PC Zoning request for 355 Alma (aka 101 Lytton): No significant public benefits
By Douglas Moran

Summary

I urge the Planning and Transportation Commission to deny the applicant's request to initiate the Planned Community. The applicant has not shown the significant public benefits required for a PC. What he has listed as "public benefits" are trivialities and amenities for the building's occupants, and which are therefore should be expected to be part of their rent.

The Commission should avoid giving a tentative approval with instructions for changes because Palo Alto has a long history of allowing projects to continuing to take subsequent steps even though they have made only a fraction of the "required" changes, with the result that the City feels "obliged" to approved bad projects.

Rather than providing public benefits, this project produces large public deficits by adding jobs to an area where the expected development will created substantial strain on the road network and by further increasing the jobs-housing imbalance. Although the housing component of this project is unlikely to have any significant impacts, positive or negative, the jobs component is likely to have major negative impacts, increasing the requirements for more housing which the City is already have problems finding locations for. And these housing increases will be accompanied by further pressure on the schools, traffic and the City's expenses (presentations by City Manager Jim Keene in 2010 showed higher density housing as producing more costs than revenue).

Details

In critiquing the purported “public benefits”, to simplify reference I will include the identifiers from both the applicant’s (section VI, starting on the 31st page of the packet PDF) and the staff report (pp 8-9), with the former in square brackets and the latter in curly brackets. Where the applicant has unnumbered bullet points, I have added decimal numbers.
I used the PDF at: http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=2659

General Observation: Regarding “Cannot be compelled”

The overwhelming majority of the purported “public benefits” are representations that:

• He will provide amenities to his tenants—such as bike parking [C.2]—that
• Are of little likely value to the general public (due to the relatively isolated location of this project)
• Provide value to the tenants and are likely recoverable as rents.
• He will not engage in a long list of bad practices, including those contrary to his own interests. I cannot help but remember the famous scene in the movie Blazing Saddles where the Cleavon Little character takes himself hostage to escape being killed by the townfolk of whom he said “… and they are so dumb” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upvZdVK913I)

The very classification of these features as “Cannot be compelled” indicates that they have been judged not to be of such limited importance as to leave to the discretion of the builder.

General Observation: Questionable public benefit of pedestrian-oriented features

• This site is at one of the far corners of the University Avenue Downtown and in my experience sees very little pedestrian traffic. The peak hour counts in Attachment E counts pedestrians by direction, but doesn’t document whether they are on the sidewalk along this property, that is, many of the pedestrians northbound on Alma presumably enter the Caltrain station and hence don’t pass by this site, and many of those on westbound Lytton are on the opposite sidewalk.
• These pedestrian counts document roughly 1-3 pedestrians per minute (55-167 in 8-9am, PDF pg 52-53; 66-168 in 5-6pm, PDF pg 56-57).
• Observation: The applicant seems to expect an occupancy of roughly 150-200 people in the commercial space— based upon a 25% reduction in single-occupancy vehicles, subsidized transit passes and 110 on-site parking spaces (the number in the staff report is 5 greater than the applicants, but I suspect they included the on-street parking). This is high for a cube-farm, but Facebook and similar companies have used open floor plans (bullpens) where this is possible. Notice that this is significantly greater than the peak hour pedestrian counts.
• Consequently, pedestrian-oriented features would seem to be more of an amenity for the occupants than the general public.
• Snide comment: At this rate, it won't be long before applicants are listing having Push/Pull labels on their doors as "Public Benefits"

General Observation: “Gateway” building {5} is usually a public loss, not a benefit.

The project is described as providing a “gateway” to Palo Alto. “Gateway” seems to be a common architectural euphemism for a building that is so out of place that one can’t help but notice it. In my experience “gateway” buildings are widely regarded as monstrous and ugly, although it is often unclear whether this is a side-effect of it being out-of-place, or vice versa. The Campus for Jewish Life is a very “effective” gateway on San Antonio—it is the rare visitor who doesn’t ask me how something that bad could possibly have gotten approved, and even for some repeat visitors it is still “remarkable”.

“Retail Amenities” [A], {3}

• The proposed 800 sqft coffee shop (cafe,…) represents less than 7% of the first floor (11,500 sqft, pg 4) and 11% of the portion of the site currently zoned CD-N (Downtown Neighborhood Commercial) (7,313 sqft, pg 2).
• This space is likely to be an amenity to the tenants, not to the general public. The applicant projects that it would be patronized by people waiting for Caltrain, but my experience with similar shops makes this unlikely: I routinely experience unpredictably long waits to place my order and then another unpredictably long wait to pick it up. Even though I may be only second or third in line, there can be an invisible backlog creating waits of 5-10 minutes, sometimes more, for a simple coffee.
• Since there are abundant alternatives within easy walking distance, this shop is unlikely to add any sales tax revenue for Palo Alto—it simply shifts where it is collected by a few blocks.
  Observation: If this can be classified as a public-benefit retail space, what is to stop future applicants from classifying a break room with a bank of vending machines as such?
• "Retail loves retail" The low density of retail near this site will likely present a significant challenge for potential retailers.

