Letter to Palo Alto regarding house size limits in the foothills

February 18, 2010

Curtis Williams

City of Palo Alto

Dear Curtis;

The Committee for Green Foothills makes the following suggestions regarding house size limitations, following up on our letter of September 22 from last year and later discussions.

Direction from City Council.   The Council directed the Planning and Transportation Commission to provide the Council with options on house size limits.  They did not request the recommendations focus on whether size limits should be placed, but rather to give them limit options.  Accordingly, recommendations that focused primarily on whether limits should be placed and only secondarily on what limits should be placed would contradict Council direction.  Individuals and groups that for their own part oppose any limits are free to predominantly emphasize that point on their own if they wish.

Limits should provide a range of options.  The Council sent the issue back to the Planning Commission when the Council was considering whether to enact staff's (non-preferred) alternative recommendations of limits of 8,000 to 12,000 square feet depending on parcel size.  Returning to the City Council with those same proposed limits is not providing a range of options any greater than what they had in front of them in September.  A better planning process should give the Council its requested range of options, with differing reasons for choosing differing options, and a preferred recommendation from the Planning Commission and possibly another from staff.

An option to limit all/most structures on the parcel should be included for consideration.  House size limits that applied only to a main structure could be evaded, partially but not completely, by increasing the size of accessory structures.  This issue should be explained to the City Council, with options given as to how to handle the issue.  The options are:  1. ignore it, on the reasoning that only limited amount of bulk could be added to other structures as a practical matter;  2. cover all structures with a total floor limit to eliminate the potential evasion, recognizing that the floor limit for some parcels may be more restrictive than Floor-Area ratios; or 3. blend the two concepts with separate limits on accessory structures, particularly on second residences.   The Committee for Green Foothills favors option 2, with exceptions for agriculture-related structures where agriculture is practiced.

Recommendations should describe reasons for house size limits.  The Council's initial direction to provide limit options should be fleshed out by staff and the Planning Commission to include reasons for doing so.  Staff has mentioned several possibilities in the February 12 email from Clare Campbell.  We support those recommendations, and additionally suggest the following be presented to the City Council as it reasons it could choose to either include or reject as reasons to limit size:

     

·         No longer fits the category of a single family residence.  This would recognize that a designation of a single family home is not infinitely flexible when it comes to size.  As a practical matter, structures over a certain size will usually be staffed either full time or part time, and not occupied by a single family.

·         House size is a proxy for multiple environmental factors.  Energy use, carbon footprint, direct and indirect disturbance to natural environments, demand for emergency services, construction impacts, traffic, water use, and other effects all tend to increase with building size.  A theoretical effort to limit each impact separately would be too cumbersome, possibly more restrictive in certain aspects that size limits, and still fail to control some environmental effects.  This seems to coincide somewhat with the staff reasoning in the February 12 email, but attempts to spell out the proxy function more broadly.

·         Reasonable accommodation to homeowner interests.  A size limit would be chosen that would be sufficient to accommodate a large family, guests, and occasional large parties.  The limit would allow a very high quality of life and enable landowners to add significantly to the economic value of their parcel compared to a small residence.

·         Equity.  House size limit in the R1 Districts is 6,000 square feet.  While those parcels are much smaller than foothill parcels, floor-area ratios are not the only reason for house size limits.  If they were, FAR could substitute entirely for house size limits.  The City may instead determine that 6,000 square feet constitutes the limit of what can still be fairly described as a single-family residence, that other reasons described above justify the 6,000 foot limit, and that it should be applied equally throughout Palo Alto.

Suggested range of options and preferred alternative.  Given all the above, Committee for Green Foothills recommends that staff and the Planning Commission provide the following range of options for house size limits:

1.                Simple Equity with Flatlands.  This proposal would assume the same size limits should apply in the foothills as in the flatlands:  6,000 square feet.

2.               Modified Expanded Limits, with Incentives.  This is the proposal that we submitted last September.  Let owners have larger homes than in the flatlands and larger still in the bigger parcels.  Set upper limits based on the assumption that owners will use an incentive system for "green" building construction.  We suggest 4,600 feet limit with a 2,000 foot expanded limit for green building on 10 acres or less; a 5,600 limit with 2,000 foot green building bonus on 15 acres or less; and 6,600 limit with 2,000 foot bonus on more than 15 acres.

3.               Staff proposal.  The staff proposal was an 8,000 foot limit for 10 acres or less; 10,000 feet for 15 acres or less; and 12,000 feet for more than 15 acres.  We will leave to staff to describe how limits as high as these serve any of the reasons for limiting house size.

