Diana Diamond - misrepresenting the Hyatt situation

Hyatt created the outline of this project in the late 1990's and was told in 1997 that it was unlikely to be approved (see "Hyatt needed to learn more about 'horse whispering'" by Jim Baer (a prominent local developer) in the May 26 2004 edition of the Palo Alto Weekly). Five years later (summer of 2002), Hyatt seemed close to having one of the key documents - the Draft Environmental Impact Report - ready for review, but then they repeatedly postponed the hearings scheduled by the City. The decision to not rebuild the hotel was a result of 9/11 and the economic downturn - business travel, and especially conferences, has sharply declined. Hyatt first removed the conference facilities from the hotel plan and then decided to eliminate the hotel altogether (along with several others across the country).

The traffic study showed that upgrades to the Charleston-Arastradero corridor would allow it to support the additional traffic from the Hyatt project. However, the partial proposal that was finally submitted (and approved) had less than one-third the density of housing (original plan had over 300 units on half the property).

As to the moratorium, nearby residents (and neighborhood associations) had been arguing unsuccessfully since the mid-1990s for a traffic study for this corridor. With three large projects pending (Hyatt, Elks Club and Campus for Jewish Life), the Planning Department recognized that a study needed to be done, and they (Planning Dept) decided that a moratorium was needed to keep pending events from making the study immediately obsolete and irrelevant. The Daily News has been told this repeatedly by the parties involved and has never presented any evidence to the contrary. But why let inconvenient facts get in the way of your agenda?

Aside on the number of housing units in the revised proposal: The initial announcement was it would be 200 units, but the current proposal is for 185.



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