Planning Commission Special Meeting March 9, 2026 - Mar 09, 2026

meeting

Cupertino Planning Commission 2h 39m 2 speakers 6 agenda items transcribed 2 months ago official recording ↗

▲ 0

Transcript

jump: agenda · speakers · find in transcript

Transcript

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

Santosh Rao 0:04

Good evening and welcome to the Planning Commission meeting for Monday, March 9th, 2026. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Jennifer Griffin (public speaker) 0:15

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Santosh Rao 0:30

All right. City Clerk, may we please have the roll call? Commissioner Fung? Commissioner Lenskog? Here. Commissioner Rao?

Steven Scharf 0:39

Here.

Santosh Rao 0:39

Vice Chair Scharf?

Steven Scharf 0:40

Here.

Santosh Rao 0:41

Chair Kasolschwan? Here. And for the record, Commissioner Fung is absent with all present. Excellent, thank you. So we'll now move on to approval of the minutes from the February 24th, 2026 Planning Commission. Do we have a motion? I believe there's a modified set of minutes. Is that right? Did I? Okay, so we're supposed to read something that's different from what was provided. Can someone summarize what changed?

Santosh Rao 1:20

I'm not sure the staff can comment on what changed. Maybe it's a minor change. I made a request for a change. I don't know if there were any other changes. I did not have any other changes. I'm just looking at this now. That was the only change? So the only change was for my motion on the Everledge Court development to clarify that the motion that we approved included the access to the trail. I see. And that wasn't in the original minutes? No. Okay. Thank you. I move to approve the minutes. I second.

Santosh Rao 2:16

The motion carries unanimously. Great, thank you. So we have no postponements. We'll move on to oral communications. City Clerk, do we have any public comments?

Santosh Rao 2:41

We have no speakers in person and no hands raised on zoom chair. Okay, thank you moving right along. We will move on to the study session, which is an update to the health and safety element of the Cupertino general plan 2015 to 2040 community vision. Maybe please have the staff report.

Luke Connolly (Assistant Director / Planning Staff) 2:58

Yes, thank you, Chair, members of the Planning Commission. I would like to introduce Eli Crispy with Placeworks, who will be leading what is the second time the health and safety element has been brought before the Planning Commission. I can't remember the exact date, This again is a study session format, so we're looking for any comments you may have about the health and safety element, which is a little further along, a little lengthier than the last time. This will be then going to your city council after this, I believe the end of April is the date. and we'll then be going through a process which will involve review by CAL FIRE. So we wanna make sure we get the commission and the city council's comments prior to sending it to CAL FIRE.

Luke Connolly (Assistant Director / Planning Staff) 3:43

So with that, I will turn the presentation itself over to Eli, and after that, we can answer questions.

Eli Crispy (Placeworks - consultant presenter) 3:50

Good evening, Chair, members of the commission, Eli Crispy with Placeworks. I will be giving a brief presentation on the health and safety element update. So the health and safety element serves as the city's safety element of the general plan. It is a mandatory component of the general plan. So all cities and counties in California must have this document or something comparable. The role of the safety element is really to identify the hazards of concern in the community, both natural and human caused hazards, and to establish policies to help protect the community against these hazards. Cupertino's current health and safety element was adopted in 2014. And since then, there have been a number of changes to state law and other issues that have come up that have necessitated the update.

Eli Crispy (Placeworks - consultant presenter) 4:42

State law also requires now that the health and safety element be updated generally once the housing element has been updated, or at least that it is reviewed or updated every eight years. So in response to that requirement, we have gone through the health and safety element and made sure to address the new state requirements that have come into play, which I will talk about in a moment, as well as to incorporate any new issues of concern that have arisen in the community or that have been raised. We have wanted to make sure that we are incorporating the larger framework of safety-related plans that Cupertino and other communities in Santa Clara County have been working on since the last update.