We recommend Option 2 above, so that house size limits range from 6,600 feet to 8,600 feet in the foothills if owners make use of green building incentives.  Even the strictest limits would still be ten percent larger than the R1 district.  We recommend the limit be applied to all non-agricultural structures.  Alternatively, we recommend that any limit the City Council chooses consist of an upper limit if the applicant meets certain green building standards above minimum required standards, and a lower limit if the applicant only meets minimum standards.

Recommendation for alternative compliance to intention behind house size limits.  While we believe it would be too difficult to develop broad regulatory standards that control every environmental impact regulated by house size, it may be helpful to give applicants an alternative:  allow them to submit an application that does not meet the size limits for their parcel but in every aspect they can describe, exceeds the environmental performance that could be achieved through size limits.  The proposal would be approved or denied by a discretionary decision of a body like the Planning Commission.  The idea is that an exceptional proposal for environmental quality might give a better outcome for the applicant and the community.

Recommendations for issues raised by some landowners.  In the course of various meetings, some landowners have raised environmental issues that deserve recognition and further attention by the City:

      Basement issues in the rest of the City.  If basements are causing environmental problems elsewhere, they should also be addressed in the other parts of the City as well, and not just the foothills.

      Light pollution of the night sky.  Anything that reduces light pollution in the night sky would benefit people throughout the City.  In addition to better regulation to cut off direct lighting from leaving people's property, Palo Alto could emulate the computer-controlled streetlight demonstration study by San Jose.  "Smart" LED lights can be programmed to be less bright later in the night after most traffic has cleared from streets, so less light pollution from the flatland would reach up into the foothills, and everyone could see the stars.  Dark sky benefits to wildlife and people have also been documented in studies.  More information about the San Jose project is at http://sanjoseca.gov/transportation/streetlightdemo.asp.

     

      Fencing that impedes wildlife movement.  One landowner stated that high fences in the foothills are impeding wildlife movement.  Committee for Green Foothills is aware of this issue in other jurisdictions.  It could be worth further investigation in Palo Alto.

We believe the recommendations above will help move the City forward, and follow the letter and spirit of City Council direction.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Brian A. Schmidt

Legislative Advocate, Santa Clara County

February letter to San Jose Envision 2040 Task Force on jobs:housing balance

(CGF submitted this letter regarding the balance between jobs and housing in the forthcoming San Jose General Plan revision.  -Brian)

February 22, 2010

Envision San Jose Task Force

Re:  recommended amendment to land use scenarios to rely upon "actual jobs" and not just jobs capacity for balancing employment and housing

Dear Envision San Jose Task Force members;

Several issues have become clear regarding the "jobs capacity" concept that is central to the choice of land use scenarios:

1. The jobs capacity number given in each scenario will not actually occur.  Staff has openly admitted this; they have discouraged those of us who are dismayed by environmentally destructive Jobs:Employed Residents ratios from taking them seriously; and they have said the numbers should be seen at most as indicating relative degrees of emphasis.

2. The numbers are being used for planning purposes as if they will actually occur.  Last meeting's discussion of VMT used the numbers as if they would occur, and the General Plan EIR will do the same.

3. If for some reasons the numbers are actually reached or nearly reached, the CEQA process for mitigating or stopping the environmental consequences will have long passed, because the EIR will be finalized many years before the actual development.

As has been discussed in many previous communications, any ratio of actual jobs to employed residents that exceeds a 1:1 ratio will require massive amounts of commuting from outside Santa Clara County , primarily residents of Central Valley coming to our area by car.  City staff is concerned that any jobs capacity to employed residents ratio of 1:1 or less will result in an actual jobs level that is far lower, and hurt the City's finances.

The Committee for Green Foothills proposes the following compromise that could be included as an amendment to any current land use scenario:

The land use scenario should include a performance criteria requiring that the actual jobs to employed residents ratio to remain no higher than a 1:1 ratio.  Development of jobs capacity in the City should happen in stages for different areas, and once the 1:1 ratio is reached, additional areas for additional capacity should not be readied for new jobs until the residential development level is also matched and planned to occur at approximately the same time.

An alternative recommendation is to "backload" the excess actual jobs, so that once the City has reached the 1:1 actual jobs:employed residents ratio, the jobs development cannot occur faster than residential development until all the planned residential development has occurred.  This alternative is inferior to our main proposal because it will still allow severe environmental consequences from inadequate housing relative to jobs, but it is superior to the proposals currently in front of the Task Force.

