Citizens for Balanced Growth Posts

The expectation of eventually building the “Wine Country Hotel at the Bankhead” seems to have come unraveled. The Independent published a story about it, and we investigated. The phone numbers for Presidio are disconnected, no responses to email, behind in their state filings, and the agent for service process resigned (no one to contact for legal matters). Their representative Rikesh Patel, who oversaw the development negotiations and was the face of the project, hasn’t worked there since 2019 and no replacement has been identified. All of this considered, the company does not appear to functionally exist in California anymore.

The unfortunate breakdown was ultimately hard to avoid. We believe the location was the main problem, since it was never going to be able accommodate adequate parking for the guests as well as several other challenges. Ultimately, it was as infeasible as we suspected it would be since it was conceived in 2016.

There is a group of concerned residents that is proposing a new location they believe can allow a downtown hotel to be a success. Their website at livermorecommunitycoalitionspeaks.com explains their example in more detail. You can reach out to Safia Hasan Livermore.community.coalition@gmail.com with questions.

We hope City officials can be inspired to fulfill one of the major priorities expressed by the residents during the original outreach.

History of the Downtown Livermore Hotel Planning

In 2016, Lennar Multifamily Communities (now Quarterra) originally was poised to develop a massive 260 unit apartment complex. The residents pushed back, and elected a new Council that year with candidates who pledged to do something different. The new Council focused on a smaller housing plan and other aspects including the Presidio hotel planning.

The Valley Link Rail commuter train project through Livermore is not making impressive progress, and may never be built.

We periodically check the pulse of the proposed Valley Link commuter train. In short, things are looking dire.

• The JPA committee still meets every couple of months, as they have been doing since 2015.
• The lawsuit is still ongoing, and it could devstate the administration budget.
• They have not made any progress on the substantial funding gap for many years.
• The informational websites are looking abandoned – still claiming that construction could begin in 2025.
• It is now being designed to end at Mountain House. No more Tracy, River Islands, or Stockton plan.

The final dagger may be the absence of federal funding, upon which the feasibility has always relied. California should not confidently expect new federal funds for transit projects until at least 2030. Unfair, but could be expected nonetheless. By the time it might be politically possible to request funds, who can say in what condition the federal debt will be, and the added scrutiny under which it is dispersed? By that time, will it be considered standard operating procedure to withhold California funding?

Isabel Developments

The failure of Valley Link is not the worst part of the problem though. That honor goes to the thousands of new residents that will soon be living in the new developments going in near Costco. The entire justification for the original zoning intent was based on the existence of a real BART station within walking distance. When that didn’t happen in 2015, the “almost BART” Valley Link was proposed. After that was taking too long, the Council made the truly awful decision to rezone the area for building without any requirement for transit.

Today, thousands of homeowners are being courted to buy these homes with the promise of the future Valley Link transit station. Read it for yourself in Harridge Development Group’s information sheet for the Isabel Crossing development. When the traffic problems created by the development become a problem, residents will be angry and the developers will be long gone.

Southfront Station

The trouble isn’t confined to Isabel/580 either. The other concerning area is Southfront road – the other proposed Livermore station, where a general plan update is suggesting future high density development. Here’s a recent reference to the “Midtown Focus Area” (often called “Midtown” even though it’s not near downtown) in the context of the City of Livermore General Plan update:

“The Midtown focus area includes the site for a future Valley Link station, and the vision for this focus area is a transit-oriented, complete neighborhood with a mix of housing, jobs, and services.”

and …

“… the Planning Commission recommends … identifying the Midtown Area designation on the General Plan land use map and preparing a specific plan to address Valley Link access, housing unit targets, and neighborhood circulation and services.”

No clear path forward

Valley Link is dream project in a continuing search of financial viability. Some public works projects, even those planned with the best intentions, just fail. Valley Link may be headed toward collapse if progress on funding continues to stall. We made a similar conclusion about BART to Livermore, years before officials would admit the truth. We are equally as skeptical now, as we were then.

Superior Court finds Livermore City Council’s obstruction is STILL too sneaky

On November 15th 2024, Superior Court Judge Michael Markman ruled that Livermore’s tactic to avoid putting a downtown housing project on the ballot would not stand. You can read the judge’s order and also the coverage in The Independent.

October 9, 2024

Citizens for Balanced Growth has filed a lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court due to improper conduct relating to open space funding. The Dougherty Valley Settlement Agreement fund is administered by Livermore and is supposed to be spent on open space protection in accordance with a set of procedures. These procedures were not followed and money was spent, even after city staff were made aware that they were breaching the terms of the Agreement. Here is a link to the complaint.

This is not the first time City staff have failed to properly manage this money. In 2019, Save the Hill group sued Livermore for a different reason. That time, it was for ignoring the fund when it was readily available for protecting Garaventa Hill from undesirable urbanization. Our current lawsuit may even complicate the City’s ability to comply with the 2023 ruling against them and affect how long it will take them to fully resolve their violation of the California Environmental Quality Act and the court order in that case.

The current lawsuit was filed because City staff recommended to use the DVSA fund to purchase property without a required consultation with CBG. Staff were fully aware that they would be breaching the Agreement, but went ahead and did it anyway, brushing aside our required oversight role.

Essentially, Livermore trapped CBG in a “catch 22” situation, wanting us to support multiple property purchases, but denying us the details we needed in order to analyze the nature of the expenditures and the terms of the sales. The suit seeks to force staff to follow the proper procedures and ensure there is a mechanism in place to keep this problem from happening again. We are confident the Court will judge the facts of the case in our favor.

Once the Fund is again operating normally, it will be able to once again be used for its intended purpose of acquiring open space land that benefits all of us, as well as future generations.

Founded by a group of concerned residents including local legends Don Miller and Margaret Tracy, CBG has achieved many beneficial environmental outcomes along the way since 1982. We continue our vital work in any capacity where we can be helpful, and effective.

Dublin

We oppose the Dublin measure to expand its ULL. The opposition argument says it best:

Argument Against Measure _
Dublin Traffic Relief, Clean Air/Open Space Preservation Measure

Measure_ is deceptive. It claims to reduce traffic and preserve open space, but in reality it would increase traffic and reduce open space. It would allow giant distribution warehouses east of Fallon Road, huge truck traffic, and pollution. No Environmental Impact Report was prepared for voters to make an informed decision, inviting a lawsuit.

Measure_ overturns Dublin residents’ decision in 2014 to create an eastern Urban Limit Line to protect scenic Doolan Canyon from being developed. When developers tried to break the Urban Limit Line to allow 2,000 houses, Dublin voters rejected their initiative by 84%.
Our 2014 Urban Limit Line already allows the Dublin Blvd. extension to connect Dublin with Livermore, but it doesn’t allow major urban development in the scenic corridor. Now the city council wants a blank check to allow massive new development on that open space land. There is no plan, no environmental report, no actual agreement with the developer about costs. The only thing known for sure is that our eastern greenbelt will be lost. Currently, Dublin and Livermore will split the $55 million estimated cost of the roadway. If Measure _ passes, Livermore pays NOTHING. Dublin is responsible for all $55 million. That means massive development along the roadway. Proponents of Measure _ claim it will be good for the environment, but local environmental groups Save Mount Diablo, Audubon Society, California Native Plant Society East Bay Chapter, and others oppose Measure _ because it will actually:

• Reduce open space
• Destroy wildlife habitat
• Worsen traffic and congestion
• Block scenic views with giant warehouses
• Increase air pollution from cars and huge delivery trucks
• Significantly increase water consumption and sewage treatment loads
  Asking Dubliners to break our Urban Limit Line, take on new financial risks, and lose more open space is wrong. Dublin deserves better. Vote No on Measure
  
  Dave Bewley
  Co-author, Dublin Open Space Initiative of 2014
  Shirley Lewandowski
  CEO, West Dublin Alliance
  Seth Adams
  Conservation Director, Save Mount Diablo
  Marlene Massetti
  Signature Collector, Dublin Open Space Initiative of 2014
  Uday Meyyappan
  Dublin Resident

Mayor

Dr. Sherry (Xin) Hu
Jean Josey
Shawn Costello
Thomas G Evans

City Council

District 1

Michael McCorriston

District 3

Razi Hasni
John Morada

Pleasanton

Mayor

Jack Balch
Karla Brown

City Council

District 2

Valerie Arkin
Craig Eicher

District 4

Matt Gaidos
Vivek Mohan

Livermore

City Council

Here is a candidate list (Mayor unopposed)

District 3

Steven Dunbar
David Farley
Jeff Kaskey

District 4

Thomas Soules
Kristie Wang

Machine generated transcript of the 2024-08-20 Planning Commission meeting with video timestamps, synchronized with the video posted on our Youtube page.

0:02
okay good evening ladies and gentlemen uh and uh welcome to tonight’s uh August
0:08
20th I call this meeting planning uh I call tonight’s August 20th Planning Commission meeting to order can we have
0:14
a roll call commissioner dumbar here commissioner konac here commissioner ly
0:22
here Vice chair fince chenko here and chairperson Anderson here um let’s stand
0:28
for the pledge of aliance I believe there’s a flag
0:35
outside I pledge allegiance flag of United States of America to
0:42
the stands na indivisible andice for
0:51
all thank you okay that will take us to open Forum
0:58
this is an opportunity for the public to address the Planning Commission regarding any items not on the agenda
1:04
tonight um in Con in conformance with the brown act no Planning Commission action can occur on items presented
1:10
during open Forum um to provide public comment please submit a speaker card when your
1:17
name is called walk up to the back of the projector we will have a microphone
1:22
ready for you um comments are limited to a maximum of 3 minutes per person per item um the chair May reduce the time
1:29
time in the amount or reduce the amount of time based on the number of persons wishing to speak open form will conclude
1:37
after 30 minutes however if there are are additional speakers open form will
1:42
reconvene after matters for consideration all comments submitted via email to the Planning Commission before
1:48
noon today provided in the Planning Commission and are included in the PC
1:54
packet supplemental materials so do we have any public comment
2:01
Doug man I’m Doug man um Springtown and the
2:09
adjoining areas of the city uh north of 580 have been historically given less
2:15
attention and respect than where we live and I say we because the five of you and me don’t live here uh we’re all you know
2:23
much further south in city and um it we don’t always notice what the heck’s
2:29
going on over here um it was a laudable decision to bring this meeting to the Elks Which is far
2:35
more accessible location for attendees who want to participate and be respected as equals um so let’s talk about
2:44
Equity the if the gavit hill project had been located in
2:49
Southside I have no doubt it would have been conserved long ago being situated
2:54
in the Deep North how long did it take for any of us all of us to even notice
2:59
that this was was going on um residents over here were publicly against uh the
3:04
urbanization of the Hill as far back as 2011 um but the first I heard about it was 29 ask yourselves when was the first
3:13
time you heard about gavet the hill and the controversy uh around it um maybe we
3:19
need some sort of north south awareness committee um or encourage the inclusion
3:24
of Greater Geographic diversity on committees like this so that you know we’re not all from over there sort of
3:30
making decisions about what goes on you know over here over the past few years as a society we have gradually learned
3:37
to our benefit that proactively paying attention to other people who don’t look like us have a different lifestyle or
3:43
live under different conditions than uh than us is a necessary activity for a
3:49
healthy Society uh besides it’s the right thing to do um the people who live north of 580
3:56
are not like us by virtue of their geography um in the Contemporary essence of the
4:02
expression they need to be seen and they want and expect the city
4:08
to do everything in its power to protect an an environmentally sensitive area from being
4:13
destroyed let’s stand firmly with
4:23
them if you have a public comment for open Forum not for the agenda uh
4:28
agendized item just for open form please
4:34
uh okay so um I can’t couldn’t agree more
4:40
with the last speaker um coming from or growing in um living in Springtown for
4:48
30 years I’ve been asking questions that I haven’t had answered since like
4:55
2002 2004 maybe at the latest and you know things kind of get bounced around
5:02
oh that’s you know Public Works um we
5:08
actually had place works here um and there well it wasn’t here well
5:14
there was one here but it was at um the Offa Airway they got the big Center
5:21
there the shrine Center and you know we had assigned
5:27
seats and a lot of people came with friends and good ideas we walked in
5:32
there we couldn’t sit with the people we came with because they wanted to encourage diversity and anything you
5:40
said in your little group sort of was twisted and perceived it was written
5:45
down as a perception from our facilitator there was a facilitator at
5:50
each table so specific things that we were trying to get across were squashed
5:58
you know we had spefic specific things that we were trying to maybe um have our city consider but
6:07
instead they took what you said art my facilitator who you know he still works
6:12
for the city he took what I said and put it under a very general heading and it
6:18
really wasn’t what I was saying so I really think that um something needs to
6:24
be done to bridge the disconnect and it can’t in appearance because when David
6:32
early was asking us questions at the time you know for our area I would give
6:39
him I would ask him questions and he couldn’t answer map
6:45
questions boundary questions things that were extremely relevant to you know the
6:52
conversation and so it got squashed but thank you for listening and I know you
6:58
you you know you have we all have our own backyard and our mind at all times I’m sure but thanks for thinking about
7:04
that and um I really do appreciate what doug man just said he couldn’t it couldn’t be further from the
7:12
truth thank you do we have a any more speakers for open form no then I will
7:18
close the open form and move us to consent calendar which we have none which will take us to project review
7:24
which we have none which will then take us to public hearings and we have have
7:29
5.1 a public hearing to receive comments on recirculated uh partial draft
7:35
environmental impact report uh for garavente Hills project that includes
7:40
the following land use uh entitlements vesting 10 of tra act map
7:46
8094 and site plan design review 13
7:53
-005 um I will hand it over to staff for our uh presentation
8:01
good evening chairperson Anderson members of the commission my name is Steve Stewart special projects
8:06
coordinator and I’m joining at the staff table with Deputy City attorney Katherine Miu uh acting principal acting
8:14
planning manager Ben Murray uh and also Rebecca Al vice president at lamford
8:19
Gregory environmental Consultants is with us um and so
8:30
be juggling a few pieces of equipment here this
8:36
evening so we’re we are here this evening to receive comments on the
8:41
Garena Hills recirculated partial draft environmental impact
8:47
report and uh there’s a particular focus of tonight’s meeting we’ll talk a little
8:53
bit more in detail later on but it’s specifically to receive comments on the
8:58
recirculated portions of the project deir or environmental impact report that
9:03
talked about available funding sources for acquiring and preserving the property as open space under a
9:11
particular project alternative that’s required to be in an in an environmental impact
9:17
report so we’ve recirculated only those parts that have been revised from the
9:23
previous environmental impact report and we’re requesting that comments come in
9:28
just on those recirculated um new parts of the environmental impact report and
9:35
that’s consistent with the court ruling in California environmental law that um
9:42
will only address or respond to comments on that topic in the final environmental
9:47
impact report that’ll be published later on and uh that lines up um with the
9:54
appell at Court’s decision we’ll look at that a little later uh that only that part of the previous environmental
10:00
impact report was found uh deficient uh when the project was
10:06
challenged the court found the rest of the environmental impact report um to be
10:12
adequate reg regarding all other potential environmental impact environmental
10:17
impacts uh so staff and uh Rebecca from Lanier are here to answer questions on
10:22
technical aspects of it but really tonight’s not a it’s not typically a a question and answer time it’s just to
10:31
purely receive comments from uh the public on that draft
10:39
document so just as a reminder here’s the project site it’s shown on our
10:45
general plan land use designation
10:52
map and uh this is the about 32 Acre Site here in between Vasco Road and
10:57
Laughlin Road just north of Altamont Creek Elementary School and Altamont Creek Park the general plan designation
11:06
Urban low 1 and its zoning of residential have been that way since
11:11
about the mid 70s could could predate that but our 1976 General plan
11:17
designates that as residential it has been ever since this is a closer up view of of the
11:25
site and you can see the the Terminus of Bear Creek Drive
11:30
here in the lower right Prov we’ll provide access to it Altamont Creek is a
11:36
a small Creek that runs along the South to the West is the gabena wetlands
11:42
preserve owned and managed by liver area Recreation and Park District and then
11:47
the marilissa development uh and surrounding development and open space on the
11:52
project site
11:57
there so lots of history on the uh project I’m not going to go through all
12:03
these in detail um but it did start in 2011 and 12 with an application and and
12:10
work on an environmental impact report for a project at the time that was 76 units uh it had a two-lane bridge
12:17
going over the Altamont Creek from Hawk Street excuse me and it required a
12:23
general plan amendment to increase the density uh that was already on the property
12:30
uh did some work on that and reduced uh in response in part in response to uh
12:35
City staff and uh comments from uh the community to reduce the density so uh it
12:42
ended up with 47 units the bridge was removed was revised a couple of times uh
12:48
came back to the city council with the bridge removed due to Neighborhood
12:55
concerns uh and in 2015 the uh city council recommended that
13:02
Project Return to the Planning Commission with clear direction to revise the project to reduce grading
13:07
make it more subordinate to the land form and in uh
13:15
2018 the project did return uh with those Council directives
13:22
incorporated into the project and then the environmental impact report was also
13:27
reissued to to cover uh any kind of changes that may have
13:33
occurred from the project and um did not change the previous conclusions of the
13:40
original environmental impact report so the Planning Commission considered that in 2018 the project at this point was 44
13:47
units of 38 single family detached and two uh six affordable
13:53
Duets Council later approved that in 2019 in the spring and certified the
14:00
environmental impact report uh that project on the screen now
14:06
is the project that was approved in 2019 by the council again uh 44 units with
14:12
some affordable uh Duets interspersed in the development uh has now a bridge back
14:19
over Altamont Creek from Hawk Street extension but only for emergency vehicles and pedestrian bicyclists or
14:26
other forms of Mobility uh has a trail connection down at the South uh Eastern corner
14:34
here about the lots and houses and other improvements comprise about 40% of the
14:41
overall uh lot area about 60% is the uh two nles on the property and the open
14:48
space buffers around the project that’ll remain in its natural
14:54
state and then part of the uh project in uh the property that’s also owned by the
15:01
gaventa family is this 85 acre um property that lafy communities is also
15:08
in contract with them to provide environmental mitigation for development on this site so this site will be set
15:15
aside in perpetuity with conservation easement and endowment and management plan for the um significant biological
15:22
resources on that property
15:30
so that in 2019 I believe save the hill group did challenge the project and in
15:36
2020 the Superior Court denied that lawsuit but in 2022 the appell at court
15:41
did um remand that decision back to
15:46
Superior Court with uh finding that the no project alternative was inadequate
15:52
because it did not include a discussion of uh the potential availability of open
15:59
space funds to acquire and preserve the project site as open space in the no
16:05
project alternative analysis the court also directed the city to rescind or remove the approvals
16:13
and and desertify the eir so the city council did that in November of
16:21
2022 in early 2023 laferty communities applied to proceed with the the project
16:28
and remedy the deficiency identified by the appell at court and uh the city along with lanord
16:36
Gregory uh environmental consultant have been preparing the recirculated partial
16:41
draft environmental impact report that is before you up for uh comments this
16:54
evening so the court uh found
17:00
um all of the other challenges to the E Merit list including challenges to the
17:06
biological resources impacts and hydrological impacts to the Springtown Alkali
17:12
sink um and um just as a reminder the applicant
17:18
does intend to proceed with that exact same project uh that was approved in
17:23
2018 so there’s no changes to project impacts that were evaluated in the um
17:30
subsequent um eirs that revised along with the project
17:36
revisions and so in in uh consistent with the California Environmental
17:41
Quality Act and the Court’s ruling again were um focused our analysis in in this
17:47
draft document on the feasibility and availability of those potential funding
17:54
sources and again the the um
18:00
other environmental analyses included in the eir with stod uh all other legal
18:09
challenges so regarding those open space uh funding sources that might be
18:15
available uh we then set off to explore those over the course of the end of
18:22
2023 and 20 first six months or so of 2024 uh including several appearances at
18:28
the alamont Landfill open space committee to um discuss the availability
18:33
of those funds to acquire the site there’s also funds available for
18:39
open space acquisition uh through a dhy valley settlement agreement um both of those funds do
18:48
require a willing seller and so they they were determined to be ineligible
18:53
for the use to acquire that property as open space
19:00
so we also looked at um
19:05
other ways including eminent domain to uh preserve that property and basically
19:11
take it against the will of the property owner uh with funds from other sources
19:17
like the city’s transferal development credits fund and uh either um a general
19:23
f fund allocation supported through a ballot initiative or Bond measure uh or
19:29
the city’s open space and acquisition management fund so the the property is actually
19:36
outside of the area that’s eligible for the transfer development credits fund money the open space acquisition and
19:42
management fund doesn’t have uh very much in it and we use that to maintain
19:48
some of the open space properties that we have already like uh fence maintenance signage um vandalism repair
19:55
things like that
20:02
and then the the other
20:08
um methods through eminent domain um would require pretty significant legally
20:15
complicated and cost prohibitive fair market uh eminent domain proceedings and
20:22
the use of funds that the city has PRI prioritized elsewhere to provide services
20:29
so the the city council uh and you the Planning Commission and your advisory role will
20:35
take these into consideration uh when you look at the project when it returns along with land use
20:41
entitlements uh and we’re anticipating that to occur in the
20:52
fall so tonight again we’re here to collect comments on that recirculated partial draft dra environmental impact
21:00
report uh we’ll talk the next slide ask some Logistics on where to send those comments um City staff and our
21:08
consultant will take the comments here this evening written and verbal um and
21:14
those comments would be incorporated into the final um partial final
21:21
environmental impact report along with responses to those comments and only
21:27
those comments that are focused on this topic of available funding sources and the no project alternative would be
21:34
responded to um and again we we anticipate the
21:40
Planning Commission and Council looking at the the final recirculated partial
21:46
eir in the fall the 45 day public review period
21:53
commenced on August 30th it runs through September 13th that five
21:59
o and again we’ll take comments received here this evening and treat those just as if you were to email those in real
22:06
quick you said August 30th I think you meant July 30th sorry July 30th yes 45
22:11
day public review comment period uh again with the September 13th
22:18
deadline by 5:00 to send those to me please there’s my contact information
22:23
and my email address is up there if you can include your contact information there that in those Communications that’
22:29
be great and with that uh that concludes
22:35
the presentation and we would just recommend the Planning Commission receive uh public comments and um we’re
22:43
here to answer technical questions if you have those
22:50
thanks thank you um so just to clarify you know the Planning Commission will
22:57
not be voting on anything or doing anything like that tonight we’re here to receive public comment from the public
23:04
that’s correct okay thank you just want to clarify that okay then is there any
23:10
clarifying questions before we open for public comment up here okay then we’ll
23:15
go ahead and Trac commissioner gr Tracy it’s just fine thank you chair
23:24
um two questions um one is in the course of your presentation and obviously the
23:29
the materials that we’ve received you had mentioned that this land and the underlying land use was you know
23:36
designated as Urban low density from at least the 1976 General plan just out of
23:43
curiosity has the Gant family also owned it since prior to that time as
23:49
well I am not sure of that but I do you know they own significant land Holdings
23:54
in in uh North Livermore okay so this is basically though from the purposes of
24:00
General planning this has gone through two revisions of the general plan the 76
24:05
the 2003 yes and then now it’s going to also
24:11
be designated as such in the 2025 is General plan as well that’s right there
24:16
was a f also a focused update in 1988 got it missed that thank you um
24:22
second question regarding sea uh which is as you know an area of personal interest of mine uh by Design uh squa as
24:30
a law has been created as a discovery mechanism by the state of California and
24:36
the Arbiter of those discoveries is the court system by Design is that correct I will turn that over to Deputy
24:44
City attorney Katherine miru for official answer if I understand your question
24:49
correctly it’s that the mechanism to challenge something under squa is the courts yes yes that’s correct and
24:56
secondly now that this has gone through the court of appeals the court have made their ruling and arbitrated on this
25:03
accordingly um do you happen to have the actual text of the arbitration available
25:09
that explicitly calls out this Frame and scope that we’re considering tonight yes
25:15
I do would you be willing to please read that into public
25:20
comment sure so the or a summary of it yes I know how these things look so the
25:28
court of appeal said that the eir that the city was required to set aside the E
25:35
and the project approval because it failed to provide adequate information
25:42
about the funding available for the no project alternative and it dismissed all
25:47
of the other challenges accordingly that’s correct okay great thank
25:53
you thank you anything else okay then I will go ahead and open up the uh public
26:00
comment remember submit a speaker card and then when your name’s called walk up to uh behind the projector and you’ll be
26:08
given the microphone Doug
26:14
man I’m secretary for Citizens for balanced growth squa has Provisions to
26:21
re-trigger an eir when certain new information is obtained about an environmentally damaging project so
26:29
we’ll be starting all over again and continuing for as many years as it
26:34
takes extending far beyond the NPA although the result of tonight’s
26:39
meeting will just contribute to a reverse loop on the SQL flowchart receiving comments might still do some
26:46
good let’s concentrate on the weirdest part of this whole thing which is the interactions with the trustee Lisa
26:53
casito the staff report claims that Cito is not a willing seller we put this expression into the
27:00
dvsa when we uh settled the the lawsuit to prohibit emminent domain purchases
27:08
Cito is a willing seller and actively engaged in the process of selling this
27:13
asset under self-imposed restrictive terms her preferred buyer laferty has
27:20
refused to buy for 13 years casito claims they are restricted by contract
27:26
to sell only to laf what she doesn’t say is it’s an option contract laferty pays them to not sell
27:34
to anyone else but it’s also not Perpetual but one that renews on a regular basis in the renewal periods she
27:43
can sell to anyone February 2nd Livermore offered $868,000
27:48
cito’s February 5 reply defines their selling price as $3.5
27:55
million staff paradoxically followed up February 29th with an offer for 1.74
28:02
million this offer was designed to fail other than to mock aggravate and
28:09
waste the owner’s time what possible purpose did that serve they could have responded if the
28:15
city offered 3.5 million and you were not under another contract would you consider it for
28:21
example we don’t know how many other insults cedo may have endured over the years but one might wonder if this sort
28:28
sort of thing explains the accelerating tone of resentment in her letters here’s where you can help
28:35
although you’re not required to take any action you do have the option to help
28:40
cut through the fog ask your staff to engage a professional mediator a neutral
28:46
party may be able to find solutions to the fractured relationship between the city and the seller as an eir expense
28:52
the developer will even pay for it you could also request your staff contract with an actual real estate agent to
28:59
represent the city it costs nothing and there’s no better way to consummate a real estate deal than to give marching
29:05
orders to a motivated professional both of these activities can occur in parallel again you’re not
29:13
required but if you do nothing tonight except passively receive comments undone
29:20
one has to wonder what you as public servants are actually doing to help the
29:27
community the RP draft e remains
29:33
inadequate Bianca
29:44
karell good evening sorry I can’t stand I literally had knee surgery four days ago um but this is a very important
29:51
topic to me my name is Bianca Celli and um I’m save the hill group um I
29:57
appreciate your time this evening very much for your dedication and hard work for all of your planning throughout our
30:03
beautiful town of Livermore it’s very special to me initially I’d like to State for the record and remind City
30:09
staff that we do have a legal right to make comments tonight on the draft Di and the directive to limit comments to
30:15
strictly funding is misinformation and this is why I argue that significant new
30:21
conditions and new information have come up over the last few years that will
30:26
re-trigger the requirements to amend the E and recirculate the city’s project page has
30:33
the 2014 final eir and the 2018 reissued final e most of the reports are from
30:42
2014 the only difference between the two projects was density of the development no new studies the reports in the final
30:50
e are quite old the city lost a presidential legal judgment that required the city to set aside the
30:56
certification of the r feir and the approval of the project what they didn’t
31:01
mention is that they handw wrote a letter to the California Supreme Court in association with other building
31:08
communities and the California Supreme Court came back and said after the city of Livermore requested that the ruling
31:15
be tossed out from the appell at Court ruling and the California Supreme Court said this not only are we upholding this
31:22
presidential ruling but you are no longer allowed to appeal this ruling so that’s says a lot and maybe there are
31:30
issues about the ER that didn’t come out in the courts because this other issue was so important so i’ just like you to
31:36
consider that over the last few years I have been diligent in research and committed to Consulting with experts on
31:43
the pertinent Issues new information and conditions regarding the special Hill there are many lengthy Studies by
31:50
those experts being prepared now the process isn’t quite complete as to what will be in the record yet but comment
31:57
submissions will be made prior to the September 13th deadline the environmental consultant may be
32:03
overwhelmed with the plethora of new information and the Abundant additional work that they may be required to
32:09
perform require regarding the funding issue we can all agree the second the Court’s precedent the precedential
32:16
ruling wherein they vacated the IR and the project we can agree that the valuation on the land declined
32:24
significantly the comment made of the current valuation of the Hill being 15 to 20 million is beyond erroneous
32:31
misinformation and impossible attempt at hindering informed decision-making and public perception the question is the
32:37
city is in good faith honoring the Court’s position that on a piece of land that is so environmentally sensitive and
32:43
rare it’s very it’s a very unique diversity and there’s nothing like it anywhere else in our state conservation
32:52
should be considered and that’s what the court said I was in the hearing when they said it the property was list
32:57
listed at various times since 2017 the listing price in 2017 was 4.9
33:03
million the city’s recent offer of over 800,000 and then 1.7 it wasn’t a fair
33:09
market value offer no wonder the land owners rejected it that’s why they’re
33:14
being considered a unwilling seller they are clear clearly a willing seller thank
33:21
you could you finish up your comment the city contends the land owners are not willing to sell I feel that if a
33:26
Bonafide Fair market value offer was offered they’re a reasonable seller they would consider
33:32
it this loss by the city and the courts was an exit to that option that laf is
33:38
holding on this property but do the land owners know that do they know that there’s funding available to
33:44
purchase I request tonight that you the Planning Commission take to heart the
33:50
magnitude and the time spent on this proposed project it’s been over 12 years
33:56
and I can personally attest to that I’ve been involved I can recommend that you send this back to staff and demand
34:03
preparation of an accurate proper updated and current eir thank you so
34:09
much for your attention thank
34:15
you
34:22
Vladimir I’m going to sit too since you guys are all comfortable um
34:31
uh for one I think you should have letters speak all the way through because she
34:36
underwent surgery as she said four days ago and she is Sav the hill and I think
34:42
what she has to say is pretty important I don’t think there’s any reason to be concerned over the one minute that she
34:48
takes uh just had to say it you know I drove here myself and she’s clearly
34:55
committed uh the other thing I’d like to say is hello to my old friend Steve stwart I remember
35:02
when we were at the Genta meeting a few months ago
35:07
and uh my impression was that you were dreading that meeting and I don’t blame you because it was very long and drawn
35:13
out I’m surprised to see you back I think what that says is that
35:18
everybody’s got a price right and uh in this case it was worth it for you to come back
35:24
on on the topic of that uh the main uh your whole argument seems to
35:31
rest on the idea that the land owner is not a willing seller and as Doug and
35:37
Bianca pointed out earlier it’s bogus because they’re trying to
35:45
build as many homes as possible on this land for 10 years now and working with
35:51
the developer these people are trying to make money the reason they’re not a
35:57
willing sell to the city is because you ridicule them with
36:02
$800,000 the other thing that I found interesting actually in your report since we’re discussing the no project
36:09
alternative I thought you should mention how much the land is worth do you know how much it’s worth I know they said it
36:14
earlier but do you know at this point as the city because a few months ago you told me it was $5 to20
36:21
million and as Bianca said there’s some text in uh
36:28
seet that I was reading earlier but something
36:33
about in informed decision making and public participation and I think that when
36:38
you lie about how much the land is worth even though you have letters from the
36:44
land owner and you have I mean this data is easy to find uh and you get this 15 to2 million
36:51
number and people believe you because you have the power of authority I think
36:57
you’re Mis using it so anyway this uh no willing seller
37:04
argument is is false because hypothetically speaking if you throw a100 million dollars at that might bet
37:10
they would change their tune right so it’s just a matter of money if you make a fair offer then they will sell they’re
37:17
probably as tired of this as anybody else of this uh charade that’s been going
37:26
on I guess that that’s it
37:31
huh I’m trying to practice uh not writing any notes so that I get better at public speaking but I might have
37:37
forgotten a few things it’s okay thank
37:45
you Connie
37:50
cops hi um I’m here about 5.1 and um it’s not clear in the
37:57
beginning but it’ll be clear as I read on um our s public hearing item 5.1
38:05
13-5 um our city is unclear with its General planning for all of North Livermore and lands it’s preserving
38:13
there is an opportunity cost to all living in this area as a boundaries of who is responsible for what with land
38:20
owners and shell companies makes getting clear maps and any questions answered
38:25
with honesty impossible it is my firm belief that a general plan
38:30
with Zoning for it should be clear and concise so that all districts together
38:36
can view it in its entirety as all are affected by what you do and what you
38:42
approve it’s impossible to give honest input without that without the big
38:50
picture I do think also um that this land because it’s got to be after it it
38:58
um the the um I forget the parcel number is like 99b that it is a child to something and
39:07
when I called the county um about I think it was that parcel they couldn’t
39:13
tell me for some reason who owned it prior to them they said that wasn’t
39:19
public rec record so I don’t know why and I might have messed up something too
39:24
but I really do think it’s important to um go over with your whole Community the
39:31
past history and why things were preserved and again update your um
39:38
planning to include you know modern day thoughts even when like Public Works was
39:45
coming to my HOA in other part of Springtown when Darren Greenwood was
39:51
telling everybody at my HOA that the city owned our property and the golf
39:57
course was still going so Dynamics around it have also changed and there’s an opportunity cost for those other
40:04
people who also might want to propose some kind of building to you so try to be fair I say take your districts divide
40:13
your housing allocation by your number of districts and at least try to balance
40:19
it out and trick it in I don’t think that that Midtown well we’re getting on
40:24
another subject here so I’ll stop but thank you for taking what I said into consideration I really appreciate it
40:29
thank you thank
40:39
you and that is uh it for public comments um I will bring it uh I will
40:46
close the public comment period and bring it back up here to the commission for anybody that has any
40:53
comments anybody any comments
41:06
on um I believe it’s in the report but staff could you go over the the reason
41:13
for the offers as they were given previously sure the initial offer was
41:21
based on open space prices that we’ve used over time to acquire open space ranges anywhere from 8,000 up to 15,000
41:29
an acre so somewhere in that range uh and then the
41:37
um final offer I know there was one I think there’s one in between uh the
41:43
final offer of 1.78 million was uh direction from
41:49
the um or was suggested by the Altimont Landfill open space committee to re be
41:56
ined line with an acquisition that City
42:02
uh partnered with East Bay Regional Park District on a land across Laughlin road
42:07
that had Urban designations it was about 40,000 an acre um and that project that land is
42:14
now held by uh East Bay Regional Park District that was the price so they kind
42:20
of did some quick math and that that was the amount uh per acre I believe that
42:25
came up to that number and I’d have to look at the in the offer
42:32
I think there’s an offer in between those two numbers that I’m
42:39
not oh yeah and then finally looking at an offer um to look
42:49
at the fair market value of the property in other words have it appraised at its you know current value based on its
42:56
residential Des designations which would likely Drive the cost up pretty significantly and
43:02
those are the some of the numbers that are mentioned in the report so is it fair to say there’s a
43:09
there’s a cost basis of the parcel as open space land and there’s a cost basis
43:14
of the parcel hi develops in terms of its market value that’s right so we made an open space
43:21
value we made an offer that was consistent with another offer for urban designated lands that we were able to
43:28
acquire with the SP Park District and then offered to engage at a fair market
43:33
value conversation so that offer was comparable to the L per acre cost of
43:40
other partials that we’ve acquired recently that’s right
43:46
okay I might have more but I’ll pass off
43:51
for commiss CR one quick followup to commissioner
43:57
dunbar’s question um there were two sets of numbers in those reports ones were
44:03
the numbers in the offer letters that you just described uh along with the evaluations and where they came to and
44:10
from the the question I have is if all Bells were chiming um and
44:18
ultimately you know the other set of numbers that I were considering were the
44:24
city’s availability of money at all to make an offer that would be double or
44:30
triple the 1.7 million that was stated my understanding from all the financial
44:35
reports attached to this is we simply would not have the money to actually make that kind of offer as held against
44:42
our other priorities and things that we are otherwise maintaining is that
44:49
correct I think the short answer is yes and some of it would depend upon you
44:55
know a price that you could negotiate right um second question are
45:00
you aware of any community- based efforts to raise money to acquire the land from the property owner at a value
45:06
that would be higher than the $1.7 million that the city offered I am not okay thank
45:15
you thank you yeah commissioner L thank you I had more of a uh process question
45:25
um I saw in the uh staff report there’s reference to the uh California court of
45:30
appeal first appell at District so is everything um that we need to know is in
45:38
that judgment that came from the court in terms of the reason we’re here tonight the reason we’re recirculating
45:44
the E is it do I have that right yes that’s correct okay and
45:51
something that caught my ear as you mentioned was it the property you gave a
45:57
value of was it 40,000 an acre was that the Farber property yes and that’s what
46:02
the judge I think mentioned specifically in the court case was the Farber property
46:09
right as it
46:14
comparable they do I saw that in there he gave that as an example um so just
46:20
like since we’re only doing comments tonight I just wanted to uh highlight a couple things that I saw in the U um the
46:27
save the hill group versus city of Livermore um the judge cited mostly
46:33
cited other cases but I found a few that he just to be sure that when we’re
46:40
recirculating um the comment from me would be to make sure we look at the judgment and see what the judge is
46:47
asking for and uh so it could be evaluated you know In The End by the
46:52
decision makers but one of the comments was um the description this is citing the fishing game case the description
46:59
must be straightforward and intelligible assisting the decision maker and the public in ascertaining the environmental
47:06
consequences of doing nothing uh another I’ll just do two more
47:12
um the other item the judge said was the failure to include relevant information
47:19
precluded informed decisionmaking I think he he mentioned that he was citing the city council meeting and and
47:28
how um there wasn’t enough information on the no project so the judge mentioned
47:33
that and then one more um lacking adequate information regarding the no
47:39
project alternative the city council could not make an informed reason decision on whether this product should
47:45
go forward and so it goes along in that vein and I didn’t see anything else in
47:52
that eight or nine page judgment beyond the no project alternative
47:57
so that’s that’s my comment thank
48:02
you okay commissioner jumar uh just to be clear um in this the
48:12
scheme of the second offer that was made you the staff of the city of liore made
48:17
that offer because of the directive of the Altimont open space committee at that price is that correct that’s
48:23
correct thank you um
48:30
I thank the comments that I heard tonight I learned some new information that I appreciated
48:36
um about contact contract terms um I’m hoping to hear more about potential new
48:42
information that be may be of use when that letter comes in um forgive me because I take notes
48:49
because I wouldn’t be able to keep up with all the things but uh notes are good uh but I think that uh as by law
48:58
that all the comments received tonight will be responded to where
49:04
appropriate um and we’ll have to make a final decision when it comes back to us
49:09
that time thank you anybody else yeah I just
49:17
have one question uh for staff and and maybe the environmental consultant um
49:24
what would trigger a new eir and how would that be discovered in
49:32
this
49:44
process so I think with the court case it’s not as straightforward of an answer as it usually would be um rather than
49:51
answering tonight I’ll consult with your legal counsel and we’ll have a better answer in the finally hour
50:02
thank you anybody else um I just wanted to clarify one
50:10
thing um do we legally have any authority to take any action tonight as
50:17
a Planning Commission no you don’t other than the advertised activity in the notice which
50:24
is to receive public comment so even if we really really really wanted to we
50:29
legally could not that’s right correct um just wanted to clarify that um also
50:37
just a clarification um the reason we have uh the time limits for certain uh
50:43
amounts for certain people I mean for all people is that it’s the same for everybody that everybody gets a chance
50:48
to speak um and then I I don’t have any further
50:56
comments um I just want to um thank everybody for coming out
51:01
tonight um it’s really appreciated when people come out and uh come to these and
51:07
actually make their voices heard I really appreciate that uh um and please
51:13
when this does come back to us come um whether it you know we end up doing it
51:18
here or we end up doing it back at the council chambers please come give your
51:23
comments um and I really appreciate all that one thing that I will not
51:31
tolerate um that and please don’t assume that you anybody was a speaker of this
51:37
but I’m just going to say this as just is um classifying that we as a
51:46
commission do not care about any certain areas of um of town I I want to clarify
51:55
I lived 600 feet from this building I spent more time on the commission as a
52:02
resident of Springtown than I did anywhere else so I do do not classify people as
52:13
you know not caring for certain areas of town um because I do truly care about
52:20
this side of town um also uh in future please uh refrain
52:29
from any attacks on staff like calling them Liars or anything like that um they
52:35
are doing their job to the best of their ability if you truly do think that they are purposefully lying there are there
52:42
are legal channels and public records requests that you can make um of them um
52:48
but they do everything in the public eye and our public servants um so please um
52:54
refrain from any personal attack on them um and again I just want to
53:00
reiterate to everybody that came out tonight thank you I really do appreciate it and um we will definitely delve into
53:05
all the information that was provided tonight and uh when it comes back around to us thank you um is there anything
53:12
else from the commission anything else from
53:20
staff uh not on this end no okay then um that will end uh uh
53:27
5.1 and that will take us to item six which there is none and that will take
53:33
us to item seven matters initiated by Planning Commission and staff um does
53:38
anybody up here have anything yes commissioner cron I actually do want to piggyback on
53:46
one of the um notes that were made by several of the public commenting folks here tonight um I’m actually a huge
53:53
believer in community engagement as part of democracy and democracy and action
53:59
and honestly if we have the opportunity to take this on the road like we’ve done
54:04
tonight even though tonight the we know why we’re here because the main Council chamber is under renovation but if it is
54:12
not a logistical nightmare for staff to take this kind of meeting on the road
54:17
occasionally so that neighborhoods can be reached like this one um I would
54:22
absolutely love to know if that is possible and if we can do that more often I would be in full support of it
54:29
uh and also to piggyback on the chair’s comments I live about a mile and a half that way so yeah North Livermore is an
54:36
area that I do believe is one that I care about deeply and one that I know is
54:42
sometimes feels like the redheaded stepchild of livmore so there you go thank
54:48
you thank you um I have one item uh and
54:53
it is that we continue to pressure Cal Trans about the First Street Springtown
54:59
Boulevard overpass um I recently rode my bike
55:05
across it not tonight and I deliberately did not ride my bike tonight because of
55:11
that incidence it’s I’ve said it once before I’ve actually I’ve said it many times before
55:17
that we really need a change there and I know it’s very frustrating because that is calr owned operated and maintained um
55:27
but as a city we can still apply the pressure that we can to calr cuz it is
55:34
truly in need of some work um yeah anything else up here y commission D
55:42
Bar on that note I believe we had our what we wanted to do to repave that
55:47
stuck in a design decision designed standard decision document for I don’t
55:53
even know how long but I did ride my bike here over that overpass and it’s still not fun it’s been not fun for a
55:59
long time and it needs to be better and I think everybody knows that keep
56:04
pushing thank you do we have anything from staff no nothing extra from staff
56:11
okay nothing else
56:18
anybody do you want to ask staff personally afterwards or ask
56:24
I I wanted to ask L the the uh Planning Commission conference is happening in
56:30
September obviously and the Tuesday night following uh while the conference
56:36
is still happening down in Riverside there is an ordinarily scheduled Planning Commission meeting that it
56:41
might be wise to see if we could uh potentially move items away from since
56:47
all the Commissioners will be at the planning conference in Riverside that was
56:54
it okay yeah um anything else and we got nothing from
57:03
staff okay we’re all good okay then I will journ this meeting to our next
57:09
regularly scheduled meeting September 3rd I believe sorry if I have
57:15
got that date wrong let me double check yes September 3rd okay thank you this meeting is Jed
57:42
there

