PC 06-12-05
CITY OF CUPERTINO
10300 Torre Avenue
Cupertino, CA 95014
1:00 P.M.
CITY OF CUPERTINO PLANNING COMMISSION
AMENDED MINUTES
JUNE 12,2005
CUPERTINO COMMUNITY HALL
SUNDAY
The special Planning Commission meeting of June 12,2005 was called to order at 1 :00 p.m. in the
Cupertino Community Hall, 10350 Torre Avenue, Cupertino, California, by Chairperson Gilbert
Wong.
SALUTE TO THE FLAG
ROLL CALL
Commissioners present:
Chairperson:
Vice Chairperson:
Commissioner:
Commissioner:
Commissioner:
Chair Wong
Vice Chair Miller
Angela Chen
Lisa Giefer
Com. Saadati
Staff present:
Community Development Director:
City Planner:
Assistant City Attorney
Steve Piasecki
Ciddy Wordell
Eileen Murray
ORAL COMMUNICATIONS:
Mr. Tom Huganin, La Roda Court:
. Noted that the Monday, June 13th meeting was scheduled to be held in the old Council
chambers. .
Chair Wong:
. Confirmed that the June 13 meeting was being held in the old Council chambers because
another meeting was previously scheduled for the Council Chambers. He said that the
audio/visual staff was working diligently to hook up the equipment so that the meeting could
be taped.
PUBLIC HEARING:
1.
GPA-2004-01
EA-2004-17
City of Cupertino
Citywide location
General Plan amendment to revise the General Plan.
Subject: Preliminary recommendations
Tentative City Council date: July 19,2005
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June 12,2005
Chair Wong:
· Explained that the extra meetings were being held because the City Council wished to hear the
application next month; the Planning Commission will make its final recommendation on June
28. There will be meetings held Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday ifneeded.
· Asked staff to address what the General Plan was, in order to minimize any confusion
regarding the 10 year or 20 year plan, and provide the history.
Ms. Ciddy Wordell, City Planner, presented the staff report:
· Explained that there were General Plan guidelines from the state; most communities have a 15
to 20 year horizon for their General Plan which is the suggestion, and staff has used it as the
horizon.
· It is suggested that the General Plan be updated every 10 years, to discuss the need to be fresh
and represent current information. It has been updated every 10 years, which are the
timeframes recommended by the state.
· The topics to be covered at this meeting include the jobs/housing balance; residential overlay
related to possible conversion of industrial/commercial lands to residential or to some sort of
mixed use scenario; and also the density bonus that Vice Chair Miller wants the Planning
Commission to focus on.
Mr. Steve Piasecki, Community Development Director, discussed the jobs/housing balance
issue:
· It is important as it is one of the major drivers of housing prices; people seek distance and
commute to get affordability.
· If the problem is ignored, everyone pays.
· I don't know that people understand the true cost of this; but we wonder why the VT A keeps
coming back and saying they need to extend the sales tax; we want to get BART to San Jose
and we need light rail and roads. It is partially because of the housing crises that we have
contributed to; you get road construction and maintenance costs, so when you build it you
have to maintain it.
· There is also air pollution from the vehicles and you get less cohesive community because now
the teacher is living in Tracy and working in Cupertino and is tired from commuting so far;
and the service workers may be overcrowded in a house across the valley. The question is, is
Cupertino part of the disease or are we part of the cure? We have been part of the
problem/disease for quite a while; we have been increasing jobs and our housing hasn't kept
up, resulting in us relying on our neighboring cities to take up some of our housing burden. I
also point out that the biennial survey that the city conducts identifies affordable housing as
one of the most significant problems facing Cupertino; people are not blind to this issue; they
can see the housing prices.
· Family demographics have been changing, smaller household sizes over decades; over the
long run we have gone from 3-1/2 persons per household down to 2-1/2. We are getting a
greater mix of family types, we are starting to see that the definition of family is changing;
which has fueled a greater demand for more variety, smaller condo/townhouse type units and
even those are pricey because of the school districts.
· The market itself has been adapting, attempting to provide higher density and mixed use in the
community. We cannot zone everything for commercial; we have tried it; our General Plan
has had a lot of commercial land use potential in it for a long time; the market has to respond;
the market is a player here and I have great respect for the private market place and when I see
that cities ignore that, it usually comes back to bite them, such as San Jose's attempt at
reinvigorating downtown when the market was not there to support it.
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June 12,2005
· Cupertino is too dependent on business-to-business sales, and when the market dipped
significantly, we lost a lot of business-to-business; our sales tax took a dive, so we need to be
conscious of that. Not all of the commercial areas are productive; we keep hearing about don't
undermine our commercial areas; the 100 top sales tax producers in the city - gas stations,
restaurant type sales tax producers, are mostly clustered in Vallco, the Crossroads and Hewlett
Packard and Apple Computer and at the Homestead Square Shopping Center and a smattering
here and there in some smaller areas. It is not true that all of our non-residential areas are
productive areas, in fact significant chunks of them aren't producing much of anything.
· The neighboring cities are also trying to attract commercial users and are successful
principally as a result of market demand that generates that, not necessarily the activities of the
city. You then get market changes and competition happening. The downsize of too much
retail is lower paying service jobs, increasing the need for affordable units.
· Relative to the jobs/housing ratios, as pointed out in the staff report, about one million square
feet of commercial/officelindustrial generates the need for about 2,000 housing units to house
the workers at 3 jobs per thousand, 1.5 workers per household. The General Plan has about 2
million square feet over the 2,000 levels which equals the demand for about 4,000 units just to
stay even; yet provides only 2,300 units. The state has come in and said you are all going to
be part of the cure; we are not going to have cities running around like we have been simply
creating jobs and padding your local coffers at the expense of this statewide problem with
pollution and housing prices.
· The housing elements and fair share numbers are there, but the fair share numbers aren't all
housing related. The significant part of that is the job creation associated with the equation of
housing demand. The other factor that we know is that the private market place is telling us
that some of our industrial and commercial buildings are functionally obsolete; they were built
30 or 40 years ago, low ceilings, in a market that is very selective about what it is paying for
and what it is getting. They want new, modern space and they want to pay nickels on the
dollar for it. The market is telling us that the buildings are not going to be reoccupied in the
near future; so the option exists in one way to reduce jobs while protecting our productive tech
parks; and to me it sounds like an opportunity to be strategic and chose some positive change.
· He discussed the proposed strategy that would allow the reduction of some existing
functionally obsolete office/commercial and industrial space, thereby reducing the necessary
number of housing units needed to stay even at the above rates, as outlined in the staff report.
He also reviewed the conversion of officelindustrial/commercial properties to residential or
mixed use as outlined in the staff report.
Com. Chen:
· I see the importance of balancing jobs and housing but when we provide more housing units, is
there any suggestion that can put language into the General Plan to encourage the housing
units be sold to local people so we see that connection happen. Providing more housing does
not seem to resolve the jobs/housing balance issue.
Mr. Piasecki:
· You can't guarantee that they exclusively will go to local people; there is a market mechanism
that works on that; as a certain price in the interest of being near their jobs, people will tend to
choose this location because it provides that opportunity. Because we tend to have higher
prices, people don't' chose us because we have low cost housing, and we are not in the valley
somewhere and we are not that kind of a choice, so I think we have a larger capture ratio than
other communities. Weare also in the heart of Silicon Valley and in the strategic location we
are in, we are going to attract people who want to be within 10 or 15 miles of their job.
Cupertino Planning Commission
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June 12, 2005
· It is important that we become part of the solution, on a regionwide, valleywide, statewide
basis, and that we provide the component specifications that we need to make sure that you
could put language in your General Plan that says housing will be permitted when it can
demonstrate that it is going to be a positive contribution to the community including schools
and the city.
· The developer is then going to have to go back and figure out how they are going to
demonstrate that, and in some cases out in the valley, developers have used what are called
settlement agreements with schools; we know that we have a bigger impact than our fee
schedule provides; we will voluntarily give you an agreement. The alternative is give us a lot
of commercial and very few houses.
Com. Chen:
· Is there a process for review where we convert, instead of us telling people what the area
should be, based on our feelings; is there a more standard way of reviewing the different
building types and land use in order to convert it into something that benefits the developer,
the city and the community as well.
Mr. Piasecki:
· I think that in the General Plan it is possible to provide specifications that will indicate to a
perspective owner or developer, that we will entertain conversion under these circumstances.
The criteria that you would be interested in would be in cases where the site can help build
community, where it can have a positive fiscal influence on the community, where it can
provide the open space, you would entertain that idea.
· In other areas where it disrupts a productive tech park it is not adjacent to existing residential,
it doesn't help build a residential neighborhood, it doesn't provide open space. You could set
those criteria up in your plan and we could help you do that if you decide to go this way; it is a
different way of approaching it. It would be fairly limited; we are talking about 10 or 12 sites.
· Under certain circumstances we need to define what those are and under what circumstances
we would allow that to happen. I think it would be a poor choice for us to simply hang on to
functionally obsolete space, and allow Cupertino to slide further and further behind and not
have the modern market savvy kinds of uses that the community wants to see. We should look
at development as a component of our community and how does it work to build a better
stronger community in the future, and I think it is possible to do.
Ms. Wordell:
· In the staff report we identified some existing or proposed policies that suggest occasions
when mixed use or residential might be allowed, so some of the wording is already suggested;
this was at the suggestion of the Planning Commission at previous meetings; in the Heart of
the City residential development be allowed if it provides incentive to develop retail use; at the
Crossroads, the same and if it provides community amenities and is pedestrian oriented;
Vallco Park South would allow residential in support of the commercial development and
conversion of office to industrial to residential would be if the economic impacts were
evaluated. It is different for the different areas and that is wording that you can consider and
modify as you chose.
Com. Chen:
· We can try to achieve the jobs/housing balance, but the surrounding cities doing the same
thing in their General Plan, are they all trying to be the solution to the problem.
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June 12,2005
Mr. Piasecki:
· It varies from city to city; some cities are a bigger part of the problem than Cupertino was; we
are not blameless either. Some cities have balance and some are balanced the other way; San
Jose tends to have more residential jobs. If ranked with other cities, Cupertino is more of a
problem than the cure; we have a greater jobs imbalance. We need to start working to make
things not worse; we need to start specifying and responding to market conditions that allow us
to change out in a positive fashion. We need to structure plan so that in 20 years as we build
parcel by parcel, we get the result in the end that we want.
