- Shoreline Shell carwash and expansion status and update (Guests: Ann McLaughlin and Joyce England, Shoreline West Association of Neighbors)
- Mountain View heritage trees policy (guest: Shani Kleinhaus, Audubon Society, Palo Alto)
- San Antonio Center status and update
- Bus Rapid Transit status and update
- Mountain View Citizen's Guide status and update
- Drive Through policy status and update
- Castro Street bike racks status and update
- Round-the-table closing comments
= Pearson House status
= Need new venue for meetings, as Vox is moving to Palo Alto

At the end of a six hour meeting, the EPC decided in a 4-3 straw vote to go against Council's direction and revisit the idea of allowing housing in the North Bayshore neighborhood, through the policies in the General Plan. This was not a decision to be taken lightly; allowing housing in North Bayshore brings up a lot of unknowns and even potential drawbacks for things like wildlife. But MVCSP firmly believes that last night's decision was a sounds one for environmental, economic and community creating reasons. We look forward to navigating the complex but exciting challenges that this decision will open up.

The members of the EPC deserve a huge thank you for considering this matter long and hard. That thanks is extended to all members of the EPC regardless of where they fell on the decision. An extra special thanks to the four EPC members who decided in the end to express support for mixed use development in North Bayshore: Rachel Grossman, Chris Clark, Eric Anderson and EPC Chair Todd Fernandez. An extra special thanks goes to Rachel Grossman for leading the charge on this topic (we admire your boldness and conviction!), Todd Fernandez, for being brave enough to publically change his mind on a heated topic (that really does take humility, intelligence and confidence) and Chris Clark for making a hard decision with an election ahead of him (that's brave too!). Eric don't feel left out; thanks for being you. :)

Finally, a huge thanks to all of the advocates who turned out last night, especially the crazies that stuck around until almost 1:00am to make a public comment.  Thanks to those who wrote letters to your representatives. We've said it before but big milestones call for sappy repetition; it's people like you all who put the time in and speak up that make change happen. Thank you! You are our heroes!

- The Core Team

Overall Comments on the General Plan

• Great job EPC (and staff and Council)! Through this process, MV officials and staff have thought creatively and with an eye toward toward our economic and environmental future, all while respecting the desires of the current community. We believe this General Plan will protect the things that we love about our city but give us the flexibility to grow and change in the right ways. Our city has the best officials and staff around!
  

Talking Points on Flexibility in the Focus Areas

• MVCSP fully supports Council's suggestion that increased heights and densities be allowed when developers offer significant community benefits. Some examples of community benefits we think would warrant increased densities include:

1. Park space
   
2. Affordable housing
3. Shuttles or other kinds of transit amenities
   

• Similarly, MVCSP would like to see developers who build near transit and offer their tenants permanent, free transit passes be granted a parking requirement reduction.
• As we have noted before, we encourage the EPC and Council to fold as many pieces of the Increased Housing Alternative that was studied into the EIR, into the Preferred Draft of the General Plan. This will allow the City to enjoy reduced the "vehicle miles traveled" rates that come when greater numbers of people live in close proximity to transit.
  

1. One way to do this without triggering a new Environmental Impact Report and going beyond the level of intensity that the community is comfortable with right now, is simply by stating that allowing housing at heights and densities beyond what is in the general plan may be a way to mitigate for traffic and other impacts at a future date.
   

Talking Points on North Bayshore

• We’d like to go on the record as saying that we still believe that North Bayshore can and should be a mixed use community in the future. More and more office parks are going to be going in this direction. We should take advantage of the General Plan update and move toward creating a model, mixed use employment center. We believe this could:

1. Help reduce traffic.
2. Create a neighborhood full of innovative people where ideas can incubate and flourish.
3. Put MV at the cutting edge of a burgeoning movement toward the revamping of traditional office parks. This will help MV stay at the forefront of innovation, which is good for our local economy.
4. Help support local business who need a customer base beyond 9am-5pm.

