[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:00] Meeting. Today is Tuesday, August 11, 2026, and it is 6pm. Council member Testa is participating virtually
[0:09] in this meeting for a just cause and all votes will be taken by roll call. Council member Testa,
[0:15] please disclose if there's anyone present who is 18 years of older in the room with you at your location
[0:20] and your relationship to that person, please. There is no one in the room with me. Thank you.
[0:28] Okay, as we know this is not our regularly scheduled timer cadence, but we appreciate it.
[0:35] It's special meeting because it wasn't something we set up when we adopted the yearly calendar.
[0:39] That's why it is.
[0:41] And without we'll begin with a pledge of allegiance, Vice Mayor, if you can lead us in the pledge.
[0:45] Please rise if you are able.
[1:03] Okay, thank you very much, roll call, please.
[1:05] Council members, Icar, President.
[1:08] Gados, President.
[1:09] Nibert, here.
[1:11] Testa, here.
[1:12] Mayor Baltz, thank you.
[1:15] Thank you very much.
[1:16] OK, we have a few announcements
[1:18] I'd like to go through for our viewers and audience members.
[1:22] The first is a truly outstanding national night out
[1:26] by the city of Pleasanton.
[1:27] We had 46 if you count part, a national night out locations
[1:32] that are first responders stopped by
[1:35] And just thank you very much for the community for signing up and supporting them.
[1:39] 46 is a large number and shows that Pleasanton really does care to support our first responders.
[1:45] Thank you.
[1:46] Secondly, school is back in session this week.
[1:50] Please drive carefully.
[1:51] Take extra time as you return to school this week.
[1:55] And they're obviously walking and biking to school.
[1:58] We want them to get their safely and learn their new routes.
[2:01] Third, committee and commissions, our fall, 2026 recruitment for our City of Pleasanton committee and commissions is underway.
[2:10] This is your chance to get involved, volunteer and help the city so that we are community for everyone.
[2:16] Applications are due at 5 p.m. on August 18th, and you can access them the applications and a description of the vacancies at the city's website.
[2:26] If you go to the City's website, our government boards and commissions, there are 26 positions available and many for our youth.
[2:35] And then lastly, items number 2 and 10 were noticed for 7pm tonight, not the 6pm special meeting time.
[2:44] So any action for them shall be held until 7pm when we achieve that time.
[2:50] And with that, we are going on to any agenda amendments by staff.
[2:55] See, none, any agenda amendments by any of my fellow council members at this time?
[3:02] Okay.
[3:02] We will go with the agenda as posted.
[3:06] Without, we're going to go to consent.
[3:08] Items listed on the consent calendar are considered routine in nature and may be enacted by one motion.
[3:14] If discussion is required, that particular item will be removed from the consent calendar and considered separately.
[3:19] In light of my prior disclosure about item number two, we will have a second consent action after item
[3:27] Probably number nine based on timing. So just FYI so item the consent counters items one through seven not including
[3:35] Item number two any speakers for item number two will be held off until that time
[3:42] Any comments on consent council or record?
[3:46] or questions, excuse me, any questions on consent?
[3:48] No questions.
[3:49] Council member Tessa, any questions on consent?
[3:52] I have comments on consent, but I'll not questions.
[3:57] Okay, Council member,
[3:59] Iaver, sorry, no questions, and Vice Mayor, non, thank you.
[4:04] Okay, I have no questions on consent either.
[4:06] We will look for public comment on consent.
[4:10] I do have a public speaker for item number one.
[4:13] So with that, we'll open up public comment for consent.
[4:16] Jan Coleman-Night, you are afforded three minutes for public comment.
[4:21] And welcome.
[4:22] Good evening, Council.
[4:25] I would like clarification on Exhibit A.
[4:28] Section C, which appears in the subsection of all of the commissions.
[4:32] The section gives procedures that apply to termination of offices
[4:37] as a result of absences.
[4:39] For example, since the Civic Sart Commission
[4:42] meant for each four times a year and one quarter of four is one than the absence of one meeting
[4:49] may trigger termination based on the suggested procedure.
[4:55] Notation of number two, three, and four
[4:58] really take a look at the city manager shall notify and writing any commissioner who's been
[5:03] absent more than one quarter. Remember that's one meeting. Or more of a regular meetings during the course
[5:10] of the 12th month period and request that the commissioner submit in writing to the City Council
[5:15] the reasons for the absences.
[5:18] Further number three says the City Council shall determine if the commissioner's reasons
[5:22] for the absences were justified if the City Council determines that the reasons for the failure
[5:28] of the member to attend the meeting in question were not justified.
[5:33] The City Council shall terminate the term of office of the commissioner and declare the office
[5:38] vacant.
[5:39] Remember, that's one quarter, that's one meeting.
[5:43] Finally, if the City Council declares such face vacant,
[5:48] then the City Clerk shall notify the commissioner
[5:51] that the Commission's term has been officially terminated.
[5:56] Further, number one of the same sections
[5:58] specifies that the end of a 12-month period
[6:01] of the Secretary of the Commission shall report the attendance
[6:04] of each Commission member to this city manager
[6:06] who shall transmit the record to the City Council.
[6:10] Is this transmission in a closed city council meeting since individual names are single out?
[6:16] I don't know.
[6:17] It seems if commission attendance is an issue,
[6:20] then the solution should not be so burdensome for City Council.
[6:24] The solution should fit the problem.
[6:27] Another layer of problems is no help at all.
[6:31] Please consider amending this section.
[6:34] Thank you.
[6:36] Okay, thank you very much.
[6:39] This is the consent calendars items 1 through 7, not including item number 2.
[6:44] If you would like to speak on consent and have not turned in a blue speaker card at this time, please approach the podium at this time.
[6:52] 1 through 7, not including item number 2.
[6:56] Seeing none hearing none, we'll close public comment on consent and bring it back to the council.
[7:00] staff. If I may just ask the comment about attendance records, I know we have a subcommittee
[7:07] that handled this recommendation staff report. I don't know if we want our fellow council
[7:11] members or staff to weigh in on that item or concept.
[7:16] I can land.
[7:18] From my recollection from the meeting, the intent behind the council notification was more
[7:24] So we're aware what's going on with the commissions as opposed to
[7:30] An intention that the council take action at that point in time. Maybe a library director can add more to that.
[7:38] Good afternoon. I'm Heidi Murphy, Library and Recreation Director. The content of that section was not modified.
[7:45] So those were the original rules. The only thing that was changed was it used to be more meetings. It would have been more punitive.
[7:52] it was one third of the meetings. So if you missed one third of the meetings you would be
[7:58] potentially triggered for this, we reduce that to one quarter because the number of meetings change.
[8:03] So it was meant to be non-punitive. This has been what we do every time. So what happens is every month.
[8:10] We submit our commission attendance records. And then periodically I think once a year, every six
[8:16] months, those get transmitted to the mayor who reviews them, you know, mostly people have very
[8:22] legitimate reasons for not being there. We've never triggered at least in the commissions
[8:26] I've ever seen. I shouldn't say that for the whole city. Never is a strong word, but I've
[8:32] not seen it happen.
[8:35] Any clarifying questions of the staff related to that section brought by the
[8:39] public speaker by any other council members? I would like to ask a question. So, um,
[8:48] It was not intended, we did not consider the reduction in meeting, but we did want the attendants to be acknowledged and certainly now with only four meetings mandatory meetings a year.
[9:09] Attendance is important in everyone of those meetings, but I would like to ask staff if there
[9:16] is a suggestion to amending it given that that might be overly severe when it's one meeting
[9:24] and out of five before. We offer that we could say more than one quarter if you wanted to
[9:32] change it a little bit more than we previously modified it and that would be anything more than one,
[9:37] so too perhaps, so if we said more than one quarter.
[9:42] I would like to suggest then that we do that.
[9:47] But no, there's no question.
[9:48] We discussed the importance of attendance,
[9:51] and that we wanted that to be very clear
[9:55] to the commissioners.
[9:58] And again, with so few meetings, now,
[10:02] I think it really is even more important.
[10:03] So, I'll mix up my comments and that is that in the staff report there were often references
[10:15] to the ad hoc committee and staff recommended the reduction of meeting,
[10:26] how many meetings.
[10:27] And the reality is, it really wasn't, I wouldn't want to be associated with having recommended that,
[10:34] because in fact we, I think myself and council member, I, Kerr, were both reluctant to limit the meetings so severely to only four meetings a year.
[10:49] But I think we accepted that it was an necessity.
[10:57] An necessity in our efforts to preserve all commissions,
[11:05] because there were some that were either be folded,
[11:09] combined or eliminated entirely.
[11:13] And certainly, I'll speak for myself.
[11:15] I didn't want to see us lose any of our commissions.
[11:18] And as much as I also didn't want to see reducing so severely, the number of meetings I accepted that that was something that we had to do at this point.
[11:30] I also would like to point out that as it stated in the staff report that these actions are necessary given our budget constraints.
[11:41] and so I would like to just remind the community that this is just one of many impacts on
[11:54] our residents as a result of not having a successful parcel tax, I'm sorry, sales tax
[12:04] measure. And so we have had many reductions that have direct impact on our residents. I
[12:14] have served for over a decade on a commission value what the commissions do. I think it's been
[12:23] positive aspect of the Pleasant and Culture to have our commissions and they've served an
[12:29] important role as ambassadors and our experts and liaison to council and I'm disappointed
[12:39] that we've had to modify our commissions. But I'm glad that we were able to preserve
[12:46] all of them. So again, I wouldn't say we recommended these actions. We accepted the necessity
[12:56] of it and that's all in my comments there.
[13:01] Thank you.
[13:01] Councilmember Tessa would you like to make the motion with the more than friendly amendment from
[13:05] staff?
[13:06] Thank you.
[13:07] Yes, I would.
[13:08] I'd like to make that amendment that it's more than to address the legitimate concern that was
[13:15] brought up.
[13:17] And just to clarify, your motion is for the entire consent calendar with that.
[13:21] Quickly, more than is actually already in.
[13:24] I just re-read it.
[13:25] It already says more than.
[13:26] Okay. One quarter. I apologize.
[13:29] Okay.
[13:30] So just to clarify your motion is for the consent calendar then with more than being emphasized.
[13:36] We'll maybe say like that.
[13:38] If that's allowed that we don't have to separate that into its own action.
[13:45] That feels a little awkward. Should it be separate?
[13:49] It does not have to be.
[13:51] Okay. All right. Then yes, that would be my motion.
[13:53] Council member, I agree. You were also on that committee. Do you want to second the motion for the consent calendar with that friendly suggestion of more than?
[14:00] I'll second the motion. Okay. We have motion made in second it any further comment before we take a vote.
[14:10] Okay. I'll just echo comments that our committees and commissions are an essential part of the relationship the city has with its residents. I appreciate that we are trying to have content driven meetings for our commissions and committees.
[14:24] So that they can bring their skills, talents, and perspective to providing a better pleasant
[14:31] in for all.
[14:31] So thank you for serving as I said at the beginning of the meeting.
[14:35] We have 26 positions available for community members to be a part of the city and I highly
[14:42] recommend you consider if any of them bring your interest to bear.
[14:46] And again, the deadline for filing is August 18th at 5 p.m. through the city's website.
[14:52] With that, we have a motion made in seconded roll call vote, please.
[14:56] Council Member's Testa.
[14:58] Aye.
[14:59] Aye.
[15:00] Gatos, aye, nay, bird, aye, mayor, balk, aye, motion passes unanimously. Okay, thank you very much. We are now proceeding to
[15:08] meeting open to the public. So this is public comment on items that are not listed on the agenda. I like to read this at the beginning so that we are all on the same page. Good evening and welcome. This is the opportunity for members of the public to address the city council on any matters that are within the council's subject matter jurisdiction.
[15:28] but are not listed on the agenda. If you wish to speak for a matter that is on the agenda,
[15:33] please reserve your comments for when we get to that item. For members of the public joining us in person,
[15:38] if you wish to speak now or for a future item, please fill out a blue speaker card, they're located outside,
[15:44] and turn them into the city clerk. For members of the public joining virtually,
[15:49] please raise your hand using the raise hand feature or star nine on your telephone at this time.
[15:55] When the item number is called, you will be unmuted and your name will be called.
[16:01] I ask for all community members to be respectful and help maintain decor.
[16:05] Speakers may have different opinions and we want to hear all perspectives and viewpoints.
[16:10] To that end, please know clapping, boeing, or other disturbances.
