BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto City Council tonight (April 13) approved a seven-story, 321-unit apartment building on El Camino Real over the objections of neighbors who are worried about traffic flow and bicyclist safety.
“This is going to be a big building, and it’s really going to change the neighborhood for better or worse,” Councilman Keith Reckdahl said before the 6-0 vote.
Planning Director Jonathan Lait said the developer, Jeff Smith of Sares Regis Group, will do a traffic analysis and work with the city to improve the roads around 3606 El Camino Real.
Future residents will leave a garage onto Matadero Avenue and Kendall Avenue — two narrow streets that are designated as safe routes to school.
Barron Park residents said the side streets are barely wide enough to fit two cars, and they already get crowded in the morning and late afternoon.
“At certain times of day it’s complete chaos, and bikes are innovating in all sorts of ways — wrong lane, in the gutters,” resident Dan Adams said.
The Barron Park Association and the Planning and Transpiration Commission opposed the project because of road safety concerns.
“We’re talking about a building that’s vastly out of scale with the street it’s being built on,” teacher and resident Kerri Jung said.
Transportation consultant Gary Black told council that side streets are better for driveways than El Camino because the traffic is slower.
Smith invoked the Builder’s Remedy, a provision in state law that allows developers to ignore local zoning rules in cities that were late on their state-mandated housing plan.
Councilman Pat Burt and Councilwoman Julie Lythcott-Haims thanked Smith for working with the city and not going far beyond the city’s rules, even though he could’ve.
“Tonight feels like such a triumph for all of us,” Lythcott-Haims said.
The project will be 83 feet tall, with a rooftop terrace on top. The development will replace 38 apartments, a smog check station and a vacant lot.
The project includes 163 studios and one-bedroom units and 158 two- and three-bedroom units. There will be 391 parking spaces.
Smith will set aside 37 apartments for residents making less than 80% of Santa Clara County’s median income, with rents set to match their income. That would be $3,191 per month for a single person, according to the California Department of Housing and Community Development.
The project is just south of the Creekside Inn, where Chicago-based Oxford Capital Group wants to build 231 apartments and 192 hotel rooms in four buildings at 3400 El Camino Real.
Great news! Thank you to our city council for voting 6-0 for 321 new homes. We need them!
This apartment project is totally out of proportion to the neighborhood and poses considerable public safety risks to the community (and children going to and fro).
The city council does not deserve any thanks except that it may have done what very little it could with the developer to ameliorate the public harms. Neither the city council nor even the developer deserve too much blame. The blame for this disaster lies squarely with the California legislature for pre-empting local community land use controls and procedures. Huge apartment projects are generally not the kind of housing most people want anyway, but projects like this could be built in far, far more suitable locations for those that wish them. (And those of us who cherish Palo Alto including Barron Park neighborhood as having been wonderful places to grow up and make good lives — can only cry. And somehow, smoehow get new legislators!)