 All right, why don't we call this meeting to order? This is a special joint meeting of the City Council and Planning Commission. Madam, I think it's Deputy City Clerk or Ms. City Clerk, would you like to call roll, please? Let the record show that all council members are present, with the exception of Council Member Combs, Council Member Sawyer and Council Member Tibbets. And Planning Commission. Chair Siscoe, can you just announce who the Planning Commission is? Yeah, all of us are here with the exception of Commissioner Duggan and Commissioner Collier. Great, thank you. Do we have any cards, public comment on this item? Okay, first up would be Eris Weaver followed by Judy Kennedy. There we go. Now am I on? Okay, Eris Weaver with the Sonoma Kennedy Bicycle Coalition, really excited to be hearing all of this conversation about rejuvenating and improving downtown. I've already sent you written comments about making the area more bike and pedestrian friendly, and so I'm not going to repeat those, but I want to speak to something else that I saw reading through the packet ahead of time with comments from the public about parking, more parking, enough parking, cheaper parking. With the City make a commitment to addressing climate change and with 30 to 40% of greenhouse gas emissions coming from transportation, we need to do everything that we can to get people out of cars. So making, walking, riding, and taking the bus safer, cheaper, and more pleasant is the carrot. The stick is making it less convenient and less pleasant to drive a car. You're already on the right track with a lot of the varied parking prices to make it, encourage people to park elsewhere and make it harder to just come and drive downtown. So I encourage any moving forward in this area to reduce or eliminate parking minimums and not put in free parking, because free public parking is basically publicly subsidized storage for private automobiles. Thank you. Thank you. Judy Kennedy? Yes, good morning. Mayor Schwenthelm and Council, Commissioner and commissioners. Chair, Chair, a Cisco and commissioners. I have a short list for you. The first of all, putting the square in Railroad Square. Lois Fisher and I came up with an idea last fall and brought it to Council members one by one and to the residents, business owners and property owners around Railroad Square. And there's been absolutely no pushback at all. People are pretty excited about actually having a square in Railroad Square. So I would like to see that as a, as a, as on the, on your list of preferred alternatives. Number two, there's several mentionings in the documents before you about a grocery store at the old Sears in the plaza. And I would like to suggest that a locally owned hardware store would be a fantastic compliment to a locally owned grocery store at that, at that location since Sears is a two-story building. You could do grocery on one and share with a true value or an A's hardware. Number three, there's several options, big options in front of you for discussion. And a road diet on San Rosa Avenue has been mentioned many times in the documents that you have. Now that we have traffic counts at 17,500, which is 20% less than they were 10 years ago. And the bike and pedestrian master plan has also put, has also prioritized putting buffered bike lanes in that area. And the, and Nancy Adams actually has the money to fund the striping of San Rosa Avenue. So I want you to look at the big picture. When you start thinking about neighborhood villages, I just want you to know that the park and garden sub area, which is the San Rosa Avenue corridor in the surrounding neighborhoods, we would like you to put that on the front burner. We have worked to create a neighborhood village with zoning changes already. And we are ready for low income housing, hotels, neighborhood friendly retail. And the zoning is in place and ready to go. Thank you so much. Thank you, Judy. Peter Rumble followed by Peter Stanley. Good morning, council and commission. Thanks very much for wanting, thanks very much for moving forward at the timelines that you had proposed originally. I really appreciate that the city is moving expeditiously and aggressively toward completing the plan. I was very heartened to see the various options that are coming forward to you. I think each of them have very strong merit and encourage you to, you know, pick and choose the best things that you see in each of those to provide staff to continue to move expeditiously. Really, really do appreciate how quickly you're moving forward. Critical to the development of the vitality of downtown. We're hearing from developers as well as community members how excited they are. So just kudos. I expected to comment after the presentation so I could provide something a little bit more meaningful. But thank you very much for moving ahead. Thank you, Peter. Peter Stanley. Mayor Schwedhelm, Chair Sisko and members of the commission and council. My name is Peter Stanley. I'm with Archaeologics downtown business owner and sat on the commission when we adopted the station area plan that's in front of you now for amendment. I want to say that there were unintended consequences of that document. There's a lot of things in there that are good. But there are things that were in there that started to constrain development. And I think that what you should be looking at as we go through this process is looking at those ability to create a more flexible document as we move forward. I like the idea that the three alternatives give us sort of an entree of choices that we can make and then we can come up with the best development possible for the town, for the city of Santa Rosa. And this is more than just downtown. We're obviously talking about the entire city when we're talking about adding a thousand units of housing or at least the need for housing a thousand units of housing. So I like alternative one that sort of gets aggressive. It talks about removing height limits on city-owned catalyst sites. Well, I would say that everything in the downtown is a catalyst site. And I think that we need to not constrain ourselves in the development potential as we move forward. Alternative two talks to this idea that we can meet all of the density requirements through six stories. And I think that's using policy as a way, you know, as using math as a way of documenting policy. Here's a little bit of math for the downtown. It's a little over 100 acres in downtown. And if you were to remove streets and circulation and infrastructure elements that really aren't significantly going to change, you're probably looking at around 60 to 70 acres of actual land in the downtown that has potential to create and meet this housing need. Well, if you were to take all of that down and build at 60 to 80 units an acre, you might be able to meet the density targets that we're trying to hit. That's unrealistic that we will ever do that. So as you put constraints on development, what you're doing is you're pushing that out. We're going to start pushing up against the urban growth boundaries. We're going to start pushing up against the existing residential neighborhoods that are around the city. And that's not what we wanted. When we put urban growth boundaries in, we said we were going to intensify. And as a community, we embraced that idea that we would intensify that development. So I would encourage you, both the commission and the council, to look at this document as something that needs to live on into the future. Innovation is there. It's coming. We are going to be able to build taller than eight floors soon and do that cost effectively within this community. So don't constrain the document. Transportation systems are going to change radically over the next five, 10, 15 years. Don't constrain things by making us build millions of dollars of infrastructure that soon will be obsolete. So let freedom, let staff, they've done a great job of looking at these things, but don't constrain it, leave flexibility in the document so that we, as purveyors and users of that document, can implement it. Thank you. Thank you, Peter. And thank you for sharing some of your special day and comments with us today. I appreciate that. Thomas Ellis. Good morning. And thank you for the opportunity to speak. And thank you as well for entertaining the necessary changes for the downtown. I just wanted to ask, I think some vital questions. What is available here for downtown residents in comparison to other cities? What distinguishes us? In many cases, they're the same. But what we have is exceptional in regard to community and environment in general, but not downtown. What separates us from our neighboring north-based cities, besides the fact that they have jobs and dynamism and the similarity that we have, which is if you look outside from above and you look down, what do you see? You're going to see the same exact thing as if you were in Los Angeles, if you were in San Francisco, if you're in Emoryville, if you're wherever you are, you don't have exactly the bay to look at. So in that sense, we're not as beneficial for residents and for those who would propose to work here. And so I ask you, what is it that's going to separate us? It's a design element. It's a design consideration. What is it that we can do that distinguishes us from every other community, at least in America as far as I've understood? So I do understand that there is one community in Europe that entertains very, very special, these design considerations. I would just ask you to think. Maybe it's outside the box. What is it that we can do, which is within our grasp? It's doable, but that distinguishes us entirely from every other community. Thank you. Thank you. Any other cards? All right. Before Mr. McGlinty introduces this item, just let everyone on the commission and the council know we'll have the presentation up through a lot of the background information. We'll stop for any questions. And after alternative one is discussed, stop for questions. Alternative two, stop for questions. Alternative three, stop for questions just so you kind of know the pattern. Mr. McGlinty. Yes. Item 3.1, downtown station area specific plan update, phase one summary and alternatives analysis, Jessica Jones presenting. Thank you. Good morning, Mayor Schwethelm, members of the council and Chair Siscoe, members of the commission. I am filling in for Patrick Streeter, who is our project manager for this project. He was unexpectedly out of the office this week, so bear with me as I move through his presentation. So we are going to be going over the downtown station area specific plan, kind of where we've been and where we're going, and as mentioned, the alternatives that have been drafted. So we have just completed phase one of the project, which is our opportunities and constraints portion. And so today's presentation will be to provide an update and the next steps. And so the next step is moving into phase two, which is the alternatives analysis, and we are looking for feedback from the commission and council, as well as other board's commissions in the community on those draft alternatives. So the comments that we received today will be incorporated along with all the other comments that we received through this process, and they will be formed into a single preferred alternative that will come in draft form back to the commission and council for your consideration. So as