The URL can be used to link to this page

draft minutes 10-14-08 CITY OF CUPERTINO 10300 Torre Avenue Cupertino, CA 95014 6:45 P.M. CITY OF CUPERTINO PLANNING COMMISSION DRAFT MINUTES October 14, 2008 CUPERTINO COMMUNITY HALL TUESDAY The regular Planning Commission meeting of October 14, 2008 was called to order at 6:45 p.m. in the Cupertino Community Hall, 10350 Torre Avenue, Cupertino, California, by Chairperson Marty Miller. SALUTE TO THE FLAG ROLL CALL Commissioners present: Chairperson: Vice Chairperson: Commissioner: Commissioner: Marty Miller Lisa Giefer Paul Brophy Jessica Rose Commissioner Absent: Commissioner: David Kaneda Staff present: Community Development Director: City Planner: Senior Planner: Steve Piasecki Gary Chow Aki Honda Snelling Steve Piasecki announced that Gary Chow was appointed City Planner, replacing Ciddy Wordell who retired. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Minutes o/the September 23,2008 Planning Commission Study Session: It was noted that the September 23 Study Session minutes should reflect that as a Study Session, any votes were to be treated as a straw vote. Motion Motion by Com. Brophy, second by Vice Chair Giefer, to approve the September 23, 2008 Planning Commission meeting minutes as amended. (Vote: 4-0-0; Com. Kaneda absent) WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS: None POSTPONEMENTS/REMOV AL FROM CALENDAR: None ORAL COMMUNICATIONS: None CONSENT CALENDAR: None Cupertino Planning Commission 2 October 14, 2008 PUBLIC HEARING: 1. SP A-2008-01 (EA-2008-02) City of Cupertino Stevens Creek Boulevard between Hwy. 85 and the Eastern city limit Heart of the City Specific Plan amendments to achieve conformance with the General Plan. Aki Honda Snelling, Senior Planner, presented the staff report: · She reported that the item was a public hearing item on the Heart of the City Specific Plan update, which is part of the 2008/09 Council approved work program. The City Council requested that amendments be incorporated into the Heart of the City Specific Plan to achieve conformance with the 2005 General Plan policies for the Heart of the City area. The Heart of the City Specific Plan is a plan that provides specific development standards, design guidelines and streetscape improvement standards for the area called Heart of the City which is an approximate 250-acre area that spans the Stevens Creek Boulevard area, generally between Hwy. 85 and the eastern city limits near Lawrence Expressway. · She reviewed the proposed amendments discussed at the September 23rd Study Session and recommended on a 3-2 straw vote by the Planning Commission. The proposed amendments were listed on Page 2 of the staff report. . Staff recommends that the Planning Commission approve the draft Specific Plan with any additional amendments proposed by the Planning Commission. Chair Miller: . Said he wanted to discuss the Commission's role and responsibility with respect to the Plan. Feedback from three members of the City Council was that they wanted to make sure that there is consistency between the General Plan and the Specific Plan. The Planning Commission has the latitude to look at issues and ascertain whether the current Specific Plan is working effectively or not and at a minimum identify those issues, and if they chose, take them further and propose solutions to them. He said he would like tonight's discussion to be more encompassing than just making sure that there is consistency with the General Plan and Specific Plan. . He suggested that they review Com. Brophy's list of suggestions he distributed at the last meeting. Com. Brophy: . There are many positive items in the document, and the fact that it has been trimmed from its original version to start up with what I think is a very strong sentence, to create a positive and memorable image of Stevens Creek Boulevard, I think that is what we want to work for. In order to do the best we can on this, I would encourage that all of us think about Stevens Creek Boulevard as we go down it and look at which projects we think are a benefit to the community and which ones detract from the appearance, and functionality of the community. . At the last meeting, my three concerns were the emphasis on mixed use development within individual projects; the attempt to force in retail development where it might not have chance for success; and the emphasis on parking structure; parking structures would incur a higher density than would otherwise be desirable from an aesthetic as well as a functional perspective. . I think part of what had jumped out was in initial policies there is a sentence, the language where it says on what is now 1-57, "new development should incorporate mixed commercial, residential developments." I strongly agree with the concept that Stevens Creek Boulevard should be a street that encourages residential, commercial, and office, as well as public uses. I think the attempt to try to force it into single individual projects such as the projects where we required commercial spaces at the bottom or front of otherwise residential projects has been Cupertino Planning Commission 3 October 14, 2008 counter productive to that goal; and what I would like to try to convince you tonight is that it is in the best interest to encourage developments; that we look at developments that the individual property owners or applicants feel is the best for that site without emphasis on mixed use within that particular site. In particular, I am concerned about the attempt to force retail development into locations where I don't believe it has much chance for success. We already created a disproportionate number of small retail shops in the condominium projects along Stevens Creek Boulevard and DeAnza Boulevard that sit vacant after several years, or are filled with uses that are of marginal benefit to the community. I would like to have a number of suggestions to try to take away the language that seems to pressure developers to put retail components in projects that would otherwise not be their choice. Another concern is how we use parking structures to increase the density of development along Stevens Creek Boulevard. . Said he discussed some of the issues with staff and agreed that it might be possible to move towards a language that eliminates some of the concerns while still accomplishing the goals set out in the General Plan. The key issues; probably one could get a sense of the kind of changes to be made is in that first section called Policies, where I would replace the language that exists on Pages 1-57, rather than the emphasis on mixed use within particular development, I defined what I think are more broad concepts less in the way of prescriptive requiring of mixed use. . Regarding bicycle paths, it is going to be difficult given that Cupertino is a suburban community to have Stevens Creek Boulevard as a major pedestrian street. However, I think we could dramatically increase its attractiveness as a bicycle route; we need to think about the possibility of separation of bicycle routes on a road as busy as Stevens Creek Boulevard. . Perhaps there could be some language about limiting the subdivision of parcels to reduce; I don't think we want to have multiple small parcels. Kelly Kline forwarded to us information about the grand boulevard initiative for El Camino Real; and I think one of the great advantages we have over El Camino Real and its entire length, is that our site has not been subdivided into multiple small parcels that make it impossible to do quality development. I know when we discussed the Oaks several meetings ago, one of my concerns was that the developer was proposing to cut it up into multiple parcels in ways that I could not understand and I was concerned that regardless of its impact on the immediate development, it might have a long term impact on the eventual reuse of the site. I would suggest another point dealing with some type of limiting our discouraging subdivision of sites. . I think the policies issue really expresses my concern about the difference in the language as it is written and what I think should be the policies. Following the conversation with Steve Piasecki, he said he did not think there is a huge difference in terms of vision; I think we do want to see a mixture of uses on Stevens Creek; we don't want a monoculture of offices or retail strip like El Camino Real. Trying to force mixed use onto small individual parcels would be counter productive; although I have no objections if a developer wishes to propose that for his particular site. Com. Rose: . Said she was trying to understand if a developer has a lot and they have a proposed only residential or only commercial or mixed use plan for that lot, is it up to them to have that decision of what they come forward with. It sounds like you don't want to force them to have to do mixed use. Com. Brophy: . Part of the way a market system works is it serves as a discovery process; I don't think we can project what is the best use for another site. It doesn't mean we have to accept an applicant's proposal, but I don't want to lock them into a box saying if you want to do residential, you have to put a first floor retail whether you think you can fill it with quality tenants or not. Cupertino Planning Commission 4 October 14,2008 Com. Rose: . I look at the guiding principles of the grand boulevard; their second principle there is to encourage compact mixed use; please comment on that. Com. Brophy: . When trying to force mixed use, you end up having a solution looking for a problem, and I would rather say give it a particular site you have, its size, its shape, its adjoining uses; what are the possible users out there telling you where the interest is. Bring something in anQ convince us that it is an attractive well implemented product, rather than saying compact mixed use, whatever that term means. Vice Chair Giefer: . One of the things I have heard resounding throughout the Planning Commission since I have been a member, is we have gone from a fairly quantitative response to development and the logic for that has been that developers want to know what their entitlements are. Developers want to know what they can come in, what they can build, and even though this is all planned development, and they have that opportunity to come in and propose what they want if it includes housing or not, I think staff has tried to convince to have a buildout that looks more small town. In concept and principle, I don't have a problem with many of the things you are saying; in terms of the type of projects to be built, but if it is all market driven and we don't have a framework for that evaluation because we are not prescriptive at all, how do we ensure that it is the best project that we can get as a community, and how does it support our vision. Com. Brophy: . Said their vision is of an aesthetic and dynamic boulevard; but no vision of what should be on specific parcels. There is already a street with residential, some attractive, some not; retail, some attractive some not; office buildings, the majority of which are attractive. In that sense they are giving flexibility to the proposed use, but would