Maybe he's (rightfully) worried about housing prices. He doesn't really have a problem with cash-flow, he does have a problem with an insanely bubbled housing market that collapses the moment the tech bubble does
Housing bubble did not burst when the tech bubble did last time. That's why I moved to IL. My options were under water, stock was rapidly falling, I had another kid on the way, and I still could not afford a mortgage anywhere near Menlo Park with decent schools. The housing bubble burst later during the financial crisis.
On the contrary... The hand that feeds Palo Alto is a culture of entrepreneurship. Downtown Palo Alto in particular, with its easy access to Stanford University, venture capital, and many smaller office spaces, has long been a major incubator.
Companies like Palantir that take over all this previous incubator-like space are in fact a threat to the very hand that feeds Palo Alto. Further, once you're big enough that you provide your own services (caffeteria etc) you threaten the viability of downtown businesses that cater to smaller offices.
Also, once inevitably companies like Palantir do make their move to a proper office park somewhere, that will mean a glut of suddenly open office space in Downtown Palo Alto. This isn't healthy either... it's better to ensure that there is always a fairly stable amount of demand and vacancy...
Where? Downtown Palo Alto is saturated...and building up won't solve saturation on Alma, University, Page Mill etc.
Palo Alto has simply maxed out its carrying capacity...businesses like Palantir would be better off looking at areas like the emerging business park near San Jose Airport, where Apple has already committed to building a campus with even more square footage than the Spaceship campus.
It would have more carrying capacity if it let people live closer to where they work, reducing commute distance, and if it didn't keep threatening to sue public transit providers:
Downtown Palo Alto and especially California Ave. have nowhere near maximum density. University Ave. is full of low-rise, often single-story, buildings with a few taller ones here and there. The buildings there (and on Lytton and Hamilton) could easily be replaced with four-story mixed office/retail and residential with no impact to the area's look.
Obviously I'm not suggesting that this be done overnight.
All I'm saying is that if a developer wants to build a four-story mixed-use building near the train stations, there's little reason to not let them do so.
Wrong. There are codes describing density and building height. Palo Alto city council will never change these rules, indeed, they seem intent on making them more stringent.
You go ask the billionaires in ProfessorVille how many of them are interested in changing zoning to triple density in downtown without any corresponding improvement in transportation infrastructure (most of which is not under the control of Palo Alto)
> Wrong. There are codes describing density and building height. Palo Alto city council will never change these rules, indeed, they seem intent on making them more stringent.
Oh, I'm well aware that there are rules against increased density today.
Building more space not a viable option in this area of Palo Alto and not actually required.
To be clear this is not "Palo Alto" its a very small downtown area of about 8 blocks square. This is an area which is literally surrounded by multi million dollar single family homes. A 3/2 1200 sqft house goes for 2 million dollars [1] and the area is surrounded by larger 5-10 million dollar homes. Heck Tim Cook lives in a condo in this area.
There's tons more office space available to companies as they move closer to the 101 and further south and north.
In fact most of the burbs up and down the peninsula, Burlingame, San Mateo, Belmont etc have sleepy downtowns with office parks zoned closer to the freeway. It works and most of the populations in these areas prefer having the office parks separate from the residential areas.
This problem is entirely caused by Palo Alto's draconian zoning laws. Many companies like being in a mixed-use area (one that combines housing, office, and retail), but this is illegal in 99% of the city. So everyone fights to the death over the remaining 1%.
People (particularly those with children) do not like to live among the foot traffic, noise, or any kind of traffic/signs of life associated with strangers making their way to and from businesses in a residential neighborhood. Businesses are excluded from residential areas to preserve this trait, which homeowners tend to view as a huge component of their homes' value.
I wonder how much the prevalence of skinny wood frame walls and sash windows in the US contribute to this issue--if houses were made of 2x6s with continuous insulation, or double 2x4 studs, or masonry, and had casement windows instead, I suspect people wouldn't mind the outside noise as much.
True, but I think being in a closed-world snow globe where people feel comfortable letting their children walk around is a huge part of it.
Excluding people who cannot afford homes in the neighborhood or cars to get there is a principal component of the "safety" strategy of suburbia. Add businesses and public transit to reach them, and that goes away.
Becoming like every other technology park is __bad__.
Slightly off-topic, but I'd argue that right now we're in a bubble and that many technology companies are over-valued. Everyone thinks they're a unicorn. Unfortunately, most of them are wrong.
Wanting to keep your economy diverse is a wise decision in that situation. For every boom, there is an equal and opposite bust. Wanting to control growth is not unreasonable, and it is reckless to allow growth without any sort of oversight.
They are worried that a tech company will collapse or move and leave downtown in a shambles.
This happened in Mountain View with SGI.
Tech companies will also cause rents to explode, driving away many independent businesses....so oddly enough, tech companies may create a dead zone accidentally.
A tech park is at the end a less smelly industrial park.
It hinders natural population growth other than employees moving in.
Cities need families that will make babies because it roots the population down.
