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CITY of BRISBANE
Thursday, May 30th, 2024 at 11:00AM ● Hybrid Meeting
Brisbane City Hall, Large Conference Room, 50 Park Place, Brisbane, CA The public may observe/participate in the Subcommittee meetings by using remote public comment options or attending in person. Subcommittee members shall attend in person unless remote participation is permitted by law. The Subcommittee may take action on any item listed in the agenda.
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Economic Development Subcommittee Agenda
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SUBCOMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Mayor Pro-tem Cunningham, Councilmember Lentz
ROLL CALL
A. Consider any request of a City Councilmember to attend the meeting remotely under the “Emergency Circumstances” of AB 2449
PRESENTATIONS AND DISCUSSION ITEMS
B. Update on Community Planning Process for City Owned Property at Bayshore Boulevard and Old County Road
C. Economic Development Update
D. 2024 Progress Seminar Report
PUBLIC COMMENT
ADJOURNMENT
2 File Attachments for Item:
B. Update on Community Panning Process for City Owned Property at Bayshore Boulevard and Old County Road
3 MEMORANDUM
DATE: 30 May 2024
TO: City Council Economic Development Subcommittee
FROM: John Swiecki
Community Development Director
SUBJECT: 70 Old County Road Planning Update
BACKGROUND
On May 2, 2024 the City Council directed staff to move forward with a community engagement and planning effort to establish a land use program for the City owned site at 70 Old County Road. The City Council further specified that the planning effort should focus on 70 Old County Road and allow for it be developed on a standalone basis. The Council further noted that consideration also be given to establishing a future vision for the potential redevelopment of the adjacent shopping center site to promote long term compatibility between adjacent properties.
DISCUSSION
Staff has prepared the attached preliminary draft scope of work for the subcommittee’s review and comment. The scope of work will be incorporated into a Request for Proposal (RFP) to solicit a proposal from a qualified planning consultant to assist in the City’s planning efforts. It would be staff’s preference to sole source the RFP to Good City, a local planning consulting firm that is currently under contract with the City to provide EIR management for several City EIRs now under preparation. City staff has a good working relationship with Good City and believes they have a solid understanding of land use issues in Brisbane and the technical ability to provide the necessary services in a timely way. Moving forward with Good City is predicated on their response to the RFP being responsive to the City’s needs in a financially responsible manner.
Any agreement with Good City would be subject to the approval of the full City Council. As an alternative the City would send the RFP to a more extensive list of qualified planning consultants and go through a more formal and consultant selection process.
ATTACHMENT
Preliminary Draft Scope of Work -70 Old County Road Planning Program 4 B.
Preliminary Draft
City of Brisbane
70 Old County Road Planning Program
Work Scope
Background and Purpose
In 2022, the City of Brisbane purchased an approximately 1.27 acre property at 70 Old County Road, Brisbane, the site of a former Bank of America branch (“subject property”). The subject property is located in the primary gateway to the City at the northwestern corner of the intersection of Bayshore Boulevard with Old County and Tunnel Roads. This strategic purchase allows the community to control and proactively plan for redevelopment of this site at a key entrance to Brisbane. The City Council intends to undertake a robust community dialogue to determine the appropriate community serving use(s) of this site and establish a site development plan based upon this vision. Housing, commercial and/or public uses have preliminarily been identified for consideration as potential land uses for this site.
Relevant Planning Considerations
The subject property is zoned Neighborhood Commercial- Brisbane Village (NCRO-2) and is located within the 25-acre Parkside at Brisbane Village Precise Plan (“Parkside Plan”) area. The Parkside Plan was adopted in 2017, at which time the subject property was owned by Bank of America and operated as a bank branch out of an approximately 40-year old portable trailer. The Parkside Plan’s envsioned the subject property being redeveloped with two adjacent properties (the Brisbane Village Shopping Center and 125 Valley Drive; together the “Commercial Vision Area”) as a connected retail center and park/plaza. This vision serves as an aspirational illustration, it was not codified through the adoption of land use policies and/or zoning regulations.
Other planning efforts in the vicinity include the Brisbane Baylands Specific Plan easterly of Bayshore Boulevard , which is undergoing environmental review. The CIty is also considering a redesign of Bayshore Boulevard to incorporate traffic calming measures. Additionally, a Light Maintenance Facility for the CA High Speed Rail project is proposed within the Baylands subarea and contemplates reconfiguring the four-way Bayshore/Old County/Tunnel Ave intersection fronted by the subject property into a three-way intersection (eliminating the easterly leg of the Tunnel Avenue/Bayshore Boulevard intersection). All these potential projects should be considered to the extent they would impact site access, visibility, and land use alternatives on the subject property.