continue to have all the restrictions in terms of height, density and bulk. They would have a strong emphasis on quality development rather than trying to second guess what would be the best use for any given parcel. Steve Piasecki: . Said one of the directives from the Council was to ensure that the document is consistent with the 2005 General Plan. In many of the statements, it would be suggested to strike from the General Plan so we may already have a built in issue with that. Said he did not have a problem with much of what was suggested for the mid-block; So. Valko is taken out and has its own separate plans, so it can go predominantly commercial. You can activate the street with commercial uses; but the Crossroads in the General Plan is envisioned as a shopping district; it is a commercial shopping district; so would you also eliminate the need for commercial uses on the ground floor, particularly with the frontage properties. You may be able to say we can flex on the back but the Peets/Panera as pointed out was an example. Com. Brophy: . Said they would get a lot of the results just from normal market forces; Peets/Panera replaced a Good Earth restaurant that was built long before there was Heart of the City Plan; the developer was an office developer and did it because it made sense financially; and it may have provided some benefit to his office having a restaurant there. In the case of the Crossroads, given that it is such a strong retail area, there is not a big risk of people trying to force large amounts of office space or putting in residential units; for the most part it could be considered a moot point. Cupertino Planning Commission 5 October 14, 2008 Chair Miller: · Said they were discussing tactics and he wanted to raise the level and discuss overall goals, objectives and strategies.' I do see that when I look at some of the developments as Com. Brophy pointed out, where we said we want mixed use and we get housing as if you do some retail, then you can have some housing as well and when I see the results of that, the developer clearly wanted to do the housing; he didn't want to do the retail and I think that is part of the reason the retail hasn't been successful in several cases. . The fIrst issue is that strategy doesn't seem to be working, and I am not sure why. Perhaps it is work to try to fIgure out why; for example I went and looked at the retail today on Stevens Creek and I went to the Metropolitan fIrst because that is totally empty and the fIrst thing I noticed is, it has very shallow storefronts, less than 30 feet deep. They do have some parking on the side, I am not sure it is well signed, but I have missed it many times when I was looking for it. There is also no rear access to these buildings and also they don't seem to be all that visible from the street; when I look at it and say is this good retail space, from my own very subjective evaluation, it is not the space that I would normally go and stop at. · Further west on the other side of the street, there is the Adobe project; there we loaded it up with a condominium project and we put a small amount of retail space on the front; and I was surprised to see that there were two businesses operating there. I would like to see how long they stay there and whether or not they survive. · Across the street, down further, to the Verona, there they have the same issue; the only active store is Quiznos; the other storefronts are currently vacant. I noticed that the space for those storefronts was 45 feet deep which is a better depth; they have rear access and parking in the rear; as a potential for retail, I think intuitively it seems like they are better set up than the Metropolitan. Ifwe look at these three centers, they are hanging out there by themselves; there is nothing else around them to actuate retail; in my mind the question comes up; it doesn't make sense to have these kinds of stand alone centers where we have a nail parlor and lunch place, or should we be concentrating our retail in specifIc areas in town. . If you start to look at that then we do see there are specifIc nodes where activity is occurring. The fIrst one is the Oaks, then the Crossroads area where there is clear activity; and the Marketplace area and the Vallco area, which is currently unsuccessful, but we would hope that with the Vallco project which is coming up soon, that project may help the Metropolitan retail, because by itself it is not working very well. . When we go back to the Heart of the City Plan, my question is, some of the things we are doing don't seem to be working and I am not clear on what the objective should be. It says a majority of the commercial development allocation should be devoted to enhancing activity in the major activity centers; mixed commercial and residential development may be allowed if the residential units provide an incentive to develop retail use. Overall guiding policy is create a positive, memorable image along Stevens Creek Boulevard of mixed use development, enhanced activity nodes, safe and effIcient circulation and access for all nodes of transportation. I am having trouble understanding how we actually interpret this in terms of the development. The key words are enhanced activity in major activity centers; that to me says that maybe we should be focusing on specifIc nodes, and what goes on in between should be enhancing what goes on at those nodes; but I am not sure how to do that. . The next issue is the Crossroads, and there is something specifIc with respect to the Crossroads; it says "prepare a specifIc plan for Stevens Creek Boulevard between DeAnza and Stelling with ...... Cupertino citizens and visitors." Looking at the Crossroads today, it doesn't reflect that objective, and how can we make it reflect that objective without major revamping of that entire center there. The objectives have to change or perhaps the way we go about achieving them needs to be clarifIed in order to arrive at something that makes sense and is cohesive. Cupertino Planning Commission 6 October 14, 2008 Steve Piasecki: · It is a quilt and you are putting together the pieces; and you are correct, while Metropolitan may not have jelled yet, if the Main Street projects goes ahead, it will be in the center of 150K square foot lifestyle shopping complex, more of a downtown look and feel. It has the potential to be part of something bigger than itself. · We have also seen in the Civic Park development across the street that we have some very vibrant restaurant uses going in there. You may conclude that while they may not be on the right side of the street, because there is more residential supporting it, that those uses felt comfortable going into those spaces. Your earlier point about the depth of spaces is a valid one because they are deeper tenant spaces, so perhaps we should be encouraging, in the right locations. · I don't disagree with anything you said about creating the nodes; that has always been my impression of the Heart of the City Plan; one node being the Crossroads district with a finger out to the Oaks Shopping Center; and the other node being Vall co, and Vallco in the greater sense with the Marketplace, Portal Plaza, and United Furniture Center across the street wherever it redevelops and create a very vibrant potential node that you will have as a shopping district. The mid-block in my mind was always to be tamed down, lower, could be a mixture of uses, single purpose uses, and the directive that is in the current Heart of the City Plan about residential has to be able to show that it supports retail, was really intended to say that we are not going to be just accepting residential filling up all t he space, you have to be part of the retail connectivity solution; but I don't disagree with you at all; you are going to get somewhat marginal retail in those infields; spaces like Adobe Terrace that is occupied today, but it does not lend itself to really high powerful types of retail uses, and that is not what you necessarily want. I think you can create a memorable experience, and I believe we have begun to create the pedestrian environment at the Crossroads. You will continue to have suburban shopping center with big fields of parking in the front and the idea is that you create a hybrid that is somewhat unique to Cupertino where you have a central shopping district that has the blending of some of the shops out front, the walkability that you see at Peets/Panera, and Whole Foods and retains some of those power house uses, Target, Mervyns short term, and you will see the redevelopment of the centers to the south side of Stevens Creek Boulevard over time and that will present an opportunity to provide some of that street flanking that we have seen with some of the new developments. There is opportunity there; it just needs to be flushed out and needs to be thought out. . Relative to pedestrian walkability; I think of this street as segments of walkability. At Marketplace, you go out to the street, you can walk to Merline, and you can walk to the new retail building, and walk down to the Elephant Bar; it is all separated sidewalks and very safe. Chair Miller: . Going back to the, first point, which is that what goes on in this Heart of the City should be supporting and enhancing the activity of the nodes. It is difficult to see the individual projects that are coming in, is that really achieving that objective, or is that a reasonable objective? Steve Piasecki: . I don't know if the vision for the plan was you would have infill residential and people would be walking out of their homes and condos and going shopping at the two nodes. . The Oaks is much smaller than the Crossroads, and the Oaks has been a popular center over the years, and can still be considered a satellite node if desired. We would hope that it gets revitalized over time. · You can argue that probably just about any combination of uses and Com. Brophy is arguing to let the market determine what is going to go in the middle and that is probably going to be Cupertino Planning Commission 7 October 14, 2008 the most successful thing possible and by virtue of that being marketplace driven is going to be the best support you can get for your nodes. I don't necessarily disagree with that; I think it is going to be a fine strategy for a project. Com. Brophy: · I think even at the cross streets that it possible a developer looking to put together a quality project on a given site may not want to put retail there; we already have a low productivity; forget about Vallco for a moment because it's a regional mall, its problems have nothing to do with the nature of Stevens Creek Boulevard. . I would be reluctant to pressure applicants to build retail spaces unless they clearly had the use and tenant that made sense as development; to force people with an idea that they will magically get a tenant who will do well is not the way to go. I would prefer to see less space in retail and have the remaining existing space be filled with customers; and that is part of the reason I would expand beyond just the mid-block, but also even intersection blocks, comer blocks, if it is of a shape and size and location that an