May 27, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

Mayfield opponents: It's not over

by Bill D'Agostino

On Wednesday, the City of Palo Alto put out a press release saying that Stanford University could begin in September building soccer fields for the community, part of a complex real estate deal the City Council approved Tuesday night.

Not so fast. Opponents of the agreement, including residents in the College Terrace neighborhood and in Los Altos Hills, plan to put up a fight.

"We're looking into a number of options," Los Altos Hills resident Kim Cranston said Wednesday, refusing to be specific. "I don't think last night is the end of it."

At the heart of the dispute is the project's environmental analysis. College Terrace neighbors don't believe the traffic section of that sprawling document, which showed the project will lessen the amount of traffic in the neighborhood. Los Altos Hills residents, meanwhile, are unhappy that same section shows a need for unwanted traffic lights on Arastradero Road.

The dissenters' options appear to be either a referendum to place the deal's approval in front of Palo Alto voters or a lawsuit challenging the analysis.

Either route is likely to be vigorously opposed by Palo Alto coaches who say playing fields are badly needed in the community and have supported the deal since its inception. The League of Women Voters of Palo Alto also endorses the project, especially the associated low-income housing units.

Under the agreement, dubbed the "Mayfield deal," Stanford University agrees to build new soccer fields on the corner of Page Mill Road and El Camino Real, which it will lease to Palo Alto for $1 a year for 51 years. Stanford will also construct 250 units of housing on El Camino Real and on California Avenue, including up to 70 low-income units.

In exchange, the university will get guaranteed rights to relocate 300,000 square feet of office space in the Stanford research park, off Page Mill Road.

The latest acrimony surrounding the deal puts another dark spot on an agreement that was announced two years ago amidst much fanfare. Last month, the deal's approval faced a slight delay when the city learned it had failed to adequately notify 540 neighbors in the Peter Coutts neighborhood.

On Tuesday night, the council voted 5-1 to conclusively approve the deal, with only Councilwoman Yoriko Kishimoto voting against. It was the same tally as in early May, when the council first awarded its approval. The deal needed five "yay" votes, so if any council member had changed his or her mind, the agreement could have been delayed or even shattered.

Three councilwomen -- Dena Mossar, Hillary Freeman and LaDoris Cordell -- could not vote due to conflicts of interest.

More than a dozen Los Altos Hills residents came to Tuesday's meeting. They said traffic coming from the relocated offices would lead to traffic signals being placed at two intersections of Arastradero Road -- at Deer Creek Road and Hillview Avenue.

Last week, the Los Altos Hills City Council voted unanimously to ask Palo Alto to holdup the project's approval and allow its residents to comment on the environmental analysis. That report determined that traffic at the intersections would need to be "mitigated" using the stoplights, in three to five years.

But halting the approval would also have delayed the construction of the playing fields. "If there had been a way to do and not prevent those playing fields from happening, I would have certainly been willing to do that myself," said Vice Mayor Judy Kleinberg, who was considered the swing vote.

The Los Altos Hills City Council also complained in a letter to Palo Alto that although its residents were given written notices about the agreement, the notice did not specifically mention how the deal would impact its residents.

Mayor Mike O'Malley noted that the town currently has only two traffic signals, both at Foothill College. Another Los Altos Hills resident, Terman Middle School PTA President Martha Bowden -- who drives along Arastradero Road six to 12 times a day shuffling her children to and fro -- worries about the safety of school commuters.

"Traffic lights give the appearance of a major arterial, not a rural country road," she said.

City Manager Frank Benest noted that even without the relocated offices, the signals would likely be necessary at the intersections due to regional traffic growth. City officials also insisted they would conduct outreach to the neighbors and ensure the traffic lights were needed at the intersections, which both currently have stop signs, before installing them.

But that didn't mollify distrusting Los Altos Hills residents. "We feel that this thing is just being rammed down our throats," said Vince Lu, who wore a green soccer jersey to the meeting to show he wasn't anti-soccer.

Some College Terrace residents, who earlier had collected 261 signatures protesting the project, were feeling similarly put upon. They claimed the traffic analysis was flawed and used incorrect assumptions.

Fred Balin, a computer consultant who's been leading the charge, seemed to be leaning toward a legal challenge over a referendum, noting that a lawsuit would not necessarily immediately halt the construction of the playing fields.

"We're evaluating the options to see if either or both is suitable," he said.

The analysis, which the city defends, shows that the neighborhood's traffic would improve due to the deal since the existing office buildings on California Avenue would generate more traffic than the new housing constructed on the sites.

By fighting, the dissenting College Terrace neighbors are risking the possibility that a larger housing project could be constructed if the deal is nullified. The preexisting zoning allowed for more housing units than the agreement permits.

The complex deal was originally negotiated with the university in secret two years ago by the city manager and a City Council subcommittee.

Councilman Vic Ojakian, who serves on the subcommittee, is an employee with Hewlett Packard, which is located in the Stanford Research Park. But an outside attorney hired by the city ruled Ojakian's employment wasn't enough of a financial conflict to force him to abstain from the issue.

Two years ago, shortly after the deal was announced, it was learned that Ojakian and Councilman Bern Beecham, who also serves on the subcommittee, accepted free tickets to Stanford sporting events.

Beecham accepted such tickets again last year, although Ojakian refused them.

Staff Writer Bill D'Agostino can be e-mailed at bdagostino@paweekly.com.

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