Also
>> We are ready when you are.
>> Good evening everyone and welcome to the Santa Clara City
Council special meeting tonight.
We are here at a special time.
I would like to call the meeting to order
with a confirmation of a quorum.
City clerk?
Clerk
confirming quorum and like to say that Council member Chahal
is virtual this >> We will be conducting applicant interviews
and appointing two people to the Commission to serve a partial
term and one full term for the June 30th to 2030 term.
So just for everyone's information,
the partial term is potentially the longer term
than the full term because you serve a partial
and then you're eligible for two full terms after that.
So there's a potential for ten years.
And the other would be two potential four year
appointments.
So City Clerk you have some information
Clerk: We had four applicants initially
and the one withdrew so tonight we have three.
Our first is in person and the other two are on Zoom.
>> Can you tell us about the process in terms of timing
for the presentations?
>> They have all been informed of this,
they each have a few minutes of introduction followed by council
introduction and then one minute closing remarks.
And then you will do your nomination for those afterwards.
>> Thank you so much, our first candidate is Barbara Estrada,
if you would like to come forward please,
since you are here in person.
Welcome, and when you are ready you can begin.
Barbara can you please speak into --
pull that microphone over to your mouth so the folks at home
can hear you as well.
You can rearrange down there, that's okay.
>> I wrote a few notes since it's been a long time since
I've had to do an interview.
Good evening mayor and Council I appreciate your time
this evening.
I assume that you have my application in front of you,
I try to give you as much detailed information
regarding me.
I've been a resident in the city of Santa Clara for 48 years,
I have served on two commissions,
eight plus commissions on the senior commission
and two plus years as the chair of that commission.
I also sat on the redistricting commission
to determine those districts.
Let me look at my notes here.
What kind of experience do I bring to this position?
I have a 40 year career in civil service as a state employee.
A big portion of my employment during that time
I was in HR manager, the last 17 years of my career I
was a claims adjuster handling large claims in the system.
The last period of time I was a manager at state Compensation.
With that, I will talk a bit about my personal experience.
I work with pay scales and benefits,
I worked with hiring above minimums, budgets,
classifications, payroll, all phases of that position.
So I am exposed to what we are here talking about tonight,
the civil service department.
As a workers manager I co-managed
a group of 50 people, staff, during that period of time.
I retired in 2009.
Only I never really retired.
So I believe that I bring good communication skills,
I believe I am able to work with different people that
have different opinions and I hope to bring that forward
to this commission.
You might ask me a question at some point
about what am I currently doing now?
I currently oversee Multi-million dollar RV parks
for a family in the area, none of them
are in the city of Santa Clara.
One is in Sunnyvale and one is in --
I oversee that process.
And you can ask me anything you want about that.
But I don't see any conflict.
>> Thank you.
As you've probably been made aware
we have some questions for you.
>> I am now.
They may have sent them to me.
I got them this evening, not because you
didn't send them to me I just don't think I saw the email.
>> We will start with Vice Mayor Gonzalez to start with the first
question for Barbara.
Vice Mayor Gonzalez: Thank you Madam Mayor
and thank you Barbara for applying.
You'll be asked to make decisions
about employees and policies, how would you
ensure that your decisions are fair and impartial and based
on the facts rather than personal relationships
or outside pressures?
>> Since have to think about this on my feet,
I kind of explain to you how worker's Comp worked,
as a claims adjuster you have the role of many facets of that
picture.
The best way I can describe it is
that I have a responsibility to the employer,
a responsibility to the doctor, a responsibility
to the injured worker, and all of the providers
that come along with that.
And I have a responsibility to my job.
If you take all of those facets together
you have to figure out how to manage that.
And I think that applies to this question.
I am a black and white person.
I don't work in the gray, I gather all the facts,
I gather the information and make the best assessment
that I can make.
And then I go from there.
So I hope that answers your question.
>> Thank you and Council member Chahal do you have
the questions?
Councilmember Chahal: What do you
believe is the most important role of a civil service worker,
and how would you balance protecting the rights of city
employees with the city's responsibility
to maintain accountability, high performance and ethics?
>> I think it goes back to my answer to the first question.
You have to understand what your role is
in each of those capacities.
And I think that if you stay true to what
you know and believe and you learn what the protocol is,
and what the facts are then I think you will always
stay true to yourself and you will represent the Commission
as best you can.
Thank you.
>> Thank you, Council member Hardy?
Councilmember Hardy: Do you have any thoughts
about the high vacancy rates of our staff?
>> I'm surprised actually, how would I answer that?
Since I was in civil service and I loved my job,
maybe I made a decision at that point that I would stick with it
and I'm grateful that I did because the benefits at the end
really paid off.
So I'm not sure why the city would have that difficulty.
It depends on what areas you are hiring for.
Are you hiring for maintenance, clerical?
Are you hiring high tech?
Depending on the departments you have high vacancies for,
but there's many things out there,
social media, just how you run the businesses here,
it shouldn't be that way.
In my opinion.
>> Thank you, my question is do you have any thoughts on why it
takes so long to hire someone in Santa Clara after a position has
been approved and budgeted?
>> Do I have any thoughts?
Your questions are interesting since I was a personnel manager
there shouldn't be any delays.
Once you have your funding and your position,
once you have your announcement that details all
of the positions, I don't know if it's how you're marketing,
I'm not sure --
I would be happy to look into that for you
if I'm appointed to the commission,
and to ask questions.
I'm good at asking questions.
And my opinion it should not be happening.
But for some reason I guess it >> Thank you Barbara.
And Council member Park you have the final question.
Councilmember Park: Thank you for applying and coming
in person.
Do you have any suggestions for recruiting new employees.
>> I think first of all you need to look at what the city is
doing to recruit.
See if there are more avenues or more exposure,
sometimes the bulletins are --
I don't want to say they are confusing
but they are so legally written that they don't present
the position, and the advantages of working for a city
or government agency.
Since I came out of a government agency
I think that they should be utilizing
talking to high schools.
Some of these kids don't want to go to college
but they could have a great career in city government.
I think social media, other facets
are maybe not being looked at at this point.
But I can't tell you why, I don't know
what you're currently doing.
>> Thank you, now it's time for your closing statement.
When you're ready.
>> I appreciate coming before you this evening.
I believe I am committed to do my best work for the Commission
and would be very proud to represent
the city of Santa Clara.
Thank you.
>> Thank you so much Barbara and thank you so much again
for coming and participating in this.
If you want to hold tight until we finish this,
you can stay here.
Our next two interviews, the other candidates just listened
to you online, so it's okay.
We will be making a decision this evening.
So just stay with us.
City clerk?
Clerk: Thank you our next candidate
is online and ready to go.
Mayor Gillmor: Go ahead please I think you know our process here.
So I hope you have the questions that were given to you.
So whenever you are ready to start we are ready to hear you.
Welcome.
>> Thank you so much, good evening Mayor and Council
and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you.
I have lived here in Santa Clara for eight years,
I started my career as a molecular biologist,
and later moved into field applications, technical support
and leadership roles across many industries.
Since then I have built teams, coached employees,
managed performance, made difficult staffing and resource
decisions.
One experience that I think translates particularly
well to the commission was my time at Roche
where I led a global case investigation Resolution
Group for supporting diagnostic products.
Why is this relevant?
Wins something serious was escalated
it was my job to understand what happened.
That meant gathering relevant data,
hearing different perspectives, separating facts
from assumptions, and reaching conclusions
that were supported by evidence not just the loudest
voice in the room.
That same discipline and scientific rigor
about gathering facts and then forming an opinion
is something I have also had to apply on the people
side of my career.
I know what it's like to hire someone, coach them, help
them improve and do deal with difficult performance issues.
I have also dealt with operational side
of that with vacancies sitting open too long
and hiring timelines dragging out, and the real cost that has
on the employees that are left covering the gap.
I have had to develop strategies to move faster
without cutting corners and without disregarding process.
And those experiences have made me appreciate how important it
is to have a process that is fair to employees
while still allowing managers to hold people accountable.
That is a big part of what draws me to the Civil Service
Commission.
At its core, this commission exists
to protect a merit based system.
So we can make sure that these decisions are
based on qualifications, process, rules,
not favoritism and politics.
I like that it requires independent judgment,
you have to understand the rules and listen carefully and ask
good questions and make a decision based on what
is actually in front of you.
The data.
Outside of work I have lived in Santa Clara for many years
and look for ways to give back locally.
I volunteer with Second Harvest and volunteer with Stem outreach
in my company and community.
And serving on this commission feels
like a natural way to increase that commitment
and my professional commitment and giving back
to the community.
I know what serving effectively means and look forward
to applying these processes consistently.
What I bring from day one is years
of experience leading people and building and following processes
and evaluating difficult situations
and making decisions thoughtfully and independently.
Thank you for the opportunity to consider me.
Mayor Gillmor: We appreciate that we will
start with Council member Jain
Councilmember Jain: You've heard this
before you may be asked to make decisions with employees,
management, labor organizations, city policies,
how would you ensure that your decisions are
fair and impartial and based on the facts rather
than personal relationships or outside pressure?
>> I think fair impartial decisions come down
to discipline and how you approach them.
Not just good intentions.
I start with the process and rules of policy that apply,
look carefully at the facts.
I want to hear both sides and ask questions
if something doesn't make sense rather than filling
in gaps with assumptions.
That discipline is something I have relied on consistently
in investigations at Roche and different groups
have very different views of the same problem.
Part of my job was to separate that opinion out
with the evidence that was actually shown, regardless
of who was making that or how serious they were.
I bring that same approach to the commission.
If I knew someone involved or had any potential conflicts
I would disclose it and step away when appropriate.
If I ever felt pressure from any direction or department
of public opinion the answer would be the same.
The decision has to be based on the record in front
of me and not who is applying pressure.
Even if someone disagrees with the outcome,
they should be able to look at the process
and understand how we got there to that decision.
Mayor Gillmor: Thank you Vice Mayor?
Vice Mayor Gonzalez: Thank you for applying.
The question I have is what do you
believe is the most important role of the Civil Service
Commissioner and how would you balance the technical rights
of employees with the city's responsible to maintain
accountability, high performance,
and public >> Thank you for the question,
I think the most important job is
making sure the civil service system is applied
fairly and consistently.
So decisions held up regardless of who is involved
or who is asking.
I understand why this includes employee rights
and accountability, in the moment someone trying
to hold someone accountable, and employee asserting their rights,
that can feel like an opposing side.
But I don't think that has to be a balancing act between two
competing interests.
I have been a manager and director for many years,
I have hired people, coached them,
dealt with performance issues and made decisions that
have affected people's careers.
Employees deserve a fair process and a real opportunity
to be heard, managers and leaders
also need to be able to set expectations and act when
those expectations are not met.
Those are not opposing goals, they
both depend on the same thing, a defined process that
is followed correctly and applied the same way each
and every time.
So maybe something like a discipline appeal
comes before the commission, I'm not there
to take the employee side or the department side,
I am there to look at whether or not the rules were followed.
Whether a person was treated fairly,
whether the decision is supported by the facts.
Thank you.
Mayor Gillmor: Council member Chahal?
Councilmember Chahal: Do you have
any thoughts about the high vacancy
rates of our staff in the city?
>> I don't have any specific numbers but based on what
I've seen of hiring through periods of high vacancy in other
teams and positions it is rarely one cause.
My instinct is that it is some combination of three things,
compensation that's not competitive
with nearby employers, many times burnout driven attrition
leads to people leaving, and how long
it takes to hire once a position opens up.
That last one, how long it takes to hire once the position opens
up can really make that vacancy rate look
worse than it is because people may already be in the pipeline
but haven't quite started yet.
I have been responsible for staffing and capacity
planning understaffed teams myself.
So I take that very seriously regardless of the cause.
The work doesn't disappear when positions are empty,
it gets absorbed by people that are still there.
And over time it shows up in burnout
and lower quality of work.
From the commission perspective I
would want to know which of those factors, compensation,
attrition, hiring speed, is actually
driving the numbers here.
Because retention, recruitment, process of recruitment
those are three different fixes and it really
matters which one you're actually trying to solve for.
Thank you.
Mayor Gillmor: Council member Hardy?
Councilmember Hardy: This is a follow up to what you mentioned
do you have any thoughts about why it takes so long to hire
someone in Santa Clara after it takes --
after the position is cleared and budgeted?
>> I don't have any specific knowledge about the Santa Clara
process to have any specifics.
But my experience with long hiring
timelines those usually come from a few common places.
And I could guess that maybe at least one of them
will apply here.
A lot of times it's the steps that run sequentially
that don't need to.
So instead of parallel they happen one after the other.
Things like testing eligible, interviews, background checks,
they happen one after the other instead of overlapping.
Sometimes it is handoffs, so a candidate moves
from HR to a hiring department for final removal in each
of those handoffs add a few days or sometimes weeks of waiting.
Even when everyone is responsive.
Sometimes it's just scheduling, getting
a panel of interviewers or background checks or start date
approval, getting that all coordinated takes
longer than the other parts of the process.
And I also know city hiring doesn't work exactly
like private sector hiring.
Testing eligible lists and other civil service protections
are in place for a good reason and the end goal
isn't to shortcut those.
But there is a real cost to the pace.
You can find exactly the right candidate,
and you still lose them because another employer moved faster.
I want to confirm which cause, or causes, are actually
driving that Santa Clara timeline specifically
by looking at time and stage data, if that exists.
Or by talking to the people managing each step
rather than just guessing.
But once you know the time -- where the time is going,
you can ask if there's a legitimate reason for it
or if it could move faster without cutting corners.
Mayor Gillmor: Last question I know you answered parts of this
already do you have any suggestions to --
improve recruitment of new employees?
>> One thing I've learned from hiring technical and scientific
teams is you have to learn the difference between what makes
a candidate want the job and what makes them step away.
I would look at whether or not the posting reflects the work,
whether every requirement is necessary,
whether a qualified candidate is spending
too long in between steps.
Public sector hiring often has more steps
than private industries, so communication matters even more.
Even if the process takes time, more time,
candidates should always know where they stand
and what the next step is in that recruitment process.
I have seen a strong candidates walk away not because
of the wait itself but because they
had no idea where they were in the hiring process,
or even if they were still being considered.
I wouldn't lower standards just to fill positions faster,
but I do think it's worth periodically asking
whether requirements or steps that we have always used
are still helpful and if they still
help us find and hire the best people
or are they just adding time?
Mayor Gillmor: Thank you so much and now it's
time for your closing statement.
>> Thank you Mayor and Council again for the opportunity
to speak with you tonight.
The more I have learned about this commission the more
it is interesting to me in serving.
These are not abstract decisions that are made on this council,
they affect people's careers, and managers ability
to lead a department, and ultimately
the city serves the community.
And based on tonight's questions I
feel you are asking and thinking hard about vacancies
and hiring timelines, so those same stakes apply there too.
I have spent a lot of my career leading people,
leading investigations, and looking carefully at evidence
and considering perspectives and making decisions
that I can stand behind.
I believe that combination, people leadership and evidence
based decision making is directly relevant to the work
of this commission.
I have lived in Santa Clara for many years
and I want to give back more directly.
I bring a thoughtful independent perception to the role.
Can I be proud to serve.
Thank you for your consideration.
Mayor Gillmor: Thank you and thank you for applying,
we have one more candidate and then
we will be making a decision.
Clark?
Clerk: Next and last candidate is on line.
Mayor Gillmor: Timothy can you hear us?
Timothy?
Are you there?
>> I think I did it.
Can you hear me?
Mayor Gillmor: Yes we can, thank you so much for applying,
whenever you are ready we are ready for your opening
statement.
>> Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you
today.
I have to apologize, I'm standing outdoors in a parking
lot because we're going to see a movie at the big Imax
and I had to jump off the train to speak with you
so excuse the background here.
My name is Timothy I've lived in Santa Clara for 14 years
with my wife and two kids.
I am recently retired for the last 11 years
before I retired I worked for Nvidia in their architecture
research group.
And I had the opportunity to join Nvidia right
as the AI revolution was getting started
so we had a front seat to the things that were going on there,
very exciting.
I love retired life, I play a lot of pickleball,
especially at Central Park, I take
walks around the neighborhood and have conversations with AI
and learn about all sorts of things, music, sports,
everything.
And I'm enjoying that.
I have a little project at home, I'm
trying to build a robot with AI that
will have the goal of wandering around the house trying to find
my teenage son and when it finds him
the goal is to tell him a good dad joke.
In terms of what I do for my qualifications, what those
are with respect to the Civil Service Commission position,
as I mentioned I worked for many years in research organizations
at various companies.
I think that helps me to look at things
from an analytical perspective, as well as looking
at things with details in mind.
I also like to document and write down things
that I do in the processes that I
take to arrive at various projects and decisions
that I work on.
I also have a preference for trying to work with people
and trying to build consensus.
So just to give you a little background
on my personal experience, I studied electrical engineering
at the University of Illinois and I
have worked for various research labs
on projects for multiple companies.
And at Nvidia again did research across various high tech
domains.
I think that has given me a lot of good experience in terms
of trying to understand how people and groups
and organizations in a corporate environment work
and what has worked and what has not worked from my perspective.
So that's my quick introduction, thank you.
Mayor Gillmor: Perfectly timed, thank you.
We have some questions for you I assume that you received them
ahead of time as well.
We will start with Council Member Pak.
Councilmember Park: City Council members
may have to make decisions involving management
and employees and how would you make
those decisions are fair and impartial and based on the facts
rather than from outside influences or pressure.
>> I think that's a good question and I think
that's of the utmost importance.
I think it really comes down to letting
people know about things.
That focuses on documentation, both in terms
of data that is considered, in terms
of the steps of siting and making certain decisions,
but also has to do with making sure people understand what
the process and criteria are in advance of making the decision.
I think when a decision is made and then
there are justifications for the decision
after the fact that's not very good for trust.
So I think being able to lay out criteria and processes ahead
of times, the only good approach is a good process
for doing things in a orderly fashion.
And along with that it needs to be full disclosure for anything
that might be considered a conflict of interest.
Mayor Gillmor: Thank you Council member Jain.
Councilmember Jain: Thank you, what do you
believe is the most important role of the Civil Service
Commissioner and how would you balance
protecting the rights of employees
with the city's responsibility to maintain accountability,
high performance and public trust?
>> I try to find out a bit about the specifics of what
the Commission does.
I don't know all the details but I
believe a big part of what the Commission does
is provide oversight for the public employees in the city
in terms of being able to hire employees, making sure
they have the human resources that they need.
That they are doing what they are
doing so that we have a well functioning full staffed city
set of employees.
Sometimes appeals and petitions need to be resolved,
and I think also the commission has a role in hearing
those appeals and petitions.
And I think in terms of being able to take
a look at the entire system, there's
a lot of work that is being done by human resources
Department of the city.
But there are strategic goals and long range things
that the city wants to do, perhaps this council also
has strategic goals, and the Commission
takes a look at those goals and sees
how well the current system is functioning within those goals.
I believe also the Commission has a role in selecting members
of the salary setting commission,
and in terms of trying to maintain fairness and trust
between employees and the city and managers,
I think a lot of this has to do with --
the word I will use is culture.
Coming from Nvidia, this was a huge thing
that was front and center at that company.
That, probably more than anything else
produced a high retention rate, long tenure rate at the company.
Because people felt like they could
work within the system and they felt comfortable
within the system.
And that's sort of what we would call the culture there.
So hopefully that's something that
can be fostered in the city.
Mayor Gillmor: Vice mayor Gonzalez?
Vice Mayor Gonzalez: My question is do you
have any thoughts about the high vacancy rate of our city staff?
>> That is an interesting question.
I would go back -- there are obviously many different
considerations for different organizations and individuals.
But going back to something I just
mentioned with the idea of culture,
I think it's interesting when we take a look at,
I'll go back to Nvidia since that's
what my experience is but I joined in 2013 when
it was a small company.
We would compete with Google and Facebook for employees
and we would always get outbid.
They would always offer way more than Nvidia could offer.
We would always lose these highly sought after employees.
But at the same time, even though Nvidia was a much smaller
company, the retention rate was far better
than at these other companies.
And the average length of tenure is far better.
So why is that?
Well I think it's two things, one
is the compensation was good enough.
Didn't have to be good -- better it just had to be good enough
that people felt comfortable.
And the culture where people felt
like I can work with my manager, I can work within this system,
I feel like people at this company trust me.
I think that's huge.
At Nvidia, and I hear from other companies,
they have NDAs between groups to make sure
that secrets stay secrets and Nvidia people were just trusted.
I think that's very empowering and helps
to help people feel like they want to stay there.
So perhaps that's something that can be promoted
within the city of Santa Clara.
Obviously it depends on your organization and the people.
But maybe that's something to look at.
Mayor Gillmor: Council member Chahal?
Councilmember Chahal: Do you have any thoughts
about why it takes so long to hire someone in Santa Clara
after a position has been approved and budgeted?
>> I think there are two main obstacles,
or two big steps in hiring.
Whether that's for organizations or corporations or government,
you have to find the people and then
you have to go through the process of interviewing
and approving people.
A lot of times finding people is -- it can be very challenging.
People may not know that these positions exist and the city
probably, the city has been around for a long time
but at a certain -- you have a certain path to find certain
people.
Certain media or forms that they look at.
So maybe the world is changing, I,
the internet, things like that, maybe there
are different forms and different media
that can be used to improve finding people.
Also, the interview process sometimes can take a long time.
Some of these things with their steps
for considering people and reaching out to people
to make sure that you can connect with them
and get the information that they need.
Other things are sometimes not as efficient as they could be.
Sometimes that could be a bit daunting for applicants.
So I think if we can focus on finding people,
marketing as part of that, and trying to improve the process
of interviewing and improving people --
approving people I think that will go a long ways to help
that.
Mayor Gillmor: Last question, you touched on this a little bit
Councilmember Hardy: Do you have any suggestions to improve
recruitment of new employees?
>> Yes.
I will kind of take on from the last question.
In terms of finding people , a lot of times we go to the same
universities or the same organizations to try to find
people.
But there are good people in a lot of different places.
There may be certain requirements
that we put in our job postings that have been there
for a long time and may or may not be appropriate
for today's qualifications or for that specific position,
in terms of having a specific degree or a certain number
of years of experience, if someone has slightly less
than that number of years they may not even bother applying.
So trying to find people, trying to think outside
of the traditional paths and boxes
that we usually use to find people is a good thing.
The city itself offers things that a lot
of corporations and other organizations don't offer.
Job stability, healthcare, pensions ,
so maybe some people know about this but not everybody.
So that's part of the marketing again,
making sure that people are well aware of the benefits of working
for the city.
There may be specific positions within the city,
or specific organizations that deal
with more turnover for various reasons.
So it may make sense to focus on those organizations building
a kind of longer pipeline, or a broader pipeline
to build up candidates that are good for those high turnover
jobs.
As I mentioned before, I'm a big believer in culture.
And I'm speaking of culture in terms
of interpersonal relationships, that's
a lot of what I mean by culture.
Having that be something that is fostered
and that potential job candidates can know
is a great thing within the city.
That, I think, is a great thing.
