A proposal to build housing for educators on the site of a shuttered Travelodge motel in Palo Alto eked out a hard-fought victory on Wednesday when Palo Alto’s planning commissioners voted 3-2 to move the project forward.
The Planning and Transportation Commission broadly agreed that the project is a significant upgrade from the version that they saw in April. It now includes 55 apartments, up from 44, and the units are now more affordable, with 75% of the units targeting educators that make up to 10 and 25% for those making up to 70% of the area median income.
Project proponents, including housing advocates and educators from Palo Alto Unified School District’s two major labor groups, argued that the development proposed by Half Dome Capital for 3265 El Camino Real is exactly what the city needs. It is a 100% affordable housing project that requires no subsidies from the city or the state. It is located in a prime location, away from single-family residential zones and at the edge of the planning area in Ventura where the city has been hoping to promote high-density housing. The site is surrounded by other development proposals that have more height and density, including the 368-apartment project at 3150 El Camino Real (former site of The Fish Market) and the 130-apartment project approved at 3001 El Camino Real (former site of Mike’s Bikes).
It would also serve community members that are highly valued and that often have a hard time affording local rents: the teachers, administrators and other employees of the local school district. And while more than a dozen educators and residents spoke out in support of the project at the Wednesday hearing, there wasn’t a single voice of opposition from the general public.
Even so, the project barely eked out a passing grade after commission Chair Bryna Chang and Commissioner Doria Summa both voted against it. Both claimed that the project doesn’t go far enough in providing affordable units, an argument that they had also made during the prior hearing on the less affordable version of the development. Both also said that they cannot make the necessary finding that the project constitutes a “public benefit,” a key consideration when evaluating proposals under the city’s historically contentious “planned community zoning” process.
Debates over public benefits for new developments were once a staple of Palo Alto’s land-use debates but they subsided in recent years, as the city rebranded the “planned community” zone as “planned housing zone” and specified that housing is, in and of itself, a public benefit. That’s a break from the bygone era where public sculptures, community rooms, tiny parks and supermarkets were listed as benefits by developers who wanted to exceed zoning regulations.
But even if the City Council now considers housing a public benefit, Chang and Summa both argued that the housing provided here isn’t benefitical enough. Under Half Dome’s revised proposal, studios would cost $2,049 in the lower-income category and $3,338 in the higher-income one. One-bedroom units would go for $2,362 and $3,836 in the two categories, respectively.
“There is a difference between what is affordable by state definition and … what people might actually be paying and also for what is practically affordable,” Chang said, “When I speak to members of the public about affordable housing and I say $4,000 for one-bedroom or $3,800 for one bedroom, people’s jaws drop. That’s not what they were thinking of in terms of affordability.”
Even though the project is proceeding without public funding, Chang suggested that because Palo Alto does not require developers of 100% affordable housing projects to pay impact fees, the Half Dome development is effectively being subsidized by the city to the tune of more than $3 million in unpaid fees.
“I really wanted to vote for this project,” Chang said, shortly before voting against the project. “It kept me up at night a lot.”
Among those who didn’t share Chang’s concerns about affordability were the teachers themselves. Teri Baldwin, president of the Palo Alto Educators’ Association, said that many teachers currently endure commutes of two hours or more to get to their classrooms. She called the project a “game-changer.”
“By providing more below-market (rate) housing for educators, we can better attract and retain the high-quality teachers our students deserve,” Baldwin said.
Also in support was Meb Steiner, president of the California School Employees Association, Local 301, the union that represents district employees who are not teachers or administrators.
“We have folks who commute from Central Valley,” Steiner said. “We have bus drivers who come in. They arrive at 6:30 to drive a bus, then they’re here all day, then they end their shift, drive home basically to sleep and come back again.”
Kimberley Kwon, who teaches in the Palo Alto School District, told the commission that it sometimes takes her two hours to get to school. She also urged the commission to back the project.
“The need is very high, the interest is very great,” Kwon said.
