Continued Public Hearing (of Item 6-E on the March 19, 2019 City Council Agenda) to Consider Adoption of Resolution Denying the Appeal and Remanding the Design Review for a 96-Room Hotel with 62 Parking Spaces at 1825 Park Street (PLN17-0538) for Further Consideration by the Planning Board (for Reasons Independently Considered by the City Council that Were Not Raised in the Appeal). (Planning, Building & Transportation 481005)  [Please note: Public Comment was closed on March 19, 2019]
Far. Okay. Okay. If everyone could please take your seats. We are back in session staff. We are back in session here. My children always hang on my every word. This training, they didn't. Okay. I am going to propose a couple of agenda changes. So we. Our next item is six C, the public hearing to consider endorsing the annual report on the status of the general plan and housing element and more. But we have an item item six E, which is this public hearing having to do with an appeal about this Park Street hotel, which I have close to 60 and growing speakers clips. So I'm going to propose that we move that item next, because I hate to keep you all out late. And then we also have a lot of city staff here because item six F is the adoption of the resolution amending the fiscal year 2018 19 budget workforce change and others. So my proposal council is that we take items six E, items six F and then I just talk to Mr. Thomas about item six C. If we didn't get it to to it tonight, it wouldn't be the end of the world, as my colleagues would say. The sun will still rise in tomorrow morning. Right. We have. Okay. So is that okay with everybody? Councilmember Otis, I mean, I'm. Just wondering if, given the number of staff here on the budget, that if it might make sense to do that 1/1? We have we have 50 we have 60 speakers slips from the public. I really would favor taking that item next. Okay. I just know I'm worried about overworking our. Staff and making them said far too. Many things. So why don't we. Why don't we get started then? Okay, I make one suggestion. Yes. Can we just decide to bump six C? We said. Okay. I just if somebody is here for six I'd like to. Oh good point. Do we have speaker absent 669. We have one speaker A on 60 and it is a public hearing. So if you would like to, you could continue it to the date specific of April 2nd and we wouldn't have to re notice. I'm getting a thumbs up from Mr. Thomas. Okay. Okay. Do we need a motion on that, too? Sure. There was a motion, Mr. Knox. Wait in a second, Mr. Odie. Okay. That's what I thought. All in favor. I That's unanimous. Okay. Right along. We can do this. Okay, so we have item six E and that's you, Mr. Thomas Rae Hotel. Hotel Rep. Europe. Oh, scary. Are you ready? We're ready. Okay, great. I promised planning director. I will be introducing your item tonight. I think if it is the pleasure of the council, the. The the project applicant would like a few minutes to speak after my presentation and then this is an appeal. So you might consider allowing the appellant to speak after the applicant before taking all the public speakers. Thank you. We can do that. If you wish. This is as I said. Okay. One minute, Mr. Mayor. I just wanted, since we have so many speakers and we are going to like this short that I just want to make, maybe if we give. Should we do that now? So just so. People have some time to adjust if they need to. Okay. And what is it? Are you suggesting shorter? Well, we can't do 3 minutes because we have exceeded the number. Are you making a motion on, say, allowing a minute each or what's your proposal? I would like to move that. We allow speakers one minute to speak, which will still be an hour of public comment. And with the requests that if you just want to say, I agree with that guy, that's perfect and we will listen. Okay. You have second in that. Question the of inquiry for the appellant and the applicant that I think we have some rules that give them what is it, 10 minutes or 50. Typically give them 10 minutes. Okay. Okay. Somebody move that last second time. They hang on to every word. It's okay. It's been moved in, seconded that we give speakers one minute each because we have 60 or more speakers and the applicant and the appellant will each get up to 10 minutes. Correct. Okay. All in favor. I, i any opposed? Okay. That was unanimous. Right? Okay. Okay. Once again. Okay. I'll try to set the tone here and move along quickly so you can get to the speakers. This is a appeal of a planning board decision to approve a new hotel at 1825 Park Street. The hotel would be 96 rooms with 62 parking spaces. It's four stories and meets the zoning and height requirements for the district. The Planning Board's decision was a decision to approve essentially two entitlements that were required for this project to move forward. They needed to be approved before it could get building permits. Number one, design review. That's the architectural design. That's our process for the review of architectural design. The planning board approved that a design with a condition that the they still had some concerns about some of the detailing on the building and they required their resolution of approval required that the applicant and their architect come back for refinements on the final design before building permits are issued. They also approved a parking reduction which allowed for the 96 required parking spaces to be reduced to 62 parking spaces. But they conditioned it that in all cases, on all parking required for the hotel that they exceeded their six two space. It had to be provided on site through a valet parking program. So essentially ensuring that all the cars generated by the full 96 rooms would be parked on site. If the spaces are not available, then it would be done through valet service on site. This, as I said, the project meets the North Park Gateway Zoning District Zoning designation. This is also this site does have a multi-family residential combining overlay on it. This is raised in the in the appeal. That is a permissive zoning overlay. It allows for multifamily housing, but it does not require multifamily housing on the site. The hotels are permitted by right on the North Park Street zoning district. The general plan is can you commercial hotels are encouraged and allowed in community commercial in the general plan. And of course, hotels are supported strongly by our economic development strategic plan that was approved by the council just last year. So as I said, this was approved by the planning board. That was on July 20 excuse me, January 28th. They had a study session a few months earlier at which time they looked at a prior design, which they weren't happy with, gave the architect instructions. He came back. They came back on June 28th, at which time the project was approved with those conditions that I mentioned earlier. The Appellant has raised three issues in their appeal. They've focused really on the parking aspect of the Planning Board's decision. They questioned the adequacy of the parking analysis and the team measures which were imposed by the city and approved by the planning board on this project, and because of their dispute on the part where their questioning of the parking analysis. They then the appellant makes the case that the the project was not adequately reviewed under the California Environmental Quality Act. And they also raise the issue of the fact that this is a multifamily zoning district and there's no housing in this project. Staff disagrees with the appellant's analysis on the parking and the California Environmental Quality Act. We believe that the planning board did follow the zoning code, which and the parking code which allows the planning board to evaluate parking on a case by case basis, imposed measures to reduce the demand and therefore allow for reduction in parking. In this case, the Planning Board didn't even actually allow a reduction in parking. It simply required a valet parking and required and imposed tedium, tedium measures to reduce demand on top of that. So we feel that the planning board did the right decision on the parking aspect of the project. And the other issue that was raised in terms of California Environmental Quality Act. We respectfully disagree with the appellant. This project is consistent with the zoning because the zoning allows for these types of waivers and adjustments by the planning board. Therefore, there is no problem with the analysis under the California Environmental Quality Act. And then of course, as I said earlier, the multifamily zoning district is a permissive zone. It permits multifamily housing on the site. It does not require it. So for those reasons, we don't support these aspects of the or don't believe that the appellant has made a strong case on the parking issue or the multifamily overlay issue. Staff is recommending that the City Council uphold the Planning Board's decision. We think the Planning Board made the right decision in moving this forward with their conditions of approval and which would allow the project to proceed under the conditions I described. However, the planning this is a de novo hearing, which means that you can consider any issues brought before you and or that are raised by this approval by the Planning Board board. Therefore, an alternative action by the Council could be to uphold the appeal and direct the planning board to reconsider their prior approval. When you send it back to the planning board, you can also specify what it is that you want them to reconsider. As I said earlier, there's two pieces to this to this approval that they made design review, the actual architecture of the building, the parking plan that they approved, or of course, you could send it back if you wanted to uphold the appeal, send it back to have them reconsider both of those issues. So you can you can and should, if you decide to uphold the appeal, give the planning board clear direction as to what it is you think they did wrong and you'd like them to reconsider. That is the end of my presentation myself. I also want to recognize staff member Linda PEREIRA and Alan Tigh from our staff here, who did really most of the work on this project and I think did a. Nice thank you staff. Okay. All right. So who's up next? Appellant The applicant goes first or the appellant. Okay. Thank you. Before I start, I also wanted to say thank you very much for moving us up a little bit. And I wanted to say that we did lose like 15, 20 people already. They did fill out the slip, but they're gone. But they did put up there that they are in favor of this project. So good evening, everyone. I want to thank honorable mayor, vice mayor and city council members. As many of you know. My name is Paul Patel and I wanted to thank all of you guys for being here tonight. Your support, guidance and suggestions in helping me to bring this project to the city of Alameda has been incredible. No matter the outcome, you will always have my thanks and respect. I still remember so well the moment when 18 years ago, I fell in love with Alameda. I had just moved from India. I was a housekeeper at Days Inn, which is now roadway in cleaning rooms and cleaning toilets. I had very little money. I remember looking out the ocean and how my heart skipped a beat when I realized something. I was home. I have had some people ask me, why not invest elsewhere? And I'm speechless. I love this city. I still live just a few blocks from that ocean. I eat at Alameda Restaurants in Alameda, Texas, and dream not of building of faraway cities, but my own. Everything I have learned and earned is from this city, this community, and these citizens. I'm a seasoned hotel owner. I'm getting my MBA from Harvard. I have the skills, the funds and the will. I want to give back to this city that has given me so much. I'm not a foreigner. I'm son of Alameda. I had a moment of total desperation last week when I called my mother in India. She's a small town woman, doesn't understand the political world, but she's also one of the most moral people that I know. She was trying to make sense of all of these. So she asked me three questions. Is everything you're doing legal? Yes. Will your project help the community? Yes. And will you take care of the people that works with you? Yes. She laughed and told me to have hope that all would be fine with the project. She said an argument where the answer to all three of those questions was yes would be unbeatable. Downtown Alameda has a problem. There is no hotel within walking distance of our downtown restaurants and other businesses. There are too many empty storefronts because we don't have enough foot traffic. This new hotel will create jobs and revenue for all of our well-loved downtown establishments from tiny little House to Maggie's to Alameda Cineplex to Alameda Island Brewing Company to East End Pizza . Our restaurants, coffee shops, our bars will benefit. We will provide meeting space for local at discounted rates. Contribute to the local transportation agency, open up our gym to Alameda residents, increase tourism, benefit local nonprofit organization and local artist and contribute to the beautification of Park Street. The direct and indirect benefit are endless and enduring. It is a win win situation for everyone. I'm the only Alameda Hotel developer who's also a resident who cares about this community as much as you all. If we don't take this opportunity now and the owner of the land decides to do something else with it, there is no other appropriate lodge. So we may never have a hotel in downtown Alameda. The reason I'm here before you is to work with you, to partner with other businesses and support the people that live here. Because at the end of the day, who cares about this community as much as we do? Before I go, I would also like to thank Alan, Linda and Mr. Andrew Thomas and the city staff. For all your help. You have made this process much better for me and it is appreciated whether you're here to support this project or not. Each of you that took time out of your lives to be here, you truly cares about this community. And that's why I love this city. And I'm doing this project because I also care about this community and want to give back. My goal has always been to solve the problem that needs to be addressed. And with your help, we can work together to make this a reality. So please vote for this photo. