Good afternoon, I'm Kevin Wilk, Mayor of the City of Walnut Creek and welcome to the
Tuesday, July 21st, 2026 Special Meeting of the Walnut Creek City Council.
This special meeting is called for the purpose of holding a study session related to the
following 2050 General Plan Update City Council kickoff.
Under California law, public comments at special meetings are limited to subjects on the agenda
only.
Therefore, public comments will be received during the item identified.
And I'd like to invite a principal planner, Crystal Dicastro, to provide the presentation.
I'm Crystal Dicastro, principal planner and project manager for the General Plan update.
Tonight marks the beginning of an important effort to update Walnut Creek's General Plan,
our community's long-range blueprint that will help guide the city's future through
2050.
Our current general plan was adopted in 2006, so that was about 20 years ago, so
since then, Walnut Creek has evolved, state regulations have changed, and now
there's new opportunities and challenges that have emerged. This update is an
opportunity to take a thoughtful look at where we are today and work together to
develop a shared vision for the future. So we're excited to be here tonight to
have this conversation with Council and the community. So let's take a look at
tonight's agenda. First, we'll provide an overview of the general plan update and
process and how we're approaching the work. Second, we'll talk about engagement
strategies and what we've heard so far to date and what we're hearing from the
community and the stakeholders. And finally, we'll have a discussion on key
issues and outcomes for the general plan process which will help shape the
direction of the update. Since this is a study session, we're not asking Council for any
type of decision or formal action tonight, and nothing like that is being requested.
So with that, I'll turn it over to Eric Yerkovic with Aalto Planning and Design, the City's
General Planning Consultant, who's going to go through the update and lead us through
the discussion. So, Eric?
Good evening, Council members. My name is Eric Yerkovic. I'm a principal at Aalto
planning and design. Super happy to be back with you this evening. As Krista
said, this is a really exciting opportunity for us to have an
opportunity to begin a conversation with council about the general plan update
to really root it in our shared values for the future. California requires that
every community in the state maintain and periodically update their general
plans. These are really road maps for the future. Everything from our homes and our
neighborhoods to our roads, to the services we provide, to parks and open space, they're
all part of the sort of thoughtful planning processes going forward. Once adopted, the
general plan becomes a document to really help guide decision making by the City Council,
by commissions, by staff on issues around land use, transportation and mobility, housing,
and other issues of community concern. The plan itself sets forth a 20-year vision for the future,
building on the assets and great things about the community, but also addressing the challenges and
vulnerabilities that every community faces in the future. But what I like to say about a general
plan is it's not just about planning for the future, it's about making sure that we understand
of the pressing concerns and issues today and that we tie together those
future vision, goals, strategies that we implement in the general plan with the
concerns of community members today so that everybody can have a chance to
participate in thinking about the future. Now California law requires that every
community address those mandatory elements on the left side of your screen
there. The city recently adopted two of those elements and updates both the
safety element and the housing element and we're not going to be updating those
through this process. We are also going to be talking about the other issues of
community concerns. So we're going to be talking about arts and culture, healthy
communities, economic development and more. So while general plan laws vary
rigorous in some ways, it's very open that we get to talk about issues that
are of community importance. Now I think at the heart of every general plan update
is an update to the land use and mobility plan for the community. The land
use really is the organizational feature for a community where we think about how
spaces come together. So where do we put homes and neighborhoods? Where are
community amenities and businesses going? How do we mix them together? Those land
use decisions affect a lot of everyday choices that individual members of the
community make. So how we travel, our health and sustainability, the places
where we gather, socialize and recreate within a community. So it's important
when we talk about the general plan to make sure that we share out what how it
actually impacts individuals daily lives in the work that we do. Our job
through this general plan process isn't to start from scratch. There's a ton of
work that's already been done here in Walnut Creek that we're really here to
build upon. So it's our team's job to honor the work that you've done as
council commissions and community members. Lift that up. Learn from the
lessons learned in those processes. Refine the goals, the policies, and the
implementation activities within the General Plan to reflect those. So our
goal is really to build on all that great work that you've done through all
of your planning and implementation initiatives here within the city. Now
Now because general plan updates last three to five years, sometimes eight if you're unlucky,
we try and really break the process down into these sort of digestible chunks where we're
doing certain technical analysis and then community engagement at the same time.
So for this update, we broke it into these kind of five phases and we're really in the
first phase where we're assessing baseline conditions in the community, reviewing existing
policy to really understand what's on the ground here
today. We've also started engagement processes, where
we're asking people about their vision for the future, what
principles should guide our work and what are some of the
key issues and opportunities that we want to solve for as
part of this general plan update. And that's what we're
going to be here to talk to you about this afternoon. We take
all that foundational material then that lays the we kind of
package it up, it lays the foundation for the important
work we do and looking at land use and mobility in the city.
So how does the city evolve to meet its growing housing and jobs needs in the
future? What are those look like? How do we do that?
How do we get people safely to their destinations?
We take that information and we pull it together and into revised policies,
implementation activities and goals for the city that all comes together into
your general plan, which will get,
we'll go through an environmental review process all released to the public.
