Portola Valley City Council
July 13, 2022

TOWN OF PORTOLA VALLEY
Regular Meeting of the Town Council
Wednesday, July 13, 2022
7:00 P.M.

Craig Hughes, Mayor
Sarah Wernikoff, Vice Mayor
Jeff Aalfs, Councilmember
Maryann Derwin, Councilmember
John Richards, Councilmember

VIRTUAL PARTICIPATION VIA ZOOM
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HYBRID MEETING
HISTORIC SCHOOLHOUSE - 765 Portola Road, Portola Valley, CA 94028 Remote Public Comments: Meeting participants are encouraged to submit public comments in writing in advance of the meeting. Please submit your comments using this online form by 1:00 PM on the day of the meeting. Time permitting, your correspondence will be uploaded to the website. All received questions will be forwarded to Council, Commission, or Committee members for consideration during the meeting and included in the public record.

Additionally, the public body will take questions using the Raise Hand button for those who attend the meeting online or by phone. Phone callers may provide comments by pressing *9 on your phone to "raise your hand" and *6 to mute/unmute yourself. The meeting Chair will call on people to speak by the phone number calling in.

Assistance for People with Disabilities: In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, if you need special assistance to participate in this meeting, please contact the Town Clerk at (650) 851-1700 or by email at [email protected]. Notification 48 hours prior to the meeting will enable the Town to make reasonable arrangements to ensure accessibility to this meeting.

Public Hearings: Public Hearings provide the general public and interested parties an opportunity to provide testimony on these items. If you challenge any proposed action(s) in court, you may be limited to raising only issues you or someone else raised at the Public Hearing(s) described in this agenda, or in written correspondence delivered to the Town Council at, or prior to, the Public Hearing(s).

Residents have asked if they are able to see a list of participants in Zoom webinar-meetings. Craig Hughes has put together a simple website integrated with Zoom data to provide this for Town webinars. You can visit the site at https://pv-zooms.rungie.com/ which will show a list of meetings. Clicking on a meeting will then display all participants in the meeting, as well as those who had been in the meeting but have left. The site will only show meetings once they have started and the first participant has joined.

1. CALL TO ORDER

2. REPORT OUT OF CLOSED SESSION

3. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS
Persons wishing to address the Town Council on any subject may do so now. Please note, however, that the Council is not able to undertake extended discussion or action tonight on items, not on the agenda. Speakers' time is limited to three minutes.

4. ANNOUNCEMENTS/PRESENTATIONS
None

Town of Portola Valley – Council Agenda
July 13, 2022

5. CONSENT AGENDA
The following items are voted on at once by the body, unless a member of the body requests an item be considered separately. Members of the public are permitted to comment on any item on the consent calendar before the body votes on the consent agenda.
a. Approval of Action Minutes for the Regular Meeting of June 22, 2022 b. Approval of Warrant List
c. Adoption of a Resolution Confirming the State of Emergency and Need to Continue Conducting Town Public Meetings Remotely (a) A Resolution of the Town Council of the Town of Portola Valley Confirming Existing State of Emergency and Authorizing Continued Remote Public Meetings Under AB 361
d. Adoption of Resolution Calling for the Holding of the November 8, 2022 General Municipal Election
e. Approval of Purchase of Four Pickleball Nets in the Amount of $9,600 f. Adopt the FY 2022-23 Budget for the Woodside Highlands Road Maintenance District.

6. STUDY SESSION
a. Receive the Town Lobbyist Legislative/Budget Update

7. REGULAR AGENDA
a. Review the Draft Housing Element
b. Update the Town Council Priority Efforts List and Approve the Proposed Council Priority Reporting Process.

8. COUNCIL LIAISON COMMITTEE AND REGIONAL AGENCIES REPORTS Oral reports arising out of liaison appointments to both in-town and regional committees and initiatives. There are no written materials and the Town Council does not take action under this agenda item.

9. TOWN MANAGER REPORT
There are no written materials and the Town Council does not take action under this agenda item.

10. WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS
a. Town Council Digest – July 7, 2022

11. ADJOURNMENT
The next Regular Town Council meeting will be held on August 10, 2022 at 7:00 p.m.

TOWN OF PORTOLA VALLEY
Regular Meeting of the Town Council
Wednesday, June 22, 2022
7:00 P.M.

Craig Hughes, Mayor
Sarah Wernikoff, Vice Mayor
Jeff Aalfs, Councilmember
Maryann Derwin, Councilmember
John Richards, Councilmember

MINUTES

1. CALL TO ORDER – Councilmembers Derwin, Richards, Vice Mayor Wernikoff and Mayor Hughes were present at 7:00 p.m. Councilmember Aalfs joined the meeting at 7:11 p.m.

2. REPORT OUT OF CLOSED SESSION
There was no reported action.

3. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS
The following members of the public spoke during Public Comment:
• Rita Comes
• David Cardinal
• Kristi Corley

4. PRESENTATIONS
a. Receive Presentation from John Badger, Chair of the Cultural Arts Committee, on the PV Palooza, held in Portola Valley on June 11, 2022
John Badger, Cultural Arts Committee Chair, presented the item.

5. CONSENT AGENDA
M/S Richards/Wernikoff to approve the Consent Agenda. Motion carried unanimously by roll call vote.
a. Approval of Action Minutes for the Regular Meeting of June 8, 2022 b. Approval of Warrant List
c. Adoption of a Resolution Confirming the State of Emergency and Need to Continue Conducting Town Public Meetings Remotely (a) A Resolution of the Town Council of the Town of Portola Valley Confirming Existing State of Emergency and Authorizing Continued Remote Public Meetings Under AB 361
d. Adoption of a Resolution Authorizing the 2022-23 Woodside Highlands and Wayside II Road Maintenance District Tax Assessments
e. Authorize the Town Manager to Sign a Thank You Letter to the City of Redwood City for IT Service Support
f. Adoption of a Resolution Authorizing Two-Year Agreement with STEPFORD, Inc. for Comprehensive Managed IT Services
g. Authorize the Town Manager to Sign a Contract with Fehr & Peers Regarding an Evacuation Study Contract Amendment
h. Authorize the Mayor to Sign a Letter of Support for the San Mateo County Resource Conservation District’s Boundary Expansion

6. PUBLIC HEARING
a. Adoption of a Resolution Adopting the Final Proposed Budget for FY 2022-23 Cindy Rodas, Finance Director, presented the report.

Craig Hughes, Mayor, opened the Public Hearing.

Town of Portola Valley – Council Minutes
June 22, 2022

There were no speakers during the Public Hearing.

Craig Hughes, Mayor, closed the Public Hearing.

M/S Aalfs/Wernikoff to adopt the resolution adopting the Final Proposed Budget for FY 2022-

23. Motion carried unanimously by roll call vote.
b. Adoption of a Resolution Determining and Establishing the Town’s FY 2022-23 Appropriations Limit
Cindy Rodas, Finance Director, presented the report.

Craig Hughes, Mayor, opened the Public Hearing.

The following members of the public spoke during the Public Hearing:
• Kristi Corley
Craig Hughes, Mayor, closed the Public Hearing.

M/S Derwin/Wernikoff to adopt a resolution determining and establishing the Town’s FY 2022- 23 Appropriations Limit. Motion carried unanimously by roll call vote.

7. COUNCIL LIAISON COMMITTEE AND REGIONAL AGENCIES REPORTS The following Councilmembers reported on their assignments:
• Maryann Derwin: Attended a CCAG Board Meeting; a San Mateo County Expressways JPA meeting; a Commute.org meeting; a Sustainability Committee Meeting; and a Planning Commission Meeting
• Sarah Wernikoff: Attended an Ad-Hoc Housing Element meeting • Jeff Aalfs: Attended an Ad-Hoc Housing Element meeting • Craig Hughes: Attended an ABAG General Meeting; and a Trails and Paths meeting The following members of the public spoke regarding the reports:
• Kristi Corley
• David Cardinal
• Rita Comes Whitney

8. TOWN MANAGER REPORT
Jeremy Dennis, Town Manager, presented the report.

9. WRITTEN COMMUNICATIONS
a. Town Council Digests – June 9 and June 16, 2022

10. ADJOURN TO CLOSED SESSION
a. CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNSEL – Anticipated Litigation; Pursuant to Government Code Section 54956.9(d), (e)(5).

The Town received correspondence from a group of Portola Valley residents (Rusty Day, Kristin Day, Ron Eastman, Bruce Roberts, Shirley Roberts, James Rooney, Jim Vernazza and Ellen Vernazza) alleging that the Wildfire Preparedness Committee violated the Brown Act.

11. ADJOURNMENT – The meeting adjourned at 8:35 p.m. in memory of Arthur “Chip” McIntosh, a Portola Valley resident.

The next Regular Town Council meeting will be held on June 22, 2022 at 7:00 p.m.

The meeting minutes were prepared by Melissa Thurman, Town Clerk, for approval at the meeting of July 13, 2022.

apachreg Town of Portola Valley ntanori 07/07/2022 16:14 Page 1 Check Register
Check Vendor Vendor Name Check Check BW CheckNumber Number Amount Date TypeChecks for Cash Account: 910-11011-000 2309 3 A-A LOCK & ALARM INC 734.69 07/13/222310 11 ADOBE INC. 2,324.16 07/13/222311 21 ALMANAC 1,215.00 07/13/222312 44 BANK OF AMERICA 3,160.75 07/13/222313 71 BW CONSTRUCTION 1,290.00 07/13/222314 80 CALPERS 7,631.75 07/13/222315 108 CITY OF BRISBANE 850.00 07/13/222316 114 CITY OF SAN CARLOS 52.00 07/13/222317 121 SCA OF CA, LLC 1,782.06 07/13/222318 124 COMCAST 188.16 07/13/222319 131 CPRS 170.00 07/13/222320 135 CSG CONSULTANTS INC 23,961.75 07/13/222321 176 EXCEL LD 32.97 07/13/222322 193 GO NATIVE INC 17,548.00 07/13/222323 195 GOOD CITY COMPANY 30,161.25 07/13/222324 202 GRASSROOTS ECOLOGY 5,000.00 07/13/222325 218 MISSIONSQUARE RETIREMENT 5,665.14 07/13/222326 262 JORGENSON SIEGEL MCCLURE & FLE 34,742.50 07/13/222327 275 KRUPKA CONSULTING 1,200.00 07/13/222328 276 KUTZMANN & ASSOCIATES 45,393.32 07/13/222329 290 LOS GATOS ROOFING 1,000.00 07/13/222330 323 MIG-TRA 777.50 07/13/222331 337 O. NELSON & SON INC. 812.02 07/13/222332 364 PERS HEALTH 16,043.12 07/13/222333 372 PINNACLE BUILDING & DESIGN 2,000.00 07/13/222334 374 PLAN JPA 159,223.00 07/13/222335 375 PLATINUM FACILITY SERVICES 4,936.68 07/13/222336 403 RON RAMIES AUTOMOTIVE INC. 796.88 07/13/222337 410 SAMANTHA WANG 1,632.65 07/13/222338 413 SANGINI MAJMUDAR BEDNER 1,180.00 07/13/222339 429 SHELLY SWEENEY 1,100.00 07/13/222340 431 SIERRA PACIFIC TURF SUPPLY INC 1,791.49 07/13/222341 437 SMALL BUSINESS BENEFIT PLAN TR 2,931.90 07/13/222342 445 STANDARD INSURANCE CO. 572.52 07/13/222343 448 STATE COMP INSURANCE FUND 5,315.25 07/13/222344 468 THERMAL MECHANICAL INC 2,127.78 07/13/222345 523 SMC EMERGENCY MGR ASSOCIATION 100.00 07/13/222346 578 COUNTY OF SAN MATEO - LAFCO 588.00 07/13/222347 649 VEOCI INC 12,375.00 07/13/222348 690 CRUZ STRATEGIES 625.00 07/13/222349 709 DAN NEWITT 350.00 07/13/222350 710 FOUR OHM PRODUCTIONS 1,360.50 07/13/222351 725 BROOKTROUT DESIGN 2,037.50 07/13/222352 730 URBAN PLANNING PARTNERS INC 43,125.13 07/13/222353 732 JOHN BADGER 2,195.84 07/13/22

apachreg Town of Portola Valley ntanori 07/07/2022 16:14 Page 2 Check Register
Check Vendor Vendor Name Check Check BW CheckNumber Number Amount Date Type 2354 740 ALESSANDRO MORUZZI 384.00 07/13/222355 752 FEHR & PEERS 7,271.50 07/13/222356 847 LISA WISE CONSULTING 1,565.00 07/13/222357 853 KRISTIN SPANGENBERG 350.00 07/13/222358 859 KEITH ORCHARD 4,200.00 07/13/222359 860 STEPFORD 2,500.00 07/13/222360 861 AARON PRIDE PHOTOGRAPHY 500.00 07/13/222361 862 M.A.N.E FLOOR COVERING 1,670.00 07/13/222362 863 SYLVIA CASTELLO 500.00 07/13/222363 864 DAILY POST 168.75 07/13/222364 865 MID PENINSULA ROOFING 1,000.00 07/13/222365 866 JOHN CASHIN 3,892.50 07/13/222366 867 GO WEST ROOFING 1,000.00 07/13/222367 868 CITY OF EAST PALO ALTO 65.00 07/13/222368 869 CSMFO 110.00 07/13/222369 870 GOOD TO FEEL LLC 1,500.00 07/13/222370 871 GOVERNMENT FINANCE OFFICERS AS 310.00 07/13/222371 872 ICMA MEMBERSHIP RENEWALS 1,400.00 07/13/222372 873 RANGER PIPELINES 4,915.55 07/13/222373 874 NOVO CONSTRUCTION 3,650.00 07/13/22Check totals: 485,053.56ACH totals:EFTPS totals:Wire transfer totals:Payment Manager totals:GRAND TOTALS 485,053.56Check totals: 485,053.56ACH totals:EFTPS totals:Wire transfer totals:Payment Manager totals:GRAND TOTALS 485,053.56

.
apapdinv2 ntanori Town of Portola Valley Page 1
16:14 07/07/22 Paid Invoices by Date
From: 07/13/2022 to 07/13/2022
Check Check Special Information Net Check Total Invoice Number Date Number Amount Invoices
Paid
Vendor: 3 A-A LOCK & ALARM INC
07/13/22 2309 Front Door Repair - Town Hall 734.69 734.69 303529 Vendor: 11 ADOBE INC.
2310 Acrobat Pro Subscription Renewal 07/1/2022 - 06/30/2023 2,324.16 2,324.16 2196150384 Vendor: 21 ALMANAC
2311 April Publishing 1,215.00 1,215.00 75687
Vendor: 44 BANK OF AMERICA
2312 May Statement 3,160.75 3,160.75 1388-MAY22
Vendor: 71 BW CONSTRUCTION
2313 Debris Boxes - Road Clean Up 04/22 1,290.00 1,290.00 04222022 Vendor: 80 CALPERS
2314 June Unfunded Liability 7,631.75 7,631.75 100000016818200 Vendor: 108 CITY OF BRISBANE
2315 Replacement For Ck# 2126 - 2022 Spring Academy Fees 850.00 850.00 INV00369-VD Vendor: 114 CITY OF SAN CARLOS
2316 COC Dinner Meeting, M. Derwin 52.00 52.00 05202022 Vendor: 121 SCA OF CA, LLC
2317 May Litter/Street Clean 1,782.06 1,782.06 103196CS Vendor: 124 COMCAST
2318 WIFI 06.21.2022 - 07.20.2022 188.16 188.16 1945-JUL22 Vendor: 131 CPRS
2319 FY22-23 Membership Renewal 170.00 170.00 136550-FY22-23 Vendor: 135 CSG CONSULTANTS INC
2320 April Applicant Charges 23,961.75 23,961.75 APR-2022 Vendor: 176 EXCEL LD
2321 June Telephone LD Service 32.97 32.97 1193076672
Vendor: 193 GO NATIVE INC
2322 Vegetation Mgmt Town Center - April/June 17,548.00 6,848.00 3648 Open Space Vegetation/Landscape 10,700.00 3649
Vendor: 195 GOOD CITY COMPANY

.
apapdinv2 ntanori Town of Portola Valley Page 2
16:14 07/07/22 Paid Invoices by Date
From: 07/13/2022 to 07/13/2022
Check Check Special Information Net Check Total Invoice NumberDate Number Amount Invoices Paid
07/13/22 2323 Planning Consultant Svcs - May 30,161.25 30,161.25 2718 Vendor: 202 GRASSROOTS ECOLOGY
2324 SFC Program Support FY21-22 5,000.00 5,000.00 PVSFC0522 Vendor: 218 MISSIONSQUARE RETIREMENT
2325 Defer Comp, June 2022 5,665.14 5,665.14 JUN2022_DEFCOMP Vendor: 262 JORGENSON SIEGEL MCCLURE & FLE
2326 May Statement 34,742.50 34,742.50 MAY-2022
Vendor: 275 KRUPKA CONSULTING
2327 On-Call Traffic & Transportation 05/01/22 - 05/31/22 1,200.00 1,200.00 1322 Vendor: 276 KUTZMANN & ASSOCIATES
2328 May Plan Checks 45,393.32 45,393.32 79100
Vendor: 290 LOS GATOS ROOFING
2329 Deposit Refund, 240 Echo 1,000.00 1,000.00 BLDR0058-2020 Vendor: 323 MIG-TRA
2330 Consulting Svcs - Nov. 2021 - May 2022, PV Ranch Pond 777.50 777.50 0075665 Vendor: 337 O. NELSON & SON INC.
2331 Eagle Scout Project, New Trail - Spring Down Open Space 812.02 812.02 234 Vendor: 364 PERS HEALTH
2332 July Health 16,043.12 16,043.12 100000016837384
Vendor: 372 PINNACLE BUILDING & DESIGN
2333 Deposit Refund, 501 Portola #1E 2,000.00 1,000.00 BLDR0033-2022 Deposit Refund, 501 Portola #12G 1,000.00 BLDR0030-2022 Vendor: 374 PLAN JPA
2334 FY22-23 Gen Liability/Property Program Contributions 159,223.00 159,223.00 PLAN-2023-0020 Vendor: 375 PLATINUM FACILITY SERVICES
2335 June Janitorial Svcs 4,936.68 4,488.67 44089
June Friday Disinfection Svcs- COVID19 448.01 44090
Vendor: 403 RON RAMIES AUTOMOTIVE INC.
2336 Chevy Cab Front Seat/Install 796.88 796.88 71604
Vendor: 410 SAMANTHA WANG

.
apapdinv2 ntanori Town of Portola Valley Page 3
16:14 07/07/22 Paid Invoices by Date
From: 07/13/2022 to 07/13/2022
Check Check Special Information Net Check Total Invoice NumberDate Number Amount Invoices Paid
07/13/22 2337 Deposit Refund, 207 Westridge 1,632.65 1,632.65 BLDR0074-2018 Vendor: 413 SANGINI MAJMUDAR BEDNER
2338 Spring 2022 Classes 1,180.00 1,180.00 SPRING-2022
Vendor: 429 SHELLY SWEENEY
2339 Spring 2022 Classes 1,100.00 1,100.00 SPRING-2022
Vendor: 431 SIERRA PACIFIC TURF SUPPLY INC
2340 Fields Fertilizer 1,791.49 1,791.49 0623727-IN
Vendor: 437 SMALL BUSINESS BENEFIT PLAN TR
2341 July Dental/Vision 2,931.90 2,931.90 JULY-2022
Vendor: 445 STANDARD INSURANCE CO.
2342 LTD/Life Premium 572.52 572.52 2022-JUNE
Vendor: 448 STATE COMP INSURANCE FUND
2343 WC Premium, 06/19/22 - 07/19/22 5,315.25 5,315.25 1000669671 Vendor: 468 THERMAL MECHANICAL INC
2344 PM Service - April 2022 2,127.78 2,127.78 84878
Vendor: 523 SMC EMERGENCY MGR ASSOCIATION
2345 FY22-23 Membership Renewal 100.00 100.00 1920-74
Vendor: 578 COUNTY OF SAN MATEO - LAFCO
2346 FY2022-23 LAFCO Apportionment 588.00 588.00 FY2022-23_LAFCO Vendor: 649 VEOCI INC
2347 FY22-23 Annual Software Subscription 12,375.00 12,375.00 1716 Vendor: 690 CRUZ STRATEGIES
2348 Government Relations Consulting - June 625.00 625.00 2298 Vendor: 709 DAN NEWITT
2349 PV Palooza Art Elements 2022 350.00 350.00 2211
Vendor: 710 FOUR OHM PRODUCTIONS
2350 Sound Equipment Deposit - Summer 2022 Concert Series 1,360.50 1,360.50 1017 Vendor: 725 BROOKTROUT DESIGN
2351 Schoolhouse AV System Peer Review - Change Order March 2,037.50 2,037.50 INV-000047

.
apapdinv2 ntanori Town of Portola Valley Page 4
16:14 07/07/22 Paid Invoices by Date
From: 07/13/2022 to 07/13/2022
Check Check Special Information Net Check Total Invoice NumberDate Number Amount Invoices Paid
Vendor: 730 URBAN PLANNING PARTNERS INC
2352 PV Housing Element Update - May 43,125.13 31,385.00 21029-220531 PV Safety Element Update - May 11,740.13 21031-220531
Vendor: 732 JOHN BADGER
2353 PV Palooza Expenses Reimbursement 2,195.84 2,195.84 FRRC-22-2 Vendor: 740 ALESSANDRO MORUZZI
2354 Spring 2022 Classes 384.00 384.00 SPRING-2022
Vendor: 752 FEHR & PEERS
2355 PV Evacuation Study 04/31/22 - 05/27/22 7,271.50 7,271.50 155965 Vendor: 847 LISA WISE CONSULTING
2356 Phase 1 Conceptual Site Plans - May 1,565.00 1,565.00 4257 Vendor: 853 KRISTIN SPANGENBERG
2357 Facilities Deposit Refund 350.00 350.00 PRCH-22-4
Vendor: 859 KEITH ORCHARD
2358 Front Driveway Water Culvert 4,200.00 4,200.00 05192022 Vendor: 860 STEPFORD
2359 IT Onsite Visit 2,500.00 2,500.00 2201395
Vendor: 861 AARON PRIDE PHOTOGRAPHY
2360 PV Palooza Photographer 500.00 500.00 23
Vendor: 862 M.A.N.E FLOOR COVERING
2361 Learning Center Carpet Replacement 1,670.00 1,670.00 6254 Vendor: 863 SYLVIA CASTELLO
2362 Facilities Deposit Refund 500.00 500.00 PRCH-22-1
Vendor: 864 DAILY POST
2363 Public Hearing Advertisement - June 168.75 168.75 80676 Vendor: 865 MID PENINSULA ROOFING
2364 Deposit Refund, 20 Cherokee 1,000.00 1,000.00 BLDR0185-2021 Vendor: 866 JOHN CASHIN
2365 Deposit Refund, 115 Tan Oak 3,892.50 3,892.50 PLN_ARCH0005-20 Vendor: 867 GO WEST ROOFING

.
apapdinv2 ntanori Town of Portola Valley Page 5
16:14 07/07/22 Paid Invoices by Date
From: 07/13/2022 to 07/13/2022
Check Check Special Information Net Check Total Invoice NumberDate Number Amount Invoices Paid
07/13/22 2366 Deposit Refund, 4145 Alpine 1,000.00 1,000.00 BLDR0041-2022 Vendor: 868 CITY OF EAST PALO ALTO
2367 COC Dinner Meeting, M. Derwin 65.00 65.00 06242022 Vendor: 869 CSMFO
2368 FY22-23 Membership Dues - N.Tanori 110.00 110.00 300009458 Vendor: 870 GOOD TO FEEL LLC
2369 Performance - PV Summer Concert Series 07/14/22 1,500.00 1,500.00 07142022 Vendor: 871 GOVERNMENT FINANCE OFFICERS AS
2370 FY22-23 Membership Dues - N.Tanori 310.00 150.00 0268656 FY22-23 Membership Dues - C.Rodas 160.00 0231262
Vendor: 872 ICMA MEMBERSHIP RENEWALS
2371 FY22-23 Membership Renewal 1,400.00 1,400.00 07012022 Vendor: 873 RANGER PIPELINES
2372 Deposit Refund, Alpine Rd, Permit# PW0010-2019 4,915.55 3,915.55 PW0010-2019 Deposit Refund, Alpine Rd, Permit# PW0016-2019 1,000.00 PW0016-2019 Vendor: 874 NOVO CONSTRUCTION
2373 Deposit Refund, 460 Cervantes 3,650.00 3,650.00 BLDM0003-2022 Check Date Totals 485,053.56
Grand Total 485,053.56

TOWN OF PORTOLA VALLEY
Warrant Disbursement Journal
July 13, 2022
Claims totaling $485,053.56 having been duly examined by me and found to be correct are hereby approved and verified by me as due bills against the Town of Portola Valley.

Date _____________________________ ________________________________ Jeremy Dennis, Treasurer
Motion having been duly made and seconded, the above claims are hereby approved and allowed for payment.

Signed and sealed this (Date) _____________________
_______________________________ _________________________________ Melissa Thurman, Town Clerk Mayor

______________________________________________________________________________________ TO: Mayor and Members of the Town Council
FROM: Cara Silver, Town Attorney
DATE: July 13, 2022
RE: Adoption of Resolution Confirming the State of Emergency and Need to Continue Conducting Town Public Meetings Remotely

RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends that the Town Council adopt the attached Resolution Confirming the State of Emergency and Need to Continue Conducting Town Public Meetings Remotely.

BACKGROUND
On September 16, the Governor signed AB 361, amending the Ralph M. Brown Act (Brown Act) to allow legislative bodies to continue to meet virtually during the present public health emergency. AB 361 is an urgency bill which goes into effect on October 1, 2021 and expires on January 1, 2024 (portions of the bill applying to the State legislature and school districts expire earlier). The bill extends the teleconference procedures authorized in Executive Order N-29-20 (set to expire September 30, 2021) during the current COVID-19 pandemic and allows future teleconference procedures under limited circumstances defined in the bill.

Effective October 1, 2021, cities must comply with AB 361 if they want to conduct remote meetings.

AB 361 applies to meetings during a proclaimed state of emergency and the legislative body has made a finding that meeting in person would "present an imminent risk to the health or safety of attendees". “State of emergency” is defined as a state of emergency declared by the Governor under Government Code Section 8625.

AB 361 requires several procedural safeguards, such as giving the public ability to address the legislative body directly, providing information on how to address the body, providing either a call-in or internet-based service option, requirement to stop meeting if call-in or internet-based option fails due to measures under the control of the Town, comments may not be required to be submitted in advance, and pre-registrations (except as required by callin or internet platform) are prohibited.

TOWN OF PORTOLA VALLEY

STAFF REPORT

TOWN OF PORTOLA VALLEY

Resolution Confirming Need to Conduct Remote Public Meetings July 13, 2022

Public members must be given a reasonable time to register to provide public comment and agencies that provide a timed public comment period shall not close the public comment period until that timed period has expired.

If the legislative body desires to continue using the teleconference exception, it must confirm the circumstances of the state of emergency 30 days after the first teleconference meeting and every 30 days thereafter.

DISCUSSION
Town staff has installed a new system in the Schoolhouse to accommodate hybrid remote meetings. This system has also been installed in the Community Hall. On April 27, 2022, the Council conducted its first hybrid meeting and plans to continue meeting this way.

However, some members of the Council, its commissions/committees, staff and the public may want to continue attending remotely. Given the continued presence of COVID-19 in the community, in person meetings would present an imminent risk to the health or safety of certain attendees.

AB 361 requires the Council to make a regular finding confirming the state of emergency and the need for continued remote meetings. Staff will therefore be agendizing this finding on every Council meeting agenda until a decision to transition to completely in person meetings has been made. Council will also be requested to make these findings on behalf of its commissions and committees as well, so there is a uniform policy on public meetings.

FISCAL IMPACT
There is no fiscal impact associated with continued remote meetings.

