OMG, is there anything that is not in the backyards of NIMBYs?

"Stanford turning Palo Alto into a "company town,"

Sorry folks that happened over a century ago. Without Stanford Palo Alto would simply be Gilroy without the garlic.

"... mixing students and the community would be very problematic." In what way?

Oh, my goodness. What a tragedy (not) to all a mix of Stanford affiliated people with non-affiliated people! What could possibly happen? Stanford could fill all of the housing with affiliated renters/buyers, or if there is not sufficient demand to live on campus (and I wonder why not -- that is a different question Stanford may ask itself), then the community might want to live there. Stanford affiliates might benefit from have to mix with local residents to understand the City better, and vice versa. I don't think they would get cooties. Segregation has never been a good idea. Stanford wants everything in its favor, including access to top public schools for almost nothing, City services and amenities for almost nothing, and the ability to control the housing market. They could help faculty and staff by providing low cost loans and/or subsidies to help them purchase homes wherever they wish to live, or they could provide a viable option to live on campus. Maybe they need to relax some of the rules that prohibit those living on Stanford land from building up as much equity as they might by purchasing non-Stanford land.

Whatever Stanford should or should not do re where they meet their COUNTY RHNA housing goal, it is true that if there were no Stanford, our home values would be lower as would our sales tax and hotel revenues.
Personally I support them building housing where their staff wants to live. I also support them building as much housing for students as possible to free up housing in PA and nearby cities.

Stanford is the largest landholder in Santa Clara county with nine thousand acres. Stanford Land Management real estate has aquired forty homes in College Terrace removing Palo Alto housing stock. They have also purchased homes in Menlo Park and Redwood City.
Yet there is RESISTANCE to building housing for affiliates AND members of the non Stanford community in research park. In-lieu fees need to be OFF the table. Stanford is now a corporation. Stanford has got to stop treating Palo Alto as a subsidiary. Stanford needs to be transparent about leases in research park and work with surrounding communities.

"City Manager Ed Shikada also addressed the county commission and suggested that allowing Stanford to build housing in surrounding communities to meet its requirement for academic growth would have three impacts: traffic, constrained housing supply in these communities and potential loss of tax revenues."

Echoing Mr. Shikada and ALB.

For years Stanford's absurdly claimed their massive growth added "no net new car trips" while they continue to resist building housing at Stanford Research Park for their constantly growing staff, student body etc. while removing so many housing units.

Re Stanford's expansion in other communities, when Redwood City complained about Stanford's 24/7 construction noise, their arrogance at the peasants daring to question them was one for the books!

Similarly arrogant was the sudden eviction of all the medical practitioners from 700 Welsh Rd as soon as they got a huge grant to expand Stanford Med, leaving everyone -- patients, doctors, dentists -- scrambling in the middle of the pandemic for temporary quarters to care for EMERGENCY patients.

Gotta disagree with S. Levy about their growth counting toward COUNTY RHNA numbers and when they should clearly count toward the LOCAL ones where their people live and whose services /resources they use. Recent example: PA got a multi-million dollar grant to curb retail theft but HALF of that went to policing Stanford Shopping Center which is owned by Stanford thus giving PA only 50% of the grant money while using PA police resources.

This issue is not unique to Stanford and Palo Alto. Check out what's happening in Princeton etc.

This is incredibly offensive. Hundreds of volunteers work furiously raising money for PiE and PTA to ensure that our children receive a complete education. But Stanford feels that their $36 Billion endowment isn’t quite big enough so they play legal games to avoid paying their fair share of property taxes, leaving a huge hole in the PAUSD budget. Sickening.

PAUSD is educating your kids, Stanford. Pay your fair share!

Stanford West, University Terrace, Middle Plaza, and Oak Creek complexes noted above may technically be within the incorporated confines of peninsula cities, but they are all located on Stanford land. They are erroneously cited as examples of the university relying on other communities to house its populations, but instead they represent the university providing housing for its affiliates as civic leaders are requesting. The proposed housing complex on Pasteur Drive and Sand Hill Road would be another example - Stanford providing housing for its affiliates on its own land, therefore minimizing the impact on surrounding communities.

Before voting the CC should survey residents whose properties abut Stanford-owned properties and ask how responsible Stanford is as a landlord and caretaker.

