Attachment 2 -July 10, 2019 Planning Commission Verbatim MinutesLOS GATOS PLANNING COMMISSION 7/10/2019
Item #6, Draft General Plan Vision
Statement and Guiding Principles
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A P P E A R A N C E S:
Los Gatos Planning
Commissioners:
Matthew Hudes, Chair
Melanie Hanssen, Vice Chair
Mary Badame
Kendra Burch
Kathryn Janoff
Reza Tavana
Town Manager:Laurel Prevetti
Community Development
Director:
Joel Paulson
Town Attorney:Robert Schultz
Transcribed by: Vicki L. Blandin
(619) 541-3405
ATTACHMENT 2
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P R O C E E D I N G S:
CHAIR HUDES: Now we move to Item 6, and Item 6
is to consider the Draft General Plan Vision Statement and
Guiding Principles with the hope to forward a
recommendation to the Town Council concerning the Draft
General Plan Vision Statement and Guiding Principles.
Ms. Armer, I understand you'll be giving the
report this evening.
JENNIFER ARMER: Yes, good evening, again. This
item in front of you is draft language for a General Plan
Vision Statement and Guiding Principles developed by the
General Plan Update Advisory Committee, the GPAC, and
provided to you for your review, consideration, and
recommendation to Town Council.
The concludes Staff's presentation, but we'd be
happy to answer any questions.
CHAIR HUDES: Thank you. Vice Chair Hanssen.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I didn't have a question
for Ms. Armer, but since I'm the Chair of the GPAC I wanted
to say a few things about what we're considering for
background. Would that be okay?
CHAIR HUDES: Sure.
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Unless other Commissioners
have questions of Staff. No, okay.
I just wanted to talk a little bit about the
process that we went through in considering the Vision
Statement and the Guiding Principles.
First of all, the Town Council created Guiding
Principles for the General Plan update process and we have
been looking at those throughout.
Secondly, the Staff and the consultants have done
a number of community outreach activities that go to what
are the things that you want the Town to do in the next 20
years, and so we've had the benefit of all the input. And
when we sat down to draft the Vision Statement we actually
had the vision statements of probably eight or nine
jurisdictions, so we were able to take a look at what kind
of things were out there and did that sound like us, and so
when we actually sat down to write the Vision Statement—
Commissioner Burch is also on the GPAC as well as
Commissioner Janoff, and she's our Vice Chair—actually it
was Commissioner Burch that kind of took some of those
concepts and put (inaudible) together of what the Vision
Statement would look like. Then we considered some of the
other ones that are out there and we literally crafted the
whole thing with the benefit of all of that input. What we
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were trying to do is keep it very high-level. The vision
statements of general plans are generally high-level, so if
you think something is missing it's probably because we had
an overarching statement and there will be some other part
of the General Plan that will have more details on that.
So once we had wordsmithed that, and I think we
spent two full meetings on that, we went to the Guiding
Principles, and the Guiding Principles, the decision that
was made right at the beginning of the meeting was that we
would take the Guiding Principles from the Town, because it
was adopted by the Town Council, and then add onto that
because it was missing a few of the concepts that we
wanted, so we didn't have to spend as much time on the
Guiding Principles because we had the benefit of the Vision
Statement.
I would also say one last thing, that there are
two Council members plus us three Planning Commissioners on
the GPAC, so I feel like it was vetted fairly carefully,
and we also have in addition to the five of us seven
members of the GPAC, including members of the community.
Not to say that you couldn't recommend changes,
that's fine, but that's the process that we went through to
get to this.
CHAIR HUDES: Commissioner Janoff.
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COMMISSIONER JANOFF: Thank you, and thank you,
Commissioner Hanssen for your leadership on the GPAC.
I'd just like to add that we crafted the Vision
Statement and the Guiding Principles understanding that
they will guide us at the beginning and they guide us
through the process of developing a General Plan, and then
at the end we have the opportunity to loop back in case we
look at the Vision Statement and Guiding Principles and
determine that they need a little bit of tweaking. So, we
didn't try to make them perfect; we tried to make sure that
they were broad, useful, reflective of the 20-year period
we were looking at and knowing we could go back to tweak
them if we needed to as we neared the end of the process,
so with that, we appreciate your input.
CHAIR HUDES: Commissioner Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: I would just like to thank
my fellow commissioners and the rest of the Committee that
are present tonight for a job well done. This is very well
put together, so thank you very much. I'm going to have no
problem forwarding a recommendation to Town Council.
