The issue of golfers trampling on Baylands plants surfaced in 2023, when a complaint from a local environmentalist prompted intervention from the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board. The course’s Water Quality Certification permit required the course to expand the wetlands habitat and remove invasive species, but for five years the city failed to monitor progress and file annual monitoring reports.

Since then, the city has worked with the state water board to achieve compliance with permit conditions, Chief Communications Officer Meghan Horrigan-Taylor wrote in an email. The city submitted a “current conditions report” to the board last August and has implemented additional protective measures, including split-rail fencing installation, improved signage, educational materials and a local rule that allows for stroke relief when golf balls land in wetland areas, discouraging golfers from entering sensitive habitat areas.

The city constructed the municipal golf course in 2017 to both accommodate a regional flood-control project and enhance playing conditions. The permits for the project required at least 4 acres of wetland creation and 0.2 acres of enhancements, according to a report from the Community Services Department.

Since learning of the violations in 2023, the city has been coordinating its response with the state water board, the report states. In December, Palo Alto began to prepare to conduct a “wetland delineation” to verify the extent of wetland acreage present and determine whether additional mitigation is needed. According to the staff report, the study is expected to be completed in July and will inform whether any hydrological modifications are needed.

“This will inform if any hydrological modifications are necessary to make the wetlands successful and will also just outline how many acres of the wetlands are currently existing,” Sarah Robustelli, division manager for space parks and golf, told the Parks and Recreation Commission at a recent update on the golf course.

In the meantime, staff have been working with the course operator, OB Sports, to implement protective measures near the wetlands.

“We ask people to stay out of [wetland areas],” OB Sports Senior Vice President Matt Molloy said at the May 27 Parks and Recreation Commission meeting. “People chase their golf ball everywhere. For those people who know golf, they just can’t help themselves, so we really work with them on the local rule and stroke relief.”

Rebranded as Baylands Golf Links, the municipal course has been steadily turning a profit since the renovation, even despite a pandemic-era slump. The total number of rounds of golf played has increased by over 3,000 in the last fiscal year, from 56,314 to 59,526. The staff report forecasts continued growth, with revenues expected to increase by $0.3 million and more than 59,000 rounds of golf played in 2025.

Average revenue per round has also increased over time, according to the report, driven by improved yield management and demand.

The city is also looking for ways to attract new players. One such effort is a new partnership with First Tee – Silicon Valley, a nonprofit providing educational golf programs for youth ranging from second graders to high schoolers. The golf course signed a short-term facility use agreement with First Tee last October, which grants teaching facility access to seasonal practice putting greens, driving range, a portion of the youth practice area and on-course.

“We’re investing in the kids, as every golf course should,” Molloy said. “When people learn to play at a golf course, they hold that golf course in high esteem and they’ll always remember that, and they’ll always have a tendency to play those golf courses.”

The short-term agreement runs through February next year, and the city and First Tee intend to work out a long-term agreement before then, Superintendent of Community Services Lam Do said at the meeting. The process is currently underway, albeit slower than anticipated, with the primary focus being on developing the youth area and First Tee programming.

At the same time, staff is working with the National Golf Foundation on a study to determine the feasibility of adding a second deck on the driving range. The completed study will be presented at a future meeting, as will status updates regarding the golf course’s new app and other efforts to improve the guest experience.

“Hopefully, we’re moving in the right direction and we’re very happy with where things are going at the moment,” Parks and Recreation Commission chair Nellis Freeman said at the meeting. “I just want to applaud you guys on the work you’re doing on this.”

This story originally appeared in Palo Alto Weekly. Grace Gao is an intern for Embarcadero Media.

The post Rule change to steer golfers away from Palo Alto wetlands appeared first on San José Spotlight.

The spending plan that the City Council adopted by a 6-0 vote, with Councilmember Greer Stone absent, includes one major wildcard — $6 million in unspecified cost savings. What exactly those will be remains to be seen, but the council directed staff to take $2.7 million from operating expenses and $3.2 million from capital projects.

This will likely means delaying infrastructure maintenance in Utilities and Public Works departments.

Otherwise, most departments will largely retain their existing staffing and service levels. The general fund, which pays for most expenses not relating to utilities, is set to go up from $306.9 million in the current fiscal year to $313.4 million in 2026, which begins July 1.

A glaring exception is the fire department, which will now have a civilian division handling medical calls, a function that for the past half century has been performed by firefighters. The budget will add six full-time paramedic positions, a nod to the fact that medical calls now make up the vast majority of fire department responses.

The budget also adds three fire captains for Station 4 near Mitchell Park, positions that will supervise a three-person crew that is charged with cross-staffing a fire engine and an ambulance at the station. The change mean that nine of 11 new full-time positions that are proposed in the general fund this year are in the fire department.

To address a funding gap, the budget proposed by City Manager Ed Shikada taps into the “uncertainty reserve” that the council established during the pandemic. In reviewing the proposal in May, the council Finance Committee pushed back against that strategy and recommended maintaining $6 million in that reserve for future years. This means that after its summer break, councilmembers will be looking for ways to trim costs and restore that $6 million.

The biggest debate on Monday came over an item that takes up a relatively low proportion of the budget: funding for nonprofit. The council recently revamped its process for funding nonprofits by requiring aspiring grantees to submit applications and partake in a competitive process that is adjudicated by the council’s Policy and Services Committee.