Objectives
The City Council’s objectives in the 70 Old County Road planning effort are:
Community Engagement
- Engage in a meaningful and robust community engagement process to obtain community input in developing a land use program (or alternative programs) that the City should 5 B.
pursue, as well as important design features /components to be incorporated into subsequent site development plans.
- Planning
- Based on the community input develop schematic development plan or plans for the site.
All development alternatives for the site must be capable of being implemented on a standalone basis recognizing the physical limitations established by surrounding existing private development . A secondary objective of the planning effort is to establish a vision for the future redevelopment of the adjacent shopping center that promotes compatible development across multiple sites. This planning effort shall ultimately result in the establishment of final site and development plans for the 70 Old County site. -
Work Scope
1. Community Visioning
a. Robust community education, engagement and brainstorming using creative and varied means to collect public feedback and ideas. A combination of on-site engagement activities, surveys, “pop-up” events should be proposed. The City recently contracted with CitizenLab, which should be leveraged throughout the engagement process to collect, evaluate, and analyze community feedback. The educational component should ensure the community process is informed by market, economic , technical, design and other considerations that will influence the feasibility of future site development and long term viability
b. Evaluating ideas against the market and other considerations at a high level to test feasibility .
c. Identify primary vision (or suite of alternatives) for community review and City Council consideration
2. Planning
a. Develop a schematic concept plan ( or alternatives) reflecting the community vision for CIty council consideration.
b. Based on CIty Council direction refine the schematic concept plan into a development plan for the site that is refined to a level sufficient to allow for completion of project level environmental review
c. Update the Parkside Plan as needed to reflect the development plan for 70 Old County Road and vision for the adjacent shopping centershdhould land use changes at the shopping center factor into the preferred vision, updates to the Parkside Plan and projectlevel CEQA clearance would be required. d. Establish a Roadmap/strategy for 70 Old County Roadc project implementation
3. Post-Adoption Support
a. TBD depending on vision (e.g., assistance with preparing a Request for Proposals for site development, assistance with Surplus Lands Act requirements should the City opt to transfer fee title to another entity)
6 B.
File Attachments for Item:
C. Economic Development Update
7 Economic Development Office Update
May / June 2024
Sierra Point Properties:
Phase 3 – (Genesis Marina)-
Their parcel in the NW corner is listed on their website as “Genesis – Marina” and is nearing completion, with initial occupancy scheduled for the March/April timeframe. The project (560,000 SF) was built to the LEED Gold standard and has been pre-certified as the world’s first TRUE construction site. This certification by the Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI), certifies that over 90% of the construction “waste” from the construction of the building and site is used for other uses and not diverted to landfills and incineration.
Life science company FREENOME is the major tenant to date.
Phase 3 conducted an open house and walkthrough for invitees on May 16.
Healthpeak (formerly HCPI) – the group has completed their work on the “The Shores at Sierra Point ,“ and the office space is filled with life science tenants. They have recently added Specialty Bakery and Café as a retail tenant on Sierra Point Parkway. Healthpeak have also made inquiries into building additional buildings and a parking structure on their “The Towers at Sierra Point” project site. (Formerly the Hitachi building site).
Brisbane Quarry – Work is continuing in the planning process for the Orchard Properties development project at the Guadalupe Quarry. The planned 950,000 SF warehouse project is slated to be reviewed by the planning commission and city council later this year.
Sangamo Therapeutics – After the extensive renovation of the Brisbane site, Sangamo has announced a major restructuring with a planned closure of the Sierra Point operation. Layoffs are also planned for their Richmond, CA site.
Other Items:
- Progress Seminar: I attended the 55th San Mateo County Progress Seminar in Santa Rosa and have written a brief recap of the events over the three-day event. The recap is attached separately.
- 25 Park Lane: Planning is continuing with the design and eventual interior remodel of the building and the eventual relocation of various city departments. The construction process is continuing with the installation of interior walls, and electrical and fire safety systems.
8 C.
Economic Development Office Report May/June 2024 Page 2 - Crocker Industrial Park – After reaching 100% occupancy in January of 2023, the economy has softened and the are several buildings for lease in the park. The former Williams-Sonoma buildings, the former TROVE clothing buildings, the GRASSDOOR cannabis operation, and HARRIS (formerly FW Spencer) buildings are open for leasing. Harris closed their operation here after completing the acquisition of FWS, TROVE eliminated their HQ and Brisbane operation, splitting it into 5 separate (locally-based) operations throughout the US.
