Palo Alto should follow the lead of a number of other Santa Clara Valley cities and establish an urban growth boundary keeping development out of the foothills, Planning Commissioner Owen Byrd believes.
He has convinced his colleagues on the commission to tentatively reinstate language calling for an urban growth boundary into the city's new Comprehensive Plan, which is now undergoing final review by the commission.
As policy director for Greenbelt Alliance for three years, it was Byrd's job to lobby other cities to put urban growth boundaries in their comprehensive plans. He wasn't about to let it slip away in Palo Alto.
"An urban growth boundary is not a no-growth policy, it's a managed-growth policy," Byrd said. "It rightly focuses our attention for new development into our existing built area. If people want to buy a really big house in the foothills, they can--on the secondary market. But we don't need any more of them. New housing should be built in town, preferably along transit lines."
Byrd, who wasn't on the commission when the issue of a boundary first arose, said there are 30 or 40 cities in the Bay Area that have adopted or are looking at adopting urban growth boundaries.
Even San Jose, long the poster city for urban sprawl, adopted a "green line" in November to keep development out of its foothills. Morgan Hill has also adopted a growth boundary and Saratoga, Cupertino, Monte Sereno and Los Gatos are nearing adoption of a line protecting the valley's western foothills.
"Palo Alto is not Morgan Hill," Byrd acknowledges. "Our epic foothill development battles were all fought 20 and 30 years ago. So in essence establishing an urban growth boundary is really just a clean-up measure. This is not a radical step for Palo Alto. It's consistent with its history, and it's consistent with its vision for the future that is expressed in the draft Comp Plan."
While Palo Alto is not facing large growth pressures on its edges, there is still the potential for additional development in the foothills, Byrd said.
Thus, in conjunction with establishment of a growth boundary, the Planning Commission is looking at increasing the minimum lot size outside the boundary from the current one unit per 10 acres to one unit per 40 acres. "That would be consistent with the message contained in drawing an urban growth boundary," Byrd said.
Palo Alto's citizen-composed Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee originally proposed that an urban growth boundary be included in the Comp Plan.
The policy read, "The city shall join in partnership with Stanford to establish an Urban Limit Line and will enter into discussions with Stanford to obtain substantial open space protection of lands outside of this Urban Limit Line."
But the City Council removed the policy from the draft Comp Plan last year at the recommendation of city planning staff who said it would create an "unnecessary controversy" and would not mean any significant change in city policy because the city has substantially restricted urban development in the foothills and baylands for more than 20 years.
But there appears to be a change of heart among city planners now that the county's new General Plan encourages growth boundaries.
"Now that it's officially adopted county policy and many other cities are including urban growth boundaries in their comp plans, I don't think there is any reason why we shouldn't," said Chief Planning Official Nancy Lytle.
Palo Alto's growth boundary would follow the western edge of the city's long-established Urban Service Area boundary, which goes along Junipero Serra Boulevard and Deer Creek Road. Of course, Stanford University is the major property owner both in and outside that line.
Stanford, however, has been unreceptive to the idea of a growth boundary. In a recent letter to the council concerning the Sand Hill Road projects, Stanford indicates its unwillingness to discuss measures that would guarantee its foothill lands remain undeveloped. Council members have suggested such a quid-pro-quo deal in exchange for approval of the Sand Hill projects.
"We will not accept any condition related to the foothills or Coyote Hill (the open space above Deer Creek Road, just east of Highway 280) as a requirement for approval of the Sand Hill Road projects," states the letter by Stanford's Larry Horton, director of government and community affairs, and Curtis Feeny, executive vice president of the Stanford Management Company.
Why should the city adopt an urban growth boundary if it doesn't mean much of a change in policy?
Because, Byrd said, "We're a big proponent of regional cooperation and this is what the county General Plan asks us to do." It also more clearly distinguishes between lands that are appropriate for development and lands that are not.
The major change in policy would be changing the minimum lot size. But Lytle said that would only affect 10 properties in the foothills that are more than 20 acres and two of them are owned by the city. Others include 120 acres owned by the Palo Alto Hills Golf and Country Club, 77 acres owned by Stanford across the road from Arastradero Preserve, and 157-acre and 320-acre parcels owned by Kaiser Cement Corp. (on the eastern edge of Monte Bello Open Space Preserve).
--Peter Gauvin
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