Palo Alto commission defends ‘planned community’ zoning

How many of us residents really care what this planning commission thinks? This commission is heavily involved in the development. While all live in Palo Alto—that’s about the extent of these people’s links to the community. This panel is selected by the City Council, without any visible concurrence by the voters, or the residents. These people are more-or-less free to say anything they want, about anything they want—without any consequences.

Occasionally, a P&TC member rubs someone on the CC the wrong way, and those individuals are not reappointed. But it’s hard to find any evidence that the CC has demanded a Commission member to resign, for cause.

Conflict of interest is always a problem with this particular panel—given that they tend to give the green light to most of the development projects that come before their scrutiny. We have to trust them—which is increasingly more difficult to do, particularly in like of the Karen Holman situation.

As to the continuation of PC zoning—what makes any of these people experts on the impact of PC zoning? Certainly from the point-of-view of developers, PC means “more flexibility” to be sure, but it also means “more profit”. Which leaves us with the question: how much is this panel concerned about Palo Alto, and its future, and how much is this panel concerned about increasing the profits of the industry with which they are often employed?

The failure of the City to be able to determine the value of a public benefit, or to enforce the public’s access to those benefits on the property zoned PC is well-known. This panel has never seemed to have a problem with developers making hard-to-believe claims, and then once the project is approved, walking away from those promises.

Palo Alto will get along just fine without PC zoning. It’s long past time for it to be removed from our zoning codes.

It was my understanding that the property in front of Cafe Riace remained public property, and that, if you wanted to,say, toss(or kick) a ball around or walk your dog (properly leashed, of course), you could do so. Your only restriction would be concern for the safety of other individuals using the property at the same time, same as the sidewalk. Please correct me if I’m mistaken.

Commissioner Alcheck said something memorable: If the public doesn’t like what is proposed, they can Referend it.
Attorney Alcheck knows very well how much work is required to Referend anything — collecting many signatures, legal filings, and expensive publicity to inform the voters.
The duplicity in Alcheck’s statement is noteworthy.
He also mentioned that he had been involved in a PC application but didn’t specify. Perhaps for the Alcheck Properties company.

Unfortunately the pro-developer majority on the city council have in recent years appointed members whose professional affiliations and allegiances tend to align with their own.

@Commission watcher”

You have mis-characterized my comments and while I typically don’t comment on these forums, someone brought it to my attention and suggested I should correct you.

Last night I made the case that the City Council should have the sole authority to initiate a PC review. Since PC projects are particularly controversial, I suggested that our City Council members, who are directly elected and accountable to the residents of Palo Alto, are the more appropriate body to determine whether such projects should be considered. Under the current law, the PTC can initiate a PC Review. However, my fellow Commissioners disagreed suggesting they wished to retain greater control over this process.

I certainly appreciate the amount of effort that went into the referendum on Maybell. There will always be varied opinions about our developments, but thankfully we have a system that allows residents to unwind any decisions that they overwhelmingly disagree with. That is an important check on the system. As I suggested above, having the City Council oversee the initiation process would provide even more accountability in my opinion. I was not suggesting that the referendum process be the community’s sole source of input or oversight.

To be clear, the goal of our review last night (and on two previous occasions) of the PC process is ultimately to suggest fixes to the process. I believe that once the City Council provides more clarity regarding the definition of public benefits in the code, the Commission will be in a much better position to advise and articulate community input on whether PC proposals satisfy the code requirements. It is easy to underestimate the difficulty we encounter when evaluating a public benefit when no legal definition is provided. That being said, one could argue that in the past 14 years, this lack of clarity has not resulted in a plethora of disastrous projects. Nonetheless, moving forward, I continue to advocate for greater direction from our elected leaders.

Finally, I would also like to clarify that I have never been involved in a PC project in Palo Alto in any capacity, other than as a Commissioner reviewing the two proposals that have come before us during my tenure. What I said last night was that while I have never been involved in a PC personally (or professionally), I have heard many complaints from project applicants that the process lacks clarity of what’s demanded of them and the lack of certainty is unwelcome. This is yet another reason Palo Alto’s leadership is reviewing the PC Zoning process – nearly every party to the PC process is unsatisfied with the current model.

Hope that sets the record straight. For even more clarity, check the transcribed minutes from last night’s meeting once they are published online.

