Downtown Palo Alto housing project scores key victory

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A contentious proposal to build a four-story building with apartments and office space on University Avenue eked out a narrow victory April 18 when a divided Architectural Review Board voted to advance the plan over neighbors’ objections.

The proposal from Smith Development would bring 63 apartments and 9,115 square feet of office space to 660 University Ave., between Middlefield Road and Byron Street. The applicants proposed the project in 2021 as a “planned home zoning” application, a highly discretionary process that allows developers and the city to bargain over zoning exemptions and public benefits. In this case, the benefit is housing.

This haggling over development standards was on full display at the April 18 meeting, where board members clashed over what to require before voting 3-2 to advance the project. Commissioners David Hirsch and Yengxi Chen both dissented after their suggestions to significantly modify the design of the proposed building failed to win support.

Critics of the project pushed back against the Smith plan and maintained that the new development would be disruptive to the neighborhood and potentially damaging to a large coast live oak tree near the project site. While the developer and its arborist pledged to protect the tree, neighbors argued that the plans should be revised to move construction further away from the oak.

At the head of the opposition was Christopher Ream, head of the housing association at The Hamilton, a condominium community for seniors that shares the block with the project site. Ream contended that under the city’s technical tree manual, applicants need to provide a tree protection zone — an area into which construction must not intrude — with a radius equivalent to 10 times the tree’s diameter. In this case, the zone should be 41 feet. The Smith plans call for a zone of 30 feet.

He also suggested that the new development, which will feature balconies and a roof deck, will prove disruptive to the area and may even pose a hazard because of the protrusion of balconies into the area above the sidewalks.

“I think there’s going to be a lot of partying, there’s going to be a lot of young singles, drinking beer out on the balconies,” Ream said. “If you drop a beer bottle, it’s going to hit somebody on the sidewalk. It is a dangerous situation that I don’t think you should tolerate.”

Resident Carol Gilbert agreed and asserted that the proposed building is too ambitious for the site. So did Faith Brigel, who owns a one-story Victorian building on Byron Street, near the project site. The project will “change the nature of Palo Alto” by worsening the parking situation and adding noise to a neighborhood that already has numerous residential communities, she said.

“We already have a lot of large buildings in that area but this one is humongous,” said Faith Brigel, near the project site. “It is very, very large.”

But housing advocates and the majority of the board asserted that the proposal is exactly what the area needs — a dense residential project in a transit-friendly environment. Even though Palo Alto’s development pipeline is now populated with multi-family developments and “builder’s remedy” applications that collectively include more 2,000 units, nearly all are concentrated in the south end of the city, either along El Camino Real or near San Antonio Road. The Smith plan is one of just a handful that is in the north.

Furthermore, while many of the other multi-family development proposals are looking to smash through the city’s 50-foot height limit by proposing projects with eight stories or more, the one planned for 660 University Ave. would be four stories with a height of 50 feet 5 inches for most of the building and 62 feet 8 inches at its highest point.

The project will include two levels of underground parking and 13 of its 63 apartments would be designated as affordable housing for various income levels.

Amie Ashton, a downtown resident and executive director of Palo Alto Forward, said she looks forward to seeing this project go up close to her home. She encouraged the board to give it the green light.

“The recent architectural and spatial changes have made this into a really lovely project for this area,” Ashton said. “I’m looking forward to seeing this corner revitalized.”

The board also received assurances from Smith’s consulting arborist, David Baedy, that the oak would be protected. The provision that Ream cited is a guideline, not a mandatory requirement, Baedy told the board. Given the city’s tree-protection provisions and the requirements for regular tree inspection, Baedy said he was confident that the tree would not be endangered.

“Coast live oaks are quite tolerant to the impacts to canopy and to roots,” Baedy said.

The board ultimately advanced the project, but not before adding a list of conditions that would require some redesigning. Board members agreed that the tree protection zone should be at least 33 feet at grade level and 30 feet above grade level and mandated that the developer take out a bond set at 200% of the tree’s appraised value. The board also asked that Smith remove the balconies in the apartments that would project into the canopy.

The board also required Smith to revise the foundation design to maintain a setback of at least 10 feet along Middlefield Road. Chen argued for a wider setback so as to not preclude Palo Alto’s tentative plans for a future bike lane on Middlefield.

“If it’s too close, we might eliminate the flexibility in the future,” Chen said after voting against the project.

Hirsch, meanwhile, lobbied for Smith to redesign the building to make it taller on the two sides and to expand the setback at the back of the property, near the tree.

But for Chair Peter Baltay, Vice Chair Kendra Rosenberg and Board member Mousam Adcock, the benefits of the project outweighed its impacts. Rosenberg acknowledged that the development will have numerous long-term consequences that go well beyond the project site.

“It’s setting a precedent,” Rosenberg said. “This project sets a precedent for new setbacks, for how we want building in the downtown and how important new housing is for us,” Rosenberg said. “That’s what we’re all struggling with.

“This is a project that means a lot,” she added. “It’s got a significant impact on neighbors, on trees and on the downtown area. And I think that we as a board are really being tasked with: Do we think this is the direction that the city wants to go?”

For the board majority, the answer was a resounding yes. Adcock and Baltay both observed that the project has already undergone significant revisions during the planning process. Both were loath to demand the types of substantial revisions that Chen and Hirsch had proposed.

“This project has been two years in the making and we definitely need to get this type of project approved,” Baltay said.