BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
Palo Alto City Council was split 4-2 tonight (May 18) on moving forward with allowing three towers reaching 14 stories in height on top of Mollie Stone’s Market on California Avenue.
The proposal is three stories shorter than developer Chris Friese’s original application but includes less parking and 28 fewer subsidized apartments.
The shorter proposal was negotiated by Councilman Ed Lauing and Vice Mayor Greer Stone, who said they did the best they could without any leverage.
“You don’t always get everything you want in a negotiation,” Lauing said.
That’s because Friese invoked the Builder’s Remedy, a provision in state law that requires cities to approve housing developments when they were late on their housing plan.
Friese’s Builder’s Remedy proposal had 17-story, 11-story and seven-story buildings with a total of 382 apartments, including 77 subsidized units and 290 parking spaces.
Stone said the proposal was a hot topic during his 2024 campaign, and he heard residents wanted to reduce the height.
So Friese’s negotiated proposal has a 14-story and two 12-story buildings with 390 apartments, including 50 subsidized units and 266 parking spaces.
“This helps the surrounding residents with shadows,” Lauing said.
Councilman Pat Burt said he doesn’t like that the negotiated proposal results in less subsidized housing.
Friese said he could get “considerably higher” rents on upper floors, according to similar projects in San Francisco.
Friese and his team at Redco Development were good negotiators, Burt said.
“And I don’t blame them for it, but I don’t think we came out with a net (gain) for the community with that tradeoff,” Burt said.
Councilman Keith Reckdahl agreed with Burt that the Builder’s Remedy proposal “is the lesser of the two evils.”
Councilwoman Julie Lythcott-Haims agreed with Stone and Lauing. Mayor Vicki Veenker was absent, and Councilman George Lu, who was initially on the fence, was the swing vote.
The property at 156 California Ave. will be added to the city’s housing plan. Freise will go through a courtesy review with the Architectural Review Board before coming back to council later this year, Planning Director Jonathan Lait said.
Residents of the Evergreen Park neighborhood said they’re worried about parking overflow and traffic on Park Boulevard.
“It is still a huge, massive structure which looms over the neighborhood,” resident Michael Eager told council.
Housing advocates Steve Levy and Scott O’Neill said they support the development.
The negotiated project peaks at 144 feet. The tallest structure in the area is a 135-foot communications tower on top of the city’s new police headquarters at 250 Sherman Ave.
Palo Alto’s tallest building is a 15-story, 237-foot office center at 525 University Ave. City Hall is 122 feet.
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