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PC Minutes 4-14-2015 Cupertino Planning Commission 2 April 14, 2015 WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS: None PO ONEMENTS/REMOVAL FROM CALENDAR: None ORAL COM CATIONS: Dr.Darrel Lum, Cupertino res � Said he was not able to access the nt da from the City website earlier in the week. He expressed frustration in attending th ee nprepared and said that the result is no public participation in the city matter. S ' e continues to 'fficulty in accessing information from the city website. Gary Chao: • Said Dr. has experienced problems with his printer at his home in the past. A staff inember will co r. Lum about the problem. CONSENT CALENDAR: None PUBLIC HEARING: None OLD BUSINESS: .�....�� 2. GPA-2013-02 General Plan Amendment for Housing Element Updates as required by City of Cupertino state law. Discuss and make recommendation to the City Council to adopt Location: Citywide the 2014-2022 Housing Element per the Draft Resolution. Tentative City Council Date: May 19, 201 S Piu Ghosh, Senior Planner,presented the staff report: • In Nov. 2013 the City Council authorized the project and its budget; stakeholder interviews were conducted in Dec. 2013, community workshops held periodically between Jan. and Dec. of 2014, study sessions and open houses with the Planning Comtnission, City Council and Housing Commission between Jan. and Dec. last year. An EIR was prepared far the project; there were environmental related CEQA meetings in spring and summer of 2014 and have been other outreach and notification to the citizens and development community at large mailed to all city addresses in Feb. and June of last year. • Explained that the Housing Element is one of the 7 state required elements of the General Plan; it is the only element that requires certification by the Calif. Dept. of Housing and Community Development, HCD. HCD allows a grace period; the update allows the city to adjust housing policy to respect evolving needs of the city to reflect demographic changes, economic trends, etc. Without certification of the Housing Element the city risks litigation, loss of funding for housing and transportation, the possibility of having to find additional housing sites or automatic approval of housing on sites at a state mandated minimum density of 16 dwelling units per acre. There is a missed deadline penalty of a four year update cycle as opposed to an 8 year update cycle for the Housing Element. The Housing Element content is also dictated by state law, the housing plan itself is composed of several different pieces. The City of Cupertino's Housing Element content is split into two sections in the General Plan; the housing plan which is largely the policies and programs is reported in Chapter 4 of the General Plan which is the Housing Element itself; the remainder of the content is in the technical Appendix B. • The Planning Commission had reviewed priority sites as recommended by staff in November and made recommendations based on that which was then reviewed by the Planning Commission and Council provided and selected the Housing Element priority site at its December 2014 meeting. They Cupertino Planning Commission 3 April 14, 2015 selected sites based on two different scenarios; the first scenario they selected sites of up to 1400 units and the second scenario which anticipates that one of the sites which is the Vallco Shopping District does not get a specific plan adopted within three years of May 31 S`of this year; there would then be a fallback option which would be scenario B. In Scenario A the sites selected were the Hamptons, Vallco Shopping District, the Oaks, Marina Foods and a smaller site called the Barry Swenson site which is almost half an acre. In Scenario B Vallco goes away and instead adds some additional units at the Oaks, increases some units at the Hamptons, includes the Homestead Lanes site as an additional site and then adds the Glenbrook site as an additional housing element site. • Referred to overhead presentation, city's regional housing needs allocation, the city's RHNA is 1,064 as city receives a credit of approximately 62 units because those have been units that have been built since that RHNA has been prescribed for the city. Based on conversations with HCD, HCD recommends about a 40% surplus over the city's RHNA to allow flexibility in cases that sites don't get developed with housing, and it allows the city flexibility in terms of development. That is how they got the 1400 established as the RHNA for Scenario A. City Council authorized staff to submit the draft housing element to HCD for its review and HCD did complete its review in January, and upon discussion with HCD which required certain revisions to the housing element, they were revisions related to clarification about emergency shelters we could reuse certain language we had in our prior housing element which was reinserted; provide concrete timeframes to certain strategies; provide revisions in response to a public comment letter that HCD received from the law foundation of Silicon Valley which was to update certain timeframes. It provides some information on factors that limit affordable housing production in the city in the past and also to address indirect economic displacement. Those revisions were made; in addition to