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With some members harshly criticizing the 45-condominium development planned for the Elks Lodge property, the Palo Alto Planning and Transportation Commission split 3-3 over its layout Wednesday night.
“It’s a really horrible situation,” Chairwoman Karen Holman said, calling the lack of coordination of the project with the new D.R. Horton housing project to the north “an injustice.”
Commissioner Samir Tuma was absent, leading to the 3-3 vote, with commissioners Lee Lippert, Paula Sandas and Vice Chair Dan Garber voting in favor of the project.
Palo Alto-based SummerHill Homes proposes constructing two- and three-story condominiums, the majority detached, on the 4-acre property off El Camino Real south of Charleston Road. It would include a half-acre public park accessible off Deodar Street, and a new public road between the former Rickey’s Hyatt property and the Elks Lodge.
Commissioners were nearly unified in their dislike of SummerHill Homes 20- to 22-foot-wide streets, roadways too narrow to allow curbside parking. And although several commissioners said they sympathize with Charleston Meadows neighbors who attended to oppose a potential path connecting the project with Wilkie Way, the commissioners were resolute in the need for increased connectivity between neighborhoods.
“Palo Alto is a fabric, it’s not a patchwork quilt,” Commissioner Lee Lippert said. “Access through this site is very limited as such it becomes an enclave unto itself, in some ways a gated community.”
Commissioner Arthur Keller said he doesn’t like the tightly packed, detached condominiums that have become the housing-type of choice for Palo Alto developers. He said he was worried the project was just for families who wanted their children to attend Gunn High School.
New Commissioner Susan Fineberg also said she found the project disagreeable.
“We’re building a community that we’re saying they are second-class citizens. They don’t deserve the standard roadways, they don’t deserve the amenities that come with the way other neighborhoods are built,” she said.
The project originally lacked a bicycle or pedestrian connection to Wilkie Way
The project’s connection to Wilkie has remained a divisive issue. Charleston Meadows neighbors successfully blocked a connection through the 170-unit Arbor Real project and opposed a plan to allow for a pathway further south, through the a planned row of houses lining Wilkie.
The SummerHill Homes project doesn’t border Wilkie.
But on Jan. 22, the City Council asked planners to explore creating a path from Wilkie Way to El Camino Real via a strip of land owned by Dinah’s Garden Hotel and SummerHill.
On Feb. 28, SummerHill Senior Vice President Elaine Breeze submitted a letter to the city offering to reconfigure several buildings to allow for access at the southeast corner of the property closest to Wilkie Way and to allow public access to all of the project’s private roads and sidewalks.
“This has been an interesting process,” Breeze said Wednesday. “We are open to having the connections or not. Either way is fine.”
Several Charleston Meadows expressed vehement opposition to the path, which they believe will allow new residents to park their cars along Wilkie Way.
“You cannot imagine the level of overflow traffic and parking we have experienced over the years,” neighborhood association President Carlin Otto said. “We will not stand for this to happen again.”
Whitclem Drive resident Deborah Ju placed the blame for the situation on the city.
“By design these units are intended to shift overflow parking into our neighborhood. I think that is shameful and should not be allowed,” she said.
The project includes garages and several guest parking areas.
Two other neighbors argued in favor of the pathway, which is dependent on the city acquiring land from Dinah’s.
“Walkway systems are really a community need,” Jean Olmstead said.
The split vote means the project will go before the City Council March 24 with no recommendation from the commission, although staff will recommend approving it, according to Assistant City Attorney Don Larkin and Assistant Planning and Transportation Director Curtis Williams.
• View the Palo Alto Planning and Transportation Commission staff report (Part A)
• View the Palo Alto Planning and Transportation Commission staff report (Part B)
This is just another situation where the planning process is deliberately being slowed down for political reasons.
If you choose to live in a condo enclave, you have to expect a different neighborhood feel than in a more established older neighborhood.
And, for those in the Wilkie Way neighborhood, all neighborhoods have more on street parking than they did 10 or 20 years ago for many reasons. Here in my South PA neighborhood, we have a lot of on street parking. Families now have more than 2 cars per family due to older children being given their own car, college grads returning to live at home, seniors moving into their kids homes to help with babysitting, people wanting weekend show off cars, and those who just use their driveways for basketball hoops, storing gardening stuff, storing camping equipment, the list goes on.
No surprises here–one of Palo Alto’s famed commissions opposing another developments. I do not think that the chair person of the above commission has ever seen a project that she has liked.
People in the Wilkie Way area need to realize that the streets are public thoroughfares, that means they are for everyone–not just residents of that particular street.
Of course look at the people from that area leading the charge–one vehemently opposed the “grannie unit” proposition a number of years ago (and naturally the council, as usual, knuckled under to the demands of the vocal minority), the other managed to drive the Hyatt, and it’s tax revenues from town, and also to hold up the Alma Plaza deveopment, with the result being that Albertsons pulled
out of town also. ironically now they are complaining about all the traffic that will be caused by the new development in place of the Hyatt.
i thought walkable neighborhoods where a priority for some of our council members and neighborhood associations–or is that only if it does not “bother” your neighborhood?
Not so fast said:
“People in the Wilkie Way area need to realize that the streets are public thoroughfares”
Thats exactly the point. The streets INSIDE the development will NOT allow parking, they are designed to be too narrow. So the people outside the development get their cars. It’s unfair and I don’t blame the people outside the enclave.
