County adopts plan to steer housing toward Stanford campus

Good job to try to stem development in the foothills for at least 99 years. (Unless Stanford can get a super majority to override this, on the Santa Clara board of supervisors. in the coming years.) And great that they will make Stanford build their needed housing on campus.

However the board of supervisors, just like other government organizations, failed to have the needed discussion. The discussion that needs to happen is consideration of the fact that Stanford is a finite campus, it is in a finite place called Santa Clara county located in a finite country. There cannot continue to be endless growth in finite places. It is quite clear that this endless, growth is good, make more money philosophy, use up all the word's resources is destroying the planet. Ecosystems are collapsing, pollution is rampant, other species everywhere on the globe are going extinct.

It is a good start to slow Stanford down, but until we stop this endless development and start to downsize both our population and our environmental footprint, it will not be what we really need.

Bravo to the Board of Supes and County Planning Commission.
And especially Joe Simitian who often led on full mitigation by Stanford.
Residents of Palo Alto can rest easier tonight.

Just a quick correction to a common misperception stated here by Nancy Krop (quoted in the article): Any houses/condos that are owned by Stanford affiliates (e.g., all the developments on California and Stanford Avenues, faculty houses on campus, houses in Sanford Terrace and elsewhere) pay full property tax, including paying taxes on the land, which those owners only lease. Property tax is paid on the rental housing at Stanford West, albeit at rates that reflect Prop 13 and when Stanford West was built.

Palo Alto should hold a mirror up.

We welcome thousands of speeding and polluting cars (most of them single-occupancy per the city's own data) each day for workers that we refuse to house. Some of these - including the teachers, police, and fire personnel that we profess so much appreciation for - include 3+hour super-commuters.

We need to build housing for our city here, for the same reasons that we want Stanford to do as much. Our seniors, kids, and local workers are all clamoring for more housing - as is our climate. If you feel that Stanford should internalize their trips, tell Council you think the city should do the same!

I agree wholeheartedly with tmp. Our reckless growth is killing us.

The best analysis we have (the CEQA addendum for the Housing Element) says that adding housing in Palo Alto will actually increase the vehicle-miles-traveled per resident slightly. More residents times more miles traveled per resident means there will be more traffic as a result of adding housing, not less. Even if VMT per resident were expected to decline, it would have to decline proportionally more than the increase in the number of residents in order to reduce total traffic.

Really the only effective way to reduce traffic is to provide transportation options that are more attractive than driving, and so far the State hasn't been willing to fund that.

Stanford's traffic impacts are mostly caused by its own employees. You can make a case that traffic will be reduced if large employers contribute more toward solving the jobs/housing imbalance. The Board of Supervisors seems to have decided this argument applies to Stanford.

(Speaking for myself, not the Planning and Transportation Commission)

Adding humans does not reduce climate impact.

Adding density does not lower housing costs, and too many trees and Retail stores are not why rents are high in Palo Alto. Firefighters and police are extremely well compensated and do not live in Palo Alto, because they prefer large single-family homes elsewhere to high-density units here. Which, ironically, is the opposite of the formula many advocates favor and imply they would impose on them, though don’t always follow themselves.

That said, subsidized housing reserved for teachers and school staff is a good idea, as is not allowing Stanford or anybody else to increase the local jobs-housing imbalance.

Thank you for your comment, StephenM. I can attest that Stanford homeowners pay full property taxes. In fact, some more than others (as in all California neighborhoods), but that's an issue for another day!

There’s no easy answer to adding more housing but Palo Alto should do more to make bike lanes safer and encourage residents and workers to stop driving and use public transportation, bikes and their feet to travel. Businesses like Salesforce and Amazon need to help their workers take advantage of programs that help pay for public transportation and make it easier and cheaper to commute to Palo Alto. We have to address our modern problems with every tool in the box.

The roads sure are pretty, west of ECR. Lots of filling in potholes and repaving. Once you reach ECR past that smooth ride, grit your teeth and hold on tight to the steering wheel. And watch out for everybody around you, it's like bumper car city with people swerving around the holes. There are definitely two PA's. One for the rich, one for the not-so-rich. Plenty of "real news" going on in the world. War levels the playing field.

The price of a house on campus is lower than the price of a house off campus. This is due to the fact that 1) faculty cannot own the land, and 2) they must sell the house when they retire. This reduces the value of the house and the selling price. This would be okay except that on-campus homeowners pay property taxes based on the county assessments of surrounding off-campus houses. This does not seem fair and makes purchasing a house on campus both financially difficult and a bad investment.