2026-10-06 - City Council

00:00I call this regular meeting of the Cupertino City Council to order. If you're able to please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

00:29Thank you. Madam City Clerk, will you please call the roll?

00:32Councilmember Freund? Here. Councilmember Mohan? Here. Councilmember Wong? Present. Vice Mayor Chow? Here. Mayor Moore? Here.

00:44And Mayor, Vice Mayor, and members of the council, as a reminder, Councilmember Wong is participating remotely this evening.

00:50Councilmember Wong, can you confirm that you are in the lobby of the Marriott Marquis in New York City? Yes, I am.

00:58Thank you. And you have already confirmed that you posted the agenda at your location because you sent me a picture of it.

01:04And, Councilmember Wong, are there any individuals over the age of 18 with you and has anyone indicated to you that they intend to make public comment or address the council from your location this evening?

01:13None that I can see from here. Okay. Thank you, Councilmember Wong. Thank you, Madam City Clerk. Madam City Attorney, do we have any closed session reports?

01:23We do. The council met in closed session on September 29th and on October 5th, and it's my understanding that during those closed sessions, no reportable action was taken.

01:34And then today, Council met in closed session as well. Both items were discussed, and again, no reportable action was taken. Thank you.

01:43Thank you. Next, we have ceremonial items. It is item three, the recognition of our Community Development Department.

01:52October is National Community Planning Month. It's a time to recognize the important work that goes into shaping the places we call home.

02:03The decisions made through community planning have a direct impact on our neighborhoods, housing, transportation, public spaces, and the character of Cupertino.

02:14Cupertino's Community Development Department, including building, planning, housing, and code enforcement, plays a big part in this work.

02:24Their staff handle everything from long range planning and development review to permits, inspections, code enforcement, affordable housing programs,

02:34incorporating new legislation, providing guidance and information to the commissions and councils that work in the land use area, and implementing the city's general plan.

02:46Their work requires balancing the needs of residents, businesses, property owners, and the community as a whole, while helping guide the future of Cupertino.

02:57Please join me in recognizing and thanking our city's Community Development Department for their dedication, expertise, and commitment to public service.

03:08Their work plays an important role in shaping a vibrant, safe, and welcoming Cupertino. Please join us on the dais for a photo recognizing the CDD Department and National Community Planning Month.

03:22Thank you.

05:13And our city manager would like to say a few words. Thanks, Mayor. I'll keep it quick. Thank you so much for helping us recognize the Community Development Department. October is a great opportunity because it is National Community Planning Month.

05:30And the Cupertino's CDD, as we like to call it, department, helps guide the city in this effort through their dedication, professionalism, and commitment to public service.

05:41Staff in the department help maintain and support Cupertino's high quality of life. And again, I want to thank everybody who is here today from the Community Development Department.

05:51And I'm glad that you were here to be recognized and those who are not here. Please know that your work is appreciated. And with that, thank you, Mayor.

06:00All right. Thank you. Next we have postponements and orders of the day. Madam City Clerk, I believe we have one postponement.

06:06That is correct, Mayor. We do have one postponement for item number 11.

06:10Okay, so I move that we postpone item 11 to October 20th, 2026. Do I have a second?

06:18Madam City Attorney, just to clarify, there's no discussion on this item. We go to a vote right now. Correct. Okay. Thank you, Madam City.

06:27Who was the seconder? I'm sorry. I couldn't, I think, Mohan. Okay, thank you. Councilmember Mohan. And so all of our votes are by roll call because, okay.

06:36So will you please conduct the roll call vote? Councilmember Fruin? Aye. Councilmember Mohan? Aye. Councilmember Wong? Aye.

06:47Vice Mayor Chau? Aye. Mayor Moore? Aye. The motion carries unanimously. All right. Thank you very much.

06:54Our next item is oral communications. Madam City Clerk, how many speaker cards do we have on this item?

07:00Mayor, I currently have five requests to speak here in person and community hall. And at this time, I do not see any hands raised virtually.

07:13Okay, thank you. Madam City Clerk, will you please provide the instructions and conduct oral communications? Certainly.

07:19This portion of the meeting is reserved for persons wishing to address the council on any matter within the jurisdiction of the council and not on the agenda for discussion.

07:28Oral communications shall be limited to 30 minutes. Additional speakers wishing to comment on non-agenda items may be given time to speak at the end of the agenda after the city manager's report.

07:39Individual speakers are limited to three minutes. As necessary, the mayor may further limit the time allowed to individual speakers or reschedule remaining comments to the end of the meeting on a first-come, first-herb basis with priority given to students.

07:51In most cases, state law will prohibit the council from discussing or making any decisions with respect to met or not listed on the agenda.

07:58A council member may, however, briefly respond to statements made or questions posed by speakers.

08:03A council member may also ask a question for clarification, provide a reference for factual information, request staff to report back concerning a matter, or request that an item be added to a future city council agenda in response to public comment.

08:16And as a reminder to members of the public wishing to speak under oral communications this evening, shall submit a request to speak hard or raise their hand virtually within the first nine minutes of the start of public comment or before the public comment period is closed, whichever comes first.

08:31So at this time, we will welcome Rhoda Fry, followed by Mina, followed by Pamela Hershey. Welcome, Rhoda.

08:42Hi, good evening. I've got some slides. Most of these are in your packets. I wanted to spell some myths. First is that Cupertino did not lose $30 million annually due to the CDTF audit.

08:57Typically, we were getting an 11 to $15 million boost. The other thing is we've been hearing that Cupertino is in the toilet, and we're not.

09:11This is Cupertino's own report from HDL showing sales are up 113% in Q2. That's Q1 over this year.

09:20The other one I want to talk about was Valco income. We've been hearing that the city is losing $10 million annually without Valco build out.

09:29I actually just talked with Mr. Orozco about this. And back in 2023, the estimate was around $3.16 million, but that was when we had twice the retail.

09:39So we're actually a good $800,000 off of that. Plus, there was no accounting for what the net income would be because we're going to have policing and other things.

09:51So we're probably closer to net zero than $10 million. The other thing is, hey, our retail is doing really good.

09:59I pulled this data off of the CDTFA, and you're going to see that retail and food service taxable transactions are doing really, really well.

10:08The other thing that's exciting is that we've got three destination stores coming online, PGA Superstore, which has already made the top 25 sales tax revenue to the city.

10:19We've got Barnes & Noble and Hashi Market. Really exciting stuff. Big smiley face there.

10:24I also want to talk a little about people saying that Cupertino is turning into Ghost Town. False, false, false.

10:29Q2, 2026, you got Coachman and Wayfield and also other real estate professionals are saying we are doing awesome. We've got 2% vacancy as compared to 4.9% regionally.

10:42We are rocking it. And here we've got office space. We're at 3.2% versus 18.2% regionally.

10:52There's another real estate firm for Q3, 2026 that even had better numbers. I think it was around 1.5%, 2%. Really exciting stuff.

11:02And here's all the data from the other cities. Just wanted to show you a little bit about how we're doing on hotel taps.

11:07Pretty good. We're actually pretty close to the 2018, 2019 high. We might have a little room to put TOT on the ballot, but let's talk with our buddies in the hotel and make sure we hit the sweet spot.

11:19The other thing is, guys, keep up the good work. You're doing a great job. We don't need to do crazy things like Mr. Fruin had suggested way back when to put housing on our golf course.

11:28Seriously, that was in 2020. And in 2023, putting housing on our sports center and even on our city hall. Not okay. We don't need to do public/private partnerships.

11:38Let's keep up the good work and focus on cutting unnecessary spending. You guys rock. Thank you very much.

11:44Thank you, Rhoda. Next, we will welcome Mina, followed by Pamela Hershey. Welcome, Mina.

11:54We want to use a projector.

12:02Video, can you -- thank you.

12:07Hello. My name is Mina. I'm a Cupertino resident. And I come here complaining about some unauthorized signs in the past.

12:15But because there are more complaints on WeChat about those unauthorized signs for JR Fruin, Sima Lindasgorg, and John Kong, so I have to come here to speak again.

12:26And these are the screenshots from WeChat. So one resident did call the police, but the police said you can just dump those signs.

12:34They didn't record their address. And they said you can dump the sign wherever you'd like.

12:40But here comes back the question why on Newsom Avenue, when residents living by Bollinger, when they dump those unauthorized yard signs, they were treated as thieves and several police cars dispatched to trace those signs and question those residents, why you steal JR Fruin and Sima and John Kong's yard sign.

13:02So actually, the rumor started from Glenn Fischer. And in August, he started to claim all the yard signs by Bollinger between Wunderlich and Johnson Avenue, those Newsom houses, all the yard signs were approved by homeowners.

13:20But that is not true. So we just collected some sign statements from Newsom Avenue homeowners.

13:28So many homeowners, they claimed that they didn't approve JR Fruin's yard sign, and they never agreed for their workers to put them on their properties.

13:41But some of the spotlight and SFG, another newspaper, they interviewed a former mayor, R. Lo, something, and he said those yard signs are approved by homeowners, especially for the signs close to Wunderlich

13:58and Bollinger. But I think our mayor already visited that homeowner and she learned that they didn't approve those yard signs.

14:06But the problem is, when the sign was stolen, he put an air tag on the signs. And so several police cars traced to the sign and to a Santa Clara homeowner. That's the friends of the Cupertino homeowner. And according to the SCPD, Santa Clara Police Department, they said the reporting party said all the political signs were taken from his yard.

14:28That means the Cupertino former mayor, R. Lo's yard, his own yard. But from the reporter, you can see he said the houses hosting the sign was by Bollinger and Wunderlich that's far from his own home.

14:43And he didn't have any rental property around that area. So this is the police record from the SCPD. And it shows in his report, he said that's from his sign.

14:58So here comes the question, who will protect the residents, when there are authorized signs on their yard? So that's all.

15:08Thank you, Minna. Next, we welcome Pamela Hershey, followed by Jasmine Tan, followed by Vanessa. Welcome, Pamela.

15:19Good evening, Mayor, council members and staff. My name is Pamela Hershey. I've been here before, a Cupertino resident for over 47 years. I'm here again to talk about the stolen signs.

15:34Do we have the overhead? Is this the OK, this is a picture just recently on Sunday from Stevens Creek Bridge that are signs from the candidates that I'm helping that are just thrown on the ground.

15:47Somebody obviously went up to Stevens Creek Bridge, took those down and threw them down. Who's doing that?

15:53I mean, I've not seen any any opponents, any our sign up opponent signs thrown down like that. And I'm all over the city.

16:02So who's doing this? I don't know. It's really just not there. It's they're wasting resources, our taxpayer money that's been donated to our candidates and throwing them away.

16:13They have to replace the signs, replace the metal. That doesn't make sense to me. Where are these ending up in the garbage somewhere?

16:21And so our resources, our money is being just really disregarded. It's very disrespectful. It sticks respectful to the candidates, the volunteers, senior citizens like myself that are going out working and also children that have helped us financially.