And I will tell you a lot of times people
quit jobs not because of the compensation
but because there may be some friction with either the manager
or coworkers and that culture can be fostered.
And people know it's their, that can
help attract good candidates.
Mayor Gillmor: Thank you Timothy, now
it's time to give your closing statement whenever
you are ready.
>> Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the council this
evening.
I have been a member of or I should
say I've been a resident of the city of Santa Clara
for over a decade now and I try to seek opportunities
to give back to the city and to try to provide some service.
And I think this opportunity, this particular service
commission is something that I can make contributions toward
and that I would be a good fit for.
So thank you for your consideration and your time.
Mayor Gillmor: City clerk, now we
have heard from our three applicants
and I don't even know how we're going
to do this because they are all so qualified and wonderful.
All well suited for the job.
We have two positions and we also
carry what we call an eligibility list.
Would you like to explain what it
means to be on the eligibility Clerk:
So if it is the council's decision
to establish an eligibility list, that
means from today's date it would be open for six months
should a vacancy occur.
So if someone resigned then we have that person there
that we would reach out and see if there's still an interest
to serve.
And if there was then this evening
you would be voting on appointing that person
if that vacancy was to occur.
In the next six months from today's date.
Mayor Gillmor: This would automatically fill that vacancy?
Clerk: If that's decided tonight.
Mayor Gillmor: I wish we had three openings.
I think our process is for each of us to select two applicants?
I don't know what other way we would do it.
If we each give the city clerk, when she calls it two names,
and we will see how that pans out.
If it works out, we are missing a council member tonight,
so if we have six it could be a tie.
But let's see if it works.
The top two would then -- the top voter would get the longer
appointment, the partial term, and the second vote getter would
get the regular term and the third would get the eligibility
list.
Does anyone need a moment to think about this?
Are we all okay?
I will tell you my head is spinning.
Assistant city clerk, whenever you are ready.
Clerk: Council member Jain
Councilmember Jain: turell, barbara
Councilmember Park:timothy and turell
Mayor Gillmor:barbara and timothy
Councilmember Chahal:turell and timothy
Vice Mayor Gonzalez:turell and barbara
Mayor Gillmor: Let's see if I'm correct.
Turrell is the highest vote getter?
Barbara number two?
And Timothy eligibility?
Clerk: Correct.
Mayor Gillmor: Can I have a motion?
Rt?
Councilmember Hardy: I move that we
give the partial term to Turrell the full term to Barbara
and put Timothy on the eligibility list.
Mayor Gillmor: And we have a second.
That was a tough decision.
I will tell you.
Everyone is extremely qualified.
I have great faith now and hope for our civil Service
Commission.
Well I guess we'll see if it passes first.
>> A pointer to the Civil Service Commission
and the partial position.
And Barbara to the full position,
establish an eligibility list with Timothy that should
a vacancy occur in six months from August 25th of 2026.
Mayor Gillmor: Are we doing all roll call votes tonight?
[Roll Call]
Mayor Gillmor: That passes unanimously of those present.
Congratulations to the two appointees ,
and hang in there Timothy in the eligibility list because things
do happen around here occasionally.
Again thank you all for applying this evening.
At 653 -- it is 6:53 we will take a short break and then
begin our regular council meeting.
>> Good evening everyone welcome to the Santa Clara City Council
concurrent meeting could you please stand for the Pledge
of Allegiance and stay standing for our Statement of Values.
I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all
.
>> As we gather we humbly seek blessings upon this meeting.
May we act with strength courage and the ability
to perform our obligations and duties to our people
with justice for all.
Let us seek wisdom so we may act in the best
interest of our people our neighbors and our country.
All of this we ask so that we may
serve our community with fairness
and respect putting their needs before ours.
>> Thank you please be seated.
Roll call city clerk .
Clerk: Before I take roll I would
like to note for the record that in accordance with the Brown
Act, governing section 49453 B the Council member Chahal is
attending via audio only teleconference
the location from which they are attending
is included on the agenda for this meeting.
Council member can you at this time
confirm that the agenda for this meeting
is posted at your teleconference location
and at this location is accessible to the public?
Let me move him over real quick.
Councilmember Chahal: Thank you, I just joined.
Yes, I'm sorry you --
I missed your question but I am joining
remotely from another location and the agenda was posted.
Clerk: And it's accessible to the public?
Councilmember Chahal: It is correct.
No one is in the room right now.
If that changes I will let you know throughout.
Clerk: Moving forward, this evening all votes taken
will be by roll call vote.
With that I shall proceed.
Council member and board member Chahal .
[Roll Call]
I will note for the record that board member Cox is absent
this evening.
Mayor Gillmor: Could I have a motion
to excuse Council member Cox?
motion by park and second by Jain
.
Clerk: Vice mayor Gonzalez?
[Roll Call]
Mayor Gillmor: That's unanimous of those present.
Clerk: Members of the Santa Clara Authority support
open authority there entitled to receive
$30 for each attended meeting.
The city of Santa Clara has adopted
a code of ethics and values and behavioral standards
for public meetings.
To promote and maintain the highest levels of conduct.
This includes mutual respect, robust discussion, and allowing
city business to be done in an efficient and consistent manner.
Please note that as a presiding officer
the mayor and chairs direction and process of decorum
will be followed and use of the gavel
indicates all conversations must conclude.
Everyone in attendance should come to order and attention.
Welcome and thank you for your participation.
For those joining us in the registered lobby
we ask you to identify yourselves as such
and disclose the clients or organizations
that you represent.
This is pursuant to the City Code.
Thank you Madam Mayor.
Mayor Gillmor: Thank you welcome everyone and good evening.
For this meeting the council is back in person
and conducting its meeting in a hybrid manner.
The public is welcome to attend in person
and the city continues to use a Zoom
feature to allow participation from your home or office.
Members of the public can still join via the link
or call in to the Zoom meeting phone number shown on the screen
now.
If you would like to speak on an agenda item
during public presentation, please
raise your hand on the Zoom application
or press star nine on your phone.
Only raise your hand when the item you want to speak on
is presented.
The staff will enter your name or the last four
digits of your phone number and I will call on you to speak.
As a friendly reminder, members of the public
have two minutes to speak on an agenda item and three minutes
on public presentation items.
And those are reserved for topics
that are not on the agenda.
Prior to each agenda item staff will lower your hand
to make sure that members of the public
who want to speak on the appropriate items.
And we will move on to the agenda.
Clerk: Council member Jain has his hand up.
Councilmember Jain: I'm requesting that we move an item.
Mayor Gillmor: Let's wait till we get to that.
And the city attorney?
>> Thank you Madam mayor.
Following the end of the council meeting
adjourned to take up item one B which
was conference with labor negotiators with respect
to all city labor groups.
And at the end of that meeting I reported out to the chambers
that there was no reportable action.
Since the chambers were emptied consistent
with our action of reporting out again at this meeting live,
there is no reportable action as a result of those Mayor Gillmor:
And we did not have one today so thank you very much.
Council member Jain go ahead.
Councilmember Jain: I'd like to move my item
ten until after consent, we have some high school
members in the audience and online
that need to go to school early in the morning.
So we don't want them to have to wait until 11:00 to hear that
item.
Mayor Gillmor: I would like to hear that after the appeal.
We have a lot of people for the appeal maybe
they'll learn about the appeal process.
Councilmember Jain: It won't take much time.
Mayor Gillmor: Counsel are you okay with that?
After the appeal?
Okay we will do that.
Any other exceptions or Reconsiderations?
Seeing none, we have two very special orders
of business this evening.
For our first special order of business
this evening, the city of Santa Clara
is honored to recognize our outgoing commissioners
for their dedication and service to Santa Clara.
So the commissioners present come to the front,
I would like to honor all seven outgoing commissioners.
We will call you out one at a time
and then we will ask you to take a group photo with the City
Council.
From our Library Board of Trustees we have Debi,
I can see you there.
From the Civil Service Commission we have Franklin.
From the Cultural Commission we have Luis.
From the Historical and Landmarks Commission
we have Michael and Anna.
And from our Parks and Recreation Commission
we have Brittany and from our Senior Advisory Commission
we have Srinivasan
thank you so much for your work and dedicated service.
I will again call you up individually
to give you your plaques.
And if you would come up here, Council, how many commissioners
do we have?
Five?
Okay, I think we'll all fit.
If the council can come down here now, that would be great.
We will call you up individually.
First first we have a Debbie.
[Applause}
From the civil service Commission,
Franklin please come forward.
[Applause]
From the cultural commission, Luis.
[Applause]
From the Historical and Landmarks Commission,
Michael is Michael here?
There he is.
[Applause}
Also from the Historical Landmarks Commission, Anna.
[Applause]
We are also grateful for all of your work
and thank you for your dedicated service.
And now we will take a group photo.
I have already had requests for copies of the photos
to be sent after to the commissioners.
[Applause]
So for our next special order of business,
it's the recognition of our 2026 mission
meets the moment campaign sponsors.
I am just going to stay a few words
and then turn it over to our staff
to give a presentation about what we did during 2026.
Because it was a lot, it was a lot.
But good evening and thank you all for being here.
There is a saying in our community
that a community's greatness is not measured by what it dreams,
but by who steps up to make those dreams real.
Tonight we get to honor the people and businesses who did
exactly that for Santa Clara.
When we set out to make 2026 a year
that our residents would never forget.
A year that would bring Super Bowl and FIFA World Cup
home to Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara.
We knew that we could not do it alone.
We needed partners who believed in this community as much
as we do.
And that is exactly what each of you gave us.
Your generosity didn't just fund an event calendar
it funded memories.
It made it possible for a family to enjoy a night
market together, for a child to stand in our stem zone
and imagine their future in Silicon Valley,
for neighbors to gather at Levi's Stadium, some
for the very first time to feel if only
for a moment that the whole world is
watching their hometown.
All the banners that lined the seats and every celebration that
filled our parks, every where the mission meets
the moment moment carries a piece of your generosity in it.
What gave -- what you gave us was more than just donations,
it was a vote of confidence in Santa Clara.
In our staff and volunteers and our residents.
And because of that confidence our city did not just
host history in 2026, we shared it together
with everyone who calls this community home.
Tonight we want to recognize the organizations that
invest in it in our community and helped
make these experiences possible.
But first the assistant to the city Manager
will provide us with a brief presentation regarding our
when the mission Meets the Moment campaign.
Have you recovered yet Alicia?
She worked so hard, along with staff, to put this together.
Welcome.
>> Thank you so much mayor and Council.
As the mayor said my name is Alicia,
I'm the assistant city manager and I
have the pleasure and honor of working with the community
to showcase the local pride through events that
were showcasing Santa Clara on the global stage
during the Super Bowl and World Cup.
Thank you.
Over the last year our community built a beautiful campaign
with the support of City Council, Economic Development
and Marketing Committee, and most importantly the support
of our community sponsors.
Who we are here to recognize this evening.
Tonight I would like to share just a little bit
about the campaign, and I will try to do it fairly quickly.
Where the mission meets the moment,
it is presented in this roadmap which
will walk us through the journey of the campaign.
So where the mission meets the moment is Santa Clara's
community centered campaign that launched in June of 2025
and recently concluded in August of 2026.
The campaign celebrates the people and places
and shared experiences and shared pride that
makes Santa Clara so unique.
It also highlights our city as we
prepare to host the major global sporting events, the Super
Bowl and the World Cup.
What you see here on the screen are five little circles up
at the top, they showcase the making
of the campaign's identity.
Within each of those circles is represented an image of the logo
and it tells the story of Santa Clara.
So when you see the green circle here,
that is the Central Park Pavilion representing
community and connection.
The orange circle, that's the microchip which represents
innovation and enterprise.
You see the blue circle here, which
has an image of Levi's Stadium and represents the global stage
that we were all on.
The pink represents the history and heritage,
so you see the image here is the peace
Rose, a nod to Santa Clara history.
And the purple circle represents youth sports, youth soccer,
legacy, pride.
Additionally, at the bottom of this slide what you see
is the campaign goals, the five campaign
goals that were identified at the onset of the campaign.
Fostering local pride, building connections,
generating global visibility, promoting inclusivity,
supporting local economy.
During several months the community
engaged in five workshops which resulted
in 160 hours of community expertise
which helped create the campaign.
We also launched two Citywide surveys,
one that identified the preferred events and the other
to understand the community's values.
So if you see here, the most popular events
that were identified early on were watch parties, concerts,
night markets, kids sporting events, and NFL player events.
All of which I can say we achieved and implemented
throughout this campaign.
But to fully understand all that was achieved this year,
this slide shows a bulleted list of the campaign events
across 25 and 26.
Wow.
It's incredible.
But what is not fully built out here, and to break it down a bit
further, are the campaign milestones and showcasing
of how those goals were achieved.
So goal one, fostering local pride,
the city hosted 16 public events in --
that represents more than one per month.
Of those 165 were directly supported by our campaign
sponsors which were a day on the field,
the stadium event which had more than 10,000 residents
and visitors that attended Levi's Stadium.
We also had free entry into the 40 Niners Museum, free kids
meals, discounted food and beverage,
that's just some of the impact from that event.
We also had the stem zone which had more than 8000 residents
attend, they participated in hands on interactive activities
showcasing tech and robotics and sciences.
We also had three weekends of night markets.
So six total markets with over 25,000 attendees across each
weekend.
And over 120 vendors at each one.
And finally, we also hosted six watch parties.
That's incredible.
I think the important thing to note about the watch parties
is that we had them at three different events, Alamo
Drafthouse, the convention center,
but I think my favorite one was the Night
Market where we closed down homestead and took over
the streets.
If you also see here campaign code number two,
building connections, we had 1300 residents
and visitors share feedback and insights with us.
Goal number three, generating global visibility.
We had 16,000 times that we, Santa Clara,
were mentioned in local media.
That's incredible.
If we also -- we also had 16,000 new people follow us on social
media.
Campaign goal number four, inclusivity.
We had 200,000 people attend our free city events.
I don't even know what to say.
For campaign goal number five, supporting the local economy,
we had the sponsorship commitment investment
of $820,000 directly into the community.
Thank you.
Now I just want to showcase exactly what
those numbers and milestones mean
by playing a little video recapping each of those five
major community events before we say thank you to our sponsors.
Thank you.
What you see here is the celebrate Santa Clara Day
on the field at Levi's Stadium.
There's a small community concert.
This is the Stem zone at the convention center
where we had tech and robotics and interactive skills.
This is our night market.
We hosted three weekends of night markets with 25,000
visitors and residents.
this is one of our watch parties at the convention center.
And this is where we shut down homestead and took
over the streets to showcase the final match of the FIFA World
Cup.
Thank you.
Thank you everyone for your support.
[Applause]
Mayor Gillmor: Thank you.
And now on behalf of the Santa Clara City
Council and our entire community we
want to thank each of our sponsors
for your generosity, your partnership, your commitment
to Santa Clara.
Your support allowed us to create opportunities
for the opportunity to celebrate together,
to experience something really special
right here in Santa Clara and to make lasting memories
during what has become truly a historic year for us
in this city.
That is why your partnership is so important to us
and we were able to make the most of these historic events.
At this time I am going to call each of you
up, if you would like to say a few words that would be great.
I will hand you just a small gift on behalf of the city
and at the end we will take a full picture
with the full council.
So if I could call up Transtech engineers,
you were our exhibitor sponsor.
Rafael Diaz, the executive director, please come forward.
>> Good evening mayor and vice mayor and members of city
Council and city staff I am an engineer and one
of the directors at Transtech engineers.
We are a full service municipal engineering consulting firm.
At Transtech we truly do believe in the value
of supporting events that bring communities together.
And I think that is exactly what this campaign did, where
the mission meets the moment.
We are truly honored to be a part of that.
And actually we want to thank you
for allowing us and giving us the opportunity
to be a part of your community in this way.
So we look forward to future years
of still supporting and bringing that partnership together.
So thank you, thank you to the city of Santa Clara.
[Applause]
Mayor Gillmor: I can't figure it out,
I've only been here 30 years.
Our second sponsor our exhibitor sponsor,
we have the vice president of clinical planning for Sutter
Health, would you like to come forward and say a few words?
>> Good evening on behalf of Sutter Health I want to thank
you for this recognition and for the opportunity to be a part
of such an amazing year for the city of Santa Clara.
We are honored to support initiatives like the Night
market and stem zone and where the mission meets the moment
campaign because they celebrate what truly
makes Santa Clara special.
Innovation, diversity, community pride and a shared vision
for the future.
This year Santa Clara welcomed the world
through Super Bowl 60 and the FIFA World Cup.
As the city stepped onto the global stage
it showcased not only its accomplishments but also
its character.
Sutter Health was proud to stand alongside the city of Santa
Clara in supporting that success.
Our partnership is built on a shared belief
that strong communities are created
when organizations work together toward a common purpose.
Sutter Health is committed to investing in Santa Clara's
future, expanding health care access
with new ambulatory and special care clinics
as well as advancing plans for the new Sutter Santa Clara
Medical Center.
Together these investments will bring care closer to home
and enhance services for residents throughout the region.
Investing in the future means more than just building
facilities, it means investing in people.
Through the mark and Mary Stevens School
of Medicine, that's the first one in the last century
to be coming to California, in partnership with Santa Clara
University, we're going to help train the next generation
of physicians to serve across California for generations
to come.
We also recognize that health begins
in our neighborhoods and schools and places and communities.
That's why we continue to partner
with local government, educational institutions
and nonprofit organizations to advance
food security, behavioral health services, workforce development,
illness prevention and equitable access to care.
Together these efforts reflect our commitment
to Santa Clara as a long term community stakeholder partner.
Representing a shared investment in the health and vitality
and success of the community.
As we look ahead we see tremendous opportunity,
by working together we continue to build
a healthier and stronger and more resilient
Santa Clara for future generations.
Thank you to the City Council for this honor
and thank you to your partnership and collaboration
for the shared future of our community.
[Applause]
Mayor Gillmor: Next is a familiar name
in Santa Clara the Morley brothers, Eric
Morley the co-founder principal would
you like to come forward and say a few words?
>> Thank you mayor and vice mayor and Council,
on behalf of my brother and business partner Sean
and the entire Morley Brothers team,
it's an honor to be recognized here tonight, this evening.
Where the mission meets the moment
was built on a simple idea.
A cumulative campaign is only as good
as the people that had actually reaches.
When Santa Clara was on the global stage this year
it became very clear, and evident
that this campaign became, and it always was
and it fulfilled a resident first vision.
That was wonderful to see.
Neighbors showing up for and with neighbors.
It truly defines Santa Clara and its sense of community
and also its sense of place.
The credit for all of that belongs
with the City Council for its vision
but also the professional staff and the volunteers who
implemented that effort.
Our partnership has spanned more than 25 years now
with the City of Santa Clara.
We are grateful for that partnership and we are looking
forward to the next part -- chapter in that with more
investment in the community and more celebration and more
moments like this one.
After seeing the roll up and the overview,
I can only say one more thing and that
is mission accomplished.
Thank you.
[Applause]
Mayor Gillmor: Next we have Intel
which was our silver sponsor, they sponsored our stem zone.
We have Margarita laid the facilities and engineering
and operations director with us today.
Margarita please come forward.
>> Mayor and council members , on behalf of Intel we are
honored to be a part of this campaign.
Intel and Santa Clara have grown together for almost 60 years,
from our earliest days this city has
been more than a place of business
it has been a true partner in innovation and growth
and community.
We are proud of the role that Intel
has played in helping shape Silicon Valley.
We know that none of this happens alone,
it happens because of strong partnerships and a shared
commitment to a better future.
That is why this campaign is so meaningful,
it celebrates the people and organizations
and partnerships that help move our community forward.
We are grateful to the city for this recognition
and for the relationship that we have built together
over the years.
Thank you for including Intel in this important campaign
to bring neighbors together to support community.
We are honored to be part of this story
and we are for what we will continue to accomplish together.
Thank you.
[Applause]
Mayor Gillmor: Next we have Prologis
which was our silver sponsor for the celebrate Santa Clara day,
a day on the field event and we have one of their investment
officers.
Please come >> Good evening mayor and members
of City Council and city staff and members of the Santa Clara
community.
Thank you for the recognition, we
are honored to support the cities where the mission meets
the Moment campaign and to celebrate Santa Clara as a world
class city.
This has been truly a historic year for Santa Clara,
hosting the Super Bowl and the World Cup
brought the attention of the world to this community
and what made this campaign meaningful
was it also created opportunities
for Santa Clara residents to be a part of this excitement.
The day on the field was a wonderful example,
more than 15,000 people came together at Levi's Stadium,
not simply as spectators but as a community.
We were particularly proud that our support
helped the city provide free meals for the kids
and made the celebration more accessible to families
throughout the city.
We believe our responsibility extends beyond the properties
that we build and own and operate,
we want to be an active and constructive partner
in the communities that we do business in.
That means listening and participating in and supporting
programs that bring people together
to bring lasting value to build a closer community.
We are grateful to the Mayor and City Council and City
Manager and the entire city staff
for giving this opportunity to contribute.
We value our relationship with Santa Clara
and look forward to continuing working together in the years
ahead.
What really brought me to excitement
about this particular program was seeing everyone
on the field.
I think before you said 10,000, I counted 15,000,
it was great to see all of the smiling faces, whether it was --
let's just say 30,000.
Thank you again for the recognition and congratulations
to everyone who worked to make this campaign a success.
Hopefully the staff gets some credit
because that was a lot of work.
[Applause]
Mayor Gillmor: For our final sponsor
we have our platinum sponsor, which was Devcon.
Before you come up I am going to take some personal privilege
and say a few words about you Gary because this is not
your first sponsorship of major events in the city of Santa
Clara.
You sponsored a huge event for us for Super Bowl 50,
it was the Huey Lewis concert at Santa Clara University
if anyone remembers ten years ago.
You were so generous and you sponsored that event
and really stepped up this time and became our platinum sponsor.
I just want to take a few moments to recognize someone
who's generosity is truly remarkable,
and whose generosity is both from his company and personally
donating to the city.
Gary is the owner of Devcon and is our top platinum sponsor.
Gary your story is Santa Clara's story.
You were raised here, you went to school here,
and you have never forgotten where you came from.
When you stepped up to fund all of our World Cup watch parties
this year, and it was so fun, I hugged and kissed
people I have never seen before, because I love soccer.
But anyways, you didn't just write
a check you gave your hometown a place
to gather and cheer and celebrate together
as one community.
Because of you families who could not
get through the gates at Levi's Stadium still
got to feel the roar of the crowd,
still got to share the excitement of the World Cup
right here at home.
And that is what it means to invest
in the places that raised you.
Gary, on behalf of the entire city,
thank you for your generosity from both your company
and personally, and thank you for your hometown pride,
and for making sure that this moment belonged
to every resident of Santa Clara,
not just the ones with a ticket in hand.
So I know you love to make big political speeches.
If you would like to come forward and say a few words
we would be honored to.
Thank you Gary.
>> Thank you very much mayor, I don't think I have much to say,
but thank you Council for the appreciation that you're showing
us tonight.
Me and the other people here with me.