In theory, the change was supposed to make the process simpler and fairer. In practice, it had the opposite effect, as some nonprofits that for years had received dedicated city funding now found themselves competing with other groups. The 22 nonprofits for which the committee approved $426,646 in funding ranged from Neighbors Abroad, which administers the city’s sister city program, to Dreamcatchers, which supports middle school students from disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Sarah Burgess, president of Neighbors Abroad, lamented the fact that her group, which was formed around 62 years ago, now has to compete for public funding with nonprofits that provide critical social services. Being a nonprofit is “a tax category not a budget category,” she said.

“We stand out as the most egregious example of why the nonprofit catch-all doesn’t work,” Burgess said.

City leaders acknowledged that the process is far from perfect. Councilmember Julie Lythcott-Haims, who sits on the Finance Committee, called it a “complex conundrum.” Councilmember Pat Burt, who chairs the committee, went further and likened it to the “Hunger Games of nonprofits.”

“Where they’re really having to fight amongst each other for these funds with rules that were developed on the fly after the game started,” Burt said.

The council ultimately adopted the funding plan proposed by Policy and Services Committee and supplemented it with funding from the council’s contingency fund, which they can tap into for discretionary spending. This allowed the council to increase funding for Magical Bridge Foundation and the United Nations Association Film Festival, two nonprofits whose allocations were below what they had initially requested.

The proposal from Burt, which the council unanimously adopted, also pulls two nonprofits — Neighbors Abroad and Environmental Volunteers — out of the competitive pool and into other sections of the budget. The change effectively treats the city’s partnerships with these two nonprofits as service agreements with guaranteed annual payments rather than grant applications.

Another program that can see some change, or even potential elimination, is Palo Alto Link, the city’s rideshare program. While staff had proposed extending the contract with the driving vendor, Nomad Transportation, for another year, councilmembers wondered if the program should continue at all.

Councilmember Keith Reckdahl was the first to suggest that Palo Alto Link is not sustainable and suggested that the city keep the service on a “very short leash,” with a contract term shorter than a year. Several of his colleagues quickly concurred, with Mayor Ed Lauing and Burt both supporting a six-month contract with Nomad as the city explores other grants that could extend the program. The council endorsed that approach.

Even though the council had already trimmed some expenses last year by making minor service changes, the program is still projected to cost the city $500,000 over the next year, according to staff.

“Palo Alto Link is likely not sustainable and likely not something we want to subsidize as a car trip,” Lu said. “But I think we also need to terminate it gracefully. We need to give people at least a few months of heads-up so people can make their plans — people who rely on it.”

The council is scheduled to consider the Nomad contract on Tuesday, at its final meeting before its summer recess.

This story originally appeared in Palo Alto Weekly. Gennady Sheyner is the editor of Palo Alto Weekly and Palo Alto Online. As a former staff writer, he has won awards for his coverage of elections, land use, business, technology and breaking news.

The post Palo Alto adopts $1B budget, revamps ambulance service appeared first on San José Spotlight.

Police Chief Andrew Binder said during a May 6 meeting of the City Council Finance Committee meeting that Palo Alto is one of the only police agencies in Santa Clara County that does not use drones in some capacity.

Assistant Police Chief James Reifschneider said in an email that the drones could be used in a variety of situations, including “searches for missing persons or fleeing suspects, reconnaissance during tactical operations, and aerial documentation and mapping of collision and crime scenes.”

Other city departments, including the Fire Department, Office of Emergency Services, Public Works, and Utilities, could also use them, Reifschneider said.

“As the Police Department considers bringing forward a proposal for City Council consideration pursuant to the city’s surveillance use ordinance, it will consider the ways in which this technology could be used to enhance the safety of officers, other city staff, and the community, while also respecting the privacy of residents,” Reifschneider said in the email.

Reifschneider declined to provide a cost estimate of the technology at this point because the department has not decided on the number or type of drones they would be using. He noted that PAPD is exploring the availability of grant funding that would cover some or all of the cost of the drones.

City staff discussed during the Finance Committee meeting how to balance the benefits of surveillance technology with the privacy and security risks they pose.

City Manager Ed Shikada said that the city’s surveillance ordinance – which governs the acquisition and use of technology that can gather information about individuals and groups – has constrained staff’s willingness to explore surveillance technologies. The City Council adopted the ordinance in 2018. It requires the city to issue annual reports detailing all of its surveillance technology and how it has been used.

The most recent report, which was issued in December 2024, includes technology such as AlertWildfire cameras in the Foothills fire safety, automated license plate readers and GPS devices that can be launched from police vehicles at fleeing cars.

“I don’t know if other cities have surveillance ordinances, but we are quite rigid in the way it’s defined,” Shikada said. “It may be a prudent preventative measure that other cities will encounter when they have leaks of data that may contain [personally identifiable information], but I think it is accurate to describe it as a constraint.”

Palo Alto City Council member Julie Lythcott-Haims noted that the PAPD’s research into drones should contain a “hefty bit of page allocated to privacy and surveillance concerns” because of concerns from city residents around these issues.

In Redwood City, the city council approved the use of Unmanned Aerial Systems – a term that refers to drones – for police operations. Redwood City Lieutenant Police Officer Jeff Clements said the department is still in the procurement process and has not yet acquired any devices. Anticipated use cases of the technology include using drones as a first responder, search and rescue operations, enhanced situational awareness during critical incidents, and crime scene documentation, among other situations.

Menlo Park Police Department spokesperson Nicole Acker said that MPPD does not currently use drones, but the Menlo Park Fire Protection District does. The fire district uses the technology to assist with search-and-rescue operations and map vegetation density to identify wildfire threats.

The Mountain View Police Department also uses UAS for similar operations, Police Media and Public Relations Analyst Monica Leon said.