Vice Chair Miller:
· Relative to Com. Chen's question, is there a way if we build affordable units, to enourage local
persons to take advantage of them. You can do it through advertising, notices and information
so that you can let the service people who need housing units, know that they are going to
become available at a certain period and you can limit the developer to advertising their
availability for the first 30 or 60 days locally, so that local people have an early jump. If they
chose to purchase a unit, then it gives them the opportunity to do that without a lot of
competition. That is an acceptable way of doing things, and it has been done in other
municipalities.
Mr. Piasecki:
· I don't know legally if we can encourage or require the developer do that and what affect it
would have; but it can be discussed, and I assume the intent is that by having these units
purchased locally you will have shorter commutes and solve some of those problems.
Vice Chair Miller:
· The intent of providing affordable housing is because we are increasing the number of service
jobs, there are a number of teachers that travel a long way, and just making information
available to these people early on that housing units are coming available, and if they are
interested they should apply for them, is a good way of proactively going about changing the
situation
Mr. Piasecki:
· There is a difference between the affordable units required by our ordinances, BMR units and
the market rate units in terms of how directive we can be.
Vice Chair Miller:
· I understand that, and some of these units are specifically part of the BMR program where they
are very affordable, and some of them because they are smaller units or condos, are less
expensive and will also fall into a range where some people might be able to afford them,
where they couldn't afford a single family house.
· In reviewing the numbers, we are talking about 2 million square feet of additional space that
we are proposing in the General Plan and one million is commercial and one million is
officelindustrial and the numbers for the commercial space is 2 employees per thousand; and
the other is 3 per thousand .
Com. Giefer:
· In past meetings, staff has said we have had the same commercial and office numbers in the
General Plan for the past 10 years. It has been a relatively small increase from 2000 to 2005 in
both categories.
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June 12,2005
Ms. Wordell:
· Pointed out that commercial has been more static than it looks, the reason it looks like
commercial went up is we are holding 500,000+ for Vallco and they have just spoken for
100,000 of that; 400,000 of theirs is in their development agreement which expires in 2006.
As noted, the 2005 figure includes approved and committed, so not all of those on the ground;
if you compared it to what is on the ground, you would have to subtract 500,000 of that so
there has been very little growth in commercial and we have actually had some losses. Offices
also have very little and residential is up about 1,000.
Mr. Piasecki:
· The numbers have been there for a long time; the ability for the marketplace to chose the
additional commercial.
Com. Giefer:
· Is the buildout number the number that is actually in the General Plan Task Force draft; is that
the same number; my recollection of the task force is that is the same number that is in the old
General Plan, they did not increase it.
Ms. Wordell:
· Said she could check if commercial went down a little, and office stayed the same.
Com. Giefer:
· I question if this is an artificially high number, which is hurting our ABAG and our housing to
jobs ratio, because this is a number we haven't got close to for 10 years and if we took out
500,000 total between the two of them; and I know this is a theoretic question, but if we
reduce that number because it is already artificially high with no adjustment or increased
housing, our jobs/housing ratio gets better. Why do we keep it artificially high today?
Ms. Wordell:
· That formula changes every time they give us new number; it is a very complicated formula in
1988 that we used for our 1993 General Plan and it was a very different formula in 2001; my
recollection is that formula was heavily based on how much housing we actually produced,
and since we had produced a fair amount of housing because of some large apartment projects,
they said we were doing a good job and could do more, and we had a problem with jobs.
Mr. Piasecki:
· You can reduce that number if you chose, especially in the office area, because the office
market is not going to respond, you can always adjust it up later if you needed to. You
actually try to take some numbers out of the base and you could even leave it at the 2 million
square feet or one million officelindustrial and one million of commercial and eliminate some
of the existing things on the ground and get at the same issue you are talking about; reduce
some of the job demand in our community.
Com. Giefer:
· You are suggesting we raise the housing accordingly and convert that as commercial; what I
am saying it is not necessary to do that, because we have an artificially high number to start
with.
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June 12, 2005
Mr. Piasecki:
· You can do that, and approach it in different ways. It is an artificially high number; only
because it has been there for a long time and the market has not responded, but it is like our
hotel numbers are also very high, but because it is so lucrative for us to have hotels, we are not
suggesting for you to take away hotel numbers.
Com. Giefer:
· We have consistently heard that it is not lucrative because we have out of date
office/commercial that is functionally obsolete; I am uncomfortable with the idea of having a
policy in the General Plan with a blanket statement, and I know the task force also did not
support conversion of commercial to housing.
· I would suggest as a Planning Commission we consider reducing the commercial and office
numbers by some amount because it has been unrealistic for the past decade.
Mr. Piasecki:
· That is a fine strategy; you could also take out some of the functionally obsolete buildings out
of the base, and not necessarily backfill with housing. I suggest that you would want to put
that under certain circumstances where you can; where the housing is fueling commercial or
the housing a positive benefit for one reason or the other; then the real question is why
wouldn't you do it?
Com. Giefer:
· I would think on a case-by-case basis we would want to consider that because that is good for
the community on a blanket wholesale level.
Mr. Piasecki:
· Weare not suggesting a wholesale change.
Com. Giefer:
· My next question which was part of what you stated earlier, is we have people who are in
lower paying positions who do need housing, they are the ones who can least afford to
commute, they are the people we see going to work on bicycle out of necessity, not because
they are being cheap or need the exercise.
· I am concerned because housing pricing is based on supply and demand; we have limited
housing available and we have significant demand because of our proximity to industry, our
exceptional schools and things like that. Using Merona as an example, when those houses
went on the market, they were priced well under $1 million; they are currently being flipped
and I was told that one had sold for about $1 million. The people who are in the service
industry do not need a large supply of million dollar homes; what can we do in the General
Plan to try to encourage; I don't want to say price fixing, but we do not need a large supply of
million dollar homes for people in the service industry who are making minimum wage. I
have asked teachers about the BMR program and the teacher assistance programs. When I was
on the Housing Commission they had very few applicants and no takers and they decided to
offer mortgage assistance for teachers purchasing out of Cupertino in more affordable areas. I
question all of that, it is good, we need to offer BMR units, we need to do whatever we can to
address the problem; and I agree with that, but I don't think we are solving it by adding higher
density housing that ends up being in planned developments that ends up being $1 million.
What are we really doing to really stabilize the costs?
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June 12,2005
Mr. Piasecki:
· Part of your criteria could be asking the developer to demonstrate to you that in fact their units
will come on the market at market rates within affordable range. Your point is even if they
were to do that so what if they get flipped at $1 million a copy. I don't know if that is the
solution that we are suggesting high density or higher density, that is not as important I think
as the density needs to be compatible with the surrounding area that it is in. It needs to be a
positive contribution to the area, it needs to be consistent, it doesn't have to be high or low,
and it should be not viewed as an entity onto itself but is part of a more complicated
component where it is helping if you say if! have certain number of units, say 12 units to the
acre or 6 units to the acre, I can then give you this commercial component that will help
resolve fiscal issues for the city and the school districts. I think you might view that not so
much as solving the housing problem, but giving you a truly mixed use fabric community that
is positive in a lot of other ways; it will not necessarily solve your housing problem.
Com. Giefer:
· It helps the supply, but it is not going to help the demand or pricing side of the equation.
Mr. Piasecki:
· It is not going to solve your housing problem; if you take down some functionally obsolete, it
helps with the demand. It will not have a localized impact; you will not see our housing prices
drop from $1 million to $900,000.
Ms. Wordell:
· What the task force recommended is a drop in the office square feet of about 100,000 square
feet and they may from the existing General Plan buildout and the commercial stay the same
as the existing General Plan buildout; it was opposite, they drew down.
Mr. Piasecki:
· Said he was not aware of any programs in Cupertino to help employees purchase houses
within the city; but said it m ay have been done through referrals or assistance.
· Relative to affordability, he said Cupertino was far less affordable than San Jose, but the
market has a series of gradations through the market; across the border, it is closer to our
numbers, and if you are within the Cupertino School District, because you start to have the
benefit of proximity to jobs, and you are within our district, you start to reflect the housing
prices, but on average, the average house in the valley is approaching $600,000 and in
Cupertino it is probably approaching $1 million.
Com. Saadati:
· "Affordable" in Cupertino, is over $600,000; one way to do that is to build smaller units and
eveR the smaller DRib, some of the professionals who work here or outside, they are going to
purchase it because their buying power is much higher.
Mr. Piasecki:
· Com. Giefer's comment was that it didn't seem to matter in the case of Montebello. You are
not going to change the market substantially; you can't change the level of the city; the city is
set by much greater forces than we have at work here. That is why I don't necessarily think
you should view it exclusively and ask are we going to see a substantive change; you made a
substantive change in 2001 when you amended the Housing Element to increase the BMR rate
!Tom 10% to 15%; that was a very significant change you did. I was looking at it !Tom the
standpoint of just the community is changing, the market conditions have changed; there is an
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June 12, 2005
opportunity for you and it doesn't have to be just with residential. We want positive, modern,
compatible land uses in our community and something that was built in 1970 that isn't
working any longer, is probably going to go away or sit vacant. You have an opportunity to
say under what circumstances and what kind of uses will work in those locations. It allows
you to leverage market conditions to get what you want as a community.
Com. Saadati:
· We could provide more incentive as we discussed in the past if some developer wants to build
more housing; maybe it would increase BMR, we could look at that.
Mr. Piasecki:
· The state allows with 20% BMR which is higher than our requirement, you can ask for up to a
25% density bonus. There are some provisions that go beyond our scope that are already built
into the system that we haven't seen people take advantage of. We are probably not going to
solve it one way or another; make a substantial dent, but at the same time you can structure
your General Plan to mold the city the way you want to see it start to change and you can be
part of the cure. That cure has to be region-wide, statewide ultimately. The market is a bigger
force than just Cupertino.
Vice Chair Miller:
· Relative to the cost of housing in Cupertino, I saw the prices for Verona also and while the
very largest units are selling for high prices, the smaller units are actually starting in the
$500,000 range.