ATTACHMENT

1. Resolution

1 RESOLUTION NO. ____

RESOLUTION OF THE TOWN COUNCIL OF THE TOWN OF PORTOLA

VALLEY CONFIRMING EXISTING STATE EMERGENCY AND AUTHORIZING CONTINUED REMOTE PUBLIC MEETINGS UNDER AB 361
The Town Council of the Town of Portola Valley does RESOLVE as follows:

WHEREAS, on March 4, 2020, the Governor of the State of California declared a state of emergency, as defined under the California Emergency Services Act, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the State of Emergency remains in effect; WHEREAS, beginning in March 2020, the Governor’s Executive Order N-29-20 suspended Brown Act requirements related to teleconferencing during the COVID-19 pandemic provided that notice, accessibility, and other requirements were met, and the public was allowed to observe and address the legislative body at the meeting; WHEREAS, Executive Order N-08-21 extended the previous order until September 30, 2021;
WHEREAS, the Town Council and the Town’s boards, commissions, and committees have conducted their meetings virtually, as authorized by the Executive Order, since March 17, 2020;
WHEREAS, on September 16, 2021, Governor Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 361 (“AB 361”), which provides that a local agency legislative body may continue to meet remotely without complying with otherwise-applicable requirements in the Brown Act related to remote/teleconference meetings by local agency legislative bodies, provided that a state of emergency has been declared and the legislative body determines that meeting in person would present imminent risks to the health or safety of attendees, and provided that the legislative body continues to make such findings at least every 30 days during the term of the declared state of emergency;
WHEREAS, Cal/OSHA COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standards (“ETS”) require certain employers to implement social distancing requirements in the work place during the current COVID-19 pandemic; and effective February 14, 2022, the Town Manager issued updated work place guidelines imposing safety protocols on persons attending Town Hall facilities;
WHEREAS, in the last few months, while hospitalizations and severe illnesses have gone down, new COVID-19 variants have emerged and continued to impact the County’s hospital capacity;
WHEREAS, these variants are believed by medical experts to be even more contagious as previous variants, and data has shown the variant has increased transmissibility even among some vaccinated people;

2 WHEREAS, due to uncertainty and concerns about the continuing presence of COVID-19 variants, many workplaces that had announced a return to regular in-person operations have pushed back the full return date until later in the year or next year; WHEREAS, virtual meetings have not diminished the public’s ability to observe and participate and have expanded opportunities to do so for some communities; and WHEREAS, given the heightened risks of the predominant variant of COVID-19 in the community, holding meetings with all members of the legislative body, staff, and the public in attendance in person in a shared indoor meeting space would pose an unnecessary and immediate risk to the attendees.

WHEREAS, the Council has again reconsidered the circumstances of the state of emergency and finds that the state of emergency continues to impact the ability of members of the Town Council, commissions and committees and public to meet in person because there is a continuing threat of COVID19 to the community, and because Town meetings have characteristics that give rise to risks to health and safety of meeting participants (such as the increased mixing associated with bringing together people from across the community, the need to enable those who are immunocompromised or unvaccinated to be able to safely continue to participate fully in public governmental meetings, and the challenges with fully ascertaining and ensuring compliance with vaccination and other safety recommendations at such meetings);
WHEREAS, persons experiencing any potential symptoms of COVID-19, or who test positive but are asymptomatic, or who are exposed to someone with COVID19, should follow medical advice regarding self-isolation or self-quarantine, avoiding public gatherings such as in-person meetings of public agencies, and should be able to do so without sacrificing their right to participate in public business during periods of self-isolation or selfquarantine; WHEREAS, the onset of symptoms of COVID-19 or a positive test may occur too close to the start of a meeting for alternative arrangements for attendance to be made consistently with the Brown Act, such that a remote attendance option for public meetings should be maintained for as long as COVID transmission remains a potential risk of inperson meetings; WHEREAS, the Town Council has an important interest in protecting the health and safety of those who participate in public Town meetings; and WHEREAS, the Town Council finds that this state of emergency continues to directly impact the ability of members of the Town Council and its commissions and committees to meet safely in person and that meeting in person would present imminent risks to the health or safety of attendees, and the Council will therefore continue to invoke the provisions of AB 361 related to teleconferencing for meetings of the Town Council and its commissions and committees in order to provide its members as well as staff and members of the public with

3 the option of participating in its meetings remotely whenever necessary or advisable for them to do so.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Town Council of the Town of Portola Valley that:

1. The Town Council adopts the recitals set forth above as findings of fact.

2. The Town Council finds that meeting in person would present imminent risks to the health or safety of attendees.

3. In accordance with AB 361, based on the findings and determinations herein, meetings of the Town Council and Town commissions and committees will be held virtually, either completely or partially, with Brown Act teleconferencing rules suspended.

4. Staff is directed to return no later than thirty (30) days after the adoption of this resolution to consider making the findings required by AB 361 in order to continue meeting under its provisions.

PASSED AND ADOPTED this 13th day of July 2022.

By: _________________________
Craig Hughes, Mayor
ATTEST:
____________________________
Melissa Thurman, MMC
Town Clerk

______________________________________________________________________________________ TO: Mayor and Members of the Town Council
FROM: Melissa Thurman, Town Clerk
DATE: July 13, 2022
RE: Adoption of Resolution Calling for the Holding of the November 8, 2022 General Municipal Election

RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends that the Town Council adopt the attached resolution (Attachment 1), calling for the holding of the November 8, 2022 General Municipal Election, for the purpose of electing three members to the Portola Valley Town Council.

DISCUSSION
The Town Council must adopt a resolution ordering and calling for a General Municipal Election to be held on November 8, 2022 and request the Board of Supervisors of the County of San Mateo to consolidate a General Municipal Election for the Town. The residents of the Town of Portola Valley will decide three four-year terms for the Town Council.

The nomination period for candidates will open on Monday July 18, 2022 at 8:00 a.m. and will end on Friday August 12, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. If an incumbent chooses not to file nomination papers within that timeframe, the deadline to file will be extended an additional five (5) days to August 17, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. Upon adoption of this resolution, the Town Clerk will publish notice of the Municipal Election per California Election Code Section 12101.

FISCAL IMPACT
The San Mateo County Elections Office estimates the cost to provide election services for the November 8, 2022 to be approximately $15,000. Cost estimates are based on current costs, the number of registered voters and the number of jurisdictions participating in an election and are subject to change due to election service needs.

There are no funds currently budgeted for the November 2022 Election, but the estimated price of $15,000 will be included in the September 2022 budget revision that will be presented to the Town Council for approval.

ATTACHMENT

1. Resolution

TOWN OF PORTOLA VALLEY

STAFF REPORT

TOWN OF PORTOLA VALLEY

1 RESOLUTION NO. ____

RESOLUTION OF THE TOWN COUNCIL OF THE TOWN OF PORTOLA

VALLEY CALLING AND GIVING NOTICE OF THE HOLDING OF A GENERAL MUNICIPAL ELECTION TO BE HELD ON NOVEMBER 8, 2022 FOR THE PURPOSE

OF ELECTING THREE MEMBERS OF THE TOWN COUNCIL
The Town Council of the Town of Portola Valley does RESOLVE as follows:

1. Date of Election – Offices to be Filled. A general municipal election is hereby called and ordered to be held in the Town of Portola Valley, State of California, on Tuesday, November 8, 2022 for the purpose of electing eligible persons to hold certain elective offices, the terms of incumbents of which are about to expire. Those offices are as follows:

A member of the Town Council to fill the office now held by MARYANN DERWIN for a term of four (4) years;
A member of the Town Council to fill the office now held by CRAIG HUGHES for a term of four (4) years;
A member of the Town Council to fill the office now held by JOHN RICHARDS for a term of four (4) years.

2. Elections Code Section 10403 – The Town Council of Portola Valley is hereby consenting and agreeing to the consolidation of a General Municipal Election with the Statewide General Election to be held on Tuesday, November 8, 2022.

3. Elections Code Section 10002 – The Town Council of Portola Valley further requests that the County Board of Supervisors permit County election official(s) be authorized to render services to the Town relating to the conduct of said election. The services shall be of the administrative type normally performed by such County election official(s) in conducting elections including, but not limited to, checking registrations; printing and mailing sample ballots; ballots; candidates’ statements; hiring election officers and arranging for polling places; providing and distribution of election supplies; and counting ballots and canvassing returns.

4. Canvassing Returns – That the San Mateo County Chief Elections Officer and Assessor-County Clerk Recorder is hereby authorized to canvass the returns of the General Municipal Election, and that the election shall be held in all respects as if there were only one election, and only one form of ballot shall be used.

5. Nomination Papers – Nomination papers may be procured from the Town Clerk no earlier than July 18, 2022 at 8:00 a.m. and shall be filed with the Town Clerk no later than 5:00 p.m. on August 12, 2022.

6. Precincts – That the election precincts, polling places, voting centers and booths, and election officials in each of the precincts in which this election shall be held, shall be the same as provided for the Statewide General Election on said date, as prescribed

2 by the ordinance, order, resolution or notice of the Board of Supervisors of San Mateo County calling, providing for, or giving notice of such other election and which sets forth such precincts, voting centers or booths, polling places and elections officials.

7. Costs – The Town of Portola Valley recognizes that the costs incurred by the San Mateo County Chief Elections Officer and Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder, by reason of this consolidation, will be reimbursed by the Town of Portola Valley as specified in the Services Agreement that the Town Council of Portola Valley hereby authorizes the Town Manager to execute.

8. Elections Code 13307 – The Town Council of Portola Valley hereby determines to levy against each candidate availing themselves if the service of including a candidate’s statement not to exceed two hundred (200) words in length in the voter’s pamphlets, the actual prorated costs of printing, handling and translating the candidate’s statement incurred by the Town of Portola Valley. The Town Clerk shall provide written notice to such effect with each set of nomination papers issued and shall require payment of the estimated prorated share at the time the candidate statement is filed.

9. Submit Certified Copy – The Town Clerk is hereby directed to submit a certified copy of this resolution to the Board of Supervisors of the County of San Mateo, and to the appropriate County election official(s) of San Mateo. The Town Clerk is also directed to file a copy of the resolution with the San Mateo County Chief Elections Officer and Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder prior to the August 12, 2022.

10. That the Town Clerk shall certify to the passage and adoption of this resolution.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the Town Council of the Town of Portola Valley that the above and foregoing Town Council resolution was duly and regularly passed and adopted at a regular meeting of said Town Council on the 13th day of July, 2022, by the following votes:

AYES:

NOES:

ABSTAIN:

ABSENT:

ATTEST:
____________________________
Melissa Thurman, MMC
Town Clerk

______________________________________________________________________________________ TO: Mayor and Members of the Town Council
FROM: Patty Dewes, Chairperson Parks and Recreation Committee DATE: July 13, 2022
RE: Proposal to purchase rolling Pickleball Nets

RECOMMENDATION
The Parks and Recreation Committee recommends that the Town Council TC) approve a proposal from the Committee to:
• Purchase 4 rolling pickleball nets at a cost of $2400 each (total $9600) • Paint pickleball lines yellow for better visibility

DISCUSSION
The Parks and Rec Committee previously presented a proposal to the TC to transition one tennis court to a dedicated Pickleball (PB) court. The TC recommended that we look for other options that would balance the needs of tennis, PB, Corte Madera JV Tennis Team, and other users of the courts.

Purchasing 4 rolling PB nets would:
• Save significant time and labor that is now spent retrieving, setting up, breaking down and storing the temporary nets. The temporary nets are not sturdy enough to be kept out and they might be prone to “disappear.”
• 4 nets are needed as 4 courts are needed at least 5 days a week for group play. • Allow for PB drop-in play which is not available with the current arrangement.

Additionally, we are requesting approval to paint the PB lines yellow for better visibility. This has been done on most of the PB courts in the area and is a much better solution, especially for us “age challenged” sight see’ers.

FISCAL IMPACT
Requesting $9600 from the Town budget and labor/materials (TBD) to paint court lines.

ATTACHMENT

1. Presentation

TOWN OF PORTOLA VALLEY

STAFF REPORT

TOWN OF PORTOLA VALLEY

Update -
Pickleball Courts
A Proposal

Previous Proposal:
• Convert Court #1 to Pickleball only by installing 4
permanent Pickleball nets
• Keep Court #2 as a hybrid court (available for both
Pickleball and Tennis)
• No change to All Sport Court, although a tennis net
could be purchased and installed for use as long as
needed.
2 7/8/2022

Feedback from Town Council:
• Decision seems to be moving too quickly
• Need to have discussion about a solution that would balance needs of Pickleball, Tennis, BB players and Corte Madera JV Tennis Team
• Have met w/ CM Staff and are working w/ them on a mutually agreeable solution
• Gathering feedback from frequent tennis players
• Look at purchasing and test of rolling PB nets that would:
• Allow for drop-in play for Pickleball which is not an option with the current arrangement.
• Alleviate time/labor now required to set up temporary nets 7 days a week
3 7/8/2022

Interim Proposal
• Purchase 4 rolling Pickleball nets
• Current nets are too flimsy to stay out 24/7 and potentially much easier to “disappear”
• Keep current nets for group play that requires both tennis courts (i.e. 8 PB courts) • Keep rolling nets on courts (24/7) for drop in and group play • Store on All Sports Court (leaves ½ +court available for BB and other uses)
• Paint Pickleball lines Yellow for better visibiity
4 7/8/2022
Monitor and track usage – update Town Council after 6
months as to next steps i.e. maintain or re-visit dedicated Pickleball Courts

Rolling PB Nets
• Douglas Premier Portable
Pickleball System
• $2399.00 each, free
shipping
• 290 lbs
• 8-10 weeks for delivery
5 7/8/2022

Proposed
Painting of
Pickleball
Lines
6 7/8/2022

Thank
you!!
7 7/8/2022

______________________________________________________________________________________ TO: Mayor and Members of the Town Council
FROM: Woodside Highlands Road Maintenance District Residents’ Advisory Committee
DATE: July 13, 2022
RE: FY 2022-23 Budget

RECOMMENDATION
The Residents’ Advisory Committee of the Woodside Highlands Road Maintenance District recommends that the Town Council adopt the FY 2022-23 Budget.

BACKGROUND
In 2021 the Town Council (in its role as the Woodside Highlands Road Maintenance District Board) reconstituted the Citizen’s Advisory Board of the Woodside Highlands Road Maintenance District (WHRMD) as the Residents’ Advisory Committee (RAC). The Council adopted its mission statement, and included the RAC into the Town’s formal committee process.

The WHRMD RAC held a recent meeting on June 7, 2022 and approved the district budget for FY 2022-23.

DISCUSSION
The proposed FY 2022-23 budget for the WHRMD (Attachment 1) includes $176,750 in expenditures. This will reduce the $396,498 WHRMD balance to $274,748. All work funded in this budget is derived from the District itself, with no fiscal support from the Town.

The work is conducted and managed by the RAC. The primary expenditure for this year of $150,000 is intended to support a significant repaving project for the majority of the District’s roads. The RAC recommends that the Town Council, as the WHRMD Board, adopt the FY 2022- 23 budget.

FISCAL IMPACT
There is no fiscal impact for the Town associated with adopting the WHRMD budget.

ATTACHMENT

1. FY 2022-23 Budget

TOWN OF PORTOLA VALLEY

STAFF REPORT

TOWN OF PORTOLA VALLEY

Budget
BEGINNING BALANCE – as of Jun 30, 2022 396,498
Estimated Reveneue 55,000
PROPOSED EXPENSES 176,750
a PCI Phase II work (estimate) 150,000
b Phase I contingency (10%) 15,000
c Dumpsters – road cleanup 2,750
Roadside Cleanup Labor - Debris Collection 4,000
d Miscellaneous road repair 1,500
e Miscellaneous purchases (tools, etc.) 1,000
f Administrator discretionary fund 2,500
ENDING BALANCE 274,748

WOODSIDE HIGHLANDS ROAD MAINTENANCE DISTRICT

RESIDENTS' ADVISORY COMMITTEE
BUDGET 2022-2023 (FY23)
July 1, 2022 - June 30, 2023

______________________________________________________________________________________ TO: Mayor and Town Council
FROM: Laura Russell, Planning & Building Director

DATE: July 13, 2022
RE: Public Review Draft Housing Element

RECOMMENDATION
Staff recommends that the Town Council receive a report, take public comment, and provide any feedback on the Public Review Draft Housing Element and authorize Staff to move forward the draft Housing Element to the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) for review.

MEETING PURPOSE
This staff report provides a summary of the Town of Portola Valley’s 6th Cycle Housing Element Update for the 2023-2031 planning period (Housing Element), pursuant to California Government Code Sections 65580-65589.8, which require all local jurisdictions in the State to update the Housing Element of their General Plans every eight years. With a significant amount of new statutory requirements, the 6th Cycle Housing Element is much different than prior cycles. These requirements include the obligation for communities to deliberately address, combat, and relieve disparities in housing that have resulted from past patterns of segregation, as well as new public participation and transparency requirements related to draft element updates and revisions. For additional information related to these new requirements see the “Reasons Why 6th Cycle Housing Element is Different from Previous Cycles” Section below.

The purpose of this report is to provide the Town Council with an update on the draft Housing Element and receive comments and feedback from the Council. Following Council review, edits will be incorporated into the Draft Housing Element Update and then submitted to HCD for review and certification. Consistent with statutory requirements, the Housing Element must be certified by HCD and adopted by the Town by January 2023. After that, there is an 120-day period for the Town to work with HCD on certification; however, it should not be

TOWN OF PORTOLA VALLEY

STAFF REPORT

thought of as extra time for the Town. Rather, it is an opportunity to resolve any final issues with HCD.

BACKGROUND
The Housing Element is part of Portola Valley’s General Plan and identifies policies and programs to meet the housing needs of the Town’s current and future residents. State law (Government Code Sections 65580-65589.8) requires that every city/town and county in California adopt a Housing Element approximately every eight years. Portola Valley’s current Housing Element covers the planning period from 2014-2022 and was adopted in 2015. The new Housing Element will cover 2023-20311 and is called the 6th Cycle. In addition, the State Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) reviews and certifies that each jurisdiction’s Housing Element meets all the requirements of the law.

Every jurisdiction in California receives a target number of homes to plan for. This is called the Regional Housing Needs Allocation or RHNA (pronounced ‘ree-nuh’). Cities/towns do not need to build the housing, but do need to put in place the proper zoning and address constraints so the private sector can build the housing. The RHNA is broken down by income category. Portola Valley’s income specific RHNA is:

Required Components of a Housing Element
Pursuant to Government Code Section 65583, local governments are required to include the below items as components within their Housing Elements, and subsequent updates thereto.

1. Housing Needs Assessment: Examine demographic, employment and housing trends and conditions and identify existing and projected housing needs of the community, with attention paid to special housing needs (e.g., large families, persons with disabilities).

2. Evaluation of Past Performance: Review the prior Housing Element to measure progress in implementing policies and programs.

3. Housing Sites Inventory: Identify locations of available sites for housing development or redevelopment to demonstrate there is enough land zoned for housing to meet future need at all income levels.

4. Community Engagement: Implement a robust community engagement program that includes reaching out to individuals and families at all economic levels of the community plus historically underrepresented groups.
1 Some stakeholders use the start date of 2022, because some of the modeling starts in this year. Because Portola Valley’s Housing Element will likely not be adopted until 2023, this report uses the later date.

Income Level Number of Units
Very Low Income (<50% of Area Median Income) 73
Low Income (80% of Area Median Income) 42
Moderate Income (80-120% of Area Median Income) 39
Above Moderate Income (>120% of Area Median Income 99
Total 253

5. Constraints Analysis: Analyze and recommend remedies for existing and potential governmental and nongovernmental barriers to housing development.

6. Policies and Programs: Establish policies and programs to be carried out during the 2023-2031 planning period to fulfill the identified housing needs.

7. Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH): Analyze and address significant disparities in housing needs and access to opportunity.

Reasons Why 6th Cycle Housing Element Is Different from Previous Cycles There have been many changes to Housing Element law since the Town prepared the last Housing Element. Those changes are highlighted below.

Increased Allocation: Virtually all cities/towns in California have experienced a tripling or quadrupling of their RHNA allocations. This is largely due to extreme demand for housing in California coupled with the historic lack of housing production. In Portola Valley, much of our increased allocation is attributable to an equity adjustment. This is based on the State’s policy that more affluent, well-resourced communities should accommodate more housing, in particular, increased lower income housing.

Restrictions on Sites: The State has modified its site selection criteria to prioritize vacant sites between 0.5 acre and 10 acres and to de-emphasize built out sites.

Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing: There is a new requirement to ensure that site selection is furthering fair housing goals and that affordable housing is not located in one area. See Attachment 1 for HCD’s AB 686 Summary of Requirements in Housing Element Law Memorandum for more information on AFFH.

Multi-family housing and “Mullin Default Density”: Many cities find it challenging to prove to HCD that the selected sites will in fact yield true affordable housing. To address this, State Assemblymember Mullin sponsored legislation that instead permits municipalities to rely on specified default densities to achieve their affordable housing quota. The Mullin default density (the name references the bill’s author) for Portola Valley is 20 units per acre. In most cities, it is fairly easy to designate sufficient sites with this density. Because multi-family zoning is a new concept to Portola Valley (and much more challenging to envision in rural communities), this represents a major change to the Town’s longstanding single family zoning.

Town’s Physical Constraints: The Town has a series of physical constraints that make site selection more difficult. These include wildfire risk, evacuation concerns, seismic and geological risks, and extensive parks and open space. The numerous constraints result in

fewer potential housing sites which in turn results in the need for higher density at those sites where housing is feasible.
2 HCD Oversight: HCD has been taking a more proactive and scrutinizing role in reviewing housing elements and, with urging from many advocates, has been granted more authority – and resources-- to enforce the Housing Element law. HCD has also increased their review period, creating scheduling challenges for cities.

Public Comment on Draft Revisions: AB 215 (2021) requires local governments to make the first draft of their Housing Element update available for public comment for at least 30 days.

Further, if any comments are received, a local government must take at least 10 additional business days to consider and incorporate public comments into the draft revision before submitting to HCD. HCD must review the draft and report its written findings to the planning agency within 90 days of receiving the first draft submittal for each Housing Element (or within 60 days of its receipt for a subsequent draft amendment or adoption).

Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee and Community Engagement The Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee (AHHEC) was formed to provide recommendations to the Town Council on the Housing Element Update, explore options to minimize the impacts of additional housing units, maximize public participation, and communicate information on the Committee’s progress and recommendations to residents.

AHHEC members included representatives from the Town Council; Planning Commission; Race and Equity Committee; Architectural and Site Control Commission; and community members.

The AHHEC has met 13 times since August 2021 and continues to advance its charge to develop a Housing Element that complies with State law and will be certified, while maintaining Town values. Agendas, staff reports, zoom recordings, and presentation materials are available on the Committee's webpage. The AHHEC meetings have been extremely well attended with typical attendance about 40-50 and the key meetings about housing sites having over 150 attendees. For more information about topics covered at AHHEC meetings and the Town’s extensive community engagement process, please see Attachment 2.

DISCUSSION
As the Town Council is aware, the Town does not currently have any zoning districts that allow multifamily housing. Historically, the Town has met its RHNA obligations primarily through ADUs and a few Affiliated Housing units. Given the increase in the RHNA allocation with Cycle 6 and the changes to State law, the AHHEC needed to consider different options for meeting the Town’s RHNA. The Committee decided on a patchwork approach that 2 Based on HCD’s review of housing elements from other municipalities with similar constraints, including wildfire and sea level rise, HCD does not appear willing to make adjustments for such physical constraints. Instead, their response is to increase density in otherwise developable areas.

includes several strategies to develop housing. The AHHEC considered safety first, through hazard constraint mapping, then expressed a preference that new housing be distributed throughout the community to the extent feasible.

The Draft Housing Element includes the following primary ways to develop housing in Town:
• Sites Inventory – specific locations that can accommodate additional housing. These are the locations where the plan proposes to increase density. • Affiliated Housing Sites – the AHHEC supported retention and expansion of this existing program
• Opt-In Rezoning – this is a new approach that would allow property owners to develop up to four units per acre under certain circumstances
• Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) and Junior Accessory Dwelling Units (JADUs) – are encouraged as an important part of the housing plan
Each of these programs are discussed in more detail below.

Sites Inventory
The AHHEC discussed the Sites Inventory and the implications of increasing density at specific sites at length. This is also the part of the process that received the most public participation. Attachment 2 includes a summary of the seven AHHEC meetings held to discuss the recommendations for the Sites Inventory. The agendas, minutes and Zoom recordings are available on the Ad Hoc Housing Element webpage on the Town's website.

On the same webpage, under Supplemental Resources, interested parties can view the staff presentations from the meetings.

The resulting Housing Sites Summary included in Section 6, Adequate Sites, of the Public Review Draft Housing Element is shown below in Table 1. Attachment 3 includes a map of the sites, including pipeline and pending projects, mapped with safety hazards. The map includes the following in gray color: Flood Zones; Ground Movement Potential Map- least stable soils; major fault map, CalFire’s Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone (VHFHSZ) designation3, slopes greater than 30%, and evacuation map showing parcels with only one point of ingress/egress. Darker gray color indicates more than one hazard is present. The presence of a hazard may not preclude development. Development feasibility on sites with hazards depends on the extent and location of the hazard on the site proposed for development.
3 It is uncertain when updated maps from CalFire or the Woodside Fire Protection District (WFPD) will become available; as such, this map has been updated with CalFire’s VHFHSZ to facilitate HCD’s review of the Draft Housing Element. This map will be updated if new information becomes available prior to adoption of the Housing Element.

Table 1: Housing Sites Summary
Very
LowIncome
LowIncomeModerateIncome
Above
ModerateIncome Total
2022-2031 RHNA 73 42 39 99 253
Land Resources
Pipeline & Pending Projects 0 17 7 28 52
Projected ADU Development 28 28 28 8 92
Vacant Sites
Ford Field Housing Site 50 0 0 0 50
4395 Alpine Rd Housing Site 2 74 4 5 12 23
Non-Vacant Sites
Glen Oaks Housing Site 0 0 2 27 29
4370 Alpine Rd Housing Site 0 0 0 9 9
Affiliated Housing Sites
Sequoias Affiliated Housing Site 0 0 5 18 23
Christ Church Affiliated Housing Site 0 0 0 6 6
Ladera Church Affiliated Housing Site 8 2 0 0 10
Opt-in Rezoning Program Sites 0 0 0 12 12
Total Unit Potential 88 51 47 120 306
Buffer Provided 21% 21% 21% 21% 21%
Affiliated Housing Sites
The AHHEC elected to retain and expand the Affiliated Housing Program. The details of the Program are currently included in the Housing Element itself. With this update, the details will be moved into the Municipal Code to provide a clearer process. Moving forward, Affiliated Housing Partners would be established through the Town Council adopting a resolution.

Ladera Community Church and Christ Church are new partners in the Program that are included in the Site Inventory. Priory would remain an Affiliated Housing Partner, but they do not anticipate building any additional housing in this eight-year cycle as they just completed six new units.

As described in the Draft Housing Element, Section 6, Adequate Sites, affiliated housing options refer to multi-family housing developments on institutional sites intended to serve employees and staff affiliated with the institutions that own the site or other members of the Town’s workforce. The Draft Housing Element includes an important policy change related to Affiliated Housing. The current Housing Element requires that the residents be employees of the institution. As proposed, the Draft Housing Element would allow other members of the Town’s workforce to live in Affiliated Housing units.
4 Please note that there is a typo in this table in Draft Housing Element. This number should be 2 rather than 7.

Opt-in Rezoning Program Sites
To further increase housing development, the Draft Housing Element includes an Opt-in Single-Family Rezoning Program to disperse additional residential units throughout the community and provide a greater diversity of housing unit types in the Town. The new program would allow single-family residential parcels 1 acre or greater to upzone to allow up to four dwelling units per acre, subject to the following safety criteria:
• Accessible to two ways of ingress and egress
• Located on a slope less than 30%
• Outside of a very high fire hazard severity zone, as adopted by the Town Council • Outside of a fault zone
• Outside of areas identified with unstable soils or at risk of landslide or liquefaction Prior to a property participating in the proposed Opt-in Rezoning Program, the site will be reviewed by the Planning Commission for program eligibility consistent with the above safety criteria, which will be further detailed in the Municipal Code (adopted by January 2023). As property owners are already permitted to split their lot and build a total of 4 units under Senate Bill (SB) 9, some additional incentive, such as increased square footage, would most likely be offered. Contingent on eligibility being determined, proposed development of these sites would then be reviewed by the ASCC as an objective design review for consistency with newly established objective design standards proposed to be adopted as part of this Housing Element update. These objective design standards will include, but not be limited to, floor area, setback, height, lighting, exterior material, landscaping, and water usage standards.

As currently proposed, this program is estimated to result in 12 units from a few projects in Town. The AHHEC recommends a sunset or limitation on this program so that it would end if the Town were meeting its RHNA requirements. Staff is working on a technical approach to meet this intent and believes that it is possible.

ADUs/JADUs
ADUs and JADUs would remain an important part of the Town’s housing strategy. To continue to incentivize the development of ADUs and JADUs throughout the town, the Draft Housing Element includes policies and programs as outlined within Section 7, Goals, Policies, and Programs. The AHHEC discussed ADUs at length, including affordability, Fair Housing, and how many ADUs should be counted in the Town’s numbers for submittal to HCD. Key discussion points included the following:
• There was concern that ADUs may not provide real affordable housing. They are often left empty or used by property owners as additional space. However, once the unit exists, it can be used differently over the years, depending on the need of the household. Committee Members were not comfortable relying only on ADUs to meet the affordable housing requirements.
• Relying on ADUs for affordable housing could lead to concerns related to Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing. People may only rent ADUs to people they know. Therefore,

renters would likely have similar characteristics to the property owner and would not increase diversity over time.
• ADUs provide an important housing opportunity for multigenerational households, persons with disabilities, and diverse household composition. Without ADUs, those people would be looking for housing in the market.
• HCD provides a formula for how ADUs should be projected based on past performance and advises that there needs to be programs to support an assumption that ADU production will go up. The AHHEC discussed this at length and ultimately recommended 92 units be included. This reflects the recent increase in the number of ADU applications and anticipated increase with additional programs to support ADU production. The Committee also heard public comments from residents that indicated they would be willing to legalize previously unpermitted ADUs and/or rent to lower income tenants. There is some risk in this approach; HCD may not allow this number to be included in the final Housing Element, so other strategies may need to be increased for the Housing Element to be certified.

