There's a reason why Nina Bell and her neighbors in the Green Acres 1 neighborhood of Palo Alto view Terman Park as an essential neighborhood treasure.

For decades, area residents, visitors and passersby have been using the 8-acre Arastradero Road park, behind Fletcher Middle School, to play team sports, perambulate its walking trails and cut through to Los Altos without having to get in their cars.

Even though the school gets first dibs when it comes to park's playing fields and tennis courts, Bell said the park serves a critical role for her neighbors on the Glenbrook Drive, on the north side of the park. It's also important to residents in housing complexes like Terman Apartments, just west of the park, and for the park's many other visitors.

"Seniors in our neighborhoods and in Terman Apartments on the other side of Terman use the park regularly for their daily exercise, and many have walkers or canes," Bell said in an interview with the Palo Alto Weekly. "And it provides a safe place for them to walk. It's truly advantageous for well-being."

But Terman Park isn't just a valuable bit of community-serving open space. As Palo Alto considers ways to increase its footprint in Cubberley Community Center as part of a future redevelopment plan, city leaders view it as a critical asset in negotiations with the Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD). One idea that the two sides are exploring is having the city trade Terman Park to the district in exchange for land at Cubberley, where the district owns 27 acres and the city owns the remaining 8 acres.

Council member Pat Burt, who serves on the City/School Liaison Committee, said in an interview this week that Terman is a prime candidate for a potential swap, given its location next to Fletcher and the fact that students already use the park fields.

"Terman stood out as a real intriguing one because it functions right now as school playing fields, even though this is technically still city-owned parkland," Burt said.

The land swap is still many months, if not years, away from becoming reality. School Superintendent Don Austin told the Weekly that the idea of trading Terman land for Cubberley space has been "discussed informally in a few settings but has not come to the PAUSD as an actual proposal from the city."

He noted in an email that the swap "would have several hurdles on the city side since it is currently a dedicated open space." As such, it would require the vote of Palo Alto residents to "undedicate" the land and transfer it to the district.

Part of a ballot measure on parkland?

Those hurdles need not, however, be insurmountable. Burt said that the city may consider a vote on Terman Park as part of a broader ballot initiative that includes other local sites. This may include a proposal favored by Stanford University to un-dedicate a strip of designated parkland near the University Avenue transit center so that Quarry Road could be extended east across El Camino Real, allowing direct bus-only access to the transit hub.

Burt said the ballot measure could also consider dedicating additional park space in the Baylands, next to Palo Alto Airport — land that Burt said was once envisioned as a possible site for a second runway.

Now, there is general recognition that the runway is no longer necessary, making the land a possible candidate for park dedication, he said.

Elsewhere in the Baylands is what's known as the Measure E site, a 10-acre property near the Regional Water Quality Control Plant that voters "undedicated" in 2011 to enable construction of an anaerobic digestion plant that would convert organic waste into energy.

That project was subsequently scuttled, triggering an argument between climate activists who believe that the city should continue to explore a waste-to-energy proposals at the site and conservationists who believe the land should be reverted to parkland and restored as a wildlife habitat.

The 2011 measure gave the city the option of re-dedicating the land as parkland after 10 years if plans for the waste-to-energy plant fizzled. While the council has not yet decided to do so, the city's Parks and Recreation Commission last year recommended moving ahead with reversion of the land to park space.

The ballot measure could potentially restore all of the 10-acre site as parkland or reserve a part of the Measure E site for a future industrial facility.

A new sense of urgency

But while other parts of Palo Alto may see their share of officially designated parkland wax or wane in the coming years, Bell and others are fighting to keep Terman Park firmly under the city's control.

The issue took on a greater sense of urgency in March, when the Board of Education submitted a letter to the city formally inviting proposals for land swaps that would give city at least 7 additional acres of Cubberley land, leaving the district with 20 acres that it would be able to use for a future school if the need arises.

The March letter, which was signed by board member Shounak Dharap, also noted that the district "will not automatically foreclose a deal that might include a transfer of more than 7 acres."

"Furthermore, nothing in such a deal would preclude the city from continuing to lease the remaining acreage from the district until such a time as the need arises for a new school," Dharap wrote.

Though the letter doesn't mention Terman, residents near the park believe any future deal could hinder their access to the park. Bell recalled the early days of the pandemic, when the school district temporarily closed the Glenbrook Drive gate to the park, a move that both restricted access for Green Acres residents and that Bell said violated the school district's agreement with the city over park use.

The deal, which has been in place for the past two decades, grants the public access to the walking path at Terman Park even when school is in session. Otherwise, public access to the playing fields is restricted between 7:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.

How park ownership has changed

Disputes over Terman Park access aren't exactly new. The school district owned the park until the early 1980s, when it shut down the middle school formerly known as Terman amidst declining enrollment and sold 20 acres of land, including the school and the park, to the city.

Two decades later, as enrollment rebounded, the city traded 8 acres that today include Fletcher Middle School back to the district in exchange for 8 acres at Cubberley.

Even then, some neighbors took issue with the district's use of Terman Park. In 2004, a group of residents complained to the Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury that the city had effectively transferred dedicated parkland to the city without a vote of the people, in violation of the City Charter.

While the Grand Jury concluded that the land swap did not violate the charter, it found that the agreement was implemented in an "ad hoc fashion" and recommended that the city "create, adopt, and enforce a city policy that any agreements to share dedicated parkland must explicitly specify the terms of use and the conditions for access by the general public."

Now, residents are concerned that the Cubberley discussion will once again disrupt the delicate balance of Terman Park use. Green Acres resident Linda Perata is one of dozens of residents who have emailed city leaders in recent weeks to oppose any change that would further restrict their park access.

Perata called the park a "wonderful treasure" and one of the reasons her family purchased their home.

"It would be devastating for us to have you take this away from us now," Perata wrote. "Our family, friends and neighbors use it to exercise, connect to Los Altos without using a car, and enjoy the natural beauty that park has to offer."

Dean Wu, who lives on Glenbrook Drive, wrote that the park is "the only way to access Los Altos shopping area without driving" and said he strongly opposes a land swap that involves Terman.

Area resident Alexander Liu wrote that he often uses the basketball court at Terman and sometimes chats with youth who play there. He also noted that there are many apartment complexes in the area with affordable-housing units, including Arastradero Park Apartments, Tan Plaza and Terman Housing.

"They don't have backyards, so Terman Public Park is their backyard," Liu wrote.

Terman Park, Liu noted, is the only public park on the southeast side of Arastradero Road. He called it "the quintessential public park cherished by residents."

"It seems inconceivable that the city would even contemplate giving it away and losing access," Liu wrote.

Burt believes that these concerns, while valid, are premature. For one thing, the deal is far from done. For another, Burt said that he is confident that any agreement between the city and the school district would preserve the public's access to the park.

He noted that the city already has many agreements with the district over public use of school sites. This, he suggested, would be no different.

"I'm hopeful we can come up with an access agreement that would meet their needs and meet the needs of the broader community to have the acreage we need at Cubberley to be able to do a true Cubberley Community Center plan in the future," Burt said. "They seem to be jumping to a conclusion that whatever agreement would preclude that."