CITY COUNCIL STAFF REPORT
Meeting: February 15, 2022
Subject
City Work Program – Second Quarter Update
Recommended Action
Receive City Work Program – Second Quarter Update
Background
This City Work Program update focuses on the second quarter of the FY 2021-2022 City Work Program from October through December 2021. The City Council adopted the FY 21-22 City Work Program at the May 26, 2021 City Council meeting. As requested by the City Council, the City has been providing updates on the City Work Program on a quarterly basis through the City Work Program dashboard at cupertino.org/cityworkprogram. A printout of these updates can be found in Attachment A for review.
Discussion
The following highlights are to provide a second quarter update and a brief preview of what can be expected in the upcoming third quarter update. These items were the “Top 10” highest rated items in the FY 21-22 City Work Program.
Single-Use Plastics Ordinance and Mayor’s Cup Challenge Event: Significant outreach, including surveys, stakeholder meetings, a dedicated webpage, tabling events such as the Day N Night Fun Fest, and presentations to the Chamber of Commerce and Teen Commission, have been completed. Engagement responses were analyzed, and findings and ordinance element suggestions were presented to a Sustainability Commission subcommittee in December. In January, the full Sustainability Commission recommended that the City Council adopt the draft Single-use Plastics Ordinance with amendments to add training for businesses, recommend a charge for both cups and containers, and phase in a ban on the retail sale of plastic food service ware by 2023. They also recommended that the current bag ordinance should be amended to ban plastic bags from takeout and food delivery. A Study Session is scheduled with the City Council on March 1, 2022 and food service providers and retailers are being made aware of that opportunity to learn more and contribute. Various planning sessions in preparation for the Mayor’s Cup Challenge will continue.
Consider options to develop extremely low-income (ELI) and below market rate (BMR) housing units for Developmentally Disabled Individuals on City-owned property along Mary Avenue as well as the Outback Steakhouse location: The City’s FY 21-22 Notice of Funding Availability for affordable housing funds is open from November 2021 – February 2022. Non-profits, developers, and service providers will receive technical assistance on affordable housing developments during the application process and once funds have been awarded. The feasibility of an affordable housing project on City owned parcels will be determined. Staff has completed a draft parcel map and will be presenting to City Council at its regularly scheduled meeting on March 15 to provide an update on progress on the project and to solicit direction going forward.
Revisit 5G, including, but not limited to, recording, responding to complaints, transparency on existing applications: The City continues to record all inquiries, including a street image of the location, and communicates the concerns to the cell providers. To date, the City has received 194 inquiries on small cells. Of those, 176 have opposed the installation, 12 had questions or requests, and 6 supported the installation. Nearby cities are continually monitored for any updates on 5G cells in residential areas. The Public Works Department and City Attorney’s Office are developing revised guidelines for the placement of wireless facilities and an ordinance for consideration by the City Council. Staff anticipates presenting the guidelines and ordinance to the City Council in April.
Senior Strategy: The survey assessing resource awareness and need among Cupertino seniors is complete. Staff is analyzing the survey results to create a summary based on the focus items. The analyses and summary of the results will be compiled into a report and posted to the survey website.
Lehigh and Stevens Creek Quarry: City staff are monitoring the Stevens Creek Quarry’s application to Santa Clara County’s Planning Department for a use permit and reclamation plan, which County Planning staff determined to be complete. The County led Environmental Impact Report is anticipated to begin in earnest in March. The County’s Board of Supervisors had a meeting scheduled for November 2021 to consider vested rights determination for Lehigh, but that meeting has been postponed. A new date for consideration of this item has not been determined at this time. Correspondence to and from the County can be accessed at the Quarry Information webpage here. The City has contracted with Envirosuite to place noise and air quality sensors at three to four locations near the quarries. A site survey of four locations was conducted by staff and Envirosuite. Envirosuite have ordered the sensors and are drafting design documents for staff approval. Sensors are scheduled to be installed in March, followed by six months of data analysis. A public website with real-time sensor data is to be published in April, 2022.
Homeless Jobs Program: The pilot program launched in October. Two unhoused residents from Cupertino were selected to begin employment at jobs located at WVCS in Cupertino. One individual is assisting in the Food Pantry and the second individual is assisting with Facilities. The City will continue to monitor the pilot program and will provide assistance, as needed.
City Plan to End Homelessness: The City and its consultant, Homebase, are underway with the City Plan on Homelessness, an implementation plan to address the needs of the unhoused residents of Cupertino as identified in the Santa Clara County Community Plan to End Homelessness. In December 2021, the City launched the community engagement process with a Community Kick-Off Meeting, focus groups, and a stakeholder survey – all to help inform and create the City Plan on Homelessness. The Plan will be presented to the Housing Commission and the City Council for adoption in Spring.
Memorial Park Improvements: This project is on schedule per the City Work Program Dashboard. The City has selected a design professional to prepare plans and specifications to go out to competitive bids to remove the existing ponds and landscape the impacted area in the short term. Competitive bids for construction are tentatively scheduled to be released in March, with City Council award of the contract anticipated in late April. Construction could begin as early as May 2022. The long-term planning for amenities that will replace the ponds will be explored during the development of the specific plan. The City is preparing the documents to begin the design for amphitheater improvements and the specific plan design.
Consider New Commissions and Committees: This item was brought to the City Council in December. The City Council discussed the item and directed staff to bring the item back to allow for further discussion. This item is scheduled to be considered at the February 15 City Council meeting.
