Good evening and welcome to the regular City Council meeting on September 17, 2024.
The Walnut Creek City Council encourages a respectful dialogue that supports freedom of speech and values of diversity of opinion.
The Council staff and members of the public are expected to be civil and courteous and refrain from questioning the character or motives of others participating in the meeting.
the city requests that speakers not use threatening, profane, or abusive language
which disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of the city council meeting.
Please refer to the end of the agenda to review options for participating in the meeting.
And now we are ready to start. Would you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?
the five states of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. May I have the roll call?
Councilmember Francois? I'm here. Councilmember Silva? Here. Councilmember Will? Here. Mayor
Pro Tem Darling? Here. Mayor Hask you? Here. Next on the agenda is a National Prepared Month
proclamation, and it's real long so please be patient, whereas, oh good, somebody actually
got my joke, um, whereas emergency preparedness month occurring annually in September creates
an ideal opportunity for every resident in Walnut Creek to join people, to join people
across the United States in preparing their homes, businesses, and communities for any type of
of emergency, including natural, technological,
and human caused.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA,
announced a 2024 Emergency Preparated Month theme
as Start a Conversation, recognizing that conversation
today can help families and communities to take more
actions to prepare for disasters and emergencies.
Planning now before a disaster is the best way
to improve community resiliency from disaster.
We commit as a community to equitable participation
in planning for and responding to
and commit to disaster relief
and recovery service of all communities
in the event of an emergency or a disaster.
Whereas when residents work together with the government,
take responsibility for preparing their families
and their communities, the chance of survival
and return to normalcy following a disaster
is greatly increased, whereas the city of Walnut Creek
and its community partners promote public awareness
and educate citizens about preparing their homes,
businesses, and communities for any type of emergency.
Critical links developed at the local level
with partnerships and networking within the local community
include the state, the county, American Red Cross,
Walnut Creek Community Emergency Response Team, CERT,
Rossmore Emergency Preparedness Organization, EPO,
nonprofit organizations and others willing to help.
Many volunteer efforts within the community
will go unrecognized with these individuals
working quietly behind the scenes without public recognition.
Whereas all of the city of Walnut Creek employees
are disaster service workers
and are committed to responding to disasters day or night
on work days, off time, and even on holidays.
Whereas locally emergency preparedness efforts
include ongoing training for emergency operation centers,
staff, implementation of the integrated preparedness plan
and emergency management plan and ongoing coordination
with the Contra Costa County Office of Emergency Services
and other agencies.
Whereas the City of Walnut Creek informs its residents on how to take action and receive
services and encourages all residents to sign up for emergency alerts through the Community
Warning System and WC Alert, and we're getting to the end, whereas all residents of Walnut
Creek are urged to plan ahead for disasters and encourage their families and friends to
to do so by visiting emergency preparedness website
at www.walnut Creek, walnut hyphen creek.org
slash emergency and FEMA's ready campaign
at www.ready.gov or www.listo.gov
for essential preparedness tips and information.
Now therefore, I will ask you mayor of the city
of Walnut Creek on behalf of the Walnut Creek city council
hereby proclaim September as emergency preparedness month
and encourage the community to observe this month
by developing their own emergency preparedness plans
and working together toward creating
a more prepared society before the disaster occurs.
And I believe we have three people
who are going to share this proclamation.
Good luck, I don't know how to divide it.
I bet we can make copies.
So would you come, would you come forward
to somebody who can make copies?
Okay, okay, would you please tell us who you are
and would you give us some words of wisdom?
Laquacious Fran Will.
I am Fran Gibson, I am in my fifth year
leading the 33-year-old Rossmore Emergency Preparedness Organization. Our core mission
is helping our residents ready their households for a major disaster or emergency that will
come our way. In our six decades of history as a community within Walnut Creek, we've
only had one major disaster and that's COVID. I'm here to tell you that given the galloping
pace of climate change, things are going to be changing, and we will be meeting
disaster or emergencies, and we need to get ourselves prepared. It's an honor to
be here. The bigger honor for me is to have any place, role whatsoever in
helping close to 10,000 people stay safe and resilient. Thank you very much for
this honor. So thank you. I'm Don Brosnitz, Walnut Creek Surt. I am a four
decade-plus resident of Walnut Creek and been working on CERT for, I don't know, 15 years
or so.
So on behalf of our 250 active members of CERT, I want to thank you for recognizing
the importance of emergency preparedness.
All our active members go under 25 hours plus of training.
They are all, you mentioned, disaster service workers.
They are all sworn disaster service workers.
Our activities were mainly response organizations.
We get called out again by the city when required.
Activities coming up in the next couple of months.
We've just heard the Contra Costa Fire Department
wants to give us some specialized training.
I don't know what that is yet, but we will find out.
Our basic training course will start again in February.
We are helping with the BioWatch.
We work with Contra Costa Health Department,
we're gonna help with the upcoming BioWatch exercise
that's coming up the end of September and October.
We operate a robust communication system across the city
that'll operate independent of any infrastructure.
So I think like everybody else in the organization,
we love this city and we are delighted
to be able to help the city out
in emergency preparedness, thank you so much.
I'm Diana Graham, and I am the community preparedness lead
for Contra Costa County for the American Red Cross.
And I'm very happy to be here tonight.
And I just want to tell you that if you spend a little while
getting prepared, you can make your whole life
a lot less miserable and recover a lot quicker.
And just to help you out here,
I have left on the back table a piece of paper
with a QR code on it.
And if you take, scan that QR code,
you can take it home and have 23 pages
information that will help you get prepared and make your go bag and your
stay bag and all those things and the hardest part of being prepared is you
have to think but it's worth it. My house burned down in the Oakland fire in
1991 with everything in it. We weren't dead and that's the best part and we
easily could have been so the important thing is to know what you're going to do
under any circumstances and we have plenty of options of circumstances in
California, and thank you for recognizing us as a partner. Thank you.
Before you go, I want to check with the council and make sure that they do or
don't have any questions or comments to add. Does anybody want to talk? Please?
Thank you. I'll just say thank you for what you were doing. It's volunteers
like you that helped make Walnut Creek a great city. May I add one more app to
yours, Mayor. Everybody in here should have MyShake app on your telephone, please. Every
earthquake that's 4.5 and above will appear that's near us. That gives you precious
seconds to get under a desk, a table or against an inner wall and a duck cover and hold on.
Earthquakes are twice the risk of wildfires here. Thank you for just letting me add that.
well worth waiting for. I have to add redcross.org slash prepare. I just want
to say thank you guys for all of this you know my husband and I have on a
piece of property up in the mountains and he was up there by himself and we're
getting we're watching the the alerts and it's like mandatory on either side
of us and he's in between I'm like honey don't you think it's time to go because
I was just going to barbecue something.
Do you think I could do that first?
So maybe I'll introduce you to him
and we can have a conversation.
And nothing burned down.
You can always come back.
That's what I was trying to tell him.
Don't wait till they're there in your barbecuing on the flames.
But thank you for all you guys do.
Matt, please don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't.
Just a quick one.
Thank you all for what you're doing
to keep our communities safe.
If someone wanted to volunteer for CERT
and go through the training program.
I bet there's a website.
Maybe you can talk about the schedule and the timing.
So there is a website.
What I didn't do is thank the members of the city staff
that help us all the time.
Rich Payne, we just got a new job.
It's been a big help.
Ray Lam, it's been a help.
And unfortunately, I don't work with her,
so I don't remember who it is that helps us
with our infrastructure and particular website.
So that gave me an excuse to thank people,
but yes, we have a website on Walnut Creek Dash.
What is it?
said it's Walnut Dash Creek, is that what it is? Yes sir, whatever it is and that
lists all the training opportunities and the next one will be in February.
Excellent. Thank you. And if you Google Rossmore EPO you will find our website
and under resident resources is a very well-vetted tip sheet on readying your
own household getting ready. You don't need everything that's on the tip sheet
but it would be very helpful to scan that and make sure that you are ready.
So it's Rossmoreepo.org and my email is at the bottom if you have any questions.
I invite those.
I welcome them.
Email me.
Thank you.
I know the Red Cross has got something to say.
If you want to volunteer for the Red Cross, I'd be happy to have you.
I can take you on and train you on the job.
So it's really important.
or has a place where you can go to volunteer and put your zip code in and
we'll get your information thank you very much oh thank you very very much
and okay actually I feel a lot safer just having met you in and know how
dedicated you are thank you very much all right next on the agenda is the
consent calendar does any council member want to I would like to pull 2e and 2f
alrighty I have a 2e and 2f pulled and I would like to pull h and that would be a
2h would anybody from the audience like to come in make a comment on anything on
the consent calendar I'm not seeing any movement so bring it back to council and
And may I have a motion to take care of all the ones we accept?
Move to approve the consent calendar items
to A, B, G, and I through L.
Second.
And you've brought C and D. A, B, C, D, G, A, I, J, K, L.
Yes, C and D. C and D.
Bill second.
I will come in the third.
No, well, I brought it back to council,
but I will make an exception in this.
No, it's already pulled. No, it's sorry
Yes, you'll be able to comment a moment
All right. May I have a roll call vote on the items that are approved?
Councilmember Silva
Please note for the record that I'm voting aye, but on item aye since I live near that bridge
I don't think I should be voting on approving the
Work that which has been done
Councilmember Wolk. Aye. Councilmember Francois. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Darline. Aye. Mayor Haskew. Aye.
Motion carries unanimously with a note from Councilmember Silva. On to Aye.
Okay can I have public comment on ENF or do you want to? Okay public comment on
ENF which is? Which is? The memorandum of understanding between the city of
Walnut Creek and Walnut Creek Police Officers Association and approving the
amendment to the amendment of memorandum of understanding between
Walnut Creek and the Walnut Creek Police Management Association and I don't
honestly care which of the two of you speaks first. I'll go first because I'm
prettier than Andrew. So I'll make this short and sweet because I got three kids
at home that want to wrestle with me. So tonight's obviously very historic for our
union to receive this mid contract pay incentive. So we are very grateful. It's been a long
road that we've been working on with the city. So we just want to say on behalf of
our union that we're very grateful that the city had opened the door and met with us at
the table and got to this place.
And we are very grateful that we're
able to do some catching up to help retain our officers,
as well as hopefully attract some officers to come here
and help rebuild our group and building onto the future.
So we just want to say thank you so much to the council
for proving this.
and I'm just gonna keep it at bat.
I'll let Andrew take over from here.
Thank you.
Mayor Haskew, oh, is this, there you go.
Mayor Haskew, Mayor Pro Tem, Darling,
City Council members, Silva and Francois,
and Welk, City Manager, Buc-Shy,
and I wanna acknowledge also HR Director,
Raver over there, and my boss over there in the corner.
Thank you for allowing us to speak tonight.
I wanna introduce myself formally to the entire room.
My name is Andrew Haw, I'm currently the sitting president
on the Police Managers Association.
I did spend some time as the POA president as well
before I was promoted to the rank of Sergeant.
And what I can tell you is that the two positions
are incredibly challenging and rewarding at the same time
because it's rewarding because we get to represent
our extended family and friends on subject matters
that directly impact them for work
and for their personal lives.
So I do wanna say thank you.
I'm not going to make this super long
and I get drawn out when I'm on a podium, so I'm sorry.
