The Altaire and Taube Koret Projects

It all seems fine to me. Makes sense they'd advertise to potential Jewish buyers at the Jewish fair ;-)

In the long run two ethnic neighborhoods in south Palo Alto seems like a bad idea. The potential for future conflict is unsettling.

I don't care who lives there, but the architecture is hideous, and the monstorous size of the project (and the placement right up against the sidewalks on San Antonio/Charleston - absolutely disgraceful!

There should be criminal charges brought up against the planning department/city council that approved such a massive eyesore.
And apparently they are colorblind as well, or maybe they're getting a great deal on the most disgusting colors of paint ever made.

What's with this city council that is hell bent on ruining Palo Alto?

(1) Will the construction of the 96-foot sculptural tower at The Campus for Jewish Life be voted on by residents or has this tower been approved?

”The campus’ 96-foot sculptural tower, which came under fire from
residents during an earlier commission meeting, was again a main
point of discussion among the commissioners, city staff and the applicant, Steinberg Architects. At 96 feet, it exceeds the city’s 50-foot height limit for buildings.”

Palo Alto residents opposed to the tower are not against the building’s elevator or the look of the project. They are against a private religious group building a tower that exceeds the 50-foot height limit. South Palo Alto is a diverse community.

(2) There will be a cultural center with seating for 400 for performances. Then Vice Mayor Yoriko Kishimoto made a failed attempt to strengthen expectations for alternative transport when Councilman Larry Klein’s motion passed 5-3 (Council members Beecham, Dena Mossar, Jack Morton, and Mayor Judy Kleinberg voting yes) to keep the 20 percent use of other modes of transportas a goal, not an enforceable standard.

(3)I'm wondering if now that people see the size of the project, they would be willing to write to the City Council asking for noise regulation of outside events, and rules restricting event parking in nearby neighborhoods. Noise and parking issues with the neighbors when the JCC was at Terman were never resolved because no regulations were in place.

(4) I read that the Terman JCC was unwilling to share its membership list with Palo Alto officials. Residents were asking the City Council if the membership of the JCC at Terman was diverse or mostly Jewish.

We could have had a smaller development named the Community Center for Palo Alto Life with a community center, playing fields and housing for all - and no 96-foot sculptural tower.

I remember ARB commissioner Judith Wasserman waxing poetic about the tower, how beautiful and artistic it would be. Small detail: It had NOT YET been designed.
Unreal.

Isn't it a done deal? Seems to me, this entire project was rushed through, this is clearly unusual in Palo Alto.
Some months ago, I had to shake my head at news about approval of the upcoming tower which would break the long-standing height limit in the city of Palo Alto. I was always told sticking to this height limit was a major priority in Palo Alto.

While I do not have a particular opinion as to whether we should or shouldn't have a tower building in this development, it does seem to me that there is accommodation to one particular religious group in Palo Alto over any other. This development is proving to be much more of an eyesore than any of us were lead to believe and they seemed to get their permits in record time for Palo Alto processing. Once again, this particular religious group seems to get Palo Alto bending over backwards to get what they want. Not only do they manage to get all the religious days as school holidays when we have no idea of how many students or teachers and what percentage they are in our schools, but we get them through the Palo Alto process in record breaking time and seemingly breaking the rules in the process.

So, what are you saying , parent??? Come out and say what you mean--skip the code talk.
This project went through the Palo Alto Process---there was public feedback, committees studied it and approved it. What rules are being broken? Why do you think that PA is bending over backwards? Please provide some proof for your claims or are you perpetuating the myth that this religious group controls all the money and the government?
Please provide specific examples for your claims.
And there are many school systems that get some (not all) of the big holidays off (what holidays besides Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah are you talking about?) Aren't Easter and Christmas school holidays?

The tower is not the problem. The Campus for Jewish Life was given a variance which allows them to build 12 feet above the 50 foot height limit. 12 feet is one whole story.

Also, the 50' height is only up to the roof line. All roof equipment, duct work, air conditioning, elevator shafts etc. can go above the 50' by as much as 15'. So the CJL buildings are 62' high plus as much as 15' for elevator shafts etc, making a total of 77 feet.

Having studied the EIR, I brought this to the attention of the CC during the approval process, however, they chose to approve the project anyway. Most of the nearby neighborhoods including Greenmeadow voted in favor of the project.

Marvin

I am not talking about Christmas, because it is a Federal holiday and always falls within winter break, or Easter, because it is always a Sunday.

I am talking about jewish holidays because they appear on our school calendar as local holidays and as far as I know we are the only local school district (local meaning not Mountain View, Sunnyvale, etc.) which gives these days off. I have nothing against this if we have a very high percentage of jewish students and staff, in the same way that I would not object to Diwali or Ramadan if we had a large percentage of students who celebrate those holidays. I would just like to know if we do have a percentage (say higher than 50%) which makes it important or if the figure is low say less than 5% which makes this questionable.

