Zoning Administrator Hearing

City of Sunnyvale Meeting Minutes Zoning Administrator Hearing Wednesday, July 24, 2019 3:00 PM West Conference Room, City Hall, 456 W. Olive Ave., Sunnyvale, CA 94086 CALL TO ORDER Michelle King. Zoning Admininstrator, called the meeting to order at 3:00 p.m. PUBLIC HEARINGS SUBJECT Proposed Project: USE PERMIT: to consider a modification to the Use Permit #2001-0055 to allow Summit Denali High School with 400 students for the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years. Location: 195 Leota Avenue (APN: 161-28-046) File #: 2019-7457 Zoning: PF (Public Facility) Applicant / Owner: Summit Public Schools / Roman Catholic Welfare Corp of San Jose (applicant / owner) Environmental Review: A Class 1 Categorical Exemption relieves this project from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Project Planner: Momoko Ishijima, (408) 730-7532, mishijima@sunnyvale.ca.gov Ms. King inquired with Momoko Ishijima, project planner, if there were any comments or changes to the staff report. Ms. Ishijima proceeded to give a summary of the project, stating that Summit Public Schools (applicant) currently has two sites in Sunnyvale. The first location is a middle school at 539 E. Weddell Ave for 6th through 8th grade and for the last year, the school has been located at the St. Cyprian site for 9th through 11th grade. The City approved a permanent location for Summit Denali High School at 824 San Aleso in April. Summit School is currently under building permit plan review and would like to start construction to improve the industrial building to an educational use. The school has requested for the last year while construction is going on, to increase the school capacity at St. Cyprian from the maximum of the use permit prior from 315 to 400 students. City of Sunnyvale Page 1 Zoning Administrator Hearing Meeting Minutes July 24, 2019 Ms. Ishijima stated she had corrections to the staff report, as Vargas has not been continuously used. There have been periods of time where the school was closed and reopened in the 90's. The start time for Vargas is corrected to 8:15. The start time for Summit is staggered at 8:45 a.m. The proposed number of staff is 25, an increase of 5 from the last year. In regard to public contact, Ms. Ishijima has met with one neighbor at City Hall and has received 4 phone calls, as well as 5 correspondences, provided at the hearing. Ms. Ishijima has also communicated with the superintendent of Sunnyvale Unified District, Dr. Benjamin Picard, and he has expressed that the school district does not have concerns regarding this project. Dr. Picard also mentioned that the staggering of school start times will help since St. Cyprian did not have this implemented and that the enrollment at Vargas Elementary is in decline. The school has a capacity of 650 and their expected enrollment for this school year is 480. Currently, staff is supportive of the modification to this Use Permit, as the location is an established school site and the use is intended for a temporary use of two years. School representatives as well as Ms, Ishijima are available for any questions. Ms. King thanked Ms. Ishijima for her presentation and opened the hearing to the applicants. Kevin Bock, applicant, stated he is the Executive Director of Summit Denali. He also introduced Norman LoPatin, Summit Director of Facilities, and attorney Bryan Winter. Mr. Bock proceeded to introduce his school, which is a public charter school, and chartered by the Santa Clara County Office of Education to serve public school students who enroll by public lottery. The school opened in 2013 with 106 students and will be the school's first graduates by the year 2020. The school aims to serve a diverse group of students to be successful in a 4 year university as well as be thoughtful contributing members of society. Construction is expected to take about one year at the San Aleso site, which means the school will need a place for the 9th through 12th grade students for this coming school year and total expected enrollment is to be 380 students. The school is committed to being good neighbors and work with families to encourage biking, walking, and carpooling. The school will start the second year at St. Cyprian, and the school has produced biking and walking route plans. The school uses an online tool to arrange carpools and the school is committed to providing traffic monitoring and traffic controls this school year. The school hopes to continue to be good neighbors with Vargas Elementary, where City of Sunnyvale Page 2 Zoning Administrator Hearing Meeting Minutes July 24, 2019 Summit student volunteer as tutors. The application for the Use Permit was to provide access for all Summit high school students on the same campus, after school activities, and teachers. Mr. Winters added a request to modify BP-10 regarding pod storage. There is already a reciprocal parking agreement between Vargas Elementary and St. Cyprian to hold the church's furniture while Summit is at the location. The condition would be better modified so that the pods be removed upon the issuance of certificate of occupancy for the San Aleso location. The church is at a far lower capacity than is has been historically, so parking capacity should not be an issue. Ms. King opened the hearing to the public. Mr. Nixon, neighbor, stated he lives on Leota Avenue and wanted to voice his concern similar to his neighbors that traffic patterns, parents blocking driveways and