From: Mr. Shore
To: Council, City; Cha, Kelly
Cc: Armer, Jennifer; Lait, Jonathan; Yang, Albert
Subject: Bird-Friendly Design Ordinance - April 6, 2026 - Agenda Item 13 Date: Wednesday, April 1, 2026 11:10:14 AM
Attachments: Bird_Friendly_Design_Ordinance-2nd_Reading-01Apr2026.pdf CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Be cautious of opening attachments and clicking on links.
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Dear Mayor Veenker, Members of City Council and Ms. Cha, Please see the attached letter regarding the Bird-Friendly Design Ordinance (18.40.280).
Best regards,
Jeffrey Shore
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April 1, 2026
VIA E-MAIL [[email protected] and [email protected]] Mayor Veenker and Members of the City Council
City of Palo Alto
250 Hamilton Avenue
Palo Alto, California 94301
Kelly Cha
Senior Planner
City of Palo Alto
250 Hamilton Avenue Palo Alto, CA 94301
Re: April 6, 2026 Agenda Item 13 — Bird-Friendly Design Ordinance (PAMC § 18.40.280) Dear Mayor Veenker and Members of the City Council,
This letter is intended to bring to your attention certain ambiguities and internal inconsistencies arising from the addition of new provisions in the Bird-Friendly Design Ordinance that reference films, decals and similar markers approved by the American Bird Conservancy (the “ABC”).
Subject to Director Approval
For its Second Reading, Section 18.40.280(b)(2)(B) has been amended to read as follows:
(B) Patterned Treatment, Limited. Films, decals, or other similar markers approved by the American Bird Conservancy or its equivalent, subject to Director approval, may be used only for residential development or the residential portion of mixed-use development, or the portions of a nonresidential elevation under 35 feet. These Limited Patterned Treatments shall have the same visual cues or patterns as Permanent Patterned Treatment under 18.40.280(b)(2)(A) and be applied to the outer surface to the extent as possible.
By adding the limiting clause “subject to Director approval, ” while retaining the permissive language that films, decals, or other similar markers “may be used” for specified developments, the amended provision raises the question: what is subject to Director approval? The amended provision can be read to mean that ABC-approved Limited Patterned Treatments require Director approval before use. On the other hand, the amended provision can be read to mean that only films, decals, or other similar markers approved by an organization equivalent to the ABC — as opposed to the ABC itself — would be subject to Director approval. This ambiguity is compounded by a parallel provision added elsewhere in the ordinance, which points in a diderent direction.
Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
April 1, 2026
Section 18.40.280(d)(3)(A) has been added for the Second Reading of the ordinance, as follows (in its hierarchal context):
(3) Nonresidential and the nonresidential portion of mixed-use development. In addition to the requirements of (d)(1), no more than ten percent of an elevation of any structure or building shall be untreated glazing.
(A) Any portions of an elevation under 35 feet may be allowed to use films, decals, or other products approved by the American Bird Conservancy or its equivalent, subject to Director approval.
Section 18.40.280(d)(3)(A) adds to the uncertainty as to what is “subject to Director approval” in Section 18.40.280(b)(2)(B). Due to the position of the limiting clause “subject to Director approval” following the phrase “may be allowed” in Section 18.40.280(d)(3)(A), it is reasonable to conclude that the use of any ABC-approved products in the nonresidential context would be conditional on Director approval. By comparison, the position of the clause “subject to Director approval” in Section 18.40.280(b)(2)(B) more likely permits the inference that the Director’s approval is only required to qualify an organization as an ABC-equivalent in both residential and nonresidential development.
ABC-Approved Products Do Not Uniformly Conform to Palo Alto’s Prescriptive Dimensions Section 18.40.280(b)(2)(B) requires that ABC-approved films, decals and similar markers conform to the ordinance’s prescriptive size and spacing requirements — specifically, the 2x2 standard. Not all ABC-approved products do.
