Dramatis Personae

Planning Commissioners: Me (Buchbinder), Zisser, Krey, Kamkar, Fields, Chair Ching.

Staff: Stephen Rose, Director Rob Eastwood

Summary

Staff is taking HCD seriously on estimating site yield, and presented several ways of cutting down the inventory as the City Council had (much earlier) requested. The Planning Commission was universally supportive of a larger inventory.

The city's Programs and Policies are more concrete, but seem pretty weak. For example, the only AFFH program is to establish a Housing Commission, and the city isn't taking HCD up on the suggestions to remove conditional-use permitting from SROs and group housing, or to establish an active transportation program.

I made an attempt to get more specific programs into the element, but the most I was able to do was to get consensus support of a non-specific "active transportation program". Video of said attempt: https://youtu.be/EW8AxgiwFIU?t=11458

Raw Notes

First, site inventory. Our original inventory was 6640 units, which HCD credits as likely to produce 5139, or ~77%.  On the DEIR: "As Campbell is located in a geographic central location, with access to mass transit and jobs, the EIR concluded that the provision of more housing sites would result in a reduced environmental impact related to VMT." So, more housing is an environmental good. Owner disinterest is something, but it's not everything. The unexpected could happen. Removing sites should have a high bar, per HCD.

​

I agree that the less-central sites should be served by an SB 10 program. (Which we should provide a preliminary set of areas to which it will apply, e.g., Hacienda Ave in SW, W Campbell Ave in NW, Camden Ave in SE.) I also agree that it's up to us to provide a more appealing option than the state Density Bonus, rather than cut down the inventory. Emphasize: if we try to factor in enough headroom to avoid that height limit, we run a real risk of HCD doing a Santa Monica to us.

​

The disadvantages of a higher buffer seem much less important than its advantages. I strongly encourage a larger buffer. I note that the removal of the First Street garage due in part to adjacency issues is exactly the time at which we should be considering this factor, rather than messing up our objective standards.

​

Next, policies and programs. On homelessness, from my understanding, there's simply not enough to go around, so we should focus on fixing that. The most substantial thing we could do is likely pursue a HomeKey project. Next, declare a shelter crisis under SB 850/GOV § 8698.2, which makes it much easier to set up temporary and permanent shelters and makes the city eligible for some other funds. (Sacramento and Sebastopol, for example, have.) We should make SROs legal wherever multifamily housing is legal without a CUP. We should stop requiring a CUP for group homes. (Either they're by-right anywhere residential, or at least by-right in certain areas.)

​

Similarly, the best thing we can do for expiring BMR units is to produce more BMR units. (And reduce the market price.) If we can get grants, great, but that's not exactly sustainable. This is another place where a larger inventory would help. Make sure people losing their BMR housing get first dibs on replacements.

​

On AFFH: What exactly would a Housing Commission do that the Planning Commission doesn't?

​

Page 3 of HCD's letter: "The City may also, for example, revise Program HE-6.D to make specific commitments to improve pedestrian safety and active mobility as a way to [de]crease disparities in access to opportunity." AFFH doc, page 15: "Housing mobility strategies may include providing affordable and accessible transportation options to enhance access to education and economic development opportunities." Page 54: "For example, a place-based approach might improve infrastructure or invest in active transportation".

​

Three recommendations: (1) as staff has described, divert traffic impact fees in walkable areas into active transportation; (2) hook up with VTA's bike superhighway project to extend the San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail to the Los Gatos Creek Trail; (3) develop a LTS-centric bike plan to connect the city a la San Mateo's, with projects budgeted and prioritized according to a clear rubric, then implemented according to that priority.

​

And that's my pre-gaming. Now, the actual presentation.

​

We've been building site inventory Nov 21 to Jan 22; goals/policies/programs Apr 22 to May 22; initial draft submitted to HCD on Aug 5 22; comment letter received Nov 3 22. Planner Rose recaps that our RHNA is 2977; HCD recommends 3870; the draft element had a maximum of 6640; HCD credits 5139 units to that based on the minimum-density methodology. Lays out our refinement criteria. Lays out upsides (more production, room for no net loss) and downsides (more by-right permitting, harder to downzone under SB 330) of a larger inventory.

​

Largest inventory option retains just about everything that's not clearly a dud site. Second option removes Tech Park. Third option is what Council wanted, removing everything that it can to hit HCD's recommended target. Fourth option (in desk item) is to reduce densities, including in the South Campbell (SE of downtown) areas, which I strongly oppose, though it provides the second most density. All four options remove the eight duds. My opinion: support staff's recommendation; specifically oppose the tiny buffer in option 3; specifically oppose shrinking density of the South Campbell sites which are directly adjacent to the light rail.

​

Goals, policies, and programs: five items have been identified. Homelessness, preserving at-risk units, AFFH, ordinance updates, stronger milestones.

​

Homelessness, we went from 76 to 216 from 2019 to 2022 in the point-in-time count. We plan to pursue a HomeKey project (new funding cycle next year!), get a homelessness coordinator (Morgan Hill did this; it's an alternative to the cops), support the county's Rapid Rehousing Program, expand the Safe Parking Program, and establish a Cold Weather Shelter in the same way that we have cooling centers on hot days.

​

Preservation: 73 units are losing deed restrictions in 2026. We plan to talk with property owners, apply for grants to buy down the affordability level; offer incentives to owners; work with purchasers to buy these.

​

AFFH: the majority of the city is a high-resource area. We just plan to establish a Housing Commission. (I have Opinions here. What would it do? There are specific programs we could do!) They would, for example, reserve a seat for someone who had been unhoused.

​

Ordinance updates: make our code consistent with existing state law, basically.

​

Milestones: HCD would like us to stop saying "study" and "evaluate", and to be clear about when we'll do things by.

​

Public comment! James Sullivan notes that most sites don't develop, so we should have more sites rather than fewer if the goal is to have housing. Representing site 164 on Llewellyn Ave, happy that it's on the inventory, hopes to see us in a few months. Also a resident of site 49 on Virginia Ave; they've been working on that site. It's about two acres of former pump station next to a creek. It's 700ft away from Virginia Park; 0.2mi away is John D Morgan Park, 3/4mi away is San Tomas Park (outside of Campbell). If you're considering Option 3, please don't delete site 49, it would definitely be developed. (Kamkar: What would you want to put there?) Forty townhouses. I'd like to put some missing middle in there. (Zisser: What's the density compared to SFHs?) (Rose: SFHs are 6 du/ac; this would be around 18 du/ac.) The plans we've made do also include open space; there would be a park there. (Ching: So, it was cheap because it was open space, and it would be much more valuable when rezoned?) Yes, it would be. (Krey: would we be seeing BMR housing here?) This would be a market-rate project, but 15% would be BMR, possibly partly LI. (Rose: We're updating our ordinance to clarify matters.) (Krey: Is missing middle market-rate?) There's multiple types. It can be a density range, between apartments and SFHs. A townhome sells for less; it's still a million bucks, but it's not two million.

​

Online comment! Cam Coulter: saw HCD's letter on the draft housing element. Important to meet, even surpass our needs. Urges the largest inventory, err on the larger side. I get nervous about non-vacant sites, because they might not develop. And don't reduce densities. We're so starved for affordable housing, we shouldn't be concerned about by-right approvals. And please implement an active transportation plan: reduce parking minimums, develop a network of protected bike lanes to help people who can't drive.

​

Amy Cody: Thank you for your work. Please consider the existing incomes in the surrounding areas of these sites, and San Jose's housing plans for these areas. For example, San Tomas Plaza is in a school district of a Title I school, where over 40% of the attendees are in low-income families. This should be a consideration; there are areas that could absorb more, and some that would struggle.

​

Joseph Gemignani: The site refinement criteria mention the 75 foot height limit. I wish we would have said five or six stories instead of a height limit. I worry that developers will build up to 75ft, and you'll have a 75 foot wall with no roof articulations. Maybe we can allow variances for roof articulations, or change the 75 foot limit to "five or six stories". Or allow for roof articulation.

​

(Zisser: What's up with the 6600 falling so much?) Rose: we're now taking a more conservative estimate, taking the lower end of the density range. (So the starting point on this chart is 5139.)

​

Krey: Agree with staff recommendation, bigger buffer. Goal is more housing! On reducing densities, I don't know much about those projects; I don't think the one near me would work at a lower density. I was sorry to see that the tech park wants to move to a lower density. Strongly agree with staff.

​

Kamkar: Also agree with staff. Regular citizens are intimidated by the high cost of entitlements. So I think we're lucky if we get a quarter of that site count. We need the larger site count.

​

Fields: Agree with the comments so far. I'm good with option 1. Is there any risk to sending this buffer to HCD? Is it going to bite us next time if we don't build out our entire inventory? (Rose: We've gone over the advantages and disadvantages of a larger buffer.)

​

Zisser: Very impressed with the amount of work done on this. I'm tied between options 1 and 4. I'm a proponent of larger buffers, as we have to mostly redevelop stuff, so the likelihood is low. It's a tough road. I like 1 because it's the biggest, and 4 is appealing to me because it took some specific sensitive areas into account, and I get that. I'm concerned that density bonuses might bump it up more. It's only a couple hundred more, not a big difference. I don't understand what the complications of building on the First Street Garage site are; could we work harder there? I like the property. Three-story townhomes on the Technology Park... that'll make an exclusive neighborhood, $1.5-2M each next to the park, a handful of affordable units. That's the single biggest property in our inventory. I don't know how much space the corp yard will take up.

​

Me: On the DEIR: "As Campbell is located in a geographic central location, with access to mass transit and jobs, the EIR concluded that the provision of more housing sites would result in a reduced environmental impact related to VMT." So, more housing is an environmental good. Owner disinterest is something, but it's not everything. The unexpected could happen. Removing sites should have a high bar, per HCD. I agree that the less-central sites should be served by an SB 10 program. (Which we should provide a preliminary set of areas to which it will apply, e.g., Hacienda Ave in SW, W Campbell Ave in NW, Camden Ave in SE.) I also agree that it's up to us to provide a more appealing option than the state Density Bonus, rather than cut down the inventory. If we try to factor in enough headroom to avoid that height limit, we run a real risk of HCD doing a Santa Monica to us, where we lose land use authority and we'll get buildings way, way taller. The disadvantages of a higher buffer seem much less important than its advantages. I strongly encourage a larger buffer. I note that the removal of the First Street garage due in part to adjacency issues is exactly the time at which we should be considering this factor, rather than messing up our objective standards.

​

Ching: I like option one. If we could combine options one and four where sites backing up to residential areas have lower density, where we'd have a high unit count and sensitivity to residential uses. I'm concerned that developers have bought this on the cheap and are getting away with market rate housing. In consideration of the rezoning, maybe we could get a higher in-lieu fee from the parks.

​

Zisser: I don't have a strong aversion to exceeding seventy-five feet, like at Fry's or the Pruneyard. I notice Wesley Manor all the time; it's okay there, because it's on Winchester near a commercial area, a church, and a parking lot next to an apartment building. Nobody notices terribly that there's an eleven story building. There are places where tall buildings can work. I worry that we won't get affordability figured out.

​

(Fields asks to go early because he's two hours ahead, in Texas to see family for Thanksgiving.)

​

Fields: On homelessness, we should have permanent solutions, and I think HomeKey's the only permanent one. Do you think we could actually find enough housing? In my experience, I'm wary of creating a Housing Commission; how would it interface with the City Council? I've seen this in the private sector; we should be clear on what it would do.

​

Zisser: I like all of the homelessness programs. First question, was this list compiled to satisfy HCD? Is this enough? Fields brings up a question about more-permanent solutions. I don't understand AFFH. It looks like we have one bad-area street. I'm good with the homelessness list. I'm good with a Housing Commission; I asked the Council about this in 2017. I'd looked at other cities our size in California that have them. It makes sense, to deal with affordable housing and homelessness. It could be almost as important as the PC.

​

Krey: Our Housing Element is more than just our RHNA, right? (Rose: it's both the inventory and the policies-and-programs.) I've considered the homeless issue separate. The rapid rehousing program, I like that. I support a Housing Commission if there's a need. Maybe it's overkill on bureaucracy. I hadn't seen the Campbell homelessness numbers.

​

Kamkar: I'll borrow Commissioner Zisser's words; you guys have done a lot of work. On homelessness, all of the above. I'd like to add to it, more psychiatric treatment. Sometimes homelessness involves mental health issues. We should look at a regional solution, cooperate with nearby cities. AFFH is state law, so... yes. I think these all make sense. Can't improve on these.

​

Me: Declare a shelter crisis, make SROs by right, make group homes by right. What's the point of the Housing Commission? What powers or authority does it have? Give people in expiring BMR units first dibs on new ones. For AFFH, divert traffic impact fees to active transportation, hook up with VTA's bike superhighway project, and develop a connected bike plan a la San Mateo.

​

Ching: I agree with everything the Vice Chair has. A bit less likely to agree on by-right things. I think there's a balance to be had, rather than it being a free-for-all. We're here to represent the community. On homelessness, picking up on Kamkar's comments. Definitely get mental health people to help. We'd need support for the commission actually having power.

​

Much discussing later, the commission is uncomfortable with expressing opinions on the shelter crisis, but we do at least get the sense that we should have an active transportation plan.

Summary

I've spent pretty much all of my time here pushing back on the city's zoning blocking development. So it's a bit of a shift to consider other things that could block it.

​

We're triple-dipping on adjacency. We placed the sites to be sensitive to SFHs, there are already street-frontage standards in the toolkit, and now we're talking about cutting floors off or instituting large setbacks. Basically, we're trading the views of five residents against homes for, what, a hundred newcomers? A resident's views are worth twenty homes? I should use this rhetoric.

​

Also, if you set a parcel to be 75 du/ac, limit buildings to that scale, and then refuse to allow them on the whole lot, you're not going to get 75 du/ac.

​

Parking is better after AB 2097, but still not great. There's a perception that everyone in Campbell needs to own a car, enforced by financing (?!); fixing that will involve better bike infrastructure and more apartments near services, which is part of the General Plan update.

​

I think I have some leverage here, and some insight. I continue to fight a sort of rearguard action.

​

Detailed Notes

Developer forum for Residential Design Standards. Scheduled for 1 PM to 5 PM. Met with Planner Rose ahead of time; he had the same MHC AB 2097 map I'd seen. Parking stuff is still needed, so I should send my research along. (Also, AB 2011 passed!) Lots of developers here. Nicely dressed, pleasantly extroverted. Folks from Wesley Manor are here, who were taken aback by me saying it'd be illegal to build it in Campbell now. Some of the developers haven't built here before, so that's promising; they say they have few points at which to give feedback.

​

Stefan Pellegrini from Opticos presenting. The purpose today is to familiarize local developers with the form-based approach and to get some early feedback. They have a toolkit of standards that we can adapt and choose from; we'll decide how strict or picky they are. Basically, what do we care about? (Editorial: Bold assumptions that this has anything to do with desires beyond "no grubby apartment-dwellers" and "my parking".) Their approach is to start with a twelve-chapter code, and remove/add to customize it to the city. The point is to avoid discretionary review.

​

For small-scale buildings, they focus on footprint and frontage type. (Stoops, forecourts, terraces, porches, etc.) Large sites to be broken up with new streets, there are some supplemental standards there, on how to subdivide, to dedicate civic space (not necessarily a park), possibly add alleys, zone each newly-produced block, apply buildings and frontages. They say that this contrasts with the current approach by breaking up new buildings to be more compatible with the neighborhood context.

​

The draft matches the eight suggested intensities (T3 to T5) to proposed General Plan densities. We will be talking about parking. (Roughly 40% of Campbell is exempt from those.) But we want to know how much parking we need. Will be looking at 621 E Campbell (Greylands) and 2415 S Winchester (Safeway complex).

​

First, the Safeway site. It's eleven acres; the block-split standard is around three. There's a concept of a "design site" which is a lot you don't explicitly record, which makes things more flexible. The inner streets have standards, you have to have "civic space". There will be standards for fronting onto streets and alleys. Developer: it's much more feasible to build a single large building than a bunch of smaller ones. Opticos: Yeah, but the neighborhood will like it more. "I don't see how this is feasible on large sites." (Owners of San Tomas shopping center.)

​

How much parking do you want to provide? 0.75/bedroom, 1/bedroom for multi-family, maybe 1.2. Developers say that banks won't finance anything that doesn't provide that much parking. BMR development is different, though. How much civic space do they dedicate? 25% in one example, but they went up to fourteen stories there. A lot of the time it's zero. Opticos emphasizes that this means that compliant applications are approved "without knowing anyone at City Hall". Developers are unhappy with the block-subdividing, street-adding aspect of this; maybe make it a linear park instead. Developers want to provide parking as a "wrap", which only works on blocks of 3 acres and up. Want to draw the buildings first, and the streets after, rather than the reverse. Also pointing out that scale can be stepped down within an existing building. (Also, a wrap involves a five-story garage?! About a quarter to a third of the building's floor area!)

​

Sightline issues: if your development backs up onto a two- or three-story house, you have privacy issues. (Which we will not be regulating.) I note that the step-down weird density thing is a consequence of placing 75 du/ac next to, I don't know, 8 du/ac, and insisting on a gradual transition, which means you can't get 75 du/ac unless you make the 8 du/ac bigger. (We're already into the EIR process, so the map is finaled, darn it.) My main takeaway here is that step-downs and cutting up lots make it way harder to get high density, and that banks insist on developers providing a lot of parking.

​

These standards include duplexes. Duplexes are legal everywhere. Will this apply to our current R-1 zones if you want to put a duplex on them? (No; we are definitely not touching R-1.) Is it possible to make these subdivisions car-free? Parking around the outside, just bike and ped on the inside? (The developers seem mostly interested in adding linear parks.)

​

The thing that really gets me is that we're all terrified of "adjacency issues". Asked Planner Tam about that; we've heard a lot of worried feedback from people at these events who don't want a big building next to them. So we put a 75 du/ac zone next to a 12 du/ac zone, aargh.  But if we're going to respect adjacencies in this way, we should be explicit about what it costs us in terms of yield. Also, learning about how financing is impossible if you don't provide at least 1 parking stall per bedroom, even if you unbundle it; that's hideous. And the maximum building sizes at the highest densities are apparently too small (especially if they're a "wrap" building).

​

Round two! Feeling kinda toasted. Starting with the Greylands site this time. Stefan Pellegrini tells us that feasibility now involves at most one stall per unit. MR developers say 1-1.5/unit, BMR say 0.75/unit. (Again, it's required for financing.) I emphasize that I want to know what the costs of "adjacency" measures are. In some places, you can use a required fire lane to augment the setback. But generally it looks like we'd be taking chunks out of these buildings, or adding expensive articulation. Consultants propose a long thin building along the southern edge; developers say that it won't work; needs to be a big square building. Devs say you're going to get the same pushback for a two-story building as for an eight-story.

​

Adjacency options: streets should count for something. Maybe the standards should only apply if the yards are adjacent. That would likely make a big difference.

​

Same crew (BMR developers), on the Winchester Safeway site. (Note that the adjacencies on three sides are streets.) The same design is presented, three through-streets and a strong gradient from six stories on the Winchester side down to three on the neighborhood side. (Note that the draft of these standards will be up in November, which is very, very quick as these things go.) Three previous groups expected to build wrap buildings. This group agrees, except that maybe if you're adjacent to a freeway offramp, use a separate parking structure. Tony shows us a Berkeley project, which is mostly a 5-over-1 with three-story townhomes on the neighborhood edge. MR developers actually said 0.8 to 1.2 parking stalls per unit, not per bedroom. BMR about 0.75 per bedroom.

​

BMR developer talks about having ground-floor non-residential uses (Opticos requires 25-30 ft depth; dev doesn't know how much they use), sometimes retail, sometimes bike lockers/bike repair. Talk of North 1st St in San Jose, where mandated retail makes it very hard to build. Suggestion that the low-density townhome area be made into green space or a park, and that would provide the adjacency setback, but you'd need larger full-size buildings up against Winchester.

​

Dev asks: will existing P-D zones be changed to a conforming zone? It's not good for existing owners. Opticos recommends remapping P-D zones with old development. Planner Rose says that we're going to try to rezone some of those along with the General Plan EIR process.

​

Idea for a density bonus which would be better than the state bonus: allow BMR projects to move one neighborhood-category up.

Highlights

- Developers are interested in Campbell.

- Main threats are nitpicky architectural requirements and parking requirements.

- Opticos doesn't want to do architectural style requirements; they're just sometimes ordered to.

- Campbell's height requirements are weird; they're nominally seventy-five feet, but you can only really build up to sixty-five.

Raw Notes

3 PM on Friday, fifty people here.

​

Steven Rose: We've heard you, parking is a challenge. We'll be looking at parking reductions as well as smaller parking spaces. Administrative draft of standards will be out probably next month. Don Taylor asks about an upcoming development at Llewellyn; the new standards will be taking effect next March.

​

Stefan Pellegrini: There are optional supplemental architectural styles available, to implement architectural character and neighborhood compatibility. They can add some of them to specific plans or area plans. They'll be doing "test fits" to take a representative parcel and determine what can be built there. They point to a couple of cities that have adopted the standards, but little has been built. Citing Hercules, CA; Papilion, NE; Mesa, AZ.

​

Dennis Randall: What will the FARs be? I've heard 1, which doesn't work for our densities. Rose: As part of our General Plan EIR, we've stipulated maximum FAR of 1.0, but that's just for commercial space, not residential; we're still determining that.

​

James Sullivan: Shout out to Rob and his team, great work doing outreach. Biggest problem is that density caps at 27 du/ac; we definitely need new standards for the higher densities, reflecting cities where it's actually been built. Gives props to the PC presentation from Planning Commissioners Buchbinder and Kamkar.

​

Dave Hopkins: We'd like to be part of the test fit. Planning has to consider adjacencies; some opportunities have particularly sensitive adjacencies, some don't. Land in Campbell is very expensive, existing uses are valuable, you need density to redevelop. If standards pare away at efficiency, that can lead to less development.

​

Raja: I live in San Tomas on a half-acre, my neighbors have some large parcels, we've hired an architect, but a missing-middle development is impossible there under our current situation.

​

Into the breakouts. One for MR developers, one for AH developers, one for general discussion. I'm going into the MR developer breakout.

​

Market-rate developer breakout; about twenty participants.

​

Rob Eastwood: Some of you have projects here; we need a lot of housing in Campbell. We want to comply with state law, get feedback from the community, [missed something], streamline the process, not make the ideas too prescriptive. We're using a form-based approach, and we'd like to know your experience with that.

​

Asking about experience with residential design standards.

​

James Sullivan: If a developer wants to do a project that's compliant with zoning, but there's going to be a lot of neighborhood opposition, having rules that they can point to and say that they're following them, that's very valuable. And that's in part why we should still have P-D zoning for special cases.

​

Kelly Snider: Be very clear if this applies before or after density bonus; residents get very cranky when they don't understand that. In San Jose, I've been doing ADUs and subdivisions, and in some cases, they try to enforce unenforceable standards, like too-high setbacks. "Education going back over the counter, in my experience."

​

Dave Hopkins: A dozen projects in El Camino Real, some specific-plan projects. The important thing is that objective standards allow the density they say they do, without requiring some kind of extra payoff.

​

[Had to take a call. I think we're talking about parking?]

​

Dennis Randall: ... rooftop gardens, high-quality architecture and high-quality elements. If prescriptions come down, they'll be rendered infeasible.

​

Brian Millman, WRNS: On architectural language, we have some experience with that, we've been in discussions like this. I appreciate Dave's point about letting architects doing their thing, but it's important to have super clear language. What is "top middle base"? Clarity, examples are super helpful.

​

Tony Perez: We resist regulating architectural style, for exactly those reasons. It's rare; sometimes communities really want it. We don't want to regulate architecture either.

​

Raja: Covered parking eats into living space. Lots are becoming small, but you need living space, so you have to go vertical. Please remove the 2.5-floor limitations. Please don't restrict architectural style.

​

William J: Note that new homes all have flat roofs, because we have height limits and can't fit all of our floors into that and still have a peaked roof. Allowing architectural elements above the height limit would allow for a lot more flexibility and style there. For me, I've found that I can get more density in a form-based project rather than density- or FAR-limited.

​

Tony Perez: We generally measure to highest eave or plate; pitched roofs or the like don't count toward that. We're usually successful in convincing jurisdictions to go with that.

​

Dennis Randall: The current guidelines in Campbell imagine a pitched roof and lower your max height based on that, the opposite of what you're talking about.

​

Perez: We have FAR and height numbers in a table somewhere.

​

William J: A lot is lost in lot consolidation. Bonus density for lot consolidation, as an incentive, you should be clear on that.

​

Kurt Anderson: I think you're missing a great opportunity; you should allow me to get as many units on the property as possible. Dirt's expensive here! We should get as much as we can on the property. What if my client wants a hundred 250sqft studios? You've gotta look at this, at your parking, it's 2.5 per unit, it should be 0.5 or 0.25 depending on if you're close to a bus line. The height, Campbell's not a very tall city, but the best is two stories of concrete and five of wood.

​

Dennis: The hard limit is 75 feet, but you only get to 65 because of the parapet rule, and we don't want to go above 75 anyway, because construction there is way more expensive. If we can manage the form of the site, we'll make it economic.

​

Kurt: Maybe get some public/private open space. Maybe use the SB 35 process to move things quicker. Environmental reviews are killing us! A year for environmental reviews! You gotta give us maximum creativity. If you get us boxed in, the buildings will all look the same. We're doing three thousand units in San Jose; I'm doing five hundred in an acre in San Jose.

​

Dennis: We just got TCO on a project. Underground parking, 300 du/acre. With retail.

​

Kurt: We're doing some mechanical parking, some no parking, in downtown San Jose, a 22-story building.

​

Rob: So, the sweet spot these days is five wood stories over two concrete. Is there consensus? (Yes.)

​

Kurt: I need a bit more than seventy-five feet, to have my roof deck, my elevator, my drainage... I need eighty-five feet to make that work.

​

Dennis: The community's not going to allow us to go over seventy-five feet. But we need allowances for mechanicals, elevators, things like that.

​

Dave Hopkins: I'd argue the sweet spot is one concrete, five of wood. The thing is the parking, you cannot go underground.

​

Troy Burnham, WRNS Studio: This is an awesome opportunity. I want to caution against being too prescriptive about ground floors. We should encourage different uses, but requiring certain uses (stoop units, for example), they can go empty. Be flexible.

​

Rob: So, don't mandate mixed-use?

​

Troy: Exactly. It might sound good, but site geometry can make it difficult. Not all sites are rectilinear.

​

WRNS: Setbacks on the top floor is popular, and I know that setbacks on higher floors are popular, but that means really deep units at the bottom, and that makes it way more difficult with Type III construction, because it stacks.

​

Rob: Anything you have to want to let us know? A question we should have asked?

​

Dave Hopkins: All of the projects that will be built will be under a new building code, which will significantly increase costs, in a way we don't know how to quantify yet. Any headwinds will be layered on top of that. But thanks, this has been great.

​

Rob: We have to adopt the new building code here, yes. That'll be in the September, October time frame.

​

Matt Weber: I agree with many of the things said here. When do you anticipate having an initial draft or framework?

​

Rob: We're shooting for mid-September on the initial drafts, mid to late September to start engaging folks.

​

Tony: We're looking for key standards around the third week of September. It wouldn't be a complete draft at that point.

​

Dennis Randall: Would you like to see a site we developed, mixed use? Can you look at it?

​

Rob: We have it, thanks for the reminder.

​

Dennis: It's Cannery Place.

​

Rob: We were going to lay everything out on a table, a three to four hour session, have staff there you could meet with and talk to about your project. Let us know if you'd be interested. This will directly affect any projects you're working on.

​

[Back to the main room.]

​

Rob: City Council will be meeting on September 20.

Summary

- Some Councilmembers are concerned that a future Council will not shrink densities and remove sites, as they want to.

- The Council is generally protective of parking and sees even the milquetoast programs proposed as idealistic overreach.

- The Council is very concerned about high densities and people not being able to easily park; they're much less concerned about the housing shortage.

Raw Notes

City Council meeting on the Housing Element update. Starts at about 1:56 in the three-hour meeting recording. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgcE3V2jt1c)

​

Councilmember Lopez recuses himself, as he's on the SV@Home board.

​

In the staff presentation, they refer to "Campaign for Housing" (rather than "Campaign for Fair Housing Elements") and describe the follow-up letter as "reiterating comments which have already been addressed in the staff report". Staff got feedback on the Campbell Industrial Park and 1475 S Bascom Ave. Owners of the Industrial Park are uninterested in developing; 1475 S Bascom wants to go from 60 to 75 du/ac, but it's too late for that. (Industrial Park has been in the last two or three Housing Elements; note that it's distinct from the Tech Park, which is a significant portion of our capacity.) Staff says we may "refine" (i.e., shrink) the allocation. Council approval is still around December, and submission in January, but HCD is adding a delay before adoption in March, along with the city's Objective Standards work. (Which will overhaul the zoning code.)

​

CM Landry (2:08) is concerned about reducing parking standards without requiring a Parking Study for each project. Staff explains that we're changing standards, and that will involve some studies.

​

Vice Mayor Bybee (2:11) asks why we aren't removing the Industrial Park now. Staff explains that the city doesn't have to remove sites at the owner's request; gives the example of the Del Grande site, where the owner died and the property became available and is currently being developed. Director says that we don't want to alter the site inventory until after the EIR is complete.

​

CM Gibbons (2:15) "HCD has changed the process that Council made decisions on, on how to move forward in the process." Is upset that the HE will be approved by a different Council next year, and is concerned that HCD will not let us reduce our inventory, "jumping off a cliff with a blindfold", "big risk" that we won't be able to reduce the inventory. Director assures Council that HCD won't stop us from shrinking the inventory. Gibbons also wants to reduce the density, as density bonus projects would make for +50% units (notes that most projects in Campbell use the density bonus), so we'd have up to 112 du/ac; wants to know if HCD will allow that. Director advises against reducing the densities, but assures Council they'll come up with ways to reduce the number of sites. "I would ask if staff remembers how Council uniformly began this process, by saying yes, we want to produce housing, affordable housing, yes, we want to comply with state law, but we also want to respect community of Campbell and the obligation we have as elected officials for the residents in Campbell." Director assures them that this Council will take final decision on this inventory, and it will be final unless HCD has complaints. Points to Objective Standards as a way to make lots of housing fit into the city in a nice way. Gibbons questions the difference between the redistricting numbers (44k) and those in the HE (42k). Staff says that the HE uses ABAG's data, and it's close enough/a safe harbor. Confirms the 1.67 jobs:housing ratio means 1.67 jobs per housing unit. "So we have too many jobs, is what I'm getting at." Notes that residential pays less to the city than commercial, that this is all tied together. Is concerned about new construction not being subject to rent control for fifteen years; is there nothing that protects the renters? Director: deed-restricted housing has its own controls on affordability. Asks if inclusionary units and density-bonus units have the same deed restrictions. What are the protections for affordable units? Staff: We're extending controls on BMR rents to be similar to AB 1482 protections. Note that BMR sale units can be re-sold and become market rate. (This goes until about 2:39, and is not very relevant to the topic.)

​

Public comment time.

​

Jim Sullivan: How does the new Housing Element timeline work with the General Plan update?

​

Raja Pallela: Our permits are higher than our neighbors; building in the county costs half what it costs in the city.

​

Sara Chatham (sp?): I went to a study about what slows down development, and the key driver is parking requirements. I think reducing parking will be really important.

​

Comments.

​

CM Gibbons: (2:43) I'm relying on staff to be able to get changes through. The planned density is "a problem, a challenge, going forward". We've talked about assumptions about height and massing at various densities. I'm concerned about that. I worry that we're not being "accurate" in our assumptions about building height; that's why I'm so worried about the densities we're projecting. And I'm worried about maintaining affordable units in the long run. Also has some comments about formatting. Would also like the resilience section to tie in with a Climate Action Plan.

​

CM Landry: (2:47) Agrees about formatting issues. Is "worried about the six thousand number; I never wanted us to plan that high a number; I was stuck down at the 32, maybe thought about four thousand." Wants to know when we're going to reduce it. Is concerned that a future council won't reduce the number; wants to reduce it ASAP. "I am concerned about parking, because of the impact." Relates an anecdote about "woman who finds affordable housing, she's living in her car, now she can't park her car anywhere because there's no parking at her low-income unit, she has to give up her car, that's not what we're trying to accomplish". Asks "what's the downside to the community?" about reducing parking requirements.

​

Vice Mayor Bybee: (2:53) Is concerned that a future council will override their work, is somewhat mollified by staff's assurances.

​

Mayor Resnikoff: (2:54) Less of a problem than Landry with the number; a bigger number means more flexibility, and it means we're making a serious attempt to find places to build. Other cities are trying to hit the exact numbers. We're not going to build to the maximum on every site. Parking is scary, in a way. Reducing parking minimums is "an ideology in a way, but it's not always realistic, because people own cars, and they have to put them somewhere". Notes that this will force residential parking permits.

​

CM Landry: (2:56) If we add three thousand, four thousand new units, what are we doing proactively to our budget? When do have serious conversations about the impact to our city? City Manager: We're having those discussions already; they'll be spread out over time.

​

Vice Mayor Bybee: (3:00) I hope that HCD won't be expecting us to build more than 2,977 units because we produced a bigger allocation.