16:35Yes, it's costly to the candidates, but it's also not fair to for this to happen. Here's the message that happened actually just today that you could read on here.

16:47Somebody what's happened this morning, someone wrote, I came in, so someone came in a white truck and took the signs from them. And this is the Garden Gate area.

16:56They actually saw a white truck come in and remove signs from their yard. Who does that? I'm just wondering, just a question. I've never heard of that before.

17:04Someone actually added to that. We spotted a suspicious lady taking pictures of our sign boards on Ann Arbor. Later, she rode by her home and possibly making sign removals.

17:14When we approached her, she quickly rode off. You know, this is really getting a little much. You know, I understand, you know, we have opponents, but it's really time consuming for us.

17:24I have a job. I have grandchildren they work with. I spend a lot of time going back and replacing signs. My husband does as well. He's 76 years old. He'll spend two or three hours a day going to find out where the signs are stolen.

17:37So please stop respecting the volunteers, the candidates and the residents, whoever's doing this to our signs. It's just a little gone over, over the top is how I feel.

17:50So please stop playing dirty. Thank you. Thank you, Pamela. Next we will welcome Jasmine Tan, followed by Vanessa, followed by Steven Scharf and Jasmine.

18:06Are you speaking together as a group? Okay, so you guys will have four minutes on the clock. Okay.

18:13Good evening, everyone. My name is Jasmine Tan. My name is Raina Wong. And we're here today to present to you as representatives from Inherpurse, a local and international nonprofit led by youth that is focused on supporting women and in particular, financial, sorry, financial abuse survivors,

18:37and as well as preventing it for future generations. So to understand why the work that we're doing for this nonprofit is so important, we have to first understand what exactly is financial and economic abuse.

18:47It is one of the primary means of control and domestic abuse occurring in 99% of domestic violence cases. It is when one person has control over a victim's access to economic resources, diminishing the victim's capacity to support themselves,

19:01such as using immigration status or any other forms of leverage to restrict their ability to find employment, education, healthcare, or even asking for help.

19:10So financial abuse is especially prevalent among immigrants and other minorities, ranging from 29% to over 95% among surveyed survivors of domestic abuse.

19:22So we're here today to speak on the need for financial education, especially to prevent economic abuse. It is more important now than ever, since CBS News tells you that Americans have hit a 10 year low on financial literacy. And according to the Federal Reserve, women are less likely to answer financial questions correctly than men, displaying a financial literacy gender gap.

19:47Closing that gap matters more than just a few scores. Financial inequality can compound over a lifetime. When we have less access to financial knowledge, we have fewer opportunities to make informed decisions, build wealth, and protect our futures.

20:02Even in Silicon Valley, not everyone has equal access to financial education. In fact, the assumption that more wealthier communities already understand personal finance makes those who are not given the same resources even more neglected.

20:17Financial abuse most commonly occurs once one partner is responsible for all the finances in a household, leaving the other so dependent that they lack the capability to separate themselves from their abuser, even if they wanted to, leaving people trapped in relationships due to their lack of financial knowledge.

20:37On a personal note, I personally did not understand fully what this phenomenon was, as in I was not able to recognize what how to identify it, as well as knowing that it is a part of domestic violence.

20:52And that is why we encourage the city to make financial education more visible, accessible and normalized. It should not be a privilege that people discover by chance, but something that is available to everyone.

21:08Finally, we want the city to take more direct action by providing financial abuse identification and education posters in more public areas.

21:20Financial control is one of the primary tactics for domestic violence, yet when we are unable to recognize that we are unable to protect ourselves and those that we care about. Thank you so much for your attention today.

21:31Good evening. Thank you. Next we will welcome Vanessa, followed by Stephen Sharp. Welcome Vanessa. So on September 2nd, an incident involving political yard sign and homeowners property resulted in response from two different law enforcement agents and two very different outcomes.

22:00According to the SCPD Santa Clara Police Department record, the incident was treated as a civil standby, not a theft case. No theft report was made.

22:13The reporting party was directed to address the dispute with the homeowner. But since the reporting party refused to do so, SCPD closed the case at 11.30pm.

22:28What happened next was shocking to me. The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office dispatched several police cars to the homeowners property late at 9. Multiple police officers were involved, yet the sheriff later stated that no written report was made.

22:49So you can see the picture from the resident's camera, and you can see the police car and the police were visiting the home and no police.

23:02Then came the public record request. The SCPD provided the requested record within several hours. By contrast, the sheriff denied the request under the law enforcement investigation exemption.

23:22So residents asked a simple follow-up. If there were no written report, what other records were created? Does the CAD or dispatch record exist? Was the radio communication recorded? Which unit responded? Were the deputies notes created?

23:48We asked the sheriff to identify what record existed and what record was being withdrawn. Then the responses stopped.

23:59This is not simply about a disagreement over political science. It's about consistency, transparency, and accountability.

24:09Cupertino relied on Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office for the law enforcement service. Residents should be able to understand what happened when law enforcement is called to their property and what record are created as a result.

24:26The question is simple. Why did one law enforcement agency provide its records within hours? Why did the other deny the request and then stop responding to basic questions about what records existed?

24:42Are Cupertino residents receiving the same standard of response? Thank you, Vanessa. Next, we welcome Steven Scharf. Hi, you know, we're fortunate in Cupertino. Violent crime is pretty rare, but there's still crime occurring that should be addressed.

25:04I urge the city council, the city manager, code enforcement, county agencies and the sheriff to take action against the illegal activities happening during this campaign season. Let's not sink to the lowest of all levels during election season.

25:20Residents deserve a clean election. Several other speakers have already talked about the theft of signs from residential property, the illegal placement of signs, and the incredible occurrence in the city of Santa Clara,

25:34where a former Cupertino mayor put air tags into campaign signs that were then placed without permission on a Cupertino residence lawn twice. When the resident removed the signs and the second sign were placed also without permission, she gave them to a friend in Santa Clara because her garbage bin was full.

25:52So the Santa Clara sheriff, after the Santa Clara City PD refused to investigate, they went to another city at midnight and terrorized the residents in Santa Clara. I don't know if campaigns are paying people to commit crimes or if it's overzealous residents engaging in this kind of activity to support their candidates.

26:14One resident on Silverado Avenue had signs stolen from his property three times in one week. When he went on next door to complain, he was kicked off next door by the moderator, a woman who was also a candidate for city council, since the signs on the resident's property were for the opposition.

26:31Another resident on Randy Lane had signs placed on her property without permission. When she complained about this on next door, her posts were removed in minutes.

26:41At a time when the sheriff is asking for more money and we complied for police services, we have a wealthy resident who happens to also be a former mayor abusing the E911 system and demanding our sheriff go to another city to investigate a non-crime.

26:58This is the lowest of all things to do. This individual is also bankrolling the campaigns of the developers three candidates, C. Melinskog, and San Jose employees J.R. Freewen and John Tang. Please ensure that our sheriff's deputies concentrate on actual crime. Thank you.

27:15Thank you, Stephen. And Mayor, before we go to the request to speak virtually, we did have a few requests to speak on item 11. Would it be appropriate at this time to hear those comments? Thank you.

27:30So at this time, we will go ahead and welcome Oscar, followed by Daniel, followed by Harvey. Welcome, Oscar.

27:39Well, hello. Good evening. First of all, I want to thank you guys for pulling the item. I mean, that was one of the main reasons why we were here. So good evening, state members and city council members.

27:56My name is Oscar Masaregos. I'm appeal representative with the North Coast States Carpenters Union. We work out of San Jose, but we take care of all Santa Clara County. I represent about 57,000 members from local 405, 57,000 members in all our region.

28:14So I'm here tonight because we had serious concerns regarding this project and the path it is taking as it moves forward in the city.

28:22I'm Cedric Cupertino. This project is being developed under SB 35 legislation that was intended to streamline housing development while also ensuring strong workforce standards.

28:32SB 35 requires the use of skilled and trained workforce support state certified apprenticeship programs and helps ensure workers have access to health care benefits on paper.

28:41That sounds like exactly the kind of development model we should all support. However, our concerns are not what the project itself or concern is with who may be ultimately be selected to build it.

28:52We have learned that the developer is considering and potentially selecting general contractors with troubling records and histories.

28:58They don't participate in state certified or state certified apprenticeships programs and they do not pay area standard wages and all their jobs at all times.

29:05We asked the council to not approve the taxes and bonds for the rise project tonight.

29:11So thank you again until the developer can sit down and show how they will comply with the SB 35 labor standards and make sure that all the men and women that will be working in this project do not have to go through what others have gone through in these job sites with the contractors.

29:27They will be considering. Sorry tongue twister there.

29:31This project has the potential to be a positive addition to Cupertino but quality housing should not come at the expense of people building it.

29:38These last things the last thing any of us want is to look back later and realize warning signs were there or were ignored when action could have been taken.

29:48So thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you Oscar. Next we will welcome Daniel followed by Harvey followed by wrote a fry.

29:57Welcome Daniel.

30:04Good evening.

30:05Thank you for pulling the item. My name is Daniel Alvarez I'm a field representative with the North Coast Carpenters Union.

30:11I believe this project can be a great addition to our community.

30:16It's SB 35 requirements.

30:18You can also help address the housing that we need especially for our working people.

30:24However I don't have a concern about labor standards on this project.

30:28At this time it is my understanding that general contractors this development is selecting from do not participate in state certified apprenticeship programs provide health care for the workers or pay legal wages.

30:43I've also spoken with workers who told me they were not paid properly on one of Eden's housing others project and I hope we can make sure this doesn't happen here.

30:57The workers who build this project are important part of our community and they deserve better. Thank you. Thank you Daniel next we welcome Harvey.

31:09Hi City Council. I know that I'm Harvey from the North Coast States Carpenters Union. I know we've had some like correspondence on this project so it's nice to actually be here in the chamber and speak to you all about it.

31:27As you know from our letter earlier today we were asking for this Tefra vote to be postponed and I'd really like to use my public comment now to eliminate you know some of the reasons why we were asking for that some of which are in the letter but some of which go beyond the letter.

31:46So you know that some of our main concerns are that this is SP 35 projects so therefore it has fairly stringent labor standards on it and some of the contractors that we've heard are being considered for it have like pretty troubling histories when it comes to labor compliance.

32:04So we were asking you to pause on it tonight. I'm not sure why this has been pulled but that's the way it's going but we that hopefully will allow more time to illuminate what the contracting arrangements are ultimately going to be for this project.

32:21I was looking at some of the building permits earlier today and I couldn't see that any contractor was listed and as a reminder and this is the kind of content that goes beyond what we've included in the letters. The reason why our union so focused on lifting up workers in residential construction is because there's some of the most exploited in the state.

32:43There's some of the most exploited in the country frankly we could we walk residential job sites all the time we see everything on them in terms of labor exploitation including up to and including wage theft.