The streets INSIDE the development are private streets (This is not a new concept–private streets inside developments.). The streets outside the development are public streets, which by definition should be available to ALL of the public.
I am not sure what is “unfair” about all of this, especially since this development has not been built yet, so we do not even know if a problem exists. I assume these units will have garages and/or driveways.
Some neighborhoods in Palo Alto need to learn how to share–the neighborhood above is one of the ones that really needs to learn this lesson.
All these new people moving in some with young children, can our schools sustain this? scary.
You don’t know whether 45 housing units will have a lot of street parking?
Really?
The reason for the private streets is to maximize building size and the people who pay the price for this greed are the people who have to accommodate street parking for 45 families.
Not so slow–You state: “You don’t know whether 45 housing units will have a lot of street parking?”
Not sure where you got that from.
I wrote above “I assume these units will have garages and/or driveways.”
I seriously doubt anyone would buy a home where there was no driveway and/or garage as part of there home.
If that is the case, that there is no on site parking whatsoever (i.e. no driveways and garages for each unit) then that is a different matter.
Do you know that there will be no onsite parking WHATSOEVER or are you just trying to fan the flames?
Included with the plans for the Elks Club site is a small public park presumably to be maintained by the City of Palo Alto. Since it is a public park the public must have access to it.
If I want to take my grandchild to play in that park and the visitor’s parking area is full according to the Wilkie Way residents, I must park on another nearby street other than Wilkie Way. That would mean either El Camino Real or Charleston.
All streets in Palo Alto maintained by the City are for the general public. It seems as though those living in Charleston Meadows want to created a private enclave – no persons with cars allowed – how public spirited of them!!!
SummerHill homes should answer these questions, we shouldn’t be arguing among outselves. They are creating this problem.
About parking, in my neighborhood people have garages and driveways, but they park on the street as well. And their guests and service people certainly do. The private streets in this project do not allow parking.
It’s pretty simple. make the internal streets a little wider, let their people park there. Problem solved.
Since I live a long way from Wilkie Way, and what is happening there is very unlikely to happen in my neighborhood, I feel well qualified to lecture its residents about their moral obligations.
Not so fast is right. Those people on Wilkie Way had better get their minds right. They must not get in the way of progress and capital.
Summerhill Homes wants to build a lot of pricey homes next door to them. To make the best profit, Summerhill Homes will pack a lot of them in, which leaves much less parking space on Summerhill property. People who buy Summerhill’s homes will probably have to park their cars on adjacent public streets. That further enhances the value of Summerhill’s homes, because their owners won’t have to look at the clutter of parked cars on their little private lanes. I think it is very rude for the residents of Wilkie Way to begrudge their new neighbors the serene lifestyle they paid so much for.
Besides, resistance is futile. Summerhill Homes is a wealthy and very influential developer. It will get its way.
First Hyatt Rickey’s, now this. If Palo Alto really wants to become a tourist attraction as “Destination Palo Alto” implies on the city’s website, we need to stop replacing commercial properties with residential ones. What about a new hotel? A new cluster of businesses? Schools are already bursting at the seams; more condos won’t help the problem.
Here’s to our future: a large lump of ugly houses!
Look at The Crossings development in Mountain View: a successful development with condos and semi-attached homes BUT the parking is very difficult for residents as well as visitors.
Instead of SummerhillHomes, we should be dealing with the building of a medium-sized branch library with parking lot and tot lot with grass. This library project would not add to school population, would not use as much water (an increasing limited resource)nor as much power. Community members could have raised money for an endowment, to be sure the branch is properly maintained. Now, we can only undo the damage by limiting the density/number of units, widening the streets, increasing the size of the park.
The traffic on Wilkie Way (the segment behind Rickies and terminated by the Creek) has almost no traffic on it. During “drive time” there 0, 1 or 2 cars queued to enter the intersection at Wilkie and West Charleston. During the rest of the day, there is not much traffic on this short street segment.
Yet .. the Neighborhood Association is always trying to create a spectre of traffic jams and unsafe conditions at the various public hearings that have involved any development on this site.
It’s really sad that the City has not provided traffic profiles of this intersection on five-minute intervals, so people can see what’s really going on.
> building of a medium-sized branch library
All of the car trips to libraries increase the human impact on global warming. City governments need to begin to push e-books and digital libraries instead of brick-and-mortar buildings of the past.
There’s Not Much Traffic because the houses haven’t been constructed yet. And the ones along El Camino aren’t finished yet. Duh!
Wellm we will see what happnes after everthing is built and occupied. To me it is more of the doom and gloom scenarios we have heard about traffic by those opposed to the Sand Hill Road widening and the Ikea in EPAm to name a couple of projects that have been whined about in Palo Alto. And what was the end result?? No problems.
Charleston MEadow is good at getting what it wants from the city–it is only second behind College Terrace in knowing how to milk the city council.
> There’s Not Much Traffic because the houses
> haven’t been constructed yet.
There are not enough homes in this area to generate very much traffic to begin with–particularly on this one block segment of Wilkie Way. There is an access on El Camino as a primary access.
This talk about traffic is simply a scare tactic.
Another Jim Baer project stuffing a piece of land with too much housing. Baer is working on this project with Summerhill, as usual.
“A piece of land with too much housing.”
That says it all. Time after time, project after project. Unvaryingly. Intelligent opponents routinely castigated. Same old developer slogans. Time after time. On and on.