For those who believe that Palo Alto has suffered from too much office growth over the next decade, the annual office cap that the city had adopted nearly two years ago for three prominent commercial areas appeared to have been an effective corrective.

The cap, which limits annual office development to 50,000 square feet in downtown around California Avenue and along El Camino Real, became law of the land in September 2015. Under the new rules, once the limit is exceeded, the City Council would evaluate projects based on criteria such as neighborhood impacts, public benefits and design.

But commercial development had since cooled off, the limit was not reached and in late March, Planning Director Hillary Gitelman noted in a report that the new law appears to have had the desired effect of pacing growth.

"Since the implementation of the AOL (Annual Office Limit) ordinance, there has not been any significant office development proposed in the ordinance-affected areas," the report states. "Although the time period has been relatively short, it would appear that the ordinance has reduced that amount of applications for net new office projects."

This week, the city's Planning and Transportation Commission will make its own determination as to whether the law should be retained. On Wednesday, the commission will consider an extension of the ordinance (which still exists on a two-year "interim" basis). If it approves the staff recommendation, the existing law would be stretched to June 30, 2018, so as to give the council time to craft a permanent ordinance.

Without an extension, the ordinance would expire on Nov. 26.

While the council has supported retaining (with some adjustments) the annual office limit, the commission has been somewhat more skeptical about the new pacing mechanism. At prior meetings, some commissioners had referred to the office cap as a "blunt tool" before reluctantly voting to support it in 2015.

If the commission approves the staff recommendation, the office cap would be extended with all the existing rules. These include exemptions for office projects with less than 2,000 square feet of space, small medical offices less or equal to 5,000 square feet or "self-mitigating projects" that provide rental housing and "substantial demand management strategies that improve current parking and traffic conditions."

At the same time, council member had indicated that they may change some of these rules once they take up the permanent ordinance later this fall. During a Jan. 30 discussion, Mayor Greg Scharff proposed eliminating the concept of the "beauty contest," which empowers the council to choose among projects if the development cap is exceeded.

"I for one think we should do away with the 'beauty contest' thing and do it on a first-come, first-serve basis," Scharff said. "So far, the whole beauty contest thing has been sort of a failure."