Palo Alto’s downtown plan would focus on housing | News

Fueled by federal money, Palo Alto is preparing to undertake a 3-yr organizing course of action aimed at answering a important query: What would it just take to establish extra housing in the downtown spot?

The metropolis has been given a grant of $800,000 from the Metropolitan Transportation Fee (MTC) for the setting up system, which is expected to take about 3 yrs and culminate in a new Downtown Housing Strategy. The Metropolis Council will think about accepting the grant on Monday night time as perfectly as explore committing additional metropolis money for the organizing energy.

If adopted, the downtown strategy would play a central part in the council’s efforts to boost housing in the city’s most transit-served space. It may perhaps also enable the town prepare for transportation enhancements, together with a reconfiguration of the city’s northernmost rail crossing at Palo Alto Avenue so that the road and the tracks no more time intersect.

That stated, the boundaries of the proposed preparing location cease just limited of the downtown Transit Center, which consists of a Caltrain station and several bus stations. The strategy would protect the area just east of the tracks, in between Alma and Cowper streets and bounded by Lytton Avenue in the north and Hamilton Avenue in the south.

Whilst transportation advancements would be regarded as as element of the setting up, the main focus of the work would be housing. The revenue that the MTC is distributing comes from the Federal Highway Administration and is committed to scheduling in “precedence development locations” — places that towns designate as ripe for development and alter and that are commonly positioned subsequent to transit hubs. The council specified a 206-acre part of downtown as a precedence improvement location in January 2020, building it suitable for scheduling grants. The 76-acre region that employees has proposed for the Downtown Housing System is integrated in the precedence growth area.

Planning Director Jonathan Lait mentioned that town staff members had at first regarded a broader downtown preparing energy, 1 that deemed the transit middle and strengthening connections amongst downtown, Stanford College and Stanford Procuring Heart. The final decision to emphasis on the area just east of the transit hub was centered on the staff’s estimate of what can basically be completed with the grant bucks.

Lait pointed out, on the other hand, that team has been in discussions with Stanford College about quite possibly growing the space to incorporate the transit space if the council opts to do so.

The city’s Comprehensive Plan, which is commonly noticed as its land use bible, includes a coverage that encourages an region strategy for downtown. A wide investigation, even so, would call for additional than double the grant income that the city has obtained from the MTC, Lait mentioned.

“We’re truly conversing about a a lot more in depth planning effort,” Lait reported, referring to the Comprehensive System plan. “The idea listed here is to capitalize on the option that we have now.”

If the council approves the MTC grant, the housing strategy would be 1 of many concurring efforts to build a new eyesight for downtown. The council has by now directed staff members to appraise streetscape advancements along University Avenue to make it a lot more suitable with the parklets that popped up along the thoroughfare all through the pandemic and that are now set to grow to be permanent fixtures.

Then there is quality separation, the city’s significant-scale effort and hard work to redesign all of its quality crossings so that streets no lengthier intersect with rail tracks. The redesign effort and hard work initially involved the city’s northernmost rail crossing at Palo Alto Avenue, while the council ultimately voted to defer its style get the job done on this crossing until finally it types a broader prepare for the downtown spot.

Supplied its constrained scope, the MTC grant is unlikely to additional the dialogue of the Palo Alto Avenue crossing. But Mayor Pat Burt noted that other funding resources may possibly develop into obtainable for grade separations in the downtown area. A single possible source is the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, which integrated $700 million for quality separation as section of its Measure B, the 2016 revenue-tax measure. The dollars is earmarked for Palo Alto, Mountain Perspective and Sunnyvale.

Burt stated in an interview that 1 essential variable that the council will take into account in its discussion of the MTC grant is the degree to which the metropolis should be hanging its preparing efforts on the regional agency’s stipulations. He also stated it is essential for the housing strategy to be steady with the city’s vision for transportation enhancements.

“I’d want to see a approach that would raise housing in our downtown location significantly in excess of time and do so in a way that is built-in in not only a lot more transit use but important changes that suit quality separations and infrastructure that is approaching 100 many years old in the multimodal centre,” Burt said.

The MTC grant needs the city to comprehensive its scheduling exertion within just three a long time, by April 30, 2025. The funding settlement for the grant involves Palo Alto to entire a series of stories as element of the scheduling method, such as an analysis of the associations in between employment and housing affordability, an assessment of current inequities between men and women of unique racial or ethnic backgrounds, and thing to consider of modifications to enhancement expectations that would make housing building extra possible.

The plan’s intention to boost household construction in downtown Palo Alto has taken on a increased feeling of urgency around the earlier calendar year as the town is shifting towards adopting a new housing element, a document that identifies housing websites and strategies that will permit it to meet up with its regional mandate of adding 6,086 new dwellings by 2031. The place immediately around the downtown Caltrain station could play a pivotal position. Stanford University, which owns the land, had proposed a principle for accommodating up to 530 apartments around the transit station. That, nevertheless, would entail a 137-foot-tall constructing.

In March, the council backed a much more modest option when it voted to include things like 270 flats at the heart web site in the next housing component.

Even with a confined scope that excludes the transit middle, the MTC grant is not likely to be ample to entire the strategy for the 76 acres. Metropolis staff members believe that that it would just take at least an added $150,000 on a yearly basis to employ the service of consultants who would guidance the job, according to the report from the scheduling division. A important determination that the council will have to make on April 18 is no matter whether to commit these cash.

The report also notes that downtown faces many problems that restrict housing manufacturing. These consist of superior land costs, the inclination of business advancement to be far more rewarding for builders than household buildings, and the fact that community parking will take up a substantial amount of money of land in the region.

“As a result of a targeted and considerate housing prepare, the city can determine strategies to enable triumph over these challenges and find chances to endorse increased housing manufacturing,” the report states.