​

Gibbons thanks everyone, says it's been a horrendously short timeline and huge task, that comments aren't intended to be negative. Landry moves to submit to HCD; the motion passes.

Highlights

- There was a lot of discussion about trying to keep average unit sizes down. I'm unclear on this being an actual problem, and the proposed solutions seemed identical to each other.

- Even the most pro-car member (Zisser) was interested in dropping parking requirements to one stall per unit, with extra spaces unbundled and available for rent. Parking reform is definitely on the table.

- The proposed Affordable Housing Overlay Zone is only available on very specific parcels, which seems to cancel out the point of an overlay. We've encouraged staff to make it much broader.

- Staff expects us to maybe actually hit our BMR RHNA goal, through a combination of city-owned sites, inclusionary zoning, ADUs, and the AHOZ. This is slightly optimistic, but not impossibly so.

Raw Notes

Dramatis personae: Commissioners Kamkar, Zisser, Ostrowski, Rivlin; Vice Chair Buchbinder (me), Chair Ching. Staff: Rose, Director Eastwood. Legal staff whose name I didn't get. Consultants: Bradley and Bendix.

​

Special meeting! Policies and programs update. Unsure of how the City Council has mangled our ideas. I sent in my Missing Middle analysis; Ching suggests expanding it into a slideshow-type presentation and properly agendizing it, which sounds lovely. And I'll be working with Commissioner Kamkar on that.

​

This is again PLN-2021-12; the City Council has bounced back our ideas.

​

- 1. Improve Housing Affordability in Campbell – Encourage the Production of Affordable Housing

    - Do we have, or should we have, a goal that market-rate housing should be affordable to someone making 80% of AMI? That less than X% of renters should be rent-burdened?

    - A. Modify the Inclusionary Ordinance

        - Maybe inclusionary costs should be levied on single-family homes, but not medium-scale projects, to incentivize small-scale missing-middle naturally-affordable type development.

    - B. Apply Impact Fees to Non-Residential Development

        - Still negative on impact fees; of course affordable housing developers would like free money, but this seems to be kinda missing the point. We're not going to subsidize our way to affordability.

    - C. Affordable Housing Overlay Zone

        - Why is the AHOZ so small? Not much of an overlay, that. What exactly is the concern about being "too generous"? We're basically making our own Density Bonus program, right? I note that the sample program offers 55% bonus, instead of 50%, but doesn't Super Density Bonus provide 80%, along with four concessions? My concern is that developers aren't going to want to use this program.

    - D. Regulation of Unit Sizes

        - I encourage establishing group housing and SROs as permitted uses. Is that a separate item? Part of the AHOZ?

        - Is this really necessary? I'm surprised that maximum FAR is preferred by developers over maximum average unit size.

    - E. Use of City-Owned Land

    - F. Update ADU Ordinance (Removed)

    - G. Pre-Approved ADU Plans

        - Very much endorse working with other cities to avoid duplicating effort.

    - H. Waivers from Fees or Regulations for Affordable Housing Developers

    - I. Objective Standards

    - J. Missing Middle / SB 10 Ordinance

        - Note that every kind of missing middle is currently illegal due to our parking requirements. Worth looking into. We'll have a specific study session about it.

    - K. Strategically Interface with the State Legislature

        - As Kamkar said, seems not-so-concrete.

- 2. Preserve Existing Housing / Affordable Housing Stock

    - A. Rent Control Ordinance (Removed)

    - B. Preservation of Mobile Home Parks

    - C. Short Term Vacation Rental Ordinance

    - D. Housing rehabilitation loan program

    - E. Workforce Housing/CSCDA JPA

- 3. Remove Government Constraints to Housing

    - A. Modify Parking Standards

        - This is good! I'd add reductions in commercial parking requirements (especially in mixed-use developments), so we're not making mixed-use terribly unattractive. And have some kind of concrete basis for the numbers, given that the current numbers were apparently decided by rubric of "enough to be burdensome". Also, consider parking replacement for bike parking or car-share parking at some multiple.

    - B. Improve Permit Streamlining

        - Set a goal of, say, 85% of housing being approved by-right?

    - C. Development impact fee adjustments for affordable projects.

- 4. Resilient Housing Policies

    - A. Siting Development

    - B. Resilient Design

- 5. Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing/Special Needs Groups

    - A. Fulfilling Needs for Special Needs Populations and Workforce Housing

        - Declare a state of housing emergency? Set a goal of solving homelessness? Produce as many shelter beds as we have homeless people as of now?

        - Maximum unit sizes seems to contradict the idea that we should provide for large families as well as individuals.

        - Very much appreciate making navigation centers by-right in at least some zones. This is a big deal. Note that navigation centers only work if there's somewhere to exit to.

    - B. Renter Protections

        - Renters actually have protections now; we have to make sure they're enforced.

    - C. ADU incentives for special needs populations. (Removed; covered by other item)

    - D. Outreach on Fair Housing

    - E. Equity Training

    - F. Multilingual Information

​

And we're off!

​

Geoff Bradley and Britney Bendix (sp?) are here from M-Group. Notes that HCD expects defined targets, responsible parties, funding sources, and timeframes. State doesn't cap rent increases to BMR units (via AB 1482 rules). Staff recommends that we extend that to BMR housing. Also, on H-1.4, we're just doing "all housing opportunity sites shall achieve 75 percent of planned density". What's "shall" mean here?

​

Staff is expecting 500-700 BMR units via Inclusionary Housing Ordinance. How many have we had over the last eight years? Where did this number come from? AHOZ another 270-370. Commercial Linkage fees only 10-20, which seems like not much for the costs. 160-200 for ADUs. But this (supposedly) adds up to our BMR RHNA numbers. Really want to know how they got the IZ numbers.

​

Why did the developers prefer FAR? They prefer it over density (du/ac). The maximum average size thing has worked well for Burlingame. Cities prefer regulating via FAR; it's "industry standard". (Lots of discussion here.) Krey: Why only 10-20 units from linkage fees? Rose: We looked at how much commercial floor area has been built lately. We're not building much in the way of big new office buildings. We've multiplied all of it out, got around $1.3M, divided by $100k, which is the usual gap financing for BMR units. Eastwood: We were on the fence about showing this slide, but the point is, it's hard to build BMR.

​

Ostrowski: For these estimates, what's the timeframe assumption? Eastwood: Starting next year, until 2031. We're presuming a year or two plus before the AHOZ kicks in, because we don't have one yet.

​

Krey: Don't BMR units start at $250-300k of government funding needed? Rose: We used $100k as a rough benchmark, not for construction, just as gap financing. Total price varies from $95k to $650k per unit; it's extremely variable.

​

Kamkar: The maximum average means that the average can't exceed some number, right? Bradley: Yes.

​

Zisser: We're still at over six thousand on our site inventory, right? Eastwood: Right. Zisser: And 40-50% are supposed to be affordable, right? So we should be trying to get around three thousand BMR, right? And the numbers for the AHOZ seem modest, based on the map. We're trying to keep the height down, but maybe we should be less concerned about that in the Pruneyard area. Eastwood: Yes, we're starting with 6.5k in the EIR, and half of our build should be BMR. We may pare down the inventory. What we want to illustrate is how difficult it is to build BMR units, that we have to use all of these programs.

​

Me: What are we basing the huge increase in BMR units on? Rose: We're planning for a huge increase in market units. Me: Is group housing and SROs part of AHOZ? Eastwood: I'll get back to you. Me: What does "shall achieve 75 percent of planned density" mean? Eastwood: If a site at 45 du/ac proposes 20 du/ac, it would be rejected without a General Plan Land Use Map amendment.

​

Ching: How do you appeal a ministerial approval? Bradley: It's a little odd to have a discretionary body making a non-discretionary decision. Rose: Note that SROs are a conditional use in many places, you just need discretion.

​

Public comment!

​

Enrique Navarro, Santa Clara County Association of Realtors. Notes that inclusionary fees increase the cost of housing, and that just-cause eviction means well but can do badly. Most of our local affordable-housing  (~70% in the county) are small scale, twenty units or less. Thanks for not being interested in expanding rent control. Ching: What do you mean about just-cause? Navarro: We're hesitant to endorse municipal interference in the renter-housing provider relationship.

​

Giuliana Pendleton, Audubon Society. Would like to have less light pollution. Would like shielded fixtures, color temperature of 2700K or below. Ask advocate@scvas.org for more information. Kamkar: How did you get 2700K? Pendleton: The International Dark Skies Association prefers 2400 or 2200, but 2700K is pretty much what's on the market. LEDs tend to be 5000-6000K. Kamkar: Would this apply to residential housing? Pendleton: This would be part of the housing element. Me: Is there a standard to comply with by reference? Pendleton: The IDA has guidelines available. Campbell doesn't have any policies that I know of at this time, but guidelines exist.

​

Kalicia Webster, Senior Advocate at Housing Choices. (Affordable housing for people with developmental disabilities.) Thanks staff for what they've done so far. Notes that accessibility involves a range of disabilities. Integrated services can be an essential part of this. You can incentivize deeper affordability by reducing the required percentage. Also, reduce parking requirements for these units, as residents tend to be transit-dependent. Ching: You've sent this to the city? What are the one or two most important items? Webster: Deeper affordability and on-site supportive services.

​

And that's public comment. On to discussion!

​

Zisser: Have we identified all of the reasonable sites for the overlay zone? The Home Church site is on our list, I think that would be a likely affordable-housing candidate. There's nothing much on the west side. Maybe it would be okay to have more tall towers in the Pruneyard. Do we really need more incentives in Campbell Tech Park? Do we need to care about height there? Where we don't pick an overlay zone, the density bonus still applies. Eastwood: The idea is to create a market that appeals to BMR developers, separate from the market-rate market. Note that the 75-foot height limit would have to be overturned by the voters, and Council wants to respect that. Rivlin: But the state statute can override the voter initiative? Eastwood: Yes. Rose: This would create a two-track process. A developer could still use the state Density Bonus program and SB 35. Rivlin: You're not going to run a nexus study on the incentives, right? Four extra units isn't that big a deal. I think we should take a second pass.

​

Ostrowski: We're talking a lot about numbers, and I think we're going in the right direction there. In terms of incentive, a community-building element, what the families there are going to experience. Where will they congregate, that kind of thing. Can we increase the quality of life? Families can interact, get to know each other. I'd prefer to build a place that has a sense of community. Eastwood: May 31, the Cal Poly SLO students will be presenting their designs, which will speak to that! Ching: I'd like the city to incentivize this kind of thing. As Ms Webster said, on-site services for people with developmental disabilities.

​

Krey: On the AHOZ, this doesn't seem like it's too much of an incentive. Rose: This is just an illustration; this particular scenario only gives a handful of extra units. This might not be the most attractive option for developers. Note that we're not considering the specific standards for an AHOZ tonight. Eastwood: What drives this is, what do we want, and what are we willing to offer? And what don't we want? And where do we want it?

​

Kamkar: What if a larger property owner wants this overlay zoning? What if a property owner that could use this, doesn't want to? Rose: In the second case, this is an option. In the first, a developer would have to amend the General Plan to cover 

​

My questions:

​

- I approve of establishing navigation centers. Is there any idea of making permanent supportive housing by-right? Very much appreciate making navigation centers by-right in at least some zones. This is a big deal. Note that navigation centers only work if there's somewhere to exit to.

    - Eastwood: It could be in the AHOZ.

- Is establishing group housing and SROs as allowed uses part of the AHOZ proposal? I didn't see that in the proposals.

    - Eastwood: It's not on the table, but it could be.

- Why is the AHOZ so small? Did I have the wrong expectation? Agree with Zisser: density bonus doesn't pick and choose. Not much of an overlay, that. We really seem to be making a lot of assumptions about the next eight years. What exactly is the concern about being "too generous"? We're basically making our own Density Bonus program, right? I note that the sample program offers 55% bonus, instead of 50%, but doesn't Super Density Bonus provide 80%, along with four concessions? My concern is that developers aren't going to want to use this program. Can we do something like Ostrowski suggests without discouraging production entirely?

- Maybe inclusionary costs should be levied on single-family homes, but not medium-scale projects, to incentivize small-scale missing-middle naturally-affordable type development.

- Still negative on impact fees; of course affordable housing developers would like free money, but this seems to be kinda missing the point. We're not going to subsidize our way to affordability.

- Note that every kind of missing middle is currently illegal due to our parking requirements. Worth looking into. We'll have a specific study session about it.

- Parking standards: This is good! (Grandstand only a little bit.) I'd add reductions in commercial parking requirements (especially in mixed-use developments), so we're not making mixed-use terribly unattractive. And have some kind of concrete basis for the numbers, given that the current numbers were apparently decided by rubric of "enough to be burdensome". Also, consider parking replacement for bike parking or car-share parking at some multiple.

- Set a goal of, say, 85% of housing being approved by-right? 50%?

​

Ostrowski: As a parent, the need for a car comes from having to take kids to daycare when you're working. If we had onsite daycare, more people could live car-free and take transit to work. Maybe repurposed as a community center or clubhouse in the evenings. If we could make incentives for that, I'd be willing, maybe a taller structure. It would be worth the community benefit. It'll create a better quality of life when we combine it with reduced parking standards. We're trying to get people to drive less and consume less, but we have to figure out why people need cars, and how do we reduce that need. Me: That's a great mix of uses; maybe design an AHOZ with a playground, daycare, maybe doctor's office. Ching: Campbell isn't a bike-friendly city. It's a nightmare to secure your bike. And when people need access to cars, how can we make it easier for them to access them without owning them? And when they're going somewhere locally, how can we make it easier to not use a car? We have to design this into buildings. Rivlin: Is this dedicated to childcare? Or a retail space that can be childcare? I'm seeing extremely tight labor markets, so that's really expensive to manage. Ostrowski: I think having a space which can be a daycare is reasonable to ask for. Sometimes daycare operators watch four or so kids. This is a bit larger. Google isn't operating their daycare; they're just providing the space. Rivlin: I think the developer wouldn't do that unless they could be sure they'd lease it out. Ostrowski: Staff should look into that. (Unknown staff): State density bonus has integrated childcare.

​

Ching: Does state law override city law for the 75-foot height? Bradley: The state density bonus law is always available. This is about developing a local alternative that the applicant will prefer. Zisser: You'd need 100% BMR to go over seventy-five feet, though. But you can't do that in a not 100% BMR situation. (Staff): It's pretty easy to use the unlimited waivers.

​

Zisser: I'm in favor of reducing parking requirements to some extent. I'm uncomfortable with zero parking. We're working off of a high median income; "moderate" or "low income" is still a fair amount of income here, someone making 60, 80, 100k a year. Those are people who can afford cars, in our lousy mass-transit world. A light rail that doesn't get you where you want to be. That's not going to change no matter how many bike racks we put up. People are going to have cars. We like to talk about car use. The reality is that if we don't provide parking, we're going to have an unintended consequence. Ostrowski: Transit is pretty inefficient. I think the automation in cars is going to get better. Me: I bike, walk-to-bus, or transit to work. And we're responsible for where the light rail takes you, and we're fixing that, and I'm proud of us.

​

Krey: I think all of the Measure A projects contain childcare. I think the state is doing the right thing. And we've heard that reducing parking requirements is the biggest incentive for affordable housing. Climate change is real. And less parking means fewer cars. Eventually it'll shake out. I know people who bike to work. Ching: You're in favor of less parking. Krey: Yeah. We've gotta push the envelope.

​

Ching: Are we off-track here? Eastwood: I don't want to get in the way of a robust commission conversation. I can summarize: we've gotten feedback on the AHOZ, average unit size, parking. If you have feedback on AFFH, we'll take that. Anything on those big three?

​

Kamkar: How can we count bedrooms instead of number of units? A unit that has more bedrooms should count more than one with less. Maybe we should count per-bedroom cost instead of per-unit. Probably cheaper than an SRO. We should remember that. On parking, I can see both sides. We don't want too much, developers don't want too much, but zero parking is going too far. Zisser: I'm okay with reducing requirements near transit, providing incentives for reduced parking in the AHOZ, minor reduction citywide, skeptical of removing guest parking. Ching: I'd be in favor of reducing to one parking space per unit citywide, and unbundling parking so people can buy more when they want it.

​

Me: What about dark skies? Ostrowski: It's not just animals, it messes with people. Rivlin: It definitely messes with human health as well. Me: Seems similar to noise and air pollution, and I'm not sure where our leverage is there. Ching: Might be outside of our remit.

​

Ching: What about rent control? Eastwood: It's making sure that BMR units are subject to the same AB 1482 provisions as market-rate ones; some of them have undergone 30-40% rent shocks. Me: Support. Krey: How can the rent go up 40% if it's BMR? Eastwood: What happened here is that there was a deferred review of rent increases, and it came out to a large number. Zisser: I'd support that. Ostrowski: I'd support that. 

​

Back to discussing maximum average unit size versus FAR maximums. Bradley: Market-rate developers will fill their building envelope with big units; BMR developers will do the opposite, try to fill it with as many small units as possible. Ostrowski: So it's less per square foot to build a larger unit. Me: AB 602 makes impact fees per-square foot, right? (Staff): Presumptively, but you can convince the state otherwise. Me: And we're short on small units, reportedly, right? Bradley: Yes. Rose: We're trying to keep projects under seventy-five feet, and attempting to do affordability by design. You could have both a FAR and a maximum-average unit size cap. (Everyone seems confused by this. Long discussion. We're generally in favor of restricting unit sizes. I still think FAR and average unit size are equivalent here.)

​

Me: On outreach, now that we have actual renter protections, can we require landlords to post know your rights notices to renters? Eastwood: That's good feedback.

​

Eastwood: This will go to Council next Monday. This will feed into us finishing our draft Housing Element, which will go out May 20, we hope. It'll come back later in the summer. So, key milestones! Sites, and policies/programs! There will be two items at next week's Planning Commission meeting.

​

Summary

Dramatis Personae: Commissioners Kamkar, Krey, Rivlin, Zisser, Chair Ching, and me. Staff was Community Development Director Rob Eastwood and Senior Planner Stephen Rose. Consultant was Sun Kwong.

The programs presented were largely the same as those in the last cycle, which failed to produce much. Staff cited tripling some densities as a key reason why it'll be different this time. I pushed to include quantifiable, specific goals, for what it's worth. The city is planning to reform parking and join a county-wide collective for pre-approved ADU plans. The city is also planning on doing a JPA program to convert existing housing into BMR housing. I don't fully understand it, but it seems to have tax revenue implications.

Video is here: https://youtu.be/xjAi1CFeSuY?t=11090

Raw Notes

PLN-2021-12, study session for the Housing Element update. We have six perfectly nice-sounding goals which led us nowhere last cycle. So we should have at least a basic understanding of why they failed. I note that (p. 127) renting seniors are much poorer than owning seniors. Note that the biggest senior housing project we have, Wesley Manor, is illegal to build now. We could set a goal to run another ballot initiative on heights, for example. How on earth was the proposed 125 E Campbell project put together? Low-income and unsubsidized? Can we replicate that?

​

I note that (p. 129) the community wants BMR units, 100 percent affordable if possible, near transit, and when it was proposed, the comments were literally 90% negative. Makes me wonder how useful project-specific public comment is.

​

Five objectives presented, each with programs.

- 1. Improve Housing Affordability in Campbell – Encourage the Production of Affordable Housing

    - I note, generally, that we have a worked example, or worked proposal: low or no parking, make it tall, build it modular.

    - Do we have, or should we have, a goal that market-rate housing should be affordable to someone making 80% of AMI? That less than X% of renters should be rent-burdened?

    - A. Modify the Inclusionary Ordinance

        - We'd need a nexus study, right?

    - B. Apply Impact Fees to Non-Residential Development

        - I'm hesitant to push this, especially if we can adjust our zoning to make it so we need less subsidy money. The cost of real estate also hits commercial space.

    - C. Affordable Housing Overlay Zone

    - D. Regulation of Unit Sizes

    - E. Use of City-Owned Land

    - F. Update ADU Ordinance

    - G. Pre-Approved ADU Plans

    - H. Waivers from Fees or Regulations for Affordable Housing Developers

    - I. Objective Standards

    - J. Missing Middle / SB 10 Ordinance

        - Maybe consider why missing middle is illegal even where it's supposedly legal? Could be a goal to update zoning codes so that the idealized forms can be built on a standard lot, for example.

- 2. Preserve Existing Housing / Affordable Housing Stock

    - A. Rent Control Ordinance

        - I like the idea of applying AB 1482 protections to month-to-month renters. What are the downsides?

    - B. Preservation of Mobile Home Parks

    - C. Short Term Vacation Rental Ordinance

        - I looked on airbnb.com and found ten places in Campbell I could stay at this weekend. These rentals are happening; the city just isn't collecting income from them.

    - D. Housing rehabilitation loan program

    - E. Workforce Housing/CSCDA JPA

        - Seems like a good way of producing BMR housing, but the loss of property tax seems like a bad idea.

- 3. Remove Government Constraints to Housing

    - A. Modify Parking Standards

        - I take it we're going to come up with specifics later? Substitute car-sharing spaces, substitute bike spaces, establish parking maximums? Allow unbundling of parking in multifamily housing?

    - B. Improve Permit Streamlining

        - Set a goal of, say, 85% of housing being approved by-right?

    - C. Development impact fee adjustments for affordable projects.

        - If I'm reading this right, we have very low fees in the first place? Are most of our fees for staff time, then?

- 4. Resilient Housing Policies

    - A. Siting Development

        - Do we have high hazard areas?

    - B. Resilient Design

        - Very interested in encouraging heat pumps instead of furnaces. (Pays for itself in, what, four years?) Want to make sure we're on the right side of encourage vs require.

- 5. Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing/Special Needs Groups

    - A. Fulfilling Needs for Special Needs Populations and Workforce Housing

        - Declare a state of housing emergency? Set a goal of solving homelessness? Produce as many shelter beds as we have homeless people as of now?

    - B. Renter Protections

        - In the pre-AB 1482 days, I disputed a 36% rent increase over eighteen months, and was told essentially to go pound sand.

    - C. ADU incentives for special needs populations.

        - What does this entail? Maybe pre-approve designs for people with mobility impairments, etc?

    - D. Outreach on Fair Housing

        - Outreach events to people who don't usually know about this stuff? Partner with churches or workplaces?

    - E. Equity Training

    - F. Multilingual Information

​

We have a whole bunch of people presenting here. Tonight's schedule involves a "community character" section, which... hrrm. The target is a draft Housing Element some time in May.

​

Sun Kwong presenting. We have six goals. We've "not been successful" in meeting the RHNA. Staff recommends including detailed timelines, new AFFH, mitigate displacement, bolster production of BMR housing. Consider supporting special-needs households specifically. Note that our population has grown much more slowly than the region or even the county, the senior population here is growing. Average household size is 2, average number of bedrooms is 3. Female-headed households with children more likely to be below the poverty line than those without; wealthy seniors are mostly owners, and poor seniors are mostly renters.

​

Community engagement centered on affordability. People wanted BMR units, smaller units, near transit. (Like 125 E Campbell?) Interest in rapid rehousing, maintaining existing apartments without raising rents. (I note that people hate housing when it's actually proposed.)

​

Me: I appreciate everyone's hard work, and I don't want to imply that anyone was doing any less than their best at any point, including the past. So, why did we fail? (Rob: We're okay with AMI housing, but we're trying to bump BMR housing production. Also, the state has changed a lot of the rules. Our policies were not very specific before. And AFFH has been a real problem for the cities that went before us in the RHNA cycle. Stephen: The densities we propose make a big difference. We've tripled allowable densities, which takes into account feedback from BMR developers. Some of these units may be realized through densities.)

​

Kamkar: If there wasn't a penalty for missing it this cycle, we wouldn't be as motivated. Would you agree? Would we have tripled densities if not for the state? (Stephen: The city's always been serious about producing affordable housing, or was when we had redevelopment money. Ultimately, we're not a developer, and we can't control developers. We're well aware of the consequences.

​

Rivlin: How do we get in-lieu fees in order? (Rob: It's on the agenda.)

​

And now, we go over the objectives. Public comment time!

​

Jim Sullivan: I'd like the council to have discretion to charge in-lieu fees. The city could leverage that money with some of the nonprofit builders, and make more than one unit. It's been done in Fremont, leveraging $7.5M to create seventy-five VLI/LI units. Deed restrictions on ADUs... I think the last thing we want to do is to discourage ADU production.

​

Raja Pallela: Know that construction costs for ADUs are extremely high. Deed restrictions will make things worse. Most of the current plan is to develop apartment complexes, things like that. I didn't see much of a plan for SFHs, like, three-floor small ones that fit on small lots. I hope SB 10 will help with people who want to raise their kids in Campbell.

​

And that's public comment. Council will see this on April 20, then there will be a joint session on May 4. Now, we go over the individual programs, which is what I came here for.

​

1A (modify inclusionary ordinance), staff wants to have a scalable in-lieu fee so that there's no cliff between a 9 and a 10-unit development, where the 15% inclusionary ordinance kicks in. Rob notes that some jurisdictions start at 3 or 5 units. We'll have to do a nexus study regardless. Krey: we should lower to, say, 5 units, and I like the 50/50 split between MI and LI for inclusionary units.

​

1B (impact fees for non-residential), I'm very hesitant to raise the cost of commercial space. Ching agrees: we should be honest about the cost, and also not in favor of this.

​

1C (affordable overlay zone), how does AHOZ differ from SB 35 and density bonus preferences? Rob: it provides clarity and the city can force a focus area. Also, BMR developers don't want to use density bonus because they don't want to antagonize the city. Sun: Menlo Park has one, and it didn't work, and we're learning from that. Krey: do we have specific areas? Rob: Pruneyard, Fry's, that kind of place.

​

1D (unit size), are we trying to make them smaller or larger? Stephen: smaller. Me: so, we could just stop regulating maximum density, or raise it, because there's a natural tendency to make smaller units, because you can rent them for more per square foot. Kamkar: might sometimes not be the best thing, we could have lots of roommates in four-bedroom apartments if the market says that works. Zisser: Is this BMR or everything? Stephen: We're just evaluating it. It's intended to prevent having three thousand square foot average units in a seventy-five foot building.

​

1F (ADU ordinance update), this is separate from expanding the scope of nonconforming ADU legalization, which is happening this year. Kamkar and me: don't mess with it, as a certain proportion are already being made at that affordability level.

​

1G (pre-approved ADU plans), very much in favor. San Jose already has those. Yes, we're trying to make that county-wide. I suggest pre-approving accessible ADUs, getting a bit ahead of myself.

​

1H (waivers for affordable developments), might include impact fees, developer fees, building fees, speedier replies or approvals. Ching: don't like automatic waivers for park fees, but moving things to be simpler or ministerial would be good.

​

1J (Missing Middle), I encourage auditing our zoning code to see what's making missing middle illegal by looking at the idealized types and seeing why you can't build them in the supposedly-appropriate zones.

​

1 (General), I encourage staff to look at the worked example at 125 E Campbell; low/no parking, make it tall, make it modular. We should talk to that guy. And do we have, or should we have, a goal that market-rate housing should be affordable to someone making 80% of AMI? That less than X% of renters should be rent-burdened? We have to get the rubber to meet the road at some point.

​

2A (rent control), I don't like extending rent control to newer buildings, but I do like extending AB 1482 protections to shorter-term tenants.

​

2C (short term rentals), I note that it's happening, and the city simply isn't making income from them.

​

2E (Workforce Housing), Kamkar: is this how RDAs used to work? If it is, we should make it a higher priority. Stephen: Broad picture, this is an exemption, but RDAs were where the city got to keep the increment in property taxes. Ching: Sounds like muni bonds, tax-exempt bonds. Me: Are BMR units tax-exempt in general? Stephen: They're tax-reduced. Kamkar: this seems like a much faster way of producing BMR housing.

​

3A (parking reform), Me: I take it we're going to come up with specifics later? Substitute car-sharing spaces, substitute bike spaces, establish parking maximums? Allow unbundling of parking in multifamily housing? Zisser: We should see exactly how underutilized our parking lots are. Maybe we can use that for the new low/no-parking units going up. Me: We're getting parking metrics for our downtown garages, right? Rivlin: There's cheap tech to measure those, like pucks you put on each parking space. Krey: Unbundling is becoming popular, I think.

​

3B (permit streamlining), Set a goal of, say, 85% of housing being approved by-right?

​

4A (hazard areas), do we have these? Stephen: not fire, but earthquake and flood, very limited. Kamkar: I'd like more priority on this, to incentivize developers to conserve water and so on.

​

4B (resilient design), Very interested in encouraging heat pumps instead of furnaces. (Pays for itself in, what, four years?) Want to make sure we're on the right side of encourage vs require. Krey: Is solar required on new houses? Rivlin: No, that's just the wiring.

​

5A (special needs populations), Declare a state of housing emergency? Set a goal of solving homelessness? Produce as many shelter beds as we have homeless people as of now? I do like the special density-bonus ideas. Note that Wesley Manor is our largest senior-housing development, and now it's illegal. Also, we should get accessible ADU designs pre-approved. Kamkar: is this including autistic people? Sun: Yes. Kamkar: including seniors? Sun: Yes. Zisser: There's senior group homes; my mother was in one. Are we talking about incentivizing those? Sun: Yes.

​

5B (renter protections) and 5C (ADU incentives) I've already given my two cents.

​

5D (fair housing outreach), Outreach events to people who don't usually know about this stuff? Partner with churches or workplaces?, provide assistance navigating the process. Rivlin: Do we have success metrics? Stephen: Project Sentinel, who we contract with, does measure how much they do. Rivlin: Maybe we should have an annual summary presented to the Council or the Commission. Sun: service providers have said they want better integration with cities, to complete the feedback loop.

​

Staff will now summarize our comments and bring them to City Council.

Highlights

- Staff took the probability-of-development question seriously! On sites that they didn't get developer outreach on, they need a 29% probability-of-development to hit our target. Last cycle, they calculated 26%. This is done in good faith; there was zero upzoning last cycle. I'm really pleased with this!

- Our sites capacity is between 4,800 and 5,600, depending on what happens with our corp yard and the Campbell Technology Park. This isn't just wishful thinking. I really do think we've got a good shot at hitting our numbers this cycle.

- Staff downscaled some densities from fear that the buildings would be too high. They came back with analysis saying that they wouldn't be, so maybe they'll be restored to their former glory.

- The area southeast of Downtown Campbell was removed from the inventory because it's a lot of small sites that no one wanted to develop at 27 du/ac. We're attempting to get it re-added at 75 du/ac; I don't know if staff will follow through with that.

- Staff reports that their outreach has been very successful, that they're getting a lot of developers matched with owners who want to redevelop, and they've gotten a lot of feedback for the constraints portion of the Housing Element process.

Raw Notes

Dramatis Personae: Commissioners Kamkar, Rivlin, Krey, Zisser, Vice Chair Buchbinder (me), Chair Ching. (Commissioner Ostrowski is absent.) Senior Planner Stephen Rose, Community Development Director Rob Eastwood, City Attorney Bill Seligmann. From M-Group, consultants David Hogan and Geoff Bradley.

​

Carin made cookies for everyone. Neat! On my way here, I walked past 476 E Campbell Ave, which was for-sale and is right next to Downtown Campbell Station. Andrea, Deputy City Clerk, is taking the notes and calling the roll tonight, as Corinne Shinn has retired after twenty-eight years and over six hundred meetings.

​

(Asked Rob; 476 E Campbell "just came on the market"; the Mayor had asked about it. I guess we'll add that? It's site 267, I think, which is on... neither list?!) Also, no notes on the minutes. Five people in the audience, and more online. Desk items from Carin, Wes, and Christy, which is really darned excellent. Huzzah!

​

PLN-2021-12, the Housing Opportunity Sites, and also policies for mixed-use development. Our objective is to review the Tier 1 Sites, and make recommendations. Director Eastwood emphasizes that it's easy to remove sites, and hard to add them. We'll have extra discussion of some city-owned sites and the Technology Park.

​

David Hogan from M-Group: We're down to the end of the initial selection process. School and church sites didn't come up with anything. PC and CC both supported the use of the technology park. We're asked when mixed-use should be required and when optional. We'll be discussing the 75-foot building height limit. We had property owners representing ~40 parcels get back to us. The Winchester site is in the process of being developed by VTA. We're still doing outreach.

​

The ranking criteria is at least three of (over a half acre, over 50 units potential, good location, property owner interest, not in our top 100 sales tax-producing units) to be in Tier 1. Sites have scores from 1 to 5, in practice. "Even if a site is not a Housing Opportunity Site, they can still develop housing on it."

​

Looking at the maps, a lot of sites have been removed for being small, or having existing functional uses, or no developer interest. Mainly the high density on the south side of Campbell Ave east of downtown, and Winchester north of the station. PetSmart was removed because of its sales tax revenue. Most of the relatively low-density South Campbell sites remain on the list. And we're back to Campbell Technology Park.

​

The Tech Park was part of the Redevelopment project which didn't work out; there's an agreement to keep it like this until 2030, which would have to be modified. We'd like to move the corp yard out there, and put housing where it is now, which is... near more housing. The First Street Parking Garage has about 300 stalls; retaining the existing parking will be... a challenge. (To what extent is it used?)

​

HCD requires 3,300; the higher target is 5,000, and staff is recommending 5,610. (4,800 without the corp yard and tech park.) Question time!

