HomeMy WebLinkAbout1996-02-21 City Council Summary Minutes Special Meeting February 21, 1996 ORAL COMMUNICATIONS........................................78-234 1. PUBLIC HEARING: The Palo Alto City Council will consider aspects of the Land Use and Circulation Elements of the forthcoming Draft Comprehensive Plan and Planning Commission recommendations for the Plan..........................78-234 ADJOURNMENT: The meeting adjourned at 9:30 p.m............78-252
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The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers at 7:13 p.m. PRESENT: Andersen, Fazzino, Huber, Kniss, McCown, Rosenbaum, Wheeler ABSENT: Schneider, Simitian, MOTION: Mayor Wheeler moved, seconded by Huber, to bring Oral Communications forward to precede Item No. 1. MOTION PASSED 7-0, Schneider, Simitian absent. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS Jon Jacob, 3390 South Court Street, spoke regarding a proposal for Matadero Creek. Casey Burkhart, 3081 Ross Road, spoke regarding a proposal for Matadero Creek. Chris Taylor, Loma Verde, spoke regarding a proposal for Matadero Creek. PUBLIC HEARING 1. PUBLIC HEARING: The Palo Alto City Council will consider aspects of the Land Use and Circulation Elements of the forthcoming Draft Comprehensive Plan and Planning Commission recommendations for the Plan, including:
∃ Creation of new land use categories including Village Residential, Mixed-use and Commercial Hotel.
∃ Evaluation in the Draft Plan of the following changes to the Land Use Plan Map: A. Changing the land use designation of the 26-acre former Children's Hospital site at 700 Sand Hill Road from Major Institution/Special Facilities to Multiple-family Residential; B. Incorporating the Sand Hill corridor road network proposed by Stanford University (i.e., extension and widening of Sand Hill Road, widening of Quarry Road, creation of Vineyard Lane, creation of Stockfarm Road); C. Changing the land use designation of approximately 5.5 acres of vacant land located along Quarry Road between Hoover Pavilion and El Camino Real from Open Space/Controlled Development to a Mixed-use (residential and commercial land use category;
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D. Changing the land use designation of sites on the north side of El Camino Real from 1795 to 1885 El Camino Real from Neighborhood Commercial to Multiple-family Residen-tial; E. Changing the land use designation of the vacant parcels at the northwest corner of El Camino Real and Page Mill Road from Multiple-family Residential to Multiple-family Residential with a Commercial Hotel overlay; F. Changing the land use designation of the Maybell Avenue property at the rear of 4170 El Camino Real from Multiple-family Residential to Neighborhood Commercial; G. Changing the land use designation of 491-493 Charleston Road and 4201-4227 El Camino Real (primarily the Rickeys Hyatt site) from Service Commercial Hotel to either Multiple-family or Village Residential with a Commercial overlay and a policy to retain the existing landscape combining overlay zone along Wilkie Way and Charleston Road; H. Changing the land use designation of 4216-71 El Camino Real\431 Dinah's Court from Service Commercial and Multiple-family Residential to Commercial Hotel; I. Changing the land use designation of 231 Grant Avenue (Santa Clara County Mental Health Building and parking lot) from Major Institution\Special Facilities to Multiple-family Residential; and J. Changing the land use designation of approximately five acres of land at 3880 Middlefield Road (Spangler School) from Major Institution/Special Facilities to Village Residential and/or Multiple-family Residential. Mayor Wheeler announced that the City Council would review the Land Use Plan Element of the Draft Comprehensive Plan and that a Public Hearing would be held that evening.
