BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto City Council has been divided on the topic of allowing seven-story buildings on California Avenue.
Mayor Vicki Veenker and Councilwoman Julie Lythcott-Haims said they want to allow Senate Bill 79 to take effect now on California Avenue, giving developers automatic approval for buildings up to seven stories in height.
“Tonight is an opportunity to say what we’ve all been saying — that Cal Ave needs more housing,” Lythcott-Haims said on Monday.
Councilmen Pat Burt and Ed Lauing wanted to pump the brakes. They said the city has already planned for thousands of apartments along El Camino Real and San Antonio Road, and changes to California Avenue needed more thoughtful consideration.
“These are massive changes to our community … To just throw it in on the fly is not something I’ve ever seen in the city,” Burt said.
Vice Mayor Greer Stone was in the middle. He said he’s open to more density, but not as the clock ticked to midnight.
Councilmen Keith Reckdahl and George Lu weren’t involved in the discussion because they own property in the area.
In the end, council compromised with a 5-0 vote to have the Planning and Transportation Commission discuss allowing more housing on California Avenue and return to council within six to 12 months.
Meeting gets long, officials get short
Burt and Veenker got snippy as the meeting approached its seventh hour.
“Don’t say something you’re going to regret,” Veenker told Burt at one point in the meeting.
“I don’t regret anything I’m saying,” Burt replied, criticizing her and Lythcott-Haims for “shooting from the hip” at a late hour.
“We have different views about responsibility and what is appropriate on this,” Veenker said.
Council’s decision will affect a proposal for 37 apartments and two restaurants in a six-story building at 414 California Ave., where Bank of the West used to be.
Attorney Scott Gesundheit, representing the developer, said more apartments are necessary to make up for the cost of putting restaurants on the ground floor.
“If the city’s genuine concern is the contextual fit of new development in those single-family neighborhoods, the policy response should be to concentrate density on the commercial spine,” Gesundheit said.
Cities are under pressure from SB79, a state law that takes effect on July 1. It allows buildings up to 95 feet within 200 feet of a Caltrain station, up to 75 feet within a quarter-mile and up to 65 feet within a half-mile.
SB79 gives cities some flexibility to protect historic resources and to limit height and density to half of the law’s standards until January 2032.
About 900 apartments expected
California Avenue could get about 900 apartments from SB79, Planning Director Jonathan Lait said in a report for council.
“New construction built to SB79 standards may appear contextually inconsistent with the historic development pattern,” he said.
Just to be accurate. There is no application on file for 414 California avenue. So the councils action will not have any meeting a project already proposed there.