those revisions that HCD required, there were some minor revision also made to the draft to clarify text, remove certain redundant language,to update the home program status when we had first brought the draft thru the Housing C/ PC and CC; we weren't part of the home program at that point. We also updated park impact fees for the current fiscal year. Upon HCD review the city got a conditional letter of compliance on Feb. 5`''of this year, so if the Housing Element gets adopted as it is presented tonight, we do have conditional letter of compliance from them and we still have to resubmit to them for their final certification. • Relative to environmental review, an EIR was prepared in conjunction with the GPA project for this project as well; the draft EIR was circulated for 45 day public comment period in the summer of 2014 and response to comments was prepared and completed in the Fall of that year; the final EIR was certified by the City Council in December of 2014. At this point no further CEQA review is required for this proj ect. • It is anticipated that the City Council will hear this item on May 19; upon adoption the Housing Element would be submitted once again to HCD for its final review; they have 90 days to review the Housing Element again. If there are no substantial changes, the Housing Element should be found compliant; if new changes are made, the HCD may need additional time to review the document and the city will not have an adopted housing element by the May 31 S`, 2015 deadline. Staff recommends that the Planning Cominission recommend the City Council adopt the final 2014-2022 Housing Element in substantially similar form to the draft resolution presented with one correction noted that a chart appeared in the Housing Element twice. • Scenario A is if Vallco can get their specific plan and their zoning adopted by May 31, 2018; if Vallco doesn't get their specific plan adopted by that timeframe, then the city would have to initiate rezoning for all the sites that are shown in Scenario B as Housing Element sites in order to make those be eligible to be Housing Element sites at that time. They are in the Housing Element but the rezoning would have to be done at that time for those particular sites within 3 years. • The City Council decided that they wanted to allocate 389 units in the Housing Element to Vallco; it is the Planning Cominission's prerogative if they want to re-recommend 200 units to the Council and the Council can consider that when it makes its final decision; however staff needs to talk to HCD again to see whether they would be comfortable with 1200 units in the Housing Element for the city. Cupertino Planning Cominission 4 April 14, 2015 At this time they were comfortable with 1400 in Scenario A. Com.Paulsen: • Said he was not on the Planning Commission during the Housing Element process, although he attended some hearings and community workshops. He commended staff on the superb job they did on the document. He said he became informed in reading the Housing Element and from reading the book Love of Cities,he became inspired to express his love for Cupertino in helping to implement the Housing Element in a way that is both beautiful and functional for the residents of Cupertino. He said he was appreciative of all residents who were present at the meeting demonstrating their love for Cupertino by showing up at a public meeting and expressing their views. Piu Ghosh: � Said that currently the Hamptons has 34 BMR units; In the Housing Element it anticipates they would continue to keep their 34 units; however there is only 12 years left on the BMR and due to the recent Palmer case, cities can no longer require BMR units in rental units. For the new units the Hamptons puts in, the city cannot require affordable units; the city is in the process of updating its residential mitigation fees and they would still be subject to that. Staff: • Said they are addressing the Housing Element again because state law requires that before a Housing Element is adopted HCD needs to review a draft of the Housing Element; but it also requires that the draft Housing Element be heard through the different bodies that would recommend adoption of the Housing Element, which is why it had to go through the Housing Cominission, Planning Commission and get authorization from City Council to submit the draft to HCD. Once HCD reviews the draft they gave the conditional approval of that draft and said it meets state law. State law also requires that once that draft is reviewed by HCD there must be public hearings in order to adopt the final Housing Element. This series of ineetings starting in Feb. are those public hearings for adoption of the final draft. Vice Chair Takahashi: • Said he had discussions with staff clarifying some of the RHNA requirements, specifically how they categorize the income levels. Said it appears they are just going through the motions from the standpoint saying they are looking at RHNA and understand there is a target for a formal Housing Element but have no power to do anything to implement anything other than possibly the fees but that is pretty much their only recourse; is that accurate? Colleen Winchester,Assistant City Attorney: • Said state law prohibits the city from requiring housing at certain income levels except for the BMR requirements. Vice