​

Krey: Do mixed-use designations change the density? (Rose: No.) It looks like we haven't figured out how many BMR units would be produced under these assumptions. (Eastwood: We're reaching out to VTA for Measure A projects, and we're going to be looking into an affordable housing overlay in the spring.) Is that off-topic for tonight? (It's in the spring.)

​

Zisser: What's the acreage of the corp yard? (Hogan: Around three acres. Eastwood: It would take roughly the same amount.) Will we have to stipulate which parcels will provide BMR housing? What about the rate of development? (Jeff Bradley, M-Group: We've looked at it from that perspective. The Site Inventory Guidebook says to look at last cycle, where we had 26% development. If we assume that all the affirmative-interest sites develop, and none of the others, we'd need 29% of those sites to develop. It's reasonable to assume that the percentage will tick up, due to higher density, which makes more projects more feasible. We think these facts support the 5,000 to 5,500 inventory. We have to convince HCD that we have a "reasonable roadmap" to solving this.) And do we have to stipulate which parcels will be BMR? (Bradley: There's an assumption that any parcel over the default density is appropriate for affordable housing.) On the First Street garage, is the requirement to keep all of the parking? Because the upper level is never used. And the residents will need parking. (Seligmann: That's subject to negotiations with property owners involved in the original financing.)

​

Me: 476 E Campbell is site 267 on the maps, but isn't on either the Tier 1 or Tier 2 list. It's currently for sale. Maybe we should include it? (Eastwood: The building was probably too new or small.) Also, what about FAR problems? Sites not listed can be developed, but what difficulties does that add? (Eastwood: I thought FAR was a non-residential factor. Rose: Non-residential FAR isn't counted against residential FAR. We're also looking into changing our objective standards. Also, the HAA provides some guidance about what to do, and most density bonus projects let you get concessions or waivers for things like FAR. Eastwood: Nothing prevents those sites from being developed, especially if the zoning is already there.) But the density? (Rose: It's 27 on that parcel. We'll be updating some of our standards, maybe to 45 du/ac. But we want to focus on the sites submitted to HCD.) Do we need to do anything now to make it so the Winchester project can absorb some of the neighboring parking lot? (Rose: We'll be looking at an affordable housing overlay, but it'll keep the underlying density of the acquired property by default.) Where did you get the 26% development rate? (Rose: There were 132 or so sites, and about 32 of them developed. We just counted sites. And note that we hadn't raised any densities; this is very different than that, so the likelihood of redevelopment is substantially higher.) Also, kudos to staff and consultants on doing outreach to property owners. (Eastwood: Planner Rose set up something involving scanning a QR code, made it very easy for owners to express interest.)

​

Ching: How did we get to the densities on the Tier 1 list? (Eastwood: We took 75 from VTA; 60 appealed to developers; 45, 30, 20 are more in-local-context. Rose: 45 came from the General Plan update.) Has there been discussion of a second access road to the tech park? (Eastwood: There's two accesses, one private (Cristich(sp?) Lane), one EVA road--an existing easement across the mobile home park. We'll need two accesses there.)

​

Rivlin: If the sites aren't on the map, does housing developed there count toward our totals? (Rose: Absolutely. Any residential building counts. Also, we can't assume density bonuses, but those projects do count when built.) The self-storage off Salmar, south of Hamilton, why didn't that make the cut? (Rose: We're looking at businesses which are unlikely to move in the next eight years. Self-storage sites tend to never move. The idea that they'd move without owner interest is unlikely.) Even with the 27 du/ac going to 75? (Good question, but no, it wasn't enough. The site has a mixed-use land-use designation, and can develop, still.)

​

Zisser: Are we still looking at other spaces for the corp yard? (Eastwood: Yes, we're looking at Los Gatos and other nearby areas.)

​

Now, public comment!

​

Sarah Chaffin: Here about 2089/2075 S Bascom and 1740/1750 S Winchester, and 1627/1639/1645 S Bascom. We're interested in developing there, and I'd like to thank staff for including them. Staff has been really helpful. Krey mentioned middle-market housing; we're interested in developing BMR housing if feasible. I think there's a way to make that happen. We really do need workforce and BMR housing. Also, 1627/1647/1657 are contiguous parcels; it says the property owner hasn't shown interest, but we are interested in developing there. And they do add up to over 50 units. Also, could you explore the idea of doing the housing at 75 du/ac in that area? The Council wants to maximize density there; maybe that's something they can explore. Also, 2075/2089 S Bascom, they're contiguous; they could yield more than 50 du/ac.

​

Online public comment!

​

Kelly Snider: The owners at 600 E Hamilton, at the Fry's site, are interested in redeveloping. We're hearing that we'll get development at these higher percentages. That's all probably true, and this is a big jump for the RHNA numbers, but the Hamilton/Salmar corner has three Tier 1 sites. I've heard Mr Baron from Staples about how he'd like to redevelop. Your calculations for just those three sites on one corner are almost 800 units. Take a moment, remember, in two years, someone's going to bring those 785 units. The public is going to pass out when that comes up. Remember, property owners are going to come to you with those numbers. This is almost 20% of your 5k unit capacity. You're going to have to say yes to a lot of these units. Think big, think positively. We're going to need more positivity from you over the next four years.

​

Raja Palella: When will these zoning changes be made? (Rose: We have up to a year following certification to update all of our zoning maps and ordinances. It's going to be a big year. Might take a little bit longer.)

​

Dennis Randall: My compliments to this process. It's the most cogent I've seen in thirty years. I represent the Hick'ry Pit, Shell Station, and nearby properties. Not sure if the purple color is Tier 1 or Tier 2. (It's Tier 1; the color is the density.) Kelly made a very good point. The larger sites around Pruneyard and downtown, these sites are really mixed-use sites, offering extraordinary opportunities to develop great walkable places, Campbell to Bascom to Hamilton, whichever way to get back to downtown. That loop is a core commercial element of the city. I proposed 211 market-rate homes and 170 hotel rooms and underground parking. Density provides public space, because you're building higher, you get rooftop amenities, artistic amenities. I want everyone to hear that. Big fan of this process; thank you.

​

Kevin Clearwell: VP of Cottage Place HOA. Very basic question, what's the definition of a residential unit? Is it a single bedroom? How is it defined? (Rose: Good question. Really governed by the presence of a kitchen. Three bedrooms, one kitchen, one unit.) Moved here about six years ago, little concerned about losing our character if we go too high and blocking out our views and changing our character, which is mostly 1-3 story housing, occasionally four-story. I think adding a flyover walkway to the corp yard from the tech park would really improve the appeal for easy access to downtown.

​

Tim Pasquinelli: I own the tech park. Why is the tech park listed differently on these plans than all of the other sites? Why are we listed with the city sites? (Eastwood: I'd like to answer these all at the end, but for this one, it wasn't originally identified as a housing site. It does have our existing commitment, and we'd like to discuss the opportunity to put the corp yard there or do a land swap. We do think it's an opportunity for housing. We do need to figure out access.)

​

One more in-person speaker.

​

Desiree Ortega and Rick Ortega: Rick owns 68 S 3rd St and 70 S 3rd St. I'm asking for mixed use. I've lived at 68 S 3rd St since 1984. I ran an insurance office, you could do that as long as you didn't put up a sign. We'd like to move our office to 70. I've owned the properties since 1984. We haven't had any complaints since then. The properties on 2nd St are mixed-use. The neighbors are okay with it. Further down, people have businesses attached to houses. (Ching: Staff, please follow up.)

​

And that's public comment! Now comments on sites.

​

Sheet 1. Zisser: Sad that some of the Winchester sites didn't survive. The densities and parcels make sense. Rivlin: Will Tier 2 be adjusted? (Eastwood: They allow housing, and we'll be upping the density just a bit.) I gather as much. I guess my concern is the clusters along Gilman/Dillon/Railway, if they were one parcel, they'd be tier one. We're counting on someone assembling the sites. I guess we're reaching our numbers or they could get a PD. Love relocating the corp yard. We wouldn't be taking advantage of the corp yard if we were putting it in the tech park. Kamkar: Combining the corp yard and tech park is a great idea. When I try to fit a number of units in a property for clients, the more options, the better. Moving the corp yard gives us options. I'm also concerned about transportation, and utilities. Water, gas, electricity, sewer. And can we change the title from density to maximum density? Me: At least upzone the Gilman/Dillon/Railway section. If we can get a pedestrian flyover, we could go higher than 30/acre on the tech park, especially on the highway side. Because we can get smaller and not larger, we should lean toward higher densities. In favor of moving the corp yard and developing the tech park. Very pleased at what the Winchester Station area looks like. (Eastwood: If we're going to upzone anything, we have to decide that now.) Ching: We mentioned the 75-foot voter approved measure, but a density bonus could override it? (Seligmann: State law allows for increased density and concessions, possibly including more height.) I think these are good choices. Areas like Campbell Tech Park or Fry's, big contiguous areas, I'd like to mandate mixed-use. We have a housing crisis and a child-to-adult daycare services crisis. We think about retail and restaurants, but we should also think about affordable services, especially for childcare and adult-care. Zisser: I have concerns putting the corp yard next to residential areas or a city park. We'd need improvements on the area roads; one of them is essentially an alley. I have a gut feeling that 500 units is the most you can fit in there. I'm comfortable with 30 du/ac. Me: We could add an overlay to allow care services in otherwise-residential areas.

​

Sheet 2. Krey: I think going above 75 feet is a tradeoff for BMR units. These sites are good. Though 17 and Hamilton is a nightmare, traffic-wise. These sites would want to be mixed-use. Zisser: Fine with this map. I go to the Pruneyard, and it's really busy. Adding two high-density residential uses would make it crazy. Rivlin: I'm not bothered by the amount of people, though driving could be tough. I heard the public's comments on the Hick'ry Pit. If this is our opportunity to raise density, just because there's a parcel line SE of downtown... people will sell. I agree with Commissioner Buchbinder; those should be in Tier 1 sites. Me: I still have feelings about Gilman/Dillon/Railway. The southwest corner of Bascom and Hamilton should be 75 du/ac, since it's not residential-adjacent, and it's walkable to Hamilton Station. Same with site 17, same with Hick'ry Pit site. Hope to see the old Elephant Bar (159) redeveloped. Ching: The density on the Fry's site, I'd welcome high density, up to the maximum as long as the developers invest in the various infrastructure (pedestrian access, mixed use). Make it not only safe, but enjoyable. Make sure we don't just get high density, but good quality development. I share Zisser's concerns about the Pruneyard. In principle, I have no concerns with the density, but is it workable? Me: Anything sparse enough for cars isn't nice to walk around; anything dense enough for pedestrians is going to be unpleasant for drivers. Ching: It's unsafe to walk around. Me: Agreed; we should plan pedestrian circulation better and slow down cars going through there. Zisser: I'm pragmatic. I've seen the Pruneyard evolve over the years. It's a destination, not just for people who live within a half-mile. People come from San Jose, from the west side of Campbell. They can't walk there. The residents there will probably be market-rate, and will want to have cars. You're going to have a traffic issue in the Pruneyard, and I don't see it evolving quickly. My son lives in South San Jose, and he comes to the Pruneyard every weekend. It's great if Campbell becomes more walkable, but I don't think it's in the cards in the next two decades, no matter what they put in in terms of pods or shared cars or whatever. Ching: I have a very different view; if we keep assuming we need cars, things won't change.

​

Sheet 3. Zisser: I'm a big fan of site 56 being redeveloped. Rivlin: I'm good with this map. Is Home Church actually available? (Rose: Historically, the Church had reached out to staff. Not sure where they are at the moment.) It's a great site. Me: The north side of Campbell east of downtown should also be denser. Zisser: What's the idea with site 139, Stacks? Isn't it already residential? (Rose: The building in the corner would go; the residential units there now would be preserved.)

​

Sheet 4. Krey: What was Penny Lane developed at? (Rose: It was a density bonus project, starting at 27, so 30-34 du/ac.) So the developer was here, and we talked about this site. What did they have? (They were proposing 27 du/ac, a mix of housing development types. For example, Penny Lane has three-story townhomes in back, and apartments in front. Something similar.) Me: 20 du/ac is appropriate for site 162. I'd be okay with more density on the sites across from Penny Lane.

​

Sheet 5. Zisser: Are you calculating only a portion of site 207? (Eastwood: The property owner was very interested at 60 du/ac. Hogan: We're expecting to use 1.6 of over 9 acres on the site.) Krey: Site 12 is the Goodwill; it's very popular. Hopefully they'd find another location.

​

Sheet 6. Zisser: It's limited, but we do what we can. Me: I think this will be a good part of the city for SB 10 programs. I wish we could add services here.

​

Next, the mixed use question, and density/height concerns.

​

Should we mandate mixed use? Rose presenting. Maybe require it at the Pruneyard, or large sites like Fry's, or between Downtown Campbell and the Pruneyard along Campbell, or to offset a loss or lack of services.

​

Rose presenting again. There's a calculator that the county provides. Even at 75 du/ac, assuming an 80% density bonus, we're expecting about 62 feet of height. So even at these higher densities, the height isn't going to be as much of a concern as we'd thought. There's an exhibit of existing high-density housing in the packet. We see 132 du/ac at 61 feet, for example.

​

Kamkar: Campbell is a place for families. 588 sf is one bedroom, you can't fit a family in that. I'd like bigger units, so families can live there too. I think Campbell need bigger units, which means more height. If you have 1000sf average unit size instead of 500sf, how tall would it be? (Rose: This was an average, including smaller and larger units alike. You still see families in these projects.) Krey: Are we asking what we'd be okay with losing as a retail space? (Rose: We're not intending to change sites which support mixed-use.) Zisser: Does the General Plan now mandate mixed-use? (The mixed-use designations are an and/or. We hope to clarify when something is mandatory and when something is optional. This is a cleanup effort.) Maybe we should rely on whether it's on a major corridor. Ching: Would there be a mechanism for appeal? (The mechanism would be a General Plan Amendment to change to a mixed-use-optional designation.)

​

Skipping a second public comment. Now, discussion.

​

Zisser: I'd like to have a mandate, but also a way to appeal. Everything on main corridors should be mixed-use. Rivlin: What's the minimum that would make something mixed-use? A 500sf cafe? (Rose: This gets back to the question of whether 'token' mixed-use would satisfy matters. We'd want to satisfy questions of what would be objectively required. We had a requirement that the first 50 feet depth-wise had to be commercial on the main drag. Maybe we can do horizontal or vertical mixed-use, so it can be adjacent rather than above/below. Eastwood: San Jose over-mandated mixed use, so you have these empty places that become exercise rooms or the like. We've heard from HCD that mandating mixed-use might constitute a barrier to housing.) I'd like to have a small minimum that can be expanded. Krey: I thought that commercial development was what really made a development, especially with BMR units, pencil out. I thought this question was moot. Most of the big sites, Fry's, Hick'ry Pit, would have that component, I'd think. If requiring commercial use would stop the housing, I wouldn't want to require it. Kamkar: I agree with Rivlin. The genius of Silicon Valley is being given room to create, innovate. If we give developers opportunity, let them figure out how to achieve the goal... I like convertible space, which can be commercial or residential depending on what makes more sense. I understand that developers don't mind office space, but retail gets in the way, it's hard to rent out. By commercial, do we mean offices or retail?

​

Me: I'm in favor of adding incentives for mixed-use development rather than requiring it. Do we think of these places as commercial with optional residential, or residential with optional commercial? We should only require it in very specific places, like downtown, and even then, allow some flexibility. I note that our existing mixed-use sites are heavily discouraged, for example by our parking requirements. See how much parking was involved in Cresleigh, or in the recent Winchester project. You can barely fit commercial space in there for all of the parking it requires. Commissioner Kamkar's point is well-taken; if we want to have more spacious homes at higher densities, we need to go higher. Also, we can use the space more efficiently. For example, Seattle now only requires one staircase, which allows smaller buildings and much nicer designs. It's just as safe, too. Ching: Very in favor of mixed-use. Token mixed-use is poor quality. I understand why these places are poor quality. Fry's would be a huge development, a good place for shops. Develop community, reduce traffic. At the same time, the numbers have to work for developers. Higher density to make the numbers work, in exchange for an investment in the community. I don't envy staff's job here. When it works, it works really well. Those places are desirable. I'm against the token side; this is a good chance to get quality developments, including if that means being more flexible. Corner stores in the San Tomas area. Me: We should reverse reductions in density which assumed that 75 du/ac meant more than 75 feet. And these projects are rare anyway; we should be lucky to have that many BMR projects. Krey: Agree with Commissioner Buchbinder. I'm next to West San Jose; they have 10 and 12 story apartment buildings going up there.

​

Zisser: Residents keep thinking we're going to build over five thousand units, which we're just not. Packet p. 12 says we're actually going to produce 4.8k. That's wrong. We're trying to make 3k units. Staff should be more careful with this, so we don't stoke fear in the community. (Eastwood: Point taken. I'll just say that we want to actually develop things. We're not fortune-tellers. And we don't want to zone for 4.8k units and then tell applicants they can't build something.)

​

Next steps: staff will return in late February or early March for more HE/GP updates. We'll develop policies and programs, including an affordable housing program and overlay zone. And the EIR will be in-progress. Congratulations to us for getting this done; we're maybe the fastest in the valley.

​

Spoke after-the-fact with Stephen Rose, who was very optimistic about our chances, saying that the last Housing Element involved no upzoning at all, and this time he's done some matchmaking between developers and owners. He's also very keen on getting into the constraints and policies, as he's also been getting a lot of feedback about that. Also spoke with Rob Eastwood, who hadn't heard of the single-stair building idea; I've forwarded him the Grabar article.

​

Summary

Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghZdKd02TZo.

- The Planning Commission's recommendation from December 9 is why 6,500-7,000 sites were brought to City Council, instead of 5,000.

- Of the Council members, Lopez, Resnikoff in favor of a higher inventory; Landry, Bybee, Gibbons against. Landry specifically doesn't want to have a large inventory this cycle, because she's afraid we'll have nowhere left to grow next cycle if it all gets built. Bybee and Gibbons support 5,000; unclear what Landry supports.

- The Council is opposed to high density around transit if the parcels are near single-family homes, fearing that they won't be able to prevent a six story building from looming over a house. (I think this fear is overblown; they could add objective standards here, e.g., adjacent-parcel height limits can rise by only 10 feet every 30 horizontal feet.)

- It's ironic that the Council is concerned about losing commercial space, when on existing mixed-use projects (e.g., the Cresleigh project on the old Del Grande site), commercial space is kept minimal by unreasonably high parking requirements.

- You can't put multifamily housing in residential areas because it will loom over SFHs. You can't put it on parking lots because where will people park? And you can't put it in commercial areas because those are viable businesses that we need. This seems like a catch-22.

- There is one more chance to edit the site inventory, but as of now it really looks like the city is going to shy away from the larger inventory, and pre-emptively lower densities of even transit-accessible parcels in order to "protect" single family homes from adjacency to taller buildings.

- Most of the comments were neighbors who wanted lower density at 251 Llewellyn, and a few who were full-throatedly in favor of higher density. Regardless, most of the City Council seemed more afraid of making a mistake than of perpetuating the status quo.

Full Notes

City Council's review of PLN-2021-12, which we reviewed on December 9. I'm watching along, though I started a bit late, and will be catching up at 2X. Dramatis personae: Councilmembers Bybee, Landry, Lopez; Vice Mayor Resnikoff; Mayor Gibbons. Community Development Director Eastwood and Senior Planner Rose. Consultants Hogan and Bradley. City Attorney Seligmann.

​

"We expect this to be a long meeting." The meeting will consist of an introduction, General Plan (non-housing) portion, council questions, then housing element background, then a summary of proposed refinements to opportunity maps, then public comment and a break, then detailed refinements, then council review of maps and feedback. They expect to be there until... eleven thirty? Yikes. Good thing I'm watching semi-delayed on YouTube.

​

Eastwood explains that this isn't quite final; there will be an opportunity in January to edit things in advance of the EIR. Next year, we'll do policies and programs, and objective standards. Rose recaps the General Plan update: Council supported GPAC changes, larger Hamilton Avenue area plan, remove SOCA/NOCA plans. NOCA allowed for some more-intense commercial uses, but both plans had FAR restrictions intended to encourage lot consolidation. Also, our FAR is not reflective of as-built buildings in the area, so instead of 0.4 for most places, it should be 1.0. Policy sets: create mixed-use zones, reduce P-D zones, among other things. Also, we're no longer measuring lot size to the street centerline; no one does that. Time for council questions.

​

Landry: Is there a way to convert du/ac to FAR? (Rose: FAR means the areas of all floors in the building added up.) Doesn't FAR apply to residential units? (It can, but for EIR purposes, we measure residential uses in du/ac, and non-residential in FAR.)

​

Gibbons: I did not support the GPAC map. It wasn't comprehensive enough. I thought council wanted to know more about what a Specific Plan is. And the lot size is industry standard. So, you have the feedback you need? (Eastwood: Yes.)

​

Hogan from Metropolitan Planning Group ("M-Group") presenting. ABAG started us with 2,977 units. HCD recommends a 30% buffer, to make ~3,900 units. Pending projects, ADUs, and SB 9 bring it down to 3,300. We've mostly been looking at underutilized sites. We then whittled it down. The state requires us to locate most housing in places with high AFFH scores (10-minute walk). We have a range of densities, from 27 du/ac (current maximum) to 75 du/ac (for light-rail-adjacent places). We proposed several options, and we were told to combine three to get about 7,000 units in the initial map. The public had the same opinions as the council: higher density around VTA stations, don't use the Community Center, consider existing conditions, and the 20-45 du/ac range is too broad, so we've broken that down. Questions!

​

Landry: Is it 'religious' or 'faith-based' facilities? (Eastwood: I've seen both; they mean the same thing.) I support 'faith-based' instead of 'religious'.

​

Gibbons: I have a lot of questions. Is the goal to rebalance the jobs-to-housing ratio? It comes up in all the literature. We import people to work here. Are all of the uses assuming ground-floor retail? (Eastwood: We'll figure that out in January, whether we'll require mixed uses.) I think I'll ask my questions after the map.

​

Resnikoff: The buffer isn't an allocation target, right? We got a lot of pushback saying that if you put it in, you intend to build it. (Eastwood: If you zone it for building, you should expect it to be built. However, last cycle, only thirty percent of sites were built. A bigger buffer gives more options, a better chance to hit our targets.) But if we exceed our RHNA numbers, that's okay? (Yes. I don't know of any jurisdiction that's ever had 100% build rate on its sites.) Considering businesses, does that include closing businesses? (Yes; we removed some sites that were top sales tax generators.) The density graphics are great, by the way. The proposed 60 du/ac mixed use in the shopping sites, that doesn't preclude the possibility of mixed use underneath? (Correct.) Did I miss a slide, was there any feedback from property owners? (We'll reach out before January.) The lesson from the Dell Ave plan is to reach out to them early. At the community meeting, did we capture demographics? (?: We wanted to know if they were renters or owners, so we asked about that.)

​

Lopez: Great work! What does the outreach before January look like? (We'll be meeting school districts in early January; we'll be at a regular meeting of faith-based people.)

​

Landry: Does considering the 1.0 FAR here lock us in later on? (Rose: This isn't an SB 330 process. This doesn't set us up for an argument to be less.) (Hogan: This lets us be able to change the FAR without redoing the EIR.) How can we discuss density without discussing unit sizes? (Generally, intensity is related to unit count. We'll need to come back to that.) I'd go to higher density if the units are smaller.

​

Gibbons: I concur. The three-story building being shown now is 27 du/ac; 45 du/ac would be two more floors. That's a tough discussion to have. You're going to be asking us to recommend densities. "It's hard to reconcile the physical implications of what you're asking." I know we're maximizing the information in the EIR, but I want to make sure we don't put ourselves between a rock and a hard place.

​

Landry: This is a big deal for me; I don't support 2500sf units at 75 du/ac. [Looking it up, that's a 4.25 FAR.] To me, it's a very important connection between the two. (Eastwood: We haven't regulated building sizes. We've provided some examples. You won't have those tools tonight. Design standards won't be here next year.)

​

Gibbons: I looked at projects around the city. The typical studio/1BR is 850sf, 2BR is 100sf, 3BR is 1300sf. If you look at projects on Railway, there's no retail on the ground floor and it's 75 feet tall. You're showing substantively smaller buildings. It's tough to relate what you're telling us to what we see in our community. Can you stipulate heights? Like, 45 du/ac but only 45 feet tall? But density bonus can override whatever we put in there. We're not going to put all of these densities in the housing element, right? (We'll refine this through 2022. There may be some massaging of individual sites.) Would this be a good time to note that we grew by about 4k residents from 2010-2020, and we expect for another 6k this decade? What about open space? That's 10k delta! Where does that come into our land use planning? Related, if we have areas that don't qualify for affordable housing units. Can we rezone for... seems to be supermarkets and local retail? (I don't see a possibility of doing that before the EIR. That was part of the General Plan update, and that took five years. There's just no time.) That's tragic. That's why I didn't accept the proposed land use map, because it wasn't comprehensive..

​

Bradley presenting, Rose assisting. "Recommended Housing Opportunity Sites Refinement." Recommendations are: identify community development themes, modify residential densities to recognize neighborhood context, select the best sites available, and we feel that about 5k sites feels right at this point: it can withstand some natural attrition.

​

Six themes: mixed-use promenade on Campbell Ave from the Community Center to the Pruneyard; mixed use area around Fry's; transit-oriented area around Winchester Station; revitalize the San Tomas Neighborhood Shopping Center; mixed-use development along arterials; and disperse at least some opportunity sites all around the city. Time for Public Comment!

​

Eric Dikeman, "a property-owning resident", here for "the charm factor". I request that 251 Llewelyn and similar sites be set at a maximum of 20 du/ac, not 30, to support townhomes.

​

Dan Smith, president of "an association that has a hundred units". We have large townhomes. You look at five acres at these densities, that's a lot of units. Keep Campbell Campbell!

​

Alaina Baryshnikova. I "feel safe in Campbell". I live in the low-density neighborhood. Keep the density to 20 du/ac. Talking about 251 Llewelyn.

​

Tim Pasquinelli: Owner of Campbell Technology Park. We'd be willing to do, say, a land swap for the city's lot.

​

Allen Ishibashi: Townhomes are built generally around 14-22 du/ac. The current proposals don't make much room for that. This is a good place for people to raise families. 251 Llewellyn is a good place for this. Five of the seven Planning Commissioners at the last meeting supported this, which I feel is very impressive because those folks really like density! Not against high density; it just needs to be in the right place. I also don't support anything being built on the community center.

​

Sara (Chafin?): I submitted a letter of interest, as we're interested in developing 2089 and 2075 S Bascom.And 1712, 1740, and 1750 S Winchester. We'd like to build workforce housing. We look forward to working with you.

​

James Sulllivan: I'm a residential developer; I've developed from 4-80 du/ac. Typically townhome densities are 16-24 du/ac with the modified gross you're using. I represent sites [162] and [49]. I'd brought a project at about 18 du/ac that the neighbors had gotten behind.

​

Mike (Chrisman?): I represent the Campbell Village Neighborhood Association. "Representing the taxpayers and citizens of my neighborhood", we're "absolutely asking" that we go for the 2,977 units; "the 30% slush fund, no disrespect, is a very generous number to target". Reasons for lower density: "Campbell is the smallest city in the county except for Monte Sereno; what we do is going to make a little bit of difference, but it's not going to solve the housing problem in California or the Bay Area." We don't know the impacts of SB 9 and SB 10; we won't know for 5, 10, 15 years. Most importantly, we don't have impact fees in Campbell. "We're giving away our city!" We don't have them for traffic, safety, public art--quality-of-life issues! We have three firefighters on duty, and that hasn't changed in forty years. We're going to add four, five, eight thousand units, who's going to pay for it? We need to share the burden: developers need to pay for it, the citizens of Campbell need their roads fixed. And public safety. [Editor's note: Yikes!]

​

To the Zoom comments!

​

Kelly Snider: Professor of real estate and planning at SJSU. 75 du/ac is far too low as an upper limit. You need to be in the triple digits. You need to be at 100-120 du/ac for your transit-adjacent sites. A specific plan takes a long time, 4-8 years, and millions of dollars. Look at Santa Clara's El Camino Real Specific Plan to see how that worked out. The Hamilton Area Plan seems not to include the office park and Mariott hotel, and it should. Those owners should absolutely redevelop. Finally, the planning director was talking about how affordable housing is usually built at 80+ du/ac and townhomes at 20. Doubling the density doesn't get you double the height. You've only built 30% of your housing sites? That's a 70% failure rate. To the last commenter who said you can't solve the housing crisis? You could have five thousand families living in Campbell. This isn't about solving a crisis, this is about giving families an opportunity to live in your--[cut off for time]

​

(Also, she kinda-livetweeted this hearing. Cool. https://twitter.com/KS_Sanjose/status/1471661804405227527.)

​

Joanne (Pao?): New resident moved from San Jose because I like Campbell. I support Allen Ishibashi: 20 du/ac at the Llewellyn site, and don't redevelop the Community Center.

​

Joanne Carol: 38-year residents. You labeled parking lots and the light rail on Winchester and Hamilton. Parking lots are in short supply! At both of the stations there is insufficient parking for the cars that go there to take the light rail. What Susan and Liz talked about, how the density and unit size are tied together; I don't get how you can do an EIR if you don't know the number of units in a particular area.

​

Caroline Field: There are a handful of non-option 3/4/5 sites on the map, in southwest Campbell, which have been "appropriately planned for at 20 du/ac". Another site, [162], has been planned for 30 du/ac. It's also in a low-density neighborhood. Be consistent, and keep it at 20 du/ac. And protect our community center. And the gravel lot near the library.

​

B Wolf: I live near the Community Center, and I like that the Council is listening to the residents about not developing there. This is our city to manage, to decide where we put the sites, so I appreciate that you listen to people from the neighborhood, and not so much from outside sources. I respectfully request that [162] have a maximum density of 20 du/ac. A lot of drivers are frustrated with the traffic around the post office and drive aggressively. The area won't support an increase in population. The eight years we have is enough to work with the sites we have and not add more buffer.

​

Dennis Randall: I'm with Acquity Realty, representing the Barbano family, corner of E Campbell and S Bascom, the Shell station/Hick'ry Pit. I entitled the office building on Creekside. I support the low density on Llewellyn, and I also support higher density in sites that support it. We proposed a 75 du/ac project under 75 feet for the site. If you limit densities, you won't get high-quality, well-designed amenities and features. I understand that you're fearful of traffic, but you'll get higher-quality development this way.

​

Michael Stevens: I live on Queens Court, 15-year homeowner. I'm really supportive of higher densities, higher than what we've been talking about, in places that work with it. Places served by cars should accommodate missing-middle. For example, we've talked about [162]. It doesn't fit in those options, it's not walkable. 20 du/ac would be more conducive to the neighborhood. I request that we keep that at 20 to support family-friendly townhomes.

​

William Baron: With Brandenburg Properties, owners of the Staples site. I'd like to ensure the letter we submitted about the Staples site, that you're aware of it. It meets all of the criteria and public comment requiring higher density along commercial corridors and near light rail. (Gibbons: Yes, we have.) I'd like to echo Kelly Snider's comments about density.

​

Cassandra Owen: We've lived in Campbell for 25 years. On the 251 Llewellyn site, we don't live in the neighborhood, but my mom used to. It's one of the shortest residential streets in Campbell. I don't have a vested interest here, but I want to endorse 20 du/ac there.

​

Jeanette Wolf: I live near the community center, 20+ year resident. The center is important to our community, and I want to make sure it stays the same. And I'd like to make sure the Llewellyn site stays at 20 du/ac, especially in the light of possible density bonuses.

​

Dana Stevens: We've lived here for 15 years, born and raised in the area. I agree with Allen: 20 du/ac at the Llewellyn site. We live in a court, meaning one way out.

​

Thomas Colgrove: I live off of Llewellyn. Used to live in New York. There's probably 100 to 150 houses between Hamilton and Campbell that are reached via Llewellyn, Latimer, Hardy. We all use that unofficial little highway as a shortcut, but we don't like it that much. If we're going to add 225 trips a day each way... there's a lot of FedEx trucks, Amazon trucks, post office trucks. I support 20 du/ac.

​

Scott Connolly: I'm with (Valley O?) partners, we own 320 Virginia Ave. It's about 2.2 acres, [49] on the inventory. It's a former San Jose Water site, now vacant land. We're very supportive of it being included. We're a theme-6 site, distributing through the city. The city should include the Staples site on the inventory. And I endorse Ms. Snider's comments about raising the density at the high-density sites throughout the city. It's plain smart growth.

​

Peter Young: I'm encouraged by the movement to limit Llewellyn to 20 du/ac. 4-5 story buildings would eliminate my views of the mountains and probably impact my solar panels. And I wouldn't want motorcycle parking near my fence. It boggles my mind. "If you do place 100 units there, these people are going to want to access the park that was set aside on my lot, in my neighborhood, in Cambridge Park, and I don't know if that's going to be fair to ask us to bear that burden."

​

And that's the public hearing. On to a Q&A. Mayor Gibbons says she has a lot of questions, and hopes this is the right place to ask them.