everybody is aware, the existing downtown station area specific plan was adopted in 2007. It is a 20-year plan that looked out to a horizon of about 2027. That plan anticipated about 3,400 new residential units in the downtown area, as well as about half a million square feet of non-residential floor area. As you can see in this slide here, we are falling far short of what we had anticipated. More than halfway through the planning horizon, we've only built about 100 units in our downtown. We're doing a little bit better with a non-residential, but still not meeting the mark. In early 2018, the council made downtown and downtown development a top tier priority. In response to that, the city applied for and received a grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission to update the downtown specific plan. The grant funding is paying for consultant help for technical assistance with drafting the plan, but because this is a Santa Rosa plan, engagement with our community and involvement with community and various stakeholders is really key to this process. So staff has been working to try and get as many voices to the table as possible, holding community workshops, going to local events, meeting with stakeholders, and our various boards and commissions. So this is a aerial of the plan area. So it does go beyond what we consider our core downtown. It includes area from College Avenue to the north, Highway 12 to the south, Santa Rosa Avenue and Brookwood to the east, and Dutton Avenue to the west, including the Amawley Gardens area. So this is the timeline for this process, and as was mentioned by one of the speakers, we are on a very aggressive timeline. And as mentioned, we just finished wrapping up phase one. We're moving into the alternatives exploration in phase two. The next step will be to put that preferred alternative together and put together a draft plan with updated policies and prepare the environmental analysis. And we hope to have the final plan to the council by the end of 2019. So as I mentioned, outreach is key to this process. A project website is up and running. It is planneddowntownsr.com. We have project documents up there on that website. We will continuously update it as we move along through the process. And we also have information on events and people can sign up for updates to the plan process on that website. We have also established a community advisory committee, which is helping us with our outreach efforts as well as a technical advisory committee, which we are working with to ensure that the plans that we put forward are technically feasible. We have held our first two community workshops, which were on May 1st and May 4th, that were very well attended. And that did wrap up phase one of the process. As part of that, we had a very robust online engagement that had a lot of online mapping and ways for people to provide comments. And then, of course, we have been attending various local events throughout the community and continuing to meet with stakeholders. Our first technical advisory committee was held on May 30th. And at that time, we asked the TAC to help us look at the proposed alternatives, which are before you today. So, to give a summary of the issues and opportunities that we looked at over this first phase of the process, there are about 5,500 Santa Rosa residents currently living in our downtown area, which is about 3% of our total population for the city. Those residents do tend to be of a younger demographic living alone or with roommates and are less likely to own a car. It's about 78% of the people that live in the downtown own a car, while about 94% own a car living in other areas of the city. We have about 8,400 jobs in our downtown area, primarily in the retail and hospitality and professional services area. Less than 2% of those people who work in downtown actually live in downtown. About 63% of them are commuting from outside of the city. So, based on the background studies that we've done, it's looking like the city is going to need to add about 1,000 new housing units in our downtown per year to keep up with the demand that we currently have. We do have a lot of large and vacant underutilized sites within the downtown area that are available for housing. And that includes some of our city owned sites that are in need of redevelopment. As I mentioned, we have only developed about 100 units in our downtown since the plan was adopted in 2007. So, the market for high-density housing in the residential market in downtown is not currently proven. So, there's not much for developers to compare to. So, this is a challenge that we're trying to deal with right now. We're also trying to look at making a path to development as easy as possible as you are all aware. And this involves looking at costs and timelines for gaining permits, for streamlining, and possibly looking at public-private partnerships. We're also the primary market for jobs is in the downtown area is at the lower end of the wage earnings. So, we're looking at what it would take to create and attract jobs at the higher wage level, which would entice more housing units. So, for building heights, the taller buildings, as we're all aware, located in the courthouse square area, but they do only reach about six stories right now, while the zoning code currently allows for up to 10 stories. The tallest buildings in our city are actually located just outside of this plan boundary area, and that is Silvercrest Towers on Montgomery Drive, which is at 10 stories, and Bethlehem Tower on Tupper, which is 14 stories. So, in our outreach efforts, we've had differing opinions on the subject of height and density in our downtown area. Some of the feedback that we've received has stated that increasing density and height would incentivize turnover and redevelopment of properties in our downtown, while others have stated that we have significant capacity and we're just, we just need to kind of relook at the factors of why development isn't happening in our downtown. Connectivity was a major discussion point throughout this outreach process, specifically the east-west connectivity between courthouse square and railroad square. There is a perception of safety concerns trying to get between the two areas, even though this is a very short walking distance. We've also heard support, as you heard earlier in the community comments, we've had heard support for road diets, and the, and our analysis is showing that that could be supported on Mendocino, excuse me, on Mendocino Avenue, Santa Rosa Avenue and East Street, particularly with the reunification of Courthouse Square. We've seen a reduction in traffic moved off of Santa Rosa Avenue and Mendocino Avenue, so there is an opportunity to kind of relook at how we're moving people throughout that area. So we've also heard a lot of feedback on the relation to programming for our downtown and what people like to do in our downtown area. Performance venues and food-oriented retail, such as grocery stores and especially food shops, as well as restaurants, were top picks for people that participated. And the leisure and hospitality sector that would support those is expected to grow by about 21% over the next five years. Okay, so we'll be moving into the project alternatives, so we want to take a moment and ask any questions. Chair Sisco, do you want to start with the Planning Commission? Planning Commissioners, any questions of this part of the report? I just have one, Ms. Jones. When we had our study session a number of months ago, I thought I understood that there would be a report coming out that was specific to kind of what went wrong, why we ended up where we are for these 10 years, and maybe with some suggestions about how to improve it, and I think there was going to be a historic inventory. Are those reports still coming, or did I misunderstand that? No, we do have an existing conditions and constraints report that the consultant has been putting together, as well as a priority development area or PDA profile and existing market conditions, and so they're being finalized right now, so I hope to have them within the next week or two, and they will be put up on our website as soon as we have them. We can notify the Commission and Council. And would you like to pick two, each of these alternatives, or will be getting one eventually as we try to create our vision? So those will look at what's existing out in our community currently. What we have now is basically what we're going to get for our draft alternative for the three options. Once we pull this together into a single preferred alternative, then we'll do some more robust analysis on what the impacts and implications are to the different aspects of that preferred alternative. That'll help us arrive at feasibility of our choices. Okay, thanks. That's all I have. Council, any questions? Mr. Vice Mayor? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First and foremost, this is a community visioning exercise. I keep asking residents, what do they want Santa Rosa to look like and feel like 20 years from now, and that's sort of been the easiest way to get people to frame how they give input. I appreciate in here that that's been the focus. I also noticed that there's discussion about outreach to developers within the community. Is there anything being done to also pull in additional perspectives from developers who historically have stayed away from Santa Rosa? And I'm thinking about it within the lens of when the Bay Area Council brought all of those developers from as far away as Colorado to see what was happening in Santa Rosa. How have we captured that and how are we incorporating that? So we're reaching out to as many developers and stakeholders and property and all of that that we can. I was part of that tour and was able to talk with some of the developers and we've had some conversations after the fact. The meetings that we've had with developers and stakeholders have included beyond just the local ones that have been traditionally developing in our city. So we're working with our economic development department to make sure that we reach out and get to as many people as we can. Okay. And this obviously this will bleed through I think the three different alternatives. But could you talk a little bit about conversations that the city has had with Simon and sort of what options could potentially be available there? I know that there isn't anything concrete yet. I mean we shared with Simon. I went with assistant city manager David Gouin and economic development manager Reyes de la Rosa and we presented what was taking place downtown. They're evaluating their entire portfolio. They are aware of these conversations. I can't, there's nothing more concrete to suggest in those conversations at this point. And have they given any opinion on what they personally see as the future of the site for them if any changes? No. Okay. I would hope you would continue to engage with them as well. We do continue to engage with them. Great. With Bodine announcing that they're moving up to Windsor has that changed how we've done outreach particularly around that corner of the plan? Not necessarily. The existing plan does call for the Maxwell Court area to redevelop to a high density mixed use multifamily area. Two of the alternatives that are before you today go in that direction. One of them brings it back to a more light industrial neighborhood. So it's something that's up for discussion. The existing land use that's in place as I mentioned is for high density. We do have a combining district for zoning that has been applied to that neighborhood called limited light industrial. That was put in place a number of years ago to help the existing industrial uses that were there to continue to thrive. But it did have a sunset date which is coming up in January of 2020. So that is something that the commission and council should weigh in on and the direction of that and where we want to go. But we do have a member of the neighborhood who is on our community advisory committee and we will be reaching out and holding a specific meeting for that neighborhood soon. Great. Thank you so much. Council, any additional questions? Ms. Fleming. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you for your presentation and all of the work that you all have put into it. I have a couple of questions and I'm curious about if you could speak to the nature of the outreach that has been done to communities that touch on the downtown area, stationary specific boundaries because I know that a number of our neighborhoods come very close and it will be affected by this but are not directly in the boundaries. So we had a special meeting for our preservation districts which included the preservation districts that come right up to it but are not necessarily included. We also have our community advisory committee is really a great group that we're leaning on to help us with our outreach efforts and we have members from all parts of Santa Rosa on that committee and so it represents various demographics, various locations throughout the city, even visitors that don't live in Santa Rosa but perhaps want to live in Santa Rosa. So we're really trying to reach everybody in the city because it's everybody's downtown and so we're doing it that way plus again as I mentioned we are attending local events. We've been at Wednesday night markets. We were at the Earth Day Celebration at Cinco de Mayo and so we're doing all that to try and reach again as many residents that may or may not live or work in the downtown area. Okay, thank you. I know I've seen you at Wednesday night market and I've seen community outreach, the Department of Community Engagement and those questionnaires that they give the kids now are really tough, you know, who's the city manager and so forth. So it's no giveaway now. I can see they're serious about this engagement. I'm wondering have transit services along the Mendocino corridor and increasing transit services been explored as an option and the reason I ask that question is because I understand grocery stores wait for rooftops and rooftops wait for services and so forth and we don't have those services in the downtown corridor but we have them very close by and so I'm curious to know has that been explored and will we be hearing more about that today? So we haven't gotten too in-depth in that you know again we're just now starting with this alternatives phase and so we will get more in-depth into the specifics of it including transit. We do have our transit staff as part of our technical advisory committee so we're working with them very closely to make sure that all those issues are addressed through this plan. Thank you very much. Anything else? Thank you, Jessie. Okay, so the three alternatives that we're going to be going over today as you've probably seen represent distinct visions and approaches. We are looking at testing the strategies of each and looking at the benefits and the trade-offs for each of those and hoping again to create that single preferred alternative. So we are asking for feedback from the Commission and Council today as well as we've already met with the Design Review Board and Culture Heritage Board and our Technical Advisory Committee and Community Advisory Committee and then we will be holding a community workshop coming up in the next couple weeks and then again meeting with stakeholders. Really asking for feedback on the pros and cons and working to identify the best features of each of these alternatives so we're not looking necessarily to pick one or the other I like one or I like two but what are the best features of each so that we can take all of those and meld them into one single preferred alternative. It could be that we like just one single preferred alternative but it doesn't need to be that way. Generally what we see is different aspects of each get pulled together so then when we create that draft preferred alternative we'll bring it back to both the Commission and the Council to see did we get this right. We'll also bring it to the community and to ask them did we get this right to make sure that what we're moving forward with is something that is supported by our decision makers in the community and then of course we'll be meeting with our Technical Advisory Committee to make sure that whatever is developed is technically feasible and can work. So the preferred alternative that is developed out of this process will go through its own review including review as I mentioned by the Commission and Council and all of the other community members and Technical Advisory Committee. The three alternatives all assume development of approximately seven thousand new residential units in our downtown area which is of course an increase from the anticipated 3400 units that were anticipated with the existing specific plan. The potential location of the new units as well as topics such as jobs created, public services, they all vary between the three alternatives. The other issue that has come up through this process is parking. We are looking for feedback from both the Commission and Council on topics such as parking minimums or maximums, new facilities and parking regulation flexibility. So the first alternative that we're going to look at is the vibrant core. With this alternative it is looking at locating the bulk of the new 7000 units of residential development in the courthouse square area which would support a shuttle, grocery store and other amenities in the core of the downtown area. We would see six-story minimum heights with this alternative with no maximums along 3rd Street between E Street and Morgan and would look to the city-owned sites as potential catalyst sites to spur development. The other areas within the plan area such as railroad square, Santa Rosa Avenue and College Avenue would have densities and heights capped again to try and get that core development in our courthouse square area. So as I mentioned earlier this is the one alternative that does look at changing the land use for the Maxwell Court area and the Roberts Avenue area from the what's identified in the existing plan right now as higher density mixed use development and bringing it back to that service commercial and light industrial use. We would also be looking at redevelopment of the Sears site at Santa Rosa Plaza to a mixed use in housing and adding a regional performing arts center. Connectivity improvements for this alternative would be centered around reconnecting 4th Street as a multimodal roadway through the plaza and multimodal meaning that it would allow for all modes of transportation, vehicle, pedestrians, bikes and transit. Activity would be added under the underpasses through pop-up retail, food sales, performances and possibly a skate park. And we would also be looking to add bike and pedestrian improvements along A Street as well as a fair free shuttle service between railroad square and courthouse square. So this slide is illustrating the potential breakout of the residential units and job projections for this alternative. As you can see we are focusing the bulk of the residential units in courthouse square so it's about 4,600 new units in that particular area. And this would also be looking at a potential projection of jobs at about 3,600 new jobs for the for the area which would primarily be in the office and service industry. So that takes us to the end of alternative one if we want to stop for questions. Okay Chair Sysco you want to start? Yeah any questions from our commissioners yeah Vice Chair Weeks? Jessica in the when you talk about the pathway through the plaza is that a roadway or a pedestrian pathway in this alternative? So for this alternative it would be a roadway, it would be multimodal so it would allow for vehicles, bikes and pedestrians. And that is the way it is currently designed in our existing plan just to be clear. And what's the definition of greater courthouse square? Courthouse square area is basically what's shown in kind of the darker brown on this particular slide here. Thank you. Any other questions from commissioners? I have a couple. I didn't see in this presentation but I saw I think in other materials that Patrick Strieger had presented that they're in in this particular plan for the Maxwell court area and Roberts Road area there's going to be like a PDR zoning do you recall that or with that how it's defined? Yeah so it they are identifying a potential proposed new zoning district which we wouldn't necessarily be very in favor of. We don't generally like to create new zoning districts that are very specific to a very small area of our city so more than likely what we would see if this is the direction that the the council and commission and the community want to go with you know perhaps re-looking at our light industry zoning district which is what was previously identified for these areas and modifying that to create they were identifying creating some maker spaces making it kind of a unique little not necessarily not too much heavy into the industrial but more like heavy commercial and having spaces like that but yeah we would generally shy away from creating a new zoning district just for this specific area. Okay so that's why that's not in this particular presentation and then in terms of connectivity this looks like it does not include the connection of Roberts Road has that been eliminated for this particular alternative? That's my understanding yes and I believe that that's because we have moved away from that higher density residential which would need that more that connection to going back to the industrial so my understanding is that yeah this particular alternative does not have that connection it would just be the the bicycle protection connection that currently exists through the trail that's there. Okay thanks okay that's we're good. Council questions I have one with this the brown area of the downtown core you've got that one leg going out on 3rd street why is that so isolated versus a larger area? That's an excellent question I don't have a good answer I believe that this is the courthouse square sub area that's currently in our our existing plan but I have to go back and look and and we'll certainly kind of refine this and if it seems like an odd piece then we can relook at it. Okay and then looking through all the alternatives you may discuss it in two or three I might have just missed it but the the railroad square making that a square how does that piece or that featured would you just want that feedback at the end or I'm not sure which alternative an interest in that feature or change would fit in? So it's not specifically called out in each or in either of or any of excuse me any of the three alternatives but it is something that we have heard from the railroad square group about and it is