Summary: Review of 172-Room Hotel Development located at 2900 Harbor Bay Parkway within the Harbor Bay Business Park. Public Hearing to Consider Two Appeals of a Final Development Plan Amendment and Design Review to Allow the Construction of a 172-Room Hotel and Restaurant at 2900 Harbor Bay Parkway and Adoption of Related Resolution. (Community Development 209)
Thank you. Rodriguez. All right. And now we're moving on to our regular agenda, and we have only one item, but it's a big one. So this is the the review of the 172 room hotel development located at 2900 Harbor Bay Parkway within the Harbor Bay Business Park. STAFF Is Mr. Thomas, are you are you going to address this first? All right. You are. Your act. Yes. Thank you. I think. Oh. My God. Actually, we've got to fix think. We're just having a momentary. Are we having a moment? Okay. We're having a moment. There we go. Click it. Thank you. The panic was just starting to set. In. The evening, Mayor. Marilyn as he Ashcraft and vice mayor knox white and members of the council. Good evening. My name's Sandra Thomas. I'm your planning director. I will be presenting the staff recommendation tonight. And what I recommend that we do, since you have a lot of speakers, is I recommend that I move through my nine slides relatively quickly. I'm just going to give a sort of a quick overview of the situation and the staff recommendation. I myself, the city attorney's office, a number of other staff people are here to help me answer questions if and when the Council has any. The project applicant would like a couple of minutes to speak on behalf of his project, and then you have to appellants tonight. So I recommend that you give the applicant, I think three or 4 minutes is going to be more than enough for him and then 5 minutes for each of the appellants. But obviously, it's your meeting that's just a staff sort of suggestion on how to proceed. Once the then let everyone else speak who's come here to speak tonight, then you can close the public hearing. I know you know, this is for the benefit of everyone here who this is tonight, then that's your time to has a council to deliberate on your decision tonight. And your decision tonight is a decision as to is to answer a question. And the question is, did your planning board make a mistake when they unanimously approved this project two months ago? And I will describe the the process under which they underwent to make their decision. But that is the question that you will need to deliberate at the end of the hearing tonight after you've heard from everyone else. The appellants, there's two of them essentially are making two basic arguments. They are saying that your planning board and the city made a mistake on the environmental review of this project, that the environmental review was inadequate under the California Environmental Quality Act. So that's sort of concern, number one, from the appellants. And the second concern that is essentially, and I'm summarizing is that the project is just too big and doesn't meet our development standards for this site. It's probably no surprise, as the staff are recommending, that you uphold the planning board because we believe they actually did their job correctly and followed all the state and local rules and regulations. Just a little history on this. And I won't go through all this these words, but. The Planning Board in the city. We we do need to follow rules when we review development applications. We cannot and your planning board cannot make up those rules as they go along. So what your planning board did is they followed the existing rules that were in place for the review of these types of projects. And there's two big sort of agreements that really everybody should understand. And that is, first of all, there is an agreement between the city and the property owners of Harbor Bay. Harbor Bay, as probably everybody knows, was designed as one large master plan community. The business park shown on the lower right of the slide here is was, as you can see in the top. Slide it. This is manmade land. This is land that was made. For the purpose of developing it. And this was a approach. The development agreements were many originally approved in 1974. There were all sorts of disputes that were playing out. And eventually the city and that developed meant that the property owners entered into what's called the development agreement. This is a basically a contract, and it lays out the rules, the rules and obligations for both the developer and for the city, for this master plan community. And in this 100 page document, I'm going to summarize it in two bullet points. It basically says, look, the city is going to get a 22 acre shoreline park that surrounds the entire project. We're going to get a firehouse. We're going to get a school site. We're going to get a ferry terminal. We're going to get all the roads necessary to support this place. And the developer is going to build all of them and they are going to build it right on day one, just at the beginning of the project. And in return, the city is going to allow the land owners to develop 3000 housing units, which they did, and up to 5.2 million square feet of commercial development in the business park. And that's the basic deal, and that's the basic deal that has been followed for the last 30 years. And in the review, the developer agreement talks about in the review of this of new development will be done in consistent with the existing zoning and development standards, which are all documented in the development agreement. So we can't vary from those standards when we review these developments as they come forward. There was also a second agreement that really governs how this how Harbor Bay has developed over the years. Late seventies, the city of Alameda is proposing to fill the bay for Harbor Bay development as we know it today. A new agency is created in the state of California called the Bay Conservation Development Commission. It's almost happening simultaneously. Of course, this new agency gets created for the San Francisco Bay and says, Well, you're filling the bay, so we're going to have a permitting authority over every single building you built. Of course, that immediately sets up another lawsuit, and what is called legal settlement agreement is enacted between Bccdc and the property owners. And it basically says, well, since the purpose of Bccdc is to. Ensure maximum feasible public access to the shoreline. That agreement says while you build a 22 acre shoreline park all the way around the perimeter of this development, and we will call that maximum feasible public access for the entire development. That's essentially what the settlement agreement says. And therefore, every project that you can build doesn't need to come for a separate permit to determine whether maximum feasible public access is being provided with that individual project. Because we've agreed that it is the 22 acre Shoreline Park, which the developer will build on day one, which they did. And that agreement has has governed how the city and bccdc process all development at harbor Bay residential and commercial. Of course, those agreements are designed to keep us all out of trouble and avoid further lawsuits. And they've worked pretty well. But there has been some problem sites this I would call this one of them not maybe not a problem separate difficult site. It's it's zoned for commercial manufacturing and it's part of the business park, but it's immediately adjacent to the park. It's immediately adjacent to some to the neighborhood and it's immediately adjacent to the ferry terminal. So it's been a little difficult over the years, a little controversial. We originally approved an office development with ten two storey office buildings and 26 on this site. That project was approved by the planning board and then appealed. The Council upheld the Planning Board's decision to develop the site, but it was just before the recession and as a result, only two of the ten buildings were built. Stacy went back and Maguire and Hester, the two office buildings you see out there today, 2014, there was a proposal to do assisted living on this site. It was also approved. It was then appealed by the neighborhood. That appeal was not upheld at the time, but the project applicants were proposing to come back with a revised application . And then for reasons that had nothing to do with the city, they dropped that application. We now have a hotel proposal that has been approved by the planning board and is being appealed by the neighborhood and the other appellant the labor union, three or four. I think once again there's this issue of sort of following the rules. I'm sure there's many people tonight who will argue that this should be a park. It can't. It's never been planned for a park. If we want to take private land for a public purpose like a park, we do have to buy it. The planning board and the city cannot use your regulatory process, your planning and zoning process to essentially create open space by denying projects. So let's just get to the major issues before you did your planning board make a mistake when they reviewed the adequacy of the environmental analysis? I think the appellant and staff and everybody playing board all agree, yes, this project requires an air. That's not the question before us. We all know we did in the air. The question is, and what the applicant is saying is that the Planning Board should have required us know an additional EMR for the development of this site . A little background on this. The city did in the air in 1974 for the original development plan. Then in 1989, when they did the draft, when we did the development agreement, there was a major overhaul of that air to address the development agreement and the plan development of the business park, which was then documented one year later in the general plan as well. So two year, 1989, 1990, all supporting and evaluating the environmental impacts of 5.2 million square feet of commercial development in the business park, 17,300 employees in the business park and ten excuse me, 100 foot buildings in the business park. Just for reference, and this is important today, we have about 2.75 million square feet built in the business park, and we have a somewhere between five and 6000 employees in the business park. So we haven't come close to hitting what we had projected in the prior year. The California Environmental Quality Act says you will not require property owners to do a second air. Unless there's evidence that there is the potential for new environmental impacts that were not covered in those original areas. And that's the process the city went through to look at. Well, are there any new impacts that might be result from this project that we didn't anticipate that when we did the prior year and those prior year in 1989 and 1990, assumed the 5.2 million square feet and the 17,000 employees. So we do look at those issues and we look at with every single project the council knows the planning board is very familiar with this. What people may not understand is every single staff report we do an environmental analysis and we look at this. So these issues were talked about. And so really the question and we do this with every witness is now the third project on this site in the last ten years that we've evaluated. And so obviously the first question that always comes up, you know, what about traffic? There must be traffic impacts from developing this vacant land. And every traffic study we've done in the three in the last ten years for this site specifically. Looks at this. And remember, the question is not, oh, are there going to be impacts from developing a vacant site? Of course there's going to be more cars. It's a vacant site. So yes, there will be more cars, but that's not the question under the California Environmental Quality Act. The question is, were those cars not anticipated when you did your air before? And would this generate additional cars or more cars or more traffic than you originally anticipated in your prior air? If it does, then you need to do an update or a new air. But if you're already analyzed it, then you don't and you shall not require a new way. As I said, you know, the traffic analysis and that's been the same for all three of them for the last three years, first for the office project and for the assisted living project, and now for the hotel project. The conclusion is from our traffic consultants who reanalyzed this in 2018. No, there is no evidence that there is going to be additional traffic generated by this project that is up and beyond what the prior air projected. Because remember the prior year a projected of traffic from 5.2 million square feet and 17,000 employees. You only have about 6000 employees out there today, so we're not even close. Of course, hotels generate less daily trips than office and R&D development, which is what was projected in those prior year. So if you just compare, well, the prior year assumed a certain amount of deployment on that site and it was at that type of development. The hotel does even less than that. It generates less peak hour trips even in the 2006 office project and is providing shuttle services. So when you look at all the record that the planning board looked at, they were absolutely right. There is no evidence that a new EMR is needed for traffic. Next question that we look at all the time, because this could change over 20 years between the last year and this year is the biological impacts. You know, maybe there were no endangered species on the site in 1989, but there are today that could happen that could generate new impacts we don't know about. So every project we send out, biologists, trained biologists, not only by the city, independent biologists. And they walk this site. They did it in 2006. They did it again in 2014, not 2016. And then they did it again in 2018 to look for endangered species or any kinds of. Potential biological impacts and every single time they come back with the same conclusion. No, you do not have any endangered species. And once again, people it's this issue of are there any impacts that you didn't forecast? I've I've been told. But the rabbits have moved out there. That's true. And the rabbits are super cute. We do love the rabbits, but they are not an endangered species. And that is not a new environmental impact under the California Environmental Quality Act. We also I think the appellants weren't fully aware of the fact that we have a bird safe window ordinance and there are conditions of approval on the project. So they the bird strike concern is is not evidence for the need for an air obviously construction materials. We put a lot about that in our staff report. This is all governed by state and federal regulations EPA, OSHA, CARB and a number of facilities so that the use of certain types of construction materials is not a new environmental impact requiring any air. And of course, as you know from the packet, we have review and sign off from the Airport Land Use Commission, the Oakland Airport. These are not new impacts. There is no new impact. And of course, noise is also not a new environmental impact from the cause of building this hotel. So on this CEQA findings, we are recommending that you uphold your planning board. They they interpreted and implemented sequel correctly, and there is no evidence of any new impacts or more severe impacts that would cause them what you already projected. Next issue that's been raised in the appeals is it's just too big. The project is too big. What they approved is too massive for the site. Well, we have zoning regulations which establish what you can do on the site. So that's how we measure whether it's too massive or not. If it complies with the regulations and it's not too massive, if it exceeds the regulations and it is too massive. The main restriction on this site is what's called the floor area ratio. It's 0.5, which is relatively low for an urban area, but not uncommon in a business park. When you translate, it's a relationship of how much floor area you can have in relation to the amount of land you have. In this case, when you do the maps, the project's about 119,900 square feet in floor area. That's the maximum amount of floor area you can build on this site. The Westmont Project a few years ago, same basic size floor area. And this project meets that floor area. The other issue that has come up a lot is, oh, it's the buildings too high. Well, the building is 63 feet to the top of the parapet. The height limit is 100 feet. That is documented very clearly in the development agreement that I talked about in the CMS zoning, which is what this site is zoned, as well as our 1990 general plan, which made it very clear that high rise is a, quote, high rise buildings, 100 feet as of right. That means by right and up to 156 feet, subject to discretionary review, can be built at the business park. So the planning board was absolutely correct when they determined that the that the projects not too massive for