BY DAVE PRICE
Daily Post Editor
Menlo Park and Palo Alto residents don’t have to accept the idea that a 30-story skyscraper is going to be built on the former Sunset magazine campus at 80 Willow Road.
Yes, things seem bleak right now. Last week, a state Senate committee killed Sen. Josh Becker’s bill (SB457) that would have put the brakes on “Builder’s Remedy” projects that exceed local height and density limits. Now Menlo Park, Palo Alto and other cities on the Peninsula should join forces and turn to the courts for relief.
When cities band together, they can share legal costs and put up a united front. This kind of effort has worked before.
Several Southern California cities challenged Senate Bill 9, a state law streamlining the process for creating multiple units on single-family lots, arguing it violated their constitutional rights. In April 2024, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the cities, declaring SB 9 unconstitutional within their jurisdictions. The cities were Redondo Beach, Carson, Torrance, Whittier and Del Mar.
We can do the same thing here. Menlo Park’s leaders — who have been oddly quiet about the Sunset project — should hold a joint meeting with the Palo Alto council, which has 10 Builder’s Remedy projects in the pipeline including a 17-story building on California Avenue where Mollie Stone’s Market is located. A majority of Palo Alto council members want to protect neighborhoods and might join this fight.
Not every city will join the battle. Forget Mountain View. Their pro-development city council wouldn’t support Becker’s bill that the Legislature killed last week. But Saratoga, with 22 pending Builder’s Remedy projects, might want to join this coalition.
The cities should consider filing several lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the Builder’s Remedy. It essentially eliminates local control over zoning.
Editor Dave Price’s column appears on Mondays.
Dave, I couldn’t agree with you more on this one! I can’t believe how many of our Peninsula city councils have not joined together to fight the CA legislature and Gov. Newsom. It is not just the Builder’s Remedy that is appalling, but other legislation like SB9…which Becker voted Yes on along with Kevin Mullin. And note, Becker abstained from voting on SB10, but he could have had a backbone and voted No on it, but again, Mullin voted yes on that one. I am sure the Democrat controlled legislature smiled upon that. We cannot also not forget about the rollback of regulations by our legislators that cities can put on ADU’s/JADU’s. No rear or side yard setbacks anymore, only 4 feet to the property line, no additional off-street parking if you are within a half mile of public transportation. The allowing of folks to turn their garage into either an ADU or JADU…and the list goes on. So sad to see our once quiet and peaceful suburban, single family home neighborhoods upzoned before our very eyes, and we as the taxpayers never got to vote on this…but our state legislators and governor did!!! Time to vote them all out of office!
Thank you, Dave!! And thank you, Save!
Yes, vote them all out and follow the money aka campaign funds where Berman can raise 10 times that of his opponent.
Watch the developers and other NON-local groups throwing $$$$$$ at inexperienced freshman candidates like Julie LH, making them the top-fundraisers by HUGE amounts. Watch “leaders” like Liz Kniss groom them while absurdly claiming we’ve got NO traffic problems so no need to address office growth or Stanford’s growth “which would end education as we know it.”
Re Sunset, do they care that this drastically underparked monstrosity adds little affordable housing or thousands of NEW commuters, shoppers and hotel guests will overflow into neighborhoods?
Nope! They blithely run on false pretenses, lie about why they left their last job and then have the chutzpah to again run against experienced leaders like Joe Simitian BECAUSE he wanted their backers like Stanford to do their fair share re housing / transportation
Their virtue signalling “alternate facts” barrage continues — no one wants cars, no one wants retail, no one needs parking, Stanford’s huge growth hasn’t added a single net new car trip, housing costs are high only because of Grandma and her Prop 13 — but never because of commercial property owners and THEIR Prop 13 exemptions!
After being forced out of her post as dean of Stanford undergraduates for a forbidden affair with an undergraduate, after being forced off committees dealing with Stanford because of conflicts of interest, undeterred JHL runs against Simitian to help Stanford while promoting her advice business with emphasis on helping young women the same age as her paramour! (Who said irony was dead?)
Mayor Lauing even had to remind Vice Mayor Veenker that not knowing how the Becker bill would fare wasn’t a reason to oppose it, that it should be considered on its MERITS — not how it helps her political future.
This isn’t a community, it’s a commodity to be sold to the highest bidders and the loudest special interests!
And don’t worry about basic services like emergency vehicles. All this growth and congestion won’t hurt response time at all. Just trust us.
BRAVO Dave. Great opinion piece!
Absolutely agree. I have been suggesting this “banding together” of our Silicon Valley cities/towns to fight Builder’s Remedy and its constitutionality. This measure was introduced in 1990 and at the time, only 1 incident of Builder’s Remedy was filed. Since then, the HAA has changed much of the requirements for a city/town to pass its Housing Element (8 year cycle). As a result, Los Gatos is one of the 109 jurisdictions in the ABAG or Association of Bay Area Governments, only 3 met the deadline, 2 in Alameda and San Francisco. That would indicate something is amiss, keeping in mind that many town governances change every 4 years. There is a great paper on this, albeit long and long…. but one can glean some nice facts from it
California’s “Builder’s Remedy” for Affordable Housing Projects:
A View from the Legislative History
Jordan Wright*