This building, whether it is breaking any codes or not, seems to have passed much quicker through the Palo Alto process than say any development at Alma or Edgewood and I am wondering if there is any reason for this in regards to the fact that we cater especially for one subsection of the community more than others or if there is a feeling that we don't want to upset this one group in case we get called any kind of name.

Parent--I think you need to look at the history of the JCC at Terman, how they were pressured by the city to give back terman etc.
Also, I do not think we want to use Alma Plaza as an example of how development proceeds (or does not proceed in this case) in this town.
Christmas is a religious holiday and should not really be observed as any kind of publicly sanctioned holiday--the whole winter break issue is due to the fact that we close everything for Christmas--a religious holiday. Isn't there a break around Easter as well? Isn;t Good Friday observed as a school holiday.
Please define quickly? It took a while to get through the process and was vetted by the appropriate commissions and there was neighborhood input as well? So please provide some kind of real proof for your assertions regarding the city "catering" to jewish groups

Marvin

I am talking local holidays, and don't want to get into whether or not Christmas should be a Federal holiday or not.

Quickly is how I perceive the process. Yes, I know that the Sun building was in a derelict condition for a period of time after the purchase by the JCC and before the building was demolished and the work began. I know very little of the history of how the JCC became involved with Terman, but also realise it was in part due to the school district closing schools decades ago and then needing to reopen the school due to increasing enrollments.

I am not sure why you say I need to provide proof of my assertions since I am not saying there is proof, and I am not asserting anything. I am asking a question arising from my observations.

It seems that the residents adjoining Alma are in a position to question anything there. It also appears that the residents adjoining Edgewood appear to be able to question things there. I do see similarities between these two locations and the development we are discussing, even if you do not. It appears that local residents have not had the same voice of protest and I wonder.

In the same light as we cannot offer descriptions of villains by race in case we are called racist, I wonder (and I am wondering in the sense of asking a question) if we are afraid of upsetting jews in case we are afraid we might possibly be called antisemitic.

Palo Alto seems to be taking pc to task with local issues and I am wondering if this is another. And, I will add that when I was back in school I was taught to always ask questions to find out things you do not know and that we should never be afraid to say that we don't understand something. This is one of those occasions for me.

parent--maybe there was nothing to "protest" over or else the neighbors were satisfied with the development. Jenny, above, has stated "Most of the nearby neighborhoods including Greenmeadow voted in favor of the project. "
You even say that the Sun building was was in a derelict condition for a period of time after the purchase by the JCC and before the building was demolished and the work began. I assume at that time the proposals were made, they were reviewed by the appropriate committees/commisions, the neighbors had their input and the project was approved.
I am not aware of the project deviating from what was proposed.
Perhaps in this case the PA process worked like it was supposed to, as opposed to other projects that are held hostage by never-to-be-appeased neighbors and a city council afraid of having to make up their minds.
Finally you are the one who is bringing up the "jewish" issue and suggesting that the city is trying to appease the jews and/or is afraid of being labeled an anti-semite if they oppose the project. I just want to see some solid evidence from you to back up that assertion.

What is the history on this? Didn't the JCC get a wonderful deal on renting Terman? It used to be a school and is a school again. That land must be worth many millions of dollars.

Before Altaire and the Campus for Jewish Live were approved, there were several neighborhood meetings; I attended them all. Only a handful of people showed up for those meetings and most of them were in favor of the Campus for Jewish Life and it's athletic facilities.

I attended and spoke at the Architectural Review Board, the Planning & Transportation Commission and the City Council. For such a huge project there were very few neighborhood residents who attended these meetings, let alone spoke out. Almost everyone who did, was in favor of the two projects. I was the only person who consistently opposed the granting of an additional 12ft variance in height. Therefore, the CC approved both projects.

The reason both Alma Plaza and Edgewood Plaza's approval is taking so long is the local residents are organized to oppose them. If they weren't they'd have been approved a long time ago.

Jenny

Thank you for answering my concerns. Notwithstanding, I saw a great deal of coverage in the local media about meetings and protests against the Alma and Edgewood developments, but very little if any against the Campus for Jewish Life. It may just be that the immediate neighbors of this development are offices and the new developments on Meadow Circle and those on the opposite side of Charleston which appear to be mainly condos are owned by those who do not expect to live in them for any long period of time.

I am satisfied then that this seems to be the case.

Before the above post is deleted for me using multiple names, I must say that I, parent accidentally used resident as the name to continue using my discussion on this thread.

