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As Stanford University prepares to apply for a new general use permit this year, Santa Clara County officials who will be charged with reviewing the growth plan debated on Thursday the best way to ensure that the expansion will not worsen the housing shortage in surrounding cities.
In order to obtain the permit it needs to expand, Stanford will have to satisfy the county’s policies and win the approval of the Board of Supervisors. It will also have to comply with the policies of the Stanford Community Plan, a recently revised county document that lays out the rules for future university growth.
Geoff Bradley, a consultant with the urban planning consulting firm M-Group, provided a recap of the recent revisions to the plan to the Santa Clara Housing Land Use, Environment, & Transportation Committee, which consists of Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga and board Vice President Sylvia Arenas. Bradley grounded Abe-Koga and Arenas, who were elected to the Board in 2024 and 2022 respectively, in the plan’s three county policy priorities – housing, traffic management, and protecting open space.
These three policy areas were the main concerns that stymied Stanford’s 2016 effort to obtain a general use permit. The university’s growth plan at that time included 2.275 million square feet of new academic space and 2,600 student beds. The university abandoned the plan in 2019 in the face of community and county concerns about the pace of growth and insufficient mitigation measures.
Even though that effort fizzled, the county moved ahead with the community plan update to address some of the concerns that were addressed during the permit process, according to Jacqueline Onciano, the county’s planning director.
The 2023 revisions represent some of the biggest changes to the Stanford Community Plan since the county first adopted it in 2000 as a supplement to the Santa Clara County General Plan, which governs growth policies in unincorporated parts of the county. The Stanford Community Plan lays out specific land use policies in the sections of Stanford’s land that fall in unincorporated Santa Clara County, which is nearly 50% of the university’s total land. Until the adoption of the 2023 plan, it had only received minor amendments in 2013, 2015, and 2019, Onciano said.
The 2023 plan emphasizes “principles of compact urban development, open space preservation, and resource conservation.”
One of the key amendments of the 2023 plan requires Stanford to address growth by building 75% of new housing on Stanford’s land. The remaining 25% of housing can be built in areas nearby. This provision addresses community concerns that faculty, staff and students must compete for rental and ownership housing with other area residents. The addition is a change from the 2000 plan, which allowed Stanford to pay “in-lieu” fees, payments made to local government as an alternative to building affordable housing. However, Bradley noted that these fees only provided a fraction, or 12%, of the funding needed to develop housing. Under the 2023 plan, Stanford cannot pay in-lieu fees.
“Our major focus of the Stanford Community Plan housing policy update is to accommodate future University growth by requiring both market rate and affordable housing to be provided on campus,” Bradley said in his presentation. “This approach improves the distribution of housing units within the region and also helps eliminate the need for long commutes, which in turn provides for reduced local congestion, reduced vehicle miles traveled, and reduced greenhouse gasses, all consistent with county policy.”
Bradley also highlighted the plan’s traffic policy, which sought to address community concerns about congestion by requiring Stanford to maintain the existing “no net new commute trip standard.” Under the policy, there must be zero increase in the total number of commuting trips by Stanford affiliates during peak traffic hours.
The 2023 plan also maintained the university’s growth boundary, originally identified in the 2000 plan, for another 99 years. The “academic growth boundary,” which encompasses the main campus but excludes Stanford’s open space areas, encourages compact growth and conservation of natural resources by delineating the areas intended for future urbanization from those areas not intended for future urban use.
Whitney McNair, senior associate vice president at Stanford University, said at the meeting that the goal of Stanford’s forthcoming growth plan and general use permit is to craft a proposal that benefits the county and surrounding communities of the Bay Area while ensuring that Stanford remains a leader in research, innovation and education. McNair is the project executive of StanfordNext, an outreach plan that Stanford launched last year to solicit community feedback before it files its application. The effort includes the recent appointment of the StanfordNext Advisory Council. SNAC is a 22-member group including nonprofit leaders, elected officials and experts in land use and transportation that are guiding the university’s long-term campus growth goals through the new general use permit.
“We look forward to working with the county and community to ensure that the policy framework allows shared success related to housing, transportation, academic research and scientific discovery,” McNair said. “We also look forward to discussions with the county as we start to craft our application, and believe we can develop a proposal that focuses on the needs of the county, the community and the university.”
The community plan does not limit Stanford’s ability to purchase homes outside the campus, but under its policies these homes would not count toward the county’s requirement that Stanford houses most of its new students, facility and staff within the campus.
Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga, who represents District 5 of the county that encapsulates Palo Alto, Mountain View and the portion of Stanford in Santa Clara County that includes the main Stanford University campus, said that she appreciated the community plan’s priorities. But while the plan favors building housing over playing fees, Abe-Koga said she is interested in exploring in-lieu fee options in light of recent changes to the affordable housing funding environment.
“I know the issue is always like, how much should that be?” Abe-Koga said. “And that’s, I think, up for negotiation to make it comparable or worthwhile. But we have affordable housing needs throughout the county, and we’re looking for a funding source, so I’m thinking … could this be an opportunity for that?”
Sylvia Arenas, vice president of the board of supervisors, balked at the possibility of considering in-lieu fees. Arenas said the city of San Jose, which is part of the district she represents, has done “more than their fair share” in developing affordable housing. She said that it often takes a long time for the county to accumulate enough in-lieu fees to actually build the needed housing.
“I don’t know that all of the cities within our county … have done their fair share of bringing in affordable housing and integrating them into their community,” Arenas said. “So because of that, what I’m going to ask for is for us to be very measured about how we integrate affordable housing and how we are going to look at in-lieu fees.”
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