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For decades, the sprawling Cubberley Community Center on Middlefield Road has served as both a valuable hub for local artists, athletes and nonprofits and the place where local dreams go to die.
Owned jointly by the Palo Alto Unified School District and the city of Palo Alto, the dilapidated 35-acre campus was envisioned in a 2019 master plan as ripe for redevelopment. The master plan included a variety of new amenities, including a wellness center, a performing arts center and a swimming pool — additions that would complement the existing network of classrooms, studios and nonprofit spaces.
But Vice Mayor Greer Stone said Monday, May 15, that when he thinks about Cubberley, another image comes to mind.
“It keeps reminding me of the Peanuts cartoon of Charlie Brown trying to kick the football, and every time he runs up to the football, Lucy pulls it back,” Stone said.
The reason for his frustration is understandable to the hundreds of residents who spent years dreaming of a better Cubberley, including those involved in the most recent master planning process. Like prior planning efforts, it fizzled in 2020 when the city, which owns 8 acres at Cubberley, hit an impasse in its negotiations with the school district, which owns the remaining 27 acres.
School leaders were adamant about preserving Cubberley land for a future school and categorically rejected the idea of redeveloping the existing gym or theater or of passing a bond for community amenities that are not directly related to education.
A new openness to negotiate
Now both sides are hoping to get the Cubberley negotiations back on track. On May 15, the City Council held its first discussion of a March 10 letter that the city had received from the school board, inviting the city to make a deal. Authored by Board Chair Shounak Dharap, the letter expresses the school board’s support for the city’s desire “to move forward on development of a portion of the site to realize the vision of a fully-fledged Cubberley Community Center.” The letter stated that the district wants to preserve 20 acres for a future school but is open to a deal that transfers ownership or development control over at least 7 acres to the city, giving it 15 total acres for a new community center.
“The polished incarnation of this community gem will surely benefit our joint stakeholders and serve as a resource for the district’s students and families,” Dharap wrote.
For council members and community activists, the invitation elicited a mix of emotions, with some calling it a game changer and others, like Stone, citing recent history and curbing their enthusiasm accordingly. Penny Ellson, a bicycle advocate who was involved in putting together two different master plans for Cubberley, was underwhelmed by the lack of concrete goals for Cubberley, a critical site at a time when the city’s looking to add thousands of new housing units to south Palo Alto.
“What I don’t see here is a plan,” Ellson said. “We’re talking about purchasing a lot of land. What I don’t know is what the city’s intent is to do with it.”
Everyone agrees, however, that the former high school’s aged buildings and infrastructure need urgent repairs. The city’s capital budget for Cubberley includes, among other items, funding for roof replacement and completion of a new restroom near the athletic fields. The city transfers $1.8 million annually from its general fund to a specially created Cubberley Infrastructure Fund to keep the aged center usable.
“It has not really been improved much since it was built in 1956 and really is in need of daily maintenance at this point to keep it functional and up and running,” said Kristen O’Kane, director of the Community Services Department.
Council member Vicki Veenker pointed to the deteriorating conditions of the community center and argued that it’s time to act so that the city is not in the “constant Charlie Brown cycle.”
“The community is interested in some kind of community center that’s operable, functional and that we can be proud of,” Veenker said. “And I think it’s important that we try to do something … streamlined, so that we can make a decision.”
‘The community is interested in some kind of community center that’s operable, functional and that we can be proud of.’
Vicki Veenker, member, Palo Alto City Council
While the council didn’t take any votes on Monday, members generally agreed that before they can determine what to build at Cubberley, they should figure out how much land they could obtain. Council members Ed Lauing and Pat Burt both supported initiating negotiations with the school district over a possible land swap or land purchase.
“The whole world has changed now from the last time we dealt with this because the school board is in an entirely different place, and they’ve opened the door wide for discussions on getting more land,” Lauing said. “That’s revolutionary compared to where we’ve ever been on Cubberley.”
The negotiations will be led by city and school district staff, with input from a council ad hoc committee devoted to Cubberley. The committee will include Mayor Lydia Kou, Burt and council member Julie Lythcott-Haims. Burt said he was enthusiastic about the prospect of increasing the city’s share of Cubberley. This could include swapping a city-owned park next to Fletcher Middle School, which the school uses for athletic fields, for Cubberley land.