Shuttle Bus Pilot Program Implementation: The Via-Cupertino Shuttle service resumed operations on October 19, 2021, after being paused due to COVID-19. To communicate the relaunch there were articles published in the October and November 2021 issues of the Scene, along with a robust community outreach program to notify the community of the re-launch. There were a total of 1,087 trips completed by Via-Cupertino in the second quarter and ridership continues to grow. Via is currently looking into the potential of adding two electric vehicles to the Via-Cupertino fleet. A comprehensive Via-Cupertino ridership update along with a possible grant opportunity will be brought to City Council on February 15, 2022. The pilot program is set to end on October 30, 2022. The Via-Cupertino website is frequently updated and includes all pertinent information such as fares, maps, hours of operation, etc.
In addition to the “Top 10” priorities, the following item updates are notable highlights from the current items in the FY 21-22 City Work Program that may be of particular interest to the City Council. For more details and updates on all items, see the dashboard printout in Attachment A.
RHNA Related General Plan Updates and Rezoning (Housing Element): Staff organized two joint study sessions for the Housing Commission, Planning Commission, and City Council in April and May 2021. Following this initial outreach, the Santa Clara County Planning Collaborative conducted a public outreach session through its Let’s Talk Housing initiative for Cupertino, Monte Serreno, and Los Altos in August 2021. About 35 people (residents and others interested in the process) attended the Cupertino breakout session. Following this, the City and consultants presented the planned public outreach and timeline for the Housing Element project at a City Council study session on October 5, 2021. Robust public outreach began in the second quarter, with the first community outreach event on December 9, 2021. In addition, there has been outreach to the Housing Commission, on December 9, 2021, and to the Planning Commission, on January 22, 2022, with additional outreach meetings in February and March 2022 to continue the discussion on Housing Element sites.
The final RHNA for each of the 109 jurisdictions in the Bay Area was finalized in December 2021 by ABAG/MTC. Per state law, the Housing Element update must be completed by January 31, 2023. It is important to begin the environmental review process in Spring 2022 in order to meet this deadline in state law. Staff has determined that an Environmental Impact Report will likely be required and will make a presentation to the Environmental Review Committee on the environmental review and receive the Committee’s input.
Lawrence Mitty: The annexation process with the City of San Jose and LAFCO is ongoing with completion expected as early as April 2022. In December 2021, the City contracted with MIG, Inc. to complete the Master Planning process for the park. Current activities include site environmental investigations and public outreach planning. Extensive public outreach is anticipated from March 2022 through November 2022. Final Concept design completion is expected by November 2022. Environmental review is anticipated to be complete by March 2023. Once environmental review is completed and approved by Council, design development and construction to follow.
Municipal Water System: A presentation of key terms and a proposed amendment of the existing lease agreement (to add additional time for increased flexibility) was brought for the City Council’s consideration on November 2, 2021. The Municipal Water System RFP was completed and advertised on December 14, 2021. A mandatory pre-submittal proposal meeting was conducted on January 12, 2022, and two water retailers attended the meeting. Responses to the RFP are expected in early 2022 with a recommendation for a future operation of the system, including an analysis of City staff operation, considered by the City Council in early 2022.
Mental Health Support: The City is continuing research on local mental health resources for the Mental Health webpage published in September. The resources on the webpage are currently suicide prevention based and will be updated to include more mental health resources on an ongoing basis. Other mental health resources offered through Santa Clara County were presented to the Teen Commission in October, and the Bobateeno youth event returned on October 9 to connect youth and teens with local mental health resources. Feedback was received from the Teen Commission on the mental health website and programming at their November 10, 2021 meeting.
Pilot – Adaptive Traffic Signaling: Intelligent traffic management devices and associated software have been installed, configured, and tested and now operational at the following four intersections:
DeAnza & Mariani Ave
DeAnza & 280 N
DeAnza & 280 S
DeAnza & Homestead
Data collection is currently underway for analysis scheduled for March 2022.
The below item from the FY 20-21 City Work Program is pending completion.
General Plan Authorization Process: This item was expected to be completed in FY 20-21 and has been extended in order to address comments from the City Council at the February 2, 2021 City Council meeting. For background, a study session to discuss this project was held on July 7, 2020 and a Planning Commission hearing was held on January 12, 2021. The Planning Commission’s recommendations were presented to the City Council on February 2, 2021 where the City Council provided additional direction to staff. This item was then heard by the City Council on August 17, 2021, and staff was directed to look at voluntary community amenities. This item has been further delayed due to staffing challenges and is now expected to be completed in July 2022. For more details on this item, see the dashboard printout for FY 20-21 outstanding item in Attachment B.
Conclusion
FY 21-22 updates highlighted in this report can be found on the FY 21-22 City Work Program dashboard webpage at cupertino.org/cityworkprogram. The third quarter update on the FY 21-22 City Work Program will be available on the dashboard in April and will be presented at a City Council meeting in May.
Sustainability Impact
There are no sustainability impacts associated with this update.
Fiscal Impact
There are no fiscal impacts associated with this update.
Prepared by: Astrid Robles, Management Analyst
Reviewed by: Chris Jensen, City Attorney
Dianne Thompson, Assistant City Manager
Katy Nomura, Deputy City Manager
Approved by: Jim Throop, City Manager
Attachments:
A – FY 21-22 City Work Program Q1 Dashboard Printout
B – FY 20-21 City Work Program Outstanding Item Dashboard Printout 22 2
2 https://engagecupertino.org/single-use-plastics
https://www.cupertino.org/our-city/city-news/2018-2020-issues-between-lehigh-quarry-stevens-creek-quarry-county-city www.cupertino.org/shuttle
cupertino.org/mentalhealth