This is an awful mass displacement of more Palo Alto renters and a loss of the affordable housing. The median rent there is $1900 a month - compare that to the studio rents at the newly approved VTA lot at Page Mill and ECR - $3000 a month.
So we are now losing more housing than that just approved at the VTA lot. And what we are losing is actually affordable as opposed to that at the VTA, including its so called workforce housing.
The City should throw every road block it has in the way of this going through and short of that, wring out every relocation concession legally possible. Some have lived there for decades.
And 6 on the City Council refused to even discuss more renter protections to add to those we have - shame on you! Renters make up 44% of residents in town. Remember that in November - Tom DuBois wanted to discuss more protection for renters- Cory Wolbach did not and voted to kill doing so. I’m voting for Tom, not Cory and every renter should do likewise.

I'm glad they're turning this back into a hotel.

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This should be a reminder to the city that we need more protections for renters and more apartments near transit. How could anything that reduces the number of high density, transit oriented housing be approved right now? We all know there is a serious housing shortage.

And if renter protections had been seriously considered this year then these tenants might have been able to negotiate space in a renovated building nearby or realistic relocation assistance.

Private property sells. Displacement is a consequence that can be tragic.

But to be clear, the issue is supply. We need to increase supply. I honestly don't understand what Dubois is doing suggesting sweeping rent control, without even being open to compromise. It's such a political stunt.

You want to address the problem, create incentives to build more. We need more housing. More supply. You all think that the efforts imposed to thwart the "developers" are somehow hurting them. But in reality, the process is so broken that every developer's project that comes online does so in a virtual monopoly - setting new records in the sales process.

Let's allow every R1 parcel to be rebuilt as a duplex (convert R1 to R2). Who knows, if 25% of our R1 parcels became sites for two families over the next decade we'd make good progress to overcoming this crisis.

Here we go again! Joe Simitian better start pulling together public funds to save this "affordable" housing stock. It was done for Buena Vista so why not for these apartments? Maybe the current residents are not diverse enough to warrant a public handout.

So long as commercial uses are more profitable than housing, large amounts of housing won't be built. (And as in this case, some housing will be converted to commercial use.)

Rezoning won't have any significant effect. You can already see this all around the valley, where new mixed-use developments could include lots more housing, but developers are choosing to build overwhelming amounts of commercial space instead.

The key to fixing this situation is to change the economic incentives to favor housing over commercial uses. That could take many forms -- head taxes, cap-and-trade system for development rights, ordinances for housing-neutral development, etc. But don't forget the additional infrastructure investment all this new population will require.

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Zoning is actually a major source of the housing problem. There is extremely high demand for housing right now, to say that it's not profitable to build it ludicrous.

Web Link

Palo Alto will never be naive enough to enact Rent Control. It has a proven track record of hurting the communities and demographics it is supposed to protect---->Reducing mobility, lack of investment in housing, increased homeless, lack of incentive for repair...thats another can of worms....my question is why is Tom Dubois pushing for rent control when he knows it will never pass? Looks like a talking point for his re-election campaign...

maybe we should build more apartment buildings like this! The hotel president would be illegal to build under today's zoning, and yet it is EXACTLY the type of housing we need! I could care less it's becoming a hotel --> JUST BUILD MORE HOUSING.

Does it require a change in zoning for this apartment building to become a hotel? If so? The answer is simple. Don’t change the zoning. Didn’t they have to change the zoning to convert the hotel into apartments?

Unfortunately, the chances of this are nil due to the huge increase in income to the city from TOT hotel tax. The city administration will do anything to keep their overly generous pension plan funded.

Is there any protection for this historically significant building, designed by Borge Clark?

They could offset this loss by tightening restrictions on Air bnb units, by enforcing current zoning restrictions or by implementing a new ordinance as they did in SF limiting Air bnb rentals. But again, since Air bnb collects TOT for the city, the interests of city employees will most likely win out over the interests of the city residents.

One way to change this is to vote for Tom Dubois and not to vote for Cory Wolbach. Look how they voted, not what they say.

It is so sad to see longterm housing go away.

Rents are so high because of speculation from investment companies, not because of lack of supply. Housing is not like other products, it is treated more like the stock market and speculation is key. YIMBY, and others, do not understand this. When has trickle-down economics ever worked? YIMBYs want to make us believe that by adding more housing the value of those new housing units will trickle down to lower rents, but trickle-down housing works as good as trickle-down economics during the Reagan era. It is terribly distressing seeing these so-called "liberals" proclaim trickle-down economics is the solution for our region's housing issue. I also echo comments made regarding Wolbach's decision to not even study the issue of renter protection. It is clear he is for developers, and against us renters. I will surely vote against him in the fall.

Profiles,

The basic point you are missing is that speculation/investment in housing is profitable because governments limit the supply of housing so tightly. Governments need to rebalance the supply of housing and commercial.

Commercial spaces/land need to be converted to residential, not just the reverse.

Rent control will not be successful in the long-term.

@Marie: About the zoning, the parcel is zoned CD-C (commercial downtown - community) which permits a hotel to operate there. No zoning change is needed. See http://199.33.32.49/ParcelReports/PR_University%20Ave_488_120-15-071_.pdf

Chris,

Look at historical examples of cities that have rent-control, or have ended rent control. NYC had some of their biggest private residential building booms during the strictest rent control, and Cambridge MA saw the rents in all their rental properties (both covered under rent control and not) skyrocket after the state ended rent control.