The problem with PC zoning was highlighted by the defeat of Measure D. More of us residents were awakened to the fact that the current council, and the planning commissioners they appoint, have ties to developers. And the developers have certainly taken advantage of PC zoning.

The only solution is to elect candidates who will stand up for residents. But beware, even Scharf and Sheppard are claiming to be residentialists and they have the strongest ties to developers. Ask yourself “What have the candidates actually done to support the residents by their actions, not their words, in the past?”

Commissioner Alcheck’s suggestion should be the other way around: each PC should require a public referendum for its initial approval, instead of to reverse it.

Since referendums are so easy, there should be no problem getting voter approval of projects with clear public benefits.

Have we heard this before?

Council appoints the commissioner mouthpieces – treating them as some sort of planning experts – which they are not, and then accepts whatever they say.

How do we change the commissioner system – other than changing Council all the time.

Using PC to loot the CIty to do developer charity is not a good idea. There are many much more worthy causes.

Either get rid of PC zoning or require every PC zoning request be approved by referendum. Rosenblum claims that of the 20 or so PC projects since 2000 very few have been a problem. No it’s the other way around, of the 20 or so projects very few have provided any public benefit. PC zoning should be the exception and not the norm. To make sure it’s the exception, it should require a referendum for approval.

>They noted that in the vast majority of cases, the designation has enabled the city to add important amenities, such as affordable housing….

There we go again, folks: The subsidized housing uber planners are driving the PC process. Just removed all elements of subsidized housing, then watch most of the PC projects get abandoned.

How about that. The Planning Commission defends the “planned community zoning!”
We also have the fox defending the henhouse and the cat carefully caring for the mice.

“by which voters overturned the council’s approval of a housing development on Maybell Avenue that included 60 apartments for low-income seniors.”

Why does the media continue to use this politically charged, lopsided description?

The voters DIDN’T overturn the Council’s approval of a housing development on Maybell. Voters didn’t approve the Council’s increasing the density, height limits, daylight plane, underparking significantly, etc. The voters had nothing to say about whether the property could have 60 units for low-income seniors, because the ordinance had nothing to do with allowing or not allowing that, in fact, many neighbors favored PAHC coming back with a plan for those units closer to zoning, which they could have done if they had been willing to spend closer per unit to what was paid at 801 Alma, or they had been willing to be on a different time schedule in which they sold in-zoning single-family homes around the perimeter rather than just the upzoned property for the sake of a stack-and-pack developer.

I mean, really, why is this never described as, “in which the voters overturned the approval of a housing development on Maybell that included 2- and 3-story for-profit houses on 2,000 square foot lots in an R-1 residential neighborhood? The for-profit portion was after all on the majority of the property. It would be equally inaccurate, though, the ordinance at issue was for violating the ZONING, not for approving or disproving a project. And in fact, the vote was not to overturn Council’s approval of anything, but rather to give Council a chance to get the people to approve what they did. Council’s ordinance never technically went through because of the referendum.

The city council and the various city commissions and the city manager are a bunch of crooks. They are aligning themselves with unscrupulous developers so that when they leave their city posts, they can line their pockets with money. What a disgrace our city government has become. City Hall is tone deaf and defiant.

As long as Karen Holman is selling influence for Dollars (…er, “finders fees”), we have a corruption problem.

And let’s face it, a small patio is not much of a public benefit – many are simply privatized benefits in disguise.

Here is a suggestion – the council should develop a shopping list of public needs: parking, police station, blue-ribbon infrastructure projects we already know we need. The public can vett this liist, and it is built with cost estimates transparently.

The developers negotiate from the list. Eliminate developer – suggested “public good” and eliminate back room dealmaking by Holman.

You want a variance, pick from the list and defend it on a public forum. If the public doesn’t like your project, you can pick a more expensive item from the list.

If the real public good is too expensive for you, poss off.

Even better we could short list a few projects an let them compete for projects from the list.

Open systems of negotiation and auction undercut the corruption of. “Handout” Holman.

I would personally support continuing the PC designation but ONLY with a list of REAL public benefits. For example, Heritage Park at the site of the old PAMF location is a real benefit. A public plaza that reverts to being used by a nearby restaurant is not a benefit. The goofy save JJ&F requirement is not a benefit, that building should simply be required to be built under existing zoning.

Things like a new, real park (not a 1000 square foot patch of grass), a new public safety building, a new school site, etc. are real public benefits. A small, unavailable conference room or a grocery store that will probably never succeed and will revert to some other use, not much of a benefit.