And that feedback that we get on that general plan will then come back to you
all ultimately for consideration for adoption. Now through each of those
phases of work we'll be doing different kinds of engagement with different
members of the community because one of the key elements of our work really is
the engagement strategy itself. We have a partner organization play into place who
you'll see throughout our community engagement activities when we start to
go to the public who will be helping lead those initiatives so we can really
meaningfully engage members of the community in a conversation around the
future. Now our engagement process really focuses on creating meaningful
activities for folks across a wide spectrum of neighborhoods and sub
populations within the city. And to do that we have a series of both outreach
activities and then engagement activities that will go through during
this process. Those outreach strategies are really about building an educational
a foundation, motivating engagement,
sharing out information to members of the community.
We've already started a lot of this work.
We have developed an engagement and communication strategy
where we've mapped out community partners.
We've defined common terminology
that we're using through the process
and started to think about how we're gonna track
and monitor engagement over the lifetime of the project.
We've also developed project branding and a project website,
which I'm gonna talk about in a second.
And then we have a variety of different engagement activities.
And this is where we go out and we talk to community members.
We listen to ideas.
We share out ideas with them and get feedback on those.
These include your more traditional community workshops,
pop-up meetings, online questionnaires.
We have one-on-one meetings with community partners
and focus groups where we can get different perspectives
and lived experiences engaged in our process.
And then we have a series of informational forums
where we'll go out in kind of a less rigorous style
and talk to folks about, we'll bring together
kind of regional leaders, city staff, project team
to kind of talk about issues about housing,
economic development, parks and open space
here within the community,
really to build a level of education for the process.
Now, one of the things that is really important
to this process is getting a good representation
voices within the community. And one of the ways that we're going to be doing that is working with
community partners. Those community partners, and this is just a small slice of those community
partners within the city, they really help to represent some of those voices in some cases.
And then they can be a conduit for us to engage their clients and subpopulations in those groups.
So we've already started these community partner meetings. I'm going to share a little bit of the
feedback we received from some of those already. But we're going to continue meeting with community
partners throughout the entire engagement process and you can see those related to arts
and culture and to schools, sustainability, mobility, kind of the whole gamut of general
plan topics. Now, one of our key outreach activities was launching our project website,
which went public at the end of June. It's a great resource for all things about the general
plans. So we're going to be posting meeting materials there, our technical reports, we have
information about upcoming meetings, and then we're going to have online questionnaires and
mapping exercises for community members at different times during the process. That's
available at Walnut Creek 2050 dot com. And then finally we wanted to share we
will be coming to council and in different commissions within the city
throughout the process and what we've tried to do is stagger those at
particular times during the process. Sometimes like tonight with you all
those are more study session where we're just here to brainstorm ideas and get
your ideas so that we can then take that and help shape the next step. At other
stages we're going to be coming to you all for direction and decision making so
we've kind of tied all of these meetings to particular times and segments in the
process. Now as I mentioned we began our community partner meetings in June and
July and we met with 40 different representatives from community-based
organizations, regional agencies, local nonprofits, business organizations in
more here in Walnut Creek. Our goal was really to one, learn a little bit more
about what the work they're doing, the clients populations that they serve, but
also to hear from them about what their priorities are for the general plan and
how we can better engage them through the lifetime of the general plan process.
We heard we're summarizing a few of those common themes we heard in those
meetings about honoring Walnut Creek's identity really bring about the qualities of place the
downtown the schools the parks and open space all those things that make Walnut Creek unique
and special. We heard a lot about balancing both meeting the needs for housing but also meeting
the needs for businesses within the community here and really investing in those businesses.
we heard a lot about making and improving mobility here within the city and then sub region
to make biking pedestrian activity and access to transit safer and more convenient for folks
to help meet your climate goals and we heard a lot about investment in arts cultural organizations
in the city and really creating a lot of safe and wonderful places for social gathering that can
showcase your open space your parks and your arts together as a group and then finally we heard a
lot about fostering healthy and resilient communities so everything from making sure
the city's climate ready to wildfire resilience to making sure to address housing affordability
and homelessness. Likewise we had a study session our first joint study session with five different
commissions so planning, design review, arts, transportation and parks recreation open space
last month as well. We heard a lot of very similar themes in that conversation as we heard
in those community partners conversations. But one thing I do want to just emphasize in
this list since it's very similar is that when we talked about transportation there's a lot of talk
about adaptability and what does transportation in the future look like and how is that going to
affect Walnut Creek and how are we going to address that in the general plan update. So
We heard a lot of similar themes in those meetings, but a little bit more detail from some of the
commissioners in that respect. And then we also heard a lot about engagement from those commissioners.
We should do it often. We should do a lot of it. We should reach out to sub-populations like the
schools and the youth to make sure their voices are also included in the process.
