Best solution: Wait for the impending burst of the current bubble. Prices will go down. Problem solved.

It seems like there are plenty of rentals in Palo Alto on Craigslist right now (homes, apartments, rooms, and shared rooms). There are also many more available on actual property rental sites.
I recently helped find rentals for two people over the past 6 months, and they had extremely limited income.
Please don't build more housing dense until we have the infrastructure and future water supply figured out.
There is no guarantee that people who live and work locally will be buying these new homes either.
Several years ago an infill project of 24 homes in Napa sold out in pre-sale to foreign investors.
Building more homes won't fix the problem because we are dealing with a totally wild situation. Building more housing will only exacerbate the over crowding and pollution to our area, and make people in development wealthier.

I suggest that the PAF people go to the AAA and pick up a map of the San Francisco Bay Area. You all will note that the majority of space in the Palo Alto area is a different color - that is Stanford University land. Guess what - PA has no control over SU land.

Palo Alto is actually a narrow strip and is smaller than the neighboring cities. So if the amount of land that PA has to work with is smaller than the neighboring cities why is PAF making unrealistic demands? Should it be going over to Menlo Park and Mountain View and demand more development?

The large technology companies have moved out to the neighboring cities so the workers should be focusing on living near their company - is that correct?

People have to analyze what you have to work with before you make unrealistic demands. I am concerned that people do not have the ability to
connect the dots here. What kind of techies are you?

There are plenty of existing apartments and condos available so analysis of what is currently available does not seem to be recognized.

Is someone going to provide a 3x5 card with talking points? Maybe they should print a map of the bay area on the cards so the PAF can visualize the relationship of PA to the neighboring cities.

And why you are all at this recognize that Caltrain and HSR are figuring out how to increase their footprint on the peninsula so the amount of land that PA has control over has other limitations.

Actually, resident 1, palo alto is much bigger than its neighboring cities
Web Link

Palo alto 23.88 Sq miles
Mountain view 12
Menlo Park 9.79
San Mateo 12.13

And there are not plenty existing apartments and condos available!!!!

I have a question @ Barron park -

According to the City of Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan, 55% of the city is dedicated to open space & agricultural use. 45% of 23.88 square miles is 10.75 square miles.

Density (people/land)

Palo Alto - Population 64,403, Land 10.75, Density - 5,990 people/sq mile
Mt View - Population 74,066, Land 12.00, Density - 6,172 people/sq mile
Los Altos - Population 28,976, Land 6.49, Density - 4,464 people/sq mile
Menlo Park- Population 32,026, Land 9.79, Density - 3,271 people/sq mile
Atherton - Population 6,912, Land 5.02, Density - 1,377 people/sq mile
Portola Valley - Pop 4,353, Land 9.09, Density - 479 people/sq mile
Woodside - Population 5,287, Land 11.73, Density - 451 people/sq mile
Redwood City - Pop 76,815, Land 19.42, Density - 3,955 people/sq mile

Perhaps those who desire housing can band together, buy and build shared housing in one of the less dense cities, like Atherton, Portola Valley or Woodside. under a tenants in common type of ownership.

IAW the SJM 11/01/15 "MTC merger needs a deft touch". MTC is the Metropolitan Transportation Commission which is a state/federal funded organization for the planning of houses, jobs, and transportation. If you have been following the stories on Caltrain and HSR some of the land right-of-way is owned by the railroads who have plans for incorporating HSR on the peninsula, along with electrification of Caltrain.
Many of those decision will trump individual cities within the counties on land-use planning. For us that also includes 101 and 280.

So that leaves us with the VTA on ECR. The ECR has logical pockets of very old one-story commercial buildings that can be converted to apartments and condos. However other locations are subject to changes we may not have as much control over

I don't want more housing in Palo Alto. I don't want higher density either.
I like Palo Alto small with lots of trees. One story homes. Roads to bike on safely. I think there is lots of people who feel this way. How can we stop this?

Someone needs to check their map/data: Mtn View is much bigger geographically and population-wise than PA.

PaloAltoseems more populated because far more people work here than live here.

Excuse me - did you notice that Google, Microsoft and LinkedIn are located in Mountain View? Mountain View has far more workers than PA. So far more people work in Mountain View than PA and far more live elsewhere than Mountain View.

A lot live in the apartments off Tasman and North San Jose. They are building apartments right and left there. Many live in Sunnyvale. There are a lot of apartments on Stevens Creek - they bike to work on the path next to the creek - it ends at Microsoft.

