we're aiming
towards we think it would be great for
the city to be competitive and to be
able to get grant funding for the
projects that we need or for the
projects that we are planning for thank
you very much
yeah anything else Comm bendy yeah I
mean I guess my thoughts on that that
definitely exploring that flexibility
you know I think if the oag numbers stay
in place region wide then the new
housing stock sort of regionally you
know starts to shift in that way so um
you know by giving up land for parking
we are giving up land for units so I
think it you know understanding that
flexibility um and continuing to to poke
on that question seems like a good
direction to
head thanks um I have a a couple
questions and some comments but um I I'm
assuming for the parking strategy we may
be also looking at how the city-owned
parking is being used um and are we
doing any um parking surveys for how
much the privately owned parking is
being used and and how we can think
about things perhaps in a in a zone or a
region or small region um for you know
like a Downtown parking um plan if you
will excellent question uh I'm actually
the project manager for the Downtown
parking management plan uh which is a
separate project um and so we do
actually have comprehensive occupancy
and inventory data for the downtown got
it um we actually you know conducted
data counts on you know a few different
days several hours and so forth so we do
have that data for the
downtown for the city as a whole sorry
I'm G I'm going to back up to one of the
previous Graphics here just so you can
see it on the screen um here these zones
that we had identified within the city
you know obviously the entire city is
important and we'll be crafting or
ordinances to accommodate that but this
is really where the bulk of future
development could take place and we want
to be cognizant of that and so what we
did was we already have the occupancy
and inventory data for downtown Stan
Carlos we just completed an essentially
a review of the parking inventory for
all of these districts um and I
literally just got those numbers about
an hour ago um and so I think if I'm not
mist staken there's about 21 half
thousand parking spaces um that are um
visually accessible which means there's
more um so we do have a sense of how
much parking is there um this is data
that will be folded into the existing
conditions report because it also gives
a scale on how much
um land and resources is devoted to
parking within the city of Stan Carlos
and kind of gives a perspective on
it thanks
um you know it seems to me that with for
a city that has a small footprint tight
sites the idea of first Regional parking
um and then second shared parking it
seems kind of like a natural fit I do
think um obviously we need to be really
cognizant of what we hear from the
development community and perhaps The
Lending community directly as to what
their tolerance is for parking to day
and again this will change over time but
I I think I think I mean big picture the
um the the TOC standards in my
experience that I have looked at from a
housing perspective are really
aspirational they are not standard they
are not common and so I know they're
trying to you know drive everyone in a
certain direction but I don't
think I I do think that conversations
about being more specific and being and
getting them to add some flexibility
especially for parking ratios in
different kinds of markets I mean can
you imagine like San Ramone having these
conversations like yes they may have a
Transit Center but come on everyone uses
cars in certain places folks are not you
know all in downtown San Francisco where
they're choosing not to have own cars so
I I think it's important that they have
some more
flexibility um or or else I I just feel
like we're going to have communities
vowing and putting in place things to
get funding and then that just won't be
successful we're not going to see the
housing production that we need and I do
think that that concern is real um from
the development
Community um I think it makes a ton of
sense to copy um you know other
jurisdictions if they've got menus of
TDM options that have you know score by
impacts it makes sense to just do what
other people have done um and and to try
to do it well because if you've got the
standardized list then you're going to
get standardized data from the list
right and be able to monitor it better
so that makes a ton of sense to
me um I work in San Jose we do have and
we did um I did coordinate with our um
Department of Transportation to create
kind of a pass on TDM analysis for 100%
restricted affordable properties they
were able to make the findings for that
because um Folks at lower incomes are
more likely to use Transit and so um the
way that our policy works there is that
the um the impact is assessed and then
the question of the offsets or the
amelioration of the impact if that
cannot be afforded and oftentimes these
are projects the city is subsidizing
right and so you know you can have them
do all kinds of bells and whistles
really that's just going to come
potentially from public funding sources
um in the end um so they're assessed but
then if they cannot afford some of the
offsets or they cannot afford the
monitoring then kind of a pass is given
so it's recognizing that everybody has
impacts um I do think that you know as
we look at TDM and monitoring obviously
there are certain kinds of businesses
more able and more and owners more able
to accommodate um the costs of
monitoring and the costs of delivering
the offsets right so the I think it's
really important to kind of get that
feedback early um you know R&D versus
little small businesses obviously crazy
different in terms of their ability to
afford different um different uh
features for their
projects so I think I I do think it's I
think it's an intriguing question which
is is there something um I is there the
opportunity for some contribution from
