BUILD. MORE. HOUSING. NEAR. TRANSIT.

This is beyond idiotic. Downtown is beset with traffic and parking nightmares so why waste time crafting ways to make it worse? Do local developers need to get even richer?

The only grant we need is one to hire mental health professionals who can wean our pro-developer City Council members off their addiction to growth.

Sounds like another pro-office-space trick. Make downtown a priority, but, " the broader public doesn't appreciate is that the parcel sizes in this zone in downtown -- where we're so enthusiastically attempting to encourage development of housing -- is literally too small to create that housing under our existing height constraints ".

IOW, the only way to make housing "pencil out" is by adding more office space than housing, digging ourselves deeper into housing debt. Just say no to more office space.

Anyone checked out the prices for downtown condos and apartments lately? I keep seeing $2M+ with quite a few starting at $3.500,000. That'll sure help all the people priced out of the market.

Almoat as affordable as the penthouses renting for $40,000 and $35,000 A MONTH.

How great we're helping out lower-wage workers and the homeless.

FYI, my comments to Council on this:

The Staff Report states that "most growth is projected to occur in these areas [PDAs]." If so, downtown is a poor choice for a new PDA for a number of reasons.

Downtown does not have, and for economic reasons likely never will have, the largest concentration of jobs in the City. Greater reductions in VMT and GHG emissions could be achieved by focusing housing and transportation development closer to the areas with a greater number of jobs (for example, SRP). PTC's suggestions are relevant here.

Land cost, construction costs, and parcel configuration downtown cause projects built there to be significantly more expensive than equivalent projects elsewhere in the City. Downtown housing would be too expensive to improve average affordability within the City.

We already have a deficit of open space for the current population. Building "tall" makes this deficit worse by increasing the ratio of population to open space (even given the debatable classification of rooftops as "open space"). Combining new dense housing with open space on the same or nearby parcels is economically infeasible downtown, but would be possible elsewhere.

Increasing density near "transit" is a mistake if the capacity of the transit systems is insufficient to handle the new population. Given the anticipated increases in demand for Caltrain, the rather modest increases in service to Palo Alto envisioned by the current Caltrain business plan, and the limited arterial access to downtown for other transit modes, this is a significant risk. Development closer to El Camino, 101, or 280 would allow existing rights-of-way to be leveraged for transition periods and for eventual replacement by new systems. Again, PTC's suggestions are likely relevant h
ere.

Let's be clear who on the council is pushing increasing the downtown density, and for whose benefit.

If this is going to happen, I will tell you what I see happening and that's that apart from anyone who lives in downtown, the rest of Palo Alto residents will find somewhere else to go to shop and to eat.

It is already difficult to park, traffic is horrendous, and there is very little reason to go there when there are other alternatives which are easier to get to and easier to park. We already prefer Castro Street area to eat for those very reasons.

This comes across as government-speak to me. Is there a Part 2 that addresses the actual building part of housing? I'm curious as to where increased development might happen downtown. Are we somehow, magically, adding stories to existing buildings? And if designation is the first step to allow further development, where's the EIR on that? Or is the just pesky detail?

I hope CC and Staff heed Waldfogel's concern. I also hope they read the post by Allen Akin. In theory it make sense to build near transit, but the fundamental prerequisite to that is having adequate transit. PA doesn't. And I recall reading somewhere that Stanford alone will absorb most if not all of any increased CalTrain capacity.

It's concerning that some of the same CC members who were rabid in their support of housing-unmitigated commercial development that caused PA's housing shortage mess are still on the dais, still able to impact the built environment. How much bigger a mess of things can they make?

Typo correction. Make that: Or is that just a pesky detail?

Why is it a priority to add yet more jobs, offices and commuters? Didn't thousands of residents call for limiting office growth?

Isn't a 6:1 imbalance enough??

I will argue that the only effective mass transit that services down town PA is Caltrain. VTA has been trying to figure out how to reduce service to PA for a long time, but keep PA on the hook as a funding source for their exceptionally poorly run agency. Before designating ANY part of PA as a hot bead of any development, please make sure the mass transit will be there as well.

Ed, remember that our new mayor Mr. Fine is on the VTA board.

I believe the VTA board has 12 voting members. 5 represent San Jose. Unless I am mistaken, Adrian Fine is currently an alternate board member, and I think alternate board members do not vote.

Posted by Ed, a resident of Downtown North

>> I will argue that the only effective mass transit that services down town PA is Caltrain. VTA has been trying to figure out how to reduce service to PA for a long time

Obviously they need the 22/522 all the way, and, I certainly in favor of supporting Gunn and Foothill students if that can still work. But, VTA can't even hire enough drivers right now. I don't think I would rely on VTA up here anyway.

Seriously, if VTA could be fixed to work well for Sunnyvale/Santa Clara/San Jose (let's call that SSCSJ for now) that would be enough for me. That would mean, for example, that anyone riding Caltrain from the north into an SSCSJ transit hub could then get to within 1/2 mile of work within 1/2 hour, from that hub. That is a tall order. Once VTA is working for SSCSJ, then sure, let's add Palo Alto/Mountain View back in.

South of Oregon -- let's secede. Seriously, let's just leave and be our own town. The over glut of companies is mostly downtown, and this plan basically means Palo Alto is now theirs, run for them, and we are paying for it.

We have historically not had much representation in City Hall anyway. Richer residents in the north look down their noses at us, even as we pay nearly as much per square foot in taxes and they enjoy most of the amenities.

Ventura area is finally an opportunity to create civic space on this side of town, it should not be Palantir's opportunity to entrench its takeover.

We could name our town Mayfield. (The old is new benefit is that "May" means beautiful in Chinese.)

"BUILD. MORE. HOUSING. NEAR. TRANSIT."

That is a very bad idea. We ought to target our R-1 zones for redevelopment. That land is very, very inefficiently used. Crescent Park and Old Palo Alto are the most egregious examples. For people who insist on transit, run buses to the new housing projects.

Scared to know what kind of horrific ideas this will engender (doubtless MOAR DEVELOPMENT without any thought to infrastructure and traffic beyond shouting about riding your bicycle).

It's all about downtown maybe its because council members present and past own property on University ave? What about Midtown? The city has ignored us for years so I agree south Palo Alto should secede because what's going on in midtown (open drug use by 7-11,strong arm robberies, public defecation( would never be tolerated in precious downtown Palo Alto. The police are non existent there to busy sipping lattes downtown.

Funny thing is, we never go downtown anymore. We moved to Palo Alto @ 30 years ago after living in East Bay for a long time. We are happy enough here, & have great friends, but it's a boring homogenous town. For socializing, enjoying arts, dining out, etc, we usually go to East Bay or SF. University Ave seems to be increasingly dedicated startups, big box stores and over priced but underwhelming restaurants. It's designated to help the wealthy become more wealthy. There is no there there.