AHHEC AND PLANNING COMMISSION FEEDBACK ON DRAFT HOUSING ELEMENT At the June 15, 2022 meeting, Planning Commissioners reviewed the Draft Housing Element with emphasis on Sections 6 and 7 related to housing sites and programs. This was the first of two meetings of the Planning Commission on the Draft Housing Element.

At the June 20, 2022 meeting, the AHHEC reviewed Planning Commission questions and concerns from the June 15, 2022 meeting, including consideration of feedback from that meeting with respect to the Opt-In program, ADU/JADU production, decreasing the buffer, an update about the legal status of Ford Field Park, and a new suggestion from two Planning Commissioners to include a “sunrise” approach, a provision that would trigger only if the Town was not meeting its unit production over the 8-year period.

At the June 29, 2022 meeting, Planning Commissioners further considered these topics. Full verbatim minutes of that meeting are included as Attachment 4.

The discussion below follows the following format: Planning Commission feedback from the June 15th meeting, additional staff analysis, AHHEC recommendations from the June 20th meeting, and Planning Commission recommendations at the June 29th meeting, and policy questions for the Town Council to consider.

Opt-in Rezoning Program
Policy Issue: There were significant concerns about the Opt-in Rezoning Program expressed by some Commissioners. The concerns centered on compatibility with neighboring properties and a mechanism for capping the number of participating properties.

Staff Analysis: The Opt-in Rezoning Program represents a small number of units in the Draft Housing Element, currently including 12 units at the above moderate-income level. The Committee has previously expressed some concern about this program. However, this is one way to distribute some units throughout the community and could provide an alternative type of housing units for residents looking for a housing type other than large single family

detached housing. Given the aging demographic of Portola Valley, it also allows for family compounds and options for aging in place. As for capping participants there are two common mechanisms: (1) issuing a call for proposals (sometimes referred to as a “beauty contest”) and having the Planning Commission or Town Council pick the least obtrusive projects, or (2) drafting the ordinance so it sunsets once the desired number of units are developed.

Staff revisited the Housing Sites Summary to prepare an alternative for the Planning Commission to consider. One possible approach is to remove the Opt-in Program, add a very small number of SB 9 units, and reduce the buffer for the above moderate-income category. That scenario is shown in Table 2. The result is a projection of 114 units instead of 120 and a 15% buffer instead of 21% buffer for above moderate.

AHHEC Recommendation: A strong majority preferred to maintain the Opt-In approach as an alternative to SB9 that provides more local control and enables disbursement, a priority indicated by the community.

Planning Commission Recommendation: There was consensus to remove the Opt-In approach and replace with the SB 9 alternative given the significant effort to implement and concerns about the parameters. However, there was some interest in keeping a version of this approach if it could be revised to be more like the Planning Commission Subcommittee’s approach with clear limitations.

Table 2: Potential Revision to the Housing Sites Summary Very
LowIncomeLowIncomeModerateIncome
Above
ModerateIncome Total
2022-2031 RHNA 73 42 39 99 253
Land Resources
Pipeline & Pending Projects 0 17 7 28 52
Projected ADU Development 28 28 28 8 92
Vacant Sites
Ford Field Housing Site 50 0 0 0 50
4395 Alpine Rd Housing Site 2 4 5 12 23
Non-Vacant Sites
Glen Oaks Housing Site 0 0 2 27 29
4370 Alpine Rd Housing Site 0 0 0 9 9
Affiliated Housing Sites
Sequoias Affiliated Housing Site 0 0 5 18 23
Christ Church Affiliated Housing
Site 0 0 0 6 6
Ladera Church Affiliated Housing
Site 8 2 0 0 10
Senate Bill 9 Sites 0 0 0 6 6
Opt-in Rezoning Program Sites 0 0 0 12 12
Total Unit Potential 88 51 47 120 114 306 300
Buffer Provided 21% 21% 21% 21 15% 21 19%
Policy Questions:
• Should the Opt-in Program be removed from the Draft Housing Element? • If so, is inclusion of six SB 9 units appropriate?
• If not, would the Council like to see any revisions to the Opt-in Program to reduce potential neighborhood impacts, such as a reduction in the number of units, potential unit configuration, or discretionary process to select projects as proposed by the Planning Commission Subcommittee?
No Net Loss Law and Recommended Buffer
Policy Issue: Why is the buffer needed and does the buffer need to be so large? Staff Analysis: The AHHEC discussed the buffer concept at their October 18, 2021 meeting; the zoom video includes this discussion at timestamp 2 hours 10 minutes. For further guidance on the HCD recommended buffer of 15 to 30%, staff has attached a “RHNA Buffer

Summary Memo” issued by 21 Elements (see Attachment 5). The No Net Loss Law (Government Code section 65863) requires adequate sites be maintained throughout the planning period to accommodate the remaining RHNA by income category. Below is an excerpt from this memo:

A jurisdiction must make sure it maintains sites that can accommodate both the number of units projected and number of units at each income level.

Unless jurisdictions have more sites in their Housing Element inventory than the minimum required, they may fall out of compliance if they:

1. Reduce a site’s residential density, or

2. Approve development applications with fewer units on the site than identified in the Housing Element; or

3. Approve development applications with higher income units than stated in the Housing Element.

Since it is likely that developments will have fewer affordable units than jurisdictions assume in their Housing Element, a buffer of 15-30+ percent of RHNA is highly recommended. The buffer can be in the form of including additional sites or projecting site capacity at less than the maximum density.

When considering whether to lower the buffer, the Council should keep in mind the Inventory is a difficult balancing act. Certain sites already have a planned number of units and there is also the need to maintain the ADU/JADU allocation of 30/30/30/10% (see the guidance memo from 21 Elements and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) that summarizes an analysis of ADU affordability.

AHHEC Recommendation: The Committee was split on lowering the buffer for moderate and above moderate categories to 15% versus maintaining all categories at 20%.

Planning Commission Recommendation: Two of the Commissioners supported lowering the buffer, particularly for units proposed on Town-owned land. One Commissioner felt no buffer was needed but pointed out that Los Altos Hills had a 15% buffer (note this buffer has not been approved by HCD). Another Commissioner suggested keeping the 20% buffer except for units on Town-owned land. One Commissioner suggested lowering the Moderateincome category to 15% (similar to the Above Moderate-income category).

Policy Questions:
• Should any additional refinements to the buffer be made? • If so, what should be changed?
ADU/JADU Production
Policy Issue: There was Planning Commission discussion about the ADU allocation and whether additional ADUs/JADUs should be included in the projection.

Staff Analysis: The AHHEC based their recommendation on income allocation on a guidance memo from 21 Elements and the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) that summarizes an analysis of ADU affordability.

Regarding ADU/JADU projections, 21 Elements’ “Using ADUs to Satisfy RHNA” memo specifies that the estimate should be based on the average number of ADU building permits issued since 2018 (see Attachment 6). However, if numbers were low in 2018 or 2019 and higher from 2020-2022, a jurisdiction could potentially use 2019-2021 or 2020-2022 as the baseline. However, a logical methodology must be provided for justification.

Town staff provided this justification in the Public Review Draft Housing Element and discussed the proposed 92 ADU/JADUs included in the Sites Inventory with HCD prior to releasing the Public Review Draft. HCD recommended the Town include additional incentives because the ~11 units/year seemed high given the past 3-year and 5-year averages are between 7 to 8 units/year. Additional incentives were added to Programs 7-6 and 7-7 in response to this recommendation and included in the Public Review Draft Housing Element.

The Town went through the process of updating its Municipal Code in 2021 to be consistent with State law related to ADUs and JADUs. At that time, there were significant concerns about certain portions of State law and their impact on rural character and fire safety. Most notably, residents were concerned about 4’ setbacks allowed in State law. Residents noted that 4’ setbacks could potentially be inconsistent with anticipated new building separating requirements in Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) areas.

AHHEC Recommendation: The Committee unanimously rejected using ADU/JADUs to achieve the Town’s very-low-income category asserting it would not be a viable approach with HCD. The Committee was split on smaller increases to ADUs/JADUs and requested they be evaluated separately.

Planning Commission Recommendation: Three of the Commissioners supported increasing the ADU/JADU projection and to break out the numbers between ADUs and JADUs citing that an aggressive marketing plan and additional incentives would promote more development. Two of the Commissioners did not support increasing the ADU/JADU allocation and pointed to the lack of historical data to support increasing the Town’s projection as well as the difference between building versus renting units. Even if the additional units are built, many of them would not actually be rented or otherwise made available to lower income people.

Policy Questions:
• Should any additional changes be made to the ADU/JADU projection or allocation method?
• Should incentives for leasing to lower income residents be further explored? Legal Status of Dorothy Ford Field and Open Space

Policy Issue: At the June 15th Planning Commission meeting, Susan Ford Dorsey, the widow of Thomas Ford, stated that Tom Ford, one of Portola Valley’s founders, had dedicated the Dorothy Ford Field and Open Space site to the Town on two conditions: (1) that the property be retained as open space in perpetuity and (2) that the field be named after his mother Dorothy Ford. Planning Commission asked for clarification on the legal status of Ford Field.

Staff Analysis: Staff and the Vice Mayor have now had the opportunity to meet in person with Ms. Ford Dorsey. Based on the documentation in the official Town records, the Town purchased Dorothy Ford Field and Open Space from Hare, Brewer & Kelley, Inc. in 1971.

At the time, Hare, Brewer & Kelley also owned the adjacent property located in Santa Clara County and, as part of the transaction, reserved an easement across the Dorothy Ford Field and Open Space site to access the adjacent property. The title report shows no open space restrictions other than two deed restrictions the Town accepted as a condition of the State grant money. These deed restrictions only pertain to the baseball field, not the open space portion of the site. Following the meeting with Ms. Ford Dorsey, the parties agree that while the property was not purchased directly from Mr. Ford, Mr. Ford was instrumental in negotiating for the sale of the property from Hare, Brewer & Kelley and generously donated most of the funds to purchase the property. This appears to be the first open space property created for the Town through a private donation. The property has two large Oak trees, and many people view the property as an important visual element to the gateway to town and as part of the Alpine scenic corridor. The property is currently zoned OA/RE.

While both Ms. Ford Dorsey and many residents have stated the Town has a moral obligation to keep the property in open space, other than the two deed restrictions governing the baseball field which expire in 2031, there is not a legal impediment to changing the use of the open space portion of the site. As with any zone change, there would of course need to be a general plan and zoning amendment as well as environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

As background, designating a portion of the Dorothy Ford Field and Open Space site as an affordable housing site has been considered in the past. In fact it was one of the top four sites considered by the Ad Hoc Housing on Town Owned Property Committee formed by the Town Council in 2016 as part of the Housing Strategic Plan. This committee examined approximately 35 Town-owned properties.

Given the Town has control of Dorothy Ford Field and Open Space site, the Town can determine density and design with an affordable housing developer and can restrict the use of State Density Bonus.

AHHEC Recommendation: A majority supported affordable housing at Dorothy Ford Field and Open Space based on the conclusion it was the only realistic path to the required number of very low-income units, other than increased development at Nathhorst which was strongly opposed by the Nathhorst neighbors. The AHHEC also supports preservation of the primary Oak trees at the site if possible.

“Sunrise” Program and Gateway District
Policy Issue: Two Planning Commissioners were interested in pursuing what they termed “sunrise” provisions for the Dorothy Ford Field and Open Space. Under the sunrise provisions, the Town would strongly emphasize ADUs and JADUs in the first two years of housing element implementation then determine if and how the site should be developed. A subcommittee of the Planning Commission was formed to develop this idea more; Commissioners Targ and Taylor prepared a Colleagues Memo for consideration by the full Commission (see Attachment 7). The memo’s conclusions included: enhancing ADU/JADU education and incentives, re-evaluating the affordability distribution of JADUs, encouraging a carefully crafted voluntary up-zoning program that preserves and enhances Portola Valley values, and creating a new “Gateway” land use designation/zoning district that includes the Dorothy Ford Field and Ladera Church sites, as a contingent, “backstop” alternative if the Town is not meeting its RHNA.

Staff Analysis: There are implications to increasing the number of ADUs/JADUs significantly beyond what is included in the Draft Housing Element. The number of ADU/JADU’s currently proposed is already an increase over the average number of units produced in the last three years. It will be challenging to provide a rationale to HCD to support even more units. As mentioned above, there have been community concerns about ADUs that should also be taken into consideration in the priority balancing. There are also several ADU and JADU policies and programs that provide incentives and education that are already proposed in Section 7 to encourage development of ADUs/JADUs. (See Program 7-1 to 7-7 in the Draft Housing Element for details.)
Staff has had preliminary communications with a non-profit affordable housing developer about the feasibility of developing the site. For the purposes of financing and operations, affordable housing developers typically require approximately 50 units to make these types of projects feasible.

AHHEC Conclusion: A strong majority rejected the Sunrise approach based on the limited information available at that time. The discussion suggested many felt this approach would prolong the process with delayed negative community impact and confusion and add complexity.

Planning Commission Recommendation: Three Planning Commissioners supported the Sunrise program and adding a Gateway District that would include the Dorothy Ford Field and Open Space site and the adjacent Ladera Church site across the street. Development of the site would not begin until January 2025 to see how the Town was doing with achieving its RHNA and the number of units on the sites could be adjusted down based on how many units are necessary to meet the RHNA. The emphases for this District would be to preserve the Town’s gateway feeling along Alpine Road; and if new development were to occur in this district, the goal would be to preserve the two Oak trees and baseball field, if feasible.

The larger area could be planned as a whole to make the most of the available area, perhaps reconfiguring the baseball diamond and parking area. Two Planning Commissioners were

concerned it would add another layer of complexity to an already time-sensitive process.

Additionally, there was concern that potential development or reconfiguration of the baseball field had not been previously discussed with the community. The Town Council may want to review Attachment 4 of this staff report, which includes both the meeting recording and the verbatim minutes of this detailed conversation. When staff and the Vice Mayor discussed designating the entire site as a Gateway with Ms. Ford Dorsey, she expressed strong concern about impacts to the baseball field itself. There was consensus that it would be okay to wait to develop the site until a couple of years into the eight-year cycle to achieve the best possible result. To achieve RHNA credit, it is likely HCD would require a zone change to occur at the beginning of the eight-year cycle. However, since the Town owns the property and has a history of exempting itself from zoning regulations, a zone change may not be required.

Policy Questions:
• Is the Council interested in exploring “sunrise” provisions that would delay development of certain sites into a couple of years into the eight-year cycle? • If so, what should be considered?
• Should the Town create a Gateway District including Dorothy Ford Field and Open Space site and Ladera Church and plan the area as a whole? Glen Oaks Site
Policy Issue: At the AHHEC meeting, there was consensus to preserve the equestrian use, if possible, to maintain the Town’s rural equestrian character and mitigate some of the density along Alpine Road.

Staff Analysis: If the Glen Oaks site were removed, the Council would need to consider a substantially greater Opt-in Program or other significant measures to make up for the loss of 29 units.

Planning Commission Recommendation: Three of the Planning Commissioners agreed the Glen Oaks site should be added to the Sunrise program and be developed only as a last resort. They also suggested another dialogue with Stanford to see if there was interest in keeping the equestrian facility and developing housing for workers (through the Affiliated Housing Program). The other two Planning Commissioners supported keeping the Glen Oaks site in the inventory because there are no other known replacement sites for the proposed 29 units. One Commissioner noted that most users of the facility are not from Portola Valley.

Policy Questions:
• Is the Council interested in pursuing alternative approaches to the site to see if an equestrian use can be preserved?
• Should the site be included in a potential “Sunrise Program”

General Plan Consistency
Feedback/Question: How will the Housing Element update impact consistency with other elements of the General Plan?
Staff Analysis: Given the high RHNA allocation and related State laws, the Housing Element update will represent a meaningful change to the community; multifamily zoning is being considered and sites are being identified for housing development. Therefore, other elements of the General Plan will need to be amended to be consistent. This is a common practice as part of a housing element update.

The technical team (Planning staff, Town Attorney, and consultants) will review the General Plan and identify areas that are inconsistent with the Draft Housing Element and create an annotated document. The Committee of Committees will be convened to review the areas of inconsistency and provide feedback. Staff will then bring suggested revisions to the Planning Commission for review. The proposed changes to the other elements of the General Plan will be reviewed and approved by the Town Council at the same time as the Housing Element, zoning amendments, and environmental review.

PUBLIC REVIEW OF DRAFT HOUSING ELEMENT
The Draft Housing Element is available online at www.portolavalley.net/housingelement.

The document has been distributed to the community through the Town’s website, eNotification (over 450 members), PV Forum, social media, and direct email to the Town’s committee members, businesses, and institutions. Town committees were invited to discuss the Housing Element on their upcoming agendas and provide comments to the Town Council.

Comments were requested by July 8, 2022.

Staff has prepared a memo with guidance on reviewing the Draft Housing Element (Attachment 8). Significant portions of the Draft Housing Element are required by HCD and serve as background for the analysis and proposed policies. They key policies are contained within Section 6 and 7. Of course, the Town Council and public are welcome to make comments on any aspect of the Draft Housing Element.

Public comments received from June 8th to July 7th are included as Attachment 9 of this report. Staff will forward comments received on July 8th as a supplemental item to the Council.

NEXT STEPS
Based on Town Council direction, staff and consultants will incorporate edits into the Draft Housing Element and then send to HCD for initial review. Initial review comments from HCD are anticipated in mid-October 2022. Once HCD comments are received, staff and the consultant team will update the draft based on HCD’s comments and then seek additional public feedback prior to formal adoption of the Housing Element.

During the summer, staff and the consultant team will begin working on the zoning code amendments necessary to implement the Draft Housing Element. Due to the details of State law, the Town Council directed staff to complete the zoning changes for adoption by January

2023 to maintain as much local control as possible. The AHHEC will review the proposed zoning amendments, then they will come to Planning Commission for further refinement.

Environmental analysis under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) has begun.

The Initial Study/Mitigated Negative Declaration (IS/MND) will be available in late summer 2022.

ATTACHMENTS

1. HCD’s AB 686 Summary of Requirements Housing Element Law Memorandum

2. Community Engagement Summary

3. Housing Sites and Safety Hazard Constraints Map

4. Verbatim Transcript of June 29, 2022 Planning Commission Meeting

5. 21 Elements RHNA Buffer Summary Memo

6. 21 Elements Using ADUs to Satisfy RHNA Memo

7. Planning Commission Colleagues Memo

8. Guidance Memo on Reviewing the Public Review Draft Housing Element

9. Public comments received from June 8th to July 7th, 2022 The Draft Housing Element is available online at www.portolavalley.net/housingelement.

STATE OF CALIFORNIA - BUSINESS, CONSUMER SERVICES AND HOUSING AGENCY GAVIN NEWSOM, Governor

DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

DIVISION OF HOUSING POLICY DEVELOPMENT
2020 W. El Camino Avenue, Suite 500
Sacramento, CA 95833
(916) 263-2911 / FAX (916) 263-7453
www.hcd.ca.gov
April 23, 2020
MEMORANDUM FOR: Planning Directors and Interested Parties FROM: Zachary Olmstead, Deputy Director
Division of Housing Policy Development
SUBJECT: AB 686 Summary of Requirements in
Housing Element Law
Government Code Section 8899.50,
65583(c)(5), 65583(c)(10), 65583.2(a)
AB 686 creates new requirements for all state and local agencies (including, but not limited to, all cities, counties, cities and counties, and housing authorities) to ensure that their laws, programs and activities affirmatively further fair housing, and that they take no action inconsistent with this obligation. AB 686 also creates new requirements specifically in Housing Element Law, which is the focus of this document.

Beginning January 1, 2019, all housing elements must now include a program that promotes and affirmatively furthers fair housing opportunities throughout the community for all persons regardless of race, religion, sex, marital status, ancestry, national origin, color, familial status, or disability, and other characteristics protected by the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), Government Code Section 65008, and any other state and federal fair housing and planning law.
1 Additionally, all housing elements due on or after January 1, 2021, must contain an Assessment of Fair Housing (AFH) consistent with the core elements of the analysis required by the federal Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) Final Rule of July 16, 2015.2 Many important terms relevant to the AFH are defined in HUD’s 2015 AFFH Rule.3 The housing element land inventory and identification of sites must be consistent with a jurisdiction’s duty to AFFH and the findings of its AFH.

Under state law, affirmatively further fair housing means “taking meaningful actions, in addition to combatting discrimination, that overcome patterns of segregation and foster inclusive communities free from barriers that restrict access to opportunity based on protected characteristics.”4
1 See page 10 for a list of applicable protected characteristics. 2 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing, 80 Fed. Reg. 42,272 (July 16, 2015). 3 80 Fed. Reg. at 42,353-55.
4 Gov. Code § 8899.50 (a)(1).

Attachment 1

AB 686
Expands and protects duty to
affirmatively further fair
housing
(AFFH)
AFFH Housing Element Law
Changes
(Focus of this document)
Gov. Code 65583(c)(5)
Include a program in housing
element to AFFH
Gov. Code 65583(c)(10)
Include an Assessment of
Fair Housing in housing
element
Gov. Code 65583.2(a)
Sites inventory must be
consistent with AFFH and the
Assessment of Fair Housing
in housing element
Applies to housing elements
due to be revised on or after
January 1, 2021
Gov. Code 8899.50
AFFH in all housing and
community development
programs of public entities

AB 686 Housing Element Requirements
All housing elements must now include a program that promotes and affirmatively furthers fair housing opportunities throughout the community. AB 686 also requires that all housing elements due on or after January 1, 2021, must contain an Assessment of Fair Housing. Finally, the housing element land inventory and identification of sites must be consistent with a jurisdiction’s duty to AFFH and the findings of its Assessment of Fair Housing. These requirements are detailed below.

1. Include a Program that Affirmatively Furthers Fair Housing and Promotes Housing Opportunities throughout the Community for Protected Classes (applies to housing elements beginning January 1, 2019)5
A program to AFFH must include:
a. Meaningful Actions:6 Affirmatively furthering fair housing (AFFH) includes taking meaningful actions that, taken together, address significant disparities in housing needs and in access to opportunity for all groups protected by state and federal law by:
i. Replacing segregated living patterns with integrated and balanced living patterns ii. Transforming racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty into areas of opportunity (without displacement)
iii. Fostering and maintaining compliance with civil rights and fair housing laws iv. Note: Meaningful actions include actions that will promote fair housing opportunities for low- and moderate- income tenants and tenants of affordable housing, including subsidized housing.
b. Timeline of Concrete Actions: As with other programs of the housing element, the program(s) to AFFH must include a schedule of concrete actions and a timeline for implementation.7
c. No Actions Inconsistent with AFFH: The jurisdiction must not take any action that is materially inconsistent with its obligation to affirmatively further fair housing.8 i. Existing state law requires that housing elements are internally consistent and that the housing element and the other components of a jurisdiction’s General Plan are internally consistent.9 AB 686 specifically requires that jurisdictions take no action that is materially inconsistent with its obligation to affirmatively further fair housing. Not only does this apply to other policies, programs, and actions in the housing element, and the other General Plan elements, it broadly applies to all of the jurisdiction’s activities relating to housing and community development.10
5 Gov. Code § 65583 (c)(5)
6 Gov. Code § 8899.50 (a)(1)
7 Gov. Code § 65583 (c)
8 Gov. Code, § 65583 (c)(10)(A)
9 Gov. Code § 65583 (c)(7)
10 Gov. Code, § 8890.50 (b)

2. Conduct an Assessment of Fair Housing11
a. AB 686 amended Government Code Section 65583 to include Section 65583 (c) (10) (A) (i) through (iv) which specifies the components of the required assessment of fair housing (AFH). These components are to be included in the appropriate existing sections required in a jurisdiction’s housing element. Below, the components are organized by recommended housing element section:
i. Recommended Housing Element Section: Needs Assessment

1. (10) (A) (i). A summary of fair housing issues in the jurisdiction and an assessment of the jurisdiction’s fair housing enforcement and outreach capacity.

2. (10) (A) (ii). An analysis of available federal, state, and local data and local knowledge to identify:
a. Integration and segregation patterns and trends
b. Racially or ethnically concentrated areas of poverty c. Disparities in access to opportunity
d. Disproportionate housing needs within the jurisdiction, including displacement risk. Analyze fair housing data, including standard publicly available data, as well as local data and knowledge. This analysis can be conducted in concert with other data collection and analysis that is conducted as part of the housing element needs assessment

3. (10) (A) (iii). An assessment of the contributing factors for the fair housing issues identified under clause (ii).
ii. Recommended Housing Element Section: Needs Assessment Or Constraints

1. (10) (A) (iv). An identification of the jurisdiction’s fair housing priorities and goals, with priority to those factors identified in clause (iii) that limit or deny fair housing choice or access to opportunity, or negatively impact fair housing or civil rights compliance. This requirement includes identification of metrics and milestones for determining what fair housing results will be achieved.
ii. Recommended Housing Element Section: Programs

1. (10) (A) (v). Strategies and actions to implement those priorities and goals identified in the housing needs assessment (per Section 65583 (c) (10) (A) (i-iii)). These strategies and actions may include, but are not limited to:12 a. Enhancing mobility strategies and promoting inclusion for protected classes
b. Encouraging development of new affordable housing in highresource areas c. Place-based strategies to encourage community revitalization, including preservation of existing affordable housing
d. Protecting existing residents from displacement

2. These actions, taken together, must address significant disparities in housing needs and in access to opportunity, replacing segregated living patterns with truly integrated and balanced living patterns, transforming racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty into areas of 11 Gov. Code, § 65583 (c)(10)
12 See page 11 for further examples of strategies to AFFH.

opportunity, fostering and maintaining compliance with civil rights, and must affirmatively further fair housing.
b. Notes on AFH Preparation:
i. The AFH requirements shall be interpreted consistent with the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) Final Rule and accompanying commentary published by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development contained in Volume 80 of the Federal Register, Number 136, pages 42272 to 42371, inclusive, dated July 16, 2015.13

1. HUD’s AFFH Rule Guidebook (Dec. 2015) provides useful information about how to perform an AFH.

2. Amendment, suspension, or revocation of the HUD 2015 AFFH Rule does not impact the requirement under state law to interpret AFH requirements consistent with the 2015 AFFH Rule.
ii. Development of an AFH must include meaningful community participation, consultation, and coordination that is integrated with the broader stakeholder outreach and community participation process for the overall housing element.

This engagement should be consistent with the requirements set forth in the AFFH Rule.14 Key stakeholders and collaborators to consider:

1. Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) in California are subject to the general mandate of AB 686 (as well as the federal AFFH rule) and should collaborate with their housing element jurisdiction(s) as part of their AFFH obligation. Local jurisdictions should engage with their PHAs at the earliest opportunity to ensure that PHAs are an integral part of the jurisdiction’s AFH analysis and goal setting.

2. Housing and community development providers and advocacy groups.

3. Community members that are members of protected classes and advocacy organizations that represent protected classes. iii. Jurisdictions that have prepared an Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice (AI) or AFH in conjunction with their participation in federal housing programs may adapt relevant sections into their housing element AFH. 15 However, if the AI or AFH was not completed pursuant to the 2015 AFFH Final Rule, adaptation of the relevant sections may not be sufficient to meet the jurisdiction’s obligations under section 65583(c)(10).