the site. It complies with those regulations. Setbacks, same situation. There's a setback requirement all included in the development agreement and in the zoning for this site. It's for this type of restaurant retail, commercial, recreational use, which is what a hotel falls into. It's 25 feet from the edge of the park. This building a setback, 35 feet from the edge of the park. If you want to if you if you measure all the way to the water's edge, it's 75 feet. So it meets the setbacks. It also meets the parking requirements, the parking requirement for this project with the restaurant and cafe that's also being added next to the ferry terminal, which is we think is going to be a great asset for the business park. It's something that the business park has been looking for for a very long time, which is another restaurant, waterfront restaurant. This they are providing two hour and 75 vehicle parking spaces to meet the zoning requirement. The parking demand study basically said that's way too many. You will never need 275 parking spaces for this hotel. So what the planning board did is put a condition of approval on the project, that they have to provide the vacant spaces to ferry parkers or ferry riders who can then park there during the day. They're required to advertise it with signs and provide a mobile app so that people can check their phones and see if there's parking available at the hotel when they're heading down to the ferry. There's accusations the city and the planning board didn't do the public noticing, right? We did. We worked consistent with all state and city requirements for public notification for all the hearings we had. That's includes newspaper ads, postings and letters to all property owners within 300 feet. And that's all been documented for the record. Finally, the planning board did approve it with some conditions. I think we all agree that if we're going to do a hotel here next to our ferry terminal as sort of a gateway into Harbor Bay, it's got to be awfully nice looking. The planning board said this is. Not and. I'm going to just interrupt Mr. Thomas for a minute and ask that the audience be respectful to all of our speakers. And the reason for that is Mr. Thomas is a veteran. He's used to this. We will we may have some people here today who are speaking in public for the first time. It is very intimidating for them to have people laugh or cheer or jeer. So I'm just asking what I like to say is make the podium a safe place where anyone feels welcome to get up because I want all of your input and you will have a chance. But please do your best to be respectful to the speakers. Thank you. Go ahead, Mr. Thomas. And the person who was laughing at that last statement, I think we all agree with her. We didn't think that this was a good enough architectural design. The planning board said this is not good enough. We you meet our height limits, you meet our size limitations. But from an architectural standpoint, we're not happy. So they did not approve this architectural design. And they said, before you pull building permits, you need to come back to us with the final elevations, because these aren't good enough for this pride, for this site, which is such a visible site. They also want to see that public art plan. They suggest using public art to really make this a signature building. And then, of course, the other thing that they said was we want to see revisions to the landscaping lighting plan and we want you to do that with the surrounding neighborhood, because we think a lot of the issues in terms of creating a good neighbor, particularly with the residential on the back side, can be addressed through smart landscaping and lighting design. So with that, I'll wrap up. Staff is recommending that you uphold your planning board's unanimous decision on this project. The environmental analysis is adequate. The project is consistent with standards and agreements that have been put in place to avoid problems and misinterpretations. And there is no evidence that the planning board erred in its unanimous decision to conditionally approve this project. So that I'll wrap up my comments. I'm available to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Thomas. Does anyone have any clarifying questions they want to ask Mr. Thomas? If not, not from the audience. This is a lively group. Okay. What we are going to do now is I believe the sequence is we will hear from the applicant and then we will hear from our two appellants, and then we will take public comment. And we have speakers subsidiary. I'm just guessing a. Very large stack. All right. Information. All right. So. Oh, I'm sorry. One minute, Councilmember. Point of information. Do we have, like, a time limit on either the or any of these? Well, I so I heard and and Mr. Leach, this is the applicant. Mr. Leach, Mr. Thomas kind of spoke on your behalf and said, you want 3 minutes to speak. Do you feel that's adequate due to it? Well, you can have three. And then he indicated that the appellants could each have 5 minutes. I will check with the appellants and I will just say whatever one gets, the other gets. I'm a mother of twins. That's the way we do it. So anyway, so with that, any further clarifying questions? Okay. Thank you, Mr. Leach. Come on up and be sure to speak into the microphone. My name's Robert Leach. I'm the lead developer for the project. I wanted to basically, I think I'm sure most of you probably know by now that I grew up in town. I was born and raised here. I grew up in town, went to high school, elementary school here. The only reason that that's important is because it gives me a historical perspective about what's been in the city for the last 50 years in terms of commercial development and hotels. And, you know, we set out a year ago really looking at this project and saying, hey, how could we build the nicest hotel in Alameda? And that really has been our goal. And we basically, you know, looked at the site and felt that it had so many great potential to it because of the the location, the waterfront, the ferry terminal next door. It makes it really an excellent hotel site. It's 5 minutes from the terminals at the airport. We noticed that I've always known, even when I was a policeman out here, that we didn't have really many good restaurants out of Harbor Bay. And so we wanted to make sure that we added a nice restaurant and. And it's funny that we have a pizza transportation center, a nearby, but no coffee stores nearby. So we wanted to add coffee station as well. And pizza is one of the groups that we're talking to. Great restaurant, great hotel. I can tell you that what we've designed and and I would agree with Mr. Thomas that there's things we can do to try to enhance the exterior. But the shape and size was built deliberately on the idea that we wanted to maintain an open view for the residents. And if you look at the site plan in the photographs, you see half of the site is open. And that open creates a great corridor for for everyone to look out towards the water. If we lower the building down, all it would have done is made the building wider and block more of the view. As we started this journey, we met with staff. We've had three community meetings. A lot of folks are here today, and I think that we listened as much as we could. In fact, we made 37 changes to the project based on input from the community and from the staff trying to address everybody's concerns. One of the things I wanted to do after, you know, I read Miami to newspapers quite often and saw some of the controversy on on another hotel site out there. And so our goal was not to come in and ask for variances or can we have a favor or do this or that? We basically said, let's take a look at what the rules are. Let's make sure the reapply to it. We do everything for the rules 100%. Don't ask for variances. It's I know it's controversial. I know that there's a lot of people that would prefer it's open space and not to have any commercial development at that part of the business park. So we did everything we could to comply. We think that we have a really nice project, far and away, and I've been building hotels for 30 years. I can tell you this would be the nicest hotel ever built in Alameda. And and it's a top of the line product. You know, it's a marriott hotel, the largest hotel company in the world. But the owners of the hotel or a family owned business, they're not a big, giant corporation. They're a small family. And they've done everything they can to comply with the regulations that are in. Appreciate your review tonight and hope that we can have your support. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Leach. Okay. I know we have to appellant's staff. Can you help me out with who's going to go first? Either one. Okay, listen. Come on up and introduce yourself. Thank you. All right. Okay. Yeah. Speaker three Go. Okay. Good evening, Mayor. Members of the council. My name is Mike lOSO. I'm here for the appellant Laborers International Union of North America Local 304. Our concern is about the seeker compliance with this particular project. And I'm going to break it down into three general categories. The first is we don't think. I don't think anyone who reads the 1974 EIA can think that that air addresses this hotel project. There's nothing in there that talks about a hotel project. There's nothing remotely related to a hotel project. It hardly even resembles it doesn't resemble the current business park. It was just a conceptual notion. It was a zoning decision to make it commercial, a concept floated about a business park much smaller than what exists today. And there's nothing in there to help you with any informational value about whether this proposed hotel is going to have any significant impacts or indeed relevant to whether this hotel has any significant impacts. The city prepared a report from Environmental Science Associates attempting to rebut the points that we made. First, there's a I think Mr. Thomas did this as well. And they try to add on all of these addendum addenda that have come since the 1974. Yeah, those don't count in terms of looking at whether this project requires in the air. You can only look to the 74. Yeah. You don't get to look at addenda that weren't subject to any kind of hearing or comment process under seek what they might have come up before the board, the design board or to develop the planning board. I mean, but they weren't subject to under a sequel to any kind of hearings. Second, if you look through that 74, yeah, again, there's just nothing in there about a hotel project and there's really nothing in there even about the office park. So it's only the conceptual idea. It was limited in size and and certainly nothing about a proposed hotel. So the first problem with it was going back that far, 44 years is that simply doesn't help you with any relevant information to evaluate this project. I suspect no one's looked at that 74 year to evaluate whether this hotel is going to have impacts on bird strikes or GHG emissions, certainly which weren't addressed that back then, of course, or for that matter, the issues that we've raised about indoor air pollution, formaldehyde emissions. So the second category, and this is the the Environmental Science Report notes that this was a programmatic air and therefore we agree it was a programmatic PR, it was a step back, didn't even have any details about a business park. And that leads to a tearing analysis under Sequoia. And in terms of tearing, it's a fair argument standard. We've shown that there are issues with bird strikes, as the city acknowledges with its most recent. Was that as a concern? We had an expert and I think Mr. Thomas makes light of the fact of the quality of the experts that we had. Look at this. Dr. Smallwood looked at the city's ordinance. He's still concerned. He doesn't think there's enough there's any evidence, really, of whether the glazing that's required is going to actually work? He hopes it does. But still, there's still a possibility that birds are going to keep running into that building for the formaldehyde issues. We had one of the preeminent experts on that issue look at the project and he calculates a cancer risk of 18 and a million for the workers in the building from formaldehyde emissions into the air. And the fact that there's some requirements from the Air Resources Board, he assumed compliance with those when he did his analysis and just looking to other agency regs, that's not a sufficient analysis. We can't just simply point to some requirements and say it's done in terms of GHG emissions. The report, prepared in response to our appeal actually acknowledges this GHG emissions and comes up with a number that's above the air quality management district's thresholds of significance and then tries to put that back in the bottle by claiming taking credit for emissions from a project that wasn't built and that's just not allowed. And to see if we have to look at reality, which is 1500 metric tons of GHG from this project. The third category is that even assuming this was covered in the 1974 air, there's no substantial information or significant information that requires major revisions that because it doesn't cover any of the things we're talking about. The same with those three issues GHG birds and GHG and formaldehyde emissions. None of that, of course, was covered or even known about back then. You have to look at those afresh in order to make that EIA work. And there have been major revisions out there, obviously, for the overall. We have an office park that's much larger than anything that was even conceptually noticed in 1974. And also, in addition, the circumstances have changed quite a bit. So we go through this in detail in our letters. I don't think the planning board got into the details like this. They thought they were barred from doing anything or square by the development agreement, which says that nothing's going to happen under Sequoia again. So I don't think they actually consider this the evidence that they were present. Thank you, Mr. Raza. And our next appellant is. If you can introduce yourself, please. I was just wondering if my PowerPoint presentation could be put up before my time starts. Oh, sure. And if you tell us your name, I won't count it against your time. What's your name? My name is Brian, shrimper with. And I'm the president of the Freeport Homeowners Association. Um. It's the one that looks like this. It looks like. Yeah, the colors are different. Sorry. Yes, that's it. Exactly. Just do I have. I'm sorry. Also need a little help on the technology. Just the arrow. Just perfect if your head is there. Okay, so as an appellant, we're asking for several things. One, to rescind the decision of the planning board and if not, place the project on hold until a decision from the BCD on the full permit process is taken . We think we have a good chance there. We're getting good reports back and that you should return it to the planning board to address critical project deficiencies and conduct an authentic community based design process. I'm just going to leave that up. These are the points that I'm going through. It's in your pamphlet. Does this blend into the shoreline? We believe it does not went into the shoreline. It's a massive right next to the commercial development. As you'll see, the original project is on the top. The project now is on the bottom. And what a big difference that it has. You know, your setback is a minimum setback. Doesn't mean you can't put it further back. So why are we going with minimums? I don't understand that. Nothing in there says a hotel. It has a restaurant. I've never seen a five story restaurant. As we can see in this, it says restaurants, retail, commercial entertainment. Sorry about this. We don't think it's compatible with your zoning organ. 