A city full of young professionals that are only tied to their employer is a really bad thing.
Once the economy slows down or their employer isn't the bigest bestest place to work for the flock moves on leaving a lot of empty office space and single bedroom condos.
> Don't bite the hand that feeds you and wants to hand you stacks of cash.
Who is getting handed stacks of cash? I imagine it's not many low/middle-income residents, who simply have to leave.
There are positives and negatives for all options, but it's disingenuous to imagine there is no downside to gentrification.
EDIT: It's a similar issue to the U.S. economy as a whole over the last 30 years. There's been tremendous growth in aggregate, but in particular only for a relatively few people.
> educated population, business growth, tremendous financial gains for existing property owners. What exactly is he worried about? Traffic?
He's probably worried about skyrocketing rent, and overall increases in the cost of living in the area. It pushes middle class and working class people out.
The result is a Silicon Valley where firefighters and teachers and retail workers can't afford to live in the area.
In general, it's reasonable to consider what the optimal rate of office space growth is. If it's matched by a growth in the necessary infrastructure around it - housing, but also public transit, etc. - then it can be great. Unchecked office space growth by itself isn't necessarily good.
Google moved out of University Ave as soon as they exceeded the capacity...they didn't try taking over downtown, they took over boring office park space north of 101 in PA for a while.
I lived in Palo Alto in 2012 and even then, Palantir's building collection seemed a little excessive. I'm mostly happy that they're doing well...but every time I've gone back, it feels less like the already-strange downtown it was and more like a Palantir campus.
I joked with friends then that Palantir's only real business model was buying Palo Alto so they could sell it later.
I'll add that when you're trapped between special interests and people suffering from high housing prices, this is one of the few political moves you can make. Propose something that will never happen so you look like you're taking action without actually doing anything.
This is idiotic. I live in San Francisco and growing tired of people blaming "techies" for rising housing costs, or "ruining" the culture in the bay area. This is just people complaining that techies make more money than them. It is typical extreme liberal outrage.
To be fair, a lot of people have been misled by the media. San Franciscans believe that everything is tech's fault, and that voting millionaire landlords into office will make housing affordable, for the same reason Londoners in the 1940s believed Stalin's Russia was a glorious worker's paradise. The media lied, and most people are busy and don't have hours and hours to dig down to the truth.
It's not about the money: many of the people complaining are extremely wealthy. It's because they moved to California with an aesthetic in mind. They wanted rambling bungalow houses, palm trees, quiet boulevards, and sunshine. They wanted flea markets and VW bugs with surfboards strapped to the roof. Shops that sell homemade tie-dye and vegan coffee houses with patios in the sun.
The anger is because they bought and paid for a fantasy of California and now they are upset about the change, which they see as a bait-and-switch. Really, it's just the evolution of a region. It's irony that these same people are most likely to call themselves "progressives"
There are lots of offices above the retail spaces on University Ave in Palo Alto, and have been plenty of small companies there for decades. I don't think people were upset about that. I suspect impetus for this ban is Palentir. More egregiously, they turned a huge retail/commercial space into their cafeteria. There are big windows in the front where you can see employees eating. Honestly, it's weird.
I think they broke an unwritten social contract: small companies on University Ave. are okay, but you need to move out once you grow up. You can't try take over and push everyone else out.
Palo Alto certainly has its NIMBYs but the problem is we need our downtown as, well, a downtown: a place to by aspirin, get a meal, have shoes repaired etc. Basically a mix of retail. We have tech parks for businesses. Worse, companies like Palantir have their own cafeterias and other services (they took over face book's, though it was unused for a while after FB moved out, and also converted a copy shop into a cafeteria) which means all those employees aren't even helping the remaining restaurants, while squeezing out foot traffic.
The other problem is that when you have only a couple of large tenants, when they move out (by failing or growing) you suddenly have a bombed-out glut of empty space in a quiet downtown.
This isn't really ideological: there's another "problem" which we don't address which is that PA downtown has more chain shops and places for tourists (e.g. cheesecake factory) rather than locals. Though I live within walking distance of downtown I often go to cal ave or midtown for my needs. That's an ebb and flow of fashion (over the years the number of chain stores has risen and fallen) and doesn't need intervention. But this overtaking of the downtown has hysteresis effects that could be very bad.
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 118 ms ] thread"We’re seeing it transformed into something that risks becoming like every other technology park."
That would be...educated population, business growth, tremendous financial gains for existing property owners.
What exactly is he worried about? Traffic?
http://sf.curbed.com/2016/8/23/12603188/palo-alto-mayor-hous...
That's a problem to me. Next generations get screwed.
His logic was backward.
Clearly not. The downtown tech crowd are the only ones walking/biking to work.
Companies like Palantir that take over all this previous incubator-like space are in fact a threat to the very hand that feeds Palo Alto. Further, once you're big enough that you provide your own services (caffeteria etc) you threaten the viability of downtown businesses that cater to smaller offices.