@Palo Alto res,
I thought Heritage Park happened after a citizen initiative because residents were promised a park but didnt get it? It’s before my time, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t nicely materialize as a public benefit.

Developers should have to take a propopsal to the public and win a 2/3 vote. If it’s really a public benefit, likely to materialize, then the public will agree. Perhaps a less formal but fully inclusive process could be put in place that doesnt cost as much as an election. Woukdn’t it be great to give major feedback along the way?

Unfortunately most of the City Council and Planning Commission members are very pro development. They care not how ugly or what sort of impact a proposed project will have on a near y neighborhood, especially if the neighborhood is south of Oregon/Page Mill.
We need to stop dumping all of the high density, below market rate developments in this one area. Try to find a new area for ugly, overly dense projects–perhaps east of Middlefield and north od Churchill. We do not want any more projects such as those currently being built along El Camino in the Barron Park/Ventura and south areas.
Stop trying to turn Palo Alto into a low income ghetto.
We do not need to build every high density project that some developer wants to put into Palo Alto.

@ Jerry Underdal,

“The voters overturned the Council’s approval of a housing development on Maybell that included 60 apartments for low-income seniors <because> they didn’t approve the Council’s increasing the density, height limits, daylight plane, underparking significantly, etc.?
That would represent one point of view in the debate, wouldn’t it?”

That wouldn’t be correct either.

The action of the City Council, necessary in an ordinance, was to change the zoning. That’s it. The developer was always able to put senior affordable housing in there within the zoning rules, there was no need to create an ordinance to allow it.

In San Francisco, where they have an impartial ballot process, a nearly identical measure ballot question asked only whether to pass the ordinance allowing the developer to violate the height limit by 80 feet. That’s it. There was lots of other stuff in the ordinance, including millions for affordable housing. But the the ballot question dealt only with the change of law, and thus the media also appropriately discusses what the measure was about. Gavin Newsome and Ed Lee were free to get on TV and say what they wanted about it as political speech. But it was not legal for them to advocate for the election in the ballot by bringing up stuff in that didn’t require an act of law to achieve – the developer was always free to give SF $12 million for affordable housing if he wanted, for example, it didn’t require an ordinance.

If we had the same impartial standard, the ballot would have dealt only with the ordinance – the change of law – the zoning violations. Many people still believe the City was voting on whether it would be possible to allow a low-income senior apartments there, as if it required some change of law in a city that otherwise doesn’t allow it. This has the impact of continuing to create divisions and frankly to be demoralizing for housing advocates, unnecessarily making it seem like PA is a hostile place for low-income people and becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy everytime it gets repeated.

The ordinance was necessary to allow the violation of zoning rules, not because the City had a rule against building affordable housing. That should never have been the feature of the ballot question, especially since it was even on only a minority of the property. The media should not be perpetuating the negativity of what amounts to illegal bias by the City Council in a ballot.

I agree with @words matter. If you call a spade a spade–people will know exactly what you are talking about. If you call it a pre-automated digging device, that may be true, but it’s not clear.

The English language gives us all the tools to provide a precise description of just about anything in this world.

Mayfield was a two-part process for the Council. A zoning change, and then a project approval. Certainly having the zoning change overturned by the voters effectively killed the project at that location, but it did not do anything more.

Jerry Underall constantly wants to politicize this Mayfield situation into things that it is not. Using simple, clear, English, to describe events is one way to thwart people like Underhill from recoloring events to his own views, rather than what they are, or were.

I thought Jerry Underdal said before the election on the Maybell project that we should all accept the results of the election and then move on to something else. Now Underhall has consistently used this forum to continue to raise the issue of that election. Maybe Underhall meant to say that we should only accept the results of the election if the voters approved Measure D, but we should continue to argue what Measure D was about when the voters defeated the Maybell project.

@Joe and Jerry Underdal,

It’s really important for the media to get this right, because they are the 4th estate. Our City had undue influence in the drafting of elections material because the City Attorney was able to draft the elections question and “impartial” description of the measure for the ballot. This is like the fox building the hen house with plans to oversee the hens. This was stopped, and yet the media are still talking about this as if those who stopped it are against farmers having hens.