applicant feels they just don't have a quality use for. Chair Miller: . Relative to parking, one of the things we have noticed in town is that when we get some very successful businesses occupying a particular site, there always seems to be a shortage of parking, that limits to some extent the growth of that business and the further success of that business. An example is the application at Cupertino Village where the most successful center in town wanted to expand their success and came in and proposed a parking structure, and was granted that and put it in the back of the site to help make that more successful for them and for the city. It could happen on Stevens Creek as well; and we don't want more parking structures but yet we will come up against this issue if successful businesses go in there where there is clearly insufficient parking and then how do we address that. Com. Brophy: . I am not against parking structures across the board; I think in some places they do work. Parking structures should not be visible from the roadway and as long as we are given a 45 foot height limitation and other bulk and restrictions like that, I wouldn't be opposed to them in general as long as they are designed in a way that wouldn't jump out at you. Another example of where it has worked well is not on Stevens Creek but the Cupertino Landing office building across from Apple where the parking is tucked away in the back and that kind of design is effective. When you have the sense of parking structures looming over the road and are clearly visible, is where I have a problem. Steve Piasecki: . Said there was not a problem with saying that parking structures shall be designed in a manner that minimizes their visibility to the public street area and that is compatible with the predominantly suburban character along Stevens Creek Boulevard. That is something we have been trying to do and is consistent. Com. Brophy: . Page 1-76, last sentence of first paragraph: I would take away that sentence "subsurface parking is highly recommended" and leave it open for approval either decking or subsurface, that it be done in a way that it is not create an appearance and affected bulk and does not create a burden upon the circulation system" Cupertino Planning Commission 8 October 14, 2008 Vice Chair Giefer: · Approach it to more similarly say "subsurface parking is allowed provided it is adequately screened either behind the building and not visible from the road". Com. Brophy: . Either subsurface or deck parking, this would be acceptable if provided screenmg; your language is better. Steve Piasecki: . Said that Cupertino, the Planning Commission and City Council have been very sensitive to the whole issue and consequently you see the four story garage on the north side of Macy's; it is green screened and sound buffered, as well as at Cupertino Village the plan is to have it green screened and become a positive thing for the neighborhood where it blocks out the activities from the neighborhood. Similarly with Adobe Terrace it was completely hidden; even Metropolitan there is a component of it in a smaller building and somewhat visible, but the bigger building has the retail blocking it and it has the stoop porches down at the ground level on both sides, so it is masked. At the former Montebello you look into that parking structure, it is more visible to you at the comer. Any wording you want to put, it is all positive and something we have been trying to do. Com. Brophy: · Said his concern about shared parking was requiring it. They had decided at the previous meeting that the reduced parking was from mixed use; clarify it was for mixed use projects. · Said his concern at the Crossroads was that it wasn't obvious that there was a surplus of parking in the Crossroads. Relative to the language, allow the developer to show that if he wishes to reduce it, that it can work without adversely impacting adjoining uses. Chair Miller: . The other issue is shared parking; when we have adjoining parking lots we like to provide access between those two parking lots, so if one is full for one reason, the other is empty; it makes it more convenient for shoppers. Com. Brophy: . The problem I have with that is what I call the Bombay Oven problem; where the owner of that restaurant has involuntarily has had to chase away Panera's customers and I don't think he should have to do that. I am reluctant to put language requiring that. Steve Piasecki: . Said that policy has been in the General Plan for about 30 years. A good example is between Chilis and all the way over to Blaney Avenue on the south side of Stevens Creek; those driveways are all interconnected; the principle being that we didn't want people entering a site and then exiting back onto Stevens Creek disrupting the traffic flow when all they wanted to do was make a right turn at Blaney A venue. They have the ability to snake through the projects to make the right turn on Blaney without getting out into the traffic flow. It was a traffic movement concept as well as facilitating the shopping between sites. Chair Miller opened the public hearing. Jennifer Griffin, Rancho Rinconada resident: · Said the decisions made will impact the future of the Stevens Creek corridor from the Oaks Shopping Center down to the eastern limits of the city. One of the important issues is the area Cupertino Planning Commission 9 October 14,2008 of Cupertino in the eastern boundaries from Wolfe Road eastward to the eastern boundaries which would be Tantau and into Santa Clara. We want to make sure that the full 35 foot public right of way is respected when we put new housing/retail/commercial buildings along Stevens Creek Boulevard; make sure that the park strip is still there; that we have room to put our double row of Ash trees, but this park strip is something that is important for that part of the city; it is the look and feel of Vall co and the look and feel of the eastern areas of So. Vallco and we want to make sure that buildings that go in there don't have their personal accessory structures intruding into the 35 foot right of way. The 35 foot right of way belongs to the public; they need to have the park strip so that they know they are in Cupertino; when you come into the eastern boundaries of the city, you know when you are in Cupertino. . Said she was not a fan of reducing the side yard setbacks; we don't want to have buildings along Stevens Creek Boulevard that look like connected trains; want to make sure we have our double row of Ash trees along our public right of way; not a big fan of the 45 foot high buildings; please don't let them front up along Stevens Creek Boulevard and please make sure we can get from one end of Cupertino all the way into the city without having Stevens Creek backed up with excess traffic. Dan Marshall, Cupertino resident: . Said he felt the biggest weakness of Cupertino was that it lacked a Heart of the City. Looking at Los Altos, Palo Alto, Los Gatos, Mountain View and their heart of their cities, he saw three elements that have not been discussed. He said it may be in the Plan, but asked that the Commission take the time to ensure that those elements are there. The bottom line is when you are in each of those city hearts, you feel as those you are comfortable walking, you can cross the street and can wander and it draws you on to explore. The description of Stevens Creek Boulevard falls short of that. There will still be three lanes of traffic going 40 mph; nobody is going to wander across Stevens Creek Boulevard. · He said three elements not discussed are traffic, the need to be concentrated, and potentially architecture. It is a difficult challenge for Cupertino to accomplish those things, but he asked that they not fall short of the full goal and not end up with a Heart of the City plan which is empty and doesn't achieve the same sort of ambiance you find in the other towns Cupertino competes with. Chair Miller closed the public hearing. Chair Miller: . Said Mr. Marshall raised one of the other key issues; one thing they have discussed is the nodes and the proper places to put retail as opposed to not putting retail. Another key point in the Heart of the City and General Plan is pedestrian orientation. One proposal that has been talked about in the past for the Crossroads was to narrow the street to make it more pedestrian friendly. He asked the Planning Commissioners to comment on that idea. Vice Chair Giefer: . Said she has always supported narrowing of the street to make it more walkable. Even those who are enthusiasts about walkability, have their foibles because they don't want to leave their car in one lot and go across 6 lanes of traffic to go to the other and hope that they make the signals. It is not just the pedestrian access; they also need protected lanes for bicycle access or other types of segways. Is that the right place for it or do we need a broader area where we would narrow that. It is where we currently have the concentration of retail in that one specific area. You could take that all the way out to Stelling and make it a walkable area. You don't have the meandering shops along Stevens Creek and you can develop the edge properties in Cupertino Planning Commission 10 October 14,2008 both Crossroads and across the street, but it would be a long time in coming. It is a great way to promote it and would solve many other problems, in terms of signage and how fast people move around. You could do on street parking which would narrow it. Com. Brophy: . I am reluctant to get into this because you could be talking about taking away traffic lanes and Cupertino is a sensitive issue. Mr. Marshall raised a good issue, we essentially don't have a downtown and he made the point that we could not impose one very easily. If there is going to be anything, even a faux downtown, it has to be a relatively small area; we cannot have two miles of strolling. The logical place to concentrate development would be on the blocks between DeAnza and Stelling. I don't know if it can be done in an effective way, given that the primary uses there that anchor are the big boxes, Whole Foods, Target, and Mervyns. I would be curious to look at it but it would take serious analysis and we would have to hire a consultant for serious design work rather than just conceptual drawings to see what it would look like. It would be worth exploring if people would be willing to open the subject up. Com. Rose: . Said that the noticing went out for the schedule for the next month or two about the Main Street Cupertino area they are trying to do in the South Vallco area. She asked how many Main Streets they would try to create, and perhaps the design of that street area is more conducive if they try to model something similar to the downtown Los Gatos or Los Altos. Stevens Creek may always be a larger traffic vessel; discussion could take place about decreasing lanes, but at 6 p.m. it is really difficult to even use Stevens Creek effectively. There are a lot of issues with that idea. . Perhaps we should focus on the new area where we are trying to do the Main Street already; it has a smaller design which these other areas we are trying to emulate seem