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CC 12-20-2022 Late_Oral_Written CommunicationsCC 12-20-2022 Written Communications Oral Communications From:Jenny Griffin To:City Council; City of Cupertino Planning Commission; City Clerk Cc:grenna5000@yahoo.com Subject:City Council Meetings in January Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 9:22:16 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Dear City Council: Do we know how the City Council meetings will be conducted in the Month of January? The vote on the meetings was very confusing and did not Seem to indicate to the public what the status of the meetings are. I must say this City Council meeting tonight has been the weirdest City Council Meeting I have attended in 22 years. I have grave concerns about the public being able to attend the City Council meetings Because they are being running so differently. I guess the first question is how are the City Council Meetings being conducted in January? Thank you. Sincerely, Jennifer Griffin From:Jenny Griffin To:City Clerk Subject:Fwd: Democratic Meetings Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 7:45:58 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. FYI. Please add to the Public Record for the City Council Meeting. Thank you. -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Democratic Meetings From: Jenny Griffin <grenna5000@yahoo.com> Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2022, 7:43 PM To: citycouncil@cupertino.org,planningcommission@cupertino.org,cityclerk@cupertino.org CC: grenna5000@yahoo.com Dear City Council: Am I going to be denied the ability to see my City Council in action in my City Council Chambers? I think that it is very important that we have hybrid meetings. People Can attend on Zoom or in person. When does democracy begin again in our City Council Chambers? Thank you. Sincerely, Jennifer Griffin From:John Zhao To:City Council; City Clerk; Cupertino City Manager"s Office; Luke Connolly Subject:Coordination between Housing Element and VTA Planning Processes? Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 8:02:54 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Dear Councilmembers, et al., I am writing to highlight that VTA has begun the planning process for their Visionary Network (VN) [1] [2] and Valley Transportation Plan 2050 (VTP 2050) [3]. Given how interlinked housing, transportation, and land use are, I believe it would be wise for the City of Cupertino to coordinate its Housing Element planning with VTA. To my understanding, VTA staff will be meeting with city staff to get an understanding of our city's needs. I know that many community members are unsatisfied with VTA service in Cupertino. Is the City planning to conduct any of its own community engagement to ensure that our community's needs are addressed in this process? Additionally, repeating my points in my previous email regarding Housing Element feedback, I think that our Housing Element's site inventory and programs and policies should encourage transit-oriented development, particularly along Stevens Creek Boulevard and De Anza Boulevard, which have been designated as Priority Development Areas (PDAs) under MTC- ABAG's Plan Bay Area 2050 (see map). Thank you for your consideration. I hope we can collaborate within our city and with VTA to plan sustainably for our future. Sincerely, John Zhao From:Marilyn Beck To:City Council Cc:Neil Park-McClintick; City Clerk; Cupertino City Manager"s Office Subject:Re: Comprehensive redo of housing element draft needed Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 7:40:52 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. I also agree with Neil's careful and thorough analysis of the housing element draft. My kids can't afford to live here, just like so many other young adults who grew up in Cupertino. I would love to see more affordable housing options going forward. Marilyn On Tue, Dec 20, 2022 at 7:09 PM Frank Geefay <fgeefay@gmail.com> wrote: Neil, Your comprehensive summery of the inequities of the current Housing Element draft is great and good enough to use as an outline for the next draft redo. It has vision of what is needed for the sustainable growth of our city to reduce car dependency and traffic by strategic walkable housing and shopping developments. Thank you. Frank On Tue, Dec 20, 2022 at 2:44 PM Neil Park-McClintick <neil@cupertinoforall.org> wrote: To: City Clerk Kirsten Squarcia Councilmember JR Fruen Mayor Hung Wei Councilmember Liang Chao Councilmember Kitty Moore City Manager Pamela Wu Councilmember Sheila Mohan Comprehensive redo of housing element draft needed From the beginning of the housing element update process, community members have repeatedly demanded an ambitious, honest, and conforming process from the City of Cupertino. This means a resulting product that realistically outlines a path forward for not only building 4,000+ homes, but also transforming the affordable housing landscape for families across all incomes and backgrounds. However, this outcome is only achievable if the leadership of Cupertino truly believes that the HE update is a unique opportunity of a lifetime, rather than a burdensome task. The recently released housing element draft unfortunately seems to indicate the latter rather than the former. If we wish to preserve any hope of dictating our own future as a community, Council and staff must conduct a comprehensive redrafting process, with the following changes: 1. Site Inventory: Reduce reliance on pipeline projects, expand the number of planned units in the “heart of the city,” and avoid planning homes that are unlikely to be built. Nearly ⅔ of the planned inventory is pipeline projects, with roughly 80% of those projects being Vallco and the Hamptons. The Hamptons in particular is unlikely to actually be built out as 600 units, given no recent developer interest and recent renovations from Irvine Company. Meanwhile, less than 5% of the inventory is composed of the heart of the city, the main portion of Cupertino, where most development should be slated. 2. Programs and Policies: Urge staff and consultants to focus on new policies and programs modeled after other cities’ housing elements–with a framework of the 3 Ps in mind: production of homes, preservation of existing homes, and protection of renters. Cities like Emeryville and Mountain View have robust policies for all three of these planks. Cupertino’s current draft introduces few new policies, instead relying almost entirely on our existing ones, which have obviously failed to meet our housing needs. Additionally, the draft unnecessarily restricts proposed policies, such as only limiting parking requirements for SROs and studios, instead of applying a reduction in parking to all new homes. a. Sample 1: Adaptive Re-use. The City will examine opportunities to allow for the adaptive reuse/conversion or replacement of vacant or underperforming commercial spaces and parking structures to residential units. The City will analyze the feasibility of an Adaptive Reuse Ordinance that would target the conversion of select types existing structures and of spaces that may include ground-floor retail in an existing mixed-use structure, part or all of an office building or parking structure b. Sample 2: Live/Work Units. Assess existing Live/Work regulations to see if any modification needs to be made to encourage development of Live/Work units in an effort to diversify the City's housing types. Encourage the development or conversion of affordable live/workspace units, and ensure owners of existing Live/Work units are aware of the Homebuyer Assistance Program available for their unit when marketing their unit for resale, in an effort to expand affordable homeownership options. c. Sample 3: Family Friendly Housing. Promote housing designs and unit mix to attract multigenerational households by encouraging developers to include housing features and more bedrooms (including four-bedroom units), as well as other on-site amenities, such as usable outdoor open space for multigenerational use, and multipurpose rooms that can be used for after-school homework clubs, computer, art, or other resident activities. d. Sample 4: The creation of a tenant relocation assistance ordinance. r more rental units have been displaced because of renovations, redevelopment, and similar activities. The City’s ordinance is intended to help lower income households with moving costs, deposits, and securing replacement housing. e. Sample 5: Rental Preservation Program. The City will provide low interest rate loans to existing rental property owners to improve the habitable condition(s) of their rental units occupied by very low, low and moderate-income tenants. Performance Metric(s) # of rental units renovated; # of special need units assisted; Amount of Funds Expended f. Sample 6: Resident Engagement. The City will evaluate its current committees and commission membership to determine if the membership is reflective of the socio-economic and racial mix of Cupertino or if there are any missing voices. If it is determined, there are missing voices, the City will enhance its outreach efforts to encourage residents from all socio-economic groups and racial backgrounds to serve on committees and commissions when position become available. The City will investigate the restructuring of the Housing Committee to ensure that the committee has at least one member that resides in a BMR unit, at least one member that is a tenant, and at least one member that is a homeowner. g. Sample 7: . Prohousing Designation. The City will seek a Prohousing Designation from the California Housing and Community Development for enacting favorable zoning and land use policies, policies to accelerate the production of housing, reduction of construction and development policies, and providing financial subsidies. The Prohousing designation will provide incentives, in the form of additional points or preferences in the scoring of competitive applications for housing and infrastructure. 3. Needs Analysis: The needs analysis is woefully inadequate for the unique housing context of Cupertino, with no references to the extreme unmet housing needs of our daytime residents–instead choosing to focus on those who already can afford to live here. In particular, we see tremendous housing struggles among De Anza college students, adjunct faculty, teachers, low-wage workers, non-profit workers, young adults, and seniors. For example, Cupertino severely lacks in apartments and smaller units that would be ideal for a young professional or community college student. Additionally, with regard to AFFH, our draft does not provide a realistic assessment of segregation in our region; we know that Cupertino has one of the lowest Latino/Latinx populations of surrounding cities–of just 3-4% compared to San Jose’s 30%. As such, one of our intended outcomes should be to bridge this gap and greatly increase housing opportunities for Latino, Black, and Southeast Asian communities of color. 