leaving cars unattended are not acts of good neighbors. While he understands that students are not allowed to park on the street, he questioned how would that be enforced. Deborah Kumar, neighbor, stated that students may come earlier than the designated start times so there could still be the problem of children crossing the street outside of the designated crosswalks. When drivers are coming, it creates a potential safety hazard. Patty Dickson, neighbor, lives on the corner of Leota and Washington. She has noticed that the crossing guard can barely control traffic, and it won't matter how many guards are there to help the traffic situation. The city and school may need actual and policeman at that corner. Little children go to Vargas and parents are in a rush to get their kids to Summit. There was never anything over 200 back when her children when her children attended St. Cyprian and traffic was crazy then. Now students are mostly commuters, bringing more cars into area. The current traffic pattern does not help since neighbors only have a lane and a half for driving through the area with cars parked on the side of the street where other schools do not have that problem with an elementary school is in front of them. Adding more students is not a good idea and keep the 9th graders where they are now and don't add the kindergarten since there is no way the neighborhood can handle that many more students. Majella Dominique, neighbor, lives on Leota Avenue and stated traffic has increased City of Sunnyvale Page 3 Zoning Administrator Hearing Meeting Minutes July 24, 2019 tremendously over the past few years. Sometimes it takes her 10 minutes to get out of her driveway to go to work, causing her to be late. People edge close to her driveway, and she takes care to avoid the extra foot traffic on the streets. The increased traffic will endanger a lot of people's safety including her own since she can't get onto the read. The streets are very narrow all around the St. Cyprian school. She has lived in the neighborhood for more than 5 years and while the school is zoned for a certain number of of people, there are very little people biking to the school. She is concerned with the not only the safety but the noise pollution and traffic. Larry Mattix, neighbor and member of the St. Cyprian parrish, stated he has lived in Sunnyvale for 45 years. St. Cyprian has become a transit school, and why he lives on Encino Ct., he is curious why the circle is so small when there are more people coming through. Traffic for him hasn't been a pattern and there will be problems on El Camino, as it will be gridlocked unless the city does something about it. Bernardo is already gridlocked at Ayala due to a 4 way stop. What he has seen is more cars are lined up to get in at Vargas Elementary. The city is expanding, and adding more houses and schools, but there is not much anyone can do to make traffic better. Michael Walleries, neighbor, stated he has lived in the neighborhood for over 12 years. He has attended St. Cyprian and Homestead High School. St. Cyprian has never had more than 250 in attendance, so adding 100 students will add people at all times of the day. He does not see the value 100 more student would add to the neighborhood. He has had student sit on and break his fence. Adding more teens will be more trouble to the neighborhood, and he does not support it. Mr. Walleries inquired if Summit supposed to move within the next year. Ms. King stated the school will move next year and the application was for a two year period in case the construction at the San Aleso site is delayed. Jerene Donovan, neighbor, lives directly across from school driveway drop off. Her major concern is the safety of the kids, the commuters, residents, and school staff because she sees near misses on a daily basis. The speed limit is 25 miles per hour on Washington however very few people drive at that speed. Parents are not pulling into the school driveway, but instead pull in front of her driveway to drop off their children, who then walk across the street away from the crosswalk. Cars will pull up on front of her home and do u-turns in the middle of street. The people who do pull into the school driveway cause back ups, as well as for Vargas Elementary. There are times when she can’t get out of her driveway in the morning. Traffic can be City of Sunnyvale Page 4 Zoning Administrator Hearing Meeting Minutes July 24, 2019 backed up on Leota and Washington. Safety has to be priority for everyone and bad driving behaviors and speeders need to be addressed. Police need to monitor the behavior of the drivers in this area. Irene Willet, neighbor, lives on West Washington, and stated she sees a massive amount of traffic on a daily basis. She and her family have a hard time in the mornings and evenings getting in and out of their driveway and there are a lot of people everywhere. Her backyard shares a fence with Vargas Elementary and her dog was poisoned from people going to the school to smoke and drink after hours. There is vandalism and stealing, so the more teens there are around, there will be more issues. She has concerns about the housing value. There’s no place to pick up and drop off and the streets are narrow. Rob Willett, neighbor, stated that traffic is horrendous in his neighborhood. Mr. Willett invited staff to watch traffic, and stated he almost hit someone getting past sidewalk. We don’t have the bandwidth to support the amount of traffic we currently have. The