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NewsvinePalo Alto City Council’s hopes that Stanford Hospital and Clinics will develop housing as part of its expansion project have hit a major impediment, as the hospital lacks the land to contribute to such an effort.
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Last week, Keyser Marston Associates (KMA), an independent consultant hired by the city, released a report stating that 1,800 housing units would have to be built around Palo Alto — the result of the 3,200 jobs created by the expansion of the hospital and the growth of the Stanford Shopping Center.
If the hospital is required to develop homes, it would be the first employer in Palo Alto that would have to provide housing for its workers. However, according to Shelley Hébert, the hospital’s public affairs executive director, it is unreasonable for the city to expect that the medical center develop housing, especially because it lacks the necessary resources.
“One broader issue regarding the [KMA report] is if the hospital can be asked or be expected to provide land,” Hébert said. “We don’t control the land. The hospital leases the land from the University. Also, no other employer who’s creating jobs has ever had to create housing. It is not reasonable to think that the hospital should be able to do that.”
Though some city officials have projected certain areas for development, Hébert has stated that these projects are under the discretion of the University, not the hospital. Because they are two distinct entities, the plans of the University cannot be associated with hospital expansion. The hospital believes, however, that with these projects already being planned, the city’s demands for more housing may be unnecessary.
“Property at Quarry and El Camino and another parcel at Quarry and Arboretum are already planned for housing under the Santa Clara County General Use Permit,” Hébert said. “They are part of the academic campus, not leased to the hospital. The fact that this housing near the medical center is already planned by the University is another reason we do not think building housing for hospital employees is necessary.”
Yet aside from all this, the biggest argument against the housing projections from Hébert is the fact that only nine percent of current hospital employees live in the Palo Alto area.
“The analysis only gives you an estimate of how many employees might need housing at certain income levels, but it doesn’t tell how many employees may want to live in Palo Alto,” Hébert said. “People make decisions for where they want to live on a number of issues, not just proximity to work.
The city, however, believes that housing is indeed necessary in order to provide affordable housing for workers and to mitigate traffic that may be created from the expanded facilities. Palo Alto Councilwoman Yoriko Kishimoto focused on the positives of such a project for the city.
“Local housing can reduce the need for lower-income employees to commute in from very long distances,” she wrote in an email to The Weekly. “New housing will cause more local trips, but these are trips which can be translated to walk, bike [and] shuttle alternatives.”
For Hébert, simply viewing the project from individualized positives or negatives is not the means for progress. She stated that the project should not rely on the early KMA report as the definitive means for action and that it is not until the comprehensive Environmental Impact Report (EIR) is released that decisive actions can be taken.
“When all of the studies currently being conducted for the Environmental Impact Report are completed, the information will enable us to fully analyze issues that may be interdependent,” she said. “We feel it is necessary to take a comprehensive approach and not an individual approach.”
With the EIR to be completed by the end of the year, both city officials and the hospital will wait until final plans regarding housing or construction are made. As for now, negotiations will simply be based on a great deal of speculation with neither side wanting to give up too much, perhaps best stated by Vice Mayor Peter Drekmeier.
“No one wants to give up too much too early on,” Drekmeier said in an earlier interview with The Weekly. “There are obviously some differences and issues with mitigation. However, by the release of the EIR later in the year, everything should be negotiated and smoothed out.”