October 14, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

The end of 'housing everywhere'

by Jocelyn Dong

Diving headlong into the issue of how to keep housing from taking over commercial land in Palo Alto, the City Council unexpectedly banned residential development from certain areas of the city Tuesday night.

The 5-4 vote left some council members shocked at their colleagues and revealed a clash of approaches to moderating the current housing boom.

The decision prohibits housing in general manufacturing zones east of El Camino Real, which lie along Fabian Way in south Palo Alto, Page Mill Road around Agilent Technologies, and East Bayshore Road near the East Palo Alto border. Those areas are zoned for light manufacturing and warehousing purposes.

The only type of residential development allowed would be residential care homes.

Palo Alto has rarely been unwelcoming toward housing, permitting it in just about every area of town. Recent conversations between community members and city officials, however, acknowledged the need to address market shifts that favor housing growth some years and commercial growth during others. If not, the city could find itself without vital revenue, or facing unanticipated negative impacts.

Council member Yoriko Kishimoto proposed the housing ban.

"My purpose was two-fold: One was to make it clear that we did need to protect some of our commercial land for light manufacturing and warehouse business," she said. "As we have found out over the past few years, the housing market is beginning to drive out those uses."

The other reason, she said, was her desire to limit traffic in those areas until a future zone could be put in place that would not create traffic congestion. Transit-oriented development -- a type of zone the city's planning department has been working on -- could allow high-density housing but also offer incentives for those residents to use mass transit.

Her proposal gained support from Council members LaDoris Cordell, Hillary Freeman, Jack Morton and Vic Ojakian.

Council members Bern Beecham and Dena Mossar had harsh words for the decision.

Speaking of the Park Boulevard area, which has been eyed for high-density housing because of its proximity to the train station, Beecham said, "For those in the community who apparently appear to support transit, it seems at odds to reduce the density in a transit area. ... I think it may put us on a path in Palo Alto of not being willing to do what's necessary for transit -- even as we beat our chest that we want it."

Beecham called general and limited manufacturing "in some senses, obsolete," because land and labor costs are too high for those kinds of companies to locate in Palo Alto.

Beecham favored making housing a "conditional use" in general-manufacturing areas, meaning that plans for housing would need the city's approval. That approach, Beecham said, would have allowed the city to review the impacts of the development and make sure it fit in the area.

Mossar took exception to the way the proposal was made and accepted -- without public input or city review, she said.

"My biggest concern is, where was the data that was made on the decision? ... It seems to me to be an outcome with great finality and very little detail," she said.

Mossar agreed that some industrial areas ought to be preserved, but called it "premature" to exclude housing in those areas altogether.

"Just as the economy has changed overnight so commercial properties are in peril, in five years the economy might be totally different," she said.

One community member unhappy with the decision was Bruce Knoblock, who works for Essex Property Trust, a company that has been planning to build 27 townhouses on Park Boulevard. The council's action puts his project in limbo.

"I'm upset to say the least. I was shocked. That truly came out of left field," said Knoblock, who attended the council meeting. "They threw the baby out with the bathwater."

The decision was "not even in my worst case scenario. I didn't know it could go there," he said. Though he spoke briefly in front of the council Tuesday, "there were a lot of things I would have said," had he known council members could consider a ban.

The council voted to let another property owner on Park Boulevard, Harold Hohbach, proceed with his plans for a residential/commercial development, since his application has already been submitted to the city.

Other community members found the decision reasonable, however.

Developer Jim Baer said he felt there were "well-considered reasons" for preserving some areas of town for specific functions.

"It's a fair outcome with a process that could have been handled better," Baer said. He didn't feel the decision would create a wave of prohibitions on housing in other zones.

The city's next step should be to figure out how to attract those types of businesses for which land has been preserved, he said.

The council also made a second, and more moderate, decision Tuesday night, which was to make housing a conditional use in other zones in the city, including medical, office, research and other limited manufacturing zones.

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

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