school's fences don't catch the trash that is blown into his yard. The amount of disrespect for neighbors is terrible. He has had to deal with a broken car, due to someone backing their care into his when it was parked. Their car noses are blocking part of his driveway. Mr. Willett stated the school should have better prepared with a way to have a better outlet for traffic. High school students don’t stay where they should, and there is no one to monitor where they go. Mr. Willett also expressed his concern for the internet speed in that if the school uses Comcast as the service provider, it will drop bandwidth for neighbors. Victor Soneye, neighbor, has lived in the neighborhood for 36 years. Mr. Soneye inquired why city staff is approving something before letting neighbors to know. Ms. King stated the approval has not been given, and that the hearing was the process was for the approval of the Use Permit. Mr. Soneye stated people have parked right by his driveway and he can't go to work. He is incensed that applicants wanted to add more people to such a small space. He asked the Zoning Administrator to seriously reconsider the approval for the project. Ms. Chudasama, neighbor, lives across from Vargas and is concerned with having to leave house when her driveway is blocked. She can understand leaving early to drop off her kids at another school but asked how much earlier should she be City of Sunnyvale Page 5 Zoning Administrator Hearing Meeting Minutes July 24, 2019 waking her young children up to account for the traffic in front of her house. She is already dealing with extra trash that drifts into her yard and safety is a concern. She is worried the increased numbers of teenagers driving on the street and is worried about traffic in such a compact area and stated there is not enough space for more students. Irene Macres, neighbor, lives outside of Washington, and is opposed to this addition of students due to the amount of traffic and speeding. She lives on a court and despite the distance from the school, there are parents who block her driveway when dropping off their kids. The parents don't have any concerned for the neighbors, and only care about getting their kids to school on time. Rob Willett, neighbor, stated the 300-foot perimeter for the public notice letter is too small and that it impacts more people than were notified. He stated his wife has gathered signatures from the area beyond those noticed of all the people that were against the project being approved. Michael Walleries, neighbor, stated that police presence won’t help and doesn't see how conditionally approving the project without all the issues persisting. It is absurd that staff would recommend approval of the project. Ms. King closed the hearing to the public and inquired with traffic engineer, Lillian Tsang, about her finding on the traffic conditions in the neighborhood. Ms. Tsang stated that there is a short period of time where traffic increased for about 15 minutes during drop-off times for both schools. Traffic staff asked Summit to stagger their start time at a later time to insure there is no overlapping of traffic. Cars are designed to enter from Washington and out on Leota during drop off times, which is safer operation for the neighborhood since it would limit how they can maneuver. Ms. King stated the current plan drop off and pick up seems to be focused on the entrance on Washington and exit of Leota. Ms. King would like to add an item to condition BP-7 that would modify the permit that would ask the applicant to have staff stationed on Washington. From the public feedback, there are parents parked where whey should not be and are not using the designated parking provided by the school. Ms. King also added the condition that the applicant submit the materials they provide to students' parents at the beginning of the year explaining the behavior that is expected. The applicant must also set a date for a public event in City of Sunnyvale Page 6 Zoning Administrator Hearing Meeting Minutes July 24, 2019 which they must go over drop off, pick up and behavior on the street and invite the project planner to that event. Ms. King stated she will also invite a public safety representative to the event to make clear what is expected of parents and children. Ms. King added a condition called a current permit compliance review. This is added in which issues must be resolved. The Zoning Administrator, along with the project planner, will come back in three months to observe the drop off and pick up periods on Washington and Leota. The condition will have a series of steps in which staff will review the applicant's process and may reconvene the meeting to discuss the progress of conditions in October. Ms. King inquired with the applicant about what is happening on campus during recess and break times as far as student and trash management. Mr. Bock stated is a ten minute brunch period and a 30 minute lunch period when students might be on the field. There is staff supervision at that time that covers the field and asphalt picnic area. Mr. Bock stated he noticed the trash situation last year and changed their custodial services this summer. Ms. King stated part of the compliance check includes looking at the campus and checking with neighbors on the trash situation. Ms. King inquired if there is any location the pods can be relocated to. Mr. LoPatin, applicant, stated there was not. Ms. King stated that while there is sufficient parking, the behavior