30 Dash 37.5 which says that it must be compatible with adjacent or neighborhood buildings and surroundings. It's not even compatible with the commercial, so it's much less the homes that are right there that you're supposed to promote harmony, harmonious transition in scale and character between different designated land uses. We believe it doesn't do it and visually compatible with the surrounding development. And it's not it's not even visually compatible with the commercial area. Your other zoning 30 Dash 5.2 talking about minimum looks at public safety, health and general welfare haven't been done. Your project design the resolution 1203 dated in December of 1981, where prominent buildings should be placed on the Harbor Bay Parkway spine and not on this little outlet that's there. Protection of hills to bay, continuity. When we're walking on our wonderful park, we're going to have a massive over pressing wall of a building between us and the hills. And it's going to stop. The enjoyment of our park designed should be minimize or mitigate architectural bulk. It does not do that. It's entirely out of scale with everything else. I think we've already talked about the environmental concerns, but it's in your packet. I don't think climate change was even envisioned when that E.R. was done. We've just spent a lot of money on that. And yet we're going to say, oh, does it matter in this area? Inadequate traffic study. They keep talking about traffic study. Well, a traffic study is all done in the commercial area. None is done in the community. How do they know that it's not going to impact the community? They haven't studied it. They haven't looked at it. And I think that that's a very important part. They need to look at that very critically and very in-depth. There's other landscape issues that somebody else will be planned. Pay various creating hit. We're creating free parking when city policy is to encourage transportation by bicycle and ride share. What's going to happen is you're going to have people who used to ride there say, man, I could take 15, 20 more minutes in the morning and snooze that alarm one more time and park there instead of taking my bike or rideshare or something of that nature. That's what's going to happen. There was strong opposition from residents in the public in planning board meetings, Harbor Bay Isle Association Resolution, which represents over 20 homeowners association and 3500 homes, came out against it. We don't believe that most of our concerns are are done. They haven't talked about design mitigation, how we can, you know, redesign that building to make it look, softening the project BCD commercial only applies to the original developer and not to accessories. And we believe that we have a point there and that we will make that at bccdc. You should wait until that decision has been made there. Is it really for everybody in perpetuity? Whoever buys that project, 20 people down the line. So again, we're asking you to rescind or place it on hold until the bccdc process can be determined and whether it's going to go home. And I want to thank you for your time and attention. Thank you, Mr.. I know that. Remember how we went over this? No applause, no cheers. New Jersey. And we'll get out of here sooner. So thank you to our two appellants and our applicant. And we now come to our public speaker's slips, which are 33 and I think growing. So when we have normally a speaker, we get 3 minutes over a certain number of speakers, you get 2 minutes, we're over that. So what's council's pleasure on on this Vice Mayor do you have any thoughts Socratic to me? I decided to take Councilmember Ody off the hook for a moment. Any suggestions on how to proceed? You know, I hear from all of you. No, I don't have any. No. Okay. A council member decides. I have a question. Desert hall. Maybe this is a legal question. Does it hold water to have speakers speak at 2 minutes? But then if we feel like it's going long, we change it and then and then make it one minute. Or if we set a time, it doesn't have to be. I could even answer that. No, no. I remember what I said about mothers of twins. Everyone gets. You know, that wouldn't be fair if the first few speakers got 2 minutes and others got one, so. Okay. My suggestion would be unless somebody wants to make it, make a suggestion. Is it we give all speakers one minute and one minute, if you're cogent and prepared, is really quite a bit of time. And that's more you know, I'm sure it'll be more than 33 minutes just because it takes time for people to come and go . But we can we can do something different. We can do 2 minutes. Maybe. Four, but let's not spend all our time deciding how many minutes and give the time to the speakers instead. How where do. I hear two? I mean, we can vote on that. And if it doesn't pass, I can propose 90 seconds, but. Oh, that's Councilmember Vela. I was going to say 90 seconds. 90 seconds councilmember or vice mayor, 90 seconds. So we take a vote of 90 seconds all in favor of 90 seconds, say I, I. How many was that for? And Councilmember Desai is No. 3 minutes. Okay, so that's. I'm sorry. Democracy still prevails. So we have a minute and a half. So here we go. Let me call the first three speakers and try to remember to keep doing that. I have first Patricia Gannon, followed by George Humphreys, followed by Chan. Just one name, Chan. Okay, Miss Gannon. I believe they were scrapped in city council council members. I'm Patricia again on Bay Farm Island, and I am here to strongly urge the council to either rescind the Planning Board's decision or make them or make it very or to send it back for serious revision. And I do commend the developer for having community meetings. And I was at these two of those, and 90% of the people there were totally opposed to the project. They raised their hands and very few people were in favor of it. So I just would like to point point that out that this massive and I'm not opposed to the hotel on Bay Form Island, not on the excuse me, the business park. Surely they can find another location which would not totally destroy that beautiful, pristine piece of piece of land that it so enjoy, but not only to the citizens of Alameda, but also all of the animals. As a member, active member of Golden Gate Audubon, former board member, I am concerned about the impact. It's not only the hotels itself, but it's all of those. The traffic, the garbage trucks, the people and all of that is going to have a very negative effect on the peace and serenity of the entire neighborhood. And also that agreement that was signed was with HIPAA and not their successor and the Oak. And I thank you. I totally agree with the two. Appellants. Thank you. Okay. And Mr. Humphries. And as Mr. Humphries is approaching and after Chen speaks, we will have Ed sing. Thank you, Mayor Ashcraft. And the members of the Council. I agree with the the appellant's points that they raised because of the brevity of time here. I won't say why. I am. Urging that you rescind. The action of the of the Planning Board. However, I would like to say this if you feel compelled to approve the project that you might consider a what I would call a mitigated project. For example, you could downsize it to 4 to 3 stories from five stories. You could reduce it from 172 rooms to 100 and use a. 100 foot. Setback. Which I think is really. Required by the table 44 in resolution 1203, the park and parking would also be reduced if you have a 100 room hotel and then you'd have room for a 1 to 2 acre open space, which would allow for a wildlife area or wetland. Thank you. Thank you. And Singh? I'm sorry, Chen. Good evening, Mayor, and the city council member or everybody who is sitting here actually can listen to the public. So I'm here representing my family. I'm a homeowner in Highbury Island and I'm also architectural designer. So I opposed to this my our residents in proposed 2902 Hopper Bay Parkway. First of all, for my understanding, the 2900 Harper Bay Parkway is a commercial manufacture song. So per the Code of Ordinances, 34 point what? 34.10. See, the uses permitted for this parcel doesn't even. Include a hotel. Neither the restaurant or the ballroom. So per the zoning ordinance, the Mario residents in is not even allowed for this parcel. That's my first question. And the second of all, there was another hotel proposed actually just one mile away from this site. And the CDC didn't even permitted scale wise or height or functions very similar. If we compare apples to apples. And what is said is quite simple, that project is too large for the parcel, significantly obstructed views of the bay and a radius access to the shoreline. That's how they didn't get a permit for that hotel. And I run out of time. But I just want to finish because I want to. Thank you so much. Our next speaker is Ed Singh. And after Mr. Singh, we have Emma Khan, followed by Charles Hodgkins. Good evening. Much. City Council Gong, Haifaa Choi. Happy New Year to you as well. I want to talk a little bit about the zoning for this particular piece of land at Sea Dash MWP, which the developer and the city staff have repeatedly told us are permits any developer to develop up to 100 feet high and including hotel and you know doesn't matter whose next door to them you know they can build . Well, what about the rights of the residents behind this hotel? And I just want to re-emphasize something that Brian Trimper said a few minutes ago, that this project does violate the planning board resolution number 1203, which says you must pay design attention to minimize or mitigate architectural balk. I've been in four meetings on this project and each time I see the architectural rendering, nothing has changed. It's a big rectangular 73 foot high box. So where is our input into this? Regarding the setback, I just want to re-emphasize that under Planning Board Resolution 1203, Table 45, there is no classification for hotels. If you look at the offices up to 50 feet and 100 feet, the setback from the Bay Edge Park, not the shoreline is 50 to 100 feet. Thank you so much. Ms.. Ms.. Can. McCann, followed by Charles Hodgkins, followed by Pat Lamborn. Hello. I'm a homeowner. I've lived in Harbor Bay for 15 years. I originally wanted to come and let the city council know how much the small, narrow strip of Bay Trail has meant to my family, my children, and how the project is going to really affect our access to the bay. I still plan to do that at the Bccdc meeting. I think that is more their concern and I just ask that you please can we delay the decision until we have a chance to hear their decision once we present our our position as homeowners and users of the park, how this is going to be a different feel than offices with our access, it's going to change the public access and implied private property of a hotel that we don't see with the office buildings. So I just ask that we wait, take it slow, make the right decision. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor. City Council. My name is Charles Hodgkins. I'm the president of the Community. Of Harbor Bay Owners Association. And we did. Pass on the exact date we passed at our last board meeting. We passed a resolution opposing this project. We actually sent you a copy of it, so I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but it lists out more or less all that. The reasons have been passed by to you, by the appellants as to why we feel this is a project that is incompatible with our community. So we we do strongly. Oppose that and stand in. Opposition of the hotel. Thank you. Thank you. And Pat Lamborn and Ms.. Lamborn is followed by Donna Fletcher, followed by Dan Reidy, followed by Blair Scully. Good evening. Good evening. Mayor Ashcroft and council members. I'm Pat Lamborn. I'm a fish with feathers. I'm a unionist and an environmentalist. I'm a 40 year union organizer. I retired. Now I'm in. And I've always been an environmentalist. But yeah, now I count the endangered list. Turns out at the point and, you know, my husband and I pick up trash, including syringes, and there are still plastic straws. So I'm speaking to you as environmentalist. I would be more polite, but I only have a minute. Three of you were endorsed by the Sierra Club. Councilmember Vela, Councilmember Knox. Right. And Councilmember Odie, if you approve this project tonight, based on the Environmental Science Associates 31 page memoranda, you are repeating that nothing has changed since 1974. You have asked our entire community. I've gone to them. I've seen Council member John Knox and Councilmember Tony de Suck at our climate action workshops. Okay. What did they say? We've paid for a whole nother consultant by 2063, 36 inches of sea level rise. That will wipe out Crown Beach. It will flood shoreline drive and it potentially will wipe out the LC Romer Bird Sanctuary setback. You're talking about setting this building back 35 feet from the only natural shoreline path. There is just no way you can defend that, folks. Please set it back. He's check the box as a unionist. We've got some union deals here. Let's check the environmental box. Send it back to the planning board. Push the building back further. Look at the design. Do an environmental impact report. Thank you, Donna Fletcher. And Dan Reed's after Ms.. Fletcher. Good evening. Mayor Ashcraft. Members of the council and staff. The cities. Can you hear me? Okay? I'm okay. Stay. Stay about there. The city's right. The rules have been followed. The problem is, we still have a mediocre project. And we want to know what can you do to help us change that? We think that if we saw that the the project is going back to the planning board for some design changes, we would like to be involved meaningfully and significantly to make a significant difference in this project. So far, everything that's been done has been done for the city excuse me, for the developer. And I'm not sure that the city has involved the community in a good faith, meaningful way. And you hear tonight that that's what they're asking for. The result is that we have a project which. Really fits more on a freeway than it does on one of the last beautiful, primo, buildable lots on the bay in the Bay Area. Can we not do better? Can Alameda not do better than this? I believe we can with community input. So we're asking you to please do what other communities do, recognize what our amenities are, value our amenities, take steps to protect and preserve them. This is a neighborhood, a community. Thank you, Mrs. Fletcher. This is. Dan Reidy. And after Mr. Reidy, we have Blaire Skelly, followed by Cathy Liang. Thank you. I do have a letter in to you, but I just wanted to comment on a little bit about the environmental important events that happened in the environment. And some of the comments that came here triggered a few thoughts. One is that when the 1989 addendum was done, which is three inches thick, it was very seriously reviewed at the planning board level and by the city council. And then they the they looked at it's filled with a number of explanations of how the project from 74 had been revised, many times ways downsized, and therefore different mitigations were improved. What's interesting is that after that was done, we went forward like the extended stay hotel is built, the Hampton Inn is built, Hampton Inn building another building next to it right now today. And other buildings were built in the business park. We didn't have to do all of those new revisions of environmental thinking. The build out of the business park there was already 1.1 million built at that time. The rest of it was built out without discovering a lot of new environmental problems. These are brought out sometime to stop a project and not in our static sequel analysis. Thank you. Thank you. Blair Skelly. Followed by Kathy Liang. Followed by someone. Gilmore. Debbie. Deborah. Okay. Thank you. Hello. Oh, good. Evening. I live have lived in the. Bay Farm Island for 25 years, and I do not support the proposed Marriott Hotel. You know, I clearly understand why the city needs more tax revenues and that a hotel can generate significant revenues. But I really the question, the need for another hotel in the area, if there really is a demand for that, the hotel belongs at the other end of the parkway where the businesses are. I really don't believe I've ever seen a big hotel like this, right. Bumping up right next to residential properties. This very large, standard looking hotel will definitely impact the residential area near it, as well as all the people who enjoy the use of the trail. Um, you know, the five stories. There isn't even a five story hotel at the other end of the parkway. The hotel also impact our property values and will affect our wonderful quality of life because of the increase in crime, traffic and noise. As has been mentioned, the traffic study that's been done is inadequate as it doesn't address traffic is going to run through the residential areas. I I'm not a NIMBY and I was fine with the nursing home going in on that property, but I just can't support the hotel going in. So I would ask that you please rescind the planning board approval of the project. Thank you. Kathie Lee on. Honorable mayor and council members. Thanks for this evening. It's my understanding I agree with all the appellant comments. You sent my voice, my letter. You can read that. I'm just going to cut to the chase. And it's my understanding that there's a BCD meeting this Thursday in two days to review the existing permitting for this land. It's also my understanding that there's a current permit with the BCCDC that expires in April. That leads me to the concern of why is this being rushed through? Or that certainly the feeling that is created. It seems the right thing to do would be to respect the process by allowing the BCCDC to perform their review first, then bring this project back to the Council and subsequently the Planning Board to work with the community. It's as simple as that. Thanks for your time. Thank you. Deborah Gilmer. And Miss Gilmore is followed by Helen Simpson. Hi. Hi. