The Pleasanton City Council is set to be looking at possibly approving a 5-1/2-story, mixed-use apartment complex and parking structure at the Stoneridge Shopping Center property during Tuesday's meeting.

"The building design is attractive and the architectural style, finish colors and materials will complement the surrounding development," city staff wrote in a staff report to the council. "The project also would provide a significant quantity of affordable rental housing, in addition to adding to the stock of multi-family rental housing more generally, which assists the city in meeting its housing goals."

Approved by the Planning Commission through a 4-1 vote during its Feb. 22 meeting, the project would consist of 360 apartment units and would total approximately 618,370 square feet in size and 65 feet in height.

According to the staff report the complex, which would be located on the northeast corner of the shopping center, would be built across 6 acres located between the mall, the new 10x Genomics campus project to the south across Stoneridge Mall Road and offices to the east across Stoneridge Mall Road.

The project is not a part of Pleasanton's current sixth Housing Element cycle as the project actually dates back to January 2012 when the council approved the rezoning of nine sites throughout the city for high-density multifamily development in order to meet its 2015-2023 Regional Housing Needs Allocation.

Since then it has gone to the Planning Commission three times -- twice in 2019 and again in 2020 before coming back last March with a final design plan. Originally, the project was going to build close to 500 units at the site before city staff proposed a mixed-use plan that brought the number of units down to the current 360.

The units would be "wrapped" around an internal five-level parking structure and residents would have access to two ground-level outdoor courtyard-style spaces, which include a mix of common use outdoor space and recreational uses and one common use roof-top deck area.

The new parking structure that is also being proposed along with the five-story building would consist of 473 surface and parking structure vehicle spaces. Seven of the spaces would be surface level and 466 spaces would be located within the parking structure.

"The proposed site plan and positioning of the buildings are appropriate for the subject property," according to the staff report. "The applicant has included an adequate amount of usable open space and landscaped areas within the project, as well as areas for circulation and gathering that will improve the connectivity and functionality of the portion of the mall and make better use of an underutilized parking field."

According to the report, the project is consistent with the land use allowed for and zoned at the site and would be consistent with all applicable objective standards from the 2012 Housing Site Development Standards and Design Guidelines except for two standards. Staff have already requested waivers for both of those standards pursuant to State Housing Density Bonus law.

Also, as part of the city's Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance (IZO), 58 of the 360 proposed units will be priced at low-income levels. The ordinance requires all new multi-family residential projects of 15 units or more to provide "at least 15% of the project's total units at prices that are affordable to very low- and/or low-income households."

"Based on this requirement, the project would be required to provide 36 affordable units. The applicant has proposed 24% of the base units (58 total units), which exceeds the IZO requirement, all to be offered at low-income levels," the staff report states. "The proportion and affordability levels of the units would meet the requirements of State housing density bonus law, use of which is proposed to qualify the project for a 50% density bonus."

According to the report, the city's Housing Commission unanimously recommended the proposed 58 affordable housing units to the council at its Nov. 17 meeting.

The City Council meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday (March 21).

The full agenda can be accessed here.

In other business

* City staff will be looking to the council for recommendations on their proposed changes to the city's process for capital improvement project budgeting.

In Pleasanton, the capital improvement project budgeting for each two-year budget cycle typically involves prioritizing the funding for proposed projects based on revenue projections for the upcoming two-year budget period.

"Projects prioritized and funded in previous budget cycles were not considered at that time unless additional funding is needed to fund a project fully," according to the staff report.

Now as staff are finishing up their work on constructing a 10-year infrastructure plan, which staff will also go over during the meeting, they plan on reshaping the entire four-year capital improvement program and two-year capital improvement project budgeting process.

"The proposal allows the city council to review all projects funded in previous budget cycles that have not been completed to determine whether each of the prior cycle projects remains a priority," the staff report states. "Once decided, the project funding that remains a priority will be carried forward in the current capital improvement project budget cycle. If a prior cycle project is no longer a priority, the funding will be available to relocate in the current capital improvement project budget cycle."

