BY DAVE PRICE
Daily Post Editor
Palo Alto city leaders should be applauded for wanting to build housing atop downtown parking lots. It will put housing where it is needed in the city.
But before hatching this plan, the city should have talked to the people who paid for the parking lots — the downtown property owners.
For 50 years, the owners of 216 parcels of downtown real estate have been paying an annual assessment so that their customers and employees would have a place to park.
The assessment district paid for 20 parking lots and two garages. The assessments are only paid by property owners downtown. So if you live in, say, south Palo Alto, you haven’t had to pay for this parking when you go downtown.
Now the city wants to put housing atop Lot T at the corner of Lytton Avenue and Kipling Street, behind 7-Eleven at 401 Waverley St. The city is looking at adding housing to other parking lots as well, like the one at Hamilton Street and Waverley, behind CVS.
Plaintiffs say a vote is required
The property owners are leery of the city’s plans, fearing they will lose parking. They’re suing, saying state law requires a majority of property owners in the assessment district to vote in favor of changing the use of that parking lot.
The city could have avoided the lawsuit by just talking to the property owners before going forward with its housing plans. Instead of talking it out, the dispute is now in court and a judge will decide.
Housing downtown is good in theory, but we shouldn’t have to sacrifice parking in the bargain.
Palo Alto’s leaders would benefit if they called their colleagues in Burlingame, who converted two city parking lots recently. One became a housing development and the other a parking garage. When it was finished, the total number of parking spaces created exceeded the number of spaces that existed on the two lots previously.
Palo Alto can do the same thing.
The city’s consultant-drive plan to bring “vibrancy” back to downtown calls for spending $40 million to widen sidewalks. To get that money, the city will have to go to property owners and ask for an increase in the assessments. Given the bad faith the city’s leaders have shown, I doubt the increase will be approved.
Bring life back to downtown
In my opinion, the best way to increase store traffic downtown (besides ending the work-from-home policy at city hall) is to build housing downtown. Those residents will fill the streets at nights and on weekends.
This approach worked in Redwood City. It’s a lesson Palo Alto can learn.
Editor Dave Price’s column appears on Mondays.