BUILDING BETTER TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE
Meeting
Report
April
7, 2003
PRESENT: Chair Dave Cortese, Vice Chair Linda
LeZotte, Councilmember Cindy Chavez, Vice Mayor Pat Dando, Councilmember
Forrest Williams
ABSENT: None
STAFF: Terry Roberts, Ed Shikada, Patty
Deignan, Jim Helmer, Hans Larsen, Laurel Prevetti, Linda Crabill, Sharon
Landers, Katy Allen, Dave Clarke, Laura Wells, Lt. Wayne Farquhar
CONTINUED BUSINESS:
(a)
Supporting Smart Growth
(1) Report and Recommendations on Smart Growth/Transportation Impact Policy
Jim Helmer, Director of Transportation, introduced Hans Larsen, Deputy Director, Department of Transportation and Laurel Prevetti, Deputy Director, Planning, Building, and Code Enforcement, who gave a presentation on the Smart Growth/Transportation Impact Policy report. A detailed report will be presented at the May Committee meeting. The report and presentation reviewed Smart Growth Principles and strategies, San José Transportation policies, and Level of Service (LOS).
Councilmember Williams inquired about the cities looked at in the report and what was their LOS? Were they similar to ours? Hans Larsen offered to provide a full assessment of the findings in the report for the May 5 Committee meeting. Councilmember Williams expressed concern for the designated locations and the discretion to override.
Vice Chair LeZotte, requested to see the criteria for an override. While glad to see retention of LOS “D” as the trigger for mitigation, she expressed concerns regarding what criteria the Committee would use and what environmental concerns are the overriding factors for determining. Concerning mitigation, how we are going to get a fixed dollar amount based on the size of development? If there is not enough money, will the City be on the hook for the Traffic Calming? Hans will walk through some examples of sample development and how they deal with traffic mitigation and the financial aspects at the May meeting.
Councilmember Chavez expressed concerns about San José naming ourselves a smart growth city based on the criteria that the world perceives smart growth to be instead, San José should be concentrating on deriving what the next generation of smart growth actually means and being on the front end toward more discussion on quality of life and mobility. Councilmember Chavez echoes Vice Chair LeZotte’s concerns about cost versus predictability, what it would cost for someone to make some of the changes that need to be made for construction impact mitigation. Councilmember Chavez also expressed interest in the list of locations where the discretion to override would apply.
Vice Chair LeZotte inquired about the outreach group to the environmental issues and what is proactively being done to improve the current worst intersections.
Vice Mayor Dando suggested that the chamber of commerce and downtown businesses be included in the public outreach. She also indicated that thought needs to be given to what is it that the City of San José wants smart growth to be, does it compare to the Fort Collins case study or is it closer to the Los Angeles County, or is it something in between? She would like to see the list of override potentials as well. Regarding the mitigation, the cost is going to have to be born by the city in great part therefore we need a breakdown of what the mitigation cost is and who is going to bear it and when.
Chair Cortese stated that the quality of life issues has to be addressed and what is the overall carrying capacity of this city in all 10 Council districts. On the traffic impact standard, level of service rating “D”, glad that we are holding onto “D” and not trying to morph that into to “E”. It may be time to start looking at the people who are building in the areas of A,B, & C and not let them off the hook. In regards to the designated locations to override the Committee would like to see overrides in some cases that are not location designated but land use designated.
Upon motion of Vice Mayor Dando, seconded by Councilmember Chavez, the Committee accepted the report.
NEW BUSINESS:
(b)
Expansion and Improvement of Transit and Transportation
Systems
(1) Report and Discussion on the Construction Impact Mitigation Plan
Jim Helmer, Director of Transportation, introduced Katy Allen, Director of Public Works, Dave Clarke, Deputy Director, Department of Public Works, and Sharon Landers, Assistant Director, Redevelopment Agency who went over the report on the Construction Impact Mitigation Plan (CIMP). Dave Clarke went over the two recommendations: 1) to adopt a policy requiring the preparation of the CIMP for extraordinary projects and 2) to direct staff to begin negotiations of a cooperative agreement with the Valley Transit Authority (VTA) to address the construction of the VTA projects in San José. In closing staff believes that the combination of the policy for the city and agency projects cooperative agreement for VTA and other publicly agencies projects is going to help achieve a far higher level of mitigation for construction impacts than has been achieved before and the policy provides the right combination of flexibility and structure that is necessary for these large unique projects.