So next steps. Over the next several months, we have a number of both community engagement
activities that are going to be ongoing as well as technical work that we're doing for the engagement
side. We'll continue those part community partner meetings but we're actually going to start more
of our community-wide focus in engagement. So starting in August we will be doing a series of
kind of pop-ups around town at community events really to get the word out about the general plan,
tell people it's happening, drive people to the website, get them signed up for the online
for online and email communications and then also to let them know about the upcoming community
workshop that's going to be happening. So in September we're going to have our first community
workshop that's going to focus on developing the vision and guiding principles for the general
plan itself and then we're going to ask people about what they think are pressing issues and
then how to bridge the gap between the vision that they have and the issue that they see. So
So what are the big, big ideas they have to do that?
So we'll do that both in this community workshop
as well as an online survey or questionnaire
for folks who are unable to participate in that online event.
And then finally, as I mentioned,
we're doing a lot of technical analysis.
We're gonna be publishing a series of, I think,
eight different, seven different studies
that will go, once we're done reviewing them
with city staff, they'll get posted to the project website
so people, for yourself, for commissioners
and then community members can review
those existing conditions reports.
So this evening, this is as Crystal mentioned,
this is really just an opportunity for us
to have an initial discussion about the general plan
and get some of your ideas about vision and issues
and big strategies and successes for the general plan itself.
This would not be the first time you have an opportunity
or the last time you have an opportunity
to talk about the general plan.
But today we wanna hear what's one word that you think
about for the vision of Walnut Creek today
and one word in 2050.
What are the most pressing issues you see today
and in the future?
And then how do we bridge that gap between that issue
and the vision that we have for the future?
What's the strategy that we do?
And what makes a successful general plan in your opinion?
Is it outcome-based?
Is it process-based?
So think about what makes it,
how would we measure the success of the plan
when we're complete in the future?
So just wanna thank you all for letting us
take your time this afternoon.
I appreciate any thoughts that you have today.
Great, thank you very much.
Why don't we first start out with any questions
that we may have directly here,
and then we can have more of a collaborative discussion
between us as well.
So, Cindy, why don't we start with you on the left?
Thank you very much for the presentation
and you're creeping away from the microphone.
Come back.
Yeah, we'll probably have questions.
If we have questions, you're going
to be the one to answer them, so.
Well, or staff.
Or staff.
So thank you very much for the presentation
and for your work to date.
Is this an update?
It's not a general plan amendment,
but I've heard presentations on, oh, you can do updates
and just do minor tweaks, or you need
to do updates that are major wholesale renovations, remodels.
What do you think we need to do here?
And what does this plan really reflect
in terms of the level of four years worth of work?
It takes a long time to do a general plan,
especially when you want to do good,
deep community engagement.
That takes a lot of time and effort to do.
This is a general plan update.
So we're gonna look at every aspect of the general plan
and update all aspects of it.
Since the city's general plan was last stopped in 2006,
A lot has changed in state law.
A lot of the city has changed during that time.
So we want to reflect new values, the direction
and ideals that you want to achieve,
plus all of that state law.
Now, you can do general plan amendments.
State allows you to do, I think, four of them every year.
But those are generally minor updates
or single element updates.
This is a real comprehensive update
looking at all the elements.
I'll take one question at a time.
All right.
Hi, again, thanks for bringing this here.
It's always fun to think about when I drink,
I had my Diet Coke before I came in
so I could think in those kind of terms.
So one of the groups, do we have an outreach strategy
around the youth commissioners and the youth in general?
Because they communicate so differently than we do.
They do.
They really do.
I have a middle schooler and a high schooler
can confirm that they communicate very differently than us. Yes, it's part of
our broader community engagement strategy, so overall we talked to the
Joint Commission meeting about like who are the kind of the key
populations and we heard a lot about the youth being a voice that we want to make
sure is included in the process. What we often do for youth is we work through
community partners, right? They don't necessarily want to hear the nearly 50
year old planning consultant staying there, talking to them about general
plans, but we often will go to their events. We'll work through PTAs to share
out information and engage them in the process. So that'll be part of the
broader engagement strategy to make sure that we are at events where there will
be youth, right, and making sure that there will be we connect with them when
We're there to gather feedback from them specifically and then we're obviously working with a lot of the commissions themselves and
Their youth representatives. I know on some of those commissions overall
So they were they were part of that joint mission the joint meeting last month
I think we'll be continue to be part of the part of the process as we move forward
Yeah, I was thinking that the Youth Commission itself might be a good one to bring in those but that's just absolutely
And then as far as councilmember Silva asked you we've been looking at this
General plan big general plan small how much what do we how do we right size the amount of effort?
And I was wondering if in you you're looking at the data that we have
What are the areas that you think are the high value targets? And what are the areas I know?
The emergency response and the housing are kind of like okay
we got that but but where do you think the higher priorities I think one of the
things I like about general plans is you get an opportunity to think cross topic
about things so you did a housing element update at the same time you the
general plan process allows you to think about new housing new jobs and how we
get to and from those through the mobility network what community
amenities are necessary. So it gives us an opportunity to think a little bit
more broadly about tying all of those topics together specifically which I
think is the advantage of a general plan as opposed to a single element update
which we do from time to time or two elements at a time. So I think that's an
important part of it. Key issues, I mean we've heard about traffic, we've heard
about open space, we've heard about housing, business retention, we've heard a
lot about those issues generally through our community engagement so far. I, you
know, one of the things I think all communities are struggling with now is
meeting housing needs not just the last eight years now you're gonna have in by
2050 you're gonna have to do it two and a half more times, right? So the general
plan should help set you up so that you can meet not just the next housing
element cycle but, you know, two and a half cycles into the future, right? So we're
to try and right-size some of the development standards, locations to allow
that to happen in the future to set your staff up for success in the future.
