April 01, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

Glitch delays Mayfield meeting

by Jocelyn Dong

The City of Palo Alto's failure to notify about 540 property owners of an upcoming City Council meeting means another delay for the much-anticipated Mayfield deal between Stanford University and the city.

The agreement will be heard on April 25, instead of this Monday, according to Emily Harrison, assistant city manager.

The Mayfield deal would bring new soccer fields and housing to the area between Page Mill Road and California Avenue, and allow Stanford to build more facilities in the Stanford Research Park.

The glitch was discovered this week, as city staff toured one of the proposed housing sites and encountered a resident who hadn't received a mailing announcing the council meeting.

By law, the public must be notified -- particularly those within 300 feet of the project -- or the meetings are considered illegal. As a courtesy, the city sends announcements to those within 600 feet.

In looking into other similar complaints, city staff discovered that they had not received a complete mailing list from the company that provides the data, according to Wynne Furth, senior assistant city attorney. Property owners in the county areas near the Stanford Research Park -- including the Peter Coutts neighborhood and some leaseholders on Stanford land, who are treated as property owners -- were left out, Furth said.

News of the delay is frustrating the project's neighbors, who have been working for months to understand its implications and were gearing up to make their presentations at the council meeting Monday.

"That's unbelievable. It really takes the wind out of your sails," said Fred Balin, who lives across from one of the proposed housing sites and said the meeting has been postponed twice already. "It's really unfair in terms of community response when the dates keep changing around."

Balin's been heading up a petition drive to change the development agreement. He's one of two neighborhood residents leading separate efforts to amend the Mayfield deal, which was announced last December. The other neighbor, Kathy Durham, is president of the long-standing College Terrace Residents Association. Both have been urging the city to press Stanford on improved plans for the housing and for statistic on how much traffic the project will generate.

Among other issues, College Terrace neighbors hoped that Stanford will consent to limiting the housing's height to less than 50 feet and the number of units on upper California Avenue to 200.

In response, Stanford amended its original agreement to include a maximum of 209 units on upper California, instead of 250, and requiring the 50-foot-tall buildings to be at least 400 feet away from the existing neighborhood.

"Did we get exactly what we asked for on either? No," Durham said, but "I'm pleased at the direction things are taking."

Durham and the neighborhood association's board of directors also asked that Stanford promise to engage in community outreach in the coming years. Last week, a Stanford letter to Durham confirmed its commitment to future meetings.

But Balin said he didn't trust that the outreach process would benefit the neighborhood, since development will be ongoing for years and inevitably involve people from Stanford and the city who were not involved in the initial negotiations.

He is most concerned about the size and density of the homes that will be located on the 17-acre site across from his home, and wants the details spelled out now.

"What we are looking at right now with Mayfield is an impending deal," he wrote in a statement to the City Council. "After the deal is signed, our options and leverage will be greatly diminished."

About 160 people signed Balin's petition, which also called for only allowing homes built along California to have driveways exiting onto that street. Forcing other homeowners to exit on different streets would prevent additional traffic from using California, he said.

The agreement between Stanford and Palo Alto is unusual in that the council will be expected, by terms of the deal, to either approve or deny it wholesale, without further amendments. So it is questionable as to whether further lobbying of the council will change the agreement at this point.

Larry Horton, Stanford's government and community relations director, said he was unaware of any changes that would be made in the three weeks until the council meeting.

In addition to the mailing glitch, there is another wrinkle to the agreement's approval. The number of council members required to approve it is five. At least three of the nine council members -- Hillary Freeman, Dena Mossar, and LaDoris Cordell -- have conflicts of interest that prevent them from voting on Stanford-related issues.

As of press time, it was still unclear whether Victor Ojakian would be eligible to vote, since he works for HP, which leases Stanford land. The city attorney's office was awaiting final confirmation, but Furth believed he would be eligible.

The meeting's postponement is the second time this year that mailing woes have hampered city processes. In January, city staff discovered that some mailers about the upcoming storm-drain election lacked postage and failed to reach property owners by the designated deadline.

The three-week Mayfield delay could impact the construction of the playing fields, which includes two regulation-sized and one practice field. If the council were to approve the agreement on April 25, the playing space still could be ready in October, according to Steve Emslie, director of planning and community environment. After receiving an approval, Stanford would wait 90 days before beginning construction, then would expect to complete the fields in about three months.

Senior Staff Writer Jocelyn Dong can be reached at jdong@paweekly.com.

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