· The other comment on this issue is that if every city begins to tackle the problem, then we will
see a substantial improvement as a collection of cities. By ourselves we are not going to
change the market; but it is clear that just because we cannot change the market, that we
shouldn't be trying to do our part, and if our neighboring cities do their parts, then there will
be a substantial difference.
· On January 1 a new density bonus law allows for developers to build more affordable housing.
To mention at the limit, if a developer builds 40% of his project, it actually encourages
developers to build for example, at 40% of his project affordable. At the moderate income
level, he would get a 35% density bonus to offset the costs of building that affordable housing,
so we are not looking at 5, 10 and 15% affordable numbers with this new density bonus
program; we are potentially looking at projects that are coming in with very significant
numbers of affordable units, and that could make an impact on what we are trying to do for
affordability.
Com. Giefer:
· Can we ask a developer to take advantage of a density bonus? Can we require that as part of
their proposal to max out the BMR.
Mr. Piasecki:
· You can; but I would suggest you make it part of the criteria that you are going to use in
reviewing the project. That may be one component.
· If it was more heavily weighted toward the residential end; then you might say affordability of
the residential is very important to me.
· If it was more heavily weighted on the commercial end, you might say would the benefits of in
this location work better with surrounding commercial; I am willing to forego some of that
residential affordability to get the fiscally sensitive land uses instead of the residential. By site
by site you are going to probably change; those criteria are going to move.
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June 12,2005
Com. Giefer:
· I believe it was part of the task force, we toured affordable housing units in high density units
and the one thing that struck me was the developers developed smaller and less attractive units
that are designed as BMR. I don't know if that is what occurs in Cupertino or if they are
homogenous; all units are built the same; but can we ensure that the units available for BMR
don't have the laminate counter tops, they have the granite countertops.
Mr. Piasecki:
· Our BMR program has criteria and specifies that they have to be scattered throughout the
project, and have to be indistinguishable. In Oak Valley we allowed the use of duets to
provide BMR units and in terms of the interior, we do allow a little more flexibility on the
level of quality, recognizing to take a home !Tom a !Tee market worth $700,000 and get it
down to $249,000 you need to do something substantive. The bedroom count and appearance
!Tom the exterior are the same.
Chair Wong:
· In Oak Valley, not to many single family homes; more of the duets are BMRs, they weren't
exactly the same as single family homes.
· I agree with Com. Giefer on many things. I looked in Los Banos, and Victorville; they require
the person who is purchasing it to either live there and also work there and not turn it around
as investment property or speculation. How can those cities in the Central Valley do that and
can that work here?
Mr. Piasecki:
· We can look into that. I don't know how they are doing that.
Chair Wong:
· If we don't have that much demand on the jobs, perhaps suggesting conversion of obsolete
industrial space for housing; and as Com. Giefer said if the numbers are not realistic, can we
keep those and maybe save the area and not doing conversion, save it for the next boom.
Mr. Piasecki:
· We need clarification on this; the suggestion wasn't that we convert it to housing, the
suggestion was that we convert it to commercial, mixed use, favoring commercial, mixed use
favoring the housing, depending on its location, and where they can demonstrate that they
have a positive influence in the community in terms of their design, their fiscal contributions.
· It doesn't have to be all housing; it doesn't have to be any housing if you want to make that
recommendation. I think we should do housing only because it is a market force that can drive
other amenities; that is why we should do it as well as it's the right thing to do in terms of
being part of the solution. It has a couple of added benefits but I am not suggesting that we do
it all; I am not even suggesting that we do it at higher densities. I think you could do it at some
of the lower densities, the Morano is a good example of a fairly low density product that is in
high demand in the community, so you don't have to always; in fact because if you are doing
mixed use you are using some of the land for commercial; you are going to get lower densities
anyway; I don't know that I am suggesting that it all be housing or it all be higher density for
housing at all.
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June 12,2005
Chair Wong:
· There is come confusion regarding the numbers of how many square footage of jobs,
industrial, and commercial space. It would make the Planning Commission and City Council's
jobs easier if that is the basis we are using; is it easier to find out what the basis is and then
figure out the housing units that we have, because if we use a lower number then we would
only need so much housing. If we predict the jobs are going to be higher, then the amount of
housing will be higher, so we really didn't pinpoint whatthe number is for the jobs.
Mr. Piasecki:
· I think what we were trying to say was, under the current plan you are reviewing, you are
adding 2 million square feet which creates demand housing for about 4,000 units, and I don't
think that is what you want. Weare not suggesting you do that; we are suggesting a strategy
to take those numbers down by lowering the on-the-ground base that you now have, consistent
with what seems to be a market force asking you to do that. Strategically, with the types of
land uses that you want to see other than dysfunctional, industrial, in some cases that is going
to be residential, in some cases mixed, and we gave you for formula for how that works. If
you took down 500,000 square feet equaled of industrial 1000 housing units, you would go
down !Tom a demand of 4,000 down to 3,000; that is a very positive change to alter that
balance and yet allow the backfill. If you let some of that go residential, that just works your
numbers even closer to where the task force recommendation is right now. That is a way to
reconcile the numbers.
· You can leave the excessive numbers in the plan, and you can test it over time and say we
want to make sure we are working in a positive manner toward reconciling these; or you can
take the numbers out because ABAG is going to punish you every time you leave them in,
because they are going to say your potential is X, therefore your potential for residential
should be Y, so that the two of them work out together. I would suggest you take down some
of the functionally obsolete stuff, it is not doing anything for the community; and then work on
Com. Giefer's suggestion.
Chair Wong:
· I believe that Silicon Valley will sooner or later have another boom and I think we have to
prepare for that. I know other cities are taking away in conversion, but I think it is dangerous.
· The other thing we talked about is seniors and the public sector. How can we get more types
of Vista Village; it didn't happen overnight and it cost a lot of money to buy the land, build it,
work with the non-profit. How can we do a policy to encourage that type at a bigger scale vs.
the small scale that CCS did?
Mr. Piasecki:
· You are correct, there was considerable effort to get Vista Village and to amass those kinds of
funds, I don't see that being any kind of panacea; I don't have a formula for you where you
can replicate Vista Villages all over Cupertino or in any magnitude that is going to make a
difference. Your 10% to 15% made a big difference. I think we can continue to identify sites,
but they are probably going to be spotty, few and far between before producing another Vista
Village.
Chair Wong:
· How can we partnership with a non-profit to bring senior housing or low income housing such
as Vista Village into the community.
Cupertino Planning Commission
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June 12,2005
Mr. Piasecki:
· Relative to Com. Giefer's point, if you make that one of your criteria for when you would
consider the residential, and it is the affordability, does it serve special housing needs, I think
you will find developers trying to find ways to do that. That could be one of the criteria you
use. You can set the criteria any way you want; right now those units don't exist; the units we
suggest don't exist and you can set very stringent criteria, specifications for when they will
exist, and they will exist when it is positive.
Vice Chair Miller:
· Relative to Table 2A, we are talking about 2 million square feet, but in comparing the number
for commercial space, citywide it looks like we have already built or have committed to build
a half-million of that. If that is the case, then we should be taking that out of the numbers of
housing units to begin with that we are working with, and then if we brought down as Com.
Giefer suggested, the office square footage to some extent, it could result in a workable
number. I hope at some point in this discussion we will get into those numbers in more detail
and see if we can't come up with that number.
· We need to ensure that we are making an apples to apples comparison; if we are committed on
the commercial, we need to do committed on the residential and then work the number
forward !Tom that point, how many additional units working forward; and I believe when you
subtract that out, we are not talking about 4,000 anymore, we are talking about below 3,000.
Mr. Piasecki:
· Clarified that a significant part of that is the commitment to Vallco; where those retail square
footage are considered to be vested.
· I just wanted to clarify that it is not on the ground.
Ms. Wordell:
· Pointed out that a map was included in the staff packet that ties into our conversation about
identifying sites where they might be a potential conversion and I think this kind of map could
function either as an ad hoc reference,. We could talk about areas that might be susceptible or
there actually be a map in the General Plan where it could be a guideline or even a requirement
that would be the most stringent, for some sort of residential whether it is exclusively or mixed
use. I think that ties into your conversation again about under what conditions the city would
allow that, and you could get into the criteria that you have already talked about relative to
affordability, obsolete buildings, economic, and with that we are ready to go into the task force
testimony and any other public comments.
Rod Brown, representing the signers of the Minority Report (14 persons).
· Highlighted the areas where there was agreement between the General Plan Task Force
recommendation and the Minority Report recommendation.
· Agreement among both sides that business and retail are both important to the city and those
things should be encouraged.
· We agreed that the General Plan should support and not inhibit activities which increase our
tax revenue.
· Affordable housing should be required of developers; that the part was still within the General
Plan Task Force recommendation.
· Agreed that the city should not grow without limit or without restriction.
· However, we on the Minority Report disagreed on how we implemented some of these
principles.
Cupertino Planning Commission
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June 12, 2005
· First projections indicate that California is going to grow by 50% by 2040, about 400,000 new
residents per year, which is equivalent of adding a new San Jose to the state every two years.
Not all the growth is going to be in the Bay Area.
· The general principle that we in the Minority Report looked was we can look at this growth
and prepare for this growth, and use it to enhance our city to make it a better place, or we can
try to ignore it and pretend it doesn't happen, and negatively impact our city.
· Some of the specific problems we had with the task force housing recommendations were the
task force recommendations eliminated residential growth !Tom several areas of the city; if you
eliminated most of the BMR housing objectives, then we kept the high level objective, there
were several sub-objectives that were eliminated and there were a number of obstacles put in
place to building more affordable housing by eliminating the flexibility that developers had in
designing their structures to actually do that in a profitable manner.
· The primary reason that we don't like these things is we feel that this hurts our economic
competitiveness. Mr. Piasecki mentioned several things along these lines earlier and I would
add to that and say that when you survey, a survey has been done of the business leaders
within the valley, and housing has consistently come up for a number of years as the No. I
problem impacting their business, and that is the high cost of housing for their employees.
The No. 1 action requested by those employees to improve the business climate in the Bay
Area is to reduce housing costs; we think this is significant when you compare the other things
they were surveying. They said housing was more significant than excessive regulation, than
workers compensation cost, than health care, than high taxes or traffic. Clearly our business
leaders see that this is a big problem and they would like to see something done.
