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101-Draft Minutes 08-14-2012.pdfCITY OF CUPERTINO 10300 Torre Avenue Cupertino, CA 95014 CITY OF CUPERTINO PLANNING COMMISSION DRAFT MINUTES 6:45 P.M. August 14, 2012 TUESDAY CUPERTINO COMMUNITY HALL The regular Planning Commission meeting of August 14, 2012 was called to order at 6:45 p.m. in the Cupertino Community Hall, 10350 Torre Avenue, Cupertino, CA. by Chair Marty Miller. SALUTE TO THE FLAG . ROLL CALL Commissioners present: Chairperson: Marty Miller Vice Chairperson: Don Sun Commissioner: Paul Brophy Commissioner: Winnie Lee Commissioner: Clinton Brownley Staff present: Community Development Director: Aarti Shrivastava City Planner: Gary Chao Senior Planner: Vera Gil APPROVAL OF MINUTES: 1. Minutes of the July 10, 2012 Planning Commission meeting: MOTION: Motion by Com. Brownley, second by Com. Lee, and unanimously carried 5-0-0, to approve the July 10, 2012 Planning Commission minutes as presented. WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS: None POSTPONEMENTS/REMOVAL FROM CALENDAR: None CONSENT CALENDAR: None ORAL COMMUNICATIONS: PUBLIC HEARING: None 2. Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) Methology Report is provided for informational and discussion purposes only. Cupertino Planning Commission August 14, 2012 2 Vera Gil, Senior Planner, presented the staff report: • Explained that the RHNA Methodology specifies how all cities and counties in the San Francisco Bay Area will provide a fair share of the region’s housing need, both market and affordable. • Factors influencing the overall RHNA in the approved methodology include household formation growth; minimum housing floor jurisdiction; past RHNA performance in Non-PDA areas; employment; and transit, as outlined in detail in the staff report. • The three factors that significantly figure into Cupertino’s proposed RHNA number of 1,059 include Cupertino’s PDA designation, overall growth designated to the PDA and income allocation factor as detailed in the staff report. • She reviewed the steps to be followed from the comment period of September 10, 2012 to the October 2014 deadline for submission of the approved Housing Elements for HCD review. Staff answered Commissioners’ questions relative to the RHNA allocation. Chair Miller opened the public hearing. Jennifer Griffin, Rancho Rinconada resident: • Said she resided near the PDA, and was surprised at the amount of rezoning and development targeted for the frontage along Stevens Creek Boulevard from Tantau to Stevens Creek and Sunnyvale/Saratoga Rds. Said she did not support high density housing along that corridor since it is already difficult to get through those intersections now and was not sure any thought was given to the PDA. • Said she had a dim opinion of ABAG because since Rancho Rinconada annexed into the city, ABAG wanted to build tremendous amounts of housing throughout Cupertino. Said she was concerned about the poor economy with 8.2% unemployment. San Jose has a lot of unoccupied high density housing; does ABAG take into consideration that presently along Stevens Creek Boulevard the intersections are at full load capacity and cannot take any more traffic. Does ABAG want to deteriorate the existing neighborhoods or do they care. Perhaps the entire city should be zoned residential to eliminate having to get more housing. Phyllis Dickstein, Cupertino resident: • Said in the information provided there appeared to be an inherent unfairness that if you are already a high density area, you have to suffer more high density; but if you are a low density area, you get a pass. • It appears that every few years there is going to be another allocation of more housing on one street where it is already congested and left turns out of the condominium development on Blaney are almost impossible. Why should only a small portion of Stevens Creek a couple of miles and a couple of miles on DeAnza Boulevard be the only target for housing and meeting the development targets for Cupertino? The answer seems to be that is where the buses run and that is what VTA wants. Did VTA ever consider changing some of the bus routes so that busses run on more streets and housing could be put up on a scatter site model and not overly burden one street; Stevens Creek is becoming impossible. Chair Miller closed the public hearing. Staff answered speakers’ questions. Aarti Shrivastava: • ABAG does not look at individual city traffic intersections when they allocate units; they are given a set of numbers by the state for their region and try to allocate it in the best location it believes will serve the community best. There is a committee consisting of various city Cupertino Planning Commission August 14, 2012 3 officials who participate in helping to create that methodology; but they don’t get involved in individual city traffic intersections. • Responding to the question why they can’t scatter these throughout the city and/or change the bus routes so the bus routes run through more areas in the city and have