For those who believe that Palo Alto has suffered from too much office growth over the next decade, the annual office cap that the city had adopted nearly two years ago for three prominent commercial areas appeared to have been an effective corrective.
The cap, which limits annual office development to 50,000 square feet in downtown around California Avenue and along El Camino Real, became law of the land in September 2015. Under the new rules, once the limit is exceeded, the City Council would evaluate projects based on criteria such as neighborhood impacts, public benefits and design.
But commercial development had since cooled off, the limit was not reached and in late March, Planning Director Hillary Gitelman noted in a report that the new law appears to have had the desired effect of pacing growth.
“Since the implementation of the AOL (Annual Office Limit) ordinance, there has not been any significant office development proposed in the ordinance-affected areas,” the report states. “Although the time period has been relatively short, it would appear that the ordinance has reduced that amount of applications for net new office projects.”
This week, the city’s Planning and Transportation Commission will make its own determination as to whether the law should be retained. On Wednesday, the commission will consider an extension of the ordinance (which still exists on a two-year “interim” basis). If it approves the staff recommendation, the existing law would be stretched to June 30, 2018, so as to give the council time to craft a permanent ordinance.
Without an extension, the ordinance would expire on Nov. 26.
While the council has supported retaining (with some adjustments) the annual office limit, the commission has been somewhat more skeptical about the new pacing mechanism. At prior meetings, some commissioners had referred to the office cap as a “blunt tool” before reluctantly voting to support it in 2015.
If the commission approves the staff recommendation, the office cap would be extended with all the existing rules. These include exemptions for office projects with less than 2,000 square feet of space, small medical offices less or equal to 5,000 square feet or “self-mitigating projects” that provide rental housing and “substantial demand management strategies that improve current parking and traffic conditions.”
At the same time, council member had indicated that they may change some of these rules once they take up the permanent ordinance later this fall. During a Jan. 30 discussion, Mayor Greg Scharff proposed eliminating the concept of the “beauty contest,” which empowers the council to choose among projects if the development cap is exceeded.
“I for one think we should do away with the ‘beauty contest’ thing and do it on a first-come, first-serve basis,” Scharff said. “So far, the whole beauty contest thing has been sort of a failure.”
Mountain View has no real limits (apart from physics) physics). Send us your rich and uuseful. We even accept Russian mobsters and other Trump campaign operatives.
First, I wish that Mayor Scharff and other elected officials, as well as Gennedy Sheyner and other local journalists, would stop calling the process for evaluating development proposals a “beauty contest”. This sends the wrong message to developers and citizens alike.
As is appropriate, aesthetics are only one of the factors to be considered. Prospective projects would also be rated on community benefit, traffic and parking, environmental impact, etc.
This name diminishes both the substance and potential of the evaluation. It brings to mind those demeaning swimsuit parades where women are judged by their physical appearance.
“Beauty contest” is simply out-of-touch with contemporary values. This is 2017. This is Palo Alto. Words matter. A more fitting description would be “design competition”.
Second, I don’t see how Mayor Scharff could possibly say this program is a “failure”, when, at least to my knowledge, it has never been used.
Surely someone will correct me if I am mistaken, but my understanding is that the office cap is keeping new development at the level specified by the ordinance so the design competition has not been needed.
Keep it going. And don’t get caught up in ‘words’. They are just ‘words’ and our lexicon changes drastically every year. It seems to be working and that’s great. And I see good movement on housing, and even the advertised ‘affordable’ housing. Keep that going also, but listen to neighbors in those areas where it doesn’t fit…for various reasons…heights, lack of parking, etc. Hear them out, listen to them…and everything will turn out right. CC, take heed and get ready for some hard work ahead after your nice, well deserved, summer break.
This is an excellent idea–cap the number of offices at those already built and ready to occupy. Any that are not finished can be converted to housing.
It’s time for a moratorium on building in all of Palo Alto.
I always thought our use of the term “cap” here was a misnomer relative to the harder limit that was in the Comp Plan for many years. I think of it more of a “scarf”.
Order Progesterone Menopause Medicine Levitra Para Hipertensos [url=http://cheapestcial.com ]online pharmacy[/url] Discount Generic On Line Doryx Order Shop Cheapeast