Santa Clara is obviously --
Devcon is a pretty big company and we
work in Santa Clara, what motivated
me to give to this cause is I went to Santa Clara High
School and Santa Clara University
and my heart and my spirit is really with this city.
Even though Devcon has done some pretty iconic projects here,
we built the stadium, we're doing a bunch of work for Nvidia
which have some iconic buildings.
We've also done all of the buildings at Santa Clara
University forever.
I was just happy to be able to give back
to the community that I was raised in,
and the fact that I was going to be able to make it a fun
night and a fun week actually, for all the residents of Santa
Clara.
I grew up here, and it helped form me as a man
and I wanted to give something back.
And I was glad to be able to do that.
So thank you for the recognition.
[Applause]
Mayor Gillmor: Gary I know you donated to San Jose as well
but make sure you tell that mayor
that Santa Clara is your favorite city.
Make sure you do that.
And on behalf of the city of Santa Clara,
we received a donation from FIFA when
we went to the mayor's conference in January
we were sent 200 soccer balls.
So they are sitting in my office but we blew them up today
and we're going to give you each,
you're the first to receive soccer balls on behalf
of the city.
So do we have those?
And I'll invite you forward to take a photo
with our entire city council.
But you have to hold the ball.
Mayor Gillmor: I guess we have to go on
with the rest of the meeting.
The fun is over everyone.
No, we always have a good time here.
The next item that we have on the agenda
is the consent calendar, all items
are approved with one motion unless a council member
or a member of the public would like
to pull an item from the consent calendar.
I am going to be abstaining on item three B which
is action on Historical Preservation Agreement for 1261
Jackson Street.
My office is very close to that, so I will be recusing myself
from that item.
I want to pull item three E, because when the city
staff prepared this report they did not
know I was going to the League of California Cities Conference.
And I have an item on number four,
I'm not pulling that but my comment
is they are regular meeting minutes
but they have like a three word sentence for each meeting that
tells us absolutely nothing.
I think we can do better in the future for the stadium authority
manager meeting minutes.
Vice records office?
Can you turn on your microphone?
Rest of the consent calendar?
Hardy?
We have a motion and a second.
City Clerk noting the items that I recused and pulled.
Anyone from the audience?
Okay go ahead city clerk.
Clerk: This includes the stadium minutes correct?
So Council member Chahal?
[Roll Call]
Mayor Gillmor: Noting my abstentions,
that passes unanimously of those present.
Moving on, hold on a second.
That brings us to public presentations.
Do we have any public presentations?
Howard?
Please come forward.
Howard was here, where is he?
Clerk: We just got another speaker card, so let me --
Mayor Gillmor: Here he is, Howard you are up.
That's okay, we forgive you.
>> I guess it's not part of it, but I was part of the economic
development, I guess everything's over.
But it's kind of neat to watch how the sausage is
made as they say.
I'd like to see more people get involved with the city,
and the different things that went on.
So many people lucked out on seeing some of this stuff
and on voting what's going to happen.
It's cool to be part of that.
And it's nice to see the guys who put up the big money
and made that come to be.
I'm not complaining about much tonight except I'm still asking
for our buddy up there in the first district to get some
parking comments getting cut out and losing parking .
And I make my money off those people so when it's down
I'm down.
So hopefully we can get that reliant parking lot
opened back up for commuters.
They're not utilizing the land, so maybe the city
will start utilizing it again for themselves.
But anyway, Albert wake up.
District one.
I don't have much more to say.
Thank you for your time.
Mayor Gillmor: Thank you Howard, next we have Chris.
Chris come forward.
>> Thank you mayor Gillmor and Council.
This is a follow up to what I brought you last week so this
is only three minutes so I guess this is a two part presentation.
I think we all know that when candidates run for office
it is optional whether they choose
to have a ballot designation on the ballot or not.
So the only purpose that there's a ballot designation is
a political choice made by the candidate,
and there are restrictions on what they can put on or can't.
That's their choice, if they don't want a ballot designation
they don't have to have one.
As I shared last week a comment I'm going to share it again
but the pass out that I gave to you, which
the assistant clerk was helping me surface last Friday.
Under the California Code of Regulations 20716,
unacceptable ballot designations,
a candidate may not use the word retired in his or her ballot
designation if that candidate possesses
another more recent intervening principle profession
or occupation.
So why is that relevant?
It's relevant because in this race
one of the candidates for mayor, Gary Ferraris
submitted his request for a ballot designation.
I have copies of it now, you can look at it directly,
there had been some questions brought up last week in terms
of the city clerk himself trying to talk to me after I presented
and saying that nobody knows exactly what he
does or doesn't do.
And frankly I feel gaslit.
And I would hope that the Council and the city residents
do as well because the actual form itself that Gary signed.
Is not illegal, I'm not accusing him of doing anything wrong,
but you can see he put down his three choices in order.
His first choice putting down his labor president supervisor,
second choice retired city employee,
and third choice is his current full time position
which he has had for more than two years, labor representative.
If you flip over to the second page
and look at the very bottom, there is red ink that is there.
And again this is the city's document, not mine.
There have been questions last week about whether or not
the California Code of Regulations
is applicable at all to the city of Santa Clara.
Well the city of Santa Clara City Clerk's office
obviously considers that it is because if you read their
for your reference attached is the election code sections,
it lists some of document, those.
And not the mine.
There were questions last week about
whether or not the California Co regulations is applicable at all
to the city of Santa Clara.
The city of Santa Clara City Clerk's office
considers it is because if you read, for your reference,
attached to our elections codes sections
and it gives some of those and California Code of Regulations,
CCR title two section 20711, which
is part of the section between 2710 and 2719, you go on
and it says you also may wish to consult CCR title two sections
and it's right there.
20712220719.
20716 which I provided for the second week in the attachment
is obviously the city Clerk's office is saying
of course this is relevant.
The argument that it's not relevant --
I consider that a concern.
The deeper concern and reason I'm here talking to you --
I know the city clerk is not your employee.
You don't have any direct oversight.
The city attorney is your employee
the city manager is your employee.
I was told by the city manager, he
knew nothing about any of this.
Very difficult to make that conclusion
because the rest of city clerk staff reports
to the city manager and again, I want to thank the assistant city
clerk.
Nora was extremely honest and direct
and told me yes, when this came in they went and talked
to the city attorney.
After having that discussion they
took that information and then the city clerk
obviously made his decision.
I think for me bringing it forward because this whole sense
that oh the city manager knew nothing and he's telling members
of the public he knew nothing -- the city attorney is just kind
of hiding over here not saying anything but obviously was
involved.
It's impossible for me to believe
the city attorney could have a question
about a mayoral candidate and not at least chat
about it with the city manager or that the city manager had
no concept that this discussion was going on.
I'm bringing it to you for your consideration at least
to follow up at least because honor I think is important.
Thank you.
>> Thank you Chris.
Next we have Anthony Becker.
Mr. Becker will have nine minutes.
>> Welcome.
So I would have been here on another topic tonight.
Frankly I had to change ideas and shift
what I was going to talk about.
At the last meeting something was
said at the end that was not on the agenda.
I was told consistently --
I was told since I was not there that I cannot refute the city
manager said at the end of the meeting.
I am here to refute the city manager said.
City manager took a moment out of the meeting
under the City Manager report to respond to my comments
I made during public presentations
about data centers and big data.
The city manager took the time and had
said it was patently false what I had said about him
saying to me about big data.
It's his right to deny it saying so.
However, it's patently true because you, Mr. City manager,
are the one who introduced me to the word Big Data.
I know this because my response to you was like, big pharma?
With a question mark.
I know you were concerned about making waves with big data
and that they will try to stop us from creating any regulations
and moratoriums, even though we were not going to the ballot.
I'm truly confused.
Is that you never introduced me to the word big data
or the concerns -- and make waves for big data?
Just curious.
I'm sorry to say to the city manager, I feel you are wrong.
I remembered this term of big data
since that first meeting we had.
In fact, I mentioned all this in my letter
to Erin Brockovich Crusade on data centers including
the quote, on big data.
But this denial of what you said also
brings me to what I was pushing for before in my request
to investigate the information to the Chronicle.
When I first mentioned this in February shortly after the city
manager and I would have small exchanges and pleasantries
and he would speak to me about what
I had said about the investigation
or lack thereof into mayor and Council and the investigation,
how I quoted him saying she's going
to lie, referring to the mayor.
The city manager kept speaking as if I was misremembering
and if I could stop saying it.
However, when I asked someone in staff about it
they said you're being gaslit by the city manager
and to misremembering.
However, when I was asked --
however, we all know we were here and we know what
the concerns to investigate with the mayor were because her
ability to be honest and transparent --
everything pointing to her.
There were so many questions.
When the city manager said to me you
know she's just going to lie and deny his response including
his discussion with me on data centers and big data.
I have grave concerns about the quality of the investigation
into the FIFA link.
I also have grave concerns about how the investigation was
handled, how we managed it when we can't even
have management or anybody in the city
take responsibility for words they said or had
and want investigative.
Is there something -- is there going to be something or any
responsibility and accountability for that
investigations results?
This makes me ask what else would you deny?
From what I've heard when I was a council member,
I know the city manager was yelling at a council
member on the phone.
Let's say this is true.
Only because I heard it.
That made me really concerned.
However, this makes me feel more for a need and to be blunt,
for all elected officials to be wearing body worn cameras
so we can see who says what.
I learned that city managers will deny things
and I'm not surprised.
I learned that in 2022 when I was first on Council.
Deanna Santana when city manager told
me and others to delete text messages which again, she'll
probably deny.
However, Councilman Jain was there to witness that.
City manager additionally said about my comments
that there was a joint dinner on this issue of data centers.
That was not primarily the issue.
I pushed for a sole meeting between the two bodies
not at dinner where there were distractions of food and time
constraints I think we only had an hour.
I was talking about hands on meeting
with only the subject being about data centers
and possible regulation.
Ask any of those commissioners if they ever
got a chance to have a sole meeting with the Council
on just data centers and if there was enough time.
The answer will be a big no.
The Planning Commission was the biggest voice on this issue
and they were well informed.
I listened and pushed for it so therefore there
was never a big conversation between the two bodies
or the future of data centers.
What's going to stop you all from doing that now?
San Jose just regulated data centers
like many other communities in the city in this nation.
But the city manager and mayor's response to city manager
by saying nothing mattered if anything I said is true,
that goes against the stupid report from 2024 that said
Kevin, Karen -- which is a head scratcher --
use city meetings to harass, air grievances and attack members
of the community.
Here we are doing the same.
What is this?
Hypocrisy or democracy?
Can't be both.
But then again it's all double standards as I've noticed.
No concerns about statements that were made.
You know she's going to lie, that big data statement --
I mentioned in the past --
but also to silence on other things
like the former member telling me
and my husband about his ketamine use
in a way of getting his boyfriend pharmacist to get
us anything we wanted.
And a current member who witnessed
the whole thing that currently praises the mayor's leadership.
What kind of leadership is that?
I know you all reached out to others with concerns
about what I may have said.
That's the concern I have to.
It's also the same double standards and the mayor's ethics
and -- or Mayor Kennedy -- breaking the law as the council
member with her husband and avoiding all consequences
and even the mayor --
as well from past situations and the current one about --
on the FIFA information.
But again, nothing is ever done.
All double standards.
Everyone's above the rules.
No one is denied anything except for Sir James, Mary Gilmore's
close friend, denying any allegations for all of them.
Nobody else has denied it.
Will he be right on schedule to speak right after me?
Is Mayor Gilmore texting him to do it tonight?
You never know because they're never telling us
what their texts are.
Based on the decision to speak out
against the member of the public at the end of the meeting,
and they were not there to defend themselves
nor on the agenda, the mayor saying what I said was not true
and does not earn a response.
However, she's saying the exact same thing in an unethical based
standard that she pushes for and complains to the grand jury
about.
Mayor, I also see you crack from afterwards.
And abusing your role.
Ask any colleagues if she does that and ask any or.
Any public servant no matter what
their role therein, whether it be city manager, mayor
or all the way across every position,
should be focused on what's best for the community
and not their self-serving needs.
Is disappointing I have to come back here and have
to defend myself for comments that
were made in the past meeting.
That reminds me about another issue which
is about the ethics consultant and why you're not
taking care of that even though election has started
and there's a lot going on that's
happened since the start of this election as you know.
My question is that I hope there's an apology at hand
somewhere down the road.
I understand the city manager's position
and I understand even the city's position and staff.
Again, one person does not run the city.
People shouldn't be intimidated by that one person and three,
people should be transparent.
This is what government is all about and the ethics of what we
all talked about for the last 3 to 4 years is really just --
really exhausting.
Again, my question was why does somebody take the time out
of the meeting just like the mayor --
when you couldn't do the same thing in the past?
Especially (inaudible)?
I think we're living in a hypocrisy and not a democracy.
I think the cards prove that already.
Thank you.
>> Thank you very much.
Next we have Brian.
Brian?
Go ahead.
>> Thank you.
I hope this is within the purview.
Dolly Parton died at 80.
I've got a ways to go but hopefully I make it.
Another -- our debate is sharing this person's name so --
he's a representative of a large part of what the City Council
has to deal with and something happened and he was caught
in a perplexed situation.
I just want to say to his family, there is healing
and I hope healing for you.
Especially the kids.
And I don't ever rejoice when someone I might be a political
opponent of --
I think that has caused enough damage in our country.
So to that family, I hope -- going through what you're going
through.
I don't condone what was done but apparently --
responsibility or some people may not --
I'm just saying there's young people that are involved
and any family that's hurting, just like the gentleman who
spoke before, I never rejoice in what happened,
and there is healing.
I'm not making a statement about what was said.
There is healing for people.
Thank you.
>> Thank you Brian.
Next we have number 0183.
Go ahead.
Good evening.
My name is James.
I just heard a remarkable and fantastic tale of convicted
felon and Perjurer Anthony Becker who enlisted the city
manager, former state legislators and current state
legislators -- body cameras on elected officials and Mayor
Gilmore and -- (inaudible) not like a tale written by Homer
or Virgil or even -- sounds more like an episode of Gumby
and the Blockheads.
In this case the blockhead doesn't have a square head.
It's sort of oval and bald.
Anyway in this case there's two blockheads.
It's just bad and pathetic that Mr. Becker again thinks --
now he's gone after Mr. --
I've never met Mr. Grove in.
Let me say for the record, I think he's a wonderful person.
My dog thinks so too.
And as far as Mr. York is concerned, all I can say
is it's not like Gilgamesh who traveled
to find the spirit of youth.
In his case he traveled to a trailer park.
It's rather disappointing and not something
to look at or for young people to see
as a role model of course.
They could have a role model of Mr. Becker in terms
of his fantastical journey, which is once again lacking
the truth.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
City Clerk, do we have assistance?
Do we have any other public speakers?
Is there anyone else who would like to make a public statement?
We will move on then.
We moved item --
I'll take it before the consent item I pulled.
Council member Jin-- item number ten,
action on a Council written request
submitted by Council member Jain to place the item
on a future agenda regarding a dedicated manager
responsible for sustainability activities such as increasing
recycling and reducing water usage
and increasing composting and reducing carbon emissions
and tracking related metrics.
This is just a recommendation to put it on a future council
meeting for discussion.
Council Member Jain?
>> Thank you.
I've been advocating for this for 15 years now.
Before I was on planning commission
and before on City Council and I'm
going to read from the zero 30, which
is a request to have this Agendized for future council
meeting.
The city used to have a sustainability manager who
reported to the city manager and that person
ended up working another issues like public relations
while still being in the role of a sustainability manager.
We now have a management analyst who
is supposedly dedicated for sustainability
but is working on a number of issues
like supporting the neighborhood University Relations Committee.
With a $1.7 billion overall city budget
that eclipses cities that are larger
and population than Santa Clara, we
deserve to have a full time sustainability manager.
Freemont, Mountain View and Palo Alto
all have full time sustainability managers.
Santa Clara is a very aggressive climate action
plan in terms of carbon emissions
but we don't seem to be tracking our emissions
and how we're doing relative to our stated goals.
Silicon Valley has a fiscal year 2024 operating budget
of $909 million with electricity sales of $723 million
per year with a total carbon emissions from electricity sales
is immense.
We need a dedicated manager who is
responsible for all kinds of activities,
like increasing recycling, reducing water use,
increasing composting, reducing carbon
emissions, decarbonization and tracking all those numbers.
Individually, our departments have sustainability activities
but there doesn't seem to be any one
to coordinate those activities and to aggregate the impacts.
We also need to update our Climate action plan which
was last updated in 2022.
So in our Climate action plan, we
have the target of 80% carbon reduction Citywide by 2035,
which is not as aggressive as Palo Alto which is
trying to achieve that by 2030.
But that is a very aggressive goal
and we need somebody dedicated to making
sure we meet that target.
So I'm advocating that with our immense budget
we set aside a position dedicated to reducing our carbon
footprint.
Thank you.
>> A motion to put it on a future agenda?
>> That is a motion but I believe we have some --
>> I will second that motion.
>> So council member Jain made a motion to place this on a future
agenda.
Seconded by Council member Park.
Council member Hardy?
>> I was going to make the motion, so that's fine.
>> Council member Park?
>> I second the motion.
>> So knowing that it's going on a future agenda
and our discussion should be related to putting it
on a future agenda and your thoughts on that, we have --
>> (inaudible)
>> Somebody needs to mute themselves.
Okay.
City clerk?
Is anyone here in the audience that
would like to speak on this?
Please come forward.
>> May we have cards?
>> Other people here?
The people here first.
Go ahead city clerk.
>> Struthio followed by a p.
Here in the audience.
Please come forward and please direct your comments on
whether or not we should put it on a future agenda.
>> Thank you.
Welcome.
>> Good evening.
I'm a high school junior and I'm also a Santa Clara resident.
I'm a member of Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action.
Climate change is not a future problem.
It's here and it really does impact our lives in ways
that we don't always recognize.
Do you know that heat wave we had in March?
The scientists have said that would
have been considered impossible if not for climate change.
And whether it's the issues like air pollution,
environmental justice, food insecurity and even
data centers, there are long term
environmental and social impacts are more widespread and often
far more widespread than they seem on the surface.
That's why having a sustainability manager
on city staff would really instill in me the confidence
that this environmental perspective is being represented
and considered thoroughly in the city staff today.
Therefore I urge you to vote yes on item ten
so we can start beginning this process to hiring
a sustainability manager even if it is putting
that on a future agenda.
Neighboring cities have already hired full time sustainability
managers and I do believe this is crucial to effectively
implementing a climate action plan
and to overall be better prepared to build
a more sustainable come a healthier and greener future
in Santa Clara.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
>> Thank you very much and I would ask the audience to keep
focused on whether or not we should put this on the agenda.
Please come forward followed by Bruce.
Welcome.
>> Good evening everyone.
My name is Abby Monica and I'm a junior attending
the high school, a resident of Santa Clara
and member of Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action.
I'm here to support item ten.
As a resident and youth climate activist
I care about the future of our city
and I believe Santa Clara should be taking more significant steps
towards being sustainable.
Santa Clara has a $1.7 billion budget
which is larger than most cities that
have already employed full time sustainability managers.
For city of our size and our resources
sustainability should be a priority.
A climate action plan is only as effective as our ability
to implement it to.
Having a full time sustainability manager
would offer the expertise and accountability
needed to monitor emissions and create
plans to decarbonize our city.
As a young resident I will be reaping the long term
consequences of the decisions made today.
I urge you to vote yes on item ten
and begin the process of hiring a sustainability manager so
that Santa Clara is better equipped
to meet Climate action plan commitments
and build a more sustainable future.
Thank you. >> Thank you.
Bruce followed by Elaine.
Welcome.
>> Good evening.
My name is Bruce and I'm a resident of Mountain View.
For the last 20 years I have strove or is it
striven or just tried really hard to make Mountain View
a zero emissions city, stealing a little bit of the wording
from your city logo.
Your city motto.
Here's why I think you should hire a sustainability director
and increase the sustainability staff.
For the first ten years I worked in Mountain View
to make progress on greenhouse gas reduction,
we had one staff member.
A great staff member but a one man army doesn't win any wars.
In 2018 I led a task force of citizens
in our top three recommendations out of 36 recommendations
or hire a Chief Sustainability officer,
give that person a staff and give that person
a substantial budget.
The City Council agreed to do all those things.
Over the last three and a half years,
our sustainability manager, Danielle Lee,
has grown her staff to include herself
and four full time direct reports and two Fellows.
A seven person department working on reducing emissions.
What's been accomplished over the last 20 years
in Mountain View is a 50% reduction on a per capita basis
in greenhouse gas emissions.
A great deal of that is due to the electricity
we get from Silicon Valley clean energy.
As you know, Santa Clara is proud of its very low cost,
highly reliable electricity system.
It's also one of the most highly polluting electricity
systems in California.
To reduce your emissions, you'll need
to reduce the emissions from electricity.
Urge you to support the motion.
>> Thank you.
As a reminder, if we can keep our comments to whether or not
we should put this on the agenda.
I know it's hard but if we can focus on that.
We have Elaine followed by Chanel.
When it does come back to the agenda
we will have full discussion about this.
Welcome.
>> Good evening Mayor Gilmore and City Council.
My name is Elaine Lee.
The city's 2022 Climate Action Plan
requires quotes reporting on cap progress through Community
dashboard as well as quote annual progress reports
and frequent updates of the city's greenhouse gas emission
inventory.
In November 2023, I contacted a to talk about the dashboard.
I got no response.
In February 2024 I contacted her again and then learned
that there was no dashboard.
In January 2025 I made a public comment
at a City Council meeting just like standing here
before you requesting annual updates on the city's progress.
As a result, I was introduced to Rena and in March 2025
she emailed me that the dashboard
quote should take six months from beginning
to end to complete.
Now it is August 2026, more than four years
after the cap was approved.
There's still no dashboard and no other reports on cap
progress..
California Senate Bill number 32,
we need a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030
to meet our state's goals.
If we don't track our progress, we
can't see where we are lagging and what activities need more
focus and support.
A full time dedicated sustainability manager
will help us get there.
This issue is within the city's jurisdiction
and doesn't appear to be addressed elsewhere.
So bring it at a future meeting to consideration.
Thank you very much.
Next we have Chanel followed by Betsy followed by Brian.
Welcome.
>> Good evening Mayor Gilmore and council members.
I am Chanel, a 16 year old resident of Santa Clara County.
And a current student at the high school.
I'm here not only on behalf of Limerick High School
but also the entire district and Silicon Valley Youth program.
We are here because we don't want Santa Clara to be behind.
California has already been making substantial progress
towards sustainability.
For example, achieving more than two thirds of renewable energy
accounting for California's total power grid as of 2025,
and according to San Jose Council member David Cohen,
that number is about 90% as of August 2026.
I don't see such progress in Santa Clara,
especially with the prevalence of AI data centers
that are extremely damaging to the environment with at least
55 data centers in our city.
I do not want to see a Puerto Rico water shortage
2.0 just because of your incompetence
in environmental affairs.
Moreover, many other adjacent cities have a sustainability
manager, so I don't see why we can't.
But we could change that, especially
with our effluent budget of $1.7 billion.