· When you survey these leaders, you look at the statistics they put together and how the
different jurisdictions are doing on working towards meeting these housing needs and
Cupertino has received a grade D- in the past.
· Summarized that businesses are seeking areas with affordable housing for their employees and
if they can't find it in the area we are, they will look elsewhere for that, and that is true of the
region as a whole, and the state as a whole.
· This loss of business impacts our tax base and then ultimately impacts our services and quality
of life.
· All these areas are related; the next one is how the General Plan Task Force recommendation
actually excludes a lot of our community members and increases traffic. As you discussed
earlier, our community is made up a number of different types of folks; a number of folks of
different levels of income and certainly not all those who can work here, can ever dream of
living here.
· We have a retail labor force with incomes well below average, public safety personnel who
commute in !Tom long distances, we have schools staffed by people here and elsewhere around
the valley and further distances as well, and the actual numbers, to afford an average Bay Area
home which is $622,000 a person would have to earn $120,000 to afford that, and that is just
the Bay Area, and no question that the numbers are a lot worse for Cupertino.
· Relative to the BMR aspect, we do have a 15% goal which is a good thing, but if all we do is
work to have a 15% affordable amount of housing, there is no question that also some of the
issues that Com. Giefer brought up, are going to remain true. This is clearly a market driven
process and as long as there is that shortage of housing, we' are going to have high prices.
· Mr. Piasecki mentioned as well, the best efforts of CCS, there is no way they can meet all the
need out there so we need to use market mechanisms to overcome these shortages. Our
General Plan should support those mechanisms which will help this process.
· Pointed out that in the surveys done, of the community over the past several years, housing
affordability has consistently ranked as a top issue and I think that if we don't address that in
this General Plan, that we are not acknowledging that request of our citizens as well.
Cupertino Planning Commission
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June 12, 2005
· Relative to the complexities of the situation, it is easy to say we want business and not
housing; but in reality they are related. As mentioned before on the surveys of business
leaders, they clearly see the linkage, and see it as driving a successive business within the
valley as a whole. I think you heard, reading the minutes ÍÌ"om the last meeting, and the
comment was made by the EIR consultants, that if you put all the jobs at one end of the county
and all the houses at the other end, you would get a gigantic flow of traffic ÍÌ"om one direction
in the morning and the other at night. To think that we can limit housing and thus limit traffic
while still having business, that doesn't impact traffic, is just not realistic. These things all
work together and need to be addressed together.
· I think it is also important to note that we are Cupertino, what we are doing effects Cupertino,
but we are also an integral part of the Bay Area as a whole. What we do impacts other cities
and what other cities do impacts us as well and I think that is why it is important for us to do
our fair share to reduce the housing imbalance where it exists, and we have had problems in
meeting that requirement in the past.
· Relative to schools, we hear a lot of concerns that if we increase the housing in the
community, it will negatively impact our award winning schools within the community.
Denser housing has had fewer school aged children and all the housing that realistically we are
talking about here is going to be denser than the single family homes that predominate
throughout our city now, just due to the economics of building those homes. .
· There is no question that a healthy economy and successful business bring in more tax
revenue; based on what I said before, housing will encourage businesses to work here and
increase that tax revenue and of course more tax revenue helps our schools as well. Also as
noted in the EIR, schools may also collect impact fees ÍÌ"om developers, thus potentially
offsetting the immediate negative impact that they would see ÍÌ"om that increased housing.
· The problems with our funding mechanism; our school funding mechanism for our high
schools cannot be addressed by the General Plan. Anything that we do is inherently reactive,
thus we continue to encourage our leaders to work with the state leaders in whose hands this
truly resides, because until that is fixed, we are going continue to have this issue.
· The people who signed the Minority Report recommended that the Planning Commission and
the City Council approve the Administrative Draft General Plan, not the changes that were
recommended by the General Plan Task Force. Fundamentally, we see this as increasing the
economic vitality of the city by providing the homes that businesses seek; it encourages key
members of the community to stay involved in the city for all the social issues mentioned
earlier but also ÍÌ"om the purely selfish reason of reducing traffic. We also see that this General
Plan draft does address the need to work with our neighboring cities and do our fair share to
meet these needs. We believe that this will make our city a better place to live in the future.
· Summarized that they cannot put up a wall and keep our city isolated ÍÌ"om everywhere else,
but we must work with everyone else around to meet these challenges that are coming our
way. Change is going to happen; I think the Administrative Draft General Plan addresses that
change in a productive way. I think it is also important that we look to include these other
community members are residents in our city; I think that inherently improves the climate, the
social aspects of our city as well as not just things like traffic; and ultimately this will all make
Cupertino a better place to live.
Cupertino Planning Commission
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June 12,2005
Com. Giefer:
· Said that Sally Larsen plans on attending the subsequent meetings; if there are additional
questions, or any comments, I would like to give Sally Larsen or Andrea Harris the
opportunity to address this again, if either one is agreeable.
· Expressed thanks to Mr. Whitaker who was commenting today.
Mr. Dennis Whitaker, speaking on behalf of the General Plan Task Force:
· Andrea Harris did make a formal presentation in writing to the Task Force and I believe staff
has that. I will try to obtain it and if Ms. Larden cannot come tomorrow night, I will read the
points.
· Going into the Task Force in July 2003, we all knew that the ABAG numbers were long,
because of the downsizing of the economy; that was a major thorn in our sides all the way
through it.
· I do have some voting numbers that I would like to pass on, that are documented and we wrote
down the numbers; most of the numbers are of great disparity between the two, on a lot of
housing vs. a small amount of housing;. there are only two that came close to 50/50 votes.
· I won't read everything to you but question No.2, should the development allocation slightly
decrease the potential for commercial- Vote: 10 Yes; 36 No.
· A question came up shonld the jobs to housing balance be improved? The vote was 20 yes; 22
no, but again there was an argument why do we do this when we don't have valid numbers at
hand, and should Vallco Park South be mixed use/commercial? Vote: 22 No; 20 Yes.
· Should the heights be the same as the existing General Plan except for the proposed changes?
Vote: 19 No; 13 Yes.
· Should developers be required to build smaller, more affordable housing. Vote: 31 Yes; 8 No.
· Should the city continue to encourage development of affordable housing? Vote:30 Yes; 3 No.
· The task force said we want more affordable housing, but I don't think we wanted a green
light to have housing take over where the commercial was. One of the main stays of all the
July, August, September and two weeks in October meetings were we wanted more emphasis
on commercial bringing a sound retail, financial base to our community than we did housing;
we didn't say we didn't want any housing, we said we wanted the emphasis to be making our
city more financially sound.
· As stated before, the ABAG information has been inaccurate all along, as soon as we got the
numbers Hewlett Packard started relocating places and other companies had moved out of the
area. Mr. Piasecki had made some comments that if we ignore the problems, everyone will
pay. But if we address the problems in a wrong manner, Cupertino will pay with more taxes,
schools, traffic, and the loss of our business.
· One thing I don't think we talked about and I only missed one task force meeting, but it was
raised today; about more denser housing having fewer school aged children, I think our city is
seeing a change; we have an apartment complex close to where I live and two years ago it was
made up of many people and very few children; now that complex has a lot of children. I
think what you are seeing in my mind and this is not the task force mind, is you are seeing and
it is probably true most of the places, more people are moving in primarily for the education
and as soon as their education is done with, they are moving out; so in essence you are going
to see more of a tumkey in our apartments and our condos than you ever did before. Before
you had people like ourselves move in and we stayed even though our children are gone; now I
think you are going to see; and I don't think the addressed it and it needs to be addressed
because it is going to show a new Cupertino and that needs to be seen. We needed to improve
retail growths and have less emphasis on housing; that we did not want more housing, and
especially we all wanted more affordable housing, but we wanted more emphasis on bringing
commercial growth, more retail growth. What we said at the bottom line, is that we don't
Cupertino Planning Commission
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June 12, 2005
want the housing to be too great to be an impact on our education, traffic, and wonderful
character of Cupertino, and our quality of life we have in Cupertino.
Com. Giefer:
· Said she felt one of the areas she felt was weakened in the Administrative Draft General Plan
was mixed use housing. She asked Mr. Whitaker to comment on why the housing sub-group
eliminated or weakened some of the areas.
Mr. Whitaker:
· Said there were so many meetings that he could not recall the reason.
Chair Wong:
· Recalled that the majority of the General Plan Task Force would like to discourage mixed use.
Chair Wong opened the public hearing.
Robert Levy, resident:
· Neutral on the application.
· The agenda item I came into hear about and was looking for says "General Plan Amendment
to Revise the General Plan; Subject Preliminary Recommendations" - Friday I was able to get
a copy ÍÌ"om Ms. Witt of what the preliminary recommendation were.
· I have a comment that is apropos to most of what I have heard. In 1939-1940 World's Fair, a
time capsule was buried; in the 1964-65 World's Fair a time capsule was buried. At the time
those time capsules were buried, they sent out books of records to hundreds of libraries
throughout the country and the world. The San Jose library no longer knows where their copy
is, only 60 years later. The reason I am mentioning that is because I felt that was just as
apropos as most of what I have heard in regards to the preliminary recommendations that you
people have come up with. I haven't heard anything about them in this meeting; presumably
in one of the later meetings this week, I may hear something about them.
· I think what Mr. Piasecki said was very interesting, probably very important and bearing on
what we have to do yet in terms of producing the General Plan, but it certainly didn't have
anything to do with what you people have come up with, and I don't see when you are going
to have time to absorb what he has said and merge it into what your plans are.
· I found the material available in the lobby including some of the maps were interesting,
especially the ones showing residential overlays on top of much of our commercial area
including those spaces which currently sell most of the groceries in this city. I don't know
what you are going to do if the grocery stores move out; they are low income as far as the city
is concerned, because they don't make large profits on their sales, but they make a lot of
money when you bundle it all together.
· I don't know what to say about the popularity of the city; but one item 1 found when looking
through a variety of things on the website is a Newsweek presentation of the 1,000 best high
schools in the country. One of them in position 51 was Monta Vista High School in
Cupertino. If you were moving into the area and found that piece of information, where would
you like to move if you had high school age children. That is part of the reason we have
buying pressure on houses.