Director of Planning and Community Environment Ken Schreiber clarified the process and said staff had identified potential Land Use Map changes which would be evaluated in the Draft Comprehensive Plan (the Plan) and the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR). The Land Use Map was a critical part of the Plan; it assigned a land use designation to each parcel in Palo Alto and the unincorporated area adjacent to Palo Alto which became the basis for future zoning actions. The starting point was the existing Land Use Map. The Planning Commission and staff had looked for sites that might be appropriate to change from the existing map. At the present time, the Comprehensive Plan or zoning was amended,
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but plans needed to be made for the future Comprehensive Plan and DEIR. Eventually, a new Land Use Map would be adopted in 1997. The Planning Commission process regarding the Land Use Map began in November 1994; and at its November 16, 1994, meeting, the Planning Commission decided to schedule field trips and study sessions during the winter and spring of 1994 and 1995. Public Hearings and meetings were held on land use issues in June, July, September, October, and November of 1995. Twenty-four specific decisions were made which were reviewed in the staff report (CMR:154:96), and ten recommendations for changes had been brought forward for a public hearing that evening. Two other items involving changes to the Land Use Map were not included as part of the process: 1) the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Urban Lane Site which Council had already addressed, and 2) the Palo Alto Hyatt site which was in the process of a draft EIR. If the Council identified other sites Council believed should be reviewed for possible Land Use Map changes, Council would need to direct staff to schedule a public hearing on the site. The Planning Commission and staff recommended three new land use designations: 1) Village Residential which was a combina-tion between single-family and lower density multiple-family, 2) Mixed-use which was residential, nonresidential, retail, office, and live/work, and 3) Commercial Hotel. He reviewed the ten sites as listed in the staff report (CMR:154:96) and Attachment A and noted refinements which occurred since the staff report had been prepared. Refinements had occurred for Site No.1, 700 Sand Hill Road, which included excluding the Ronald McDonald House and the
Children=s Health Council site from the Multiple-Family designation consistent with how it was being treated in the Sand Hill process. The recommendation was to keep the Streamside Open Space designa-tion as it currently existed along the edge of the site. For Site No. 2, the addition of three roadways to the circulation system
which was part of the Sand Hill Corridor=s project EIR: 1) Stock Farm Road, 2) Vineyard Lane, and 3) modified Quarry Road, staff prepared a two-page handout in response to a request by the Mayor to assist Council in identifying areas and specific items Council
had previously reviewed in other elements of the Plan=s goals, policies, and programs that referred to map issues. Staff found only two map issues: Site No. 2 and the Sand Hill Road issue. For Site No. 3, the vacant land at the southeast corner of El Camino Real and Quarry Road, the existing land use designation was inadvertently identified as Open Space/Controlled Development which was actually superseded and was Major Institution/University Lands Academic Reserve and Open Space. The Planning Commission and staff differed in their recommendations. The Planning Commission recommended a Mixed-Use Residential and Non-Residential Land Use category. The staff recommendation was for either a Multiple- Family Residential, which meant annexation into the City, or Major Institution/University Lands/Campus Multiple-Family Residential, which meant it would remain a part of the Stanford campus. Sandy Eakins, Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee Member and Planning Commissioner, said the Comprehensive Plan Advisory
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Committee (CPAC) became involved in looking at the maps of the City during the second phase process when subcommittees worked from maps to learn about the City with the idea of looking where changes were likely to happen. The information was incorporated in primarily
two areas of CPAC=s work, housing and community design. Eventu-
ally, the Αshopping list≅ of changes went on to the Planning Commission. CPAC, as a whole, did not meet and study the maps. Before she joined the Planning Commission, a process had been established whereby the Planning Commission went through the suggested land use changes and pulled out areas it thought could not have recommendations for change without holding public hearings. The public hearings were well-attended, and the comments
were thoughtful and influenced the Planning Commission=s recommen-dations. Council Member McCown asked for an explanation regarding the Quarry Road/El Camino Real site next to the Hoover Pavilion. She recalled from the minutes that the Stanford Board of Trustees had proposed the area be designated as housing. The Planning Commission, on a very close vote, was concerned whether that was a good idea or not. Mr. Schreiber said the Stanford Board of Trustees had amended its University Land Use Plan to designate the site for future multiple-family residential which was not part of the Sand Hill Corridor process. The Planning Commission was primarily concerned about the Quarry Road frontage having housing immediately across from the shopping center, the shopping center parking lot, and a proposed retail building on the corner of Quarry Road and El Camino Real, as well as from an urban design sense that it would be better to have commercial on both sides of Quarry Road. In a theoretical sense, he understood the concern. Staff concluded, however, that housing could be designed on that side of Quarry Road, using Quarry Road as the entry to the housing. Using the entire site for Multiple-Family Residential would be a better use since any notable amount of retail along the frontage would significantly infringe on the residential potential of the 5.5 acres. Mayor Wheeler declared the Public Hearing open. Bill Peterson, 228 Fulton Street, said he had submitted a letter in
the Council packet (letter on file in the City Clerk=s Office) which dealt with traffic consequences on Sand Hill Road. He believed there was an alternative which would bring more traffic into the Stanford Shopping Center without causing all of the proposed road work to be done. His letter included a traffic analysis based on the assumption that intersections were the limitation and if a road were built, it would be filled to the capacity of the intersection. The costs to the City and its residents from the increased congestion of the proposed Stan-ford/Sand Hill solution were high. The alternative before Council was cheaper, better, more expensive for Stanford, and the challenge
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would be to find a way to finance it. He believed the time was right to put it into the process and ensure a fair and viable hearing. Also, at the Planning Commission presentation on the proposed hotel site on Page Mill Road and El Camino Real, he had commented that the traffic generation would be enormous. There were approximately 3500 cars that flowed onto El Camino Real from Page Mill Road going toward the freeway every day. The hotel would dump 10 percent more traffic into the area. Council was being asked to do two things that would bring more traffic into the area. He strongly pointed out there were long-term financial consequences to the City from those actions. He urged Council to study the alternatives, one of which he proposed and was included in the Planning Commission minutes of September 12, 1995. Council Member Rosenbaum said he was surprised to read in the Planning Commission minutes of September 13, 1995, that Mr. Peterson spoke in favor of converting what had been long-term open space to housing at Quarry Road and El Camino Real. Mr. Peterson said it was a judgment call. There was a tremendous demand for housing in Palo Alto as evidenced by a bidding war on a home on his block the past weekend. More affordable housing was needed. There were several areas in the City which were close to transportation, and Quarry Road and El Camino Real was one such site. Another was on Alma Road across from the CalTrain station. Tough decisions needed to be made, and he believed intense housing on the site was appropriate.