There are two groups of ABC-approved films, decals, and similar markers that would not conform to Palo Alto’s prescriptive size and spacing requirements. First, ABC still approves products under its legacy 2×4 standard, allowing vertical spacing up to 4 inches—most notably WindowAlert decals—and assigning those approved products a passing “Threat Factor” of 25.
Second, UV-only films and decals, such as Bird Divert UV Film, and similar products are categorically incompatible with Palo Alto's prescriptive framework because their markers are transparent to the human eye and therefore have no measurable diameter or line width that a building inspector could verify against the ordinance's dimensional standards.1 In addition, the ABC-approved product database is not a static published list. It is a web database that is updated over time, and the full current list of every approved product with precise dimensional specifications is not publicly available in a single downloadable document.2 For these reasons, incorporating the evolving ABC-approved product database by reference could
1 See Summary of ABC Rating System, updated November 17, 2025 < https://abcbirds.org/wp- content/uploads/2025/12/the prescriptive rating option 11 17 2025.pdf>, accessed March 29, 2026. 2 See ABC-approved product database, < https://abcbirds.org/products/? paged=5>, accessed March 29, 2026.
Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
April 1, 2026
become a frustrating compliance and enforcement challenge for property owners and Planning stad.
A related inconsistency arises from the fact that Section 18.40.280(d)(3)(A), unlike Section
18.40.280(b)(2)(B), does not require that ABC-approved films, decals or other products conform to the prescriptive size and spacing requirements of Section 18.40.280(b)(2)(A) for portions of an elevation of nonresidential development under 35 feet.
Typographical Errors
A few typographical errors in Sections 18.40.280(b)(2)(A) and 18.40.280(h) in the Second Reading version of the ordinance are highlighted below:
(A) Patterned Treatment, Permanent. Glazing shall be permanently translucent or obscured, or include patterns that are etched, fritted, stenciled, silk-screened, or otherwise permanently incorporated into the transparent material.
(h) Additional Provisions and Conflict Precedence. All applicable windows, doors, or other features must comply with the requirements of this section, in addition to the California Building Code, including the fire hazard severity zone regulations in California Green Buildings Standards Code (CALGreen), Fire Code, and applicable state or federal laws. Within In the event that the provisions of this section necessarily conflict with the aforementioned codes or state or federal laws, the standards in the applicable state or federals federal laws and codes shall prevail.
Respectfully,
Jedrey Shore
cc: Jonathan Lait, Director of Planning & Development Services Jennifer Armer, Assistant Director of Planning & Development Services Albert Yang, Assistant City Attorney
From: Ellen Shay
To: Council, City
Subject: Request to pull Item #13 from the Consent Calendar for City Council meeting on April 6th, 2026 meeting Date: Monday, April 6, 2026 9:16:55 AM
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I am asking the City Council to pull item 13 from the Consent Calendar before voting on it, so that the public can hear a full discussion of the justifications for the disparate treatment of the Esther Clark neighborhood, which is bounded on one side of Foothill Expressway, and the Greater Miranda neighborhood, which is bounded on the other side of Foothill Expressway.
The public deserves to understand what distinguishes these two adjacent neighborhoods by reference to the building design objective of
minimizing hazards for birds and reducing the
potential for collisions.
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?
webmap=48437176c9824e8ab11c193c791c057a
This URL shows the Global (red) and California (green) IBAs
(Important Bird
Areas), updated August 4, 2025.
I found this on a map of IBAs with a focus on
California. "The IBA data is from the Authoritative ArcGIS web service maintained by the National Audubon Society and its Enterprise Team." Notice that the Palo Alto area is not on this map. "This is a map of IBAs with a focus on California. The IBA data is from the Authoritative ArcGIS web service maintained by the National Audubon Society and its Enterprise Team. The California Protected Areas Database (CPAD) layer is from CPAD and the Green Info Network".
Notice that Palo Alto is not on this map.
The phrase "east of 101 and west of Foothill" has been carried from document to document without being examined and justified.
Ellen Shay
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