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. Excuse me. That's the first time I spoke this large of a group. See, this is why we don't share. Go ahead. I appreciate everyone that's brought really good information, and I'm really happy that my board voted against. And, um, just please think about this. You know, I love Alameda. I've been here since 99. And I would really be sad if you don't fall in the right way. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Helen Simpson, followed by Gary Thompson, followed by not Charles Hodgkins. Unless there's a different Charles Hodgkins, then followed by Carrie Thompson. Hi, Miss. Sorry, Miss Simpson. Yes, yes. Good morning. Good afternoon. It's not really. Going. To work as. It was. I lived in Alameda for 25 years. 24 of those years have been out on Harbor Bay or Bay Farm. And when we decided to buy a house and raise our family, we never envisioned a five storey 172 room hotel being built in our backyard in a residential area. I ride the ferry every day. I ride my bike to the ferry. The parking issue. Is another can of worms for the ferry, and having shared parking with the. Hotel is not the answer. It's not a guarantee of spots. It's first come. First serve at the cost of 7 to $10 a day for ferry riders to park their. I also understand there's two other hotels going up in Harbor Bay Parkway. So that makes it four plus the addition to the Hampton Inn. I also understand that the developer is developing something on Ballina Bay, the Westin. As for his website and also the hotel being built on Park Street, why all of a sudden we need all these hotels in Alameda? I hope you rescind this and not go forward with the hotel and protect our neighborhood in Alameda. Thank you. Thank you. Gary Thompson. Greetings City Council and thank you for Dark Sky. I would like to. I would like to see this sent back to planning. And I'm not here to impugn the planning commission, but I believe a 1990 study did not take into account today's environment and the use of these pieces. Now, I was I have a shop that since be home in Harbor Bay. Every down and every day I take Runcorn Parkway 98th and down and get off one day, not a year or two ago, I started coming home and I turned on my GPS to see what it would do and it put me off on Fruitvale . Then it dumped me off into Fern's side, and I was shocked at the traffic that was lined up on Fern's side all the way the bridge all the way down Island Drive. This was during when everyone was going to work, and I couldn't believe it. The traffic studies come back saying there will be no impact. It's made a huge impact. I've lived there 20 years now. And and the difference of traffic moving through the neighborhoods has changed dramatically. And a huge part of it is coming right down. MCCARTNEY And coming right down. Davey Drive, where the schools are. And because people who live out of the area taking the ferry and working at the park now out where we are, Google is dumping them off before sending them the fast way. The cinema short way. But not the fast way. Thank you, Mr. Thompson. Our next speaker is Carey Thompson. Ms.. Thompson is followed by Robert Doud, followed by Tai Hudson. Good evening. Good evening, everyone. My name is Carey Thompson. I'm the chairperson for the Government Relations and Economic Development Committee for the Alameda Chamber of Commerce. And we support this project. We think that it is a good project and that it will bring local jobs, it will bring much more revenue to the city, and it does add parking to the ferry. Yes, there are people that will drive to the ferry, but that doesn't deter those that are not willing to drive. There are people that are willing to get out of their cars and take their bike every day that they do that or take the bus. So I don't think that that is necessarily a true statement. It people are people and those that are really environmentally conscious will do the right thing. And I think that that's a good thing. So anyways, we do support this project and thank you for your consideration and listening to everyone's opinion. Thank you. Robert Dow. Tie Hudson and Bassett about after that. Thank you, Mayor. City Council. I've been a resident for. Over 25 years and now a business owner in Alameda. I think everyone voicing concern tonight is correct in their feeling that this location is very special and it should and I believe has been vetted thoughtfully. I'm in favor of this hotel. I think it's I think it's a great location for private and public to use. You get it, you get to be able to use the restaurant, the hotel, the coffee shop. There's more places to sit. As far as the view that was brought up as a concern, I don't think people look east to the mountains. I think they look west to the bay and the mountains across the other side of the bay. I think this this hotel suits the needs of the Harbor Bay businesses and the Alameda residents. I don't understand the traffic and the traffic concern, which I believe is would be minor, especially when many of the patrons of the hotel would use a ferry when they're visiting San Francisco. In addition, the hotel has given up 100 spaces for the ferry. This, on day one, may not guarantee the hotel one room, but it will guarantee traffic and parking reductions in the local. Resident residential streets. Earlier I said this. This should be and has been vetted thoughtfully. I think this developer has done a great a great job in taking in design concerns and bringing them up. I but I wish the city would move forward and maintain a critical eye on the design and ensure the quality. Yeah, the next speaker is in. Good evening. Hello, Mr. Hudson. Come on up. Good evening, mayor. As the trapped and members of the city council. I'm Ty Hudson with unite here local 2850 the hotel and food service workers union in the East Bay. And I'm here to express our support for this project and to urge you to. Uphold the Planning Board's. Decision. As you know, I don't come we don't come here. To support. Just every hotel project. We're here to support this one because this project is doing. Exactly what we need. A growing hospitality industry in Alameda and in the East Bay to do. It's taking the high road with respect to good jobs and workers rights. And as the hospitality industry grows in in the city of Alameda and in the East Bay as a whole, this is exactly what we need developers and hotel employers to do to ensure that a growing hospitality industry and a growing economy spread prosperity throughout our community. So again. Please uphold the Planning. Board's decision and approve this project. Thank you. Thank you. And next, just about followed by Adrian Alexander and Michael McDonough. Good evening, Mayor, as the Ashcroft and city council members. My name is Bassey. I've been Alameda resident for 18 years and have lived on Bay Farm since my wife and I moved there in 2001. I currently work in San Francisco as a police officer and have done so for more than 23 years. I'm here tonight to urge the Council to affirm the Planning Board's approval of this project and deny the appeal. I ride the Harbor Bay Ferry on weekdays going to work, and while I walk to the ferry, I've noticed many ferry riders have an extremely difficult, difficult time finding parking. I believe the additional parking that this project will provide is sorely needed. My family and I look forward to having a restaurant and coffee shop within walking distance and meeting conference space that can be used by schools on Harbor Bay. We frequently exercise along the Bay Trail and would welcome the upgrade to the path along the water. This developer has agreed to make these upgrades and I think it's worthwhile. Many of my neighbors support fully the project and it's my understanding that the hotel will have security on site, adding to the safety already adding another layer of safety to the safety already provided by harbor security and our own Alameda Police Department. I've heard people voiced concern about increase in crime, but in my opinion, the hotel would make their neighborhood in the area safer, not less so. So I hope you will allow this project to move forward tonight. Thank you. Adrian Alexander, Miss Alexander's followed by Michael McDonagh. Good evening. My name is Adrian Shakes Alexander. I've been born and raised in Alameda. My mother is 92 years old who was. Born and raised in Alameda. And she's with me tonight, too. So I'm speaking for her also. My husband and I have both lived on Harbor Bay for over 30 years. We are in favor of this project. We're looking forward to a nice hotel that we can invite our family and friends to stay out when they're in town . I'm looking forward to another food option out on Harbor Bay. Those are very limited. I know this developer has worked hard within the community and held community meetings and been fully vetted. I sat through the entire planning board meeting with Mr. Thomas and listened to all of the planning board members and their comments and every one of them was for this project. I knew they had to vote for it unanimously. So I ask that you uphold their position. They're qualified. People. They did their homework. And at the next school. Teacher, I know that's important. And doing their homework, they did. And listen, if you had a chance to listen to their comments, you would know the positive aspects of this. I hope that you will continue to vote and vote for this project. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for bringing your mom, Michael McDonough, followed by David Rice, followed by Lily and Tamir or Tammin. But Mr. McDonough high. And good evening, mayor and council and staff. I'm Michael McDonough, president of the Alameda Chamber of Commerce and a resident of Alameda for, I think, 28 years, 25 of those on Harbor Bay. And two perspectives here. As a resident, I think this is an awesome project. Not only does it give better access to the shore for the public, but the comments about the restaurant are very needed over there. There's there's hardly a place to eat when you're living in Harbor Bay and the coffee shop and the extra parking. All this is has been said. But from the council standpoint, we hear all the time that we need more hotels, especially in Harbor Bay. And I know that I get that feedback. A lot of the residents here don't get that feedback, but we have a lot of businesses there that they have to send their visiting staff, salespeople and customers to San Francisco or Oakland for hotel needs. And that means we are losing revenue. And I don't have to remind you, but maybe the public that in the coming years we're going to have a terrible budget deficit if we don't bring in extra sources of revenue and a hotel is the best source of revenue we can get the total tax as 100% goes to our general fund. And this hotel, the Park Street Hotel, the other Harbor Bay hotels, hopefully we'll get one on Ballina Bay and out at the point eventually. These are all very important revenue sources for the city. Thank you, Mr. McDonough. David Ross. Good evening, Mayor. Council staff. Thank everybody here for participating in this reasonably checkered process called democracy. The question for the people behind me, how many of you showed up at the planning board meetings? Who followed this process? I represent labor. I've lived in Alameda for 40 years. I've been part of organized labor. It has made me who I am today. In 2 hours and 54 minutes, approximately, I'll be 65 years old. I'm the only person that brought a bike here tonight. We hear about traffic litigation. You hear about people. Complaining. About how your time is going. Keep going. Yeah. How? 7 seconds. 45 seconds. Mr. Ross. Mr. Ross, it's your time to speak in public. You can debate with the. I'm in favor of this project. It represents jobs. It represents a unique opportunity in terms of apprenticeships. At any given time, there will be between seven and ten crafts. Everybody's looking for workers. Opportunities consist of apprenticeships. It's not a toehold. It's the full body through the door. Not everybody in this room is foolish enough to think that everybody that graduates from high school in Alameda is college bound. This project affords the opportunity for people to make a good living, provide for their families insurance, maybe even be able to live in Alameda. I thank you for your time. I encourage you to move this project forward. Thank you and happy birthday. Lillian. Lillian, help me with your last name. Is it? That wasn't her. Okay, so I'm after Ms.. Tamir. We have Dennis SAC, Ervin Gonzalez and Joe Ernst. Thank you. My concern is specifically with the increase in traffic on McCartney Boulevard. I believe when the Business Parkway was developed in 74, there was an assumption that traffic for the business park would flow from the airport down the Harbor Bay Parkway to the business park. Today, with our enhanced technologies, with Google Maps, etc., instead of using the safest route, traffic goes through the quickest route, which is through through my residential area, right down McCartney. So even if the traffic was anticipated, the traffic patterns that exist today likely were not anticipated in 1974. Many of us have children that attend Bay Farm Elementary or Bay Farm Middle School. There are many, many children who Cross McCartney Boulevard twice daily to get to school and back. It's becoming a busier and busier streets, and I'm concerned about their safety. So as you discuss this development, my request is that we also consider these traffic concerns and find ways such as a traffic stoplight or a lighted crosswalk that will increase the safety of the pedestrians crossing. McCartney Particularly at the intersection of McCartney and Algoma. Thank you. Thank you. Let's see. Did a sack. Mayor Ashcraft, thank you for your letter yesterday. I am here representing Raila Graber, who I. Recognize you. Knew fighting for a life in the hospital. As you know, she's been a huge donor and contributor to your community for many years, both generous with her, with her generosity and with her activism in protecting your city. You know, the the Lehman Brothers hijacking at the point the attempt to take over part of the golf course for housing. And she can't be here. You suggested I contact the developer. I can't contact the developer because I'm the lawyer who sued Mr. Leach for his failed project in Sacramento. We sued him for fraud. He never did pay off on the entire judgment. It was one of several lawsuits that led to his bankruptcy. When we discovered it was the same Robert Leach here, we discovered his his last project in Palm Desert has left $3 million in unpaid bills, which are subject to a current arbitration in this project. As you heard at the beginning, Mr. Thomas is not representing the interests of the city and the community. He's representing the interests of the developer. You're plant you did not get input from your planning board and it needs to be sent back to them because he told them that they had no choice. You all know that setbacks and height limits and failures aren't something you have is right. That's the maximum. And projects are always smaller than those maximum setbacks of maximum heights of maximum failures. Thank you, Mr. Sacco. We wish Ms.. Graber all the best. My next speaker is Irving Gonzalez, followed by Jurist. Good evening, Mayor Ashcraft. And council members and staff. I'll keep it brief. I'm Ervin Gonzales. Been a 30 year resident of Harbor Bay Isle, having lived in Oakland in an urban environment, working in San Francisco of much of the same. One of the things that we, my wife and I and our daughter who went to school here, really appreciate the fact that that this is a community that is very charming and very characteristic. That is one of the reasons why I simply feel that the building in and of itself, with its setback so close to the path and the shore and its height of of 72 feet is just inappropriate and out of scale for the environment. I think a picture is worth a thousand words. It really does stand out as being a an overly scaled building. I think that despite the fact that it has checked off all the boxes, as the gentleman before me just said, I think you can tailor the project to be set back a little bit further, have less parking, and be able to create a building that is either terraced back or otherwise addressed. And it's nice to hear. That there is encouragement here that that prevented revisions are pending and there will be a more neighborhood participation, which I will be involved. In. So thank you very much. And we look forward to. Mitigating some of the. Concerns. Thank you for your comments, Mr. Instruments and Mr. Ernst is followed by Daniel Greg, followed by Sean Lavelle. Hello. My name is Joe Ernst. I am here tonight speaking as president of the Harbor Bay Business Park have been in that role for nearly 15 years. I'm also speaking as an active developer in the business park since the late nineties. Both perspectives give me a lot of history and understanding of the various controls and requirements there. I'm here to request that you deny the appeal. I do think this is a good project, one that is highly sought after by the businesses in the business park. From the many years I've worked there, I know the hotel, the setbacks, the heights are all within their requirements. We've had a number of attorneys over the years financial institutions, both for Australians. Our buyers review these documents. The EIA has standing from previous projects we've approved. I know the traffic for this project will be less than the one we approved back in 2007. The BCD there, there's an extensive track record there, Documented, which led the BCCDC attorneys recently to recommend to the commission no permit be required. So if Bccdc Commission changes course on that, that will be strictly political. It won't be based on the legal merits, I believe. But that aside, you know, we want more good businesses. We want more jobs in Alameda. We can't keep asking good companies to come to the business park without amenities, without hotels. They want this hotel and the business park approves. Thank you. Mr.. Mr.. Daniel Gregg. Father Sommerville. Hi. Good evening, Mayor. Members of the Council. My name is Daniel Craig and the Leadville Field Representative. A I just stop for a minute. I would ask. Well, we have. The speaker should have disclosed that he owns the property. Isn't there an issue with someone coming this close? Yeah. And also, we don't normally have people up on the dais. Thank you. So we reset the timer for Mr. Greg, please. Uh, again, I'm a lead field representative of Carpenters Local. 