um Community benefits dollars that could
go for you know small businesses in the
downtown um could they as an example
could the city help fund like an echo
pass or whatever the program would be
for Sam trans um and to have that kind
of subsidy for the workers in the
downtown um that the city can help work
with the regional government to um get
the discount for people so um either
with its own budget or with payments
from Community benefits agreements that
could go for these kinds of uses um so I
think investigating that is all very
interesting and um finally there are
just so many things to talk about here
so I'll stop after this but I do um I do
support the collection of some fees to
monitor the outcomes there's no way to
for TDM um and maybe for parking too but
there's no way to put these things in
place and then not fund staff to be able
to analy collect the data and analyze
the data that just that defeats the
purpose of having the program at all
right so I do support um analysis for
what it would take for staff to either
do the analysis themselves or to hire
Consulting assistants to do that in a
certain way with a certain free
frequency and just see what that looks
like um if it's spread widely enough on
and it gets to your question of is this
just for new developments are these
requirements for new developments or is
it you know more Global for the TDM um
if it's spread among more parties then
it would be you know less per party to
pay so I'm I'm kind of interested as to
what that might look like for you know
existing properties as well I don't know
I don't know how out there how extreme
that is or how many communities do that
for existing properties
but um so I you know finally I just I
think this is an a really exciting
project and I I do see how the parking
strategy and the TDM go together because
of the push and pull on the public
resources which we all have given free
of charge for parking at the curb and
parking on our streets and intentionally
not charging for parking in the downtown
and I I'm glad that we're looking at all
of it kind of
holistically and um and looking you know
taking obviously a really fact-based
approach to what works I think you know
if you if you talk to downtown owners or
you talk to Residents and they'll be
like I love my free parking right that
is totally valid and there's a
perception that it's important and it
drives business and I think the question
is um could charging a very small amount
like Redwood City does
help the cars cycle through so you
actually get more business potentially
um in you know over the over the hours
so it you know I think just taking a
fast fact-based approach to how these
are working in other communities is
going to be really helpful for us
because we all want to drive traffic so
to speak foot traffic um business to our
businesses so anyway those are some of
my thoughts this is really an exciting
project so I appreciate you coming to us
and um I personally look forward to
working some more on this as overtime as
we are the TAC I guess so that's
great those are my thoughts any other
commissioner thoughts before we wrap
yeah commission a couple more um I mean
first of all I think this idea of
incentivizing the most impactful
measures be that through a points based
system or the design guidance I think
that's um really a valuable approach and
then the monitoring is something I'm
really interested in I think you know
what is the true value of the
self-reported monitoring how burdensome
is it what are we doing with the
information like we shouldn't just be
reporting for reporting sake um so
really you know looking at what those
thresholds should be for different
project types and I think particularly
the multif family development of 10
units or more that feels like a kind of
low threshold um particularly if we're
seeing that the measures they've
included are ones that we know to have
been effective and then the other
question I think it's important to um
consider like the wheelchair users and
disability groups and how they're
impacted by these policies so just over
time if you could share how you're
getting input from those user groups um
I imagine we're already doing things in
San Carlos that are serving those user
groups and learning what best practices
are just to ensure that we're not you
know sort of I see that a lot you know
next door and whatnot as far as you know
I'm elderly and I need to be able to run
into the cleaners so how are we really
making sure those those user groups are
accommodated as we uh reinv Vision the
parking strategies so that's just
comments for the future commissioner can
I just ask a clarifying question on one
of your comments um you mentioned the
10un threshold can you just clarify kind
of your where your thoughts lie on kind
of that that level of threshold whether
it's too high too low you'd like to
see it it raise to exempt projects that
are 15 units or maybe you don't know yet
but I just kind of wanted that
clarifying yeah I don't have a number
for you today a 10un um multif Family
development that requires annual
monitoring reports I just I wonder if
that is um an overly burdensome
requirement for you know the sort of
long-term of the project particularly if
you know it's it's within the half mile
of the transit we've Incorporated the
housing maximum you know if there's
other measures that are sort of proven
um what is the real value to us in
requiring that and how burdensome is
that you know in a in perpetuity to
these developments it's a so I would say
that my impulse is that it feels low um
and that I would be interested in
understanding if there's a you know a
more reasonable threshold you know maybe
if it's like one developer who owns many
10un thresholds that's a different
question than a single developer so I
think that that's one that I thought the
burden might be outsized yeah many of
the communities that we highlighted in
our best practices have have higher
