'@TownofAtherton'

I will be attending the ICMA Annual Conference in Seattle from September 26 through September 30. Upon return, I will be attending the Thursday and Friday sessions of the League of Cities Annual Conference in San Jose. 

Linked here are the July 2015 PHS Monthly Report and August 2015 PHS Monthly Report for Animal Services in Atherton. As an FYI, I am serving on the review committee for the County’s responses to the Request for Proposal for the Design-Build Animal Shelter. I am reviewing the proposals this week and next and will be providing feedback to the County by October 2. 

Following the Town, the County, and the City of Menlo Park discussing the modification of El Camino Real and Middlefield Road, the Fire District Board of Directors began a conversation around time-based performance standards for emergency response. They completed an updated Standards of Cover Assessment and recently adopted the linked Resolution No. 1818-2015 adopting time-based performance measure standards for the District. 

I sent an email back to the Chief asking what exactly that meant for the Town. Did it mean that the Fire District would enhance its commitment to the communities it serves through the investment in capital infrastructure improvements that go directly toward meeting or improving the time-based performance standards - such as roadway improvements, signal synchronization projects, pre-emption devices, bike lanes (to add width to a roadway), dedicated bus lanes (for bus and emergency response), and identification of and development of new station locations to enhance response? Alex McIntyre echoed the question and further asked what authority it carried and whether there was any binding impact on the communities. 

• Provided direction to staff to prepare an Ordinance amending Atherton Municipal Code section 6.04 to modify the regulations for the keeping of chickens.  The Ordinance would: permit up to 12 chickens on an individual property; include setback regulations for the coop; require a permit; include regulations for the cleaning of the coop to address pollution runoff onto adjacent properties.  This item will be discussed further at the October 28, 2015 Planning Commission meeting.
• Denied a Variance request for an accessory structure to be located within the front yard setback at 52 Marianna Lane.
• Approved a Special Structure Permit for a pool up to the front yard setback at 89 Mercedes.
• Approved a Heritage Tree Removal Permit for the removal of two heritage trees at 397 Fletcher.
• Approved a Special Structure Permit to allow a sidewall height increase and a Variance from the increased setback requirements at 142 Britton Avenue.
• Continued the request for a Special Structure Permit to allow increased sidewall height at 22 Lane Place to the October 23, 2015 Planning commission meeting.
• Continued the discussion on General Plan update process to the October 23, 2015 Planning Commission meeting.

A member of the Council attended the commute.org meeting on Thursday and received a presentation on autonomous vehicles. The Council Member passed along the PowerPoint to share. Experts predict widespread adoption within the next few years and full adoption by 2026. It is possible that this will have an impact on revenue streams and operations for communities (tickets, vehicle accidents, mobility, etc.). Linked here is a copy of the PowerPoint presentation  My two cents is that many folks may envision a “Minority Report” or “Total Recall” utopia where autonomous vehicles proliferate like roving driverless taxicabs. If so and they are underwritten at the Federal level, there must then be some sort of trickle down of funding for roadway and local infrastructure. However, if the vehicles are fee-based services, service industries will pop-up and be regulated. The use fee structure will necessarily include a regulatory pass-thru to local government for roadway infrastructure - parking, roads, signage, charging stations, etc. On the flip side, if the autonomous network is personally owned and operated, local agencies will likely share in the same sort of revenue manner they do today (charging fee/gas tax) - gas tax, roadway use tax, license fees, etc. I do not suspect that the industry will change the revenue methodology dramatically - only its transaction base. 

The CCAC is having a Special Meeting on 9/21 to go through the Cost Estimate provided by Mack5 based on a preliminary Draft Conceptual Plan. As the Council may recall, there were several iterations of the cost estimate as part of the original Master Plan. The Adopted Master Plan provided for 2 buildings - a 2-story Admin/PD/CDD/Council Chambers at approximately 25,000 square feet and a 1-story Library at approximately 9,000 square feet. Both buildings were essentially “boxes” on the plan without articulation or design. The original cost estimate from HMC included an underground parking garage, PV and remodel of the historic Town Hall. This estimate was refined by the CCAC to separate out the PV, parking garage and remodel as separate add alternates and also included a reduction in the contingencies and a reduction in the “gross-up” factor used by the cost estimate to assess the additional square footage needs for hallways, stairwells, etc. The “gross-up” factor is based on the design of the facilities - in other words, if you design a box, the gross-up is less than if you design a long building with designs to fit our constrained site conditions. 