All of the people who are complaining simply are not paying attention to what is in their city and the surrounding cities.

RWC has just finished huge apartments next to the Caltrain tracks so I think those numbers are understated.

And if you look at the map Menlo Park runs from 101 to 280. It has to be bigger since it has the same space as Palo Alto and SU combined. It has Facebook and is building apartments right and left.

Common sense-- have also done the math for other cities regarding open space/ agriculture? Anyway, maybe it means palo alto is not using their land wisely- ×we need more housing. Maybe we should,use some of that 55%. Anyway, the fact that most ofalo alto is not used wisely does not Change the actual size of the city.

@question- no MV is half the size of palo alto and has almost the same population. The data is correct.

Common sense - I don't get your reasoning - If that is your criteria then Portola Valley, Atherton, Woodside, Los Altos, Los altos Hills are not using their land wisely.

Mountain View has big box stores, COSCO, Major corporations on the stock exchange, Shoreline Park is 100% better than ours, and a Lite-Rail System that connects to San Jose. From where I am sitting Mountain View is doing it right - they are using their land well. And Palo Alto keeps messing up the baylands, disallowing major companies and big box stores, not addressing transportation requirements well.
No - more housing will not fix those elements. It will make them worse.

But since you live in Barron Park what do you think about all of those old businesses on ECR that keep changing hands? That is where any new housing should go.

To clarify: more people work in PA than live in PA, or, to paraphrase, residents are outnumbered by the workers in PA. The people who work here, by the sheer fact that they outnumber residents on a daily basis, use more of PA's resources. Most of the PA residents are away at their jobs when the workers of PA, who outnumber them, are here in PA.

Yes, of course Mtn View workers outnumber PA workers.
But, do the workers in Mtn View outnumber the residents there?

I think you are wrong. There are more residents in PA than people that work in PA but don't live here - if you exclude the SU population of workforce.

Half the resident of PA are driving over to Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Facebook, etc so the number of residents that travel out of the City to another city to work is higher than the number of people that come in to work.

You have a lot of workforce working in other cities because there are more jobs in other cities. The real jobs are not in PA - they are in other cities.
The major companies are elsewhere - they are the big labor for high end jobs.
SRP is really a component of SU and they use SRP for their statistical data so let's not use them twice.

And people that work in Banks move all over all of the time.

I Have A Question - why did you leave out East Palo Alto? After all, both Menlo and PA stole land from East Palo Alto over the years, reducing our size. Of course, we've still managed to build some high density housing, and there's more to come.

Yes, young PAF members will again be at Monday's CC meeting encouraging the city to build new housing to accommodate tech works. (God forbid Palantir raise worker salaries so they can more comfortably afford the existing housing.) The real question is whether a similarly large number of current Palo Alto residents will actually come to Monday's meeting to present an opposing viewpoint.

Hmm-you are correct, I should have inclued EPA. EPA understands the need for high density housing. Unfortunately PA is special-- we should be locked I to a time capsule that dates back 30 years, when things were so wo derful in palo alto.

Mondays mtg- yes everything I so black and white. All PAF members want high density housing and all other residents are against it. And of course, palantir is the evil villain. As many people point out on this forum ( and before pal anti it was Facebook and HP).

EPA also has rent control. So young workers who plan to stay in the area long-term may want to consider EPA, though it currently doesn't have the cachet and amenities of PA.

What kind of people demand that a city builds housing for them if they are educated people?

Note on HP above - do you people read a newspaper? Do you read the financial section of the paper? What do you see - HP is listed with any changes which can be verified since they are on the stock exchange. You can download their Annual Report.

Do you see any reference to Palantir? NO - they have no listing because they are not on the stock exchange. That means they are dependent on VC funding and whatever customer funding they can dig up. And how far does VC funding and customer funding go if the employees are running around demanding that a city provide housing? This is a city in California - not Russia.

At least Facebook is building housing for its employees in Menlo Park. So why are you picking on them. Do you notice that people and companies pick up and leave if the area they are in is hostile?

Palantir is doing itself no favors by having employees wasting time making a spectacle of themselves. Hey - you get points for working at second Harvest Foodbank where you give something back to the community. You do not get credit if you are demanding something from the community, especially a big ticket item like housing.

And the tech jobs are not in PA in great proportion - they are everywhere else but PA in great proportion.

Sandy, you ask what can be done to stop the PAF juggernaut from pushing high-density housing and its associated problems on Palo Alto. The answer is to attend Monday's CC meeting and strongly advocate the residentialist viewpoint. You can also write CC members, send petitions, etc. Just because PAF is well-organized and media savy doesn't mean they're unstoppable.