[16:14] In the interest of time, if you agree with the speaker before you, you may simply say you agree and do not need to utilize your full time.
[16:21] If you want to show support for what the current speaker is saying,
[16:24] You're welcome to raise your hand and we want to understand that as additional support.
[16:28] Lastly, please note that this is your time to be heard.
[16:31] If you do ask questions, those won't necessarily be answered,
[16:35] unless taken up by a council member after the conclusion of your
[16:38] lot of time or public comment in total.
[16:41] Speakers are here by limited to three minutes.
[16:43] Thank you for your cooperation.
[16:45] And our first speaker is Valerie Arkin,
[16:47] followed by Rina Gupta, followed by Carla Brown.
[16:59] Welcome.
[17:01] Thank you.
[17:03] Okay.
[17:05] Good evening, Mayor and council.
[17:08] I'm Valerie Arkin, former city council member and a 33 year resident of Pleasanton.
[17:13] I'm here tonight to just correct some misinformation that continues to be put forward.
[17:19] In particular, I know council member Gaitos has done it.
[17:22] I'm not sure about anyone else, but it's regarding the east side property and it's relationship to the housing element,
[17:28] which was developed while I was serving on the council, and I am saying all of this with the
[17:34] utmost respect to all of you up there. My reasoning in 22 and 23 wins was going on for not
[17:41] including this property was based on several factors. There's no infrastructure at the site,
[17:46] no nearby school, very limited amenities, and importantly, no proximity to a transit hub. Transit
[17:52] accessibility is a significant factor in determining the viability of affordable housing.
[17:58] And that is an integral component of the housing element.
[18:01] Traffic circulation was also a major concern, particularly without the El Toro extension,
[18:07] which, as you all know, has an estimated cost of over $100 million dollars.
[18:11] This property had been a contentious issue with previous city councils before I had served,
[18:17] and I believe that further analysis was warranted.
[18:20] and just as a footnote, the QUT property on the east side was actually included in the housing
[18:24] element. There were other concerns as well, including the properties proximity to the airport
[18:30] protection area, as well as questions regarding water supply and safety, sewer capacity, and
[18:35] potential ground settling issues. Importantly, the Planning Commission recommended that the site
[18:39] not be included. City staff also recommended against including it. Because we did not need
[18:45] these units to me or housing element requirements, I agreed with the decision to not include the site.
[18:50] At the same time, we identified housing opportunities throughout Pleasanton that allowed us to meet our obligations under state law.
[18:57] That housing element was ultimately approved by the state.
[19:00] It has also been stated that the city's decision regarding the side property would be easier today if it had been included in the housing element.
[19:07] And that is simply not correct.
[19:08] Director Clark explained during a February 2022 council meeting that once a property is owned for housing, it becomes much more difficult for the city to deny a project.
[19:17] She reiterated that point in a very recent council meeting, once land is owned for housing developers have greater ability to move forward with development, which means the city council has less control not more.
[19:29] So the suggestion that including the property in the housing element would have made the city's decision making easier today is in fact the opposite of what would have occurred.
[19:37] I feel compelled to correct misinformation when it is presented to the public, especially when presented to the public, particularly when it concerns decisions that were carefully considered and made during my time on the council.
[19:52] I do wish you all the best of luck as you continue to navigate these challenging housing issues, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak.
[20:17] Thank you.
[20:18] I'm Rina Gopta, candidate for Pleasant and City Council District 3.
[20:22] I believe democracy thrives when residents are informed, engaged, and heard.
[20:27] That's why civic engagement is at heart of my campaign.
[20:30] I listen, summarise, and carry resident voices to the city hall.
[20:33] In the last two weeks, I have collected 19 additional voices at the farmers market and
[20:38] through my website.
[20:39] These are resident voices, not necessarily my own positions.
[20:43] Residents from senior residents from Carlton, Oaks and Faisant Bridge requested for shade over
[20:49] benches at Fawn Hill Park on West Lagoon Road, as well as safer and more convenient
[20:54] wheelspuzz access. They said reaching existing stops near value or burnout can be
[20:58] difficult and unsafe for seniors who do not drive. Residents can raise concern about bicycle and
[21:04] pedestrian safety, especially for children and us for safer and more accessible ways to move
[21:12] affordable housing while others express concerns about location and impact of new development
[21:17] including around Stone Ridge Mall. Residents race concerns that roads, water, and sewer infrastructure
[21:23] are not keeping pace with development and some question the overall pace of growth.
[21:28] Residents asked for an adequate funding for libraries funding, parks, recreation, arts,
[21:33] and community programs while others emphasized controlling spending and staffing costs.
[21:39] Residents are asking that council to take a clear stand regarding the proposed ice facility in Dublin and its potential impact on
[21:46] dry valley community. Residents continue to raise concerns about downtown vacancies and want concrete action to bring more businesses and
[21:53] activity downtown. These voices do not always agree and that's part of civic engagement. My goal is to make sure residents have a way to be heard.
[22:02] Thank you to everyone who have shared their voice. If you like your voice to be included in a future update,
[22:06] please stop by at a farmer's market booth on Saturdays or visit
[22:10] renaffapleasantin.com.
[22:12] Thank you.
[22:12] Thank you.
[22:13] Carla Brown.
[22:14] This is my last speaker card.
[22:15] If you would like to speak on items
[22:17] not on the agenda, please turn in a blue speaker card at this time.
[22:21] Good evening. Good evening council.
[22:23] As a former city council member in former mayor.
[22:26] I watched in surprise and disappointment at the
[22:30] Wait, a speaker was handled at a recent city council meeting. Sandy Yamagoda is in her 80s. She walks slowly to the podium. She spoke in her opinion on a project that's being considered for the east side of Roya Logo. She ran over on time, but that evening, so did many speakers that astowed how wonderful the city council and staff had been with regards to the fires.
[22:53] Instead of having the same courtesy that was granted to those that were giving positive feedback to the council,
[23:00] she was truncated in her speech after three minutes.
[23:03] She completed trying to complete her final sentence.
[23:07] The gavel was slammed down,
[23:09] and you were heard on recording.
[23:12] Did you even understand what the subject matter was?
[23:17] I couldn't believe it.
[23:18] I couldn't believe it, Mayor.
[23:19] She walked away and said stop yelling at me. Is that really the kind of behavior this council is proud of?
[23:27] I will also hold you as council members involved as well. If you see your mayor acting in a way that is not becoming of your city council.
[23:37] Perhaps it might be a time to step up. Because as a resident, the number of calls and emails I received on this issue alone was a great disappointment to me.
[23:47] I know that you have a large project in front of you for a Royal Logo, I know it's important.
[23:54] I know you work very hard, but let's not take it up on the residents who are here to share their thoughts.
[24:00] Thank you.
[24:01] Thank you.
[24:02] Okay.
[24:02] That's my last speaker card if you would like to speak on items not in the agenda.
[24:05] Please approach the podium at this time.
[24:08] Mayor, I'd like to respond to a public comment.
[24:11] Please let me close public comment first.
[24:14] Okay.
[24:14] Is there anyone else?
[24:15] hearing none seen none online, virtual?
[24:20] No additional speakers.
[24:21] Okay, we'll close public comment.
[24:23] Council member Tessa, you had a comment?
[24:25] Yes, I would like to apologize to Miss Yamamoto for not speaking up on her behalf,
[24:33] because that was a hard interaction to watch.
[24:36] And it was clearly a very biased action against one speaker
[24:44] when so many others that particular night had been given the grace of running over there speaking
[24:50] time.
[24:52] So I apologize for not being more responsive at the time.
[24:56] Okay.
[24:57] Thank you very much.
[24:58] We'll now move on to public hearing and other matters.
[25:02] It's 625 so we cannot take up item number two yet.
[25:05] We'll be proceeding to item number nine.
[25:08] Receive a presentation on debt financing regarding water improvement projects and adopt a resolution
[25:13] declaring the city's intention to reimburse expenditures related to capital improvement projects
[25:18] from the proceeds of tax exempt obligations.
[25:21] City Manager?
[25:23] Thank you, Mr. Mayor, City Council, in addition to our staff here this evening, our finance
[25:32] director, Susan Shea, and our public works director.
[25:39] Susan Young, we are also joined via remote by our financial advisors and our bond and disclosure
[25:48] counsel.
[25:49] So, by way of brief introduction, and I believe that they're floating around up there somewhere.
[25:55] Jaime Treho is a Senior Management Consultant with PFM Financial Advisors.
[26:03] These are folks that specialize in the Municipal Security's market, assisting public agencies with structuring and selling municipal bonds, helping their clients receive fair pricing for their bonds.
[26:15] David Farmer is a partner with Jones Hall.
[26:19] Anybody in California who's ever done a bond financing knows who Jones Hall is.
[26:26] They're prominent firm that works with municipalities all across the state.
[26:31] Excuse me, on all aspects of bond financing.
[26:35] These two firms I would hasten to add were also a part of our team for the
[26:40] in 24 water revenue bonds. So with that, I will turn it over to staff.
[26:51] Good evening, Mayor and Council Member. Tonight we will be providing an overview of the city proposed financing for our water system capital improvement program.
[27:01] Tonight, there's, we are going to provide some background information and Director of Finance
[27:09] Susansha is going to share a financing options and we're going to talk about next step
[27:14] and staff recommendations.
[27:18] So the city, Water Capital Improvement Project is driven by four primary projects.
[27:24] It's replacing aging infrastructure to maintain or improve system reliability and operably
[27:31] up-properability, improved water system capacity, comply with regulatory requirement, and also
[27:40] align with our one-plus and strategic plan goal of investing in our environment.
[27:48] Tonight, action is to request council consideration, to approve, to establish the city intent
[27:55] to reimburse eligible expenditure for these
[27:58] at capital improvement project with bond proceeds.
[28:02] This is an important financing steps
[28:04] that allow the city to move forward
[28:06] with eligible project expenditure
[28:08] while preserving the flexibility
[28:10] to reimburse those expenditure from the bond proceed.
[28:18] In the past year, we have completed a robust water system
[28:23] management plan that built our 20 year CIP
[28:27] capital improvement plan. We have a council approval to select and hands in
[28:34] area with a $73 million of CIP projects delivery over the five years and with
[28:41] an expected $35 million of new debt that we will be inquiring in the next three
[28:48] years. With the expectation in 2026 for $15 million in 2027, $10 million and in
[28:55] 2028, another 10 million dollar, a total of $35 million.
[29:01] For the 2026 water projects go,
[29:06] the bond proceeds will be used to finance all
[29:09] or a portion of the following improvement.
[29:12] Collectively refer to as the 2026 water water projects.
[29:17] The projects that we will be funding
[29:19] would be water meter and advanced metering infrastructure
[29:22] AAMI System Replacement that is approved and awarded by Council and is currently in implementation
[29:29] face.
[29:30] The City Ground Water Supply Project, which we have completed, face one physicality study and
[29:36] now we are into face-to-design and face-to-reconstruction face.
[29:42] The water system emergency power improvement program, which is currently in bid and award
[29:47] face and the annual water distribution system improvement that is currently in planning and engineering
[29:53] face and also any other improvement to the water system that is approved by City Council in the next.
[30:04] This is a breakdown of how we anticipate the 2020-26 bond will fund the four main projects that we have proposed under this bond.
[30:16] As you can see, for the four projects all at together, we roughly have about 56 and a half million dollar of needs to fund the all four projects.
[30:27] And this bond is a portion of the total funding, which is a total of 15 million.
[30:37] Just want to bring it up that the 2026 bond is not the only sole funding source for the four projects.
[30:44] These four projects are also funded by others sources such as 2024 revenue bond.
[30:51] the water rates, grants, that is also
[30:57] be supporting the projects.
[31:01] This slide shows the scope of the four projects.
[31:05] A lot of this projects are already
[31:08] very presented by Council in the
[31:10] path. Like I say, the city ground water supply
[31:12] project. We have completed the phase one
[31:14] facility study and now into phase two and phase three.
[31:19] This is to develop two new groundwater wells
[31:22] partnership with zone seven, including the transmission line and distribution system.
[31:29] The water meter and AMI replacement project is a city-wide water meter replacement project.
[31:37] Water system emergency power that is to upgrade our emergency power system at water pump station
[31:44] to improve reliability and to ensure continuous operation during power out-ages and emergency.
[31:50] and at last annual water distribution system,
[31:54] that's an annual investment to our water distribution system,
[31:58] that is including installation of water mains, valve services,
[32:04] and items that is prioritized with street resurfacing projects.