And that starts with getting a sustainability manager.
Only then will we be able to start catching up with state
sustainability progress.
It's only natural that you put this on a future agenda
and hire a sustainability manager.
Thank you.
>> Next we have Betsy.
Is Betsy online?
Go ahead Betsy.
Unmute yourself.
>> Hello.
Betsy speaking for myself.
I don't think I need to reiterate
what our young people especially are saying about this topic.
Please put this on a future agenda
and we'll see you again soon.
Thank you.
>> Thank you Betsy.
Next we have Brian.
Go ahead.
>> Thank you.
I'd like to see it on a future agenda.
And as quickly as possible.
Suda has asked about this and I agree about that.
Before you put it on the agenda, I don't know if portal is
the right way but -- a lot of us want to do research.
I want to show you why you should have a sustainability
manager but -- part of the discussion of when you put it
on the agenda should be what does it mean,
what are going to be the qualifications --
because that will come up when you discuss it.
Please put it on a future agenda and if there's some way to get
other groups like other groups that meet with the city --
like where they --
I forget -- where they meet to also -- that gets on the agenda.
You know what I'm trying to say.
Sorry.
>> That's okay.
All right is that it Brian?
>> It is.
I'm tongue tied today.
>> Thank you so much.
Is there anyone else who would like to speak on this issue?
We have a motion and a second to place this on a future agenda.
Assistant City Clerk, when you're ready.
>> Council member?
>> I was going to say Register your vote.
[calling vote]
>> That passes unanimously of those present.
Thank you and thank you for all who participated.
Next item is consent item pulled for discussion.
I would normally put this at the end of the agenda
but the conference is coming up soon.
I pulled item three E which is action
to designate a voting delegate and alternate delegate
for the 2026 League of California Cities Annual
Conference.
Staff didn't know I was going to be attending.
I would like the council to appoint me
as the voting delegate and council member
Park as the alternate.
>> I'd like to make that motion.
>> We have a motion by Council member Hardy seconded by Vice
Mayor Gonzalez.
Any public comments on that?
Any discussion?
>> City clerk?
>> Council member Khalil?
>> Yes.
>> Hardy?
Yes.
Park?
Yes.
Jain?
Yes.
Gonzalez?
Gilmore?
Yes.
>> That passes with those on the --
I guess and Council member Joel.
Thank you very much.
Next item we have is a public hearing on item number five.
Public hearing action on appeal (PLN26-00318)
of a Project Located at 860 and 858
Civic Center Drive and 1526 Alviso Street
of an Approval of an Architectural Review Permit
(PLN24-00533) for the Demolition of Existing Buildings
and Construction of Three Separate Multi-Family Buildings
Resulting in 14 Townhomes and a Duplex Building With Commercial
Space and Determination of Statutory Exemption from CEQA
per Public Resources Code Section 21080.66 (AB 130 (2025))
. (inaudible)
>> All right. (inaudible) we'll take a pause to get our fourth
member.
>> Vice mayor Gonzalez?
Council member Jane has his hand up.
I'm not sure if he wants to say something.
Not Jain.
Shahal.
>> Should I wait for Council member to be back?
>> Let's wait for her to come back.
>> Sure.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Did you want to mention something on this item
before we go to the process?
>> That's correct.
Yes.
So I just wanted to -- >> Hold on.
There's a few -- there's a few steps that lead up to I think
the disclosure that you're going to make.
If you could hold on that.
We can take that in the course of the conduct
of the public hearing, the presiding officer
has a process to go through first.
If I'm guessing right on what you are intending to say.
>> Yes.
>> Very good.
>> I'll follow your instructions.
>> Thank you.
So the mayor went through the item itself here but basically
what we're going to review the townhouse project at 860 and --
858 Civic Center Drive and 1526 Alviso Street.
On an appeal brought by neighboring residents following
approval -- this development review --
hearing on June 17th 2026.
With that I will open up the public hearing
and we'll declare that open now.
Before we have any member -- we can have Council member
disclosures.
Is that what you wanted to address?
>> That's correct.
So go ahead.
>> This is the right time, right?
>> Yes it is.
City council member ex parte disclosures if any.
>> Thank you.
So I want to disclose that on 22nd of June the council members
-- the appeal process is going on.
I met the appellant Mr. Michael Fisher at the project site
and he did talk to me, basically disclosed --
exchanged emails with the staff all the reasons why he went
to appeal and I did look at the project site at that visit.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
Is anybody else from the council wants
to have an ex parte disclosure?
Seeing none we'll continue.
At this time we'll ask staff presentations.
>> Thank you Vice Mayor.
Members of the council and members of the public.
This item is before you.
It's important to note that under the city's zoning code,
a project of this type would only typically require
architectural review.
However there's an appeal process
and the city's appeal process, unlike our process
for single family homes, comes directly to the City Council.
And so the project is before you tonight
to hear an appeal by neighbors of the Architectural review
permit approval.
You are hearing this in a quasi judicial setting.
This means this is an official court proceeding
where you will weigh the evidence presented
in making your decision.
It's also important to note, this is a de Novo hearing
meaning that you are not bound by the information that
was known and presented during the prior review permit process
and you may consider new evidence presented here tonight
both written and verbal.
Many factors are at play in this appeal.
They include the California Housing Accountability
Act the Bonus Law and the California Environmental Quality
Act.
Also are Local General Plan and Zoning code apply.
Additionally the appellant has raised concerns with regards
to the El Camino Real specific plan, neighborhood compatibility
and they request design changes related to height and setbacks.
And in considering this appeal, the City Council
will be asked to make findings based
on applicable, objective standards
and tonight's staff presentation will
be presented by Community Development Director Asha Hamid
and I will now invite her to the podium.
>> Vice mayor Gonzalez, can I also make another disclosure?
I did receive a couple of emails from the appellant,
Michael Fisher, during this process when they were hosting
a meeting and I forwarded those to the city attorney and --
can be public record as such and maybe --
to the post meeting agenda item.
To this agenda.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Good evening vice mayor and members and members
of the public.
My name is Afshan Hamid, the Community Development director.
And let me just figure out the technology first.
Here we go.
Tonight is an appeal of a project which
is located at 860 and 858 Civic Center Drive and 1526 Alviso
Street and it is for an approval of an architectural Review
permit which will allow the demolition of existing buildings
and the construction of three separate multifamily buildings
yielding 14 townhomes and a duplex building
with commercial space.
It is statutorily exempt from CEQA through AB 130.
Pursuant to the provisions of City Code, City Council
serves as the final review authority for appeals
for Architectural Review for non single family projects
and as a city manager just explained, in our procedures,
in our code, single family appeals first
go to the planning commission and then to city Council.
In this case, this is a multifamily project.
And a multifamily project which is reviewed at the design review
hearing.
The appeal comes to the City Council.
The second bullet here in accordance with 18.144030 E,
the council is also -- also will hear the appeal as a de Novo
for this project.
But within the applicable constraints of the state
housing laws, including the Housing Accountability
Act and the state density Bonus Law as well as CEQA AB130.
As City Manager already explained,
what this means is that Council will make its own determination
based on the record presented.
The City Council can consider new evidence or evidence
not previously considered.
The decision tonight is subject to the state laws, including
HAA in the state density bonus laws
and those laws prevail over any local requirements.
This is a timeline of the project.
The project was first filed in October of 2024.
In July of 2025 a tribal consultation was initiated
and it was completed that same year in September.
In September of 2025, an online and in person community
meeting was held.
On April 14th of 2026 we have a project clearance committee
and the Project Clearance Committee deemed the project
complete and cleared.
On May 19th of 2026 the El Camino Real specific plan was
adopted by the City Council and it became effective as of June
18th 2026 and June 17th, the application was reviewed
and approved by the Development Review Officer and on July 24th
2026, an appeal was filed by the adjacent neighbors.
August 13th 2026, staff did meet with Mr. And Mrs.
Fisher and they are the appellants to discuss
their concerns and also staff explained the recent changes
in state law since their own application was filed.
Some points of clarification here.
The project was submitted in October 2024 and the project was
deemed in substantially complete on April 14th of 2026 and then
scheduled for design review hearing through a public notice
process.
And overall, as this project is going forward,
the project will have had three opportunities
to be heard before the public.
The first was a community meeting
and the second was a publicly noticed design review hearing
and the third is the appeal that is being heard tonight
before the council.
In regards to the last bullet, Council,
as you're aware, since 2017 numerous state
laws were passed or amended including the Housing
Accountability Act and State density bonus laws
to address the state wide shortage of housing,
which limits the ability of local governments
to restrict the development of new housing.
I will walk you through the existing site.
So first of all, this is the existing site
which is graphically shown, bound by red.
So this is the site that is proposed
for development and to the north is Civic Center Drive
and to the south is El Camino Real
and to the east is Alviso Street and to the west is Lafayette
Street.
To the north, the surrounding uses, there are commercial,
auto oriented office and gym and to the south
is a commercial two story hotel which is here.
To the east there are already existing two story townhomes
and then across Alviso Street there are three story townhomes
and then to the west there is a one story residences as well as
commercial office uses.
The general plan designation is community
mixed use and the zoning is mixed use community commercial.
Under the General Plan CMU and MUCC zoning,
the proposed family is permitted use.
The only entitlement required for this
is a design review hearing for the architecture
which is the land use approval at issue in this appeal.
I just want to point out one other thing.
The existing site is three parcels.
They will do a lot merger through investing tentative map
and that will come before the council
as a separate action pending the status of this appeal.
A little bit more about the project site
and the project itself.
The site is an unusual and constrained project site.
And it has a narrow leg which fronts onto Alviso Street.
And there is a much wider portion that
fronts onto Civic Center Drive.
Just making sure this is working.
So Civic Center Drive is to the north,
Alviso Street is to the east.
There are three buildings proposed on the site.
Building one is townhomes and it is eight townhomes
and it is four stories tall.
Building two is six townhomes and it's also four stories tall.
Building three is the separate building here.
It has a commercial front that faces Alviso Street
and it has a duplex unit on the second floor
and on the ground floor is actually two separate ADUs.
A little bit about the parking.
The project is within a half mile of transit.
So AB2097 which is a state law applies and there are no parking
requirements for this site.
However, the applicant in each of the townhome units
is providing two tandem parking spaces per unit.
So we can see those.
Each of the townhome units has parking.
In addition, there is also parking for the duplex units
here.
These are assigned to the duplex units
and there's also a guest parking space here
and there is also an unassigned space here
which is ADA compliant.
This is an enlarged view of building three.
And the focus here is that there is a perimeter wall that
goes along the entire project site
and that perimeter wall is identified here.
It is also identified here.
That perimeter wall goes along the entire project site.
The appellant for this project is just to the north.
They do have three single family or three townhomes that are
already -- okay.
They're single family homes?
Thanks for the correction.
Thank you.
Thanks for the correction.
There is one home a two story home that was built in 1935
and it's important to note, that project is not
listed on the historic inventory or on the National Historic
Register.
We'll just go back and thanks for that correction.
There are three -- three single family homes and two story
in height and there's a home that was built in 1935.
So there are a total of 16 units which include
the duplex and the townhomes.
There will be two ADUs.
Building one is eight townhomes and it's four stories tall.
It is an attached home product and building two
is six townhomes.
It is a four stories as well and it's also for sale
and it is an attached townhome.
Building three is a duplex with two ADUs at the ground floor
and -- of commercial space on the ground floor.
I want to explain the elevations a little bit.
So for the townhome buildings, what you're seeing here
is an eight story townhome product
and this elevation here faces the neighbors.
And this will face the interior courtyard for the parking.
It is the same elevation for the eight townhome product
as well as for the six townhome products.
The same elevations.
For the duplex commercial and the ADU building,
the front elevation faces Alviso and this is commercial
and here you can see the duplex.
And the ADU is at the ground floor in the back.
This is the rear elevation of the project
and here you can see the ADUs on the ground floor
and the commercial is towards the front.
A little bit about the affordable housing --
there are two affordable units and the payment
of an in lieu fee for the four remaining fractional units
and that is consistent with 15% requirement.
The applicant is meeting the city's requirement
for affordable housing, which is 15%.
And they are providing the affordable units.
As the applicant is meeting the city's affordable housing
criteria, they are entitled to the state density bonus law.
The density bonus law allows the applicant to an unlimited number
of waivers, as they are proposing for for this project
-- for waivers for this project.
A waiver -- and I'll give you a brief explanation --
is applied to the physical attribute of the project.
In this case it is to reduce setbacks
and to increase the height.
And a waiver allows a developer to modify the zoning code
provision.
The applicant is also entitled to one concession.
And that concession is to reduce the floor area ratio and that
will apply to the commercial portion and reduce
the commercial space from 2665ft² to 715ft².
So a concession actually lowers a project cost.
This is the elevation, the rendering
provided you a little bit of the perspective.
This is an elevation of the townhome building type.
And over here, what I wanted to clarify
is this is the front elevation that is facing the neighbors.
Again, it's four stories and this is the elevation
that's facing the rear.
This is the interior parking court and as you can see,
these are the garages that are facing the interior parking
court and there are Juliet style balconies facing
the interior parking court.
The elevation that is -- the front elevation or facing
the neighbors -- at the third floor there is a terrace.
You can see the terrace here.
That terrace is actually set back 15ft and that provides
the new owners of the townhomes to have a place to sit outside.
Terrace also here's the elevation
and you can see the terrace.
It helps to articulate the building.
There was a community meeting that was held
and it was held online and in person.
Seven members of the public.
There were no members present online.
Overall the public comments were about the lack
of on street parking and the existing width of Civic Center
drive and concerns over park privacy.
The applicant did provide responses
and the applicant addressed the comments
in that each townhome unit will provide two car garage
and the two duplex units will have a parking
and ADUs are exempt from parking requirements
and that is a state law regarding
the exemption for ADUs.
There will be a six foot masonry wall and landscaping
along the perimeter to provide additional privacy.
Um I do want to talk about the waivers and concessions here
and explain more detail.
Because the project includes the affordable housing units,
the applicant is utilizing the state density bonus law
to request for waivers and one concession
from certain Santa Clara City code development standards.
The two affordable housing units --
one will be in the townhome and the other will be in the duplex.
And it meets our affordable housing ordinance as well.
The four waivers are first the reduction in the rear setback.
Ten feet is required and they are proposing four feet 11in
for the first building which is the eight unit townhome.
Waiver of the front setback requirement along Civic Center
drive to two feet nine inches where between 5 to 10ft is
required.
Waiver of the multi-story setback requirements
and waiver of the height limit to allow
an increase in building height.
So the limit is 40ft and the applicant is proposing 44ft
and then the concession is to reduce the commercial FAR
to 715ft² where 2665ft² is required in the muck zoning
code.
I do want to explain a few things under the Housing
Accountability Act.
If a housing development complies
with the applicable objective standards,
in effect, then the application was determined to be complete.
The city may not disapprove the project
or require a lower density project
unless the project would result in a specific impact
on public health or safety.
In this case the project would be
required to meet all the codes for building and fire
and comply with the building permit requirements.
Staff does find that the project is
consistent with the applicable development
standards for the mixed use community commercial Zoning
District as modified by the requested state density
Bonus law for waivers and concessions
and there are no identified or specific public health or safety
impacts meeting the Housing Accountability Act standard.
A development review hearing was conducted on June 17th 2026 per
the City Code and the project was heard by the Development
Review Officer.
At the hearing, four members of the public
spoke in opposition to the project.
The comments included concerns the project design isn't
consistent with the surrounding neighborhood,
specifically the adjoining townhomes.
Speakers also raised concerns regarding the proposed building
height, lack of multi-story setbacks
and potential privacy impacts from the proposed balconies.
After considering all the comments and applicability
of state laws, the Development Review Officer
approved the project.
There are some project features that I
would like to share tonight.
There is landscaping which includes a mixture of plant
species and trees for the planting
along both frontages common pedestrian walkways,
common open space and landscaping
along the entire project perimeter.
For the screening they are proposing a six foot
tall masonry wall with stucco along the perimeter
of the entire site and the project
is within a half mile of transit and under a B 2097,
no parking is required for this site.
The parking that is provided is a total of 32 spaces.
So for the townhomes, each townhome
will have two spaces in the attached garage
so that is 28 spaces.
With a duplex there will be one assigned and covered space
for each duplex so that's two spaces total.
For the commercial there is one parking from Alviso Street
and that is unassigned.
And there will be one assigned guest parking lot and as stated,
the ADUs under state law are exempt from the parking
requirements.
There is a private open space on the project and it's about
2000ft².
Well, let me explain this one.
There is private open space which consists of terraces
and they allow the interior space on the upper floor to be
set back by approximately 15ft and also to allow
for the articulation of the upper floors.
Additionally there's 2000ft² of amenity space on the project
site at the ground floor and that will include seating,
table, barbecue and a usable lawn with landscaping.
On August 13th the notice of Public Hearing for this item was
mailed to 160 property owners and tenants within 500ft
of the site.
The same notice was also sent for the design review hearing
that was held in June of 2026.
For public comments were received.
After the agenda was posted for tonight's meeting,
a letter from the adjacent property,
which states concerns regarding the additional height,
reduced setbacks and waiver of the setback requirements
and an additional letter from the appellant raising
additional points in support of the appeal,
a letter from the California Housing Defense Fund
in support of the project and its compliance with state laws
and then there's also a letter from the applicant
or the property owner responding to the appeal letter.
Previously written comments were submitted for the June 17th 2026
and those were included as part of the DRH staff report.
The action considered tonight is statutorily
exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act
under AB130.
AB130 exempts qualifying projects
from formal environmental review and there is a criteria
in order to meet this.
I will briefly go through that criteria.
The project site is less than 20 acres
and this project site is 0.61 acres
and the project site is incorporated
in the municipality of the city of Santa Clara
and was previously developed as Urban Use
and it joins other urban uses.
It is consistent with the zoning code and the general plan.
The project density here that is proposed
is 26.2 dwelling units per acre which
is above the minimum density of 15 dwelling units per acre.
The project is not located in a coastal zone, farmland, wetland
or hazmat site or earthquake or fault zone
or within a special flood area.
Or on a conservation plan or within habitat
for special species or under a conservation easement.
The project will not demolish historic structures
on the national state or local registrar
and the project is not designated
as a hotel, motel or transit launch or transient lodging.
It will be required to prepare an environmental assessment.
And that is a condition of approval for this project
and that is following the city's process
and the project has completed a tribal consultation process
and the city met with Tammy and Nation
and the Malekula tribe of San Francisco Bay area
and that was completed in September of 2025.
So on June 24th, 2026, the applicant's attorney submitted
an appeal letter included as attachment five and they raised
five grounds for the appeal.
And I will walk you through those five points.
The project is ineligible to use the CEQA exemption under AB130.
They allege it's inconsistent with the May 2026 El Camino
real specific plan that was adopted by Council.
The city needs to provide more evidence supporting
requested waivers and concessions,
or that the Architectural Review findings related to neighborhood
compatibility and harmonious development,
and number five that the appellants are
requesting design changes to reduce the height and setbacks.
Over the next few slides I will address each
of these points in more detail.
The first is the exemption under AB130.
The appellants allege the project
is ineligible to use the statutory exemption as amended
for a B 130 based on the General Plan inconsistency
and they cite the transition policies that
require a qualitative judgment.
The city's response is that the project
relies on the AB130 statutory exemption
as it's a qualifying infill residential project.
On a site generally not more than 20 acres.
The proposed project is consistent with the surrounding
character of the neighborhood because they
include compatible building color common contemporary
Spanish architecture design, double pane windows
common metal railings.
The features and the proposed design
are true to the architectural form
and they are appropriate for the neighborhood.
AB130 provides a housing development project
shall be deemed consistent with the applicable General
Plan and the zoning ordinance based on substantial evidence.
Hears substantial evidence supports
that the community common mixed use
designation authorized the proposed residential and
commercial uses.
They are permitted under our zoning code.
In addition, approval of the state density Bonus law
for concessions and waivers may not be used as grounds
of finding that a project is inconsistent with the general
plan, so to the extent that the appellant's objections are
related to the height, the setback or --
those factors cannot be considered.
The appellants allege that the project is inconsistent with
the El Camino real specific plan that was adopted on May 19th
2026 and remember, it went into effect in June 18th of 2026.
The city's response is that the proposed project was submitted
in October of 2024 and it was deemed complete
and cleared in April of 2026.
Prior to the adoption of the El Camino Real specific plan.
It cannot be retroactively applied.
Under the Housing Accountability Act,
the project is evaluated and under the applicable objective
General Plan, zoning subdivision design review standards
in effect when the application was deemed --
the city may not evaluate this project for the purposes
of the Housing Accountability Act,
disapproval or reduce the density against the development
standards adopted in May 2026 after the project was deemed
complete.
The applicant's -- the appeal applicants allege that the city
should have required additional evidence from the applicant
for economic necessity and site constraints to justify
the granting of the waivers and concessions.
The city's response on the concessions
is that legally for concession, an applicant does not
have to prove economic infeasibility
or submit a pro forma or other similar evidence.
The city bears the burden to prove
a concession would not be economically feasible
and this is state law.
Here the project site has an unusual L shaped configuration
with limited street frontage and the larger part of the site
is situated behind that frontage.
Only a limited portion of the site
has street exposure and visibility
and direct pedestrian access associated
with the viable commercial space.
And in regards to the waiver, the developer does need to show
a factual basis for the waiver but the city cannot require
the removal of amenities or redesign the project merely
to eliminate the need for the waivers.
The setbacks, the setbacks and the height waivers
are necessary due to the constraint lot configuration
which limits the horizontal area available for development.
Building envelopes refer the constraint
by the physical space for vehicular, emergency
and pedestrian access, parking, landscaping,
stormwater facilities, utility access, common
and private open space.
And under the Architectural Review findings,
the appellant states that the city cannot make two
of the architectural review findings related
to the neighborhood compatibility and harmonious
development.
The city's response is that the law does not
authorize subjective compatibility criteria
to serve as additional development standards
for disproving or reducing the density of an otherwise
objectively compliant housing development project.
The city may still make locally required architectural review
findings where the record supports them
and the evidence supporting those findings
is in the staff report.
In regards to the requested design changes,
the appellants ask that the project
be redesigned to reduce the height
and increase the setbacks, which are
the waivers that the applicant has requested the state density
bonus law for.
The city's response is first that the strict application
of the development standards would
preclude the construction of the project
at the allowable density.
The applicant proposed the required affordable units
as they are entitled to those waivers.
Secondly, staff believes the current architectural design is
of a high caliber and compatible with the surrounding
developments and finally, the appellants
want to constrain the uses allowed at the commercial space.
However this is not one of the relevant topics
for architectural review.
Tonight staff's recommendation is to determine that the project
be exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act
for AB130, and second, that the Council adopt the resolution
overruling the appeal and uphold the decision to approve
the Architectural Review permit for the demolition of existing
buildings, construction of three separate multifamily buildings
including an eight unit townhome building,
six unit townhome building and a two unit residential building
with two accessory dwelling units and a 758ft² of commercial
space located at 860 and 850 Civic Center Drive and 1526
Alviso Street which is subject to findings and conditions
of approval.