thresholds about 20 units is typically
both both the city and the CAG
requirement recognizing again that those
projects have lower impact on the
transportation
Network thank you thanks commissioner
let me I just wanted to note one more
thing while we're thinking of it um I
did have the same thought um that you
had done uh Brian that
parking standards that are go by unit
rather than by bedroom drive to smaller
units and that may or may not have
anything to do with what we need here
for housing stock in St Carlos and I I I
find that to be strangely non-specific
so I encourage us to um you know pursue
more conversations with with MTC on the
TOC and I I I know a lot of
jurisdictions are having questions um
and conversations with them and again
the level of detail on some of the
program requirements I it's not just
like do you have a program that does X
it's that you do you have a program that
does X in the following way that's
consistent in the following time like
all the many many details maybe don't
all hang together for a lot of
jurisdictions and still make a lot of um
organ you know a lot of cities eligible
for funding which I I don't I think it a
little defeats the purpose of trying to
improve things if no one can access the
funds to improve things so so I
encourage those conversations as well
absolutely we we that was one of the
questions we had for them is because it
only reads as a per unit could be per
bedroom which is oftentimes a better
judge of parking demand I will note just
for because I failed to I omitted this
in my presentation but mtc's and its Toc
policy there are four tiers of categor
so they don't necessarily apply the same
category for every Community here in St
Carlos it's tier three okay so in other
communities it could be tier one which
is like downtown San Francisco in which
the maximums are very very low um but
again I think that was their attempt to
try to match the requirements with
appropriate development feasibility
again that's I think we need to kind of
work through that a little bit with MTC
to see how it actually functions yeah
thank you for that and I I would just
say development feasibility changes
every minute of the day and so you know
to try to second guess what the market
will produce today versus 3 months from
now versus two years from now is very
hard so I do think flexibility um is
warranted and and I I would say that
housing production is really a Paramount
objective this is we've spent so much
time trying to do a housing element that
will result or like you know increase
the likelihood of more housing and we we
really need it so I have two more quick
things good good so sorry um one is the
idea of continuing to explore the shared
parking I think 40% of the units are
shared and I know that I certainly have
driven the back alleys and there's
parking that's very empty and I can't
park there because I'm not going to that
specific business so um I think
exploring that and then I'm also very
interested in that parking District
concept and would like to learn more
about where it's working how it's
working um I think I'm somewhat familiar
with Mission Rock and how they you know
Incorporated some shared parking
structures and the district approach so
it would be great to learn you know from
others how that's playing out I think
that given the um small geographic area
we're looking at that is a real
opportunity for us yeah absolutely I'll
just quickly comment on both of those
but the shared parking I think we're
going to be looking at it both from um
how it could apply to existing
development and and our future so we
might have different mechanisms for both
depending on where it is um and then on
the district based approach that's
something that we want to to look at not
only in terms of just generally Like a
downtown district and how you can better
pull your resources but also for for
existing development but also how that
could work from an MTC Toc policy
compliance because according to them you
can treat it as one big District but one
of the points I came up with the
developers is to say well that's great
let's say you have 10,000 parking spaces
that are available in the district does
that just mean that the first
development's in get to use up most of
them and then everyone else is kind of
doesn't or how does that function and so
again another toing talking point for
MTC and clarifying how their District
approach would
work right can I ask a question pleas um
I'm curious how did how does the
electric vehicle uh parking spots
feature in this whole
study sure I I'll actually um I'm going
to expand upon the question to actually
answer two there two related questions
regarding electric vehicles
generally It's relatively simple you
want to be in compliance with Cal green
standards um Cal green standards are
updated periodically it includes a whole
host of requirements in terms of number
of spaces type of spaces and so forth
and so that I wouldn't necessarily say
we're going to look at as part of your
code more than just to say stay in
compliance with that in terms of on
Street accessible disabled spaces right
now the federal government or I should
say the Department of Transportation is
considering adoption of the
public
RightWay accessibility guidelines proag
thank you Phil um and uh the proag the
guidelines there essentially determine
there's a whole host of things that
includes in there one of the things that
includes is mandating a a minimum number
of accessible on Street spaces per block
face so it's not just off street it's
also on Street certain has been adopted
by some agencies but not by the
Department of Transportation yet we're
waiting for that to happen in
2025 with the change of administration I
don't know how that's going to affect it
um hopefully we'll still get adopted but
again if it we will be keeping close eye
on that and make sure that if it does
get adopted obviously it'll be
incorporated into everything that we
