It is notable that years of ignoring the requirement to actually build the parking paid for by in lieu fees has come back with a vengeance. Years of council majorities ignored building the required parking spots when we really needed them preferring to put commercial parking in front of people’s homes near downtime and cal ave. The missing in lieu parking spots were brought to the attention of past Councils time and time again to no avail.
This is very bad management and judgement by past Councils that this Council is forced to clean up!
Why was it a surprise that there was a legal requirement attached to taking the fees?
This gross mismanagement has really really harmed residents and businesses chased away retail and will prove to be enormously costly to fix.

One subtle point. Toward the end of the meeting I think it became clear that the Council was telling staff not to pursue lots besides Lot T. Lythcott-Haimes offered an amendment to relax the prescription, and it was rejected.

So city policy right now is that Lot T is what we're doing --and nothing else. The Council did nothing to bind their hands from reconsidering, and I expect there will be appetite in the future if lot T is proving out well. But if I understand correctly what the Council did last night: city should not even be exploring ideas for other lots. The program is effectively suspended for the other sites.

I think that's defensible policy, but there are tradeoffs. The city was planning on counting some 200+ units on these sites for the inventory, with final site selection due 12/2024. I think what the Council did last night winnowed the candidates early, so now it's zero or one projects with decision due 12/2024, and maybe ~70 units eligible for inventory now instead of ~200.

Has the Palo Alto City Council solved the unfunded pension issue? This is one of those issues each council passes along to the next.

There should be no 'non-profits' conducting any building nor public money used in our city. Only well established construction firms should be involved with solid financial balance sheets. Funding should be obtained from the usual financial industry sources. If the city wishes to allocate parking lot areas then they have to identify how the parking will be replaced.

Is it possible to consider housing above retail on University and surrounding streets? I've never understood why we don't do this. It seems to me like we really don't need more office space downtown.

I'm really beginning to think this relaxation of height limit may come back to haunt us sometime in the future.

I recently had cause to visit downtown Sunnyvale and was shocked at all the high rises near what was Sunnyvale Town Center and a pleasant downtown. I actually got lost and couldn't find my way out! OK, slight exaggeration as I did use GPS. But it looked to me so unfamiliar.

Will we think the same about downtown Palo Alto soon?

Awful idea to add more density and people in an already polluted, overcrowded, urban environment! The world is discussing climate change (Cop28 in Dubai), using too many resources, overconsuming and burning down the planet but here it is all "bigger is better" and tear down what is there and waste energy building lots of new buildings and bringing in lots of people to use energy and consume products. This is why the planet and all of the creatures on it are doomed since people only think of themselves and making more profit. Leave the parking lots alone. Stop all this crazy building that is destroying the world. Stop bringing in more bodies to ruin everyone's quality of life.

The modest increase in height limits in downtown is curious in light of the proposed 17 story and 11 story towers planned for the current site of Mollie Stone's on California Ave. -- an area with no other buildings even close to that height.

I am also curious as to Council Member Tanaka's proposal to use the profits from a development to subsidize lower-income residents. Is he thinking the City is going to operate these developments and thus have access to any profits? How exactly would such a proposal work? I support programs that would assist lower income residents to purchase homes in neighborhoods they would otherwise not be able to afford. But such programs needs to be well thought out.

Palo Alto downtown is creeping closer towards becoming just like San Jose downtown. So sad.

So, Palo Alto will eventually become Queens? What's wrong with Queens? Nothing that a lot of advance planning can't handle. Oddly, at the meeting, the first concern that was raised was Parking! And retail. Palo Altans, we can be creative about this, yes? Think outside the box...er, parking lot? How about another grocery store, with parking below and up, to rival Amazon? Los Altos had a model; Grocery Outlet on Alma is another idea, with community meeting space and parking garage. But , please, in all this, do not forget the trees...

Going away for a few days and not reading local news, particularly PAO/Weekly, is a great way to gain perspective on local politics and City government. It's doubtful reason will prevail in any of the major decisions before this CC or the next.