32:56So when workers lose we all lose especially resident in residential construction these workers tend to then rely on state social welfare benefits which costs local communities.

33:11So we'll see what we can do with the time between now and I guess the next Tefra vote but we really want to get some more clarity on exactly who's going to end up being attached to this project.

33:24And hopefully it's a contractor who has a good track record of compliance with laws like SB 35 but want to thank the city for their engagement so far on this and ultimately we think this project has huge potential for the local community and huge potential for the workers that work on it.

33:40So thank you very much. Thank you Harvey and Mayor we did receive a request after the nine minute cut off of oral communications but it is for item 11.

33:56Yes but the request already spoke under oral communications.

34:01Oh I know I'm understanding more clearly if the speaker was planning to speak on number 11 that would be different because we postponed number 11 and are allowing public comment on number 11.

34:15So that's different than your general oral communications.

34:19And so in that case I think it would be okay for the speaker to speak twice. Thank you city attorney Andrews.

34:25Okay. Welcome wrote up. I'll make it real quick. I'm hoping that we can encourage union labor on our multifamily home projects, obviously especially SB 35.

34:36You know, we'd love our building apartment or building department does inspections. Their job is really to make sure that our buildings don't kill people.

34:46Their job isn't about workmanship and we're going to have a better chance of getting better workmanship.

34:51And as you can hear better labor standards better working conditions and better wages if we have union labor.

35:00So pro union. Thanks for letting me talk. Thank you Rhoda and we will move to the request to speak virtually.

35:09We have we have three hands raised but there's a third hand that was raised after the nine minute cut off for oral communications.

35:19It is unclear if that person is wishing to speak under item 11.

35:24But at this time we will go ahead and welcome soon Chen apologies if I'm mispronouncing your name.

35:39Good evening city council members. My name is Shin Chen actually you spell my name correctly.

35:46I'm a Latino resident living on the Newsome Avenue today. I'm here to provide another factory information regarding unauthorized campaign sign that appear on my property.

36:01August 6 after returning from vacation. I noticed a campaign sign supporting Jr. John and SEMA planted in my front yard.

36:10My family and I had not given any permission for any sign at the time to be placed on our property. So it's shown in this slide.

36:18I took a picture and posted a complaint in my Richard neighborhood group on the same day.

36:24My frustration at the time was straightforward. A campaign site has been placed on my property without my consent just to be abundantly clear.

36:34This sign was removed subsequently by myself because it has been placed without my permission. Since then I have learned that other residents may have experienced similar situations regardless of which campaign is involved.

36:51I believe property owners have the right to decide what is displayed on their property. Campaigns should respect those rights and ensure that permission is clearly obtained before signs are installed.

37:04I respectfully encourage the city to take a closer look at this issue of unauthorized campaign signs, educate campaigns on the applicable rules, and consider appropriate measures to prevent similar incidents to happen again in the future.

37:22Doing so would help protect private property rights and promote a fair and respectful election process. Thank you very much for your time and consideration.

37:35Thank you.

37:42Apologies, I'm trying to find my window here.

37:50Okay, thank you. Next we will go to call on user one. Welcome call on user one.

38:03You are muted. Call on user one.

38:15Yes. Can you hear me?

38:18We can hear you now.

38:19Okay. Yeah, a little gentleman. Actually, first I reconvene this one lady about her husband's situation about sign. Yes, I had a similar situation with my signs.

38:30I'm a Canada one. Another thing to mention is that actually I heard few people talking about, you know, building apartments, beauty multi family.

38:38I think this in previous meeting I also mentioned that the city has quite big vacancy in a commercial and apartments and residential that up for the can be rented out by the vacant a pretty high so that's another thing that the city.

38:58The council members now and a customer in the future. Also can spend some effort to do that. That way, so I heard a lot of lot of the resident didn't like to keep building all the stuff like that so that was some problems that's something I want to mention and if people didn't

39:17hear before, so I just want to mention again. So, everyone can also working on that. So that will reduce a lot of burden on them, and a lot of infrastructure in the buildings, and for that meeting back to you. Thank you.

39:31Thank you, Colin user one. And again, Mayor, I do have an additional hand raise it was raised after the nine minute cutoff but the speaker may be wanting to speak under item 11.

39:45Should we should I ask the question. Okay. So, Sam Sanrao I see your hand raised. Did you want to comment on item 11 because your hand was raised after the nine minute cutoff for oral communications.

40:01Yes. Okay, we will hear your comments now. Thank you.

40:06Good evening council members speaking on behalf myself only as a Coppertino resident I have several questions regarding agenda item 11 I'm glad to see it was postponed. I would like the council to consider the potential implications of participating

40:21in the CMFA financing, and what are the obligations that come with it. Firstly, as a part of this agenda item please include the proposed capital stack, including the seniority and priority of CMFA financing.

40:37Relative to other senior or junior debt and equity from other sources including institutional and private sources. Please make it clear on what are the direct or indirect obligations and liabilities, whether it be financial or legal that the city will incur

40:54if the borrower defaults on their obligations. What are the Tefra hearing obligations and were those met did you specifically notice the hearing, and was that 14 day notice period, where was it noticed, and were Coppertino residents notified.

41:11Regarding the financing structure of this, has there been any sort of disclosure on what is the financing is it pulled is it conduit financing, and where are the draft organizational and the structures that indicate what is the relationship between the city CMFA borrower

41:26and other entities, and in the case of obligations liabilities, who will be repaid, who will not, and who will bear the losses in the case of any obligations being defaulted.

41:39As far as the construction financing it is, it is the precedent that stabilized properties may be considered for municipal support. It is uncommon for pre stabilization projects to be a bond issued finance project.

41:59And so I asked that you do your research and come back with a list of bond finance projects, where there was actually a pre construction landing that was done.

42:11In addition, is there a bond council, and where are the documents from the bond council I've seen none provided. In addition, are there any bond related disclosures, whether it be the indenture or other equal and financing documents.

42:25I'm particularly concerned about the city getting involved and bearing the obligations, should there be any default or environmental liabilities. Finally, is there a bond oversight committee for this which jurisdiction will have oversight, and who will appoint the bond oversight committee and who will the report to.

42:41I ask that you please take care of any participation with the site given all of the toxic contamination at the site. Thank you very much.

42:51Thank you, Sam and Mayor that concludes the request to speak.

42:58Thank you very much. Vice Mayor you had a comment. Just some follow up. So I think we have heard about the September 7 incident, it's been one month.

43:13So I would like the staff to provide some update on what exactly happened in, because the, especially alarming that Santa Clara police department responded to public records request in a few hours, our police department refuse to even respond and refuse to even to say what records were there.

43:39So I hope the staff take follow up on this. Okay. And then the second thing is regarding vocal and the carpenter association I think the carpenter association has come and spoken request the meeting with the rice project so I wonder any update have they had a meeting.

44:00There's a staff helping to facilitate that. So I hope to get information on that if you cannot respond now. And then another third final item is the authorized campaign sites I think the last speaker about the campaign site was right the city should protect the property rights of the residents,

44:22which I think the staff already sent out a really nice FAQ to the residents, maybe the city manager kidding for people where to look for that information.

44:37Right. Thank you. Our next item is as the pardon city manager to tell people where to look for information if you have authority authority the yard sign on whether you have the right to remove them.

44:51Staff prepared them some really nice information just to tell people where to look for them. Thank you, Madam City Manager, where on the website can we find that information. Thanks, Mayor.

45:04I'm looking at our city clerk, just to confirm it's under the elections page. It is under the elections page. So if you go to Cooper here.gov backslash elections, it'll take you directly to the elections page.

45:17And then we have a sub page under the elections page called political signs what residents should know and there's a list of the FAQs there. So Cooper here.gov backslash elections, and the city also send out the email blast through the e notification.

45:33So if you would like to any future information you should subscribe to those. Thank you. Thank you. Our next item is the consent calendar will be separating items four through eight.

45:48Has anyone by the way pulled an item from the consent calendar from the council, Madam City Clerk. I do not have any requests. Okay. Do we have any members of the public who would like to speak on items, four through eight on the consent calendar.

46:03Do we have any speaker cards on those items, Mayor don't have any requests to speak here in person on items four through eight and I don't see any requests to speak virtually Mayor. Okay, any members of the council who would care to speak on items four through eight.

46:17Not seeing any hands raised, Madam City Clerk, will you please conduct the roll call vote on items four through eight consent. I'm sorry I need to make a motion. Yes, I'm moving.

46:28Do I have a second. Second. Thank you. Councilmember for one second it. Madam City Clerk we please conduct the roll call vote. Councilmember for one.

46:39Aye. Councilmember Mohan. Aye. Councilmember Wong. Aye. Vice Mayor Chow. Aye. Mayor Moore. Aye. The motion carries unanimously. All right, thank you and I need to turn this over item nine on consent to the Vice Mayor, I, I need to recuse on the finish property, as I am situated too close to this to be

47:06participate in the item so, Madam Vice Mayor please take it away. Some consent though. Some consent. Yeah, Madam, we should just vote for the consent item at that point and make a motion.

47:21I'll move item nine. It's just item nine. I'll second. Thank you. So that's the approval of the exchange agreement for finish property. That's a vote.

47:53And, again, Vice Mayor and Council I don't have any request to speak here in person on item nine and I don't see any hands raised virtually for item nine.

48:04If you, if the council is ready I can go to the vote. Yeah, okay. Councilmember Freeman. Aye. Councilmember Mohan. Aye. Councilmember Wong. Aye. Vice Mayor Chow. Aye. Motion carries with more recusing. And, okay, here comes the Mayor now.

48:41Yeah, very fast recusal. Okay, so next we move on to an informational item and we will be briefly provided an update regarding the environmental health approved remediation plan for soil contamination at the rise.

48:57City Manager, do we have a staff report? Actually, I'll jump in. Today we have Attorney Richard Campbell from Alshire and Winder. He's my partner there. And he spent many years prior to joining Alshire with the Federal EPA and is well versed in these issues.

49:15And it's sort of a good example for having a law firm like Alshire and Winder as your city attorney because we can draw on our attorneys with specific expertise when needed.

49:27And so I will turn it over to Richard to walk us through the presentation.

49:34All right. Good evening, Honorable Mayor and Honorable Council members. Can you see the PowerPoint?

49:42We do not see the PowerPoint. I'm sure it's user error on my part, and I'm going to phone a friend from the technical staff. Are you able to assist from the staff computer?

50:21Let's try. While you're doing that, do we skip item 12? Just double checking point of order. Councilmember Wong we're on item 10 right now, and 11 was postponed and then we'll get to 12 so we haven't, we haven't gotten to 12 yet.

50:48All right. So this presentation is on the Eden Housing VIMS system. Give a brief presentation on what is going on with this one.

51:39So the purpose is to provide a general overview of the planned environmental mitigation at Eden Housing Project, and that is the VIMS system you'll see the, if the slide is up, it might take a second I guess there's a delay, not sure.