4. Constraints Analysis: Several constraints appear to be missing, including but not limited to (1) local control and neighborhood opposition, (2) underutilized land such as dying strip malls, (3) relatively low surface area for development, (4) state law evasion/loopholes, (5) permit processing times Additionally, several other state laws are missing that are in need of compliance like AB 2097 and AB 2011. 5. Community Outreach: While Cupertino has done some community outreach with regard to the housing element, it does not seem to have actually translated into actual policies or programs. The purpose of community outreach is to hear from traditionally underserved communities, so new ideas emerge for how to meet these specific housing needs. Instead, there are dozens of pages of outreach, with no actual effect on the resulting sites, programs, or policies. Additionally, much of the feedback critical of Cupertino’s approach to the inventory appears to be missing. The City must also be honest about its failures in approaching community outreach, such as the last City Council dismantling the stakeholder engagement group, or the anti-housing bias within the housing survey. 6. Transit-Oriented Development & mixed use: Cupertino’s housing element draft does not seem to contain a vision for the built-environment, as it isolates the thousands of planned homes from a much needed coinciding growth of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, reduced car use, and vibrant, mixed-use spaces. Instead, it makes few references to transit-oriented development and even unnecessarily restricts mixed- use. We should be planning our housing future around the reduction of car reliance and the promotion of our Climate Action Plan 2.0. 7. Timeline: Cupertino is last in the entire county and will no doubt lose local control under the builder’s remedy. Council should direct its staff and consultant team to focus entirely on more-or-less redoing the housing element draft as quickly as possible. The community would like to see an actual timeline and plan of action for achieving an ambitious housing element in a short period of time. 8. Rezoning of Vallco: The Rise (formerly Vallco) is the most important project for the City to meet its RHNA. It includes more than half of the City’s total RHNA and 136% of its low income units. One impediment is that the current GP and zoning do not allow for a feasible project. While the SB 35 approval is currently in effect, if it were to lapse, the current GP/zoning designations are too restrictive and no project would occur. To be consistent with other housing element inventory sites, the City should amend the General Plan and zoning to be consistent with The Rise project. Strategy HE-1.3 that would make a residential-only project available “by right” is insufficient. The HE assumes that half of the units will be affordable, but that is only feasible if there are other supporting uses to help pay for the high cost of affordable housing, such as office space. 9. Improving fee reduction language: The HE makes clear that the City’s impact fees are both very high and an outlier in the region. This can inhibit the proliferation of new housing and deter affordable projects. One of the HE strategies calls for a reduction in fees, but does not establish a clear path forward for which fees would be reduced or which steps would be taken. Additionally, fee waivers beyond parkland fees should be readily permissible in cases of affordable housing projects. As a whole, the fee regime should be thoughtfully restructured and reevaluated to strike a balance between fulfilling important city functions, while not impeding new housing development. Members across the community look forward to working with this new council and City Manager’s office to produce an ambitious housing element update that matches the innovation and ambition of our great town. Sincerely, Neil Park-McClintick Chair, Cupertino for All -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "membership" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to membership+unsubscribe@cupertinoforall.org. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/cupertinoforall.org/d/msgid/membership/CALFFouPs-nYxfLeYXiSGWmhP- Lk%3DQZZWNRZ1%3Duhf_WO5ncs2Gg%40mail.gmail.com. -- -Frank -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "membership" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to membership+unsubscribe@cupertinoforall.org. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/cupertinoforall.org/d/msgid/membership/CACw8Sp0H2ndNKm33etZQXCsn8JSKsexCRD- 3A5ijvW064-jPOw%40mail.gmail.com. From:Noel E To:rajat mehndiratta Cc:Frank Geefay; Neil Park-McClintick; City Clerk; City Council; Cupertino City Manager"s Office; membership Subject:Re: Comprehensive redo of housing element draft needed Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 7:36:56 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. What an excellent, comprehensive, well thought out, and organized outline. I agree the council should use the outline for a redraft. On Tue, Dec 20, 2022 at 7:25 PM rajat mehndiratta <r@jats.email> wrote: Seconding everything said above. Appreciate the work from Neil & I hope our city considers and incorporates Neil's well-researched suggestions. At the swearing in, Mayor Wei set an ambitious, commendable goal: representing not just present residents but also future residents- daytime residents, residents, students who would be residents, teachers who should be residents, and seniors who should be allowed to remain residents. I'm proud we have the kind of leaders that can set such a goal. But our Housing Element draft from October/November could not be further from pursuing this goal. If we want to set the bar high for Cupertino's future, our government must raise that bar in the Housing Element. rajat mehndiratta r@jats.email | [ɾə'dʒət̪] or /rəˈdʒat/ | rajats.site On Tue, Dec 20, 2022 at 7:09 PM Frank Geefay <fgeefay@gmail.com> wrote: Neil, Your comprehensive summery of the inequities of the current Housing Element draft is great and good enough to use as an outline for the next draft redo. It has vision of what is needed for the sustainable growth of our city to reduce car dependency and traffic by strategic walkable housing and shopping developments. Thank you. Frank On Tue, Dec 20, 2022 at 2:44 PM Neil Park-McClintick <neil@cupertinoforall.org> wrote: To: City Clerk Kirsten Squarcia Councilmember JR Fruen Mayor Hung Wei Councilmember Liang Chao Councilmember Kitty Moore City Manager Pamela Wu Councilmember Sheila Mohan Comprehensive redo of housing element draft needed From the beginning of the housing element update process, community members have repeatedly demanded an ambitious, honest, and conforming process from the City of Cupertino. This means a resulting product that realistically outlines a path forward for not only building 4,000+ homes, but also transforming the affordable housing landscape for families across all incomes and backgrounds. However, this outcome is only achievable if the leadership of Cupertino truly believes that the HE update is a unique opportunity of a lifetime, rather than a burdensome task. The recently released housing element draft unfortunately seems to indicate the latter rather than the former. If we wish to preserve any hope of dictating our own future as a community, Council and staff must conduct a comprehensive redrafting process, with the following changes: 1. Site Inventory: Reduce reliance on pipeline projects, expand the number of planned units in the “heart of the city,” and avoid planning homes that are unlikely to be built. Nearly ⅔ of the planned inventory is pipeline projects, with roughly 80% of those projects being Vallco and the Hamptons. The Hamptons in particular is unlikely to actually be built out as 600 units, given no recent developer interest and recent renovations from Irvine Company. Meanwhile, less than 5% of the inventory is composed of the heart of the city, the main portion of Cupertino, where most development should be slated. 2. Programs and Policies: Urge staff and consultants to focus on new policies and programs modeled after other cities’ housing elements–with a framework of the 3 Ps in mind: production of homes, preservation of existing homes, and protection of renters. Cities like Emeryville and Mountain View have robust policies for all three of these planks. Cupertino’s current draft introduces few new policies, instead relying almost entirely on our existing ones, which have obviously failed to meet our housing needs. Additionally, the draft unnecessarily restricts proposed policies, such as only limiting parking requirements for SROs and studios, instead of applying a reduction in parking to all new homes. a. Sample 1: Adaptive Re-use. The City will examine opportunities to allow for the adaptive reuse/conversion or replacement of vacant or underperforming commercial spaces and parking structures to residential units. The City will analyze the feasibility of an Adaptive Reuse Ordinance that would target the conversion of select types existing structures and of spaces that may include ground-floor retail in an existing mixed-use structure, part or all of an office building or parking structure b. Sample 2: Live/Work Units. Assess existing Live/Work regulations to see if any modification needs to be made to encourage development of Live/Work units in an effort to diversify the City's housing types. Encourage the development or conversion of affordable live/workspace units, and ensure owners of existing Live/Work units are aware of the Homebuyer Assistance Program available for their unit when marketing their unit for resale, in an effort to expand affordable homeownership options. c. Sample 3: Family Friendly Housing. Promote housing designs and unit mix to attract multigenerational households by encouraging developers to include housing features and more bedrooms (including four-bedroom units), as well as other on-site amenities, such as usable outdoor open space for multigenerational use, and multipurpose rooms that can be used for after-school homework clubs, computer, art, or other resident activities. d. Sample 4: The creation of a tenant relocation assistance ordinance. r more rental units have been displaced because of renovations, redevelopment, and similar activities. The City’s ordinance is intended to help lower income households with moving costs, deposits, and securing replacement housing. e. Sample 5: Rental Preservation Program. The City will provide low interest rate loans to existing rental property owners to improve the habitable condition(s) of their rental units occupied by very low, low and moderate-income tenants. Performance Metric(s) # of rental units renovated; # of special need units assisted; Amount of Funds Expended f. Sample 6: Resident Engagement. The City will evaluate its current committees and commission membership to determine if the membership is reflective of the socio-economic and racial mix of Cupertino or if there are any missing voices. If it is determined, there are missing voices, the City will enhance its outreach efforts to encourage residents from all socio-economic groups and racial backgrounds to serve on committees and commissions when position become available. The City will investigate the restructuring of the Housing Committee to ensure that the committee has at least one member that resides in a BMR unit, at least one member that is a tenant, and at least one member that is a homeowner. g. Sample 7: . Prohousing Designation. The City will seek a Prohousing Designation from the California Housing and Community Development for enacting favorable zoning and land use policies, policies to accelerate the production of housing, reduction of construction and development policies, and providing financial subsidies. The Prohousing designation will provide incentives, in the form of additional points or preferences in the scoring of competitive applications for housing and infrastructure. 