“Urban Design Features” [B]

• “Public use of an onsite garden along Lytton” characterized as “substantial area” [B-1] {2}:
• What is the need for this, other than for the building’s tenants? Minimal pedestrian traffic; Cogswell Plaza is but 2 blocks away.
• What is “substantial” relative to this site may not be substantial relative to a garden. Palo Alto has a long history of there being overblown claims in this area, for example, the early proposals for the Hyatt-Rickey’s site counted the planting strips between parking rows towards the “open space” requirements for the residences.
• Public Art [B-2] {2} : There is a long history of flagrant abuse of this category. Any art provided would likely be the routinely expected detailing of the site and, given its off-the-beaten-track location, it would seem to be an amenity primarily for the building’s occupants, not the general public.
• Reduced curb cuts/urban forest [B-4]: Reduced curb cuts are not a feature of _this_ project, but rather a feature of virtually any project at this site (other than a gas station). The applicant is asking to be rewarded for not wasting money on constructing unnecessarily redundant entrances to parking and possibly for not reducing the size of the building to accommodate such entrances.

“Housing” [C] {1}

• Palo Alto does NOT have a shortage of rental housing, in fact, the proportion of rentals in Palo Alto is higher than for most surrounding communities. What Palo Alto does have is a surplus of jobs relative to the housing stock within its borders. This project makes this imbalance worse. Assuming two workers living in each of the five one-bedroom apartments, that is less than a third of the workers on a single floor:
  • 110 on-site parking places (excluding the 8 for residents) alone yield a minimum of 27 workers per floor.
  • Factoring in the various vehicle-reduction measures promised, I extrapolated 150-200 workers (above), or 37-50 per floor.
• It is unlikely that the residents of the proposed housing would use Caltrain to commute:
  • Generic statistics: 70% chance that none of the residents will commute via Caltrain (3% Caltrain usage rate for 2 workers per apartment for 5 apartments)
  • Logic: Why would someone working in downtown SF or SJ (the two primary destinations) and looking for a 600-800 sqft apartment choose to come all the way to Palo Alto and pay Palo Alto prices?

"Transportation Benefits" [C: mislabeled in applicant's doc--intended to be "D"]

• Electric Charging Station in private garage [C.1-1]: This is an amenity for the tenants, not a public benefit.
• Electric Charging Station in publicly accessible surface area [C.1-2] {4}: This is not a public benefit.
  • It is a subsidy/freebee for a handful of individuals who are most likely to be occupants of the building, and thus it should be classed as an amenity that the landlord is being compensated for—directly or indirectly—by the actual users.
  • It is anti-Green. It incentivizes people to shift charging their cars from at night (at home) to during the day at work, when the desired pattern is the opposite—shifting usage out of peak hours. If a building occupant has such a long commute that he needs a recharge in order to get home, the charging station in private garage could be used.
  • The staff report claims that this will "publicize and educate the public regarding EV technology", but according to the applicant's submission this parking lot will be well-screened from the public as part of its pedestrian-friendly design (VI.B-6&9, PDF pg 32). The staff report fails to explain how this is superior to the instruction provided day-in/day-out by the wall sockets and extension cords in people's homes, which have the advantage of not requiring a trip to the site. In fact, two of my wall sockets have empowered their friends the TV and computer to show me commercials, news and other info about EVs. In the countless times I have walked past the charging station in City Hall, not once has it ever said "Hello", much less mentioned an EV. If Staff thinks this is such an important educational facility, why aren't there signs pointing to the existing stations and viewing areas to accommodate the expected crowds?
• Bicycle parking [C.2]: The parking in the private garage is an amenity for the tenants. Bicycle parking for customers is for the benefit of the tenant(s). This site is unlikely to be a destination for the general public and hence there is no public benefit.
• Way2Go Program [C.3]: Subsidizing train passes benefits the applicant because it allows a higher occupant to parking ratio, which may translate into higher rents.
  Recognize: This is encouraging more workers to have longer commutes to Palo Alto, which is contrary to Palo Alto's interest in reducing ABAG's calculation of the Jobs-Housing imbalance.
• Transportation Demand Management [C.4]: Again a method for the applicant to have more occupants for the available parking.

"Parking" [E]

• On-street parking: [E.2]: Not a benefit of this particular project which is a critical qualifier for getting a PC. Almost any other project would have eliminated most of the curb cuts required by the gas station.

"Environmental Benefits and Leadership" [F]

• Electric Charging Stations: [F.1]: Not a public benefit, but an amenity for occupants. See reasoning above.
• LEED Design [F.3]: Although LEED certification may have some benefit to the applicant by conferring cache that may allow charging higher rents, it has zero public benefit.
  • LEED is a very simplistic point system that can provide a starting point for thinking about energy-efficiency in a building's design, but blind/cynical point-mongering has led to buildings with ineffective, even conflicting, features (for examples see "Some Buildings Not Living Up to Green Label" http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/science/earth/31leed.html).
  • The features advocated by LEED are claimed to be energy saving, which should be its own reward for both the developer and the tenants. If subsidies are needed (in this case zoning exemptions), that indicates that the feature is likely to be counter-productive and in the interest of neither the public nor the developer.

"New Employment and City Revenue" [G]

• I have never heard anyone say that what Palo Alto needs is more workers commuting into town.
• According to various analyses I have heard, office workers do not provide substantial net revenue for Palo Alto, presumably because many of the providers of goods and services, other than restaurants, are now outside the city.

Unaddressed

• The preliminary traffic study failed to address a major factor: The Caltrain crossing at Palo Alto Ave creates major backups, especially during rush hour.
• The Staff Report points out that the proposed project uses two-thirds of the remaining space under the 1998 Comp Plan growth limit (pg 10). With the expected Stanford Hospital expansion project expected to have such a large impact on infrastructure, has there been any thought given to how it is likely to influence the required re-evaluation of the regulations?