of this last year has people choosing to park off campus. Mr. Bock stated he was surprised to hear parents weren't parking where they should. Summit had hired an independent traffic consultant for the 824 San Aleso project and did not find any people parking off campus after monitoring behavior over the course of the school day. Mr. Winters stated that 85 students would be added to the school enrollment, and as 9th graders, thus are non-drivers. Ms. King thanked Mr. Winters for the clarification and stated the pods are not placed in an ideal place to be placed on the lot. Ms. King preferred the school move City of Sunnyvale Page 7 Zoning Administrator Hearing Meeting Minutes July 24, 2019 the pods towards the back left rear of the parking lot. Mr. LoPatin stated he would be happy to accommodate the move. Ms. King would like to approve the project for one year instead of two years. At the end of one year, if construction is not completed for the permanent campus, then the applicant will come back and repeat the process for a public hearing to give staff an opportunity to hear from the community. Ms. King closed the public hearing. ACTION: Approved subject to the findings and conditions of approval located in the staff report with the following revisions GC-4. DURATION OF USE PERMIT: The increase in student capacity from 315 to 400 students maximum shall be for the 2019-2020 school year. Any extension to the use term, shall be subject to review and approval by the City at a public hearing with appropriate environmental review. GC-5. COMPLIANCE REVIEW OF USE PERMIT: A compliance review of the Use Permit will be conducted three (3) months after the start of the school, including but not limited to: a) Site inspection b) Monitoring during drop-off and pick-up periods c) Compliance review meeting with staff which may include neighbors d) Dependent on findings of the Compliance Review a Zoning Administrator hearing to review and/or add conditions may be required. GC-8. COMPLIANCE WITH USE PERMIT #2001-0055 CONDITIONS OF APPROVAL: The use shall comply with the conditions of approval of Use Permit #2001-0055, where applicable. BP-7. DROP-OFF AND PICK-UP PLAN: h) Prohibit students and families from parking offsite. i) School staff shall be stationed at the corner of Leota Avenue and Washington Avenue to monitor safety of pedestrians and bicyclists crossing the intersection and to ensure students and vehicles arriving to school are not dropped off on the public City of Sunnyvale Page 8 Zoning Administrator Hearing Meeting Minutes July 24, 2019 street but are directed to the designated drop-off area inside the school campus. j) The transportation policy and drop-off and pick-up documents to be shared with the students, families, and staff shall be shared with staff prior to distribution. k) Applicant to hold a mandatory meeting with parents and students at the beginning of the school year to cover transportation, parking and good neighbor policies. Applicant shall invite Planning, Traffic, and Public Safety staff to this meeting. BP-10. POD STORAGE: POD storage units on the west side of the parking lot shall be relocated to the northwest corner prior to the start of the school. A separate Miscellaneous Plan Permit approval is required for temporary outdoor storage. The storage units shall be removed at the end of the 2019 - 2020 school year. AT-1. MAXIMUM CAPACITY: The use permitted by this application shall comply with the following capacity limits at all times: (1) The maximum number of students permitted on-site at any time is 400 students for the 2019-2020 school year only. AT-2. HOURS OF OPERATION: The use permitted as part of this application shall comply with the following hours of operation at all times: a) The school hours are limited to 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. School start time shall be staggered with the Vargas Elementary School start time, and start at 8:35 a.m. Extended hours shall require separate approval by the City. Minor modifications may be approved by the Director of Community Development; major modifications may require approval at a public hearing. The Director of Community Development shall determine whether requested modifications are major or minor. AT-7. PARKING LOT MAINTENANCE: c) Require signs to direct vehicles to additional parking spaces onsite, as needed. d) Maintain the parking lot and landscaping free of trash and debris. AT-8. UNENCLOSED STORAGE (PROHIBITED): Unenclosed storage of any kind shall be prohibited on the premises except for the temporary storage described in Condition of Approval BP-10. City of Sunnyvale Page 9 Zoning Administrator Hearing Meeting Minutes July 24, 2019 AT-10. TRAFFIC IMPACT ANALYSIS: A transportation impact analysis (TIA), at the developer’s cost, will be required if the site will be used by the applicant beyond the 2019-20 school year. City will provide the scope of the TIA directly to a City selected consultant and the City will administer the TIA. Applicant will be responsible to fund and implement all mitigation requirements as identified by the completed TIA before the beginning of the school year. The TIA will not be initiated until the applicant has provided a project description and site plan and paid for the cost of the TIA as quoted by the City-selected consultant. Note that a minimum of 21 weeks will be required to complete the TIA after study initiation. ADJOURNMENT Ms. King adjourned the hearing at 3:48 p.m. City of Sunnyvale Page 10