3. Needs Analysis: The needs analysis is woefully inadequate for the unique housing context of Cupertino, with no references to the extreme unmet housing needs of our daytime residents–instead choosing to focus on those who already can afford to live here. In particular, we see tremendous housing struggles among De Anza college students, adjunct faculty, teachers, low-wage workers, non-profit workers, young adults, and seniors. For example, Cupertino severely lacks in apartments and smaller units that would be ideal for a young professional or community college student. Additionally, with regard to AFFH, our draft does not provide a realistic assessment of segregation in our region; we know that Cupertino has one of the lowest Latino/Latinx populations of surrounding cities–of just 3-4% compared to San Jose’s 30%. As such, one of our intended outcomes should be to bridge this gap and greatly increase housing opportunities for Latino, Black, and Southeast Asian communities of color. 4. Constraints Analysis: Several constraints appear to be missing, including but not limited to (1) local control and neighborhood opposition, (2) underutilized land such as dying strip malls, (3) relatively low surface area for development, (4) state law evasion/loopholes, (5) permit processing times Additionally, several other state laws are missing that are in need of compliance like AB 2097 and AB 2011. 5. Community Outreach: While Cupertino has done some community outreach with regard to the housing element, it does not seem to have actually translated into actual policies or programs. The purpose of community outreach is to hear from traditionally underserved communities, so new ideas emerge for how to meet these specific housing needs. Instead, there are dozens of pages of outreach, with no actual effect on the resulting sites, programs, or policies. Additionally, much of the feedback critical of Cupertino’s approach to the inventory appears to be missing. The City must also be honest about its failures in approaching community outreach, such as the last City Council dismantling the stakeholder engagement group, or the anti-housing bias within the housing survey. 6. Transit-Oriented Development & mixed use: Cupertino’s housing element draft does not seem to contain a vision for the built-environment, as it isolates the thousands of planned homes from a much needed coinciding growth of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, reduced car use, and vibrant, mixed-use spaces. Instead, it makes few references to transit-oriented development and even unnecessarily restricts mixed- use. We should be planning our housing future around the reduction of car reliance and the promotion of our Climate Action Plan 2.0. 7. Timeline: Cupertino is last in the entire county and will no doubt lose local control under the builder’s remedy. Council should direct its staff and consultant team to focus entirely on more-or-less redoing the housing element draft as quickly as possible. The community would like to see an actual timeline and plan of action for achieving an ambitious housing element in a short period of time. 8. Rezoning of Vallco: The Rise (formerly Vallco) is the most important project for the City to meet its RHNA. It includes more than half of the City’s total RHNA and 136% of its low income units. One impediment is that the current GP and zoning do not allow for a feasible project. While the SB 35 approval is currently in effect, if it were to lapse, the current GP/zoning designations are too restrictive and no project would occur. To be consistent with other housing element inventory sites, the City should amend the General Plan and zoning to be consistent with The Rise project. Strategy HE-1.3 that would make a residential-only project available “by right” is insufficient. The HE assumes that half of the units will be affordable, but that is only feasible if there are other supporting uses to help pay for the high cost of affordable housing, such as office space. 9. Improving fee reduction language: The HE makes clear that the City’s impact fees are both very high and an outlier in the region. This can inhibit the proliferation of new housing and deter affordable projects. One of the HE strategies calls for a reduction in fees, but does not establish a clear path forward for which fees would be reduced or which steps would be taken. Additionally, fee waivers beyond parkland fees should be readily permissible in cases of affordable housing projects. As a whole, the fee regime should be thoughtfully restructured and reevaluated to strike a balance between fulfilling important city functions, while not impeding new housing development. Members across the community look forward to working with this new council and City Manager’s office to produce an ambitious housing element update that matches the innovation and ambition of our great town. Sincerely, Neil Park-McClintick Chair, Cupertino for All -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "membership" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to membership+unsubscribe@cupertinoforall.org. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/cupertinoforall.org/d/msgid/membership/CALFFouPs-nYxfLeYXiSGWmhP- Lk%3DQZZWNRZ1%3Duhf_WO5ncs2Gg%40mail.gmail.com. -- -Frank -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "membership" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to membership+unsubscribe@cupertinoforall.org. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/cupertinoforall.org/d/msgid/membership/CACw8Sp0H2ndNKm33etZQXCsn8JSKsexCRD- 3A5ijvW064-jPOw%40mail.gmail.com. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "membership" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to membership+unsubscribe@cupertinoforall.org. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/cupertinoforall.org/d/msgid/membership/CAFO24cBrsHc%2Bx4-KTan%3DsfN%2BkTK- 8ZmgtCdm90WTnLE2pgN%2Bug%40mail.gmail.com. -- Noel E From:Jenny Griffin To:City Council; City of Cupertino Planning Commission; City Clerk Cc:grenna5000@yahoo.com Subject:City Council in City Council Chambers Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 7:13:38 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Dear City Council: When are we going to be conducting City Council Meetings in the Cupertino City Council Chambers? Do we need to ask Senator Cortese or Evan Low or Mr. Simitian to ask the City Council to have our City Council meetings in person or hybrid? Thank you. Sincerely, Jennifer Griffin From:Frank Geefay To:Neil Park-McClintick Cc:City Clerk; City Council; Cupertino City Manager"s Office; membership Subject:Re: Comprehensive redo of housing element draft needed Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 7:09:39 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Neil, Your comprehensive summery of the inequities of the current Housing Element draft is great and good enough to use as an outline for the next draft redo. It has vision of what is needed for the sustainable growth of our city to reduce car dependency and traffic by strategic walkable housing and shopping developments. Thank you. Frank On Tue, Dec 20, 2022 at 2:44 PM Neil Park-McClintick <neil@cupertinoforall.org> wrote: To: City Clerk Kirsten Squarcia Councilmember JR Fruen Mayor Hung Wei Councilmember Liang Chao Councilmember Kitty Moore City Manager Pamela Wu Councilmember Sheila Mohan Comprehensive redo of housing element draft needed From the beginning of the housing element update process, community members have repeatedly demanded an ambitious, honest, and conforming process from the City of Cupertino. This means a resulting product that realistically outlines a path forward for not only building 4,000+ homes, but also transforming the affordable housing landscape for families across all incomes and backgrounds. However, this outcome is only achievable if the leadership of Cupertino truly believes that the HE update is a unique opportunity of a lifetime, rather than a burdensome task. The recently released housing element draft unfortunately seems to indicate the latter rather than the former. If we wish to preserve any hope of dictating our own future as a community, Council and staff must conduct a comprehensive redrafting process, with the following changes: 1. Site Inventory: Reduce reliance on pipeline projects, expand the number of planned units in the “heart of the city,” and avoid planning homes that are unlikely to be built. Nearly ⅔ of the planned inventory is pipeline projects, with roughly 80% of those projects being Vallco and the Hamptons. The Hamptons in particular is unlikely to actually be built out as 600 units, given no recent developer interest and recent renovations from Irvine Company. Meanwhile, less than 5% of the inventory is composed of the heart of the city, the main portion of Cupertino, where most development should be slated. 