Jerry Matters, 4261 El Camino Real, General Manager of Dinah=s Garden Hotel, submitted a letter to Council (letter on file in the
City Clerk=s Office) and sought Council=s consideration to change the multi-zoned property to a new zoning designation of Commercial Hotel. He summarized the multi-zone history of the hotel and noted the Architectural Review Board (ARB) had approved a new 7,000-square-foot restaurant and expanded office and lobby for the site. The hotel was headed toward becoming a major, small luxury hotel with additional units planned for the future. He urged Council to consider converting the existing four zones into the Commercial Hotel designation. Clement Chen, Holiday Inn, 625 El Camino Real, said if the hotel market in Palo Alto could not absorb an additional hotel, he would oppose the change. However, Palo Alto was exceptional in the strength of its demand for hotel rooms and the actual shrinkage in supply with the closing of the Hyatt Palo Alto. The demand for hotel and meeting facilities was evident in the letters received from the community. The citywide occupancy was substantially higher than the national average. He proposed, in particular, the change for the Page Mill Road/El Camino Real site because it was an appropriate site for a hotel; it was large enough to support the conference facilities. Hotels were not considered peak-hour traffic generators. The community benefits of having the meeting
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rooms/conference facilities outweighed any traffic negatives. A hotel was compatible with the overall development of the area and he supported the change. Elsie Begle, 1319 Bryant Street, said she had to go to San Jose or Santa Clara to find adequate meeting facilities. She would like to see facilities similar to the Marriott Hotel or the Fairmont Hotel in Palo Alto. The proposed site was ideal and served many purposes. She urged Council to act upon the issue quickly and separately from other Comprehensive Plan considerations. Susan Frank, 325 Forest Avenue, Chamber of Commerce, spoke in support of a new hotel and conference center at the corner of Page Mill Road and El Camino Real. In addition to support from the business community, Council had received letters from a number of nonprofit organizations such as the American Red Cross, the Jewish
Community Center, Peninsula Children=s Center, TheatreWorks, and the Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) in support of the proposed hotel. She had spoken to a number of executive directors of nonprofit organizations in the community trying to get a sense for their hotel and conference needs. The universal belief was that the nonprofit community supported the concept of a new hotel/conference facility in Palo Alto for a number of reasons: close proximity to transit sites, lack of availability of current meeting space and hotel rooms, need to not take events out of the community, and continued concern for the loss of more conference space. The issues were complex, not the least of which were the transportation concerns. Once the proposal could be looked at in its entirety, Council would have all the information it needed to make a decision. She urged Council to consider strongly a hotel/conference center at the proposed site. Jeff Vailant, 325 Forest Avenue, had encouraged Council to fund the Hotel Massing Model study. As an occupant of the Stanford Research Park (the Park), he believed a hotel/conference facility was an important service element to the businesses in the Park, as well as being a good attracter for businesses wanting to relocate to the Park. Second, the facility would be a potential revenue stream to the City. Changes in the Park from an industrial focus to a research focus had diminished revenues. A hotel would offer an opportunity to serve the clientele in the Park and generate a significant revenue stream. Third, he had done a comprehensive study on the use of conference space at Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), a nonprofit, and concluded for $1 million, he
could take care of EPRI=s needs. EPRI=s core competency was not running or building conference centers; however, the study demonstrated the need for conference facilities in the City. Finally, the hotel occupancy in Palo Alto was significantly higher than the national average. Hoteliers, nationwide, were beaming because occupancy was up to 67 percent. He had negotiated contracts with hotels in Washington D.C., and Dallas, Texas, as
well as Palo Alto. Palo Alto=s occupancy was pushing better than
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90 percent. He wanted to see additional properties in Palo Alto and encouraged the development of a conference/hotel facility. Susan Meaney, 2770 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, represented Stanford Management Company, said Stanford endorsed the hotel use for three primary reasons: 1) it was imperative for the long-term viability and competitiveness for the Park; 2) in comparison to other uses, the hotel would be a mitigating factor to traffic; and 3) the hotel would benefit the community. The one unanimous thing she heard when she asked tenants of the Park how Stanford could do a better job was to get a hotel in the Park. There were 23,000 employees in the Park who wanted a quality place to meet. Stanford believed the hotel would be beneficial to traffic patterns by early morning breakfast meetings and after-hours business meetings which would reduce peak-hour traffic. Visitors would not be traveling from elsewhere to come into the Park which would reduce traffic on major thoroughfares. A goal to improve the Park was to provide a gateway to the Park, and a high quality design hotel would provide a