a wider dispersion of the affordable units; she said she did not know about the VTA business model, but felt they were trying to focus rapid transit and the two areas in Cupertino where they see the maximum opportunity for ridership; the more streets they go through the higher cost, but the lower the volume so they are trying to see where they can get the most impact for the money they spend as a public agency. Com. Brophy: • Said that the numbers are becoming more challenging and he felt they have tried their best in terms of evaluating housing issues; there has to be sensitivity to whatever they put into a housing element that it is not just a plan to be ignored down the road, nor say they didn’t mean it when a hearing comes up. • The sites and proposed densities have to be thought about with a great deal of care when making revisions to the housing element. Com. Sun: • Had no comment. Com. Lee: • She recalled reviewing the housing element sites with staff in the past and was grateful that staff always met the deadlines and were not imposed penalties. She said she felt the allocations were not feasible and many other cities were concerned also; especially due to the economy and the redevelopment money being taken away. • She supported the Commission accepting the report as an action; and was pleased that the allocations were even across the board in the categories; some cities need more above- moderate housing than very-low housing; it will be difficult for Cupertino to achieve the very low and low now; it appears that Cupertino will need a couple of hundred in each category. Com. Brownley: • Concurred with other commissioners’ comments about putting care and thought into the type of city that Cupertino wants to be, noting that there are challenges presented based on the numbers expected; and to the extent that is feasible or that they are interested in creating that type of community or having that allocation. The Council will have to face those challenges about the next housing element and stating goals for the city. He echoed Com. Brophy’s comments about thinking about those issues and reaching a conclusion of what type of city they would like to see over the next few years and creating a housing element that reflects that. Chair Miller: • Said it was clear they were building more office space in Cupertino; there are a number of approved projects that will increase the amount of office space; and more commercial space is going up which will increase the numbers. Aarti Shrivastava: • The housing element RHNA process did not have a one-to-one correlation; they looked at it at a more regional level and got in the range of 80 additional units for the employment factor. They are not doing a one-to-one allocation, but look at it and see which communities have larger portions of the communities dedicated to office and retail; they don’t specifically look at every project approved. They are not following the jobs housing ratio as directly as they have in the past. Cupertino Planning Commission August 14, 2012 4 Chair Miller: • Said it was unclear if they build out additional squares of office space if that would impact the housing requirement. Aarti Shrivastava: • Said it would not impact the 2014 to 2022 numbers because the calculations were already done for that; and she was not sure what the process would be for 2002 and beyond. It will be a similar factor and they are moving away from the one-to-one ratio because they are trying to achieve sustainable growth which means directing more growth towards transit nodes, trying to achieve general jobs employment balance in the region and to some extent telling communities there might be some small impact if there is an imbalance. Chair Miller: • Said he felt the process was flawed; on the State’s part they are asking the city to do things that they do not have resources to achieve. • He suggested that at a minimum in the areas where they are asking for more housing on the Stevens Creek corridor and DeAnza corridor; that they look at current policies in terms of identifying other future sites and reconsidering specifically the policy that they have retail in every nook and cranny on Stevens Creek Blvd whether it makes sense financially or not. The imbalance needs to be addressed or it will reappear in the future and everyone will be scrambling around requirements unless there is a long term plan in place. (Said he did not see any areas in the DeAnza corridor that are available for housing; it falls mostly on the Stevens Creek corridor;) He said if they are serious about what the state is doing, and are serious about trying to meet the requirements, there should be some forward planning as to how we go forward as we increase our mix of office space and commercial space which will generate more housing as it always does. Com. Brophy: • Said he felt they should not take the issue of meeting new numbers so seriously because they are so unreasonable and not a Cupertino specific problem. Looking at other communities there is no way, given the