to have already. Chair Miller: · That is a good point; and the reason I bring it up is that because in the General Plan there is a strategy with respect to the Crossroads, and it says prepare a specific plan for Stevens Creek Boulevard between DeAnza and Stelling with the objective of creating a unique streetscape and shopping district. It should present a unique pedestrian oriented activity center. You raise a good point; we are now talking about the heart of the Heart of the City or the downtown area; hopefully will be in this project we are going to hear in two weeks. If that is the case, should we be recommending that this is not a reasonable goal; or is there some other way we can achieve this goal or achieve some level of walkability in the Crossroads section without having to narrow the streets. Part of our objective was to come out with some level of consistency here in terms of what the General Plan is saying and what we are trying to implement. Steve Piasecki: . Reviewed the history, beginning with the Crossroads streetscape plan with the idea in mind, and there was some discussion about removing a lane. The theory behind that was that you could be more of a Lincoln Avenue/Willow Glen; it would not ever be a Los Gatos or Los Altos, those are two lane streets; they are very small intimate environments and you are right that they feel very good and are walkable. I have talked about creating a hybrid in Cupertino but before I went there, I talked to the traffic consultant and asked if it was possible to reduce lanes, and he responded absolutely, if you flare back out at the major intersections; all of level of service impediments don't occur in the mid-block, so at Stevens Creek and DeAnza you need to have right turns and all the movements that you have now and continue to be a very Cupertino Planning Commission 11 October 14,2008 pedestrian unfriendly space. He said it could be done in the mid-block in front of Target, Mervyns, Peets/Panera, Whole Foods, and then flare out again at Stelling Road. There would be a very small diminution in level of service. . What is really important is we need to respect all forms of travel, all people in our community; so that all people, including the handicapped, can use the streets. We need great projects in multiple locations; we need to be selfish about a great Main Street, great Crossroads, great Plaza, Civic Center area, and then you will start to see people using them differently. The community going to Mervyns and Target, the region going to our version of Santana Row at the Main Street, much lower, much more pedestrian friendly. We need to be selfish and try to create them in multiple locations. . He said when he previously brought up narrowing the street, there were many objections. Change is a difficult concept; and the idea you could do this without having a substantial impact is a difficult concept. I think that is what it came down to is we don't believe the traffic engineer who said it could work; we think we are going to suffer great inconvenience and traffic jams. The beauty of traffic engineering is you can test things; all you need is a lot of cones. One of the important things to stress is we have given up north/south DeAnza Boulevard to the commute flow and we didn't have a lot of choice about that; but the east/west movement along Stevens Creek Boulevard is this community's opportunity to be small town and we ought to grab that. If you go on Stevens Creek at 8:00 a.m. you could shoot a cannon, there are only about a dozen cars and you can see from DeAnza Boulevard to Highway 280. I never see the congestion in the morning that there is in the evening. There is a great opportunity; it is a great discussion you are having and we should do it in the context of how can we grab our community and be small town and be selfish about it. Chair Miller: . The objections were that it would bring traffic jams, but the alternative perspective is that if you slow the traffic down, doesn't that help increase the use of the retail space where you are slowing the traffic down. Steve Piasecki: . Yes, that is the case; you can't see a retailer when speeding by at 50 mph. Com. Brophy: . Two points; one in terms of Com. Rose's comment, should we be looking at South ValIco instead; I guess I would rather go with the bird in the hand; we clearly have developments on the ground in the Crossroads area, and it would strike me as the first place to look if and when South Vallco is built out, you can then check it out, but I hesitate to start talking about changes to the road for a project that is only on paper. . Given the importance of the retailers that are on the Crossroads area, I think it is imperative that we have a buy-in from the major retailers before we start changing the street. I am willing to look at this very carefully, but I think we have to be concerned that it can be implemented well. We have to feel good about it, but the people who will be most affected by it will feel that way too. Chair Miller: . Asked Com. Rose to share her feelings about the Crossroads area, based on her previous comments. Com. Rose: . Relative to the Crossroads area, she said she did not feel it was either/or. Her thoughts were they were looking for a small downtown, strolling, having dinner, going shopping, much like Cupertino Planning Commission 12 October 14, 2008 those other communities mentioned. She said in her opinion So. Vallco area would be ideal for the Main Street in that it is a smaller street to begin with and all those examples of streets given were little streets. Vice Chair Giefer: . Said that for the length of her time on the Planning Commission and the time she also followed the Planning Commission years before she applied and was appointed, the downtown Cupertino shifted to at least 15 different areas. She said in her mind the present City Center was downtown Cupertino for her at the Crossroads. There have been many downtown Cupertinos on paper that were never built; and there is retail area that is in Chapter 11 presently, and it is the best she is aware of in town. It can happen there, and if we create an environment where people can see what is going on, who knows what will happen there, and it is a bird in the hand and an easy thing to try. Steve Piasecki: . Weare not the only city that grew up as we did and is grappling with this kind of issue. There are many great examples across the country where people are trying to convert the suburban areas like this into hybrids. Central shopping districts don't even call it downtown; it is not going to be a Los Gatos. The side streets might be comfortable and more intimate, but they need something out on the main street that invites you in and still allows you to get through. We have very few east/west connectors and that is a reality we have to deal with. I don't think it is all lost; I think whether you keep six lanes and you do need the on street parking, you need to protect the pedestrian, you need the teaser parking and that is possible; we have analyzed that and know it can work. When we do the Crossroads plan, we need to move it forward and get folks excited about the possibilities brought to your attention because there are a lot of great points. I think we need to be selfish about Cupertino for Cupertino residents and creating the kinds of spaces we want and not just be a doormat for everybody driving through our town, which I feel we have acquiesced to. Chair Miller: . Summarized that there was a general consensus that the point in the General Plan about the Crossroads is a major one and maybe we should be adding some language to the Specific Plan that does more to address the Crossroads and trying to do more there than just having it on a piece of paper which never gets implemented. Staff had a good idea to simulate the ultimate result to be achieved by putting some cones and paint out there and see what happens, which seems like a fairly painless way to go about things and find out whether or not it is realistic and whether there are objections to that. . Com. Brophy also commented that it made sense to meet with the stakeholders in that area, the retail merchants and residents who live in the area to see what their plans are so that they can be incorporated into a more specific Crossroads plan which is what the General Plan is asking for and they don't have yet. Steve Piasecki: . When Metropolitan was being built, they closed a lane in the westbound direction for about 1-1/2 months and I went out there many times to observe and I never saw a jam. Peak hour was no different than the peak hour is with the three lanes. Vice Chair Giefer: . I would like to interject a question based on your last comment; haven't we had problems in the past soliciting input from the major retailers at the Crossroads. Cupertino Planning Commission 13 October 14, 2008 Steve Piasecki: · Said there were some issues working through the Chamber of Commerce; the Chamber has changed a lot and perhaps can be approached again. We also have an Economic Development Coordinator who understands the concept that you need to slow to grow and get the kind of retail environment you want. I think they are a different dynamic today and I think we should go out again and have the conversations. Chair Miller: · We should work with the Chamber; but we should also contact the property owners directly. Com. Brophy: · Suggested that rather than talk to the store manager at Whole Foods or Target, you really need to talk to the real estate department of those fIrms because they have people who know about these kinds of issues. Com Rose: . I have a logistical question; I know that years ago there was the plan for this area of Stevens Creek that was publicized and drawn up. My question is how does this process move forward; my fear is if we start by testing out lanes of traffic being reduced to see that flow, people will be irritated by that, not having that vision we are talking about here. Are we looking at hopefully getting new development along that stretch right at the Stevens Creek area, so that when you come in at a teaser parking, there is something there for you to do and what comes fIrst, the closing down of lanes and fIguring out how that works, or promoting the vision. . Who develops along that area of Stevens Creek; do we have someone interested? Chair Miller: . You want to know what you have to work with before you start doing the design, but if you do the design fIrst and you have to make an assumption about the street. If we can clarify what we can do with the street, then it is easier then affect the design that works with what you think you have to work with. Steve Piasecki: . I think it is a good opportunity because you don't have a lot of pressure with development happening now to bring the plan forward and the approach you take has to be carefully thought out. It is probably more vision-led than anything. As indicated earlier, with Metropolitan there was an opportunity to study and test in that location how it would work. We may want to look for when and if that opportunity presents itself at some segment of Stevens Creek, and I am not talking necessarily about eliminating