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For years, Palo Alto has struggled to add enough housing, particularly affordable homes, while working within some of the region’s most restrictive zoning rules. Six projects now moving through various stages of Palo Alto’s pipeline show how that landscape is changing. From a downtown parking lot and a longtime shopping center to an office park east of Highway 101, the developments are using state housing laws, new zoning tools and public-private partnerships to add hundreds of homes to the city. Together, they show how developers are finding new ways to put substantially more housing on particular sites in Palo Alto. Here’s where each project stands.
Former Fish Market site
Type of Project: Affordable and market-rate housing
Location: 3150 El Camino Real
Project phase:. Broke ground in August
Project description: Located on the former site of the iconic Fish Market restaurant, this development will bring 386 new homes to Palo Alto, including 74 affordable units. The project will also include a two-story underground parking garage with 455 vehicle spaces and 410 bicycle spaces, along with a rooftop deck, fitness and wellness centers and pickleball courts. The development alone represents a little more than 6% of the housing Palo Alto was required to plan for between 2023 and 2031. Its 74 affordable units also account for about 9% of the moderate- and low-income housing currently in the city’s development pipeline.
Project significance: The project is the first proposed under the El Camino Real Housing Focus Area, a zoning designation along the southern portion of the corridor that allows taller and denser housing development than is permitted elsewhere in Palo Alto. The large-scale proposal reflects the type of housing development that helped prompt the city to create the Housing Focus Area and could serve as a model for future projects along El Camino Real.
Developer: Acclaim Companies
Geng Road townhomes
Type of project: Townhomes
Location: 2100 Geng Road
Project phase: Approved
Project description: The 59-building development will bring 145 for-sale townhomes to an existing office park just south of the Baylands Athletic Center on the east side of Highway 101. The project includes a mix of attached and detached townhomes, with 19 units, or about 13%, reserved for low-income buyers. All 19 affordable homes would be attached rowhomes.
Project significance: The project is the first major residential development in Palo Alto east of Highway 101, bringing housing to a traditionally commercial and industrial area near the Baylands. It is also the only Builder’s Remedy project in the city proposed for a nonresidential site in the waterfront area. The project is one of about 10 housing developments in Palo Alto’s pipeline that took advantage of the state’s Builder’s Remedy, which allows developers to bypass certain local zoning restrictions when a city does not have a state-compliant housing plan. The application was filed while Palo Alto was awaiting state certification of its Housing Element. The project also takes advantage of state density bonus provisions, allowing the developer to increase the number of homes in exchange for affordable housing.
Developer: Strada Investment Group
Lot T
Type of project: Affordable housing
Location: 450 Lytton Ave.
Project phase: Design refinement; City Council review expected by the end of 2026.
Project description: Located on Lot T, a downtown parking lot at the corner of Lytton Avenue and Kipling Street, the proposed six-story affordable-housing complex would include 72 units. About half would be reserved for households with extremely low incomes, defined as at or below 30% of the area median income. Most of the remaining units would serve households with very low incomes, between 30% and 50% of AMI, and low incomes, between 50% and 80% of AMI.
Project significance:The proposal is part of Palo Alto’s broader effort to build more affordable housing on city-owned parking lots. The city’s Housing Element envisions housing on six such sites — four downtown and two along California Avenue — that could collectively provide about 290 below-market-rate units. Lot T is the first of these projects to move ahead, making it an early test of the city’s plan to convert parking lots to housing. In August, a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge rejected a legal challenge from neighboring property owners, clearing the way for the project to proceed.
Developer: Nonprofit group Alta Housing, the city’s development partner
Town & Country Village
Type of Project: Apartments
Location: 44 and 88 Encina Ave.
Project phase: Prescreening and pre-application
Project description: The proposal calls for 158 apartment units in two seven-story buildings on the surface parking lots near Encina Avenue, along the northern edge of Town & Country Village. Preliminary renderings draw on architectural details from the existing shopping center, including clay tile roofs and covered walkways. Each building would include a wellness center and an upper-floor sky lounge, along with three levels of parking. The project would provide 219 parking stalls, including spaces for both residential and commercial use.
Project significance: The proposal is among a small number of projects using Palo Alto’s Planned Home Zoning (PHZ) process since the city revived it in 2020. The zoning designation allows developers to seek changes to base zoning standards in exchange for providing at least 20% of the project’s units as deed-restricted affordable housing. In this case, the developer is asking the city to rezone nine parcels from Community Commercial to Planned Community/Planned Home Zoning to allow housing on the site.
The use of PHZ is notable given Palo Alto’s long-running debate over rezoning commercial properties for denser housing. If approved, the project also would represent a significant change for Town & Country Village, a shopping center near El Camino Real and Embarcadero Road that dates to the 1950s and remains home to a mix of restaurants, coffee shops and retail stores.
The project is in the prescreening stage, giving councilmembers an opportunity to weigh in before the developer submits a formal application.
Developer: Ellis Partners
Mollie Stone’s Market site
Type of Project: Mixed-use
Location: 156 California Ave.
Project phase: Architectural review
Project description: The proposed mixed-use development would replace the existing Mollie Stone’s Market with three residential towers — one 14 stories tall and two 12 stories tall — rising above a new two-story Mollie Stone’s Market. The project would include 390 homes, including 50 below-market-rate units.
Project significance: The project pushed the limits of Palo Alto’s traditional development rules and became a compromise between the city and developer. Submitted under the state’s Builder’s Remedy, which allows developers to bypass local zoning rules, the original proposal called for towers as tall as 17 stories — a dramatic shift for the traditionally low-rise area. After years of legal and political disputes over height and density, the city and the developer reached a revised plan that included more homes overall, while reducing the height of the tallest building. The project became one of the Bay Area’s most high-profile housing battles and showed how a Builder’s Remedy proposal could be reshaped through negotiation.
Developer: Redco Development
Minority Television Project
Type of Project: MIxed-use with multi-family apartments
Location: 135 University Ave.
Project phase: Initial review
Project description: The site currently houses the Wade Institute of Technology, a STEM education program affiliated with the Minority Television Project. The proposed project would retain the existing commercial uses on the first two floors and add five stories with 17 apartments. The 75-foot-tall building would include two units designated for households with very low incomes.
Project significance: The proposal is one of nine Palo Alto housing applications submitted during a two-week window in July when Senate Bill 79 was in effect. The state law allows taller and denser housing near major transit stops, including Caltrain stations. Because the project was submitted before Palo Alto adopted its interim restrictions on SB 79 development, it is being reviewed under the earlier rules. The developer is also seeking additional density under the state Density Bonus Law and a waiver of the city’s parking requirements. If approved, the project would add a 75-foot-tall building downtown, about 25 feet taller than historically allowed under city rules.
Developer: Nonprofit organization Minority Television Project
-Information compiled from coverage by Gennady Sheyner and Riley Cooke.