The Committee for Green Foothills notes that adopting this recommendation as a mandatory performance criterion can greatly improve the planning process and reduce the environmental impacts in the resulting EIR.  It places an upper limit on actual jobs that is much closer to what will actually occur, which means such issues as VMT calculations can reflect something approaching reality.  It also eliminates the worst environmental impacts from commuting that staff would otherwise have to acknowledge in the EIR,[1] so the EIR that the City would publish with this criterion included will show fewer negative and more positive environmental effects.

As we have mentioned before, any increase over the current baseline jobs-to-employed residents ratio would be environmentally harmful, but we also recognize that some change is likely.  Including larger levels of residential development in the City is important in our housing-poor region, especially transit-oriented and senior-oriented development.  Above and beyond all that is the need to keep a balance of actual jobs to employed residents that is not available in most of the current land use scenarios.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Brian A. Schmidt

Legislative Advocate, Santa Clara County

---

[1] We believe a feasible mitigation for those impacts would be a similar performance criterion in the EIR, so the City has to consider this idea in any case.

Action Alert! Oppose proposed legislation that would create 125 unplanned loopholes in California's environmental law!

(The Action Alert below was sent out to CGF members and supporters.  We will also put it up on the Action Alert section of the CGF website, but I'm reproducing it here so people can see it early.  -Brian)

Dear

Four identical bills in California's Assembly and Senate have the goal of exempting 125 public agency and private projects from the legal scrutiny required under California's premier environmental law, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).  Please fax or call your Assembly Member and State Senator and ask them to oppose the bills for 125 loopholes in California's environmental law.

What’s Happening

Using the economic crisis as an excuse to reduce the environmental protection that makes California such a great place to work and live, proposed legislation:

ABX8 37 (Calderon & Nestande)

AB 1805 (Calderon & Nestande)

SBX8 42 (Correa & Cogdill)

SB 1010 (Correa & Cogdill)

would exempt 25 projects annually for five years from judicial review that enforces CEQA, a law that requires accurate disclosure of environmental impacts and reduces significant impacts when feasible.  Private developer projects that need permits as well as governmental projects would be eligible for exemption from the CEQA requirements that applies to all other Californians.  The obligation to prepare environmental review would still exist, but preparers would know in advance that no one could challenge them in court for preparing inadequate reviews that violate the law.  The 125 projects would be chosen by a state agency only after the law has passed.  The state agency is supposed to consider economic benefits from a project when making selections, without mention of environmental harms, and would likely choose the largest and most environmentally problematic projects for exemption from judicial review.

Why this is Important   

Protecting the high quality of life in California remains the best option for continuing to attract and retain business to our state.  Legislation like the ones proposed will increase traffic problems, promote sprawl, and worsen air pollution - all factors that drive businesses away and lower our quality of life.  The whole point of judicial review is to keep the preparers of environmental documents honest and accurate, an objective that is often missed even with the possibility of a judge examining them for accuracy.  Dropping that review eliminates the incentive for meaningful compliance with CEQA, and the end result may be an even broader attack against environmental protection in California.

What you can do

Please call or fax a short letter to your Assembly Member or State Senator.  Click here to find your representatives' names and phone numbers.  Please click on your representatives' name to find their fax number.

We recommend calls or faxes as they have more impact than emails.  Please let us know that you have written:  info@greenfoothills.org or fax us a copy (650) 968-8431.

To see the Committee for Green Foothills letter, click here.

Thanks for speaking up for our coastal wetlands and environmental protections!  Your voice does make a difference!

- The folks at Committee for Green Foothills

________________________________________________

Committee for Green Foothills

3921 East Bayshore Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303

Phone (650) 968-7243 Fax (650) 968-8431  

www.GreenFoothills.org

Letter to California legislature opposing bills that would drive 125 holes through CEQA

(CGF is sending the following letter to members of the California Assembly and State Senate.  -Brian)

February 23, 2010

The Honorable Lou Correa                                            The Honorable Dave Cogdill

State Legislature                                                             State Legislature

California State Capitol, Room 5052                                California State Capitol, Room 5097

Sacramento, CA 95814                                                   Sacramento, CA 95814

The Honorable Charles Calderon                                                The Honorable Brian Nestande

State Legislature                                                             State Legislature

California State Capitol, Room 2117                                California State Capitol, Room 4153

Sacramento, CA 95814                                                   Sacramento, CA 95814

Re:  ABX8 37 (Calderon & Nestande), AB 1805 (Calderon & Nestande), SBX8 42 (Correa & Cogdill), and SB 1010 (Correa & Cogdill) – OPPOSE

