BY ALLISON LEVITSKY
Daily Post Staff Writer
Stanford officials are asking Santa Clara County to count 865 apartments that are already being built toward the 2,172 employee homes that the county may demand from the university as part of its 3.5 million-square-foot expansion.
“It would make no sense to the university if Stanford’s accelerated delivery of these units is effectively punished by imposing new housing requirements that do not recognize this early housing,” Stanford Associate Vice President Catherine Palter wrote in a letter to county leaders yesterday (June 11).
The county Planning Department has proposed a set of requirements for Stanford’s expansion, including that the university build at least 2,172 homes and 2,600 student beds to house the more than 9,000 students and employees expected to come to campus.
Stanford is already building 1,300 apartments set to open at Escondido Village Graduate Residences next year, which Palter says will free up a similar amount of employee-oriented homes off campus when more than 2,000 grad students move onto campus.
Stanford is seeking half credit, or 650 units, for the new Escondido apartments.
Stanford says Menlo Park project should count
The university has also received entitlements to build 215 new apartments at its Middle Plaza project in Menlo Park. Those homes will open shortly after the university expansion is approved, Palter said.
At the same time, Stanford is asking the county to ease up on the requirement to build 70% of its new homes on campus.
Instead, the university is offering to build 30% of its market-rate units on campus and 70% of its new affordable units on campus.
The Escondido and Middle Plaza apartments would count toward the market-rate housing, if Stanford gets its way.
Stanford is also asking that the county allow it to build some of its deed-restricted housing within 6 miles of campus, which Palter said would be “essential to ensuring Stanford can meet the needs of its workforce, even if those needs change over time.”
The expansion will be discussed at a county Planning Commission meeting at 70 W. Hedding St. in San Jose at 1:30 p.m. tomorrow (June 14).
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If the county finds this agreeable, Stanford plans to ask that the original home of Leland, Jane and Leland Jr. also be included as mitigation in the GUP.
Wait a minute! Weren’t these homes promised in the 2000 GUP? Why should they be counted again? (How stupid does Stanford think people are?)
What a racket! if stanford gets away with this, i’m going to start claiming old charity donations on my taxes year after year.
somebody should do a “business ethics” lecture at GSB on this idea of double counting housing.
No. I don’t believe those homes were in the 2000 GUP. They scaled back on academic development when the lack of affordable housing became truly problematic and put in graduate housing instead. I think they should get credit for it.