The testimony was not enough to sway Chang and Summa, who both argued that the council needs to revisit the parameters of the planned home zoning process.
Summa also raised concerns about the development’s parking plan, which includes 32 spaces in a garage and an “unbundling” of parking costs from rent. The developer has also committed to including ample bike parking and providing VTA passes to the educators living in the building. Isaiah Stackhouse, the project architect, called the proposal a “very transit-friendly project” that is located on “multiple bus routes with a bus stop on the block and it’s within a short transit to seven Palo Alto schools.”
While supporters of the project lauded this plan, Summa suggested that the number of parking spaces likely falls short of what’s needed. Concerned that future tenants will end up parking in the advanced neighborhood, the commission added a condition requiring the building operator to inform prospective residents that they would be excluded from any future “residential parking permit program” that may be adopted in Ventura. Summa supported this condition, which was proposed by Vice Chair Allen Akin, but nevertheless voted against the project.
“Because of the costs of housing and the totally reasonable desire of applicants to make money, we’re not getting places that will offer as many opportunities to people to live well in our community like we want them to now,” Summa said. “It’s really troubling but this is also an opportunity to explore a new type of affordably that doesn’t have as complicated a financing structure.”
Others on the commission lauded the project, a brainchild of resident Jason Matlof whose children attended Palo Alto schools and who struck deals with both educators unions to give their members preference.
Responding to prior criticism from the commission, Matlof provided salary data from the school district showing that most teachers will be income-eligible for the new apartments. He also made the units more affordable since the earlier iteration by adding height and density to the project, which will now be six stories and 70 feet tall. He noted the council’s recent actions to encourage height and density on the El Camino corridor, including its establishment last year of a “housing focus zone” across the street from his project that allows heights of up to 85 feet.
“The way we got there was by taking advantage of this bias toward increased height,” Matlof said.
Commissioner Bart Hechtman lauded these efforts. While his colleagues questioned whether teachers will actually afford to live here, Hechtman said that he would back the project even if it were a market-rate proposal. Palo Alto needs housing for all income levels, he argued. The fact that this would benefit teachers makes it all the better.
“The fact that we have somebody who lives in our community and has the guts to try to pull it off is admirable because it’s a challenge,” Hechtman said. “I appreciate the work the applicant has done to find a way to make it work.”
Commissioner Cari Templeton shared this sentiment and said she was excited about the project and Matlof’s recent revisions. She called them “astonishing.”
“I really was skeptical that we could see so many changes implemented and it’s really quite a testament to our commitment to this project to see so much responsiveness to these things,” Templeton said.
She urged her colleagues to “take the W and move forward with what we got.”
“It’s not perfect, it doesn’t have to be perfect. It is a bird in the hand,” Templeton said.
Akin also supported the project, though he was considerably more cautious about its parking impacts. To avoid a scenario where educators are parking in the nearby residential neighborhood, Akin persuaded his colleagues to institute a requirement that would potentially exclude building residents from future parking permit programs.
“We don’t have a lot of tools to deal with underparked projects, but we need to start establishing precedents for how we handle them,” Akin said.
The commission also weighed imposing a condition that would have required the city to formally require the project to be deed restricted as affordable housing the life of the building. Matlof urged against this condition, noting that he had already reached agreements with the teacher unions and that he has no intention of swerving away from this mission.
“I have zero incentive to rent it to anyone else in the world except for our teachers,” Matlof said.
Chang insisted on the condition, citing the potential for the property being sold and the new owner having other ideas. While her colleagues initially considered including it, they dropped it after Chang made it clear that she would vote against the motion even if the condition was adopted.
The commission’s vote sends the project to the City Council, which will now have a chance to accept the project, reject it or require further modifications.
This story originally appeared in Palo Alto Weekly. Gennady Sheyner covers local and regional politics, housing, transportation and other topics for the Palo Alto Weekly, Palo Alto Online and their sister publications.
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