3. Prepare the Housing Element Land Inventory and Identification of Sites through the Lens of Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing16
a. Prior to AB 686, Housing Element Law has required jurisdictions to identify adequate sites, appropriately zoned and available to accommodate its Regional Housing Need Allocation (RHNA). The housing element must demonstrate that there are adequate sites zoned for the development of housing for households at each income level sufficient to accommodate the number of new housing units needed at each income level as identified in the RHNA.
13 Gov. Code, § 65583 (c) (10) (A), citing Gov. Code § 8899.50 14 24 CFR § 5.158
15 Gov. Code, § 65583 (c)(10)(B)
16 Gov. Code, § 65583.2 (a)

b. AB 686 now requires that a jurisdiction identify sites throughout the community, in a manner that is consistent with its duty to affirmatively further fair housing (AFFH) and the findings of its AFH, pursuant to Section 65583(c)(10)(A). In the context of AFFH, the site identification requirement involves not only an analysis of site capacity to accommodate the RHNA, but also whether the identified sites serve the purpose of replacing segregated living patterns with truly integrated and balanced living patterns, transforming racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty into areas of opportunity.17 At the most basic level, this requirement suggests two courses of action relating to the identification of sites:
i. Ensure that sites zoned to accommodate housing for lower-income households are not concentrated in lower resource areas and segregated concentrated areas of poverty, but rather dispersed throughout the community, including in areas with access to greater resources, amenities, and opportunity. ii. Where sites zoned to accommodate housing for lower-income households are located in lower resource areas and segregated concentrated areas of poverty, incorporating policies and programs in the housing element that are designed to remediate those conditions, including place-based strategies that create opportunity in areas of disinvestment (such as investments in enhanced infrastructure, services, schools, jobs, and other community needs). 17 Gov. Code, § 8890.50 (b)

Supplemental Information
Statutory Language:

Government Code 8899.50
(a) For purposes of this section, the following terms have the following meanings:
(1) “Affirmatively furthering fair housing” means taking meaningful actions, in addition to combating discrimination, that overcome patterns of segregation and foster inclusive communities free from barriers that restrict access to opportunity based on protected characteristics. Specifically, affirmatively furthering fair housing means taking meaningful actions that, taken together, address significant disparities in housing needs and in access to opportunity, replacing segregated living patterns with truly integrated and balanced living patterns, transforming racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty into areas of opportunity, and fostering and maintaining compliance with civil rights and fair housing laws. The duty to affirmatively further fair housing extends to all of a public agency’s activities and programs relating to housing and community development. (2) “Public agency” means all of the following:
(A) The state, including every state office, officer, department, division, bureau, board, and commission, including the California State University. (B) A city, including a charter city, county, including a charter county, city and county, and a redevelopment successor agency.
(C) A public housing authority created pursuant to the Housing Authorities Law (Chapter 1 (commencing with Section 34200) of Part 2 of Division 24 of the Health and Safety Code). (D) A public housing agency, as defined in the United States Housing Act of 1937 (codified at 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1437 et seq.), as amended.
(E) Any other political subdivision of the state that is a grantee or subgrantee receiving funds provided by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Community Development Block Grant program, the Emergency Solutions Grants program, the HOME Investment Partnerships program, or the Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS program.
(b) A public agency shall administer its programs and activities relating to housing and community development in a manner to affirmatively further fair housing, and take no action that is materially inconsistent with its obligation to affirmatively further fair housing. (c) This section shall be interpreted consistent with the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Final Rule and accompanying commentary published by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development contained in Volume 80 of the Federal Register, Number 136, pages 42272 to 42371, inclusive, dated July 16, 2015. Subsequent amendment, suspension, or revocation of this Final Rule or its accompanying commentary by the federal government shall not impact the interpretation of this section.
(d) In selecting meaningful actions to fulfill the obligation to affirmatively further fair housing, this section does not require a public agency to take, or prohibit a public agency from taking, any one particular action.

Government Code 65583
The housing element shall consist of an identification and analysis of existing and projected housing needs and a statement of goals, policies, quantified objectives, financial resources, and scheduled programs for the preservation, improvement, and development of housing. The housing element shall identify adequate sites for housing, including rental housing, factory-built housing, mobilehomes, and emergency shelters, and shall make adequate provision for the existing and projected needs of all economic segments of the community. The element shall contain all of the following:

Government Code 65583(c)
(c) A program that sets forth a schedule of actions during the planning period, each with a timeline for implementation, that may recognize that certain programs are ongoing, such that there will be beneficial impacts of the programs within the planning period, that the local government is undertaking or intends to undertake to implement the policies and achieve the goals and objectives of the housing element through the administration of land use and development controls, the provision of regulatory concessions and incentives, the utilization of appropriate federal and state financing and subsidy programs when available, and the utilization of moneys in a low- and moderate-income housing fund of an agency if the locality has established a redevelopment project area pursuant to the Community Redevelopment Law (Division 24 (commencing with Section 33000) of the Health and Safety Code). In order to make adequate provision for the housing needs of all economic segments of the community, the program shall do all of the following:

Government Code 65583(c)(5)
(5) Promote and affirmatively further fair housing opportunities and promote housing throughout the community or communities for all persons regardless of race, religion, sex, marital status, ancestry, national origin, color, familial status, or disability, and other characteristics protected by the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (Part 2.8 (commencing with Section 12900) of Division 3 of Title 2), Section 65008, and any other state and federal fair housing and planning law.

Government Code 65583(c)(10)
(10) (A) Affirmatively further fair housing in accordance with Chapter 15 (commencing with Section 8899.50) of Division 1 of Title 2. The program shall include an assessment of fair housing in the jurisdiction that shall include all of the following components:
(i) A summary of fair housing issues in the jurisdiction and an assessment of the jurisdiction’s fair housing enforcement and fair housing outreach capacity. (ii) An analysis of available federal, state, and local data and knowledge to identify integration and segregation patterns and trends, racially or ethnically concentrated areas of poverty, disparities in access to opportunity, and disproportionate housing needs within the jurisdiction, including displacement risk.
(iii) An assessment of the contributing factors for the fair housing issues identified under clause (ii).

(iv) An identification of the jurisdiction’s fair housing priorities and goals, giving highest priority to those factors identified in clause (iii) that limit or deny fair housing choice or access to opportunity, or negatively impact fair housing or civil rights compliance, and identifying the metrics and milestones for determining what fair housing results will be achieved. (v) Strategies and actions to implement those priorities and goals, which may include, but are not limited to, enhancing mobility strategies and encouraging development of new affordable housing in areas of opportunity, as well as place-based strategies to encourage community revitalization, including preservation of existing affordable housing, and protecting existing residents from displacement.
(B) A jurisdiction that completes or revises an assessment of fair housing pursuant to Subpart A (commencing with Section 5.150) of Part 5 of Subtitle A of Title 24 of the Code of Federal Regulations, as published in Volume 80 of the Federal Register, Number 136, page 42272, dated July 16, 2015, or an analysis of impediments to fair housing choice in accordance with the requirements of Section 91.225 of Title 24 of the Code of Federal Regulations in effect prior to August 17, 2015, may incorporate relevant portions of that assessment or revised assessment of fair housing or analysis or revised analysis of impediments to fair housing into its housing element. (C) The requirements of this paragraph shall apply to housing elements due to be revised pursuant to Section 65588 on or after January 1, 2021.

Government Code 65583.2(a)
(a) A city’s or county’s inventory of land suitable for residential development pursuant to paragraph (3) of subdivision (a) of Section 65583 shall be used to identify sites throughout the community, consistent with paragraph (10) of subdivision (c) of Section 65583, that can be developed for housing within the planning period and that are sufficient to provide for the jurisdiction’s share of the regional housing need for all income levels pursuant to Section 65584.

Protected Classes Covered by the California Fair Employment and Housing Act Race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, disability, age, ancestry, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information, marital status, citizenship status, veteran or military status
• UNRUH: primary language, or immigration status, citizenship status Covered under the Unruh Civil Rights Act, which applies to most housing accommodations in California.

Protected Classes Covered by Government Code Section 65008 • Race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, ancestry, familial status, source of income, disability, veteran or military status, or genetic information
• Government Code Section 65008 provides additional protections for income and financing characteristics in relation to planning and land use decisions:

Local jurisdictions cannot take actions, enact or administer ordinances to deny or condition the enjoyment of residence, landownership, tenancy, or any other land use in the state because of:
 The method of financing
 The intended occupancy by persons who are very low, low, moderate, or middle income (income does not exceed 150 percent of the median income for the county)
 Protected characteristics of the intended occupants
Protected Classes Covered by Federal Law
Race, color, religion, national origin, sex, familial status, disability

Examples of types of potential Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing strategies include:
• Mobility-based strategies to provide better access to opportunities for all members of the community, particularly protected classes
• Strategies to encourage development of new affordable housing in high resource areas • Place-based strategies to encourage community revitalization, including preservation of existing affordable housing, and protecting existing residents from displacement • Strategies to improve enforcement of fair housing laws, community outreach and engagement capacity, and fair housing resources
• Strategies to stem the tide of displacement, including robust tenant protections • Strategies to address wet and dry utility infrastructure and service deficiencies in disadvantaged communities
• Strategies to mitigate negative environmental, neighborhood, housing, and health impacts associated with the siting and operation of “Locally Unwanted Land Uses” (e.g., industrial, agricultural, agricultural processing, waste storage and processing, energy production land uses, etc.) in and around disadvantaged neighborhoods and communities • Strategies to preserve mobilehome parks
• Strategies to promote a range of community-based housing options for people with disabilities • Strategies to prevent discriminatory evictions (e.g., just cause eviction protections) • Adoption of inclusionary housing policies and/or other policies to facilitate the development of deed-restricted affordable housing that is integrated with market-rate housing • Strategies to ensure affordable housing opportunities for people who have criminal history • Promotion of policies that encourage community ownership and stewardship of land to develop affordable housing, such as community land trust models • As part of a larger anti-gentrification and anti-displacement strategy, adoption of policies that promote opportunities for tenants to purchase their buildings upon notification of an intent to sell by their landlords
Remove constraints to and provide reasonable accommodations for housing designed for, intended for occupancy by, or with supportive services for, persons with disabilities. Gov.

Code 65583(c)(3), including:

Ensuring affordable housing complies with federal and state requirements to build units accessible to people with disabilities
Developing a program to subsidize the cost of reasonable modifications to make housing accessible for people with disabilities
Examples of local policies that should be analyzed as potential impediments to fair housing choice:

Nuisance and/or crime-free multi-housing ordinances
• Ordinances that restrict the siting of family child-care facilities • Shelter standards that unduly restrict the siting of emergency shelters • Policies that restrict or prohibit religious gatherings or other religious activities in residential areas
• Ordinances that restrict or prohibit the siting of board-and-care homes (licensed and unlicensed) and sober-living homes

Housing Element Update Community Outreach Summary
Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee
The Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee (AHHEC) was formed to provide recommendations to the Town Council on the Housing Element Update, explore options to minimize the impacts of additional housing units, maximize public participation, and communicate information on the Committee’s progress and recommendations to residents. AHHEC members included representatives from the Town Council; Planning Commission; Race and Equity Committee; Architectural and Site Control Commission; and community members.

The AHHEC has met 13 times since August 2021 and continues to advance its charge to develop a Housing Element that complies with State law and will be certified, while maintaining Town values. Agendas, staff reports, zoom recordings, and presentation materials are available on the Committee's webpage. The AHHEC meetings have been extremely well attended with typical attendance about 40-50 and the key meetings about housing sites having over 150 attendees.

Sites Inventory
The AHHEC discussed the Sites Inventory and the implications of increasing density at specific sites at length. This is also the part of the process that received the most public participation. Below is a summary of the seven AHHEC meetings held to discuss the recommendations for the Sites Inventory. The agendas, minutes and Zoom recordings are available on the Town's website. On the same webpage, under Supplemental Resources, interested parties can view the staff presentation from the meetings. Hyperlinks below are to each respective meeting’s Zoom recording.

1. The Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee first began discussing the Housing Sites Inventory at its October 18, 2021 meeting. They were introduced to a range of potential approaches to the Sites Inventory.

2. January 18, 2022 , the Committee received presentations and dedicated discussion to planning for housing sites in consideration of the Town’s fire safety risks. The Committee received a presentation from Susan Hartman, Community Development Director for the Town of Paradise and Don Bullard, Fire Marshal with the Woodside Fire Protection District (WFPD). The Fire Marshal’s presentation covered methods of creating fire-adapted communities and an update on the WFPD’s Fire Code update. The Committee also received a live GIS mapping presentation from Zeke Lunder, Pyrogeographer with Deer Creek Resources.

3. February 28, 2022, the Committee continued its discussion of the Sites Inventory in more detail. It included a presentation from Woodside Fire Protection District Fire on their comprehensive hazard and risk assessment. Staff presented on updated land use constraints maps that include hazards the Town is considering as part of the Safety Element update process, including flood zone, Ground Movement Potential Map- lease stable soils, the fault map, slopes greater than 30 Attachment 2

percent, and the evacuation map showing sites with only one point of ingress/egress.

The AHHEC considered site inventory scenarios, including one that would have concentrated development in the Nathhorst Triangle area at Alpine and Portola Roads and included upzoning existing single-family homes.

4. At the February 28, 2022 meeting (February 28, 2022 Part 1 & Part 2), discussion on sites continued and there was extensive community feedback and concerns about the approach under discussion. This meeting led to a significant change in the approach to the Sites Inventory. The AHHEC requested additional analysis and exploration of additional sites. They also requested that staff revisit Town-owned property as potential housing sites.

Based on the feedback of the Committee and public comments, staff and consultants reviewed the work plan, budget, and schedule to evaluate what approach would be necessary to complete the Housing Element Update and provided that information to the Town Council for their direction on March 23, 2022 . Council approved additional resources for the Housing Element update and reinforced their intent that the Housing Element be completed on time to the extent feasible.

5. April 18, 2022 the AHHEC reviewed new analysis and mapping based on feedback from February 28th and provided the following consensus feedback on the combination of sites inventory strategies:
• Single Family Upzoning: Hesitation around moving forward with voluntary or involuntary single family upzoning.
• Commercial Properties: Retain existing businesses and fit in housing units were possible.
• New Opportunity Sites: Keep the Glen Oaks, Neely, El Mirador, and Ford Field as possible sites.
• Requested further analysis of the Blue Oaks property.

6. May 2, 2022 , the AHHEC held its sixth housing sites discussion for the purpose of recommending sites to include in the draft Housing Element’s Housing Sites Inventory. The Committee discussed two possible Sites Inventory scenarios– a more dispersed Scenario #1 and less dispersed Scenario #2. There was discussion about exactly which sites to include and at what density. The Committee agreed to move forward with the more dispersed Scenario #1 with some modifications.

7. May 24, 2022, the AHHEC held its seventh housing sites discussion to review updates to the Sites Inventory and a partial draft of the Housing Element update.

The key conclusions were as follows:

• Maintain a buffer of 20%; if there is a need to adjust slightly to make the allocations work out, then there is a preference to go slightly under rather than over 20%.
• Maintain the current level of ADUs (92); support for the ADU policies presented in the packet. There was recognition that the proposed number is more than the HCD formula but that it was worth it to make a case for the larger number of ADUs.
• Refine the Nathhorst area parcels to zone 3494 Alpine Road (vacant lot) at 20 units/acre and remove Robert’s parking lot from the inventory. • Revise the Opt-In strategy to be an alternative to SB9 (a State law that allows up to 4 units where there is currently a single-family home) with more local control over setbacks for fire safety. Limit density to 4 units per acre. There was agreement to use this strategy only as needed as the lowest priority. • Decrease density at Glen Oaks, if possible, to limit potential impacts on Alpine Road.

The AHHEC also hosted two resident focus group meetings to explore strategies for housing production that community members had expressed interest or support in:
• The Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Focus Group was held on April 19, 2022 via zoom (66 participants). The meeting started with a brief presentation before breaking into groups. Breakout rooms were used to gather feedback about potential barriers and solutions for ADU projects, and how ADUs were intended to be used. New ideas were offered that may lead to increased awareness in the community about ADU regulations and opportunities for Junior ADUs (JADUs). • The Opt-In Rezoning Focus Group was held on April 21, 2022 via zoom (72 participants). Residents were asked to provide feedback on a proposed strategy to voluntarily upzone individual properties. The meeting started with a brief presentation on the Housing Element and density and ended with an open Q&A.

Participants who provided their emails were later sent an online survey to gauge their level of interest in a potential upzoning process for their property.

Town-wide Community Meetings
To engage directly with the community, the Town has also held two virtual community meetings with an introductory presentation followed by breakout room discussions. • Community Meeting #1 was held on October 14, 2021 via zoom (70 participants).

The presentation focused on providing background and context for the Housing Element update. The meeting used breakout rooms to gather community feedback. During breakout rooms discussions, participants were encouraged to give feedback on Portola Valley’s key housing needs and potential solutions through the site inventory and new policies and programs.

o Key Topics Discussed: Housing for people who work in the Town (teachers, fire fighters, Town employees, Sequoias staff, etc.), housing for the elderly and those with special needs, Diversity of housing choices and affordability levels to meet range of needs, fire safety – concerns about evacuation with increased population, objection to State dictating Town’s housing interests, impact of ADUs (past and future) on RHNA and streamlining permitting process, Improving existing Town infrastructure and public transportation, maintain Town’s rural character and open spaces, new housing that blends in, multifamily housing along main corridors Alpine and Portola roads, and affordable housing units located along main roads, proximate to shops and services.
• Community Meeting #2 was held on May 9, 2022 via zoom (139 participants).

The presentation summarized previous community outreach and provided updates on the selection of potential housing sites under the sites inventory process. The meeting used breakout rooms to gather community feedback. During breakout rooms discussions, participants were encouraged to provide feedback on the site selection, design features of the voluntary upzoning program, zoning standards for new multi-family development along Alpine Road, and improvements for the ADU/JADU process.
o Key Topics Discussed: Concern about how site selection and dispersed approach might relate to evacuation routes, fire hazards, preference for dispersed approach to meet RHNA over upzoning individual sites, maintain the town’s rural character and density of development, cottage/townhome designs preferred in neighborhood sites (maintain existing heights, setbacks, etc.), implement dark sky standards, noise ordinance, and utility requirements, preserve scenic corridors, heritage trees, and open space, concern about parking impacts (both number of spaces and visual impact), housing should meet workforce needs and provide options for both ownership and rent, interest in ADU amnesty program and tools to streamline approval/reduce cost, and need for additional ADU resources and access to information.

Town’s Committee of Committees Meetings
The Town has also convened two meetings of the “Committee of Committees” to receive input from the Town’s committees that wish to participate. Meetings were held on January 11 and May 16, 2022 . After each meeting, Chair Judith Murphy attended the AHHEC meeting and provided a summary of the meeting.

Town’s Communication Outreach Plan
Throughout the Housing Element update process, the Town has posted information on the Town’s website, social media, distributed information through the Town’s eNotification system with over 450 subscribers and posted information on the Portola

Valley Forum, an active list serve with over 3,600 members. Below is a detailed list of some of the communications strategies, both electronically and non-electronically, the Town has employed for community outreach.

Electronic

1. Dedicated webpage on Town website for Housing Element contains update related information such as the draft document and public comment submittal webform.

The webpage also includes community-wide meeting information such as meeting recordings, summaries, and minutes.

2. Dedicated webpage on Town website for Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee for information such as meeting recordings, summaries, and minutes. There is also a link to access the draft Housing Element document and webform to submit public comments.

3. Town News and Town Newsletter dedicated electronic blog posts or articles, sent weekly or more frequently to subscribers, related to Housing Element update items such as upcoming meetings or deadline for public comment submission.

Non-Electronic

1. Town-wide mailer sent to every address in Town on June 23, 2022 that included information on the Housing Element update and a QR code for recipients to scan for more information.

2. Informational Flyer posted at Town Hall, Town Library, the Sequioas, Village Square Shopping Center, and near Portola Valley Hardware. The flyer included the same QR code as the town-wide mailer. Information included where to find electronic or hard copies of the draft document (see below) and when to submit public comments

3. Draft Housing Element Update hard copies were distributed to Town Hall, Town Library, and the Sequioas community. Staff provided additional copies of the town-wide mailer with these hard copies. (Hyperlink is to electronic version of draft document)

ALPINE

WESTRIDGE

ARAPAHOE

LARGUITA
NAVAJO

CORDOVA

ANTO NIO NATHHORST
PALOMA

SHAWNEE

ALHAMBRA
ZAPATA

BOLIVAR TAGUS

DOS L O MAVISTA

VAL ENCIA

FAVONIA
FAWN
PINON
ALPINE

CERVANTES
GOYA

MAPACHE

MAPACHE
PALMER
N
NT
A
BOLI
Glen Oaks
4370 Alpine Rd
Ford Field
Vacant Portion of
4395 Alpine Rd
The Sequoias
Christ Church
Ladera Church

PORTOLA VALLEY HOUSING ELEMENT UPDATE
Adequate Sites with Constraints
Portola Valley Jurisdictional Boundary
Vacant Housing Sites
Non-Vacant Housing Sites (Not Affiliated)
Non-Vacant Affiliated Housing Sit
One constraint
Two constraints
Three constraints
es Four or more constraints
N 0 1,800 3,600
1 inch = 3,600 feet
Feet
Source: City of Portola Valley, 2022.

Attachment 3

JUNE 29, 2022 PLANNING COMMISSION SPECIAL MEETING

VERBATIM MINUTES SUMMARY
Meeting Recording: https://youtu.be/hgvAW2Q6Smg
Transcript page numbers are bookmarked within this PDF to the corresponding pages.

Meeting Timestamps (with transcript page number)
00:00:23 – Call to Order and Roll Call (page 1)
00:01:00 – Oral Communications (page 1)
00:02:50 – Staff’s Presentation (pages 2 - 9)
00:40:53 – Planning Commission Subcommittee’s Presentation (pages 9 – 14) 01:16:35 – Commission Questions to Staff (pages 14 – 28) 02:16:31 – Public Comments and Questions (pages 28 – 45) 03:37:21 – Staff’s Response to Public Comments and Questions (pages 45 – 48) 03:51:12 – Commission Discussion (pages 48 – 64)
05:10:17 – Commission Straw Poll (“Hand Raise Vote”) & Add'l Discussion (pages 64 – 67)
05:17:53 – Adjournment (page 67)
To return to this page after clicking the page link above, click on the green box in the document
Attachment 4

1 PLANNING COMMISSION JUNE 29, 2022
Special Teleconference Meeting

CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL
Chair Kopf-Sill called the Planning Commission special teleconference meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. Planning & Building Director Russell called the roll.

Present: Planning Commissioners: Hasko, Targ, Taylor; Vice Chair Goulden and Chair Kopf-Sill

Absent:

Town Staff: Laura Russell, Planning & Building Director; Dylan Parker, Assistant Planner; Carla Violet, Urban Planning Partners; Curtis Banks, Urban Planning Partners Chair Kopf-Sill: Hello, neighbors, staff, visitors. Welcome to the Portola Valley Planning Commission for June 29, 2022. We’ll start with roll call. [roll call]

ORAL COMMUNICATIONS -
Chair Kopf-Sill: I think, as everyone knows, it’s our second meeting to review the draft Housing Element, so at the beginning of every meeting, we take comments that are not related to our agenda. If anybody has a comment they would like to make that is not about the Housing Element, we’ll take Housing Element comments later. Raise your hand on the Zoom feature, and we’ll call on you. I see one. Rita Comes.

Ms. Comes: Hi. Thank you for taking my comment. You know, there’s been such great information. I appreciate the Commissioners that have sent in some ideas to these plans that we’re talking about tonight, so my idea is not related to what we’re talking about tonight, not what’s on the agenda, but with all of these great ideas that are coming up, is there any way to then extend that July 8th deadline? Because there’s so much information right now for people to put in their comments, and also, put on a third meeting so we can talk about all of these comments, like Commissioner Goulden just said. He’s on vacation. There are a lot of people. This town is very empty right now, and with all of these great updates it’s really important that the public, the people of the town actually get a chance to really look at this information, especially the new, updated information, so I would suggest another meeting. I know this is a second meeting, but this meeting is very different than the last meeting, and there’s lots of updated information. I appreciate if you could take those things into consideration, and also extending that July 8th deadline, so that people have an opportunity to review this new, updated information. Thank you.

OLD BUSINESS –
(1) Draft Housing Element Discussion Time: 0:03:21
Chair Kopf-Sill: Okay, I see no more comments in the open section, so we’ll go on. Laura, do you have a staff update?
DRAFT

2 Planning & Building Director Russell: Yes. We have a presentation for you. Give me just a second to get that up and running. Okay, does that look okay to everyone, on the screen? Chair Kopf-Sill: Yes.

Planning & Building Director Russell: Great. Thanks. Good evening, Chair Kopf-Sill, Members of the Planning Commission, members of the public. If anyone does not know me, I’m Laura Russell.

I’m the Planning and Building Director, and this is the Planning Commission’s second meeting, as we’ve all heard, on the full draft of the Housing Element. The meeting format for tonight, this staff presentation that I’m going to give, and then we’re going to have the Planning Commission subcommittee give a report back. They provided a memo, a colleague’s memo, that’s included in the packet. Then we’ll have Commission questions, and then public comments, and then Commission discussion.

The purpose of the meeting this evening is to present to the Planning Commission the recommendations of the Ad hoc Housing Element Committee, AHHEC. Sometimes I just call it the Housing Element Committee. So you can hear what they had to say on June 20th, and receive the report from the subcommittee, as I just mentioned. We’d like to receive comments from the Planning Commission with a focus on Sections 6 and 7, which are the main policy sections. Then, ideally, we would like the Planning Commission to synthesize your comments, so those can be forwarded on to the Town Council. So, if there are elements where you can reach consensus, that’s great. We can reflect consensus into the record, and if there’s areas where there’s not consensus, then it may be appropriate to take a vote on individual items. That will be up to the Chair and the Commission’s discussion to decide how you’d like to handle that later in the Commission discussion portion.

This is a reminder for anyone who may be newer to the process. We know people come in at different times. There is extensive information on the Town’s website for the Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee’s page. They’ve held meetings at least since last August, and they’ve been talking specifically about the sites inventory over 7 ½ to 8 meetings, I would call it. So, starting way back in October and then multiple meetings throughout this year, including a big change in approach, lots of new ideas, lots of fine tuning and thinking through, and lots of public comment.

Between 40 and 160 people have been at each Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee meeting.

Then, on June 20th, the Committee met again and reviewed the initial feedback from the Planning Commission and discussed the sites again.

This is also a reminder from last time but wanted to make sure that it is fresh in people’s mind and that there is an understanding about this. As we all know, there are many physical and safety constraints in town, so the work on the Housing Element Committee really started with physical and safety constraints. So, this is mapping that’s prepared both as part of the Safety Element and the Housing Element process, and we’ve created these constraints maps, and this is the composite of the constraints maps. It includes areas that have flood zones, and that comes from State law for safety elements - our own Town Ground Movement Potential map, including the areas with the least stable soil types, our Major Fault Map, we mapped all of the slopes that are greater than 30 percent, so if a property had an area of greater than 30-percent slope, it was included. Greater than 30 percent is considered an especially concerning slope for fire safety. We also did evacuation mapping, showing parcels that have one way in and one way out. So, the darker gray indicates the parcels that have more than one of those constraints. Just because you have one housing doesn’t mean you can’t have any development there, necessarily, but it depends on the extent of the hazard and the location, and what DRAFT
kind of development is to be

3 proposed. The Committee referred to these constraints maps regularly throughout their discussion, so that it could be grounded in the safety aspects of the town.

This is the Housing Site Summary that’s in the Draft Housing Element. We looked at this last time, but we wanted to point out that we found a typo, a literal typo, so if you were looking at the map on this and it didn’t work out, this is why. In the Draft Housing Element, in the Very-low-income Income category, or one of the sites where there is a 7, there was supposed to be a 2, so the map otherwise works out. I just wanted to bring that to your attention. This is the same table that we went through last time.

On June 20th, the Ad Hoc Committee met again, as I mentioned, and reviewed your initial thoughts, concerns, ideas, and the topics, especially, that we considered were the opt-in program, ADU or junior ADU production, the buffer that we’ve talked about, the legal status and the possibility for Field Park, and there was a new suggestion at the last meeting that we termed at that time the “sunrise” approach, where certain things would come into effect only if the Town was not meeting its unit production numbers over the eight-year period.

The Committee voted on certain areas where there was not consensus and then the Committee produced a summary, which was distributed to the Town, and then that summary was put into the in the staff report that we sent out to the Planning Commission and made available to the public.

That’s what is included in my presentation and that discussion tonight.

The first topic that we wanted to bring to your attention is related to the Opt-in rezoning program.

At the last meeting the Planning Commission expressed pretty significant concerns related to this program, and there were also concerns from the community, so staff is presenting some additional analysis for your consideration in the memo. We just point out, this is a relatively small number of units. Currently it’s 12 units, the Above Moderate-income income category. We’re noting that the Housing Element Committee has expressed concern about this back and forth, and they've been talking about the pros and cons of it, so there has been a lot of discussion about it all along. It is thought to be a way to distribute some units throughout the Community, and it could also provide an alternative type of housing for residents that are looking for something different than large, single-family detached housing.

Ultimately, after quite a bit of discussion, the Housing Element Committee did have a strong majority that preferred to maintain the Opt-in approach. We discussed it as an alternative to SB 9 that would provide more local control and would allow some disbursement throughout the community, which was a priority that the community had expressed during the course of those meetings. We wanted to present just a couple more ideas as you’re thinking about Opt-in and considering the options for that, and whether you recommend including it or not. There has been some discussion about whether the Opt-in program should be further restricted, and the Housing Element Committee reviewed in some detail a concept that’s called “missing middle” housing right now in the planning jargon. It represents building types that can be integrated into single-family neighborhoods with less impact, so the idea is to try to draw on the massing patterns that you have in single-family neighborhoods and put more units into those types of building forms. So that’s what missing middle basically means. If you’re interested, we can point anyone back to those PowerPoints from the previous meetings, but that’s all online.

One of the ideas would be maybe to restrict the Opt-in so that you would allow income, for example, four to six units in one building that would look like a single-family home. Or, maybe have smaller units that would still comply with 30-foot setbacks. This could be a potential approach, to emphasize the kind of housing types that people ha DRAFT
ve expressed their interest to us,

4 which is especially multi-generational housing, more options for retirement, and there was an interest in coops in the course of the Ad Hoc Housing Element, where people could go in together into a special kind of ownership model and share resources and have a coop environment.