· Said that the so-called BMR housing is not affordable housing, it is just BMR housing. The
thing we were told as part of the Task Force was all housing is affordable if you have the
money to buy it.
Cupertino Planning Commission
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June 12,2005
Jennifer Griffin, resident:
· I liked the comment about the marathon series of meetings; I think that is a very interesting
representation of this, but it is good to have public input and discussion about these important
plans.
· I am concerned about some of the proposed changes to the General Plan, my neighborhood
only annexed in 2000, before that we had been under the County. I think there has been a lot
of confusion in some of the neighborhoods that were recently annexed as to how Cupertino
runs, since we have not had Mayors, City Council members before, we had Board of
Supervisors, etc.
· I hope the plans the city comes up with are going to be adequate to handle the growth of
Cupertino; tech wide sector, commercial, redevelopment of malls that are not doing well,
schools that are impacted, rising housing prices, etc. After attending some of these meetings, I
am confused about why the ABAG numbers of proposed housing for Cupertino are at the level
they are. I don't see a lot of new jobs in Cupertino; we had had some tremendous different
types of factors going on in Cupertino and Silicon Valley in the last couple of years.
· We have had boom years in the late 90s; there was a crash in 2000; in 2001 in some areas of
the tech sector the unemployment rate was as high as 10%; we have also had low interest rates
in the home mortgage industry; now these interest rates are beginning to rise.
· Are the ABAG numbers that have been recommended for the numbers of homes in Cupertino
really correct? Why build these new houses now, as there haven't been a lot of jobs available
in Cupertino? If there is going to be the boom and bust cycle of employment in the Silicon
Valley, we should go slow when we are contemplating building more houses in Cupertino. I
have always been a strong advocate of apartment rentals; I think they provide tremendous
temporary affordable places to live; mobile home parks also provide affordable arena for
families with children.
· I hope that we will be cautious in our growth.
Shishir Mukherjee, resident:
· I am a member of the General Plan Task Force.
· Cupertino is a unique city, different ÍÌ"om other various cities because of the high quality high
schools and also DeAnza College, which is one of the best community colleges in the country.
· One clarification question: we have talked about this job/housing ratio formula; when a new
student admits into DeAnza, is that a job? My guess is not. A new high school student usually
lives with his family and there is no housing demand; but a student at DeAnza probably needs
housing; and there is a traffic demand created by DeAnza College. Is there any way we are
taking this into account, because otherwise now that it is becoming more difficult to enter into
Cal., the demand of education into DeAnza College would increase, and that would really
create saturation problems in that area.
· I need to see this clarification; what is the plan we have taken into account for this factor of
DeAnza College and its growth, over which we do not have much control.
· As an individual person living in the city, my needs have changed since my son graduated. I
do not have a need to live in Cupertino, although I like the city and would like to continue to
live here, but I found since I retired and moved some things into my home, my home is not big
enough and there is no where else I can afford to move to, even if the value of my present
property is quite high.
· One of the areas the city should relax to some extent is how I can build onto what I have, or
build a grandparent unit in the back yard and I can continue to live in the city which I hope
will continue to manage its growth.
Cupertino Planning Commission
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June 12,2005
Chair Wong:
· Questioned if the General Plan Task Force takes into account DeAnza College's growth.
Ms. Wordell:
· I would imagine the impact of that would be strictly through our environmental analysis and
traffic projections, and I know we talked about whether those models includes the anticipated
growth of DeAnza College; I cannot remember the answer, but will check.
· I don't know whether it would play into our General Plan although we have some policies
about encouraging them to include some commercial uses.
Mr. Piasecki:
· Said they would like to see DeAnza College more externalized, have some commercial on
campus site. From the traffic standpoint, we would like to encourage them to do more of the
remote learning because it doesn't mean the student never sees the campus, it may mean that
1/5 of their classes are over the computer or cable TV which reduces a trip. We may want to
look at policies that encourage them to get highly innovative in that area; they are pretty
innovative now, but the more they do that, the less it reduces the impact of the traffic.
Roger Costa, resident:
· Was a member of the General Plan Task Force.
· I echo Mr. Piasecki's comment in his opening; and recommend that they think strategically
about the General Plan rather than tactically. While the General Plan is a 10 year document, I
recommend that you think longer term, perhaps 20 or 30 years and see the next General Plan is
one of several steps over that longer planning horizon.
. As a former businessman, I know that the economic cycles of this area, our state, our nation
and the world have their ups and downs. It is constantly changing, and to make decisions
based on a snapshot of this particular instant in time, is a very dangerous thing to do. With
regard to making decisions about housing affordability or what use will sell to developers or to
the market, I think there is a tendency to look at what sells today, as opposed to what makes
long term sense for the city and the citizens that make up this city. I think a number of those
issues are critical in the decision making that you will be taking for this version of the General
Plan. I would like to speak to several of them.
· Mixed Use: The General Plan majority view was not anti-mixed use; they recommended a
judicious treatment and that is what I would like to speak to. There is a place for mixed use,
what I think you need to be careful of is applying mixed use concepts in those areas that have
long term strategic value for our city. This city unfortunately has very few large eggs in our
sales tax revenue basket. If you start to disturb those eggs, and they break or hatch and fly
away, our city is in tough financial straits, even from today's viewpoint. I would encourage
you to not in a sense infect commercial areas that have the ability to generate sales tax
revenues with mixed use applications, that have the impact of locking in the current use over
the long term. None of us are smart enough to anticipate what the need or what the market
will require in 20, 25 and 30 years.
· An example, while not an exact mixed use example, while it is still instructive, is the
controversy about the Blue Pheasant. The local homeowners are very concerned about the
impact that a commercial use has and hours of that commercial use; and they have tremendous
influence, even though the decisions associated with that commercial use were made at least in
the formative stages many years ago. To the extent that you bring homeowners into
commercial areas, they become exceedingly powerful in terms of how that area can be
redeployed over the long haul; and it begins to constrain the Planning Commissions and City
Councils of the future in terms of what the market might require at that point in time.
Cupertino Planning Commission
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June 12, 2005
· Be very careful, specifically in those areas that have revenue producing potential for our city,
like Vallco's North and South. One could envision because of their proximity to very good,
efficient !Teeway access, an area that could generate substantial revenue in the area of
restaurants and entertainment centers, putting homes in the middle of that would preclude that
sort of use for the long term. A note of caution.
· In terms of affordability, it was stated earlier that more dense housing will have less impact in
terms of the school system. The last two years I have been involved in the Coyote Valley
Specific Planning effort for the City of San Jose; they are looking at developments that are
averaging well above 20 to 40 housing units per acre and they are anticipating the same school
age contribution to their school system that they are seeing in the rest of the city; and they are
talking about 25,000 dwelling units in a very small area.
· I would encourage you not to be misled by wishful thinking and to anticipate the kind of
impact the schools would experience with higher density housing is probably not that different
than what they are experiencing today !Tom our less dense housing. The single most important
driver for our property values in this area is the quality of our school system; and we are not
talking in terms of the General Plan a difference between 2,000 and 4,000 roughly speaking
additional dwelling units; that is a very small difference in supply relative to the very large
demand that the city of Cupertino has out there for its housing. As a businessman I can recall
traveling in an airport in Asia and seeing a sign for Cupertino real estate and when asking my
business colleagues to translate they spoke to the quality of the educational system in
Cupertino as a selling point. I would submit a differential of 2,000 dwelling units over the
next 10, 20 or 30 years is miniscule in terms of the incremental demand that is out there.
Affordable housing is a myth in terms of Cupertino when you think of it in those terms.
· Good decision making, I urge you to be wise.
Dennis Whitaker, resident:
· I feel that developers want residential housing because it gets the biggest bang for the bucks,
over retail and commercial.
· What we have to do down the road in the next 10, 20 or 30 years, is find a way to bring
developers in and bring in more of a mix than just three and four bedroom units housing which
is going to impact our school system.
· Applauded Mr. Piasecki's statement that "housing should be permitted when it affects the
neighborhoods and school beneficially." He said he was proud of that statement and hoped it
works.
· Relative to Mr. Piasecki's repeated reference to the word "obsolete" as far as some of the
commercial buildings go, he said they were considered obsolete in 30 years. I am 59 years old
and I don't consider myself obsolete. The definition of obsolete - is it because of.age, is it
because of functional use, because the market hasn't supported people coming in, or is it
because we haven't gone out to attract these businesses. I think rents are a big part of
obsoleteness and I hope that word doesn't get used incorrectly in the future.
· When we bring development in, I hope we consider more of a one bedroom unit, and more
studios because I think that way my kids can come back into Cupertino; and when we talk
about affordability, I think we are all talking about our families and young people, not
anybody who comes into Cupertino, so I hope the developers can put a larger mix of studios
and one bedroom units in there.
· We had affordable housing apartments on Rainbow and the developers removed them and put
in million dollar homes in there. What is wrong with this picture about trying to keep
affordable housing here, when we kick them out; we need to make an emphasis on trying very
hard to retain our affordable housing areas so we have places for people to go who are looking
for that market.
Cupertino Planning Commission
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June 12, 2005
· When we talked about, not just focusing on density bonus; we are bringing buildings into
Vallco, we are bringing into every place else in the world, but I still don't hear an emphasis on
putting the inÍÌ"astructure in for sewage lines; I still don't hear an emphasis for green space,
and I want us to think about getting parking off the streets.
· When you think about the General Plan and you talking abut housing you need to retain the
idea that more housing means more cars and we need to figure out where we are going to put
them. I want to keep you safe for a long time and the rest of the bikers.
Vice Chair Miller:
· Responded to Mr. Whitaker's question about obsoleteness. There is a number of buildings in
town that were built many years ago in the 50s and 60s when real estate prices were much
lower and there wasn't as much worldwide competition. The way they were built was a very
inefficiently used space, and they were a collection of large individual offices and the
buildings were built structurally that way, which uses space very inefficiently. In today's
market, companies cannot afford to do that; real estate prices are much higher, space is at a
premium; the individual offices tend to go away and they tend to have this community office
where they put many desks in and the number of employees per square foot has gone up
significantly. These buildings now are obsolete ÍÌ"om the standpoint of being able to use them
in an efficient manner, and people will just not use them. In order to use them, you have to put
in a lot of money to change them, remodel them or tear them down and start again.