Dear Senators Correa and Cogdill and Assembly Members Calderon and Nestande:

The Committee for Green Foothills joins the broad opposition to the four identical bills introduced on February 10, 2010, ABX8 37 (Calderon & Nestande), AB 1805 (Calderon & Nestande), SBX8 42 (Correa & Cogdill), and SB 1010 (Correa & Cogdill). These bills attack a fundamental California environmental law, the California Environmental Quality Act, and seek to eliminate the central purpose of requiring agencies to "look before they leap" in approving projects and permit, and eliminate legal protection through judicial review of faulty environmental analysis.  The result is to fundamentally undermine the ability of communities to participate in decisions that determine how their neighborhoods will grow and how new developments can be modified to reduce or avoid any significant adverse effects on their health and welfare.

If these bills are passed, the Secretary of the Business, Transportation, and Housing Administration could select 25 projects each year for the next 5 years and grant them immunity from the environmental and public participation requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act. The selection would occur before the environmental review has been performed, so it would not be selection based on the quality of each project's environmental review.  The prior selection instead functions as a "blank check" that encourages agencies to downplay environmental risks from projects, because they would know that publishing misleading environmental analyses for projects they favor would in this case, not carry any legal risk.  Further, because there are no objective criteria for the selection of these projects, this is an invitation to the worst kind of political abuse. 

The criteria for project selection make no mention of favoring projects with fewer environmental projects but instead appear to prefer very large projects.  The criteria expressly allow private projects to be exempt, leading to a situation where politically connected, large developer would escape the legal review that pertains to even small project by an average taxpayer that runs a much smaller risk of harming the environment.  Residents in California’s communities, cities, and counties would not be able to enforce the environmental review process of the Environmental Quality Act for any of the 125 projects – no matter their size or impact on their lives. 

These bills would strip the ability of communities to hold developers and project proponents accountable for implementing mitigation measures that reduce or avoid a development project’s significant adverse effects on air and water quality, traffic congestion, noise and open space.

Eliminating the ability to enforce California’s premier public health and environmental law could lead to the siting of new polluting power plants and waste facilities located next to schools and neighborhoods and much more. Other controversial projects such as the peripheral canal; the siting of new energy facilities in spectacular and sensitive areas of the state; new onshore oil facilities and pipelines to support offshore oil development promoted by the Administration; roads through state parks, new residential subdivisions on contaminated soil; and the siting and construction of nuclear power plants, new dams for water storage, new prisons in cities and counties could all get a pass from the necessary scrutiny that ensures the right projects are built in the right location.

For the past four decades, community involvement in the environmental review process has improved proposed projects, reducing a project’s significant adverse impacts to public health and the environment, while improving our quality of life. These bills would allow a select number of projects to avoid public scrutiny.  The inherent ill-advised policy in these bills simply erodes California’s legacy of environmental protection. Therefore, we all strongly oppose these measures.

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Brian A. Schmidt

Legislative Advocate, Santa Clara County

Lennie Roberts

Legislative Advocate, San Mateo County

Cynthia D’Agosta, CGF Executive Director

cc:  Santa Clara County and San Mateo County Assembly Members and State Senators

Sad legal result on Stanford Trails litigation, but the fight continues in San Mateo County

The California Supreme Court has ruled against CGF over a technical issue regarding the right time to file our lawsuit about Stanford's proposal to expand the Alpine Road sidewalk on top of San Francisquito Creek.  Unfortunately, we don't have a chance to even discuss in court the merits of our argument.  Fortunately, though, San Mateo County has listened both to us and to Stanford and concluded in February 2008 that the proposal was environmentally harmful and dangerous.  Stanford will doubtless try to wave construction money at them to change their minds, but we'll be there still to fight that extremely bad idea.  CGF's press release is below.

-Brian

Committee for Green Foothills

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 11, 2010                               

PRESS CONTACTS: Brian Schmidt, Legislative Advocate, 650.968.7243w, 415.994.7403c, brian@greenfoothills.org

Supreme Court Decision on Stanford Trail Issue  Turns Attention to San Mateo County's Opposition to Sidewalk Expansion

Decision overturns appellate court ruling on technical filing issue that ends litigation; San mateo County's opposition not affected by ruling

PALO ALTO, CA  --  The California Supreme Court announced today that contrary to an appellate court ruling, Committee for Green Foothills (CGF) relied on the wrong deadline for filing litigation over a controversial Stanford University proposal to expand an existing sidewalk in San Mateo County to fulfill Stanford's promise of a trail on its lands.  The decision ends the lawsuit without considering the merits of CGF's argument that excluding a trail from Santa Clara County had unexamined environmental impacts.  San Mateo County has already rejected the Alpine Road sidewalk expansion proposed by Stanford to substitute for a trail on Stanford lands in Santa Clara County.  The end of litigation means that San Mateo County's previous decision and any potential change of mind will ultimately decide the trail issue.  If San Mateo County continues to reject the sidewalk expansion, Stanford must provide an equivalent amount of money to Santa Clara County Parks Department to mitigate for impacts caused the massive new development permitted on campus since 2000.