[32:11] Next, I'm going to turn the speaker to Director of Finance,
[32:16] Susan Share, who is going to share financing options and discussing about our different financing
[32:22] option.
[32:23] Thank you, Susan.
[32:24] Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, in council members, I will present the financing
[32:28] options.
[32:29] In working with the city's financial advisor, we consider a public cell and a bank loan or private
[32:34] placement with 20 and 30 year repayment trends for public offering and 20 year repayment
[32:41] for a bank loan. The effective interest rates for the three options are projected to range from
[32:48] about 4% to 4.6%. For public sale, for public ban sale, double a rating, it's assumed.
[32:59] This slide presents more details about the three options that the financing team evaluated.
[33:07] As you can see here, we have three options. We don't have the fourth option related to a 30-year
[33:13] in Bangalore due to the limited capital markets for 30 year banglons.
[33:19] For a 15 million public bansal with 20 year paymentton, the interest rate is projected at
[33:27] about 4%.
[33:28] The average annual debt service payment is about 1.1 million and the total debt service payment
[33:35] is about 22 million.
[33:36] For 20-year bank loan, the interest rate is higher, projecting at about 4.6%, the annual
[33:44] sales payment and the total sales payment are also higher than the 20-year public
[33:50] bank loan.
[33:51] At about 1.2 million and 23 million, basically public offering is the less expensive option.
[33:59] For a 30-year public ban cell, the interest rate is projected at about 4.5%.
[34:06] The annual debt service payment is about 920,000 and total debt service payment is about 27.5 million.
[34:16] A ban function is similarly to a mortgage.
[34:19] With a longer repayment term, we incur higher interest costs.
[34:24] 30-year bond is going to cause about 5.5 million more than a 20-year bond.
[34:30] In the staff report staff recommended a 30-year repayment turn to protect their service coverage and credit rating,
[34:39] including maintaining a sufficient cash balance.
[34:44] Having a utilizing along to repayment turn will also provide a financial flexibility for an expected capital needs.
[34:53] As we continue to implement the capital projects identified in the city's water system management plan,
[35:03] we may run into issues related to unexpected access conditions and unexpected capital needs,
[35:10] having available resources to call those costs over rents would be helpful for the city.
[35:18] The issuing costs are estimated to be about 189,000 for bond issuance and about 130,000 for a bank loan.
[35:28] In the staff report, we recommend utilizing an underwriter to market the bond cell,
[35:36] and additional costs of 90,000 is expected.
[35:39] Those are all conservative estimates, the cost may come, you know, maybe lower than what we are estimating.
[35:48] This month, the finance team will be meeting with S&P to attend a credit rating for the
[35:55] bond insurance.
[35:56] Staff will return in September to seek a council approval for Bansal, between September
[36:02] and October, the finance team will finalize the bond offering documents, and money is expected
[36:08] in the project by mid-October.
[36:13] Staff recommends that the city council, a double resolution, declaring the city's intention
[36:18] to reimburse expenditures relating to capital improvement projects.
[36:23] This concludes our presentation and we are happy to answer questions as the City Manager
[36:29] mentioned earlier, Jaime and David are also joining us remotely.
[36:34] They are available to answer questions as well.
[36:36] Okay, thank you very much.
[36:38] Claire, fine questions.
[36:39] Council member Eicher, we'll just go down the line.
[36:44] How long does it take to procure a bond?
[36:50] It's about four months.
[36:53] And once we have cured the bond, the funding that comes with it,
[37:01] what's the timeline on receiving those funds that come with it?
[37:07] Is that the four months?
[37:08] Yeah, within our four month timeline.
[37:10] We expect to receive the money by mid-October.
[37:12] Okay, and then once we've gotten it, what is the anticipated disbursement time frame looking
[37:20] like for these projects?
[37:23] Yeah, for tax-exam bonds, we are required to spend about 85% of the bond proceeds.
[37:30] In the first three years, that's the timeline that we are looking at. We can also incurs, incurs prior to, to ban cell, that's why we are presenting a resolution to the council tonight. So that way we can start incurs and get reimbursed later on when the ban proceeds are received.
[37:52] What are the risks that are associated with the public sale of bonds?
[37:58] Usually, the risk is pretty low because we are paying back the investors, as I, as we generate revenues from the water system of the repairs, we should be able to pay the bond.
[38:09] So it should be low risk for the residents of Pleasanton.
[38:15] And in looking at the 2026 revenue bonds and I know that and this is probably a conversation
[38:22] for when we approve whatever the bond is going to be when we get there as opposed to
[38:27] this, what you're asking for here.
[38:33] But in looking at some of these items that we're looking at getting bonds to pay for, some
[38:40] those items appear to have a 20 year or less life, which, to me, doesn't make sense getting a 30 year bond on something that's going to have to be replaced before we pay it off.
[38:51] Well, in general, what we are funding the live of the assets, along then 30 years, I, you know, I will defer to CGEN to provide a bit more detail.
[39:02] So, the 30-year proposed ton is consistent with the life of the asset.
[39:10] Of course, a 20-year payment ton would also work too, and you would save some inches
[39:14] costs.
[39:15] But at the same time, you may not have the financial flexibility to meet unexpected capital needs.
[39:21] And also, protect your desk or coverage.
[39:25] Okay.
[39:26] Yeah, the thing that sparked me was the water meter aspect, and I know we have an unusual
[39:33] circumstance where the water meter lasted 10 years shorter than it anticipated, which
[39:40] put us in the bind to where we have to do something to take care of that.
[39:44] But I'm also looking at if we had taken a bond out, we'd still be paying for paying for
[39:51] those 10 years.
[39:52] had a question. No, actually I'm getting in the commentary. So that's all the questions I have.
[39:58] So that was my thought process on it. Thank you. Council member Tessa Claire find questions?
[40:08] Yeah, I just have one. I'm kind of touched it already, but what struck me is the 30-year
[40:15] versus the 20-year, and you just addressed that the 20-year saves some interest costs.
[40:23] It kind of saves a significant amount,
[40:27] and I really could you break up the difference
[40:32] in the cost of what the 30-year versus the 20-year will cost us, and you said that it could
[40:41] leave us less. Well, I'll ask you to explain that again. Further, why it seems to me the
[40:51] 20 year would be a more efficient choice. Yeah. And actually, Jaime, would you like to respond
[40:58] to this question? Yeah. And then I can add more comments.
[41:04] Good evening, members of 50 council
[41:06] culminating with high-made trial PFM financial advisors, you're correct, issuing bonds over
[41:14] 10 or 20 years will produce savings.
[41:17] You will pay less than interest for a bond you can pay off over 20 years versus 30 years.
[41:23] The reason why we proposed 30 years or we discussed 30 years is severalfold.
[41:28] One that matches the life of the assets.
[41:30] two in what the finance rent dimension provides financial flexibility. So, for example, in
[41:38] 2023 you had less revenues available to pay debt service than your debt service payment.
[41:47] So, your net revenues were less than one times. In 2025 due to the rating increases, that
[41:53] has significantly increased. So, now your coverage is over three times. So, you have three
[41:58] times as much revenue to pay your debt servers.
[42:02] I'm talking about net revenue revenue after you pay your expenses.
[42:07] In fiscal year 26, the act could potentially decrease from 7.8 to 5.5.
[42:14] These numbers are still preliminary, but you see there's been some fluctuations in your
[42:18] net revenues.
[42:19] And if the net revenues decrease, it will also decrease your debt service coverage.
[42:25] So, for example, nationally, for S&P, the meeting and coverage ratio is 2.3 times.
[42:34] So, you have 2.3 times revenue, net revenue is a great debt service.
[42:38] And with the issuance of this bond in the 28 bond, that coverage level will drop.
[42:46] It could drop as low as 1.5 times the pending on the highest charge of the debt.
[42:54] It can drop, you know, around two times.
[42:57] So decreasing your debt service coverage is a credit negative,
[43:02] and if your net revenues decrease even further than anticipated,
[43:07] it could limit your ability to issue the next series of bonds.
[43:10] So we want to preserve the financial flexibility
[43:13] for the next series. Additionally,
[43:16] if we issue 30-year bonds, we have the option to refine
[43:19] these bonds in 10 years. In 10 years we can decide okay we can now pay these off in 10 years versus 20 years.
[43:29] So we are not locked in to the 30-year term at this time. We will have the opportunity to refund them in 10 years
[43:36] and at that point we could reduce the maturity down even further.
[43:44] Thank you for that explanation. Was staff going to make any further comments?
[43:49] Yeah, I was going to mention that we are still in the initial stage of implementing the capital projects
[43:55] identified in the water system management plan.
[43:59] As I mentioned earlier, we may have cost overrinsed that we did not anticipate with a longer
[44:04] repair and turn will have more resources to cover those costs.
[44:09] That's another reason why we are considering a 30-year repair and schedule.
[44:14] So, we also have two more bond issuance in the next two years, if our cash balance looks sufficient or it's going to be built up to a point that's going to meet the standard of rating agencies.
[44:29] We can consider utilizing a shorter repayment schedule for those bond issuance.
[44:34] That's another option that we can consider in addition to what Jaime mentioned about refinancing your debt in about 10 years.
[44:44] Okay, lots of good feedback on both of those, but I did ask, could you break up out the savings of the 20-year versus the 30-year?
[44:57] Yeah, it's about 5.5 million.
[45:00] Close to 5.5 million in savings. Thank you for that. And then one more, if there's refinancing in 10 years, the
[45:11] origination costs and all the financing costs factor in as well, right? So.
[45:19] That's correct. The
[45:21] In 10 years
[45:23] If the savings are at least, you know, let's say 3% of the funded amount
[45:28] net of the expenses
[45:30] That would be the minimum thresholds we fund the bonds
[45:34] Thank you. That's all I have. Okay. Thank you. Vice Councilmember Nybert. Sorry. Thank you
[45:42] Just a couple of questions
[45:44] It was mentioned that this
[45:47] The request was a resolution declaring the city's intention to reimburse expenditures.
[45:53] And I know that the entity to be reimbursed is the city itself.
[45:59] Can you explain how that is?
[46:02] They would you like to respond to Council Member Nibber's question?
[46:07] Yes, thank you.
[46:08] Dave Fama from Jones Hall, where the bond council for the city.
[46:11] And what this is tonight, it's a rest delusion that is required for tax exam rules by the IRS.
[46:20] And it doesn't obligate you to issue the bonds, but what it does, it sort of protects you that if you have expenditures on the project that you incur before the date the bonds are issued, it allows you to reimburse yourself.
[46:34] So the city would be borrowing money through the bond issue and the proceeds or narrowly would go to a project to be built in the future.
[46:43] And what this resolution does is it preserves the tax exempt nature of the bonds and allows you to reimburse for costs that you've incurred the way it works is it's hard costs incurred up to 60 days prior to tonight.
[46:59] So you'd have a period from 68's prior to tonight to the date of issuance of the bonds.
[47:04] If you spend any money on hard costs for the project, you'll be eligible to recover those once the bonds are issued from the bond proceeds.
[47:14] So it's just a good thing and it's not a commitment to issue.
[47:17] It's just a preservation of a ability to reimburse yourself under the tax exemption rules.
[47:25] Okay, thank you.
[47:27] I understand that is the main purpose of what we are considering tonight.
[47:32] Exactly.
[47:35] The speaking about the Water Media Replacement project.
[47:41] The city has submitted claims to the manufacturer.
[47:44] And I guess we probably anticipate some kind of resolution on those claims.
[47:49] This probably doesn't assume the level of claims.
[47:51] But can we say anything about that?
[47:56] It's really too early in the litigation to speculate on what if any will be receiving from that.
[48:04] Okay. Okay. Thank you.
[48:11] And when the staff report says the city would benefit from working with an underwriter and an negotiated sale.
[48:18] You know, I'm no expert on underwriting or why that is and has to do with sometimes with volatile markets
[48:26] Could you explain why that's a benefit to the city?
[48:30] Yeah, I
[48:32] Take that
[48:35] Yeah, the reason why we're recommending
[48:38] So here with an underwriter. There's just kind of two options about a
[48:41] Bonsel, there's competitive and negotiated.
[48:45] Here, the underwriter performed the extremely well for the 2024 Bonsel.
[48:52] And the market has been fairly volatile this year.
[48:56] We have a number of deals.
[48:58] As a firm that we've kind of pulled from the market, the devaltility.