There was also discussion, and staff presented an option, about maybe including SB 9 units instead. So, we proposed just an alternative, just for everyone’s consideration. This is not a recommendation from staff, but just a way to think about different approaches to this. This is included in the staff memo, but the idea is to take out the Opt-in program, add a small number of SB 9 units, and reduce the buffer for the above Moderate-income income category. If we do that, this is the way that the same chart is revised. So SB 9 goes in with six units in the above moderateincome income category. Opt-in goes out, and that creates a total unit potential of above Moderate-income of 114 units, which is a 15-percent buffer, so reducing the buffer in that category and then reducing the buffer overall as well.

The next topic that we wanted to bring to your attention is the recommended buffer itself, and the no-net-loss law. There has been discussion about why is the buffer needed? Why does it need to be so large? So, we wanted to provide some additional information on this. We gave you a memo with some guidance that we got. Trying to put it into plain language, the Town is required to have sufficient sites available at all times through the planning period. So, in real life, even when there is a plan, some things are a little different than what we expect. So sometimes sites will be developed with more units or less units. Sometimes they’ll be developed…I’m sorry. They would not typically be developed with more, but they might be if we had a density bonus situation, as we’ve discussed. But more often than not, in my professional experience, sites are developed with fewer units than what is expected. And then, sometimes they are developed with different income affordability levels than what was assumed in the Housing Element, so we have to make adjustments.

So, a development proposal is received. Then we have to compare that to the assumptions that we made in the Housing Element, and if there’s a shortfall, then we have to make sure we either have other sites that are available already in the Housing Element site inventory. Where we have to rezone, we have to take new sites and put them into the Housing Element and rezone them to accommodate that shortfall within 180 days after the approval of the development that created the shortfall.

So, when the Housing Element Committee looked at this, they were split on low-income, the buffer. They talked about this quite a bit. They talked particularly about low-income, the buffer from moderate-income and about moderate-income categories. There was not a lot of support for reducing the buffer for the low-income categories, where there's some more scrutiny, so this is a kind of a split recommendation. There was not a clear consensus on this one. This is a visual way that we explained the buffer to the Ad Hoc Committee back in October, so just bringing this forward to kind of refresh people who think about things in a different way. We were thinking about RHNA as a housing budget. We want to think about balancing our budget at the end of the planning period, so we have our RHNA, and we want to balance that with the actual units that are built, but we can think about the buffer as like an emergency fund of extra housing projects that we could do to meet our RHNA in case things don’t go as planned. We might end up with a different number, as I was just explaining, so we’ve got backup projects to balance those scales again.

Next is related to ADU and JADU allocation and production. If anyone is new to the conversation, ADU is accessory dwelling unit, and JADU is junior accessory dwelling unit. Both of these things are defined in state law, and both of them are now in our code. The Planning Commission will DRAFT

5 remember, we did a code update in 2021 related to the most recent state laws. They’re different in the way that they can be laid out on a site and where they can be located. If junior ADU’s are new to you, they need to be within the building envelope of the main house, and they are limited to 500 square feet in State law and in our current code. I was asked whether junior ADUs can be larger, and the Town has not considered that up until now, but we could make junior ADUs larger if there was policy interest in doing so.

There are two different areas that we’re talking about with ADUs and junior ADUs. Allocation, how they’re allocated to the different incomes categories; and production, literally, how many ADUs do we expect to be produced in the eight-year time period? So, starting with the allocation question. We received questions from the Planning Commission at the last meeting about this.

The Housing Element Committee considered it quite a bit. There is a guidance memo that comes from 2021 Elements and ABAG. So, 21 Elements is a San Mateo County-specific cooperation between the County, all of the cities and towns and consultant planners that work on housing elements. That’s why it’s called 21 Elements, because there’s 21 jurisdictions, and then ABAG is the Bay Area Association of Governments, and they had put out this memo with the recommendations based on their studies. The allocation that’s in the Housing Element right now is a proportion, and 30 percent goes into the very-low-income income category; 30 percent into low-income; 30 percent into moderate-income, and 10 percent into above-moderate-income. It’s considered like a safe harbor for towns and cities to use so if we don’t use the safe harbor in our allocation, then we would be responsible for developing our own rationale and presenting that to HCD, and it would have to be based on evidence in order to include something other than that safe harbor.

Now I’ll turn to production and talk about that a little bit. How many units are we talking about producing during this eight-year time period? There’s HCD guidance, and it says that the estimate should be based on the average number of ADU and JADU building permits that have been issued in the last few years. If we’re proposing something different, then we need to provide a logical methodology, justification and explanation for why our numbers are different.

The current Housing Element includes 92 ADUs and JADUs. It was discussed several times by the Housing Element Committee whether that should go up or what should happen, even down.

So, staff did meet with HCD staff and ask them about our past ADU production and our proposal in the Housing Element. HCD recommended additional incentives be included. They said that about 11 units a year seemed high to them, given our past three-year and five-year averages, so they suggested that we have more incentives and include those. That would be automatically triggered if the Town is not meeting our JADU or ADU target. So, there are programs that staff included to address that. From the initial conversation with HCD they thought our numbers were a little bit high, but they didn’t say it was impossible, and they always emphasize that nothing is certain until they’ve actually put it in writing into a formal letter to us.

As the Planning Commission is well aware, we updated the Municipal Code in 2021 to be consistent with State law related to ADUs and JADUs. You’ll recall that at that time, there was significant concern about certain parts of the State law and their impact on rural character, and especially fire safety. I think the biggest one that got a lot of attention was related to the four-foot setbacks that are allowed in State law. You’ll remember that we received a lot of comments. There are examples of the public comments that we received and concern around jeopardizing public safety, separation between structures. Home ignition zones, as you know, a lot of our residents have done a lot of research and become very conversant in these terms. There was a lot of concern about that at the time, so I wanted to bring that to your attention and remind the public that this is a conversation the Planning Commission was having last year. What we did was we DRAFT

6 continued what we called the Fire Safety Exemption in the Code, and then we also created the ADU Fire Safety Checklist. Those two items have been in effect, but we have a little bit more to say about that in just a moment.

So, we have those two things that are in effect, but we have received correspondence from HCD about our town restrictions that we have established for fire safety. We are receiving questions from them, and it is possible that our local requirements may not pass HCD review as we have adopted them. So, staff is going to be working with HCD. We’ve sent them a response, and we included pictures. We’ve been collaborating with the Woodside Fire Protection District, but it is possible we could have a reduction in local control for ADUs with those reduced setbacks in the future than what we have put into effect.

In terms of what the Housing Element Committee said, they voted unanimously. They did not want to use ADUs and JADUs to achieve the Town’s very-low-income category. They said it would not be a viable approach with HCD, and they previously discussed their interest in making sure affordable housing units really get built and become available. The Committee was split on a smaller increase to ADUs and Junior ADUs, so there definitely are Committee members that wanted to see another small increase in the ADU numbers. There was also discussion and consensus that ADUs and JADUs should be evaluated separately and broken out in the Housing Element into two different categories. They have different characteristics and impacts because of the JADU’s smaller size and being within the main envelope of the main house. I wanted to emphasize this because it seems to be the question we’re getting the most often to staff through our public comments. Can the Town use ADUs and junior ADUs to meet all of its low-income RHNA requirements? This is staff’s analysis, based on the information that’s available to us, the way that we’ve read the laws. We’re just trying to give you the best legal and technical advice that we can. We think the answer to this question is no. We do not think we can get a Housing Element certified using just ADUs and junior ADUs. The reasons why are really kind of outlined here on this slide.

As I mentioned, the allocation is done by formula. We have no justification for using a different formula than the safe harbor, so some people have proposed just increasing one category or another, but we would need to have a rationale or evidence to be able to do that. If we take that formula, the one I mentioned, with the 30-percent and then down to 10 percent, I was just creating a hypothetical for you to consider. If that formula was applied and we had just a 15-percent verylow-income buffer, we would have to produce 74 very-low-income ADUs, 70 for low-income, 70 for moderate-income and 25 above-moderate-income. So, we would have to create and plan for 247 total ADUs and JADUs to be produced in eight years. For comparison purposes, this is approximately equal to the total number of ADUs that we have in town right now. On about 1,700 properties, we’ve got right around 240, approximately, total ADUs in town that are on the books right now.

Having all of the low-income units be in ADUs or JADUs also raises concerns related to AFFH.

That’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing. We’ve mentioned this before as one of the things that’s new in this Housing Element cycle compared to past years. This is a place where the law has changed quite a bit. You saw in the Housing Element there’s a whole chapter, a whole section, on this. The rationale here, the thinking behind this, is that people are likely to rent ADUs and junior ADUs to people they know, or friends of friends, or within their connections or networks.

Therefore, the renters tend to have similar characteristics to the property owner, and they do not increase diversity over time. So that’s contrary to our charge to affirmatively further fair housing.

We’re supposed to systematically try to reduce the segregation that we have in our communities that has happened over the past years.

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7 So, next I’ll turn to the next topic, which is related to Ford Field Park. You’ll recall that Susan Ford Dorsey attended the last Planning Commission, and talked about the fact that Thomas Ford had dedicated Ford Field to the Town. There was discussion about retaining it as open space and the field being named after his mother, Dorothy Ford. So, staff has continued to work on this, and our latest information for you is that we’ve had preliminary communications with Ms. Ford Dorsey, and we do have plans to meet with her, so we will be talking with her directly. We’ve asked her if she has any paperwork or any communications to help us understand the materials. We have gone back into our own records to see if we can identify the intent. That record is mixed. It is quite old, that record, so we’re trying to learn what we can from it. What we do know is that the town was purchased from three property owners, and there is no legal restriction, so there is nothing in the title report that shows open space restrictions that would prohibit development of the site.

There are deed restrictions that we accepted as a condition of State grant money. Those are related to the baseball diamond itself. We are continuing to work on this, but this is the latest information that we have. Of note, the Town has control, the Town owns Ford Field Park, so the Town can determine the density and the design with an affordable housing developer, so we could restrict the use of State density bonus at this location.

So, when the Housing Element Committee discussed this, the majority supported affordable housing at Ford Field Park. That conclusion was based on the fact that, generally speaking, it was the only realistic path to the required number of very-low-income units. There were several members that thought that, while they still had reservations about using this site, that they had exhausted the other available sites in town and felt like this was the best available option. There were a few people – like I said, this was split – that thought something else might still be preferable, but it was generally a majority supported it. There was also discussion about the fact that earlier in the Housing Element process there was discussion about quite a bit more development at the Nathhorst Triangle Area. That was strongly opposed by the Nathhorst neighbors, so this was considered to be more of a compromise related to that.

Then you’ll remember at the last meeting, Commissioners started talking about the idea of a “sunrise program,” was the language that was used at the last meeting, so that additional sites or programs could be added if we weren’t keeping up with those numbers, and a subcommittee of the Planning Commission was formed with Commissioners Targ and Taylor. In terms of our staff analysis, we would just say that it is challenging to provide a rationale to support these units, depending on how it would be constructed, and the triggers would have to be automatic and leave enough time to implement those provisions. So, when the Housing Element Committee talked about it, there wasn’t a lot of information yet. They were looking at just kind of the general idea about it, and they knew that the Planning Commission was going to further talk about it through the use of a subcommittee, but at that time there was a strong majority – this was through a vote – that didn’t support the sunrise approach. Their discussion was related to the fact that it could prolong the process and delay some of the negative impacts that the community is feeling, or create confusion, or add complexity.

Then, there was another topic that got quite a bit of attention at the last meeting, and that is related to the equestrian facilities at the Glen Oaks site. There was general consensus of the Committee to see if it would be possible to preserve the equestrian use there. They talked about the Town’s rural character. They also talked about the potential to mitigate some of the density along Alpine Road.

In the big picture, we certainly want to emphasize and reflect that everyone agrees that this is a meaningful change. This Housing Element is difficult. It’s meaningful. No one is thinking that it’s some small thing. The Housing Element Committee, as they have w DRAFT
orked through this, has found

8 that there are stakeholders for and against essentially every idea that has come up. So, it is a true policy-balancing question of what are the most important priorities for the community? The Committee came at this, which we’ve termed a patchwork approach, meaning bringing multiple pieces together and multiple strategies. That is, the Sites Inventory with the specific locations, the Affiliated Housing, ADUs and JADUs, and then perhaps the Opt-in upzoning, should it be revised? Should SB 9 be used? Should it be included? Those are the policy questions that we’re hoping the Planning Commission can give feedback on.

These are the questions for the Planning Commission that come from the memo. They’re just for discussion purposes, to get you thinking about what kind of feedback would be useful to the Town Council as they are making their decisions, so I want to emphasize again, this is the draft Housing Element, so we’re not talking about adopting it right now. We are talking about refining it and sending it off to HCD for their review, and then it would come back, and we would do another round of review prior to adoption, or perhaps two rounds of review prior to adoption, depending on how the review goes with HCD. So just questions to get your discussion going. Should the Opt-in program be removed? Should it be included? Should it be changed? Should we make it more like a “missing middle?” The subcommittee also has some thoughts about this, but I’ll defer to them to provide their feedback. Related to the buffer, should any additional refinements to the buffer be made? Should it be reduced? If it should, where should it be reduced, and if you have reasons for that that you could pass on to the Town Council. In terms of ADU and junior ADU production, should any changes be made to those numbers, the projection or the allocation method? If you have more thoughts about the sunrise program now that you’ve received a memo from your colleagues about that. What is the Commission’s interest in terms of the Glen Oaks site? Would you like us to pursue with the owner whether there is any way to imagine some housing on the site along with the equestrian use?
So, this is some repeat from the beginning, but just so everyone is clear on what we’re hoping a discussion could include, we recommend that you focus on the sections with the most policy implications. Those are Sections 6 and 7 of the draft Housing Element. Of course, your other comments are welcome, and all of the public’s other comments are welcome. If you have detailed comments like typos or minor mistakes, we would be happy to take those offline to save everyone’s time. Ideally, the Planning Commission can synthesize your comments to be forwarded to the Town Council, reach consensus where possible, and perhaps take votes on individual items if that is helpful to your conversations. This is not new information to any of you, but if there are members of the public that are new to this conversation, the Housing Element is available online right now, at portolavalley.net/housingelement. The Town Committees were also invited to discuss it. We’re in a 30-day public comment period, which ends on July 8th, and then we’re going to take all of those comments and bring them to the Town Council, and then we’ll incorporate those edits from the Town Council and send a draft Housing Element to the State for their initial review. That takes three months, so we expect comments back in mid-October, and then we’ll be working through any changes that they require us to make.

Next steps – Wednesday, July 13th, is the Town Council meeting. This summer we’ll start working on Zoning Code amendments with a plan to adopt those by January of 2023 for legal reasons.

Then, the Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee will review those proposed zoning amendments.

Then they will come to the Planning Commission. The CEQA analysis has to be done, and an Initial Study Mitigated Negative Declaration (ISMND) will be available later this summer. So now I’m just going to turn it over, for a moment, to Cara Silver, the Town Attorney, to see if she has anything she would like to add to close out our staff presentation. Cara, did you have anything else?
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9 Ms. Silver: Thank you, Laura. My internet is a little unstable now, so I’m not going to take a lot of time. I think that one aspect in all of this that we do want to emphasize to, in particular, those people who are new to the process, is that the Housing Element law is a State law that has been around for years. It is, typically, towns are on an eight-year cycle to update their Housing Elements. So, these issues really don’t get repeatedly discussed except for on an eight-year cycle. So, we have not had these types of conversations in quite some time at the local level.

Also, over time what has happened is there have been more and more changes to Housing Element law and to the requirements of the Housing Element and what we called the Regional Housing Needs Assessment Allocation process. The upshot of most of those changes is that the State is really taking over a lot of the control and authority in the area of housing law, and the local agencies, unfortunately, are losing much of the local control. So, the policies and the strategy and the approach that staff has developed with the Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee and has been discussing with the Town Council and the Planning Commission in large part is designed to really maximize local control over time, and to exert an admittedly small amount, but the maximum amount, of local control that we can in this process. If we don’t adopt a Housing Element in the time period required by the State, and if we don’t perform and comply with the housing production requirements over time, the State really has increased the consequences and the penalties that have been levied against agencies for not fulfilling those commitments. They include loss of actual zoning authority in general. They include very substantial penalties. They include enforcement actions. They include loss of State grant funds, of which the Town has received over the years.

So, there are a series of significant penalties that, unfortunately, we are also trying to avoid in the approaches that we are discussing and recommending tonight. With that, I will turn it back to you, Laura.

Planning & Building Director Russell: Thank you, Cara. So, this evening, we have our consultant team here as well – Carla Violet and Curtis Banks, with Urban Planning Partners. They are always working with us from behind the scenes. We asked them to help answer some questions this evening, because I’m not feeling one hundred percent, so I may ask them to tag in a little bit. Our proposal, through the Chair, would be to turn it over to the Planning Commission subcommittee to give their report back on their work, and then do a round of questions.

Chair Kopf-Sill: That sounds great. Craig and Nicholas are our subcommittee on the sunrise proposal, so if you all have either a presentation or a short description, that would be great.

Commissioner Targ: Sure. Why don’t I start, and Craig, I’m going to ask you to clean up anything that I say that’s wrong or could be said better, or more clearly, that you’d like to add as well. I’m going to say that we had a really great starting point in thinking through this sunrise concept, both through the work that the Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee has put together, the work that staff and our consultants have done, and the really robust conversations that the Planning Commission had, and more generally, the very, very robust and helpful kinds of conversations that the residents of the town have had. There are strong feelings, strong direction that people are expressing, some of them about their personal circumstances, some of them about their hopes and visions for the town, and all of them about how we’re together, how we’re going to be as a community and how are we going to be a community within this broader region of ours? So, with that kind of background and that kind of ventilation of the issues, our question that we were trying to wrestle with was really an alignment of two competing goals, or two competing sets of circumstances. From my perspective – and I think I can speak for Commissioner Taylor – my general view of the Housing Element is that it is a State compliance requirement. It’s not a referendum on Portola Valley, but it is something to be complied with, and how it’s complied with and what we do outside of the Housing Element, how we shape our General Plan and our policies DRAFT

10 and our zoning, is a matter for the Town. Right now, we have some uncertainty. We have uncertainty, for example around the number of units, just to be very concrete, that an ADU program can and would have. We have some uncertainty regarding the upcoming fire maps and the Safety Element that are going to be coming in our direction. We have uncertainty with respect to how the California Department of Housing and Community Development will interpret the laws and policies that we’re now confronting, and which are very, very new. If there’s somebody that says that they have the answer to how to interpret the housing laws and HCD’s policies and policy letters, they need to go back and study them some more, because there is a lot of uncertainty.

So, with that kind of uncertainty, there’s also the issue that we’re confronting, and that is, HCD, California Department of Housing and Community Development, will insist on certainty in the generation of a plan that will produce a set number of units along a particular distribution of income levels, housing units.

On the one hand there’s a lot of uncertainty, and Portola Valley very rightly wants to have a plan that makes sense for Portola Valley, and we don’t have all of the information at this point, and our decision-making time has been pretty compressed. And at the same time, we need to have a plan that rules smoothly and that will produce. It has some certainty to it. That’s the challenge. The way in which we were thinking about it – and I think it was Craig who came up with the term and really crystalized it – was what we need is a sunrise provision. We need to be able to establish some markers and say, “This project, this program, this thing, this set of elements will produce the number of housing units that are required under the RHNA goals, or targets, and we can prove it up, because we have a strong basis, and we can show how it will work.” However, some of those markers are kind of unpleasant, or challenged, or may not achieve the goals that the town wants to achieve in the way in which it wants to achieve them. For example, placing more density on Nathhorst Triangle or along Alpine, tearing down two magnificent trees and really altering fundamentally the gateway to the town, impacting a much beloved and valued set of stables and displace people from their place of employment. Those are things that are real challenges. They may be necessary, but the question is, can we do better? Can we put down those items that have been called out as markers? And then, can we improve upon it? Or can we modify it by showing that we are achieving our goal through a way that is distinctly Portola Valley? At a point in time in which we can hit those targets to be able to show to HCD that we are, in fact, on track to meet the targets that the region has established for us.

So that’s essentially the idea. So, what’s an example of that? And I trust that those of you who are interested in reading a monograph have had a chance to read the musings of Craig and myself. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of working with Craig, what a joy. This was a really neat opportunity. It’s the first time I’ve actually sat down and done a project with him. I think there’s something to be said for actually getting together over a table and, authentically, a couple of glasses of water, and have a conversation and produce something. So, what’s an example? In year three of our present housing cycle, Cycle Six, if we are not achieving our numbers to the satisfaction of the Town and in consultation with the California Department of Housing Development, then we will partner with an affordable housing non-profit, and we will enter into a development agreement as a way of establishing what a non-profit or other developer is going to do and those things that the Town will do. It’s a binding contract to build not more than 50 units of very-low-income housing within the seven or eight acres that comprise the Dorothy Ford Park. That would be an example of a spring, or a sunrise requirement. It’s a marker. You know what you’re going to get if you aren’t achieving your goals in three years. If you are achieving your goals in three years without it, maybe you don’t need it. Is that likely? Meh. I think different people may have different views. On the other hand, if we are exceeding our goals and our targets, then maybe we’ll have a less dense, less high intensity, housing project. But you know, we really won’t know that for a few years, and the reason why w DRAFT
e called out three years here –

11 and three years is just an example – is it’s going to take probably a couple years to get through the permitting and the environmental review that’s going to be required in order to get a project like this set in place. And then it’s going to take another couple of years to actually construct it, and that’s if things go reasonably well, by year eight, we really ought to be able to have a good standing project that can go forward within the period of time that we have. It gives us some cushion, but it’s not a wrong kind of estimate of time.

In going through this process and looking at the Dorothy Ford Park, we came across some things that we thought were kind of interesting. That is, one, if we were to really go forward and completely redevelop, including taking down the magnificent oak trees – and the term “magnificent oaks trees” is actually a term of art which I’ll get to in a second – we would run right through five different elements of the General Plan that describe the gateway of the Town as including the “magnificent oak grove” at the gateway. The reference there has to be to the Dorothy Ford Park trees, which are located there. There are other elements that talk about the “permanent open space” that is represented by that area. Now query, what is the nature of that permanent open space? Our Town Attorney is still working through that, and I’m glad to hear that we, the Town, are going to be meeting with Ms. Ford in the coming days. We also looked at the underlying land use covenants that undergird the restrictions on developing in or around the baseball field.

It turns out – and again, Attorney Silver was very helpful in providing us with the underlying documents – there are two land use covenants which are, if you think about it, made to the benefit of the California Department of Parks and Recreation, and we’ve included those in the packet. It says that from the date of June 30th, which is essentially now, 2015, which was what? Seven years ago-ish, to the same date, June 30th, 2031, that the land is going to be used for baseball purposes.

But if you read the surrounding documents a little bit more closely it allows for an out. One might say it allows for a breach, and there are different kinds of remedies that can be afforded. One of them would be the California Department of Justice for the California Department of Parks and Recreation saying, “Hey, there are two land use covenants here. Get off our restrictive covenant.” There are others which would allow for a negotiated outcome, and I would be stunned if a negotiated outcome weren’t possible. Is it possible to re-jigger the location of the baseball field? Maybe share a parking lot with an affordable housing project? I don’t know. Maybe. Share it without disturbing the entrance to the town. Are there possibilities to re-arrange it? There is scrub oak, which from my untrained eye, doesn’t look like it has a lot of ecological value – I’m sure it has some – and it’s also proximate to the creek. So, the question is, how far back is it? And some thinking needs to be done. But the question is, is it possible to jigger it, to have an area that actually makes sense, that doesn’t run roughshod over five different elements of our General Plan and redevelops with a housing project – any kind of housing project – the magnificent oak groves, which are the gateway to the Town? I think the answer is probably yeah. We probably are.

Does it make sense, then, to look at the entirety of that area as a gateway to the town? I don’t think that we have a gateway zone, or anything, frankly, that’s like it that would allow for different types of town-serving uses, including affordable housing, maybe including a fire lane. I’m making it up now. Because the Town is the owner of the parcels that comprise that area, a new land use designation in the General Plan could be established that could accommodate a variety of uses.

The Town would be the sole decision-maker as to the uses, assuming that a negotiation could take place with our friends over at California Department of Parks and Recreation. Again, in case anybody is wondering, I have not asked, but I would be happy to, to see what could be done. But there’s a nice seven, eight-ish acres that, frankly, ought to be managed as a single unit. Within year three, or at year three, we ought to know how many affordable housing units, if any – probably the answer is yes – will
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need to be built in that area, and what else we might be able to

12 do with that area for the benefit of the town and the preservation of that really un-despoiled open space and the magnificent oak trees that are called out in the General Plan. I read one letter that described them as the “witness trees” because of their age. I thought that was beautiful.

So, that would be one example of a sunrise element. We also looked around, and I think that we saw some other interesting things that really inform the view. So, one is we have the upcoming fire maps, and that’s going to be really important to see. If we have a sunrise approach, we can modify the means by which we achieve our targets through programs that are already established in the General Plan. Those are the markers to achieve those goals, so in looking at the ADUs and JADUs, there are some things that were interesting that we found. And one of those was that we looked at some of our nearby towns. What we found was that many of those towns, including the Town of Atherton and the Town of Woodside, and also to a lesser extent but certainly included, the Town of Hillsborough. All have significantly more, or higher levels, of ADU and JADU that were projected in their town. For example, if you scale the number of ADUs and JADUs that those towns anticipate – Atherton anticipates 81, again, scaled down for the size of Portola Valley – Woodside anticipates 76 more, and the Town of Hillsborough anticipates 18 more. So that was interesting, and then digging into it a little bit further, the Town of Atherton actually has been on track to roughly meet that number.

So, Craig and I went back and we looked to see, well, how is that going to happen? And the answer is they have a much more robust set of ADU and JADU incentives and education programs that promote the production of ADUs and JADUs. Atherton is a little different than the Town of Portola Valley in many respects, not the least of which is that much of Atherton is flat and doesn’t have as much seismic diversity as the Town of Portola Valley has. It’s also not as slippy.

On the other hand, if you look at Woodside…and Woodside if you listen to Nancy Lund and you learn your history, you’ll know that Portola Valley and Woodside almost became one town.

Woodside decided that wasn’t a good idea, so we formed our own town, but that was the ask back in what, 1964? And its topography is very similar to that, of course, of Portola Valley. And they have a more robust ADU and JADU program. So, the question is, if you look at sort of similarly situated or nearby towns of similar size and in some ways demographics, can we achieve those goals? And the answer is yeah, probably. So, maybe the thing to do is to up our numbers, take a look at the programs that they have in place, emulate and improve upon them, because we’re the Town of Portola Valley and I’m confident we can. And also put a marker behind it, so we can say, “HCD, if those numbers aren’t coming out, we know where we’re going to get our numbers.”
Similarly, with respect to JADUs, one of the things that I just found fascinating listening to our residents talking about their experience is one member of our community said, “Yeah, I spent $50,000, and I established a JADU.” And I thought to myself, I thought, wow, – I think that is the appropriate term – that is not very much money to establish another authentic housing unit that can make a meaningful difference in somebody’s life. That amount of money and the amount of space that is imbodied in a JADU – it’s a junior ADU, so it’s smaller so it has different characteristics, an internal ADU, but they’re similar – can be, and likely would be, rented out at a much lower rate than an ADU. I can’t see why we wouldn’t have a different distribution of income for JADUs than we would for ADUs. It’s simply…No, I’m not speaking for Commissioner Taylor or anybody else, but the economics simply don’t make sense to me. If we could likely find support for that if we went out to the consultancy if we didn’t have that kind of resource locally. Again, we can backstop it. So HCD knows that we mean business.

Finally, the issue of Opt-in housing. This has been, in second perhaps, to upzoning a large portion of Nathhorst Triangle, has been the most contentious issue, I believe, that the Town has DRAFT

13 encountered, so we’re proceeding here pretty lightly. I’m not going to go through all the reasons why people don’t like or have come out and criticized the upzoning option. I think that that is people familiar with it. And for further explanation, go and take a look at Craig and my memo. It’s all right there. But if we were to look at it and say this is a voluntary, discretionary program that is limited in scope and in scale, and doesn’t have to result in any units being produced unless the Town makes a commitment to them, but the Town were to say – and again, I’m making it up – in year three, have essentially a set of proposals saying, “We are interested in creating the opportunity for upzoning properties to ‘X’ number of additional units on ‘X-sized’ property, or greater.” That will achieve the following goals, including goals addressing affordability, addressing design, addressing fire, addressing community acceptability as appropriately stated. And we looked at what the outcome was of that kind of request. There are a variety of legal mechanisms that can allow you to do this, and the Town could make a decision as to whether it wanted to go forward with one or more – now, we suggested not more than four properties, because it’s important to be mindful that this is a novel approach – but to be able to go forward with it, see how it works. It’s a little bit of a beauty competition. If we aren’t meeting our numbers, again, a variant would be that we are going to adopt, again, not more than four, that will produce ‘X’ number of low-income, or fill in the blank of whatever we need, and commit ourselves to doing that, that would be a sunrise variant of that kind of approach. But I guess our thinking was if we retain the discretion, if we establish what it is that we want, if we establish limitations as to scale and to scope, and if it can create a more favorable zoning land use design outcome than, for example, SB 9, why wouldn’t we want to pursue it? And if it doesn’t, and we don’t like what we see, then the answer is, “That was a very interesting experiment. Let’s not do that again.” And we simply move on. But that would be another example that we outlined in our dear colleague’s letter.