gateway to meet both the community=s needs as well as the needs of the Park. Lorilee Houston, 520 Cowper Street, Garden Court Hotel, supported the hotel/conference facility. She spent 25 percent of her time turning people away. People came to the area willing to spend money to be close to the businesses they were visiting. There were nights she had to send people back to the airport because rooms were not available here, in San Jose, nor Redwood City. With a new hotel, she suggested part of the hotel tax monies could be used to resolve the traffic or interchange issues. Franklin Rice, 925 Page Mill Road, Genencor, spoke in favor of the proposed hotel on Page Mill Road and El Camino Real. As of July 1, 1996, Genencor would be moving into new headquarters at 925 Page Mill Road. Genencor would become the largest biotech company in Santa Clara County and the sixth largest in the world. Two hundred employees would be relocated from South San Francisco to the new site. Within the next 5 years, employees would increase to approximately 425. As a global, international, high tech research and development (R&D) end product focused company, Genencor had a high demand for hotel space due to clients, colleagues, and visitors from around the world. Currently, it utilized automobiles and taxi cabs, and very rarely bicycles or feet to access hotels. He urged Council to consider not only the current tenants, but future tenants and employees of the Park and to approve a hotel/conference center on the proposed site. A hotel site would actually decrease traffic in the area not increase traffic. Rick Tipton, 2779 Ramona Street, said there were relatively few sites within the City that would be perfect for a hotel, and he believed the proposed site was perfect for a hotel. He urged Council to approve the proposed hotel/conference center.
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Lane Liroff, 4221 Wilkie Way, said the people in his community had concerns regarding the visual appearance and congestion in the neighborhood surrounding the Hyatt Rickeys property. He stressed the importance of establishing the landscaping overlay. Secondly, the major traffic artery was Charleston Road which gridlocked to El Camino Real every morning and every afternoon. Any further change in use such as businesses or additional residences would cause a major congestion area onto El Camino Real and Arastradero Road. At the October Planning Commission meeting, a representative of Hyatt Rickeys stated the intention of continuing the operation of the hotel. Staff and others spoke in support of the hotel. Even though no one had directly stated for the record that the ownership was going to change, the suggestion was made to Council based on rumor that it would change. He believed Council should not make planning decisions based upon such evidence. Since the ownership indicated a continuance to maintain its presence, the residents asked that the hotel designation be maintained, to drop the designation that would allow businesses to be added, and to not add the designation related to village housing. While there was a recognized need for housing in the City, the area had already an area which had received a substantial contribution of housing developments. He had familiarity with the mental health system. There was a proposal before Council to change the designation of the only facility in the City or adjoining cities that provided Santa Clara County (the County) mental health care for the seriously mentally ill. It appeared the County was making a graceful exit from the community which would require the mentally ill to travel on the bus systems and streets to the next closest facility in Sunnyvale. To the extent Council had influence on the decision, he urged Council to maintain the facility. Council Member McCown asked if it were assumed, hypothetically, at some point in the future, that the property owner did not want to
continue the hotel operation, whether the City=s position should be to stay with a hotel or steer a potential future use in another direction. What direction made sense for the neighborhood. Mr. Liroff understood the question from Mr. Schreiber was that there was an immediate need because there would be a change. Council Member McCown said the Comprehensive Plan had a 15-year horizon. She asked if a change occurred, whether there was a direction different from a hotel that should be pursued at that location. Mr. Liroff said the neighborhood preferred some type of hotel usage because it would provide the least amount of congestion to the neighborhood. Council Member McCown confirmed if a zone could be created which was different from the current zone and locked in a hotel-type use, it would be preferable.