So it sounds like it's really the sinew between the things and then making sure
for those things that are going to be challenging that we give ourselves
enough capacity so that we're ready for them. Exactly. Okay, all right thank you.
Mayor for Tim. Thank you very much for the presentation, exciting effort underway
here. You've touched on it I think in response to councilmember Darling's
questions about kind of setting us up for success in the future and trying to
make it so that we're not just putting a plan that's into a time capsule in 25
years they take it out and go wow look at how dated that was. But what are
what are some of the thoughts and strategies and I think some of the
Commission's mentioned it too in terms of mobility but in terms of land use too
because we're we have this evolving regulatory landscape with the state kind
of you know used to be okay housing goes here jobs go here and schools go there
and right that's been changed and I think will continue to be changed and so
So how do we in a, not an easy question,
but kind of what are some of the thoughts and strategies
about making this a relevant, adaptable, flexible document
that's not just current today,
but still looks fresh in 20 years?
You ask a really important question, I think,
and if you just go back in time,
say 10 or 15 years when we were doing our planning work,
we were looking around and we were saying,
well okay where are opportunities to add housing in these commercial districts
right in office districts and we started creating these mixed use districts all
over the bay like around transit like you did here in Walnut Creek in
neighborhoods like employment neighborhoods around the bay and that's
been really important to make all these areas mixed use to allow housing to come
into them to allow commercial spaces to exist but we've also had this effect
where now housing can go everywhere in the community. So I think it's important
as we plan for the future not just to think about how we meet our housing
needs flexibly and adaptively but also how we maintain strong
business focus within the community because I think what's happening within
state laws is this pressure to meet our housing need over time which is really
important to meet our housing crisis and what we're doing is giving up a lot of
employment lands at the same time right and that's really important for
as you've lost funding through prop 13 and other resources that the tax revenue
the business license revenue are really important to communities to maintain the
services that you provide so I think we need to balance the two and we need to
figure out what the right balance is for Walnut Creek so we can kind of help you
thread that needle as best as possible a lot of people say flexibility like you
can do anything but I'm not sure you always want to do that in every case
right you want to maintain some economic cluster here so that you can maintain
success as a community going forward. That's helpful and then you know we
talked a little bit about community engagement as well and don't have a ton
of public here now but I think that your the approach is to gather feedback in
multiple different ways and formats is that right? That's correct yeah we have a
series of different kinds of engagement activities from online questionnaires so
So if people don't want to go to public meetings or can't meet at those times to kind of more
traditional workshops for folks to come to, to these kind of one-on-one meetings with
community partners so we can hear and get a different representation of voices in the
process.
Great.
Thank you.
Great.
I'm looking forward to the process.
I don't have specific questions at this time.
Those have been good questions that were just asked, though.
I enjoyed hearing the answer to those.
Yeah.
Overall, I like the approach.
I think that the outreach is going to be critical.
I see that all the different events that we have,
whether it's the Locust Street Festival
or I think even uncorked perhaps, maybe not uncorked.
But anyway, we always have a booth there.
We have staff that's there answering some of these questions,
hopefully visible where the public is able to engage in that.
So all of that kind of outreach
is going to be really important.
You mentioned the discussion topics.
There were really the four here.
And how would you like to go about discussing them?
You asked about everything from one, there we go,
one word of what would describe Walnut Creek
and what are some of the most pressing issues.
I'm sure the business community is gonna have
a lot of questions that come about this.
We each hear them over the course of our entire tenure here,
everything from why can't we have a title company
or a real estate company of some sort on Main Street
or locusts to cannabis shops.
And that's something that we've talked about here
for the last several years.
And we really pointed to the general plan
as being the place that this could be discussed.
And I really, I guess we leave it to you and staff
to determine how and when that is discussed, whether or not
we end, well, the question being whether we entertain that
and how we move along that discussion.
So it seems like we should really just start going down
these discussion questions one by one
and discuss among ourselves.
And hopefully there'll be enough information
to be able to pass to you by the end of this.
Can I make one friendly amendment?
I recommend doing question one
and then doing two and three at the same time
because they are sort of combined and then doing the third.
I love combining bullet points, makes it easier.
Can I have clarification on something?
Sure.
The mayor, of course, we could go down deep diving
into the 42 different issues that we,
are we supposed to stay higher level at this point
and let it percolate from the bottom up to us again?
I mean, or are we supposed to go,
oh, let's do cannabis, let's do a summer concert series,
let's get a bandshell.
I mean, what do you want?
I think if you wanna give us the higher level feedback
is important, but if there's like an example or two,
you want to give us with something so you can illustrate what you mean by that
higher level topic I think that would be helpful. Great. All right so the first
one is what's one word that should describe Walnut Creek today and one word
that should describe Walnut Creek in 2050? Oh councilmember Darling yes I'll
call on you you look very excited. I'm very excited because I thought about
this when I did my homework and I think one of the ways I would describe
of Walnut Creek is resilient.