52:02There it goes. All right, there's a little delay. You'll see the residential floors start at four through eight. This is the block five component of the rise.

52:24So the entity responsible for approving the VIMS is the Santa Clara County Department of Environmental Health, and they wait as the next slide presents itself.

52:40There was initial soil sampling as we know at the site after excavation and some soil vapor treatment there still soil vapor levels that remain a concern for the Santa Clara County Department of Health.

52:57So, to build on the property, they are requiring VIMS system of vapor intrusion mitigation system, and the system will protect against VOCs volatile organic chemicals such as TCE and PCE, both of those chemicals, historically associated with dry cleaning operations.

53:23This is the agency that oversees the cleanup the site cleanup in general, under the California Health and Safety Code. All right, so what is vapor intrusion just very quickly it's the migration of vapor from chemical deposits and subsurface soils that rise into surface structures.

53:56So, here you'll have PCE and TCE. They're underneath the property at various depths, and it may be contaminated soil, it may be just vapor from some other reason, but the actual vapor moves through the soil upwards, like fish swimming upstream up into the buildings.

54:24And so, without the VIMS system in place, it'll enter the actual building itself and collecting in the interior. So, what the VIMS does is protect those vapors from actually entering the building.

54:37Next slide. That's great. All right, so the vapor barrier is designed to stop soil vapors from seeping through the ground into the buildings.

54:46This diagram right here is actually from the applicant's VIMS basis of design report where they lay out the design of the VIMS, and they've laid that out for the Department of Environmental Health for its consideration.

55:00And it'll show that at the very, it's basically a gravel base that when the soil gas hits the gravel, it moves, it's designed so that the gas moves laterally out away from the building.

55:17Then, on top of that is geotextile removal membrane, or inframural membrane, that protects the foundation. The foundation goes on top of that.

55:34There's vents that are built into the system so that the soil gas hits the vents and everything travels laterally out to the exterior of the building.

55:44They put the vents out. I think it's no closer than 50 feet from the building exteriors or from any air ducts or anything like that, so that any soil gas that's venting out doesn't get vented or inadvertently vented back into the building.

56:03Next slide. If indoor air monitoring indicates that additional measures are needed, then modifications will be made to the passive system.

56:15No system's perfect, so sometimes liners rip, things happen, and so there's going to be indoor air monitoring inside the building.

56:24If that happens, if there's elevated levels of, or if there's any signs of the contaminants, the soil vapor entering the building, then there's going to be modifications to the system.

56:38I imagine mitigation, fixed events, try to do what they can to seal up maybe the components of the foundation.

56:49And if that doesn't happen, then they'll flip on the contingent active venting system, and that is comprised of blowers and that type of thing that helps blow the air and vapors away from the interior of the building and the immediate exterior.

57:09Next slide. The city's responsibility for the VIMS is limited. The City of Cupertino, and this is from the Department of Environmental Health's approval of the VIMS system just last month.

57:31And Department of Health makes clear that the City of Cupertino will not approve the hazardous materials or soil vapor intrusion mitigation aspects of the VIM design plans.

57:42The City will review and approve the VIMS design plans as they relate to applicable building code, fire code, etc., as part of the overall building design plans.

57:53So it's basically Santa Clara Department of Environmental Health signs off on the efficacy of the VIMS system, that it's going to work, and that they've approved it.

58:05And then the City makes sure that it's installed properly, like any venting system or any sort of HVAC system or something like that.

58:17Next slide. So I mentioned there's going to be post-occupancy indoor air sampling. There's going to be at least three long-term verification sampling events that will be conducted following building occupancy.

58:33First is three to six months, the second, four to 12 months, and then the third, approximately 24 months after the second, or 12 months after the second, so 24 months for all three.

58:47Next slide. And that concludes the presentation. Any questions?

58:56Thank you very much, Richard. So while you did say that with regards to PC and TC, primarily from dry cleaners, so this site had a Sears Automotive, and they used tetrachloroethylene, which is a degreaser.

59:16And back in 2003, for example, there was a 10-month period where they had 0.76 tons of tetrachloroethylene used on the site.

59:29And then there was actually a hotspot that they found when they were doing testing earlier, which was -- it didn't actually make much sense because it wasn't near the Sears Auto.

59:38It was actually to the north. And the explanation -- there wasn't a sufficient explanation for why there would have been this random hotspot, nor how they managed to locate the random hotspot, because it's like finding a needle in a haystack, because it's like 33 acres on that side.

59:57So that's remained a mystery.

1:00:00But I'm concerned that the plumes have connected between the one hour dry cleaning to the south

1:00:10across the street. And that contamination has gone to the west into the marketplace.

1:00:18And it's extended. And you can't tell looking at the plume who was the originator. Was it

1:00:25on the Valco site Sears? Or was it on the one hour dry cleaner moving to the north?

1:00:31But there is this connection there. So is it possible that if there's are they doing

1:00:40active vapor extraction underneath the block five? And if they are, is there a potential

1:00:49that they're actually drawing contamination from perhaps across the street to the south

1:00:56to their location? Do you have some thoughts on that?

1:01:01What I do know is there isn't an active dry cleaning cleanup site, right, that is being

1:01:09investigated by the Department of Environmental Health. And I know they have some sort of

1:01:13vapor mitigation going on there. I don't I really not don't have the expertise to really

1:01:21opine on that on the on the science of it. That would be a technical expert that could

1:01:25that could really, you know, connect those or, you know, try to see if there's a relationship

1:01:32with that. And that would be environmental consultant. I do know that Department of Environmental

1:01:40Health has both sites under under review. And they're, at the end of the day, Department

1:01:46of Environmental Health is the one who's working with the, you know, under the auspices of

1:01:50the state water board to to look at the site and investigate the site. So good questions.

1:02:00But unfortunately, I think an environmental consultant is probably or the Department of

1:02:05Environmental Health are the ones who best position to answer those types of questions.

1:02:10Okay, thank you. So I do have a request for like an informational memo from the city manager,

1:02:17because we have four sources, potential sources for PC and TCE in this vicinity. So you have

1:02:26the marketplace has an active cleanup that had contaminated to the south of a former

1:02:34dry cleaner. So the marketplaces just to the west of the United furniture site, the United

1:02:40furniture site has an active cleanup from one hour cleaners. And that had extended to

1:02:48the west underneath the marketplace. So there's some overlapping going on there. And then

1:02:52also to the north to the Valco site. And then you have Valco contamination, but the ISO

1:03:01concentration lines for that contamination. It appears to extend to Joanne's fabric, which

1:03:07used to have an historic dry cleaner at it, but it hasn't had any testing done it at all.

1:03:16And there's, there's like little bits of information where you can see that there,

1:03:20it's been hypothesized that it followed from the Joanne's site along the sewage trenching

1:03:29to get to the Valco site. But I'd like to have some information about the plume that's

1:03:37there because it sounds like these at least three of the sources have connected. And it's

1:03:44going to make it interesting for this is just block five, but what happens for the other

1:03:49blocks because the concentration lines then drop off. So there may be, I don't know how

1:03:55it's even going to get designed for some of the, for some of those parcels out there.

1:04:00It's it gets kind of challenging. Okay. All right. So is that okay. Thank you. I see

1:04:06council member Wong. You've got your hand raised. I'm going to switch to the home panel

1:04:10and see if anybody else has their hands raised on this item. Okay. So it'll be a council

1:04:14member Wong followed by the vice mayor followed by council member. Council member Wong. Thank

1:04:19you, mayor. Um, I have a quick question regarding what was the screening level that triggered

1:04:25the needs of VIMS for TCE, PCE, and there are other areas, if that's a listing somewhere.

1:04:31So the public will know that I don't have those levels at my fingertip. They are in

1:04:38the geo tracker. They can be found in that basis of design report that I, um, cited in

1:04:46the, uh, in the PowerPoint that, and that would be, uh, it could be also in DH is approval

1:04:56of the, but I think the actual levels and tables would be in the basis of design report.

1:05:01No, I think it'd be good to make that more accessible to the public. And then the second

1:05:06piece is on the O M M plan in terms of the operations maintenance monitoring plan, um,

1:05:11does it have automated telemetry systems that's going to be in place, uh, to have

1:05:16digital sensors and cloud-based to now telemetry actually monitor what's going on. If a leak

1:05:21or drop in pressure occurs. Ooh, tough question for an attorney. Uh, I don't know the answer

1:05:28to that guy. I was just wondering if they had those in place, because that would actually

1:05:33make the residents there, um, uh, be a little bit more safe. Um, but if that's, if you

1:05:37can find that from the staff, that would be great. Um, I mean, it's just useful information

1:05:41for the public, especially when they do removal. Yeah. And I recall seeing something about

1:05:46that in the basis of design report as well. So that would be a good place to look for

1:05:51it. Thank you for that. Uh, real quick. Thank you council member Wong. And that's one of

1:05:57the reasons why we prefer to go through the sequel process and have these disclosures

1:06:01for the public. Um, cause it's high time that we'd be hearing about, uh, what's, what's

1:06:06gone on on the site. Uh, vice mayor. Okay. I don't know if these questions are for the

1:06:14attorney. It's, um, so from, for someone who is not really familiar with all these

1:06:24terms, it's learning that there are these vapors that's damaging coming from underground.

1:06:36I'm wondering how about the workers who are building the site? Would they be exposed

1:06:45to these vapors while they are working? So what does the DH require? Is there if a short

1:06:54amount of exposure is fine or is it only extended exposure might have health issue?