713 covering Alameda County. I represent approximately 38,000 carpenters in Northern California. Many of them live and work here in Alameda. As many of you know, the construction industry when it comes to hotels is a is pretty tough for union workers to get into. We think this is a unique opportunity here, both having union carpenters build the project on site and. Have staff also. Represented once the hotel is finished. It might be the first of its kind in Alameda. As far as I can tell. A commitment by the developer to his union. Carpenters on this project is an opportunity for local residents to get training. Apprenticeship and the payment of area standard wages and benefits. The staff report suggests and I know this was. Said earlier, but I want to mention a real quick. The appellants failed to demonstrate that the planning board's actions, findings and conclusions. Including but not limited to actions. Findings and conclusions suing to secure were not supported by. Substantial evidence. I've been hearing this a lot lately, lately in cities all over Alameda County, Northern California and. Beyond. It's a tactic by many organizations to challenge Square to get what they want out of a developer or out of a project. We don't think it's ethical, and it's probably not legal. And I just wanted to make that known. In conclusion, the Carpenters Union fully supports staff's recommendation to affirm the Planning Board's decision to approve the project. And we ask that the Council. Support the recommendation as well. Thank you. Thank you. Sean Lavelle is followed by Jay Harris and then Karen Bey. Good evening. My name's Sean Lavelle. I'm a union carpenter and Alameda resident. US carpenters have to be up early in the morning, so I'm gonna make. This short and sweet. As Mr. Greg said before, this can be built with union labor. And considering the costs of living in the Bay Area, I think it's going to be a huge boon to working people in Alameda. So I suggest that you deny the appeal and go forward with the project. Thank you very much. Thank you. Then Jay Harris, followed by Karen Bass. Hi. Good evening, Mayor Ashcraft and city council members. My name is Jay Harris. I'm an environmental attorney on behalf of the applicant. I reserve this time. In case I heard any. New CEQA issues come up. That wasn't a part of the DB documentation. That's been going back and forth. And I didn't hear any and name of the gaming environmental laws thoroughness and I want to. Thank the city staff are being thorough in this. Project and thank the. Developer. The applicant for being thorough in their work. I also would point out that the Planning Board. Was. Very thorough and reviewing. Consistency on this project and seeing that it was. Within the scope of the earlier. Development agreement in the city zoning and general plan, and it was very thorough in their review of the design elements. And in fact part of the conditions was that they would return with some of the further. Design elements of this project. Before final approval. Just thank you. And I just see my time on. Recognition that it is late. Thank you. We don't see time, but thank you for your comments. Karen Bey and Ms.. Bears, followed by Doug Dargan, followed by Amelia Foose. Good evening. Good. So I just want to remind everybody that this is a business park. It's anchored by Penumbra, which has over 1700 jobs, Abbott Labs, who is expanding, and many other biotech companies that are expanding. So and it's part of our economic development strategy. The business park and the goals of the economic development strategies are to increase jobs, to increase our tax base, and to add value to our parks by adding amenities such as restaurants and parks. This project checks all the boxes. And so in closing, this project will add tremendous value to our business. The Harbor Bay Business Park, a waterfront hotel with restaurants and cafes right close very near to the ferry terminal. This is just the kind of project that we want to see in Harbor Bay. Thank you. Thank you. David Hunt, former councilmember, former vice mayor, even Lou. All right. Thank you for the introduction. When we were about seven years ago, this came before us a different council altogether. And we were going to. We were asked to subdivided into five parcels. It was originally one parcel. In doing so, George came forward and representative his company and what during that presentation was presented as a two story opportunity . It was strictly a lot. Of discussions of. What took place on that. I'm not too sure if you guys read those things, but that your council made a decision at that point in time. Furthermore, I know that you've been struggling with parking and the ferry and talking about transportation in general. If you want the ferry to be a viable situation, you need to really do address it. What is happening out there is that it was short on parking then and these little tokens of 100 more spaces is not going to solve your problem. Your residents have not grown and Harbor Bay and Alameda in general, but your parking demand has spilled over throughout Harbor Bay residents. And I think that's a. Concerning issue with you guys and doing so. I would say that the vast, vast majority of the additional people that are using the ferry are off island, off Alameda coming in. That's a a something is a total different generation. The other thing. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm sorry. We've got speakers to go. I am, too. Our next speaker is Amelia Firth, and Ms.. Foose is followed by Zack Boling, followed by Steven Gertler and Brian McGuire. Good evening. Good evening, Mayor and members of the council. My name is Amelia Foose. I'm a homeowner in Harbor Bay, adjacent to Freeport Development, adjacent to this lot. I'm here representing dozens of my fellow neighbors who are not able to be here due to Chinese New Year, as well as many a lot of young families, families with young children who they were not able to be here this late tonight. Our community is strongly opposed to this business, and this proposal in its current form is simply too tall. We chose Alameda because of its small town feel. I've lived in Manhattan, in New York and San Francisco, and I chose Alameda because I don't want to raise my family in the shadow of a high rise. It's not about losing bay views. I don't really have a baby to lose, but I will lose view of the sky because of the height of the structure. I can appreciate the desire for more jobs and supporting our unions and to obtain more tax revenue for the city. But we do not need a 72 foot, 40 foot tall building to achieve this dream. Secondly, I am very concerned about the issue of traffic, as numerous people have said before me. Mr. Thomas from the Planning Board asserts that no evidence, there is no evidence of new impacts. However, I want to point out this is not a sufficient analysis to my knowledge. What I found there was one study that was provided by the developer that was part of this public hearing with the planning board, and that was an insufficient study that really just looked at the Harbor Bay Parkway. And of four out of seven of those data points received a score of an F, and that's hardly reassuring. This. Thank you for your time. Okay. Zack Bowling is our next speaker, followed by Steven Gertler and Brian McGuire. And I think you've all got that down now. Good evening. Thank you. Thank you, counsel. Yeah, I will. I'll keep this brief. I don't want to parrot things have already been said over and over. I fully support this project as both a very writer, as somebody that works in the business park, occasionally working with clients as someone that state and all the hotels that we currently have and that space, it's something that is desperately needed is more hotels and it's great tax revenue for the city. I, I absolutely think it's the easiest way to fill our coffers and help our underfunded projects in this city. So I fully support any hotel efforts in the city generally to supplements. But in this case, I think this project is really good for Alameda and that's all I really have. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Steven Cortland. I'm a resident of Alameda. I sat here and listened as your planning director advocated for this project with more zeal than the developer did. He loves this project, and he wants you to love this project. But your job is to make an informed decision. And I don't see how that's possible when your own staff. Is feeding you a bill of goods and giving no credence to any arguments. To the other side of the question. They want you to approve this. Project and they don't want to give you any information that might cause you to doubt that conclusion. They are doing you a grave disservice. Thank you, Brian Maguire. I've said that more than once. Good evening again, everyone. Brian Maguire, just want to provide a little perspective here. A planning board that was 100% made up of Mayor Spencer appointees unanimously approved. This project found that it met our objective standards and rightfully honored a decades long commitment made by your predecessors. Predecessors, probably. There's lots of good reasons articulated for it to support the project, and I won't go into all those again. But just a couple other comments. The project will be built, able to withstand a lot more sea level rise than most of the homes of the people that are asking you to deny this project. This isn't like, yeah, you know, it's it's just a little confusing for me. Also, a two storey building blocks the views of the bay just as much as a five storey building does. And going a little bit higher allows us to get things like the parking for the ferry and more view corridors, etc. So it's time for us to start setting the right example. Things like the square and Bccdc process should not be abused by homeowners who want to freeze the city and amber or even even our union allies who want to get labor concessions. Sometimes it's time to let those processes work the way they're supposed to for genuine environmental concerns. But in the middle of a urbanized, dense environment, the best thing we can do is dense urban infill, so should not uphold an appeal. Thank you. All right. We've come to the end of our public speakers. And by the way. Well, well, then everybody speakers you held to your 92nd level time limit and I think you helped inform the council. So again, nothing is easy that comes before this board rarely anyway. So who wants to who wants to lead the discussion? We have to do this. Councilmember They said, Oh. Wait, hold on. I'm sorry you. Needed a bathroom break. But. Oh, okay. Yes. Wicked. Sorry. Yes, 5 minutes. Seriously, 5 minutes, people. Okay. We could take a look back at 940. It's it's 932. We'll be back for you. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Too much laughter for. Advice of concern. All right. So, everyone, if you if you would like to continue your conversation, feel free to move out into the hallway. If you would like to stay for the meeting, please sit down and come to order for you are really okay. You staff you. We just want. We want to start the meeting again. He has a gavel. Okay. All right. So the first thing we're going to do is we are going to close the public hearing because we just heard from, I want to say 34, 35 speakers. So the public hearing is closed. Excuse me. And we are now going to do council deliberation. So do we have any clarifying questions of Mr. Thomas before we get into our deliberations? I know I do. You do, too. Do you want to go first? A can take it away. I call. I call on you when you try to avoid me. So you might as well go and you might have me. Just a couple quick questions, Mr. Thomas. And first of all, thank you to everyone who came out and spoke. I just want to get that out on the record. So just some clarifying questions on some things. I heard there was an allegation made that the business part of the ER was approved for a much smaller business park and I thought the slide maybe had a different take on that. Can you kind of describe and tell me who's right? There is there was a 1974 EMR that er was comprehensively revised and updated in 1989 that it was done for the development agreement which specifies very specifically a 5.2 million square foot er the contention or the statement that was made earlier that oh you can't even consider that revision as legitimate is, is wrong. We absolutely disagree with that. An addendum is a revision to an area and it was approved by planning board and City Council in 1989. Okay. And then I remember doing the bird strike ordinance because I think it was one of my referrals with then Vice Mayor Melissa Avella. I mean, if my memory is correct and you can tell me if I'm right or wrong, then the Audubon Society gave us a model ordinance for that and we adopt in their model ordinance . That's absolutely correct. And they were here supporting our ordinance when you adopted it. Okay. So can you just kind of briefly tell us what the applicant is entitled to as far as my right and what our, you know, what we're allowed to do when there's a buy right project? Yeah, the issue, the buy right terminology is in our general plan. It's also in the development agreements. It's the 100 foot height limit, it's 100 feet. And they are well within that height limit, the parapets, 62 feet. The project is also entitled Under our development agreements with the developer for a floor area ratio of up to 0.5 , that's 120,000 square feet. So the idea that we can as a city just sort of start arbitrarily hopping that down runs us afoul of those agreements. And then I think there was an allegation that a hotel is not allowed and C MPD, can you trust that? Construe the CMP. And can you tell us what that stands for? Thank you. Commercial manufacturing zone. That's the same zoning district for the entire business park. As we've heard several times, there's already two hotels in the CRM. So this issue has been debated and discussed several times before, and the council's approved hotels in the CRM, essentially, hotels are allowed in the CRM district, both at Harbor Bay as well as other CRM districts in Alameda. There are two last quick questions and it's been sent back to the planning board for some design considerations. You know, what opportunity at all will the public have to have input in those design modifications? What the planning board felt? They they they put a conditional approval that they wanted to see a final architectural design and a final landscaping lighting design before the project pulled building permits. And they were very clear that they wanted that to be a public process, a process with the community and neighbors, whoever interested I know the chair of the Planning Commissioner of the Planning Commission has reached out to me since that hearing, said, look, if that if this project moves forward, she wanted to personally be involved in making sure that that public process occurred and that she wanted to and that we invited the public to work on the design of the building and the landscaping lighting. I want to make it clear, though, you know, and I think the problem the council with the planning boards was struggling with here was we can't get to that level of detail if we as a community are still having an argument about whether the hotel should even exist. So that's why the planning board took this two step process. And then lastly and thank you for your answers. This is an appeal from planning board decision. So can you kind of describe what our role is as the council? And normally we're a policymaking body, but can you explain our role when there's an appeal. Under under