​

Gibbons: Do all the units need to meet fair housing requirements, or just BMR units? (The major goal is not placing all the affordable units in one part of town or "that" part of town. SoCal cities have been asked for more, but not in a quantified way.) When you look at the themes, the last one is to distribute housing; I wonder if we can put in a supermarket or a park so that more area would qualify. We have two-thirds of the city with no cites, and shouldn't we be looking at that? Something that's not reflected in the numbers is that we've "super-duper exceeded our market-rate housing", and it's all these sites found by homeowners or developers that we could never predict. So why can't we include some of that in our thinking? I understand why we want the buffer, the 5,000. The percentage of BMR units is 57%, right? And if you take 57% of 5,000, it's 2,850. Do we really need to plan for 5,000 - 2,850 above-market-rate units, when we know they're going to find their own locations? (Bradley: Interestingly, HCD is just as strict with the market-rate as with the BMR requirements.) And we can't change our land use to support expanding it; that's just tragic. (Bradley: One of the tools we've included is to use SB 10 to allow small, infill missing-middle where the city defines the parameters.) But the city can't count it in our RHNA for BMRs. I thought we couldn't do that. (Bradley: We're recommending that we not project things, but if built, they will count toward your RHNA.) When they're built, but not as part of our housing element statistics. (Bradley: Yes; it's so new that you couldn't predict in advance.) Related to that, two places use "75%". You project a 75% factor on some sites and 50% on others. So on top of the buffer, you also have this reduction in projected capacity. (Bradley: Only on smaller sites.) Okay, that's helpful. Also, you say we're requiring 75% of capacity to be built in some places, like in the Winchester area. Or we could take down our inclusionary percentage, so instead of a percentage of 10, it's a percentage of a lower number. Or raise it from 15% to 20%. It would be helpful to understand the reusing of existing sites: they have to be upzoned, higher capacity, and by-right. It would be helpful to have a map of those places and statistics so we know what we can and can't change. And I want to confirm: virtually all of our large projects have used the density bonus, but we can't count that even though we use that a lot, we can't count on that? (Eastwood: Correct.) "Everything's worst-case, worst-case, worst-case."

​

Resnikoff: How are we defining transit-oriented? (Bradley: We started with a half mile as the crow flies, then refined to half mile walking distance, and we've refined that based on how easy it actually is to get there on foot.) Did you limit it to light rail rather than bus lines? (Yes.) Any expectation of what proportion of people moving in would use light rail? (Based on a 2006 study from MTC and ABAG, which found that 30% of people who lived within a half-mile of a transit station didn't own a car.) In fifteen years, we have more data, I hope we can do better. Regarding McGlincy Technology Park [Campbell Technology Park], regarding swapping land for a corp yard, were you aware of that? (Eastwood: we were aware that it was an idea.) It was mentioned that Staples was excluded, but it's part of the same property as the Shell station. As I recall, the Planning Commission turned down a proposal to upgrade the Shell station. What's the plan? (There was evidence pointing to a long-term lease, but it turns out there's not. We'd definitely encourage it to be a site. The Shell station didn't make a good gateway site, and had a long-term lease.) So it was more about design than usage issues? So you're not looking to remove the service, just a different design? (Yes.)

​

Lopez: I'd like to understand the Community Center discussions a bit better. Would including potential units here preclude us from doing a master plan for it? (Eastwood: No. It takes a couple years to do a master plan.) That's helpful. A lot of comments are about not losing open space, and this is a parking lot. Is there a disconnect with the community not understanding something? (There are a lot of uses there. I don't think it was ever staff's intent to remove anything but parking. At this point, we're just going to take it off of the inventory.) That makes sense.

​

Now, on to the review of individual sites, recommendations for removal, and feedback on proposed densities. Bradley: The Planning Commission supported a higher buffer, even higher than staff, so we're here with the larger list of sites instead of cutting it down to 5,000 first. Support for exploring SB 10, for a "Support Housing Overlay District", which would support special-needs, daycare, childcare services; avoid housing on current schools/daycare services or existing rental stock. Also supported higher (100-200 du/ac) density in certain places "to create landmarks for the city", mandatory mixed use at over 75 du/ac, a broader range of densities, and the inclusion of Campbell Technology Park. There are six maps, starting on PDF page 92 of the packet. We'll go over each of them.

​

Winchester! PC supported 100 du/ac around the station, as well as the corp yard and parking garage; some wanted to keep the triangle northeast of the station on the inventory list; also suggested two parking lots on E Campbell Ave. Council feedback!

​

Lopez: in general supportive; happy we're developing around WInchester, supports PC's recommendation of higher densities.

​

Bybee: I don't support the higher buffer, I support staff's recommendation. We should be looking for housing on schools and daycare sites. Not completely supportive of higher density, it's "kind of high", on the fence, need more understanding. My understanding is that 75 du/ac might increase the height limit, because of SB 9. [Editor's note: ?!] Support the Campbell Technology Park, don't know viability, concerned about ingress/egress, glad to hear the property owner wants to do a swap with the corp yard. (Bradley: Staff recommended excluding the triangle northeast of Winchester station; PC including it. We want feedback on that.) Bybee: What's there now? (Bradley: Smaller industrial properties, machine shops, car repair, mostly one-story, pest control. It's very busy, fully occupied. Looks close to the station on the map, but it's not easy to walk to the station from there.) I would not support that.

​

Lopez: Didn't know we were also responding to the PC feedback. I concur with the PC, except that I'd still like to look at schools and daycare sites. I'm open to higher density, especially if we're reducing elsewhere, as long as it's in strategic locations. I concur with staff about the triangle NE of Winchester station.

​

Landry: I do not support a higher buffer. If we designate too much growth, and it all gets built, where will we designate growth in future RHNA cycles? If we're up at 5, 6 thousand, we're cutting ourselves off for the future. SB 10 seems like we can't count that? Support Housing, we're supposed to also have homeless services, which can include things like that, but I don't see it on the map yet. If we're adding thousands of families, how many schools will need to reopen? Unless the school is building teacher housing, I don't want to see school sites. There's only 2-3 places I'd support 100 or more du/ac: Pruneyard, Creekside Way, Bascom/Hamilton triangle, possibly Fry's or Staples. Because I don't want to see 2-3 story SFHs next to six story buildings. With density bonus, we're above 75 feet. I don't support 75 du/ac anywhere other than where I mentioned. Yes to mandatory mixed use. Campbell Technology Park, that's my neighborhood, I support housing there, I don't support the yard moving there because of day-to-day traffic and there's only one way in, early morning traffic. Corp yard may not be compatible with the next door community garden. Two parking lots on Campbell, the owner of Brown Chicken Brown Cow came in with a housing project proposal for a site that's not shown on there. The triangle NE of Winchester is problematic; we need those uses, and it's inaccessible. The gas station (SE corner of Winchester/Campbell) is problematic; we have so few gas stations in downtown. I don't support the first street garage; businesses keep asking for parking exemptions. One already has a 30 or 60 space exemption. We could add more parking there! Especially if we're developing the parking lots downtown, and keeping the parklets. If we build 75 du/ac, and someone does low-income, they can almost double that, and exceed the 75 feet height. The fewer parcels we have at that number, the better. A lot of these parcels could drop out.

​

Resnikoff: Can you explain what they were saying about schools and daycare? (Bradley: When we started--we were at 9k units at one point--we included an active daycare. That's not a usual consideration, but it's a sensitive use.) I support the 30% buffer, I have no problems going higher. If we've built 30% previously, the chances of everyone building 100% suddenly is very low. I think the buffer allows us to reject proposals that don't meet our criteria. I'm not sure how the Support Housing Overlay would work, but I like the idea. (It's a policy idea, not a sites idea.) We should consider that for policy, not for RHNA. If schools want to build on their property, we can't stop them. (Seligmann: Yes, with a supermajority vote of their board, they can override our zoning.) So that's outside of our power; we're just not incenting them. But it counts for our numbers if they do it? (Yes.) There are places where higher density is appropriate, but 200 du/ac is pretty high, I don't know if that's ever appropriate. If we're going to limit density in single-family areas, we're going to have to be willing to densify areas. Lower density at Llewellyn, higher at Hick'ry Pit or Fry's. Maybe the Cullinary school, Petsmart area. Those could support higher densities. 200 seems high, 100 doesn't. I'd support mixed-use, but not make it mandatory. The key there is proper mixed-use. If we were to build on the Elephant Bar site, we had a restaurant. Don't have a coffee shop there, have a restaurant that serves the area. On the surface, Campbell Technology Park is a good idea; my concern is ingress/egress. On the land swap, we'll see what the traffic study actually shows; would it be more traffic than housing? On the triangle NE of Winchester station: we shouldn't be driven to San Jose to get services. I've taken my car to some of these places and walked home. On things like machine shops, have we talked to the property owners? Remember Dell Ave; the owners didn't want that. Please do analyze the corp yard. Beware the concept of transit oriented. The light rail and buses that pass by me are mostly empty. Like, if you work at Google downtown. I support transit-oriented, but we shouldn't just go higher and higher density and expect that to work. Maybe we'll see more use on the buses than on the rail. I'd like to see the PC minutes and the discussion they had; I find that useful. (Seligmann: Pardon; that authority to override zoning only applies to educational facilities.) Gibbons: There's a new law that they can do that. (Yes, that's a separate law.) Resnikoff: Are they bound by our codes? (I'd have to look at that.) So we shouldn't encourage it, but we should ask if they plan on doing it so we can fit it in our inventory. Can we include that? (?: Yes.) My eyes have been opened by, for example, the Technology Park, who we wouldn't have asked.

​

Landry: I forgot to mention, the corp yard is 11-14 feet below grade.

​

Gibbons: The 5,000 unit buffer is fine for now, absolutely do not support going any higher. Anxious to see how much it gets whittled down. We may want to revisit the 75% expectation. Some schools have daycare, and excess parcels around that, we want to ask about that. We don't want to displace anybody. I don't know about mixed-use being mandatory. There's projects like Railway where there's no mixed-use, so you get another floor of housing and amenities, which keeps the building lower. I do not support mixed-use everywhere; we have too much extra space. Penny Lane was designed for a supermarket; Safeway bought out a nearby place, and so we had to break it into smaller units. Hard for the city to control that. On the overlay, I'd offer a different approach. There's a demand for market-rate. Maybe a community benefits program applied only to market-rate projects. I'd support units for programs for kids terming out of foster care. I'd support that. I struggle with gateways; I'm drawing a blank. It's hard to say that the gateway to Campbell is a high-speed four-lane on/off ramp to 17, surrounded by high, massive buildings. How would pedestrians circulate? There are consequences to TOD districts which we should be aware of. I don't support 100 or 200 du/ac because we don't know what that means physically in our environment. We have a 75ft maximum, but density bonuses can "throw it for a monkey wrench". If you can build 200 du/ac which stays under 75ft, I'm happy with that, but I'm not seeing it right now. I'm fine with the tech park; I want to know if there's land available for the pedestrian bridge we've talked about for many years. (Bradley: Yes, there is, on the tech park side; the question is where you land it on the other side.) I have a lot of comments about this map.

​

Still Gibbons: How does TOD at Winchester affect the community as a whole? We've said that if you revitalize an old shopping center, it has to be 75 du/ac [Ed. note: it's 60 for shopping centers]; we can determine what that means. I'm supportive of labeling the industrial area NE of the station, because eight years is a long time. If the VTA project goes through, there may be even more opportunity there. I don't support 75 du/ac at [31], the dental/jujutsu place across from the car wash. I don't support any of the 45 du/ac at [187] and all the way down there; I can't in good conscience. I believe we can do it at 30. The Winchester Master Plan is a commitment to our community. This is a single-family neighborhood, and we need to recognize that this needs to be a transition, and the plan provided that. If you look over on Bascom, there's massive six-story buildings overlooking single-family neighborhoods. We don't want someone doing it to our residents, and we don't want to do it to our own residents. I would support 30 units an acre all the way through there. I'd go for 60 at the gas station and comic book store, because you have the historic buildings across the way. On [188], I'm okay with 45 du/ac, because the site next door is already developed. [139] is the bank building; I think that's displacing additional housing. (Bradley: The owner confirmed that his intention would be to keep the building with the housing and Stacks in it, and redevelop the little building on the back.) That makes sense, but that's needs to be made clear. I'd like staff's report on the two downtown parking parcels. I think trying to make decisions about housing density downtown would be a big challenge, because we could inadvertently end up with a 75-foot building, right in the middle of our downtown. I think we need to leave downtown the way it is. I wish I could support [3], the parking garage. The city attorney tells us that this is part of a multi-parcel agreement to provide downtown parking for the watertower and other places, and it will take time to unwind that. There's residents on three sides. I'm fine with the corp yard; we'd talked about combining it with Los Gatos' yard. I don't understand why the parcels between Railway and Dillon aren't in the inventory. That's closer to the station, that's right where the roadway is, the fencing shop, the tax company. Those are one-story tilt-up buildings. (Bradley: A combination of small lot size, very high improvement values--) I'd challenge the high improvement values; these are just tilt-up concrete buildings. We should have a tool encouraging combination. The Railway project, someone came along and combined what, nine parcels? And it just showed up and we got a great project out of it. I'd do that at 45 du/ac, and that's a lot of area. The old Western Village is there, there's no value in there. That whole block, both sides of it. There's a couple of churches on Sunnyside, I'd just want to talk to churches and schools. There's a big parcel near townhomes [Ed.: 318 W Rincon, I think], I'd do that at 30 du/ac. Some property south, where Winchester starts to curve, there are some old single-story buildings, that seem to have low vacancy. I support the tech park.

​

Resnikoff: Is there a suggestion of replacing the parking garage? (Seligmann?: The plan is to add housing on top of the garage. There is no agreement that they have to be available to certain businesses. There's an agreement that they be generally available. They would be temporarily unavailable during construction.) I'd like to know what the impacts would be. I'm open to it. Let's see. Gibbons: "My impression is that it would be very complicated, and to do it in an eight year time frame, even if we can untangle it?"

​

Thoughts on downtown?

​

Lopez: I concur with the Vice Mayor on the parking garage. I don't support including [37] and [130] (Psycho Donuts, Subway); that's a crucial area for going into downtown. On the fence about [176], the gas station. Do we have anything about the red bars [parking lots in downtown]?

​

Gibbons: I'm looking at this in terms of risk-benefit. "The risk of doing anything in downtown, I don't think is beneficial, because part and parcel of what makes Campbell Campbell is our downtown. We may want to modernize it and change it as we always do, but to build in housing, I don't know what housing is already allowed there. The risk of unintended consequences is too much."

​

Lopez: I agree with the concerns, but I'd be open to consideration. We do have housing and mixed-use downtown. Gibbons: It's already allowed; that's my comment.

​

Landry: I wouldn't show the red parcels. You can already build housing there. If we get rid of the First Street garage for three, four years, then where are people going to park? We put in parklets, where are people going to park? Except for the Second Street garage.

​

Gibbons: Does anyone share my concerns about the Winchester Area having a 45-foot height limit? We'd talked about having a buffer, and this doesn't provide a buffer. Landry: You'd need a transition; you can't go single family, then forty-five feet. Make the upper floors set back. I don't know how you'd do that at this point. Gibbons: We're looking at likely sixty-five feet. Until you define height and massing, I'm uncomfortable. It's 27 du/ac, and we're essentially doubling it. I'd be fine with thirty. (Bradley: You say that the 45-foot height limit is important in this area? And the setbacks? At this point, we don't have the tools to talk about unit sizes. In Palo Alto, there's a strong attachment to their fifty-foot height limit. They've created an incentive for affordable development at fifty feet by uncapping density as long as you stay within fifty feet. So you can make something even more attractive than the state density bonus.) Gibbons: I'm nervous that we have a substantive change where I don't... I have the same issue on Bascom.

​

(Staff notes that it's 9 PM, and we have five more maps to go. You don't have to give feedback on each and every site. We could also combine maps. We don't need three votes on every single map.) Resnikoff: I'll have the same comments about not wanting to lose services. Gibbons: We covered PC comments, and this map touches on a lot of issues. I think the others will go faster.

​

Bascom Ave area! Note that (I think) 2050 S Bascom, a strip mall containing a nail salon, spa, etc., has been suggested for an addition.

​

Bybee: Is the Pruneyard proposing housing instead of office space? (Eastwood: They're having trouble finding an office tenant and want to keep their options open.) And [17], the Bank of America site? (Eastwood: That's more staff-driven. You can keep a bank on the ground floor and add residential above.) I'm more interested in developers identifying their interest; I like the Pruneyard's suggestion, as well as the strip mall, pending the property owner's interest.

​

Landry: Why were some sites removed? (Bradley: The Fidelity building north of Hamilton (west of [87]) is expensive, long-term tenants, no interest. The sites south and west of [146] were on the fifth cycle, but they have housing we wouldn't want to displace, and there's a fairly large office building built in 1985. We have enough of a supply that we dropped it.) Why not the car wash? (It's a long-standing business that's architecturally unique; it doesn't qualify as underutilized.) The NE part of the Pruneyard, [1.1], an existing garage, we were talking about putting the density above there. This is where the density--[116], [134], [121], this whole area is where I'd support high density, because there's no housing nearby. And the Pruneyard is, what, 17 stories, so a 5-7 story housing project would fit in. I do support the red addition. Is [152] the old Denny's? (Yes.) South of Campbell, I don't know, but north of there, I support higher density and height.

​

Resnikoff: I think this is a great area to develop in. It's a major throughput area, walkable to two light rail stations in downtown. We built new apartments, dire predictions about traffic, it worked very well. I understand the Pruneyard's concern about a new office tower, and if they want to, I'd support housing there. We talked about lowering densities elsewhere, this is a good place for them to be higher. [134] and the car wash have to be included together, because traffic backs up out of there constantly. Maybe more height as well as density in the Pruneyard.

​

Gibbons: I'm okay with the Pruneyard. I agree [134] (south of the car wash) doesn't make sense by itself. [154] (NE corner of Bascom and Fewtrell), I don't support being 45 du/ac; that's a long-established residential neighborhood. 30 I'm okay with. We have to find a way of being respectful of the neighborhood. Particularly if you want retail on the ground floor. I'm surprised we're not doing more with the northern parts of the east side of Bascom.

​

Lopez: Strongly concur about the Pruneyard; I'd go over 75, maybe 100 du/ac; I like the PC-suggested site; and I agree about [134].

​

Central Campbell!

​

Landry: Why is the Staples site not included? (That was before tonight's conversation; we'll put it back on.) Totally into high density at the Fry's, but someone walking from Hamilton station there is "taking their life in their hands." I'd rather see a pedestrian bridge there. Elephant Bar ([159]) is a good site. Is Kohl's no longer on there? (Just the northern parking lot, [170].) And the self-storage that the PC recommended, I don't see that being developed; storage is so precious here, the rates are going up. What's [164], on Winchester? (The Wells Fargo.) Is Home Church still in? (Yes, [165] and [167].) I've been in support of housing near the Ainsley House ([222]) since day one. That's a great place to have teacher, emergency responder housing.

​

Resnikoff: The Fry's site is the key here. Either a major retailer, like Target-sized, or very very dense housing. I don't know the expense of putting in a bridge. I think there's an opportunity to use the Shell site as well. [172] and [56], that's the one-story business park? Insurance companies etc.? That's very similar to what existed before we built Revere. Has there been interest from the property developer? (We haven't made contact yet.) It looks like a good candidate. And [150.3]? (That's the community center site; it should be crossed out.) The Fry's site is good, the business park is interesting to me if they're interested. Ultimately it makes sense that Harrison, turning into Salmar, both sides up to Fry's, is going to be housing. What can we do to pick up density at Fry's? And what can we do to develop that business park?

​

Gibbons: [164] has a bank and taqueria to the west to Dunster has potential. There's a lot of small foot doctors and the like on the north side of Hamilton. We could put in incentives to combine parcels. The business park is good; we'd need objective standards to work with the houses behind. Making [159], the Elephant Bar, good for 75 du/ac will be difficult. There's another parcel, I think, near the self-storage facility? Why is the site south of [181] hatched out? (The larger two-story office building has high improvement value; the other is home to one of our top-25 sales tax producers.) Good, thank you for checking that. Off of east Campbell, [22] is fine, [28] is maybe fine, but I'd be cautious east of there. We have small homes on Maple; we need a buffer. East Campbell Ave master plan had retail all on the first floor, part of that promenade idea. The site east of [19] is hatched out; why? (Staff pointed out severe constraints. Most of the land is creek bank, and the existing building juts out over it. PC recommended higher density for [22] because it's not adjacent to the neighborhood and is closest to the station.) I think it's great if we can make it work.

​

Lopez: Great work here. Fry's site, like the Pruneyard, I'd go to 100 at least, rather than 75. Couldn't agree more on the need for a pedestrian bridge. I think that's critical to open up the light rail station that's been underutilized. I'd like to keep both of the city-owned sites here. I don't want to lose open space or facilities at the community center, but I understand there are underutilized portions. I question the inclusion of the Greylands. They have 8-10 year plans, after which they'd redevelop it. It might not be reasonable to include it, especially not at that range of density.

​

Bybee: I support higher density at Fry's, I assume that's a given. What's in the two red boxes on Winchester? (1660-1800 S Winchester, a collection of small shops, a Russian deli, etc.) I don't think that the public storage is a viable location, but I guess it's worth a chat with the owner. I don't support the gravel lot. "I feel very strongly that we are losing parking as a result of the police building and we need to find some replacement parking for the spots that are going to be displaced." I wouldn't support [222]. Gibbons: The staff report has a good comment about the fact that it's immediately adjacent to Ainsley House, and "the context for the historic structure doesn't meet the requirements of what it needs to be". Bybee: I support including the Staples site, as well as the Shell station. I'm unclear about the recent item which went to PC.

​

Hamilton Ave! (Around where it intersects with San Tomas Expwy.) Some Commissioners supported listing the Llewelyn site, [162], at the 20 du/ac density level that commenters voiced.

​

Resnikoff: Supportive "at the right density" for that neighborhood, probably townhouse density. Would prefer townhouse density on [51] to match with the buildings behind it. When I was on the PC, we moved the taller heights to the middle and it worked out well. On the PetSmart property ([203], [204]), would prefer that the city not lose a business that large. (Bradley: The former Payless is no longer listed because it's a Wells Fargo with a long-term lease.) I support Uplift at the right density, the culinary school, and the PetSmart; if they're interested, I'd like that to be a mixed-use project.

​

Gibbons: Agreed on the PetSmart; this "isn't the highest-class shopping center by far, but the services are really important". We were able to use Redevelopment money for helping businesses find new locations "in the good old days". I'm fine with it being listed, but we shouldn't understate the value of the business. Ask the owner at the Wells Fargo site; they might have an exit clause from their lease. [162], this is a good example for me where we talk about being respectful of context and community. To me, there's very little difference between this site and those along Winchester; you have "long-standing, established neighborhoods", and "what we're proposing for high density and large projects would dramatically alter those neighborhoods. That's where I'm struggling; to me, that's an inconsistency." Resnikoff: Fronting on Llewellyn isn't the same as fronting on Winchester, Bascom, or Campbell. Two lanes versus 4-6 lanes. Also, we should check PetSmart's lease. Gibbons: "It's a neighborhood. They've talked about traffic, and congestion, and impact from the Post Office and other things. That is exactly what happens in all of our histor-- our traditional residential neighborhoods, irrespective of having a Winchester being there. It's physically different but contextually similar." Worries that we won't be able to have "buffers". Resnikoff: There's people already there who live in similar [multifamily] housing who are okay with the project; we should take that into account. ?: Do you support 20 or 30 units at [162]? Gibbons: I have a problem; if we leave it at 30, it meets HCD's guidelines. I don't know. I'm hesitant. If we need the site to be 30, we can have it at thirty; if we can put it at twenty, I'd "be tickled pink". (Eastwood?: "We have a lot of other sites with affordable housing strategies." We don't need this one.) Gibbons: I want this to be equitable, though. (Bradley: So, CM Resnikoff, what density for [162]?) Twenty. But if we reject Hick'ry Pit--those are the places where we pick up the density.

​

Lopez: I'd be fine with 20 du/ac for [162]. This is why the buffer matters. And I'd like to look at higher density in the other areas I've mentioned tonight.

​

Bybee: I support 20 du/ac for [162], "consistent with the neighborhood and the comments here tonight". I don't think it's comparable to Winchester due to the accessibility; Llewellyn isn't a major arterial. I'd support the higher density on Winchester. I'd hate to see retail go out of business; I'd like to see mixed-use on the PetSmart site. Gibbons: I can only speak to the Pruneyard/Dry Creek area, but their street becomes a cut-through, they did a really good analysis. Same thing on Winchester; the tea shop building has greatly increased neighborhood traffic. "The school has doubled its population, and we just had a bad accident, because people are speeding and doing the cut-through, and the other day, the school traffic froze California completely; you could not move, because people on Cherry wouldn't let California into the line." This is why Winchester can go to 27 or 30 du/ac; whether it can go to 40 or 60, I think that's pushing the envelope.

​

Landry: Didn't [51] come in with a housing proposal? Gibbons: They came in asking for a rezoning, but they haven't moved forward with it. Landry: I'd like to see where PetSmart is on our sales-tax list. The rest of the dark-blue around there is fine. On [162], we require open space. Does the park to the north reduce open space requirements? (Rose?: We have public and private open-space requirements. It depends on the zoning district. If the council wants a pocket park, you could just reserve a portion of it.) There's a big open park in the middle just north of there; does that still count as 20 du/ac? (Rose?: This gets back to net versus gross. It would be the density for the whole area.) Can we go below twenty? (We present a range, like 16-20.) I'm concerned about the neighborhood. I wonder if even twenty is too much per acre. Gibbons: The previous developer proposed 18 du/ac.

​

San Tomas Aquino/Campbell Ave! PC was concerned with including [12], the Goodwill, and liked the vacant bank building just to the north. And that the north side of Campbell Ave should be planned for more missing-middle type housing. The grocery outlet, [207], has been on and off the list; the owner says they can put housing at the back (NE) corner.

​

Gibbons: I would have difficulty supporting [207] "at sixty feet-- at sixty units an acre, because it's directly abutting single-family homes." Wants housing there, says parking lot is underutilized, but up against San Tomas Aquino, not back in the corner. "The rectangle on the north side of Campbell Ave doesn't make any sense to me, because I think there's a lot of housing units there." I agree with the bank. I think the whole Campbell Ave frontage SE of the intersection with San Tomas Aquino is worth looking into. I think they have the same owner.

​

Lopez: That conversation is worth having. I agree that the townhome rezoning may not make sense. I like the idea of repurposing the parking lot for housing at 45-60 du/ac, remembering that higher densities could support better designs.

​

Bybee: The placement of [207] doesn't make sense to me. It would be better closer to the road. Even in the parking lot, it's underutilized. The red square along Campbell Ave is already duplexes and townhomes. The bank building makes sense; it's vacant. Those other three parcels to the east of it, I don't know what they're planning, but maybe. Did the Goodwill, [12], express interest? (Bradley: It may have been in the last cycle.) Gibbons: I'd like a map of those. (Rose: It wasn't in the fifth cycle.)

​

Landry: I support the comments about [207]. This could be "a huge, multi mixed use type of development"; it makes no sense to develop it in the back corner. The long red rectangle, no, that's already fourplex, sixplex. One McMansion on there, but the rest, middle-income or lower. [12] doesn't work for me, because it's connected to Jack-in-the-Box and it's hard to make everything work without including the surrounding parcels.

​

Resnikoff: Does [207] require removing some retail? (Rose: It extends into the anchor tenants. We're trying to avoid the portion-of-site discussion. I've spoken with the owners, who said it would be very hard to place housing in front of the anchor tenants. The long red box, it's all different parcels, you couldn't get everyone on board. You could build around the Jack-in-the-Box, but it's hard. I'd hate to waste too much time talking about this small unit when we should be building dozens or hundreds elsewhere. To be, this whole thing can be removed; when you're left with only the bank building... I'd just take the whole thing off totally. Gibbons: Also, this may block off delivery routes for Grocery Outlet.

​

South Campbell; second to last map! PC suggested higher (than 20 du/ac) at [209], a vacant two-acre site. Also, the owner south of [218] requested to be included, so the site would go from a half-acre to three-quarters of an acre. We've had interest from owners at the intersection of Burrows and Hacienda. There's a bus stop there. And [7] is a vacant former gas station with a bus stop right in front. And on Winchester, there's a series of auto repair and carpet cleaning businesses, with a daycare on the corner. We expect to see a lot of ADU and SB 9 projects here; if we do an SB 10 program, we'll see that here as well.

​

Lopez: Relying on bus lines can be tough, but it's good when there's a stop right out front.

​

Bybee: [7], the site at Hacienda and Capri has been vacant for years, and I was told that there's a lot of red tape involved, family trusts and the like. It would be nice to see something developed there.

​

Landry: Great that we have dispersion in the neighborhood, and landowners are interested. I've also heard that [7] is encumbered, and it was a gas station that I think hasn't had a hazmat cleanup. The strip along Winchester, the neighborhood "came unglued" when we proposed development there as part of the Dell Avenue Plan. That's... 30 du/ac. How tall is that? (Bradley: Three stories, at least.) Gibbons: Forty-five. Landry: Same comment on other areas, you need a step-up. And I want to know where those services are going to go. My mechanic is there. Are we losing sales tax and businesses?

​

Resnikoff: We have multiple larger parcels like [209]; we shouldn't get too caught up in smaller parcels like [7]. If the businesses on Winchester want to stay there, good; if they don't, "it's unrealistic, because people live behind it, to say nothing will go on Winchester". "I don't think at that density it's too bad." If they don't want to stay, this makes sense.

​

Gibbons: There's no parks in this area. I know it's a lot of money, but is there an opportunity to add parks? "This is a very dense area of the city without a park." [Ed. note: Jack Fischer Park is in the area.] Not [209], but maybe [27]. Could we keep local retail? Rather than change everything to housing, can we keep retail community grocery services here? "There's a dense population." To the west, there's a lot of open land, hard to get to, SW of [209]. That's a good place to build, when the owner wants to sell. 20 du/ac is too low for [209]. Maybe something where for every 20 SFHs, you have to build a fourplex. Maybe that's how we do our inclusionary ordinance, to get a mix of housing, not "the same cookie cutter townhouse". The sites SW from the strip on Winchester have potential.

​

Camden Ave! Bonus map for this time around. There are just some suggested sites on it. PC recommended three. First, Valero gas station and 7-11 on Winchester/Sunnyoaks, then the Wienerschniztel, Lavender Day Spa, Taco Bell, etc. on Camden, and a recently annexed pocket with a cigar store on it at Union and Bascom.

​

Bybee: I don't know that I'd support the Valero station. People frequent that. Camden Ave, doesn't seem very conducive to residential, just a hodgepodge. Bascom and Union, wouldn't support that either. There's more than one business there, right? Those serve the community.

​

Landry: I don't support the Valero station; it's "our one hydrogen fuel station". Looks like pocket zoning, the 7-11 is a grocery for the area. The rectangle SE on Camden from the selected block is where the abandoned buildings are. I think it should be more businesses. Maybe a drive-in restaurant. Bascom and Union is "dicey". An unmaintained alley, looks bad. Section 8 housing next door; maybe that could be updated. So, no.

​

Resnikoff: I don't see the benefit of removing 7-11 or Valero. Camden and Union... I think that's where we were trying to move In-N-Out to. Don't get rid of commercial, upgrade it to something that'll get you more sales tax revenue. If you're not picking up a lot of units, why kick out a barbershop? And if it's multiple owners, you have no chance anyway.

​

Gibbons: This (Camden and Union) is near the San Jose urban village, I think. Camden, great opportunity to do drive-through businesses. I don't support the Valero or 7-11. I'd suggest an SB 10 site, on Bascom SW of Camden, below the square cutout, there's a plaza that's never been filled. Good potential there. We got a letter of interest from White Oaks. There's also a bus parking lot backing up to townhomes.

​

Lopez: Largely concur. Maybe the northernmost properties at Bascom and Union, but I wouldn't want to displace businesses.

​

(Staff?): We've heard you; we'll funnel down the numbers to 5,000 for January. We won't go forward with the Community Center or the First Street garage, or the Ainsley House parking lot. The corp yard, yes, though relocation will be challenging. Next, we'll contact property owners, meet in January 2022, and discuss outstanding land use issues. We do at least have enough to start preparing the EIR.

Highlights

- VTA is partnering with an affordable housing developer to do a Measure A project at Winchester Station.

- Our RHNA is 2,977. Our minimum buffered inventory is 3,300. Staff assumed we'd pare it down to 5,000 or less. We ended the evening with about 6,500 units of inventory. (7,000 if we can figure out what to do with Campbell Technology Park.)

- The other commissioners, without prompting from me, asked why we were proposing 75 du/ac instead of 100 du/ac for the parcels near our train stations.

- Only two of our sites are vacant lots, yet we have enough capacity to avoid putting any rental housing on our opportunity sites list.

​

People at the meeting:

- Commissioners Ostrowski (Chair), Ching (Vice Chair), Krey, Kamkar, Rivlin, and Zisser.

- Staff: Rob Eastwood (Community Development Director), Stephen Rose (Senior Planner)

- Consultants: David Hogan and Geoff Bradley, both from M-Group.