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Battelle. And then we will also hear from the appellate tie, Hudson and Mr. Hudson. You will also have 10 minutes. Good evening, mayor. As you Ashcraft and members of the city council. My name is Ty Hudson. I'm with Unite Here Local 2850 and we are the appellant. And I want to speak to a couple of different issues here. First, I'm going to speak to really the letter of the law when it comes to how the city, how the Alameda Municipal Code talks about allows for parking reductions. And second, I'm going to speak to whether this is really the right project for the city and for that location from a bigger picture point of view. But I'll start with with the letter of the law on the parking. The municipal code allows for does allow for for parking reductions by the planning board. And that, as Mr. Thomas mentioned, that that is true. But it also spells out very specifically what the planning board has to find and what what the the project has to provide in order to qualify for those reductions. The two reductions that are sort of that this project claims to or the two criteria this project claims to to to meet are a a parking demand study that would show that the parking that the project wouldn't need as much parking as it is the code would ordinarily require. And that and a transportation demand management program which the the criteria which are very specifically defined in the code. So I'll start with that one. One of the. The program that the this project purports to provide is participation in the Transportation Management Association, which would give transit passes to employees of the hotel and subsidizing Uber or Lyft to various locations for the guests. And but that does not meet the criteria of the code. The code requires, among other things, specific performance targets for trip reductions and parking reductions that these measures would are supposed to try to meet and. Secondary measures that they that the project would be committed to implementing if those targets were not met. There are no targets included in the proposal here for how many of the guests would take rideshare. There are no targets mentioned for how many of the employees would actually use public transportation to get to work. And there are no secondary measures proposed for if those two measures weren't enough. And so it just simply doesn't meet the criteria. I'll say a little bit more about the Uber and the lift further, further along. Second is the parking study. There have been other hotels that have come forward that that in some cases that I've been here to oppose or support. And but whether I suppose opposed them or supported them, some of them have done real parking demand studies. There was a hotel out on Harbor Bay Parkway which which I was opposed to, which we were opposed to that did a parking study that observed a comparable hotels. For 77 days over the course of four months to determine how many parking spaces this new hotel would would likely require. The purported parking study for this project observed two days, once on a weekend and once on a weekday. That is not a parking study, and any anyone who tries to pass that off as a parking study should be embarrassed. There was no mention of how how what was the occupancy of the particular hotel on Webster Street that they observed? And it's just it's just not a it's not a credible study. For what it's worth, the study out on Harvard Bay Parkway came up with a much higher ratio of of parking spaces to rooms that would be required. After they actually did a robust, robust data collection. Then what this then what this purported study concludes. So that's the letter of the law and the parking. The project simply hasn't met the the criteria that required for the granting of a parking reduction. And I respectfully would submit to you that perhaps the parking that they want to provide would be enough, but they should go back to the planning board, do their homework and actually demonstrate that. Second, I want to talk about whether this project is really what the city of Alameda needs. Our appeal mentioned and Mr. Thomas mentioned that this is one of very few sites that is designated as a multi-family overlay. I recognize that that doesn't mean hotels are not allowed and I don't make the argument that a hotel is not allowed to use here. But we just had a long presentation about the housing crisis and all of the. Really extreme measures that that legislators and other policymakers are considering taking to address this serious crisis and to put a sort of mediocre hotel on a spot that has that that is an opportunity site for for multifamily housing. I would I would suggest that the council should think really hard before before approving that. Second of all, there is a lot of rhetoric about activating the street and improving the pedestrian activity on Park Street. But this hotel is inward faces, places in the parking lot in the back to be. To be perfectly honest, people are going to drive in, parked their car, or have a valet parked their car and drive from the back and the front door and the front windows are really just decoration. There was a lot of talk at the planning board about about the the appearance of the windows to create an appearance of pedestrian friendliness. But there's nothing that about this hotel that activates the street in any way. There's nothing that, you know, there's no retail or food on the ground floor that would actually bring people in and have and have people walking up and down that street. And that is a second that is a portion of Park Street that, you know, could really use that kind of pedestrian activity. So on the whole, is this a project that is good enough for the city to overlook that the that it doesn't need the the letter of the law and the parking reductions? I believe it's not. And I, I hope you'll at the very least send it back to the Planning Board for it to really do its homework and to create a better project for the city. Thank you. Thank you. Counsel, before we get to our stack of speaker slips, do we have any clarifying questions for staff? Councilmember Desai Yeah. One clarifying question is on the if we're going to basically remove this from the housing overlay, are we require then to make up the loss of this area? That would have been no. We're already in surplus, so sites on it. Thank you. Mr. Thomas. I don't. Don't go. I had a question about the appellant's assertion that the parking study just observed two days at another hotel. Can you speak to that? Yeah. You know, I we looked at the the Webster the hotel on Webster Street. We did some independent analysis as well. You know, I think, you know, the issue for us as staff when we think about the appellants arguments is we keep coming back to the larger question. That entire provision in the zoning code that Mr. Hudson referenced references is all about the planning board reducing the amount of parking on the site available under what the code requires. And what the planning board actually did is they said, look, you need we think you probably only need 62 spaces. That's what your parking lot shows. But when you if in fact, we're wrong and you need more, you're going to park it all on site through a valet program. So they technically didn't actually reduce the amount of parking. They said you have to park. If if 96 people show up and rent 96 rooms and each one of them has a car that they need to park on the site, you're going to park all 96 of them. So the whole argument about the parking analysis is for us at staff becomes we sort of find ourselves jumping ahead. If really the issue is you want 96 spaces that are independently accessible without any valet, then there there is really a simple solution. The hotel has to get smaller because we just can't fit 96 rooms and 96 parking spaces on that site. So you could say, all right, 62, that's all you the parking you have. So let's reduce the hotel to 62 rooms if you really felt that you needed every room to have an independently accessible parking space. So for us, the whole argument about the parking study is interesting, but just not particularly relevant because at the end of the day, the planning board said if the parking study is wrong. Then you'll be valet parking because we don't want you dumping any cars into the neighborhood or onto the street. You're going to park at least 96 cars on this parking lot. And if that means you need to have your staff people come out in valet park and that's what you're going to do. Okay. Thank you. Any other clarifying questions before we go to public speakers? Okay. So public speakers. It would help if you don't wait until I've called your name. The third time to walk up to the front. I'm going to call three or four in advance, cut out to the aisle so you can get up here easily. We will get you home sooner if you do. So our first public speakers in this order are Carrie Thompson. Michelle Russo. Correct me if I mispronounce your name. Oh, wait. And Paul, Minnesota. Oh, I know who that is. He's ten pizza and cut a long line and bah! Thank you for the phonetic pronunciation. Miss Thompson, you are for it. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. I just wanted to say that I feel that the planning board did do a good job on their due diligence and that they are taking into account everything, including parking, including the design of the hotel. Whether they enter from the front or the back makes no difference. And that we fully the the Government Relations and Economic Development Committee fully supports this project. Thank you. Thank you. And you even gave me the phonetic spelling. Michelle Manila. Sorry, it's getting late. Hello. Hello. My name is Fisherman who says I am an Alameda resident and one of the owners of East End Restaurant down on a park. And what a vista. I want to also second, a lot of feeling here that I think the planning department did do due diligence on this project. The many, many hoops they had them jump through on design review and still more to come. I feel that there's a viable project here, and especially to address the idea that there's not going to be pedestrian activity because the hotel has a parking lot. I just want to say feet in that end of Park Street is going to benefit my business. A lot of the businesses around us and I look forward to meeting and greeting a lot of new visitors to Alameda. Thank you. Thank you. And Paul, is this. You know and a man and council I am family says I am one also of the owners of East End restaurant here in Alameda and I say no to the appeal and yet to the hotel because I think it'll do wonders for businesses here in Alameda and I think it's a great idea. Thank you. Thank you. By the way, you're all rock stars. It's staying under one minute, so keep that up and you'll be home even sooner. Okay. And also continue these phonetic pronunciations. I love it. Kurt, Long and Bob. Then I have no excuse for mispronouncing your name. All right, he's left. All right, so then we have O Zens and Lee. And I bet I said that incorrectly. Thank you for all your time. There's a lot of business and, you know, companies here. And I mean, that is a great thing. It's a great thing. But they also don't need in a hotel to help them because they have clients coming into the city. You don't want you know, they are doing their business with their clime and go to, you know, San Francisco or Oakland to live. So I think, you know, and to me, that is another, you know, tourist destination. But, you know, to help business and the companies to stay here. Thank you. I support a hotel. Thank you. And then our next speakers in this order are Justin Wong, Wes Warren and Sam Patel. Mr. Wong. No. All right. Good evening, everyone. So I went to be for elementary. I went to Lincoln Middle School. I went to Alameda High. Park Street has been a great part of my childhood and some of my best childhood memories. And a lot of it is the retail. And so I think that the Bay Area should know about Alameda. And I think that, you know, more traffic would really bode well for Park Street and the city of Alameda. Thank you. And San Patel here is. I'm Sam, but I was a resident of Alameda. Two years ago, I moved to Saint Louis, Missouri. But I still have business here. Uh, consulting, say business. I bring in a staff, people here, uh, for the interviews and all that, and we've been housing them at the airport. The biggest problem is they don't want to go to Oakland. Uh, they want to come to eliminate some beautiful island. They feel safe here. Very safe. And it's a beautiful. I lived here, so I know. And why I was sitting and hearing all the different cases before us, uh, the, the one at the golf course. So they're building the event center and that is very exciting news for us as a business then. Now we can do a event there and have my staff living in, in downtown, and that will help us very big because the staff will be very happy. And I will I will love to see this hotel coming up. It's a beautiful project. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Patel is followed by Ming Yanan and also private citizen Cameron and Jean Schmidt in that order. Hi, my name is Amelia Yang. I support the hotel because we are the on this side. There are no hotel really nice and new and provide for the city and also the citizens who has family members come visit. So I will be Fred I my family members, they stay in Oakland and come over visit me. That's why I support for how they are like this. Thank you. Thank you. And then we have private citizen Cameron. Are you here? There he is. Followed by John Schmidt. It's John Schmidt here. Okay. John Schmidt's not here. Then Ed Shore will go next. Good evening. Thank you for the time. After hearing the facts in this. Case and understanding Park Street and Alameda, myself, being a community member and coming down here all my life, I think that downtown needs a. Little bit of a revitalization. And hearing both sides and facts the case, I don't see really a reason why this community wouldn't benefit. From. A hotel like this, being in the area and knowing the brand. Hearing the objections. On the park's parking side, it doesn't really seem like. It's going to negatively hurt the city in the way it would benefit it. So I just wanted to take a couple of moments coming here and thank you for the time. Thank you. So is it are you Mr. Shaw? Yeah. Okay. Come on up. The Mayor and staff and city council. I'm Ed Shy. I'm the regional development director for Intercontinental Hotels Group. And the proposed hotel would be one of our brands, a Holiday Inn Express. And we're very excited to have a hotel in downtown Alameda. We think it's hugely beneficial to the city with the all the taxes that this hotel will pay and provide and also not use very many city services. And we'll also greatly support all the businesses along Park Street, which could use a help, you know. So this is a wonderful project. We're very excited. I take a little offense to the union representative calling it a mediocre hotel because it's a fantastic hotel brand. It's one of the top largest hotels in the country. We do not do applies. We have got 60 plus speakers. We will be here all night. Please, no more applause. Thank you. And you get the speaker off. So don't do that again. Please keep the mayor more cheerful. Okay. Our next speakers. Are. Benjamin Winters, followed by a rich at Creek's King Rich crank. So it is followed by a who's who know he you know in host. Boy, you're going to have to help me with that one. Okay. Are you Mr. Winter? I am. Hello, I am Benjamin Winter. I'm the owner of Phenix, the venue right here on the corner. I am speaking in favor of the hotel. I was on the fence until Mr. Pertell took the time three or four times to come by, to call me and to get to know me and to talk to me and be personal about this. And I just hope we take that very seriously. I opened my venue two years ago and it takes a fire and it takes local pride. And I saw that in him. And I didn't know him. I didn't know about I didn't know about the project. And I had the same kind of shared the sentiment of a of a major hotel chain coming in. And but things need to be local and personal. Our growth needs to be local. It needs to be personal. I think that's at the root of the concern. And I see local and personal in this project, and I think it will catalyze a lot of vitality downtown, which is a band game. Thank you. Thank you. Which brings. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And Council members and staff, rich drinks, long time resident and commercial broker here in town. I want to bring to your mind 1989 1990 movie called Do the Right Thing by Spike Lee. This project has been going on for three years. About a half a million dollars spent by the applicant, two planning boards, two mayors and two councils. So it's time to move on. We have a50 vote by the planning board. They've done their homework. Staff has really done their homework. We've gone over and over and over with the design. Three architects on the design hotels bring in a lot of businesses and that means more jobs. I know someone spoke earlier about not having jobs. I think we need jobs and this will bring in more jobs. It's also going to bring more money to the businesses in town where their their employees can maybe afford to live here and the rents will be better. So I implore you, as Spike Lee said, do the right thing. Thank you. Thank you. And now will you will you correct me on the awful pronunciation? I'll make. It. I'll make it easy for you. Seni in Hausa. Hausa. Thank you very much. Thank you. I knew it was going to happen, so. Okay. Well, first off, thank you so much for letting me talk for a moment or for a minute. This is a fantastic opportunity to bring something to the city that I think it needs. But more importantly, I'm here to support the Planning Commission and what they've already approved and they've already talked about. It's interesting when I see the the unite here come and talk negatively about the location of what it is and what it could be and on set. But they've addressed all those things. Everything has been. The Planning Commission was very, very they did their homework. They knew what was going on. One of the things that I do for a living as a filmmaker and when I do a film, I shot a short film here a few years back. And the first thing I do is I go to the local businesses, I go to the restaurants, I bring a crew to the you know, we shot inside the Starbucks, we shot inside the movie theater. We were at the marina. This is a beautiful and wonderful place to be, but without a hotel downtown makes it really inconvenient to do things like that. So I just want to say that I support I support the hotel and I. Hope you make the right decision. Thank you. Thank you. So our next speakers are being followed by hisses joining us, followed by Vincent some hello. My name is Phoebe. I'm a local resident of Alameda for many, many years. I am in favor of full title. I believe that it will bring a lot of new business, will bring life to downtown. Growing up here, downtown has changed so much and I think that we need to provide stay for a lot of people. There's not very many high end or very nice hotels in the area, and I think a brand new hotel will definitely change the flavor, especially towards the bridge where right now people say it's dead. I think it'll bring a lot more people to Alameda than want to stay because currently everybody is staying and either Jack London or downtown Oakland. And I think that Alameda has a lot to bring and I think I'll bring a lot more people. Thank you. Thank you. And do we have his his 20th Mr.. Joining us going once going twice. Okay Vincent some Mr.. Some is followed by Mike Gorman. I'm from Irwin Vincent's. I'm here to speak in favor of the hotel. I believe it's going to be a boon to the economy, both in the construction phase and after construction. The minute you break ground, you'll have construction crews here all day, sometimes at night. And that number of people will be visiting local businesses. Following that, he's also going to be helping revitalize some of the infrastructure in the local area with regard to undergrounding of the overhead lines, the ADA compliance of the sidewalks and some of the streets. Now nearby the hotel, he will be taking on the cost and the effort of redoing all of those for the city of Alameda, as well as his own business. The burden of proof to prove that this is a viable and beneficial project has been met. And I believe that you should proceed with this without any further delay. Thank you. Thank you. And are you Mike Gorman? You're another former councilmember, Mike Gorman. But that's okay. Thank you for your time. I'll be brief. I grew up in a small island community in the great state of Maryland. I moved to the Bay Area two years ago. Ever since then, I've taken probably around 20 client meetings in Oakland. And every time I try to stop by Alameda because it reminds me of home tonight, I have to drive 45 minutes back to Campbell. If there was a conveniently placed hotel, I would probably stay the night and wouldn't have to drive back. I believe it would be great for the city both with tax revenue and jobs. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Gorman is followed by Sean Flynn. Followed by Vincent Moore, followed by. Lay Tai chi. Tai, you're going to help me. Okay. Mr. Flynn. My name is John Flynn. I've waited a couple of hours now just to say I am for this hotel, all right? And we. And we were waiting for you. Okay. Vincent, is Vincent my hair? Vincent. Hi. My name is Vince and Mom, former business owner, owner in Alameda, also a former commercial property owner. And I'm currently a barber shop owner. And I can tell you right now, I heard on the way over here that tourism is down now all time high. They have absolutely no hotel rooms here. And this is a perfect opportunity for you guys to be the first in Alameda. And I applaud you that I flavor favored the proposal and I really hope you guys can consider it. And thank you very much. Thank you. And do we have Louie, Louie, tie dye. Tie dye, man, tie food. Say, okay, perfect. Oh, yeah, it is. I'm here. I'm just here to support the hotel, that's all. Simple. Straightforward. It took me longer to say your name than you spoke. Okay, whatever. You get credit for that. Okay. Michael Villa. Villa Luna. Level the Villa Luna via you. Come help me out with your. Name, please. Oh, it's really a luna. What is it? Villa Luna. Villa Luna. Hello. Hi, I'm Mike. Villa Luna. And I'm in favor of the hotel. I think it will be good for the economy and creates jobs. The hotel visitors will help local businesses with. Visitors need to eat and shop. Thank you. You guys are doing a great job on your public speaking. Okay, three more. We have Harvey Yang, followed by John. Oh, boy. Friend Gordon Ali. And Madeleine Sadek. Hi. RV. Yes. Hi. And is John here as well, or did I butcher your name so badly you don't recognize it? Well, try again, Mr. Yen. I am going to keep this real sweet. Yes, my name is Harvey Young, and I couldn't say it any better than what he's already saying. So I'm going to support this. Thank you. Okay. All right. You can come correct me on that of a pronunciation. By the mayor. Mr. Vice Mayor, members of the council. My name is John Franklin. My kids and I own the new Park Street Tavern across the street from the proposed New York City, hopefully hotel. My father in law had a grocery store on Park Street in the forties and fifties. My kids have 30 year lease on that place and they plan to stay there for a long time. I heard that the proposed project is a mediocre project. By no means that project is going to enhance the gateway to the city. We plan to hire between 5 to 10 more people to do because of the increased visitor to anticipate. So I hope you approve the project without any further delay, because it's going to create no more no more and more income for the city from the hotel, but also from the rest of the business around. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Evangelist. I can say that. Okay. Madeline Saric. Good evening. Mayor and Council Members. My name is Madeline Saturday and I'm the new executive director of Alameda Chamber and I'm very proud to be one. And I'm going to echo a lot of the people that said great things about it. But being new to the city of Alameda, I call it the destination. It's the hidden gem of the Bay Area. And I think we do need the hotels here because we need to increase tourism to the city very much. And I'm all for that. Plus, it's going to increase business, it's going to increase jobs and everything. So we're all for it. The chamber supports that. Thank you so much. Thank you. And then we have Brian Landers, followed by Ryan Mooney, followed by. Gary Garrick. Garrick. Garrick. Okay. Do I have. I'm Brian Landers. Brian Landers. Maybe not. I know I have run Mooney. Are you Brian? No, that's Mike Gorman. Come on up. Don't be shy. He's not. Good evening, Mayor and council members. The attempt to keep the mayor happy will be short. I live just a couple of blocks from here and that's six blocks from the project. I'm in support of the project. I've read the full packet, listen to the applicant and the appellant and think you should support the Planning Commission in their decision and move it. Do the resolution are provided. Thank you, Mr. Mooney. And you are. Mr. Garrick. How? My name is Gary Yaniv. My family and I are patrons of the Park Street. We support the hotel. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I have Lisa Fong, followed by Tina Blaine, followed by Enrique. Ms.. Samantha. Okay. Miss Fine, right? Yes. Hi, Mayor. Vice mayor and council. People of men. Women. The people. Okay. Second phase. I'm in support of the hotel. I believe that it will bring more, you know, tourists, everything like that. I think that Patel has done a lot of research and the planning commission has all. Are in favor. And you see all the business people that are actually here in support of the hotel. I feel that you guys should not delay and I'll vote yes. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, I. Tina Brown. Blue. My name is Tina Blaine. I am a resident of Alameda. I live about two blocks away from the new proposed hotel project. And I'm also the director of Rhythmic Sculptural Works, which I think will benefit greatly from having more visitors to our island. I was really inspired by Mr. Patel story. I think it's a very Alameda story that most people could really feel really good about that someone who is really ingrained and enmeshed in the community and like Benjamin Winters from Phenix said. Mr. Patel took the time to come out and meet with me and hear about my concerns and was really looking for ways to partner and to find ways that his guests could benefit from the kinds of entertainment that rhythmic provides to the community here. I also think that the hotel tax fund and the moneys that will be generated for public art are great for the city. Thank you to I have Enrique Nascimento cabinet. Gustav Link, Mr. Link and Mr. Link is followed by Amy Quintero. Hi. How's it going? All right. Gustavo, like I said, I'll let you know I support the project. Not gonna really go any farther. Sean Simple. Thank you. Great. 5 seconds. I love it. All right, so do I have Amy Quintero. Here she is. I thank you so much for the vetting that you're doing for this project. My husband and I are business owners and residents of Alameda. My husband went to Alameda High School. We have a vested interest in. This hotel happening for the community. We all know Paul has met every requirement thrown at him. He's done it with grace and a big smile on his face. What you might not know is what he's doing because. Of his heart. I'm on the board of Dreamcatcher. It's a shelter for sexually trafficked youth. I know, Mayor, you and I have attended some of the same fundraisers. When I told Paul about their mission, he asked for an introduction because. Their mission is close to his heart. He doesn't have to do this for the hotel. He's reaching out because he cares and he's offered to provide additional shelter for sexually trafficked youth when the shelter has no more beds. He's also. Reached out to Alameda Family Services to. See how he might work with their Family Resource Center. He's a good human being and deserves. Thank you, Miss Quintero. Miss Quintero is followed by Mike Parisi, my priest here yet there he is. Followed. Followed by Mark Skolnick. Followed by Lars Hansen. Hi. My name is Mike Parisi, the owner of the tiny little house on Alameda. My wife's Thai. I've seen the faces. Some Thai. It's a it's a mediocre little restaurant on Park Street, but it goes out. Well, first of all, I'm kind of fascinated that that somebody that interested a union rep in the parking situation. But I'm just going to call it short. I, I want this hotel. It's great, great opportunity for everybody. And I agree. Thank you, Mr. Percy and Mark Skolnick. Are you here? There you are. Hi. Good evening. My name is Mark Skolnick. I'm here to support this hotel. It's going to bring a lot of revenue to the city. It's a well thought out program that's been thoroughly vetted by the planning department at very high expense to Mr. Patel. And this is the right project at the right time in the right place. So I thoroughly approve. And I urge you to do the same. Thank you. And could I just ask the audience not to be talking like speakers are talking? Let's give everyone their do because we want to hear from Mr. Hansen. Lars Hansen, you're up next, followed by Eric Hamlin, panelists and as well as panelists. Okay, that's an interesting spy. And Christina, hurry after that. Mr. Hansen. Good evening. My name is Lance Hansen and I, both a restaurant and business owner in Alameda. I'm here tonight to give my support for the hotel project, have my work with Park Street Business Association for many, many years. A project like what is in front of us tonight at the north end of Park Street has been a goal for the organization for many, many years that I welcome this project. The hotel will not only generate needed revenue to the city, but I also believe it will inspire other developments and improvement to the north end of the Park Street. And in that process, the gateway to Park Street and our city will improve and become more attractive. I believe that this project will do due to the north end of Park Street, but the theater project, Detroit, downtown, it will become a success. So I urge you to support it tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hansen. And Eric, you're going to help me with that last name, Rose Railers. Okay. Good evening. My name is Eric Willows and I'm here to support Paul's project. I'm going to echo many of the benefits that others have already said. The business tax revenue for the city of Alameda is going to be great. I think there's spillover benefits to many of the retailers and merchants along Park Street and other streets. Others like it in Alameda will be tremendous and a gentleman mentioned it earlier. Now, if I have friends and family visiting instead of packing them in my house, they have a place to stay. Thank you. Thank you. You won't get on each other's nerves that way. Okay. Christina Huie. Hi. Followed by Michel Rayo Arroyo, followed by La, my Korean. And you can correct me on that pronunciation mystery. Good evening. My name's Christina. Hi. Hi. It's okay. Everyone says Huey. I am in favor of the hotel. I think Alameda is a beautiful little place. It deserves to be shared not only through tourism, but also promoting local businesses. I think overall it's a win win situation. Thank you. And Michelle and Michelle, is it real or real? Okay. Good evening. My name is Michelle Rayo. I'm just like a lot of people here. I do support the hotel. I believe it's going to be good for the community of Alameda. And I would like to commend Mr. Patel as an immigrant myself. And he planted here 18 years ago and he wants to build his business here. I think it's going to be good for Alameda. Thank you. Thank you. And LA my Damien do you recognize your name? Is it that person has left okay. Because they pronounce the name so badly. And then we have to picture Michoud. The last name is Michelle. Janet Maccabee. I saw her. There she is. Good evening, Madam Mayor and council members. My name is Janet Mckelvie, I. I'm the executive director of the Downtown Alameda Business Association, which enthusiastically supports this hotel. We hope you feel the same way. I want to put a little bit of spin on something that you may not be thinking about, but we do, as an association, produce the biggest events in downtown Alameda. And all of those people need to stay a second day and spend the night and spend twice as much money as they would spend if they just came to the mother the Mother's Day event for one day or the art and wine fair for one day or so many of the other great events that we have. And Mr. Pertell has been an absolute delight to work with his community minded. He's resilient, certainly, and he is somebody that we really want to support. And on behalf of our board of directors and our committee members, we ask you to approve this project. Thank you. Thank you. Ms.. Maccabee is followed by Steven Zimmerman. Mr. Zimmerman followed by the champion Nam Cam. Followed by Steven. So, so sorry. So sorry. Mr. Zimmerman. Hi. Thank you. Mayor. And members of the council whose proposed project, hotel project, will revitalize the northern section, partially bring more visitors, obviously revenue to our town and support businesses like Tuckers, but also will support a lot of nonprofit groups. What a lot of people forget to realize as we put on a lot of great events in town as the incoming president of Rotary, we're going to be hosting a district call in the Hornet this May. We're going to bring some world class speakers like astronaut Scott Kelly. It's a three day event. We're expecting hundreds, if not over a thousand attendees for three days. During this time, we were trying to reserve room hotel rooms on the island. We could only get 46 rooms, not only to be an asset to the businesses, but also nonprofit groups in town like Darbar, Rotary Boys and Girls Club and their big event in October. So there are many reasons to support this project. It makes sense for the community, it makes sense for businesses, it makes sense for visitors and their family members. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Do we have Ms. or Mr. Nam Cam? No. Okay. I'm Steven. So sorry. No. Nora Gordon. We could be out of here even sooner. Darren and. No. Okay. We really scared them off. Ivan Gutierrez, Mr. Gobierno, Joe La Parra. I saw him. There he is. Where you are. Well, I get the other ten in. Front of me, you know. You do know we have rules in this body. There's nothing more I can say other than I support this hotel and everybody else. Every single speaker in front of me supports the hotel, and they said everything beautifully. Better than I could. So thank. You. Thank you. Okay. And then I have. See, look, look, look. No, Nora. A bill. No. Oh. Do you want to come up here and just read this now? Okay. I need to ng. There you are. Okay. You coming up? You read. I know, but remember, we've got rules. Okay. Ms.. NG. Hello, everyone. I'm a local resident, small business owner in town and a commercial property owner on Park Street. I think the hotel is good for our downtown district. Hotel guests will come stay and spend money in our beautiful downtown. I think it will help our economy. I totally support the hotel project. Thank you. Ms.. NG is followed by Vida's Vida Circus. Here he is. Hi. And you can tell us the real pronunciation of your name. Yeah. Vida Sharky's. Vida. Not too bad. Speaking of the hotel without the restaurant is the best news to all Park Street restaurants. No, that's confirmed. That was the first what I figured when people told me about the situation and I really feel the pain for years trying to present this project and start building. I mean, that's wow. It took me half a year to build my little restaurant and I thought, it's a disaster. So for years, I really feel the pain. I really want to support him as much as they can. And all this nearby out of mobile, out body shops, maybe they will convert for more parking lots, so who knows? Maybe they will see the opportunity once the hotel is going to be standing there. So it can really bring good news to everybody. So I shouldn't be really sad about locals comments. Thank you. Thank you. What's your restaurant, by the way? I'm more popular to my restaurant. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Thank you. And then Richard kind of Powell. Kind of Powell. Followed by Alex. Rachel, Rachel followed by Crash. I hear. So thank you for the opportunity to speak. As a long time East Bay resident and supporter of our major businesses. I heartily support the project and urge acceptance. Thank you. Alex Patel. Hi. Good evening. I'll try to keep it brief. I grew up in Oakland for first 24 years of my life and every time I would get a straight AA, we would go to Tucker's. Every time we wanted to, as Burma came up, we would go to Burma. I mean, it's been a place that I've come my entire life and it's been really special. And then seeing it grow and expand over the years has been really tremendous. And just and this is a project that I think will drive a lot of business here. And hearing everybody talk about the business growth, it just seems like it makes sense. And then also, my brother had a very important event. We brought family in. We lived in Oakland for a while and we looked for places and we didn't find a place safe that we felt comfortable bringing our families here. But we would always come here to Alameda with all of the family when they would come into town. And so having a hotel like this, I could see family bringing in people to stay at the hotel. And it would be something that would be great for us to be able to come here and spend more time. Thank you. And to have Koresh are here and and followed by Carlos Rosales, followed by Sunil Lama. Hi. Hi. Good evening. I'm in favor of the hotel project. I'm an L.A. based filmmaker who does business here in Alameda and, you know, have meetings over projects. And it's usually here in downtown. You know, all these is one of the examples that we usually meet. So it would be great to walk down the hotel and just walk over to the restaurant versus driving. So I hope this happens. Thank you. Thank you. And Carlos Rosales, there is. So hello. You just want to start by saying that a certain said from the local union that the gas will come in through the back, go inside the hotel and inside there they need to eat. Everybody here in Alameda has most of the restaurants are privately owned. They're not a big chain. So I think the all the businesses will benefit, you know, by having 97 people come out in the city every day if it's sold out. So I am for the hotel. Okay. Thank you. And let's see, we've got Sunil Lama there. Sunil. Followed by William Smith, followed by Brian Maguire, followed by Carlos Serrano crying. Hello. Hello. Good evening. I'm here to support Paul's Hotel Project. Thank you. It took longer to walk to the microphone. Bill Smith. That was short. Bill Smith, again, welcome to you. Back up here. I'm really impressed and delighted to see the business community get behind something, the business. And so that's very impressive. But not one of them has mentioned housing and where these employers are going to live and all these new jobs are. And I do have find a couple of suggestions for our planning director to work about in terms of approaching this. He said, we met arena numbers. That is absolutely not true. We are way behind on the affordable housing component, which is the housing group where they employ most, employ for the restaurants and the hotels will live. And so we're going to have a problem that we're going to add to it. They said, oh, it isn't high. Everybody locally, well, they're not going hiring away from someone else locally. So eventually people are going to move in. So that doesn't work. Then the other thing I wanted to say is we really should do a social vulnerability analysis because you wrote me, the city wrote me that squat does not do consider social vulnerability in the fact of income for affordable housing. That's outside of CEQA. We need to get that in. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Brian Maguire. Hello, Brian Maguire. You guys dealt with a couple of big issues today climate change item, big housing crisis item. And one thing that both of those colossal problems have in common is that they're one of the big contributors to those is bad local process that leads to bad faith appeals that delay in order to delay and deny projects for infill development. So hopefully we're not going to play that game here any longer, even if it's our friends who are asking for something. Putting on my bike walk hat. I'm hopeful that we can have a way to direct the right chair, sort of which to substituting for a shuttle to go to the back of the hotel. Better yet, offering to transit day passes to users as an alternative to Uber and Lyft. I think this is would be a decent project to have a few project based bike share options for guests. Three or four bikes, maybe. Lastly, if you've ever scratch your head trying to park at the marketplace, you should grant staff flexibility to give one further reduction of parking so that the 17 compact spaces can be six inches wider. Carlos Serrano, Keegan and Mr. Serrano. Quinn is my last speaker slip. If you want to speak, just don't feel compelled. But if you want to speak, get his speeches live. And right away. That could be Ashcraft and the council member for this evening. Okay. Mr. Patel is a personal friend of mine, actually, and he's very passionate about this project. About a year ago, he actually toward me around Park Street. I used to live in Bay Port Alameda myself, and he's so passionate about this project that he explained to me about all the economic benefits that it would bring to the city that would bring the parks. As a matter of fact, he took it all the way down Park Street. How he would benefit all the companies and businesses down Park Street. And I used to have a friend that owns chicken wire. I don't know if you guys remember on Park Street. He didn't make it. He was right there really close to the hotel site. So in my 20 seconds, let me just tell you a little story about Mr. Patel and where he has come from and where he's going right now with this hotel. This is not his first. This was not at first. I'll tell he's experience hotel operator and he no, he's really knows what he's doing. And I highly urge you guys to support the denial of the people. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay. Our last speaker is Michael McKenna. Is it morning yet? No, it's still afternoon. Still evening. Good evening, council mayor. I'm Michael McDonough, president of the Alameda Chamber of Commerce. I turned in my speaker slip, slip last because I wanted to speak last. And I don't know if any of you were taking roll or taking. I was chicken scratching. Everybody that came up here, we had 46 for one that I'm not sure if he was for or against, but it sounded like you might have been against. But I have never seen that many speak. We had 12 that left or 13 that left. That's on the back of my slip. Mayor, if you want to check that. I have never seen that many speakers come out and all be for something. And I think it's because there's no doubt that the businesses in Alameda, as we see today, need a hotel in Alameda. There's no doubt that the residents need another hotel in Alameda. There's no doubt that the tote tax will benefit our budget. There's no doubt that it will stimulate the economy again. On Park Street, remember what the thinking is. Thank you, guys. See you again. All right. With that, I'm closing public comment and I'm opening up council discussion. Who wants to go first? Councilmember Vela. A couple of questions for Mr. Thomas. So we heard about that story in question. And we also heard that there was a study done from a hotel on Webster. There's two hotels on Webster. How many rooms do they have? So number. Mm hmm. Approximately 50 rooms for both. Both hotels. You know. That's the Hawthorne Suites we're talking about. I mean, I guess part of my question is just we're hearing about all the business that is going to be generated. Do the and at the Hawthorne and the I think the date but I don't know the name of the other hotel. Days in. Days Inn or something like that. The roadway or. Roadway in. That that. How much business are they generating right now for Webster Street? They're both at the entrance of Webster. Do we do we have can we quantify that? I can't standing here now. Okay. But we're hearing that they're at capacity. I have. I know. Yes. The I don't know about the roadway. And I do know about the Webster. The other Hawthorne Suites is often at capacity. Okay. And that's that's about 50% of what this proposed hotel is. Yeah, it's about 50 rooms. Okay. Regarding the the ride share proposals, you know, have we I mean, obviously that came up. That was one of the that's one of the proposals in terms of how to handle that. Do we have any sort of guidance or policies in place regarding. You know, what the what the condition of approval requires is that to make that available to hotel patrons so that they can get a ride? What we're trying to do is we were trying to make it as easy as possible for people flying into the open airport to not have to rent a car. So with with different hotels, we've taken different approaches. Sometimes we require that they run a free shuttle just back and forth. In this case, the operator and staff discussed using a ride share program so that make that available for. I'm sorry. You could feel free to come up if you want. Also, I know she's got a broken foot, but if you. Say yes to the idea. The idea of the ride share was to essentially make it free for the for the patrons to be able to get back and forth from the airport to the hotel without having to rent a car. So the operator would be paying for the ride share. Right. Okay. Thank you. Okay. And, Councilor, we've got a little bit of housekeeping business we need to conduct first. We are approaching 11 p.m.. It's 1051. We need four yes votes to call new items after this one after 11 p.m.. We have six F is our budget. We have nine is a council referral on the transient occupancy tax, nine B is a breastfeeding etc. referral. 10 a.m. a head swim center update ten be sure a moved. So okay to hear the dates here all of them the balance. Okay. Oh I'm happy to delay my till next time. Okay. By me. Okay. That one. That's the Toti and Mr. Adejumo. Yeah. The stop waste info thing is for info so we can just push that. Is that. Okay, so. Amend my motion to move the balance except for those two. Is that that was the. Ten C. Okay. And what's the charter amendment. That's the subcommittee. Subcommittee's report. Back. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Right. That was the time frame. Okay. Okay. The motion. Okay. So that's the motion to hear. Six, seven, 9a9b, ten a, ten B, okay. All in favor. By. Anyone opposed. Abstained. Okay, we've got two five over on that one. Okay. Sorry to cut you off for you. Did you finish your what. I'm done with my questions. Okay, I have. I don't know if anyone else has any questions. Otherwise, I'm happy to move in my comments. If I may just finish the answer to that one. Oh, I'm sorry. Linda was cluing me in there. She the the way the condition is written, it's hotel pays for ride, share services for the guests airport and any place within three miles. So once again the idea is try to reduce the need for for patrons of the hotel to have to rent cars, which would then have to be stored in the parking area. Question. Okay. So finish your. Question. Go ahead and I spell. Okay, then I'm ready. Okay. Oh, well, we'll see if anyone else. Councilman Brody. My quick question was like, practically, I'm like in use case mode. How's that going to work? I mean, because usually. Usually, like you pick it up on your phone, but then you pay for. It. You call. Let's say you're flying in from Oklahoma. You've you've observed a room at the hotel. You ask if there's a shuttle from the airport. They say, well, yes, we'll pay for the ride share. And they contact the ride share for you. Oh, okay. Okay. So they will dispatch or I mean, the. Idea is you're you know, I mean, obviously, if you don't know that it's available, but if you call the hotel and say, hey, how do I get to your hotel? Do you have a free shuttle from the airport? That's how you'd find out about it. I mean, do we consider any type of bike option like not necessarily like calling luggage from the. Airport, but, you know. Yeah. Park Street or whatever. Those sort of things. I mean, we didn't we didn't require that when the we need to get you up here. They do have they have onsite bike parking but not bike share. Yeah. Oh, do we. Have a bike that we can give Linda. Don't we live that. We have the. Holder. So I think. We'll be. All right. Well, the budget hearing coming up. Maybe. It was not a conditional approval. This is a de novo hearing. You certainly can add conditions if if you'd like to. Thank you, Mr. Thomas. Any other clarifying questions? Okay. Who wants to start with discussion, Miss Vella? So we just had our two items. One was on climate impact and the other was on the the CASA Compact. And I think, you know, the questions that I was really asking is it's not so much about parking to me. It's about what are we doing to reduce single occupancy vehicles. And so, you know, we've also heard from the business community. I mean, Tony Kuttner has been up here multiple times talking about the need for an Alameda shuttle and a free Alameda shuttle. And we are trying to promote that. And I've heard from a lot of you in support of that shuttle. And I think that, you know, to me, it's, you know, I think the number of parking spaces, yeah, I think I would do away with the compact spaces and just make them passable. Actually, I got pinned in some some nice gentleman decided to park so close to me at the marketplace that with my seven months belly, I couldn't quite get into my car. And I ended up waiting for 45 minutes for him to come out of the restaurant he was in. But but I, I do think also, you know, with with the rideshare agreement, I'm not in support of that, frankly. I think that we need to be supporting public transit. We do have we have busses that go to and from the airport. I've taken them. I in fact, I've had friends that were visiting recently from another country who were able to manage it. And I think we need to we need to be looking in that direction. I don't want to be supporting any extra single, single occupancy vehicles coming in and out. And I certainly don't want our businesses supporting that. I also, you know, I, I like the idea that this is going to generate business. I'm not necessarily we have two hotels on Webster Street. I think, you know, they to a certain extent might improve business, but not to the level that I've kind of heard into in terms of the enthusiasm. But I do, I do think that we need to work on improving, uh, you know, doing what we can to improve our business districts. Again, I and I like the idea of of of you know again the offer to house traffic youth. I used to be on Almeida Family Services Board and have done a lot with dream catchers. There's actually new laws you can't house traffic youth anywhere there's there it's very highly regulated. I hope that the support for dream catchers will continue and there's actually new training for hotel and motel workers that's just gone into place because of trafficking actually occurring in hotels, which is why you're not allowed to use temporary beds in in hotels and motels for traffic in particular. But I do think overall, there's there's a problem and a couple of speakers have raised it with the process involved for hotel approvals. And we have these processes involved that are very strict for certain projects. And then for hotels, it kind of seems like, you know, each hotel project is very different and I get that we've done the work session before, the planning board. But I also think that, you know, we should have a process that includes at least one public like community meeting. I'm not talking about a study session before planning board. I'm talking about just generally speaking, there should be a community meeting where we notify the neighbors and we let them