Livermore city staff acted unconstitutionally when they refused to process referendum petitions for a vote of the people. This is another major court decision against the City of Livermore. Winning and losing in court is an occasional occurrence for most cities. Comparatively, this may be the most serious illegal activity the City of Livermore has ever accomplished.

We have posted the video of the hearing on our Youtube channel.

This is a developing story which has been reported in The Independent, Livermore Vine, and the SF Chronicle.

The decision states, “Livermore city staff’s Adoption of the challenged resolution was a legislative act subject to the referendum power, because the development agreement at issue approved the construction of and improvements to a new public park. We also conclude that, in approving the development agreement, the City did not act as an administrative agent for the State of California under the statutes dissolving California’s redevelopment agencies, enacted starting in 2011. We direct the superior court to order respondents to process the referendum petition as required by the Elections Code. We also reverse the court’s order requiring plaintiffs to file an undertaking under Code of Civil Procedure section 529.2 as a security for costs and damages due to the action.”.

Here is the full case decision. Published on Findlaw and Justia, and on the Appellate Court page. Notable quote from Judge Chou: “This was a lawsuit that that plaintiffs or petitioners never should have had to file because the city clerk improperly rejected the referendum… this was a lawsuit that frankly, they never should have had to file”

In July of 2022, Livermore residents presented petitions for a referendum to the City Clerk. The goal of the referendum was to allow for a future decision by the Livermore City Council to alter the recently approved plan for a housing project in the downtown. Instead of sending the petitions to the County for a Ballot measure to be created, she held on to them. That was an illegal and unconstitutional action.

(From the Chronicle)
A state appeals court says voters in Livermore can decide the fate of a hotly contested and long-delayed plan to build downtown housing and a public park.

The city designated the land for affordable housing after acquiring it in 2008 and chose Eden Housing as the developer a decade later, with $14.4 million in bond funding from Alameda County and a loan from the state. The planned 130 housing units would be reserved for those earning no more than 60% of the county’s median income. The project also includes retail space and a new park, to be built by the city and named Veterans Park.

Opponents, who then called themselves Save Livermore Downtown, filed suit in 2021, contending the project conflicted with local planning and zoning laws and had failed to conduct a proper environmental review. The courts disagreed, saying the city and the developer had complied with the laws and taken adequate steps to prevent air and water pollution during construction.

Foes of the project then circulated petitions for a referendum to block it, and say they have submitted over 9,700 signatures to the city, 4,000 more than needed to qualify for the ballot. The city refused to process the petitions and said Livermore’s approval had been an administrative action, exempt from referendum, because it had acted as an agent for the state in approving the loan to the developer. 

Superior Court Judge Michael Markman agreed, but he was overruled Wednesday by the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco, which ordered the city to verify the signatures and place the referendum on the ballot if it qualified. The court said Livermore’s approval of a park was not contained in the original plan and was a “legislative action” that allowed opponents to seek a referendum on the project.

The plan initially approved by the city “specifies use of the property as high density housing with an affordable component,” Justice Mark Simons wrote in the 3-0 ruling. He said the plan “says nothing about the construction of a public park, and (Livermore officials) are misplaced in arguing the City merely acted as an administrative agent of the State in making the policy decision to do so.”

“In deciding to construct and improve Veterans Park, the City made discretionary policy determinations that were not dictated” by the initial plan, Simons concluded. 

If the referendum qualifies, it will likely appear on the November ballot in Livermore, which has about 86,000 residents. If voters were to reject the project, the city and the developer could try to come up with a new affordable housing plan for the property.

The ruling was welcomed by Winston Stromberg, a lawyer for the project’s opponents, now called Move Eden Housing. It means “the Livermore City Council will either have to repeal the resolution (of approval) or put it on the ballot for the voters to decide,” he said.

In a statement from Eden Housing, attorney Andrew Sabey said the ruling was “a testament to how difficult it continues to be to build affordable housing — especially in wealthier parts of the state, where well-funded opposition can afford to hire lawyers to bring relentless legal challenges in an attempt to delay the housing projects so long that they simply fail.”

The developer and the city could appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court.

Reach Bob Egelko: begelko@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @BobEgelko

A video of the referenced Altamont Landfill Open Space Committee is posted on our Youtube channel

The Altamont Landfill Settlement Fund exists to buy and protect agricultural land from development. Working the system to its advantage as an insider, Livermore city staff nearly got away with acquiring millions of dollars in grant money to buy land – for itself!  We consider the City’s action to be an abuse of the process.

On February 8th, they applied for $3.6 million in funding. The ALOSC Committee accepted the applications, and a special board meeting agenda was drafted the next day.  When CBG heard about it, we intervened in every way we knew possible.

One week later, Livermore attended the hastily arranged gathering, poised to receive their payments. Committee Chair Shawn Wilson did exactly what a voting member should properly do.  He listened to the facts without prejudgment, and guided the committee members to carefully consider the issues.  Enthusiastic and passionate residents attended and pleaded their case. The votes were cast, and Livermore didn’t receive any money. The CitizensForBalancedGrowth.org website has a video of the meeting.

The next ALOSC meeting will be held on March 15th at 12:30, at the Public Works Building in Dublin, 4825 Gleason Drive. Livermore will likely try the same maneuver again. Everyone is encouraged to attend, and speak. Zoom is also available.

Since Livermore is currently attempting to eat up over a thousand acres east of Greenville, it adds credence to the argument that this Administration is no friend to open space protection.  Grant funds intended for preservation should only be used for situations where land is actually being preserved, as through a parks department or land trust. Stewardship of environmental resources should never be entrusted to entities that may themselves become a threat.

Machine generated transcript of the 2023-12-13 Livermore General Plan Advisory Committee (GPAC) meeting  with video timestamps, synchronized with the video posted on our Youtube page.