Chair Takahashi: • Asked if it is a case of RHNA not necessarily catching up to the implications of litigation; on one hand there is a requirement, and on the other hand there is the Palmer ruling that says you can't do that; the result is ending up with no affordable housing. Piu Ghosh: • Said the only thing that the Housing Element law acknowledges is that if sites that are zoned at 20 dwelling units per acre are selected, those sites are considered to be adequate for affordable housing regardless of what the developer ends up putting on it. Said all the sites in the Housing Element are zoned at above 20 dwelling units to the acre so they do meet that requirement. They do have BMR requirements if the housing is ownership units and if it is rental they have the fee which they are Cupertino Planning Commission 5 April 14, 2015 proposing to increase so that they can build some affordable projects. Vice Chair Takahashi: • Said the reason he wanted the discussion is that it generally is an issue in Cupertino from the standpoint that property values continue to rise; it is wonderful if one can afford to own property in Cupertino, but if they can't, but work in Cupertino, they have to commute. The housing plan is an important piece of how we look at the future and at least do what we can to provide some level of affordable housing. C.J. Valenzuela, Sr. Housing Planner, City of Cupertino: • Discussed the affordable housing program in terms of what is done with the funds collected. There has been a housing mitigation program since 1993; a fee update in 2004 and going into another one starting in 2014, coming up in 2015. The fee revenue generated for the housing mitigation fees are deposited into the city's BMR affordable housing fund and annually the city publishes an RFP to various organizations throughout Santa Clara County, nonprofit developers, public service providers; proposals are received from those various organizations; and the money reinvested in the community in the form of acquisition loans or grants to nonprofit affordable housing developers or substantial rehabilitation. Other projects include housing for domestic violence victims, complex for 100%HUD defined disabled tenants, and a single family residence for shared housing for seniors with very low rents. The funding levels are based on a mix of volume of projects; is a fee based revenue. The average balance before Apple contributions is averaged at $2.5 to $3 million dollars; and presently the fund is about $7 million; the average per acre price in Cupertino is about$5 to 6 million dollars. Com. Sun: • Asked if they were going to be involved in the community element for the Housing Element or not at all. Piu Ghosh: • Said presently they only have placeholder language in the General Plan about the benefit program and it is still under development. It is for Council to consider and whether it wants to implement a program; it may be implemented on Housing Element sites but they might have priority, they do not have much information on it yet. Colleen Winchester: • The community benefit program that is part of the GPA Part 2 will go back to the City Council; the community benefit issue is still under consideration as far as an allocation issue, as opposed to anything else. The Housing Element is separate from a community benefit program, and is being addressed at the meeting. Chair Lee opened the meeting for public comment. Randy Shingai,Miramar Ave., San Jose: • Said the Housing Commission met on April 9`I' to approve Resolution 1504 for changes to housing mitigation fees; staff recommended the fees for residential housing be increased by 500%; and for non-residential housing to be increased from 2/3 to over 333%. He said that many people are concerned with the city's progress on its RHNA goals and the proposed increases; he is not certain what they voted on, and he assumed they went along with staff's recommendation. When the City Council gets it on May 5`h they approve something else. He asked how the city could go ahead and approve a Housing Element without that information? People are going to lose confidence in the process because things are being changed behind their backs; it is wrong. He said they should wait until the changes to the mitigation fees are approved by the Council; take those and incorporate them Cupertino Planning Commission 6 April 14,2015 into the Housing Element and then approve that for the Council to approve; otherwise it is a sham; people have no faith in government. • Said he lives in the Cupertino Union School District and is a member of the Parcel Tax Oversight Committee for the Cupertino Union School District, and the Bond Oversight Committee, and his son graduated from Cupertino Union Schools and Cupertino High School. When talking about the co�unity, you are talking about the school districts; three of the trustees don't live in Cupertino. Said he would like to see the city meeting its RHNA goals, if they did a better job there would be fewer overall housing units built; a bad job results in more overall housing units. Piu Ghosh: • The Housing Element is a policy document which sets out the city's policies and talks about the programs at a very broad level; after that is adopted the actual programs are then separately decided. Council acts upon fees; the Planning Commission does