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Mr. Liroff said yes. Council Member Andersen said if Council were to continue to maintain the property as a hotel designation, quite likely the structure would not be the same type of structure. It could be a four-story structure and more intensely used than the Hyatt Rickeys. He asked if the neighbors would support such a use. Mr. Liroff said he did not believe the neighbors would support a four-story block of buildings. Council Member Andersen said that was probably what a future hotel would include. If the suggestion were to maintain the hotel zoning designation, he did not believe the current type of operation would be continued. Mr. Liroff said there were already structures larger than four stories in the area. The concern was that a message was being sent for not supporting Hyatt Rickeys by the change in the designation and allowing for increased congestion. Council Member Andersen questioned that an increase in residential development would be considered a detriment to the area. Mr. Liroff said the proposed residential development, which was Village Residential, would increase usage in the area. The traffic developed by hotels did not coincide with peak commute times. Anything which allowed for increased usage during peak commute hours would further flood cars off of Charleston Road onto the side streets. Mayor Wheeler assumed the current underlying zoning was Ser-vice/Commercial which allowed a large number of uses including the current use. A constituent had suggested if the hotel were to go
away, the site would be ideal for a permitted Αbig-box≅ retail store or grocery store/drug store complex. She confirmed the uses would not be favorable to the neighbors and that Council was being asked to make a change in the land use designation. Mr. Liroff said that was correct.
Council Member Kniss queried that by today=s hotel standards, Hyatt Rickeys was probably underdeveloped. Mr. Schreiber said as a 14-acre site, Hyatt Rickeys was underdeveloped. Council Member Kniss clarified when discussions centered on whether Hyatt Rickeys would consider altering the usage, the real issue was an underutilized piece of land. Mr. Schreiber said that was correct. The word on the street in terms of the development community was that in the very near
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future, the Hyatt Rickeys site was going to be available and could be bought. Over the last 15 years, the City had a rather consis-tent approach toward property when in compliance with the zoning; there was a presumption of validity of development. He had been in the uncomfortable position of having to tell a potential buyer of the property that staff would have to oppose a 60,000-square-foot grocery store and 90,000 square feet of other retail even though it was consistent with the zoning. Staff had raised the issue in the Comprehensive Plan process to try to sort it out before a developer came along with a project. Vice Mayor Huber asked how many rooms were at the Hyatt Rickeys. Mr. Schreiber said there were 342 rooms.
Herb Borock, 2731 Byron Street, said the former Children=s Hospital site and portions of the Sand Hill Corridor Road network had not had public hearings before the Planning Commission before action by the Council, and the intersection at Quarry Road and El Camino Real had been regarded as part of the Arboretum by Jane Stanford. Based on the public record included in his letter of February 14, 1996
(on file in the Clerk=s Office), the three sites were part of the Sand Hill Corridor project. Part of the problem was the assumption that the Sand Hill Road EIR would be finished before the Plan EIR. In fact, the Sand Hill Road EIR had never been finished because it had been overturned by the courts. The process should be done again as part of the Plan EIR if the project were included. He assumed the Hotel Massing Model study would include Council Member
Rosenbaum=s request of a hotel height limit to 50 feet and the
consultant=s recommendation that the scale be 1/4 inch equalled to 1 foot and provided on a table 5 feet high so that a true massing model could be seen at eye level. His letter referred to one-third of the site for a grocery store on the El Camino Real frontage, and
he was unaware of any member of the public talking about a Αbig
box≅ retail covering the entire 14-acre Hyatt Rickeys site. He was unaware of any position taken by the Charleston Meadows Neighbor-hood Association. The landscape zone was part of the site area owned by the owner and, therefore, pavement was allowed. Struc-tures were prohibited, but parking stalls and aisles were allowed in landscape combining zones. He suggested a separate land use category which was omitted from the project site and would only allow landscaping. There were three rationales for Village Residential: 1) that the site regulations used in mixed-use developments in nonresidential zones did not match; 2) provide offices in places such as the three workshop areas; and 3) live/work. The Council would have to plan for the different kinds of grocery stores and put them in the right places with the right traffic networks which was why he suggested a site on El Camino Real.
