draft minutes 11/05/2009CITY OF CUPERTINO
10300 Torre Avenue
Cupertino, CA 95014
CITY OF CUPERTINO PLANNING COMMISSION
DRAFT MINUTES
6:45 P.M. November 5, 2009 THURSDAY
CUPERTINO COMMUNITY HALL
The special Planning Commission meeting of November 5, 2009, was called to order at 6:45 p.m.
in the Cupertino Community Hall, 10350 Torre Avenue, Cupertino, California, by Chairperson
Lisa Giefer.
SALUTE TO THE FLAG
ROLL CALL
Commissioners present: Chairperson: Lisa Giefer
Vice Chairperson: Paul Brophy
Commissioner: Winnie Lee
Commissioner: Marty Miller
Commissioner: David Kaneda
Staff present: Community Development Director: Aarti Shrivastava
City Planner: Gary Chao
Senior Planner: Colin Jung
APPROVAL OF MINUTES: None
WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS: None
POSTPONEMENTS/REMOVAL FROM CALENDAR:
1. GPA-2008-O1(EA-2009-OS) General Plan Amendment for 2007-2014 Housing
City of Cupertino Element Update. Applicant has requested a
Location: Citywide postponement to the November 24, 2009
Plannizg Conznzissiozz zneeti~zg. Tentative Ciry Council
Date: December 15, 2009
Motion: Motion by Vice Chair Brophy, second by Com. Kaneda, and unanimously
carried 5-0 to postpone Application GPA-2008-O1 (EA-2009-05 to the
November 24, 2009 Planning Commission meeting.
ORAL COMMUNICATIONS: None
Chair Giefer welcomed Councilmember-Elect Barry Cheng.
OLD BUSINESS
2. Review Green Building Ordinance process framework.
Cupertino Planning Commission 2 November 5, 2009
Gary Chao, City Planner, presented the staff report:
• Said the item was a review of the Green Building Ordinance process framework. Reviewed the
background of the item; stating that the work is a collection of the input. into a conceptual draft
framework for final review. Five main components discussed at the October 13 meeting were:
Establishing policy objectives and goals; providing regulatory background information;
establishing policy scope; defining public outreach plan; and outlining process schedule.
• Staff recommendation is to for the Planning Commission to provide recommendation to City
Council on the final scope and process for the Green Building Ordinance review process.
The Planning Commission reviewed the Policy Objectives/Goals as outlined on Page 2-3 of the
staff report.
Com. Miller:
• Recommended that they have a goal stating a preference for providing incentives over
mandated requirements; and that they focus on coming up with incentives that would help
make that happen.
• The goals should include measurability, because if they are not measured, they don't know if
they are successful or not.
• There should be something about identifying where what could be called the "low hanging
fruit" is in terms of achieving the objectives that the State wants in terms of reductions; and the
program should be weighted towards going after those areas in the city where we can make the
most impact with the least amount of effort.
• Some of these objectives as stated are so broad, that it is hard to measure or define them. For
example, "(a) provide community ..... stakeholders" is going to be very difficult to achieve or
measure to determine if we are achieving it. My comment is with respect to whatever the
objectives are, there should be something that says we clearly understand how we are
measuring what we are trying to achieve.
Com. Kaneda:
• Said he agreed with the comment on metrics; as goals are set, it needs to be something that we
measure against to see whether we are achieving those goals; not just that we are trying to do
this, but actually on a regular basis some kind of check-in to see where we stand. Possibly
there is an educational component especially if a lot of this is related to residential
construction. Tthere needs to be some kind of educational component so people understand
what is being asked and more importantly, why it is being asked. Also would like to see
metrics related to the AB32 goals; there is a disconnect now between what the AB32
requirements are, and what it is going to take to get there at the community level; and if it is
clearly defined where we are and where we need to go, I think it will be easier to have that
discussion. We need to do this at this point, otherwise what I am worried about is that people
will look at what the goals are and say that is way too much, in actual fact in some cases it
may turn out to be too little. That is where I see that as being important.
Vice Chair Brophy:
• Said he agreed with Com. Miller's points in terms of things we should be looking at; in terms
of the language, it covers a fair amount of flexibility to look at these issues. Adding a clause
as mentioned about something to do about measuring the effects, both costs and the benefits
would be a useful addition to the policy section; the language is sufficiently broad that it gives
room to work in different areas.
• Said that the initial mailers don't produce a lot of benefit for the cost involved, unless the
project is right next to someone's residence. He suggested using the website, articles and the
Courier and not focus on the mailers.
Cupertino Planning Commission 3 November 5, 2009
Aarti Shrivastava:
• What we were thinking was a type of a hybrid; what we have typically done with projects of
citywide significance is send mailers for every meeting and instead of that what we could do is
send an initial mailer and ask them to sign up online, because we have the ability to create e-
lists for different projects. A citywide mailer costs in the range of $5,000 to $6,000.
Vice Chair Brophy:
• Undecided about the recommendation to hire a consultant, said he felt it was essentially a
facilitator; uncertain what this person would bring to the table.