We had a handful of sort of – I’ve been at this now for a long time, and probably too long – some specific recommendations, which are included, I believe, on page six, drifting onto page seven, just to summarize, and that would include enhancements to the ADU and JADU programs.

Consider changes to the affordability distribution of JADUs, and carefully craft a voluntary upzoning – I even hate to use that term – program that preserves and enhances Portola Valley’s values and that has the option of contributing to the RHNA targets. And then also, elements pertaining to the Dorothy Ford Park, in particular, establishing a gateway land use designation that would allow, for example, a planned unit development, a way of organizing the property appropriately to meet the Town’s goals, including a sunrise provision for the establishment of 50 units of very-low-income housing, or such number required to meet our RHNA targets.

So that’s sort of the summary. I need to call out that we didn’t spend time discussing the Glen Oaks and stables. That could also easily be folded into the same kind of thinking. One thing that I did see that I thought was interesting is I’ve always thought of Portola Valley as placing horses in a preferred position, but I didn’t realize that the General Plan actually does just that, and it calls out horses as being a fundamental part of Portola Valley and does place them in a preferred position. So that would be highly consistent with the direction that those who have come before us – and some who are still here - have envisioned for the Town. Anyway, that’s a long way of going through a document that you have and reflects, again, my thinking on it. I would invite my friend and colleague, Commissioner Taylor, to improve upon what I’ve said and to make appropriate corrections.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Go ahead, Craig.

Commissioner Taylor: Thank you, Nicholas, my esteemed colleague. So, I’m going to be much briefer than Nicholas. I’ve just got five points that I just wanted to emphasize. When we worked on the memo, the idea was basically just to buy some time to ba DRAFT
sically create some programs to

14 see how many ADUs and JADUs we could produce. That was the idea of the time we’re buying is that three-year period of pushing off a decision on Ford Field. Because if the community is really engaging in this and this is really what the community wants, then I see this as an opportunity for the community to have kind of a positive course of action, to basically rally around the production of ADUs and JADUs. Because right now it’s a lot of, “Well, I don’t like this,” and “I don’t like that,” and it’s a lot of what people don’t like, and I think it would be great if we turn this into, “Well, what can we do positively?” If we could generate 28 ADUs in the first year, that would be a pretty positive change. It’s clear that HCD is not going to accept that just on its face, so I think we will likely put all of these things in, but I think it’s how we manage the program, and I think we could buy ourselves some time.

I also think that the time lets us get some further clarification on these conflicting goals. Some of this law is confusing. It’s going to get worked out as people are going through the process, and particularly the conflicts between fire and housing in our situation are quite confusing and in pretty strong conflict. So, I think with another year or two we would see some of that get cleared up. And then finally, the idea of creating the gateway zone by creating a larger area was to give us some flexibility to come up with sort of a more in-depth concept for the whole area, rather than just partition off a small piece.

And then the upzoning, I think, you know, Anne, I think I took your point about the idea of a co-op or some other small group of houses, so if we could do that as a PUD and limit the number – because the original one, at least the way it came across to me, sounded like anybody who wanted to upzone could upzone, and that seemed like chaos. But as Nicholas was saying, if we said, “No, we’ll allow four of these, and people can compete with good projects,” then maybe we could find something there. So, I think those would be my summary of the sort of issues that we tried to outline in the memo. Mainly I think if we can buy a little bit of time and really engage the community. Because the great thing is we’ve got a lot of community engagement. That’s been positive, and the question is can we harness that to a good outcome and use it to produce housing that we all want? So that would be my summary on it. Thank you. Return it to the Chair.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Great. Thank you. I will open it up to the Commissioners right now to ask questions of both the staff, Laura and the consultants and Cara, and then also of our subcommittee, Nicholas and Craig. You can ask questions of all of them in any order. Maybe make clear who you are addressing your question to. Is anybody eager to start? Or should I just call on people? Commissioner Taylor: Yeah, I’ve got some questions. One of them was a small point, but Laura, you can help me with this. On attachment number two, which is red page 16, there is something about a RNHA total of 700. I read through that section, and I just got completely lost. Maybe you could just give me the soundbite of how I misunderstood what was going on. And I don’t need it in-depth, but I just found it quite confusing.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Red page 7, you said?
Commissioner Targ: I believe 16 is what it’s on. There’s a table there, and it shows, it’s like for the town, and it seems like it’s stuff specific to us, and yet it’s got these numbers that I couldn’t make hide nor hair out of. Laura, do you see what I’m talking about? Planning & Building Director Russell: It’s not specific to us. This is a regional memo.

Commissioner Targ: Okay, but even though the stuff just above it was about our town? DRAFT

15 Planning & Building Director Russell: No. This whole memo is not specifically about our town.

This is a regional memo produced for everyone in the county.

Commissioner Targ: Okay. It looked like the table before, actually looked like stuff related to us.

Okay, great. That answers my question. It’s just an example, and “the city” is just a generic placeholder.

Planning & Building Director Russell: Yes.

Commissioner Targ: Okay, good. That’s what I was hoping. So, my question then is – and it’s to sort of combine it – what happens if we generated 28 ADUs in one year? Right? What if we were able to do that? And we got the kind of distribution that we needed. Will HCD look at that and say we’re on track? You know what I mean? If we can overproduce what we put in our plan, will that let us sort of say for that year we’re on track, even though we didn’t do some of the other things in the plan?
Planning & Building Director Russell: Well, if we’re producing units each year, that achieves that goal, but that’s different than having an overall plan that can be certified. So, trying to get the Housing Element certified has to be specific enough such that we can demonstrate that we have a plan for all the units in all the categories.

Commissioner Targ: Yes.

Planning & Building Director Russell: And that we’ve met the fair housing requirements.

Commissioner Targ: Right. So, I don’t understand. There are two distinctions. We have a plan that we have to get certified. I got that. But now, say we have the certified plan that’s similar to what’s been outlined. But now let’s say that in one year we generated…In other words, we come up with an ADU/JADU program and we get the residents of the town excited, because they’re like, “This is where we’d rather get our housing from,” and they generate 28 ADUs in one year. Is HCD going to look at that and say, “Great. You’re meeting your numbers.” And if we keep doing that, and for argument’s sake for a moment let’s just assume that we generated enough ADUs each year that we hit our 75 low-income. Would HCD say, “That’s fine,” even though our certified plan was different? Like, does it really matter at the end of the day as long as you generate the housing?
Planning & Building Director Russell: You know, it’s hard to anticipate how the enforcement is going to go on this. I’ve been in webinars with the HCD staff, and I’ve heard language from them that I haven’t heard before, which was they said they think of the Housing Element as like a contract. That’s the word that they used. Between the jurisdictions and the State for housing production. So, I think that what you’re asking, I think it could work, but it’s not clear how the requirements to “affirmatively further fair housing” would work, because there’s certainly direction from the other regions that have already gone through this process that just having ADUs to meet your very-low-income and your low-income category is generally not considered acceptable, because of the AFFH concerns, so I just don’t know how that would play out.

Commissioner Targ: Okay. Yeah, I’m just trying to figure out, because when we talked about the sunrise stuff, on the one hand we could just get a certified plan and if we don’t do anything with Ford Field for three years and we’re on track without it, then we just keep staying on track. That’s, I guess, what I was after. I understand what you’re saying about the fair housing. So, it’s not just the number of units and the distribution. It’s also the fair ho DRAFT
using, but if you assume we were sort

16 of on the right curve with all of those things without pulling, say, Ford Field into it, would HCD say, “Yeah, that’s okay.” Versus, “You contracted and told us that you would zone Ford Field and you would go get somebody to build housing there.” That’s a different thing. Do you see the distinction I’m trying to get at?”
Planning & Building Director Russell: Yeah, I think I do, and it would depend on the language, too, that it is in the Housing Element. So, if we’re saying there’s difference between, “We will approach an affordable housing developer, and here’s the timeline to do it, and we will build a project in eight years,” that’s a certain kind of language, and its pretty much drafted that way. It’s drafted pretty strongly that way. So, what you’re talking about is drafting it a different way and setting different, later timelines in the Housing Element and then seeing if we’re meeting our numbers a different way, and then potentially not doing – we’re using the Ford Field Park project as the example – potentially not doing that project.

Commissioner Targ: Right, or Glen Oaks. I mean, I’m not sure what it ends up being, but the thing I was after was, when I was talking about the sunrise stuff, I don’t really need a thing that magically appears. It could be in the plan the whole time. It’s just a question of whether we have to execute on it. That’s what I was trying to get at.

Planning & Building Director Russell: Yeah. We do have to have quantified objective. Like, specific targets that we are committing to meet and timeline to do it, generally considered by year, and we have to put that into the plan, and then we enter an annual report. Every year we have to say whether we’re meeting the targets for that year.

Commissioner Targ: Right. And if the targets are numbers, distribution, and fair housing allocation, whatever the right word is, if that’s what it means to meet it, I’m fine with that. If what it means to meet it is, “You start a development on this project because you put it in your contract,” that seems more worrisome to me. Like you said, maybe it’s just a matter of being careful with the language. Because I’m fine to make sure we’re on the trajectory. I just want to make sure that the trajectory isn’t defined by specific projects too tightly that the projects have to get done even if we overproduced in something else.

Planning & Building Director Russell: Yeah, I think it would have to be drafted that way, and then it would be we don’t know whether that would be considered acceptable or not, to be drafted that way.

Commissioner Targ: Okay, yeah. So then my next question is, for all the sites that we have here, what if none of them get built up? We basically say, “Here they’re all available,” and eight years later, nothing gets built? What’s going to happen…? Because the thing is we, the town, are not building those things. So, I was trying to understand, if we’ve made all this stuff available and it’s not going to be the case, that somebody says, “Oh, well, this thing I said I was going to develop at 30, I’m only developing at 20.” We’ve said we’re going to develop it at 30. It’s just, no development has happened. What would happen in that case? And again, I’m know I’m taking these to the extreme. I’m just trying to clarify in my brain what kind of flexibility we have here.

Planning & Building Director Russell: Well, it certainly does happen and has happened in past Housing Elements that they create a site inventory, and nothing happens. That’s why they have strengthened the laws so much in so many different areas, both in creating the Housing Element and on the enforcement and reporting side, to make sure that these are feasible sites that are likely to be developed. That’s the information…We’re required to provide so much information now, because of that issue that’s happened in many communities DRAFT
over the years.

17 Commissioner Targ: Okay, great. And then, Cara, I guess the question, you kind of touched on it earlier, but it was sort of the range of actions that HCD can take. I guess, part of what I was curious about is, if the range is something like, “Well, we’re going to just rezone your whole town,” I mean, in some sense, if we get pushed to that anyway, then…I don’t know. In some ways, it doesn’t feel that much different than what we’re almost getting pushed to. So, I was just curious.

Is there a limit to the range of things they can do?
Town Attorney Silver: Of course, there is a limit. They would not rezone the entire town, probably.

What they would do is rezone enough properties to meet our RHNA allocation and the buffer, and they would probably look at strategically placing those properties and rezoning certain properties that the State, in its wisdom, thinks appropriately, further fair housing, are sufficiently incentivized to develop, further other State goals. So our point is that what we would prefer to do is to rezone the properties based on our own local values and General Plan policies. So that’s the rezoning piece of it. I think that there are other consequences of not complying with the law, and those are primarily financial, and they are very significant financial penalties, which really make it almost impossible to survive more than a year without taking some firm rezoning actions.

Commissioner Targ: Right, but that’s more if you’re just basically trying to sort of stiff-arm it. If you’re just saying, “No, we’re just not going to do it,” that’s where the financial penalties. If you’re making a good faith effort, presumably you’re not going to get financially penalized so much as if they just feel like you’re not even trying. Is that roughly the right way to think about it? Town Attorney Silver: We don’t have a lot of enforcement history to really judge that at this point, because these new, stiffer penalties are very new. We don’t know if they’re going to just levy them across the board on all jurisdictions who have not taken the rezoning actions in the amount of time that they had agreed to in the Housing Element. We just don’t have enough information on that.

Commissioner Targ: But it sounds like it’s mostly around rezoning, because you’ve done the rezoning that’s mostly where this sort of enforcement action would come from.

Town Attorney Silver: Yes. That’s what HCD is primarily concerned about, is taking some rezoning actions. And they are also concerned about cities and towns designating appropriate sites, whether there are…you can have a range of different housing types on the inventory, but you do have to certainly identify the appropriate number of units on your housing inventory to avoid penalties.

Commissioner Targ: Okay, great. And then, for sites [gap in audio] from this meeting, is there any chance that there’s, on the Hawthorns in particular, you know there is that one house that’s there already. Have we approached Mid-Pen about maybe Low-income income housing for their employees?
Planning & Building Director Russell: We have not had a specific conversation with them about that site. We’re scheduled to talk to the folks at Mid-Pen, Jeremy and I are on Friday, about the Housing Element already. We’ve already got that on the books. We did have previous conversations with them about the Historic House and whether the Historic House could be reused as housing, and that was not feasible for that project at the time. But as far as I know, they do have properties where they have employees living on those sites, but I think it’s like one unit here or there, more like a caretake, more than it is like multi DRAFT
ple units.

18 Commissioner Targ: Yeah, I just, I know there’s a residence there, and I was just wondering if they turned that into somehow multiple residences…I understand it’s not a big number, but I was just curious. And then on the Priory, remind me what…The Priory just doesn’t have any plans in the next eight years? Is that why they’re not on our list? I know you mentioned this to me before.

I’ve just forgotten.

Planning & Building Director Russell: Yeah, that’s correct, so they would stay in the Affiliated Housing Program, but they do not anticipate developing any housing in the next eight years.

Commissioner Targ: And have we talked to them about maybe encouraging them to do something that they hadn’t planned to do? Is that a possibility?
Planning & Building Director Russell: Yeah, I mean, we talk to them pretty regularly about these things, but they just finished six units of housing within the last year, so that was a very, very big financial commitment for them.

Commissioner Targ: Right. Got it. Okay. And then, as I understand it, if we’re out of compliance then we have 180 days to come up with new properties to come back into compliance. Is that generally the way this works?
Planning & Building Director Russell: Yeah. That’s generally the way the buffer concept in the law works.

Commissioner Targ: Okay, and then moving to this sort of gateway zone concept, could we combine the Ladera Church site, that half-acre right at the edge of town, and the Ford Field together? I mean, would it be possible to make that a single zone? I don’t know. I’m asking. I was just curious, because it seems it would be interesting if could combine those two pieces of housing that could be relatively near each other. Maybe that means that Ford Field might be less dense or something. I don’t know exactly, but I guess my curiosity is…Is it possible to have a zone that’s not contiguous? Do you just end up labeling the two things at the same zone designation? Planning & Building Director Russell: I think both of those sites could have a zoning district, like a new Gateway Zoning District. Yeah, I think that would be appropriate. And in terms of future affordable housing projects, yes, I think it may be possible to combine those two sites if the Town and the church were to work together with an affordable housing developer. That’s an option to be explored, for sure.

Commissioner Targ: Yeah, and obviously not something we directly control, but we could explore it. Okay. And then, I think my last question on the gateway is we did a 20-percent buffer, which includes 50 units that the Town is basically going to control the build on. So, it seemed a little like we’re saying 50 units is kind of the sweet spot, which is why we want to put that many units, and yet we’re saying we’re going to put a 20-percent buffer on it, because we might not build that many. It felt a little odd to me. For the things that are in private ownership, I get how you want a 20-percent because you want to make sure you don’t miss your numbers. But it seems like if the Town is donating the land, the 21-percent buffer in addition seemed a little bit extreme to me, and I was wondering if some blend of calculating all the private stuff at 21, and calculating the Town stuff at 10 or something might make more sense.

Planning & Building Director Russell: I think that that kind of approach could be reasonable. So, that would be kind of a discussion point, but I think people ha DRAFT
ve made similar points about the

19 buffer applying to different categories, so that’s interesting and good feedback for the Planning Commission to give to the Council.

Commissioner Targ: Okay, great. Thank you. This is so complicated. I keep trying to get more and more of my head wrapped around it, so I really appreciate all the time you’ve spent trying to get us through this. So that’s it for me, Anne. Thank you.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Great, thanks, Craig. Let me go to Judith.

Commissioner Hasko: Thanks everybody. Thanks, in particular to Commissioner Targ and Taylor for putting in all the work on the ideas regarding the sunrise. That’s a huge amount of effort. I know how much it is, and at this point creative ideas are very welcome. I’m going to transition to nitty gritty questions. Bear with me. In today’s packet, on red page five, it says Table 1, but on red page four it says that scenario shown in Table two. Am I missing something here, or is that just a typo? So, toward the end of red page four, it says, “That scenario is shown in Table 2. The results and projection of 114 units, and yet you go to the next page and it’s Table 1. I just want to make sure I’m looking at the right tables here.

Planning & Building Director Russell: It’s a typo.

Commissioner Hasko: Okay, so that is the right reference. And then, does the proposed site at 4370 Alpine get a bonus density?
Planning & Building Director Russell: Yes, it could be eligible for a density bonus at the State level.

Commissioner Hasko: Okay. I know that can’t count toward our numbers, but it’s good to know.

Why is it assumed in that table that SB 9 units cannot be low-income or very-low-income income? Planning & Building Director Russell: Because I don’t think it would be financially feasible to build them at the low-income in this community, so we didn’t want to make that assumption.

Commissioner Hasko: Okay. Red page six, there is language about the buffer being in the form of…Let me see where this is. “The buffer can be in the form” – about midway down the page – “of including additional sites, or projecting site capacity at less than the maximum density.” I was confused by that. Could you explain in plain English?
Planning & Building Director Russell: I’ll try to do plain English, but you know how we planners are. So, the idea here is that maybe you zoned it for 20 units per acre, but then you only projected 18 units instead of 20 in your site inventory.

Commissioner Hasko: Okay. Great. The legal authority of 21 Elements, and the method – maybe this is for Cara – I know they’re point of reference is ABAG, a County-related effort, but what is the actual legal authority?
Town Attorney Silver: In terms of the ADU allocation, or in terms of what? Commissioner Hasko: Well, it’s referenced using ADUs to satisfy RHNA, and that’s where they say the best practice is to look back three years. I get that we need a rationale that’s logical and defendable, but I kind of disagree with their view, and I’m just trying to understand. Are we basically bound by their view of the best practice on the buffer? DRAFT

20 Town Attorney Silver: Right, right. So, in terms of the three-year lookback, that’s actually a State, HCD, regulation. In terms of 21 Elements, ADU distribution policy, that is something that was developed by 21 Elements. It is not binding on the Town. The Town could come up with its own analysis. However, it does have the benefit of being pre-approved by HCD.

Commissioner Hasko: Yes, a safe harbor.

Town Attorney Silver: Which is essentially a safe harbor. Exactly.

Commissioner Hasko: Okay.

Planning & Building Director Russell: If I could add on that, 21 Elements, I think of it as a collaboration, so 21 Elements consults with one of the premiere land use and housing attorneys on behalf of all of us, and then they provide these memos which are like interpretations of State law based on what they’ve read from other regions, and the best interpretations of State law.

Commissioner Hasko: Okay. I mean, it’s regional, and we’re the town. I get the safe harbor benefit, but I think there is tension there. We are a tiny town in a very complex county. It is a helpful explanation of how to think about it. I’m curious if you could comment on the thought of adjusting the JADU sizes. Maybe we make them a bit more generous. But to Nicholas’ point, they are more economically feasible, and kind of implementing additional incentives along the lines of what the Atherton example was, where the Commissioner’s memo kind of suggested and going really hard on those, would we be able to – just your view, no binding, and I know HCD is unpredictable – is it feasible to play around with that and get to a point where we can count those for very-lowincome and low-income? Planning & Building Director Russell: I think it depends on how we go about it, and how specific we get, and how far we go to take incentives. I have worked in Atherton, so I can tell you my professional experience in Atherton. First of all, the way their code is written, they used to have a floor area bonus for ADUs, and now ADUs are exempt from their floor area requirements, up to 1,200 square feet. So, we expressly count ADUs in our floor area, because we understood that to be the policy choice of the community. So, it’s like a floor area bonus there. My experience working there is that they do a tremendous number of demolition and rebuild, much more than we do here on an annual basis. They tear down old houses and rebuild them all the time. They have a completely ministerial process for all new single-family homes. They have no equivalent of ASCC. So, even though the ADU is ministerial, you can build a new house there. You can get approval to build a new house in about three months, so they just build houses very quickly, and they have a lot of staff developers. They have a lot of property owners property owners building their houses, and they have a lot of regular architects. So, when I worked there, all the architects knew the rules, and every house had an ADU, and most of them that I observed myself were not being rented at all. They just were extra floor area for the house. Those were my observations when I worked there.

Commissioner Hasko: Okay.

Planning & Building Director Russell: So, we would have to consider, for ourselves, some really significant incentives, I think.

Commissioner Hasko: Yeah.

DRAFT

21 Planning & Building Director Russell: And we’d have to think about, perhaps, financial incentives for JADUs. We’ve talked about the fact that financial incentives to build an ADU probably don’t make sense, because they’re so expensive to build, but we have a program to incentivize lowincome income renters already in the Housing Element, so we’d have to take those things a lot farther, I think.

Commissioner Hasko: Yeah. I mean, I think in the interest of putting more ideas on the table, that’s one thing to play out. I know you’ve had a hundred ideas to follow. This is one where I think the thread kind of got lost for me. So that may be worth looking at. And I’m not trying to do window dressing. I’m really trying to say, what would make a difference? And what can the Town put behind, or effort behind, and a campaign behind? So, we can talk about that later. This may be for Commissioner Targ and Taylor. Conceptually, on the Opt-in, it seems like you would have applicants over three years, and if you had to, if the sun rose, you would then need to take…maybe you have five applicants, or eight applicants, it sounds like there would have to be like a prioritization or an evaluation of those opportunities. And we’ve constantly been hearing from the Planning Department that objective standards tend to be more favored. I don’t know if that’s the case in this particular instance, but did you get to the point, or did you not get to the point, of looking at how would that prioritization work? And could you form objective standards about where they are, what they are, that – I guess that’s a question for Laura – if we could articulate objective standards, or if we couldn’t, is that a necessary part of that Opt-in mechanic? I don’t know who wants to take the…What did you think about in terms of selecting the winning applicant if the sun rises on them?
Commissioner Taylor: Right. So, we certainly didn’t come up with the set of, I’ll call them variables, that we would measure people against. I think we could. My goal was really…The original Opt-in thing just seemed like just chaos in terms of planning, so we were trying to basically constrain it.

And also, you know, one measure would be if you put in more houses on a lot instead of a McMansion, you might have less impact. So, sort of looking at the overall impact to the neighbors and the quality of the build, and the purpose, to Anne’s point. Is it a co-op or something else? So, I think we could come up with some of those variables or scales or whatever you want to call them, and then measure the different…I think we have to, right? It couldn’t just be Planning Commission going, “Well, we like this idea, and we didn’t like these other ones.” That would be pretty hard to see how that would fly.

Commissioner Hasko: Right.

Commissioner Taylor: I think we could do it, but no, we did not get into the details of how to do it.

I think it was more we hope to find something that wasn’t just arbitrary. It wasn’t some investor or some homeowner just saying, “What the hell. I’m gonna just do what I want to do.” It was coming to the Planning Commission as a PUD, and we would look at it more holistically.

Commissioner Hasko: Mm-hmm.

Commissioner Taylor: I don’t know if you want to add to that, Nicholas.

Commissioner Targ: I think that there are two things. One is, it may be that we want to go and run a little almost RFP or beauty competition with them, regardless of where we are and see if people have really good ideas. The issue of objective standards in the context of something like a planned unit development works differently than within the context of an ordinary zoning. The ordinary zoning would still exist, but you might have, for example, and overlay that allows you to increase provided you were…the Town, in its discretion, authorized such DRAFT
a use. I think that – and I can see

22 Cara kind of making faces here – Palo Alto has a program that’s a little bit like that, and I know that Redwood City does too. This isn’t a wholly out of whole cloth approach, but I think that you would be able to have some flex. It would be a discretionary decision. You’d need to have some boundaries so it’s not an arbitrary decision, of course, but I don’t think that you would have the same kind of limitations that you would with an ordinary, set zoning. I don’t know. Do you want to weigh in on this, or do you want to say we can go and work it out using an appropriate land use tool? Which I think we could, rather than trying to hash out something specific right now.

Commissioner Hasko: And I’m not looking for that, just to be clear. I just want a direction on how to think about that. Okay. Laura, or Cara, would the Opt-in be in lieu of SB 9? In my impression, SB 9 is everywhere, and this is on top of that, right? Tell me if that’s wrong.

Planning & Building Director Russell: The way that it is drafted right now, the thought of it was to be sort of an alternative that may be more appealing, so that people would do the Opt-in instead of do SB 9, and then we could have better standards, and perhaps most importantly, have the increased setbacks.

Commissioner Hasko: But if my neighbor were to Opt-in, and you know, okay, they’re opting into a setback situation, but there’s nothing at all from having the rest of the neighborhood just do an SB 9 approach, right? It’s not precluding anything else. It’s just a carrot, right? Planning & Building Director Russell: Yes
Commissioner Hasko: Okay. The deed restriction on Ford Field, is it correct? And this might be for Commissioner Targ who might remember, that the deed restrictions ends anyway, in 2031? Commissioner Targ: Correct. It does It ends in 2031.

Commissioner Hasko: Yeah. Okay. There is some mention of amnesty ADUs in all lot of the correspondence that we’ve been receiving. How, if at all, would those work? Do we have experience with amnesty ADUs even counting toward RHNA, or would they just be nice additional housing to add to our stock?
Planning & Building Director Russell: We don’t have a definitive answer on that. This is one of the questions that we’re asking for follow-up with the HCD staff person, so we don’t know whether they would count or not, but we had reasonably assumed that if there are physical changes that have to be made – like you get a building permit and you do something, then we fell like those could count.

Commissioner Hasko: Okay. And just to be clear, Fogarty and Neely spoke with both of those on affiliated Housing, and they are not in position now, is that correct? Planning & Building Director Russell: We did not speak to either of them specifically about Affiliated Housing, to my knowledge. I did not speak to Fogarty or Neely about affiliated.

Commissioner Hasko: Is that possible?
Planning & Building Director Russell: It may be possible. They may be interested in a small number of units for their workers. We only…The people that we included that are in affiliated were those that had previously reached out to us, that wanted to be included – Ladera Church and Christ Church.

DRAFT

23 Commissioner Hasko: I would think it’s worth a phone call. I mean, we’re just really trying to press every lever that we have. It may result in nothing, but it’s a phone call. Frog Pond versus the Road Remnant. There were some comments that are saying, “You’re taking away my Frog Pond,” but I think the idea was the Road Remnant is adjacent, and I think the issue is the environmental impact on the Frog Pond. I just want to clarify; the Road Remnant is a separate piece of property.

It’s just the ripple effects of developing there are potentially going to implicate the Frog Pond. Is that correct?
Planning & Building Director Russell: Yes. The Road Remnant is a separate piece of property, and there was concern about potential impact on the Frog Pond.

Commissioner Hasko: Okay. And there was a reference in the Housing Element draft to 4370, the offices there being underutilized, but there’s no backup for it. There are no underlying facts.

How do we know? Is that okay to just say that without supporting evidence, in the Housing Element?
Planning & Building Director Russell: I think we need to probably develop it a little bit more, but we do know that there are regularly spots that are being leased. We do know – you know what I mean? – that it’s not full, and we do know that the property owners have at least some interest in development in the future. So, we’re using that term because it’s common in planning language to refer to something that is not typically leased up to be underutilized.

Commissioner Hasko: I think there’s a difference between high turnover and underutilization. My impression is people come and people go there. I live right near there. So, in the interest of being like, planning was accurate, I would want that clarified, but we can deal with that. That’s a minor issue. All right, I have a bunch of comments, but those are my questions for now, and I’ll turn it over, I guess, to John.

Commissioner Goulden: I actually do not have any questions.