something that we will be moving forward with as the railroad square is something that you would like to see move forward. So again process wise after you throw all the three alternatives we see all of it then we did almost like what your first slide was the pick and choose I like you know this alternative with these additional features. Yes yeah and then that's the other thing is if you know we we're bringing this forward this is kind of what we have heard throughout this process but if there's something that you thought that you would see in one of these that you don't or you wish that was in one of these we certainly want to hear that as well. Okay council any other questions let's go to two. Okay so alternative two is our village centers alternative this would create a network of interconnected mixed use village centers with its own each with its own distinct character. High density residential would be spread evenly throughout each of these areas to foster activity centers specifically around courthouse square the smart station maxill court as well as the sabastical road and santa rosa avenue corridors as you can see with this alternative both as we've talked about earlier both of the maxill court and robbers avenue areas would be redeveloped from the existing light industry to the higher density which is as I mentioned currently how the the current specific plan is envisioned building heights in this alternative would max out at six stories at each of these locations. Connectivity improvements for alternative two would include providing strong connections between each of the residential areas to transit with specific focus on reconnecting fourth street as a pedestrian peseo so with this particular one it would not have vehicular access but it would be for bicycles pedestrians only and that would be through the santa rosa plaza area as well as extending robber's avenue as was mentioned so that would would have that vehicular connection through robber's avenue as well as donahue street with multimodal roadway road diets in this alternative would include mendicino avenue santa rosa avenue and east street to add bike lanes and wider sidewalks with removal of a vehicle lane the potential breakout of residential development in this alternative as I mentioned it's more spread out and the residential development in what is currently industrial areas would be retained approximately 2100 new jobs are projected with them being primarily in our service industry with about half of the jobs in office and retail and a small piece in light industrial so that's it for alternative two seriously you want to start with the planning commission yeah commissioners any questions on alternative two and I don't have any on alternative two either council questions miss flaming yes I'm curious to know if you mentioned that we can go forth with elements of each of the three proposals so I'll get into that later I'm curious to know though you know how how you can help us to weigh the various benefits and costs associated with each of these elements and if that will be something that we should discuss as we go along with each piece or if you would prefer to have it at the end that's a good question I you know I think at this point what we're looking for is kind of the the pros and cons as you see it now we will do more analysis on the preferred alternative to really understand what it all means as we put together that draft preferred alternative and it will as I mentioned come to you in draft form with with analysis to really understand what the implications are before we make that selection so does that help it does help I just want to be clear though that we're looking for pros and cons after we get through through the mayor are we looking for that after we get through all three presentations like you said okay thank you I'll hold my comments all righty see another question did you have a comment patty well I was just noticing in the the land use designations for alternative two for the village centers there is an area that it does have that production distribution and repair so it's keeping part of roberts road industrial and moving housing over unlike it is now yeah and so and that's why you still see a small portion of jobs created with this particular plan but ultimately probably won't be called pdr right okay great thanks I'm sorry just as a quick follow-up to the pdr because I think it's come up a couple of times the idea that pdr this alternative designation is to let miss jones reference the idea of a alternative version of industrial so not your classic light industrial that's in the rest of the city but something maybe that is unique that fits with the downtown environment because light industrial in general is service shops and auto body repair things like that but based on the input from the idea was maybe it's a different version of industrial that's downtown that's a that's a could be integrated with high density housing alternative three okay so alternative three which is our final alternative is the transit forward this would create areas of high density that would be focused along the high frequency transit routes that connect our downtown high density residential would focus on mendicino avenue between college and courthouse square along san rosa avenue between maple and courthouse square and along west third from davis to dutton and sabastable road from dutton from olive to dutton with this alternative similar to alternative to both maxwell court and roberts avenue would be redeveloped from the existing light industrial to a higher density residential building heights in this alternative would max out at about eight stories and we would see redevelopment of the transit mall area with a mixed use residential project and an expanded transit center and then redevelopment of the sears site would also be envisioned in this alternative as well as the smart site so connectivity improvements would include reconfiguring the existing high frequency corridors as multimodal transit opportunity roadways and this would include bike and pedestrian improvements and activation of public areas we would also see reconnection of fourth street through the mall again with a pedestrian peseo so no vehicular access as well as connection of the roberts avenue with a multimodal roadway similar to alternative to new multimodal connections would also be provided through the smart site and there would be the fair free downtown shuttle established between courthouse ground railroad square and then finally enhancements to connections to santa rosa creek and improved underpass with art and lighting would also be included so the potential breakout for residential development in this alternative would be more evenly spread than in alternative one but would again be focusing on our transit corridors there would be approximately 3000 new jobs projected with this alternative about half of them in the service industry with the remaining split between office and retail and and I will note with this one there is no projected new industrial jobs with this alternative so that concludes that questions on alternative three yeah vice chair weeks jessica can you explain the definition of an enhanced connection to santa rosa creek and what would that look like it would i'm not a hundred percent sure i think what we would be looking at is you know bike and pet improvements and really trying to make it a friendly place for for people to access the creek also it's the opportunity of the properties along santa rosa creek in that area and if the sears site expanded south for example or just there's some surface parking lots there so the plan would provide policies to actually make something happen there that oriented to the creek as opposed to backing onto it yeah commissioner carter you have a question yeah i was wondering if you could say a little more about how third street is used in this project for instance what are the catalyst projects that might be envisioned for third street and is the configuration of third street such that it becomes a major element in tying railroad square and the courthouse where area together so third street is back up here actually i'm going to go all the way back so this this map here shows some of the sites that were identified for potential redevelopment and third street is kind of like the core area where we would anticipate getting more of the catalyst projects coming through to really start redeveloping the downtown area you know some of that would be through some of the city-owned properties through public-private partnership as well as through some other sites that that we're aware of that would be ready for redevelopment and the catalyst projects are not necessarily housing that doesn't we would anticipate that they would be high density housing and with higher building heights okay commissioners and yeah commissioner crappy it's snug so alternatives one and two reference height limits either six stories or none but alternative three does not is that just projected to is it proposed that it would be no height limits no that would it would have height limits we're going to look through the so in the narrative of the packet that that went out to you it does indicate six to eight stories would be the maximum height in for alternative three other questions from commissioners okay and i don't have any council questions seeing none okay so just to conclude i wanted to briefly go over our schedule so right now as we're talking about we are going through the development buildout projections and alternatives we're looking at that through june and july we went to the designer view board and cultural heritage board for a study session on june 20th and had this a similar conversation we also brought the alternatives to our community advisory committee on june 24th we will be holding our community workshop on june 29th and then of course we'll be continuing to attend local events and meeting with stakeholders and that will take us through the end of july and into august the technical advisory committee will be considering a draft preferred alternative that comes out of this process in august and then we will be bringing it to the commission and council for your consideration in august as well so following all that as i mentioned will be once a preferred alternative is selected by the council then we will move forward with the development of policies and environmental analysis on this process and then hope to have the final product to the council by the end of 2019 and so that concludes my presentation thank you Jessica i have a question for the city attorney um if i so choose could we open it up for public comment again after this presentation like now even though it's not on the agenda yes that would be within your discretion so for members of the public i'd almost like to treat this as another pop-up event if you would like to make comments and you haven't already done so on this item feel free to fill out a card um and i'm more than happy to hear what your input is and then jessica if you could do a me a favor for those of us up here can you frame the specific questions that you would like feedback on i know this is general but you mentioned railroads where traffic diets can you specifically talk about you'd like feedback from us on these specific features yeah there there are a few specific features as you mentioned that we would like feedback on