But I do wanna say thank you and express gratitude
and appreciation to the city council, to the city,
all of the stakeholders that were involved as well
because it's incredibly important for our agency
to be sustainable, honestly, it really is.
So again, I just want to keep this short
and I just want to also say to all the folks out there
that this city really does care about its public safety
because coming from an agency, I'm a lateral officer,
coming from an agency where that was in question,
this is a breath of fresh air, it really is.
So again, thank you very much for your time.
Thank you.
Any questions or comments from here
Or shall we roll on?
I just wanted to say thanks.
And that's really why I pulled this measure, or these two,
because we so appreciate what you guys are doing for us.
And we also recognize that we were in unusual circumstances,
which led to the decision that is before us tonight.
And we are hoping that this will be a good way for us
to continue to recruit new officers,
recruit lateral officers, and make sure
that our existing officers know how much we value them.
And so with that, I will move to approve two E and two F.
And I'll second.
I do too, just wanted to relay and express my gratitude
and appreciation to the fine men and women
of our police department.
And thank you for all you do day in and day out
to keep our community safe and eternally vigilant
and protecting and serving all the members of our community.
And I also want to thank our city manager
and our HR director for coming and meeting in good faith
and leading us to the point we are today.
So I'm proud to support this motion.
I like you too.
I actually said really nice things
the last council meeting and I run out of nice things.
No, I guess I haven't because that sounds rude.
I really do appreciate all the service that everybody does.
You are, in my mind, the most outstanding police department
in the whole Bay Area and maybe even the world.
And so thank you so much for all what you do.
And I'm ready now for,
unless Council Member Silva wants to say anything.
All right, I'm ready for a roll call vote.
Mayor Pro Tem Darlene.
Aye.
Council Member Wilk.
Aye.
Council Member Francois.
Aye.
Council Member Silva.
Aye.
Mayor Haskew.
Happily, aye.
Motion carries unanimously.
we've got another loose end, I believe.
Thank you.
I pulled the adoption of the resolution
on the first amendment to the city loan agreement
with resources for community development
for an affordable housing project
at 699 Ignacio Valley Road.
I have a couple of questions,
but it's very exciting that we are doing this
because it means the project is finally, I believe,
funded so that we can move forward
and get the 93 units built.
Come on down.
Good evening, mayor and council.
I'm Stephanie Bryden, the housing manager
here at the city of Walnut Creek.
Thank you so much.
It's been a long road since 2021, I believe,
to try to bring this project to funding levels
so that it can come to fruition.
So where are we now that is necessitating
a revisions to the loan agreements?
So we are currently really happy to have enough funding to be able to move forward.
Right now we are looking to make sure all of our loan documents are able to distribute
the full amount that we've committed to the project.
And with the ASIC funds that had been awarded, we were able to get most of the funding stack
available.
So this project is at the corner of Ignacio Valley Road in Civic Drive, the location of
a very extinct gas station.
I don't think it's been open since I've been on City Council.
I think it's going to have about 93 units
for low and very low income families.
Of the funding required to build that project,
it's gotta be in the $90 million range, if I'm correct.
What portion of that is city funding that we're lending?
Well, we're lending around $10.5 million out of the 90.
So about one ninth or one eighth of the funding.
The remainder of the funds was really
in question for a while.
There's a lot of funding required
to build affordable housing.
What was that last piece and what was the value of that,
because that was the hip, hip, hooray,
let's prop the cork.
Yes, the last piece was the ASIC funding
that we received on August 22nd,
and that is a total $24 million that is available,
$20 million in loan and $4 million in grant.
And this isn't the city receiving it,
this is the affordable housing developer receiving it?
That's correct.
And you said an acronym.
It's the Affordable Housing
and Sustainable Communities Grant Funds.
That's right.
And it's from the state of California.
That's right.
So thank you and to the staff and community development
for all your work to do whatever we could
to help the RCD qualified
for all of these various pockets of money to build this.
And when do we think these will,
they're fully entitled.
so that they've been approved
but I don't think the construction documents are done yet.
That's correct.
We are hoping to be permit ready in May of 25
and that would mean that construction
would start that month as well.
And they should be open and ready sometime in late 2028.
We are hoping for sometime mid 2027.
Oh, that'd be great.
Because I know that we've given them until 2028
and all the loan documents, okay, great.
Thank you, thank you, Mayor.
And thank you for the work for the city.
I have bragged about city Walnut Creek
being the poster child of supporting low-income housing,
and it is so exciting to add another star in our crown,
so thank you very much.
All right, I believe unless there's other comments,
we might have a-
You have to open it for public comment.
Oh, oh, I thought that qualified.
okay we need public comment
we're not getting any so now we can make a motion willing to make the motion to
prove the resolution approving the first amendment to the city loan agreement and
the amended and restated regulatory agreement with resources for community
development
for the affordable housing development at six nine nine and a show valley road
and also for the approval of the state of california affordable housing and
Sustainable Communities program indemnification agreement for project
funding. Second. Now roll call vote please. Councilmember Silva. Aye. Councilmember
Francois. Aye. Councilmember Wolk. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Darling. Aye. Mayor Haskew. Super
happy to say yes. Motion carries. Okay public communications. This portion of
the meeting is reserved for comment on items not on the agenda. Under the Brown
act the council cannot act on items raised during public communications but may respond briefly to
statements made or questions posed request clarification or refer the item to staff
consistent with section 9.5 of the city council handbook 30 minutes will be allocated to this
time for public communications for items not on the agenda additional time for public communications
for items not on the agenda will be provided at the end of the meeting if necessary
Okay, now's your chance to come forward and give us your feelings about anything not on the agenda
Hello. Good evening, mayor haskew mayor pro tem darling city council members staff and our fellow community members
My name is Leslie Gleason and it's my privilege to serve as the executive director of Trinity Center
We just want to take a moment tonight to share some really great news about something
we are really proud of, but before that there already have been several items on tonight's
agenda that have touched us. We are an active member of CERT. We rely deeply on our great
relationship with the Walnut Creek Police Department, so we're happy for you all too.
Thank you for your support of our Employment Pathways program, and as an organization that
serves the needs of many Hispanic and Latinx people in our community, we want to note you
proclaiming Hispanic Heritage Month as well, so thank you.
What I want to share with you tonight is that we have recently with support of the Contra
Costa County Clerk Recorder Elections Department received support and funding to work with
our members and the entire community to support outreach, registration, education and the
empowerment process so that the people we serve who are people living unhoused or unstably
housed without a fixed address can still be part of our civic process.
So we, even this morning, showed the council member, the council candidates forum that
was held last week.
We showed it to our members because we want to help them be educated voters.
And I want to also extend a welcome to the rest of the community in October, on Friday,
October 4th, and then again on Monday, October 7th, we will be having representatives from
the League of Women Voters to come right on site at Trinity Center, help people register
to vote, check if they're registered to vote, learn a little bit about the process and make
sure that everybody in our community has easy access to the process.
So thank you.
I just wanted to share that on behalf of Trinity Center.
Thank you.
Any comments or questions from the council?
I just think that's awesome.
Thank you.
Okay.
Anybody else stepping forward?
Seeing none.
We'll close the public comment time, communication time,
and we'll move on to council members' staff announcements
and reports on activities or requests.
City attorney, do we have any items?
There are no reports from closed session this evening.
And I understand that when I get to the city manager,
he has some wonderful news to share.
I do, good evening.
Dan Buchshite, city manager,
and I'm very pleased to share
that Rich Payne was appointed yesterday
as our new Public Works Director.
Congratulations, Rich.
Rich recently celebrated his 25th anniversary
with the city, having served all that time in Public Works
in a multitude of roles,
most recently serving as a Public Works Manager
and as our Interim Assistant Public Works Director
and has been very involved in several of the projects
that are coming before your council
to keep those moving forward.
So thrilled to have Rich in his new role,
join our executive team and help provide
additional leadership to the city.
And with your concurrence, mayor,
I'd like to invite Rich to come up and say a few words.
I absolutely concur.
Thank you, mayor.
Members of the council, Dan Buckshi.
My name is Rich Payne.
I'm the director of Public Works.
So it has a nice ring to it.
I just want to take a moment and just tell you
grateful I am to be able to serve as your public works director serve the
citizens of this community as Dan said I've been here for 25 years it's been a
great ride it's been wonderful I is flown by I tell people that right 25
years it seems like yesterday I started with the city and it's just been fun
every day I come to work it's just a new adventure and but I do want to say
that this, you know, serving the public is a wonderful thing and it doesn't
happen and really my job doesn't happen without a great team and I can't be
remiss without recognizing the Public Works team, their dedication. As Dan
mentioned I've worked in the operations and maintenance and be able to work and
being able to work with that team has been fantastic just to see their daily
dedication to go out and really independently own the job when they go
out there. And now serving in this interim role being able to work with
engineering and the dedication that they have and just the expertise and just how
they take ownership of their job to serve our public. It's just really
impressive. And then as I've had the opportunity to work with the police
department, work with HR, work with the planning department, work with arts and
recreation, and I'm probably missing somebody but there's a lot out there. Oh
finance, finance, the most important part, right? It's just been it's just been
great to see that same dedication and it just occurred to me that's what makes
this place so special. Walnut Creek, the staff, you know, we always say it's the
little things when you come in. Public works, you know, we repair things, we
do the signs, everything kind of looks good, but that security is just a
nuance when they come in. People come here because they like it, they feel
that safety because things are well maintained, and so I just I'm looking
forward to working with such a dedicated team. I feel really blessed to be in
this position for Dan, I'm grateful that he has had enough confidence to give me
this opportunity. And then also, you know, my previous boss. I can't be remiss
without giving her credit, Heather Ballinger, for just her leadership and
her mentorship and giving me the autonomy to grow and learn this job. So I
really appreciate that. I know CERT was up here and I just I want to just give
them you know a high five for just having the opportunity to work with them
in some of these disasters and so it was really nice to see some recognition for
cert. We started incorporating them into some of our drills and then also our
exercises being able to help with storm events and stuff so it's been a really
good partnership with them too so I wanted to give them their their props so
anyway thank you for you know again allow me to serve as your director of
Public Works. Okay next item on the agenda is closed the rest of us. So
Cindy Silva. Thank you very much mayor and welcome everyone. Rich,
congratulations. I don't know if you remember that in 2006 we were in the
leadership Contra Costa program together and it was a great opportunity to meet
and actually work with you in this very casual setting
of learning about all things that go on in the county.
So I have fond memories of getting to know you.
So thank you.
Just a couple of announcements.
One is that I am serving as the council representative
on the Artist Selection Committee
that is reviewing and selecting recommended artists
for the artwork that will go in
as part of the Heather Farm Park Community Center
and aquatics project.
Our charge is to recommend a small group of artists
that would be selected by the Arts Commission.
We had our first interview last week of 10 candidates.
The numbers started near 150.
We went over the herd from 34 to 10.
We interviewed them.
It was an international cast.
One of the artists is from Amsterdam,
but he was actually in Tokyo, so.
So we were interviewing across all time zones,
it felt like.
We have narrowed the candidate list to a group of five
that will be preparing proposals for the projects
and what they envision and their ideas.
And then before the end of the year,
the Arts Commission will be narrowing it to one, two,
or three artists and artist projects
so that they can begin working the artists
that are selected will begin working with the design team
on integrating the art into the design
of the community center and the aquatics facility.
We have great opportunity here
to really bring public art to bear as part of the project.