CHAIR HUDES: Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I have one change. I
wondered if in the first sentence, for some reason we… I
remember a while back this…this is not how it was written,
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but we have safe first and then welcoming, which every time
I read it just feels like we're trying to prove that we're
not riddled with crime. Would it be possible to just switch
welcoming and safe? Like, "Los Gatos is a welcoming…" Like,
it seems weird to be like, "Hey, we're safe. It's okay, you
can come here."
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: We're able to make any
recommendations, because we're forwarding it on to Council.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Can we just make that one?
Thank you so much.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I agree with you. I don't
remember us putting safe first.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I don't remember that
either.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I thought we had welcoming
first.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: So did I.
CHAIR HUDES: I just might add that since we're
going to be forwarding a recommendation, I don't believe
this has to go back to GPAC with this.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Mmm-mm.
CHAIR HUDES: So, I would just suggest that your
comment or others comments of commissioners we added onto
the document that's been presented to us.
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COMMISSIONER BURCH: Okay, yeah.
CHAIR HUDES: Commissioner Badame.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Do we even need to put the
word safe in there? It almost makes a question. It should
just be a given that we don't even need to put the word
safe in there. Just a comment.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: People were very passionate
about the word safe.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: All right, we have to have
the word safe in there.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: Well, there are two things
about that, for background. One is we had a quite a lengthy
discussion about the welfare safety issue, so that was part
of it. And then the other thing that happened is in the
first community workshop people were allowed to use three
keywords that told them what Los Gatos represented to them,
and safe was, I believe, the biggest one, Ms. Armer?
JENNIFER ARMER: It was definitely one of the
biggest.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: And so because of that,
you're right, when you flag safe it maybe says should we be
worried about our safety, but I think collectively everyone
thought since that was predominantly such a big mention we
should just say it.
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COMMISSIONER TAVANA: I think safe is great to
have in there, but maybe welcoming, family-oriented, and
safe? Maybe safe at the end just to kind of throw it in
there, because I do agree that safe is one of the appealing
things of our town here, so it would be nice to start off
with that, but maybe towards the end.
CHAIR HUDES: I did have a comment on two things.
One is the historic resources. I believe really strongly in
this as a core part of our Town and it's something that
really distinguishes it from most of the towns in Northern
California, and so I would encourage maybe a little
stronger wording. Right now, there's a sentence at the
community vitality paragraph. I would suggest either making
it its own category, or if it were kept there to make the
wording a little bit stronger and maybe something along the
lines of, "Preserve and enhance the Town's historic
resources and character while guiding the community into
the future." I think that's the ongoing asset. I'm not sure
what an ongoing asset is; it's not quite clear.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Could you read it?
CHAIR HUDES: Sure. "Preserve and enhance the
Town's historic resources and character while guiding the
community into the future." So, that was one area.
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The other area goes a little beyond just a
wording thing, but it's something that I raised at the two
meetings where I did have opportunity for input to this and
I find it's really not there and I think it's important,
and that is being an innovation center, and so I was going
to propose some language on this, because I think that we
have a situation where we have some of the most talented
people in Northern California in an innovation economy who
leave town every day, because we are not doing very much in
terms of creating a center for innovation. We don't even
have offices that are adequate for VCs; they drive to Sand
Hill Road in Menlo Park and that's just an office use. So,
when you talk about providing opportunities for some of the
young people in the community, why should they have to get
on a bus and go somewhere else if it's possible to foster
more innovation within town, and so I was going to suggest,
again, some broad language, because I know there are some
other parts in Land Use where this would come up. But I was
going to suggest that we consider putting something in
along the lines of "Innovation Community" in addition to
the other bullets there that says, "Create the fundamentals
for a prominent innovation economy in order to generate
opportunities for residents in the Town." I think that
could then be used for Land Use and other kinds of
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discussions, and while I know that there was probably
discussion about this before to me something important for
us to do for the future of the Town is to establish a
presence, and it doesn't have to be a repeat of Mountain
View or Sand Hill or San Francisco, it can be our own
unique combination of things, but I do think that there are
things that we can do creatively to create an environment
for innovation here for our residents primarily.
Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I'm not going to try to open
up a big can of worms here with that, because I completely
agree with you, but if that's the case we as a commission,
along with other committees, need to get more on board with
not fighting every new office building, every new
application that comes, because I can tell you right now
that is not how the outside community sees us. We are not
an innovation community, we are a quieter bedroom
community, and so I agree with you. I think we have the
opportunity to be a fantastic hub for even larger
businesses that want a small touchdown space for commuters
and things, but if that is something we are going to write
into the General Plan then collectively everybody needs to
work a bit on the mindset of what we have when developments
come in.
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CHAIR HUDES: If I can just respond, I agree. I
think that we have some talented people in town who could
actually work on this as well, and since it's something
that we would not say playing catch up, but we have a lot
of work to do. I would think that if something like that
were in our General Plan it would need to involve a task
force or a group of folks who are involved deeply in this
innovation community elsewhere in trying to see how we can
do more of that in town.
The point about this to me is that this is at the
root of a lot of the issues that we're seeing: the traffic
issues, the overcrowding in schools issues. Why do the
flags go up because of the impact of new residential
developments? Well, I think that if people weren't clogging
the streets with these giant buses and getting in their
cars and driving elsewhere. This could be if not a complete
solution at least a step in the right direction for some of
the problems that the Town is facing that might say okay,
we could have more offices in town because the right kind
of business that was generating opportunities for our town
could actually alleviate some of the other problems that we
have in Town. Commissioner Janoff.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: This is sort of a process
question also. The last sentence of the Vision Statement,
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"Los Gatos is a dynamic and thriving economy," we had this
discussion about innovation and incubators and all those
kind of things, and as I recall the GPAC decided that that
was a lower-level detail and that we included in the Vision
Statement this dynamic and thriving economy which would be
an umbrella for that sort of a policy which could become a
goal and have teeth in it lower in the…not lower down, but
in the details of the General Plan, because there are a lot
of ways that that innovation comment could manifest itself
and… So, we wanted to keep it a relatively high-level and
as a process question. If we were to include a new Guiding
Principle of that magnitude and that kind of specificity,
I'm not sure that it wouldn't… I mean, I hate to have it go
back to GPAC, but it seems like it would be appropriate,
because that's sort of not countermanding but it's doing
something different from what the GPAC (inaudible).
CHAIR HUDES: My understanding is that the
Planning Commission is meant to review the work of the GPAC
and provide input to the Council, and the Council will take
all of that and sort that out.
COMMISSIONER JANOFF: And that's why I say it's a
process question.
CHAIR HUDES: And kind of in response to the
point about the dynamic economy, yes, but unless we say
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that we're doing something on innovation I don't see it
really being a part of the plan. It could very well be a
giant Home Depot or it could be more retail, or it could be
a medical office, it could be a lot of things. This is a
departure, I think, from some of the history in the Town,
but it's not a departure for the people in the Town is my
point. We're not trying to do something that's alien to the
folks in Town. We have created in Town some of the most
dynamic businesses that got started here and then left, and
over the years there are just a number of them in the tech
community that started here in Town, and so I just think
that it would be important in the General Plan to recognize
the role of innovation that the Town has played and can
play into the future.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I have a suggestion, and
it's all going to be a recommendation to the Town Council,
but I agree with what Commissioner Burch said. I don't know
if the Town is quite ready for that, but on the other hand
when you think about community vitality, which is one of
the Guiding Principles. We all have discussed it and we all
know that retail in downtown as we know it isn't going to
be anything like it is today in 20 years, and there are
going to be other changes in the business economy, so I
think your thoughts about the innovation we should put it
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under the idea of community vitality as a path to growth
and development and the future of the Town and see if it
makes sense to Council. I wouldn't create it as a separate
Guiding Principle because we were trying to keep the number
of Guiding Principles limited, but I think it's a core part
of community vitality going forward, because like downtown
in 20 years isn't going to be in the form it's in.
CHAIR HUDES: Yeah, and I would just respond I am
not trying to shape the structure or format of the document
at all, I was just pointing out that I think that the
document as it is now has a little bit of a void with
regard to the need to really create an innovation ecosystem
here.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Agree.
CHAIR HUDES: Further comments on the document?
Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: Sorry, it's not a comment
on the document. Just wanted to know from the Chair of the
GPAC, following the approval of this is there going to be
some kind of like an agenda or line item of what we're
trying to hit through the next few meetings or what our
priorities are? I know this took a little while to get
through.