Also, once inevitably companies like Palantir do make their move to a proper office park somewhere, that will mean a glut of suddenly open office space in Downtown Palo Alto. This isn't healthy either... it's better to ensure that there is always a fairly stable amount of demand and vacancy...
So build more space.
Palo Alto has simply maxed out its carrying capacity...businesses like Palantir would be better off looking at areas like the emerging business park near San Jose Airport, where Apple has already committed to building a campus with even more square footage than the Spaceship campus.
http://paloaltoonline.com/news/2015/01/27/palo-alto-opts-not...
All I'm saying is that if a developer wants to build a four-story mixed-use building near the train stations, there's little reason to not let them do so.
You go ask the billionaires in ProfessorVille how many of them are interested in changing zoning to triple density in downtown without any corresponding improvement in transportation infrastructure (most of which is not under the control of Palo Alto)
Oh, I'm well aware that there are rules against increased density today.
Building more space not a viable option in this area of Palo Alto and not actually required.
To be clear this is not "Palo Alto" its a very small downtown area of about 8 blocks square. This is an area which is literally surrounded by multi million dollar single family homes. A 3/2 1200 sqft house goes for 2 million dollars [1] and the area is surrounded by larger 5-10 million dollar homes. Heck Tim Cook lives in a condo in this area.
There's tons more office space available to companies as they move closer to the 101 and further south and north.
In fact most of the burbs up and down the peninsula, Burlingame, San Mateo, Belmont etc have sleepy downtowns with office parks zoned closer to the freeway. It works and most of the populations in these areas prefer having the office parks separate from the residential areas.
[1] https://www.redfin.com/CA/Palo-Alto/1404-Harker-Ave-94301/ho...
Wait, what? What's the logic behind this? Wouldn't this cause massive congestion?
Here's an overview of this kind of zoning, and why it's terrible: http://urbankchoze.blogspot.com/2014/04/japanese-zoning.html
Excluding people who cannot afford homes in the neighborhood or cars to get there is a principal component of the "safety" strategy of suburbia. Add businesses and public transit to reach them, and that goes away.
Foot traffic and signs they care about, but most web businesses would be
Slightly off-topic, but I'd argue that right now we're in a bubble and that many technology companies are over-valued. Everyone thinks they're a unicorn. Unfortunately, most of them are wrong.
Wanting to keep your economy diverse is a wise decision in that situation. For every boom, there is an equal and opposite bust. Wanting to control growth is not unreasonable, and it is reckless to allow growth without any sort of oversight.
This happened in Mountain View with SGI.
Tech companies will also cause rents to explode, driving away many independent businesses....so oddly enough, tech companies may create a dead zone accidentally.
A tech park is at the end a less smelly industrial park.
It hinders natural population growth other than employees moving in.
Cities need families that will make babies because it roots the population down.
A city full of young professionals that are only tied to their employer is a really bad thing.
Once the economy slows down or their employer isn't the bigest bestest place to work for the flock moves on leaving a lot of empty office space and single bedroom condos.
Who is getting handed stacks of cash? I imagine it's not many low/middle-income residents, who simply have to leave.
There are positives and negatives for all options, but it's disingenuous to imagine there is no downside to gentrification.
EDIT: It's a similar issue to the U.S. economy as a whole over the last 30 years. There's been tremendous growth in aggregate, but in particular only for a relatively few people.
He's probably worried about skyrocketing rent, and overall increases in the cost of living in the area. It pushes middle class and working class people out.
The result is a Silicon Valley where firefighters and teachers and retail workers can't afford to live in the area.
In general, it's reasonable to consider what the optimal rate of office space growth is. If it's matched by a growth in the necessary infrastructure around it - housing, but also public transit, etc. - then it can be great. Unchecked office space growth by itself isn't necessarily good.
https://www.a9.com/about-us/locations/
I joked with friends then that Palantir's only real business model was buying Palo Alto so they could sell it later.
It's like a nerdy Disneyland. Lovely place still, and beautiful to walk around, but this is a bit late.
Stop restricting new construction.
The anger is because they bought and paid for a fantasy of California and now they are upset about the change, which they see as a bait-and-switch. Really, it's just the evolution of a region. It's irony that these same people are most likely to call themselves "progressives"
The people who are opposed to greater density in Palo Alto ARE TECHIES. Who do you think lives there?
I think they broke an unwritten social contract: small companies on University Ave. are okay, but you need to move out once you grow up. You can't try take over and push everyone else out.
The other problem is that when you have only a couple of large tenants, when they move out (by failing or growing) you suddenly have a bombed-out glut of empty space in a quiet downtown.
This isn't really ideological: there's another "problem" which we don't address which is that PA downtown has more chain shops and places for tourists (e.g. cheesecake factory) rather than locals. Though I live within walking distance of downtown I often go to cal ave or midtown for my needs. That's an ebb and flow of fashion (over the years the number of chain stores has risen and fallen) and doesn't need intervention. But this overtaking of the downtown has hysteresis effects that could be very bad.