Staff is here for any questions.
Thank you.
>> Thanks for the presentation.
We'll see if there's any questions. (inaudible)
questions for Director or staff?
I'll start with Council member Hardy.
>> Thank you.
I was taking copious notes and I'll
see if I can read my own handwriting.
I was surprised.
715ft² for commercial is very small.
I was wondering if that is set up
so it can be coffee house or something?
That does require more infrastructure.
I was surprised about the setback.
I understood fire needed at least five feet to.
I do know in historic situations where we have zero lot line
garages that if it's historic we've allowed that.
But -- and it was just less than five feet.
So that was a question.
When I looked at the renderings, I wasn't really clear.
The terrace where it says the 15 foot setback --
is at the top of the buildings at 44ft?
I wanted to make certain I understood that.
Also, I was a little confused, when I think of an ADU,
I think of something separate from it main buildings.
So because you're saying the Adu does not have to have parking
and has different requirements --
I was wondering, what is the criteria
to call it an ADU when it's part of that building?
Above it you were saying duplex.
I want to also understand from a legal point of view,
this may be for the city attorney --
so you're suggesting a resolution overruling the appeal
but if there's no action taken, doesn't the approval stand?
I want to understand because if I understand this right,
this is approved.
And we have an appeal -- and for the appeal to stand you would
have to pass that.
If we don't pass anything, isn't that just
mean what was before stands?
But yet staff turned around and said
he wanted a resolution overruling the appeals.
So from a legal point of view I want to understand that.
Thank you.
>> Council member Jain?
>> I believe you said (inaudible) an unlimited number
of -- and one concession.
And I guess wouldn't that concession
allow for them to have zero commercial?
And the other thing is it seems like they could just
reduce the setbacks to zero for the front setback
and get more space.
Is that allowable?
I think Council Member Hardy was correct
that certain setbacks are required for fire safety,
so the space between the building and the masonry wall
needs to allow firefighters to get in there.
Is that the only constraint?
Otherwise it could go to zero setbacks.
I didn't quite understand the private open space.
That is a 15 foot terrace.
Is that available to all the residents or just the
two residents that are where that terrace is?
And then the 2000ft² of amenity space --
you said there's going to be barbecues there and tables?
Can you explain that again what's in that amenity space?
And finally, how does that impact the parks impact fee?
>> Council member?
>> Thank you.
Thanks for the report.
I have a question.
First question is how do we differentiate
between architecture and design guidelines for a single family
neighborhood and community design guidelines as mentioned?
Versus the objective design standards?
(inaudible) I know we're talking about objective design standards
as design guidelines.
How we distinguish between those two.
My other question, I had the same question
about the fire safety.
How the setbacks will make this development --
(inaudible) there's a fire next to chick fil A and --
we had very small setbacks.
I just want to confirm if fire department has approved it
and what are the basis for that.
My other request is I know you showed the elevations all
by themselves within -- for the new development.
And the board has some partial elevations
along with the existing developments.
I would like that you elaborate on that, show --
along with the existing single family houses.
Thank you.
>> Council member Park?
>> Thank you very much. (inaudible) I think
their questions are my questions as well.
I did have a note about side by side elevation map.
It looks to me like there's no sunlight from the south at all.
Or from the west after 1 p.m.
And especially during winter hours.
In England they used to have daylight laws
to prevent this kind of thing.
But I don't know that people remember what those are.
Looking at four storeys less than 20ft away,
even though you say it's a three storey site,
there's three storeys plus a wall which makes it more than
three storeys.
Less than 20ft away --
I thought about that.
That's from the back of this wall to the gate over here.
Away from two story residential.
And you've got windows on every elevation.
So it looks like there are privacy concerns
from every aspect.
This is a concern.
I'm looking at the waivers.
I appreciate council member's question
of could they just reduce everything to zero and get
the biggest largest thing?
What would prevent them from doing that?
Even the concessions like reducing from 10ft to 4ft from 5
to 10ft to 2.2ft nine inches -- reducing the commercial from
almost 2700ft² down to 715 --
what do you intend to do with that commercial space?
I feel at some point this is just
trying to inflate whatever's there
to the maximum allowable size.
I think at some point, it's unfortunate
that everything staff has stated is a state law or something.
This is a big problem where the state
is taking over local control.
It means any designs that the city has,
any vision for the way the city should look, any city standards,
any city style just goes out the window
because well, the state says you're just
like every other city next to you.
We don't care about details.
We understand you can tell how your neighborhood differs
from every other neighborhood and people who live in cities
can tell how your city differs from every other city,
but we don't care.
We're the straight and we'll treat everyone the same.
We don't care about your neighborhoods or cities
or the differences in style or differences -- we don't care.
I think this is a big problem.
We're supposed to be the Mission City.
The study of what's possible.
It looks like what's possible is we can fit a lot more --
>> If I might just remind council members,
it's important that this just be questions at this time
because we still have public testimony.
If council can be focused on questions as opposed to thoughts
-- which are certainly reasonable and appropriate
thoughts but not at this time.
>> I will also ask about the affordable housing ordinance
that the city has.
I think Council Member Jain brought this up.
Can you tell us more about the affordable housing ordinance?
It requires that developers put in affordable housing
in the amount that immediately come automatically
grants them a state bonus density law bonus.
I'd like to know a little bit more about that
until we counter something like that.
I'd also like to know about the timelines of why our El Camino
specific plan so late that it could have prevented something
like this.
We talk about our housing element --
and people in our window -- and I did talk to some
of the developers and some of the planning people that I
talked to previously.
I know staff has also talked to these people.
I'd like to know a little bit about all the city
city deadlines that were missed that allowed these kinds
of projects to come before us.
I'd like some answers there.
Thank you.
>> Do you have another question?
>> So in the timeline, you said that this project was deemed
complete a month before the El Camino real plan was approved.
I believe part of the reason is before the El Camino real plan,
we didn't have objective design standards.
Is that why there's no requirement for
articulation had this been approved after?
Would that have forced it to have some articulation?
I just want to make sure -- to understand better what is
different between this project and maybe some future projects.
Maybe let's have a couple questions.
As far as the terraces, are those on the third --
for some reason they look like they
were on the fourth story from the picture.
And the commercial -- is it going to be a warm show or just
a commercial building?
And with that, I don't know if you
are able to answer the questions now?
>> Vice Chair Gonzalez?
Council has his hand up.
Baby thank you.
I have a follow up question. (inaudible) but we did pass some
objective design standards for -- under our zoning board.
(inaudible) when the projector was deemed complete or was it
passed before that?
That's my question.
It looks like those are all the questions from Council.
>> Thank you so much.
Council member Hardy?
I will begin with your questions.
You asked that 715ft² is small and will it be a coffee house
and what kind of infrastructure will be required?
The developer is here tonight and so is the architect.
We can ask them on that one.
I'm just going to make a little note.
Fire needs five feet.
Y less than five feet?
The California Building Code regulates buildings
based on fire separation distance.
This is related to a zoning setback but --
depending on the distance between an exterior wall
and the relevant property line or --
between buildings on the same lot common
the California Building Code imposes progressively more
stringent requirements.
What the waiver is for is from the zoning regulations
and not from the California Building Code.
I also want to say that when projects come before
and they apply for an application,
they go through what's called a project review committee, PCC.
In that committee there are multiple departments
that all meet under a regular basis, planning and building
and SB and water, fire.
Police.
Public works.
And the multiple divisions from public
works including transportation.
They all review it against the code
to make sure the project can move forward.
Does the CBC in this case can't allow construction quite close
to or essentially at a -- provided that the construction
meets the applicable fire resistance opening requirements?
There isn't a general saying for example
that every residential building must
be five feet from the property line.
The code adjusts the required construction
based on the fire separation.
I wanted to comment about the terrace at the top
of the building's.
This came up from a couple different council members.
Can we go back to the elevation drawings so I can show that?
So the townhomes are four stories tall.
The terrace is at the fourth floor.
But essentially it sets back 15ft to.
At the fourth floor is where the terrace occurs
and it's a 15 foot deep setback.
You asked about the ADUs and generally we
think there should be separate from the main buildings.
They can be attached.
ADUs can come in multiple forms.
And what is the criteria to call this on ADU?
Essentially a bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen.
It can be called an Adu.
It can be a minimum of -- a minimum of 500,
a little bit less.
It can be a minimum of 700.
There's a question regarding the overruled the appeal.
Should we save that for the end or do you
want to respond to that now?
Abbey is here and he's our assistant director.
Alexander Abbey, assistant attorney.
I think it's your question, why are we having a resolution
and why are we taking any action?
When you have an appeal it says a city council
must schedule a hearing within 60 to 120 days of the outset.
It doesn't specify what happens if we fail to do that.
It doesn't say then there's automatically
an approval or disapproval.
But it does say that all appeal hearings
are de Novo which you heard the director mention before.
It means you're basically starting anew.
It says you can consider evidence that
wasn't already in the record.
New evidence added.
The resolution you have before you,
it took into account the prior architectural approval
but it also incorporates additional information
that's been received since then, different analysis by staff.
You have a thick memo in your packet.
I think it's memo attachment number six
that contains a lot of facts behind staff decision.
That's why you have a new resolution today.
It's basically looking at those findings
again for the council with additional evidence.
I wanted to respond to Council member Jain and Park.
Jain, I believe you asked about commercial space.
This is going down to about 20% of their requirement.
Could this go to zero?
We have developers ask for that all the time.
We have never said yes except in one circumstance.
We're working on the station area plan right now
and we don't have a station area plan
although we do have a chart in the general plan that
says there has to be commercial square footage in the plan.
It doesn't have a number next to it.
It could be one square foot.
In that one circumstance for a project that
was in the stationary plan, we let them go from one square foot
down to zero square foot.
We've never granted a concession for commercial space
to go all the way down to zero.
In fact, at first grant Productions
in commercial square footage.
Unfortunately ACD has since issued
a series of advice letters saying
that commercial square footage is subject to concessions.
They can request reductions in square footage
of commercial space.
So begrudgingly we've started allowing reductions
in commercial square footage.
Except for that one limited circumstance,
we've never allowed it to go to zero.
Can they ask for anything, Council member Park?
They do ask for anything.
But again, we negotiate with every developer.
We sit down when they have these requests.
We make them show us diagrams and we've had many meetings
with developers.
I've sat in many of those where we've looked at,
did you have this 45 degree setback, how many
units will be eliminated?
How much of the project will be reduced by this?
We have a lot of back and forth and in many cases
we tell developers we are denying those waivers.
And many more cases we say we are granting them.
We have limited ability to say no as a director was mentioning.
In every case we do our best to hang on to as much
of the standards as we can and we all feel your frustration
at the erosion of local control because that's
something we are dealing with every day
and the state continues to pull it back
and all I can tell you is we are putting up as much of a fight
as we can.
That's the position we are in now.
We've got some commercial.
Is a site with a limited frontage
so we thought it was reasonable in this case
because the commercial viability wouldn't be that great given
how much of the lot area is behind the frontage.
That is where we are at on that.
>> I might follow up on one other legal aspect
of Councilmember Hardy's question.
You had asked for clarification on if no action is taken,
does the underlying action taken by the design Review officer
stand?
That in fact is correct.
Our appeal process contemplates the Council
as the final decision maker, as part
of the administrative appeal process.
You will typically have not always get
a recommendation for staff as to what staff
thinks your decision should be.
And so per attorney -- that's why you've got a full
recommendation for staff with additional information
to support what that action might be tonight.
If the council is unable to reach any agreement on what
that appropriate action should be, in effect thus no action
taken by you and the legal effect of that
would be that the administrative determination by the Design
Review Officer with respect to these projects which
was an approval would stand and stay in place.
>> Thank you to our attorneys.
Council member Jain, you asked about the state density bonus
law and the unlimited waivers and if there's a concession.
I believe that was a respondent to yes,
they can go down to zero commercial if they wanted to.
You also asked about the setbacks.
I think it responded to the setback question
through Council member Hardy's response.
You asked about the amenity space
and you wanted to know a little bit more
about what's included in that amenity space.
Can you please pull up the Powerpoint so I can show that?
Let me see.
So this is the Amenity space here.
This is building three and this is Alviso Street.
The townhomes come with a six story townhomes are here.
This is the amenity space and it's 2000ft².
It will have a seating area, table and chairs and a barbecue.
And a little lawn area as well.
You asked about if a park fee is applicable.
This will go through our park ordinance
and they will evaluate.
It will most likely not be a public park.
It will be a privately maintained space.
You asked -- >> I guess I'm saying will they get the half
credit for that space?
>> They will have to pay the In-lieu fee.
>> Yes but we give them a half credit if it meets certain
requirements.
>> I'm looking to my friends on the right for that assistance
about the half credit.
Yes.
We will get back to you on that one.
And I know they are busy researching answers.
You asked a question that if this project was deemed
complete, if the SCR was adopted maybe
a month before this project, would there
be more articulation?
In other words would the ACR apply to this project?
This was deemed complete and at the concurrently
we are running the ACR and it was
going through the multiple reviews including
the new Environmental Review.
I think what's important to know is --
because they are meeting our affordable housing ordinance
and providing the number of affordable units
that are required for this project,
they can do unlimited waivers and still apply and get
those waivers and concessions.
>> You're saying it doesn't matter whether that --
>> They can ask for waivers and concessions if they do
affordable units.
It is a state law.
>> I will pipe in, it's always dangerous to have Laura next
to you.
Again, we negotiate with every developer.
I wouldn't put it as blanket as the director where she's
being a little pessimistic.
I would say they would have the ability
to request additional waivers and we would hopefully
push back on that.
And likewise -- I will disagree with --
we will not agree to a zero square footage commercial.
>> But they would ask under the Affordable Housing Ordinance --
a required number which is 15% under our affordable housing
ordinance.
They can request unlimited waivers
and then they're required concessions.
And then we evaluated according to state law.
>> I'm still trying to understand what is the point
of objective design standards if they can get all the waivers
they want?
>> Why don't I take that one.
We totally understand the point you are making.
I think the reality of the situation,
not just for Santa Clara but other cities
is there's been a myriad of state laws
that have taken away local control.
With the express benefit to have more housing.
It's quite possible we will have more housing,
but communities built that don't reflect the intent of what
our local rules say.
The state knew that when they adopted a number of their laws.
The reasons are many.
We sit here with the legislative context
that we do with a number of state laws
and we're only talking about a few here today.
We haven't even talked about Senate Bill 330
which is your very next item.
Two (inaudible) like a specific plan.
Absolutely this community went through a very elongated process
to arrive at a vision for El Camino Real.
With this project for various reasons
has double dashed to get waivers from things
that the community and then council adopted.
Unfortunately that's where we are.
>> Council member Chahal you asked what is the difference
between design guidelines versus objective design standards
and how do we distinguish?
Design guidelines are just that, guidelines.
We cannot hold them.
Their suggestions.
And they are visions.
But objective design standards are under the state law
and if a community adopts objective design standards,
then we can work with the developer
to hold the developer to those standards.
So there's a lot of benefit when we talk about local control.
Local control comes from adopting objective design
standards which is why the staff has been bringing those
to you in specific plans or for multifamily.
And we're continuing to pursue those to keep some community
character.
>> I have a follow up on that. (inaudible) the conversation
regarding objective design standards and state laws.
I do remember as City Manager also mentioned --
we were always told that if we do have objective design
standards, that is the only way --
maintain control of land use and zoning decisions.
And I'm hearing today that state law --
(inaudible) I want a clarification on that
because we're always told -- design standard.
Yes, you can override the state laws with those basically.
(inaudible) but I want to have that clarification.
>> So objective design standards do give us,
help us set a certain vision for community character.
We did that for example in the El Camino real specific plan.
And the objective design standards kind of help
for example, if you have 100% blank wall, you cannot --
if you have a street frontage, we don't want 100% blank wall.
We want a facade that is pedestrian
friendly, transparent, open and creates
a dialog with the street.
And we put down standards such as -- let me explain.
Like every 25ft there needs to be an opening.
Or take some kind of articulation.
When a developer submits a waiver, they can reduce that.
And again, this is something that we,
as we're going and working with developers, we have a baseline.
And that is what they ask us for a waiver for
or a concession for.
But we are working with the vision
that the council has adopted.
And the vision and the input that the community
has given to us.
>> My point is the city has a right to strictly adhere
to objective design standards and not to --.
Is that correct?
>> This is a very nuanced conversation and yes,
we should adopt objective design standards because what will hold
is objective design standards.
And that is where we are all going.
All the cities are going.
But there can be waivers and there can be concessions.
Unlike the city attorney said, when a project comes in,
it's like a negotiating point.
We talk when we go back and forth
so we still retain a certain amount of control for the city.
>> Those will be discretionary.
If city doesn't want -- >> Council member,
if you have questions -- reiterate those questions.
We're not going to go back and forth here.
>> Vice-Mayor, this is -- it's pertaining to the same question.
That's why I'm discussing it.
>> Go ahead and ask your question.
>> My question is if the design standards --
is the city's discretion whether to give that or not.
>> I know my city attorney is coming but there is not
a discretion to grant these waivers.
Again, this is called the state density bonus law.
If they meet the criteria through the 15%
affordable housing compliance, we
have to grant those waivers or concessions.
>> Let me finish this sentence.
She teed it up for me well.
We have to grant those waivers.
If the waiver is necessary, to achieve the density
allowable under the density bonus law.
So it's about fitting the project on the site.
If the developer says hey, look double Dutch with this density
bonus, this isn't the biggest site,
I can't really fit the project I want on this site
unless you waive some of these standards.
If it's necessary for them to achieve the allowable density
including the bonus on the site, then we
have to grant the waiver unless there's public health and safety
findings.
You could say well, can't you just redesign
it come and get rid of a courtyard?
Those are the court said well, we're
not allowed to make them get rid of amenities in the process.
That's why it turns into a negotiation
because we always push back and they always say yeah well,
we've got to have this beautiful fountain in the middle.
It's too high.
There's a push and pull.
>> I think we covered Councilmember --
we also covered your setback reduction.
For the fire space, we've already covered that question.
Councilmember Chahal, you also asked
about the objective design standards for the El Camino
real specific plan and under the zoning code, do they apply?
In this case El Camino real specific plan
was adopted by council in May of 2026.
This project was deemed complete in April of 2026.
We cannot retroactively apply.
>> My question was different.
My question was we didn't have objective design standards
approved -- when was that passed in -- ?
>> Let me take this.
>> Councilmember, at a high level,
what I hear you saying is hey, we were told that if we have
objective design standards, that's a buttress and protection
for our community and the development community will have
to meet our objective design standards.
Not sure when you were told that but let me say at a high level,
I know that was the case in the past.
Cities thought that and I remember
working with council members in a different city on that topic
and everybody was moving to have objective design standards.
What has happened is the landscape of laws in California
has constantly changed.
So the density bonus law was amended in 2025,
October 10th 2025, to adjust this point.
The new changes took effect January 1st 2026 and it allows
for waivers, even when you have objective design standards.
And so there's just a constant changing landscape
that the legislature is doing to essentially provide tools
so that cities have less and less discretion
so we will have more housing.
There are still benefits to having objective design
standards absolutely.
We have done them in the El Camino real specific plan
and we'll keep doing them but we also
have state law that constrains us.
We are here with one of those >> Thank you.
>> Yet the other side of it is we have objective design
standards because we can no longer impose objective
subjective cannot be applied to multifamily residential
developments.
Things like neighborhood compatibility,
architectural design, subjectively.
So we have objective standards because that's
the only thing we can apply.
They can request waivers to some of those standards.
That's why we need the objective standards.
>> Council member Chahal, you also asked that we adopted
objective design standards for multifamily as part
of our zoning code and do they apply.
So the objective design standards for multifamily
were in effect in April and there is a provision
that application submitted prior to the adoption
are not subjected to those objective design standards
for multifamily.
This is separate from the ones that were adopted in the El
Camino real specific plan.
>> Thanks.
And then you asked about the elevations.
And partial elevations with existing development
and single family homes on both sides.
I don't know if we can bring those up.
I don't have those.
Let me see if I have them.
I know I have some images of the actual project site,
the one on the bottom is the collision center
where the project or the proposed project will go.
These are the commercial and the duplex
and then I have the townhome floor plans.
I don't have that context, the contextual ones.
Let me work on council member parks questions.
You commented that there's no sunlight from south and west.
A shadow study is not required for this project.
Council member Park, you also asked about four storeys less
than 20ft away and that there's windows on every elevation
and privacy concerns.
The only thing I would comment is
that yes, there are windows on all the elevations
but they are also building code requirements for life safety.
There's a reason that there's windows on elevations.
The new asked about the waivers.
We've covered that question.
You asked about reducing it from 2700 common the commercial space
down to 715ft².
We covered that.
You made a couple statements and those statements not questions
-- you also asked about the affordable housing ordinance.
And if there's affordable housing that
is provided in the amount required by the ordinance,
is the state Density Bonus law granted?
I think we've talked about this a few times.
Your question is how do we >> I can respond to.
So all of our density bonus provisions
are in chapter 18.64 of our code and suffice
to say there are a lot of tables in this section
and we have to amend it every couple years
when state law changes.
But basically it goes through a formula
and if you provide this many units
at this level of affordability, here's
the percentage density bonus you get
but more relevant for tonight's discussion,
it says exactly how many concessions
slash incentives you get.
For moderate income housing which
is what's being provided here, if you provide
10% of the units at moderate income
you get one incentive or concession.
If you provide 20% at moderate you get two incentives.
So they are providing exactly 15%, actually 14.2 because --
so they get one concession incentive.
Remember, something that reduces the cost of the project
overall and that's what they're using
for their commercial square footage.
Waivers are about -- and if they are subject to the bonus law
they get unlimited waivers.
>> Council, going back to your question on the elevations,
Leslie and Xavier our planning manager has brought up
the elevations on the screen.
>> I can't see but (inaudible).
>> They do show the elevations in context,
one on Civic Center Drive and the other is --.
>> A 4.5 page I think.
Thank you.
>> Yes.
Council member Park, you asked about the El Camino
real specific plan and why it was delayed.
There was an El Camino real specific plan first brought
to council but the council approved not to adopt it.
Staff came back after council direction was provided
to amend the El Camino Real specific plan
and that also entailed doing environmental review,
doing public outreach and this was all brought to you
when we came back in May and we also
did a study session with council and walked counsel
through the entire project.
So was there a specific question on this?
>> I specifically what were the timelines so we could see what
the times were.
When you say we talked about this
and we had work that needed to be done,
I don't think that tells the full story.
I asked other questions as well which is when you say --
the study is not required, my question was can you tell us
what the shadows would be if there were a shadow story like
are my statements correct?
Is there sunlight during winter?
Is there sunlight after 1 p.m.?
At any time of the year?
When we talked about the windows,
I understand you said that we've got some safety concerns.
We don't seem to have any fire safety concerns comment
meaning at some point you're saying this is a zoning
requirement that we don't have these
but there's no fire requirement.
You said they did -- what is the fire reports?
Can we hear what the report is?
All of the El Camino specific plan --
all the things brought before council seemed to be this much
too late.