[49:02] It's a lot of political economic,
[49:06] so turbulence in the market.
[49:09] So we've had a poll deals and called data day and having an underwriter allows you to be
[49:15] nimble and flexible when to sell the bots.
[49:17] So, now the writer essentially markets the bots to investors, gets investors to buy the
[49:24] bots and whatever investors don't buy the underwriter will buy those bots from the
[49:30] site.
[49:32] Okay.
[49:33] All right.
[49:33] understood. Thank you for that. And just one more question,
[49:41] you had answered Councilman
[49:42] who tested his questions about 30-year versus 20-year and why there are benefits to going
[49:50] with a 30-year approach. To me, it sounds like a pretty forward-looking risk management strategy.
[49:56] And you know I mean that is a good thing and well I guess that's really not really
[50:06] question it's just an observation thank you thank you vice mayor thank you given
[50:11] that we've you know adjusted our water rates and we anticipate that funding the
[50:16] enterprise much more fully than it had before is there a concern that you know
[50:23] paying essentially on the 20 year
[50:29] bond at, you know, a million,
[50:31] 97 a year versus 915,000 a year on the 30 is problematic somehow.
[50:37] You know, I think of this in terms of a monthly mortgage, like anybody,
[50:41] because it just makes sense.
[50:42] And the difference between those two is a difference between making paying 91,000
[50:47] a month for a 20 year or 76,000 a month for a 30 year.
[50:52] And that makes up to 5.5 million.
[50:53] I mean, I think, I guess my question is, with all the increases that we passed on to the
[50:59] rate payers, do we anticipate the enterprise will be able to fully fund this debt service
[51:04] into the future at either the 20 or the 30?
[51:08] Yeah, we, uh, with the rain increase, we expect sufficient revenues to cover the deaths of its payment
[51:15] at the 20 year level as well. Um, we build a slightly higher interest rate and just to make sure
[51:23] we have enough money from the race study, and also the market can be volatile. We will never be able to predict what's going to happen with the interest rates.
[51:32] So the answer is yes, we have sufficient funds to cover the costs. The reason we are recommending a dirty year,
[51:39] Repimension, it's mainly due to the reasons that high-main mentioned earlier.
[51:46] In 2023, we will not able to meet our debt covenant.
[51:51] So, we are trying to build up, you know, that their service coverage,
[51:56] and then the cash balance as well, together to be at a higher level,
[52:02] so that we have more flexibility.
[52:03] If the council decides to go with a 20-year repayment schedule, what we can do is that in the next two
[52:12] money issues, we're going to re-evaluate to see how cash flow looks like, how this service coverage looks like.
[52:19] We may have a longer payment term for those money issues.
[52:24] Our initial analysis was to be conservative for the first issues, go with a 30-year.
[52:30] For the next ones, we can re-evaluate. If the council wanted to do a 20 year for the
[52:34] spine issues, then we will re-evaluate whether the other two banyations can utilize a longer
[52:43] repimington or should, if needed.
[52:46] Right. My second question would be, if we say we were to go with a 20-year, I know you mentioned
[52:52] on the 30-year, it can be essentially, I'm going to call it refinance, because that's essentially
[52:56] what it is, you can pay it off quicker and move down to a different 20, but if we were locked
[53:01] into a 20 year bond, could we at some point extend that out or redo that for more years?
[53:07] Or does it only go to one direction?
[53:10] Hi, Mike, can you respond to that question?
[53:12] I think that as a yes, you can re-evaluate and refinance as well.
[53:16] Yeah, I believe in Dave can correct me here, as long as you shall savings, you can move
[53:21] the maturity out, as long as you'll savings overall to the bond. But it would be very rare
[53:27] to do that, particularly for a double-a-ready credit to push back to that.
[53:34] I understand that. Thank you. There's my question. I appreciate it.
[53:36] Okay. Thank you. I understand the item that's before us for the resolution to pay back, but I do want
[53:41] to keep going on this 20 versus 30 year. And my question is related to the water master plan that
[53:46] classified the water rates, correct me if I'm wrong, but that had a 6% assumed debt level
[53:53] in it compared to what we anticipate as, I think, on one of them, 4.6 or so correct.
[54:00] Correct.
[54:01] So when I do poor math up here, and I was looking for a battery for my calculator for
[54:05] a bit, so I apologize, a 6% at $15 million versus a 4.61% at $15 million is $26,000
[54:16] difference, right? There is sufficient revenue to cover the deaths of us. In the race study,
[54:24] on dot annual deaths of us payment, it's estimated about 1.1 million, which is the 20-year
[54:30] repimentant that, you know, we had talked about here. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, because the actual interest rate,
[54:38] we would observe when we place the debt would be less than what we've assumed in our water rate
[54:44] study and rate plan, we'd be able to, this is the question, we'd be able to utilize that
[54:49] additional interest rate savings to possibly do a 20 year and save the $75.5 million
[54:56] correct?
[54:57] Right, that's correct.
[54:57] We can cover the desk of his payment.
[55:00] All right.
[55:01] I think that's it for my questions.
[55:02] Any further questions if we're going to public comment on this item?
[55:06] Seeing none?
[55:07] Okay.
[55:08] We're going to public comment on item number nine, the water debt.
[55:12] I don't have any speaker cards for this item if you would like to speak on item 9, and have not turned into a blue speaker card, please approach the podium at this time.
[55:23] Hearing none, seeing none, I need online at this time.
[55:27] Okay.
[55:28] Public comment is here by close.
[55:29] We're bringing it back to the council for action or comments, and or both.
[55:33] Council member, I agree you let us off.
[55:35] Any comments, actions or motion?
[55:37] Yes, I'd like to make a motion to accept staff's recommendation.
[55:41] Okay, any further comments while you have the floor?
[55:45] I think it's essential that we're going to need to pass bonds so we can get these projects moving.
[55:51] Delaying, doing this is just going to make things a little bit more challenging for us in the future.
[55:57] Where our rates should be able to at this point easily cover the bond.
[56:03] If we get it, and I think that stats and a good job articulating what the money is going to go for.
[56:10] So thank you.
[56:11] Council member Tessa, you're next.
[56:14] I have no comments.
[56:15] Are you, would you second the motion?
[56:18] Yes.
[56:18] Second the motion.
[56:19] Thank you.
[56:20] Council member Niber.
[56:22] Comments?
[56:23] Just a comment that the existing plan that the city is following is to use a series of bond issuances
[56:31] that's been established in the past.
[56:34] So this is moving us down that path.
[56:36] Nothing unusual about this particular topic that we're discussing.
[56:43] The use of a risk management strategy to justify a 30-year repayment period instead of a 20-year,
[56:52] I find as an excellent use of risk management.
[56:58] And I commend the staff for looking at those types of risks as we face them,
[57:01] which also leaves flexibility in how we may respond to any future adversive occurrences.
[57:09] So, I do support the recommendation.
[57:11] The motion, okay, vice mayor?
[57:13] Yeah, I support the motion.
[57:14] I will make the comment, though, that I understand we may need to have more bond issue
[57:20] into the future.
[57:21] But the way I'm calculating the math is essentially if we pay $16,000 more a month over 20
[57:28] years, we say $5.5 million.
[57:36] Given that there is sufficient money in the enterprise to make
[57:40] that payment, I think it's worth a discussion about considering a 20-year issue in those
[57:46] as opposed to the 30. I'd curious to hear other people's comments about that, but given
[57:53] what we've passed on to our rate payers and how well that seems like it's going to be funded,
[58:01] That seems to be good math in my opinion, but I'll defer if anyone else wants to pick up on that given there's three indication of support by three Council members for the 30.
[58:17] Any further comment?
[58:19] I'll just close out.
[58:20] So the item before is the repayment resolution that's obviously before us.
[58:24] But I'll lend support that we're going to probably need
[58:26] a robust analysis of a 20 versus 30 or plan
[58:29] because when I do the just like the vice mayor mentioned,
[58:32] when I look at the water system plan that we put together
[58:36] with a 6% assumed, depending on what we're able to obviously
[58:41] lock this interest rate in with the sales.
[58:45] We'll provide us some head room to be able to possibly absolve
[58:50] ourselves at 5.5 million that a 30 year would have provided.
[58:52] So I think I calculated it's only about $26,000 a year between the assumed rate and the strike price rate, the coupon rate, and so I would think we could save the money.
[59:08] So that will come back for a few try.
[59:10] So we'll get some more robust analysis about that.
[59:13] We have a motion made in second it.
[59:15] We'll call vote please.
[59:17] Council members, Icar.
[59:18] Aye.
[59:19] Testa?
[59:20] Aye.
[59:21] Gatos?
[59:21] Aye.
[59:22] Hi, Bert.
[59:23] Hi.
[59:23] You're a Balch.
[59:24] The motion passes unanimously.
[59:26] And just, thank you very much.
[59:27] And just like that, we are one minute away from item number from 7 o'clock, which will
[59:32] allow us to go to item number 2.
[59:34] So I'm just going to talk slowly and let us all sit for one minute.
[59:39] And we've achieved 7 o'clock.
[59:41] Okay, with that, we are going to resume item number 2, which was on consent.
[59:46] It's consent part 2.
[59:48] It's only the only item.
[59:50] So just to help everyone follow along, we've just completed item number nine, we're going to slide in as nine B item.
[1:00:00] Formally known as item number 2, from our consent calendar, which we had noticed at 7 p.m., this is introduced
[1:00:08] a revised ordinance number 2308 of the City Council of the City of Pleasanton approving.
[1:00:28] One,
[1:00:28] P-25-01-184, a planned unit development, P-U-D-154, planned for residential
[1:00:36] development with related on and off-site infrastructure, and five, a vesting
[1:00:44] sub-division map, track 842-3, associated with the
[1:00:48] Arroyal Logo Residential Project, the revisions add two new conditions of approval
[1:00:53] for wastewater treatment facilities, decidely, analysis, and funding.
[1:00:57] So that is the item that we're sliding in as 9B with that staff.
[1:01:03] Do you have any presentation?
[1:01:04] It was on consent.
[1:01:05] Anything at this time?
[1:01:07] Nothing further.
[1:01:08] Clarifying questions by council members.
[1:01:11] And I, I, Mayor.
[1:01:13] Yes, please.
[1:01:14] I would like to pull it from consent.
[1:01:17] I would like to hear that presentation.
[1:01:21] I think staff just said they don't have a presentation.
[1:01:25] Well, I'm sure we can come up with one, Mayor.
[1:01:27] So, through the chair if I may very briefly, I think that as explained in the staff report,
[1:01:40] owing to, you know, I'll just call it a miscommunication.
[1:01:47] There were discussions that took place between the applicant and DSRSD, prior to the last meeting
[1:01:57] that had to do with the need to fund the preparation of additional utility analysis to determine
[1:02:09] impacts on the district's system, that being the sewage treatment system. In addition in
[1:02:18] the same time, we had understood that the applicant had agreed to mitigate any impacts that
[1:02:25] We're going to be identified by that analysis and funding for the study would be provided
[1:02:33] to DSRSD.
[1:02:35] The two additional conditions that are being required or that are being added this evening
[1:02:42] is essentially are intended to memorialize that.
[1:02:47] I think that the city also understands from our discussions with DSRSD that there are some additional concerns that aren't spoken to directly here that have to do with
[1:03:04] the capabilities of a sewage lift station that would serve not only this project but potentially other development out there in
[1:03:17] East Pleasanton, if additional annexations take place.
[1:03:23] And so over the last gosh week, week and a half or so in discussions with the General
[1:03:28] Manager from DSRSD, we've also resolved to have our staffs work together to see whether
[1:03:35] or not there may be ways or opportunities to look at potentially accelerating forward some
[1:03:43] additional improvements that are in the city's capital improvement program in future years
[1:03:49] that would be contingent upon the increase in sewer rates that is currently going through the process now.
[1:03:59] So, again, these are the only changes the discussion at the Council meeting on July 27
[1:04:06] was pretty robust, covered a number of topics with relations with interrelation to alternative
[1:04:15] utility plans, off-site improvement costs related to El Charo. And so on, this would not
[1:04:23] change any of that, as it was approved by the Council, it would merely add these two conditions.
[1:04:31] These two conditions have also been discussed with the applicant who has concurred with having
[1:04:38] them added to the entitlement.
[1:04:42] So, with that, I or staff that is here this evening, happy to answer any other questions from
[1:04:48] Council.
[1:04:49] Okay.
[1:04:50] Okay.