2. Programs and Policies: Urge staff and consultants to focus on new policies and programs modeled after other cities’ housing elements–with a framework of the 3 Ps in mind: production of homes, preservation of existing homes, and protection of renters. Cities like Emeryville and Mountain View have robust policies for all three of these planks. Cupertino’s current draft introduces few new policies, instead relying almost entirely on our existing ones, which have obviously failed to meet our housing needs. Additionally, the draft unnecessarily restricts proposed policies, such as only limiting parking requirements for SROs and studios, instead of applying a reduction in parking to all new homes. a. Sample 1: Adaptive Re-use. The City will examine opportunities to allow for the adaptive reuse/conversion or replacement of vacant or underperforming commercial spaces and parking structures to residential units. The City will analyze the feasibility of an Adaptive Reuse Ordinance that would target the conversion of select types existing structures and of spaces that may include ground-floor retail in an existing mixed-use structure, part or all of an office building or parking structure b. Sample 2: Live/Work Units. Assess existing Live/Work regulations to see if any modification needs to be made to encourage development of Live/Work units in an effort to diversify the City's housing types. Encourage the development or conversion of affordable live/workspace units, and ensure owners of existing Live/Work units are aware of the Homebuyer Assistance Program available for their unit when marketing their unit for resale, in an effort to expand affordable homeownership options. c. Sample 3: Family Friendly Housing. Promote housing designs and unit mix to attract multigenerational households by encouraging developers to include housing features and more bedrooms (including four- bedroom units), as well as other on-site amenities, such as usable outdoor open space for multigenerational use, and multipurpose rooms that can be used for after-school homework clubs, computer, art, or other resident activities. d. Sample 4: The creation of a tenant relocation assistance ordinance. r more rental units have been displaced because of renovations, redevelopment, and similar activities. The City’s ordinance is intended to help lower income households with moving costs, deposits, and securing replacement housing. e. Sample 5: Rental Preservation Program. The City will provide low interest rate loans to existing rental property owners to improve the habitable condition(s) of their rental units occupied by very low, low and moderate-income tenants. Performance Metric(s) # of rental units renovated; # of special need units assisted; Amount of Funds Expended f. Sample 6: Resident Engagement. The City will evaluate its current committees and commission membership to determine if the membership is reflective of the socio-economic and racial mix of Cupertino or if there are any missing voices. If it is determined, there are missing voices, the City will enhance its outreach efforts to encourage residents from all socio-economic groups and racial backgrounds to serve on committees and commissions when position become available. The City will investigate the restructuring of the Housing Committee to ensure that the committee has at least one member that resides in a BMR unit, at least one member that is a tenant, and at least one member that is a homeowner. g. Sample 7: . Prohousing Designation. The City will seek a Prohousing Designation from the California Housing and Community Development for enacting favorable zoning and land use policies, policies to accelerate the production of housing, reduction of construction and development policies, and providing financial subsidies. The Prohousing designation will provide incentives, in the form of additional points or preferences in the scoring of competitive applications for housing and infrastructure. 3. Needs Analysis: The needs analysis is woefully inadequate for the unique housing context of Cupertino, with no references to the extreme unmet housing needs of our daytime residents–instead choosing to focus on those who already can afford to live here. In particular, we see tremendous housing struggles among De Anza college students, adjunct faculty, teachers, low-wage workers, non-profit workers, young adults, and seniors. For example, Cupertino severely lacks in apartments and smaller units that would be ideal for a young professional or community college student. Additionally, with regard to AFFH, our draft does not provide a realistic assessment of segregation in our region; we know that Cupertino has one of the lowest Latino/Latinx populations of surrounding cities–of just 3-4% compared to San Jose’s 30%. As such, one of our intended outcomes should be to bridge this gap and greatly increase housing opportunities for Latino, Black, and Southeast Asian communities of color. 4. Constraints Analysis: Several constraints appear to be missing, including but not limited to (1) local control and neighborhood opposition, (2) underutilized land such as dying strip malls, (3) relatively low surface area for development, (4) state law evasion/loopholes, (5) permit processing times Additionally, several other state laws are missing that are in need of compliance like AB 2097 and AB 2011. 5. Community Outreach: While Cupertino has done some community outreach with regard to the housing element, it does not seem to have actually translated into actual policies or programs. The purpose of community outreach is to hear from traditionally underserved communities, so new ideas emerge for how to meet these specific housing needs. Instead, there are dozens of pages of outreach, with no actual effect on the resulting sites, programs, or policies. Additionally, much of the feedback critical of Cupertino’s approach to the inventory appears to be missing. The City must also be honest about its failures in approaching community outreach, such as the last City Council dismantling the stakeholder engagement group, or the anti-housing bias within the housing survey. 6. Transit-Oriented Development & mixed use: Cupertino’s housing element draft does not seem to contain a vision for the built-environment, as it isolates the thousands of planned homes from a much needed coinciding growth of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, reduced car use, and vibrant, mixed-use spaces. Instead, it makes few references to transit-oriented development and even unnecessarily restricts mixed-use. We should be planning our housing future around the reduction of car reliance and the promotion of our Climate Action Plan 2.0. 7. Timeline: Cupertino is last in the entire county and will no doubt lose local control under the builder’s remedy. Council should direct its staff and consultant team to focus entirely on more-or-less redoing the housing element draft as quickly as possible. The community would like to see an actual timeline and plan of action for achieving an ambitious housing element in a short period of time. 8. Rezoning of Vallco: The Rise (formerly Vallco) is the most important project for the City to meet its RHNA. It includes more than half of the City’s total RHNA and 136% of its low income units. One impediment is that the current GP and zoning do not allow for a feasible project. While the SB 35 approval is currently in effect, if it were to lapse, the current GP/zoning designations are too restrictive and no project would occur. To be consistent with other housing element inventory sites, the City should amend the General Plan and zoning to be consistent with The Rise project. Strategy HE-1.3 that would make a residential-only project available “by right” is insufficient. The HE assumes that half of the units will be affordable, but that is only feasible if there are other supporting uses to help pay for the high cost of affordable housing, such as office space. 9. Improving fee reduction language: The HE makes clear that the City’s impact fees are both very high and an outlier in the region. This can inhibit the proliferation of new housing and deter affordable projects. One of the HE strategies calls for a reduction in fees, but does not establish a clear path forward for which fees would be reduced or which steps would be taken. Additionally, fee waivers beyond parkland fees should be readily permissible in cases of affordable housing projects. As a whole, the fee regime should be thoughtfully restructured and reevaluated to strike a balance between fulfilling important city functions, while not impeding new housing development. Members across the community look forward to working with this new council and City Manager’s office to produce an ambitious housing element update that matches the innovation and ambition of our great town. Sincerely, Neil Park-McClintick Chair, Cupertino for All -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "membership" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to membership+unsubscribe@cupertinoforall.org. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/a/cupertinoforall.org/d/msgid/membership/CALFFouPs- nYxfLeYXiSGWmhP-Lk%3DQZZWNRZ1%3Duhf_WO5ncs2Gg%40mail.gmail.com. -- -Frank From:Jenny Griffin To:City Council; City of Cupertino Planning Commission; City Clerk Cc:grenna5000@yahoo.com Subject:Oral Communications Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 7:07:21 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Dear City Council: The Oral Communications should be limited to three minutes. Why are people using The Oral Communications to become a ten minute long session on subjects? We should be In council chambers so we can all participate in oral communications equally. Thank you. Sincerely, Jennifer Griffin From:Connie Cunningham To:City Clerk; City Council Subject:December 20, Oral Communications; Biodiversity Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 7:02:35 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. 2022-12-20 Oral Communications, Biodiversity Good evening, Mayor Wei, Vice-Mayor Mohan, and Councilmembers: My name is Connie Cunningham. Resident 34 years First! Welcome to Councilmember JR Fruen and Vice-Mayor Mohan to the Council! On November 15 & Dec 6, I spoke to City Council about Plunging Biodiversity worldwide. Tonight, is a good time to discuss the interaction of the draft Housing Element and the Climate Action Plan 2.0 to protect Biodiversity. There is an international call for planting native trees, plants, grasses to protect biodiversity. Environmental advocates advise that Protecting biodiversity and Climate Action Plans are equally urgent pillars. They will produce a combined effect greater than each working alone. The Climate Action Plan is part of the draft Housing Element. Some governments are beginning to think about housing inside Climate Action Plans. The abstract of an ACSP published article, Angelo et al 2022, states, in part, “We find that equity language correlates with an increased presence of more systemic policy interventions, such as dense and/or affordable housing, in Climate Action Plans.” Cupertino has a strong organizational structure for sustainability. The Sustainability Team resides in the City Manager’s office and oversees the Climate Action Plan. Secondly, there is an Environmental Programs Team that resides in the Public Works Department. Thirdly, there is a Sustainability Commission that provides advice to City Council. Throughout Cupertino’s planning documents, from the General Plan, to the Housing Element, to the Parks and Recreation Master Plan and Cupertino’s Climate Action Plan 2.0, city leaders and residents have expressed strong environmental goals, particularly mentioning parks, open space, and trees. A search for the word “tree” would find dozens of references. These documents also, include the goal of equity—that all our residents, including low-income residents, will benefit from all the changes being planned. A search for the word “equity” would find dozens of references. Kudos to Council who had a 2022 work program item for analyzing the future of Blackberry Farm Golf Course. It included an option to restore nature. That our Council thought in such terms is a testament to the values of this community. What can City Council do? Two things: <!