You look at how we've come through the last 10, 15 years.
We've done a really good job
with the economic viability of Walnut Creek.
I talked to other cities around us,
their sales tax are declining, they're struggling.
And we have been really resilient through COVID,
through this, through that.
So that would be my word for today.
But then that resilience is coming from the connections
within our community.
And that's where I want to see us go in 2050,
is improve those connections.
And those connections are everything
from the connection between nature and health,
the connection between the different cultures,
where you are becoming much more multicultural here
in Walnut Creek.
And we need to make sure that we maintain those connections.
New and old residents.
We have a lot of folks that have been here, like all of us, 25 years,
and now we are picking up younger families coming into downtown.
We're picking up more, less traditional type of housing arrangements.
Every neighborhood has got a few ADUs in it now, and those are everywhere
from one friend of mine, or disabled brother lives in it,
the people across the street, it's a rental,
but how do we connect those things together?
So to me that's the biggest one and in that
The mobility connection is probably one of the most important and that gets to the transportation
System as a whole and having you're getting a number two. I know I'm sorry. No, I'm still on
Next year or this year and fifth 2050 so connection resilient and connected are my two words. Okay. All right
Council member to Vinnie and just for clarification though. I thought we were supposed to do one two and three together
No, we were doing two and three together. It's been three together council member darling decided to combine one and two together
So, I mean one word is obviously challenging but I guess when I think about one word to describe Walnut Creek
I would say family
just like family oriented, you know, we've got a
diversity of activities that you know from parks and services and open space
and you know we've got you know beautiful neighborhoods and yet an
attractive downtown and places to go and do things that you know good school
districts it makes me think that you know this is and and it's why we moved
here a place where where families want to move and where families want to stay
because it also leads to this spectrum of ages that we have because people that
live here tend to stay here too so we wind up with folks who've been in the
community for 30 and 40 years so that that would be my word and I try to be
corny here but I think I would keep the same word for what I hope it will
continue to be in 2050 which is still a place where people can move to that they
want to move to that they want to raise their family in that to talk about the
sinew between different cultures and people that everyone feels welcome here
that it's a place where people want to move to and raise their family and then
stay and then their kids want to move here. Those would be my words.
Right, right. Yeah, yeah, it is hard to encapsulate it in one word.
I think the one word that comes to my mind is community.
And I think that that, you know, it's reflective of all of us in this room,
but it's reflective of the connections we have with people on a daily basis.
And then kind of all the nonprofits and all our staff,
but all the people in that make up the community from you know the library to arts to athletics
and that sense you get it's sort of the sense I always got at City Meet where even if the
kids didn't go to the same school there were connections and the parents had connections
and the kids had connections and they were all together at one city event at one city
facility just having a really good time and and connecting with one another and
so that that's the same word I would use to describe what I would like to see
Walnut Creek look like in 2050 I think it's a real strength of Walnut Creek
that we should hold on to and preserve. I'd like to go next and can I add just
onto my family a word that we can have family businesses too that we can still
they'll promote a city where, or we can maintain a city
where people can open businesses
and small businesses can thrive.
I kind of build on what we just heard from Matt
and from Craig, I would say livability or quality of life,
which it's not unique.
It's certainly something that we've heard about for,
well, as long as I've been on the city council,
but everything we do is based upon the livability feature
living here. It's the feeling of safety, community, family, raising children, the
sports that's here, shopping downtown, and I mean if I think back to when I
first was growing up here and went to high school here, if we wanted to have
anything more than pretty much a hamburger we had to go to Berkeley. And
now we've got how many different types of cuisine that are just in in downtown
and an art center, so it's the quality of life here that I think really with
that livability describes today and also should describe it in 2050 because
everything that we decide upon and future councils decide upon whether it's
housing or transportation anything else we have to keep that livability in mind
and that people want to, whether they're living, working, visiting, recreating or
shopping, that it's that quality of life. Councilmember Silva. I'm going to use my
two words. I'm going to start with welcoming. That's where I think we are
today and what we've been and over time like the 40 years that I've lived here
one of the things I've noticed is we're more welcoming. We welcome more people
and different people. We have convinced the community to be welcoming to housing
because I hear more communities all over the state come basically describe
harrowing council meetings where people are objecting to housing which is
basically meaning they're objecting to neighbors and new people so we're
welcoming we're welcoming to new ideas new people innovation and I think as we
move forward we need to be adaptable because in order to remain welcoming to
new ideas, welcoming to livability, to families, etc. We have to be adaptable
because things change really fast and they come with smart and so adaptability
is going to be important for us. Great, thank you. We're on track so far that's
sounding good. All right, give a thumbs up there. To the next questions, two and
three combined are what are the most pressing issues facing Walnut Creek
today and in the future and how can Walnut Creek address those issues. So
So why don't we start, start with me or pretend this time?
Okay.
This is not very original, but I think that I started thinking of certain things and then
my mind went a different direction.