one of them is parking you know looking at minimums or maximums and how we want to address parking moving forward we also want to get feedback on the extension of roberts avenue that has been a question that has come up over the years on how we're going to address that the existing plan shows extending roberts avenue under highway 12 with a full road um and there are some complications with that um so we'd like feedback on that also feedback on whether specifically whether we want to look at changing the maxwell court area and the roberts avenue area from the existing vision of a um a mixed-use high-density housing and bring it back to that more industrial or light light industrial and and commercial uses we'd like to get your feelings on the road diets that have been discussed as well as putting the square and railroad square so those those are the ones that are coming to mind right now and then of course just you know general feedback on the alternatives and which features of each alternative you prefer great so again if you're anyone and who wants to make comments to the commission or the council feel free during your three minutes you so choose to actually give us some information and put on that too do we have any cards so before we bring it back here let's hear from members of the public first and it looks like michelle you're probably going to be up first sorry dean i'm giving you 12 things to do at once there you thank you my name is michelle you're saying Santa Rosa canners i can't help but just put my 20 year old hat on i mean 20 years ago had on and with the route at days and this is really great to see that these ideas are carrying forward and we'll get done i know that the understanding is there and we'll get done on behalf of the Santa Rosa canners its own property along the Santa Rosa creek and railroad square just three points of clarification that as you incorporate comments into your planning would be great and i did see them mentioned in one of the alternatives and had to do with connectivity it'd be great to know what to expect in terms of connectivity through the smart site from third to sixth i did see that and mentioned in alternative three but in and whatever comes to be preferred be great to know if it's west street or whatever it's going to be called that there is a connection there similarly to know what is to be expected in terms of connectivity to the creek reconnecting fourth street has long been discussed good to know what's going to be expected and required and then just another note as you look at infrastructure in the downtown there's a storm drain that runs through there and it's good to acknowledge what the infrastructure improvements throughout all downtown or what would need to be improved thank you great thank you and christin keifer good morning mayor members of the planning commission and honorable members of the council this morning i would like to again commend the efforts and the outreach that has been going on over the past couple of months this has been great to see the input that has been coming in and the focus on these different areas that have evolved in different ways and how we should be moving forward together i would like to call out for the opportunity to again revisit the look at the conversation around building heights and whether this is looking at current conditions or where we want to be in the future and understanding the opportunity for future technology and resolution of issues such as construction costs and labor costs where should we really be going should be driving this document i would also like to call for the opportunity to look at opportunity areas so say sidewalks that aren't wide enough for there to be an outdoor cafe or a projection into the sidewalk what what other opportunities do we have to create more places for people to interact these are goals that i would like to see accentuated and featured in this plan so really hope that we have the opportunity to look at infrastructure as well you know as we're preparing this plan it would great it would be great to see that these plans are achievable by developers down the road because of infrastructure that's put into place now so in closing i would like to be really forward thinking in how we're looking for future opportunities and opportunities to connect with others in places that hopefully we're doing this in the downtown and not online let's create more people places great thank you any cards dina all right uh chair oh a bird about with the transportation land use coalition i really want to commend the work that's been done on this it's uh it's due and uh the two comments that i would make is first that we need to pay a little bit more attention to the cycling situation bicycles are going to be a big part of the issue as time goes on particularly with e-bikes which extend the catchment area for first and last mile to the train from the current three miles to about five um and that's substantial uh the other thing i want to reiterate is that uh putting the square back in railroad square is really important thank you thank you steve and zach berkowitz hi i've uh been around santa rosa for around 15 years and invested and been a property owner for that time and currently involved in a few projects one of them being trying to build 106 units on an casino at 420 one of the things that really catches my eye and i'm not sure which of the council members caught this but why did we fail so badly in our projections on um residential units being built in downtown santa rosa and until you figure that out and solve it it's really kind of crazy to think that we're going to build 7 000 units i mean and and the bottom line after studying this for quite some time is rents are low in santa rosa and the cost of construction is the same to build here as it is in emoryville san francisco or conquered so there's a big gap and i'm not in favor of raising rents by any means but we have an issue here and until that gets solved i mean we used to have redevelopment that would would come in and solve the gaps here and it took care of basically it took care of reunifying courthouse square as well um so i i think that issue has to get looked at very thoroughly and figured out before you're going to get a bunch of developers up here to come and build a bunch of units um it's a it's a beautiful place it's a great place to build but the economics just don't make sense and that's why the developers haven't built so i i think it's something that needs to be addressed the other thing is the transit mall is there any talk of moving that so it's just a question thank you and keep up the great work great thank you and is that it anyone else interested in addressing the commission or council all right cherishes go you want to go everyone heard the questions that staff would like to hear and open for the comments cherishes go great um commissioner carter would you like to give some comments pure um i'll i'll make my comments in the order that you gave us your your list uh with parking i certainly feel like we shouldn't be looking at increasing parking requirements or allowances um i personally favor a transit forward approach to the plan which would suggest that if we can make transit work we probably don't need to provide as much storage space for cars if and when we do build parking it should be flexible and uh make itself available for redevelopment for other uses uh higher and better uses as we like to say um i believe the roberts avenue extension while i don't understand completely technically what's uh at a foot here i think it's important i think we are focusing a lot of residential development in the in the roseland area and increasing connections between roseland and downtown are very important um maxwell court i think it's um when i first moved and i've only lived in san rosa for six years now i thought the area looked ripe for redevelopment in light industrial maker type uses if if you will i'm not sure what the market forces are that affect that but it sounds attractive but i don't think we should give up on housing in the vicinity of the smart train i think it's very important to do dense housing to get smart working as effectively as it can um specific to the transit forward alternative i'm intrigued by the redevelopment of third street both to the west side of town and in the downtown core area and and what configuration that might take and how it might play as an alternative to the heart of downtown which is fourth street and and provide for the kind of intensity we we need in downtown to make this plan successful and with that i'll let my colleagues um yeah thank you so much for your time and your effort on this and the presentation my comments regarding parking i agree we shouldn't make more louses but we need to be careful because the downtown's for everybody and with decreased parking comes um decreased usage by people maxwell court um i have different viewpoints because i work about an eight iron from there and with the new development proposed on west college in that area and the inability to to expand west college in any way shape or form it it could be an issue um i do need i do agree we need housing but i think it's going to be a little more complicated than just building it there um this coming from my experience that all construction and development comes down to traffic and parking um and um i like a lot of alternative three i'd get rid of the building heights um the building height limits with alternative three i like it more condensed um and uh i like everything else about that redeveloping sears connecting four street um i mean i've heard of many people say they'd like to see a san tana row kind of thing on four street going through the mall um so uh with that yeah i think that's all my comments thank you if i could just clarify quickly when you say you are in favor of the reconnection of fourth are we is that for both uh pedestrian and bikes and vehicles or just pedestrian and bikes i'd say right now just pedestrians commissioner peterson uh so building off of uh commissioner sysco's earlier question and one of the issues raised by the public i i feel like going into this a little bit blind without knowing sort of what went wrong why why is downtown the way it is um and so without having that report on the decisions that were made in the past and in the effects that they've had today i think it's a it's a little bit difficult just to pick and choose with any sort of level of specificity um so what i'd like to address is sort of the my my general view of of the options that have been presented and the issues raised by the this specific plan um i think one of the key goals is to avoid making the same mistakes we've made in the past uh and also really anticipating the future in a in a meaningful way and so what what i mean with that is you know the the elephant in the room is is the mall and i any sort of connectivity is going to have to address that decision that was made um but one of the things we can avoid doing is making the same mistake with uh planning around cars and parking that we've done in the past i i don't know that i've ever seen for instance anyone park on the the top floor of the fifth or seventh street garages i think we've got plenty of adequate parking as is and i think we need to orient the city away from that um one of the public commenters asked sort of think about what makes santa rosa