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Mayor Wheeler said Mr. Borock raised the issue of whether a public hearing was required before the Planning Commission prior to Council discussion and asked staff to respond. City Attorney Ariel Calonne said Council was in the early stages of the process and was scoping what would end up in a DEIR. The hearing process was farther down the road. Mr. Schreiber said the Planning Commission held a pubic hearing on the land use map and any related issues. A staff report identified a number of sites as potential changes. Courtesy public hearings were held on a number of sites. Eventually, required public hearings would occur and would be noticed appropriately. Bob Moss, 4010 Orme, said Item E, Land Use Overlay for a Hotel Site on Page Mill Road/El Camino Real, would be disastrous. More traffic would be generated from such a use on a 24-hour basis, during morning rush hour, and during evening rush hour than if the site were developed at 30 units per acre for housing. The proposed use would be a disaster for traffic circulation in the entire City. In addition, he queried why the Hyatt closed a 200-room hotel if there were such a shortage of hotel rooms. One of the things that could be done if additional hotel room were needed, was to disallow the County of San Mateo to use one of the hotels on El Camino as a welfare hotel and use it for transients. The site could be rezoned for Service Commercial along the El Camino side and low- to medium-density housing on the inland side. Many units would be bought or rented long-term by the Park as defacto hotel sites for people visiting, people moving into the area, or employees. A number of major companies had arrangements with hotels and apartment houses to do exactly that. If there were really a need for a conference center and hotel, it should be in the center of the Park in order to serve the Park. With regard to Hyatt Rickeys, he could testify to the gridlocked traffic along Charleston Road in the morning. He suggested an overlay similar to the one at the Elks Club, R-1 along the back, medium density in the center, and a low-density commer-cial along El Camino. Speaking on behalf of the Barron Park Neighborhood Association regarding Item F, the area along Maybell, the members unanimously recommended the site be rezoned Neighborhood/Commercial. Mayor Wheeler declared the Public Hearing closed. Council Member Fazzino had a question for Andy Coe from Stanford University (Stanford) regarding the proposed Arboretum housing. He understood the idea began as a possible alternative to housing density along Sand Hill Road and had gained life as a proposed housing alternative regardless of what happened with the issue of housing. He asked why Stanford viewed the proposal as a legitimate site for housing and what considerations, if any, were given to the destruction of the Arboretum.
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Andy Coe, Human Relations, Stanford University, said the site was suggested during the Sand Hill Road outreach program. Stanford had proposed 750 units of housing on Stanford West. Many people said they liked the idea of housing and asked that other sites be looked at for potential housing. Potential housing was proposed at the Quarry/Arboretum site. When the outreach program concluded, the recommendation was to go forward with approximately 120 to 200 housing units on the Quarry/Arboretum site as part of the Sand Hill Road proposal and to reduce the housing to 630 units on Stanford West. The Stanford University Board of Trustees redesignated the area as a potential housing site on the University Land Use Map. Financial evaluations and community evaluations were done, and the decision was basically made not to go forward with proposed housing on the site. His understanding since that time was that Stanford
was being responsive to the City=s request for consideration of housing at that and other sites. Council Member Fazzino asked Mr. Coe to comment on the environmental considerations of the site. Mr. Coe said when the site was first proposed the one real positive advantage was that it was close to transit. Anytime housing could be placed next to transit and downtown Palo Alto, it made good sense from a planning and policy perspective. The flip side was
the concern for the Arboretum and Αurban forest.≅ People on and off the campus reacted strongly not to support the proposal. Stanford had no plans for the development of housing on the site; however, it was comfortable with the two staff recommendations for Council consideration in terms of future designations. Council Member Kniss envisioned numbers of Palo Altans strapped to the Eucalyptus trees before the trees ever came down. There was history, tradition, and perhaps even romance associated with it. Mr. Coe said the idea of housing at the Quarry site would not go forward and had been dropped from the Sand Hill Road proposals because there would be no popular support for it.
Mayor Wheeler clarified that Stanford had no objection to Council=s support for either of the staff recommendations. She asked whether Stanford objected to leaving the designation as an open space designation.
Mr. Coe said Stanford=s preference during the Sand Hill Road outreach program was that if the site were to be used at all, housing was the most appropriate use as opposed to retail or commercial.
Mayor Wheeler asked what Stanford=s position would be if the choice were to leave the site as it was and to put some sort of housing designation on it.
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Mr. Coe said Stanford did not have a strong preference either way. Vice Mayor Huber asked whether Stanford staff would ask to redesignate the site to the original designation. Mr. Coe said Stanford had no plans to do so at that time. Council Member Fazzino asked whether Stanford viewed the site as a qualitatively different part of the Arboretum that could be treated differently than any other part of the Arboretum which was currently in open space. Mr. Coe said when the housing proposal was first brought forward, Stanford was not proposing to use any of the site that was
officially, technically, or legally the Arboretum. The public=s perception of the Arboretum, both on and off campus, was really different. Technically, Stanford did not believe it was infringing on the Arboretum. Vice Mayor Huber clarified the process before Council was a draft evaluation. Mr. Schreiber said that was correct. The process was to identify what land use designations should be looked at in the Plan, evaluated in the EIR, and considered further as Council moved through the process. Vice Mayor Huber clarified EIRs would be done and returned to Council. Mr. Schreiber said there would be one EIR that would evaluate various aspects and Council could then make a decision to incorporate or not incorporate the changes. Council Member Kniss, referring to the closure of the Hyatt Cabana, asked staff to discuss some of the economic issues of why land owners decided on different uses and to drew an analogy between those in a village who decided to knock down a small house and put up a rather large house in its place.