“When deployed, UAS are used to reduce risk and enhance public safety,” Leon said in an email. “They provide responding officers with improved situational awareness from safe positions, allowing them to allocate resources more effectively and bring tense, rapidly evolving incidents to peaceful resolutions.”

This story originally appeared in Palo Alto Weekly. Hannah Bensen is a staff writer for Embarcadero Media covering Palo Alto.

The post Palo Alto explores use of drones in police work appeared first on San José Spotlight.

Bolstered by recent state laws, the backyard structures are quietly but consistently doing their part in helping the city meet its housing goals. Palo Alto had issued 125 permits for accessory dwellings units in 2024, as well 125 in 2023 and 120 in 2022, according to a recent report from the city’s Department of Planning and Development Services. These numbers more than double the projections in the city’s Housing Element, a document that lays out plans to add 6,086 dwellings by 2031.

While the little structures represent a small share of the city’s housing stock, their growth over the past decade has been exponential. In 2016, city planners issued just five permits for ADUs. In 2018, there were 36 permits; in 2021, there were 89.

But even with the recent successes, Palo Alto planners are preparing to make further changes to local zoning laws on accessory dwelling units. According to the state Department of Housing and Community Development, the local code fails to fully comply with recent state laws that relaxed restrictions on building backyard dwellings and junior accessory dwelling units, which are carved out of existing living spaces.

In October, the state agency informed the city that it should either change its laws to comply with the state’s ADU law or adopt a resolution explaining why the city believes that it complies with state law, despite the HCD’s findings. The agency suggested that it’s not messing around.

“If the City fails to take either course of action and bring the Ordinance into compliance with State ADU Law, HCD must notify the City and may notify the California Office of the Attorney General that the City is in violation of State ADU Law,” wrote Jamie Candelaria senior housing accountability unit manager at the HCD’s Housing Policy Development Division.

The agency’s letter lists 20 ways in which the city’s ordinance fails to comply with state law, some technical and minor, others more substantive. The height limit is in the latter category. The city’s current code restricts the height of an 800-square-foot ADU to 16 feet. That doesn’t gibe with the 18 feet permitted by state law. Also, local law limits the number of additions at a single-family lot to two: one ADU and one JADU. The HCD believes this conflicts with the state law, which could allow a JADU and two ADUs, one detached and another attached one created by converting a portion of an existing space.

The HCD also wants the city to change its rules about converting a non-conforming structure to a code-compliant one. Currently, code forbids the new structure to increase the degree of non-compliance. But state law grants property owners the right to add 150 square feet to the ADU to accommodate ingress and egress.

Of particular concern is the HCD’s insistence that the city is improperly adopting special requirements for properties listed on the local Historic Inventory. State law, however, only allows cities to impose objective standards on ADUs for things like heights, setbacks and maximum size – not historic status.

“Therefore, the use of a local historic register such as the Palo Alto Historic Inventory would be inconsistent with state ADU Law,” the letter states. “The City must remove this reference.”

According to the city, the HCD’s finding would impact the roughly 350 properties that are on the local historic registry but not on the state ones. The local list organizes the historic properties into four categories, with the first two being the most historically significant. Existing law requires any exterior alteration to a historic site in the first two categories to be reviewed by the Architectural Review Board and the Historic Review Board.

“By removing this provision, any attached ADU/JADU proposed on a Category 1 or 2 property may result in modifications that impact the integrity of these local resources, without a remedy,” Principal Planner Garrett Sauls wrote in a report. “While the City does not have the authority to require additional changes based on the language in State law, it is important to note there could be impacts to the integrity of existing and future local resources.”

So far, the city has offered a mixed response to HCD’s directives. In a November letter to the agency, Planning Director Jonathan Lait vowed to update the zoning code to support some of the agency’s findings, including ones relating to historic properties and the maximum number of ADUs and JADU dwellings allowed by lot.

Lait also suggested that other findings are based on a misunderstanding of the city’s ordinance. For example, the city’s law requires that ADU include a kitchen that includes a range with two burners, an oven or convection microwave, counter space and freezer and refrigerator combination unit. Kitchens shall also include counter space for food preparation equal to a minimum 24-inch depth and 36-inch length, and a sink that facilitates hot and cold water. The HCD concluded that the details are too stringent, noting that state law only requires these units to have “permanent provisions for living, sleeping, eating, cooking, and sanitation” with no further specification.

Lait argued that removing the specific requirements would force the city to use “subjective criteria to assess reasonableness and introduce discretionary decision-making.”

“If HCD has objectively defined a reasonableness standard, please share, otherwise, the City does not believe a change is warranted,” Lait wrote.

To date, the city has not received a response from the HCD to its November letter. But rather than waiting any longer, city planners are proposing moving ahead with the changes that the agency requested. The Planning and Transportation Commission plans to review the proposed modifications at its April 9 meeting.

“While staff believes that there are strong arguments in support of the City’s position on these issues, it is possible that HCD’s eventual response will require further modifications to the ordinance. Given the uncertainty around when the City can expect a detailed response from HCD, staff recommends proceeding with the updated ordinance,” Sauls wrote.

This story originally appeared in Palo Alto Weekly. Gennady Sheyner covers local and regional politics, housing, transportation and other topics for the Palo Alto Weekly, Palo Alto Online and their sister publications.

The post State orders Palo Alto to revise laws on backyard dwellings appeared first on San José Spotlight.

The city is working with Sen. Josh Becker to modify the Housing Accountability Act in a way that would shorten the window during which the builder’s remedy would apply. Under the proposed modification, the builder’s remedy would stop applying once a local jurisdiction approves its Housing Element, provided the document ultimately passes muster with the state Department of Housing and Development.