Tom Huganin, La Roda Court:
· There was discussion about people working here and living in Tracy; school district and city
employees, firemen and policemen. Is there a study that says where these people live and
work; I haven't seen one of these presented at anyone of these meetings, so I feel like we are
flying on they may be representing one or two persons, ten people out of a total employee
population of 1,000 or so.
· Next question is I know many people I work with who chose to live outside the area, they
chose to live in Tracy; some of them for affordability reasons, others want to live close to the
countryside, they want to be in the central valley where the mountains are closer, they can go
skiing, the schools are different; they have their reasons for doing it.
· On the ÍÌ"ont page of the Mercury news, there are people who are flying their airplanes into the
Santa Clara Valley; those people are doing this by choice; you don't just get up in a Cessna
because you have to; you want to have to fly; people want to fly. The people are choosing to
do this. Sometimes it is market forces, sometimes it is choice; I don't know if there has been a
study of these people and why they make the choices they do. Weare trying to make choices
for them without any sort of a study of why they are making those choices.
· The other thing I noticed in looking at G P 60 the land use map, is that it showed a lot of
commercial areas along DeAnza Boulevard marked in red and I think they are San Jose's. It is
confusing for the general public to look at this because that is not really our stuff, that is San
Jose; and then you all were discussing 4,000 new housing units that needed to be built in the
city. If we could broker a deal with San Jose and swap this pocket of Bollinger and Prospect
and Lawrence including the Home Depot, our problem would be solved; the Home Depot
would provide the tax revenue needed to support this stuff if San Jose was agreeable that
would help their numbers out also. I don't know if we can do this or not, but it is a possibility;
that is a solution to this problem.
Vice Chair Miller:
· I share a viewpoint different ÍÌ"om Mr. Huganin; we are not making choices for people by
trying to balance jobs and housing; I view it more as an issue of responsibility; if you create a
Cupertino Planning Commission
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June 12,2005
job in town, you are creating a need for traffic to be adjusted so we can manage the traffic; you
are creating a need for water facilities, for sewer facilities and you are also creating a need for
shelter for the individual who is going to work here.
· If we don't provide that shelter we are assuming that some other community is going to do that
and that is okay if we have an agreement with that other community. For example, if the city
of Tracy understands that our housing needs are going to be their responsibility to fill and they
agree to it, that is great; but aside ÍÌ"om having specific agreements with other communities
about that, I think it is our responsibility to fill the housing need that we have created by
generating a job.
Rod Browu, resident (representing self):
· There has been a fair amount of discussion about ensuring that we have sufficient office space
and commercial space for the next boom, and with the idea that giving up housing will
somehow prevent us from taking advantage of that next boom. I would encourage you to
remember back to that next boom, the previous boom and remember what the housing and
traffic situation was like back then. As bad as the housing and traffic situation is now, it was
much worse back then, and anything we do to improve housing now, will only help us be
ready for that boom when as people have said, what we are doing is incremental portion, it is
not going to meet the whole need, but we should at least do what we can to meet that need.
· I would also add that given all the things I mentioned in my official presentation before, that
meeting these housing needs helps us bring on that next boom.
Kevin Wu, Pacific Resources Group:
· Neutral on application.
· Purchased three properties on Tantau and also looking at more in Cupertino and Sunnyvale.
· Based on the reports by Grubb & Ellis and Cushman and Wakefield, the first quarter of 2005
they have seen a positive absorption of office space in San Francisco and Oakland, but
negative absorption in Santa Clara County. The average rents for Class A space is about $29
full service in San Francisco and about $20 for Class B, which means that given operating
expenses of $8 to $10 per square foot, you are probably getting in Class A about $12 to $15
per square foot in operating expenses. You have a net rent of about $10 to $12 per square foot.
In terms of Santa Clara County, there is about 50 million square feet of offices, about 160
million square feet of warehouse and flex spaces; at this moment San Francisco which has a
market of about 16 million square feet, has about 19% to 20% of vacancy and Santa Clara
County has about 25% square feet of vacancy; so there is a total of about 50 to 60 million
square feet available, whether it is vacant office, warehouse or flex space. What we are seeing
locally in Cupertino is that the Class A space along DeAnza Boulevard is going for $1.50
square foot with triple net leases, whereas Class B and Class C type spaces are going ÍÌ"om
between 50 cents to $1.00 per square foot, triple net, which when you are adding a lower
operating expenses in Santa Clara County it is about $6 to $8 per square foot. Given that for
any new development to be going in, given that a tenant improvement has to be paid for a new
type of space, to entice new tenants, which in these days is going to be open space with a lot of
cubes and also upgrading the roof, HV AC, and also any developers will come in here, you
have to be able to get a land for $50 to $80; otherwise it does not pencil out to do a
speculation, although we have heard rumors that there are some speculations going on and it is
fact that some high tech companies are actually starting to hire people and they are thinking
about building new things. Santa Clara County is known for the hardware, and we move to
Fremont and Milpitas for the manufacturing. For us, for example, we are trying to go out to
lease the offices at $1 per square foot triple net giving about $30 in TI, about $20 in base
Cupertino Planning Commission
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June 12, 2005
building operate, so that makes our costs about $200 per square foot, going for $12 net rent
which is a 6% cap.
Chair Wong:
· Since you are buying land here in Cupertino, do you feel comfortable tearing down the
buildings or is it easy for you to upgrade it; do you have plans to go through the General Plan
and get it rezoned for conversion for mixed use or housing?
Mr.Wu:
· Weare looking at all the options that are available, because if a commercial project is not
viable, what most landowners or developers are going to do is sit on it, they are not going to
add value to it, and over time with the inflationary nature of the economy, land prices will
appreciate.
· I admire that the people of Cupertino are trying to make the city a better city, then you have to
fine tune and work with the market, and I have seen for ourselves we are looking at a couple
more sites in Sunnyvale and sites to be released by Hewlett Packard. There you can rule out
anything; we have plans on perhaps residential, commercial, or mixed; actually on 10,501 our
intention is just to keep it as office. We will submit a permit with the city for demolition of
interior spaces, we are doing 25,000 square feet of model show suite and we are negotiating
with some tenants and previously ranging !Tom 50 cents per square foot to $1 per square foot,
anywhere between $10 to $50 TI.
· If the number works, the deal will come. Now residential is favorable but 3 or 4 years down
the road, I remember the speaker mentioned about the interest rates and if the rate hits 8, 9 or
10%, commercial may be more favorable than residential.
· We want to emphasize bio tech, because a lot of high tech in terms of R&D will stay here
rather than manufacturing.
· The vacancy rate on current properties is 100%; we are long term developers and are willing to
invest 5 to 10 years over the long term.
Joanne Tong, resident:
· Was a member of the General Plan Task Force.
· Urged careful consideration of the majority comments by the majority of the group; how they
felt it was so important to protect the city, protecting the in!Tastructure, saving the character of
the city; just being proud of what Cupertino is. We have heard so much about our schools;
please take care of our city, let's not just let it go hogwild in all directions.
· Also when we started, this was supposed to be a 10 year General Plan, but now we see that it
is a General Plan for 20 years, and I would like you to take into consideration what Mr. Costa
said in his comments.
Chair Woug:
· Clarified that it was a 20 year vision, but it will be reviewed every 10 years.
Chair Wong declared a recess.
Cupertino Planning Commission
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June 12, 2005
Chair Wong:
· Stated that the next topic would be the Hot Topic Matrix, with significant empty spots in
setbacks.
Vice Chair MiUer:
· Supports the setbacks that are in place, basically the 1: 1 ratio except for Vallco.
Com. Chen:
· Supports the 35 foot setback, but including Vallco on 1:1 ratio.
Ms. Wordell:
· Relative to Table 2A, the neighborhood other areas don't have a number there; the commercial
other areas, we don't have a number; it is not a majority on residential buildout on North
DeAnza and Bubb Road, and a small split on Vallco Park North; the majority kept the number
as built, but one vote would allow more units if they were affordable, which is a gray area.
You might want to change any numbers related to the discussion held today on jobs/housing or
conversion.
Chair Wong:
· Before we talk about the numbers, I think we should talk about the jobs/housing imbalance
and see which numbers that the commission feels comfortable with. There have been some
numbers discussed and I think the conversation we had today has been very productive.
Vice Chair Miller:
· It is confusing for me to be going back and forth between now and 2000; I would like to start
with where we are now, both in terms of how much office and industrial space we are
proposing, and then what would be the appropriate housing number based on that space.
· It looks like for the commercial space to start there we are at 3,900,000; the proposed buildout
is 4,431,000; there is roughly an additional half million square feet of commercial space that is
in the existing General Plan which I think has been agreed to by both the task force and the
staff. I would like to use that number, 500,000 square feet of additional space, moving
forward for commercial, and then the other number is the office space and that one for 2005 is
essentially the same as it was back in 2000, no change; we have one million square feet that is
being proposed of additional office space through buildout and if we did those numbers,
perhaps staff could do a quick calculation on what that means in terms of housing units.
· Thinking back to Com. Giefer's proposal, that it that office space there is a large vacancy rate
as we have heard ÍÌ"om Kevin Wu, and that we know there is significant vacancy of space and
office in the valley now that is not likely to be taken up that quickly, and reducing our
requirements for reducing our allowable office space moving forward, would not hurt us or
constrict us in any way. It is reasonable that we think about reducing that number and in that
reducing that number, we can then further reduce the requirements for the number of
residential units and still be essentially in balance moving forward which I think is a
reasonable plan.
· Perhaps staff could work out the numbers on where we are, and then we can talk about how
much office space seems reasonable to reduce, and also keeping in mind that we have talked a
little about conversion here. It may make sense that we have a conversion policy, that
conversion could be allowed and then we just specify what the requirements are, or what the
rules are, that the developer has to meet in order to allow conversion.
· Conversion doesn't automatically happen, but if in fact a developer can meet the requirements
of our conversion policy, in effect we are allowing some flexibility here, so that if the market
Cupertino Planning Commission
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June 12,2005
place sees housing as a need in terms of conversion and our rules allow it, that is fine. On the
other hand, if we have the flexibility so moving forward if housing doesn't make sense there,
that at some point in time we can do some commercial conversion of an office building on the
east side of Tantau; it equally makes sense and to allow that flexibility in our plan which is I
think Mr. Costa suggested is a good thing as well.
