Stanford University

News Service


NEWS RELEASE

9/20/99

James Robinson, News Service (650) 723-5675; e-mail: jamesrob@stanford.edu

Stanford submits draft 10-year development plan to county officials

 

Stanford University today submitted to county officials the draft of a 10-year development plan that proposes significant new campus housing, allows for moderate growth in academic facilities and continues to set aside as open space more than 99 percent of the foothills area south of Junipero Serra Boulevard.

The draft General Use Permit application and Community Plan, which were submitted to Santa Clara County, address concerns voiced by area residents at a series of public hearings this summer as well as suggestions made by county planning officials.

After receiving further comments from the community and government officials, the university will reconsider its proposals and submit final versions to the county on Nov. 15.

"Stanford participated in the community forums, listened very carefully, and came out with a plan that we think is responsive to the concerns of the community and that meets Stanford's needs," said Larry Horton, director of government and community relations.

"It provides a substantial amount of much-needed housing that everybody's in favor of. It provides for modest growth of Stanford's academic facilities ­ which is absolutely essential to maintaining the university's excellence ­ at about the same level as we had in the last 10-year permit.

"And we've focused all of this in the core campus ­ on infill sites as was recommended by county staff and environmental groups ­ to concentrate development in a central area, and therefore maintain as much open space as possible," he said.

The permit application and Community Plan constitute a general outline guiding the university's growth over the next decade. In all cases, specific projects must receive individual county permits, including environmental reviews, before they can proceed.

The plan:

• (sum) Calls for building up to 2,780 additional units of housing in the core campus, north of Junipero Serra Boulevard. Up to 2,000 new units would be set aside for single students, mostly graduate students. Up to 350 apartments would be built for hospital residents and post-doctoral fellows and as many as 430 units would be built for faculty and staff.

• (sum) Provides for construction of as much as 1.7 million square feet of academic and support facilities and 332,000 square feet of athletic and cultural facilities. The combined total is about the same as the amount granted in the current General Use Permit. Facilities that may be built include an interdisciplinary biosciences center, a medical lab/sciences building, a new basketball arena that would seat 12,000 spectators and a joint Palo Alto-Stanford performing arts center.

• (sum) Creates a new land-use designation that provides open-space protection for areas in the core campus such as the Arboretum, the Oval and Lake Lagunita, as recommended by the Santa Clara County Planning Commission.

• (sum) Creates a new land-use designation for the faculty residential areas on campus.

• (sum) Leaves more than 99 percent of the area south of Junipero Serra as open space. No more than 20,000 square feet of additional academic facilities could be developed in the area during the new permit period. Each such small project could not exceed 5,000 square feet, and would be similar to a student observatory or artists studios now located in that area.

• (sum) Proposes no new commercial development in unincorporated Santa Clara County, nor does it propose that any land be annexed to Palo Alto for development. No further development of the Stanford Shopping Center is proposed.

• (sum) Envisions growth in the campus population of 2,201 over the next decade, or a growth rate of 0.5 to 1 percent per year, a rate lower than that forecast for San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.

• (sum) Continued investment in Stanford's award-winning transportation program, including the Marguerite shuttle.

 

Community members available for comment on Stanford's proposals:

Dan DeYoung, former president, Stanford Campus Residential Leaseholders, 327-1938

Kathleen Much, Menlo Park resident, 321-2052

Professor Franklin Orr, Dean, Stanford School of Earth Sciences, 723-2750

Sally Probst, President, Palo Alto League of Women Voters, 327-9116

Bob Rosenzweig, President Emeritus, Association of American Universities, 323-3541

Chris Stromberg, Stanford graduate student, 497-7845 (h) 723-9862 (o)

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