I think really the most pressing issues are reflected in the priorities that we've adopted.
And I don't know what they're going to be in the future, but I imagine, I mean, I think
ones that we've articulated in terms of public safety, economic development, parks and recreation,
maybe broaden that to infrastructure, I would say, and climate change will be ones that
will still be relevant and pressing issues in 2050, and so, you know, but I think that
that and I would so how do we address those well staff's come up with great
work plans and especially for ones that require more frequent updates like our
economic development plan it's it's like a two-year plan instead of a five-year
plan but I think what I kind of envision is that that those brought you know writ
large public priorities that kind of we've identified find a home somewhere
in this general plan so that they kind of that we embody the larger policies
and goals we have as to each of these priorities and then it'll be with enough
flexibility that they can be implemented in various different ways so we keep it
at a policy level but that we find a home for them in the general plan.
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah I you know when I was going through the priorities I did
kind of naturally default to some of the things that we have been identifying
consistently as priorities over the years. And for example, sustainability and
climate change, we all recognize that for our city to continue to be a family
community, livable, adaptable, it has to be able to function in the new world that
we are in. Public safety, writ broadly, has been a priority, I think, the whole
time I've been on council and that will continue to be a priority and that's
that's public safety not just do we have an officer to respond to a call, it's do
we have a way to help somebody with the mental health crisis, do we have a way to
help a young family that's struggling with their rent, do we have a way to deal
with you know teens who are struggling in this world where everything is on
your telephone and you don't ever call anybody on your telephone at least they
don't and then economic vitality and resiliency in the face of change I think
that is one of those things we have said for a long time economic viability is
important and there are real challenges coming down the road self-driving cars
use of AI, we saw the huge switch to work from home during COVID and that's going
to be with us for a while. That is part of our world now. And so we need to think
about, well what else, I mean we could all ask AI, what else is coming? But we
need to be, we need to have that flexibility and we will have to recognize
that economic viability is going to be something we'll have to revisit very
common, very frequently, connected, modernized infrastructure. You know we've
done a great job recently on getting a bunch of different things done, but there
is still a lot of streets in the city without sidewalks. A lot of places where
if you were to ride your bike you take your life in your hands. A lot of the
stormwater infrastructure. There's different things related to
infrastructure that we're going to need to continue to focus on. Climate change
and that's it. Simple. Just go do it. Well there's a long list of issues that we
face and they're reflected on our strategic priorities. They're reflected in
what's being said to us and done to us on a regulatory level. I think our biggest
priority, if I had to press it, would be how do we, I'm gonna use the word adapt,
but how do we set a tone and a temperament in the way we work such that
we're open to the ever-changing model of things going on. And looking at
things from a regional perspective as opposed to it would be very easy to
become parochial and internalize when things get really tough, but when
things get really tough you actually have to go more open and broader because
the region and the state has been going to be applying pressure on us as well as
our neighbors and so I think any of these strategic priorities have a
regional nature to them and I think we're going to have and so how do we do
this is we have to keep talking to our neighbors we have to keep talking to our
community and think taking the time to talk and ask questions and take input in
is going to help. Thank you. Councilmember Davini. Well there's been an outlined here a
number of issues that Walnut Creek is facing and that are important and
pressing issues. I guess what gives me the most angst when I fast forward like
20 years is thinking about you know we're gonna have more housing we're
gonna grow we're gonna densifies is is transportation like how are we gonna get
around the city and I see areas of the city already you know feeling it have
been for some time but continue to feel the stress of of transportation
challenges so how can we address those issues it's interesting because the the
region is looking at that issue right now and they're you know they're putting
together their transportation something plan was it expenditure plan yes and so
you know we have an option of looking at some of the information that they're
collecting as well but I see that as a big challenge for Walnut Creek and I
and I don't really know what the answer is but it's you know we talk about these
sidewalks we talk about bike paths how to make the streets usable not just for
drivers but with autonomous vehicles coming the way they might need to access
curbs in a different way than then we've historically used that how we're going
to address parking I'd say that generates maybe the traffic and those
types of issues generate the most complaints amongst the city and I see
that as being one of our biggest challenges moving forward. Yeah I would
agree with that I was going to say transportation even before I heard
Craig say it public safety everything we've heard here are important for sure
Public safety continues to be, I'm not sure it's a pressing issue, it's just a
constant issue. And people come here, they live here, they come down here on the
weekends and shop because it's safe. And so we always make sure we want to have
that baseline level of safety and we certainly want to keep that for the next
20-25 years and beyond. But transportation, what's interesting here
and being on County Connection for the last 10 years and alternate to CCTA and
trans back and of course Greg you're now part of that as well these are these
are issues that aren't going to go away they're only going to get more
complicated. We're seeing that the region the county the city are pushing
forward in transportation areas that sometimes are moving faster than the
public is comfortable with wanting them to see moving forward whether it's
reducing lanes so that speeds are brought down. I can't believe how
often now I hear about the Civic Drive as you as you as you turn right on
Civic out of City Hall and you're going up to Ignacio, there's that