Businesses should start to consider moving to areas with more water, land, and lower cost housing.

As much as I hate to say this, the only other options are to start filling in the bay, or build to the beach.
There is plenty of land from the foothills all the way out to highway 1.

I don't want that to happen, but something has got to give.

to Sandy,

PAF is not a juggernaut. It is a few people organized by an ex Obama administration operative, who are employed by a couple of local companies, that seems to have a very liberal policy about employees spending their workday organizing phony political movements.

This kind of activity is also known as "astroturfing", which refers to a fake grassroots movement.

LTR - something is already giving.

Businesses are moving to lower cost areas. The state is moving many agencies to the east bay inland so that the old workers will retire and the new workers will have a place to buy homes. That is okay - many of the buildings in SF were very old so need to be torn down and replaced for newer earthquake technology.

You don't fill in the bay - you return it to marshland so as the bay rises the marshland provides a protective buffer. They are doing that all over now where flooding occurs, including NYC. That is now standard procedure. Even RWC is doing that for the salt flats - creating a sports and boating complex using floating piers.

And land provided to the different conservancy groups on the coastal range will not be developed. That is the purpose of the conservancy groups.

So take everything we are trying to do and throw it away - what a thought LTR. Maybe you could donate your home for tear down so they can build an apartment complex for workers.

Its sad, but unfortunately not too surprising, that some people actually believe PAF wants the city or the residents of Palo Alto to build housing for them.

Robert - are you the mouthpiece for the PAF? You live in the east bay which is also working these same issues. Oakland is going through a major tech boom.
A lot of what goes on here applies to the east bay. So tell us what is going on there - not here.

Facebook is building an apartment complex for its workers - maybe the businesses in PA should consider the same thing. they could collectively get one of the many commercial buildings that are always for lease and tear it down - build a new apartment complex.

Does Palo Alto Online post a schedule and agenda for important upcoming meetings (City Council, School Board, etc)? If not, this might be something they could consider doing as it would be beneficial for local residents to get a heads-up.

@ Robert: Not quite. What most PA residents think is that PAF is expecting the PACC and the residents to make wholesale changes to the comprehensive plan, as well as throw out current zoning and height limits...which would lead to higher density housing, taller buildings (above 50-ft), etc. They also want the height limit / density thrown out for commercial space as well.

That is the push back. And the general feeling that PAF wants it all now and the general sense of entitlement that comes from the scripted exchanges at the PACC meetings. And the occasional disrespectful barb thrown over the fence about dinosaur residents, residents living in the past, "go back to the 50's", etc.

My personal opinion is PAF wants a lot of change without understanding the underlying causes and effects on the city as it is today, let alone not understanding what kind of work would have to be completed before any huge increase of density of any type. Our roads, electrical grid, water supply, schools, waste facilities, safety services, general consumer services (real grocery stores like the MP Safeway), etc. are not ready for any sort of significant expansion. Further the physical and mental effect of semi-skyscrapers on a town that is not ready for it, and from what I can tell, most residents don't want at all (aka, "Manhattanization").

And lastly, the general impression that most of the PAF speakers are not residents at all. They may work here - but they don't live here. They don't vote here and they don't pay into the school district or the city operating fund. To be blunt, they are outsiders trying to tell us how we should change our city...but at the current resident's expense - both figuratively and financially.

Please don't take these comments/opinions as personal. Just trying to point out the undercurrent here.

You have zero evidence that people speaking to council are not residents of Palo Alto. In fact, every single person who spoke at the last land use session was a resident of Palo Alto. If you're going to make comments like that, you better go back to the minutes of that meeting and dig up who you think wasn't a resident.

As it is you malign and insult your neighbors and fellow community members by trying to claim that if they agree that we need more housing, then they can't possibly be residents of Palo Alto. It's that sort of nasty rhetoric which garners the chastisement about maintaining civility in this city.

People who are well known in this town like former PTC commissioner Arthur Keller, former HRC commissioner Diane Morin, Bob Moss, and Stephanie Munoz all spoke for more housing and I'm not aware of any affiliations of theirs with PAF and none of them are even close to being millenials. Go look up the video for yourself.

Allowing people to simply build more housing isn't an expense for current residents. If ever there were a misstatement. New residents pay 4-10x in property taxes what older residents do. The newer residents are by far shouldering way more city expenses than the older residents.