Chair Kopf-Sill; Okay. Good. That was quick. Nicholas, do you have more questions? Commissioner Targ: I have no more questions.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Okay, I have a few questions. Laura, you talked about some programs for ADUs, and those would be automatically triggered. I had misunderstood that before I thought all our ADU-encouraging programs were going to get started right away. What’s the trigger? How soon will they get triggered, and what’s the criteria?
Planning & Building Director Russell: Okay, so if you’re in the Housing Element itself, we’re looking at Policy No. 7 in Programs, that are like 7-1, 7-2, et cetera. And I’m actually going to let Carla talk for a little while, so Carla could you explain this, please, and how we talked with HCD and what happened?
Ms. Violet: For specific to program 7-6 and then 7-7, I think we discussed last time, the timeframe for 7-6, which was developing the affordable ADU rental program to match low-income income tenants. That program would be developed in June of 2023, and then we would assess how well the ADU production was going every two years, beginning the following year. That was something that HCD had recommended, that we put in something that we’re regularly looking to see how things are going, and if we’re not meeting our target, they recommended we provide additional incentives. So, in that program we had put in there some additi DRAFT
onal financial incentives. Was there

24 anything else? That was 7-6. And did you want me to go over 7-7 as well? Okay, so for 7-7, that one entails preparing pre-approved preliminary floor plans for ADUs and JADUs and again, this would be assessing every two years if we’re meeting our RHNA targets. We would establish the floor plans by December 2023 and start assessing every two years. The additional incentive that we had put in here was the expedited plan checking to help kind of better streamline the process and make it faster.

Chair Kopf-Sill: And when we say we’re going to see our ADU production, that sounds kind of qualitative, like we’re saying, or in the draft right now that we’re going to have 11 ADUs a year, so if we get to year four and we’re supposed to have 44, but we only have 42, does that trigger these things? Well, 42 is kind of close to 44. Okay. How much of a guillotine is it? Planning & Building Director Russell: I think we’d probably see how the production is going in the other areas, right? If we’re meeting everything overall, then we probably would not be super strict, but if we’re really falling behind then we would probably put it into effect right away, once we have [audible].

Chair Kopf-Sill: Yeah, okay. All right. Thanks. And Cara, have you looked at this Ford Field, the baseball thing, if we use that for housing, can we really just penalties? Are there breach clauses that are straightforward, or in your view would it be more of a mess than that? Town Attorney Silver: There are two different ways of looking at it. One is it’s possible that the State would just require a reimbursement of the grant money, and preferably we would negotiate a pro-rated reimbursement. Maybe we get Nicholas to be on the negotiating team there. Because we have, obviously, utilized the baseball field for a number of years. So, that would be one approach. The other approach would be to try to…And again, this is a big community outreach process before we take away a baseball field. Of course, we would want to hear from the stakeholders there. And there are both youth and adults who use that field. So, if after that outreach, we decide to perhaps relocate the field, either on the site, the Ford Field site itself, or elsewhere in the town, if we were to do that, I think we could negotiate something with the State to continue to use the funds for that purpose and hopefully not incur any penalties or have to repay the grant funds.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Okay, great. Then I think this is for Nicholas and Craig. On this sunrise proposal, I understand that you’re proposing that we increase the ADU number by a lot, and then if we don’t hit that, we fall back, or trigger Ford Field or Ford area. In order to hit the low-income target, which is the hard number, are you proposing 21 additional ADUs there, so we add that to the 11, and then the plan is that what you try to get to HCD is that we’d have 32 ADUs every year for eight years?
Commissioner Targ: Craig, shall I answer for myself?
Commissioner Taylor: Yeah, go ahead.

Commissioner Targ: No. That’s not what we are proposing.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Okay, tell me what you’re proposing.

Commissioner Targ: That is not what we’re proposing. The number of ADUs, very likely could go up if we had a significantly more robust program. I’m not in a DRAFT
position to create any significantly

25 more robust program, nor to say how many more units should be increased. There are other people who have need to think about that sort of thing.

Chair Kopf-Sill: The difficulty is that if we are trying to not use the Ford Field, that’s 50 units in the low-income category since the formula we’re allowed to use is 30 percent, that in order to make up 50 low-income ADUs, you would have to have 166.

Commissioner Targ: I’m not convinced that we’re not going to do something on Ford Field, but I don’t know –
Chair Kopf-Sill: I thought your proposal was to – I guess it’s good we’re clarifying – I thought your proposal was to increase the ADU by so much that then Ford Field wasn’t necessary, and then you’d only do Ford Field, or put it back on the list, in three years, if we weren’t meeting this ambitious ADU thing. Tell me what the program is, if it’s not that.

Commissioner Targ: I’m glad you ask. No, in three years, we ought to be able to know whether or what the scale is that we’re going to be doing. It may be that the numbers are sufficiently high that we wouldn’t need to develop there. That would be a little surprising for me. On the other hand, a smaller project in that location, particularly if it were coupled with a project over at Ladera Church, would be plausible as well. I’d be surprised if…again, I’m not the person to say what our numbers are going to be, but what I am saying is there’s no reason to think that our numbers couldn’t be a whole lot better than what was being proposed, and that it would create additional flexibility in what we’re going to build at Ford Field or a number of other locations around the community. But in the takes that say that it’s going to be off the table completely would be surprising to me.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Okay.

Commissioner Taylor: And I would just say, taking Ford off the table is kind of at the limit. I mean, it might be possible if people really stepped up. What are the chances of that? That, I think, is the tough thing. I mean, a JADU with an income of $91,000 a year doesn’t strike me as an unreasonable thing if the town really decided they wanted to go there. The problem I have is, unless we get some sort of realistic housing economist who could basically make some predictions on who’s willing to actually rent their places…because that’s the other part of this, right? Are people willing to do that? I think that’s the thing we just don’t know. But what I’d like to do is try to see us put a program in place, because if nothing else maybe it means Glen Oaks doesn’t get developed at all. Like, those numbers go away, because we’ve captured some of that stuff. So, I think that was idea - let’s have a really robust program and look at it for a couple of years and see what we’re getting out of it, and I think that would inform us for what the next steps would be.

Chair Kopf-Sill: And Laura, it was so helpful to have your knowledge about Atherton. Atherton does seem like not a reasonable comparison, just on its geography, but then the fact that they just allow ADUs to be bonuses over their floor area is very interesting. I’ll be interested too, Craig and Nicholas, I suppose you don’t know this. Do other towns allow ADUs at the four-foot setbacks in all cases? Unlike us, where we’ve, for fire safety, we’ve put some pretty severe conditions on that.

Commissioner Taylor: But we do allow them.

DRAFT

26 Commissioner Targ: We might take a look, but it’s one of the, if you know the answer, but otherwise the…Woodside’s ordinances are right online. I’m sure that Cara could take a quick look at it right now and tell us what the answer is. Could you, Cara? Chair Kopf-Sill: You could, too, Nicholas.

Planning & Building Director Russell: I can tell you that Atherton’s ordinance has two different sizes, kind of similar to ours, so if you’re on the four-foot setback you get 800 square feet, and if you’re not, if you comply with the base setback, you get 1,200 square feet.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Oh, okay.

Planning & Building Director Russell: So similar to ours. And then, Hillsborough had a lot of problems with theirs. They put an ordinance into effect immediately when the code went into effect, and then there was a lot of backlash. I think that they repealed that and then put something else in place, but it was as big, big issue for them. But I don’t know the specifics.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Okay, yeah.

Commissioner Targ: But it is interesting to see that Atherton’s ordinance was more similar to ours than it might have appeared at first blush.

Planning & Building Director Russell: We actually work very closely with them. We have staff in common through our consultant planners. Their Town Planner is a colleague and my former boss.

Chair Kopf-Sill: My last one is for Nicholas and Craig. You all didn’t talk much about this when you gave your update, but this one sentence really surprised me in your write-up, so I just wanted to see what you were thinking here. You have a sentence here that says, “The Town should undertake significant efforts to identify one or more substitute sites.” This is in reference to the Ford Field, “for upzoning, to lessen impacts to the environment and the General Plan.” I feel like the Town made a Housing Committee a year ago, and put 15 people on it, including two from the Planning Commission, including Nicholas Targ. And we studied everything. We brainstormed. We brainstormed. We looked at all the sites. What are you imagining that the Town would do now that would be different than what Nicholas, you and others, did the past year? Commissioner Targ: Where there are other parcels in town that haven’t been explored as vigorously as it could be…This isn’t the appropriate forum to talk about it, but – Chair Kopf-Sill: You didn’t bring it up. We had like a meeting every month, sometimes twice a month, sometimes for six hours. Why didn’t those sites come up then, is what I’m wondering. I feel like it’s wishful thinking to think there’s some secret sites that you didn’t bring up before and you’re going to bring up later, or people are going to imagine. I feel like we did a really thorough job. I mean, just so thorough. The idea that there’s going to be other sites that emerge in the timeframe we need them to emerge doesn’t seem reasonable to me.

Commissioner Targ: I appreciate your opinion. If you only found one sentence in our eight-page handbook that you found objectionable I think we’ve probably done pretty well. I appreciate also the value that you’ve placed in the analysis that we did. I’d point out that there have been – as you are aware and as we’ve talked about in this meeting already – additional properties that are coming online right now that haven’t been fully explored. And those properties could be explored, and there are other properties that were discussed. There are additional potentials for DRAFT

27 participation in our affiliate group. I think that, as you probably are also aware, that there have been some changes in the tenure of certain of the larger properties in town. And I think that it is probably worth exploring a changing Portola Valley real estate market to see what may be available. But again, it may be that there is nothing further available, and we’ve really scraped the barnacles. I don’t think that that is the case, because we do live in a dynamic community. Things do change, and people do too. So, yeah. I think that it is worth evaluating what other options maybe available. But I appreciate it.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Yes, okay, thanks. And I appreciate to hear your thinking on that.

Commissioner Taylor: The other thing I would add is I don’t think we’ve fully harnessed the community. Because we have a community that’s been quite generous, and maybe there’s some other options there. Maybe somebody is willing to donate something. Maybe people are willing to donate to a fund to buy the acres that we need. I mean, I don’t know right now. That’s part of why I’d like to make sure that we get something certified by HCD, because we have a deadline but that we give the community an opportunity to step up. And if they step up, then I want to make sure that we have some options beside exactly what got certified, that we’re not just locked into them. And if we don’t, then great. You guys, the Ad Hoc Committee, did the best they could, and that’s what we got, but we’re just now getting to the point where the community can say, “Okay, we get what’s here. Here’s what we can do about it,” so that’s the other piece I’d add to it.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Actually, let me ask that to Laura, and maybe Cara. If we, let’s say the Town submits the plan, the draft, right now, and it gets approved, and then in a year a wealthy donor brings up a lot – I can’t quite picture where this is – but says their house, they want to tear it down anyhow. They want to donate their lot for whatever the Town wants to use, and we look at that and go, “That would be great for some more housing. Let’s do that.” And we like that site better than some of our others that haven’t gotten started, just nobody has gotten going. Is there any problem with us…? I guess we’d have to have a bunch of public meetings and make a new decision, but we can revise our Housing Element, right? And put in this new magic lot, and take away some other lot that was less favorable? Is that right? Planning & Building Director Russell: We can revise our Housing Element, but to your example, we wouldn’t necessarily have to, because there can be housing sites that are not on our Housing Sites Inventory, and they would still count towards our RHNA if the building permits were issued, as long as they’re not new housing units.

Chair Kopf-Sill: I see, and what we cannot do, though, is what I was sort of going down the path.

If there’s some other site that we sort of wished we didn’t have to develop, we can’t yank away the zoning approval that we gave at the end of 2022, so it doesn’t really – Planning & Building Director Russell: Right. In general, we can’t take it away. We can add more.

We can do a General Plan amendment and Zoning Code amendment at any time in the community to allow a higher intensity of development. You can do that action outside of a Housing Element update cycle.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Yeah, okay. And then, my last question is for you, Laura. On the SB 9, adding the six units that you had, those are six housing units, so potentially that’s just two lots, right? The way the SB 9 works with splitting ADUs. Is that right?
Planning & Building Director Russell: Yeah. It could just be two projects, depending on what someone wanted to build, maybe two or three projects. It’s a sm DRAFT
all number.

28 Chair Kopf-Sill: And do you have any insight based on I guess Southern California, whether HCD is going to allow this number, and can we push that much higher? Because it seems like for free in the Housing Certification because people have the right to do this anyhow. We don’t have to change any zoning. They can do it, right? If we’re too ambitious that may be trouble in actually producing the housing, but that’s problem number two in my view, compared to problem number one.

Planning & Building Director Russell: Yeah, so two different problems. I agree with you. HCD basically said this is going to be hard to count SB 9 units. You would need some data to back it up. So, you might recall in the Housing Element Committee I said several times, “We cannot count these units very much.” You know what I mean? It’s kind of a risky proposal. That’s why we thought, staff thought, that such a small number could be feasible, because over eight years, certainly there will be a couple of projects. The cities or towns that are putting in larger numbers already have SB 9 projects that are in active application, and they’re using that as the kind of evidence that there’s going to be more.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Okay, thanks. Okay, is that all of the questions from the Commissioners for now? This is the point in the meeting where we go to public comments. I might suggest, though, a fiveminute bio-break. What do people think? I see some hands. Okay. So, it’s 9:16. We’ll be back at 9:21. If you want to make a comment, we’re going to use the three-minute limit. Is that good with my fellow Commissioners? I will be strict, though, so please put your most important comments at the beginning so if you get cut off at the three minutes, you’ve said the most important things.

So go ahead and raise your hand if you want to speak. We’ll call on people when we get back in five minutes.
[five-minute break]
Chair Kopf-Sill: We’ll go ahead and start. It’s 9:22. I see lots and lots of hands up, which is great.

We will just call on people in order. Everybody’s got three minutes, or it’s fine to take less time to speak. First, Dale Pfau.

Planning & Building Director Russell: Through the Chair, if I could, if it’s okay with the Commission, we’ll use our normal process where we keep track of the questions, and we do our best to answer them at the end of all the public comments.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Yes, I like that format. Good. Thank you for clarifying that. Go ahead, Dale, if you can unmute.

Planning & Building Director Russell: Just a second. We’re getting there.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Okay.

Planning & Building Director Russell: Dylan, do you have it? I’m just not sure if we’ve got the timer running. Just a second, please.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Okay. Does Dale need to unmute?
Dale Pfau: Can you hear me?
Chair Kopf-Sill: We can. That’s great.

DRAFT

29 Mr. Pfau: Okay, thank you very much for letting me speak. First of all, I’d like to thank Commissioner Targ and Commissioner Taylor for a very well thought out memo, and in particular bringing the importance of the General Plan to the fore. I really wish everyone had read the General Plan and would appreciate it. I have three specific comments. Number one regarding the Dorothy Ford Park. It’s pretty clear to me that this was intended to be open space. It’s mentioned in the General Plan as open space. I don’t think there’s any disagreement about what open space means. Open space is open space. It’s not meant to be turned into housing or anything else. If there was a mistake it was done by the Town in not putting a deed restriction on the property when the Town actually bought it with donated funds. So, I am very against using Dorothy Ford Park for anything other than open space.

Number two, on the Opt-in, I think Craig said it best last meeting. I think this is a terrible idea. I think there are other people who have really specific comments, but mine goes more to precedent.

I’m not real fond of things that you suddenly turn on and want to turn off. That leads to all sorts of moral dilemmas in the future, and I think that this is just a bad, bad idea.

My third item – and I feel like you’ve been spitting into the wind for over a year, and I do appreciate Commissioner Targ for mentioning it. I think you are working a little bit blind without having the [gap in recording] and the new fire maps and trying to make decisions as you go forward. I think this is critically important, and I think that we should really take our time and think about this. I object to what I consider to be an artificial timeframe to get this to HCD and get their approval. I think we could push those limits to give us more time to really get some good community input and probably take up more ideas that Commissioner Targ and Commissioner Taylor came up with. So, thank you very much for listening to me.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Thanks, Dale. Next up is David Cardinal.

Mr. Cardinal: Can you hear me okay? Perfect. Thanks. Yeah, I’m a little disappointed tonight. I’ve heard a lot, I think, of magical thinking and denialism after a year of really hard work by the Housing Committee. The idea that the HCD will give us three years to basically do nothing, putter around, and then start a five-year development, Ford Field, that will end year eight and suddenly meet all of our very-low-income housing is fantasy. That’s not going to happen in Sacramento, or whatever. It would be nice, but it’s not going to happen. So, I think we need to, if we wanted three months, they might give us that if we have a plan.

Second, I think we had a year of hard work by 15 people, the Town staff, and tonight we were treated to an overthrow of that by one or two Commissioners who started over and gave their long-winded opinion of what we might do, and I don’t get that, frankly. I do appreciate Craig’s perspective about promoting ADUs. I think that’s great. If we as a town can create enough verylow-income housing through ADUs it will be really easy to stop other development. We are really, really, really, really good at stopping development. We’ve proven that. That’s the least of our worries. Our problem is actually doing anything, and so I think we have to fire it up, and no one is going to believe that we’re going to make development happen, because we have never made development happen. As far as Town building, for example, we failed at building at Blue Oaks, at Al’s Nursery, at the Town Center, so why would anyone believe that we have the wherewithal to actually put pen to paper and make development happen?
So, we’ve heard from everybody involved that we need to approve a plan that includes fairly highdensity housing which could be at Nathhorst Triangle or Dorothy Ford Park. I think we have to decide. I personally think a commercial district, or multi-use district, around Nathhorst Triangle would be really cool. It could be great, with a roundabout. We’ DRAFT
re supposed to be a progressive,

30 climate-friendly town, and we have 1,000 people who work here every day, but I didn’t hear tonight at any point anybody saying, “What do we do to actually serve the people who work here? How do we address our responsibility as a town and not make them commute three hours in gas guzzlers?” So, I’d love to see us take a positive step and go forward, instead of just what’s the most weasly course we could take to not do what the State wants? So, that’s unusually long for me, but thank you very much.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Thanks, Dave. Next is George Savage.

Mr. Savage: Yes, hi. Can you hear me?
Chair Kopf-Sill: Yes.

Mr. Savage: Wonderful. Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening. I want to thank the subcommittee. I really want to praise Commissioner Targ and Taylor for taking a creative look at the issue with our General Plan first and foremost in mind. I think it’s a marked improvement over the existing proposals. A very thoughtful proposal. I particularly like the sunrise provision that allows us to see how things work out, and also how the political environment changes, as well as housing production works when people understand the incentives for creating ADUs and the needs of the Town, which is something that really hasn’t been on anyone’s radar, not during the pandemic, for sure. When one is looking at historic ADU creation, and the pandemic as part of the baseline, that makes it challenging.

When it comes to Ford Field, I think that should remain open space. I’m a little mystified why Town Center didn’t come up at the last meeting. Laura acknowledged that the soccer field at Town Center at the back was never considered for the high-density housing, and I think that this is a viable spot. It’s out of the [inaudible] corridor. It would preserve Dorothy Ford Field, and I think it’s something we should consider.

Coming to the Opt-in proposal, again, I like the reframing of that. I think if we went with a hard cap and a sunrise on that, we really need a new term for it. What’s being described amounts to the Town Council and the Planning Commission assessing up to four additional sites if they need to, and not the distorted incentives that have us all concerned about essentially the person who buys a property deciding on their zoning as part of their purchase decision. We’ve already talked about the adverse incentives of that whole thing.

And then finally, I would just put in another plea along the lines that Dale just mentioned for consideration of evacuation and safety as we add new higher density developments, that should be a consideration if somebody is rezoning a particular property is how the additional cars are going to get out. With that, I just want to thank everyone for all the hard work.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Okay, thanks, George. Next is William Russell.

Mr. Russell: Can you hear me?
Chair Kopf-Sill: Yes.

Mr. Russell: Thank you. Two questions for Cara and one comment. The first question is this. If 253 units are specifically proposed to the State and the State approves all of them, am I correct that the State cannot refuse certification because no buffer is provided? That’s the first question.

We do know that if we fall out of compliance that we do have six months to come back into DRAFT

31 compliance, which is reasonable. And if Laura is only half correct that the State is going to consider this as a contract, the very last thing we want to do is to put in proposals for development that we are going to resist and reject for very good reasons down the road. It seems to me that there is really, on a first pass, no reason to have any buffer, or if there is going to be a buffer it should only apply to those properties for which there has been no building permit issued, and there is something akin to a realistic possibility that they may not be developed.

My next question for Cara is this. If an upzoning plan is now adopted, does this mean that the owner of every parcel in town that is equal to or greater than one acre will now be entitled to build as many as four units per acre, and the Town will have no ability to limit the number of developable properties to 12 in number, or any other number? I do understand that the Town will have the ability to limit what the development properties will actually look like, but is there any ability to limit the number of developable properties in order to avoid what we’ve all referred to previously as the “race to the bottom?” Those are my comments.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Thank you. Next is Gary Morgenthaler.

Mr. Morgenthaler: I want to thank the Planning Commission for a very thoughtful discussion and Commissioners Targ and Taylor for creative thinking and problem solving that respects Portola Valley’s traditions, and the multiple elements of its General Plan, not simply the Housing Element.

AHEC proposes a patchwork approach to meeting our California State and RHNA housing mandates. The entrepreneurial founders of Portola Valley – Bill Lane, Herb Dengler and others – would have favored a market-based approach to meeting our RHNA requirements that relies on individual choice, individual initiative to motivate action by reducing government regulations and by increasing economic incentives. Portola Valley, as was mentioned by one of the commenters, significantly constrains the production of ADUs and JADUs through time-consuming, laborious and expensive regulations and a permitting process that is manifold, including civil engineering, structural engineering, size, height, [inaudible] limitations, architectural limitations, setbacks, and many other limitations. Our permitting process needs to be reimagined to make it faster, easier, less restrictive and less expensive if we want to meet ADU and JADU housing goals.

HCD tasked our Town staff to look deeper into economic incentives for ADUs and JADUs. Portola Valley has a $4.6 million low-income housing fund that can and should be used for incentivizing JADUs. If indeed, as Commissioner Targ says, a JADU can be established for as little $50,000, our low-income housing fund could directly support the creation of 90 JADUs. JADUs meet multiple goals. They are distributed across Portola Valley. They do not disadvantage any specific neighborhood. Their land cost and construction investment cost is already made. They are cheap and Low-income cost to produce. They meet the needs of Low-income and Very-low-income income housing applicants, and they can be produced quickly to meet RHNA goals. One final point. Instead of distributing low-income housing across Portola Valley, placing 50 very-lowincome units on Ford Field concentrates them all in one location. This forever eliminates Ford Field as open space, and it turns Ford Field into a 1970s style low-income, high density, BedfordStuyvesant style government housing project and a new age ghetto. This is not the vision of Portola Valley’s founders, and it is against everything we stand for as a community.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Thanks, Gary. Next is David Murdoch.

Mr. Murdoch: Hello, can you hear me?
Chair Kopf-Sill: We can, but it’s sort of soft. Can you talk louder, closer to the mic? DRAFT

32 Mr. Murdoch: Sorry. Okay, so my name is David Murdoch. I’m hear with Chair Kopf-Sill: For a minute there we could hear you clearly, but then the audio quality went down.

Mr. Murdoch: Sorry.

Chair Kopf-Sill: I think that’s better. Say a few more words.

Mr. Murdoch: Can you hear me now?
Chair Kopf-Sill: Yeah, that’s a lot better. Thank you.

Mr. Murdoch: Okay, we’ll try this. Okay. So, in 1998, I secured the lease of what was then called Brandywine Farm. This was a property predominantly housing polo ponies and conservatively can be said to be in a state of disrepair. I put together a team of people who had a vision to build a barn and facility that would be an asset to the town and a happy home for horses and horse enthusiasts alike. We set about putting together an application for a Conditional Use Permit under the guidance of local architect, Mr. Ken Thornburg [phonetic]. To make a long story short, in many meetings with the Town planning department and onsite visits, it was made very clear that the use of the property was to remain recreational and that there were several constraints that needed to be adhered to. The major requirement was the protection of the creek and the steel head trout.

The second requirement was the Alpine Road would remain a scenic corridor, and there needed to be a setback of 125 feet from the road. We created a set of plans and eventually received our Conditional Use Permit. It was then that we were advised that the setback from the creek had to be 150 feet, and that our plan did not comply. We then created a new design, much better than the first, and eventually got a Conditional Use Permit and started construction.

I mentioned all the process to remind the town of the importance of the environment, the importance of the rural appearance and the importance of the recreational use that were so important 20-plus years ago, and I would hope that it still was today. We are very proud of the facility we created, and even more proud of the joy so many members of the community have enjoyed at Glen Oaks. To give you some idea, Glen Oaks, through our Isola stables and our Isola riding academy, teaches approximately 10,000 lessons a year, and provides more than 300 camp holidays to children, runs a very active pony club and participates in IEA, the Interscholastic Equestrian Association. All of these activities provide children and families who cannot afford their own horse with an introduction to the care and welfare of animals, and a chance to compete at a very affordable level. These activities employ many people who depend on their work here for their livelihood. There is no doubt that horses provide a well-documented mental and physical benefit to all the age groups, especially for young children and teenagers, especially now during these difficult COVID times. Please take time to read some of the letters from the kids and their families who ride at Glen Oaks, and you will have no doubt as to the total joy they receive from being part of our family.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Great, thanks, David. Next, we have Judith Murphy.

Ms. Murphy: Hi. Thank you. Thanks, Commissioners for wrestling with this difficult assignment. A couple of things. One, you need the wisdom of Solomon to solve the puzzle the State has given us, while respecting the culture and the history of the town. Luckily, you have a roadmap that has always guided decisions in this town, a carefully crafted General Plan. Some of the solutions proposed have nicely been called “not in compliance with the General Plan.” I would call a spade DRAFT

33 a spade and say they are in violation of the General Plan. People talked blithely about amending the General Plan to match whatever the Housing Element turns out to final be, but the elements of the General Plan are not simply rules to be changed at a whim. This is the constitution of the Town, and it should be respected as such.

Number two, many people prefer SB 9 to Opt-in upzoning because they believe it provide additional protection. Especially what I’ve heard is people worried about restrictions on owner occupancy for three years, and no one doing this on adjacent lots, which they think protects the neighborhoods better, and I agree, but if the Planning Director could give us reassurance that those same restrictions might be able to be written into our new local upzoning rules, then that would eliminate those concerns and would give a clear advantage over SB 9 choices because then we could apply our usual setbacks, design guidelines, processes through ASCC and Planning, et cetera. We lose those in the mandated ministerial process for SB 9 development. My preference would be to do it as a finite number of PUDs, as was brought up tonight.

Number three, the Committee of Committees reported to the Ad Hoc Housing Element Committee from our May meeting, and included this strong consensus by all seven committees, not just Conservation and Open Space, quoting, “Our parks and open spaces should be fiercely protected from development.” State laws now prohibit creating parks to avoid building housing, so it might be nearly impossible to create new parks in the future. It is cavalier to say use one now and make another one later. There was much resistance to building on any of our public parklands, while some thought it was probably inevitable. Demands on fields and courts have been increasing despite a stable population. They will be under increased strain with more use from a larger population we will soon see. The Town should not be merely protecting the parks and open spaces, but proactively looking for ways to increase them if possible. If this sunrise approach holds out the possibility of avoiding building on open spaces, I am all for it. I think you don’t need to do it as a complex, written into RHNA sunrise. Put in the RHNA that you’ve gotten developed, and then simply do it. We own that land. We can drag our feet on Ford Field and push like crazy to get ADUs, especially if the Town will start pushing ADUs now, simplifying the process now, giving enhancements now for ADUs. I think we might be able to do it. So, my goal would be to publicize it as, “Save Ford Field. Build an ADU.” Thank you.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Thanks, Judith. Next, we have Peter Lipman.

Mr. Lipman: Okay, do you hear me?
Chair Kopf-Sill: Yes.

Mr. Lipman: Hey, thank you guys very much for dealing with such a difficult topic. I particularly appreciate the comments by the subcommittee on the situation with Ford Field, I think the three main points they make on page 22 in the red print are just completely on target. These have been alluded to by others, but I would just second that the first point is the lack of consistency with the Town’s General Plan, as Judith just said. I would, my term would be, it would turn the Town plan on its head. If you look at the Open Space Preserve components of the General Plan, there is just no way to rewrite that plan. You abandon it. Another main point is the terms under which the property was conveyed. It was so clearly conveyed by the early residents of the town to be open space. It’s been a formal open space preserve of the Town for 50 years. The Town is built on mutual understanding and trust. If you develop this open space preserve, you really violate the spirit of the town.

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34 The third issue is a more technical one, and that is whether the property, in fact, could be developed along the lines that the schematic plan suggests, which is 50 units on two-and-a-half acres. But the fact of the matter is that two-and-a-half acres is the entire parcel, including the buffers for the scenic highway and for the stream, so there’s really about 1.6 or 1.5 acres that’s developable. That’s 31 units per acre of developable land. If you rezone Dorothy Ford Park, which is a single entity, for 20 units per acre, that would actually permit putting 144 units on that developable piece of land. Be careful of what kind of pandora’s box you open.

My final point is the Inclusionary Housing Fund is something like $4.8 million. Why can’t it be used to acquire a suitable parcel of land, hopefully close to the Town Center, rather than out on the periphery and the gateway. What more appropriate purpose for an Inclusionary Fund than to help subsidize low-income housing? Thank you very much, and I look forward to your comments to the Council.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Great. Thanks, Peter. Next, Gary Nielsen.

