Thread by @rf_mehlinger

So last night was a BFD in @CityofSunnyvale. After six years of work, Council voted unanimously to approve the Moffett Park Specific Plan, adding 20,000 new homes and 10m sf of office on 2 sq mi in Moffett Park (north of 237).

A deep-dive🧵into the plan and the motion we passed. https://t.co/FWQ7YCpH0w

https://twitter.com/SVLCouncilVotes/status/1679013653532782593

In 2017, Google approached the city with a proposed general plan amendment to study completely reenvisioning Moffett Park, a triangle of land north of 237 which included only office, commercial, hotel, and industrial uses--and a truly insane amount of parking and asphalt.

Council approved the initiation of the study, and in I believe 2018 or 2019 selected the preferred alternative to study. Thanks in part to advocacy from orgs like @Livable_Svale, Council voted to study 20,000 homes as part of a low-car eco-innovation district.

@Livable_Svale After extensive study, years of work, multiple Council study sessions, 23 community input sessions, over 350 responses to feedback from stakeholders, the plan came before Council last night. I'm not going to attempt a deep dive into everything, but I will give some highlights.

@Livable_Svale Side note: I am normally sympathetic to claims that cities often overdo the community input on land use. Not here. This is 2 square miles of land and the economic heart of our city. It was extremely important to get this right. And the input we received HELPED.

@Livable_Svale Anyway, highlights
* 15% affordable housing, minimum, with a 20% target
* tons of new park and open space
* an emphasis on shared parking and parking caps
* a requirement for office developers to provide innovation and creation spaces

@Livable_Svale My favorite part, though is the Diagonal, a multi-mile linear park and bike/pedestrian trail, cutting through the heart of the district.

This will be critical to achieving the car-lite goals for this district.

@Livable_Svale Onto the motion, made by @omarfdin! Some of these changes are fairly small and technical, such as requiring council approval for infrastructure financing districts. Others are more substantial.

@Livable_Svale @omarfdin On the sustainability front, we voted to require dual-piping for recycled water (e.g. for toilets) where permitted under state building code, to require bird-safe glass on all facades facing the Bay, regardless of height, and to accelerate collection of groundwater data.

@Livable_Svale @omarfdin At my request, we added a minimum density of 36 units/acre for any residential built in MP-MU zones. MP is an *urban* district. We do not want single family homes here; we want density. This minimum ensures land is used efficiently. Other designations already had minimum density.

We also voted to kick off an economic feasibility study for three project types: 5-over-1 residential, high-rise residential, and infill office. This is a massive plan, and it is inevitable that there will be "bugs". The feasibility study should help identify and correct them.

Finally, we voted to loosen stepback and facade articulation requirements. This will increase construction feasibility, while also allowing more architectural flexibility, including more traditional forms of architecture.

These requirements are typically included to "break up the massing" of buildings. However, the requirements for recesses and stepbacks often lead to very jumbled looking buildings--I call them Lego buildings--and ban more traditional forms of architecture. Compare:

Classic Parisian construction has flat front facades, with adjacent buildings sharing a single facade plane. Stepbacks are minimal--a slant or slopeback at the highest floor or two, for lofts. Rather than breaking the facade, Parisian architecture *ornaments* it.

By contrast, the typical new build American apartment building has a highly articulated facade, with many recesses, right/sharp angles, and plane shifts. The result is jumbled, and is not particularly beloved. It's also more expensive and less efficient (greater surface area).

@holz_bau gets into this in his excellent piece, "In Praise of Dumb Boxes", laying out climate, economic, and aesthetic benefits to ditching these requirements: 15kwhm2a.medium.com/in-praise-of-d…

I view aesthetics as a strictly secondary concern in the face of our housing crisis. A Lego building looks a lot better than a tent city, after all. But still, aesthetics does matter.

Our changes do three things. First, they allow developers to choose between facade articulation and variation. You can have a single style facade that is articulated, or you can have multiple styles of facade that are not.

Second, we loosened the stepback requirements and requirements for floor plate reduction at greater heights, allowing greater massing at higher stories. Finally, we also voted to make these *average* requirements, to encourage smoother transitions rather than sharp stepbacks.

These changes will allow greater architectural flexibility and diversity in Moffett Park, while also improving development feasibility. I'm hoping that they lead to more unique architecture as well. I'm fine with Lego buildings, but they shouldn't be all that we allow.

We also voted to rename most of the neighborhoods. Discovery became Onizuka, in honor of Onizuka Air Force Station, which was located there. OAFS was named for Col. Ellison Onizuka, the first Asian American in space, who tragically died on the Challenger. https://t.co/vDIdKN1QnMnro.gov/News-and-Media…

West Mathilda became the Posolmi district, named for Rancho Posolmi, one of the only California land grants to be held by a Native American, Lupe Ynigo. The site was itself named for the Ohlone Posolmi village, and included much of what are now Moffett Park and Moffett Field.

The Chesapeake neighborhood, which is the easternmost in the plan area, became the Sunrise District. Get it? Sunrise? Sunnyvale? East? Anyway. Nothing against the Chesapeake but this feels much more on brand. Meanwhile, North & South Java became NoJa & SoJa, respectively.

Crossman stayed Crossman, being named for Crossman Ave. and in turn named for Walter Everett Crossman, who helped lead the initial development of the town at the turn of the 20th century, and branded Sunnyvale "The City of Destiny" (he was right).

Finally, we voted to exempt Lockheed Martin from innovation/creator space requirements. I'm of two minds on this, but ultimately came down on this because of their unique security requirements and the fact that their campus is already fairly tucked away.

This is a monumental achievement for our city. Sunnyvale currently has fewer than 60k homes, so this will increase our housing stock by a third. We are literally building a new city in a city, over 2 square miles in size, one that will be larger than 61 California cities!

I can't think of any Bay Area specific plans in decades on this magnitude--certainly none outside of SF, SJ, Oakland.

This will shape our city for the next century to come.

On a personal note, I moved to Sunnyvale in 2011. My first night here was spent in an extended stay hotel in Moffett Park. My first job was in Moffett Park. At the time it was a ghost town, a land of parking lots and low-rise offices, many of which were vacant.

I remember thinking at the time, gee, wouldn't it be great to have housing here? At the time, it never occurred to me that I'd have the opportunity to vote to do just that. What a privilege and an honor to be able to play a small part in driving this across the finish line.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't thank everyone who had a hand in this. First and foremost, a huge thank you to @cityofsunnyvale staff, who put in six years of hard work to make this a reality. The MPSP is a testament to their professionalism and excellence. Hats off.

@CityofSunnyvale Next, a big thank you to all of the former members of Council who contributed to this plan, including @JimGriffith_SV and @GlennH2013!

@Jeffinatorator @Livable_Svale This was also raised by the Sierra Club in feedback comment R.40 to the EIR. In their response, staff noted that our current jobs-housing ratio is 1.64, with a projected ratio of 1.48 with full buildout. The adopted MPSP lowers the full buildout j-h ratio to 1.45.

@CityofSunnyvale @JimGriffith_SV @GlennH2013 Lastly, a huge thank you to all the stakeholders and advocates who advocated for and provided feedback on the plan. This document is so much stronger thanks to YOUR advocacy.

And now, let's get this thing built out. Onward!

@CityofSunnyvale @JimGriffith_SV @GlennH2013 @threadreaderapp unroll, s'il vous plait!