Com. Kaneda:
• There are firms out there that specialize in helping cities through this process, and are quite
knowledgeable generally on some of the issues.
Aarti Shrivastava:
• Estimate was based on a discussion with a consultant and other cities contacted; it provides the
entire gamut of what we can do as part of a process.
• The process that the consultant will help with is to understand green building; they helped
communities create ordinances around this and are familiar with the issues of permitting; they
include informational fliers, meetings, stakeholder meetings. Without consultant help, we
would do a much more limited process.
Chair Giefer:
• There are many cities that have green building ordinances; one of them missing from staff's
list is Los Altos; they have had a green building ordinance in effect longer than any other
Santa Clara County city; there are several other models to study. We need help from
somebody who has the greater perspective.
Com. Miller:
• Before we decide who or what, we ought to decide why/what we are trying to achieve with
this outreach. As an example, when we did the housing element update, we had a consultant
come in and run some outreach meetings; he was an expert on what Sacramento required and
he could help us with the details of what types of locations made sense and didn't make sense
and what was likely to get approved and not get approved. However, I attended all but one of
those meetings and I didn't view it as particularly successful because it was mostly didactic; he
would talk to us and we would ask questions of him, but I thought the purchase of the meeting
was to get input on what sites our community, our residents thought were important and that
input would have been good for us because we had to do that ourselves so those meetings
failed in that regard.
OB,TECTIVES:
Com. Lee:
• Make certain that our existing state building ordinances don't conflict with any we are talking
about, but also identify incentives for several areas for residential, com-nercial and
institutional to help them achieve our goals. Do we need to put in measurability or will the
Energy Commission do it for us.
Chair Giefer:
• Agree that we need to make sure we have an objective in there measuring our carbon and how
Cupertino Planning Commission 4 November 5, 2009
we get to the state mandated requirements of AB32. We need to have a specific objective on
how we are going to measure the success of moving forward to the state mandated regulations
and whatever our specific goals are.
• How we are going to provide an incentive to people makes sense, but I would rather see that as
part of the language under policy scope; it is a specific item that we can include to that; and I
think that it ensures greater participation from the community as well. We do have an
educational component further down under Policy and Scope; and I think that the objectives
that we have are broad enough to encompass that as well. Not sure if that has to be a specific
objective of the program.
Com. Miller:
• Relative to objectives, it is important that we set out as a goal to focus primarily on incentives
as opposed to mandated items and not put it lower on the list. I think it should be a goal and
an objective and I would look to the free market as a model to do that. For example if we are
talking about building houses, if there was an incentive program which made it clear that if
homeowners or builders did this, that their product would be more or if they remodeled their
house, that it would be of more value in the market; not only would they be saving money on
their energy bills, but they would also have a house that was worth more when they went to
resell and in fact, more than the cost of putting it in, it would encourage people to do.
• I would rather do the carrot than the stick approach; however, we could have it both ways. In
the discussion with Mark Santoro some time ago, the topic came up that perhaps as an
example if we set up what the requirements are and if people do it, then they get, for example
the FAR that we have in the ordinance today; however, if they don't do it, the thing is that we
actually reduce the FAR so that we have both combination of the carrot and the stick. That is
just one example, and I am not suggesting that we do that, but what I am suggesting is that this
approach is far better I think than when I read some of the things that Palo Alto does or some
of these other cities, where it is just a mandate and there is triggers and it is pretty much you
have to do that. I would rather have it as an incentives program; I think we can make it far
more successful than forcing people to do it and perhaps some of the other Commissioners
could comment on whether they agree.
Com. Kaneda:
• Said he disagreed more than agreed.
• Likes the idea of incentives on some things; the one issue that is going to hit right away and
one of the first things we need to be talking and thinking about is Santa Clara County Cities
Assoc. recommendations. It is not something you can put incentives in, but maybe this is what
you are talking about; you could put incentives in but you still need to require it, otherwise I
think it would be a real stretch to just expect people to do these things consistently. One of the
issues that I think this city and other cities need to consider is that these policies really want to
be consistent throughout the larger region, so if one city says we require LEED Silver and
another city says we don't require anything and another city says we require LEED Platinum,
then that starts affecting developers and in fact the developers that I have heard talk about this
say, we want consistent policy from city to city which is why Santa Clara County Cities
Assoc. asked Silicon Valley Leadership Group to actually come up with a recommendation for
a policy. In that way for this to be most effective, you actually want everybody to codify more
or less the same thing.
Com. Miller:
• I question how important that is; when you go from city to city, everything with respect to
building is different, the FARs, the setbacks; all the requirements are different today. So
adding one more requirement that may or may not be consistent I don't think helps. You still
Cupertino Planning Commission 5 November 5, 2009
have to study the ordinance.
Chair Giefer:
• There are differences of opinion on that particular issue in terms of where it should be; should
it be providing some incentive as a goal or as part of a policy; take a straw vote after we have
gone through this and got public input on the recommended way to move forward, and then
come up with a final conclusion.
