I hope the City appeals this ruling. This developer has screwed the City by demolishing the original Eichler office building and kept the grocery store vacant for way to long. They need to pay.

Great. Another screw-up by city staff resulting in a win for the developer, financial cost to the city, and inconvenience to the citizens. So, glad we are paying top dollar to recruit and retain the best and the brightest at City Hall. Surely, the responsible employees will get a big raise for their fine work.

Yeah a win for "commonsense" ...wah wah was you silicon valley crybabies should have shopped at the fresh market and perhaps it would have never closed but no,,, you go to costco or whole paycheck...

@AngryKitty The developer "screwed" the city how? By providing a grocery store twice that is far better thane ours in College Terrace? Stop your first world problems crying - you had the best store in PA and probably didn't shop there. Now you have a second store that's great and all you car about is some perceived injustice about a vacant store for 18 months. Grow up.

The local Fresh Market didn't close because it wasn't showing a return. They opened 6 stores, had no clue as to how shoppers differ from those in the South East and this store was the only one that was showing any profit at all.

Crying for SH is a waste of tissues - they built 10 homes which sold for 3 mil and over- each. And took away 75 parking places. Those people who have the CC&R acted in good faith in exchange to have grocery store. If those who wrote the contract didn't carefully and precisely write it so that it protected the city and the adjacent neighborhoods - that is a big loss for us all. Sand Hill somehow magically found a grocer once the fine went up to $5000/day. At that point it was real money so they made it happen.....something they could have done 2 years earlier - but it was not worth their effort till the fine mattered.

As for your less than satisfactory College Terrace Grocer - the developer of that project would have done anything to get his permit and he did. At one point he tried to present his son as someone competent to develop and run the store.
At least the city didn't accept that and wanted more of a professional. The developer's son was a stock clerk for a while in a grocery store. Mickey, who had opened the grocery store on Alma, unfortunatley wasn't able to make a success of that but must have gotten a good deal from the developer and accepted the offer - so the City Council gave the developer a permit. Time will tell.

This is not about first world problems - come shop at The Market - it is a good store. Sadly, SandHill has had enough projects in the city and south bay to leave behind a trail of mistrust and provided themselves with a less than honest reputation as a developer

Even if “use” means something different from “operate,” in what sense is having an empty space “using” it as a grocery. Reserving for use is not use. What am I missing?

Now here is judge actually worth recalling.

Not a surprise. In the real world there is enormous difference between a designated 'use' and 'continuous operation". Grocery tenants don't sign leases with the later in them. We got lucky with the market. They were in a small 2,000 Square foot space in San Mateo doing only fruit and vegetables. Obviously SH put them into business with the $300k, and they've done a great job of following the Fresh Market's formula. Give SH some credit for finding them and taking the chance. If they falter, and especially with this ruling, we are in real trouble. And both Safeway and Amazon want them to fail.

Shopping in Palo Alto is ridiculously difficult. Safeway doesn't have enough parking and runs out of staples by dinnertime.

Piazza's does have a lot going for it, but doesn't have some staple brands that Safeway has.

The huge Safeways in Menlo Park and Mountain View have great selections for one stop shopping.

SH were fully aware of their obligations and should have used more carrots to get things up to standard from the start. They didn't, they failed.

Mark, it is hard to give SH credit for finding the family to open a grocery store. This is a HUGE risk for the owners as this is an enormous undertaking.

If SH had done this 18 months ago, I would agree with you. However, after all the frustration, untruths and problems created, plus the size of SH's pockets - their risk is minimal. Especially when so many of Sand Hill's facts and information was pretty consistently proven to be empty of reality. So much of what they shared with us never passed the "smell" test.

These comments are so indicative of PA residents. Crying because their overpriced grocery store went away for 3 years and were FORCED to shop at Safeway or Costco. So they blame the evil developer for destroying their rich bubble way of life.

Meanwhile there are homeless families who can't afford housing or food living in cars on ECR 1/2 mile away.

This is the very definition of a first world problem. Shameful entitlement may a be better term.

Don't blame the judge! He points out how the CT market requirement for "continuous operations" was spelled out in that agreement but clearly was not in the Edgewood agreement.

The fault sits directly in the lap of the city staff. If they had written in the correct phrase, none of this would have happened.

Every lawyer knows (I am not a lawyer) that every agreement must be specific. The city blew it, plain and simple.

Out-lawyered? Staff error? I wonder. I've never met a lawyer who isn't acutely aware of the importance of using the correct words. And practiced at doing so.