[1:04:50] Claire, if I can question to my Council, Council member, does that sense you have the floor?
[1:05:00] Thank you.
[1:05:02] I do have a couple of others.
[1:05:04] First of all, on that when we heard this last time, I was concerned that there were unresolved issues.
[1:05:14] So once again, there was a significant unresolved issue that apparently staff knew about, but I don't think Council got informed that there was a letter from DSRSD.
[1:05:27] I don't remember hearing about that.
[1:05:31] So I'm concerned that we're looking
[1:05:35] being asked to vote on projects that
[1:05:39] are still have outstanding issues.
[1:05:42] The other is, this isn't just about the amendment
[1:05:48] from the DSRSD concerns where we are addressing
[1:05:53] the other layers, isn't that correct, a proven, the other points of the approval?
[1:06:09] And that's question.
[1:06:12] I, I'm not sure that I understand the, the question council member Testa, but owing to the fact
[1:06:18] that there are two additional conditions of approval that are being added, that were not a part of the
[1:06:25] information that was presented to the Council on July 27th, it does require the reintroduction
[1:06:33] of the ordinance that the council acted on July 27th. So what is before the council this evening
[1:06:41] is the, I'll call it the reintroduction of the ordinance that essentially duplicates what you did
[1:06:49] July the 27th, with the exception of the addition of the two conditions of approval that are
[1:06:59] set forth on page two of the staff report. Okay, good. So in order to preserve my opposition of the
[1:07:10] under payment on the El Charles Road, we would need to break out the vote on this again, is that true?
[1:07:26] yeah so
[1:07:30] To clarify, I believe, what council member Testa is referring to is that on July 27, there was a discussion among the council with respect to action on the matter itself, and then there was some separate discussion that took place that had to do with a recommended plan,
[1:07:57] be with respect to certain infrastructure in the event, there was an inability to secure
[1:08:06] a utility easement from Zone 7, and then also the amount of money.
[1:08:11] Any manager that isn't what I was referring to, I'm sorry.
[1:08:16] Okay, so Council Member Testa, why don't if you could clarify, please?
[1:08:23] We had a separate vote to, that I was able to indicate my opposition to the underpayment
[1:08:33] of El Charo and I want to preserve that opposition in this so how do we pull that out
[1:08:47] this motion that approves all of these points of the project.
[1:08:54] If I can ask the city attorney real fast and city manager, one of the things I noticed
[1:08:58] from the item noticed here is I think that council member tests if I recall correctly
[1:09:04] voted in against the pre annexation agreement and that's not listed as one of the five
[1:09:10] items here.
[1:09:14] Okay, so that's not currently a part of this.
[1:09:16] staff is looking at it now if we could just give them a moment please.
[1:09:20] So that's correct. The only item before the council is the ordinance. The monetary
[1:09:26] contribution for El Charo was part of the pre annexation and development agreement. That's
[1:09:31] not being amended and so the council's action on that is not being revisited at this meeting.
[1:09:36] So council member Tessa did you hear that?
[1:09:38] I did. And thank you. That clarifies my concern. Okay. Thank you.
[1:09:44] Okay, so with that, did you any other clarifying questions, Councilmember Tessa, why you have the floor?
[1:09:49] No, I do not.
[1:09:50] Councilmember Eicher, clarifying questions?
[1:09:53] I have none.
[1:09:54] Councilmember Nybert?
[1:09:55] No.
[1:09:56] Vice Mayor.
[1:09:57] No, thank you.
[1:09:57] Okay, we have two speakers on this item.
[1:09:59] If you would like to speak on item number two or item nine B formally known as item two,
[1:10:04] please turn in a blue speaker card at this time.
[1:10:07] Our first speaker is called a Brown.
[1:10:09] You're obly followed by Mr. Rich Hartcliffe.
[1:10:12] Three minutes please.
[1:10:20] I'm friendly.
[1:10:21] Friendly place to come back to you.
[1:10:23] Thank you.
[1:10:26] Good evening city council.
[1:10:29] City staff.
[1:10:29] I'm speaking today on agenda item two as mentioned.
[1:10:33] Before serving on the city council.
[1:10:35] For 12 years.
[1:10:35] I was a founding member of the East Pleasanton specific plan task force.
[1:10:40] And that's why I'm speaking here today.
[1:10:42] So in 2015 the city was bombarded with a thousand residents
[1:10:46] against the development in East Pleasanton.
[1:10:49] I don't want to make sure you know that because many as I see staff and, of course, Council
[1:10:53] were not in place at the time.
[1:10:56] It was labeled the largest development in the history of Pleasanton, and between the drought
[1:11:01] and the size of the project by a raise of hands, we had 1,000 residents come to multiple meetings.
[1:11:07] You've never had a project like 1,000 people angry at you and I hope you never do.
[1:11:12] So, on a raise of hands, everyone was against East Pleasanton Development Projects, except one person, and that was the developer Steve Dunn.
[1:11:22] In response to 2015, based on the vast number of residents, Mayor Thorne proposed putting the entire project on hold in the council at that time agreed.
[1:11:32] I'm providing a staff with a copy of his guest editorial for you to review.
[1:11:38] As you go through this process, I know annexation can take a while.
[1:11:43] But while developing the 2024-2031 has a government staff used a survey, the City Council,
[1:11:51] and they created a rubric score saying, where is a good site?
[1:11:55] Again, East Positon was ranked poorly and result was a zero score.
[1:12:04] So for many reasons for that, as mentioned by former council member, Valerie Arkin, but
[1:12:11] also the Livermore area, airport protection area referred to as APA, in the general
[1:12:18] plan states there will be no residential land use within the APA and this site is right next
[1:12:26] to it.
[1:12:27] East Lakes that may come before you is within the airport protection area.
[1:12:32] You would violate if you approve that.
[1:12:35] Your own general plan.
[1:12:38] So, as we look forward also, these Pleasant and Task Force hired a geotechnical engineer and
[1:12:46] stated that you're going to have to wick that property because it's so wet, remember
[1:12:51] you're right next to lakes. So the property would have to be wick to be for housing
[1:12:55] could be constructed. So I'd like you to tell me, with this, would a new dream house under
[1:13:03] an airport flight plan, which in use 24 hours a day. subject to hard-scape settling, near
[1:13:10] possible sites for PFAS contamination, such as the Operation Services Center, the chain of
[1:13:15] rights, the Garbage Station, first street traffic, and a road that hasn't been completed.
[1:13:23] That means Arayolago.
[1:13:24] Thank you.
[1:13:25] Should be a zero.
[1:13:26] Thank you very much for your time.
[1:13:28] Okay.
[1:13:28] Mr. Rich Hartlet.
[1:13:31] Three minutes.
[1:13:32] This is my last speaker card on this item.
[1:13:34] If you would like to speak on item number 9B, formerly known as 2, please approach the podium
[1:13:38] at this time.
[1:13:39] Welcome.
[1:13:41] Mayor Balsch.
[1:13:42] Council members.
[1:13:43] Thank you so much for letting me speak.
[1:13:45] I'm Rich Halker, I'm president, a currently president of the DSRC Board.
[1:13:51] I want to have two points and I'll be fast.
[1:13:56] We've been working together for 50 years.
[1:14:00] We are, we are joined.
[1:14:01] So when we put in letters and we want to get stuff into the record, it's not an oppositional
[1:14:07] thing.
[1:14:08] It is, we're working together to be blunt.
[1:14:12] When you flush your toilets, they go to the same place when I flush my toilets, so we all, you know, it's it's a it's a it's a vested interest to work together on this stuff
[1:14:21] So we appreciate that you reopen the record and you got our two stipulation in I want to thank you for that
[1:14:28] We do need to work on this lift station, which I know is not tied directly to this project, but it's something that needs to be addressed
[1:14:37] when something goes along in a lift station
[1:14:41] bad stuff ends up on the streets and when bad stuff ends up on your streets we're going to
[1:14:47] get blame for it to suck you and we don't want that to happen so I want to encourage
[1:14:52] us to be very very very very a collaborative on that project let's get it funded.
[1:15:00] Let's get it built. We don't want the bad stuff to happen right in the middle of your sports park.
[1:15:07] Anyway, thank you so much for addressing our concerns. We appreciate it. We're all in this together, so we're going to get through this.
[1:15:16] I understand this project may not be the project you all want.
[1:15:20] I've been through several of those in my past, and we're just going to have to, you know, actually work the problem and get it done.
[1:15:27] Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. This is my last speaker card on item number two, formerly known as item number two, item 9B. Do we have any comments on line?
[1:15:37] We do, Sarah Callahan.
[1:15:44] Hi, good evening. My name is Sarah Callahan and I'm here on behalf of East Bay Residence for Responsible Development, which includes 2,000 members who live and work in race families in Alameda County.
[1:15:57] Tonight, with the Council considering whether to initiate annexation of the ORIO Laws of Project Site,
[1:16:04] approve the revised conditions of approval and approve the project entitlements wanted to add our voice.
[1:16:10] These actions are premature because the city has not resolved critical issues related to the wastewater treatment
[1:16:17] and cumulative impacts from this project combined with developer steel waves proposed East Lakes residential project.
[1:16:25] The East Lakes would be located next to the Owera Logo and would add an additional 350 to 700 residential units to the area.
[1:16:35] In 2025 the Sea Council discussed both Owera Logo and East Lakes projects and directed staff to process annexation and development of these two projects.
[1:16:44] In July, the city approved the CEQA, a dendom for Aureilaga, which did not resolve these issues.
[1:16:51] Tonight's hearing adds new conditions of approval for the applicants to participate in wastewater treatment analysis,
[1:16:58] and funding for the Aureilaga project, because the Dublin San Ramone Service District's master plan did not address the wastewater treatment capacity for the end of the end of the end of the end of the project sites.
[1:17:08] But the condition of approval doesn't require analysis of the wastewater treatment impacts from the
[1:17:14] developers' other projects, the East Lake Projects.
[1:17:17] If the East Lake site is also annexed, it will create more strain on the water service
[1:17:23] district's wastewater treatment infrastructure that must be addressed in the new wastewater analysis.
[1:17:28] The city has not done an adequate job of addressing the cumulative public health and environmental
[1:17:32] impacts that are railing and East Lake projects will have on the pleasant and community.
[1:17:37] the council should push pause and ask staff to revise the project's condition of approval and address
[1:17:42] cumulative wastewater impacts before moving forward with a rail logout. Thank you very much.
[1:17:47] Okay. Thank you. Any further comments online?
[1:17:53] None. Okay. We had an additional public comment in the room come in. Steve Riley. Three minutes.
[1:18:01] Good evening. Honourable Mayor and council members. I'm Steve Riley. The applicant for
[1:18:05] a rail logout with 330 land company. I just wanted to make a couple of points to clarify things.
[1:18:11] Number one, we have already signed an MOU with DSRSD regarding this issue and we've already
[1:18:16] actually paid for the technical study that they've requested.
[1:18:20] So the conditions of approval, I think, as somebody mentioned, it's just a memorialization
[1:18:25] of something we've already agreed to.
[1:18:28] With regard to some of the other comments made by the earlier public speakers, I would
[1:18:31] like to note that in addition to a Royal Agua, I also, as part of the development team for
[1:18:36] villages of the quarry project. At that project, it only went to the planning commission.
[1:18:42] We had zero public opposition to that project at a Royal logo which was heard three weeks ago.
[1:18:49] I believe there was two public speakers that spoke in opposition to the project and probably
[1:18:55] it doesn't speakers that spoke in favor of the project. So we feel like whatever happened five or
[1:19:02] 10 years ago, is somewhat irrelevant to today.
[1:19:05] And today, the projects in East Pleasanton have essentially
[1:19:09] received overwhelming support for approval
[1:19:11] from the Citizens of Pleasanton.
[1:19:14] Thank you.
[1:19:15] OK.
[1:19:16] That's my last public speaker card.
[1:19:18] If you would like to speak on item 9B, formally known as item 2,
[1:19:22] please approach the podium at this time.
[1:19:26] And no additional online.
[1:19:27] OK.
[1:19:28] We'll close public comment and bring it back to the council.
[1:19:30] So, staff, if I can just ask a clarifying question to start us off, clearly, as I recall
[1:19:37] from the last time we handled this matter, there was a lot of work still to do, including
[1:19:42] negotiating with the county for our property tax sharing agreement, renegredits, and quite
[1:19:47] a lot to do.
[1:19:48] So, the concept that more is to come is a expected status.