Mr. Nielsen: Now I think you can hear me. Yes. Okay, thank you very much in advance for listening to my comments. I just want to give you my view on the Ford Field issue, the use of it as a housing project. What I’ll do is I’ll read you my comments that I have already sent to the Town website.

This is what I wrote: The draft Housing Element refers to what we call Ford Field as Town-owned vacant land. It is not. It is the Dorothy Ford Park Open Space, and it was gifted in part to the Town by Tom Ford for a recreational field and permanent open space. This open space has been known – I think others have said the same thing before me – it’s been known as and is used as the Dorothy Ford Park Open Space for 50 years now. No matter what the legal protection, or lack thereof, to convert this space to housing would be, in my view, a brazen abrogation of a promise made 50 years ago. Open space protection from housing should apply to all of our open spaces acquired by direct gifts of open space, lands deeded to the Town, open spaces acquired by the Town through cash gifts and residents and funds from the Utility Users Tax, which was approved by voters. None of our open spaces are available for housing, nor should they be. Let me just say in the interest of full disclosure that I’ve been a member of the Open Space Committee for 22 years, since I retired from my years on the Town Council. So, the comments I just made are mine only, and they are not on behalf of the Open Space Committee or any of its members. However, the Committee will meet on July 7th, and you can hear what their comments are then. I’m glad to hear that the Town is going to meet with Susan Ford Dorsey. I hope that that conversation turns out fruitful and well. Great work, folks. I think you’re doing a great job. Thank you.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Thanks, Gary. Next, we have Bob Schulz.

Mr. Schulz: Hello, can you hear me?
Chair Kopf-Sill: Yes, that’s good.

Mr. Schulz: Great. Thank you, Commissioners. I would like to ask that the same concern and consideration in looking for alternatives to the Ford Field site be also shown to the Nathhorst Triangle. On Town-owned land such as Ford Field, the Town can precisely control the scope of development and number of units since it owns the property directly, but on private land such as the proposed 20 units per acre at 4395 Alpine, the Town could lose local control to density bonus laws, and it would be possible to see 43 units developed there, yet only get RHNA credit for 23.

Additionally, the town is required to give concessions to developers, such as further reduction to the amount of parking. This development combined with the adjacent non-fire hardened, highdensity Willow Commons project currently being constructed and DRAFT
the proposed nine-plus units at

35 4370 Alpine and the proposed opening of Hawthorns Open Space right across the street from all three of these properties could create a perfect storm of traffic, parking, fire safety, and evacuation issues. Envision the pedestrian and traffic safety concerns and the overflow parking of Portola Road near Windy Hill. Or Arastradero near the Alpine Inn. Now combine that with these 65-plus new units and hundreds of cars from visitors and new residents. Now add in the Alpine Portola traffic congestion seen every school day during drop-off and pickup at one of the town’s most busy intersections. Adding something like a fire that we’ve seen last week in Redwood City and the Edgewood fire, this would be disastrous. I ask, please do not allow 20 units per acre upzoning at Nathhorst. Please do not pack it all in the Triangle, and please don’t pit neighborhood against neighborhood. Instead, look for ADUs, JADUs, affiliated sites, and other Town-owned sites, such as Town Center. Thank you.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Great, thanks, Bob. Next, we have Tom Lantzsch.

Mr. Lantzsch: Hi, good evening, and again, I’d like to thank the Commissioners for their work. Just a couple points. One, I’d like to emphasize the point that was brought up by Commission Taylor with regard to the probability of execution of these options. I think that has an impact on timing, certainty, things like the buffer, all of these as part of the submission. I think that’s just prudent.

Things that are in your control you can do something about and execute for such things that are less controllable. So, I think that’s first.

The second point that he also made, and it was emphasized by one of my other colleagues from the community, is community involvement. I don’t think people appreciate, maybe, and not enough people appreciate the magnitude of the problem we face in having these rulings coming down from Sacramento and impacting our community, and we’re fortunate in many ways that this community has a lot of means, as we all know. I think many people could take advantage of that, if it was building ADUs or other things, if they knew it was going to save other things, so I think that was a big involvement.

My question really is around this Opt-in policy and the precedents that that Opt-in policy sets.

Certainly, there are some areas of this town that have rather large acreage. So once that precedent is set of what is defined as Opt-in, those larger acreage spots are going to be much more interesting for developers to come in and build multiple units. We’re not talking about four units. Those are going to very…We all know the price of land in this town. It’s going to be very difficult in many cases to make that economically interesting for a developer on three or four units on the price of these lots. But some of these lots are quite large in some of these communities – five acres, ten acres in some cases – that could be significant. So, the definition of that Opt-in policy was not really embodied in the documents that I read that was robust enough for us to have an opinion on that, versus this SB 9. Although it was viewed as a better alternative, it wasn’t clear why it is better, certainly in the documentation that I read. One of the previous, again, colleagues from the neighborhood mentioned SB 9 has some, in practice, benefits as far as its control, given the fact that it is not extensive across multiple lots, that the owner has to live on it, et cetera, et cetera, so it slows down this developmental interest. So, fleshing that out in greater detail, I think, is incredibly important.

Last but not least, I’d like to understand, as part of this plan with the numbers that we have, are those SB 9 lots, or the Opt-in lots, going to be identified at the time of this plan submission, or is it TBD in the future and left quite open-ended? Thank you.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Great, thank you. Next, Nan Shostak [Robert Sh DRAFT
ostak].

36 Mr. Shostak: Can you hear me?
Chair Kopf-Sill: Yes, we can.

Mr. Shostak: Okay, well obviously this isn’t Nan, but it’s rather somebody that’s related to her by marriage, and also, we have two horses that we’re saddled with here, and I have to warn you that both are naysayers. So, let me start by noting that most of my remarks have already been taken care of by questions from other people. But just to emphasize the concerns, I’d like to just make a few points and ask a couple of questions. I’d also like to know whether the Opt-in that is being proposed will have both the owner occupancy and the non-adjacency constraints. I would highly suggest that these be put in if they are not already considered. Another question…Oh, Nick, about this 50K. I think that’s probably for the building permit.

Okay, so I want to talk a little bit also about the Dorothy Ford Park. According to the draft Housing Element document that was circulated, it said that Susan Ford Dorsey has already stated that the property should be retained as open space in perpetuity, and it seems to me that there is a moral issue here if we violate this condition of the ground, even if we have the legal status to do so. It just seems like a dirty trick to me, and I haven’t heard enough discussion about it. Let’s see. And another thing is the issue of the General Plan. I agree that the implementing the current proposal would really have to require re-writing the General Plan very substantially. But there are some elements of that plan having to do with safety, both fire safety and earthquake safety, that we must retain and give a lot of consideration to. We should listen to our Don Bullard, for example, and we should take into account earthquake readiness issues as well. We can’t simply ignore this, because, one, such event could wipe out the entire town and make it impossible with the 15- percent increase in population to evacuate on time, especially if families are spread between school and home and so on. So, I think I’ve shot my wad here. Thank you so much for listening.

This is Robert Shostak, by the way.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Thank you. Next, we have Trish Heald. Hi Trish, are you there to unmute? Ms. Heald: Yes. Here I am. I’d like to thank the Commissioners for their work. Right now, I think there’s a Housing Element plan on the table that is in good faith to the State. It’s been designed by staff and the Ad Hoc Planning Committee with that goal in mind. It would most likely, in current form, be approved by the HCD on the first round. Fair enough. But shouldn’t the housing plan be first, and primarily, in good faith to the family of Portola Valley? Shouldn’t it serve the residents to every extent possible before serving an unelected regulatory board? I think it should, and I don’t think it does yet. But that’s okay, because let’s remember that the Ad Hoc Committee produced a draft. As a writer, I know that’s the hardest part. But drafts go through revisions. Revisions change the draft. Sometimes in fundamental ways, and that’s a sign that the process is working.

The plan is getting better.

To that end, I have four questions. Number one, what are the consequences of waiting until December 1st or later to submit the Housing Element plan, and in delaying the Town Council vote of the plan? Number two, what are the barriers to a clear incentive and communication campaign about ADUs and JADUs, as well as a survey to assess residents’ intent to provide these units over the next eight years? Number three, why aren’t we splitting out JADUs from ADUs in our language and on the plan, on the basis that they are different things and can fit in different income categories? And number four, what are the consequences of submitting a plan to HCD that doesn’t get approved on the first round? Because the way I see it, if you – staff, Commissioners – have more time, and you use that time to inform more people and collect more data and consider in-depth some of the excellent new ideas on the table tonight, DRAFT
and you go in first with a plan that

37 represents the best case scenario for our town, then even if you end up back at this draft, then at least you can look us in the eye and say, “In good faith, we gave it our best.” Thank you.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Okay, thanks, Trish. Next is Bob Adams.

Mr. Adams: Yes, thank you guys. You have a tough job, and I really respect that you have a tough job, trying to find 253 units, or 300 units, in town. We’ve had what? Twenty or thirty or forty units a year, and all of a sudden, we have to go out and do 253. It’s a tough task, and I really envy you for being willing to stand in there and make a decision. Two or three things. One is, I believe JADUs are a rich source of new units, and to me one of the biggest problems we have in all of the discussion is we haven’t talked about a marketing plan and how to market those. Towns are not used to marketing, but this is something if we can sell this to the town and say, “Here’s the benefit,” we can fix some of the affiliated housing and low-income housing with JADUs, I think people will do it if you let them know what the choices are.

The second thing is Blue Oaks property has kind of dropped out of the conversation, and they said it’s not a very useful place to be able to put in additional housing. If that’s the case, then why aren’t we selling that property? Why don’t we sell that property and take the money that we would sell it with and put it in a place that’s more productive for us to build housing? Third, one of the things I’m concerned about is density on Alpine Road. I’d like to see if there’s some way that you guys can have some sort of limitation, a height limitation, even if it’s something that’s Low-income income housing, that we not have three- or four-story buildings on Alpine Road.

That’s just from an image standpoint. To me, it would feel much more like a Redwood City downtown than Portola Valley, so if there’s some way to put height limitations on it, or story limitations, I’d be very appreciative. Thank you.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Great, thanks, Bob. Next is Jon Silver.

Mr. Silver: Thank you. Am I unmuted?
Chair Kopf-Sill: You are. We can hear you.

Mr. Silver: Great. Fantastic. I want to thank all of you for your work – the staff and especially I am very impressed by the report that Nicholas Targ and Craig Taylor presented. I also want to endorse the comments that Judith Murphy and Peter Lipman made regarding open space – oh, and Gary Neilson. I didn’t want to forget him, my former colleague on the Town Council. But I also want to say that I think, as I think they were saying, it’s important to look at the welfare of the whole town, not just my neighborhood, or any one person’s neighborhood. And also, I think that a relatively large number of units, if they’re small units, can be put on a relatively small parcel of land and not be a disadvantage. Webster Wood in Palo Alto, that’s been there since the early or mid-70s, is 68 units on about three-and-a-quarter acres. That works out to almost 21 units per acre. It’s only a stone’s throw from one of Mark Zuckerberg’s homes. It hasn’t hurt the value of his home. Not that I’m sure he would worry a lot about the value of any one of I don’t know how many homes he owns. But people should look at Webster Wood. It’s beautiful. It includes wonderful oaks and redwoods. It’s very bucolic. If something like that were put other than in scenic open space and the scenic corridor in Portola Valley, it would be wonderful.

People, by the way, who venerate our General Plan, probably haven’t read our General Plan, some of them. Our original General Plan called not only for an elementary school where Applewood Lane now is, but it also called for the Town Center to be at the Nathhorst Triangle. It DRAFT

38 would have been a lot of development, a lot of dense activity, and it was only because the Town lucked out and bought the current Town Center site from the School District for the princely sum of $100,000 in 1976. The Town Council is where it is, instead of the Nathhorst Triangle. Also, I heard quotes about what Bill Lane and Herb Dangler would have done, and how they would have favored market-based approaches. I think all of us would if we had that luxury. They were both friends of mine. Bill Lane was a strong supporter of the rezoning of land at Nathhorst to provide affordable housing back in 2003. He contributed generously to defeat the referendum that passed by only 70 votes, which blocked that affordable housing. So, if you’re going quote the dead, at least have the courtesy to have know them.

Anyway, I think it’s really worth looking at Webster. I would love to have a development like that across the street from me. I’d be happy to have ten units on the one-plus-acre parcel across the street from me, which now has just two units. I have an ADU on my property. There are ADUs close around me, and my lot is less than half an acre. I grew up on 2.14 acres with one unit. We can have more units per acre as long as they’re smaller units and maintain the beautiful spirit of our town. Thank you.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Great, thanks John. Next, Ellen Vernazza.

Ms. Vernazza: Yeah, hi. I really want to thank you guys for looking a little further in the subcommittee. I think you did a great job. I just did have a quick question if you can answer it. Did you guys receive the letters from the Nathhorst/Applewood area? And did you get time to read it? Unidentified Speaker: Yes.

Ms. Vernazza: Okay, so I won’t go over all of that, but again, like Bob Schulz said, we do already have a high-density/low-income project being built right here, and any additional high-density development would be putting in this corner big-time high fire danger due to the fire fuel load of all the building. I also want to push possibly looking further for Spring Down or Neely Winery, because if we could…even maybe the Town can buy an acre off of them. Or Neely, I understand, originally wanted to build some houses, and then they wanted to build their wine-tasting spot, and it was turned down, so they’re not too thrilled with us, but maybe we can push them back into it a little bit. And I just want to bring up one other thing. I built an ADU on my property about three years ago, three or four years ago. I spent less than $200,000 on an extremely nice – it was only 750 square feet at the time that we could do – but it is beautiful inside. A one-bedroom, one-bath.

It has living room, dining room, full kitchen. So, ADUs can be built for a lot cheaper than what people have been projecting. Somebody said a million dollars for one awhile back, and I was just kind of in shock, because it literally cost us less than $200,000, and I’d be glad to share any information on that.

Also, any additional building in this area – and I just want you to remember, this is a neighborhood.

People see Roberts out there. They see the empty lots and stuff, but we are a whole neighborhood. We have like 29 houses in our neighborhood here, and people don’t see us as a neighborhood. They just see us as behind Roberts or something. So I just want you to realize we area neighborhood. We don’t really want to burn down here, and please just consider safety first before you think of rezoning any more properties in this area as high-density. Thanks a lot.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Thanks, Ellen. Next, Karen Askey.

Ms. Askey: Hi, can you hear me?
DRAFT

39 Chair Kopf-Sill: Yes.

Ms. Askey: Hi. Hey, first of all, I hope Laura feels better soon, and I don’t see her on the screen, but I know that has got to be tough tonight. I want to thank all of you for your service to our town.

I’m very impressed with everything you’ve done. I did send in written comments yesterday, so I’m going to assume that you guys got those, but I did want to highlight that I think Commissioners Targ and Taylor said it right when they said we need to take our time to get things right and that their sunrise proposal allows us to get there. I think the Housing Element needs to follow the General Plan, not lead it. I’m very much in favor of the sunrise proposal.

I want to talk a little bit about ADUs and JADUs. I do think that the JADUs seem to keep getting overlooked, and that we need to have a target specifically for JADUs. I also believe that if you have 500-square-foot space in your home, that it’s got to be in the very-low-income or low-income category, and I can think of college students, caregivers, local employees at Roberts or Alpine Hills or the like that could all benefit from a JADU. I also wanted to ask Laura a question. Red page 15 shows a projected 16 ADUs to be built in 2022, so my question there is how many of those are JADUs? And also, if I do some simple math, 16 times 8 is 128. Well, 128 ADUs is 36 more than we have in our 92, so right there if we just followed our 2022 number, and that’s without any education, communication or incentives to our residents, we would be at that 128. So, if we did programs, I think 20 a year is very reasonable, and that would give us 160. Numbers like that can help us eliminate the controversial Opt-in program and the many higher-density projects, but what we do need to do is survey our residents and promote the ADUs and JADUs now.

Commissioner Taylor is spot on that we need to engage our community. There are many residents willing to step up, so let’s get going, and you can sign me up. I’ve got a permitted pool house without a kitchenette, and I would love to contribute that to the Housing Element. Thanks.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Great. Thanks, Karen. Next is the phone number that ends -787 Mida [phonetic] Jones: Yes, hi. I have a few comments because I am the woman who referred to having put $50,000, or having been given an estimate of $50,000, to create what I thought was a JADU within my 3,300 square-foot home. As it turns out, I learned belatedly that since this unit would be way more than 500 square feet, it would be two bedrooms, a large living/family room, a full double bathroom, a small kitchen, storage closets and a large deck – all of them, the whole thing, with its own entry – my contractor said that would cost $50,000 plus permitting fees to develop within my home. This is the kind of approach to housing that I think people have been referencing that our town doesn’t seem to either recognize, it certainly doesn’t promote at the moment, that I believe could be very interesting. That first floor of my home, which is what this is, is enough for a small family. It’s two separate bedrooms. It’s not enough for four people. It’s certainly enough for a woman with two kids. Or a couple with one child, and it would be owincome. It could be rented for a low-income amount of money, because the investment is lowincome. In addition, I’m an older resident, and I wouldn’t mind having someone in the house, just in case. I’m perfectly fine right now, but not too bad, since I live alone. I think you will find that there are a lot of people in our town in a similar situation. This option should be promoted. I think at the last housing committee meeting, Bob Turcot referred to it as an in – I forgot what he said – but an ADU that’s within the footprint of the home, which indeed, mine would be. Rather than an independent building that you have to worry about foundations, distances between structures and so on. So, I would encourage the Town to advertise this type of building. I think it could provide a kind of middle between JADUs and ADUs, and the cost is quite Low-income. Thank you.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Great, thanks, Mida. Next is Cornelia Tilney.

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40 Ms. Tilney: Hi there. First of all, we very much appreciate Commissioners Targ and Taylor’s creative efforts to develop a new proposal to potentially save Dorothy Ford Park. And we really appreciate all of your research and all of the time that each one of you on the Commission are putting into thinking through, and the staff, and carefully evaluating the process and the recommendations that have been made. We really like the sunshine idea that Commissioners Targ and Taylor have proposed. It would buy the Town and us some time to see what might take place with other parcels coming available. I, for example, had heard that the owner of the parcel where all the businesses on Portola Road such as Parkside Grill, are located might be interested in selling that land. Would like to know if the Town…So this is a specific question for the Town.

I’d like to know if the Town has had any contact or knowledge of that parcel possibly being available for sale, or any conversation with them.

We strongly the support the use of a much higher ADU count and especially an active and supportive program from the Town to help residents with JADU/ADU development, which has been, honestly, completely lacking. There are lots of ADUs and JADUs in the community that are not registered. We have had local tutors that have tutored my kids that have lived in local, unregistered JADUs. We know of other units around us that are not registered and even in our house when we bought it there was a non-registered JADU that we took out. We could put that back in for easily less than $20,000. We’d just have to put a wall back up and put in a few kitchen things.

So, a second question would be I’d like clarification about if we did put that JADU in, whether we would then have a 50-year deed restriction on our house, because that obviously makes a difference in terms of the value of the house. But I do believe if the Town were to develop a strong program that was much simplified and a less expensive permitting process, the numbers would increase significantly.

Additionally, why can’t Town funds, like the $4 million-plus in the Town coffers for development be used to subsidize some of the cost of adding ADUs and JADUs. We are not in favor of Opt-in housing in the community. We also believe that will be a slippery slope and turn neighbor against neighbor with potentially catastrophic financial consequences for those who live next to the property being developed.

We want to preserve the gateway area, Dorothy Ford Park and Glen Oaks. Even though we have not had any relationship with Glen Oaks, and we are not horse owners, we feel horse facilities add immeasurably to the feel and tenor of the town. It’s one of those things that distinguishes us from all these other towns, and when you go to someplace like Marin which has lost all its horse paths and most of its horseback riding, you really notice the difference. It’s taken over by bicyclists and mountain bikers, except in the very most rural areas. We could stand some limited development in Nathhorst Triangle, the area around Roberts, if the Commission wanted to try adding some different types of housing. Speaking recently to a friend of mine who has been widowed, they stated that they would like to stay in town, and not in their home, but there was no place for them to go. I agree with Bob Adams’ question and comments about Blue Oaks and why aren’t we doing something about it? So, I’d like to get an answer to that. Lastly, fire danger and evacuation issues are primarily on our minds, first and foremost.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Can you wrap up, Cornelia? You’re past your three minutes.

Ms. Tilney: Yep, last paragraph. If we add big developments down on the eastern end of Alpine Road, we could be creating a huge risk for evacuation in case of fire. The other advantage of the sunshine concept that Commissioners Taylor and Targ have clearl DRAFT
y recognized is that it buys us

41 more time to get more information from Woodside Fire and determine how to deal with the fire risk first. Thank you all very much.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Thanks, Cornelia. Next, Christie Schmitz.

Ms. Schmitz: Hi. Thank you. First of all, I’d like to thank the Committee for all your hard work on this. This meeting tonight has actually given me a glimmer of hope that the open space spirit of our town might be maintained. I feel better than I’ve felt in weeks, so thank you for that. And I agree with all of the comments about the ADUs and the JADUs. I think that is the best way to go, to maintain our town. My specific question is about the Opt-ins. I am one of those people whose neighbor has opted in. Well, I don’t know if he still has opted in, but he had. So, I’m wondering, one, where I can find that list of who has opted in, or who has volunteered to opt in, I should say? And I am clearly not in favor of that. I mean, I would build an ADU in my house if I could, but I don’t have the room. I don’t have the land to do it. So, I’m not sure how my neighbor would be able to build, I think he opted in for seven units or something like that. So, that’s my main question is where can I find the list? And I’m hoping that those opt-in’s don’ ever happen. Thank you.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Thanks. Next, Danna. Hey Danna, are you there to unmute? Danna: There it is. You guys, thank you for your leadership. I mean, it’s been an extraordinary evening, and I’m going to kind of reiterate what I said at the last meeting. It’s kind of been a relief to hear so many people talk about the General Plan. I think people are really getting their hands on it. I lent my hard copy out to someone yesterday, which was kind of thrilling, to lend someone my bedside copy of my General Plan. Anyway, I want to make sure that I doubt that the Council is going to appoint a committee of residents to oversee the changes to all the elements that will change because of the Housing Element. And I think…You guys haven’t worked too hard in the last couple of years, but I want to make sure that you guys are the ones who are going to oversee this. And I think that’s very important and that everybody knows that the General Plan is internally consistent. So, I just want to make sure that you guys have your hands on that, and thank you so much.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Great, thanks, Danna. Next, Luke Winstrom. Hi, Luke, are you there? You need to unmute from your side. Yeah.

Mr. Winstrom: Hi. Sorry. There were currently –
Chair Kopf-Sill: You know what? There’s a bad echo. Can you change something? Mr. Winstrom: Is this better??
Chair Kopf-Sill: Yes, thank you.

Mr. Winstrom: Sorry about that. I wanted to bring up, because I heard a few people talk about other potential properties, and long ago I had heard of the El Mirador and Neely properties both being considered by the Ad Hoc planning committee and they had been discarded, and I believe that one of the committee members said they had been discarded because they should be saved for next time. I wanted to bring them up as 25 and 13.2 acres of potential property that would be available if we had time to discuss how to develop them reasonably. That’s the end of my comments, so thanks.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Okay, thanks,
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Luke. Next, Rita Comes Whitney.

42 Ms. Comes Whitney: Hi. Thank you for taking my question. First question is how all of the committees that have been meeting…and not all of them have been meeting. Open Space hasn’t met. Undergrounding hasn’t met and put their three cents on these issues. How are their comments getting into the portal, or do these committees have to put it in the portal themselves? Is someone coordinating it to make sure that all of their minutes and talks on this particular subject are being collated? It’s just not very clear. Laura has said – she’s not here now, but – she said in the past that if people had sent in emails or letters in the past concerning housing issues, those were not going to be automatically put in the portal. People were going to have to submit them now into the portal, even if they sent then last year.

My other two questions are there’s a couple of very large properties on the market. One particular one has been on the market for an extremely long time and has just been put back onto the market. I have suggested a few times that perhaps the Town approach that particular individual.

The property is very large, has an hockey rink. Perhaps it could turn into a multi-housing with a very nice tax relationship for the owner, who seems to be wanting to rid this property off of his estate but perhaps a 10- or 20-year tax thing for his family might really make it more attractive, and it’s large enough that we could put a lot of units there. I also want to mention…I’ve mentioned that particular thing a few times, and I haven’t heard any feedback or seen any feedback on that one, and I really hope that it’s pursued in some way.

My last comment is about the Hawthorns property. There is a staff house that is there, and in one of the meetings I asked if that particular staff house, which is not historic, could turn into perhaps a four-unit or six-unit, which would add to our numbers and is in a remote enough place. I think that would be a huge help. I just want to say for our open space, people that donate to open space or have the assumption that open space is going to stay open space. We have to somehow communicate that in the community, because no one is going to be giving to open space anymore.

When you die, your family then has to worry about what to do with the intention, before the internet happened? But thank you for all that you’re doing and hopefully things will get collated and moved forward, and there will be another meeting, not July 8th. Thank you.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Thanks, Rita. Lastly, we have Kristi Corley.

Ms. Corley: Thank you, can you hear me?
Chair Kopf-Sill: Yes.

Ms. Corley: Okay, thank you for spending the time to thoroughly the future housing of Portola Valley. It’s a heavy lift, and it takes a lot to know the in’s and out’s. I do not feel the Dorothy Ford open space should potentially have 50 or more units at that site. I love the two majestic trees, and I read a book recently, called, “Things Trees Know,” and one of the quotes was, “Respect your elders.” I want to honor the intent of the donor. I did hear that Tom Ford was the first donor of open space in Portola Valley. I’m very proud of it. Is that true? Maybe you can answer that for me.

I am concerned when you talk about a mitigated negative declaration, because it’s an ND prepared for a project when the initial study has identified potentially significant effects on the environment, but revisions in the project plans or proposals, or agreed to by the applicant before the proposed MND and the initial study are released to the public. So, my concern is for the environment and that we take care of the environment, and I think that’s why a lot of us moved here. So how do we do a negative mitigated negative declaration when we know we are affecting the environment? I believe if the Planning Department pre-approved three architectural plans for ADUs we would see a lot more ADUs. We need complete, preapproved architectural plans. It would be easier and financially beneficial for those considering it. Once our town shows efforts to DRAFT

43 create these three plans, then HCD will know we’re serious about increasing our ADU’s. I’m concerned about the date that the Conservation Committee and the Open Space Committee was told about the Dorothy Ford open space, and that this was now on the list. Were they given the notice, and was the entire committee given the notice to do the research necessary to comment on it? The public would like to see the comments on the Committee of Committees. Every comment from every committee, can we see it in one place? SB 9 already is a law. It increases the housing in our town, and we should see that, not in the first year, but maybe year three and four, and we should expect that.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Thanks, Kristi. Three minutes is up. Going to go to Greg, is next.

Greg: Good evening, can you hear me?
Chair Kopf-Sill: Yes, although it’s a little soft, if you could talk up or get closer to the mic.

Mr. Franklin: Thank you for allowing me to speak. I have a few questions and then like to bestow some accolades on a phenomenal job done of some very creative-thinking out-of-the-box thinking, by Craig Taylor and Nicholas Targ. I think the sunrise proposal is a breath of fresh air in terms of potentially what this town can come up with to meet our RHNA obligation. A couple of my questions really relate to the bonus density law and its application to rezoning in Portola Valley.

I know it’s a very complicated matter, but my understanding is that any upzoning to 20 housing units per essentially, because we, I understand, are affected by this Mullin default density arrangement, so specifically for Portola Valley, any upzoning to 23 housing units per acre would automatically qualify for the 80-percent density bonus, so you might describe it as 20 units per acre, but in actual fact, it’s 36 units per acre. So, you may be able to control that if you rezone that on town-owned property, but my understanding is you will lose all local control over any development in a property that’s in private hands.

So, if we applied that – and this is my question – if we applied that to the one project you’ve got in your schedule, which is I believe it’s 94 Alpine, not 95, but at one point 18 acres, multiplied by 36, you come up with 43 units. I want to get clarification from the Town staff and maybe the Planning Commission on whether the application of that math is actually correct. And then I have a question on the ADUs. Why would a three-part program promoting ADUs not satisfy HCD, and what I’m referring to is – and it’s been mentioned earlier tonight several times – we have $4.6 million of which we can provide these financial incentives for ADUs, and particularly JADUs. We have an amnesty program in the wings, and we’re going to streamline our ADU and JADU process, so I can’t imagine why that’s not reasonable and logical justification for a higher JADU and ADU contribution to meeting our RHNA quota. And my last thought here is – Chair Kopf-Sill: Quickly.

Mr. Franklin: Because Cara Silver mentioned that if there was any redeveloped of Dorothy Ford field, it would require a big community outreach program. My question is, why haven’t we started this process with a big community outreach program, surveying residents, what they would like to see as a result of this Housing Element process, and why can’t we do it now, immediately, and use the results in the remaining six months of the process so that actually our Housing Element reflects the majority view of residents in this town? Thank you.

Chair Kopf-Sill: Thanks, Greg. Next is Tammy Tiscornia.

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