The Palo Alto Planning and Transportation Commission supported the city staff’s recommendation to extend the 50,000 square foot office-cap ordinance on Wednesday. Despite concerns about its long-term effects, all five commissioners present passed the motion with little debate.
The cap — which limits annual office development in downtown Palo Alto around University Avenue, along California Avenue, and along El Camino Real — became law in September 2015. If the extension is approved by the City Council, the restriction will continue until June 30, 2018, giving time for city staff to draft a permanent ordinance.
Palo Alto community members and neighborhood groups, such as Palo Altans for Sensible Zoning, urged the council to adopt the cap in 2015 to curb heavy city growth, citing the jobs-housing imbalance and the increasing traffic congestion that it fostered.
The unanimous vote — which excluded Chair Michael Alcheck and Commissioner Ed Lauing, who were absent — marked a change in the commission’s view on the office cap. In August 2015, the commission slammed the ordinance because of its alleged unfairness to developers and slow impact.
Since the ordinance’s enactment, developers have not submitted projects totaling more than 50,000 square feet each year. Planning Director Hillary Gitelman wrote in a staff report in late March that the cap seems to have had the effect of slowing growth.
At Wednesday’s meeting, she said: “Our feeling is that this has been successful at what it originally intended to do, which is to slow the pace of office development in these three areas. I don’t know that there are other unintended consequences.”
She added that there have already been several building proposals this fiscal year, but none from major corporations.
The commission heard comments from two public speakers: Citizens Advisory Committee member Hamilton Hitchings and Palo Alto community member Bob Moss, who both advocated for expanding the office cap to apply citywide.
Moss also said the cap on square footage should be reduced from 50,000 to 40,000, adding that the number of employees “crammed into an office has increased significantly.” More employees per square foot results in more traffic and greater demand for parking — issues the ordinance was intended to address.
Commissioner Doria Summa agreed with the speakers’ proposals and said she would be “very interested” in potentially reducing the annual limit.
Later in the meeting, Commissioner Eric Rosenblum made a request for the staff to collect data on employee density and the percentage of employees using cars in Palo Alto.
The motion to extend the ordinance raised some concerns, despite the commission’s support for the staff’s recommendation. Rosenblum was adamant about his disagreement with what he called a “poor ordinance.”
“In using this tool, you put a chilling effect on development of offices,” he said. “What we want to work on is reduce the number of people who have to travel by car to their offices.”
According to Rosenblum, at the Our Palo Alto 2030 Summit held in May 2015, citizens overwhelmingly chose a hard office cap as the worst out of three options in response to a question that asked, “How do you want to account for the jobs-housing imbalance?” More than 350 Palo Altans weighed in.
“I think by going after this blunt instrument, we’ve taken our eye off the ball, and that’s the most important ball,” he said.
Rosenblum added that he supported an interim ordinance, as city staff looks into permanent recommendations.
The ordinance extension will now move to the City Council for action in September, when the council will also give feedback for modifications on the current ordinance for use in a permanent cap. Early next spring, city staff will return to the planning commission with the proposed permanent ordinance. Upon the planning commissions’ recommendation, the permanent proposal will return to the council in June.
Also approved at the meeting was a recommendation to the council to approve a conditional use permit for a medical office in “The Hamlet,” a mixed-use development of commercial and residential condominiums at 4157 El Camino Way. A community member filed a request for a hearing by the council after expressing concerns that the building complex did not fulfill usage codes, among other issues. Commissioners said they are concerned about noncompliance issues stemming from a lack of clear documentation on The Hamlet’s space allocation — the intended ratio of medical to retail offices was not maintained over the years, creating confusion — but the motion passed 4-1 with Summa opposed.
Planning Commissioner Eric Rosenblum, who is cited above as worrying about a chilling effect on new offices, works for Palantir. He should have recused himself on this matter. Palantir is already the largest tenant Downtown and apparently wants to grow further as it’s complained to the city about office caps before. So clearly it has a big interest in office caps. Why then should a paid employee of it get to vote on office caps?
We already have councilmembers under investigation for illegally trying to hide developer campaign contributions. Now this! Let’s demand our city start acting ethically instead of pandering to corporate interests.
It is important to note that Rosenblum did not work for Palantir when he was appointed to the Planning Commission. The hired him soon after his appointment.
The only “chilling effect” here is the presence of Eric Rosenblum on the PTC. He is working diligently to further the interests of Palantir, not Palo Alto. Palo Alto, or at least downtown, is rapidly becoming a one company town.