· I like the idea of possibly having a conversion policy, but yet we are not taking the numbers
out, we are just allowing for the policy; but specifically having a proposal where we reduce the
number of square feet of office space doesn't hurt us at all, it just helps us with our numbers.
Com. Chen: No comments.
Com. Giefer:
· Disclosed that she was a signer of the Minority Report, although have not been involved in any
subsequent meetings that may have occurred becoming a Planning Commissioner.
· Supports reducing the total amount of office square footage in the General Plan, I think
500,000 sounds like a good number; it has been in the General Plan for a long time; we
immediately relieved some of the tension of our jobs/housing ratio though I don't know
exactly what that would be; I didn't do the numbers on it.
· I think leaving the commercial intact; and just to clarify the commercial number currently has
the commitments for Vallco redevelopment, (answer: 535,000) and that is included in 2A
(answer: yes); so I would like to keep some additional unallocated over unbuilt commercial in
the Plan to give us some flexibility there because we are going to do a great job of adding
additional retail to the city to increase our tax base. I think that in trying to look forward, we
heard a number of people saying that we really needed to be strategic and think about what our
city looks like in the next 20 years. I do believe that even by making a decrease in office, we
have enough space currently an enough room to meet demand and needs, especially given the
fact that 'we will update this Plan in the coming years, and I hope we take a hard look at the
numbers at that time.
Com. Saadati:
· We became aware that there is vacancy in the offices; what is the vacancy rate in the housing
and apartments; because the rent due to the change in economy went down; a lot of apartments
became vacant.
· Is that still true; I know the rents are picking up slightly?
Chair Wong:
· As a property manager, in west San Jose, we are running about 10% to 15% vacancy, and our
rents are just barely stabilizing. I think what drives Cupertino's rental market is the schools,
but we are still not out of the woods yet.
Mr. Piasecki:
· We have an applicant seeking to do a conversion of an apartment complex into a condo
complex. Under the condo conversion ordinance, they are required to do market studies of
vacancy rates, and the larger apartments we are finding it just over 5%, and in the smaller
apartment complexes, fourplexes it is under 5%, so it is still pretty tight, and they have to
demonstrate that there is over 5% before they are allowed to proceed ahead under our condo
conversion ordinance. They are teetering on the edge, so for rough number for Cupertino, we
are doing better than west San Jose, we are around 5%, probably a function of our school
district.
Cupertino Planning Commission
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June 12, 2005
Com. Saadati:
· I think we need to remain flexible; if we reduce the offices, and the situation in 3 or 4 years
changes, as long as we have flexibility to be able to accommodate that, I don't see any
problem with reducing it. If we can hold to these numbers for 5 years, it would be great.
· Relative to commercial, the 4,400,000 is appropriate; there is going to be conversion even with
that number. You would have to redo an old building, and instead of one story, it could be a 2
story commercial to increase the space. There are opportunities to increase the spaces in
commercial as well as providing residential.
· I support reducing the office spaces; however, we need to be flexible and provide flexibility.
Chair Wong:
· I agree with Mr. Piasecki that if it is in the Monta Vista area, it is 5%, the 10 to 15% was
countywide and in the city of San Jose, and the Lynbrook area, we are closer to our 10%.
Com. Chen:
· We heard many numbers this afternoon and of course many are estimates; and in the numbers
we think it is based on good record in the past, but does that indicate future we don't know.
· I agree with Com. Saadati that flexibility is important and assuming the job/housing balance
rate is correct, and the reduction of office square footage is a way to go to achieve the
jobs/housing balance; so I would support Com. Giefer's suggestion to reduce the office square
footage by a half million square feet.
· I support Vice Chair Miller's suggestion strongly to building a process to review the
conversions, and I think it is also another way to achieve the flexibility in order to reach the
balance that we all hope to see.
Chair Woug:
· I think all of us are in line, and I agree with Com. Giefer that we need to reduce the industrial,
we definitely want to keep our commercial component; if Vallco doesn't build it up I am sure
that will accommodate other folks who want to come in and build commercial over the next 10
to 20 years.
· Relative to conversion, that has to be used as a last resort. I want to make sure that we use
areas that were currently zoned what they are supposed to; I don't feel comfortable in
conversion at this point unless there is some kind of component that will benefit the
community; it could be a community park or something that will sway me but it is very
important to keep our industrial parks in the area. I know that Vice Chair Miller suggested the
perimeters, but I am hesitant on that; so conversion would be a last resort.
Ms. Wordell:
· What would be missing is where to reduce it.
Mr. Piasecki:
· Let me also pick up on I think Vice Chair Miller's request that if we were to take a half million
square feet out of the office, I am not sure if Com. Giefer is indicating that it would come out
of the new number or the pace, or you don't care. But if you had a net add of only one million
square feet between the additional commercial and the additional office, then it would create
about 3,000 jobs divided by 1.5, to give you 2,000 units over what is on the ground right now,
which is higher than the task force was recommending, but it would allow you to maintain a
balance of jobs and housing for that million square feet.
Cupertino Planning Commission
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June 12,2005
Vice Chair Miller:
· It answers my question; what you are proposing is that the number moving forward is 2,000
housing units.
Mr. Piasecki:
· Over the existing on the ground and with a million square feet over the existing on the ground
or committed, which would keep you at balance; if you keep it flexible and say if we allow
conversion, then we could backfill it into the office pool, so that we have no more than a net
add of 500,000 and that does give you some of that conversion capability in selected locations.
Ms. Wordell:
· One thought about office square footage; if you look at Vallco Park South, I am thinking
perhaps the Hewlett Packard lands might be possible to take a large share of that reduction in
that area, if you do not foresee office.
Chair Wong:
· For Vallco Park South, if we have a higher density, that is what I was going for; we could
accommodate some of those 2,000 units. When we talk about conversion are we talking about
conversion that was already existing; let me clarify; it was in Vallco Park South, I am looking
at specific areas that were open to conversion.
Ms. Wordell:
· On the conversion map, we don't actually show the Hewlett Packard lands as converted
because they don't have any development on them; I am sure that office FAR has been
attributed to those properties in the General Plan and that if we took some away, you could
reduce that number.
Chair Wong:
· There are other areas like Homestead, Vallco Park South, maybe some areas in the City Center
and Heart of the City; my direction is try to put the housing toward the center of the city and
away ÍÌ"om industrial, the hillsides and ÍÌ"om the R-l neighborhoods.
Mr. Piasecki:
· Clarified that the actual candidate conversion sites were limited; there is only about a half
dozen that you might even want to consider that go along with what you are suggesting, but
that is for the Planning Commission to figure out; where would you entertain that idea? It
would be at the periphery next to existing residential for the most part, and in areas that are not
already shown as even sales tax generators of any substance.
Vice Chair Miller:
· Even as we allow this housing, we should have something in the General Plan that talks about
that we are striving in some way to make the generation of housing revenue neutral to some
extent and perhaps that means that somehow we try to balance the development of commercial
with housing. I am not sure, I would need to think about it more as to how we could have an
effective policy to do that.
· As housing comes in, it is not just creating more needs for services, but it is to some extent
balanced with some of the commercial and office development. At buildout it will all be
balanced but we could have some ups and downs in between and if perhaps staff has some
ideas or thoughts on that subject, I think that would be good to hear.
Cupertino Planning Commission
27
June 12,2005
· There are other ideas that some people cringe at; for example putting in Mello Roos districts
for the housing that it does go in, that helps the housing pay for itself by the actual residents
who move in there. We should probably have some words in there that say we are going to
allow this housing, we need to do it in order to balance, but we are also trying to keep a
balanced community, not just at the end of build out, but as we move along; and again I am not
sure if it is feasible or not, but I would like staff to consider it.
Mr. Piasecki:
· If the Planning Commission agrees, we can do that and come back to you during these special
meetings with some suggested language.
Chair Wong:
· I would like to look into what Vice Chair Miller suggested; not saying I would support Mello
ROQs, but I would like to get some information on it.
Vice Chair Miller:
· If we are taking 500,000 square feet out of the office market, then perhaps as another task for
staff, they could propose that 500,000 square feet is going to come out.
· The last task is, if we are adding 2,000 housing units, perhaps tomorrow we could talk about
exactly where do those housing units fit? I agree with Chairman Wong that we should keep
them away ÍÌ"om the current residential districts and we should put them in some of these areas
where this higher density development is already going, so that we protect our neighborhoods
as much as possible.
Com. Giefer:
· I hope my request is easily available to staff. We are always talking about Vallco South and
special planning districts around the Vallco area and conversion of the old Hewlett Packard
sites there, and we have a proposal coming to us at some point in the future.
· I would like to know the impact of the population of Cupertino on that end of town; it is a fairly thin
slice of Cupertino on the east side of town, and what are we actually doing to that part of town, because
it seems to me that we are potentially doubling it based on the current Rl residents that we have in
Rancho Rinconada and other areas. I would like to know what the population is there; how many units
we have already committed in total, and ones that are currently being constructed and ones that we have
approved already.
· How many residents do we have on the other side of Stevens Creek, between Stevens Creek,
Bollinger and Wolfe, because I think that speaks to the inÍÌ"astructure issue we have.
Mr. Piasecki:
· Figures can be provided; keep in mind that anything you do, whether it is residential or non-
residential is in place of something that would have happened there and there were projections
or discussions about having an office park that would have generated quite a bit of traffic and
quite a bit of even a larger daytime population.
· The population issue isn't just simply residents; it is daytime, and nighttime population, and
the infrastructure to support it isn't just for residents since the sewers support offices as well as
hotels or commercial as much as anything else.
Chair Wong:
· I agree; whatever we do - an office park or housing, there will be an impact and I think the
residents need to know, and we need to know as well to.
Cupertino Planning Commission
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June 12,2005
Vice Chair Miller:
· Since it seems like there is majority of commissioners who are interested in looking further at
conversion, perhaps staff could also propose some language in terms of what the requirements
might be for doing a conversion; that we could take a look at and discuss.