Com. Miller:
• I am not sure because I didn't get any comments on my other suggestions. Let's bring up the
next suggestion I had, which is that we have some kind of goal there that focuses on what I
call the low hanging fruit; that we identify where we can make the biggest gains for the least
amount of effort and energy.
Chair Giefer:
• The 800 lb. gorilla in the room and in the state of California is AB32 and if we add that as a
specific objective, I think that will be a byproduct of it, because it specifically does deal with
energy and carbon output.
Com. Miller:
• I understand, but there is different ways to go about that. We can have every homeowner who
does a remodel have to adhere to stringent requirements and that is not going to get us far
because there just aren't that many remodels. However, intuitively it seems that the place
where the most energy is used is in our businesses in town, with their lights on all day, running
their air conditioner, etc. It seems like that is where the large majority of the energy use
occurs; that is where blackouts occur.
Vice Chair Brophy:
• Referring to 3C, consider ordinance alternatives based on community needs and input .....
alternatives; doesn't that implicitly suggest that we are looking for the biggest bang for the
buck; the most reduction in energy and other natural resources consumption for the least
amount of dollars spent.
Aarti Shrivastava:
• Said they can do measurability and get some sense of where the ordinance is going to get
them, but not if they don't know who is going to do it and who isn't. It would be harder to
figure out whether the ordinance is going to get them toward AB32.
• A mandatory ordinance will ensure some sense of consistency that will tell you if we get
people to do this we can move toward this goal. The other thing about low hanging fruit, that
was what part of the educational process was, and the consultant was to help us identify, if it is
50 Build It Green (BIG) points, what does that mean for a house. When you are doing a
remodel what is the easiest, cheapest way to get there. The commercial developers are very
much on board, maybe the smaller commercial developers could get some help, educational
fliers; that teach people where is that low hanging fruit that helps you get there; we can list
them in the order of the low to the higher costs.
• Said it would be under Scope because we would look at the cost benefit analysis which the
consultant was going to help us with; so there is a certain amount of expectation and if we
come up with things we want in the ordinance, I think staff doesn't have that level of expertise
in that field and we are going to look for some help. We can go either way, with a very simple
no consultant base, we can just review the Phase 2 and do some educational seminars to say
Cupertino Planning Commission 6 November 5, 2009
what is out there and what we are adopting. It all depends on what kind of expertise we have.
Com. Kaneda:
• I think also if we could get the consultant to give us some kind of feedback on comparisons;
since we are talking about possibly adopting a LEED standard, or a LEED equivalent standard,
some kind of feedback on the draft of the 2009 green building code and an assessment of how
close or not how close they are; and that is something that seems to come up regularly. I have
yet to see a side by side comparison.
Vice Chair Brophy:
• That is important to me because if the new Chapter 11 of Title 24 is getting us at the same
level or not near it, then I question why are we playing around with LEED. That is what we
need more; or a technical analysis rather than a facilitator type consultant.
Com. Miller:
• I don't necessarily agree; if staff says they don't have the technical skills, then we need the
technical skills. However, the example I was giving before was that we had someone for the
housing element who had the technical skills, not the touchy-feely skills; and I thought that the
average was a failure because of that. We have to have one person as both, or we have to have
two people; one doing the facilitating in a manner that gets to where we are going to go, and
the other that provides technical expertise if staff doesn't have it.
Chair Giefer:
• I think that if we have the technical expertise and we hold public hearings, they are well
advertised; we have an optimum list and do the right kind of outreach, we can get the public
input we need here and be direct and not filter through a consultant, and I would also be
comfortable with that model.
Aarti Shrivastava:
Said that any workshops that they have will be Planning Commission meetings, hosted by the
Planning Commission.
Com. Miller:
• Said he felt they needed a professional facilitator to get the maximum benefit. He commented
that he has yet to see meetings run by the City where it was done to maximum benefit.
Chair Giefer:
• Said there was no argument on the point; it was just a matter of budget.
Com. Miller:
• If it is worth doing, it is worth doing right; otherwise we shouldn't do it because when I
attended all those meetings, the objective that I thought we were going to get out of it was a
recommendation by people from the city by our residents as to what areas did or did not make
sense to include in the list to go to Sacramento, we never got and we had to do it ourselves.
All that it achieved, was that the people who attended those workshops, were better educated
but it didn't filter up here.
Cupertino Planning Commission 7 November 5, 2009
REGULATORY CONTEXT:
Chair Giefer:
• Summarized that they would like somebody on board who can provide both the technical
information on the ordinances that other cities have with the state's requiring and what the
laws are and the legislation ahead; but as well, ideally have a facilitator who can facilitate
group discussion and help move people forward and summarize their ideas.
GREEN BUILDING POLICY SCOPE:
• We have comments already; adding low hanging fruit to Section 3;
Vice Chair Brophy:
• Relative to Section 3, 3C already covers that.
Aarti Shrivastava:
• This policy scope is going to define what our scope is going to be for the process and for the
consultant, should we get one.