It has been written by others, but it bears repeating, Rosenblum seems oblivious to conflicts of interest.
He so clearly represents the views of his billion dollar employer, and also developers. He clearly said he doesn’t want to limit office growth.
Also, prior to her appointment to the Planning Commission Kate Downing did not disclose to the council that her husband also worked for Palantir and that she shared significant Palantir stock holdings as does Rosenblum.
“It is important to note that Rosenblum did not work for Palantir when he was appointed to the Planning Commission. The hired him soon after his appointment. “
And they were hoping people wouldn’t notice? Talk about chilling!
What we want is to focus on the primary issue – the imbalance of office workers to housing. It’s not about cars, that’s a red herring in this case. It’s about not continuing to drive up the demand for housing by building more and more office. Thank you PTC for supporting an annual growth limit (this is not a hard cap). 50,000 sq ft is well above what we build each year but this ordinance allows the city to prioritize high quality projects if multiple projects are submitted. Similar to what mountain view and other nearby cities are doing.
This is great news. We would be very hypocritical if we allowed Palo Alto office space to grow but didn’t allow housing to grow along with it.
We should be encouraging Palantir to relocate to Downtown Redwood City, Facebook’s old office in Stanford Research Park. Or better yet encouraging them to join Google near Didiron Station and enabling the re-invention of Downtown San Jose. Downtown Palo Alto needs a diversity of smaller tenants and startups whose employees add to the downtown customer base by dining at local restaurants and shopping at local retail stores instead of hiding in Palantir provided cafeterias and services.
Fine, but why is the cap set at 50,000? Why not zero? Or at any rate a much smaller amount? Palo Alto does not need a single new office. The office-to-housing ratio is already higher than just about anywhere else.
It is unethical of Rosenblum to be on this committee. He should resign immediately. He is ruining his reputation and maybe he should care about that. Palantir should move somewhere else and let small startups utilize downtown restaurants and retail.
@Norman Beamer is absolutely right. Why not set the cap at zero? We don’t need another office building. We don’t need to worsen the jobs/housing imbalance. We don’t need more commuters for the Palantir-chaired commissions to make US compensate for their commuting expenses. Let the COMPANIES pay for their employees to commute. not the residents.
Also, Mila Zelkha was hired by Palantir after she was appointed to the Public Arts Commission and right after she was appointed to the Important Comp Plan Citizens Advisory Committee. Fortunately, the city manager removed her from the CAC.
The cars-vs-jobs issue seems to me to involve at least a couple of things – traffic, obviously, but also the regional view.
On the Palo Alto traffic issue, I think you need to distinguish between the number of cars per job, and the actual number of cars. More jobs plus better transit may reduce the cars-per-job ratio, but will still likely increase the absolute car count. It’s the growth of the second one that matters when you consider Palo Alto traffic, since the capacity of our streets stays fixed. Different people may value the pros and cons differently, but it’s still more cars.
I just spent a week in Manhattan. Now, Palo Alto is not Manhattan, but Manhattan represents an interesting point on the urbanism curve. The borough’s jobs-to-employed resident ratio of about 2.8 to 1 (2013) is similar to ours, and it has one of the world’s better mass transit systems. Yet its traffic is still wretched, and its housing prices are as high as ours if not higher (example: $2000+ for my kid’s studio on the upper west side). That’s not to say we shouldn’t invest in better transit, just there’s a difference between cars and cars-per-job, and also the whole traffic issue isn’t easily fixed.
The cars-per-job number is more of a Regional consideration, because by definition you’re now talking about a broader focus than just how many cars on Palo Alto streets. Cars-per-job is more about minimizing the total vehicle miles traveled by people going to work across the region. Yet once you start looking at that, you want to start considering where in the region is actually best for job expansion. It’s not all the same; for example, San Jose’s geometry, transit infrastructure and available nearby workforce are quite a bit different from the Mid-Peninsula’s, and all these things affect commuting patterns. Again, not in itself an argument to legislate office growth to any particular place, but we ought to recognize that if there is office growth, then the social costs of that growth will vary considerably across the region, and that different people will value those costs differently. And that somebody will have to pay them.
