Residents, developers disagree over plans for Mayfield land Residents, developers disagree over plans for Mayfield land (July 23, 2004)

Locals dislike proposals for high-density housing

By David Herbert

More than 300 area residents, city officials and other interested parties converged last week to discuss the development potential for the vacant Hewlett Packard campus in a passionate and, at times, chaotic meeting.

The city is considering rezoning the property to allow for the construction of more housing at the site once known as the Mayfield Mall, and invited residents of the area to Monta Loma Elementary School for a public forum.

The mood of the meeting was emotional from the outset when the property's developer, Toll Brothers, outlined four possible housing configurations for the crowd, none of which met with the neighbors' approval. When architect John Ellis said that all of the plans feature 600 to 800 housing units, someone in the crowd shouted, "How about 100 units?" which was met with thundering applause.

"I would like to see single-family, lower-density housing," said another Monta Loma neighborhood resident Imelda White, a sentiment that was shared by many. Monta Loma, which is adjacent to the HP campus, is comprised of single-family homes.

Most in the crowd, if they favored development at all, wanted it on a similar scale as Monta Loma, which currently has about six homes per acre. The plans Toll Brothers proposed at the meeting averaged 20 to 30 units per acre. Residents made it clear that they worried high-density housing would drive down property values, increase area traffic and burden local schools.

Ellis, however, rejected the argument that high-density housing would lower housing prices in the area.

"There is no correlation between high- and low-density housing and property value. If it is quality housing, prices will continue to rise," he said.

Mountain View-Whisman School District Superintendent Jim Negri was also confident that the public school system would be able to accommodate the population influx.

"I think that if we generated 200 to 300 kids out of that area, we should probably be able to handle them," he said. "It would probably force us to look at our attendance areas and probably do some shifting though."

But some neighbors questioned whether the 27-acre property, which is currently zoned as commercial, even needed to become housing at all. Any rezoning would need to be approved by the city, which was represented by Mayor Matt Pear, Council member Greg Perry and over a dozen city officials at the meeting. The city of Palo Alto also has a stake in the project with 4.5 acres of Mayfield within its borders.

"They need to prove that it needs to be rezoned," said Monta Loma resident Dhananjay Ragade, adding that with the dot-com crash and a struggling economy, more housing may not be in demand.

But a 2003 housing study conducted by the city concluded that it needs to construct about 3,500 new housing units over the next five years to keep up with population growth.

Toll Brothers also suggested converting some of the land into retail space, but residents, fearing a potential increase in traffic, opposed that plan.

After showing disapproval with Toll Brothers' plans, some Monta Loma residents were skeptical that their input would be taken seriously.

"This is all lip service. This is just calming the natives," said Martin Fouts, who lives on Diablo Road, which borders the Mayfield parcel.

Another meeting is tentatively scheduled for August or September, when residents, city officials and Toll Brothers representatives will reconvene to discuss revised plans. But near the close of the meeting, Monta Loma resident John Canata issued a stern warning to the city and the developers, stating calmly but firmly into a microphone, "If we're not happy with the outcome, it's not the last they're going to hear from us."

E-mail David Herbert at dherbert@mv-voice.com

E-mail a friend a link to this story.