Chair Giefer:
• I hope we are going to get some great ideas from the stakeholders; that we have residents and
developers who come in and based on their experiences and their ideas that we get some other
really interesting ideas that we haven't thought of. I would like to make sure we have room for
great ideas from the public as well.
Aarti Shrivastava:
• 3C was supposed to be that catch all; we have heard from people who said we are going to go
beyond LEED, but we are not going to be LEED, and we were grappling with how do we help
define that so it meets something; and we want to be open to those things and perhaps give
people an alternative to be able to get there.
Com. Kaneda:
• Said he brought it up in Santa Clara County Cities Assoc., meetings; one issue that should be
discussed is the idea of green buildings just as green buildings, vs. global warming which is
related to burning fossil fuels, so they are not quite the same thing. Energy efficiency and
global warming in my mind is a subset of the overall definition of green buildings, and they
are related but there are things that if you are designing a green building that you might do that
don't necessarily help have any impact on global warming.
Chair Giefer:
• Com. Miller's example is always putting residents near transit; that is a very green idea if you
make sure you are adding housing near transit centers and housing is built green and near
public transportation.
Com. Kaneda:
• That actually does have an impact on global warming because it is transportation; reducing
storm water runoff is certainly a good environmental thing to do; but it doesn't necessarily
reduce global warming, it reduces erosion. There is a discussion of is one issue more
important than the other, are they both important, and do you weigh them differently?
Somewhere in this discussion it would be worthwhile to weave it in, at least think about it.
Cupertino Planning Commission 8 November 5, 2009
Com. Miller:
• It is a good idea; because there are three bills here and one addresses global warming; one
addresses energy efficiency and the other addresses water conservation. It adds another level
of complexity in terms of what we actually do, and which is more important.
Vice Chair Brophy:
• My understanding is that the LEED process, one of its goals is to provide the individual
developer with tradeoffs that he can get points in different areas, so that on any given project,
he can move further in one area where it is presumably most cost effective; to your knowledge
does the Part 11 of Title 24 also have a similar process.
Com. Kaneda:
• The version coming into place is going to have a tier system; which it is not a point system you
can go and put total number of points; it is a tier system that there is a base requirement that
you have to do everything and then there is a tier 1 where a city can chose to adopt if they
want a stricter standard. My understanding is you have to do everything unless the city comes
up with a point system like LEEDS, but there is no indication on how you would do it; they
would have to come up with it on their own. There is two tier systems and for schools there is
actually a third tier which is grid neutral building but that wouldn't apply to us.
Chair Giefer:
• One of the things Com. Kaneda was talking about is the difference between green building and
global warming. It goes back to the concept of measurement, so as we are evaluating different
portions of policy and how to move forward on things, I think we do have to consider that and
we need to either acknowledge what it works on by saying yes this specifically addresses
green building and this one addresses global warming or both; or I don't like the idea of
subjective ranking on how these things work because I don't know that we will really know
that.
Aarti Shrivastava:
• For example if you have a LEED platinum building or LEED silver building they could both
of them be the same at the same level but they could address greenhouse gases very differently
based on which parts they chose; the measurability part becomes complicated about how do
we get closer to achieving AB32. I am thinking within the scope of this project, how realistic
are we in terms of our expectations.
Chair Giefer:
• It is a good idea for us as we are discussing policy to acknowledge what that policy addresses;
is it global warming, or is it green building policy. The whole idea behind the concept is if
you build things green, you are going to use less energy, less resources, etc. which should
impact global warming, but some things have a more direct result.
Com. Miller:
• Is it significant that AB32 is the only one with a specific objective, which is to reach a goal by
2020.
Vice Chair Brophy:
• That is a future Planning Commission's problem; I agree with you that I think the people who
threw that into the law haven't really thought about; my understanding is that would basically
require per capita emissions to get back to the level of the 18~' century.
Cupertino Planning Commission 9 November 5, 2009
Aarti Shrivastava:
• Com. Miller is correct; AB32 is the one that sets the policy; the mandate, and all of the other
bills try to achieve or get closer to it and they will get progressively tighter. That is the goal.
Com. Miller:
• That almost says that is the one we have to give the highest priority to. Chair Giefer said she
agreed.
Com. Kaneda:
• Also one missed is AB 1103; which I think has something to do with disclosing the energy use
of commercial building, that actual energy use; There is one didn't make it through for
residential, which is controversial. If you sold your residence, you would have to disclose
energy use.
Chair Giefer:
• Staff can check into that; we have not really closed Scope. Relative to No. F, it says create
guidebooks and other educational material; I think that we as a Planning Commission don't
want to create it, we want to direct staff and the consultant to do that so I don't know if that
needs worthsmithing.
Aarti Shrivastava:
• We can do that, this was basically the scope of the project more than one group vs. the other.
Com. Miller:
• The question is where does the city fit in this? If we are going to ask our businesses and
residents to do this, the city should be out front leading the charge and the city should be
setting up some of our buildings in town as models of how to do it properly.
Com. Kaneda:
• Said he understand the city adopted that as part of the phase I.
