Editorial: Referendum may help Editorial: Referendum may help (April 09, 2003)focus on trade-offs

Successful challenge of 800 High St. project reflects community angst over development and its impacts, even when valuable benefits are included
With next November's Palo Alto City Council election on the horizon, the successful referendum challenge to the council's approval of the 800 High St. condominium project has special significance. It means the trade-offs between beneficial new housing development and its impact in the form of increased density and traffic congestion will likely become a hotly debated election issue.
Backers of the referendum handily garnered more than 3,000 signatures. As the council has until August to either rescind its approval or place the matter on the November ballot, it decided last week to keep its options open awhile, in hopes of a "miracle" negotiated settlement of some type.
Referenda are generally crude and ineffective ways of resolving policy disagreements, as they limit voters to a simplistic "yes" or "no" vote on a prior city action. But the 800 High St. referendum may actually offer a helpful way of focusing the community on the very real trade-offs of developments.
Housing advocates have argued that projects such as 800 High St. are the best hope for reducing the infamous housing-jobs imbalance and providing additional affordable housing. Yet others believe the price paid in the form of increased congestion and greater density just isn't worth it.
There are several possibly significant aspects of the referendum effort that residents and officials might consider.
One is the citywide success opponents of the 800 High St. project had. The concerns of those in the south of Forest Avenue neighborhood resonated among citizens elsewhere in town.
Doug Ross, developer of the proposed 61-unit housing project at 800 High St., called the referendum part of an emerging "anti-housing campaign." Referendum backers denied their opposition is part of any broader anti-housing effort, saying it relates to size and scale.
The referendum dovetails with concerns about the future density of the Rickeys Hyatt property near the other end of town -- a large new hotel and 325 housing units are proposed. Immediately to the south (separated by one narrow parcel) is the large Elks Club property, which the national club has ordered sold. The future of both properties, and others, is a major interest of residents of the adjacent neighborhood south of Charleston Avenue.
There also is a vague but widespread (and legitimate) worry that adding significant numbers of new households will further strain the city's already stretched "infrastructure" -- just about everything from parks and fields to schools, libraries and public-safety services.
And there is the re-emergence of several long-quiet members of the community, whose roots go deep into the 1960's "residentialist" movement -- a term that stood for resisting traffic-inducing developments, protecting neighborhoods, pushing for dedication of parklands, and generally preserving baylands and foothills regions. Two veteran residentialists, former Councilwoman Enid Pearson and attorney Tom Jordan, have rallied to the sides of those they see as carrying forward their concerns into a new generation -- with Jordan playing a key role in the latest referendum.
The late-1950s and 1960s saw something called "government by referendum." By today's standards, there were issues worthy of such challenges -- a proposed commercial high-rise development in the baylands and high-rise residential towers proposed for El Camino Ball Park were put forth and shot down. There also were losses, such as the 1963 referendum on Oregon Expressway.
It took an initiative-petition drive by Pearson in 1965 to force the council to dedicate parklands, requiring a citywide vote for any non-park use. An often-bitter division on the 13-member council came to a head in the 1967 all-council election, when four of six residentialists (including state Sen. Byron Sher) were ousted.
Yet the size and impact of either 800 High or Rickeys fall far short of the magnitude of the developments of decades ago. And the unanimous council approval of the basic configuration for 800 High St. should make it difficult to make a council-election issue out of it.
But provoking a serious discussion about how Palo Alto should go about fulfilling its Comprehensive Plan goals of increasing housing units without degrading the quality of our neighborhoods is not a bad thing. The council has struggled with various proposals for 800 High St. for years, and the presence of the current project on the ballot could be a good way for the broader community to wrestle with the same difficult trade-offs.