Has it been decided how many pieces there will be yet?
No, there's a budget.
There's funding available based on our city code,
arts code, and they were all asked
if they would mind not getting the whole thing.
They were all very, very smart and politically savvy enough
to say of course I'm flexible.
So probably one, two, or three people,
but probably not all five.
And there are a range of artists.
Some were 2D artists and others were 3D.
They were sculptors.
Some would do work that's appropriate indoors,
some outdoors, some both.
And it was very, it was challenging to figure out
who to pick.
It was virtually a tie for all of them.
So we're looking forward to that.
The Housing Community and Economic Development
Council Committee met last week,
and we approved what we did last week tonight,
which is the approval to rewrite the loans
for the new project at 699 YVR.
I would mention that, and I don't want to steal your thunder, but the Walnut Creek
Sister Cities Board met last week.
I sit on that board, Mayor Pro Tem Darling is the liaison to it, but I wanted to extend
our thanks to the HR team for helping the board members of Walnut Creek Sister Cities
figure out how to do the process that is required in the state of California for background
checks for chaperones.
So we have a group of students that will be traveling to Hungary and Italy in about three
weeks and as part of that chaperones go along and so we want to be sure that they have met
the state requirements but then conversely these students are visited by Italian and
Hungarian students in the spring and so they will have families that have to go through
the same process here.
So it was a robust discussion but I did want to extend our thanks to the HR team and the
manager for helping us figure that out. And finally I will mention community
service day is October 12th signups are well underway a number of schools need
help they're not hard projects but they're very very fulfilling and you can
go to walnut hyphen Creek org slash service or it's on the banner ads on the
home page and click and check out what the projects are and sign up so thank
you all very much. We're Walnut Creek dot gov. Walnut Creek dash orgs just still
works and I don't think it's as simple as what you're saying. I think it's
there's a ca.go I think. So it's a longer URL. I gotta pick somebody. You're
next to me you go. Okay thank you. I always like to be there in a clutch
situation. As Cindy Silva said sister cities did meet the other night. I had to
drop off because my son called me and so I made it through most of the discussion
but I really do appreciate the help with getting everybody so that they are well
certified and keep our kids safe in the process and we are excited to see the
kids next time they come. Let's see a couple of us went to go with John Muir
health they were recognizing mentos positos positivas which is a mental
health that is working within the Latino community in conquer through and just
using peer counselors who are trained to help with mental health and they've been
operating for ten years and just had a tremendous ability to make inroads into
a community especially amongst some of the people in the community who
culturally are a little reluctant to admit that perhaps things are stressful
for them and it was a great opportunity. It was also a great opportunity because
they were doing it in English and Spanish. I was practicing my Spanish while I was
there. We partnered with the Climate 350 MCE and a number of others on
electrification fair out at Cali Craft on Saturday. I went by and there was an
amazing number of people out there looking at heat pumps and looking at
pump water heaters and solar and you know it wasn't just the beer they were there to
get information and it was great because that you know our sustainability action plan really
relies on people wanting to make changes in their their greenhouse gas footprint so it was really
good to see. Community cleanup will be out this Sunday if anybody wants to go help clean up the
the streets. It is, again, weirdly satisfying. But then the last thing I wanted to talk about
was last Saturday we had an event in Civic Park and we're really too bad that Mayor Haskew couldn't
be there to celebrate with us. But we were celebrating Amit Alor, who is our gold medalist
in women's wrestling. She was just a fabulous person. She got there early. She's only 20 years
She's the youngest woman ever to win a wrestling gold medal.
And she, we brought her out, we gave her an Olympic flag, and she came up through the
crowd, and the crowd just loved that much thanks to Dan Ashley, who did the interviewing
of her and kind of helped pull her story out.
And he also brought up her brother and her coaches so that everybody could hear the story
of how she had gotten to where she was.
And then the thing that most impressed me about her is after we were all done, she had
agreed that she would take pictures with kids or kids at heart and so we had people line
up and she was there for two hours showing little kids her gold medal, answering questions,
taking pictures and just amazing.
You know, I kept asking her mom, I was like, is she okay, does she want to just cut it
off?
She's like nope, as long as there's a kid in line, she will keep going.
But our city staff did all this on relatively short notice because she is a very much in
demand young woman.
And I really appreciate the whole two hours that she was there, our staff was there helping
her through that.
So I really appreciate that.
We will also have a celebration for our other gold medalist.
I've lost it.
I, I ask you what Sabrina Sabrina, I ask you.
She's playing with the WNBA right now.
So she is not available.
a little busy, but we are looking for something with her later this year.
We also have a Paralympics.
And we have a Paralympian, but I don't want to let you.
Well, I don't have her name.
I don't have the name either.
Just found out we had another one.
It was just one of those.
This morning at the Water and Energy Task Force, which is run by a friend of mine, Bob Whitley,
who is a very curmudgeonly man, and he said that he was there on Saturday and it brought
a tear to his eye.
So I think we did a good job.
if we can make Bob Whitley bring a tear to Bob's eyes.
That's an amazing thing.
So that's my report.
OK, Kevin.
All right.
Couple of things in addition to what Mayor Pro Tema just
mentioned.
Couple of weeks ago, and every time school starts,
we hear about their speeding that's
going on near schools and during drop offs and pickups
and rolling stop signs.
So I went out there, were in the crossing
guards is behind Valley Vista in the Woodlands area.
Mayor Pro Tem Darling is waving because she was there as well.
Yes, she was.
I wasn't going to forget.
And we also had a couple of our transportation commissioners.
And because one of them is in the audience, Jared Ash,
I'll mention him, as well as Charles Cruelling and watching
at home.
And we also had our staff traffic engineers there,
some of our boardmen and her team too.
We were all reviewing this for a half an hour.
We are out there.
We did see there was some speeding,
some rolling stop signs.
We saw the challenges that the crossing guards had mentioned
and parents had mentioned.
Principal was there as well of Valley Verde.
And we talked about sending out posting social media notices
both on our own pages, as well as the principal sending out
an email to all of her parents, also asking students.
So if any parents are watching this and have
school-age students, they also have
to follow the rules of the road.
And if they are not stopping at stop signs
and running across the street quickly,
or they're going down the wrong way with electric scooters
or bikes, that's a problem,
especially with the sun shining in at 740 a.m.
into the windshields of drivers.
It's just an accident waiting to happen.
So I ask all parents, especially ones with school-age kids,
to let them know the rules and the safety of the roads.
And also, parents and anybody else,
just take an extra minute or two.
Better to be safe in this instance
than any kind of an accident that can happen out there.
In response to that, traffic engineering was out there
the next couple of days, they put reflective poles
at the intersection that we were at
and are gonna be reviewing all sorts of different options
for what we can do to help make the road safer
for bikers and pedestrians and students.
And there's all sorts of tools in the tools chest,
so they're going to be looked at.
So thank you staff for quickly for coming out there
and also taking a look at that.
We know this is not endemic to just Valley Verde,
this is the entire city that needs to take this precaution.
On another note, I was at the county connection launch
in Martinez of the second pilot
for an automated electric shuttle.
This is going to be taking place after,
well, it's now being launched,
But county connection buses, when their normal schedule
is ending at about 4 or 5 o'clock,
these autonomous shuttles will then take over in Martinez.
So this is the second pilot after the pilot
that we had launched in Rossmore just about four or five weeks
ago.
So this is really exciting.
I would say that this is the future, but this is the now.
And these are the kind of things that we are seeing.
And this is what we're going to be witnessing, I think,
throughout the state.
And it's exciting, because this is going to really help
transit and be that first mile, last mile solution that we've always talked about and
why people aren't taking public transit more because they are still driving to where the
public transit is. So hopefully this is a big step in the right direction. As long as
I'm on County Connection, I'll mention that at our next general board meeting in two days.
I should be the incoming chair. I do have to be voted on that, but I suppose it's possible
that I won't be, but I've been vice chair and I think they're going to actually make
be chair of county connection for the next year. I'll report back next month.
And lastly I want to say driving here down Ignacio Valley Road, I see Walnut
Festival going up. I know that we haven't had the Walnut Festival for at
least the last couple of years, right, prior to the pandemic. So it's coming,
it's it's going up. And please go on to the Walnut Festival website and I'm
trying to pick this up right now. It's called the walnut festival.org because
they do need volunteers and they still do need them from some of the
different areas. I know there was this big outpouring last year when the Walnut
Festival wasn't happening and saying that we'll step up and volunteer. Now's
your chance. Step up and volunteer. The Walnut Festival is happening and we
look forward to seeing you there. That's my report. And now Matt please. Thank you
Mayor. I'm a member of Recycle Smart, which is our garbage recycling and
composting organization for six member agencies including Walnut Creek, Lafayette,
Arinda, Moraga, Danville, and the county. And I serve on the ad hoc franchise
selection committee, so the authority contracts for collection
services and post collection services, those contracts are set to expire
next year, 2027. That's right, we extended it two years. So we're in the process now
of going through the we issued RFPs for post collection and collection services.
We're doing post collection first. The key is to decouple collection from post
collection so that we can get more a more competitive environment for both
services. The ad hoc committee met last week. Our staff had had interviewed
various different vendors and will have recommendations to make to the full
board on the variety of post collection services, transfer, disposal, composting, recycling,
commercial food scraps at our October board meeting.
Once we've agreed on a post collection, a series of post collection vendors actually,
then we'll turn to the collection process.
Also serve on the Housing and Community Development Committee along with Council Member Silva
at our meeting a week or two ago, we provided direction to staff on the RFP process for
our affordable housing funds. We have about $6.3 million collected from various different
fee sources in that fund pot, and we'll be going out with an RFP process letting affordable
housing developers know that that money is available and seeing kind of what sort of
proposals we get back and then that'll be coming back to the housing and
community development committee I believe it's like February early next
year after staff has kind of received the responses and the reason why it's
done this way is because we as a council voted to make it a more competitive
process for the use of these very scarce funds and it's also timed along with the
county's affordable housing fund measures measure X so the both RFPs will
go out in in November and as council member Silva referenced earlier, earlier
it takes a lot of money to build affordable housing projects and it
requires pots from various pots of money from various different sources including
the county the city and the state. Yep I think I'm done with that. I did have the
pleasure of attending the gold medal ceremony on on Saturday and I have to say
That that will go down on the top 10 experiences for me as a council member that
Just being able to meet her firsthand just who she is and her family. I
Totally agree. It was it was a great community event
And you hear you know here of people like Garth Brooks and superstars who will sit there and sign every single autograph
Here's a 20 year old woman who you know took that same level of commitment
and care with the entire community that was there,
and it was genuine, you could tell.
And I do want to give a shout out to Betsy Burkhardt,
who brought it all together in less than two weeks' time,
got an award-winning news anchor, Dan Ashley,
to do the interview process.
We had several staff members there.
I know Kevin Safeen was there.
Matt Bolander was doing the videotaping,
and Liz Payne was taking photographs
so people could go on a QR coding,
I think the photos are already posted.
So it was a fantastic community event
and I look forward to doing more of those
because it was a definite feel good.
And I heard from our Congressman Mark Dessanier was there
as was one of our supervisors, Candace Anderson
and Mark Dessanier said it was a great event
and he really enjoyed attending it.
Next Monday, I'll be doing my annual attendance
of the government law class at Los Lomas
along with council member Wilk.