[Post removed.]

The above statistics for city locations does not break-out SU as a separate component. Non-SU students / employees cannot live on campus and there is not enough space for many SU people (students and employees) so they are living elsewhere.

SU is a total business unit which includes educational, housing, food services, hospital employees, athletics, music and event, book store with clothing, shopping center, etc.

The city of Palo Alto has to work outside of the parameters of the SU component.

You can say the same for the east bay - the UC system. These organizations own a huge amount of land and are major employers in the region.

Along with the land owned by the university systems is the land owned by the state, county, and railroad entities,

Any planning has to recognize how much land you have to work with, how much you control now, and what the state has planned in the future for their great projects. We are also limited by the physical limitations of where we live on the bay which includes the rise in water levels.

We also have to consider how we manage the available water and waste, and energy systems. All of these elements have to be mapped as to available land.

@ lies: relax.

I said "under current" and "general impression". I can't dispute your claim on the *last* meeting. However, it is absolutely no secret that Palantir employees have been in CC meetings --- and they admit that they are not PA residents.

Please delineate between the need for more housing and how some PAF members want to attain that goal. They want to go up (over 50ft). They want to go dense. But they don't address the underlying problem - no infrastructure, no more school space, no more fresh water, gridlocked roads, etc.

So if you want to add housing - you have to first update and expand all of the city-borne or school district borne resources, capacities, etc. Who is going to take on that $Bil. task? There's only one place to go - city taxpayers...that's why I say we will end up paying for it (besides increased traffic, loss of natural sunlight to tall buildings, over crowded schools, water rationing, etc.).

I think this blitz backfired on PAF. They will get less commercial development if the council direction holds. No joy.

I was at the meeting, listened to all the speakers and spoke myself.

Nearly all the speakers told their stories about why housing should be a priority for the council.

I asked the council to include housing in their direction to the CAC so the committee could address how land use and housing are related--location, type of housing and who we want to live in PA in 2030.

The council, while they did spend most of the time on commercial development, DID hear and respond to the speakers and DID ask staff and the CAC to engage on the concerns of residents about housing in Palo Alto.

Read the motion and decide for yourself if council heard the more than 20 residents speak passionately about housing

G. Direct staff and the CAC to explore policies and programs to support more housing for seniors, particularly units in walkable communities that allow easy access to services.

H. Develop policies and programs that provide greater incentives for mixed-use retail and small residential units with particular emphasis on University and California avenues.

I. Direct staff and CAC to maintain and strengthen existing language supporting housing supplies for diverse populations and families.

why can't a referendum be put on the ballot to limit growth in Palo Alto?

It is one thing to be a cheerleader for your city - which ever one it is - it is another thing to live in some kind of bubble that does not recognize the physical and economic limitations of your city. One PACC member said that PA was the center of Silicon Valley technical innovation. That seemed to be a reason to gut ahead with all type changes that provide no long-term benefit to the city. Current facts say no - that is not true.

You can look at the SJM today 11/04/15 - front page article about the growth of Apple and the projected number of employees. That is all occurring in the area of the valley that is south of us because that is where the physical amount of land is available to do so. They also have a huge network of transportation options including the lite-rail on MV, Tasman, San Jose where a lot of new growth is occurring. Some of our favorite local developers are directly involved in that growth and development.

Even Mr. Stephen Levy is quoted since he has now been reported touting the growth of both commercial and residential growth in the area south of PA.

PA needs to recognize that the amount of land available is limited by the bay on one side and the university owned land and mountains under conservancy on the other side.

Recognize that the economic engine in this specific area is SU and all of the businesses that directly interact with SU in the SRP.

PAFs lack of ability to recognize reality when it talks about all of the people that will alight on our doorstep is partially true - but they are now driving south out of PA to get to work. Or they will be driving north out of PA to get to work in San Mateo County to Facebook, Sales Force, Oracle, etc.

That takes us back to a residential focused town that needs to put it's best foot forward with great city planning for the total town - not just a portion of the town to squirrel in some statistics that tweak the numbers. Comments bout how the numbers are accumulated to include and exclude properties to tweak the attainment of the city goals is somewhat insulting since we all recognize how much land we have to work with. If the goals have been exceeded then that is where we are at.

We can increase housing on the obvious transit corridors - ECR, Caltrain since there are many housing units and commercial properties that are extremely old and not maintained by the owners. We also have many buildings "for lease" on the East Bayshore side of town - if we have empty buildings sitting there because the owners are waiting for some great wind fall then maybe the city can provide some incentives to get off the bench and build apartments there.

