As Castilleja School proceeds with its heavily scrutinized plan to rebuild its Bryant Street campus in Palo Alto, one member of the Planning and Transportation Commission criticized the city on Wednesday for unfairly burdening the all-girls school with constantly shifting demands.

"There is an unreasonableness to this. It feels like the goal posts have moved," said Commissioner Michael Alcheck, who concluded his final meeting as a commissioner after nearly a decade on the influential advisory panel. "If feels like every time we talk, we have new goal posts."

Alcheck made his comments at the end of another long hearing for Castilleja, which is looking to modernize its campus at 1310 Bryant St. by demolishing and rebuilding three academic buildings, moving the swimming pool and constructing an underground garage. Both the planning commission and the Architectural Review Board had already approved the school's proposal before it went to the City Council, which in March demanded further changes and sent the project back to the board for further review and additional changes.

For the commission, the Castilleja hearing was the second one in two weeks. While the Dec. 8 hearing was primarily devoted to getting public comments, the Wednesday meeting gave the commission yet another chance to weigh in on issues that continue to cause consternation for the project's opponents and council members, including new options for the proposed garage, its strategy for managing traffic and its plan to gradually increase school enrollment from the current level of 422 students to 540 students.

After close to five hours of discussion, the commission didn't make any decisions on Wednesday and continued the hearing to a future date. The biggest debate came over the crucial but technical question of whether the proposed underground garage should be counted toward the school's gross floor area. While the project's critics have contended that it should, the council agreed to exempt the garage as long as it contains no more than 50% of the parking spaces that the school is required to provide as part of its project.

Planning staff had suggested adopting a legislative amendment that would be narrowly tailored to the Castilleja project. Commission Chair Bart Hechtman and Commissioner Ed Lauing favored a broader code change that could apply to other projects elsewhere in the city. Alcheck, meanwhile, called on the city to clarify that underground garages are in fact legal in residential zones, contrary to the claims of Castilleja's opponents.

The city's zoning code prohibits underground parking "for single-family uses" though it allows projects to apply for such facilities through a variance process, in which case the area of the garage would be counted in determining the floor-area ratio for the site. At the same time, staff hasn't always counted garages as part of the floor area. In explaining its decision to allow Castilleja to include the garage, staff pointed to one recent precedent for allowing an underground garage in an R-1 zone: Congregation Kol Emeth, which was allowed to construct underground parking as part of its new campus without counting it toward the floor area.

Hechtman cited the example of Kol Emeth and suggested that the city consider a mechanism for other applicants to propose underground parking facilities that wouldn't count toward the floor area, provided they meet the city's objectives.

"I'd hate for us to have to amend an ordinance to make it fit a project in the future," Hechtman said.

While the topic of an underground garage had split the commission in the past, Castilleja officials argued that it remains both the environmentally superior option and the most attractive one for both the city and the school. Kathy Layendecker, Castilleja's chief financial and operating officer, noted that the facility will get cars off surface lots and allow Castilleja to increase green space.

"We all agree that Castilleja's park-like setting is a benefit to the neighborhood," Layendecker said. "The more we can increase that amount of greenery, it's good for the students and it's good for the neighbors and it's good for Palo Alto."

The commissioners didn't reach a consensus on either this topic or any of the others they were scheduled to discuss, including Castilleja's transportation-management plan and the number of events it would be allowed to hold. The council favored allowing the school to have about five major events annually as well as between 50 and 70 "special events," with no events occurring on Sunday. While the commission didn't delve into this topic, Alcheck argued in his closing comments that the number is too restrictive and noted that no other schools face such limits.

"What is the logic behind saying, 'In response to your request to modernize (your campus) and increase enrollment, you shall not have any matinees on Sunday,'?" Alcheck asked. "Was an episode of 'The Handmaid's Tale' on in the background when whoever came up with this condition of approval was working on it?

"Alarms should be going off in progressive West. We should be asking ourselves, 'Are we facilitating discrimination?'"

Much of the discussion Wednesday focused on the school's transportation-demand management (TDM) plan, which was revised since the March meeting and which aims to achieve no increase in traffic. Programs include new bus routes and carpool programs, off-site parking within walking distance of the school's campus and increased bike services.

Nanci Kauffman, Castilleja's head of school, told the commission that traffic management was a key concern for the school as it was putting its application together.

"When we were first doing our application for an increase in enrollment and a new master plan, we knew from the very start that we would not be able to have more trips," Kauffman said. "One of the ways we arrived at our number was … it really was the maximum number of students that our TDM plan could accommodate and not create more trips."

The plan that the commission had previously approved includes monitoring and reporting mechanisms designed to ensure that the school would not be allowed to continue expanding enrollment if it doesn't meet its trip-reduction goals. The council subsequently requested that the plan be further strengthened, and include additional penalties such as fees and reduction of enrollment.