We'll go to Mr. Abakoli's class
and talk about the council's five priorities
and the work we do as a city.
One of the highlights is teaching them
whether or not they're in the city or the county.
And then just finally, I had an inquiry from a constituent
about a nonprofit group called Park Run,
which is a UK-based organization.
It's community-volunteer-led.
I don't think it involves much involvement
from the city at all.
But it's a group of runners that gets together
on a weekly basis at a designated spot
and they run basically a 5K.
So it's an opportunity to get members
of the community involved, interested in running.
There's no pace, it's not competitive.
It's just a way to bring people together
and meet on a regular basis
and get outside and get some exercise.
So it's in the early stages, but as I have updates
to provide on that, I'll let everyone know.
That's my update.
Thank you.
So, mayors do a lot of things,
as do all the council members,
because we cover for each other.
I've done everything this summer
from attending the funeral celebration of life
for somebody who was well revered as John Muir
to celebrating 100th birthday party at a care home.
And it just is so amazing
to have these moments with the community.
You reminded that we're not only responsible
for figuring out how to pay for everything
and how to get the streets things.
We're responsible for making sure
that Walnut Creek is the special place it continues to be.
I do have some kind of work related things.
I went to the CTA planning committee meeting
and we agreed that we would work
with the Cal State transportation people.
Caltrans, I even wrote it down.
Caltrans, I am getting old.
And that we're working on coming up
with a county-wide evacuation plan,
the Accessible Transportation Fund,
of which I am partially the chair
and helping make that come out,
accessible transportation for the old and the infirm
and I believe also GIs.
I think we have a one stop shop,
a one click, one call system
that we're trying to put in together
and we got some funding for that.
One of the things I was proudest about
was Contra Costa mayor's conference
came to Walnut Creek at Boundary Oak
and very few people complained about Ignacio,
although there were a couple of people.
But we had the community college director who was there
and told us about the community colleges.
And it was just wonderful to see all the former mayors that
made it.
And it was a chance that I enjoyed,
especially because it was a chance to publicly brag
about our staff and how absolutely wonderful they are
and how well they treat us all.
Went to Transpac, which is an RTPC,
which is a small section of the transportation thing.
And we mostly talked about the budget.
We made the meeting short so that we could go out
to Martinez and ride in the autonomous vehicles.
They are absolutely fascinating.
And I need to remind everybody
that the Ruth Bancroft Garden has been named
by Travel and Leisure as the most beautiful
garden in the world.
So please, if you haven't been to the Ruf Bancroft Garden,
enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.
And I believe the city manager has a clarification
about the city's website.
I did just wanna take a moment
since we had a few references to our website
on a few different items.
The city's website was updated somewhat recently.
It's walnutcreekca.gov.
The prior site walnut-creek.org will redirect,
but we are trying to get the new website out there,
which is walnutcreeca.gov.
Thank you.
All right, so much for all the fun.
Now we're gonna do hard work
and move on to the next item, which is consideration.
And that item is acceptance of the Shadelands
Property and Business Improvement District,
the PBID Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2324,
and you're gonna take that on.
Yes, thank you, Mayor.
I would like to invite up Bob Blinsheid,
president of the chamber,
to provide an update of the annual report
as your council is aware of the city contracts
with the Chamber of Commerce
to provide administrative oversight and management
of the Shadelands Property Business Improvement District.
And this is the opportunity to share
what's been happening out at Shadelands.
Welcome, Bob.
Thanks, Dan.
Mayor Askew, members of the council,
it's good to be with you all today.
about swag is is our practice this is a replica shuttle along with the schedules
which we have spread around here and please feel free to promote that with
us so what I thought I'd do mayor and council members is provide an update on
the 23 24 annual report also go into as you know we work together on rebranding
in the Shadelands District. We have a PowerPoint that I'll present following up the 2324 annual
report and then we have some video we want to show you with what we're working on in
the social media front which is becoming quite important in today's promotional capacity.
So as you know from the staff report, the PBID was originally established in 2014.
So we're in our 10th year now.
And after five years, the district through the 1994 plan was able to extend it for ten
years.
So we're operating off of the 2020 to the 2029 plan, the district plan.
What I want to cover is that there are basically five overarching goals but I'd like to visit
some basics here.
The mission, the purpose of the district is to promote the shadlands, attract diverse
and innovative businesses, enhance property values and enrich quality of life for the
community and region.
P-Bids are generally formed for an important reason.
Our reason was chronic vacancy at the time.
While we are experiencing that in office, we're very pleased to see what is happening
in the medical front.
I want to acknowledge the work of the staff working with us in the PBID to work on our
implementation strategy, which we'll talk about shortly.
The vision is to advance the dynamic business and lifestyle destination of the shade lands
and our values, which haven't changed,
the foundation is collaboration and creativity.
Collaboration, meaning the property owners,
the tenants, the city staff, all working,
rowing in the same direction as some would say,
along with some creativity in light of
the challenges we all face.
So goal number one is to attract support
and retain innovative growth companies.
The location of shadings is both a strength
challenge. Expanded efforts to improve access to Shadelands throughout the
region are essential for the future. Goal number two, enhance wayfinding and
signage, which will take place in this next phase because we just completed the
rebrand and to start promoting the branding, wayfinding comes into it. These
improvements are needed to benefit visitors and employees at Shadelands,
including easier internal wayfinding as well as transportation alternatives.
Goal number three is improved mobility, infrastructure, and services.
Employees and residents and visitors are increasingly relying on alternative
modes of transportation enabled by changing technologies, evolving
development patterns, shade lens can evolve to meet these new transportation
alternatives. I mentioned the replica bus that we've distributed throughout the
Shadelands. We have plenty. So if you know folks that would like to take
advantage of the promotional piece, our employers out at Shadelands view this as
very important and share some stats with you that I thought were rather
intriguing. You know since 2015 our partnership Route 7 is the the shuttle.
Route 7 has provided service to over 650,000 passengers. Route 7 has
traveled about two million miles which incidentally is equivalent to four
round-trip to the moon. It saved 430,000 pounds of CO2 emissions and
County Connection as a whole removes over 3,000 single occupancy car trips
per work day, which is a phenomenal stat to share with you. Goal number four is to
continue to promote Shadelands as a destination through branding and
marketing exposure. We took a major step, it took us almost an entire year.
shade lens has emerged as a destination center further efforts are needed to
increase visibility of shade lens within Walnut Creek and throughout the broader
region and we'll share with you some of our plans for that we also are doing on
an annual basis made in the shade which is coming up on Sunday November 3rd and
finally the fifth goal is to increase development that supports shade lens as
a quality location to live, learn, work, and play.
Much of Shadelands was originally
developed as an office part, but has expanded now
to a place to live, learn, work, and play,
with a growing focus on health and well-being
within retail and other services to support Shadelands
in the surrounding neighborhoods.
Further development flexibility is important,
and we're seeing that as an example with YVR,
I should say 2,700 YVR, that's where the fertility clinic
and the pulmonary specialist is located.
That building is becoming quite an advantage for us
in the healthcare.
I'm going to now share this PowerPoint with you
that you have in front of you.
What we wanted to achieve together is make this
an exciting asset to our community.
Just as a reminder to us and to the audience
in this at home as well.
We're talking about 3.4 million square feet
of 270 acres and 106 property owners.
Quite a vast area of our community, very important.
I've already shared the mission, the vision
and the values, the goals,
I've gone through each of the five goals.
So before and after the 23-24 plan
We submitted on March 8 is the old brand.
It's quite exciting to see the rewrapping of the buses that show the services that are
provided at Shadelands.
This last year we had 54,000 passengers which was up by about 20% from the previous year.
So we see that growing number each and every year.
And this is a subsidized program, where the property owners do pay for the shuttle services.
We know that people know of Shadelands, but do not know the vast diversity of offerings.
We created a brand that is colorful, positive to create awareness and impact.
And the bus serves also as a billboard to educate people on the various offerings.
So in today's world, the website is everything as you know.
Visual website easily navigated by users on desktop, tablet and mobile.
Display categories and listings of all businesses and organizations.
And we have supplemented this website by putting over 100 businesses in there and we're trying
to reach every single one of them to reach our 300 number.
Let's quickly educate and inform the user about the offerings, and we can track usage
in our campaign to this website.
Next is our new mobile-centric newsletter.
This impressive newsletter has a new format.
It's easy to read with summary text with links back to our website.
So the website is the foundation for our communication.
It's larger visual impact, linked to the website to track interest and to push more traffic
toward the website as well.
And we have about 6,000 subscribers to this newsletter.
Digital display ads.
The campaign focuses on educating about the diversity of offerings.
We call it linked trips.
We want people to come out to Shadelands for more than just one purpose.
The use of variable communications combinations of offerings to present user choices entice
users to do more than one thing thus the call to action is make the most of every visit.
Our digital I should say our brand presence is also extended with advertising.
You'll soon see in the next publication or two of Daubel magazine where we focus on families
You will see that is a part of our display advertising component.
As we track seniors and business community audiences, we look to the Rossmore News,
San Francisco, Sacramento, and Silicon Valley Business Journals
where you can see the display ads shown here.
Rill adds a little color to our publications.
Email blast, we will blast quarterly to various email opportunities showing the diversity
offerings families and seniors primarily in some of those and Bart this is an
example of what we've done at the Walnut Creek Bart station strong brand presence
at the Walnut Creek Bart station with 30 posters tracking interest of offerings
with each individual QR code so if you go up to the the health care and you
look at that we will see how many people check on health care versus the other
offerings. Also at the stations, you'll notice that what they call station kings, or the
overarching digital ad there, presence in North Concord, in Lafayette. It grabs commuters
attention quickly. It captivates the audience by those that are waiting for the train, as
you can see in this intersection on the platforms at Concord, Pleasant Hill, and then Pittsburgh.
shelters very important to the shuttle system throughout our community 20
locations throughout Contra Costa County see the display ads for shadlands with
our multiple offerings as well as digital billboards and billboards itself
example at North Main Street exit and driving northbound on 680 as well as the
digital billboard south of Highway 4.
And finally, before we run a brief video, vibrant social media, which is very, very
important in today's world.
All new social media accounts create for Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn for hashtag visit
Shadelands, creating a face of Shadelands through videos and images.
New content every single month that links to the website.
strategies were growth followers and now we'll run a video.
What's that?
Joy Bound People & Pets was founded 32 years ago as an animal rescue foundation.
We took in dogs and cats, those are the species that we serve, and helped them find homes.
That mission grew and grew and grew. We began to realize that it wasn't enough
enough just to form a new pet family, but in fact we had to be involved in helping support
that pet family and keep dogs and cats and families together through social services
like pet safety nets, accessible veterinary care, behavior and training for the public
who wants to have a well-behaved dog or cat in their home, and lots of other things that
now include pet-related vocational training, free vaccine clinics all around the county
and even more.
Hi, my name is Brandi.
I am the co-owner of Walnut Creek Chip.
Here at Tip Cookies, we offer delicious cookies,
but what separates us from the rest
is we have this amazing cookie bar,
where not only do you get cookies, but you can add toppings.
We have drizzle, frosting, sprinkles.
We even have ice cream,
so you can get what we call is a Chibzuki,
which is a cookie and ice cream in a bowl.
And we also just added to our menu the ice cream sandwich.
A few specials we have is right next to us.
We have Dolce's and Fajitos.
And on Tuesdays, they have Taco Tuesday.