[1:19:55] Correct, it's very standard that there are, we call, post entitlement, approvals that are required that typically are conditioned as part of the entitlement to require further study, investigation, design, level,
[1:20:13] We've been building plans and engineering plans.
[1:20:16] That's not necessarily part of this more macro level approval that happens with the approval
[1:20:21] of the subdivision overall.
[1:20:23] So yes, there is more work to come.
[1:20:26] And that does include additional study and design.
[1:20:29] And then my second question just helped us off.
[1:20:33] I have heard this before, but just to clarify, a second subsequent project, we have no application
[1:20:38] for that.
[1:20:39] We don't.
[1:20:39] I mean, we are obviously in conversation.
[1:20:41] But we don't anywhere in our city.
[1:20:44] We don't hold up one application from being reviewed or processed
[1:20:48] when another one might be adjacent to it, correct?
[1:20:52] So for the record record, we actually do have an application
[1:20:53] to handle, though, that was received very recently.
[1:20:55] So within the last month, I think it was submitted
[1:20:59] and long before, obviously, this project will be evaluated on its merits.
[1:21:03] Correct. And so that project will come with
[1:21:06] the current thinking is to do a comprehensive EIR
[1:21:10] for that project that will look at the cumulative impacts of it and all the prior projects that
[1:21:16] have come online before. Okay, thank you very much. Okay, so we'll bring it back to Council,
[1:21:21] Council Member Tessu, you let us off on this item. Do you want to start us off anything further here?
[1:21:29] Well, I would question the suggestion that businesses usual when apparently my understanding is on this,
[1:21:41] the letter from DSRSD came in before we were hearing this item on what was at the 27th and we
[1:21:50] weren't told about it and so I think that's very different than just an expectation that other
[1:21:57] things may come up and the my other point well I'll just I'll leave it at that and I have no
[1:22:07] comments. Okay, counts my riker. I had a couple questions, but you asked them both.
[1:22:18] I
[1:22:18] really don't have any comments, so then I would support moving forward with
[1:22:26] staff recommendations, so I'll make a motion. Okay, we have a motion date.
[1:22:34] No comments really, this seems to me like a doover from a few weeks ago, so I can't see myself opposing it.
[1:22:44] Second, the motion.
[1:22:45] Second, the motion.
[1:22:46] Vice Mayor?
[1:22:47] No comments on the key.
[1:22:48] I support for the motion.
[1:22:51] I'll just continue to say that the choice between us is the county plan that the developer or property owner
[1:22:58] has which contains a leach field and sewer treatment plant right next to our drinking water supply.
[1:23:05] That's the county plan approved or a city plan which has them connecting to city utilities.
[1:23:11] And it does address the topography change elevation change between them and the adjacent neighborhoods.
[1:23:18] So those are the choices between us. Here we are.
[1:23:23] Okay, we have a motion made in seconded. We'll call vote. Please. This is item 9b formerly known as item 2.
[1:23:30] Council number is Iker.
[1:23:31] Aye.
[1:23:32] Nivered.
[1:23:32] Aye.
[1:23:33] Gados.
[1:23:33] Aye.
[1:23:34] Test staff.
[1:23:36] Aye.
[1:23:36] We are Balch.
[1:23:37] The motion passes unanimously.
[1:23:39] Thank you very much.
[1:23:40] That concludes item 9b formerly known as item 2.
[1:23:45] And with that, we are at 724. So we are after 7 o'clock for item number 10.
[1:23:50] It is quite lengthy, but it's adopted a resolution to deny applications for a PUD, and I'll
[1:23:57] just say it's at 2-3-1, Old Bernel Avenue, skipping the stuff in the middle, but DA
[1:24:01] who can help us out and introduce the full item, please.
[1:24:07] Thank you.
[1:24:07] Good evening, City Council.
[1:24:10] Before you.
[1:24:11] We're sticking for apologies.
[1:24:15] Thank you for that.
[1:24:17] As mentioned, good evening, City Council.
[1:24:19] And before you is item 10 on the agenda, I adopt a resolution to deny applications for a
[1:24:27] plan unit development, rezoning to rezone the subject parcel from mixed use transitional
[1:24:31] district to, excuse me, plan unit development mixed use transitional district to a certificate
[1:24:38] of appropriateness to demolish an existing 6,160 square foot commercial office building in the
[1:24:49] You construct a three story four unit residential building with the units ranging in size
[1:24:54] from 430 square feet to 13,626 square feet and associated site improvements located at
[1:25:00] 231 old Bernel Avenue.
[1:25:03] The proposed project is subject to and was analyzed by the following, general plan with the
[1:25:09] land use mixed use zoning with the designation of mixed use transitional.
[1:25:13] The DSP known as the downtown specific plan with the land use designation of mixed
[1:25:17] these transitional, the downtown design guidelines, the objective design, standards, the
[1:25:22] pleasant to miss a code, and assembly bill AB 2097. The $21,381 square foot subject
[1:25:29] law is a located along old Bernel Avenue between Augustine Street and Peter's Avenue.
[1:25:34] The law is generally flat, consists of 34 protected trees, and is currently developed when
[1:25:37] approximately 6,100 square foot, two story multi-tinent commercial office building, measuring
[1:25:42] approximately 25 feet in height. The structure is set back approximately 20 feet from
[1:25:47] front property line
[1:25:52] proposed projects the proposed project proposed to demolish the existing office
[1:25:56] buildings and construct a three story four unit residential building consisting of three studio units
[1:26:02] A B and C each B and 430 square feet unit D being 13,626 square feet within approximately
[1:26:09] height 34 feet the project also proposes two parking spaces but is invoking AB 297 which prohibits
[1:26:16] public agencies from imposing minimum parking requirements for most development projects within
[1:26:21] a half mile of a major transit.
[1:26:25] As noted, the four-unit residential buildings located on a 21,381 square foot lot.
[1:26:30] The project proposes driveway access from Augustine Street and consists of the following
[1:26:35] setbacks.
[1:26:36] Front, nine feet, when ten feet is required, rear 37 feet, six inches, side setback, a minimum
[1:26:43] six feet, when seven is required, and a combined setback of 24 feet, ten inches.
[1:26:49] The three studio units are located along the west wall of the building with the larger unit
[1:26:53] D encompassing the remaining of the building and three floor levels.
[1:26:56] The proposed FAR-71% although the project invokes AV-297 it includes two parking spaces within the proposed car garage.
[1:27:07] The project poses as mentioned a 34 foot height as measured for the PMC.
[1:27:11] The project also proposes traditional architectural modern elements.
[1:27:14] These modern farm styles is characterized by wood sighting, cable roof form, and contrasting natural stone veneer.
[1:27:22] Additionally, the design incorporates vertical wood sighting, oyster stone veneer tiles, and a black standing seam at a roof.
[1:27:27] Detailed trim elements include black door and window trims, and black painted guardrails for the second story balcony.
[1:27:33] The building south facade features a combination of roof forms, including slope and flat roofs, and a tricky articulation to break masking and columns between floors.
[1:27:41] The west elevation rises three stories with a third story slightly step back from the first and second force no additional articulations provided between the lower force such as belly vents or step backs
[1:27:52] Here we see additional renderings of the proposed design before you is the left side, which is the west side of the project
[1:27:59] Here we have the east side of the project
[1:28:02] And lastly we have the rear side
[1:28:06] The site's general plan designation is mixed use, and the downtown to mix these land use designation permits residential uses located behind commercial uses, the allowable density from mixed use residential 20 to 20 units per the acre with a minimum of 10 units for this particular site, the project proposes 4 units, FAR is established per the DSP, which is 125% project proposes 71%.
[1:28:32] The site's DSP land use vaccination is mixed use transitional, as outlined in the Agenda Report.
[1:28:37] The proposed project is inconsistent with the DSP.
[1:28:42] Project conflicts with DSP, MUT policies, the proposed project is 100% residential development
[1:28:46] in an area intended to support a mix of commercial and residential uses.
[1:28:50] The project does not provide the following.
[1:28:52] Record street-fronting commercial space.
[1:28:54] Flexible ground floor commercial space designed for future services uses.
[1:28:58] Retention of existing commercial square footage commercial frontage that maintains an active downtown streetscape
[1:29:05] The proposal results in a 100% net loss of commercial space contrary to DSP objective supporting downtown economic vitality
[1:29:12] Residential densities below the DSP and general plan expectations for downtown and field development
[1:29:17] staff find the projects inconsistent with DSP goals and policies intended to one preserve downtown commercial
[1:29:24] Excuse me
[1:29:25] The ability maintains small townscare and character and encouraged context sensitive infill
[1:29:30] development compatible with town town standards.
[1:29:33] With respects to high and massive, the proposed building, as mentioned, is three stories
[1:29:37] in 34 feet tall.
[1:29:39] DSP standards for residential uses in the MET district limit buildings to two stories in
[1:29:43] 30 feet with the maximum high 30 feet.
[1:29:46] Exceeds at DSP residential high standards by four feet in one story.
[1:29:49] The building would also exceed the DSP transitions standards by being more than 15 feet
[1:29:53] taller than the adjacent residential structure.
[1:29:57] Excuse me, with respect to the design.
[1:30:00] DSP emphasizes pedestrian-oriented architecture and compatibility with downtown character. Staff identified several inconsistencies, including exclusion of storefront style frontage or active street facing design, primary entrance oriented toward the driveway rather than the public street, limited indication of landscaping and pedestrian scale architectural elements, absence of traditional downtown residential features such as porches articulated the saws and street facing entries. Staff find the project does not further DSP goals to reinforce downtown pedestrian oriented design
[1:30:29] character.
[1:30:31] Preserve the scale of massing of surrounding residential neighborhoods, support, compatible
[1:30:34] streetscape enhancements and visual transitions.
[1:30:39] The site is subject to the 2023 Objective Design Standards for Multifamily Housing in the
[1:30:43] RMCC and MU zoning districts.
[1:30:46] The property is owned and MUT, which allows residential and mix use development as part of the
[1:30:49] PD application.
[1:30:50] The applicant has requested deviation from non-compliant objective design standards.
[1:30:55] As further described, as further described in the agenda report, staff identifies 33 ODS standards
[1:31:00] that are either not met or unable to be verified
[1:31:03] due to incomplete plans.
[1:31:05] The following is that some of those ODS standards not met.
[1:31:08] With respect to site layout and access,
[1:31:10] project access is oriented primarily
[1:31:11] toward the driveway on Augustine Street,
[1:31:13] rather than the front-age along Old Bernal Avenue.
[1:31:16] Plans are not clearly demonstrate pedestrian connectivity
[1:31:19] from the public sidewalk to unit entrances.
[1:31:22] Building orientation does not support
[1:31:23] an active pedestrian-oriented streetscape.
[1:31:26] Setbacks and height.
[1:31:27] As mentioned, the pool of setbacks are not conforming.
[1:31:30] 9-foot front setbacks, 6-foot west side setbacks, ODS-looking planer-quark, a greater setback adjacent to residential properties,
[1:31:38] not conforming by approximately 9 feet along the west side setback.
[1:31:42] The proposed height is proposed at 3 stories in 34 feet per the ODS and DSP,
[1:31:46] the address limit residential building to 2 stories in 30 feet maximum.
[1:31:51] With respect to building designing architecture and consistencies,
[1:31:54] building orientation and active frontages, visible and accessible primary entrances,
[1:31:59] architecture and articulation for sod and modulation, building massing and volume, high-quality
[1:32:04] materials and transparency requirements.
[1:32:08] With respect to open space and landscaping, the projects
[1:32:11] require to provide open space of 750 square feet per unit. Private open space is not provided
[1:32:17] for the three studio units. Plants are not clearly identified, tree removal versus tree retinues,
[1:32:22] vehicle gate design details, compliance of bicycle parking areas, and utilities and service areas,
[1:32:28] the project plans and not yet demonstrate compliance with stormwater requirements, sewer and
[1:32:32] utility standards, refuse enclosure locations standards, and refuse areas are proposed
[1:32:37] within 50 feet of the primary entrance, contrary to ODS requirements.
[1:32:43] The table before you also included in the agenda report provides a summary of the project
[1:32:46] performance with a applicable site development standards for the DSP, MUT and ODS.
[1:32:51] As illustrated, the project is not conformed to the front setbacks, the side setbacks,
[1:32:56] the private open space and the height measurements.
[1:33:02] Inclusionary zoning ordinance for PMC Section 1744-040A, the ICO
[1:33:08] applies to all new residential force cell and rental projects, including mixed
[1:33:11] use residential and non-residential projects, consisting of 10 or more residential
[1:33:15] units or parcels.
