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Gargantuan. A flagrant foul. A mistake.
It’s not even located within the city borders, but Palo Alto leaders had plenty of choice words on Monday to describe Peninsula’s largest, boldest and most contentious development application: the three-tower complex eyed for 80 Willow Road in Menlo Park.
The proposed project from NV17 Developers, which reaches a height of 461 feet, loomed large during the City Council’s discussion of the contentious process that enabled it. The development is among dozens in the region that relied on builder’s remedy, a provision in state law that allows builders to bypass zoning laws in jurisdictions that don’t have a compliant housing plan.
Palo Alto had received 10 such applications before the state Department of Housing and Community Development certified the city’s Housing Element last August. The boldest of them is 156 California Ave., a proposal from Redco Development for a three-building complex that includes two residential towers, one with 17 stories and another with 11.
But it was the Menlo Park project at 80 Willow Road that many local residents see as perfectly emblematic of the excessive growth that builder’s remedy enables.
It is also Exhibit A for state Sen. Josh Becker, who is now leading an effort to curb builder’s remedy by shortening the window during which it applies. When asked about his new effort to reform builder’s remedy, he immediately cited the project at the former Sunset Magazine property as an issue of huge concern to his constituents. It’s not just Menlo Park, though. Becker noted that Saratoga has received 22 builder’s remedy projects while Los Gatos has 16.
His new proposal, Senate Bill 457 would restrict builder’s remedy in two ways. If the bill is approved, cities would no longer be susceptible to builder’s remedy applications once they adopt their Housing Elements, provided the state ultimately certifies these documents. This is a change from the current system, wherein builder’s remedy remains in play until the HCD certifies the plan, a window that typically stretches for several months.
Cities that adopt housing plans should not be punished with builder’s remedy applications just because the HCD is taking its sweet time in reviewing their submission, Becker said in an interview.
“It’s a big issue within the community,” Becker said. “That was a no-brainer for me. They should not be able to take advantage of this window.”
Becker’s bill would also take away the ability of developers to submit preliminary applications with scant details through the builder’s remedy process, effectively using them as placeholders to ensure that they can submit a more detailed zone-busting project later. SB 457 would require all builder’s remedy proposals to be complete applications.
Palo Alto officials indicated Monday that they strongly support Becker’s effort, though it remains to be seen what form the city’s support will take. The bill is so new that its text was released during the council’s discussion. Given that neither the council members nor the broader public had seen the language before Monday, council members agreed to continue the discussion until April 7. At that point, they will decide whether to merely support the legislation or to go a step further and sponsor it, placing the city at the tip of the spear when it comes to statewide advocacy.
For Palo Alto, sponsorship would be a departure from the norm. City Manager Ed Shikada said that the city has not sponsored a bill in staff’s collective memory. Yet everyone agreed that recent projects like 80 Willow Road cry out for a process change. Council member Julie Lythcott-Haims called the project a “flagrant foul” and suggested that Becker’s bill is clearly a response to this project. Mayor Ed Lauing agreed.
“That’s a perfect example of a gargantuan building that doesn’t get us anything that works in a city,” Lauing said. “That’s a mistake in my judgment.”
To gather support Becker’s bill, Palo Alto staff will be reaching out to other cities and stakeholders in the coming weeks before returning on April 7 for a formal vote. Vice Mayor Vicki Veenker pushed her colleague to delay the decision until April 14 to allow for more outreach but her proposal fell by a 5-2 vote, with only Council member George Lu joining her.
“I think it would have a better chance of passing if we felt like other cities are with us on it,” Veenker said.
Most of her colleagues pushed for more speed. While the first formal hearing on the bill is scheduled for April 29 in front of the Senate Housing Committee, it’s possible that the legislation will require another hearing on April 22, according to Carlin Shelby, senior associate at Townsend Public Affairs, the city’s lobbyist in Sacramento. Letters of support for the legislation would be due a week before that date, on April 15.
Lauing suggested that other city leaders and state legislators will likely support the bill, which fixes a problem that many acknowledge exists, he said.
“Ther’s no expectation that Palo Alto is going to be the only one behind it, but we might be the first if we get going on it,” Lauing said.
Menlo Park is among the cities that are expected to be on board. City staff is already studying Becker’s bill, according to Menlo Park City Council member Jeff Schmidt.
“We’re getting the text and we’ll be looking at it pretty closely,” Schmidt told the Palo Alto council. “I’d like to encourage us to work very closely cross-city in analyzing this and discussing it and figuring out what makes the most sense for both cities.
“I can’t speak on behalf of my other council members, but I know this is having a pretty big impact on our city as well.”
Palo Alto resident Nadia Naik also pointed at 80 Willow as the perfect example of why some kind of reform is needed to builder’s remedy. She described the project as “opportunism” and suggested that it may deter people from supporting pro-housing legislation.
“These speculative projects threaten to upend not just our Housing Element but the credibility of the housing reform statewide,” Naik said. “That’s the real danger here, a statewide backlash.”
Becker said that his staff had worked with Palo Alto officials in crafting the bill, with Council member Pat Burt taking the lead from the city side. Burt urged his colleagues on Monday to support the effort.
“Sen. Becker has really taken a leadership role in trying to correct what many people think is a problem that lends itself to abuse,” Burt said.
In a summary of the bill, Becker argued that the existing process allows developers to “file hasty, preliminary applications as placeholders to claim Builder’s Remedy protections.”
“This strays beyond the purpose of the Builder’s Remedy to provide developers with relief when an agency’s land use policies do not comply with state requirements,” the document states. “Instead, it permits developers to proceed with projects that may not comply with local policies and programs that have met the state’s high standards for both fair housing and overall housing production.”
Correction: The story initially stated that the maximum height of 80 Willow Road was 431 feet.
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You knew the rules, Palo Alto. The deadline to get your Housing Element approved was January 31st, 2023. If you’d played by the rules instead of pretending they didn’t apply to you, you wouldn’t have gotten stuck with the Builders’ Remedy.
If everyone followed “The Rules,” then we wouldn’t have a United States of America