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COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: You didn't come to our
last meeting.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I know. Was that on there,
because I don't think it's televised; I haven't watched it.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: I don't think it is
either. (Inaudible) but we spent the last meeting and we're
going to be spending next week's meeting on very high level
ideas of land use, the Land Use Element, which we did not
go through in the 2010 General Plan Update, because it was
a limited update, so this will be the first time we've
talked about it in I guess 20 years. Like are the Land Use
designations we have right now appropriate? Are they going
to help us build for the future? Would it be possible to
create an innovation center given the way we have
architected it, if we're saying 50% land use coverage and
this amount of height, so that's the kind of stuff that we
started talking about and we're going to talk about more in
our next meeting, and probably a couple more meetings after
that. And please get more details of the process.
JENNIFER ARMER: Well, I think you covered kind
of the next step pretty well. Basically, the next steps for
the alternatives analysis is getting some guidance from
GPAC as to what alternatives should be included in the
alternatives report. The report, the kind of draft report,
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then comes back to GPAC for discussion. It then goes to the
public. We'll have public outreach, then it goes back to
GPAC, and then it will go to Planning Commission and
Council with a recommendation for a preferred alternative.
So, there's a very long process for that part too, but it's
a very important part of then developing alternatives that
then are considered in the environmental review.
The other point that I wanted to touch back on is
what was just being discussed about potentially including
the innovation into the Community Vitality Guiding
Principle; I just wanted to make sure I understood that.
Would that be something like in the second sentence of
Community Vitality, having it be, "Foster the economic
vitality and innovation in all of Los Gatos business
locations"?
CHAIR HUDES: I have some other language that I
had suggested. I don't know…
JENNIFER ARMER: Well, for discussion, when you
get to the point of making a motion.
CHAIR HUDES: Yeah. Actually, I was thinking that
there have been numerous comments that have been made here
about wording and things like that and I'm wondering if
it's possible to just forward a recommendation on this as
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it stands with the additional comments from the Planning
Commission.
JENNIFER ARMER: The Town Council will receive
verbatim minutes, so they will hear your discussion. If
there are specific changes to the Draft Vision Statement
and Guiding Principles that there is a consensus from the
Planning Commission to recommend, then that would also be
included in the Staff Report. Otherwise we would be taking
forward what was recommended by the GPAC with a
recommendation from Planning Commission.
CHAIR HUDES: Okay, but there were some specific
things that were mentioned about wording that Commissioner
Tavana and others had. Have you captured those at this
point? Because they could get buried in a verbatim tape,
especially a session this long.
JENNIFER ARMER: Absolutely. We would be looking
for a motion with a second and a vote with those specific
changes. What I have so far primarily is moving the word
"safe" to be the third item in that first sentence, and
then there was discussion and different ideas about
including the concept of innovation and innovation center
and innovation community in here somewhere, but I haven't
heard a specific consensus on how to do that.
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SALLY ZARNOWITZ: And there was change to the
language about historic resources.
CHAIR HUDES: Correct.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Yup. I was making a
recommendation that we include Matthew's language under
Community Vitality versus having it as a standalone.
JENNIFER ARMER: So, it would be added in
addition to the three sentences that are already there?
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Yeah, which might make it
too long, but I think that was my recommendation about the
best place to put it, so if the rest of the commissioners
thought that would be an okay way to move forward we could
make a motion.
CHAIR HUDES: Okay, would somebody like to make
the motion?
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Is it okay for me to make
the…
CHAIR HUDES: Of course.
COMMISSIONER HANSSEN: Okay. I'd like to make a
motion that we forward a recommendation on the Vision
Statement and the Guiding Principles to the Town Council
with the changes that we just discussed, including moving
"safe" to the third point about the community that we are
in the first sentence, including the changes in the History
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Resources section of the Community Vitality, and adding the
language about the innovation center that was suggested by
Chair Hudes as part of Community Vitality.
CHAIR HUDES: Commissioner Burch.
COMMISSIONER BURCH: I'll second.
CHAIR HUDES: Further discussion? Commissioner
Badame, did you have a point earlier that I might have
missed? I can't remember.
COMMISSIONER BADAME: No, I'm good with
everything. I'll be supporting the motion. Thank you for
checking.
CHAIR HUDES: Okay, very good. So, I'll call the
question. All in favor? Opposed? Passed unanimously. Thank
you.
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