0:00
so I’m going to get the meeting started and uh it looks like possibly we may
0:06
have a we may have a very exciting but a little long evening as part of the
0:12
workshop and discussions and again I want to offer everyone uh the opportunity to uh express your opinions
0:20
that’s very important to us so first of all let me start the agenda by asking
0:26
deie to uh uh I call the meeting to order and and please uh if he can help
0:31
us with a V call yes thank you chairperson uh Committee Member Alexi
0:37
here Committee Member Bacha here Committee Member
0:42
vernham Committee Member Chang here Committee Member haverson here Committee
0:48
Member Kent here Committee Member Kingsbury here Committee Member Leon
0:53
here Committee Member Pete here Committee Member RTA here Committee
0:59
Member Stout here Vice chair tro masi is absent this evening and chairperson
1:07
Shang here okay thanks so much Debbie um
1:13
so uh again uh as I said louder yeah my apologies I’m afraid
1:20
to touch this so I’m going to really try hard to get close does that help can I
1:26
turn up the volume you got to eat it the volume somewhere
1:35
turn is there volume control no no I’m touching it
1:41
literally like this is this better little bit a little bit okay so I’m just
1:46
going to be kissing this thing the whole night oh dear that’s going to be my best friend I hope tonight okay
1:55
so okay so uh again uh we really welcome uh PPP first participation for tonight’s
2:01
meeting however to uh conform with the BR act uh no action can occur on items
2:07
presented during citizen for to provide public comments please submit a speaker’s
2:13
card uh right over there you see the yellow card please uh take a uh take a
2:19
copy and uh bring it to Debbie um and when your name is called please
2:26
stand to address the uh committee and uh commment are limited to a maximum
2:33
of 3 minutes per person per item and uh open Forum will conclude after 30
2:40
minutes and we really hope to get through the agenda so I appreciate your
2:45
patience um if we have additional speakers we can have uh we can reconvene
2:52
uh after the after our matters for consideration so uh Debbie do we have
2:58
any common card we do uh Greg
3:26
Scott I’m Greg Scott um I can’t do anything about the past we
3:32
can’t do anything about the past we can only learn from the past that’s obvious I should have been involved in this
3:37
Committee in this planning from the beginning that’s the past I can’t do anything about it I think the plan is
3:43
inadequately considered I know a lot of you put a lot of energy into this but I think it’s inadequately considered you
3:49
have five areas with channeling in three options each one so you have a total of uh 15 options where are the quantif
3:57
quantifi on each of these options one case is water what are we going to do for water what are the projections for
4:02
water for each one of these options for each area um if we think a little more that
4:08
in 2045 we’re going to take 275 gallons of water to produce 750 milliliters of
4:15
wine in a bottle think again maybe you need more cannabis dispensaries if you think that it’s not going to happen
4:20
we’re in trouble on water our s our s um Walken aquifer is in big trouble okay uh
4:27
we have a reservoir the largest Reservoir in the United States the me Reservoir supplies water for 40 million
4:33
people the California’s taken 4.3 million acre feet out of the Colorado
4:38
River for those four for California and to supply the South Northern California
4:45
shipping 5 million acre feet South an acre foot is the amount of water to
4:50
cover one acre to the depth of 1 foot it’s about 326,000 gallons of water but
4:55
about the same as a regulation Olympic swimming pool where are we going to get the water we need need quantifi you
5:00
don’t do a business plan projections without quantifi you don’t change a business plan or come up with a new
5:06
business plan without quantifi if you have any if you do it without quantifi and you have any
5:13
competition they will eat you for breakfast okay that’s on the water situation I don’t understand your
5:19
planning on water situation the other thing in every element of of of your options on this plan you’re talking
5:26
about jobs jobs okay um um artificial
5:31
intelligence um VOD kosa an investor that has his thumb on a lot of things in
5:36
the Bay Area he says in 10 years 80% of the tasks and 80% of the jobs are going
5:42
to be done by artificial intelligence okay what kind of jobs are you talking about
5:48
manufacturing humans doing Manufacturing in 10 years really um if you can’t assess the
5:57
present better than this I I don’t understand your projections for the
6:02
Future Okay um I think we Elders need more
6:08
wisdom than this we we need to do better than this and we need to do better than this for
6:14
the children and the young people it needs to be a lot more quantifi in the
6:19
projections to what we’re doing thank
6:28
you Michael
6:35
fuchi oh my goodness I need the microphone I can’t hold the microphone my guitar at the same time can you guys
6:41
hear me out there yeah what am I doing again um let me just tell you a little bit
6:47
about me I’ve been a resident of Livermore for over 40 years um I’ve been a local businessman for over 35 years
6:54
owning a music store and downtown lovar hence the guitar um I see some fellow
7:00
rotarians out there I saw Brandon today at Rotary which was wonderful to learn a little bit about what you guys are doing
7:06
I want to say thank you for your commitment to this project um I don’t know much about a lot of it but I do
7:13
know one thing and that is that I worked on the urban growth boundary and so I just took a little song and I just wrote
7:18
a few words so I could comment on that I know I’m not going to change any Minds this evening but perhaps I might get
7:24
attention where other people in the community might pay attention to what you’re doing and and comment in the
7:30
future and contribute to this effort of making Livermore a wonderful place to live um let’s see what else can I say
7:38
okay well I’ll just turn the pitch and say um uh thank you for tolerating me
7:45
okay leave my boundary alone in the place I call home let the dear in the
7:52
hand of the play where s is h a develop word and the
8:00
skies are not cloudy all day oh home on the
8:07
gra is the earth grow boundry we CL it benefits us all let them all hear
8:16
our call to maintain a strong boundary this
8:21
way oh Home on the Range with a boundary not subject to
8:28
change for it’s right to protect and not to
8:35
neglect the open space that still remain okay that’s my
8:47
contri thank you uh David
8:58
rounds great I get follow the guitar as your work comes to I’m David
9:05
rounds I lived in Livermore for a whole lot of years 50 of them and um thank
9:13
you um and I just had a couple things to say tonight as your work comes to conclusion I remain convinced that this
9:20
committee can create a viable update to the general plan that does not require that 1200 Acres of currently protected
9:27
open space become mostly industrial land and requiring that the urban grow boundary be broken east of Greenville
9:34
Road unfortunately it does appear that that’s the direction you’re going and
9:41
um it appears that this committee is planning to present the city council development plans for Five Focus areas
9:48
which includes the east of green I believe this is a mistake I’ve got a couple reasons here um first the city
9:56
has done an admirable job for the last 20 plus years of keeping the mandated
10:01
proposition D to grow within the city limits this laser focus on infield
10:06
growth has made Livermore the exciting City it has become breaking the urban growth
10:12
boundary to expand the size of the City by 1,200 Acres will completely change this Dynamic of focusing on infield
10:21
grow with an additional 1200 Acres of Greenfield it is mostly zoned for
10:27
industrial the city will no longer have to focus on keeping the city compact exciting and livable because developers
10:34
can just sprawl to the east the second reason is the population
10:40
grow and the requisite job growth numbers that justify breaking the urban growth
10:45
boundary are suspect and seem to be based on theoretical
10:51
projections that far exceed the current scientific projections from organizations like
10:58
aank the plan as it exists will require a vote of the citizens of Lor this is the third
11:03
reason in order to expand the city beyond the limits Beyond Greenville Road the likelihood of such a vote actually
11:10
passing is at best 50/50 it’s probably more like
11:15
6535 if it does not pass what happens will the city have to reconvene
11:21
a new gpac Committee in a year or so to alter the plan to stay within the city
11:27
limits or maybe just keep you guys moving uh shouldn’t this committee do
11:33
that work now by preparing scenarios that keep urb growth and development within the original four Focus
11:40
areas it will certainly be an incomplete and insufficient presentation to the city council if you do not include how
11:48
the general plan revisions will look if the voters say no thank
11:56
you thank you
12:09
Vladimir hi so uh it seems like The public’s opinion on at least one of
12:16
these Focus areas is pretty clear uh the Greenville expansion I was at the last Workshop I
12:22
wasn’t at the first one but every group that uh was formed there the 10 tables
12:27
or so everybody was completely opposed to this one uh Focus area the other ones
12:34
there’s some you know uh something you could maybe discuss there but the Greenville one was pretty clear so I
12:43
think that’s just the one I’ll talk about because you know we all care about democracy right all art and supporters
12:49
of democracy in here right so uh if public opinion drives the
12:55
city’s actions then I think this one issue surely we could just put to rest
13:01
because the public has made up their minds and unfortunately like the others
13:08
mentioned you do seem uh determined to proceed with this regardless but I hope
13:15
that uh you proved them wrong and me and uh at least on one thing on this one
13:22
thing we can agree is uh nobody wants this uh green bell expansion thanks
13:32
uh that’s the last one I have for open
13:38
form thank you so much D okay so thank you for expressing your thank
13:46
you for expressing your opinions we really value uh those and I think the
13:52
next item is consent item but we don’t have any uh agenda items so I’m going to
13:57
move on to matters consideration and today uh we have uh a
14:04
a very nice presentation prepared by the project team to talk about the first
14:10
Citywide Lane use scenario and I’m going to turn this over to Cy yes chairperson
14:18
U wow that’s loud um maybe
14:26
yeah so really quickly uh for this item we’ll give a
14:33
highlevel project overview and discuss briefly the Landy Alternatives
14:39
process um and then at the last meeting um the committee had a sort of Workshop
14:46
where he broke into groups and deliberated the different Focus areas and the different Alternatives um but we
14:52
wanted to share with you uh what we heard from uh community outreach that
14:57
we’ve done over the last couple months so that you can um consider that as we move forward in this um iterative
15:04
process and then we will go Focus area by Focus area to
15:10
um kind of work towards this preferred land scenario and create a draft map and
15:15
so the way we are proposing to do that tonight is a little bit different um than what we’ve done in the
15:21
past um in the in the past we’ve had very broad discussions um which was
15:27
appropriate at the time as we’re brainstorming and now we’re kind of pivoting to where the project
15:34
team needs some direction from the committee on how best to move forward with the input you’re providing and so
15:40
again we’re going to do that Focus area by Focus area I’m going to hand it over to Joanna in a minute and we’ll walk
15:46
through the focus areas we will uh summarize the individual groups that
15:51
gpac broke into what they their recommendations were and then summarize
15:56
our interpretation of what that direction is and then allow the committee to deliberate on that and make
16:02
potential changes to it and then actually vote on that direction um we are recommending chairperson Chang that
16:09
as part of that we take public comment for each Focus area so as um uh members
16:15
of the public who are with us this evening who want to speak on this item that they can speak on any of the focus
16:21
areas and we’ll go through each one of them um and then at that point we will summarize what our next steps are um and
16:27
come back to you uh at a meeting in January again this yes just we go back on page okay so uh
16:37
please know that the second bullet uh under the focus area discussion uh as
16:42
far as the public comment uh please still take a a common card yellow common
16:48
card and bring those to Debbie just so we know you’re prepared to speak to any
16:54
one Focus area at the time okay please uh think about that at this point Thank
16:59
you and I would just add we we’d welcome comments on all the focus areas if one wanted to speak on all the focus areas
17:06
as well do you want to go in sequence yes we go in sequence um so just as a
17:12
reminder of where we’re at in the project this is our our project timeline um you can see we’re we’re coming to the
17:19
end of 2023 and this timeline will shift a little bit we still have uh work to do
17:25
on the land use Alternatives process as we work to velop a draft uh land use map
17:31
and the committee will have as much time as it needs to get a map get comfortable with a map that they that you as a
17:37
committee are endorsing to send to uh Council for their deliberation and review uh so so again this might change
17:44
a little bit um and then eventually uh we’re still targeting spring of 2025 to
17:50
package up all the materials including policy development into a draft general
17:57
plan so again just a little bit about the meeting format we are seeking the committee’s direction we’ll go Focus
18:03
area by Focus area if there’s changes to that direction we will make it in real time and um then call for a vote to
18:11
confirm that is the direction of the committee and then with that information with that direction we will prepare a
18:18
draft land map a Citywide map and then bring back further analysis with that map including things like our jobs
18:25
housing match what that what that scenario would produce in terms of the job’s housing match and is it adequate
18:31
that would be a question for the committee to deliberate bring back some market feasibility information to really put a
18:38
filter on um some of the landage changes we’re proposing are they feasible and
18:43
and on what time Horizon uh and then also because the committee had asked for this at the last time we’re anticipating
18:49
bringing back what’s the impact of uh a land use map with the EAS of Greenville
18:54
Focus area and also without the east of Greenville Focus area so the committee
18:59
uh can can compare those two um and so again we’ll return um in the new year
19:06
with that map for the committee to review and make further refinements based on that
19:11
information so at this point I’ll hand it over to Joan and she can walk us through the Alternatives process and
19:18
then each Focus
19:25
area thank you drops welome no they were here when I got here
19:30
I would eat them okay okay good time okay um thank
19:37
you Andy is this working you’re going have to project more push the button there we go okay the green light always
19:43
looks like it’s on but it’s not on thank you okay I’m Joanna Jansen with place works thank you for having me it’s
19:48
exciting to be here this is a um it’s great to be rolling up our sleeves and uh moving forward with the gpack on the
19:55
preferred land use scenario so um as we get get started just a reminder about
20:00
both things that we know are important to the community and to the city as an organization and also things we’ve heard from you as the gpac that you want to
20:07
achieve big picture as part of the general Plan update and as part of this preferred scenario um really responding
20:14
to the Community Vision for maintaining livermore’s high quality of life I think we know that’s important to all of us
20:20
part of that is fostering high quality job creation and maintaining the diversity and the strength of the local
20:26
economy another important part that we’ve heard over and over again is about planning for adequate housing options um
20:32
including a range of housing types to accommodate a range of income levels and um really setting the foundation for the
20:38
city to continue to be fiscally and financially sustainable and able to maintain and improved Public Services as
20:45
Livermore grows and changes in the future just as you know what we’re doing
20:51
here with the preferred scenario is really mixing and matching ideas that have come up throughout the process to
20:57
then create create the basis for a land use map as Andy just said that will be further studied as part of the general
21:03
plan e and ultimately be adopted as part of the general plan land use
21:09
map as just a reminder for folks who are relatively new to the process this has
21:14
been ongoing for um almost a year now we worked on identifying Focus areas de
21:21
developing and confirming the land use alternatives for those Focus areas evaluating and comparing those
21:27
alternatives um and now we’re at the point of selecting a preferred scenario for further study after we do that we’ll
21:33
then be moving on to the Future um steps of the general plan and the general plan
21:38
e Andy mentioned that an important thing for you tonight is for us to convey some of the community outreach that we have
21:44
heard through um our recent Outreach events this slide just shows you snapshots of the popup events the
21:51
community workshops um and the various ways that we’ve been working to um hear
21:56
from people throughout Livermore this slide is a snapshot of um online events
22:03
uh webinars popups presentations to different Community groups um a range of
22:09
uh uh Outreach events throughout October and most of November that uh culminated in US reaching almost uh a thousand
22:15
people in Livermore to ask for their input at this phase of community outreach and I’ll be um summarizing that
22:23
as I go through each one of the focus areas so starting off with
22:28
Road just a quick reminder the vision here that all three different Alternatives would Express differently
22:34
is to create a visitor destination that supports production and maker spaces and really serves as a gateway to deliver
22:40
more wine country so we have uh the maker Village alternative that includes
22:45
some new residential uses and kind of a Central Park the production alternative
22:50
which is um entirely uh production related uses it does not include any
22:56
housing and then the wine country Center alternative which includes Housing close to East Avenue and then a more
23:02
production Industrial oriented designation um uh further south the the
23:09
other differences here are also the central located Park in the wine country Center Alternative versus a park east of
23:15
Vasco Road and the production alternative so what we heard from the
23:21
community was overall perhaps a slight preference for the maker Village alternative some interest in lower
23:27
residential densities in that alternative uh we did also hear support for the production alternative um but
23:34
perhaps with a shift to move the park to the west side of Vasco Road as you saw in the other two Alternatives the wine
23:40
country Center Alternative I would say kind of attracted the least uh level of Interest or support from the broader
23:46
Community um folks uh did some some people did respond to the lack of an industrial designation in that
23:53
alternative um others wanted to increase the density of the residential and someone wanted to lower the density
23:59
of the residential so a range of view points there about um those Alternatives
24:04
we did hear from many folks that it’s going to be very important to think about circulation and especially safety
24:09
on Basco Road in this uh Focus area perhaps we could look at more park space
24:16
some wanted more housing some wanted no housing some felt like um this is not the best location for industrial and
24:22
that industrial uses should instead be encouraged to be closer to 580
24:28
so in addition to the community input we want to Recons re review the gpac input
24:33
from uh when we were here last month group one started with the wine country Center Alternative um and made some
24:40
changes from there and wanted to just make sure that parking is considered and future development in this area
24:47
especially given the number of different um businesses and um that this would be uh in part at least a visitor attracting
24:54
area Group Two started with a blank map and really um added residential medium high northern part of the focus area um
25:03
a park in the central part of the area uh some areas as mixed industrial
25:08
commercial in the South and then the remaining as the commercial Wine Country designation that kind of more reddish
25:15
color and then group three started with the maker Village alternative increased
25:20
to the density of housing in the northern portion of the area from medium high to high and replaced the mixed
25:27
industrial commercial with again with residential medium high density so more
25:32
intensity of Housing and housing across a larger area um and had an idea of including poos to Foster internal
25:39
connectivity so those were the three different ideas we got back from the three different groups um of the gpack
25:46
and here’s our interpretation and part of what we’re interested in your kind of reaction and refinements tonight um
25:53
start with the maker Village alternative um we would then and from
25:58
that increase the wine country commercial by replacing some of the
26:03
mixed industrial that kind of pink designation with that um and increase
26:08
housing density by replacing half of the residential medium high density with um
26:14
high density so this slide just shows you um a map and the changes that I just described would be uh happening to this
26:21
based on this maker Village alternative as a starting point
26:28
so we’re going to pause there and go through the process that um Mandy outlined for each one of the focus
26:35
areas so this is now the direction that we thought we heard from each of the
26:40
groups and we’re asking at this point that the committee uh confirm that this
26:46
is the direction and if not make some minor adjustments and uh discuss amongst
26:51
yourselves I also wanted to point out that although Committee Member Burnham can be here this evening he did provide written comments and you have a copy
26:57
give those uh to consider and thank you Paul uh this is
27:04
the moment we recommend opening public comment um and so you want discussion
27:09
first or comment I think we I think we’d recommend taking public comment on this Focus area if anybody has anything to
27:15
say and then with that in mind uh the committee can deliberate or move forward
27:20
okay okay so I’m going to refer to Debbie to make sure that we have your
27:26
yellow common card and Cur call names for this particular Focus area one time
27:34
does anybody have a comment card for this particular area because I do not have any at this
27:39
point what number was it would be good to refer to the numbers on your agenda
27:45
here the the one number is 4.1 and it’s going to be broken down into the focus
27:50
areas so it all be 4.1 so this will be 4.1.1 I think this is
27:58
okay just in case you don’t hear uh on the agenda this item is 4.1 it’s going
28:05
to be a large portion of this evening’s work and we are going through one Focus
28:11
area at a time and still remain on 4.1 and we are asking the public to provide
28:17
your comments and we’re going to have a gpack internal discussion before we
28:23
recommend the final Direction uh um can we know which order
28:29
we’re going in because then we we can tell them like 4.1 area one 4.1 area 2
28:35
so they can Smit their cards now instead of having to wait until the thing goes we just have them I feel like a lot of
28:41
people know which one they want to comment on IDE I think the the focus area for
28:47
the Pas Road wasn’t the first one in the booklet so that’s a good idea um yeah so
28:54
we are going to go through them in the following order first row that’s the one we just finished the next one is going
29:00
to be Los pus and then it’s going to be Laughlin
29:05
mid and then Midtown and then east of fille and the process for each Focus
29:13
area will be the same where we will introduce the summary of the community input the summary of the gpac group
29:20
input allow public comment for additional Community input for those who are here and then go to the gpac for
29:25
their deliberation and Direction on that Focus
29:34
area so I’m going to try to repeat that one more time just in case it wasn’t clear so Joanna helped us by identifying
29:41
the vas area is number one and later next we going to talk about lastas port
29:48
and I know these names may may not mean much but uh uh maybe we have an overall
29:55
map to show uh so the second is losas the third one is L and then Midtown and
30:02
east of Greenville okay do you need need to repeat those the sequence again you
30:08
want me to repeat one more time I have the worst memory so that help me okay so Joanna let come back uh back to number
30:15
one do we have any common cards for basketall okay and chair given the the
30:23
back and forth nature of this if people would just like to signify that they’d like to speak I don’t know that we need
30:28
have to have a comment card for each of the focus areas so if you don’t have a comment card for it that’s okay indicate that you’d like to speak on that
30:34
particular Focus area and you can come speak okay I like that I like that so can we still limit five minutes three
30:40
minutes two minutes three three minutes and how many half an
30:46
hour I think that’s at your pleasure how many minutes we allow for each
30:51
one it’s actually your pleasure okay and you don’t need to if if we had
30:57
uh 40 comments on each item we should probably set a limit got you okay we do
31:03
want to really be efficient but not rushed so I do want to have a good balance here so three minutes each and
31:10
please I miss you please raise your hand I’ll try to look very hard thank
31:16
you three minutes okay great Scott again I just want to comment on the housing
31:23
situation uh and the planning and part of that my interest is um because I was
31:29
homeless in this community for 6 years and N9 months up to about a year and a half ago and I spoke to the city council
31:37
for two and a half years on homelessness and it’s like speaking to the wall really um we’re on and I attended the
31:44
Human Services Commission for two years and did that nonsense and listen to it
31:50
and honestly we’re on no road to solve homelessness and on the save Livermore
31:56
or any the county or state of California the state of California um put $17.5
32:04
billion into the homelessness over four years and where are we we have 170,000
32:10
homeless by count okay we have 70,000 homeless on the street of Los Angeles um
32:17
now the governor is just bankrupt on the ideas and his man for housing and his
32:23
Deputy um chief of staff on housing and homelessness is Jason Elliott he’s
32:29
clueless too their idea the 17.5 billion dollar didn’t work for homelessness so
32:34
uh let’s throw 20 billion at it right we’re looking at a projected deficit for California is $68 billion it’s the same
32:42
mode so homelessness is a little like little a lot it on the housing
32:49
problem um you’ve got if you do the statistics more and more people are cost burdened on the housing especially as
32:57
part of this inflation Trend we’ve had since 2022 um the the rents have gone up a lot
33:04
and mortgages with the percentage of the interest rate are outrageous housing costs are still very high in a major
33:10
part of the inflation and more and more people are cost burdened cost burden
33:16
means that the amount of your gross income you’re paying for rent and housing is over 30% more and more people
33:24
are cost burdened it’s it’s crazy we’re not solving the problem so my argument
33:31
on homelessness I don’t think you’re going to solve homelessness by housing the reason is you’re never going to have
33:36
the resources but what are you going to do about housing for workers regular housing for workers and one of the ideas
33:44
is you’ve got to decommodify housing we’ve commodified housing it’s you know Venture Capital private Equity you
33:52
you’ve made this game um I’ll just give a brief example of Jeff Bezos ahead of of Amazon he’s going to give $120
34:00
million to solve homelessness but he’s going to start a company for $500 million where people can get a slice of
34:07
owning homes so that’s going to make it expensive more expensive for everybody so we have this investment procedure
34:14
this economic procedure that’s just making housing more expensive for everyone and andoss for people that
34:20
don’t have housing to get into housing we’re on the wrong track thank
34:25
you thank you so much may I interject uh uh
34:31
I want to really clarify uh some procedural um Point uh we always
34:38
encourage open forign discussions and comments and we would love to hear from you however just to be again um be
34:46
efficient and go through all the focus areas I wonder if we can really look at 4.1 as its own agenda item and really
34:54
focus on 4.1 being the topic of discussion and we would love to have you
35:00
come back and talk to us during the open Forum but please raise your hand and we
35:05
would love to hear from you that is specific to the focus area thank you so
35:11
much will that be okay okay any objections from the group okay so again
35:16
back to focus area one I’m sorry the one may not be
35:25
right well good evening my name is Lori Souza and I’m chair of the board of the Tri
35:31
Valley Conservancy um my comments are more general not to not to this specific um
35:37
focus area um but the land use planning work that you’re doing is very important and will impact our quality of life as
35:43
well as the character of our community for Generations uh this next phase of your process is especially important because
35:49
it will be the basis for your report and recommendations to the city council so first the TVC is most concerned about
35:56
about preserving open space that has high conservation value as an example the land currently owned by Bart appears
36:03
to have species and habitat that would be valuable for conservation efforts these lands if preserved as open space
36:10
in perpetuity can be the starting point for a permanent green belt and Wildlife
36:15
Corridor along the entire eastern border of limore second TBC remains committed
36:22
to infill housing to protect Prime Farmland from development and and to provide sufficient opportunity for more
36:28
people to live and work in Livermore thereby improving our quality of life through improved work life balance
36:35
reducing traffic and meeting climate goals third the TVC is committed to the
36:40
sustainability of agriculture in the liore valley several of the focus areas will have a direct impact on our ability
36:47
to support the economic viability of our precious Wine Country fortunately the city council did a great job of choosing
36:54
the members of this committee as you represent present the diversity of Livermore residents and have dedicated
36:59
yourselves to this complicated and lengthy process you have our deepest appreciation for your commitment As you
37:06
move into these final stages of the process I trust you will rely upon the key learnings that you have compiled and
37:13
base your recommendations on the combination of these facts along with your understanding of what our community
37:18
needs to know if these Alternatives truly provide for balanced amount of both housing and jobs I believe there
37:25
needs to be a a little bit more detailed analysis we need to better understand the current state of the quality and
37:32
quantity of jobs in Livermore compared to Future job creation needs will there
37:37
be sufficient industrial land available to provide for this and still achieve our infill housing goals and what is the
37:45
ideal alignment of a permanent green belt along the city’s Eastern Edge thank you for the work that you’re doing and I
37:52
look forward to following your progress
37:57
thank you so much I anyone else for Vasco
38:03
Road okay so um if possible that’s stay
38:08
on the vas Vasco Road topic and if it’s
38:14
okay maybe we can go back to the map of uh the colorcoded areas just in case
38:19
anyone wants to speak to any changes they want to
38:25
see hi my name is Jane Gibson I’ve lived here for about 50 years I was on the
38:31
last workshop at the last Workshop um in for this area when I look
38:38
at that um area that is already developed with warehouses that are
38:46
occupied that are um that are occupied in um providing
38:54
services and jobs and what have you and what you’re what you’re if I’m
39:00
understanding correctly what your you mapped out was to replace those
39:07
warehouses and jobs with homes I know that there’s a church I understand
39:13
there’s a brand new church there that would be affected from it why would you tear down and why would you
39:20
remove working parts for our city when we have other areas where we can quit
39:28
homes thank
39:33
you thank you so much any
39:40
others okay so I’m sure um some of our committee members would like to have an opportunity to uh really clarify we did
39:48
have a uh Workshop like uh meeting last week and for those who think uh joined
39:53
us last week this is the result of our internal Workshop so I would like to
39:59
have the Committee Member comment um really the summary that the project team
40:04
presented does just reflect of what the committee would like to see please speak
40:09
up uh again I think raise of your hand is good okay
40:16
he yeah I’ll um I’ll just start by saying my family currently rents were a
40:22
tenant in one of the buildings in this space so um I I both have uh some
40:28
knowledge but I also have a bias so I’m just saying that up front um you know Basco row um that area is is essentially
40:37
a burned out Industrial Park there’s some very nice buildings most of them
40:42
are very low class um meaning you know they don’t they have leaky roofs they
40:47
have don’t have hot water they don’t have sidewalks uh there’s no parking um
40:54
but it’s a very vital part of the of the Livermore Wine seink because there’s a dozen small producers there that are
41:01
small wineries uh I think there’s 12 wineries three breweries and one Distillery that
41:09
are in uh the space because it’s affordable it takes tens of millions of dollars to buy a large parcel of land
41:17
and build a winery but if you can afford the rent and make enough wine and sell
41:22
enough wine you can start there and that’s always been the hope is um
41:27
there’s some very successful wineries like Cuda Ridge that started in the garage of my neighbor then it was in a
41:33
barn on East Avenue and then they were able to actually build a purpose-built
41:39
winery in one of the city’s specific plan Catalyst sites and it’s one of the
41:44
most successful operations in the in the town so I think um the the housing
41:51
transition has already happening there’s a big white cutout which is sometimes the hard thing at looking at these Maps
41:58
that’s because a big piece of this has already been replaced with housing and the entire perimeter around it is now
42:05
single family housing as well um up in the northeast corner uh I was one of
42:11
those who advocated for higher density housing um and a lot of that is based on
42:16
um this particular part of Livermore uh has from all the data that’s been shared
42:23
with gpac over the past two years it has some income equity and diversity issues
42:30
uh but there is apartments on the other side of East Avenue directly across from this that is an old casket Factory it’s
42:38
been closed for years um and most of it’s open and been knocked down there’s also um uh some storage
42:46
sheds um there’s lot of things going on there’s uh but but not a lot of Vitality
42:53
so that’s one of the few locations where I think we could actually build Workforce housing that’s both affordable
43:00
and practical it’s walkable to a lot of jobs and it’s bable to the a station and
43:08
the future Valley Lan so um I think some of the things that came out of the group
43:13
I was in was look that’s that’s one of the few places where an apartment
43:19
building would actually be an upgrade to the total neighborhood it would replace the beeping Fork Clips at 4:00 a.m. that
43:26
a plumbing shop or some other kind of industrial business would have and then
43:32
we could build lower density housing more like town homes that is a product
43:37
that’s done very well in Livermore uh it would abut the single family housing so instead of a nice single family house
43:44
which is what’s all behind to to this area to both the East and to the South
43:52
um you would have transitional to from low density to higher density and um but
43:59
we would still capture the inner part the maker space which is so critical to the small startup wineries Distillery
44:06
breweries uh the park is key because those businesses are at a disadvantage that they don’t have a lot of land like
44:14
the people um who have Vineyards out in the country and have lots of event space
44:20
um it would be a part that could be both both available for the residential people and it could be activated by the
44:27
businesses and there’s a lot of entertainment moving in here so it actually it it works on a lot of levels
44:34
it it can bring in better Equity better diversity and it can improve the art
44:39
scene in Livermore because there’s music at night uh at least six of the wineries
44:46
are regularly featuring Fe featuring music and a lot of the Neighbors come
44:51
out of Raa and out of Charlotte’s Court and they actually take scooters or bike
44:56
or walk to this venue so uh it would be a great addition for the labs and on the
45:02
other side of Vasco that is the long awaited Wine Country retail Center 25
45:08
years ago when the area plan was made and the wine country was preserved there
45:14
was supposed to be a wine country retail Center think of an Oakville Grocery like
45:19
you have in Napa a grocery store with a large parking lot which would fix the parking issues uh especially the parking
45:26
issues at night because it operates during the day and at night the businesses that are doing entertainment
45:31
could have parking I will confess we’re one of those businesses that needs more parking at night but it would be a place
45:38
for the electric bike shops the picnic shops all the all the things that create a wine country uh that was promised 25
45:46
years ago it had an initial $1 million of funding that was diverted to another
45:51
project by the city not to benefit the wine country but it did benefit at the Arts and this was a a big win for the
46:00
wine Growers and the wine Growers who have been wanting this activation part
46:05
for their wine country that we lack the services that other wine countries have and so it could all work very
46:12
synergistically with a uh continuing the transition to housing but housing that
46:18
has better density and more diversity more inclusion and still protect the
46:24
small businesses that are in the inner core and that’s what’s called The Block which is now renamed the roow they the
46:30
block doesn’t include the peripheral those businesses are are virtually empty but um there’s some very nice ones but
46:37
most of them are empty plots so that’s that was the vision that
46:43
kind of went into the whole thing and and uh I support the um the maker
46:48
Village but with higher density housing than what’s being shown up in the the
46:54
north uh s
47:01
of so the one change then that you would suggest Committee Member is to increase the density of housing in the northern
47:08
portion just captur the B but not the not the location right no I think that’s
47:14
because that’s where you have apartments on the other side of East Avenue and that’s where you’ll have the best access
47:20
to mass transit buses it’s all right there currently
47:26
so so could I ask then what you’re suggesting is um amending bullet 3 to
47:32
say increase housing density by replacing half the residential medium high density with residential high
47:37
density in the Northwest portion of yes the project area for the site
47:44
okay explain as we go yes so what what we’re looking for at this point is to identify some consensus or majority
47:51
amongst the gpac members to include that as a change to this slide because what we really want want to get to at the end
47:56
of this process is what’s written on that slide when your staff and project team go and develop the new draft
48:03
alternative for the map that this is what you want to see when we bring this back to you the next time you’ll say yep
48:09
that’s what I said so we want to do that through some head nodding until we get to sort of the end of the amendment
48:15
period and then we’ll actually take a formal roll call vote and say do you want to move forward with the this
48:21
direction for your staff to uh to move forward with the mapping exercise and you’ll get to say yay or nay at that
48:28
point and so when when somebody makes a suggestion uh we want to note it and
48:34
we’re going to look around among our committee members and look for a show of hands if we have at least half of the
48:40
people raising the hand we’ll put it down on the slide if if not then then
48:46
some additional discussion may be needed yeah just uh like Paul was saying so we want to be very clear in terms of
48:52
tonight’s procedure and um so after this direction uh after the discussion we as
49:00
a group uh will indicate a very clear direction for the project team so that’s
49:06
very important uh for the gpac members to understand how you will uh either
49:13
like to endorse uh the current uh summary or you like to modify that or
49:19
any other comments so uh take your time this is uh really one night that we really want to think you through
49:27
so while people are thinking I want to ask a question I think this mostly GE Le toward you Brandon is um as we go
49:35
forward with these Alternatives there’s going to be a further analysis on what is actually economically feasible in
49:41
terms of the density in terms in the housing commercial and Industrial mix
49:46
and uh I saw the head no I answer the question but the next part Following part would be like what kind of timeline
49:51
would that look for the community actually see that kind of information to to for the community to see the analysis
49:57
yeah like I mean it could be a year could be two years just like what what like kind of so make sure I understand
50:02
your question you’re asking when the community would see our analysis of the map or you asking when yeah like the
50:08
economic feasibility of something like as we go forward through this like based off your experience like hey we can zone
50:14
for this but then as we get further to actually reality and like interest what how long do you think that
50:21
usually takes for them to someone say okay you zone for medium but economically I can’t really do Medi I could do lower like and it doesn’t have
50:27
to be a part of this process I’m just talking conceptually in general sure I think part of the filter that we would