In Palo Alto, the City Council has been critical of recent builder’s remedy applications, including the 192-apartment complex proposed for 156 California Ave., site of Mollie Stone’s, that would include two towers, one with 11 stories and another with 17 stories; and a 231-unit complex at the Creekside Inn site at 3400 El Camino Real.

Several developers have rescinded their builder’s remedy proposal in the last few months and resubmitted applications that comply with the council’s newly updated zoning regulations, which now allow for greater height and density in areas like El Camino Real and San Antonio Road.

In Palo Alto, the council approved in April 2024 the city’s Housing Element, but it didn’t get the stamp of approval from the Department of Housing and Community Development until August. During that window, the city received two preliminary applications for projects at 2300 Geng Road, which includes 159 apartments, and 680 University Ave, which features 88 apartments.

Smith Development submitted the builder’s remedy application for the University Avenue project just as the developer is in the final stages of approval for a 66-apartment project on the same site, through the city’s more traditional “planned community” process. Members of the Planning and Transportation Commission, which reviewed the project earlier this month, acknowledged the leverage that the builder’s remedy application has given to the builder.

“Somebody is going to be unhappy,” Commissioner Cari Templeton said during the March 12 hearing. “Something is going to be built on this lot and it is up to us to cooperate with the owners and the builders to have something that is the best, that we can all agree on.”

In the past, Palo Alto council members and legal staff had argued that some of these applications are illegal because they were pitched after the City Council had approved its Housing Element, notwithstanding the fact that document had yet to get state approval. That “self-certification” argument was invalidated last year, when the state Legislature passed Assembly Bill 1886, which clarified that a Housing Element can only be deemed compliant after a local jurisdiction adopts it and the state certifies it.

The bill’s author, Assemblyman David Alvarez, D-San Diego, argued during a hearing on the legislation last May that AB 1886 is a “good governance” bill that clarifies local law. He noted that recent attempts to “self-certify” their Housing Elements have slowed down housing production.

“Despite the uptick in proposed projects, due to the lack of clarity, many cities have used the argument that self-certifying their Housing Element is sufficient for compliance purposes,” Alvarez said. “This has led to a multitude of applications not beiing processed by the local governments or outright denied, and various court cases that have slowed down housing development in areas.”

The proposed amendment that Palo Alto is championing would effectively undo that change and give more deference to self-certification. A new memo from Townsend Public Affairs, the city’s lobbyist in Sacramento, states that the purpose of the change is to “eliminate the current window of uncertainty wherein developers can exploit the delay between adoption and HCD approval by submitting applications under the Builder’s Remedy provision.”

The proposed bill would also raise the threshold for the types of applications that can be submitted through the builder’s remedy process. All proposals would now need to be complete formal applications to qualify. This would disqualify from consideration preliminary applications that have not yet undergone a thorough analysis or finalized the designs of the proposed projects.

“This measure seeks to prevent instances where developers file preliminary applications with minimal substantive detail solely to establish eligibility for the Builder’s Remedy, even after the jurisdiction has completed the necessary analysis, polices, and programs required by state law,” the memo states. “By ensuring that Builder’s Remedy protections are only available when a jurisdiction is genuinely out of compliance, the legislation reinforces the original intent of the remedy while preventing misuse that circumvents legitimate land use planning processes.”

The Palo Alto council is scheduled to discuss the proposed bill at its March 24 meeting. It will also consider taking a sponsorship position on the legislation, which would make it the lead advocate for passing the bill. The Townsend memo recommends that the city take on a sponsorship position because the legislative proposal originated from the city.

This story originally appeared in Palo Alto Weekly. Gennady Sheyner covers local and regional politics, housing, transportation and other topics for the Palo Alto Weekly, Palo Alto Online and their sister publications.

The post Palo Alto may lead efforts to restrict ‘builder’s remedy’ appeared first on San José Spotlight.

It is located near U.S. Highway 101 and its current occupants include car dealerships, modest one-story office buildings, an oil change place, two new hotels, an apartment complex for seniors and a smattering of restaurants. But if things go as planned, Palo Alto officials hope to turn this eclectic area between the train tracks and the highway into a walkable, bike-friendly residential neighborhood, featuring 2,000 new dwellings.

A key step to achieving that goal will occur on March 10, when the City Council considers approving a three-year contract with the firm Rami and Associates to help create a new vision for the 275.3-acre area near the city’s southeastern edge. The plan would cover a stretch of San Antonio between Alma Street and the Baylands, as well as nearby streets such as Fabian Way, Transport Street and a segment of Alma between Charleston Road and Alma Street.

The transformation of the area near the Mountain View border is the most ambitious and complex component of the city’s recently approved Housing Element, its blueprint for adding 6,086 housing units by 2031. The new plan will create a blueprint for Palo Alto for accelerating housing production, improving bike and pedestrian safety, easing access to the San Antonio Caltrain station, enhancing open space and streetscape improvement and creating opportunities to enhance economic vitality, according to a report from the Department of Planning and Development Services.
Mayor Ed Lauing said the goal for San Antonio is to effectively create a new neighborhood. As such, it will take some time to get it right.

“We need some strategic planning around that to make sure we get it right because we think it’s going to be there forever,” Lauing said in an interview. “So conducting the study for that amount of time and that amount of money – the latter is what it costs to do that from anyone, and the former just suggests that we’re trying to be really strategic for what we want to have happened out there on  all fronts – housing, bike/pedestrian transportation, open space.

“We want to make sure all of these components are out there.”