We have joined in with them on Tuesdays
and we offer 20% off our Chizukis on Tuesdays.
Some things that we love about being
in the Shadelands community.
It is immersed in many different parts of our lives.
We're also really close to a lot of schools
and sports facilities.
I feel like it gives us a great opportunity
to be really spread out throughout the community
and to create a lot of cool and diverse relationships.
♪♪
Being in the St. Louis community is a blast.
We're so well centrally located here.
We're surrounded by so many walking paths, restaurants, shops.
There's just not a downside to it in any way, stately way.
I must tell you, it's a wonderful lifestyle center.
It's a very diverse community.
There are many different kinds of businesses.
It's fun and easy to pop out for a quick lunch.
after work all my errands can be accomplished right here in Shadelands. Shadelands is just a
special place in Walnut Creek and we've been here for over seven years now and so we've seen its
growth over the past seven years and its transition and we're excited about the future.
Thank you. Be happy to answer any questions mayor. I'll ask if there are any. Are there any questions?
Yes? Okay, please. Thank you for the report and it's very exciting to see the transition and
how much has changed over the last 10 years. Maybe 11, maybe we're in our 11th year, right?
One of the responsibilities that you all have representing the Shadelands property business
owners on behalf of the city, it's kind of this legal structure, is really the management of the
the finances, the management of the budget, and the reporting to us in the
community. So I appreciate that the budget and financials have been presented.
But I did have a couple of questions. Yeah. And I did ask them of our assistant
city manager to ask you in advance, so this shouldn't come as a surprise. Right.
I wouldn't want to disappoint you and have you be prepared to answer the
questions and then not ask them. Go ahead. The under the expenses, the
transportation way finding can you elaborate on the signage and also the
crosswalk or infrastructure what what you're actually doing in that regard
sure yeah I'd be happy to let me start with the crosswalk first okay because I
think that's important let me acknowledge first of all that we
collect about four hundred thousand dollars a year we began in 2020 when we
were all shut down so we've accumulated quite a fund balance and I've had pretty
consistent conversation with staff on how we can invest the fund balance so
it's important to invest it in one-time money projects not exactly because
you're not going to have this on a recurring basis right so regarding
crosswalks the city accumulated a about two million dollars that we closed off
sidewalks improvements on streets and the PBID owners felt it was important
And so we worked with former director Steve Weimar
and our boardmen, the two of them,
on how we could improve safety along Mitchell and Shadelands.
So crosswalks, automated crosswalks are part of that.
And so part of the investment in that was for the safety there.
So it was partnered with the city.
So some investment of the city that you augmented the funds.
Exactly.
OK.
And we're looking for other kinds of projects
in that process as well.
Wayfinding will occur now that we have a new brand.
The other question I think you asked was...
Can you elaborate on market research
and branding and marketing?
It's $175,000 per year.
And I know you've been working a lot on that.
Is it just this branding and the bus wraps,
or what else are you looking to do?
So the market research was a number
because we felt we wanted to do some similar to what
we did with the DMO when we hired a economist to tell us
what the impact of some of the we were looking at.
That has not been invested.
It wasn't invested this year.
So it was planned for, but we're probably
going to do it after we do the rebrand.
So, it was a part of the plan, but it was not expended.
You'll notice the report was produced in March.
And so, we provided a financial statement in our May meeting
and then in our August meeting.
So, we do have more detailed information on that.
Okay, great.
My last question is, what do you do if you're collecting
about $400,000 a year from $100,000.
How are the assessments structured?
It's not every parcel paying the same amount.
It's based on size.
It's an exponent of square footage.
And it's assessed by the county.
And the funds come to the city.
The city reallocates them to us.
We shave off a little bit at the top.
So what happens in the future?
Because you're investing a lot of preserved cash.
Right.
What's going to happen in the future
when you've run out of those one-time monies,
or you've expended them, not run out.
You've expended them and invested them.
Are you looking at other ways to increase your funding stream?
Yeah, thanks for mentioning that.
So since 2020, we have not increased the assessment.
The management plan allows us to go up 3% a year.
We've exercised our right not to increase it.
So we will probably increase it going forward
probably the next fiscal year.
Our plan, as I indicated, we have about $1.3 million
in fund balance as of the end of the fiscal year.
Multiply six times 400,000, that's 2.4 million
plus, so we have a plan to at least not overspend.
We wanna spend all the money by 10 years,
but not overspend.
Does that make sense?
You wanna invest all the money that you've accumulated
and then you have operating expenses to basically manage it.
Yeah, the operating expenses will be obviously
the marketing rebrand, the research,
all that is one time shot.
Now we're gonna find out where there
should be investments in infrastructure.
Thank you.
Should like to figure out how we can get
an autonomous shuttle out there too.
Thank you for the work and we, as a council,
I think we can all say that we appreciate the opportunity
to hear from you on a regular basis
as to what is happening since we somewhat have a stake.
Not only do we have properties there,
but we also have kind of a legal
and regulatory requirement to stay in touch.
So thank you very much.
the oversight's real, yeah.
Any other questions?
Matt, please.
Thanks for the report, Bob.
It's very exciting.
Every day I see the billboards at the BART station
and generally see one of the shuttles,
and I think the new logo and the colors,
especially when you show that side by side,
what a contrast, and it made such a positive difference,
I think.
Our staff report, and you mentioned it,
talk about some of your future efforts,
And I'm wondering if you have some details on that
that you can share, particularly in regard
to the transportation improvements
and the wayfinding signage.
Yeah, so the signage is extremely important
to the property owners, but we felt we needed a new brand
before we invest in signage.
And we'll be working with a community development department
to develop the strategy for what that's going to look like.
And property owners have their opinions,
but we have ordinances and issues
we need to fall in line with.
What I'm really interested in talking long-term
about what ultimately do we want the Shadelands to become?
As many of you know, they're supposed to be
along a freeway a long time ago.
And so there's quite a few changes that we see happening
The biggest issue right now is office vacancy.
We're seeing that other places in the city.
So we're examining what our role can be in that
in conjunction with the city.
City sits on the PBID, votes,
and so we feel very positive about the exchange.
And you know, City Manager Buck Shy,
his community development person, Charles,
we were all having discussions
on what the future is gonna look like.
Thank you.
So the future, we did a significant redo on the zoning
back in 2016.
Have you guys been thinking about that part of development?
And when you think of the future,
going back and looking at what uses are allowed
at shade loans, or what are you thinking?
Well, we know that you have a general plan
you're gonna be looking at.
Yeah, that's where I was thinking that if we have
a general plan, you guys have yours.
well make sure we're working in concert absolutely that's why the collaboration
creativity comes in handy yeah it's essential to participate in those
conversations we're very excited about medical I have to to tell you ever since
Alexander Quinn was retained by you folks to talk about how the cancer
centers promote the increase in medical recent statistics show between 28 and
30% of all employees work in some type of medical in Walnut Creek.
So what's our role in that and how we can maintain and grow that
sector of the community? Okay, good. We look forward to working with you guys.
Yeah, same here. Dive into that. That'll be a lot of fun.
Yeah. Thank you. So what are we doing to ensure diversity
in terms of the kinds of businesses that we have
and ultimately how are we going to measure the success of our investment so far?
Yeah, good question. So the economic development action plan which of course is led by the city,
we feel a strong tie to that plan and I think that as we examine the amount of investment we're
more making in marketing and rebranding, what's the next step in that process?
And I've had meaningful conversations with both city manager and assistant city manager
about what we can do to attract certain kinds of companies here.
Many communities don't have the luxury of an economic development department like the
city of Walnut Creek does.
and working with concert with community development.
Mayor, I really am optimistic about how we can work together
to attract industry.
And frankly, in recent meeting with commercial brokers,
we don't want to benefit by the unfortunate situation
of other cities.
But that's what's happening today,
is people are coming to Walnut Creek
because they feel safer here and it's something that we believe in concert
with the city we should be working on attracting higher paying jobs as some
would call it. I call it primary sector where we're really going after those
that are already living here that can work closer to home and I think that's
that's how I believe through our work together on the economic development
development action plan, we can make a real case for business growth here.
And I believe we can, but I don't hear how we're going to make sure it's diverse and
whether we kind of focus on medical and other things, and how do we measure when we finally
have hit success?
Well, we're going to do that together with results.
My belief is that we can do all the studies in the world, but if we're not accommodating
the needs of the future, which is more than medical, but medical is where we have an extreme
advantage, along with retail, which seems to be pretty strong here by comparison.
Okay.
Thank you.
All right.
All right, so is there anything else that we would like to follow through on?
Yeah, it's a public comment and then the requested action is to accept the report.
All right, public comment, my favorite topic for being excluded.
Is there anybody here who wants to be a time filler here?
Okay.
Nobody is stepping forward.
I believe you are ready to sit down.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
And Mayor, I will make the motion to move to accept
the Shadelands Property and Business Improvement District
annual report for fiscal year 2023-24.
Second.
Roll call, please.
Council Member Will.
Aye.
Mayor Pro Tem Darlene.
Aye.
Council Member Francois.
Aye.
Council Member Silva.
Aye.
Mayor Haskew.
Absolutely.
Motion carries unanimously.
Who shall I announce making the first presentation?
I'm gonna venture, it looks like Ben Schuster here.
So welcome, Ben, and we will have you kick things off.
Thank you.
All right, good evening, Mayor Haskew,
members of the council.
As Dan said, my name is Ben Schuster.
I'm with the Community Development Department here.
I'm joined by a number of staff.
Aaron Sage, our principal planner.
Erica Vandenbran, our community development director,
as well as Alessandra Lundeen with Raimi & Associates,
who was our primary design consultant
in developing the non-residential design book
that's before you today.
Really excited to be here.
This is a key milestone in this design review,
standards and guidelines process
that has been ongoing for the past five or so years.
The prior senior planner, Jeanine Cavalli,
took this almost to the finish line
and so we're here hopefully to get us over the hump today.
Just an administrative note before we dive in,
there was staff prepared a response to council comments
received prior to tonight's meeting
that was sent out to the council earlier this afternoon.
Based on those council comments,
staff also prepared additional changes and updates
to some of the items in your packet.
And those are listed in the errata sheet
that was also sent out this afternoon.
So what are we talking about tonight?
I guess this is my opportunity to fill in all those words
that the mayor mentioned.
And so the main piece of work tonight under consideration
is the adoption of the non-residential design review
standards and guidelines.
In addition, there'll be some refinements
that staff is proposing to the residential book
that the council adopted back in June, just a few months ago,
we'll also talk about corresponding changes
to development standards for non-residential,
and then again, as well as some additional refinements
to residential development standards
that the council adopted back in June.
And then finally, we'll again touch on additional refinements
to the design review process.
The council will remember back in June,
it adopted wide changes to that entitlement process.
And that includes changes to the outdoor dining policy
and ordinance.
So first, a quick overview of how we landed here today.
This project started off due to state housing
law, which mandated the use of objective design
standards for housing projects.
and then state law was then further updated
to expand the applicability of those standards
to even more residential projects.
And so the council directed staff
to update the city's 1996 design review standards
and guidelines as a result of state law.
The council also at that time took the opportunity
to more generally direct staff to update standards
for all projects including commercial
and other non-residential.
What came out of that work is two design documents.
There's the residential and residential mixed use document
and again adopted by this body a few short months ago.
