As Castilleja School moves ahead with its plan to rebuild its campus in the Old Palo Alto neighborhood, school leaders are offering a series of revisions to try to appease the project's loudest critics, including reducing the size of a proposed garage, preserving more trees and retaining two buildings that were previously slated for demolition.

But as two Palo Alto commissions prepare to review the latest plans in the Bryant Street school's yearslong effort, one aspect remains constant: opposition from a vocal group of residents in the Professorville and Old Palo Alto neighborhoods. Even with the recent changes, the Castilleja project remains too big and too dense and would bring too many cars to their neighborhood, opponents maintain.

The Final Environmental Impact Report for the Castilleja expansion, which the city released last month, will be the subject of public hearings by the Architectural Review Board on Thursday morning, which will focus largely on the design of the proposed buildings and garage, and by the Planning and Transportation Commission on Aug. 26.

The latter commission will consider, among other things, a new conditional-use permit that would allow Castilleja to increase enrollment — the school is seeking to accommodate up to either 506 or 540 students (22% or 30% more than currently allowed) — and set limits on special events held at the school.

The expansive environmental document includes a new alternative that, along with a smaller underground garage, distributes drop-off and pick-up spots to three locations: the garage and looped driveways on Bryant Street and Kellogg Avenue.

The alternative also allows Castilleja to preserve two homes on Bryant Street that would have been taken down under the prior plan.

The group PNQLNow (Preserve Neighborhood Quality of Life Now), which consists of residents opposing the Castilleja project, acknowledged on its website that the revised plan would save the two Emerson Street homes, but it also indicated that it continues to oppose the expansion.

"Castilleja is trying to spin the new plans as a compromise with neighbors, but they haven't listened to neighbors for four years since they released their original plans," the group's statement reads. "It's obvious that the school realized that their plans to demolish housing would not fly with the City Council."

For PNQLNow, both enrollment and special events have been sore subjects. Many members repeatedly point to the school's past failure to comply with the enrollment limit in its current conditional-use permit, a violation that prompted the city to issue a $265,000 fine in 2013.

PNQLNow members have also repeatedly criticized the school for holding too many events, which inundate the neighborhood with cars. The group notes on the website that some of the events at Castilleja are for 500 to 700 people.

"The impact on the neighborhood can't be understated," PNQLNow states on its website.

According to data provided by Castilleja, slightly more than half of the roughly 100 events that it holds annually have between 50 and 100 attendees. The rest have been attended by more than 100 people.

Castilleja's calendars of special events show that the school held 119 special events in the 2014-15 school year, 101 in 2015-16 and 100 in 2016-17. Lorraine Brown, director of communications and community relations at Castilleja, said the events are publicized to neighbors on the school's website, as required by the school's conditional-use permit. Although she did not have a list of the events in 2018-2019 similar to the prior years, a tally of the events on the online calendar showed 109 events.

Castilleja's existing permit allows up to five major events per year, which almost all students and their parents attend, potentially bringing more than 1,000 people to the campus. This includes Back to School Night, Founder Day Luncheon and Commencement. The school plans to keep that restriction in place, according to the final Environmental Impact Report.

The school also proposes to limit to 90 the number of special events it holds with 50 or more guests each year.

Under the proposed conditions, Castilleja would have no events on campus on Sundays, although it expects to hold 22 events on Saturdays throughout the school year, according to the environmental report. Athletic competitions would only take place on weekdays and would be complete by 8 p.m.

For events that bring between 50 and 80 guests on campus during normal instruction hours, Castilleja would prepare a plan to identify parking spaces that are not used by students in space. This would include spaces in the school's garage, on Spieker Field, within surface parking lots, on neighborhood streets and in park-and-ride lots. If such events have more than 80 guests, the school would rely on satellite parking, offer shuttle services to guests using these parking locations and include traffic monitors.

The proposed conditions also stipulate that for events that occur outside of instructional hours and have fewer than 160 guests, all parking would be provided on-site. For events in the off-hours with more than 160 guests, Castilleja would "use best efforts" to park at satellite parking locations that would provide at least one space for every 1.3 guests, as well as offer shuttle services and traffic monitors to direct event traffic.

Brown noted that Castilleja has already been relying on some off-site parking locations. Some employees park at First Presbyterian Church on Cowper Street and then walk to campus. And for events, the school has a cooperative relationship with Palo Alto High for when overflow parking is needed, she said.

"For the most part, however, we do not need that parking because for almost all events, cars have been accommodated on Spieker Field (the grass field adjacent to Embarcadero Road)," Brown said in an email. "For the few all-school events when we need extra parking, Paly has approved the overflow, and we've offered shuttles to our campus from Paly."

In reviewing Castilleja's proposal, the Planning and Transportation Commission will assess whether limiting the number of events to 90 per year and adopting the transportation measures that the environmental analysis calls for is sufficient to address neighborhood concerns about parking, traffic and neighborhood compatibility. Brown underscored that the environmental analysis includes "strict requirements" that the school would have to meet when it comes to special events.

"It requires mitigations that Castilleja has to require for events of various sizes," Brown said. "The conditions of approval will be a matter of discussion as we go forward."

Update from Architectural Review Board meeting

On Thursday, there was little neighborhood consensus about Castilleja's plan. Some residents told the Architectural Review Board that they appreciate Castilleja's efforts in listening to the neighbors and adjusting its plans based on feedback, while others suggested that the project would be detrimental to both the neighborhood and the city at large. Nancy Tuck, a Melville Avenue resident who supports the project, lauded the school for being an "excellent neighbor" and argued that the new campus would be "far more aesthetically pleasing" that what exists today.

"This smaller, less impactful project is a result of successful collaboration toward the shared goals to improve the neighborhood and the campus," Tuck said.

Others remained unpersuaded. Mary Sylvester, a member of PNQLNow, said that while she enjoys living near the school, she believes Castilleja's expansion plan, including the new garage, are not consistent with the city's Comprehensive Plan. On balance, she said, the costs of Castilleja's expansion to Palo Alto "do not justify the benefits to a small portion of Palo Alto residents." Kimberly Wong, who lives on Emerson Street, called the proposed campus "monstrous."

"This project does not take into consideration neighborhood livability as residents need to bear the brunt of traffic and noise brought in by this massive project," Wong said.

The board largely agreed that the revised project represents an improvement over the prior proposal, though members also said they would also like to see further design changes, particularly along the school's Kellogg Avenue façade. Several board members suggested that the massing of the campus along Kellogg should be broken up and requested more details about the school's landscape plan.

Board Chair Peter Baltay said that it's not enough for the new campus to simply be superior to the dormitory buildings that were constructed in the 1960s. The city, he said, should hold Castilleja to a higher standard.

"It's not enough though just do better than before," Baltay said. "Castilleja has been around for a long time and they're a valuable member of our community. We want them to do right by us."