the zoning code? The planning board has the is the final decider on projects like this unless and they make the decision for the city. However, there is an appeal process and the point of the appeal. Is. It's an operating for you as the elected officials to determine whether your you believe your planning board made a mistake and what we essentially require a sort of substantial evidence standard for that. Like, is there any evidence have you heard anything tonight that makes you feel that they erred in the interpretation of the zoning code and the interpretation of any of the development agreements? Any of those things in the interpretation of the California Environmental Quality Act? Thank you, Mr. Thomas. Any other Claire? Just to. Claire. Okay, so we are. We are conducting a meeting at this time, so just to clarify. Excuse me. You could. You do need to wait to be called on. And I haven't called on you. So do any other council members have a question for Mr. Thomas? Mr. Desai. Just to clarify, the the nature of this hearing is that it's a de novo hearing, meaning that we can evaluate anything under the sun with regard to this project. Not just we're not just limited to the. You have the ability to change the project. Yeah, exactly. It's a de novo hearing, so we're not limited to the planning board. You would change the project. We find. Whatever, whatever it is. Because you felt the planning board made a mistake and so you wanted to change what they did. That would be an aspect of the de novo. Exactly, yes. Okay. Do you get your question answered? Okay. I have I have follow up questions, too, but I can wait. Well, you've got. Okay, go ahead. Great. So the thing that really caught my attention when in listening to the planning board was when one of the planning board members said the following, and I believe this is a. Word for Mr.. DE So just to clarify, you were going to ask a clarifying question of. Mr. THOMAS. Yeah, the clarifying question is about the nature of of combining parcels. Okay. Okay. Let me ask the question. Preface questions a. Little bit. Yeah. Okay. Well, I could just get to the question then. Okay. So, Cliff, did we correctly combine the three parcels that constitute the project? Because there is one parcel. About 30% of which is in the water and can never be built on. And then combining the three parcels that achieved a certain amount of square footage, building square footage, which is of the roughly 120,000 building square feet. But that's a that's a function of combining the three parcels. The question I have is it's also a legal question. Did we follow California subdivision map or with regard to combining parcels? Did we follow state law with regard to combining parcels? Because I saw one thing that said that anything less than five, four, 5000 square feet can up that parcel cannot be combined. So let me put it let me ask that. Yeah, no, William. And I'll just say that I'm sure Mr. Thomas can ably answer that. And we have our assistant city attorney, Selena Chan of Land Use Matters. So feel free to. Yes, please. Let me just one quick answer. There are three contiguous parcels, all owned by the property owner. What the planning board said is because you are we are you have development potential on all three of them and you want to basically treat them as one parcel, one large parcel. Then the condition is that the applicant merge the three parcels into one parcel prior to any issuance of any building permits. The reason the Planning Board made that specifically is because we want to make very, very clear. You're building this hotel at one end of the site. There's this other end of the site that's being used for a parking lot. They did not want a separate parcel there because they didn't want any miss understandings. You know, ten, 15, 20 years with somebody comes along, goes, oh, I've I've bought a parcel, I want to develop it at point zero. As far as I know, you're using the development potential for all three parcels with this one building and therefore we want this treated as one contiguous person. So I still want to ask it's still a legal question. Did we follow the California subdivision map if there was any provisions regarding combining parcels or did we follow existing state laws? What about that 5000 square feet or less? This is Chen. Do you want to help with that answer? Good evening. Celina Chen from the city attorney's office. And to answer your question, we conditioned the planning board, conditioned its approval of the design review and development plan application on the subsequent merger of the three parcels. So that is something that will happen subsequently. So you're basically saying it pass legal muster? Yes. Okay. Thank you. That follow up question, either staff or legal. Is that in the ordinance? It's written that all parking, whether required or in excess of all parking, shall be provided on the same parcel as the use which is generating the parking demand. Is this. Now we've got two different parking places. We got one parcel, we got the primary parcel, which is roughly 4.6 acres. And the other parcel which is roughly, I don't know, point six acres. It doesn't seem to be. I mean, you've got parking for this project on that 0.6 acre parcel. So that doesn't seem to satisfy this requirement that that park that all parking off street parking be provided on the parcels that is generating the demand. Hence the need to merge the parcels into one parcel. And that's why that is. I mean, that is why that is a condition of approval. We wanted to make sure that we didn't have a misunderstanding in the future with somebody saying, Oh, I just bought a parcel with a parking lot on. I want to build a building on it. No. If we approve this project at this size, you're using up the development potential for all three parcels. Therefore, we want them merged into a single parcel before we issue the first building permit. And was that it just was that an. It also resolved that? Was that a discussion that the planning board? Yes, absolutely. We discussed that at the planning board. The need for the merger to occur prior to any building permits being issued. Okay. All right. Anything else, Mr. Dess? Thank you for now. Okay. Councilmember Vela and then Vice Mayor Knox White. Mr. Thomas, there is a question or an issue raised earlier about the safety of schoolchildren crossing at McCartney and Audubon. My question is. You know, can we look at that separately or does that have to be part of a traffic study relative to this project? We can totally look at it separately. I actually spoke to the woman briefly and unfortunately I don't have it, but I'm I told her to check in with us tomorrow. But I'm like 75% sure that the city has already budgeted and is planning to put in a signal at that intersection this next fiscal year. I might have my intersections mixed up, but I'm pretty sure we've already got we've already programed and I funded a new signal. That island. And I think it's I think it's one one spot over but. Is. It. It's island. Right? Right. But but again, the question is, could we look at it separately? Okay. And. What would we do in that in that respect if we were looking at it. Would direct I mean to very simply direct staff to look at it tonight. It's a great time to look at it. We are working on our transportation projects for the next fiscal year. The budget will be coming to the Council for the next two fiscal years in the spring of the next couple of months. Thank you. Okay. Both. Both way. Thank you. I have a few questions and comments, but I wanted to start first just by saying that there was a comment by Mr. SAC about you and your coworkers and where your loyalties lie. And I thought it was completely out of bounds. And, well, I will allow Mr. Leach to stand up and address the other part of your character assassination, which seemed to be the point. You were here. It was completely inappropriate. And I'm not going to sit here and let people stand up and impugn the integrity of the people who work for the city of Alameda, who are good people, who work really hard to just have people stand up and just claim that they don't care. I disagree with Andrew often. We have lots of passionate conversations. I never once think that he does not have the best interests of this city. You should be ashamed. All right? Not at all. You can take this off line after the meeting. Let's get back to the. Topic at hand. We've addressed a lot of the issues that that have come up. I want to I wanted to ask about the traffic and then I have some kind of boundaries of what we can talk about the issue and you kind of said this in your presentation, but the issue is not that the city does not think that there will not be traffic impacts, but that for the balance of how we can make a determination, a significant impact is actually and this is in the essay report has to be a 3% increase in traffic at a specific intersection and that when staff looked at the traffic studies, that 3% threshold could not possibly be met by the amount of even the whole. If all the traffic went through one intersection, it still would not be and therefore it is not possible for the way in which we can make decisions tonight for there to be an impact. But that's not to say that there isn't going to be more traffic from where it is today and staff wasn't making, is that. That's absolutely correct. Okay. I just I think it's important tonight for, you know, this is a difficult issue. You know, I know I'll say that for someone just to go back again, it's not that we are discretionary to decide to do an environmental review or not because it has been approved in the past. We are not allowed to write legally. We cannot just do more environmental analysis and hold the developer that. That's correct. Has specific language that says if you already have any air in this case, it's the 1989 amended air. You cannot require another one just because you feel like it. You need to have evidence that there's a significant impact that you that's not been. Covered in a city of impact would be like the traffic that we. Just like where the 3% threshold or we found endangered species on the site or one of those issues. Okay. And. And and just. Go with me for 2 seconds. But the reason for that is because, as you said in your presentation, they built the parks, the shoreline, the schools, all the public amenities that Harvard got built under the development agreement and the environmental clearance. And it would be completely what would be illegal. But the reason is because it would not be fair to then go back and say, okay, now you gave us everything you promised. Now we're going to change the rules for you and make it harder for you to recoup those costs as you were. That's that's right. In terms of the development agreement, that was absolutely the intent. But, you know, totally separate from the development agreement is the California Environmental Quality Act, the law. And that's this issue of you can't be requiring another year just because you feel like it is. That's a standard set in that law. But the development agreement is where some of these height limits and the U.S.. Exactly. Stuff is set. And that's why we can't make changes there. Okay. And in a phrase that into a question, right. Yeah. So I just clarifying. Clarifying. And then for Sequoia, is it fair to say that it's not the sequel wasn't done. It's that when doing Sequoia, a new environmental report was not. But we did this analysis. It just didn't trigger the need for a new exactly. Impact report, which legally we can't do. Is that correct? Our obligation is to determine whether another air was required. Sequel lays out the threshold for acquiring a new E.R.. We had to do environmental studies to determine whether those thresholds were triggered and those studies were done and those thresholds were not triggered. Therefore, we did not require a new E.R.. And then something else that came up a number of times. Two part question, but the Bccdc permit, is that something that they are deciding whether to do or is there an agreement that says that they don't have to be done? The hearing in two days or three days at Bccdc, as I understand it, from reading the materials and talking to Bccdc staff, is that they're board wanted to have a discussion about whether a separate permit would be required or not. Under the settlement agreement, it would not be required, but the board wanted to have a conversation about that because a lot of the residents had been going to the board, as you heard, to try to petition them to require a permit. It's important for everyone to understand, though. Even if the board says on Thursday, the BCCI board, oh, we want to require a permit for this project, meaning we won't have a separate hearing about it. They're not going to have that hearing until this board makes a decision on the project. They won't even be deemed the application complete until this board, the Salame, the city council makes a decision about this project. Thank you. That is my only question for now. Thanks. So I don't know. I have a couple. Did you say a rumor? Okay. So thank you, Mr. Thomas, for all your time and information. So my question. A couple of them. One is there was reference more than once to the 1974 E.R. and perhaps subsequent documents never contemplated a hotel. Can you talk about that? Yeah, this is this. A number of the speakers were sort of saying you did it in 1974 and it's totally old. Didn't it doesn't reflect what you have now. And there was this passing, like complete sort of discounting of what the city did in 1989. What the city did in 1989 is incredibly important for this conversation. That was the update to the 1974 E.R. That's when the city said, you're right, this E.R. needs to be updated because our plans for the business park have changed. And that 1989 revision to the 1974 E.R. was where the city very consciously and very specifically said our plans for the business park are the 5.2 million square feet, 100 foot buildings, the f they are. It's all documented in those agreements in 1989. And that's why the city did, as Mr. Readdy describes, a three inch environmental document that was reviewed by the planning board and the council and the community to update that E.R.. So what we have is an IIR that is very specifically designed for this zoning and this this development as envisioned. And it allows hotels and it talks about hotels in the business park. Okay. Thank you. And then there was also some discussion in the conversation about the bccdc in going back before the board that there's a B CDC agreement that expires in April. What's that? Well, I don't believe it. I don't know what they're referring to expiring in April. I think somebody was confused. And what they're talking about is that the city's development agreements expire in April. The settlement agreement with Harbor Bay does not expire, as far as I know, in April. And that that runs. The city's development agreement with the Harbor Bay Islands. Yes, that's come before this summer. Before. Okay. And then lastly, there was some assertion that the development agreement doesn't. Apply to subsequent owners that only the parties who negotiated or executed that agreement are or are bound by it. What that speaker was describing her, I guess it was the appellant was describing, was not our development agreement that what they were describing, I believe, was the Bccdc settlement agreement, which and that's what the debate is on Thursday. And you know what? Essentially, you know, that's their basic argument for why Bccdc should have a separate hearing for the site. I think I might not be phrasing that clearly enough, but is there is an agreement with the city right now, notwithstanding that it expires this April? Does that agreement apply to subsequent owners, for instance, someone who buys a parcel at the at the business park, even though. We have always as a city. Taken the attitude that the development agreement and this is true of all of our agreements apply to the land. These are entitlements for land, not to people to land. So when you apply a development agreement and give it certain entitlements through the land use process and then and then contractually establish those with a debarment agreement, you are basically first making those contractual agreements. It gives value to land. So if you're the owner of that property now, you have a more valuable asset. Of course, you can pass it on and sell it. Those those entitlements don't just expire once you sell your property, if you like. And this is true of the homeowners. I mean, under that theory, they could sell their house and then we'd say, oh, I'm sorry, we don't want to let you have a house on that property anymore because we've decided to change our mind. And you don't get the rights to have a house on this property anymore. I mean, that's essentially what we would be saying to the commercial developer now. Oh, we've changed our mind. We don't actually want you to build anything on this because you're not the original owner. I got