unique and i i think one of those things is the ability to avoid hopefully making the same mistakes and taking advantage of the the natural uh environments the fact that the area is flat that there's a lot of room for connectivity for getting people out of their cars biking and walking around and hopefully also avoiding uh san francisco style sort of economic segregation with only sort of one demographic group coming into downtown on the specific issues raised by staff i would be in favor of the square on railroad square i would say the drawings that were were sent by the public of what it would look like are good but i would again get rid of the parking around there really oriented around pedestrians and bikes um when it comes to parking in general in the downtown station area specific plan i'm very strongly in favor of reducing or eliminating parking minimums for these kinds of projects along the same lines i think a road diet on as many roads as possible would be great really orienting them to the uh human scales things you know as far as maxwell court uh again it's it's hard to say without you know knowing a little bit more specifically what's gone wrong in the past but i my inclination along the same lines as mr carter would be sort of the mixed-use housing element of it and um it's the same with the roberts avenue extension without without sort of the specific pros and cons of what we're looking at it it would be hard to say one way or the other but in general uh greater connectivity for bikes and pedestrians at least um is something that i'm in favor of my share weeks okay so i'm going to go through the alternatives and pick out the ones the items that i think should be included um and i'll get to answer the questions as i go through that um so i don't think there should be height limits um i think let the market drive but that limit should be if anything there should be a minimum not a maximum um i like the idea of active underpasses um whichever way i know that was in a couple of the alternatives uh i think roberts road should be extended i like road diets idea uh the redevelopment of the sears site and the transit mall in whatever way that can occur can and connection to san rosa creek um putting the square back in railroad square and agree with commissioner peterson about the parking pedestrian pathway through the mall more than there is now because there is one but it's not very attractive or usable um reduce parking minimums uh let's see where else um um and i think overall we need to make sure that there's maximum flexibility in the plan so that it's actually a usable document for developers uh who want to who want to help us reach our goals so that's it okay i'm going to start with roberts avenue this maybe some of you knew i might that connection is extremely important and um i'll i'll get to uh kind of my preference for the alternatives but i want to give a little bit of history about that area um back when the southwest area plan was developed that that whole section of roberts road from dunn over to the freeway was designated retail commercial business services at i don't know 20 years ago at some point um the the human services building was proposed for that site which was a really grand plan the property owners the multiple property owners there uh came together there was options to purchase the whole thing to develop this uh human services building which was going to serve the county serve the area and the housing around sabastopol road was going to make it very walkable to an employment center later on uh when the general plan update was done that land use was changed to public institutional to accommodate that uh that plan and it failed so human services building went away ultimately those land owners came forward and the public institutional land use designation was hindering them from getting financing to do improvements to their their businesses so they requested a general plan amendment to put it back into industrial which was done until the uh the the original downtown station area specific plan came forward and i was on the commission at that time um and when that when that was originally coming forward the being there was a technical advisory committee that was comprised of a lot of the department uh technical departments as well as board and commission members and i along with a number of others said we really need to include this roberts road area in the downtown station area specific plan boundaries because it's key to bringing had that human services building on forward that would have been key to bringing downtown and meeting the roseland area which now is even more important than it was then with the approval of the roseland village to to make sabastopol road connected to downtown so uh we asked it that to be included in the boundaries and it was the vision that ultimately came forward for for the plan was the transit village um mixed use was all about housing and that particular plan was all about housing and it wasn't particularly in favor of that i thought we were losing an opportunity to have a grander vision for that particular area at one point some developers that wanted to do a baseball stadium looked at that area um i'm always going at one point i know when mr mcglenn first came on we had some developers of artists housing go look at roberts road go roberts road so um in my opinion that the connection of roberts road is absolutely critical i don't know that i'm kind of in favor of alternative one with the more aggressive approach to the density downtown with the flexibility built in as mr stanley uh pointed out again i'm disappointed that we don't have that report that said what went wrong but for that particular area i really would like to see and maybe we have to make a new one a land use designation that puts a star on it and and to have economic development if somebody's coming forward that could be the place if it was well connected that you travel through courthouse square and you go into the new square and railroad square and you come down to something that's active and vibrant not necessarily housing but something like our performance center maybe we do a san rosa version of the barlow there's historic building there that is needs to be preserved the silos it could be a very interesting pathway from downtown into this basketball road over to rosin village but i would like to see it as flexible as possible so that somebody with a vision to do something more than just uh high density housing and certainly more than the industrial businesses that are there now um i'm sure both mayor schwedhelm and uh council member olivares know how dangerous that area is how much work the police department has had to do because it's cut off so we can't afford even if it's difficult i really wish the city could sort of take on its own cip program and make that connection in advance of development because it would really aid the area and um it's an important connection so i would not support anything that closes that off and i would really like um i would like that particular land use looked at with as expansively as possible as flexible as possible you know if a housing developer came in with a grand idea that that would be something too but i just think it's it's a lot of underutilized land with landowners that are willing to come together and and make it a a big area to develop something that would be remarkable very helpful and supportive of the immediate courthouse square but also supportive of getting you down this basketball road into the interesting things that are going to be built there so that's my max my roberts road spiel max will court i can see it in in retaining its sort of industrial light industrial place particularly now that baudine has moved on but i also can see the case being made for keeping it housing so as far as how that operates in alternative one um those are my feelings on that uh i think again i really wish we had the report to understand what went wrong because there's still places downtown the uh the moor building which was originally so exciting as a mixed-use building with housing on top of retail the retail was never built we've had a proposal if you spend a couple of years now that said let's remodel the retail space into living space and that hasn't happened so it's it's just really hard to know what's going to be feasible and i don't really want to be responsible for creating a vision that that isn't feasible but i do know that what was built more was built was the non-residential area so again that's my my case for roberts road definitely in favor of the road diets um in the vision of the the square railroad square i think the more active and more interesting places we can provide um for our youth i just think that that's really really critical um and all the connectivity issues so i'd probably pick whatever the most feasible uh elements of anything that connects anything to anywhere or enhances the creek and and put that in the plan so i think that's it okay thank you good counsel start on this in mr alvarez thank you thank you uh chairwoman siscoe did i mention she's my pointy to the plan commission sure uh and and i do agree with her comments related to roberts and maxville court but i think looking forward it's really that flexibility um and really really looking long term as far as what we're doing with our with our downtown planning um so i am in support of reducing the parking minimums uh road diets yes i think creating more space in places for people where we can make that happen uh putting the square back in railroad square absolutely to continue working with that group and how do we core and the subversible road area as much as possible especially for pedestrian traffic so i would not support any type of vehicle or traffic going through the plaza but more looking at how we get pedestrian access back and forth including bicycles and also looking at the changes we make and how we can accommodate other modes of transportation besides cars we have pedestrians obviously bicycles that i know back in 2008 or so we had a pedicab downtown didn't survive much very long but maybe it's time to consider other options like that bike shares anything we can do to get people out of cars would be important um and also that connectivity to centers of creek i know this is a vision we've had for decades and how we can make that happen and putting more uh eyes and uses along that creek corridor i think would be very helpful and also very helpful as regards to uh perceptions of safety and and and the last comment this is no joke but looking into the future it's restrooms how do we accommodate restrooms in our core we have a lot of people down there so i think having access to public restrooms is going to be important whatever we do thank you mr sorry thank you mayor and i agree with the last three speakers they've all touched on some really important points i'm intrigued by um chairwoman cisco's robert's road discussion never have i um been so intrigued about it because i've heard so so many alternatives and so many possibilities ones that i had never they came in bits and pieces over time and to hear them um articulated uh in such an exciting way actually i i'm really intrigued by that i don't know what the possibilities are i don't know the expense i don't know you know any of the um roadblocks to taking advantage of that area but i i am look forward to hearing