BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
The next Palo Alto City Council will grapple with 10 applications to build housing that is taller and denser than the city would typically allow, including a 17-story tower at the end of California Avenue where Mollie Stone’s market is now.
Developers turned in the applications invoking the builder’s remedy — a provision in state law that allows housing projects to ignore local rules in cities with an out-of-date housing plan. The state’s deadline to finish the 2023-2031 Housing Element was on Jan. 31, 2023. Palo Alto turned in its Housing Element on June 7, 2023, but didn’t get the state’s certification until more than a year later on Aug. 20.
In the meantime, developers filed builder’s remedy applications for an eight-story apartment complex replacing the Creekside Inn at 3400 El Camino Real and a mixed-use building that neighbors have fought at the corner of Middlefield Road and University Avenue.
Mayor Greer Stone said the city has taken a legal position that the original Housing Element followed state law, and so the builder’s remedy shouldn’t apply to Palo Alto. Case law is still being worked out in Southern California, where cities and counties had an earlier deadline.
Stone said he wants to offer developers a choice — work with the city to modify their projects, or fight the city in court for around five years.
“That means those doors don’t open for another eight (years), or they can work with us and have it open in one,” said Stone, one of nine candidates running for four open seats on council. Stone said California voters will eventually start seeing the impacts of builder’s remedy projects.
“Then I think we’ll have a change in the state Legislature and the way people view these laws. It’s just too early because they haven’t been built yet,” Stone said in an interview.
Candidate George Lu said the city could’ve made stronger commitments in the Housing Element to get the state’s approval on time.
Cities were required to list properties where housing could go and programs to make it easier to build.
“We could’ve seen a lot of this coming,” said Lu, a member of the Planning and Transportation Commission.
Four-, five- or six-story apartment buildings should be spread throughout the city rather than large developments using the builder’s remedy, Lu said.
Councilman Pat Burt, running for his fourth term, has criticized housing advocates for nitpicking the city’s Housing Element and the state for putting a lot of weight on their comments. Burt said finishing the Housing Element has taken away time and attention from meaningful policy changes.
Henry Etzkowitz, who is running with a platform of rent control for seniors, said he’s OK with the height of the Mollie Stone’s tower, but the design is unattractive.
“If it’s beautifully done, it can be high,” Etzkowitz said in an interview.
The proposal at Mollie Stone’s includes 382 apartments. The tallest building would be 177 feet tall, the second tallest would be 123 feet tall and the third would be seven stories with a new Mollie Stone’s Market on the ground floor at 156 California Ave.
Planning Commissioner Keith Reckdahl said skyscrapers are expensive to build, so the Mollie Stone’s towers would be made for high-income residents.
“In Palo Alto, we really want to be broadening our types of housing and not narrowing it,” he said.
Instead, Reckdahl said he would like to see woodframe buildings with four to five stories along California Avenue.
“It would fit into the neighborhood much better,” he said.
Katie Causey, a member of the Human Relations Commission, said she’s glad that people would get homes in the Mollie Stone’s tower.
“It’s going to be a really big change for that neigh- borhood,” Causey said.
The city could’ve avoided the builder’s remedy by focusing its Housing Element more on downtown, rather than trying to create a new neighborhood along San Antonio Road at the border with Mountain View, Causey said.
Planning Commissioner Doria Summa said the state’s mandates to build new housing were based on overinflated numbers by the Department of Finance. Palo Alto was required to plan for 6,086 new homes in its 2023-2031 Housing Element, including 2,452 units for low-income residents.
It’s “chaotic” for the state to set unrealistic goals and then punish cities for failing to meet those goals, Summa said.
“I don’t know why more cities didn’t sue the state over some of these things,” Summa said.
Planning Commissioner Cari Templeton said the city needs a vision for California Avenue — and maybe a project like the Mollie Stone’s tower is more desirable in 25 years, after the surrounding area gets redeveloped too. But Templeton said she would discourage such a tall building on council, and she wants to know clearly what the city’s legal standing is.
“It’s new territory. There are a lot of people in Palo Alto who are assuming, because we finally got the Housing Element done, that those things don’t happen. And we need to know,” Templeton said. “If someone is going to try to build something that’s not considered compatible by most of the residents of the city, I think that’s going to be a long, painful process.”
Anne Cribbs, a member of the Parks and Recreation Commission, said she likes the idea of six or seven stories on top of Mollie Stone’s, but not 17. “There’s always hope that people would try to work out a solution where everybody wins,” Cribbs said.
Why was the city more than a year late getting an approved Housing Element? Because of a lack of leadership to get this done on time, we’re going to get stuck with a 17 story building. Who screwed up? Where’s the accountability?
And the excuse that they’ll slow down the developer’s permits won’t fly. If they try that, they’ll get sued and end up paying millions. Don’t believe me? Look up what happened to Los Alto on the 40 Main project.
@Cyn asks: “Why was the city more than a year late getting an approved Housing Element?”
The State’s review process was inconsistent and chaotic and added major requirements partway through. 28% of jurisdictions still don’t have approval. The legislature demanded an audit of the responsible department; this hasn’t been completed yet. An earlier audit concluded that the target numbers were not justified and possibly are wrong.
Advocates like Palo Alto Forward lobbied hard (and were mentioned specifically by the State) to defeat approval because the plan didn’t meet their desires, not because the plan was unapprovable.
The problems were so widespread that there was actually a statewide shortage of people qualified to develop the plans. Palo Alto lost its lead author at one point.
There was (and still is) significant legal disagreement about whether the Builder’s Remedy applies and whether the State’s process is constitutional. Lawsuits are ongoing, and early decisions have gone both ways.
I came into the process late, when I joined the PTC in early 2023, but those are some of the things that I saw.
(Speaking only for myself, not the Planning and Transportation Commission)