lanes, but can you incorporate the teaser parking. What we hear from the retail experts is that you have to have it if you want successful street front retail, but I want to emphasize that we are not going to have wall to wall retail on Stevens Creek Boulevard in our lifetimes. Weare talking about a hybrid, where you bring some of the buildings out to Stevens Creek, you leave the openings back to visualize Target; but again it was that property owner who was coming in wanting to redevelop the Union 76 site and he developed the other side which has restaurants out on Stevens Creek Boulevard. The skeleton of what we are talking about already exists and the portions of the most successful, even in other areas of town are the models we are talking about. You need to engage the community and turn to Kelly Kline to work with the Chamber to engage the tenants and their real estate departments and have a good conversation. We have to be conscious of the high demand at DeAnza College in the evenings. . The Main Street project is 150,000 square feet of retail vs. 600,000 square feet in the Crossroads. Cupertino Planning Commission 14 October 14, 2008 Chair Miller: . To do a specific plan for the Crossroads, would you recommend hiring a consultant or would you do this with the current staff. Steve Piasecki: . Said they may want to consider parceling it out to consultants; the traffic being the most important component. Bob Harrison who worked on the General Plan would be an excellent choice; and it would be helpful to have a design consultant as well because design is an important part of it. These are tough times and we have had a difficult time getting consultants for the So. Vallco plan. . I think the Commission could ask and communicate to the Council that the role of the Crossroads needs to be explored further, and it is already called for in the work program and in the General Plan; and the Planning Commission will be exploring ways to bring this to the forefront in this upcoming year and flushing out how to best approach evaluating the opportunities in the Crossroads district. Chair Miller: . I would go even further and say we want to test out the possibility of narrowing the street and see if the Council generally agrees with that or not. Steve Piasecki: . One way to suggest that is to test various options for how the street might be treated. I talked about just getting the on street parking with three lanes in each direction, and then do a test with a two lane option. It may be beneficial to suggest they are looking at a number of options. Chair Miller: . I would rather do something, have some hard data, and then have a discussion rather than having an esoteric discussion without the data to say what is concrete and what isn't. Com. Brophy: . I think it is important that we not get too much into a ready fire/aim type of approach because we will probably only get one shot at checking this out; and I think there is going to be a lot of time needed to be spent in hand holding and convincing the key stakeholders that it is at least worth the experiment. Steve Piasecki: . Another thing we can do is test by example; we can go to other communities that have similar volumes and they have a major draw like DeAnza College nearby and they have somehow accomplished it and again this is a big nation and there are a.lot of examples out there. Chair Miller reopened the public hearing. Ty Basa, Cupertino resident: . He applauded the Commissioners for understanding the importance of creating the downtown, the shopping center in the city of Cupertino. . Said that he built Happy Days Child Development Center on Saich Way in the Heart of the City. He said that when he went through the approval of that project, they fought hard to build the building with the setback that was allowed at that time which was 10 feet, because the attitude of the City Council at the time was that they wanted to keep big open spaces out at the Cupertino Planning Commission 15 October 14, 2008 street with parking on the street. He was pleased a few years later that the attitude had changed where they wanted to move the buildings up to the front and do the parking in the back. . He said it is important for cities to understand the importance of partnership between the city and developers; how to reach out to developers; how to reach out to owners; allow for opportunities to reduce setbacks, allow for opportunities to increase FAR, and developers are going to come in with the money to invest in the city of Cupertino. Most of the time I battle with cities to allow to do things that I think are wonderful for the development of the city but they do not necessarily fit with the FAR or with the setback. There are a lot of general issues with that; reach out to the owners; they will be very excited to do that. . Regarding the stretch of Stevens Creek between DeAnza and Stelling, if you would allow retail along the street closer to the street where parking will be hidden between existing retail and the new proposed retail; if there is interest in that, that will be incredible to move towards the direction that the city, the Council and the Commission would be interested in seeing. · Reach out to the developers, they are out there and are excited to look at opportunities if they are offered. Chair Miller closed the public hearing. Chair Miller: . The next topic is housing and where it fits or doesn't fit in the Heart of the City Plan. One perspective is that this is primarily a retail area of town and it should be reserved for retail. Com. Brophy has expressed tonight that there are places in town where retail works and places where it doesn't work, and clearly there are a number of places along Stevens Creek where it may not work. The question is do we say that this is or should be primarily a commercial area and that we don't allow housing; or do we wait for the market to catch up and say it is time for retail there; or do we allow the market to choose at any given time which is the approach that Com. Brophy was suggesting and put whatever makes sense at that particular moment in time. · It is the question of how much do we want to defme what goes there vs. fill in some of the spaces, or another way to look at it is do we just defme certain nodes as really important and these will always be retail. It is obvious to me now and it's the Crossroads area, the Marketplace Shopping Center area, and then Vallco and the Oaks, and do we not care about what happens in the interspaces or are those interspaces really important; we want to reserve them for a particular type of activity. Com. Brophy: · Said he expressed his opinion previously. The area identified as key, he said earlier that they don't need to reserve them because nobody is going to tear down Vallco to put in condos or try to squeeze apartments into the Target parking lot. . I have argued against attempting to micromanage the development process; I think there are areas where we clearly need to defme heights, bulk and density; do we have to expect high quality development on Stevens Creek even more so than elsewhere; I think we should have a certain leap of faith and trust that people want to build items and projects that will be successful both fmancially. In order to get approval in this city they will need to come up with an aesthetically pleasing project, and I would hope that you would all consider to resist the temptation to tell site owners what to do with the land when they don't know what they can do with it until they go out to the market and test and hear what would-be users of the property want to do with it. Cupertino Planning Commission 16 October 14,2008 Chair Miller: . Let's look at it from the other perspective, would you consider allowing residential units above retail in the Crossroads or in the Marketplace centers? Com. Brophy: . Said he would consider it if an applicant came in with that. Chair Miller: . It would be application specific. We would have to take a look at each; you wouldn't necessarily exclude it, but it certainly isn't an automatic given that you could do that. They would have to come in and show very strong justification that it worked from all aspects, interface with the neighborhood, the parking, the congestion and how it worked well together. Com. Brophy: · That is correct; and also I wouldn't require developers to put residential above retail as well. Chair Miller: · Said there was general agreement that forcing a particular type of development and giving a reward of another type of development is not necessarily the best policy. That is one critical issue we have identified. Vice Chair Giefer: . There are a few minor changes that I would like to see to the existing plan. I agree that talking about housing as a token for good development; I would be comfortable with striking that; however, I think that the plan because this is a planned development area, I don't know that we need to be any more specific in terms of what occurs where and if we are looking for something to develop systemically or naturally, my concern is I think we have to have a vision of what we want this to look like, and Com. Brophy suggested that we eliminate the design guidelines. I see a lot of value in that, because I do believe that is our city's vision of what we want our version to look like. . Said she was comfortable with some of the changes, but as proposed, with regard to housing, would not be comfortable eliminating design guidelines that occur toward the end of the document for all development. That is clearly our vision for this area. Com. Brophy: . Said he did not feel as strongly about that issue; it is just that when I look at that language of 186-191 and 197-199, I was thinking at the time that it was too prescriptive for an architect and I was wondering do we really need 7 pages of architectural detail or should we rely on an applicant to hire a quality architect that brings in a project that we evaluate, rather than going through the 5 page checklist. Vice Chair Giefer: . We could take some of your favorite projects on Stevens Creek that did not have the benefit of this guideline and then maybe you can make that decision; was it necessary and did they hire a high quality architect to develop and deliver that high quality project. Com. Brophy: . One of the residential projects on Stevens Creek that is a positive contribution to the community is the condominium project on Portal and Stevens Creek southwest comer. Architecturally they have not held up well in the 20 years since they were built, but in terms of density, landscaping, they are an excellent contributor to the community. Cupertino Planning Commission 17 October 14, 2008 Vice Chair Giefer: . And you see some projects that I think really are an execution of this type of design guidelines, not necessarily along Stevens Creek but we have the housing project across the street from us, and then we have a small project that is across from DeAnza College on Stelling before where Panda Express and Starbucks is; and it is that sort of stoops and porches and that small town look and feel that we would like to achieve; it's lower density, it's two stories; I don't think that is in