that. Thank you. And then I do have one last minor question. So you've said that the planning board president made it clear that she wants the subsequent design review to be have community participation. So is there a way that some of our speakers I'm looking at, Mr. Gonzalez, Irving Gonzalez, sitting in the front row, is a former president of the San Francisco chapter of the AIAA. And and then my friend down the road, Donna Fletcher, didn't seem to be objecting to the project overall, but definitely wanted more community input. Maybe she is. I don't want to put words in her mouth, but is there a way that, for instance, those interested individuals can be tapped? Absolutely. They can always. First of all, we have to find out. Thank you for volunteering, people. This is we're only going to do this if this project moves forward. That's why we haven't been sending out invitations yet. If the project does get approved, gets through the Bccdc discussion and is then moving forward, this will be the very first thing that we start to schedule. What we'll do is we'll send out notices through the homeowners associations. Anybody can always contact the planning department. Just ask for Andrew and I'll get you on the list. Well, I know how. Much I want to do this with the neighborhood in the community, because we do think with the architectural design, landscape design, we can make it. Work. Better. Good. I. I don't anticipate anything, but I would suggest you get in touch with those individuals where you have them in the room. Okay. I think unless anybody else has clarifying questions, let's let's get into our discussion. So who wants to lead? I could start. Who is that? Councilmember Diaz. I think the biggest concern that I have about this project and looking over the record has to do with the combining of the parcels. I could understand why the now, just by way of background, there are three parcels and one parcel is 4.4 acres. Another parcel is 0.5 acres and a third parcel is 8.6 acres. The point six acres parcel is the parcel that is between the Maguire Hester building and where this project is going to be. I could understand why those two parcels would be combined, because the municipal code at at the time, the municipal code back in 1988, which was adopted in March 1988, not only said that parking generated by a project has to be met on the parcel of that project. Not only did the municipal code at the time in March 1988 say that, but it also said that if you're going to have shared parking that. Any use is that the parking is trying to satisfy any the demand that it's trying to satisfy. It has to be within 400 feet. Now, the hotel project is certainly within 400 feet of of where the where the wheat I'm going to call it the wheat parking. The hotel project is certainly within the 400 feet of the wheat, a project which is required by the 1980 1988 ordinance. But it's not within 400 feet of the ferry terminal. So I could see why there is a reason to combine the parcels between the main parcel of 4.6 acres and the smaller parcel of 0.6 acres. But I'm not convinced that there is any argument that says that that by right, we have to satisfy the project proponents efforts to combine the point five acre parcels, because if you just go to the Alameda County assessor viewer and you'll see the parcel, the parcel is of 8.5 acres, but it's a thin strip. 30% of it is 30 to 40% of it is in the lagoon that you all know. That's right there. And the other balance is basically on the on the. It's on this off the street, but towards on the green area. You couldn't build on it, in other words. So it is incorrect to combine that parcel with the larger four acre parcel, in my opinion. And in combining the parcels, the effort in combining the parcels, as indicated in the record, was to increase the air, the floor, the amount of building space. Because when you combine more parcels, you can by by definition, you can then have more building space. Right. And and it was a matter of the record that the discussion was focused on combining the parcels for purposes of increasing the FA because this is a direct quote from the planning board meeting. One of the planning board members said, quote, The three parcels joining as one is absolutely required. Otherwise these do not meet the FAA are and we would have to deny it out. Right. I can see to summarize, I can see a case for combining the parcels. The big parcel, 4.6 acres and the what I call the half wider parcel 5.5 acres. But I believe, though, that the wrong decision was made with regard to combining the third parcel, the point five acres. The implication of all this, though, is simply that the project would still continue. But rather than being 120,000 square foot project, it would be roughly 108,000 square feet. But at least it would, in my opinion, give us wiggle room to negotiate something where we have a project that perhaps covers. This is a technical term, a project that covers a wider building coverage because income and having a wider building coverage, we would have we could potentially have a lower built in. I would flatten it. You'd still have 108,000, but it would be flattened, hopefully two, three floors on. So I believe that, you know, based upon the de novo abilities of council to make a decision, I believe a wrong decision was made by the planning board when it comes to the environmental analyzes with regard to the combining of the parcels. Thank you. Okay. Who's next? Sure. Okay. Mr. Brody. Councilmember. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And again, I do want to give another thanks to everyone who came out. This is probably the one thing we've gotten the most letters on in a long time. So I'm going to be brief. I think there was a point made early in the presentation by Andrew that this was land made for the purpose of developing. So when we take a look at that, I mean, and somebody wants to build something on it. I mean, we're not asking somebody to build on Walden Pond or turn out a redwood grove or, you know, a virgin prairie or, you know, any of those type of things, you know, a battlefield from the Civil War or anything. This is land that was built to be developed. And I think the vice mayor said it earlier in another meeting, you know, and I'll kind of repeat it and paraphrase it. I mean, just because it's a vacant space doesn't turn it into an open space. So I think when you consider that in conjunction with the fact that this land was made for the purpose of developing developing it, I mean, that kind of informs my decision making. You know, the reason why I'm not going to say much is because I didn't really see any evidence of any new impacts or more severe impacts . I mean, that wasn't presented to me. And that's what we're here to look at. And I do feel that the project complies with our standards. And, you know, Mr. McGuire made the comment about the composition of the planning board. And I mean, that was I was going to mention that. And it was critical to me because, you know, I sat through the last four years when all of the planning board members were appointed, and I remember the previous mayor had appointed every single one of those. And, you know, I think a fair assessment of those appointees is that they were not ones that would rubber stamp development projects without, you know, doing their due diligence. I think that's a fair, fair assessment of them. And the fact that they agreed to this unanimously, I think says volumes to the project and and where we shouldn't fall as a council on it. So I plan on denying the appeal and supporting the Planning Board's decision. Thank you. Councilmember O.D. Councilmember Vela. Um, I'm going to actually go ahead and I know that there's going to be more council deliberation and discussion, but I'm going to make a motion to, to actually two separate motions. So one to direct staff to look at the intersection, McCartney and Arden BLOCK in terms of safe routes to school and pedestrian safety at that intersection . And I'm also going to make a motion to deny the appeals filed by Brian Trimper and Labor's International Union of North America. I'm putting that out there to, to narrow the discussion down and I'm going to comment on why I'm making both of those motions, if that's okay. It is fine. I would. My preference would be to give staff direction on the traffic implications because I think it gives them a little more latitude if they. Have happy to amend it. Okay. To give them direction. Okay. To. So it's just that it doesn't need to be a motion perhaps to just give it. So the motion is withdrawn and I'm just. Thank you. Giving direction. I think that, you know, there was a comment made earlier about the the use or the misuse of secure. And I find it disingenuous when there's 17 or 18 school challenges throughout California made on the behalf. Of of. Of one group. And there was that was just in by one law firm that has filed the appeal here. And that's just in 2018. And, you know, one of them was withdrawn in Sacramento where an agreement was reached. So I'm not really interested in negotiating through threats of lawsuits that are really not, I don't think, justly founded and the principles of secure and what it's meant to do in terms of the other challenge. You know, I think that a lot of the concerns that were raised are really not necessarily sequel concerns. In terms of what I heard from the community, I heard some concerns about pedestrian safety. I think that that's an absolute valid concern. I would like us to look at that through other means, because I think that there's it's not just related to this project. And certainly the city is committed to Vision Zero and it's something that we need to be doing anyways. With regards to why do we need hotels? We're right next to the Oakland airport and there's a lot of people that come in and out of that airport and they come here to our business park to do business. And we also have a need for space. We've got folks that have family visiting. I was talking with some Coast Guard families that were finding it very difficult to find places for their family members to stay when they were visiting. So, you know, and and we're in the San Francisco Bay area and there's a lot of different conventions that occur. And our hotels throughout the Bay Area are booked and it's very difficult to find hotel space. So it's something that we're seeing a lot of and that's why there's a lot of hotels going up. It's a it's a good time to do it. And it's something that we've looked into as a city in terms of, you know, is there a need and what can our city really, you know, make use of? And so it's something that from an economic development standpoint, we've looked at, you know, a lot of the design questions . I think our planning board made it very clear that they're they're planning to look at those design concerns as they come forward, and they want it to be a community based process. So I'm I'm sufficiently satisfied that that will happen. But again, those aren't secret concerns. I do want to thank Councilmember De Saag, who raised a question with staff earlier her articulately with regards to the 100 foot height limit. And it was disclosed that I think that the the contemplation of a building of of 100 feet, which was, I think, adopted prior to 1928. So it was something that was, you know, contemplated for quite some time. And so I think that there's certain things that that we've certainly been contemplating for a number of years in terms of what we're looking for in our community. And it was something that, you know, actually dates quite a far ways back. So I think this gives us latitude in making these design choices and these development choices as our community evolves and our need evolves. Thank you. Thanks, Mary Knox. If I could just quickly ask, I think it's answer the question, the issue of where we can we can make a finding to uphold the appeal without making a finding that there was inadequate, secure. Right. In the combining of the issue of whether or not combining the lots. That's not a square issue. That's just a. Procedural issue that one could one could run could raise up to. You know, do that in a de novo approach. I, I just want to clarify, because you said it was a violation of it. It made the second finding wrong. And I think they can do they can do both. So, again, I would like to I want to thank everybody who spoke as well as I started to say earlier. You know, I know that this is a very difficult issue for a lot of people, especially for some people that I know kind of well who are directly impacted and will have the the the the the view that they currently enjoy changed. I can say that as somebody who grew up in a family home that was on a ravine that was developed while we lived there, where places where we looked out and saw trees became a very, very large three car household and did change the nature of where we lived and. As in as I would say in this case, we didn't have any say. I believe very strongly that we have a fantastic legal staff. Ms.. Chen is phenomenal. We have a fantastic planning staff. Andrew Thomas does does us right. And it's one of the reasons why we have been as successful in moving forward without some of the legal challenges that our city with other cities around us have had in terms of approving things. They fight very hard for our community, but I also know that I can trust them when they say the school law is really rock solid on this and that in terms of discretion, we can't we cannot legally do it, do more environmental work. And we do not have discretion to talk about the height of the building, etc.. One place that in terms of the de novo as that question as well that I would like to look at, I have heard from a lot of people about concerns about the impact on the water and the 35 foot. The planning board talked a little bit about this and I would like us to consider including removing up to 25 parking spaces. The parking study says that this place is over parked and pull the building back 15 more feet back from the water. That is something we could do that would address some of the concerns about that, creating a more human space along the water, as some people have indicated, without actually sending this back or upholding the appeal. So as we move forward, I'd like to to look at that, but also as a part of our denial of the appeal, which I plan to deny, simply because, as Mr. already this Council member already mentioned, I have not heard any facts that were not mentioned in the planning board meeting that I listened to that were not addressed and have not been addressed by staff tonight as adequate. So Councilmember Vella. I have a question. So that's separate from the whether or not there's a motion to deny. Are you proposing that that's something that we have a planning board look at? Or is that something where you're asking to give direction? Can you clarify a little bit? I would be asking to make as a part of our motion, upholding or denying the appeal, upholding the planning board's decision with direction to remove that parking, as was discussed at the planning board and bringing back the kind of the siting of the building. So back after that. Sit down as a part of the as a part of the design review. I'd ask Mr. Thomas to come to the podium if you would. So, I mean, I I'm not in disagreement with that proposal. However, I am not sure I want the City Council to redesign this project, but rather to give direction for what it is we're trying to achieve. But Mr. Thomas, can you help us with when this goes back and we already know that we're going to that we're going to request a more refined, improved design? I'm in complete agreement with that. What about this concept or question of removing some parking spots? How many where? I think the planning board is already if if the council uphold upholds their decision, then the next step is talking. To the Mike. And Mary on. The landscape, landscape plan and architectural design. The council tonight could certainly amend that and say, hey, when you're doing the architectural design and the landscape design with the community. Please do have this conversation as well. The conversation of pushing the building back an additional ten or 15 feet, it eliminates a row of parking. But as Councilmember Knox White said, it's we already have a parking space saying it's over park. Now, obviously, the tradeoff here and this came up a little bit of playing board as well, the way we really wanted the extra parking for the ferry issue. So that's going to be the trade off in the conversation, which you could ask the planning board to revisit. So a question for you, Mr. Thomas. I did see that the statement that the hotel was over parked is currently configured, but by how many spaces was it over parked was given. So, so starting with the number of spaces required for those rooms and then the 100 spots that have been offered up for the ferry were there more. So let me clarify here. So our code required a lot of parking for every hotel room, 1.25 for hotel room. So that's