1:07:01What kind of health issue they might. Um, so the, the department of environmental health

1:07:07did do a health risk assessment is what they call it. And that is intended to get at that

1:07:14very issue of worker safety. And, uh, the health risk assessment has a number of, uh,

1:07:22components to it that require that are required for onsite construction staff and, and, and

1:07:29folks who are digging around in that dirt to, uh, to protect them. So, and that department

1:07:34of environmental health will, um, and the city, I believe will be, um, having those

1:07:41requirements, you know, embedded in the, uh, construction management plans and things

1:07:47like that. But it get to your question. It was studied. So where can one find out this

1:07:52health risk assessment report? That is also on the state water board's geo tracker site

1:07:59for the, uh, Valco town center. Okay. And so before, um, sorry, it seems a vapor invasion

1:08:10system vapor system, um, is trying to get all the vapor out of the building. So then

1:08:17I also wonder after it's built, all the vapor is being expelled out of the building. How

1:08:23about the people who have picnic outside? Is that shorter than exposure? Okay. Maybe

1:08:31I don't know. Yeah, that's a good question. Um, the vape vents are on risers. So they're

1:08:38usually elevated above pedestrian level. And so like, like a kind of a smokestack kind

1:08:47of a situation. So if you have 20 story buildings. Yeah. And that's why they, they, they try

1:08:53to move them away from the building, I think no less than 50 feet or in, in a way from

1:08:58other vents and ducks, you know, that would suck that vapor back into a parking garage

1:09:05or a residence. Uh, that's what it's designed to do. And then, but then that's why you

1:09:12have the monitoring that's done post occupancy to, to make sure one of the things they do

1:09:18as well as, uh, before anyone moves in, they have a number of tests, smoke tests, things

1:09:23like that, that are required, uh, for the interiors of the building. I don't know about

1:09:29the immediate exterior. I have to admit. So I'm just wondering, so this building does

1:09:34not stand on its own, even if you vent out 60 feet, there are other buildings on the

1:09:40other side. So either this building's residence or this other building's residence will get

1:09:45affected. If you're high, you cannot go, are you going 20 story high? Right. And I,

1:09:54so these are questions. The, I think those are engineering type questions that, that

1:09:59would, who should answer those to go to, to go to DH or, uh, if I may just chime in

1:10:05here. Yeah. Um, I do have a little bit of knowledge in this area from, uh, my past

1:10:10career, um, with Irvine company. Um, when the vapor enters a building, it gets stuck

1:10:16in the building and then the, um, level increases. And it's when you have a higher increase

1:10:22that it becomes more problematic. If it's going outside, it just moves into the air

1:10:28and dissipates. And so you don't get that. Oh, that's good to know. Yeah. Yeah. So that's

1:10:35why venting out is already safe enough. Exactly. Exactly. Uh, council member, I was curious

1:10:51about, um, uh, the, the timing of this issue. Uh, is this something we will be doing and

1:10:58maybe you will, is this something we will do every time there's a new, uh, construction

1:11:05phase? This is obviously limited to the block five project. My expectation, and maybe attorney

1:11:15Campbell will chime in, um, uh, if I misspeak, but my expectation is, um, each project will

1:11:22have a study and each project will have, um, if needed, um, mitigation design, um,

1:11:30designed specifically for that project. So this system is specific for this block five.

1:11:36Okay. So my other question was, uh, over the years, there's been extensive remediation

1:11:43done, uh, on, on the soil of this 50 acre site that we have. So is this not something

1:11:50that came to light then, or is this something that gets triggered by building plans? So

1:11:57the, the soil vapor levels that they're working off of right now were taken, I believe at

1:12:07least two years ago. So, um, it was, it was known back then. And this, this basis of design

1:12:13report has been in the works and revised for, um, at least a couple of years from what

1:12:19I could tell. So it's, it just, um, and there was obviously excavation and sampling occurring

1:12:27before that well before that. And so it's a continuum of, of testing that's been done.

1:12:33But as far as the soil vapor results that we've got, yeah, they're, um, I think they're

1:12:40from 2022. I'm right. So the, the vapor intrusion tests were done in 2022. So it's not something

1:12:52that was done recently then the actual soil sampling and soil vapor sampling was done.

1:12:59Um, yeah, 2021, 2022, I believe I'd have to verify that, but it's something that after

1:13:09they found the results, then they started to conduct what type of mitigation was going

1:13:14to be necessary under the buildings. And, um, that, I know the first basis of design

1:13:22report came out a couple of years ago and it's just been revised a couple of times

1:13:27per department of environmental health requirements. So is the mitigation done or not done? Well,

1:13:38I, that would be, uh, department of environmental health, uh, is satisfied that a VIMS system

1:13:46will mitigate for soil vapor levels in the building. So that's their determination.

1:13:55And then what is our responsibility as the city? The city is now responsible, the building

1:14:01department for verifying that the VIMS is installed correctly. And has that been done

1:14:09or is that something that will happen in the future? Yeah, no, so the VIMS is installed,

1:14:14uh, at the, at the time that the foundations is going to be put in. So it's, it comes in

1:14:21first, the gravel layers, the membrane system, then they put the foundation on. So it's

1:14:27a pre kind of a brief pre slab pouring, uh, event and no building has begun at the site.

1:14:38True. Yeah. So this, uh, to sort of get to the crux of this matter, we are just saying

1:14:45that, uh, we have vapor intrusion. Uh, there's, we have a solution and we will be testing

1:14:54it periodically. Yeah, that's a great way to put it. Thank you. Um, so they did remove

1:15:04PCBs from the sites in the original plan. They were going to have two levels of underground

1:15:10parking on the west side and three levels of underground parking on the east property.

1:15:15And that massive excavation would have, um, remediated this, a lot of the soil. It is

1:15:21possible not knowing how, uh, deep that the PC and TCE went. So it's, that is, it's 60%

1:15:29heavier than water. It, uh, it drops very readily and can get into the groundwater and

1:15:35it can spread. You can have a plume that's like a mile long that can go really far.

1:15:40And then, um, unlike like gasoline, which has some natural natural things in the soil,

1:15:45which can, uh, kind of clean things. Uh, uh, thank you. There's a sign there. Um, no,

1:15:54no, that I'm sorry that you need to take your sign out. No. Okay. Um, so, uh, it,

1:16:06it can remain for, um, more than a hundred years. Uh, so this, this, it's a long-term

1:16:12contamination that, uh, you can have from PCE and TCE. So I'm going to check the home

1:16:20panel again. Um, and so when they also, when they changed their plan, there's no underground

1:16:26parking. So you don't have that mass excavation. And that's also why understanding the extent

1:16:31of the plume will let us know which blocks are going to need to the VIM system. And then

1:16:36on top of the VIM system, it's like you can't disturb it. You need to have a deed restriction

1:16:40on top of it so that while the building's in, in place, um, if determined, they need

1:16:46to make sure there's a deed restriction so that nobody, no one's disturbing it so that the,

1:16:51uh, vapor is able to go through the cracks in the floor. And, um, because there's just

1:16:56naturally there, there's opportunity for that to, to get inside. Okay. And you see council member

1:17:01Foon, your hand is raised. I don't know vice mayor if you reraised your hand or that's for,

1:17:07okay, council member Foon. So I'm interested in a sort of counterfactual. These have all been

1:17:12good and interesting questions. If, if this site had never been scraped off, if there were still

1:17:18a mall sitting on it, at what point, at what threshold would there be some sort of duty on

1:17:24the part of the owner of that site to mitigate any of this contamination? That is, that's a good

1:17:33question. Uh, yeah, the, the liabilities associated with contaminated sites is, uh, is, is something

1:17:41that's constantly in, in flux. Uh, it really comes into play when you start moving dirt. So, um,

1:17:50there, there, or you've got soil vapor in your shopping mall, you know, it'll say it stayed,

1:18:00you know, Valco, uh, that could have triggered some action. Uh, it, it really just depends on

1:18:08the ability. Well, it depends on what that contaminants doing. So, you know, if it is

1:18:14threatening groundwater, then state water board gets involved. If it's threatening human health

1:18:19and safety through soil or air, you know, the department of toxic substance control or EPA could

1:18:24get involved, EPA can get involved in all of it or DH. So it really, it just really depends on

1:18:31the facts and circumstances of each site. Okay. Cause it, it seems otherwise like there would

1:18:37have been this building there. We would have never known that anything was going on until

1:18:40there was a need to actually examine it for the purpose of building something else.

1:18:47It's possible that contaminants escape concern of the regulatory authorities all the time. I used

1:18:53to work at US EPA. I'm well aware of that. So, uh, sometimes you just, uh, you don't, you don't

1:19:02find something until it's either a member of the public comes forward or someone gets sick.

1:19:08Thank you. So on, on that point, marketplace voluntarily, uh, went into, um, regulatory

1:19:20oversight with DH. Uh, they were changing leases and they wanted to voluntarily do a cleanup of

1:19:27the dry cleaner on that property. Uh, United furniture was because it was going to be

1:19:33redeveloped that they, and they had the dry cleaner there. Um, the Valco sites interesting

1:19:39because there isn't a dry cleaner. Cause that's like a red flag. So just about every dry cleaner

1:19:44in the state has some contamination. Um, the original ones used to just have the dry cleaner

1:19:49fluid, uh, drain just like your washing machine at home. And then your sewage lines don't have

1:19:56sealed joints. So it gets out readily. So that's, that was the original problem. Um, so there's,

1:20:02there wasn't a really a, um, kind of a red flag on Valco, except that I have to say that in 2018,

1:20:11when we had the original SB 35 plan go through, I went to the fire department records and found a

1:20:19handwritten letter from the then head of, um, DH. And she had written that there had been 0.76

1:20:28tons of tetracloroethylene, um, used at, um, the Sears automotive site. And there were multiple

1:20:36inspection reports, um, showing, uh, how they handled the material to put it nicely, um, on

1:20:44that site. And they also had an underground, uh, waste oil tank. Um, and there were some

1:20:52missing records on when that tank went out and that was connected to the floor of Sears auto.

1:20:57And it was a single walled tank. And so single walled tanks, um, they fail. And so you have

1:21:04a leakage into the ground. Um, so there were a number of paths for explode exposure to the soil

1:21:11from what they were using at Sears auto. Um, so I've been following this longer than I'd like to

1:21:17admit. Um, so when you do look at the geo tracker, and so for the vice mayor who's trying to look

1:21:23up a report, you have about, I want to say somewhere between 50 and 100 reports to, to wade

1:21:30through, to try to find the one you're looking for. Um, so there, and each one is, is very long.

1:21:35So there's a significant amount of information. So I do appreciate having, um, the staff and

1:21:43attorney support to, uh, let us hear about the project and what's going to happen with it moving

1:21:48forward. Uh, with that, um, so we've asked our questions. It's an informational item. Um,

1:21:57if, if there are some questions or comments from members of the public, we can entertain those now

1:22:05and turn in a speaker card. Okay. Okay. Um, you can turn it in after. Okay. Thank you.

1:22:16And do we have anyone online that wanted to speak on this item?

1:22:19Mayor, I don't see any hands raised virtually. Um, at this time we will welcome Pamela Hershey.

1:22:24Good evening again. I just wanted to make a comment about the Valco site. As you, all of

1:22:29you are well aware, I could throw a stone from my front yard to where the Sears building it was

1:22:36pretty much. I'm just the second house. And so when the vapors are going out, like the attorney

1:22:41tried to describe, and I'm not a construction, my son is, but, uh, when the vapors go out and

1:22:46they're moving it away from their buildings, I think you said 50 feet. Am I correct? Well,

1:22:52where's that going to go? Because we're on the other side of the wall. Are you going to run

1:22:57into the wall? Are you going to put it where the park land is or supposed to be an open area where

1:23:03the retail is? I'm like, where are those going to be? Because we don't want them to come into

1:23:08our neighborhood because the residents, because they're protecting the residents about protecting

1:23:14the residents have been in that location for 40 years. So where are those going to be? That's

1:23:19my question, you know, because the buildings are almost up against the wall. The new, the first

1:23:24building that they're working on right now. Uh, so 50 feet is where from that building is my

1:23:32question. Is it going to be towards the residents that live on the portal side of the, of the, of

1:23:38the mall or is it going to be, are they going to place them towards Wolf or towards Stevens Creek?