• Please put policies in the General Plan that recognize that housing as a variable when studying mitigations to traffic and other challenges, when developing the precise and transportation plan.
• Whether N. Bayshore remains office or becomes mixed use, transfer of development rights should be used to move development away from Shoreline Park and near the intersection of Shoreline and Charleston. This will do two things:

1. Create a greater and much needed buffer for wildlife, and
2. Create more of a neighborhood, which will make the neighborhood more pleasant for people, more walkable, which will reduce the need for driving and it will increase the likelihood that transit can be successfully run to and from the neighborhood. This is very important.
   

• Please figure out how to permanently protect Shoreline Park. This may require two things:

1. Change the zoning designation of the park from “Public Use”
2. Plan for ample parks in N. Bayshore, some of which can be flagged as long term “reserves” of land, should there be a need for a school, fire station, etc.

 

 

Members of City Council:

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Environmental Planning Commissioners:

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It's always a good idea to cc relevant City staff on your emails. If you don't know the specific staff person working on your project, send it to the City Manager and City Clerk. If the project is related to land use/planning include Randy Tsuda and Martin Alkire. You may also want to include Ellis Berns, the Economic Development Director. Their emails are also below:

[email protected]
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Tomorrow night, May 10th, MVCSP will be holding its monthly meeting at Vox Design Group's office at 421 Castro Street in Mountain View. We will be discussing the following items:

• What advocacy steps to take in advance of the May 16th EPC meeting and the May 19th community meeting on the General Plan.
• How should we handle Council's decision to not allow mixed use development at North Bayshore? (Google staff may be in attendance to share their plans on the matter.)
• Preliminary plans for the San Antonio area have been released. How do they look? We may be joined by a San Antonio Shopping Center property owner who can offer his perspective and hear our thoughts.
• Update on Bus Rapid Transit.
• Report back on recent events we've hosted; workshops and Grand Boulevard Initiative.
  
• Sharing the first draft of the MV Guide to Citizens' Involvement
• Update on drivethrus

Please join us! Feel free to bring snack. :)

Below are notes taken from a few different MVCSP members at the MAy 2nd MVCSP meetings. Please note that while the account below has been assembled with the best of intentions, these are not official minutes of any kind and may have some mistakes. These notes focus on the two areas that are of primary interest to MVCSP; North Bayshore and the concept of increased flexibility in the General Plan. For more comprehensive minutes please refer to the City's minutes of the May 2nd meeting, which will be released on Friday, May 11.

No voting took place at the 5/2 EPC meeting. The meeting was primarily spent discussing the Council’s recent direction on the General Plan. Council’s decision to allow greater flexibility in the focus areas when developers provided community benefits, and council’s decision to nix mixed use development in the North Bayshore neighborhood were the two main topics of conversation.

Eric Anderson was not there.

North Bayshore

Rachel Grossman was very expressed great disappointment over Council’s decision about no residential development at North Bayshore. She made the point that Council has concerns about traffic on Shoreline and yet is unwilling or interested in one of the things that could present a solution to this problem; putting homes close to jobs.

Chris Clark - also expressed disappointment about North Bayshore.

Kathy Trontell – Kathy felt that there had been general, city-wide support for a vision of North Bayshore with housing. Everyone, including the Council seemed to be willing to work toward this vision but then somewhere along the way, something broke down and the Council lost the will to realize this vision. Kathy seemed to see this as a missed opportunity and failure to make something happen. She seemed disappointed but also resigned to the finality of the decision.

Todd Fernandez – Todd also seemed resigned to the finality of the decision. He expressed some disappointment over the decision but he also indicated that he shared some of Council’s reservations.

Lisa M. & John M. were very vocally opposed to housing in N. Bayshore.

Flexibility in the Focus Areas of the General Plan

The flexibility concept had general support from the majority of the EPC. There was no vote on the topic but multiple members of the EPC expressed support for the idea, especially as applied to the the San Antonio Center and El Camino Real. They asked staff to clarify exactly what this would mean for the zoning code.

To state the flexibility concept in another way; the direction that the EPC received from Council regarded flexibility on El Camino Real said that any proposed projects with a FAR between 1.85 FAR – 3 FAR is eligible for density bonuses, if the project is in a key location and the developer offers the community significant amenities (i.e. open space, affordable housing). This basically puts a policy in the General Plan that says future, conscientious variances are acceptable.