Yet the planning exercise comes with a sense of urgency. Partly, this is because of the deadlines imposed by the Housing Element and enforced by the state Department of Housing and Community Development. But more importantly, it’s because even with no area plan in place, the city is already encouraging and approving housing projects around San Antonio, even as planning commissioners and council members routinely acknowledge the area’s shortcomings when it comes to retail, bike safety and other amenities.

Just this week, the council agreed to expand the city’s “housing incentive program” to the San Antonio Road area, a zone change that will allow residential developers to get significant height and density bonuses for building housing sites that have historically been reserved for commercial and industrial uses.

City leaders have also been receptive to recent housing applications for the area, including the 102-condominium complex that they approved for 788 San Antonio Road in 2020. While construction of that housing project was put on hold, the developer’s project manager told the council this week that a new proposal for the site will soon be forthcoming and suggested that it will include more density.

In addition to that project, the council approved last May a 75-unit development at 800 San Antonio Road. And city planners are currently reviewing a 350-apartment complex proposed for 3397 Fabian Way and a 198-apartment complex eyed for 762 San Antonio Road.

Palo Alto doesn’t have to go too far to see examples of what a new vision for San Antonio could look like. In Mountain View, the City Council adopted a specific plan for San Antonio a decade ago and its stretch of San Antonio includes, among other new developments, The Village at San Antonio, which features a movie theater, restaurants and retail.

The goals of the two cities aren’t completely aligned. The Mountain View plan envisioned its segment of San Antonio as a place with walkable blocks, transit improvements and amenities that seek to make the area a regional destination.

In Palo Alto, the immediate priorities aren’t so much to turn the area into a regional magnet but to create a safe and functional neighborhood. Yet there’s hope among local officials that the retail on the Mountain View side of San Antonio will serve the residents on the Palo Alto side, once the housing arrives.

Lauing said he’s been encouraged by recent housing proposals and conversations with developers.

“With the new zoning in place, it’s more appealing to build multi-family housing, which is what we’re planning to build out there -– to build density and height in places where it works.

The strategic plan is going forward because that’s what we need.”

For the council, the recent projects offer signs of hope that the city’s ambitious vision for south Palo Alto may actually come to fruition. They also, however, create a quandary. As council members acknowledged last May, they are being asked to approve housing projects in an area that lacks the needed amenities to support a population boom.

The dilemma came up last May, as the council was considering approving a 75-condominium development at 800 San Antonio Road. Even though members voted to advance the project, city officials and area residents noted that the area remains hazardous for bicyclists and lacks the types of amenities that other neighborhoods enjoy, including safe streets for biking and an adequate tree canopy.

Planning Director Jonathan Lait assured the council that the forthcoming plan for San Antonio will address these issues.

“The questions of, ‘What would the roadway look like? How do we improve Safe Routes to School? How do we address canopy?’ — those are all things that we will consider in the San Antonio Road area plan,” Lait said shortly before the vote to approve the project.

Once the contract is approved, the city will begin the planning process by forming a community advisory group, which would be appointed by the city manager or his designee. The project team will coordinate the planning effort with local and regional stakeholders, including the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, the Santa Clara County Valley Water District and the city of Mountain View, according to Lait’s report. The planning period will also include community workshops, pop-ups, surveys and web-based interactive tools to get feedback from the community, according to the report.

The San Antonio plan is also a critical component of one of the council’s top priorities for the year: implementing housing strategies for social and economic balance. During the council’s annual retreat on Jan. 31, Council member Julie Lythcott-Haims was among the members who underscored the importance of this effort.

“We’re essentially making room for a whole new community there and we want it to happen in a coherent way, which takes a lot of effort and planning but will so pay off for us in the long run,” Lythcott-Haims said.

This story originally appeared in Palo Alto Weekly. Gennady Sheyner covers local and regional politics, housing, transportation and other topics for the Palo Alto Weekly, Palo Alto Online and their sister publications.

The post Palo Alto looks to create new neighborhood on San Antonio appeared first on San José Spotlight.

Over public meetings and in written correspondence, Ellis Partners has argued that the planned project is incompatible with the area and provides insufficient parking, which would harm the shopping center. Dean Rubison, the company’s director of development, reiterated the concerns at a Wednesday meeting of the Planning and Transportation Commission, where he described the 10-condominium project as “architecturally incompatible” with the shopping center.

But with Ed Storm’s condominium project at 70 Encina Ave. now nearing the finish line in Palo Alto’s lengthy approval process, Ellis Partners is trying a different tact: negotiating with Storm on a much larger housing project that would occupy numerous sites north of the shopping center.

Rubison said his company has recently learned from discussions with the city’s planning staff that housing is now considered a permitted use on the shopping center’s parking lots. The determination, he said, is based on staff’s evolving interpretation of the city’s land-use bible, the Comprehensive Plan.

Since finding out that housing is an option, Ellis Partners has also been talking to architects, contractors and brokers to discuss a potential housing development, Rubison said. The broader owners group of Town & Country is also supporting the exploration of a residential development.

Rubinson said he also met with Storm, including shortly before the Feb. 26 commission meeting. The tone, he said, was positive. The future development would hopefully result in more than 100 housing units, with a wide range of unit sizes and affordability levels, he said.

“We look forward to further exploring the potential of a combined and master-planned project that would ensure operational compatibility with the existing and much-loved retail center and any future housing development,” Rubison said.

While Storm did not preclude the possibility of a future collaboration with Ellis Partners, he urged the planning commission to approve the application currently on the table: a three-story condominium building that earlier this month earned the endorsement of the Architectural Review Board. Storm said he will continue to discuss a larger housing development with Ellis Partners.