"We haven't had time to review the Court opinion," said Brian Schmidt, Committee for Green Foothills' Legislative Advocate, "we just know the outcome.  We've seen the arguments on filing deadlines and we are disappointed in the Supreme Court’s decision, but it's important to remember that regarding the trail controversy, the decision is only about a technicality.  Cut your way through the technicalities, and the problem is that Stanford is trying to get out of fulfilling a promise it made in return for being allowed massive new development," said Schmidt.  "It promised two trails on its own land to make up for the cumulative impact that its new development would have on the broader community.  Expanding an existing sidewalk on a dangerously-busy street doesn't provide a recreational experience, and Stanford's proposal to build alongside and into the San Francisquito Creek would have significant environmental impacts, none of them reviewed in previous environmental documents.  We are very grateful that San Mateo County has stood up to Stanford, and we hope that continues."

The Court ruling concerned whether a 30-day or a 180-day deadline applied to the lawsuit filed against Stanford and Santa Clara County.  Committee for Green Foothills argued the 180-day deadline applies because the decision to exclude the trail from Santa Clara County was done without environmental review, which allows 180 days for a challenge.  Stanford and Santa Clara County argued that certain parts of the wording of the December 2005 decision and in one of the documents filed at the County Clerk's office show they relied upon previous environmental reviews, and a 30-day deadline was required.  CGF says that 30 days is wrong.  The trial court ruled against CGF, but the appellate court ruled in favor of the 180 day deadline.  With the Supreme Court overturning the appellate ruling, the case will be dismissed without considering the environmental issues.

Stanford and Santa Clara County argue that San Mateo County will have to review the environmental effects of Stanford's proposal prior to making a decision.  However, the decision that the trail could not go on Stanford land in Santa Clara County, as the trail was shown to go in Santa Clara County's own trail map, was made by Santa Clara County in December 2005 and environmental review should have been done at that time.

San Mateo County residents, County officials, and the County Board of Supervisors had sharply negative reactions to Stanford's proposal when brought to them after the December 2005 decision, and San Mateo County has already rejected Stanford's proposal.  San Mateo County's position will stop the sidewalk regardless of court litigation.  Stanford has until 2011 to change San Mateo's position, with a potential two-year extension into 2013 if Santa Clara County agrees to further delay.  If the Alpine Road sidewalk expansion does not happen, the money for the expansion reverts to the Santa Clara County Parks Department to spend on recreational improvements in the vicinity of Stanford, something that Supervisor Liz Kniss had advocated since 2005.

Another effect of the Supreme Court litigation will be on Stanford's decision in 2006 to stop constructing the other one of the two trails it had promised, the S1 Trail running near to Page Mill Road.  Committee for Green Foothills had not sued over the S1 Trail decision and said it did not oppose that trail's construction or alignment, but after CGF filed its lawsuit, Stanford halted construction on the S1 Trail and blamed CGF's lawsuit.  CGF responded that its suit only concerned the substitution of the Alpine Road sidewalk expansion for the other proposed trail on the north side of the Stanford Foothills.

The question now arises as to whether and when Stanford will construct the S1 Trail that it had promised.

The third aspect of the trails controversy concerns the Alpine Road sidewalk in the jurisdiction of Portola Valley.  The environmental damages and large expense associated with expanding the sidewalk elsewhere generally do not apply to the section in Portola Valley, but the decision to expand that portion of the sidewalk was an inseparable part of the decision to exclude the trail alignment from Santa Clara County that Committee for Green Foothills had litigated.  With the Supreme Court ruling ending the litigation, the decision on the Portola Valley proposal could proceed depending on Portola Valley's decision whether to accept Stanford's proposal.

"Regardless of what happened today, it is still possible to do something besides throwing away money on a destructive and useless expanded sidewalk," said Schmidt.  "San Mateo County called for a grant program instead of harming San Francisquito Creek and instead of taking out part of a hill as Stanford proposed.  That is what should happen, now, and given San Mateo County's control over the issue, we agree with previous statements that it is unconscionable for Stanford to continue delaying and refusing to provide for its side of a deal it received for massive development rights."