And the non-residential document,
which is before you tonight.
The non-residential document follows a very similar format
to the residential book and many
of the standards you've actually seen before.
They were included in the residential book
as part of the mixed use standards.
And just want to note the key difference
between the two, unlike residential
where the state has mandated approvals
for projects that comply with objective standards,
for commercial projects, the city does retain
much of its discretion that it has today
for these projects and so this work was accomplished through a lot of hard work by a number of
different uh staff here in the city as well as uh members of our design review commission
who are all part of a city working group that met and discussed these on a regular basis
engaged with stakeholders and the and the development community and so we're just very
thankful for all the time and effort that they put in and so what came out of that work is that
adoption draft again before you tonight, we have taken that adoption draft to various
commissions, the Design Review Commission and the Planning Commission. We've heard
very positive things and that's how we're in front of you tonight. In addition, we did
get some additional feedback following the Planning Commission meeting in August. We
We were very fortunate to be able to engage with a member of a well-known architectural
firm who's done a lot of work around auto dealerships, and we were able to actually
meet with them in person and go through line by line on the auto standards, and so those
are reflected in a number of the red line changes in the adoption draft.
And before I turn it over to Alessandra who's going to walk you all through the book itself,
just to show you where we are in the process, again, we're essentially right at the end
with that black arrow there at council tonight.
And then should the council take staff's recommended actions tonight, we would plan to return on
October 1st at the next council meeting for the second reading and adoption of the ordinance.
And so with that, I'll hand it off to Alessandra, who's going to talk you through the non-residential
book, and then I'll come back to finish it out.
All right.
Good evening, Mayor Haskew and members of the council.
As Ben mentioned, I'm Alessandra Lundeen, and I'm going to walk through some of the
content of the design standards and guidelines for non-residential uses.
So some of the project objectives.
Could you speak straight into the microphone?
The project objectives for the nonresidential standards and guidelines include promoting
quality architectural design, site planning and landscaping in the city, providing a clear
set of design criteria for developers, creating a user-friendly document, and modernizing
for current best practices.
We also focused on some gaps that were in the 1996 guidelines, so some topics that weren't
covered in there.
And we also addressed some special uses in this book, including auto sales and rental,
auto service stations with or without convenience markets, drive-up restaurants, which are also
known as drive-throughs, and shopping centers.
So here on this slide, you'll see the high-level table of contents for the document.
So the topics covered, where the chapters include an introduction, we have a chapter
on site planning, architecture and building design, parking, walls and fences, lighting,
and then again this last chapter focuses on those special uses I mentioned previously.
I'm now going to walk through some of the details of what's covered in each of those
high-level topic areas.
So within site design, we have access and circulation standards, such as creating smaller
blocks and new connections, minimizing curb cuts and driveways to reduce conflicts between
pedestrians and vehicles, and creating pedestrian pathways that connect to sidewalks, parking
areas, outdoor spaces and transit, for example.
We have a section on services and utilities, so standards include locating utilities, equipment
and service areas to the rear and side of buildings and screening them from public view.
Within landscaping, we have a number of standards including minimum size and spacing of plant
materials, limitations on turf, and storm water management.
The standards in the building design chapter really focus on the portions of the building
that are visible from the street, the public realm, and outdoor spaces.
They include orienting buildings and entries towards the street and outdoor spaces, standards
that get at mediating the scale, massing, and bulk of buildings
and enhancing the pedestrian experience
through building modulation and articulation,
creating inviting and well-designed ground floor
retail spaces with standards that address transparency,
so percentage of windows and doors with glass, retail depth
and height.
We have standards for entries, orientation of entryways,
and weather protection for entries, venting and grease traps, and then there are a number
of standards that address outdoor dining location, circulation and furniture. And then lastly of
course encouraging a variety of materials and colors that really add visual interest to buildings.
Additional topics covered in the non-residential book include parking such as locating parking to
the rear and side of buildings, creating pedestrian routes through parking areas,
and screening surface and structured parking
from public view.
And then within lighting, these standards
focus on ensuring that lighting is pedestrian scaled
and reducing glare and light trespass
onto adjacent properties.
So again, the last chapter, chapter
7 of the non-residential book covers
special uses that really require specific design considerations.
And I'm going to walk through some of those
on the next few slides.
And again, Ben is going to talk about this later.
but while we were updating the special use standards and guidelines, it really became
apparent that some of the standards kind of overlapped with some standards that were already
in the zoning code or they more appropriately belonged there because they were really more
development standards than design standards. So again, we're going to talk about some of
those amendments later in the presentation. This slide covers some of the standards and
guidelines specific to the design of shopping centers and they include
building design and articulation. We have requirements for publicly accessible
private outdoor spaces in shopping centers, pedestrian pathway design,
dimensions and materials, again limitations on curb cuts and driveways
and then street and corner activation. And Ben talked about this a little bit
earlier, the next two special uses focus on auto oriented uses, so they include
auto sales and rental and auto service stations. So the 1996 standards and
guidelines, they were updated and improved to add clarity and address best
practices and recent development trends, so that included creating standards for
both pedestrian oriented retail format urban showrooms and the kind of more
traditional auto oriented showrooms that you see. We also added or improved landscaping,
fencing and wall, and screening standards for the auto sales and service stations,
really to help kind of minimize their impact on the street frontage and the pedestrian experience.
And then lastly, the following slide highlights some of the topics and standards included for
drive up take out restaurants otherwise known as drive throughs. They include requiring
landscaping along the perimeter and along drive through aisles, orienting building entries
towards the street rather than parking areas, encouraging four sided building architecture,
providing separate and distinct vehicular and pedestrian circulation through the site
for safety and we have some outdoor dining design standards as well. And with that I'm
I'm gonna turn it back over to Ben.
Great, thank you.
So just wanted to touch briefly on the residential book
I mentioned at the beginning,
some additional refinements to that book
that was adopted by the council back in June.
We've essentially just added some clarifying language
about what types of projects this book would apply to.
We updated one standard relating to exterior building
colors.
And then we are revising any standards
that we are proposing to change in the non-residential book
that overlap with the residential book.
So essentially just corresponding edits.
And then looking briefly at amendments to the zoning code
for non-residential standards, one thing we're doing
is to update the definition of a shopping center.
Essentially, we are broadening the definition a little bit
to make it more flexible and better align
with kind of modern understanding
of what a shopping center is.
We are also amending some standards for the special uses
that Alessandra talked about just a moment ago.
So for gas stations and service stations,
removing a burn requirement that was in there
for landscaping, slightly increasing the canopy
coverage allotment, and then adding in new standards
relating to circulation, screening, and illumination.
And these came out of a stakeholder discussions
with owners of these types of businesses.
and so this is kind of directly a result of that feedback.
And then for drive-through restaurants,
we've essentially added in all new standards
into the zoning code relating to the drive-through aisle
design, the stacking areas, driveways,
and then pedestrian access.
And then as is noted in the errata sheet in your packets,
one of the changes we did make based on council comment
was to remove the maximum number of curb cut limit of two.
So we're gonna take out that proposed addition to the code.
And then finally, one very small refinement
to the residential development standards
that the council adopted just recently.
This is the landscaping standard adopted by council
for single-family homes in duplex zones.
We're just adding these two words in orange excluding
driveways just to make it clear what
the intent of that standard is.
And to bring us home, I'm going to talk very briefly
about additional refinements to the design review process that
was just updated.
Essentially, two changes here to the designer view chapter
of the zoning code.
We are taking this language and splitting it apart essentially to create additional
consistency with what the community development director is able to act upon in regards to
design review.
The director is able to approve up to four single-family homes for design review.
And so the 500-square-foot addition limit on single-family homes didn't quite make sense.
And so we're just kind of cleaning that language up to match what we're doing today and also
what is in the code.
And then finally, we've added in that the community development director has the authority
to approve outdoor dining spaces, and that's corresponding to changes that we made to the
outdoor dining policy, which I'm now going to talk about.
And so, finally, with outdoor dining, because of the recent changes to the design review
entitlement process, we found that there was some additional cleanup in the language needed
in the outdoor dining ordinance and policy.
And so, that's essentially what we did.
We kind of made sure it aligned with how we understand and practice design review essentially
in the city, adding in appeals language, clarifying who does what, and then adding in a finding
for the custom pods approval. And pods are the permitted outdoor dining structure.
And so with that, staff is looking for the council to make the following actions tonight.
First would be to adopt a resolution to essentially adopt the non-residential design review standards
and guidelines book as well as the amendments to the residential book and those would include
all the changes as noted in the errata sheet. Second, looking for the council to adopt a
resolution to update the outdoor dining policy to provide clarifications on the designer
view process. And then finally to waive reading and introduce an ordinance to amend the municipal
code to adopt the new and revised standards for residential and non-residential development
as well as the additional refinements to the design review process.
And so with that, myself and a number of us are available for any questions from the Council.
Thank you.
And I'm warning you, there are geniuses in land use, so you're in trouble right now.
Matt yeah please go first. So thanks very much Ben great great update great report
that was a lot of information and you synthesized it quite well I'm just gonna
try to keep my questions kind of higher level and so just in general can you
summarize for us how these non-residential guidelines differ from the
residential guidelines readopt it?
Yeah, great question.
I think I'll let Alessandra answer that.
But I mentioned there are a lot of overlapping standards.
And that's because the residential book was also
for residential mixed use developments, which
is a type of development under state law
that we have to approve with objective standards.
Alexander can speak to what the overlaps are
between the books, and then on the commercial side,
the stuff that's not in the residential book
are the standards for all the special uses,
the auto sales, the gas stations,
as well as the standards relating to the shopping centers.
And if I could refine my question just a bit, too.
I know the residential guidelines were objective
because they had to be under state law,
would you characterize these non-residential guidelines
as objective two, and if not,
what is that dividing line between objective and subjective?
We're all dying to know.
So, we did structure both of the books in the same way,
so they're both structured with both standards
and guidelines.
The difference is a little bit more potentially,
I would say on the process side of things, right?
So for residential projects,
if a project meets all the objective standards,
it would be very difficult
not to approve that project under state law.
The guidelines are encouraged,
but again, a project might not meet those.
For a non-residential project,
is a lot more discretion on the city's part. So the design review commission, they would
be looking at whether a project fulfills the intent of the standards and the guidelines.
So they could, I'm trying to think of a good example, say there's some kind of new modern
really exciting architecture for an office building or what have you and the, you know,
the building doesn't meet strictly the articulation standard that we have in this book.
The DRC could say this is meeting the overall intent of creating really high quality architecture
in the city.
So even though it doesn't strictly meet this standard, we think that it is meeting the
overall intent and we would recommend approval for instance is that does that
help a little bit it does and so in it with our residential book then
essentially if a residential project meets meets the standards which are the
shells yep but it doesn't meet the guidelines which are the shoulds the
city doesn't have a lot of discretion really to say no to that project yes
planning commission for instance could say we would really like to see this, but it would
be very hard to require those things.
Whereas with the non-residential, there's more discretion really with the standards
and the guidelines.
Yes.
But the standards are still intended, they're still supposed to be objective that the developer
would know coming in, looking at the guidelines, okay, if I design my project consistent with
these standards and guidelines, I'm in really good shape,
and there might be some flexibility on the guidelines.
Yes, we're still trying to create
a predictable process for developers.
And so, and they want to know what is the city looking for?
