Editorial: Expedite review of Palo Alto baylands Editorial: Expedite review of Palo Alto baylands (November 03, 2004)

Confluence of proposals, issues requires fast-tracking the update of city's Baylands Master Plan before making long-lasting decisions
As far back as the 1920s, Palo Alto began buying up parcels of land in its vast baylands.

While widely perceived as environmentally visionary, the acquisitions actually were for "refuse disposal," according to early acquisition maps of the marshes and wheatfields.

The purchases were orchestrated by longtime City Engineer John F. Byxbee, who later produced a baylands plan that included many moderate-intensity recreational uses.

Disparate uses over the years included the Municipal Golf Course, the Palo Alto Airport, the former Yacht Harbor and old Sea Scout building, a salt-water swimming pool (converted to the Palo Alto Duck Pond), the Baylands Athletic Center, the city sewage treatment plant (serving five communities), and the Baylands Nature Interpretive Center. Uses also included a huge flood basin for storm-water runoff, a World War II-era antenna field, and commercial areas -- from offices to automobile dealerships, restaurants to conference centers.

All current uses fall under the rubric of the Baylands Master Plan, last updated in 1989 with modifications in 1991.

Yet today -- more than a year before the master plan is scheduled for another update -- city officials and others are considering several major projects that will irrevocably commit the future of the baylands to certain uses in our lifetimes, and beyond.

First is the proposal to expand the recycling operation at the city dump to create a 19-acre, $12 million "Environmental Services Center." While the landfill itself is due to close in 2011, the proposed center would remain on a site adjacent to the treatment plant, on dedicated parkland.

This has split "baylands preservationists" and "sustainability" advocates in the community, and resulted in a special audit of the approval process and cost projections by City Auditor Sharon Erickson -- due out Nov. 10. The following Monday, the City Council is scheduled to review her report and decide whether to proceed with a full-blown environmental impact report -- estimated to cost $200,000 to $250,000 -- that would include all alternatives for the recycling operation.

Discussions are occurring about something smaller than 19 acres -- perhaps 10 to 12 acres -- by relocating the composting operation and bin-storage. But this still seems an excessive jump from the modest 3.5 acres initially reserved for recycling after the dump closes.

A second major initiative of baylands planning is a concept being pushed by Councilwoman Judy Kleinberg, Planning Commissioner Patrick Burt and several others, including neighborhood leaders Karen White, Doug Moran and Annette Ashton.

They are exploring a sweeping plan to redevelop virtually the entire east-of-Bayshore region. Their vision includes rebuilding the golf course smaller than its existing 180 acres -- considered generous for modern golf courses - to free up to 40 acres for more field space for the city's many baseball and soccer teams. A new clubhouse/restaurant/pro shop complex could be shared by the golfers and teams -- with appropriate separation, one presumes.

The vision would be funded by a "boutique hotel," a moderate-sized but high-end lodging that would attract golfers and others seeking a baylands/golf course viewscape. The concepts also include converting the high-vacancy office/industrial area south of Embarcadero Road to some type of housing.

No park-dedicated lands would be encroached upon, Burt and Kleinberg note, and part of the golf course might double as a flood basin to reduce winter-storm flood dangers of San Francisquito Creek -- a concept used successfully elsewhere, they note.

A third issue is whether the city should approve a high-profile new office development at Embarcadero and Bayshore Freeway, a site called "the gateway to the baylands" by some. The project stalled last month on a 4-4 council vote (which also split the council by gender), and is awaiting Kleinberg's return from vacation to be the tie-breaker next Monday.

Given the scope and potential permanence of decisions pending in the next few months, it seems urgently clear to us that the city should immediately expedite the review of the Baylands Master Plan before making binding decisions on any aspect of the region, dedicated land or not. The recycling study could proceed in the meantime.

Even contouring of the city's landfill more steeply to accommodate the recycling operation is significant: "We are building a mountain that will last a thousand years," one city official noted.

Such decisions must be made in a broad planning context, not one by one.

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