Stanford wins approval for Sand Hill project

Road will finally be extended, housing will be built

Stanford University won a major victory Tuesday when Palo Alto voters approved Measure 0 by a 55.1 percent to 44.9 percent margin, setting the way clear for Sand Hill Road to be connected to El Camino Real.

Stanford tried, and failed, to get Sand Hill Road extended to El Camino Real in 1975, 1978 and 1983.

"At long last, the Sand Hill bottleneck will be corrected," said Larry Horton, the director of government and community relations at Stanford. "It means a vastly improved (traffic) circulation system for Palo Alto, Stanford and Menlo Park."

The competing ballot measure, Measure M, won only a 38.8 percent yes vote, compared to a 61.7 percent no vote.

Measure O received 9,849 yes votes and 7,724 no votes, while 10,378 voters cast ballots against Measure M and 6,447 supported M.

But Measure M proponents claimed victory in some areas.

"Palo Alto will never think about development the same way again," said Peter Drekmeier, Measure M campaign manager. "We have had an impact."

Before the project can be built, however, Stanford still must contend with a lawsuit filed by the city of Menlo Park challenging the project's environmental impact report. Now that the project has received formal approval, Menlo Park is expected to seek an injunction to prevent the Sand Hill project from moving forward.

The hard-fought election was an expensive one, with Stanford University spending about $380,000 on the Measure O campaign and the Measure M campaign spending about $181,000.

The high visibility of the campaign helped result in a higher than usual turnout in a Palo Alto election of 48.4 percent.

Horton said that Stanford, by building 628 apartments with a priority for Stanford and staff, will be able to address a serious housing problem which has emerged in recent years.

Measure O also will result in the construction of 80,000 additional square feet at Stanford Shopping Center and construction of 388 senior housing units, 66 assisted living units and 47 skilled nursing beds in a senior housing and care complex.

Measure O, which represented the version of the Sand Hill Road project that was approved by the Palo Alto City Council after extensive public hearings and negotiations with the university, calls for a two-lane connection of Sand Hill Road from Arboretum Road to El Camino Real. The project also calls for expanding Sand Hill Road to four lanes from Arboretum to San Francisquito Creek.

Proponents of Measure M wanted Stanford to move its faculty and staff housing to another campus location, and to extend a two-lane Sand Hill Road to El Camino Real, with a third lane for emergency vehicles.

Proponents of Measure M contended that the Measure O version of Sand Hill Road would result in great traffic congestion, while Stanford and city officials contended that Measure M's three-lane version of Sand Hill Road was unworkable.

"It was a very tough campaign," Horton said. Stanford distributed seven different campaign mailers in the last 13 days of the campaign, while the Measure M campaign also used late mailers, including one that was the most controversial and criticized piece of the campaign, which quoted a city document out of context and gave misleading information to voters.

"The voters are saying they understand Stanford's campaign, but maybe not the ideas about alternative transportation in Measure M," said Debbie Mytels, co-chairman of the Measure M campaign. "I think we will get this horrible traffic nightmare (when the Measure O version of Sand Hill Road is built)."

One plus for the Measure M campaign, Mytels and others said, was the alliance forged between Palo Alto and Menlo Park residents who opposed Stanford's development plans. "We will continue to meet and work together on these problems," Mytels said.

--Don Kazak