Com. Miller:
• We are talking about far more than that; we are talking about retrofitting buildings and all
kinds of additions here, and my comment is that I think it is appropriate that the city should be
a model of what we want our businesses and residents to do.
Gary Chao:
• That is a good point, and precisely what Erin Cook's main focus is; we are going through
energy audit and assessing our own carbon footprint in terms of our municipal operation and
the intent is to lead by example. I think Erin Cook next time can address that point more and
explain where we are at in terms of that process.
PTIRT,T('' nTTTRF.A(".H PT.AN:
Vice Chair Brophy:
• Not really changing the language, but it is important that we do get the people from the
Building Dept. involved because they are the ones who will enforce the ordinance to the extent
that we have suggestions that as we start drafting it into an ordinance, I would like to hear
feedback from them as to how easy it is to enforce.
• Am concerned about the LEED program where as I understand for certification, you don't get
it until after the building is completed and occupied.
Cupertino Planning Commission 10 November 5, 2009
Aarti Shrivastava:
• I think we at this point if we did have an ordinance and I have talked to several cities about
this, would be a build-to LEED requirement; because you get the CO when you build to
specified specs and then they can go through their monitoring procedures but we are not going
to make them tear the building down.
• There are different LEED requirements, core and shell, the interior is not included.
Vice Chair Brophy:
• Is the building permit set up to process LEED type applications?
Aarti Shrivastava:
• We don't really have green building inspectors; with a lot of projects, we rely on, we are
sending them to training so they can understand what some of the procedures are, but we do
have the architect certify that it has been built to the standards; it is a type of professional
certification.
Com. Kaneda:
• There are two ways I have seen cities approach this; there is a lot of discussion on this at the
Santa Clara County Cities Assoc. and there seems to be two ways cities approach it; the
concerns are, one is the cost to the city if they are trying to assess it internally and if you say
we are going to design to a LEED silver standard, but we are not actually going to require
certification, then who is going to check that because USGBC is not going to correct it, and
now the city has to check it and have the knowledge to be able to assess is it or isn't it and not
be fooled when somebody checks a bunch of boxes and hands it in.
• Some cities have said this is too much for us, we don't want to do this, let's have USGBC
make the assessment. Some cities have said, no we are going to have an in-house expert, Palo
Alto does it that way, and that person does it and they have one person only right now. San
Jose is going the other way and says we are going to require you to above a certain size
building submit it to USGBC and then there is the issue of occupancy permits; and the way
they are handling it is and I think other cities also do it this way; they say you put X number of
dollars out, in San Jose's case it is very low and if it doesn't work, then they will ratchet it up
but it is a nominal amount of money and if you don't follow through and get that certification,
then you forfeit the money. It is similar to a liquidated damages sort of thing. Who knows
how long it will take to get he paperwork in and the interpretations answered etc. and finally
get a call whether you are silver or not.
Com. Kaneda:
• My thinking is that it is less about what you are paying USGBC although it is in the thousands
of dollars, but when you are talking amulti-million dollar project, $SK or $7K is nothing; it is
the design team and the contractors' additional fees to do the bureaucracy and the paperwork.
A homeowner would probably do Build It Green, which is only about $250.
Chair Giefer:
• The actual filing and certification is very affordable; consultants set their own rates; you would
be involved with someone who comes in does the checkpoints throughout the project. It is
about $300 to apply for it for a single family house and then for somebody to come out, you
would save $200 but it may be more depending on the lot, and then also if it is a multi family,
it is .04 cents per square foot. The city also has a fund set up that is still available to pay for
green point raters. There is a $SOK fund to reimburse people for their green point rater fees.
Cupertino Planning Commission 11 November 5, 2009
Com. Miller:
• Outreach activities in the past have had mixed results; recalled the extensive outreach efforts
for the sign ordinance, and only 5 members of the public appeared at the meeting. It is
important to hear from all stakeholders and worth it to spend time talking about how to have a
successful outreach program that emphasizes the importance of the activity to the people who
are going to be impacted by it so they actually show up and provide good input.
Com. Kaneda:
• With the sign ordinance the average Cupertino resident is not planning on putting up a sign
anytime soon; whereas with policies that could potentially impact anybody who is doing a
medium to significant size remodel, new home or business that is doing a remodel or adding a
new building, that is potentially everybody in the city. People come out when it affects them.
Chair Giefer:
• We had the same discussion about the R1 recently when we did some modifications and held
the public hearings on the first and second story, and very few showed up. It is perplexing to
the Commission because the decisions and recommendations that we make do impact
everyone's lives in the community and how do we get people to attend; we cannot make it
mandatory.
• It would help if there was more interest shown. Some of the things to consider for example is
to hold meetings in different locations, such as on the east side of town or on the west side of
town; be a roving Planning Commission and meet in the neighborhoods, making it convenient
for the residents; or hold meetings on school sites.