Hi Resident 1

Let's see if we can clear up a couple of things.

Palo Alto Forward members absolutely reached out to let people know they could come to council last Monday and talk about housing. I contacted four people myself. BUT I was also contacted by four people, only one of whom has any connection to PAF.

What I do not understand is why all the fuss.

Friends of Buena Vista contacted supporters many times to come to council. Peninsula Interfatih Action (PIA) put a big push on about pension divestment. And supporters of commercial caps remind people when to come to council. Donald Trump;s campaign rallies people to turn out in Iowa.

What is the big deal when PAF does the same.

Let's turn to housing. My priorities are exactly what you argued for above--concentrate new housing near downtown, Cal Ave and ECR. Perhaps take a look at east of Bayshore like they are doing in RC and MV.

We agree and you agree with the PAF platform here.

Why are we not allies?

Not directed at you but it is many posters here who are outside reality--telling people to move, calling places like where I live sardine cans, pretending that PA is like Manhattan or Hong Kong.

Let's allow and design the housing you talked about and move forward together.

@ resident 1

"Even Mr. Stephen Levy is quoted since he has now been reported touting the growth of both commercial and residential growth in the area south of PA."

I have noted the demand for office and housing in the San Jose area. It is real as the many other people quoted in these articles note. Touting is a word likely to be misinterpreted. I talk to newspapers as a professional analyzing what is going on.

By the way, these articles do undercut the idea that SV companies are on the verge of locating elsewhere as does the near record VC funding here this year.

"What is the big deal when PAF does the same."

Because they think they will be more successful de-legitimizing the group in itself, full of out of town entitled millennials and funded by corporate interests, rather than addressing the substance of your arguments.

[Post removed.]

At the height of the ABAG campaign I would see letters to the editor in the SJM from what I felt were little old ladies insulting PA because we were not building multitudes of housing for the hoards that were going to arrive on our doorstep. [Portion removed.]

[Post removed.]

Resident 1

[Portion removed.]

The people I know and work with are responsible professional residents raising families and caring about the Palo Alto their children will grow up in.

As far as ABAG is concerned, the hostile takeover by MTC was voted down unanimously by both the MTC and ABAG board in favor of a collaborative effort to plan for a full merger, a good idea in my opinion.

Your comment about millennials is also off base. Virtually none of the people speaking before council in the last two meetings were under 40.

I am surprised you did not follow up on my offer to work together toward the idea we share about where to allow and direct new housing in PA.

Walter - the actions concerning ABAG are well documented in the SFC and SJM, and now the MTC in the SJM 11/01/15 and previous articles.

The BLOGS concerning said topic are in the library of the PA Weekly.

My comments generally state a set of facts that may not toe the party line - what ever that is on any day.

As to the problems of ABAG one of the top managers took money and used it to by personal homes. That is in the SFC articles and the reason that they have lost favor in the appropriation of state and local funding for projects. The article concerning the ABAG/MTC is in the SJM 11/01/15. I use actual paper reports on any topic - I do not depend on a bunch of people with a political agenda that appear in the Weekly.

As to people writing into the SJM opinion section that is all true - what motivates people to write-in to a paper to bad-mouth a city over housing and the hoards of people that will appear on our doorstep.

Millenials are a defined age group - in fact the Weekly defined that age grouped on the cover of their paper.

The problem with Town Square is that people write-in and provide the comments that generate concern by the residents. And people have blogs on Town Square that generate concern by the residents.

And I don't care if you agree or disagree - I am just point out that the basis of many of these arguments does not stand up to the facts on the table.

[Post removed.]

[Post removed.]

[Post removed.]

[Post removed.]

From today's email:
"City Council listened to you. Council members Marc Berman, Pat Burt, and Cory Wolbach proposed motions that spoke directly to the need to increase housing supply in our downtown areas for all residents and specifically for Palo Alto's increasing population of seniors. These ideas were included in the Council's final direction for the Comprehensive Plan. Nevertheless, it is clear that achieving our goal of a Palo Alto that remains inclusive to residents of all incomes and all ages will be a continuing struggle. Your voice will be needed in the weeks and months ahead to make sure Council addresses the housing shortage with the same urgency that it has displayed for other important issues this year such as managing office growth and regulating downtown parking.
Thanks again to all the residents who spoke or wrote in favor of housing – your voice is beginning to be heard! Let's continue exploring ways we can encourage more housing in our community!"