know. And I think the city should be doing that, not to not to impede or bogged down the design review process or the approval process, but just so that we're we're we're just kind of creating a level playing field and saying this should happen. And neighbors know and we don't hear from people, people that live nearby after the fact that they weren't noticed and why city require that. So that's just something that I've seen and there's been a lot of talk. Michael mentioned the number of people who've come out. I've also heard from a number of people who had various complaints and different things and didn't know who to who to talk to. I directed them to rich cranks and and other folks, but I think just setting that process up would be helpful before it even goes to a study session or final, final planning, planning, board approval . I you know. I do think that there you know, I do have concerns about the pedestrian just safety in general. We also have things like Vision Zero in place. And if we're again, if we're in encouraging rideshares and there isn't a designated drop off point or we're not investing in public transit right now, there's a big problem on Park Street with double parking. And it's become it's becoming increasingly bad and it's actually slowing down traffic. And so I do think that there needs to be some work done on that in terms of how are people going to get dropped off? Where are they going to get dropped off? And why are we not supporting public transit or the Alameda shuttle or some of these other things? So I do want those things looked at. Okay. Who wants to go next? Mr. Desai. Thank you. I've read the staff report, reviewed the planning board documents, looked into the relevant ordinances and the the TDM analyzes. And I've concluded that the appeal does not rise to the level of significance. And so I will vote to deny the appeal and vote in favor of the hotel. Okay. Who's next with the. Did you finish? I didn't mean to cut you off, Councilman Brody. I just make up comments. I appreciate everyone coming out and waiting till after 11 to to hear us deliberate on this. I do share some of the concerns raised by my colleague, Ms.. Vella, especially related to the ride share, and that we we just went through an exercise declaring a climate emergency where we want to get more cars off the road. And yet, you know, we're asked to approve a project that basically puts more cars on the road. And I won't even get into the whole like independent contractor gig economy thing and income inequality that that I think is exasperated by by some of these rideshare companies. And I do think if we're going to want people to take bicycles and, you know, walk more, you know, we need to have projects that actually promote that. I mean, in an ideal world, I would have liked to seen a project that had ground floor retail, that generated foot traffic for retail, that had three stories of hotel and three stories of residents. I mean, the issue or housing, I mean, we had a long discussion earlier about the housing crisis, yet we're giving up one of our multifamily overlay sites for purely commercial. So I think there's a way that we could have worked in retail, commercial, hotel and residence at the same time and really taken advantage of the position of this property right in the gateway of Alameda to generate foot traffic from tourists and residents. And I think that's a missed opportunity. And I would have liked to have I would like to see in a project like that come forward. On the parking thing, I'm not really convinced that that that's an issue. I, I can't remember where I saw it, but I think it was one of our agenda items that, you know, these parking minimum parking requirements seem to be a tool that people use to oppose these development projects. And, you know, I don't think that's a good idea. Again, if our goal is to reduce the amount of cars providing more parking, it's kind of disincentivizes that. So that that argument really didn't hold a lot of water with me. On the design review, I mean, this is a matter of taste. You know, I personally would have preferred something other than art deco there. But, you know, I'm not going to like again, it's a matter of taste and style, so I'm not going to tell anyone to come back and do anything differently, considering it's been like done redone three times. But I think, again, I'm disappointed that a project didn't come to us that included housing, because I think we could have we could have done we could have done more with this project and more with this property. Then. Okay. Vice Mayor Knox White. Sure. So I'll pick up from there. I will. Jim's no councilmember. I'm coming to you. Vision, I think, is a great one. And I hope one of the things that comes out of this is maybe as a part of maybe the general general plan and housing update. We can talk about how in the future, if we're going to go up five or six stories on Park Street, maybe we can actually require it . Changes are needed to look at requiring some of that to be housing. You know, I was on the planning board when we wrote the North Park Street zoning rules. It was on the subcommittee that helped write those rules. And one of the things we wanted to do with the north north of Lincoln, on Park Street District was was attract businesses that are not like businesses in other parts of Park Street so that there was no competition. And so I do think that a hotel makes sense here. And, you know, I do want to thank Mr. Patel. I met with him over three years, so I did not get to vote for his project on the planning board. So there's no inconsistency here. But he did come before us for at least one hearing, and I think I met with him about a year before he ever got to the planning board, as did most of the planning board members, just to talk about the design and whatnot. And through those through those meetings over that time, through the many architects, we saw a significant improvement in the design. And we really listened listened to the architects on the board. Right. The people who should be making these decisions listen very carefully. I want to echo Jim Emilia's concerns about the tenses, Ubers and lifts there. Yeah, they're not ride share. They're surrogate ride programs and surrogate chauffeurs. You know, I would like to for me, I would like to see and I've talked to the applicant and he was supportive of this. I would like to see some of that engagement on the on the ground floor happened. The lobby is going to be open to the public, and I think it should be. I think when this goes back to to design review with the planning board, I'd like to see signage and how the design of this first floor is going to actually look like it doesn't have to be a Starbucks, but it should look like it's a coffee shop that somebody who lives across the street should feel comfortable walking into. That goes with the design inside the building, etc. It should be very clear that it's open to the public and if you want to go use the wi fi and sit down and drink a cup of coffee and grab a snack from the from the snack machine, then you could do that. I would like to. I would like to see the team program much more. You know, I think my colleagues have really said it very well, so I won't say it, but I would like to see that that that team shift. And, you know, this is one of the places where the 21 bus literally stops outside. Right. And gets you straight to the airport. There is no reason why we are not just giving people a free pick up at the airport and drop off in front of the Holiday Inn. And if people decide that they don't want to do that and they want to pay for our TNC or something like that, if they want to drive that, just like driving their car, they will do that better. But I think that that we should be taking steps to not encourage it. I would like to you know, I think the appellant tonight raises a good point and a good point that he raises is is not I do not they will not find that there is a violation of sequel, because at the end of the day, the planning board actually helped them force them to meet the parking requirements with the with the the valet parking. But I do think the way in which we keep going through this, not just with this project, with other projects, it is the way we have written our parking requirements is not it's a 1970s mindset and here we are. And you know, I want to say post global warming, but in mid global warming mindset where we know that, we know that those requirements didn't make sense in the seventies and now they don't make sense today. But we keep trying to pretend they do. And then we get very almost every project comes to us. It's a variant. So let's let's change that and look at, you know, removing them or doing parking maximums or something like that. And I think that that's probably a pretty quick fix that we could look at while we come up with our new one. And then lastly. Yeah. That's it. I oh. Yeah, I'd like to, you know, I do think we continue to have conversation some hotels come forward with, uh, you know, with agreements for the workers and some don't. And I think that it's something that we can look at as we go forward. You know, we have to be careful in not putting our position ourselves in a position where we can require, you know, no city can require labor use and whatever else. But we do, too, that we had a couple of we did have one speaker who was not glowing about the project. And one of the things he talked about is where will these people be able to afford to live? And we want to make sure that when people are working in our city that they can afford to live in our city as well. Part of that is addressing the housing issue and the other side of that is addressing the the wage issue. And I would like to have some conversations around that because I don't think this'll be. The last that I will see. So those are my thoughts. Okay. Councilmember Desai wants to speak before I do. If I can. Just add one more point really quickly. You know, as a west ender who lives right next to Webster Street, literally, I always, you know, go to restaurants and eating places on Web's history. Kapok Nation's West Cafe Cafe Zola You know, I mean, those are my go to places. But I have to say, though, you know, in the few times that I, you know, venture on the other side of Grand Street to Park Street, you know, Park Street, north of Lincoln Avenue, especially, you know, the where the monkey restaurant is or whatever or where the you know, is. It's a whole bunch of great restaurants that that I just say to myself, I want to go to there when I go to there. So I know that when this hotel is made that the people who go there will feel the same way. So, you know, maybe my presentation tonight is a little dry, but. But I find this project exciting. Okay, my turn. So I am supportive of the parking waiver. I think the planning board has done a good job on that. I in no particular order, just maybe the way the topics came up, I think it's great to get people to ride the bus. I ride the bus a lot. I think it's unrealistic to expect every guest who flies in from out of town to hop on the 21 bus. Sometimes you're jetlagged from, you know, flying across the country. Sometimes you're elderly or have some physical limitations. But I'm all for having a variety of options available. And I was just thinking of maybe a month ago, I tagged along with my husband on a business trip to St Petersburg, Florida. It's quite lovely. We were seeing a beautiful hotel right on the water. We took a Uber, Lyft or a taxi, I don't remember in because we didn't want to pay for parking in the hotel. And once we got there, St Peter's St Petersburg is a very walkable city. It also has a free shuttle. The free shuttle is paid for by all the businesses and the hotels in the downtown. It is not borne by the most recent hotel developer. I also feel like people, even Alameda Inns, don't realize just how widespread AC transit is. But I do like the idea and maybe will consider including it as a condition to make available day passes for AC transit because as was noted, there's nearby bus routes. But and then the other thing about rideshare, I know there's the argument that's been made. I will also say I love talking to my rideshare drivers and asking them about themselves. The majority are immigrants. They're here. This is a way oftentimes they you know, as soon as one spouse comes home, they go off to work or they go off and drive. And that's how they handle child care and that's how they handle establishing a foothold in in a new country. So I the model I get, there's some arguments to be made. I don't think we want to throw the baby out with the bathwater on that one. But I think the Army, the shuttle, good idea. We're not going to have it right now today. But and then I I don't think the comparison with Webster and Park Street as far as will show us how many how much business the Hawthorne Suites has generated and their different streets. But what we are hearing and we heard from a lot of business owners is that you need the foot traffic. And I know from talking to many of you, you are barely making ends meet as far as, you know, paying your workers and your benefits and your insurance and all that. So if we can bring a hotel to the downtown to increase business visitors and getting people to stay in Alameda, I think that's great. The other thing is we did just have a really serious discussion