Additionally, the Pacific Gourmet business has been purchased by BiRite. The building is still under lease to BiRite, but it is unknown if they will be absorbing the operation into their site on South Hill Dr.
The park is still vibrant with the addition of Ample Battery, Fanatics, Encore Expositions, Allen Brothers Meats and Seafood and Twist Bioscience. - Clear Channel Advertising – Nothing new to report with the lease extension for the billboard at the North end of town (Tunnel Road). They are still negotiating with UPC.
- Updated Economic Development 10-year Recap – I have completed the final draft of the report on the Economic vitality and current benchmark within Brisbane for the period since the last large report (2013). I presented the report to the full City Council and am expecting some comments prior to releasing the finished report by fiscal year end.
- Cannabis Centric – the calls relating to the Cannabis industry have virtually dried up as the industry has been going through a large contraction. Caliva was purchased and subsequently closed, as the industry has seen a major consolidation. Operator Grassdoor abruptly closed their entire national operation and left creditors hanging.
We still have NorCal Cannabis operating in the city.
- Brisbane Village Shopping Center –. Nothing new has happened since our last report.
- B of A site- I am exploring a possible (temporary) use for the former B of A building.
It is very preliminary and the idea may not come to fruition. 9 C.
File Attachments for Item:
D. 2024 Progress Seminar Report
10 City of Brisbane - Economic Development Office
Recap of 2024 Progress Seminar
The 55th Annual Progress Seminar was held from April 19-21 at the Hyatt Regency in Santa Rosa. Here is a brief recap of the main speakers, and the four breakout sessions. It was announced that there were over 100 first-time attendees out of the 300+ total attendees, making it one of the largest gatherings in recent years.
Following a Friday evening meet and greet and dinner, the conference kicked off on Saturday morning with a breakfast and Opening General Session featuring Nicole Taylor, the President, and CEO of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF), speaking on the State of Philanthropy in Silicon Valley.
Ms. Taylor spoke about the work that SVCF does in San Mateo County and the great need that exists within the county. San Mateo is the 4th wealthiest county in the U.S., but has a large number of citizens living in poverty (There is more traffic now at local food banks than during the COVID epidemic). The foundation supports over 750 San Mateo County non-profits with grants, providing the largest level of grantmaking to these organizations on an annual basis. In 2023, SVCF and their donors gave $55 Million to support organizations, bringing the total from 2018-2023 to $345 Million.
Prominent areas of funding targeted the following areas:
Disaster response and advocacy – funds were allocated for organizations providing relief to Coastside communities affected by the 2022-2023 winter storms and the Half Moon Bay farmworker shootings. The WSWVCF commissioned a report highlighting the needs of farmworker housing within San Mateo County and specific policy recommendations on improving those conditions.
Early childhood care and learning programs – the foundation has led efforts to elevate the importance of early childhood development in the county. Partnering with County Supervisors and the County Office of Education on local initiatives to increase literacy, the foundation has provided grants to non-profits creating more early care and education facilities and funded a Teacher Pipeline Project as well as college apprenticeship programs to assist in training the early childhood workforce.
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Progress Seminar 2024
COVID Response – the SVCF’s regional response und funded organizations in each of 10 Bay Area Counties to directly support low-income people who were most severely affected by the epidemic through rent support and nutritional programs. In 2020 alone the SVCF funded $23 Million to support San Mateo County organizations working on pandemic-related issues.
Advocating for Equity and Civic Engagement – the SVCF has provided funding to SM County for technical assistance on how to most effectively and equitably allocate the government allocated rescue plan dollars and to ensure that equity was at the forefront of strategies for rebuilding a stronger region. The foundation also partnered with the SM County Dept. of Elections to award over $300,000 to 15 grassroot organizations for voter education and outreach.
Census work – leasing up to the 2020 Census, the foundation distributed more than $3.5 Million in grants to non-profit organizations working to ensure participation and an accurate count, especially within the rural San Mateo County coast-side farmworker communities.
Through the discussion by Ms. Taylor and Q&A from the audience members it was noted that although a portion of the SVCF donations is from several large Bay-Area/Silicon Valley companies and corporations, the majority of donations are received in small donation amounts from private citizens.