50:33
want to run the final or the draft preferred alternative through is what’s the probability of conversion of the
50:40
land use types that you’ve all directed us to include and we bring that back to you sometime early next year okay and
50:46
say you want high density housing here um in the current market that’s not
50:51
supported or it’s only supported at these rents or something like that um which is potentially okay because you
50:59
might have a scenario in which you have a portion of the housing that’s feasible in today’s market and a portion that may
51:05
take some time to become feasible this is a long range planning exercise but what we want to do um to the fullest
51:11
extent we can is take the direction you’re giving us and then run it through the analysis to say not only is it is it
51:18
feasible by looking at something like residual land value which you’ve all learned about through the process but also what’s the probability of this
51:25
converting in a reasonable period of time those are you know somewhat speculative in terms of analysis because
51:31
every case is has different factors to it we want to give you a reasonable confidence interval that something that
51:36
you put on the map is uh is perhaps aspirational but not delusional great that’s actually yeah kind of translated
51:43
my my word salad there but it also doesn’t mean it happens right away just
51:49
because we the gentle pin finished here and now it’s highy housing there’s still
51:55
there’s a tenant there it doesn’t mean that they get kicked out it means that over time if they want to change what
52:00
they’re doing they would just the designated to change the house
52:05
right that that’s exactly right so each one of the properties we’re looking at is owned by a landowner and and may or
52:11
may not have a different tenant and the landowner may decide I want to continue doing my industrial use or I have a
52:17
5-year lease with my tenant and so some of those things will will play into the time frame for any of these properties
52:24
um housing values for for developable land are generally pretty good and and
52:29
we’ll give you some of that information as well the the value for the type of housing available will drive in part How
52:36
likely it is that the land owner may be interested in in converting in a near term so the other piece I would add just
52:44
to build on on Paul’s comments um is while the the community outreach
52:49
campaign that we’ve engaged in and are summarizing for you has come to a close we are still getting feedback including
52:56
from Property Owners that’s coming in a bit onesie TWY and some of them are in the audience tonight we’ve seen them and
53:02
I’m sure we’ll continue to hear from them and that will be incorporated into the feedback you get as well that while this product may be feasible in market
53:10
conditions we’ve heard that the property owner doesn’t want this or thinks that there it’s a long timeline for conversion we’ll be able to add that
53:16
into the comments as well this is not the last shot that you’ll have at making
53:21
changes to this map so this is initial direction for us to make some of the changes you’ve identified we’ll bring it
53:27
back confirm that that’s what you said and that the map reflects your wishes and then we’ll have additional analysis
53:33
that we’ll present as we move along through this process early next year yeah just to add to that I think
53:39
there’s a consensus of all of us that we really do want to know the feasibility
53:45
of a lot of these plans a lot of these numbers and that we respect that the
53:51
project team would really do a very conservative effort to try to explain
53:57
these visibility filters in a way that someone like a lay person myself can
54:03
relate to this I have no background whatsoever in urban planing so I want to Echo that sentiment that the community
54:10
uh clearly will have that interest in understanding these numbers and the feasibility of these plans so we will
54:17
continue to push for that kind of data Clarity question uh in line with that input uh
54:25
regarding land owners um may or may not agree to um um to the land
54:33
use as a followup to what David said about the retail part uh east of
54:41
Basco so was that true of that particular property owner that’s why uh
54:48
we haven’t had any retail put on that uh property on that
54:54
parcel
55:02
so where was the retail uh that uh David was you’re talking about the retail east of Vasco Road there yeah so sorry what
55:10
was the question um so David referred to uh the retail Pro being promised uh 20
55:18
years ago or so 25 years ago or so but we have not had it so was that part of
55:24
so I don’t think Camp was referencing were you talking about this particular site or just in general the concept of a
55:29
wine country retail Center well the the existence of that which was in the South
55:34
lummer Valley area plan and and acknowledged by the city it has never
55:39
had a site identified by the city until this process and that was the first time
55:45
when it came up and said this could be a poal site if we make a maker village
55:51
where we could actually locate a wine country center it’s it’s open land it’s
55:56
not currently being farmed I think it had been farmed at one time so at this point we have not heard
56:03
from every property owner who resides within the focus areas that is a process that will be ongoing and we’ll continue
56:09
to provide that feedback to the committee as been move forward all right thank you so at this point does it feel
56:15
appropriate to okay so to check in with group um I well I guess I feel like I
56:21
can start by saying that um I I agree with um Mr tent’s uh sentiment on the
56:28
east side of Vasco although I don’t necessarily like it being the parking um
56:35
because that means there’s lots of people walking across and it’s I think already an issue like people excuse me
56:41
walking down that area I mean I just think that it’s kind of dangerous and I
56:47
also don’t like the park being on that side because people taking their bottles of wine and beers and having their
56:54
drinks and I don’t know just walking across a busy street with all that fun sounds dangerous to
57:01
me um so I just and but I also do support the high density I think that it
57:07
is a great infill City location to have more affordable housing as opposed
57:13
to and by the way I agree with you is the the park will only work as it’s
57:19
shown in a and C it will be a waste of taxpayer money to build it in B so was
57:25
your concern about if the park were to be relocated to so like like the auction where the park or the green space is on
57:31
the east side of Basco in that property I don’t I don’t really support that because especially if somebody with kids
57:38
who would take advantage of that um I it would make me nervous to like have a
57:45
bunch of people so the the maker Village alternative we’re starting with under this set of direction is uh maker
57:52
Village is on the left so in that case the park would be on the west side of Basco
57:57
okay yeah I’d actually piggyback a little bit of that not necessarily the park space because it’s uh based off the
58:04
makeer it’s already there uh I’d actually want to kind of gauge in terms
58:10
of getting some of that commercial retail space on on the east side getting
58:15
that more incorporated into the core um because you know as uh member Kent had
58:21
mentioned there’s a lot of families that are going there and like kind of checking out the area the entertainment area that’s already kind of in that core
58:27
and if we put some of the um uh more commercially type zoning like a grocery
58:33
store or possibly some sort of food or dining alternatives on the east side of
58:39
Vasco you’re you’re asking more or less families in that area to either drive there or if they walk they are going to
58:45
be crossing a very in my opinion a very dangerous Street um so I’d actually think putting it in the core would
58:50
actually be safer and more beneficial to the um uh uh surrounding areas so then
58:56
the the housing that we see in the Alternatives and the surrounding neighborhoods would be able to walk and
59:01
utilize that space a lot easier so the second bullet there calls for increasing the wine country commercial um I believe
59:08
the intent of that was to move it into the core as you’re describing so we can we can further elucidate that in the
59:15
point itself that you want some of that moved so some of the food and and other aspects can be on that side yeah
59:22
swapping or is it swapping pink with red or just making more red and less pink
59:28
the bullet says making more red and less pink but but again that’s for the committee to provide us with that
59:33
feedback if what what Committee Member shout is suggesting is expanding the wine country commercial into the core
59:41
then that would necessarily involve the removal of some of the mixed industrial I I was thinking more of a swap but okay
59:48
I mean I think uh there are some members on the committee who will have a better sense of the wine country needs than I I
59:54
would I I’m just speaking primarily from somebody with a family who would never
1:00:01
cross that street with my family like you not like even in the sometimes the middle of the day the people drive way
1:00:06
too fast I would avoid that area you did like a foot Bridge or something which I know was outrageously expensive and not
1:00:12
economical and I I do have a suggestion before we get too far because I I think if if the dialogue just goes we’re going
1:00:18
to get multiple suggestions around multiple changes we have one suggestion on the table that we have haven’t gotten
1:00:25
complete feedback about so I would suggest that we finish if you go back to the map and we finish the conversation
1:00:32
about I’m going to go back about that uh Northern corner and and transitioning
1:00:38
some of that to higher density if we could focus on that with your comments and then we can jump into additional
1:00:44
comments about where how we move things and and other aspects of what we got on this screen Paul can you repeat that
1:00:50
just you want to focus on the question in terms of res IAL right so Committee
1:00:56
Member Kent had a suggestion that we uh modify can you go back
1:01:03
to okay you go
1:01:10
ahead so uh the suggestion was that uh at the northwest side there that an area
1:01:19
there be modified to be high density housing so this would be higher density Apartments in that location so that was
1:01:25
the suggestion that that was a good location for that use okay and I was
1:01:31
just going to say that we modified bullet 3 to capture that feedback so that’s the that’s what’s on the table so
1:01:36
what we’re looking for is is is first some discussion about that and then a show of hands on do you think that’s a
1:01:44
good idea just fullly three just forly three yes um I think Christa has some
1:01:51
yeah I’m I’m in favor of that because I support more affordable housing I don’t think there’s enough of
1:01:57
it I I would say I agree we need more higher density especially if we think
1:02:02
about it without Green East of green bille it’s we’re going have to increase the density
1:02:09
everywhere well I mean there’s no housing component with e go so no I know
1:02:14
but if that’s industrial otherwise that industrial would have to be somewhere else yeah I don’t I don’t see how the
1:02:24
well we also don’t know that it’s affordable and we also I don’t see how the high density supports the vision for
1:02:32
that use so I would say in that regard I’m
1:02:37
not in support of
1:02:42
it other feedback
1:02:48
comments did you have a comment on something else okay so let’s see a show of hands how many people are are
1:02:54
supportive of this modification of the
1:03:00
okay uh you can here later on we’re going to ask you to vote and and you cannot abstain then but you can abstain
1:03:06
now we’re just looking to see who supports it and I think I saw enough people to keep it there for now and so
1:03:11
now we would open it up to other comments perhaps if any member Stout’s comment about the commercial space
1:03:17
commercial space no um yes so the the comment would be to I think it’s a little bit in there but it would be uh
1:03:24
swapping some of the space for commercial on the east side and bringing that into the core how much I mean I
1:03:30
think there’s probably a conversation around that if it’s a full swap or half swap or whatever um I just would like to
1:03:36
see some of that red zoning but the deeper red so just for the those in the audience the deeper red is a commercial
1:03:42
versus the purple is like an industrial uh zoning get some of that deeper red into the core and some of the the purple
1:03:50
on the outside it could be a full swap could be a half that part I’m not I don’t have any sh
1:03:56
feelings about so if anyone else the committee does they can so the suggestion then is to take starts
1:04:03
similarly with maker village maker Village alternative Y and then swap the wine some of the wine country
1:04:09
alternative or all of the or sorry alter the wine country commercial or all of it with a requisite amount of the mixed
1:04:17
commercial industrial there yeah um again I think some members may be able to speak on the need for the amount of
1:04:24
uh Wine Country industrial and Wine Country commercial zoning in terms of full like we don’t want to replace maybe
1:04:30
swap and so I think uh might have a better stance on yeah I would just say I
1:04:36
mean because there’s there’s a lot of things that have to be done is Vasco is a complete street it’s got good setbacks
1:04:42
except right there there are no bik Lings there are no sidewalks most of the parking is illegal parking against um
1:04:51
the uh the rules of the city um so there has to be a light and there has to be a
1:04:59
crosswalk if you’re going to um actually pull um the Eastern portion in if they
1:05:07
if you don’t do that you shouldn’t even develop it you should just leave it as fallow land which is what it is now
1:05:13
because if you don’t have access and and this area currently is not bikable it’s
1:05:19
not walkable and it’s not uh and you you cross the street at your own
1:05:24
Peril um but but the assumption is if you’re actually doing it you would do it
1:05:30
right and make complete streets and add add crosswalks and lights and if not you
1:05:36
should just drop off the east part all together because it’ll be no value yeah I think that is a good point that the
1:05:42
city would not allow this type of a development without side improvements
1:05:47
that are consistent with the rest of the road in development standards with those
1:05:54
those types of development like signalized Crossing or whether it be race table Crossing would those things be implemented at the same time or would
1:06:03
they be implemented in much later in the much later future because I know like for instance I live off East Avenue it’s
1:06:10
pretty unsafe to cross East Avenue unless you’re you know all the way by Mines Road or like there there’s very few signalized Crossings on East Avenue
1:06:16
I think I see uh uh you know someone had passed away and they put a mural on the sou sign that’s been there for quite some time and now we’re doing the you’re
1:06:22
doing the bulb out uh quick build bu outs whatever you want to call them so I’m just curious if those types of
1:06:28
improvements would happen like right away or would it be something that would take some time so I think uh it would happen in
1:06:36
the near term uh the land uses themselves will take time to change but
1:06:42
I would expect that once the general plan was adopted with a change in land
1:06:47
use that we would then you know our next step is for us to look at all of our
1:06:52
other doc docents codes requirements we would look at our our active Transportation plan and see what sort of
1:07:00
changes what might be needed in certain locations it might be a year or two after the general plan is adopted but I
1:07:07
think within the near term somewhere in that time frame we would probably try to address Paul is there a scenario in which the development itself would show
1:07:14
up without the street improvements no yeah the city has funding ready for those types of improvements we would um
1:07:20
again depending on all the changes in the general plan we would prioritize areas based on Need for Public Safety
1:07:27
but U they would all be done eventually the the highest need areas would go
1:07:32
first okay and is it possible to I don’t know if this it happens a little more but te the developers have like impact
1:07:39
fees to pay for those types of things based on what type of developments are coming in any new development any new
1:07:44
buildings constructed would pay impact fees Andor the develop it itself might
1:07:51
put in that Improvement there may be a need to service that development with those types of improvements and so the
1:07:57
developer would put those in if the development came early enough I think we see that there’s enough activity out
1:08:04
there that with these changes in land use we would likely proactively
1:08:10
consider go back to Bullet
1:08:15
to um we want to specify the kind of in increases and the
1:08:22
kind of removal it would certainly be helpful for us if we identified uh how
1:08:30
much and what I think as written it says increase Wine Country commercial and remove but what uh Committee Member
1:08:37
shroud had suggested is kind of a replacement and a switch so I think that’s the discussion on the table can
1:08:43
we open the floor for other thoughts um I work nearby and I I agree that Public
1:08:51
Safety is very important um I don’t know if it’s necessary to really do a one by
1:08:57
one swap or maybe some sort of mix just to really priortize Public Safety uh at
1:09:04
the same time really increase the utility uh so maybe some other committee
1:09:10
members can Chim in as far as whether it’s a swap or is it
1:09:16
infill just I don’t I appreciate the discussion on Public Safety I don’t know
1:09:21
that that’s going to help us get to the bullet because no matter like if it’s industrial use people who work there
1:09:27
will have to walk the street if it’s a retail use people who shop there will have to walk the street so to me those
1:09:33
are I think we’ve had a discussion that safety is important and we’re going to have make sure that the city prioritize
1:09:40
it but that doesn’t factor in like if we’re going to swap or if we’re going to
1:09:45
that’s like economic discussion so I would hope that Mr Kent or other people
1:09:52
who know about the economics would wa it on that put you on the spot yeah well
1:09:58
my my view is I I’m looking because you know they they spent all the time to try to train us on basic planning principles
1:10:06
is if you’re putting high density Apartments which I think the majority of the the committee supports in the
1:10:13
northeast corner um the row of old um buildings but there’s some of the better
1:10:19
buildings on the other side of the street those three Parcels of of purple
1:10:24
and there is a there is a church up there it’s brand new it’s very nice but it’s all residential single family
1:10:30
residential in all that white area is I would probably put Town Homes because
1:10:36
that’s the typical transition you’ve got high density apartments and you’ve got Town Homes going to single family homes
1:10:42
which are already there um they’re you know they’re they’re they’re they’re
1:10:47
nice homes they’re pretty small and then you would have the block would just be a block it would be square with a part
1:10:53
Park in the middle of it um you don’t you don’t have to put more wine country
1:10:59
commercial in there because that’s happening anywhere because the the the old businesses there are pulling out and
1:11:06
going to other places that are more suitable um for tile cutting and
1:11:12
plumbing fixtures and um this is this is kind of the kind of businesses that were
1:11:18
there and the wineries and the breweries are moving in so it’s just happening now anyway
1:11:24
but there there’s more residential that can be yielded out of the maker Village alternative because the space
1:11:31
requirements of of the makers is very small because that’s all they can afford
1:11:36
so you’ve got people renting four 3,000 square feet and splitting it between two wineries so they can cut the rent in
1:11:43
half so is your perspective then that the reason to have the wine country commercial on the east side of ASCO is
1:11:49
because of the availability of undeveloped space to facilitate something like a gr grocery store as opposed to having that on the west side
1:11:56
of Basco where there are existing facilities and it can happen soon it can happen fast whereas the buildings that
1:12:02
should be residential those three Parcels on the west side of Research Drive it makes no sense to have
1:12:09
commercial in between two residential you know neighborhoods but that may take
1:12:15
20 years before the owners of those buildings convert them to town homes may happen in 5 maybe 20 but it will
1:12:22
eventually happen um it’s not a this is this whole area is transitioning to residential the part of
1:12:28
the Maker’s Village was instead of letting it all go to residential can we do something for Libor for the wine
1:12:36
country by preserving the maker space because without it how do little
1:12:41
wineries start up so can’t start up in the county the county is Big to try to summarize the
1:12:48
comment I think one of the challenges maybe you’re identifying is that the creation of new maker space type
1:12:54
facilities on the east side of Vasco Road which would require brand new construction of relatively small
1:13:00
flexible industrial condos may be more challenged in terms of new construction on the east side of the road than the
1:13:07
utilization of existing facilities and the Block in that main block area and so
1:13:13
you’re recommending that the wine country commercials stay on the east side of the road and the mixed
1:13:18
commercial industrial maker space yeah not here but he feels very
1:13:25
strongly that makers need to be a component you just don’t want tasting rooms you want people that are still
1:13:31
making beer Wine and Spirits in the back with a Tasting Room in the front so can
1:13:39
can see the poter so would you I I think one of the
1:13:44
things I heard was potentially turn these units into residential is that correct right it would be the same level
1:13:51
of density of what you would have on the other other side of Research Drive Right
1:13:56
which also AB but single family housing right and to preserve more of this maker
1:14:02
space would you swap that with something down here for example and keep some of this maker space or did I misconstrue
1:14:11
that well there’s yeah there’s there’s a winery and a distillery in there now the
1:14:17
um that’s probably going to continue for quite some time right so that’s a separate topic what Comm memb St brought
1:14:24
up should probably close but it wouldn’t be I wouldn’t move I wouldn’t move the
1:14:30
the Oakville type grocery into the core because there’s already buildings there
1:14:36
that people have moved in like hermit crafts into these into these old buildings I would just just keep them
1:14:44
safe and leave them as they are um when you build a retail Center you’ll end up with tasting rooms and things in there
1:14:50
because that’s what always happens um but that that’s your your chance to build new and an attractive rer or a
1:14:58
food Hub that’s been talked with the supervisor that he’d like to see Castro Valley has a food Hub it’s a year round
1:15:05
Farmers Market we have a great farmers market that only operates in the warm
1:15:11
months what other other comments on that topic well I I I think there’s room for
1:15:17
it to be a little bit on both Sid that’s why I thinking like maybe some of it not all of it cuz I you know when you talk about like creating like a commercial
1:15:23
space for a residential I’m not talking like putting a grocery store there I’m talking like some area that’s like more
1:15:28
or less dedicated to like restaurants cafes and and the like that can complement the the breweries the
1:15:36
distilleries and the wineries that are in the area that are doing wine tasting so it’s not just wine tasting in that core right next to residential there’s
1:15:42
places for the the families that can go to cross the street go to the park go to the like you know grab a coffee hang out
1:15:49
at the park with their kids grab some food or whatever that that’s the kind of stuff I was thinking to really just activate that Central
1:15:56
Area um so I mean does that side of town need a grocery store yeah probably when
1:16:02
we’re kind of grocery store you know poor in a lot of these neighborhoods in our in our city um and do we need stuff
1:16:09
like you know bike repair bike rental yeah I I think that’d be great to be able to rent your bike and ride up and
1:16:15
down Tesla and take it back um but I I just don’t think what you talking about like creating a space that’s for
1:16:22
visitors and for the community you kind of need to have like um a multiple like angled
1:16:28
approach like on the right hand side if I see it there I see that as space that people who are coming and tourists that
1:16:34
are visiting are going to drive to and people who don’t live in that neighborhood are going to drive to versus if you put a little bit on the
1:16:41
inside that’s where the people who are going to be living in the neighborhood can walk to so I think like I said I
1:16:46
think there’s room for both um and I’d like to possibly see if there’s room for that but like I said I don’t want to
1:16:52
like take it away from these side wholesale because I think like I said I don’t want to just completely shift the
1:16:58
whole thing and I also don’t want to take away too much space from the maker uh maker spaces that we do have planned
1:17:04
for like you know commercial or industrial use cases too so I’m just asking for like a sliver for like
1:17:10
something there to really activate and bring that core make it really Lively and so I think I think what we do
1:17:18
have now is under bullet two that we would move some wine country commercial into that core area that that that’s
1:17:25
already there so there would be some opportunity for the area in purple there to be converted not from maker but to to
1:17:32
Wine Country commercial and uh how much is yet to be defined and um again if the
1:17:39
committee has specific feedback on that we can take it or staff can take a shot at it bring it back to you and we can further refine it yeah I know Brandon
1:17:47
you ask for the wear uh somewhere next to the park is kind of I think is is the ideal where
1:17:55
like if I’m looking at the map and throwing a dart I would be aiming for um
1:18:01
the I guess the uh southwest corner there yeah like in that area cuz that’s
1:18:07
really like the it’s Central to the housing surrounding it and it’s Central to it being right next to the park so it
1:18:13
kind of again looking for a small little space that I think would probably be the more ideal location for it if if you’re
1:18:20
asking for a where from me okay so can we do a show of hands at this point on
1:18:26
let’s go back to Bullet so we can see what the bullet is say so I think and and perhaps a slight embellishment of
1:18:32
the bullet too would be to move and add some wine country commercial somewhere
1:18:38
near the park for the next iteration of the map we going to show of hands on
1:18:43
that can we see theing yeah thank you that we good okay sorry hands one
1:18:52
more time look like we had strong majority okay excellent I do want to return to the
1:18:57
point that Paul brought up that I think Committee Member Ken added just to make sure everybody’s clear who had already voted for the concept of um or endorsed
1:19:04
the concept of the residential the Northwest portion that Committee Member Kamp was suggesting it on both sides of
1:19:09
Research Drive that modify the thiret just to say North
1:19:16
West and North corner or both sides of yeah nor
1:19:21
Northwest on both sides of research guy perhaps that’s great and this slide really is just to make sure we have
1:19:27
clear Direction it’s not a policy document or anything like that so more clarity is is better for us I think
1:19:33
visual you know validation for a lot of people is
1:19:39
important so I guess that’s part 1 a of that modification and then part one B could be the leaving where wood Family
1:19:46
Vineyard and The Distillery currently are especially given to member Kent’s comments that they’re not likely to go anywhere given that they’re successful
1:19:52
op operations so we could do a swapping essentially of the east side of Research Drive to the north with the southern
1:20:00
portion where Wood family and uh and The Distillery are show of hands in support
1:20:06
of that questions um uh I was just wondering if this might be a good area
1:20:12
to have like lower level industrial commercial and upper
1:20:18
Apartments um kind of mixed in there um so that that way you’re not taking land
1:20:24
away from potential business and you’re also providing housing and I know that
1:20:29
that is typically not a popular um route to go but I feel like in this area there’s lots of people
1:20:35
living there and lots of businesses and tourists going in that it might not be a bad idea maybe I don’t
1:20:43
know yeah so in that case what Paul was just saying is you could allow mixed use umal industrial a mixed commercial
1:20:51
industrial residential as an option
1:20:57
saying so that way we can have some Arena numbers and taken care of and then
1:21:03
also kind of satisfy like the natural development of the area to be fun and hip and cool place so that would largely
1:21:09
and this is just food for thought for the group as you think about that that would largely involve the removal and
1:21:15
replacement of the current structures as opposed to a change in the use
1:21:20
modification wouldn’t that be true if you’re building an apartment building anyway building a what an apartment
1:21:25
building would you have to remove yes so I guess I should clarify which which section are you talking about any of the
1:21:31
housing that we were talking about the Northend I see yeah and if
1:21:37
you if you allowed it you wouldn’t necessarily require it but you could
1:21:42
accommodate if someone wanted to consider a mixed juice so that’s a again
1:21:48
a question to the so we got two two questions on the floor I think one is the swap
1:21:53
and then the other is this idea of allowing mixed juice other
1:22:00
comments can you give us an idea of how in terms of land space that uh east side
1:22:08
of Basco uh what do you compare it with what’s existing right now in it’s about
1:22:14
5 Acres um that piece of land there’s two Parcels there it’s about 5 Acres
1:22:20
total um you want to comparable kind of and AUST give me a quick minute I’ll go
1:22:27
back to you yeah so I guess that’s true so um
1:22:35
the parking lot downtown is a pretty good analog for that that’s about 4 Acres so the the big parking gravel area
1:22:42
that’s going to be behind the First Street businesses there that’s about 4 Acres so a little smaller than that you
1:22:48
s of scale so there’s not a whole lot of uh industrial it’s not a whole lot of
1:22:54
industrial space you can put on there uh industrial space you could put
1:23:00
on the on the east side um yeah east side is is vacant land
1:23:05
today um and probably would be a challenging site to develop with
1:23:11
industrial U if that’s the question that you’re
1:23:17
asking and when I say industrial it’s still uh one
1:23:23
related industry related yeah we could we would certainly be looking at that through feasibility
1:23:29
analysis but developing smaller scale industrial facilities like these um is more challenging today than it has
1:23:38
been yep so we got two questions on the table one’s the housing swap um and then
1:23:44
the other is uh is adding a residential mixed use
1:23:49
component to the commercial industrial so why don’t we take the housing swap
1:23:56
first show of hands who’s comfortable with so take away houses and put more
1:24:01
commercial so it’s add the housing on that side and revert that side to a
1:24:07
maker space type of facility is what I understood the yeah
1:24:14
say that one more time add residential on the other side of research on the North End and convert
1:24:22
that to the commercial industrial like the maker space product that’s in the core there can you split
1:24:29
it certainly okay so see who supports one but not the other yeah I’m not in
1:24:34
favor of taking housing out all the housing we can
1:24:49
get okay are we adding so is the current
1:24:55
status as the committee understands it that we are have already added the residential to the other side of Research Drive in the north section
1:25:01
that’s the current status yeah I did too okay I thought was just so then then can I can we get a
1:25:08
show hands on that we’re adding I think this was Committee Member of Kent’s comment let’s do them one at a time
1:25:14
we’re adding uh residential on both sides to the north is that how many are okay that
1:25:22
on the North side the north yeah okay so most okay good and then on
1:25:30
the on the South Side I I saw a more mixed idea should we let me just ask it
1:25:36
should we keep that as housing how many would keep that as housing two how many would uh change some of it to the maker
1:25:46
Village four okay so we got a few more for maker Village any more discussion
1:25:52
about that since we’re not since we’re a little
1:25:57
uncertain I mean my my Outlook I think is that kind of jumps on to what had
1:26:02
some Brandon what some members had said where yeah we have some businesses there that are doing well and you know I think
1:26:09
there’s opportuni for zoning that could enhance their capabilities in terms of
1:26:15
what they can and cannot do um in that space and give them more more Lanes to
1:26:20
do more that could benefit the business in the the the city and the surrounding areas in terms of providing services so
1:26:27
I wouldn’t want to uh change that zoning to residential for a successful business today that
1:26:34
could then ultimately restrict them from being able to grow and ultimately if they do want to grow having to look
1:26:41
outside that current space so okay that’s kind of my outlook for some of those spaces and and I don’t know how
1:26:47
many of those Parcels fit that description but I do know some of them do with wood family being there the
1:26:53
Speak Easy that they operate right next door but I don’t know how far down that road it goes so there could be a line
1:26:59
that could get drawn at that conversation um I just know the with Wood family there being the Wier it is I
1:27:05
wouldn’t want to inhibit their growth any other comments yeah I have one so
1:27:11
let’s go back to the m I think they are uh enough unknowns to me personally that
1:27:17
I really can say yes or no based on a number of factors how feasible it is uh
1:27:24
to change the the the corner yellow to
1:27:29
Industrial or how feasible how how um how does that change the overall ratio
1:27:36
so can we ask for more analysis just to to know that decision is based on
1:27:43
feasibility and overall agregate absolutely so again your decision today
1:27:48
is not final we’ll take we’re going to call this a draft we’ll take your draft back we’re going analyze it for
1:27:54
feasibility and we’ll analyze the housing for feasibility in general if you told us to keep the first couple of
1:28:01
parcels there as maker Village we could analyze the feasibility of that too or if you want us to analyze at all as
1:28:06
housing we can do that as well so that’s that’s what we’re looking for from the group is what we’d like to analyze so
1:28:12
personally I agree with the driver that they had brought up that the fact that the right hand side of resarch ride is
1:28:18
already housing the left hand side of you know the red area is already housing seems to be more you know um it’s kind
1:28:27
of a whole Community right there without breaking up however the South Side it
1:28:33
doesn’t seem to have a strong driver so it’s really based on feasibility and overall Advocates to
1:28:40
me so no
1:28:45
vote question so you mentioned that the like how much of
1:28:52
purple is being used you said some tile businesses are going to move out and other different type of commes but how
1:28:59
much of the purple do you think is necessary to keep that make your village
1:29:04
thriving like the bottom row that we’re discussing converting to purple you’re
1:29:10
saying you’re voting against that are you saying it’s not necessary it’s it’s already purple now I mean the winery is
1:29:15
in there is outgrown the space so they’re looking for actively looking for other space but another Wier will move
1:29:22
it’s a good site just for a smaller Winery but it’s it’s purple now the question is because it a butts housing
1:29:29
is it better off everything on that side of Research Drive that a buts housing be housing or do you want a little island
1:29:35
of commercial just to irritate the neighbors um that’s what it
1:29:41
does um so but it’s but given how well at rents and the rents they get it’s
1:29:48
it’s likely to stay commercial until the building fall down is that something you
1:29:54
can allocate for mix you could allocate any of it for mix it’s it’s unlikely to change to mixed
1:30:02
use without uh a new building being constructed or without at least a second floor being construct but it allows for
1:30:09
it to be residential one day right stay commercial yes you’re just you’re just overlaying a
1:30:16
residential zoning on top of the current commercial zoning you’re adding a permitted use yes
1:30:29
anything on question but you know we’ve seen that
1:30:35
stuff happen downtown before remember the beautiful row of of town homes that
1:30:41
got built um and there was a pizza place that wouldn’t allow it to be completed
1:30:48
so they hung out and so they kind of built half a town home roll then that business went out of business and I
1:30:55
think it’s a nail salon or something there now but it’s so you know the owner
1:31:00
may never want to sell it he may want to keep it as commercial and get rents forever and the person building the town
1:31:06
homes next to it will be irritated because they rather build out the entire block but but that happens it happens
1:31:14
every day in the city now I would say the only thing to to think about with the mixed use is that if you allow it if
1:31:21
you can go back to the M if you allow it in that maker Village core you will be
1:31:26
bringing residents in that may not want to have the music or some of the other
1:31:31
activities uh in the evenings or on the weekends so that is it’s a compatibility
1:31:38
issue potentially uh I’m talking about in that
1:31:43
core yeah all all four of those will be impacted by the commercial cuz they are now cuz it’s
1:31:50
Altimont Brewery there it’s visit right mhm so uh
1:31:57
let’s go ahead I I think what’s what was on the table that we didn’t quite get a
1:32:02
decision on May we can do one more show f is on that bottom corner there shall
1:32:08
we keep let me ask the question should we keep that as housing who would like to keep it as
1:32:13
housing uh I think the options are going to be keep it as housing uh convert it
1:32:19
to make a village or allow mixed use so those are the three options I’ll throw
1:32:24
out so I saw just a couple of hands for keeping as housing who would like to have it convert to maker
1:32:31
Village only a couple who would like to go to mixed use
1:32:37
see we got three four four SP okay so
1:32:43
it’s not a majority but it is the most hands that we got on this so we’ll bring back to you an analysis of mixed use uh
1:32:50
in that area quick question can you go back to the maap mhm
1:32:56
sorry so like I’m trying to understand kind of where everybody’s coming from cuz like if the vision for this actually
1:33:04
is Crea a visitor destination that supports production and maker spaces
1:33:09
that serve as a gateway to South lore Wine Country like um housing on
1:33:18
Basco um and the type of housing you know it’s like obviously you drive
1:33:24
further down Vasco and it’s you know Vineyard gate and all those you know
1:33:30
really nice homes but you know there’s some that have Blended in with all the trail and everything um that would not
1:33:37
be the case here um and would look more like what you have at the corner of East
1:33:46
and Fasco and then obviously like further down as you drive um you know back towards Patterson
1:33:53
and all that so I’m just trying to understand why anyone if this is
1:33:59
actually the vision would try then and like support the housing as far as this
1:34:06
vision goes I understand people have a lot of philosophies on housing in general um so it would just kind of be
1:34:13
like maybe we should change the vision then because like there’s not much like
1:34:19
South limore Wine Country Gateway messaging with more housing on your
1:34:24
gateway right or am I missing something I think at the back of our heads or the
1:34:30
back of my head is we’re always going to have this Vina element uh especially if we go to the
1:34:38
Las Positas and uh two of the groups said no change so we’re not adding any
1:34:44
housing element on one of the purpose areas so it’s always going to be yeah
1:34:50
that element but arena is not like our vision it’s not liver board’s Vision but
1:34:56
it’s it’s a mandate though yeah I mean like in that case Reena should be can I
1:35:02
ask a clarifying question yeah are you talking about just on Bas or are you talking about along the entire length of research well I think they’re two
1:35:10
separate I mean I understand like why David is saying what he is as far as
1:35:16
like the housing up at research in East Avenue yeah like on that side I like I understand why
1:35:22
but like to also try and add housing on Vasco so like it’s really those two
1:35:28
calots like Wood family that’s you’re talking about yeah because like what housing are you going to put in there high density yeah but not like the rest
1:35:35
of resch Drive we’re just talking about just medium maybe it’d be helpful to put the
1:35:40
types up I mean helpful for for the whole crowd cuz we have the
1:35:47
books but they don’t it’s that medium high density medium high Road of
1:35:54
town yeah it would be like a I I mean the people who would move into them are
1:35:59
the ones who like to go out at night yeah or people who work at the lab I suggest that uh we really don’t have
1:36:06
enough data at this point that just a non confined to one uh Direction so so
1:36:13
we will if it’s okay with the committee we’ll evaluate some mixed use and at least that gives you another land use
1:36:19
type to consider and so we’ll do a little bit of evaluation for that in that uh bottom corner
1:36:26
there any other comments on this Focus area otherwise uh we will ask you to to
1:36:31
vote to approve the changes that we’ve made so far so this approval is not to say that
1:36:40
is the final direction is to say this is the consensus based on our exercise and
1:36:47
then we are asking for a lot more data even after this so I feel comfortable saying moving
1:36:55
forward to the next Fus area I we vote on the side second wow look at that
1:37:04
y second you vote on the direction that’s
1:37:10
contain this okay so we have a second okay so that’s thank you so much for
1:37:15
having a very uh helpful first case maybe the next case we have to call R yes we do oh
1:37:23