Com. Miller:
• There are other organizations in town that hold meetings and people attend them for various
reasons. Perhaps the average program could use the people who lead those meetings to
emphasize the importance of attending the meeting. People attend school PTA meetings, and
the school running those meetings may have the opportunity to say that the city is doing that, it
is going to impact your lives, and you should get out and talk about it.
SUGGESTED PUBLIC OUTREACH:
• Use of school's Wednesday homework packet; parents read. Work out with schools to put
information in packets going to students' homes
• Use of City's Facebook page, send tweets about it; Chamber of Commerce
Com. Miller:
• The other stakeholders would include architects, architectural designers, and builders
themselves.
• Would it be appropriate to have a public service meeting at Sunday services; trying to figure
out how to get the word out.
TIMELINE AND SCHEDULE:
Aarti Shrivastava:
• It was agreed that the 9 month process was realistic. The plan was to finalize the scope this
evening, not Dec. 2009.
• I think you can look at the milestones rather than the dates, and see if those make sense and
see if we can put in more. I did hear more stakeholder meetings; we realize we were into a 9
month process when we put this together.
Cupertino Planning Commission 12 November 5, 2009
• What we would like the Commission to do is to recommend the process they feel is most
appropriate. If the Council feels otherwise, we will let them know it is a very limited scope
because we can do outreach; but I think Com. Miller was correct in the facilitation part; we
might need a little help. Most of the budget was scheduled towards mailers and the outreach,
and less towards the technical analysis because we wouldn't really have that expertise. It
would be more about providing outreach and materials about what Phase 2 meant and making
a decision about tinkering with Phase 2 a little.
Com. Miller:
• Strongly recommend to Council that since this will potentially have a significant impact on our
residents, it is worth spending a few dollars to do it properly.
Chair Giefer:
• Are there any things missing in the schedule or timeline as opposed to actually looking at the
dates. Any milestones that we would have expected differently.
Vice Chair Brophy:
• The only one I would change is under May 2010 where we say "overview of LEED/lead and
big requirements; I would like the language changed to allow for whatever formats we use
rather than necessarily indicate that those would be, that we are locking ourselves into those
particular programs.
• So overview of other green building standards and policies.
Aarti Shrivastava:
• Clarified that it was supposed to provide the Phase 2 recommendations and a context for that.
We do have a meeting where we talk about the alternative concepts and that was the meeting
after that in June and that is where we talk about what else people doing; what else is out there.
It is an emerging area and there is going to be some discussion around it.
Com. Kaneda:
• There are some cities that have gone with percentage above current Title 24 requirements.
Everybody says Title 24, but what that really means is Section 6 the Energy Code. I don't
know who can get us this information, but I am aware that there is all types of things being
debated and developed as policies like at the CPUC and CEC level, and I am not even sure we
could get this, but it would be nice to get some kind of download on what is coming down the
pike from that standpoint, which may have an impact on which direction we feel like we
would want to go. I am not sure if it is bill related, but I have sat in on meetings where they
talk about developing; they are at least in preliminary discussions about developing all kinds
of policies related to what kinds of lamps you are allowed to use or whether or not they are
going to allow certain kinds of lamps to be sold, zero energy buildings by certain dates and
those kinds of discussions.
Chair Giefer:
• On the first May 2010 meeting, educational workshops to review different things, I would like
to have policies and we really need to understand what the State is requiring as well. So as
part of the overview of concepts of green building programs, I would also like to review the
specific laws and regulations.
Cupertino Planning Commission 13 November 5, 2009
FUNDING:
Chair Giefer:
• Is there anyone who would not want to see us hire a consultant to either help us technically or
to facilitate? (Response: No)
Vice Chair Brophy:
• Since I was the one who questioned the facilitator, listening to Com. Miller's argument, I think
there is something to be said for bringing in a professional facilitator. There has to be a limit
to it, I would prefer it would be someone who also has the technical skills.
Com. Lee:
• There will be critics who say we have the environmental green coordinator but her job is to
coordinate within departments and she needs somebody. We want a consultant who has
experience in facilitating discussions and workshops and also who is a credentialed LEED
person; I think we can find a consultant who has both.
Chair Giefer opened the public hearing.
Jennifer Griffin, Rancho Rinconada resident:
• Taking the appropriate amount of time and getting everyone involved and hashing it out is a
good plan, because as we are going down the years, I think that with global warming, every
city is going to wind up with very robust policies. I thought it was interesting when talking
about historic structures, I saw that other cities such as Palo Alto and Sunnyvale, have very old
homes from different architectural periods and you cannot really go in there and say we are
going to take a 1920 home that's on the historic list for San Jose and make it totally green.
You have to have a certain situations where people, particularly if you have a private home
and it is of historic proportions or a certain model, there are going to have to be policies that
are made to allow the homeowners to be able to upgrade the home but not have to turn the
1920s home into a cubic style from mid-century modern or such because of the green building
requirements. Down the road Cupertino is going to have more historic homes from different
time periods that will likely have to be dealing with.
• Sunnyvale is giving credit to developers 5 feet higher if they have more green certification, S~Io
more lot coverage. It is not a good road for Cupertino to go down; Cupertino is a very small
intact, compact, already dense community; I think we have enough incentives without going
down that road.
