800 High Street (Peninsula Creamery) - referendum
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Article
(Archived-Article)
A group of residents and small
business owners are mounting an all-out effort to overturn the
recent decision by the Palo Alto City Council to approve a housing
development project at 800 High St.
The project was approved
by a 6-3 City Council vote Feb. 3, reflecting divisions on the
council, too. And with four seats up in the Nov. 4 City Council
election, the attempted referendum could play into that race.
The 800 High St. project, by developers Doug Ross and Kurt Peterson,
would construct a 96,000-square foot building on the block of
High Street between Homer and Channing avenues. The building would
have 61 housing units, 1,900 square feet of retail space, and
two levels of underground parking, including 57 public parking
spaces.
Its critics believe the project
is too big, while its defenders say it will add badly needed housing
and public parking to the area. Larry Hassett, the owner of Palo
Alto Hardware, located just across an alley from the project site,
is helping lead the referendum effort. He believes the development
will hurt the neighborhood and its small businesses, and contends
a half-dozen adjacent small-business owners agree with him, including
those of Watercourse Way and several small auto repair shops.
... (See weekly
article Friday, February 21, 2003 for more)
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Note: What I'd like on this issue is:
Pro Referendum letter from PAN
Wednesday, February 19, 2003 4:20 PM
Dear Friends,
As you may have read in today's (Wednesday Feb. 19) Daily News (page
4, "Creamery site plan official; counter movement in gear"),
the Palo Alto City Council voted 6-3 last night to approve the 800 High
Street (Peninsula Creamery) project. Since the project involved a rezone
to PC Planned Community, Council was required to pass an ordinance to
rezone 800 High Street to PC Planned Community and to approve a height
variance for the project.
A group of residents and local business owners have joined together to
support a petition drive to collect the signatures required in order to
qualify for a referendum that would place the ordinance on the ballot
for Palo Alto voters to decide. Approximately 2,200 valid signatures of
registered Palo Alto voters must be collected and filed with the City
within the next 29 days in order to qualify the referendum. The signatures
must be of registered Palo Alto voters, and must also be collected by
registered Palo Alto voters.
If you are interested in helping with the signature-gathering effort,
please contact:
Dorothy Bender, e-mail: dbender@cwnet.com
phone: 650 494-2227
or
Janet Dafoe, e-mail: janetLD@aol.com
phone: 650 208-1224
I have pasted below a copy of the Notice of Intent to Circulate Referendum
Petition, the required Public Notice that is scheduled for publication
in Friday's Palo Alto Weekly. In brief, we are concerned about the scale
and mass of the development in the context of the surrounding neighborhood,
the impact it will have on local businesses, the loss of the historic
Creamery building, and the dysfunctional process that lead to the approval
of the PC rezone.
In addition, based on information made available only yesterday, the
project is now proposed to have a decreased BMR contribution of 10 units
instead of 11 units. This is odd because the maker of the motion on February
3 to approve the ordinance specifically cited his preference for 11 BMR
vs. 10 BMR units as a reason for approving the larger version of the project.
Some residents are concerned that the BMR contribution does not meet the
BMR requirements set out in the Comprehensive Plan because of the small
proportion of floor area allotted to the BMR units (only 11% of the total
residential unit floor area in the latest proposal, when it should be
15%) and the clustered and less desirable locations of the BMR units in
the proposed building.
While we generally support the building of new housing in the South of
Forest Area, especially affordable housing, we feel that the negative
impacts of this particular project greatly outweigh its supposed (and
questionable)benefits. It is time for Palo Alto voters to have an opportunity
to weigh in on the PC Planned Community zone process and its outcome,
and to let City Hall know how to properly balance our priorities, values
and concerns.
Sincerely,
Joy Ogawa
For persons interested in helping with the signature gathering effort,
please contact:
Dorothy Bender, e-mail:dbender@cwnet.com
phone: 650 494-2227
or
Janet Dafoe, e-mail:janetLD@aol.com
phone: 650 208-1224
Petition draft
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For final petition, please go to
Palo Alto Hardware
875 Alma St
Palo Alto, CA , or
Janet Dafoe's,
433 Kingsley Ave.,
7:30 pm on
Monday, March 3rd, or
Tuesday, March 4th, or
Thursday, March 6th.
- WE THE PEOPLE OF THE CITY OF PALO ALTO find THE ORDINANCE
- is an abuse of the PC Planned Community zone;
- jeopardizes the viability of existing local businesses in
the surrounding area;
- demolishes the historic Peninsula Creamery / Family Service
Laundry building, a California Register eligible historical resource;
- fails to provide sufficient public benefit, which is a requirement
for the granting of a PC Planned Community zone;
- lacks sufficient justification for the granting of a variance;
- inappropriately transfers public property to a private developer
without adequate compensation;
- violates height, massing and density norms of the existing
neighborhood;
- promotes inappropriate development despite opposition of the
surrounding local businesses and neighborhood residents;
- ignores the Coordinated Area Plan process for the South of
Forest Area;
For all the above reasons, THE PEOPLE OF PALO ALTO intend to place
THE ORDINANCE before the electorate on the public ballot to be read and
voted upon by every registered Palo Alto voter in order to protect our
local businesses, to preserve our historic heritage, to promote appropriate
development, and to ensure a fair and equitable process for the development
of the South of Forest Area.
Signed:
Ian Irwin Janet L. Dafoe Martin Stone Elaine Meyer
Joy M. Ogawa Ronald W. Davis Harold S. Luft Gerald Brett
John A. Murden Dorothy Bender George Gioumousis Carol Kiparsky