When Palo Alto launched an effort in 2018 to craft a new vision for a section of the Ventura neighborhood, city leaders and neighborhood residents agreed that housing — and, particularly, affordable housing — should be a high priority, along with retail and parks.

The latest development proposal for the 60-acre area — a two-building project with 45 condominiums — seeks to align with that vision by relying on the city's newest tool for encouraging housing, the "planned housing" zone. The zoning designation, which Lambert Fields LLC requested for its proposal at 280 and 300 Lambert Ave., will allow it to build at greater height and at higher density than the underlying zoning would normally allow. In exchange, the developer would provide Palo Alto with the rarest of commodities: affordable housing.

The plan is just the latest in a wave of "planned zoning" proposals that the city has received since early 2020, when it created the designation as part of an ambitious housing work plan. Some, including plans to build 290 apartments at 3997 Fabian Way and to construct 23 apartments on a single-family-zoned site in College Terrace, were criticized by the council as too large and too incompatible with the neighborhood, respectively. Others, such as the plan for 113 apartments as part of a mixed-use project at 2951 El Camino Real, received generally favorable reviews.

The Lambert project falls in the latter category. In a Monday night prescreening hearing for the development from Roger Fields, most City Council members agreed that the project is worth advancing, albeit with some modifications. Even while some council members lamented the dearth of truly "affordable" housing, the majority agreed that the proposal from Fields, while imperfect, is affordable enough.

The development consists of two major elements, with 10 townhomes in a 35-foot-tall building in the front of the property and the remaining 39 in a 55-foot-tall building at the rear. Twenty percent of the units, or 10 condominiums, would be offered at below-market-rate. The 70,641-square-building would slightly exceed the city's 50-foot height limit and greatly exceed the density limits in the underlying zoning (the site has a maximum floor-area-ratio of 0.6; the developer is requesting a floor-area-ratio of 2.66).

Council member Alison Cormack called the compromises that the developer requested "more than appropriate." She and Vice Mayor Pat Burt both lauded the project's mix of three-bedroom, two-bedroom and one-bedroom apartments, which Cormack said will make the development attractive to families. The fact that condominiums are generally more affordable than single-family homes is another bonus, she said.

"I feel it's important that families be able to live here," Cormack said. "What I like about the condo is that it's an entry. It's a way for people to enter the housing market."

Burt also leaned in favor of the project, though he suggested that the building's design be revised to lower the elements that are closest to nearby single-family zones and recommended that the developer introduce a community garden to make the project more attractive to the neighborhood. Burt also lauded the mix of sizes proposed by Fields.

"There's a whole bunch of new projects and overwhelmingly they are very small units for singles … one-bedrooms and more studios," Burt said. "Having a mix here is very important."

Some council members, however, concluded that the project is far from affordable, at least in common usage of the term. The cheapest and smallest condominiums will have an estimated price of just under $1 million, according to a breakdown provided by the project architect, Hayes Group Architects, and the two-bedroom units are priced at between $1.6 million and $1.8 million. Council member Greer Stone said that calling these condos "affordable" is akin to calling Porsche sports cars affordable by using a Ferrari as a baseline.

Stone acknowledged, however, that the city is unlikely to get a 100% affordable housing development at this site and said the housing plan makes sense, particularly given the site's proximity to Caltrain and Stanford Research Park.

That said, Stone and some of his colleagues noted that the developer is asking for significant concessions, particularly when it comes to density. Mayor Tom DuBois suggested that given the magnitude of zoning exemptions being requested, the developer should consider making some of the condominiums available to residents in the lowest levels of affordability (under state law, "affordable housing" can apply to housing that is up to 120% of area median income).

Council member Lydia Kou was far more critical and suggested that the developer is asking for too much. In exchange for the types of zoning concessions that Fields is requesting, the city should be getting a project that consists of 100% of affordable units, she said.

"It's very hard for me to look at this and say that the city or the residents of Palo Alto are getting very much out of this," Kou said.

Residents also offered mixed reviews to the Lambert proposal. Some, like Ventura resident Becky Sanders, suggested that using the "planned home" zoning process to approve large market-rate developments would set a "terrible precedent."

"This is going to make it impossible to build the affordable housing we need," Sanders said. "Why do we underwrite and give away our zoning to a for-profit developer?"

But for housing advocate Kelsey Banes, the answer was simple. The developer is offering housing that happens to be more affordable than most of the other housing currently being built.

"It may not be 100% affordable in the sense that it's not a nonprofit developer building subsidized, below-market-rate housing, but these are relatively affordable types of homes, relative to what is being built in Ventura today, which are multimillion-dollar, single-family homes. … Relative to that new construction, these condos would be relatively affordable," Banes said.