BY ELAINE GOODMAN
Daily Post Correspondent
Palo Alto City Council on Wednesday (Oct. 22) will discuss the impacts of a new state law that could allow seven-story residential buildings within a quarter mile of the city’s three Caltrain stations.
The buildings could be even taller — nine stories — if they’re right next to the train station, under Senate Bill 79 by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. If the housing is between a quarter and a half mile from the Caltrain station, buildings can be six stories tall.
SB79 will allow transit agencies to develop their own land, giving them a way to potentially raise money.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law on Oct. 10. It takes effect July 1.
Cities have a small amount of wiggle room under SB79 if they approve a so-called transit-oriented development alternative plan. The alternative plan must allow the same number of housing units and the same square footage within a half-mile of a Caltrain station, but the city has some flexibility on how it’s arranged. With an alternative plan, the city might be able to steer taller buildings away from single-family neighborhoods, according to a report to council approved by Planning Director Jonathan Lait.
The report suggests that the city develop SB79 alternative plans for each of its three Caltrain stations: University Avenue, California Avenue and San Antonio Road.
For the University Caltrain station, the half-mile radius includes some of the South of Forest Avenue neighborhood and the Stanford Shopping Center, as well as downtown.
Council’s discussion on Wednesday will focus on the downtown housing plan that the city started developing in February 2024. A community advisory group has been part of the process, and the city had been planning a community workshop.
But in light of SB79, council might want to instead prioritize work on the alternative plans, the report to council said.
Plan needs state approval
The alternative plans would likely be completed by the end of 2026 — several months after SB79 takes effect on July 1. The plans must go to the state Housing and Community Development Department for approval.
To streamline development of the alternative plans, Palo Alto would potentially bypass the usual community outreach process and instead have public meetings before the city’s boards and commissions. A committee of council members could also help work on the plans.
SB79 was sponsored by groups including the Bay Area Council, the Greenbelt Alliance and California YIMBY.
Two legislators vote ‘yes’
Assemblyman Marc Berman, D-Menlo Park, voted in favor of SB79 in its final vote on the Assembly floor on Sept. 11; Assemblywoman Diane Papan, D-San Mateo, didn’t vote on the bill.
Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, didn’t vote on SB79 on the Senate floor on Sept. 12 but voted in favor of it in June.
The city of Palo Alto opposed SB79, saying it would impose a “rigid, one-size-fits-all framework.”
Under SB79, Caltrain and BART stations are considered Tier 1 transit stops, and housing can be 65 to 95 feet tall depending on its distance from the station. Greater density and larger floor area ratios are also allowed. The transit-oriented housing may be built on land zoned for residential, commercial or mixed uses.
The bill also has rules for Tier 2 transit stops, which include light-rail stations such as those run by VTA, and certain bus stops. The bus service must have full-time dedicated bus lanes or its own right-of-way, and service every 15 minutes or less during morning and afternoon rush hours.
Housing can be 85 feet tall within 200 feet of a Tier 2 transit stop, 65 feet tall within a quarter mile, and 55 feet tall between a quarter mile and a half mile from the stop.
SB79 also has affordable-housing requirements. A transit-oriented housing development must have either 7% of units for extremely low-income residents; 10% of units for very low-income residents; or 10% of units for low-income residents.
The governmental real-estate industrial complex’s latest scheme to insure connected developers can continue to convert amenities built by taxpayers into personal wealth. Since the earliest days in California and the very foundation of Los Angeles, real-estate has been the grift. Tech, Entertainment, agriculture… just a side show.
The true real-estate grift is that landlords jack up rents tenants must pay, and owners of single family homes jack up their home prices, by using city zoning to block construction of new homes, which thus creates artificial scarcity.
Thank you, Governor Newsom, for signing SB 79, and thank you, Asm Berman, for voting to pass it. The shortage of homes in Palo Alto, at all price points, is forcing our friends and family to move out of town, and forcing our teachers and service workers to drive gas-guzzling super-commutes to get here from distant homes. The statewide housing crisis needs a statewide solution, to ensure that all communities do their part. SB 79 is a big step forward, by allowing new homes in multi-family buildings next to busy transit stations. Great news!