divider now that's in the middle in the two lanes so that people go slower. I
can't believe how often I hear people bring this up to me now. Sorry Matt, but
they do they bring it up and we understand why because it is to slow
traffic down but whether it's sidewalks or or mobility and for for e-bikes and
bikes and scooters and everything this is going to continue to be an issue and
I remember what it was about six months ago we were just talking about the
county that's putting on that's putting a bike lane down on treat between between
Cherry and Maine or something and it's going to end up taking away a lane a
little bit sooner and I mean some of us try that every single day and we already
see the backup. So these are the things that I think there's going to have to be
sort of a pendulum or a lever that we move in certain directions but also not
wanting to go too fast and wanting to see what the public's ready for and what
we're trying to encourage to do along with the county. So these are going to be
huge pressing issues continuing because just look coming down Ignacio every day
there's traffic and we see this in a few of our hot spot areas so I mean there
isn't an easy answer to this these are going to be conversations that are going
to evolve from the general plan update but also beyond as well and yeah and
we're going to have to help lead the way and help bring the the community with us
and also make sure that we're paying attention to the fact that there are
still cars. And just to finish up quickly, BART is still at only about, I want to
say 60 to 70 percent of pre-COVID ridership right now. There are more cars
on the road because people feel more comfortable listening to podcasts and
their health safety and their comfortability in their car. So we haven't
seen this migration to people that are doing more public transit. Unfortunately
we're seeing just the opposite right now. So these are conversations again that
will continue have to evolve. Don't you think some of that as a result of work
from home behavior? Absolutely. I mean because there isn't the
volume available to be on BART five days a week the way it was pre-convinced. Totally. I
commute into San Francisco five days a week for ten years. If I was able to work
from home two or three days a week, I might have been willing to drive in a
couple of days a week to San Francisco. Absolutely. But I mean I don't think we
should, I'd only wanted to add it as a nuance of the environment that we're in.
Yeah, well no it's, which affects our local economy, it affects everything.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean I think this conversation that both you and Craig have
raised in terms of traffic underscores to me the need to stay focused on the
relevance of transit and public transit, having just returned from Los Angeles and seeing
the consequences of trying to really address the issue now in time for the Olympics I guess,
that you're really at a disadvantage and then talking out with the city manager about, you
know, at the other end of the spectrum, you know, New York City that has this fantastic
subway system that you can get pretty much anywhere,
and all five boroughs very easily.
And BART is not quite there, but I think it's facing
challenges, and I think in order for people to go,
you know, to feel comfortable going back,
I think work from home is part of it,
but I think it has to be a well-run,
safe, clean system, and that there needs to be
economic accountability on BART, too,
and that we need to be sensitive to that and be
focused on not throwing transit aside, I mean they're clearly part of the solution
for our entire region and I think the consequences of not doing it are really
drastic in terms of some of the freeways I was just on. Completely agree and when
we talk about reduced, I mean we don't need to get into this yet, this is going
to be commonplace for a few months from now, but we talk about reducing
public transit due to the economic measures, those are people that are
going to be on the street as well in their cars. So whether or not we use
public transit, whether or not people use public transit, they're going to be
impacted if there's going to be a reduction in public transit. What is the
saying every person that you see on BART going by you when you're on the freeway
is a person that would otherwise be in front of you on the road? Oh yeah, yeah,
Yeah, I just took Bart to Berkeley last week and thought exactly that.
Okay, so the last question here is how would you measure success for the general plan update?
Who would like to go first? I will. Okay.
Level of participation in the process. Because you're not going to be able to measure the outcome
of a forward-thinking document. All you can do is basically measure the process itself,
And it will be level of participation and people who the number of people who say to us I participated in. Thank you. I
Think about it, you know, I agree with you when we look at whether or not we have successfully
Created a general plan that works for people
Correct the implementation, you know, how many people got involved rolled up their their shirt sleeves and did it are our people in Walnut Creek are
spectacularly willing to do that, but it's you know, but then I think about the success of the general plan as a whole is
How we articulated?
Where we are going and then how we're going to measure progress towards that as we go
You don't just say oh, I'm going to New York and then you never look at a map between here and New York because
Yeah
Yeah, but but do does our does our plan inspire people to?
sense of ownership does it inspire confidence because we have in there not
only we're going to New York but we're going to look and see our wake-up
tomorrow morning are we in Verde Nevada or are we in LA you know so yeah that's
not a wrong term I'd measure success by participation absolutely but also by
ensuring that everybody has seen the outreach. We know that most people that
see the outreach are not going to participate, and this happens all the
time. But as long as they have been touched from some kind of communication
where they can say, okay, well, I had the opportunity, I just didn't provide my
input, I think that that's a benchmark that we can say that out of the about
50,000 voters, 70,000 residents, that we hit a majority of all of them with at
at least the information that they could participate,
I think will be, that will be a measure of success.
Yeah, and I agree definitely with the outreach.
I'd like to, you know, I would measure success
as it being a living, breathing document
that is relevant both to the average resident,
they understand what a general plan is and what it does,
and to our commissioners.
I recall being on the planning commission
and on the council too and frequently,
is this project consistent with the general plan
that they can use it as a kind of a north star
and a reference document when making land use decisions?
