Forum was at the meeting seeking an additional 100 housing units, in line with its original proposal—for a total of 300 on "block 18," the central plot of land on the project. The developer also asked for almost 100,000 additional square feet of office space, on top of the existing 202,000 square feet in its plan.

The commission ended up only recommending 82 additional housing units, with no increase in office space, but some in attendance said the council may end up granting that increase when the proposal goes before it.

The project manager Jane Vaughan, representing Forum at the meeting, said more housing and office space is needed to offset costs from the purchase of the JCPenney property, the site's bankrupt status and rising construction costs.

"To not get the extra 100 units of housing and almost 100,000 square feet for offices puts the project in jeopardy," Vaughan said. "What we have here is an alternative way to support the project, and more housing would be a much-needed addition to the community."

The only way to get the extra space now is through a council decision to grant the increase. Vaughan said there is a good chance the council will do that because it has more information regarding the project because it has been involved in a series of closed-session meetings regarding the Town Center Mall negotiations.

In those closed sessions, Vaughan said the actual prices and financial status of the project were discussed. Because of this, the planning commission—tasked with advising the council on matters pertaining to city planning—has less information than the council members themselves.

Planning Commission Chairwoman Laura Babcock acknowledged the lack of information the commission has gotten, but said she and her colleagues still made the best decision based on the information they had.

The meeting also gave the public another chance to share its views on the proposal to bring back the downtown. Several members of the Friends of Sunnyvale group—a grass-roots organization that has been vocal about its concerns with the Forum plan—spoke out against the proposed increase.

"We really support that project as far as bringing our downtown back; we just have concerns with density, with the project being locked in by four parking structures, and we want to make sure the downtown isn't locked into one mode of business," said Paul Reed, president of The Friends of Sunnyvale.

Reed said that if privately owned homes sit atop stores, there will be no way to change the shape or size of those buildings in the future, because it would be too difficult to get all the separate property owners in agreement.

"In 1976—when the existing mall was built—everyone thought that it was the hot setup. Now we're concerned that we don't do the same thing and lock ourselves into a building structure that can't change itself," Reed said. "Twenty years from now, we're going to be stuck in 2004's way of thinking."

But before commissioners could get into new requests, a number of changes had to be made to the existing proposal. Planning staff members informed the commission and public that they had found that the numbers of housing units on the project were higher than those allowed by the downtown specific plan.

This meant the Forum's proposed housing-unit counts on several plots of land had to be reduced, dropping the total number of "dwelling units" from 1,999 to 1,917.

Against staff recommendation, the commission decided against granting the additional 100 housing units and 98,000 square feet of office space, instead granting only an additional 82 units of housing to the project.

Babcock said she voted to grant only the additional housing because it was an improvement on the city's housing-to-office ratio and to also have increased the offices would have negated that improvement.

The change does not affect the overall planned size of the project, because the reassessment of space reduced the total housing units by the same amount. Instead of granting extra units, the commission simply granted Forum the number of units it had planned for before the new numbers were presented.

While he was pleased that Forum was not given all it asked for—it was denied its office space request and given 12 fewer housing units than it asked for—Reed said he felt the public's voice was not heard by the commission or council.

The issue is scheduled to go before the city council at the July 13 meeting, where a final vote on the motions and resolution to amend the plan will be held.