1:23:44So I think the location of those does matter to the residents. And, uh, with my group and people

1:23:50that I know in our area, one will want to know where those are going to be located, uh, before

1:23:57they actually be our built. Thank you. Um, thank you. That, that is a question for our attorneys

1:24:05as well, um, because we're not in, in a secret process. So what, what do we have for, um,

1:24:14influence and leverage on, on these, uh, them systems and where the venting is going to be?

1:24:21I think it's an interesting question. I think, I think we should look into

1:24:26where the venting will be. I think that is a good question. Um, and I'm hoping we'll find that

1:24:32there's no problem. Vice mayor. Um, yeah, I do wonder. So this is the first building of that

1:24:46site. So other buildings likely will be streamlined approved without even come to the council. And this

1:24:53particular one come only because they need the finance, uh, the bond finance. So that means

1:25:00there might be venting system installed next to a single family home they don't are not even aware

1:25:07of the vent might be shooting right at them. So I do wonder, are there existing state or city

1:25:16standard, um, where this kind of vent, um, can point to or how far away they should be from, uh,

1:25:26existing buildings. Uh, hope the staff can get back to us about that. If we don't currently

1:25:35have that standard, maybe the city should look into adopting one so that when the new project

1:25:42comes, that's part of the standard they have to abide by, uh, for the safety of our residents.

1:25:54Okay. All right. I'm not seeing any further hands raised from the council and less, uh,

1:26:00council member Wong, did you have any comments on this item? I do not. Thank you. Okay. We're all

1:26:06set. So thank you. This was an informational item and I appreciate all of the assistance on

1:26:12it. And we next move on to public hearings and we have postponed item 11 to a date certain

1:26:21October 20th. So our next public hearing item is item 12. It's a modification to

1:26:28Cupertino municipal code chapter 19.08. Madam city manager, do we have a staff report on this

1:26:33item as we open the public hearing, uh, mayor, we do have a staff report. It's being presented by,

1:26:42um, another one of my partners, John Cardenas, uh, and he's joining us via zoom. He's in

1:26:48Southern California. Thank you, John. Thank you, Floyd. Uh, good evening, mayor, vice mayor,

1:26:58council members. Um, I have a presentation, uh, to go along with this. Uh, it looks like it's

1:27:06going up on the screen now. Great. And if I could ask for assistance, uh, navigate,

1:27:14navigating through the slides, uh, if we could start with the next slide. Thank you. Uh,

1:27:24so let me just take a few minutes, uh, to talk through, um, these three definitions,

1:27:32definition amendments to the code, uh, starting with a little background, uh, recent evaluations

1:27:39of streamlined mixed use housing projects has exposed a mismatch between Cupertino's local

1:27:46municipal code and California state standards, uh, because our code lacks a standalone

1:27:53definition for square footage city staff have historically substituted the local definition

1:28:00of floor area during project reviews. And, uh, what we're finding is that continuing this

1:28:07substitution leaves the city vulnerable to conflicting interpretation, interpretations

1:28:14and potential legal challenges regarding state streamlined applications. Um, I'll just note the

1:28:20planning commission already reviewed this amendment on July 28th and voted five zero to

1:28:25recommend that the city council adopt the ordinance. Next slide, please. So under SB 35,

1:28:35the city is required to verify that at least two thirds of a streamlined projects total square

1:28:41footage is dedicated to residential use. Our local floor area metric serves, uh, an entirely

1:28:50different purpose. It regulates parcel level floor area ratios and general plan growth allocations.

1:28:58So this presented a dilemma that if we simply change our existing floor area definition to

1:29:05match state ratios, we risk unintentionally disrupting the city's local environmental and

1:29:12zoning protection frameworks. Um, just to note here that our general plan relies on a pretty

1:29:20unique city-wide development allocation pool for non-residential spaces, which would be

1:29:26compromised if local metrics were altered just to fit state streamlining ratios. Next slide,

1:29:34please. So what we're proposing is in a new definition for square footage. Um, this definition

1:29:47aligns directly with state housing laws and to remain consistent with the building code. This

1:29:54new definition explicitly excludes underground and subterranean spaces. The definition also

1:30:03establishes clear guidelines for mixed use common areas, clarifying that shared lobbies,

1:30:09elevators and hallways must be proportionally split between residential and commercial commercial

1:30:15use. Uh, it's important to note, uh, with respect to timing, this changes forward looking and only

1:30:23applies to new applications submitted after the ordinance officially goes into effect. And just

1:30:31to note the new structural calculation parameters apply city-wide, but completely preserve existing

1:30:39code rules regarding specific residential housing types of single family town home duplex. Next

1:30:48slide, please. We're also revising the definition of garage. The term residential garage was

1:31:00originally put into the floor area definition to manage bulk and massing in lower density

1:31:07neighborhoods. However, the current, the current vague wording accidentally captures large

1:31:13structured parking garages in multifamily developments. So we're updating the language

1:31:20to clarify that a residential garage refers strictly to single level or detached structures

1:31:27serving small scale residential units. Large parking structures that feature internal drive

1:31:35aisles and complex maneuvering areas will be specifically excluded from this definition.

1:31:42And just to note that under the existing ambiguity in the code, residential structured parking

1:31:48was essentially being penalized by being included in floor area while non-residential structured

1:31:54parking was excluded. And this revision corrects that imbalance. Next slide, please.

1:32:03The last definition we're looking at tonight, uh, is the definition for attic. Our current

1:32:14definition vaguely describes an attic as an unconditioned uninhabitable space between the

1:32:20ceiling and the roof. And what we're, uh, hoping to accomplish with this revision is

1:32:28to prevent builders from manipulating building volume metrics. Uh, we're creating objective

1:32:35requirements. So, uh, to be excluded from floor area, an attic must be entirely unfinished,

1:32:42have no permanent stairs and feature no operable windows. Any space that fails to meet these three

1:32:51specific requirements will be counted as both floor area and square footage. Adding these

1:32:59objective physical parameters, uh, we think give staff an enforceable framework to stop developers

1:33:06from utilizing auxiliary low clearance spaces to manipulate zoning limits. Next slide, please.

1:33:16Just a note on CEQA. This ordinance does not constitute a project under the, under CEQA.

1:33:27It's updating text definitions that have no impact or changes on the environment. Next slide,

1:33:35please. So, uh, just a quick, uh, summary in terms of the benefits and, uh, the beneficial

1:33:46impacts that we see. The, primarily the amendment successfully aligns Cupertino's local ordinances

1:33:54with the constantly and rapidly evolving state housing legislation. By eliminating

1:34:01administrative ambiguities, we see it safeguarding the city against, against future layout disputes

1:34:08and potential costly litigation. And most importantly, it gives our staff and builder

1:34:14community clear, predictable objective rules for evaluating complex multifamily and mixed

1:34:21use developments explicitly defining these metrics provides administrative certainty up front, uh,

1:34:28protects public resources from being drained by time consuming lawsuits, uh, and helps, helps

1:34:37facilitate a resolution of interpretive disputes. So next slide. So on those grounds, uh, we

1:34:48recommend that the city move forward adopting the ordinance. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much,

1:34:55John. Uh, at this time, do we have any clarifying questions from the council before we go to

1:35:01members of the public? I'm not seeing any hands raised. Okay. Did you have any? Okay. Very well,

1:35:10um, Madam city clerk, do we have any members of the public who would like to comment on this item?

1:35:14Mayor, I don't see any requests here in person and I do not see any hands raised virtually.

1:35:22All right. Um, so do we have any last clarifying questions before closing the public hearing?

1:35:26Not hearing any. Okay. Do we have a motion for deliberation purposes for this item?

1:35:34I'll move this staff recommended action. Thank you. I'll second. Okay. So, um, council member

1:35:40Frewin moved and council member Wong second it. And do we have any comments on this item from any

1:35:46member of the council vice mayor? Yeah. I want to thank the mayor to finally clarify these

1:35:59definitions that have been troubling us. I think since 2018, um, it's concerning at the time,

1:36:09the project that's claiming to have two thirds residential when they count, um, a lot of non

1:36:19living area as residential space to qualify for SP 35. Um, so at least going forward, we have a

1:36:28clear standard for everyone to follow. And I think we didn't expect that because a lot of our code

1:36:36was meant for single family homes. And now we will be seeing more likely mixed use projects.

1:36:43So we, this is really necessary to clarify all these definition. Thank you. Council member Mohan.

1:36:51Yeah. I just wanted to follow up what the vice mayor said. Uh, it does, uh, it is supposed to

1:37:02bring clarity to, uh, a lot of, uh, ambiguous definitions, but just curious, did we have a,

1:37:10did we have possible, uh, did we have litigation because of the ambiguities in the past? I wasn't

1:37:19here at the time if there was. So I can't really answer since I've been here. I don't know of any.

1:37:26Okay. I guess I can't, I wonder if we know, because that's one of the things we're trying

1:37:31to correct. The residents suit the city because of the SP 35 project specifically argued the

1:37:39calculation of the tutor residential is incorrect. And then there is dispute about whether they can

1:37:47count a high ceiling twice. Um, right. For, for us then so that they can come bring up their

1:37:55residential, uh, floor cup, uh, square space. So there is it, there is dispute and staff at the

1:38:03time they didn't, they follow what they think is correct interpretation, but, uh, residents

1:38:10disagreed. So yeah. Yes. Uh, council member Mohan, there was significant, uh, just, there

1:38:20was a significant dispute about this, uh, and the project that, um, the vice mayor is referring to

1:38:26had 1.4 million square feet of residential parking garages counted as residential and 3.5 million

1:38:33of underground, uh, retail and office parking not counted because it was underground. Um,

1:38:41and so that's how I would call it magic math. That's how the magic math for the two thirds

1:38:46requirement came to be that that project could have 2 million square feet of office. So this,

1:38:51uh, um, eight years later, uh, we'll correct that, but not the project. Okay. Thank you.

1:39:00Mayor. Yes. And also that project had a lot of the shared lobby space. Okay. I counted towards

1:39:08residential points actually shared. So those are, I think, why we need this clarification.

1:39:18It even had 500,000 square feet of amenities. Yeah. 500,000. It was shocking. Okay. Um,

1:39:27I think we've walked around this one. We have a motion in a second. Correct. So Madam

1:39:33city clerk, will you please conduct the roll call vote? Sure. Council member, council member

1:39:38Frewin. Aye. Council member Mohan. Aye. Council member Wong. Aye. Vice mayor Chao. Aye. Mayor

1:39:49Moore. Aye. Motion carries unanimously. All right. We're going to take a five minute break and then

1:39:53we're going to come back for public hearing item 13. So we'll be back at 8 34. Thank you. Okay.

1:40:04Our last public hearing item is item 13. It is the development of the coach house property.