And so again, the standards are really the priority
and the guidelines are kind of more of a nice to have.
But again, it also, with more discretion
with the non-residential book, there's also this opportunity
to provide exceptions if there are varying site constraints
for a nonresidential property, for instance,
and they can't meet certain standards or certain guidelines.
Or maybe they don't meet a standard,
but they meet one of the other similar guidelines,
and again, meeting that overall intent of that section.
And I have a question, too, about the special uses.
And was there any thought given to some like gas stations,
convenience?
We don't see a lot of those here,
and I don't think we'll see a lot in the future.
Is that one that what was a thought process in including
that and making sure that stays in the guidelines?
So that really came out of the 1996 guidelines.
So those were the special uses that
were addressed specifically in the 1996 guidelines.
So we didn't remove any of those special uses
if they were in those 1996 guidelines.
We just updated the standards and the guidelines.
They still serve a benefit in terms of remodels?
I know there's one over on the floor.
Yes, they could still serve a benefit
in terms of remodels.
And then finally on the outdoor dining,
we went through a process to kind of do
pre-approved dining structures and I think the design for that is set so
these are really only intended to apply to the custom pods is that right yeah
great question council member so the the pods have a separate design guideline
essentially and so pods are subject to that and they say you know you you pick
your roof material from this set, you know, you pick your planter from, you know, this
set of menu of options and then the city approves it.
The city staff get involved in kind of the typical design review process for specifically
for the outdoor dining, I believe on private property.
So outdoor dining patios and there's one more type, but it's not the pods.
And then the custom pods, that's where the design review commission used to have the
approval authority if you wanted to deviate from a standard in the pod structure.
What we've replaced that with, given the council's previous direction to remove the
approval authority of the DRC is to have staff approve that, but the DRC would advise staff.
would still go to DRC for a meeting for design considerations and then for a
staff-level approval. Okay that's interesting I'm not I don't know that I
really appreciated that nuance with the with those are more custom pods right
the pre-approved ones it's all staff level but the custom ones still go to
DRC for an advisory district. Correct, correct and I'll note we to date we
haven't received any applications for the custom pods and I believe there's
only been one of the normal pods which I believe is Main Street Kitchen. Okay that
was one of the that was one of the pre-approved designs? Correct. And I had
one more question about special uses and it had to do with you don't call the
drive-through you called it something else and but we've had we had a
restaurant relatively recently that had takeout service with no drive-through
and are we being too restrictive in terms of these design standards I know
obviously some of them are going to apply to the drive-thru lane and things
like that and separating but are the guidelines broad enough that they could
apply to a use you know without without drive-thru service take take out service
but no drive-thru right now correct me if I'm wrong Ben but I think the zoning
code has them listed as separate uses right so there's restaurants maybe this
sit down. There's restaurants with takeout and then there's restaurants with takeout
that are drive-throughs as well. And so this section is specifically applicable to takeout
service with drive-throughs. And a lot of the standards are aimed at regulating drive-through
services and design. And so, yes, but like if it was a restaurant with just takeout,
They would still have to meet the standards in the rest of the book, including a lot of
similar site design standards.
All right.
Thank you.
Mayor, if I ask a couple questions regarding the pods, and that was really the one question
that I had on this.
So I believe that when we had approved the pods, whenever that was in the last year,
We had said that if this becomes too cost-prohibitive, we could bring it back to council at some
point to discuss.
It sounds like there has been one application for this and no others.
And so my question, I guess, would be to Erika, or City Manager, is this something that would
be brought up now or at a later date to discuss modification of that, which obviously we'd
like to see outdoor dining, but we don't want to make it so difficult that nobody does it.
Yeah, let me speak to that one if I may, Mayor.
A few things, this is related to the design,
so I would suggest we not commingle the pricing on this.
A few things I'd like to highlight.
You may recall the rebound or the emergency program
for dining ended in mid-May.
So it's been a few months since then
that businesses were allowed to have
their temporary structures.
So we're looking at about four months it has passed
since this new permanent option has really come into play.
Folks could have done it sooner,
but frankly, why would they if they had free use
of a temporary structure as opposed to investing
in a permanent one.
We are, this is actually an agendas discussion
with Walnut Creek downtown for Wednesday
and we're anticipating receiving some feedback
on the cost and what they're hearing and seeing.
I would also highlight, you know, we have one pod so far,
we have had some interest in a couple others,
but also Locust Street has been off limits
because of all the construction,
which is intended to be wrapped up here in about a month.
So we will find out, I think we'll have a better sample
once Locust Street is available
to see if restaurants approve that.
And then the last thing I would just mention,
and we could have this discussion at a future date
if it ends up being agendized.
The policy related to the cost
was to have both something that's aesthetically pleasing
and safe and meets all building standards.
So that drives the construction cost.
The ongoing charge related
to the permitted outdoor dining structures
was intended to offset the cost of lost parking revenue.
And it was intended to be revenue neutral to the city.
So if it's found that either of those
are too cost prohibitive,
most likely we're looking at scaling back
and simplifying the aesthetic aspects of the pods,
and then potentially looking at some type of city subsidy
related to the ongoing rental of those.
And those would obviously be policy decisions
for your council at a future date.
Thank you.
Moving on to Cindy Silva, please.
Thank you very much.
And thank you for the work on this.
I know it has been a long process
and some interesting side steps along the way.
It's very comprehensive amount of work.
And to go back over 30 years and try to think,
figure out what people were thinking at the time
is always interesting.
I also want to thank staff, Erica, your team,
for taking the comments that were sent over the weekend
by council members because we had a few days
to read through everything and basically thinking
about everything, pulling the team together
and figuring out which ones were appropriate changes
and which ones made no sense
and giving respectful responses to us
as opposed to just saying no.
and all with the intent that what we're doing here
is really trying to create a way for property owners
to be successful as they redevelop
and enhance their properties in a way that is objective
so they understand what we're looking for,
yet also affords great opportunity
for flexibility and customization
and that it's an efficient process
because it is predictable
all recognizing that state law doesn't mandate that we do it this way in a certain number of
meetings. So it's really trying to figure this all out. I particularly wanted to thank you for
including stakeholders and perhaps you could outline where stakeholders were brought into
the process and it feels like there was a robust amount of stakeholders just in the changes that
happened since the Planning Commission meeting that we saw and then the
changes that we were making in the last few days. So who were the stakeholders
that were involved in this process? I can start and then I can ask staff to or
Ben to add. So there were a number of stakeholders involved in this process
both for the residential book and the non-residential book and there is some
overlap there with some of the stakeholder conversations. We did public
outreach at the beginning of the project. We did a social media contest at the
very beginning. This is kind of the high-level visioning. And then we met
with stakeholders, specifically from the chamber and the downtown merchants and
other kind of retail and similar stakeholders a couple of times during
the process. And while we ended up meeting with them on the
residential and mixed use book. Again, because of a lot of those standards
that we talked about were applicable to both, we ended up making the same
changes or revisions based on their comments to both books. So, for instance, a
couple examples, or a lot of them focused on the ground floor design standards, and
there was actually a woman who was kind of a retail leasing expert who was also
so involved in those discussions, and she was saying,
okay, particularly for mixed use and other types of retail,
this is what retailers need to see.
They need a ground floor height of at least 15 clear feet,
and that means you have to have a taller ceiling height,
so we have 18 feet.
They need venting and grease traps
so that restaurants can lease those spaces,
and not just yoga studios, for instance.
And she talked about retail depth.
There were standards on column spacing
to really maximize that retail leasable square footage.
So there were a lot of conversations
with these retail stakeholders
to really refine a lot of the ground floor design standards.
And again, those were both in the residential book
and are reflected in the ground floor design standards
in the mixed use book.
And then, more recently, economic development
also was involved in a lot of outreach
to various stakeholders, including auto dealerships.
And we did receive public comments
right before the planning commission hearing.
And then we met with some of the kind of
auto dealership stakeholders.
Was it last week or two weeks ago now?
and went through line by line, as Ben mentioned,
the section 7.1 on all of the standards for auto dealerships
and they provided additional insight
into some of the standards
and would they work for some of the large auto dealers
in the city and we made some revisions
to those standards based on their comments.
Based on all of this input,
was there a couple of things that were just consistent
across the various types of development?
Life would be better if...
I think from, I guess from the chamber
and the developer standpoint, I mean,
I think you already mentioned this before.
Predictability is probably the key theme I would pull out
that a lot of retailers and developers
mention consistently.
So it's not necessarily on...
I can't think of one on specific standards,
but it's more that it's very helpful
to have clear and objective standards
for predictability in the process
so they know what the city wants to see
and they can design to that.
Slight change of subject.
Council member Francois mentioned the difference
between the design review standards
for residential versus these non-residential.
One of the issues in residential
is that under state law,
a developer may trigger a timeframe
where it is a really fast shot clock
and you only can have a certain number of meetings.
So you have to be very efficient
and make sure you basically give your input spot on
at various steps in the process.
but that shot clock and those state requirements
at this point in time don't really exist
for commercial, non-resident, the truly non-residential.
But we have decided to make our process
as efficient as possible and really reconcile
and amend our design review and planning entitlement process
to be consistent across both sides of the coin.
Is there, I'm getting to my question.
In the non-residential environment, you could have a single building of 2,000 square feet
sitting freestanding in an existing shopping center, and you could have a quarter of a
million square feet development or redevelopment in a major shopping center.
Do we have the flexibility in our design review and planning and entitlement process, the
discretionary process related to those larger commercial projects to require a
little more review with design review and a little more thoughtful I don't
want to say that we're not thoughtful all the time but a little more time
through that process in the discretionary review process and is it
that codified or do we need to go back and say it in in the stand in not in
here but in the design review process explanation? Great question. Is it clear?
It is clear. The answer to that is yes and so like with the residential
developments there are now codified thresholds, objective thresholds for what
the community development director aka city staff conduct design review for and then what the
DRC would first hold an advisory meeting to the planning commission on for larger projects
and so is there a way for designers who would do this is there a way for design review to have one
One more bite at the apple in that same time frame, a study session and then an advisory
meeting because these really large projects particularly in a commercial environment where
there may be a multiplicity of tenants and issues going on as opposed to a 500 unit apartment
building tends to have a singular set of issues, colors, et cetera.
Is there an opportunity in our process now for someone,
whether it's the community development director
or the planning commission to say,
we need more architectural input
from the body of professionals who serve in that capacity?
Now, I think I'm clear, you're nodding,
but yet I don't think you're nodding yes to the answer,
as the answer.
If I can jump in here for just a sec.
So the short answer is yes, you do have that authority,
but it's driven in part by the fact that you're not limited
to the number of hearings.
Right.
You would be under a residential project.
And so if, for instance, the Design Review Commission
or the Planning Commission wanted to engage
in a further discussion with the applicant
for that larger commercial development,
they wouldn't be limited to the number of hearings
that they could accomplish that in.
So you would have that authority,
keeping in mind that part of the standards,
part of the document and the regulations
that are before you tonight are standards,
meaning mandatory, and guidelines which are permissive.
And so there's gonna be some give and take
between the city and the applicant on that issue.