conflict with the scale that you are suggesting and maybe we don't want houses with stoops right on Stevens Creek Boulevard where people are driving 46 mph in front of their porch. It is that idea of making it look more of a community and the heavy landscaping. Com. Rose: . I think the design guidelines are critical; if you have a vision, it does provide the vision. Although it is nice to be flexible and to look at a project when it comes before us, without guidelines we leave ourselves wide open for a mismatch of things, and especially since we are all talking passionately about what we want to see happening along that Stevens Creek area. We would be taking a step backwards to throw out the guidelines that are there. Chair Miller: . Said they were guidelines; "by definition" means it is something we want you to look at; it is not required, so I don't have objection to the guidelines; the only comment I would make, are there any changes to those guidelines or are there specific items in there. Com. Brophy: . Said as long as there are guidelines; whether we have them in or out we are still going to be arguing about design of any major projects. Said he was not opposed to dropping his last two suggestions from the list. Steve Piasecki: . Said that is the Commission doesn't have to feel like you get one bite of this apple; you can implement it, check it out for a year, look at the first project that comes in; if there are more problems, ask that it be put back on the work program to study and make adjustments over time, because I am getting a sense that we are concerned that we won't be able to reopen this. You can reopen it if you find that the refinements we are making now don't work. Com. Brophy: . Reiterated he was willing to drop his last two points if all concurred. . Relative to a previous comment made about undesirability of parking on the side, he said that retailers have fundamental needs for visible and adequate parking and am hesitant to strike down the concept that they can't have front parking. People may not think that the parking lot at Target or Crossroads looks attractive, but that is what they need in order to work. The thought that parking can be tucked away for a retail business the way you could for a residential or office project is an unrealistic expectation if we want to have a retail project of any size. I would be hesitant to have that language be extended to retail projects in general. Vice Chair Giefer: . I can see that if it is a large retailer you might want to have visible parking in front so you know if you should go there or keep driving; however, I think if we want to promote walkability and having that meandering feeling you want to hide the parking; you don't want it to be in people's faces. You have a pedestrian oriented development, then the first thing you are presented with should not be cars, it should be access to the establishment. Cupertino Planning Commission 18 October 14, 2008 Com. Brophy: . Regardless of all the effort we made to improve the attractiveness of Stevens Creek for pedestrians or bicyclists, the reality is that the overwhelming majority of customers to any given retail establishment on Stevens Creek will be getting there by car. It is absolutely necessary whether the business is small or large that a customer feels comfortable to find a place that he can go where it is obvious to him where he is to park in order to get to that location. As long as you have options like Target or Whole Foods where the parking is obvious to tell a new would-be retail use in town that, no you can't have the same benefit that they have and the customers have come to expect, is practically a guarantee that you are unlikely to get them into the city; and if we are going to get productive retail, we have to make some tradeoffs. Vice Chair Giefer: . Said they did that with Whole Foods; and made them move the building closer to Stevens Creek because they wanted it set back with parking along Stevens Creek and said they want the building closer with the artwork there. Com. Brophy: . We made some adjustments but we recognized that a 70,000 sq. ft. grocery store is not going to discreetly tuck its parking spaces away from the street. That is the sort of tradeoff you have to make that if you say you are going to have retail that we have the landscape screens that Com. Rose referred to; that we can do that to ameliorate the problem, but we have to accept a certain amount of visible parking for a retail business to be successful. Steve Piasecki: . Said the better model of this is on DeAnza Boulevard with Ameches and Curry House, when driving northbound on DeAnza Boulevard you see the side parking and there is north side parking and access into the parking garage. Perhaps one way to take care of your concern would be to say that this kind of parking needs to be clearly identified and marked so people can fmd it. Com. Brophy: . Said he was reluctant to say that Ameches and the Curry House had successful parking situations with the garage. Said if they were to get retail in a more successful manner than in the past, I think we need to make the language clear that, and not just a matter of signage, that we will be sympathetic to the parking needs of a retail business in order to be successful. A sign to the parking garage or to the rear is not sufficient for many businesses. Vice Chair Giefer: . I am trying to respond to, what is the best way for us; I don;t know that our parking policy has lost us any business along Stevens Creek. I don't know that this verbiage has lost us any potential tenants or development along Stevens Creek because if it is a large retailer that comes in, they are working with staff, they come before us, and we are able to accommodate a solution that works both for the retailer as well as the city and our residents. I see Com. Brophy's concern for a large retailer as an exception, and what this plan does as written is it talks about the baseline of what our vision is for Stevens Creek, and if we want to create a walkable boulevard, then we don't want to present people with cars right away. Which is the greater need; either through language by saying we prefer the lots to be in the back or by exception, we just handle it when it comes to us and leave the language as it is. Cupertino Planning Commission 19 October 14,2008 . Following a brief discussion, she summarized acceptable language: "the preferred location of surface lots shall be to the side and/or rear of buildings; other parking arrangements will be considered if necessary for the successful operation of the business." "If required by the business" implies that the business has the right to chose and I don't think staff wants to fall back. Com. Rose: . Said she also had her list. Vice Chair Giefer: . Said most of her other issues were addressed during the last discussion of the item. Said they did not spend a great deal of time discussing Com. Brophy's suggestion to get rid of the opening policies and replace them with his new 1-6. She asked what action they were taking, and were they going to try to conclude the document with recommendations for the Council at the current meeting. Chair Miller: . Asked if there was more information needed; or did they want to notice more people to come to the hearing, or are there reasons for continuing the discussion at this point. Vice Chair Giefer: . Said her preference was to be as expeditious as possible. They started discussing it months ago, had a study session at the last meeting; and thought they made some decisions, and are reviewing some additional information, which hopefully will produce a better plan today. Like many of Com. Brophy's suggestions and think they significantly enhance this plan, but would like to see what we can accomplish tonight and move forward. Com. Brophy: . I agree. Com. Rose: . We should move forward. Chair Miller: . Why don't we try to resolve Com. Brophy's first suggestion about replacing the first 7 items with his 6. Com. Brophy: . Clarified that there was no problem with the overall goal; it is short and to the point; . Paragraph entitled "Land Use Economic Goal" - delete the phrase "of mixed use development" to the extent that term is interpreted to mean mixed use, that we are expecting mixed use development within a single parcel. The term mixed use implies multiple uses on a single parcel. . Relative to policies, No. 1 involves a great deal of language, involving what types of uses which goes away from what I am suggesting we consider; and some of the other clauses, some I disagree with such as No.3; and some are irrelevant and don't need to be included. Nos. 2, 4,5,6 and 7 don't say anything that are necessary in terms of policies. Cupertino Planning Commission 20 October 14,2008 Vice Chair Giefer: . Reading Com. Brophy's suggestions and the current document. Said she would prefer it to read: "develop a Heart of the City that provides a variety of land use opportunities such as well planned and designed commercial office and residential development along Stevens Creek Boulevard". Enhanced activity nodes - I am not sure why we need to have that. I do like the safe and efficient circulation and access for all modes of transportation" so I would keep that; but I would replace from the "of mixed use development" to the nodes with what Com. Brophy has on his.Point 1 under Policies, because I think that is our objective, and I would state that goal right up front is that we want well planned, designed commercial office residential along Stevens Creek Boulevard. . Agreement to strike "of mixed use development" Substitute with "well planned, designed commercial office and residential development, enhanced activity nodes and safe and efficient circulation" " .. and access for all modes of transportation between activity centers .." remains. (there was consensus for the changes) Com. Brophy: Policy 1 . This talks about specific language, specific uses for specific subsections of Stevens Creek and if you agree with the general philosophy that I am arguing, it seems to me that it makes the existing Policy 1 not necessary. Com. Rose: . Accepted Com. Brophy's comments. Vice Chair Giefer: . Said she was not comfortable with it, because she liked the segmentation between Crossroads and Stevens Creek Boulevard because it clearly delineates and sets the tone for those two areas. In Crossroads, they want to concentrate their shopping and retail uses in that area, whereas the rest of it along Stevens Creek Boulevard is a more mixed environment which is defming what they have today. It shows their vision of what they want to have where and it sets the tone and the vision for what they are trying to achieve. Com. Rose: . Those are good points, especially because they are different areas in terms of what can actually happen to them. Com. Brophy: . Concern about No.1 is that it is clearly the one policy that attempts again to define types of development that would go in each area. I think a lot of what you say there is that it will happen naturally and I would prefer and would strongly argue that what is described will for the most part happen by itself and that if you start listing what will and