Background

“Stanford tried to get out of its obligation to build a trail crossing its land in return for substantial development rights,” said Brian Schmidt.  “Santa Clara County capitulated to Stanford’s intense lobbying, tossed the trail out of Santa Clara County and proposed instead to expand the existing sidewalk/trail along busy Alpine Road in San Mateo County. This decision to move the trail across the creek and out of Santa Clara County was done without the required environmental review.”

Stanford and Santa Clara County did not seek approval of San Mateo County before deciding to replace its trail with the sidewalk expansion. Residents strongly oppose the proposed 16-foot wide sidewalk because of safety concerns where the expanded sidewalk would cross many private driveways in the Stanford Weekend Acres area, environmental impacts to sensitive creek and riparian areas, the proposal’s need to armor creek banks to support the expanded sidewalk, and to cut into a steep hillside to move Alpine Road.   Inquiries about replacing the sidewalk with other trail options outside of Stanford lands have been rebuffed.

The lower court ruled in October that Committee for Green Foothills had only 30 days to file suit over the decision that Stanford and Santa Clara County made in December 2005.  The Committee filed suit in June 2006, under the belief that a 180-day deadline should have applied.  To date, the court has not reviewed the merits of the case.

Stanford required to provide two trails

The Santa Clara County 1995 Trails Master Plan identified two trails crossing on the northern and southern sides of Stanford lands, identified as the “C1” and the “S1” trails.  As a condition of Stanford University’s 2000 General Use Permit that allowed the University to build an additional 5 million square feet of housing and academic facilities, Stanford was required to come back to the County with a plan to move forward with ‘building, dedicating and maintaining’ these two trails on University lands by the end of 2001.  “During this 5 year period, Committee for Green Foothills and other community members proposed several alternative alignments and several compromise alignments, all of which were rejected outright by Stanford,” said Schmidt. 

In 2003, the County decided to split the planning of the two trails and moved forward with planning for the less-controversial “S1 Trail” first, and initiated an extensive review process to determine the S1 Trail alignment.

Stanford offered an alternative alignment for the S1 Trail that moved it away from Page Mill Road, but when the County indicated in the fall of 2005 that it would accept that offer, Stanford added another condition.  It offered to make the “S1 Trail” available immediately, but only if the County immediately decided to exclude the second trail, the “C1 Trail” from crossing Stanford lands in Santa Clara County.  Stanford proposed that instead of going forward with the C1 Trail within its lands, it would offer to pay San Mateo County and the Town of Portola Valley to expand an existing sidewalk along Alpine Road.  The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted to accept this proposal in December, 2005.  The County’s approval did not contain any environmental review of the C1 alignment, even though the environmental review for the S1 Trail had been extensive.

“Stanford’s offer for the S1 Trail was used to get the County to throw out better alignments proposed by the environmental community.  Later, Stanford said its S1 Trail offer was unavailable unless the County immediately excluded the C1 Trail, or unless another long delay ensued to hold up the S1 Trail until the C1 Trail had also been reviewed,” said Brian Schmidt, CGF’s Legislative Advocate.  “Even if San Mateo County eventually does review the proposal, that doesn’t release Santa Clara County from conducting its own review of its own decisions.”

Stanford and Santa Clara County also changed plans without environmental review by agreeing to take money instead of a trail if San Mateo County or Portola Valley rejected plans for an expanded sidewalk.  This decision to eliminate a potential Santa Clara County trail in return for money is another approval made by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors without environmental review.  This agreement also leaves unclear what happens if Stanford money is spent by San Mateo County or Portola Valley to prepare environmental reviews but then did not go forward with the sidewalk expansion , then it is quite possible that no trail would get build nor would Stanford need to provide any money to build trails elsewhere .

“There’s a striking contrast between the S1 Trail decision with a full scale Environmental Impact Report, and the more-destructive decision on the Alpine Road sidewalk, which was made with no review at all,” said Schmidt.  “That was our basis of argument that the 180-day period in which to file suit should have applied.”

# # #

About the Committee for Green Foothills

Committee for Green Foothills is a regional grassroots organization working to establish and maintain land-use policies that protect the environment throughout San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties.  Committee for Green Foothills, established in 1962, is a Bay Area leader in the continuing effort to protect open space and the natural environment of our Peninsula.   For more information about the Committee for Green Foothills or about our work on this issue, visit www.GreenFoothills.org.