Thank God that the city lost this case. It was a joke. The planning department in the city attorney‘s office are constantly trying to screw business owners in the city. Finally the judicial system comes to the rescue. Any residents the think a developer is responsible for operating a grocery store are not being realistic. You build the grocery store and you lease it out . They did that. There was still a lease in place. Now there’s a sublease. Bad planning is what accounts for the poorly performing grocery store. It’s not a good location for a grocery store. The Eichler nonsense is just A red herring.

@resident - No one forced Sand Hill into this, they wanted to horse trade to get those houses. Yout pity is misplaced. Once they agreed to the deal, then reneged, they deserved the fines.

While I'm certain that the City cannot blacklist SandHill from future construction projects in Palo Alto and the surrounding cities due to SandHill's bad-faith interactions with the area, keep in mind that it is EQUALLY certain that NO city is obligated to change zoning to accommodate any real estate developer's pocketbook, like PA did with SandHill.

If Palo Alto were smart, moving forward PA will no longer change zoning or any other PA-specific building requirements to accommodate SandHill's future projects...which enforcing codes and zoning is absolutely within PA's purview.

It is unlikely the store will survive, although I hope it does. The neighbors need to support it and they won't. Stopping in for one or two items just to patronize the place and then doing the majority of your shopping somewhere else with better prices won't keep the market afloat. The store needs locals to buy all their groceries there and that's not going to happen. The neighbors can pout all they want. If it fails they have no one to blame but themselves. The developer didn't promise to make the store a success. I'm glad the judge decided the way he did.

So much for "Planned Community" Developer exceptions. They were a farce invented to soak up campaign donations and this judge just confirms it.

@neighbor

"At one point he tried to present his son as someone competent to develop and run the store."

"He" (the original) was developer, Patrick Smailey, a friend of the family that owned the land and their property manager. He had an arrangement with the owners that his son, James, who we were told was in construction, but perhaps was the handyman for Patrick's property management business, possibly thought that a salaried job managing the grocery store (and on site property manager/maintenance handyman, would be the replacement grocery operator. Except neither the son, nor his father, had any experience operating a grocery store, and did not meet the criteria for the grocery store owner in the agreement they had signed with the city.

The owners had a problem. Under their bargain with the city to increase the allowable office square footage from 13,000 sq ft to 40,000 square feet, the owners had offered to save JJ&F, or if that failed to substitute a grocery operator with similar experience. The quid pro quo. And now the city had turned down their plan for James. And the permit for the office occupancy was on condition the grocery store was opened first. So Mikki was presented as the new owner of the grocery store, or the frontman since there were two silent partners who put up the money. The city issued the occupancy permit for the offices.

Unfortunately for the silent partners, who invested the upfront money to get the grocery store ready to open, the property owners/developer delayed their opening for about a year, a huge drain on their capital already invested in outfitting the store. More unfortunately, the property manager does not appear to have been vested in the success of the store. Ever wonder why the College Terrace Market had minimal signage on the exterior of the building? Or why the grocery store has been refused access to the off road space designated for the market's garbage that was included in the city's agreement with the city? There are/were enough other problems with the property management that new the owners have had to resort to legal remedies. Meanwhile, how much more capital can they continue to sink into the market?

Given that the city did use the words "continuous" operation, if the current market owners are unable to continue, will we find that after all the new owner will be the property manager, with his son given the job of running the market, as per the original plan? A happy ending. 40,000 square foot of first class lucrative office space and a job for James.

There is one way to shine light on this situation. Council can get new legal opinion on what to do next and get an independent opinion on the basis of judge's decision(s) being rendered against the city.

Funds have been held in escrow by city anticipating that city could lose some or all of funds in dispute. Nevertheless, cash flow is going in the wrong direction. This has the marks of a quality control problem so it should be managed as such by Council.

It seems like the true lesson is getting lost. This really isn't about whether or not Fresh Market was good or whether or not Sand Hill is unethical.

The city *intended* to require Sand Hill to provide an up and running market for the duration of the contract. According to the judge, the city *failed* to use the appropriate language in the contract to make this happen. Accordingly, Sand Hill was not, in fact, required to provide an up and running market and, therefore, not required to pay any fines associated with the closure of the market.

The city can appeal, and perhaps another judge would rule in favor of the city.

Nevertheless, in my opinion, the "blame" lies with the city. While the interpretation of language is not an exact science, the highly compensated city attorneys, city planners, and city management simply lacked the skill to write an iron-clad contract, and the city council approved the flawed contract.

