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Ms. Greenberg said they had tried to find another business park that had undergone this kind of transformation. Instead they found many business parks at a similar point to Hacienda and the surrounding communities were contemplating changes for many of the same reasons present in Pleasanton. The consultants then looked at more traditional urban areas that have some of the transportation and travel characteristics that are of interest for encouragement in Pleasanton. These are places that have managed to grow, add jobs, housing, and activities without having big increases in traffic. The team extracted many lessons and principles from these areas. Mr. Blank said since no other business park has made this transition, he felt there was a risk factor. Ms. Greenberg said they had made a list of factors to determine what would be transferable to this location. There are some pieces such as a high quality-walking environment, which can be reproduced in Hacienda. Another piece is regional accessibility. The places that have been most successful without adding development without adding traffic have transit systems that connect to many places in the region. Pleasanton scores poorly in that regard and that is really hard to change. Mr. Blank asked how to gauge what is transferable and what is not if there is no real world experience in a business park environment? Ms. Greenberg said it is based on substantial research on travel behavior. For example, if there is great access to BART that only helps people whose business destination is accessible from BART. Mr. Blank then asked what data was used to create the critical mass numbers shown on the slides? Ms. Greenberg said there is a considerable body of data that shows for example the "decay factor". Many people will walk a quarter mile, but the numbers drop off substantially for longer distances. There is also quite a bit of quantitative data on the response people have to parking charges. There is much data of interest when discussing the different strategies for the area. Mr. Haskell said the slide with points about critical mass was an economic study focusing on the definition of a mixed-use building and how it works, whether it is proximate to transit or any other context. Getting a mixed-use building to work is a challenge. The economic consultants did the research on actual retail and market studies. This whole proposal will not work without successful mixed uses. This is based on a retail market study for the community and taking into account the focus desired for the project. Mr. Sullivan said several retail and transit studies have been done and are on the Hacienda Business Park website. He wanted to clarify something. On one hand he heard nothing has been done like this before and on the other there is a lot of data Joint Workshop City Council/Planning Commission 3 10/25/05