more about those possibilities um mr stanley mentioned flexibility in all ways and i and looking to the future as far as changes in technology i think it speaks to parking it speaks to all sorts of things and i think that flexibility is one of those items that perhaps um compromise the ability of the last plan to be successful so i'm i'm looking for a high level of flexibility i am not in favor of of um creating limits on on building heights i think that the market will will dictate those that that uh those decisions and limiting uh those that would come in and offer us opportunities as far as building heights i think should be considered and and uh move in the direction of flexibility as opposed to limitations um i would be very curious well i'll leave that for the last um as far as road diets i mean there was a time when road diets were more problematic when we had the road going right through courthouse square i'd be curious to know uh what public safety says about certain road diets there may be issues around some that might be more problematic than others but i think that uh we have more opportunities now that we've changed the the traffic patterns in downtown to consider road diets that were not particularly um uh either possible or popular uh with certain um activities like um fire engines um max will a railroad square definitely would love to see a square back in a railroad square i think that or back uh getting it uh in place would be um a all positive of not only for our visitors but for the employees it had a way to um gather people together in a real positive way so i'm definitely in favor of that max well court i would need to know more about the opportunities there and and whether or not what would what would happen if we were to um change or eliminate the um light industrial there it concerns me somewhat and i i i think that we need to be able to have uh those opportunities that could be eliminated if we moved just to housing in that area so uh with with the new opportunities presented with the the move um of baudin i think we have an opportunity to be a little to be uh as creative as possible in uh the future use of that site um one of the things that i am really curious about in the narrative that was received it speaks to your may 30th meeting um that the let's see representatives of city departments outside agencies and other technical experts met for technical advisory committee meeting number one um and this is an important piece the purpose of this the meeting was to consider two potential project alternatives and developed additional items of consideration that should be tested toward preparation of a preferred alternative that is a mouthful and i would be very very curious to all of these these suggestions that might come out of the council or or the public as well um having a long list of wants without having a the test of reality makes for um this puts a lot of questions up in my mind and i think that i would be very interested in in knowing um the some of those major challenges to some things that may sound simple to us and may sound simple to the community but indeed could be um problematic difficult almost and perhaps even impossible um one of the things that came up uh an alternative one under the vibrant court it speaks to activate underpasses with pop-up retail food sales performances in the skate park anyone that can turn the third street underpass into a into a pop-up um retailer food sale area um deserves a crown um that and being able to do that inside of a tunnel um and and make it attractive and and not not something i mean i think almost anyone who knows that space um avoids it like the plague so there may be other alternatives um areas where we can use some of the overpasses but um as as a disappointing as that space is i think it's it's i don't know if i could ever be used effectively um but i'm intrigued by the by the concept so i i think that's i think i think i've touched on everything parking roberts maxwell relevant square road diets yes thank you very much thank you thank you for the work miss lemmy yes thank you again um so i'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that a potential my hypothetical um my hypothesis for why we didn't get the housing around after the 2007 plan has to do with the combination of both recession and policy so hopefully we can move policy out of the way and just pray that we don't have another recession um i don't know that that second part is going to work very well but we can do everything we can on policy front and let me start by making a statement to anybody who would like to do responsible development in Santa Rosa please do it you're very welcome here um let's see i'm going to go out of order as but try to do it as best as i can here i had the benefit of listening to nearly everybody talk first so um when it comes to additional parking um i'm not in favour of additional parking i am in favour of looking into a wayfinding program that would help direct folks to parking and use the vast amount of parking that we have in a more efficient and attractive way i know that our that kim nidow works really hard on that and i know that our downtown merchants would love to see um parking utilized in a way that can attract um you know and retain people who want need to drive into town although i hope that we can also look into how to attract housing downtown that meets the needs of those folks working in the service sectors and um so that they don't need to commute into town i am in favour of road diets and i'm also in favour of additional bike and pedestrian connectivity and i want us to look toward including both south of courthouse square area um sonoma avenue further south as well as mendicino i'd love to see um look at a possibility of a low or no cost shuttle that would run from bicentennial to um the the smart train and also have south of a street being more connected as well to the smart um to the smart train because when we do that what we're going to find is that people are going to build downtown because if you had a trolley or a not a trolley but a rail not a rail car but um some sort of shuttle that went back and forth all day long between courthouse square and bicentennial you would pass by the junior college you would pass by two grocery stores you would get to kaiser and there would just be a whole bunch of connectivity and people would build downtown and then eventually we would need and be able to afford a grocery store based on the roofs downtown um so let's see um one of the things that i'm sad to hear not mentioned very much outside of a skate park and cherris disco's remarks are the considerations for family and youth in these plans i believe that a downtown that's vibrant and connected is going to have an attract families and children when i come downtown my daughter asked me what we're doing here and she said are we going to work and i'll say no we're going to go meet some friends but she doesn't feel like that there's a place here for her and so when we look at um at features that would attract families and children i really do i am in favour of a square in rail road square and um i'm going to condition those remarks in a moment but what would be really important to me is to see a place that not accommodates families with children but invites families with children and without good wayfinding without good public restrooms that are that are made available and clear to folks these are difficult things to do um one of the things that i would like to see considered in the courthouse um not the courthouse the railroad square would be the wall to wall um version where we make um it more open and attractive for pedestrians and bikes i am interested in the connectivity on fourth street i'm very interested in the connectivity on fourth street i'm not swayed that it needs to accommodate vehicle traffic although i would be open to hearing the benefits of that and i would also be open to having an allowance for a free or no low fee shuttle as well as emergency vehicle travel through that area but i i do think that we should do everything we can to have um a safe and designated bike lane and that we should do everything we can to have pedestrians be safe the other reason why i'm not a hundred percent sold on idea of vehicle traffic outside of public service vehicles is that although that the mall is the elephant in the room one of the few if only benefits of the mall is that it is allowed railroad square and courthouse square areas to develop with their own cultural and retail features that are somewhat unique to them and i think that if we had uh foot traffic and bicycle traffic and perhaps public transit that we could help to create connectivity with maintaining the independent flavor of both both squares and both sides um let's see um i am in favor of reducing minimums on uh parking requirements and like i said better utilizing the ton of parking that we have um on roberts and max well i defer to cherris isco's thoughts on on those things but again um i would just say that if there is going to be light industrial that we try to make it mixed used and approachable for pedestrians families and and folks who want to live and work in the same area third street um mr. Sawyer made some very pointed comments about it one of the things that i've always thought would be really great on third street would be a permanent light installation or some other kind of artwork that was difficult to destroy and lit the area and made it attractive for people to be there unattractive for people to sleep there and um generally safer and a fairly low-cost investment for the city um i don't know if anybody remembers uh oh hair airport in the late 80s and early 90s i haven't been there recently but they had at least as a kid they had these would are probably super tacky looking installations now but when i was a child it was so cool to walk through um oh hair airport my parents probably weren't as entertained but at any rate uh lighting can do a lot um and it can be done in a in an artsy way i'd love to see as much public art as possible let's see here um um i'm not in favor of height limits on buildings i am in favor of um especially within the downtown core i do believe that if we're going to build in the historic district and and anywhere that there's a neighborhood that we need to have uh height limits not height limits we need to have we need to rely on our planning commission to do the great job they do and consider the character and our design review board to consider the character of the neighborhoods and so forth but i i know that um when we have height limits that uh it just doesn't pencil for all developers and i think that santa rosa has done a very good job of saying no when we don't want something so let's not say no in our policy let's say no on um if somebody wants to build a that type of a tower in a place it's inappropriate to it i think we should address it at that point i'd like to do whatever we can to uh have the people who work downtown be able to afford to live downtown and to see a good mix of of work um options for people so that people can afford to live downtown and then um i'll just leave with this anything we can do that makes it more pedestrian friendly and more family friendly is going to make this where and our downtown a better place for everyone and a lot of the challenges that we see through lack of connectivity and