Com. Chen:
· I just wanted to add onto the support for the additional housing units for the same area we just
discussed; we talked about the inÍÌ"astructure.
· I would like to know the traffic impact as well. I am still waiting for a response ÍÌ"om the traffic
engineer on the impact of adding the difference between 100 and 700 units to the same area.
Ms. Wordell:
· We may not know that until the last meeting because the EIR consultants will be back at the
last meeting to tell us if there is any additional analysis needed for your final recommendation.
· We talked before about how the alternatives have already set some parameters for a higher
consideration; we need to compare their top alternative with what you come up with and see if
it has already been analyzed, and if they can give an answer to that, then that was the
Administrative Draft, the highest residential alternative that they analyzed, and we will have to
look at that number and where they put those units to see how well it matches what you come
up with.
Motion:
Motion by Vice Chair Miller, second by Com. Saadati, to allow conversion
under specific conditions: (1) that the conversion to a new use is not in the
middle of an existing zone, e.g. not in favor of residential in the middle of an
industrial zone; however, if tbe area to be converted to a different use and if
it is pbysically next to the same use it is going to, so it's basically an edge
zone; that would he one condition. Another condition might be that there is
some benefit that we see to the city and that also the issues of the impacts are
addressed in some way so maybe in terms of gnidance as to what that would
be; but the motion is to allow nnder specific circumstances, conversion.
Com. Saadati:
· Vice Chair Miller mentioned that a specific condition, and that it basically would fall under the
category of being flexible, so as long as we are flexible, and looking at each situation, by its
own merits, then we decide if we allow it or not, but in general it is something that we would
entertain.
Mr. Piasecki:
· Clarified that you have to remember that the current General Plan has an overlay of residential
just about anywhere. I think the quick pro quo in this equation of allowing some conversion to
occur, is you take it off some other areas; the criteria by their own definition would say these
are the candidate sites and these aren't; that is different than our current Plan, you are getting
something in return for the concern about allowing residential into the nucleus of a high tech
park or a commercial district as you are also taking away that option at the same time that you
are allowing it at the edge, so just so the Commission is clear about that. I think that is what
we are saying.
· Rephrased his previous comment: Along with establishing criteria that would specify when
and how it might occur, conversion of certain sites, the same criteria would eliminate certain
sites, that is exactly what you said; if it is allowed where it is contiguous to residential, it
would not allow it in the middle of the Hewlett Packard campus, or the Apple campus, that is
Cupertino Planning Commission
29
June 12, 2005
different than our current Plan; our current Plan does allow a residential overlay just about
everywhere. So we would be changing that, and I think that is a very significant concession; it
poured what Chair Wong was talking about, and we have heard ÍÌ"om other speakers that the
concern about allowing residential everywhere; so I think that is what we are trying to say; be
strategic about where it is allowed and where it is not allowed.
Com. Giefer:
· If we did not have anything regarding conversion in our General Plan, would that preclude us
ÍÌ"om allowing it, and would we need a General Plan change to allow it in the future?
Mr. Piasecki:
· Under the current plan, that has not been the case, because of what Ms. Wordell spoke to, the
land use map said office or residential, commercial or residential; it was governed by whether
there were remaining units available. The problem with that is that philosophically you seem
to be saying it is okay, but someone else has already gathered the units or has utilized all the
units available, and that ends up being confusing to people, because they get the impression
that it's okay if you can just allocate more units so they apply for an amendment to the General
Plan to add more units.
· We need to be more specific about the criteria under which we would allow it to occur and
then the units that are available, we ought to be more flexible. We ought to have those units
available and allow them to move ÍÌ"om one area to another in some cases.
Ms. Wordell:
· We did add some text in the Draft ÍÌ"om the beginning that says the numbers are flexible
among the different areas, as long as the impacts are evaluated. That is something different
than our current General Plan.
Vice Chair Miller:
· I think what we are trying to do is add clarity in terms of, if a developer comes to town, and he
is thinking about buying something, he has a better idea of what he can expect or not expect,
as opposed to it is just a blank sheet of paper and he tries to negotiate whatever he can.
· Weare putting some guidelines down and some clarity in terms of what would be allowed and
what wouldn't be allowed, which I think can only benefit us, and at the same time we are also
leaving the policy flexible enough to allow that it could be an office converted to a commercial
center or to residential depending on what made most sense for that particular property.
Chair Woug:
· I offer a difference of opinion; I think that conversion should be location by location on the
individual; and I think what you are suggesting is that it is a blanket for the entire city; it could
be applied to Vallco North on the east side of Tantau since it is abutting residential in the city
of Santa Clara.
Vice Chair MiUer:
· I wasn't making it specific to a particular area, but I think the criterion would limit us to very
few areas in town where it could occur.
Chair Wong:
· My concern is that, not saying that we are going to do it, or that is the city policy; once you
allow the east side of Tantau; and let's say that the office buildings across the street are for
sale, then it just goes east to west, and the other side you already have the Hamptons, there is
Cupertino Planning Commission
30
June 12,2005
an application coming up, and it will just go west to east; sooner or later Hewlett Packard will
be surrounded; then soon Hewlett Packard will say they don't have any room, and if they go
out of business or they split up, and eventually everything gets eaten up.
· On Val1co South I am open to some properties for conversion since they are surrounded by
mixed use and shopping, but the policy is just too broad, and that is why I don't support it. I
used those examples to explain why I am not supporting it.
Vice Chair Miller:
· How would you change it into a form that would be more supportable.
Chair Wong:
· I would use conversions in certain areas, with the exception of Vallco North, Bubb Road and
North DeAnza. I feel those three areas are very important to keep the industrial area vibrant.
Vice Chair Miller:
· From my standpoint, that is too limiting. I could see changing it so that we prevented the
continual erosion of a particular industrial area; that we had some further language that said
only a certain amount of it could happen, and that you could not erode the entire area slowly
over a period of time.
· If we had some policy like that in place, it may be more palatable; but now the areas we are
looking at are the east side of Tantau and one area on Bubb Road, and some areas in South
Vall co, and to say we are not going to allow them, I think is too restrictive.
Com. Chen:
· I see that potential conversion is limited by the number of units allowed and there are other
restrictions that we can put in place to control the eventual migration of residential into
industrial as just described.
· I agree with that and understand that, and I question if there is need to keep industrial isolated
ÍÌ"om residential.
Chair Wong:
· Yes, I believe it should be isolated. The Chinese Church is an example where there was a
great deal of upheaval with Apple Computers and other companies surrounding it because they
were concerned that many of those companies had chemicals that in the future could be a
hazard to the swim school, the church, or quasi-public use. I can see that same thing going on
at Bubb Road; and at DeAnza Park and I want to keep an area that will be easier even though I
did vote for that one exception.
· I am seeing more things getting converted and slowly things disappearing, but that is how I
feel.
Com. Giefer:
· Echoing Chair Wong's concern; when I think about growth industries, again the strategic
vision that we are trying to obtain as part of our role here; bio tech is a booming business and
is not going to be lower bio tech jobs that come to our area; it is going to be the traditional
research and development jobs here. Those are companies that are going to be using
chemicals that mayor may not be hazardous to one's health; I am concerned about putting
residential in areas where we potentially are exposing future residents to hazardous waste, bio
waste, which we do our best to control, but the semiconductor industry did not understand
what their discharge did to the groundwater. I don't know in 20 years from now what might
happen and I am concerned about creeping housing around some of our strongest industrial
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June 12,2005
sites, specifically around Hewlett Packard and Apple because we need to make sure that the
largest tax contributors to our cities have more space to grow.
· I would rather take every application that comes before us on its own merit and have us make
the decision when it comes to us so that we can evaluate it, as opposed to putting blanket
conversion language with a set of requirements, that if they are met, a developer is going to
stand across the dais ÍÌ"om us and say he met the criteria and wants to do the development. I
would rather again for flexibility reasons, keep it loose, and we make the decision as the
applications come to us.
Com. Saadati:
· I stated in that fashion also; I didn't say blanket approval, because if it is not suitable
environmentally, then it is not going to be approved. When we look at it as the information
comes forward. If you have industrial area and you have a lot of people working there, those
who work there, their health is in jeopardy. It may change, but there is specific criteria that
needs to be met at the state and federal guidelines, but we need to evaluate it and approve it if
it makes sense, if it is not detrimental to anyone's health.
Vice Chair Miller:
· I agree with that, and I also agree with Com. Giefer, the last thing we want to do is put housing
into an area which has toxic groundwater or toxins are emanating ÍÌ"om the ground. I thought
what the motion was effectively what it does do is we do look at each application and evaluate
it; if the motion doesn't read that way then we should change it to be such.
· I object to specifically exclude any areas and I think if we can include areas and yet still
perhaps still satisfy Chair Wong's concern about the eventual erosion of an industrial area by,
as Com. Chen suggested, eliminating the number of units that we would actually allow; or
some other way of preventing that occurrence ÍÌ"om happening.
Mr. Piasecki:
· Suggested that staff bring back language; we have heard all the concerns, and perhaps we can
help navigate these waters.
Vice Chair Miller:
· Withdrew his motion.
Com. Cheu:
· Accepted the withdrawal of the motion
Ms. Wordell:
· Discussed the scheduling of the special meetings, including Monday, June 13, at 6:45 p.m.,
Tuesday, June 14 at 6 p.m. and Wednesday, June 15.
Chair Wong:
· Asked if there could be a summary to give to the Planning Commissioners and public before a
vote is taken, because of the voluminous materials relative to the application and the short time
span to review them.
Ms. Wordell:
· I don't know about a summary; this is by element, it is brief as can be; however, there is a lot
of them. It probably would be a good idea to get a sense of how many of them are substantive;
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June 12,2005
many are not. It is probably more foreboding than it really is. That is why I suggested if we
could identify the consensus areas, and you would have to pull it off consent, if you even
wanted to discuss it and that would help us get down to the ones that need discussion.
Chair Wong:
. Requested that Exhibit F be put on the website for the public to be able to access it.
ADJOURNMENT:
The meeting was adjourned to the special Planning Commission
meeting of June 13,2005 at 6:45 p.m. in the old City Hall Chambers.
SUBMITTED BY:
~
Ilis, Recording Secretary
Approved as Amended: July 26, 2005