BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto City Council tonight (April 14) unanimously approved 10 townhomes behind Town and Country Village over the objections of the shopping center’s owners, who originally wanted the project downsized and are now looking into a housing development of their own.
Developer Ed Storm’s townhome project was approved nearly three years after turning in his original plans for 70 Encina Ave.
“We’ve done everything asked of us. We’ve compromised at every turn. We’ve played by all the rules,” Storm said tonight.
Storm first went to council for feedback in September 2022, and council told him to work with the owners of Town and Country by bringing the building’s height down from five stories.
So Storm lowered the height to three stories, going from 20 to 10 condos in a new design.
As Storm went to the city’s Planning and Transportation Commission and Architectural Review Board, the owners of Town and Country said they are now looking into building housing.
The project would have more than 100 apartments and a parking garage, said Alex Antebi, a board member for the Williams Charitable Foundation that owns the land underneath the shopping center.
“As we look ahead, we see the opportunity to reimagine Town and Country as a well-planned, mixed-use retail, office and housing project for the city,” said Dean Rubinson, director of development for Ellis Partners.
Storm said he was open to a bigger project, but he wanted council’s approval for his property first.
Council members said they had some regrets about the past council’s feedback to reduce the project’s size
“If this came to pre-screening today, I think we’d say it’s not dense enough,” Councilman Keith Reckdahl. “And now even though in retrospect we wish we had told you more density, we didn’t. And I think we need to appreciate that we did lead you down a path, and you followed that path.”
Storm said residents will enjoy urban living between Caltrain, El Camino Real and Palo Alto Medical Foundation
“They like the stimulus. They like the craziness of it. They like the energy that’s produced by it,” Storm said.
Councilman Greer Stone said he liked that two of the townhomes will be sold as affordable housing for just over $300,000, with the buyers picked in a lottery.
“That is going to transform the lives of two very lucky families that are going to be able to call Palo Alto home,” Stone said.
“This is ultimately a pretty good project,” Councilman George Lu said.
Really looking forward to the day when the distinguished regulars from the Opportunity Center start congregating outside this new residential complex—just out there, engaging in all the wholesome, law-abiding activities we’ve come to expect.
It’s a shame they had to lower it to 3-stories… It’s in the ideal place to go taller.
If Greer Stone and the city council love affordable housing so much, why don’t they subsidize it out of the city’s budget instead of off-loading the costs onto the developer and the buyers of the non-affordable units who have to pay above market rates for those units? Forcing developers to subsidize lower income units as a condition of receiving a building permit should never be allowed in a society that values property rights and freedom of contract, which council-members obviously don’t. It’s an unconstitutional condition to do so.