We start the evening with not one but two serious study sessions. The first one presents an update to the plans for the Civic Center Modernization. As you may recall, we looked at an attempt to redo the entire Civic Center at once, but difficulty in identifying funding prevented us from pursuing that. So instead, staff is investigating development of an overall plan for the new campus, with pieces of the plan being done as funding is identified. For instance (and I’m making this all up), maybe we use existing revenue to redo City Hall and the administrative offices, then we rebuild the library and Public Safety headquarters based on a voter-approved bond. Anyway, staff will be presenting their latest efforts on that plan.
The second one involves a presentation on the Peery Park Specific Plan.
The general meeting starts with a presentation from Santa Clara County on their plans for a permanent cold weather shelter on Hamlin Court. There’s virtually no consent calendar (surprising since we had two weeks off) – just a modification to the City Attorney’s contract (as required by the contract) and approval of a change to the Silicon Valley Regional Interoperability JPA to add VTA as a member.
Item 2 continues an item from our last meeting – placing unpaid administrative fines on the county property tax roll.
Item 3 is another single-story overlay district application, this one on the block bounded by Hollenbeck, Vanderbilt, Sesame, and Torrington.
Item 4 involves Sunnyvale possibly lending money to the Silicon Valley Clean Energy Authority to fund its start-up efforts. SVCEA needs funding for the first three years or so, after which it self-funds (and pays off the initial seed money). SVCEA needs both initial capital and a line of credit to operate. Initially, it was thought that a couple of the member agencies could lend SVCEA its seed oney out of their reserves, which would be win-win – SVCEA would get no-hassle loans, and the agencies would get back more in interest than they would from their traditional investment portfolios. But staff seems to be indicating that that’s no longer necessary, and that SVCEA can get its funding from traditional banks. Still, Sunnyvale may still have some involvement in this.
Item 5 takes on the issue of solar access requirements. A couple of recent projects have been ones which created shading on adjacent properties, potentially creating solar access issues (like to solar panels or thermal heating systems). This looks at updating our solar access requirements.
And that’s it.
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