“The need for the city to be able to control and own more than the 8 acres has been the linchpin on being able to move forward on Cubberley,” Burt said. “I’m really excited about the letter we received from the district about their openness to a land swap.”
“You must be very careful with planning for the future if you do not know where you are going because you might not get there” Yogi Berra
I’d prefer whatever land the city has or can acquire there be used to build rental housing for extremely low income individuals forever more with the city retaining ownership. We’ve done without amenities proposed there for many years and should continue to do so given the extremely low income housing crisis.
This is a prime, central ideally-situated location in Palo Alto. This is a real gem.
It should be a major public school (as it was in the past, happily) and/or major community resource. It should absolutely not be given for subsidized housing or sold to developers.
Anonymous. There is room for a school and housing. The city should retain ownership and develop rental housing for extremely low income people. This would be a great community resource IMO. And if city owner it could exist in perpetuity. Time for the city to do something besides talk and dream to address this crisis.
Palo Alto has more affordable housing per capita than any other city in Santa Clara County besides Gilroy. Yes, we need more, but this “do something besides talk and dream” is itself empty rhetoric. Affordable housing for the disabled is going up right around the corner from this site at 525 Charleston: https://edenhousing.org/properties/mitchell-park-place/
With the large majority of new housing planned for the southern part of the city, we need Cubberley to be used for school and other social and community-building services for the thousands of new people.
The lion’s share of state-mandated housing will land south of Oregon Expressway and most of that housing that will be in the general service area of Cubberley. Thousands of new residents will need community services and schools. Let’s not forget that the homes Cubberley was built to serve are still here. Many are currently occupied by seniors who no longer have kids in these programs any more. That is rapidly changing, and we have an obligation to plan for the future as our predecessors did for us. Comprehensive planning for growth should be done for south Palo Alto as it has been done for other parts of the city, especially given the densification that is coming.
It is not correct to say that it’s just fine services have diminished over time at Cubberley. Actually, service reduction has been a huge problem for people who need child care, art space, music practice space, dance space, gym space, therapeutic programs, senior programs, maker studio space, etc. It sounds like it is not a problem for you personally. Did you do a survey to find out what people need? I attended the entire last two Cubberley processes, and have read the Parks & Rec Master Plan and the Comp Plan and all of the documents that came out of THREE Cubberley planning processes. I hear people complain about it a lot. It is crystal clear to me that people need and want this space to be fully functional again.
Mitchell Park has nothing but meeting rooms and a small after-school meeting place for kids. It’s not suitable for the programs I mentioned above. The new Mitchell Park space is mostly used for STEM camps, computer dependent activities. It gets rented out for events for REVENUE and is often used for city meetings. Cubberley needs to come back to life. It is our last, large publicly owned land dedicated for community use and school use. Housing is a PRIVATE use. If we convert that PF zoning, we will never be able to get it back when we need it. And we will need it.
This story is based on the premise that PAUSD’s willingness to negotiate over transferring land to the city at Cubberley is new. But in fact the school board publicly stated its willingness to negotiate a land swap in October 2021 (see https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2021/10/20/palo-alto-unified-maps-out-short-and-long-term-plans-for-cubberley): “Under a broad plan laid out at a Board of Education meeting Tuesday, Oct. 19, the district would reserve roughly 20 acres for a theoretical future high school and use the land in the much more immediate term to temporarily house two elementary schools while their campuses are under construction. The district would be open to negotiations about transferring part or all of the remaining 7 acres to the city of Palo Alto.”
Despite the language from Vice Mayor Stone about Charlie Brown and the football, the district’s position has been clear for years: it’s ready to negotiate with the city over reconfiguring boundaries and swapping additional land, but it can’t pay for community center projects using bond funds that are designated for educational purposes. When I was on the school board it was clear that city council members wanted the district to close the funding gap for the community center, and didn’t really have a Plan B.