The original estimate (all-in) was $67.3 million including soft costs (design, legal, EIR, testing, FFE) with a construction cost estimate of $41.9 million. The revised estimate was $31.8 million with a construction cost estimate of $23.1 million. Add-alternates for this project are $2.1 million for the historic Town Hall Remodel, Underground Garage for $16.7 million, PV for $1.5 million, and Corp Yard Remodel for $480k, plus some other minor add-alts. It is important to remember however, that the 25,000 square feet for the Admin/PD building also included 1,800 square feet for a Council Chambers. This was planned originally in addition to the remodel of the Historic Town Hall. 

When the HMC Revised Cost Estimate was presented to the CCAC (per their changes) it was noted by the estimator that the reduction in contingency amount at the Master Plan level was lower than they would typically recommend - they provided the same comments with respect to the gross-up factors. Essentially, this meant that in their opinion, lowering these items presented some risk that the final construction costs will be higher than the estimate. 

The Mack5 Cost Estimate based on the preliminary Draft Conceptual Plan provides for 2 buildings - a 2-story Admin/PD/CDD/Council Chambers at approximately 27,000 square feet and a 1-story Library at approximately 9,000 square feet. The cost estimate also includes renovation of the existing Historic Town Hall. The buildings are no longer theoretical boxes but are site specific designs flushed out with entries, hallways, open areas, and connections. Further, there are some design/architecture assumptions that have been made based on comments from the CCAC (such as the assumption for some red-tile roofing for historic connectivity to historic Town Hall). The underground parking garage has been eliminated and the historic Town Hall renovation is part of the estimate - increasing the site work share for the Library. Further, with WRNS as the architect, the buildings are being designed from the ground up for LEED certification. 

The Mack5 Cost Estimate provides a hard construction cost estimate of $33.5 million and another $9.4 million in soft costs. This is roughly $8 million over the revised HMC estimate from 2013/14, when you add in the historic Town Hall remodel. Approximately 69% of this hard-construction/site work cost is attributable to Town Hall ($31 million). In this number is about $4.2 million in contingency and cost-escalation as well as $1.6 million in costs that can be General Fund (post-project costs) for furnishings, fixtures, and miscellaneous equipment.  

In summary and roll-up this is the bottom line comparative from the Staff Report in March 2014, inclusive of all soft costs:

9,143 sf Library Program - $9.8 million

24,928 sf Admin/PD/CDD Program - $21.9 million

Total Project Cost Estimate - $31.8 million

Less Library Fund - ($9.8 million)

Less CDD Building Fund - ($2.2 million)

Total Fundraising Target - $19.8 million

10, 977 sf Library Program (inclusive of historic Town Hall remodel) - $13.5 million

27,105 sf Admin/PD/CDD Program - $31 million

Total Project Cost Estimate - $44.5 million (built in here is a contingency of $1.2 million and $3 million in cost-escalation)

Less Library Fund - ($13.5 million)

Less CDD Building Fund - ($2.2 million)

Less post-project FF&E General/Library Fund - ($1.6 million)

Total Fundraising Target - $27.2 million

The additional 2,000 sf in the Admin/PD/CDD program is easily attributable to the flushed out design and shared spaces (hallways, stairwells, mechanical rooms, etc.) that occurred in moving from a theoretical box building to an articulated building that meets the site needs  and constraints. The basic programming needs of Administration, Public Works, PD, and Planning did not significantly increase from the Master Plan to the Conceptual Plan.

In the March 2014 Staff Report, it was noted that the CCAC was comfortable with a fundraising range of $20 to $25 million. These numbers have yet to be vetted in their entirety through the CCAC on 9/21 but I wanted to give the Council a heads up on the discussion. The numbers themselves should not change materially; however, the CCAC may make recommendations on project changes to reduce costs. These could include changes to the underlying construction assumptions (building materials, site work, etc.), phasing, or design (balconies, green roofs, building exterior, etc.).  One additional note, the percentage allocation for site work is based on function footprint. With the Town Hall remodel being incorporated into the Library function, the percentage allocation for site work share has changed. The Library is responsible for 46% of the $7.1 million in site work. It is also important to note that there remains a contingency of $1.2 million built into these numbers. While we cannot change the impact of inflation and demand (i.e. cost escalation), we do have more control over change orders and use of the contingency.