In one College Terrace case, I was shocked when I saw friends' backyard with all their trees down because Stanford ignored complaints about the diseased trees on their property FOR YEARS that infected our friends' trees and fence. In another case a friend in Stanford Weekend Acres -- technically Menlo Park off Alpine Road -- had to sue Stanford over problems causing major damage to her property. Getting them to act still took years.


Did Stanford care that both households were Stanford alums?

Of course not -- no more than they cared that the some of the evicted Welsh Rd medical professionals whose practices suffered for 3 years were also on the Stanford faculty.

Does Stanford have more staff than students? [Portion removed.]

And yet they need more... Well, Stanford is doing at least one thing exceptionally well. It's growing the Professional Parasite Class at break-neck speed and all those parasites need someplace to live. So buckle up, Palo Alto, you ain't seen nothing yet!

Palo Alto's number one problem is our housing shortage. So at a minimum, we should let Stanford build more homes on property it already owns.

This includes the site on Pasteur Drive, which could accommodate 450 homes. I hope the city will approve the relaxation of current zoning limits, including raising the height limit from 50 to 85 feet. (Lots of other parts of the city should get these increases, too, such as the transit corridors and shopping districts.) If Stanford limits residence at Pasteur drive to university affiliates, that will mean that 450 fewer families are competing for homes in the rest of our city, which will be good for non-affiliates seeking homes.

The analogy to "company towns" is misplaced. Residents of Stanford-owned homes are paid in cash (not company scrip). They have access to myriad retail shops (not just company stores). They do not face termination or violence for criticizing their bosses. Company towns are a sad part of our nation's history. More Stanford-owned homes are nothing alike.

Stanford wants to spend its own money to build lots of new infill homes on its own property, which will reduce the upward pressure on rent and mortgage payments in the rest of our city. Our city council should give the green light.

Personally I don't have a problem with Stanford wanting to build housing on their property while satisfying mitigations, but "Online Name" makes some good points about sharing of services, and these include the high cost of educating children. Perhaps it is time for the tax-exempt status to be modified for housing? Higher-needs occupants--both the elderly and school age children--require extra services and it is fair that SU contribute some amount to those.

And...am I misinterpreting this statement:
"This is not where the overwhelming majority of Stanford affiliates live," Efner said. "To further construct it doesn't represent the actual demand."
Is he saying SU affiliates don't want to live on campus? That seems unlikely.

Also, "Stanford has built housing specifically for the community but … mixing students and the community would be very problematic."
My understanding is Stanford West houses people not affiliated with SU, so this seems inaccurate.

SU should pay for mitigating their traffic impacts. I agree with the City Manager on this point. We need grade separations because Stanford's growth alone will necessitate increased train capacity that electrification and grade separations will enable. (This was made crystal clear in the DEIR from the last failed round of Stanford planning) We have no way to get funding to mitigate local impacts of Stanford except through this process.

In the last GUP they were required to help pay for transportation impact mitigations. Why not this time? A city of 67,000 residents (and a lot fewer actual taxpayers) cannot support the massively expensive grade separation projects that Stanford's planned growth necessitates. They should help fund mitigation of their impacts.

Stanford, given that you are supposedly an elite educational institution, your stance on contributing a fair share to covering the high cost of excellent public school education for the additional children your grandly well-funded institution draws to this community is,frankly, appalling.

Strictly speaking, Palo Alto’s problem isn’t the amount of housing, but its cost. The “full of passionate intensity” folks argue they’re the same thing, but they’re often not. Adding supply doesn’t lower housing prices if you’re adding demand faster, especially if it’s high-income demand.

Stanford’s major expansion goal isn’t adding students as much as new research staff, particularly biotech, whose wages will be significantly above County averages.

The reality is that housing is so expensive to build in the Bay Area that only expensive housing gets built. Sure Stanford (or private developers) will build housing that stem-cell post-docs can afford, but building housing for service workers loses money under any height and FAR codes, at least on the mid-peninsula. If Stanford is allowed to stop building once they run out of high-income earners, they’ll increase local rents instead of reducing them.

That may be acceptable to the Glorious-Palo-Alto set (including some above), but it means Stanford’s new out-earners and out-bidders will be partly paid for by the out-earned and out-bid - a group that may well include some of those passionate-intensity folks, too.

This is how I feel about the subject of anything housing in Palo Alto:

Prosperous cities increasingly operate like private clubs, auctioning off a limited number of homes to the highest bidders.