I’m not an expert on how the city funds its infrastructure projects, but a fair question for the city council is why it’s possible to build a new police station and parking garage at Cal Ave, but not to build a community center at Cubberley. The answer isn’t that PAUSD has somehow snatched away that football. I suspect it’s in how the council sets priorities.
PST,
Housing can be built in many places in Palo Alto — El Camino, Downtown, California Ave.
Cubberley is one of very few locations where a Community Center can be located.
Cubberly is the largest city owned property where there is room for a school and EXTREMELY LOW INCOME housing, (not so called “affordable housing”)could be built as rental housing with the city retaining ownership in perpetuity. Perhaps with proper planning and negotiation there could also be room for some “community services” which are important but less important than the need for extremely low income rental housing in perpetuity IMO. “Affordable housing” is too expensive for many people in need so while it’s nice we have and are building more of that it does not meet the housing needs of truly low income people. Perhaps the airport or golf course lands could be repurposed for ELI housing but I assume people would resist that idea even more than using the Cubberly site.
I get the Charlie Brown part, since the Council seems not particularly capable here. But what has the school district done, aside from tell them that, no, they can’t use school bonds to pay for a community center? And the Council suddenly remembers Cubberley, when the district sends them a letter reminding them of what they said two years ago? Hopefully they can get their act together and stop blaming others for their shortcomings.
There are only three options for the Cubberly site…(1) additional housing, (2) an educational campus, or (3) a cultural & recreation center.
This is not rocket science.
The CC and Ed Shikada failed to come up with the funds to do anything with Cubberley and rather than admit that, has tried for years to get residents to blame the school district. The City Council clown car, having tried and failed to bully the district into doing something patently not lawful — that is to bail out the City financially and issue a bond to pay for non educational expenditures, now continue to claim that the failure to develop Cubberley was PAUSD’s fault. The District has repeatedly offered, over a period of many years, to do exactly what is on offer today — a land swap. There is nothing new here except some new hot air from the CC to cover up for their own failures. Maybe you shouldn’t have built a giant Police Palace instead of a community center, CC and Ed. Stop blaming the schools for not wanting to bail out your bad planning. Sheesh.
To PST, perhaps you are unaware. The City Council has just approved 50 units of 100% affordable housing less than one block from Cubberley, They also have approved 88 units on San Antonio Road for people who are transitioning from being unhoused. In addition, in the last 17 years, they approved and built The Treehouse on Charleston Road which added 33 100% affordable studios and 1 BR units. They also built Alta Torre which provided 56 1BR 100% affordable apartments for very low income seniors. Please note that I only mention the 100% affordable projects for very low income people. I do not mention the many hundreds of other units that have been built in this area and the thousands of mandated units that are coming. These new residents need community services.
How much housing do you recommend they build on north Palo Alto public facilities (PF-zoned) land? Which facilities do you recommend they eliminate to build housing there?–Rinconada Library? Lucie Stern, Junior Museum and Zoo, Children’s Library, Art Center, Downtown Library? Personally, I think equitable distribution of community services is important–especially where we already are under served and the city is zoning for thousands of smaller new units for people who will have greater need for community services. Balanced land use is key to a healthy community.
lets not forget we own the city and we own the schools—-lets get going –it is a disgrace and must be fixed.
lets not forget we own the city and we own the schools—-lets get going, it is a disgrace and must be fixed.
These may be a naive questions, and I am no pro when it comes to municipal funding, but,
If a disturbed teen burns down two PAUSD classrooms at Cubberly, who pays the bill? PAUSD, the City, the Fire Department, the Police, or all of the above? Does insurance of any sort play a role?
Do they all draw from the same bucket, as in property taxes?
Not wading into the fight, just trying to understand it.
I am sick of the people who want to turn every piece of property into a place for housing. It’s like a “group think” that every piece of community property which is used by many groups is a focal point for housing. CHS is very special – not a grab bag for all of the “housing” people. It is a location used by many non-profit groups for their activities.
There is a group that it is using the ‘Housing Issue” as a wedge issue throuout the city. That wedge issue is dominating disussion on every topic. We have housing and we are going to protect our right to have a community which has some structure, some uniformaty to standard residential requirements.