Com. Kaneda:
• Clarified that he was doing a historic remodel of a 1920s office building that will be extremely
green, may possibly make it to the platinum. I think you can actually, they are not necessarily
mutually exclusive and in some cases older buildings were deigned to be more efficient, more
efficient that some of the stuff designed more recently.
Jennifer Griffin:
• Said she was in London in the 70s and learned how they managed to have buildings from the
1800s look like they do and still have modern offices in them. They said that what London
does is you can strip the interior, but you have to leave the exterior intact.
Councilmember-Elect Barry Cheng:
• Suggested on Item 9, Timeline and Schedule, if you can move June 2010, review of alternative
concept with pros and cons and possible incentives" move to March, when we are going to
Cupertino Planning Commission 14 November 5, 2009
prepare outreach material, so that is possible to include it in there so people can see it.
Otherwise by June you have the other alternative then people may not be able to give input.
Said in his opinion it was not appropriate to hire a consultant for $45K when only 5 people
show up at the meetings. He suggested further study to gain expertise and then move forward.
Aarti Shrivastava:
Said when they prepare outreach materials, they can also provide what else is out there, as
alternatives; the deeper discussion can happen later.
Chair Giefer:
• We want to have the meeting as well attended as possible and that is our objective. Part of
what staff is providing us is a plan A and Plan B scenario, one is with funding for outreach and
technical assistance, and the other one is with all of the moderation and facilitation that would
be wonderful to have as well.
Com. Miller:
• Barry Cheng made a good point; going back to the housing element, the Council designated a
group of people to participate regularly and we do that with the General Plan Task Force as
well and then we are guaranteed to have interested people come. If we do it the same way
here that we actually designate a group of people and we include broad segments of the
stakeholder groups, then we know we are going to get those people coming and if we get other
people coming, that is great. That is one way that has been successful in the past, that we can
ensure that we actually get a real audience here who has an interest and is ready to participate.
Com. Miller:
• We might want to put some thought into; you can always take it up with the Council and then
it becomes a political issue; or we can try to do it down here, staff could make a new
recommendation as to who or you could put out something in the Scene that says we are
looking for people who are interested in participating and see what kind of feedback we get,
and hopefully we get fairly decent feedback and then we could pick from that list of people
that want to participate. You want to be careful that you are not subject to the criticism of this
was handpicked by staff or the Planning Commission; just think through how we do this so
that it is an open process.
Aarti Shrivastava:
Typically it would range in the 10 to 20 member range.
Discussed how to chose the members; stakeholders and community experts; reach out to the
people's names we do have.
Chair Giefer summarized that the majority felt that under Policy, Objectives and Goals we needed
to add something with regards to measurement in AB32. Regulatory context, Com. Kaneda had
some other ideas with regards to AB 1103 which is disclosure of energy consumption in
commercial buildings and we also asked staff to see if there was a residential bill counterpart to
that;
Vice Chair Brophy:
• Is AB 1103 just for the sale of a building ;there is a bill that says when you sell a commercial
structure, you have to provide... I don't think it would affect our work here.
Cupertino Planning Commission 15
November 5, 2009
Com. Miller:
• One of the other goals we talked about which we were going to revisit was some type of goal
relative to incentives. I would like to see it under goals.
Chair Giefer:
• I was going to bring it up under policies. Not sure how Com. Lee and Vice Chair Brophy felt
about that.
Com. Kaneda:
• I think in my mind there is a base requirement that we need to look at adopting; but I think
there is this Tier 1, Tier 2 thing that I certainly think there is a role for incentives here and I
would like to see it.
Com. Miller:
• I am not disagreeing that there is a base level that we need to have, but I also think it is
important, otherwise it might tend to get lost that we emphasize that we want a program that is
to the best that we can focuses on incentives.
Com. Kaneda and Com. Lee:
• Said they could support that.
Vice Chair Brophy:
• Clarified that under Part 1 metrics, do we want to measure both the need to meet the goals of
AB32 and some metrics as to costs also. Said he would like to see both on costs and the
benefit side to the greatest extent possible. (Not only in terms of filing fees, but the
professional costs as well as the construction costs).
Aarti Shrivastava:
• I would imagine there are life cycle studies for some of these building types and that could be
an example of what does it cost to build it and what are the benefits over its life that; I am not
in the field, but I have heard of studies like that that have been done; I don't know that a
building is old enough to have realized 30 years worth but I know buildings have recuperated a
significant portion of the investment within a short period of time; we can provide that.
Chair Giefer:
• At least from an operational perspective; I think some of those paybacks are immediate
Aarti Shrivastava:
• Is that more as part of the processes you would like to know about it or is it a goal where you
would like to measure every building we are approving; it is a little confusing for me; I just
want to make sure that the goals are the goals of the Commission.
Vice Chair Brophy:
• State under some language similar to "to the greatest extent possible quantify the
environmental benefits and the economic costs of our recommendation..."