Chair Cortese asked staff what their goal was to get out of the Committee today. Sharon Landers stated if there is a lot of work that is required after the discussion we might want to come back to the Committee or if the Committee was endorsing what they presented with minor changes then we could go straight to the Council.
Chair Cortese expressed his dislike for the terminology of the word “Extraordinary Projects” should be called “high impact projects”, so that people do not mistake a different meaning for the word extraordinary. We need to include words such as rent abatement or rent assistance in our document under item D, “Other Impacts”. We need to refine the criteria to a one-year to balance or be more flexible on the high impact criteria. We may have built something in that is a little more arbitrary. The Council should be presented the CIMP for approval. On attachment A page 1 of 4, Applicability, bullet 2 should have “and bicycle” with the word pedestrian. On the overall strategy we need to have modifications to our encroachment permit ordinance, which basically says that your going to have to do a construction impact mitigation plan as a matter of ordinance unless you have a negotiated agreement, if you reached this level of project. Essentially we need to create a decision tree within the ordinance that says go this way or go that way that would induce people to come down the path with a negotiated agreement. We should have a more standardized mitigation approach.
Vice Mayor Dando agrees it is necessary to develop some kind of policy that can handle mitigation and the outreach to individuals in the line of extraordinary projects, high impact projects. She is okay with the wording of “other” as a broad term for unforeseen items to fall into. On page 6, the last paragraph, regarding the approval of the process the Council should have the approval of the overall policy and have input as to what we want in the policy. We should be able to do small amendments quickly; the other category should cover this. There needs to be a way to feed information back maybe by coming back to this Committee on a regular basis. Need to keep Committee/Council informed without it becoming too cumbersome.
Councilmember Chavez stated that a challenge that she saw in the whole inherent discussion was for example: PG&E or even RDA versus the city that we don’t always come to the table around shared goals or the area that the work is being done in and therefore it is hard to get people on the same page in terms of how the work gets done. Concerned that there is not an acknowledgement of the mediation provision needed on an ongoing basis. Councilmember Chavez would also like to make a recommendation that we are looking at goals that we are trying to achieve if it’s not to keep every business open. We need to look at our goals if they are for the downtown are or VTA or anybody else building is going to build the same quality we are already building. They need the same criteria as us. On page 2, of attachment A, item D, our expectations should be a “live body” answering the phone should be included in the communication plan.
Councilmember Williams stated that the Committee should define by impact instead of longevity. He also stated that towards the end of the document we need to state why we are doing this, why are we putting it together? Expected outcome, if I do all these things, this is what I expect to happen and then some way to measure it.
Upon motion of Vice Mayor Dando, seconded by Councilmember Chavez, the Committee accepted the report, with the following directives to staff: to have the report come back in June with issues addressed.
(c)
Traffic Relief/Safe Streets
(1) Report on City’s Annual Transportation Report
The Committee received
the written status report.
(2) Report and review of Traffic Calming Program Report
Jim
Helmer, Director of Transportation, introduced Laura Wells, Senior Civil
Engineer, Department of Transportation, Linda Crabill, Communications Relations
Manager, Department of Transportation, and Lieutenant Wayne Farquhar, San José Police Department, Traffic
Enforcement Unit, who gave a presentation on the Traffic Calming
Program. This report is also intended
to address Council referral No. 9-24-02-6.1.
Chair Cortese asked that any questions from the Committee regarding this item be emailed to Jim Helmer and applicable staff to be answered at the May 5 meeting. Questions only to be emailed in ample time for staff to respond.
No action was taken by the Committee. Item continued to May 5, 2003.
(d)
Supporting Smart Growth
No action was taken by
the Committee. No new items.
(e)
Regional Relationships/Funding/Policy
(1) State, Federal, and Local Legislative Update
The Committee received
the written status report.
(f)
Oral petitions
None
(g)
Adjournment
The Committee was
adjourned at 3:35 pm
Councilmember
Dave Cortese, Chair,
Building
Better Transportation Committee