a lot of cars for one room like that assumes that a lot of people come to one hotel room with two cars in. Does that assume 100% occupancy? No, no, that's that's just what you when you build the hotel. Well, so. Well, no, but it's so 11.25 for every room. Room. Right. Okay. So you to fill that parking lot, a lot of people would have to come with two cars for four. So they met the parking requirement per the code. So that's how many parking spaces they have. Our parking study says, well, that's a lot of parking, probably way more than you need, but you met the code, so the planning board then put this condition on or since we think you're going to have all this extra asphalt lying around that you're striping for parking, we want you to make it available to the ferry. Folks. What I think I'm hearing is suggestion that the council might amend the approval slightly to say, hey, planning board, when you go back and look at the landscaping plan on the architectural design, please look at with the community. The idea of moving the parking the building back 15 feet, if you do. I you know, we I don't remember the exact number, but just looking at the site plan, essentially, you you lose a row of parking. I think it's about 15 to 20 parking spaces. We already know we've got over 100 more than we probably need. So all it really does, it's a trade off between moving the building back a little further. Well, it just means fewer spaces on a daily basis available for ferry parkers. So I think at the end of the day, that's the trade off. QUESTION Okay. QUESTION So. Question. Do you have a question? I mean, just on this issue, since it was brought up, I mean, so how many spaces do we think the ferry parking is going to use, utilize? Well, here's the way that's set up. They're building a parking lot with a whole bunch of extra parking. We don't know how many extra the parking space said. We think you've got about 100 more than you need. The way we've set it up with the mobile app and the conditions approval is we we understand there'll be some days where there's the hotels got a lot of people. Other days will be less. So we don't know what it will be every day. It's not we're not proposing to fence off a parking lot for the ferry. What we're proposing is a mobile app signage to so that there's a way for people to go, oh, hey, there's extra spaces at the hotel. I can park there today. So how are we going to regulate that? I mean. It's going to be it's a private parking lot. So they will regulate it. They will. Our conditions say you must have signage saying parking available. You must have the mobile app so that if you're in Harbor Bay at 9:00 in the morning and you're thinking about driving down, that you'll be able to check your phone and go , Oh yeah, there's three spaces at the hotel available right now. I'm heading down. If it says No, we're full. We've already sold off the spaces. They're booked for the whole day, then you don't drive down. So that's the way it was conceptually structured in the conditions of approval. And then if you do drive down and park where you're not supposed to, you'll get ticketed and towed. Well, that's that's true. Today, if you park in the neighborhood. Well, I remember I have the scars from that. So. Yeah, no, I mean, that's why we don't want people driving down in the hopes of getting a parking space in the hotel if there's none available or if other people have gotten there before them. Okay. Thanks for. Those questions. I would just comment that being a bit familiar with that free parking. First of all, we want to start charging in the in the weed a lot itself because that's that's just a way that we bring in some revenue that helps with shuttles or whatever we do. And also it might encourage folks who say drive from and circle and park there to not do that. But I would say that you could be assured that whatever available parking spaces are, whatever number of parking spaces are made available, they will they will be filled up. Councilmember Desai I. Just want to close by saying this. So our planning director just said that the parking met the code, but bear in mind we also just had a conversation that the parking did not meet the code of March 1988. And that's why, as they say, they're going about me trying to combine the parcels. Right. So that's that's a contradiction. And the reason why this is important for me is because this discussion and analysis was not part of the planning board. Discussion is not part of the record. To be sure, this is not a school issue. This is a municipal code issue. But by the same token, it is also an issue that I am attempting to leverage in an effort to somehow wiggle away to make the project a little smaller. And so I think that's what council should be doing, is doing everything that it can to still have a hotel and still have hotel taxes, but also attempt to meet the needs of the residents concerned about a five storey monstrosity. Mr. Thomas, you want to come up and provide some clarification? I just want to I just want to address this. This issue of shared parking, sharing parking between two separate parcels is a provision in the code. It's intended for two different property owners, two different uses. We do allow for shared parking. That's where that 400 foot thing comes from. If you intend to meet your parking requirement on somebody else's property, our parking code allows that under certain conditions. One of the conditions is if you're going to share the park, you we tell you you need two spaces and you're like, Well, I've only got the space for six on my parcel, but I can lease some from my friend who's down the street and our code says it should be within 400 feet if you're gonna do that. This is a different situation. This is one property owner owns three parcels. Got it. Thank you. And I also saw in that I think shared parking is something to be encouraged because otherwise you have just empty asphalt. During. Parts of the day and night. I'm going to jump in with my comments. And then we I know we have a motion that is pending. I'm not going to I don't have a lot because my colleagues all covered a lot of the points I would have. And thank you to all for your thoughtful deliberation. It is always lovely when you can just make everyone happy. I'm not sure I've ever had that experience, but it would be lovely. But we don't. But then at the end of the day, where I sit as an elected official, I have to look out and see what all the different needs of the community are including. And I very much appreciate all the neighbors and the residents who emailed and who showed up to speak, most especially the ones who spoke respectfully, which was the vast majority of you. But then there are other people who weren't able to come out and speak. But I I've met with them. And I'll tell you about a couple of our businesses that are out there at the Harvard Business Park. We as Alameda INS should be very proud of some of the work that is being done it at Harvard Business Park and in fact, around our city. But I met last week with an executive vice president from Exelixis, which is a company that moved over from South San Francisco. They'd outgrown their space. They needed more space. They're expanding. This is a company that is developing gene therapies, targeted gene therapies to treat a number of very serious cancers. And they have I mean, this company was started by a couple of Nobel Prize winners. They chose to be right here in our backyard. In your backyard. And what the gentleman I met with told me is that and I heard this also from the president and CEO of Penumbra, which is also out there at the Harbor Bay Business Park, which does this nanotechnology noninvasive device, if you're having a stroke, that blood clot in your brain, they can go in quickly and minimally invasive way and push it out, save lives. And they are a worldwide company headquartered at our Business Park at Harbor Bay Business Park. But they've both told me in recent months that they run out of space when they have visitors and clients coming and the hotels that are out there fill up. So they shuttle them over to San Francisco, sometimes are taking them to the Claremont, sometimes the Oakland Hilton. But apparently that's maybe getting a little run down. It's not as favorite as some of them are. What really bothers me about that is we're not being business friendly to our business park residents who are doing amazing things and bringing a lot of revenue into our city just from the sales of these devices and whatnot. And also that is transient occupancy tax TOTTY that is just flowing over our city limits into Oakland, San Francisco, Emeryville, Berkeley for the Claremont. One of the things I think Debbie Potter has left, but we had a discussion a week or two ago that we need to raise our transient occupancy tax. And don't worry, residents, you won't pay it. This is what people pay on their hotel rooms when they stay here. But right now it's 10% of your hotel room rate, whereas our neighbor San Leandro charges 14%. Really, are we not at least comparable to San Leandro? But that's money that is going straight into our general fund. So it's not that we do this just to have more money coming into our general fund, but the need is there . We want to support our businesses. Exelixis made the conscious choice to move from San Francisco and they looked in a radius of different places and they just settled on Alameda and they're here. They love it. They're growing and thriving. So we need to we need to support them, too. I am mindful of the concerns of neighbors that they don't want to look at just any old monolithic building, nor do I. And I will say we could still work on this design. And I want so I want this to be a robust project process of getting input from neighborhood representatives, especially those with some professional expertize to bring to the table. And we I think with the proposal about reducing parking spaces, we can pull back from the shoreline a bit. It's what compromise is. Neither side got everything they wanted, but at the end of the day, this is a good project for so many reasons, not least of which the jobs that will create the space for hotel rooms, for restaurant and cafe visitors. And I've also talked to Mr. Leach about having come back from the Conference of Mayors. There are some great internship and work to learn programs that hotels are doing. I'd like to see that in Alameda with that. Councilmember Vella, do you want to restate your motion and then I'm not sure we've got a second. So I moved to. Pull it up again to deny the appeals filed by Bryan Trumper and Labor's International Union of North America. Local Union 304 In approving a final development plan and design review to allow the construction of a 172 room, hotel and restaurant on the Harbor Bay Business Park shoreline at 2900 Harbor Bay Parkway. With the amendment to well while also directing staff to look at the intersection mentioned and then to. And I'm also amenable to taking the direction of the account of Vice Mayor Knox White that he proposed that we direct. Do you want to restate it that we direct? I would just say that the direct the planning board to identify how to pull the project back from the shore and remove. That's an option. Well, we can make it an option or we can actually say it's something we want. I would personally I would say I've heard a lot about the shoreline. I would I would make the motion to direct them to do that as opposed to make that discussion. I have and I want I'd like Mr. Thomas to help us word it in the way that's most effective. It's completely you can do it either way. I think the the if you if you just have them if you put it if you tell them just do it. Yeah. Then what I'm a little worried about is if they then get a whole bunch of ferry parkers coming down, then they're sort of saying, don't do it. There's that conversation that they might want to entertain. If you say, Hey, we want you to entertain it, we want you to seriously look at it, then at least they can kind of balance that out and maybe, maybe approve it with a setback. Or maybe not. It's but it's completely if you say, hey, we want it pushed back. No ands, ifs or buts, then you can just do that tonight. And then I just lastly, it's just the issue of the traffic signal and the intersection. I think that should just be. Clear that it's. Separate. Yes, that'll be part of. Direction to staff. Process. Comment. Okay. So we have I'm sorry. Just one more clarification of the motion. You'll be adopting a resolution, so. Uh. Yes. Okay. Councilmember Odie. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So. Are we doing a mandatory set back, moving the set back, or are we doing a consideration? Because I do have some concerns about free parking and there never seems to be enough. And I understand we don't want these big CS of asphalt and you know, we want to get people out of their cars and everything. But by bringing people to the ferry, we are getting them out of their cars and they're not crossing the bridges and they're reducing congestion on the bridges and the bridge approaches. So I like the idea of like moving the set back in, but I'm not sure I want to do that at the cost of ferry parking, given that I think we're going to see expansion of ferries like we haven't gone to the South Bay yet and there's just going to be a greater demand. And I think we're kind of choking that demand if we if we mandate that we reduce ferry parking. I get the general ideas. And also I think Sharon Road also needs to be looked at. Sharon Road in McCartney, I think there's some complaints there. So not part of the motion, but. The tourism. Direction. Councilmember Vela I'm fine with directing the planning board to look at alternatives on creating an additional setback through the elimination of parking spaces. And I think that that's the middle ground and it's it's not dictating the number of spaces. It's letting them know that that's what we're looking for them to do. So that's the direction that I would like to include. And I think ultimately we are adding ferry parking through this project. So I don't want to have us use terms like we're reducing it. We may end up reducing it by a handful of parking spaces in the end, depending on what the design looks like. So, um, is that, is that an acceptable direction? Okay. So I guess I'll second that motion then. Okay. So and then just to satisfy the request of the city I clerical. So we want to approve the draft resolution denying the appeals and affirm the planning board's decision to approve construction of the 172 room, hotel and restaurant at the given address with the additional direction given to staff. Correct. Okay. And we have a motion. Did I hear a second? Yeah. Yes. Okay. All in favor. I, I. Opposed. Okay, so the motion passes 4 to 1. Thank you, everyone, and thank you for coming. Yes. Okay. Councilmember, no. So I am Vice Mayor. Sorry. It's okay. I answered any. So I would like that. I would like the council to consider directing staff to send a letter to BCD about the about this issue. I think that there's a big planning for everybody. We had one more discussion going. If you could just go quietly and. We can wait if we want. But I think I think there's a significant issue related to the change in which they are the way they are considering changing, the way they deal with this permit, this specific issue whereby they are putting our entire planning process, basically saying that we've spent a year and a half planning or year planning. So I'd like to I'd like to consider directing staff to write a letter on behalf of of of the city to address that issue. And did you see the the letter from Cox and Castle and. Yep, that's a private firm. I don't want to rely on a private, firm letter. I'd like the city to address the issues that we have, which is right now, the way in which Bccdc addresses planning is they will not take any action until they until a city has gone through all the way through. We've worked with them to make sure that we are aligned, as we always have been, around this negotiated settlement. And now after we are approving the project, they are saying, oh, we may change the process. And I just think that that is a very problematic thing to do. I hear from the city attorney in our city, Mr. Roush. While I don't disagree with Vice Mayor Knox White's comment, I'm a little concerned that that direction. May not be within the four corners of what we have on our agenda. And I'm trying to be very sensitive to. Council taking action with. Respect to matters. That. Are not are not defined fairly decently on the agenda title. So I would I would be a little reluctant. To suggest. That you take that action tonight. Notwithstanding that, it makes good sense. Thank you. All right. So. So I will perhaps withdraw my. Yeah. My suggestion. Suggestion? Yeah. All right. Okay. So then this item is completed and we'll move on to the next. Thanks, everybody. Okay, now we have two more. And is that right? We have seven. We have City Manager Communications.