It was deemed by an elections analysis to be such gross bias for the City to call this a ballot question over senior housing that it was probably illegal. The ballot question was not a decision over senior housing, it was not a decision over low-income housing. Nobody was voting whether to put in senior housing or not. It was not a decision over a plan or a development. It was merely a decision over a specific zoning change at that location, and it should have been described as such in the ballot question and subsequent media articles. To do anything else is to interpret into the situation a malice like Jerry Underdal has, which has torn the community apart and prevented neighbors from coming together collaboratively for solutions.

Neighbors asked for a working group as an alternative, and it was not a hollow offer as the very same neighbors had been involved in saving Terman School from development while also ensuring the 92-unit affordable Terman Apartmetns were built. Put in other words, if the election was lost, the affordable senior housing was not forbid from being built there, it could have been built there under a different plan. The media should not be continuing to report what happened using utterly inaccurate and divisive shorthand.

While I respect Gennady Shayner, it’s also lazy, bad journalism to keep describing it this way when it is also technically incorrect. It’s not even calling a spade by another name, it’s more like talking about a board’s voting about a director’s raise by some part of the director’s intended use of his personal money, as in: In November, the board voted to approve the director’s first-class tickets to Tahiti, or In December, the board voted against the director’s mortgage payments for the year. The board was merely voting on the raise; the director may have been interested in using some of it to benefit others and more of it to benefit a large for-profit endeavor, but that’s his business.

Likewise, our town was never voting on the project, on the senior housing (which was only on a minority of the property anyway), on the way it was being financed, anything. The vote was simply on whether the ordinance to change the zoning was to be allowed, and that’s it.

If the media had reported about it truthfully and accurately, it would have been far easier for the public to grasp that it is possible for reasonable people to disagree about a specific course without being against the intent of the plan itself. Which could have been realized with further negotiation if those things hadn’t been conflated. The divisions and misconceptions created by that inaccurate description of what happened at Maybell continue to hurt relationships in the community, relationships and synergies that could benefit the community far more than any developer’s hollow promises.

But yes, many people realized in the course of waging the referendum that would have consequences to power dynamics in the City. Residents realized it was necessary to win or City Hall would continue to act as if it knew there were no checks and balances by the citizenry, having used the same exact ballot biasing tactic at High Street, which kept citizens from challenging City Hall for a long time — at Maybell, residents were also told repeatedly they couldn’t win.

So again, the media should find another way to describe Measure D. I think if they examined the ethics and standards they are supposed to live by, they can.

>you sweeten the pot with some attractive incentives for the neighborhoods to consider in the next round of voting. Fail again, sweeten the pot again–at some point a neighborhood will realize that it’s getting a good deal and vote yes.

If the incentive is sweet enough (e.g. all property taxes cut in half in that neighborhood) it might work. However, if it is just something like an improved park, I doubt it. I wonder what it would take for the elite neighborhoods to agree to accept subsidized housing? The point is that the voters in the neighborhood are allowed to decide the matter, not the council and the subsidized housing advocates.

” but thankfully we have a system that allows residents to unwind any decisions that they overwhelmingly disagree with. “

This is the wrong way around. For PC zoning, only those the voters overwhelmingly AGREE with should go forward.

The city needs to bring ALL PC zoning proposals to the public and not make these important decisions on their own. Given the lack of visibility we’ve had into those decisions, they can’t be trusted

Forcing all PC zoning changes onto the ballot is the only way to provide an effective “check” against the zoning. Would it mean that far less PC zoning’s get approved and cost a lot more? Probably. That would be the cost of making the zoning change. At least the changes that do get approved would have the backing of the residents as opposed to the backing a small group of people in a back room.

“The city needs to bring ALL PC zoning proposals to the public and not make these important decisions on their own. Given the lack of visibility we’ve had into those decisions, they can’t be trusted “

I couldn’t agree more! ALL PC decisions should be left up to a referendum of PA citizens.

Can anyone share a link to the comprehensive database of all of the PC Public Benefits?

“Can anyone share a link to the comprehensive database of all of the PC Public Benefits?”

PC Public Benefits? Any blank screen will do.

Just try selling a home in a planned community–they are considered undesirable by real estate agents and buyers alike.

To get out of ours, we had to sell below market. The detractions, buyers told us were the noise, pollution from cars and railroad, lack of privacy lack of space, bad location ( too close to retail!). Took two years to get out of this place we originally though was such a great idea–very, very expensive lesson.

Such developments are to be avoided like the plague!