California Avenue Concept Plan
Community Workshop #1 on 2009-02-12
A Skeptic's comments

by Doug Moran

Introduction: The City's announcement for the workshop is at the end of this document. A map of the study area is attached to this email. If you cannot see that map, the study area includes both

PTOD/Mixed-Use buildings: In the summer of 2006, this area was rezoned to a new classification: Pedestrian- and Transit-Oriented Development (PTOD or P/TOD). I was involved in the meetings leading up to that decision. This is not to lay out what I expect to be presented by the City but to outline unanswered questions and my skepticism from those meetings in 2006. This is not the start of a debate, but background for people attending the workshop, and is intended to help them with their questions about the proposal.

The motivation for rezoning this area to PTOD was to encourage redevelopment with high-density housing because it is near the train station and the Cal Ave business district. The hope is that redevelopment will be with mixed-use buildings, that is, buildings that are a combination of commercial and residential, for example, retail on the first floor and apartments/condos above. There are various potential benefits, including:

  1. Trip reduction: the residents are within walking distance of some of businesses they patronize.
  2. Parking reduction: peak demand from the businesses is during the day and from the residents is overnight. However, there are two troublesome overlaps routinely ignored by advocates:
    1. Early evenings when many residents are already home but people from outside the neighborhood are shopping at the businesses (on their way home).
    2. Saturdays (similar)
However, based on the City's history on such matters, I am skeptical that Palo Alto could achieve mixed-use of the type and scale used to justify the PTOD zoning (see below).

When questions arose about retaining the businesses currently in the area around Fry's (either in current location or nearby), there was no answer. From what was presented in the conceptual plans, I would expect that those businesses would be eliminated.

Congestion: During the meetings on the PTOD, the Planning Department did not come up with a scenario for handling the traffic that would be created by the density of development contemplated. There were suggestions to add traffic lights near the El Camino/Page Mill intersection. Doing such near such a major intersection would likely noticeably increase congestion. The intersection currently has a Level-of-Service (LOS) of "D" and there is widespread concern that it could drop to "F" ("failing" or approaching gridlock) from the cumulative effects of anticipated projects. I served on the Citizens Advisory Panel for the Caltrans/El Camino Redesign initiative (2002-2003) and the Caltrans representatives said that it was highly unlikely that a new traffic light near the intersection would be approved (El Camino is a state highway and thus Caltrans, not Palo Alto, is the agency that make such decisions). Oregon Expressway/Page Mill is a county highway and since the county is already pushing to eliminate some crossing in order to increase capacity, I judge it highly unlikely that the County would approve a light in this area.

Mixed-use problems: I have been involved in workshops and other meetings on revitalizing retail since the mid-1990s, mixed-use being a topic throughout. In these meetings, various developers and planning consultants have commented that mixed-use is not as easy as it might seem

  1. Many developers specialize in either commercial or residential development, and are uncomfortable with mixed-use (because they lack experience). Similarly, for their financing. Although there are many developers who can do mixed-use, it is the property owner, not the City, who chooses the developer.
  2. Commercial spaces typically need renovation/restoration sooner than residential because they are more intensely used, creating a complexity that some owners don't want.
  3. Parking conflicts (see below)
There are successful mixed-use developments in other cities. Adding individual mixed-use buildings to an established district is relatively easy, but changing the character of an area—such as that around Fry's—requires getting critical mass and an appropriate mix of retail. From the accounts, the successes were achieved with factors not present in Palo Alto: Strong, committed leadership, either from a City Council or City Manager or a redevelopment agency or a developer controlling a large-enough area (Santana Row is a large example of this). Palo Alto's past City Managers and City Councils have a history of acquiescing to individual developers' desires instead of adhering to the strategic plan. Recent example: Alma Plaza was supposed to be neighborhood retail center with the option of having buildings being mixed-use, but the City Council approved converting 80% of it into pure (market rate) housing (better profit for the developer). Based on this pattern, I worry that the PTOD zoning will be warped into allowing the Cal-Ventura area to be converted into high-density housing with little of the supporting businesses that is intended.

With mixed-use, there is more to parking than just the number of spaces—which tenants get which spaces can be a major problem. Retailers insist that surface-level parking close to their stores is critical. While the businesses can enforce their employees not using such spaces, they worry about residents in the same building taking those spaces. But can you blame residents resisting not being able to park near their building?

Understated impacts: The City has a long history of understating impacts from projects, allowing developers to escape paying fees. For example, the project at the former Hyatt Rickey's (now called Arbor Real) was approved with the claim that few of the units would have children (which increase the number of car trips per household), despite similar mistakes with earlier developments (intentional credulity by the City). Similarly, Stanford has not had to contribute to badly needed improvements to the I-280/Page Mill interchange, because each expansion in the Stanford Research Park is presented as being individually (in isolation) too small to warrant fees.

Similarly with parking. The City continues to not require adequate parking for developments, resulting in spillover into the adjoining neighborhoods. It does not update its standards in response to the observed reality. Most recent example is Hyatt Rickey's/Arbor Real ('Spillover parking' revolt hits south Palo Alto (Palo Alto Weekly, 2/6/2009)). Example: The Council just approved the design of Alma Plaza despite the developer acknowledging that it lacked adequate parking for the facilities that he had promised.

Congestion: a disturbing trend: In several recent instances, the City has acknowledged that projects will increase congestion but is proceeding towards approval despite there being no provision to address the problems. In many of the trouble spots, adding lanes would require condemning properties (businesses and homes), which can be very, very expensive.
References (Palo Alto Weekly articles):

Conflicting assumptions about PTOD and Mixed-Use: In the meetings on the PTOD, the advocates offered conflicting assumptions. For example, they envisioned a "cafe society" with the residents spending their evening eating at restaurants, shopping in boutiques and otherwise strolling the district. However, these same people also advocate that housing be predominantly "affordable." My expectation was that such residents would not have the disposable income nor leisure time to indulge in such a lifestyle, but I couldn't get the advocates to explain this apparent contradiction.

In the meetings in 2006, several of the advocates (and one Council member) stated that they wanted Palo Alto to be more like Manhattan (in New York City). One dissented, citing Tokyo as the better example of what Palo Alto should become.

Questionable assumptions about trip-reduction (elimination of trips by car): The advocates for the PTOD state their assumptions as:

  1. A significant number of the residents will work in, or very near, to their home, thereby eliminating commutes.
  2. A significant portion of residents' shopping can be done in the district.
When asked about trips from residents needing to drive children to school, they state that they expect few residents of the PTOD to have children (Where have we heard that before?). In thinking about whether the parent will drive, consider the distance to the nearest schools and then factor in whether they would be assigned to even more distant schools. These advocates also make assumptions about the number who will use the train. In a presentation by the agency running Caltrain (circa 2003), they reported that, in the area served by a Caltrain station, about 3% of the households had a Caltrain commuter. And they reported that the typically commuter was not someone who would live in high-density housing, but upper income (finance, legal, ...) commuting to SF or San Jose. In that discussion they cited the Castro Street area (of Mountain View) as having the highest local usage of public transit—about 9% of households—and attributed that to having Caltrain, Light Rail, buses and a large business district (much, much larger than California Avenue).

California Avenue Concept Plan

Neighborhood Workshop #1

You are invited to share your thoughts about the future of the California Avenue area of Palo Alto! Future land uses in this area are being studied as part of the City of Palo Alto's work to amend the Comprehensive Plan, which guides development throughout the city. The City of Palo Alto values your opinions, concerns, goals and vision for the future of this important area of Palo Alto.