Mr. Schreiber said staff=s understanding of the reasons the Hyatt Cabana was closed involved several factors for the Hyatt Corpora-tion: 1) when the decision to close it in 1990 was made, the occupancy rate was such that the hotel was not turning a profit; 2) the hotel was old and a relatively out-of-date facility and would take multimillions of dollars to upgrade; and 3) both the Hyatt Cabana and Hyatt Rickeys no longer fit the image of the Hyatt Corporation. Hyatt executives had expressed concerns about booking people into Hyatt Rickeys in terms of what message was being sent regarding the Hyatt Corporation. The problem for Hyatt Rickeys was
that it was a very old facility and not up to today=s standards.
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Even though the occupancy rate had gone up notably recently, the land value was significant. The return on investment might be better by selling the hotel and investing the money rather than operating the hotel. Staff was told in 1991 that Rickeys as a site was not making much money or doing as well as the corporate expectations. Council Member Kniss said there was no simple answer to any of the issues which had been raised by the public. Just as for many
developers in the community where it had been Αworth it≅ to demolish a small house and construct a larger one, the same was true for other sites in the City. Some sites were not being fully utilized as the owner perceived it. Within the last two or three
years, residential actually Αpenciled out≅ better in the area than
retail with the possible exception of the Αbig box.≅ She did not believe staff nor Council would support it. Mr. Schreiber said there would be great difficulty in trying to fit
a Αbig box≅ retail into that area. The deeper discount-type facilities might have land value constraints that would make it difficult on the site. In discussions with members of the development community, he had been told that Safeway would pay to get a 60,000-square-foot Safeway in Palo Alto. The numbers were higher than traditional numbers regarding what a super food store could handle as a land value. His fear was that someone would come along who was not sensitive to the details or to City policy and buy the property. The result would be a new buyer with a major land value investment and then a proposal. None of the staff wanted to see Rickeys leave. It was a reasonably low-intensity use for 14 acres in that location. However, when looking realistically 15 years into the future, a change was likely. Council Member Kniss said the low-intensity use was often not understood. She clarified on Attachment A, page 15, that Site 24 was the Commercial/Hotel designation. Mr. Schreiber said that was correct. The traffic generation numbers were taken out of the Institute for Traffic Engineers (IT) and other manuals and was the basic information used in evaluating alternatives and was not based on actual counts of facilities in Palo Alto. Council Member Kniss clarified it was an extrapolation from a manual of some type. Mr. Schreiber said the data was for a hotel that had rooms, a restaurant, and meeting facilities but was not characterized as a convention hotel. Council Member Kniss presumed a ratio of ten trips per day per unit for that type of hotel.
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Mr. Schreiber said yes. Council Member McCown asked how potential changes were evaluated, particularly with respect to the hotel. If Council were to concur with the Planning Commission to say a potential hotel should be evaluated, what would be evaluated in an EIR.