Staff will present a list of different projects that they will recommend to continue funding, defer until a future time or cancel altogether. If the council agrees with those recommendations then staff will continue to develop the operating budget and the capital project budget, which will be considered at the April 18 budget workshop.

* The Pleasanton Police Department will be presenting its first of two annual update reports where they will be going over the department's strategic plan, crime trends, the school Resource officer program, Racial Identity Profiling Act data and personnel matters.

Over the past two years, PPD has worked on developing a strategic plan, which is designed to serve as a guiding document for the next three to five years on how to accomplish specific goals.

These goals include investing in a healthy and engaged workforce; reducing crime and increasing the feeling of safety; increasing community trust; creating and maintaining a culture of inclusivity; and maximizing organizational effectiveness and efficiency, according to the report.

As far as crime and traffic trends, some of the more notable pieces of data that PPD will be presenting are the 59,548 incidents that they facilitated in 2022 -- 11,727 of which were traffic stops.

They will also be going over response time, which according to the report the average emergency response time in 2022 was 4 minutes 19 seconds, and non-emergency response time averaged 23 minutes 03 seconds.

The city's established police response time goals are 4 minutes for emergencies and 20 minutes for non-emergency calls for service. Compared to 2020, emergency response time was 3 minutes and 43 seconds and non emergency response time was 18 minutes and 35 seconds.

PPD will also be going over reported incidents of crime, arrests and citations, which continued to trend downward in 2022; a 14% increase in property crime; a lower percentage of overall arrests; and a steady increase in traffic collisions.

Apart from an update on the school resource officer program and the Alternate Response Unit, PPD will be updating the council on the continuing efforts to hire more police officers.

"As mentioned in the fall 2022 report, staffing of sworn positions continues to be the department's greatest challenge," the staff report states. "As of this report, there are seven vacant sworn positions and four vacant professional staff positions. Additionally, there are 10 sworn positions impacted by employees on leave. These combined vacancies equal 20% of the total sworn positions."

* Bryan Godbe, president of Godbe Research, will be presenting the results of a police department community survey to the council, which was conducted from Jan. 24 through Jan. 31 via email, text and phone.

According to the staff report the survey, which was conducted by Godbe Research, demonstrated that residents have "high feelings of safety in the community; trust with the police department is also at a high level."

"Following completion of the police department's five-year strategic plan, this survey was conducted with an interest in identifying areas that will further two of the strategic plan goals: one of which is to reduce crime and increase the feeling of safety, and the other is to increase community trust," the staff report states.

In total, Godbe Research received completed surveys from 818 residents and 127 businesses who, for the most part, all stated the department was trustworthy and felt officers treat all residents fairly regardless of race, ethnicity, national origin, immigration status, or other characteristics.

However, one demographic that the survey highlighted as an area for improvement was with young people ages 18-29. According to the report, 54.3% of this demographic felt the department was trustworthy while all other ages reported greater than 90% trust in the department.

* The City Council will be looking to renew the police department's military equipment use policy and as part of that renewal, they will be also looking at possibly approving PPD's request to purchase new equipment.

Assembly Bill 481, which was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September 2021, requires police departments in California to keep a running list of what is defined as military equipment for oversight by local governing bodies.

The Pleasanton City Council approved an ordinance last year that continued allowing the city's police department to use military or specialized equipment for regular and promotional use and will now have to decide on approving or disapproving the continued use of such equipment.

Military equipment, as defined by AB 481, does not necessarily indicate equipment used by the military. Items deemed by the bill to be "military equipment" include robotic vehicles, armored rescue vehicles, tear gas, less-than-lethal weapons such as beanbag shotguns, 40-millimeter projectiles and noise/flash diversionary devices.

According to the staff report, apart from renewing the policy the council will also look at accepting the annual military use report for 2022 determining that the PPD's use of military equipment in 2022 complied with the standards of approval.

Additionally, PPD will be looking at amending the ordinance to add equipment to the policy's military equipment inventory.

The department intends on purchasing 13 Daniel Defense model MK18 rifles as general replacement for rifles currently in use, two Penn Arms 40 millimeter multi-shot launchers and 40 millimeter impact sponge baton munitions, according to the report.