Press Release: Supreme Court To Issue Opinion Tomorrow in Litigation Over Stanford Sidewalk Expansion

(CGF sent out this press release today.  -Brian)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 10, 2010                               

PRESS CONTACTS: Brian Schmidt, Legislative Advocate, 650.968.7243w, 415.994.7403c, brian@greenfoothills.org

Supreme Court To Issue Opinion Tomorrow in Litigation Over Stanford Sidewalk Expansion

California Supreme Court to announce whether it will dismiss lawsuit on technical issue or allow trial to proceed

PALO ALTO, CA  --  The California Supreme Court announced today that it will issue its opinion tomorrow over a technical issue involving deadlines for a lawsuit regarding a controversial Stanford University proposal to expand an existing sidewalk in San Mateo County to fulfill Stanford's promise of a trail on its lands.  The decision for this stage of the litigation will end the lawsuit if the Supreme Court overrules the appellate court finding that the Committee for Green Foothills (CGF) correctly relied on a longer deadline for filing its complaint.  If the court rules in favor of environmentalists, the case will proceed to trial; but regardless, San Mateo County has rejected Stanford's proposal as environmentally damaging and dangerous.

Either a 30-day or a 180-day deadline applied to the lawsuit filed against Stanford and Santa Clara County.  Committee for Green Foothills argues the 180-day deadline applies because the decision to exclude the trail from Santa Clara County was done without environmental review, which allows 180 days for a challenge.  Stanford and Santa Clara County argue that certain parts of the wording of the December 2005 decision and in one of the documents filed at the County Clerk's office show they relied upon previous environmental reviews, and a 30-day deadline was required.  CGF says that 30 days is wrong.  The trial court ruled against CGF, but the appellate court ruled in favor of the 180 day deadline.

"Cut your way through the technicalities, and the problem is that Stanford is trying to get out of fulfilling a promise it made in return for being allowed massive new development," said Brian Schmidt, Legislative Advocate for Committee for Green Foothills.  "It promised two trails on its own land to make up for the cumulative impact that its new development would have on the broader community.  Expanding an existing sidewalk on a dangerously-busy street doesn't provide a recreational experience, and Stanford's proposal to build alongside and into the San Francisquito Creek would have significant environmental impacts, none of them reviewed in previous environmental documents."

Stanford and Santa Clara County argue that San Mateo County will have to review the environmental effects of Stanford's proposal prior to making a decision.  However, the decision that the trail could not go on Stanford land in Santa Clara County, as the trail was shown to go in Santa Clara County's own trail map, was made by Santa Clara County in December 2005 and environmental review should have been done at that time.

San Mateo County residents, County officials, and the County Board of Supervisors had sharply negative reactions to Stanford's proposal when brought to them after the December 2005 decision, and San Mateo County has already rejected Stanford's proposal.  San Mateo County's position will stop the sidewalk regardless of court litigation.  Stanford has until 2011 to change San Mateo's position, with a potential two-year extension into 2013 if Santa Clara County agrees to further delay.  If the Alpine Road sidewalk expansion does not happen, the money for the expansion reverts to the Santa Clara County Parks Department to spend on recreational improvements in the vicinity of Stanford, something that Supervisor Liz Kniss had advocated since 2005.

Another effect of the Supreme Court litigation might be on Stanford's decision in 2006 to stop constructing the other one of the two trails it had promised, the S1 Trail running near to Page Mill Road.  Committee for Green Foothills had not sued over the S1 Trail decision and said it did not oppose that trail's construction or alignment, but after CGF filed its lawsuit, Stanford halted construction on the S1 Trail and blamed CGF's lawsuit.  CGF responded that its suit only concerned the substitution of the Alpine Road sidewalk expansion for the other proposed trail on the north side of the Stanford Foothills.

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of CGF, then the dispute over the S1 Trail continues.  If the Supreme Court says the litigation was filed too late, a question will arise as to whether and when Stanford will construct the S1 Trail that it had promised.

The third aspect of the trails controversy concerns the Alpine Road sidewalk in the jurisdiction of Portola Valley.  The environmental damages and large expense associated with expanding the sidewalk elsewhere generally do not apply to the section in Portola Valley, but the decision to expand that portion of the sidewalk was an inseparable part of the decision to exclude the trail alignment from Santa Clara County that Committee for Green Foothills had litigated.  If the Supreme Court upholds the appellate court decision, then it remains unclear whether the Portola Valley section can proceed.  If the Supreme Court rules against CGF, then Portola Valley work could proceed.