thank you okay this is the vote part the oh this is the vot part this is the vote part okay de please yes thank you so uh
1:37:31
Committee Member Alexi I Committee Member vaa I committee me member j i
1:37:39
Committee Member Halverson no Committee Member Kent I Committee Member Kingsbury
1:37:46
hi Committee Member Leone hi Committee Member Pete
1:37:52
can I say we need a yes or a no is
1:37:58
that it’ll be counted as a it be counted as a yes not a no remember this is not the last time
1:38:05
that you’re going to get to see it but either yes or no is
1:38:10
fine yes okay Committee Member rala I
1:38:16
and Committee Member Stout I the eyes have it
1:38:24
oh so
1:38:30
sorry so I have 10 eyes in one name thank you so much D this time CH we
1:38:37
would like to move to the next Focus area but we’d recommend we move to the east of Greenville Focus area um there’s
1:38:43
uh some folks in the audience that would like to speak to that item okay so we’re changing the sequence okay Jo you welome
1:38:56
okay thank you very much uh let’s skip ahead to east of Greenville this is
1:39:02
obviously a focus area that has attracted a lot of attention throughout the process uh so we have three
1:39:08
alternatives for the east of Greenville Road Focus area has been mentioned tonight this is um just over 11,000
1:39:15
Acres located east of Greenville Road um it’s west of the aqueduct that’s the
1:39:22
curvy line and um south of 580 the southern edge of this um goes down to
1:39:28
Patterson Road uh the city added the east of Greenville Road as a potential new
1:39:33
growth excuse me job growth area given the amount of um residential uh
1:39:39
potential residential infill that’s being considered in the other four Focus areas based on the feedback that we were
1:39:46
receiving from the gpac um from the business and Commercial community in in Livermore in the direction from the city
1:39:52
council and the vision for this area is to establish land uses that support Innovation and technology companies in a
1:40:00
complete District to be able to host a mix of jobs services and amenities um to
1:40:05
really help the city meet its long-term FIS fiscal sustainability goals and again um find a way that this can serve
1:40:12
as an inviting gateway to Livermore um South Livermore Wine Country so you can
1:40:18
see from these Alternatives um uh that that there is no residential in any of
1:40:24
these Alternatives all three Alternatives contemplate a different mix of um industrial that’s the purple color
1:40:31
uh commercial that’s the bright red color um maintaining existing public or
1:40:36
utilities uses that’s kind of the light blue color um and then a new research
1:40:41
campus idea that might be some sort of partnership with uh educational Institutions and the labs taking
1:40:48
advantage of the proximity of the labs which are just um across uh across uh
1:40:53
Greenville here and I misspoke earlier I apologize um I said it was Patterson it’s not um
1:41:00
Patterson is in the midpoint of the um of the focus area here and then the
1:41:06
other two land uses are uh this dark green would be a regional Sports Park
1:41:11
type of um amenity and that that happens in alternative B and alternative C in
1:41:17
the darker green color that you see the lighter green color would be some sort of agricultural um or open space green
1:41:23
belt or um uh protected area to preserve open space that might be a thicker band
1:41:30
um kind of going lengthwise down the area as an alternative a it might be a very thin band as an alternative B it
1:41:37
might be a larger kind of solid more Consolidated chunk um in the northern
1:41:42
part of the area as in alternative C and then all three Alternatives also include this kind of light green wine Catalyst
1:41:48
site um at the southern so when we uh heard from the community
1:41:55
at the all of the different events that I listed earlier in the presentation we did hear a pretty wide range of
1:42:01
perspectives from the community about whether or not it’s appropriate to consider Urban uses in the east of
1:42:07
Greenville area for the folks who are open to considering that um people uh
1:42:15
responded to Alternative a by um saying that they would like to see an increase
1:42:21
in the commercial and agricultural land in that alternative um people who were more drawn to Alternative B would remove
1:42:28
the sports park reduce the amount of land dedicated to that research campus use that I talked about um and replace
1:42:35
some of the commercial uh with industrial and for those who preferred alternative C they would also remove the
1:42:42
sports park move the research campus to a different area that’s a little bit flatter more topographically easier to
1:42:48
develop and increase the amount of open space so um we did hear as you can see
1:42:54
here that um if there is a sports park in this area the locations as initially drafted in the alternative seem maybe a
1:43:01
little bit too remote and too hard to reach um folks were interested in planning for a wild life Corridor at the
1:43:08
old 580 underpass thinking about connectivity and site access this is pretty undeveloped at this point um and
1:43:15
so that would really be starting from scratch in terms of connecting and integrating this area into
1:43:21
existing uh Livermore roadway Network um one thing that motivates
1:43:27
people to consider supporting development here is an increased tax revenue through develop of this area
1:43:32
development of this area but they would really only want to see that happen if the types of industrial uses were something um more than just um
1:43:40
warehousing folks did point out a number of folks have pointed out that the topography in this area is pretty hilly
1:43:46
and could make Industrial Development challenging so when we did our workshop
1:43:52
with the gpac in November uh group one started with alternative a relocated the
1:43:58
Sports Park from the south uh to the north and added a green belt to the east
1:44:04
uh maintained the agricultural site in the South added a little bit more of commercial General north of Patterson
1:44:10
Pass Road in the in the middle there where you can see in the marker um maintain the existing public uses and
1:44:16
designate all of the remaining area with that purple General Industrial designation there was interest in kind
1:44:23
of letting the market determine where the research campus would be located rather than identifying a specific
1:44:29
location for that on the land use map Group Two started with a blank map
1:44:35
and colored it in uh their alternative would add a sports park in the southeast
1:44:40
of the focus area again that’s the darker green that you see kind of on the Outer Edge change the wine Catalyst site
1:44:46
to open space maintain the public designations add had open space buffers
1:44:51
along both West and East you can see the kind of vertical green stripes there designate the majority of the focus area
1:44:58
in again the purple General industrial they did include space for a research campus that’s the blue and black stripes
1:45:05
and then designate the small triangle that goes um west of Greenville Road as
1:45:10
mixed commercial and Industrial and then finally from the third group of the gpac uh Workshop they
1:45:17
started with alternative C and revised that to replace some of the what had
1:45:23
been the bright red commercial General south of Patterson Pass with the um restriped research campus so that would
1:45:30
go all the way to Greenville Road so in attempting to kind of
1:45:36
synthesize that and give you a starting point for your discussion tonight um we’re starting with um an idea of
1:45:43
starting with alternative a but relocating the sports park to the north
1:45:48
and using the research campus idea from um alternative C so just to rehash
1:45:54
this is um where we would start with alternative a there would be a research campus I’m sorry a sports park kind of
1:46:01
in in the northern part of the focus area somewhere and then you would pull
1:46:07
over that striped blue and red research campus from alternative C and use that
1:46:12
kind of larger shape in alternative a so again that is the kind of starting
1:46:18
point for the gpac um discussion
1:46:26
tonight comments first yes okay okay so
1:46:31
um I appreciate your patience I know it we took a while to finish the first Focus area so um I would still like to
1:46:40
be as efficient as possible and uh ask that you you uh really address this
1:46:46
particular Focus area yes in a larger context but it’s speaker again will have
1:46:52
3 minutes and um please be patient with each other and um should I just call
1:47:00
could you please call I do have a couple of cop card already for this specific area so I’m going to go with that order
1:47:06
first and then we’ll see if there’s any additional ones I have Jean King
1:47:11
first do you want me to come up there you’re going to come to me
1:47:17
okay but do I have to can I sit down yeah you can okay I’m not as mobile as I
1:47:23
might have been one time okay um I have a couple comments it turned on get it
1:47:30
really close to your mouth yeah now can you hear me there you go okay I’m sorry okay thank you for letting me sit down
1:47:36
I’m not as mobile as I was I I want to emphasize that what should be considered
1:47:43
in this area is no plan at all and I think it has been a mistake that it was
1:47:49
not mentioned at a lot of the meetings but there is there should be the option
1:47:54
that there is no plan here that you do not use this area and there are several
1:47:59
reasons why you should not do that for one thing is that
1:48:05
um if if you if you if you even if you move it
1:48:10
out and you say there’s going to be no housing that’s not going to make it permanently that there’s no housing that
1:48:16
can be changed in the future research can always be done in the open campuses
1:48:23
of both Labs both the lab and the Sandia lab they have open campuses and research
1:48:29
facilities can be in those things and open to the public and the if you want
1:48:34
open space just leave it the way it is in the county open space don’t you don’t need to stay and change it I attended
1:48:42
the workshop at cochi school and the vast majority of attendees did not want to develop the area west of Greenville
1:48:49
and overwhelming number of dots that showed the priorities of the attendees
1:48:54
were on the place for leave it as open space I don’t know how the other workshops and popups works I don’t know
1:49:02
if they were given a choice of priorities and I do not know if they were ever given a no build for that area
1:49:09
if all options were not always given then the Outreach statistics are incomplete and flawed it is premature
1:49:18
and in a significant waste of taxpayers money to commission an environmental impact report eir for developing the
1:49:26
land east of Greenville section uh option number B this land is protected
1:49:32
by an urban growth boundary ugb that the residents of Livermore strongly support
1:49:38
besides there is no current need to consider lands outside the ugb for
1:49:43
additional development there is sufficient land within the ugb to
1:49:49
accommodate res residential commercial and Industrial Development for at least the next decade and almost certainly for
1:49:56
much longer than that the statistics of the population that have been given in
1:50:02
the reports by the city are incorrect our population is not that great now and
1:50:07
there is not estimates for increased growth why develop precious open space
1:50:12
land when there are alternative locations inside the ugb to accommodate
1:50:17
any actual growth for the foreseeable future future intensive development in North Livermore and east of Greenville
1:50:24
Road would be extremely costly it would destroy our harm agriculture Wildlife
1:50:30
wetlands and watersheds open space and Scenic Beauty air pollution and traffic
1:50:36
congestion would be exacerbated it would eliminate diversity in land use and impair the character of Livermore and
1:50:43
the sense of place of its residence none of these rural areas now has public infr
1:50:50
structure and facilities for Urban Development development east of Greenville is a mistake at this time
1:50:56
thank
1:51:02
you
1:51:09
Paula um I’m Paula Peterson and I agree with um Jean 100% uh I do believe that
1:51:18
there should be a no project plan uh as a choice I don’t think that was
1:51:24
discussed um also I I kind of feel that so I I
1:51:30
attended the um environmental meeting last week um and I was feeling a little
1:51:39
bit I I guess cheated because I got a notice saying that I had a voice but
1:51:47
when I got there we have already put this in place um I was told
1:51:53
$300,000 has already been marked to do this Environmental Research on this
1:51:59
property that the city hasn’t hasn’t even approved yet so I guess I’m a
1:52:06
little concerned on what decisions are already being made or that have been
1:52:12
made that we haven’t heard about that have taken place because I was
1:52:18
completely under the impression that when I was going there I was going to get a choice to make do we do it or not
1:52:24
but we’re doing it now um along with Los uh Lin Road they are doing that as well
1:52:30
but for the Greenville side um the the
1:52:36
city hasn’t the population of Livermore hasn’t even uh heard or had a choice I
1:52:43
saw we’ve reached a thousand people for this comment but there’s over 880,000
1:52:50
people in the city so I’m a little concerned about how we’re reaching out
1:52:55
to our uh residents when we have 880,000 choices now I don’t even get to choose
1:53:02
because I live on that property where they’re talking about turning into
1:53:07
industri so I don’t get to even choose or have a choice if this is going to happen or not my my destiny of life is
1:53:16
in all of the city’s hands and so I I just want to make sure that messages are
1:53:22
being completely honest and out there so that when people do have to make a
1:53:28
choice they know what choice they’re having but furthermore I’d like to just
1:53:33
make this no choice and have this no not even on um the plane um that’s thank
1:53:48
you
1:54:01
duck I can
1:54:06
address green is on I want to address the members
1:54:13
here so um I participated uh 20 plus
1:54:20
years ago uh in the last go around of this and I just want to point out
1:54:26
um that was a different time um the people there were many people who
1:54:34
eagerly wanted to be where you are it’s been hard to find you and thank you for
1:54:40
all agreeing to do this it takes a lot of time and personal energy uh but we
1:54:45
had former mayors former elected officials people very deep knowledge of land use and people who had frankly made
1:54:53
mistakes in their careers with land use and didn’t want to make them again so
1:54:58
they served and they were able to come at this from a really just deep life
1:55:04
experience way and I know not all of you have that um and so it it sort of uh put
1:55:11
you at at a bit of a disadvantage um the second disadvantage um is that um that
1:55:18
we we didn’t have last time is that we weren’t led by a company like placeworks um place works leads these
1:55:27
processes like they led the downtown in directions that the people don’t want it to
1:55:32
go and um you didn’t hire place works you were stuck with them just like we’re
1:55:38
stuck with them um and there’s nothing we can do about that now but we can fix
1:55:43
one thing the breaking of the urban growth boundary is highly unpopular you
1:55:49
know that there is no reason to do it now and it
1:55:54
screws up the rest of your plan because if you’re depending on this area to provide you uh land uses um that are
1:56:02
just not going to be there you need to completely redo the rest of your your focus areas um if you need to add a
1:56:10
focus area somewhere else in the city that you haven’t added now maybe you need to do that um but the urban growth
1:56:18
foundary is going to this is going to run into a brick wall um the residents are not going to pass a breach of the IR
1:56:25
Road boundary and I hope that you will grab the bull by the horns change
1:56:30
direction on this and uh not go east of Greenville thank
1:56:37
you thank you uh Mike Frederick do you want to speak on Greenville yes I do
1:56:48
okay
1:56:56
I’m Mike Frederick um I’m on the eler
1:57:01
county uh conservation Resource District board I’m on the County Agricultural
1:57:09
advisory committee and I was on the TVC I’ve uh been involved with them for a
1:57:16
long time I’ve been involved with the land use issues a lot around the area of
1:57:22
Livermore expanding Beyond Greenville seems to be driven by the desires of a single industrial
1:57:29
user uh who will provide few jobs considering the amount of land that
1:57:34
would be used placing industrial
1:57:41
uses but up against the canal that supplies many of
1:57:47
The Vineyards south of the area seems like a profoundly bad
1:57:53
idea uh I should mention that the um the I always want to say the ACR CD because
1:58:00
the name’s too long just got a $7 million Grant to study placing animal
1:58:06
crossings in areas around the Bay Area particularly one of the focus areas is
1:58:13
580 and so there’s very good possibility that will be an animal crossing in in
1:58:19
the area that you’re talking about and my first question is do you really want mountain lions being fed into an area
1:58:27
that you’ve developed industrial that area should be kept if not wild and it
1:58:33
isn’t wild now at least as least developed as possible eliminating the Greenville
1:58:41
component which doesn’t seem to be presented as an option even though it’s been mentioned here tonight that maybe
1:58:48
we shouldn’t have that component uh eliminating that component seems like
1:58:55
a great idea keeping it will throw the city into another devisive struggle like
1:59:00
the Downtown Development I think the vast majority of Livermore residents can find consensus
1:59:06
around all the other areas keeping the east of Greenville component will create
1:59:13
divisive op devises or I’m sorry vigorous opposition uh to the moving of the urban
1:59:19
growth boundary and could cast negative sentiment on the rest of the process
1:59:25
thank you very much for your
1:59:38
time uh Mr Scott do you want to speak directly about Eastville east of
1:59:46
preville on this Focus area yes
1:59:52
Greg Scott breaking the urban growth boundary and sphere of influence it’s
1:59:57
absurd and it’s absurd because Livermore you can’t even maintain the infrastructure you have now and I can
2:00:04
give you an example for that I used to live in the Royal mocho I mean lived
2:00:10
there and if you remember February of 2017 it rained it rained quite a bit I
2:00:16
was living in that Creek I watched it rip up the concrete the bike pass it goes crazy one night I had these guys
2:00:24
come around me they had a little boy trailer and bulldozers and equipment and all these people showed up and the
2:00:29
highway patrol showed up and they’re all staring at me and the highway patrolman had The Bravery to come talk to me say
2:00:36
what are you doing here I go I live here and he kind of walked away like I was some sort of Martian but they left me alone why was I not afraid because I
2:00:43
watched what the water did and I also at the time attended the City Council meetings and the city council spent over
2:00:50
time they finally figured it out $650,000 to do the fixes that rain was nothing compared to this historical
2:00:57
record one historical record is The Rains of December 1861 through January
2:01:02
of 1862 it rained 10t in most of Northern California it rained 5 feet in
2:01:08
Los Angeles so Robert Livermore Jr knew exactly where to build his house we can’t maintain the infrastructure we
2:01:14
have now against something like that and what do we have coming we have extreme weather coming it’s a matter of
2:01:20
understanding the primary atmospheric component out there over the Pacific it’s called the Pacific Walker
2:01:26
circulation we have we’re not considering this this extreme weather that’s coming our way and it’s going to
2:01:32
hit this and we’re going to build we’re going to expand our infrastructure when we can’t even maintain our current infrastructure against this how does
2:01:39
this make sense it doesn’t you know you’ve got a lab over here that spent
2:01:44
$80 million over four years on software for is called the Earth
2:01:51
exoscale Earth Earth I mean excuse me energy exoscale Earth Systems model does
2:01:57
anybody look at that what what’s going to happen you know what what we’re facing and we’re going to expand the
2:02:04
perimeter and make ourselves less resilient and more vulnerable somebody tell me how that
2:02:11
makes sense it it doesn’t we’re we’re up against you know it just rained in the
2:02:16
Olympic Peninsula it’s 65° de it’s unheard of it rained in one town
2:02:23
3 and 1/2 in in in 24 hours in there it’s unheard of for the Olympic Peninsula where it tends to rain do you
2:02:30
think we’re ready for it we’re not we’re making ourselves more vulnerable less
2:02:35
resilient by expanding the infrastructure when we should be concentrating on our current
2:02:46
infrastructure does anybody else have a card in the audience that’s all I
2:03:07
have good evening hi um my name is John Stein Bush uh as many of you know I’m a
2:03:14
property owner in the east of Greenville um additionally I’m an active commercial realist a broker here in the tri valley
2:03:20
and have been for many years and with cers um first of all I want to thank the members of the GAC and the staff for two
2:03:28
years of tireless work on this project um this is a you know I guess the the
2:03:34
the most well attended night we’ve had in two years or you’ve had in two years I’ve been at all of them also um but uh
2:03:42
I just wanted to digress short a little bit you know the the the general Plan update is something done by every city
2:03:49
in California it’s required by law it’s done typically 20 25 years and it’s the
2:03:56
place where the community looks at where they are with respect to their rules and
2:04:01
regulations which is their General plan which is the map for the future and they
2:04:06
make adjustments as to where they think they need to go for the next 20 to 25 years your
2:04:12
committee as you applied for your positions you were interviewed you were selected and you spent two years working
2:04:18
with the city to advise them the staff and the Planning Commission and the City Council on a plan that will work for the
2:04:25
next 20 to 25 years that includes changes where changes need to be made um
2:04:32
and for all of that work you should take a lot of Pride um so I wanted to point
2:04:38
out some of the facts that led to the city looking at thece of Greenville and
2:04:46
I again I’ve been at this uh on on the commercial and Industrial side for a long time and um these are the facts
2:04:54
during the last General plan cycle in Livermore which you know is about 21 22
2:05:00
years 893 Acres of commercial and Industrial land have been
2:05:05
absorbed that amount includes 204 Acres of retail and Commercial 39 Acres of
2:05:12
office 408 Acres of industrial land 70 Acres almost 7 Acres of
2:05:19
expansion land inventory by companies that have their uh facilities here think
2:05:26
of companies like gillig topcon form factor and others and more than 171 Acres of public
2:05:35
infrastructure in the last 21 22 years the public infrastructure is it about
2:05:40
580 interchange the extension of jackon Boulevard West out to the outlet mall
2:05:46
all of the streets sewers w water utilities and storm drainage around the outlet mall The Oaks Business Park
2:05:53
Streets uh um um West Los paas Boulevard
2:05:58
in East Livermore so storm drainage basin Zone 7 canals interner changes all of these
2:06:06
improvements make life in Livermore easier better and more efficient for its
2:06:13
citizens and a lot of that development is done through these projects
2:06:19
like Oaks business park or the outlet mall that get approved and get built
2:06:25
within the city today there remains only about 131 Acres of commercial and
2:06:30
Industrial land left some of those Parcels have dual Zoning for residential
2:06:35
and they’ll likely be developed that way and the other Parcels are typically remnants or poorly shaped or they not
2:06:44
very well located for development so the work your your committee is doing is
2:06:50
what’s expected to be done in a general f update look at what’s happened over the last 20 25 years and project what
2:06:58
you’re going to need over the next 20 to 25 years
2:07:04
um and then you come up with a plan that you can recommend to the Planning Commission and the city council and the
2:07:12
city council will adopt something that they’ll promote to the C C now if a
2:07:19
vote of the urban growth a vote to move the urban growth boundary is warranted
2:07:24
uh by the plan that the city council puts forth then that they would put it forth as that would is the plan that
2:07:32
would be best for the community for the next 20 or 25 years and let the citizens decide through a vote so I uh I
2:07:41
compliment you for your work please keep up the good work and uh thank you for the job you’ve
2:07:47
done splend
2:07:56
splend good evening everybody I’m Spen sporio and I’m here on um on behalf of
2:08:02
innovation Tri valy leadership group which is a a the business leadership group for the tri valley represent all
2:08:07
the major Employers in town such as the the labs and Stanford Tri Valley healthc Care and lamb research um our CEO Kitty
2:08:16
Marcel send a letter in either last night or earlier
2:08:22
today a couple years ago we released uh our vision 240 plan for the entire
2:08:28
triality we hired uh the economic Institute of the Bayer Council to help
2:08:34
us to do that it took us a couple years to do that one of the things we found is
2:08:40
that the DI diminishing amount of of commercial land in the tri valley and so
2:08:48
what you I think what I what I’m hearing is that there is uh a lount of Commercial Business serving land has
2:08:54
been reduced to a smaller level and what we found is that it’s not unique to
2:09:00
Livermore it’s the same thing going in San Ramone Dublin and
2:09:05
Pleasanton and um so we urge you to take a look at our vision 2040 plan and
2:09:12
realize that we know took the time to study this problem and it is a real problem and it and here’s something I
2:09:18
learned about yesterday morning it’s not unique to the tribal I went to a breakfast um where the mayor of San Jose
2:09:26
Matt mahy spoke you know what he talked about the loss of business serving indust uh
2:09:33
business serving land in the city of San Jose and you think how that be possible it’s the biggest Geographic City in
2:09:39
Northern California they’re concerned about it because they understand that what it brings is jobs and businesses
2:09:45
that support the quality of life we all enjoy in the bay so thank you very
2:09:53
much uh Stacy
2:10:04
Logan hi thank you I’m Stacy Logan want to thank you all first of all for being on this committee little bit of history
2:10:10
about myself I was raised in Pleasanton we moved to Livermore 24 years ago when we bought our house I love this town I
2:10:17
love that Livermore Pleasanton have kept it from looking like another city in this Tri Valley that doesn’t look great
2:10:24
I love that the citizens here are so involved and are paying attention to what is happening to try to make sure we
2:10:30
don’t turn into something like that city as far as the east of Greenville goes
2:10:36
that’s our gateway to Wine Country we don’t when you’re driving from the freeway down towards Wine Country you
2:10:43
see beautiful Hills on the left you can kind of ignore all the industrial on the right if that’s all built up you’re going to going to lose that I have a lot
2:10:50
of friends who are land owners in that area multi-generational ranchers they’re
2:10:56
grandchildren are now learning how we all eat you know all all of our food how
2:11:01
to raise crops they want to stay there they’re very afraid that if the land use
2:11:07
changes even if they don’t sell their property taxes are going to price them out of being able to live where their family has lived for Generations that’s
2:11:14
not fair the other thing at last month’s Workshop that I went to six out of the eight tables all said
2:11:21
they do not want any development east of Greenville they gave an alternative as a
2:11:27
worst case scenario in case it’s voted in but they all said no development finally since a lot of you
2:11:34
probably live in the city and you see the full moon when it comes up once in a while I see this every time I drive out
2:11:39
to take care of my horse at night next full moon which is going to be on December 26th drive out towards
2:11:45
Patterson past ridm park your car and watch the moon come up over the hill it’s going to be
2:11:50
around 10:30 it’s absolutely stunning to see it come over those Hills if we build out there we’re going to lose that and
2:11:57
we’re already losing too much of that already thank
2:12:02
you uh Julie
2:12:09
wild hi good evening I’m a new resident of Livermore
2:12:14
and I agree with so many of the speakers that just spoke it’s one of the reasons that we love
2:12:20
this area it’s we don’t want the urban growth boundary extended either it needs
2:12:26
to stay open open space for these I mean now you’ve even inspired me to know that
2:12:32
there are families that have been there for Generations why why mess with it and if this is what the community is saying
2:12:37
hopefully you’ll take that to heart and and remove it um and we just moved I’m
2:12:43
surprised to hear from the gentleman that we need more space we just moved here from Milpas and there are so many
2:12:49
empty Office Buildings in mil pis and in San Jose so that that surprises me I
2:12:55
didn’t know that um because with my own eyes I see that there are so many empty spaces and they’ve been there for years
2:13:02
we were in mil Pedas for 2 years those buildings are still release they still on the market so I don’t know where that
2:13:09
part came from but uh yeah we don’t I don’t agree on this um and the other
2:13:15
thing too um even moving here to liore and talking to my neighbors about this
2:13:20
because I was you know I found out about this I would say 10 out of 10 of the
2:13:25
Livermore residents don’t want the urb growth boundary to be to be changed they
2:13:30
love the open space here at Li mors please keep it that way thank you thank
2:13:37
you is there anybody else who would like to speak on the east of
2:13:46
Greenville
2:13:55
I did not come prepared to speak so forgive me uh my name is Carolyn Lord
2:14:00
and I like what people said about why are we discussing County Land we’re not
2:14:06
even discussing Livermore land the urban growth boundary um I totally understand
2:14:12
what splend was saying about warehousing spaces I had to go down to Carmel today
2:14:17
on business and drove by all big til tubs that are in Morgan Hill but also to
2:14:23
know that’s what Tracy’s doing so I think Livermore needs to see well maybe
2:14:28
we don’t have big Warehouse spaces because it’s being um accommodated by other cities other towns things change
2:14:36
you know you can say oh well there’s not big Warehouse spaces going on in San Francisco but look at all the creativity
2:14:43
there we were just talking about Basco Road oh maker spaces there’s different kinds of business at different seasons
2:14:50
of the city it’s never going to stay the same um you know what used to be the
2:14:56
edge of a metropolitan area we have to realize we are in the middle of What’s
2:15:02
called the urban Umbra of San Francisco that goes from San Francisco to Reno we are not at the edge we’re not at the end
2:15:08
of the road anymore and then also uh my husband is a a retired facilities
2:15:14
architect from the Lord’s Livermore labs and when he started working there in oh 1974 75 he had old Labs go oh my gosh
2:15:23
those Hills are hot cuz you have to remember the EPA the lab’s been there for a long long time for like 20 years
2:15:30
before the EPA been started and going oh we need to put filters on our Stacks so
2:15:36
who knows what has floated over there and then having that in mind um oh about
2:15:41
8 years or so ago I was doing a painting project and I was painting off at Greenville Road and I was talking to a
2:15:47
man who owns business and he goes oh yeah people have come here and they’ve decided no they don’t want to be there
2:15:54
knowing the longterm you know kind of questionable stuff that drifted from the
2:16:00
lab you know the kind of things that you know the site 300 kind of stuff as well so I think it’ be best just to leave it
2:16:06
as it is it’s inappropriate to even uh you might say covet that land and to say
2:16:13
oh well just because I want it doesn’t mean it’s appropriate sort of work within your back that the city has done
2:16:19
that then work it okay thank
2:16:25
you uh
2:16:37
Tina thank you um my name is Tina D I first came here in the 50s my parents
2:16:44
brought me here I grew up here I raised ra my children here and then I moved
2:16:49
over the peninsula for 20 years and I came back um I actually own a property
2:16:55
in this area that you’re talking about um and first of all I want to thank you for your service I just found out about
2:17:01
this effort about 6 weeks ago um I mentioned that my husband and I left for
2:17:07
20 years and came back and we came back because we like liore and one of the
2:17:12
things that we’ve talked about with each other is what a great job we feel like Livermore is done in the last 20 years
2:17:19
how much change there’s been and we’ve enjoyed all of it the downtown the um
2:17:25
the wine industry and we’ve been very impressed with how Livermore has planned and
2:17:32
executed to bring these changes to life um so when I first heard about this
2:17:39
I was actually very open to the idea that Livermore would plan something in the neighborhood where I live because
2:17:46
the neighborhood that I live in doesn’t seem to have a plan at all right now um
2:17:52
and we have three sides to our property this is an example one side’s the lab and then there’s three other sides to
2:17:59
our property and in the last year two of those sides have been come become popup
2:18:06
um maintenance yards that are not permitted and they’re not monitored and
2:18:13
they’re not enforced by the county so when I hear
2:18:18
have no plan that doesn’t mean that there’s not a plan there’s other thing that’s happening anyway and so I don’t
2:18:25
know exactly what plan you all will come up with but I’m super intrigued about it because I feel like
2:18:33
Livermore has done a great job and I feel like you all are doing a good job and I’m really interested in the thought
2:18:40
that Livermore citizens and livermore’s infrastructure and livermore’s planning might bring what
2:18:49
they brought to other parts of lore to that area so those are my thoughts thank
2:19:02
you anybody else like to speak to easn Greenville I of
2:19:14
course one thing that I just heard about the plans um and I thought I’d mention is that the South part of Livermore does
2:19:21
have a plan right I think it’s called like the South Livermore General plan or something like that right it exists
2:19:27
doesn’t it okay and it just has a bunch of conserved uh
2:19:32
land around it just a bunch of free and open space and when it comes to
2:19:38
expanding Livermore it seems like all the pressure is placed on the northern part then and that happens to be where I
2:19:43
live so I take a problem with that if I lived in South Li maybe I’d say that’s great but I don’t maybe one day I will
2:19:50
but um yeah that was one thing I wanted to say the other thing was can I see other
2:19:55
slides here this uh Community input slide I
2:20:00
found interesting because when I came to the second Workshop that took place I
2:20:05
don’t know the name of the school that’s on Scenic um yeah I spoke with you Joan directly a
2:20:14
lot and you handed out these packets to us and you insisted that I write everything that I think down and I did
2:20:20
even though I hated doing it um but I asked you many times what are you going to do with these packets are you going
2:20:26
to convey this information to the city somehow and when I look at this for Greenville I I don’t see anything you’re
2:20:33
representative of what I saw at that workshop at all the only Community input I see here is that actually we’re going
2:20:39
to start at the same place that you were always going to start at anyway so that
2:20:45
seems like that was a point point with second exercise doesn’t it and it’s it’s
2:20:51
actually hard not to take it personally to know that if if I have to deal with you in the future and your company that
2:20:57
this is how you handle your workshops I don’t think that’s I don’t think that’s a very nice of you so uh the other thing
2:21:05
I wanted to say and I think the gentleman left I don’t want it to be
2:21:10
like a personal attack but something that I think should be considered is
2:21:16
when I when I look at the city of Livermore I I or when I look at anything I trust my
2:21:22
own two eyes I don’t look for somebody to aigh in some kind of institution some
2:21:28
kind of establishment of multiple corporations or something like that or the mayor of San Jose because the mayor
2:21:35
of San Jose probably has something similar to say to what our mayor has to say Marsh and I know that he’s very Pro
2:21:41
build and and he wants this development to go through and I’m not interested in hearing their opinions because
2:21:48
um the studies and such that they may or may not site uh have a
2:21:55
financial uh backing that preserving open space is
2:22:01
not and uh so I think what you should focus on instead of these opinions of
2:22:08
some kind of think tanks and such is uh the opinion of the people and I think
2:22:16
the opinion is clear I just hope that you uh take it to heart thanks thank
2:22:28
you okay
2:22:34
Charles hi um I’m Charles I us to go with Tina so I want to talk a little bit
2:22:40
more about the lack of management in Easter green bille because you’re right when you say there when you say no plan
2:22:47
is not on the list and no plan is never going to be on the list because because the the plan you
2:22:54
talk if you look at the county the plan is solar panels um and and battery backup storage
2:23:02
we’ve been contacted by people for both of those on our property we get called by people who want to put their trucks
2:23:08
on our property and you know and we we bought that because I’m I’m from West
2:23:14
Virginia it’s rural I like the country we intended to build our we have a
2:23:19
caretaker weend to build our house when the independent took a picture to show how pretty Easter greenv
2:23:26
was they took a picture of our barn that we store but I don’t want you know the if
2:23:32
you leave it to the county you can wait 20 years and you’ll drive down east you’ll drive down uh Greenville Road and
2:23:40
what you’re going to see is the solar panels and you’re going to see battery back up because that’s that’s what the
2:23:47
county is permitting and if you want to do something for the winery and you live in and you live in the county they won’t
2:23:54
let you say that you wanted to do you want to do a Tasting Room well you can’t
2:24:00
do a tasting room because to do a tasting room you have to have wine processing so you say okay we’ll do wine
2:24:05
processing but in order to do wine processing you have to have sewer you have to have water you bu County won’t
2:24:11
permit it because you don’t have anything to do to deal with the waste water it if uh say you want to have an
2:24:18
event center the you know the people that are on Basco they you know we’ talked to some
2:24:24
of them and and they say it would be great to have a place where we could have our monthly wine wine meeting you
2:24:30
know our wine club meetings and things like that we don’t really have space for that that would be great you talk to the county again you can’t do that because
2:24:37
you don’t have because you don’t have the other things you don’t have those other things because you don’t have the services and I’m not really here to bash
2:24:44
the county they have no way of putting in a sewer system right they have no way of doing those
2:24:49
things and and really we talk about liking the wine industry but the wine industry is in trouble people are taking
2:24:56
out their Vines because and we’ve looked at that right so if you look at what it cost to put in Vines it’s like $35,000
2:25:02
an acre the last 20 years um you can make a couple thousand
2:25:07
dollars a year on those so you do the math it makes no no sense so the people
2:25:12
who put in the vines under the conservation eement are are taking them out I me I mean I know that people here
2:25:19
like they probably know a lot more about the numbers than I do but they’re taking them out and what we really need Tina
2:25:26
and I were not looking we we want to build our house there we want to live there or we did but we don’t want to live next to solar bers so we do but
2:25:34
since we’ve learned about this we really need to think about this whole holistically how do we how do we help
2:25:41
the South Livermore the a wine industry and and what are the things that we can
2:25:46
do the other things to help with that so just want you to you know think more globally then that little patch of
2:25:52
ground that’s that we’re on that you go down my thank you thank
2:25:59
you anybody else um I’m going to make out the last
2:26:04
one so we can move on thank
2:26:15
you I’m Jane Gibson um I I appreciate all of
2:26:22
the effort that is being put into this but I am I am not
2:26:29
understanding and I would like an answer from the committee why you feel we have we have
2:26:38
to expand our boundary for what reason we have as it
2:26:46
was pointed out there’s a lot of um spaces already here that in instead of
2:26:53
the city giving our permit to build a new one tell them no until our existing
2:27:00
structures are filled up and improved and working we’re not building more new
2:27:08
structures I don’t understand why that can’t be done but mainly I’m not
2:27:13
understanding why you all seem to think that we have to move we it’s so
2:27:21
important to Annex or in move the boundary over to the canal it doesn’t
2:27:27
make sense to me I think that that it just doesn’t make sense to me
2:27:35
and a lot of that I don’t know if that property on that’s all of the Greenville area I don’t know if it’s privately
2:27:42
owned or if it’s just open County space or what um so I I I don’t exactly
2:27:51
understand all of that um I was at the um cochi school at that
2:27:59
workshop and um as it’s been said by a couple of people there were eight
2:28:06
tables six of those eight tables did not want to extend the boundary why is that
2:28:13
being ignored thank you for all the stuff you’ve done thank you so much and we really
2:28:21
appreciate your opinions um what you have said really helps uh inform our
2:28:26
understanding of uh the the public sentiment and your considerations your
2:28:32
uh personal uh situation and cases so again we appreciate the kind of input
2:28:38
that you take the time to provide so I’m going to move on and just say that in
2:28:43
interest of time uh I would like to invite our committee members to
2:28:53
chime I know there’s a lot to be said don’t
2:29:02
fight let’s see the map again as we look at the bullet point that’s on the slide so there’s only one bullet point which
2:29:09
is a actually kind of questions here so maybe I maybe I’ll
2:29:17
try to start store some discussion points um
2:29:23
so um my personal journey to this point is I have been Amazed by what the
2:29:30