Thank you and Craig, wanna wrap it up?
Sure, well I was gonna say outcome
and then Cindy made her comment
and I thought well no, that's a really good point,
maybe I should say participation.
Then I started thinking about it again,
and I'm going to go back to outcome.
And the problem with measuring it on an outcome basis
is we're not going to know the outcome for maybe another 10
years when we see the effect of the general plan
that we've put together.
The participation 100%, I also, though,
sort of a philosophical point, you know, passing, say, you know, come up later tonight, passing
laws through the initiative process, sometimes, you know, do voters spend more than a few
minutes thinking about things.
And if we leave the process completely up to the input that we get without directing
it and sort of guiding it, so then it becomes, you know, is their best process out there?
Or best practice?
I mean, are there other communities that we'd like to be like, that we'd like to emulate,
that we could take example from?
You know, maybe people know what they see right now, but maybe they don't know what's
possible and so having some perhaps inspiring ideas to to show them of what
what we could do so if we if we simply collect data from many people based on a
brief interaction we might miss some of the in-depth analysis that comes from
experts and so I hope that we're incorporating some some expert opinion
and maybe guiding some of the discussions
or with the community.
Great.
Thank you.
Before we take the break at this point,
let me ask if we have any people from the public that
would like to make any comment, whether in person or online.
We now are back to online, and we'll
talk about that at 6 o'clock as well.
So do we have any people from the public to come in?
No?
OK.
We'll bring you back to council.
Can I ask if we could do a last question that
is a little different, which would be,
are there any pressing issues that we want the consultants
and staff to know about that's in our heads that if we don't
say it now, we're not going to be able to say it in front of us.
So I'll start with transit-oriented communities.
This is the big issue with ABAG and MTC.
It's going to hit us in the housing element,
But I think we have to keep that in mind,
housing near transit, as we look at this,
because it's going to come to us in a way
that they're going to make transportation
dollars contingent on abiding by their policies.
So perhaps it's just a good idea to take a strong look at it
and figure out how we're going to convince them we're
abiding by the policies.
I didn't prepare for this question.
So there's lots of things out there.
But yeah, I think knowing what regulatory mandates are
coming down the pike and making sure
that we're ready for those, whether it
be TOD, stormwater, a whole host of other things,
making sure we're ready for those.
And well, I mentioned a couple earlier,
which were just making sure that the cannabis discussion
for a storefront actually begins or at least is engaging.
And also taking a look at our core downtown area
to see if there are other kinds of businesses
that could make sense on ground floor.
We do have some vacancies,
not saying that they're always going to be occupied
from any other types of businesses.
However, just having that discussion,
I think the business community would be interested
in having that discussion.
So maybe that would be, you could wrap the two of them
together in terms of modernizing our approach
to downtown and retail.
Sure.
Although, yes.
Although cannabis itself may be something
that isn't downtown, but yes.
Not necessarily kind of a variant of that question.
And it's maybe for the consultants.
I was curious about, first of all on the website,
is there an opportunity now, or will there
be at some point relatively soon for someone to sign up for updates. I didn't
see it immediately but there's a lot of boxes. There is an opportunity now to
sign up for updates on the website. And then what new elements will be in the
general plan that we don't currently have? So that's going to be through our
process. We'll figure that out as we get more information from the public and
that during the engagement, we'll see what issues or topics they want
as alternative elements or extra elements in the general plan.
What are the mandatory ones that we have?
So, this is like a quiz for me.
Sure. Let me go back.
I don't know if we have that on the slide now.
One more. Okay.
So, those are the elements we have, land use, community design, transportation,
open space and conservation, and noise.
And we already adopted the safety element this year
and the housing element was adopted in 2023.
So there are options for additional topics there
that you see on the right related
to economic development, arts and culture,
healthy communities, and implementation.
And there's others, you know, it's very open.
Will sustainability, where does that fit?
Sustainability is part of,
we have sustainability climate action plan,
So that's a specific plan that we have.
Stand alone.
Stand alone.
It's not an element.
It's based on, I don't know if it's conservation,
comes from conservation.
So it's more of an action item, from conservation.
And then environmental justice, do we do?
So we are doing environmental justice.
We are looking at healthy communities.
Maybe Eric can talk a little bit more about that.
but there are two regulations on environmental justice.
We don't fall into the first one,
which is regarding certain communities,
or we fall under healthy communities,
meaning that, say, if you're next to the freeway,
there's pollution impacts.
So we'll respond to that more, but...
I see, and that's okay, I didn't need more details.
I was just broader levels,
wondering what the new elements are gonna be.
Okay.
Okay.
So one of the things that we have had as a priority
for a while is diversity and equity.
Does that fit into healthy communities
or is it just more of an approach overall
to achieving the things on the general plan?
So it would be an approach overall.
It's something that hits on every single element
to make sure that everybody,
there is equitability for each of them
when it comes to housing or land use
or even economic development in open space.
Just access is equity.
All right, I think we're good on our end.
It is a 5.02 I have.
So we're going to take a break to our open session,
which is at six o'clock and we'll see you all then.