A proposal by the Palo Alto Housing Corporation to build a senior-housing development and 15 homes on an old orchard site earned early kudos from city officials Tuesday evening, though some members of the City Council urged the developer to pay extra attention to the design and traffic impacts of the new project.
The Housing Corporation, the nonprofit organization that manages affordable-housing developments throughout the city, asked the city for a $6.5 million grant from its housing fund to support a project at 567-595 Maybell Ave. The development would feature a 60-unit apartment building for low-income seniors and 15 market-rate homes, according to Candice Gonzalez, the nonprofit's executive director.
The market-rate portion of the project is intended to help the agency pay for the project, Gonzalez said. The Housing Corporation also plans to apply for a county grant and for state credits to help fund the project.
In addition to city funding, the agency is also requesting a zone change to allow greater density at the Barron Park site, which is near the intersection of Maybell and Clemo avenues.
The council didn't vote on the project Tuesday, though members generally agreed that affordable housing, particularly for seniors, is badly needed in a city with a graying population. Councilman Sid Espinosa said he is "very excited" about the project, though he urged the developers to pay particular attention to traffic.
"We really need to be thinking about the kids and pedestrians all along the walkway and how we design this with them in mind," Espinosa said.
The rest of the council echoed Espinosa's sentiments, and offered other suggestions. Mayor Yiaway Yeh asked the developer to consider changing the project's orientation to promote better traffic flow.
Vice Mayor Greg Scharff urged the Housing Corporation to avoid a "cookie-cutter" design. And Councilman Larry Klein asked the agency to consider a broader range of zoning designations for the site, including ones that would enable less density that the R-40 zone the developer is requesting.
"I like the idea of having different housing products to meet different parts of the housing market," Councilwoman Gail Price said.
The new development comes just a year after the Housing Corporation completed construction of its last affordable-housing project -- the 33-unit Treehouse development on West Charleston Road.
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Comments
Barron Park
on Sep 19, 2012 at 10:52 am
on Sep 19, 2012 at 10:52 am
The proposal looks very good. This town really needs more senior housing, and I would rather see this land have affordable senior housing than all market rate homes. Our seniors deserve a clean, well run, affordable place to live.
Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Sep 19, 2012 at 11:00 am
on Sep 19, 2012 at 11:00 am
Thanks to City Council for paying attention to how this project will address the street at this early phase of design concept development. Maybell and Arastradero are both major school commute routes to multiple school sites. Lots of kids on foot and on bikes on those streets. It's important that the design is safe and pedestrian/bike friendly. Really, pedestrian and bike activity is important throughout the day because of park proximity as well. Future senior residents will appreciate a safe, welcoming pedestrian environment, too.
Greenmeadow
on Sep 19, 2012 at 1:48 pm
on Sep 19, 2012 at 1:48 pm
I love the idea of housing for seniors, there are hardly any condos built on one story. Many seniors downsizing would still like to have 2 or 3 bedrooms. It would be nice if some of the new buildings would also be senior perfect- 1 story, 2 or 3 bedrooms.
Green Acres
on Sep 19, 2012 at 4:04 pm
on Sep 19, 2012 at 4:04 pm
What will be the timeline and is it sal or rent for the market units?
Green Acres
on Mar 25, 2013 at 7:23 pm
on Mar 25, 2013 at 7:23 pm
This is like the high speed rail vote -- it sounds great until you realize what it's going to do to your own community.
I like the idea of low-income senior housing. And I'm not even opposing the larger high density rezoning (from high density to higher density) in my neighborhood at another location that is going on right now, but this Maybell site is currently zoned for single family residential/duplex for a reason. This is a small neighborhood with no egress at all to the South and to the West. It's a terrible idea to put any kind of high density anything in that spot, which is right at the crux of those two routes in and out of the neighborhood. Putting a development there of any kind would really hurt the quality of life of existing residents, and more importantly, it would hurt our safety.
It would also compromise the safety of the children at Juana Briones elementary and Terman. At certain times of the day, the two main routes into the neighborhood -- Maybell and Arastradero between El Camino and Foothill, are blocked and at a crawl. Today I saw an emergency vehicle actually go up on the sidewalk to reach the railroad tracks on East Meadow. There is no such wiggle room on Maybell, which is also a safe route to school and already worrisome safety-wise between the traffic on that narrow road and the kids.
People talk about this development like the seniors are going to live there and never need cars. There are no walkable services from this location. Of course seniors are going to need cars! They will have cars, the people they hire to bring them grocery shopping or clean their apartments or provide medical services will have cars -- and believe it or not, seniors will have visitors. A low-income senior development would be better off near Stanford, where seniors could walk to medical care, restaurants, groceries, Avenidas services and low-cost or free enrichment/entertainment at Stanford. (Or even in Crescent Park, since they can take the underpass to California Avenue -- when's the last time Crescent Park took any of this high density housing? We've taking far more than our share on this side of town already!) Or, if planners don't care how many cars the residents need to live, they should put these units at the trailer park development -- which is in the neighborhood, it's just at a much more reasonable location in regards to traffic and safety, as it outlets onto El Camino.
Putting a low-income high-density highrise in that location, a few blocks from Gunn High School and Terman Middle School, would only be a temptation for low-income families to split up so that granny could live there and junior can attend Gunn or Terman. This already happens here, I know families who lived in other parts of the Bay Area, but the grandparents get a nearby apartment so their kids could live here during the week and attend the local schools, including Juana Briones.
All surveys of existing elderly neighbors show that they pretty much choose to live in their homes until they die. They don't want to move into low-income apartments, so it's not going to be serving anyone in the neighborhood already.
This project is a bad idea, with people talking themselves into it the same way they talked themselves into that ill-conceived development at Mickeys. The public benefit was supposed to be the grocery store, remember that? The design was so poor and the retail such an afterthought, it's already going out of business. It was just a pretense for putting those chimney like high-density homes there, something that is just not appropriate right at the only entry and exit points to this neighborhood.