will not go in each area, then we are really undercutting the whole idea of encouraging land owners to be creative and come up with the best possible project as they see it for the city to consider. Chair Miller reviewed individual suggested changes: . Can we agree on the phrase: "an active pedestrian oriented shopping district along Stevens Creek Boulevard between DeAnza and Stelling" (Consensus to agree) . Strike the next sentence "Development will have store fronts ......" (Consensus to delete) Cupertino Planning Commission 21 October 14,2008 . Next paragraph "Stevens Creek Boulevard" Cut out that specific wording and leave it general . .. starting with "west Stevens Creek" . .. strike the last two paragraphs . No.2 "The majority of the ..... major activity centers". Vice Chair Giefer said that last time they agreed that they were going to take development allocations out of plan. Steve Piasecki said it was superfluous; you can make a case that any development does or does not enhance the activity centers. . No.3 - this is a more substantive one that I have argued (Brophy) against that trying to force commercial development on any intersection I think is counter productive to quality development. If someone wishes to propose neighborhood commercial, they are far more likely to propose it on an intersection street, but trying to say that they shall have it is a mistake and is counter productive. Steve Piasecki: . Defined neighborhood commercial as primarily convenience serving commercial uses; the motive behind the statement was put it on the comers, people will be able to walk to it and not have to get out of their cars every time they want some milk or a newspaper. The concern was if the city doesn't provide some kind of intent or incentive, then the market de jour will consume these sites, and then you are getting in your car every time and you don't get the walkability and intimacy. Vice Chair Giefer: . As aging baby boomers we need to think about that; are we going to get in our car each time or do we want to get out and walk to the market. Com. Brophy: . If there is enough people that need it, it is very likely that developers will look at the concept; instead we are going to wind up with coffee shops, yogurt shops and nail salons at every intersection. I would rather not have that. Chair Miller: . We are back to the issue of you cannot force retail; you can't shoe horn it into a particular place where it is not going to work fmancially for a developer. If we have the Marketplace which has all these things and then you go one-quarter of a mile away, you can't put another set of them; it doesn't work, and no one is going to build it. Just because you have a street comer there, it has to have something similar to what it had three or four blocks the other way. It doesn't make sense. Vice Chair Giefer: . Suggested that a possible way to look at this is to encourage clusters of neighborhood commercial at or near intersections along Stevens Creek Boulevard. . Said she understood the value of having services available to people who live in neighborhoods so they can walk to it, but also understood that they do not want to be so specific that they limit what can go in there. Chair Miller: . I understand the side you are presenting, that people who live there want to be close to services, but you cannot provide closeness to services for every house in the community, and the other way to look at it is that if you can't walk to a place that maybe it's time to look for a Cupertino Planning Commission 22 October 14,2008 residence where the services are close and you don't need to do that as opposed to providing a dry cleaner on every comer. Because the economic reality is, that nobody will build it. You can say that this is what we want there, and then it will stay vacant; nobody will build it. Vice Chair Giefer: . We have a lot of the neighborhood services, such as dry cleaners in mid-block in other places; would that make them any more successful if they were at intersections as opposed to mid- block? Steve Piasecki: . I am not sure that is true; I don't know that you can come to that conclusion. I think the concept behind the statement is that land uses are in a competitive environment and that this kind of land use, neighborhood commercial will get outbid almost every time by residential or office uses, and you will lose it over time. This forces you to reserve it in certain locations; even though you can have the predominant use not be that; it could be the minority that the analogy is that you move to the neighborhood because there is a nice little comer market and the Marketplace outbids it, and you lose your comer market. You don't even need it here because it is in the General Plan; again you can take the attitude that this is General Plan driven; it doesn't have to be here. But this also it helps to have it reinforced in some cases, but it is up to you. Chair Miller: . That is the concept of the node; the nodes are where you want to protect your retail; we have specific nodes and they are synergistic because we have a lot of businesses there and it is one place to go and get the majority of your shopping done as opposed to going street comer to street comer to street comer has the dry cleaner, one has the 7/11 and the third street comer has the nail salon; so by protecting your nodes that is where we want to make sure we get the retail and we absolutely insist on it. As Com. Brophy suggested, you let the free market work with the rest of it; it think is another approach. Com. Brophy: . Said he understood what Com. Giefer meant in terms of wanting to have access to necessary retail shops, but the reality is that Cupertino is a low density residential town and there simply aren't enough people living within walking distance of every intersection to support a healthy range of retail shops. He felt they already had this language in the General Plan; if it is reinforced in the Heart of the City Plan and try to enforce it, the reality is that they will wind up with very low quality retail spaces, empty spaces they already see and they will not get the kind of uses that they would ideally want to see there, which is the reason for recommending it be removed. Com. Rose: . Sounds like the language Vice Chair Giefer proposed offers either of your points of view to come forward. You are saying you encourage it, but there might be a great plan and the developer might have some great research behind why something different would be successful there, and I would imagine that you would think that sounds great. Conversely, somebody with the neighborhood commercial may want to put something in there and would be able to reference this as something they are trying to do and it will work out for them. I don't know if this language is saying either/or. Cupertino Planning Commission 23 October 14,2008 Vice Chair Giefer: . Question for staff; is this the exact language in the General Plan; and if we modify it are we creating a conflict. Aki Snelling: . It comes directly from the General Plan. Com. Brophy: . My understanding is "shall" means "must" and the General Plan still exists so we can't ignore that, but I think to include this here is a guarantee that we will get more of the kind of retail development that has been a mistake. Telling a developer that you will ignore this if he can prove the negative, that it won't work, I think that is an undue burden that is not a useful exercise to go through. Vice Chair Giefer: . Said she agreed Com. Rose: . Agreed. Chair Miller: . No.3 is out; . No.4 - 11,500 square feet of office development allocation may be used for office uses in the Crossroads. Steve Piasecki: . Same comment made on No.2; you don't need the numbers in here. Chair Miller: . Said they were striking No.4. Vice Chair Giefer . No.5 - I think this is what was getting us in trouble with token retail; because they wanted the housing, they insisted that the retail was going to really be great and strong and then we gave them the housing and we have some mixed use that doesn't function as well as we hoped it would. I would rather strike everything but "mixed commercial and residential development may be allowed" Com. Brophy: . At that point it doesn't say anything, strike the whole paragraph. Vice Chair Giefer: . We already said it in that language Com. Brophy wrote that we added to the strategies. Com. Rose: . Agreed. Chair Miller: . Weare striking that. . No.6: out Cupertino Planning Commission 24 October 14, 2008 . No.7: doesn't say anything, why keep it in. Vice Chair Giefer: . Not opposed to having that in this plan because it is letting people know that there is some additional review. Chair Miller: Okay Com. Rose: yes. . No. 7 remains. Vice Chair Giefer: . Do we want to add any of Com. Brophy's specific points. The one I like is No.3 Plans for proposed new project should include sensitivity to pedestrian and bicycle travel both from the new project as well as from the travelers passing that site. Chair Miller/Com. Rose: . Concurred with that. Steve Piasecki: . I assume on this one that since you have incorporated No. 1 into the over-arching goal statement that you have renumbered the 2 through 6, to become 1 through 5 and the last one was limiting the subdivision of parcels. Chair Miller: . Nos. 1,2, and 4 are okay; nothing wrong with No.4. Vice Chair Giefer: . Said she would be more comfortable with No.4 if they limited the "as they see fit" portion because it puts them at the will of the developer. Com. Brophy: . Said that was fine and that he did not mean to imply that they had to accept what they propose. Steve Piasecki: . Suggested "will be expected" be changed to "is expected" Chair Miller: . Any objections to No.5? Vice Chair Giefer: . Based upon our earlier discussion of limiting the Crossroads area, do we want to limit it from DeAnza to the eastern border or do we want to say all along Stevens Creek? Com. Brophy: . At this point until we can resolve the issue with Crossroads, it is just that bicycling becomes much more complex west of DeAnza and I don't see that this language would preclude us returning to the Crossroads area. I would rather see something get going and it's easier to do it east of DeAnza. Cupertino Planning Commission 25 October 14,2008 Chair Miller: . In No.3 you are saying that anything we do will be sensitive to pedestrian/bicycle travel; that is regardless of where it is in the city; but in No. 5 you suggest just focusing on east of DeAnza. Com. Brophy: . Vice Chair Giefer pointed out that there are less curb cuts, there is less in and out traffic, and what I am thinking about here is something going beyond our traditional white painted lines, and then we need to look at potentially sheltered lanes. Vice Chair Giefer: . Said she and Com. Brophy had a discussion about the bike lanes because of the congestion of highway 85 and Stevens Creek and where DeAnza is. It is a very heavily congested area and people have the opportunity to ride through DeAnza College if they are headed through that part so you have that use available already in a lower attractive pattern. Chair Miller: . We are adding Com. Brophy's five points with