Publication Date: Wednesday Oct 20, 1999

ELECTION: Development projects illustrate council quandry

Candidates in this year's City Council race can expect to face several thorny issues if elected, including selection of a new city manager, review of a controversial plan for the city's libraries and funding an array of capital projects such as a proposed public safety building.

But the most visible and lasting decisions most likely will concern development and, more specifically, how to control growth in Palo Alto in the midst of Silicon Valley's roaring economy.

Although the words differ slightly among individual candidates, this year's council hopefuls are all sounding the drum for cautious development. Candidates Mark Heyer, Mike Cobb and Judy Kleinberg have called for "setting livable limits to growth," and candidate Jim Burch has cautioned that "we're choking on our own success.

"The city is not changing in ways that are creative, long-range and sustainable," Burch said.

Unlike the '80s, when the economy was in a slump and Palo Alto courted companies to move to town, the challenge now is to slow the rush of new jobs and traffic into the city.

"It is time now for Palo Alto to examine growth limits and quit encouraging job development in the way we have done in the past," said Nancy Lytle, a candidate for one of the four open four-year seats.

The City Council next year will likely decide the fate of two proposed development projects--the Hyatt Rickeys hotel and housing project in south Palo Alto and developer Roxy Rapp's plans for the Peninsula Creamery site near downtown.

Both projects are in the early planning stages and, judging by comments from city staff and residents, will likely be scaled down before they reach the council for discussion. But both proposals illustrate the challenges facing future council members, who will decide whether the projects fit the objectives of the city's Comprehensive Plan.

"This race is more important than people think," said Cobb. "The Comprehensive Plan is a massive undertaking, and the council has enormous latitude in interpreting it. The council can make the Comprehensive Plan take on real substance."

Completed last year after five years of discussion and debate, the Comprehensive Plan is a detailed map of future development in Palo Alto. But the document's scope is so inclusive that some say it is like the Bible in that anyone--in this case, both developers and residents--can read whatever they want into it.

Next year's City Council will likely be forced to referee arguments between residents worried about the impact of new people and traffic on their neighborhoods and developers pushing the size and density limits of what the plan allows.

One example of this phenomenon is the Hyatt Rickeys proposal to redevelop the 1950s-era hotel structure and add more than 300 housing units to the back of the property. Neighbors and city staff are pressing the Hyatt Corp. to go back to the drawing board, saying the project is too large and dense and will exacerbate serious traffic problems in the area.

Hyatt representatives argue the project fits the specific zoning standards of the Comprehensive Plan, if not the broader vision.

Lytle, a former Palo Alto chief planning official who helped write the Comprehensive Plan, says the density of housing proposed for the Rickeys site does not match the goals of the plan.

"The developer's project is not a pedestrian- and transit-oriented design, as envisioned in the Comprehensive Plan. It is a suburban plan proposing isolated pods of hotel and high-density multiple-family use, with loads of parking, designed to rely exclusively on automobile access," Lytle said.

Phyllis Cassel, a planning commissioner and candidate for the two-year council seat, opposes the current Rickeys proposal for similar reasons.

"There is too much parking, and no place for children to play. The buildings are too massive and do not blend in size to the single-family homes on Wilkie Way. The traffic flow appears to be unrealistic," Cassel said.

Councilwoman Dena Mossar, also a candidate for a four-year council seat, has said she will await the environmental impact report and staff recommendations before deciding on the Rickeys project. She does point out, however, that the site, located on El Camino Real, is ideal for transit-oriented affordable housing in Palo Alto.

"I am open to housing on the site, as long as it can meet stringent environmental impact tests and is designed and sited in such a way so as not to intrude upon neighboring single-family residential areas," Mossar said.

The Comprehensive Plan offers another challenge for next year's City Council members--the requirement that the council look at the zoning for much of Palo Alto and possibly make changes to the "planned community" zoning designation.

Several candidates have argued that the city's planned-community zoning--which allows exceptions to a neighborhood's existing zoning in exchange for public benefits offered by a developer--is a poor system that allows savvy developers to provide less-than-useful benefits and develop projects too large to fit with residential neighborhoods.

"PC zoning is a wild card," said Bob Moss, a candidate for the two-year council seat. "There is no correlation between what developers get and give in the deal. Additional parking is not a glowing benefit."

"The PC zone may make sense, but it has been overused," said Craig Woods, a candidate for the two-year council seat.

One controversial planned-community zoning project is developer Roxy Rapp's proposed 80,000-square-foot live/work project on the Peninsula Creamery site on High Street.

The project was scheduled to be voted up or down by the City Council in September, but it was delayed by council members until zoning is completed for the entire South of Forest Area in April or May.

Rapp had asked the council to delay discussion of the project for a month. Some speculate the developer feared he did not have the support needed to approve the project.

Many of the candidates have said they will not support Rapp's project when it returns to council unless it is substantially less dense.

"It is the wrong building for that location, it is too large and out of scale for that neighborhood," Kleinberg said. Because the Creamery project is now tied to broader area zoning in the South of Forest area, it may be limited by the standards set for the surrounding area.

But council candidate and Planning Commissioner Bern Beecham said the city staff's recommendation for the South of Forest Area is far too dense and could allow a project larger than the one proposed by Rapp.

City staff have recommended a floor-area ratio for the South of Forest Area of 2.5. This figure, used to determine development density, means that a theoretical site of 10,000 square feet could include a development as large as 25,000 square feet.

According to Beecham, the Rapp project has a floor-area ratio of 1.9. "If I am elected, we will never have an FAR of 2.5 in Palo Alto," Beecham said.

Victor Frost, a candidate for the four-year seat, is undecided on both the Rickeys and Rapp proposals. Ed Power, another four-year candidate, said the Rickeys project is too large but has not addressed the Rapp proposal.

Though issues of zoning and floor-area ratios are hardly the sexiest of campaign topics, especially in a crowded race on the brink of the next millennium, they will likely be revisited countless times by next year's council members and the residents affected by large development projects.

"The era of unbridled development in Palo Alto is coming to an end. There should be more community involvement in the projects being done," said Heyer.

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