[1:33:17] The ICO does not apply to the proposed four unit residential project, however, the project
[1:33:21] is required to pay affordable housing fees pursuant to the city's master fees schedule.
[1:33:26] Certificate of the appropriateness as required for PMC chapter 1874, the project seeks approval for a certificate of appropriateness.
[1:33:35] Unless the applicant can establish that there is unnecessary hardship in the strict application of chapter 18.74,
[1:33:40] it may be denied or delayed if one deproposed demolition of a structure would be inappropriate or inconsistent with the purposes of the PMC chapter 1874,
[1:33:49] or that the proposed demolition would have an adverse effect on a joining property or on the
[1:33:54] build context or that the proposed future use and design of the property would be inconsistent
[1:33:59] with PMC chapter 18.74 or the adopted guidelines. Staff find the proposed future use and design
[1:34:05] of the property would be inconsistent with the applicable guidelines and standards.
[1:34:11] As required per PMC 1868, 18.68, the project seeks to see the council make the PD findings
[1:34:18] pursuing section 18.68, point 110, B1 through seven as seen here on this presentation slide,
[1:34:26] per staff's detailed analysis, and the agenda report staff believe the proposed project
[1:34:30] does not satisfy the PED findings.
[1:34:36] Planning Commission in action, as mentioned, the agenda report, the Planning Commission
[1:34:39] held a public hearing on May 27, 2026 to review the proposed project and provide a recommendation
[1:34:44] to city council.
[1:34:45] In addition to the applicant, two members of the public spoke, two speakers and adjacent
[1:34:49] neighbor to the north and a local resident on August 3, expressed opposition to the project
[1:34:54] citing concerns regarding the number of requested deviations from applicable standards and policies.
[1:34:59] The characterization of the project as a single unit residence, rather than a multi-family
[1:35:04] or mixed use development, future use of the building, following ownership changes, and potential
[1:35:10] impacts on parking, privacy, sunlight, and property values. After listening to public testimony
[1:35:15] and discussing the project, the Commission voted to adopt resolution number PC-2026-14
[1:35:21] recommending the city council denied the applications for rezoning, is certificate of
[1:35:25] appropriateness, and a PED development plan, filed case numbers P26-03060 and PED-152.
[1:35:34] Sequoet does not apply to projects that the city rejects or disapproves, should the city council
[1:35:38] wish to approve the project staff would evaluate the project for compliance with
[1:35:42] and return to the City Council at a future public hearing for formal consideration and action.
[1:35:48] Staff recommendation, adopt a resolution to the Nye Applications for one,
[1:35:52] a plan unit development rezoning P2600360 to rezone the subject parcel from mixed use
[1:35:58] transitional district to plan unit development mixed use transitional district to a certificate of
[1:36:08] downtown revitalization district and three APD development plan PD 152 to construct a three story for unit residential building with units
[1:36:17] Reginean size from 430 square feet 13,626 square feet and associated site improvements located at 231 old burnout Avenue
[1:36:27] That concludes that presentation and is available for questions. Okay, thank you very much
[1:36:32] So we'll go with clarifying questions, Council Member Nyber, I'm starting with you, I'm going this way though.
[1:36:39] So don't let me forget about your vice mayor.
[1:36:44] Good.
[1:36:47] Planning Commission requested that the Council determine that none of the seven findings can be made.
[1:36:56] Seven findings are called out specifically.
[1:36:57] I think they're in the presentation.
[1:37:02] Correct.
[1:37:02] That not all seven could be made.
[1:37:06] Just suppose that Council found that a few of them could be made.
[1:37:10] not saying that's going to happen but what happens then. So in general all of the
[1:37:16] findings need to be made in order to approve the project. Understood okay thank you
[1:37:20] clarifying that.
[1:37:27] Playing Commission voted three to one two.
[1:37:30] Recommend the city council deny these applications.
[1:37:35] Do we call? I didn't watch the planning commission meeting. Do we call the one? Having some opinions about that?
[1:37:45] From staff's recollection regarding the support for the project was for the need of the residential housing units and finding that justification to be made regarding housing.
[1:38:00] Okay. All right.
[1:38:09] AB 2097 is mentioned as the applicant proposed to use the provisions
[1:38:18] of that law, which is a fairly new law, as I understand it. In the tranche of housing laws
[1:38:29] but the legislature has passed over the last five, six, seven years,
[1:38:37] and that would
[1:38:37] preclude the city from imposing minimum parking requirements due to proximity to public transit.
[1:38:44] So public transit in this case, being the A station, railroad station, and despite the fact that it
[1:38:53] just has a few trains going through in the morning, and a few trains coming through
[1:38:56] night with passengers and they have the list qualifies for transit oriented development.
[1:39:09] Could an applicant that owns this property seek immensely higher densities and other benefits from that law?
[1:39:21] Not AB 2097 specifically, however there are a number of other state laws that would allow
[1:39:29] with very limited discretion on the part of the city, a significantly higher density project
[1:39:34] to come forward. That was consistent with the zoning and objectives standards.
[1:39:39] OK. And in that case, as the council has faced in other proposed projects that could be required
[1:39:47] approval by council, ministerially, depending on the project.
[1:39:53] Yeah, we depend on the nature of the application, but you know, as you know, the just down the street,
[1:39:58] the project at 488 for Harrison, actually was approved without council, without the council
[1:40:05] approval, ministerially as administrative action pursuant to SB 35 and SB 330.
[1:40:11] Did this applicant also own that property?
[1:40:15] The same applicant does own, currently the property down the street, there is a revised
[1:40:21] application that's being processed for a, I think, is an eight unit town home project
[1:40:27] on that site versus the high density housing that was proposed to you have that other
[1:40:32] high density how many fewer units is the application proposing there as opposed to the
[1:40:35] previous if I remember correctly it was about it was over 80 units in the I got remember it
[1:40:43] was it significantly more 8 versus all say 10s of units on the other side okay all right I have
[1:40:52] no further questions right now thank you okay council member tessic clarifying questions
[1:40:56] What's the staff?
[1:41:01] I'm wondering, was there any communication from the applicant with staff trying to work?
[1:41:09] I'm surprised that they couldn't achieve their goal with an understanding of how it could
[1:41:21] work into our very protected downtown.
[1:41:30] I mean, as is implied by Councilmember Nyberg, four units, compared to what could happen
[1:41:43] instead, but then right to fit into downtown, was there working together did they come to
[1:41:51] staff in the process?
[1:41:54] Yeah, we had, I'll say, a new mobile conversations with the applicant in an effort to produce
[1:42:00] a project that balanced what they were seeking to do, which was a large, you know, multi-generational
[1:42:08] single-family home, a modest number of additional smaller units to help to improve the unit
[1:42:14] count and to potentially meet our housing and density goals for the site and to incorporate
[1:42:21] the, if not the letter, but the spirit of a lot of our downtown guidelines around commercial
[1:42:26] front-age pedestrian orientation, building massing, and I think we described, we're trying
[1:42:32] not to go into too much painful detail, but there were a number of different iterations of
[1:42:35] the project over time, some of which included some commercial space, some of which didn't,
[1:42:40] And we just ultimately couldn't get there and couldn't get to a place where staff could support a project that was close enough to what the applicant wanted to propose.
[1:42:50] So, you know, here we are.
[1:42:51] We don't generally like to bring projects forward that we can't recommend approval of.
[1:42:56] That's not our, not our preference.
[1:42:58] I think we tried and I know Diego and Derek and other staff worked very hard with the applicant to try and come to some consensus on design that could sort of meet meet that meet in the middle in terms of an acceptable.
[1:43:10] configuration of the project of world.
[1:43:19] It wasn't sure you were done there, sorry.
[1:43:22] Okay.
[1:43:23] I have no other questions.
[1:43:24] Thank you.
[1:43:25] Okay.
[1:43:25] Councilmember Ryker.
[1:43:33] Thank you.
[1:43:34] Councilmember Neighbor and Councilmember Tastic.
[1:43:36] As you both asked my first two questions.
[1:43:40] Do we know the maximum number of units that that site could hold?
[1:43:45] I believe it's 10.
[1:43:48] It's 10 based on the site size and the 20 unit per acre.
[1:43:53] So, and the other question I have is, if we deny the applications, what do you foresee is next steps?
[1:44:05] What does that look like in your mind?
[1:44:09] So, denial of a project typically would send an applicant back to the drawing board to come back with a project that was potentially more more consistent
[1:44:20] with the downtown specific plan and would meet more of the standards so obviously to the extent
[1:44:28] that the council would have thoughts or comments or direction on the sort of project you would like
[1:44:33] to see come back that would be probably helpful to the applicant or they may simply choose not to move
[1:44:39] forward with any project at all on that site and either dispose of it or propose something completely
[1:44:45] different.
[1:44:48] Perfect. Thank you. Okay. My questions are all answered. Thank you. Okay. So I have a few
[1:44:54] follow-up to what was just asked about if I may staff, which is I understand it's 20-
[1:45:00] It's an acre per the zoning, right, in the downtown specific plan, of course. But my question is, is with the half mile from the ace station and state law, the way it is, could they not come back with a transit oriented development with no parking that could be much more dense than that?
[1:45:20] Yes, is the long story short. I mean, I think the, I won't call it the worst case, but certainly a
[1:45:27] scenario would be a project coming in and executing the sorts of rights that are exist. As we saw with the 488 for Harrison Street and that was a 100% affordable
[1:45:37] that confers even significantly more density and and additional
[1:45:42] height allowances and things like that, which which a plot would not apply to market rate project
[1:45:49] So you could certainly see a very different project come forward with a lot more units and
[1:45:53] not more density on the site.
[1:45:55] And no parking.
[1:45:56] And no parking.
[1:45:57] Okay, so I'm just going to list some things and ask a question at the end.
[1:46:02] If we denied this as well, there's an element I've noticed in the presentation that it
[1:46:07] actually may not be dense enough, right?
[1:46:10] Can you maybe talk to that real fast?
[1:46:13] It's a little complicated.
[1:46:14] the downtown specific plan does establish a minimum density of 20 to the acre in looking back
[1:46:21] at some of our past practice in terms of how we've applied that density and other projects
[1:46:27] through the PUD process. We've generally allowed some, we have historically lads and deviation
[1:46:32] from that and to dip down below the minimum. There's really a controversy about doing less than the
[1:46:42] minimum. But that was really one of our challenges I think with this project was the delta between
[1:46:50] what was being proposed and the minimum that's required. And your question actually made me
[1:46:55] realize I misspoke a little bit earlier. Earlier, 10 units is the minimum that could be built on
[1:46:59] this site. The upper end could be higher. Okay. The upper end could be higher. So again, not
[1:47:05] and stuff could be much different if it was affordable because then it could receive state
[1:47:13] density bonuses and parking waivers. Let me ask you this, right? We developed the objective
[1:47:22] design standards because state law then took away subject-subjective proposals. This isn't
[1:47:29] the housing site, but it's a residential site, so we're not in the same element with the
[1:47:34] D before us,
[1:47:37] but zoning matters, right?
[1:47:39] In our city, if we don't follow our own zoning,
[1:47:41] so we factor, I'm asking staff,
[1:47:43] we factor in the not dense enough conversation
[1:47:45] question we've just had.
[1:47:47] The zoning element of zoning matters,
[1:47:49] just as a principle, ace train stop, state laws,
[1:47:53] and objective design standards,
[1:47:54] and the staff recommendation, it's an eye at, right?
[1:47:57] Correct.
[1:47:57] And I will say, this applicant was willing
[1:48:00] to go through a planned unit development application process,
[1:48:03] which is discretionary by the city, knowing that they would likely deviate from a number of
[1:48:10] the standards.
[1:48:12] And so that's a tool that exists in our municipal code to allow, I'll say, flexibility
[1:48:16] for different and creative and other sort of not quite don't quite fit in the box sort
[1:48:22] of project.
[1:48:23] That's allowable under the PD process and that's the process of the applicant was willing
[1:48:28] to go through, which is why we were able to entertain some degree of deviation in the
[1:48:33] in different cases.
[1:48:35] It wasn't a matter of, well, you just don't comply.
[1:48:37] So straight straight to denial for you.
[1:48:39] There was an avenue by which we could look at requests to perhaps have a little extra
[1:48:44] hide or modify the setbacks if the project wanted it.
