he process was sometimes contentious, and there were
sharp disagreements and even threats of lawsuits along the way.
But in the end, a compromise was reached on Stanford's future development
plans that seemed to mostly satisfy the key groups involved.
The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisor voted unanimously Monday
morning to approve a set of planning guidelines for Stanford development
for the next 10 years, a plan that leaves the Stanford hills protected
for at least 25 years--unless a future county board changes that.
The fight had been over the Stanford hills and what kind of protection
the land should get.
Supervisor Joe Simitian, who led the public planning process over
the last year or so, had suggested a 99-year plan for protecting
1,000 acres of the Stanford hills.
Environmental groups had pushed for permanent protection for all
of the hills, a position the Palo Alto and Menlo Park city councils
also backed.
In the end, the board approved a 25-year building ban in the hills
that could be amended later.
Once the final language in the Stanford's new general use permit
and community plan is approved by the county board Dec. 12--a formality
after Monday--Stanford will have the green light to build 2 million
square feet of new academic buildings and 3,000 units of faculty,
staff and graduate student housing over the next 10 years.
But Stanford didn't everything it wanted, either. The Stanford-written
first draft of its development plan was largely rewritten by county
planners to provide much more planning detail, and agreeing to keep
development out of the foothills for 25 years was also more than
the university originally intended.
But, as Stanford President John Hennessy said Monday, it's a plan
the university can live with.
The significance of the community plan is that, once approved,
it becomes part of the county's General Plan, which would then require
action by a future county board to change in any way.
"I think it's a good agreement for everybody," Hennessy said. "I
think it's a good balance of what Stanford would have liked and
what other members of the community would have liked...
"I think we can live with this agreement. I think we can continue
to be a strong university and prosper with this agreement as it
currently stands. It's certainly not the agreement we would have
written...but I think it's an agreement we are cautiously optimistic
we can live with."
Environmental groups Stanford Open Space Alliance and Committee
for Green Foothills had a high-profile public campaign over the
last few weeks, with newspaper and TV ads and even campaign lawn
signs calling for protection of the foothills, which the county
action falls short of.
"It's a step in the right direction," said Peter Drekmeier of the
Stanford Open Space Alliance. "It used to be that Stanford got everything
they wanted, now they just get most of they wanted."
Drekmeier noted that he and others had hoped for hills-core campus
tradeoff, where development rights from the foothills would be transferred
to the core campus, in return for leaving the hills alone. A version
of this concept was also part of Simitian's suggestion.
For Simitian, who was elected to the state Assembly Nov. 7, approval
of the Stanford plan ended what had been a tiring and sometimes
difficult year of work on the issue.
Simitian's proposal for 99 years of protection for 1,000 hillside
acres caused Stanford to say it would reject the plan with such
a provision and would sue, if necessary.
The threat of a lawsuit may have been a factor in the lack of support
Simitian had from his supervisorial colleagues for the 99-year,
1000-acre plan.
"I can count to three," Simitian said Monday, referring to the
number of votes needed on the board to get anything passed.
"I said at the onset of this process that the question was whether
a great university can stay great without compromising the quality
of life in surrounding communities," Simitian said. "I thought it
could be done, and I think it has been done."
It isn't clear whether opposition will remain to the plan. Denice
Dade of the Committee for Green Foothills said earlier in the process
that any plan without permanent protection for the foothills would
be unacceptable.
One result of Monday's action is that Stanford will have to submit
a plan to the county for "sustainable development" beyond what will
be allowed in the general use permit that should be approved in
December.
This means that the university will have to take a longer look
at its own future, which could result in some sort of ultimate build-out
or development cap being set for the campus.
"We're very much in favor of a build-out study," Larry Horton,
Stanford's director of government and community relations, said
before Monday's meeting. Hennessy said later that the "sustainable
development plan" needs to be defined further to determine what
it means.
Previous Stories
Stanford
development plan is approved (added Monday,
Nov. 27, 2000, 3 p.m.)
Compromise
likely on open space (added Thursday, Nov.
22, 2000, 10:21 a.m.)
Stanford
land decision delayed (added Thursday, Nov.
2, 2000, 9:45 a.m.)
Thursday, Oct. 26, 2000, Noon
University
counterattacks on land-use plan
Read
the letter and statement by John Hennessy
Mayfield
deal not dead--yet
Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2000, 7 p.m.
Simitian
wants 1,000 acres in foothills protected
Read
the full text of the statement by Joe Simitian
Editorial:
Stanford plans face final county vote
Simitian:
The man behind the deal
