Cal Poly students tackle tough assignment: Palo Alto’s housing crisis

Palo Alto’s elected leaders and housing developers don’t always see eye to eye, but their visions converge on San Antonio Road, an artery on the city’s southern edge that everyone agrees is ripe for residential growth.

The city’s housing plan envisions building about 2,000 dwellings in this area by 2031, roughly a third of the total citywide target. And developers are playing ball. Earlier this month, Acclaim Companies filed a preliminary application for a 198-apartment complex at 762 San Antonio Road. And last year, Juno Realty Partners and Far Western Land and Investment Company applied for a 350-apartment complex at 3997 Fabian Way, near the San Antonio corridor.

But as the City Council tries to win state approval for its Housing Element, it is wrestling with other questions: What should this new residential neighborhood look like, and what types of amenities will Palo Alto need to build to support San Antonio’s future residents?

To help find the answer, the city has enlisted a team of consultants: planning students from the California Polytechnic State University. Since September, 16 fourth-year students have been studying the land use patterns and zoning designations on San Antonio Road as part of their final project. The goal is to create a concept plan for an eclectic area that today only includes a smattering of residential, commercial and industrial uses and a dearth of transportation amenities, with driving lanes as a notable exception.

With so much riding on San Antonio, the Cal Poly group came to Palo Alto on Jan. 24 to ask area residents what they would like to see. Armed with giant maps, Lego blocks and giant sheets with Mad Libs-style exercises, the student planners joined about 50 residents and city staff at Mitchell Park Community Center for a wonky and whimsical workshop designed to solicit ideas about San Antonio’s future.

While the class is treating the planning process as primarily a learning opportunity, Palo Alto’s planning staff will use the Cal Poly concept as a launch pad for broader and deeper community discussions about San Antonio Road’s future. The ultimate goal is to craft a coordinated area plan, a long-range document that often includes significant zoning changes and additions of valued amenities such as housing, parks, shopping areas and bike lanes.

“This gives us the initial opportunity to engage the community,” Planning Director Jonathan Lait said.

The group’s planning exercises highlighted the wide variety of views that local residents have about housing in the San Antonio planning area, which stretches roughly from Alma Street to the Baylands. When asked to place Lego blocks on a map to illustrate what they want future development to look like, some groups created skyscrapers surrounded by open spaces; others opted for lower-scale villages.

Arthur Keller, a local resident and former planning commissioner, said his group thought the segments of San Antonio near Alma Street and near Charleston Road were particularly suitable for growth. The group’s Lego plan included mixed-use developments in these areas, with retail on the ground floor, housing above it and a nearby park.

But while participants had different views about what exactly the housing should look like, there was far more consensus about the type of vibe they would like to see. Just about every group supported adding transportation amenities to make the street safer for pedestrians and bicyclists. Many residents said they want to see the area become a destination for shopping and dining. Popular proposals included protected bike lanes, tree-lined sidewalks, new shuttles and transportation links, expansive parks and rooftop restaurants.

The common desire to see San Antonio become less car-heavy became particularly clear during the Mad Lib-style exercise. One group said that they want the character of San Antonio Road to be “not a parking lot,” another said it should feel safe when you walk, while another made the case for more parks and trees.

Professor Dave Amos, whose class is tackling the assignment, told this publication that the group plans to submit its report in March. The Jan. 24 workshop, he said, was a critical milestone for the students as they conduct outreach for the project. He said going into the workshop, the group had already been working on conceptual alternatives, examining different densities and various types of transportation improvements. These plans, however, were subject to revisions based on the feedback from local residents.

“We had no idea what the feedback was going to be,” Amos said.

For both the Cal Poly students and the city, the planning exercise comes with some sense of urgency. The students are concluding their term in late March. The city, meanwhile, is now a year late in getting state approval for its Housing Element, a document that lays out its plans to add 6,086 residences by 2031.

Until the state Department of Housing and Community Development certifies the Housing Element, Palo Alto will remain vulnerable to “builder’s remedy” applications, which effectively ignore zoning restrictions (both the Acclaim Companies and Juno Realty Partners and Far Western Land and Investment Company housing projects are builder’s remedy proposals).

The council, in other words, has every incentive to move fast when it comes to revising land use laws to encourage housing in San Antonio.

Some of that work has already begun. In October, the City Council voted to loosen density and height restrictions in commercial and industrial zones in this area with the goal of encouraging dense housing development in the area next to the Mountain View border. Zones where heights have historically been capped at 35 to 50 feet would now have height limits of 45 to 60 feet, though developers can rely on the State Density Bonus law to get heights of up to 95 feet.

Vice Mayor Ed Lauing, who attended the Jan. 24 workshop, said that even though the completion of an area plan will take some time, he hopes to see – and approve – housing projects on the corridor even before the exercise is completed.

“When we do a plan based on this (Cal Poly effort), this doesn’t mean we won’t be approving housing permits,” Lauing said.