Com. Kaneda:
• I actually see two types of metrics; one as we do these things, maybe not on day one, but as we
do these things, how are we doing; so things like what percent of the buildings have been
retrofitted or what is the carbon impact of the policy a year or two later; those types of things.
Cupertino Planning Commission 16 November 5, 2009
Another side of metrics is things like what are the costs and things that you would want to
know before you decide what you are going to recommend or require.
Chair Giefer:
• We have discussed those as part of the green building collaborative as well, so they are
available.
Com. Miller:
• Agree that it is important to have it; it goes hand in hand with incentives' this is going to be a
benefit financially to you; even though it costs this, you are going to get this return.
Com. Kaneda:
• And possibly some of that discussion is that it may be possible for the city to do something to
help homeowners do these things if there is a long term benefit.
Aarti Shrivastava:
• We could explore programs that the city can at least review and see what we can adopt or not;
I am so focused on the policy objectives; it seems to me that what you would like to do is take
A through D and try to condense it and then add these other 3 where you have the
measurability, where you have the incentives, so we have maybe three policies or four policies
and that is what we will try to do if that is what the Planning Commission is focused on.
Com. Kaneda:
• Said he was not particular when they end up, as long as they get captured somewhere in there.
Chair Giefer:
• In reading through this, I think we can combine A and B, this is just from a fast read ... C, it
seems that we have an objective there yield cost savings to city taxpayers; we could add the
objective with regards to incentive in there.
Aarti Shrivastava:
• We can take out the first part of it and say we can look at helping provide cost savings and
incentives for people, so we can reword that.
Vice Chair Brophy:
• In the interest of honesty, going back to A, recommend changing the word "meets" to
"considers" because we are not going to meet the needs of all stakeholders; we could remove
"C" demonstrate the city's commitment>
Chair Giefer:
• Agreed; it is a great language and we need another preamble but it does talk about cost
savings; and let's just change what is currently "D"; we will combine A and B; C will be
changed and we will remove "demonstrate the city's commitment" and include the incentives
and what's the new B which was the former C and D will talk about implementation and
measurement, and include the AB321anguage in there
Aarti Shrivastava:
We can talk about the measurability of it; revise D to focus on measurability and achieving
AB32.
Cupertino Planning Commission 17 November 5, 2009
Chair Giefer:
• I think that would be appropriate through green building ordinance.
• Back down to No. 3, Green Building Policy and Scope -not many different ideas of what we
needed to add or change there.
Aarti Shrivastava:
• We did add the low hanging fruit in the cost benefit analysis; it is sort of inherent
Chair Giefer:
• I think adding something about prioritizing, easy maximum impacts, greatest gain from
investment makes sense, so we will add that.
• Public outreach, I would like to see, but we didn't have much discussion on it; I would like to
see us use the new media that we have available to us as a city; so add it to our Facebook page;
if we are tweeting, proactively tweet.
Aarti Shrivastava:
• We plan to do everything we have in our tool box.
Chair Giefer:
• Out of the box thinking such as churches, PTA meetings and Wed. homework homework
packets; put them on school loop.
• Timeline - we had the suggestion to take the idea of incentives and incorporate that in the
March/April outreach with materials and making stakeholders aware that it is one of the things
that we will be reviewing.
Aarti Shrivastava:
• Said staff would summarize changed and bring it back for a meeting on November 14~' to
review.
REPORT OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION
Environmental Review Committee:
Chair Giefer:
• Discussed the General Plan amendment and housing element update and are waiting for
comments back from the State with regards to the housing element; they wanted additional
information on the locations that are part of that plan; and there were two additions needed
regarding cultural resources; one is to add some verbiage regarding archeological evaluations
so that if we ran into any archeologically significant items we would stop building when any
building were ever approved and the sites started, and evaluate them correctly and the same for
paleontology finds. The negative declaration was granted.
Aarti Shrivastava:
• Said that as an update on the item that was continued, our intention was to have something
from HCD that said we met, we dotted all the I's and crossed all the t's; at least some kind of
memo from them; if not an actual approval. The approval process once we resubmit will take
up to 60 days and if we don't get that memo in time I would prefer to hold it until we get
something in writing from HCD that we do have something for you to approve. We will keep
you posted on the item.
Housing Commission: No meeting.
Cupertino Planning Commission 18 November 5, 2009
Mayor's Monthly Meeting With Commissioners: Meeting cancelled.
Economic Development Committee: Meeting scheduled for next week.
Com. Chair:
• Said that as a member of the General Plan Task Force who worked on the sustainability
section in the General Plan, she was pleased that they were moving forward.
REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT:
• Directors report as written; comments on first item to be entered into record, and forwarded to
respective departments for information. HCD update was also provided.
Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned to the next regular Planning Commission meeting
scheduled for November 24, 2009 at 6:45 p.m. (The November 10, 2009 was
previously cancelled due to a lack of quorum.)
Respectfully Submitted: /s/Elizabeth Ellis
Elizabeth Ellis, Recording Secretary