Guest Opinion: Housing over parking lots? Time to look into it

Palo Alto is in a financial crisis due to the loss of tax revenue resulting from the pandemic. And the hoped-for housing dream in the North Ventura area has devolved into what are leftover sites now that the Fry’s Electronics building on Portage Avenue, which takes up most of the area, will likely get a new commercial tenant (Target). These setbacks only reinforce the need to seriously consider the feasibility of using city-owned public facilities parcels — the parking lots surrounding California and University avenues — as sites to develop affordable housing.

Senate Bill 35 — which states, “Each city then updates the Housing Element of its Comprehensive Plan to show sites where the new housing units can be built and the policies and strategies to meet the housing needs” — is a pressing state requirement, and if challenged or disregarded, may leave us on the wrong side of an obligation that many residents feel is our local responsibility.

Here is a proposal that can lead to steady city income while addressing this compelling need for housing.

The first and most important fact is the city’s ownership of the land. The most significant cost to a developer is the purchase of the land. If the city leases the land to the developer for a significant period, these savings could be leveraged to reduce a significant portion of the rental units to an affordable level to satisfy the state’s program. From the developer’s perspective, a mix of more luxurious units along with the affordable units adjacent to these vibrant commercial areas seems like an obvious attraction.

A second benefit would be the retention of parking under this new housing. Senate Bill 50 proposed a significant reduction in local parking requirements for such transportation rich areas, so the parking can remain as a city-owned public amenity to reinforce the viability of the adjacent retail uses.

The state has insisted on an abbreviated local review process, so a third benefit of city ownership is the opportunity to study the potential of these sites now by exploring various planning and architectural options, such as massing and density modeling, contextual issues, site development schemes (including how to incorporate the parking), whether to provide ground-floor retail space, how to improve the quality and minimize the negative impact of the service areas at the rear of the existing retail, and how to landscape the residual spaces either at the ground level or on decks or rooftops. While these would be early schematic exercises, they would establish a format for further development and prioritize the sites with the most potential.

One obvious site would be the parking lot behind CVS on Hamilton Avenue downtown. Imagine two levels of parking on the first floor and, in the basement, retail on the Waverley Street corner, with three or four levels of housing above. The height would align with the AT&T building on Hamilton and ought to step down to respect the lower scale of Waverley.

A fourth benefit would be that these sites would not displace any existing residential use.

And a fifth benefit would be aesthetic. The least attractive areas around these two downtowns, especially at California Avenue, are these endless parking lots.

This forward-thinking initiative would give Palo Alto a leg up on the state’s mandate and allow a reasonable timeframe for the necessary input of the City Council, city planning division, the review boards and the city’s technical agencies.

The task of organizing this effort is quite significant: It really requires a leader, someone to establish the milestones and deliverables who can properly analyze economic feasibility, and someone who can determine if additional funding such as tax incentives or the use of the impact fees or other forms of subsidies are needed and who can present these findings along with physical models and realistic perspectives to the Palo Alto community.

The task also would include negotiations with possible developers, preferably ones who recognize the need for mixed income housing. A not-for-profit development company might be preferable. The arrangement must be an open, publicly disclosed discussion among the city, its representative and the developer. The arrangement would be a long term marriage, so all contract conditions must be carefully considered.

This decision will likely require significant public discussion, which means it will not be coordinated with the “objective standards project,” the rewriting of a portion of the zoning scheduled by city planning to be completed this fall. As a denser form of development with less open space or yards, the format for revising the zoning will require a change from “public facility” zone to a service commercial (CS) zone or one of the residential multiple (RM) equivalent zones.

Height limitations, especially the 50-foot maximum, will once again be explored. That normally raises many people to the level of “fear of urbanization.” It is important to note that these parking lots do not abut low-scaled residential neighborhoods. But it is also significant to use common sense reasoning to judge the real impact of this overly restrictive height limitation. Light and air are important, but there are reasonable formulas for determining when buildings begin to impose on our preferred spatial and privacy environment.

Objective formulas with fixed parameters such as the “daylight plane” can be modeled to determine more exact conditions. Realistic perspective views and sight lines can illustrate different viewpoints so that height is determined based on facts, not feelings.

Recognizing that the scale of Palo Alto is important does not trump the need to provide affordable housing. We won’t lose the quality of our environment if we create these mixed-income developments in these public facilities zones. But we will add to the success of the downtowns as well as improve the city’s economy for the foreseeable future.

David Hirsch is a former New York City architect who recently moved to Palo Alto. He can be reached at davidlhirsch@gmail.com.