--[if !supportLists]-->1. <!--[endif]-->To protect biodiversity include a goal of 80% California Bay Area native trees, plants and grasses, in the goals of the General Plan, the Housing Element, the Climate Action Plan 2.0, and the Parks and Rec Master Plan. <!--[if !supportLists]-->2. <!--[endif]-->In 2023, approve restoring nature, Option B, to Blackberry Farm Golf Course. Thank you for this time to speak. From:John Kolski To:RICHARD LOWENTHAL; City Council; Jean Bedord; Jean Bedord; Rod Sinks; Kitty Moore; City Clerk Cc:John Kolski Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 7:00:35 PM Attachments:WebPage.pdf CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Is’nt this something. And no one told the residents that this was going on with the grand jury. Even jean Bedford said nothing to anyone in her publications. Why did they not say anything, because they all make money off the corruption they continue to engage in. I have been saying for years now the Darcy Paul and moore were corrupt and destroying this city. Then only thing it does not cover is the corruption of the so-called…. COUNCIL OF MAYORS….. WHO RUN THIE CITY WITH POLITICAL GAMES AND CORRUPTION ALL TO FILL THEIR POCKET WITH MONEY. AND THE ROTARY CLUB WHO ENGAGES IN THE RUNNING OF THE CITY WITH CORRUPTION AND MONEY. To bad one one told the people of the city the issues were sign to a grand jury.. if they had I and many more would have given proof of the corruption. All of the above named committed illegal acts to benefit themselves and should go to jail as to people who call themselves the council of mayors Greed, power and control is all these people are about. And what’s really interesting is…who suffered and will suffer for year?…the residents of cupertino. All the while the rich corrupt people go off and live their lives laughing at cupertino and keep feeding off the people in cupertino. The issue will never change until Cupertino gets a entirely new city council, city attorney who are honest, transparent and accountable. John kolski https://www.scscourt.org/court_divisions/civil/cgj/2022/A House Divided - Cupertino City Council and City Staff.pdf From:Neil Park-McClintick To:City Clerk Subject:Presentation for oral communication Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 5:54:18 PM Attachments:Presentation to Council.pdf CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Hello! I would like to present the following presentation to Council+Staff tonight if that is possible. I plan on asking to borrow the time of a few community members to make this possible. Could this be screenshared as I go through it? From:Liana Crabtree To:Lauren Sapudar Cc:City Clerk Subject:Re: written communication, 12/20/2022 Council Meeting, Agenda Item 9, Consider the Appointment of 2023 Councilmember Committee Assignments Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 5:20:51 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Lauren, Thank You! Liana > On Dec 20, 2022, at 4:14 PM, Lauren Sapudar <LaurenS@cupertino.org> wrote: > > Good afternoon (Council Bcc’d on this e-mail), your email has been received and will be included with the written comments for Item No. 9 on the December 20, City Council meeting agenda. > > Regards, > > Lauren Sapudar > Deputy City Clerk > City Manager's Office > LaurenS@cupertino.org > (408) 777-1312 > > -----Original Message----- > From: Liana Crabtree <lianacrabtree@yahoo.com> > Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2022 4:06 PM > To: Hung Wei <HWei@cupertino.org>; Sheila Mohan <SMohan@cupertino.org>; Liang Chao <LiangChao@cupertino.org>; J.R Fruen <JRFruen@cupertino.org>; Kitty Moore <Kmoore@cupertino.org> > Cc: City Clerk <CityClerk@cupertino.org> > Subject: written communication, 12/20/2022 Council Meeting, Agenda Item 9, Consider the Appointment of 2023 Councilmember Committee Assignments > > CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. > > > Honorable Mayor Wei, Vice Mayor Mohan, Council Members Chao, Fruen, and Moore: > > Please include this letter as written communication for the 12/20/2022 Council Meeting, Agenda Item 9, Consider the Appointment of 2023 Councilmember Committee Assignments. > > I am writing to request that Council Member Kitty Moore be reinstated as Cupertino’s representative to the VTA Policy Advisory Committee (VTA PAC) for the current term. > > Council Member Moore has served honorably as the Chair of the VTA PAC for the last 2 years. I have attended some of the VTA PAC meetings during Council Member Moore’s tenure and have appreciated that meetings under her lead run efficiently, that she demonstrates respect for the public, staff, and fellow committee members, and that she encourages and allows adequate time for public comment for each agenda item. > > The learning curve for anyone coming into a VTA leadership role is steep. In 2022-2023 VTA launches its Valley Transportation Plan 2050 (VTA 2050) at a time when there is no plan to add BART or light rail service to Cupertino. Cupertino’s western neighborhoods and schools are also underserved by transit or not served at all, despite the fact that Cupertino is a major tax revenue generator for the County. > > Cupertino needs a VTA PAC representative who is familiar with VTA service and operations and can advocate for the needs of West Valley residents and commuters from Day 1. > > Council Member Moore has the knowledge and wisdom to represent Cupertino effectively on the VTA PAC. Please reinstate Council Member Moore to the VTA PAC for the term beginning in 2023. > > Sincerely, > > Liana Crabtree > Cupertino resident and public transit rider > > > From:S B To:Cupertino City Manager"s Office; Housing Cc:City Clerk; Kitty Moore; Liang Chao Subject:Re: Housing Element Comments Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 4:58:56 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. To the city manager and Acting Director of Community Development, The following is my feedback on the document Some positive points about the document: (1) Very pleased to see that the pipeline projects have been taken into consideration. City council’s jurisdiction is only up to approving projects, they have no control over the timeline for building these projects. Not taking the pipeline projects into consideration does not make any sense, very happy to see that this has been considered. (2) It is very nice to see that the projects suggested are distributed all over the city, often when development occurs only on one side of the city, the amenities and services such as parks and schools become compromised. We don't want to create multiple Cupertinos, we want to have one city and one city that has to bear the burden of the RHNA requirements, even if that happens to be in my backyard. (3) Last but not the least, I am very glad we have the opportunity to review this document, seeking your customer's (Cupertino’s residents specifically) input is very critical and kudos to you for doing this, A few ideas that we may consider with other cities in our county, to improve the buffer for the middle income level. (1) Apply a vacancy tax. This way the much needed housing is used up as it should be, and not have rents and house prices rising while apartments and homes are staying vacant. Especially those that qualify for the middle income category. Anyone in the middle income category can benefit from this. (2) Apartment owners receive a tax rebate or some other incentive so that they offer 10%, of the available apartments to middle income essential service personnel that work in each city, at a discounted rate. My definition of middle income essential services personnel, are teachers, firefighters, police and some essential city staff. I do not believe that school district administrative staff qualify for this. Also, the assumption here is that the household income falls into the category of middle income level, and qualification is not based upon an individual’s income if married, or not based upon occupation. (3) For middle income essential services personnel, like teachers, police and fireman, an option of rent to buy with some incentives to sellers, must also be considered. Also, the assumption here is that the household income falls into the category of middle income level, and qualification is not based upon an individual’s income if married, or not based upon occupation. Now the changes to be made to the document: Chapter 4: (1) Page 4-1 Section 4.2, Under the paragraph “RHNA Summary”, second sentence has a typo there are only four income categories not five as stated in the document (2) Page 4-2 Table 4-2 There is no purpose to unless it is filled out, given the tight schedule, perhaps it makes more sense to remove the table unless the information is readily available (3) Page 4-3 Table 4-3 Add a NOTE to make it clear that the ADUs are not accounted for in the total. So, if the ADUs are added, the percentage is much better than 117%. Appendix B4 (1) Section B4.1 Introduction is the same as the introduction for Chapter 4, with the exception that the words RHNA and HCD have been expanded. Since this report is for HCD, I think this whole section must be removed, with the Appendix starting at the Site Inventory. It is referenced in Chapter 4 that the site selection will be provided in Appendix B, so the appendix can start at the site selection and repeating everything serves no purpose (2) Section B4.2 Page B4-3 In the section titled “Overview of Selected Sites”, The 3rd paragraph, bullet (4) is unnecessary, this is not about schools, we are not building housing for filling the schools, we are building housing because HCD believes we need it. So, there is no need for this sentence. This sentence is copied below for your reference: “(4) The housing Element should include new housing sites that could support the City’s public schools and help counteract declining enrollment trends that are occurring city and county wide." (3) Page B4-4 3rd Paragraph on the page This paragraph is incorrect and therefore needs to be removed. The first two lines are the controversial statements. The reasons for it being unnecessary are the following: (a) HCD has not stipulated that the housing element cannot consist of pipeline units. (b) HCD has not stipulated that the Very Low Income, Low income and Moderate Income RHNA requirements have to be met through pipeline projects either. (c) Also the city meets all the RHNA requirements in all categories. For the Moderate income level we do not meet the