Raw Notes

And we're here. There are new sites, and changes to existing sites. Some sites are lower-density in order to blend with adjacent R-1 zoning, which I am moderately displeased by. Hopefully my notes are still worthwhile. Stephen Rose is presenting.

​

We'll review the (non-housing) General Plan update, then the Housing Element's list of opportunity sites. This is all required to be done ASAP in order to get our EIR started in January, and finished by late 2022. (Well, not as ASAP; we can poke at it next month a little.)

​

First, the General Plan. Council was supportive of GPAC-recommended changes (GC->NC, for example), as were we. Hamilton Ave Specific Plan area should be enlarged, and SOCA/NOCA area plans should be removed. Removing NOCA allows C-2 (GC) uses rather than just C-1 (NC), removes lot-consolidation-encouraging FAR restrictions, and removes density limits (6-13 du/ac). Removing SOCA would allow more-intensive commercial uses, and remove the same FAR restrictions as in NOCA; remove 50-foot height limit; remove policies preferring hotels/motels to auto repair; remove unenforceable design standards.

​

Building intensities (FAR) tend to be higher for hotels and offices than for commercial or mixed-use sites. (The very low FAR for mixed-use sites is largely due to parking requirements, I think.) All of our 0.4 FAR land use types will be bumped to 1.0 FAR. We're also standardizing our density calculation method. And the Council has some draft policy sets, e.g., reduce reliance on P-D, establish standards for drive-throughs, retain the community design element.

​

Questions from commissioners! Me: Are we not increasing the FARs for hotels specifically? (Rose: No; they're in General Commercial, which is FAR 1.0; the average in the area is FAR 0.85 or so, despite the one in Campbell being FAR 2.3.) Zisser: Should all of these be so high? (Rose: Not everything will be in the highest category. In practice, certain types of buildings come out less intense. Our land use designations cover multiple uses; we're picking the most intense for this exercise.) Kamkar: What is O/LMDR? Home offices? (Rose: It's a mixed-use designation, combining low-density residences and offices, or one of the two. The combination isn't mandatory.) Krey: In terms of SOCA/NOCA, what's with the FAR and lot consolidation thing? (Rose: Small sites have low FAR; larger sites get higher FAR, so there's an incentive to consolidate lots and get more FAR. Note that we're not discussing what will be mixed-use and what won't here, just residential densities.)

​

Questions from the public! Nothing.

​

David Hogan and Geoff Bradley are here to present the Housing Element portion. Hogan beginning. Our baseline target is rounded up to 3,300 units. Our spectrum of residential densities ranging from 20 to 75 du/ac, in completely nonsensically arranged colors. Our preferred options add up to roughly 7,000 units (a hybrid of options 3, 4, 5, supported by the Council as well as the Commission). Council asked us to consider existing services, and do more missing-middle uses, encourage smaller unit sizes, consider the effects of density bonus laws, and seek more public feedback. The public wants higher density around VTA stations, to split the 20-45 du/ac band into multiple categories, and to avoid putting housing on the Community Center parking lot.

​

Questions from commissioners! Rivlin: What's the current count? (Hogan: We're at about 6,500 right now, with the recent removals. The buffer lets us approve a project at below the maximum density without rezoning.) Are we intending to reduce our number? (Eastwood: Next part of the presentation. We're intending to narrow down the sites. We developed only 30% of our previous element's list, so maybe we should have more room, more options. We'll see how many sites we have at the end.) Krey: You talked about approaching individual property owners. We didn't break out the numbers by affordability, did we? In past cycles, we've been good on market-rate housing. Are we still looking for a lot of market-rate housing? (Hogan: We still need about 40% market rate.) And we need extra measures to get that? (Hogan: That's up to the director. Eastwood: The big challenge is affordable; we'll talk about how to get that. We've had a lot of feedback from affordable developers.) Right, but the bigger challenge is below market rate. Me: How do we encourage smaller unit sizes when density is denominated in units per acre? (Eastwood: We won't go into this tonight. We want to look at affordable-housing overlay zones in future. We'll come back to that in January.) Zisser: How do the AFFH requirements work with, for example, ten-minute walks to a high school. We don't have one in Campbell! So we don't need to meet all of those criteria; is there a give-and-take? (Hogan: It's not an absolute criteria. The idea is to put more affordable housing in areas with more resources. You're right, a ten-minute walk to high schools is rare, because their service areas are large.) Me: Are we also increasing residential FARs? VTA, for example, suggests not only a density of 75-100 du/ac, but an FAR of 3-5 near its stations. (Rose: We're just studying non-residential FARs for EIR reasons. For housing production, it's denominated in units per acre, not FAR. We'll get to residential FAR questions as we develop policy next year.)

​

Geoff Bradley suggests that we identify community development opportunities and themes with planned housing sites, select the best opportunity sites, and reduce the sites to ~5,000 units, per staff's recommendation. Notes the six community-building themes: Campbell Ave as promenade, Hamilton specific plan, Winchester Station area, San Tomas shopping center, mixed-use along Hamilton/Winchester/Bascom, and generally fit neighborhood context.

​

So, themes 1-3 are around individual stations, 4 is a secondary center, 5 is our streets in general, and 6 is generally "neighborhood-compatibility" stuff.

​

Winchester area: the area northeast of the station is thrivingly industrial and not easy to redevelop (many small sites). Campbell Technology Park is cut off from Winchester by 17, but it's near a park.

- The area northeast of Winchester is low-probability, but we should upzone it, looking to the future. Mark it low-probability. Can we get a bike/ped bridge to the Campbell Park area? (Shockingly, it's not impossible.)

​

Bascom area: Many small or recently-improved sites removed from the list. (Like the Shell station.) The Fry's site is listed, though notice it's very hard to get to the station from there. The Fidelity building on the north side of the street isn't planned for redevelopment. The SW corner of Hamilton and Bascom, same. (Good commercial value, there.) Remove the Jack-in-the-Box, and the three-story apartment buildings just north of the Pruneyard, which they don't want to list due to displacement concerns (valid!). Site 33, an existing large office building, also removed.

- I agree with the removal of sites 101/102, the existing housing. 

​

Central Campbell: Remove the Burger King on the NW corner of Winchester/Bascom; it also has a bad AFFH score. Remove 68, 77 (really high sales tax producers). Added the north side of Campbell Ave from the tracks to 17, including Greylands, at 45 du/ac.

- I recommend increasing the maximum density of the north side of Campbell east of downtown from 45 to at least 60, if not 75, given its proximity to the light rail. This is extremely valuable land. How can we find sites between Orchard City and Civic Center?

​

Hamilton/San Tomas: Removed a Jack-in-the-Box, the former Payless, a Montessori school.

​

San Tomas/Campbell: Only a corner of San Tomas Plaza will be involved, so the southwest corner is removed, as with a church and Montessori school.

- What can we do to moderately upzone the corridor?

​

South Campbell: Removing a daycare. Recycling a bunch of Fifth Cycle sites. [7] is a vacant lot right next to a bus station, so it's a really good site. Identified parcels at the south side of Hacienda/Burrows as well. None very dense, but it's something in this area.

- What can we do to upzone the Hacienda corridor to something neighborhood-compatible? Townhomes? Upzone with a low probability of development?

​

To summarize, the inventory is 7k, 6.5k without Campbell Technology Park, 5k current recommendation, 3.3k floor. (5k is a +50% buffer over 3.3k.)

- I'm of the opinion that we shouldn't strike sites from the list arbitrarily. Avoid displacement, yes; preserve schools and churches, yes; preserve the tax base, yes. But if we have good room for 6k sites, then let's put up 6k sites.

​

Public comment! John Field, President of Cambridge Park HOA. A lot of meetings have been about keeping Campbell Campbell while getting more housing. I'm encouraged that we have a good buffer, so we can preserve neighborhoods while providing housing. Keep the Community Center as-is. The gravel lot next to the Ainsley House, I'd encourage not doing anything there. James Sullivan, representing [162] (Uplift Family Services) (maybe townhomes, 18 du/ac?) and [49] (vacant site on Virginia Ave). Tim Pasquineli, owner of Campbell Technology Park. Extremely underutilized 17 acres, occupancy has almost never been full. Current projected occupancy at the end of 2022 is low-30%. We repainted, re-landscaped, re-did lobbies, nothing. It's not really a tech park; the biggest tenant is a CPA. I think this is the biggest site on the inventory. (Ching: Why isn't it open to Paseo de Palomas?) We have an easement for safety equipment, but it's a private drive. (Ching: Why isn't it appropriate to have counseling for autistic kids there?) It's more of a school use; it's not built for that. (Zisser: You're prepared to raze the buildings and build something new? I understand that there's access via McGlincy to Curtner and to Camden.) It's twelve minutes to the Pruneyard, close to the apartments on Union. Edith Morley Park is a good amenity. (Me: Can you build a bike/ped bridge to get to downtown?) You have to get CalTrans involved. It's doable, but it cost something like $25M in Palo Alto.

​

Online comments! Scott Connelly: I have questions. Are these maximum or minimum densities? Townhomes are 18-22, max 24 du/ac. Note that Staples has 4-5 years left on their lease; I encourage you to leave it on the list. Is this meeting being recorded? (Eastwood: It's a maximum; the range for 75 would be something like 60-75 du/ac. We can contact the owner of the Staples. Rose: As discussed earlier, we're redoing the way we count that. We maintain recordings on Granicus long-term, but also mirror to YouTube.) Rob: Doing a bridge over 17 would be a great way to connect the city divided by the highway. I asked Liz Gibbons a few years ago. The park is underutilized. These maps continue to show the San Tomas area as under-resources; they're not poor. I don't know what the plans are to include them, even if it's just some density. The neighborhood needs to be in the conversation somehow. Kelly Snider: I'm calling on behalf of the owners of the Fry's property. We've been involved since the previous General Plan. We would love to see you increase the density of the site. The VTA densities of 75-100 should be applied to Hamilton and Winchester; it's not too high. Don't be afraid of three digits; these are billion-dollar rail systems. Raja: I wonder when the GP update will come up. (Unintelligible, something about going from 10 to 30 units? Ah, it's for our inclusionary-zoning ordinance.) I'd like to see more development in San Tomas. Bruce Bowen: I have a parcel along East Campbell and one along Gilman. We've done some studies at 40 du/ac on Gilman, and it didn't make sense. We were trying to work a daycare facility into the project. It's hard to provide those. We'd see a lot of young people, young families, and we see that as a real amenity to provide. It would be nice if you can provide incentives. For Lloyd Center, we'd take down our buildings and replace them with housing above, but it doesn't make sense at 45 du/ac. It depends on gross versus net acreage; moving to net makes it infeasible. Allen Ishibashi: I attended all six meetings, and I noticed that my demographic (30-40 with school-aged kids) is underrepresented. Elementary schools are closing, trick-or-treaters are leaving. Families like lower-density density, like townhomes (14-22 du/ac). There are very few parcels proposed for that density. I think that's a big problem. We can do townhome densities that work for families, like on [162], which is car-served and doesn't fit into options 3/4/5. I recommend 20 du/ac maximum for townhome-type sites. Carolyn Field: There are sites on the inventory which aren't part of options 3/4/5, and are in low-density neighborhoods, mostly in southwest Campbell. The Uplift site, [162], isn't. I ask that it be planned for 20 du/ac, not 30, as it's in a low-density neighborhood. Also, please don't plan for housing next to Ainsley House or the Community Center. Michael Stevens: [162] isn't served by big enough roads to do anything denser than townhomes. I'm happy to hear about the Staples site and the Fry's site. Please protect the community center and Ainsley House. Dennis: I represent the Barbano family for the property at Bascom and Campbell [100]. At 60 du/ac net, this wouldn't be plausible here. Campbell has one of the best opportunities I've ever seen in my career, to execute density and affordability, as well as for single-family homes. You have both. But for the dense housing, around major thoroughfares, in the semi-urban box, should be more like 200 du/ac. I'm doing a property in San Jose at that density (477 S Market). We need high densities in order to get good common areas and a high-end environment. You need to have densities which will utilize the maximum 75 feet available. We have below-grade mechanical parking, retail on the ground floor, open space on the roof decks. (Eastwood: I encourage the speaker to send in a letter.) Jada Pogue: (Mic problems.) Thomas Colgrove: I'm very impressed with today's maps. The PetSmart complex is kinda decrepit; we should redevelop it. The area where Dollar Tree is, at San Tomas Aquino and Campbell. We could put retail above housing there. There's a lot of empty space there. Jada Pogue: Concerns about high-density housing on Hamilton and Winchester. Will that lead to more traffic on streets designed for people to move through Campbell? Maybe there's a greater need for townhomes than for high-density housing. There's high-density housing near Williams and Winchester, and it has a lot of vacancies, so maybe people don't need it?

​

Commission time!

​

Winchester area! Me: We should include the sites northeast of Winchester Station at low probabilities. Krey: We should have higher densities if those help us build more affordably, which everyone said they needed. I think the city-owned sites will be where we get BMR housing, like [132] and [3]. Palo Alto has been experimenting with that. (Me: Strongly agreed.) Zisser: I'd be open to higher densities. How much work have you done with landlords? The small sites seem to butt up against single-family parcels; I'd be concerned with 4-5 story buildings up against them; those are nice, long-term neighborhoods. I have questions about Bascom as well. I like that we're looking at the corporation yard. We have the technology park here; I support converting that to the right density; it's a wonderful location. I don't think any place in Campbell is "remote". It's a great opportunity to put residential there. Maybe a combination of MR and BMR. I'd like a bigger buffer. 5k is good, 5.5k is better. The math doesn't work without a bigger buffer. On the entire spreadsheet, there's two vacant parcels. The conversion rate is, what, ten, fifteen percent? If we don't have a really big buffer, we're not going to get there. Thirty percent is still optimistic, and if that's the likelihood... Ostrowski: How did you get 1.5x instead of 3x, given that? (Rose: We're still doing outreach. We want to be able to remove sites if they're not environmentally friendly.) Ostrowski: But if you're getting 1/3 chance, won't you need a 3x buffer? We're assuming a 2/3 chance here. (Bradley: The other major variable that's changing this cycle is that our maximum density has been 27 du/ac for at least twenty-five years. If the city enacts this program, this is a game-changer. There will be renewed interest in these properties. Rose: If I may add, we didn't have to rezone last time. We do this time; there are substantial increases in density.) Rivlin: Similar sentiments. [168], the transit center, VTA is looking for 75-100, why wouldn't we immediately say 100? The triangle there ([168], [32], [30]) isn't adjacent to any residential; it should be 100. Across the street, it backs up to residential, so maybe 75. The Campbell Technology Park is ideal for increased density; you could have a stepped approach toward the highway, taller buildings toward the highway. It would create a nice sound barrier. I'd propose 60 there, maybe not for the entire area, but for at least a chunk of it. As Commissioner Buchbinder said, why would we cancel any site? Not everyone will want to develop. I'm excited to go through all of these. I can paper-napkin 2k sites here. Great opportunities at [3] and [132]. My theme will be that you can make great plans with large parcels, and maybe small parcels with helpful landlords. Also townhouses at [40]. (Rose: Why are we targeting 75? I don't want to dissuade anyone from increasing the density. Note that densities could increase via density bonus applications. So if it's planned for 75, a 35% density bonus gets you to 101, an 80% density bonus gets you 135.) Rivlin: that leads to the idea that we need more affordable housing, so that works well. (Eastwood: VTA is looking to do Measure A funding for 100% affordable housing at the Winchester Station site. Good news!) Kamkar: Like my colleagues, I'm in favor of upping our densities from 75 to 100. We have a major challenge. On paper this makes sense, but getting everything together is harder. We need a bigger buffer, more density. One reason affordable housing is harder to build is that it's not as profitable, so you need more incentives. Of course I'm in favor of upping our density, but that should help with affordable-housing building as well. I want to make sure the BMR part is finished at the same time as the MR part. I think 75 du/ac means 7 stories. That's where the density, the height should go. People complain about privacy and sunlight. Not many neighbors near the station. Tall buildings at the station, smaller as you get further away. Taller landscaping, taller trees. Ostrowski: I'm hearing denser near light rail, mixed-use and higher density near Campbell Technology Park. I really liked Bruce Bowen's comment about daycare centers. Ching: We need higher density, but at the same time, we need services to go with it. Anywhere we're getting 75 du/ac or above, we need attached services, special-needs, services for kids. Maybe allocate some space for those services, plus shops and restaurants. Which leads me into thoughts about Campbell Technology Park. Maybe the city could acquire the private access road? I like Rivlin's stepped-density approach. It's a bit of an island, so maybe you could get shops and restaurants there. It's not an easy walk there; the sidewalks are narrow. You've got trucks there. We should look at how we provide safe areas as well as high-density areas. Maybe the 200 du/ac developments would be good for gateways. And you'd need pedestrian bridges.

​

Bascom Area! (Didn't take notes for Krey.) Zisser: There are some parcels north and south of Campbell, where maybe we shouldn't be doing 60 or 45. I submitted some parcels. [152] is Denny's, and there's a nearby strip mall which I think could be redeveloped. Rivlin: I think the Fry's development is worthy of higher density. It's not directly on the light rail, but that corridor across the highway will hopefully be improved. Maybe the self-storage just west of [202], south of the future hotel. And the Gilman area, the daycare and increased housing seems ideal. Ching: [202], I encourage density above 75 there. It could be a great gateway project for Campbell. I worry about safety there. [1.1], in the Pruneyard, and generally there, they wanted to do office before retail, and wanted to do a subdivision. Is the office still planned? (Rose: for [1.2], they've indicated that they want to have both offers on the table.) I think it should be lower-density unless you improve the access. Ostrowski: Do all of these have the possibility of mixed-use? (Eastwood: Yes; we'll come back to that in January.) Me: Increase the density of [202] to 100 du/ac, but consider safe crossing of 17 onramps. Endorse removing [101], [102]. At least [22] should be bumped to 75 if not 100 du/ac. Maybe bump [1.1], since it's not adjacent to R-1 uses. Also [1.2]? Ostrowski: I think the density on [1.1] is too high, given traffic in that area, so it should be lowered unless we have something to handle the congestion.

​

Central Campbell! Rivlin: I don't think [222] is that necessary, and [150.3]; they're contentious and we don't need them. Krey: Some of us will never want to discuss [159] (the old Elephant Bar site) again. Zisser: I agree with Rivlin on the parking lot and Civic Center. I'd heard that the Home Church wasn't interested in their parking lot. [56] and [172], which is Mama Mia's, that's the Hamilton Business Park, one-story office buildings on a big site. I don't know if you talk to landlords, but that would be a wonderful place for a high-density residential place. Ching: I agree on leaving the Community Center and Bascom alone. Me: [172] is listed on the spreadsheet as an apartment complex, which it's thankfully not. I'm glad to see [159] on there. Note that [164] is adjacent to Wesley Manor, which is extremely dense. I recommend increasing the maximum density of the north side of Campbell east of downtown from 45 to at least 60, if not 75, given its proximity to the light rail. This is extremely valuable land. How can we find sites between Orchard City and Civic Center? What about the parking lot between 295 and 349 E Campbell Ave? Between 232 and 266 E Campbell Ave?

​

(Spoke to Stephen Rose asking how he got 1/3 development probability. He eyeballed it; I sent him the RHNA Maps project from UCLA. David Hogan from M-Group asked me to send him my policy kvetches.)

​

Hamilton! (Missed some discussion.) Ching: For [162], 30 is too high, I'd be more in favor of 20. Me: I endorse not building on the Montessori school. I hear the unhappiness with the possibility of taller buildings on [162]; whatever makes it townhome-compatible, I'm in favor of that. Appreciate the presence of [51]. Kamkar: We've heard a lot on [162]. 30 du/ac means 30 max, right? So we could build at 20? I'm in favor of keeping 30 as the max, and the applicant can decide what works for them. I'm not in favor of a minimum, just the maximum. Ostrowski: I think we can propose a wider range, right? (Rose: When we establish a minimum, to prevent large-lot single family homes, for example, we'll do that. Bradley: There are rules about achieving 75% of maximum density.) Ostrowski: [162] is Uplift Family Services, which sounds like mental health services; why are we considering it? (Applicant: They're a statewide organization, and they have to be located near their clients. This site is just being used for administrative purposes. They still have a few youth on site, but they're moving to another site currently. They're vacating it.) Rivlin: Maybe 20 du/ac is appropriate for [162]; 168 units at 30 du/ac seems like a lot for that street. Ostrowski: My only comment on [162] is that you have to go through the local streets; would having direct access from San Tomas make that easier?

​

San Tomas/Campbell! Me: What can we do to moderately upzone the corridor? To get townhouses along W Campbell Ave? There's a 15-minute bus along there, and townhouses are size-compatible with the houses behind them. Krey: I can see the difficulty redeveloping [207]; I was envisioning a major redevelopment, but if that's all that works, I think that would be a good spot for higher density. [12] is a Goodwill. Maybe you can combine it with the lot to its south? Zisser: I used to live here; I was envisioning something in the parking lot instead of [207]. (Rose: There are concerns from anchor tenants about visibility.) It's odd to chop out part of the shopping center and add housing there. But it's a very underutilized shopping center. It was underutilized twenty-five years ago. Ostrowski: We talked about how staff was doing a lot of diligence. Maybe because this is so underutilized, we can put this on the list, and consider it at a low probability. And I'm not in favor of redeveloping the Goodwill; I think it serves low-income people. Rivlin: Goodwill can relocate to any low-priced strip mall; they use discount retail space. I'd add the bank in. And adjacent is the amazing Hawaiian food shop, an older retail store; it could be in a mixed-use setting instead of in a strip mall.

​

South Campbell! Kamkar: Can we reach out to the neighbors of the listed properties and see if they also want to join? (Eastwood: There's a different tool called SB 10 that we can bring back and upzone to 10 units per parcel in order to provide missing middle. Bradley: The nice thing is that once you set up an SB 10 program, landowners can participate however they want instead of having to map them ahead of time. Rose: We haven't brought that before you yet; we've been trying to focus on those land use decisions which require an EIR.) Me: What can we do to upzone the Hacienda corridor to something neighborhood-compatible? Townhomes? Upzone with a low probability of development? Sounds like an SB 10 program! Krey: [209] and [7] have been vacant for a long time. Will anyone develop? (Rose: [7] has repeatedly approached the city; we haven't heard anything from [209]. We'll be doing outreach again over the next month.) Zisser: I'd like to keep as many of these as we can, since speakers have decried the lack of opportunity in South Campbell. We've had an interest in doing as much as we can here, but there's not much in the way of significant parcels because of the nature of the neighborhood. I'll ask about SB 10 later, I guess. [Kamkar tells me SB 10 can't be used for townhomes. I'll have to look into that.] Ching: On [209], could that be made into a park? (Rose: We had a situation where a developer on Mozart provided us a plot of land, but the city would need to acquire it. Much later on.) Ostrowski: Could you lease it for twenty years? (Rose: Liability issues?) Ostrowski: Take it offline. Ching: We've been intending to identify open land. Around there, maybe upping density from 20 to 30, and bring in some retail uses, which residents have mentioned.

​

Zisser: There's a two-block area on Camden, east of Carlyle Hotel, it's just fast food places off Camden, near the 17 onramp. It's not a huge set of parcels, but it's something. (Rose: It made our honorable-mention list. We were thinking about that corridor, but we don't want to pre-empt plans we might have for it. The City Council had weighed in, and there's a local plan which discourages changes in land use.)

​

We still have a few slides. City-owned sites! The Community Center Lot, the First Street Parking Garage, Civic Center Lot, Public Works Service Center (Corporation Yard). We'll likely only move forward with the Corporation Yard and parking garage. Krey: Something was talking about extending Dillon? (Bradley: The idea was to extend Dillon to Railway.)

​

Zisser asks if we're clear on increasing our buffer size in general. Ching is a bit nervous about maybe making the city overly friendly to development. I'm more concerned about underbuilding than overbuilding, as long as we think about it, which we've done tonight. Ostrowski asks about how big our current inventory is. We started with around 6.5k this evening. So we're at around 7k now. For CEQA, we're definitely at the high end. And that's the night!

Highlights

This was the fourth community meeting for Campbell's Housing Element ("Campbell's Plan for Housing", as staff is calling it). Attendance was around forty people. Extensive questions cut into the breakout-room time, which was extended to let us get through the six pages of maps.

- Staff has really been stumped trying to come up with a way to put any Opportunity Sites in the San Tomas area. I, and others, suggested upzoning to townhouse density along major corridors in the area.

- When sites are allowed under several criteria (for example, a site close to a rail station and on a commercial corridor), staff hasn't been consistent about marking them with the highest allowed density.

- Staff has sent out letters asking for developer intent, and was very excited to hear that an attendee had heard interest from developers about their property.

- Staff does not plan to upzone parcels that don't have specific development prospects on them. This seems unnecessarily restrictive to me, and I'll be bringing this up.

- Attendees were keen on suggesting sites, and staff was very appreciative about it.

Raw Notes

Community meeting number four. Staff (Rob Eastwood, Stephen Rose) are here, along with M-Group (familiar faces: David Hogan, Christabel Soria-Mendoza, Geoff Bradley; new faces: Asher Kohn, Radha Hayagreev, Mary-Ann Matheou). 82% of attendees are homeowners, wow. (Includes me.)

​

We'll be getting City Council and Planning Commission feedback, then splitting into breakout rooms to talk about recommended densities and housing types. They're looking for specific feedback on particular sites, and there will be at least 45 minutes of small-group discussion about the maps.

​

David Hogan: the goal is how to make housing available for our essential workers, for young adults and students, for communities of color and non-English speakers. Se have to particularly consider the elderly, persons with disability, female-headed households with children, large households, and people experiencing homelessness. Describes the RHNA process. Notes that the VLI/LI boundary is $82.85k; LI/MI is $117.75k; MI/AMI is $181.55k. Notes that the PC and CC were keen on Options 3, 4, and 5.

​

One of the items of PC feedback mentioned is "Recommend the viability of individual sites are evaluated". Also that shopping centers should be redeveloped in a mixed-use format, and there should be some smaller mixed-use options in the San Tomas area. Council agreed on 3/4/5 basis, plus consider existing businesses and services, add more missing middle in existing neighborhoods, and consider housing in the FIrst Street Garage, Civic Center, and Campbell Technology Park. They also asked that the plans take into account density bonus laws, encouraging smaller, more-affordable unit sizes, and to do additional outreach to property owners, religious facilities, and schools.

​

Question time! I ask: does this upzoning (75 du/ac around train stations) only apply to opportunity sites, or to all parcels that fit the criteria? Rob: we're applying it only to currently high-density sites (45 du/ac under the new General Plan). Stephen: no; sites not selected as opportunity sites are not upzoned accordingly. (This seems like a lot of predictions.)

​

Allen Ishibashi: Have we gotten developer feedback yet? David Hogan: We've had some meetings with affordable and market-rate developers. Rob? Rob Eastwood: We've had two focus-group discussions. We didn't get into sites; more talking about densities and factors and general locations. Very good feedback on financial feasibility. The thinking from staff is that after we go to Council and Commission in December, we'll reach out to property owners on the sites and do a wrap-up meeting in January.

​

Raja: Have we asked if property developers are really interested in developing the property over the next eight years? How do we get from designating something as an opportunity site to it actually getting developed? David Hogan: We'll be reaching out to individual developers. We're not guaranteeing that development will occur, just looking at a big-picture view. These are questions that we have also. Raja: Do you know what kind of properties people with incomes over $180k a year will be interested in? David: Projections are based on the size of the household and the incomes of the people involved. That obviously feeds back into the process, but we don't have personal specifics. Stephen Rose: We intend to provide a range of housing types, by product type, bedroom count, income level. If you don't see enough of a particular type of housing in the site survey, we can break the survey down into renters versus owners. People seem to want as much housing as they can get for the smallest price possible, and the best way we can do that is to make as much housing available as possible.

​

"iPhone", actually Robert: I'm a ten year resident. Have traffic considerations been made? And I noticed that the San Tomas area is almost unaffected; is that because there's insufficient developer interest, or not enough appropriately-sized lots? Geoff Bradley: Part of the overall strategy of focusing on commercial corridors and transit areas is because that's where our transportation infrastructure is the strongest. Scarcity of sites in San Tomas is due to it having a lack of properties meeting our criteria.

​

Mark: How tall will these buildings be, and how did we arrive at 75 du/ac? David Hogan: We were looking more at development potential. There's no magic formula; we think we've picked numbers that work with the state. Geoff Bradley: We're aware of the voter-approved 75 foot height limit in the city. Mark: Can you elaborate on that vote? I don't recall it. Geoff: It was a long time ago; it was in reaction to a proposal to build towers across from Hamilton, which are now exactly 75 feet near Hamilton and Creekside. Stephen Rose: It was 1986.

​

Antonio: (Written question, as mic not working.) Did the builds like to build over shops, and did they want to build other types of housing? Geoff Bradley: Rob met with the developers; he can answer that. Rob Eastwood: We have a lot of kinds of developers. Some specialize in mixed use. The new Parkview Cresleigh development is mixed-use; that's what they do. We have some who just do townhomes and low-rise. It depends on the developer. We want to plan for the right setting and the housing types that make sense for us, and have the developer come in and produce that.

​

David Hogan shows some examples of 20, 30, 45, 60, 70 du/ac projects, and assures people that they're livable and desirable. Breakout rooms will be randomized, so we'll be getting one-sixth of the sites to look at. San Tomas-Campbell, South Campbell, Hamilton Ave, Central Campbell, Winchester Ave, and Bascom Ave. Hopefully I'll get a good one. To the breakout rooms! (We'll have about 30m in them.)

​

I'm in Room 2; Stephen Rose and Mary-Ann Matheou are here. Stephen: We've been asked to do better, look broader. Can we do better? Always. Notes the 20-45 du/ac General Plan densities, the 60 du/ac for shopping centers and commercial corridors, and near transit at 75 du/ac. We have two exercises: first, find sites; second, change our rules. But for minimum compliance reasons, these are the only sites with density changes. We'll have about five minutes per area.

​

Winchester! Raja notes that the sites right next to the VTA station are 60 du/ac instead of 75 du/ac. Mike Krey asks where the low-income housing will be. Stephen: according to HCD, anything over 30 du/ac can have low-income housing on it. Jeannette: why is the Safeway not marked blue for shopping center? Stephen: some are overlapping on the various methodologies. Me: I note that we're not marking the parking lot behind St Lucy's, which I thought was an option. Also, I think we should use the highest density available for a site covered under, for example, both commercial-corridors and light-rail methodologies. Stephen: We're doing outreach to St. Lucy's; we identified it in the last map, and it might be added back in.

​

Bascom Ave! Mike Krey: Why isn't there more around Downtown Campbell? Stephen: the sites there are oddly-shaped parking lots; we may remove them. Me: South of Campbell, east of 17, west of Bascom, along Union, is our current highest-density neighborhood, nearly all multi-family already. We should consider upzoning it. I also note that the downtown area isn't identified at all; it's near the Downtown Campbell station, and high-resource. Susan O'Brien: Greylands across from Campbell Park would be a great opportunity. Would density bonuses apply to all of the opportunity sites? And when you have a larger site like the one on Lee, could we have lower density for the parts that abut the single-family parts? Stephen: Tapering is... there will be objective standards we have, and that's the best way to get at something like that. Yes, density bonuses apply everywhere; these are base densities. Raja: Can we bump the triangle northeast of Hamilton station to the yellow tier?

​

Central Campbell! Stephen: We're tagging the whole community center, but we're not considering redeveloping the whole thing, just a parking lot on the Winchester side. Raja: Can we drop the Community Center completely? Me: Why aren't we upzoning Wesley Manor? Stephen Rose: we're not redeveloping it; that's not what this upzone is for. Mike Krey: 159 is the Elephant Bar, right? Is the owner interested? Stephen: we're hoping to figure that out in the next month.

​

Hamilton Ave! Mike Krey: Is this the one low-income part of Hamilton that we're trying to avoid developing in? Stephen: The R/ECAP areas; that's further to the east.

​

San Tomas-Campbell! There's interest in "right-sizing" San Tomas Plaza, which has excessive parking. Raja: Why aren't we designating the lots along West Campbell, north of parcel 12? Stephen: It's a more-improved building. Mike Krey: This is my area, and I was going to ask Raja's question. Me: I think we should upzone to townhome densities along West Campbell Ave. Mike Krey: I think we can upzone all along Campbell Ave. Treat it like Hamilton but a bit less dense. Stephen: What I'm getting is that we need to talk about densities in general as well as specific sites.

​

South Campbell! Raja: I have ten sites that are more than a half-acre that I'd like to see built up. Robson Homes wanted to buy me and my neighbors out and redevelop along Hacienda. Stephen: Please send me letters-of-interest; that would be outstanding. And send me that list of sites. Would neighborhood-scale mixed-use be good there? Raja: We would love that! Tina Vo: How is the city addressing the job-to-job replacement for places that have commercial corridors? If a commercial corridor is replaced, do you have to replace the jobs you're displacing? Stephen: We've been asked this a lot; what's the ideal ratio between jobs, housing, and services? There's no official list or ratio. Me: we should allow townhouses on each side of Hacienda. Raja: Agreed. Stephen: SB 9 will provide a lot of opportunities here, to turn one unit into four. Appreciate the feedback!