“I think it’s the right thing to do ultimately and we hope we’re part of that,” Storm said. “But we’re paving the way here and we don’t want to be penalized for it.

“This is a good chance not to stop something but to move something forward to show that the city really does care about housing.”

The planning commission handed Storm a mixed verdict. It voted 6-1, with Bart Hechtman dissenting, to move the application to the City Council, whose vote will represent the final step in Palo Alto’s lengthy and highly discretionary “planned home zoning” process.

But the commission also gave the project a decidedly mixed review, voting 3-3 on a recommendation to approve the development. The three dissenting members, Chair Bryna Chang and commissioners Kevin Ji and Doria Summa, criticized the development’s traffic circulation plan and argued that the building has insufficient setbacks and landscaping.

“I understand there’s a challenge given the size of the parcel, but I’m hopeful we will see something much bigger, better and grander,” Chang said.

Vice Chair Allen Akin and commissioners Bart Hechtman and Forest Peterson all supported the project, even as they welcomed the possibility of a larger housing development involving Town & Country sometime in the future. Peterson rejected the idea of opposing a project based on a “what-if and a maybe about how the lot might be used, when it’s never been used in that way.”

Akin agreed.

Hechtman strongly supported the proposal and suggested that both Ellis Partners and Storm can benefit from a partnership. He urged Ellis to give Storm’s company an “offer they can’t refuse.”

“I don’t know that you have as much background in developing housing, but if you did some sort of deal here, part of what you’d be getting is not just access to this land, but you’ll be getting the expertise of one of the more experienced residential developments in the South Bay,” Hechtman said. “There’s a real opportunity here to have the current applicant happily sit on an approval while they work on something bigger and better from their perspective, as well as yours.”

The Architectural Review Board has also been generally supportive of the project, voting 4-1 to advance it at its Feb. 6 meeting. While most board members lauded the project, David Hirsch advocated for a more comprehensive rezoning process that would allow more housing to be constructed.

“This is a large piece of property relative to other properties here and it could allow for significantly greater density of housing than 10 units,” Hirsch said at the November review.

This story originally appeared in Palo Alto Weekly. Gennady Sheyner covers local and regional politics, housing, transportation and other topics for the Palo Alto Weekly, Palo Alto Online and their sister publications.

The post Town & Country owners look to build housing near its shopping center appeared first on San José Spotlight.

The program, which is administered by the nonprofit group MOVE Mountain View, has been gradually evolving since the City Council first established it in fall 2020. In fall 2022, it unveiled a suite of services for its residents, including a children’s library, laundry facilities and a closet with donated clothes. And last year, the City Council backed an expansion that will allow it to house up to 22 RVs, which is 10 more than it does today.

Since formally opening in 2021, the site has placed 58 individuals into permanent housing, according to Amber Stime, executive director of MOVE Mountain View.

“These are people who have worked in this community, the rent is too high and their income is too small so therefore they are in their cars,” Stime said during a Feb. 10 public hearing on Palo Alto’s homelessness programs.

Yet just about everyone acknowledges that this is not enough. The 2023 point-in-time count administered by Santa Clara County estimated that there were 181 individuals in 102 vehicles in Palo Alto, including 69 RVs. The survey also indicated that homeless people in Palo Alto are less likely to sleep in shelters and far more likely to sleep in cars. It found that 88% of Palo Alto’s unhoused individuals lived in vehicles that year, while across Santa Clara County, the proportion was just 32%. The survey also showed that 91% of Palo Alto’s unhoused population is unsheltered, compared to 75% countywide.

The supply has not kept up with the demand. The city currently has 40 “safe parking” spots, which includes the 22 on Geng Road and 18 in smaller programs administered by local congregations. A new report from city staff notes that while there is often excess capacity at the congregation sites, which only allow overnight parking, there has been a waiting list for 24-hour RV parking.

Council member Julie Lythcott-Haims led the push on Monday to expand services for local vehicle dwellers, including providing them with places that can accommodate their garbage disposal and bathroom needs. The city currently doesn’t have any pump-out stations or waste-dumping areas for RVs.

“These are humans who just like the rest of us want to live in dignity and want to be safe and don’t want to be in constant violation of societal rules,” Lythcott-Haims said. “They want to throw out their trash, but you’re not allowed to just put your trash in someone else’s bin or dumpster. If they’re in the RV, they want a place where they can pump their sewage, but where are they supposed to do that?”

Her preferred solution, she said, was to create a new park for RVs and car campers.

“More safe parking lots are, in my view, the most immediate and cheapest solution,” Lythcott-Haims said. “I think it’s high time we move toward building a proper RV dweller- and tiny home community, over an acre or two.”

While the council has yet to fully discuss this idea, at least one council member agreed that the city can establish more safe parking spaces near the Geng Road site, east of U.S. Highway 101. Council member Pat Burt noted that the city had set aside 10 acres of land for playing fields when it approved a major redesign of the Palo Alto Municipal Golf Course a decade ago to boost flood protection near the San Francisquito Creek. Those fields had not been built and the land remains vacant, Burt said.

“Just one acre of those 10, immediately across the road from our current MOVE Mountain View site, would be a big improvement,” Burt said.

The council’s discussion comes at a time when cities across the region are reconsidering their homelessness policies in light of last summer’s Supreme Court ruling that removed restrictions on clearing out homeless encampments on public property. In response to the Grants Pass v. Johnson ruling, Gov. Gavin Newsom expanded his efforts to clear encampments from state land and announced a $130.7 million grant program for local governments to clear encampments and provide support services for unhoused individuals.