HCD “recommended” buffer. The HCD requirements is 755 and we have allocated 769 as Moderate Income Level units. This is not including the 60 ADU units, which would make our allotted number increase to 829. (d) the obvious grammatical error in the first sentence The paragraph is copied below for your reference: “Due to the significant amount of pipeline and units, the City is already exceeding its RHNA for the Low and above-moderate income categories for the 2023-2031 planning period. The city, however, was unable to meet its Very Low and moderate income RHNA requirements through the pipeline projects. Additionally, HCD recommends a “buffer” of between 15-30% additional units be included in the sites inventory for each of the below market rate income categories ( Very low, Low and Moderate incomes) in accordance with the State “No Net loss” Law. (4) Page B4-5 the paragraph under the Figure B4-1 is not relevant to the Figure, nor does it contain any information that makes sense. This paragraph would also be removed for the following reasons: (a) The three areas listed in the paragraph are not shown in the picture. (b) the number provided are incorrect - Stelling gateway/homestead should be 339 not 440, south de Anza should be 471 not 462. (c) Providing a statistic of 71% of the 2090 recommend units, is unnecessary, it is not clear where did the 2090 recommended units come from? (5) Page B4-91 the ADUs have not been added into the totals, a NOTE needs to be added to clarify that should these ADUs be added the percentage would be much better than 117% regards Sashi PS; to my feedback you received from an earlier Email, it was accidentally sent from my Cupertino email. I am providing this input as a Cupertino resident and not in any other capacity. City Clerk please make a note of it. From:Sashi Begur To:Cupertino City Manager"s Office; Housing Cc:City Clerk; Kitty Moore; Liang Chao Subject:Housing Element Comments Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 4:53:45 PM To the city manager and Acting Director of Community Development, The following is my feedback on the document Some positive points about the document: (1) Very pleased to see that the pipeline projects have been taken into consideration. City council’s jurisdiction is only up to approving projects, they have no control over the timeline for building these projects. Not taking the pipeline projects into consideration does not make any sense, very happy to see that this has been considered. (2) It is very nice to see that the projects suggested are distributed all over the city, often when development occurs only on one side of the city, the amenities and services such as parks and schools become compromised. We don't want to create multiple Cupertinos, we want to have one city and one city that has to bear the burden of the RHNA requirements, even if that happens to be in my backyard. (3) Last but not the least, I am very glad we have the opportunity to review this document, seeking your customer's (Cupertino’s residents specifically) input is very critical and kudos to you for doing this, A few ideas that we may consider with other cities in our county, to improve the buffer for the middle income level. (1) Apply a vacancy tax. This way the much needed housing is used up as it should be, and not have rents and house prices rising while apartments and homes are staying vacant. Especially those that qualify for the middle income category. Anyone in the middle income category can benefit from this. (2) Apartment owners receive a tax rebate or some other incentive so that they offer 10%, of the available apartments to middle income essential service personnel that work in each city, at a discounted rate. My definition of middle income essential services personnel, are teachers, firefighters, police and some essential city staff. I do not believe that school district administrative staff qualify for this. Also, the assumption here is that the household income falls into the category of middle income level, and qualification is not based upon an individual’s income if married, or not based upon occupation. (3) For middle income essential services personnel, like teachers, police and fireman, an option of rent to buy with some incentives to sellers, must also be considered. Also, the assumption here is that the household income falls into the category of middle income level, and qualification is not based upon an individual’s income if married, or not based upon occupation. Now the changes to be made to the document: Chapter 4: (1) Page 4-1 Section 4.2, Under the paragraph “RHNA Summary”, second sentence has a typo there are only four income categories not five as stated in the document (2) Page 4-2 Table 4-2 There is no purpose to unless it is filled out, given the tight schedule, perhaps it makes more sense to remove the table unless the information is readily available (3) Page 4-3 Table 4-3 Add a NOTE to make it clear that the ADUs are not accounted for in the total. So, if the ADUs are added, the percentage is much better than 117%. Appendix B4 (1) Section B4.1 Introduction is the same as the introduction for Chapter 4, with the exception that the words RHNA and HCD have been expanded. Since this report is for HCD, I think this whole section must be removed, with the Appendix starting at the Site Inventory. It is referenced in Chapter 4 that the site selection will be provided in Appendix B, so the appendix can start at the site selection and repeating everything serves no purpose (2) Section B4.2 Page B4-3 In the section titled “Overview of Selected Sites”, The 3rd paragraph, bullet (4) is unnecessary, this is not about schools, we are not building housing for filling the schools, we are building housing because HCD believes we need it. So, there is no need for this sentence. This sentence is copied below for your reference: “(4) The housing Element should include new housing sites that could support the City’s public schools and help counteract declining enrollment trends that are occurring city and county wide." (3) Page B4-4 3rd Paragraph on the page This paragraph is incorrect and therefore needs to be removed. The first two lines are the controversial statements. The reasons for it being unnecessary are the following: (a) HCD has not stipulated that the housing element cannot consist of pipeline units. (b) HCD has not stipulated that the Very Low Income, Low income and Moderate Income RHNA requirements have to be met through pipeline projects either. (c) Also the city meets all the RHNA requirements in all categories. For the Moderate income level we do not meet the HCD “recommended” buffer. The HCD requirements is 755 and we have allocated 769 as Moderate Income Level units. This is not including the 60 ADU units, which would make our allotted number increase to 829. (d) the obvious grammatical error in the first sentence The paragraph is copied below for your reference: “Due to the significant amount of pipeline and units, the City is already exceeding its RHNA for the Low and above-moderate income categories for the 2023-2031 planning period. The city, however, was unable to meet its Very Low and moderate income RHNA requirements through the pipeline projects. Additionally, HCD recommends a “buffer” of between 15-30% additional units be included in the sites inventory for each of the below market rate income categories ( Very low, Low and Moderate incomes) in accordance with the State “No Net loss” Law. (4) Page B4-5 the paragraph under the Figure B4-1 is not relevant to the Figure, nor does it contain any information that makes sense. This paragraph would also be removed for the following reasons: (a) The three areas listed in the paragraph are not shown in the picture. (b) the number provided are incorrect - Stelling gateway/homestead should be 339 not 440, south de Anza should be 471 not 462. (c) Providing a statistic of 71% of the 2090 recommend units, is unnecessary, it is not clear where did the 2090 recommended units come from? (5) Page B4-91 the ADUs have not been added into the totals, a NOTE needs to be added to clarify that should these ADUs be added the percentage would be much better than 117% regards Sashi Sashi Begur​ Parks and Recration Commission Vice Chair SBegur@cupertino.org From:Connie Cunningham To:City Clerk Subject:Fwd: Talking points on Blackberry Farm Date:Wednesday, December 21, 2022 10:25:47 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Dear Kirsten, For yesterday’s Oral Communications, a friend of mine wanted to make a statement. She could not be there herself so asked another friend to read it for her. Unfortunately, Rani had difficulties making the connection so could not read it. Is it possible at this time to put the email from Rose Grymes into the Written Communications for last night? The email we exchanged with you earlier about whether you, as City Clerk, could read it, did come out in the Written Communications. Upon your guidance, we tried this other method and failed. Perhaps the Mayor would approve this late addition to the Written Communications for Dec 20. Best regards, Connie Begin forwarded message: From: Rose Grymes <ragrymes@gmail.com> Subject: Talking points on Blackberry Farm Date: December 19, 2022 at 11:22:19 PM PST To: ranifisc@gmail.com Cc: Connie Cunningham <cunninghamconniel@gmail.com> Thanks, Rani, for your willingness to do this. My daughter and grandson—he’s 4 —are visiting this week, just arrived today, and he keeps me hopping! In a very good way. :) I gather that, with the new process, I don’t need to send these remarks to Kristen or the Council, since it will be you raising your hand to read them into the record at the meeting. Thanks again, Rose For the Council: I wish to speak once again today to voice my support for the popularly supported —in fact, majority supported—plan option which transitions Blackberry Farm from its current golf course operation to a natural habitat with non-intrusive public enjoyment of trails, vistas, and open spaces. While the majority of Cupertino residents polled by city staff share my view, no doubt for a variety of reasons, such a cross-section is not always available to speak directly to the Council during meetings. I’m an example of that today, as my comments are being read for the record by a generous volunteer. While there are many reasons for selecting the natural habitat option presented to the Council, today I will focus on the impacts to Cupertino quality of life caused by undue disturbance to the habitat we share. A recent scholarly article in the journal American Scientist describes how wildlife, from insects to birds to small mammals and larger predators, adjusts to living alongside human developments. Characteristically, across species they seek to avoid people; their immediate presence, certainly, but also their distant sounds and their artificial lights. Leaving isolated corridors for wildlife to pass is an inadequate response. We