I'm not saying rent control is the panacea to solve the housing crisis, far from it. However, it can be an effective tool in certain municipalities if used appropriately. We clearly need to address the issue renters are facing state-wide, and this could be a tool to address that. To not even study the issue, which City Council voted on, is disingenuous for people who claim to be "pro-housing".

I very much welcome the return of the President Hotel as what it was intended to be - a hotel!

The very reason we're having this discussion is that the President is more profitable as a hotel than as housing. Zoning isn't the issue.

Consider the Vallco project. The developer originally proposed about 2m sq ft of office space and 800 housing units. That works out to a jobs/housing ratio of about 11. Public review forced the developer to go up to 2400 units, for a jobs/housing ratio a little worse than 3. The developer then invoked SB 35 to prevent further public review. Unless Cupertino's zoning rules state that 2400 is the maximum number of housing units allowed on this property, zoning isn't the issue for Vallco, either.

"...downtown San Jose — seen as a cornerstone of the city’s economy — is one of the sections where development of new housing is unlikely to produce profits for developers..." Web Link

A few months ago I checked costs for apartments and offices in Palo Alto. Average apartment rental rate was about $3.70 per sq ft per month. Average office lease rate was about $5.77 per sq ft per month. Economically, it makes sense for developers to build more offices than housing here, and that's exactly what's happened.

You can see why upzoning R-1 to R-2 won't have much effect. There's already opportunity to build more housing, but when they have a choice, developers would rather build commercial space because it's more profitable.

As a couple of other people have mentioned, rezoning commercial properties for housing might be a good idea. That would make commercial space development more expensive, and housing development less expensive, so the economic incentives would improve.

Renter protection can be many things. I don't know why people are hung up on just a couple alternatives types. All that was asked of the City Council ultimately was to look the many possibilities for renter protection - some that many towns have enacted years ago without dire economic consequences for property owners of rental property.

I own rental property in a town that has some renter protection that Palo Alto doesn't, and it's fine. Tenants are sitting ducks, subject to gentrification and displacement, or a change of use such as this where rich people want to get richer - there's a lot of that going around. So some of these tenants will, after decades at the President Hotel, leave a town, some having grown up here, and the Bay Area, to go where they know no one, and nothing about.

Here is a renter protection we now have in Palo Alto - a required 1-year lease for new renters. We could require it for the 2nd year unless there is just cause not to, and the renter wants it. Another we could require is free mandatory mediation between tenants and property owners over specific types of issues.

Quit whining about the cost of housing. Either go out and make more money or just move to Sacramento.

*sigh* I'm whining about the cost of housing, even though I'm sitting pretty. I don't like living with a homogeneous set of rich people. I don't like living in a town where the local workers -- teachers, city staff, etc -- can't afford to live here. If I did, I'd live in Atherton. I want to change our town's zoning and policies so that we once again have a more diverse town. End of story.

I think it outrageous that the Ohlone indians were displaced. Don't people have any respect for the original inhabitants? After a while old buildings wear out, become too expensive to maintain, lead in the piping etc. If people want to live in one of the most expensive places in the world shouldn't they pay the price? Think with math not your heartfelt sympathies. The growth of entitlements is harnessing the younger generation with a massive debt.
George Drysdale social studies teacher and land economist

You're exactly why Prop 13 shouldn't exist.

It hurts when our development policies smack us around as this one is doing. 75 people being displaced is an extra serious problem here b/c of our housing inventory realties: limited affordable housing and essentially no BMR housing. We have steadily exacerbated the jobs:housing imbalance by adding more office space than we can sustain housing-wise. It's past time to take a different approach. Limiting office growth and the resulting additional demand for housing is a necessary first step. After that, require developers who present office projects to include housing with those projects. This does not have to mean that Palo Alto is transformed by corridors of stack and pack housing. Stanford's Maybell project on upper Cal Ave is an example of a varied housing community. The ROI for housing is not as attractive as the ROI on commercial development, but it is painfully obvious that we cannot continue ignoring reality.

The 75 residents of the President Hotel represent the human cost of unsustainable growth.

We can and must do better. After all, this is Palo Alto.

What the City Council should do is kick-out the scammers in Lytton Gardens who are not truly low-income renters who need help with low rent. They are turning a blind eye towards this. There are a lot of people there who do not speak English, thus, they qualify for low-income housing because they can't get jobs. Meanwhile, we have people who work hard in Palo Alto but can't afford to rent here and they have to commute long hours. Lytton Gardens should be for employed citizens.

Distressing that a solidly Democrat community like Palo Alto doesn't seem to have much in the books in terms of tenants protection -even for a most basic relocation package- or housing preservation -no net loss of housing units, no conversion from residential to other use...-.

If hotels are a permitted use, maybe Palo Alto can at least try to refuse a permit for that property?

Last year three council members tried to move forward with consideration of stronger renter protections. DuBois, Holman and Kou were voted down by the council majority including Wolbach who purports to be a progressive Dem. Go figure.

Wasn't there a precedent when Casa Olga (closed in 2009) made way for the Epiphany Hotel (opened in 2014)? Preserving Casa Olga's SROs (single room occupancy) use could have gone a long way in addressing the current homelessness crisis.

Maybe the city could require each hotel to provide a floor or three of housing instead of removing units from the the area's available housing stock and thus raising prices for everyone by increasing competition. y