community has provided to me personally and I think the city is thriving and I
2:29:38
had two children who grew up here uh as an immigrant I benefited um by a lot of
2:29:44
resources here and I appreciate the kind of planning that a city like L
2:29:49
more is providing for us in order for the community to continue to thrive uh
2:29:56
we often have to really think ahead and balance really many many competing
2:30:03
priorities and I would like to have our decisions and thinking to be well supported by uh thorough research and
2:30:12
thorough methodology of obtaining the research in order to inform our citizens
2:30:18
in order to inform our community to make the best decisions that will leave a
2:30:23
legacy once we you know once personally when I’m not here but my children and
2:30:29
our children will benefit so personally I would encourage us
2:30:37
to think about possibly some data with
2:30:42
and without the Greenville Focus area and without that we really don’t have
2:30:50
true a true picture of whether that is going to help with a couple uh
2:30:56
considerations we have in order for the city to continue to thrive um
2:31:01
unfortunately just like personally I have to make money in order to enjoy our
2:31:07
quality of life so tax generating Revenue um quality of jobs I think very
2:31:15
very for that I’m able to enjoy the kind of quality of job not just the job the
2:31:22
quality of job that the city is able to provide me personally so that my family can Thrive so that is also a very
2:31:29
important consideration but we don’t know how to make that decision and um so
2:31:35
we need really to consider whether we can do that without the Greenville is a green or maybe we are confined to really
2:31:44
look inwardly or possibly hourly in order to ensure that the Next Generation
2:31:52
continue to thrive and is that enough to start the conversation I don’t want to
2:31:57
so chair if it is helpful for us to recap again I said at the beginning of the meeting that there will be the
2:32:04
analysis that will come out of this preferred draft preferred land use scenario will include not an option with no east of
2:32:11
green bill so that the committee is better prepared to understand the impacts of
2:32:17
both from a land use standpoint fiscal standpoint all the tools we’ve used to provide the analysis to this point what happens if you don’t include Greenville
2:32:23
what happens if you do and you’ll have the opportunity to revisit all of that information and decide how you want to
2:32:28
move forward with land use uh the land use preferred alternative yeah I personally am satisfied with that
2:32:33
because I would like to have more data and I would like to really believe that
2:32:38
um a lot of consideration is is really for the benefit of the future uh
2:32:44
Vitality of the city and please chining um yes oh yes thank you
2:32:51
save me uh last speaker I was wondering if you can touch on uh you know who who
2:32:57
currently owns it um and what would happen if we don’t extend the boundary is it true that we will see um solar
2:33:04
panels or or will it say exactly how it is for the next 25 years so it’s most of the land out there is privately owned by
2:33:11
a variety of different Property Owners it’s under the jurisdiction of alam County so they have current land use
2:33:17
control and um because there’s existing County zoning and rules uh Property
2:33:24
Owners can make decisions about what to do subject to those rules so they the land may not stay as it is there will be
2:33:31
uh changes in use or exercising certain land use rights such as solar or other
2:33:38
uses that would be permitted under County zoning the other thing I would add so this is out at the Far Eastern
2:33:44
edge of the county and and we do see a number of uses out there that don’t seem to be permitted so I don’t know that the
2:33:51
county is is actively enforcing their land use regulations as we might like
2:33:56
but um Andy is correct there is a set of regulations out there that are supposed to guide the land
2:34:04
uses um just as a clarifying question several of the public comment focused on
2:34:10
there being open space in this EAS can you just point out what which is actually like protect in open space
2:34:17
right now versus just owned by different private owners but and not developed
2:34:22
because they haven’t decided to develop so I’m not sure if there’s any
2:34:28
conservation easements within this area that would make them protected it’s designated for large parel lag and so um
2:34:35
it just hasn’t been developed okay undeveloped but not open
2:34:41
space protected open space in the way that we have talked about those words you cont there’s not yes there’s no deed
2:34:48
restrictions limited to just open space and in fact as Paul alluded to there are
2:34:53
um some industrial zoning zones out there and you can see that there’s also
2:34:58
some industrial activity that as Paul said and is we’ve communicated with County staff are not permitted they’ve
2:35:04
just organically emerged over time the um other thing I would add is
2:35:10
that because there’s an urban growth boundary the city does not extend or is not permitted to extend sewer or water
2:35:17
service to that area and so that also acts as a limiting factor for what can
2:35:22
happen there any development uh permitted under the large parcel egg would need to be developed on a SE
2:35:28
septic system for
2:35:34
example so just one more clarifying question about the process we know that
2:35:39
the next time we evaluate these or it won’t be these it’ll be one alternative
2:35:44
with the research behind it right is that and so there will be an option if
2:35:51
we don’t touch this site if we don’t make any designation um so what we’re
2:35:56
doing tonight is if we were to do anything on that site after a public
2:36:03
vote to extend the urban growth B so there’s multiple steps here what we would want to do more or less yeah so we’re we’re
2:36:10
taking all the input for all the focus areas including Greenville and looking at in a Citywide map we’re going to
2:36:16
evaluate that for a lot of the variables Mr Carell just talked about in addition we’ll evaluate all all those scenarios
2:36:22
without any Greenville to see what the tradeoffs would be but tonight what we need to do is know that not like having
2:36:31
no change to the plan is still on the table yes but we if we assume that we’re
2:36:37
creating the option to have a change and that’s what we’re debating and what do you want us to
2:36:44
study if we have only uh 100
2:36:54
some um Acres available for commercial land from this point uh knowing that 20
2:37:02
25 years um ago until now we used up
2:37:08
over 800 speakers uh what would happen um
2:37:17
I think I know the answer in my head but uh as an economic uh planner um what
2:37:23
would be the impact of not having additional land available for commercial
2:37:30
industrial needs um that’s that’s typ difficult to
2:37:36
say with Precision um but I would say that certainly uh new development
2:37:43
is um less complex than Redevelopment and so if you were looking at something
2:37:51
like not having an east of Greenville alternative you would be saying that we’re basically going to allow for the continued development of the remaining
2:37:57
land um and as has been pointed out uh and I think it is accurate that many of
2:38:02
those Parcels are relatively small they’re not particularly well sized um shaped or located and so you would see
2:38:11
some new development on the remaining empty Parcels um which are relatively few compared to the last 20 years and
2:38:18
then you would have to see Redevelopment uh so something that exists today either in that same land use category or that
2:38:25
could be rezoned through a future General plan Amendment would then result in the construction of the type of um
2:38:31
use that was uh lucrative enough to Warrant a Redevelopment project I think
2:38:37
one of the things that’s important to consider for the group is what are you trying to achieve um with this whole
2:38:43
exercise and when we’re thinking about the entire map if you look at the east of Greenville component the vision for
2:38:49
that is mostly centered around um high quality jobs which is can be Loosely translated into jobs that pay a wage
2:38:56
that’s commensurate with the cost of living in this area or somewhere closer to it we’ve seen a roughly 10% decline
2:39:02
in the number of people who are living and working in this community over the last 15 20 years so now it’s about 20%
2:39:09
of liore residents are also working here um there are a whole host of reasons why people work where they do and live where
2:39:14
they do but if you want to have jobs that someone could afford to live in the community and work in the community you
2:39:22
need to have spaces for that and I think so that vision for East of Greenville of
2:39:27
supporting technology companies high quality jobs um leaning into the Innovation and Science and Technology
2:39:34
identity of the community when we bring back the different Alternatives that have an EA Greenville non green but one
2:39:40
of the things you’ll have to consider is if that’s an important vision for the gpac and for the community where does
2:39:45
that happen if it doesn’t happen there and that’s why I think the the no build option for E of green bill is important
2:39:51
to look at because you’ll have to then rebalance your priorities and understand how that Vision then can be translated
2:39:58
into other parts of the community and achieve some of those same outcomes and what’s the trade-off for
2:40:05
that I’m sorry I’m back on my so boox so on that note um I think we like to go
2:40:12
back to re uh revisit our vision and the community characteristics Community
2:40:18
Values and really think inwardly and see how we want to see our community uh do
2:40:24
we want um the community that has a job housing ratio to be like uh certain city
2:40:33
maybe we should Benchmark them and maybe for the sake of explaining that goal uh
2:40:40
really again the goal of how we want to see ourselves uh one of the metrics
2:40:46
seems to be the job quality job and housing ratio for a good match so maybe
2:40:54
as part of the data Gathering maybe the project team can provide the community a
2:40:59
better definition of a certain uh housing job ratio so that will uh help
2:41:07
us achieve our vision and our goals and
2:41:13
values yeah I think it was done the slide earlier but I’m not sure so I’ll say it again that part of the analysis
2:41:19
that we want to look at is not just a jobs housing ratio which is the number of jobs to the number of housing units
2:41:26
but what are the characteristics of those jobs um we have several thousand
2:41:31
jobs in the community that are retail service jobs Transportation um warehousing jobs that
2:41:36
don’t pay what we consider to be a living wage to move into this community or even to live in this community if you’ve been here for a little while and
2:41:43
so some of what the committee may want to consider is what happens if you look at the analysis of jobs that are
2:41:49
available here not just in number but in terms of those other characteristics um and that can be part
2:41:54
of the analysis I think is one of the filters that we’re planning to to apply to this so that you can make a decision
2:41:59
about comparing Apples to Apples when you’re talking about jobs generated for example through neighborhood serving
2:42:05
commercial retail uses at the Midtown Station area compared with engineering or scientific jobs in an R&D setting
2:42:13
somewhere else in the community
2:42:18
have a question um and we’ve had a lot of meetings and I I’ve forgotten more than
2:42:25
I probably remember from the meeting so might be factor of my age but um can you
2:42:33
remind us to refresh why in this east of Greenville area we picked the entire area why why are we analyzing the entire
2:42:41
area and we subsets of that area considered
2:42:50
so the the committee in general was interested in in the vision that was laid out for East of Greenville and um I
2:42:59
think the idea was to study the entire area uh what we’re looking at now is ref
2:43:04
finding a map that we want to study and so if you wanted to revise uh any of the uses within this
2:43:14
area we certainly could but I I I think the initial uh
2:43:19
evaluation or interest was in the types of jobs that Mr cwell has talked about and um looking to see what maximizing
2:43:27
that land use type might look like the other thing we heard from the committee early on was that um there was not an
2:43:34
interest in residential or or other types of land uses in this area that residential did not seem appropriate
2:43:40
here and so that left us with job generating uses which is is what the
2:43:45
committee ended up uh suggesting for these Maps so that’s a bit of how we got
2:43:51
here but we are interested today again to refine based on of the comment that
2:43:56
you heard tonight that Joanna talked about receiving from the um from the
2:44:02
thousand people that we talk to at uh 30 or 40 different public uh popups and
2:44:07
events and activities so um and then obviously your own experience what you’ve learned on the committee we’re
2:44:13
looking for you to synthesize that and and provid us some Direction a part of the conversation also was the aqueduct
2:44:20
being just a natural barrier for this just to go from Greenville all the way
2:44:25
to the aqueduct and then in terms of the the space right I think that was more your question was why this why so big
2:44:32
yeah I think that was yeah so it more geographical than the what the the what the more the geographical question I
2:44:38
think because that line along the border is the aquifer and it’s kind of right that is the South Bay Aqueduct
2:44:44
so that AAL boundary very correct on the Eastern Edge and then we heard from the
2:44:50
tri valley consy early on that some of the property on the southern boundary
2:44:55
was uh more suitable for uh Wine Country related uses and so you see the wine
2:45:00
catalist site in each of the Alternatives based on that feedback yeah because the whole area is
2:45:07
quite large I mean and some of the speakers were referring to lands that are really in the purview of the range
2:45:14
Land Trust they’re up in the hills the canal um is there because that was the
2:45:21
low point so you know they ran the canal where it was the path of least resistance so The Logical buildout of
2:45:29
the city has always been that Canal before the urban growth boundaries were put in it was designated the urban
2:45:37
Reserve um I had no issue in 2020 when they put the urban they just drew the
2:45:42
straight line down because because you know they put over a th000 Acres of
2:45:48
Farmland inside the urban growth boundary and the desire was to infill
2:45:53
that land first and then you wouldn’t have you know the voters though maintain
2:45:59
the right that at some point when you’ve used up all the land uh you know
2:46:04
building houses and the outlet malls and attracting businesses um that we would
2:46:10
um we could go back to the urban Reserve if the citizens wanted to do it but the
2:46:16
the canal really marks the end of the city once you get past the canal the slopes become extremely steep extremely
2:46:23
fast I mean the many of the slopes are so steep you couldn’t even plant Vineyards on them because there are
2:46:29
Hillside ordinance as it relates to how steep you can you can’t Terrace anymore
2:46:34
that’s a bad practice for erosion so this is the the piece that the city has
2:46:41
long identified as where they would put Industrial around the airport which is
2:46:46
mostly done and east of the city now east of the city used to be what’s
2:46:51
Midtown it’s a little hard having this conversation before Midtown because Midtown was the light Industrial Area it
2:46:59
was east of the city but then the city annexed the labs and all of a sudden
2:47:05
what was the east of the city is now Midtown and the new east of the city is what’s left on the east side the west
2:47:12
side of the canal because that was is always the topographical limit and and
2:47:18
Livermore sits in a valley it sits in the Livermore Valley Watershed and that is where the
2:47:24
Watershed drains to and that’s why the canal is there so that it’s not a big
2:47:30
area in the context of everything we have all the way up through the Altamont but it is the area that that the city
2:47:38
has long looked at doesn’t mean you have to develop it I I agree with chairman Shang that you know i’ I want to see the
2:47:46
the no development option as well because I think it has implications um if we if we stop
2:47:53
converting if we stop infill housing on light industrial land then we’re still
2:47:59
going to have to hit the Reena numbers we were all excited when we heard that look we’re good for Reena with infill
2:48:06
housing not only this cycle but probably for several Cycles Beyond it’s not the
2:48:11
10 years Miss King talked about it it could well be 40 or 60 years before the
2:48:16
city would need to go outside of infill if you don’t build Midtown if you don’t
2:48:23
put residential and that’s satisfying the vast majority of our Arena requirements for this cycle that were
2:48:29
that were now you filed for and the ones after that then um there’s only one
2:48:36
place to go and and that is North Livermore and that’s where the urban
2:48:42
growth boundary was a battle over it was over we’re going into North Livermore um but measure D sunsets if if the city
2:48:50
can’t achieve its Arena numbers as infill it can go back into North
2:48:56
Livermore uh measure D just simply forced the city to look at infill and higher density prior to taking taking
2:49:03
that step so you know I think we came here because I think the vast majority
2:49:10
of people and the citizens would rather continue to build a neighborhood like
2:49:15
Midtown then um and replace the light industrial land east of the city which
2:49:21
has always been our policy for multiple General plans then try to go in there
2:49:27
and refight the battle of the north the south is under conservation so
2:49:32
you’re saying you’re saying if we can get the residential in Midtown right
2:49:37
there’s no pressure to go EAS res no and it was never the city’s
2:49:42
policy to go with housing East it was always to put the light industrial East
2:49:48
and at the airport and put the the housing in transit oriented places where
2:49:54
people can you know access connectivity and buses and Bs and things off is to
2:50:00
get Midtown available that Light commercial goes
2:50:07
east basically or it’s future replacement like commercial goes east so
2:50:13
that midtown’s available to avoid going nor to
2:50:19
meet yeah you or we I mean obviously we have lots of options the staff knows them better than us including we we have
2:50:26
state mandated housing requirements so we have to build housing I think many of us are here because we believe the city
2:50:33
needs more affordable housing but affordable housing is a two-way street you have to have jobs that allow the
2:50:40
local people to afford the houses in their own Community um we we don’t know what the job housing match is I’d like to see
2:50:47
benchmarks of other communities what is it in Santa Rosa what is there are other towns like here San Louis abiso you know
2:50:55
that are kind of Fringe Coastal Wine Country areas um but you know from my
2:51:02
vantage point the Census Data came out I did a cursory study of it our ratio should probably be 2 to one because the
2:51:10
average um house in Livermore is so expensive both both people have to
2:51:16
work and so the the idea that you know you can afford your house on one income
2:51:21
is not um yeah there are some fortunate people who can do that um not many of
2:51:27
them actually live in Livermore though I mean so you know that’s that’s what Woodside is built for in Atherton um
2:51:35
this is uh you know it’s it’s a challenge to afford a home here and over the years in the last 20 years we’ve
2:51:41
lost half the people who both live and work in liver we’ve driven them out the lab hires lots
2:51:48
of people and you know I live on Greenville I see where they go They’re not driving West they’re driving east
2:51:55
because they work they live in Trac and mountainous because those homes are relatively affordable for the jobs you
2:52:01
have in Livermore so how do we attract better quality jobs we have to build more affordable housing but we also have to
2:52:08
have jobs that pay better and that’s not been the history of this town
2:52:15
and Brandon knows all that because I think at the last meeting we had with the wine Growers and others you’re
2:52:21
you’re spouting off the details about um what what the jobs pay here versus what
2:52:27
they pay elsewhere it was
2:52:34
sobering and I tell you Wine Country jobs don’t pay well either I mean there’s um there’s not an employee in my
2:52:42
family’s company who wouldn’t be well there’s two that would not be eligible to live in Eden Housing
2:52:50
downtown but we’re the best employer in town in the line country but those jobs
2:52:56
you know Tasting Room managers make $40,000 a year how do you afford a
2:53:03
house on 40,000 a year you got to have a spouse who also works I know I’m out of
2:53:09
order but I’ll be quick I’m sorry I’m sorry okay that’s key within the committee uh discussion sorry um any
2:53:17
other committee comments a question right uh just to give us an idea of
2:53:22
what’s happening in the county land uh you mentioned uh
2:53:27
unpermitted activities there can you be more specific what are the activities
2:53:33
there that are not permitted and why is County not well I know that you know probably can’t answer for the county but
2:53:40
is it too East for them to really care about this portion of Al the county so
2:53:47
we met with County staff as part of our engagement just normal course of operations I let them know what the city
2:53:54
and the committee is contemplating and they acknowledged that this area has
2:53:59
had several code enforcement issues over the years um and those things are
2:54:06
activities like dumping illegal storage those types of uses um going on right
2:54:12
now yeah and some of them been cleaned up some of them are still ongoing um
2:54:17
they didn’t we’d have to do more you know ask more questions about what exactly is going on um and I wouldn’t
2:54:24
want to speculate on why or why not um code enforcement is going on out there um it’s a large County they have limited
2:54:31
staff resources but and just to add in this is is more
2:54:38
editorializing but most of the time people will seek the most productive use of their assets
2:54:45
and when they don’t have a pathway to legitimate productive uses of their assets and other things happen uh until
2:54:52
there’s code enforcement and they certainly we would all like to see more enforcement from the county of what is and is not allowed out there um but they
2:54:59
have a number of competing priorities in Alam County as you may have guessed um and so we do see things like in you know
2:55:05
dumping dirt fill and other types of roadway storage and things I’ve seen it having been out there it’s it’s not
2:55:12
great and we’d like to see that stop irrespective of the east of Greenville conversation um but I think that is the
2:55:18
motivating factor behind it is that people can make money doing it so is there like the any information
2:55:27
on how the land owners um preference would be to be part of the city so that
2:55:34
like um that that land is better managed and can have things like
2:55:42
sewer or do they want to stay in the county so it’s it’s mixed we’ve been meeting with some Property Owners some
2:55:48
property owners are interested um we want to hear from them about what their long-term plans are for their property
2:55:54
just like in in all of the focus areas um others are intrigued but not
2:56:00
yet sure that’s what they want to do and others may not want to do it at all so we’re just still as Brandon said taking
2:56:08
property owner feedback and it’s it is trickling in so if we present an option to expand
2:56:16
the urban go boundary but keep the same designation that that County currently has on that land is that maybe a better
2:56:23
option for the time being well that that’s really up to the
2:56:30
feedback of the committee to to take a look at that um if
2:56:38
you if you brought it into the city with a large parcel ad designation uh this
2:56:44
the city would perhaps be more proximate and and better able to monitor the land uses from a code enforcement perspective
2:56:51
um you wouldn’t you wouldn’t see much change beyond that so I guess the question is is that is that a worthwhile
2:56:58
thing to do to add a clarifying point just because the urban growth found moves
2:57:03
does not put it in the jurisdiction of the city the land would also have to be annexed and that’s a process unto
2:57:13
itself
2:57:19
I want to make sure I uh we all have the opportunity to speak on this topic I
2:57:26
think there will be some action needed so we can uh really address other Focus
2:57:32
areas I know it’s been a very long day and I had an 8:00 meeting this morning so I’ve been
2:57:39
working anyway just like you have don’t open a copy
2:57:47
luy you we should havee now okay uh please
2:57:55
um any other comments from the committee I’m really sorry uh that we really want to follow the procedure and I don’t need
2:58:02
to really dismiss any comments and I apologize for I just had one quick question in terms of the sports park uh
2:58:09
are there any other Alternatives if you know or is this really the only alternative for sports
2:58:16
park in terms of like if we decide you know if we do have to have one in this area if it is better to have it like on
2:58:22
the North side so perhaps go back to the map
2:58:29
um if I recall I think there were a couple of reasons for the interest in the sports park one is it’s something
2:58:35
we’ve heard uh from from residents within the community that there’s a need for the second piece was there was some
2:58:41
thought that it might be an amenity for people working in this area and especially those uh who can think about
2:58:49
where to locate high-tech jobs like the idea of locating those jobs near um near
2:58:55
near amenities uh in terms of the land itself the Northern Area is much Hillier
2:59:03
and uh and is will be more challenging to develop
2:59:08
uh just as it would be more challenging to develop industrial uses there it may be more challenging to develop a sports
2:59:15
park you’d have we’d have to take a look at it and and take a look at what the size might be it’s it’s a rather large
2:59:20
area so it doesn’t mean that you couldn’t um and in terms of where else in the community um it’s an interesting
2:59:28
question and the city itself is not really in the Parks business right it’s LPD which is a separate entity that is
2:59:35
in the is in the Parks business I I think they’ve heard as well that the community is interested in additional
2:59:41
parks and additional Sports Parks uh um there are not too many large Parcels
2:59:48
within the city itself that are um easily convertible to a sports park um
2:59:54
and I’m I’m not much more of an expert view on that I don’t know if there’s additional comment on Parks or
3:00:00
LPD not on the parks LPD fece except to say that you absolutely don’t have to keep it in here if you don’t want to it
3:00:07
was added as we wanted to create three different Alternatives that gave the community something to react to gave you
3:00:12
all something to react to but if you feel that site is better utilized for something else that’s more consistent
3:00:19
with the vision it’s completely within your prerogative and we we’ll take your direction on that we can move it North
3:00:24
we can get rid of it we can do whatever the committee develops consensus around is the parks department prepared to fund
3:00:32
it without seeking Community benefit from the
3:00:38
city so um we have not had extensive conversations with LPD
3:00:44
I suspect that what you would do if you wanted an amenity within this District
3:00:50
would be to require all of the land owners to pay a a proportional fee
3:00:56
towards the development of that Community amenity that that could go towards open space that could go towards
3:01:03
a variety of different things that are amenities if if you wanted to have them
3:01:08
the development could help pay for those and and it potentially could help pay siphon to siphon funds
3:01:14
from conservation is going to put us at odds with the conservation Community green Bel Alliance Sierra Club is is
3:01:22
whenever the cities have annexed open space like Pleasanton and Livermore did in the South the funds from that were
3:01:29
used to acquire the 5,000 Acres of conservation easement there’s not an acre under conservation easement in this
3:01:36
area now and there’s a reason there was never any funds for it because it was never meant to be conserved if it was
3:01:43
meant to to be conserved the 5,000 Acres that are entirely in the South some of
3:01:48
them would have been in the East but they weren’t because that’s not what the plan was and so now we’re trying to
3:01:56
build a new green belt and we want a wildlife Corridor and all these other situations we want to preserve the view
3:02:03
corridors um the the money from that from this development is going to be
3:02:09
required to fund those activities it’s you know you won’t end
3:02:14
up with an Eastern green belt around Livermore which would you know you have to buy the development rights off the
3:02:21
lands right if you want to stop development and if you want to clean up the the toxic dumps and the debris
3:02:27
burning sites and the pallet dumps and you know there’s lots of stuff going on
3:02:33
there there’s trailer parks and a lot of vehicle storage because they leak Diesel and they’re not allowed to be parked
3:02:38
anywhere in the city um or even at the wineries we got got our inspection Monday they come out
3:02:46
every year so that’s why everybody’s moving their vehicles out there we don’t
3:02:51
but I know plenty who do because those are extremely toxic things that are that
3:02:56
are going on there so to your comment so how do you clean that up if you take the
3:03:02
money away from the conservation Community I was just pointing out and I’m not suggesting that you do that so
3:03:08
there there will be Revenue if you develop this there would be revenue on available for the types of uses you’re
3:03:15
talking about and if you want to concentrate them on open space reservation and clean up and those kinds
3:03:21
of things uh certainly you could remove the sports park as a potential cost
3:03:27
um uh that could compete right yeah or if the parks District sees the need and
3:03:33
wants to fund it then it’s that’s a horse of a different color it’d be a lot easier to put it in I don’t think you
3:03:39
can put it next to the highway because you know I I’m old now but I I had kids
3:03:45
um we hated playing in Tracy we hated playing in Dublin we did like playing in
3:03:50
Danville that wasn’t bad they just had to level that you know that soccer field that’s out there where they basically
3:03:56
cut the mountain down but the kids got very fit running up and down the stairs took me a half hour but uh you
3:04:05
know that’s you know I don’t I don’t know if you can build another sports park next to a highway um but the data
3:04:12
you’ve shared with this committee keeps talking about particulate matter and all of this and I I interpreted that as
3:04:19
that’s a non-starter yes if it were feasible we would have stuck it up and lost the seat this
3:04:25
court so we did have some conversations with LPD as part of this process showed
3:04:32
them the different Alternatives they were open to the idea of a sports park um just because they’ve signaled that
3:04:38
there is a community need for those types of fields but they also did say um
3:04:44
that development Park fees collected from development could be reinvested into the existing system to to provide
3:04:51
those opportunities for additional Sports and play so to Brandon’s Point um
3:04:56
it’s kind of up to the committee if this is a appropriate location for one it doesn’t have to be you can choose not to
3:05:02
have a sports facility in in this
3:05:07
location I recommend I recommend we go back to the bullets and then we move for what I I
3:05:15
know that again um we don’t seem to have enough data as far as feasibility so
3:05:20
that’s look at you know Source part I do recognize it’s the need Poss we we just
3:05:26
don’t know where that that’s so that again a lack of data so that’s think about that so please help us uh move
3:05:33
forward the agenda what would you like us to do I think we’d like to see if you want
3:05:40
to make any changes to to the to to what we have on the screen and what we would
3:05:46
study if you want to make any modifications at all whatever you’d like to change you can make it as a
3:05:53
suggestion and the committee can talk about it you want to go B back or we can start there okay but the first all is
3:06:00
not V to write certainly it could be I mean this is what we interpreted from
3:06:06
the three tables that got together at a previous meeting the workshop where the committee members met as Joanna talked
3:06:12
about the the closest thing to consensus was to start with alternative a but tonight
3:06:20
if you all decide you want to start with b or c or some other thing you could certainly do that as well let’s take a vote if we don’t have
3:06:27
enough vote clearly we need another alternative to start with does that make sense the lack of consensus means it’s
3:06:33
not a good starting point okay does that make sense okay
3:06:40
um I I’m going to ask to raise your hand and for bullet one if you feel that
3:06:45
alternative a is a really good starting point with modifications again more data
3:06:50
to support any you know changes and please raise your
3:06:55
hand just start with alternative
3:07:01
a thank you okay um second um again I’m not sure North is
3:07:10
really I don’t know maybe I’m Mish hearing we just we just don’t know so we
3:07:15
could modify this and first ask the question of do you want to include a sports part and then we could talk about
3:07:21
location okay e Okay add a sports park
3:07:26
period add Sports Park question mark add a sports park question mark but we we
3:07:32
going to vote whether we should add a sports park how about that just regardless of the location cuz you’re
3:07:38
going to help us so I’m going to vote CU my two of my children both my children love sports and they had to dve we had
3:07:45
to drive so far four only four okay so is that
3:07:55
enough no that’s not enough so those most part okay that’s good I respect
3:08:01
that okay um research campus um again we don’t
3:08:08
know really we’re not talking about the size um but we are talking
3:08:14
about okay so should we decide between a and C exactly what size we’re talking
3:08:21
about because I don’t know if you know alternative C is a direct move with that size can we
3:08:28
commment on that what is the good size why don’t we let the committee why don’t
3:08:34
you guys work that out what’s that the see with the
3:08:41
resarch back discuss about what we heard was let’s choose the
3:08:47
largest research part out of the three options okay and so I guess the question
3:08:53
for the committee is are you okay with that okay that’s both first on the size
3:09:00
I would just say on the discussion what’s wrong with starting with a smaller one and if if the labs whoever
3:09:06
is going to sponsor the park they could buy the other Parcels around them and I
3:09:13
mean because it’s it’s all a technology park at one level or another if it if
3:09:18
it’s owned by a university and deel or whoever runs the
3:09:23
labs these days um you know can’t they decide that just take it take it out of
3:09:30
the light industrial space yep that’s absolutely one of the options on the table I’d also point out but I like
3:09:35
keeping a little piece in just because I think the community has to be focused that this is a need that we’ve heard
3:09:43
repeatedly about having an open campus and just in the interest of because we
3:09:49
have the introduction of of mixed use alternative as something sort of in between or a new one in the Vasco area
3:09:55
I’d also just offer to respectfully remind the committee that we have other Industrial Place types as well so if you
3:10:01
had a goal of higher job generating uses but still in the commercial industrial
3:10:06
range you have the mixed industrial office product type which is more R&D
3:10:12
and life sciences and Tech focused than the general industrial is but not quite as much as as potentially restrictive as
3:10:19
the research campus so you have some gradations you can play with here as well if that’s something that you’re interested in but we don’t have that
3:10:25
color we don’t have you you don’t on this in these Alternatives but it exists
3:10:32
as one of the place types we’ve used in other places obviously does that mean we should it just means it’s one of the
3:10:37
options for you just like we introduced a mixed use residential commercial industrial into the Vasco row concept
3:10:43
your full range of place types is available so if you didn’t want to have basic General industrial and research
3:10:49
campus as your only two binary options there are other things you could consider well we spent a couple hours on
3:10:56
this I don’t know four or five meetings I think the one thing we all I think there was consensus is we don’t want
3:11:03
distribution centers like the ones being built in Tracy because they don’t bring high paying jobs or the or the density
3:11:09
of jobs there’s too few jobs right because they’re automated um I’d like
3:11:15
to please tell me about the procedure I’d like to um suggest that we keep it
3:11:20
the you know designation of research
3:11:27
campus um that not lose that Flav sure that’s one that’s the bullet point the
3:11:32
third bullet point is I think two parts one is to have the research campus which is clearly stated here and then the
3:11:39
option C of the research campus relates to the size and comme member K ask but now we’re
3:11:45
talking about a fourth bullet point that would say all the things you know because you know the technical language
3:11:51
is we want the high-paying job kind of research and development not the stuff being built
3:11:57
and Tracy I would suggest you answer the first question first is do you want a research Park and then I would suggest
3:12:03
we go yes to Brandon’s question which is do you want to add another type of land
3:12:09
use to evaluate which is perhaps focused on hired and I’m not suggesting that only the
3:12:15
research campus could become a mixed industrial office any of the land could become one of those those Place types
3:12:21
that we discussed so you can answer the first question first and then move on to the other ones that’s that’s first just say we want to keep the flavor of the
3:12:29
research part and have a vote on that have one more comment oh question on the
3:12:35
research uh I’d like to start to say that um I’m in favor of a research part
3:12:42
but my question question is and I know this question has come up from uh the community uh about visibility of
3:12:49
research uh being done inside uh the open open Camp I would recommend
3:12:56
separating those two um yeah but just yeah just to answer the community whether it’s Peaceable not or I think
3:13:04
they both can be pursued but they both could be rejected so good there are just so many moving parts so why don’t we
3:13:10
focus on whether this Focus area should have a research campus you know um just
3:13:18
adding another variable which ISC pass
3:13:23
theate so I think that first question Cherry to your point is show of hands should there be a research Park
3:13:30
designation yeah but I appreciate the the idea that we need to look at all the
3:13:35
variables that’s yes thank you so second question yeah is which alternative do
3:13:43
you want or some other sizing option that’s there I I have a question just for
3:13:50
reference I mean what kind of size are we talking on alternative a versus C in real terms like in acres I don’t know
3:13:57
that top my head
3:14:05
80 as big as the madeup winery is going to move
3:14:11
in
3:14:18
so that say that on the micop
3:14:24
I so for scale the small red commercial piece in alternative a is about 7 to 10
3:14:31
acres so per scale what shopping centers in Livermore
3:14:37
of that size the Nill Portola
3:14:43
it’s about the size of a commercial center but trying to extrapolate it looks small but so so to answer your
3:14:50
question that’s 7 Acres and the small smallest research campus is four or five
3:14:56
times size that can you remind us uh the rationale behind wanting to take
3:15:02
alternative C for the size that is the feedback we heard from
3:15:11
the the each of the groups conveyed a different uh feedback on the
3:15:18
research campus and that’s what we’ve interpreted is move alternative C do
3:15:24
remember whoever recommended moving C to do I think it’s just people the the
3:15:30
coloring of the the charts is kind of what they’re deriving that from and we can go back and probably look at some of
3:15:36
them but some of them had it some of them didn’t but it was really just like looking at what the group started with
3:15:42
with like you know and then how they colored it in they kind of just realized our Stephanie from our group was the
3:15:49
smallest yeah I remember that so I was curious how this even then too big sum
3:15:55
it’s true this is why we’re going to so if you don’t like that this is our I
3:16:02
think we were looking at the coloring of your maps and some of your comments and trying toct maybe was confusing even to
3:16:08
ourselves so we did Miss I just want to make sure we miss some important
3:16:13
and this is why we’re doing this exercise to confirm that we’re getting your direction correct okay so one more
3:16:20
time do we have any memory of why someone might have prefer alternative
3:16:28
SE I mean I’m going to be honest I don’t think that matters if if we all come to a consensus that we like a smaller one
3:16:34
that someone can grow into and purchase around it doesn’t matter what we discussed last time we can all vote and say let’s start with a smaller one I
3:16:40
agree I was just trying make will be somehow and that quick quick glance so don’t hold me to this the small research
3:16:48
campus is about 50 acres plus or minus kind St okay so I’m going to vote to
3:16:55
strike alternative C part of it but just say ensure the you know Spirit
3:17:00
designation of research campus without from alternativ SAR alternative a would you
3:17:07
focus us towards alternative a then okay um that’s a very question do we say
3:17:15
alternative a is a good starting point can we vote on that we already did well
3:17:21
just just be sure and how big is the parcel 40 45 acres is I think it should be small looks like you want a
3:17:28
smaller I know the size of the par below it’s the smallest one yeah somewhere between 50 and 60 quick Google Map
3:17:35
sketch so plus okay let’s I just mod say starting point alternative a I’m
3:17:40
completely personally so I think we have a yes alternative so strike the from alternative
3:17:47
SE do you want to ask your other question um well as as Andy is
3:17:53
Whispering to me with no Sports Park and the start with alternative a and then a
3:17:58
smaller version of the research campus you essentially are saying go with alternative
3:18:04
aily right with with respect to the bullets that are on the slide so if you wanted
3:18:10
something that deviated from alter as you see it here we need to add those things to the slide to give us direction