about climate change and our need for more housing. But isn't the idea that we want to get people out of single occupancy vehicles? I don't want them all to just drive their. Their rental car in from the from the airport. But I do think there's a range of options. The bike share. Yeah, they had that in St Petersburg too. They also had this parking meters that we're going to do where you put in money to donate to homelessness. But that's off the subject right now. But anyway, just I think that we we definitely want to that that's why the parking waiver makes sense. And I think Councilmember Brody said it, if you keep saying, yeah, for every room, we're going to give you a parking space, it's not a disincentive. And as far as the housing on the upper levels, an inspired idea for a future project, but it is not fair to hold an applicant to a standard that was not set forth for him to meet. I mean, we don't keep adding on as we go. So but I will say that I'm not 100% on board because I also served on the city council. And no, I'm in the city council now. I served on the planning board when Vice Mayor Knox White was on and I was part of the group that drafted the the the North Park Suite north of Lincoln form based codes. And that is indeed the gateway to Alameda. And so I am not taken with the current design of this hotel and I want it to get better. And I don't care that it's already been back to the planning board because this, this design and I don't mean to be unkind, but I'll just be frank, I would describe it as nondescript. It could be located anywhere along a freeway. It might be better viewed at 65 miles an hour, but it doesn't seem appropriate to the historic gateway of our downtown. I will hasten to add that I'm not saying everything has to be Victorian or Brick or whatever. There's a very nice building going up even closer to the Park Street Bridge. It's Morris single's glass and steel, but it's really exciting quality architecture and so that that is what I am looking for. I do not find the streamlined moderne architectural style appropriate for the site or for the adjacent neighbors. And again, you don't have to look too far down Park Street, north of Lincoln. You've got the market place. You've got the the brick building that is the Walgreens that is there. And that's more what I'm looking for. But I consulted with our very capable city attorney, deputy city attorney, Selina chan, and she gave me some framework that I I'm going to just propose to the council. If any of you share my ideas, we can break out the different issues before us. And this is a de novo hearing so we can consider other things. We can take a vote to approve the parking waiver. And then I believe well, I'm not sure would that be the time to add whatever conditions people were suggesting to make it better? Mischin At I think somebody had said about easy transit day passes and. Bike shares. But. But anyway, just, you know, interested. Mr. Thomas I'm just saying I was just whispering back there. I think in terms of process, I think the first issue to to decide as a group is, are you are you upholding the appeal and sending it back to the planning board? And if you are, then then get to the question of, for example, on the design as you were arguing or making the. Case for the appeal doesn't go to the design right. Of the appeal. So think of it this way. Project gets approved by planning board. Somebody appeals it. What they're saying is, don't let this project go forward. Stop it in its tracks. In this case, one of your options is, you know, and send it back. You might send it back for the reasons they argued in this case, parking waiver. Or you might send it back for other reasons, like design. At the end of the day, it's a de novo hearing. You get to decide whether this project is ready for prime time or not. So I think what I was hearing from just your position here is that you're not sending it back for the parking. You're sending it back for the the design, if that's the feeling of the board, I mean, the full council, what's good about articulating why you're sending it back? And so the planning board knows what they need to work on. Absolutely. I've been in the planning board before. We appreciate that. Okay. So I would be in favor of sending it back for the design. Does anyone want to chime in their thoughts? Council Councilmember Vella. So I'll I'll second that. I do have a question though about the the parking. My whole thing with the parking is I actually think there's too much parking and I would like to see I would I think there's too much parking. I think we over park our hotels, to be honest with you. Well, that's your proposal. So, you know what could we I was thinking maybe we would handle one item at a time design and then go to parking and that's fine. Okay, that's fine. But so if it goes back to planning board, could there be one community meeting or something like that or notification to the committee? I mean, we, we send out notices for other projects, even if there isn't a community meeting because I think when it comes to the subject of design, people have a lot of opinions. That is true. Is that what you're thinking of as far as sending it to a community meeting? But I know it could go back to the planning board, but just that there would be like a community meeting or that we would notice the community to let them know what specifically is going back to the planning board relative to design and input. Mr. Thomas, you want to. Come back up. Please? Okay. We if it goes back to the planning where we can certainly notice that the community that it's coming back to the planning board then is a study session. If if the council wishes that there be a separate community meeting before that, the planning board reviews it, that's also something that could be orchestrated. I don't know that I'm saying that because I think, you know, we also heard in the course of a little bit different because it's talking about housing. But we we want to be fair to our applicants as well. And so if we do, we need a separate, separate public meeting on the design. I want to go back to planning, but. I'm not saying that there needs to be a separate meeting. I'm saying that it might be helpful to have, if it is a work session, whatever, to let the community know, because I think there are strong feelings about design. Yeah, absolutely. The community would be noticed. I mean, it's it's a public meeting and then. But specifically about what's on the table. Right. But that might also be your parking waiver. But hold that thought. Well, and then I would also say that if we are going to send it back, I agree that we need to send it back with some specific guidelines for what we're looking for. Vice Mayor, I sense you might want to say something. It's not a flag that I mean, this is had at least two public hearings that were on the front page of the newspaper with drawings before the planning board did it. And I guess I'm a little I'm not going to support that is sending the design back because I think the design is fine. I mean, that's fine. It's that the personal tastes on that one. But but I want to be careful. We didn't have 60 speakers. We didn't have one person stand up and say they hate the design. So I just want to make sure that it's going to go back for design review that which is going back to the planning board and that we're not adding multiple more meetings to that to solve an issue that I don't think we've actually heard. And I'll just say to that that I feel a responsibility as an elected official voting to approve a project that it is as high quality and is appropriate in appearance as I think believes belongs in our downtown. Gateway corridor. Councilmember Brody, did you have your hand up? No, no. Decide. Okay. On something. I'll just. On the issue of design. Like I said, having reviewed the staff reports and having reviewed the planning board report's documents, I am satisfied that the project has been properly vetted, which means that I am satisfied with the design that we have now. More importantly, I am satisfied that the design is consistent with north of Lincoln Avenue Park Street strategy that we put together. One of the reasons why we have reversed the project that's near the the bridge, because I think we had demonstrated that it was not consistent with the north of Lincoln Park Street Plan. I believe this project is consistent. So I am satisfied with the project. And I would I would encourage us not to return it for design review. More importantly, on the issue of parking, I am satisfied with the vetting that has gone through on the parking and the TDM strategy that was put in place. So for that reason, I will still continue to encourage us to deny the appeal. And yeah. Councilman Brody. Okay. I mean, since you brought up design, I'll chime in. I mean, I kind of agree with the mayor's comments about. I mean, fitting in with that neighborhood. I mean, we have like the the Rialto Building, the marketplace, the Walgreens, I mean, the City Hall, which is not quite there, but, you know, that kind of feel as opposed to something that looks like this is not a bad thing. But, you know, it looks like an office building on the base there. Nothing wrong with office buildings on the base. But, you know, all those kind of look alike and they are totally in character for that neighborhood. But, you know, if it if it does come back and go back for that that reason, you know, that's kind of my thought on the design. Again, I mean, it's all a matter of taste. So, you know, I'm not going to be like insistent on it, but I mean, I would like to see something a little bit more fit, for lack of a better word, traditional brick that kind of fits in with, you know, with the surrounding buildings, not the Salvation Army. But something I'll take it that now and there are findings, there are three design review findings we have to make in those last two that the proposed design is appropriate for the site compatible with adjacent or neighboring buildings or surroundings, and promotes harmonious transitions and scale and character in areas between different designated land uses and proposed design of the structure and exterior materials and landscaping are visually compatible with the surrounding. Development and design elements have been incorporated to ensure the compatibility of the structure with the character and uses of adjacent development. I think I'm hearing that there are three councilmembers in favor, so with that I'm going to make a motion that we will. I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought that the. Oh, so this is help me out with the mechanics. Can we, can we move to, to send it back to planning board on that to improve the design. Yes. To be more compatible with those last two designs. And in making that motion, if you don't if you, if you're satisfied with the planning board's action on the parking, then just say so. So they know what they what it what you want them to work on and improve. And Mr. Chen. Good evening. Celina Chen, on behalf of the city attorney's office, I think more specifically, if the city council can't make all three of the findings that are required for design review, we'd like you to specify which findings you can't make and for the reasons you've enunciated, in which case, you know, the motion would be to uphold the appeal for reasons independently reviewed by the City Council. These weren't raised in the appeal, but you do have because it's a de novo hearing. You do have the ability doesn't. Decide if it's a council's will that that one or more of the required findings has not been met. And then with regard to the parking waiver, can we take a vote this evening or does it need to be a straw vote and, you know, of direction? So the resolution that's in your packet tonight is in staff's recommendation is to deny the appeal and approve the project. We don't have a resolution prepared that reflects these these considerations that have been brought up this evening. So if that's. If the council if there's a motion in a second which there has been to move in the opposite direction of staff's recommendation, what we'd ask you to do is take a straw vote. And if that motion passes, you would direct staff to return at the next regularly scheduled meeting with a resolution that has the appropriate findings that reflect your discussion tonight. And we'll do that both for design and then for parking waiver, because I think we have some I think we have some concurrence on the parking waiver issue. I think. It's a. Do we need to make them all in together? I think you could do it together. You could. And you know why I think we can't? Because I can hear three. I can count. And I've got three votes in support of the design review. But I. I don't have. But I don't think if the design review were in there, that two of my colleagues would join in. So can we bifurcate those? So I think to uphold the appeal, you can base it on either not being able to make the design review findings or not being able to make the parking waiver findings. You know that you're finding that the planning board erred somewhere, made a mistake somewhere by making all these findings. My sense is I think the council is going to say that they do uphold. The. Plan. I think it's just my sense that they're going to uphold the planning board's parking waiver. So. And I want to just hear from my colleague, Ms.. Vella. You're