I assume that the Campus didn't run into neighborhood objections because there isn't really much of a neighborhood right there. You're a block away from everything but one corner of a townhouse complex. No one lives on that part of Fabian, San Antonio or Charleston. It's on roads already designed to take traffic. I suppose the Charleston/San Antonio freeway pile-up will continue to be awful, but almost anything on that property would cause that.

It's not pretty, but given the pressure on the city to provide an insane an amount of housing that's as good a spot as any. As I recall, a bunch of it's senior housing--I'm all for senior housing given the pile-up at our schools.

As for the Jewish holiday thing--I was once told that we had a number of Jewish teachers and administrators--enough so that it was a real hassle to run the schools on those days since it would require tons of substitutes.

But cheer up guys, Ohlone kids had all of Thanksgiving week off because the teachers did a retreat the first two days. And this Ohlone parent blithely forgot about it and had to reschedule like crazy.

Anonymous: Here's the answer to your question. if the PATS censors don't remove my duplicate posting!

The JCC was located for years at the closed Ross Road Elementary School site. Ross Road was sold to a developer and Terman was closed as a Middle School, so the PAUSD offered the Terman site to the JCC.

The PAUSD then decided they were not in the business of "property management," and offered Terman for sale. At that point the City stepped in and purchased Terman together with their tenant the JCC. The sale was structured for payments over the next 25 years.

Almost exactly 25 years later the School District needed Terman back for a Middle School but had no money to buy it. The City then offered to exchange the 7 acres where the Terman buildings are located for 7 acres of Cubberley. The playing fields and tennis courts at Terman still belong to the City.

Cubberley is now partly owned by the City and partly leased together with the former Greendell Elementary School from the School District. Because the City was forced to break the JCC's long term lease at Terman, they offered to rent them parts of Cubberley and parts of Greendell until their new campus is built on Charleston and San Antonio.

Whether the JCC "got a deal", I don't know but they got a lot of help along the way!!

OhlonePar

Senior housing sounds fine in principle about not bringing in kids to our schools, but where are these seniors moving from and who will live in their homes? I know of one family who moved into the parents home this summer and the parents will be moving into the senior housing and they came from outside the area. This family arrived with two elementary and one preschooler.

As far as I can see, the idea that senior housing does not impact our schools is wrong, it may be that it just impacts our schools less.

Regarding the speed of implementation of the Campus for Jewish Life

Has anyone mentioned the moratorium on construction along the Charleston corridor which put a long hold on several projects, including the Campus for Jewish Life development and housing on the former Ricky's Hyatt site while the city did a traffic study? My impression is that it's taken forever for the project to get under construction and for the public to finally see what we've been reading descriptions of for years in the Weekly's coverage of the project. This is definitely not a stealth project.

Parent,

What you're describing is a much more diluted impact than a housing complex of that size would be otherwise. Old people move out of houses that are bought by families with young kids--that's the way it's been here for several years. Doesn't matter if you're giving your kids a break or someone with kids buys it--same kind of impact on the schools. Both cases result in school-age kids.

But would this happen without the campus? Why not? All this means is that grandma's moving to Charleston instead of Litton Gardens or to another city.

I agree what's going up isn't pretty, it just doesn't strike me as any worse than what was there. The Fabian/Charleston/San Antonio interchanges will be worse, which will be a drag, but at least it's not a residential intersection.

What the moratorium on construction along the School Commute Charleston corridor did not provide was constructive use of this time period. For example, if residents had seen drawings on the front page of local newspapers of only the housing now on the corner of East Charles Road and El Camino and The Campus for Jewish Life on the corner of East Charles Road and San Antonio Road (a very small part of development in South Palo Alto), along with the amount of power and water estimated to be used by these projects – that would have been constructive.

The City Council should have known better than to approve these enormous developments along a school traffic corridor and San Antonio Road. I would like to see an academic group read the Environmental Impact Reports on these projects and evaluate them. Also, put all future EIRs under the microscope of a reputable outside group with full disclosure to residents about the evaluation and the evaluators.

Seems that folks in Palo Alto are all cry babies. From high speed rail to silly towers in large apartment complexes that really have little impact on day to day they always have to whine about something. Stop being Repugnican and join humanity for a change.

A puzzling part of that project is the regular market housing project Altaire off of East Meadow. It's big, over 100 townhouses and they are selling them now.
How did a private forprofit development that is not part of the JCC get to be part of that plan?

Anyone know how we can find out about any movies or stage performances scheduled here? I have not seen them advertised in PA Weekly or written up anywhere.

Information on all of the performances and shows produced by the JCC can be found at their website: www.paloaltojcc.org/arts. They do post advertisements in the PA Weekly and other Bay Area publications (print & online). There are also quite a few rentals that use the theatre for outside productions (theatre, dance, music, etc). I'm not sure how to find that information... Google? Artsopolis? There are great shows there, so check 'em out & come on by! :-)