​

(Currently 1955; we had 40min of breakout time.) David Hogan: I'd like to thank everyone in breakout rooms. Please mail City Hall if you have anything else you'd like to contribute. Rob Eastwood: Please come to the council meetings. Maps will be presented to PlanCom on December 9 and City Council on December 16; final commission and council meetings will be in January. This will allow us to finalize our Opportunity Site Inventory Maps and Land Use Plan. Probably one more community meeting between December and January. And we'll start the EIR process. We're up to almost four hundred survey respondents! Please come to the meetings, so that the Council and Commission can hear from you.

​

Highlights

In general, the results were similar to last week's Planning Commission meeting, with a few other subjects raised.

- Council was generally keen on the "3-4-5" hybrid approach combining sites from the transit-oriented, commercial-corridor, and commercial-plaza maps. The question of likelihood of development was mentioned and we're likely going to filter our sites on that. We seem to actually be trying to get three thousand units built.

- There are concerns about changing existing school or commercial sites to be residential, because those sites are useful in and of themselves, especially if we have more people.

- Council was shocked at the idea that density bonuses could override our height limit (also seemed to have an unclear idea of how the height limit came about), and discussed lowering the base density or height such that developers couldn't exceed the 75-foot height limit even with a density bonus. This will likely reduce density so much as to make the sites useless.

- There's some support for legalizing townhomes in the San Tomas area; the form is popular and compatible with the area, and the area currently has no opportunity sites.

- It's an open question how we're going to achieve our BMR targets. Mayor Gibbons suggested enabling or encouraging smaller units; Councilmember Lopez suggested working with churches on parts of their parking lots.

- Much of the Council is skeptical of the utility of our transit system, believing that few to no people can actually rely on the buses or light rail.

- It was very strange hearing speakers use neighborhood-defender language ("If we have to put in higher-density housing, to keep it over in those areas and not mix it in with the family community type housing we have right now.") from people arguing for transit-oriented development.

- Mayor Gibbons has something of a contrarian streak; I get the sense that she very much wants Campbell to make a Campbell-specific plan. I heard a lot about Campbell's uniqueness without anything about what makes Campbell unique, apart from single-family neighborhoods, which really aren't that unique.

Raw Notes

Special City Council meeting on the Housing Element approach. We begin at 5:30 on a Wednesday. Neither I nor South Bay YIMBY nor the Campaign for Fair Housing Elements has sent in a letter. Present are: Mayor Gibbons, Vice Mayor Resnikoff, and Councilmembers Bybee, Landry, and Lopez. Also one Darcy Pruitt, acting City Attorney. (Bill Seligmann is apparently not there.) Council members are all wearing masks (so are in the office), but all have Zoom backgrounds. A bit confusing.

​

Rob Eastwood, Community Development Director: the structure will be (1) RHNA targets, then questions, (2) Housing Opportunity Sites, (3) Public Feedback/Survey, then questions and public comment, then (4) Options for Opportunity Sites, (5) Consideration of City-Owned Sites, then Council discussion, and finally (6) Next Steps. Stephen Rose our planner, Metropolitan Group ("M-Group") representatives Geoff Bradley, David Hogan, Christabel Mendoza. Notes that the General Plan and Housing Element updates are concurrent; the former is being done by De Novo. In order to hit the January 2023 deadline, we need to start our EIR by January 2022, which means getting feedback from Council now. Tonight is the Housing Opportunity Site Methodology; there will be a different meeting in December for Preferred Housing Opportunity Sites. Policy discussions will continue in 2022. Eastwood reminds the Council that this isn't about individual sites, but rather about general principles.

​

There's a pre-made Draft Methodology in the packet with blanks for Council's direction. (Gibbons: Tells everyone to be very thoughtful about how they articulate their thoughts to make for better notes.) I note that the default density (item IV) is still 20 du/ac.

​

Geoff Bradley lays out the basic math: Campbell's RHNA floor is 2977, plus 30% buffer is 3870. (978/564/649/1680 VLI/LI/MI/AMI, which is 25%/15%/17%/43%.) Pipeline (not under construction) projects make 160, estimated ADUs 280, SB 9 160, leaving 3300 for Opportunity Sites. There are 1108 available units from 5th Cycle Sites (by-right with 20% BMR), leaving about 2200 in additional capacity needed. Question time! And no questions.

​

David Hogan on identifying sites. Site methodology centers around AFFH maps: yes to transit-accessible low-VMT areas, yes to high-resource areas, no to racially or ethnically concentrated areas of poverty. Individual parcels will be judged on size and development potential, which is still kinda vague. AFFH factors are: light rail, bus lines (10 minutes/half mile), commercial services (e.g., pharmacies), food stores, parks, public schools. Rail is worth 2 points within a half-mile, buses 1. (Giant dark area around the light rail lines, gray in San Tomas.) Resources are worth one point each. Highest-resource is southwest of downtown, lowest is San Tomas. Concentrated poverty is worth -1 for each factor; it only applies to a tiny sliver on the north. The sum ranges from -2 to 7, with the highest ratings along the light rail corridor from Hamilton to Winchester.

​

Criteria for opportunity sites are related to parcel size (half acre to ten acres), age of building, vacant sites (not many), underutilized or abandoned sites, parking lots, school and church sites, and explicit developer interest. What densities? State "default density" is 20 du/ac. Current General Plan "High Density" is 27 du/ac. There's a possibility that based on the 2020 Census will bump us to 30 du/ac, but we're not sure yet. Draft General Plan update is 45 du/ac. The tailored approach in specific locations would bump shopping centers to 60 du/ac and sites near light rail to 75 du/ac. Looking for input on that methodology in general. Notes that higher density means fewer sites; shows us examples of infill housing at 45, 60 du/ac.

​

Christabel Mendoza, assistant planner with M-Group, summarizing public feedback. Sent out postcards and emails, launched a website and survey (378 respondents currently), hosted three community meetings, and hosted two pop-up booths. Pie graphs of race/ethnicity and age are shown, but not contrasted with the city's demographics. Most important criteria as voted in the survey is to "Maintain Campbell's unique character", least important "Create a Socially Balanced and Diverse Community". Which is what you get when 93% of respondents are over 30, I guess. Spanish translation services were offered, but no information is provided on if anyone used them.

​

Community feedback summarized: more density, more affordability, more housing in general, near transit, near resources. Opportunity sites were suggested, mainly near the light rail, along major streets, near downtown, in shopping centers. The most preferred type of housing is townhouses, then mixed-use, then SFHs, then ADUs/duplexes/triplexes/small apartments, then 6+-story multifamily housing, then 3-5 story multifamily housing.

​

Stephen Rose recaps and lists options.

​

1. Preferred Land Use Map. 45 du/ac. Up to 2750 total. Remaining Fifth Cycle sites plus HDR (High Density Residential) and RCPO (Residential/Commercial/Professional Office) sites all set to 45 du/ac. Not recommended. Fails HCD criteria, insufficient to RHNA, doesn't reduce VMT.

2. Preferred Land Use Map + Potential Sites based on HCD Guidance. 20 and 45 du/ac. Up to 4500 total. Same as before plus HCD's suggestions, but doesn't address AFFH or community feedback. Not recommended. Neutral on GHG.

3. Density Near Transit. 75 du/ac. Up to 5800 total. Existing opportunity sites in HDR or RCPO land-use designations within a half-mile of rail over half-acre get 75 du/ac. Exceeds GHG reduction targets.

4. Revitalize Shopping Corridors. 60 du/ac. Up to 4500 total. In response to public, we'd allow GC (General Commercial) and NC (Neighborhood Commercial) up to 60 du/ac. Housing would be more distributed through the community, but in places with less access to transit and resources. Neutral on GHG.

5. Housing Along Commercial Corridors. 60 du/ac. Up to 6500 total. In response to public, we'd allow higher density along Hamilton, Bascom, Winchester. Bad on GHG.

​

Planning Commission endorsed a combination of best sites from options 3, 4, and 5, provide mixed-use opportunities in places like San Tomas despite there being lower resources there, increase intensity in already-dense areas, retain the Community Center, and reduce parking requirements in general. Generally supportive of more housing, and wanted to combine the maps to produce even more housing rather than less. Question time! And public comment time!

​

Lopez: On the AFFH data, did we look at resources outside of the city? Hogan: Yes, anything that served Campbell. L: You mentioned the census changing our densities; when will we know? H: When we have final results, if the county is over 2M people. [Note that this is the MSA, not the county, which is mostly the same.] Eastwood: We need to know the Census results, and then get HCD direction. Note that we're looking at more than 30 du/ac for our sites anyway, so it might be moot.

​

Landry: Does this include density bonuses? Rose: No, these are base densities. Bradley: AB 1763 allows 80% density bonuses for 100% BMR projects, and unlimited density for 100% BMR projects near light rail. The 35% density bonus has a provision for more-subsidized projects. L: I want the public to understand that 70 units could mean 100 units in practice. And that crossing Hamilton to get to the light rail, that's not realistic. Rose: We're just showing as-the-crow-flies distances; that'll get cleared up in the detailed site selection. L: Why aren't the mobile home sites listed? R: That's for the council tonight, but we don't target them because they're already affordable and not high-resource. (Later: this has to be unobstructed by state law. Note also that height limits preventing development at allowed densities are void.)

​

Resnikoff: Does state law let you define the half-mile as walkable distance? Rose: state law doesn't consider traversibility. But we can determine our own local sites based on our own criteria. Re: but the half-mile is fixed by the state. Ro: Yes. Re: You're counting pipeline projects; what happens when the project is completed? What happens when we complete projects; does that reduce our RHNA? Ro: Pipeline projects consider something we expect to happen in the latter half of next year. We don't want to assume a theoretical number on a site with a real development project. That said, if someone doesn't build, that's what the buffer is for. Our pipeline is much larger than our total pipeline size. Re: but does new construction reduce our RHNA target? Ro: if I'm understanding this, yes. If you underreport on your APR on one of your sites, you might have to make allocations somewhere else.

​

Resnikoff: What about SB 9? The numbers aren't as big as I thought they'd be. What does financially feasible there mean? Bradley: I've taken a keen interest as a developer and homeowner. Feasibility means... if we looked at a building with a house, like, if we build an ADU, how much will it cost and how much will we get in rent? Which doesn't even take into account how interested people would be. R: How many SFHs do we have in Campbell? Gibbons: The Terner report says we have 7000. R: Did we do any analysis of the interest in Campbell? B: We didn't know where people taking the survey are from, exactly. It's not a statistically-accurate cross section of the city. R: Maybe we should get one. We've done it before.

​

Gibbons: I have a couple of comments. We have one owner-occupied and one renter-occupied mobile-home park. I hope we wouldn't list those sites; they're affordable housing. Is there consensus that we shouldn't develop there? Eastwood: We have some directions on that. G: Is this 20-minute headways on buses? E: It's unresolved; we just did all bus routes here, but everything keeps changing based on COVID. G: Everything's a moving target; VTA redid their bus stops several times in the last four years, and now there's no bus that goes by Hamilton light rail. [The 56 does, right?] The Plan Bay Area 2050 maps show the light rail extending to Hacienda, which has a lot of valuable parcels

​

Gibbons: Is concentration the best option? Is there any way that we can still be in compliance but utilize the whole city? There are good parcels not within a half-mile of transit. Can we expand what's considered a viable parcel? To me, these aren't broad enough. We can have bike-accessible sites not near transit. E: There are parcels that can be developed all across the city. This is an eight year cycle; this only assumes the next eight years of VTA's planning.

​

Gibbons: On the R/ECAP map, I think it's exaggerated; the sites there are mostly not housing. Eastwood: This is based on census tracts. G: I get that, but there's only one person there; it distorts what's going on.

​

Gibbons: We've changed our units-per-acre measurement in two kinds of gross. The railway project is actually something like 70 du/ac. The question I have on all of the maps is, what makes Campbell Campbell? In terms of criteria to evaluate the maps, we should evaluate them in terms of the criteria that were ranked on the surveys.

​

Gibbons: Option 4, you indicate opportunity sites in the community center. Will we have discussions about that tonight? Eastwood: Correct. G: Some of those sites provide services to the community. A question that hasn't been asked yet is, what is the mix of services you want in a community, and do you want to make people drive to Gilroy or Morgan Hill to have cars repaired or glass replaced. Now time for public comment!

​

Dan Smith: President of Fairmeadow HOA, representing 100 units. High density should be near transit and major corridors, walkable neighborhoods near mass transit, consistent with General Plan. Campbell has "unique neighborhoods with unique characteristics and values", supports Option 3. New developments should maintain or improve quality of life for existing residents. "Keep Campbell Clean"; we don't want to become another San Jose or San Francisco.

John Field: President of Cambridge Park HOA. I'm throwing away my prepared remarks. Mayor Gibbons, you make a good point. My grandfather moved here during the Depression. Where in all these very technical presentations is the look and feel and culture of our community? I'm on board with new housing. A lot of people bought in because they appreciate the way it is. I support Option 3. And I think the new residents would appreciate the same things.

​

Allen Ishibashi: These are unfunded mandates pushed on the city, and state is doing a good idea. I support option 3. It's important that the default density be low, 20 du/ac. Families with kids, they want that townhome development. And we need medium density, families with kids want to live in townhomes. Balance is key.

​

Steve Saunders: I cannot be objective about this. I don't want a five-story building looming over my backyard. I live next to a large site on Hamilton, a good site. Table 3, where you do your ADUs and pipeline, that should be taken off your base, not your inflated numbers. Why are churches good sites? Why are churches good sites? I'm really bothered by that.

​

Tim Pasquinneli: I own Campbell Technology Park. I ask that our site be included in your inventory. The site is very underutilized; the park has been fully occupied once, for three months. We're dropping to about 30% when our leases will likely not be renewed next year. Gibbons: Are you thinking of removing your office building? TP: Yes, we have no long-term leases.

​

Selina Baryshnikova: I've lived in Campbell for more than ten years. Keep low-density neighborhoods low-density, put the new housing near the light rail or on commercial corridors. If you put these in my neighborhood, it will decrease the property value of my house. And they won't be accessible to emergency vehicles or school buses or transit.

​

Michael Rich: I decided to raise my family here because of the family feel of the city. I encourage you to discuss with the schools before making decisions. Families are moving away because they can't find affordable single-family housing. We should consider affordable housing for schoolteachers and first responders. Having them living in the city they serve is a huge benefit. I'm for high density as long as it's close to the light rail. And maintain our single-family feel.

​

Jim Sullivan: Resident for about eighteen years. There are 17k units, 58% are SFHs, 40% multifamily, 2% mobile homes. Great job that staff did. I like the hybrid system. Vacant sites, obsolete sites, development interest, those are great opportunities.

​

Jeannette Wolf: Thank you for the opportunities to speak. Of the many options, I think there are several that are good. Around the light rail, mixed use at the shopping centers. The key thing is that the density in place matches the adjacent housing. Even though we want people to use the light rail, people will still have cars, because the Bay Area needs them. We should plan for parking. We should consider what density bonuses would do.

​

Nine hands raised on Zoom.

​

Janette Stokely: Executive director of Housing Choices; we serve adults with developmental disabilities. Our clients need extremely low income housing to remain in their communities. Of the VLI units, 50% must be affordable to ELI. Note that to get that, you really do need higher densities. We see 40 and 50 year olds being displaced to the Central Valley when their parents die. I want to give a shout out to the Planning Commission's hybrid approach, that there are benefits to each of the options, and identifying the best of all three maps is the best. These clients need transit, they don't drive. [Ran out of time.]

​

Raja Pallela: 70% of sites from the previous Housing Element weren't developed. Have we talked to the owners? A grocery store isn't going anywhere. It would be a terrible mistake to not redevelop Dell Ave, make it into another Santana Row. You could achieve 3k units with medium density there, since it's huge. The San Tomas/Hacienda area has not even one site available. There's a bus that goes through there, and we're not even considering putting townhomes there. [Ran out of time.]

​

Jirin Dao (sp?): I'm new to Campbell, moved from San Jose. We fell in love with the community. I'm doing my part; I currently have an ADU application in to the city right now. I agree with a lot of speakers tonight. I support Option 3. I totally agree that we need to have variety. Building high-rises in single-family neighborhoods would be a bad idea, townhomes would be much better. The community center is highly utilized, it would be a shame to lose it. [Ran out of time.]

​

Susan O'Brien: I'm going to throw away my script like John Field. I've been encouraged by parcel owners coming forward. I've lived here for over twenty-six years, started as a renter, now a homeowner, I really enjoy the calm quiet neighborhood. I support a combination of options three four and five. Revitalizing shopping centers and building around light rail would be good.

​

Michael Stevens: To echo other residents, we've lived here for about twenty years, we met in Campbell, we should protect our character while making room for new residents. I'm concerned about placing high density in neighborhoods that weren't designed for it. I'd like us to match densities of new developments to their neighborhoods. Option three first, and maybe options four or five.

​

B Wolf: I moved to Campbell 21 years ago for the charm and character of the city. I support option three, keeping the density closest to light rail. Something that's come up is the buffer. I suggest keeping it on the lower side. As the city changes, more sites will open up, but if you try to change single-family neighborhoods now, you can't backtrack on that. There are things that change in the city; you'll have more options over time. Regarding mobile homes, I think it's good to keep sites on the plan, and if you need to transition people out and back into those sites, our rep, Evan Low, could help. Thank you for all your work. I would not like to see the Community Center changed.

​

Carolyn Field: I want to echo what Bane Wolf just said about protecting mobile homes. I appreciate Council's stance. I support higher-density housing, and I encourage you to primarily consider Option 3. Cities around the bay have already made big investments around light rail. See Milpitas Metro Specific Plan, Sunnyvale's Lawrence Station Area Plan, Google Downtown West Plan in San Jose. Please preserve the character of lower-density neighborhoods in Campbell. Lastly, please consider revisiting the idea of a VTA station at Hacienda. I drove through there, and there's a lot of for lease signs out. Thank you very much.

​

Gibbons: Many more hands are up; we have an hour left, so if you can, please say you support a previous speaker. Your comments are always welcome.

​

Scott Connolly: Thanks to staff. I mentioned this at Planning Commission: once the Opportunity Site list is sent to HCD, I understand that they consider it for 90 days. We should submit only sites that have a high probability of being accepted. About 27 acres, at 60 du/ac, 1600 units are planned for existing shopping sites with long-term leases like Dollar Tree. Around the Winchester Light Rail station, it looks like part of St Lucy's Parish is on the list, and I wonder if it's realistic for them to develop their lot.

​

Dana Stevens: I second the other comments. I believe it's important to strike balance between housing growth and our unique character. I recommend option 3, with considerations for options 4 and 5. And I support adjustment factors for lower residential intensity. Would support the lower density housing in the current single-family housing developments.

​

William Skinner: Thank the commission. [Might mean "council".] I agree with Allen Ishibashi and Dan Smith. Thirty-year resident, bought here because of the small-town feel, kinda like Los Gatos, agree that if we have to put in higher-density housing, the Pruneyard and off of the light rail, Elephant Bar, Fry's, would be excellent. I used to take the light rail to Sunnyvale. If we have to put in higher-density housing, to keep it over in those areas and not mix it in with the family community type housing we have right now. I really want to see the small town feel of Campbell continue.

​

Thomas Colgrove: I endorse John Fields, Option 3. I've written a few letters before. I think around light rail is good. There was nothing on Santana Row twenty years ago; I think the Pruneyard would be a good pick; you can put housing above all that retail.

​

Dannis Randall: Concur with all comments. I'm principally responsible for the Courtyard by Mariott, representing the Barbano family at the corner of Bascom and Campbell. The reason the portals were built under 17 is to extend the walkable areas. The range of light rail should be extended to natural barriers, to include people getting around by bike and scooter. Parking can be achieved using below-grade parking. We can have high-quality spaces.

​

Trudy LaFrance: I've lived in my home on Cambrian Drive for forty-nine years. I like the character. Please consider adding more townhomes. We have families moving in, but it's only techies who can afford $1.5M for the homes around here. Please consider homes for lower-income people. We need equity in our areas too, not just squeezed into high-density housing.

​

Cassandra Owen attempted to comment repeatedly, but had technical difficulties. Some other commenters signed up ahead of time, but all but one were not on the Zoom call, and they couldn't be heard. And that's public comment.

​

Gibbons: Is staff looking for our selection, one through five? Eastwood: We're looking at all of the information tonight as building blocks; we don't want individual sites, we want broad policies that will determine which individual sites we bring to you next time. Taking the state's rules and all that, it's in part a mathematical exercise, but it's also a question of how do you want Campbell to grow? Those five policy options aren't intended to be a be-all, end-all. A lot of the speakers tonight mentioned Option 3; if there's a unified voice from the Council, we'll focus on that. You've also heard 3-4-5, in that case, we'll draw from all of those. So what type of housing do you want to see in Campbell, and where? You can bring up things that staff didn't think of, but these are themes to begin with. G: I'm really struggling with this.

​

Resnikoff: It sounds like you want us to be predisposed to one issue and move to there. I have some other considerations I want to add as well. For example, loss of services. We can want to be along a major commercial corridor, but we have to think about losing services there. Or look at ingress and egress for sites that developers have proposed.

​

Gibbons: Let's try this. It's 35 minutes left. The goal is to finish at 8:30. Does anyone have flexibility there? [Everyone seems to.] I'm supposed to be in San Francisco after this. Following up on Vice Mayor Resnikoff, we can go over your policy questions, but we all want to make sure we cover what wasn't covered. Eastwood: You can go through each of the options, get input from each councilmember on each option.

​

Lopez: We do have the additional site-by-site meeting in December, so I'm going to avoid going into some good ideas that have been brought up. This is strategic, tactical is later.

​

Resnikoff: I'll go first. I think it's very easy to gravitate to option 3. I like what the Planning Commission did with their hybrid, 3-4-5. There are good parts on each, but nothing works all by itself. What scares me about 3 is that we're putting all this emphasis on light rail; how many people here ride it? Buses are more important, maybe. I think it's important to take advantage of transit corridors, but we'll have to equally rely on Option 5, commercial corridors with good ingress and egress. Option 4 is good because we don't necessarily need to lose the commercial development; we could keep commercial development but have housing above it. So we could retain the sales tax base.

​

Resnikoff: I'm concerned about the loss of services. If we lose all of our auto repair sites on Winchester, we're losing a needed service. If we chase industrial services out of the Dell area, we'd lose services and revenue. We found out, to our surprise, that the Dell owners wanted their machine shops there. There could be a mix, some industrial, some housing. [This is exactly what we supposedly have zoning to prevent.] The Campbell Tech Park, there's one dead-end street that goes there, so that's a problem. I think we can plan this so the densities fit the areas in which we're developing. A single-family neighborhood doesn't have to take the burden of a hundred-unit project. Like Uplift, or a project at Hick'ry Pit. We're going to have to actually move forward with these, especially when we have neighborhood approval. We know that change causes angst. So, again, a hybrid of 3-4-5 which respects existing neighborhoods, work with existing owners, concerns about impacts on neighborhoods and loss of services.

​

Landry: Staff did a great job, very technical. I think we had twenty-three public speakers, I think, so we had a lot of interest, you guys did a great job. Community Center, I'm not a big athletic field person because so few people use them per hour. City property in the North 1st St garage, if we have more development downtown, we'll need more parking. You didn't mention the Civic Center, from day one I thought we had an extra acre there, that's seventy-plus units. Fry's and Staples said they're interested in some development. The one time I talked to the Fry's people, they said we're close to the light rail, but you take your life in your hands getting there. We need a flyover bridge [over CA-17]. We'll need the schools if we get new people in. The density bonus bothers me. People freaked out when the Pruneyard was built and said no more that high. [Pruneyard was built in the 60s, height limit passed in the 80s.] We had one speaker mention extremely-low income people, and I want to see that broken out, because those are the most desperate people. I was pleased to hear about the tech park. Note that your park map doesn't show Edith Morley Park [that's right!]; there's a fire lane that we can use for egress. Also there's a triangle over by Creekside Way that we'd planned to put a parking garage in; that's a great place for really high density. Creekside/Hamilton/Bascom. I campaigned on maintaining our small town charm; it's unfortunate that the state is forcing this on us, but we have to make the best of it. I don't support the Dell area going residential; those are very important businesses there. My mechanic is in there. Having been on the Economic Development Committee, there's a synergy between commercial land use and residential land use. We can't just get rid of all of the commercial use.

​

Lopez: I'm really grateful to the speakers, the staff, Planning Commission, consultants. This is an exemplary process. You've given us the raw material we need in short order with a lot of constraints. I'm heartened by all of the consensus that we see. I think we're very close to finding a vision that fits the needs of the community. Broadly, I agree on a mixture of all three maps. I agree with what Mr. Connolly said, that you have to look at the likelihood it actually gets built. I think we have to look at that both ways. Affirmative interest is important; we shouldn't overly rely on sites where no one has expressed interest. I don't want to cut down the buffer. I'd like to see, when these maps get back, publicly owned sites. I don't want to see us lose ownership, but I'd like to see them on the table as an option for discussion. Overwhelmingly we heard yes to townhomes and mixed densities. You can sell them as you build, so that's a great option for probabilities, and our mid-income needs, because a lot of that's naturally affordable. I endorse dedicated teacher and first responder housing. Maybe with partnerships or publicly owned land. VTA has indicated interest. I'd like to include churches; for me, it's not to get rid of them, but they can often use part of their parking for affordable housing. I don't see how we get to our affordable numbers with what we have. Maybe there's an opportunity for overlay zoning or other ideas. Other than that, I think we have the ingredients we need for success. Also, don't assume that it's impossible for higher-density sites to look like Campbell.

​

Bybee: Thanks to staff and consultants for presentation, to the public for their contributions. I heard from a lot of participants that it doesn't make sense to put high density into a residential neighborhood. We must maintain the character of our city and increase density where it's appropriate. So near the light rail, along Bascom, along Hamilton, along Winchester. There are some locations not on the map which should be on there. We should look at city property, like the garage on First Street. I endorse 3-4-5. We shouldn't sell off the Community Center. The Campbell Tech Park is interesting, has some challenges, we should definitely explore it.

​

Gibbons: I've taken copious notes. I'll explain my angst. Probably ties back to my working on Plan 2050 for three years, and I've seen those maps. I've seen HCD's maps of Opportunity Sites, and the Department of Finance's. It was just a piece of paper with diagrams. There was no context, no sense of community, no awareness of what makes Campbell, Campbell. I understand the requirements and how it's helpful. We're doing a lot of things. We're doing bike lanes [are we?], we're doing complete streets, that contribute to where housing could go. I mentioned the light rail going to Hacienda. I agree that it's unlikely, but HCD and ABAG did it. Not every project needs to be next to a transit line. VTA had a spur, they've shut it down. Are they going to double-track the Vasona line? Unlikely, because they didn't double-track over 17. Transit oriented development is not viable; we don't have viable public transit. There are places we can all agree on, like the Fry's site. The Shell station, the Staples. San Tomas Aquino and Hamilton. We're talking about making Bascom and Camden Neighborhood Commercial, but can we change it so that NC includes housing above? What is it that we can do to clarify that the plan isn't so surgical that it loses the context of what makes Campbell, Campbell. There's a lot of old neighborhoods here. Behind Greylands, there's a neighborhood of houses going back a hundred years. Just because they're near the light rail? What's the right fit, the right context, the right balance. And I do appreciate all the effort it took to put them together. I commend you for trying, but I'm struggling because it doesn't seem to address where we want to end up. It tells us what we can do within these constraints, but it doesn't tell us what we can be and still be Campbell. I don't know how clear I am on that. We can go over some of your questions and provide you more specific direction. Would Councilmembers like to develop the Community Center? (Landry: yes, on the one side; Bybee: no; Lopez: is this too specific?) Eastwood: I've heard 4-5 clear themes from all of you. I think we have enough to go with.

​

Eastwood: Do you want to consider city-owned sites for affordable housing at all? Gibbons: it's a valid question, but we can't answer it at such a high level. Resnikoff: Public sites aren't all equal. I think there's a value to looking at public sites, and I don't think this is the day for it. I'm going to give you some homework, get the pros and cons for these sites. G: We're missing the whole southern part of Winchester Ave, and there's real potential there. E: It's hard to get through, say, 150 sites in a single meeting. As you get into CEQA, you start with the broader impacts, and narrow down. We're trying to get a little elbow room for you to have after the next meeting. G: Is there a way to broaden the decision across the city, for other sites? E: Any input anyone has on sites, we're open to it. I'm sure we missed some sites, and we put some infeasible ones in. I know that in some areas, like San Tomas, the consultants looked pretty hard, and there just aren't reasonable sites. G: It seems like the balloon has lost air so quickly. Making a one-size-fits-all point of being near light rail, might work on one side of Winchester and not the other. That context gets lost. Lopez: In defense of the process, it sounds like that's what will happen in the next step.

​

Gibbons: So, what can we do? Eastwood: We have enough feedback on the options. I think you're open to public sites. We have a list of five or six. G: Lot of struggling churches, too. Lopez: It's important to me that when we come back, we have some strategy to meet our affordable numbers. Churches or city-owned could be part of that. We could get to that by the next discussion. E: We're having an affordable-housing outreach meeting next week, a meeting with housing developers in general, the business community next week, and at least some of the property owners. L: What about a ministerial group? E: That's a very good idea; we're also meeting with schools, we've initiated those discussions. Bybee: What about public school sites no longer used for public schools? E: There's room for them to use sites, and they may be interested in using them for teacher housing there. G: In Mountain View, there are 6 people working on it, and it takes 6-7 funding sources for each project. It's incredibly complex. Landry: we're seeing schools dwindle, yes, but we're going to need them if we're adding this many new people!

​

Gibbons: Say we have fifteen minutes left. Each member can give any extra commentary, then staff can ask any leftover questions.

​

Lopez: I'm open to looking at things further south on the map, if that makes sense. I'll emphasize the townhomes again, because that was important to a number of speakers, seeing how we can plan for that. Hopefully you're also getting feedback from schools and churches about whether they actually want this.

​

Bybee: I want it to be well thought out and balanced and maintain the character of our neighborhoods.

​

Landry: I appreciate the dialogue and the conversation here. Maintain Campbell's small-town charm. I like to say we're the cute little town, the darling of Silicon Valley. The best we can do is try to save it as much as possible.

​

Resnikoff: I support a hybrid, 3-4-5, that fits into our neighborhoods. I want to consider the unintended consequences of a density bonus. We can't prevent an excess of 75-foot height... unless we zone it so that can't happen. What are the impacts of loss of services, of density bonuses. (Gibbons: The density bonus supersedes our height limits?! Staff: Yes.) If that's a concern in that area, we may have to scale back that area.

​

Lopez: I want to add to the consensus; we should maintain a mix of uses. Commercial uses, churches, schools. We should add on rather than replace.

​

Gibbons: The city is changing, it needs to change, I think that's fine. We need to do it thoughtfully, to understand the unintended consequences, the impacts on the neighborhoods, the traffic patterns. Look for the places that are obvious first. Let's not get hung up on transit-oriented everything, the world is bigger than that. We have a great creek trail. There are things people can use to get to public transit, assuming it proves viable. Thank you, everyone. And unit size--what kind of changes can we do that support affordable housing? I live in an 800sf 2BR. I don't know how to work that with the development community, but 70 du/ac at 800sf rather than 1500sf, we can do so much more. What out-of-the-box things can we do that target the low-low kind of things. There was a great exhibit in Washington DC with walls that made one or two units, the design flexibility was phenomenal. I'd like to hope we can do this in a way that encourages meeting the low-low and affordable in ways that isn't just attuned to what the market will bear for a high-tech worker.

​

Eastwood: We have upcoming stakeholder meetings. November 22 (affordable housing), November 23 (chamber of commerce), and November 30 (residential developers). Community outreach on December 1. If this needs to spill into January, we may be able to do that. Policy topics will follow into 2022.

​

Highlights

- The public outreach was significantly lacking, especially toward young people, workers not living in Campbell, and Spanish speakers. Despite that, there was no significant or organized opposition to more housing. People from the San Tomas area didn't want more housing in their area, and because it's a single-use desert devoid of food, shopping, parks, and schools, the AFFH rubric agrees with them.

- I asked if we could create more high-resource areas by adding parks or shopping in places without them, but that's apparently part of the General Plan discussion, which was had before we saw the AFFH resource maps. Since we're doing the Housing Element and General Plan updates together, it seems silly to take the amenities as unchangeable.

- Staff miscalculated the city's ADU production (overestimated by about +50%), then said that they were confident they could convince HCD that they'd outstrip the safe-harbor provisions.

- Staff's proposals significantly exceeded the 45 du/ac maximum proposed at the General Plan meeting. Staff proposed upzoning to 75 du/ac around VTA light rail stations and 60 du/ac on commercial corridors or shopping centers. Note that the current maximum density in Campbell is 27 du/ac. All of the proposals have well over 3k units of capacity, some closer to 6k.

- Several members of the Planning Commission brought up, and staff was receptive to, the idea of how likely a site is to be developed, and suggested independently that the city should have a "buffer" much larger than the 30% that the consultants had proposed.

- The consensus was that we should combine elements of the "Density Near Transit", "Revitalize Shopping Centers", and "Along Commercial Corridors" proposals to make our plan, and add in sites that had developer interest as well.

- I almost forgot to ask for my own neighborhood (south of Campbell, easy of CA-17, west of Union) to be upzoned! Chair Ostrowski mentioned it, and I heartily concurred.