not have general authority or recommending authority on fee structure so the Housing Commission as a housing policy body did make a recommendation on those program fees; and it will go to City Council on May 5`�' at which point the City Council will decide on the fees and then the Housing Element goes to City Council on May 19�' after the fees are adopted. The Housing Element itself does not mention fees, does not incorporate the fees in there; it just talks about a program with fees that will be adopted at a separate time. Vice Chair Takahashi: • Asked if the magnitude of the fee would in any way impact or change the housing plan as written? Piu Ghosh: • Responded no; in the Housing Element there is also a list of development fees which talks about application and park fees and others; but change annually. The document does not need to be up-to- date at that particular point during that housing plan period. C.J.Valenzuela: • Said they had the program since 1993 and were not proposing to change the program,just proposing to update the fee. He clarified that the program had been in the prior Housing Element. Jennifer Griffin,Rancho Rinconada resident: • Said she did not realize until Vallco was dropped in the Housing Element pool a couple of months ago that the 389 housing units were going to east end schools: Sedgwick, Hyde and Cupertino High School. Said her opinion has changed on that; they are already having main street impact going into the schools; obviously have housing sites that have been set up as they are going through the Housing Element. • She said she felt as a Californian that HCD has no regard for anyone in Cupertino; they don't like the people who live in Cupertino and want them to move away. They have no regard for any infrastructure in the city, political upheaval, impact to schools; she said she feels alienated and disconnected from the entire process. Said she was confused about Vallco's role in the Housing Element. Vallco is very predominant in the General Plan Amendment; many things are being done to accommodate Vallco in the GPA; Vallco is rolling around in the Housing Element; it has caused upheaval; it is like the stone that got thrown into the pond. What is A and B? Three years from now if Vallco doesn't come to fruition, is the Housing Element going to be upset and start taking over; are they going to take over Vallco? She said she felt they would come and seize land; perhaps it is time to start talking about a rent control in the city. What does HCD think about rent control? Cupertino Planning Commission 7 April 14, 2015 Lisa Warren, Cupertino resident: • Said in the real estate world zip code 95129 is considered Cupertino and is listed as Cupertino. Mr. Shingai has demonstrated how involved he is in the Cupertino community, far more than many developers who are presenting themselves as Cupertinians. She said she supported the idea that people living outside Cupertino, if they are active community members in a positive way, should have their views considered. She said that Mr. Shingai has had online discussions with residents in the 95014 area on the subject. Claire Arnold,Hyde Ave., Cupertino: • Said she was concerned about the process. Said she approved of the RHNA, the low income housing; she has a disabled son who if not for the program, would not be able to reside with her in Cupertino; also has an older son who would not be able to live with her. Said that when people talk about low income housing, she felt it fair that people should have their children near them. She said she was supportive of Randy Shingai. • She referred to an email to a parent in the Cupertino School District about the increases in school enrollment; it is clear to her that more classrooms are going to be needed by 2020. She feels that Lynbrook High will grow and it is likely that all 5 schools will be close to 2500 students each within 20 years. • Said she felt the City Council and Planning Commission have not addressed the fact that schools are important in this area. The traffic is terrible from 7:30 a.m. till 9:00 a.m. every day. She has encouraged Councilmembers and people who are involved in the process to go and see the traffic. She expressed concern about the traffic congestion and the poor driving skills people exhibit under stress when they are trying to get their children to school on time. She said it was important to impress to the City Council that it is a safety issue and she expected people to take responsibility for it. The public hearing was closed. Com. Gong: • Asked Ms. Matchniff to state their intention of maintaining the 34 BMR units and additional units. Carly Matchniff: • Said they had an agreement with the city to continue those BMR units for 13 years; it would be 12 depending on being able to achieve approval of the site. Those units would continue and they would pay the housing impact fee which is soon to be adopted and would negotiate that with the city whether that is on the new units, or the combination of the units. They have not yet discussed the ultimate terms of that housing impact fee; but that would be a significant amount of money from the per square foot fee that is being suggested. Their intention is to maintain 34 units for the duration of the 12/13 years but not additional; the Hamptons does not have intention to increase the BMR