Like I'd mentioned before and this is a comment,
but part of my question -- the housing element came before
Council for approval on the night it needed to be approved
by the state.
There was no chance that the housing element would
have been approved and not getting the housing element
approved has opened us up for a lot of things
like builders remedy coming in.
What I'm hearing and it's disappointing,
we are always this late for something and now you're telling
us even if we were in time, the state laws obviate
our requirements and this is -- can you tell us the timelines
that were in effect?
Can you tell the timelines that were --
for El Camino specific plan?
I remember these came before council in 2021. (inaudible)
this is the El Camino real specific plan.
This is one of the most important streets in our city.
For us to kind of delay -- four years later,
to have something like this -- seems out of character
for something important.
I want to know what those were.
>> I know we are dealing with this project today.
I understand the frustration.
I wasn't here in 2021 but even so, I can tell you that those
frustrations -- but as far as this project,
I think she's addressed the Camino real plan.
>> For this project, I still want the other questions about
-- is my thought about shadow correct?
The privacy -- I understand you're saying we have these
things.
Can you detail what those are and contrast them
with the fire safety concerns that the council members
have had?
You state them.
In some cases you've said we've talked about a lot
and we don't have to talk about that more.
That's fine but in those cases, can you reiterate the answer?
Is it yes or no?
But simply saying that we've talked about this a lot
doesn't actually tell the story or give the public the answers
they're looking for.
I can see them shaking their heads and nodding
and at some point we are not trying
to say we are stating everything in a checklist.
At some point we're trying to make communications clear
and if I'm repeating myself it's because communication is not
clear.
You may have asked them in the Or answered them in the past
but if you can distill what the answer is
that would be better than telling us
that we've discussed it in the past.
Thank you.
>> As far as the shadow study, that wasn't done --
I don't think I'll ask our director to sit here and tell me
exactly at 1:00 what the shadow is.
If you can just address the questions as best you can,
we'll move forward.
>> I'm not asking for a shadow study but -- >> (inaudible)
>> Why don't I take the one about fire and be brief.
The question was with the proposed setback,
is there a fire at risk?
The answer that was provided was fire looked at it
and has approved it and there is no set required
setback for fire risk.
The California Building Code will allow buildings to about
each other if the construction type is --
we see it all the time.
You see buildings above each other
and there's no precise required setback.
There's a construction methodology
that would need to be met depending
on how close the buildings are.
It is allowed.
Your fire department has review this application
and hasn't objected.
>> Okay.
Councilmember Park, are there any remaining questions
you would like me to respond to?
>> The ones I just asked.
I mean are my thoughts correct about shade
when I'm asking for a shadow study?
I'm just asking if there's a general -- we've got again,
for story units, less than 20ft away from two story residential.
My concern is there -- we're looking for standards from
objective design which don't seem to matter but we don't have
standards for fire safety or privacy.
We talked about fire safety.
I don't know if there was a study done.
Is it only on one side?
As long as one side is built to certain fire
safety standards and everything's okay?
What are the privacy concerns?
What are the concerns that staff considered
when approving this project?
I want to know what those aspects of this project.
Thank you.
>> As stated, we can only consider those items
in the development standards.
A shadow study is not a required part of that standard.
So I want to make it abundantly clear, that's not required
and it's not objective.
So we cannot include it.
Plus we did do a shadow study if you recall as part of the El
Camino real specific plan where we looked at certain --
some of the properties.
We didn't look at every property.
We demonstrated how it would apply.
Councilmember, that was shown in --
shown in illustrated in diagrams and shown to council,
both of the study section as well as the final approval
for the El Camino real specific plan.
For this specific project, a shadow study
was not required as stated.
Is not part of the development standards.
We can ask if the developer or the architect
conducted any shadow studies.
>> Again, with the privacy studies --
it's funny to hear you say that shadow studies weren't required
and they're not objective.
There's nothing more objective than a shadow
study at some point.
If somebody does a shadow study and somebody
wants to refute that they can refute that.
But at some point (inaudible) the sun is there
and the shadows are there.
Maybe I'll just add Council member Park, our zoning code --
they don't require shadow studies.
There is a requirement for them in the planned area which
requires that if there is public open space nearby in some
circumstances --
four storey buildings may need a shadow study.
But there's no public open space of this project.
With respect to the privacy concerns,
these were raised with the developer
on a number of circumstances including at the development
review hearing.
The developer did make certain adjustments
to the project throughout the application process.
But declined to make additional changes related to privacy
and response --.
So developer can address that more specifically.
But we've brought that issue up with the developer
and they are complying with development standards
that we have.
>> My questions were along the lines of what is the city doing,
what kinds of things are we doing.
Even if not required, what work is the city doing to ensure that
the public is being protected, that the residents that are
there are being -- that we are considering them?
We are not sacrificing existing residents
because of what the state seems to allow for future development.
My question is how are we double Dutch we're supposed
to represent the residents.
At some point we have a financial fiscal responsibility
but I think that comes after our responsibility to our residents.
I want to know how -- how our defense of the residents came
to this conclusion?
>> Let me take that.
Part of the concerns you have raised is privacy.
I will say at its core, privacy is subjective.
We've said why we are not allowed
to have subjective standards.
An objective standard is building heights, setbacks,
and we have those.
When the city developed the El Camino real specific plan,
privacy -- when those items were talked about --
I know it was forefront among many issues.
Again calling to town we have is our objective standards
that are in part given because of privacy
can be waived due to state law and the density bonus.
So I wouldn't say that the city did not consider privacy.
We do not think about that, we didn't have that as a criteria.
We just sit here once again with the context of state law
giving an applicant the ability to waive standards,
objective standards that the city has put into its long term
plan.
>> I want to be clear what I heard.
I think what you said earlier and I'll check the video later,
is this privacy can be waived due to state law.
This is an important point but I want
to verify that that's what was stated.
>> Objective standards related to privacy may be waived
depending on the circumstances.
Subjective standards related to privacy
are likely unenforceable.
>> Do we have a few more questions?
>> Let me take one look.
Councilmember Gonzalez?
Your questions were are there terraces on the third floor
or the fourth floor?
I think I've clarified.
They are on the fourth floor.
And you asked if there's one commercial requirements.
We can ask the developer and the architect.
They're here tonight.
>> Thank you.
I think those are the questions the council had of staff.
Next we're going to hear from the appellant.
We'll move on to Michael and Cheryl
Fisher who have up to ten minutes
and give their presentation.
The hearing has been open since the beginning.
Sorry.
>> Hello?
>> She's going to speak? >> Good evening.
Thank you Council members. (inaudible) I'm a senior partner
who has focused on only environmental land use law
for the past 26 years and then looking at this and hearing
about the state density bonus and how much the state has taken
away at discretion, from the city,
it's frustrating that not one person has addressed our letter
from this morning dated August 25th,
and looking more at these issues.
The main problem with this project is that the two
accessory dwelling units which are a mere 520ft² each,
one bedroom, will not be able to be sold.
The conditions of approval for the project --
requiring an affordable housing agreement density bonus
agreement -- which would establish the affordable sales
price under condition H three and under the city's own density
Bonus agreement, provisions and 18.64 of the city code --
there are provisions requiring that there's a deed restriction
being recorded and that the initial purchasers be low
income.
These are all the requirements in order
to back into an affordable housing component
and part of the ability for the developer
allegedly to be getting all those waivers
and concessions under the state density bonus law.
No one has mentioned the separate accessory dwelling
law which is in chapter 13 of the Planning and Zoning
which precludes ADUs from being sold or conveyed
absent an ordinance pursuant to 1033, Government Code section
66342, that ADUs be allowed to be conveyed as condominium
units.
There's a bunch of requirements.
So the city does not have such an ordinance.
Those units cannot be conveyed in that manner.
Also the developer could be a nonprofit
in order to allow for ADUs to be conveyed separately
from the main units.
Again, there's nothing in the record
that shows they're a nonprofit.
The initial appeal letter was focused mainly
on a scanty record and lack of evidence
that was before the administrative decision making
body.
And looking at this further, and as your city manager noted,
this is an ever evolving, constantly changing landscape.
Basically it's unenforceable.
HCD has also recommended against the use of deed restricted ADUs
to qualify for the state Density Bonus law,
if the proposed primary units as here are for sale,
and the deed restricted ADUs would be only for rent.
Unless there's a robust, adequately funded monitoring
program put into place.
Because otherwise we can't track who actually is
occupying these units for rent.
And the city lacks such well-funded monitoring programs.
The council, reviewing this de Novo,
has a discretion to deny the project and grant the appeal,
send it back to staff, send it back to the developer
and make them look at a smaller project
and maybe make them do actual affordable units that
are of average bedroom size which is also required
by the city code, and which are dispersed throughout the project
site.
The site is so oddly shaped and maybe that's
why they've taken the approach they have
to try to squeeze as much in.
But the council is not required to approve this.
Unless you have questions for me,
I'd request that the Council grant the appeal or hand
the project to staff and the developer
and I will cede the rest of my time to my client.
>> I shouldn't have to use my ten minutes correcting city
errors and there's a lot of them.
First off, this is that neighborhood context
we're talking about.
I saw no images of this in the January of 2020 council
meeting I presented a case that this
is the most significant nod to the mission of Santa Clara,
if you look at the lines.
It's a clear nod to our emblem.
I shouldn't have to use my time for all this nonsense.
This should be presented as the context of the neighborhood.
This is the house and this is the neighborhood,
the single family homes.
This is the most significantly impacted and it's not 12ft away.
It's 5 or 10 or less than ten.
The attorneys need to be educated.
My project was not double dashed same zoning.
My project was not allowed to have commercial.
Development across the street, not allowed to have commercial.
So lots of education needs to be recurring here.
So the Mission estates project, it was previously -- sorry.
I have a whole speech but I've only got four minutes.
Let's see.
So I want to speak to staff.
There's a lot of staff problems here.
I don't know if I have time to speak of it.
The overall problem we want to address
is modern high density development
next to existing neighborhood and create a scene.
That scene needs to be addressed.
No staff seems to give a damn.
Attorneys don't seem to give a damn and city manager doesn't
seem to give a damn.
There's a problem and it's way bigger than my project.
Goodness.
This is all over the city, not just me.
So my project was based on the concept
of a eligibility equals listed.
That means historical resource, if it's eligible,
it's the same legal standing as listed.
Fast forward today.
The whole development in the standards
are in concrete and stucco and tile.
I was originally proposing to build an eight unit three story
townhome in city staff said heck no.
I eventually got a four unit development based on this
concept, this legal determination from city staff
that listed -- eligible equals listed.
It's my house which is eligible to be historically listed is --
the same legal standing as an actual listed resource.
My house is clearly a resource.
Nobody's talked about it and it's a resource,
and whether it's eligible or listed is a discrepancy here.
It was beaten into me so many times
in these meetings with my planner,
whom apparently lied to me and was inept,
but this case, this eligibility equals listed.
So much so that we were just bled dry.
We spent over a quarter million dollars in $2,017 or whatever
approving each of these units just nothing to do with private
property.
This was city satisfaction dollars.
And finally, at the end of our process we had --
after a much longer process than these folks are enduring,
at the end we had our approval set up for a meeting at the PCC
meeting.
We were due for staff approval.
Far more effort than these folks have put into it.
My planner comes to me in the hallway and says hey Michael,
I need to --
we need to postpone periods over two years of involvement
and lots of dollars.
We need to give another developer this slot.
I didn't come to learn until later
that this was to make me the first Guinea
pig under the premise that eligible
equals listed and eligible resource has
the same legal standing as a listed resource.
They called my project complicated and then they made
us the first Guinea pigs of the $50,000 parking fee.
It was a simple and non-controversial project
and we agreed to everything the city said.
So this erroneous legal counsel to the city --
furthermore, we scheduled and paid
for a fee to register our house as a historical resource.
But because the city staff was so rude and beat this
in and took so much money and time from us, we decided well,
since historical eligible resource --
which my house is a resource -- it's exactly the same legal
standing as a listed resource, why bother with the fee and with
the listing?
We would love to list our house.
This is nuts.
Staff needs to be educated.
I got 47 seconds left and it's like two hours and 50 people
against ten minutes and double Dutch a few people.
It's ridiculous.
Furthermore, I've dedicated my life to this.
Originally we're going to tear down a house
and build three story townhomes.
We were restricted and not allowed commercial and over two
story.
The development across the street was also restricted
double dashed eligible historic resource which is --
I don't know if you've seen it.
Lots more to say but you should fund my 152 --
June 17th approval date for this project and the June 18th
specific plan was approved.
I smell a rat.
>> Thank you.
Any questions for the appellant?
Council?
I don't see any hands up.
So with that we are going to -- we will move
on to the applicant.
The applicant will have ten minutes.
Mr. Damien Ospino, Ospino enterprises.
We'll get that presentation here together.
>> A good evening.
Damien Spino.
Family business.
My mother and father brought this property in 1972
and operated it as a machine shop for 30 years.
Father's dream was someday it will develop the property.
While this coming Friday we had a memorial for our father.
We lost him a year ago.
My family says we're through.
We're going to develop it.
This is my 60th year working real estate with my family.
So I appreciate what you do for me.
My name is Kurt and I'm a principle
of Anderson Architects.
Can you pull my -- we started this project in 2024 and we said
double Dutch if you could pull it double Dutch you can see
right here --
(inaudible) February 1st 2024.
We did the initial pre op.
And then we did the formal submittal in October 2024.
We had seven revisions we went through.
Staff held our feet to the grindstone.
Part of that commercial space -- that's what we agreed
to on a concession and that commercial space is strictly
for -- available to the community and for the --
and that's all.
So that whole negotiation with staff.
They did a great job.
Our team talked about -- they really worked with us to get
where we're at.
So then you see -- it was 929.
(inaudible) the appellant was at our community meeting at --
we didn't hear from them until the date -- they had issues.
The day of the direct hearing they came
and they read a letter by their attorney.
We didn't have a chance to respond to either comment.
So let me talk about a couple things.
We talk about commercial.
We work with Fire and they reviewed it and these units will
be a tight, three A building that will be --
we've agreed to increase fire activity units to make the fire
department happy.
As 80 years are actually part of the condo above.
Is basically a three story unit.
The Adu is part of that and they'll be sold as a stack.
Those condoms will have them as part of it.
The ducks are at the fourth level.
(inaudible) can you go to the next slide please?
Next one please.
You can see the building steps down
on the outer edges to the east and to the west.
The building is only three stories, not four.
The four stories on the Civic Center side.
We talk about terrace fees.
We talked about the fire review and the ADU.
We work very closely with staff.
A lot of revisions to get to this point.
Now we'll turn it over to our attorney.
>> How are you?
Good evening mayor mayor vice mayor and Council member.
Thank you for your time.
I don't want to belabor and tell you all the bad news
of laws at play here.
I submitted a letter earlier today
that plays out the state laws at play
and that protect my client's project.
In response to the attorney for the appellate that
spoke before, I do want to make clear,
the affordable units will not be the ADUs proposed.
My understanding is one of the affordable units offered
for sale separately is a townhome
and the other will be one of the condominium units.
Those will be distributed throughout the development
and will be offered for sale. (inaudible)
will be comparable to the market rate units in the project.
So they will be sold as part of the condominium units and state
housing law and -- state Adu law is clear.
You can't use the presence of ADUs
being sold with primary units as a basis to disapprove of project
or find it inconsistent with zoning.
I work on housing development projects throughout the state
and I've worked on dozens if not hundreds at this point.
In every jurisdiction I go into, I
hear similar concerns and concerns
about neighborhood character.
I hear concerns from neighbors that
would prefer different heights come on different articulation
and colors.
And the type of subjective concerns
that were enforceable to us for decades upon decades.
Really up until the last seven years.
Unfortunately comet while I understand how passionate people
are, people are passionate about their neighbors and the way
their views look from the backyards --
the state has recognized that we have a severe illness and that
illness is a severe housing supply shortage.
That shortage is worse in California
than most states in the Union and worse
in Santa Clara than most counties in the state.
The HHA and density bonus law have been described by various
courts as strong medicine, which for you unfortunately means that
where our project complies with the applicable objective general
plan zoning, subdivision design standards adopted and in effect
at the time -- housing Development project application
is deemed complete.
You cannot disapprove that project unless very rare health
and safety findings which have to be based on objective
and adopted health and safety standards can be found.
Those findings can be made here.
Also the density bonus law comes into play
because there's such a shortage of affordable housing.
My client's project benefits from significant protection
of the Density Bonus law which staff did every single
(inaudible) aspect of that law.
I just say the project is entitled
to unlimited number of waivers.
I've worked on multiple projects where
62 100 waivers are requested in those projects and are approved.
In my experience, I will say this design does a pretty darn
good job comparably with complying
with the objective standards that you have
or that weren't effects when that application was deemed
complete.
The only finding you can make to disapprove a waiver,
which can be requested for any development standard that would
physically preclude the development as designed --
developer does get to choose their design
and their configuration and unfortunately,
if we request a waiver to allow for that configuration
and design, the courts have constrained cities significantly
and I can assure you that no findings are available here
to disapprove the waivers we've requested, the limited
number of waivers.
We talked about concessions and I
can assure you that the concessions requested
by my client would result in actual cost reductions
and would not result in health and safety impacts. (inaudible)
we we've requested waivers and concessions
to completely eliminate commercial footage requirements
on the ground floor.
The that this project is providing
a viable commercial space I think sets it apart from others.
I'm trying to think what else I want to address here.
>> There's two points I wanted to make.
We keep talking about El Camino Real.
If we were under El Camino specific plan,
you would use double density stacking.
I can put 42 units on this site and I can go 70ft tall,
four stories plus a 35 --
I can put 44 units.
If we chose to go under SB 79 which is just adopted July 21st,
that density would be 100 dwelling units.
That means I can put 61 units on this site and double the state
density double stacking, 122 units --
100ft tall.
This is under the density that would be allowed under the El
Camino real specifically.
I want to share that.
That's important to know because we keep
talking about El Camino Real.
>> I'll conclude I understand appellant is frustrated.
He proposed a project when the world was different in 20 17.
The critical factor there is that was before 2019
where the crescendo of housing laws began to pass.
We're in a different world.
For secret purposes all we're concerned with are actual listed
historical buildings .
We appreciate your time and appreciate
staff's hard It's a difficult place for staff to be
in right now.
But state law is what it is.
It's enforceable and a CD is enforcing state law
as are our applicants.
Thank you.
>> Any questions for the applicant?
Council member Jain?
>> I you'd mentioned that it's viable commercial space,
then you had said that it would be only a community room.
I'm trying to understand what that means.
If it's a community room, will it have a restroom?
How will it be reserved?
By members of the public?
And then if it's a viable commercial space,
will it have straps and vents?
Grease traps and vents?
>> Any other council members?
>> Good questions.
What we've agreed with staff is that it
would be a community meeting room available by appointment.
It would be fully furnished.
Is a restroom in the space.
That's available by rental through the HOA.
It's also where the HOA has their monthly meetings
or quarterly meetings.
It is available to give you on a --
but it's not going to be (inaudible) an office
for a business.
It won't be a restaurant in those things.
Part of that was -- we worked with staff was part was
the trash collection and everything else.
That was important to determine how much trash bins that we'll
have to supply for that space.
It's going to be limited to a limited use. (inaudible)
then for the HOA itself.
>> Number of meetings per month -- one month, two a month,
three a month -- >> We'd be happy to limit that.
Once a month or whatever.
It's not going to be every day obviously.
(inaudible) But whatever is it reasonable --
>> Can I propose number?
>> Yeah.
>> Three a month?
>> That's what I was thinking but sure.
That's fine.
Okay?
>> Will there be --
I know you said there's a restroom in there.
If it were to be converted to a coffee shop,
does it have grease traps or vents?
>> We don't have the infrastructure for any type
of restaurant and it's not a viable location for that.
You have a narrow street --
I'm in my 50th year doing architecture.
It's a crappy place for a commercial facility
or for a type of retail.
It wouldn't make sense or last.
>> Thank you.
I don't see any other council members questions so thank you.
We'll go to the public at this time.
We'll do public testimony and each member of public
will have two minutes to speak.
I see a hand up.
Is there anybody here from the public that wants to speak
or address -- >> We have cards. (inaudible)
>> Thank you for taking my question.
So council members I have two minutes.
I'm actually the one right next to the building
which is blocking all the windows. (inaudible)
they are the two story single family homes.
I'm pretty frustrated listening to this whole conversation.
I understand the developers have their laws in the city approves
it but it seems like the city never
consider the residents already live there. (inaudible)
blocking the windows.
They're not talking about 20ft.
They're talking less than three feet.
We send a letter to city and city
says the setback could be zero.
That's in the letter to US.
Basically they say they can build it
all the way to the wall.
So there's no sunlight in all the windows will be blocked.
And on top of that, the parking -- right now obviously --
it's fairly limited and people parking illegally next
to my driveway.
Now with these additional townhomes and commercial spaces,
I'm sure not everybody going to park their cars on the parking
garage every day.
There's no way to park.
So all these things -- it's really impacting us.
One of the neighbors already moved.
We are thinking are we going to stay here or move somewhere
else?
So the city didn't consider any of the existing
people who live there.
They couldn't even figure out if that's
townhome or single family.
I'm so frustrated on that.
I know there's city laws and county laws and frankly I
don't follow all the differences but it seems like all
the decision making is -- of course the developer has
their rights but the person who tried to approve this project
or not really has to consider the people who live there
overall.
Thank you for your time.
>> Thank you.
>> My name is Jane and I'm next door which is 1530 aviso.
I'm the owner of that.
So I have just three questions.
So what is the cumulative impact for all
of those waivers together for the residents of that?
We're in the single family homes,
so now all of a sudden you're blocking all of our windows.
We really respectfully request the city and the provider --
analysis showing the impacts on the adjacent home and then
privacy analysis -- identify upper storey windows come
a balcony and other area facing the neighborhood residents
and also comment like building cross sections and visual
simulations showing the proposed projects in relation
to the adjacent homes.
We also need the exact dimension of the proposed setback.
And also we need the explanation of whether alternative design
could achieve the housing objective
with less impact on this existing neighborhood
residences.
Thank you for your consideration.
>> Thank you Cheryl Fisher.
>> Thank you for having me and letting me talk.
Michael is my husband and we built that development for 2017.
At the request of basically the city.
They asked us to make two story homes.
They asked us to have setbacks.
They asked us to maintain the character.
They said no, you can't have commercial.
You have to have setback.
We had to do several redesigns, even move our whole house back.
We had to move it back because they
decided to implement a setback.
We widened the street and did so much for that.
So I think you guys have more authority
than you think you have.
Do not be bullied by somebody saying oh, the state says this
and we have no discretion.
That's not true.
You do have discretion.
In this particular case, those particular ADU units
and all that stuff for affordable housing
that doesn't fit.
That's not true.
The affordable housing units they said they have their
are not the way they're supposed to be.
It should be two townhomes, not just one ADU and one townhome.
You should not be bullied.
If we have to be the test case to go to court
and have the state ferret out this issue, we can.
But it would be an issue where the state sits there and says
how much control does the local government have
over its own city?