through primarily automobile based transit i believe can be addressed through bike and pedestrian and public public um transit anyway i'm sure i missed a lot and um everybody did a great job so i'll pass it on thank you mr. reiss mayor thank you mr. mayor uh i am in particular interested in a blend between the vibrant core uh alternative one and the village centers alternative two i think we've talked a lot from this council's days about the need to invest in our downtown and to put housing where we would like to see people be and also the added economic benefit to the city of creating that higher density in your urban core but i think we also do a disservice to the city if we ignore that santa rosa is first and foremost a city of pocket neighborhoods and in particular where it comes to our historic districts the folks who live in there or who have understand the value both cultural historic and economic that those provide to our community what i'd like to see is a blend where we are focused our housing downtown while also creating distinctive gateways into those historic neighborhoods that helps foster an immigration of historic resources into what we're trying to do in santa rosa each of our historic districts do have their own particular culture they can sometimes have shared features they have their own issues that they have and i think that if there was a way for us to strike that appropriate balance it would help us to answer the question of how we add housing units while we are surrounded by historic structures that represent where the city has been i was watching the joint meeting between the design review board and the cultural heritage board and the vice chair brought up in particular santa rosa avenue and how it used to actually be south main street and to me that's what i think 20 years into the future of santa rosa what i want to see is santa rosa avenue being that main street that leads into our downtown that has the arts district on one side of it and a historic district on another side of it that each have their own culture their own flavor and their own creativity and that we as a city don't get in the way of people being creative in those spaces i do want to see the santa rosa avenue corridor plan implemented i want to see our downtown particularly fourth street become more pedestrian and bicycle oriented a pathway through the mall to me as a minimum i've spoken at length before about wanting to see an open-air mall concept and in fact we've talked about our p3 i actually would not be opposed to the city and the county looking at how we repurpose parts of the mall to create that civic center as well if it's going to be the barrier in the centerpiece of the city which the mall is at the moment then we should be looking at all of our options on how we can can fix that i am not in favor of cars being able to drive down fourth street from courthouse square until railroad into railroad square i think for that pedestrian and bicycle connectivity it's vital that people feel safe and currently that's one of the biggest problems with third street particularly how you come through third street yes is dark yes there's nothing there but in my experience uh both as a bicycle bicyclist and also talking to the bicycle community it's actually the uphill that's the problem is you've got a nice downhill where you're less worried but as you come up and you slow down while cars are trying to take that right hand turn that's where it really becomes a struggle for them and creating a connection for bicycles and pedestrians that isn't reliant on duck and pray to get across i think is really important for the future of our downtown i'm a huge fan of the square and railroad square concept i'd like to see that implemented i'm not sure i'm there on eliminating the parking around it because of the policy implications that it has for both the neighbors who would bear the brunt of folks taking the smart train parking in their neighborhoods as well as people trying to avoid taking the smart train when that is going to be an important feature of our downtown and the future of our city as well i want to put people on the smart train while also not impacting the folks who live right around the community and we're already seeing that even with parking spaces that are there i want to be very clear when we talk about parking minimums that we're actually talking about approval of housing units in the downtown and making sure that we are lowering the minimums for those in order to help get those projects off the ground what we don't typically talk about is the city's role in this area of creating additional parking spaces whether it's building up at our parking garages to ease the burden on the housing that's being produced i actually would take uh if i had my way i would take some of our parking structures add a couple of stories up to them and lower the overall parking minimums that are required for housing developers to produce to put those units there they could then lease some of those spaces or folks could do month to month leases if that's where they wanted to park if they wanted to have their car but as was noted in the report many folks living in downtown are actually far less likely to have a vehicle than if they live elsewhere as it comes to the lil overlay for the Maxwell court that just is a little bit of a refresher for the public and as a reminder about three years ago we had that discussion about what the future of Maxwell court was going to look like and that was put into place particularly around and understanding that bowdeen was not going anywhere anytime soon and that that asphalt plant being there was going to hamper the possibility of doing housing production and that we should provide some level of economic activity in that region up until a point where bowdeen was ready to move we've hit that and when this comes before the council in early 2020 i will not be voting in favor of retaining that lil district and i am really not in favor of us changing this designation back to an industrial use when for close to a decade the neighbors have been organizing and pushing and trying to create housing in that region they will riot if now that they finally have an opportunity with bowdeen moving we change it on them again and put a different type of compatible use there when we've been promising them for years that we are going to provide them with housing roberts road the chair has me convinced and i don't want her to throw down and then i'll stop with this i do want to emphasize oh actually uh third street i am all forcing what people can do with pop-up retail i'm not sure that escape park is going to be the most appropriate there again i don't know how people would use that but i do recognize that our downtown doesn't have something for young families to be there uh one of our school board members actually sent me a picture of a wall climbing installation that was in the east bay that was very minimal in terms of its footprint but it had kids actually playing on it while their parents were in their square or were downtown and were shopping providing something for families to do in downtown i think will be a key and much of the feedback that i've received from neighbors is that they want to see some form of a music venue or some type of an entertainment venue that they can bring their kids to while they're doing something like sitting on a patio drinking a beer i want to see the searsight redeveloped a grocery store or a hardware store sound great to me yes to free public transit in our downtown and in particular sonoma county transportation authority has had conversations and will be looking at an ollie an automatic shuttle drives itself through your your downtown core doesn't really work that well when you have a lot of traffic so again going back to the needing to create connectivity east to west again closing with just providing a little bit of flexibility so that developers whether they are from here or that broader reach that i talked about before making sure that we're bringing in best practices from across the country are allowed a level of creativity to create in our downtown what we as a community have put forward as a vision thank you for those comments okay the last comments now uh so for me um alternative one is the key to this whole thing of vibrant core that's what this council or previous councils they talked about when we reunited the square we're trying to make that vibrant downtown so that really spoke to me uh no height limitations we need as much flexibility as we can because we do not know the specific one magic bullet that's going to generate all these wishes that we've been hearing um i am in favor of the four street going through the mall uh from the bicycle bicycle and pedestrian perspective not vehicle traffic um regarding maxwell court again chair cisco nails it um that in roberts but i'm also like the vice mayor uh mixed use is the i want to keep that consistent on maxwell court regarding the road dice i'm a big favor of them on mendos and was having on e street i get i remember when we had some discussions about this years ago with the former fire chief and there were some concerns about you know can ladder one get through there so obviously public safety is the number one priority but i would envision you know the type of bike lanes where bikes are next to pedestrians and cars are next to cars widen those sidewalks really make it a pedestrian bicycle friendly downtown because i think that will attract a lot of the different businesses and people won't mind parking in let's say history garage if it's a pleasant either bike ride or walk to get to some of these other establishments in our downtown i think that those will go hand in hand i also in favor of those enhanced connections to san rosa creek but not at the expense of the um reality of being able to build something but how do you work those in together um i am i know mr sorry made some comments about third street i remember those council discussions if you recall what it was before we did enhance it i think one of our former colleagues said is like putting lipstick on a pig i beg to differ then uh it's made a huge improvements i think we've taken that next step just on third street i know we have a ways to go on that but i think it can be done if we just get creative with that uh let's see road diets in railroad square a big fan of actually having some sort of a square in the middle of the square versus a parking lot i agree with the vice mayor about parking implications for the study is needed but making railroad square a square i think will be huge and lastly i'm a big in favor of a some sort of trackless trolley what that might look like but incorporating that in the plan i think it blends a lot of the things that we're trying to do with climate action transportation i think that would really blend it well together and with that sefty have any questions regarding the feedback are there any unanswered questions that you might have of the planning commissioner and city council uh no not at this time i just really appreciate everybody's very detailed comments this is going to be extremely helpful great thank you so much for the work i know we're uh progressing towards that ultimate solution so i will adjourn this special meeting of the planning commission city council and we'll re-adjourn in approximately 15 minutes for our next study session