Isn't it another component to Cindy's question
that at least I saw a reference in here
to Broadway Plaza having their own set of design guidelines
and them being specific to Broadway Plaza,
Adopted in connection with the big remodeling effort and that those guidelines to the extent
There was a conflict would prevail over these more general
Non-residential guidelines. Do we have guidelines like that was it probably adopted them in connection with Toyota
adopted a lot of things that night we we we did with Toyota as well to Toyota's is a little bit different in the sense that
The the limitation on the city's authority under Toyota is that they you can't apply to design
Standards to the commercial portion in a way that negates the rights to build the commercial portion
And so it's not a complete prohibition on any further discussion of it that the Toyota
Land use regulations associated with the special district do have design standards in them in as well, too
So there are some specific
Projects like Broadway Plaza like Toyota that are gonna require looking at those specific entitlements as well, too
So I think I posed my question I heard the frustration of the Design Review Commission having their
Authority clipped yet it they never were allowed to actually have a conversation about well, wait a minute. What about a large
Orchards shopping center projects something new something
incredibly complex and where we would want their input and so as opposed to
one storefront that ends up in the spin cycle for four meetings because architects can't agree what
What works well or not?
It's the community development director want to say something
Just simply that I agree with city attorney that there because it's the commercial
And we don't have the prohibition against having more meetings, and there's both the
ability of the design review commission to say, you know, please come back.
We need to get further answers.
There's also the ability for.
So they have the authority to say we're not ready to give you our final input.
Right.
But it's a recommendation to planning commission.
And then planning commission also has the ability to say, you know, we need more information
or we need further study around this particular area, so that there are more safeguards in
the process than what might immediately be apparent.
I appreciate that.
I've been waiting for months to ask that question.
I have two more questions.
Well, one is a comment.
I really appreciate the looking at the guide, actually the parking entrance or parking access
standard and realizing that if you force everything into the lowest ranking street,
you're coming closer to impacting a neighborhood. And so I appreciate looking at it, looking at it as a guideline because
I think that's important. And then I will mention, I am the one that asked all the questions about the drive-throughs.
I appreciate the
changes that were made, but I will caution.
You I do not believe I could find a drive-through anywhere unless it's large amounts of land
That does not actually create pedestrian and vehicular crossover
Even in one that was shown in a photo, which is the Burger King up here on North Main or on
Broadway there is a you cannot get into that Burger King without crossing a drive-through aisle
Just because of the way the parking is configured on these very tight sites
So I think we need to be cognizant of that as we work with this standard, because it's
hard to be pure.
Yes, that's – yes, you're right.
There are sometimes site constraints that could mean that pedestrians have to cross
the drive aisle, but we do have – in the standard, we say that if it does cross the
the dry vial, it needs to basically be distinctive in some way, it needs to call attention to
that crossing by using different paving material or colors or what have you to really call
attention to it.
If I had my way, I'd put a note to the reviewing authority of this is going to be tough to
be as protective as possible, so thank you.
Do they leave you any questions?
Just a couple.
So when council member Francois,
I think I finally got the pods thing,
and I was like, oh, oh, okay,
because I've always assumed that design review
would always be advisory to planning.
But it sounds on the pods,
design review is advisory to staff.
Is there anywhere else where we have
that particular little curlicue?
the top of my head no okay good good because that means I only missed it one
time and then my other questions and I'm gonna try to do this without sounding
like Monty Python and when is a standard when is a guideline and what is the
building code but under sustainable building design the building code on
page 42 doesn't the building code requires rooftop I mean you're saying
and rooftop photovoltaic generation, which to me is rooftop solar, but here we have it
as a guideline.
When is a guideline a requirement?
So we made this a guideline, and I'm not an expert on the green building code, but my
understanding is that solar is required for certain types of uses and not necessarily
for all uses. So we made it a guideline here because yes sometimes it might be required
by the building code for certain types of uses but when it's not we want to encourage
it, not necessarily require it. And we also give a couple of different options here in
that standard. So we're just trying to encourage an array of sustainable building features.
It could be solar, it could be solar water heaters, it could be reflective roofing.
So we're trying to ensure that there are, you know, there's flexibility in providing
some of these benefits and these sustainable building features without necessarily requiring
specific types or amenities.
Would it be less confusing if you said something like sustainable design features such as rooftop
solar not required under the building code, or just put something in there,
because I was reading, I was like, wait a second, are we going backwards? Because I
know we had a lot of discussion about that. That was the one part, and
then it sounds like the decision was that the green building guidelines
were all guidelines and not standards. That we're just, we have enough, and is
that really, we have enough in the green building code that there wasn't anything
something in between required in the building code, and more of a guideline?
I think I understand the question.
Yes.
I mean, we wanted to make sure we didn't conflict with the green building code, which also changes
very frequently.
So that was another consideration, is that gets updated every couple of years, and they
keep adding additional requirements to it, and knowing that, we didn't want to conflict
or create future conflicts where this we would have to address or revise this.
And I think there are, you know, certain uses or buildings or sites do have constraints
where they might not be able to do some of these things or they could be cost prohibitive.
So I think that's where, again, we wanted to provide that flexibility rather than strictly
requiring some of these features.
And I think the, like, for instance, siting and tree shading and energy conservation is
a good example of that that's possible on for certain sites and conditions and
it's really just not in other situations. Council member if I could just add one
thing. Aaron Sage principal planner we also have as you know our sustainability
action plan which there's some overlap and some of the strategies within that
plan with these guidelines but unlike the guidelines the SAP has you know
specific timelines for when those are going to be implemented by and we didn't want to
get out ahead of that policy document here since council will be, you know, looking at
those measures and deciding how exactly those should be implemented and in what timeframe.
And I'm just thinking some of that information might be good to get incorporated here so
that people know, because if I were to read this
without having read the SAP and without,
I mean, hopefully somebody would have somebody on staff
that understands the building code,
but I might not realize that this is not all
that you have to do, that there are other things
that you have to do.
So, I'm not quite sure if there's an action item
out of that, but clarifying applicability.
As we implement items from the SAP, we would go back and update the guidelines in the next
update cycle just to ensure that there's consistency.
Right now, the SAP is a list of future actions that have been taken yet.
You're anticipating that these will get updated when we get to, I think, the first one is
actually 2026, the first one where it becomes, instead of a really nice to do, it becomes
a U-Shawl. That's right. So you're anticipating that the, so you're
anticipating these will get updated when the SAP or something goes into a... Right.
Once, for example, implementing an EV charging requirement as opposed to just
putting in conduit to be ready to make it easier to install charters, when that
becomes a mandate, we wouldn't want to have something that says, oh, chargers
are just a guideline, Ray, we would come back and clean that up as soon as possible.
Okay.
All right.
Those are my questions, thanks.
As I forecast, they didn't leave much less for me.
So, the only thing, as a neophyte, for whom most of this conversation was over my head,
I'm going to ask a really basic question, which is, as it was being discussed, I, as
a person who doesn't really understand everything understood this only really applied to existing
business areas and things like that does it apply to any potential legal commercial construction
in the whole of walnut creek i'm sorry mayor i'm not sure i understood well i i i'm hearing it all
applies to downtown because we talked about downtown and all that sort of stuff and and yet
there is a whole part of Walnut Creek that is not downtown and and I want to be clear about what it
applies to. Great question. Yes, these are the city-wide design standards and guidelines so they
do apply across the entire city. Except where they specifically like Broadway Plaza. Except where
specifically noted in the applicability section such as Broadway Plaza.
Thank you. Now, we neophytes know something new, too. I believe it is now
time for public comment and this happens about this time of the meeting always and
look around the audience and there is no audience and therefore I am going to
to make the oh do you have a comment oh see oh we have a comment in the back
would you please come forward and then talk behind the microphone and somebody's
gonna have to help him get it so it's near where we can pick it up oh you're
an expert okay silly me hello my name is Andrew Halverson I'm in 8th grade at
at Pahale Middle School, and I live in Walnut Creek.
I just wanted to say I love being active,
and one of the things I do while I'm active
is playing pickleball.
And I think the city of Walnut Creek
should build more pickleball courts
so it's accessible to others,
and it's easier for people to be more active
in Walnut Creek and have more fun playing pickleball.
And I think it's a great sport where people can connect with each other and meet new friends
and people.
And I think it should be more accessible to other people.
Thank you.
It's a little off topic, but because you were so brave to come forward, I let it be heard.
So thank you very much.
And we've listened to your message and we will see how it applies.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I am Anna Halverson.
Andrew's mother, and we live up in Northgate.
And the reason that we thought this does apply tonight
is that I saw on the agenda that the Shadelands zoning
was being considered.
And we have spent a lot of time over at Cali Craft
and in Copa and these other sports facilities
that are developed over there.
and so I was wondering how we could go about bringing a pickleball facility to that underutilized
part of Walnut Creek and specifically a commercial enterprise, so not necessarily something that
is run by the city parks department, but a pickleball club similar to some of the other
There are sports facilities that are currently in business.
So, that's it.
Thank you, you wove it in quite nicely.
I appreciate that.
And I'm hoping the people at Shadelands are listening.
So that I believe covers the public comment.
I see nobody stepping forward.
Do we have the mayor?
Perhaps Anna could talk with our assistant.
City manager so he could make the connection that we had the discussion about shade lens earlier in the
Earlier in the agenda and so and how that might make it give her a referral
If that's okay
Right, that's great. Yes
So recommend that okay trying to get the meeting back on focus
Does council have any more comments or anything that?
They would like to pursue
I'm not seeing anything
our instructions are true. I would love to see the slide with all the motions we
need to make. If I may, Madam Mayor, just one point of clarification about the
number of meetings the Design Review Commission is allowed to have. We
actually did codify in the last updates in June one meeting unless additional
meetings are requested by the applicant, and so if there is a desire for the DRC
to be able to hold multiple meetings for commercial projects we would need to
make a amendment to the municipal code. Which is not in front of us tonight but
we might have to. Okay thank you for the clarification. Yeah thank you. All right
we are at the moment and I am assuming you wanted the list of recommendations
so that you would make the first of them. So I'm happy to move to adopt the
resolution making the findings and approving the non-residential design
review standards and guidelines and approving minor updates to the
residential and mixed-use residential design standards and guidelines as
modified this evening by the errata sheet that we received and that also
this is finding the project exempt from CEQA pursuant to section 15061B3.
Second. May I have a roll call vote? Council Member Silva. Aye. Council Member
Councilmember Will, Councilmember Francois, Mayor Pro Tem Darling, Mayor Haskew,
I'll make the motion of adopting resolution updating the city's
outdoor dining policy clarify the design review process. Second. He can do it.
We'll just keep rolling this along. Councilmember Will, Councilmember Francois,
Councilmember Silva, Mayor Pro Tem Darling, Mayor Haskew,
Yes.
Motion carries unanimously.
Okay.
Wave reading and introduce an ordinance
making exemption findings under CEQA
pursuant to section 15061 paragraph
or parentheses B, parentheses three
and amending the municipal code
to implement new and revised standards
for non-residential developments,
minor updates to standards for residential developments,
minor modifications to the design review process
and the role of the DRC consistent
with recent council direction and action
as modified by the errata sheet.
And I'm going to second that.
So I have some, okay.
That gets us to the roll call vote
that gets us to go home.
Mayor Pro Tem Darlene.
Aye.
Mayor Haskew.
Aye.
Council member Francois.
Aye.
Council member Silva.
Aye.
Council member Will.
Aye.
Motion carries unanimously.
And I am double checking
because I have been known to forget.
Oh no, the next item on the agenda is the adjournment.
will see you at the next council meeting and the meeting is adjourned.