The Palo Alto council showed little inclination on Monday to move ahead with homeless sweeps, though council member Greer Stone argued that that the city should coordinate its policies with those of neighboring jurisdiction to ensure that policies in one city don’t simply lead to unhoused individuals moving across the border.

“What I’m concerned about is inconsistent policies in the region that will be basically, rather than solving the problem of homelessness, just move people around to different cities with less restrictive measures,” Stone said. “And of course is never going to solve the actual problem.”

Council member George Lu agreed.

“I absolutely think we should not apply a criminalization of homelessness in the style of Grants Pass, which is a race to the bottom we don’t want to be part of – moving people around,” Lu said.

In discussing their options for addressing homelessness, council members agreed that enforcement needs to be part of the solution. But Police Chief Andrew Binder noted that in many cases, the incidents that police officers respond to do not rise to the level of law violations. Most of the department’s actions are noncustodial arrests in which an individual is issued a citation and released at the scene. Those who are physically arrested are often released from jail within hours and return to the community, he said.

Even so, Burt and Mayor Ed Lauing both stressed the need to address complaints from local residents and businesses about homelessness in the downtown area, particularly when individuals engage in aggressive behavior and block doorways. Lauing suggested that the city needs to balance its “compassionate care” approach with the enforcement.

“It’s real for businesses, it’s real for residents,” Lauing said. “I’m hearing both sides of that story all the time.”

Burt noted that creating more transitional housing for unhoused individuals could help the city identify those individuals who are homeless because of financial reasons. Expanding the Geng Road site could be part of the solution.

“That will really be a turning point because then our carrots become much more attractive,” Burt said. “And we can distinguish between folks who are declining help and a subset of those who are really bad apples.

“We have an ongoing problem with a minority of our unhoused population downtown who are really problematic to our community for public health, public safety, economic development. It’s a real issue.”

While expanding the Geng Road site will give the city more options for temporarily housing some of the city’s unhoused individuals, Palo Alto still faces a broader problem: a lack of permanent housing that residents can move on to.

According to the city, Palo Alto has zero units of “permanent supportive housing” — which pair permanent residences with social services – and about 120 people who are waiting to get placed into such housing. While the city is now in the final stages of building a transitional housing project on San Antonio Road, the 88 rooms that this project will create are not intended for permanent occupancy.

“The ultimate issue if we don’t have adequate permanent supportive housing is we don’t have a means for people exiting those shelters,” said Melissa McDonough, assistant to the city manager. “The shelters at some point don’t have the means of accepting the inflow. It becomes increasingly problematic.”

This story originally appeared in Palo Alto Weekly. Gennady Sheyner covers local and regional politics, housing, transportation and other topics for the Palo Alto Weekly, Palo Alto Online and their sister publications.

The post Palo Alto mulls new RV park to aid vehicle dwellers appeared first on San José Spotlight.

By the standards of local planning efforts, which typically feature years of debate and numerous iterations, the current Cubberley effort is a sprint. The City Council hopes to have a draft in place by the end of the year, with the goal of officially adopting it in spring 2026 and then asking voters to pass a bond in November of that year.

For many residents, the exercise will have a familiar feel. The city has already made numerous attempts to reimagine Cubberley, a former high school that has fallen in disrepair but that remains a community hive, with soccer leagues, artist studios, nonprofit organizations, childcare organizations and performing arts groups all basing operations on the sprawling campus. City leaders have been talking about fixing up Cubberley for decades and have already completed several planning efforts, including one as recently as 2019.

This time, however, city leaders have some reasons to feel optimistic. Past efforts required close cooperation between the city and the Palo Alto Unified School District, which owns 27 of the 35 acres at Cubberley. The 2019 effort envisioned the city and the school district jointly rebuilding the entire center and then sharing Cubberley gyms, performances spaces and other amenities. The plan imploded when school district officials made it clear that they have neither the ambition nor the legal ability to fund many of the proposed improvements, some of which don’t directly relate to education.

That equation changed last October, when the city and the district reached a deal allowing the former to purchase 8 acres of land from the latter for $65.5 million. If the bond passes, the city would have 15 acres of Cubberley space with which they could do as they please.

In discussing their vision for Cubberley on Tuesday, council members made it clear that even if the footprint of the redeveloped center has shrunk, their ambitions have not. During a special meeting at the Mitchell Park Community Center devoted to the new plan, council members and a team of consultants from Concordia brainstormed the qualities, amenities and features that they want to see in the new Cubberley Community Center.

They concluded the meeting by adopting a vision statement describing the future Cubberley as “a vibrant and beloved destination with activities, amenities and offerings that promote learning, joy and well-being where all cultures and generations belong.”

What exactly does this mean? That is expected to become clearer in the months to come, as community members weigh in on this vision and make their own proposals for Cubberley uses. But unlike in 2019, the plan will not consider housing or require the school district’s cooperation. It also will not require a learning curve, given that Concordia also spearheaded the 2019 plan.

“We’re not starting from scratch,” said Elizabeth Chen, a consultant with Concordia, at the Tuesday meeting.

The planning effort will accelerate in the coming month, with the council scheduled to approve on Feb. 24 a pair of contracts with a polling firm and with a communication consultant. The city plans to commission Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates, which worked with the city on the successful 2022 business tax measure, for polling services and the Lew Edwards Group, which helped out with the 2008 library bond and the business tax measure, for communication consulting.

The two contracts will cost $264,000, according to a report from Community Services Director Kristen O’Kane.