generally DO acknowledge that insects, birds, and animals contribute to our quality of life. But as they struggle with changing climate and water scarcity, and also with human construction and development activities, they alter roaming behaviors and activity levels. Sometimes these changes drive them further into conflict with human neighbors. The solutions we must strive to prioritize are those which lead to the greatest good. In the case of Blackberry Farm, the greatest good for this wonderful open space environment is allowing nature to re-create and restore a habitat as unobtrusive as possible to the wildlife it contains, so as to maximize the benefit of this land and minimize or eliminate unnaturally and undesirably driving wildlife into nearby neighborhoods under stress. I will quickly add, if time allows, the enormously significant issue of watershed and water resources. Water requirements for golf course operations are expensive —both financially and in their use of an increasingly scarce resource. In contrast, restoring the natural habitat increases watershed availability, improves ground water recharge, and reduces water pollutants from fertilizer application and pest control. Thank you for your consideration. Sent from my iPad From:Hal and Janet Van Zoeren To:Cupertino City Manager"s Office; City Clerk; Hung Wei; Sheila Mohan; Liang Chao; J.R Fruen; Kitty Moore Subject:Cupertino Housing Element Draft 1 Date:Wednesday, December 21, 2022 11:23:39 AM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Hello Cupertino City Council Members, As many of you know, I am a long-time advocate for the adults in our community who have Developmental Disabilities and who would like the opportunity to live in the community where they grew up, but in their apartments where they can enjoy the freedom to live as other adults do and to make their own choices. The previous Housing Element was completely ineffective in both v Identifying the needs of people who have developmental disabilities and v Meeting the needsNo units of extremely low or very low-income units were built with a preference tohouse adults with developmental disabilities. Unfortunately, the current Draft of the Cupertino Housing Element does little to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing for Cupertino’s community members who have developmental disabilities because its incentives fall short. v Sadly, it fails to identify their significant disparities in housing needs and it, unfortunately, seems to imply that people with developmental disabilities need specially designed units. Although some also have physical disabilities, many do not need special physical accommodations. Those units are not more costly to create. People with developmental disabilities were not interviewed and the report indicates that there are no people with disabilities that are unemployed in Cupertino. That is not the case for many who have developmental disabilities. v It does not set any goal for how many units of extremely low housing units set aside for people with developmental disabilities are to be created during the upcoming housing element cycle. v It misses the opportunity to incentivize the AUD program. The city could create a forgivable loan program for homeowners who build ADUs and rent them for at least 15 years at Extremely Low-income rent levels to people with developmental disabilities. This program might be able to add to the number of housing units created. v Although it aims to provide some financing assistance using the Below Market-Rate Affordable Housing Fund, it does nothing to revise the BMR priorities that discriminate against people with developmental disabilities. v It does not indicate a clear pathway between the needs of people with developmental disabilities and incentive pathways toward the creation of housing units for them! v However, it does suggest that the city will prepare to identify the connection, or “nexus between new developments and the need for affordable housing.” To ensure the mitigation fees continue to be adequate to mitigate the impacts of new development on affordable housing needs. This is important. v It also states that the city will continue to explore and pursue various affordable housing resources available at the local, regional, state, and federal levels that could be used to address housing needs in the community. This is also good. 1.4 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing o The AFFH requirement AFFH is derived from The Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, color, religion, national origin, or sex—and was later amended to include familial status and disability. o The 2015 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Rule to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing and California Assembly Bill 686 (2018) mandates that each jurisdiction take meaningful action to address significant disparities in housing needs and access to opportunity. For many years our surrounding communities have been able to figure out ways to includehousing for people who have developmental disabilities. I do not believe that this is somethingthat Cupertino cannot do as well, especially because its residents would like to see it happen. The Housing Element is a huge project and an opportunity to help people obtain housing inCupertino. Let's make it happen even for people who have developmental disabilities. Thankyou! Enjoy your holidays and have a great 2023! Most sincerely, Janet Van Zoeren CC 12-20-2022 Written Communications Item No.8 Consider approval of response to 2022 Civil Grand Jury of Santa Clara County From:J Shearin To:City Council; City Clerk Subject:Agenda item 8 --Consent calendar; December 20, 2022 City Council meeting Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 6:03:37 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Dear Honorable City Councilmembers, I will be speaking this evening at City Council, but I am also writing to add my input to the public written record. My comments are regarding the findings on December 19, 2022 of the Civil Grand Jury of the Santa Clara County Superior Court, specifically their report titled, “A House Divided”. Though there are many items in the report that are a great cause of concern and require attention, I specifically wish to speak to the Ethics Policy section. In November 2019, when I was formerly a Bicycle Pedestrian Commissioner, all commissioners were asked to give feedback on the draft Code of Ethics. My written feedback at that time that was, “The largest omission seems to be how will these ethics be policed…Having a Code of Ethics that neither Councilmembers nor Commissioners must abide by will make it a document that is without authority and therefore likely without meaning. “ I was concerned with the lack of reporting, enforcement, and consequences for violation that were all missing in the proposed code of ethics and even provided examples of violations within the previous 12 months by Councilmembers and Commissioners that were not addressed in any way. Since then, including on social media posts during the past year, I have restated my concerns with the policy. This recent judgement by the Civil Grand Jury conclusively affirms these problems with the current code. As the report states, “A comprehensive Code of Ethics …includes sanctions and consequences for deviations from the standard. The City’s Ethics Policy is generic and lacks enforcement provisions and therefore fails to provide a framework to address ramifications for policy violations.” I urge you today to follow the recommendations of the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury regarding the current Ethics Policy. These recommendations include adding an independent Public Ethics Commission, adding enforcement procedures to the Code of Ethics, and publishing the Code of Ethics on the City’s website, where it has not been available since January 2019. Thank you for your time and considering on this issue, and your service on behalf of Cupertino. Sincerely, Jennifer Shearin Resident of Cupertino From:S B To:City Council Cc:City Clerk; Cupertino City Manager"s Office Subject:Agenda items 7.8 and 9 Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 5:01:37 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. To the mayor and members of the council. I think we need see items 7.8 & 9on the regular agenda with an opportunity for members of the public to comment and not be not he consent calendar regards Sashi CC 12-20-2022 Written Communications Item No.9 Consider appointment of 2023 Councilmember Committee Assignments From:Tessa Parish To:City Clerk Subject:Public comment item #9 Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 6:16:22 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Mayor, vice, mayor, and city council. I would like to request Kitty Moore remain on the Audit committee. Her hard work and attention to detail has uncovered many items previously unknown. Her attention to detail has uncovered things such as contractors being paid without a written contract, violations to contract limits, etc. Kitty has a proven record and attention to detail necessary to do the job. I urge this counsel to keep her in the audit committee. Thank you, Tessa Parish Resident of Cupertino Speaking only for myself -- Tessa Parish DRE#01158499 RHM Realty www.ParishRealEstateGroup.com 408.396.8377 From:Claudio Bono To:Lauren Sapudar Cc:City Clerk Subject:Re: City of Cupertino Economic Development Committee Interviews Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 6:00:25 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Please note that I wish to also apply for Parks/Rec committee. Claudio Bono On Nov 28, 2022, at 6:35 PM, Lauren Sapudar <LaurenS@cupertino.org> wrote:  Hi Claudio, I apologize but we are not able to move the interview dates at this time. If anything changes, I will be sure to let you know. Regards, <image009.png> Lauren Sapudar​​ Deputy City Clerk City Manager's Office LaurenS@cupertino.org (408) 777-1312 <image010.png><image011.png><image012.png><image013.png><image014.png><image015.png><image016.png> From: CLAUDIO BONO <bonoclaudio@aol.