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Palo Alto Online

The municipal divide

by Geoff S. Fein

Some south Palo Alto residents point to the construction of the Oregon Expressway in the mid-1960s as the moment when a dividing line was created, effectively cutting Palo Alto in half. Residents often jokingly refer to south Palo Alto as "Baja Palo Alto." They say that over time, the division has left them feeling ignored by city officials.

That cry is again rising up from neighborhoods along Charleston Road as city officials grapple with plans to build the brunt of the city's new housing on the their side of town.

Residents in south Palo Alto are saying that the city's Housing Element (its blueprint for housing placement in town) will put more homes into their neighborhood and less into neighborhoods on the north side.

Some city officials say it is unfair for south Palo Alto residents to claim they are being required to absorb more housing than their neighbors to the north. In fact, city officials point out that the 660-unit Stanford West apartments on Sand Hill Road will impact traffic, schools and services in north Palo Alto.

Adding more housing into south Palo Alto neighborhoods makes sense, city officials say. The area has had the greatest surge in children and it has more land available for building housing than the north side does.

Some south Palo Alto residents however point out that the Stanford West development is for university faculty, staff and students and is being built on Stanford land.

South Palo Alto resident LaDoris Cordell, a vice provost at Stanford University, said using the Stanford West project as a rationale for dumping more housing into south Palo Alto leads some people to see an 'us versus them' situation.

"That should not be the focus," she said. "But it's very hard for folks (in south Palo Alto), to feel otherwise."

At the Feb. 4 council meeting Cordell presented a map showing the number of housing units planned for south Palo Alto compared to the rest of the city. She said there are six housing sites in south Palo Alto that will have approximately 800 units, while there are 11 sites in north Palo Alto that will have a total of 478 units.

She said she was shocked when she initially added up the total number of planned housing units for both parts of Palo Alto.

Cordell, along with at least a dozen other residents from south Palo Alto, showed up to address the city's draft Housing Element.

Cordell took issue with the city's attempts to diversify the entire city at the expense of south Palo Alto. "This is not diversification of Palo Alto, it's ghetto-ization," she said. "(The housing element) diversifies south Palo Alto."

All the planned high density housing is located in south Palo Alto, Cordell added.

Councilman Jim Burch is the only one among the current nine council members who resides in south Palo Alto. He said residents in south Palo Alto talk about the north-south division in terms of council representation. Much of it stems from a belief that the city's power brokers live on the north side.

"It's not time for the Balkanization of the city," he said.

When it comes to housing, Burch shares many of the same sentiments as his council colleagues -- the south is where the available land is located.

Lane Liroff lives at "ground zero" of the housing planned for south Palo Alto. He told the council that 500 new residences are planned within a block of his home.

Three days after the meeting, Liroff said the Planning Department makes him feel like comedian Rodney Dangerfield.

"We've told them things are getting bad down here," he said. "The Planning Department doesn't hear what is going on down here."

Deborah Ju, president of the Charleston Meadows Neighborhood Association, said the idea that the south part of town gets slighted is an age-old theme.

Ju however said she doesn't see the housing as a north versus south issue. She sees it as a problem with concentrating so much density into the area.

"You are imposing a lot of crowding into one place," she said. "The impact will be huge."

Former City Councilwoman and Mayor Lanie Wheeler, who lives in the south, said south Palo Altans' feelings of inequity are widely held. Part of the disparity is simply a matter of history and time, she said.

Because the city has its roots on the north side, it means that infrastructure there will wear out sooner. That means the city will spend money to repair those problems first, Wheeler said.

She does acknowledges that south Palo Alto lags behind north Palo Alto in some respects.

"We in the south don't have the community services the north has," she said. "You can't argue with the reality of that."

As for the housing situation, a lot of neighborhoods in north Palo Alto were designed for single-family homes only and protected as such, Wheeler said.

But there are other factors at work for proposing more housing in south Palo Alto, Wheeler said.

Along El Camino Real, for example, there is very little commercial or multi-family use near Palo Alto High School. In fact, much of the land along El Camino north of the Oregon Expressway is Stanford land. But further south on El Camino, big open spaces disappear and the street is lined with retail businesses. Those areas are prime for creating mixed-use housing.

Downtown, there are few if any under-utilized properties. But travel toward California Avenue and those properties become easier to find, Wheeler said.

Vice Mayor Dena Mossar said she understands residents in south Palo Alto don't want more dense housing, however she said it isn't fair to say the majority of dense housing is in south Palo Alto.

"Clearly we will have to develop information to show what those (housing) ratios are," Mossar said. "(The Housing Element) is a big deal. (It) forces Palo Altans to think of growth in the city and regional growth."

Councilwoman Judy Kleinberg said it does look like the city is placing more housing in the south. Kleinberg said if she lived in south Palo Alto, she'd be concerned with the housing plans. However she doesn't agree with Cordell that the Housing Element is an attempt to diversify south Palo Alto.

Kleinberg pointed out that over the past five to 10 years housing has been put into north Palo Alto. She cited the SummerHill development in the South of Forest Avenue area and Oak Court, the affordable-housing project just a few blocks from University Avenue.

Although Kleinberg doesn't believe that any council member is beholden to one part of town over another, she acknowledges that over the years there have been a number of things that have led south Palo Alto residents to feel the way they do.

"It's been an accumulation of small and not so small slights," Kleinberg said. "But not because of the council slighting them."

For example, when the city began its free shuttle service, it was first implemented in the north. And when the city put up signs near north Palo Alto schools asking drivers to slow down, city workers didn't put up similar signs in the south. And the current debate over the remodeling of city libraries has even entered the fray.

"There is a perception that there is greater emphasis on rehabilitating library services in the north than in the south," she said. "These are patterns, and patterns can begin to look like facts."

"It will be hard to convince residents we don't have a bias," Kleinberg said. "I can't believe staff is biased."

E-mail Geoff S. Fein at gfein@paweekly.com