Following the Opening General Session, the groups were split into 4 groups which attended 4 breakout sessions. The sessions were as follows:
A). Strengthening Democracy: Country and Community
In this session, panelists Rafael Avendano (Redwood City Together); Thomas Schnaubelt (Hoover Institution Center, Stanford University); Mark Simon (San Mateo Daily Journal) and Catherine Lew (The Lew Edwards Group) discussed the challenges facing our democracy, its institutions, process, and practices, as well as strategies to mitigate and reverse negative trends that threaten the longevity of our democratic values at both local and national levels.
Discussion revolved around the increased polarization and “silo -based” cultural shifts that we find today. The devolving of our “trusted” media sources (newspapers/TV, etc.) were discussed, along with ways to help spark civic engagement. 12 D.
Progress Seminar 2024
Although our democratic process has been in place for 250 years, only 7% of citizens think that Congress is doing a good job. An issue is that the United States was set up in 1776 to keep the power within the State Governments, not the Federal Government. It is still evolving: “Our democracy is not broken; it is just unfinished…”
What will need to be put in place to move democracy forward? Structural Reforms, Bridgebuilding, Voter and Citizen Education, and better Leadership at a local and national level.
B). Everyone works from Home…Why we still need strong transit systems.
In this session, Kristine Zortman (Port of Redwood City); Casey Fromson (Caltrain) and Jessica Epstein (SM County Transit District / SAMTRANS) led discussion about the changes how BayArea residents live, work, and travel and how the public transit systems were impacted.
The Bay-Area has the highest work-from-home rates in the nation and the slowest downtown recovery rates, resulting in fewer commute trips. The public transit agencies are currently running services using one-time federal emergency funds that will run out in 2025/2026. How can agencies cope with high fixed costs to maintain/build infrastructure and low fare-box income due to reduced ridership?
Ms. Zortman gave some facts about the Port of Redwood City:
The port handles primarily Construction Supplies and Recycling Cargo, totaling over 2,000,000 metric tons per year. It is also a FEMA transport site for handling supplies and manpower in the case of a disaster or emergency.
The port wants to expand to encompass a future Ferry Terminal, to interact with other ferry terminals within the Bay Area.
Challenges to the Port: The 101/84 interchange is very old and outdated. Needs to be rebuilt and improved/enlarged to handle trucks and cargo.
Ms. Fromson spoke on the history of CalTrain service (over 160 years) and the challenges for CalTrain showing that during the COVID epidemic and the subsequent working-from-home 13 D.
Progress Seminar 2024
environment, CalTrain lost 98% of their ridership. Since last year 2022 -2023 they have seen a 25% increase in ridership, but still have a long way to go. Once they electrify the routes, they will be able to double the number of trains running and can more effectively plan for commute trends and schedules with trains running every 10-15 minutes.
Ms. Epstein spoke on the value of the county bus system, SamTrans. They primarily service riders who do not have access to or own a vehicle. 95% of their ridership are lower income individuals. During the pandemic, most of these individuals were still working and their ridership only fell to 60% for pre-covid levels. Today, they have recovered 91% of their prepandemic ridership (and are over 100% if youth ridership is factored in). The El Camino Real routes comprise 20% of their total passenger load.
They are also handling specialized transit needs such as San Mateo Paratransit and Microtransit (Uber pool) ridership.
The panel spoke on the challenges of having 27 different transit agencies within the 9 county Bay Area. (BART, CalTrain, SamTrans, VTA, GG Ferries, etc.) and the MTC -proposed SB1031 which they see as a bailout for MUNI (SF) and BART. The San Mateo transit agencies are against this as they see it as an MTC power grab and a consolidation of agencies. A question is: As SM County transit is self-funded, do we, (As San Mateo County citizens) owe it to keep AC Transit/GG Transit/ GG Ferries/ BART alive? BART is reported to lose over $30,000,000 per year on fare evasions alone.
C). Why is Artificial Intelligence (AI) a Positive Development Marc Benioff (CEO of Salesforce) recently praised the Bay Area and San Francisco as the “World’s Number One A.I. City”, highlighting the growing A.I. scene and the presence of innovative startups. The city and regions’ reputation as a prime location for A.I. innovation will continue to attract attention and investment from the tech industry. Is this a positive development for SM County?
This panel consisted of: Ray Mueller (Supervisor, SM County); Annie Tsai (COO-San Mateo County Journal); and Vishal Verma (Edgewood Ventures, LLC).
This session focused on discussions relating to what AI is, how it’s not entirely a new technology and the trends in venture capital funding for AI. 14 D.