- tl;dr, this went really damned well.

Raw Notes

This is the big one, the Housing Element item, PLN-2021-12. The goal tonight is to provide feedback on the Draft Methodology for our Housing Opportunity Site Inventory. Basically, figure out the broad policies, not the specific sites.

​

Random notes in advance (using 2019 ACS estimates):

- A fifth of the city is under eighteen. One of 274 respondents was. (1/274 is about 0.4%; the site lists 0.3%.) The city did not reach out to the Youth Commission; I attended on November 8 and sent a letter. We clearly could do better.

- The survey appears to be unavailable in Spanish. Switching the language only switches the UI. Might be why a fifth of the city is Hispanic, but only one fourteenth of respondents were.

- Only one in twenty-five respondents work here but live elsewhere. If we're concerned that people in service jobs can't afford to live here, why are we doing such a poor job of outreach?

- Agenda page 78: 20 du/ac should be 30 du/ac, but even then, is that naturally-affordable? What do developers say? (I've mailed Rob in advance about this.)

​

Key items for discussion:

1. The Housing Allocation Target: how many units must the city accommodate?

    a. We are basing this entirely on ABAG's allocation, rather than, say, what the city would need to do for market-rate housing to accommodate moderate-income people? (Though below, we're shooting for more than 3k in site capacity, at least.)

2. The Housing Unit Baseline: how many units don't depend on Opportunity Sites?

    a. Attachment 3 lists "preliminary applications", though those aren't counted yet.

    b. It still seems premature to count the 71 under-review units. Those have a high probability of development, but are in no way a done deal. There's a discretionary process! Sites Inventory Guidebook, page 6: "Jurisdictions may choose to credit sites with pending projects since the beginning of the RHNA projection period towards their RHNA based on affordability and unit count within the proposed project but must demonstrate the units can be built within the remaining planning period."

    c. The ADU calculation is incorrect. ("Over the last three years (from 2018 to 2020), 100 ADUs were built in the city of Campbell.") The city permitted 5, 8, and 54; that's 67 total, or 22 1/3 per year, which rounds out to 179, not 280. The safe harbor provisions depend on building permits, and even if they didn't, we haven't permitted a hundred ADUs since 2014!

    d. It seems a bit much that between a quarter and a fifth of market-feasible SB 9 lots will be converted during the cycle. Can you go into more detail there?

3. The Housing Opportunity Mapping Process: how do we re-use sites, how do we identify new ones?

    a. Note that the default density is 30 du/ac, not 20, since our MSA is now over 2M people. But we should also ask what densities or other approaches would be needed in order for these places to be naturally-affordable at various income levels.

    b. I see the best places to concentrate growth as being near the Downtown Campbell and Winchester stations; they're nearest our walkable areas, and Hamilton is kinda office-park-strip-mall-ish.

4. Which residential densities and housing types can be planned for Opportunity Sites?

    a. Yes on the 60 du/ac mixed-use shopping areas. Yes on the 75 du/ac around train stations.

    b. The point of the 20 du/ac minimum (well, 30 du/ac, really) is to presume affordability. What's required to actually do that?

5. Presentation of public feedback.

    a. See above; we've really dropped the ball on who we've gotten feedback from.

6. Presentation of options

    a. These are... actually good! Option 3 is the most appealing to me, as it combines higher capacity along with lower likely VMT, and it's certainly very popular with the neighbors! But can we consider these options as overlapping modules? What if our expectations don't pan out and we need to do a mid-cycle adjustment? Or we fail to pass our programs? We should have a ranked list of changes, from most to least preferable. Is the modifier upzoning or downzoning? If it's moving to 30 du/ac, is it still downzoning?

​

Post-bio-break, we're all back, down from 37 to 34 members of the public, which is... less good. There will be space for questions and comments after the discussion of RHNA, after the survey results, and after the policy options. Back up to 36 attendees. Got my ume soda. Time to party.

​

Director Eastwood gives us an overview. We're combining the General Plan and Housing Element updates. Our certification deadline is January 2023, which means we need to kick off our EIR by January 2022, and in order to do that, we need to nail down our land use changes. We did a study session in October, and now they're getting feedback from us. In December, the draft Land Use Plan (including the Housing Element) should be complete. We spend next year doing the goals, policies, and programs. Preferred opportunity sites are in December, but tonight is just Housing Opportunity Site Methodology. There's more outreach on December 1, plus focus group meetings with developers later this month, to get feasibility information.

​

Geoff Bradley of M-Group reiterates our RHNA allocation ("They received numerous appeals, all of which were rejected."), plus a thirty percent buffer. Notes that more than half of our allocation is below AMI. Goes over pipeline projects, ADUs, SB 9 estimates. Notes that available Fifth Cycle sites comprise 1,108 potential units (which haven't been developed), which will require by-right development for 20% BMR housing (and at least 20, no 30, du/ac, right?).

​

My notes: ADU calculations are incorrect, and why are we counting un-approved projects as a done deal? Rose says my point is "well taken"; "we were rounding up", and we just need to provide a rationale to HCD. (That's a... bold move.) On pending projects, there's a lot of discretion there; Bradley believes it's better to count them on the pipeline side. (Which has to reflect actual affordability levels; opportunity sites can count default-density levels.) "Obviously, the default density alone isn't enough."

​

Krey: are we calculating SB9/ADU as BMR? Bradley: ADUs use an accepted methodology based on regional surveys; we have the county-wide Planning Collaborative doing that. I think they were 90% BMR in a previous survey, and it might be like that this time around. SB9, there's no track record, and the law doesn't mandate anything. Some of them might be naturally smaller/more affordable, but we're going to err on the side of caution and estimate that they're all AMI.

​

Kamkar: these units that were allocated to our city, they need to actually be built within this eight-year period, right, now just incentivized? Bradley: when the building permit is issued, it's counted; that's the end of the city's discretion. There's nothing in the city's control 99% of the time--it's going to get built once there's a building permit.

​

Ostrowski: on income levels, what constitutes affordable housing? Is it the rent or the cost for a given size or number of bedrooms? Bradley: it's based on the size of the household and the total income level of the household; once that's known, the housing cost shouldn't exceed a third of the household income. AMI in the county is over $150k/year for a four-person family. A four-person family earning half of that is VLI. There's an application process, so only people who make enough but not too much, and have good enough credit, can get the housing. (So the expectation for larger spaces is that they'd be occupied by a larger family?) Yes.

​

Dave Hogan on Opportunity Sites Mapping. There are multiple criteria. AFFH entails access to transit, social resources, avoiding racially or ethnically concentrated areas of poverty (of which we have very little). So we want proximity to: light rail, bus stops, commercial services, food stores, parks, public schools, at a half-mile radius. There's a composite score map, which is excellent, rating every parcel from -2 to 7. Opportunity sites are further selected with leftover sites from previous elements, parcels of a certain size, old buildings, vacant or underutilized lots, parking lots, school and church sites, and places which developers have expressed interest in. Shows us some examples of 45 du/ac, 60 du/ac (in Campbell, 300 Railway!). Eastwood notes that the City Council hasn't decided to use its city-owned sites like that.

​

Christabel Soria Mendoza introduces herself with pronouns, which I guess indicates that she's the youngest person here. Describes pop-up booths at Oktoberfest and farmer's market, postcards, website, survey. (bit.ly/campbell-take-survey is a lot easier to remember!) We're up to 341 survey respondents. Up to 12% non-residents now. 7% Hispanic, essentially none under 18. It would be helpful to compare these inputs to the demographic breakdown of the city's residents. Assures us that Spanish feedback was solicited. Number one criterion is neighborhood character, which I am... skeptical of. Top line responses: more densities, more affordable, more housing, should be transit-oriented, and should be located near needed services. Suggestions for opportunity sites were near light rail, shopping centers, major arterial sites, industrial areas near Dell Ave, school and church sites. Most popular housing types were townhouse/rowhouse, mixed-use, then SFHs. Least popular were ADUs and large apartment buildings, go figure.

​

My comments: 30 du/ac, not 20, because our MSA is just over 2M people as of the 2020 Census. Can we consider zoning for services like food stores or parks in the places that are poorly-served? Obviously we can't build our own transit, but what about the rest? Places which have good transit service but not enough amenities? (Downtown is poorly served, while my home is higher-scoring? Maybe it's the TJ's?) Eastwood: it's part of the housing-element discussion; it's in-scope if it's mixed use, but we'll pass it along.

​

My comments: it would be helpful to compare these responses to the city's demographics. I note that young people, workers who live elsewhere, and Hispanic people, are notably underrepresented. I did outreach to the Youth Commission yesterday, talked to the local Scout troops and school districts, and am making bilingual flyers to post in the local Safeway break rooms, but the survey is only in English. Eastwood: "We can look into that." Hogan: "We noticed the gaps as well."

​

Krey: I read that you need at least 60 du/ac for BMR projects to pencil. Is that right? (Hogan: I've heard that, but I can't back it up or refute it.) Krey: are Los Gatos and San Jose rezoning to 60 or 70 du/ac? (I don't know.) Bradley: San Jose's Urban Villages get to that level of density. Los Gatos's highest densities are much lower. Fama: a lot of cities are in the same boat as us, so current densities are subject to change. As to what level of density pencils out, we've been reaching out to affordable-housing developers. VTA notes that they look for 75-100 du/ac, with FAR 3-5.

​

Zisser: there's no way we can get to 40-50% affordable housing without looking for dedicated affordable development. The thing that jumps out at me on the mapping is that a third to half of the city gets little or no opportunity sites. I'm not going to make any friends by pointing out that this is due to the San Tomas Area Neighborhood Plan, which has emphasized SFHs and no commercial development. Is there any concern that there's a large swath of the city which won't be impacted here? Bradley: Good observation. We've discussed that internally, and under AFFH, we're obliged to break down barriers to fair housing, which means people of all incomes should be able to live in areas that are good to live in, and near resources. So we've been brainstorming the use of ADUs and SB9. SB10 doesn't get as much airtime, but it allows projects up to about ten units on any parcel, but the city would need to adopt that as a policy and a program; unlike SB9, it's not "a lightning bolt coming down from Sacramento". It's intended to encourage missing-middle, which can be an important ingredient to providing affordable housing and opening up the San Tomas area. There's not a lot of sites that are good for affordable housing there, so we have to get creative.

​

Ostrowski: I had the same observation as Commissioner Zisser. There are large, single-family lots. Based on the state laws that have changed the direction of single-family neighborhoods to provide fair and affordable housing... my feedback would be that we should see how we can better utilize a lot of that land. Yes, it may be a single-family home on a large lot, but with changes to zoning, through the city providing the opportunity to redevelop, I can see pockets or intersections with a variety of housing units for various income levels and an opportunity for the community to interact together, have a mixed-use development, a coffee shop, a small grocery or convenience store, a playground, and a bar. One of the issues we have right now is that people are interacting via Amazon and Zoom after COVID, and we're getting isolated as a community. If we don't work on that, we're going to lose that as a community. It'll be interesting to hear from the public. If I lived there, I'd want a place to walk my kids and meet my neighbors, and there's not much there. I hope that more people are taking light rail and public transit, but... I hope there will be a desire to use public transit. Mentions self-driving cars and Boring Company. (I will be polite about this, darn it.)

​

Zisser: Converting non-vacant sites... it's 10-12%. Commissioner Buchbinder said the buffer should be bigger, and I agree. We can do a 50% buffer, We can do something bigger. If 80 or 90% of the sites are in use in some way, then the buffer of 30% isn't going to make it. Can we consider to make a higher buffer, if not a 30% buffer? (Ostrowski: that's a really good suggestion; if we're planning for the future, not just the next 7-8 years, it's to provide zoning for more possibilities, so we should have a larger buffer.)

​

Ching: I like the idea of doing this around a village. I come from a high-density country. I've seen it work well, and not. It works well when high-density mixed-use is build around a park, a cafe, an open area, a public place for people to be. I think there's some opportunities for us to do that. Look at 300 Railway; it's 60 du/ac, and you think it'll be a problem, but it's manageable. It was looked at thoughtfully in terms of open space. Maybe we can use school playing fields as open spaces, rather than building on them.

​

Ostrowski: is the bike trail considered transit? Hogan: it's considered a park or open space rather than rapid transit. Bradley: even though the creek trail carries a lot of bikes, the guidance around AFFH is very specific to only count bus and rail. So we can only count is as a park. O: What about Dell Area? Bradley: it's industrial, so we want to be very careful about this. It doesn't score high in terms of being close to resources. We didn't count a potential rail stop at Hacienda; it's in a 20-year timeframe. It's purely industrial, business. O: In combination with what Zisser said and increasing the buffer, it might make sense looking at that as an opportunity site. Bradley: we'd probably start at the Los Gatos end near the Netflix building.

​

Now, the public!

​

Susan O'Brien: contract worker for the city, 26-year resident. Support options 3, 4, 5, and potential adjustment factor for medium-high factor. Will provide growth and maintain character. Thanks everyone for their hard work.

​

Raja (Pallela?): I wonder if this is about creating housing or just low-income housing. I don't see the new potential sites based on school capacity. I don't see the sites where schools can accommodate them. And most of the sites are in places where income levels are relatively low. We could be like Santana Row, and we just have this vacant industrial area. I feel there's short-sightedness; Dell has access on both sides, most people still drive. I hope you'll plan for more than eight years and three thousand units, plan for six thousand. Affordable housing is expensive. Robson noted STANP being a problem, which prohibits people from using SB9. Note that Hacienda Ave is an arterial; there's a bus line going from the light rail station to (the college?). This city is developed; looking for vacant sites is pointless. I'd recommend anything over 0.5ac should allow high-density development.

​

Michael Stevens: my wife and I have lived in Campbell for 20 years; my wife was born here at Good Sam and works here. For nurses, for firefighters, we want there to be affordable housing in our communities. We want them to have the same opportunity to live here. We support the state's ambition to make sure future Campbellites can live here. We're concerned about putting super-high-density places in small suburbs that weren't planned for that. We want these things built near where this is going to be mass transit. Pruneyard, Fry's, Staples, Elephant Bar seem to be prime locations. It's not not-in-my-backyard, it's just about finding people places to live near where there's going to be mass transit. We could build Santana Row Plus Plus where people would really like to be.

​

Rob: if you look at the map of the proposed sites, most of the development is inside the triangle of Hamilton, San Tomas, CA-17. It seems like you've codified NIMBYism. You're going to see high-density housing at the entrance, and not elsewhere. I'd recommend finding other opportunities to disperse the residents among the entire city. Find ways to add ADUs and amenities so they don't get left off the map next time.

​

Allen Ishibashi: third-generation Campbell resident, really like living here. Used to work for San Jose Redevelopment Agency. I feel that option 3 is best for Campbell. There are only so many developers, construction workers, and so on, so developers will only build on the most profitable sites. The market supports transit-oriented walkable developments near light rail. It also comes down to lower-density car-served townhome-type developments, which also pencil out. Also good for GHG emissions.

​

Guilian Gao: I'm new to Campbell; I just moved from West San Jose, and we came here to buy a house. We came here for the small-town environment. We want to keep that. For that reason, the Community Center as an opportunity site would really change the character. Some areas are suitable for high-density development; I agree with Allen. Places with transit and other resources.

​

James Sullivan: I'm a Campbell resident, 17 years, three kids. I wanted to build 70-80 units on the Rolling Hills shopping center, but could only build 30. I want to comment on those ADUs and SB9 projects in those southwest areas. The nice thing is that you can go from one to four units. The biggest challenge we'll face is the low and very-low income units. We provide 15% MI. I brought up in-lieu fees; cities have been able to use those fees to help low-income builders. I'm a huge proponent of ADUs because it's a really good way to get those BMR numbers.

​

Oleksii Kuchaiev: I've lived here for eight years and have two daughters who go to school here. I believe that high density belongs near the transit. It makes the quality of housing better, and makes the transit better. Putting them together helps them both improve. High density in a low-density area doesn't make sense. Everyone would drive. Please stand up for residents here. If you look at the percentage of new housing, we're getting more than Los Gatos, and I don't understand why we have that 30% bonus, I don't understand why that's there. But we have a chance to improve the quality of transit, do shops over restaurants, I think it makes a lot of sense, improve both housing and transit.

​

Carolyn Field: Sixteen-year resident of Campbell. Asking us to consider a transit-oriented approach. Most cities on the peninsula and east bay and Dublin and Contra Costa county have made big strides on big mixed-use developments near Caltrain. There are a number of projects in the South Bay now, like Google's Downtown West. I'm asking to preserve the character of lower-density residential neighborhoods and plan for higher density near rail stations. Look into revisiting the possibility of a Hacienda VTA station that was voted down in 2019. Developing the community center would be... terrible.

​

Janette Rupp: What Carolyn said and Allen said resonated with me. I haven't heard yet, but I think it's important that new higher density is adjacent to like density, so you don't have low right next to high density, to maintain the character of the local community. Also having green space in the middle. We're leaning toward being a cement city, so whatever we can do to incorporate the green spaces is beneficial. And they should have adequate space for cars. Even next to transit, they're going to have cars, maybe not one per adult, but still cars, because our public transit is limited.

​

Scott Connelly: One thing I haven't heard come up in terms of the larger sites, a lot of them are encumbered by long-term leases, like the Kohl's site at Hamilton and 17, the renovated 10-acre shopping site at Hamilton at San Tomas Aquino. Maybe the M-Group could touch on the fact that... having a site score well is one thing, but as I understand it, sites have to not have an encumbering lease over the next eight years, which is why some of last cycle's list didn't get developed. A tenant with a ten year lease with three five-year options isn't going to walk away from that.

​

Perry Oza: was a resident of Campbell, but now rent out their old house. Wants to support more high-density units near public transit areas. Our townhome is in Latimer Circle, and one of the questions we get from tenants is access to Hamilton. High density housing is going to create traffic congestion. Campbell does have certain transit areas where high density would be much more appropriate.

​

And that's public comment. Now, broad policy options for our feedback.

​

Rose: the maps we've seen are different ways to visualize data. Proximity to various resources. Let's revisit the baseline target. We have five options outlined in the staff report. We indicated that we'd be providing graphics in a desk item, and I'll be going over them here.

​

Option 1, "Preferred Land Use Map Approach". Take remaining sites from the fifth cycle, upzone them to 45 du/ac, as suggested by our GPAC, which gets us to 2750 units. Option 2, "Preferred Land Use Map + Potential Sites Based on HCD Criteria". Modified based on AFFH policy, redevelopment probability, up to 45 du/ac. Added sites get 20 du/ac, which gets us to 4500 units. Option 3, "Density Near Transit". Takes the option 2 sites, and applies 75 du/ac to HDR and RCPO sites within a half-mile of a light rail station. This gets us to 5800 units. Also we added Fry's at 75 du/ac because we heard about it so much. Option 4, "Revitalize Shopping Centers", 60 du/ac for parking garages and shopping centers, 4500 units. Option 5, "Housing Along Commercial Corridors". Prioritize Hamilton, Winchester, Bascom at 60 du/ac. Up to 6500 units. Note that these options include a large buffer, which means we can refine them and make sure they're more realistic. And now, discussion.

​

Kamkar: How realistic are we? We have the acreage, we have the multiplier, but how realistic is it that developers will actually develop those lots? We should have a... realistic factor or safety factor. We should have a safety factor there. Looking back at the RHNA numbers, we've done this before, what was our so-called success rate? We can call it a success rate, and we can apply it to these numbers. Rose: we weren't as successful in our lower-income ranges, for sure. We exceeded our market-rate targets. Practically... I've heard some comments about our baseline and our buffer. We're targeting to exceed. Something we haven't talked about tonight, but I've heard at City Council, is that developers can use a density bonus of up to 80% on top of that to increase that even further. (75*1.8 = 135.) We're going to get into practical reality of individual sites developing going forward. I think that's a good question, going forward, looking into feasibility. K: My second question, we heard from several public speakers, mentioned in-lieu fees to generate lowest-level affordable housing. We should look to and incentivize affordable-housing developers. Maybe these sites have leases or conditions, so the owners can't participate even if they want to. Maybe we should combine strategies.

​

Krey: We should figure out how to determine whether or not a site is developable. Have we done any calculations on how much commercial space we can lose without that being a revenue problem for the city? Rose: we'll be revamping the city's economic development plan as part of the fiscal analysis. K: We should be careful about where we put the 75 du/ac, and be careful about our heights. The El Paseo redevelopment in San Jose is for two nine, one eleven, and one twelve-story projects. This is way more than 55 du/ac. It's a huge site. Maybe there are some sites in Campbell where you can go six or seven stories; I don't know if we want to do that, the community character gets out of whack. I think the M-Group did a great report.

​

Rivlin: I think if you remove a mall for development, the mall was probably in use, and adding more housing would just increase the use of that space. If we add ten thousand citizens to Campbell, all of our commercial space would benefit. I think commercial spaces should become mixed-use. Option three is a no-brainer. If we start to activate the light rail where we have it, I think we can even make cases for future expansion. VTA is focusing their funding into BART, so we're unlikely to see that, but it's worth focusing on the stations we have. I don't know why we wouldn't do all of them, but 3, 4, and 5 make perfect sense. And I don't think we should lose the community center. It's a gem. Maybe we can add some affordable housing or community benefit, but it's a space that we should retain as a city, even if we have to look at other locations.

​

Ching: M-Group did a great job putting this together. Some really insightful and good comments from the community. To echo the other commissioners, I don't think it's just one thing, but 3/4/5 seem like good ideas. You won't get everything you need out of just one of them, because of development challenges. Look at Dell, Campbell Science Park, though I'm not sure how the transit into the park would be arranged. The potential to have a village near the park is there, that could be quite attractive if you could manage the transit. On option three, locating high-density near public transit would help hit critical mass, along with an increase in the FAR, to incentivize investment into transit.

​

Zisser: Good input from the residents. I'm in accord with many of the other commissioners. Why would we pick one option over others? There should be a combination of 3, 4, 5. We should be looking at a combination of these for appropriate densities. I'd want to incorporate some school and church sites. I think some people are confused, or I am, about shopping center development. I thought we weren't talking about knocking down plazas, but adding on to them because of extra parking space that they have. There should be a combination, because 3000 is a tough target. I noticed that the Pruneyard had suggested replacing the newly-approved office building with a residential building, and I endorse that. Rose: the commercial shopping centers--we're not assuming that the entire San Tomas shopping center would be demolished and replaced. We're talking about "right-sizing" oceans of underutilized parking. Same thing for redevelopment of church sites--we're just talking about redeveloping part of a large parking lot. Also with the community center, we're targeting the parking lots, generally. Not to get ahead of the Council, but that's the idea.

​

My comments: Thank you, Stephen, for the presentation, and for the maps. Option three is clearly the winner here. It's a winner from a VMT/GHG perspective, it hits the high-resource areas, it literally ticks all the boxes, and it's very popular with the commenters. (Are we assuming that, for example, the entire Pruneyard would be razed and rebuilt at 60 du/ac? Rose: No.) I'm pretty sure we can't count potential density bonuses in our Housing Element, though of course the actual building counts. We should get feedback from developers. The gold standard is probably Los Angeles' econometric model, but we should at least commit to do another round of rezoning if we get this totally wrong. We can score sites based on density, parking requirements, existing leases, developer interest, and include multipliers. Note also that we have to increase FARs to make these developments possible, as VTA noted. We should have tranches of possibilities, which can stack if we need to. Come up with a combined score--count near-light-rail higher. For the add-on, what's the density required to legalize townhomes along bus routes like Hacienda? It's the most popular housing type on the survey! I hear support for options 4 and 5; I think sites from option 3 should be the highest priority, but I doubt we'll have three thousand units of slam-dunk development in the bag right away just from that.

​

Ostrowski: Green space is really important for mental health. There's a lot of support for options 3, 4, and 5, but option 1, while it doesn't suffice on its own, the existing high-density like along Union with the apartments there, if there's a developer and it makes sense to build or replace over time, I don't think we should be excluding that. We're talking about re-intensifying areas that we'd selected as higher-density. Where do we do more of that? Instead of two or three stories, it becomes four to six stories in that area between Union and 17, for example. (I chime in to strongly agree with this idea, maybe up to 45 du/ac and reduced parking requirements in that area.) Do we want to consider a cap once we reach a certain number of units over this eight-year plan? What if developers just keep building? Eastwood: No jurisdiction has run into that in the Bay Area. It would be amazing. We'd have very low RHNA next time. I hope we're in that desirable problem state, where we're too successful. O: So if we get there, the next RHNA cycle will credit us? E: I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, but arguably if we meet demand, HCD/ABAG would see that we're not desperately low on supply. Rose: Once we designate a site as dense, we can't downzone it due to No Net Loss, without upzoning elsewhere. We can't say no, too much, we're stopping.

​

Kamkar: I was going to be supportive of your cap idea, but it sounds like Planner Rose beat me to it. Putting my developer hat on, if I see a cap, I'd be more interested in developing in that community, the cap tells you that opportunity is limited. But they know better, so I'll follow their lead. Rose: we're just talking about the Housing Opportunity sites right now, but next year we're talking about policies, so you could have expedited processes up to a certain unit count or the like, but you can't do a drawbridges-up no-more-building thing. K: Also in agreement with chair Ostrowski that we shouldn't close opportunities, 3, 4, and 5 are the best, but even if we get 100 or 200 units from 1 or 2, I hope we don't close our eyes to those possibilities. Thank you.

​

Next Steps. Geoff Bradley: our recommendations will go to the City Council on November 17, Community Outreach meeting on December 1, finalized site maps presented to PC and CC in December. Based on direction in December, staff will finalize the Site Inventory Maps and Land Use Plan for the EIR. Future topics include the use of city-owned sites, AFFH, and policies to encourage the construction of affordable housing. (For example, sliding density scales, where small units count as less than one unit.) And that is a wrap!

Summary

This was the second of these meetings that I attended. There was some concern about too many Planning Commissioners attending, but apart from me, none did this evening. (Though everyone had their cameras off, and many didn't speak, so someone could have been there incognito, I guess. It seems unlikely.) I was impressed by how much staff and consultants both genuinely seemed to want to get people's input and to solve the problem.

​

Highlights from the discussion:

- Allen Ishibashi explicitly asked about development feasibility, and Geoff Bradley (the lead from M-Group, the Housing Element contractor) assured him that if we couldn't show similar projects already being built, we'd have a "very steep hill to climb".

- A woman named Lizz (no last name given, unfortunately) is a single disabled woman, and described a years-long nightmare of waitlists and bureaucracy. Contractors and staff both encouraged her to stay involved, as they have a hard time getting input from people like her.

- David Bamba is a veteran and middle school teacher, living in a sub-1000 square foot household with eight people in it, unable to qualify for BMR housing because of the size of the household and unable to afford it on his own.

- Michael Giluso owns property in Campbell (2470 S Winchester) zoned P-D, general plan use RCPO (Commercial/Professional Office/Residential), which he's been unable to get a developer interested in for six months straight, and may have to lease out as office space again. Said that people didn't want to work with the city.

- Bill Baron is Managing Partner of Brandenburg Properties, a large real estate investment and development firm in San Jose. He applauded our city's approach, and emphasized the "honesty factor", the importance of transparency. I'm going to send him a writeup about pretextual planning and how I discovered that the city's parking standards aren't based on anything to do with parking.

- Stephen Rose, Senior Planner for the city, stated outright that to realistically get 1700 BMR homes, we're probably going to have to zone for more than 3000 total homes. (We're looking at Measure A funding, but it'll all only go so far.)

​

On one level, it's great that we had about forty people there. On another, it's pretty sad that in a city of over forty thousand (and more who work but don't live here!), literally one in a thousand residents showed up for this.

​

Raw Notes

​

This is the second of three Community Meetings that the city is doing. I'm mostly here to listen and take notes. This meeting is recorded. I see thirty-nine participants, none of whom (thus far) are Planning Commission members. My understanding is that this is... somewhat more focused on the business community than on the residential one. I think.

​

Staff here is Director Eastwood and Planner Rose. M-Group represented by Geoff Bradley, David Hogan, and Christabel Soria Mendoza, the latter of whom is providing Spanish translation services and offering her address (csoriamendoza@m-group.us) for contact. The informational presentation will be the same; the polling/discussion portions will be the interesting part. We're sent to menti.com as before (code 3845 7599, this time). We're cautioned to be disrespectful, not to call names, don't interrupt, share the meeting, all input is welcome. Just about everyone is video-muted, so I'm following suit.

​

First word-cloud question: what do you like about living here? I kick it off with downtown/farmer's market/walkability. The most popular words seem to be... downtown, walkability, small town feel, small town, neighborhoods, pruneyard. Bradley tells us that the Plan for Housing (i.e., the Housing Element) is a high-level eight-year plan involving both a map and a set of policies and programs. Describes the justification being the housing shortage, it's an opportunity to shape Campbell's future... and it's required by law. Our challenges: essential workers condemned to long commutes, young people displaced from their families, communities of color and non-English speakers in overcrowded or unsafe conditions. Lists our Special Needs Populations. The part here that seems important to me is the inclusion of "People Experiencing Homelessness". Also mentions AFFH, which I really should learn about.

​

RHNA is the process by which our regional government, ABAG, apportions a number to us by a very complicated and community-involved process, and we're mandated to follow their rule. The big news is that ABAG has gone from 188k to 441k, Santa Clara County from 59k to 126k, and Campbell from 1k to 3k. (But, of course, this understates the impact of the fact that these numbers mean something now.) This is compared to last cycle's performance by income level. The question hanging over all of this is, of course, what on earth can we do to do better? As before, affordability levels are described in terms of job descriptions.

​

Question time! Allen Ishibashi: I was at the study session. Is a feasibility analysis part of your work? A planner can put numbers wherever they want, but will a builder actually build there? This seems vitally important. Bradley: we're required to reach out to the development community to determine what they need to make things feasible, and we have to take into account existing development trends. If we can't show equivalent projects having been built, we have a very steep hill to climb. Examples are better than technical analysis. Rose: I'd add that there are governmental and non-governmental constraints. We look at our fees, as well as things we can't control, like the cost of lumber and steel, or the value of land. We'll provide a regional analysis of that.

​

Lizz: I'm a disabled single woman. Will you be talking about accessibility? Not just wheelchair accessibility, but financially accessible for people on social security disability. The waiting is intolerable. Sounds like some important things might be changing and I'm hopeful about that. Bradley: I encourage you to stay involved in this process so that you can help us in addition to our own research. Cities struggle to get focus input from people in those groups. Anything you can do to give us your input would be very much appreciated. Lizz: I recently had an appointment with some housing specialists, asking about opportunities that might be in place, and they didn't even know about the program. Might be because a lot is changing. I'd be thrilled to be more involved.

​

William Baron: I'm curious about the older RHNA numbers. We targeted 900-some units. Where are we in respect to that target now, and does your 30% notwithstanding HCD's recommendation of a 15-30% buffer number... where might your recommendation of 30% come in? Bradley: I'll ask Stephen to talk about fifth cycle progress. Rose: we previously had a slide, but I can just say we're 75% of the way through our cycle, so we should be 75% of the way there in all categories. But we're under 5% done in our BMR categories, and overachieving in our above-market rate category. So we've not been building enough units. It's very common in the South Bay and in California. Not everything is in our control, but there are things we can do.

​

Jonathan Hodges: What percentage will be rental versus housing, and what proportion of the housing would be part of the BMR program? Bradley: about 1700 units are targeted for affordability programs. Those would typically mostly be rentals rather than ownership. Most of the tax credit and funding is focused on rental housing, especially for lower-income categories. So 60% of the housing would be BMR, 40% market-rate.

​

Bill and Jada Welch-Pogue: Jada here. How were these numbers determined? Do we have enough water? What about wildfire-prone areas? Are those taken into consideration in the RHNA process? Bradley: I'm going to send this over to Rob. Eastwood: That's a great question. Not a lot of us were involved in that process. I know these questions came up. One argument is that the housing satisfies the demand that's already here, that we have a high jobs-to-housing ratio, which lowers commutes and gets people closer to their work. On water, I can't provide a definite answer tonight, but I know that Valley Water is looking into recycling water and capturing more groundwater. We'll have to do this as part of our environmental study. More to come; it's a great question. Rose: I'm going to refer to ABAG's FAQ. They do consider existing and projected jobs and housing demand, and the second item is a lack of sewer and water capacity due to decisions outside the jurisdiction's control.

​

David Bamba: I'm a former servicemember, now a middle school public school teacher. Two years ago, I read an article about the BMR program, and I did a bit of research. When we went to the home for sale, I was told that there were qualifications we needed to follow. My concern is that we live in 924 square feet with eight people. Imagine how small the space is. I was told that if we need to qualify, we need to include all the income of those people living in the household. Because my mother was still working, we didn't qualify. Then 2018, 2019, the pandemic hit. Four years of looking. It's just frustration. Will there be more qualifications? Combining all those incomes... I don't know if my perception is correct. Your insights are appreciated. Bradley: Thank you for sharing your experience. Stephen? Rose: this is basically correct. Income limits involve people per household, the idea being that households will pool resources. We have an income table on the HouseKeys website (housekeys2.com), where you can see the income limits by household in the county. I can see how it would be a hardship, but it's intended to make things more fair. We can look into this more. Great question.

