Upfront
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New vision for California Avenue advances Planning commission supports new ‘concept plan’ for quickly changing area by Gennady Sheyner s Palo Alto prepares for a ings near transit hubs. physical transformation of After a brief discussion California Avenue, starting Wednesday — which followed in March, city planners are ad- more than three years of far vancing a new vision document lengthier ones — the Planning for the business district — a plan and Transportation Commission that they hope will spur more voted 5-0 to recommend adoption high-tech startups, smaller apart- of a “concept plan” for a 115-acre ments and higher density build- area that includes California Av-
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enue, a section of Park Boulevard and the commercial site around Fry’s Electronics. If approved by the City Council, the plan will be incorporated into Palo Alto’s Comprehensive Plan, the city’s land-use bible. One function of the new plan is to identify where denser development can be built in the centrally located area. Another is to recommend how land in each of the area’s three “subsections” can be
used. According to a report from Senior Planner Elena Lee, the plan evaluates where additional housing could be built, opportunities to retain and increase retail and services businesses and how bicycle access could be improved. Seen as a critical location because of its shopping district and proximity to Stanford University, Stanford Research Park and a Caltrain station, the area has seen a surge of development in recent
years, with one large project after another winning approval. Recent newcomers include Park Plaza, a 102,000-squarefeet project at Page Mill Road and Park Boulevard that includes 82 apartments and research-anddevelopment space; a 40-foot-tall office building to replace Club Illusions at 260 California Ave.; a four-story office-and-townhouse V Ì Õi`Ê Ê«>}iÊ£{®
TRANSPORTATION
City treads carefully on new garages City Council cautious about new downtown structures, supportive of ‘satellite lot’
had more than enough of reality,” states one caption, under a photo of a man sitting on a sleeping bag on the sidewalk, reading a book — and others, humorous. “I hate fractions,” a young boy with a skateboard declared. The founders of Humans of Palo Alto are going for the same coverage and sensibility. “The objective of our site is to express the uniqueness of individuals in the Palo Alto community, much like how they’re doing in New York,” said Gunn junior Calvin Wang, who started the website with friend and fellow Gunn junior Brendan Wong. “One person out of a whole city
by Gennady Sheyner aced with a citizenry upset about downtown’s deepening parking shortages and businesses anxious about looming parking restrictions, Palo Alto officials struggled Monday night with the complex topic of new downtown garages. After a discussion that involved more than 10 separate votes and stretched just past midnight, the City Council directed planners to look for additional locations for new downtown garages; solicit ideas for partnerships with the private sector on new garages; and explore new technologies that would enable city officials to track garage usage in real time. The council also agreed to expand the number of downtown drivers who can buy permits for the City Hall garage. Monday’s discussion came two weeks after the council asked staff to create a “residential parking-permit program” that would set time restrictions on parking spots for downtown commuters in congested residential areas. Once the program is in place, workers long accustomed to having free all-day parking in neighborhoods like Downtown North and Professorville will have to find new spots to park. Where these spots will be was the lingering question at Monday’s meeting. City staff recommended two new downtown garages: one at the city-owned Gilman Street lot, near the downtown post office,
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Putting Palo Alto in perspective Mayor Nancy Shepherd laid out the city’s efforts to address rapid growth in a time of economic prosperity in her State of the City address on Tuesday. See story on page 7.
COMMUNITY
Gunn students launch ‘Humans of Palo Alto’ Photo blog captures people via photos, candid quotes by Elena Kadvany
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hat is your definition of happiness? The answer to such a probing question is not something a person would normally share with a stranger, much less agree to have it posted online next to one’s photo. But that’s the whole point of
Humans of Palo Alto, a photo blog launched by a group of Gunn High School students hoping to capture the unique, unseen details about the individuals who make up Palo Alto. The idea is a spinoff of Humans of New York, a “photographic census” of New York City started
in 2010 by photographer Brandon Stanton. His goal was to shoot 10,000 New Yorkers and plot their photos on a map, but the project instead morphed into an online platform for intimate snapshots of peoples’ lives. Stanton also eventually turned his blog, with more than one million followers, into a New York Times bestselling book. Stanton posts photos of people around the city — a Catholic priest, a Mexican immigrant, a man walking his dogs, a couple reminiscing about the night they first met — with candid, snippet responses to a question he asked them or a short caption. Some are sad — “I pretty much only read fantasy because I’ve
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