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Politics & Government

Planning Commission Slams ABAG's Initial Vision Scenario

Commissioners call local housing and land use plan "backwards" and a financial "death blow to public education."

Palo Alto planning commissioners expressed deep skepticism on Wednesday evening for the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) and Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s (MTC) “Initial Vision Scenario."

The plan aims to accommodate future population growth with sustainable communities in compliance with S.B. 375, a state law that encourages development to be more transit oriented. Yet commissioners felt the plan was too costly, did not meet transit-oriented development goals, and did not provide enough affordable housing.

ABAG and MTC expect Palo Alto to add a whopping 11,990 new households, an increase from 26,710 today to 38,690 by 2035. Household growth would increase by 44.9 percent, according to ABAG. The city would also add 4,860 jobs, an increase of 6.6 percent, during the next 25 years.

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For the larger Bay Area, the California Department of Finance envisions 900,000 new households, two million new people, and 1.2 million new jobs, said planning director Curtis Williams. 

Although the ABAG vision would purportedly reduce vehicle-greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent in 2035, adding housing in does not equate to lower greenhouse gas emissions, said vice chair Lee Lippert. He added this is especially true since Caltrain has no dedicated source of funding from the state.

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“I think we're looking at this backwards," he said. "We're trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the net result is that we're forced to take on more housing to build onto the jobs-housing imbalance."

“It is really difficult to look at this as a growth plan when they're saying ‘link transit to housing,’ yet they cut service to one of the largest service areas identified as Gilroy,” he said. “What are we doing here? We're adding housing yet we're cutting train service?”

Commissioner Arthur Keller called the vision poorly planned. “It's stupid planning. It makes no sense from a land-use perspective,” he said.

He gave the example of New York City, where a complex and comprehensive transit system brings people into a dense jobs area, he said. People take public transit because it is more convenient than driving a car in Manhattan, he said. “You don't increase transit by adding housing,” he said.

Yet commissioner Susan Feinberg called the vision “a deathblow to public education in the Bay Area.”

She did a quick calculation on how 12,000 new households in Palo Alto would impact public schools. Assuming one new student per household and assuming the same amount of space available per child currently, the school district would need to buy up 150 acres to accommodate the influx of new students, she said. Expanding existing high schools and building a new high school would require 50 acres, 25 acres for new middle schools, and 75 acres for elementary schools, she said.

“Where would we find 150 acres to build new schools? Where would we find $5 million an acre?”  she asked. "If this rate of development happens, it simply is going to be the death knell of public education, and I don’t think it’s any excuse to say that that’s an acceptable thing to plan for."

Santa Clara County takes on more than any other county in terms of jobs and housing, Williams said. San Jose can accommodate about 85 to 90 percent of what ABAG envisions, but Palo Alto could do only about 45 percent, Williams said. California Avenue, El Camino Real, and downtown are the only realistic locations where new mixed-use housing could go, Williams said. ABAG has envisioned the remaining 55 percent of growth to occur in single-family home areas, Williams said.

ABAG “is showing over 1,000 new residentials in an area that is essentially all single-family homes,” Williams said. “It kinda makes no sense at all. They're areas that have no vacant lands and no developable parcels. They need to find another way to allocate those units.”

The planning department will prepare a response letter to ABAG outlining Palo Alto’s problems with the Initial Vision Scenario. The letter will go to city council for review by the end of May.

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