El Camino specific plan double Dutch how much control
do you have?
All these objective standards -- are you going to sit there
and spin your wheels forever and get nothing accomplished
because we're afraid of this state thing that hasn't even
been tested in the courts yet?
And maybe it needs to.
That's what happened with the 80 used to begin with.
>> Thank you.
Now we'll go to Catherine Romano.
Maybe this is Kathleen.
Can you hear me?
Thank you for your time and I apologize
that I'm not there in person.
I'm a historical landmarks commissioner
and I would have been there in person
if I had realized this was coming up today.
It seems to be confusion around the fact of whether 820 Civic
Center is historical or not.
I did a simple Google search and found the minutes from the HLC
commission from 11/1/2018 where they recognized Civic Center
Drive as a historic landmark.
I cannot find any records of this development coming in front
for approval.
And I believe I heard the development say
that only one of the reasons that this could be denied
was because of a historical property and it's not.
It is a historical property.
I'm confused as to why this was missed.
You can't go strictly off of the HR I pdf
document on the website.
That is a stale document and you have to go through the minutes
and look for supplemental additions.
I would like to recommend that this
needs to come in front of HLC first before anything else can
be decided.
Thank you.
I yield the rest of my time.
>> Thank you.
Are there any speakers here in the audience?
And we have no one else online, correct?
Hold on.
So now we'll have the applicant rebuttal
so the applicant will have five minutes.
Damien and -- has the opportunity to make a rebuttal.
You have up to five minutes.
The applicant.
Did you have any rebuttal statements
that you want to address.
You have five minutes.
>> Yeah just to clarify, my understanding is that 820 is not
part of this project.
>> All right.
>> I don't have any rebuttals at this point.
Typically I think the appellate would speak
but I think we've made our discussion pretty clear
and I've laid out the state laws at play.
This project would not impact and would not
demolish any historic structures listed
in the state or local registry.
That's not a basis to disapprove the project.
>> Thank you.
With that we will go to the appellate Pemex
so the appellate will have five minutes.
Michael and Cheryl Fisher.
>> Thank you.
I don't know if anyone wants to speak.
First off, 820 civic is within 150ft.
So it is relevant.
The 42 townhomes across the street
were also brought into that historical requirement.
As far as --
I was blown away by -- not I'm okay with state laws.
I'm blown away by city staff horrible and awful treatment
of myself and then switching the totally opposite direction
and horrible awful treatment on the flip side of myself.
We got both ends in this one.
So staff's behavior was abhorrent.
In general.
Give me 5000 minutes to be specific.
Did you want double Dutch I want to say a couple
things about the public meeting process which
is one of the specific things I was appalled at.
First public meeting was voluntary.
I didn't even think it counted so I didn't take it seriously.
I thought okay here comes the robust meeting
process after this.
Never came.
So I was shocked and disgusted.
The first public meeting was -- they'd already made up
their mind.
Horrible stuff.
The planning -- what's the word --
the planning captain or whatever the guy's name is --
whatever the position is, the guy in charge of approval --
I'll try to be brief.
They presented the project and when the citizens of Santa Clara
spoke, he became physically uncomfortable and awkward.
When I personally spoke, I think -- maybe it's recorded.
I think I was reasonable and brief
but I ended with excuse me, I lost my train of thought.
That was my quote.
This person became giddy like a school child.
It was disgusting and he quoted and said,
no, we'll just move on.
He used that to cut me off.
It was disgusting and not acceptable
in the city of Santa Clara staff.
Also, one of the things they say is that --
one of the things they say is sequa is not required
and there's no public health and all that other stuff.
In all honesty, it's an auto body repair place
right next to us and there's no environmental study.
It's an auto body shop.
Logic will tell you hey, you might need to do that.
But they're saying we don't need to do an environmental study
and that is a health risk and that is in the law of.
So there are -- there's lots of things that we're trying to put
this development as this great ADU,
affordable housing project but it's not.
It's like putting a square peg in a round hole.
You guys are doing well when it comes
to trying to meet your government and state
quotas for building these houses and developments.
You want to do it right.
I mean -- you remember the development agency back in --
they had this great idea to make it all wonderful and partner
with developers and all this other stuff and it turned out
just to be -- it got banished because it was --
it basically was a scam and a lot of people took advantage
of it.
I don't want that to happen here with all of these things going
on and with all the objective evidence and all the objective
standards, with --
with sequa and all of these -- all of these things.
Everyone is jumping into it and I
don't want it to end up as a scam which
is what the redevelopment Agency turned out to be.
You guys have the opportunity to thoroughly look at this,
to thoroughly examine the law and to thoroughly
examine what was said and how you're doing it.
You don't have to turn over a project like that just
because they say yeah, you have to
because that's what the state says.
The state doesn't necessarily say that.
If you look into state law it doesn't say that.
You have to make sure there's health and safety.
If it's an auto body thing they should do CEQA.
You want to make sure affordable housing is actually affordable
and can be sold separately and it's not just an Adu which
isn't the same as a townhome that's
three bedrooms two baths and all that other stuff
and that's what they're using as their affordable housing thing.
You can't even sell that separately.
It comes in the same thing.
Those townhomes that have to be -- they have to be --.
There's a lot there.
>> Thank you.
>> Now we'll go back to staff.
City manager?
>> We'll come forward.
There's a couple items we'd like to correct for the record.
And respond to one of the public comments.
>> Thank you.
Just to briefly correct the record,
you already heard in the applicant's response,
the accessory dwelling units are not
the affordable units for this.
You heard a lot of testimony from the appellate attorney
about concern over the transferability
of the accessory dwelling units because she mistakenly
thought those were the affordable units
and just to be crystal clear, one of the affordable units
is one of the townhouses and another one of the units
is one of the two condos in the duplex.
The ADUs are not part of that analysis.
Another speaker mentioned well, maybe it's
time to test these laws.
Why don't we just go to court and test them just to be clear,
they're actually is a rather robust body of laws upholding
the density bonus statutes.
They change year to year but there's a robust body of cases
and unfortunately a lot of enforcement letters
governing the density bonus statutes
and how they apply to cities.
And they are frequently most of the time
not favorable to city discretion.
There's a lot of discussion about historic eligibility,
historic nature of an adjoining property.
To be crystal clear, there is no property
that is on the city's historic resource inventory.
If there were it would have affected whether we could have
used the exemption and it would have required a referral HLC>
the applicant filed an application for designation
years ago and that application was withdrawn.
It's not on the registry and therefore it's not relevant.
Finally, somebody mentioned there's an auto body shop here.
Shouldn't this be a case where we do some hazmat analysis?
The project is conditioned by the fire department
to do both phase one and actually
even phase two environmental assessment if the department
determines it's warranted.
The letter the appellant submitted today
said there wasn't enough of a condition requiring a phase one
environmental assessment.
They are concerned it wouldn't be enforceable
and that's one of the requirements
to use the CEQA exemption that there'd be a phase one
environmental assessment.
This is for smaller projects not moving --
phase one environmental assessment may be adequate
in they're saying no, you should have been more overt
in your condition require the phase one.
To be clear, the condition says do
a phase two and the second part says it's possible only
phase one would be required.
Here's the thing.
Phase one is already done and was completed in August of 2025
and already submitted to the city.
There's no risk that phase one will not be done.
Do you have anything to add?
>> I had some -- just as background,
there was no historic preservation ordinance back
in 2014 when the appellant's project was coming through.
The Historic preservation ordinance was adopted in 2017
and if they would submit an application today
for a designation, staff would look at that application
and most likely go through the steps in the process.
For designation.
>> One more correction for the record.
This is an architectural review approval.
The city code identifies what we can and cannot include
as conditions of approval in an architectural review approval.
Typically things like the way parking is laid out.
Regrettably we cannot condition two way commercial space is used
as part of an architectural review.
It's not germane to the jurisdiction you have tonight.
>> Thank you.
So with that we'll close public hearing.
If we can get a motion to close?
>> Motion to close public hearing.
>> Second.
We have a motion and a second.
This is the city clerk.
Can we --
[taking votes]
>> Now we will go to the --
I see Council member Jain.
>> I had a question for staff.
HLC Commissioner Kathleen Romano mentioned
there were minutes from the HLC designating 820
as a historic property but apparently
it didn't show up in the registry.
>> The applicant withdrew the application and it never made it
to Council.
>> I see.
Thank you.
>> Anyone else?
>> Twice.
Any other -- comments and debate?
Council member Jain?
>> I learned a lot today.
I learned that our hands are really tied here.
Based on these new state laws that have gone in.
These automatic waivers come unlimited waivers, concession --
I don't see any room to wiggle here.
And I will make a motion to overrule the appeal.
>> I will second that and I will say my state Senator
and my state Assembly member are going to get an earful.
>> Staff recommendation was to overrule the appeal and there
was also the determination for the CEQA exemption?
Staff recommendation?
>> It might be worth reading that into the record comment
member chair comment member chair --
that's a new title for you.
Staff's recommendation is determine
the project be exempt from CEQA pursuant to Public Resources
Code 2108066 and conduct the public hearing
and consider all evidence presented
and unless you determine that the exemption is inapplicable
or that the project would result in a specific adverse public
health or safety impact, as you've
heard about your discretion, staff's
recommending that the resolution be adopted which would overrule
the appeal and uphold the decision
to approve the Architectural review permit for the project
as described.
Subject to the conditions of approval.
>> Thank you.
We have Council member Chahal?
go ahead.
>> Thank you Vice mayor.
So I will not be supporting the motion
and I'll give you multiple reasons for that.
If you look at the resolution, let's go point by point.
The resolution clause three B, it
states that the design and location of the proposed
development and its relationship to neighboring developments
and traffic is such that it will not
impact the desirability of investment or occupation
in that neighborhood.
It will not interfere with the -- that is completely wrong.
It is impacting the neighborhood.
It is impacting the residents and existing residents
on that development basically.
So I don't think that's a true statement.
Let me go to clause three C, that the design and location
of the proposed development is such
that it is in keeping with the character of the neighborhood.
And it's such that not to be determined -- the harmonious --
by the zoning code.
Again, that's not right.
This is a impact in the neighborhood in the harmony.
A couple of neighbors have come forward.
It's stressful for them to have living in a shaded houses where
-- they own that property and in the context that they had
a different view when they owned it.
If I had that property in that location right now,
I too would be stressed.
So I don't agree with that.
Let's go to 3D, that the granting of such approval will
not under that circumstances -- effect adversely the health,
comfort and general welfare of persons residing or working
in the neighborhood.
That's wrong.
Residents have come forward that it
will impact their comfort and their welfare and the mentally.
Let's go to three, that the proposed development --
and drawings are consistent with the set of --
for architecture review as approved and updated from time
to time by the Council.
If you go further on that, the last sentence of that paragraph
says incorporate a design compatible with the surrounding
pattern.
And convenient layout of -- it is not compatible with
the existing surrounding development.
For those reasons I will not be supporting the motion.
Thank you.
>> Council member.?
>> I have a couple questions about historic preservation
and resource inventory which I've been told it's not up
to date and that -- that the website is not accurate.
I want to know if that's true and why.
I've been told that there is a meeting on November 1st 2018
recognized Civic Center Drive --
I'm being told that the applicant withdrew
the historic application twice.
I kind of want to understand that.
I want to know -- we kind of clarified.
I had a question about what the affordable units would be.
I know there was a lot of confusion around the ADUs
but I was told the affordable units are basically
one townhouse and one condo.
I'm also aware that they don't meet the 15% of affordable units
with that number of.
I want to know how much below the 15% affordable units
can developers build?
Before -- and augment with fees before we don't allow this.
It's important.
I also think and this is my comment that legally required
or not, the city needs to consider
the welfare of its residents.
At some point double Dutch and I've said this,
every development comes in and every big developer
comes in and says we'll be your future neighbors
and I'll say you're not our friends and not
our future neighbor.
You're a.
At some point there needs to be some consideration of the actual
friends come with the actual neighbors because --
nobody likes this but I'll tell a story and it's about a farmer
that had 50 sheep and his son I 50 sheep and said I'd like
to add that 50 sheep to my flock.
So he treated those 50 sheep well and gave them
the food from the original 50 sheep
and after wiki said what do you think kimchi
you want to join the flock?
They said you've treated us well but in treating us well
we've seen how you treated your original flock.
And we feel that when a new flock comes, we join their flock
and another flock and another 50 sheep came along
and we were worried about how you would treat us
since we've seen how you treated your original flock.
No, we will not be joining your flock.
I think this kind of story was made exactly
for things like this.
And staff is not going to look out for the welfare
of the residents -- at some point it looks like Mr.
Fisher was not treated well but I can't talk to that.
But at some point I can talk to the residents.
When we're saying that we've got no sunlight come what
we're trying to avoid saying there's no sunlight by saying
there's no requirement for a shadow study --
shouldn't need to be a shadow study to see how the light would
be affected.
It's kind of a shame that staff won't come out
and just say that.
When we look at privacy, I think it's
a shame that staff will not just come out
and say privacy won't be affected.
It's a shame that we don't have any kinds of considerations
for privacy.
We go back to state law and we go back to the waivers
and minimum requirements and I think it's a shame that we are
looking at so many waivers and ignoring the feedback --
I think it's justified.
And the argument coming against it is a legal argument.
I've said this many times that the legal argument is the lowest
bar.
At some point legal requirements don't guarantee
that people are served.
In fact I'd say in some cases when the legal requirement goes
against people's welfare, and the legal requirement
is not a good requirement.
Legal does not mean good and good does not mean legal.
I've stated this many times, even to the city attorney.
Even the worst attorney, in the worst city attorney
would still be legal.
This is not a bar that we should be touting as we're doing well.
It's something we need to look at as well, this is a baseline
but even though it's theoretically good,
what is the actual effect?
The actual effect on the people has been ignored
and that's a shame.
I would like my other questions answered.
Historic preservation.
If the applicant submitted an application for Historic
to be on the historic inventory list,
it seems like they were told they
didn't need to because eligibility was
the same as being on the list.
That's not exactly true.
How would that change the calculus of this?
And how much below 15% affordable can developers build?
And still augment with fees?
It seems that's just a trick, which
is I can build whatever I want and I can augment it with fees.
Because as long as I hit that 15% I'm
going to get my density bonus and then we're
going to have discussions about what the state law requires
us to do.
I appreciate Councilmember Chahal's comments.
Planning commissioners are supposed to make findings
and I think it's difficult to make findings in this case.
The findings don't matter because well, we've
got this state law legal requirement.
But I'll leave the answers for staff.
Thank you.
>> Thank you Council member..
First, we just checked regarding the historic resources inventory
and the inventory is up to date.
In fact we updated it back in February 2026
as a city Council meeting and that did come to council
and the website should also be up to date.
So wanted to make a note.
You also asked why did the applicant withdraw twice.
We don't know.
They put in an application and it's
up to the applicant to proceed forward and in that case
they withdrew.
I think we've already responded to the question
about the affordable units.
One is in the townhome and the other is a duplex.
And regarding the comment about how much affordable are they
proposing, they are proposing and I have that written down --
the two moderate income units comprise 14.2% of the units
and the fee represents the other 0.8% and that is per
our affordable housing ordinance.
So they are meeting it and they can do it as a combination.
>> When the 15% would result in a fractional unit,
we allow them to take care of that fractionally.
>> And with regards to the architectural findings,
I understand the frustration that some of the council members
have voiced.
We still have a code that has to be
robust, subjective architectural findings
and they're very important for our noncommercial developments.
We haven't really caught up to state law
in revising them for multifamily residential buildings.
So we have this awkward resolution here
where staff believes you can make these findings.
We can make them in the affirmative.
But we've heard from two who believe they can't
make the subjective findings.
That's not consistent with the Housing Accountability Act.
You need to make your decisions based on objective standards
and tonight I've heard two of you
say you're not going to support the motion because
of the subjective standards.
That's attention related to the fact
that our code hasn't quite caught up with state law
and we're asking you to make subjective findings.
>> I don't believe I heard two council members say that they
were going to vote against this.
I don't believe I heard that at all.
>> I apologize if I jumped the gun.
I heard one say he wasn't going to support the motion
and another expressed reservations.
>> Thank you.
Council member Park, anything else?
I do want to have comments for that which is again,
I think that staff is jumping the gun making assumptions
which shouldn't be made.
At some point I think council members
do understand that whether they agree or disagree
with something that there are findings,
there are decisions that need to be made.
This is very true.
I voted for or against things that I
don't agree with because well, it seems it was necessary.
I think it's bad practice to make that kind of assumption
and that kind of statement in a response
to council member question.
These are questions.
>> I'll go back and listen to the recording.
>> I suggest you do.
I take notes and I'll say that usually the reason why
I speak even as clearly as I do is because I write down
almost every single thing I'm going to say so that when people
misquote me,
>> Public hearing is over.
I'm sorry.
>> So when people accuse me of saying something I didn't say
come I can go back and say that's not likely.
>> I apologize.
>> By all means go back and take a look at the video.
>> I trust you on this.
>> The other thing I want to say is that I know you're saying
that the code has subjective findings and I think
there's some objective findings that we say are not required.
I almost feel like they should be
done because there's nothing more objective than a shadow
study.
There's nothing more objective than the sun in the sky
being able to go into windows or not go into windows.
When you say that's the basis of subjective finding
that is not allowed, that doesn't make any sense to me.
When you tell me that, we don't have
to do that and that's the reason we're not going to do that
and we don't have to do that and that's why
we're not going to consider it.
I feel that is again ignoring the welfare of our residents.
Throughout history, sunlight, the availability
to have sunlight has been an issue.
Not just here but throughout civilizations.
And for us to throw it out because
of how state law seems like a very bad use of a very
big stick.
Again, I have to think about this.
I feel when we say affordability, if when the 15%
would be a fractional unit and not
require that that unit be full, I think
it should be a minimum 15%.
Maybe we need to revise the housing ordinance because stuff
like this --
when you've got projects this small,
it is possible that you will lose units
because they're just going to pay for this in fees
and I'd like that fee double Dutch
if they have to pay a fee like that fee
to be commensurate with being able to double Dutch having
a unit for an affordable unit.
You'd have to subtract out a market rate unit
and add in an affordable unit and take more
than the difference.
In order to make up for this.
This is an affordable unit you're never going to get.
Anyways, I don't have more to say.
Thank you.
>> Thank you city manager.
With that I was just going to remind council that it is now
11:12 and we're on the first of five regular business items.
Certainly robust discussion but if we can proceed to a vote that
would be helpful.
>> I want to mention I understand the frustration.
I can tell you my almost year and a half and two years --
we have lost local control because of the state issues
and some of that is maybe -- and they're doing what they can
to get that done.
But I can tell you that there's apartment houses here
an apartment houses for sure that have zero direct sunlight
into their apartments which are not much bigger than 500ft².
And it is what it is.
Unfortunately we have laws today that are allowing this building
and I think that's something that we can look forward
to seeing how this will develop.
I believe the applicant has made some level of --
tried to make it less hi, three stories closer to those two
story houses.
There's never going to be a great way of doing multi-story
versus -- single story or two stories.
I live on district one and we have
20 story buildings right now.
We're looking at building more and obviously they're
not directly next to 1 or 2 story
but it's a different environment that we are in today.
I think our residents -- all of our residents are impacted.
For our landowner who's been there for --
I think 50 years or something -- we care about all
of our residents and trying to make sure that we do what we can
for the residents that are here in the city.
And with that we can take a vote.
I believe Council member parks hand is up still.
>> I will request to speak after this which is my point I wanted
to make is we have a lot of issues ahead of us and we are
at 1115 and this is not a failure of council.
This is a failure of meeting management.
There was no way that all of these items
were going to make it through tonight to.
When we look at all the meetings that have gone long,
the one that occurred at the end of July,
there was no way that these meetings were
going to end before midnight if you just did a simple meeting
analysis of the agenda items.
And I think at this point to try to hurry the votes --
I agree that we should hurry the votes but at some point
if this meeting goes long, it's not
because of robust discussion.
This meeting is for robust discussion
and it's the first and only time that a lot of residents
in a a lot of council members get to hear and address
an issue that will affect people for the rest of their lives.
At that point that robust discussion
is not just valid but justified.
At some point an acknowledgment of the late time --
that is kind of due to we really need
to look at how we agendize items and how
we estimate how long items will take because we've
got a number of really big and pretty big, controversial items
on this agenda.
>> We will take the vote.
>> Council member Chahal?
>> No.
Hardy?
Yes.
Park?
Abstain.
Jain?
Yes.
Vice mayor Gonzalez?
Yes.
>> The motion fails.
So the development review officers decision stands
and so the architectural review is approved --
with that we will take -- what time is it?
>> If this motion failed and the motion was
for the recommendation, there could be an ultimate motion made
rather than simply saying that this is over.
This literally happened with -- and I think this is one
of the things why we need better input from executive staff
to tell us what our options are because the fact that this vote
failed does not mean anything.
There's still a lot more to this item.
There's still possibility of a lot more to this item.
>> Mr. Chair and council member Park, I was about to speak.
And so to clarify, the legal effect of this item
and to confirm member park's statements that potentially
there are other options, if in fact any one of you
want to make a different motion, you could.
So the legal effect of this action is generally --
as a chair described.
I still don't know what to call you.
And Presiding officer described, that because there was not
four affirmative votes for the motion, no action was taken,
and the legal effect of that is that the underlying decision
to approve the project stands.
And so if another council member at this point wanted to make
a different motion for Council's consideration,
that would be in order and -- presiding officer --
you could certainly solicit that as part of your handling of this
matter.
>> Is there any other one that wants to make a motion?
Council member Park?
>> A couple questions.
If we go back and ask staff to relook at some of the issues,
some of the items that have come up, for example,
if we had the appellant look into historical --
being added to historical landmarks list,
if we looked into the welfare issues like what is our ability
to ask for additional information --
meaning when I'm told things such as this is not legally
required, that's fine but if we're asking for it,
at what point can we ask for additional information?
I would like a fire report.
I would like --
[no audio]
[NO AUDIO]
>> If Attorney Abby thinks I got that wrong or wants to add
anything to that, I would invite that readily.
>> I don't see any hands as far as anybody wants to make
a motion if.
And with that we're going to take a six minute break and then
we'll bring the mayor back to address item six.
Thank you.
[in recess]
Before we move on I want to tell the council, item number seven,
consideration of historic resource designation
for the Vasquez gravesite location
located in Santa Clara Mission Cemetery.
His family was here and had to leave.
I'll ask council to make or consider a continuation.
>> I'd like to make the motion to continue item number seven
for the historic designation for the gravesite.
>> Second.
>> We have a motion by Hardy and Council member by double second
by Park to consider.
They're okay with the 15th or 22nd,
whatever is more appropriate.
They would like it to be towards the beginning.
They don't like to drive at night.
So we have a motion and second on that continuance.
When you're ready.
>> Council members should call.
Hardy? .?
Vice mayor Gonzalez?
Mayor Gilmore?
>> Yes and that passes was unanimously by those present.
We'll move to item number six, public hearing,
action on a vesting tentative subdivision map (PLN24-00665)
for 147 Units and One Commercial Building Located at 3521
and 3591 Homestead Road, Subject to Senate Bill (SB) 330 (2019).