Progress Seminar 2024
The panelists explained how AI has been around since the 1940’s but was previously called – machine learning. Computer systems and Early robotics employed AI technology 80 years ago to speed development of processes and manufacturing.
The expansion of AI startups will require huge amounts of processing power and subsequently space and energy needs for servers and computer systems. The technology will enable the finetuning of training systems, applications, and the ability to access data much faster than currently possible.
An evolving theme is that A.I. is still constantly learning new information – much like a developing child, but that the “answers” it gives are not always vetted and accurate. It has lot of information stored, but how accurate is it? All AI generated “facts” must be fact-checked and double checked to ensure validity.
Newest phase of AI is Human Conversational Chatbot (Siri, Alexa, etc.) The venture capital community is ramping up its investment in A.I. innovation:
2020 VCs invested $160 Billion in the stock market
2021 Investment was $321 Billion in stocks
2022 Investment was $200 Billion in stocks / $25 Billion in AI 2023 Investment was $160 Billion in stocks / $65 Billion in AI The trends show the scale that AI is attracting investors and how much the venture economy believes in it.
D). Follow the Federal Dollars – Funding our Local Future This panel consisted of the following participants: Emily Douglas (Engie); Van Ton Quinvilan (Futura Health), and Shawn Marshall (P.C.E).
This discussion was an overview of some of the legislation from the Federal Government allocating over $41 Billion to States, Cities and Counties for Infrastructure, Employment, and Innovation (Such as Chip development, Solar Panel Infrastructure, etc.). Are the local Bay Area cities taking advantage of these programs? And how can local cities receive more of these benefits?
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Progress Seminar 2024
Ms. Douglas spoke about Engie and their work with establishing “micro-grids” for cities and school districts through innovative solar programs, while Ms. Marshall detailed the work that PCE (Peninsula Clean Energy) is doing to educate customers and citizens on transitioning their homes for total electrification and eliminating the need for gas-fired appliances, as well as PCE’s work on solar power, EV Chargers at home and at work, and providing information for rebates for transitioning from an ICE vehicle to an EV.
Ms. Ton-Qunlivan spoke on the needs of an aging population and how to meet the educational needs of a much-needed workforce. 75 Years ago, there were 12 working adults over the age of 65 per every 100. Today, the number is 7 per 100, while in 20 years, the estimate is 4 per 100.
Healthcare workforce development for positions in home care, EMS, x-ray tech, etc. will be critical to meet the healthcare demands and needs with the industry. Many of these positions require less than a bachelor’s degree, but the shortages are staggering. Currently there is a shortage in California of 500,000 people to fill these positions, at a time when the population growth numbers are flattening.
There will be an ongoing need for healthcare positions and a key to filling them is through community colleges and other programs to qualify applicants for these types of good paying jobs (not requiring a BA or a BS degree).
Following the four sessions, everyone met for the Luncheon General Session:
Understanding Healthcare San Mateo County: Connecting, Collaborating and Caring The panel consisted of: Dr. Kismet Baldwin-Santana (SM County Health Officer), Dr. Edward Kao (Physician in Chief, Kaiser Permanente), Dr. Lisa Chamberlain (MPH, Stanford School of Medicine).
The discussion focused on the interaction of SM County General Hospital (serving mostly lowincome patients), and the challenges of healthcare providers such as SM County, Kaiser, Sutter Health, and Stanford Medical to collaborate, share information and coordinate better levels of care within the restraints of HIPAA statutes and the increasing strata of medical costs and patient’s need to seek and pay for care.
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Progress Seminar 2024
In the evening a dinner was held.
On Sunday morning over breakfast, the Closing General Session was held with a roundtable discussion with candidates running in the 16th Congressional District for the US House of Representatives, and the San Mateo County 4th Supervisorial District. 16th Congressional District:
Sam Liccardo – former Mayor of San Jose
Joe Simitian – Supervisor San Mateo County
Evan Low – Assemblymember, California State Assembly
This was a spirited debate between the three candidates who were hoping to be placed on the November ballot. (Simitian and Low had tied in the primary, but a recount (called on by one of Liccardo’s supporters), has subsequently knocked Simitian out of the race). Good Q and A session with members of the audience asking pointed questions.
San Mateo 4th Congressional District:
Lisa Gauthier – Councilmember, City of East Palo Alto
Antonio Lopez – Mayor, City of East Palo Alto
Less spirited as both members are of similar political leanings and represent the same area. A good session for them to get acquainted with the audience and field Q and A as well. 17 D.