"Regardless of what happens tomorrow, it is still possible to do something besides throwing away money on a destructive and useless expanded sidewalk," said Schmidt.  "San Mateo County called for a grant program instead of harming San Francisquito Creek and instead of taking out part of a hill as Stanford proposed."

Background

“Stanford tried to get out of its obligation to build a trail crossing its land in return for substantial development rights,” said Brian Schmidt.  “Santa Clara County capitulated to Stanford’s intense lobbying, tossed the trail out of Santa Clara County and proposed instead to expand the existing sidewalk/trail along busy Alpine Road in San Mateo County. This decision to move the trail across the creek and out of Santa Clara County was done without the required environmental review.”

Stanford and Santa Clara County did not seek approval of San Mateo County before deciding to replace its trail with the sidewalk expansion. Residents strongly oppose the proposed 16-foot wide sidewalk because of safety concerns where the expanded sidewalk would cross many private driveways in the Stanford Weekend Acres area, environmental impacts to sensitive creek and riparian areas, the proposal’s need to armor creek banks to support the expanded sidewalk, and to cut into a steep hillside to move Alpine Road.   Inquiries about replacing the sidewalk with other trail options outside of Stanford lands have been rebuffed.

The lower court ruled in October that Committee for Green Foothills had only 30 days to file suit over the decision that Stanford and Santa Clara County made in December 2005.  The Committee filed suit in June 2006, under the belief that a 180-day deadline should have applied.  To date, the court has not reviewed the merits of the case.

Stanford required to provide two trails

The Santa Clara County 1995 Trails Master Plan identified two trails crossing on the northern and southern sides of Stanford lands, identified as the “C1” and the “S1” trails.  As a condition of Stanford University’s 2000 General Use Permit that allowed the University to build an additional 5 million square feet of housing and academic facilities, Stanford was required to come back to the County with a plan to move forward with ‘building, dedicating and maintaining’ these two trails on University lands by the end of 2001.  “During this 5 year period, Committee for Green Foothills and other community members proposed several alternative alignments and several compromise alignments, all of which were rejected outright by Stanford,” said Schmidt. 

In 2003, the County decided to split the planning of the two trails and moved forward with planning for the less-controversial “S1 Trail” first, and initiated an extensive review process to determine the S1 Trail alignment.

Stanford offered an alternative alignment for the S1 Trail that moved it away from Page Mill Road, but when the County indicated in the fall of 2005 that it would accept that offer, Stanford added another condition.  It offered to make the “S1 Trail” available immediately, but only if the County immediately decided to exclude the second trail, the “C1 Trail” from crossing Stanford lands in Santa Clara County.  Stanford proposed that instead of going forward with the C1 Trail within its lands, it would offer to pay San Mateo County and the Town of Portola Valley to expand an existing sidewalk along Alpine Road.  The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted to accept this proposal in December, 2005.  The County’s approval did not contain any environmental review of the C1 alignment, even though the environmental review for the S1 Trail had been extensive.

“Stanford’s offer for the S1 Trail was used to get the County to throw out better alignments proposed by the environmental community.  Later, Stanford said its S1 Trail offer was unavailable unless the County immediately excluded the C1 Trail, or unless another long delay ensued to hold up the S1 Trail until the C1 Trail had also been reviewed,” said Brian Schmidt, CGF’s Legislative Advocate.  “Even if San Mateo County eventually does review the proposal, that doesn’t release Santa Clara County from conducting its own review of its own decisions.”

Stanford and Santa Clara County also changed plans without environmental review by agreeing to take money instead of a trail if San Mateo County or Portola Valley rejected plans for an expanded sidewalk.  This decision to eliminate a potential Santa Clara County trail in return for money is another approval made by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors without environmental review.  This agreement also leaves unclear what happens if Stanford money is spent by San Mateo County or Portola Valley to prepare environmental reviews but then did not go forward with the sidewalk expansion , then it is quite possible that no trail would get build nor would Stanford need to provide any money to build trails elsewhere .

“There’s a striking contrast between the S1 Trail decision with a full scale Environmental Impact Report, and the more-destructive decision on the Alpine Road sidewalk, which was made with no review at all,” said Schmidt.  “That was our basis of argument that the 180-day period in which to file suit should have applied.”

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About the Committee for Green Foothills

Committee for Green Foothills is a regional grassroots organization working to establish and maintain land-use policies that protect the environment throughout San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties.  Committee for Green Foothills, established in 1962, is a Bay Area leader in the continuing effort to protect open space and the natural environment of our Peninsula.   For more information about the Committee for Green Foothills or about our work on this issue, visit www.GreenFoothills.org.