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2022 11:20 AM To: Lauren Sapudar <LaurenS@cupertino.org> Cc: City Clerk <CityClerk@cupertino.org> Subject: Re: City of Cupertino Economic Development Committee Interviews CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Thanks for the email. Traveling that day and in Europe. Sadly, if we cannot move it to another day, I won’t be able to be part of it this time. Please advise. Thank you, Claudio Bono On Nov 23, 2022, at 10:21 AM, Lauren Sapudar <LaurenS@cupertino.org> wrote:  Hi Claudio, We can offer you a zoom interview at the same time on Tuesday. Please let me know if you’d like to have a zoom interview on the 29th at 6:20pm. Thank you. <image001.png> Lauren Sapudar​​ Deputy City Clerk City Manager's Office LaurenS@cupertino.org (408) 777-1312 <image002.png> <image003.png> <image004.png> <image005.png> <image006.png> <image007.png> <image008.png> From: CLAUDIO BONO <bonoclaudio@aol.com> Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2022 7:12 PM To: Lauren Sapudar <LaurenS@cupertino.org> Cc: City Clerk <CityClerk@cupertino.org> Subject: Re: City of Cupertino Economic Development Committee Interviews CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Lauren; Thank you for your email. Sadly I am not in town on that day. I will be back on December 4th and available anytime afterwards. Thank you, Claudio Bono On Nov 22, 2022, at 6:44 PM, Lauren Sapudar <LaurenS@cupertino.org> wrote:  Dear Committee applicant: Council will conduct interviews for the Cupertino Economic Development Committee on Tuesday, November 29th beginning at 6:00 p.m. This will be an in-person meeting held in Community Hall, Council Chambers located at 10350 Torre Avenue. This is the building between City Hall and the Library. Attached is the interview schedule with your specific time slot listed. Please email me back to confirm your attendance. Be prepared to provide a personal statement for up to one minute. Councilmembers will then have an opportunity to ask you questions. Enclosed are sample questions that you may be asked. Regards, <image001.png> Lauren Sapudar​​ Deputy City Clerk City Manager's Office LaurenS@cupertino.org (408) 777-1312 <image002.png> <image003.png> <image004.png> <image005.png> <image006.png> <image007.png> <image008.png> <112922.pdf> <A - Interview Schedule.pdf> <E - Economic Development Committee Interview Questions.pdf> From:Claudio Bono To:Hung Wei; Sheila Mohan; Liang Chao; jfruen@cupertino.org; Kitty Moore; City Council; Cupertino City Manager"s Office; City Clerk Cc:Claudio Bono Subject:Item number 9 on City council Agenda December 20th, 2022. Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 5:57:52 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Honorable Mayor Wei, CouncilMembers, City Attorney; Madame Clerk & Staff; Good evening. Attach, please find a link of the recently published Santa Clara Country Superior Court grand Jury report entitled "A House Divided - Cupertino City Council & City staff pdf version', detailing councilmanic interference amount a variety of various issues involving the difficult council/staff relationship. https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:6cf7e899-2bd3-3342-b7d6-4e232fe45b94 I hope you will consider this report and its findings as you deliberate on committee assignments tonights based upon this report's findings. I think that Mayor Wei's proposed committee assignments/changes are well warranted. Regards, Claudio Bono Cupertino Resident From:Jennifer Griffin To:City Clerk Cc:Jennifer Griffin Subject:Fw: Committee Assignment on Stevens Creek Corridor and Highway 85 Corridor Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 5:41:07 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. FYI. Please add to the Item 9 Public Record comments for tonight's City Council meeting. Thank you very much. ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Jennifer Griffin <grenna5000@yahoo.com> To: citycouncil@cupertino.org <citycouncil@cupertino.org>; City Clerk <cityclerk@cupertino.org> Cc: Jennifer Griffin <grenna5000@yahoo.com>; City of Cupertino Planning Commission <planningcommission@cupertino.org> Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2022 at 05:39:25 PM PST Subject: Committee Assignment on Stevens Creek Corridor and Highway 85 Corridor Dear City Council: Since Item 9 is being pulled from the Consemt Calendar for tonight's December 20, 2022 City Council meeting, we need to discuss who is being appointed to\ the Stevens Creek Cooridor Tarnsit Steering Committee as well as the Star Route 85 Cooridor Policy Advisory Board. The Cupertino delegates to these two important transportation committees should be the Mayor as well as either Kitty Moore or Liang Chao. We would therefore have an excellent mix of 2022 and 2023 city council members with experience on these two prominent committees. Thank you very much for your attention. Sincerely, Jennifer Griffin From:Jennifer Griffin To:City Council; City Clerk Cc:Jennifer Griffin; City of Cupertino Planning Commission Subject:Committee Assignment on Stevens Creek Corridor and Highway 85 Corridor Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 5:39:34 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Dear City Council: Since Item 9 is being pulled from the Consemt Calendar for tonight's December 20, 2022 City Council meeting, we need to discuss who is being appointed to\ the Stevens Creek Cooridor Tarnsit Steering Committee as well as the Star Route 85 Cooridor Policy Advisory Board. The Cupertino delegates to these two important transportation committees should be the Mayor as well as either Kitty Moore or Liang Chao. We would therefore have an excellent mix of 2022 and 2023 city council members with experience on these two prominent committees. Thank you very much for your attention. Sincerely, Jennifer Griffin From:S B To:City Council Cc:City Clerk; City Attorney"s Office; Cupertino City Manager"s Office Subject:Committee assignments Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 5:23:37 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Hello Mayor, I would like to understand your analysis for your committee assignments; wouldn’t it make more sense to have continuity on committees with new members being added to bring in new perspectives. Replacing existing members with completely new members can create issues. Here is an the example of one such committee: Audit Committee (City of Cupertino) Council member Moore should have continued, two new members, for an important committee such as this does not make sense. Council member Moore focuses on details that I think new members of council are probably not aware and possibly will not understand. Also why are the following committees Economic Development committee and Fiscal Strategic Planning committee on hold? I look forward to a reply from you explaining your though process regards Sashi From:Jennifer Griffin To:City Clerk Cc:grenna5000@yahoo.com Subject:Fw: City Council Committee Appointments Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 5:15:19 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. FYI. Please add this item to the Public Record for Item 9 from the Consent Calendar, Thank you. ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Jennifer Griffin <grenna5000@yahoo.com> To: CityCouncil@Cupertino.org <citycouncil@cupertino.org>; cityclerk@cupertino.org <cityclerk@cupertino.org> Cc: grenna5000@yahoo.com <grenna5000@yahoo.com>; City of Cupertino Planning Commission <planningcommission@cupertino.org> Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2022 at 05:13:27 PM PST Subject: City Council Committee Appointments Dear City Council: I would like to pull Item 9 from the Consent Calendar for the City Council meeting tonight, City Council Committee Appointments. on December 20, 2022. The ABAG Committee should contain the Mayor and either Kitty Moore or Liang Chau. This is a very important committee considering the Housing Element and the issues concerning the miscalculations of the RHNA numbers. Because of these issues, the ABAG commission should have representatives from the 2022 City council as well as the Mayor who is somewhat familiar with these issues and concerns with ABAG. Thank you for your kind attention in this matter, Sincerely, Jennifer Griffin From:Jennifer Griffin To:City Council; City Clerk Cc:grenna5000@yahoo.com; City of Cupertino Planning Commission Subject:City Council Committee Appointments Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 5:13:34 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Dear City Council: I would like to pull Item 9 from the Consent Calendar for the City Council meeting tonight, City Council Committee Appointments. on December 20, 2022. The ABAG Committee should contain the Mayor and either Kitty Moore or Liang Chau. This is a very important committee considering the Housing Element and the issues concerning the miscalculations of the RHNA numbers. Because of these issues, the ABAG commission should have representatives from the 2022 City council as well as the Mayor who is somewhat familiar with these issues and concerns with ABAG. Thank you for your kind attention in this matter, Sincerely, Jennifer Griffin From:Lisa Warren To:City Council; City Clerk Subject:2023 Committee Assignments Item 9 Dec 20 2023 CC mtg Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 5:08:56 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Mayor and Council, I am quickly sending this message with some general thoughts. I am just now looking at meeting attachments for this evening and seeing the list for Committee Assignments. I am noticing that there are four committees with no assignments at this point. I am actually surprised that there are not more 'unassigned' spots since I feel as though there have been open discussions about assignments in the past. It is not clear what committees may 'require' that type of process , if any, but this seems to have been different. Including being a consent item. I note a few things that I hope get some discussion tonight. The Legislative Review Committee has not had the Mayor in the past. This statement seems new *Mayor Recommended to serve for efficiency I question the decision to replace Council Member Moore from both the Audit Committee and VTA PAC. This seems misguided, unless Councilmember Moore has indicated she is not interested in remaining on these two committees where she has served the city and community as a whole, so well. She is well respected by VTA and professionally handled some key issues and situations. CM Moore is also deserving of appreciation for recognizing, along with others, that the city needed a deep dive on financial issues. Thank you Lisa Warren From:Peggy Griffin To:City Council Cc:City Clerk Subject:2022-12-20 CC Mtg Item 9- Committee Assignments missing Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 4:52:06 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Dear Mayor Wei and Council Members, There are 4 committees that have “No appointment” on them for 2023: Economic Development Committee: 2 City Councilmembers Environmental Review Committee: 1 City Councilmember Fiscal Strategic Planning Committee Legislative Review Committee – important for our city! These should be discussed and decided in public. Thank you. Sincerely, Peggy Griffin From:S B To:City Council Cc:City Clerk; Cupertino City Manager"s Office Subject:Agenda items 7.8 and 9 Date:Tuesday, December 20, 2022 5:01:37 PM CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. To the mayor and members of the council. I think we need see items 7.8 & 9on the regular agenda with an opportunity for members of the public to comment and not be not he consent calendar regards Sashi