1:40:10Madam city manager, do we have a staff report? Thank you, mayor. We do have a staff report and

1:40:16a presentation. So this is a project that's proposed by dividend homes for a 35 unit housing

1:40:21development on an existing commercial parcel near the corner of South De Anza Boulevard

1:40:26and prospect road. As you may remember, a separate housing project was proposed and approved on this

1:40:31property in 2023. As a fully residential project review is limited by several state laws, including

1:40:37the housing accountability act, the housing crisis act, which is SB 330 and density bonus law.

1:40:44Planning commission previously has reviewed and unanimously recommended approval with a five oh

1:40:48vote at its hearing on September 8th of this year. And I will now turn it over to M.E. Sugiyama,

1:40:56our senior planner and Luke Connolly, assistant director of community development department to

1:41:00present this item. Okay. So right before we do that, do we have any ex parte communications

1:41:06from the council? I did speak to the developers very briefly before the start of this meeting

1:41:11in passing. Does anyone else have any? Okay. And I cannot see council member Wong, council member

1:41:18Wong. Not on my end. Okay. Not on my end. All right. Very well. And now we'll move on to the

1:41:22staff reports. Thank you. Good evening, mayor Moore and council members. I'm a Sugiyama

1:41:29planning staff here today to discuss the requested housing development project at 1655

1:41:34South De Anza Boulevard. And I'll request that the slides be shared for that. And if we can just

1:41:46advance to the second slide. Great. So this property is at the corner of South De Anza Boulevard

1:41:53and Prospect Road where the city borders the city of Saratoga as well as San Jose. It is within the

1:42:01South Saratoga-Sunnyville road conceptual zoning area and it's owned PCG Res for planned development

1:42:06with a mix of commercial and residential uses. Next slide. The site currently has a 13,500

1:42:15square foot commercial building with four tenant spaces. It also was previously approved for

1:42:20redevelopment in 2023 as the city manager noted. And that was to allow for a mixed use project with

1:42:2534 residential uses and a commercial space. And then the city received a preliminary application

1:42:30for this project under Senate Bill 330 in September of 2025 which vested the standards

1:42:35and fees that were in place at that time. Next slide. Also as noted by the city manager,

1:42:44the project makes use of a number of different housing laws. Those include the Housing

1:42:48Accountability Act which limits the city's ability to deny, condition, or apply non-objective

1:42:52standards to a project. SB 330 which streamlines the permitting process and also allows the

1:42:57applicant to vest fees and standards that are in place at the time that they submit that

1:43:00preliminary application. The project is making use of the state's density bonus law which allows

1:43:06for additional units, waivers, concessions, and also reduced parking standards. And then finally

1:43:12this project with this project the city is subject to the requirements for no net loss

1:43:17under Senate Bill 166 which requires the city to maintain a list of housing sites that can

1:43:22accommodate the required arena. Next slide please. So here you can see an overview of the project's

1:43:31consistency with the typical development requirements. The project applicant is utilizing

1:43:36density bonus law to allow for 10 additional units above the maximum density. The applicant

1:43:41has also proposed density bonus waivers to address a number of requirements for different

1:43:46setbacks while still maintaining a larger setback from the property line that is shared with the

1:43:50existing single-family residences to the west. The requested waivers will be discussed a little

1:43:56bit more in detail later in this presentation. Next slide. This project consists of 35 town

1:44:06home units. They're spread across five different buildings with five below market rate BMR units

1:44:12and 30 market rate units. There are seven units in each building. Each of them is three stories

1:44:21tall with three stories of living space and then they also have a rooftop deck on top with some

1:44:27storage as well for a grand total of four stories. The proposed units range from approximately 2,100

1:44:35to 2,700 square feet. They each have a two-car garage and they'll also have some guest parking

1:44:41as well as some outdoor space for the residences between those units. There will be 47 new trees

1:44:48planted on the site and then existing trees along the shared property lines will also be protected

1:44:53in place. Next slide please. Here you can see the proposed site layout with the five buildings

1:45:01oriented perpendicular to the two different street frontages that they have. The proposed

1:45:06BMR units are identified for you by the red dots. Next slide. And here you can see a rendering of

1:45:16the proposed project. This is showing a view from south the ends of Boulevard. Next slide.

1:45:22Based on staff review, the project is consistent with the applicable objective standards for the

1:45:30city's general plan, conceptual zoning plan, the BMR housing manual as well as the municipal code

1:45:36and the project includes a concession under density bonus law to waive the requirements

1:45:41to incorporate a commercial use within the project. Please do note that concessions and

1:45:48waivers proposed under state density bonus law can only be denied under specific circumstances

1:45:52including that they have an adverse impact on historic property health or safety. In addition

1:45:58to this concession, the applicant is also utilizing 11 density bonus waivers. For each

1:46:02of these waivers, the applicant has noted that imposing the standards could potentially result

1:46:07in the elimination of units, reduced floor areas or a substantial change to the design of the

1:46:12buildings which is not consistent with the project as they proposed it. Next slide. So for three of

1:46:21those 11 waivers, they're requesting modifications to the required building setbacks from Prospect

1:46:27Road south the ends of Boulevard and also from the western property line that abuts the single

1:46:31family residential development. Next slide. Three other waivers will be utilized to allow for a

1:46:42modification of the required landscape buffers from Prospect Road south De Anza and the western

1:46:47property line. Next slide please. And an additional waiver is requested to allow for a reduced

1:46:58planting strip along south De Anza Boulevard. Next slide. Three of the final four waivers

1:47:10would be to allow for an increase in the height of the building from 30 feet to a maximum of

1:47:1544 feet 9 inches to allow for the four stories as discussed before and also to allow for an

1:47:23encroachment into the required building plain slope line. The final waiver would be used to

1:47:29allow for an increase in the maximum floor area. Next slide. And while this is not required as part

1:47:38of the planning entitlement, the project will be required to provide a public art following

1:47:43project approval. At this time, this is where the applicant is proposing the public art piece

1:47:48which is in the northwestern corner of the property along south De Anza Boulevard. Next

1:47:54slide please. Based on the project site characteristics, staff has recommended that

1:48:02the applicant and the applicant has requested the payment of a park and loo fee consistent with the

1:48:07Quimby Act. Next slide please. And staff also reviewed the project against the city's BMR

1:48:17requirements and found that the BMR units are generally compatible and comparable in size to

1:48:22the market market rate units with the BMR units and market rate units both averaging about 2400

1:48:28square feet. Next slide please. The project has been found to qualify for the statutory

1:48:38exemption under the provisions of AB 130. In this analysis for the exemption, the city's third

1:48:44party consultant reviewed a phase one environmental site assessment or ESA and a transportation

1:48:51analysis which confirmed that the project would not have significant effects on the environment

1:48:55and met the criteria for the exemption. Next slide please. Additionally, the project was

1:49:04heard by the planning commission last month on September 8th which recommended unanimously for

1:49:10project approval. The discussion at the planning commission centered primarily on project

1:49:14circulation including potential traffic impacts and also site design considerations. Next slide.

1:49:21And so with that, staff recommends that your council adopt the resolutions to find the

1:49:27project exempt from CEQA and approve the permits for the project. And that concludes my presentation.

1:49:34The applicant is also here and we have some environmental staff on call as well for any

1:49:39questions. All right. Thank you, Emmy, for the staff report. If we have some clarifying

1:49:49questions at this time, you may make them. And I do want to also verify that the applicant is

1:49:58you are making a presentation or are you electing not to? You are going to make a presentation.

1:50:03Okay. So we have the clarifying questions of the staff report right now. And then we'll have the

1:50:08applicant report up to eight minutes and then you can counsel will then ask questions of either

1:50:14report and then we will move to members of the public after that. All right. Vice mayor.

1:50:23Hi. I'm just curious. The 2023 approval has 34 residential units and three 7500 square foot

1:50:35of commercial. And this new version has 35 units. So the number of units didn't change much.

1:50:43Are the units of different type in the 2023 approval?

1:50:51Yeah, I can answer that. The 2023 project had 34 units. 23 of those were condominiums in one

1:50:58larger building out towards the end of the ends of Boulevard. And there were 11 townhomes closer to

1:51:06the residential units on the west. So since this project is 35 townhomes, it's almost the same

1:51:12number of units, but it's very different in the in the layout. And that would also explain the

1:51:18really retail would be a preference to do it. But there's also less room since this is laid out as

1:51:24a townhome development, not a condominium mixed use building. But in fact, condominium will serve

1:51:31the middle income people better, right? That's what our housing element needs. And we already had

1:51:40a lot of new townhome development. Yeah, both projects would be required to have 20% affordable.

1:51:48So that project was as well. I think one thing to note on this project is they are providing

1:51:55five BMR units, but three of the five are for very low income, which is above and beyond what

1:52:01our code would require. So that enabled the applicant to get a larger density bonus. But

1:52:09we have a level of affordability, very low income units are capped at 50% of the area media income,

1:52:17whereas median and moderate ranges between 80 and 120. So three of the units are affordable to an

1:52:24income category we really never see in an ownership product. And the second thing I'd actually want

1:52:30to add, we've had a lot of townhome projects get approved by the city council, all of which have

1:52:35taken advantage of waivers and concessions, but not provided density bonus units. This project is

1:52:42actually providing what 10 or nine extra units. So while the waivers are actually going towards

1:52:51getting additional units than what the site would have allowed under its existing density.

1:52:56Oh, that's good to know because it was mentioned the no net loss. I thought

1:53:01it's providing less units than we had planned for. So it's providing more.

1:53:08Yeah, this, this site really didn't factor into no net loss because it had 34. It's not a housing

1:53:14element site. It was a pipeline site because we had a project approved. So it's, it's increasing

1:53:20one. Okay. But the level of affordability is actually helpful because our, our code does not

1:53:25require lower, very low income for ownership. And on this project, there are three very low income

1:53:31units. Okay, great. And then last question, I think I know the answer, but I would like staff,

1:53:38the public would always want to know why the city allocated the retail on this site and we cannot

1:53:46require it under the state law right now sites that allow housing can be developed as 100%

1:53:54housing projects. And that's really what we're seeing across the board. You know,

1:54:00the previous project was approved, but we had spoken with that applicant and post approval,

1:54:07they had really found retail not to be something that was viable. So this is, I think what we're

1:54:13just seeing more of before the state law city can zone and decide the way this, this site

1:54:21require ground level retail. But that requirement right now, the state has taken that away from us.

1:54:29Right? That that's correct. Local control. Yes. 10, 10 or more years ago, you'd have had the

1:54:36discretion to approve a mixed use project. You'd had a wide range of choices that today

1:54:44a hundred percent housing is allowable if a site allows housing either through its zoning

1:54:49or general plan designation. Okay. Council member Mohan. Thank you for the presentation,

1:55:03Amy and Luke. Luke, I had a math question. I hope I'm up to it.

1:55:13Don't we have to have 20% BMR units, 20 and I'm looking at 35 units. That should be seven.

