Office space cap in Palo Alto

[Jaap Weel]

The City Council in Palo Alto is about to do a second reading next week of an ordinance to limit the amount of new office space in town. (http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/49500 item 9). I know that this group is primarily focused on combating NIMBY obstruction of *residential* construction, but I wonder what people's opinions are about downtown office space caps. I, for one, don't like them.

As far as I can tell, the argument is usually "it will cause traffic," which is true locally and in the short term, but in the long run prevents the transformation of low-density suburbs into medium-density cities where people don't have to drive such long distances between home, work, and other places they need to visit, thus increasing the amount of traffic. When I worked in an out-of-the-way office campus and lived in an out-of-the-way apartment, I would drive long distances to see a doctor, a dentist, a hairdresser, or an accountant. Since I started working downtown, I've mostly switched around to service providers close to the office, which is more convenient and causes less total traffic congestion. Many of my co-workers even live walking distance from work and never drive at all, which certainly wouldn't be feasible if work were in an office park in Milpitas, as the fine residents of Palo Alto seem to prefer.

To me, the office space cap is part of the same general phenomenon as the refusal to allow residential construction: it's resistance against the natural process of urbanization that you'd expect in an economically successful town that doesn't really have the option to grow outwards.

Anyway, as I said, I wonder what others think.

[Alfred Twu]

Office space caps drive up office rents, and accelerate displacement of existing businesses.  One colorful example I heard from Silicon Valley was a laundromat being converted into a tech office. 

The impact on housing demand is murkier, my feeling is that until office supply is so limited that even high paying industries can't find any businesses to displace (and maybe Palo Alto is there already), housing rents will continue to go up with an office cap in place. 

Better idea would be mixed use zoning that ties the amount of office space allowed to the amount of housing provided in the same project.

Alfred

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[Adina Levin]

The first argument was that office workers in new buildings were parking in neighborhoods and causing extra traffic. Then the city did good research on the transportation patterns of downtown workers and found that overall 55% drive, but the mid-sized tech companies drive rate was under 40%.      So the explanation was more about "rampant overdevelopment" e.g. don't like any new buildings.

On the one hand, Palo Alto jobs/housing balance is really extreme.  ~60,000 residents, 120,000 daytime population.  Second to manhattan.  And that helps drive very high rents/home prices.

They need more housing - there is active local organizing. 

On the other and it has two Caltrain stations which are the best places to put offices rather than out by the bay. 

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[Kyle Huey]

On Fri, Oct 23, 2015 at 7:58 AM, Adina Levin <ale...@alevin.com> wrote:
> On the one hand, Palo Alto jobs/housing balance is really extreme. ~60,000
> residents, 120,000 daytime population. Second to manhattan. And that helps
> drive very high rents/home prices.
>
> They need more housing - there is active local organizing.

This is the key, IMO. While in an ideal world Palo Alto would just
accept that it's a major city and urbanize, it refusing development
across the board is likely to have better outcomes for the surrounding
communities than it permitting unfettered office development but no
new housing.

- Kyle

[Matt Thrailkill]

On Fri, Oct 23, 2015 at 12:03 AM, Jaap Weel <jaap...@gmail.com> wrote:

Many of my co-workers even live walking distance from work and never drive at all, which certainly wouldn't be feasible if work were in an office park in Milpitas, as the fine residents of Palo Alto seem to prefer.

I assume the fine residents of Palo Alto would prefer that you and your coworkers live in Milpitas too.