units per se. Said they have a 30 year agreement and have fulfilled that agreement and now the city is adopting the housing impact fee which is significant. Com. Gong: • The option of Scenario B is triggered in 3 years; how does Ms. Matchniff plan for the eventual, perhaps significant increase in their allotment? Carly Matchniff: • Said they need to make a determination if they are going to move forward with Scenario A or wait to see the disposition of the Vallco development and go to Scenario B. She said it is an assessment they need to make if they move forward with A and then the Vallco development did not go forward and Cupertino Planning Commission 8 April 14, 2015 there would be the additional option in the future to discuss that with the city. At this point they would either choose to move forward with A or wait for the period of time. The current thinking is to move forward with Scenario A. Com.Paulsen: • Said he, for personal and professional reasons, shared the concerns about low income housing and housing for the disabled in Cupertino. In looking at the Housing Element and in discussing the issue with staff, he said he felt it was not the time to bring specific issues forward; there are other issues that have been decided by Council that will also come up again and there will be opportunities to address. Said he felt it important to move the Housing Element along to the State deadline at this time. Staff: • Responded to a concern raised by Dr. Lum earlier in the meeting regarding posting of the meeting agenda on the city website. She reported that the agenda was uploaded to the city website on Thursday April 9'i'at 2:03 p.m.; it was unfortunate that Dr. Lum was unable to access it; he is also on the e-mail list of those who receive the agenda and the update directly from staff. Chair Lee: • Commented that it appeared Dr. Lum conducted a search on the calendar; the problem of accessing the information and agenda from the website may have been a process problem. Said she concurred with Com. Paulsen that they should adopt the Housing Element to meet the deadline, because it is not good for the city to be penalized and open to potential litigation. Vice Chair Takahashi: • Said he generally agreed; however, felt it was unfortunate that the deadline was forcing their hand. It has been a long process and coming to the end of the process, and they cannot accommodate everything that comes up. Com. Gong: • Said she was in line with Vice Chair Takahashi's thinking; however, their duty tonight is to review the Housing Element and the other elements are part in parcel; they have been tasked with the Housing Element specifically. Com. Sun: • Addressed the issue of Dr. Lum's concern and inability to access the agenda information from the city website for the Planning Commission. Said he proposed to city staff that they announce the subj ects on the agenda to the public by putting the topic on the website so they know what will be discussed, what the subject is, to allow more time instead of just giving the agenda to the public. The Planning Commissioners experience the same frustration; the agenda is received Thursday which only allows them 3 to 4 days to review the entire agenda packet. If they know the particular sites that are going to be discussed in the next meeting, they will have more time to prepare. It has been proposed to city staff and hopefully will provide more time for the public and the commissioners to review the upcoming agenda items. • He clarified that he was not questioning whether Mr. Shingai was a Cupertino citizen, all citizens have rights to concerns about public issues; but merely was curious about his interest in Cupertino issues. He said he supported and encouraged all residents of Cupertino and other cities to express � their opinions at the podium. He added that the Housing Element is part of a General Plan Amendment which has been discussed many times. He said he supported staff's recommendation. Com. Gong: Cupertino Planning Commission 9 April 14, 2015 • No additional comments. Chair Lee reviewed closing comments: • There were 4 residents who spoke; represented many concerns of other residents. Relative to Mr. Shangai's comments, she said she served on the Housing Comrnission for a couple of years; anyone who also shares his views on the impact fees for housing for developers should attend Housing Cominission meetings and express their views. The Housing Commission usually looks before they implement something, they and staff work together to look at other cities and make sure those impact fees are in line with other cities. It is important for cities to update the fees and make sure they are in line with other cities. • Ms. Griffin said she felt like ABAG and HCD doesn't care about the residents of Cupertino; the Housing Cominission, staff and CJ work together to make sure that there are appropriate means for legal services for housing, the fair housing, and housing for disabled persons. • Speaker Claire Arnold shared residents' concerns about traffic in the area particularly in the area of the schools. • The Teen Commission works with Public Safety to implement walking to school, biking to school, carpooling to relieve some of the congestion. The city looks in the General Plan at the stoplights and monitor the levels of service(LOS). Com.Paulsen: • Commented that years ago former Planning Director Steve Piasecki commented that they moved traffic well through Cupertino, perhaps too well. There is a new state law that affects this and says that no longer will the quality of an intersection be determined on how long a car has to wait at a stoplight. The criteria is changing and it will also encompass how long a bicycle and a pedestrian waits and how they are affected in that intersection. The details of this are yet to be worked out but it's deep in the Housing Element, and there are no specifics. As an 8-year member of the Bicycle Pedestrian Commission he said he felt it was good news and it will portend some positive changes with regard to traffic in the coming years. Vice Chair Takahashi: • Said it has been a long process for staff and commended them on their patience and diligence in finalizing it. Said from his perspective the RHNA requirements are very clear; the affordability element unfortunately is not well addressed, but he felt staff doesn't have any leeway in addressing it. Other concerns with the RHNA requirement is the 1064 minimum vs. our 1400, 40% overage is that the right number; is there a more conservative number that can be utilized than the 1200 or something along those lines? • Said he understood the need for flexibility from the standpoint that proj ects change and there is a lot of fluctuation; the site might come off the list and needs to be replaced, but he said he did not understand if 40% is the right number. The whole GPA process has been dynamic over time and the Housing Element is one of the cornerstone key pieces; they are getting close to getting that across the finish line. The two major concerns the public expresses on all the GPA elements are impact to schools which is something that they are not supposed to address from the standpoint of the Housing Element. • At former Com. Paul Brophy's last meeting they discussed the General Plan Amendment specifically hotel vs. office and the housing wasn't addressed because it was going to be separate. At the time Com. Brophy had a strong feeling towards the General Plan Amendment and was very vocal over his concern over allocating office space. Since that time he has felt it is something of concern because the balance of jobs vs. housing and job growth vs. housing growth are nowhere near in balance, so adding a lot more jobs in terms of office space and that is creating more traffic, but people can't live here so they have to drive further. What we have in place fits the elements of density, the land Cupertino Planning Commission 10 April 14, 2015 available which is very limited and trying to stay on the arterials such that access is as good as possible with regard to 280 and 85, those freeways are getting very congested. He said he supported the proposal at this time. Com. Gong: • Said she echoed Com. Takahashi's statements; and was concerned they were allocating or proposing 1400 units, not necessarily the number but looking at the sites proposed. As opposed to other years it appears that they will really be built out and it looks like the numbers will be achieved; the concern is they will have more than RHNA is asking to build. It is a reasonable layout of the sites; they are all on the main streets which will cause more congestion on those streets; however, even small increases anywhere will cause congestion. • Said they were restricted from considering school impacts; looking at what their responsibility is, with what staff has created and presented, staff has done a fine job, and she supports what has been presented. Motion: Motion by Com. Gong, second by Com. Paulsen, and unanimously carried 5-0-0 to adopt Draft Resolution No. GPA-2013-02 as modified with desk item for 2014-2022 housing element. NEW BUSINESS; None REP RT OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION Environm tal Review Committee: No meeting held. Housin Commis ' n: Meeting cancelled. Economic Develo ment ommittee Meetin : No meeti . Ma or's Monthl Meetin Wi Commissioners: Chair Lee reported on last monthly eeting held in arch. • Discussed restricting truck traffic ithin 50 feet of the school; City Council is working on it. May limit it to 3 tons, trying to get Class ' e lanes in the city; voted for $430K road improvements. Staff had their first meeting with s s relative to traffic and safety. There will be further discussion on y Council members ting ' Committee members. There was discussion about the possibility of the Oak Valley re ' ents provi i bus transportation to the schools to help with the school traffic problem. • Lincoln Elementary Schoo as not interested in p 'cipating in the Voltage program. Kennedy Elementary School has a rong walk/bike to school pro . Citywide parks master plan is coming up; they want to make ay structures more natural. • Distinguished artist• ant another category for younger artists; nt to make a public art walk and will work with P s and Rec; DeAnza cultural event; public art cata was well received. • Mayor had ide of enticing Super Bowl attendees to come to Cupertin nd not just San Francisco and San Jos • TIC Co ssion—ALERT system report. • Teen ter had concert last week; annual action council; April 25 MV High Sch 1, Dr. Ted Talks, vari of speakers; Big Bunny Fun Run. C . Gong reported on the April lst Mayor's meeting: