City Council - March 3, 2025

Council advances housing incentives with interim retail protections

The Palo Alto City Council voted 7-0 to approve the first reading of zoning changes that would broaden the city’s Housing Incentive Program and Affordable Housing Incentive Program. The action included interim retail-node coverage along El Camino Real from Page Mill Road to the city boundary. The vote approved the ordinance on first reading rather than recording final adoption.

Under the proposal, Housing Incentive Program eligibility would expand to multifamily residential districts and the GM/ROLM Focus Area, with changes to floor-area ratios, height limits, parking, setbacks and daylight-plane standards. Staff said proposed parking requirements would range from one to 1.5 spaces per unit depending on unit size, with transportation-demand measures required when parking is reduced. Projects in which at least 10% of units have three or more bedrooms could qualify for an additional density or floor-area incentive.

Council members supported making the local programs a more competitive alternative to state density-bonus law but raised questions about development scale, financial assumptions and protection of neighborhood-serving stores. The Council also discussed whether auto-dealership properties near Charleston Road should remain eligible for the incentives pending further study, although the meeting record does not clearly establish the final wording for those properties.

The Planning and Transportation Commission will consider additional retail nodes along El Camino Real. Staff is expected to return to the Council with a resolution updating the retail-node boundaries.

Council presses for better data as safety plan moves toward June review

Council members reviewed Palo Alto’s draft Safe Streets for All Safety Action Plan in a study session but did not adopt the plan or choose a Vision Zero target year. Members focused their feedback on obtaining better collision and bicycle-volume data, accelerating lower-cost safety work and expanding education for drivers, bicyclists, pedestrians and emerging micromobility users.

The draft’s high-injury network is based on collision data from 2018 through 2022. Staff reported that 63% of collisions occurred on 4% of Palo Alto streets. Council members asked for more current information, analysis of crash types and contributing conditions, and bicycle and pedestrian counts that could help distinguish dangerous locations from heavily used routes.

Members generally supported quick-build projects and targeted measures such as daylighting and red curbs, while questioning how much study and public outreach should precede lower-cost work. Public commenters also supported quicker action and requested improvements at Middlefield Road and San Antonio Road, Greer Road and Thomas Road, and other locations they described as hazardous.

The Council discussed possible Vision Zero dates of 2035 or 2040, along with interim reduction targets. One council member favored 2035 and argued that the city should fund safety projects even without grants, but no formal consensus or target-year decision was recorded. Public comments on the draft are due March 15, after which staff plans to bring a final plan to the Policy and Services Committee in May and the Council in June.

Council approves ambulance and service contracts totaling nearly $1.48 million

As part of a 7-0 consent-calendar vote, the Council approved four purchases, contracts and amendments authorizing up to a combined $1,478,679. The actions cover an ambulance, lift maintenance and repairs, recruitment software, and information-technology consulting.

The largest authorization was a five-year, $672,686 purchase order with Kone, Inc. for elevator, chairlift and platform-lift services, including $300,000 for repairs, upgrades and unforeseen work. The Council also authorized up to $429,213 for a 2024 Chevrolet G4500 Type III ambulance, including an approximately 5% contingency.

Two one-year agreements with EPI-USE America provide up to $289,080 for identity-access governance and other SAP-related systems. A $87,700 amendment extends the city’s NEOGOV onboarding and recruitment software subscription for one year, raising that contract’s nine-year limit to $499,022.

Final gas-utility settlement refunds will appear as bill credits

City staff announced that eligible customers who received gas-utility service from September 23, 2015, through June 30, 2022, are expected to receive final settlement refunds as utility-bill credits during March and April 2025.

Primary sources

Watch the meeting on YouTube · Read the official meeting packet