CEQA: Determine that the Vesting Tentative Map Application
is Within the Scope of the Adopted MND located one and 3591
Homestead Road subject to Senate Bill 330 2019 Sequa determined
that the best tentative map application is
within the scope of the adopted and and this
is a public hearing so it is open um city Manager thank you
mayor in the interest of time
>> In the interest of time, you set up a good introduction.
The staff presentation will be provided by --
our assistant Director of Community Development.
I will invite her to the >> Thank you.
>> Welcome and thank you for your patience staying this late.
We appreciate it.
>> Good evening mayor Vice Mayor and members of the Council
and public.
Assistant Director of Community Development.
Before you today -- before you today is a request.
Find the proposed subdivision is within the scope
of the adopted negative declaration or the MND
and no further environmental analysis is required and adopted
resolution approving the vesting tentative subdivision
map for the reconfiguration of existing adjacent parcels
and to create a subdivision for condominium purposes
for 147 units and for one commercial building.
This project is subject to SB330.
And city Council review and file approval of the map is required.
So moving on to the existing site, the existing 5.5 acre site
is located on 3521 and 3591 Homestead Road
at the intersection of Lawrence Expressway on Homestead Road.
This site is designated neighborhood mixed
use in General plan and is zoned mixed use neighborhood
commercial and surrounded by multifamily residential and
commercial uses.
As I mentioned previously, the tentative subdivision map
includes the reconfiguration of two existing adjacent parcels
to create a subdivision for condominium purposes.
This project was cleared by the project committee
and the Subdivision Committee on October 7th 2025.
This slide shows the existing parcels
that are proposed to be reconfigured through this map.
This shows the project that was subject for the Architectural
review process through the development review hearing
and the approved project includes 94 story stacked
condominium units and 573 story town hall units the development
also includes approximately 4900ft² commercial building
a parking, driveways, and common open space.
In terms of project timeline, I just
want to draw your attention to key milestones in this timeline.
The project application for both the Architectural review
and the subdivision map was submitted in September 2024
and the applicant filed SB 330 preliminary application
to make sure that the applicable fees and development
standards at that time apply.
In October 7 to 2025 the BBC and the Subdivision Committee
deemed the SB 330 application and subdivision
complete and clear and there were
two community meetings held, one in November 2025
and February 2026.
The development review hearing for the Architectural Review
was approved in June and a Planning Commissioner review
recommended approval in August of 2026.
In further slides I'll go over feedback received
from the community community and how
the applicant worked with the community
to address their concerns.
At the development Review meeting on June 17th 2026,
seven community members attended the meeting and public comment
was received in opposition and five comment letters were
received in support of the project.
Comments focused on privacy impacts
due to heights, balcony placement,
lack of multistory setbacks, off site parking concerns
and lack of transitional development.
The project was approved by the Development Review Officer
with additional conditions the conditions include requiring
additional landscape between the property,
the garages should be only used for parking
and this is included as part of the conditions of approval
of the architectural review, congestion B7 and all the garage
doors should include windows.
So to address any kind of off site parking concerns.
At the Planning Commission meeting on August 12th 2026,
the Planning Commission discussed the process
and emphasized that the applicant should work with
the city to make sure that the demolition is carried
on in a way to prevent deterioration of the site
and they also encourage the applicant to work to possibly
increase service at the Homestead bus stop.
Finally the Planning Commission recommended approval of the map.
A quick overview of SB330 and the requirements
for Affordable Housing Ordinance.
The applicant did use SB330 pre-application
and it allows for streamline review with compliance
for objective standards and at the time the application was
deemed complete.
In addition the project proposes affordable units and would also
-- a fee for the 0.05 remaining fraction that's consistent with
the city's affordable housing ordinance requirement.
So pursuant to state density bonus law,
the project requests include (inaudible) for waiving
the multi-story setback requirements,
the 45 degree daylight requirements and increasing
the number of stories and increasing the --
and the concession was to reduce the commercial -- requirement.
The subdivision map, staff do you
find that the subdivision map complies
with all the applicable zoning code standards
and also has been processed consistent with the Subdivision
Map Act and the city code requirements.
The subdivision map is also consistent with the general plan
because it supports the general Plan's mixed labor designation
by providing additional housing near jobs and services
and also advances the city's mixed use and housing
goals by delivering new residential opportunities
including affordable homes within an established mixed use
area.
Moving to public outreach, public notice
included standard agenda posting, newspaper notice
and mailing the public hearing notice to 1331 property
owners and tenants within half a mile radius of the project site.
And moving on to community meetings,
the first community meeting was held on November 13th 2025 which
was held in a hybrid format.
38 members of public attended in person and 11 online.
At that meeting the community members
raised several concerns related to loss
of retail and existing commercial space
and displacement of small businesses
come a traffic concerns and they had
questions about who initiated the redevelopment process.
The applicant since the first meeting actually worked
with the property owner and the management company
to address tenant concerns regarding
the relocation of these small businesses which included
extension of leases, broker assistance and other 16
businesses, approximately nine were relocated within Santa
Clara and three have relocated out
and three retired or went out of business.
So moving on to CEQA evaluation, medicated declaration
was prepared for this project and it
did not find any substantial evidence
that the project will have significant effect
on the environment and the proposed subdivision
map is consistent with the approved MND
and will not result in any new environmental impacts
or increase the severity of any previously identified impact.
Therefore no additional environmental analysis
is required.
So in conclusion, staff recommended the City Council
find the proposed subdivision is within the scope --
it's within the scope of the -- and determined that no further
environmental review is required and adopt a resolution approving
the map.
This concludes my presentation and I'm available for questions.
>> Before we go to the applicant I'll ask the council if they
have questions.
Council member Hardy?
>> Thank you.
Very quickly comment you said something very --
I did not truly understand.
You said you needed to have windows in the garage doors
because off site parking concerns?
That didn't make sense to me.
Maybe I had a question about demolition.
The applicant -- I know you raised your hand.
Gym, we don't call on you yet.
I got that.
One of the concerns I have is about demolition.
When we have vacant shopping centers
and we see that on the El Camino now with the project that we
approved, feels like eight years ago, with the vacant buildings,
can't demolition occur early?
Can we require that or does that interfere with SB330?
I want to know what we can do in terms of requiring the developer
to demolish because that's going to be an attractive nuisance --
if it isn't already.
So that's my question on demolition.
Does anybody else have questions?
Council member.?
I have a question about demolition.
We've seen at least in my district that anytime we have
demolition of a large project, whether it's remodeling
of a apartment complex or a shopping site that --
that usually pushes a lot of rats into the neighborhood.
Is there anything that can be done to ensure the demolition
in that remodel --
do not have this kind of effect on the neighborhood's?
You can see your bite marks on the trash cans and --
I want to make sure when we do things comment maybe
we fumigate and do something in advance
of a demolition because we have seen this time and time
>> Anyone else on the council?
Those are the questions.
You're getting off easy right now.
>> Council Hardy's questions comment based on the feedback we
heard from the community meetings and the feedback we
heard from the hearing, that residents were concerned about
parking off site and garages should be used only to park
their cars and not for storage.
The development review officer added a condition
that windows be added to the garage door
so that to alleviate off street parking concerns.
>> So you can see in the windows?
Is that the purpose?
>> Yes.
>> Through the window?
>> To make sure a car is parked inside the garage.
Not used for storage.
So the garage door will have some kind of windows
so they can see a car is parked inside the garage
and not used for storage.
>> So you had a question about when we can't acquire demolition
to occur and what we can acquire.
The applicant has to apply for a demolition permit
with the building division.
As part of that, we could include conditions
on how it would be faced.
And then council member parks question was about pests.
Did I get the question right?
So can we require -- >> How do we prevent pests,
rats from going into the neighborhoods from demolition,
especially for buildings including a market that have
been abandoned for a long time?
How can we mitigate that?
>> Maybe the question can go also to the applicant
because one of the questions would be is there still material
inside the market.
And how are they going to plan to deal with that?
I would point that to the applicant.
>> If I can circle back to Hardy's question,
also on the parking garage -- the garage requiring windows,
we also have a conditional approval and the architectural
review standards that -- that these conditions B seven that
the garage should be used only for vehicle parking use
and could not be used for storage. (inaudible)
and following up on Councilmember Parks question,
the environmental services division oversees this
and they would also include this as a condition.
>> Very good.
Thank you.
Now we will hear from the applicant and you have I think
--
Council member Jain?
>> I wanted to ask you come with the commercial space --
are we requiring events and grease traps?
I didn't see that in the conditions.
>> Yes.
Now the applicant?
Ten minutes.
Please come forward.
Do you have that?
>> Is this Jim Sullivan?
>> Yes.
>> Thank you Madam Mayor and members of the Council.
I had actually a Powerpoint slideshow
but staff did such a great job.
Before I begin I want to say that my project
planner, her supervisor Leslie and Afshan were
great to work with throughout this entire process.
I know Council member Jain was at the November 13th community
meeting.
I think it was the second meeting that we had,
director Hamid was there as well and the 38 people at --
it was chaotic.
The vast majority of them were the tenants and going to some
of the earlier comments that were made,
even though there wasn't a legal obligation --
all the tenants were given the knowledge of okay,
you have a year to vacate.
I push -- and Pulte pushed for the property owner who complied
with hiring relocation specialist,
extending terms and helping out with assistance.
So 13 of the tenants were relocated and nine here
in the city of Santa Clara.
I think two others in Sunnydale and one in San Mateo and one
in Fremont.
The other thing -- and it came up in --
more in the DRH meeting or for home that actually cited
to our site.
And they had some privacy concerns
and so I thought that Pulte Homes did a great job going out
of their way, not a legal obligation
but saying let's see if we can provide more screening
trees either within your backyards
or if we can do it on our site.
We were able to do it on our site
and we work with them on the species of trees
and they were very happy with us moving forward.
So all in all, the four story product we have primarily along
the expressway and the three story products we have along
our Western hedge which is the school,
the four homeowners as well as McDonald's.
Touching on some of the questions that came up,
the two things that were added -- the windows of the garage --
it's mainly for staff, planning staff likes them because they
look better and I agree with them.
Pulte didn't want to do it but we
agreed to do it just to make sure people didn't use their two
garage space as storage, which they're not
allowed to do under the cars putting in effect.
With regard to the demolition permit,
Pulte we'll close escrow 30 days after,
assuming that this project is approved.
They are in for a demo permit and they've
been in for some time.
I know we are also trying to work with the police and fire
department.
They like to use it before we demo it for their activities.
Do Council member parks concern on the rats,
I know that all of that stuff --
if we foresee a problem, we have in the past
had traps along the outside but it
sounds like the building department will work on
fumigation requests if necessary.
With that I'm open to any questions.
I'm very happy by the way that after DRH, there
was no appeal to this.
We did a great job with the tenants on the site
and with the homeowners that were nearby.
>> Thank you.
Council, do you have questions from the applicant?
We've got 6.5 minutes left.
Are you sure?
I'm not forcing you to take it all.
Okay.
He's done.
Very good.
Now it is a public hearing so I'm going to the public.
Is there any member of the public
that would like to speak on this issue?
Anyone here in the audience?
Anyone online?
No one online?
May I have a motion from Council to close the public hearing?
Council Member Hardy?
>> Motion to close public hearing.
>> Motion by Council Member Hardy and second by Gonzalez
to close.
Clerk, when you are ready.
Chahal?
Yes.
Park?
Yes Jain?
Yes Gonzalez?
Yes and Gillmor?
Yes.
>> That passes unanimously.
Council member Hardy?
I'll make a motion for the recommendation
from staff to determine the proposed subdivisions
within the scope of the adopted negative declaration, adopted
resolution improving the tentative subdivision map
and I will say when a developer does their work,
it really helps.
And it makes us a little more superfluous which is nice.
And I was thrilled to hear -- go closer to my house
in my district.
We didn't lose them.
>> We have a motion by Council Member Hardy and second
by Gonzalez.
>> My question for staff is what actually can we do here?
This is just the approval of --
I feel there isn't anything we can do.
Everything has been done.
This is just a ministerial approval.
That's the first question.
Second thing is I have comments which I remember a time
when in order to add high density residential,
we had to justify that residential
with supportive retail.
We use a lot of tricky things like horizontal zoning
and things like that to show that the people we
are bringing in were being served by the retail.
And now we're adding high density residential --
we're removing the support of retail.
Including a market.
And we used to have requirements that
said you have to justify how the retail supports
the people that you bring in, not just open space.
But we had a retail requirements and I
don't know when that went away.
In this area we lost Save Mart which
is going to come up later in our year.
We lost the Galleria.
We lost Cosentino's and moved from El Camino and took over --
now we've lost that too.
But the area here --
I'm worried about even the -- because it looks like
the landowners in that area are letting the stores go to pot
because --
you go there and the floors are breaking
and things aren't working calm electrical things aren't
working.
It looks like it's ripe for removal and replacement
with another high density project.
When I look at the general plan, that
was supposed to be a mixed use area.
That's what the zoning was as well.
One of the reasons I'm on council is because almost 20
years ago or 15 years ago I was on the General Plan steering
committee so I know intimately a lot of the high density
and mixed use places and all the places that we used to have --
the biggest regional mixed use hub
that was supposed to also support San Jose
went to single storey retail with no housing whatsoever.
There was no mixed use there and I think unfortunately
that pushed a lot of housing into places where housing
wasn't the only consideration.
My concern is by approving this project and projects like this
and not having a supportive retail plan,
that we're going to lose retail.
A lot of council members have already expressed their opinion
that retail is dead and I'm going to say
that's only true in the city.
We look at Sunnyvale, you look at Cupertino --
Sunnyvale if you look at their budget,
their number two budget priority is residential supportive retail
and I think they've done a tremendous job
but then again, they have a downtown.
These are the things I worry about when
we're just bringing in homes.
The fact that we are bringing in homes and getting rid
of the retail that was there, I don't know why but I've talked
to the store owners and they've told me about increasing --
we lost Baskin Robbins and that was like oh my goodness.
We lost the pizza place and restaurants.
How is this possible?
I feel that we're not doing enough
to make sure that the people we are bringing in
are supported by services and retail.
This attitude of well, people don't want retail.
People want to shop at Amazon.
Nobody wants to eat at Amazon.
I guarantee that's the case.
When we say we can put more density here because it's being
served by transportation, I looked at the Clare district
and they use the fact that there's a train station
to justify -- very few people take the train to work and like
nobody takes the train to the market.
These are the kinds of things I worry about.
I wish staff would do more to preserve their retail.
You can't just bring people in and give them nowhere to shop,
nowhere to go.
We talk about walkable neighborhoods
and we don't have places for them to walk.
Nobody wants to walk to housing places where they don't live.
At some point we worry about the rats
going into the neighborhoods.
But we are not giving the residents any place to go.
It's unfortunate that all we can do at this point come on I
talked to Mr. Sullivan and met him outside --
we didn't go into these issues because it wasn't the time
or place.
We talked -- I talked about this a couple years ago but these are
my concerns.
At some point we have the applicants here.
I think the applicants have done what they can with a project
that they proposed.
But I'm really talking to staff, to the city
and asking, how do we make the residents lives better?
At some point we're supposed to have a planning department, not
an approval department.
And through the years I feel and with state law
and all these other things, that's what we have become.
>> I would just stop it there because I think someone needs
to explain to council member Park what Senate Bill 330 means.
Can someone from the planning department talk about that?
Our authority over this development
is significantly limited.
It doesn't sound like you understand, Council member..
It significantly limited and the developer
has chosen to use the state housing
law that allows waivers and concessions
from our local development standards.
That is not something that our planning department or community
development department invented.
It's a state of California.
It doesn't sound like you understand that.
Can someone clearly explain to him --
if you understand that we can move on.
But what you're doing is blaming our department
and our staff for something that the state has passed.
It's Senate Bill 330.
Our hands are tied.
So all this pontificating about commercial
and we're doing a terrible job and everything else,
tell that to the state of California
but severely limits what we can do for these properties.
I will move on unless there is a question in there somewhere.
We need to move on.
I don't want to hear repeats because I, it's 12:03.
I'll stop and ask the council how long
you want to continue moving on this evening.
We won't stop the meeting now obviously.
And make you come back.
Council member Hardy, can you make a motion
or a vice mayor Gonzalez?
>> Motion to continue the meeting only until 12:30
or less.
>> Is there a second?
>> We might want to amend that.
The next couple of items in front of you
actually require action by you in order
to be timely back to the grand jury.
>> What do you mean back to the grand jury?
And we're not staying past that.
There's no way we're going to get through those items.
I'll tell you right now.
>> They're pretty straightforward.
>> Nothing is straightforward with this council.
I'm sorry to argue.
There's nothing straightforward.
>> (inaudible)
>> I'll amend my motion for we will not go past 1:00am.
>> Even if we don't finish those we're done whether we finished
or not.
I would ask to send a notice to the grand jury
that ours will be delayed.
We can hear it on the 15th.
>> Appreciate that and I was informed we have an option
potentially before that because you've got a special meeting set
up for interviews on September 1st.
If we don't finish we can add this to that.
>> Very good.
So now we're back to 12:30.
Thank you.
we have a motion by Council Member Hardy
and seconded by Vice Mayor Gonzalez.
12:30 finishing this item.
>> Council member Chahal?
Hardy?
Yes.
Park?
Abstain.
Jain?
Yes.
Gonzalez?
Yes.
Gillmor?
Yes.
>> That passes five with one abstention.
Thank you.
I'm sorry.
There was a question in there in the beginning
if you'd like to answer that please.
>> I believe council member parks question was about retail
and how much retail the applicant provides.
The applicant used the state density Bonus concession
analysis because they provided the affordable housing
as required by our economist. (inaudible) so they were
required to provide 22,215ft² of retail and using this concession
they are currently providing 4091,
close to 5000ft² of retail which is -- .
>> And that's what they can legally --
>> That's what we can legally require.
To use the concession -- granted by the state density --
>> And it's state law like -- thank you very much.
Council member Park?
Without repeating?
>> At some point this is for robust discussion and I can talk
about other things.
>> There's discussion and then there's --
and yours is a monologue.
>> Mine is a discussion and it is --
it is instructional to staff which is when we look
at Sunnyvale, Sunnyvale tells people what they want to.
They've got zoning, which tells people what they want to.
They advertise this is what we want the city to look like.
The zoning such as ITR< industrial to residential they
have things where they say this is currently this but this is
what we would like to be.
They have a vision for their city which is not just we have
a general plan come up we have this general plan they have --
they have zoning which tells people this is
what we would like to be there.
This is what they do.
When we say well, we're just going to look at our city
and accept any state law backed project that comes to us,
I think it's a shame that we're not
managing our expectations and vision for the city in a better
way.
There's so many different ways we can do that.
I wants to know come on how do we tell developers
that this is a mixed use place?
Even though you can come you can use state laws to go around
this, how do we encourage the developers
and how do we advertise to developers that this
is what we want to do?
Other cities do this and for the mayor to cut me off and say that
these are not relevant -- it's very rude.
Is unfortunate.
When we say nothing is straightforward
with the council, I think it starts with the chair.
I'd like to know how we can tell people come developers
that this is what we want and how we can do a better
job to hold onto the vision we made for our City
and General plan which has been overstated
and overrun with housing problems with minimal retail.
I can promise you the city of Sunnyvale
and the cities you mentioned also
follows state law exactly like we do.
City manager?
>> Don't want to debate the sentiment you're expressing
because I agree with part of it.
I will say, we have a zoning code
just like our neighboring municipalities.
We have a general plan just like our neighboring municipalities
and Santa Clara has adopted a number of specific plans
that I think we actually have seven, where we specifically
studied parts of the city and envisioned a different future.
Unfortunately we have the reality
that Sunnyvale has as well where state law has taken away
a lot of our local control.
We oftentimes like to compare ourselves to other cities.
Certainly revitalizing and rebuilding these
is a big important thing that we all know we are focused on.
Other cities are actually -- for some of the things that we have
to.
I share your sentiment but know that it is an unfortunate
landscape that we find ourselves in.
>> Assistant city Clerk, whenever you're ready.
A motion by Council member Hardy and second by Gonzalez.
For the recommendation of approval of.
[calling vote]
>> And that passes five yes, one abstention.
And it passes.
Thank you and thank you all for your patience
and staying so late.
We appreciate it.
We're moving after number seven.
We have continued.
Number eight, action on city Council's response to the Santa
Clara County Civil Grand jury report
entitled Pothole Damage Improving Claims processes
within Santa Clara County.
City manager?
>> Chief assistant city attorney --
so he will present on this item.
>> Hi Sue.
Thank you for staying.
We appreciate it.
Good evening.
Good morning. (inaudible) is this better?
Good morning mayor and council members.
This evening we are going to be discussing the civil grand jury
report (inaudible) and it was issued countywide.
It reviewed data and had findings
and issued recommendations that were applicable to the county
as well as all of the cities within the county.
Civil Grand jury -- the county over a five year period from
2020 to 2025.
Public agencies were asked to provide
the claims and their responses to the claims.
Among other things.
The civil grand jury concluded that public agencies
should make the claims process simpler and more accessible
for members of public.
The grand jury identified four primary areas
in which they believe improvements can be found
and the response processes used by the cities.
First, make online claims forms available or easier to find.
I thought I had already advanced to that slide.
My apologies.
The first is to make online claims forms available
or easier to find and include clear instructions
and timelines.
The second is to provide forms in multiple languages that
reflect their specific demographics,
city specific demographics.
The third is to make it easier for plaintiffs
to determine which jurisdiction is responsible for any given
roadway.
And the last was city should update rejection letters on
to specify why claims have been denied.
Not all of these issues or findings apply to the city.
As we go through the findings and recommendations
you'll see we are already in a plants with some of these.
>> There are four sets of findings and recommendations.
So as a bit of background, the penal code
is what governs responses to this with these grand jury
reports.
So that is all -- just one set of options for responses
to the findings section of the report and another set
of options for -- the recommendations.
We'll discuss first the findings section of the Grand Jury
report.
We have two options.
Number one, that we as a respondent
agree with the findings or number two,
that we as a respondent disagree, either in full
or in part, with the finding.
And if we disagree either in full or in part,
we have to specify which portion of the finding --
and explain why we are disagreeing with it.
With respect to the recommendations section
of Grand jury report, we have four options.
The first is that the recommendation has already
been implemented.
We are already in compliance with the recommended action.
The second is that the recommendation has not yet
been implemented but will be with the expected time frame.
The third is essentially we're not sure.
We require 330oz of an exclamation of that analysis,
smoke and counter of what we intend to study,
timeline and things of that nature.
>> We're saying we're not going to implement the recommendation
because it's not warranted or reasonable and then our reasons
why.
So in terms of the findings and recommendations in this report,
the first finding -- we had to provide a response.
There's no associated recommendations.
Essentially the findings stating -- their review of the --
claims dated --
2022 2025.
This figure is based on the countywide data
we haven't seen so we're relying on the grand jury's
analysis of it.
We're trying to respond to the grand jury's analysis
but it's not our data and not.