This will ultimately reduce office development by an immeasurable amount and will not make a dent in the housing crisis the entire region is in and will continue to be in unless drastic measures to boost housing are taken. This is a political win and a waste of time and resources for the citizens. The council should spend all the time they waste on this issue to solve the budget deficit. More money than ever is coming in but some how they are short $6mm...and growing. I hope the new council will tackle the problems facing PA with real, risky and long term solutions.

The idea that Council members say they want to help create housing and then proceed to ignore the housing professionals and vote to create more barriers, is only political posturing to a minority of residents who aren't actually interested in creating housing at all and are instead irrationally obsessed with office. A statement for in support of housing? What a joke.

Will these fees apply to granny units?

I wonder if the new Council will reconsider this when they start up next year. Just outrageous, with all of the housing advocates telling them they shouldn't do it, they go ahead anyway.

Bye, bye Burt.

I watched the discussion on Mid-Peninsula's Webcast...very good, lively, and informative discussion with CC members and public speakers offering their viewpoints. It sounds like there is uncertainty whether the new fees will help or hinder developments of any kind, and that the increases might have a negative effect by discouraging developers from proposing building projects of any kind in PA. That would mean less money for affordable housing. Time will tell. I liked what Liz Kniss said, however,...whatever we decide, let's give it a year, as a trial period, and then evaluate what the effects of the new fees have been at the end of that period. My thought exactly. A lot of things CC approves turn out to be grand experiments and data should be taken and written down in lab notebooks and then analyzed later to see what really happened.

"Market rate housing is so high in Palo Alto,” said Filseth, who chairs the Finance Committee. “A one-bedroom condo sells for $1 million. A difference of $10,000 or $20,000 on the fees we didn't think would make a huge impact".

I agree with that rationale. That would be a trivial cost to developers and they could easily meld it into their proposals and just pass it on to the tenants, either office or housing unit renters. So by that argument the new much higher fees shouldn't be an impediment to development. Let's just stay tuned in and watch and wait.

Why did the most pro-growth CC members (Kniss and Wolbach) vote AGAINST a measure that would increase funding for affordable housing?? Fortunately, it seemed to pass nonetheless.

@confused

Just my thoughts: I admit, I am confused also, and our CC members and PA citizens might also be confused. No shame in that because it is simply a very confusing issue and nobody has the perfect solution or can predict how the new fees will turn out. The three 'nay' voters are for more affordable housing, but not at the expense of alienating their developer friends who want to build only the most profitable projects, office and research park projects where the big profits exist. I got that. Like I said before...we just have to wait and see.

Be patient.

The Palo Alto city council insists on flunking out of Economics 101. The Buena Vista is a complete disaster. You want to always increase the supply of housing. Remember: There no such thing is as "affordable housing" only subsidized housing,which only the lucky few get. "Affordable housing" in Palo Alto is like giving those few housing in Manhattan or the biggest joke Malibu. On the internet: The end of rent control . . . Malibu the crash . . . George Drysdale a social studies teacher

To clarify what we did at the Council meeting Monday night - we adopted the recommendations of Staff, the Finance Commitment and a some changes suggested by the PTC to increase impact fees on market rate development. We took the advice of the PTC and lowered the impact fees on Market Rate rental housing. All of these development fees are used to raise money to build affordable housing.

We should maximize the number of Below Market Rate (BMR) housing units as opposed to the percentage of BMR units in new projects. This requires having the funds for construction - our current housing impact/linkage fees are too low to enable us to actually build affordable housing. These new fees were studied for over a year and are far below the economic impact of the development in our city. As Mayor Burt pointed out office rents in PA are more than 2X higher than other bay area cities. Our impact fees should be higher as well.

Palo Alto used to lead on affordable housing impacts caused by development. We have fallen behind and this fee update is an important step. It’s a piece of the puzzle, not a solution on its own.

Some of the comments suggest that housing advocates were all against raising impact fees on office development. This is not true. I had several affordable housing advocates tell me they supported the nexus study and the suggested increases to rates. If other cities on the peninsula follow us, we should see more affordable housing throughout the area.

It is true that people that wanted more office development were against raising the office impact fee. It’s time for us citizens to start to distinguish between those people that want to promote ALL forms of development whether good for the community or not versus those that truly want to build affordable housing.

Thank you Tom. I am strongly supportive of this rate hike. We need affordable housing for city employees and seniors. We do not need commercial development. We do not need high-priced housing. We have enough of both! This is exactly the kind of incentive/disincentive that we need to change the balance. I really hope the new City Council understands this.

Back at it again...someone posts and I feel a need to respond...so I post back. Isn't this fun?

@John...I'm sure it will, at least I hope so.

@Tom Dubois..."Some of the comments suggest that housing advocates were all against raising impact fees on office development. This is not true. I had several affordable housing advocates tell me they supported the nexus study and the suggested increases to rates. If other cities on the peninsula follow us, we should see more affordable housing throughout the area". Yes, and the final vote on the main motion indicated that, I think.

@Eric Filseth...I agree that the impact of the fee increases should not be a deterrent or a deciding factor in developers' minds of wanting to propose or proceed with a project. They are smart people and can bury that cost in many different ways.

Now, I have a question that I know there's enough data available to answer, and city staff should have it.

Go back to the last 3 years of development of all kinds in PA. Quantify and compare the revenues from fees from those projects with current rates, to what they would have been with the new rates. Then, assuming the same level of development going forward, with the new rates, how much money would we see coming into our city's coffers in a 3 year period? How much affordable housing would that buy?

You must know be by now. I ask some tough questions.

"Why did the most pro-growth CC members (Kniss and Wolbach) vote AGAINST a measure that would increase funding for affordable housing??"

It hits their friends the office developers.

@Gale...if granny units are charged a fee to be used to build affordable housing, then granny units may not be built in the first place. This is a self defeating mission. I am toying with the idea of putting a granny unit on my lot, but I won't do it if I am charged the development fee for affordable housing.

@ Dan Gold Palo Alto

We are well aware of your contributions to Palo Alto but explain to me this. How can Council members use support for housing as a front when by their actions it seems that they are more interested in protecting the real estate interests and property value of a small elite few?

Whats more important in the end. The rise of property value? Or allowing more people to live here who contribute to the towns economy.

I had missed this thread earlier. Reading Tom DuBois's comment now makes me realize that I do not agree with him at all. I had been on his side when he posted the editorial about the council hijacking the Jan 30 meeting. Now seeing his comments about building new affordable housing and maximizing the number of BMRs makes me realize that he is no different than the other members of the council. Even he is looking to increase traffic and congestion. Sheesh. Recalling the others and keeping Tom or his ilk won't really improve matters.