do thank
you yeah I just have one final point
when we're thinking about um timing and
pricing and trying to optimize turnover
of parking that when we're considering
our downtown commercial area I I want us
to do the best job we can to make sure
that the merchants are going to have
parking spaces so you know optimizing
the turnover time so that people have
time to go can go in and park and shop
and then get out of there so the next
person can come in I think is just
essential for our downtown area great no
and and that's really one of the key
elements of this but again whatever we
propose as as part of this again because
this is kind of the 30,000 foot level
and we're talking about a framework
that's exactly the sort of input we want
to hear because you're saying that is an
outcome that we want to see right we're
trying to identify like high turnover in
these sorts of area these business
districts so thank you for
that thank you um and I I neglected to
say one more thing before we go to next
steps which is I we do hear a lot of
residents that live close to the
downtown I'm really asking about
residential permit stickers right so I I
think this is a good opportunity to kind
of look at how that how that could work
well I'm glad to hear that the gesc
stickers are working and um and I do
think it may make sense for some other
community some other neighborhoods that
align Laurel at least and maybe St
Carlos um to also be considering that
and to see if that could make a
difference um so thanks with this um
have we taken public comment we have not
sorry about that one at this point
there's no one here in Chambers for
public comment Lynette I wanted to see
if anybody as we open a public comment
um is interested in making a comment on
zoom we're on session um item 8A the
study session on Transportation demand
management and parking reform um Lynette
do we have any people on Zoom who would
like to raise their hand and make there
are no hands raised at the moment
okay thanks we're going to hold it open
for another half minute or so we'd like
to create this cue on Zoom for folks who
would like to speak and then um and have
waited to do so thank you for your
patience if anyone might like to um you
could have two minutes um soft pedaling
here uh is anyone now with their hand
raised on Zoom Lynette there are none
okay with that um will um ask for a
motion gu to close public
comment I move that we close public
comment thank you and a second I second
thank you R call for Andrea commissioner
Bundy commissioner Anand yes
commissioner castanada yes Vice chair
Garvey is excused chair Clemens yes
thank you would any Commissioners like
to um uh leave any parting final
thoughts I know we could have taken
public comment earlier I apologize for
that but any last thoughts or
questions yeah commissioner Anand I'm
just going to end with the with the fact
about me I'm a big fan of Simplicity but
I would advocate for complexity in this
case um because our it I am also a fan
of learning from other successes so
thank you for doing that but our city is
also very unique in and of itself so we
have pockets that are dense with schools
or we have more Senior Care centers or
we have a pocket line with condos or
with the new affordable housing units
coming up so just um as we review things
and as we create new ordinances or plans
um I would just advocate for being a
little more mindful of the neighborhood
as we create that just so we don't
generalize it too much and and leave
behind a certain set of populations and
thank you for all your
work yeah I Echo that thank you very
much to staff and um to our Consultants
so randelle Brian Phil thank you so much
for this evening's information
appreciate
it okay with that we are on to agenda
item nine reports correspondence and
general information um first report on
any recent city council actions Andrea
thank you uh on October 28th the council
adopted a resolution uh to enter into
design and Engineering drawings for
phase one of the downtown uh implement
exciting news moving along with that and
that is all I have to
report great thank you Item B planning
and Transportation Commission comments
or
reports none at this time okay item C
correspondence there is no
correspondence this evening okay thank
you and planning staff comments reports
and updates of current projects so just
wanted to update the commission that the
meeting scheduled for December 2nd has
been been canceled we do not have any
items for that um we are planning on
having a meeting on the 16th um where PG
is coming forward um with their facility
on Industrial um for some improvements
in that area and I believe our principal
planner um rucha Dand will be uh running
the meeting that evening thank
you thank you we'll be we'll welcome
pg& very interesting and we are on to
agenda item 10 which is public comment
um public comment at this point is
limited to items that are not on
tonight's agenda the commission may
briefly respond to statements made or
questions posed as Allowed by the brown
act which is government code section 549
54.2 however the commission's general
policy is to refer items to staff for
attention or to have a matter placed on
a future commission agenda for a more
comprehensive action or
report um so I don't see anyone in
Chambers that wants to make a public
comment
but those on Zoom if you would like to
make a public comment you would have two
minutes and you can raise your hand at
this time um or if you're joining by
phone you can press star n and Then star
six to unmute Lynette are there any
hands raised on Zoom for a public
comment there are none
okay um do we still have attendees um on
Zoom at this time we have one okay well
we'll just pause for a minute in case
that one would like to make a public
comment okay any hands
up none none at this time thank you okay
we will close that and on to adjournment
thank you all for being here tonight we
are
adjourned
e e