resources available to the state at any level of government that those type of low income housing units would be built anywhere. Said he felt it was a make believe process; they are under pressure to fulfill the obligations they have, but to say that somehow there is a way they can come up with 600 low or very low income housing units is impossible; just as it is impossible for every other town in the county or region to come even close to the numbers that are being made up. Chair Miller: • Said they can take that perspective; however, they do have a real impact on the communities. At many of the leadership Silicon Valley meetings they talk about the need for more housing and how it is the single biggest problem that the companies in the area identify; not enough housing, and not enough affordable housing and that it is an increasing expense for the companies here, and in the long run will force some of the companies at the margin to move out of the area. In the end the cities are really hurting themselves unless they come up with a realistic plan to address the issue. One can say they don’t want to take it seriously, but it is creating real issues that at some point in time have to be addressed. Com. Brophy: • In 1977 companies such as Hewlett Packard were moving out of the Bay Area and opening up facilities in Idaho and Oregon, Colorado; and given the cost of housing and given that it seems like the State is unable to provide the most basic public needs of funding our schools, public Cupertino Planning Commission August 14, 2012 5 safety, etc., he felt they are no closer to coming up with an answer to that problem, than they were 35 years ago. Chair Miller: • Said he agreed; however pointed out that when working at Hewlett Packard for many years, he watched the manufacturing move out and the support groups and lower paying jobs moved out of the area leaving only R&D. Salt Lake City is now growing, with many high tech companies moving from the Bay Area. • The issues still exist in the community and they can’t be addressed at this level, but has to be a countywide or Bay Area approach; making that occur politically seems impossible. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t a problem and it won’t continue to exacerbate over time. Motion: Motion by Vice Chair Sun, second by Com. Lee, and unanimously carried 5-0-0 to accept the RHNA report. OLD BUSINESS: None NEW BUSINESS: None REPORT OF THE PLANNING COMMISSION ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW COMMITTEE: No report. HOUSING COMMISSION: Vera Gil discussed the current agenda topic. MAYOR’S MONTHLY MEETING: Public Safety Commission: Working on Cupertino Alert System, 500 signatures; plan to hold future signup activities Library Commission: Will be conducting database training for their financial materials; also sponsoring exhibit on Japanese American experience in California and America Housing Commission: In the works is a new scoring system for the Community Development Block Grant The Bicycle Commission: Working on pedestrian transportation plan, working on including the bike routes around Scenic Circle on the official city map although it is already being used TIC Commission: Working on improving cell coverage; some cell applications coming up soon; digital upgrade for community television; there is a panel on Sept. 24 on community TV station Parks and Rec Commission: Completing its work plan; working on Stevens Creek Trail; City Council would like them to look at all property issues there; one thing coming up on Parkside trail is extending the Stevens Creek trail along the old road that runs from Linda Vista park to McClellan Road; Mayor Santoro’s comment along the lines of the state forcing the cities to do things they don’t like; Council held a special meeting to discuss a plastic bag ban. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE: No meeting. MISC: • Com. Lee announced Cupertino Quota Club will be holding event to raise funds for hearing Cupertino Planning Commission August 14, 2012 6 impaired, deaf women and children, and disadvantaged women and children on September 15th from 12 noon to 3 p.m. at Original Pancake House, with 20% of their sales going to West Valley Community Services • Sept. 22 Cupertino Garage Sale Tilson Ave REPORT OF DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: • Written report submitted. Aarti Shrivastava: • Reported that the second reading of the Political Sign Ordinance was scheduled for August 21 and would go into effect 30 days after that date. • City Council reduced the fee for political signs from $5 to $ 3; and called in the sign retrieval fee. • The Green Building ordinance will go back to Council in September; staff is looking at minor changes for simplification; discussed a deposit relative to certification process. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned to the next regular Planning Commission meeting scheduled on August 28, 2012 at 6:45 p.m. Respectfully Submitted: /s/Elizabeth Ellis Elizabeth Ellis, Recording Secretary