Upfront TRANSPORTATION
Palo Alto speeds ahead with new electric-vehicle requirements City to require all new multi-family complexes, hotels and commercial buildings to accommodate car-charging equipment by Gennady Sheyner
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aster than a speeding Tesla, Palo Alto has dramatically expanded its requirements for electric-vehicle chargers, which thanks to a recently passed law must now be present at every new apartment complex, hotel and commercial building. After the briefest of discussions and without a word of opposition, the City Council adopted on June 16 a new ordinance that requires all new multi-family developments, office buildings and hotels to provide the needed circuitry for easy installation of car-charging equipment. The requirement follows the city’s action last year, when it passed a law mandating that every new single-family home be wired for electric chargers. The new ordinance, which the council approved by an 8-0 vote (Greg Schmid was absent), sets different requirements for various types of new developments, though in each case it calls for a large proportion of parking spots to either include charging equipment or provide the circuity that would make it easy to install such equipment. The ordinance was drafted by a specially appointed
Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment Task Force and endorsed unanimously by the council’s Policy and Services Committee before earning the approval of the full council. The law requires new multifamily residential developments to include one charging outlet or one actual charger for each housing unit. In addition, they will have to install either outlets, chargers or circuitry to enable future outlet installation for at least 25 percent of guest parking spots. New hotels will also be required to accommodate electric vehicles at 30 percent of their parking spaces. They will have the option of doing so by supplying a conduit, an outlet or charging equipment. In addition, they will be required to include charging equipment at 10 percent of their spaces. Similar rules will apply to other new commercial developments, though the ordinance requires 25 percent of their parking spaces rather than 30 percent to accommodate electric vehicles. They will also have to include charging equipment at 5 percent of their
parking spaces. City officials estimate that the new law will raise the cost of constructing a new development by less than 1 percent. Peter Pirnejad, the city’s director of development services, estimated that a developer building a 30,000-square-foot commercial building would have to spend about $7.5 million in construction costs. Installing the electric equipment is expected to cost about $64,170, he said. For a 30-unit residential complex, complying with the ordinance would add about $81,000 to a construction bill of about $9 million, he said. In adopting the ordinance, Palo Alto’s officials and electric-vehicle enthusiasts stressed the environmental benefits of promoting the switch from gas to electric. Last year, the city hit a big milestone in its green efforts when it adopted a carbon-neutral electricity portfolio. Now, officials want to spread this clean electricity to cars, which are responsible for an estimated 40 percent of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to a report from the city’s Planning and Community Envi-
ronment Department. Craig Lewis, executive director of the local nonprofit Clean Coalition, called the new ordinance a “tremendous opportunity� because it allows the city to link its transportation and electricity efforts. “Now, we have a chance to take that ‘carbon-free’ and extend it to the transportation sector,� Lewis told the council. The report from city planners cites a 2012 study by the California Center for Sustainable Energy and the Air Resources Board, which found that about 1,000 new plug-in vehicles are sold in the state every month. At that time, Californians owned more than 12,000 plug-in electric vehicles — roughly 35 percent of the nation’s total. The rate is particularly high in Palo Alto, where Tesla Motors is based. Michael Thompson, an early convert to electric vehicles who now serves on the citizens task force, estimated that close to 5 percent of the drivers in Palo Alto use electric vehicles. Jim Barbera, who also drives an electric vehicle, lauded the new ordinance and stressed the
significance of cars as emitters of greenhouse gases. Other ecofriendly measures such as switching to LED lights or weatherproofing your house help, he said, but by focusing on those “we’re basically ignoring the elephant in the garage.� “This is a long way toward moving us in the right direction,� Barbera said. The council agreed, with councilmen Pat Burt and Greg Scharff both lauding the new ordinance for furthering the city’s status as a leader in the emerging electricvehicle field. Scharff, a Tesla driver, noted that many people who live in apartments want to buy electric vehicles but find it challenging when their buildings don’t have charging equipment. In many cases, apartment owners aren’t willing to install the equipment, he said. “Hopefully, this will move the process forward to make it easy and effective for anyone who wants to own an electric vehicle to be able to do so,� Scharff said. N Staff Writer Gennady Sheyner can be e-mailed at gsheyner@ paweekly.com.