3:18:16
to make changes right so I think there are two questions one was one
3:18:25
Brandon two questions I think remaining one is do you want to add a land use
3:18:31
type that is a business Commercial type that perhaps brings some higher paying jobs I think the second question before
3:18:38
we reach the end is uh are you okay with the open space shown in alternative a or do you want to
3:18:44
change the open space designation can we write those two bullets up just so I I
3:18:50
think those are very important questions just so we understand one at a time one
3:18:55
is the um mixed industrial office that and that
3:19:02
that is currently not on the maap we would whether we like that flexibility is what we trying to decide would you
3:19:08
like us to evaluate some of that that’s right okay the second uh the open space uh distribution uh yes
3:19:17
thank you so one time we may also need to add something
3:19:23
to the ad mixed industrial office because for us to prepare a map we need to know approximately how much and approximately where what are you looking
3:19:29
to change but we can start with the do it or don’t do it and then figure that part of it out okay so the spirit of
3:19:36
that is so that if there’s a need to increase the research campus there a
3:19:42
interest in um other drivers that will offer
3:19:47
flexibility I think the reason to contemplate a mixed industrial office use is because it would be somewhat less
3:19:54
restrictive from a zoning standpoint than the research Park use might be um
3:20:00
but perhaps more restrictive than a general office would be in terms of ensuring that your your uses were higher
3:20:06
density so it’s going to be somewhere between a general industrial and a research park that’s where your mixed industrial office is from a job density
3:20:12
and likely job quality standpoint yes the key is quality okay
3:20:20
um so vote yes and no is a binary
3:20:25
vote then we can talk about if it’s yes then we can move on to talk about how
3:20:30
much and where so binary go for adding the the help to have quality job
3:20:38
so I’m for it so C the distinction we have now does
3:20:45
support it this is just making it a little bit more defined in terms
3:20:50
of what would go there correct so the the general industrial allows variety of
3:20:56
different types of industrial use a wider net it’s it’s a right it’s a a
3:21:02
more inclusive I’ve got it here the general industrial says includes manufacturing warehousing R&D recycling
3:21:09
facilities and heavy industry that uses stores or processes Raw materials so that’s your most broad industrial
3:21:14
category it also includes things like R&D and and uh manufacturing but it
3:21:19
doesn’t necessarily preclude the other things of course that can be changed as we go through if we go through specific
3:21:26
planning all kinds of things can happen there the industrial office designation includes research and development
3:21:32
high-tech processing uses such as Life Sciences but not heavy industrial uses such as traditional manufacturing
3:21:40
MH more questions I’m sorry I forget to turn my head this
3:21:45
way so I mean in terms of the wear right I mean we don’t want to get rid of all
3:21:52
of the general that’s a do the binary first cuz if we say no that’ll be done
3:21:58
okay is that okay so the wear is next would that be okay just okay binary yes
3:22:05
or no you want to have for mix for mix industrial office at the broadest
3:22:12
definition of okay so that’s answer is yes okay please would Prelude uh
3:22:19
warehousing mixed industrial office would in its current definition preclude warehousing and other heavy industrial
3:22:26
uses yes I I would offer to this group that you’re not actually creating policy
3:22:32
tonight you’re giving us some things to look at so if it turned out that we said do mixed industrial office everywhere
3:22:39
and the feasibility analysis said you can do some but you really aren’t going to have that everywhere and in which
3:22:45
case you’d be rendering the land you know unusable we would bring that information back to you so you’re going
3:22:51
to get a chance to tweak it again so this is more you telling us what you want us to look at and what you might
3:22:57
prioritize all things being equal and then you can react to that when we bring the analysis back yeah I think we have a
3:23:03
common voice that really the quality of job how we generate them is really of
3:23:09
essence so ASA I’m sorry I interrupted you so rude uh no um what I was thinking
3:23:15
what my thought was when we talk about like the spacing and we don’t want to necessarily want to replace all the
3:23:20
industrial General in that area because some of it’s already Zone industrial General we can maintain it enhance it so
3:23:26
on and so forth um the the space that would that makes the most sense in terms
3:23:34
of creating like a a Synergy between the two is obviously this lower part below
3:23:39
is that Patterson path that wrote or is that but yeah below Patterson past next
3:23:45
to the labs next to the Future uh campus re research zoning space if we were to
3:23:51
go that route that would to me makes the most sense at least starting from South going north where that line would go
3:23:58
just stop I don’t have really a preference but I I think starting with the bottom and working your way up for
3:24:04
that uh industrial office makes the most sense if we were going to go forward with
3:24:10
it is it possible for you to do the analysis of how much and then we can take that and put it where and where in
3:24:18
a future point I feel like it’s hard to really determ right now looking at this how much and where we’re just looking at
3:24:24
like a plan view I I think if you told us we’d like you to look at 50 to 100 acres and we’d
3:24:31
like you to do it in the in the southern area then that at least gives us something to analyze and we can help you
3:24:37
evaluate its feasibility and whether more would be uh viable or not yeah I
3:24:42
think that’s right I think if you don’t have a strong preference on where to put it or not to put it then we
3:24:49
can put it where we think it makes sense or perhaps consistent with committee members strout’s comments about surrounding the research Park and then
3:24:55
when we do the feasibility analysis if it turns out that you could accommodate more of that than we’ve planned for then
3:25:01
you can alter your map and if it turns out that it’s less then you can also alter your map okay yeah I think it
3:25:06
makes sense to strad the research part with the question of how much is I think
3:25:12
okay we can take a stab at it that would be helpful we don’t really have that that analysis sitting here
3:25:18
sure I’m going to jump in a couple hopefully quick things um one I don’t
3:25:27
think um like you were saying about the I mean I think broadly there’s a
3:25:32
consensus but I don’t think the vision like for me um has anything to do with
3:25:39
job creation as far as anything about east of Greenville um I
3:25:46
would take most everything off of any of these Alternatives um I
3:25:55
think is there a scenario when we were talking about taking stabs at things and
3:26:00
feasibility um where most if not all of
3:26:07
this we went like the other way with it that like it became um all
3:26:16
restored um open space and you know we got Tri Valley Conservancy involved and
3:26:22
I’m talking as far I mean I would go all the way up to 580 personally especially if you know
3:26:29
there’s talking like Wildlife thorough fars and everything but if the city’s like we would never look at that than
3:26:37
you know something as far north as like opposite National Drive that
3:26:44
everything south of that um would truly be an Endeavor in
3:26:52
um preserving all of the um generational ranches and Ranch lands um equestrian
3:27:01
centers um and what would then continue to point itself towards um being an
3:27:09
actual um Gateway at least um as far as Facing East obviously
3:27:17
there’s no wine country Gateway driving by National Labs it just will never
3:27:24
happen having said that um you know you certainly do away with it with any sort
3:27:30
of development any of these Alternatives renders any sort of wine country Gateway talk NL and void in my
3:27:39
opinion um just with how much you would you have to physically drive through um
3:27:45
and I think I’ve made kind of my stance clear the last couple years but I I’m just trying to understand if there was
3:27:52
some sort of alternative um which to be clear my alternative would be um some
3:28:00
sort of restorative Endeavor um to where all of all of that shaded is green or
3:28:07
dark green or some sort of green variation or I I think there’s probably a couple spots along the way where some
3:28:16
roadside um you know really thoughtful kind of wine country uses um were put in
3:28:24
um so I guess like part of me is just almost getting a Vibe check as far as am
3:28:31
I the only person who sits on the committee with that type of view like is everybody else like yeah the answer is
3:28:38
somewhere in here so well so we have that teed up as the
3:28:45
next we have that teed up as the next conversation and I think it absolutely so appreciate everything you’ve said
3:28:51
yeah I I would suggest that we finalize the totally how much of this other land
3:28:57
use the the commercial mixed office do do you want to have or do you want us to study would you like us to study 100
3:29:02
acres or something I would suggest we finish that okay and then your comments just now can tee us off into the the
3:29:09
final question which is how how much open space do you want to have yeah B okay
3:29:15
U yeah that makes sense so yeah totally makes s make sense to me
3:29:22
so um I like the idea that really we haven’t had a chance to look at the map
3:29:29
very closely so thank you for bringing that up and now looking at how much and
3:29:35
where if you go back to the purple yes we have quite a bit of purple and some
3:29:41
that will possibly be changed to mixed industrial and office and so now it’s a
3:29:46
balance of uh the purple versus um the
3:29:51
mix and maybe I can ask a question that there’s quite a bit of uh General
3:29:58
industrial uh in that huge space and what kind of jobs um and what kind of uh
3:30:04
quality job that will help us really create that ratio that you know that
3:30:11
would be most realistic so it’s it’s a difficult question to answer and the reason why is
3:30:18
because while General industrial permits the widest range of uses including some
3:30:23
that may be lower in terms of overall jobs numbers and what we would consider job quality um it doesn’t always mean
3:30:30
that’s what you’ll get um we actually had for example a very wide range of uses including distribution centers and
3:30:36
all kinds of other things on the Oaks business park and we ended up with gillick so it depends on what the market
3:30:43
does um if you want to preclude those things to ensure that you only get some
3:30:49
of the higher job density uses then that’s where you might want to say we’re only going to allow the mixed industrial
3:30:55
office here and then we’ll allow some general industrial which may include
3:31:01
some less desirable quote less desirable uses uh in other parts of the area um
3:31:07
for flexibility sake um but it’s really up to the committee there’s no perfect formula for that it’s you could say do
3:31:14
everything that’s not Research Park in mixed industrial office and test that and see what the feasibility is I think
3:31:20
I know what the answer to that question is going to be which is it’ll take longer to build out because the kinds of
3:31:25
companies that fit into uh that mix of uses is just smaller than by definition
3:31:31
than the broader set because they’re a subset um so I think it’s we we can sort
3:31:37
of just pick an area or you can pick an area and say do everything everything below Patterson Pass to Lupin other than
3:31:44
the research Park and study that and at least we’ll have a feasibility concept at that point where you say we can only
3:31:52
support actually half of that or you could support more and then you can change your map yeah I I see your point
3:31:58
so really feasibility and really um sometimes drives these kind of decisions
3:32:03
or we just be you know dreamy right I mean what happens is if you don’t have
3:32:09
demand for that type of space then your as you all remember your residual land
3:32:14
value will go to negative because you can’t afford the cost of construction for that type of a facility so that’s
3:32:21
how all feasibility works and so we’d have to go out and determine what’s what’s likely to be the Demand right now
3:32:27
we’re at you know a particular point in the market we’ll be at a different point in the market later and so it can be you
3:32:34
know a little bit of um of Art and and not so much science but I think we can put some reasonable estimates behind
3:32:39
that so personally I would say that that’s a balancing act you know you you want to create quality jobs and at the
3:32:47
same time you want to be realistic about How likely all these quality jobs can be
3:32:53
created with companies not that are not here yet right so could we just ask you
3:32:59
to kind of find a good balance between feasibility and our sort of vision and
3:33:05
ideal that we have because looking at lots of purple I’m a little bit worried now so there’s a lot of purple the
3:33:13
densities will be very different though based on the topography the densities if the use
3:33:19
types are different or in the different areas yeah that’s right some will be high density but some are going to be
3:33:25
very low absolutely and so the the underlying conditions like that will also have an influence on what types of
3:33:31
facilities can be built um and you have very large colored polygons on there but
3:33:37
with underneath those is topography and all kinds of other things that are happening so what’s that access issues
3:33:44
yeah access issues so you know who knows so I think that’s this is meant to be to
3:33:50
give you something to respond to but you almost certainly will not have this widespread of development in those areas
3:33:56
that’s right okay so let’s go back to the bullets how do we verbalize
3:34:05
um we’ve actually lost the internet so we cannot make changes to the slide at the moment um but we did hear you say
3:34:13
that we wanted to add mix in industrial office and it sounds like we’re looking
3:34:19
at um around the Patterson Pass Road area and we’ll bring back some
3:34:27
options any preference in terms of pison pass area I I’m not familiar with
3:34:35
the lower near the research campus yeah South p
3:34:44
yeah that’s Patterson Pass lopin is the top of the wine cataly site the bottom of the research that would be the mix it
3:34:51
could be yeah the boundary okay so and we may want to look at that
3:34:57
through a finer lens ourselves and see from a development potential standpoint where does it make sense to do the
3:35:03
different types of uses so we can apply some of our subject matter expertise to that as well bearing in mind that you
3:35:08
have the ability to change it when bring it back to you if it doesn’t match what your expectations were so how can we
3:35:14
best express our FR you want to ask us to look at that area and at least then we’ve looked at an area and we can give
3:35:21
you some feedback because I think we’ve got a lot of other things to do tonight so maybe south of patteron pass north of L between Greenville Road and the
3:35:28
aqueduct Research Park we’ve got the direction yeah let’s vote are you okay okay with us looking at that
3:35:34
area taking a look at it yeah right okay so we got enough people and then the
3:35:39
last question was the open space which commissioner at T for
3:35:45
yeah yeah I so I kind of reiterate I mean I think um I thought it was like
3:35:51
really compelling what you had said earlier just as far as like I
3:35:57
absolutely it would be you know let’s say we go through this process and you
3:36:03
know down with east of Greenville comes out on top and we’re
3:36:09
like okay we’re not we’re not extending and then you know 5 10 years from now
3:36:15
it’s just littered with solar Lots you know I think like that would be a major
3:36:21
loss to I mean in my opinion um and would absolutely wreck everything that
3:36:28
we’re saying you know all of these different colored uses you know are
3:36:34
going to do so I think um I think is there
3:36:42
is there one of the many scenarios is there a scenario where um all of this is um you
3:36:53
know brought in or you know Incorporated and you know protected in perpetuity
3:37:01
essentially I mean it’s essentially what I’m talking about is massive conservation easements um to where all
3:37:08
these Ranch lands are protected and um if there’s you know restorative work and if everything’s as bad as you know it’s
3:37:15
I mean I I can only assume that everyone El like
3:37:21
I drive this now like all the time I like drive to the end of Loop in and back and or you know it’s it’s really um
3:37:30
I mean I think it’s a really it’s honestly I mean it’s um actually a really for all of The Dumping and
3:37:36
everything that is very obvious when you drive certain parts of it um you know still still is a really remarkable piece
3:37:44
of our Valley um and so to me I think um
3:37:49
are there steps that can be taken in the same process or is there a separate process um that
3:37:57
could um make this stretch of our Valley um as beautiful as um South Livermore
3:38:06
and North Livermore um because um I you know up north Livermore out at a
3:38:13
barn out there and I mean it’s one of the best drives you can take um and I
3:38:19
think like obviously how close to the city this whole stretch is obviously
3:38:24
will always be what it is um but is there a scenario that the city is still
3:38:31
interested um without all of this development happening so the question
3:38:38
is is it possible to an help to make it all open space then protect it that’s what your question is yeah so so you
3:38:46
could Annex this area into the City without modifying the urban growth boundary and you could leave the same
3:38:53
land use designation or have a similar type of land use designation the city then would be the code enforcement arm
3:39:01
and might be I don’t mean to uh bash the county but maybe the city would be a little more proactive on the code
3:39:07
enforcement side of things be worse yeah well uh
3:39:12
and and and the other question is could you put easements over the top of everything and and for that you would
3:39:18
need a funding source uh to identify you’ve got a cost there 22 m780 th000
3:39:25
and TVC could get it done okay we just need 22,7 180,000 do you have it no I
3:39:32
don’t have it but but to answer your question yes
3:39:37
you could do that the last piece that would be missing is is the funding for the easement well the and the other piece to be missing is the agreement
3:39:44
from the property owners because it’s all privately owned right right right the property that’s a great point so the
3:39:50
property owner buy it but they have to be willing to sell it yeah property owners have to be willing to sell you an easement I see and they and they we
3:39:56
cannot require them to sell you an easement yeah and I guess I I bring it
3:40:02
up like you know in part to I mean it’s like when we were hearing earlier about you know say like a general generational
3:40:09
ranch or something and is that then dangerous to them to sell the
3:40:14
easement is that I mean it’s you know like what would be the
3:40:21
incentive to or to not sure generally we’ve seen that that generational
3:40:27
ranching families do have more interest in in easements than than other land use
3:40:32
owners if if they’re thinking that they’re going to pass this to their kids and their grandkids Etc the the easement
3:40:38
allows you to continue ranching activities right or perhaps to conv to to shift to Vineyards or other types of
3:40:45
agricultural land uses uh depends on the easement type and uh but um other land
3:40:52
owners you know may not want to have that level of restriction
3:40:58
depends it’s it sounds like um you are should considering something
3:41:04
that goes further than uh don’t build Greenville but instead and more
3:41:09
something you might call it a restore a rest a restorative component to that or a conservation component yeah I mean I
3:41:16
think like if the end result you know
3:41:22
is you know essentially the end result being don’t build here kind of thing um
3:41:28
what are the different routes you can take for that to be true um to me I mean
3:41:35
I think like is there even more work to be done there on the
3:41:42
heavy lifting side of almost restorative work you know as far as restoring the
3:41:48
natural grass lands and all this kind of environmental work that I think makes
3:41:54
the valley as you know inhabitable as you know it can be um
3:42:01
obviously now it’s getting if we’re talking about the city being involved it’s you know sounding way more
3:42:07
philanthropic I think you know than say something like a east of Greenville land
3:42:13
use Alternatives um but I guess I’m just trying to think creatively about
3:42:18
um how important the green you know buffer that we’re all talking about is
3:42:24
and like how much more important that green buffer would be if it’s not just
3:42:29
everything on the other side of the aqueduct now it’s actually like large you know swats of land that
3:42:37
actually like boun boundary limore in the same way South Livermore does yeah
3:42:44
the reason for my question just to try to clarify it was so that the committee knew what was being proposed because we
3:42:51
we will have a um no east of Greenville analysis that gets done on the final Citywide
3:42:57
alternative but it sounded to me like you were proposing to go further than that um and I wanted to make sure that
3:43:03
it was clear what was being proposed for that piece of it so that we could document that if that’s Direction
3:43:10
committee wanted to go um that is such a big topic I don’t know if we have the
3:43:16
capacity tonight I mean I guess could we do it
3:43:21
this way like um how much of the committee is interested in not building
3:43:28
e of Greenville partly seeing an option on it we already know that that’s still
3:43:33
an option on the table so I don’t really like the not do anything here you’re
3:43:39
saying because in the end there will be some sort of component we’ll bring that back to you as one of two sets of
3:43:50
analys and I think the conservation isort of the option uh clearly is really in
3:43:58
aligned with a lot of our you know just personal preference of how how we really
3:44:05
want to maintain the open space however that’s such AIG topic that I don’t
3:44:11
really know if we have any have enough consideration or even research done such
3:44:16
as the cost 22 million I think that’s you know that to me it would just be a
3:44:22
kind of diminishing return to to know it’s going to cost 22 million and it’s still going to a study I don’t know we
3:44:30
have enough yeah um really data to support the option however we do I do
3:44:36
feel that if you if you don’t mind um we do want to talk about the balance of
3:44:43
whether the open space within alternative a which we all agree to be a good starting point by the majority of
3:44:49
the committee perhaps we can take a small nugget of a discussion and say is
3:44:54
an open space balance based on alternative a needs to be
3:45:00
changed so certainly you can and I just want to add one additional element to address Committee Member Hon’s comment
3:45:06
that you will in short order after this meeting get the analysis back that
3:45:13
includes the absence of a Greenville alternative you also have in the near
3:45:18
future a policy discussion that you’ll go through as a committee around the general plan which could include policy
3:45:24
discussions around conservation so I don’t know if we will be able to do everything that you want to do in the
3:45:31
mapping component of that but there will be opportunities to explore the importance of conservation as you go
3:45:37
forward alongside where you’ll have the analysis of what happens if you don’t do Greenville and you’ll be able to combine
3:45:44
those things together I think to at least get to maybe what you want to address sure and in terms of the
3:45:50
Greenville alternative which is what we’ll be studying the question really was if you can go back to the map are
3:45:57
you able to do that
3:46:02
D perfect um alternative a has a green belt buffer along the Eastern Edge and
3:46:11
so the question that was raised is that is that what you’d like us to study for this alternative that’s right so that’s
3:46:17
talk about again we have voted uh bullet number one number two number three
3:46:22
number four so the next bullet really is whether a change is necessary and that
3:46:28
again is binary and once we decide we feel that the change is necessary then we talk about how much it wear does that
3:46:36
work for everyone no I I just one quick because I think change almost implies
3:46:42
like should it be less um I think there’s a strong case to be made that
3:46:48
the BART lands which we you know have complete consens not
3:46:53
consensus unanimity that the BART lands are not going to be developed those should be added to the open space on the
3:47:02
Greenville analysis because you can’t run a wildlife Corridor and you can’t have a green belt and unless you’re
3:47:09
running the entire Eastern edge of the city so the BART lands form the eastern
3:47:15
edge around Springtown and those belated neighborhoods and and then it connects
3:47:22
under the highway there right where your cursor is and then would continue into some form of green
3:47:29
belt on one side of the canal or another this is showing it on the western side
3:47:35
of the canal but I think you can’t really do your open space analysis and unless you’re picking up the green belt
3:47:41
lands because then you’re not achieving a green belt around the city people say well you just blocked out that corner
3:47:47
then you’re going to go out and develop the BART lands and push it right up to the top of the
3:47:53
Altimont um so it’s if you’re going to talk open space you got to talk the whole Eastern Edge the
3:48:00
city and we’re not there yet but the all of the Committees I believe uh showed
3:48:06
keeping the BART LS as open space right and then that’s the quick way to to cut
3:48:13
an hour and a half off this meeting too is you take the BART lands out of L there’s no discussion and you’ve got a
3:48:19
little strip of land that is already zoned and the Planning Commission can handle it there’s no reason for us to
3:48:26
spend 90 minutes belaboring something that is not in the purview of this Advisory Board and and I think we’re
3:48:33
going to get there in just a few minutes if we can finish up this question about do I do we have to spend 90 minutes no
3:48:41
we don’t we don’t hopefully we can do it more quickly so uh yes so perhaps we can
3:48:47
ask the question are are we okay studying the open space in alternative
3:48:52
a is that or Committee Member um is the committee okay with
3:48:59
this with the open space that’s shown in alternative a and if you’re not then we
3:49:04
can talk about how to change it okay so I like that binary is should we keep the
3:49:10
open space as this and you know how is the question is phrased means whether
3:49:16
the hand is up so should we keep you like to do the positive should we keep if you want if you want to do the open
3:49:23
space that’s shown in alternative a please raise your hands I me you agree with what’s there okay if you agree with
3:49:29
the open space as this as this right alter alternative a
3:49:34
alter that’s which means if you don’t raise your hand and we would like to see some
3:49:40
changes made yep so so I only saw one hand raised and so then we would need
3:49:47
following that we would need a proposal for a change so we need a proposal for change I propose we add the BART lands
3:49:53
which we all agree should not be developed to it and then that would allow us to get a a biological survey
3:50:01
and assessment which is the data we’re lacking on where should the green belt be and where are the lands that have
3:50:08
conservation value remaining okay that should be preserved can you point can you point so it is
3:50:14
this shows it different Focus area is your point that is that part of
3:50:20
the focus area can you go to the focus part of another Focus area should not be
3:50:25
a focus area but is your point that the like if so put the other Focus area
3:50:31
aside I say say that that was open space and we have this open space in the actual Focus area that we’re discussing
3:50:37
alternative a is there anything missing up top that would really complete it like that purple part that we can see in
3:50:43
this picture does that have to change to open space in order to do what you are saying part of it will you see that
3:50:48
where the the dotted line that’s the city boundary I believe um so so and it’s fine to get
3:50:55
direction this you can’t have an island of biological diversity you have to connect okay so that purple part has to
3:51:01
change yes the green has to come down under the highway and then connect along
3:51:07
the canal and then run to the South the south is already conserved where we have Critters Galore
3:51:16
um but the East is not conserved at all so is it fair to say then that the
3:51:21
proposal on the table is essentially to add the BART land as open space to the east of Greenville alternative and
3:51:29
modify the Northwest end of the east of Greenville alternative to allow for the connection of those two pieces right cuz
3:51:36
ultimately you got to do an eir and that means you got to have a biological assessment and he knows all this stuff
3:51:42
he was TBC it’s you can’t do one without doing the other so we’d be panning back
3:51:48
a little bit on that Focus area to allow for the inclusion of that Northern component of what is the BART land today
3:51:54
and again all this is going to be in one map so it’s I think it’s okay to cross these Focus area boundaries in terms of
3:52:00
the direction it adds with more clarity for us so was what I stated what you’re proposing to do yes did everybody
3:52:06
understand what I said okay let’s go back to you say I’m sorry yeah to the
3:52:11
map or yeah so uh now I saw the uh the laugh let’s go back so Point again so
3:52:18
you want to extend extend that yeah right yeah so we all know take now yeah
3:52:25
when you say B land how much of the last land are we talking about the open space area I think basically the undeveloped
3:52:32
land yeah do you want to call for a show of
3:52:38
hand at least on that bullet I don’t yes okay
3:52:45
so this is really entire city as a single map and and so the question can I ask
3:52:55
another question sorry go back to the E green wheel we’re not changing the purple we only just
3:53:04
adding I think what we would look at is what changes would be necessary to the very tip of that purple in order to
3:53:10
allow for the Wildlife Corridor and natural connection of that so we do add
3:53:16
that do how much do we need to lower the purple even
3:53:21
more yeah I I think we we could look at that as a staff name point we don’t need to we don’t need to arbitrate that here
3:53:27
we just say make a continuous screen space yeah if we understand the intent to make the continuous screen space to L the wildli quarter remember you’re going
3:53:33
to get to see this map again so if we’ve done something you really don’t like I like that map 27 yeah yeah let’s see why
3:53:41
not okay please so so show of hands for that suggestion to be included in the
3:53:47
direction okay that carries might be our first unanimous what am I adding here
3:53:54
sorry I think the 0es change open space continuous now let’s vote on getting
3:54:00
it’s not worth looking at the rest of two continuous two continuous open space connecting Greenville to La okay that’s
3:54:08
good enough for you yeah any any other changes to open
3:54:16
space that b open space and B be considered rather than a so what it does
3:54:24
is it the commercial or what industrial goes off the lab but stops short of the
3:54:32
canal well I think that yeah that’s already what that is right no a
3:54:37
isge bottom sou has open space to the
3:54:43
east north of oh yeah with the sport well you don’t do the
3:54:49
Park Sports just there you do b instead of a
3:54:57
so dark green is open space too so you have more open space Oh you
3:55:04
the wine catalyst typ
3:55:09
he’s he’s saying from from the wine Catalyst you have enough commercial
3:55:14
coming off the lab there to stri and you’re going up some distance north why
3:55:21
do you have to go that far east why can’t that be all open
3:55:29
space well at least studied point is I think that’s thing
3:55:35
there’s enough economics is there enough Revenue out of what you leave was commercial industrial to fund everything
3:55:41
else because you got to fund the open space yeah part of the 22
3:55:47
million got to I mean may I just maybe
3:55:52
really try to find a nugget to V down since we’re not going to have the sports park in alternative
3:55:59
C should we change that green space in alternative C that was going to be a
3:56:05
sports park and put it in a so that to the right edge of alternative a we see
3:56:13
more green you want put the sport part back in that we just want get rid of no no not Sports open space okay cuz we’re
3:56:20
not going to have sports partk sports part you said put the sports part I’m sorry yeah equivalent
3:56:28
space off I think Tim’s using alternative B’s open space as it’s
3:56:33
alternative oh yeah as the reference and then the the dark green could go back to the commercial I mean no no no like no
3:56:43
Tim there you go but you you’re going to have to have enough commercial to fund
3:56:49
that yeah I mean is this about the 22 million yeah you’re going to preserve it
3:56:55
yes you want to preserve it you want to reserve it you know is it just to be
3:57:01
determined in the future don’t have to conserve it could be
3:57:07
reson someday yeah your vision I think is to never Reon that’s right you have to fun that
3:57:15
though yeah you me there’s going to have to be
3:57:21
some connection some south of Patterson north of Lupin
3:57:28
once you’re in Lupin then you’re all conserved pass there most of the land south of there is already under
3:57:34
conservation E’s now but you do have to get there
3:57:42
somehow yeah okay in the view sh can we verbalize what the
3:57:51
V I don’t believe I can combination of the wine Catalyst
3:57:58
site and the Sports Park from alternative b as open space and alternative a the same footprint of
3:58:04
those green Shams microphone so are we basically making this purple space
3:58:11
here not not not not par green but open space
3:58:18
green so look at alternative it would include the the what I think I’m hearing is this green
3:58:25
space that’s part of the wine Catalyst site as well as this green space that’s part of the sports park these two green
3:58:31
shapes here north of Lupin would move to this area of alternative a but they
3:58:36
would be open space color yeah yeah that’s too much not the the
3:58:41
dark just like more like the peninsula area we just need don’t include the dark green in that conversion just the light
3:58:48
green I know Tim is that what yours I was saying all of it but I mean I don’t I don’t get I’m not a dictator
3:58:55
so no I know but just for the talking point it did include the it did you know
3:59:03
there other ways to look at it okay can we just say that we want somewhere
3:59:09
somewhere along the line of Alterna the light green maybe the dark green
3:59:15
equivalent space and we just going to depend on the project team to tell us
3:59:21
the pros and cons I we want a good really feasible space to develop jobs
3:59:28
but we also want a continuous green space between pison pass and yeah so I
3:59:34
think this again does go back to what are you trying to achieve here um and and part of what I can suggest to you is
3:59:41
that the area that you’re proposing tover back into undeveloped land or conserved open space however you’re
3:59:46
doing it is some of the best potential developable land in the
3:59:51
space um because it’s flat and it’s near it’s going be con Tye of things so from
3:59:57
a from a development and infrastructure standpoint it’s good for that which doesn’t mean you have to want that but
4:00:03
it’s just something to think about in terms of trade for raising that is that why the source part are set there
4:00:09
because see flatter okay thank you for raising that that is a
4:00:14
consideration yeah I don’t I don’t know exactly where the Topo starts up in the nor
4:00:20
section right but I think there questions were’re proposing or was being
4:00:26
proposed was how much to how wide does that Corridor need to be I think is what
4:00:32
the question was if you need a continuous path so I’m certainly not an expert on
4:00:37
that
4:00:44
so I heard a suggestion to have a similar amount of open space to what you see in alternative B for the sports park
4:00:50
and the the extended Catalyst site would you like us to consider having that
4:00:56
amount of open space somewhere in the northern area where there’s more
4:01:01
topography so take okay say alternative c um it would be similar alternative
4:01:09
see example okay so again what what are we trying to achieve so you know one pin
4:01:16
we want flat you know developable uh area so that the
4:01:23
feasibility of mix use can be you know realized at the same time we appreciate
4:01:29
open space is that why we trying to achieve we could look at a combination
4:01:34
of alternative A and C so you could take the the large open space area that’s
4:01:39
shown in C and extend if you want to extend a green belt down you can extend a green belt down along the aqueduct as
4:01:46
show me in a okay huh I’m what I’m envisioning is a
4:01:54
green belt around the whole area that there’s that there’s there’s
4:02:01
undeveloped space on the eastern most parts of this wi within the aqueduct do
4:02:10
you want it to be inside of the aqueduct that’s what I’m envisioning that you’re still creating a barrier you
4:02:17
just moved it so and inside you’ve got some industrial
4:02:26
inside yeah the trade-off we have to consider is that what moves inside for
4:02:32
industrial might be less likely to become industrial so the revenue source
4:02:37
is is lessened but you can decide that that’s just the tradeoff that we have to
4:02:44
make yeah and again I think it goes back to Brandon’s point about like well what
4:02:50
do you want and if everybody like on the you know by
4:02:55
and large is kind of like yeah one of these Alternatives works for me I guess more than anything I’m just trying to
4:03:02
share I think that that land use like the best use of it for our
4:03:10
future is not Innovation and Technology based companies in a complete District
4:03:19
so to your point yeah it might be more the kind of thing where you know like
4:03:24
you’re saying we want to maximize the industrial that can go in there which is totally fine I’m just
4:03:33
saying yeah yeah so then it would be kind of a okay well
4:03:39
let’s just move on with these Alternatives and I can enjoy just like I don’t like
4:03:45
that or whatever you know it’s like just go on record well as as we discussed
4:03:51
there will be a no east of Greenville alternative that we will look at U the
4:03:56
question is for the east of Greenville alternative how much open space do you want to have and where do you want to have it right and uh so do we have
4:04:05
another proposal so that we can let’s go back why does the staff I mean I’m
4:04:10
looking at the topography map there’s some logical places where it can be M that isn’t nearly as large as what you
4:04:18
have as the sports park which was just taking an entire parcel right but there
4:04:23
it rises here MH so you’ve got to have a setback off the canal anyway is that is
4:04:31
that 100 ft or is it more so if you want to give us the direction to show as open
4:04:37
space all of the the hilly terrain that would be challenging to develop we could do that yeah well just make it contiguous
4:04:45
from top of the city where the BART lands are all the way down till you hit the South liore Valley area plan go back
4:04:52
again Debbie the only part that you wouldn’t be able to do that with is the part in blue which is the water and power site you could go around a massive
4:04:59
water tank there it floods yes why would go around that you can go around that so
4:05:04
I think that just make one vote which is I think we all appreciate this contiguous uh uh open space as you know
4:05:11
whether as really uh just set back as you set it is uh
4:05:18
but that if you go back to the alternative a that that again remains to
4:05:23
be really a good starting point but add your recommendation of how wide the
4:05:29
setback should be between Patterson and
4:05:35
Lupin so Jeb if you go back to the map what I heard is that we would have a
4:05:42
continuous open space buffer going from the freeway down to lopen Road and that
4:05:49
the staff will come back with some information on topography and show you that open space area based on the uh a
4:05:57
combination of topography and ensuring that open space buffer all the way down the site while maintaining the you know
4:06:03
the Vitality goal for developing economic so we can we can take that
4:06:09
since it’s getting late we we could certainly take that we’ like to take a vote folks in favor of that yeah I think
4:06:17
we have enough so we’ll come we’ll work do that work and bring it back thank you so much I’m going to really recommend
4:06:23
that we would oh we have to take take what we
4:06:28
have to take a vote on foral V foral vote on this direction on the Easter GRE okay the whole thing yes I am happy with
4:06:35
way we are no I V we we need a motion and
4:06:43
a who Moved sorry second okay sorry we’ll do a roll
4:06:51
call vote from Debbie please uh Committee Member Alexi hi
4:06:58
Committee Member baa hi Committee Member CH I Committee Member
4:07:05
Halverson I Committee Member Kent I Committee Member Kingsbury hi I
4:07:12
Committee Member Leon I Committee Member Pete hi Committee Member rivalta hi
4:07:19
Committee Member stra hi and chairperson Shang
4:07:26
hi thank you so much for your patience and I really really do appreciate the
4:07:32
process you know late we are now let’s not look at the clock um so can you recommend the next
4:07:39
step since we really didn’t finish the focus are we will have to come back to the
4:07:46
full committee and continue our discussion for each of the focus areas and uh our next regular meetings I think
4:07:53
the 8th January 10th January 10th thank you um so we may PLL the committee to
4:07:58
see if we can meet before then to keep things moving but the next regular meeting is January 10th which is either
4:08:05
like next week or the week after new yearor we’re thinking 25th maybe we can meet and the next meeting just to be
4:08:12
clear would be to cover only the remaining Focus areas that we have not yet evaluated yeah we won’t ask you to
4:08:19
give us all the data if I did we will not have it okay start with
4:08:28
midt so procedurally am I closing the item only for today but not the whole uh
4:08:36
discussion I think we’re adjourning and you’re continuing this item to the next meeting of the GP okay so
4:08:42
we app date to be determined they should be really appreciate whoever stays
4:08:48
display and really you know I know um so we arej thank you so
4:08:54
much we’ll see you next time