​

Michael Giluso: ("juh-loo-soh") My sister and own 2470 S Winchester. It's an office building, but it's zoned high-density residential. Or planned that way. We have it on the market with a broker, and we've heard--my broker's spoken with you, Stephen--what can I tell him about this meeting that he can tell developers about generating units on that parcel? Increased incentive? Pushing the permit approval process through faster than, say, San Jose? What can he tell developers? It's been on the market for six months, and it hasn't sold. You've given us a 30-40 unit window. There's some kind of variance for low-income density as well, but... even with all of this opportunity, the developers aren't biting because (a) they don't want to deal with the City of Campbell, and (b) the cost of supplies and materials are so high that they're not buying right now. We want to get this property sold, providing family units for people making a good fair wage. I grew up here, and I couldn't afford my house here. 1100 square feet is $1.5M! So, what can my broker tell developers? Rose: I love this question. I love all the questions we've had tonight. We're hearing from an actual stakeholder with a real issue, and the kinds of constraints we see--we have a willing participant who wants to build affordable housing, and people on this call need it. We're working on a new Housing Element which will remove barriers and change rules which might be constraining your building unnecessarily. So, you can tell developers that key policy direction will be provided by the end of the year. We'll be looking at the future plans for density and making them pencil out. We'll be looking at our permitting processes. I hadn't heard that people don't want to work with us--I'm not taking it personally, I really did think we had a good reputation about low fees, shorter processing times. ("That's not what my broker told me.") I appreciate the feedback; we want that. We'll try to meet with developers, brokers.

​

John Field: I don't think Mark is related to me. I second the previous speaker. We hear a lot about the RHNA number. I could go down the rathole of why didn't we appeal that, but we do need more housing. I'd like to see some sensibility in the process. Mr. Bamba [I think he means Giluso] has a site that could be used, there are other sites where we could preserve the neighborhood feel and do this in a sensible way. I'm concerned that we all focus on the three thousand number, and I worry that we don't link these RHNA numbers, these thirty thousand foot objectives, to the realities of our town, for how we can do it. My grandfather moved here during the Great Depression. I'm all for bringing opportunities for people, but that's not the same as entitlements. Just because someone wants to live in Campbell--this might be sounding a little bit harsh--but maybe it's not for you. If you chose to have a large family, there's a consequence that comes with that lifestyle. And we don't want to get in the way of commerce! If we wait and wait for city to come up with plans, it gets in the way of commerce. I'm definitely in favor of more housing. But let's do it in a sensitive way. ... Any feedback? Rose: we're trying to keep the comments on the presentation.

​

Mark Field: This is quite a jump. In the last ten years, we've grown about five percent, to 42, 43k. Given the average occupancy here, that's 15k units. If we're going to add 3k units, that's a 20% bump. What changed? Why is the number so much bigger? Bradley: from what I can see, it's really about job growth. A lot of places have kept housing static, but the jobs go up every year.

​

James Sullivan: Growing up in San Jose, being a resident in Campbell for 17 years, a lot of churches in the area were in residential zones. It seemed like... fifteen or twenty years ago, there was a change to bring those to a different use, and I don't know how many churches there are in Campbell, but... I've developed a lot of school and church sites. It's a chance to pick up residential-surrounded lots anyway. Bradley: there's also a new state law that encourages churches to redevelop half of their parking into housing.

​

Poll: what best describes you? Radio buttons today. 1 renter, 16 homeowners, 2 looking for housing, 2 housing advocates (including me), 4 housing developers.

​

Poll: what have your difficulties been? Again, radio buttons. 5 cost of housing, 2 lack of affordable supply, 11 no difficulties, 3 other.

​

Poll: what kinds of housing would you like to see more of? Again, radio buttons. 1 ADUs, 5 SFHs [where?!], 2 duplexes/triplexes, 7 townhomes/rowhomes, 1 small apts, 4 mixed-use, and I missed the slide. We're DMing the coordinator our opinions.

​

Poll: what should the city consider when planning housing? I start with density, walkability, natural affordability. Biggest picks are affordability and density on the word cloud. And quality of life.

​

Now, the breakout rooms. I'm picking the "other" room now. Stephen Rose moderating. We do a little bit of introduction. Lizz is a disabled person living in Campbell. John Pringle is a developer working in downtown San Jose, attempting to work in Campbell. Michael Giluso owns a bunch of buildings in 95008, and has been trying to sell the 2470 S Winchester property for six months. David Bamba: I'm a middle-school public school teacher, former Navy, Uber driver too. Been looking for opportunities to have a home, me and my wife and my two kids.

​

What are the housing challenges here? John Pringle: the economics require much-increased density over what Campbell allows. High density here is low density elsewhere. I respect Mr. Giluso's quandary. I can't figure out how to make a 30-40 unit apartment building feasible today. The city needs larger buildings and higher density on major corridors. Rose: density is going to have to be raised. We'll be reimagining densities. You'll see higher numbers. David Bamba: in four or five years, I can purchase a million-dollar home, but there's no available homes that suit our needs. If we go higher, it'll be a challenge for my family to live comfortably. I hope this might be our chance. Lizz: for someone on a fixed income, I'd heard that the waitlist is 3-5 years. Which is crazy. There really aren't options. I want to live in a safe place. I feel stuck. This is for BMR. I've already been on the Housing Choice Voucher waitlist too. Waitlists are going to be the death of me. Bruce Bowen: Long-time community member. We've seen a lot of changes. We've been waiting to develop some land in the SOCA area, and this is really interesting to watch, because at the medium density at which it was previously zoned, it kinda made sense. At higher density, the costs jump so much that it becomes difficult to provide enough BMR units. There's a hump to get over as you go up in density. Rose: so you're saying there's a discontinuity. [...] To get 1700 affordable units, we might need to build more than 3000 total units. There will be funding opportunities like Measure A, but at a certain point we have to do it locally. I bring up missing middle. Michael Giluso: there's a lot of people making decisions with no skin in the game. We're looking at having to put our property back up for lease as office space, and we don't want to do that. My husband and I make two good incomes and have no kids, and we can't afford it here. Why do people feel so entitled to live here? Rose: we'll have sites identified by the end of the year; please get involved. Note that we use du/ac by net acre, not gross acre, which doesn't match other cities, which has confused developers. We're going to highlight density bonuses, which can be +50% (so 67.5). And note that 60% of our allocation is BMR, but that's not for individual projects! William Baron: I'm with Brandenburg Properties in San Jose. People want to live here, and the demand will be crammed down individual jurisdictions' throats if they don't manage it themselves. Knowing that it's a requirement, I applaud how you're doing it. John spoke to density as a problem, but the honesty factor is a problem. I don't mean that you've been dishonest, but I think clarity to citizens is super important. Most of the city is 3-4 units per acre. To fit another 3k units, we're going to have to densify that. We expect a lot of anger, traffic, etc. The city can truly facilitate setting the table for the likes of me and John to propose quality projects to not get arrows in our back when we try. Transparency is key. We don't want to have the state taking control of everything.

​

Where should housing be built? John Pringle: high density should be along transportation corridors. I don't think anyone wants to see downtown overloaded. I encourage us to care about walkability and transport by mixing uses such that we don't have everyone driving to the same extent. (I suggest we move to issue three because we have a subject-matter expert here.)

​

How should we plan for special needs populations? Lizz: housing is very expensive. I just wish there was more awareness of programs to help landlords. There are options! I can understand the fear that owners have trying to work with these programs. Rose: I heard previously that we plan for multiple needs groups, that we should put disabled people in proximity to services. Lizz: Totally agreed.

​

Breakout rooms are closing. Rose encourages us to mail planning@campbellca.gov. (Questions: 1. What are the housing challenges in Campbell? 2. In what areas should new housing be built? 3. How should Campbell plan for housing for Special Need Populations? 4. Other suggestions/comments/concerns?) Closing comments from Director Eastwood: it was great to hear all of the feedback. I know you're all at dinner; you have busy lives and families. It's a whole extra step to show up like this. We hope you'll take the survey if you haven't already. We'll be packaging up this feedback and giving it to the council.

Summary.

M-Group gave a presentation on the Housing Element. They seem to genuinely believe that Campbell needs housing, and want to create a good housing element. Their follow-through remains to be seen.

​

Highlights:

- Even the homeowners room sounded generally pro-housing in principle. They definitely want to build tall around the VTA light rail stations, and they like the idea of more rowhomes/townhomes.

- At the same time, the homeowners don't want their neighborhoods to change; they want the new housing to go on commercial corridors, not in the single-family neighborhoods.

- One particular homeowner seemed unclear that the new ADUs aren't something the city is doing, and in fact every city has to allow them.

- Muffie Waterman (website) is a possible candidate for recruiting. Her comments were excellent.

​

This was not simulcast on the City's YouTube channel, though it was recorded somewhere. The breakout rooms were not recorded, but notes were taken.

​

Raw notes.

This is the first of three Community Meetings that the city is doing. I'm just here to listen and take notes, pretty much. This meeting will be recorded. Commissioner Zisser is also here, along with Commissioner Krey. (And a "Liz"; not sure if that's the Mayor.)

​

Director Eastwood says that the state mandates we build 3k units, which isn't quite right. (We have to zone to permit that many.) Attendees are Eastwood, Planner Stephen Rose; M-Group's consultants Geoff Bradley, Erin Tou, and David Hogan.

​

Hogan explains that "Campbell's Plan For Housing" is the lay term for our housing element process. We're doing group polling via Menti. (5885 107). Ground rules: be respectful, no name calling, don't interrupt, share the meeting, 'no right or wrong answers'. Also, they'll be setting up a Spanish-language session as well. (Cool! Though some difficulties telling people about it in Spanish.) We made a word cloud. Hogan emphasizes that it's required by law, that we actually do need housing, and this is a once-in-a-decade chance.

​

Challenges: essential workers traveling a long distance, young people displaced from their communities, communities of color condemned to crowding. We also must consider special-needs populations (elders, disabled people, large households, homeless people, female-headed households with children).

​

We must come up with: existing housing needs, future housing needs, locations for new housing, and AFFH. Describes how RHNA works, how ABAG comes up with the allocation. Emphasizes that the 3k units is an eight-year, not single-year, target. Explains the VLI, LI, MI, AMI income bands, and the 30% buffer recommended by HCD. Describes income levels in terms of jobs that make certain incomes, which I appreciate.

​

I ask if we want housing to be more or less expensive. Hogan says that the idea is to produce more housing. Bradley says that we want to also focus on actually-affordable housing as well as just producing more. Rose points out that about half of our planned units are BMR, so that means affordable. "Peter" asks about SB 9: he hasn't heard about how SB 9 might reduce the required number. Hogan: yes, we'll be estimating the effect of SB 9. Also, "there is no water", but "you're building more and more units"; there's been news about our perc ponds. So, is the city going to "be putting recycled waste water into our drinking system". Hogan: that's more of a general-plan issue. But "that's going to come as a result of housing", and "you're going to be adding pressure to all of these systems". Wonders if the state is going to provide funds to "redirect environmental harm". Rose: we're going to be doing maps and also policies, but we should be clear on what the goal is here.

​

"iPad" asks if this is a one-time thing, if we're going to need to plan for future growth. Hogan says the RHNA isn't "a ceiling, it's not necessarily a cap". Oleksii Kuchaiev: why has the county gotten a 2.5x increase, and we've gotten a 3x increase? Hogan: it's a complicated formula based on the community's characteristics, plus employment, and other things. See the ABAG website. "Dana & Mike Stevens": have we pushed back, since we don't have much undeveloped land? Rose: this is zero-sum among ABAG; appeals are going on now. "So the city did push back?" Rose: we didn't appeal the number, but we questioned the methodology.

​

"jamessullivan": The buffer number, we're looking at 30%, but we can plan for as low as 15%. Is that buffer pro-rated the same as the type of units, or can it all be market-rate? Hogan: it's pro-rated by category. It's designed to keep the city from falling afoul of state laws about shrinking a development. Also, the ADUs; they were much harder to build in 2013, and we're getting a lot more now, and I'm very happy that these can count as BMR housing.

​

"Ipad pro": I don't want Campbell to become really crowded. I don't know why we'd go on the far end, the high end, I think it could be cut back. Hogan: we're starting at the beginning. How much population would these units bring in? Average population per house was 2.6. And you wanted large families? It's an average; families don't have 0.6 of an individual. Come on; you're targeting large families, and you could have 2.6 if you're pregnant. "August": I'm curious what the process is for determining percentages by income level. Hogan: ABAG does that. "Ishani": Capri Elementary doesn't have a waitlist; other schools do. Are you considering school capacity? Hogan: it'll be part of the EIR. The city doesn't run the school districts here.

​

Quick poll: about 75% of us are coffee or tea drinkers. 5 renters, 12 homeowners, 2 "looking for housing", 1 housing advocate (me), 2 housing developers. "A nice spread." Poll about difficulties faced: 9 high costs, 8 lack of supply, 4 nothing near services, 12 no difficulties. (Note that this overrepresents homeowners!) Shows us housing types from ADUs to 6+-story multifamily buildings; what do we want more of? Townhomes/rowhomes are very popular (22), as are mixed-use developments (19). Looks... pretty darned good. SFHs (15) and ADUs (14) below, large apartment buildings lowest (8). Word cloud: "density community upzone transit affordability". That's pretty cool.

​

Into the breakout room. (There's Homeowners, Renters, Others. I'm in Homeowners.) Lots of long-time homeowners here. Nice people who love their pets and biking and walking around town. Geoff Bradley used to live on Apricot, of all places. I mention that the rent is too high, and someone pipes up that that's good for homeowners. (I complain about my friends having to move away.) People here generally complaining about the lack of housing and the affordability problems. Muffie Waterman wants a "thriving, multigenerational, multiethnic" community, and misses the mix of folks. I say that we should end homelessness. Diane Loughran: "safe housing": well-lit streets, areas where everything is... just more safety. Hates hearing about crime on Nextdoor. Carolyn: more housing should go on the light rail corridor; I'm for more housing BUT I want it done in a "responsible neighborhood", no huge apartment complexes in low-density neighborhoods. Susan O'Brien: we need to grow our services along with our city. Grow police, fire, recreation services. Kum: same, we need housing in places with good transportation infra. Me: we need to make sure new housing works well with transportation; if everyone drives, we'll have an eternal traffic jam. Susan: that's why I like mixed use with retail on the ground floor. And that's what's nice about living on Union. Dana: we should build to match existing neighborhoods. Carolyn talks about how hard she worked for this lifestyle; Muffie Waterman pushes back on that, saying that they've both lived here a long time and neither could afford to move in now. We should follow up with her. Carolyn is talking about leaving town because of the ADUs. (Which are everywhere in the state. She says not in HOAs. Yes, in HOAs as of 2020.)

​

Dana says "we love the city!"; thanks Rob for his work here.

M-Group, along with staff, presented on the ongoing Housing Element outreach and requirements. They answered questions from the public, the Planning Commission, and City Council. They seemed to be on the right side of things, though their knowledge is spotty.

​

Two things stood out to me:

- I asked why we treated the RHNA numbers as a ceiling, not a floor, and got some confusion. I may have presented the question poorly. The consultant is at least recommending a 30% buffer, but I expect this to be insufficient.

- I asked about realistic development capacities, pointing out that we're on track to develop only about 15% of our sites, so we should allocate space for seven times as many units as RHNA requires, and the consultant (Geoff Bradley of M-Group) said that 14k sites (that should be "sites for 21k units") would be "impossible" for an EIR, and the rules around this are unclear. I offered to follow up over email, but was cut off for time.

​

My (very verbose) raw notes are below.

​

Mayor Gibbons says that we won't be discussing specific sites or policies today. Asking us to keep it to one question or comment at a time, and limiting comments to one minute from the public.

​

Member of the public (MoP): eight years ago we looked at six major sites to fit nine hundred homes; we should look at more sites this time. MoP Donna: wants high-density housing on major roads for emergency access, not single-family neighborhoods. Is worried about fires or earthquakes. MoP Alan Ishibashi: likes living in Campbell because the City Council has made it a nice place to live, and he's never had to come in before. 3000 units is a lot "for a small city". Wants us to be "reasonable", i.e., not build in his single-family neighborhood. Doesn't "want to bring the quality of life down" for people in SFHs.

​

Over to the Zoom comments. (Hybrid meeting is going... remarkably well so far.) MoP Susan OBrien: contractor for the city, 26-year resident. Asks us to take public transit to/from each site and consider each of them meaningfully. (Good idea!) MoP Steven Saunders: calls "the entire enterprise into question". Says Campbell is the most densely populated city in the South Bay (not true!), we're talking about growing it by 18%. Says it's unreasonable compared to our neighbors. (Do you put development in the already-cities or not?!) MoP Katie Gallagher: moved here because it was a little more urban, a little more dense. Wants to keep housing prices lower, says people who complain about density don't care about the people who can't afford to live here. MoP Thomas Colgrove: we need more housing, but 18% is a lot; it should be in the more-traveled routes, the wider streets. Some parts of the city don't have much transit. MoP Trudy LaFrance: transportation is a real problem, wants us to consider... parking. (So close, and yet.) MoP Joseph Gemignani: we did a lot on Winchester to underground utilities; wants to see more beautiful architecture there. Points to "poplar and page" areas near the Pruneyard (ah, the Greylands), would like to see a mixed-use project there, something that would blend in, Mediterranean style.

​

Staff time. Rob Eastwood encourages people to show up at the meetings. (First of many!) Three community meetings this month, two PC/CC in November, another community meeting in December. We'll have breaks for questions (one each) after introducing RHNA and rules about Housing Elements. Jeff (Bogley?) and Dave Hogan are the reps from M-Group. The idea here is to give us context in order to start making decisions. We're hoping to identify sites by December (!) to start the EIR, and discussion of our Programs and Policies will begin next year. Feedback will be November and December. (I'll still bring up one item each: Arreguin's RHNA allocation comments, and realistic-capacity numbers, since those make a big difference to preparing site inventories.)

​

Dave Hogan: people are weirded out by the 'opportunity sites' thing. Housing Elements are 5-10 year short-term plans (currently eight), not 20+-year plans like the rest of the General Plan. Same as the rest; we have goals and policies and programs. This is a once-in-a-decade opportunity to shape our future. Our challenges: essential workers forced into long commutes, young people forced to move away, poor people forced into unsafe and overcrowded situations.

​

Why did we get our allocation? Proximity to transit and opportunity, mostly. With a 30% buffer, we should allocate for 3,870 units. (Note that this doesn't take into account realistic probabilities!) Points out that AMI for four people is 12.6k/month, so ELI is 4.15k/mo, VLI 6.9k, LI 9.8k, MI 15.15k. Lists typical occupations; ELI is dishwasher, manicurist; VLI is hairstylist; LI auto mechanics; MI teachers, plumbers; AMI police, doctors, me. Notes that the city has hit practically none of its allocation for BMR housing.

​

Questions: Zisser asks if RHNA has a factor for "we're already dense". Mayor Gibbons points to the whole ABAG process. Kamkar notes that Mountain View has an allocation of 14k; wants to confirm this is an eight-year target, not an annual one. (Yeah.) I ask if we're treating it as a floor-not-a-ceiling. "From a program perspective", it's a floor; the general process will be the same as the last time. We'll be identifying the same kind of potential sites. (I suppose it was more of a comment, bleah. I'll bring it up later.) Krey noted that other cities objected; asks if we are. (No, we're not, because we are not a trash city.) Rivlin asks what happens if we identify the units and no one builds on them. And it's not our fault, he implies. Hogan: these constraints are considered; the main non-governmental constraint is construction costs. The most important thing we can do is to be aware of our own constraints, and make a good-faith effort to reduce the potential constraints. HCD's not going to do much in that case. Ching asks how people can see how the RHNA numbers were determined. Hogan: ABAG has that. There's a link in the packet. Ostrowski: can we reuse sites from the last cycle? Hogan: yes, but there are requirements if we're using them for LI/VLI housing, and they probably will be.

​

Over to the Council. Resnikoff: will we address units that have been entitled but not built, versus those that have been applied for but denied. Will this be dealt with reasonably? Yes. Lopez: how were the postcard targets chosen, were they representative, and what's the plan for ongoing outreach? Eastman: we sent postcards to every known address, which is literally the best we can do. Reached out to school districts, businesses, the chamber. There's a second email push that went out today, second social media push next week. Landry: I saw ELI on one slide, and only VLI on another; what's up with that. Eastman: those are allocated together.

​

Next portion of the presentation. Jeff Bradley with M-Group. We have a bunch of components; AFFH is new this year. The process is to engage the public, analyze past performance and future needs, map sites, start CEQA, develop goals/policies/programs, then adoption the Housing Element. Notes that SB 35 means that if we don't catch up, we lose a lot of discretion, see Vallco. Not a bad thing, but it's a very different process. Things are different now! This is "not a paper exercise".

​

Changes: assess fair housing, must AFFH, changes in capacity assumptions for small and non-vacant sites, and we now have to zone for MI sites specifically. Lists new housing laws (AB 686, SB 330, SB 9, SB 10, AB 2345, and others); feels good man. Evaluation of past performance is asking what the city did, was it consistent with goals and policies, and did it actually create units? Also consider Special Needs Populations (seniors, disabled, large households, homeless, possibly others if we identify them locally). Fair Housing Assessment includes "disproportionate needs", like overcrowding and overpayment(!). Demographic data shows that the very wealthy are in the San Tomas area, the less wealthy... where I live. Huh. Same with overcrowding. Governmental constraints are like permitting timelines or impact fees; non-governmental ones are like financing, market forces, and construction costs. The plan will be "very detailed, tailored for Campbell". Resources to implement are staff time, ordinances, general plan amendments, and rezoning.

​

Question time again! Me: will we adjust for probability of development? Bradley: uh, 14k sites would be impossible for an EIR, and the rules are unclear, and that's why we have a hopefully 30% buffer. I offer to follow up over email; I'm cut off for time. Kamkar: what happens if we don't hit our targets? Bradley: the best protection is to have a certified housing element, but if we're consistently underproducing, some laws like SB 35, SB 330 will target us. It's not draconian, but it does change how the city works. Zisser: regarding the 15% inclusionary percentage, is that required, or are we considering a higher percentage? Bradley: AB or SB 1605 says that you need a feasibility review by HCD to make sure you're not stifling development if you go above 15%. There's state law affecting that, but you can see local examples of 10-20% rates; we'd have to make an argument that it's not going to be a constraint.

​

To the Council! Resnikoff: is the city limited to addressing AFFH via entitling low-income housing, or can we do other things? Bradley: there's an encouragement of socioeconomic mixing, but also providing direct help to people to get housing. The county and state have programs which we can tie into. Helping people exercise their rights under fair-housing is very important here.

​

On to Housing Sites Mapping. This is where we demonstrate that the city provides opportunities to construct housing for various income groups. We have to pick specific locations and target densities. Here, the "default density" is 20 du/ac; if you provide housing at that density, you can assume that the sites are capable of being developed as LI/VLI. But it does matter if you don't actually manage to build it. Gibbons says this is really, really important.

​

We see site maps for the Fourth and Fifth cycles. Nothing in San Tomas. Mostly near the Downtown Campbell site, and on Winchester. We try to find larger sites, near transit, near services/amenities, and don't concentrate our affordable housing in low-income areas. There's a map, showing all sites over a half-acre and smaller than ten acres. We then look at access to transit, to food, to schools, to parks. (My home has all but easy access to schools. We have cumulatively high-scoring areas, mostly in the middle of the city, west of Downtown. We'll get community input asking for people's housing concerns and desires, what we should be planning for (noting that we already have examples of all of those types!). In November, we'll return to find strategies to meet (ceiling! ceiling!) the RHNA, initial mapping and recommendations (concentrate in a few places, or disperse throughout?). Could result in changes to allowable densities or modifications to our Draft Land Use Plan.

​

Question time! Krey: ADUs don't factor into our RHNA (false!); will SB 9 units? Bradley: they count, and they even count for BMR housing! Which will be helpful when planning, since we can subtract current pipeline projects and ADUs to get a net RHNA. Predicts that SB 9 may produce units on par with ADUs, 30-40/year. But we don't have any basis for that. (There are Terner Center estimates!) Kamkar: ADUs are only for rent, never sale; does that count? Bradley: rental units count just as well as ownership units. Campbell has historically been 50/50 owner/renter. Me: how will November work? Will we have a draft map we pick sites off of? Bradley: we're really pressed for time getting this all set for January; short answer, yes. Zisser: we're required to do about 40% of units at LI/VLI, so our inclusionary rates aren't enough to get us enough affordable units. So we need all-BMR developments, right? Like from nonprofits? Bradley: agreed. Anything that encourages that, whether land grants, lower-price leases from public agencies, density bonuses, it helps. Ostrowski: will we consider SB 9 in our projections? Bradley: we can take a stab at it. It's just a little risky, since we don't know what the adoption rate will be, and we don't know how HCD will respond.

​

Over to the Council. Landry: you mention 6+-stories; we have a 75-foot height limit, and 15 feet a story means only five stories. That's unrealistic. Bradley: I'd like to research this more, but I think that's office floors; residential floors are shorter. Resnikoff: what does "not meeting the numbers" mean? Bradley: SB 35 is based on your annual progress report, which is based on your building permits. Bybee: does AFFH mandate that the city create a complaint process? Bradley: I don't know; it's new this cycle. I'll look. We'll be doing site selection in November, in order to be ready for the EIR process to start in December.

​

Gibbons: I think ADUs can't be entitled as BMR, since a studio here rents for like $2k. Bradley: based on a survey, 30% of ADUs were VLI, 30% LI, 30% MI, 10% AMI. HCD will accept that to describe them as 'naturally affordable', without a deed restriction. Gibbons: "That's the only good news you've given us tonight." Lopez: we've heard discussion in terms of whether or not the city grows; that happens whether or not we want. But we get overcrowding. So we're going to reduce segregation, overcrowding, overpayment of rent. That growth is happening with or without us; it's our job to serve the community. Landry: I'd like to see us meet some requirements for extremely low income housing; we need those people here as well. Gibbons: a lot of places in the Bay Area have been very bad in meeting their LI/VLI numbers, so we're being double-up there. We have developable land, and it's just not being developed. Supply, supply, supply is the "only acceptable value" that the state is bringing to this. I don't support "supply and demand" at all, but that's what the state is giving us. The need for housing is real. We don't just need to look at the map; we need to look at the policies and programs. We know that "the market" is for single-family above-market rate. (I lived in a market-rate apartment complex! One of the densest in Campbell!) How can we fight how developers build below-market-rate? We're working hard to find Measure A money from the county.

​

I was at the meeting as a Planning Commissioner. There were two public commenters broadly in favor of trying to be more forward-looking and radical, but the majority of the discussion was the PC answering questions put up by Staff.  The Housing Element is explicitly separate from this item; they're being updated concurrently, but this meeting was only for the General Plan.

​

There will be a joint CC/PC discussion on the Housing Element in October, and the PC will be discussing our end of the Housing Element on October 26.

​

There was a general consensus that the Land Use Map is a good map for now, not for twenty years from now. There was a consensus that our FAR limits are much too low. Staff said that the reason our commercial FAR was 0.4 was intended to provide "near-limitless discretionary power"; they say they want to move away from discretionary everything, excessive parking requirements, and too-low FAR, which were cited as the clearest blockers to development. Staff also plans to undo most of our current P-D zoning, and revert to standard zoning types.

​

I brought up the idea of explicitly marking some parts of the city car-first and some pedestrian-first, and defaulting to traffic-calming measures and slow design speeds outside of the arterials.

​

I pushed for three changes on fairness/inclusion grounds: the document places drivers over pedestrians, owners over renters, and housed over unhoused people, mostly by assuming the status quo. (Preserve the physical form, don't do anything to inconvenience drivers, etc.) Also, "neighborhood character" doesn't mean anything (thanks, Jes McBridge, for the tip); we should talk about what we mean by that.

​

I also pushed to have car noise considered as part of the noise element (speed makes noise!), as well as pollution from two-stroke engines like gas leafblowers and lawn mowers. This was entirely an advisory meeting, and staff will be bringing our recommendations to City Council.

Main Discussion: 84 participants (Milpitas, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara)

-Led by Paul Peninger, Baird & Driskell

-Basic overview of Housing Element process, timeline, goals, etc.

​

Mountain View Breakout Room:

-21 participants

-Led by Ellen Yau, Senior Planner & Brandi Campbell Wood (Baird & Driskell)

​

MV 2023-2031 Housing Element Goals:

-Accommodate MV’s RHNA of ~11,000 units

-Development capacity from recent Precise Plans, ongoing R3 zoning update

-Affirmatively Further Fair Housing (AFFH)

-Provide access to opportunity

-Address fair housing issues and constraints

-Coordinate with other key City housing initiatives

-Displacement strategy, R3 zoning update, federal assessment of fair housing

-Address local goals and needs

-Use data on local conditions

-Requires input from the public

​

Discussion Questions:

*What’s working in our city/town?

     -new row houses and mixed use developments       

     -Mountain View is very supportive of affordable housing 

     -The city has been getting better about funding and approving non-profit affordable housing

*What are some of our key housing needs or challenges?

     -All the recent developments have been too short and had too much parking. 

     -Restrictive Zoning and community opposition to increased density

*What ideas, policies, programs, suggestions do you have to meet our housing needs?

     -1) Follow the Los Angeles model and have data driven calculations for the likelihood of development on inventory sites. 2) Upzone Old MV to AFFH

​

Timeline:

March 2021 – March 2022: Community Outreach

March-Spring 2022: Work on Studies and Draft update

Spring 2022: Draft for Review

Fall 2022: Public Hearings with EPC and City Council

January 2023: Housing Element Adoption

​

NIMBY comments:

“Neighborhoods are being forced to accept developments on the basis of .5 mile distance to transit. But transit is really barely existent or effective. Is the East Whisman precise plan no longer in effect?”

“We are running out of open space in Mtn. View. Seeing more and more exceptions were super high condos are in planning stage. These high rise condos are invading our modest neighborhood. I'm afraid with open spaces being developed, does the city looking at using eminent domain to buy up needed land to development?”

“The city has already taken away the Hetch Hetchy trail for development. I do not see how you can create 8209 new housing units unless you build higher. Mtn View has always been a modest town. Business giants like Google have destroyed our modest town. Google transport their own employees with private buses. Our public transportation is expensive and ineffective. Addtionally, people whom live outside the area are "penalized" havinf to drive into the valley with more and more toll roads. The government tricked the voters into thinking the increased tax for infrastructure was to build and fix roads. Instead, they built more toll roads!”`

This is the "Let's Talk Housing" series that the county is doing. Including staff from Campbell, Los Gatos, and Los Altos Hills, there were 46 participants before the three breakout rooms opened. I noticed that Mike Krey from the Campbell Planning Commission and the Mayor of Campbell, Liz Gibbons, were both there. In the Q&A, someone asked a question about "Critical Race Theory", and the hosts thankfully dodged it.

​

When asked what happens if a city doesn't have enough zoned capacity, the hosts said some very handwavey things about repurposing commercial space, and danced around the idea that a city would have to make more capacity. Disappointing. It's like they don't believe that HCD will actually bring the hammer down.

​

We're also told that the county has built enough market-rate housing, but the lack of affordable housing has driven up rents. (This is not how housing works, aargh.) There is no mention of why market-rate housing isn't affordable to most people. Jobs don't pay enough to "let them compete in the housing market".

​

When asked for one word to describe our vision of the future of our city, most people wrote "affordable", "inclusive", or "diverse", but two people wrote "non-dense" and "ban on parcel splitting", and Liz Gibbons wrote "non-political", which is a pleasant aspiration. We then went into our breakout rooms, by city. (I'm in the Campbell room.)

​

The Campbell room had 11 people, of whom two were city staff (Rob Eastwood and Stephen Rose), three were city officials (myself, Mike Krey, and Liz Gibbons), and one a facilitator (Joshua Abrams), leaving five regular civilians. The City touted its updated ADU standards, the (incomplete) objective standards work, a program to educate homebuyers and getting REAP/LEAP grants. Not impressive. They point out that we should be at 75% of our RHNA 5 numbers, but we're at 4%/3%/11% for VLI/LI/MI. But 391 market-rate units is 118% of our allocation!

​

Staff points out that our allocation is larger, will require larger densities, and will make site reuse harder. Showed us some visualizations of densities from 3.5 du/ac up to 28+, which is currently illegal in Campbell. By the time they finished presenting, it was 7.

​

Things that people appreciate about housing the way it is: walkable, "family-friendly"/"safe", walkable, diverse. Gibbons: "a collection of diverse neighborhoods" with diverse housing types. Things that people don't like: expensive, hard to develop--long, arduous process to work with the city (Scott Cooley), not enough affordable housing, difficulty selling SFH homeowners on affordable housing. I actually heard someone saying that self-driving cars need less parking, so we should plan for less parking.

​

I focused on removing discretionary rules which people have to beg around, like parking. The rules that make missing middle housing illegal. When someone complained about parking shortages, I suggested residential parking permits, since we already have those in at least one neighborhood, and they're popular. People are concerned about parking, and I don't know if they think that can be solved without keeping density low.

General Meeting led by: Paul Peninger, Consultant of Baird & Driskell; 81 participants; Staff from Cupertino, Monte Sereno, Saratoga, Los Altos;

Los Altos Breakout Room led by: David Driskell, Baird & Driskell; 13 participants;

Guido Persicone (Planning Manager, Los Altos)