CITY HALL
Palo Alto launches City Hall makeover by Gennady Sheyner
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alo Alto officials won’t have to venture far this summer for signs that construction season is now in full bloom. With the long-delayed construction of the Mitchell Park Library entering its final stretch and the controversial makeover of California Avenue in full swing, the city is embarking on an ambitious, $4.5 million renovation of City Hall, which includes a new glasswalled meeting room, renovated lobby, refurbished conference room, new carpets and upholstering in the Council Chambers and a personnel shuffle that will shift staff from at least four different departments to new locations. Much like the ongoing revamp of California Avenue, the City Hall renovation started as a modest concept before expanding in ambition and cost. Two years ago, the chief goal was to refurbish the perpetually cramped Council Conference Room, which is located next to the Council Chambers and regularly hosts meetings of council committees and city commissions. The acoustically challenged room with low ceilings, stacked chairs and the dim fluorescent ambiance of a 1970s classroom has been bear-
ing the brunt of council ridicule for years for its spartan accommodations. With the renovation project, the room will be refurbished, enlarged, stripped it of its role as a public-meeting space and turned into a staff-training room, Public Works Director Mike Sartor said. In addition, the city has been looking at expanding and refurbishing the Human Resources Conference Room, a narrow space next to the Council Chambers. The smaller room is routinely used by the council for closedsession deliberations. With the Council Conference Room relinquishing its status as the default meeting space outside the Council Chambers, the city is now looking to build a larger and more modern public-meeting room in a corner of the City Hall lobby, a location currently occupied by a portion of the city’s People Strategy and Operations Department (commonly known as Human Resources). The new meeting room will have glass walls, space for 55 chairs and sliding doors so seating can extend into the lobby if needed, Sartor said. It will also be equipped with modern media
equipment, including multiple LCD screens, high-definition cameras and wall-mounted speakers, according to a recent report from the Public Works Department. Sartor said the scope of the project began to change in 2012, after staff held a series of design charettes to consider the best way to transform the first floor of City Hall. That’s when the ideas for new meeting spaces and shuffling departments began to take shape. City Manager James Keene said the focus of the project is to make the ground floor of City Hall “welcoming to the public and also work for the public’s business.� The Hamilton Avenue building, which was designed by architect Edward Durell Stone in 1967, was built in what Keene called “probably the absolutely worst time in American history for a college town.� The atmosphere of civil unrest and turmoil, he said, may have contributed to the fact that the city ended up with an “almost windowless building with glass that can’t be broken� and a ground floor that immediately leads a visitor into an empty “dead space.� It perhaps doesn’t help,
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City to create new meeting space, refurbish old rooms in building’s lobby
Revamping Palo Alto’s City Hall will include renovation of the lobby, with a digital media art display on a large wall near a new glass-walled meeting room. he quipped, that the first city employees visitors encounter are in Revenue Collections. “Nobody was going to build a City Hall, in the era of taking over City Hall and school administrations and everything else, that was going to be welcoming to the public,� Keene said. The renovation project aims to change that, he said. “The public really comes here to participate in the civic life of the city,� he said. “We need to have space that works.� Once the project is complete, visitors to City Hall will be greeted with a giant digital touchscreen that could be divided into numerous smaller screens and will feature art projects, information about city events, videos, photos of local neighborhoods and live broadcasts of public meetings. The city is also planning to unveil an extensive wayfinding and
building-signage program in City Hall — a component that is set to be evaluated by the Architectural Review Board on July 17. The city also plans to replace the carpets and the bench upholstery inside the Council Chambers, the large meeting room where the council holds all of its regular meetings. The work will be concluded in the next month while the council is away on its July recess. For many city workers, the project will bring more than just aesthetic enhancements. The renovation plans include what Sartor called a “domino effectâ€? of shifting departmental locations. The first-floor offices of People Strategy and Operations, for example, will be consolidated with the rest of the department on the second floor to make room for the expanded ÂVÂœÂ˜ĂŒÂˆÂ˜Ă•i`ĂŠÂœÂ˜ĂŠÂŤ>}iĂŠÂŁ{)
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