1:55:20If it's just the market rate, it should be six, but now we have five. That is true,

1:55:26but it's on the base number of units, which is lower than the 35. What is the base number?

1:55:34What was the base on the 15? Was it 25? So it actually is right on the 20%. This, this site

1:55:41only would allow 15 units per acre, which is why the density bonus was needed to get to the 35

1:55:48units. So five of 25, it's exactly 20% BMR. Oh, okay. Got it. I do that all the time too.

1:55:59I had another question. There is a gas station on the corner. Is that separate? I mean,

1:56:06is that a separate owner separate? And it wasn't part, it was never a part of this development?

1:56:13No, it was not a part of the previous project or this project. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

1:56:19So I noticed on the site plan, you're showing a driveway on the west side and it extends up

1:56:27to the neighbor's property line. And it doesn't look like it goes through. It looks like it's

1:56:35hitting landscape area with some trees. So what's the thought there? So the intention for that is

1:56:42to provide connection to the property to the north. This is to align with some of our general

1:56:47plan standards as well as a standard within the conceptual zoning plan, which basically

1:56:52requests interblock connectivity to allow for some projects or some of the development to

1:56:58release onto Prospect Road as well as share the road on South De Anza. So if you were to drive

1:57:03down or I should say up that side with the driveway there, what are you going to see at the end

1:57:09of it? I think as it's currently proposed, it would be terminating there. There wouldn't

1:57:15necessarily be a connection at this point until the other property has an approved development

1:57:21and it's also being developed. So would that be then a six foot solid fence or are we talking

1:57:29about a gated emergency access type of situation where somebody could very easily slip through

1:57:38it? You know what I'm talking about those. Yeah. My understanding is that there will be a fence

1:57:43there, but I'll kind of defer that over to the applicant for more specifics about how they're

1:57:47planning on maintaining that. Okay, great. And I think that the council questions have completed

1:57:54for the staff report. Okay. Council Member Wong. Yes, through the Mayor. The question I have for

1:58:02the staff is two things. One, there was a Kikusushi there. There was a Coach Lickers there. How much

1:58:08retail revenue do we lose in the last year or two since that side has been set for redevelopment?

1:58:17I do not have that at my disposal right now. You're talking like a site specific

1:58:23loss with those tenants. Site specific loss of retail tax revenue. I mean, I'm just curious.

1:58:30Yeah, if I had it, I would be happy to. If you find out later. Okay. No problem. If you find

1:58:34out later, that's what we get to know. And then the separate question related to that is,

1:58:41and this is, I should have just looked on Esri, but where does San Jose begin

1:58:46and Cupertino and is it on the other side of Prospect? I mean, sorry, Saratoga begin and

1:58:53Cupertino. Correct. It's Saratoga as soon as you cross Prospect Road to the south. And San Jose,

1:59:01if you go to the east, east of De Anza is San Jose. Correct. Okay. So I'm only bringing this up

1:59:08just for informational purposes. So everybody knows is that that is one of our last retail

1:59:13locations that we lost. And I know it's important to have housing, but we basically carved out of

1:59:20retail by San Jose because the Home Depot is not ours. You work your way all the way up on the

1:59:24street. And so it's important when we look at housing projects to think about the retail revenue

1:59:29loss that's occurred and to understand the property tax gains that we have to make sure

1:59:34that we're at least net zero. I mean, there's something we do in the future. I'm just recommending

1:59:39my fellow Calico members something to do in the future, looking at net zero in terms of retail

1:59:44loss, tax revenue loss versus what we're getting property tax. So that's it. Thank you. Vice mayor.

1:59:52Hi. First follow up on that question. The project has

2:00:00Fiscal Impact Analysis, right? So that analysis did not include information about previous return revenue before.

2:00:11Right, it's about how this project works.

2:00:14It's certainly existing.

2:00:17So it provides estimates of that. I don't know that we have if we're looking for firm numbers on what that looks like.

2:00:21I'm not sure that that's exactly what would be provided through the Fiscal Impact Analysis.

2:00:26Okay, and then next question is regarding the height. So I understand this density bonus law they can build as high as they want maybe.

2:00:40So the current highest point is 44 feet, 9 inches, about 45 feet, plus a rooftop.

2:00:49So another 6 feet tall person might be on the rooftop.

2:00:52So the 44/9 number represents the entirety of the building, including the roof.

2:00:58But if there is rooftop deck, isn't that on top of the 44 feet 9?

2:01:07So half of most of the roof is actually a pitched roof, and then it has a rooftop deck on kind of the other portion of it.

2:01:13And so the height is measured all the way to the peak of the roof, which will be above the roof.

2:01:18Oh, so the roof is above the deck.

2:01:21Right, it will go extend beyond the deck, yes.

2:01:24Oh, I see. So how tall is it? At what height is the deck?

2:01:30I would believe that it's probably 9 feet less than that at floor. Right, the floor of the deck is probably around 9 feet less.

2:01:37So I'm just wondering if I were a single family home next to the property.

2:01:43Are they going to be looking over my yard? What kind of mitigation is there?

2:01:49Are they maybe they there are some barriers so they can look over the single family, they can look over the other side to the mountain?

2:01:58Right. So the project has actually been designed to have the rooftop decks for the most part face the interior of the project.

2:02:05And then the storage areas and again, that actual pitched roof part that goes beyond the floor will block majority of the views from those decks.

2:02:13But in addition to that, they also have the existing trees that kind of screen most of the views along that west property line with the single family residences.

2:02:21And where any, you know, damaged or dying trees exist there, there are plans to replace those to make sure that it's as well screened as possible.

2:02:29Oh, okay, that's great to know. I actually like roof that top deck is just as long as it doesn't include them other people's privacy.

2:02:38And that's great design. Thank you. Okay, not seeing any further hands raised from the council. It is now time for the applicant's presentation.

2:02:51You have up to eight minutes. And if you will just be one speaker. Yeah, just be me. Okay.

2:02:58Good evening Mayor City Council members. Josh wrote so vice president of development at given homes. Good to see you all again dividends a private home builder founded in 1994 specializing in single family homes and townhomes throughout the core Bay area with active or upcoming projects

2:03:14in eight cities totaling 550 new homes, 233 of those will be in the city of Cupertino we have to recently approved on Stevens Creek and this third one we're really excited to break ground on all three of them in the upcoming year.

2:03:27We're pleased to be here tonight to present the 35 unit housing development at 1655 South De Anza, the homes will rain from 1550 to 2150 square feet, three and four bedroom floor plans each have two private parking spaces, either inside by side or tandem

2:03:43garages, all the homes as just discussed have rooftop decks, and the project was designed with care to respect this in single family homes behind the site.

2:03:52We designed the access road to provide a buffer which at the shortest point is approximately 36 feet, and as you move up the site closer to 45 feet. In addition, we work with the project arborist and staff to maintain the beautiful cypress trees along the property line.

2:04:08And we also agreed to work with the neighbors and our landscape architect at the planning commission hearing to explore putting in some additional planting when there's gaps between those existing cypress trees.

2:04:19As staff noted we're providing the 20% PMR require units, 10% which are at the very low income level, the projects protected by numerous housing state, state housing laws, and in closing we really appreciate city staff and their effort to be working

2:04:37together collaboratively towards what we think is going to be a great housing project for the city of Cupertino with me tonight is MJ Frankel and Elisa Petasini of David Holmes, as well as our land planner, Rita Raj Sharma from the Dawn Group in case you have any questions about the land plan

2:04:51or the architecture.

2:04:53Appreciate your time and your support. Thank you. All right. Thank you. So at this time, do we have any council member questions for either the staff or the applicant vice mayor.

2:05:12If it's possible I am curious what the rooftop deck look like. Do you have any, to kind of go off rendering flat roofs, essentially on approximately half of the roof you're going to have your solar panels that are required, so about half of it won't be

2:05:33usable by the future homeowners and then on the other half we designed them as Emmy noted, for example on building five if you're looking at the overall site plan which is the building, kind of with the most units close to the single family homes.

2:05:43The top of the rooftop deck closest to the single family homes will be where the HVAC and the solar is so they won't be looking into those units so you're going to have the livable space looking the other direction and you're going to have the cypus trees along the property line.

2:05:59Okay, great. Thank you.

2:06:06Not seeing any further hands raised from the council council member Wong. Did you have any questions great. Okay, no, I'm great. I like the proposal.

2:06:16Okay. And so at this time, we are inviting members of the public to speak about this agenda item. Mayor I don't see any requests to speak here in community hall, and I do have one request to speak virtually.

2:06:31So at this time we will go ahead and welcome Santa row. Yes, good evening council members. This is Santa speaking on behalf of myself only planning commissioner and pretty pretty fine chair of the planning commission.

2:06:45I do want to remind our council members that the applicant was very very gracious in their past project and worked with restaurants to accommodate restaurants desire to set back units that were adjacent to the single family homes.

2:07:03We almost never see any concessions from applicants, and I think this applicant has been very very accommodating of restaurants needs and we need more applicants like, like the current applicant for Cupertino where we can get people that work with the community

2:07:21that come back for the project and that build in desirable locations that add to our housing stock, and I would encourage you to prove, and I hope to see them back again doing business in Cupertino, and I hope they know that they have a pro business commissioner in me and in others in Cupertino.

2:07:41Thank you. Thank you, Sam and Mayor there are no further requests to speak on this item. All right, thank you.

2:07:51Okay, we have any remaining clarifying questions from the council. I do see a hand raised from Vice Mayor is that a relic from before. No, I'll just make the motion for staff recommendation.

2:08:07Second, I'd like to second. Okay. Okay Councilmember Frewin was ahead of Councilmember Wong on that item.

2:08:14We have a motion in a second. Any further comments on this and I do, I have to say I do really appreciate that you have, unlike many other projects where we don't have any density bonus units being added to the project but they're electing

2:08:30to have many waivers of our design standards it's refreshing to have some actual density bonus units added, and the price points for the BMR is it's, it's an exciting new change, because mostly what we've been seeing are the higher income categories.

2:08:45So this is very nice to see. I'm looking at your map of your projects so I'm looking forward to see the Cupertino ones end up on your website map in the future. And at this time, do we vice mayor, just want to second what mayor said.

2:09:03I think you really have putting a lot of thought into that. Initially I was concerned about the height, but then you designed it so that the height really does not matter to the single family home neighbors.

2:09:18So I really thank you for putting all the thoughts to so that this project is really adding to the current to the nice characteristic of Cupertino. Thank you. And then really appreciate the very low income unit unit.

2:09:35Madam City Clerk will you please conduct the roll call vote. Councilmember for one. Hi. Councilmember Mohan. Hi, Councilmember Wong. I vice mayor chow. I may or more. I motion cares unanimously.

2:09:55Thank you very much. So the remaining items are purely informational. So, at this time, this meeting of the Cupertino City Council is adjourned.