Mr. Schreiber said a part would come out of Council=s discussion of the site. A 350-room hotel was probably the maximum hotel size for the site. There were two alternatives with the townhouse/condo solution: 1) a 250-unit proposal which was a little beyond the maximum for the zoning; and 2) a 125-unit proposal which was a more realistic development. In the EIR, he anticipated that a couple of alternatives would be looked at for the location. The alternatives
would be formulated based on Council=s direction. A hotel alterna-tive and a residential alternative were likely prospects. In a residential alternative, staff would back off from the maximum under the zoning given what was known regarding ground water problems, constraints on underground parking, etc. Council Member McCown said the map on page 18, Attachment A, picked up a little corner of the area on Pepper and Olive Avenues described as Cal/Ventura which was designated R-1. Some of the sites were historically challenging. In terms of doing an environ-mental analysis of the potential change on the Page Mill Road/El Camino Real site, how would potential changes in the Cal/Ventura area be incorporated. Mr. Schreiber said the situation was tricky. A Cal/Ventura Area Plan was on one track, and the Plan was on another track. The goal was to have them both come out on a reasonably close period in time. He anticipated putting a number of alternatives into the Plan for the Cal/Ventura area that would yield a reasonable maximum number of automobile trips. Allocating trips to specific sites was not critical, but allocating trips to the area was. Looking at an overall combination of land uses rather than for a particular parcel would determine a reasonable maximum for the area. The validity for the Plan EIR would be maintained, realizing the Cal/Ventura Area Plan was more likely to be the vehicle that identified specific land uses for the area. Council Member McCown said with respect to the Page Mill Road/El Camino Real intersection, the relationship of the potential hotel site, and the Cal/Ventura area, traffic issues would be central to how much change and what change could be encouraged. Somehow out of the process, a picture of the whole situation was needed in order to know where to spend the additional capacity in the overall area. It was critical to weave everything together before the end. Mr. Schreiber said between the land use discussions that evening, the meeting scheduled for February 29, 1996, and the anticipated
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return of the Cal/Ventura information to Council on March 4, 1996, there would be a number of opportunities to grapple with different sides of the issue and provide direction for both the area plan and in the Plan process. Vice Mayor Huber had similar questions as Council Member McCown and said the focus was not on whether there should be a hotel but on the intersection as a whole. Referring to the traffic manual on hotel trips, etc., he asked if Council could expect more refinement in terms of the potential traffic impacts resulting from a hotel. Mr. Schreiber cautioned under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), that staff was charged with looking at a reasonably worst- case analysis which limited how far one could go in terms of deducting trips for certain things. The numbers might not be as low or as optimistic as desired. Staff would try to do a further assessment as to whether the numbers would move up or down. Vice Mayor Huber said the argument had been made that proximity would reduce trips. Mr. Schreiber said to keep in mind the roads were carrying a great deal of traffic at the present time. While changes were relatively small percentages, they could be considered significant. Vice Mayor Huber said if a hotel were economically such a good deal, presumably there were 14 acres at Hyatt Rickeys that could be scraped to start over and could be compared as bare land to bare land. Drawing a comparison to Page Mill Road/El Camino Real, he asked why one would not want to do that on a larger site because it was not economically feasible, yet one would do it on the smaller site where arguably it was economically feasible. Mr. Schreiber said during the last six or seven years, almost no one was willing to consider financing a hotel no matter how good the economics were. The trend was beginning to change, but the economic return from a hotel had to be balanced against the economic returns for other land use. The assumption was that for a hotel at Page Mill Road/El Camino Real to become economically viable, Stanford would need to cooperate on the lease, be willing to work with the market, and not expect to get top dollar out of the property. Hotels were still somewhat doubtful in terms of the financing market. Vice Mayor Huber clarified for viability that Stanford had to fund, to some extent, the Page Mill Road/El Camino Real site.
Mr. Schreiber said that had been staff=s operating assumption for the past couple of years. Vice Mayor Huber said conversely if one were talking about a bare-land Rickeys, somebody was not funding that for other reasons.
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Mr. Schreiber said that was correct. Looking at the land cost for a Rickeys site and putting that back into a hotel, the hotel deal might not look very good. Mr. Beckett recalled in the Transportation Subcommittee conversa-tions that an improved function of a local transit system with the addition of the hotel as it related to the Research Park and CalTrain was a key element. Council Member McCown clarified the intersection operated at Level E. Assuming with potential changes that the intersection would get to Level F, she asked whether the City would need to do a defi-ciency plan to figure out how the City would provide for some traffic mitigation someplace else in the system. Mr. Schreiber said the Santa Clara County Transportation Agency (SCCTA) continued worked on a countywide deficiency plan that would apply to freeways, expressways, and El Camino Real. Assuming that the Countywide deficiency plan was a successful process, the City would not have to do a deficiency plan at the location. There would still be obligations under CEQA regarding mitigations. Mayor Wheeler said the discussion would continue on February 29, 1996. Mr. Schreiber said not only the consultants who did the massing model work would be there, but also others who had been involved in
the process through the City Manager=s Office who were knowledge-able about hotels. MOTION TO CONTINUE: Mayor Wheeler moved, seconded by Huber, to continue the Council's discussion of the Land Use Plan Element to a Special City Council Meeting on Thursday, February 29, 1996. MOTION TO CONTINUE PASSED 7-0, Schneider, Simitian absent. ADJOURNMENT: The meeting adjourned at 9:30 p.m. ATTEST: APPROVED:
City Clerk Mayor NOTE: Sense minutes (synopsis) are prepared in accordance with Palo Alto Municipal Code Sections 2.04.200 (a) and (b). The City Council and Standing Committee meeting tapes are made solely for the purpose of facilitating the preparation of the minutes of the meetings. City Council and Standing Committee meeting tapes are recycled 90 days from the date of the meeting. The tapes are
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available for members of the public to listen to during regular office hours.
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