Concordia is already in the midst of recruiting a squad of about 20 ambassadors to assist with public outreach, a tactic that it also deployed in 2018. It plans to hold three community meetings before presenting a plan based on the feedback. Under the terms of the city’s deal with the school district, the purchase of the 8 acres is contingent on a successful bond measure in 2026.

“It is a tight timeline,” said Council member Julie Lythcott-Haims, who chairs a subcommittee that will help guide the Cubberley master plan. “There is a ton to do and it’s going to take all of us to carry this ball over the line.”

Council members broadly agreed that the future Cubberley should be playful, vibrant and have a low barrier to entry. It should continue to welcome nonprofit groups and artists, and it should be open to Palo Altans of all generations. It is expected to have a gym and a performing art center.

“I think we want to make sure organizationally that it is set up to invite people to come and pursue various things as opposed to a rigidity, a formality and a limitedness,” Lythcott-Haims said. “We want it to be a lot of things to a lot of different people.”

Vice Mayor Vicki Veenker suggested that Cubberley should include a mix of activities that could work in synergy.

“If you drop off your child at a  practice, you might go in for a swim,” Veenker said. “If you go in for a painting class, there might be childcare. There are things that go together.”

Council members also acknowledged that they may not be able to have everything they want. Veenker suggested that Concordia return with a range of options – good, better and best while Council member Keith Reckdahl said the plan should be “ambitious but realistic.”

Council member Pat Burt, who will sit on the Cubberley Committee with Reckdahl and Lythcott-Haims, suggested that the scope of the project will be based on voters’ appetite.

“I’ve seen a lot of world class projects, mostly left on the drawing board,” Burt said. “And I don’t want to see this left on the drawing board again.”

This story originally appeared in Palo Alto Weekly. Gennady Sheyner covers local and regional politics, housing, transportation and other topics for the Palo Alto Weekly, Palo Alto Online and their sister publications.

The post A vibrant destination? Palo Alto dreams big on Cubberley appeared first on San José Spotlight.

Several groups including the NAACP San Jose/Silicon Valley  and Muwekma Ohlone tribe said a mural inside the hallway of the Palo Alto branch displays colonialist imagery, denigrating Native Americans.

“The portrayal of our ancestors as scantily clad and kneeling before those religious clerics who enslaved us glosses over the reality of our existence: a reality that has been marred by systematic genocide,” Charlene Nijmeh, chair of the Muwekma Ohlone tribe, said in a statement. “The image of a ship on the horizon carries with it not just historical baggage, but represents the continuous trauma inflicted upon my people, the Muwekma Ohlone, who have been the rightful guardians of this land that stretches across San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and beyond for countless generations.”

Because the courthouse is on county property, the court cannot do anything about the sprawling mural without county approval, according to Lisa Herrick, court assistant executive officer. The court has raised its concerns to the county for several years, but the county has taken a position that it is a historical piece of art that cannot be painted over.

“We absolutely do not want it to be displayed,” Herrick told San José Spotlight. “Covering the painting without damaging it is something that we are now contemplating because the county has informed us that it is a work of art and that we cannot remove it.”

The county sought consultants, including an art appraiser, to help it navigate the issue. The Art Asset Management group prepared a lengthy report for the county, in which it advised preserving the mural because it adds historical context to the times when Spain sent Catholic missionaries to North America to expand territory and convert Native Americans.

“There is no erasing that part of history,” the report read. “We can look back and regret the past, but without knowing and recognizing the past, we might forget that these things happened and find ourselves in the same place — wanting to destroy a foreign culture, people or religion, as it is scary to us. What we can do is educate, to use this as a teaching moment.”

The mural was painted by Mary Dill Henry around 1961 during a time when artists were commissioned to paint government and corporate buildings, according to the research report. In the 1930s and 40s, hundreds of controversial murals featuring Native Americans were painted on U.S. post offices during the New Deal under President Franklin Roosevelt. Henry also produced other artwork in the Bay Area, including at the Emporium in San Francisco and the First California State Capitol in Monterey.

County Deputy Executive Sylvia Gallegos told San José Spotlight the county takes a cautionary approach in removing art on its property, particularly when the artist hasn’t waived their rights. In a letter County Executive James Williams sent to the court, he suggested the mural remain uncovered, with an addition of a plaque to provide historical context and commentary on the painting.

“The mural presents a worthwhile opportunity for contemplation and public engagement with artwork and local history, with a recognition of the complexity and contested nature of the subject matter and the subjectivity involved in its depiction,” Williams said in the letter.

Raymond Goins, member of the NAACP San Jose/ Silicon Valley who is leading the effort to remove the mural, said some history shouldn’t be showcased.

“The Confederate flag is a historical piece of work, and we don’t fly that,” he told San José Spotlight.

The NAACP plans to meet with Santa Clara County Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga, whose district covers the Palo Alto court branch, to discuss removing or covering the mural.

Abe-Koga said it’s important that all government facilities are inviting to everyone.

“As this mural is offensive to some members of our community, I support removing it,“ she told San José Spotlight.

While the county does not want the mural to be removed, it will support a concealment of the mural paid for by the court.

“We don’t want to strip history from all of our contemporary spaces, but we do want a full context around imagery that promotes harmful narratives — like that of the altruistic priest civilizing savages,” Nijmeh told San José Spotlight. “Removing these depictions from the Palo Alto Superior Court is especially important because this building is tasked with rendering justice today.”

Contact Joyce Chu at joyce@sanjosespotlight.com or @joyce_speaks on X.

The post Santa Clara County courthouse mural is racist, advocates say appeared first on San José Spotlight.