Machine generated transcript of the 2023-12-5 Planning Commission meeting with video timestamps, synchronized with the video posted on our Youtube page.

0:02
so we will go to item five public hearings item 5.1 is a hearing to
0:10
receive public comment on the notice of preparation for an environmental impact report for the east of Greenville
0:16
project and the project is located east of the Livermore city limits in an unincorporated Alameda County and we’ll
0:24
turn it over to uh Mr Stewart thank you chair person
0:30
uh this evening senior planner Ashley ver will provide the staff analysis with
0:36
support from our consultant Eileen Mahoney from Rincon environmental
0:41
Consulting and with that I’ll turn over to miss Vera all right thank you good evening
0:47
everyone so um as noted tonight I will be presenting the east of Greenville um
0:53
project to receive public comments on the scope of the environmental impact report as Mr Stewart noted we have alen
0:59
Mahoney here with FRC con Consultants that is part of the environmental consultant team in addition we have Andy
1:04
Ross our economic development manager providing support as he is the project manager for the general Plan
1:11
update can you hear the microphone a little closer I’m hard of hearing sorry all right the purpose of tonight’s
1:19
meeting is to provide the public the opportunity to comment on the scope of the environmental impact report or E
1:26
comments should be limited to the scope of the EIR rather than the merits of the pro project itself tonight’s meeting is
1:32
not held to conduct a question and answer session however everything uh commented in uh tonight will be made
1:40
part of the project record and a formal response will be drafted as part of the draft environmental impact report
1:46
process please note that staff will be returning to Planning Commission at a future meeting for the commission’s
1:52
comments on the E as well as the project at a as a
1:58
whole this slide shows the general overview of the CEQA process as it relates to this particular project a
2:05
notice of preparation for an environmental impact report was released on November 21st 2023 for a 30-day
2:12
public review period tonight we are requesting comments on the contents of the draft
2:18
IR following the close of the public review period staff and the consultant team will prepare a draft e and
2:25
ultimately a final EIR before returning uh to Planning Commission and Milly city council for a decision on the project
2:33
there will be additional opportunities for public comment during this process including an opportunity to comment on
2:39
the draft IR once it is published the project area is generally
2:44
located east of Greenville Road in Alama County with the exception of parcels located west of Greenville Road between
2:51
marathon drive and National Drive the area includes approximately 1140 acres
2:57
of land and is located outside of the city’s limit El the majority of the project area is also located out of the
3:04
city’s North Livermore Urban growth boundary the project area is currently primarily undeveloped with land
3:11
designated as Agricultural and uh scattered with industrial public utilities and Rural
3:16
residential uses during preparation of the land use
3:22
Alternatives analysis for the general Plan update the project area was selected for further exploration the
3:29
vision for this Focus area is to provide a campus-like environment that supports Innovation and Technology based
3:35
companies including a house a mix of housing uh jobs Services I’m I’m sorry excuse me a mix of jobs no housing uh
3:44
services and amenities to help the community achieve long-term fiscal sustainability and also serve as a
3:50
gateway to the South Livermore Wine Country there are three potential land
3:55
use alternatives for the east of Greenville project that were developed to consider consider uh a variety of
4:01
these land uses to achieve this Vision all three Alternatives consist of generally the same land use uh types but
4:08
in various various proportions and locations as shown on this slide here
4:14
the areas shown in red represent General commercial land uses the areas shown in purple represent industrial uses the
4:21
areas shown in varying shades of green represent Recreation and park uses open
4:26
space uses as well as agricultural uses the areas shown in blue represent public
4:32
uses and finally the areas shown in the hatched pattern represent a research and campus uh type of
4:42
development the project that will be analyzed in the environmental impact report is defined as alternative B
4:48
because it is the most intense land use uh pattern of the three Alternatives and therefore has the most potential for
4:55
possible impact analyzing the most intense alternative is useful for value valuating and understanding uh the
5:01
effects of development in the project area the project also includes modifying
5:08
the existing land use designations to allow for the land uses listed on this slide in addition the project includes a
5:14
potential measure on a ballot to expand the north Livermore Urban growth boundary to include the entirety or a
5:21
portion of the project it is important to note that expanding the north Livermore Urban growth boundary requires voter approval
5:30
although it is uncertain whether the city council will ultimately decide to place the measure on the ballot in order
5:36
to have the option to do so environmental review must be completed the E analysis will provide an
5:42
understanding of potential environmental impacts and help inform city council deliberations and create a potential
5:48
opportunity for Li more voters to decide on the land use
5:54
proposal this slide shows the environmental topics anticipated to be analyzed in the Environmental impact
6:00
report this list includes all topics included in the appendix G of the SQL
6:08
guidelines so there are a few ways to submit public comments on this project the first option is to provide comments
6:14
verbally uh tonight alternatively comments may be provided in either
6:19
writing um and sent to the address shown here uh or um comments can also be sent
6:26
in via email shown to the email address on this slide all comments must be submitted by
6:32
Wednesday December 20th at 5:00 which is the close of the public comment period
6:37
staff requests that the comments are limited to the scope of the IR in closing staff recommends the
6:44
Planning Commission receive public comments on the east of Greenville project notice of preparation and the
6:50
contents of the e no additional action is required by the Planning Commission tonight that concludes my presentation
6:58
and stop is available for for any questions thank you Miss Farah for the
7:03
presentation before we open the public hearing I just want to see if anybody on the Planning Commission has any
7:09
clarifying questions
7:14
ask uh thank you chair person I have two uh if you don’t mind one was um just to
7:22
be clear that when we’re talking about this area east of Greenville none of the new expanded area
7:30
that we’re talking about tonight overlaps with the South Livermore special uh planning district does it I
7:38
think there was a little bit of like area where that might have been true or might have not have been
7:50
true so there there maybe a little overlap with the counties South ler
7:56
Valley area plan and the southern end yeah that’s what I was wondering about right so there there’s probably a bit of
8:03
a boundary overlap if I’m understanding correctly from Mr Ross uh but the the rest is um sort of stands on its own
8:11
outside of any the city’s South B Valley specific plan area or counties South L
8:18
area plan great thank you and clarifying question number two is is less I think
8:23
this is a technical thing that I think would be useful for the public in attendance and that is when you say you
8:29
know limit comments to the scope of the eir could you just give an example for all of us just to
8:35
know sure so when we say limit the comments to scope of the IR that means we are looking for comments related to
8:41
the technical nature of the E and the topics that are analyzed by uh an under
8:47
squa and rather than say a a comment that um maybe opines on the project and
8:53
and not a technical nature great thank you Miss thank you Mr Stewart sure chair
8:59
Larry if I can just add on that and um Ashley can you go back to this slide with a graphic on there please so these
9:06
are all the topics and environmental aspects that uh would be included in the
9:13
environmental impact report if you think or the public thinks there’s an area
9:18
that’s not included on here that should be uh that tonight’s an appropriate time
9:23
to bring that up uh because Miss Vera said this is everything in the uh
9:29
California Environmental Quality act dependencies so it’s a pretty exhaustive list and um but if if if uh you think or
9:39
the public thinks there are things missing that should be also analyzed now be appropriate time to to request those
9:45
be included in the scope of the environmental
9:50
document I’m wondering if it would be possible U Mr Stewart and Miss ver to leave this graphic up for the discussion
9:58
so we can just keep referencing it visually thank
10:03
you I I just wanted to make a note for the um for the record and for uh the
10:08
public that uh there is uh audiovisual equipment here tonight that is not part
10:14
of the city um so I just be aware that that is not the city’s audio visual
10:20
equipment and that is an outside group okay thank
10:27
you okay we’ll now open the public hearing and how many speaker cards do we have tonight miss
10:38
stle I have 10 okay so we’ll have a three minutes for each speaker I don’t
10:45
see our eping device up there are you the official okay right so please
10:58
proceed followed by John Stein whenever you have a SQL or anir
11:06
not inir there’s usually one option and one option they give you different options and in evaluating different
11:13
things one option is no project and so that’s the part that I’m speaking here
11:18
tonight is because I believe there should be no project there okay it is
11:23
premature and would be a s significant waste of taxpayers money to commiss and
11:30
environmental impact report eir for developing the land east of Greenville
11:35
Road the land is protected by an urban growth boundary ugb that the residents
11:41
of Livermore strongly support besides there is no current need to consider land outside the ugb for additional
11:48
development there is sufficient land within the ugb to accommodate residential commercial and Industrial
11:56
Development for at least the next next decade and almost certainly for much
12:01
longer than that the population numbers of the city and its consultant place works have used are significantly in
12:09
error in September a city staff report claimed that livermore’s population is
12:14
91,000 in fact the City’s population has never been that high according to
12:20
official state and Census Bureau reports livermore’s population peaked in in 2019
12:26
at 87,8 99 in April of 2020 livermore’s
12:32
official population was reduced by 136 and it has gone down every year
12:38
since then as of January 1st 2023 our population was less than 9
12:45
85,000 that is more than 6,000 lower than the city staff September
12:51
estimates why develop precious open space land when there are alternative
12:57
locations inside the ug GB to accommodate any actual growth for the foreseeable future intensive development
13:04
east of Greenville Road would be extremely costly this rural area now has no public infrastructure and facilities
13:13
for Urban Development it would destroy or harm agriculture Wildlife wetlands
13:19
and watersheds open space and Scenic Beauty air pollution and traffic
13:24
congestion would be increased it would degrade the character of Livermore this proposal is a mistake please vote
13:32
against commissioning an eir at this time for development east of Greenville
13:37
Road to break livermore’s ugb no development here thank
13:46
you John Stein followed by Doug
13:56
Mann uh John Stein uh 1334 Cathy cord city of
14:02
Livermore uh I would urge that uh uh when you do the notice of
14:09
preparation uh you involve not only The Usual Suspects alab County um The Zone 7 the land owners
14:21
LPD a fishing game and the various Transportation uh
14:27
organizations but also expand it to friends of Livermore friends of The
14:33
Vineyards local venters wine grape Growers and other
14:38
irrigated agriculture users uh and uh a tribal
14:44
Conservancy I I think unless there’s a a shared vision for this area perhaps
14:50
somewhat different than the city suggested three options uh the probability of getting gaining vo
14:57
approval is somewhat limited um perhaps uh there can be a set
15:04
of mitigations a smaller area or agriculture that is acceptable to all of
15:10
the various organizations and would urge that uh uh the planning process look into that as
15:18
far as Alternatives uh the area along Jack London Boulevard between Jack
15:24
London Boulevard and the quaries is substantial and the City is currently looking at warehousing and would urge
15:32
the city to look at uh more intensive uses either offices or
15:37
campuses uh perhaps even more commercial also uh in the mid city part
15:43
of the plan uh perhaps uh placing a light industrial along the freeway to
15:49
act as a buffer for the residential uh would be useful that area is bounded on
15:56
one side by railroad tracks and and on the other by 580 and some buffering uh
16:02
would be useful but more important is a shared Vision that stands a chance of being
16:09
approved uh there were three assumptions made uh by the uh uh plan uh General
16:17
plan committee one was that uh there would be voter approval the second is
16:23
that population would increase and currently in California population and the average
16:31
age uh of that population is getting older and the population is
16:37
decreasing uh finally uh at the workshop there seemed to be the idea that the
16:43
high intensity residential could be concentrated in one area separate from
16:48
the city and I would urge that as you look at this uh that area be integrated
16:55
with the city as much as possible with facilities that are used by the rest of the
17:01
city uh finally the Assumption was made that Capital Improvement funding would
17:06
be available and I’m not sure that the uh eir will discuss uh methods either
17:13
bonding uh user fees or M R thank
17:20
you Doug Mann followed by Jeremy tro masi good evening Commissioners I have
17:27
not spoken with the planning Comm for several years and let me just say once I won’t say this every time I come
17:33
to speak with you because I try to preserve time we only get 3 minutes but thank you for serving on the commission
17:38
uh it’s selfless work no money all the above uh but uh we all know you’re doing
17:45
an important job um so when we have an environmental
17:52
consultant that comes and says only talk about these things um that’s just really
17:58
hard to do um we come here outraged that we have not one not two but three
18:06
alternatives to break our Urban growth boundary no alternative uh to preserve the urban
18:13
growth boundary that we fought so hard to create and that we want to keep and that is the environmentally Superior
18:20
alternative if it existed uh they’re not being given it so they’re not they’re not going to study it um you know this
18:26
has place works fingerprints all over it I’m no fan of place works I don’t think they ever should have been hired by the
18:33
city um I I really don’t know any jurisdiction that would uh even benefit
18:38
from uh hiring place works I I uh they have shown that whenever they whenever
18:44
placeworks come here mostly what they do is they make this place worse and I don’t like it um I don’t know how to
18:52
talk to these topics as instructed by your $300,000 Environmental consultant
18:59
um it’s uh premature it’s unwelcome to have this
19:06
alternative and uh I’m not sure that anything more needs to be said we know that the city council is going to break
19:13
the urban growth boundary we know that’s coming we’re not stupid um and your uh
19:19
place works is going to recommend breaking the urban growth boundary obviously that’s all they’re doing uh
19:25
and you will recommend and alternative of breaking the urban growth boundary
19:30
move forward to the city council I would say send this back to staff with your strongest possible statement that you
19:37
need an alternative that doesn’t break the urban grow boundary thank
19:43
you Jeremy troop mossi followed by Jeff
19:51
Kaskey sheesh how we doing tonight guys thanks
19:57
for being here um so I am uh Jeremy tro MSI I’m the um
20:03
Vice chair on the general planning committee um one of those people who sits through those meetings and spends
20:09
my time much like you so um I’m happy to be here even with the torn ailles um just to put my uh record my my my
20:16
comments on record so um I’m a part of that committee that spends a lot of time with this document and these suggestions
20:21
to you um and I’ll just get to the point um I think it would be irresponsible of
20:26
the city of Livermore on the behalf of everyone who lives here to not consider everything in the scope of our influence
20:33
and that includes what is this east of Greenville no decisions will be made tonight and no decisions will be made
20:39
for the foreseeable future I am asking you to think broader than the comments that you’re going to hear tonight I’m
20:44
trying not to get it only took three comments to get me spicy um because you hear a lot of things in here um I’ve
20:50
been in that meeting for the past nearly two years every other Wednesday you know
20:56
whatever it doesn’t matter um and there is more work happening than what is being suggested this evening decisions
21:02
haven’t been made and at the end of the day it comes to a a complete vote that is the beauty of this democracy so I
21:09
understand we all can come up here and say whatever we’d like to um relative to what we’re suggesting we are simply
21:15
suggesting that we are responsible and how we manage the city its boundaries and how we would like to grow within the
21:20
next 20 to 30 years and if we refuse as a city to go this way it’s such a
21:27
contrast of opinion to cons like to to suggest that we can’t consider going this way um when it comes to Urban
21:33
growth boundaries so um man when you start going off your notes here um I got
21:40
a little time so bear with me um I didn’t crutch up all the way up here not to say a few more things um so I mean
21:48
yeah there’s still a vote the city should do their due diligence and we should learn more about what is ahead of
21:53
us before we are so certain as to what is next for us
22:00
um you know and that’s that’s all I got guys um happy to be here um and I hope
22:05
we can continue to educate ourselves on what’s best for the future of Livermore as an entirety uh we are not the Cow
22:11
Town we used to be Jeff Kaskey followed by David
22:26
rs’s all right anyway ah um good evening Commissioners
22:32
and staff my name is Jeff Kaskey I’m a resident of Livermore for some 40 years
22:39
a decision to break the urban growth boundary should be based on significant compelling needs that can only be met by
22:44
breaking the urban growth boundary and nothing we’ve seen so far shows that need even with requests from both
22:51
General plan advisory committee members and members of the public we have not seen the no build plan for the east of
22:57
Greenville fot Focus area this plan requires that the people of Livermore vote against protecting this
23:03
Agricultural and open space as was just noted we know that Livermore residents value their protected egg and open space
23:09
uh land so the no build options should be included so that we can get a a a
23:15
complete picture for residents to consider there is a lot of underdeveloped and undeveloped land
23:21
available for economic and uh for industrial and research uses uh within the city limits within the city
23:29
we have 78% of the industrial square footage of the whole Tri Valley according to the city’s own Economic
23:34
Development strategic plan it appears that the driving reason for this push is topcon’s ownership of the land in the
23:40
focus area which they want to use for industrial uses it’s not surprising that’s what you would expect them to
23:45
push for um but they don’t need to be bailed out by the city of Livermore um to suddenly get their land revalued as
23:52
industrial land they can buy industrial property the same as everybody else there’s EX existing industrial land um
23:59
and the gpac focus areas suggest even more so besides topcon’s windfall
24:05
there’s really no reason for this change let’s take a look at the areas suggested the wine Catalyst area can be done
24:10
outside the ugb that’s one of the reasons we have a ugb that’s kind of strange to go and
24:16
create an area and then pull it in the research facility Zone sounds interesting but if it’s important why
24:22
wasn’t it suggested in any of the other industrial uses the ones inside the ugb
24:27
none of them are more than 2 miles from the lab two of them are right across the street so if the research facility is
24:32
important and I think it would be cool it can be easily done inside the ugb at the same time along with wildlife
24:39
habitat the land currently contains equestrian facilities grazing land and Rural
24:44
residences this proposed uh change will push them off the land when the property value Rises as it gets revalued as
24:50
industrial land so will their property tax so the increased value will encourage them to sell as the increased
24:57
cost pushes them to sell there was some belief that bringing
25:02
this land into the city would protect it even better but this group actually is probably one of the groups that knows
25:07
best that that’s really not true it takes a vote of three of you folks and three from the city council to completely change the purpose of land
25:14
once it’s inside the city boundary breaking the livermore’s urban
25:19
growth boundary is a far-reaching precedent setting proposal it should be based on unique compelling needs that
25:25
can only be met by breaking the ugb and none of that is here instead this would set a precedent of breaking the ugv to
25:32
benefit influential corporations thank
25:37
you David rounds followed by Alan
25:43
Burnham good evening Commissioners and staff um so my comment on the scoping of
25:50
this project is it should not there should not be an eir at this time um and
25:56
I’ll tell you why in the staff report to the city council on September of
26:02
2022 regarding the comprehensive General Plan update livermore’s current population was pegged at
26:09
91,000 and jobs were at 53,000 this report went on to say that
26:14
using abag and MTC methodology the population could increase to
26:20
120,000 and 57,000 jobs by 2040 fast forward one year to last month
26:30
land use Alternatives report for the general Plan update where they presented these three
26:37
Alternatives uh the growth projections in those plans were wildly optimistic compared to what was projected a year
26:45
ago using the middle alternative for example the general plan document is saying that City should plan for a
26:51
population of 134,00 significantly higher than the 120,000 that was predicted
26:58
last year and for 81,000 jobs which is significantly more jobs than were
27:03
projected last year the general plan document assumes that you can only get these numbers by breaking the urban
27:09
growth boundary and expanding the City by over 1100 Acres today we are reviewing you
27:16
are reviewing a notice of preparation for the eir of the 1100 Acres of current open
27:22
space that Livermore would need to bring into the city limits to achieve these overly optimistic projection my question
27:29
is why spend today the several $100,000 it will cost for an eir for land that
27:34
the city does not need today and might not need in 2045 planning is important but it is a
27:41
difficult process made much more difficult because of the significant changes the bar is seeing around home
27:46
prices and employment many people work at home at least part of the time some people work at home all the time will
27:54
this trend continue sure and it probably probably it will and it
28:00
makes these overly optimistic projections for the general plan document that much more unrealistic once
28:07
the 2024 General Plan update is in effect the city can review that plan every
28:12
year why not produce a document a document that is more realistic for the next 10 years and if circumstances
28:19
change and they will revise the general plan when you have a better idea of what the real changing Trends are today’s
28:26
General plan View and update has not offered compelling reasons for these overly optimistic
28:32
projections if there are compelling reasons they should be clearly stated and Su and clearly and succinctly stated
28:41
to the public particularly if the city expects citizens to vote to break the
28:46
urban growth boundary in order to expand the city thank
28:52
you Alan Burnham followed by Michael fuchi uh good evening honorable uh
28:59
Commissioners I support an e eir to explore environmental aspects um a
29:05
potential development east of Greenville but I’m concerned that the e as proposed will be misconstrued by the public and I
29:12
think you probably heard some of that tonight and it will not but it will not address all the important environmental
29:18
issues needed to inform voters of any proposed modification of the urban growth boundary I don’t really have
29:23
enough time to debate all the the other content that has been said but I but I will make the comment that alternative B
29:30
makes the least sense of any of those three options is the most intensive and that’s why it’s being but but there’s
29:35
really no way in the world that that’s ever going to be done um the the commercial area there is is bigger than
29:42
than all the commercial area u in the west side of uh downtown so the question
29:47
the question is do you actually get the information you need to make an assessment of of a of an environmental
29:54
impact I suggest that perhaps maybe by changing you can if you do that but then you say okay if we reduce the commercial
30:01
down to 30% of that value what difference does it make another words it’s always tradeoffs uh that you have
30:07
to cons be considering um I also recommend that the e address the issue of public benefits
30:14
of this development um it really hasn’t uh been discussed here tonight but it it
30:19
it really impacts all these things as as as other speakers have said one of the
30:25
main justifications of this is is the question of whether or not there’s enough land inside the current um city
30:31
limits to provide all the housing that may be required by Reena um and if you
30:36
don’t analyze this in the context of the overall picture you’re not getting the right answer uh and you also need to
30:44
look at the uh the issue of maintaining good jobs housing uh ratio considering Rea pressures and and and even more
30:51
important generate uh what’s the potential of generating funds to permanently preserve agricultural lands
30:57
and wineries in the east and south of Livermore in other words again one of the reasons for doing this is to
31:03
generate resources to do other things and if you’re not including those other things in the analysis you’re just really not going to get a good answer so
31:10
I that’s why I think you need to take a more holistic view of this e thank
31:16
you Michael fuchi followed by Richard Ryan good
31:23
evening I brought a guitar with me because um what can I say I I I’ve own a
31:28
music store in Livermore for over 30 years I’ve lived in Livermore as a resident for over 40 years and uh I
31:35
can’t remember the last time I brought a guitar to a city council meeting or meeting like this but um I just wanted
31:41
to say that I agree with several speakers that have spoken about baying breaking the e or breaking the urban
31:48
birth boundary so instead of like preparing uh a speech tonight I thought I’d just write a few words and and sing
31:55
a short song um that might be uh helpful for the other voices out there that
32:01
couldn’t make the meeting tonight so I’ll do this why not leave my boundary alone in my place
32:10
I call home let the dear and anal play where selom is heard a developer
32:20
word and the skies are not cloudy all day oh Home on the
32:29
Range is the urban growth boundary we claim it benefits us all that the all
32:37
here our call to maintain a strong boundary this
32:43
way home Home on the Range with a boundary not subject to
32:51
change it’s a right to protect and not to neglect the open space that Still
33:02
Remains that’s all I got to say all right thank you appreciate the
33:08
time Juan Pablo Gales Martinez gvan
33:17
sorry followed by Paula
33:23
Peterson I’m afraid I can’t top what you just heard
33:28
uh I I would just like to I I think
33:33
we’re out of work what was the speaker who was the next speaker Juan Pablo
33:39
sorry Mr Ryan was next I think followed by okay I just want to make sure we got the right order yeah I’m Richard
33:46
Ryan I’d like this just second the comments of previous speakers
33:52
particularly Jean King and and and the comments of other people this whole thing seems to be
33:59
premature the the the general uh plan commission is still here holding
34:07
public hearings on this topic it’s hasn’t been decided by the city council it hasn’t been decided by anybody yet it
34:14
just seems to be incredibly premature to even be considering an eir
34:21
so I I would hope that you would just send it back to the staff and say hold this for a while and uh
34:28
see what what what comes out of the public hearings that that are taking place so
34:34
thank
34:44
you the previous gentleman look more like a Juan Pablo than I do
34:50
so good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is Juan senior landage manager for
34:56
thank you for to comment here uh tonight among the many projects we’ve been
35:01
involved in in this area with my tenure at SMD is the creation of a permanent East Side Urban limit line for the city
35:07
of Dublin the uh permanent West Side Urban limit line that was used to be uh
35:13
uh temporary on the west side of Dublin and we also waited on the Aramis solo project proposed for County land in the
35:19
north limore area as well as a proposed Cemetery more recently uh that we’ve had
35:24
concerns with BB Chang land use biological impacts things like that with regard to this project uh tonight glad
35:32
to see uh uh basically throwing the kitchen sink of squa uh at this and
35:37
that’s pretty good because this project would most likely require an examination of all those uh issues what is usually
35:45
missing from an examination of biological resources that in our experience is very uh cogent to this
35:51
specific project is that uh this project is being proposed in the narrowest point
35:57
in the 200m long diabal range which runs from basically the tip of Contra Costa
36:03
County from the water down to the Kern County the little tippy top right there
36:09
so it is the neck I like to call it of Mount diu the the thin thin connection
36:18
that that very popular Mountain very biologically Rich area has to the rest of the diabo range and based on all
36:24
sorts of research that we’ve seen uh uh regarding climate change the need for a north south uh migration Corridor for
36:31
various plant and Wildlife species uh but even perhaps more importantly the
36:36
need to maintain it for populations that currently exist and require their genetic inte Integrity to be maintained
36:42
the population South of the 580 to connect them with the north uh a lot of times that examination of the importance
36:50
of wildli quarters missing from squa documents uh that examine things like
36:55
this also we note that there are very very few Crossings Wildlife Crossings
37:01
along the 580 that connect the north and south side of the Diablo range and one of them would be directly impacted uh by
37:08
this proposal so uh definitely examination of that would be uh very important obviously has been noted um a
37:16
no project alternative would be well served being included in this squid document and
37:24
if another set another alternative besides a no project is to be considered
37:30
one thing we’ve noticed is that uh cities that like to expand their uh
37:37
urban urban limit lines we call them in qu Costa County Urban growth boundaries here but for example Pittsburgh they
37:43
will attempt to set aside small areas of open space or mitigation land in a sea of
37:49
development maybe better served to have a wide swath along one side one axis of
37:55
this project uh that could amarate some of your mitigation concerns that’s it for me thank
38:01
you Paula
38:10
Peterson hi there um my name is Paula Peterson and I really wasn’t sure what
38:16
an eir was so I kind of Now understand a little bit about it but um I’ve heard
38:24
people here say I’ve been here for 40 years um my family’s been here uh since
38:31
the 1800s I heard somebody say that this is no longer a Cow Town well I still run
38:38
cattle today because my grandfather ran cattle today the property that you are
38:44
doing this eir is where I live I heard somebody say that if um we we expand the
38:52
urban growth boundaries that the population of the people that live there will probably have to pay higher
38:59
property taxes or eventually have to move that’s me that’s I I will be
39:05
affected um we talk about this being 20 years from now so I’m speaking for my
39:11
grandsons because today they’re learning how to run cattle they’re learning the responsibilities of being in a country
39:19
World um you take that away and which we’re taking away today where kids don’t
39:25
even have that cap capability of doing you know the outdoor things that they
39:30
should be doing we becoming a um computer technology where kids are you
39:37
know on their phones or they’re on their video games uh you know I’m fortunate to
39:43
have grandsons that will grow up to learn how to have the responsibilities of being able to um
39:52
have good ethics good work ethics uh learn the you know the life of um uh the
40:01
circle of life kind of things kids today don’t get to learn that um this
40:08
environmental whatever I’m not sure exactly what it all means and how it all
40:14
handles but I think it has already been said that we have a lot of um places
40:21
inside the city limits that we can look at growing uh it’s already been known
40:27
that the population is you know going down not going up I had heard also how we were going to make this this whole
40:34
growth thing was going to make it so that people could live in Livermore and work in
40:40
Livermore today if you don’t make 100,000 each in a dual resident you will
40:46
not be able to buy a house in liver rent in Livermore is extremely high
40:53
so expanding the city of Livermore is is not going to fix the problems that we
40:58
have today and I don’t see that we’re addressing the problems we have today so
41:04
I’m obviously a no no growth um I think she said it the best that how she
41:12
explained the whole thing the gentleman that said that this is no longer a cowboy Town look at your emblem there’s
41:18
a cowboy so that’s just my my take and
41:24
thank you for listening
41:29
those are all the cards I
41:37
have okay so we will thank you very much for the comments we will close the public comment period And there’s no
41:45
action required tonight from the Planning Commission but want to give each commissioner a chance if they’d like to ask uh make a comment regarding
41:55
and these are comments regarding the scope of the contents of the E and so we’ll go to uh commissioner dumbar
42:04
first uh thanks I’ll keep this uh brief thank you for being here and expressing your concerns I know that um as was
42:11
expressed it’s a rather specific topic and I hopefully you saw that we accepted your comments
42:17
um as broad as they were and they will all be taken back um I there were some
42:23
things I just wanted to quickly go through a no project alternative is required for this analysis correct as
42:28
with an so it will be analyzed correct that’s correct
42:34
okay and um there were a lot of smaller things that I think will be they’re all
42:41
getting written down and recorded and they’ll will’ll be addressed the other one I heard was
42:48
um that I wanted to jump after let me see if I can find it um an e does address public benefit in a
42:57
roundabout way but it’s primarily focused on environmentalism you know the the impact
43:03
of a project and the the public benefits are not really necessarily required or
43:08
are only required in certain cases is that generally correct okay so it’s we we should talk
43:16
about it and I think I heard the word uh clear and concise explanation of the trade-offs and I I’m I’m looking for
43:22
that as well and I think we should all expect that um
43:28
I think those were the the ones that stuck out to me oh I my uh roommate in college is finishing up his PhD at Davis
43:35
with a PhD in geography and his specialty is in Wildlife quarters so I really appreciated that comment thank
43:46
you commissioner PCO thank you chairperson Larry um I
43:53
think most of my questions were covered by commissioner Dumar um there was uh
44:00
one thing I did want to clarify that it is the um City staff so the city of
44:06
Livermore is initiating the eir is my understanding and it’s required by law
44:12
in order for it to be considered by the city council um am I wrong about that so
44:23
um earlier this year the city council did direct staff to to initiate an environmental impact report for this
44:29
project uh the city is acting as uh what’s called the lead agency under squa
44:34
um meaning that they are the decision makers uh as it relates to um the environmental document being certified
44:41
ultimately as we know the the final decision regarding the ballot does um depend on voter approval um but you you
44:48
have that correct that uh the the city is um drafting the IR essentially thank
44:55
you
45:07
Mr CAC thank you chairperson um several of
45:13
the other Commissioners have asked questions that I was rapidly typing a bullet point list note uh up here to
45:19
cover so thank you other Commissioners um there are two areas in specific that I would
45:28
just want to offer comment on um the E itself please correct me if I’m wrong is
45:34
by necessity site specific because it can only consider the boundaries of the area that whatever land use change is
45:41
being proposed in correct that’s correct it’s putting together a baseline area to evaluate and
45:49
evaluate those impacts um the follow-up question I have is is with regard to the
45:55
topics that are here and this is mostly because we get a you know boot camp in this sort of information but with regard
46:01
to the topics here these are the ones that the state of California but requires in a squa sort of environmental
46:10
review right that is correct okay um looking at sort of the California
46:16
required topics on this list there are a couple that I would like to uh request
46:22
special emphasis on as part of this environmental and PCT report one is
46:28
Transit uh and Transit accessibility I do have some concerns
46:34
regarding Transit integration with the rest of the city of this area and then
46:40
the second area would be um related to
46:46
the I’m sorry I’m looking for the exact technical term here public services and
46:52
public service and public servicing utilities to this area uh as part of that as areas of specific
46:59
study that said one of the questions that remained in my mind that I think
47:07
has been also articulated by a number of folks here tonight is while not in the
47:12
direct scope of what is considered a technical eir there is a bigger why I
47:17
think in my mind and in some of the minds of the commenters here tonight and
47:22
I do want to ask that as part of this process can we focus on elements of that
47:29
bigger why uh I believe one commenter spoke about it as can we make this e a
47:34
little bit more holistic in its approach even if that is not necessarily what is ordinarily done for the case of
47:42
an um in that regard the areas that were kind of on my mind as well were impact
47:50
on Agra business and small business uh in that area impact on wildlife and
47:56
Wildlife Resources specifically biological resources um and also impact on uh
48:05
plantable acreage for our Vineyards which was why I was asking uh which sort
48:11
of specific plans this area might overlap with earlier um and
48:17
lastly one of the other things and I will say this having personally come from the general plan advisory committee
48:24
is that this is about eval ating tradeoffs um and I think there
48:29
is to a lot of the points that are being made tonight you know there’s this
48:37
analysis of do we have enough land in
48:42
aggregate for specific commercial and Industrial uses versus do we have enough
48:49
of that land concentrated in the right areas for these uses and it’s sort of
48:56
you know the same argument that Xfinity or Comcast uses and says oh we’re not a
49:02
monopoly because we cover all of Northern California but Verizon covers all of Nevada right well that’s not very
49:08
local that’s very that’s very sort of hyper Regional and I think in this case
49:15
you know educating our voters and educating our city with regard to why
49:21
some of the sizing of the proposed land uses are being proposed this way would
49:27
would be a very edifying component to this as it moves forward um because I
49:33
I’ve heard you know that yes in aggregate if you were to take all the commercial and industrial space and pack
49:40
it all together we have plenty of it but some of those sites are too small to be useful for the kind of uses we want for
49:46
our city moving forward so I think digging into that a little bit would be something you
49:52
know that I believe would be edifying for both our voters and for for for folks moving forward and again none of
49:59
these are things that are typically considered in an e but due to the sensitivity of this area and due to the
50:06
history were just comments I wanted to add as areas if you can include please
50:13
do I Anderson thank you uh and thank you everybody for the comments um I know
50:20
that they will all be deeply noted by staff um I just did want to do some
50:27
clarification uh we are not voting on anything tonight
50:33
correct that is correct thank you um the city council has already commissioned
50:39
the eir to be done that’s correct that is correct and if I may add
50:46
in uh commissioner Vin jenko’s earlier question related to the state requirement I wanted to reiterate yes it
50:52
is a state requirement based on the actions that we do need to do an eir um
50:57
uh in order to consider any movement forward at all regardless of the outcome
51:04
thank you um and uh we have as a Planning Commission no authority to stop
51:12
this eir correct that’s that’s correct yeah um so
51:19
especially since it’s on the agenda as receiving public comment there’s nothing
51:25
we could could do in this agenda item to say no even if we wanted
51:32
to that’s correct and and um we would bring this this item at a future public
51:37
hearing for your recommendation at that time that that would be appropriate all thank you appreciate that I’ll just add
51:43
to there’ll be another uh public comment for the actual draft environmental impact report
51:49
itself awesome yeah because tonight is about the scoping what are we going to look at right um
51:56
moving on down the line um and uh commissioner Dunbar brought this up
52:01
about the uh no project option that is not just something we will look at
52:06
that’s legally required Now isn’t it yeah so okay um thank you
52:14
um uh next uh taxes uh Prop 13 still
52:19
covers all properties in the state correct that’s my understanding yes okay
52:27
so property tax would would only rise at 2% um for property owners until they
52:36
sell that land that’s right okay I just wanted to double check on that as well
52:41
um um
52:46
so and then
52:53
um oh that was since the voters okay this question is going to have a lot of ifs so I
53:01
apologize first if the council votes if it moves forward if it goes to the
53:06
voters um and then if the voters approve so after all those steps if that’s what
53:14
ends up happening then the land use designation would be decided at that
53:19
point is that correct yeah so there would be additional steps that would occur after
53:26
that um including um things like annexation of the properties uh future
53:32
more detailed planning of the area as well um that would all be something developed in the future okay so we’ll
53:41
have even more the public will have even more opportunity at that point for land use
53:47
designation correct that is correct so a lot this
53:53
year is still a very high level picture of the land use pattern out here and as Miss feris said there’s a range of
54:00
different land use types we’re considering as part of this alternative and that’ll have to get further refined as we move through the
54:06
process thank you um it is good to see you here Mr Ross because this question
54:12
kind of pertains to the other e we have is there any overlap between the two
54:18
IRS or are they just completely separate they are separate but related so they’re
54:24
working on Parallel paths now and the general Plan update eir is looking at
54:30
the Citywide scale at East potentially east of Greenville because the decisions on what the preferred Landing scenario
54:36
has not been decided yet plus all the other Focus areas and this particularly
54:42
is looking solely at the east of Greenville area at some point in the future they may merge and we’ll just
54:48
have to keep coordinating these efforts as we move forward thank you so much um U thank you
54:55
Steph I really appreciate all that um I think uh it was uh Jeremy tro masi
55:00
brought up the point that this is this is a very thoughtful process that we’re that there’s a lot behind the scenes
55:06
that we are you know that staff is working on to make sure that we have every option available and understand
55:14
everything about this so uh I appreciate all your hard work um Jeremy sh M also
55:21
said that we’re no longer a cow toown um we may not be the same type of Cow Town
55:26
but we’re still a cow toown at heart so um that that’s all I
55:33
have okay thank you to everybody who came tonight provide their comments on this uh e
55:39
scoping yes oh yeah yeah I’m sorry thank you so much chairperson Larry I had one
55:45
more question regarding the scope and it’s just an understanding because this is for a plan for 20 years from now as
55:53
as one of the commenters pointed out when the ER is done is only the impact
55:59
looked at immediately when the land use designation could be changed or are
56:04
there projections for what could happen in the the 20 years down the
56:10
road yeah so the E will look at both essentially the the present day but also
56:17
um kind of fast forward into the future and and look at um other kind of changes
56:22
in the environment expected projects in the pipeline line and kind of what we call the in the IR the cumulative
56:28
conditions of the project and how that may impact um the topics listed
56:33
here I would just add really quickly to to put another point on what Miss ver said is we would look at a scenario
56:41
where whereby all these land uses on the map that are colors are built out right
56:47
to see what would that impact look like and we would project what time frame we think we would get built out at and
56:53
that’s how we’re Sim similar doing this with the E and some of the analysis we’ve done as part of the land use
56:58
Alternatives those evaluations look at what would the conditions look like at
57:04
buildout at year 2045 it doesn’t tell us how fast or when but if we fast forward
57:10
into time and and assumed everything got built out this is what we would expect
57:15
to happen Okay thank you Mr so I’m assuming that would include so that would include the impacts in all these
57:22
areas including agriculture and Agra business um assumptions based on
57:28
population and housing and a range of those assumptions yes that’s correct thank
57:38
you okay I just had uh one question on the E process and then two comments on
57:45
the scoping Miss Vera the question is could you describe to me the process I
57:50
heard some question from the public about how we’re going to invol involve stakeholders and other agencies that’s
57:58
not a chapter in the e but that’s a process that you go through how how are they
58:04
involved sure so I I believe the comment you’re referencing to is talking about maybe distribution of County the
58:11
documents yeah fishing game yeah so the um all these environment documents including the nose preparation and
58:17
eventually the the draft di those are sent to those uh those agencies um
58:23
consistent with state law and requirements as well as kind of our neighboring agencies such as Alam County
58:30
um and so those those will be sent um when it comes to a groups that are not
58:35
necessarily listed on um say the state’s list of kind of distribution for example
58:40
like it’s you know calr gets a copy um uh fishing game as with noted gets a
58:46
copy um when there’s other groups outside of that uh the city does have a um interest list that can be um added to
58:53
a list serve uh that’s kind of similar to like a public hearing notice list where they are notified of document
58:59
availability um and provided again the opportunity to to comment okay the
59:06
comment I see in your list here uh geology and soils and when I’m looking
59:11
at the alternative B uh and the land uses I’m just you’re going to have to
59:17
make some assumptions for density right you’re uh to look at traffic and I’m
59:24
wondering about the Contours at the North End of the of the the area that
59:29
we’re talking about and how is that part of the process you’re going to be looking at how you would fit those
59:36
industrial Parcels in there and how the grading would look that would affect D that would affect geology right right so
59:44
the the E will include a set of assumptions on um kind of the maximum intensity of development based on each
59:51
individual use that could go in and then analyze it assuming that maximum intensity is Mr
59:58
Stewart no I wasn’t going to add anything into what SP was okay saying so there wouldn’t be a grading
1:00:05
plan in in the E you would just assume that all the density that’s shown
1:00:11
in the I call it the purple area is possible and analyze the site in that way that’s right the cir is um
1:00:18
considered to be programmatic in nature where it is kind of a higher um level look at it uh in the future if uh you
1:00:26
know detailed planning were to continue on this project and and ultimately development were to occur then that’s
1:00:32
when um things like raing plans would be would be provided okay last uh item for
1:00:39
scoping I believe it’s Patterson P Road there’s the uh transmission lines that
1:00:44
uh run parallel with Road just on the south side and they’re not your typical uh secondary or primary power lines
1:00:52
these are the I don’t think it’s p though there’s a substation too right there at patteron Pass Road and I know
1:00:58
that can sometimes impact what can happen underneath so that would then there’s a
1:01:05
chapter on utilities right so that’s a different group that’s not your typical
1:01:11
P coordination it’s it’s a go ahead I believe those are the power lines that
1:01:17
that substation feeds the labs which is on a different network and different grid and so we would look at the impact
1:01:23
of the project development to the existing conditions and that would be part of the existing conditions we’d
1:01:28
also look at how would this development or area be Serve by utilities like PG
1:01:35
Etc okay all right we no action from the commission but yes
1:01:42
yes I apologize CH person Larry um I did have one more question and one more
1:01:47
comment um Miss in addition to the two areas of specific emphasis that I called
1:01:53
out related to the environmental imp report the public services and transportation areas I actually had the
1:01:58
word Wildfire circled on my little notepad which is in my mind it was a
1:02:04
proxy for something that is actually not listed by the state which is the impacts
1:02:09
of climate change um and I know that’s very very hard to sort of assess but at
1:02:16
the same time I think 20 years from now if we continue on the trend of warming
1:02:21
that we’re on we’re going to be pushing about 2° cels and honestly that may actually affect
1:02:27
the kind of land uses we want to put out in that area should it move forward so I
1:02:33
had Wildfire circled as a proxy for can we also start thinking more about the
1:02:38
impact of climate change here in our region um and what that might mean for how we want to do with our land uh so
1:02:45
that was the other actual area I neglected to mention and then I also just neglected to say thank you um
1:02:51
there’s a lot of folks here tonight and I’m deeply appreciative of everyone in this town and thank you for coming out
1:02:57
tonight and thank you to staff for this incredibly hard work putting this together thank
1:03:05
you just one more for me and I’ll reiterate uh thank you for coming out all of you um those of you familiar with
1:03:12
this process and those of you unfamiliar with this process you’re welcome here um and some of you may unfamiliar might
1:03:18
think this was all very dry it’s all just a part of the process we’re all eagerly awaiting that draft IR I’m sure
1:03:24
I will see many of your faces again on that um I wanted to tee
1:03:29
up uh a question to staff that I will probably ask when the draft comes back
1:03:36
which is to say when the draft comes back this commission I want everyone to understand
1:03:41
our role here this commission is going to make a determination whether that e is adequate correct we are not
1:03:49
necessarily going to make a determination that that is the option that we want the city council to take or
1:03:54
the staff that that’s the one we like but only to say that the all the environmental impacts have been properly
1:04:00
addressed that’s what we’re being asked to do here whether they should do something is a council question is that
1:04:07
correct that is correct to ultimately make a recommendation on either certifying the e or not and that
1:04:13
recommendation will go to council um that will occur once the final eir is is
1:04:19
drafted we are certainly open to our own personal opinions but that’s the thing that we task to do with and then I’ll
1:04:26
probably ask it the same way when we come back so
1:04:31
thanks Mr Stewart do you have what you need on this item we do thank you very much all right
1:04:38
we will ask I ask one conclude I oh so there’s opportunity to I’m sorry public
1:04:44
comment is closed but you have an opportunity until December 20th to send in your
1:04:50
comments yeah appreciate that so we’ll move on to item
1:05:11
6.1