eliminating "as they see fit" and changing "will be" to "is". Steve Piasecki: . You were going to add the (6-1) that discourages subdivision of parcels or limits subdivisions of small parcels and striking "of uses as they see fit" . You can say that generally the subdivision of commercial parcels is discouraged. . All agreed. Vice Chair Giefer: . I think we worked out that it wasn't really the shared parking; did we agree that we were going to pass on your point regarding shared parking. Com. Brophy: . Said he was still concerned about the phrase "reducing parking standards". Chair Miller: . That has to be clarified; it is all new with mixed use where there are different uses at different times of the day. Steve Piasecki: . The best mixed uses are office and residential; the office is there during the week days, and residential leaves. Com. Brophy: . Again, since this is talking about Crossroads, it is unlikely that we are going to have residential there. Steve Piasecki: . It is unlikely that you are going to implement this policy in that area, but this applies to the entire Heart of the City. Cupertino Planning Commission 26 October 14, 2008 Com. Brophy: . The language here says in the Crossroads. Steve Piasecki: . It is in our parking ordinance; it is allowed; it is something developers can look at; I don't think we need to reiterate it here. Com. Brophy: . Would staff feel better if we said "encourage" rather than "require" Steve Piasecki: . Said it was fine either way. . Clarified that the idea isn't that you are getting less of a parking standard, they have to demonstrate that this can work; staff is usually very conservative about how much overlap they will allow. Chair Miller: · We spent a lot of time talking about the parking to the side, about how the rear parking area is preferred but we are sympathetic to businesses needing to be successful. . We had some discussion about testing the concept in the Crossroads area. Staff suggested that we add some language in terms of setbacks what the authorizing body is and what was your suggestion. Aki Snelling: . What we can clarify is that all of the properties in the Heart of the City except for the Memorial Park area which is public recreation space, are in the P zone which is planned development, and in the zoning ordinance all planned development, new development in planned development zones do require a conditional use permit which can only be approved by either the Planning Commission or City Council depending on upon the size of the development. There aren't any staff level approvals that can be made for new developments; we could just clarify that and add that language into the Specific Plan. . All agreed. Com. Brophy: . 1-68 - dropping the proposed new paragraph that's put in there; was hoping to remove that, and also to the extent that it does seem to emphasize the mixed use, I thought we had agreed to remove that in the previous meeting. Steve Piasecki: . Staff does not have any objection to that. Vice Chair Giefer: . For clarification with staff, the copy we are marking up and using tonight reflect all of the changes requested from our study session. Cupertino Planning Commission 27 October 14, 2008 Aki Snelling: . That is not correct, because at the last study session the recommendations were made in the form of straw votes, and are not considered the formal recommendations. It is recommend that if you would like to consider them, to add those in tonight. Steve Piasecki: · You can simplify that by saying where they do not conflict with any other direction tonight that those will be incorporated as well. Com. Brophy: · 1- 72 and 73 - to try and conform this to the concept of less control over specific uses, at the bottom of 1-72 and the top of 1-73, delete (a) and (b) and comment that we would have specific uses as specified in the city's general commercial zoning district rather than having these prescriptive lists of which uses are acceptable and which are not. I don't see any reason for (a) and (b) and I think staff suggested that in the case of health clubs she wanted to remove it: As a practical matter, I don't think anybody is going to create child care centers on Stevens Creek. Steve Piasecki: · Said they were making exception to the Heart of the City probably because we have had a lot of interest in vocational and specialized schools, dance and music studios, and the concern is if you don't discourage that, those uses might overwhelm your different segments of the street and that doesn't help to activate in the Crossroads district, which will allow those; Marketplace is not a good example because they have a use permit that specifies uses. I don't think there is a lot of danger in taking this out but we will have to still scrutinize what we are actually getting and how they are designing the building; if you are just designing a commercial building and use is ebb and flow with the market, that is one thing, but if you are designing a building that specifically can only be used as a school, that is a different thing. We can take that up in conjunction with any use permits. Cbair Miller: . Is changing this acceptable to the rest of the Planning Commission? Com. Rose: . Said she was fme with that. Vice Chair Giefer: . Said she was ambivalent. Chair Miller: . I am fine with it. If there is a site that is going to be vacant, and a school wants to go in there, it is better to have a school there, rather than have it vacant. My concern is that we protect the major nodes and that we don't overburden those nodes with the types of commercial development that would not be synergistic with what is currently there. Com. Brophy: . As a practical matter, on a high cost street like Stevens Creek Boulevard any use such as suggested here would just be an interim use. In section of permitted uses for No.3, where it says "office" I would go retail, and change it to "office use" (1-73) change that to "office use" then No.4 would continue as is and add for No. '5, I would use a combination of office retail and/or residential use whether it is part of a single building or separate structures to make it Cupertino Planning Commission 28 October 14, 2008 clear that I am not opposed to mixed use but that would just be an additional permitted category subject to the usual appeals. · No. 1-77 - the language for common open space; it is a type of design feature and may well be desirable but I am not sure about requiring common open space for commercial/residential developments here. Do we require this elsewhere in the city for commercial or residential development. (Staff responded, yes, there are open space requirements) It is not clear why we have separate language here for common open space; if the developer wishes to approve it or we feel that it is necessary in order to implement a concept, I have no problem with that, but requiring it before the design or the architect has even put pencil to paper seems to be premature. Vice Chair Giefer: · It is not prescriptive; it just gives you the computation value on what percent needs to be open. It is something that really enhances the pedestrian experience; that is where you can start to incorporate street furniture and if you are going to have either commercial development or courtyard type retail, I think that it enhances the walkability and I think that is important for us to make it a more interesting experience. So I would not support removing that. . That retail plaza is under several different owners; the owner who is on the DeAnza side of Mervyns actually did re-Iandscape, redid the fa~ade about 4-5 years ago, they put in tile, made the covered walkway into more of a piazza look and feel, so you can travel more easily from Mervyns and then it dies at the Pet Smart store because that is where the ownership changes and then onto Starbucks where you might want to walk. There is a small restaurant adjacent to Mervyns and it is a comfortable area; now is that actually activated on the streetscape. No it is not; but if one of those three owners redeveloped, I would like to see it extended so it was more inviting, but it made it a much more improved walkable plaza in my mind when they redid that section. Com. Brophy: . Said he was willing to withdraw that. The final question on the landscaping screening; (1-78) is this different than what we require from other projects; elsewhere in this document there is the setback from the right of way. Steve Piasecki: . Said his understanding was that this was the existing wording that is in the Plan and we moved it in, we didn't see a reason to remove it; this is one of those things that you may want to watch as projects come in to see how effective it is, and we try to provide it to answer your other question, we do try to provide it but we do a more ad hoc with other projects, we don't have specific rules. Com. Brophy: . That was more of a question in my mind than a recommendation. If the Planning Commission is comfortable with the language as is, I don't have a problem with that. Vice Chair Giefer: . Revisiting what we had agreed upon at our last study session and how to incorporate those into the motion. Motion: Motion by Com. Brophy, second by Vice Chair Giefer, to accept the Heart of the City updated plan as revised this evening. (Vote: 4-0-0; Com. Kaneda absent) Cupertino Planning Commission 29 October 14,2008 Chair Miller summarized the areas addressed for the City Council: . Addressed the issue of forcing retail offering a teaser of some housing in return to retail. Identified that as an issue and tried to address that; . Addressed the issue of the Crossroads, want to have some more thought and effort go into the Crossroads and test out some possible theories on how to make the Crossroads reflect the language in the General Plan; . Protecting the key commercial nodes but allowing the free market to address what goes on in between; . Comments about parking and how it should be approached. \ NEW BUSINESS: Discussion of alternate meeting dates: Tuesday, November 11, 2008 (Veterans Day) Tuesday, December 23, 2008 Chair Miller said he was hesitant to cancel the November 11th meeting because a big item is scheduled for October 28th. He proposed they consider an alternate date. Motion: Motion by Vice Chair Giefer, second by Com. Rose, to cancel the December 23, 2008 Planning Commission meeting. (Vote: 4-0-0; Com. Kaneda absent) Other: . There was a brief discussion about the length of the Planning Commission meetings, particularly those lasting beyond 11 p.m. Steve Piasecki suggested that at 10:30 p.m. the agenda be re-evaluated to determine if the topics can be completed within the next hour. REPORT OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION Environmental Review Committee:. No meeting. Housinf! Commission: No report given. Mayor's Monthly Meetinf! with Commissioners: Economic DeyeloDment Committee: No meeting. REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: . No additional report. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned to the next regular Planning Commission meeting scheduled for October 28, 2008 at 6:45 p.m. Respectfully Submitted: /s/Elizabeth Ellis Elizabeth Ellis, Recording Secretary