going to say something. Earlier, the vice mayor had said that he thinks that there's a fix, pretty easy fix relative to just treating parking in general. Do you? Yeah. So I'm just wondering, rather than do a straw poll, I mean, I'm just saying, if it's going, I'm fine, you know, basically upholding the the parking waiver. I just think that in general, we need to look at that, what we're doing with parking. I think that that's something that we could perhaps separately agenda as at a future meeting and address since we all have input and ideas and perhaps since this is already going back to the planning board on a design review issue, that that there's going to be leeway there, further leeway that they could discuss relative to the design and what what they might be able to get on those tradeoffs. So if that's possible. Yeah. What I what I would suggest is. To read. That if there's three votes to uphold the appeal on the basis of design, that you take that vote. And then separately, if you want the planning commission, while is reviewing the design aspect to look at the parking issue more generally, then take a vote on that to direct the Planning Commission to look at that in context of the. Of reviewing that design review, not in context, but as part of that review. I think that's what Council Member Valdes saying. Right. But I mean, I also want to be clear that, yeah, that's bifurcating because then will vote on the parking waiver next. That's what you said, isn't it? Well, essentially, your if I'm hearing correctly, that the parking waiver is not really at issue, but there seems to be a a feeling that the whole parking the parking issue more generally needs to be discussed at the Planning Commission level because there's concern about the way it is, about the way it's currently written. Okay, Miss Chen. And here's an idea. What I heard Councilmember Avila say is that the the parking waiver may not be an issue to the council. And I think what you could do in the motion is if the council is going this way, the council could approve the parking waiver because that's under your consideration right now. And first and also send, you know, say that you can't meet one or more of the design review findings and remand to the planning board for that purpose only. It sounds like two votes to me. Question. Yes, sorry. Maybe that's a. Comment. I'm sorry. But I think there was also some concern raised by more than three of us on the transit component and, you know, the Ryan chair. So the thing is, I don't want to relitigate the parking so or I don't want the planning board to have to relitigate the parking when they reevaluate this. So if there's a wait staff that we could do that and perhaps I mean, assuming every there's a majority, please tell us. So I'm if I'm hearing you correctly, so we could approve the parking waiver, but ask that it be augmented. By. Certain suggestions that were made by my colleagues. And I think for me, look, this is I think we're making this all more complicated and needs to be. What I'm hearing is there's three of you who at least three of you who are wanting to go back to the planning board for to look at the design of the project. That's what I mean. You haven't voted yet, but that's what I'm hearing. I'm hearing that a number of you are also interested in having the planning board relook at the ride share aspect, not the parking numbers, just the ride share aspect and how that's going to work. And you can just tell us that and will tell the planning board that. I'm also hearing that there's a majority of you were like, don't miss what you did on the parking and the waiver for the six of you spaces is fine. What what Salena is suggesting is if one of you were to make that vote and make that motion sort of in those terms, if if it's clear that there's three of you who support sending it back with those directions, you've closed the public hearing tonight. What we would like to do is then come back with a resolution that is written to reflect what you just said, hopefully will, or that you voted at your next meeting. So then we'll have it actually articulated in writing for you to approve on consent. In the meantime, we can start working with the planning board and tell them why it's coming back and specifically what the council wants. To look at. And again, I'm probably getting a little laggy here, but. Two different votes on that. I think you can just reticulated it that way and you can make a motion. But we have one motion window. Why don't you do it? I mean, because I do hear there is sort of a difference of opinion. So why don't you do the design aspect? Get that out of the way. And then if there's a desire for the planning board to look at the ride share issue, then make a separate motion to do that. Point of inquiry. Council Member. So if, if, if the majority of council are going to find that the design review is questionable and on that grounds, basically they're going to send it back, don't we have to have particular findings that constitute the parameters of what the problem is with design review? Well, not necessarily. I mean, if you can't make the required findings that's know, it's sort of the end of the issue if there are particular aspects of it other than what's been articulated. Yeah, that would be helpful. But you don't necessarily have to articulate you don't have to be the architect on the the project. Yeah, I. Know that that is helpful. Yeah. I think some of the things that I mean, it's paying attention to the second and third required findings and your design review and again concern with the streamline return architecture and also maybe even the earth tone and colors that fin. I just think it needs another look to be more consistent with the second and third findings and your design review. So I do think we had a motion in a second to send the project back on design review. So all in favor. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Discretion. Vice Mayor, I want to ask your question really quickly about the North Park Street plan. Has design guidelines a streamline moderne, one of those? Yes. So I just I would just like I am not going to be supportive about this, but I think it would be fair to the applicant if it's going to get sent back that that there be really specific, like what what do we want to see? Because we have a whole design guideline booklet that says, here's what you're allowed to do and we'll pull from this design language booklet. Oh, we're going to. You're good. And I think it's I honestly think it's a little if the problem is we don't like the way they've done the the streamlined model. And I think that's one thing. But I think it's a little problematic that we're going to send this back without really specific streamlined doesn't work on this site because of this reason . And so therefore we'd like to see one of the other things that we've already done all the work around to decide. Well. So there is. If I go away and I think it doesn't I think it doesn't work because of the size of the building relative to what's around it and the fact that they're it's a very abrupt design to kind of walk into. And that's what I've heard the mayor say, is essentially that there's other there's other design options that are nearby that might better kind of fit in terms of. Building into the fabric of the street. And part of the two other points, two and three, are specific to that in terms of streamlining and fitting in with the overall neighboring buildings. And I will just tag on to say that there might be a streamlined moderne building for that site that would work better. I just find the design very stark and just that's what looks that's what I was calling nondescript and out of place. I think it's improvable. Okay. So with that, we've had a motion in a second. All in favor. I, I. Okay. The motion passes 3 to 2. Yeah. Three to that was a 3 to 2. Right. Okay. And now do I have the motion to approve the parking waiver and perhaps with some conditions for it. Do we can I ask a question quickly? Do we have to the parking waivers approved? We don't have to approve. Correct. I thought the issue was if there were. Other. Aspects such as the ride share or other parts of it that you want the commission, the board to look at, that would be the appropriate motion at this point. I think the waiver is is off the table. Right. So so I move that we we as a part of the design review, a quick review, a review of the TDM program that relies less on tanks and more on public transit and and multi person shuttles as well as bike share, etc. In align with our climate goals which we declared an emergency today, be a part of that as well. That would be an appropriate motion. Would you bring. I'm sorry. And so we have discussion. Mr. Brody. I'm sorry. Would you be willing to, instead of saying just tenses, tenses and automobiles. And I'm sorry, tenses. Being. Uber and Lyft. What's it? Stanford tents. British, generic Japanese. Okay. And automobiles. Automobiles, I mean. Yes. Wait. So what is it we're saying? So. So we are asking them to re re. Reassess. This plan with less emphasis on transportation network companies and automobiles as a way to get to and more reliance on multiple person vehicles, public transit and bicycles in a line in compliance with our or in alignment with our climate goals. So adding more more options than just the. Couple that were presented. They were just going to pay for you to get over it. We're not saying you can't take over. I personally I'm not saying you can't take Uber and Lyft to or from the airport. I'm saying we should not tell the hotel they are required to provide that. We should tell the hotel you can provide free transit. If somebody wants to take a ride. They'll do it in Saint Petersburg. Because I think we want to encourage people to come out the front door and walk down the street. Right. But not from the Oakland airport. Okay. Right. All right. And then we have the hours. I'm sorry. Can I have just a quick point and then what it might be helpful to have? And this is not going to be part of the motion, but if staff could come back with some update on the shuttle, because I have been hearing questions on why we haven't had any update on that. So let's try to take that. That's another. Yeah, that's another. Okay. Yeah. That. Okay. Okay. We have a motion. We have a second. All in favor. Wait, wait. Sorry. One more. Thing. And also, when we're looking at the rideshares that there be a specific designated safe drop off space in the in the parking lot, that it's not that basically because otherwise what happens is the rideshare companies will drop off right in front and that's just not safe. We could have a very. Good point and perhaps I think there's a way that the hotel can list its location actually on the side street, which is Buena Vista way to us, too, so that when it comes when it comes up in rideshare, that's where the rider goes rather than we don't really want to encourage double parking on Park Street, I would imagine. Okay. All right. Shall we try this again? Sure. On these machines spin segment. All in favor, I. All right. Well. Opposed and opposed. Sorry. And when opposed? When opposed. Okay. But the motion passes for the. The resolution. Coming back. So that was a. No, no, no, no. But what you need from us is to, um. What do you. What you need from us is that to bring it to you, because the resolution has to come back to us with these items in it and. Your vote on it. And that point, you know, to be on the consent calendar and you can vote, you know, I'm voting no on this on content calendar item three. Well. I, I. Think, Madam. Clerk, I'm sorry we kind of pout about this a little earlier and we were thinking is since you've closed this public hearing, if you continue this item to that April 2nd date consent calendar, could we. Not say that? You didn't say you continue to thinking, sorry. I was technically looking for in the motion that that was what you meant. Okay. Which she said didn't hear it. Yes. So and okay, so you're continuing this public hearing to the resolution. Do you want an amended motion or. No, no, no. I just didn't hear it specifically stated in the motion was concerned. So my that just a no. No. All right. Thanks, everybody. Thank you, everyone, for who came out. Yes, sir. Sorry. I wanted everything. So I. I understand your concern about, like, not having the the the project. Add requirements at the end, but I would like to see something come back to us that we can discuss that talks about the future of development on Park Street and Webster Street, that it does include the ground floor, retail and commercial and then residential. If my colleagues don't have a problem with that. That's that's fine. Okay. All right, everybody, thank you all to the public speakers and my sturdy city staff who are still here. Hang on. We're coming to the question. Do you want a five minute break and a five minute break? That's my theme for tonight. Thank you. Nice to see you, too. Mr. Adair, I think we're going to need you. Okay. Okay, everyone. We are resuming. So we are going to. We said that we're going to do six F next. Hello. And that is, uh, Adam Kirk. Did you want that? Sure. It has adopted a resolution amending the fiscal year 2018 19 budget and adoption of resolution. Doing workforce changes. And then an adoption of a resolution amending the Alameda City Employees Association salary schedule.