This is not surprising -- have you seen the stuff that comes out of City Hall? Most of the writing doesn't merit better than a grade of "C".

Also, this is not new. A few years ago, there was a heated controversy regarding how much compensation the residents of Buena Vista would be due according to the terms of a city ordinance which assured sufficient payment to relocate to a "comparable" community. At the time, I reviewed the original language, and it was full of loopholes, obvious even to a non-attorney.

We do not hire competent staff and consultants and, in addition to their inflated salaries and benefits, we pay the price for their mistakes.

----------

FWIW, this is what I wrote regarding Buena Vista:

Posted by Abitarian
a resident of Downtown North
on Apr 15, 2015 at 9:05 pm

At least for me, it is helpful to remember that our justice system is an "adversarial" one, where each party tries to convince the (hopefully) impartial judge or jury that his or her perspective is the correct one, and in civil cases, the end result is often a settlement that finds some compromise between the differences rather than some absolute truth.

In the Buena Vista situation, it appears that each side has a valid position. The Jissers have a right to close the park because they own the property. The residents have a right to compensation because it is mandated by a city ordinance.

The legal wrangling -- including the debate about the meaning and intention of specific words in the law -- is just part of the process, business as usual. It is not unique to Buena Vista or Palo Alto.

A major point of contention surrounds the definition of a "comparable" community. The law lists several factors "such as" shopping, medical services, recreational facilities, and transportation, but does not mention public schools.

The Jissers argue that the omission means that public schools were not meant to be included in calculating the assessment. The residents maintain that the "such as" language means "for example" and does not exclude elements not listed, such as the public schools. The jury, in this case, City Council, agrees with the residents.

It isn't a revision of the law. It's an interpretation. Courts do it all the time. In fact, the US Supreme Court is set to consider a case concerning the Affordable Care Act in which the two sides disagree about whether some wording is meant to apply to both state and federal health care exchanges vs. only state health care exchanges. Sound familiar?

Back here at home, my feeling is that the original legislation, though well-intended, was flawed in concept as well as execution. Certainly, the language provides ample opportunity for speculation. And the whole "comparable" community notion is a nice idea, but seems designed for controversy.

See Web Link

Note that all of this - and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines - is what’s required to build 10 houses in Palo Alto. 10!

If you ever wonder why we keep getting held up as an example of an anti-housing City, here’s your answer. Well, this and Maybell.

The grocery store is not even a public benefit. Only rich people can afford to shop there.

Wow, I am just disgusted by all this. Sand Hill skates on a technicality? Some businesses don’t operate in good faith so try not to do business with them. I wish our city staff were worthy of their luxury salaries/benefits, too. How can city officials hold up their heads after this debacle? I mean, they list these things on their resumes?! (I refer to those associated with approval and conditions of this project.) The situation should be much better at Edgewood Shopping Center. I do recommend the Chinese restaurant.

The judge was correct to rule as he did. Is this just simple staff incompetence, an oversight, or
is there another way of looking at and understanding what happened here. It's part of the pro-development/developer bias and mentality in City Hall. Protecting the public interest is not part of the mindset of the staff or the Council. That is not their orientation. It affects everything. The Shell station next to Edgewood Plaza was renovated a few years ago with no apparent design control considering its location. All part of the same pattern. The problems at City Hall run deep.

The overpaid attorneys working for Palo Alto are not worth their salt.

Gregory Scharff is a canny real estate lawyer.
How about he applies some of his expertise for the benefit of the city in this case? Not just for developers as usual, but for the city.

How about it Mayor Scharff?

"How can city officials hold up their heads after this debacle?"

SOP. Screwing up on these PC zoning giveaways to developers is routine at city hall. This one was somewhat more sly than usual; it took the developer several years to find it. What is truly amazing is that city hall actually tried to enforce this PC. Maybe because of the money.

The intent was plain and that is what ought to count,
not some after the fact lawyer's slimy reading of the dictionary.
This decision should be appealed, and the judge removed.
What other point would there be to having that language
in the contract?

Why do judges always come down on the side of the money?

As annoying as the situation is, people should give the new market a try. So far, it looks like mostly produce, dairy, deli, etc., and doesn't try to compete with Costco on canned goods, paper goods, and all those bulky items. Pretty appropriate product selection for people shopping on the way home from work; probably not so much for the once-a-week visit to a giant supermarket.