They might as well build housing where the “busy transit stations” which are NOT so busy as months of news shows re declining ridership and decreased state and federal funding.
Re Palo Alto, check Google maps and measure the distance from your homes to the train stations. You’ll be amazed at what’s now subject to SB79 and that vulnerable areas extend practically to Middlefield.
As for Berman, remember he — like ALL the prodensity advocates — outraised opponents by huge margins, almost $1,000,000 more in his case — due to their deep-pocketed backers contributing 4- and 5-figure donations vs the 2- and 3-figure donations from individual local residents.
Note that ALL of the San Francisco Bay Area municipalities voted more heavily for Trump in the last election than in the previous elections thanks extremism like SP79 and inflexible extremists mouthing platitudes without regard to reality.
CalTrain stops dozens of times per day at all three of its stations in Palo Alto. [footnote] Some opponents of new homes think such stations are not “busy”.
Home owners within the SB 79 radius around these three CalTrain stations can expect increases in their property values, because of the new opportunity to build multi-family buildings on their land. Some opponents of new homes think that home owners who now have more home value are “vulnerable”.
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The increase in home value doesn’t matter if you’re forced to move to avoid a huge apartment building in your backyard and/or the destruction of communities.
Most of this is to benefit developers, the corporate investors who now make up 30% — and rising — of all homes built and does little for low-income and/or retired folks since the VAST majority of this over-development is market rate.
Corporate investors in rental homes support artificial scarcity so they can jack up rents, and they oppose new home construction because that stabilizes rents. In Berkley, recent construction of market-rate homes in apartment buildings stabilized rents at all price levels. Nobody is forced out of their home because the lot nextdoor is upzoned. Many people in single family homes (myself included) have happily lived next to apartment buildings.
They aren’t talking about building actual houses. Multi-family buildings are more commonly known as apartments. Expecting apartment dwellers to only need a train for transportation is insane. 50 years ago, urban sprawl was expected to grow horizontally south towards LA and north from LA until they met in the middle. I think building vertically will only overpopulate the local communities and is a very bad idea for the future of those communities. Where will the kids be able to go out and play in the street?
The nub of the SB 79 question is whether new homes for new neighbors in apartment buildings near train stations is good or bad for our community. I’m on the side of new neighbors, who are not “overpopulation”. In my experience raising children near apartment buildings, there are plenty of places for kids to play besides the street.
I don’t understand the need for building up to create more apartments, which will certainly increase local populations, when building out can create more homes and maintain livable population levels. Riding bikes won’t help. Only in a home can kids play ball safely in the street in front of the house. Do the math. The developers or Newsom could care less either way.
Building out means destroying open lands, disrupting natural habitats, putting people at greater risk of wildfire, and increasing super-commutes. Building up avoids all of this.
Urbanization is the process of converting a communities amenities into personal wealth.
I can just see the RE agent’s pitch… “yeah this a crappy little apartment for $1M, but just think about all of the wonderful Palo Alto amenities you will be able to enjoy!” Government plays a key roll in this “sell the sizzle not the steak” grift by brainwashing normies into thinking that allowing real-estate developers to strip-mine the amenities out of their community is a virtue.
If that was true, the Bay Area wouldn’t exist. Building up in existing suburban communities destroys these communities by creating an overpopulated suburb. Plus, wiping out existing businesses like restaurants and stores to build more apartments, high rise or not, will have no affect on the price of homes in the suburbs. The end result will just be an overpopulated suburb (with few restaurants). Building out creates new suburbs and new communities with new business opportunities and most importantly, more new homes.
The “projects” in New York, Chicago and elsewhere weren’t big on restaurants and stores either. In fact, look up Cabrini-Green in Chicago, a public housing development in Chicago built in the 1940s which underwent demolition starting in the 1990s, with the last buildings removed by 2011.