[1:48:48] And as Diego went through a length, there was just an overwhelming number of areas in which
[1:48:54] this project did not conform to policies and to standards that exist within our various
[1:48:59] planning documents.
[1:49:02] I think that's my questions at this point.
[1:49:05] We'll see if we come back around.
[1:49:06] Any further questions before I go to public comment?
[1:49:09] Seeing none. Okay, hearing none.
[1:49:11] Okay, the way this works, I know if we have them here,
[1:49:15] but because of it is an appellant,
[1:49:18] appellant has 10 minutes, public comment is three,
[1:49:21] and then the appellant has a rebuttal of five minutes.
[1:49:24] With that is the appellant here at this time.
[1:49:28] Actually would be the applicant and I'd be not see him in the room.
[1:49:33] I thought they were appealing the decision.
[1:49:35] No, this is a PUD.
[1:49:37] Oh, I see.
[1:49:38] Thank you very much for the clarification.
[1:49:40] So we don't have the applicant.
[1:49:42] Seeing that.
[1:49:44] Public comment.
[1:49:44] If you would like to speak on item number 10.
[1:49:47] Please approach the podium at this time.
[1:49:48] I have no speaker cards.
[1:49:56] Welcome.
[1:49:57] Three minutes.
[1:49:58] Please.
[1:50:00] No worries.
[1:50:01] We'll wait for you to get there.
[1:50:02] No problem.
[1:50:02] She'll start the clock in just a second.
[1:50:06] Hi, my name is Cara.
[1:50:07] I'm a local resident and I oppose the project due to inadequate parking, the massing
[1:50:13] being too large and it not complying with the mixed use zoning requirement.
[1:50:20] In previous council meetings, it seemed like the zoning was not going to be able to change.
[1:50:27] And so I am just questioning how many more times do we need to meet to turn down this project.
[1:50:35] That's it, thank you.
[1:50:36] Thank you very much.
[1:50:38] And if we could have you fill out a blue speaker card?
[1:50:40] If anyone else is in the room and would like to speak on item 10 related to the old Bernel
[1:50:46] Avenue Project, please approach the podium at this time.
[1:50:50] Seeing none in the room, I'm closing in the room in any online.
[1:50:54] No, no, no, no, no, no.
[1:50:55] Public comment is here by closed.
[1:50:57] I should present that.
[1:50:58] Give me a second here.
[1:50:59] Public comments closed.
[1:51:00] Bring it back to Council.
[1:51:01] Council member, number of questions and comments.
[1:51:03] Yeah, I don't recall this project coming to this council to many times.
[1:51:10] Has it come to this council before?
[1:51:12] And if we're a yesterday no decision?
[1:51:14] This project has not come before Council.
[1:51:16] No, okay.
[1:51:17] I know, well, yeah.
[1:51:19] There have been discussions at the applicant at it.
[1:51:20] has had with some council members probably some planning commissioners, but yeah, okay.
[1:51:25] Thank you. Just want to make sure my memory serves.
[1:51:29] Okay. You started this off. You have the floor. What would you like to do? Council member.
[1:51:32] My gosh. Yeah. I'm very sympathetic to this applicant.
[1:51:39] But there are just so many findings where standards are not being met.
[1:51:45] general plan requirements are not being met down
[1:51:50] 10 specific plan goals are not being met.
[1:51:55] I mean, considering that this project or this property
[1:51:58] is so close to the A station and thus qualified to become
[1:52:02] a transit-oriented development,
[1:52:06] which means largely
[1:52:09] ministerial approval for the city for all such projects that
[1:52:12] are within half a mile of the A station.
[1:52:14] You know, I'd like not for this property to end up there.
[1:52:19] The owner of this property is,
[1:52:22] you know, the State City grew up in Pleasanton
[1:52:25] and cares about the city.
[1:52:28] That's why he saved a quarter...
[1:52:30] To him, the Harrison Street property from massive development.
[1:52:37] And, you know, I'd love for him to have the opportunity to address some of these staff findings and recommendations, come back with a better plan that stands a much greater chance of passing, Mr. Earlier, when we talked about the general plan in regard to,
[1:53:03] downtown. I said that council members and commissioners should think long and hard about voting
[1:53:12] against staff recommendations that are rooted in the general plan.
[1:53:18] And yeah.
[1:53:22] I have to stick with that. There are so many here. I can't make any findings.
[1:53:32] of the seven most time for recommendation.
[1:53:37] Yeah, so I go along with staff recommendation,
[1:53:41] much as I really sympathize with this applicants
[1:53:44] and I hope he comes back with a better project.
[1:53:49] So, yeah.
[1:53:51] That's your motion.
[1:53:52] I'll make the motion.
[1:53:53] Staff recommendations.
[1:53:54] Staff recommendations.
[1:53:55] Thank you very much.
[1:53:56] Councilmember Tussier, second in the shoot on this one.
[1:54:01] Um, I grew, um, Councilmember Nybert.
[1:54:06] I absolutely would like to come back, to come back, work with staff and come back with something that really honors the downtown location that they want to live in.
[1:54:17] And so I would, and I applaud, I absolutely applaud staff
[1:54:23] for standing up for our downtown specific plan.
[1:54:28] And the standards that the community has asked for.
[1:54:33] So I believe that something wonderful can come of it.
[1:54:37] And I would ask staff to continue working with them
[1:54:42] and look forward to seeing a project that is more appropriate
[1:54:47] for our downtown.
[1:54:49] So I will second that motion.
[1:54:52] Okay, Councilmember Eicher.
[1:54:54] Comments?
[1:54:55] We have a motion in second.
[1:54:57] Yes, I concur with the Councilmember Nibbert
[1:55:01] and Councilmember Tested.
[1:55:05] Yes, Councilmember Tested
[1:55:06] are our last Council meeting standards matter.
[1:55:11] And in this case there's seven objective areas that we have a considerable number of issues that aren't being met to meet our standards.
[1:55:22] And I think we, you know, this were one of two minor issues that would probably be a no-brainer and fly, but I think there's too much, at least for me to feel comfortable advancing this project.
[1:55:36] So I do hope the applicant comes back with something that better suits the downtown area and better suits
[1:55:44] that can meet his family living arrangements at that location.
[1:55:51] So that's where I stand and I'll support the motion.
[1:55:55] Okay, vice mayor.
[1:55:57] So I want to say and I wish the applicant was here tonight to hear this.
[1:56:04] There are, in my analysis, there are objective reasons, we can say now, and there are subjective reasons, we can say, you know, no or yes.
[1:56:14] I think we owe the applicant a little more in terms of feedback on why we are headed the direction to deny their application.
[1:56:27] there are obviously very specific things about setbacks and no plan on where trash cans are going
[1:56:35] to be and water issues. However, I want to say that some of the standards that are in
[1:56:47] the downtown specific plan that staff is saying this doesn't comport with are very subjective.
[1:56:53] And it leaves people, I think, a little hesitant to propose something that they've put significant resources in the trying to build generational family housing.
[1:57:08] And this is literally in our view across the street of where we are right now.
[1:57:12] And, you know, my first thought when I looked at it is, you know, that's a beautiful,
[1:57:18] Leave design piece of property that I wish I could build for my family and have my children and my grandparent's live in
[1:57:24] You know, I think it needs to be a little more respectful of the height to the neighbors and consistency with surrounding, but
[1:57:31] You know any new house isn't going to look like
[1:57:36] Things in our downtown that are hunted in something years old
[1:57:39] You know if our standard is you have to be you know
[1:57:48] turned down and rebuilt. I mean, at some point we have to be a little fair to people wanting
[1:57:54] to put something new. And I think they did a good job of conceptually putting something
[1:57:59] out there. If there is just, I think, small tweaks to this. I think the biggest one is
[1:58:03] the second and third story, you know, and it's how it fits with the houses around it.
[1:58:09] But I don't want to signal that I'm unwilling, at least as a council member, to be a little
[1:58:15] creative and working someone to put a residential development downtown, especially in
[1:58:22] a line of the fact that, frankly, this council member, Nibbert said, we sort of, oh the guy
[1:58:30] won.
[1:58:31] More or less, for buying a piece of property that could have had 80 units on it and apparently
[1:58:37] saving an 80 unit, no parking development right near the ace train, which for the record,
[1:58:44] We should have me considered within a half-mile challenge because no one uses that anymore parking lots empty unless you work in Silicon Valley
[1:58:50] If you do you'd probably tell a commute that parking lots now empty every morning. So we're
[1:58:57] We're putting square pegs and round holes here sometimes and stopping people from putting
[1:59:02] round holes and square pegs were maybe they could fit. So I think we need to be a little more
[1:59:09] Friendly to things when we're imposing subjective standards on someone who's trying to do the right
[1:59:14] by the city. So I hope the applicant listens to this. I hope they can work with staff and come
[1:59:19] back with a PUD that maybe is more consistent with the neighbors as far as setbacks and
[1:59:26] forward thinking plan, but I do not want this vote to indicate that we're going to be rigid
[1:59:32] and we're going to not be practical and just open-minded about what we're doing downtown.
[1:59:41] I mean I think any one of us would would want to put something like this and you know whether it needs to be a more Spanish-looking house or whatever it is we can get feedback
[1:59:51] But I hope they do a session with the planning commission. I hope they do a proposal and can get some feedback and we can work with them and make something work
[2:00:00] This is the kind of housing people are going to want to build to be able to afford to stay in our community with our family.
[2:00:06] And I think we need to be careful about signaling opposition to it based on subjective standards of a, of a, of a, of a, of a specific client. So those are my comments.
[2:00:19] Okay. Thank you very much. I'll round out. And a lot of feedback obviously being given here. The site and all sites within the half mile of the ace train station
[2:00:28] and definitely are going to be challenging,
[2:00:31] which is why many of us in the past have said,
[2:00:33] one size does not fit all for state housing law.
[2:00:36] But that being said, for the particular project
[2:00:39] in front of us, I really do support reinvestment
[2:00:42] in the downtown.
[2:00:43] I think that this presents elements I actually do like
[2:00:47] the farmhouse style, the gable roofs.
[2:00:50] There's a lot of design elements here as well.
[2:00:52] So I'm kind of leaning into what the vice mayor
[2:00:54] that related to that, however my decision isn't based on the personal architectural preferences
[2:01:01] I have, it's based on our general plan or downtown specific plan and our objective design
[2:01:07] standards, which I can't make the findings based upon it.
[2:01:10] Some specific things that concern me for the applicant is on page 4 of 9 of the staff report.
[2:01:17] The application is not demonstrated conformance with city standards for clean water, sanitary
[2:01:23] sewer connections, utility enclosures, and potential ponding on the city street.
[2:01:29] So until those are resolved, I can't pass go here.
[2:01:33] So I do hope that we get a redesign proposal that can address those challenges and then
[2:01:39] work with us to go forward.
[2:01:42] I realize that we may have a challenge ahead of us, if a affordable housing site comes
[2:01:47] forward with no parking and some other challenges mentioned, but at least for this project
[2:01:52] in front of us here, that's where I stand as well,
[2:01:55] so I'll be able to support the motion.
[2:01:57] Okay, we have a motion made and seconded.
[2:02:00] Roll call vote, please.
[2:02:02] Council number is Nibbert.
[2:02:04] Hi.
[2:02:05] Testa.
[2:02:07] Hi.
[2:02:07] Gators.
[2:02:08] Hi.
[2:02:08] Hi.
[2:02:09] We are Baloch.
[2:02:10] The motion passes unanimously.
[2:02:12] Thank you very much.
[2:02:13] That concludes item number 10.
[2:02:17] We're moving right along.
[2:02:18] let me find my schedule and we have nothing listed.
[2:02:23] So no city manager update, no special meeting.
[2:02:28] OK, with that, thank you very much, community,
[2:02:31] for showing up our national night out.
[2:02:32] Again, to support our first responders,
[2:02:35] by after our little fire, they appreciated getting
[2:02:37] to be able to see all of you and to show your appreciation
[2:02:41] for the amazing work our first responders do
[2:02:44] with that vice-american you take us out.
[2:02:47] Yes.
[2:02:47] The President's City Council adjourns this special meeting with a tribute to our nation's
[2:02:51] men and women serving the military, with gratitude for every United States veteran who
[2:02:55] is bravely answered the call to serve.
[2:02:58] Further we wish to honor the memories of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice and
[2:03:01] conflicts both past and present in defense of our country.
[2:03:04] Thank you very much.
[2:03:05] This special meeting is hereby adjourned.