Really good points, @Eric Filseth. I fear, though, that it won’t take much additional growth in San Jose before it’s just as suffocated as the peninsula. This web link is specifically about Mountain View, but it applies to the entire Bay Area.
http://meetingthetwain.blogspot.com/2017/07/mountain-view-work-live-commute.html
This blatant attack on Rosenblum is nonsense. When nimbys don’t agree with someone they go after them anyway they can. Rosenblum’s is IMHO the most informed and effective commissioner. He is incredibly analytical and always approaches his work in a level headed manner. The fact that he works for a corporation based in Palo Alto is an asset not a flaw. Recusal would be an issue if Palantir brought forward an application. But otherwise it’s a baloney claim. I’m disappointed that Filseth didn’t take the opportunity to clarify that. This isn’t a gray area. There are very strict rules about recusal and anyone that doubts the city attorneys dedication to enforcement of those rules should go introduce themselves to the members of the city attorneys office. Sometimes getting to know your local staff goes a long way towards eliminating assumptions that are based on blatant lack of knowledge or intentional dissemination of misinformation.
@Anke – I think @Eric Filseth is right. The current San Jose is much more equipped to handle future growth. From an intercity perspective, it has an existing VTA Light Rail, urban zoning which is setup for high rises and plans for up to 10,000 more residential units. It is also has more room to grow south to Morgan Hill, Gilroy and east to Milpitas for millennials who want to own a single family home. From an intra-city transit perspective, future San Jose is much, much better setup than the Peninsula. Instead of a single Caltrain transit line like on the Peninsula, it will have Caltrain AND BART Silicon Valley, ACE, Capitol Corridor Amtrak and High Speed Rail.
Definitely checkout these SPUR slides on San Jose Didiron:
http://www.spur.org/events/2016-11-02/what-s-next-diridon
http://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/events_pdfs/2016.11.02%20Whats%20Next%20for%20Diridon.pdf
This California HSR San Jose to Merced video is also fun. Imagine going from Gilroy to San Jose Downtown in 15 minutes.
http://www.hsr.ca.gov/Programs/Statewide_Rail_Modernization/Project_Sections/sanjose_merced.html
http://www.hsr.ca.gov/docs/about/ridership/ridership_revenue_source_doc5.pdf
@BALONEY
You could be wrong about Mr. Rosenblum. Planter has spoken at city council hearings in favor of not limiting office growth downtown. Would an employee of Palantir who was also a planning commissioner feel free to oppose his employees official position? That is the question
@Just a thought, thanks for that information. I guess I didn’t make my point very well.
“I think @Eric Filseth is right. The current San Jose is much more equipped to handle future growth.”
I do agree with that, most certainly. But the point I was trying to make is that on the current trajectory, even San Jose will quickly become overwhelmed by the exploding tech growth. Milpitas, Fremont and other cities in that region are already home to moderate-income people with Peninsula jobs (as is San Jose). If the expansion takes over Morgan Hill and Gilroy, we’ll end up with a massive region of uninterrupted urban sprawl as far as the eye can see, with traffic congestion, overcrowded trains, enormous strain on water and other resources. An example of this is the Greater Toronto Area (mitigated somewhat by being overcrowded with friendly Canadians, a benefit not available here).
To be beneficial instead of harmful, Big Tech needs to do its growing in some of the states and cities that they’re pulling people from, instead of bringing everyone here to California. (And, on another topic, we need to provide better education and training opportunities for our own young people so that new jobs added can go to locals instead of to outsiders.)
The Post reported today that at the PTC meeting Rosenblum publicly questioned the motivations of those supporting the office Cap. It’s not clear whether he was referring to his colleagues, members of the public who spoke at the meeting, or both.
The larger question is why Palantir is allowed to control so many key commissions here in Palo Alto and elsewhere around the valley. It’s clear they don’t have the residents’ best interests at heart. Or that of the community when someone like Kate Downing blatantly lies about what former Mayor Burt said and turns those lies into a national pr campaign.
Who makes and approves all these nominations?
Eric Filseth, maybe you can explain the process?
Can someone please explain how people are appointed to PA’s various commissions and why one single company is allowed to dominate them?
Why isn’t there some kind of rule or regulation to limit that kind of dominance, especially when it’s such a new company with no real roots to the community?
What is wrong with asking why a single company is allowed to dominate our commissions?
Maybe it’s time to cancel my paid subscription is that type of question is verboten for a company that’s trumpeting great local journalism.
This kind of growth throttle is highly needed in Palo Alto and I hope people will make their support clear. Allowing 50,000 sq ft in these limited areas and largely unlimited growth elsewhere is barely a speed bump. But it IS needed. If we continue to allow more office development than anything else we are doomed to low quality of life and loss of our residential nature
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